Midnight Manor Laundry Room; Sunday Morning

[totalwildcard]

Boy, had that gone poorly! Harley hadn't slept much, and some of the reasons why could maybe be inferred by how, come morning, her makeup looked like perhaps she'd been caught in a heavy bout of rain. Rain that also made your eyes look kinda red and puffy? It was Fandom, okay, genuinely much stranger things happened all the time! Leave her alone!

Also, thanks to the aforementioned lack of sleep, Harley wasn't actually feeling all that much better, come morning. She actually kind of felt like she needed to bite something.

Or maybe go egg the Wayne Foundation building in town.

Set something on fire?

... Or kick a dryer, apparently. Sorry about the occasional clanging noises (and the accompanying swearing), Midnightites! Midnighters? Midnightees...? People of Midnight. Sometimes you just had to laundry aggressively.

It was so much better than actually dealing with your feelings.

(open!)

Comments

[hasaknightjob]

"Got it," Marc said. He shrugged with the shoulder she wasn't curled up against. "Whole life is a surprise so I'm used to it."

[totalwildcard]

"But y'agree that sometimes wakin' up on the ground can be a surprise?"

[hasaknightjob]

"Sure," Marc said. "But that's whether you remember starting on the ground."

[totalwildcard]

"Not necessarily!" Harley objected, animated enough that she actually pulled her faceaway from his neck to look at him. "In my case, it's more likely I've been knocked out so there's nothing to remember!"

[hasaknightjob]

"You should try the random blackouts," Marc said, like pointing out something in a menu. Though he didn't move his hands to actually point. "Keeps things interesting."

[totalwildcard]

"Nuh uh," Harley replied, "not unless it's from drugs - and the good kind, none of that forcible sedation shit."

Not that she had experience, or anything.

(Fuck you, Belle Reve.)

"One of us has gotta stay present, or this team's gonna fall apart real fast."

[hasaknightjob]

Marc told himself not to ask. His gut told him this was sort of related to that thing earlier where he'd been on a path to say something regrettably stupid. So by all logic he should keep his mouth shut and not say anything.

"We're a team?"

Marc didn't always listen to himself.

[totalwildcard]

And Harley just shrugged.

"I mean... Yeah? Aren't we?"

Although, maybe that feeling was just something she'd made up in her head? She was heavily sleep deprived with a messy brain, after all.

"I mean. Maybe not."

[hasaknightjob]

"No, no," Marc said, before he could think or stop himself. "That - yeah. That's cool."

Put that one in a sonnet.

[totalwildcard]

At that, Harley brightened up.

And also for that, she made sure the pancake box was secure, then held up her hand, with her pinkie extended, all the other fingers curled.

This was going to go smoothly, right?

[hasaknightjob]

Absolutely smoothly. Provided her expectation was for Marc to look confused.

"Something wrong with your hand?"

At least he was concerned about it.

[totalwildcard]

Harley snickered, but not in a way like she was laughing at him. More like maybe she wasn't terribly surprised.

"It's a pinkie promise!" she clarified - then tilted her head a bit. "Pinkie swear? Maybe more of a pinkie handshake for our purposes. Anyway!" She wiggled her pinkie a little. "You're s'posed to hook yours with mine!"

[hasaknightjob]

"Right," Marc said as some cultural knowledge floated back to him even if any actual prior experiences doing this firmly did not.

He freed up one hand to offer the same gesture to her. "Like that?"

[totalwildcard]

Harley was an expert, so she made sure their fingers were properly linked.

And then she beamed. "There! We're a team."

[hasaknightjob]

"This never came up when I worked as a mercenary," Marc told her. Just in case she wondered.

[totalwildcard]

"Well maybe it woulda been more fun if it had!" Harley retorted, giving his hand a gentle tug.

[hasaknightjob]

Marc tugged back because apparently that's what they were doing.

"More fun than getting shot at," he agreed.

[totalwildcard]

Guess so, because it made Harley snicker.

Of course, now she was trying to get her other fingers in between his, too.

"See? Ya don't gotta worry about that from me!"

Debatable, possibly foreshadowing?

[hasaknightjob]

Marc tried to follow along with whatever it was she was doing.

"Appreciate it," Marc said. "I've had enough being left for dead. Gets boring."

[totalwildcard]

It was simple enough - at least once Harley accepted the pinkie hook had to be sacrificed for it. Her fingers laced themselves with his, and she gave his hand a little squeeze.

"Yeah, I think I've got other states I can leave ya that are better."

[hasaknightjob]

Threading fingers together he could do. There was some experience there. With her even.

"Long as it's not New Jersey."

[totalwildcard]

Harley made an affronted noise. "Hey! New Jersey's fine!"

[hasaknightjob]

"Course it is," Marc said. Indulgently.

[totalwildcard]

"Hey, I lived there since college all the way until I came here," Harley pointed out, raising her eyebrows at him. "You've got a lot to thank New Jersey for!"

And probably many reasons to hate it too, along that same logic, but whatever.

[hasaknightjob]

"You did leave," Marc pointed out.