Smile With Me

I wake gasping for air, with Joker’s foot on my chest. He’s untied my hands, but it’s not like I can fight him off. “Hey, Quinnie.”
“Hi.” He kicks at my already aching head, and I really hope that Red Hood is on his way here, really hope the kidnapping was actually part of his plan. I should probably feel betrayed, but I really just want Joker to be dead.
“I’m probably gonna kill you, haha, soonish,” he murmurs, taking my left hand and breaking another finger. I yelp and struggle uselessly. “Remember how you used to cut yourself, ah, for every DAY spent away from me?”
I go still. “Yes…”
“How many cuts, eh, cuts do you think two years are?”
He’s holding a machete and I can’t breathe, curling in on myself best I can, whimpering, “No, please no, please, you’ve done enough, I’m sorry!”
“Not goddamn sorry enough, Quinnie.” He straddles my hips, cackling, and holds my left arm above my head. “Lots of, lots of cuts for Quinnie,” he mutters, and I’m screaming, trying to get away but he’s so much stronger than me and there’s no hero bursting through the door to save me, just the silver gleam of the blade and Joker’s skin on mine, a wet chop and then pain, so much pain worse than anything and I’m screaming, I can hear him laughing, licking at the blood along my arm. There’s a sizzle and worse pain, my throat is raw and I’m going into shock because everything seems very peaceful and Joker’s grinning face is fading fast.

I come to feeling lightheaded and sick. The room reeks of blood because Joker chopped off my fucking hand then, apparently, cauterized it and this has gone too far, I’m clear and levelheaded because really, what else can he do to me.
I’m already ugly, losing a hand (a hand he cut off my goddamned hand I can’t do this I can’t) isn’t so bad. They have great prosthetics from all those advanced alien cultures that are coming to Earth to be superheroes now. I’ll be fine (I’m in so much pain I hate him I hate him I hate Gotham it hurts he’s gonna kill me) and I’ll get through this. That’s when Joker walks in, his sleeves smeared with my blood. He giggles to himself, sits in front of me, warms hands on my knees, face too close. The Joker doesn’t understand personal space.
“Quinnie, Quinnie, pretty little Quinn, do you have, hah, any questions before we begin?” I should be desperate, groping for straws, but there’s something cold and sure inside my chest. Either I die here, or I don’t. I have no control.
“How’d you get your scars?” He hesitates, hands tightening on my knees. His eyes are dark and far away. I wait, curious. When he looks back at me, he’s not smiling. “I don’t know, Quinn. I don’t fuckin’ know.” He laughs softly.
“Oh, I-” Then there’s a gunshot and Joker’s face is gone, just bone and raw flesh and he falls forward, head in my lap and that harsh breathing is mine. Hood stands in the doorway, finger still on the trigger. I can taste Joker’s blood in my mouth. Hood holsters his gun, takes the helmet off. His face is bone white.
“Holy shit, Quinn.” I shove the Joker’s body off my lap and vomit. “Holy shit.”
“He’s dead. Now bring me to a hospital.” My hands…my hand is shaking. He’s dead, he hurt me and I loved him so much, Joker’s dead, his black blood drying on my skin. Hood helps me up, tucking an arm around my waist.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he mutters, leading me out. “I didn’t think he’d hurt you that bad.”
“It’s alright, we got him,” I say, and wow there’s a lot of blood on me and it’s day out but I’m not sure how much time I spent with Joker. People are staring at my stump, clutched against my chest, at Hood, with his helmet back on. We get a wide berth, but I’m sure one of the official Bats will be here soon. I stumble and clutch at the back of Hood’s jacket, fingers slipping on the leather.
“Trinity is a few blocks away, we just have to get there,” he says, almost to himself. I was born at Trinity. If this kills me, it would be fitting to end my life there.
“Hood…Hood…” I murmur, patting loosely at his chest, because I’ve lost a lot of blood.
“Yeah?” he says breathlessly, half dragging me now.
“F’you can’t save me, s’okay. Not your fault.” Joker always told me how every Bat’s so full of guilt, blame themselves for everything. Joker is dead, but I can still hear his voice in the back of my head.
“You’ll be fine, Quinn. He cauterized the wound, you haven’t lost all that much blood.”
“Mm.” We reach the hospital doors and there are people sprinting towards us, but they’re blurring around the edges.
“Whoa there, Quinn, steady,” Hood says, sweeping my legs out from under me, my head lolling against his shoulder, but I’m out.

Wake up to find Hood by my bedside, helmet still on, feet tapping nervously. “Hey.”
“You made it,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice.
“Does everyone know about Joker?”
“Yeah. The Bat’ll be pissed, but he’s wanted Joker dead for a long time. I thought…” He puts his head in his hands, and I reach out with my good hand, the tattooed one, brush his shoulder. “I thought, at the time, that Batman would kill Joker himself. For me.”
I don’t know what to say, there are tears in his voice and I know that Hood will be pissed if I mention them. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugs, straightens up. “The doctors say you’ll be alright. A concussion, bruises, and, uh, the hand.” He goes to rub at his hair, remembers the helmet, and pauses. “There’s some alien shit that I can get for you, it’ll be like those prosthetics from Star Wars.”
I manage a grin. I feel out of it, probably blood loss and stress, but Joker’s dead and that’s important, I need to focus on that. “What’s gonna happen to Joker’s body?”
“I’d leave it to the fucking rats.”
“Hood.”
He sighs. “They’ll cremate, him, probably.”
“I wanna go.”
“Alright, Quinn. What’ll you do after?”
“Should probably get a lot of therapy. Not gonna.” He grins at me, and I feel overwhelmed, like Joker will pop up at any moment, smile as red and wide as ever. “Does the fear ever go away?”
He shakes his head. “Nah. You just keep bottling it up and it changes you, but we can’t fucking tell people, and…” He laughs, but it’s not real. “Oracle wanted to be a therapist for a few years, help fix us all, but I think she realized what a pile of bullshit that was.”
“Jesus.”
“Rest, Quinn. It’ll be alright.”

A week later and Hood smuggles me out of the hospital to watch Joker burn. I’m gonna heal soon enough, add the new nightmares to my old ones, learn how to ignore the phantom limb shit, get a freaky alien hand. Hood says I can stay with him while I get all that figured out.
There’s really no one to watch Joker burn, just me and Batman and a woman wearing a large hood. They give Batman the ashes and he leaves without a word. I’m lost in thought when the woman turns to go. I get a glimpse of blonde hair and pale skin with green tendrils along the jawline before Harley Quinn looks me straight in the face and smiles. I smile back, step aside for her to leave.
“Thanks, hun,” she murmurs as she passes by and I’m alone again, waiting for Hood to pick me up. He promised me pizza.
END