Selina Kyle went to her dressing table and removed her necklace, then changed into a dressing gown. She'd sent Maven home for the night and she sat back down, scratching her cat Isis' ears, when a slight draft made her grimace. "You know, I have a right to ask how long you've been standing there."
"Not long."
She turned around, folding her hands demurely in her lap. The French windows stood open, the curtains billowing in the night air. The cloth of the curtains swam together with the black cape as Batman advanced into the room.
"You're getting friendly with Harley Quinn," he stated.
"The sisterhood of the rehabilitated," said Selina, with a not-at-all-seductive shrug of her shoulders.
"She's turning into quite the sensation," Batman said, looking thoughtfully, or, dare she hoped, bashfully, at the cat. Isis had bounded down from the dressing table to examine the newcomer.
"Is that surprising?"
"She stands to attract the wrong kind of attention."
"If you're thinking that I'm planning to recruit her for a heist," said Selina, suddenly frosty, "think again!"
"She's got experience, she's got skills similar to yours, and…"
"And she's easily led, vulnerable, and scared out of her wits. I may be a lot of things but I don't manipulate weak and scared people. She's been put through enough of that."
Batman stared hard at Selina for a moment and said, "You're looking out for her?"
"Who else is going to? The only thing she had going for her is locked up in Arkham."
"Poison Ivy?"
"Come on, Bats," Selina fairly sneered, "Are you really that old-fashioned? You must have guessed what kind of relationship they were having, even if was just an intermission to her going back to getting a black eye from that cackling clown!"
Batman remained stony-faced, but Selina fancied she saw the gears turning. "Then perhaps we can help each other."
"If you're going to ask me to spy on her," Selina began, but Batman interrupted.
"There's one last test she has to face," he rasped. "She'll need friends right now. Because she is going to attract the wrong kind of attention."
Selina's eyes widened, "Are you saying you're…" her expression turned to outrage, "That's cold even for you, Batman! You're using her as bait?"
Batman again didn't respond, "It may be a long time coming, Selina. But it will happen, whether I want it or not. So we're going to make the best of it, and protect her. Help me, or don't, but it'll benefit her most of all."
He turned on his heel and disappeared in the next billowing of the curtains.
After a thoughtful moment, Selina sighed out the words, "Damn him," and then rose. She approached a nondescript panel in the wall, and pulled on the light fixture. There was a click, and the panel swung out. She pulled it wide, and inside was a skin-tight full-body suit, with a mask and pointed cloth ears. A tightly wound whip hung beside.
"Well, Isis," she said, "Maybe we'll need to see to it a lucky cat crosses Harley's path."
The place Harley was going to was way on the southern mainland end of Gotham, near a big park and near highway on-ramp, which was noisy even at this hour. This was one of the city's many run-down little corners, although it had evidently been a pretty high-class area at one time. A few dilapidated manions, their gardens gone feral, were to be seen. Harley felt her heart twist a little as it occurred to her that Ivy would have liked some of these places.
The streets were deserted and chilly. Not an ideal place for a lady on her own, but Harley could handle herself if she needed to, and it made it easier to listen.
Finally she heard what she was listening for, or felt it, because it had bass, unlike the traffic. It sounded like drumming and weird droning.
The building she associated this with was a neo-Classical looking place with the windows blacked out. The front door looked as though it hadn't been opened in decades. She made her way around the back.
Sure enough, the back porch was guarded. A diesel generator rumbled away on the lawn. Two big men in identical blue costumes and hats stood at attention by the French doors. Toughs like in any other operation, but then they looked at you, as they now looked toward Harley, and you saw the glazed eyes and, crucially, the little 10 ¾ tags in their hat brims.
"I'm here to see the boss," Harley said. It was a safe bet. Not many gatecrashers would have called him that. One of them opened the door like a zombie and Harley stepped in.
What she saw was remarkable, but then again it wasn't really a big shock. The dining room and living area were all in one, and a long table stood in the former. The mangy carpet of the living area had been turned into a sumptuous stage space with divans and cushions. The room was lit by candlelight and there was the smell of tea and pastry.
Harley at once felt an urge to run away. Not only because the table, which was laid out with biscuits, tarts and squares, was flanked by glassy-eyed women in 19th Century dresses, plus a couple of deranged-looking men in foppish outfits and the demeanour of back-alley knife-wielders, but because, for a second, she wished she was wearing her old harlequin outfit so that she wouldn't stand out. Sure she felt uncomfortable and out of place, but how could she contemplate, after all she'd been through, wanting to feel comfortable in this?
Harley forced herself to pay attention to the band playing on the Arabian Nights stage. The group playing there were five in number. A couple of them were playing instruments she didn't even know the name of. She recognized a tambourine, a mandolin and a wooden flute anyway.
In the lead was a tall woman with ash blond hair, beating her tambourine and singing a song you'd expect to hear in a Renaissance Fair. Their costumes wouldn't have looked out of place at Medieval Times either. Lots of natural dye colours, homespun-looking cloth and the like. As weird as the instruments were, she found their overall effect quite pleasing. Or would have, except that the blonde singer's voice was hoarse and croaked on the soft notes. How long had she been doing it? Then she noticed the little card stuck into each of their hats or headbands.
"What ho? Have we a surprise guest to welcome to our wonderful Wonderland repast?"
Harley's head snapped round as Jervis Tetch, the Mad Hatter, arose from another divan in the far corner. Setting aside his hookah pipe, he scrutinized the newcomer.
"Good evening Mister Tetch," Harley said stiffly.
"What? Can it be? Does Harley Quinn hover here upon my hearth and home?"
Harley winced. She'd hoped against hope that Tetch wouldn't recognize her in this outfit. She nodded once. Tetch's gaze grew flinty. "Admission to my abode of amusing antics is by invitation, and I don't take kindly to minions crawling o'er my threshold! I've worked hard to make mine a magnificent and manageable menagerie, with neither tasteless acts of foolery nor infestations of winged rodents! You can tell your humourous honey that I want nothing…"
"I'm not here for him," Harley said, a little faster than she'd intended. "I'm here for myself. I want to ask you something."
Tetch blinked. Then he made a gracious bow and gestured grandly at the table. "How intruguing. Do sit down, and tell me what hath you to say?"
Harley picked a chair near the head of the table which left another vacant seat between her and the nearest enthralled tea-taker.
"Nice band you've got there," Harley said, trying to keep a quaver out of her voice.
"They are magnificent, aren't they?" Tetch beamed, "They were but starving artists living out of a bus when they came to Gotham, their talents unappreciated. Now they can make wonderful music all the time. All for me." His grin was obscene.
"I see," said Harley, "I was wondering if you were hiring them out?"
Tetch narrowed his eyes, then picked up the nearest of several teapots along the table, and poured two cups. "Go on."
Harley didn't know why she was bothering. She'd heard that Tetch had set himself up like this, with musicians and so on, but as soon as she'd seen that he'd used his mind control systems rather than his money to get them, she'd known this wouldn't work. "It's a concert, for charity that I'm helping organize. We need a group like this. Wouldn't be bad press. It'd help keep them looking legit, and you could probably," she took a sip of tea to get the bad taste out of her mouth, "skim a little off their fee."
"Aha," said the Hatter, looking thoughtfully at his teapot. "And this Samaritan suaree," he enunciated, "where is the money going, in fact?"
"To charity! This is legit, Jervis, not a front!" Harley realized she sounded defensive.
But the Hatter just smiled, "Of course it is. Well, now, as far as fees go, I think that, for talent such as this, I can reasonably ask for ten percent."
Harley shrugged, "Sure. Okay."
"How much will that come to, do you think?"
Harley considered this, and said, "Not a lot, to be honest. We can't pay them too much, 'cause the money's got to go to the Foundation."
"Now, now, my clownish comrade," Tetch put down his teacup impatiently, "this pretence of probity is precious, but it puts pressure on my patience. Whatever confidence caper you and your cackling companion are concocting, I shan't be deprived of my troubadours without some recompense."
"I just told you," Harley said, trying to unclench her jaw, "I'm not with him anymore! This is for a legitimate show, and it could work for both of us!"
"Even if I believed that," Tectch snarled, all good humour gone, "how long would it be before he pushes his way in?"
"He won't. I'm done with him."
"How often we have heard that," Tetch said coldly. Harley felt her throat constrict as the Hatter went on, "I'm sorry, Miss Quinn, but I am not interested in risking exposure. And I most certainly don't intend to let clownish interlopers spoil my party. I've worked hard to make this little Wonderland of my whims." Harley's stomach churned as she glanced nervously toward the women at the table, looking with vacant pleasure at the Hatter.
Harley seemed to be seeing the next few moments from a distance, as she turned back to the Hatter and propped her elbows on the table, one hand loosened her necktie. She smiled at Tetch and said, "Come on, Jervis, aren't you sick of company that needs a control chip? I'm on my own now, so let me walk out of here and…"
She stopped at the Mad Hatter's expression. It wasn't tempted, not even aloof. He looked mildly surprised. "You know, I think you might have been rehabilitated. The old you would have resorted to that sooner. But, alas, I know your patterns too well. March, kill Miss Quinn, won't you?"
Afterword: Harley's in a world of trouble now! Tetch's band is inspired by various folk and Renfair-type music, like S.J. Tucker and especially Blackmore's Night.