Chapter Thirteen

save you from yourself

Don't fret, precious, I'm here.
Step away from the window,
go back to sleep.

A Perfect Circle, Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums

When I visualized how that day would end, I didn't foresee that I'd be crushed against the wall in a chokehold, pinned by my monumentally pissed-off paramour. Well, that might have been in the cards, but in a decidedly different context and with considerably less anger.

As I scratched at the fingers holding me in place, trying to no avail to get at least enough space to take a breath, the Joker tilted his head back, looking at me calculatingly from the bottom rims of his eyes, a look that I most often associated with his most dangerous form of anger—the kind that yielded deliberate cruelty, that demanded meticulously-measured pounds of flesh to assuage it. Things weren't looking so good.

He cleared his throat and, quite as if we were just continuing a calm, peaceful discussion, said, "Ah. I'm just having a little trouble following you, Harley, dear. Tell me again."

His grip on me loosened, just enough so that I could pull a labored breath in and hiss, "I already told you. Repeating the story isn't gonna change it."

"Aww, maybe not—but let's try," he said, meeting my eyes and giving me a slight, encouraging nod. "I'll even help you. Look—" he licked his lips, glanced at the ceiling for inspiration, then met my eyes and began: "Earlier today…"

"Earlier today," I ground out, showing him by fixing my eyes on his that I was giving in, though I sure as hell didn't like it.

"You brought the brats to me," he prompted.

"Yeah," I muttered, pulling at his hands to try to loosen them some. "At that place near the East River."

Earlier

Kidnapping the kids turned out to be scarily easy. As it turns out, the actual act of kidnapping isn't so hard when it 'doesn't matter if people see you or not.' A quick check with the Joker told me that the noisier and more obvious we were, the better, as long as it didn't result in us getting caught before I could deliver the children to him. George was driving, I was riding beside him in the passenger seat—he seemed a little startled that I didn't want to ride in the back, but I was feeling nervous and figured that the distance that my sitting in the back seat would put between us would only make it worse, though I didn't bother telling him so.

We went for the girl first, agreeing that it would probably be easiest—and it was. All I had to do was walk in the front door, flash a gun, and while everyone cowered and cried, I looked for Barbara. She was the only kid there with red hair. I scooped her up, tensing my arm to keep her from slipping out of my grip as she flailed and cried, and walked out.

Once I had Barbara, I rode with her in the backseat, feeling that it would be easier to manage her with more space. Once away from all the panicking adults, out of my arms and with no gun in sight, she actually calmed down quickly—she was still young enough that she didn't know what was going on, and judging by how quickly I got her to stop crying and start smiling shyly with just some sweet-talk and a couple of simple magic tricks, she was a sweet, friendly kid naturally. I pushed down any pangs that realization might have caused and focused on the job.

As quickly as possible, George got me to the school. We were worried that the daycare would have caught on to what was happening and called ahead to warn the school to lock down, but our concerns were unfounded—as we pulled up to the pickup area, we saw little James, standing by himself and watching the cars that pulled in, clearly looking for his mother.

We pulled up beside him, and, pulling Barbara into in my lap where he could see her clearly, I opened the door. "James."

He knew immediately what was happening, I could see it in his face, but even as I prepared to leap out after him and snatch him up, he walked slowly towards the car. He paused, looked at me, and said, "Are you going to hurt my sister?"

I swallowed. It wasn't easy in the face of his clear concern for his sister over himself, but I remembered the Joker's words of advice—don't fuck it up—and I looked him in the eye and said, "Not if you come with me and stay calm."

He stared at me for another minute, then gave a nearly-imperceptible nod and climbed into the seat beside me. I buckled his seatbelt, held Barbara on my lap, and told George to drive.

The ride was a quiet one. I played with Barbara, letting her go through the contents of my bag (after confiscating several of the more dangerous items, of course), and she seemed to like that, even more comfortable now that her brother was here and apparently not upset. James sat with his hands on his knees, tensely watching me with his sister but staying perfectly still for the duration of the ride. Neither of them even looked around when the sirens started blaring in the distance.

The Joker had directed us to take them to a place on the East River, one of the many textile factories in the area that had been shut down during the depression. Once George parked, I took off James' seatbelt, took his hand, balanced Barbara on my hip, and took both children into the building. George didn't follow.

We were there alone long enough to get restless, even long enough for James to unbend and play rock, paper, scissors with me as Barbara clung to the fingers of my free hand and examined the black fingernail polish I wore with great interest.

Finally, as the sun was starting to sink in the sky, turning the whole city a sickly, uneasy orange, the Joker made an appearance, one or two henchmen tailing him. The children and I turned to look at him, and Barbara started crying immediately. James, didn't, though—James just stared at him, and I was suddenly glad he hadn't seen fit to glare at me like that. I guess he hadn't recognized me, hadn't known who he was dealing with until then.

I picked Barbara up, thinking I could at least turn her away so that she didn't have to see him, and something ugly surfaced in the Joker's eyes. He turned to a henchman, jerked his chin, and said, "All right, tape 'em."

The henchmen came towards us. One grabbed James roughly, receiving a sound kick in the shin for his trouble. He rewarded the kid with a backhand hard enough to make his nose start bleeding, and it was only the children's presence and the fact that I was half-focused on the henchman approaching me for Barbara that kept me from swearing a blue streak at him.

I fixed the man coming towards me with a look that I hope conveyed exactly what I was feeling and said, "You touch this child and I am going to cut off every. Single. Appendage you have."

He faltered. I snatched the duct tape from him, shot the Joker a look, and set Barbara down gently, mirroring what the other henchman had done with James, albeit more gently—taping her hands together and reluctantly placing a strip over her mouth, her crying the whole time (and only able to make myself do it with the knowledge that the henchman would be considerably rougher with her). Once the duct tape was in place, I carried her over to where the other henchman had pushed James down into a seated position on the floor and set her next to him, and they huddled together immediately, eyes darting fearfully between me and the Joker.

Speaking of the clown—I turned to find his narrowed eyes locked on me. "Set up, boys," he ordered, and as they dispersed to obey, he started prowling in my direction. I shot a quick look at the kids, making sure they were staying put, and then went to meet him halfway.

"Uh…" he opened as we stopped in front of each other, ducking his head a little to get more on my level, "are we… adopting kids, Harls?"

I narrowed my eyes. "Don't start."

He widened his eyes innocently, spreading his hands to signify befuddlement. "What? I mean, sure, I told you to kidnap 'em, not form a lifelong attachment, but… tomato, to-mah-to, I guess."

"I'm not forming a lifetime attachment," I hissed, glancing over my shoulder at the kids. "I'm just trying to spare them as much trauma as possible; sue me."

"Heh. Believe me, Harley," he said, digging his pocket watch out and studying the face with a furrowed brow, "trauma's the least of their worries right now."

I stared at him. "What does that mean?"

"Huh?" He met my eyes and widened his in innocence. "Well—for instance, they've been kidnapped. Immediate physical uncertainty trumps potential emotional damage down the line, wouldn't you say?"

I didn't trust his put-on innocence for a second, but the fact that he was bothering to lie to me meant I wouldn't get anywhere by pressing. Best to wait and see what he meant. In the meantime, I said, "Yeah, that's a point you seem to be conveniently ignoring—they were kidnapped. By me. Just cause I wanted to make sure one of our guys didn't hit a damn toddler doesn't mean I can't get the job done."

As he tucked his watch back into his pocket with one gloved hand, he reached out with the other and patted me on the head, rather hard for all that it was an ostensibly affectionate gesture. "Of course you can," he crooned, and I scowled at the condescending tone, but he was moving right on before I could take issue with it. "Your gear's in the car. I need you to suit up, and fast."

I hesitated and looked again back towards the children. "Oh, don't worry," he assured me as soon as I looked back at him. "I'll look after them."

"That's kind of what I'm afraid of," I said darkly, but he was the boss, and I knew I was already treading on thin ice after refusing to let the henchman touch Barbara. I was fairly sure he wouldn't do anything too awful to the kids (he didn't have a suitable audience to horrify at the moment, after all) so begrudgingly, I went.

I was in my costume and makeup in record time, but my haste in getting ready didn't do much good—as I walked back in, I saw that the Joker was squatting easily next to the children, telling them a story.

"—and do you know what Uncle Joker did then?" he was asking as I hurried close. James made a muffled sound against the duct tape, and the Joker cackled softly. "That's right! I made him swallow his own tongue, hee hee hee!" He slapped his knee, beside himself with his own cleverness, and I rolled my eyes even as I thanked whatever powers that be that at least Barbara didn't seem like she'd been following the story. Little James had a troubled crease to his brow, but the kid was in middle school—chances were his classmates said worse every day, so I wasn't quite as worried about him.

"Ah, Harley," the Joker said as I came to stand beside him, glancing up proudly at me. "I was just telling the kids here about that parking attendant from last Christmas, remember?"

"Yep," I said, fighting a smile despite myself. I was driving, the Joker was turned away out of sight, the parking attendant was being a real jerk about Christmas rates, so the Joker popped up and told him that he was being rude and really need to "bite his tongue" before… well, as funny as it had been at the time I didn't think it was an appropriate story to tell children, so I didn't elaborate. Instead, I met the Joker's eyes and said, "Ready."

He nodded, turned to flash a grin at the children, and said, "Nice talkin' to you, kids. Remember, get eight hours of drugs every night, and don't do sleep!"

I gave little James a reassuring nod when he glanced up at me, then the Joker took my hand and jerked me away from them. He led me to an abandoned work bench, pushed me down on it, and then gestured for me to stay put—"Right there, that's good."

I didn't bother to ask what he was doing, since if he hadn't bothered to tell me before, it was unlikely that haranguing him would yield good results now. I just sat on the edge of the bench and kept one eye on the kids, simultaneously watching the Joker.

The henchmen had returned from whatever 'setup' they'd been doing, and the Joker approached one, gesturing impatiently. The guy dug in his bag and surfaced with a handheld camera, which he gave over to the Joker, and I straightened up, suddenly feeling tense. Ah. So it's another home video.

Despite having been working with the Joker for a good six months before my arrest and incarceration, I'd never featured in one of those videos—my infamy came strictly from my appearances on jobs and whatever grainy video some frightened hostage managed to capture on a cell phone. Privately, I sort of liked it that way—the Joker ate up any sort of exposure he could get, to the extent of doing these videos himself whenever he was up to something big and sending them straight to GCN, but there was also no record of his existence until his debut the year before.

Me—well, my existence before this life was fairly well documented, and I didn't necessarily relish the idea of people who I'd once known gaping over footage of me now, gasping, "Oh, but she was such a nice girl!" while simultaneously, secretly delighting in the fact that they'd known someone who was now an active part of Gotham's lurid pulp-fiction of a criminal underbelly. It wasn't that I had any sense of shame or doubt about what I did; I just didn't want to give them the voyeuristic satisfaction.

However, what I wanted was hardly important at the moment, so I stayed quiet as the Joker switched the camera on and turned it towards himself. He licked his lips, tilted his forehead towards the lens, and said, "Hello, Gotham" in a low, deliberate growl that made my mouth go dry from a mixture of anticipation and fear, because I knew what that growl meant.

Someone was about to get fucked.

"On this, uh, fine afternoon, I'm here with my associate—some of you probably know her by now—" he said, turning the camera on me. "Wave to the camera, Harley!"

It took a whole lot of self-control not to roll my eyes, but I managed. Somewhere along the line—probably around the time that I'd laid eyes on the children, if I was being completely honest—my excitement for this particular job had waned. Still, the last thing I wanted him to see was my weakness or my sudden impatience with the theatrics, especially on camera, so I pulled on the cheekiest grin I could manage under the circumstances and waved, even though it made me feel a little sick to play to Gotham on command like that.

It's for him, Harley, I reminded myself as he giggled and turned the camera away from me, leaving me free to frown the way I really wanted to. It's for him, and it will be worth it when it's over. It always is.

The thought eased me just a bit, enough for me to keep paying attention as he swung around to focus on the duct-taped children, placed conveniently under one of the only working lights in the place. "Aand—oh, would you look at this," he said, swooping in closer and stooping to get the camera close to their faces (he could have just zoomed in, but this way, his physical nearness inspired more fear, making for what I imagine was quite the little bit of footage). "Here we have little Jaaaaames," he ground out from between clenched teeth, lingering on the boy's glaring eyes for a few seconds before switching over to Barbara, "and sweet little Babs." She was still crying. He tsked and chucked her under the chin before finally pulling back from them and standing up.

Still training the camera on the children in their sad little pile, he said, "Those of you who know Commissioner Gordon already know his children, but let me just say—I'm honored and proud to have been the guy to introduce them to the rest of you."

He twisted the camera abruptly around to focus on his face. "See," he said ingenuously, leaning in close, "we're playing hide and seek. We're hiding. Can you guess who's seeking?" He pressed his lips together, raised his eyebrows, and tilted his head encouragingly to the camera, giving it a few seconds before dropping the coy look and rumbling, "Come get 'em, big guy."

He lowered the camera, then brought it abruptly back up, as if in afterthought. "Oh, and hurry. Cause if you don't find them by nine o'clock tonight… you lose. And that means—" he turned the camera back to the kids for the last bit—"they lose."

Normally, he'd laugh his way out of frame, but this time, he just held the camera unusually still, focused on the children, before turning it off abruptly. "Great job, kids!" he cooed, then turned to hand the camera off to a henchman, who rushed away with it, presumably to deliver its contents to GCN. He reached up with gloved hands to brush his hair back out of his face, a distant look in his eyes, and I deemed it safe to slip off the bench and go up to him.

"So?" I ventured as soon as his eyes flicked down to me. "Where are we going now?"

"We are not going anywhere," he said pleasantly, reaching out and taking my hand, holding it between his. There was a look on his face that I didn't quite like—it was way too smug, given that he hadn't actually pulled anything off yet.

I blinked. "Oh. I just—I thought you had something Penguin-related planned."

"Oh, I do," he assured me enthusiastically. "And I will handle it. But I need you to see this thing through."

I frowned, glanced over at the kids, then looked back at him. "You mean we're… not just gonna leave them for Batman to come find?"

"Oh, come on, Harley," he said, frowning at me in disapproval. "That's boring. No, you've got an important part to play yet."

I tilted my head doubtfully, not liking where this was going. "Okay, I'm listening…"

He dropped my hand, placing his hands instead on my shoulders, which he gripped painfully tight, making sure all my attention was focused on him. He looked me in the eye for several seconds before speaking: "You're gonna wait here with the kids until Batman shows up. Then—" he said, giving me a warning look and tightening his grip even more as I opened my mouth to argue, transforming my protest abruptly into a slight whimper instead—"you're gonna run, playin' it as scared as you can. Batman will chase you. Then…" His eyes flickered shut for a split second at the thought—"well. He might still be able to return the rugrats to their parents, but it won't be all in one piece." He clicked his tongue cheerfully, then looked down at me. "Got all that?"

I stared at him in utter disbelief. It wasn't that I was necessarily shocked at the plan—I'd known the second he told me we were pulling off a kidnapping that he probably planned to kill the kids in question, even if I had consciously avoided thinking about it until now. Still, something about the plan rubbed me the wrong way—hell, a lot of things rubbed me the wrong way, not the least of which was that he was setting me up as looking like the primary danger to the kids, effectively siccing Batman on me, when it was actually his shitty explosives that were the real threat to them.

The Joker must have seen my incredulity in my expression, because his eyes narrowed slightly and his fingers were now digging into my shoulders with bruising force. I groaned a little at the pain, unable to stop myself, and he shook me slightly. "Is there a problem, Harley?" he demanded, his tone reeking with scornful challenge—he didn't say I knew you couldn't do it, I knew as soon as kids or puppies or some other cute and innocent fucking thing was involved you'd bail on me, but he might as well have.

I met his hard gaze with equal ferocity and asked, "Do you think it's really likely that Batman won't see through the trick? You think he believes I'd kill the kids?"

The Joker's grip loosened slightly, which I took as a sign that I was headed in the right direction, at least. "Mmm, he probably would predict it if he had a day," he said, sounding a little placated. "But he's got three hours. He's gonna be in a rush, he sees you, he thinks, oh, bad guy, can't let the bad guy get away—he has a long history of focusing on stopping the evil before tending to the innocents, you know, at least if they're under no immediate perceptible threat. I'd say there's, ah, a seventy-two/twenty-eight chance that he messes up."

I raised my eyebrows. "Pretty specific odds." He lifted a shoulder modestly, and I said, "Okay, so how am I supposed to get rid of Batman if he's chasing me instead of looking after the kids?"

He sucked at his top teeth and said reassuringly, "Oh, trust me. Explosions distract him. If he were a big, slobbery dog, exploding warehouses would be his tennis ball."

I shook my head, unconvinced, but still pressed on with one of my other rather significant reasons for being wary of this plan. "Okay. So do you remember the last time you set me up on a job that ended with a building exploding?"

He narrowed his eyes and turned his head so he was looking at me out of their corners. "Ah… doesn't really ring a bell."

"No?" I asked, giving him a hard little smile. "Cause it should. You tried to blow me up. Now, I've forgiven you for that—mostly—but can you understand why I'm a little wary to be in charge of the exploding building this time?"

He let go of my shoulders and took a step back, eyeballing me speculatively. I felt the deep ache in the muscles he'd been digging into, knew there would be bruises there tomorrow, and under the immediate circumstances I knew I should be disgusted with myself for the little thrill that raced through my body at the thought, but I still couldn't quite manage it. I didn't let on, though, folding my arms, planting my feet, and staring defiantly at him.

After a second, he seemed to reach a conclusion. He plunged his hand into a pocket, holding up the index finger of his other hand to signal me to wait, and after a few seconds of rummaging, he emerged with a knife, flicking out the blade with a flourish. It wasn't just any knife, either: although he'd never spoken the words aloud, I knew that the knife was his favorite: sturdy black handle, razor-sharp edges, and a slit running down the middle, reminiscent of a potato peeler (which I had also seen him use as a weapon before, by the way, just not to quite as disastrous an effect).

I didn't understand what he was doing right away, so when he took a step towards me, I jerked back. He gave me a sharp look, lashed out, and caught my wrist, dragging my hand forward. "J, what the fuck—" I started, cutting myself off abruptly when he shut the knife and plopped it into my palm, closing my fingers around it tightly.

Oh.

"I want that back," he told me with a warning look.

"Y… yeah, I would think so," I said, a bit blindsided still staring at my closed palm. It was stupid, really, that I put more faith in his unwillingness to lose that particular knife than in his unwillingness to lose me, but still, no matter how irrational it was, I felt better.

I didn't have long to bask in that feeling before his grip tightened on my wrist and he jerked me close again. As I stumbled into him, his other hand found its way to the back of my head, fingertips digging into my hair and jerking my head back painfully. I managed to bite back my complaints, and as I met his eyes, I could tell he wasn't playing around.

"Harley," he said, staring me down. "Can I trust you to do this?"

I stared back at him. No, I didn't want the children to die, and yes, my only reason for that was that they were children, but there was no way in hell I would speak that out loud—it would disappoint him terribly to hear that I was just as led by the arbitrary collective morality as everyone else. Oh, he certainly suspected it, but here he was, giving me a chance to prove otherwise.

I relaxed, bringing my free hand up to clasp the side of his neck gently. I looked straight into his eyes and I said, "I promise you. I'll take care of everything."

I saw the wicked gleam in his eyes again, then he pulled my head forward, giving me a painfully crushing kiss before letting me go so abruptly I nearly lost my balance. He turned away as I righted myself, firing an afterthought over his shoulder: "Do not lose that knife."

"I'm not gonna lose the knife," I called after him, letting the slightest hint of annoyance seep into my tone, just how dumb do you think I am?

He huffed a quick laugh, then swept out of the warehouse, followed by the one remaining henchman and leaving me alone with the kids.

The first thing I did was find the bomb.

Well, "bomb." It was more like several dozen drums of gasoline in the basement wired to explode, more than enough to take down the whole building and everyone in it in seconds. I'd felt the blistering heat of explosions at a distance before, and even at a moderately safe distance, it didn't feel good. The thought of the children being exposed to that blast of flesh-melting fire made me feel slightly sick. The knowledge that they wouldn't be alive for long enough to really feel the pain of it wasn't much consolation.

That was when the doubt really set in. I tried to ignore it, going back upstairs to tend to the kids, gently peeling the duct tape off of their mouths. Barbara was sobbing inconsolably, so I picked her up, bouncing her a little the way I knew infants liked—toddlers, who knew? It didn't help much, but it didn't seem to hurt, either, so I kept doing it, pacing back and forth, some deep, disloyal little part of me hoping that a passerby heard her crying and called the police.

Little James scooted into a sitting position, resting his back against a rotting wooden column, and he looked at me, his eyes completely dry. "If he's going to let Batman come get us, then why are you still here?" He was decidedly less friendly now that he had been before, now that he knew who I was working with. I couldn't find it in myself to blame him.

I stared at him, trying to land on some passable lie as I tried to soothe his sister, but nothing came to mind, and after a second he nodded knowingly anyway. "You're supposed to kill us if he doesn't get here in time, aren't you?"

"No, I'm not," I objected, feeling a little pang of shame, but he just shot me a skeptical look, an expression too old for him.

"It doesn't matter. Batman will save us," he said confidently. "You'll see."

I just turned away from him, and, stroking Barbara's bedraggled curls, I muttered, "I hope you're right, kid."

Minutes ticked by, each one taking us closer to the explosion, and I kept pacing, not even feeling Barbara's weight in my arms, barely noticing when she cried herself out and fell asleep with her fat cheek pressed against my shoulder. I didn't have a good feeling about this, not at all—and I was self-aware enough to know that most of it came with my qualms about hurting children, qualms still present despite how deeply I tried to bury them in the Joker's presence, but it was more than that.

It wasn't until about 8:45 by my watch that I realized exactly what was bothering me so much, aside from the brutality of the whole thing. Well, it was still the brutality, but it was a different aspect of it.

Thus far, the Joker hadn't directly targeted children. Sure, there had probably been some that were casualties of the battles he waged regularly against the city, but for the most part, he seemed considerably more interested in killing off their parents—I knew for a fact that he thought that personally killing kids was tiresome unless there was someone who loved them watching; upon encountering one on the street at night, he was more likely to hand them a lollipop unearthed from the linty recesses of his coat and send them on their way than to hurt them.

That's it exactly, I realized, my eyes widening as the realization struck. He hasn't publicly shown this level of brutality yet; hasn't gone specifically after children until now. It's bad enough that he kidnapped them, but if this explosion actually happens, then he's crossed a line. The amount of people dedicated to hunting him down will double; the amount of people who would be thrilled to use deadly force against him given half a chance would be… innumerable. Not only were these kids, but they were a cop's kids. They didn't even belong to some average Joe of a street officer; no, these kids belonged to the city's beloved new commissioner.

I saw with sudden, horrified clarity that if I allowed this to happen, then one way or another, he'd be dead within the year.

It was 8:50. I turned around to go get James, intending to take him and his sister out of the warehouse, get them somewhere safe. I was stooping down to help him to his feet when I saw his eyes dart up and over, resting on the corner of the ceiling and to the scaffolding fixed there.

I turned sharply and caught the flutter in the shadows gathered there, just a bare movement, but enough to make me realize that we had company. I realized suddenly that I had a way of decreasing the Joker's odds without actively defying him, which was really an idea I was much more comfortable with than my current plan, and so I glanced back fast at James, set Barbara gently on the ground next to him, and whispered, "Call for him." Then I got up and ran.

James's piercing cry immediately sounded behind me as I went in the opposite direction of the corner where I was pretty sure Batman was lurking, headed for the back exit. "Batman! Help us, please!" I felt a wave of satisfaction even as I cut across the floor, eyes on the open back door. If he ignored that plaintive little cry to come after little old me… well, I knew the guy had issues, but who prioritized catching someone like me over seeing to the kids right away?

I felt reasonably comfortable with my plan right up until something wrapped around my foot just as I was crossing the threshold, some kind of cable locking right around the ankle, pulling taut immediately and knocking me right on my face. I growled in frustration, flipping over onto my back, and as the cable tightened and started to drag me inside again, I pulled the Joker's knife out from where I had tucked it in my corset and bent over, trying to ignore the jerking pulls dragging me back into the factory as I cut into the cable.

The Joker's knife was sharp, and I'd severed the cable after sawing at it hard for just a few seconds. By then, a big, hulking shadow had materialized in the dark in front of me, and as he rushed towards me, I somersaulted abruptly backwards, springing to my feet on completion of the roll and launching back into a backwards handspring out the door again. As I came back up, I saw that I'd put a little bit of distance between us—not much, but enough for me to do what I needed to do.

Which was yell at him.

"What is wrong with you?" I howled.

He came to an abrupt stop. I'm pretty sure I was channeling my mother, if not all moms everywhere, because the tone wasn't frustrated-thwarted-enemy so much as how-dare-you-bring-home-such-a-shoddy-report-card. The fact that my hands had found their way to my hips the second I was back on my feet probably didn't help.

I pointed emphatically to the factory behind him. "Go get them, right NOW! You've got like three minutes before this entire place goes up in flames and you're worried about chasing me down? GET THEM TO SAFETY, YOU CRETIN!"

He was gone on 'goes up in flames,' which is probably the only way I had the courage to call him a cretin in his hearing. The second I was certain that he would actually take care of the children, I turned and bolted as fast as my legs would carry me away from the factory.

The explosion happened right on time. I'd sprinted well out of the blast range by then, but still, I felt it beneath my feet—it shook little bits of gravel loose from the road, and I turned breathlessly to see the thick tongue of orange and black lapping at the night sky, visible even though I was blocks away by then.

"Oh, God, I hope he got them out," I panted, but I found even as I said it that I wasn't actually worried. There was no way he hadn't gotten those children out safe once he knew what sort of danger they were in, not if the way he had once saved my life was anything to go by. The Joker might be right; he might prefer to take down the villain over getting hostages out first if the hostages weren't in obvious danger, but when there was an active threat to an innocent's life… well, his instinct was to save them.

And I was glad for it.

I turned away and started running again, this time pacing myself a little bit, keeping my eyes peeled for a car to steal so I could get back home quickly. As it turned out, there was no need—as I jogged along n the sidewalk, a car pulled up beside me and coasted along, keeping pace with me. I shot a glance at the driver, ready to pull my revolver and fire two bullets into some leering street harasser's face if necessary, but when I recognized George, I stopped abruptly. He put on the brakes, and I climbed gladly into the seat beside him.

He watched me as I buckled my seatbelt, and I looked up and met his eyes when I realized we weren't going anywhere, suddenly afraid that my guilt was evident.

"Eventful night?" was all he said, and I blew out a laugh, ducking out from under my shoulder strap.

"You have no idea."

"Oh, I might," he said dryly, taking off from the curb and directing us home.

We drove in silence for a while, and maybe it was the adrenaline rush from the night, but despite my determination to keep my distance from this henchman in particular, I found myself crawling with curiosity. He hadn't been involved in any of the Joker's plots since I'd returned in any role besides that of a driver, and I knew J—we had plenty of guys who could handle a car; he wasn't going to keep a guy (especially an older one) around just to drive a car.

You don't need to know anything about him, I told myself firmly. With the way my blood was humming, that resolution lasted for all of a second before I thought fuck it, turned towards him, and asked, "Can I ask you a kind of personal question?"

He glanced at me with those droopy eyes and, in his usual deadpan, he replied, "You can ask. I can't promise you'll get an answer."

I nodded, accepting his terms, and said, "I've actually been wondering for a while. Don't take this the wrong way, but… you're not the usual sort of guy we get working for us."

"What, you mean I'm old as dirt?"

"Put it how you want," I said, refusing to rise to the bait. "But you aren't some young tatted-up druggie kid who's decided that he doesn't like the way the world treats him so he's gonna lash out at it, no matter how you look at you. You're… level, calm, and from what I gather, you're a pretty good man to have at your back in a crisis. Again, not our usual type."

"What's the question, Harley?"

"The question is… why are you here?"

He stared out at the road for so long that I thought he was going to ignore the question entirely. When he finally did answer, it was about as vague as I expected it to be: "Men of my age and skill set… we tend to be considered unemployable, like we should have retired all ready. Only not all of us have the luxury of being able to retire."

I raised my eyebrows. "So between this and bagging groceries to pay the rent, this won out?"

"I'm old, not dead," he said with a slight edge to his gravelly monotone that I'd never heard before. "I'm not signing up to get yelled at by suburban soccer moms twenty years my junior cause I used paper instead of plastic. At least with this job I'm allowed to shoot the people who deserve it."

I nodded, recalling that a very similar viewpoint had led me to this job as well. "You have a point there." There was a moment of silence as I relaxed back into my seat, and then, wondering just how much I could get out of him, I said, "So what exactly is your skill set? I mean, what did you do before? Cause I don't exactly get a criminal vibe from you, no offense meant."

I saw that slight tug at his mouth again, the not-quite-smile that seemed the closest he ever got to an outward expression of amusement (which made him an ironic choice for Joker henchman, but hey, if he got the job done…). Checking behind us as we rolled up to a red light, he said, "Maybe you oughta quit worrying so much about where I came from and more about what you're gonna tell the boss when we get back. I gather things there didn't go quite as he planned."

"No, they didn't," I sighed, slumping slightly. I'd been ignoring that line of thought quite nicely before George brought it up again; I imagine he'd been stationed outside the warehouse to wait for me and probably saw Batman clearing out with the children in tow.

"He ain't gonna be happy."

"No," I muttered, worrying my lip in sudden fear. "No, he ain't."

He wasn't.

Which brings us to the little tableau later that evening: me slammed up against the wall so hard that the house practically shook and my entire back felt bruised, the Joker standing with his hand clenched around my throat and his cheerfully livid face in front of mine as he made me tell him twice exactly what happened at the factory.

Of course I didn't tell him the entire truth; it'd be suicide even if he didn't have me completely at his mercy. Fortunately, there wasn't a whole lot to leave out: I just neglected to mention that I had been planning to get the kids out of danger myself, as well as the fact that Batman had initially pursued me and that the only reason he'd gone back for the kids was that I'd told him the Joker's plan. If the Joker wanted to take issue with my lies of omission, I reasoned, he shouldn't have taught me how to pull them off naturally. Indeed, by the time we'd reached headquarters, I'd half-convinced myself that Batman had simply never followed me to begin with.

It helped that I knew he couldn't prove his suspicions, so as I finished telling the tale for the second time, I met his eyes, trying to cultivate just the right combination of fear of him and confidence in my story that I thought might convince him.

He narrowed his eyes, clearly no more convinced after the second recitation than he had been after the first. "Your story changed."

"Fuck you, no it didn't," I said defiantly, gurgling a little as his grip closed in on my throat again.

"Yesss, it did."

"No, it did not," I insisted wheezily, forcing the words out though I scarcely had air for them. "You're trying to get me to… nyegh… slip up and admit to a lie, but it's not gonna happen, because I'm not lying."

His eyes darted back and forth, focusing on my left eye, then my right, over and over again, like he hoped to catch the ghost of a lie shining in one of them before I could pull it back. His hand loosened just a tad, allowing me to pull in a noisy breath, and I went on: "Look, I'm sorry Batman didn't do what you expected him to do…"

"Oh, you're not sorry," he spat out, pressing me back against the wall roughly one more time before finally withdrawing his hand. It was only as I dropped in a heap to the floor that I realized he'd been the only thing holding me up; I could barely feel my feet. "But as soon as I confirm that you're nothing but a bloody-hearted liar, you're gonna be."

I coughed, rubbing gingerly at my tender throat as he turned and paced away, clearly agitated. Fighting past the desire to stay silent and spare my throat any further stress, I rasped, "All right, fine. You can think I'm lying all you want, and I'll keep denying it. It doesn't change what happened, and the fact that what happened was for the best."

Without so much as missing a step, he fluidly reached over, seized the lamp on his desk, jerked it from the wall, and twisted to fling it at me. I couldn't help flinching, but managed to hold my ground, and was rewarded when it shattered against the wall a foot to my right—I got hit with several fragments of hot glass, a couple of which dug right in, but I managed to keep my stare steady and fixed on him.

The act of throwing the lamp seemed to have leached most of that animal anger from him. The man staring back at me now was calm and collected, his shoulders relaxed, hands resting on his hips and head tilted expectantly as he regarded me. "Okay, I'll, ah, humor you. How is this for the best?"

I held his gaze even as I reached across to my arm and started plucking the bigger pieces of glass out. "The way I figure it, thinking back… cops hate cop killers, don't they?"

"Hmmh," he chuckled, one eyebrow darting up briefly in amusement—he would know all about that. "Like Ghandhi hated Jews."

I paused, processing that one, then shook it off. "Okay, whatever—they hate cop killers so much, how do you think they'd react to a guy who not only killed cops, but who also killed a cop's kids?"

The Joker made no response other than narrowing his eyes and chewing on the inside of his cheek. I sat up straighter. "J, they'd shoot to kill you on sight. It's a miracle they're not doing that already, but you kill Commissioner Gordon's kids? Hell, you'll have civilians camping out in Crime Alley with sniper rifles."

"Welll, they already do that."

"With an express eye towards killing you. You, specifically. Baby, everyone in this city already wants you dead. How long do you really think you'd last if you murdered Jim Gordon's kids? People love that guy. They'd take it personally"

He stared at me for another moment before rolling his shoulders up and back in a casual shrug. "If I'm being, ah, honest, that sounds like a party."

"Maybe so," I sighed resignedly—knowing him, I didn't doubt that he meant it. "All I'm saying is that… maybe this worked out the best way it could, after all. We've still got work to do, and citizens taking shots at you every time you show your face would make that work considerably harder."

"Yess," he purred, still staring at me, and although the danger didn't feel entirely past, I got the distinct impression that I'd talked my way out of this one for now. "Speaking of work… I've got a few plans to make. So." He jerked his head towards the door. "Out."

Great. I was being exiled. Since my return, I'd been allowed in his room whenever I wanted, but I'd known it was bound to end eventually—he always locked me out sooner or later, and what better time than after I'd disappointed him so dramatically? I didn't complain. I slowly got to my feet, trying to make myself too small to notice as I skirted him on the way to the door.

It didn't work. He caught my hand as I tried to get by and jerked me roughly to a stop. The other hand clasped the back of my neck, and he bumped his forehead into mine and left it there. His eyes inches from mine, so close that I found it hard to focus on them, he muttered, "Don't forget where your loyalty lies, little Harley Quinn. I'm the only person you've got looking out for you, the only person who cares if you live or die, and I'm watching you."

He didn't give me time to react before jerking my head back away from his and giving me a shove out into the hallway, slamming the door unceremoniously on me and clicking the lock in place. I rolled my eyes, trying to shake off the sudden wounded feeling in the pit of my stomach, and made my way downstairs.

It wasn't until I got down into the midst of the henchmen celebrating what was obviously a successful night that I realized that there had been a Part Two to the night's events, a part I had been completely left out of. I found out from Spider as I hunted down tweezers and bandages for my glass-studded arm just what had gone down.

The Penguin's men had been set to receive several storage containers delivered at the West Side docks. Just as they were opening them up to examine the contents, they'd fallen under a hail of gunfire. Not a single one of them survived.

The Joker told our guys they could take whatever they could carry from the storage containers (the contents of which, I gathered, were mostly stolen art and illegal weapons, real black market shit). Once they'd gotten all they wanted, the Joker blew up the rest.

A/N - My apologies, y'all, I know this update was monstrously overdue. First there was that change-of-seasons cold, next came family drama that ate up my spare time... but I'm pleased to report that things in general are much better. Thanks to all of you who sent well-wishes, I appreciate it.

Harley's getting slipperier and slippier, good for her, and you can bet we haven't seen the last of Bats, either. Far from it. Next chapter will feature more Cobblypot and the return of at least one familiar face, and it'll be another big fat chapter as well- that's what happens when things happen all at once and there are no sane breaking points!

Okay, cutting notes short tonight because I've been driving all day long and I'm about to fall face-down on my bed. You guys are the greatest; thank you for the feedback. :)