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It is in this, like most things, that the Joker leads and Harley follows. A couple steps behind and dancing to a beat even he can't hear, but following nonetheless.
Sometimes, she smiles at him, oddly soft though still entirely there, and he thinks she thinks she's the one leading him around.
It wouldn't be the first time, in any case.
-
The knowledge that the Enchantress had showed her an altered reality continues to dig at him for some time. Some would have been satisfied to have been in the dream at all, but when Harley described the temptation she had been given, the Joker can hardly recognize himself.
A jealousy festers then, cruel and irrational, for this side of himself that had never existed.
Not yet, at least.
But didn't he change her? And who could say she hasn't changed him? And wasn't this was lovers did, mold each other into more palatable forms?
-
Who else but Harley would make him flipping through furniture catalogs?
Every tasteful spread of vanillas and greys looks so bland though.
He ends up delegating the task to a new recruit.
-
Said recruit ends up bleeding out over the newly-purchased sheets.
"But Puddin," Harley protests, affronted, "He was in our bedroom. Our bedroom!"
If blood didn't look so good on her, he'd be more angry. Probably.
-
Since delegating was out of the question, he takes the refurbishment into his own hands. God was it dry and boring at the beginning, he had no idea how much sand and dust and soot was everywhere before moving things around.
Harley wakes to him seated on the edge of the bed, staring hard at one palm.
"What's so interesting?" she asks, dragging herself over and flopping her head on his thigh.
"Splinter." With his good hand, he strokes her cheek, tangling his fingers in her let-down hair.
"Awww, poor baby," she coos, grabbing at his closest hand and kissing his knuckles. His cock predictably twitches when she swallows his fingers, tongue laving them as one. "Do you want me to kiss it better?"
"Is it a freebie?" he asks, thumbing at her incisors.
"I'll put it on credit," she grins, sitting up and shoving him back.
The splinter is actually irritating, which is why he briefly paused to get it out. Of course Harley wouldn't care, hopping off the bed to crouch on the ground, rubbing her cheek against his crotch. He swears he can hear her purring.
"Does it hurt?" she asks, reaching up to grab at his palm.
"What do you think?" How did she expect him to answer, when her teeth were pulling down his pants?
"Puddin," she drawls, momentarily diverted from her prize, "I want you to do something for me."
"Whatever you want, Harley-pie."
She takes his wrist and turns it so his palm is facing the bed. Then she presses down. It doesn't hurt, barely even stings, but fuck is it irritating, just enough to register as she's working her mouth around his cock.
She makes him come three times with the splinter still stuck, and with each climax, he swears his grip on the sheets tightens.
-
"I wonder if it's in your bloodstream yet," she nonsensically muses, kissing him with come-stained lips.
"I hope this isn't your usual bedside manner, doctor," he growls, rolling over to rest in her lap.
"And if it was?" she combs through his hair, still playful and likely wet and while she finally begins to examine his hand, he thinks of tying her up and plugging all three holes with toys and leaving her there for as long as she kept him on the edge of the bed. Harley would probably enjoy it, too.
"You're as bad as me, Mister J.," she whispers, as he's nosing around for her clit. She holds the needle between her teeth, sanitizing it via lighter with her free hand. And then she's digging rooting about underneath his skin, poking and prodding more than he should, and he confirms she has, indeed, gotten off to his pain.
When he returns the favor, she spreads her thighs, canting into him, and the needle, lighter, and splinter, are all forgotten.
She managed to get it out while being tongued, at least.
-
The Joker manages to paint the bedroom walls a most mundane shade of blue before she burns the upper room of their house down.
"Puddin," she says, sucking on a lollipop and standing in the ashes of his construction project, "I don't get you sometimes."
He tackles her to the ground, more exasperated than outraged, and their lungs end up as black as their uncovered skin by the end of it.
-
"Oh!" Harley exclaims, clapping her hands, "Like dress up!" And then she frowns, "But why didn't you tell me sooner? I could've helped!"
He kisses her, tweaking a pigtail.
"Maybe next time, pumpkin."
-
Floyd realizes this might not be a bright idea too late. It had seemed so good on paper: Harley wanted to play house and Zoe had been begging him for the chance to meet some of his teammates and he definitely wanted her to have some better female role models than her perpetually-medicated revolving-door-boytoy'd mother.
"Eeeee," his daughter says, doing her best impression of dolphin born in the body of a parakeet.
"You know what," he starts, swirling on his heel, "I'm gonna have to say no to this."
"Aw don't be such a little bitch, you bitch," Harley coos, pinching his cheek before rushing at his little girl. "Look at you! Oh, I could just eat you up!"
"There will be no cannibalism under this roof," Floyd mandates.
"But look at her!" Harley pinches her cheeks before grabbing her midsection and twirling her about, "She's so cute! How the hell did half of you make something like that?!"
Zoe, meanwhile, looks completely out of it.
"Ay, Harley, back off," she listens at least, though she crosses her arms and pouts. "Zoe, you okay?" He goes forward, kneeling down to look her in the eye, "Listen, you were the one who wanted to meet some of Daddy's teammates -- "
"Just teammates?" Harley protests, "Deadshot, I thought we were friends!"
"Shut it, clowngirl." He turns back to his daughter. "Zoe, are you okay?"
She blinks at him a couple times, before looking to Harley, and back at him.
"Daddy..." she starts out.
"Yes sweetheart?"
"Did she just call you a bitch?"
"Oh I like her," Harley crows, "Can I please borrow her for a bit, Deadshot, please please please?"
-
"Puuuuddin," Harley sing-songs with an arm wrapped about Zoe's shoulders, "Look what I brought home!"
"Just a minute, puppet," the Joker calls from upstairs.
"Oh don't bother taking off your shoes," Harley laughs, "And make yourself at home, sweetiepie."
The endearment, especially when directed at someone other than himself, is enough to pique his interest. He sets his toys and tools aside, sauntering downstairs to be led into a double-take.
"Surprise!" Harley beams, setting down a glass of orange juice for their guest. "So you told me you wanted to play house and of course you're the daddy and I'm the mommy. Well, this is our baby!" She seizes Zoe's shoulders and thrusts her before the Joker.
"H-H-Hi Mr. J.," Zoe stammers.
"Harley-pie," the Joker frowns, "This isn't a baby. This is an adolescent."
"Don't listen to Puddin," Harley shushes, cupping the girl's ears, "Now come on, let me show you your bedroom."
She leads Zoe up the stairs, leaving Joker in the hallway with the cogs still turning. When he recalls where he had seen the girl before, he throws his hands up. Who'd have thought his monster would make friends!
-
"Is that your husband?" Zoe asks shyly, as Harley is dressing her up. For the fifth time.
"Probably," Harley laughs, "Puddin' is my everything."
"How come he didn't help you guys?"
"He was busy trying to break me out of jail," she sighs, tugging on a loose curl before pinning it back in place. "Plus he's not much of a follower."
Zoe sips at her juice before catching her gaze in the mirror.
"He kinda creeps me out," she admits.
"Oh don't worry sweetie," Harley smooshes her face, "That's normal! I don't think it ever stops! We're your parents, after all!"
-
The anxiety mounts and mounts until the Joker finally finishes with his plans for the day and crosses the hallway to see if Deadshot's girl was still around.
"Oh look," Harley points out, "Here comes Daddy now."
Zoe smile-grimaces and weakly waves her hand.
"Hi Mr. J.," she greets.
"That's no good," the Joker tsk's, of the mind to play along, smoldering ashes of their once-grand bedroom notwithstanding, "What sort of daughter did we raise?"
"Just once," Harley urges, cupping her cheeks, "Just call him daddy once."
Zoe bites her bottom lip as the Joker approaches. Then she blurts out: "I already have a dad and mom, but you can be my godparents."
"Like in Cinderella?" Harley beams.
"Er... kinda?"
"Ooh, I like that," she wraps her arms about the girl, kissing her crown, "Me! A Godmother! What do you think, Puddin?"
The Joker blinks, before quirking his lips.
"It sounds wonderful, Harley-pie."
-
At the end of the maybe-playdate, Harley returns Zoe to her mother's apartment with a couple presents (she was the girl's godmother, after all) and the promise to play again later.
-
"You bought my baby girl a gun!" Floyd screams over the phone, some time later.
"It was Mr. J.'s idea!" Harley trills.
"That was supposed to be my job! Mine!"
"But how else are we supposed to show her our love?"
"By not -- argh!"
-
"You know," Harley starts, after they've burned the lower floor too, "I don't think I like this game of house, Puddin."
"You don't say," the Joker drawls, cupping her face and leaving a trail of soot in his wake.
"Well," she shrugs her shirt off and looks at him brightly, "There's always next time, right?"
"Whatever you say, Harley-pie."