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I probably look like every single girl in this town on Valentine’s Day, Harley thought with amusement. Here she was, curled up on top of her bed at 8:00 at night with a chenille blanket, a good romance novel and a glass of wine. It wasn’t such a bad fate – she had a roaring fire in the fireplace and she was getting tipsy. Everything cute in the book was making her giggle.
Harley wasn’t really expecting tonight to be different than any other day. When you hook up with a guy who is well known for being an anarchist, a nihilist, and a psychopath, you can’t really expect your holidays will be traditional, especially when you were the psychiatrist with access to his entire file. She couldn’t say she didn’t know exactly what she was going into on the way in.
Not that it had stopped her, but then again – nothing would have stopped her. She giggled, thinking about it. Something about him, it just never got old. They had been together for years but every time he walked in the door, she got chills down her spine.
Harley was happy just sitting in the same room with him.
She was happy lying in bed listening to him breathe.
Sometimes she thought about the other guys she had been with and all the hoops they had jumped through to try to make her happy. The gifts, the vacations, the little surprises, the loving words. She remembered going along with it, forcing her mouth into a smile, saying the right things, and all the while, wondering why she felt nothing. Why she wasn’t normal.
And then he had come along when she was already on that downhill slide to being 30 and suddenly she felt everything and it had never changed. She loved him and she lusted for him and she would sleep with her face buried in one of his shirts when he was gone and it had never changed. It proved wrong everything she’d ever been told about new relationship energy and how it didn’t last and how you just had to pick someone who had your same values, because like it or not, you were going to wind up roommates and probably parents and still being good friends was about the best you could hope for after a while.
How long had they been together now? She added it up in her head and realized, startled, that it was going to be 25 years this winter. It was true. She was going gray, although she covered it up. His years of hard living showed on his face, though to Harley’s eyes, the lines only made him look more handsome. They were both still fit, because to be anything else in their world was deadly. They were alive, and together, and that was far more than she had dared hope for back in the beginning.
What was that cheesy saying? Nobody said it was going to be easy, they just said it was going to be worth it. Every bit of it had been worth it. The fights, the times she’d been injured, the times he’d been injured and her heart had been in her throat, begging the universe not to take him from her…the times they’d been torn apart, the torture she had gone through at Arkham and Belle Reve…it had all been worth it. It was a small price to pay for the pride on his face when she caught him watching her, for the little things he said and did that made her realize she was the only human being he had ever trusted, would ever trust. It was nothing at all in comparison to the feel of his mouth on hers and the way his skin felt under hands and the smell of his cologne. His arms were the only place she'd ever felt like she truly belonged in her entire life.
Most people didn’t appreciate what they had until it was gone, but that had never been true for her. She always got it. She always understood how lucky she was. And if no one else understood it – well, how could they? They weren’t her. They weren’t the Joker’s girl, the only one he'd ever shared his life with.
One time near the beginning, she was dancing in the club in a tiny red dress, long gold chains slithering over her curves with every move, and she could feel him watching her. Harley dipped back and spun around the pole and she caught a glimpse of them in the mirror on the far wall. She could see herself and she could see him sitting behind her, watching her through the beaded curtain with his desire for her written on his face so bright a blind man would see it, and the thought went through her head that it was not possible to be any happier than this, and most people wouldn’t even come near it. They would scorn it because they didn’t believe it could exist. What she and Mr. J. had was impossible to explain to people.
It was knowing that there was no other woman on earth that he’d ever feel this way about.
It was knowing neither of them could ever leave the other, not because of some phony bullshit concept like marriage vows or a moral code dictated by some religion, but because the craving would be too strong to ever stay away. They needed each other like they needed air to breathe.
It was never about what anybody else wanted, because no one else mattered.
It was all the history now, the look on his face when he had thrown the rope out of the helicopter, the agony written all over it when she had fallen, the way she had felt when he broke into her cell at Belle Reve when she’d thought he was dead and her life had become nothing more than living in her memories and plotting her revenge on Amanda Waller – because she was going to take down the woman who had stolen her entire life away, and it was going to be every bit as slow and painful as the life she had sentenced Harley to without him. But then he had walked in and she was alive again…it was surreal and magical, like so much of her life since she’d met him.
He’d killed Waller for hurting her, of course. He killed anyone who hurt her, like a knight of old slaying dragons to protect his lady. Of course, she could slay them herself and often did – but that didn’t make it less meaningful when it was him giving her that gift of an enemy vanquished, a score settled.
It never got old, not any of it.
Who had anything like that? No one she knew. And if anybody understood that love was actions, not words, it was Harley. She’d understood it even before she became a psychiatrist. Her childhood had taught her how easy it was to say the words, and then fail to live them.
She set the book down and turned off the lights, watching the fire crackle. Forget reading – she would just lie here and think about him, think about them. The life they’d led together was better than anything a writer could design anyway. Harley closed her eyes and dozed off thinking about how they met, so long ago, and the times she'd sat across the table from him, wanting nothing more than to touch him and telling herself she couldn't and he probably didn't want her anyway.
The sound of the door opening woke her immediately from her light sleep. Mr. J had told her he would probably be out late dealing with some transport issues with a shipment. Harley considered the possibility that it wasn’t him coming in and pulled her gun, training it on the open door of their bedroom.
But it was him, his jacket already off, blood streaks on his white shirt that she quickly determined hadn’t come from him. She could always tell from the way he moved if he was injured or not; whoever it had been, he had won this round, and she sighed in relief and lowered the gun.
The Joker paused in the doorway, drinking in the sight of her. He exhaled slowly and Harley tilted her head and gave him her most seductive smile.
“Nobody looks as good with a gun as you do, baby.”
The red lace of her nightgown matched her lipstick and her hair was down, laying in soft waves over her shoulders. She always made sure to look good when he was coming home, and he made sure he always acknowledged her efforts.
“Just sitting here thinking about you,” she told him, her voice breathy. She twirled a strand of her hair around her finger and then slid the finger down between her breasts, watching his gaze follow the movement. The wedding ring on her hand glittered, diamonds and emeralds reflecting back the soft firelight. She knew he loved that she never took it off; it was a mark of ownership just like her tattoos and the collar around her neck.
He pulled off his shirt and kicked off his shoes and the next second he was on top of her, whispering in her ear with that commanding voice that made her shiver every time. “Tell me what you were thinking about. Spare…no…detail.” His hand was moving down her body as he spoke and Harley gasped.
“Puddin, you know I can’t think straight when you do that…” God, he smelled good. Gunpowder mixed with his cologne...she associated it with him, associated it with the best sex she’d ever had in her life, it made her instantly wet every time she caught a whiff of it. She squirmed underneath him and reached down to unbutton his pants, wishing she were strong enough to just rip them away as he so often did to her clothes.
His familiar low chuckle tickled her neck. “Daddy’s in a good mood. It was a very good night.” He already had two fingers inside of her and she moaned low in her throat, pressing herself ever closer to him. “But this is even better,” he whispered as his lips traveled down her neck to her shoulder.
Hold up…wait…what…did he just say better than killing?
Elation and lust surged through her. She got his zipper down and her hand inside his pants. He was hard as a rock and she couldn’t wait to get him in her mouth. She was going to make sure this was the best Valentine’s Day he had ever had, whether he acknowledged the date or not.
And meanwhile, all over the city, other woman opened chocolate and jewelry boxes and drank champagne and said all the right things and faked it and told themselves they could have done much worse and told themselves everyone’s life was like theirs.
Those who do not believe in magic will never find it.