Chapter 2: How Did We Get Here
Three days earlier, the smell was different. Less ozone, more burnt wiring and rotting garbage. The rooftop wasn’t a lonely perch; it was a battleground strewn with the groaning bodies of Black Mask’s hired muscle. The neon here was a sickly green, flickering over spilled teeth and broken pool cues.
Harley Quinn landed in a crouch, her heels cracking the plaster of a cheap patio table. “C’mon, boys! That all you got?” she crowed, swinging a re-purposed street sign in a wide, whistling arc. It connected with a knee with a wet crunch. The man screamed.
She was supposed to be stealing a ledger. A simple, boring info grab. But then the goons had shown up, and where was the fun in stealth?
A shadow detached itself from the smokestack above, falling silently before unfolding into a spinning kick that took out two men rushing Harley from behind. Nightwing landed in a fluid roll, coming up beside her, his escrima sticks crackling with blue electricity.
“You were supposed to be in and out, Quinn,” he said, his voice a mix of annoyance and grudging amusement. He didn’t look at her, his eyes scanning the remaining four thugs circling them.
“I was out!” Harley protested, dropping into a handspring to avoid a wild pipe swing. She came up behind the attacker and drove her elbow into his kidney. “Then I was back in! It’s called initiative, Bluebird.”
He shot her a look. “Don’t call me that.”
“What, Batboy Jr. not doin’ it for ya?”
A gun clicked. Both of them froze for a fraction of a second. The last thug with any sense had a pistol aimed, hand shaking, at Harley’s head. Before Nightwing could move, a golden streak sliced through the darkness. The lasso wrapped around the gunman’s wrist with a thwip, yanking him off his feet and slamming him into a ductwork tower. He slid down, unconscious.
Wonder Woman descended from the fire escape, reclaiming her lasso with a graceful tug. She looked regal and utterly out of place amidst the rooftop detritus. “This is the disturbance,” she stated, her gaze sweeping over the carnage before settling on Harley. “A simple theft, you said.”
“It was simple!” Harley whined, propping her hands on her hips. “They complicated it!” She gestured vaguely at the moaning men. “I got the ledger, see?” She patted a lump in her jacket.
Nightwing retracted his sticks, hooking them to his back. “Diana. What are you doing in Blüdhaven?”
“Monitoring an interdimensional breach three blocks east. The psychic resonance led me to this… ancillary noise.” Her eyes narrowed slightly at Harley. “Your thoughts are remarkably loud.”
Harley beamed. “Ain’t they, though? Like a funhouse mirror in a hurricane, right?”
“Something like that.” A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched Diana’s lips. She turned to Nightwing. “You associate with her willingly?”
He shrugged, the movement fluid under the kevlar. “She’s effective. When she’s not blowing up the objective.”
“Hey! That chemical plant was an accident! Mostly.”
The sirens were getting closer. The immediate threat was neutralized. But the air didn’t settle. There was a charge to it, a post-adrenaline hum that always left Harley jittery, desperate to burn off the leftover energy. She looked between the two heroes—Nightwing, all coiled grace and smartass charm, and Wonder Woman, a monument of serene power. A truly deranged idea, even for her, began to form.
She skipped over to Nightwing, peering up at him. “So. You two just gonna head off to your respective spooky caves and mystical islands? Debrief? File reports?” She made a dismissive sound. “Bor-ing.”
“It’s called responsibility, Quinn,” Nightwing said, but he was watching her, that familiar smirk playing on his face. He knew that look in her eye.
“Responsibility’s a wet blanket.” She spun to face Diana. “And you, Miss Ambassador. You ever just… cut loose? Or is it all treaties and tiara adjustments?”
Diana’s expression was unreadable. “My pleasures are my own.”
“I’ll bet they are.” Harley took a step closer, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial stage whisper. “See, here’s my thinkin’. We all just did the whole hero-vigilante-whatever thing. Saved the day, sorta. Shared a moment.” She waved a hand at the unconscious bodies. “That’s a bonding experience. And what do friends do after bonding?”
“This isn’t friendship,” Nightwing said, though he made no move to leave.
“It’s proximity with pizzazz!” Harley insisted. She bounced on the balls of her feet. “C’mon. One drink. On me. I just got paid from that last… thing. We can go somewhere high up. Quiet. With a view.” Her gaze was sharp, skipping between them. “Nobody has to know the mighty Wonder Woman hung out with a wrecking ball like me. Your secret’s safe with me, scout’s honor!”
Diana studied her. The curiosity was there, a spark behind the stoic blue-gray. This creature of chaos was offering a key to a door Diana rarely allowed herself to approach. It was undignified. Reckless.
Nightwing crossed his arms. “What’s the angle, Harley?”
“No angle! Just… noise in my head’s real quiet after a fight. For like, five minutes. I hate it when it’s quiet.” She said it too fast, too honestly, and a flicker of something raw showed beneath the manic grin. It was gone in an instant. “So I gotta replace it with better noise. Laughter. Talk. The clink of glasses. Maybe you.”
The silence stretched, filled only by the distant rise and fall of the city. Nightwing broke it. He let out a short, incredulous laugh. “You are the worst.”
“The absolute worst,” Harley agreed, hope sparking in her chest.
He looked at Diana, a question in his raised brow. The Amazon’s gaze moved from the hopeful, bleached face of the former villain to the relaxed, inviting posture of the hero who had grown up in shadow. Two different kinds of freedom were being offered here. Two different kinds of escape.
“A single drink,” Diana said, her voice final. “To discuss the security implications of the interdimensional breach.”
Harley’s grin could have powered the neon signs for a block. “Yeah! Security implications! That’s exactly what I was thinkin’.” She looped an arm through Nightwing’s, who shook his head but didn’t pull away. “I know a place. Rooftop’s a mess, but the view… it’ll knock your pretty socks off.”
She led them away from the wreckage, chattering nonstop about nothing, the stolen ledger forgotten in her jacket. The spark had been struck. All it needed was a little wind, and the right, rain-slicked rooftop, to become a flame.