Theme: David Lynch feat. Karen O - 'Pinky's Room' (Trentemøller Remix)
The Pantomime
23.
The stolen ambulance was on its last legs and hardly inconspicuous. It was riddled with bullet holes, its front bumper smashed in, the windows shattered and sides battered. Pam's nerves were shot as she drove through Gotham's Eastside, her ears still ringing from the grenade on the bridge. Not to mention the bullet wound currently forcing her to keep her left arm tight to her side, the pain making it hard to focus, let alone drive a bulky vehicle with one hand.
"Where the fuck are we going?" she demanded when the Joker didn't give her any further instructions.
"Chinatown," he grunted.
"I'm not a fucking cab driver," Pam shot back. "I'm gonna need a little more to go on."
He growled something under his breath. "Left here," he eventually snapped.
"Prick," Pam muttered, wincing as she yanked the wheel left toward Chinatown.
The Joker didn't respond this time. He hunched forward and braced his elbows on his knees, his gaze intent on the road ahead of them. Pam wasn't sure what to make of it.
The ambulance lurched along reluctantly through the empty, narrow streets, the Joker grunting sparse instructions until he finally wagged a finger at a dark alley. Pam yanked them off the road, the ambulance's belly scraping over the pavement as they slid into the alley. They skidded to a stop when she stomped down on the brake, the front bumper falling off with a noisy rattle.
Pam pulled the keys out of the ignition and eased off her seatbelt, her arm in agony. She took two deep breaths to clear her head before she turned to watch the Joker fumble through the glovebox, eventually producing an orange plastic flare gun.
"Guess I'll get to see some of that improvising I hear so much about," Pam sneered, kicking her door open while the Joker scowled at her and did the same.
She winced and prodded her arm as she circled to the back of the ambulance, eager to see if she could scrounge some medical supplies.
"C'mon, Red," the Joker snapped, heading for the street with the flare gun drawn.
Pam ignored him as she fumbled with the ambulance's back door, struggling to get them apart with one hand.
"Red," he barked impatiently, making Pam spin around.
"Did you miss the part where I got fucking shot," she spat, gesturing to her arm.
He scowled, his eyes flashing in a downright deadly glare as he loped back up to her, elbowing her aside to get the doors open.
"Aw, gee, thanks," Pam sneered, prompting the Joker to shoot her another dirty look.
The doors swung open with a loud creak, revealing Penny, the female EMT Pam droned earlier in the night. She was crouched on the floor in her underwear, her head bleeding after their Mr Toad-esque adventures.
Penny's eyes widened hopefully when she saw Pam, full of love and adoration.
Shit, Pam had completely forgotten she was back there.
"Ms Rose," Penny gasped happily, jumping to her feet.
Pam felt a familiar warmth beneath the skin of her palms, but it quickly transformed into a searing heat she could feel in her cheeks, and she reacted without thinking.
Later, when she looked back on this moment, she would remember that they were running short on time and resources, having just been in a car chase with the GCPD and Black Mask's thugs. That she had a gunshot wound to deal with and that a torture-happy rapist had kidnapped Harley. She'd remember there wasn't time to deal with Penny the EMT, and that what she did next was reasonable, even if she hadn't meant to do it.
Pam's hand flew up, her fingers slamming closed into a fist.
Penny threw her head to the side in one quick, violent movement, breaking her neck and collapsing to the floor.
There was a pregnant pause before Joker swung around to stare at Pam, who was still holding her fist in front of her face, her eyes wide as she realized what she'd done. She let her arm drop, staring at Penny's body and feeling the Joker's eyes on her—boring into her.
Pam ground her teeth together, a swarm of questions flooding her brain. The scientist in her was eager to understand what had just happened, but the test subject in her—because Pam would always be her own test subject—wanted no part in it. The white-hot pain of her gunshot wound reminded her that there were more important things to worry about, so she pushed those questions determinedly aside and jumped into the back of the ambulance to hunt for bandages.
"Uh… what the fuck was that?" the Joker demanded roughly.
"Shut up," Pam snapped at him over her shoulder. Her eyes darted to Penny on the floor as she shoved a roll of bandages in her pocket.
She could feel the Joker watching her as she jumped back out of the ambulance, his eyes glowing suspiciously in the darkness.
"So where the fuck are we going?" Pam snapped, flustered.
He took a deep breath like he was rallying his patience, then silently turned and loped off up the street, forcing Pam to hurry after him to keep up. They darted down a few side streets and then through some back alleys, Pam keeping her mouth pinched shut despite the urge to harangue him for information. He was obviously keeping a few choice thoughts to himself—a miraculous development—but Pam didn't want to hear what he had to say anyway.
They stuck to the shadows and finally stopped in front of a Chinese restaurant with newspapers and menus taped to the glass. Pam watched warily as the Joker retrieved a brass key from his waistcoat and unlocked a gated door to the right of the restaurant, letting them into a small, moldy-smelling corridor.
"Where—?" she started, but he ignored her, dodging up a rickety staircase.
Pam followed reluctantly, scowling at his back.
At the top of the stairs, he let them into a tiny studio apartment outfitted with a sofa and an ottoman, a bare bulb swinging overhead. There was a kitchenette missing all of its appliances in the corner, and the windows were covered with brown paper. It smelled stale as if no one had been there in a while.
The Joker immediately headed for the kitchenette, throwing open a cupboard while Pam pushed the door shut and hung back. Her eyes swept the small room a few times, searching for some sign of who this apartment belonged to no avail. Her ears were still ringing, and her arm was killing her, and after lingering near the door a little longer, she staggered over to the couch and lowered herself down.
"What is this place," she asked, glancing at the Joker.
He swung around to lean against the sink, shooting Pam a dubious look as he deposited some tobacco in a cigarette paper and started rolling a smoke.
"Well?" Pam demanded impatiently.
He narrowed his eyes at her, observing her silently. It wasn't another dirty look or a resentful scowl—this time, he was examining her. Judging her.
Pam looked away and rolled her shoulders back, feeling rattled as she turned her attention to the blood-soaked arm of her jumpsuit.
"Just a place," the Joker eventually said, popping the rolled cigarette between his lips, his unsettling eyes focused on her the whole time.
"That's nice and vague," Pam scoffed.
She tugged the zipper of the baggy EMT uniform down to her waist and shrugged her right arm out. Gritting her teeth, she guided her injured left arm out of the sleeve, wincing each time her wound brushed against the rough canvas.
Now sitting in her blood-stained camisole with the jumpsuit bunched up around her waist, Pam sighed and squinted down at her arm where a bullet had grazed her. An angry two-inch gash slicing across her bicep, bleeding badly. She chewed on her top lip, uncertain what she was supposed to do—it wasn't an ideal time for a trip to the emergency room.
Pam was uniquely powerful, but she still bled and scarred like anyone else. She didn't frequently put herself in situations where being shot at was a possibility—in fact, Pam couldn't think of a single time she'd been shot at when Harley wasn't involved. Pam insulated herself and protected herself because she was just as physically vulnerable as anyone else despite her abilities.
It seemed the Joker was thinking something similar.
"Mm, that's gonna need some stitches," he drawled snidely, taking a drag off his cigarette.
Pam scowled at him—like hell she was sewing her arm shut with a needle and thread. "I'll be fine."
"Mmhmm," he said, smoking and staring as she stood and wobbled into a small bathroom.
It was disgusting and utilitarian, with a yellow toilet missing a seat and a plastic shower stall covered in black mold, a crusty towel smeared with red and black paint lying abandoned on the peeling linoleum floor. Pam couldn't imagine Harley entertaining a place like this—Harley was less interested in creature comforts than most, but even this was a step too low in her book.
Then again, the Joker was a few steps lower as far as Pam was concerned.
Pam had reluctantly accepted Harley's relationship with the Joker as a necessary evil to keep Harley in her life. He was awful, but he didn't hurt her, and Pam was well-aware that without him, Harley would still put herself in dangerous situations in her never-ending quest to find meaning in life. Pam found it hard to make an argument that he was bad for her, even if she despised the Joker and everything he stood for. A childish nihilist who didn't believe in consequences. He may not have been motivated by money, but greedy men of that same mindset were why Pam did what she did.
There was also no doubt that night at the parking garage still stood out in Pam's mind, the night they first met Black Canary. With Harley battered and beaten on the ground, Pam tried to control the situation, which quickly escalated when the Joker got in the way. He'd taunted her into using her abilities on him. That was how Pam remembered that night. She hadn't intended to or planned on it—he'd goaded her into it.
Most people were like easy-flowing rivers. She'd slide right in and take over with no resistance. Then once she was in charge, things became even more peaceful for them. The two exceptions to this rule were Harley and the Joker.
It had been more like white water rafting with Harley—difficult, stressful, hard to control, but manageable.
With the Joker, she'd felt a small boat fighting against a hurricane in an open, endless sea and losing.
That stuck with Pam. Just like the way Harley holding a gun to her head that night did.
But that was all water under the bridge between them now. Harley explained she'd only been trying to save the Joker from Pam, a ridiculous idea, but one that Pam found endearing all the same. As if anyone would need saving from her.
Sequestered in the gross bathroom, she turned on the tap and splashed water on her arm, her teeth grinding together when her fingers grazed the bullet wound. The ringing in her ears was starting to fade, making it a fraction more comfortable to think clearly as she went through the painful task of cleaning up her arm. Then without much in the way of a choice, she squatted down to pick up the old paint-smeared towel, her nose wrinkling.
The Joker slunk into the doorway, bracing his shoulder against the frame and lifting an eyebrow at the dirty towel. He took a final drag of his cigarette and pulled a mostly empty bottle of Gordon's gin from behind his back.
"Would want ya getting all… infected," he sneered, offering it to her.
Pam snatched the bottle out of his hand and shot him a dirty look as she dumped gin on the cloth and held it to her arm. She hissed quietly when the alcohol hit the wound, her eyes closing under the stinging, lingering pain.
"So what's our plan," she said through clenched teeth. "You said Harley needs back up."
"Mm," he seemed to agree, tossing the end of his cigarette on the floor—God, he was such a mess—as he spun around, apparently finished talking to her.
"Again," Pam snapped, following him as she adjusted her grip on her arm. "I'm gonna need a little more to go on, J."
Instead of answering, the Joker fell on the couch and hunched forward to roll another cigarette.
Deja vu over Harley hiding things from her prickled at the back of Pam's neck, and she was gearing up for a rant to tell him what a motherfucker he was when he looked up at her sharply.
"Lemme ask ya somethin', Red," he raised his eyebrows appraisingly. "You ever kill someone before?"
Pam's brow sank into a deep furrow. "What?"
"You heard me," he said mildly, depositing a pinch of tobacco in a cigarette paper balanced on his thigh.
"What the fuck does that have to do with anything?" Pam demanded.
"Mmhmm," the Joker chuckled, rolling the cigarette. "You spent all that time with Harley. Workin' for Sofia, runnin' the mob. But not once did you get your hands dirty."
Pam ground her teeth, feeling like she was being called a coward for not being a murderer.
"Cause that's how it is with you, right?" He licked the cigarette paper and caught her eye. "You never do the dirty deed. You send your little weeds into harm's way, or you let Harley pull the trigger."
"You're right," Pam offered him a pinched smile. "I'm not a murderer."
He chuckled incredulously, running his tongue over his disgusting teeth as he sat back and squinted at her, making Pam shift uncomfortably.
"Ya are now, Red," he lit his cigarette and took a deep drag. "What else would you call breaking that woman's neck?"
"I didn't break her neck," Pam shot back.
"Oh-ho-ho-ho," he grinned, looking delighted as he hunched forward. "Are you for real?"
Pam sat heavily on the opposite end of the couch, her jaw tense and her arm aching as she thought back to the moment behind the ambulance.
"There wasn't time to deal with her," she insisted.
"Oh, sure," he agreed eagerly. "No judgment from me, Red. But lemme ask ya something… why did you still have your claws in her, huh?"
"What?" Pam shot him a bewildered look and was startled to see his face had darkened considerably.
"You think I don't know how it works?" he asked quietly, quirking one unamused eyebrow. "Huh?"
Pam eyed him warily. He looked at her like he could see into her soul, and what he saw was deeply unimpressive.
"You touch em'," he continued softly, seriously. "And if you don't let em' go… you go loopy."
"That's not how it works," Pam countered defensively. "I don't know what Harley told you, but one person isn't going to make a difference."
"It always starts with one, Red," the Joker narrowed his eyes to an owlish squint. "You got one body under your belt. What's gonna stop you adding a few more?"
Pam scoffed incredulously. "Why the fuck do you care?"
"Oh, I don't give a shit what you do," he shot back, lifting his eyebrows meaningfully. "But you know who does?"
Harley. It was like her presence swam between them, filling the room with all her Harley-ness.
"And if you go fucking nuts again," he said more roughly, jabbing his cigarette at her. "She's gonna be the one to deal with it."
There was something in his voice that sounded irritatingly genuine, which Pam found both startling and upsetting. The suggestion that he thought he was protecting Harley from her was ludicrous when he was the dangerous one.
But he sounded so sure.
She stared back at him uncertainly. "What are you saying?"
He cocked his head to the side like he was as bewildered by her as she was by him.
"I'm saying your fucking voodoo gets her all twisted," he snapped, his expression grim. "Like your little powwow with Victor."
Pam looked down at her injured arm, considering what he was suggesting. Annoyingly, she knew he was right. Harley found it damn near impossible to let things go, and she always had to be in control, micromanaging every situation. It was what made her such a ferocious opponent, but it was exhausting on a personal level.
"I'm not…" Pam faltered. "It was different before," she insisted. "I didn't understand what was happening then."
"Like I said, Red," the Joker exhaled a plume of smoke and slapped a hand over his chest. "I don't give a shit what ya do."
They lapsed into silence, leaving Pam to muse over the idea that her very presence in Gotham had already brought stress upon Harley's shoulders.
"Are you going to tell her?" Pam's eyes darted toward him. "About Penny? The EMT?"
He snorted incredulously and leaned forward.
"I don't lie to her," he sneered.
"It isn't like she's going to ask," Pam countered, narrowing her eyes. "All it'll do is stress her out."
The Joker grunted something and flopped back on the couch, smoking in silence. Eventually, he nodded, his face twisting bitterly.
He appeared on the verge of saying something when a phone vibrated in his pocket, and he shifted around to get a look at it, his eyes narrowing as he hummed thoughtfully.
"Frost's on the way," he announced. "Pigs got Eddie."
"Fuck," Pam hissed, unintentionally squeezing her gunshot wound, forcing her to stifle a groan as blood streamed down her arm.
The Joker shot her an amused look. "Didn't realize you were such a fan of the Riddler."
"He's gonna talk," Pam predicted, her teeth grinding together as she thought about the potential consequences of Ed discussing her abilities with the GCPD. They wouldn't be able to do anything but move a little higher up the food chain… the FBI… the government.
They would send people to hunt her.
"He won't talk," the Joker reassured her with a lazy smirk. "I guarantee it."
"You guarantee it," Pam scoffed and dug the ball of bandages out of her pocket. "Look, I like Ed, but he doesn't want to go to prison. He'll tell them anything to get out of it. Including anything he has on you or Harley… or me."
"He won't talk," the Joker said again, watching her start winding the bandages around her arm. "Eddie's got big plans."
Pam paused what she was doing to squint at him. "Big plans?"
The Joker shrugged evasively, his eyes trained on his phone as it beeped again. Then he sniffed resolutely and hopped to his feet.
"Alright, Poison Ivy," she shot her a nasty smirk. "We got business to attend to."
Being 'booked' was an excruciating process. The cops had already searched and divested Ed of his personal belongings while he'd been unconscious—that felt nonconsensual. Good-bye, black-croco Tom Ford belt, Ed thought miserably. Farewell, Sofia Falcone timepiece!
Montoya, the lady detective with the tragic suit, had her beat cop pals drag Ed into a weird little room with a camera set up on a tripod where they took his mugshot. Ed offered the camera a brilliant white grin until the cop barked at him to "stop smiling, freak!" at which point Ed shifted into a moody sulk, his patience wearing thin.
He remained sullen and silent while they fingerprinted him and took a cheek swab, ignoring the taunts and jabs from Montoya's cops, which he might typically have enjoyed. Instead, Ed's mood grew progressively blacker as he waited for something to happen. Something had to happen. He couldn't just get picked off by the Batman and thrown in prison. That was just so… boring.
By the time Ed was marched into an interrogation room and shoved into a chair, he was getting antsy and struggling to hide it. He felt like Harley when she was on the verge of doing something impulsive and messy, which was not Ed's style at all. The only consolation was that the MCU cops were scared of him under all that sneering loathing. Ed didn't mind being loathed, though it wasn't quite as good as being worshiped. Being feared though, that was much more up Ed's street.
It was just kind of hard to enjoy it when they'd taken all his stuff.
This could not be the end of the line. It could not.
Montoya banged into the interrogation room, offering Ed a humorless smile as the door slammed shut behind her.
Ed ran his tongue over the backs of his teeth, working out how he should play this. She had a revolver stashed in a holster at her hip, and she was lean and scrappy. Still, he was pretty sure he could overpower and disarm her. Shoot his way out. Hmm…
"So, you're goin' all in on the copycat thing, huh?" Montoya opened drily, taking the seat across from him.
Ed laced his bound hands together and sighed, exasperated. "What?"
"Refusing to give your name?" Montoya cocked an eyebrow at him. "No names, no other aliases? You're just the Riddler, huh?"
"Well," Ed shrugged one shoulder, pretending to be bashful. "I can't help it if that's what my fans call me."
"So why don't you give me a real name?" Montoya sat back and folded her arms expectantly.
"My Grannie has a bad heart," Ed explained, his bottom lip jutting out pitifully. "I don't think she could take it."
"Your mugshot's about to be plastered all over the news," Montoya pointed out. "You aren't worried she'll see you?"
"Oh, she's got dementia, so she doesn't remember me anymore," Ed offered her a pinched smile. "But our last name is pretty… unique."
"Mm hmm," Montoya looked unamused. "No name then, huh? Lemme ask you something. When did you go from being a Joker copycat to his employee?"
"Um," Ed laughed awkwardly like Montoya was embarrassing herself. "I don't work for the Joker."
"No?" Montoya cocked her head to the side. "So why were you with him and Harley Quinn tonight?"
"Oh, it's a long story," Ed sighed. "But basically, we agreed to team up to take down Black Mask."
"Black Mask?" Montoya raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah," Ed leaned forward, a smirk sliding onto his lips. "See, that's what people call Roman Sionis these days."
"Roman Sionis?" Montoya scoffed. "The businessman you tried to rob tonight?"
"Really?" Ed snorted, genuinely amused. "That's what Roman told you guys? That the Joker, Harley Quinn, and the Riddler were trying to rob him?" He tipped his chin down, giving Montoya his most unimpressed look. "You don't really think we'd waste our time robbing some rich guy's penthouse, do you? Does that seem… on brand?"
"I'd say it's pretty on-brand for you, buddy," Montoya shot back. "You're a thief. Banks, museums, galleries. From the looks of those clothes you got on, I'd say you like a good five-finger discount at Saks too."
Ed's face darkened, disliking that she was pretty much calling him basic.
"Harley Quinn and the Joker, on the other hand," Montoya shrugged. "Burglary is a little below their usual MO. I'll give you that. But it sounds to me like they're trynna build their operation up. Maybe robbing Sionis was them getting the funds to do it."
"You don't believe that," Ed smirked. "What are you like, new to Gotham or something? Newsflash, sweetie, the rich people here are just as dirty as the criminals. Black Mask just took it up a whole 'nother level."
Montoya narrowed her eyes, and Ed stared back at her impassively.
"Alright, I'll play along," she agreed. "Tell me about the Black Mask."
"Mmm," a grin split Ed's face as he considered telling her everything, lying to her outright, and then what some kind of middle ground might look like. He fixed Montoya with a knowing smirk. "Okay. You know what Blue Orchid is, right?"
Montoya raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Blue Orchid?"
"You know, the party drug," Ed rolled his eyes up girlishly. "Well, that's how Black Mask took over the mob. Ya see, once the Batman took out all their drug routes, they got kinda desperate. So Roman showed up with Blue Orchid, and surprise surprise, they all fell in line. Oh!" Ed's eyes widened, and he leaned forward eagerly. "Roman also hired Holiday to take out all the big crime lords last year, just FYI."
"Just FYI?" Montoya snorted in disbelief.
"Yeah," Ed nodded enthusiastically. "I mean, don't you think it's a little weird how the mob just seemed to like, disappear?" He raised his eyebrows, but Montoya just stared back at him sourly. "See? You totally think it's weird!"
"You're telling me Roman Sionis, a respected businessman, philanthropist, and member of the Palisades Country Club killed all the big gangsters, and he's been running the mob and making it look clean ever since?" Montoya sounded dubious, though she was obviously interested.
Ed nodded eagerly.
"So you, the Joker, and Harley Quinn decided you were gonna take him down?" Montoya looked unconvinced. "That's your story?"
"Ehhhhhh," Ed squinted at the wall behind Montoya's head as he considered telling her about the squad. But no, the squad was definitely not something Detective Montoya of the MCU was at liberty to hear about. That was more of a members-only situation. "Well, we all had a little drama with Roman. Ya see, he's the one who hired Harley and J to kidnap the DA, the Police Commissioner, and that judge."
"So not only is Roman Sionis a drug dealer, but he hired the Joker and Harley Quinn to kidnap those people?" Montoya crossed her arms and sat back, unpersuaded.
"You are a cop, right?" Ed narrowed his eyes. "You get that killing public servants and dealing drugs all goes under the header of mob boss, right?"
"Why?" Montoya shot back. "The guy's a millionaire with a trust fund. What's he get out of it?"
"Power, influence, his own cult," Ed shrugged ambivalently. "Harley says he's a psychopath and a charismatic narcissist," he added in his best know-it-all voice. "She used to be a very celebrated behavioral psychologist, you know. So I'd take anything she says on board."
"Oh, sure, I'll take Harley Quinn's word for it," Montoya scoffed, squinting at Ed. "What is it, you got a thing for her or something? Huh? She like your inspiration?"
Ed sighed dramatically. Was he ever going to live down his brief moment as a copycat?
It sure did sound like he was going to need to do something big to rebrand.
"Harley Quinn is a complicated person," Ed settled on primly. "I have a healthy professional respect for her. Our personal relationship is none of your business, but…" He sighed fitfully. "I guess you could say it's complicated."
"It's complicated?" Montoya's eyebrows nearly jumped into her hairline. "We arrested Harley Quinn tonight, but she escaped after an ambulance t-boned the cruiser transporting her to Blackgate. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would ya?"
"Hmm, ambulance," Ed feigned thoughtfulness. "No… no, nothing's coming to me, I'm afraid." He flashed Montoya a smirk. "You know I'd do anything to help you catch her, right?"
Montoya's face soured, and she nodded slowly. "Right."
A phone beeped in her pocket, and she glanced away from Ed to look at the screen, her eyebrows rising before she tucked it away.
Then she pulled a set of keys out of her blazer and gestured for Ed to give her his hands.
A little suspicious, Ed offered her his cuffed wrists, and she unlocked each of them before tucking the cuffs in her suit jacket along with the keys.
"If we're gonna play games," she got to her feet, offering Ed the faintest of smirks. "Then I'm gonna need a cup of coffee first."
She turned to leave until Ed called out after her, knowing what Harley would want the cops to focus on.
"Oooh! One more thing, Detective Montoya!" he chirped, prompting her to turn back, her expression withering. "You may want to look into the disappearance of a woman called Samantha Pierce."
"Samantha Pierce?" Montoya's brow knit together, bemused.
"She's probably a cold case," Ed said flippantly. "But she didn't disappear. You see, Roman Sionis is super proficient at what the professionals call… conditioning."
Ed could see he had Montoya's attention. He narrowed his eyes, the smirk dropping off his face so she would know he was serious too.
"Roman cut Samantha's tongue out and murdered her sisters in front of her," Ed explained grimly. "Then he renamed her Circe and made her his fiancée. Does that sound like the kind of person you want running free? Huh?"
Montoya eyed him warily for a few long seconds, and Ed could tell she believed him even if she didn't want to. Then she turned on her heel and swept out of the room.
Ed settled back in his seat once the door slammed shut, his bottom lip jutting out in a pout as he tried to decide how long they'd leave him alone in there. He wasn't alone, of course. One look at the mirrored glass on the wall, and there was no doubt a line of cops was standing at attention behind it, watching him.
Ed flashed them a cheesy grin until he got a better look at himself in the mirror. His warpaint was smeared all over his face, making him look downright crazy, and his hair was lank and floppy without product, making him look like a bum.
"Oh, poo," he huffed, licking his thumb and trying to scrub away some of the excess paint.
The interrogation room's lights snapped off suddenly, leaving Ed submerged in darkness. His body tensed as his other senses heightened, knowing this wasn't merely a case of the MCU's generator kicking the bucket. Oh no, Ed could taste that this was something more than that. Literally, he could taste a chalky, bitter substance he'd only ever experienced once before—when he came face to face with the Batman and had to make a super creative getaway.
The interrogation room's door opened and closed, but Ed was blind to everything, the room pitch black.
"Busting out those magic tricks again? That's pretty cute," Ed drawled, his heartbeat picking up.
The fluorescent lights snapped on, and Ed blinked rapidly, seeing the cloud of darkness dissipate before his very eyes, but no dark knight. The room was empty. Ed clenched his jaw, his eyes swinging right and left, his shoulders hunching as his good humor drained away.
There was a rustle behind him, but before Ed could spin around, a gloved hand connected with the back of his head, slamming his face down on the table. The impact made Ed's already tenuous grasp on consciousness waver, the pounding in his head intensifying with renewed vigor as his brain sloshed around his skull behind his eyes, making him groan.
"Heyyyy," he whined, squinting up at the Batman as he circled that table. "How about you stop—"
The Batman punched Ed in the cheek, hard.
Ed moaned and palmed his face, working his jaw. A fissure of black anger zig-zagged through his chest as the Batman sat in the chair opposite him, the blinding lights doing little to make him less intimidating even if he was dressed like a stupid bat.
"Where is the Joker?" the Batman rumbled, his eyes intent behind the cowl.
"How am I supposed to know?" Ed sneered, still massaging his cheek. "Why don't you stop hitting me in the face for a minute, and maybe I'll tell you, huh?"
"Do you not know, or are you refusing to tell me?" the Batman hissed.
Ed rolled his eyes impatiently.
"Do I know where he is right this minute? No," Ed snapped. "I'm not like, psychically tethered to him, am I?"
"But you have an idea?" the Batman pressed. "You've been working together to take down Black Mask. You must have some idea of where I can find him."
Ed eyed the Batman warily, definitely feeling he was dealing with a different class of detective.
"You believe me about Roman?" Ed asked suspiciously. "Why?"
"I have my sources," the Batman shot back. "I know about the poppies. About Daggett Shipping. About your partnership with Harley and the Joker." He leaned forward, glaring into Ed's eyes. "You're a thief, but you're not a terrorist. If you help us find them, you can cut a deal."
Ed scoffed, mostly because the Batman was flat out suggesting Ed wasn't as dangerous as Harley and the Joker when he'd absolutely proved he was. He'd known the cops would dangle pardons or limited sentences or whatever in front of him if he flipped on Harley and J, told them everything he knew about them: personally, professionally, how they worked together, how they thought, what their weaknesses were (hint: each other), and best of all Poison Ivy.
Usually, Ed would have sung like a canary. But after the last few days…
"Why would you cover for them?" the Batman narrowed his eyes curiously.
Ed sighed and rolled his eyes out to the side, thinking fast, settling on the truth.
"The world would be a very boring place without the Joker and Harley Quinn," he explained.
"You admire them?" the Batman demanded.
"We see the world the same way," Ed shot back. "All you sheep getting caught up in the weeds because you have nothing else in your pointless little lives. We're the ones who give you a purpose."
"A purpose," the Batman sneered. "So you want chaos."
"Chaos is way more fun than what this city currently has to offer," Ed flashed a grin. "But only a few of us know how to do it right."
"So you're still a copycat," the Batman rasped. "You want to be like them."
"Don't try to put me in a little box, Batsy," Ed sneered. "Just 'cause you don't understand what I stand for."
"What do you think you stand for?" The Batman leaned forward, intent.
"I am bringing pizzazz back to Gotham," Ed raised his chin and spread his hands, beaming. "I'm bringing the party. I'm giving people options. And if you think you have any idea what I'm capable of, you are sorely mistaken. I haven't even gotten started yet."
"You'll be in a padded cell by the end of the night," the Batman predicted. "Just like Harley Quinn. You may as well give her up. "
"Listen," Ed leaned forward. "You ain't no Harley Quinn when it comes to getting people to talk, all right? You just—"
Before Ed could finish the thought, the Batman stood and reached across the table to grab Ed by the front of his rumpled Prada shirt, dragging him over the table.
"Hey!" Ed complained, his feet flailing.
"Where are they!" the Batman roared, right in Ed's face, baring his teeth.
"I don't know," Ed was starting to grow bored with this whole song and dance. "But I'll tell you what, a breath mint now and then wouldn't—hey!"
He got cut off when the Batman used his grip on Ed's shirt to flip him over and slam him down on the table, making Ed groan as his injuries from his fight with Black Canary ached furiously.
The Batman turned the table over before Ed could get his bearings, sending him sprawling to the floor, landing on his hip painfully.
"They have safe houses," the Batman growled, looming over Ed. "Where was your meeting point tonight? Where would the Joker hideout? Where would Harley Quinn escape to?"
These were all questions Ed was probably about seventy-percent sure he had the right answers to. There was the rendezvous point at the Hulu Warehouse, obviously, but Ed wasn't willing to give up that nugget of information. Squad rules were still in effect as far as he was concerned, and they had worked way too hard to cage Roman in. Ed wasn't about to ruin all that work by sending the Batman after them—especially not when Harley and J were still his best hope for a timely escape.
They would come for him. He was sure of it.
The Batman grabbed Ed by his shirt and hauled him up against the wall, lifting Ed off his feet as he scrambled to hold on to something.
"You're a copycat and a thief," the Batman grunted, disgusted. He pulled back his gloved fist and punched Ed in the face again, hitting his already swollen cheek.
Ed's vision blackened around the edges as his head snapped to the side, bile rising in his throat.
"They're using you," the Batman hissed.
"Don't we all use each other," Ed croaked, trying to push past the pain and disorientation.
"Where are they!" the Batman roared, another punch, this time to the mouth, the taste of iron heavy on Ed's tongue.
"Ya know, I noticed something earlier," Ed slurred, his head rolling back against the wall, his eyelids fluttering. "Your little sidekick has a hard-on for Harley, doesn't she? Where's she at right now, huh? Chasin' her down? Maybe feeling a little emotional and vulnerable? That's when people slip up, don't they?" Ed's eyes snapped open. "Maybe you should be looking after your own house, Batsy," he spat.
Ed expected another punch to the face for his snark, one that would probably knock him out for the count this time. But the Batman just seethed at him, his eyes darting around Ed's face.
"Ooh, did I hit a nerve," Ed cracked a grin, his teeth bloodied. "What is it, huh? BC got some ancient history with the diabolical Harley Quinn? Cause I got news for you, Batman. You may have rules, but Harley—she lives to break em'." Ed's lip curled into a cruel smirk, his eyes blazing. "She's gonna snap that little bird's neck and wear her rib cage as a hat."
The Batman's shoulders were rising and falling sharply as he stared into Ed's eyes. Then all at once, he released Ed and turned on his heel, storming out of the interrogation room.
Ed slid down the wall, his eyes still rolling, the room moving like a funhouse. He drew his knees up to his chest and giggled helplessly, the laughter spilling out of him as he collapsed sideways.
Poison Ivy.
In truth, the name the Lucky Hand gave Pam never particularly bothered her. She wouldn't admit it out loud, but she enjoyed the fact that Poison Ivy had become a myth among Gotham's thugs. They feared her and her abilities, and rightly so.
Still, suggesting she infected men's minds like deadly weeds taking over a garden wasn't the most flattering comparison, and the Joker definitely wasn't allowed to use it.
"Don't call me that," Pam snapped, tying off the bandage on her arm before she stood up too, glaring at the Joker, who rolled his eyes and started for the door. "Is Frost picking us up?"
"Nah," he tossed over his shoulder. "We're gonna get creative."
"Creative? Are you fucking kidding me?" Pam huffed, prompting the Joker to turn around, glaring at her impatiently. "We don't have guns," Pam pointed out. "How do we defend ourselves?"
The Joker scoffed and gestured to her. "You're the original weapon, aren't ya, Red?" he sneered.
Pam scowled back at him. "If I'm not close enough to touch them, they can still shoot me."
He ran his tongue over his scarred bottom lip, glowering at her for a moment before he pulled the flare gun out of the back of his ridiculous purple pants. He offered it to Pam with a flourish of his wrist, flashing a condescending smirk.
"What about you?" Pam asked, stuffing the flare gun in the EMT jumpsuit's pocket.
"Me?" the Joker pulled a long switchblade from his pants pocket. He snapped it open with a flick of his wrist and stomped his left foot simultaneously, triggering a blade to shoot out of the toe of his brogue.
He cocked his head to the side, raising his eyebrows expectantly.
Pam folded her arms, reluctantly impressed.
"Fine," she agreed. "Where are we meeting Frost?"
"Hulu," the Joker grunted, knocking the toe of his brogue on the floor, so the blade slid back in place. Then he started for the door again. "Any more fuckin' questions," he snapped over his shoulder. "Or can we get a move on?"
Pam grumbled under her breath and tied the arms of the jumpsuit around her waist, checking her gunshot wound quickly. Blood was already seeping through the bandage, making her suck on her teeth nervously. But lingering at that shitty little apartment wasn't going to stop her bleeding, and it wasn't going to get Harley back from Roman either.
Pam squared her shoulders and followed the Joker out of the apartment, fantasizing about droning him and making him eat his tongue.
That would make him much more agreeable to be around.
Unfortunately, Pam wasn't sure she'd be able to do it.
His stupid psychopath brain was too stubborn.
Of course, the moment they got to the ground floor and opened the front gate, a police cruiser slid down the narrow street, its lights flashing ominously. The Joker dodged back inside, shoving Pam none-to-gently when she didn't move fast enough, making her swear when she knocked her arm on the wall.
"What the fuck," she hissed up at him in the dark.
"Shut up," he snapped gruffly, peering through a crack in the door, his back pressed against the wall.
They stood there in silence for almost a full minute, Pam growing antsy and twitchy, her arm aching. Finally, the Joker seemed to deem it safe enough to leave and pushed the door open, sliding out onto the empty street with Pam on his heels.
She hurried to keep up with him, her shoulders hunched and eyes swinging up and down the street. She suspected she wasn't doing an excellent job of what Harley called blending in, but she was also wearing a blood-spattered camisole and half a stolen EMT uniform, her arm bandaged and hair wild after the evening she'd had. And she could really do with a hair tie.
J was doing very little to blend in himself. His warpaint was almost completely smeared off, and he was sweaty, bloody, wounded, soot-stained, and generally looking a complete mess before you even got to the purple trousers and green waistcoat.
"We are so screwed," Pam muttered.
"Nah," the Joker sniffed, his eyes narrowing when he spotted a dark blue beater that looked at least thirty years old. Its passenger door and a section of the hood were a different color from the rest, and the hubcaps were rusted out, but the Joker loped toward it eagerly while Pam sighed and followed.
"That thing doesn't have seatbelts," she predicted drily, watching the Joker pull open the driver's door, which wasn't even locked. "It's not going to run," she added flatly.
The Joker shot her another dirty look and ducked behind the wheel, and Pam reluctantly slid into the passenger seat, which did have a seatbelt.
It smelled awful, like sour milk and rotting food, and when Pam looked in the backseat, she was horrified to find a plastic sack of take out crawling with maggots.
"Ugh," she wrinkled her nose, watching the Joker flick open his switchblade and start prying off the steering column with a practiced hand. "This thing is disgusting."
"Sorry the getaway vehicle isn't up to your standards, Red," he sneered, cutting a few wires then tucking the knife away. He tapped the ends together, the wires sparking, and after a few false starts, the engine rattled to life.
Pam pulled on her seatbelt, resigning herself to her fate as the Joker pulled the crappy little car onto the street and headed south toward the Meatpacking District. She peered down at her arm, prodding the bloodied bandage experimentally, and caught the Joker looking too.
He met her eye briefly, and she glared back at him, prompting him to roll his eyes as he shifted around to pull a phone out of his pocket. His eyes darted between the road and the phone as he thumbed a few buttons then held it to his ear.
Someone answered almost immediately.
"Red got herself shot," he drawled down the line. "We gotta make sure she's patched up and uh… in fighting shape."
Then he hung up without another word.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Pam demanded.
The Joker shot her a sidelong look. "I got a lot of experience with blood loss, Red," he explained drily. "You're gonna wanna get that sewn up before things get all… fuzzy for ya."
Pam remembered what Harley told her about the Joker's near-death experience, and her eyes immediately darted to the long, dark red scabs running halfway up the insides of his forearms. They were grotesque, and though she was glad he wasn't dead for Harley's sake, Pam didn't feel pity for him in the slightest.
"You don't seriously expect me to let you suture this for me, do you?" Pam sneered. "Look what you did to your own fucking face."
The Joker turned to stare at her, his eyes narrowing with his usual vitriol, but there was something surprised glittering there too. Pam assumed it was because no one spoke to him that way. Everyone was scared of him. Everyone but Harley, who was immune to his wrath, and Pam, who was stronger than him.
Obviously, she didn't have any idea what happened to his face or who sewed it shut, but she smirked as she settled back in her seat, hoping she'd hit a nerve.
"Frost'll do it for you," he eventually grunted, apparently ambivalent about the insult.
Pam's face soured, annoyed that he was so unfazed. "Why do you treat Frost like your slave?"
"Really?" he scoffed, shooting her an incredulous look. "You're asking me about treating people like slaves?"
"Oh, fuck off," Pam huffed, her cheeks turning pink.
They sat in silence for the rest of the drive after that, pulling up to the Hulu Meatpacking Plant with a screech of the beater's bald tires. The neighborhood was deathly quiet, still mostly abandoned in the wake of Crowne Tower's unplanned demolition at the hands of the Joker almost two years earlier. That meant the Hulu warehouse looked unusually alive with all its lights on and cars scattered out front compared to the rest of the block.
"Oh, this is subtle," she observed sarcastically, waving her uninjured arm at a semi-truck backed halfway into the warehouse, with five men wearing clown masks balanced on ladders painting its side.
The Joker ignored her, winding around the side of the semi and dodging under the ladders into the warehouse. The clowns stopped what they were doing to stare after him like they couldn't believe they were seeing the Joker in person, making Pam roll her eyes as she followed close behind.
But she stopped short when she saw just how many clowns were there, her eyes widening as she looked around. There had to be almost a hundred of them—some masked, some of them painted, some not. Some were punks or anarchists, and others just looked like your typical crummy thugs. But they all moved aside for the Joker, parting like the Red fucking Sea as he loped across the warehouse floor to the office where they'd killed Reeves that afternoon.
Pam eyed the clowns warily as she speed-walked behind him, wondering how they'd all known to be there and what they all thought they were getting out of it.
Frost was waiting beside the office door, looking dirty and exhausted himself after a stressful evening of evasive driving and drumming up chaos with the other clowns. By the looks of that warehouse, Frost had been doing much more than that.
"Alright, boss," Frost greeted the Joker with a nod, offering him a pack of cigarettes, which the Joker snatched out of his hand worldlessly. "Pammy," Frost offered her a smile as she passed him into the office, and she attempted to return it, though it probably looked more like a grimace since her teeth were grinding together relentlessly.
The office smelled like blood, which might have made Pam gag on a better day. A brown streak on the wall looked like someone had tried to wipe away a handprint, and the floor was sticky.
"God, what the fuck did you do to Reeves in here?" Pam wrinkled her nose, the clunky EMT boots sticking to the floor.
"Tickled him," the Joker flashed her a nasty grin as he hopped up on one of the two desks pushed up against the walls and promptly lit a cigarette.
Pam shot him a glare and turned to Frost, who was squinting at her injured arm thoughtfully. The bandage had soaked through, and blood was starting to drip down her arm again.
"I hear ya need a little fixin' up, Pammy," Frost held up a plastic sack bearing the Rite Aid logo, ostensibly containing the 'fixing up' materials. "How you feelin'?"
"Like fucking shit," Pam grumbled, hauling herself up on the free desk.
Frost pulled a chair up beside her and shook out the contents of the sack: a travel-sized sewing kit, a roll of gauze, a liter of hydrogen peroxide, and a box of heavy-flow maxi-pads.
Pam closed her eyes. Her arm was aching furiously, and she couldn't quite believe she was allowing one of the Joker's henchmen to sew her arm with a needle and thread. But the Joker was (annoyingly) right. If she kept bleeding, she'd be useless, and there was no way Pam would allow herself to be useless when Harley needed her.
She took a deep breath, centering herself while Frost pulled on a pair of reading glasses and began unwinding the bloodied bandage tied around her arm.
"So," Pam shot the Joker an expectant look as Frost doused a maxi pad in hydrogen peroxide. "What's next?"
The Joker ran his tongue over his split bottom lip, raking a hand through his gross, greasy green hair. Thinking, Pam realized.
Frost started cleaning her wound with the pad, making her hiss through her teeth, the antiseptic leaving a lingering, stinging pain alongside the steady ache she'd been dealing with all night.
"Janus Plastics," the Joker drawled at length, looking up to catch Pam's eye. "Daddy's factory. That's where he's got her. Anarky too."
"So what's the plan? Do we pack all these clowns into the semi-truck? Launch an attack?" Pam held the maxi pad against her arm while Frost threaded a needle from the sewing kit.
"Nah," the Joker shook his head and hopped off the desk. "It's just you and me, Red."
He strode across the office and out the door, slamming it behind him without another word.
"What the fuck!" Pam snapped after him. "Motherfucker," she muttered, making Frost chuckle as he disinfected the needle and thread with hydrogen peroxide.
"Don't worry, Pammy," Frost reassured her, his eyes intent on his task. "The boss'll have somethin' up his sleeve. Now you do me a favor and think about something nice, okay?"
Pam thought about forcing the Joker to eat his tongue again, which did make her happy, but she still hissed and cursed when Frost began sewing the bullet wound closed.
"Where the fuck did all those people come from anyway?" she demanded, trying to distract herself.
"I been havin' a few chats with folks over this way," Frost explained, his reading glasses sliding down his nose as he squinted at her arm. "Lettin' em' know the boss and Harley are looking for guys. That kinda thing."
"You got all those guys to come here?" Pam's eyebrows rose, surprised.
"Nah, I can't take all the credit," Frost smiled up at her. "I just said the Joker's lookin' for guys, and it'd be a good time. Maybe better than what they currently got goin' on, ya know?"
Pam watched Frost work, suddenly feeling very relieved that Harley had this particular henchman in her life. It occurred to her that there was one good way to make sure he was entirely loyal to Harley. That should there be a situation where Frost needed to lay down his life for Harley, he would do it.
Pam's fingers curled into a fist as a familiar heat began to grow under her palms. It quickly spread to her cheeks, under her arms, and the soles of her feet, the stress of the evening, and her emotions running high making it more intense and harder to control. She didn't have a name for the heat, but it was uncomfortable and itchy, unsatisfied, and knowing how easy it would be to give it what it wanted made Pam's fist tighten until her hand was shaking.
The needle pierced her skin again, helping to bring her back to the present. She closed her eyes to focus, and eventually, her hand fell limp on her thigh, the heat receding.
Frost tied off the thread and was wrapping gauze around her arm and a maxi-pad acting as a makeshift bandage when the Joker returned, guiding a chubby young man in by the shoulders.
"Who the fuck is this?" Pam demanded as the door slammed shut again.
"This," the Joker smirked, peering down at the kid over his shoulder, winding around him like a snake. "Is Buddy."
Buddy blinked rapidly, looking twitchy but also oddly blank.
"And what are you, Buddy?" the Joker purred smugly, smirking at Pam.
"I'm the driver, boss!" Buddy chirped obediently, making the Joker's smile grow even smugger if possible as he waggled his eyebrows at Pam.
Pam's face soured, realizing Buddy wasn't fully mentally competent and that the Joker had coached him into agreeing to something. That shitty little grin was him challenging her to be a hypocrite and call him out for getting someone vulnerable to do his bidding, knowing full well how appalling it was.
But Pam had no such qualms about using Buddy, not when Harley was on the line.
"Sounds good," she sniffed, hopping off the table and turning to Buddy. "What is it you're driving?"
"A truck!" Buddy grinned.
"That semi-truck out there?" Pam raised an eyebrow at the Joker.
"Mm-hmm," he nodded, his tongue slipping over his bottom lip like he was excited. "I got a guy rigging up the cab for us."
"Rigging it up to explode?" Pam turned her head to the side like she wasn't sure she heard him right.
The Joker inclined his head toward Buddy meaningfully, and she understood.
Buddy would be the one doing the exploding.
"How does blowing the factory up help us?" Pam complained.
"Not all the way up," the Joker rolled his eyes and pitched back to lean against the wall, Buddy standing between them, twitching. "Just enough to cause a little chaos."
"While we grab Harley and Anarky," Pam chewed her top lip thoughtfully.
She preferred the idea of sending an army of clowns in to raid the place while they stood back and watched, but Harley was likely being held somewhere within the factory. If the clowns made their presence known too early, Roman could kill her, hurt her, use her as a hostage, escape with her; anything.
Chaos would catch him off guard, and they could sneak in unnoticed.
And though she loathed to give him any kind of credit, J wouldn't make a move that could hurt Harley.
"Fine," she agreed, raising her chin. "How are we getting out of there?"
"One of Alexandra's boys stole a fast little thing from Midtown, boss," Frost announced. "Good for if the Bat shows up."
"Mmph," the Joker agreed with a grunt before looking at Pam again. "You're getaway driver, Red," he offered her a nasty grin. "Hope you can drive stick."
Harley woke up slowly, feeling like she was fighting her way out of a black hole determined to suck her back in. Her eyelids fluttered as she attempted to lift her head, her muscles like rubber, her chin bobbing against her chest. When she finally managed to open her eyes, her vision was blurry, like she was wearing someone else's glasses, but she could see she was sitting with her legs splayed out in front of her, her cream-colored boots dirty with soot and dried blood, her bare knees scraped open.
That was right about when Harley realized her arms were tied behind her, a cold metal pole pressed against her spine, her shoulders aching from leaning forward.
God. If she never woke up drugged and tied to something again, it would be too soon.
The last thing she remembered was falling toward the earth, impossibly fast, fear starting to creep in as she realized she might have taken a gamble that wasn't going to pay off.
But then the Batman swooped down, caught her, saved her. Harley's triumph had been short-lived. He knocked her out as soon as they reached the ground, and it seemed someone used chloroform on her since then, not wanting her to wake up quite yet.
It took a while before Harley was able to lift her head and look around. Her eyes narrowed to an annoyed squint as she observed she was in some kind of control room. A bank of old computers from the early 80s covered the wall across from her, and to her right was a control desk beneath a large viewing window, through which she could see the exposed rafters of a factory.
Computers from the 80s.
An abandoned factory from that period.
Her wrists bound with plastic zip ties, not the Batman's black cables.
Harley closed her eyes and took a deep breath as two pairs of footsteps entered the room behind her. She already knew who it would be.
"Hello, Harley," Roman greeted her sourly.
Harley lifted her head to meet Roman Sionis's gaze, her lip curling. He was looking worse for wear, his shirt missing buttons and sporting a few bloodstains. More satisfying was the fact that one of his eyes was red and swollen shut, the other blackened, his chin bruised, his cheek split open, his nose broken—Harley's' good work.
She turned her attention to the figure behind him. Looking well-put-together in a tailored suit, his beard neatly trimmed and hair swept back from his face: Jonathan Crane. He stood beside the control desk, his eyes darting between her and Roman nervously.
Harley's mouth twisted into an ugly scowl. She'd known Crane would turn on her, but she hadn't expected this level of betrayal. She hadn't expected to see her old colleague standing over her while she was tied up on the floor, captive to a man who wanted to make her his slave.
Roman squatted down in front of her then, his bruised face ugly as they stared at each other. He was pissed off. That was obvious. But beneath that, and more importantly, he was desperate.
Harley smirked.
"So, here we are, once more," Roman sighed, his eyes drifting over Harley's face, ugly and bruised as well, she was sure.
"I don't know about that," Harley croaked, her throat dry and scratchy. "I don't remember you looking like someone beat the shit out of you last time."
"I'll admit," Roman countered smoothly. "It's been a trying evening. And Black Canary certainly did a number on you."
Black Canary.
Dinah.
But Harley couldn't think about that right now.
"So, what's next?" Harley sighed, her eyes drifting closed as she fingered the plastic zip-tie binding her wrists, nudging it experimentally. "Do you still want me out of the way… or are we back to torturing me into being your girlfriend again?"
She opened her eyes to see Roman squinting at her thoughtfully out of his one good eye.
"I want to negotiate," he explained, offering her a bitter smile.
"Negotiate," Harley laughed weakly, her head loling back against the steel pole.
"Ed is in police custody," Roman explained. "He will tell them everything. Everything he knows about you and me, and about the Joker too." He paused for a moment. "I would like you to help me moderate this."
Harley's head fell back as she laughed again, a few helpless wheezes that made her throat ache.
"Are you seriously asking for my help?" she demanded.
Harly felt weak, beaten and broken, her body sore and mind fuzzy from the drugs and head trauma.
But inside, Harley had never felt stronger.
She planted one foot and then the other, then pressed her back against the pole, using it for leverage to push herself to her feet. Her legs were wobbly, but she focused on the floor, solid beneath her feet, grounding her. She rose to her full height, rolling her shoulders back and lifting her chin.
Roman slowly rose to his feet, so he was eye level with her, his jaw tense.
"You know how to manipulate the media," he said tersely. "You can make Ed look like a lier before this gets out. Make a video demanding my ransom."
Harley managed to rotate the zip tie around her wrists to wiggle the nail of her index finger beneath the tab, picking at it, her eyes on Roman.
"We can coexist peacefully," Roman insisted.
"Peacefully," Harley sneered. "If you think that's what I want, you don't understand anything."
"Then what do you want?" Roman demanded, growing impatient. "You have to want something. Everyone does. What can I give you, Harley?"
Harley's face darkened, her eyes narrowing to a deadly squint. She leaned forward as far as her bound wrists would allow, plucking at the joining tab relentlessly with her nail.
"There is nothing you can offer me," she spat. "Nothing."
Roman lurched forward and grabbed a handful of her hair, his one open eye blazing as he sneered in her face.
"I don't understand you," he hissed, his nose centimeters from hers. "You'll work with Ed but not me?"
He yanked her head back hard, a few blonde strands coming loose in his fist. But it only bolstered Harley's spirit, spurring her to pluck at the zip-tie more furiously.
"Ed, who betrayed you," Roman continued bitterly. "Who is nothing but a thief and a copy cat. Why him and not me?"
"You know, Ed said something once," Harley shot back breathlessly, her heart pounding in her neck. "How can someone so rich and powerful, someone as dangerous as Black Mask… be so fucking boring."
"Boring?" Roman seethed, releasing her hair to grab her bruised face instead, his fingers digging into her sore cheeks, forcing her to face him. "I offer you everything, and you call me boring!" He barked. He sounded unhinged. Crazy.
"I don't like entitled rapists either," Harley scowled, unfazed when his fingers dug into her cheeks harder.
Roman looked like he was going to say something when someone behind Harley cleared their throat.
"Uh, boss, the pilot says the jet's all fueled up," one of his henchmen announced, making Roman look up sharply. "He wants a word, though."
Roman's eyes darted back to Harley, searching her face for a moment while she glared back at him. Then he released her and stomped away, leaving Harley alone with Crane.
Harley stared at him across the room, loathing pulsing through her veins as she watched him hang back like the coward he was.
"You're pathetic," she spat, her nostrils flaring.
"I'm surviving," Crane countered darkly. "You used me."
"What do you think he's doing?" Harley snapped. "You think Black Mask respects you? That he won't kill you?"
Crane glowered at her in silence.
"If he kills me, that's it for you," she continued hotly, her eyes narrowing. "What else can you offer him, Jonathan?"
"Are you suggesting I have a better chance with you?" Crane demanded. "That I should free you?"
"God no," Harley sneered, her eyes flashing as she leaned as far forward as she could. "You're going to beg me to kill you by the time this is over, Jonathan." she snarled.
"Your narcissism knows no bounds, Harleen," Crane shot back bitterly. "You think you're unkillable," he sneered. "Don't you."
Harley shook her head, her eyes on Crane all the while. "You're so weak, Jonathan."
Crane's eyes widened, but before he could defend himself, Roman returned, tucking a phone in his pocket, looking very pleased with himself. He was joined by two meaty thugs this time, their suits and ties pristine, their ties straight and hair neatly clipped.
Roman stopped in front of Harley, folding his arms and offering that soft smile, which she no longer found sinister. Just annoying.
"Have you got another master plan to regale me with?" Harley drawled, her eyes sweeping over the thugs. One of them was a former Lucky Hand guard by the look of them. The other generic Gotham muscle, the old school Costa Nostra kind.
"Ed's an unreliable witness," Roman replied cheerfully. "And there's no one else to corroborate his story. He'll be sent to Arkham, and I'll leave Gotham. I can speak to the police and the media via video call to clear all of this up. It's not as clean as I like, but it will do."
"Leave Gotham?" Harley's eyebrows arched, and Roman beamed back at her.
"My plane is waiting for us just outside the city," he explained. "With all this… mayhem, it's no surprise those with the means to are leaving."
Harley pursed her lips, picking at the zip-tie tag harder until the nail of her index finger tore off.
She moved on to her middle finger.
"Have you been to the Cote d'Azure?" Roman asked, tipping his head to the side. "It's beautiful this time of year. What a wonderful place…" He moved closer to her, his smile softening. "For you to realize you belong to me."
Harley laughed in his face, a sharp incredulous bark deep in her chest.
"I have a surprise for you before we go," Roman continued, his one good eye dancing, making Harley's face darken as she tried to anticipate what was coming next.
She heard more henchmen outside the control room and judged there to be two guarding the door, another two farther away but moving closer. Grunting and struggling with something, exchanging words with the minions guarding the entrance before entering the room behind Harley.
They had someone with them, Harley realized, a hostage, someone who wasn't coming quietly.
Roman sighed happily and stepped away from Harley, making space for two new minions.
They were dragging a slim blonde girl between them, her arms pinned behind her back, her legs flailing, duct tape over her mouth.
She was wearing Black Canary's armor, but not the cowl.
Harley held her breath, trying not to react.
They had Dinah.
A/N: Ooooooooooh
I love Harley being a BOSS to a Roman & Crane. I love Pam vs. J bickering, and I just love Pam in general. Also love Ed getting the Dark Knight interrogation-scene treatment cause I thought it would be fun. He's a little edgier with Batman than he usually is, which I wanted to see.
The last two chapters are kind of a two-part finale. It started as one but got super long, so here we are. They are the usual 10k length.
Next: THE FINALE PART 1
Please review, beautiful people!
xo