"You're distracted."
Harley paused with the coffee cup at her lips and glanced across the rim at Jonathon. He'd wanted to see her one last time before he disappeared overseas. If he was still waiting on her to decide to come with him then he wasn't saying. She suspected he knew - after all, he was nothing if not smart.
"And exhausted."
Harley pushed her hair back behind her ear and resisted the urge to brush her finger tips over the purple shadows that had settled below her eyes. She was tired and distracted, it didn't take a mastermind to see that. What was uncomfortable was the concern evident in Jonathon's pale eyes. They followed her movements and locked in on the bruises on her wrist.
"They're from training," she explained somewhat defensively, tucking her arms under the table. It didn't stop him from having seen but it meant he couldn't stare at them with something akin to disappointment. She wasn't actually lying. She'd not had time to train all that often but when she did, she made up for it with extra aggression. Hamia was also starting to get worried but she'd kept her questions to herself so far.
She'd been spending long nights with Frost recently and it had almost started to feel normal. Almost. She'd nearly spent more time at True Crime than at her own apartment. Besides it's not like she could sleep anyway - as soon as she stopped that's when the anxiety swelled in her, twisting in her chest like a physical ache. But it was not nearly as painful as thinking about Joker getting the death penalty.
"You're distracted," Jonathon repeated and Harley realised her mind had wandered again.
"I'm sorry," she sighed, and she was. It didn't hit her until that moment that this could be one of the last times she got to see Jonathon. He was going to leave Gotham and there was no guarantee that the escape attempt wouldn't blow up in her face. She could be going to jail herself or she could get killed by a stray bullet. Joker's men were loyal but sometimes they had a habit of going off plan.
Harley wasn't sure what she preferred. Death held no appeal to her but neither did life in a cage. Maybe she could do what Jonathon did and negotiate a conditional release. Her career would be in tatters and all those whispers that had followed her since graduation would be more than whispers. They'd be in a fucking court transcript. Because Harley wasn't an idiot and she knew her best play if she was caught would be to become the ditsy blonde, who had let herself be manipulated into falling for the big bad wolf.
Her stomach turned at the thought. She knew exactly what would follow from that. Some sympathy but mostly a lot of scathing assessments about how she'd been so desperate for success that she wanted to fix the Joker by any means possible, even if it was with her body.
Harley was self-aware enough to wonder how much of it was true. How much had her ambition gotten her in this position? How much had been like calling to like? There had always been a coldness and darkness inside her and honestly if that had been it, she would probably have never gotten mixed up in this to begin with. It was Joker's ability to turn that ice to a painful, consuming fire that had softened her to the clown prince in a way she'd not been softened before.
Maybe the closest one to doing that was sitting across the table.
"I've been working hard," Harley said by way of explanation. The tightening of Jonathon's jaw told her that lie didn't land.
"You've always been so exceptionally bright, Harleen. Brighter than most people will ever know."
"Compliments now?" Harley took a small sip of her coffee.
"Don't make the same mistakes I made," Jonathon advised her in a low voice, leaning his elbows on the table.
"I'm not going to," Harley snapped, inexplicably angry at his warning. "I've no interest in creating madness."
"No, just in playing with it."
The way he spoke, Harley suspected that if he didn't know everything than he probably suspected. Her sleep deprived brain whirled with paranoid thoughts, wondering if she'd been careful enough going to meet Frost. Jonathon had sources everywhere across the city.
"Come with me," Jonathon urged. "Just… leave."
"I can't-"
"You can!" Jonathon cut her off before she could finish her sentence. "Quit, get your passport and be on a flight with me by this afternoon."
Part of her was tempted. Despite all his flaws, all his mistakes, Jonathon made her feel safe. She met his eyes across the table. They were startlingly sane. She didn't think this Jonathon would send her out to help him capture the most dangerous man in Gotham. This Jonathon was someone else entirely different and her breathing eased under his gaze.
And she didn't know him anymore. She'd changed too since they'd made their devil's pact and it didn't align with his growth.
She saw the understanding in his expression. The sudden sadness replaced quickly with resignation.
"I don't think you should do whatever you're planning to do."
He wasn't even trying to allude anymore. Just outright cautioning her.
It was pointless to play dumb and yet she did it anyway. Throwing up her prettiest mask, she smiled. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"You also have no idea that you're out of your depth. He's not like us, he can't connect with you like a normal person."
"We're not normal either, Jonathon," she countered, harsher than she meant to be.
"Maybe not but we're not even on the same scale as the Joker. He's…" Jonathon trailed off as he sought for the word.
"Crazy?" Harley supplied sharply, almost daring him to say the word.
"Dangerous," Jonathon concluded instead. "He's dangerous Harley. And he's going to get you killed because you don't matter to him."
And Harley didn't know how to respond to that, struck by the unexpected use of her nickname as much as what he'd said. She wasn't going to lie to both of them by pretending she understood the Joker. But a defiant part of her was as sure that she did matter to him as the part of her that knew how pathetic she'd sound if she tried to insist that he did care.
Jonathon finished his coffee and waved for the bill. Apparently he was giving up trying to make her see sense and Harley tried to be relieved. After all, Jonathon couldn't understand what he wasn't a part of.
"You're a grown woman, Harleen and you're more than capable of making your own decisions. But I hope you change your mind." Jonathon reached into his jacket pocket and then passed her an envelope.
"What's this?" Harley asked, touching the paper softly.
"A safety net." He then did something else entirely unexpected. He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Goodbye Harleen."
He left before she could think of anything to say. Jonathon had said farewell like he wasn't planning on seeing her again, echoing exactly what she'd been thinking. It rattled her.
Harley opened the envelope and a plane ticket fell out. It was a week from now and the ticket was for Morocco. It wasn't even a ticket to join Jonathon which somehow made it unbearably sweeter. Because Harley knew exactly what Jonathon was trying to tell her. Even if she didn't leave for him, she could still pick herself and escape.
She hastily wiped away the tears before anyone could see her cry in public.
…
Joker paced the nondescript room as Frost stayed seated.
"If this country didn't insist on respecting my civil liberties, I probably wouldn't escape as much," he mused, almost philosophically.
"I can let them know what we talked about?" Frost offered, making an uncharacteristic quip.
"Nah. No fun in staying here." Joker swung his arms back and forward. It was close, he didn't even need Frost to tell him. He could feel the energy change and the violence approaching like a blood-soaked psychic.
"How's my pretty doctor doing?" He had seen less and less of Harley in the lead up to the grand break out. She was pretending to lose interest in her patient now that he was on his way to the electric chair. Those brief moments weren't enough for him and he'd started to crave her. He missed playing with her brain and it was making him edgy. The were other things he missed about her too, like the heat of her in the palm of his hand. The sight of her pulse pounding under that creamy skin. Simple, animal things.
"She's committed. You've done good work keeping her on the hook."
"Work?" Joker all but spat. "What I did with her was art. She's nearly surrendered completely to me."
"Do you know what you're going to do with her once you pull this off?"
Joker steepled his fingers and started to giggle. "I'm going to bring her down off her high and leave her shattered."
"You want to give her to the cops?"
Joker shook his head. "No, it's more fun to let her go."
Frost allowed a brief flash of confusion to cross his face before it settled into neutrality once more. "Just let her go?"
"You haven't spent as much time with the Doc as I have. Nothing's going to hurt her more than realising I just don't give a shit about her."
"She's not stupid, boss, and she'd be loyal."
Joker tilted his head, fixing his stare on Frost with interest. "Don't tell me that she got in your head, Frost."
"Boss-" Frost started.
"Or maybe you got in her?" Joker stalked around his lawyer and fixer, fist clenching. Already anticipating violence, a centering heat washed over him.
Luckily Frost was familiar with his shifting moods and knew how to not rile him up further. "I was just suggesting that, as allies went, you could do worse than Quinzel."
"She should have thought about that before she called the cops!"
Frost spread his hands, knowing when to give in. "It's your call."
"Speaking of ruining the good Doctor's life, when am I getting out of this nut house?"
"Friday. Pending no unforeseen issues."
"They're going to come down on you hard," Joker pointed out, kicking out the seat across from Frost and taking it. It wasn't sentimentality, but Frost was petty much the one constant in his life.
"They start with me every time, I know the drill. I'll be on a flight to Vancouver the day before."
"So you're leaving the goons unsupervised?"
"Negative. An associate has a private plane that will get me here and back before they can begin looking for me in earnest."
Joker grinned broadly at his right hand man. "You're sexy when you're outsmarting the authorities."
Not rising to the bait, Frost shrugged.
"Anything else before I go?"
"Quinzel doesn't know I came to tell you, I told her it was her responsibility to give you the heads up."
Joker clapped his hands in amusement. "Fun!" That conversation at least guaranteed he'd have a few private minutes with the doctor. "And you've given her a role to play on the night?"
"Of course," Frost nodded. "One with very little impact on the actual plan."
"Do I pay you enough money, Frost?"
"I gave myself a pay rise."
…
Joker didn't hear from Harley until Arkham had switched to it's night staff. He had figured out that they were the more likely to take bribes, after all they were working the night shift for a reason, and that was when Harley would summon him.
He fixed his hand over his mouth at the guard who came to collect him, flashing the eerie tattoo on his hand. He was vibrating with a manic energy. His whole brain was consumed with the word 'soon' and it was chanting it on repeat. Soon, soon, soon.
Soon he'd be out of this shit hole.
Soon he'd have blood on his hands.
Soon he could gorge himself on chaos.
Soon he'd break Harley Quinzel into pretty little bits.
Despite his animosity, Joker was still struck by her beauty when he saw her in the office. Such a stark contradiction.
Harley thanked the guard and gestured at him to take a seat in front of her desk. She didn't offer to take off the hand restraints which was unusual and since they were fastened behind his back, it made sitting uncomfortable. He couldn't help but think she'd done it on purpose. It drew a low laugh from his throat. The black haze of cruelty hovering over his shoulders tempered it from his usual cackle.
Harley didn't speak at once. She was distracted, maybe listening for the guards footsteps to disappear. There was no food waiting for him and only one glass was used. It was almost empty. It was hard to disguise his delight. Her decision to help him was wearing on her. She was visibly torn.
Impatient for her to talk, he prompted her. "Harls?"
She snapped her focus onto him with laser intensity. "Puddin'?"
He ignored the barbs in the pet name and resist biting back. He had to go softly, softly with her now that he was so close.
"Did you bring me here just to look at me?"
She shook her head, as if she had forgotten why he was here. "It's on."
"What's on?" He was going to make her say it.
Like Frost, she also didn't rise to the bait. "Friday night. Sometime around midnight."
His shoulders relaxed and he tried to shift in the chair to get more comfortable. Harley was clearly in a mood and if he wasn't careful he'd say something that would make her just as likely to kill him as a judge. It was a strain having to be this considered and certainly something he had no practice in.
"Still don't want me to stand trial?"
He wanted her to say it, to confess to his face how much she needed him alive and in her world.
"I said I didn't want to see you die. Not when it was my fault."
That comment rankled him. They were only putting him on trial because they thought he had enough self awareness to control his actions and she was essentially claiming credit for fixing him. For taming him. Maybe instead of rescuing her, he should have set her on fire. He'd still be stuck in Arkham but at least no one would think she'd worked a miracle by curing The Joker.
He took her in, the sharp blue eyes and cascading blonde hair, and realised this was much more fun. She was everything society said was perfection and he was going to stain that image.
Harley had lapsed back into silence, making it harder to keep a leash on his temper.
"Cat got your tongue, Harls?" He asked a lot sharper than he intended.
"Do you think I'm going to die?" she asked abruptly.
Joker's eyebrows raised. "No," he answered honestly. "I don't think you'll die." Because I have bigger plans for you and I forbid you dying before I get to play with you.
Weirdly, Harley smiled at him. A soft, lopsided grin. "You can't promise that."
"I promised to protect you," he countered, more forcefully. "I promised to kill anything that hurt you." He mentally excluded himself from that promise.
"You know better than most that life doesn't work like that."
"Is this about Graham?" he demanded, heat meeting the waiting violence and spilling into his words. "I swear the first thing I do when I'm free is bring him to you on a platter."
Something black twisted in his belly at the thought of Graham. The fading scars were still visible on her skin.
"I still think I should settle my debts, just in case."
Joker was completely lost. "Debts? You sound crazy, Doc." He ignored the irony of using his least favorite word to describe her.
"A deal is a deal," she replied cryptically, taking the glass and tossing back what was left. Joker opened his mouth to ask more question but trailed off when Harley delicately slipped her hands under the skirt of her dress. In fact his mouth snapped shut when the carefully tugged her underwear down her legs and stepped out of them.
He wasn't known for impulse control but he'd be damned if he said anything that stopped what was happening now, even if he didn't understand what had triggered it for the life of him.
"A deal is a deal," she repeated,the grin more like a smirk now.
It came rushing back to him. Before she'd sunk that needle full of drugs into his skin, he'd asked her for something. And fuck him, if she wasn't paying up. His heart beat hard in his chest, in his throat, every where like a drum. It suddenly became apparent why she'd left him in handcuffs. Whether it was him that couldn't be trusted or her, Harley had built in a safety mechanism. With them pinned behind his back, he couldn't do anything but watch.
Using her hands, which were just barely trembling, Harley leveraged herself up on to her desk.
"No tricks this time, princess." He sounded ragged and needy as he eyed her knee length dress. Despite his restricted movement he was close enough the fabric brushed his legs.
"No tricks," Harley said with faux-innocence.
Harley was nothing if not good at finding loop holes so he didn't exactly believe her until she propped one heel up on to the armrest of his chair and then lifted the second to the other armrest. She wasn't smiling at him anymore and he couldn't find a fucking smile to give either. The shadowed expression on her face was taunting him and if it wasn't for the restraints, he would have moved by now. She was moving infuriatingly slowly and he wanted to demand more. Enough that he shifted forward in the chair.
"Uhuh," Harley tutted, wagging her finger. "No moving."
He could have killed her with his eyes. But he slowly sank back into the chair. If she wanted to take this last opportunity to drive things then who was he to deny her?
Joker inclined his head in a lordly impression of permission, which he knew would annoy her no end. Her eyes narrowed in response to his condescension and he wondered if she was going to hit him and he hoped she would.
But then she inched her dress up until there was nothing between her and him but distance. Joker quickly changed his hope from getting hit to her tugging down his pants to slide onto his dick, which had already been hard but had tightened at the sight of her.
Joker was plenty familiar with the apex between her thighs but hadn't had he opportunity to see it like this. Harley's knees were parted and he was framed between her legs, a suddenly willing captive.
She didn't speak now but if he had been condescending before she was now outright smug. He tried to school his expression into something… less. But he craved her in a way he'd never craved any drug and it kept him frozen in place.
Harley traced her fingertips up the skin of her calf and then her inner thigh, never looking away from him. Her pleasure in making him wait was obvious. He added it to the list of things she needed to be punished for but his heart wasn't into it. She was torturing him and it was exactly what he wanted. An antsy restlessness burned in him at watching her without touching.
She moved higher and higher,and finally touched herself where his eyes had been transfixed since she'd hiked up her skirt. Fingertips slid along the length of her and a soft moan escaped her mouth. Joker's fingers curled in on themselves at the sound. He could taste her on his tongue even from where he sat. If she would just let him free, he could be responsible for those sounds.
Harley's eyes fluttered closed for an instant but then she forced them open, as if she didn't want to not see him even for a second. His immobility was also turning her on and a flash of rage ran through him. She wanted him on a leash for this particular display. Unable to help himself he strained against the restraints.
Harley laughed then- a heady, breathy laugh- and he almost lost his mind.
"I swear to god, Harls, when I get my hands free!"
"What? You'll do what?" She prompted him, fingers circling and stroking.
"I'm going to put you in handcuffs. I'm going to strap your ankles down and then I'm going to find out how many games you like to play then."
Harley bit her lip and nodded. "I like playing games."
Despite his discomfort, he pushed forward in the seat. His shoulder brushed her calf. If he tried hard enough he could stand and then…
He banished the thought, he didn't want to fumble this. He wanted the control back, so he'd wait.
"You like winning games," he corrected, forcing his tone into something even.
"What does it look like when you win?"
She was toying with him - her chest was heaving.
"Hurting you," he confessed, unable to control himself. But apparently it was the right thing to say for the situation. Harley's fingers dipped inside. She gasped and her hips rolled forward, her head fell back.
"Good thing I win this round."
Her skin was flushed and despite his anger, he was transfixed. Yes, she was absolutely winning this round.
He let go of his rage. Let the sight of her spread thighs devour him. He surrendered himself to her.
"Show me," he growled simply. He wanted her to fall apart in front of him. This was what he'd asked for and could he really be mad that she'd found that loop hole she so loved? He ground his metal teeth against each other. "Show me."
A sound caught in her throat. She was close and his body was so tense it hurt.
She looked at him again as she approached her climax. He let her see everything that he kept hidden in his expression. All the hate, obsession, savagery and sex. Harley didn't shy away from it, if anything it spurred her on.
Her whole body went rigid, her fingers found a frantic pace and then she cried out. She came with his name on her lips.
She let her feet fall to the floor, suddenly cutting of his view. She was panting as she lent against the desk completely spent.
"Debt free," she managed to say.
"Oh princess. You worked up a whole new kind of debt and the minute I'm out of here, the minute you're not protected by guards and bars and cuffs, I'm going to collect."
It was a threat and a promise.
Harley just laughed.
