The Rabbit Hole
05.
Theme: Low - 'White Horses'
Helena -
Time was passing strangely. One moment Helena was in the deli, the next she was boarding the metro at the South Park subway even though she didn't remember walking there. First, she was on the L train south. The next thing she knew, she was on the S train east, just a stop away from the Cauldron, and realized she must have changed trains.
Grin & Bare It was a long building with a gravel parking lot to one side, its name blinking in pink neon on the wall. Helena crossed the street and walked straight inside. She could feel the patrons watching her curiously as they played pool and drank pints, but she ignored them, heading straight for the bar along the back wall.
"What can I get ye, lass," the ginger barman greeted her, eyeing her as curiously as the rest.
Helena felt like she hadn't spoken in years. She licked her lips and swallowed thickly, her throat dry as a desert.
"I need to speak to Molly Sullivan," she told the barman quietly.
"You got a name, lass?" he asked warily.
Helena pressed her lips together, knowing she was taking a risk. She hesitated and then plowed ahead.
"I'm Helena Bertinelli."
The barman's eyebrows rose, and after a prolonged pause, he nodded soberly.
"This way, love," he said, inclining his head.
He led her down a short hallway to a small office and knocked twice on the door before sticking his head inside. He spoke to someone, then turned to Helena, waving her into the office.
It was a tiny, cramped space that was likely intended to be a storage room. A desk had been squeezed in amongst filing cabinets and boxes, and sitting behind the desk was a plump woman of about fifty with curling red hair and rosy cheeks. She stood up as Helena pushed the door shut behind her.
"Mary Magdalen's tits," Molly Sullivan breathed, her eyes sweeping over Helena. "I haven't seen you since you were a little girl."
Helena edged closer, cautious but intrigued. "You know me?"
"'Course I do, Helena," Molly frowned. "I knew your daddy too."
Helena's throat suddenly felt thick, the aching pressure behind her eyes building like she was about to burst into tears. It was the first time since she found out Pino was dead, and she felt a sweeping relief that nearly made her light-headed.
Molly's face softened with understanding, and she quickly shuffled out from behind her desk.
"Come now, love," she pulled up a chair and directed Helena into it, giving her the impression she'd guided more than one traumatized person to sit down.
Molly leaned against the desk, folding her hands in her lap as she watched Helena pull herself together. They sat there in silence for a full minute before Molly spoke.
"I'm sorry about your brother," she said soberly. "He didn't deserve what happened to him."
Helena looked up at Molly, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. "You really knew my father?"
"I did," Molly nodded. "He was a good man. A fair man."
"Really?" Helena croaked.
"Really," Molly nodded again. "Back when Carmine ran the city, the families were always at each other's throats. But we Sullivans were loyal to your daddy."
She paused and eyed Helena cautiously like she wasn't sure if she should continue, but Helena leaned forward eagerly.
"Your daddy and Carmine had what I'd call a…." Molly made a face. "A tumultuous relationship. But Carmine was top dog, and he had his favorites who got a better shake than your Pa. So, Franco did what he could to protect what was his, and that included making a deal with me brothers."
"And Mandragora?" Helena asked bitterly. "Did my father have a tumultuous relationship with him too?"
"Aye," Molly's face darkened. "He'd be one of Carmine's favorites. Ya know, I had four brothers? Billy and Mickey, they were killed by those Protestant O'Riley cunts." Her small mouth curled into a scowl. "And Mandragora got the other two. Now that bastard's put Pino in the ground, same as he did your mum and all your cousins and uncles."
Helena's jaw wobbled, tears building in her eyes as she listened to Molly. Here was someone who knew, who really really knew what it was like to be the loser. To be the one to suffer, again and again, with no end in sight. She could see her pain reflected in Molly Sullivan's eyes. She could see her swallow that pain, feeling powerless as she thought about the ones she'd lost, or rather, the ones taken away from her. Helena had never met someone who understood so clearly, unlike Dinah, who'd suffered her own trauma, but ultimately never understood because she'd never had a family to begin with. She'd never lost.
But Molly understood the violence of loss, the brutality of senseless death. She understood Gotham in a way Dinah never would.
"Power and blood are all that matters in this fuckin' city," Molly shook her head. "It's worse now than ever with Lucy Falcone and the Commission."
"What can we do?" Helena demanded. The anger was back, tenfold now, because it was for Molly too. "We have to do something,"
"And what do you suggest, love?" Molly smiled, a little bitterly. "We put hits out on Mandragora and his boys? And Lucy Falcone too?"
"Yes," Helena agreed immediately. "They have to pay."
"Love, Lucy Falcone owns all the muscle in town," Molly explained gently. "Who's gonna be doing this killing for us?"
Helena's heart suddenly started to pound. She looked down at her hands, which she'd clasped together in her lap, her knuckles yellow and bloodless, still swollen from the night before.
This was the part she hadn't allowed herself to play out yet; this abstract idea tied up with her anger and grief. But she realized then she's already decided, even if she hadn't admitted it to herself until that moment.
She'd decided the moment she saw Pino's corpse.
All the years she'd spent training, futilely trying to release the pressure of grief and frustration, the powerlessness, the rage. It was all still trapped inside her, growing like a cancer.
Maybe this whole time, subconsciously, she hadn't been searching for relief.
Maybe she'd been working toward this moment. Maybe she'd always known this day would come.
It was a sacrifice for what was right. It was a purpose.
Helena looked up at Molly, her face resolute even as she felt tears stinging her eyes.
"I'll do it," she said, swallowing thickly. "I can do it."
Molly's eyes rounded with sympathy, as if she understood all too well.
"You don't know what you're signing up for, love," she said kindly. "Even if you manage it and don't end up dead yourself, there won't be any coming back from this."
Helena licked her lips, searching her feelings for reluctance or hesitation. But neither was there. She only felt an intense need to act, to make things right no matter what it meant for herself or her soul.
"I can do it," she said again, holding Molly's gaze. "But I need your help."
The Joker -
Harley was snoring her head off—big, loud, guttural snores.
The Joker lay beside her in a dusty canopy bed at their rarely-used hide-out Uptown. He had one arm folded behind his head as he smoked a cigarette, watching a spider climb through the once-shiny fabric draped from the canopy above. The spider braved some of the more ridiculous ruching before winding down the lacquered bedpost, where it disappeared behind an oversized bow.
The whole place felt like a glamorous but dusty time capsule. Everywhere you looked were glitzy light fixtures in the shape of starbursts, glossy-black walls and geometric-print carpets that made you feel like you were hallucinating if you stared for long enough. There was a wealth of bizarrely-shaped furniture, all of it upholstered in crazy-colored velvet that would have once been bright but had dulled with age.
It was right up the Joker's street.
Harley made a loud, foghorn-style sound—the loudest one yet—and the Joker smirked as he took another drag off his cigarette.
She was all tuckered out after they'd spent the night catching up on quality time together. It had been much needed with things all hectic at the moment—a little stress relief.
He let his head flop to the side so he could see her, squinting through the dust dancing on streams of chilly, mid-morning sunlight. She was facing away from him with the duvet pulled up to her neck, her white-blonde hair messy against the threadbare gold pillow.
J let his cigarette dangle from his teeth to free up his hand, and tugged the duvet down to her waist, revealing the creamy expanse of her back. He brushed her hair aside so he could see the scar on her shoulder where a bullet had passed through her two years earlier. Nothing life-threatening, but it kept her off her feet for a week, which had infuriated her. That felt like a little cosmic justice after all the times she'd forced him to stay in a bed to 'heal.'
He ran his thumb over the scar and then over the sharp ridge of her shoulder blade, letting his fingers trail down the curve of her spine, slowly sliding over each vertebra.
She sighed and shifted, waking up, and his hand stilled at her lower back as she lifted her head to peer at him over her shoulder, her eyes heavy with sleep and smudged greasepaint.
"Mm," she blinked at him, not quite awake. "You're smoking?"
"The thing broke," he informed her gruffly, showing her the fake plastic cigarette and its blinking red light.
She squinted at it, then sighed and rolled toward him, pulling the duvet up to cover her chest as she closed her eyes and settled into the pillow.
"You just need to charge it," she mumbled. "Like a phone."
The Joker made a non-committal sound and finished the last of the actual cigarette, crushing it out on the side of the bed before dropping it to the floor beside the three he'd had already since waking up with the sun. He pivoted back to Harley, pushing her hair over her shoulder so he could see her face.
She sighed again, her eyes still closed. "I can't stop thinking about what Walker said," she sounded more awake this time. "About hope."
One of the Joker's eyebrows jumped up. "Uh… why?"
"Because," she shrugged and snuggled into the pillow. "He wasn't wrong."
The Joker narrowed his eyes, not following. "How's that?"
In truth, he let about ninety percent of what Walker said fly in one ear and out the other. Killing the Batman to make life easier for Gotham's bad guys was a non-starter in the Joker's book. Easy was boring. Besides, people had been trying to kill the Bat for years. Eddie getting his panties in a twist wasn't exactly a threat.
"If there's no more Batman," Harley looked up at him. "Where does that leave us?"
The Joker rolled his eyes and propped himself up on one elbow so he could look down at her.
"Stop," he advised, tapping her on the nose with his index finger. "Don't let that dumbass get in your head."
"But one day, this all has to end," Harley pointed out. "And—"
The Joker slapped a hand over her mouth, cutting her off.
"Stop," he wagged his finger in her face. "Enjoy the ride, Harl. It's what you're best at once you turn the Big Brain off."
He felt her smile behind his hand. She threw off the duvet and fell onto her back, her lithe body like a spill of pale cream against the garish gold sheets. The Joker immediately crawled on top of her, his knee sliding between her thighs as he braced an elbow beside her head. His hand shifted into her hair as she ran her fingers up his back, urging him down to her.
She tasted like she always did after sleeping a long time, so familiar her mouth may as well have been his own. The Joker remembered a long, long, long time ago when all of her was new and surprising. The way she felt and tasted, how her mind worked, and the insane lengths she was willing to go to. But also the things she made him feel. Fascinated, obsessed, a little scared.
Over the years—so many years—the Joker's fascination with Harley had become less about her surprising him and more about how she was an unchanging constant at his side. Together they were an unstoppable force of nature, never standing still, never-ending. But this thing between them, it was always the same.
And that was what got him—what twisted him all up and spat him back out. How could something so unchanging be so satisfying and never get boring?
She locked her knees around his leg, her body rolling like a wave beneath him, making his cock hard where it was pressed against her hip. He fisted a handful of her hair, pulling hard enough to make her gasp, her legs tightening with pleasure. He shifted to the side so he could touch her, palming her waist and her breasts and the nape of her neck before he hooked a hand behind her knee and yanked it over his hip. He fell onto his back, their mouths still fused together as he dragged her with him, so she was sitting astride him.
Her lips grew more frantic as she planted her hands on his chest and rocked against him, her hair spilling across his face, smelling of gunpowder and greasepaint and all things Harley Quinn. He gathered it up in his hand, scooping it to the side so he could get to her throat, sucking on a tendon in her neck as she wrapped a hand around his cock. His mouth grew messier, less precise as she stroked and squeezed him, his tongue trailing thoughtlessly from her throat to her ear and back again.
"C'mere," he muttered, scooping her up and urging her closer so she was sitting on his chest. She got the idea pretty quickly and reached up to grab the oversized headboard above them. J slid down off the pillow, and after a few moments of wiggling and adjusting, he got her where he wanted her, straddling his face so he could taste another oh-so-familiar part of her body.
"Oh, God," she croaked, her fingers scrabbling for purchase against the headboard, her thighs trembling on either side of his face.
The Joker chuckled against her, which had the fantastic effect of making her cry out happily, a tremor of pleasure racking her body. He could taste her excitement, her body soft and slick against his tongue, and when he teased her with a fingertip, another tremulous whine slipped past her lips as the headboard smacked against the wall.
She climbed off him too soon, her breathing shaky as she batted his hands away and twisted to the side. She pitched forward on all fours, so she was facing the end of the bed, and the Joker propped himself up on his elbows to watch as she planted one hand beside his hip and took his cock in the other, stroking him twice before she wrapped her lips around him.
He exhaled roughly, the heat of her mouth and the slide of her tongue making his blood leap in his throat. She was on her hands and knees, facing away from him, and he let his hand glide over the curve of her ass, enjoying the view. He ran his thumb over her pussy where it peaked out between the backs of her thighs, wet with his saliva and her desire. She moaned around his cock when he stroked her, which was all the prompting the Joker needed to manhandle her back on top of him so she was straddling his face and he could run his tongue over her while she did the same to him.
They kept pace with each other, slowing down to draw it out when they got close, then picking it back up again to drive each other into a frenzy. The Joker's pulse pounded steadily in his neck, dizzy from the taste of her smeared across his scarred mouth while her lips glided up and down his cock. He slid two fingers inside her, the angle making it easy to find the spot that always got her right where he wanted her. She gasped and bucked against him, and he wrapped an arm around to hold her in place, tonguing her clit while he scissored his fingers inside her. She came with a low moan, her hips bobbing against his face as she rode her orgasm out above him, still sucking his cock enthusiastically. The Joker's whole body tensed as she pushed him over the edge, euphoria washing over him in a hot, white flash that made his eyes roll back in his head.
Eventually, she rolled off him, panting as she landed on her back with her head beside his knees and her feet beside his head. Content and lazy, the Joker started to doze off until he heard her sniff loudly. He opened one eye to look down at her, not at all surprised to see her wrinkling her nose as she smelled the sheets, which were gold and moth-eaten and had been there for God-only-knew how long. Since whoever owned the house died, probably.
"Hmm," she muttered to herself, planning something bedding-orientated.
Oh yes, the Joker thought wryly. Some things would never change.
Ed -
There was an adorable little hole-in-the-wall taco joint in the Meatpacking district that made margaritas to die for, and it was Ed's favorite place to meet Pammy. Off the books, of course. She was Harley's bestie first and foremost, so Ed's friendship with Pam had always been something of une liaison discrète, which had worked beautifully for years. Harley and J were Ed's rivals, sure, but it was a rivalry based on an inside joke, on a shared desire to give Gotham a purpose and have some fun.
But then Mommy had to go ruining everything. She pulled the rug out from under Ed in the worst possible way, leaving him weak, infirmed, damaged. And that changed everything.
Not only did it change his dynamic with Harley and J, but it made Ed wonder.
In this game of war he played with them, there was always a layer of understanding that it wasn't real. That it was just a game none of them intended ever to win.
But if it wasn't real, did it really mean anything?
And if it didn't mean anything, wasn't it just a colossal waste of time?
Ed almost died. He wanted to feel alive. He wanted his life to mean something.
These were the thoughts that plagued him while he recovered from the bullet Harley put in him, forever marring what was once a perfect right buttcheek. He'd been laid out on his stomach for weeks while he healed, refusing to see the Sirens and putting on a brave face for Lee while she tended to him. And all the while, he was stuck with his feelings, forcing him to reassess his entire life and everything he'd built for himself.
Ed sighed as he parked his smoke-green Mustang out front of the taco joint. He wouldn't typically bring Greenie to the eastside. He rarely drove her or any other car, for that matter, the Sirens all too eager to be his chauffeur. But the girls couldn't know about his meeting with Pammy. They got so jealous so easily and Ed obviously adored that about them, but he couldn 't subject Pammy to it, and he could hardly be expected to take a cab like some plebeian monster.
As it was a covert meeting, he'd dressed down for the occasion, or at least he'd tried. It had started well enough. First, Ed selected a very plain navy sweater from Balmain and the most gorgeously comfortable cashmere trousers from Joseph. Then the most delightful black loafers from Gucci. But one did want a hint of drama, even when undercover, and it was bitter cold out that morning, so Ed wrapped himself up in his most fabulous brown mink coat, making him feel like Elizabeth Taylor avoiding the paparazzi. In that same vein, he chose a pair of oversized cat-eye sunglasses, and because he was incognito, he draped an emerald silk scarf around his head and neck, pinning it with a gold and diamond brooch.
And, of course, his cane, a depressing but fabulous twist. It was encrusted with Savowrski crystals and topped with an Emerald the size of his fist.
Perhaps incognito wasn't Ed's specialty.
He pushed open the taco shop's door, the bell ringing cheerfully as he swept over the threshold like a Hollywood starlet arriving on set.
Ed spotted Pammy near the back, two frozen margaritas in green fluted glasses already on the table in front of her. She was wearing a chunky-knit sweater in a very chic pale blue, no jewelry, and her dark red hair was tied back in a sloppy high-pony. She smiled and stood up when she saw Ed sashaying toward her, feeling more like he was at a cafe in St Tropez than a dirty little taco bar in Gotham.
"Pammy, darling," Ed kissed her on both cheeks.
"Hello, Ed," she smirked.
Her eyes glittered impishly as she sat down while Ed slid into the booth across from her. He clasped her hands across the table, letting his cat-eyes sunglasses slide down his nose so he could examine her.
"Pammy, you look so thin," he frowned, a faint line appearing between his eyebrows. "Is everything alright? Are you working too hard?"
Pam chuckled and gave Ed's hands a reassuring squeeze. "I'm fine, Ed. I've just been traveling a lot recently. Work is busy."
"You work too hard, darling," Ed admonished her, releasing one of her hands to pluck up his margarita.
He took a few dainty sips and looked her over again. She did look thin, that sassy bitch, her cheekbones a little sharper, and her eyes a little hollow though she'd tried to cover it up with concealer. There was something a little frazzled about her just around the edges of her aura, like an unsteady current she was just about keeping under control.
Ed wondered if Harley had noticed Pammy was unwell, and decided she was far too self involved to notice the suffering of others—even her dearest friends.
"How have you been, darling?" he asked slyly, hoping to find out more.
"Oh, the usual," Pam shrugged and smiled at him. "It looks like your physio is going well. You're hardly limping anymore."
"Oh, hush, Pammy," Ed gasped. "You know I don't like to talk about my infirmary. It makes me feel dreadfully—"
"Ed," Pam cut him off, one eyebrow raising. "You got shot in the ass and had to do some physical therapy. But you're fine now. Stop acting like an aging queen who's too old for the stage."
Ed gasped indignantly. "How dare you, Pammy! When I'm so fragile!"
Pam chuckled and shook her head, reaching for her margarita. "Harley's worried about you."
Ed scoffed, a bitter note he didn't like at all creeping into his voice. He assumed by worried about him, she meant Harley was worried about what he might do, not about him personally. Harley was far too cold-hearted to think about how hard the last month and a half would have been for him. First, the shock of her shooting him, making everything all helter-skelter. Then the long recovery process, dealing with Lee and the girls and all his thoughts and feelings.
He humphed sulkily. "I don't want to talk about Harley."
"So you're not trying to kill her?" Pam raised her eyebrows again.
"Well, who knows," Ed flapped his hands impatiently. "It's always kind of been on the table, hasn't it? And she doesn't seem especially interested in me anymore."
"She's been looking for you for weeks," Pam pointed out.
"Only because she thinks I may do something looney-toons," Ed fell back in his seat, suddenly depressed and wishing he hadn't agreed to this meeting.
Of course, Pam wanted to talk to him about Harley. She was Harley's bestie first and foremost, though Pam and Ed had developed a deep and meaningful bond over the years. Harley had the Joker, and Pam would always come second to J. Always. But being number two didn't bother Pam like it bothered Ed, and he took comfort in their little numéro deux club together.
And yes, he was aware of Harley and J's search for him, which somewhat consoled him. It was nice to think of them running all over town trying to pin him down, coming so close and not even realizing it.
But he was still hurt. And he had become disenchanted with their games.
"Ed," Pam reached across the table for Ed's hand again. She fixed him with a knowing look. "Are you okay?"
Ed sighed and stoked the soft mink lapel of his coat, pacified that she cared and knew him well enough to ask, especially when she was obviously going through something stressful herself.
"I'm thirty, Pammy. I'm an old maid. I'm going to die alone."
"You have your Sirens," Pam said, making a sympathetic face.
"I need a partner. Not sidekicks." He shot her a loaded look. "And you always refuse to team up with me."
Pam laughed softly.
"Just think of it, Pammy!" Ed leaned forward and lowered his sunglasses so she could see he was genuine. "You and me, talking over the city. How marvelous it would be! With your power, no one could stop us."
"I'm not the taking over the city type," Pam took a sip of her margarita then flashed him a mischievous grin. "But if I were, you know it would be with you."
Ed preened at that, sitting up straight and beaming, his lousy mood floating away.
"So," he gushed, hinging forward again. "What have you been working on? What's with all the travel and secrecy? Come on, Pammy, you can tell me."
"Oh, the usual," she said, evasive. "Just growing new plants and saving the world."
"Come on," Ed coaxed, still curious about why she was looking so drawn and ooh, a little twitchy too now that he was looking at her closely. "You've always got a little something more going on."
"Well," Pam hesitated, her green eyes flashing with that spark of mischief again. "Harley and I are robbing the Gotham History Museum on Wednesday night."
"Fun!" Ed gasped happily, forgetting he was mad at Harley. "Boo. I miss the Squad."
"And what about you?" Pam smirked. "What are you working on?"
Ed bit his bottom lip. He considered telling her because gosh, what he had coming was fantastic and cathartic and exactly what Gotham needed. A kick in the pants. A change in order. Something real. No more pointless games and fake wars with no risks and no meaning.
The end of the Batman.
That would genuinely throw the city into chaos.
Pam raised her eyebrows expectantly, waiting for him to talk, and Ed toyed with telling her for just a moment longer before he sighed forlornly.
"You almost got me, Pammy," he wagged his finger at her. "But I know you'll go running to Harley when you hear what I've got in store."
"What you've got in store for Harley?" Pam asked, her brow knitting with concern, and Ed found he liked that worry on her face even more than all that mischief. It made it all feel real. There were stakes this time, real ones.
Stakes that made Ed feel alive.
"Well," he flashed her a smile of straight white teeth. "You'll just have to wait and see."
Harley—
They spent the day dozing and indulging in one another and discussing the particulars of Ed's business with Killer Moth and whomever else he'd recruited for his dream team. They agreed it didn't particularly matter if Ed was out to kill the Batman— there were plenty of people who wanted to kill the Dark Knight. Even if Ed was a competent adversary, the Bat could handle himself, and Harley and the Joker hardly needed to step in and protect him.
The mental gymnastics required to justify such a situation was more than Harley was willing to concern herself with.
But the fact that Ed and his new team seemed to think they could had Harley hooked— the Joker less so, she could tell — but she needed to know more because whatever Ed was planning, it could still come back to bite her in the ass.
And she couldn't shake the niggle of worry that a reckless, emotional Ed was a dangerous Ed.
There was only one person left to turn to. One person who cared about Ed's well-being, and knew many of his secrets. It was time to pull that thread and get some more answers.
The safehouse they'd stayed the night at was full of once-glamorous moth-eaten furniture and smelled like old, dead things. It served as more of a storage facility than a living space. That storage included a huge hard-case full of clothes Sofia Falcone brought Harley on her last visit to town, just as the Calculator guessed.
The turtleneck and jeans Harley had with her were sweaty and smokey from their adventure the day before, so she shuffled through the contents of Sofia's suitcase, searching for something pretty that would endear her to Lee. She decided on a long-sleeved A-line dress in crimson, with frilly lace at the cuffs and collar, and the flat, thigh-high black leather boots she'd managed to keep alive all these years. She shrugged on the houndstooth-print coat and turned to the Joker, who was all in black—black suit, black shirt, black overcoat, black shoes - no tie.
He raised an eyebrow at her bright clothes. "That's inconspicuous."
"You look like you got lost in Victor's closet," Harley countered with a scoff, making him chuckle.
It was coming up to six, and neither of them had eaten in nearly a day, so they detoured to Robinson Park to find a food truck for sustenance. The only one they came across was selling fried egg sandwiches, the same kind Frost had sourced for them the day before, making Harley mutter discontentedly as she watched the vendor lay a bright orange slice of cheese on top of the fried egg fizzling on the grill.
"Wah, wah, wah," the Joker taunted her as they walked to Lee's, eating the sandwiches out of foil wrappers. "It's food, Harl."
"It's going to kill me before Ed can," Harley muttered, wrinkling her nose as grease dropped down her fingers.
Lee wasn't home from work yet, so the Joker picked the lock on her front door. Time spent at Lee's was generally not the happiest, with one or both of them typically injured. Her place was a two-bedroom apartment on the top floor of a townhouse split into two units. After their first visit, when Lee saved the Joker's life, they'd learned Lee's downstairs neighbor was an old woman whose family put her in a retirement home, and the family had yet to sell or lease the space.
From the current state of Lee's apartment, that was for the best. Harley's eyes widened as they stepped over the threshold—Ed and the Sirens' presence was everywhere. From the racks of flashy clothes and stacks of shoeboxes in the living room to the cloying smells of perfume and hairspray, to the obviously stolen oil painting of blue and purple flowers that looked like female genitalia. There was a litter box in the kitchen, which had never been there before, and as Harley's eyes swept the living room and kitchen, she spotted a flash of a fluffy white tail disappear under the sofa.
"Jesus," Harley muttered, pushing the door shut behind her. "Did they move in or something?"
"Hmm," the Joker mused, stopping in front of the painting. He cocked his head to the side and eyeballed it with a smirk, correctly identifying the meaning.
Harley wandered down the hall, first poking her head in the bathroom where she'd once chained Ed to the tub. It had been taken over by the Sirens, with boxes of hair bleach and cases full of makeup scattered around the sink. The spare bedroom was more of the same; velvet capes and bodysuits in jewel tones hung alongside glittering evening gowns and sherbet-colored suits. And the shoes—there were so many shoes—white gogo boots and spindly stilettos and bulky high-heeled sneakers.
Harley returned to the kitchen to find the Joker poking through the fridge. She shrugged off her overcoat, and just as she chucked it over the kitchen counter, a key slid into the lock on the front door.
Dr Lee Thompkins stepped over the threshold with a bag of groceries under her arm. She was approaching sixty, but she didn't look a day over forty —possibly, Harley realized, because Ed was providing her with plenty of Pam's Faux-tox to keep her forever-young. Her black hair had a fashionable gray streak through the front, and she had warm brown eyes, the corners creased with crow's feet. She wore a very dull, practical uniform of Chinos and a sweater, as one would expect from a doctor working at a free clinic in the Narrows.
"Hey, you two," she smiled, pushing the door shut behind her. "This is a nice surprise."
"Hiya, doc," the Joker purred, flashing her a naughty smirk that made the color rise in the apples of Lee's cheeks. "How's tricks?"
"Tricks are good," Lee blushed as she squeezed past him to put her groceries away. "What brings you by?"
"We're trying to find Ed," Harley explained, glancing around the living room. "Though from the looks of this place, all we have to do is wait around, and he'll be back."
"Oh, you know what he's like," Lee rolled her eyes. "He's a hoarder. This is just a fraction of what he and the girls have collected."
"Word is Eddie, and uh, the girls have been stockpiling all kinds of toys," the Joker edged closer to Lee, catching her eye and leaning toward her. "Now, I don't suppose you know what that's all about, hmm?"
Lee looked down at her groceries, pursing her lips before looking up at the Joker, her kind eyes imploring. "Even if I knew, you know I couldn't tell you."
The Joker hummed thoughtfully, holding her gaze a moment longer before he spun away, gesturing for Harley to take over as he wandered out of the kitchen.
"Lee, it's different this time," Harley insisted, watching her put away the groceries. "I'm… worried about him," she admitted uneasily. "And I'm worried he'll do something stupid like try to kill me after what happened."
"He would never do that, Harley," Lee admonished. Then she paused, reconsidering, which was enough for Harley to know she wasn't entirely sure that was the case either. "But he's not in a great place right now."
"That's what I mean," Healry pressed. "A dark place for Ed could mean anything. He could destroy the city, try to kill us, make a deal with a total lunatic. Anything."
"I think you're overthinking this, Harley," Lee observed kindly. "He's just lonely."
"Lonely?" Harley's eyes widened, bemused.
A quiet purring behind her made her turn, and she laughed when she saw the Joker standing with his hands on his hips, his attention on a fluffy white cat circling him like a prowling tiger. It was wearing a pink, diamond-encrusted collar and waving its tail seductively. Harley thought she'd never seen something embody Ed like that cat in all her life, especially the way it was trying to get J's attention.
"That's Sassy," Lee explained, smiling when the cat edged up to the Joker to rub against his leg. He took a large step back, but the cat followed him, undeterred. "I thought Ed could use a friend while he was… recovering."
Harley nearly winced. She already knew Lee would have been the one to save Ed's ass —literally and figuratively — and though she still didn't necessarily feel guilty (maybe), there was a degree of embarrassment that she'd shot him by accident.
"Was it horrible?" She asked.
Lee sighed as she put the kettle on. "He was off his feet for almost a month, and he's still using a cane to get around."
Harley did wince at that.
"But he was lucky," Lee shrugged. "The bullet went in at an angle, so the muscle took most of it. It's just a case of exercising to get it back to normal." She glanced at Harley. "I think it was being here on his own while I was at work that got to him. Sassy helped a little, but it's not the same, you know? It's not like what you guys have."
Harley folded her arms over her chest, frowning. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, you guys have each other," Lee explained, her eyes drifting to the Joker and Sassy — the cat was now following him around the room despite his efforts to outmaneuver it. "When one of you gets hurt, you have each other. When one of you is burned out, the other one can pick up the slack. This lifestyle can be very lonely, Harley. I think Ed just wants someone to share it with."
Harley sagged against the kitchen counter, her brow knitting together as she considered Ed's loneliness as a factor in his decision making and if it was more or less dangerous than boredom.
Boredom, she understood, but loneliness wasn't something she'd ever been burdened with. Before she met the Joker, she socialized because it was what she was supposed to do, but she never particularly enjoyed it. It was only after those first sessions with J at Arkham that she could remember feeling a genuine connection to another person.
And it didn't stop with him. Pam, Roxy, Sofia…
Dinah…
Harley accepted the cup of tea Lee passed her, blowing on it quickly before she took a sip.
"I think he'd appreciate that you're worried about him," Lee said, watching Harley over her teacup.
"I'm not worried about him," Harley scoffed. "I'm worried about him killing me."
"Okay," Lee offered Harley a smile that made her feel like she could see right through her.
She looked away as Sassy the cat jumped up on the kitchen counter, its fluffy tail wagging as it stared at Harley judgmentally. The Joker came up behind her and leaned against her back, planting his chin on her head and eyeing the cat warily. Its gaze was firmly fixed on Harley, unwavering.
She narrowed her eyes at it, trying to understand what it wanted from her.
Lee sighed and planted her hands on her hips, looking at Sassy mournfully, and Harley realized they were all staring at the fucking cat like a proxy for Ed.
"Maybe it would be a good idea for you guys to talk," Lee suggested. "In a civilized way," she added firmly.
"Civilized," the Joker scoffed.
"Can you set something up for us?" Harley asked, and she didn't miss the moody flash in Lee's eyes.
"I haven't been able to get through to him in a few weeks. Not since he was well enough to leave," she admitted, a little bitterly. "The girls have been by, though. I know they've seen him."
Ah, jealousy. Lee was jealous of the Sirens' working relationship with Ed while she was relegated to den mother-slash-paramedic.
Harley could work with jealousy.
"They kind of took over your bathroom, didn't they," she observed, and Lee huffed impatiently.
"They go way overboard with the bleach so their hair just comes out in clumps," she made a face. "My bathtub will never be the same."
Harley shot Lee a smirk. "Want me to do something about it?"
A sly, slightly sneaky smile crept onto Lee's lips. "Like what?"
"Oh, you know," Harley rolled her eyes up innocently, her smirk growing. "Just ruin their day a little bit." She looked at Lee again. "All I need to know is where to find them."
Lee ran her tongue over her bottom lip, well aware that if she squealed on the Sirens, she was breaking away from her position as neutral territory, a staple of her existence in the five years since Harley, Ed, and the Joker came barging into her life, spicing everything up.
While Lee thought it through, the Joker wrapped an arm around Harley's waist from behind, drawing her back against him and distracting Lee. Her eyes slid over them, and Harley saw her uncertainty melt away, replaced with something more like longing.
The Joker seemed to pick up on it too. He reached up to take Harley's chin between his thumb and forefinger and turned her face toward him. Harley met his gaze over her shoulder, closing her eyes as he lifted her chin and lowered his mouth to hers. He kissed her slowly, not salaciously, but his lips warmed her blood up all the same, and she released a satisfied little hum as his arm tightened around her.
When he pulled away, Harley didn't fail to notice Lee watching them closely, blushing but pleased.
Lee sighed and rolled her eyes, a game smile on her lips.
"Oh, fine," she agreed jovially. "The Sirens are going shopping tonight. At Saks."
"Shopping?" Harley raised her eyebrows, bemused.
Dinah -
When Dinah got home around 3AM, Helena's boots were kicked off by the door, a puddle of melted snow around them like she'd gone for a walk. Helena was asleep in bed, wrapped up in woolen leggings and a Princeton sweatshirt, her earbuds in. Dinah checked her phone to see what she'd been listening to — a Spotify playlist of rainforest sounds. She took off her eye makeup and changed into her pajamas— plaid flannel bottoms and a thin camisole—then looped her hair up in a ponytail and climbed into bed.
She watched Helena sleep, worrying about her until she could no longer keep her eyes open.
In the morning, she woke up to Helena's voice, low and sad as she spoke to someone on the phone in the living room. Miranda, maybe.
Dinah pulled on a loose, woolly sweater before she slipped out of the bedroom and joined Helena on the couch. She was still in her pajamas, her dark hair slung into a low, messy bun, listening to NPR and working from her laptop. She only glanced up when Dinah lowered herself onto the sofa beside her.
"Hi," Dinah said, her voice coming out quiet. Almost timid.
"Did you catch him?" Helena asked, her attention on her laptop.
"No." Dinah didn't want to talk about Tetch. She didn't want to think about what she and Montoya were planning on doing. Collaborating with people associated with Pino's murderers. "Are you working from home today?"
"Mm-hmm," Helena hummed, distracted. "There's coffee," she added.
Dinah nodded. She yearned to make this better. To help in some way. She just didn't know how.
"Will you let me know when you're ready to talk?"
Helena looked at her sideways. She looked exhausted. There were purple circles beneath her eyes, and her cheekbones looked sharper than usual, and she was so pale.
"Don't you have to work today?" She turned back to her laptop, shaking her head.
"I have a lot of paperwork to catch up on. I can do it here," Dinah explained. "And Montoya needs to take her mother to the hospital."
That made Helena's eyebrows raise. She glanced at Dinah. "Her mother?"
"She has Parkinson's," Dinah stood to retrieve her work laptop from the kitchen, and when she returned, Helena was reading a Wikipedia page about Parkinson's Disease.
"Shit," she said quietly. "That's rough. No wonder she drinks."
"Mm," Dinah agreed. She curled up in the opposite corner of the couch, opened the laptop the GCPD provided her with —it was a piece of crap, old, slow, and clunky —and got to work.
That was how they spent the day. In their PJ's on the couch, working from home, and not speaking very much to each other. Dinah knew pressing Helena to talk would not go well. She wasn't numbly staring into space or spiraling into anger anymore, but the tension between them made Dinah feel resented, and that thought made her itch to leave.
But she stayed. She sat there and did her paperwork, and she stayed. Even if she wasn't wanted.
Around five o'clock, the winter sun was sucked out of the sky, replaced by the darkness that felt more natural in Gotham. Dinah made mushroom risotto for dinner. It ended up watery and crunchy no matter what she tried, but Helena ate it without complaint, not teasing Dinah for being a horrible cook like she usually would.
It was approaching 8 PM when Montoya texted Dinah to tell her she'd set up a meeting with Bullock. She told Dinah to stay home with Helena, but after a day of inaction, Dinah was tempted to slip out and do one productive thing. Just one. She spent maybe twenty minutes fidgeting and contemplating the best way to raise it with Helena, but it turned out she didn't need to say anything at all.
"Just go," Helena sighed, shooting her a knowing look. "Let me guess. Renee's checking out a lead tonight?"
"Yeah, kind of," Dinah admitted, or maybe lied, uneasily.
"Do what you have to," Helena shrugged, ambivalent. "I'm going to bed soon, anyway."
Dinah lingered a little longer, not wanting to insult Helena by pushing back when it was evident she wanted to go but also not feeling very good about leaving. Eventually, she texted Montoya to pick her up on her way and changed into a white button-down shirt and a camel-colored suit from H&M. She threaded her holster through the belt loops of her slacks, then unlocked the gun safe in the bedroom closet and retrieved the Ruger. Beside it was Helena's Beretta 96, which she insisted she needed even though it never left the safe. It gave her some sense of comfort, Dinah assumed, an idea that made her uneasy.
She didn't bother with makeup or jewelry or doing her hair. She just shrugged on her black winter coat, stepped into her motorcycle boots, wrapped a blue scarf around her neck, and went downstairs to wait at the curb. Montoya pulled up in her crappy Buick fifteen minutes later.
"Shit," she observed as Dinah climbed into the passenger seat. "Rough day?"
"Yeah," Dinah replied glumly. "I don't want to talk about it. What's going on with Bullock?"
"We had a little…." Montoya's mouth twitched up on one side as she pulled away from the curb. "Discussion. He's no fan of the Mad Hatter either. We're gonna meet him at the Cheetah Bar. See what his buddies there have to say."
Dinah sank back into her seat as they headed south and then east toward the main drag Uptown, which was full of noisy bars and clubs catering to a mix of midtown executives, socialites, and mobsters. The latter either ran the clubs or controlled them via protection rackets. All of it made Dinah's skin itchy.
Montoya pulled into the L-shaped alley behind the Cheetah Bar, a gentleman's club where the dancers wore body paint and little else. Dinah tried to decide how Bruce would feel about what they were doing. She couldn't afford to be puritanical like she might once have been, not when she had a pedophile to catch. If working with corrupt people was the only option available to her, so be it. It wasn't entirely dissimilar to Bruce's approach as the Batman. He worked outside the system, outside the law. Dinah worked within it, around it. But they both worked within the gray.
"You don't have to come in, ya know," Montoya pointed out, but Dinah shook her head.
"It was my idea. I'm coming in."
They approached a backdoor where Bullock was waiting for them. He was a sloppy, tired-looking man in his fifties who wore a tattered brown coat and a trilby hat. It sat crooked on his scraggly gray hair, his eyes bloodshot and puffy, his face hang-dogged from too much booze. He led them through the back door, where there was a hallway leading down to the main floor of the club and an office guarded by two surly-looking thugs.
Bullock reached into his coat pocket for a flask, which he took a quick draught off.
"C'mon, let's get this over with," he groused.
One of the thugs stepped aside while the other knocked on the door before pushing it open.
It was apparent this as all agreed to in advance.
The club's back office was decorated to look like a smoking lounge. The paneled walls were painted a dark forest green that matched the floors. There was a painting of a jockey with a prized stallion on the wall and a box of cigars sitting open on a mahogany desk. Behind it sat a heavy-set black man with a shaved head. He wore a three-piece pinstripe suit with a pink tie knotted in a fat Windsor knot, a diamond stud in one ear, and a heavy gold band around his wedding finger. He sat back and folded his thick arms, eying them all suspiciously.
"Mr Gambol," Bullock said once the door was closed again. "This is Detective Montoya, and uh, Detective…"
"Lance," Dinah filled in, not bothering to correct him that she was still an officer.
"Yeah, Detective Lance," Bullock continued. "They're the two I told ya about."
Gambol narrowed his eyes and looked between them, silently judging them. Dinah's heart started to beat a little faster, but she kept her face neutral, her hands in her pockets, waiting for him to speak.
She suddenly found herself wishing her face was covered, an idea that startled her.
Montoya pulled out her Juul and took a drag off it.
"So," Gambol ran his tongue over his white teeth. "They got two bitches looking for the Mad Hatter, huh?"
Dinah's hand curled into a fist in her pocket, indignation sweeping through her. She heard Montoya take another drag off her Juul, but she didn't say anything.
"Fats, c'mon. There ain't no need for that," Bullock admonished, with a familiarity that made Dinah feel sick. "Can we give em' some help or not?"
Gambol cocked his head thoughtfully, hunching forward to brace his elbows on the table.
"Look, I ain't hearda either of you before," he started, his meaning obvious — he knew they weren't corrupt. "But I got fuckin' kids, ya know? And my wife. She's fuckin' scared. Wants em' to sleep in our room in case the Mad Hatter sneaks in." He shrugged helplessly. "But as you can imagine, the people that work for me, they ain't exactly big fans of pigs."
"We don't wanna cause any trouble for your people," Montoya drawled. "We just wanna get this freak off the streets, and to do that, we need a little information from someone who used to work with him."
"Duffy," Gambol rubbed a hand over his mouth. "Alright. I'll get you ten minutes with her. That's it."
"Thank you, Mr Gambol," Montoya had composed her face into a cool mask, giving nothing away. "We appreciate that."
"But you gotta do something for me." His eyes drifted to Dinah, narrowing at her.
She held her breath. The idea that they would owe this man a favor made a knot of dread form in her stomach. It could be anything. He could ask them to cover something up. To kill someone. He could keep them under his thumb one way or another if he wanted to. That was the kind of power these people had over police officers.
"When you find Tetch?" Gambol raised his eyebrows meaningfully. "You put a bullet in his head."
"Of course," Montoya replied. "Tetch's a dead man. We just gotta find him first."
There were a few parting words —mostly Gambol ribbing Bullock, who would act as a messenger to let Montoya and Dinah know when and where they'd get their ten minutes with Duffy. Then they were shuffled out of the office and into the alley, where a new layer of snow had fallen in the short time they'd been inside.
"We good?" Bullock asked Montoya gruffly.
"Yeah, we're good," Montoya agreed moodily.
Bullock nodded shortly and reached for the flask in his coat as he began to turn away, pausing briefly to shoot Dinah a speculative look. He pulled his trilby down over his eyes, took a swig off his flask, and slouched away without another word.
Dinah watched him disappear around the L-shaped alley, frowning as that sense of deja vu hit her again.
There was something about him —something she couldn't put her finger on. Like she'd grazed up against him before.
"God, I need a drink," Montoya muttered, her face strained as she ducked into the car.
Dinah got in the Buick as Montoya started it, and one look at her face told her she was feeling the full weight of that 'Thank you, Mr Gambol.'
"There's a bar uptown called Queenie's," Dinah said. "The beers are cheap."
Montoya shot her a dubious look. "Since when do you drink?"
"Even I need one after that," Dinah shrugged. "And if we're going to drink, we may as well do it with drag queens."
Montoya snorted, spinning the Buick's wheel more forcefully than was necessary as she pulled out of the alley.
"That may be the smartest thing you've ever said, Lance."
"Thanks." Dinah pulled her phone out and composed a text, letting Helena know she'd be home late.
She didn't need a drink so much as she wanted to provide Montoya with moral support and discuss what just happened. But she was also honest enough with herself to know she wanted to delay going home a little bit longer—home to Helena, who didn't want her around. Part of Dinah felt like there was a stink on her. The stench of corruption, of filth and criminals. She felt like Helena would be able to smell that she'd just rubbed elbows with a mobster, possibly one connected to Pino's killer, and that she did nothing but stand there silently while Montoya said, 'Thank You. Mr Gambol'
Okay, Helena replied.
Dinah sighed heavily, smoothing back a strand of hair that had come loose from her ponytail as she considered replying. She stared at her phone, contemplating an I love you, or maybe an emoji when an email notification popped up.
She swiped the screen out of habit. It was an email to her GCPD account from "youknowwho oracle dot com" with the subject line "Welcome Back!"
It looked like spam, but Dinah opened it anyway, and her eyes immediately widened at what she saw there.
BC!
AMAZING news that ur back in Gotham! Wish I could be there toooooo!
I got some SERIOUS intell for u ;) But LOL Spoiler Alert! The GCPD's server isn't super secure. *COUGH* Anarky *COUGH*
Hit me up on Signal! I'm on 216 - 445 - 9999
Let's work together BC! I am HERE FOR IT!
(PS: Delete this, then empty ur recycling bin, plz & thank u)
- O
Dinah read the email about ten times, her pulse picking up as a flash of anxiety raced through her..
BC.
She scrambled to delete the email and empty her recycling bin as "O" suggested, then tucked her phone away, trying to breathe evenly and put it out of her mind. She had far, far too much on her plate to entertain whatever that was.
Harley -
Saks was the most exclusive and expensive department store in Gotham. Smack in the middle of the Diamond District, it was an art deco behemoth that took up half a city block and carried luxury brands only the most affluent of Gotham's citizens could afford.
It was Ed's favorite place in the world, so she was less than surprised to hear his Sirens went 'shopping' there. The store closed at 10, and a quick peek at the CCTV cameras around 11 showed the Sirens and a group of Ed's more expendable henchmen had rounded up all the night staff and security. They'd bundled them up in a nice little hostage situation on the fourth floor—womenswear— while Ed's thugs kept everything quiet so the girls could 'shop.'
Frost picked Harley and the Joker up from Lee's in his Cadillac. Harley was squeezed between him and the Joker on the long front seat, uncomfortably full after eating seconds of the dinner Lee made for them—roast chicken with vegetables.
The only vegetables Harley recalled seeing in weeks.
She let her head fall back against the worn leather seat, sighing and berating herself for eating so much when she needed to attack, threaten, fight and possibly kidnap or kill one of the Sirens, all of whom were accomplished fighters and wouldn't be easy targets.
With a bit of help from Lonnie, Frost pulled into the staff parking garage without drawing the attention of Ed's henchpeople keeping an eye on the security cameras. They parked near the basement elevator and clambered out of the car, the Joker looking sharp in his new suit, Harley looking uncomfortable as she tried to shake off her indigestion and get her head in the game.
They'd loaded up the trunk with an elaborate selection of weapons, which the Joker and Frost picked through like greedy candy-hungry kids on Halloween, plucking out grenades and multiple rounds of ammunition. Harley accepted a sawn-off double-barrel shotgun, which she estimated would make for an excellent blunt object once she ran out of shells.
She left her coat in the car, her crimson dress with its frilled cuffs a rich pop of color against her white face and blackened eyes. She slung the shotgun over her shoulder and tucked a knife in one of her long black boots. She slid her phone in the other then turned to the Joker, who was watching her with an amused look on his face.
"What?" she demanded, but he just shook his head and pounded the button for the elevator with his fist, stepping aside with a flourish so she could get in first.
As the elevator rose, Frost pulled a small white case from his back pocket and offered it to each of them—earplugs. The Joker used to scoff when Harley started wearing them in explosive situations like the one they were about to walk into. But he was almost entirely deaf in one ear after an encounter with the Batman's fist, and it seemed to get worse every year. He was a stubborn ass, but he wasn't about to fuck up his one good ear.
Harley wiggled the earplugs in as Frost, and the Joker did the same. She rolled her shoulders back and rocked her head from side to side as they passed the third floor and arrived at the fourth The elevator doors dinged open, and she hauled one of the shotguns up under her armpit, her eyes narrowing as she absorbed the scene taking place in Saks' womenswear department.
Five security guards were bound and gagged on the floor between the elevator and a row of mannequins wearing gold dresses with poofy shoulder pads. The hostages were surrounded by Ed's thugs, who carried automatic rifles and wore dark green boiler suits with hoods and steampunk goggles. It was Ed's idea of a threatening uniform to make his henchpeople identifiable, but the goggles ruined their peripheral vision, making them easy to take down.
Like now.
Frost pulled the pin on a grenade and lobbed it into the gaggle of hostages and thugs, some of whom managed to dive out of the way to miss the blast.
The elevator rocked perilously in the shaft, prompting Harley to leap out with the Joker and Frost on her heels. She took out two of Ed's thugs with the shotgun when a flash-bang grenade went off behind her, this one exploding in a cloud of red-tinged smoke that quickly blanketed the room.
Harley spotted one of the Sirens, Gem, leap out from behind the row of shiny gold mannequins. Her hair was bleached white blonde, and she wore an impractical pair of blue and red hot pants with a matching bralette beneath a chubby black mink coat. Harley fired a shell at her and missed, blowing the head off one of the mannequins instead. Gem ripped a pair of knives out of her coat, baring her teeth as she expertly threw one at Harley's head and raced toward her.
Harley dove sideways to avoid the blade, landing on her side so she went skidding across the marble floor. She pumped the shotgun and took another shot at Gem, who dodged it easily. The shell hit a mannequin wearing a pink-sequinned costume, which exploded in a shower of glitter as Gem threw the second knife at Harley, missing her by inches.
Harley kicked herself to her feet, but Gem was on top of her a second later with a long ka-bar knife in her hand. She lunged and slashed at Harley, who had to bend backward to avoid being gutted like a fish.
Out of shells, Harley used the shotgun like a bat, taking Gem by surprise when she cracked her across the face with it. It knocked her out immediately, and she went careening to the marble floor, landing in a heap of black mink and glitter.
Frost set another grenade off, making the floor beneath Harley's feet rattle and her ears warble as the red smoke was replaced with acid green. Through the acrid cloud, a second Siren appeared —Mari Noir, her white-blonde hair stark against her olive skin and dark brows, her black lace unitard ridiculous beneath her leopard-fur coat. Mari came hurtling toward Harley with a red-lipped snarl, wielding a baseball bat like a pro. She took a swing at Harley's head, which she handily ducked, then caught the next blow with the shotgun, which vibrated in her hands.
Mari took another three swings at Harley, which she avoided by slipping right and left, then jumping into a double back handspring. She threw the shotgun aside and ripped the knife from her boot as Mari sprinted toward her, and Harley dropped to her knees, skidding forward and slashing at Mari's ankle before she knew what was happening.
Mari yelped, her legs flying out from under her. She lost her grip on the baseball bat and landed flat on her back, and Harley lept on top of her, straddling her chest and holding the knife to her throat.
"Where's Ed!" she roared just as Frost set another grenade off, this one filling the air with thick purple smoke.
Before Harley had a chance to threaten Mari again, the last Siren came sprinting out of the purple cloud. Shimmie, a leggy bottle-blonde wearing a sequined American flag leotard beneath a white fox fur coat and wielding a modified automatic that looked exactly like Harley's preferred gun.
Harley scowled and glared down at Mari, who was spitting curses in Spanish and fighting for freedom despite the knife at her throat. With an irritated snarl, Harley yanked Mari's hand up beside her head, and stabbed her through her palm, the blade sinking into the floor and pinning her there. Mari screamed, and Shimmie screamed too, firing indiscriminately as she raced toward them.
Grabbing Mari's baseball bat, Harley jumped to her feet and threw herself into the nearest boutique to take cover. She dove behind a display of mannequins while Shimmie emptied her clip, the constant rattle of gunfire ripping holes through racks of expensive clothes. Harley looked up at the mannequins above her, and her eyes widened when she realized all three of them were wearing her coat — the red and white houndstooth coat Sofia gave her. And not only that, but the mannequins had large red lips and black eyes with heavy fluttery lashes, their faces chalky white.
Harley's mouth fell open as she looked around, realizing she was taking cover in a Sofia Falcone boutique. She huffed indignantly, and despite the perilous hail of gunfire overhead, she grabbed her phone out of her boot and took a picture of the three mannequins dressed like her before texting it to Sofia.
?!, she added for context.
Shimmie ran out of bullets, and Harley leaped to her feet before she could reload. She spun Mari's bat around her wrist like a batter winding up and marched out of the boutique into the haze of colored smoke. There were dead thugs and hostages scattered across the floor along with the incapacitated Sirens. Shimmie struggled to load a new magazine into her gun, and she scowled when she saw Harley striding toward her, blackened eyes narrowed, bat in hand. Shimmie cast her weapon aside and, with more crazy than Harley had given her credit for, bolted toward her head on, weaponless. Her white fur coat flapped behind her as she threw herself into an aerial-cartwheel double-back handspring with a triple-axel-twist, her sequined bodysuit glittering under the department store lights.
Harley planted her feet as Shimmie vaulted toward her, preparing to pick her off nice and easy with the bat, when Frost set off another grenade. Harley watched it sail through the air, feeling like she was watching it move in slow motion right up until it exploded in a cloud of pink smoke that threw Shimmie off course, sending her flying into a display of Louis Vuitton bags.
Harley was thrown to the floor, the baseball bat flying out of her hands as she rolled across the carpet, over and over, finally coming to a stop under a row of mannequins wearing fashionable suits over lingerie.
She groaned, her body aching, her ears warbling, and she slowly pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, lifting her head to look around.
Frost popped up from behind a sales desk, pulling his clown mask up on top of his head.
"You alright, doc?" he called.
Harley nodded weakly, waving him off as she got to her feet.
The smoke started to clear as Harley staggered over to the Joker and Frost, who were peering down at Shimmie where she was sprawled out on the marble floor, unconscious.
"Gem and Mari got away," Frost explained. "Will this one do, doc?"
Harley's mouth twitched up on one side as an inspired idea came to her.
"Yeah," she glanced at the Joker, sharing a smirk. "Yeah, she'll do."
Yuppie Don -
It was just after midnight when Yuppie Don stepped out of Carluccio's Downtown and lit a cigarette. His crew was feeling good. They'd been celebrating for almost two days straight after a big payday for tracking down the Bertinelli kid. They weren't just living it up because of the cash—Don's boys were Mandragora boys, and now that Mandragora was part of Lucy Falcone's Commission, big things were on the way for all of them.
Don couldn't have explained trickle-down economics to save his life, but being three or four steps down the ladder from the Queen of Gotham herself was something to celebrate.
He and his boys had been holed up at Carluccio's all night, starting with a raucous dinner then sticking around to drink wine and whisky until Carluccio closed up and joined them. The busboy sat down too, and Don's boys ribbed him for being a little pipsqueak before giving him a few lines of the good stuff.
Don took a long drag off his smoke as he examined the quiet Downtown street. The coke was getting him excited, ambitious for what would come next now that he was in with the Commission. In Gotham, ambition could just as easily make you rich as get you killed, but Don liked to think he was smart enough to navigate that line. He'd get something nice set up for himself in the Commission, buy a house for his girl. Maybe then she'd finally give in and marry him, have a couple of kids…
An engine revved down the street, and Don looked up in time to watch a sleek motorcycle carrying a rider all in black speed past — a Ducati V4 if he saw it right, one of the fastest and priciest bikes out there. He'd heard about a shipment of those falling off the back of a truck a few weeks earlier, but a bike that nice could easily belong to some trust-fund-fucker who'd never worked a day in their life, let alone need wheels like that.
The Ducati disappeared around the corner, and Don's thoughts turned back to his girl. He wondered if she'd give him more hell over buying a too-small ring or a too-small house.
He finished his smoke and ducked back inside where the boys were sitting around a table covered in a red and white checked tablecloth, laughing it up in celebration.
Mugsy put Journey's 'Don't Stop Believing' on the jukebox and started singing along like a maniac, making Little Gigio crack up until he was pounding on the table. Carluccio joined in even though he didn't know the words, swinging his arms wildly as he bellowed along in broken English.
Don shook his head, chuckling. Ah, yeah. They were all feeling good.
The calm was abruptly interrupted when the doors behind Don crashed open, the wood splintering under the force of the blow.
Don spun around just as a figure dressed in black came barrelling into the restaurant, heading straight for him. He reached for his pistol, but they got to him before he could free it from the holster. A sharp elbow broke his nose, making his eyes stream, blinding him, and he was kicked in the chest a moment later, knocking the wind out of him so he was wheezing as he staggered back. His heart stuttered when two gunshots went off, and the boys started screaming, but in another rapid round of gunfire, they all fell silent.
Desperation surged through Don's blood, making his hands shake as he freed his gun from the holster under his armpit. His vision was still blurry as he stumbled toward the fuzzy black shape of their attacker, but they were moving too fast for him. They slammed his gun into his face, splitting his forehead open and disarming him before they kicked him in the balls.
A sickening pain raced from Don's balls to his gut, making him double over and vomit up a mouthful of bitter wine-flavored pasta. He collapsed onto his hands and knees, blinking hard as he fought through the pain to hunt for his gun. It was only a few feet away and he started scrambling toward it when a black Nike running shoe kicked it out of his path.
Don lifted his head to curse the Nike-wearing motherfucker, his blood boiling. Then he spotted Little Gigio and the busboy, dead and slumped over the red and white tablecloth. Carluccio was facedown on the ground beside Muggsy, a pool of blood rapidly growing around them.
Don sat back on his heels, his heart pounding against his ribcage like it was trying to break free. He scowled up at the man who'd come to kill him, when he realised it wasn't a man.
It was a woman.
A woman wearing black leggings and a hoodie beneath a black running jacket like she was out for a fucking jog. Her hood covered her hair, and a black face mask covered her nose and mouth, only her dark eyes visible above it, but there was no doubt about it. She was a fucking woman.
"Who—" Don panted, staring up at her in shock. "Who the fuck are you!"
Instead of answering, the woman pressed the barrel of her gun to the middle of Don's forehead, giving him just enough time to pant "No, please—!" before she pulled the trigger.
A/N: One guess who this masked killer is. (It's Helena).
I think my favorite part of this chapter is Harley texting Sofia in the middle of a shoot-out. And the earplugs. I'm just here entertaining myself with all these light-hearted lolz before shit kicks off.
Readers who happen to be the namesakes of Ed's henchgirls —hope you didn't mind being beaten up by Harley too much ;)
Shimmie, you got a little more suffering to come next week.
Thank you for reading, and if you haven't already, please review! xx