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Chapter Text

His stepdad's casserole was always a hit at housewarming parties. Or that's what he told him. So he held the foil-covered dish to his chest as he waited for the door to open to what had once been August Smith's house. 

With his name cleared and his dad dead, Peacemaker had been responsible for the White Dragon's belongings. Instead of moving into the place, he just rented it out to the Adebayos, who still needed somewhere to live and apparently didn't have many job prospects waiting in Gotham. Evergreen's local humane society was very enthused to have two strong applicants, however.

So the 11th Street Kids had a reunion a few weeks after the cow incident. A three-day weekend so Economos could fly in. And Adrian had been invited! He'd never really gotten to be invited anywhere, so he'd asked his stepdad to teach him how to cook the casserole. It had taken two tries, but he'd managed. 

He knocked and Keeya answered, Emerson in her arms. 

"I was told food is what you bring to these things," he said, stepping inside. "I didn't mean to be late, I almost forgot the casserole when I left and had to go back for it." 

"That's all right. Put it in the kitchen," she said. She smiled at him. 

In the kitchen, Economos and Harcourt were already sitting at a small table among bags of chips and six-packs of beer. "Hey Adrian," Economos said. 

"Hello everyone. My friends who I know from normal things like work," he said, looking unsurely at Keeya. 

Adebayo rolled her eyes. "Dude, she knows who you are." 

"Dammit, I told you not to tell people my secret identity," he said. "I mean, I don't have a --" 

"She's my wife and I'm not keeping secrets from her," she said. "Sit down, we'll warm up the casserole. Where's Chris? Has anyone called him?" He was supposed to be there at 4 and it was already 4:30. 

"I saw him yesterday, he didn't say he was going to be late…" Though Adrian guessed most people didn't know they'd be late the day before. 

Putting the casserole pan in the oven, he cracked a beer and peered out the window. No Chris and Eagly yet. That was making him a little edgy. 

He pulled out his phone and called him. Voicemail. 

"Hey Christopher, it's your BFF… You were supposed to be here at 4, did you forget? You and Eagly party too hard last night?" He hung up and waited a moment, his body vibrating with nerves the way it did sometimes. "I should call again, shouldn't I?" 

"Dude, you just hung up. Give him two minutes to call you back," Economos said. Then he paused. "That was sarcasm, don't literally call him back in two minutes. Wait longer than that." 

Adrian nodded. He had adapted very well to telling Adrian what he meant when he wasn't being obvious to him, and that was why Economos was his third-best friend after Christopher and Eagly. 

"Guys. Why is there an eagle on the porch?" Keeya said, looking out the kitchen window. "Is that Eagly?"

Just like she said, Eagly was standing on the porch, flapping his wings in an agitated way. 

"He seems upset," Adrian said automatically. 

"You can't tell when people are being sarcastic, but you know when a bird is upset?" Harcourt asked. 

"Yes." He turned and walked out the front door, kneeling down next to Eagly on the porch. "Eagly? What's wrong?" He reached into his jacket pocket for the snacks he kept for Eagly. 

The eagle chattered, disinterested in the Dorito, which made Adrian think something was really wrong. "Guys, I think Chris might be in trouble." 

"What? Sarcastic voice. Did Eagly tell you that?" Economos asked.

"He didn't want his Doritos! He's upset! Chris says that being punctual is how you make Jesus love you, he wouldn't blow off his third favorite BFF's party like this --" 

"Second favorite BFF," Adebayo corrected.

Adrian glared. "Ha-ha." 

"But the weirdo is right. Maybe we should go by Chris's trailer and check on him," Adebayo said. "Keeya, can you hold down the fort? It's not that far. I'm sure he just got stuck in the shower again." 

"That was one time," Adrian said. Chris had to turn at a weird angle to get out of the tiny shower in his trailer and had forgotten that once when he was hungover, lodging himself in the door. He hadn't wanted to break his shower so they gently worked him out with some lube and rancid canola oil. 

"Yeah, food will be ready when you get back. Be careful," she said, kissing Leota and holding Emerson up for a kiss too. 

Adrian patted Emerson on the head, trying to covertly sneak him a Dorito. 

"No!" Keeya said. "No chips for the dog, Adrian!"

Defeated, he ate the Dorito himself and walked over to the rental car that Economos and Harcourt had brought. "If Eagly shits in this rental and I lose another deposit --" John said.

Eagly chirped.

He sat in the back with Eagly, since the bird was still a little frosty about Harcourt. He wished he could talk to animals like Aquaman could -- he wouldn't even fuck them, he'd just like to have a conversation. 

They got to Chris's trailer in record time, and it was obvious that something was wrong as soon as they pulled up, two big trucks parked out front that he didn't recognize, but the gun racks and yellow snake bumper stickers painted a picture. 

He reached into the waistband of his pants for the combat knife he kept there and started opening the door. "Ads, Economos, be ready to roll out if we need to make a quick escape." 

Harcourt wasn't at 100% yet. He knew she went to physical therapy twice a week because she'd call Chris after, and even if they were hanging out he'd talk to her for a while. Chris said it was because she was upset that she wasn't making a lot of progress, and she needed to bitch about it. 

He told him not to repeat that last part. 

But she was still the toughest person on the team other than him and Chris, so he waved her on and they crept up to the trailer, just as the front door busted open and Chris stumbled out, bloodied. 

"Get out of here, guys!" he immediately snapped. Then he sank to his knees, and Adrian could see a syringe sticking out of his back as a gaggle of white hoods poured from the trailer. 

He wished he had his suit. He tossed his glasses aside and pulled on his helmet, leaping out of the car with his knife out, immediately jumping onto the nearest Aryan fuck as he heard Emilia fire off a shot. He turned the guy he was digging his knife into in her direction so she could hit him, and she took the shot. He stomped the guy as he went down and lunged for the one trying to tie up Chris, but two more got in his way. 

"Get the fuck out of here," Chris muttered again. 

He could hear Eagly swooping down, but the Aryans seemed ready for him, throwing a net that he had to dodge, sending Eagly onto the roof, making angry noises. 

Adrian thought he had this well in hand until he saw Harcourt go down, a syringe in her back too. A shaved head fuckface raised a gun to him and he felt a cracking pain across his head. Everything faded to black. 

"Adrian, get up!" he could hear Leota pleading, and he blinked, shooting up and grabbing his head in pain. Blurry without his glasses, he could make out that a bullet was lodged in the Kevlar of his mask, sitting next to him. "Adrian, they got away!" 

"What the fuck! How could you let them get away?!" 

"We didn't bring any weapons! How were we supposed to know the Aryans were gonna kidnap Chris?!"

Tears of frustration prickled his eyes and he wiped at them. No feelings. He had this under control. Vigilante didn't lose his shit. "We have to go after them! Do you have my glasses?"

She handed him his glasses. "We have no resources. No leader and no Chris. How are we gonna take down the Aryan Empire?" Adebayo asked, chewing on her thumbnail. "Come on, let's get you to the doctor."

They could hear police sirens in the background. "No, I can't go to the doctor! I have to go get Peacemaker!"

"You blacked out for like a full two minutes, Adrian, we're taking you to the doctor. Just tell them you got mugged," Economos said, lifting him up and dusting him off. "Then we'll figure out what we're doing."

Peacemaker was his BFF and the most important person in the world. Why wouldn't they listen to him? "I want to rip apart those Neo-Nazi pieces of shit! Come on!" 

John put him in the car. "We're going to. If they wanted to kill Chris, they would have. They took him for a reason. We have to figure that out. We can't just chase them down." 

"Let's go back to the house and get weapons from the quantum storage unit then!"

Leota turned back to him, face stern. "After you get looked at!" Adrian relented, scooting over to let Eagly in and buckling up.

They stopped at the house, filling in Keeya on what had happened. 

"So what, you call the Justice League?" Keeya asked as she looked up the nearest urgent care. She had eaten half the casserole on her own waiting for them, but his head hurt too much for him to really process that he'd cooked something edible. "Don't they owe you for being late to the cow thing?"

"I think this is small potatoes for the League," John said. "And maybe too big for us on our own…" He trailed off, furrowing his brows. 

Abedayo nodded to Economos. "Plus my mom is under investigation and royally pissed about it. I don't think an apocalypse would get her to speak to me again."

"You think she'd sic the Aryan Empire on Chris to get revenge?" Keeya offered. 

"No, that's low, even for her." Then she groaned. "Shit, John'll have to go back to work by Tuesday and we'll be extra screwed." 

"I've got sick days I never use," he said as they got back into the car and drove down the block to the Greenwood Urgent Care. "If anyone at Belle Reve asks, I've got bronchitis." 

Adrian's head was hurting more and more. "So do we have a plan!? What are we gonna do to get Peacemaker back?!"

John patted him on the shoulder. "Cool down, I think I have an idea of who to call, but…well, I can't ask them and neither can Ads. We have to do this on the sly," he said. "We're gonna have to fly Spirit, because I don't have shit for money right now." 

"Can you stop being vague? You know I don't know what you're implying."

John explained the plan as plainly as he could, and Adrian must have been really concussed because it sounded like it just might work. 

Chapter Text

"This shade of blue is perfect for your eyes," she said as she finished Rick's pedicure. 

Rick Flag, his attention on Patrick Swayze's hunky face as he danced, glanced down and nodded. "Good shade. Maybe not right for your beach vacation," he said dryly, gamely playing along with the stated purpose of their "BFF-Hang-Out-Time."

Harley grinned. She and Ivy were taking it to the next level: their first vacation together. A weekend at a cabin near the beach. She'd been planning it for ages, and now she was trying to maximize her sexiness. 

"You're right. I think the green we did on your fingers is the way to go," she said, picking up Rick's hand and examining his manicure. She was getting better at nails. Back-up career, maybe? "Oh, here comes the big lift!" Pivoting her attention back to Dirty Dancing , she stood up, gesturing for Rick to follow her.

"I had the time of my life!" she sang as she tried to lift Rick over her head. He was pretty heavy, but she managed for a second. 

Then Bruce growled. 

"Stop trying to enforce gender roles, Brucie!" Harley said, dismissively. 

His attention was on the door. 

"Cass isn't coming home until tomorrow…" she said. Their food had already been delivered and they hadn't ordered more. No one was on the way. "Brucie, get away from the door." 

She saw Rick reaching for the gun he kept taped to the side of her couch and she crept across the room. 

Someone knocked. She reached for her bat and slowly opened the door. 

A guy that was probably her age, with big weird Jeffrey Dahmer glasses, stood there. He blinked at the bat and laughed at the sight of the gun. Then his face fell into a blank expression. "Are you Harley Quinn?" 

"Yeah?" 

He stuck out a hand to shake, robotic and weird. "I'm looking for the Suicide Squad. I need help." 

Rick clicked the hammer of his gun. "Why?" 

"Who are you ?" he asked, haughty. 

"Rick Flag."

The kid blinked several times. "Aren't you dead?"

"That's the official narrative," he said. "So what do you want?" 

The kid paused for slightly too long. Something about the way he acted pinged long-forgotten medical training in Harley's head. She shouldn't try to diagnose the kid before he even spoke, she reminded herself. 

"I…my...BF...has been kidnapped by the Aryan Empire," he said, tilting his head.

Harley looked at Rick, confused. Why would this guy ask for the Suicide Squad's help with a gaggle of Neo-Nazis? Why wasn't he calling the cops? There was more to this than he was letting on. It had to be something. 

She stepped aside to let him in. 

"I like your dog -- oh that is not a dog," he said, stopping short at the sight of Bruce, who cackled as Rick shut the door. "I like your bandana," he said politely to Bruce, offering his hand to sniff.

"That's Bruce." 

"Hi, Bruce. I'm Adrian." Bruce nuzzled his hand briefly before returning to his spot behind Rick and Harley. 

"Okay, Adrian , why don't you give us the whole story? I'm failing to see how this is something you'd bring to Harley Quinn and not the cops," Rick said, getting all Colonel-y like he did sometimes, crossing his arms and leaning against the kitchen table. 

Adrian stood there, arms stiff at his side. "Okay. So, my BF has been abducted by the Aryan Empire because his dad was the White Dragon," he rattled off immediately. "I don't know what they want with him. He's not a racist piece of shit like his dad…but they attacked us and kidnapped him and our other friend." 

He did really seem to care about this person, she thought. He looked so earnest and tortured. A little stunted, but…kinda cute. "Okay, since this involves the lackeys of a retired cape, you think it's out of the police's hands?"

"Well, that and the disproportionately high number of white supremacist or white supremacist sympathizers within the average police force," he said. "Especially where we're from in Washington, now."

"He does have a point," Harley agreed. That was a long way to come for help, though. 

Rick scoffed. "Okay. So…you literally want a former black ops team composed of some of the most dangerous villains in Gotham to travel across the country to help you find your missing boyfriend --"

"-- who's the son of a white trash Nazi Batman wannabe," Harley concluded. 

"Look, I hate wrongdoers of any kind. Thieves, murderers, loiterers. But I don't have many options here." He held up his hands in a show of surrender. "My flight back to Evergreen is tomorrow night." 

Okay, this kid was weird. But they would have to deal with it. 

"Let me get your number. We have to talk to the team," Rick said, holding out his phone to the kid. "It's a secure phone."

Adrian didn't seem surprised by this, putting his number in quickly. "Please, hurry. I can't lose him."

Weird as he was, the small voice he used made Harley's heart break a little. Behind the dumb serial killer glasses was just some kid who needed help. She was a softie, what could she say?

Rick shuffled him out and paused at the door as he shut it. "This is a trap."

"I mean, it could be --"

"It's not a trap," they heard him say from outside the door. 

"Adrian, go away."

"Okay I'll go," he said. 

They watched as his shadow lingered under the door. "We can see you still standing there."

Footsteps finally echoed down the hall. They moved away from the door and turned the volume up on the movie. 

"We need to call the others and figure out what this is ."

"I think he's being honest!" She paused. "Besides, we don't have that many enemies."

"Waller, the Joker, the US government, the Riddler, the Sionis family, Gotham PD, Corto Maltese militants --"

Chapter Text

"Wait, what the fuck dude? Chris isn't your boyfriend!" 

Adrian shrugged. She had long suspected, and this was nearly confirmation, that their little "nutcase" (Chris's word) might have been in love with Chris, despite his assertions that he didn't have any feelings at all, but this might have been a step too far when they were stuck in a life and death scenario. 

Sitting in the crappy Gotham motel room, they were trying to plan their next move based around a weak "maybe" from the people that they thought were going to help them. She had dropped Keeya and the babies off with her sister for their safety. Living in the White Dragon's house didn't feel appropriate when the Aryan Empire was apparently still out to get them. 

Once they were taken care of, they could go back home and rest. 

All of this was so freaking hard, though. She and John had to stay out of sight during this mission. There was a good chance the three of them could keep their distance and just let the actual capes take care of things, but if the Suicide Squad wanted to keep Adrian close, they were prepared to tail them. But they had to get all the way across the country, first. 

God, her life had gotten so fucking weird. Here they were combing the dark web for Aryan Empire bullshit while trying to plan how to successfully lie to Harley effing Quinn. And Rick Flag was alive!?

"I thought they might be more sensitive to my plight if it was romantic. Like, we know that being a BFF transcends almost any relationship but they're degenerates. Maybe they only understand sex." 

John rolled his eyes but didn't seem that put off by Adrian's attempts to improvise. "I mean, I think a sob story about a boyfriend being stolen might actually work better than a friend. Like, if I got kidnapped, people would ask you guys if you were okay and move on. If Keeya got kidnapped everyone would be way more concerned about you."

Harcourt had made her a little paranoid about Keeya's safety during Operation Butterfly, but since things had cooled down she'd felt a lot more confident. "Is Keeya gonna get kidnapped?"

"I mean everyone's wife gets kidnapped at least once," Adrian said with a nod. 

"Oh my God --" Panic bubbled up in her.

"We need to focus on Harcourt and Chris right now," John cut over, sighing. 

Leota frequently felt out of her depth, but this was… Well, she had no other options right now, because no one else would lift a finger to help Peacemaker. Including the people they'd just asked to help Peacemaker. But maybe they'd help the kidnapped boyfriend of a beleaguered busboy. "Did you scrub his connection to the White Dragon from the internet?" 

John tapped his laptop case nervously. "I mean, if they go past the 5th page of Google, they deserve to figure it out, but it's off Wikipedia and Capedia. I doubt their prep for this mission will be extensively googling August Smith. Plus, there are like a million Christopher Smiths in America and even more in England. They won't make the connection."

"You're sure?" 

"They're kind of fucking morons." 

Against her better judgment, she hoped John was right and they were stupid enough to buy Adrian's terrible story but capable enough to hunt down and kill Nazis. 

"So now what?" Adrian asked. 

Leota, now the de facto leader of the 11th Street Kids, crossed her arms and tried to look tough. "We wait to hear back on their decision. If they say they'll do it, we keep an eye on them so when they find Chris we can be there --" 

A thought hit her like a bolt of lightning. 

"What if they just kill him when they find him?!"

"Psh, as if they could," Adrian said, scoffing. 

"Bloodsport and Flag both nearly killed him on their own. The two of them together could absolutely do it. And that's not even factoring in Harley," John pointed out. "Leota's right. It's a real concern." 

Adrian didn't look too concerned. "I'll go with them, then. Me and Peacemaker can definitely take them. We'll just make sure they don't figure it out until the last possible second so we can get out of there before they turn on us. We'll use Harcourt as a meat shield." 

"You are not using Harcourt as a meat shield," she said immediately. "But…what if they don't want some random guy tagging along?" 

"Why not?" 

"Because they'd think you'd slow them down. They can't know you're Vigilante, the jig would be up immediately because they have to know that Vigilante works with Peacemaker. You're just a regular-ass busboy or else the story doesn't work." 

They stood in silence, all of them thinking of plans. None of them said anything, because none of their plans were any good. "So, if he was useful to them on the mission, they'd take him, you think?" John asked. "We could just feed him intelligence as we get it so he can guide them."

"What if we don't get any intelligence?" 

"I don't know. It's worth a shot. They might not even help us. We might be truly fucked," John, ever the optimist, said with a shrug. "Whether they help us or not, we have to find out where Chris is, so we'd better get to work."

"You're right." Leota clapped her hands together. "Let's get to it."

"I'll make coffee, we're gonna be at this for a while." John went into the bathroom, which was bafflingly where the coffee maker was, and she looked over at Adrian, who was apprehensively checking his phone and then looking out the window and then checking his phone again, a strange little rhythm. 

"Ade, are you…" She paused. "I mean, like in love with Chris?" 

"Psh, no. He's my BFF. It isn't like that," he said, and she couldn't help but think she didn't imagine the slight twinge of disappointment in his voice when he said it. 

She fiddled with her sleeve nervously, not wanting to push it. "All right, buddy. If you ever wanna talk about…boys or girls or whatever it is that gets you going, you can talk to me. Even if I'm only your 5th best friend." 

Adrian gave her that smile that indicated he was in on some kind of personal joke that no one else understood. "Ads, there are 7.753 billion people in the world. You know how hard it is to get fifth place?" 

She never thought she'd get a little choked up about being in fifth place. "We'll bring Chris home. I promise."

Chapter Text

" -- Lex Luther, the Penguin, Brainiac, the Joker, Dr. Psycho, Bane, Intergang, the Elite, Dabney Donovan, Microwave Man, Master Jailer, SKULL, Grundy, Ultra-Humanite, Dora Smithy -- " 

Harley scoffed at Robert as he kept listing bad guys who would want to lure them out of Gotham for whatever shitty scheme they were concocting. "Okay, you've both said Joker twice." 

"-- Steve the DoorDash Driver, Eddie from Whole Foods, the manager of the East Gotham Chuck E. Cheese…" 

"I get it, everyone hates us!" Harley shouted, throwing up her hands. "And you're totally forgetting the obvious one." 

"What?" 

" The Aryan Empire ." 

"You think they'd try to lure us into a trap by inviting us to fight them and not just come fight us?" he asked. "None of us have ever crossed them personally, Harls. That one might be a stretch." 

Harley shrugged. "Maybe they want something from us. Nazis do all kinds of weird experiments on people. Didn't you read any WWII history?" she said. "Maybe they want Abner's blood. That seems to be a popular one right now." 

Robert sighed, nodding. People did seem interested in Abner's blood. He didn't know what to make of Rick and Harley's story at all. Rick was right, it gave him a bad feeling. This felt like a set-up. But Harley's perspective was tempting, too. Either it was a set-up, and they figured out who wanted to set them up, or it wasn't a set-up and they helped some nerd and stopped some supervillainous neo-Nazis. 

He looked at Cleo, who was just feeding Sebastian and listening along. 

They kept a low profile now. No supervillain heists, nothing crazy. If Waller called them, they cooperated, but she was in deep shit now, so they didn't really have to deal with her anymore. The revelation that Peacemaker had lived through Corto Maltese was somehow the least shocking thing that they'd seen on the news that night. 

"Something about this is weird. The White Dragon…I Googled him and it says he's dead, but it doesn't say how. And I feel like I know him from something other than being a fucking monster, but I can't remember where." Rick groaned in frustration. "What would his old lackeys want with his son?" 

Harley threw her hands up in frustration. "I told you, Nazis do weird shit to people!" 

"I think we should help him," Cleo finally said. "Harley said he seemed sincere. If he is trying to trick us, we can kill him easily. If it is the Joker trying to lure us out of the city to do something, that's no problem. But if he really needs help and we're the only ones who can, why wouldn't we?" 

"We're not heroes, Cleo," Abner said quietly.

"We can be sometimes," she argued.

"But why would we be the people he goes to? Not the Birds of Prey? Batman? I know bashing Nazis is beneath Superman but…" 

"I mean, the birdies and the bat stick to Gotham and this is an out-of-town issue. Maybe he just likes our style," Harley said. "I'm with Ratatouille, we do it. We gotta be back by Monday so me and Ivy don't lose the deposit on our vacation rental." 

Rick and Robert locked eyes and Rick jerked his head towards the back door. He got up and they both walked away from their teammates. He was loyal to his team. He cared about his team, but it was hard to argue with them when they got set on something that was blatantly wrong.

Rick put a hand on his shoulder. "What are you thinking?" 

He took a deep breath. "There has to be a catch. Some nice boy from a small town on the other side of the fucking country doesn't just look Harley Quinn up in the yellow pages and show up begging for help."

"Cleo might be right, then. Don't we wanna get ahead of anyone trying to fuck us over instead of waiting for them to spring it on us?" 

"...Knowing you're walking into a trap doesn't make it any less of a trap, Flag. Did you even get this kid's last name?" 

Rick looked a little chastened and Robert knew immediately that he hadn't even bothered to ask. "Adrian something." 

"So we can't even run a background check on him." 

"We can do that when we agree to help him." 

Robert knew there was no talking Rick Flag out of anything, especially not when he and Harley were in agreement. It was hopeless. He still had a bad feeling about the whole thing. "Fine. But the second we smell a rat --" He paused, almost feeling Sebastian's sad eyes on him even through the door. "The second it looks like a trap , I'm out." 

Rick nodded at him. They understood each other. It didn't need more words than that. 

They walked back inside, both ignoring that Harley was making aggressive kissy sounds in their direction. "We're going to do it. We're going to figure out what the play is."

Chapter Text

He woke up tied to a chair. In his mind, he wasn't himself for a split second. He was some poor guy begging for his life while the 9-year-old Chris cried. 

"Chris," a familiar voice said, disrupting his terror.

He blinked the hallucination away and saw Emilia strapped down too, looking out of breath. "Shit, are you okay, Ems?" 

"Don't call me Ems." 

Same old Ems. 

"Where the fuck are we?" he asked, half to himself. He knew that back when his stupid fucking father was the White Dragon he'd had followers and they'd done all kinds of weird shit, hence the quantum storage area, but this was a new level. 

"I don't know. Underground, maybe? I kinda woke up going down some stairs. Are you hurt?" Why did she give a shit about him? She'd been kidnapped, too.

"No, no. I'm…" He paused. "Okay. I'm okay. Why the hell did you guys show up?"

"Eagly came to find us. He was upset," she said. "I can't fucking move. What is going on? Why didn't you call for backup when they attacked?" 

He frowned. "I didn't want you guys to show up. Didn't want anyone to get hurt. Figured I could handle it…" Vij had gotten shot. A jolt passed through him. "Did you see Vij go down?"

She paled, nodding. "I - he'll be okay. Right? Little fucker's unkillable. His suit took a direct grenade blast and he walked it --"

But he hadn't had his suit, just his mask. 

"Not many that can live through a bullet to the brain," someone sneered as the door opened. "Don't worry, your little sidekick didn't feel a thing."

Chris tried to strain. He wanted to rip this chair apart and go after that fucker. Vij… Shit. He had to be lying. Adrian was fine , right?

His body didn't move. "It's a powerful paralytic. From the neck down you ain't moving unless I want you too."

"I only need my mouth to take you --" He stopped himself short, realizing how that sounded. "I don't even need my hands to take you out," he corrected. 

He was untied from his chair and fell to the floor like an overcooked noodle. Two more Nazi fucks came in and dragged him out, struggling with his dead weight. 

Emilia looked on quietly, just as helpless as he was and hating every second of it. 

"Do whatever you want with me," he said. "Don't hurt my friend. She doesn't have anything to do with my dad. Let her go home. She wasn't even there, it was all --"

"God, you sound like such a pussy. The White Dragon was right about you. We aren't gonna hurt your little friend. You're gonna help us bring back the White Dragon. And she's...well, a good Aryan-looking girl. Could make clones of her or something."

"Jokes on you, I don't think she's even a natural blonde," he lied. If they found out Harcourt's mom was Jewish, a thing he only knew because of the impending holidays, they'd freak . She'd be in even more trouble. "And you can't bring people back from the dead." 

A man stepped out onto a staircase above the operating table he'd been thrown onto. He had a mustache and a pinchy look in his eyes. "You have no idea what we're capable of, Peacemaker. With your DNA as a blueprint, nothing's out of reach," he said. "Not even restoring the rightful White Dragon." 

He squinted. "Aren't you that guy who sells shitty pillows on TV?"

"Take the samples," the guy said to his lackeys, ignoring the jab. "I had hoped that my men would try to bring you in willingly. They clearly bypassed that step. I didn't want to have to hurt your team. So messy. Consider agreeing to help us with our project and nothing will happen to the girl."

What was he supposed to do? 

The guy waved to his lackeys when he didn't get a response from Chris. "Make sure to keep their doses up so they don't escape. Eyes on them at all times. This process won't be easy, we cannot be interrupted."

The men around him 'hailed' as he left and then one jammed a syringe into his arm, taking a vial of blood. 

As he stared up at the ceiling, his father's grinning face smiled down at him. 

Chapter Text

"We're going to help you," Rick said to him as Adrian sat in the safehouse room, looking around at the gathered members of the team. "But if you lie to us or set us up, we'll kill you." 

He didn't look afraid. He mostly looked amused. "Okay, that's fair." 

"So we're heading to Evergreen. When we find something, we'll call you." 

"Maybe we should go together," he offered suddenly. "I know a little bit about the Aryans. I think I have some leads," he said. "I know I don't look like much, but I won't be a liability. I'll stay out of the way. But you'd be going in blind without me." 

Something about it sounded rehearsed, but Harley chalked that up to the autism. Not that she was diagnosing the kid, it was just an opinion of a non-practicing but still licensed medical professional. 

"Yeah, so we can have another Milton situation on our hands," Robert muttered darkly. 

Adrian regarded him, confused. "Was that sarcasm? I'm bad at it." 

"A little bit sarcastic, yeah," he said, scoffing. "Okay, fine. We're flying privately."

"You have a plane ?" Adrian asked, amazed. "I thought you guys were just some knuckledicks!"

"We don't have a plane, we have friends who owe us favors," Harley said with a grin. She ruffled his hair as she walked by and he squirmed slightly from her hand. "I hope your ticket is refundable."

He nodded, pulling out his phone and typing something up. "Non-refundable, but that's alright. It'll be worth it."

The Bertinelli private plane was in the air within two hours, all of them strapped in for a long flight to Washington. An easily bribed air traffic controller meant the flight and landing should've been uneventful.

Which was just a tragedy in her opinion. She definitely wanted to fight on a plane at some point. It'd probably be badass. Like a Fast & Furious movie. 

"So, what is it you think you know about the Aryan Empire?" Robert asked. 

It was strange, to Harley. People thought she didn't pay attention, but it seemed like Adrian really hated Robert despite not knowing him very well. He gave him ugly looks when he thought no one else was looking. 

Adrian chewed on his lip. "Well, the cell that was based out of Evergreen got wiped out a few weeks ago. So, even though they came to Evergreen where we live, they're not from there," he said. "I did some digging while I was waiting for you. I think they're from Naples. I looked online and some reporter who follows their activities says that's the nearest stronghold. It's like a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Evergreen. Not far." 

By west coast standards, maybe. A 2-hour drive sounded like hell to Harley, who didn't go anywhere that wasn't a 10-minute subway ride away. 

"Naples, Idaho?" Rick asked. 

"You know it?" Robert asked. They were both using their "team leader" voice as they discussed everything. 

"You ever heard of Ruby Ridge? A bunch of US Marshals besieged this guy's house and killed his wife and son trying to serve some fucking warrant," Rick said. "Bunch of dipshits." 

"So --" 

"Anti-government right-wing fucknuts might choose it as a symbolic location to hide their shady bullshit, yeah," Rick agreed. 

Harley had never paid attention in high school history and she doubted they'd teach this even if she had. "Why do you know so much about Idaho?"

"I'm… from Idaho…" he said. "Didn't you know that?" 

"Psh, Idaho isn't real," she joked, pulling a soda out from under the seat. "So we go to Evergreen, snoop for clues then make a drive to Idaho and bash some Nazis?" 

"Sounds like a plan," Adrian interjected enthusiastically. 

They didn't know what to make of his enthusiasm. It was weird when normal people thought they could keep up with them, even for Harley.

After the pause faded, she looked at Cleo, who was staring out the plane window dejectedly. "I wish Nanaue could've come," she said. "I know it's far from water, but…" 

"Eating all those Nazis would've given him a stomach ache," Harley said, patting her on the back gently. They couldn't always bring their shark friend, especially on short-notice missions. He was living in the bay and could be hard to track down. He would've been useful, though. 

Adrian was watching them with a somewhat apprehensive look on his face. She was trying to read him, but he was hard. He laughed too loudly and made strange comments but was overwise calm and flat.

"So this boyfriend of yours," she asked, leaning in. "What's he like?" 

"Oh, he's the coolest," he gushed. "P -- Chris. He's great. The strongest, toughest guy. He was friends with my brother in high school and when he came back to town after he got out of the military, we got really close. I don't know what I'd do without him."

Harley grinned. The guys were suspicious of this kid, but he was either the best actor in the world or he was totally in love. 

"We do like, everything together. Shoot up old appliances, hang with Eagly, bang chicks --" he stopped. "But only together, since we're a couple." 

"Ain't no one here ever shamed anyone for the occasional threesome, kid," she said, cackling as Abner went red in the face a seat over. "But what's an Eagly?" 

"Chris's pet…" He trailed off. "Dog."

"A dog named Eagly. Huh." 

And that was somehow the least weird thing about this whole thing. As conversation tapered off, Harley pulled the pink eye mask over her eyes and tried to get some sleep. 

Chapter Text

"Okay, so we're in Evergreen," he said, hiding in the men's restroom of the airport they'd landed at. Flying on a private jet was nice, but he still hated peeing when he thought people could hear him. 

Adebayo made a noise, like 'uh-huh'. "They're going to head to Naples soon?" 

"Yeah. First thing in the morning. Tonight we're looking for clues in the trailer park and then get some sleep." 

"Shit. Are there any pictures of Chris in the trailer?" 

"I mean, some pictures of him and his brother as kids…not like, selfies or anything. I don't think he has any pictures of himself as an adult other than the pics on his phone with Eagly." He paused. "Should we take some pictures for Chris? Like, maybe he wants pictures of his BFFs --"

"Focus, Adrian. How are they?" 

"I mean, they're okay. For a bunch of supervillains."

"You know, they saved a whole city over the summer. You could cut them some slack. A lot of people called Chris a villain, too," Leota said over the phone. He could hear the spoon scraping against the edge of her yogurt cup. 

Maybe she was right, maybe they were like Peacemaker. They were trying to do the right thing, but people didn't understand. He wasn't sure though. They kind of just seemed like a bunch of knuckledicks who were out for themselves. 

Plus, they were all kind of fucking crazy, and that was coming from him. 

"Adrian, are you pooping?" Harley called through the door. 

"Yes, give me a second!" he lied. "Sorry Ads. I'm going to keep them on track and away from you guys, but I'll let you know when we hit the road so you can follow us. Gotta go." 

"Bye Adrian," she said as he hung up the phone and walked out of the bathroom.

"You gotta rent us a car," DuBois said. 

DuBois filled him with a specific kind of rage. He had seen the scar on Peacemaker's neck where Bloodsport had shot him. He knew what he was capable of, but being so close to the man who'd nearly killed his BF… His BFF… got thoughts rattling around in his head. Bad thoughts.

He wasn't scared of Bloodsport or Rick Flag, no matter how capable they supposedly were. He and Peacemaker could take them all down. The only reason Peacemaker didn't before was because he hadn't had his backup, and they'd probably fought dirty. But Adrian wasn't afraid of any of them.

Polka Dot Man was jumpy and quiet, making snarky comments under his breath and little else. The Ratcatcher was sweet, her rat pet making cute noises and being unobtrusive. Neither of them could handle a fight with him, he was sure. 

Harley Quinn made him nervous. She was unpredictable. He liked predictability. He liked things that were clear. She was erratic and manic and he knew she was dangerous, too. But she was also really nice to him. Nicer than even Chris was, sometimes. He didn't know what to make of any of it.

He wanted to go back to the 11th Street Kids where things were easy. Where they knew to tell him when they were kidding or being sarcastic without him asking, and they didn't look at him like he was a total freak anymore. 

"Just wait here and I'll get a car," he told them, entering the car rental place. DuBois followed close behind him, leaning over the counter and watching him fill out the paperwork for the minivan he'd ordered as they'd landed. "I don't need supervision," he muttered, but didn't really do anything to stop DuBois from watching him. 

It wasn't like he was going to abandon them at the airport. 

They walked out without issue, a champagne-colored minivan awaiting them. "It's in my name, I have to drive. If it gets dented because of you guys, my insurance will go up," he said when Robert reached for the keys. "I'll be the getaway guy!" he added brightly. 

"For fuck's…fine. Let's go to your boyfriend's house, then," he said with a grumble.

"Dairy Queen!" Harley crowed as they loaded into the van.

"No!" Rick scolded.

"Please?" Cleo chimed in. 

"I'm starving," Abner agreed. 

Rick sighed. "Fine. Can we stop for food on the way?" 

Adrian's stomach rumbled in response. "Sure."

It was hard to get everyone's orders in through the drive-thru, with a wad of crumpled bills passed through the window and six Blizzards returned. They scarfed their food as they drove over to the trailer park. 

"What the fuck is this fucking trailer?" DuBois muttered under his breath. 

"It's fucking awesome , is what it is," Adrian argued, drumming against the steering wheel. "I'll eat while you guys look around. I can come inside if you need --" 

"Nah, we'll be fine," he said dismissively. 

Adrian ate his fries and watched as they poked around the trailer. Eagly was with Economos and Leota, so there wasn't too much of a chance of them getting startled by anything. 

They returned a few minutes later empty-handed. "No clues there. Let's get some sleep and head out to the Aryans in the morning, then." 

On the way to one of Evergreen's two hotels (the cheaper one), he realized the van needed gas. And he needed a snack. He pulled off to the convenience store and stepped out. Cleo stepped out with him. 

"I can go by myself," he said, wanting a moment alone to text Leota about their progress. 

"I need to pee," Cleo said, scowling at him. She looked sleepy and jetlagged, but he thought maybe she just always looked like that. They walked into the store together and he focused on combing through the snack aisles as she crept off to the bathroom in the back of the store. 

He got halfway to the front with his Cheetos and a Big Gulp when he saw the masked man at the front of the store, waving around a gun and barking orders at a crying cashier. 

He didn't even think. "Hey! Pissant!" 

The would-be robber turned to him. "What the fuck do you want?" 

"You'd better run, bitch." Then he lunged at the guy, who scrambled out of his way nearly dropping his gun. He dropped his snacks as he rushed after him, tackling him just outside the store doors. 

The guy kicked him in the nuts and he rolled off, groaning, but he was back up quick. He'd spent too many years training (and getting hit in the nuts by bullies) to be slowed down by that, so he sprinted after him, taking his legs out from under him and climbing on top of him, punching him in the face until there was a bloody mess staring up at him. 

He tried to reach for the gun as it skittered to a stop…right at Cleo's feet as she looked down at him, incredulous. 

"Adrian!" someone shouted, and he looked up to see the Suicide Squad staring at him, hanging out of the van. 

"What the fuck, kid?" Harley gaped.

"I…was really into the Karate Kid when I was young," he lied, poorly, absolutely convinced the jig was up. 

But they rode to the hotel in silence, and none of them even asked. Somehow, that made it worse, anxiety eating away at him.

Chapter Text

"I don't trust the kid," he said for the millionth time, lying down on the scratchy hotel bed next to Rick, who was half asleep on his side of the bed. He was thinking about the way Adrian's shirt had ridden up and his back and side had been littered with scars, including a barely healed and incredibly distinct bullet wound on his side. 

Rick regarded him with a look that could only be described as fond but wearily annoyed. "You don't trust anybody." 

"I trust you ," he said. Then he paused, trying to find a way to walk back that moment of vulnerability. "And Cleo." 

Cleo was on the second bed in the hotel room, out cold. Abner and Harley were on "Adrian watch" in the second room. "Come on. Did you see how he took that down goon? He probably would've killed him." 

"The guy did try to shoot a convenience store clerk," Rick said, sleepily opening his eyes to look at Robert. "Obviously, something is up, but this guy seems a few eggs short of a dozen. I don't think he's a mastermind. If there's something going on, he's just a pawn. We can use that to our advantage if we don't tear him apart for being a little weird." 

"I got his name from the car rental agreement. I sent it to Montoya for a trace," he said. "She said it'd take a few hours." He looked at his phone as if it might miraculously appear as he said it. It didn't. "Let's see what you have here, Adrian Chase," he muttered. 

Facebook provided a public page that indicated that Adrian Chase was in his early 30s, liked Dungeons and Dragons and worked at a restaurant called Fennel Fields. Twitter showed that he had some strong opinions about "badass" cars and guns, a tough workout routine and… 12 followers. 

Nothing that seemed Aryan. Nothing that seemed particularly villainous at all. Half his Twitter feed seemed dedicated to verbally dressing down racist pundits, in fact. 

He searched to see if anyone had tweeted about him by name before. 

Nothing caught his eye, other than a few coworkers talking shit on their timelines until he scrolled down…

He read the tweet aloud to Rick. "Evergreen High Grads 2008, weigh-in, is our resident psycho cape Vigilante actually Adrian 'Thimble' Chase?"

It included a picture of Vigilante next to a picture of Adrian, plus an extra picture of what Adrian must've looked like in middle or high school, pimply and frizzy-haired, with the same huge glasses, struggling against a guy who must have been his brother digging his knuckles into his head while his hulking buddy laughed.

Something was familiar about the friend, but he wrote it off. "Someone on Twitter thinks this kid is Vigilante." 

He was nearly asleep, grumbling in irritation. "We're vigilantes, too, Robert." 

"No, the actual guy Vigilante . Peacemaker's fucking sidekick." 

Rick looked at the tweet and scoffed. "That's one tweet. No one in the comments even agrees with this person. This tweet says 'Angela, are you serious? He'd cry if they didn't serve chicken nuggets on a specific day of the week' and yeah there's a picture of him crying. Wow, I thought they meant in elementary school, he's like 18 in this picture." 

That did make Robert feel a little less anxious, but not much. "He had a bullet wound in his back." 

"It's Hicksville out here, could be a hunting accident." 

Robert grumbled and eventually let jetlag and sleep overtake him, but as his brain shut down for the night, he had an idea. 

"Drive us to this address," he said to Adrian, who wouldn't relinquish control of driving the van. 

Adrian looked at the address and a flicker of recognition flashed. "Why do you want to go here?" he asked a nervous trill to his voice. "We can't just bust into someone's house."

Robert raised an eyebrow. "Public property records show that the house is registered to August Smith. He's dead. So I don't think anyone's home." 

"Right. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure if anyone has moved in yet or not. Chris was gonna rent it but we had to…clean all the Swastikas…took a couple weeks…should be fine…" 

Robert raised an eyebrow at Rick. "Good. So let's go."

Adrian drove very slowly across the tiny town of Evergreen towards the run-down suburb where August Smith's last known address was. A flagpole with no flag decorated the yard. There was a rental car in the driveway and a dog toy on the steps. 

Someone lived here. 

Adrian stumbled out first. "Just wait here," he said, pulling out his phone. He couldn't hear what Adrian was saying, but he looked nervous as he talked on the phone, pacing across the walkway. They watched him as he ran his free hand through his hair.

"Why are you torturing him? The White Dragon probably terrifies him!" Cleo scolded Robert, fiercely. "Taking him to the home of his boyfriend's abusive father?! How would you feel if the people you asked for help did that to you?"

It stung a little when she put it like that. "He's lying to us Cleo. This is how we get the truth." Before she could retort, his phone rang. "Montoya, go ahead." 

"DuBois, your instincts are as sharp as you are handsome," she said, which was high praise from her. "Nothing stands out immediately…until you get ahold of the medical records and find out that Adrian Chase left the hospital without being discharged after apparently being shot in the back six weeks ago," she said. "Not even a speeding ticket on this guy otherwise. Which makes it extra weird. But it's the timing that's important. Think about it."

"Six weeks ago?" A pause. "He left the hospital the same day that the Butterfly Papers went public." 

"Bingo." 

"Thanks, Montoya." He hung up and grabbed his shooter. 

When he looked back toward the walkway, the kid was oddly still, his back to the van. It was like he was waiting for something. Robert didn't take too much time to wonder, just walked up and pointed the gun at the back of his head. 

He dropped his phone in the grass, holding his hands up to the side of his head in a slow, practiced way. "DuBois, don't make me make you regret this." 

"...What?" 

"DuBois, what the fuck?" Rick demanded, stepping out behind him. 

"I was right. He's Vigilante . He's working with Peacemaker. This is a fucking trap." He clicked the gun as Adrian turned around slowly. "He got shot six weeks ago and disappeared from the hospital. Conveniently when the Butterfly Papers were published." 

Adrian grimaced, an exaggerated gesture that bared all of his teeth. "It's not what you think." 

"Well, that's a relief. I thought you hated Robert because you were a racist," Harley said with a cackle. "But it's just because of your shitty boss!"

"He's not my boss , he's my B-F--" 

"Give me one good reason to not put a bullet in your head right now, you little freak. Are you luring us into a trap?" Robert demanded. "What's the plan? Peacemaker's taking control of the Aryan Empire?" 

"I told you, it's not what you think!" he repeated. "Come inside and we'll explain everything." Then he stopped. "Or I can kill all of you while the neighbors watch." 

There was no menace in his voice and something about how chipperly he said it made Robert's skin crawl. 

The door opened and a young black woman leaned out. He recognized her from the TV. Waller's daughter. "Get your ass inside!" she demanded. "John, get some chips. We've got company." 

Chapter Text

Leota was terrified of the people assembled in her living room, no matter how hard she tried to project confidence. 

Bloodsport. Harley Quinn. Rick Flag. Polka Dot Man. Ratcatcher II. She had heard stories. She'd seen the footage. 

And she couldn't believe that Flag had lived . And Polka Dot Man too. Her mom was a better liar than she'd ever realized.

"Okay, so…you got us," she said awkwardly, wringing her hands. "We were trying to trick you, but not for the reasons you think." She wished Keeya was here. Keeya made her feel centered. Shit, she'd feel even better if Emilia was here to have her back. Emilia knew how to wrangle these costumed fucks, and Flag liked her, she thought. 

"You have ten seconds to explain why we shouldn't leave you and your little attack dog as splatters on the carpet," Bloodsport said, gesturing in between her and Vigilante. 

She gulped. "Wow, okay. Right. Riiiiight . You are intense . So, we did kind of halfway fib." 

"You sent a known, dangerous vigilante across the country to beg for our help with some made-up story about a kidnapped lover," Rick said. "That's not a halfway fib, Waller. Why did you want us out of Gotham? What are you planning? What's Peacemaker's game here?"

"My name is Leota Adebayo , thank you very much," she said, aggressively pointing to her wedding ring, irritation overtaking fear. "And the only thing we lied about was who the person kidnapped was. The rest of it was all true. It's nothing like what you're thinking." 

"So Peacemaker isn't taking up his dad's mantle in the Aryan Empire and trying to wipe us out?" Harley asked, skeptical.

"No, God no. Look, you have every right to not like Chris but he's not a white nationalist."

"And we are actually deeply in love," Adrian piped up. Leota glared at him. Dammit , dude. 

John walked out of the kitchen with a pot of coffee. "Coffee, anyone? Cleo, I know you need it," he said, passing a cup to Ratcatcher, who took it happily, though she looked abashed when Bloodsport glared at her.

"Economos, you're in on this?" Flag demanded, dismayed. 

"Yeah… Chris is my friend. I know that sounds insanely fucking weird, but he's not a bad… well, he's trying to be a better guy, and I like him, somehow. That's why we're trying to get him and Harcourt back." 

Bloodsport was not having it. "You're going to try and convince me that Peacemaker betrayed Waller, made friends, is gay and deserves our help?" 

"The last part, at least," Leota said. "He's…doing his best." They hadn't immediately slaughtered them and then left, so she thought maybe she had a chance to actually get them on their side if she played this right. "But it doesn't really matter what you think about Peacemaker. This whole situation is worse than that." 

They all exchanged a look. "How could it be worse than helping the guy who almost killed Flag and tried to murder Cleo?" Abner demanded. 

"Well, we think we know what the Aryans are up to, and it's really fucked up. Like, fucked up even by Nazi standards," Economos said. They all looked at him as he sat down and opened up his laptop, grimacing. "They're trying to bring the White Dragon back to life." He turned the screen towards them and Rick gave it a look over. 

Harley cackled. "So you want us to kill a bunch of Nazi necromancers?! That sounds badass ! I'm in!" 

DuBois and Flag exchanged a look. "That does sound like a Take Force X issue."

They put their heads together and murmured for a second before splitting up. 

Rick addressed them. "We're not going to do this for Peacemaker. We owe Harcourt and Ecnonomos for their help in Corto Maltese, and no fucking way are we letting a bunch of Nazis unleash an undead supervillain on the west coast." 

Leota high-fived John. "Thank you! Thank you! We have to get going, I don't think we have much time left." They all sort of fanned out to get ready to leave. She was so glad she didn't have to try to be sneaky anymore. Following them all the way to Idaho would've been a total pain in the ass. 

Adrian looked a little put off as he opened up the Quantum Storage Unit. "I blew it." 

Putting a hand on his arm, Leota shook her head. "I'm serious, no sarcasm, you did a great job. You got them out here and we had enough information to keep them from leaving. That's all we could ask for, right? Even if they found out the lie, we're still gonna do what we gotta do."

The unit opened. They had thrown out all of Auggie Smith's less savory inventions and regalia, but there were plenty of guns and ammo and weapons to choose from. Stepping inside, she looked over to them. "I know you guys are pretty well-armed, but we have more if you need it. There are a decent amount of these fuckers to mow through." 

They walked inside, amazed by the whole space. "This is the White Dragon's supervillain lair?" Rick asked. "What Waller wouldn't have given to have this intel 15 years ago." 

She smirked, satisfied. "Well, now it's my headquarters," Leota said, trying to sound tough and proud. "We don't work with ARGUS anymore, so this is where we get our resources. This dipshit was buying all his guns off some dude on Twitter," she said, affectionately shoving Adrian's shoulder. He rubbed the back of his head, sheepish. 

"Let's go to fucking Idaho, then," DuBois said.

"Ah! No! Get away!" they heard Ratcatcher II yelp from the other room. Robert was out the door in a heartbeat. 

Oh no. 

Leota rushed behind him. "Eagly!" she called. 

"Eagly!" Adrian echoed. 

Eagly was standing on the dining room table, looking expectantly at the rat in Cleo's arms. 

"No, Eagly. That's not food!" Adrian said, standing between Cleo and Eagly, holding a hand out to where Robert had his gun pointed right at the eagle. "He's friendly, he's just not used to other pets!"

"Peacemaker has a pet eagle, yeah, that tracks," Rick Flag muttered as Harley handed him a duffle bag that she'd filled with weapons. 

"Why are you feeding him chips?!" Abner exclaimed as Adrian handed Eagly some Doritos, distracting him from Ratcatcher, who immediately slipped away to hide behind Bloodsport.

Chapter Text

Every time he opened his eyes they were there. His dad. Flag. Even Vigilante, now. 

Fuck. 

Emilia had picked up on it, he thought. Despite it being against her nature, she had spent a lot of time talking. Normally he was the one who never shut up and she just endured it. She was trying to keep his head in the game. "Hey. Hey, Chris." 

"Yeah?" His voice was slurred and his muscles ached from the repeated paralytic agents. 

"I know you're worried about Adrian," she said.

"He's probably dead because of me," he said, morosely. That annoying, pain-in-the-ass motherfucker had gone and gotten himself shot in the face trying to help his worthless ass. 

She looked like she wanted to kick him. "You don't know that. You don't think these white trash fuckfaces would tell you anything they thought would break you down?" she demanded. "We're gonna get out of here. They're starting to slack on their stupid drugs. They'll slip up and we'll get the fuck loose --" 

He wanted to believe her, but his father was whispering in his ear. "Your only legacy is gonna be me, boy. No one will ever think of you as anything other than my son ." 

"Chris." 

Looking at her, he felt even shittier. She had a bruise covering half her face, her hair limp and dirty. "This is my fault -- I'll just tell them I'll do whatever they want me to so they'll let you go. Just forget about me and get out of here." 

"Calm down," she said. "I know you're worried about us, but we have to stick together. I'm the leader, right? I'm not leaving you behind." 

"I'm not worried , I just know that --" he started to snap out, shutting up when she glared at him. 

"You should tell me about Adrian," she said. "You've known him a long time, right?" 

"What?" He paused, trying to collect his thoughts. He could see the shape of Vigilante looming behind Emilia. "Oh. Right. Yeah. I met his brother in high school, so I've basically known him since he was like…tiny. He's always been such an annoying fucker. He used to be so scrawny. Easy to beat up on." Gut had been a classic jock, more than Chris, who had never been allowed to play sports because teamwork was for pussies and there were too many minorities on the teams. ( "You'd have just embarrassed me, being worse at football than a --" his father's ghost disrupted his thoughts before Emilia spoke up again.) 

"You were neighbors?" 

"Uh, no. I grew up in the trailer park. They had a house kinda nearby. Hung out there a lot to get away from… Yeah." They'd all grown up on the shitty side of Evergreen, not that they had known it at the time. The sneers about being trailer trash had never bothered Chris when Keith was alive. After he was gone, maybe it hurt more, but it wasn't much longer before he was big enough that no one fucked with him, whether he was trailer trash or not.

"Where's Gut now?" 

"I think he's the big boss in some construction company. I'd have to ask Adri --" Shit. "I lost touch when I went into the military. And then. Prison." 

She was sympathetic. "Yeah, my job doesn't really let me have friends, either." 

" I'm your friend," he said immediately. "Which is why…" He looked over his shoulder. "Hey, tell the MyPillow guy that I'm gonna take his deal. I'll cooperate. I…" Sighed, he tried not to look at Emilia. "I want my dad back. Just let her go."

The guy laughed a high, reedy laugh before leaving the room, flicking his cigarette onto the ground as he went. 

"Chris, you don't have to." 

"Yes, I do." He didn't know if Adrian was okay, he didn't know if John or Ads could find them, he had to at least know he could get Emilia out of here. She'd have done the same for any of them. It was what leaders did. Three guards came back, one brandishing two needles. He injected them both. 

"Oh, that feels nasty! What the fuck is that? Is that how you treat people cooperating with you?" he demanded, the rippling contraction of his muscles almost nauseating him. 

Nazi Trash sneered. "It counteracted the paralytic, but the boss still wants you manacled. You understand." 

Chris cooperated, letting them untie his wrists and ankles and slam cuffs over him again. "What about her?" 

"She's going to be escorted off the premise," the lead Nazi, an unpleasantly skinny man with no hair and too many tattoos, said, jerking his head at the guards. 

"I want proof that you let her go and don't just kill her as soon as I leave the room, you wizard fuck," he demanded.

"I'm not -- " The wizard sighed. "You'll have your proof as long as you cooperate and come with me." 

He didn't turn to acknowledge the disappointment on Emilia's face as he left the room in the gaggle of Nazis. He'd always hated his father's friends. Well, he guessed they were more like minions than friends. Even now they were trying to do his bidding as if they didn't understand that his bidding was just being a fucking dick to people who didn't deserve it. 

The room they took him to was a control room, full of screens flashing between different parts of this compound. 

"So kind of you to decide to cooperate," Mustache Wizard said, looking at his screens. "Let me show you what we're working on."

His gaze lingered on a camera that must have been pointed at the front door. He saw them shove Emilia out of the door and slam it behind her. 

She flipped off the camera and disappeared down the dirt path. 

She was alive. She was out. Now he could do whatever he had to do. She could go get help. Had they given her back her phone? God, he should have put that in his demands. Why was he so fucking stupid? 

The Nazis led him from the control room to a sunken pit of a room. On the table in the center, he saw with a sickening shock, was his father, just as he'd left him on the side of that Evergreen street, with his head blown out.

He was connected to whirring machines and tubes of blood, a faint coating of a greenish-white powder coloring him in ghoulish shades. 

"An old ritual. An ancient thing. Will God judge us? It's possible. But we can restore the Dragon, so I pray he forgives. With you by his side, he'll rise to his former glory and purify this broken nation."

Chris sighed. "Whatever you need."

Chapter Text

"Isn't it so nice we can be honest with each other?" she declared, draping herself over Rick's lap, looking over at Adrian who was animatedly chatting at Abner, whose face was growing more and more horrified with every second. 

Rick sighed. "Yeah…this whole thing is…" He grumbled, hiding his face in her shoulder. "Fucking stupid. We're gonna get ourselves killed for Peacemaker ?"

Harley knew he was upset. She put a hand where she knew the nasty, knotted scar marred his chest. "Look, we can kill him ourselves if you want."

"No, you can't!" Adrian blurted. 

"Stop eavesdropping!" she snapped back, sticking out her tongue. He returned the gesture, flipping her off. 

"Adrian, if they wanna kill Chris they can," Adebayo said, half-asleep and probably only kidding. 

Robert scoffed and halfway glared at Harley. She figured his own toxic masculinity prevented him from sitting on Rick's lap himself and he was jealous. "What's our plan? Gun's blazing?"

"The compound is in a weird spot. Kinda like it's in a bowl made by several hills. We could snipe the guards and take them by surprise," Adrian said, rolling out the blueprints that Economos had dug up for them. "It'd be pretty easy from the entryway."

"Watchtowers on four corners. Probably always attended to," Robert disputed. "We should draw their attention to one corner. Funnel them in." 

Cleo sighed. "We could really use Nanaue. He's great at making a scene." She had a point. He was the worst person to go to Olive Garden with, but the best for melee missions. 

"I'll create a diversion," Abner volunteered. "I'll do the east corner. They'll come to investigate and we can pick them off." 

"Oh, the polka dots you throw?" Adrian asked, interestedly.

"We don't like to call unnecessary attention to Abner's condition," Harley piped up. "Because of the trauma."

"Oh yeah, like how we can't talk about Peacemaker's brother," he said easily.

"Dude, don't tell them that," Economos called from the driver's seat. 

"What? I can't tell them that his dad made them fight for money and Keith died and the White Dragon blamed him forever?"

"...Well, too late now," Adebayo muttered. 

Harley thought that was the saddest thing she'd ever fucking heard. "Wow. That's worse than my dad selling me for beer."

"It's almost as bad as my mother infecting me with a space virus that refuses to let me die," Abner agreed. 

"Wow, do we all have parent shit?" Rick asked. 

"I think so," Cleo said.

Harley thought there could be a connection to their life choices and serious parental trauma, but she didn't have time to really consider it before the van jostled wildly, skittering off the road and coming to a screeching stop. She fell off Rick onto the floor, groaning, barely catching Sebastian as he went flying. 

"What the hell Economos? Did you forget how to drive --" Adrian yelped. 

The driver's side door opened and slammed. There was a pause of tense, uncomfortable silence until the back doors of the van opened. "Harcourt?! Oh my god!" Adebayo yelped, scrambling up to help a bloody, dirty blonde woman into the van. "We've got you, girl."

Agent Harcourt sat among them, quietly upset. "What…what the fuck? Flag?"

He stood up and hugged her briefly. "It's a long story. Your friends wanted us to help find you and Peacemaker." 

"Shit. Thank you," she said. "We need to go, quick. Chris is playing along with these nutbags so that they'd let me go…I don't know if they bought it. I was sure they were gonna shoot me." 

She was filthy and exhausted, a little twitchy. Rick handed her a water bottle and Harley dug through her bag for an extra shirt. 

"I've got clothes if you need them." They were about the same size, though she doubted their fashion sensibilities lined up. 

"Please," she said. Then her focus snapped over to Adrian, still holding the clean shirt she'd been offered. "You're alive, oh thank God," she said, grabbing him and hugging him. 

Adrian looked alarmed. "Sarcasm?" 

"No sarcasm. I was worried. Chris was worried." 

"What? Why?" 

"Last thing we saw, you got shot in the face, Vij, we thought you were dead!" She was checking him over, fussing over scrapes and bruises with relief on her face. "It really got to him." 

Harley, who had been working on a theory that maybe Adrian was in love with Peacemaker but it wasn't reciprocated, exchanged a curious look with Cleo, who raised an eyebrow. Maybe Peacemaker really was -- 

"We're here," Bloodsport barked from the front. "Abner. On my signal, fire." 

Abner opened up his gauntlets, walking out of the van.

"We're in a security blindspot, so stick close to the van so they don't spot you," Economos said. 

They waited. Harley's hand tightened on her javelin. 

"Fire." 

The corrosive properties of the dots meant it was less of an explosion and more the sound of a landslide. They paused for a moment until the alarm started blaring. 

"Hold the position at the van until they come out," Robert barked.

Harley looked over and saw Adrian pull a mask over his face. It was the first time she had seen him suited up as Vigilante, and she had to say that she appreciated the little twink a bit more in a well-fitted suit. He brandished a machete with practiced ease, even in the tight quarters. 

"Harcourt, Economos, you're our spotters."

"I can fight," Emilia insisted as she unselfconsciously changed into the clothes Harley had given her. 

"You've barely eaten or slept in days, Em, you need to stay here," Economos said, uncharacteristically assertive. "Adebayo, are you in or out?" 

Adebayo looked nervous at the prospect. "I…need to get Chris out of there. Me and Vij will go in with the team. You guys be ready to run some Aryan fucks down so we can get out," she said, grabbing two guns from the big duffle bag of goodies. 

"If you're insinuating we wouldn't rescue Peacemaker without your supervision, I'm insulted," Harley said. "We'd bring him back in at most two pieces." 

"Go, now!" Robert barked, and they lept out of the van towards the oncoming flood of baffled Aryans. 

The Aryan Empire was no match for them. Especially not PDM, who dispatched them with a glee they hadn't seen since they'd worked on his mom stuff in therapy. Rats swarmed across the rapidly melting corpses, and the dozen or so near the back of the initial charge immediately fell back towards the compound. 

Busting down the door didn't require much. Slashing and stabbing with her javelin, she took a flying leap across the hall, getting behind the crowd as her team worked through them. 

"I'm in the security system," Economos said in their ears. "You're gonna wanna go down a few flights. And there are more incoming." 

Chapter Text

Fighting back to back with Harley Quinn was the weirdest thing he'd ever done, and…well. He'd done some weird shit! 

Her javelin and his machete were a match made in heaven. She shoved them out of her range and right into his. Before he could even register it, she had springboarded herself from one guy's back to his shoulder and onto the front of an Aryan who had tried to sneak up on him. 

DuBois was a machine. He reminded Adrian of Peacemaker a bit, in how easily he seemed to carve through the people threatening them with crowbars and guns. 

"I'm not going to be able to maintain this," Polka Dot Man said, lowering his arms. He guessed the dots ran out eventually. 

Ratcatcher brought up the rear with Adebayo, a flooding swarm of rodents keeping people away from their group. 

"Economos said down, so let's go!" he shouted, hitting the down button for the elevator. 

They crammed in the painfully slow elevator and went down as far as the buttons indicated it would. He whistled. "So…seen any good movies?" Harley joked idly. She, like him, seemed a little uncomfortable with silence. 

"I watched this documentary --" Flag started.

Everyone heckled him. "No one wants to hear about the documentary you watched!" Adebayo joked. 

"Well what have you been watching?" he sniped back. 

"Me and my wife watched this great docume --" Everyone groaned. 

The doors to the elevator opened and ten more Aryans waited for them, bats and guns in hand.

"I'm out of juice," Polka Dot Man said, his gauntlets sputtering with light but not emitting the dots. 

Cleo stepped up, holding out the little lantern in her hand. A flood of rats swarmed the ankles of the Aryans, distracting them long enough for the group to push forward. Adrian slashed through the nearest guy, ducking as a gout of flames from Robert's wrist incinerated the guy behind him.

He saw a big one grab Harley, pinning her arms to her side. He tried to push forward, but the guy went down to two shots to the chest. Adrian looked over and saw Adebayo fist pump. 

"Thanks, Ads!" Harley chirped, stabbing the guy for good measure. 

"Stairs to your left," Economos directed. 

They hit the staircase with a few trailing them, but most of them were dead on the floor where they belonged. The staircase opened up into a basement that looked a lot like the quantum unfolding storage unit. 

They stopped, looking around and not seeing anyone else immediately in their vicinity.

He stopped, recoiling in slight fear at the sight of the White Dragon sprawled out on a table. August Smith had been a figure of consistent terror through Adrian's life, just as a citizen of Evergreen and as a friend of Chris's. But he was Vigilante right now, and Vigilante wasn't afraid of some old, dead man. He'd helped take him down once, he could do it again. 

Then he saw Peacemaker, strapped to a chair nearby, looking out of it. He rushed over, hoping to explain himself out of earshot of the squad. 

"Hey bestie," he said, unstrapping the wrist and ankle straps quickly, slapping his face gently to stir him. 

"Fuck off, ghost," he muttered. 

"No, buddy, it's me. I'm not dead," he insisted, pulling off his mask and fumbling for his glasses so he could see what he was doing. "I'm really here!" He looked over his shoulder to the Suicide Squad. "Please don't get mad," he said before he leaned in and kissed him on the mouth as passionately as he could at the weird angle, with no hot babe cheering them on in the background.

It seemed to wake up Chris, at least, who reciprocated for a moment. It was a nice kiss, despite the blood and weird mineral taste and the life-or-death situation they were in. "Play along, I told them we were in love with each other so they'd help us find you," he whispered when he finally broke away.

Chris looked over at the assembled people and looked…well, Adrian couldn't tell for sure but he seemed like he might be mad, the one thing he'd specifically asked him not to be! "You called them?"

"Yeah! Also, great news, Rick Flag? Not dead! Apparently Corto Maltese gave him a new heart and everything." Silent and bug-eyed, Peacemaker let him rip the IVs out of his arms. "You okay buddy?" 

"You just rolled up in here with the fucking Suicide Squad, kissed me on the mouth and told me that I didn't actually kill Rick Flag." He paused. " Sarcasm : I'm great!" 

They could talk it all out later. Vigilante helped him to his feet. "Let's go. Harcourt and Economos are waiting upstairs." 

"Good. She got out." His head slumped onto Vij's shoulder as they walked across the room to the team. "What's up bro?" he called to Adebayo. 

"Glad to have you back, buddy," Ads responded, flashing a peace sign. "I can't believe you got kidnapped by necromancer Nazis." 

Chris started to laugh and just shook his head. "You're not gonna believe this. The bad guy is…"

"Well, what an alarming bunch of race traitors and inferiors," someone boomed from above them. A white guy with a mustache and a squinty look on his face looked down at them, contemptuous.

"We're all gay, too!" Harley shouted back confrontationally, sticking out her tongue. "Aren't you that guy who sells those shitty pillows?!" 

Robert took two shots at him before the guy responded, but he ducked them. 

More goons flooded out from behind them. Vigilante only had eyes for the boss. "Let's go get him, Chris." 

Chris snatched his arm away from Vigilante's, taking the pistol he was offered. "Yeah, come on." They fought their way up the stairs. 

Vigilante got to the front first, sharp pain in his leg bringing him to his knees just as he stepped onto the platform. A knife stuck out of his calf. A gun clicked in his face. He froze.

His helmet could handle a shot to the head, depending on the caliber. But he'd taken his helmet off, and somehow doubted that Mustache would let him put it back on.

Chris looked up from the Nazi he'd just kicked down the stairs into the swarm of rats. "Vij! Shit!"

"I thought you were willing. I thought you were going to cooperate," Mustache said, irate. "But…well. If force is what it takes, force can be used. Get back down where you belong, Smith, or I kill him." 

"Peacemaker, come on," he heard Robert say low and quiet in the background. "Take the shot." 

Vigilante looked up. They didn't know. They didn't know that Chris didn't like killing people anymore, even the ones who really deserved it. He might have forgotten to mention that part. 

He held up his hands. He was unarmed, on his knees, bleeding, with a gun in his face. All he could see was this stupid fucking QAnon parroting Nazi piece of shit smiling at him as the seconds dragged on. 

"Bloodsport, you don't understand. Peacemaker won't kill me. No matter how weak he is, he knows our purpose is divine. He knows he needs his father. He knows he's nothing without the White Dra --" 

A shot to the neck cut him off. "Your pillows fucking suck," Christopher muttered, hauling Vij to his feet and looking him over. "You good?" His thumb brushed over his cheek very briefly, and Vij couldn't stop himself from leaning into the contact, however brief. 

"Yeah."

Chris patted him on the shoulder and then turned back to the rest of them. "Let's get the fuck out of here." 

Chapter Text

Robert could fully not believe what he'd seen over the last twenty-four hours.

He knew that he should prioritize his team's safe escape from the Nazi hell dungeon they were trapped in, but standing there in the painfully slow elevator he just had to stare at the back of Peacemaker's giant head. 

Peacemaker had hesitated to kill . He'd kissed a dude . He was currently being propped up by Amanda Waller's fucking daughter, who said they were best friends.

One of their weirder Saturdays, all in all. 

They walked out into the late afternoon sunlight, blinking as their eyes adjusted. Standing in their way was a line of Aryans lining up shots. They were low on energy and ammo.

Fuck. 

He looked at Cleo, ready to make the call to unleash the catcher's full potential, but before he could a van plowed through the fence. Economos leaned out the van window, surveying the broken pod of Aryans under the tires. "Let's go!" 

They rushed to safety and all collapsed into a heap in the back of the now blood-splattered van.

Robert looked up at Adrian as he sat down next to Peacemaker. He reached out to him but Peacemaker swatted his hand away, looking annoyed. 

Hmm. Weird energy. He had cycled through every possible configuration of this relationship, but nothing seemed to be lining up with what his own two eyes were seeing. 

"You lived," Peacemaker said to Rick, awkward. 

"No thanks to you," was all he said. He was between Harley and Robert, all three of them tensely regarding their tentative allies. 

Peacemaker…Chris…whatever. His expression kind of crumbled. "I didn't deserve anything from you all. Thanks for helping my friends," he said. No pleads for forgiveness, no justification of his actions, just…thanks? 

"God, you have gone fucking soft, haven't you?" Robert snarked, seeing if he'd rise to the bait. 

"Oh, I'll show you just how hard I am, DuBois --" He stopped, throwing his hands up. "Fuck! You did that on purpose!" 

Robert laughed. "Don't get too hard, Pissmaker, your boyfriend might get jealous." 

"He's not my boyfriend! Look at his lats!" He gestured at Adrian angrily, as if that made perfect sense to anyone who wasn't a complete idiot. 

"My lats are sick , bro! Why are you bringing them into this again?!" Adrian shouted back.

"No, you're a scrawny doofus! You can't just go around kissing people for tricks, it's not cool!" 

He wildly gestured at the squad. "These guys are like, super heterophobic so I had to pretend we were gay or they would have killed us!"

Robert didn't even know how to react to that.

"We aren't heterophobic!" Rick argued. "...I think that's a thing you just made up!" 

Chris opened his mouth to shout back but was distracted when Harley approached him, holding out her javelin. "Want the feelings stick?" 

"What?" 

"You take the feelings stick and you can only start sentences with 'I feel…' and everyone has to respect and validate your feelings," she said. "It gives you a chance to be honest and everyone to hear you."

Begrudgingly, Peacemaker took the javelin, holding it awkwardly. "This is stupid --" 

Harley stuck a finger in his face. "No, you have to say 'I feel'!"

"I feel like this is stupid," he said, glaring. 

"That is valid. What else do you feel?" Harley said, adopting that weird 'therapist voice' she often did when she tried to cajole people into talking about their issues. 

"I feel mad that Adrian lied about dating me and kissed me. It was a dick move."

She 'hmm'ed. "Does it make you mad that he kissed you or mad that he kissed you for bad reasons?" 

"I -- " Peacemaker was short-circuiting, stuttering through half a sentence. "I feel that I'm mad that he kissed me for bad reasons and not because he wanted --" 

Adrian looked sincerely baffled. "Why would I kiss you if I didn't want to?" 

"You just said it was because they're heterophobes!" He gestured to the squad. "You can't just show up kissing people for missions and shit! Makes things weird! And I have the feelings stick so you have to --!"

"Obviously, I want to kiss you, you're like the coolest and best and my best friend ever! We kiss all the time, dude, why are you freaking out now ?" 

Well, that was a revelation. "It's not the same when Emilia isn't telling us to do it!"

Harcourt buried her face in her hands. "Chris, please stop talking." 

"You don't have the feelings stick, Emilia, that means only I can talk! So both of you shut up!"

Robert and Rick exchanged a look, both of them desperately wishing that they had popcorn for this little meltdown. "Can we go back to the part where Harcourt asks you two to make out for her own enjoyment?" Rick asked. 

The bickering duo looked over at them and glared. 

Adrian snatched the javelin away. " I feel…" Then he dropped the javelin, opened the back of the van and jumped out of sight, rolling off the side of the road.

"Why does this keep happening to me?!" Harley yelled, though no one could have said for sure what she was referring to. 

"I think he forgot he'd taken his suit off," Abner noted as he closed the door. 

"Did Vij just jump out of the van again?" Economos called. 

"...Yeah…" 

"You gotta trap him like a raccoon if you want to talk about anything deeper than the weather, you know that!" he scolded as they pulled over. "No unlocked doors or open windows! He just slips right through!"

Robert stayed in the van with the sleeping Cleo as the others got out to rescue Vigilante from the ditch he'd rolled into.

Rick looked over at him, trying to hold back laughter. "Is it weird I almost like Peacemaker now?"

"He tried to murder you and Cleo." 

"But he didn't, and it seems like he feels kinda bad about it? Plus, meeting his dad's minions put a lot of things into context." Rick was leaning against him kind of, but they were both a little tense about it. "Waller manipulated him the same as she did us. I'm never gonna be friends with the guy but…I'm ready to not spend a bunch of energy being mad about it." 

"I'm ready to get back to Gotham where we don't have to worry about it," Robert said, not really wanting to admit that Rick was probably right. If Peacemaker was just going to stay in Evergreen and mind his own business, there was nothing else to it. "If you're alright, I'm alright," he settled on, slinging an arm across Rick's shoulders.

"Yeah, I'm alright." 

The others reentered the van, Peacemaker dragging a limping Vigilante inside and laying him on the floor. "Can we please go home?"

"I mean, I still want to talk about Harcourt forcing you two to kiss --" Harley repeated. 

"Is jumping out of a moving vehicle still an option?" Harcourt said from where she had hidden in Harley's hoodie.

Chapter Text

He hadn't expected them to stay.

But he opened the door and Harley was standing there, talking on the phone. She held up a finger. "Yeah, Ive, I'll be home tomorrow. Right in time. It was crazy! Like, Nazi guts everywhere and the MyPillow guy was all monologuing --" She stopped. "Yeah. Yup. Got it. See you soon, babe." 

Then she looked at Chris with a grin. "Where can we get a drink in this shitty town? Maybe some food?" 

The whole squad was standing in Adebayo's yard, dressed in street clothes, as if they were friends gathering for a night out. 

"Yeah, I could use that," he agreed idly. "Ads, you wanna grab some food?"

"Sure," she agreed. "But please don't take control of the jukebox. Last time, everyone in the place wanted to kill you." 

"If they don't fuck with Hanoi Rocks, they don't fuck with the 11th Street Kids or the Suicide Squad," Chris said with a haughty sniff. 

"You like Hanoi Rocks?" Flag asked. 

"...Do you?" This was a weird conversation to be having with a guy whose death had played over and over in his head for months. 

"Fuck yeah." 

Wow. Progress?

He purposefully didn't call Adrian to join them for the night out. 

For one, he had determinedly avoided talking to Chris for the whole ride home and that was annoying. Plus, he needed rest, so Chris wasn't gonna bother. 

Chris's plan had been to sleep off the whole ordeal and forget that they'd just admitted to everyone that he'd made out with Vij. 

And forget that something in the back of his head wanted to keep making out with Adrian, even if it wasn't threeway adjacent. 

"Okay, you two grandpas bond over your weird music on the way to drinks! And food !" Harley said. 

They managed to score the big round table booth at Fennel Fields. Despite Chris's misgivings, it was one of the only restaurants in town, plus the mozzarella sticks were dope. 

Emilia was also looking a little sheepish. They sat together, but kind of got weird when they bumped up against each other.

"So Adrian was never your boyfriend?" Cleo asked, tilting her head at Chris. 

Halfway through a mozzarella stick, he scowled. "No. He's my third best friend at best." 

"He seems like he really loves you," she said as she sneaked Sebastian a bit of marinara. "Maybe you should ask him out on a date." 

"Psh, I don't date . I can't deprive the world of all of this," he said, gesturing to himself. 

Emilia rolled her eyes. "Sure, buddy." 

"Oh, come on," he said, lowering his voice slightly, pride wounded. "You said we couldn't go out because of the distance." 

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean you can't go out with anyone --" 

Chris did not know what to make of any of this. "Sebastian, what do you think?"

Sebastian shrugged. Chris gave him a bit of cheese and patted him on the head. He was doing his best.

"I can't believe you're this stupid," Robert piped up. 

"Yeah, sorry I'm not a boring dad guy like you, Watersport," he shot back, flicking a napkin football at Robert aggressively. 

"You do fall asleep watching TV a lot," Abner agreed, forever an agent of chaos when he had more than one beer in him. 

"That has nothing to do with --" 

Chris laughed. "Everyone wants a piece of this, okay. Not my fault," he said as he dodged Robert's own napkin football strike. 

Then Chris looked up and saw Adrian limping in, bruised all to hell and not in his work uniform. "Who called him?" Chris scolded. He'd been stabbed in the calf by a Nazi less than 12 hours ago!

Economos laughed in what could only be described as a maniacal cackle. "Wild card, bitch!" He scooted over to make space for Adrian, so he was directly across from Chris. 

"Ooooh, nachos," he said, immediately stealing chips off of Emilia's plate.

"You all right, dude?" Adebayo asked. 

"Yeah! It's fine! My pain tolerance is like --" He mimed an explosion. He was avoiding eye contact with Chris. "This is dope. The 11th Street Kids and the Suicide Squad. Best pals. Teams in fighting Nazi fuckos!" He looked around to make sure no one was listening to them. 

"Best pals is kind of a stretch," Rick said.  

"But Abner is my fourth best friend now! I bumped Harcourt for him!" 

"Abner is above me? You've known him a day!" Adebayo griped. 

"Well you can't spoon with a guy without putting him on the list," Vigilante said blithely. 

He'd spooned Abner?!

Chris's irritation was mirrored by Cleo, who gently punched Abner on the arm as he hid his reddening face. 

"And he's like really funny in kind of a dark way and I just really appreciate that about him," Adrian continued, either oblivious to the chaos he was causing or just enjoying it. 

"Fucking kill me," Abner muttered.

"Nope," was all Cleo said as she put her head on his shoulder and giggled. 

Chris got up, muttering an excuse about the bathroom and then going out the back, passing a couple of line cooks taking their fifth smoke break of the hour so he could get some fresh air. He had no idea why he was so flustered, or so weird. He hated this. 

What the fuck had happened to him? Gut Chase's annoying brother was getting the better of him? 

Maybe , a voice in his head that sounded kinda like Harley, you think of it as getting the better of you because of your father's toxic influences negatively impacting how you view relationships, which are supposed to be mutually beneficial, not a thing with winners or losers.

Then his father's ghost appeared. "You're such a fucking pussy. Can't figure out your own --" 

The back door opened and Adrian walked outside. "I only spooned Abner because Harley didn't want to share her bed with either of us. Are you mad?"

"No," he lied. "What do you want?" 

"Uh, just to tell you your food is here. I didn't want Sebastian to steal your zoodles," he said. "Also, when Economos called me he said I should apologize for kissing you without your consent, it's apparently frowned upon, even though it was a rockin' kiss." 

"I'm not mad about that, I'm just being a fucking moron." He paused. "We could kiss again after a few beers. And hang out later."

"Really?! You wanna --" His voice got lower as he looked over at the cooks and at least one server who had decided to watch this conversation. "Peacemaker wants to be Vigilante's boyfriend? Gonna Batman and Catwoman this shiz?" 

Good Lord. "I changed my mind," he said immediately, turning to walk inside. 

"Chris and Adrian could date instead. That'd be cool too! Like, totally sick, in fact," he said, scrambling to follow behind him. "I'd really like that!"

Yeah, so would he. "We'll talk about it later!" 

"Dammit, we're supposed to make out when you confess your feelings. That's how all the movies do it!" Adrian whined.

So halfway down the back hallway of Fennel Fields in front of half of the kitchen staff, he grabbed Adrian by the arm and pulled him in for one good "shut the fuck up before I change my mind" kiss. 

It was a damn good kiss, too. Or maybe Chris was still a little bit delirious. 

He could hear their table "oooh"ing like this was middle school.

"Oh my god, you went out with my sister three days ago, you little skeeve!" a server complained, hitting Adrian with a side towel. 

Adrian rolled his eyes, the moment fully ruined. "Yeah and she fucks like a corpse, Juliet, get off my jock!"

Chris went back to the table, shooing Sebastian away from his food and sighing to himself when Adrian crammed in next to him, sliding over his plate into his new spot. 

"What a weird fucking week," he muttered to himself, trying not to smile when Adrian and Emilia grinned conspiratorially at each other.

Chapter Text

"I cannot believe the first Black woman ever got elected mayor of Gotham and we missed it!" Leota lamented on the phone. 

Harley laughed. "And she got shot on her first day! That's a sign she'll do well!" Frankly, she couldn't believe that they'd even bothered with an election given all the murders. 

"Glad you guys landed all right. Things are quiet in Evergreen for now. I mean, on a crime level. I keep hearing the worst sounds when I go by Chris's trailer --"

"Good for them," she said. Those weirdos deserved each other. "Talk to you later, Ads!" Then she looked over at Ivy. 

Their first couple's vacation had been a total success. They were on a lake, in a cabin, far away from people (Ivy's least favorite thing) and surrounded by trees (Ivy's favorite thing) and maybe Harley had discovered a cedar tree allergy, but even applying ointment to hives can be romantic with the right person. 

Their adventure in Evergreen the week before had made the news. It was a sensational story, a bunch of costumed crime-fighters slaughtering their way through neo-Nazis. It had been easy to find all the evidence of their batshit plans, so no one seemed too upset at them. Even Waller hadn't called, as far as she knew.

Admittedly, she hadn't watched much news on the vacation. 

"We gotta pick up Brucie and Cass from Helena's, drop off the rental car and stop by my place so we can make sure the kid I paid watered the babies," Ivy said, always all business. 

The Bertinelli estate was isolated from the rest of the city, and Bruce was overwhelmed with joy to see them. He bowled them over with kisses, and Cass helped them up. 

"Uh, have you guys seen the news?" she asked. 

"No. Where are the birdies?" 

"Doing damage control," Cass said with a shrug. 

"Damage control for what, Cassandra?" Ivy asked. 

Cass just pointed down the hill, where the city of Gotham came into view. They walked over to the precipice. And…

"Who the hell flooded the city?!" Harley yelped.

"The Riddler," Cass said. "He brought down the whole Falcone crime family too! And the DA! And the Police Commissioner! Batman was all over the place too!" She mimed a few fighting moves and made explosion noises with her mouth. "It was sick!"

Ivy was on the phone, looking stern. "Selina's not answering her phone." 

Harley patted Bruce on the neck. "Jesus fuckin' Christ, Batsy, warn a girl before you let a guy flood the city," she muttered to herself. 

"You think Batman needs a sidekick?" Cassandra asked them as they walked into the mansion. "Like, Harley you're awesome and everything but I feel like being a masked crime-fighting boss ass bitch would really suit me." 

Harley cracked open a beer. "Not till you're 18. Have you talked to Rick? Is everyone okay?" 

"Oh yeah, they're fine. Though the cops are pretty mad that Cleo has every rat in Gotham stuffed into one of the high rises so they don't drown…"

"Which high rise? Not my high rise?" Ivy demanded.

Cass whistled innocently. 

"Maybe we should go back to Evergreen," Harley muttered.