The Rabbit Hole
8.
Theme: Björk : "Features Creatures" (The Knife Remix)
Ed -
The bank had only just opened when Ed pranced (limped) through its front doors, dressed to kill (literally) in a green snakeskin suit — Armani, to die for— and Balenciaga's sock-sneakers — black with white soles, so mod, so chic. His bowler hat was custom, his signature rectangle of black greasepaint iconic, and his Swarovski crystal-encrusted cane glittered like Liz Taylor's jewels under the flash of a paparazzi's bulb.
There hasn't been nearly enough opportunities to apply his warpaint of late, and Ed wanted to get out and preen.
Besides, he needed to do this in public.
Harley needed to be punished for what she did to him and Shimmie, forever marking them, ruining them.
Ed wanted to make her sweat.
Shimmie hadn't stopped crying since the boys brought her home. Harley had tattooed long, uneven black lines stretching from each corner of her mouth to the apples of her cheeks, the impression of a sewn-on smile. It was gruesome and cruel, and Shimmie was so upset she just wouldn't stop crying. Ed was sick of it.
He was sick of all of it.
He was sick of Harley treating him with such casual cruelty. Treating him like dirt when she knew perfectly well that Ed was the only match for her and J, the only person who got the Batman's panties in a twist as much as they did. The Joker knew it, he always had a smile for Ed, one that said, we're still buddies despite all this malarkey. But Harley. She treated Ed no better than f'ing Anarky.
Oooooh, it made Ed so angry.
He was sick of the games, sick of the make-believe.
He was sick of the f'ing Batman too.
There were only a few days left before the auction on Christmas Eve, and that was when the real work would begin.
Walker was right. Why choose the hard road when they could choose joy.
Ed wanted joy. He wanted euphoria. He wanted life in all its wondrous chaotic glory. That was what life was, wasn't it? A brief, beautiful, terrible flame, destined to be extinguished so only wisps of smoke remained.
Ed refused to be a wisp.
When his time was up, he wanted to leave a charring behind.
And the Batman was the only thing standing in his way.
When Ed's flame went out, he intended to leave the world burning.
Helena -
Helena was awake before the sun rose. The moment her eyes opened she was ready to bolt, the stillness of sleep like a weight thrown off. She felt electrified, like she had liquid neon burning in her veins, the tiny capillaries in her fingertips frazzled and overcooked.
Her hands balled into fists as the night before returned to her. She thought about Mandragora thrashing in the bloody bathwater and her pulse stuttered in her wrists. She thought about choosing to shoot him where it would hurt, not where it would kill him quickly. She thought about the sounds he made as he died, and lying there in the dark with Dinah beside her, Helena's breath grew low and shallow, a steady pace that focused her attention to a single point, just like it had the night before when she fought her way through the Lucky Hand and Mandragora's goons.
Her body humming, Helena slipped out of bed and changed into her gym clothes, careful not to wake Dinah, who'd arrived home late then stayed up even later pacing in the living room. Helena had never known Dinah to pace or struggle with sleep. If something was bothering her she would meditate on it or jog it out of her system, but it seemed something was finally getting under her skin, and over the course of Helena's bike ride to the gym and throughout her morning training session, she worried about all the ways her recent nocturnal activities could be the cause.
It was over now, she reminded herself. Mandragora was dead.
But it didn't feel like it was over. The humming in her blood suggested otherwise. It carried her above the din where she could not be hurt, elevating her and making her strong and precise. Her trainer said he'd never seen her move so fast. He said it as he doubled over, gasping for breath from a particularly well placed knee-strike to his ribs.
Helena had taken the day off for Pino's funeral, and when she got back to the loft from the gym she found an outfit laid out on the bed; a skinny pair of black slacks and a silk shirt with a pussy-cat bow. Dinah was in the bathroom, her flaxen hair twisted into a loop at the crown of her head. She was already dressed in a black A-line dress and her motorcycle boots, and was fumbling with the clasp on an old string of pearls she'd had as long as Helena knew her. The pearls were old-fashioned, unstylish, completely unlike the gold ribbon-like chains Dinah always wore around her throat. The pearls obviously carried some kind of sentimental value that she'd never been able to explain.
Helena lingered outside the bathroom, wrestling with whether to find out what had kept Dinah from sleep and made her pace. It could have been anything. She could have seen something traumatising at work that put her on edge, in which case Helena should have been there to comfort her. It could have been that she was at the end of her rope with the Tetch case, and Helena should have been supporting her through that, too. It could be that she was worried about Helena coping with grief, or even grieving herself, and Helena should have definitely been there to console her through that.
She tried to envision a discussion in her current state of mind, sitting Dinah down and asking her about her feelings in the clear-eyed, emotionally-mature way Dinah liked to deal with things. But it was impossible on this day. This day when Helena was burying her brother, and her blood was still singing a horrible, violent siren's tune.
Dinah stepped out of the bathroom, little hoops and trinkets lining her ears, pearls around her neck. She'd skipped her usual smudge of eyeliner, applying only mascara and eyebrow pencil.
"Ready to go?" she asked with a distracted smile.
Helena nodded mutely, not trusting herself to speak.
They caught an Uber to St Margaret's, where a small service would be held in the graveyard beside the cathedral. With only three people in attendance, it seemed silly to do anything more than say goodbye to Pino with a priest before they buried him beside Franco and Maria Bertinelli.
Montoya was waiting at the graveyard's swinging gate, smoking her Juul and swigging from her flask, which she quickly tucked away when Helena and Dinah arrived.
"Hey," she greeted them, warily like she wasn't sure what to expect.
"Thanks for coming," Helena offered flatly.
"Yeah, thank you," Dinah added, too-enthusiastically.
"Of course," Montoya shifted uneasily, gesturing for them to go ahead.
With Dinah clutching her hand, Helena led them to the gravesite where a priest and a pair of gravediggers were waiting beside a hole carved into the frozen earth. Helena's eyebrows rose when she saw the elaborate floral arrangements decorating Pino's coffin and the grave—bouquets of white roses offset with baby's breath, buckets of orchids and peace lilies, garlands of wildflowers entwined with pale green eucalyptus.
She stared at the flowers, half-suspicious and half-bewildered, and also vaguely aware that Dinah and Montoya had started discussing work in low voices.
Were these flowers a message? A threat?
"It was the least I could do," a soft, accented voice breathed behind her.
Helena turned to find Miranda standing there, smiling sadly. She wore a long black coat, a black scarf artfully draped around her neck and pinned with a gold broach. Her auburn hair was gathered in an elegant knot at the nape of her neck and her ears were decorated with simple diamond studs. She was wearing the cheap berry-coloured lipstick Helena picked up from Rite Aid for her when Miranda lost her favourite Chanel one before a board meeting.
"Miranda," Helena sputtered, taken aback. "I didn't know you were coming."
"Of course I came, Helena," Miranda's eyebrows pinched together, her face full of concern. Then she drew closer, pulling Helena into an unexpectedly warm hug. "I'm so sorry, my dear," she whispered into her hair.
"That's okay," Helena said dumbly, feeling disjointed to have Miranda seeing her in this fragile moment when she'd done everything in her power to keep it together in front of her.
Helena started to pull away, but Miranda squeezed her closer, not letting her go, as if she could sense what Helena was thinking. And for some reason, this gesture of comfort from Miranda, her boss and mentor, felt more meaningful than any of the comfort Helena had been offered yet.
She closed her eyes and released a breath, leaning into the embrace. Miranda's coat smelled of snow and jasmine, and Helena was reminded of her mother's softness and the way she smelled — violets, not jasmine — and how she offered comfort. And for the first time that day, her throat grew tight with grief, making her tremble as tears pricked her eyes.
"There, there, my dear," Miranda murmured, stroking Helena's hair. "You've been through so much, my poor, sweet girl."
Helena nodded as a few tears slipped down her cheeks, taking some of that frazzled, electric energy with them. She felt it start to drain away, finally allowing her shoulders to slump in relief. She felt understood and seen, and tethered to the earth instead of floating off into oblivion.
"Thank you," Helena mumbled, her voice watery. "Thank you for coming."
Miranda pulled back to meet Helena's eye, smiling sadly as she cupped her face in her soft-gloved hands.
"You must find a purpose in this, Helena," she tucked a loose lock of hair behind Helena's ear. "Find a purpose so Pino's death is not in vain."
Helena searched Miranda's face, surprised that she was using the same words her father used when her mother died. A purpose. She thought about Mandragora, floating in the red bathwater. That had been her purpose, and she tried to find a sense of completion in his destruction. But it wasn't there.
"Thank you for coming, Miranda," Dinah sidled up to them, her expression hard to read. "It means a lot to both of us."
"Dinah," Miranda drew Dinah into her arms, holding her just as she'd held Helena. Dinah allowed it for a few seconds, then politely shrugged Miranda off with a pinched smile
She took Helena's hand and looked up at her. "I think it's time."
As the priest began to speak in a gentle murmur, Helena's thoughts drifted away from the ceremony toward the hole they would bury Pino in. She imagined layers of corpses beneath the uneven, frozen ground, the old headstones bunched together where the dead were buried on top of one another. After two and a half centuries of burriels, the bodies would be innumerable.
She remembered what her father told her about the cemetery when they buried her grandfather there. When the city was in its infancy, St Margaret's was where Gotham's poorest citizens buried their dead, including its Italian immigrants. Eventually those poor immigrants learned how to circumnavigate the impenetrable walls built by the elite — the Waynes and Kanes and Dumas. With skill and cunning, the powerless became the powerful. That was how the family business was explained to Helena and Pino as children. They were told the world was a violent and unfair place, and the only way to survive it was to make your own rules and enforce them by whatever means necessary. Nothing was off the table when your family was at stake.
Helena watched numbly as Pino's coffin was lowered into the earth, her father's justification for his violence echoing in her ears. She watched MIranda and then Montoya and then Dinah take up a spade and drop a clod of dirt into the hole. When it was her turn, she held the spade and closed her eyes, asking God for guidance to help her find a purpose.
"Shit," she heard Montoya hiss behind her. "What the fuck is she doing here?"
Helena looked over her shoulder, and spotted a young family crossing the graveyard. A stocky, hairy man with his heavily pregnant wife, and a little boy of about five between them, holding each of their hands. They were wearing funeral attire, and the woman was staring at Helena, her green eyes boring into her as she drew closer.
"Who's that?" Helena looked at Dinah and Montoya, who seemed to be engaged in a silent staring contest.
"I believe that is Lucy Falcone," Miranda drawled.
Helena felt like a cold stone had fallen through the crown of her head all the way to her feet.
Lucy Falcone.
She was pretty, her long dark hair piled into an elaborate bouffant, jewels standing out in her ears and leopard-print furs keeping her hands and neck warm. Her green eyes flashed when they met Helena's, and Helena's entire world narrowed down to those devious eyes. Anger ballooned in her chest, making her hands twitch as everything around her faded away —Dinah and Miranda, the priest and Pino, the graveyard and all her memories of her father. All she saw was Lucy Falcone and those evil, all-knowing eyes.
Those eyes knew exactly what happened to Pino.
"Helena," the husband greeted her cheerfully. "It's been such a long time!"
Helena forced herself to look at him, blinking stupidly as she finally connected this chubby thirty-something-year old man to the chubby teenage boy she'd known when she was a little girl.
"Don't be so insensitive, Mario," Lucy Falcone swatted her husband on the arm and offered Helena a simpering pink smile. "I'm so sorry for your loss, Ms Bertinelli."
She was smirking. Her eyes were smirking. She knew.
"Thank you," Helena said woodenly. Her eyes dipped down to Lucy's baby bump, and she registered that there was another Falcone growing inside her.
"We just came to repay our respects," Lucy continued, laying a hand over her heart in an imitation of sincerity her voice belied. "Poor Pino. What a shame this had to happen to him."
She was taunting her, Helena realized.
Her hands curled into fists, her cheeks getting hot as rage flooded her entire body, lighting her up like a crackling firework poised to explode.
"We have to go," Dinah announced, taking Helena's elbow l to guide her away.
But Helena dug her heels in. Her eyes darted from Lucy Falcone's face to the wide-eyed child clutching her hand. She wanted to scream at the unfairness of the world. That this monster had children to protect her from the rage and retaliation she deserved.
Dinah grabbed both of Helena's arms, physically turning her away, and Helena allowed it, knowing if she stayed she might do something she'd later regret.
"You look after yourself, Ms Bertinelli!" Lucy called after them, smirking meanly.
Helena huffed through her nose as Dinah marched her across the graveyard, her jaw so tight she couldn't open it to breathe as anger spiralled through her, uncontrolled.
She'd asked God for a purpose, and now she could feel it materializing in front of her. Not quite a direction but the beginnings of one.
She wouldn't allow herself to be powerless. She would find a way around this.
It wasn't over. Not by a long shot.
Harley -
"FUCK!"
Harley screamed at an old television perched on the end of the kitchen table. Two GCN anchors were discussing the Riddler's dawn bank robbery and the cipher he'd left behind. They'd been covering it all morning, bringing on pundits and cryptologists to discuss what Ed's latest puzzle could mean. After the shootout at Saks, it seemed inevitable that another round of the War of Jokes and Riddles was on the way.
The cipher had been found taped to the wall, depicting a series of randomly-numbered shapes— squares, circles and octagons— with different degrees of shading in pencil.
Harley swung around to face the Joker, who was holding up a pad of yellow paper covered in his chicken scratch-like scrawl. He'd spent most of the morning with his head bent over the legal pad, the e-cigarette dangling from his teeth while Harley paced around the kitchen in her underwear and his shirt.
He'd managed to crack two words from the chaos of symbols and shapes—Harley Quinn.
"Fuck!" Harley raged at him, infuriated.
The moment they learned Ed left a new riddle she knew it had something to do with them—with her. It was more proof that her paranoia over Ed was justified.
"What else does it say?" she demanded.
The Joker stared back at her in silence, his expression decidedly irritated.
"What!" Harley snapped. "We have got to get ahead of this J. We have to."
He didn't reply, just dropped the legal pad on the table and folded his arms over his bare chest, leaning back in his chair as he watched her pace, the slightest of frowns appearing between his eyebrows.
"I knew this would happen," Harley spat, stomping across the kitchen. "I knew it, I knew it."
There was one person who had a knack for cracking Ed's riddles and it wasn't the Joker. The Batman had managed to foil Ed's plans more than once by solving his puzzles.
The cipher could be a message for the Batman—Ed could be leading him straight to Harley, an idea that made her teeth itch.
Or Ed was just trying to fuck with her. The cipher could be gibberish. Ed had to know they were looking for him, he had to. Of course he would play on her fears of retaliation. Of course he would.
Or, it could be a warning. A statement of intent that Ed was coming for her, and she needed to be prepared to kill him.
"FUCK!" Harley shouted again, throwing her hands up.
She buried them in her hair and grit her teeth, her mind jumping between possibilities so fast she started to feel light headed.
If Ed was just fucking with her then she was doing exactly what he wanted.
He was winning.
"Harl," the Joker barked roughly.
Her eyes flew open as she turned to look at him. He was still sitting with his arms folded high over his chest, his legs spread wide, staring at her like he was supremely disappointed. Disappointed because she was letting Ed win.
He was right. Harley could feel herself tipping, tipping right over the edge because of Ed.
She pressed her lips together, her eyes sweeping over the Joker quickly before she flung herself at him, jumping into his lap.
He grunted and reared back, his face souring as the back of his chair knocked against the table .
Harley slapped him across the face, but the crack of her palm against his cheek didn't fill her with the excited satisfaction she'd hoped it would. She huffed in frustration and slapped him again.
The Joker made an annoyed sound in the back of his throat but his arms hung loose at his sides — right up until Harley started frantically fumbling with the button and zip on his pants, her thoughts a haze distinctly lacking in desire.
The Joker seemed to sense it, that this wasn't a moment of lusty desperation, but desperation for a distraction, and that was enough to make him grab her by both wrists, yanking them up beside her head. He met her eye squarely, his expression stormy, making Harley's breath catch as something close to fear cut through her mania.
The Joker stood up, his grip on her wrists tightening. Harley didn't get her feet under her in time and stumbled, scrambling to stay upright as he forced her backward across the kitchen, his eyes glued to her face.
Her spine hit the tiled kitchen counter hard, making her gasp, but before she could draw in a full breath the Joker released one of her wrists to lock a large hand around her throat. He squeezed, not hard enough to hurt her, but a clear warning. Harley sputtered in surprise, her eyes wide as he snarled down at her.
"Do we really need to have this conversation… Again?" He growled, giving her neck a quick squeeze to make his point.
Harley choked, her hands flying up to cover his.
"This little uh, song and dance got old a long time ago, honey bunny," he continued gruffly, his eyes glinting like two black pearls. "Don't ya think, hmm?"
He stared at her hard, conveying even more with his eyes than with his words or his hands, and Harley deflated a bit, knowing he was right.
"You cannot control Eddie or anyone else," he reminded her, exasperated. "But you can control how fucking…insane you let it make you."
He shot her a knowing look and Harley looked away.
He ducked down, forcing her to meet his eye. "You're stronger than that, hmm? Aren't ya? Huh?"
She nodded and he released her throat, his other hand still vice-like around her wrist.
Harley slumped against the counter, depressed, disappointed in herself.
Then the Joker lifted his hand to brush her hair off her face, a gesture far too gentle to be genuine considering his current mood, and Harley's eyes darted up to his, curious, and just a little nervous—but not in a bad way.
"That," he tapped his cheek with his index finger where she'd slapped him, and raised an eyebrow at her. "Was very naughty."
The energy between them shifted on a dime, from tense frustration to something infinitely more charged.
Harley opened her mouth to reply with something sly and snarky, just to egg him on, but he grabbed her shoulders and spun her around before she could, shoving her forward over the counter so her ribs ground against the edge.
She panted, surprised and thrilled at once as he pinned both her hands to the countertop and leaned against her back, pressed his hips against her ass, his mouth finding her ear.
"Is this what you were hoping for?" He growled, making her shudder. He released her wrists and slid his hands under the shirt she was wearing, up her thighs and over her ass to her hips. He hooked his thumbs in the elastic of her underwear, tugging them down. "Puddin'?"
"Actually," Harley huffed. She wiggled her knees to rid herself of her panties, which landed on the kitchen floor. "I was going to make you beg again, you–"
She shrieked when his hand connected with her ass in a sharp slap. Her knees pinched together as arousal flooded her body, and she bit down on her bottom lip to stop an obscene moan.
The Joker scooped her hair aside and tisked in her ear, rubbed his nose against her neck.
"Now, now," he purred. His hand ghosted over her stinging ass, and Harley's whole body tensed in anticipation, her toes curling against the cold floor. "No need to pretend you don't like being spanked like a naughty whore."
He spanked her again in the same tender spot, and Harley dug her teeth into her bottom lip, fighting back smile and a lusty cry of delight.
"No?" He asked, playing innocent. His hand snuck over her hip to stroke a line from her navel down to her pubis, making her keen involuntarily as heat flushed between her legs. "Harley?" He sang her name, and she pressed her lips together stubbornly.
His fingers found her clit, and the air rushed out of Harley's lungs as he pressed a lazy circle around it, and just as she was starting to relax into the slow-build of pleasure, he pinched the sensitive nub between his thumb and forefinger, hard.
Harley's eyes flew open and her head bowed down, the shock of sensation making her cry out in a thrilling combination of pain and pleasure. He rolled the little bud until she cried out again, her voice pitching higher. A stream of breathless curses slipped past her lips as he kept up the pressure, and she couldn't decide if she hated it or if she'd never felt something so divine in all her life.
He spanked her again and she gasped helplessly as heat spread through her abdomen impossibly fast as he worked her roughly. An orgasm crackled through her, short and sharp like a firecracker, unsatisfying.
"Fuck me," Harley panted as his free hand slipped inside the shirt she wore, popping the sole button holding it closed. He rolled his thumb over her nipple as she arched into him. "Please."
But he didn't relent. He played her body like an instrument, not giving her what she wanted, but making her come twice more in sharp, quick flashes that left her overstimulated but aching for him before he finally released her.
Harley's legs were rubbery as she turned to look at him, sagging against the counter to keep herself upright.
The Joker raised an eyebrow at her, looking perfectly unfazed.
"Was that what you had in mind?" He drawled.
Harley stared at him. She couldn't decide if she was angry with him for such unfair sex, or if maybe she wanted to tell him she loved him, an impulse that might have normally shocked her, but this time quickly morphed into a need to claim him.
She threw herself at him, her mouth colliding with his as she practically climbed him like a tree. His hands slid under her ass to lift her up and her legs wrapped around his waist as he dropped her on the kitchen counter, his mouth more demanding than she was sure she'd ever felt it. His hands gripped her waist, his thumbs digging into her bottom ribs as he thrust his hips against her, letting her feel how hard he was.
Harley reached down to fumble with his pants, her desire searing hot, visceral. Her legs butterflied open as she freed his cock from his pants, and her hand wrapped around him, guiding him into her body as she kissed him hard.
His hand closed over hers, slowing her down, and Harley nearly swooned in desperation as he pressed against her opening for a few heartstopping seconds before squeezing inside her in a tormentingly slow slide. Her body accepted him eagerly, her heart pounding as she planted one hand behind her and laid the other on his neck. She felt his heart beat in time with hers, hard and strong, the slow stretch as he entered her making them both pant until he was finally buried inside her, and she felt impossibly full, complete.
Harley released a choked cry when he didn't move, her body quivering around his length. She leaned back to draw him in deeper, and he followed her, his forehead pressed to hers as he pulled his hips back then sank into her again, deliberately slowly, making them both exhale together, sharing hot breath.
He growled words that sounded like a threat though their meaning almost qualified as sweet, his low voice and the slow slide of his cock making Harley cling to him. She threaded both hands into his hair and looked him in the eye, and she saw that hungry tension in his face as he stared back at her. She didn't look away as he started to fuck her with increasingly rough strokes, his hair falling into his eyes as he brought her to the edge of the abyss again.
She planted her hands on the edge of the kitchen counter and canted her hips up to meet his, breathlessly moaning his real name as a deeper orgasm started to bloom at her core, sweet and satisfying, making her whole body sing. The Joker yanked her off the counter, gripping her and bouncing her up and down while she held on for dear life, sparks of pleasure ricocheting through her each time he filled her until she came with a wild cry. Stars burst in front of her eyes as pleasure crackled through her body in a dizzying storm, from the base of her spine to the top of her head. The Joker fucked her through it, plunging into her throbbing flesh, extending her pleasure as his growling turned feral and desperate, until his hands finally tightened on her, and he huffed her name, spilling inside her.
His forehead fell forward against hers again, his breath ragged as he tried to put her back on the counter. He lost his footing instead, his pants around his knees tripping him, and went crashing to the ground, bringing Harley with him. Her knee cracked against the tiles but she hardly felt it. She burst into great howling belly laughs she couldn't control, only opening her eyes when she heard the Joker's low chuckle. He was sprawled out on his back, squinting up at her.
"You weirdo," he accused her fondly, making Harley laugh again as she slumped forward to lay on top of him, luxuriating in the feeling of his skin warm against hers. Her body began to calm, her frantic desire replaced by a more muted pleasure that came from companionship, and in their own way, comfort.
He brushed her hair back, and she looked up to see him eying her curiously.
"Are you sure you gotta go out with Red tonight?"
Harley smirked at him, laying her forearm across his chest to prop herself up.
"Don't be jealous," she wiggled her eyebrows mischievously. "You know you're always my favourite."
He scoffed. "I'm not jealous."
"Just needy," Harley snorted, and the horrified look on the Joker's face made her collapse into helpless laughter again.
Dinah -
Dinah was only just keeping it together.
She was up until 3 AM, pacing the living room and eating cheese — a slab of brie and more Red Leicester than she cared to think about. She replayed her conversation with Bruce and compared both instances of O attempting to reach out to BC. She wouldn't have expected it to shake her as much as it did, but winding through her nerves was a rapidly growing sense of dread over Helena learning about her past.
BC was finally coming back to haunt her. And she definitely should have expected it.
Eventually, Dinah forced herself to go to bed, but she didn't sleep. Or at least it didn't feel like she slept, but she must have, because when the sun came up her eyes were heavy and she struggled to drag herself out of bed.
She put on the brave face Helena needed from her, and she maintained it throughout the ordeal with Lucy Falcone at the funeral, when Helena looked liable to rip a pregnant woman's head off and volleyball-serve it across the cemetery.
That this violent and gory image was what came to Dinah's mind was alarming on its own.
Miranda gave them a lift home in her town car while Montoya followed in the Buick. Dinah sat in the passenger seat beside the driver instead of squeezing into the back, using the fifteen minute drive to take a power-nap. Her instincts about Miranda were muddied, but she appeared to be better equipped to comfort Helena at present. Plus, Dinah really needed that nap…
Back at the loft, Miranda and Montoya stayed for a round of Irish coffees in an improvised-wake. Helena was still a ball of anxiety and anger, and since Dinah already knew she would reject her method of coping, she let Miranda tend to her again.
Feeling useless, she talked to Montoya about work, the one thing she could competently control. They were right there—right on the edge of cracking the case. Forty-eight hours, Montoya estimated. With the information they had, it wouldn't be much longer before they got their hands on Tetch. And in the meantime, there was a mountain of paperwork to be done.
Miranda and Montoya left around lunchtime, and Helena and Dinah settled onto the couch. Helena wrapped herself up in a tan-coloured blanket they picked up in Portugal as she binge-watched Doomsday Preppers, which seemed to distract her from the day's traumas. Dinah sat at the opposite end of the couch with her work laptop braced on her thighs, her feet tucked behind Helena's knees as she plowed through paperwork.
She made tea and offered to run Helena a bath but she waved off the offers, her eyes glued to Doomsday Preppers. A few times Dinah set her laptop aside and tried to cuddle up with her, but she was either rebuffed or ignored. That hurt, so she retreated to the kitchen where she set up her new iPhone and ate half a block of pecorino to make herself feel better. It didn't help.
Then as the afternoon dwindled and it grew dark outside, Helena switched from Doomsday Preppers to Ultimate Beastmaster, where muscled men and women from around the globe competed in elaborate obstacle courses while hyperactive bi-lingual hosts cheered them on.
It was becoming abundantly clear to Dinah that she wasn't wanted or needed when Montoya texted her.
Yarnell's lead panned out. Got a hide-out for Tetch. Stay with your girl.
Dinah's heart leaped, a fresh burst of triumph cutting through the miserable cloud not even cheese could help with.
She looked up at Helena to tell her the good news, but one glance at the moody intensity with which she was watching Ultimate Beastmaster told Dinah it would not be well-received.
Dinah deflated back into the couch and tapped out a reply to Montoya, then returned to her paperwork. She could at least be grateful that the GCPD had gone digital, working with cloud technology instead of relying on boxes of paper files. Montoya still insisted on printing things out despite Dinah's insistence that they could use an iPad for the same function. But Montoya was adamant that physical paperwork allowed her to see all the angles she was missing. An iPad was going to get someone killed, she said.
The afternoon melted away into evening, and that's when Dinah received an email that made her blood run cold.
From: youknowwho2.0 oracle dot com
Subject: My bad!
Dinah's hands curled around the laptop as the anxiety that had plagued her the night before knotted in her stomach, making her feel physically sick.
She glanced at Helena before opening the email, her throat tight as she read the lines of text.
Dear "OFFICER LANCE",
First, my bad re: yesterday! My dad says I can be a little heavy-handed sometimes. Sorrysorrysorrrrryyyy.
Second, this server is 100% not secure. Please PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE come talk to me on this secure link —I just want to HELP! And I promise it is URGENT!
PS: delete this email & clear ur recycling folder. Kthanksbye.
— O
Dinah buried her mouth in her fist as she re-read the email. She glanced at Helena and re-read the email, then glanced at Helena again and re-read the email again, considering for the first time that actually communicating with 'O' was the best course of action. If they were acting in good faith, she might be able to do some damage control. But if they weren't…
Dinah thought about the time a phishing email posing as a facebook security check conned her into sending a picture of her driver's license, and she covered her face with her hands.
She needed to speak to Bruce. Lucius might be able to tell her where the email came from, but Bruce would advise her on engaging 'O'.
She forwarded the email to Lucius's personal account, requesting he find the source of the email, and just as she was texting Bruce, her phone began to ring. It was Montoya.
"Hey," Dinah answered, distracted. "What happened?"
"Listen, I don't want you to come down here, but when my last partner didn't let me know we were closing in on a perp I wanted to kill em'," Montoya explained, the excitement in her voice making Dinah sit up straight. "So I thought you should know I'm staking this place out in the Cauldron and we just saw the Lion walk inside. The boys are on standby with SWAT gear. That's where we're at right now. But don't come down here."
"Shit," Dinah breathed, her pulse leaping excitedly. "How likely is it that Tetch will show?"
"Hard to say," Montoya had a smirk in her voice. "But maybe. Maybe not. Don't come down here, though, alright? That's an order."
"You can't give me orders," Dinah scoffed. She caught Helena looking at her and pressed her lips into a hard line. "Alright, keep me posted," she said, more soberly.
"Will do, Lance."
Dinah clasped her phone between her hands as she sank back against the couch cushions. She released a breath through pursed lips, trying to calm down when Helena sighed moodily.
"Just go," she said. "It's fine. It's a good thing."
Dinah's eyebrows pinched together. "I don't have to,"
"What if they catch him tonight?" Helena pointed out. "You'll regret not being there. Besides," she turned her attention back to Ultimate Beastmaster. "It's not like you can do anything here."
Her words stung so intensely Dinah flinched. But that didn't make Helena any less right, and Dinah was itching to get out of there. It seemed futile to wait around watching Helena be miserable, so she glanced at the email from 'O' once more, then closed her laptop and rose to her feet.
"Are you sure?" she asked, and when Helena nodded distractedly, Dinah set her laptop on the coffee table and retreated to the bedroom to get changed, determined to do at least one thing that mattered before the night was over.
Helena -
While Dinah escaped to the bedroom to change, Helena switched from Ultimate Beastmaster to Hoarders, which like Doomsday Preppers, treated its guests with visceral contempt that she found soothing.
She was emotionally ragged, completely drained and yet simultaneously overwhelmed by feelings she didn't know what to do with. She knew she was being unfair to Dinah by pushing her away, but Dinah and her goodness weren't things Helena had the capacity to entertain. Her half-laid plans to do something in the wake of meeting Lucy Falcone were still spinning wildly without direction. A large part of her was aching for the adrenaline fueled sense of clarity she felt after killing Mandragora. But she refused to give into violence for violence's sake. She would act with a purpose, not just for herself.
Dinah emerged from the bedroom, dressed in an ill-fitting navy blue suit that was so obviously from the Gap Helena almost commented on it. Dinah smoothed her blazer down over the gun holstered at her hip, a chubby little Ruger LC9 with more safety features than any reasonable gun owner would need, by Helena's estimate.
"Are you sure you don't mind?" Dinah asked again, wiggling her feet into her worn leather motorcycle boots, an odd choice to pair with a suit but Helena didn't comment.
"I'm sure," she said again, skipping to a new episode of Hoarders. "Go catch your perp," she added drily.
"Alright," Dinah planted her hands on her hips, nodding distractedly. Her eyes were on her laptop, which seemed to have garnered an inordinate amount of her attention. "Okay, I'll probably be back late so…"
"Dinah," Helena said sharply, but Dinah's eyes were so earnest and eager to please she forced herself to soften her voice. "Tell Montoya thank you for coming this morning."
"I will," Dinah stooped down to kiss her. "I love you."
Helena offered her a weak smile. "I love you too."
Dinah's eyes darted to the laptop one last time before she put on her coat and left, leaving Helena to Hoarders.
She sighed loudly, rubbing her forehead, where a headache was starting to form, and realized she hadn't eaten all day. She slumped into the kitchen, keeping the blanket wrapped around her shoulders as she found some olive tepande in the fridge and a box of fancy crackers, deciding it was the best she could do for dinner. She returned to the couch, snacking even though her appetite was completely absent, and considered taking a diazepam just to get her through the night.
She glanced at Dinah's laptop, curiosity peaking around the edges of her fried limbic system, and she wondered if it was something other than work that had Dinah glued to it. Her eyes had been half-glazed all day, the bored-yet-invested expression of someone deeply committed to an administrative task. But that changed just before Montoya called. She'd looked shaken, uneasy. Dinah was a terrible liar, and even worse at hiding her feelings, and it took a lot to rattle her...
It may have been an invasion of privacy, but Helena consoled herself with the knowledge that she'd done much worse in the last twenty-four hours. She grabbed Dinah's laptop off the coffee table and typed in her password.
Right there on the screen was what looked like a phishing email—the weirdest phishing email Helena had ever seen with the subject line "My Bad!"
Dear "OFFICER LANCE",
First, my bad re: yesterday! My dad says I can be a little heavy-handed sometimes. Sorrysorrysorrrrryyyy.
Second, this server is 100% not secure. Please PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE come talk to me on this secure link —I just want to HELP! And I promise it is URGENT!
PS: delete this email & clear ur recycling folder. Kthanksbye.
- O
Helena raised an eyebrow, remembering the time Dinah sent a picture of her driver's license to a con artist posing as facebook security. Could that explain her reaction? Temptation to click a link that might destroy her work computer the day after she broke her phone?
But it was a weird email, and as Helena chewed on a cracker slathered in salty tapenade, her curiosity got the better of her.
She clicked on the link, which took her to a site that was nothing more than a black screen with a white cursor blinking. Her attention drifted back to Hoarders as she started loading up another cracker when the laptop a line of white text appeared on the black screen.
BC! You made it!
Helena set the cracker aside, her eyebrows knitting together when another message popped up.
Look, I know this is weird and you don't know me or trust me but I have some serious intel! It's URGENT!
Helena shrugged off the blanket, realizing she must have stumbled upon an anonymous source reaching out to Dinah.
Another message came through, the person on the other end of the encrypted chat desperate for a response.
OFFICER LANCE?
Out of sheer recklessness, Helena replied.
No.
It took the person on the other end about thirty seconds to reply.
Who are you?
Helena decided to go for honesty.
Her girlfriend.
She realized that wasn't the most persuasive argument, and before she'd decided what she was trying to accomplish, she was typing.
Dinah got a lead with Jervis Tetch..
Helena sat back and looked at the TV, watching the people on the screen move but not really seeing them. She was being reckless, intentionally so. Talking to a stranger on the internet with information for the police or perhaps a more nefarious motive. Was she endangering Dinah? Herself? Someone else?
Did she care?
Then a video file popped up in the chat. Helena frowned at it, hesitating before she clicked the play button, prompting grainy CCTV footage to roll.
Her stomach promptly dropped to her feet, her entire body seizing up when she realized she was watching herself kill the five men at Carluccio's.
This you?
Helena held her breath, or perhaps she couldn't breathe, her blood leaping. She hadn't known there were cameras, and she'd never been more grateful that she covered her face. This was bad. This was so bad. This was incriminating. This could mean prison if anyone realized this was her. The end of her life as she knew it. She would be a murderer.
And with these thoughts spinning through her head she couldn't begin to explain what insanity compelled her to do what she did next.
Yes. It's me.
The answer came immediately.
Good.
An image of that morning's Gotham Globe appeared in the chat, its headline announcing that the Riddler had robbed a bank and left a riddle behind.
I cracked it.
Helena's eyes widened. The Riddler's cyphers were notoriously impossible to decipher— experts and academics around the world tried without success. The puzzles were only ever solved when the Riddler allowed it, often leading to dire consequences for Gotham and its citizens.
Whoever was on the other end of this encrypted chat was much more than an anonymous source.
Helena licked her lips. This could be it, she realised. This could be the purpose. This could be fate or God intervening and offering her a path. A path to stop the Riddler.
But the next message made the blood drain from her face, leaving her feeling cold and empty, unsure.
HARLEY QUINN WILL ROB THE GOTHAM HISTORY MUSEUM TONIGHT. BE THERE OR BE SQUARE.
Helena's hands froze over the keyboard as she stared at the words on the screen, trying to accept what she was reading. She was being given a lead of her own. A path to Harley Quinn just as Molly and her boys had shown her the path to Mandragora.
She thought about what Thorne said in the back of his town car, about people never going after her. Harley Quinn can not be stopped, and she cannot be killed. And Helena realized she'd accepted this as gospel. She'd focused on the demons she knew she could destroy, but she hadn't even considered trying to find Harley Quinn.
Harley Quinn, who had hunted her father.
Are you up to it?
Fear skated over Helena's shoulders as she tried to imagine it. That goulish painted face and that evil smirk, with eyes as cruel as Lucy Falcone's. But Harley Quinn was just a woman beneath the paint and hype, a woman who got lucky more often than not.
Suddenly Helena's heart was pounding, excitement rippling across her skin like a current, propelling her to her feet. She paced around the couch and coffee table, needing to burn it off. The Hoarders guest stars were explaining their bug out bags, distracting her as she tried to decide if she could rationalise being so horrifically reckless. Opening a link in a suspicious email? Talking to a faceless stranger intent on getting in touch with Dinah, a police officer? A stranger who somehow knew Helena had killed those men
It was too much.
Helena threw herself back down on the couch, typing out a quick demand. Something to claw back some control so she wasn't flying blind.
Who are you?
The answer came immediately.
I am Oracle.
Helena stood up and did two laps around the living room, exhaling steadily to calm her racing pulse. The anger and depression that had been plaguing her all day was gone, replaced with a jittery sense of anticipation like she was about to jump off a cliff. Mob thugs with guns seemed easy now. Harley Quinn made her feel like she was about to blast off into space.
But beneath all of that was the path—the path called to her. The path seemed right.
And though Helena never expected to have the opportunity to avenge her father, it was right here in front of her.
She threw herself down on the couch again. She felt crazy and in control all at once.
I'll do it.
Oracle replied with a gif of a bearded man wearing sunglasses. He opened a lawn chair with a dramatic flourish and sat down like he was settling in to watch the show.
That didn't fill Helena with the most confidence, but she had too much propulsion behind her now. Feeling like she was full of rocket fuel, she raced to the bedroom and dug the burner phone out from under the mattress.
She composed a quick text to Molly Sullivan.
Molly, I need your help.
Harley -
Harley waited for Pam at the north-east corner of Robinson Park with a duffle bag of heist-supplies over her shoulder. The snow wasn't falling in a blizzard-like fashion for a change, but the wind was harsh and stinging. It bit into her skin where the thick velvet of her jumpsuit didn't adequately protect her, especially its low neckline. She pulled the Joker's heavy black coat tighter around herself, once again wishing she hadn't eaten so much before a job. The burning sensation in the middle of her stomach was back, making her wonder if she didn't have an ulcer. It wouldn't surprise her. That would be just her luck. And it was the last thing she needed.
Maybe the ulcer would end up killing her before Ed did.
Finally, a dark blue Chevrolet pulled up to the curb, flashing its headlights twice. Harley hurried around to the passenger side, making sure Pam was behind the wheel before she threw herself into the seat with the duffle bag bag in her lap.
"What is that smell?" Pam cringed by way of greeting.
She was wearing what Harley could only assume was what Pam considered 'heist-wear', a black turtleneck and black jeans, with a black beanie pulled down over her ears, her dark red hair fanning out from beneath.
"Did you bleach your hair today?" she wrinkled her nose as she turned the car south toward Midtown's museum district.
"Yeah," Harley sighed. "Frost touched up my roots for me."
Pam snorted and reached into the backseat, keeping one hand on the wheel as she retrieved a large metal water bottle and tossed it to Harley, grinning
"Heist-margaritas," she explained.
Harley laughed as she unscrewed the cap and brought the bottle to her lips. The acidic smell of limes and tequila made her stomach roll, but she forced down a few swallows, wincing hard as she handed the bottle to Pam.
"What's wrong?" Pam shot Harley a dubious look before she took a swig herself.
"Nothing, I just ate too much," Harley insisted, palming her stomach.
"You ate too much?" Pam laughed incredulously. "That's new, usually you haven't eaten in days when I see you."
"Mm," Harley grunted.
Pam flashed her an impish grin. "Looks like you need some pepto."
"Fuck off, I'm fine," Harley grumped, grabbing the bottle of frozen margaritas and chugging it down to make her point.
It hurt but Harley stoically stared at the road ahead as they turned into midtown.
"Have you heard from Ed yet?" she asked.
"Nope," Pam shrugged. "I saw the news about his new riddle, though."
"The cypher has my name in it," Harley glanced at Pam to judge her expression. "He's calling me out."
"And do you think that might have something to do with you killing a bunch of his guys at Saks?" Pam asked wryly.
Harley's mouth fell open. "You're supposed to be on my side!"
"I am on your side, Harls," Pam chuckled. "But you killed his men. While they were shopping at Saks, no less. You know what Ed's like about Saks. It's his safe place."
Harley scoffed, indignant that Pam would justify Ed's actions. Then she thought about Shimmie and the smile they'd left her with at the tattoo parlour, and she had to press her lips together to stop a snicker.
"Uh huh," Pam drawled, like she understood the situation perfectly.
As they pulled into the museum district Harley grabbed the duffel bag and started sifting through its contents. The iPad Lonnie had furnished her with was tucked in beside a pair of bolt cutters and a muzzle for her pistol. She plucked out the iPad and swiped through the blueprints stored on it, searching for the right page.
"Okay," she said. "You want to park along the east side of the museum. There's a delivery entrance right around the corner."
"Deliveries entrance," Pam nodded, squinting out the windshield as a fresh flurry of snowflakes overtook them. "Fuck, how is it snowing again?"
"Climate change?" Harley suggested slyly.
"Exactly," Pam spat. "Fucking humans."
Harley chuckled as they pulled down the side of the Gotham History Museum. Its neoclassical columns were bright white along the front, but down the back they were soot-stained and uncared for, with dirty snow piling up between them. That was Midtown Gotham for you—clean on the outside but filthy within.
Pam parked at the end of the block as Harley consulted the iPad again. "What room are we robbing?"
"Egyptian Life and Death," Pam said. "I think it's room 62."
"62… 62….," Harley swiped the screen until she found it. "Ground floor, not too far away from the guard's station. Here," she handed Pam the iPad so she could see where they were going. "Remind me what we're stealing again?"
"Mummified flora," Pam squinted at the tablet. "We're gonna sequence the DNA and grow our own at Arkham."
"That sounds fancy," Harley plucked the long, metal silencer out of the duffle bag and fished her pistol from the depths of her coat. "Is that part of figuring out your pheromone thing?" She asked, screwing the silencer on the pistol.
"Nah, we tried analyzing my DNA years ago. It was a dead end," Pam made a face, looking disgruntled.
She shook her head and reached across Harley to pop the glovebox, scooping out a pair of black face coverings, and dropping one in Harley's lap.
"Oh come on," Harley groaned. "I don't do masks."
"You do tonight," Pam shot back, looping the face covering over her ears so it covered her nose and mouth. "Neither of us can be seen," she added, her voice muffled. "Especially me, but you're just as bad."
"I have an app to turn off the CCTV," Harley insisted, waving her phone at Pam, who shrugged, unpersuaded.
"It's my heist," she pushed her door open. "You make the rules on your own heists."
Harley grumbled unhappily but pulled on the face covering, taking a moment to glare at herself in the rearview mirror before she grabbed a pair of bolt cutters from the duffle bag and climbed out into the snow. It was coming down heavy as she wandered to the back of the car, where Pam was shuffling around in the trunk.
"I look like an idiot," Harley announced, prompting Pam to shoot her an amused look over the top of her face covering.
"You didn't think you'd look like an idiot when you decided to wear a three-thousand dollar velvet jumpsuit to rob a museum?"
Harley scoffed and spread her arms, the Joker's coat, which she'd borrowed for the evening, flapping open. "It's black."
Pam laughed as she pulled a narrow canister out of a backpack in the trunk and strapped it to her wrist. It was the same canister Jonathan Crane designed to administer his fear toxin. Harley had been on the receiving end of it once, but it had little effect on her other than leaving a strange metallic taste in her mouth for about a week.
"So, you're still making fear toxin, huh?" Harley waggled her eyebrows. "Fear toxin and Faux-tox."
Pam laughed and shouldered the back pack before she slammed the trunk shut. "Have you got everything?"
Harley patted down the coat and realised there was a grenade in the pocket.
She grinned at Pam. "Absolutely."
As they moved within range of the first CCTV camera, Harley pulled out her phone and opened the app Lonnie made. The camera was mounted on a chain link fence barring access to the museum's deliveries entrance, a small concrete lot big enough for a large truck to squeeze into. Harley swiped through the app until she found what she was looking for , and her phone connected to the camera to disrupt the feed long enough for them to pass by unnoticed.
"How's Anarky doing these days?" Pam drawled as Harley unlocked the bolt cutters. "I hope you gave him some free therapy after everything he went through."
Harley shot her an unamused look. "You have no idea what a pain in the ass he is."
"That poor sonofabitch," Pam chuckled, watching Harley trim away part of the fence with the bolt cutters. "I don't know how he puts up with you guys treating him like dogshit. He must be a masochist."
"He smokes a lot of weed," Harley explained.
"Good for him," Pam said cheerfully. "Cannabis is a very therapeutic terpenoid."
Harley snorted and peeled back the fence, holding it open for Pam to duck through before following her under and letting the fence fall into place behind them. She glanced around the small lot, searching for the cameras. There was a concrete ramp leading up to a back door beside a larger entrance with a drop down gate, which was bolted shut. Harley kept her phone out to turn off the cameras as she and Pam ducked under the railing along the ramp and stopped in front of the back door.
According to the security details, there would be a guard on the other side of that door, and two more in a secure room down the hall.
Harley swiped through Lonnie's app until she found what she was looking for. Her phone released a miniature electromagnetic pulse—a very special Lonnie upgrade—which would theoretically fry the guard on the other side of the door's radio.
"Fuck!" Pam hissed. "We forgot the margaritas!"
"How are we supposed to drink when you're making us wear masks?" Harley hissed back at her.
"I'd make an exception for tequila," Pam shrugged, making Harley laugh quietly as she used the butt of her gun to bang on the heavy back door, the sound echoing noisily.
"You're knocking?" Pam whispered incredulously.
Harley shot her a loaded look as the door opened, revealing a middle-aged security guard holding his fuzzing radio aloft. His eyes widened when he saw them, and Harley quickly shot him between the eyes with a soft ZIP! from her silenced gun.
He collapsed to the ground, and Harley caught the door before it slammed shut. She peeked inside to make sure the coast was clear, then stepped in with Pam close on her heels.
Inside was a cement hallway lit by a few sparse flood lights. Harley crept down the hallway with her gun drawn while Pam shuffled along behind her, being so noisy Harley stopped twice to shoot her warning looks.
"You're taking all the fun out of it," Pam hissed as they came up to a sharp corner.
"Shut up," Harley hissed back, quickly checking the corner was clear before waving for Pam to follow her.
Half way down this hall was the security room where two more guards were stationed watching the cameras while a third patrolled the museum. When they reached the security room, Harley knocked on the door again, ignoring the dubious look Pam shot her. The door opened, and Harley killed the first guard with a clean shot to the head, then took out his partner behind him with two to the chest before he could do much more than open his mouth in surprise.
"Come on," Harley whispered.
The security room contained a bank of television screens displaying the feeds of the cameras positioned around the museum. Harley opened Lonnie's app and with a few more swipes the phone connected to the computers, scrambling the screens.
"What's it doing?" Pam whispered, squinting at Harley's phone.
Harley shrugged. "Who knows. Grab that guy, will you?"
Pam dragged the first guard, whose body was propping open the door, into the room while Harley peered at the screens, finding the remaining guard, and placing him somewhere between the security room and room 62.
They set off again, Harley taking the lead with her gun out, while Pam stuck close behind her, being slightly less noisy this time.
They found the last guard examining an exhibition about the Ancient Mayans rather than remaining vigilant in his duties. Harley crept up behind him and shot him in the back of the head before he even knew what was about to happen, a small mercy she felt pretty magnanimous about.
"All done," she smiled and tucked her gun away.
"You enjoyed that, didn't you," Pam observed drily.
"I enjoy efficiency," Harley countered, lifting her chin.
They followed the museum's twisting corridors, passing through rooms about ancient cultures from around the globe, and chatting easily about Frost's capacity as a hair stylist and the Joker's temperamental relationship with vaping. It was always easy like this with Pam, even if they went months without seeing each other, they could slide right back into their usual dynamic.
They found room 62, a large circular hall beneath the museum's central dome. The floors were black and blue marble, as were the columns climbing up the walls to the stained glass dome above. Harley trailed behind Pam as she searched for her pharaoh's sarcophagus, which was on a slightly raised platform in the middle of the room.
"Come to mommy," Pam smirked, kneeling beside it and running her hand over the hieroglyphics decorating the side.
She unzipped her backpack and began removing a series of tools, lining them up on the floor.
"Have you ever opened a sarcophagus before?" Harley leaned against a model pyramid. "This is the kind of thing people get PhDs in."
"I googled it," Pam shrugged, making Harley laugh. "Hey, I forgot to ask you about Sofia. How was she when she was in town last month?"
"Rich and mean," Harley shrugged. "She gave me a few suitcases of clothes and said I looked like I'd rolled out of a gutter."
"So, the usual," Pam shot Harley a knowing look, obviously grinning behind her mask, and Harley gasped as she remembered something.
"When I was at Saks, I had to take cover in the Sofia Falcone boutique," she explained..
"As you do," Pam observed drily, but Harley ignored her.
"She dressed all the mannequins like me!"
"You mean they were wearing the same clothes she gave you?" Pam snorted as she got the sarcophagus open. There was a hiss of stale air as she shoved the ancient stone lid to the side and shone her flashlight inside.
"Well, yeah," Harley agreed. "They were all wearing the coat she gave me but they looked like me, too!"
"You know you sound insane, right?" Pam pointed at Harley with her flashlight and Harley scoffed as she pulled out her phone and swiped through it.
"Look," she shoved her phone in Pam's face and Pam considered it diligently, her eyes narrowing at the picture of mannequins with fluttery black eyes and wide red mouths.
"Okay, you may have a point," she conceded, going back to her work. "You should be flattered."
"It makes me feel cheap," Harley pouted.
"For what Sofia charges for her clothes?" Pam laughed. "That's not cheap, Harls."
Harley clicked her tongue impatiently, preparing to make her case when she heard the soft squeak of rubber on marble behind her, drawing her attention over her shoulder.
Her eyebrows rose at what she saw there.
A woman wearing all black had appeared less than twenty feet away on the other side of the pyramid exhibition. She was tall and slender, wearing black running clothes and sneakers, her hoodie covering her hair, her face obscured by a mask just like Harley's. Her shoulders were hunched and her arms were limp at her side. She seemed frozen in place as she stared at Harley across the room.
Harley's eyes narrowed, and she briefly entertained the idea that she was hallucinating as she turned to face the woman fully, waiting for her to make a move.
There were a few drawn out seconds where they sized one another up, and then the woman pulled a silenced gun out from behind her back.
Harley's heart leapt, the precarious reality of the moment propelling her to action. She threw herself to the floor behind the sarcophagus, half-landing on Pam as two shots rang out.
"What the fuck!" Pam hissed, her eyes wide and alarmed as the woman fired another two rounds in rapid succession, striking the podium covering them.
Harley scrambled to get her gun, her heart suddenly pounding, making her usually steady hands shake.
Another shot clipped the corner of the sarcophagus, closer this time.
The woman was coming at them from the side, Harley realized.
"Harley!" Pam snapped over the sound of gunfire.
Scowling in frustration, Harley ripped off her face mask and freed her gun from its holster. She jumped onto her knees, grounding herself through the hard marble below her as she took a few blind shots to fend the woman off before chancing a look.
The woman ducked behind the pyramid exhibition, where she immediately started returning fire. A bullet tore through the marble less than an inch from Harley's hand, sending a jolt of adrenaline spinning through her blood as she fired her last round.
She collapsed to the ground beside Pam, panting as she tried to organize a plan.
"Harley," Pam hissed again. She was staring at Harley expectantly, her green eyes urging her to act as the gun shots striking the sarcophagus got closer.
Harley closed her eyes and took a deep breath, giving into the chaos of the moment and letting her instincts take control. She plunged her hand into the Joker's coat and found the grenade, her fingers curling around it as she rolled back up to her knees. She yanked it free from her coat, and pulled the pin, lobbing it in the woman's direction despite Pam's shout of dismay.
It went off with a blinding flash of light and a deafening BANG that echoed around the marble hall. Pam doubled over, crying out in pain and clutching her ears, but Harley pushed through. She rose to her feet and planted her hands on the sarcophagus, vaulting over it like a star athlete with Joker's black coat flaring out behind her.
The woman in black was struggling to get her bearings in the wake of the grenade, planting her feet straightening up when she saw Harley coming toward her. She was disorientated, though, and she didn't react fast enough to stop Harley kicking the gun out of her hand. It went skittering across the floor as Harley swept in to deliver a pair of right and left hooks, striking the woman in both her ringing ears twice before kneeing her in the ribs, making her double over with a gasp.
But she recovered more quickly than Harley expected her to.
She snapped back up to face Harley, her large, dark eyes fringed with heavy lashes, and full of loathing so visceral it made Harley hesitate.
That was a mistake.
Suddenly, Harley was playing defense as the woman advanced on her. She managed to duck two blows in quick succession, her heart stuttering at how fast she was, how precise. She blocked a third and a fourth, and caught the woman's eye again, bewildered by the bloodlust she saw there. The woman drew her elbow back as she held Harley's gaze, then thrust her arm forward, landing a palm strike at the center of Harley's chest with enough force to send her flying backwards.
She landed on her back and skidded across the floor, the back of her head cracking against the marble, making her head spin as dizzying pain raced around her skull. She fought through it, flipping onto her hands and knees and scrambling towards the woman's lost gun.
But the woman kicked Harley in the ribs before she could get to it. Harley rolled onto her back, but the woman in black leapt on top of her, sitting on her stomach and wrestling with her arms. Harley snarled and lurched up, intending to head butt her, but the woman jabbed her in the face, making Harley's eyes roll back, her vision blurring so all she saw were smears of black and gray.
Then she felt cold metal against the underside of her jaw, and an unfamiliar sense of panic rippled through her as she registered it was the barrel of the gun.
The woman's large dark eyes were staring down at her, burning with hatred. She grabbed the lapel of Harley's coat and pulled her head up off the floor, preparing to kill her with one clean shot to the head.
"Wait!" Harley gasped.
The word hardly left her lips when an arm appeared in her peripheral vision, a canister attached to the wrist. There was a loud hiss as a cloud of fear toxin snaked out of the canister, enveloping Harley and the masked woman in it's spell.
A/N: Updates will no longer be weekly as that format isn't working for me anymore. I'll update as and when chapters are edited and ready to post!
Head over to Tumblr if you'd like to see an Oracle mood board.
Thanks for reading, please leave a review!
Katie x