"Alright boys, I don't like to explain myself more than once, so listen carefully."
Mr. J ran a hand through his hair and circled the oblong table, licking his lips, his eyes darting back and forth about the room. His henchmen listened intently, waiting with baited breath for the orders of their leader. There was a hush over them, a bunch of little boys in the presence of someone they knew to be infinitely more powerful than they were.
"My sources tell me that tomorrow morning, Wayne Industries will be receiving a large shipment of arms. You know, guns, bullets, the usual sort of thing." He sat down at the head of the table and took out his knife, pressed it to the table and spun it on its point. "What's more," he looked at Harley, who was standing stoop-shouldered in the corner, her arms crossed, and smiled sickeningly, "I have it on high authority that this particular shipment is going directly into the, uh, belly of the beast - Wayne's swanky, bourgeois penthouse." He stopped the revolving blade and buried it into the table with a slam. "Now, if we can somehow..." he held his hands up and squinted, carefully wording his next statement, "sort of...create a distraction down at the docks...you know, and slip into the shipment somehow, we'll be delivered directly to our target. It's not hard. We've created distractions before," he looked at Harley and winked, "so I have no doubt things will just go...swimmingly. Oh," he suddenly reached into his breast pocket and produced a small camera, then threw it at the closest henchman, "obviously we'll be filming all of this. When we tie Wayne up and graphically murder him, I mean. I'd really like to send this into GCN, give the kiddies a show." There were guttural noises as he tried to keep himself from laughing, then failed, and threw his head back in demonic laughter.
Harley shifted nervously, then shook her head and quietly excused herself from the room. She felt the need to be sick, a harsh stabbing feeling in her gut. Her extremities seemed to go numb as she moved into the next room, away from the earshot of the criminals beside her. She sank down to the ground slowly, staring down at the floor, her mind racing. She covered her eyes with the palms of her hands, feeling the sweat that beaded under them.
"This is...this...my life is just..."
"Spiraling out of control?"
Harley looked up at Harleen, an impatient and commanding presence before her. She was clean cut, looked as she had before this all began, her face no longer lacerated, her long blonde hair pulled back in a tight bun. Her black suit was starched and pressed, and her sleeves were rolled up neatly. Her hands were on her hips, and her eyes were narrowed, staring down at Harley angrily. "My thoughts exactly," she said, a tone of menace in her voice.
Harley slapped her own cheeks, trying to rid herself of the hallucination. Harleen had never been able to show up whenever she wanted to - when they were two, Harley was always in control. She shut her eyes tightly, then opened them again, expecting Harleen to disappear into thin air, but when she opened them again, she was still there.
"Harleen, what are you doing out of your cage?" She asked in slurred speech, standing up slowly, her head reeling. "I don't recall saying you could come out."
"This is my life Harley," she said coolly, "and your playtime has gone on long enough. You're not going to let him kill Bruce. I won't have it."
Harley laughed. "Like you could stop Mr. J! Once he's made up his mind, he's made it up! I certainly can't stop him, and neither can you. It's like reasoning with a wild animal." She turned away from her, but Harleen was standing behind her already.
"I didn't say reason with him." She came towards Harley menacingly, her arms down at her sides, her muscles flexed. "I said that you need to stop him. At all costs."
Harley shook her head. "No," she said with a slight, nervous smile.
Harley's head snapped back as Harleen punched her square in the nose. "I don't want to hurt you, Harley. But I care about Bruce, and I'm not going to let anything happen to him because of you."
Harley let out a laugh. "What are you going to do? Beat me to death? You know the rules. If I die, you die."
Harleen cracked her neck and took off her blazer, letting it fall to the floor. "If that's what it takes," she said darkly, "so be it."
There was a pause. Only the scuttle of rats and roaches could be heard in the empty warehouse room, and the laughter of men in the next. Harley sighed. "You know, Harleen," she said, "I was actually starting to like you."
Harleen lunged at her, tackling her to the floor, her hands wrapped firmly around her neck. Harley sputtered out a laugh, then kicked Harleen in the stomach and back onto the floor behind her. Harleen stood up quickly and punched her in the jaw, once, twice, three times, before Harley finally countered with a kick to her face.
Harley reached down to her thigh and pulled out a small switchblade, holding it towards Harleen angrily. She swung at her and missed, Harleen ducking around her arm quickly and elbowing her in the ear. Harley let out a squeal of pain and clutched her ear, then laughed.
"You know," she said between fits of laughter, "we probably look incredibly stupid right now. I mean, beating ourselves up and all. We'll be at this all day."
Harleen said nothing, but smoothed her wayward hairs back into her bun. "I know what it looks like," she said between pants, "but I don't care."
Harley chuckled once again. "Oh, self-sacrifice! How very noble of you!" She flipped the switchblade down and tucked it back into her garter. "Look, toots, we're not getting anywhere. What do you say we just call a truce and stop this insanity? Think of all the fun we've yet to have, of all the sex we haven't had, all the people we haven't killed, all the drugs we haven't sampled. What do you say?"
Harleen shook her head, staring at the battered a bloodied woman before her. "Never in your wildest dreams."
"You forget," said Harley, pantomiming snorting a line of coke, "my body doesn't require sleep." She rubbed her nose and laughed wildly.
Harleen shrugged. "You can sleep when you're dead."
Harley laughed and fanned her legs across Harleen's face, sending her into a stack of wooden crates. Harleen shook her head to clear her mind, but Harley was already on top of her, strangling her, her thumbs pushing into her windpipe. Just as things were growing dark, she spotted the switchblade once again. In one swift movement, she slid the knife into the air and caught it, opening it quickly at the top of its mid-air arc, and buried it to the hilt into Harley's side.
Harley let out a scream of pain, clutching at the blade in her side and desperately trying to pull it out. Harleen beat her to it, and yanked it out with a sickening bloody gurgle. Harley fell to her knees, a glazed look in her eye, her breath coming in gasps. "You...you just killed us..." she stammered, her hand clutching the wound.
Harleen moved to her back and grabbed the side of her face. "No," she said in her ear, "I just killed you." She slid the blade across Harley's throat slowly, and both women went limp, falling to the floor in two crumpled heaps.
IVIVIVIVIVIVIVIVIVIVIVIVIVIVI
Harleen awoke with a gasp, her face and limbs bloodied, her body feeling as if it had been hit by a truck. She laid there panting on the ground for a moment, then touched her two wounds simultaneously. Her neck was cut deeply, that was for sure, but she wasn't dead - she'd managed to avoid her windpipe and jugular - and the gash in her side was merely a flesh wound.
She smiled slightly, realizing all too late that the action was extremely painful. Her plan had worked perfectly - at the expense of beating the shit out of herself, she was once again whole, and Harley was dead.
She slid her hands under her and stood up very slowly, sucking in air with a painful grimace. She didn't know how long she had been laying there, minutes, days, hours, but one thing was for sure - the laughter of men still echoed though the halls, the clink of glasses and the shuffling of cards prominent in the empty warehouse. She smiled again despite the pain. There was still time to save Bruce.
She limped out of the room quietly and down the hallway, falling lightly into the wall beside her, the room swaying and shaking in sickening waves. She slumped, and she slumped, finally stopping to crouch on the ground for a moment before she threw up what little she had eaten in the hours before. Slowly, she stood up again, and started down the stairs. She rolled her eyes slightly when she realized she wouldn't be able to take the stairs on her feet, and crouched down again to take the stairs one by one, like a small, mentally handicapped child. By the time she reached the bottom of the first flight, ten minutes had passed, and her wrists and ankles felt as if they would break at any moment. Thirty minutes later, and she had finally reached the entrance of the building. She had really done a number on herself, but it was too late to think about that now. She stumbled outside and into a trash can, knocking the contents into the street, its metal lid clanging noisily. Her head twisted around and up to the third story window the men resided in, waiting for one to poke their head out at her. She stayed there for what seemed like hours, frozen to the spot, until she was sure she was clear to move again.
She limped into the underground station at 3 AM, clumsily rolling over a turnstyle and onto the platform. She had left a trail of blood spots behind her, and hoped against hope that the spots would somehow disappear. The homeless men in the station stared at her warily, wondering if what they saw was a dream, but she barely noticed any of them. Here, half naked in the freezing weather, dripping blood in a subway station, she was only concerned about one thing - getting to Bruce's penthouse.
The uptown train skidded to a halt in front of her, and she dragged herself through the metal doors and slumped down into a seat. She was the only person in the car, but stayed alert - there would be nothing worse than meeting Mr. J and explaining to him why she left, why she was covered in blood. She was sure that if he found out, he wouldn't hesitate to kill her.
When she left the car and limped upstairs and into the street, it began to snow. A police car sped by with sirens wailing, but it did not stop or recognize her slender and shivering form. She continued on her journey, down 51st Street and onto Wayne Avenue, so aptly named for the man she wanted to see. When the apartment building came into view, she did not run. She even waited for the "WALK" signal at the crosswalk, then limped pathetically across the street.
When she reached the building, she pressed the buzzer next to Bruce's name. There was no answer. She pressed again, and was once again met with nothing. She pressed again. Nothing.
Slowly, she drew out the handgun from the holster strapped to her thigh. With steady and slow hands, she cocked the weapon and shot the glass that separated the street from the lobby. An alarm rang almost immediately, its high pitched tone shattering the silence of Wayne Avenue. She apathetically kicked the remaining glass out and stepped through the door frame and into the lobby.
Once inside, she walked slowly to the elevators and pressed the Up button, waiting patiently for the muffled "ding". She stepped into the golden cab and pressed the Penthouse button, waiting for the elevator to take her up, up, up into what seemed like the stratosphere. The movement made her dizzy, and she steadied herself on the marble wall to keep from falling.
When the doors finally opened, a short hallway was revealed with an extravagant golden door at the end of it. She limped to the door and knocked on it. No answer. She knocked again. Nothing. She raised her gun again and shot the lock, the door slowly swinging open to a gorgeous marble foyer, complete with fine Italian leather furniture and a grand staircase lined with thick golden hand rails.
She crossed the foyer. She crawled up the stairs. She crossed the dining room and the office that overlooked Gotham and the indoor swimming pool. Finally, she entered the bedroom.
She scanned the bedroom, and stared at the gigantic poster bed. Bruce was nowhere to be found. Across the bedroom, cattycorner from the bed, a door that lead to the balcony stood open, its curtains blowing in the breeze. She limped over to the bed, gun in hand, and sat down, facing the open door. She sat like that for a long time, blood pooling on the hardwood floor underneath her. She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees, letting the gun dangle between her legs. The draft from the door was freezing, but she hardly felt it. Her skin had long gone numb from the journey to this penthouse. Her eyes closed for a moment, and she nodded off.
At 5:30 AM, her eyes snapped open. Standing in the open doorway was Bruce, in full Batman regalia, save his cowl, which he held in his hand. He looked wary of her, of the gun she held in her hand, so slowly, she unloaded it, and put it on the bedside table, along with her switchblade. "You should really redesign that foyer," she said without emotion, "it looks like someone vomited marble in there." She looked down and managed a little half-laugh, which made her feel as if someone had put fish hooks in her sides. "Also, I got blood on your floor. Sorry."
He rushed to her and knelt down in front of her, and she sank from the edge of the bed and into his arms. "Harleen," he asked, cradling her, "what the hell happened to you? Did...did he do this to you?"
She shook her head. "No. I did this to myself."
He looked puzzled. "I don't understand."
"Neither do I. The short story is that I beat the bejesus out of myself. The long story is that I...I don't really want to go into it. You met me at a very strange time in my life." She swallowed and settled into his body, reveling in the comfort she felt at finally being able to sit down. "Look, I'm not really here to discuss that with you. I'm here to warn you. You have an arms deal coming here tomorrow, correct?"
He nodded. "Yeah, but I don't see how - "
"Just listen to me, Bruce. The Joker is planning to take the crate at the harbor. He knows you're bringing it here, and he wants to kill you." She looked up at him, and tried pathetically to get up. "Ok, that's all I needed to say. I really must be going now..."
He stopped her. "No, Harleen, you have to stay here. You're in no shape to be going anywhere, let alone back to that psychopath you call a boyfriend."
She smiled. "He's really not so bad once you get to know him." She grabbed his hand and held it with hers. "But thank you, I appreciate the concern."
He brushed the hair from her eyes. "Why did you come back to warn me?"
She sighed. "It's hard to explain, Bruce. Because...because in an odd way, I care about you. I think that in another life, Harleen Quinzell and Bruce Wayne would have been perfect for each other. But this is the hand we've been dealt. And we must act accordingly."
He smiled down at her and ran a gentle finger over her scar. "I love you, Harleen."
She smiled back. "I know."