Apartment Above Needful Things; Tuesday Late Morning

[totalwildcard]

It had taken a while, and a lot of hopping back and forth between the island and the mainland to work off some restless energy (to say nothing of all the times Harley had poked at various means of getting back to Gotham), but things had eventually settled down again for the proprietess of Needful Things. Hell, eventually there'd even been a text from Flag. Okay yeah, but srsly where did you get this number? maybe might not've been a win in many other eyes, but it definitely had been in Harley's!

Also no, she hadn't told him where she'd got his deeply personal phone number from. Always better to leave 'em guessing! Yearning for more, and all that.

So, business as usual!

In a sense, anyway, 'cause Harley wasn't down in the store but instead up at her place, enjoying her breakfast (leftovers from the previous night's dinner). Bruce had been walked, so it was time to chill for a bit before seeing what the day might bring.

(Unfortunately, she had not listened to the radio.)

(expecting one!)

Comments

[totalwildcard]

"No," Harley agreed, anxious, beginning to pace a little bit maybe but you couldn't prove anything, "but I'm not askin' ya to! No one's askin' ya to! But I don't know what you want from me! You keep saying ya want me to talk but I keep feelin' like ya want that just so she stops feeling bad."

That empathy thing again.

"And it's not a great feeling!!"

The expression on her face was starting to wobble. Like really, really badly, despite her best efforts to keep looking like she was keeping it together, honest, really.

"She's got ya in her corner, I get it," she said, less loud now, "you don't hafta keep -- beatin' me over the head with it."

[gotthatphd]

Harley blinked.

"I'm not tryin' to beat you over the head with it," she said. "Why would I come all the way over here to gloat? I know you feel rotten and I feel like maybe you don't hafta? That's all."

[totalwildcard]

"Then what've you been doing?"

It was a whine, not much of a genuine question, and really starting to lose steam on the accusation front, too. Just losing steam in general, really, as soon as there was nothing to directly rail against.

[gotthatphd]

"Like I told you, I wanted t' talk to you," Harley sighed. "why is talkin' to myself always stupidly hard? But then you broke out the baseball bats and everything got an eensy teensy bit out of control..."

She cleared her throat. Very loudly, a bit like you could picture the sound effect in the air. "She didn't stop because she doesn't care about you, okay?"

[totalwildcard]

"Funny way of showin' it," Harley muttered glumly. She turned around, then slouched back to the couch, and took a seat in a despondent sort of way.

And then pointed at the other Harley.

"And that goes for you, too," she said. "You wouldn't listen. And you, outta everyone, should know I ain't ever gonna wanna let anyone walk all over me again."

She was pretty sure, anyway, from what Pam had said before. Even with the distinct lack of visible Mr. J adjacent tattoos. (Good choice, that.)

[gotthatphd]

"Kinda goes both ways," Harley pointed out, because she hadn't forgotten the baseball bat thing and wasn't gonna for at least the next three minutes, but she pulled a little face at herself. "I'm sorry, though. I do really just wanna talk. 'Cause I've been there and also I just spent like. A long day reuniting other Harleys with their Reds so it's all fresh, you know?"

[totalwildcard]

"Well I ain't got one," Harley replied, slumping further into the couch. "I got a --"

Nevermind.

"Well point is that's prob'ly not gonna help ya here."

[gotthatphd]

"Pammy said she left," Harley said. Sympathetically.

[totalwildcard]

Harley nodded. It came off about as glum as everything else had been in the last couple of moments.

"A long time ago," she said. "Like, pre--"

And she waved a hand at her everything. The skin, the clothes, the tattoos. Pre all of that.

[gotthatphd]

"To go to Seattle," Harley said, nodding. "Where she's gonna become Ivy."

She tugged on her bow. "Y'ever wonder if maybe that's not actually the end of it?"

[totalwildcard]

"No," Harley replied, as if that much should've been obvious. "I hadn't even thought about her in years before your Pam showed up!"

Also she had no idea what 'becoming ivy' meant. Presumably the whole planty thing?

[gotthatphd]

Harley thought about elaborating or something, but like. That got her trouble last time! "What happened?" she asked instead.

[totalwildcard]

"I don't know!" Harley whined, although now the exasperated tone was directed at the world, or herself, or something like that. "She showed up, we got into a buncha arguments, then we sorta got over that and she gave Bruce turkey, and then she kissed me."

No, there was no sense of scale to that timeline. Neither was it possibly what Harley had actually been asking about.

[gotthatphd]

"Kinda meant with your Pammy," Harley said, but she waved that off and-- "Whoops, sorry."

No idea what that was, but it sure got knocked off a shelf!

"But Pammy's got a soft spot for Harleys," she said. "Makes sense she's got a soft spot for you, too."

[totalwildcard]

"And?" Harley asked. "What is your point?"

[gotthatphd]

"That she's gonna be weird?" Harley said. "'Cause she wants to spend time with you but she doesn't know how 'cause you're not me. Exactly."

[totalwildcard]

"Well I don't like bein' a test subject while she's figuring that out!" Harley erupted again, throwing her hands up only to immediately use them to grab one of the decorative pillows from somewhere near her on the couch and pulling it into her lap. "I got feelings too, yanno!"

Literally no one that had ever met you had any doubts about that, Harls.

[gotthatphd]

"I know!"

She wasn't gonna elaborate because elaboration felt like maaaaybe thin ice.

[totalwildcard]

But the problem with not elaborating with Harleys was the extremely high chance of them trying to pester it out of you anyway.

So.

"Okay?" Harley said. "Then why make that point? What's it to me what she's tryin' to figure out? You came here behind her back, ya said it yourself." She was really squishing the hell out of that pillow. "It's sweet you're tryin' to make nice for her an' all, but it's all... second hand."

[gotthatphd]

Harley shrugged. With her whole body, including her pigtails. "Why'd you get upset when she didn't bang ya?"

[totalwildcard]

"Because it's fuckin' humiliating to think you're on the same page and then you're not!"

That poor pillow, it was really going through something.

"And I don't mean that like she can't revoke consent whenever she wants, because she can and she should! I mean that like I wish she hadn't kissed me at all so I didn't -- so I wouldn't know what that was like."

[gotthatphd]

"Oh."

Well.

Time for this Harley to sit down, too, with a little fwoomph and her hands in her lap.

[totalwildcard]

Harley turned to look at her.

"'Oh'? That's it?"

[gotthatphd]

"I'm sorry."

And Harley reached out for her hand.

[totalwildcard]

Harley looked at it like she was being offered some sort of alien appendage.

Then, after a beat, she also said, "Oh." All small-like.

And let Harley take her hand.