The sun was beginning to set as Eva wrapped up with her final client of the evening. Once they had paid and left, she felt herself becoming sick to her stomach. She was dreading going home tonight, the thought of finding Joker in her apartment again, or even waking up to him was enough to set her head reeling with a storm of emotions that she couldn't even begin to undertake.
Once she finished with a little paperwork and cleaned her station, Eva grabbed her things and left. Leaving Deluca to lock up for the night, Joker would come here if he felt that she was avoiding him. At this point, she surmised that facing him head on was the best way to go about having him be a part of her life. She severally doubted that he would drop her like a hot potato once next week came and went, he had expressed a liking for her.
Like many young female Gothamites, Eva had been made aware of Joker's behavior when it came to keeping women, he didn't keep them long, especially when they fought back too much. Compromise and submission were the ingredients that would make her one of his survivors and not one of his victims. If she wanted to get out of this as mentally sound as possible, she'd have to do regular reality checks. Joker was never going to be an ally, anything he did was motivated by his desire to wreck her, wrap her around a tree like a car barreling at high speed.
Joker did not love, he did not feel compassion or sympathy because he was incapable of keeping such emotions on his person. Eva would have to go place she had never been, and claw her way back out again. She'd need to take all her sanity in and delve down to the level that Joker was at, once he was done with her, she could decompress her sanity and float back up. Eva always thought in pictures, and all these images gave her some sense of grounding. Pulling into her parking space outside the apartment complex, Eva sighed. "Play the part…"
Turning off the car, she glanced out her driver side window and at the window of her flat "Just play the part."
Grabbing her stuff from the car, she took the stairs. Looking up from flipping through her key ring, Eva found that her apartment door was open. Her heart seemed to stop pounding as it nosedived right into the pit of her stomach. He was here? Suddenly, Mr. Harris stepped out of her apartment. For a moment, she felt a warm sense of relief, that is until she saw his face. His left eye was blotched with green and purple and swollen to the size of a grapefruit. As she continued to look him over, she noted that several of the fingers on Mr. Harris's right hand had been bandaged, indicating that they had been broken. Eva dropped her keys. "Mr. Harris?"
He glanced up at the sound of her keys hitting the ground, only now realizing that she was there. "Ms. Anton!"
Terrified, he dropped to his knees and tried to work on her door "I'm almost done fixing your door, I-I know I'm a bit behind schedule but I got a call and…"
She held up her hand to stop him and went down to his level. Greasy bastard or not, Harris was still human, he didn't deserve this. Swallowing down her spit and horror, Eva let out a dry chuckle "Bastard got you good…"
Mr. Harris blinked "Tried to talk him out of it…."
Sitting back on her haunches, Eva sighed "Fucking asshole… Lucky, he didn't kill you."
Looked like the worst of the damage was Harris's hand, the eye would heal eventually. He'd live, Eva thought Joker would have killed him. Maybe she did talk him out of murder, at least her landlord was alive. Standing up, she walked past him "Thanks for fixing the door Mr. Harris. I'll be painting it this weekend…"
She looked over her shoulder and grimaced at Harris's anxious expression "Hope you don't mind."