Weightless Spaces

11. The Begining

It had been a week since Harley visited. The last thing she'd said was 'Stay sober, Jack,' which was a cryptic and strange, but the Joker followed her mandate anyway. Maybe something would come of it, and he could do with a little time to think clearly anyway. He quickly figured out how to tongue the pills they gave him morning and night. Those little beauties were now collecting in a hole he'd made in the side of his mattress; who knew when they might come in handy.

Without drugs to keep him entertained, he was painfully bored with little else to do but lay on his cot and chain smoke as he waited for something to happen. He applied a little more mental energy to the eventual escape plot he would need to instigate. Arkham had a lot more holes in their security than Blackgate. For example, therapy with only a set of handcuffs and no guards? Risky.

Escaping was on the table, but the Joker was still biding his time. The only thing worse than waiting for the right opportunity would be fucking up a breakout and having to wait even longer. Nah. The long game was always the smart play.

A majority of his time was spent replaying moments with Harley, specifically from her visit when she'd been all sad and sweet to him. Who was he kidding? He always thought about her. When they'd been together. When they'd been apart. When they'd been kids. When they'd been grown ups. Those terrible months before she left were a stain on all the rest of it, and though the Joker infrequently questioned himself, he did when it came to the way he'd handled that period.

He'd been disgusted with himself and scared shitless that something would happen to Harley if he stepped out of line. There had been the big, poorly-thought-out job of importing Jonathan Crane's drugs into Gotham. Crane had a seemingly endless cash supply from his backer, but he was a liability, and the whole mess was sure to fail. The Joker belatedly put two-and-two together a few months after the whole debacle started, that Crane was the director of Arkham and Harley's boss. So, he had pulled away from her even more, terrified of getting her sucked into his shit again.

And she left him because of it.

The Joker wasn't crazy, and he could say that with some degree of authority after spending nearly ten years living with a psychologist off-and-on, reading her books and her papers and listening to her talk about her work, but there was truth to the notion that he'd snapped after she left. He'd given her the nice version of what happened when she came to visit; that her leaving him had been the wake-up call he needed to ditch Falcone and do his own thing.

The truth was slightly more than that.

He didn't remember much of the weeks that followed that night in the alley when she'd told him she was leaving. There had been drugs and booze and girls and even more drugs and girls, and when none of that fixed things, he went back to work. His work had been death for so long, that was just how he thought about snuffing out life: work. He didn't even need to get paid for it to be 'work,' and the Joker's capacity for 'work' scared people even more than his fucked up face did. Fear was powerful and potent, and the Joker drew from it, breaking away from the mob, wrapping himself in his need to do what he wanted, as Harley so aptly directed him to do.

What did he want?

He didn't even know at the time, but working had helped.

Then the Batman happened, and everything changed.

He was the inspiration the Joker had been searching for. The Batman was like a blinding ray of sunshine cutting through the darkness, and gradually, the Joker started to build something without the shackles of 'supposed to' that had been dragging him down for so long.

Eventually, it built to the point where he was within a hair's breadth of doing exactly what Harley had once asked him to do. Knock the other chess pieces of the board. Run the city. Do what you want and no one can stop you, she'd said. Those words had rattled around his brain as he slipped through time and space without her, crafting chaos and violence and fear, building, building, building until the Batman took him down.

How would it have gone down if Harley had been there? By the time she left she'd been comfortable with things he didn't even want her to be comfortable with. Not his nice girl who kept his feet on the ground. Then again, he was so relieved she didn't hate him for the whole terrorist thing which his good girl shouldn't have been okay with. Those sad, sweet eyes she'd given him in Leland's office told another story entirely.

He tried to imagine how it would have gone if she'd been there that night with the ferries, sobriety allowing him to fantasize about all kinds of colorful possibilities.

Humming thoughtfully, he lit a fresh cigarette and considered popping one of the muscle relaxers stashed in his cot, just a little something to help ease him out of the crushing boredom.

But then a loud hum ran through the ceiling. The Joker followed the hum with his eyes, making an intrigued sound in the back of his throat when the lights suddenly snapped out and he was submerged in darkness.

"Uh oh," he chuckled, a shiver of anticipation racing up his spine.

A red light came on out in the hallway, and a second later there was an air raid siren wailing, indicating there was some kind of break out in process. The Joker jumped off his cot and wandered over to the window of his cell, peering out like all the other inmates, wondering what was happening. How exciting.

Then there was rapid gunfire - assault rifles by the sounds of it. The guards carried pistols and syringes, so that meant people were coming in, not breaking out.

Ooh, it just kept getting better.

The Joker smoked the rest of his cigarette fast, listening to the guns getting louder and louder until they were just down the hall. He didn't dare to believe they were there for him until five men all in black with their faces covered were right in front of his door. His eyes widened as they gestured for him to move, then two of them lifted a battering ram and began to break down his door. He stood to the side, frowning and tonguing the scar tissue inside his cheek, thinking through the options this unexpected twist presented for him. Could it be a trap? A trick? A good samaritan? A bad samaritan?

Then the door blasted in, and the Joker swayed to the side to avoid it as it crashed to the floor. Three of the masked men rushed him, two of them grabbing his arms while a third threw a hood over his head and they handcuffed him, then rushed him out into the hall. The Joker went along with it, not wanting to waste a very unexpected but welcome opportunity for escape. They turned left and then right and then down, down, down a bunch of stairs, crashing through another door - gunfire from a couple of pistols, quickly silenced by the assault rifles - then running, running, running down a long hall - stop for some more shooting - and then out into the cold night air.

It was freezing outside, the crappy canvas material of the Arkham-issued jumpsuit doing nothing to fight off the bitter December wind. The frozen gravel bit into the soles of the Joker's bare feet as he was rushed across the parking lot, but that was all just fine with him. He was more concerned with who had orchestrated this breakout and why.

Then he was being shoved into the back of a van - a utility van if its grinding transmission was any indication - and forced to sit on something hard and creaky - a utility box probably. The van took off with a squeal as police sirens started to scream in the distance. The Joker remained quiet as the driver employed some evasive maneuvers, ticking through a list of names who could be responsible for this fortuitous opportunity for freedom.

There was Mario and Alberto Falcone, who the Joker guessed were probably going to attempt to take over the mob since he'd pretty much killed everyone above their paygrade. Those two idiots were just dumb enough to break him out to employ him despite the fact that that same strategy got their predecessors killed. Then there was Henry Aquista, an ambitious money launderer with a taste for revenge. He was a mean one, and he'd managed to both escape the carnage and lose a whole fuckton of money thanks to the Joker. He could easily envision Aquista breaking him out for the sake of killing him. That was a pretty strong possibility. Don't even get started with the non-mob types, the businessmen with shady dealings - there were too many of them to list, but they all fell on one side or the other: employment or revenge.

No one was going to break the Joker out for any benevolent reason, although Donald had said he'd inspired some fans out there.

The van evened out as they pulled onto the highway, and the Joker cleared his throat tentatively.

"So uh..." he drawled, raising an eyebrow even though they couldn't see it under the hood. "You boys wanna tell me where we're goin'?"

There was nothing but silence, so the Joker sighed dramatically and rotated his wrists in the handcuffs as he turned his attention to the men around him. They were obviously professionals, efficient, and well organized. These weren't mob lackeys but real mercenaries. That meant a lot of money had gone into this. That lead the Joker to believe this was probably about revenge instead of employment. Hmm...

He poked and prodded at their professional seams, trying to get one of them to engage him, but they remained stoically silent, and soon enough the Joker was bored again, slumping back against the wall as he waited for the van to stop. With a pair of handcuffs and all these rifles in the vicinity, it would be easy to kill them all, but killing his captors in a moving vehicle wasn't the best idea, which meant waiting until the time was right.

People thought being a hitman for hire, or a terrorist was twenty-four-seven action, but in reality, there was a lot of waiting involved.

Sooooo much waiting...

After about twenty minutes or so - within the city limits still, interesting - the van pulled off the freeway and slowed down. Not long after that, they were rolling through gravel. Rolling, rolling, rolling right along, and the Joker braced himself, sensing this was all going to come to completion soon. The waiting would be over, and he'd need to kill some people, regardless of what they wanted from him, but then he'd be free.

Then the gravel turned into something hollow-sounding, and they slowed right down and came to a stop.

The engine creaked noisily as the driver turned the van off and then finally, the professionals took off the hood.

The Joker squinted around at them, flexing his fingers, judging who to attack first. But then one of them lifted a duffle bag and shoved it into his arms while a second one held up a key and gestured for the Joker to give him his hands. He raised them tentatively, his eyes narrowing as the cuffs came off and the men stepped back again.

"Uh... huh," he said, shooting them all curious looks as he unzipped the bag. Inside was a tee-white shirt, blue jeans, socks, and a pair of Doc Martens.

The Joker blinked down at the contents of the bag, bewildered before he looked back up at the men.

"Get dressed," one of them suggested gruffly.

Was he being dressed before he was murdered? Maybe this did mean employment.

A change of clothes was the first thing on the list of shit to do once he shook these guys off anyway, so the Joker unzipped the jumpsuit and shrugged his arms out of it, then pulled on the tee-shirt while the men watched him closely. He stood to kick off the rest of the horrible orange canvas and awkwardly stepped into the jeans before sitting again to pull on the Docs. He rose to his feet once they were tied good and tight, and

one of the professionals shoved a heavy coat at him while another opened the van's doors. Then they all stood back, waiting.

The Joker threaded his arms through the coat's sleeves, prodding his bottom lip with his tongue as he considered killing them, and ultimately deciding there was probably something more exciting waiting for him outside. He shrugged helplessly and turned to jump out of the van, bracing himself for an attack.

They'd taken him to an old pier stretching out onto the bay, the rising sun casting a hazy violet light over everything. There was a rusted out crane overhead, a few old shipping containers stacked up beneath it, and a black Mercedes idling with its headlights on.

The Joker took note of all these things, but they all faded to nothingness compared to the figure standing at the end of the pier, less than ten yards away.

Harley turned to look at him over her shoulder, offering him one of her soft smiles, and Jack damn near collapsed where he stood.

He felt rooted to the spot as he stared at her, slowly understanding that she had been the one to put this together. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth as he stared at her, words altogether abandoning him in his surprise. It took a lot to surprise Jack, and it took even more to leave him speechless, but if anyone was capable of doing those things to him, it was Harley.

Then she turned away to look out at the bay again, and Jack found himself staggering forward until he was at her side, needing to see her face again.

She looked up at him and smiled again, sweet as anything. "Hi, Jack," she said.

He licked his lips twice, still struggling to find words as he stared down at her, trying to understand.

"You did this?" He asked her quietly.

"You'd be surprised what three million dollars and a little creativity can get you," she explained slyly.

Jack laughed quietly, shaking his head. Then something occurred to him, something he should have realized long before.

"That shrink who got me sent to Arkham," he narrowed his eyes at her. "That was you?"

"Jess is an old friend," Harley said, looking up at him from under her eyelashes, almost a little shy. "I knew it would be easier to get you out of Arkham than Blackgate. And I knew I had to get Gordon and the DA to trust me so they'd keep me in the loop on what was happening."

Jack could only stare at her, feeling... in awe of her. His Harley.

"Baby..." he said, drawing her eyes back up to his. But he couldn't think of anything else to say. What did you say to something like this? So instead he stepped closer to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her into his chest. She slid her arms around his waist beneath his coat and pressed her face against his neck while he buried his nose in her hair, squeezing her close.

That little alien was burrowing through his chest again, making him feel shaky and alive and absorbed in Harley. He let out a sigh, feeling like he was releasing a breath he'd been holding for years.

Harley pulled back to look at him, still smiling as the van with the professionals drove off, leaving them alone with the Mercedes.

"So uh... what happens next?" He asked her, because she seemed to be running the show and he was still a little too shell-shocked to think straight.

"Well," she said, rolling her eyes out to the side, playing coy. "I know this really great guy. He's smart and handsome and really funny..."

Jack chuckled throatily, his face splitting into a delirious grin that he didn't bother to fight.

"He told me once that Gotham needs someone real to run the city," she continued, reaching up to run her palm over his jaw. "I think he might be the right man for the job."

"Oh, baby," Jack very nearly purred, lifting his hands to cup her face, and she closed her eyes as she leaned into his touch. "What would I do without you, huh?" He asked, really meaning it.

"Get caught by the Batman and end up in prison," she replied drily, her eyes snapping open as her mouth quirked up on one side.

Jack kissed her then, unable to stop himself. Her fingers curled into the lapels of his coat, trying to pull closer to him, and Jack felt like he was going to crack in half because she was so damn good. He felt like he was twenty-one again. Young and stupid and head over heels for a pretty blonde who was too good for him and laughed at all his jokes. His Harley. His good girl. His nice girl. His smart girl who sewed his face shut and broke him out of prison and saved his life again and again. He kept kissing her until she pulled back to look up at him again, her blue eyes dancing as she sighed happily.

"I'll always take care of you, Jack," she promised him.

A/N: AND THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER.