Harley Quinn And The Joker

Searching

"...and that's how to take down Nightwing." I smiled with my ellbow in Deadshot's neck and the spikes of my right hand on his throat.

A week has passed since I've been at Arkham the last time and Batman talked to me about. Well. Myself. Not that I cared at all, half the time I just sat there and slept with my eyes open. If Batman wanted my attention he should have stuck a bomb in his mouth and danced to Poker Face while wearing a pink skirt. That would've made me listen.

"But how are we supposed to do that?" Mad Hatter asked and I let go of Deadshot who slowly stood up and walked back to the crowd while holding his right shoulder. 'Don't be such a girl. It's just been a punch with spikes.'

My eyes moved over to Tetch, Firefly and Clayface, all of them not very skilled fighters when it came to hand-to-hand combat. "Through training, my friends, through training. An' ta accomplish a high success rate, we need ta work on a basic fightin' style that everyone can do. What we are up to requires teamwork and y'all lack that skill. So we start in teams. Everyone look for the person you dislike the most here. That one will be yer trainings partner and you're goin' ta help 'em when they have problems of whateva kind. The one ta complain first will be my trainings partner and I'm not gon' be as nice ta ya as I was with Deadshot. Got it?"

There was only a little growling but all in all, everything went fine. I honestly didn't care who chose who but I needed to get everyone in here to the same level of basic fighting skills so they were able to defend themselves against every member of the bat-family. That will take a lot of time.

"Now that everyone's ready, we...well, I see you're one too much here, eh, Nanaue?" His black eyes stared at me as I looked down at him from the stage I was standing on. "You're coming up to me then. Don't worry, I won't hurt you. That comes later."

King Shark growled and walked up to me before I told everyone to watch closely. "Batman ain't only stronger but also faster than most of y'all, so for those of you who don't have much experience in defending yerself, it's not 'bout makin' ta first move when faced with Bats."

I told King Shark to try to punch or bite me and dodged his moves. "See, da important part is observin' yer enemy's moves first. You'll notice that afta some time, they'll make a mistake, slip, lean too much in, etcetera." King Shark moved his left foot too much forward which took him more time to find his balance and I quickly grabbed his weirdly shaped head, turned it around and threw him down on his back.

"It won't be that easy with da bat an' his birds, but before we learn this kinda moves we need ta work on y'all balances and agility." I let go of Nanaue's head and looked at him. "I'll leave the big guy here in charge, he'll show y'all some moves. I'm off for four hours."

♦♦

"What do you want?" Joker asked as I entered his hideout, guided by two of his henchmen. He looked a little more angry than usual so I decided to stay nicer than I wanted to - just not to let the situation escalate...again.

I looked around and watched him working on his cane while he didn't look like he even cared for the reason I came over. "Wanna talk ta Harley."

His eyes immediately looked up at me with his face staying angry and he stopped cleaning the blade that came out of his cane. "She's not here." And with that his attention went straight back to the cane.

"Well, where's she then?" I found the two guys standing by my sides weird with their creepy clown masks but that was none of my business anyway.

Joker shrug and frowned at my question. "Meh, somewhere, don't know, don't care." I rolled my eyes. 'Of course, why would ya?' "Since when has she been away?" I tried once again to get at least a bit more out of him than a sentence, hoping she wasn't that long away so I might catch her on my way back to my hideout.

"Four days, something like that." Still not showing any emotion, Joker took a sip from a glass of soda but I wasn't that calm. "What? And you're not worried 'bout her?" 'Yah, right, he an' being worried. Very smart.'

Chuckling, Joker fixed the sleeves of his black suit with a smile. "She's a grown woman, Black. She's survived a year without my help. Calm your ovaries." I sighed and put my pointer finger and thumb between my eyes. "Have ya guys been fightin' again?"

"No, we weren't. And what we do is none of your damn business!" His sudden aggression let me look at him and wonder why he's that angry about a simple question. "Now that you know that, you can leave!" Joker growled and sounded as if he was trying really hard to pull himself together.

His henchmen already turned me abound and walked me out as I asked one more question. "Did she say anythin' before she left?" Maybe this would make it easier to find her. But Joker didn't say a thing, just snorted and scoffed before I blinked as the heavy front door was slammed in my face. 'So much for that.'

♦♦

"Yeah, no, haven't seen her either." I nodded at Poison Ivy's statement but found it strange that her best friend didn't hear anything about Harley. "When's the last time you've seen her?"

Ivy though about it for a moment and shook her head afterwards. "Six days ago, why? Did something happen?" Her eyes widened but I didn't really care about her being worried. "Nah, get back inside. I'll be back in 'bout two hours." I didn't wait for a response, just turned away and disappeared behind the next building.

♦♦

After half an hour of searching, I still didn't find a single sign of Harley, which actually gave me an uncomfortable feeling. It's not common for her just to back off without a word to someone, at least not after what I knew.

Another ten minutes passed and I decided to walk to the park down at the river, maybe she was there because it's a calm place without many people, especially during the night.

While I walked down, I thought about Joker's words one more time. He seemed like they fought about something but at the same time, he didn't. It was annoying that I didn't know why Harley just disappeared or what she talked to him about.

A view people walked over from the nearby bridge and I decided just to ask if they'd seen her and walked over to them. "Hey, Chinese people, you seen a blond woman somewhere?" No, I did not care for being polite, I didn't have time for that.

Confused and a little offended, the taller guy stared at me with an angry face. "Watch your mouth, young man!" I rolled my eyes, who did he think he was, my foster dad? "Yah, have ya seen her or not?" My eyes moved to the dark water and I signed. 'Don't think I'll find her tonight.'

"We've seen a blonde with blue and pink hair-ends, just walked past us on the bridge, looked like she wanted to the other side. If you mean her." The woman explained and I immediately turned towards the bridge. 'What does she want over there?' I asked myself as I started walking up to it.