It's impossible to function.
Impossible to breathe. How can anyone expect them to go on living? They've both lost people they love, but never in this way, and never so harshly. Dick and Harley's pasts can't compare to the hellish roller coaster that their future together has been, and will be.
Unfortunately, it's not over. As impossible as that may seem. How else can they be hurt so completely? The pain has only just begun, and the Joker has a lot more in store for the family- they just don't know it yet.
Harley walked into the living room. She smiled at everyone. Haly was across her chest with her head on Harley's shoulder as she patted her back.
"Sorry," she smiled, "someone was a little cranky when she woke up."
"Oh!" Selina leaped up from the couch and rushed to Harley's side. "She's beautiful." She beamed down at Haly, waggling her fingers. Haly blinked up at her with wide blue eyes. Her black hair was a frizzy tuft. "Oh my gosh," Selina turned to Bruce, "we shouldn't have left."
"It was your honeymoon, of course you should have," Harley scolded. Selina did look well and tan. She had a happy glow as she smiled. "You didn't miss too much. Here." With a smile, she gently cradled Haly in Selina's arms. Haly fussed for a moment before settling down. Selina beamed at her.
"Hello Sweetie," she cooed. Harley took the burping rag off her shoulder and laid it on the coffee table. Bruce stood behind Selina, looking over her shoulder at Haly. She reached her pudgy little hand up to him.
"Careful," Jason warned, "she spit up on me."
"She has good taste then," Ivy told him. Her legs were draped over his as they sat on the couch, and she smiled at him.
"I'm not impressed," Steph joked. "When she karate chops her crib, I'll be impressed." Haly gurgled, twisting her hands in Selina's shirt. "Never mind," Steph awed. "I'm impressed." She grabbed Tim's hands, squeezing them.
"I want one." Selina looked up at Bruce. He glanced at her before returning his attention to Haly who had taken his thumb in both of her hands.
"She looks so fragile," Cass commented, watching Haly warily.
"Well she's a baby. Just don't try to spar with her," Harley advised. Cass glared at her before looking back at the baby. Damian was at Harley's side, his eyes glued on Haly. Harley wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "You can hold her next," Harley promised.
"No, I call dibs," Barbara said as she and Sam shook the snow off their coats as they walked in. She beelined for the baby.
"You just got here. Wait your turn," Steph snapped. Haly cried weakly, and Tim and Selina shushed Steph. Dick gave Haly her pacifier, and she quieted again, sucking on it happily. He wrapped his arms around Harley, kissing her cheek.
"Don't we get a say in who holds her?" he asked. "She's our daughter." He looked around at his family happily.
"So? You get her all the time," Ivy reasoned.
"Yeah, share," Tim cried. Harley rolled her eyes giggling. She wrapped her arms around Dick's waist, and he rested his chin on her head, sighing happily. She looked at Haly; she looked exactly like Dick.
Someone laughed.
Harley spun around. Everyone seemed to have frozen around her, still smiling.
"Now, now," the Joker scolded. "I told you what I'd do."
"No," Harley gasped. "Leave her alone." She tried to turn back to Haly, but no one was there; she was surrounded by darkness.
"She's mine," the Joker hissed, his voice floating over to her. "I told you I'd strip his flesh away," he screamed. Harley cried out as she was suddenly blinded by a bright light. She was tied to the table, covered in blood and sobbing. The Joker leaned over her, leering. "I told you he wouldn't save you."
Harley looked over and saw Dick kneeling at the edge of the light. He was staring at her, his eyes hollow and emotionless.
"Dick!" she screamed. "Help me!" He didn't move.
"I told you he was broken." The Joker grabbed her face. "I've won."
Harley sat up screaming as he slashed his scalpel across her stomach. Not Haly. Don't take Haly. She struggled.
"Harley!" Dick grabbed her arms as she thrashed around in the blankets; she fought him. "Harley, it's just a nightmare." She still struggled against him before her eyes focused on his face. Her body slumped as she started crying.
"Then why is it still real when I'm awake?" She sobbed. Dick swallowed hard, holding her tight as he buried his face in her hair.
"Shhhh… It's okay, I'm here," he breathed. Is it me? Am I your nightmare?
"She's gone," Harley whimpered, bawling on his shoulder. "He took her, and she's gone."
"He…" Dick was too afraid to ask. After listening to her cry and call out in her sleep, and trying to wake her from her nightmares, he didn't want to know. "It's going to be okay, Harley. It'll be okay…"
"What if he comes back?" she breathed, her body trembling.
"I won't let him hurt you anymore," Dick whispered, pinching his eyes closed. He held her tight; she clung to him.
"He's still out there. He's always going to be after us."
"No," he lied. She needed to hear positivity. He just wanted her to be calm. To find some peace. "No, he won't. I won't let him. We'll be okay. Even if we have to leave Gotham. Move somewhere nice… I've always wanted to live in the country."
"But if we leave, he'll go after the people we leave behind. If anyone else is..." Her fingers tightened in his shirt. "But I..." she glanced up him, "I can't go through that again." She closed her eyes. "And I can't relive it every night." She buried her face in his shirt again. "I can't, and I don't know what to do."
"You smile," Dick said quietly, his voice cracking. He looked down. Clearing his throat, he pulled her back down with him to lay in the blankets. "Everyone will yell at you and tell you you're not well, you're not taking care of yourself, you're not handling this correctly, and you're not, but… you just have to figure out a way. When I lost you, I um… I had to figure it out on my own. But you have me. I'm here." Even if you don't want me to be. Harley curled up beside him, crying herself to a stop.
"Thank you," she sniffled.
"Try to sleep," he kissed her cheek. She caught his hand, her body going tense.
"I can't," she breathed. He watched her carefully.
"Are you tired?" he finally asked, moving his hand in hers and wrapping his fingers gently around hers.
"I don't want to sleep," she hedged.
"You need to rest," he whispered, bringing a hand up to stroke her face gently.
"I think we both know how that would turn out," she argued. She looked down as she played with the fingers of his free hand.
"I knew how it would turn out every time I've closed my eyes for months," he snapped, and then bit his tongue. Harley's hands flinched back, releasing his. "Then don't sleep," he said, quieter. "Run yourself aground. I'm only trying to help you."
"Fine," she mumbled. She turned away, pulling the covers up as she laid stiffly beside him. Dick looked down.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have…" he gave up, laying down again and staring at the ceiling. After a moment he spoke again. "We can't lose each other. We can't do that."
"Then stop pushing me away," she whispered. She didn't move, but Dick could feel the blankets pull as she held them tighter. "It's like it hurts you to be near me."
"Nothing like that," Dick whispered. She felt his strong arm around her waist. He pulled her back against his chest. The sensation of his gentle hand tucking under her waist, his steady breathing behind her back and exhaling against her neck, the gentle weight of his head resting against hers; it was all very calming. "I know you don't want me to blame myself," his voice was a whisper against her skin, "but you have to know that I do. I want to be near you. God, I just want to hold you- but I'm so terrified. I don't want to hurt you." His hand lifted from around her waist and traced the scars on her arm left by the Joker's scalpel. His voice was thick with tears as he spoke, and he sighed slowly.
"Well you are hurting me." Harley squeezed her eyes closed. "I feel tainted, like all you're seeing is him. It hurts so much to have you flinch away from my touch with vacant eyes when I all I want is to for you to hold me and love me. It feels like you have one foot out the door, like you're trying to leave, and it hurts me. You keep looking at me like all you see are the scars, like you're repulsed by the sight of them. And that hurts because I can't hide them, I can't take them away or make it so they didn't happen." Harley choked back a sob, keeping her back to him. "And you keep looking at me like all you can see is the daughter we lost, like I'm only half a person now. And it hurts that you're pulling away. And it hurts to see the blame. And it hurts that we can't go back to before. It hurts to know I said those terrible things to you before you left, and how I wish I could take them back, and how I was terrified they would be the last things I said to you, and that you might think I didn't love you. And it hurts because I do love you."
Dick bit his lip. "I'm sorry. I don't know how to… I don't know what I can do to explain that that isn't how I feel. I don't know what to do to fix this. To make it better, even. I'm trying, Harley." His voice cracked and he looked down, hiccuping a bit as he began to cry. Dick pulled her closer. "It's either play it distant or break down completely," he whispered, terrified of losing control like he had in the nursery. Why did this have to happen? He went quiet.
"The playing it distant tactic is killing me." Harley curled up in a ball. "I already lost Haly, I can't lose you too," she breathed.
"You will never lose me," Dick whispered, a hand moving to her face. he touched her cheek and made her look over her shoulder at him. "I will never leave you. I've put up such a fight for you, do you really think I'd ever let you go? That I'd ever stop loving you?" Dick watched her, his light eyes searching, his brow knit worriedly. "You won't lose me."
That was too obvious. Too obvious… The Batman will see right through it.
"The Batman," Joker laughed out loud, and then immediately cried out in pain as the stitches in his cheek pulled. Nightwing had descended upon him out of nowhere. They'd fought, but what the Joker thought would be his advantage, the boy's rage; had actually worked against him. Nightwing had begun hitting and hadn't stopped, for a brief moment in his scrambled mind, the Joker had felt panic. He'd drawn his silver dagger and swung blindly. Nightwing had caught his hand in alarm and reversed it on the Joker himself, lashing out and accidentally tearing his cheek open. A jagged, crudely stitched gash crept from the corner of his lip to his cheekbone, completing the garish smile on his face.
Too obvious a hijink, he thought worriedly.
A laugh began in the back of his throat before he began howling with laughter, throwing his head back and cackling madly, a stitch popping closest to his lip. "It worked. It worked. By golly gee, the Nightwing has fallen. Oh the humanity!" he laughed hysterically before coughing and clutching at his chest. He cried out and winced, closing his eyes tight against the pain blossoming across his chest.
"You- you did this to me-" he gasped, letting out a wheezing laugh. He looked around the tiny, empty bedroom. The bottom drawer was open in the dresser, blankets and clothes spilling out of it. The bed was a mess and broken on one side, paper and clothing and fabric and supplies strewn all over the floor. The one window in the opposite wall was boarded up tight, keeping the cold at bay, and the room was a bit stuffy. A fire burned in the tiny fireplace, giving warmth to the small circle of light around it. Joker began to pace the floor, limping a bit. He remained fully dressed, changed out of the clothes that were stained with her blood.
Her.
"Shut up," Joker snapped.
"Please. Please don't do this. I thought you loved me! You did, didn't you…" He walked down the length of the room and back up.
"We're all part of the same sick little games," he sang, tapping his foot.
"Stop it," Joker hissed, turning around and glaring at the wall. "You know what you did. You know it's your fault. It doesn't bother you any. Why would it? You're fine. I'm fine. She has a new life now with that…" he growled, his hands clenching into fists. "That black haired, perfect eyed dream boat that all the little Supergirls fall in love with- couldn't stay on your own territory, could you, lover boy?! I should have stolen that crippled Batgirl, you loved her once upon a blue moon. But no. This is better. This is how it has to be. You lost your daughter- now just your wife- The perfect revenge."
Joker laughed, pulling at the stitches on his cheek. He grinned at himself in the broken mirror propped up on the mantlepiece.
"And you. This is all for you…" his voice was a sing-songy, hushed whisper. "Mr. Dark Knight. Gotham's Avenging Angel. How do you like it? I've been doing all the wrong things, looking in all the wrong places…. I've broken you. I've beaten you. Never this indirectly, and never this wholeheartedly."
He paused, smiling to himself.
"The ruined honeymoon was an added bonus."
His hands flicked nervously at his sides, and he pulled on the stitches again, crying out at the pain it caused. Joker laughed. His white face stood out starkly against the dark room, limp green curls framing his high forehead.
"Why must we always do this!" he exploded, and there was a scratching in the opposite end of the room at his outburst. "We go round and round the garden, doing this damn dance of ours. I win, you lose, game over."
He laughed madly, and the stirring came again. Rats, probably, he thought, taking off his shoe and throwing it at the corner of the room where the scuffing had come from. Crying arose following the loud noise, and he blinked in surprise. Joker crept quietly towards the dresser and tugged away the blanket over the bottom drawer, the crying growing louder at the cold in the room. He frowned down at the baby tucked in the blankets, wrapped like a perfect little nest around it's tiny body.
"Hello, tiny," he grinned.
The baby cried, her petite arms flailing a bit. Her pudgy cheeks reddened as big tears rolled down them. Joker scrutinized her.
"You look like your mommy," he whispered soothingly, reaching a hand down to smooth the dark tuft of hair on her little head. Joker grinned and laughed. "Well except for that. You've got dark hair like he does. But I used to have dark hair, too, you know."
He crept closer and tucked a hand under the newborn as she looked up at him in confusion, her big blue eyes still wet with tears. Joker wrapped her up in a blanket and tucked it around her face, holding her against his chest. Haly fussed a bit, and he moved closer to the fire, sitting cross-legged with her in his arms. It was warmer, there.
"Diapers," Joker said suddenly. "And baby milk. You need things, don't you little tiny? You need a name, too. I'll think of one."
Haly started to cry again, and Joker frowned sadly, scooting closer to the warmth of the fire.
"Don't worry," he smiled. "I'll take good care of you. I'll love you, and you'll love me and be as crazy as I am, and one day- you'll kill the Batman for us. You'll be a legend," he laughed. Joker bent a finger and put his knuckle in Haly's mouth. She went quiet and sucked happily.
"There. Now stop whining. I'll go get you something as soon as I go out tonight. In the meantime, sweet nightmares, little tiny."