Author's Note: Apologies for the wait. I had some personal stuff come up end of May into early June which set the timetable back for both of my works quite a bit. Thankfully, the matters are mostly resolved now and we're back on schedule, with the next chapter well on its way to completion already and ensuring you won't have to wait nearly as long for the next installment.

Chapter Three

Knows No Answer

Harleen woke with a start, heart pounding in her chest as the alarm blared in her ear, the sound banishing whatever formless nightmare plagued her sleep and bringing her senses back to the calming interior of her motel room.

She turned the alarm off as she sat up in bed, covers falling away from her body to expose her naked torso to the cool air. She didn't have time to pick up some spare clothes last night, and God forbid she sleep in her uniform. She'd have to try to get a pair of cheap pajamas, or at least a large sleep shirt. A second, less traceable phone would also be ideal, obtained without Miss Waller's knowledge, but she'd concern herself with that task later. Right now, she had an appointment to keep, and there'd be Hell to pay if she were late.

The blonde climbed out of bed and headed into the bathroom. She washed her face using some of the complimentary soap provided by the motel, put deodorant on, and brushed her hair until it fell neatly past her shoulders. Then, using the makeup and sponges she'd picked up from the drugstore, Harleen coated her entire face and neck in a layer of foundation. The shade was close enough to her natural skin hue from before the Venom, before Him, and would help her blend into a crowd. She left her hands alone, though, as the cheap makeup would get on everything she touched if she tried to cover them. Instead, the blonde concealed her hands in a pair of black polyester gloves when she was trying to pass more incognito, hiding her physical deformity from sight.

Harleen basked in the feeling of being clean as she changed into her detective uniform. Cleanliness was a foreign concept in Arkham Asylum. She was allowed a quick shower every three days while on good behavior, but when Harley was unleashed she wasn't allowed outside of a straitjacket. Letting the body go to filth was one of Jeremiah's ways of breaking his patients. The physical state affected the mental and being denied basic hygiene was a seemingly small atrocity which compounded into something far more sinister than an inconvenience.

The address Waller texted her was on the north end of Midtown. Convenient as it wasn't too far away and would take less than twenty minutes to get there so long as she was able to weave around the unavoidable clusters of traffic. Harleen noted the route on her map app and, with a final glance around the room, made her way outside and down the stairs to her Street Rod. She disengaged the bike's security measure, exchanged her cap for the white helmet, and with a rev of the engine was soon on her way.

The morning was overcast; dark gray clouds covered the sky and diluted the sunlight into a gloomy ambiance. Gotham – with such a distinct demarcation between light and dark at night – was no less imposing during the day. The shadows abated, casting the city in melancholic monochrome hues not even the brighter colors of the graffiti could alleviate. Gotham felt lifeless under the Sun, a landscape painted in a diluted color palette by an artist with anhedonia, the impression exacerbated by the downtrodden residents shuffling along the sidewalks, eyes forward but glassy.

It took her only fifteen minutes to reach the address. Harleen turned into a main street lined with buildings sporting storefronts on their first floors, facing the thoroughfare. She followed her phone's instructions and was surprised when it ordered her to park in front of a locally owned coffee shop. Not the sort of destination she'd had in mind to host a corpse – Harleen was expecting a medical facility – but supposed Waller was playing tricks yet again. The older woman probably didn't trust a convict with the actual address and set this as the rendezvous to maintain secrecy. There was no one outside the shop, so the blonde parked her bike in an available spot on the street marked with a "1-Hour Customer Parking" sign, figuring if Waller kept her too long the older woman would be paying for the inconvenience of a parking ticket herself. Karma, and all that.

She exchanged headgear before walking into the coffee shop. Harleen kept her head down as she pushed the door open, only looking up once she was fully inside. The interior was not quite what she expected. The décor was done in an Art Deco style set in distinct achromatic shades of black and white. Black geometric patterns covered the matte white wallpaper. Black cushioned booths lined the right wall; their white tables lined with a subtle gold trim – the only noticeable color variance in the entire café. A more expansive seating area was in the back of the shop, shaded by low-hanging lamps, with a couple plush chairs and a loveseat set around a white and black streaked marble coffee table stacked with magazines. The counter took up the entire left wall, its surface made from the same marble stone as the coffee table, with a white brick backsplash extending from floor to ceiling behind it. A large black chalkboard affixed to the bricks listed the café's offerings. Below the counter was a glass display case filled with pastries and breakfast sandwiches too, and Harleen's mouth began to water at the sight.

Miss Waller was standing in front of the counter, body faced towards Harleen, waiting for her. The older woman was dressed in a white ivory and black pantsuit which matched the coffee shop's visual aesthetics perfectly, though in stark contrast to the store's warm atmosphere she wore her customary unwelcoming expression. Harleen knew not to take Waller at face value, however, and strode up to her new boss without flinching.

"You're early," Waller said in a monotone voice, though it betrayed a shadow of surprise.

"I believe that's a good thing," Harleen said without missing a beat. "It means I'm reliable."

Waller made a noncommittal sound of agreement and turned, looking up at the chalk board affixed to the wall behind the counter. Harleen turned in kind and scanned the offerings, mulling over her choices.

"Do you want anything?" Waller asked after a few moments.

Harleen shrugged. "That's up to you. Technically you're buying either way."

Without another word, Waller stepped up to the register. A college-age boy wearing a white apron, black suit, and a nervous expression adorning his acne-scarred face was standing behind the counter, waiting. He snapped to attention as Waller approached.

"M-morning, ma'am, welcome to–"

"I need a large Americano with an extra shot of espresso. If you burn it, I will not be pleased." Waller leveled her gaze at the young man for a bit longer than was, perhaps, necessary. He gulped and nodded, which seemed to appease her predatory instincts. The woman glanced over at Harleen. "And you?"

The blonde suppressed the urge to roll her eyes at Waller's domineering display. Figured that – on top of everything else – the older woman would turn out to be the ultimate Karen.

"I'd like a large, iced chai latte, easy on the ice." Harleen paused a moment. "And I'll take a ham and cheese croissant."

Waller nodded in approval. "Make that two croissants."

"Y-yes, I'll get that started right away," the boy said as he entered the order into his register's touch screen display.

The women watched as the boy and another employee behind the counter – a taller young man around the same age – set about making their orders. They stood in silence for a minute, until Harleen felt compelled to break it due to the overwhelming awkward feeling that came with a lack of small talk. The blonde had never been good with enduring silence.

"When you told me to meet you, a café isn't exactly the place I'd pictured," Harleen said at length.

Waller held up a hand. "I need my coffee first. We can talk business afterwards."

So, her new master was a caffeine addict. Harleen filed that piece of information away for future reference. Still, she acquiesced to Waller's request. They waited the remaining couple minutes without another word shared between them, watching the employees work behind the counter. At last, the acne-scarred boy placed two large biodegradable cups in front of them, along with a brown paper bag containing their warmed croissants. Harleen offered a brief thanks as she grabbed her latte and the bag. Waller eyed her own steaming cup with a calculating gaze. The employees and Harleen all watched with bated breath as Waller took a cursory sip of the drink without blowing on it first. The older woman swirled the liquid around in her mouth, savoring it, before she swallowed with an audible gulp. The tension in the air was palpable as the two men held their breath, shoulders tense.

Then, Waller made a contented noise. "Very good."

All three witnesses kept their eyes trained on Waller as the woman, without uttering another word, turned and exited the shop, the bells above the door jingling behind her. An audible sigh left the two employees once Waller was out of earshot. Harleen paid using her card and offered them another nod of thanks before following her master outside. Waller had paused, waiting for her, but once the blonde stepped onto the sidewalk the older woman resumed her march, heading around the side of the building into an adjoining alley. Harleen jogged to catch up with her, slowing when she was in lock step with Waller.

"Where are we going?" Harleen asked as they headed deeper into the alley.

"You wanted to see the body, practically begged me for the opportunity," Waller said before taking another sip of her scalding hot drink. "And I'm graciously abiding. You don't get to ask questions now." They'd almost reached the center of the alley when Waller came to a stop, turning so she could face Harleen directly, a stern expression affixed on her eternally stoic face. "You brought the evidence I requested," she said. It wasn't an assumption, but an order.

"I did," Harleen said with a nod.

"Hand it over."

The blonde had to juggle the bag and her latte cup around in her grasp to free up her right hand, stuffing the croissants into the crook of her left elbow in a balancing act. After some momentary fumbling she was able to unhook the plastic evidence box from her utility belt and hand it to Waller. The older woman took it without comment and held the box up to the light, eyes studying the hypodermic needle nestled inside. Harleen's gaze traveled over the metal piece in turn. It looked inconspicuous in the daylight; seemed clean to the naked eye, no hint it had any association with a grisly murder. About half a minute passed as they stared at the clue, Waller's expression never shifting into anything other than her unreadable mask.

"And the photo?" Waller said, breaking the heady silence as she stored the box in her pantsuit's jacket pocket.

Harleen reached into one of her coat pockets and pulled out the folded piece of white paper. Waller took it without comment, unfolding it with one hand to look at the printed image. She stared at it for a while, the corners of her mouth tugging into a slight frown at the blurriness of the image. Eventually, she folded it again and placed it in the same pocket at the plastic box, taking another long sip from her coffee cup.

"It'll do," the older woman said, more to herself than Harleen.

They were standing next to an empty span of wall in the middle of the alley. A vacant area between a graffitied dumpster and the rusted metal landing of a raised fire escape. A white rectangle was painted on the wall next to the dumpster, inconspicuous in nature until Waller walked up to it. Harleen watched, eyebrow quirked in a curious gaze, as the older woman produced a keycard and held it up to the rectangle. A moment passed before there was a low clicking sound and – without warning – a door-sized depression appeared in the wall next to them. Harleen watched, eyes wide, as a section of the alley wall slid back to reveal a dark opening leading into the side of the building, completely hidden from sight just moments prior.

"Come with me," Waller said as, without hesitation, she stepped into the newly revealed passage.

Harleen, so used to obeying orders, followed without question.

Fluorescent lights flickered to life overhead as they entered a descending stairwell. The metal walls and pipes in the ceiling gave the passage an industrial feel, though as they reached the bottom of the staircase Harleen noted a drop ceiling had been installed to hide the building's guts from sight. A fireproof door greeted them, but with another scan of her keycard Waller had it open, revealing a gray tinted hallway beyond lined with numbered dark metal doors leading into hidden rooms. They walked down the hallway in silence, and after about fifty feet they came upon a large window installed in the wall to their left. Harleen glanced inside, curious for any hint as to why this hidden government installation existed, and her mouth fell open a bit at what she saw.

The room beyond housed a full-sized laboratory, though what purpose it served Harleen was hesitant to say. The lab was all white cabinets and stainless-steel walls, clean and without a speck of dust, with laboratory equipment arranged neatly on the counters and tables; larger devices coordinated against the right wall. Three people were working inside the lab, two looking at microscopes and one writing chemical formulas on a rolling whiteboard. What piqued Harleen's interest was the fact they were all dressed in full biohazard gear, not one iota of skin exposed to the open air, and the blue facemasks they wore beneath the helmets concealed their identities from potential onlookers. The lab was a clean room, the blonde deduced, though it made her even more curious as to the nature of whatever they were working on down here in a concealed bunker.

Harleen took a moment to appreciate where she'd found herself. Inside a covert laboratory squirreled away in the middle of a bustling city, the place filled with secret government agents possessing questionable agendas. The whole situation was almost comical in its cliché absurdity.

"And I thought I had it bad for supervillain shit," Harleen said as they walked past the end of the lab's viewing window.

"If you value keeping my parole offer, Dr. Quinzel, I suggest you quash the urge to voice quips in my presence," Waller said without hesitation, her voice heavy with promise.

A smirk tugged at Harleen's lips, though she made sure her master couldn't see the change in her expression. She was so used to getting on Jeremiah's nerves that talking back had become an unfortunate habit of hers. She'd have to make a conscious effort to watch herself around Miss Waller. The woman was… more delicate than Jeremiah, in many ways, though Harleen would never voice the observation out loud.

They turned down another hallway and Waller brought them to a stop at the first door on their right. Another keycard reader was installed next to the handle, and the older woman held her ID against it. There was a familiar soft click as the lock unlatched and then Waller pushed the door open, leading Harleen inside.

The room beyond was a morgue. Constructed in the same stainless steel and white cabinet motif as the lab they'd passed; a familiar stench of cleaning fluid in the air, one Harleen recognized from the apartment in the Narrows. There were three mortuary tables placed inside the room, though two were vacant at present, the bulbs of the lights overhanging them dark. The only illumination came from the table at the end of the row, the one occupied by a body covered in a white sheet, casting the corpse in a harsh cone of light that diffused into shadows at the edge, near the adjacent walls. An aging man was standing next to the body, waiting for them. The mortician, by Harleen's calculated guess, as evidenced by his scrubs and the white jacket he was wearing over them. His face was charted by deepening wrinkles, the top of his head bald, and features cast in angles hinting at Slavic descent.

Waller nodded to the man as they approached. "Dr. Quinzel, may I introduce Dr. Resnik."

The man forced a smile and held out his hand towards Harleen. The blonde made a sound of recognition low in her throat and held up the food in her hands by way of response. He gazed at her for a moment in confusion before he made the connection.

"Ah, you can put those on the counter," he said; words forming around a heavy Eastern European accent. Dr. Resnik gestured towards a row of cabinets built into the wall across from the foot of the mortuary table.

"Thanks," Harleen said before she walked over and deposited her sundries. She returned to the doctor and finally gave him a firm, if somewhat awkward handshake.

His eyes made a slow, calculating scan of the color-coordinated woman. "You have a… unique look about you, Dr. Quinzel. Not the kind of person I'd expect to meet down here."

"Well, we're still in Gotham, you know," Harleen said with a slight shrug. "Have to stand out if you want to make an impression in this town."

Dr. Resnik gave her a wary look but didn't otherwise acknowledge the comment. "So, you want to meet our mysterious friend face to face, right?"

"That's why I'm here, yes."

"You read the autopsy report, no?"

"I did."

"Nothing else to see then, I'm afraid." His lips tugged into a slight frown. "I'm thorough in my work, you know. So, I must ask, why are you insisting on having a look for yourself?"

"I'm not doubting the veracity of your report, Dr. Resnik," Harleen said easily, the lie flowing from her with all the smoothness inherent in a truthful statement. "I'm merely curious by nature. I need to appease the urge before I can make any headway in my investigation."

The doctor's frown deepened, but after a moment he acquiesced with a slight nod. He turned, walked around the table until he was hovering near the center. With somewhat of a flourish, Dr. Resnik grabbed the white cloth covering and pulled it back, revealing the corpse hidden underneath.

Silence encompassed them as Harleen took her first good look at the victim. She knew from his brief biography the man was of Korean descent; his face more relaxed in death than in life, the hard gaze so prominent in his ID photo now smoothed into softness. There was the distinct Y-shaped stitching holding his chest and torso together post-autopsy. The neck wound remained intact, however, though Dr. Resnik had gone through the effort of cleaning the blood. It gaped open, revealing the back of his esophagus through the rupture, and folds of rendered skin and muscle surrounded the crevice in serrated waves.

Without saying a word, Harleen reached inside her jacket pocket, unwrapped a Dum Dum, and popped the candy in her mouth. She sucked on the lollipop – butterscotch, her favorite – as she leaned closer, assessing the corpse with a keen eye. The gears in her head began to churn at a rapid pace, the stray bits of thought, inclinations still without name, sliding into their proper places.

"No determinable cause of death," Harleen said in a low voice, more to herself than to the other people in the room. "The toxicology report found no trace of drugs or toxins in his system."

Dr. Resnik clicked his tongue in clear annoyance. "And the wound was inflicted post-mortem. You've read my report, you should already know this."

"Humor me," the blonde said as she rolled the Dum Dum around in her mouth.

The man scoffed and turned to look at Waller; the older woman was standing a few paces away, watching the scene with thinly veiled interest.

"Is she serious?" he asked. "Who is this, Amanda?"

"Play along for now, Miroslav," Waller said in an even tone.

'Amanda Waller,' Harleen thought, noting the full name in clear, bold letters inside her mind. She wouldn't forget it.

"Yes, well," the doctor said, clearing his throat as he turned back towards Harleen, "our friend here was in good health when he expired. Aside from the initial formations of a kidney stone he had no physical ailments. His organs were clean, no sign of substance abuse, and his stomach was full. He ate a few hours before death; pizza and chicken wings, by the looks of it."

"When was he found?" Harleen asked.

"By a colleague the following morning," Waller said, interjecting before Dr. Resnik could answer. "After he missed his daily check in."

Harleen's gaze cast over the victim's serene face. Her eyes settling, again and again, on the gaping neck wound. Something was off; a small yet intrinsic details waiting on the horizon, shuddering before the inevitable discovery. She just had to capture them in her mind's eye. The blonde leaned in closer, mere inches from the flayed flesh.

The inclination stirred.

"Can I get a pair of gloves?" Harleen asked after a protracted silence.

She saw Dr. Resnik's brows quirk out of the corner of her eye. "Why?"

"I like to be hands-on in my approach."

He looked at Waller for verification. The older woman nodded, and with a sigh the mortician walked over to a nearby row of cabinets. He opened a drawer, removed a box of latex gloves, and brought them over to Harleen.

"Thanks," she said with a small, polite smile as she took the offered box.

The blonde removed her black polyester gloves and slipped on a pair of the latex. She rolled her sleeves back, wiggled her fingers to adjust the fit, and leaned in. She gingerly touched the neck wound as she rolled the candy around in her mouth, sucking on it harder as her eyes narrowed, searching. Harleen ran the tips of her fingers along the serrated edges, feeling the rough bumps forever marred into the flesh, before prodding gently at the red tissue. Her mind churned as she searched, running for that metaphorical horizon, and then – with a delicate hand – she grasped the edges of the wound and slowly pulled it closed.

Dr. Harleen Quinzel wasn't a biology major. She knew the intricacies of brain chemistry. Had an entire doctorate to attest to that fact, but the rest of the physicality of the human form existed in a curious realm to a trained psychiatrist. She didn't look at the body in an anatomical nature; her interest in that subject extended as far as "what areas should I target to inflict the maximum amount of damage with a single swing of my mallet". No, when Harleen looked at a human's physical form she assessed it for an unspoken story. Looked for marks and tells and signs of damage. In her pre-Rogue days, the practice of analyzing the human body was done out of a necessary need to check for any evidence a patient was engaging in self-harm behavior. Then, as she became less "Harleen Quinzel" and more "Harley Quinn", her natural observational skills shifted in accordance. Harley would size up a mark before engaging in battle; would look for hints of weakness – whether the physical or mental – and exploit them to her advantage.

She'd never stopped observing the world around her. An entire subconscious machine chugged endlessly in Harleen's mind, sorting through all details her senses absorbed and distilling them into base, digestible facts. Practices formed out of an unfortunate childhood, later used to her advantage in grad school to make her one of the most effective psychiatry students to grace her former alma mater's halls, resulting in receiving her doctorate far in advance of other students her same age. When she became Harley, those same practices were her survival skills; kept her one step ahead of a volatile boyfriend and an underworld full of violence-inclined supervillains. Observation, assessment, and application had ensured Harley Quinn stayed alive when the whole world wanted her dead.

Then Jeremiah had gotten his hands on her, ran tests on her mental faculties and IQ and concluded – to the surprise of everyone who didn't truly know her – the former jester had a genius level intellect. That's when he decided to take advantage of her; put the blonde to work towards achieving his own personal ends. She already had all the necessary skills for detective work – problem solving, critical thinking, attention to detail, keen understanding of human behavior and psychology, etc. – though a distinct lack of ethical behavior which he forced out of her with the medication.

But that was a mental quagmire for another time.

Here, as Harleen held the wound closed, her old psychiatry skills came into play. The notation of bodily marks and the physiology of a patient's form for signs of change. And Harleen Quinzel didn't need to be a medical doctor to recognize what was missing here. She just needed eyes.

"Son of a–" Harleen pushed the lollipop to the side of her mouth. "Bring me his ID."

"Why?" Dr. Resnik asked.

"I don't care where you get it," she continued, ignoring him. "My phone, your phone, the file, I just need it."

He sighed, clearly exacerbated by this demanding young woman, but Harleen was too focused on her revelation to give much of a shit what he thought of her. Resnik had the case file on hand, and he removed the victim's ID photo from inside. He brought it over to Harleen, who jerked her head, a silent request he hold the image up for her.

"What are you looking for?" he asked, tone vexed.

Harleen ignored him as her gaze flitted between the corpse and the photo, verifying the truth. Then her mouth split in a wide, pleased grin. She had it.

"Do you see the difference?" she asked the mortician.

Dr. Resnik's eyes glanced once at the photo, then back at the body. "I don't–"

"Look closer at his ID photo. Study it for a minute," Harleen said in a harsher tone than she intended, but she pressed on without offering an apology. "There's a mole on his Adam's apple. Do you see it?"

The mortician squinted as he leaned in closer towards the picture. Harleen's attention fixed on the living, breathing man beside her, ignoring the corpse for an instant. There was a pair of reading glasses tucked into the front pocket of his white jacket, but he didn't even consider putting them on now, in a crucial moment where keen eyesight would have been a boon. She also noted the lack of indentations in the flesh of the bridge of his nose; evidence he wasn't a frequent wearer of glasses. Harleen saw it all, then. A man whose eyesight was failing him due to advancing age but burdened with too much egotistical pride to admit the handicap extended into all areas of his life, not just when he was reading documents. No wonder he'd missed it.

"Yes…" Dr. Resnik said after a protracted moment.

"Now look at the body." Harleen nodded towards the victim's neck. "See where I'm holding the wound together?"

The atmosphere in the room shifted as it became apparent where the blonde was leading the conversation. The mortician's face screwed in unwitting defiance, sensing her impending critique of his observational skills.

"Hm," was the only vocalization he made.

"It's not there," Harleen continued, voice trilling with the notes of excitement. "The mole is gone."

Silence settled over the trio. A triumphant grin blossomed on Harleen's face as she basked in her discovery. Dr. Resnik battled with the urge to comment, but no words were forthcoming. The silence stretched between them, becoming increasingly tense as it continued.

"What are you suggesting, Dr. Quinzel?" Waller asked at length.

"His murderer severed his throat for a reason. Not out of pure malicious instinct or an act of rage, but because they needed to remove a section of his neck. A thin slice, easily overlooked, but the missing mole gives it away." Harleen's blue eyes returned to the corpse. "Not all of him is here."

"That's impossible," Dr. Resnik said; a scoff carried in his voice. "I'm thorough in my work, Dr. Quinzel. I've been at this job for as long as you've been alive, for Christ's sake. If what you're saying is true, I would have seen it."

"The evidence is here, you just didn't catch on," Harleen said. She made a show of looking at the readers nestled in his front pocket. "Why aren't you wearing glasses, doctor?"

His face flushed a deep red. "Excuse you, I–"

"Enough," Waller interjected in a hard tone. "You may leave us, Dr. Resnik."

The man's face became, somehow, even redder. He glared at Harleen but submitted to Waller's order without argument. The two women stared at each other as the mortician left the room, closing the steel door a little harder than was necessary. Once he was gone, Harleen stood up, removing her hands from the victim's neck and taking off the latex gloves. She deposited them in a nearby waste bin and walked over to the counter where she'd placed her drink, removing the remaining dredges of her Dum Dum from her mouth as she picked up the cup. Waller waited until Harleen had taken a few big gulps of the latte before speaking again.

"Miroslav is getting too old for this line of work. Eventually people wear out their usefulness and invite replacement. I should force him into retirement, he's put it off long enough."

Harleen shrugged. "It's not my job to tell you what kind of boss you should aim to be."

Waller blinked slowly but pressed ahead. "So, what's your theory?"

"It's kind of crazy," the blonde said, running a finger across her forehead with a sigh.

"I expect nothing less from a clown."

"Well then," Harleen said, knowing it was best to ignore the jab. "I'm thinking his neck was the point of entry for whatever killed him. The murderer then removed the evidence to throw investigators off their trail. And, quite frankly, it seems to have worked."

"And what do you think killed him?"

The blonde leveled her gaze at Waller, knowing full well the skepticism that would follow her proposal. "Something administered by a syringe."

"Impossible," the older woman said at once. "If that were the case it would have shown up in the toxicology report. This should go without saying, but our testing is quite thorough."

"Funny, your man Miroslav also insisted on his thoroughness, and look where he ended up." Harleen paused, waiting for the inevitable wrath of Amanda Waller to come bearing down on her for the insolent remark, but – surprisingly – nothing came. A silence persisted between them for a few moments before the blonde decided to continue. "If I had to guess I'd say your man was killed by a previously unused toxin or chemical. Something homebrewed and manufactured specifically to not show up on a toxicology report. I know it might sound a bit overzealous, but we're in Gotham, home to supervillains galore, and we both know this city has a sordid history when it comes to poison."

Harleen was making a specific reference to the day He'd left a permanent mark on the face of Gotham. The dreadful day she'd lost Him forever and was sent into a downward spiral she'd yet to break free of. But an unrelated sense of recognition pinged inside the blonde's mind when she said "poison" instead of "venom". A slip of the tongue that brewed a nascent feeling of familiarity deep within her subconscious. In the dark realm delineating the distinct lines between Harley and Harleen. She forgot that dreadful day for a moment, set off kilter by her brain's unexpected response. Yet the recognition was fleeting, a weak pull in a direction with no destination, and – with a slight, imperceptible shake of her head – the blonde continued.

"It's my leading theory," Harleen said. "You don't have to like it, but considering I found a hypodermic needle at the crime scene I think the evidence is stacked in my favor."

"You said it yourself, Dr. Quinzel." Waller paused to take a sip from her drink. "A new, untraceable toxin developed entirely in secret, with no rumblings on the street? The whole thing sounds too ridiculous to be true."

"Stranger things have happened. Like a solar-powered alien who can fly and lives in a freaking ice palace."

Waller glared at Harleen over her cup. "Don't push your luck. I'm only abiding this theory because of a lack of other options, at present. Much as it pains me to say it, you can pursue this hunch, but within reason. If you start to go off the rails, I'll throw you back in Arkham."

"And what would that look like? Just so I have a frame of reference."

"Disobeying my orders if I tell you to drop it and recenter."

"Let's not let the investigation get to that extreme, then," Harleen said before she took another long sip of her chai latte.

A couple minutes of silence passed between them as both women nursed their drinks. Harleen fished around in the paper bag and pulled out her croissant. She took a big bite, humming to herself as she chewed. The cheese to meat ratio was on point, neither overpowering the other, and the croissant itself was buttery and flaky. She'd have to visit the café again during her off hours.

"What's your next move?" Waller asked, her voice breaking through the quiet.

Harleen finished swallowing her bite before she responded. "It's time for me to make a visit to the Iceberg Lounge. All manner of rumors and whispers float through there. If someone's been dabbling in illegal chemistry, Penguin will know."

Waller quirked an inquisitive eyebrow. "Isn't the Lounge rather dangerous territory for you?"

"I'm an old regular," Harleen said with a slight smile.

"And a traitor. You're not in the underworld anymore, Dr. Quinzel, you work for the authorities."

The blonde waved her croissant-wielding hand. "I've visited the club plenty of times after my incarceration. Oswald has a soft spot for me, considering he used to run jobs with my ex. Hell, he even gave me an invitation to his nephew's Bar Mitzvah. I couldn't go because of Jeremiah, but I made sure to send a card."

"Well then, you're practically family," Waller said with a slight roll of her eyes.

It was the closest the older woman had come to making a joke, and Harleen was content to bask in it.

"Penguin will parlay with me," the blonde said, voice strong and sure.

Waller stared at her for a long moment. An odd war played behind her dark eyes, as though she was weighing the possibility of losing her charge to an act of villainous revenge with a level of sincerity. Harleen wondered, once again, why Waller had sought her out specifically. Surely there were other, less controversial detective figures to appeal for help. Someone of her government background could have gotten a direct line to Batman himself, Harleen was sure. So, what had driven Amanda Waller to divert around the obvious, safe choices and get in bed with a demented former clown? Of course, the choice was working out in her favor, Harleen had already dredged up a viable theory after less than a day on the case, but she was an unconventional asset and potential flight risk. Besides, Harleen had never taken any oath or pledge of honor, and she had a history of usurping authority and going out of her way to cause chaos and mayhem. Waller shouldn't trust her with anything, but here the woman was, looking at Harleen with an undercurrent of genuine investment in her safety.

Though the real question remained to what end did that investment serve. Harleen knew Waller didn't care out of the kindness of her heart. There was something else at play in her emotions, and the blonde was missing the necessary pieces to put together a reasoning behind Waller's current emotions.

But she was sure the answer would come in time.

"Just don't draw too much attention," Waller said at length.

Harleen gave her a wide, winsome smile. "Fear not, I am the definition of subtlety."

End Note: I want to take a moment to give my heartfelt thanks to everyone who's left a review or comment on this story. It means the world to me to see how my words have affected people and I carry the most poignant reviews with me always. So please, feel free to leave a comment or a message. I read all of them, even if I don't always get around to responding. Of course, if you're more comfortable sending me a private message I've set up a tumblr for such occasions. You can find me over there under the name "mirrorofshalott".