Chapter Three

Donna was actually angry with Dick. It was an interesting and new situation, to feel true anger against someone whom she had always trusted and confided in. She couldn’t remember a time where she had ever felt anything other than absolute faith towards Dick, and everything he did. Even when he appeared to be doing something completely and utterly foolish and insane, she had stood beside him, believing in his vision of something more than she was privy to in that moment.

Truthfully, however, it was exactly that faith which made the anger burn all the more fierce. Never had she and Grayson held secrets between one another. She had been there for him when Bruce had tried to tear the mantle of Robin from his shoulders, and he had been there when she had wept and struggled against the expectations of being Diana’s clone, of always playing second fiddle to her fame. They had been the founding **** behind the Titans. He had told her when he realised he was interested in both Barbara and Kory, and she had supported him then, no matter the strange sting that she had felt then. For Hera’s sake, she had allowed him the secrets of withholding truth from her, purely in faith that he would only use them should she be compromised.

Yet the moment there’s an opportunity for some undercover work, playing secret detective just like Bruce would have, and Dick goes running off into the unknown without so much as a damned note?! It was not only infuriating, but somewhat insulting! She was Donna Troy, Troia, and more importantly, he was her best friend, and yet he allowed her to believe in his **** for six entire months? And then the fool had the absolute gall to try and seek her out for aid after such an act of toying with her heart?

It had only been the knowledge that he would not have fought back that she did not attempt to batter the man for the audacity of his actions.

…so why did it feel so very odd that she didn’t have an apologetic voicemail, or a message? Hells, she would even have anticipated a randomly left note on her countertop, signed with that little bird symbol of his and pinned down by a bottle of her favourite wine, as he had done after mocking her failure to find a partner of her own, when they were still teens. Why was it so very strange to her that she didn’t find any of those things? She supposed they had never been at odds quite so strongly as this before, and yet…

It felt wrong.

—

Nightwing was having a damned weird week. It had been a few days- or maybe a week? Hard to tell for Dick recently- since the little encounter with Harley, and he’d felt lighter than that night ever since, strangely. Mentally, that was.

But that wasn’t what was weird. Not to say that it wasn’t strange, these days, for a little part of Dick to actually not want to die. But no, what was weird was how he’d had to shake a certain Harlequin-themed tail off of his back about a half-hour into his patrol, that first night. Surprisingly difficult to do, actually. For all her wonderful boisterous and loud personality, the woman was shockingly adept at stealth.

And what was even weirder was how he had reversed their roles, and had been tailing her for the last couple of hours, only to find the iconic kooky villainess, uh…

“The fuck-” The quiet confused curse slipped out before he could stop himself, as Harley Quinn dove headfirst into an ongoing middle-scale **** deal and started beating the shit out of the involved parties. The guys were all known to Dick, on his watchlist for exactly this situation, after they’d moved into town a few weeks back and been caught with significant amounts of **** on their first night in town. But Harley was, well, doing his job for him, apparently?

He perched on the fire escape railing and watched her work, steadily twirling through the dealers like some kind of tornado of laughter. That really was the best metaphor he could think of, the more he watched. Much like a tornado, watching the woman beat her way through the small crowd of men was brutal and savage, almost elemental, and yet undeniably beautiful.

That said, he couldn't help but ask himself ‘Why?’ He couldn't think of a good reason that she would be doing this. Well, actually, he could think of a half dozen good reasons that Harley Quinn would do it. But far, far less that the new-old Harley Quinzel character she seemed to have adopted would be doing it. He almost jumped down there and asked her.

Almost.

Instead, he just watched her tie them up, and then followed her to the next four fights she flung herself into, subdued, and left for the cops. He felt almost entranced by the sheer strangeness of the experience. Dick knew she was fast, and that she was damned good, but he'd never actually seen her choose to fight just because she could make a difference.

He was almost disappointed when she eventually swung off the edge of a building and dropped into a window smoothly, lights coming on inside, “Done for the night then…” Dick muttered to himself, making a mental note of the location for the bat computer when he got back to the- Oh.

He huffed angrily at himself for letting that thought slip. They didn't want him there. There was no need to bother them, he'd manage Bludhaven. Or he'd die, and stop being a problem. Honestly? Dick wasn't sure these days which would be worse.

But what he did know was that thinking too hard about any of that made it all worse. So, instead, he shrugged it off, and shunted both the thoughts and Harley’s antics to the back of his mind, where he didn't need to address them.

He checked his suit's clock. It was 3am already, and he would usually clock out shortly, to make sure he could function the next day. At least, he used to do that. Nowadays, he'd taken to going as late as he could, until his reflexes started to slow- really slow for him, like Jason's speed. He could work that speed, but it didn't suit his style and he took hits he could've dodged.

‘Focus’, Nightwing thought sharply, and threw himself off the rooftop. Once again, he wondered how his parents felt as they fell.