♡♦♡
BLESS ME, FATHER,
FOR I HAVE SINNED
♡♦♡
Somewhere in the slums of Gotham City, New York, awakens an unnamed man in an unknown room. It is hot. Incredibly heated. Like he is in a sauna of some sort... But he's not. Instead, he is in a purple bedroom with vibrant green LED lights shining over him, dressed in nothing but his trousers.
The unknown man is average looking; mid-forties, blue eyes, blonde hair, tanned. He looks like the average Joe. He lets out painful groans as he attempts to look at his surroundings, but fails in doing so, as his vision is too blurry to focus on anything. Trying to reach his face so he can rub the fogginess from his eyes, something stops him, holding both hands in place. His eyes, they glance over at his hands, which have been handcuffed to the bed beneath him.
What the hell, the man thinks to himself, feeling himself grow anxious.
The fright and panic of having been kidnapped finally snaps him awake, his eyes focusing on something in the corner of the heated room — a pale woman sitting on a black and green velvet rotating chair. It is none other than Harley Quinn, only now she is wearing a short black wig. Her curvy body is clothed in a silky, black dress, paired immaculately with a pair of black heals and dark makeup. She doesn't even look like herself.
The man, not knowing that it is his Queen who is sitting before him, lets out a nervous chuckle before attempting to stand — and of course, fails in doing so. "Alright, what the fuck is going on," he laughs, fighting against the handcuffs. "Who put you up to this, huh? Was it that crazy, old broad at the bar?"
Harley Quinn, unfazed by the man's foul words, just lights up a cigarette with her metal zippo lighter which has a heart and the words "H+E" scratched into it.
"Hey, who are you," he questions her. His head is lifted up slightly so he can get a better look at her. Quinn doesn't answer. He is growing frustrated by her silence. "Hey, I asked you a goddamn question, now answer it. Who the hell are you?"
Her cigarette, freshly lit, gets placed into her mouth gently so she doesn't ruin her black lipstick, and she takes a long drag.
"Untie me," he demands, shouting at her suddenly. He is clearly unaccustomed to being ignored, especially by women. "Now!"
Harley exhales slowly, her blue eyes piercing the front of his head. He can tell she enjoys watching him struggle.
"Listen to me," he begins, growing angry with her unwillingness to answer his questions, "you've made a mistake. A big one. But it's a redeemable error. You're gonna give me the rest of my clothes, you're gonna gather your things, you're gonna give me the key, and then you're gonna run for your life. You've got no idea who I am, what I do, or who I work for."
Then, a curtain opens and Poison Ivy appears in designer heels and a flowy, green dress, a little something she bought herself with yesterday's paycheck. Her luscious, red hair is curled and neatly set onto the side.
"Au contraire, Mr. Nigel Illing," she speaks to the threatening man in French as she struts into the room, the curtain falling closed behind her. "We know exactly who you are." She sits on Quinn's lap, then crosses her legs elegantly. "We know exactly what it is you do. And we know exactly who you work for."
Harls, a massive grin spreading across her face, catches herself finding some sort of sick amusement as she watches his frightful expression. "We also know that you're forty-four, 5'11", one hundred and eight pounds, AB Negative, a drinker and a smoker, and you have a healthy appetite for young hookers in kinky suspenders."
The man feels shocked and quite scared after hearing the girls' declarations. He knew that someday the Fish would have her crew come for him, but he never thought she'd want him dead. After all, he was her best employee... That was until he ruthlessly stabbed his boss in the back and sold insider information to her worst enemy, the Penguin.
The woman in question, Fish Mooney, started from nothing and rose up to become the right hand of one of the most powerful men in Gotham, Carmine Falcone. She and Falcone used to be close for some time, until he found out that she was secretly trying to take advantage of the information acquired during their relationship to take his place in the business.
"Falcone is getting old and soft. It's time somebody takes over, and it might as well be me," she would say to the closest person to her, the Penguin — at the time, simply known as Oswald Cobblepot.
They were close... at least as close as a boss and her lackey could be. She'd ask him to rub her feet and he would do as ordered. In fact, that was how it all went crumbling down for Oswald Cobblepot.
One day, he was rubbing her feet like he normally did every afternoon, listening to Fish Mooney voice her ambitions to take over Gotham from Falcone. And at the time, there was an undergoing investigation under Mr. and Mrs. Wayne's untimely deaths. Jim Gordon, the detective working on the case, only had one clue — a million dollar pearl necklace which was robbed from Mrs. Wayne's neck before she was killed. She had been seen by multiple witnesses wearing it before she died. Well, somehow the conversation drifted to just that, the missing pearl necklace.
Fish Mooney was confronting Cobblepot as he massaged her feet, confidently blaming him for being the last person she'd seen with Bruce Wayne's mother's necklace. Of course, Cobblepot hadn't taken it. She had it all along. No one knew how it came to her hands, but she had it. And so the following day, when the detectives came sniffing around her nightclub, she shifted the blame to him.
When he found out that she had blamed him for the robbery, he bursted into her club, claiming that he was innocent. But she just kept insisting that he was a liar, a traitor for even thinking that she had anything to do with the necklace. He even went as far as to state that he would "open a vein for her" as a show of loyalty, and she immediately suggested he do so while handing him a knife.
When Cobblepot tried to back out, she turned her back to him, mockingly calling him her little penguin. Despised by the name-calling and seeing that as his chance, Cobblepot tried to attack his then best friend with the knife, only to lose the fight and be brutally beaten by her with a chair. This resulted in him breaking his right leg, which lead to a permanent, waddle-like limp that befits his hated nickname, "Penguin."
From then now, they've had nothing but bad blood for one another. He even started a nightclub just a couple blocks away from hers, named "Oswald's." They are always at each other's throats, sending their men after one another in forms of communication because they've sworn to never speak face-to-face.
"And when you combine the information we have gathered on you and your habits," pipes in Poison Ivy as she stands up from Harley's lap, "one can deduce exactly how many drops of laudanum it requires to render you unconscious and relatively docile."
That is exactly how they caught the man. Fish Mooney had told them where he always spends his Friday nights at — a fully nude strip club filled with cash, lust, alcohol, and nude women. They are often seen either inside, dancing, or by the sidewalks, luring men into bed with their sensuality.
After hours of waiting around, Ivy and Harley finally caught him. Ivy tempted him in with a sexual offer, which he gladly agreed to. Him and her went inside of the club and into a private room with Harley quietly following behind. It was there where they drugged him with a couple drops of laudanum.
Harley Quinn stands, her gaze on the entrapped man as Ivy walks over to his side and picks something up from the nightstand table — a glass bottle filled with an unknown, clear substance and a white gauze pad.
"We need a teeny-weeny bit of information from you and a small donation," Pamela begins, turning to him with the objects in hand.
"Okay," he responds, nervously stuttering. "What do you want?" The two girls glance at one another. "You want money? You want the car? Listen, you can take it. You can take it. Take whatever you want."
Quinn nods her head with a large grin on her face, then moves onto the bed. She straddles the man, taking the objects off of Ivy's hands. "Oh, that's a very poor choice of words," she coos, pouring the liquid onto the piece of gauze.
These are the last words the man hears before she presses the gauze over his nose and knocks him unconscious, all while Pamela is on the other side of the room, searching through his wallet.
Within just two months of living in the city, Harley Quinn has found herself returning to her old ways. Sure, she has a job as a waitress, but the paycheck can never compare to how much she makes working for Fish Mooney. Ever.
Just "taking care of a couple bad seeds," as Pamela Isley describes the act of killing and robbing those who are on Mooney's enemy list, has made her enough money to buy a brand new car. It's a bright red convertible car, very luxurious.
In the beginning, it was just a way to earn a little extra cash and take back control of her life, but over time, she catches herself craving for more. For more money, more adrenaline, more blood.
And in a way, it helps her cope with the heartbreak. Money, purses, bloodshed and the screams of her victims numb Harleen from the pain in her life. But the feeling is only temporary, as whenever she isn't working, the heartache returns. So, she keeps herself busy with more killings. She is beginning to spiral, and Ivy is starting to notice.
One day, she brings up to Harley that she no longer wants to work for Mooney, that this is all beginning to get out of hand. She states that she has never seen anybody kill so many people in just the span of a week but her best friend. The thrill, satisfaction and thirst for blood in Quinn's face, she has all noticed it.
Isley wants to stop it all while she can, but she also knows how much her best friend is struggling financially. So, she makes a deal with her. They will continue to work under the Fish, so long as they stick to robberies, kidnappings which require no harm to the people who are being kidnapped, and other things of the sort — no torturing, no killings. It pays less, but she'd rather be a couple dollars short than watch her best friend become a cold hearted killer. She will never allow that to happen. Ever.
It's times like this where she becomes the psychiatrist and Harleen her patient...
Loud footsteps echo within the ancient walls of an Angelic church in Gotham City. It's interior is lined with priceless paintings of God, Jesus Christ and his disciples. As well as several statutes of well known figures in the Bible. Either side of the church has exactly twelve rows of wooden benches, all facing the alter. Next to each bench are lighted tea light candles which dimly brighten up the room.
Heels click against the marble floor, approaching the beautiful laid out alter up front. They are black and made of velvet material, just as the long dress above it, paired with black lace tights. The owner of the fit keeps herself hidden with her short, black wig and head tilted downwards.
There is a place like no other on Earth, the story of Alice and Wonderland begins. A land full of wonder, mystery, and danger. Some say to survive it, you need to be as mad as a hatter, which luckily... she is.
Harley Quinn, disguised in a wig and heavy makeup, approaches the alter up ahead, then makes a sharp turn and is instantly met with a confessional. She enters the box and instantly the window which separates her from the priest slides open. All that is seen are her vibrant, blue eyes and synthetic black bangs that stop mid-forehead.
"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned," she approaches the priest softly, her words a bare whisper.
"Easy, sweetheart," the priest whom sits on the other side of the confessional box responds calmly, though his voice is not as soft and gentle as hers. It's hard and raspy, the clear sign of a heavy smoker.
There is a small clicking noise and a lit up cigarette is brought to Harleen's lips, a habit she's gained as of late. She has never smoked as much as she has since the dreadful night of her birthday. She inhales, then exhales. Smoke instantly clouds the confessional.
"I don't think you're supposed to smoke in here," the supposedly holy priest protests, his scolding, green eyes trained on her thoughtful, blue ones.
Her lips lift into a small smirk. She is finding some sort of humor in this for whatever reason. "Guess I've sinned again then," she brushes it off gracefully, then takes another puff from her cigarette.
"What is it that you want?" He knows that this isn't just a random stranger in need of a confession. No. This is somebody who knows of his other career path, and they want something from him.
"You know exactly what I want," she responds simply after releasing the cloudy smoke into the air. "I want your work, your contracts, all of it."
The priest releases a low chuckle. "I'm afraid you're out of luck, sweetness. I've been recommended another interested party to handle my," he laughs once again, "liquidations."
"Well, cancel it," she responds firmly, her eyes trained in front of her. "Call it off and let us take care of it."
"Who's we," he questions, having assumed she was a single party.
"You know who we are, Mr. Quinn."
Cardinal Quinn, also known as "the diddling priest", is nothing but a nasty — but highly intelligent — ball of goo which slimes the earth with filth. He is a corrupt, pedophilic priest who, along with a few other corrupt public figures, are the true villains of Gotham. At least the Joker had morals. This man doesn't.
Poison Ivy warned Harleen not to go. She didn't want her to be around him after Barbara Kean told them about his records. But Harley didn't listen, and instead chose to go behind Ivy's back and meet up with Cardinal. She needs the extra money, and knowing that Barbara is going to kill this man as soon as she gets what she wants doesn't hurt either.
Ms. Kean, the proud owner of the newest strip club in the city named The Sirens, just needs his contacts first, his supplies, the location of his workshop and the recipe for his "liquidations" before she kills him. And the best way to do that is by playing his game. She'll make him believe she's allied with him, learn where he keeps his things, then finally kill him.
Harley Quinn's face turns serious, her smirk dropping and her head turning to look at Cardinal through the black veil for the very first time.
"Listen, mister, I'm done playin' games. I'll make you a wager," she says with confidence, quickly dropping the act. "These other interested parties, I'll set 'em on one another like starving rats in a cage, and you can watch through the bars. Give me a fortnight. We'll have 'em all dead at your feet. If we win, we get your work and start makin' plans to work side-by-side. And I mean all of it. If you win, you get ta make me the interested party that's dead. Deal?"
He blinks. "Deal."
On Saturday, the last day of the week, she is on yet another mission sent by the fish herself, and without her accomplice and best friend, Ivy. The redhead plant lady is quick to find out about Harleen's betrayal. It takes her less than two minutes after Quinn's return for the plants to begin talking, and Harls finally confesses. She feels deeply wounded by her best friend's broken promise, but nevertheless forgives her.
And so, in less than two days later, they are already back to their dynamic duo. Today, they are going to invade the Peregrinator's Club and loot the trophy room, a mission set by Poison Ivy as a way to practice female empowerment. It is a task which will be easily completed with Harley's detailed plan and Ivy's perfect knowledge of the building's layout. Nature is on their side, and who is to go against that?
It's a guaranteed win, a piece of cake.
The club is located in Downtown Gotham and acts also as a museum and a convention hall. It was originally used as a golf park, but later became home to the city's rich and affluent bluebloods. There are several different wings in the facility, including a Hall of Inventions and a wing devoted to ancient cultures, replicated to such authenticity that it even includes actual lethal traps such as poison-tipped darts that fire from the walls and revolving floor panels that drop down into a pit of flame jets. It caterers only to the wealthy elite of the city and is headed by Ronald Edwards. Members of the club consist of Connie Winters, Erik Hanson, Ronald Edwards and even the Playboy Billionaire, Bruce Wayne.
The room is filled with laughter and the clicking of glass as men of the highest class enjoy their evening in the exclusive setting. The host, Ronald Edwards, is up on the stage, speaking to his guests. He speaks in a voice that rings through the ginormous room with his nice suit and tie.
He has neatly combed, dark brown hair peppered with grey and his sharp eyes are a dark hue. His face is aristocratic with thin sculpted eyebrows, high cheekbones, well-formed lips, a strong jaw and a straight nose. There are some wrinkles, crowfeet and laugh lines, but he appears younger than he should be. He wears a fine, green suit with a dark green dress-shirt and black dress-pants underneath. His shoes are made from black and polished leather.
"And now, gentlemen, if there is no new business, I propose we adjourn to —" Before he can finish his sentence, he is cut off by the large doors bursting open and the appearance of Gotham's newest crime queens as they strut on inside.
Harley Quinn is now dressed in her usual villain costume — her infamous black and red bodysuit. She wears dramatic clown makeup and her bleach blonde hair is neatly tucked into her jester hat. Ivy also wears her regular costume, which consists of a simple eyeliner, red lipstick and several different assorted plants which wrap her body in function as her clothes.
"A moment, please, Mr. Chairman," she speaks up, walking confidently into the room with Harley at her hip. Her automatic, red and white pistol is lifted high up into the air and ready for some action.
As soon as they take a step inside, the room is instantly filled with strange looks and the protesting of men. This might be the first time a woman in history whom wasn't a cook or a clean that enters the space.
"Who are they," one man asks one of his male friends, sitting with them at a circle table by the front stage.
"Women, here," another man asks in the distance.
"Outrageous," Ronald Edwards, the chairman, shouts as soon as he notices the two women's lack of uniforms and how they are not apart of the cooking or cleaning crew. Ivy approaches the stage, and this angers him even more. "See here, young lady, is this some kind of joke?"
"The joke, my dear chairman," she begins, her green eyes trained on the power hungry, middle aged man, "is this obsolete, sexist mockery you call a men's club. Now, I ask you, what kind of club refuses to admit women?" She casually rests her arm on the wooden podium and the uproar of angry men increases.
Harley Quinn, standing by the front door with her weapon ready, snickers. What a bunch of losers, she thinks quietly to herself.
"What does she know," a man's voice booms loudly from one end of the room.
"That is ridiculous," another says.
"Get her out of here," one protests.
"How dare she?"
Harley Quinn peels herself from the front door and walks deeper into the room, heading towards her accomplice. She stops in front of her, takes something from the pockets of her bodysuit — a simple potato — and tosses it to the ground.
"Still, if it's excitement you boys crave," Ivy trails off, smirking as Harley stands by her side, grinning with excitement.
"What is this," Ronald Edwards asks wildly, demanding an answer as to why these strange women have interrupted his meeting and littered the floor with a potato.
Then, he finally gets an answer to his question.
The potato suddenly sprouts open and several vine creepers emerge from its starchy insides, lifting the host and his guests up off the floor by their arms and feet and dangling them high up in the air.
"Oh, Lord," one man can be heard shouting from behind the two women.
"Please, stop," another demands with a cry of fear following afterwards.
Their clamors go ignored by the two women as they strut across the room and towards the trophy room, their arms wrapped around one another.
"That should keep you big, strong men busy while we weak, little girls loot your trophy room," Harley shouts over her shoulder and laughs wildly, mocking the helpless men as they make demands and cry out for help. She focuses her attention back to Ivy, her grin stretching wider than ever. "Gee, Pammy. You got style!"
"This is true." Ivy smirks wickedly.
The clamoring continues behind them...
The duo commits a spree of crime all around Gotham City, drawing the attention of Batman and Amanda Waller, not to mention those who seek revenge for Harleen's past wrongdoings. But they deal with them, never breaking a sweat and sticking to each other's side. It is safe to say that their relationship is stronger than ever.
FIN