Chapter Twenty

you burnt my house down then got mad at my reaction

you built a house of cards
and got shocked when you saw them fall
well I ain't saying I'm innocent, in fact the reverse,
but if you're heading to the grave,
you don't blame the hearse.

-The White Stripes, Effect and Cause

I jerked awake, some underlying sense of danger driving me back to consciousness as soon as the chemicals released their grip on me.

I felt like I'd been hit by a train. The light was glaring, and I slanted my eyes against it as I tried to figure out exactly what was going on and where I was. Whatever I'd been drugged with was slow to let go; I knew what I was seeing, but the significance of the sight was somewhat lost on me to start with.

White walls and bright lights. A dark shape, humanoid, standing over by a greyish doorway. I was vastly uncomfortable, and before long, I realized that that was because my arms were stretched out over my head, held by… something. I glanced up to see shackles, clasped around my wrists and strung up to the ceiling, where they were chained securely.

Penguin's basement.

With the realization, the haze of the drugs faded somewhat—or maybe it was the fading drugs that allowed me to make that realization in the first place. In their wake, they left a vague, spinny feeling, like I was waking up still drunk after a night of partying (and decidedly less happy about it than the night before). I shook my head, trying to get rid of the sensation, and regretted it immediately when a heavy, powerful throbbing started immediately up in my temples.

"Ffffffffuuuuuuuuck," I hissed.

The humanoid shape by the door shifted and my eyes darted to it. I recognized him. Squinting at him first to confirm that my memory was right, I asked, "Matthew?"

My escort from that night the Penguin'd had me abducted from the street looked me in the eye for a split second before glancing away again abruptly. I narrowed my eyes, and as my vision stabilized further, I glanced him over, seeing the dirt, gravel, and smoke smudges on his skin and street clothes. A suspicion hit me, and I looked at his hands. The knuckles there were bloodied and scabbed over, and I looked back up at his face. "Were you the one who beat the shit out of me?"

He hissed out a scoff between his teeth. I raised my eyebrows, taking the sound as confirmation, but decided it wasn't the appropriate time to press the issue. Instead, I took stock of myself and my possessions, and found—much to my annoyance—that all of my weapons had been stripped with me, up to and including the stiletto that was in my boots. Well. Had been in my boots. They'd taken those as well and shackled my feet together and to the floor, so kicking the shit out of a deserving little fowl was out, it seemed. I had nothing but my ripped black jeans and the red tank I'd been wearing when they first started firing on us, and there wasn't any way I could turn those into a weapon, not trussed-up the way I was.

As I glanced around the room for anything I could use to my advantage, the door swung open and the Penguin came in, dressed in the usual black and white tux, swinging an umbrella like a walking stick. He ignored me for the time being, looking straight at Matthew. "All calm on this front?"

"All calm," Matthew confirmed softly, then glanced past his boss at me. "She woke up a minute ago."

The Penguin looked at me then, as if he hadn't even noticed that I was strung up in the middle of the room. For a second, he just stared guilelessly at me, then suddenly his eyes narrowed and he was moving towards me—waddling, I couldn't help but think a little viciously.

"Do you have any idea the trouble your incompetence has caused me?" he quacked, jabbing at me with the tip of his umbrella. I dodged it as best I can, but it still caught me painfully in the ribs.

"Ow! Fuck! Mind the goods, will you?" I asked, the hung over feeling combined with all the bruises and battery I'd suffered from the fight leading up to the drugging making me a tad irritable. (That wasn't even taking into account the fact that I was currently chained up in this guy's sick torture dungeon. I decided to ignore that point for the time being.)

The Penguin leaned in, little blotches of red burning away beneath the thin, pale skin on his cheeks, his beady eyes narrowed into a glare. "You were supposed to make him cooperate," he hissed at me accusingly. "I don't know how much clearer I could make it."

"Yeah, well, this might come as some surprise to you, but the Joker kind of marches to his own drummer," I said, annoyed, twisting my wrists in the shackles to see if there was any give. There wasn't. "Believe me, I'd have been perfectly happy to go along with your whole scheme, buddy. That means a regular paycheck to keep the henchdudes happy, some backup against law enforcement—and best of all, I wouldn't be chained up in your freaky Girl-With-the-Dragon-Tattoo basement right now."

That was met with just a second of confused silence, and I shook my head. Apparently, our henchmen were the only ones I could rely on to have watched enough television to be worth dropping pop culture references around. The Penguin, having decided the comment was irrelevant, leaned back, pacing for a moment in an agitated loop before coming back at me again: "Why didn't he listen to you? I saw the two of you that day; he takes your opinions into account."

I couldn't help lifting an eyebrow for a split second before blanking my expression. Apparently, Ozzie hadn't yet caught on to the fact that he'd been had, that I wasn't exactly reigning queen of the clowns—at least, not in the sense that I had any real authority, not over the Joker—and I certainly wasn't going to tell him. If I was still alive, if the knives hadn't come out yet, then it was because he was betting on me being valuable enough to the Joker to be a useful bargaining chip. It was hardly in my best interests to smash those assumptions. Instead, I said, "A better question would probably be how the hell did you find us?"

He shot a sharp glance at me then shook his head abruptly. "Well," he said, pointedly ignoring the question, "I didn't want it to come to this, but you haven't exactly left me a choice, have you? If he doesn't want your organs mailed to him piece by piece, he'll have to cooperate."

Actually, receiving my spleen in a package on his doorstep would probably make J's day, I thought, but again, I thought it prudent to keep such thoughts to myself. Instead, I watched Oswald as he paced, and dryly, I said, "Oh no. Please. Don't." It struck me that I was feeling and acting awfully cavalier about being in the same position Davis Steele had been in right before getting gutted, but as with most hangovers, it seemed with chemical hangovers came with the imprudent attitude of I already feel so fucking shitty I might as well say what I want because there isn't much that could make it worse. That reminded me… "What did Mongo over there hit me with, anyway? I feel like I did, like, twelve shots of tequila last night."

The Penguin wasn't even looking at me anymore. He was muttering to himself, little harried sounds that I couldn't make out, and I rolled my head back in irritation. "Hey, Ozzie, as soon as you're done freaking out—you think I could move upstairs, or are you really going to insist on keeping me in the creepy torture chamber? My shoulders are killing."

He whipped around on me unexpectedly, barreling towards me so fast that I flinched back instinctively. "You are being extraordinarily rude!" he hissed in my face, little flecks of spit flying from his mouth and hitting my skin. If I'd had my hands free, I'd have pointedly wiped my face off, but as it was I had to just give him a look that I hoped conveyed my feelings.

He seemed to get unafraid and unimpressed from that look, because he drew back slowly, looking me over with a distinct air of bafflement. "What do people see in you?" he asked, and although he'd spoken the question out loud, I got the distinct sense that he was talking to himself. That was all right with me; I didn't really have a real answer for him (the only response I could think of was well I'm all beat to shit right now but I promise I actually clean up pretty nice), and with him close enough to get mad and spray his words all over me again, I didn't want to risk saying something snippy again just yet. I just stared him down, he stared me down, and at length, he shook his head.

"I just don't understand. Why would he settle on such an unimposing little thing? If he simply wanted to fuck someone, there are prostitutes all over the city—and if that isn't his style, I'm certain he could have his pick of his victims."

"Nice," I said, rolling my eyes to the side, but he was in reverie mode, seeing me but not seeing me, definitely not hearing me at this point.

At length, he rallied himself and stood back, and I saw from the look in his eyes that he was winding up to say something nasty. Okay, Ozzie, lay it on me, I thought, and the challenging look in my eyes must have been the last straw, because he drew himself up and sniffed in that pretentious accent, "I hardly know what goes on in the mind of an animal like the Joker. Maybe he likes to share. Maybe you're the only groupie he could find who was willing to be passed from henchman to henchman."

I groaned out loud. Out of all the gossip that had been written about me since my emergence as the Joker's partner, that was the bit he'd chosen to go with? "Oswald, real gentlemen don't read tabloids," I said firmly, refocusing my gaze on him and frowning disapprovingly. "They definitely aren't crass enough to speculate about the details of one's sex life, at least not out loud. And here I really did think you were a gentleman."

"You wouldn't know the first thing about gentility, you smart-mouthed little hussy," he spat—unfortunately, literally once again. I was a bit distracted by the fact that he'd actually called me a hussy.

Where's Pam? She'd either get a kick out of this or, you know, kill him.

"Since we're on the topic of rumors about the more—ahem—colorful members of Gotham's underworld," I said anyway, deciding that if he was being an asshole then I was damn well going to antagonize him; he probably wouldn't hurt me too badly until it became obvious that the Joker didn't intend to respond to his threats—"I'd rather the papers write that I'm a big huge slut than that… what is it? Oh, yeah—that I've got webbed fingers and live on a diet of raw fish."

He recoiled as if I'd hit him, and, pleased to have found a weak spot, I went on, making sure that my tone was nothing but pleasant even as I invented lies: "You know, I've met no less than three people who think you're paying the best plastic surgeons in the world to slowly transform you into an actual humanoid penguin? Like those people who show up on Ripley's believe it or not who think they're meant to morph into a tiger or some shit." I gave him a sympathetic wince. "Not really the reputation you want to cultivate when you're in the process of taking over Gotham's underworld."

He looked almost horrified for a moment, clearly unused to such blunt talk, and I reflected that he was paying the price for such respectful, well-behaved help—when no one ever told you what people were saying behind your back, it came as a big shock when you ultimately found out. For a moment, I found myself thankful for the way Ace used to scold and swear at me for what the tabloids were reporting about my sexual practices, as if I had anything to do with it—I'd built up quite the shell; Penguin's words had done nothing.

Quickly enough, though, Cobblepot recovered, seeming to remember that he was most certainly the one in charge of the situation. He leaned towards me, jabbing me with the umbrella again (a move that did piss me off; you don't know true annoyance until a short pretentious birdman is poking you with the tip of a damn umbrella), and said, "We'll see what people think about my reputation once I bring your lover's operation to its knees. What do you think, Matthew?" he asked, speaking over his shoulder. "Think I should open with a hand? That ought to get his attention."

He chuckled at his own idea, and as I mentally reviewed the very real possibility that I would be severely mutilated before the night was over, I decided it was time to face facts, whether or not I spoke those facts out loud to the Penguin. The cold truth was that it was more than unlikely that the Joker would put himself and his goals at risk just to save me. I doubted he would even invade the Iceberg in an effort to get me back, not with our hideout and supplies half-decimated and certainly crawling with police by now. I knew this, even if Oswald didn't, and I was glad for it—I didn't want him putting himself at risk over me, especially since I'd been careless enough to get caught despite his clear warning to me the other night.

However—and maybe it was the residual buzz from whatever they'd used to knock me out—I found that my attitude towards my current situation was far from fatalistic. After a bit of soul-searching, I realized it was something Ozzie had just said: What is it that people see in you? The thought actually sparked a bit of an epiphany, and it must have showed on my face, because, sounding as if I was doing it to personally offend him, Oswald howled, "And just what are you grinning at, madam?!"

I found that he was right. I was smiling, and since it was already out there, I didn't bother to wipe it off as I looked directly up at him and said, "It's something you said. It actually made me realize that… I've been suffering from some psychological issues ever since I got sent to Arkham a few months ago."

"What?" he demanded, sounding confused and pissed off.

"Issues. Psychological. Specifically related to abandonment. See, Ozzie," I said, shifting from one foot to the other and rolling my shoulders forward to see if I could relieve the ache in them from being stuck in the same position for too long, "due to reasons we won't get into right now, I've been… kind of a prickly little ball for the last month or so, snapping at anyone who comes too close, trying to be as self-reliant as possible… you know, the usual human response to feeling betrayed and left behind. Only now I realize it was totally unnecessary. You see, there are people who love me. Several of them are pretty scary. And I'm not even talking about the Joker—who, by the way, you might want to check with before you go through all the trouble of mutilating me. I'm talking about other people, Ozzie. People who can cause trouble for you. In fact, I'm almost glad you took me tonight, because I really want to see what's going to happen."

Oswald looked just a bit uncertain, but mostly unconvinced. He brought his umbrella up, touched his temple with it in a rather sarcastic saluting motion, and said, "Well, we'll see. Won't we?"

That apparently signaled the end of our conversation. He turned around, told Matthew sharply to "Keep an eye on her; I have to get ready for our opening," then waddled out of the room.

Twenty minutes later, I'd decided that I needed to do something.

Sure, I'd told Ozzie that I was looking forward to waiting around to see what the repercussions of his abduction of me were. I'd meant it at the time, but a girl was allowed to change her mind, and I was finding out that there were few motivators quite as powerful as having one's arms chained up over one's head, plagued by that awful numb feeling that happened when all the blood drained out of a limb.

Of course, the only way I was getting out of this situation was if someone with a key came along and released me. And right now, the only key set that I could see was hanging from Matthew's belt.

Matthew it is.

Calling upon the months of acting practice one gets when one works with the Joker (and is sometimes planted in an unsuspecting crowd in order to steer them exactly where they need to go), I softened my face and eyes and started to stare at him. At first, he was quite clearly trying to pretend like he hadn't noticed, though if he had any sort of peripheral vision whatsoever, he knew that I'd been watching him for the last five minutes.

Then came the glances that I'd call nervous if he wasn't so clearly annoyed. Finally, after the third or fourth sideways look at me to see if I was still staring (I was; I hadn't let up for a second), he focused his eyes straight ahead and said, "What?"

I gave him a knowing look. "You were the one who hit me, weren't you?"

"Shut the fuck up," he growled, and I was actually glad to hear it. He seemed more than a little bit pissed off with me, maybe pissed off that he'd been relegated to guard duty instead of something more exciting, and it was all too easy to channel resentment and agitation into sexual tension instead.

"If you want me to shut up, you can drug me again," I said, daring him, fairly certain that he wasn't cleared to do that, and the irritated look he shot me combined with his continued inaction made me a bit more confident. "I just want to know who's got the right hook that knocked me flat."

He hitched his shoulders and spoke in a tone of flat annoyance, avoiding looking at me. "You were fuckin' gunning down all of the shooters—who weren't even trying to kill you, by the way; we were under orders to keep you alive. What else was I supposed to do? I had to neutralize you."

"Oh, I didn't say it was a bad thing," I assured him immediately. "In fact—well, you know, things are pretty survival-of-the-fittest in the Joker's outfit. Believe me, I respect it."

He looked at me then, albeit briefly, and asked warily, "What are you doing?"

I shrugged, trotting out every last inch of innocent blonde ingénue I still had in me as I said, "Nothing. I just appreciate a man who can throw a good punch, that's all."

He faced front again, seemingly unwilling to acknowledge the compliment (which admittedly had weird—if specifically-invoked—connotations, coming from me). I let it lie for a few minutes, then I sighed.

He looked at me again. "What?" he demanded irately.

I looked directly at him and, in a distinctly challenging tone, I said, "You're fucking boring, Matthew."

I saw the flash of anger cross his face before he pulled it back and narrowed his eyes suspiciously at me instead. "What the fuck are you trying to do?"

"Tell you that you're boring," I said, tilting my chin down and rolling my eyes up to stare at him challengingly.

He scoffed, a rewarding little sound of anger at being spoken to that way, and then, shifting from one foot to the other, he said, "Well, I'm sorry, but it's not my job to entertain you."

"Oh, no, it's not me," I assured him. "Don't tell me you're not bored out of your skull right now, too." He started to protest and I looked at him sharply and exclaimed "Ah! Tell the truth. You're boring yourself."

He shut his mouth and faced front again, but I could see the slightest hint of pink rising in his cheeks. He was getting pissed off. Good. I sighed quietly again and said, "Not the slightest hint of backbone to you, and let me tell you, that's a fucking shame. I hate to see guys who can throw a punch like that who are nonetheless… so out of place in this line of work. You're absolutely toothless, Matt. Show some balls, you know? Be creative for once in your life, don't just stand there boring me and boring yourself."

He knew I was up to something, but I could see the exact moment when he decided he didn't care. Gotta love the malleability of testosterone. He turned abruptly towards me, jaw held tight, and started striding towards me. I turned in his direction attentively as he muttered, "You wanna see creativity, bitch? I'll show you some creativity."

He grabbed me around the waist; I pressed into him immediately, ignoring the stir of repulsion I felt as one of his hands slipped into my shirt and thinking only get the job done, get the job done, get the job done. I looked up at him scornfully and demanded, "Yeah? What exactly did you have in mind?"

He paused for a second as he realized that my ankles were chained tightly together and that my legs weren't exactly in a position to open up, willingly or unwillingly. Fortunately, the anger and the hormones were raging so heavily at this point that he figured he could handle anything, and so he let me go, jerked the keys from his belt, and knelt to unlock the shackle bolting my ankles to the floor.

I moved immediately, pushing hard off the floor and wrapping my thighs around his head. He reacted right away, jerking back and then, when that failed to break him three, pushing his way to his feet, but I just tightened my thighs, gritted my teeth, gave thanks both that I'd been making a priority out of working out lately and that my thighs were the strongest part of my body, and I started twisting.

It took me a couple of wayward wrenches until I finally was able to brace my feet against his back as he lurched around then, with that extra leverage, I clenched my thighs, pressed against his back, and twisted my hips violently sideways. With that move, I felt a satisfying crack between my legs, and he went slack. I let go of him and he went crashing to the floor.

My arms were really killing me now. I took a second to catch my breath, then moved forward with phase two: somehow getting hold of the keys.

They'd fallen a foot or two away from where I was chained up, and I didn't have much slack coming from my wrist shackles. Still, I thought I might be able to reach out with my feet and hook them with my toes. From there, sleepy arms or not, moving them from foot-to-mouth then from mouth-to-hand would be pretty easy for a gymnast.

Of course, the second I started stretching out to try to get hold of them, the door flew open again. I froze, wondering exactly how Penguin would react to the fact that I'd killed the hired help—

—then something metallic clattered into the room, I heard a hissing sound, then there was a dull thud and the room filled with smoke.

Not smoke, I realized, feeling a surge of dread as I realized that I definitely recognized that smell. Gas.

The flashes came immediately—dead Joker, decayed Joker, lips rotting away from his teeth, maggots writhing all over the decomposing flesh of his face—

—then I was breathing normal air again, sharply, and I was on the ground, my arms tingling like crazy as the blood rushed back into them. I blinked away the unsettling images I'd just seen, then realized I was staring directly up into a very familiar face.

I lashed out immediately, catching him in the shoulder, and I growled, "Damn it, Jonathan, quit fucking gassing me!"

He hunched back, looking wounded. "I wasn't to know you'd already eliminated the threat in the room—and anyway, I always bring you back, don't I?"

"Fuck you."

"See?" he said to someone over his shoulder. "I told you she was fine."

Another familiar face appeared in my line of vision, and I didn't think I'd ever been gladder to see my best friend. "Yes, well, forgive me for not having the utmost confidence in you, what with the way you sling that toxin around," Pam growled, stooping beside me and taking my arm, easing me up into a sitting position. "Honestly, Jonathan, how much poison do you need?"

"Keep talking, Pamela, and you'll probably find out," Jonathan said archly, rising to his feet.

Pam let out a derisive hiss of laughter and bolted to her feet as well, facing off against him over the top of my head. "If that's a threat, Jonathan, then you are absolutely welcome to try following through on it. I'm loaded with enough antitoxin that if your little fear gas has any effect at all, it'll be hardly more potent than a party drug to me."

"Harridan," he muttered, adjusting the mechanism in his sleeve like he was seriously considering using it again.

"Peacock," she spat, completely without fear, as was like her.

Marrieds, I thought, but given that Crane still had plenty of fear gas and Pam looked like she was ready to punch someone, I thought it prudent to keep that thought to myself. Instead, after taking perhaps undue pleasure in the sight of them glaring at each other (Crane's hair was all rumpled from the mask and his glasses were missing; Pam looked poised and perfect as always and was about an inch taller than he was and I thought I could hardly be blamed for thinking they looked… well, both striking and adorable, standing next to each other like that), I said, "I am absolutely thrilled to see you both, and… kind of surprised to see you, Jonathan. So do you think you could maybe fill me in on what the hell is going on?"

It took them a second to tear their annoyed gazes away from each other, but at length, they managed, staring down at me instead—I hadn't bothered to get to my feet, figuring I should take a minute to recover from my second poisoning in probably less than six hours. Pam glanced back at Crane, huffed dismissively, and stooped back down next to me. "Eddie got in touch."

My eyebrows shot up. "Eddie?"

"Yes, Eddie," she said, pronouncing his name with marked distaste. "He said something had gone down between you and this… Cobblepot fellow. Said he was staying out of it, but as a gesture of good faith, he was letting me know about it. I figured it was high time I met the man who has apparently been giving you so much trouble of late, so—" she shrugged modestly. "Here I am."

"Uh… huh," I said, still totally confused. When I'd told Oswald there were people who liked me, I hadn't thought of Eddie as one of them—though to be fair, it was probably more that he liked Pam, despite her protests to the contrary. Book-smart people tended to gravitate towards each other like that. Speaking of book smarts… "And… Jonathan?"

He'd wandered across the room to the little box where Cobblepot kept his torture implements and was trying to get it open, and he seemed a bit surprised to find me looking at him for answer. He let go of the box, put his back to it, and said, "Ahh… well, I figured I owed you some consideration after our recent stint in Arkham and your, uh, contribution to my escape there."

Okay, first of all, that contribution wasn't willing, I thought immediately, but it seemed a rather petty thing to bring up given that he was apparently busting me out of this joint. Instead, playfully, I said, "What are you, a Lannister?"

When I got nothing but a blank stare in return, I was admittedly a little miffed. "Am I the only one in the Gotham underworld who watches television ever?"

"Probably," Pam said briskly, doing that older sister thing where she showed no concern whatsoever for my feelings, and she took my hands and drew me to my feet. "At any rate, he's blowing smoke up your ass. He and I happened to be meeting for dinner, and I made him come along so he could back me up."

"Made, nothing," Crane objected immediately.

"Dinner?" I demanded, clinging tightly to Pam.

"I'll have you know I came along of my own free will!"

"Since when do you two do dinner?"

"And admittedly it wasn't to free Harley so much as to see what kind of looting could be done at a place like this and perhaps find a few more test subjects, but given that the end result was the same, I don't think anyone can complain."

"Jonathan, shut up," Pam and I said simultaneously, but before I could start grilling her again, she fixed me with a rather severe look that stopped me in my tracks. "Sorry to crush your romantic heart, Harley: we were just comparing notes."

Yeah, notes on fucking, I thought, and it was only when I heard a short burst of scornful laughter from Jonathan and saw the disdainful look on Pam's face that I realized I'd said it out loud. "Oh, shit, sorry! It's the drugs," I said immediately. "I've been drugged twice tonight. My filter's broken, I think."

Pam rolled her eyes and said, "And moving right along—we need to go. Part of the reason we were able to get down here so easily is that quite a commotion started kicking up upstairs right as we arrived."

"Yes—it seems that deranged clown you call a lover showed up right before we did," Crane added, and when Pam shot him a truly venomous look, he stopped short and said, "What? You didn't want her to know?"

"Probably not," I said, having grown tense at the very mention of the Joker. "She wanted me to leave with the two of you, but that's not happening now that I know he's here. Penguin's guys are scary as hell; I have to go help."

"Help using what?" Pam asked, shooting Crane another glare even as she took hold of my shoulders. "Your fists of steel? Your beaten-to-hell face? Let him take care of it, Harley; you need to get somewhere safe."

"Yeah, that's not going to work," I told her flatly, breaking away. "He's here; I'm going to go help him."

"I've no objection to that," Crane said, blandly ignoring the third look if its kind that Pam shot towards him, "but I'd advise you to hurry. Murmurs among Penguin's employees would have me believe that Batman arrived on the scene a moment or two before we came in here to find that you'd handled your posted guard quite capably on your own."

I froze at the mention of Batman, then looked a bit frantically between the two of them. "If that's true, then the two of you need to get out. Now. Jonathan, he knows you and he'll send you right back to Arkham, and Pam, the last thing you need is to be on Batman's radar. Fuck!" I should have predicted that Batman would come along and jam the gears. I let loose an angry growl and stalked towards the door, shooting a few last words over my shoulder: "Thanks for the jail break. Now both of you, scram. I mean it." With that, I ducked out of the basement and ran upstairs.

Of course, I immediately rather wished I hadn't. The Iceberg was an absolute war zone at this point, and although I admit it gratified me a little to see Oswald Cobblepot's prized little kingdom tumbling down around my head, the strains of the night were starting to take a toll on me, and the apparently ongoing battle between our clowns and Cobblepot's people just looked exhausting to me at this point.

Fortunately, I spotted a dude in a clown mask shortly after I surfaced in the hallway, firing down the hall at where a couple of suited Cobblepot cronies were taking cover behind the doorframe. I reached around the corner, grabbed him by his gun arm, and said, "Don't fucking shoot" as I pulled him around to me; he checked himself the second he saw me and pulled up his mask. I vaguely recognized him—he was a guy Spider hung out with a lot.

"Glad to see you alive," he said matter-of-factly, checking around the corner before apparently deciding we were safe for now. "Some of the guys thought you were done for and this was a suicide mission."

"Yeah, it might still be a suicide mission, but thank you," I growled, rubbing gingerly at my bruised jaw. "Where's the boss?"

He pointed behind me, further down the hallway. "He said somethin' about meeting Cobblepot on his own turf, whatever the fuck that means."

"Ahhh… probably his office," I sighed. "Okay, fine—I'm going to go see what the hell is up with them. You and the guys keep Cobblepot's backup from getting there, will you?"

"Already on it," he said, pulling down his mask. As an afterthought, almost, he added, "You should keep an eye out, Harley. People say the Batman's in the building."

"That's what I hear," I said wryly. He nodded once at me before ducking back around the corner. I shook my head, thought silently that I wouldn't trade ten of Cobblepot's creepy minions for one of ours, and went hunting.

I knew the Joker well enough to be moderately certain he would want to take Penguin out in the sanctity of his own beloved Iceberg office, and so when I reached the office, I wasn't really surprised to find the door barricaded. I wedged my shoulder against it and shoved, and whatever was blocking it slid a few inches—I pushed again, opening a crack wide enough for me to wriggle through, and I slipped inside.

The scene that awaited me was at once totally unexpected and completely unsurprising.

Cobblepot was sitting in a heap in a corner, bleeding copiously from his gut. He seemed like he'd just regained consciousness after a brief blackout, judging by the way his eyes were rather dizzily rolling around.

Batman had at some point gotten into the room despite the fact that the barricade hadn't been dislodged at all, and I realized after a moment that a door I'd taken to be a closet the first time I'd visited this office actually led to another passageway. Leave it to Oswald Cobblepot to have creepy passageways lining his club. He'd apparently surprised the Joker mid-Cobblepot-beatdown, and they were currently duking it out, ignoring literally everything but each other as they traded punches—well, as Batman took swings and the Joker dodged and jabbed at the spots between his armor plates with his favorite knife, the Joker playing it safe (probably due to his inhibiting gunshot wound) in the face of Batman's unbridled aggression and ensuring that for both of them, actual contact was limited.

As I tried to figure out exactly what to do to help J, a motion from the corner of my eye caught my attention. I turned to find that Cobblepot was heaving himself upward, one hand pressed to his protruding belly, trying to staunch the blood flow there even as he struggled across the room. I followed his trajectory with my eyes and saw immediately where he was headed—that old shotgun mounted over the fireplace.

Everything clicked into place. I bolted across the room and, with my running start, leaped into the air to aim a flying kick right to Ozzie's injured gut—and I got the gratifying sight of his eyes just as he caught sight of me and realized exactly what I was doing before I made contact and knocked him on his ass on the floor. He let loose a strangled howl, sounding most undignified, and I figured that if his pain threshold was low enough to keep him from moving faster than he had been with that measly little stab wound to the belly, then it would definitely keep him down there on the floor for another minute at least.

I turned, perched on tiptoe, lifted the gun from where it was mounted, and cocked it.

Just in time, it seemed—the Joker had finally run out of space, either tripped or fallen backwards, and Batman was hunched over him, one fist clenching his vest to hold him in place, the other fist battering him across the face over and over again. He might have seen me when I entered, he might not have, but it was clear that right now, his priority was eliminating the Joker as a threat. His mistake.

Seeing red, I aimed the gun at Batman's armored back and pulled the trigger.

Ancient or not, that thing packed a punch, and it kicked so hard it nearly knocked me down. When the smoke cleared, I saw that it had done something—I saw the shot pellets wedged into Batman's armor, and though none of them seemed to have penetrated, the blast had definitely flattened him, like a giant fist cracking down across his back.

The Joker was currently in the process of wriggling out from under him, and I caught his mutinous murmur: "Batman, more like Fatman, what did you eat today—?"

"Right?" I demanded, dropping the gun and dusting off my jeans. "Is there a weight class requirement for the position of Defender of the Night or what?"

He finally struggled free and climbed to his feet. He paused, glanced down at Batman, and tilted his head appraisingly. When Batman didn't move, his lips drew back from his teeth and he released a hissing giggle. "How's that for havin' a blast, huh?" he asked, nudging him good-naturedly in the side with his shoe.

Batman stirred slightly and groaned, but then fell still again, and the Joker apparently decided he was bored, because he glanced at me and at the shotgun I'd dropped to my feet, and then opened his arms. "Harley," he crooned invitingly.

I vaulted across the room and into his arms. For a second, I did nothing but hold onto him as tight as I possibly could, not quite believing that he'd come for me, not quite believing that he was here and I was here and we were both alive. I squeezed him until I heard him release a rather pained grunt, then I realized that although he wasn't complaining, he'd probably suffered quite a few rib shots from Batman and that my affection was almost certainly putting him in great pain. I let him go immediately, and he took the opportunity to clasp my chin and tilt my face up so he could get a look at it. I must have looked pretty bad, because he cracked a grin. "Nice shiner," he commented.

I looked him over as well, and pointed to his busted lip, which had leaked bright blood all over his painted chin. "You better not have gotten that from, like, a rage makeout session with Batman, or I'm gonna be pissed."

He let loose a bark of laughter and stepped away from me, hands in his pockets, strolling with a certain air of unconcerned aimlessness towards Penguin. I turned to watch.

Oswald had managed to struggle upright again and was sitting against the wall, his belly heaving as he tried to catch his breath against the pain. When he glanced up and saw the Joker approaching, his face almost crumpled—not like he was going to cry, exactly; more like he was infuriated with the way things had turned out. In my opinion, he had no one to blame but himself.

At least, that's what I thought until he hissed, "I never should have listened to that blasted hacker."

The Joker paused mid-stride. My eyes widened and I hastened across the room to stand one pace behind the Joker, one to the right, eyes locked on Oswald, and slowly, J stooped down, putting himself at eye level with the Penguin. "Ah. What hacker, Ozzie?"

Oswald was nothing if not an opportunist. He smelled possibility, realized that something had changed and that he might not be about to die, and so, obligingly, if a little roughly as a result of the pain, he said, "The… hacker; that Eddie person. He was the one who advised me to work with the two of you psychopaths to begin with."

The Joker turned his head slightly and glanced sideways towards me, lips pressed together into a frown. I returned the glance, then bent over Oswald and asked, "Ozzie, if you want to make it out of this alive, you'll tell me exactly what happened with Eddie."

"Oh… I don't know," groaned Oswald fretfully. "I'd been working with him for a year; his information was always good and played a large role in my… acquisition of most of Gotham's organized crime business. When the operation got large enough that Batman was starting to pay attention to me, Eddie advised me to hire someone more colorful and interesting than I was; suggested you. He said you could be hard to work with, true—a" he nodded at the Joker, "but as long as I got her on my side—" here he glanced angrily at me—"then it would all work out. Shows how much he knew."

The Joker and I exchanged another look, then the Joker said, "Say, uh… Ozzie. Eddie give you any recommendations for hired snipers, by any chance?"

Oswald winced. "When I needed a gunman to guard that second shipment… yes, he provided a list of names; I picked the one he most strongly recommended."

CCTV, my ass, I thought, and pressed for more: "Was he the one who told you where our hideout was?"

Penguin stared at me for a second, glanced at the Joker, then back at me, as if he was finally starting to put together that something wasn't right. "Yes," he said slowly. "He said he wanted to make up for his bad advice. That… taking you would force the Joker to cooperate."

That was all we needed to hear. The Joker rose to his feet and I grabbed his elbow. "We need to get out of here now," I said emphatically.

"Way ahead of you, doll," he said, grabbing my hand. He paused for a split second to look at Oswald, said, "Thanks for the memories, Ozzie," then turned and pulled me out of the office.

I took the lead almost immediately once we were out, and he didn't argue, since I'd definitely found my way through these hallways before. As I worked my way to the exit I'd left through last time with a concussed Batman in tow, we ran into a clown, and I jerked on his arm as we moved past. "Get out and tell the other guys to get the fuck out, too," I shouted over my shoulder, and then we were bursting outside.

The Joker let go of my hand and went ahead at that point, breaking into a swift run and cutting through the alleyway, getting away from the Iceberg, and I followed, not quite able to match his speed and falling behind a bit—enough that when he paused at a car parked along the street and ducked inside, I had a quick, sharp pang of fear that he was about to leave me. The car started, and I increased my pace, expecting it to take off—but no, it sat there idling until I crashed into the passenger seat, then the tires peeled out as the Joker floored the accelerator and put some distance between us and the Iceberg.

Still, we were barely out of the blast range when the thing went up behind us, the explosion rippling out enough to make the car wobble. I twisted around, staring at Penguin's once-prized establishment as it went up in flames, and the Joker, watching the smoke billow up against the pale night sky in the mirror, whooped with unrestrained, appreciative laughter.

We were out and had survived the Oswald Cobblepot fiasco relatively unscathed. That didn't mean it was over—I got the sense that we'd barely scratched the surface of what had happened that night—but now that I was relatively safe, I realized that the beating I'd taken throughout the night was taking its toll. The Joker was at the wheel; I trusted him to get us somewhere secure. I barely had time to curl up in my seat and turn my face towards him before, impossibly and almost instantaneously, feeling safe for the first time in weeks, I fell asleep.

A/N - Dun dun duuuuuuuuun! This chapter brought to you by an unexpected snow day. Work ended early and I was able to devote time to getting this installment polished and pretty. (It was a particularly satisfying one to write, for the record. Full circle. Also Harley got to go full-on Natural Born Killers, which was satisfying.) J and Harley are safe- more or less- but there's still one more chapter to go, still some loose ends to tie up.

Before this is over and you all wander off, I just want to say- it's been a busy, writer's block-hindered winter, and I'm looking at a spring that looks to be even busier (I appear to be planning to live on my own for the first time, there's another niece/nephew on the way, work is getting more demanding)... and yet somehow, I'm going into it with more inspiration and motivation to write than ever, and I'm pretty sure that all of you are to thank for that. The interaction with you here and on the blog has made me consistently eager to show you what I've got, and let me tell you, in my experience, motivation is hard to come by once you reach adulthood and there are a million other little things calling for your attention. So thank you. In your interest and enthusiasm, you've given me a wonderful gift.

On that note- you'd think I'd be winding down along with the story, but the Batman 'verse has gripped me by the hair again (something to do with marathoning the movies and devouring the scripts, I don't know, go figure) which means there are more stories in the works right now. Which... is a good thing? I suppose only time will tell. Bottom line is that hopefully after this story I'll have something else for you pretty quickly. More information on my profile page.

I'm off to write more, but I'll work on those questions waiting in my inbox in between this update and the next. Till next time, leave stuff in the box below! Thanks for reading. :)