It was late. He sat on a battered old bar stool behind the counter, resting his pointed chin in his hand. A deck of cards lay spread out before him, his nimble fingers flicking through them as he practiced his tricks. The shop was always empty by the time it was dark, but they paid him to watch over the place, and Jack Napier found ways to pass the time.
He was a young man, one who many people seemed to find vaguely familiar, though few figured out why. He tapped long fingers on the countertop and noticed again how pale his skin was against the black cloth.
On walls and shelves all around him were magic tricks and props of all kinds. Coins, cards, hats, wands, stuffed rabbits, scarves, rings, all that a starting magician could want and much more for those more practiced. Jack had a fondness for the old magic shop. There was a little swell of pride in his chest when he remembered that his boss had left, and entrusted the closing of the store to him. It was getting close to time, so he began to straighten shelves, busying himself with a display of top-hats next to the window.
She came crashing through the glass, flipping and shooting over his head, and time itself went still. He could feel his life change before his eyes as she sailed over him, a vision in red and black and white, her ruby mouth spread in the joy of her flight.
Harley Quinn landed on the floor of the magic shop and snapped her fingers. “Ah nuts, I saw the old man leave and thought it was empty in here.” She shook the glass off her costume and looked at the man. Her head cocked to the side. “Gee, you look really familiar.”
Jack stared at her, clutched one of the top hats in his hand and shyly, hastily jammed it onto his head.
He had followed the news over the last year, and couldn’t have missed her pictures. She’d been the one to make him realize who it was he reminded everyone of. She was so much more beautiful in person, with the costume hugging her every curve. It looked new, more colorful and vibrant, the diamonds criss-crossing her entire body in black and red, with white trim in just the right places, and much better-made than the one he had seen before. Jack couldn’t help being awestruck, and simply nodded at her statement.
“It’s, uh, it’s a pleasure to meet you, miss…um, Miss Quinn,” he stammered, peeking out from under the rim of his large hat.
Harley flashed him a smile and looked around the shop. Her eyes fell on the cards laid out on the table and her smile brightened. “Aw, hey, do you do tricks?”
Jack gave a gulping grin and remembered to wipe the hat off of his head before he dashed behind the counter. “Well I, I’m not, y’know, not great, but…pick a card,” he told her, spreading his hands out over the deck.
Harley dutifully picked one from the spread, gave it a look, placed it back among its fellows and skipped to the other side of the shop. “ooh, rings!”
Jack followed her, awestruck and waiting for the connection to click in his mind. He finally realized it as he watched her clinking rings together, and his mouth fell open. “Hey…I…I know you!”
Looking up, Harley studied his face again, and Jack felt himself blush. “You do look real familiar…”
“I, uh, that is,” he stammered under her gaze. “We were in Doctor Crane’s class…you’re
that Harley.”
“Hey, now that I think about it,” she said, in a tone that hid her lack of recognition as she walked casually behind the counter. “Mind gettin’ this for me?” she asked with fluttering lashes, nodding to the register and slipping the rings into her cloth bag.
“Oh, yeah, sure,” Jack hurried to open the drawer, and his eyes fell back on the deck of cards. “Okay, so,” he muttered instructions to himself as he worked the cards. “I haven’t got this one right yet…but if I’ve got it….carry the two…hey!” he called, seeing her skip back for the window and oblivious to the empty drawer sticking out of the register. “Is this the right one?”
Harley glanced back and grinned. “Yeah, that’s it!” she called, and hopped back outside with her stolen money and tricks.
Jack would worry about the money when his head had cleared. For now he turned the card over in his hand and stood in a daze. Of all the cards in the whole deck, she’d picked the Jack of Hearts. Harley Quinn herself had picked this store of all stores and this night of all nights and that card of all cards. He thought back to all those times in school when she had ignored him, and pressed the card to his chest.
He took it as a sign
*****
Time had gone by since the last big fight, but the wounds weren’t healing fast. Renee’s body had recovered, but Batgirl hadn’t been back on the streets just yet. There were other wounds, to her pride, to her compassion, and those would still take time. Until then, she had become a fixture in Barbara’s apartment. By now, she had started to go back home again at nights to sleep, but for those first days it had felt safer to be with her friend.
Tonight, thankfully, seemed to be quiet, and Renee had jumped at the invitation to stay through Barbara’s monthly dinner with her father. There was still time before Jim was to arrive though, and Renee battled to keep herself from falling into another sulk.
“You’ve
got to stop beating yourself up about this.” Barbara handed Renee the remote control, as they tried to occupy themselves.
Renee sighed, hating herself for having to go over this again. “I know. I will. Eventually.”
“Not eventually, tonight,” Barbara insisted. “What’s done is done. Maybe it wasn’t the best thing to do, but you can’t take it back, so stop stewing.”
“Wanna bet I can’t?” Renee muttered, but she fell back on the couch. “I can’t believe I told him.”
“Yes you can.” Renee looked back at her friend’s face, and Barbara somehow looked so much older than she was. “It was Harvey.”
Renee made a non-committal sound, and was saved by the ringing doorbell. She jumped up to answer it before Barbara could start to maneuver, and stuck a grin on her face to greet Jim Gordon.
“How have you been?” Jim gave her a firm handshake, holding her hand a moment longer than necessary before he came into the apartment. “Everyone holding up okay in here?” He asked, crossing the room and leaning down to kiss his daughter’s cheek.
“Hi, Dad. We’re holding up,” Babs smiled and hugged him, starting to wheel herself into the dining room. “You’re late again, dinner’s gonna be cold.”
Jim chuckled, helping to push her chair. “If that’s the price I pay.”
The three of them sat around the table, Renee and Jim together bringing the warmed food in from the kitchen. At first, there wasn’t much conversation, only three people as close as family enjoying each other’s company. Finally, as their plates cleared, the recent events came back to their minds.
“I went to have a visit the other day,” Jim started, as casually as possible. “They’re treating him well as they can. Solitary, just so nobody in there gets any ideas to go after the DA.”
Renee nodded with a distracted expression. Batgirl had been the one who arranged those conditions—plus a guarantee that the guards were to ignore anything Two-Face might try to tell them.
“That’s good. And he’s getting help, right?” Barbara asked, glancing between her father and her friend. “They’ll do what they can?”
There was a sadness in Jim’s smile. “Sweetheart, they are. But there might not be much they can do. I know how optimistic you are, but we can’t be naïve.”
The two girls shared a secret smile. Oracle was anything but naïve.
“Any news on Ivy?” Renee asked Jim and ignored the stare Babs was giving her. She didn't want to see the oddly-knowing smile that revealed Babs knew why she wanted to know about Ivy.
Jim dipped a piece of bread in the last of the sauce on his plate. “Nothing new, no. Far as we can tell she’s re-building the same place that the mob tore up. Been a bitc—s’cuse me, been tough just watching her living there, but we’ve never had enough reason to go in there. Moment she makes another move though, we know right where to find her,” Jim finished with a stabbing gesture of his fork.
Renee cleared her throat, her thoughts wandering as she listened to Jim and Barbara catch up. She knew that Ivy had not had any of the same emotional conflicts that Batgirl had faced in that fight. But Ivy had a history with Harvey Dent, too. Had there been anything personal in that case for her, any lingering anger at her old enemy?
It might be worth going back into her costume just to find out.
*****
There had to be something he could do to impress her. Jack had no idea if people ever robbed the same stores twice, but he wanted to be ready if she did show up again. Perhaps, just maybe, he could even find the courage to seek her out himself.
The apartment was barely bigger than his room at home had been, and no less bursting with magic gear. His own bag of tricks was spread over his bed along with several colorful costumes. Hats hung on a rack by the door, scarves stuck out of his dresser, books full of tricks and tips lined his shelves, while posters and pinups of the Zatara family littered the walls. He had collected these things since childhood, and had always been fascinated by magic, staged or authentic.
“Gotta have something,” he muttered, and then found it in the back of his closet. Jack drew in a sharp breath and pulled the faded suit out into the light. He hadn’t been able to wear it since
he showed up in Gotham—it made them look too much the same. But for Harley…
He pulled the purple suit over his long body and stared at the effect in the mirror. He could even have sworn that his skin had gone lighter, his hair taking on a tinge of green. There were still obvious signs of difference—Jack’s buck teeth and light brown hair were the clearest—but as far as he could see (or care), it may as well have been the Joker himself standing in his mirror.
He had never before had any reason to like the way he looked. But standing there in his copycat suit and tucking a daisy into his lapel, Jack dared to think that he cut a rather dashing figure after all. At least, he hoped she would think so, and what else mattered now?
Jack took a long breath, dug a pen and paper out of his desk, and sat down to begin his plan. A girl like Harley Quinn, she would only fall for the most romantic schemes.
*****
While Harley was out providing for them, Ivy was still fussing with the fallout of the mob’s attack. It made her blood boil that things were still not back to normal. It all looked normal, from the outside. But there was still shattered glass that she couldn’t pick out of the grass and the garden, and the skeleton of her greenhouse sat bare and wounded in the yard. She fussed once more with her torn curtains, fuming all over again.
It made it more bearable to blame Harvey Dent. Even if it wasn’t quite true – it was that twisted other person who actually went through with the frame. But it didn’t make Ivy feel any better to think of a stranger, so it was the old, untainted Harvey who she pictured in her anger.
Ivy tapped her nails on the windowsill, and returned to her chair, flicking on the radio and ignoring the small television that Harley had finally put into the corner of the main room. Soft music filled the air, and Ivy tried to relax. It had been a very long couple of weeks.
The police were leaving her alone, so far, but they weren’t stepping in against the civilians. Even with her name cleared, Ivy was taking the brunt of the city’s anger. The fate of the first mob had deterred any more big groups, but the lone vandals had made shots at her house and her garden, forcing Ivy to put up more and more defenses. The cloud of poison vapors never spread outside of her own property, but each day it was more potent, and took less time to knock out intruders. If this went on much longer, they’d be deadly.
There was part of Ivy that didn’t know why she was so reluctant to kill. It never used to be a consideration of hers. She sighed in the chair, leaning back with her legs tossed over the arm rest. When had she changed? She had stopped actually committing crimes after being caught once, but when had she become unwilling to pick it up again? And was it before, or after meeting that new Batgirl?
Ivy laughed at herself, finding Batgirl in her thoughts again. They had teamed up twice now, no matter how shaky the alliance. There was something about this new girl that Ivy had never seen in the old Batwoman—she was steadfast and focused, admirably calm and collected. And yet, there had been a break in that concentration when Ivy had begun to use her charms. There weren’t all that many more women than there were men who could resist her, but Ivy had still been surprised that Batgirl was fighting herself to do so. This one wasn’t so straight and narrow. And finding the other woman in her mind, Ivy had to wonder whether she ever crossed through Batgirl’s thoughts.
Maybe they’d have to ally again sometime to find out.
Harley finally returned home later that night with her bag full to bursting, mostly with cash, but also filled with personal trinkets that had caught her eye. With a gleeful little squeal, she poured her loot out over the sofa to sort through as Ivy came in from the kitchen to greet her. “Good haul?”
“Looks like it!” Harley stacked bills on one side of the couch and put her special treasures in a pile at her feet, admiring them all as she came across them. She held a pearl necklace up to her collar, bounced a whistling yo-yo off of her hand until she noticed Ivy’s expression and stopped, gave a squeeze to a stuffed pink poodle, and finally dug out her new set of magic rings with the last of the cash.
“Nice work, Harl,” Ivy smiled as she gathered up the money. “This should do for a while. Run into any trouble?”
“Nope,” Harley answered, hands busy clinking the rings together.
“Good, we can benefit from you not being seen.”
“Well I never said that,” Harley said as the rings finally clinked into each other. “Just said no trouble. Guy at the magic shop was real nice.”
“Nice?” Ivy asked her, boggled by Harley’s calm tone.
“Yeah, nice. Think I knew him from somewhere,” she put a finger to her lips, having already forgotten his words. “Didn’t try to stop me or anything. Jut showed off a couple things and opened up the money for me.” She added a flirtatious little giggle to the end of her answer.
Ivy paused, an eyebrow raising slightly. “Well, was he cute at least?”
“Kinda,” Harley smiled and lay down the rings to get up and begin to wash off her make-up. “In a kinda forgettable way.”
Ivy chuckled a little. “Then I guess it’s nice to know we share a talent. Good work.”
“What, with guys?” Harley laughed. “You got no idea! How’d you think I got through college?”
“Actually, I’d assumed you were smart,” Ivy smirked. “Too generous?”
Before Harley had to explain her mischievous smile, something hit the window with a curious, tinkling ring, and Ivy all but lost her temper.
“Goddammit! What the hell am I putting up piranha plants for if every ass with a grudge is just going to walk right by—what like a 6-foot weed is a welcome mat?!”
While Ivy’s smirk turned to a snarl, Harley ducked away from the tirade and into the garden to see what had fallen. The jingle had come from three small bells, tied to weigh down the side of a bright red scarf that now lay brilliant and unseasonably Christmas-like in the warm green grass. A small scrolled note hung off of a thin thread, and Harley opened it eagerly.
“Meet me underneath the stars tonight at the midnight hour where love and roses bloom, sweet, beloved Harley Quinn”“And I thought I couldn’t get enough sap,” Ivy deadpanned, reading over Harley’s shoulder when she had stopped fuming.
“I think it’s sweet,” Harley protested, hugging the note to her chest, and glad that Ivy’s annoyance had made her miss the quick intake of breath and flutter in her chest as she read the note.
“Gonna go then?”
“Why not?” Harley smiled as she jingled the bells again.
“Because you have no idea who sent this?” Ivy offered, flipping the note over to check for some kind of signature.
Harley only smiled wider, checked her watch, and scampered into the night, an unspeakable idea already cemented in her mind. “I like surprises!”
Ivy watched her leave, shaking her head slowly and folded her arms long after the little red figure had gone out of sight. “Yep…no way she got anywhere by being intelligent,” she muttered to herself, and started to follow.
*****
He sat waiting on the park bench in the dark next to the roses. A small rose garden had been installed in Gotham Central Park a few months before, and it was still clean and relatively free of graffiti. The scents of each different rose hung in the thick air that night, and Jack’s heart raced under the playing card he had strung around his neck.
A small bag of tricks lay at his feet, but that wasn’t what he hoped to impress her with. Not at first, anyway—he did hope the night would last long enough that he could perform. Visions of Harley’s face watching him ran through his head; her horror on his behalf at some death-defying stunt, her eyes swimming with relieved tears as she applauded his triumph…
A pair of pigeons cooed loudly behind him and broke the fantasy.
Jack sighed, and checked again that the small red box was in his front pocket. He may never be as suave or as confident as he imagined himself in his daydreams, but surely such a heartfelt gift would draw her in, if his appearance hadn’t already.
He checked his watch again. It was still a few minutes to midnight, just as it had been a minute ago. He glanced around again to make sure that he was alone before he took a pair of speakers out of his bag—he may have been lovestruck, but he was still a Gothamite, and didn’t want it stolen—and scrolled through his iPod to find the right music. A soft romantic song started to echo around the garden, and Jack hoped with a sudden burst of jealousy that no other couples had been inspired by it.
He heard the jingling bells that he had sent to her and took a series of long, calming breaths to force the terrified look off of his face. He stood, feet shaking nervously in his good shoes, the suit dangling awkwardly just above his ankle and making him seem more bumbling and pathetic than ever. Jack just waited, thinking every glint of streetlight was a flash of her gold hair.
“Mister J!”
He whirled around to face her voice, standing just far enough out of the light that she couldn’t see his face yet. Harley had dropped the scarf in her excitement, sprinting forward toward the garden with heartbreaking rapture on her face.
She stopped short when she came close enough to see him, and Jack’s heart nearly broke right then and there. Her smile slipped away even as he stepped closer to her, and she folded her arms over her chest. He knew then that his perfect evening was going to go downhill. He just refused to believe it for now.
“You…” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “You came.”
“You’re not Mister J.”
Jack stared into her face, shaking his head and daring to reach his hand out to her gloved one.
Harley pulled it back. “Hey, you’re that guy! What’re you tryin’ to pull, huh?” Her bright eyes were sparking with anger now, and Jack hastily took a step backward. “I thought you were really gonna be him--!” Without any more, Harley cut off her own words and turned her back to him.
“Miss…Miss Quinn please,” he started, clearing his throat, feeling suddenly foolish. His music was mocking him, swelling romantically as the girl of his dreams refused to look at him. With nothing else to go on, he jammed a hand into his pocket and pulled the small box out. “Please, I just wanted to…to give you this…”
She turned back around slowly, dipped her eyes down to his hands and over his face, and held out her hand. Inside the red box was a pin, exquisitely-crafted in jet and ruby, a red rose on a black stem. Harley turned it over in her fingers and some of its sparkle made its way into her eyes. “Wow…”
“I got it for you,” He started, encouraged again, but keeping his distance. “It was…well it was in the window at the jewelry store. I… I made it disappear,” he joked, laughing weakly. In reality, he had begged on his knees for the jeweler to let him make payments on the pin, but wouldn’t she like better to think it was stolen?
Harley gave him a little smile, but he could see that the rapturous joy was gone from her face.
“You’re
kidding me.” Jack stumbled over his feet when he jumped at Ivy’s voice, whirling around to see her holding one of his speakers. “You gave her a rose, in a rose garden, while playing
La vie en rose? Are you serious? You can’t be serious.”
“Aw, stop it, Ivy,” Harley giggled a bit.
Ivy shrugged, and walked right up to Jack, her green eyes glittering with a much different flame. “Are you done bothering us or what?”
“Ivy, c’mon,” Harley gave her a pleading look complete with batting lashes. “Look, you can go home, don’t worry about me.”
Ivy shrugged again. “ Fine.” She started back the way she had come, but stopped to give Jack another glare. “You stay the hell out of my garden, punk.”
Jack gulped and watched her walk away. He nearly jumped again when Harley’s hand tapped his cheek, and his head snapped around to look at her, heart swelling to see her smile. “It’s pretty sweet you did all this for me, really…” She bit her lip and took the flower out of his lapel, tossing it over her shoulder and shaking her head.
“But…”
“But I got too much goin’ on,” Harley started, tweaking small details on his suit, and finally heaving a sigh. “Wow, you really do look like him.”
“I…I thought you’d like it…” Jack’s face went red. He should have known better than to remind her of her ex. Why had it seemed like the perfect plan back at home?
“Look, you’re sweet,” She gave him another of those little smiles and he knew that he wouldn’t ever see her as happy as she had been when she thought he was someone else. She didn’t need to finish her sentence; she was letting him down gently, and Jack didn’t want to hear it.
“Will you keep it? At least?” He asked her, plucking the pin from her fingers and daringly fastening it over her collar.
“Well duh, it’s great,” Harley toyed with the pin, and leaned forward to kiss his cheek. Jack stood stock-still, and she gave him one last smile before she started back off into the park.
One long-fingered hand reached up to touch his cheek, and for quite a long time, Jack stood rooted to the spot, long after Harley and Ivy had gone home, and long after his music had stopped. He finally bent down to grab his magic tricks, and slowly started off in the night.
A thought came to him as he walked home, feeling foolish in his purple suit and shuffling his feet.
She noticed me… He stopped walking for a second when it hit him.
She hadn’t just noticed him…she had talked to him. She had accepted the gift (that he’d be saving for at least the next few months to pay for). She’d kissed him!
He let himself smile and let himself into the building. Maybe there was nothing left to do. Maybe it was a dead end, and maybe nothing would ever come of this night. But maybe, just maybe, she’d remember him, and maybe she had liked him, somehow, after all. Jack pulled the suit away from his skin and threw it onto his bed, and touched a hand again to the Jack of Hearts.
Maybe there could still be hope.
