Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was supposed to be an easy mission, they said, and it really was.

Killer Moth isn’t nearly the most skilled or accomplished target they’ve ever been up against, so tracking him down and capturing him was a cake walk.

The hardest part by far was preventing Vigilante from killing the poor guy, but that was a fairly common occurrence, and Harcourt had plenty of experience dealing with that.

It was beginning to look more and more like Harcourt would be able to finish her paperwork back at base at a relatively reasonable hour, and get some much needed time to catch up on sleep.

Only now that she, Peacemaker and Vigilante with a captive Killer Moth in tow were on their way back to the van did she remember why she should never hold out hope for small mercies.

Harcourt hurries to tap her comm on, watching in exasperation and horror at the scene before her.

“Economos! Adebayo! Are you guys okay over there?” The van was currently on fire and cut in half so they had better not still be in it.

Adebayo’s voice cuts through the initial static of the comms “Oh, hey Emilia,” she sounds clear and unbothered if a bit confused, “Yeah, we’re good. Me and John are out grabbing some meatball subs for everyone ‘cause Chris just called in, said you guys caught Moth Man and will probably be back with him in about ten. Thought you were with him.”

Harcourt heaves a sigh of relief. So they’re fine then, just getting sandwiches. She also thought she heard a bit of crinkling across the line as Adebayo spoke, which was probably from those subs she mentioned. Getting food might not be the worst idea actually, it’s been a long day and she is getting kind of hungry.

“No yeah, we’re still together,” Harcourt notices that her left boot is untied and crouches to fix it. “but we have a bit of a situation-”
The van chooses that very moment to explode, taking out the fence it was parked next to and thoroughly startling Harcourt out of her task. She flinches back, putting her arm in front of her face to block the hot air rushing past.

Fuck! Shit! Her third favourite gun was in there too. It’d be too much to hope that she could still salvage it when the flames die down.

Behind her she can hear Vigilante and Peacemaker in similar states of alarm.

“Holy Shit, did you guys just see that!” Vigilante sounds way too excited about their ride blowing up. Harcourt can feel a headache coming on.

“Of course I ‘just saw that’ I’d have to be blind not to! And even then you could probably still hear it or something. Unless you were also deaf, in which case-” Peacemaker sounds annoyed with him too, if his ongoing rant is anything to go by.

Rolling her eyes at their antics, she finishes tying her laces back up with jerky motions and stands up before turning her comm back on.

“I don’t know if you heard that massive explosion just now but, that was the van.”

This time it’s Economos who answers.

“Ah man, seriously? I left all my stuff in there.”

“Seriously. We’re going to have to find alternative transportation. Also, heads up: there’s some idiot with a hipster beard lasering stuff in half out here. Went East last I saw.”

“Are we going to have to deal with that?” He sounds exhausted at the very prospect, “We’ve been out here for ten hours and we just got sandwiches.”

“Well we’re not equipped to ‘deal with that’, especially not now that the van is KIA, so unless we get new orders, then as far as I’m concerned, Laser Guy is officially not our problem,” As she speaks she quickly taps out a message to Transport on her phone, and is surprised when she gets a response right away. “And I just heard back from base, they’ll have a vehicle sent over to pick up the Moth man in about fifteen, so we’re on babysitting duty until then.”

“My name isn’t ‘Mothman’, it is Killer Moth!”

Harcourt turns, just in time to see Vigilante kick the Moth themed villain in the shin with the toe of his boot.

“Ouch! You guys suck. How about some professional courtesy!”

“Shut up Mothman,” Vigilante says, vindictively kicking him again.

“Geez man, take it easy,” Peacemaker cuts in, half-heartedly trying to mediate, “we need this one alive if we want to keep getting paid for this. You remember what happened last time!”

Vigilante holds his hands out to the sides as if in surrender.

“Chill out man, this is nothing. If it were up to me he’d be dead. You break the Law, I kill you, that’s just how it goes, so I’m actually being super lenient right now by letting him get off with just some bruises and a broken rib.”

“I don’t have a broken rib.” Killer Moth says, right before Vigilante elbows him in the side, causing an audible cracking sound and a pained yelp.

“Okay, no,” Harcourt marches over and drags a protesting Vigilante back by the ridiculously grabbable collar of his outfit,“You stand over here until you can behave.”

He looks like a disgruntled cat ready to pounce as soon as she takes her eyes off him, but remarkably, he then gets over the slight almost immediately, becoming distracted by his own confused thoughts.

“Wait, Peacemaker, what were you saying about you guys getting paid?” Vigilante looks back and forth between Harcourt and Peacemaker “they pay you?”

“Yeah, of course they do. If they want me to keep doing jobs, I need to eat and provide for Eagly. Do you even know how much Steak an American Bald Eagle can eat in a day?”

“No, actually.”

“Well, It’s a lot!”

“Hey, Harcourt, why don’t I get paid?”

“How about we talk about this when we get back to base,” she said, hoping he would forget about it by then, like he does most things they put off until ‘later’.

Luckily for Harcourt, Adebayo and Economos return, saving her from any further conversation. As promised, they have with them six sandwiches, one for each of them including Killer Moth oddly enough.

The lot of them move to sit with their late lunches on the grass while they wait for the transport vehicle to arrive. With only a little bickering, they end up settling on a spot on the western side of a short stone wall that separates the park they currently occupy from the slightly charred parking lot and the flaming remains of their dearly departed van.

Better safe than sorry while there’s a laser-happy hipster on the loose.

It’s sunny for late afternoon, a few laser noises can still be heard from somewhere in the middle-distance, but the air is pleasantly warm and the food isn’t half-bad for something she wouldn’t normally choose for herself. All in all, this wouldn't be the worst picnic Harcourt has been a part of. Though, that may change if she has to watch Killer Moth try and fail to eat a meatball sub with the handcuffs on for much longer, he seems to be getting more of it on his shirt than he is eating.

Harcourt is about halfway done her food when the laser blast sounds start getting closer to their impromptu picnic/hiding place than she is comfortable with. It’s only once a few blasts start causing the wall she sits against to shake, that she decides they have either been sought out intentionally or are coincidentally being shot at. Either way, they will need to move somewhere safer if at all possible.

With an irritated sigh she carefully but efficiently rewraps her sandwich in the foil paper and places it back in the plastic bag it came in.

She moves to set it aside, but abruptly she and Peacemaker, who had been sitting next to each other, are forced to scramble back against the wall as a laser slashes the ground where they had just been sitting.

“Fucking Hell! Can’t I get one single moment of peace around here?” Taking a few deep breaths, she visually checks over the rest of the team, none of them appear injured, just a bit shaken. Peacemaker is putting on his funny dome helmet and steeling his expression. She knows the thing is useful, but it’s so hard to take him seriously in it.

“Hey Emilia, you good?”

“Yes, fine,” she bites out.

Unfortunately she sees that her sandwich was not nearly as fine as she. The beam’s path had destroyed it along with a sizeable chunk of grass.

This is the last straw.

She unholsters her gun and turns off the safety, ignoring Peacemaker’s questioning glance. Harcourt waits until their attacker is lasering in another direction before whipping around and pointing her gun over the wall. She immediately fires off a few shots with the intent of knee-capping the fucker.

“Fuck you and your stupid fucking lasers! You killed my third favourite gun and my fucking sandwich!”

She misses, but not by much.

The shots fired, while not managing to hit him do seem to give the man pause, he moves himself to crouch behind a minivan now that he’s receiving return fire. She takes this opportunity to duck back behind her own cover to reload. Immediately she has to suppress an undignified squeak upon finding herself unexpectedly face to face with one Harley Quinn.

She flashes a signature manic grin.

“Don’t ya just hate it when that happens?”

Adrian’s day wasn’t going too badly all things considered. He did get to spend most of the day with Peacemaker, and Economos and Adebayo got him a meatball sub and both of those things were nice.

He definitely would have liked to have killed Moth Man for his crimes (Loitering, Trespassing, Grand Theft, Resisting Arrest) like he deserves but alas, not everything can go to plan, that’s Hershey’s Law for you. Little known fact, but that's the real reason Willy Wonka’s chocolate tour went so poorly.

Another barrage of lasers pelts their cover.

Adrian hisses as a charge grazes his upper arm, distracting him from ducking a piece of rock that flies off the wall. It clips his visor, breaking a section of glass.

Prescription visors are hella expensive on a busboy salary, and he’s definitely going to have to commission a new one now.

Adrian frowns and makes a mental note to himself to remind Harcourt about the whole ‘not getting paid’ thing.

At least he’ll probably be healed up by the time he gets home.

After Harcourt had fired off the first few shots, Peacemaker and Adebayo had followed her example and were now both preoccupied with taking down their new attacker. Economos has his left hand covering an ear and he yells into a phone that he holds up with his other hand.

Maybe Adrian can take advantage of the current state of commotion and he can still get Moth Man now that everyone is distracted. But should he use his sword or his pistol? Sword is probably quieter and on top of that, it’s way cooler.

Adrian unsheathes his sword.

“Hey! Put that away, don’t even think about it! We have other priorities right now.” Damn it, Harcourt must have some kind of mind reading power because she wasted no time noticing and calling him out.

“Come on! How do you even know if I was taking my sword out to kill him with? I could have been taking it out to deflect lasers or something.”

That’s actually kind of a good idea. He mimes out what his laser deflecting technique would look like.

“But you weren’t, and besides, that would be a terrible idea,The lasers would just burn through it— Why am I even having this conversation with you. Just— stop dicking around for a minute,” Harcourt snipes back, quite rudely, turning back to her previous conversation.

Wait— who is that?

“Hey, is that Harley Quinn?”

The woman next to Harcourt, gives a cheery wave and smiles widely, “Yep, That’s me!”

Whoa.

Harley Quinn, apparently, points behind herself with a flourish to where another woman with a greenish hue to her skin and eye-catching orangey-red hair has also suddenly appeared, “And this is Ivy.”

Oh. introductions. Adrian can do those.

“Hello Harley Quinn and Ivy! I’m Vigilante, this is my best buddy Peacemaker, that’s Harcourt, that’s Adebayo, and the guy with the beard is Economos,”

He sees Ivy mouth the word ‘Vigilante’, brows pinched together like she thought it was very strange.

With Laser-Guy preoccupied with weaving in and out between the various cars left in the parking lot, dodging both bullets and what look like sentient plants, Peacemaker risks a quick peek over his shoulder. He does a double take, gaping at Harley, eyes wide and jaw hanging.

He looks a bit like one of those bottom feeder fish that Adrian and his brother used to catch when they would go fishing with their grandpa as kids.

The whole thing is very funny and Adrian would love to take a picture to show him later but his thoughts turn to why his friend might have such a strong reaction. Maybe it’s just unexpected that she’s out of prison. Or, maybe he’s shocked by her outfit choice, it is very brightly coloured after all.

“What are you doing here?” Peacemaker demands, having finally recovered from his shock.

Harley’s face twists up and her nose crinkles. Adrian himself has been on the receiving end of this look frequently enough to know that it usually means either ‘insulted’, ‘offended’, or ‘disgusted‘. In this case, it’s likely a mix of all three due to the sheer potentness of it.

“Whaddya mean ‘what are you doing here’? I live here! What are you doing here shithead?” Harley sounds pretty mad, the two of them must have had a major falling out at some point. Adrian knows from the news at the time that the two of them worked together when that killer starfish invasion happened a year or so back so it probably happened then.

“I’m on a mission, what does it look like?” Peacemaker yells back at her, waving a hand to point at Killer Moth, who is shrinking back against the wall next to Adebayo. “And since when do you live in Seattle? ”

“Um hi,” Moth Man stutters out, completely unnecessarily.

Sparing the bird themed villain only a bemused glance, Adebayo cuts in before Harley can reply. “Hey, Harley Quinn, do you know this guy?” she asks, probably referring to the laser shooting hipster, and not Moth Man.

“He called my girlfriend a bitch!”

“To be fair, I am a bitch. But I’m pretty sure he was just being pissy because I didn’t want to go on a date to a Kombucha bar with him. He’s got himself all whacked out on that venom stuff Bane’s been peddling lately.” Ivy’s voice is monotone and stilted and she moves her hands in time with a particularly voracious looking clover plant that’s crawling across the parking lot.

So that’s her deal then. She’s like a plant puppetmaster. Awesome.

“He’s doing all that just because you turned him down? That’s so crazy dude,” Adrian has heard of this kind of thing happening before but it’s another thing entirely to see it in person.

“I also blew up his Jeep,” Harley adds.

“Hah, yeah,” Ivy agrees, “That too.”

“Serves him right for blowing up our van,” Harcourt mutters.

True. And may The Van rest in peace.

“Wait, wait, circle back for a second, she’s your girlfriend?” Peacemaker asks.

“She sure is, you gotta problem with that or something?” Her eyes are narrowed and her posture shifts to as close to a fighting stance one can get while still crouched against a wall.

Peacemaker, sensing his mistake, scrambles to explain himself. “No! No, of course I don’t have a problem with that. I just thought you were straight is all, what with your dating track record… My best friend is actually a lesbian, I’m an ally. ”

Oh my God. How could Peacemaker keep something like this from him?

“Eagly is a lesbian!? Why didn’t you tell me, man?” Adrian probably could have found Eagly a girlfriend by now if he knew! He could literally be Eagly’s wingman.

“What? No. What the fuck, dude?”

“You said Eagly was your best friend and if your best friend is a lesbian, then it would stand to reason that Eagly is a lesbian,” Adrian spells out for him.

“No, that literally doesn’t make any sense. Eagly is a boy eagle but—” he hurries to add “—even if he were gay I would still support him!”

“But I’m not a lesbian either, so if you’re not talking about Eagly then who—”

“Everyone shut up for a minute!” Economos interrupts, “I just heard back from base. There’s a new vehicle waiting for us,” He indicates a point all the way across the park on the right. “Should be just around that corner there.”

“Shit, alright. We’re going to have to run for it?” Adebayo asks.

“Probably, ‘cause this guy’s not going to listen to reason in whatever messed up headspace he’s in right now, and we know he won’t be running out of ammo.” Economos points out.

“Okay, but how are we gonna manage that without some kinda cover fire? I’m really not looking to get myself barbecued tonight.” Adebayo says.

“Well, does anyone have a better idea then?” Economos asks, adjusting his glasses.

There is a pause where no one speaks for a minute, if there were crickets out at this time of day, they’d probably be chirping. Adrian likes crickets.

Then, before Adrian could begin to pitch an ingenious plan involving the deflection of the man’s lasers to use them against him, Ivy takes a deep breath, drawing everyone’s attention.

“Okay,” Ivy says, looking between all of the faces gathered, then turning to her girlfriend, “Harley, I can definitely hold him off for a minute, but you’re going to have to be quick,” Harley opens her mouth like she’s about to ask something, but Ivy plows on, “I’ve got those Virginia creeper seeds from the farmers market, so don’t worry about me; I can escape up a building no problem.” she chuckles, “Was really hoping I could plant those out front but I guess this just means we’ll have an excuse to go out together again, buy some new ones, maybe even finish our date.”

Harley huffs a laugh. It’s a small thing, not nearly as bubbly as the laughs he has seen from her before, but it looks right somehow in a way that Adrian isn’t going to try to puzzle out.

“You sure Ives?” Harley asks, touching her hand to her girlfriend’s shoulder gently.

Ivy places her hand over Harley’s own and gives her a small smile and a quick kiss on the cheek.
“Positive”

Ah, romance. A mystery for the ages, truly.

Ivy then addresses the rest of the group, face wiped clean of all previous expression, “Hey A-team, you guys should get out of here too I guess, just don’t get in Harley’s way and we’re all good.” Adrian can’t tell if Ivy is referencing the A-Team movie or the TV show. Either way he supposes that he doesn’t mind too much because they’re both cool.

“Oh great, thank you so much, man. We really appreciate it,” Adebayo answers for all of them.

“Um, alright, no problem,” She tucks a few vibrant red locks of hair behind her ears and rolls up her sleeves, “so when I say ‘go’, you run, got it?”

“Yeah, we got it. Good luck with your plant thing!”

Ivy nods shortly and throws a few specks over the stone wall like grenades. Those must be the seeds she mentioned before. She then wastes no time resuming the ‘puppetmaster’ thing that she’d been doing earlier. Adrian had thought it was epic back then, but it’s even more so now with the motions being broader and more expansive, arms twisting up into imaginary shapes that are mirrored and carried out by a small party of long twisty vine type plants.

The man is quickly dragged out, thrashing, growling, and lasering in all directions, from his hiding spot by the ankle, and wrapped almost completely in greenery.

With the guy held at bay as he is, Ivy calls out, without looking back.

“Go!”

The rest of them gathered need no further convincing and instantly sprint off, running their way towards the corner Economos said the new van was waiting.

Adrian takes up the rear, pistol at the ready, running behind Peacemaker and their captive.

“C’mon dude! Do you want to get lasered?” Peacemaker complains, dragging Moth Man, who had been lagging behind a bit, along by the upper arm.

He probably skips cardio. Or it could be because of the broken rib Adrian had given him earlier. Both are equally possible.

Suddenly, Adrian is bowled over from behind. His head rattles as his helmet slams against the ground.

“Oof.”

He watches blearily through his cracked visor as the blurry figures of his team run ahead of him and out of view, then promptly passes out.

As soon as Harcourt, the team and Killer Moth have clambered into the back, the waiting van rumbles to life and drives off.
For approximately ten minutes no one speaks.

The van is quiet but for the passengers' varying efforts of catching their breath.

Then, abruptly Harcourt straightens, looking around worriedly.

“Wait, Shit! We forgot Vigilante!”

Fuck!

Chapter Text

Shit, shit, shit.

Harley did not need this right now.

She’d been running just behind the green one with the swords who kinda looks like a power ranger (Vigilante was it? Funny name.) and doing her very best to not think about the stinging pain emanating from her side. Then her damn boot heel had to snap off and she’d knocked the guy clean over.

Even worse, he hadn’t gotten up yet. Poor fella must’ve hit his head pretty hard then.

Harley chews her lip as she looks from Ivy who’s still holding off the Laser Guy, and back at the fallen Vigilante.

The tell tale rumbling of a vehicle driving off sounds from around the corner that all his little friends had run off to.

Harley makes a decision.

It’s going to be a bitch to move him but she can’t just leave him like that, lying there all pathetically. Not with it being her fault at least.

She shucks her boots off in preparation, sparing only a moment to mourn their loss. It’s only practical. A real shame because they were cute, but it’ll be easier to move about with no shoes than it would be with one and a half shoes. Spotting a pistol next to the man’s limp hand and hurriedly shoves that into the holster on his side as well.

Okay, she can do this.

After briefly considering her new task, she ends up grabbing him by the leg one-handed, keeping the other on her side to keep pressure on her slash wound, and awkwardly dragging him towards an alley with great difficulty. Her solution is far from perfect. Her slash wound pulls uncomfortably with every step and the guy is dead weight and absolutely no help on account of being unconscious. She’s miserable and out of breath but she does manage to get there in the end so that’s gotta count for something.

With one last bout of strength she hefts him a final few feet to deposit him unceremoniously behind a dumpster. Time for a break. Harley slides down to sit next to him, letting her head fall back against the wall, ignoring all the grime that’s probably built up on it. She pants heavily from exertion. She can take a minute to catch her breath a little. No biggie.

It takes a few minutes for Vigilante to wake up, and it’s honestly pretty startling. He doesn’t come to gradually or groan and sit up slowly. No, this guy shoots straight up like a vampire out of a coffin and immediately goes on the defensive, pulling out his sword out of its sheath and aiming it at her threateningly. She can see his wide-eyed expression behind what remains of his visor.

Harley puts her unoccupied hand in the air non-threateningly.

“Whoa there! Calm your tits Leonardo, It’s just me. You can put down the sword, I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“Oh. Huh.” He relaxes immediately and lowers his sword back to his side. “I must’ve passed out somehow— Wait, did you just call me a ninja turtle?”

“Maybe a little bit. What with the sword and the green and all.”

“Hah, nice. It’s not green though, It’s teal, which is a way better colour than green.”

“If you say so, pal.”

“I do say so. Teal is awesome.” he raises his sword back up fractionally, “and you’re not… secretly some kind of bird alien in disguise or anything?”

He seems serious so she answers just as seriously, “Nope, not last I checked anyway.”

“Okay, well that’s good then” He says.

Vigilante looks around the alleyway then back to Harley, “Soooo…” he says, clapping his hands together, “Where’s everyone else?”

“Went around that corner there, y’know the one your friend pointed out earlier? Pretty sure they drove off about five minutes ago, give or take.”

“Ah man, that sucks major ass. I really hate it when they do this.”

“I feel for ya pal,” she commiserates.

“The last time— before I met these guys I mean— that this happened to me was when my grandpa forgot me at a rest-stop on the way back from a fishing trip, he did come find me eventually though.” He rubs the back of his head, “Do you think they’re gonna come back?”

He speaks up again only a second later, “Actually no don’t answer that, it’s fine.” He shifts on his feet a bit, “They probably just admire my independence and think I can handle getting home myself. I can probably just… call a cab, or something.” He pulls out a very busted looking cell phone and taps the home button a few times to no success then frowns at it and tosses the whole thing over his shoulder into the dumpster behind him. “Nope, nevermind. You wouldn’t happen to have a phone would you?”

Harley huffs, “Yeah alright, sure, gimme a sec.”

She slaps at all of her many jacket pockets, finally finding her phone in one of the interior pockets, luckily not on the side that’s covered in blood. She smiles briefly at the case’s pattern of venus fly traps with googly eyes. She had told Ivy that it reminded her of her. Her girlfriend’s eyes had rolled at the comment but Harley could tell that she was amused from the barely-there quirk of her lips. It had been such a nice day, too bad Laser Guy had to go and ruin it. Laser Guy should learn to take a hint.

And, she concedes to herself, maybe Harley should consider not blowing up people’s jeeps.

She lets the hand holding her phone drop back to her lap.

“Ugh, why does everybody else get to have a cool power. I wish I had lasers,” she gripes.

“Heh, speak for yourself,” Vigilante says, now seemingly content with hanging out for a minute. He sits back down a few feet from her. “I already have a pretty cool power. Lasers would be nice though—”

Harley’s face brightens and she smiles excitedly.

“Wait, serious? You’ve been holding out on me! Why haven’t I seen it before now?”

“Well we did just meet like, five minutes ago—”

“So what can you do?”

He sits up a bit straighter before announcing; “I can heal.”

“Oh thank god,” Harley exhales, she thought she was going to have to drag herself to a hospital, “that’s actually a really great power right now ‘cause I kinda got stabbed by some shrapnel back there.” She pulls open her cropped jacket that she’d been pressing to her side to give him access to the wound. “Here— patch me up doc.”

“Oh wow, you’re like, really bleeding.”

“Yeah, I noticed, you gonna do something about it or what?” She looks at him expectantly.

For all of five seconds he stares at the injury with a comically profound look of confusion. Then, all at once, understanding lights up his face, “Ohhh, you thought— Hah! No, no. Not possible— I mean, not that I wouldn’t! ‘Cause I totally would if I could. But I can’t. I can only do me. Heal myself I mean.” He punctuates each choppy sentence with wild hand gestures. It makes him look a little like one of those traffic guys in old movies.

Harley releases a disappointed breath, “Great.”

“—Which— yeah, okay, is not super helpful right now because you’re all bleedy and injured and I’m not, but it’s definitely still a cool power to have, like, in general. It’s for sure at least in the top 35 powers,” he says. It’s oddly specific enough that Harley can tell he has had this conversation before, likely just as defensively then as he is now.
Harley squints at him. Better not touch that subject for now. Priorities; stab wound. She hastily puts pressure back on her side.

“Course it is cupcake, I’m sure that’s real handy for sword fights and stuff but we’re gonna need to raid a pharmacy or something instead then, kay? Like it’s not deep or anything but I don’t wanna lose too much blood.”

He seems to accept her appreciation for his ability and the subject change, and switches gears immediately, “Yeahhh, ouch, that does look pretty rough dude. Oh! I can take you to the vet.”

“But I’m not a cat,” she hopes the ‘duh’ is implied in her expression, “What’re they gonna do?”

“Medecine probably. They’ve still got like, bandages and painkillers and all that other medical shit, It’ll be fine.” Another thought occurs to him, “Also! When I was there last time, and I repeatedly threatened to kill them all to ensure their silence, they were super cool about it.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah! Right? And they even offered to help me and my team to go kill this cow alien thing that we were going to blow up.” Why not?

“Okay, alright, you’ve convinced me. I’ll give your vet buddies a shot,” then under her breath, “Not like I’ve got a lotta room to be choosy.” Not if she wants to avoid the hospital at least. She holds out her arms as if asking for a hug.

He looks unsure, “You want me to hug you.”

“No, I want you to gimme a lift. C’mere.” Harley could probably walk herself, but she likes to be dramatic like that.

“This is still kind of like a hug—” he starts scooping her up into his arms, “whoa, how are this heavy, you’re like, 5’4”” He readjusts her higher in his arms, causing her to wince as the movement pulls on her side. “5’6” douchebag,” she corrects, punctuating her statement by swatting his chest. She ignores the small ‘ow’ he makes in protest. “It’s probably ‘cause of all the weapons I’ve got stashed on me.”

Vigilante carries her to the other end of the alley, humming an absentminded rendition of Avril Lavigne’s Sk8er Boi, to where he sets her down surprisingly gently. He then turns and drop kicks a stray soda can back into the alley.

“So, you think we can hail a cab like this?” He gestures to himself with his outfit and cracked visor and then to Harley Quinn who is very visibly Harley Quinn and also bloody. “It’ll be about a twenty minute drive from here give or take, but It’d be a real hike if we had to walk it.”

Harley scoffs and waves a hand in dismissal, “Nobody’s walking anywhere, it’ll be fine. Here, watch this.” Harley steps up to the curb of the semi-busy street with full confidence and demonstrates her tried and true whistle and hand wave that has never failed to summon a cab.

To her dismay, for the first time ever, a cab passes her by without so much as slowing down.

“I swear this always worked for me back in Gotham. That must’ve been a fluke.”

She tries again and is rejected twice more before finally flagging one down.

The driver looks skeptical upon seeing them up close, lifting one eyebrow as if to say ‘what the fuck?’ but when Harley flashes a several twenties at him, plenty more than what a ride of the length they need to travel would usually cost, he acquiesces with nod and motions them inside.

“Where to?” The driver asks.

“To the vet!”

This gets them both a funny look and the man speaks again slower, “I’m going to need a real address if you want to get there anytime soon?”

“Oh— yes, of course.” Vigilante says before rattling off the address presumably for the vet in Evergreen Town. He looks quite pleased with himself and Harley can’t help but appreciate his enthusiasm.

Despite his choice in the company that he keeps, (Harley’s going to have to ask him about that sometime) this Vigilante character isn’t so bad, he’s genuine and kind of sweet in a quirky sorta way.

Chapter Text

It has been four hours since the team left Seattle sans Vigilante, and loathe as he is to admit it, Chris is a little bit worried about Adrian. Only a very little bit, arguably only the exact right amount of worried that this sort of situation merits and no more, but still.

They’d protested leaving without him once they’d noticed he wasn’t in the van of course, but apparently ‘they needed to drop off the target first’ and ‘Vigilante isn’t technically on the payroll’ so going back for him was out.

Whatever. He shouldn’t waste time dwelling on this. It would hardly be the first time Adrian has made his own way home after a mission. He’ll finish his stupid paperwork, try calling Adrian again later, (hopefully he’ll have charged his fucking phone by then), and go home to relax with a shitty action movie and a beer or two.

He resolutely turns his attention back to his report. The pipe that they had gotten repaired had recently gone back to its ominous clanking ways and now, no longer having a tolerance to the sound enough to relegate it to ‘ignorable background noise’, Chris finds it really hard to concentrate on mundane office work.

He sighs.

A glance out of the window across the room tells him the sky has started to dim. He's been out of the house all day now. Poor Eagly, Chris’ll have to think of something to make it up to him.

The squeaking of their hq’s front door alerts him that someone has just entered.
“Oh hey Vig, glad you made it back safe.” Leota says from her desk closer to the door, “We wanted to come back for you but the van driver wouldn’t let us and then your phone was dead—”

“Hey, don’t sweat it.” Adrian waves his hand as if to dismiss the concern. “I am totally fine and also super independent.”

Chris takes in his appearance, at some point Adrian had changed into some kind of goth nightmare version of civilian clothes and acquired a pair of obnoxious bug-eyed sunglasses as well as a couple starbucks frappuccinos. One of the cups is partly empty, like he has already started drinking it.

Weird. Adrian usually likes company for his fancy coffees, says it reminds him of tea parties or some shit, nevermind that you need tea for it to be a tea party.

“What’s all this?” Chris asks.

“What— these?” Adrian points to his face, “They’re my new shades.”

“You look like an asshole,” he says.

“Hmmpf, well, I feel very pretty. And Harley said they compliment my face shape, sooo...” Adrian puts his glasses up on top of his head, mussing up his bangs, “Oh, I also got you this. It’s caramel ribbon crunch flavour.” He smiles in that weird too-bright uncanny valley way he always does and walks over to Chris’s desk to place the fuller one of the frappuccinos down next to his laptop.

“Wait Harley as in Harley Quinn? I feel like that shouldn’t be allowed.” John says, eyeing the Vigilante warily.

“Seconded,” Chris chimes in. He takes a sip of the frappuccino, “Ugh, seriously dude, you know I don’t like any of these girly coffees you always get.” He complains. Thank God, Starbucks had been banned from serving unicorn frappuccinos at some point while he was in prison. If he had to suffer through another one of those sugary abominations he might actually kill someone. No scratch that. Still no killing. Maybe permanent maiming?

“Mhmm, and that’s why I got yours without the java chips or the oat milk this time,” Adrian chirps.

“Still weird.”

Leota swoops in and snatches the frappuccino as she walks by. “Hah, well since you don’t want it, it’s mine now.”

“Hey! I didn’t say I didn’t want it!"

“You snooze, you lose Chris.” Leota gloats. She rummages around in her purse and pulls out a metal straw, blowing some dust off it then replacing it for the soggy green straw that came with the drink.

“Dude.”

“What? Y’know these things are kinda handy, I’m all for saving turtles but paper straws are just not it.”

“Are we seriously not going to address the obvious safety concern that is Vigilante and Harley Quinn hanging out?” John cuts back in. Everyone stares at him, “What? Why are you looking at me like that? You know I’m right.” He really is right, Harley Quinn and Vigilante would be too much crazy in one place. It’d be like having two Adrians running around and enabling each other. Chris internally shudders at the thought.

“Yes, okay.” Harcourt says slowly, “ You might have a point— Adrian? Tell you what. I’m glad you’ve had your fun doing… whatever it is you and Harley Quinn got up to— don’t tell me, I don’t want to know— But I am now banning you two from spending any additional length of time together in the future for all our sakes,” she claps her hands together, “So, send a goodbye text or whatever you need to do and then that’s it. Over. Got it?” Emilia tells him.

“Come on, you guys never let me do anything that I want to do—”

“Got it?” She reiterates. Adrian avoids looking at her, slurping obnoxiously as he drinks the last dregs of his coffee. Her infamous glare at him remains steady.

“Fine,” he relents finally, tossing his empty frappuccino cup into the trash like a basketball player, whispering a small ‘Kobe’ when it lands. “Okaaay… so anyway, I uh really just wanted to drop off the coffee and let you guys know I didn’t get lasered to death and that’s done now. So. Yeah, I’m going to go home. Bye.”

Wihout waiting for any of them to speak, Adrian tucks his stupid sunglasses into his eye-sore of a jacket's pocket and walks out.

“And once I get you officially put on the payroll you can fill out your own damn prisoner injury reports!” Emilia yells after him. Too late probably. Whenever he isn’t with someone, Adrian tends to run to get places.

Chris lets his head lower to the table in front of him with a dull thunk. Somehow he feels that this won’t be the last he’ll hear of it.

Walking home from HQ under a setting sky Adrian introspects.

He ran for the first minute or so but quickly found himself losing steam, not out of any physical exhaustion 'cause he never skips cardio if he can help it and has the capacity to run way farther than that if he wants to, but because his heart just wasn't in it today. So, walking. And introspecting.

The thing is, Adrian hasn’t really had friends before. A friend, sure, 'cause Chris is definitely his friend, but never friends plural.

He's not one hundred percent about where he stands with the rest of the team. And Adrian knows that he isn't the most observant person especially when it comes to social situations but even so, he can tell that he and them are often (figuratively) on completely different wavelengths and it makes things strained. Don’t get him wrong though, they’re usually pretty tolerant, he appreciates that for sure, but if it weren’t for the circumstances of their meeting and continued co-working, most of them likely would have never wanted to talk to him.

He is loud, paranoid, and rarely thinks of the consequences of any action he takes, so it kind of makes sense. Knowing all of that, he's not sure how to feel about it, but he does understand it.

Talking to Harley though, it feels easy.

By all logic he should hate her because she hates Peacemaker and Peacemaker is Adrian’s best friend. But she’s nice and he doesn’t want to hate her. Adrian is not sure how to feel about that either.

He pulls from his new jacket's pocket a crinkled paper and unfolds it to look at the phone number scrawled in bubbly handwriting and the squishy looking raccoon doodled under it.

Adrian's not sure where he'd rank Harley on his friends list but he finds that, despite any obligatory grudges he should be having, he'd like her to be on there somewhere.