harlequinade!

Bruce appreciated it when his thanks went unremarked upon, only acknowledged by a nod. Not talking about things was a particular skill of his, and when he was this tired, it would be too easy to say more than he really ought to. Even easier because of the fact that he wanted to. Being secretive and withdrawn was something that had been ground into him for as long as he could remember, but neither was his natural state. They were just what he was good at, and old habits, and usually he remembered better exactly why he needed them, but at the moment he was too tired. Which meant it was much, much better to keep his mouth shut until Harleen’s curiosity distracted him from the problem. “There’s usually a lecture,” he explained, “when I do something like this. Used to be, anyways. Not as often, lately.” Of course, lately he hadn’t been particularly prone to pushing himself quite this far, or to spending time around people who would view overworking as a bad thing.

“Sorry.” It was entirely possible that he wasn’t the one that ought to be apologizing right now, but he had spotted the look on Harleen’s face, and it was a reflex. “It’s not…that is, I’m not…you just surprised me.” To put it mildly, and honestly it wasn’t the most accurate way he could have chosen to explain either. But the general idea, that he wasn’t offended or upset, was what mattered, not the specifics of what was going on inside his head. Nobody really needed those specifics, himself occasionally included. There was too much, and it was confusing, and she’d been too nice to him tonight to deserve having that kind of garbage dumped on her. To save himself from his own scattered thoughts, he took a careful bite of his pizza, then another and another, eating with a ferocious speed once his body woke up to the idea that he was finally offering it something vaguely resembling nutrients.

Harley did her best to keep herself from bubbling over - she wasn’t used to being so quiet anymore, but she knew that if she unleashed her thoughts, it would overwhelm him right now. So she took deep breaths and continued to forbid herself from spilling over. Overworking was something Harley could appreciate, because it showed her their work ethics were similar. Back at the Asylum she would hardly sleep. She would give up her own health and sanity for those who needed her, because her work had been the only thing she’d had in life back then. Of course, eventually it caught up with her and bit her ankles, causing her to fall, but for a long while, she’d been happy with just that. But she was also, somewhere deep, deep down, a psychiatrist, a medical professional or something, and she knew that if Doctor Banner kept going like this, it wouldn’t make anything better for anyone. There was no lecture, not with her. She needed him to know that, just like her patients had had to know that whenever they entrusted her with things they thought and had done. “No lecture tonight.” The blonde smiled warmly.

“I’d be here regardless of any feeling I made or may not have. Most of the patients were put here by me, so they’re my responsibility. A feeling I’m sure you have as well.” Before her, Arkham had been a place you threw the maniacs in and washed your hands of them. With Harleen taking a more active interest in the rehabilitation of the people he brought in, there was hope that the asylum could actually be the place of healing it was supposed to be. If they didn’t kill her first.

He tensed as she pulled up the chair. If Zsasz had any plan of escape, now would be the best time. Quinzel would be unbalanced, and he would be unable to act for fear of harming her. He may have been tied to that chair, but he’d seen plenty of people escape from stronger bindings if they put their minds to it. Including himself.

Behind the mask, he raised an eyebrow. Friend? He wondered if that was what she should be calling herself. He had no objection to her wanting to establish a relationship with her patients, but anything more intimate than a professional one was dangerous. It made her vulnerable, in an environment where any sign of weakness could be exploited. “So long as he’s not just faking it, biding his time.” He offered, cynically. “Even if it’s genuine, the law does assume that not committing bodily harm is just a given.” He narrowed his eyes at Zsasz, analysing his body language. “Granted, if it’s genuine, it is a step that no one else thought he would make.”

Harleen raised her eyebrows, which were carefully filled in with make-up but slightly smudged by now, showing she’d been rubbing her temples multiple times during her shift that had already been going on for a long while. It hadn’t occurred to her that he felt like her patients were, because he brought them here, his responsibility. To the doctors and guards, it usually felt like they were dumped in the institution and, if the vigilantes could choose their fate for good, would rot away in a cell somewhere in the basement of the Asylum forever. Slowly, she began nodding. Yes, she did feel that way, too. More than anything, but she knew it was probably undermining her credibility as a professional if she showed too much of that side to him. “... Yes. Of course.” She knew he was - to some extent - worried about her physical, and most likely, mental safety, which made her wish she could somehow show him there was no need, yet anything she would say would make it worse.

Then again, it didn’t matter to her as much as to make her stop in her tracks. The psychiatrist felt his piercing gaze locked onto her movements when she pulled the chair close. Obviously, he expected Zsasz to take his chance of escape, but Harleen knew better than that. He wasn’t naive enough to think he could make his escape with Batman in the room and himself so vulnerable, plus she was convinced he wouldn’t harm her. He wouldn’t. Of course, they’d been past it. Harleen had returned from their sessions bruised and bleeding at times, but her relentless ways had driven her into unrestrained sessions with him again and again until he didn’t feel like he needed to take his violence out on her anymore. To her, it was part of the job. To him, it was a kind of trust and belief in him that he hadn’t felt in many years.

Harleen crossed her legs and sighed quietly. “The law also assumes that a person is mentally stable and that their actions are not motivated by a constant mental torment. Am I right?” A small smile twitched at the corners of her lips. “Besides, why would he bide his time? I’m sure, actually I know for a fact, that a permanent stay in this establishment is not his idea of an ideal life.” She set down her pen and notepad. “Anyone but me.” She spoke quietly, then cleared her throat. “Why don’t we start talking to him now? I’m sure you have many questions.”

 He shrugged, nonplussed. “I don’t find amusement in any of the cases here at the Asylum. Having seen their actions first hand I am aware that there is no humour to be gained. That said…” He glanced back at Zsasz. “When you’re up close to it, to someone so determined to end your life…” He looked her in the eye. “It’s a unique perspective I admit, I suppose I deal with it in a way that can seem unfeeling.” The right hand side of his mouth twitched upwards. “Unfortunately no one’s published a paper regarding vigilante interactions with the mentally ill, so I can’t cite a source about it.”

In truth, he pitied Zsasz. He had lost his parents as a young man, something he could empathise with all too well. But Zsasz had given into that despair, and his mind had broken entirely. Maybe that’s why he was here. Seeing Zsasz saved may do something to assuage any doubts he would have about himself.

He nodded curtly. “Then let us begin.” He slowly leaned towards the patient. Zsasz had been known to use his teeth in previous murders, and so had been effectively muzzled before transportation. He loosened it now, ever cautious in case he lashed out again. Instead, the man just glared at him with an all consuming hatred in his eyes. They flicked towards Dr. Quinzel, and momentarily seemed to calm. 

He turned to face her. “I’ve never seen such a neutral expression on his face.” He folded his arms and shook his head with amusement. “I think you have an admirer, Doctor.”

“I have been in that situation, multiple times, as you can imagine.” She cracked a small smile. “Some patients are hard to get through to, of course. You wouldn’t be here if you were frightened of it, I suppose, though.” Vigilantes had the reputation of being fearless, which they had to be, to a certain extend, she imagined. But all of them were humans - just like her patients. Of course, her attempts of therapy without restraints and torture had led to several incidents of guards storming in to help her or a flesh wound or two. More than once had she been threatened with a pen or a paint brush. But that was part of the process to her.

Harleen hated muzzles. She hated restraints, too, but she could hardly do anything against these measures in cases like these. He would have murdered those guards when they escorted him here, everybody was sure of that. Still, it was good to see it removed. Her patient’s hands and feet were still tied into place and that wouldn’t change this session. Clutching her notepad tighter, she pulled a chair close and sat, near her patient and Batman, unscrewing her pen.

“A friend.” She quickly gave a professional smile, one almost motherly. She should probably have stopped herself before saying that, because surely it would come across the wrong way, but to these people, Doctor Quinzel was a friend, and the only one they had in the asylum. It amused Batman, but it filled Harleen with pride. She had made as much progress as patients confiding in her even in sight of their most desired target, someone who had hurt them so many times, destroyed what they’d called an ideal path - and tried to be better, for her sake. She could see the man’s muscles clench and tense, trying not to revolt. She cleared her throat, met Zsasz’ eyes once more. “Well,  it means we have made tremendous progess in his treatment, don’t you think?”

The look that was currently on Harley’s face - something between surprise, disbelief and genuine gratefulness - was one that Tony had seen a thousand times before, though each and every person had a unique glint in their eye when it was happening. He had seen it in the faces of students that he handpicked every year from MIT’s best and brightest, the ones that he gave personal tours of Stark Industries R&D department to, the kids that wanted nothing more than to walk in his shoes one day. He had seen it in the other Avengers, when they were all beginning to trust each other, not quite sure what the catch was until they realised that for once in their lives, there was none. On the flip side, he had seen it in the faces of those that he spent mere hours with before leaving them without ceremony, either in his bed for Pepper to shoo out or in various hotel rooms across the world. He had seen it in the faces of the kids that he had let down, or the employees that he had shunned, the people that had sat across the table from him pitching their ideas and he hadn’t been bothered enough to listen to them, too busy focusing on how his head was pounding with a hangover and how just one more glass of straight vodka would take that all away. Tony wasn’t the man that the people who hated him thought he was - selfish, uncaring, utterly preoccupied with money and wealth and power - but he wasn’t the man that Harley seemed to think he was either. He was trying to be, though, and that started with accepting responsibility for what he had done in the past and trying to ensure that he never repeated it again. It was a hard thing to do, something that he struggled with every single day, but it was worth it in the end. It was worth it to be something other than a footnote in the history of Howard Stark, to make a name for himself, and to have that name be synonymous with ‘hero’ at the end of the day. That was the world he wanted to leave behind, whether it was tomorrow or twenty years from now, and he was damned if he wasn’t fighting for that.

“I wasn’t really the guy that people came to for help, put it that way,” Tony said, thinking of the various business people who had tried going down that avenue, the emails and calls that he had Pepper fend off without even giving them a second look. “I was more the ‘love them and leave them’ kind of guy, but without the love part. No one stuck around for long, so I did the same thing.” It had started with Rumiko and Ty, and it had all gone downhill from there, mostly due to Tony’s own actions. He had Rhodes and Pepper stick around, and that was more than he deserved, more than he had ever anticipated. “Only kind of a badass? I’m offended. Get out of my workshop,” Tony said, but there was a grin coming onto his face. It was easy to talk to Harley, easier than he thought it would be, especially considering how they had first met. Therapy in general had opened his eyes to a lot of things, and more and more he was beginning to realise that there was importance to discussing what was going on in his head. Worst case his doctor turned out to be a super-villain and he would end up punching her in the face, too. Really, the power of positive thought was an amazing thing!

Positivity, though, only counted for so much. Trusting people only went so far, and Tony’s rightful paranoia followed him in every aspect of his life. People had gone to greater lengths to get close to him before and ended up exploiting his kindness, and meeting someone in the therapist’s office was never a particularly good sign, but Harley was proving to be an exception to a lot of that. Tony wasn’t naive. He had looked her up, hadn’t banked on simply the good feeling he had about her. He knew that she had made mistakes, but more than that, he knew that she had made conscious decisions. She was taking responsibility for that now, was telling him that she wasn’t a good person, that she was trying, but that was what mattered to him. If he was to judge someone for their past he would be nothing more than a hypocrite, and that was what his father had been, what Tony had always wanted to be more than. “It was partly about me,” Tony admitted, though he knew that the good doctor herself would have a field day with trying to prove him wrong on that point. “Dad … he really liked being the smartest guy in the room. It was kind of what he based his life on, you know, being able to make everyone else feel stupid. When I was growing up, I started to understand what he was saying just a little bit too well a little bit too soon, and he didn’t like that much.” Kids became their parents, that was what everyone said when they didn’t realise just how much of a knife in the chest that was for people like Tony. Harley being a criminal could’ve been to do with her father, or it could’ve been something that would’ve happened regardless, but either way she was showing a piece of herself to him and he appreciated that. “Must’ve been hard,” Tony said, not knowing exactly what to do to make it easier, knowing that nothing he said ever could. “My dad was a lot of things but … at least we knew what he was, you know? Mom never tried to hide it from me.” She had tried to justify it, but there was no hiding a bruise, or how everyone jumped at the table when Howard’s cutlery dropped down just a little too noisily. “What age were you then?”

Harley was definitely hard to predict. One moment she was quiet, contemplative, talking about their shared traumatic childhoods (similar in some ways, monumentally different in others) and the next she was bursting into laughter, the sound bouncing off the inventions piled up high on his workbenches. Tony couldn’t help but grin, but there was something dangerous in her laugh, something that made him feel as if he should be calling the gauntlet to him. Probably nothing, probably just something that reminded him of what he had read, and at that, he realised his judgement was something she didn’t need, so he pushed it right back down again. God knows she’d never showed him that she was terrified of what he was. “Occupational hazard,” Tony repeated, this time with a more genuine laugh. “I wouldn’t quite call myself a success story yet. More a work in progress. We’re both that, huh?” Neither of them had started from nothing, because they couldn’t. They’d carried over burdens from a past life and they struggled to carry them some days, but they knew that they were still worth all the extra effort. “Buying out mini bars, figuring out the drug of choice that month, going twelve for twelve with Maxim’s 2005 cover models …” Tony laughed, shaking his head, somewhat self-deprecating. “Pick a bad coping mechanism out of a hat and I’ve probably done it.” Hell, he’d even spilled blood in an attempt to steady his own hands. The Ten Rings were monsters, but they were people, something that he was only now beginning to realise.

“You know,” Tony said, leaning back against the workbench, taking a sip of his coffee, “I realise that the only time I’ve seen you in action is on the TV. Whacking bad guys sounds all good in theory, but I’ve never been one for those. If you want something built, you do it by hand, no point plotting it all out on paper and then never getting anywhere with it.” He set the coffee cup down, a wicked grin coming onto his face as he looked over at her. “Want to go bash some demon heads? I don’t offer that to just anyone who comes into my sanctum, Harley.”

Harley didn’t think herself to be the only one Tony acted this way towards. Actually, she already had him filed under saints, because she firmly believed he tossed out second chances left and right, the way he already trusted her without hesitating or waiting for her to prove herself. Still, he wasn’t naive, Harley knew that. He’d been through enough not to trust blindly. And that made her feel cherished - it made her feel special in a way. Getting better wasn’t easy - Harley had never expected anyone to even think about consdering that she genuinely wanted to be better. She was no realist per sé, but there was enough sense in her to know that she couldn’t just begin again. There was no going back. If she wanted to lead a more conventional life, she would have to accept her deeds and live with them as a part of her.

“That sounds lonely.” Harley said quietly. She felt lonely a lot these days. It was unnatural to her that she didn’t have anyone to curl up against at night but her vast collection of stuffed animals. She’d gotten used to being so dependent on affection that she’d forgotten that before the Joker, she’d been just like Tony. She’d rarely had anybody, which surely was because she rarely even saw her apartment and spent most of her time at work, so her patients seemed to be her only friends, since the other doctors didn’t really get her. Of course, she was a part of the board and got along with Crane and Arkham, but at night, if she went home, she’d be lonely. And she’d been okay with that - unlike now. She was craving the loving company of a significant other, just to feel like she belonged somewhere, and that made her vulnerable. It was probably visible in Harleys face - her gaze had met the floor yet again. But then, suddenly she looked up and grinned, wide. “Oh, I’ve come across a lott’a badasses in ma’ lifetime, how are ya’ better than them, huh?” She laughed, hapopy she could not only share these deep thoughts with someone, but also found someone to joke around with from time to time. He didn’t need to know that even before they’d first spoken to each other, Harley had seen him on the news and instantly he was her favorite avenger.

A supervillain doesn’t keep their bodycount, usually. And Harley’s went through the roof long ago without her even noticing. She had shot people right between the eyes or broken the bones in their neck without even thinking twice about it, a joyful laughter on her lips. In all honesty, she still had trouble understanding that she’d done things that had had serious consequences on people. It was a dream-like state, and she remembered her time with the Joker as just that. A dream. It was all jokes, one after the other, and she’d found it so, so amusing, so funny, they’d had so much fun - how could harmless jokes make her such a bad person in people’s eyes? And that was where her psychiatrist-brain kicked in and told her that it was a delusion, that what she’d done was horrible and wrong and that people hated her for it. That people would never understand what she’d felt in those moments. There were things Harley would probably never speak out loud, not to anyone who wanted to incorporate her into this world, because she knew how these things worked. She would be sent right back to the Asylum, and this time, for good. And that meant she was trying, right? There was no point in trying to forget, but she could at least move on from it.

The blonde nodded, slowly. She had been the first one in her family to go to university, so she’d been the clever kid. But trying to keep your child’s intelligence hidden away so you could shine fully, that was something permanently damaging. What would have happened if Howard Stark influenced his son so much that he wouldn’t have become the genius he was now? She could only imagine who and where he would be now, and it would likely not be in this massive tower, surrounded by the world’s most advanced technology. “Good thing you didn’t let him discourage you in the end, huh?” Finally, Harley shrugged. “Yeah, but it also made me go to university for criminology, ya’ know? I wanted ta’ understand where he came from. And, um” She cracked a laugh. “I guess I did ... a bit too well.” Her smile faded slowly. “He ain’t no bad dude. He got addicted to the lifestyle, ya’ know? At first it was a good opportunity to put food on the table. Then it was the excitement of the thrill.” She shrugged, thinking. “Like, fifteen? He did three years and then went back for ten later.” She said this casually - after all, she’d been to all those places herself, multiple times.

It wasn’t everyday that Harley could surround herself with people who weren’t constantly on edge because of her. She was fucking crazy and she knew that - she took pride in that. Ever since she’d helped J escape fromt he Asylum all those years ago, she’d never wished she wasn’t. It had felt great. She wished she could only once, only for a few minutes shut off the meds she was on nowadays and see the pretty lights again, feel the warm fuzzy feeling of insanity creep up on her and sweep her up in its arms, and ... “I don’t think anyone’s ever there. Ya’ know? People are always changin’, always aspirin’ ta’ be something else, something better. Adapt to a new surrounding, a new situation. We’re always a work in progress.” She tried to suppress another laugh. “Maybe we should’a met a few years prior, huh? Sounds like a party.” Maybe she shouldn’t have said that, would he knew how she intended for that to sound?

“It looks like you were thinking about paying it forward,” Ororo replied. “I do love the concept. We could treat each other if you prefer.”

“I was definitely thinkin’ ‘bout paying.” Harley laughed. “Sure, gal! Let’s treat each other!”

Bruce sighed. She was right. Saying that it was the calm before the storm would be a cliche, but it would be apt. In the back of his head he was constantly cycling through the possibilities of what the coming storm might be. Maybe Dent was going to go on another spree of robberies. Or was Cobblepot planning another push for power? There were even scattered whispers of a new player in town, with green hair and blood red lips.

“That’s usually the case, yes.” It also usually meant a whole lot more work for Dr Quinzel and the Asylum. There was always a fresh crop of the demented that sprang up for such city-shaking events. “Nothing this city hasn’t endured before, and nothing it won’t see again a thousand times.” And he would be there for each one of them.

He turned his head to inspect Zsasz. “I’m not entirely certain that nervous is how he feels around me.” He circled round to Zsasz’s left side, pointing to a jagged scar on his neck. “He made this scar upon the assumption that he had killed me.” Harley was a professional and undoubtedly already knew this, but it had always helped him to vocalise in these situations. “Knowing that he made a tally mark for someone who still lives torments him to no end.” He smiled, slightly. “He likely sees me as unfinished business.” Him and half of Gotham’s criminal elite.

He watched the guards go. Being the person standing between Zsasz and Harley didn’t bother him too much: he’d beaten Zsasz once and could do it again. But Harley’s capacity to trust, both in people like himself and in the inmates of the asylum, never ceased to surprise him. He nodded towards her. “Whenever you’re ready, Doctor.”

The doctor had already heard about some rumors going on between patients; there had to be someone new in Gotham, working their way through the hieracy of crime first before coming to the surface and revealing themselves to everyone. Sometimes Harleen asked herself why Gotham was still intact at all, and then she remembered that it fed off of chaos. The city was built on it and without it, it would crumble and fall apart.

Harleen carefully examined every move Batman made towards her patient. Not that she feared he would do something to him, he had no reason to, but she was here to observe and reserved the right to intervene if either of them went a step too far. She’d made great progress in Zsasz’ treatment and she knew that the smallest thing could set him off and knock their work over like a house of cards. With Zsasz it was always about confrontation. He didn’t value human life, so even making a connection with him was tough. Some of her colleagues had started bets about when Harleen would be remembered as a tally mark on his skin when she demanded to be alone with him and freed him from his restraints during their sessions. She met her patient’s eyes “I agree.” No, Victor Zsasz wasn’t nervous. He was fuming, but remained silent, his eyes trained on her. 

The blonde caught the hint of a smile and directed her gaze towards the vigilante. “And that amuses you?” She asked with no sign of emotion in her voice but curiousity. She didn’t point her tone, there was no judgement in what she said. Of course she’d heard this story before. It was something that seemed to constantly be on Zsasz’ mind, which wasn’t only his curse. A lot of her patients were haunted by the bat, who was not only the last person they saw before being locked up in a mental institution but the one foe they failed to defeat, some multiple times.

Harleen asked herself if Batman was surprised that the three of them would be alone. Then again, it wasn’t the first time they had met like this. “I’m only waiting on you.” She said with a polite smile.

“What piggies? I didn’t see any livestock.” The words escaped Xavin before they had a chance to think about how they might reveal them as different from normal. There weren’t literal pigs in the street. So, either she had hallucinated something, or… “No, wait, I know this one. Pigs is slang, isn’t it. For police.” They nodded slowly. It did make sense that anyone who was out this late would prefer not to be spotted by the cops. “Yes. I would prefer not to be seen by the…piggies.” The slang felt awkward in their mouth.

They were startled by the ferocity of the woman’s handshake, and the vehemence of her greeting. “How do you know? It might not be very nice to meet me at all, and you were just threatening me with an improvised weapon.” For all this woman knew, they could be a dangerous supervillain. If they were any other member of their race, they would be. And yet she didn’t seem at all concerned. For that matter, they knew nothing about her. What if she was just as dangerous? “No. I have not found any UFOs. Or anything else, for that matter, except for a lot of alleys, too many police cars, and a strange woman in a warehouse,” they admitted. “But it was still worth trying.” Habit. What sort of habit was that, they wondered? “Are you used to wandering the city at night?” they asked innocently.

Harley giggled and nodded her head wildly. “That’s right! Sorry, toots, old habits die hard.” She shrugged. Back in the day she’d had a lot of euphemisms for things that she didn’t particulatly like, the police right up there on that list. Nights like this made her forget her new etiquette and speak - more or less - without thinking. Another giggle. “I thought so, dollface. we got that in common.” It was a little weird that they reacted the way they did when Harley didn’t use the official word to describe the cops, like they’d just learned the language not too long ago, but other than that their English was flawless.

“Dr. Quinzel.” He nodded a greeting. Of all the staff at Arkham, he held Harleen Quinzel in high regard. So may staff here saw their roles as that of prison guards; there to keep watch over animals. Quinzel was different. She cared enough to actually want to help the people that he brought in. Her work ethic matched his, and she exceeded him in compassion. He could only hope that such an attitude lasted, even in this dismal place.

“As I’m sure you can tell by the state of the Asylum, Gotham is in a state of relative peace. Bank robberies, muggings, murders…. nothing worth bothering Arkham with.” He was even managing an unprecedented five hours of sleep a day. Despite this, he was uneasy. Gotham was not a quiet city. 

In the absence of anything to do in the city, he had decided to come to Arkham to observe Victor ‘Mr’ Zsasz’s treatment. Any experience of the criminal mind was valuable in his mind, and it eased his mind to know that he was there in case something went awry. “I hope my presence is not an imposition.” He was sure in some way it was. Official institutions rarely tolerated him.

Harleen entertained one secret key to her success with patients that seperated her from every other doctor she’d met (except maybe Doctor Crane): she wasn’t afraid. When Zsasz first came in, no one dared to go near him. It had been quite a process getting the board to allow her becoming his officially assigned doctor, which had purely been Harleen’s demand. Dr Arkham had told her she seemed to like ‘the difficult ones’ and to ‘love the thrill of danger’. But Harleen never felt like she was in danger, not around patients, not when she spent her nights alone in her office or went on her nightly strolls to make sure everything was alright. She was simply not afraid - and she felt like she had a responsibility towards these people that other doctors treated like animals.

“Peace.” She spoke the word slowly, let it pearl off her tongue carefully as to savor it as much as she could. Peace was a word she never heard associated with Gotham City. "I do not have to tell you that if Gotham City is quiet, it can only mean that both sides are reloading their weapons and cracking their knuckles, right?” Of course she didn’t. He was out there every night - he knew it better than her. And he was part of the fight.

“Oh no, not at all. I’m glad you are here. I don’t know about Victor, though, you generally tend to make people nervous.” Harleen smiled and her gaze drifted over to her patient, who kept his eyes trained on the masked vigilante. She knew her opinion didn’t match that of anyone else in the institution, but she meant what she’d said. She liked the Batman, she really did. The blonde finally addressed the guards. “You can go now. I’m sure if anything was to happen to me, I’d be very well protected.” 

“Of course,” Pepper said, smiling even though her tone was nothing but serious. Tony didn’t just take anyone on to work with him, though he was growing more and more open everyday. The fact that he trusted Harley was more than enough for Pepper to give her the same courtesy. “And if he says you’re brilliant, then I have no doubt you’re more than impressive. He’s very selective with his compliments at times.”

Pepper tilted her head, and straightened the paperwork in her arms. “They?” she pressured gently. Harley could mean just about anything – though Pepper wondered if Tony was working on the ‘demon problem’ that they were currently stuck in. “Well, this job isn’t really like any other,” she said, glancing around the tower with a small smile. “I’m sure you’ll get back into the swing of things in no time.”

“Wait, he said that?” Harley suddenly felt like blushing. Her eyes widened and her hands clasped together. “People used ta’ criticize my methods, but I guess I did something right back in the day.” She shrugged and gave a shy smile.

It was weird, looking at Harley Quinn with a normal woman’s face, a regular outfit. Every file she’d seen of her, every time they’d happen to come face to face (always with the Birds and always with some monumental bullshit going on) she’d looked unsettling: shock of white covering her skin, bright colors, too wide grin on her face. A normally day in Gotham was neon paint splattered against a dark stone wall, chaos going wild amidst a solemn backdrop. But without the getup, Harley could have been her cousin for Crissakes. 

Zinda understood the rules of Gotham and while she was taking missions for Oracle, she could play by the rules. She wouldn’t kill, not on Batman’s turf, she could follow the lead of everyone who worked closest to him. Punch in the coordinates and take off in the jet. Point and shoot. Put the bad guys down, make em bleed but make sure they’re breathing. The law took care of things in Gotham. Arkham took care of things. She could respect that. All that chaos could become full blown anarchy if Batman didn’t have his hand on things, couldn’t reign everything under control. She was a good soldier in Gotham. 

But she wasn’t in Gotham right now, and Harley Quinn was posing as a private citizen, and no matter which way you sliced it, someone was about to get hurt. 

There wasn’t anymore time to think, or plan. Zinda grabbed Harley’s arm and dragged her outside, the strength in her almost lifting Harley off her feet. She wasn’t ready, she never expected to face off with Gotham’s absolute worst herself, countless lives possibly on the line. But if there was one thing Zinda was good at, it was making do. She didn’t have a weapon on her, or her uniform. But just as the Nazis had found out in Germany, Zinda could get plenty done with her bare hands. 

“I’m not gonna ask you again. Where is the Joker.” 

Surprisingly, things like these didn’t happen to her very often anymore. If she were to start over in Gotham, she probably would have been stopped and yelled at at every corner of the city, everywhere she went - but here, she could even work at the clinic without getting pestered every chance people got. But she wasn’t that lucky today, so it seemed. She didn’t remember this chick, although they had probably crossed paths some way or another the way she spoke to her. It was impossible to remember the names of all these self-righteous vigilantes that had tried to put an end to her and the Joker, to their genius plans and hilarious jokes, and so, the closer she looked at the other blonde, the less familiar she seemed. Maybe it was because she was so out of the loop.

No matter who this was, she wasn’t very friendly - in fact, she was pretty aggressive and that didn’t sit right with Harley, not today. There was a little voice that immediately got louder once she was grabbed like that, screaming for her to just flip this girl upside down and punch her in the gut. She was really, really trying to right that voice, but it was kind of hard ignoring it when you were grabbed by the arm and dragged outside with a bag of candy in her hands. “Let me go, ya’ weirdo! Let me go!” The blonde tried to wiggle out of her grip, but this chick seemed to mean business, because her hand didn’t move an inch.

“What’s wrong with ya’, huh?!” She yelled when they were outside, struggling harder now. Then, finally, she sighed and stared her right in the face, extending her index finger, placing it to the other female’s chest, poking her with every word she slowly uttered. Maybe se needed to say it more clearly or something. “I - don’t - know!” Another sigh. “Ya’ hear me, toots? I have no idea where he is because we’re over for good! Ya’ really think I would look like this if I still had a man, huh?” Her face was slowly turning red with frustration. “One more time, for the back row, I ain’t with him anymore, I dunno where he is, now would ya’ take ya’ hands off’a me?” She shook her head. “If I still wanted ya’ wanna be batsies ta’ still bother me I would be paintin’ the town, but ya’ don’t seem to read the news lately, sugarplum, becase I ain’t in it! I changed.”

It would almost make this easier if Bruce was acting as her boss right now. Not that he had any energy left for that. The only reason he was still moving at the moment was a combination of habit and hunger. But as it was, he had no idea how he was going to make this up to her. It wasn’t like he could slip her some kind of a bonus for being his friend. That wasn’t the way friendship worked, despite every single one of Tony’s efforts to convince him otherwise. No, most people would expect this to bring them closer, to make him open up, and that was something that just didn’t happen. He couldn’t let it. About the only thing he had to offer her was a quiet “Thank you. For all of this, in case I forget to say it when I’m…” Functional, maybe, which seemed to sum up the opposite of his current barely-awake state, but the word didn’t seem quite right and so he didn’t finish the sentence. She could fill in her own conclusions. She’d obviously already grasped the fact that he’d pushed himself farther than he probably should have in the pursuit of answers. “Usually, this is the point where the lecture starts,” he observed. If she wasn’t planning on giving one, that’d be unexpectedly nice, but it was pretty much routine.

“You’re not wrong,” he agreed with a small smile. Although he wasn’t sure he could count the various residues that tended to be left behind after a day in the clinic as properly being science. They were more…bio-engineering. And physics, thankfully, was usually less messy than the rest of the scientific world. And then, in a split second, his brain cut off in the middle of a thought, because twice in one night he’d let her get close enough to him to touch. Ordinarily, he was so careful about maintaining his little bubble of solitude that he didn’t think most people noticed just how infrequently he let someone touch him, skin to skin, when he wasn’t the one to initiate the contact. He couldn’t even get trapped in the loop of ‘not safe, not safe’ because she knew at least something about what he was. His tired brain had finally put that together. It wasn’t much of a surprise - he’d been doing a pretty poor job of hiding recently. Breaking his careful stillness when she pulled away, he let himself drop bonelessly into the nearest chair, because it was easier than trying to explain that she should have a place to put the pizza box down. “Okay,” he murmured. Pizza. That was doable. Pizza now, cleaning later.

Harley was an empath - through and through. Which was, sadly, something people couldn’t see or piece together these days. How could she have a past of ruthlessly killing people left and right when before that, she would care about her patients so much that she would stay nights at the Asylum just to make sure they weren’t left in the hands of a bunch of brainless guards? Regardless of what anyone said, it was still painfully true. She could tell how hard this was for Bruce, having her see him like this especially because he was supposed to be her boss. He was obviously not someone to open up to people easily, and even though Harley would have liked him to, so she could let all of her nosy questions spill out of her, she knew that it couldn’t be forced. It would take time and patience and she was willing to put that in for a friendship she so desperately needed. Her eyes widened a bit when he spoke - she hadn’t expected that, either. She smiled and nodded. She didn’t need to say more, it was enough to signal that she understood. A thank you was enough for her, actually she didn’t expect anything out of this at all - but that was probably hard to understand, so she stayed silent. Then, surprised, “What lecture?”

“I wasn’t sneaking,” Xavin defended themself automatically. “Or at least not sneaking up on you,” honesty compelled them to add. They had been trying to be stealthy. If they’d known this warehouse was occupied, they would have made more noise. Or, more likely, picked another hiding spot, or disguised themself. It was much too late to become a dog or a stray brick now, though. That would attract the worst kind of attention. All they could do was be glad she’d evidently decided against hitting them with a pipe. A pipe! What sort of weapon was that? It would have been disgraceful in the extreme.

Hesitantly, they stretched out their own hand to shake hers. “I’m Xavin.” The name the woman gave sounded familiar. Likely, they’d heard it mentioned by one of the other Runaways, though the fact that she considered not being who she used to be a statement that would reassure them meant it likely hadn’t been during a discussion of superheroes. That was a relief. Hopefully, it meant whoever she was, she wasn’t about to turn them in for being unregistered and out after curfew. “I got curious,” they admitted freely when she asked. It wasn’t like curiosity was a crime yet. They went on to explain “Usually, when people tell everyone to stay away from a place, it’s because something’s happening in that place that they don’t want people to see.” So now, here they were seeing the inside of this warehouse because they’d decided that seeing the police wouldn’t end well for anyone involved. “And I could ask you the same question.”

“Ya were hidin’ from the piggies, weren’t ya’?” Harley finally nodded, when they added the second part. “I mean, who ain’t at this hour.” Everyone had to be sneaky now, not even only the criminals. Back in Gotham, in a way it was similar - criminals were sneaking away from the police and the others were trying not to be noticed by the criminals, especially when they had money or something up for grabs. After all, Harley wasn’t up for a fight - she decided she’d rather make a friend if she had to wait the night out in here. If they snook around after curfew, the probably had a couple of good stories to share.

Eagerly, Harley grabbed their hand and shook it wildly. “Nice to meet’cha, Xavin!” She watched their face take in her name, but they didn’t seem to imediately recognize her, which might be a good thing. Harley didn’t need to scare them away. Overall, less people seemed to recognize her than she’d expected nowadays, so maybe she’d never even been as famous and feared ass she thought she’d been, or, now that she’d been out of the business for over a year, she’d just become boring to people. Either way, it disappointed her a bit, but helped her move on. “Gotcha. You’re right. Spill, have ya’ found out anything yet? Any more UFOs or somethin’?” Curious, her eys had widened. “Ah, ya’ know. Habit. I like ta’ see what’s happenin’ round here at night when only the law breakers are out ‘n about.”