Harley is the key.
To Dick, she's an escape. A window to fly through, a bliss that he finds in no one else. He can't let her go; if he does, he might fall. To Batman, she's the one way to the Joker. She knew his plans, and she knew his motivation. Through Dick, Batman sees her use.
To the Joker, she's a distraction. Harley's survival has consumed his imagination, leaving him to wonder how she survived the 'accident' he caused. Alas, his plans must come first, and he's only just getting started.
Harley was lying sprawled out across her cot staring at the ceiling with her hands propped under her head. The fluorescent light bulb flickered every now and again, and a fly buzzed around the cell bars. She let out a sigh as she rolled her head over onto her arm and counted the number of stones in the wall next to her bed for the thirtieth time.
Now I know why the inmates talk to the psychologists here, she thought to herself, they're bored out of their minds with nothing else to do. It was agonizing to just be locked in a cell for hours at a time with nothing to distract her. She tilted her head back to stare at the ceiling again as the door at the end of the hall squeaked open. Furrowing her brow, her eyes unfocused as she listened to the footsteps walking down the hall toward her at a leisurely pace. She swore she could recognize them. Harley closed her eyes as the footsteps stopped outside her cell.
"Those guards are assholes," Dick commented irritably, cocking his head. He could almost see her face where she lay on her bed, but she was half hidden. He smiled, despite the pain that seeing her caused. He wanted to be happy. "How are you feeling? Are you comfy? Do they treat you right here? Because Bruce has an awful lot of pull here, I could get you a book or something."
Harley blinked slowly but didn't say anything.
"I tried to bring you lunch, but those guards wouldn't let me. They took it away. I paid good money for that, too…" he smiled, dropping to the floor and sitting with his legs crossed. "It was for some stupid reason too. Something about you being dangerous." The corner of Harley's mouth turned up in a smile. His heart soared, encouraged at the small response. Dick leaned his head against the bars, watching her. Her hair was splayed across the pillow and one knee was up in the air. She let it fall to the side. Dick stared at her, biting his lip. He frowned, running a hand through his hair.
"Hey Harley."
No answer.
"Hey." Dick watched her ruefully. She could barely see him, the bruises and cuts on his face were healing; he wore a black cargo jacket, jeans, his familiar boots, with a deep blue shirt that had GCPD in white across the front. Dick sighed. "So… he wanted me to ask you if you would help us catch the Joker." She parted her lips, but didn't say anything. It was a slow breath like a quiet sigh. Dick looked at her hopefully. "I could keep talking, but I don't think you want to listen to me babbling on." He bit his lip. "I'm not that interesting."
Harley closed her eyes as she waited for him to keep talking.
Dick sighed and situated himself more comfortably on the floor. An inmate screamed in some far off hallway, and they both ignored it. "Bruce and the rest of the family had an intervention for me yesterday," he chuckled. "I told them that I am perfectly fine. I've been sleeping when I can and eating my meals when I have time for them, too. Barbara was all pissed off about me wanting to keep trying with you, of course. She always has been the jealous type…" He muttered as he slid down to the floor, laying with his legs stretched out across the hall, his head propped against the bars, so he wasn't looking at her. He didn't want her to feel uncomfortable in any way, even if that meant he couldn't see her. She turned her head to look at the back of his head, her eyes crinkling slightly as she smiled. Dick crossed his hands on his chest and yawned.
"Well, I've been getting some sleep. Probably not as much as an 'active young man of my profession' should, as Alfred put it. He misses you. He won't say it, of course, but I think he liked you." Dick smiled to himself as a doctor walked down the hall, stepped over Dick's outstretched legs distastefully, and then continued on down the hallway. "Everyone who works here is mean. Is that how they cope with being around crazies? Being jerks all the time? And then you weren't a jerk, so you went crazy too? That how it works? Hate them or join them…" Dick pondered, and then glanced over his shoulder at her, a smile on his lips. He looked back at his boots. "I like my crazy girl."
She laughed. It was short and not a big laugh, but she did laugh. When Dick turned to look at her, she was staring at the ceiling with a small smile on her face. Dick grinned at her lovingly and again turned away to face the hallway, closing his eyes relaxedly.
"Of course, I'd like it a lot more if these bars weren't between us." Dick sighed and smiled again. The fluorescent lights buzzed softly above him.
Harley stared at the back of his head. She couldn't understand why he would come to see her after everything she had done, but she couldn't deny this was the happiest she'd been in days.
"It's weird. Even after all this stuff, Bruce seems like he's almost… accepted you. When we talked, he asked me if I was sure I wanted to do this. If it had been a week ago, he would have forbid me from seeing you and locked me in the Manor." Dick chuckled. "I think Damian misses you, too, in his own way. I try to help that kid any way I know how. He's just so… Well he wasn't raised right. Not by Bruce, mind you, I turned out fine. But Damian… well there's a long history with Ra's Al Ghul that is complicated..." Harley listened as Dick chatted away about his dysfunctional family. It was relaxing and normal, not at all like he was telling it to her through a cell door. She closed her eyes and pretended they were somewhere else together. Somewhere not Arkham. Dick sighed, sitting up so his shoulders rested on the bars. "Do you think your family would still want to meet me? I still want to meet them…" Dick trailed off as another doctor walked over his legs. "Maybe I'll go there."
Harley tried to picture Dick and her family in the same room. She shook her head in amusement at the notion. When she started listening to him talk again, he'd begun to think about how he was going to smuggle food in the next time he came.
"Maybe if I just come in uniform, like 'this inmate needs to eat these wings...' or I could pull the 'my rich daddy owns you' card," he pondered. He heard her chuckle softly to herself.
Dick paused.
"Harley, I…" He bit his lip. She didn't have to see his face to know that he was doing it. "I still refer to you as my girlfriend, you know that, right? I hope that's okay…unless you being bonkers was also you dumping me."
"You do?" she asked, shocked into responding. Dick sat bolt upright and turned around, looking at her.
"Of course I do." He smiled gently.
"Why?" She moved one hand out from under her head and draped it over her stomach.
"Because I love you," he answered simply, sliding back down slowly to lean on the bars again.
She didn't respond for a while until she simply asked again, "Why?"
Dick shot a goofy half-smile over his shoulder at her, and her heart leapt. "Well why not?"
"For starters, I am Harley Quinn," she muttered. Slowly, she pushed herself up by her elbows into a sitting position on the cot and looked him in the eyes for the first time. There was a cut above her right eyebrow that had purplish bruising forming to her temple and her eyelid. Her lip was split, and Dick could see the bandaging under the collar of her Arkham jump suit. He bit his lip again, sitting up on his knees outside of her cell. His clear blue eyes were so familiar and warm.
"Oh, Harley…" he sighed, examining the bruises. "I'm sorry."
"You didn't push me out the window," she scolded him sternly, sounding like her old self. Dick smiled a little, running a hand through his hair.
"But I wasn't there to catch you."
"Well I did just kidnap your dad, so we can call it even." She smiled.
Dick snorted and grinned. "I guess we are." He watched her happily. "God I've missed you." She adjusted her shoulder on the wall with a grimace.
"You shouldn't," she told him.
"I do," he shrugged, grinning. "Come here." She smiled wanly.
"I don't think that's a good idea."
"Why?" Dick smiled at her, pressing his face against the bars.
"First off," she was unable to not smile at him, "you look as beat up as I feel." Her smile turned into a pucker, and she shook her head back and forth slightly. "And you should really keep your distance from me."
"Well that just makes me want you over here more," he frowned, and then looked at her seriously. "And nothing you say will convince me to stay away from you, Harley," he pointed out.
"Dick," she whispered, closing her eyes. "I don't want you to get hurt." He smiled a little.
"I don't think you'll hurt me," he said, leaning against the bars.
"Past experience would beg to differ." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
"I don't care about the past. You asked me why I loved you? One of the reasons was because you didn't care either. You had a bad childhood, and you made something out of it. You fought your way through college and to where you are. I fell in love with your passion for the present." Dick pressed, his hands wrapping around the bars.
"I think you're missing the minor detail of me becoming a criminal and landing myself in Arkham."
"That doesn't matter. You think I've never dealt with that criminal stuff before? I deal with it every day. When I look at Bruce, Jason, Damian; even Tim. I deal with that when I look in the mirror. Hell, Jason busted himself out of prison and none of us care. I've overlooked it, Harley." She tucked her knees into her chest.
"Well I can't overlook it. I was a psychologist for crying out loud. I worked with the people here, and now look at me." She put her forehead down on her knees. "What was I thinking?" she muttered.
Dick looked down. "Could you overlook it for a few minutes and come over here?" he glanced up at her hopefully, his blue eyes pitifully wide. Harley wanted nothing more than to run to him, but instead she kept her head bent and said nothing. "Don't make me come over there." She snorted with laughter before tipping her head up and resting her chin on her knees. Dick narrowed his eyes."You know I can pick these locks, right?"
"You know they have alarms, right?" she taunted.
"If I pick the locks, the alarms would go off immediately. It would take about twenty seconds for the guards to get down here. That's a kiss long enough to be worth it," Dick pointed out. Harley blushed. "Or I could always hack security from my phone, but that might be a bit more dangerous than the first option. So come here." Harley opened her mouth to reply when someone cleared their throat behind Dick. Dick turned around and saw a red headed doctor staring at him.
"Oh, hello Dr. Isley," Harley said slightly confused.
"I hate to interrupt," she said, glancing at Dick. "But I'm afraid I need to talk to my patient."
Dick narrowed his eyes irritably, still sitting cross-legged on the floor and pouting up at her. "Can't you wait, like, twenty seconds? Tops?"
"I'm afraid not. This is important."
Harley frowned a little at Dr. Isley before glancing at Dick. "I think I should probably listen to her. She is my doctor."
Dick groaned in exasperation and stood, dusting his knees off. He glanced at Harley pointedly and smiled. "I love you. I'll see you tomorrow." He turned and looked down at Dr. Isley. He was quite a bit taller than her, and he narrowed his eyes for a moment before walking back down the hall.
"Stupid doctor…" Dick muttered. Her red hair had smelled like flowers. He shoved his hands into his pockets as he walked out into the main lobby, his footfalls echoing in the high ceiling. Suddenly remembering the first time he came through this atrium, Dick stopped and looked around, smiling a little. The last time he'd been here and walked out this giddy was when he'd first met Harley.
His footsteps echoed in the high, clean atrium as he walked to the reception counter. An aged woman with gray hair and beady eyes behind gold frame glasses looked up at him.
Dick turned around and looked. The woman was still at the counter, chomping away at a piece of chewing gum. He laughed to himself. Commercials played loudly on a TV mounted on the wall of a waiting area to his right.
"Hi." He held up his badge. "Officer Grayson. I need to see a psychologist-"
"I don't think so sweetie-pie," she giggled.
"-about the Joker, ma'am." Dick finished, trying to suppress the urge to roll his eyes and huff irritably.
Dick laughed a little harder, sighing. His smile was suddenly wiped clean from his face as if Bruce had slapped him again. The Joker.
"Shit!" he cursed. He'd been tasked with asking Harley about the damn clown, and he'd forgotten. Dick couldn't believe he'd forgotten.
"Did you miss me, Gotham?" a chilling voice suddenly said, and Dick froze. The Joker laughed, a quiet chuckle that escalated into a shrill cackle. Dick turned to see that the Joker had appeared on the television in the waiting area. His blood ran cold in his veins. "I'll admit, I did disappear for a while. Right about now your policemen are trying to track me down via this feed, trying to shut it down, but see; I'm not finished yet." He clicked his tongue, shaking his head. The Joker sat at a table, his gloved hands crossed on it's surface. His voice echoed eerily on the video, and unlike the Riddler feed; the picture was clear and clean. His gleaming face was half bathed in shadow, his eyes hidden under high arched brows. The grin on his face darkened his already macabre features. "So do I have your attention?"
Dick's phone rang and he answered it, without looking at the caller ID. "Yes, I'm watching it, Bruce," he breathed, his eyes fixed on the face on the screen.
"Yes? Good." The Joker chuckled, uncrossing his hands and standing. The camera followed his movements, the person behind it dictating it's motion. "You see, my er- knowledgeable friend the Riddler, went about this all wrong, and I'd like to apologize for that. Of course, he got himself locked up because of it." Joker's eyes unfocused, and he suddenly laughed loudly. "These things ought to be well shot. Acted, as if they were little films. But of course, this is real life! Real emotion, real fear." He growled. As he'd walked, the camera had followed, and it now turned away from him to look up at a man on a stage, tied to a chair. He looked unharmed, but he trembled uncontrollably, his eyes distant. A grin was painted across his lips in lipstick; a harlequin hood pulled over his head. "Harley dear, over here-" Joker snapped, and the camera turned back to him as he walked up the stairs onto the stage, his purple coattails trailing behind him elegantly and ominously as he crossed to the restrained man. Joker grinned broadly, glaring down at the camera. The torn scarlet curtains of the long unused stage provided a backdrop for his wicked grin, and the color made his purple suit stand out. "Jake here has just finished giving me every little secret he knows… And I didn't have to lay a finger on him!" Joker clapped. The camera zoomed in on the man, looking terrified as he shuddered in his chair.
"Jake works for one of those pesky cartels that peddle their second-rate garbage onto the streets. He's very kindly given me the names, schedules, and even hobbies of the people he works with, and it's been very helpful." As the Joker slammed his hands down loudly on the back of the chair, he laughed wickedly, the stage lights bathing his visage in shadow. "I'm coming for you." he said evenly, and then burst into laughter again. "Your filthy little right hand has just slit your own throat, Christopher Renner, and tomorrow, I come for you. And since he just poured his heart out to me, and you were going to do it anyway; I'll pour his heart out for you." Joker laughed excitedly, a dagger flashing out of nowhere and cutting swiftly into the man's chest.
Someone in the lobby screamed. The man's face didn't change. His eyes stared straight forward vacantly as blood poured down his shirt in a tidal wave of red; the hostage's face twisted in a pain that he knew should be there, though he appeared to feel none as the light left his eyes, and he slumped in his chair, lifeless. The Joker stepped out of the way, careful to avoid getting any blood on his spotless Italian leather shoes. He cleaned the dagger with one of the hat tips of the harlequin hood that was still on the man's head and then used it to pull the head up to look into the camera.
"I hope you're watching, Dr. Quinzel," he hissed, grinning with parted teeth as he laughed. Dropping the dagger, Joker eased down to sit on the edge of the stage. "Put that on the tripod and come over here, darling," he purred, and there was a moment of jostling as the camera was put stationary. Harley Quinn- another Harley Quinn- skipped out to the Joker and leaned against his leg where it hung off of the stage. Dick swallowed; this new replacement looked almost exactly like the original. "You see, Gotham, this was a threat, but only to one man. To you, dear city of mine, it was a reminder that you are indeed mine. I've spoken for five whole minutes now. No one is in control of the television but myself. I murdered a man for you, and trust me, I'll disappear again and they will never find me. Thank you for your time!" He grinned, and then laughed gruesomely until the feed cut off. Dick finally let go of the breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
"Bruce. You still there? What the hell was that!?"
"I don't know. We couldn't track the signal."
"I think that was his point," Dick choked.
"He streamed across all of the news channels," Damian added from the other line.
"What the hell do we do now, Bruce?" Dick asked. He still couldn't get the image of the man in the harlequin hood out of his head. He knows she's alive, he thought. And he'll come for her.
"Now we stop him."