I'd Abandon the Ship for You.

The objective was simple; he had read it over a million times. All he had to do was go to the epicenter of crime in Gotham City and retrieve the elusive Harley Quinn. It didn’t take the expert deception of Amanda Waller to know that Rick had disabled Harley’s nano-detonator shortly before the fall of Corto Maltese. It also didn’t take an entire army to take down the Clown Queen of Gotham City. That’s why they sent Rick Flag Sr.

A bloodthirsty hound by nature—and dutifully so—Richard Sr. wanted answers from Harley that he intended to rip out of her one way or another. The dead didn’t talk, so interrogation required the target to be alive. A simple extraction: find the girl, bring her in, question her within the hallowed halls of ARGUS headquarters.

But nothing involving Harley Quinn was ever simple; maybe he should have known that.

The older man hesitated outside the hideously graffiti-covered hideout—an old, dilapidated warehouse of some variety or another—very likely a bustling hub of activity once upon a time. He didn’t open the door yet. Not fear—calculation. A soldier’s pause. A long-ingrained instinct to read a room before it existed.

Then, without ceremony, he brought his leg back and kicked the door in.

A bare-bones safe house greeted him—an old couch salvaged from the trash; a fairly new stove; an analog TV complete with rabbit-ear antenna. A dusty mattress was tossed on the floor with a beat-up blanket on top. Empty cups of ramen, crumpled-up sheets of paper, and a small stack of cans someone had used for target practice littered the space. He took it all in with the cold, unimpressed expression of a man who’d seen far worse in warzones.

Gun drawn, Richard swept the small studio with trained precision, sidestepping landmines of moldy food. With a gloved hand, he picked up a crumpled piece of paper and unfolded it. A stick figure drawing of two people holding guns adorned the bottom. “I’m officially a cool kid, Ma! Ain’t that neat? I get ta play hero an’ not be a freak! Mista J ain’t gonna touch me once I get my emancipation!! —Harl”  A tiny doodle of a heart pierced by a baseball bat sat in the corner.

He set it on the messed-up coffee table like a sacred text. More papers were tossed about, but one caught his attention. Sitting at the top of a trash can was an old Polaroid. Harley was in bed with a man, trying to take a selfie, but the man’s hand was blocking the camera. Flipping it over, Richard read the sloppy scrawl: “Ricky don’t like his picture taken. I’ll break ’im in sooner or later. Somethin’ about ‘covert ops protocols’ or whatever. Nerd.”

Richard’s stomach tightened. Personal entanglements complicated missions. He’d drilled that lesson into his son’s head his whole damn life. And yet…

Another note drew him in—stuck to the side of an old microwave, held up by an ARGUS magnet. Harley’s jagged, frantic handwriting sprawled across the page: “He said I can’t fix him, but I told him I’d give it a shot. We didn’t mean ta get so close, but ya throw two busted people together an’ BOOM—chemistry, baby. Real science-y stuff.”  A tiny doodle of a test tube bubbling out hearts sat in the margin.

Under the magnet was a small wallet-sized photo. Harley is on Rick’s shoulders, leaning down to kiss his forehead. Rick smiled like he remembered how, for once.

Richard couldn’t recall seeing his son smile like that since before West Point hardened him. A part of him—not big, but present—hoped the smile had been real. But Richard knew Rick wasn’t the type to settle down, especially not with a career criminal.

Then again, maybe he didn’t know his son anymore.

Richard sat on the broken coffee table, squinting at the photo. Duty and blood—orders and family—It wasn’t a decision he enjoyed contemplating.

Across the room, a dagger pinned a larger photo to the wall. Rick was holding one of Harley’s stuffed hyenas around the collar like a real dog, Harley kneeling next to him in front of a Christmas tree. Both smiling, earnest, warm, and disarming. Richard’s first instinct was to analyze the possibility of his son being coerced. His second was to ignore the warmth in Rick’s eyes.

At the bottom margin, Rick’s blocky handwriting: “If you’re reading this, it means I’m gone. Let her be in peace. She’s out of that life. —R.R. Jr.”

A guarantee Rick had no right to make.

His radio crackled to life with Waller’s hard-edged voice. “Flag. Report. Did you apprehend the girl?”

Richard’s lips twitched, but it wasn’t quite a frown, just irritation. “Stand by.”

He continued scanning the space, nudging clutter with the toe of his steel-toed boot. Then he saw it. Pinned to the back exit: a final photograph. He stared at it, fingers brushing the white outline. The text was written in eyeliner: “Your boy saved my life. Maybe you can save his. —H.Q.”  A lipstick heart smeared beside the initials.

“Flag. Status report.”

He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he pulled the ten-week sonogram from the door and tucked it into his breast pocket with a small, controlled exhale. “Scrubbed clean,” he said. Calm and flat, like the soldier he was trained to be. “Nothing left but bare bones and garbage. No indication of her destination. She’s on the move.”

Waller exhaled sharply through the radio. She had no reason to suspect fraternization. “Scrub the rest of it. Leave nothing behind.”

“Affirmative.”

As he soaked the building with gasoline, placing charges with practiced efficiency, he caught one last message scrawled in lipstick across a cracked mirror: “See ya soon, Gramps. XOXO —Quinn”  Little bats and hearts danced across the glass.

Somewhere on the opposite end of Gotham, Harley watched the place she’d built with Rick, a sanctuary forged in secrecy, erupt into flames. It wasn’t wholly uncommon for Gotham to be singing the song of sirens, but Harley didn’t find it a comfort anymore. Her hand rested gently over her still-flat stomach.

I wish you only knew, she stuck around for you.

Race, 204.

The placard still remained beside the door to her room. He held the key in his trembling hands, deciding that maybe it wasn’t best if he came that day. She wouldn’t be sitting in the rocking chair by the window waiting for him, as she had many times in the past. She wouldn’t be writing him letters at his most recent exotic deployment. No, this was a reunion he didn’t want to have…

He fumbled with the key a few times, then finally slid it into the lock and turned it. The door opened with a satisfying click, and he was immediately met with a kitchenette. To the left was the bathroom, and straight ahead was the tiny bedroom. Her bed was still made, with his childhood quilt proudly resting on top of it. He couldn’t help but think that she couldn’t quite let go.

He stepped into the apartment and slowly wandered into the bedroom. Setting the keys onto the counter, he ran a hand along the quilt before stopping in the windowsill. There, displayed proudly in the window behind the blinds, were two flags. One was a singular blue star enclosed in a red box. Beside it was a singular gold star enclosed in a red box. She’d had them hung with pride the entire time both he and his father were deployed.

On the A side wall was one singular corkboard. Displayed prominently on it was a menu of the activities and meals that the home offered. Surrounding that were all of the photographs that he’d sent her from various deployment locations. One of he and his daughter at the hospital, a few of him and Marie when they were still together. There was one singular one of him and his dad after his West Point graduation. And then at the bottom was one of all three of them in front of his childhood home, along with his dog Magnum.

He slowly started to pull the pins from the board as he was about to toss the photographs into a shoebox. He couldn’t help but notice that beside the box was a small table that barely got any sunlight. On the table was a ceramic bowl that had a singular African Violet in it, one that he’d gotten her for Mother’s day almost thirty years ago. He was shocked that it was still alive after all this time.

Digging through the closet, he was surprised to find two more filing boxes. One was blue and one was red. Both contained letters that were written to her over the years. The red box was all his father’s letters, but they stopped at 2008; he died in 2012. The blue box were Rick’s letters that continued well into recent years. He tucked the photos in his hand into the box with his letters and considered burning his father’s.

The last thing in the closet was a singular small key hanging off the door. He knew what it went to, but he wasn’t going to touch it.

A woman came into the room and looked at Rick curiously. “You must be Sharon’s son.”

“Yeah,” Came his soft, yet saddened reply. He awkwardly scratched the back of his neck. “I should have visited more often.”

A bundle of blankets on the bed wiggled and writhed to life, the small child rolling out of them and landing with a thud on the floor. He wrestled his way from the heap of assaulting sheets and ran to his dresser to put on his day clothes like normal. Tugging a pair of pants and a tee shirt with a dinosaur from the drawer, he tossed them onto the now-bare bed, stripping from his pajamas and putting on the new clothes.

He could already smell the aroma of bacon and eggs wafting from the kitchen. Like a cartoon, the small child followed the smell. His bare feet padded from the bedroom, slow and cautious at first, then running down the hall to find his mother in the kitchen. Their ranch home was easy to navigate, even he couldn’t get lost. “Mama!”

Sharon set the spatula to the side for a moment, then pushed her hair from her ears and leaned over to pick up her young son. Balancing him on her hip, she smiled and kissed his hair, continuing what she was doing at the stove. “Good morning, Little. How did you sleep last night?”

“I dreamed daddy was home.”

A near impossibility, but she wouldn’t address it with him. He was only three, he didn’t need to know that his father hated children and did everything he could to avoid his son. She sighed and smiled to him. “Really? And what did you guys do while he was home?”

“We made chalk drawings!” He wiggled from her arms and slid down her body to the floor. Running to a cabinet in the living room, he tugged out some construction paper and crayons, clutching them close to his chest. He ran back to the kitchen and climbed into a chair, dropping the items onto the table. He clutched the red crayon with such force he almost broke it, drawing a stick figure with a star on his chest. “This one is daddy.” He explained, then started drawing in blue. This figure was triangular and had spots. He poked his tongue out in intense concentration on what he was doing. “This one is you.”

“I see,” She murmured softly, humming to the radio. Dishing out the breakfast she’d made, she placed a plate beside his drawing and sat across from him. “And where are you in this portrait?”

Magnum came into the kitchen, flopping down onto the floor at the child’s feet. “Oh! Magnum!” He shouted excitedly, then dug through the crayons for a brown one. This one was two concentric circles on top of each other, then four lines from the bigger circle. Finally, he found a yellow color and began to draw a tiny stick figure to represent himself. “And there’s me.”

Sharon smiled over her breakfast, swallowing her food. “I see, so in this world of yours, does little Rick eat his breakfast?” She was commenting on how he hadn’t even touched his pancakes, eggs, and bacon yet. “Because I bet he gets hungry, too.”

Shoving the coloring tools to the side, he moved his plate in front of him and put all the eggs and bacon into the pancake, and rolled it up, eating it like a taco. The small child reached over with his left hand to grab a crayon so he could color in his picture, while still eating with his right hand.

Sharon was constantly amazed by what her son was capable of at a young age. It made sense, his father was just as innovative. She tilted her head, putting her elbow on the table and resting her chin in her hand. Her blonde hair fell over her ears, which always bothered her son. Rick put his crayon down and reached over the table to brush her hair back. He practically had to climb over the mahogany to do it. “I’ll pin my hair back today for you, okay? What do you want to do today?”

Rick swallowed his breakfast and laid the remainder on the plate, he wasn’t going to finish it. Abandoning the wax, he hopped off the table and grabbed her hand, ushering her with him. She vacated her spot and followed blindly behind him to the living room. “Stay here!” Following his lead, Sharon agreed. Not even a few moments later, the little boy dropped a shoebox of plastic green army men onto the floor, then upended the other shoebox full of dinosaurs. “Dinosaurs and army men!”

Sharon reached out to take one of the army men. “Do I get to be the army man or the dinosaur?” She brushed her hair back once more, then took the bobby pin from her sleeve and put it in her hair. “I think I’d prefer to be an army man.”

“No! You get to be the dinosaur! I’ll be the army man!” Rick picked up one of the soldiers, then took the one Sharon held and replaced it with a Brontosaurus. He started making pew noises at the dinosaur, while Sharon tried to make it run. He frowned sitting on his knees and lowering his shoulders. “No, mama, the dinosaur is dead, it can’t run.”

“Oop! Sorry!” Reaching for a different dinosaur, she pretended to have it attack one of the army men while Rick was distracted with the Brontosaurus. Rick noticed and surrounded it with soldiers, pewing in unison.

“Mommy?” His voice was soft, but he was preoccupied with his toys for her to notice what his facial expression was. “Are daddy’s missions like this?”

She was taken aback. The thirty-year-old woman didn’t know how to answer him. Instead, she sat there in silence on her knees for a long time. Rick adored his father and what he did, but he’d never truly known him. Rick didn’t know the fighting that went on when the nightlights were on and the doors were closed. He didn’t know that Sharon was in a loveless marriage. He didn’t know that, somewhere out there, Richard Montgomery had a second family and another child – one that she was fairly certain he didn’t see any more than he saw Rick. But she didn’t mention all that. “I’m sure they are.”

“He always sounds so excited to talk about them,” Rick replied, moving the toys about into a specific pattern. “Hold them off, boys!” The dinosaurs started to advance toward the soldiers, but Rick moved the soldiers closer, then brought in a tank to run over the dinosaurs. “Ha! You’re no match for the tank!” The almost four-year-old screamed, scattering dinosaurs everywhere when he attacked them with the tank.

Sharon stayed quiet, watching her son play, praying that he didn’t follow in his father’s footsteps. Her worst fear was having her son grow up to be like Richard Montgomery. “Rick?” She whispered softly, leaning over to kiss his head again. “Stay little forever, okay?”