Harley jumped and spun around, “Hey, just who d’ya think you’re…”
Her voice trailed off as she realized that it wasn’t some random idiot sneaking up on her, because she would have taken that person apparent. Instead, amazingly, unbelievably, she recognized the silhouette, the bit of blacker than black against the darkened alleyway behind her. Only one person, ever, looked like that. Creepy bastard.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the vinyl vigilante,” she greeted with her usual bit of swagger. It felt good, actually, to slip back into a familiar role. Too much here was just too weird. Nothing was where it was supposed to be, and very little stayed where you left it. There were other villains she’d never heard of, and if Doc H could be believed, there was a henching union. Though really, that wasn’t a half bad idea and maybe she should look into it. But the point was, nothing here felt like home, because it wasn’t home. This wasn’t Gotham, it was some strange place, and if she didn’t know better, she’d swear the City was actually alive which was even odder.
But there were a few bits of normalcy in her life. There were a couple of buildings that were familiar. Pammy was here with her now, which was huge. And this. This was familiar, this was normal, this was very nearly comforting. The Bat was here. She might not have her babies or her Puddin’, but she did have a few things, and startling as it was, tall, dark and gloomy here was one of them.
How shocking.
And just like that, there was the urge. This overwhelming, undeniable, totally inappropriate urge that Harley was having a hard time ignoring. Not that she did good with self-denial most of the time anyway. She’d had a lifetime of that before she met Mr. J, and now, she just didn’t do that anymore. So when she ran up against something, now and again, that she knew she really, really, really shouldn’t do but wanted to anyway, it was even harder to stop herself. So she gave in. Which was exactly what she did again.
In a nearly identical scene to the one that had played out with Poison Ivy, there was a high pitched and prolonged squeal, and then Harley literally threw herself at the shadow that she knew to be a man. Well, sort of a man. He was a man underneath that cowl. Right? Right?
Well, she was hugging that man! Or… man-shaped jerkwad. Whatever. Her arms reached for his shoulders even as she gushed, “How ya been, Big B? Ya missed me, dincha?”
She’d kick him in the chest in a couple minutes, run away and continue on with her evening. And she’d give her favorite whoopee cushion to get a good look at his face, not to know who he was, just to see the shock. But just for a second, she wanted to express her joy in having something she knew back in her life.