Chapter III: I'm Sorry, but I fail you.
It was 8:30 pm in the city of Louisiana and Joker was in an intimate, relaxing atmosphere of the sumptuous and unique décor of the room he was in. He was sitting in the black leather chair, still in his dark trousers from his security guard outfit, standing naked torso with his feet on a shiny glass table.
With a red cloth in his hands he wiped one of his golden weapons as he watched them carefully. His thoughts wandered in what he would do when he reached Gotham, now that he finally had Harley back. There were many things he was interested in doing and that he had stopped doing because he was determined to look for her, among them it was obviously playing with the bat. Joker didn't forget that he was the responsible to put Harley in Belle Reve on the first place; of course, obfuscating the fact that he himself had abandoned her in the waters of the sea...he grunted annoyed...he could not help but bother himself in a certain way, because thanks to that, the time he was separated from Harley had let him know how much he needed her, intensifying the hidden feelings that he could feel for her and could not turn back, he himself was aware of the power she had over him...In her notorious absence, his thoughts went unintentionally to Harley...and the last two months of absence, before his right hand came to her whereabouts...the situation had deteriorated to such a point that he could not sleep, he could not reign, he could not play with Bat, he couldn't do absolutely nothing without his queen and found himself sitting in that circle of arms. Artistic expression of his desperation to find her...he stopped thinking about all those stupidities that all they did was put him in a bad mood, hated knowing that she was his weakness and why he had neglected all his other activities.
He turned his look in direction where the bathroom was. It was passed a long time since Harley entered from this door and he was losing his temper. How much time she need to take a bath?
He leaves his weapon on the glass table and he get up from the sofa to walk directly to the bathroom.
"How much are you going to make me wait? I'm losing my temper, baby" he said putting his hand on the door. It was taking too long and the eagerness to possess her increased every second. It had been too much time for him since he'd heard her scream with pleasure and pain, seeing that beautiful body before him. He had had sex with other women in her absence to mitigate his loss in his eagerness to bury her in oblivion, but none of them pleased him as he really wanted, no one made him quench the thirst for lust within himself and only managed to go crazy rage because her face always appeared most of the time in the sexual act... the only answer it was Harley.
He put his face in the door and he doesn't receive any answer.
"Harls" he said loudly and slammed the door, but the silence remained. It was ready; the limit of his patience was at zero. He turned the knob of the door that for his luck was uninsured. He came in looking at the glamorous bathroom and her clothes lying on the floor. His vision drifted quickly into the jacuzzi in the corner of the room, there was Harley, turning his back on a sea of foam and she seemed not to notice his presence.
"Harls… What are you doing?... Are you trying to…avoid me?" He said walking towards her and he noticed that she had put her hands on each side of her head covering her ears and her forehead resting on her knees, her long hair was covering her face.
Joker looked at Harley's bare back and his eyes widened as did his mouth. His deep eyes were fixed on the deep purple markings beside the marked vertebrae on her back, which denoted that she was thinner than he was accustomed to seeing her.
He could not tear his eyes away from those dark marks, and his eyes filled with anger, his breathing growing more and more agitated. An immense hatred began to take hold of him and an opaque darkness his eyes.
"Who did that to you?" His voice sounded hoarse and deep.
Harley lifted her face and out of her trance turned fearful toward him.
"Puddin ..." She said almost inaudibly. He turned to the sink, grabbed his hand, and brutally struck the table. Then, with his arm, he abruptly pulled everything that was there. The glass bottles containing different scents were broken causing the crystals to resonate on the floor.
Joker put his fingers to his forehead and with his agitated breath he turned again turning toward her.
"Who did that to you?"
Anger burned inside him, wanted his quick and accurate response.
"It was the guards ..." it took another bit to respond, but finally she spoke as he averted her gaze as she clung firmly to her knees. She could not lie to him, she would know and it would be much worse...
Joker gritted his teeth at the words. Inwardly he knew they had been them, but he wanted to confirm it from her own lips. He moved closer to her and took her face with both hands to turn him toward him.
"What else did they do to you?" Harley closed his eyes and he screamed at her face as he held her tightly "WHAT DID THEY DO?"
He knew she wouldn't put herself in this way for a few blows...there was something else, his instinct told him… he softened his expression and released his cheeks; he stroked her face, holding back his anger.
"Okay, honey...get up." he took her hand and forced her to get up. She rose slowly turning her face to avoid his gaze as the water trickled down her bare and fragile body. He put his hand on her waist and turned her.
The foam goes down on her skin and he could see more clearly the bruises on her back. His gaze carefully traversing every centimeter of her exposed skin, and then he saw it, the red of her right buttock that marked the hand of a man protruding from her white skin. He knew that immediately...that mark could only be made if she was naked and he knew it better than anyone, because he enjoyed it enormously to do that to her when they both had their fiery sexual encounters.
He twisted his neck tightening his jaw with his teeth feeling his blood boil through the burning fire of hate within, but then he heard a choked sob sobbing the silence of the room. Harley, still standing with her back to him, hugging herself, she was crying silently. With a movement of his arm he turned her toward him and watched the thin tears of Harley fall to mingle between the water and the soap.
"I'm sorry ..." she said, looking at him with notorious fear and anguish. Then J pulled her to him wetting his dark trousers with the water of her skin. He clutched his body against hers as his bare chest rose and fell in sobs.
He put one hand on her back and the other lay on her wet hair. he restrained her, but his gaze was still filled with hate and his mind clouded with anger only thought in a thousand ways to annihilate each of the men who had dared to take their most precious possession...because yes, he clearly knew that If they had managed to touch Harley against her will, it could not have been a single man, only one could not have been against her.
He carried the naked body of his girl in his arms and walked out of the room; he laid her on the bed and turned around. She saw his back get lost in the bathroom and she sat on her knees on the bed expecting the worst that would come...surely he would make her violently and beat her would make her pay for having failed him...
A few minutes later she saw him come back drenched and with an angry countenance. Only a towel wrapped around his waist covered his body and carried another one under his arm. He approached the bed and Harley closed her eyes expecting a hard slap, but she opened them in surprise as that never happened, only felt the contact of the white towel cover his body, surrounding her back.
Harley saw him confused as Joker after having covered her with the towel he turned and grabbed his cell phone from the night table.
"Frost, I want us ready in five minutes" his voice still sounded terribly dark.
Immediately she saw him dress and put on his gold chains.
"His names…" he said as he filled his hands with thick rings.
"I don't know them..." she said almost silently.
"You don't know them?... mmm you don't know..."he muttered between teeth closing his eyes and frowned them furious. Bad answer "oh, listen ... you're going to tell me, Harls" he lifted his nonexistent eyebrows as he opened his eyes.
He cupped her cheeks with one hand and squeezed them tightly to his lips. She released her face violently and then she could finally react.
"I don't know their names, but Griggs must know" she said quickly.
"Griggs...Griggs ..."he mumbled, trying to remember by ringing the bones of her own neck with his hand.
"Griggs, Puddin... the guard who made me give me my cell phone, remember?" She said and bit her lip "he ... he saw me...and saw them ...but he goes, he left me there..."
Joker clenched his fists. He had what he needed to know and that idiot would no doubt be the first to pay.
"Well, honey…that's enough." he went to the glass table in the center of the leather armchairs. Took his two arms, put them in his purple bassoon crossed on his back, above his white shirt and put his gray bag on.
He walked past the side of the bed and blinded by his hatred headed to the exit. Every passing minute accentuated his desire to hear them beg for pity, but something stopped him. Harley's hand gripped his arm.
"You're not going to hit me...Puddin?" She said, but he was standing on his back.
Joker pulled his arm abruptly so she let him go and grunted, shaking his head in annoyance. He turned to her and put his hand on her neck caressing dangerously.
"Don't say something...what you can regret..."
"But I couldn't defend myself ... seriously, but I fail!" she emphasized the last word and looked into his eyes.
He seriously hesitate to slap her while his hand was still holding her neck, but not by her words. He knew full well that she had refused to attack, but rather because he was annoyed at the fact that she had been vulnerable in his absence that was not the Harley he had made his queen. He had been so stupid...yet...she could understand that she had been weak from his own death.
He kissed her suddenly playing with her tongue savagely. Harley was confused, not expected. He separated from her and said
"Listen, you belong to me and that's all that matters...do you understand that?" He asked, staring at her.
"Yes," said Harley, still confused "will you come back?"
He looked at the roof indignantly and returned his sight on her
"Yes. Listen...you're going to wait here until I come back " he looked into her eyes and pointed his finger to her face" you know perfectly where I'll go, Harls" he took her face with both hands and kissed his forehead "Oh... and Daddy will try to do them a lot of damage and it will take...quite a while to get back"
He showed her the silver of his teeth in a macabre smile. He walked to the exit and left.
Harley touched her forehead and could not help but smile, she flipped onto the bed. He was right, she knew perfectly well that her Puddin was going to go for Griggs and would pay him for not helping her when he could, as well as how bad he'd been with her all the time she was at Belle Reve...she also knew then, her Puddin would go after the bastards who had abused her and with them, YEAH... he was going to take quite a while, knew him very well and could imagine the slow and painful torture that awaited them, no one could free them from their punishment.
She got up from the bed, firmly adjusted the towel that was wrapped around her, hurried to the window and half of her body. He watched as Jhonny, Joker, and all his men climbed fully armed in the two pickup trucks. Even at that height she could clearly see the wickedness in J's eyes.
Suddenly, she saw a few meters away, the truck was where J was about to cross the red light, but a police patrol car crossed and blocked its way to be able to start in a hurry. Then she saw a police officer ready to do an identity check on that suspicious black van with tinted windows.
The officer approached the copilot's window, the glass lowered, and Harley saw the sleeve of her Puddin's gray sack and his unmistakable purple gun with gold accents pointing at the officer's head. In a brief second, she heard the loud shouting and shouting of the locals, the man's body fell on the asphalt in front of a luxurious Italian restaurant.
Harley laughed…poor man, he'd had the misfortune of delaying the departure of her Puddin, who no doubt he wanted to leave at full speed in search of his prey.
She saw the truck hit the end of the car patrol running off the road and away at full speed, followed by the second truck behind. Harley felt the cool breeze of the wind on her body and breathed deeply looking at the moon in the dark sky, no doubt she felt better...much better.
She walked away from the window and took the half-swallowed drink that left Joker on the glass table. She drank it into the dry, but her tongue instantly popped out and shook her head in disgust, pure whiskey, but anyway...she needed it. She walked towards the bed stretching her arms and arching her back. Out of the corner of her eye she looked in the direction of the bathroom and noticed her Puddin's pants that lay on the floor next to her own prison clothes.
She went into the bathroom and bent down to pick up both clothes. She felt inexplicably happy to have her clothes torn into her hands. reminding her that she had come back to live with him, she was finally at his side and she would never have to return to the look the face of those men who had curled his death and wanted to make her feel miserable by abusing her at her most vulnerable time. that would not happen again, because he was there for her and somehow Joker reminded her who she really was, next to J's side she felt strong and unstoppable and that Harley Quinn had to come back completely and forever...she would not allow that no one took advantage of any moment of weakness ever again. Inwardly she knew that If for some reason, her Puddin was no longer with her, she must remain the same or stronger without him, just as she had in the battle with the Enchantress protecting her friends.
She would not fail him, but above all...she would not fail herself. Harley was more than she ever imagined she would be and would ALWAYS make it clear.