Harley opened her eyes, making the early morning sunrise visible to her. Yawning and stretching, she looked over to Dick's side of the bed to see no-one there. Nothing out of the ordinary. Most nights, at least one of them would have trouble sleeping and end up spending the night patrolling Blüdhaven. Despite the fact that they've patrolled together, and both of them handled themselves very well, they would worry when one of them was out. They knew it would be more than fine, but something would always feel wrong about letting a loved one roam Blüdhaven, that was just how bad the city was.
Harley sat up and looked at her new engagement ring, which put a huge smile on her face. The thought of getting to spend her life with Dick excited her. They'd already done lots together since they got together now over a year ago, one of the most fun for Harley was meeting all of Dick's friends, especially all the other superheroes, like Donna Troy, Kid Flash and Cyborg, some of Dick's best friends.
Downstairs, Dick made his way back into the house through the kitchen window. After closing the window and removing his mask, he took off the top half of his costume. Upon walking through the room, he looked over at some of the framed pictures on the wall. Pictures of himself and Harley over the past year and a bit. Mostly from them visiting each other's friends and family across the country. One that wasn't pictured, however, was Dick meeting Harley's family, whom Harley herself hadn't seen for a good few years before then, and for good reason. Her parents were both raging alcoholics, and her father had just served his sentence for assaulting her mother. None of Harley's three younger brothers were there, they were off on their own, getting into trouble in street races, drug deals and similar activities. Of course, upon meeting Harley's parents, Dick had some choice words for them, and conflict quickly broke out before they left and went back home. Dick wasn't going to argue his family was without problems, but he felt so happy to be inviting Harley to join it after her own family is the way it is.
Dick left the room and was about to head back upstairs when Harley came from the opposite direction. With a smile on both of their faces, Dick walked up the stairs and into her arms. She crouched down and placed a kiss on his lips. "Have fun last night?" She quietly asked with a grin. Dick bit his lip. "Well, I'd hate to kill the mood, but, I found something." He admitted. Harley frowned. "Last night, there was a crime scene I found. A couple of bodies, all dead, but there was something...worrying." He explained with a sigh. Harley had a look of concern on her face, her eyes were fixed oh his. "What was it?" She asked. Dick sighed and looked off to one side, not wanting to even think about the situation. Jason was back, and committing murders again, likely unwilling to listen to reason. "There was a symbol on the wall, Jason's insignia." Harley's eyes widened, taking a second to fathom what this was. "Wait...your Jason?" She asked "As in, Jason who, when I last saw him, wanted me dead? That Jason?"
"Yeah, it's him." Dick sighed, he didn't want to admit it, but his brother was back. It had to happen sometime, they hadn't seen him in just over a year, the family could be somewhat disconnected but normally there'd be contact after a month or two. Something had to be done, and quickly. Both Dick and Harley realised that Jason probably wants to finish what he started the night he aimed his gun at Harley's head. "So how do we find 'im?" Harley asked, realising that they'd soon have an unwelcome guest who just so happened to want her head on a stick.
Dick frantically tried figuring something out. Surely Jason would have been picked up by a few cameras, with his mask on or off. He needed someone who could hack into the city's CCTV systems. Oracle. Since being wheelchair bound by the Joker, Barbara had still been helping out the rest of the family, using her technological skills and hacking to assist everyone from Bruce to even heroes outside the family, like the group Barbara was now part of, the Birds of Prey. She'd easily be able to hack into the cameras throughout the city for them. "Hold on, I've gotta make a call." Dick went upstairs to get his phone. "Great," Harley laughed. "I'll just sit on my ass and wait for the psycho wearing a freakin' red dome to come shoot me."
About 12 hours later,
Harley was in the living room, watching TV, when Dick came in, holding his phone and laptop. "Babs hacked into the cameras for me," He explained. He'd been out for a quite a while. "I had to individually visit a whole bunch of cameras and looked through some footage to try and find something out."
"Ya find anything?" Harley asked, turning around on the couch.
"Nope." Dick replied before sitting down and placing his laptop on the coffee table. "Looking through all the footage, there's nowhere I've seen him multiple times that could be any kind of hideout, but, if he tries coming near the house, I've got the cameras on the nearby streets to notify me if he's seen." A pop-up came up on his screen. "Shit, that's him now." A red dot briefly dashed across the top of the laptop screen, Harley grabbed Dick by the shoulders and threw him to the ground. "Get down!" She yelled.
After piercing the window, a dart bounced off where Dick and Harley were sat, the dart the dropped to the floor. Harley examined it as best she could without moving from cover. There was something embossed on it, something familiar. "I am the light, the way" Harley knew someone who had those very words written on most of their gear. "Floyd!?" She managed to let out before the door to the room burst down and a tall, menacing figure in orange and black entered, a sword in one hand and a shotgun in the other. "Oh, fan-fucking-tastic," Dick remarked. "now Slade Wilson's here, great." Dick and Slade had a sordid history, all the way from Dick being Robin to him leading the Teen Titans, Slade -or Deathstroke- was almost to Dick what guys like Joker or Two-Face were to Bruce.
Deathstroke approached Dick "Relax, kid," He said in his gruff tone. "lucky for you, we need both of you alive." Harley stood up.
"What the fuck is goin' on here?!" She shouted, out of her vision, the red dot crawled up her neck. Dick went to pull her back behind cover before Slade grabbed him in a chokehold to knock him out. In turn, Harley was about to help Dick before she felt something pierce her neck, she began feeling light headed and passed out and the tranquilizer dart injected into her neck.
Slade walked over to the window and gave a thumbs up to the sniper he was working with outside. On a nearby rooftop, Floyd Lawton AKA Deadshot returned Slade's thumbs up by flipping him off. Slade shrugged it off, holstered his weapons and went to pick up Dick and Harley before her heard something behind him. "What do you want with the pair of them?" A voice asked the assassin. Slade could hear slight hesitation and nervousness in the voice, his tactical mind told him he could easily pull off a distraction technique to get out of the situation. He heard the slide of a handgun pulled back behind him. Slade reached for his sword before he quickly grabbed a smoke bomb from his utility belt and weaved through the smoke to take out the now disoriented attacker.
A thud could be heard as the, as of yet mysterious, opponent hit the ground. After the smoke cleared, Slade inspected his attacker. The thud must have come from the large red helmet on his head. "Red Hood, huh?" Slade asked the now unconscious anti-hero.
YOU ARE READING
NightQuinn II: Fear Itself
Fanfiction[Sequel to NightQuinn] It's been over a year since Dick Grayson and Harley Quinn fell in love and it's been worryingly long since they got into some trouble together, that's about to change.
