Previously: The Joker accepts a job to kidnap Gotham's District Attorney, and Harley is convinced he's working on something behind her back. Meanwhile, Bruce and Vicki Vale are getting cozy while Dinah worries about Harley's inevitable return.
Theme: Jenny Hval - 'Innocence is Kinky'
The Pantomime
2.
How about a riddle?
I am worshiped and I am hated
A prominent figure of flexible celebration
Most don't know me, but they all want to be me
What am I?
Give up?
The Flugelheim Museum opened at 9 AM on Tuesdays. Francis Bacon's 'Figure With Meat' was on display on the fifth floor. The painting depicts a screaming, salivating pope posed between two halves of a butchered cow. It is at once horrific and sensual. Painted in 1954, it was a time characterized by post-world-war post-traumatic-stress, the threat of annihilation and extinction via nuclear war ever looming.
With this painting, Bacon forces you to decide who you are.
Are you as much a victim as that slaughtered animal hanging behind you?
Or are you the butcher, posing with your prey...
More impressive: the Flugelheim family paid 80 million dollars for this piece of canvas covered in oil. And that made it something worth owning. Especially when you were perpetually broke like Ed was.
Ed sat on a bench in front of Bacon's work, his arms crossed and his head tipped to the side as he examined the smears of brown and red paint. His strawberry blonde hair was hidden beneath a black Gotham Rogues baseball cap, and he wore one of his most prized possessions: a seafoam-green Christian Dior suit—linen, very expensive, very chic. Ed had paired the suit with a white shirt and a floral tie—also Dior—and a pair of Chelsea boots—Tom Ford, beautiful.
On the ground beside Ed's feet sat a backpack containing a loaded Smith and Wesson—timeless, just like Clint Eastwood's piece in 'Dirty Harry'—as well as a paint gun and his signature bowler hat. There was just something so beautifully bourgeois about a bowler hat that Ed couldn't resist. It said Paris, it said high brow, it said fashionable dandy strolling on the Champs-Élysées, and sipping sidecars at the Ritz.
Glancing around at the gallery's other patrons—a small group of Japanese tourists, a Goth girl, a young couple sipping green juice as they examined the art—Ed unzipped the backpack and exchanged his baseball cap for the bowler hat. Then, keeping his head down, desperately trying not to get paint on his new suit, he held up a cut-out piece of paper and sprayed a solid black rectangle over his eyes and the bridge of his nose.
Anticipation had been racing through him all morning, but it reached a fever pitch now, making Ed feel almost drunk as he slowly rose to his feet. It was always like this, the anticipation. Like sex, but better. Sex was so frequently disappointing, but through Ed's many performances as The Riddler, he had discovered something far more addictive. And unlike other carnal pleasures, it was always, always satisfying.
He craved it.
He straightened his floral tie and examined the Bacon painting one more time. He liked it, loved it even. He had to have it.
Also, it was worth a goddamn fortune, and Dior was not cheap.
Ed drew his gun and spun around to face his new victims, beaming wildly as they gasped in horror.
Ohhhhhh, yes, Ed liked the sound of that.
And he loved to put on a show.
Columbia was unbearably humid in May, and the rain was relentless that afternoon, beating against the shingled roof like gunfire.
Harley's eyes drifted over peeling colonial wallpaper, the wrought iron bed frame, and the small television perched on an antique dresser, playing a muted soccer game. Outside, beyond the staccato of rain, she could hear the noisy sounds of downtown Bogota filtering in through the open window of the small hotel room they'd been hiding out in for a few days.
She sighed and rolled onto her back to look up at the Joker sitting beside her, naked and smoking a rolled cigarette as he watched the soccer game, or at least stared at the fuzzy screen while he thought about something else.
"I just had a funny dream," she mumbled sleepily, drawing his attention.
He raised an eyebrow at her, taking a long drag off his cigarette, the burning paper crackling.
"You fucked me in the session room at Arkham," Harley explained, smirking as she listened to him chuckle.
"Did I uh, bend ya over the table and call you a naughty doctor?" he drawled, exhaling a cloud of smoke with a woosh.
"No," Harley grinned up at him. "Up against the wall."
His scarred bottom lip jutted out, and he made a face to suggest this was pretty boring as far as sex dreams went, making Harley laugh.
"Come here," she insisted, grabbing his arm and trying to pull him down to her.
He shot her an amused look and crushed his cigarette out in an overflowing ashtray, then swiftly rolled on top of her, one of his legs sliding between hers. He braced his elbow beside her head and carded a hand through her tangled blonde hair, looking amused.
Harley pulled his face down to hers, kissing him deeply as she locked her knees around his leg, and she felt his chest rumble against hers with a throaty laugh.
"You greedy slut," he teased her slyly, making Harley laugh helplessly at their stupid inside joke.
She started to reply when the sound of rain pounding outside abruptly quieted, and the small details of the hotel room began to fade, the colors leaking away like dye in the wash. J's lips were still on hers, the familiar feeling of his scars lingering a moment longer. Then he was gone too, ripped away, leaving her with nothing.
Harley's eyes snapped open as the dream evaporated and reality came roaring back in.
She was at a safe house in Gotham, not a hotel room in Bogatá. And she was alone.
She blinked around at the bedroom she currently occupied, a shabby chic ode to being as dull as humanly possible, just like the rest of Samantha Pierce's apartment, the original owner of Harley's safe house.
Harley rolled onto her back and scrubbed her hands over her face, trying to push away the feelings attempting to crack the wall she'd constructed to get her through the next few days while she figured out what the fuck she was going to do without the Joker. That was clearly the direction things were going, and Harley needed a plan.
Before Harley became the Joker's partner, she'd spent the majority of her life trying to be what she thought she was supposed to be. First, as a celebrated psychologist, then as the most powerful woman in Gotham's underworld. But none of it made her happy. It was only with the Joker beside her that she found the strength to let go of all the bullshit and accept a chaotic world for what it was, and her fluid place within it. It brought her peace.
Not that she was perfect at it, or that she existed in some zen state of chaos at all times. She no longer let what she was supposed to do guide her, but she still had a teensy-weensy problem with needing to be in control, something the Joker's presence helped keep in check. It also infuriated him and spurred some of their most epic fights.
But now he was fading from the equation, and Harley needed to figure out where she belonged and how she was supposed to exist without him.
A uniquely devastating thought that made her chest feel tight.
"Stop it," she muttered, taking a deep breath before she hauled herself out of bed and staggered into Samantha's kitchen.
From what Harley could tell, Samantha had been a party girl working in the fashion world before she mysteriously disappeared. The shabby chic stylings of the bedroom stretched out into the open plan living room-kitchen, with its wrought-iron wine racks and faux-antique furnishings and floral accents absolutely everywhere. The walls were hung with prints of Audrey Hepburn and Madonna, and the closet was full of stylish frocks and fashionable shoes. Harley had taken to wearing what she needed, helping herself to pajamas and lingerie and toiletries and anything else that struck her fancy.
She made a cup of coffee with Samantha's Keurig, replaying the events of the night before despite her best efforts to pretend it hadn't happened. She closed her eyes, focusing on the noisy grinding of the coffee maker as it poured boiling water through the little pod, willing thoughts of the Joker far, far away.
The Riddler. Focus on the Riddler.
He'd attacked the Flugelheim Museum just that morning, so Harley settled onto the couch with her coffee to watch the GCN anchors and pundits discuss the attack. It was his second gallery hit in two weeks, the first being the Gotham Museum of Modern Art a week earlier. That night he'd broken in and stolen a Jackson Pollock with the help of a group of thugs wearing burlap sacks over their faces—a nod to the Scarecrow's recent escape from Arkham, the pundits suggested.
But this time, the Riddler acted alone, sneaking in a firearm and shooting his way out with a Francis Bacon work tucked under his arm.
And once again, he'd left a riddle behind.
I am worshiped and I am hated
A prominent figure of flexible celebration
Most don't know me, but they all want to be me
What am I?
According to the cryptologist on GCN, the answer was 'celebrity,' though they were struggling to understand what that meant.
Listening to the media argue over the purpose behind the Riddler's brain teasers was unbearable, but Harley forced herself to watch it. She told herself she was gathering data, though nothing the pundits had to say was particularly revealing. The Gothamite's Steve Lombard gave his spiel blaming the Batman for masked villains, this time with an endorsement for Hamilton Hill; a businessman running for Mayor who promised to get rid of all masks—vigilante, villain or otherwise. Harley was starting to zone out when they brought on a familiar handsome face. Hill's campaign manager, Arthur Reeves.
Reeves was a city-council-member-turned-political-consultant whom Harley had been aware of back when Sofia Falcone was running the city. He'd always been against the Dent Act, and Harley always suspected he had a few crooked inclinations. With the Joker ignoring her and a lot of free time on her hands, Harley met up with Reeves a few times. First down back alleyways, then for drinks at the Stacked Deck, their business quickly shifting into a more friendly arrangement. Reeves was an unapologetic scumbag who managed to toe the line of being too-bold, and Harley enjoyed him.
Once Reeves finished pitching Hill as the best remedy for masked freaks, GCN brought on a pop-psychologist to discuss the Riddler's 'obsession' with Abstract Expressionism. Harley rolled her eyes at the weak psychoanalysis and shuffled back to Samantha's bedroom to change into leggings and sneakers, desperate for a distraction from her thoughts.
Samantha's condo sat on a well-manicured street dotted with middle-class homes and cute apartment complexes in the north Gotham neighborhood of Otisburg. Harley took off at a jog, forcing a smile for an old couple sitting out on their lawn chairs when they offered her wrinkled, neighborly waves. It was an outrageously 'normal' part of town for the Joker and Harley Quinn to hide out in, which was, of course, part of its appeal. The Joker had perfected the art of blending in, playing characters that allowed him to sneak around in broad daylight despite his scars. Harley was less easy to identify, and she has always been a capable liar, but she had learned from him how to blend in thoroughly. To become invisible in a crowd. To perform.
When the Joker was admitted to Arkham, Harley diagnosed him as a pathological liar, but in reality, he was almost pathologically truthful. A man of his word, an ironic badge of honor. But he drew a line between dishonesty and performance, and God, did he love to perform. That included the stories about how he got his scars. Harley had heard hundreds of them as he taunted their victims. But she was the only person alive who knew what really happened.
Harley grit her teeth and picked up her pace, pushing herself to run faster so she would focus on the blood pumping through her heart instead of the Joker.
Exercise used to be something she relied on to keep herself in check. Gymnastics had been a healthy outlet for her as an overachieving teenager stuck in the foster care system. And then as a 'safe' way to distract herself as an adult dissatisfied with her life. But a 'healthy outlet' wasn't something Harley needed when she had the Joker. Not with life as fulfilling and shamelessly brazen as theirs was together.
Harley felt her eyes start to sting, and her throat grew thick as a sob got stuck somewhere around her lungs. She held it back, putting her head down and forcing her body to work harder. Focusing on the slap of her sneakers against the concrete instead of the slow spread of desolation creeping through her. The idea that he was no longer hers made her want to scream into the sun and rip her hair out by the root. Trying to envision life without him felt like standing on the edge of an infantine abyss; the promise of falling through it alone impossible to comprehend when she'd convinced herself he'd be there beside her.
When she ran past the old couple a third time, Harley caught them staring at her, looking concerned. Obviously, because sprinting around the block looking like she was about to burst into tears hardly counted as blending in. Feeling paranoid and pathetic, her cheeks flushed, Harley ran back to Samantha's apartment, looking over her shoulder as she unlocked the front door.
A phone was ringing when she stepped over the threshold, prompting Harley to slam the front door and bolt across the apartment into the bedroom. She snatched up the encrypted smartphone ringing on the bedside table and stabbed at its buttons to answer the video call before she missed it.
Pam's smiling face appeared on the phone's screen. She was wearing a baseball cap with GREENPEACE stitched across its front, her dark red hair cropped to her shoulders in a practical bob, her emerald eyes sparkling puckishly.
"Hey!" she grinned.
"Hey," Harley forced a weak smile as her eyes started to sting again, this time in relief. Pam had been on a boat in the Coral Sea of the coast of Australia for two weeks, and Harley didn't realize until that moment how badly she missed her friend. "How was the reef?"
"Perfect," Pam smirked, looking pleased with herself. "Mr Prime Minister has been very receptive to my suggestions."
"So inception's really working, huh?" Harley asked, lowering herself onto the bed and kicking off Samantha's sneakers.
"The perfume I made helps," Pam explained cheerfully. "I think we can expect a stirring speech at the UN next week." She sighed happily. "How's Gotham?"
"Oh, uh, not great," Harley admitted, the stinging behind her eyes returning.
Pam's face immediately darkened.
"What did that fuckboy do now?" she demanded, her eyes blazing when Harley didn't immediately answer. "Harley?"
"I think," Harley cringed—saying it out loud felt too real. "I think it's over," she said numbly.
Pam's eyes widened, but she didn't say anything, apparently stunned into silence. Harley couldn't do anything but nod slowly, and Pam eventually found her voice.
"Well, what the fuck happened?" she sputtered. "Did he hurt you? If he hurt you, I swear to God, Harley..."
"He's got something on the side, and he's hiding it from me," Harley sighed, scrubbing a hand over her face.
"The Joker is cheating on you?" Pam looked aghast.
"No, he's working on something without me," Harley explained miserably. "He's up to something," she scowled.
"Well... fuck him," Pam scoffed, indignant on Harley's behalf. Then she frowned, looking conflicted. "Hang on, have you tried talking to him?"
"He's not really the sit-down and talk things out type," Harley said darkly, remembering the night before. "But when I asked him, he wouldn't answer."
"Look, you know I can't stand him," Pam said hesitantly. "But are you sure you're not being..." She made a face. "You know... a little rash?"
"Last night was the first time I spoke to him in a week," Harley said bitterly.
"A week? Harley..." Pam trailed off, her eyes turning sympathetic. "You know a week isn't that long, right? I mean, everything was fine last time I spoke to you, and you know you can be kind of..." She trailed off again, reluctant to continue.
"Kind of what?" Harley narrowed her eyes.
"You can be kind of co-dependent," Pam said, as kindly as possible. "Both of you."
"Co-dependant?" Harley bristled.
"Yes," Pam said firmly. "I know you guys like... thrive off of how intense you are together." She rolled her eyes, making Harley scoff. "I'm not belittling it," Pam insisted. "But you're together constantly. Maybe he just needs some space. Maybe you do too."
"Some space?" Harley frowned, bewildered. "Don't people usually say they want space when they want to break up?"
"I find it hard to believe J is ghosting you, Harley," Pam sighed. "And as much as I would love you to dump his ass, I also don't want to see you torturing yourself just because your boyfriend is terrible at communicating."
"So, what do I do?" Harley demanded, exasperated.
"Do what you came back to Gotham to do," Pam encouraged. "Find the Riddler."
Harley frowned down at Samantha's white linen bedspread, knowing Pam was right, at least about keeping herself busy.
"Aside from the Joker being an asshole, which is not a surprise, by the way," Pam continued. "What else is going on?"
"I got my period," Harley said moodily.
"Don't you have one of those implant thingies in your arm?" Pam scrunched up her nose.
"It stops working after four years," Harley sighed. "I'm fertile again."
"Well, that's an easy fix," Pam shrugged. "Go get a new one."
"My health insurance isn't exactly up to date," Harley pointed out. "And the last thing I want is to go to the Pill Man for birth control."
"Go to a clinic, you moron," Pam rolled her eyes. "One of your greatest strengths is your ability to hide in plain sight. There has to be one in the Narrows where you can get it taken care of. Worst-case scenario, the doctor recognizes you, and you threaten to kill their family if they don't give you medical attention."
"Yeah, that's true," Harley agreed uncertainly. She thought about the old couple staring at her from their lawn chairs, her erratic behavior anything but 'hiding in plain sight.'
When she looked back at the phone screen, she could see Pam watching her warily, worrying about her.
"Listen, why don't you go for a drink with Bullock or that Reeves guy," Pam suggested. "You just need to have a little normal fun with people who aren't the Joker."
"Maybe," Harley agreed reluctantly, remembering very similar advice the Joker had given her a long, long, long time ago.
That poor Dr Quinzel. She just needs some fun.
Vicki Vale's new office was on the tenth floor of the Gotham Globe's headquarters in Midtown, a mini-skyscraper hiding in the shadows of Wayne Tower and the Flatiron Building. The powers that be moved Vicki out of the news pool and up to the tenth floor when she requested a transfer to the Globe Magazine the previous fall, claiming wanted to do more in-depth profiles. When she was promoted to Features Editor, they gave her a corner office complete with floor-to-ceiling windows and squashy white couches for meetings and brainstorming sessions.
The pay was still shitty, but that was working in the media for you.
Did she miss the thrill of the chase? That tingling sixth sense that a good story was begging her to look into it? Kind of. But she felt safer on the tenth floor commissioning puff pieces on celebrities and rich people.
Everyone was safer with Vicki on the tenth floor, where her ambition wouldn't lead to terrorist propaganda being printed in the paper.
These days, her biggest problems were relegated to deadlines and flakey staff members, like the magazine's in house photographer, Alexander Knox. He was chubby and boisterous, with a thick head of red hair, and he always seemed to have a doughnut in one hand and a camera in the other. Vicki could never tell which interested him more.
"Vale, you heard the news?" Knox shoved his head into Vicki's office, not bothering to knock. "The Riddler attacked the Flugelheim Gallery this morning."
Vicki sat back in her desk chair and folded her arms, leveling Knox with a dubious look. "Aren't you supposed to be at a shoot, Alex?"
"Aw, c'mon, Vale. Lemme go see if I can get anything," Knox grinned. He took a huge bite out of his doughnut and sending crumbs flying. "This is once in a lifetime stuff!" he insisted, his words muffled.
"That isn't your job," Vicki countered, raising one eyebrow. "The picture desk needs those shots by tomorrow. Now get your ass Uptown before I ask for a new snapper."
"Alright, alright, jeez," Knox rolled his eyes. "Ya know, considering your old beat at the Gazette covering masked freaks, I'm surprised you aren't more interested in the Riddler."
"I think we're all exhausted of masked freaks," Vicki said drily. Then before she could stop herself, "What was the riddle this time?"
"Something about celebrities," Knox shrugged. "He killed three people getting a painting out of there."
"Shit," Vicki frowned, the urge to look up the riddle prickling the back of her neck. But she resisted. Instead, she grabbed her phone and shot Knox a pointed look. "I need those portraits by 9 AM tomorrow. And don't skimp on the photoshop this time. I got hell from Ivania Dumas's publicist because you didn't make her skinny enough."
"Fine, fine," Knox grumbled, shoving the last of his doughnut in his mouth as he wandered out of her office.
Alone again, Vicki glanced at the spreadsheet in front of her, full of deadlines and release schedules and print dates. She tongued one of her prominent canine teeth thoughtfully, indulging in a moment of self-doubt. Was she being a masochist and punishing herself with this job? Punishing herself for trusting Harley Quinn, and being blinded by ambition?
But Harley Quinn was dead, Vicki reminded herself, as she did so often.
She stood and moved to stand in front of the window, gazing down at the Midtown traffic as she took a deep, cleansing breath and reminded herself how good her life was. She had a great job, great friends, and a wonderful boyfriend. She smiled as she unlocked her phone.
What are you wearing? she texted Bruce.
Three bubbles immediately appeared on the screen as Bruce typed out a response, making Vicki's smile grow.
Chinos, of course.
She snorted, her face splitting into a grin at the dry, slightly droll wit she'd come to adore in Bruce. He hid it well when they were in public, and it had taken some gentle probing to find the kind, affable man beneath all that fake smarm. He still had secrets, that was clear too, but for once, Vicki wasn't interested in uncovering every last kernel of truth. With Bruce, she was content to know that she might not know everything about his past, just as he didn't know everything about hers.
Are we still on for tomorrow night? He asked.
Pick me up at 8 ;)
Harley spent the remainder of the afternoon following Pam's advice, using Samantha's laptop to research the Riddler, making notes like she would have at Arkham as she attempted to develop a psychological profile for Gotham's en vogue villain of the moment.
Thus far, the cops had yet to find any fingerprints or DNA they could concretely tie to the Riddler, though they found plenty for his henchmen. The MCU's spokesperson described them as 'known Gotham criminals.' Harley translated this to mean your average muscle-for-hire thugs who'd done time at Blackgate. That meant the Riddler had access to Gotham's underbelly if he wasn't using first-timers. Though as far as Harley was aware, it was still up for debate who controlled the muscle in Gotham these days.
More important was the fact that in just under four months, the Riddler had killed thirty people, stolen numerous invaluable objects, robbed multiple banks, and whipped up enough fear among the general populace to get the Batman on his tail. Yet he still hadn't been caught.
The Joker's first 'reign of terror' lasted two weeks.
Granted, he'd done much more fundamental damage to Gotham's psyche and its hospitals in those two weeks.
In truth, the only thing Harley had learned about the Riddler since returning to Gotham was that he was more of a ghost than she'd originally given him credit for. Everything else she'd understood the moment she laid eyes on him in newsprint. He was an attention-seeker of the highest caliber; he lacked empathy or remorse for his actions; and he was a copycat with no message of his own, who desperately needed to be taken down a few pegs.
Most of all, Harley had known he would be a challenge to hunt. She always preferred a challenge to an easy mark. A worthy adversary was something she and the Joker actively sought out—it was one of the primary things that motivated them, right up there with living freely and chaotically in any way they chose.
Harley just hadn't expected to be hunting the Riddler alone.
She also dropped Arthur Reeves a text. Thus far, they'd met at the Stacked Deck and the Grey Dove, criminal establishments where Reeves stuck out like a sore thumb with his all-American good looks and three-piece suits. So Harley suggested the only respectable bar she knew of, a wine bar Uptown where she'd once met a friend in another lifetime.
She spent a full hour attempting to comb the knots out of her hair after months of neglecting it, resorting to using scissors for the more difficult matting that refused to come out. When she'd finished, her hair fell half-way down her back, sun-streaked and looking like she'd taken a machete to it, prompting her to tie it back in a low bun to not draw attention to herself.
She confronted Samantha's closet next, choosing an emerald green sundress and low-heeled, strappy sandals. Then she added a black headband from Samantha's dresser, hoping it would make her look more normal. She applied a flick of black eyeliner and some baby-pink lipstick, then threw the contents of her fanny pack into one of Samantha's handbags and called a cab.
Uptown south-of-the-park was a trendy neighborhood full of cafe-slash-galleries and cocktail bars, along with a few blink-and-you'll-miss-the-mobsters establishments like the Iceberg Lounge and the Cheetah Bar. Reeves was waiting for Harley outside the wine bar on the main drag, his navy blue suit and tie pristine after a day of campaigning for Hamilton Hill.
Reeves was in his mid-thirties, exceptionally tall and very handsome with a square jaw and straight white teeth. His fair hair was swept neatly to the side, and he always wore an American flag pin on his lapel, which he described as 'part of the job' when Harley asked about his patriotism. He was impeccably clean-cut on the outside, but fantastically slimy, and Harley found his honesty about being a scumbag entertaining. He wasn't bad to look at either.
"Ann Smiley," he greeted her with a brilliant white grin, looking delighted as he examined her costume change. From dirty Eastside criminal to a nice Uptown girl. "Yikes, you clean up good, huh?"
"Reeves," Harley greeted him, already amused. She placed her hand on his arm and lifted her face for him to kiss her on the cheek, standard Uptown practice for greeting friends.
When she pulled back, Reeves smirked down at her, obviously feeling smug that he was being invited to help keep her identity a secret from the unsuspecting citizens around them.
"C'mon, let's get a drink," he suggested, laying a hand on the small of her back and guiding her into the wine bar.
The bar was trying too hard to look like a Provencal wine cave, with oak barrel tables and garlic bulbs hanging from the ceiling. The lighting was low and moody, and it was packed with stylish twenty and thirty-somethings swigging Bordeaux blends while they tried to hear each other over experimental Jazz.
"What're you having?" Reeves asked once they were seated at the bar, his smirk still firmly in place. "Red, white, rosè?"
"I don't care," Harley shrugged, looking around the room, instinctively searching for signs of trouble. But it was just a boring collection of young-professional upper-middle-class types without a care in the world. It was like they were waiting for her to do something to interrupt their perfect lives.
"Alright, but what do you like to drink?" Reeves pressed, leaning forward gamely, his knee pressing against Harley's under the bar.
"I like gin martinis, extra dry," Harley admitted, feeling like she was revealing something oddly personal.
"I'll keep that in mind for next time," Reeves winked and braced an elbow on the lacquered bar top, getting the bartender's attention. "Can we get a bottle of that 15' Malbec? Thanks."
"So you're into wine, huh?" Harley asked, accepting a globe-shaped glass of red wine.
"Hey, I'll drink anything," Reeves corrected smoothly, clinking his glass against hers. "But in my business, you've gotta be able to mingle with the fancy people."
"What is it with privileged people always thinking they're not the elite ones," Harley mused.
"I didn't say I wasn't privileged," Reeves countered slyly. "I have plenty of money, but my tastes skew a little…" He caught Harley's eye and flashed her a roguish grin. "Unsophisticated."
Harley rolled her eyes, feeling he'd made her point for her.
"So, to what do I owe the pleasure tonight?" Reeves continued cheerfully. "I have to say, I was surprised you wanted to meet up in this part of town."
"I needed a change of scenery," Harley said evasively. "Besides, you stick out too much on the Eastside."
"And yet you manage to blend in wherever you go," Reeves observed suavely. "I almost didn't recognize you."
"That's kind of the point," Harley deadpanned.
"And where is Mr J tonight?" Reeves asked, a little more cautiously. "Is he blending in too?"
Harley took a few healthy sips of wine, pushing away the painful pang that came with being reminded of the Joker.
"He's got plans tonight," she shot back coyly, like she knew something Reeves didn't. Even though really, she had no idea where the Joker was or what he was doing.
"Good thing I'm here with you," Reeves offered her a lascivious smirk, his knee knocking against hers beneath the bar again. "You'll keep me safe, won't you, Ann?"
Harley rolled her eyes and fought back a smile. She wondered if Reeves was a nihilist as well as a corrupt opportunist.
"And where is Mrs Reeves tonight?" she countered.
"Helen's probably knocking back a few chardonnays with her friends at the club," he shrugged carelessly, topping up both of their glasses. "But if you and Mr J are ever up for a double date, just let me know."
"A double date?" Harley laughed despite herself. "You would not survive that."
"Oh, I don't doubt it," Reeves chuckled. "Let me guess; it would include a bank robbery?"
Harley shrugged, and Reeves narrowed his eyes playfully.
"Hostage situation with the cast of Made In the Diamond District?" he tried again, making Harley throw her head back and laugh.
"Closer," she grinned at him.
"Alright," Reeves smoothed a hand over his jaw and eyed Harley thoughtfully. "Hostile takeover of a major Gotham corporation?"
"Too complicated," Harley wrinkled her nose and waved her hand. "And boring."
"Hamilton's forced through a few hostile takeovers," Reeves pointed out wryly. "It's the most exciting shit gets in the business world."
"My world's already more exciting than that," Harley smirked.
"Oh, I don't doubt it," Reeves grinned, topping up their glasses again.
"So, what's new with Hamilton Hill and the world of politics?" Harley asked, clinking her glass against his.
"Fundraising, endorsements, media appearances," Reeves shrugged affably. "Boring stuff like trying to get Bruce Wayne to tell the world how much he loves Hamilton."
"Bruce Wayne, problematic billionaire-playboy," Harley mused. She thought back to the hour or so she'd spent with Wayne some two years earlier when she'd still been working at Arkham.
"Do you know him?" Reeves squinted at Harley, and she scoffed.
"What do you think?" she shot Reeves an amused look. "Why is Wayne's endorsement so important to Hill?"
"Wayne Enterprises is the biggest corporation in Gotham," Reeves explained. "And one of the biggest in the world. Hamilton's a business guy first and foremost. He wants those endorsements, and he's gonna get them, one way or another."
"What counts as another?" Harley smirked.
"Drugs, alcohol, girls," Reeves smirked right back at her. "Wayne'll have something naughty in his closet. It's only a matter of time before we find it."
"How wonderfully ruthless of you," Harley grinned.
"I'll take that as high praise coming from you, Ms Smiley," Reeves shot back cheerfully. "You know, you should come to the Tobacconist's Club sometime."
"The Tobacconist's Club?" Harley raised an eyebrow at him over her glass. "Never heard of it."
"A member's club Downtown," Reeves waggled his eyebrows at her. "Invite only."
"Sounds boring," Harley rolled her eyes, imagining a swath of wealthy men in smoking jackets congratulating each other on their successes.
"Think of it as role-playing," Reeves offered her a lascivious grin. "Have a night out where no one knows who you are."
"No one knows who I am right now," Harley pointed out, gesturing up and down the bar at the unsuspecting patrons, none of them realizing there was a terrorist in their midst.
"These people are boring," Reeves waved his hand dismissively, the wine loosening his tongue. "Only Gotham's most powerful men and women get an invite to the Tobacconist's Club. That's where you belong."
"I'll keep it in mind," Harley agreed mildly. She wondered if some time with Gotham's wealthiest citizens might open doors to more information on the Riddler, or just more information in general. Those people were never as squeaky clean as they liked to pretend they were.
She drained the rest of her glass and dropped it on the bar top, already feeling pleasantly buzzed.
"So," she sighed, softening her expression as she leaned toward Reeves, intending to get some dirt on him just in case she needed it. "Tell me more about Mrs Reeves. I'm just dying to meet her."
The Mega-Mart in the University District carried just about anything legal you could hope to buy, and it was open twenty-four hours. Jonny Frost had been surprised to learn a majority of the supplies they needed could be purchased there, though he'd watched enough TV when he was in the joint to know you shouldn't buy everything in one place. Not if you didn't want the pigs to catch on. That didn't seem to bother the Joker, but nothing ever bothered him. He existed in a state of unyielding confidence, the concept of being caught never even occurring to him.
It might sound crazy, but that confidence inspired Frost in a way he'd never known he could feel before. A long time ago, before the bad behavior that got him thrown in prison in the first place, Frost had been a soldier. But after two tours of Iraq and all the horrific things he'd seen there, he'd realized it was a futile fight driven by greed, not freedom. He'd realized he'd been sold a lie.
War was messy; humans were messy; freedom was messy. The Joker understood that better than anyone Frost had ever met.
After the Joker and Harley disappeared, Frost found himself at a loose end. The Irish mob was in tatters with Alexandra Kosov and the Odessa gang taking over the Eastside. Meanwhile, a bloody power-struggle ripped apart the Russian mafia, aided in part by the Batman's systematic shut down of the drug trade. There was plenty of work for a guy like in Frost in a climate like that, but he opted to go straight. He got himself a decent job at a bar Downtown. The kind of place that still paid for protection but didn't actively cater to the dying breed of mafioso-types.
But then the Joker showed up four weeks earlier looking for muscle, and Frost leaped at the opportunity to join him. And it had been one wild fuckin' ride ever since.
Now Frost found himself in the Mega-Mart at 2 AM, squinting at a plastic container under the fluorescent lights. He was trying to remember if he was looking for polydicyclopentadiene or polyvinylidene, or if either one would do the job. There was only one container big enough for what they needed, and it only came in fluoride-blue polyvinylidene, so Frost hauled it off the shelf with a grunt and dropped it on the linoleum floor. He frowned as he relived their first fuck up with this stuff. That was not something he wanted to repeat.
Frost glanced up and down the aisle, checking for other customers, then stepped into the container and lowered himself down, trying to fit his massive frame into the confines of the blue plastic. Satisfied it was big enough, he dragged the container up to the check out aisle and paid for it in cash.
Out in the parking lot, he caught sight of the Joker smoking out of the window of the old station wagon they'd been driving for a few weeks now.
Without the warpaint—as some of the boys called it—the Joker looked pretty close to a normal guy; a good-looking guy, even with the scars. Unless he looked right at you. Then you saw that disconcerting gleam in his eyes, the one that made most guys—including Frost—squirm when it hit you just how inhuman he could be. Inhuman was a good word for it, or maybe wild was better. That was what the Joker's eyes reminded Frost of—a wild animal. It was in the way he moved too, weirdly graceful like a cat when he wanted to be, though sometimes he carried himself more like a strutting peacock. One who would rip your guts out if given half a chance. But it was when he was really in a hurry, coming at you in full force, that he was like a big, loping tiger, ready to tear you apart limb from limb.
Frost knew lots of killers, and he knew lots of guys that enjoyed killing, but the Joker was a different breed entirely. It was like there was this energy bursting out of him, driving him to do what he did, even if it didn't make sense in the short term. But there was always a reason.
And then there was how he'd been with Harley that day they were hunting Holiday. The Joker seemed to glide around her like he was vibrating right off the ground, almost more intense than when he was killing a guy. And Harley has been the same, beaming and graceful when she looked at the Joker, but only for the Joker. With everyone else, she was ice cold. Even when she pretended to be sweet to you, there was a chilly, mean layer beneath it. But with a face like hers, most people ignored that meanness. They preferred to think she was as sweet as she pretended when she turned those baby blues on you. And from what Frost had seen, those people usually came to regret underestimating her.
Frost wasn't much of a talker, but a few times after too many whiskeys, he'd had to hold his tongue so he wouldn't ask the boss about Harley. It didn't make much sense pushing her away like he was doing. Frost had seen the look on her face when she'd left the safe house the night before. It was the look a woman got when she was feeling betrayed and scorned, and it was unnatural seeing it on Harley Quinn.
But the Joker had his reasons, and it wasn't Frost's job to question him. Not was it his job to offer relationship advice. He was hardly an expert, as his ex-wife would enthusiastically attest to.
It would be a damn shame if the Joker lost a girl like Harley over a job.
Frost opened the station wagon's trunk and pushed the massive blue plastic tub inside, then slammed it shut and circled to the driver's side. He slid behind the wheel and glancing at the Joker warily
"You alright, boss?" he asked, respectfully.
"Oh, I'm just peachy," the Joker sneered, flicking the butt of his cigarette out the window.
Frost hoped the Joker and Harley made up soon. It was obvious the boss was miserable without her.
After two more bottles of that 15' Malbec with Reeves, plus many successful attempts to make him squirm, Harley made her excuses and headed back to her safe house. She stayed up late reading opinion columns about the Riddler, finding most theories infuriatingly obtuse. The media framed him as a replacement for the Joker, like Gotham had exchanged one deranged masked villain for another. But that was so far off the mark, and only served to make Harley more determined to reveal the Riddler as the copycat coward he was.
But before she could do that, she had to find him.
In the wee hours of the morning, she passed out on the couch and woke up that afternoon to a text from Detective Bullock.
Need to see u ASAP, it read.
Harley frowned, remembering the last time Bullock had direly needed to see her. Marty had turned up dead.
Who's dead now? she wrote back.
Lots of people, Bullock replied.
Harley raked a hand through her hair, sighing before she agreed to meet Bullock at the Stacked Deck later that evening. The idea of having to run errands was a welcome distraction, right alongside her mission to track down the Riddler.
Another one of those errands included a trip down to the Narrows to coerce a doctor into giving her birth control, a genuinely menial task compared to how Harley typically spent her days.
Samantha didn't own anything that would transform her into a poverty-stricken drug addict, so Harley pulled on the frayed denim shorts and a sweat-stained crop top that had been her outfit of choice for months. Then she dumped the contents of the handbag she'd taken with her the night before back into her fanny pack—ten grand in cash, a taser, a switchblade, Pam's encrypted phone, and a burner she used for everyone else—and headed out.
It took about forty minutes to drive from the upper echelons of North Gotham to the Narrows, an island as far south as you could get while still being within the city limits. The Narrows was notorious for two things; its drug addicts and Arkham Asylum. Harley used to get nervous going there, feeling she was treading too closely to her old life. Now she couldn't give less of a shit. If someone recognized her, that was too bad for them. It was charitable for her to go out in public and disguise herself.
She parked the Crown Vic down the street from a Wayne Foundation Clinic and took a moment to look up and down the trash lined streets. It looked like garbage had been piling up for weeks, the mid-summer heat making the bags sweat and stink fiercely. That didn't seem like the kind of good Mayor-ing that would get Krol re-elected, but it wasn't like people in the Narrows turned out to vote in droves. From what Harley knew of Hamilton Hill, a big-time business consultant turned politician, it wasn't likely he'd be much help to them either.
The people of the Narrows were simply doomed.
The sign advertising the clinic had been ripped off the building, replaced with red graffiti of a cock and balls. Harley made a face, wishing she didn't have to do this, then crossed her arms tight over her chest, hunched her shoulders defensively, and bowed her head before she shuffled into the clinic, playing her new character.
The clinic consisted of a small waiting room lined with orange plastic chairs bolted to the floor, half of which were occupied by weathered, sad-looking people. A harried woman was bouncing a screaming baby with a dirty diaper on her knee, while an emaciated old man snored nearby, and a group of three young men huddled together, talking in low voices, all of them sweaty and blinking rapidly. Drug addicts.
Harley watched the addicts out of the corner of her eye as she approached the receptionist's desk. It was manned by a matronly African woman who was currently speaking on the phone in clipped tones, only just maintaining a veneer of respect for whoever she was requesting medical supplies from. Harley fought the urge to sigh impatiently and rock back on her heels.
Instead, she remained hunched and shrunken, clutching her elbows and keeping her face hidden until the receptionist was free to pass her a clipboard and a pen.
The form was a basic questionnaire asking for information on why she was there and her medical history. Harley filled it out quickly, only answering the questions someone poor and left behind would be able to answer. She returned the form to the receptionist and flopped into one of the orange chairs, glowering at the other patients, the screaming baby making her nerves stand on end.
It would be so much easier to kill them all and take the doctor hostage.
But she was supposed to be flying under the radar. Murder at a charitable free clinic was hardly discreet.
She could leave a riddle, blame it on the Riddler. That might be fun.
In the end, Harley opted to wait, and eventually, the woman with the crying baby was called, at least blessing the waiting room with silence. After what felt like an eternity, one of the drug addicts was called, shooting his buddies a nervous look before he headed into the doctor's office. Harley watched his friends rock in their seats, the signs of withdrawal visible, when she noticed their nostrils were vaguely... blue.
Harley narrowed her eyes, watching them mutter to each other anxiously. She was on the verge of going over to ask what kind of heroin turned a person's nose blue when their friend rushed out of the doctor's office, cursing over his shoulder. He waved at his friends, and they hurried after him out of the clinic.
The old man went in next—the receptionist had to come over and wake him up—and shortly after that a young couple staggered in. A skinny girl with tight red curls and her boyfriend, who was sporting blue nostrils and grinding his teeth, his hand firmly clasped around her upper arm. The girl had a black eye, and Harley didn't need a PhD to guess who gave it to her as she watched the boyfriend shove the girl into a chair.
Then finally, the fake name Harley had given was called.
She shuffled into the small doctor's office, shoulders hunched, head down, still in character, and didn't look up when the doctor chirped a friendly hello as she climbed onto the examination table.
"Billie Stone?" the doctor asked, prompting Harley to look up from under her hair. "I'm Dr Lee Thompkins," she said, offering Harley a kind smile.
Dr Thompkins looked to be in her mid-fifties, pretty with olive skin and thick black hair wound up in a twist at the back of her head, a sleek grey streak falling over her eyes. Her eyes were warm and thick with crows feet, her makeup neat, and beneath her white lab coat, she wore simple slacks and a white shirt. She wasn't wearing a wedding ring.
"Yes, ma'am," Harley murmured, shrinking in on herself, her eyes darting down to the floor.
"So, you're here for birth control today?" Dr Thompkins asked kindly, consulting Harley's chart.
"Yes, ma'am," Harley murmured again, not engaging with her.
"I just need to ask you a few questions," Dr Thompkins continued. "When was the last day of your last period?"
"Two days ago," Harley said awkwardly, listening to the doctor's pen scratch across the page.
"And your last smear test?"
"Uh," Harley thought back to her last OBGYN appointment. It had been just before the Joker was admitted to Arkham. "About two years ago."
There was a pause before Dr Thompkins asked, "And what form of birth control are you currently using?"
"Abstinence," Harley said bitterly before she could stop herself. She grit her teeth, recalibrating. "I had the implant in my arm, but it stopped working last month. I don't want a baby, doc. My boyfriend'll kill me."
Not necessarily untrue.
"I see," Dr Thompkins said hesitantly. "And... you were happy with it? No side effects? Breast pain, nausea, weight gain..."
"Nope," Harley said flatly, growing bored with the process.
"Well, luckily we have a few here to administer," Dr Thompkins said, sounding uncertain. Or maybe nervous. "I'll just need to take your vitals before we can place it in your arm."
"Okay," Harley agreed woodenly, willing the process to speed up as the doctor moved closer and went through the motions of having her take deep breaths while she moved a stethoscope over Harley's back and chest. Harley kept her face turned away as a blood pressure cuff was secured around her arm, and Dr Thompkins informed her that her blood pressure was a little high.
"Shocking," Harley muttered as Thompkins removed the cuff and took hold of her wrist, taking her pulse in silence.
"You know..." Dr Thompkins said at length, still holding Harley's wrist between her thumb and forefinger. "You don't have to pretend for me... Dr Quinzel."
Harley closed her eyes and let out a long sigh, berating herself for not being more on the ball, especially not around someone smart who had to be observant for a living. She unzipped her fanny pack and lifted her head, rolling her shoulders back as she sat up straight, her face composed in icy malice as she met Thompkins' eye.
"Oh, Dr Thompkins," Harley said darkly, pulling the switchblade out of her fanny pack and flicking it open with a swick! "You really should have kept that to yourself."
Dr Thompkins' eyes widened as she released Harley's wrist and took a step back, her hands flying up defensively.
"No, no, it's okay," she stammered. "I can be discreet. This is the Narrows, I have to be."
"Discreet?" Harley raised an eyebrow as she jumped off the table, the blade in her hand glinting under the fluorescent lights. "Even for someone like me? A domestic terrorist."
"Yes, even for someone like you," Thompkins insisted, trying to smile reassuringly, but failing as Harley started to close in on her. "I took an oath to provide care to those who need it and... and that includes you."
"The Hippocratic oath is to save lives," Harley sneered, finding her argument unpersuasive. "Not to provide bad people with birth control."
"Please, you don't have to do this," Thompkins begged, sounding desperate. "Just let me give you what you came for, and you can go."
Harley ran her tongue over her bottom lip, her eyes darting around Thompkins' anxious face. There were a few long seconds of silence in which Harley considered her options, and at last, she nodded shortly and backed up to sit on the examination table, her mouth hardening as she tucked the switchblade back in her fanny pack and zipped it closed.
"How did you know?" she asked grumpily once Thompkins returned with a tray of medical equipment and asked her to raise her arm.
"Well..." Thompkins said awkwardly, pulling on a pair of purple latex gloves. "Most women from the Narrows will never have had a pap smear, let alone use such modern birth control."
"And," Harley snapped, using her free hand to rake her hair off her face now that she didn't have to hide.
"And... I recognized your voice," Thompkins admitted as she focused on Harley's arm, numbing the skin under her bicep with a local anesthetic. "There was a video circulating a few weeks back... a lecture you gave at Gotham University. They tried to take it down, claiming it was gaslighting people, but of course, it made its way back up."
"What?" Harley frowned, casting her mind back to the lectures she'd given at GU while Dr Thompkins used a pair of plastic forceps to insert the implant under her skin, then held a ball of cotton wool against the small incision and secured it with a piece of medical tape. "What lecture?"
"It was about the rarity of real psychopaths," Thompkins explained uneasily, removing her latex gloves. "It sounded a little bit like you... revered them. At least intellectually."
Harley made a face and lowered her arm to her side. "Why are people sharing a video of a lecture I gave years ago?"
"Are you kidding?" Thompkins' eyebrows lifted in surprise. "Your story is extremely compelling."
"You've been reading Vicki Vale," Harley shot back bitterly. "Mad Love is not what happened."
"I don't know how anyone could believe that was what happened," Thompkins frowned. "It's the mystery that makes it so fascinating."
Harley shrugged ambivalently, disinterested in how mysterious or compelling the general population found her.
"Anyway... you're all set," Thompkins offered her a strained smile. "But just to be safe, wait about ten days before having unprotected intercourse."
"Sure," Harley sighed, rubbing her hands over her face when something occurred to her. She dropped her hands and squinted at Thompkins curiously.
"There are a lot of drug addicts out in that waiting room," she observed. "Why are their noses blue?"
"Oh," Thompkins nodded knowingly. "That's the Blue Orchid. If they're snorting it regularly in large amounts, it turns the skin blue."
"Blue what?" Harley narrowed her eyes.
"Blue Orchid, it's kind of the designer drug of the moment," Thompkins explained, shaking her head. "When the heroin dried up, I thought we might make some headway on the addiction crisis down here, but then BO swept in to fill its place."
"Why haven't I heard anything about this?" Harley demanded, standing from the examination table. Suddenly she remembered the purple powder the Joker's henchmen had been sniffing in Marty's kitchen. Oh...
"Probably because it's just as popular Uptown as it is down here," Thompkins said, her face souring. "It's made right here in Gotham."
"Okay," Harley said thoughtfully. "Batman takes out the drug routes, someone starts making Blue Orchid in Gotham to fill the void. Now it's the drug of choice amongst the wealthy and the poor and everyone in between."
"Exactly," Thompkins offered Harley a strained smile. "It feels like there's always someone eager to profit off the vulnerable in Gotham."
"It's not just Gotham," Harley countered, rolling her eyes. "It's human beings. It's civilization. People will always kill one another to better themselves. We're worse than animals."
Thompkins seemed to understand she was getting into a philosophical discussion with the Joker's partner and kept her mouth shut, which Harley took as her cue to leave. But first, she applied another character, wanting to go on good terms with Dr Thompkins so she wouldn't immediately run screaming to the cops. And maybe, if it ever became necessary in the future, she could provide some discreet healthcare again. Harley's business wasn't the safest, and it was always helpful to have an easily-coerced doctor on hand.
"Thank you for your help, Dr Thompkins," Harley said, plastering on a grateful smile. It was Dr Harleen Quinzel's smile, a character Harley played expertly for years, and one Thompkins seemed to respect. "I can't tell you how much I appreciate your discretion," she added, holding out her hand.
"Of course," Thompkins stuttered, taken aback by the sudden change of pace as she shook Harley's hand. "It's my job."
Harley gave her another disarming smile and then turned to leave, her face immediately falling into a moody scowl as she exited Thomkins' office and strode through the waiting room.
She stopped when she reached the redhead with a black eye, her boyfriend now absent. Harley's jaw twitched as she squinted down at the girl, then unzipped her fanny pack to retrieve the switchblade she'd pulled on Dr Thompkins. The sound of the zipper made the girl look up, and her eyes widened when she saw Harley staring down at her.
Harley held the knife out to her, and the girl took it uncertainly, looking between the blade and Harley's face, confused.
"The next time he tries something like that," Harley instructed, tapping the side of her throat. "Aim for his jugular. Right here."
The girl's eyes widened even further, her hands tightening around the knife as she held it close to her chest.
Harley tossed her hair over her shoulder and continued out of the clinic, relieved to be done with that particularly tedious task as she headed back to the Crown Vic.
She had just gotten the door open and climbed behind the wheel when the burner in her fanny pack beeped loudly. It was a message from Arthur Reeves.
Tobacconist's Club tonight? Come on, it'll be fun! Private party! Plenty of rich assholes to laugh at!
Harley considered the pros and cons as she turned the key in the ignition, and the old engine revved to life with a sputter. Pros: the possibility of gleaning new information when she was clearly in the dark about many of Gotham's going-ons. Cons: extreme boredom and exasperation.
Sure, she wrote.
Ann Smiley 1? ;) Reeves offered.
Harley relived her recent failure to blend in and decided she would need to do better this time if she was to swan around amongst Gotham's 'most powerful' and get some information out of them.
She knew all too well how Gotham's elite liked to flirt with the darker sides of the city.
She tapped out a reply to Reeves.
Peaches Kane. No plus 1.
Wayne Manor had two kitchens. One was a massive, restaurant-grade kitchen, used primarily by caterers when lavish parties were thrown—something Dinah had not been subjected to yet. However, it was coming with the looming Wayne Foundation Fundraiser in less than two weeks' time.
Then there was the nook, large by normal kitchen standards but not obscenely so. It had an old-fashioned wood-burning stove, a fancy refrigerator that spat perfect cubes of ice, and a reclaimed oak table with two long benches. It was homey and warm-feeling, and Dinah liked nothing better than spending time there with Bruce and Alfred, eating and talking and being together.
She was sitting at the kitchen table with her Macbook open in front of her, pretending to work on an essay for the Psych 101 class she had agreed to take online. Dinah rationalized that having some understanding of the mind would help with her real work: fighting terrorists and keeping the people of Gotham safe. Her psychology textbook sat unopened by her elbow, ready for her to show Bruce or Alfred if they asked about it, but she was currently reading two books in tandem: one on cryptology, the study of codes and puzzles, the other on Abstract Expressionism.
It had been almost two days since the Riddler's last heist. Three people were dead, and he'd stolen another painting, leaving a riddle behind.
I am worshiped and I am hated
A prominent figure of flexible celebration
Most don't know me, but they all want to be me
What am I?
The answer appeared to be 'celebrity,' but what that was supposed to mean, Dinah didn't know, especially not when combined with the riddle he'd left at the Gotham Museum of Modern Art a week earlier.
I am illness to some and freedom to others
Repetition and chaos are the choices we make
I am the one thing that will make the mind break
What am I?
'Insanity' appeared to be the answer to that riddle.
The paintings felt more revealing than the riddles. Dinah brought up an image of Francis Bacon's 'Figure with Meat' on her laptop, bracing her chin in her palm as she examined the screaming face and the butchered cow, the violence implicit in the smears of paint. 'Permeated by anguished visions of humanity', the internet informed her. 'Powerful, nihilistic, tormented figures become players in dark, unresolved dramas.'
The Jackson Pollock painting was of the same period, but a completely different aesthetic. 'The canvas was not a picture but an event,' the book on Abstract Expressionism said. 'The gesture on the canvas was a gesture of liberation from value—political, aesthetic, moral.'
Both of them reminded Dinah of Harley.
She knew what Bruce would say that—she was obsessed. That Harley hadn't been seen in over six months. But the Riddler had emulated the Joker before, what was to say that he wasn't obsessed with them. What if he was reaching out to them.
Dinah pulled up the Pollock painting on her laptop and stared at it, her brow sinking into a frown as she searched the erratic splatters and random streaks of paint. She wished she could see it in real life, or touch it to feel the texture against her fingertips, maybe giving her better insight into its meaning. Because the longer she stared at it and tried to understand it, the more one word came to her.
Chaos.
Chaos had been the answer to one of the Riddler's riddles a month earlier.
Dinah sighed and turned back to the cryptology book just as Bruce strolled into the nook, straightening his tie and looking a little giddy like he always did when he was about to see Vicki or had just come from seeing Vicki.
"Working hard?" He grinned at her.
Dinah held up her psychology textbook. "Psych 101," she lied.
But Bruce was too observant to fall for that. He raised his eyebrows at the open books in front of her.
"Abstract Expressionism and cryptology, huh?" he asked, and Dinah sighed, feeling chastised as she looked at the Jackson Pollock painting again.
"It turns out I like art after all," she admitted, feeling a little stupid because art seemed so... frivolous.
"We have a pretty decent collection, you know," Bruce told her, trying to sound nonchalant and failing. "Maybe you could get a degree in art history and curate it for us one day."
Dinah shot him a dubious look.
"Nice try," she said drily, then changed the subject quickly, folding her arms and smirking at him. "You're looking very fancy."
"An old friend of mine just sold his company," Bruce explained, not looking very happy as he straightened his bowtie. "They're throwing him a party at this member's club downtown, and Vicki wants to see if she can sniff out a story."
"Rich people congratulate each other on getting richer," Dinah observed flatly. "Revolutionary journalism."
Bruce shot her a pointed look. "Vicki's not a reporter anymore. She commissions profiles for the magazine."
"I know," Dinah said, feeling a little guilty for being too harsh. "So… do we have any Jackson Pollock paintings in the collection?"
"I don't know," Bruce grinned smugly, which always made him look kind of dopey. "But we can buy some," he shrugged, making Dinah roll her eyes.
His car arrived soon after that to take him into the city, and Dinah told him to have fun and behave himself. It was obvious he would be out all night with Vicki, either staying at her place or bringing her back to the Manor, and Dinah tried not to feel disappointed that he was doing something to make himself happy. She wanted Bruce to be happy, but she also happened to think there were more important things than a personal life.
But that was okay, because the more she'd thought about it, the more Dinah came to believe she could do this without Bruce. She could be the watchful guardian Gotham needed, and he could settle down. Have a wife, some kids. He deserved that after the sacrifices he'd made. After all she'd done, Dinah didn't deserve it. At least not yet.
Alfred had already gone to bed, so Dinah closed her laptop and turned off the lights before heading to the sitting room. She tapped out three major chords on the piano, opening the secret passage, its motion sensor lights flickering on as she stepped through the bookcase.
She hadn't told Bruce yet, but Lieutenant Essen had texted her with a tip about an underground art racket run by some of Alexandra Kosov's goons out in South Channel. Dinah hadn't even told him that Essen gave her an old Nokia phone that couldn't be traced so they could communicate. It was how drug dealers and criminals communicated with each other, burner phones that couldn't be traced. It was how Harley had talked with her henchmen and minions, which included Dinah at one time.
More often than she'd like to admit, Dinah put some of the tricks Harley taught her to good use as Black Canary.
She just hoped they would be useful when she had to face Harley again.
A/N: First proper look at Ed! Catching up with Pam! Frost shipping Harley & J!
Also, a few new characters pulled from different Batman media. Lee Thompkins of Gotham, aged up - she will reappear later. Alexander Knox and the Flugelheim Museum from Burton's 1989 Batman. Arthur Reeves from BTAS - I wrote him with Armie Hammer in mind. I love him playing a suave scumbag.
My favorite is Pam calling the Joker a fuckboy. It makes me laugh every time I edit this chapter.
Admin note - I'm going to include a "previously" + mood music at the top of each chapter from now on. Hope you give these tracks a spin!
Real talk - You guys. YOU GUYS. The reception to this was off the wall last week. I was supposed to be having my bachelorette party weekend (thanks, Covid) and was planning on feeling sorry for myself, but you guys were so enthusiastic I kind of… forgot, haha. I mean, this plague is doing much worse to people than canceling weddings, and I consider myself quite lucky, but, ya know, thank you all for cheering me up!
Next: Harley visits the Tobacconist's Club while the Joker continues working on his side project, and their relationship deteriorates further.
Please comment and review! I am *very* interested in finding out what people think about this first look of the Riddler/Ed.
xo