Batman watched Gotham from the ledge of a ten-story building and did not think about the gray-skinned man.
That absence of focus bothered him more than obsession ever did.
Normally, anomalies demanded attention. They demanded contingency plans, countermeasures, names written in careful shorthand across encrypted files. But this one—this presence that intervened without theatrics, that left no calling card—had slipped into Gotham without announcing itself.
That was dangerous.
Still, tonight, Batman's attention belonged elsewhere.
Joker had gone quiet.
Not his usual kind of quiet—no taunting broadcasts, no theatrical threats, no chemical signatures laced through the air. This was something subtler. Calculated. Joker quiet meant movement beneath the surface, the kind that didn't want to be interrupted.
Batman shifted his stance, cape settling around him like a shadow deciding where to fall. His mind traced patterns: abandoned warehouses, derelict subway lines, old amusement routes along the river. Joker liked nostalgia. He liked repetition. He liked to think he was being clever by revisiting old scars.
Harley Quinn barely registered in those calculations.
Not because she didn't matter—but because Joker believed she didn't matter anymore.
And Joker's beliefs, even when wrong, shaped his actions.
Elsewhere, Joker sat in a half-lit room, boots kicked up on a crate, fingers drumming against a glass of something green and faintly steaming.
"She's playin' doctor again," he said idly, watching a grainy security feed from Arkham. "Cute."
One of his henchmen snorted. "You want us to—?"
Joker waved a dismissive hand. "Nah, nah, nah. Let her have her little pretend life. She'll get bored. They always do."
He grinned, teeth flashing. "Everyone comes back when the punchline hits."
Harley Quinzel, in Joker's mind, was not a loss.
She was a delay.
Harley stood at the bus stop with her coat pulled tight around her, watching condensation fog the glass shelter. Gotham's buses were rarely on time, but she waited anyway. Routine mattered. Structure mattered. She needed the rhythm of ordinary things to remind herself she belonged among them.
The day had been long. Productive. Draining.
She replayed conversations in her head, analyzing tone, posture, moments where she'd felt herself retreat instinctively. Progress wasn't linear. She knew that clinically. Living it was harder.
The bus arrived with a tired hiss of hydraulics.
She stepped on and froze for half a second.
The gray-skinned man sat halfway down, staring out the window like he was trying not to listen to the city breathing around him.
Eli Mercer noticed her at the same time.
Their eyes met. Recognition sparked—not dramatic, not romantic. Just awareness. He remembered her from the street, the moment that had lingered without explanation.
"Hey," Harley said, before she could overthink it.
"Hey," Eli replied.
She took the seat across from him, not beside. That felt safer. More honest.
They rode in silence for a few stops.
It wasn't uncomfortable.
That surprised both of them.
"You work late?" Harley asked eventually, voice casual.
"Usually," Eli said. "Docks."
She nodded. "That tracks. You've got the 'my back hates me' posture."
He almost smiled. "Occupational hazard."
Another pause. The bus lurched forward, tires splashing through a pothole. Someone argued quietly near the back. Life, happening without permission.
"I'm Harley," she said. "Harleen, technically, but—yeah."
"Eli."
No last name. She didn't push.
They watched the city slide past the windows, neon and grime and tired storefronts blending together. Gotham at night was less hostile when you weren't alone, Harley realized. Not safe. Just… tolerable.
"You ever feel like the city's louder some nights?" she asked, frowning slightly. "Not sound-wise. Just… heavier."
Eli exhaled slowly. "Yeah. I know what you mean."
That was all he said.
It was enough.
She studied him discreetly. He didn't fidget. Didn't dominate the space. He sat like someone constantly measuring himself against the world, careful not to take up too much room.
"You live around here?" he asked.
"Yeah. Couple blocks past Burnside."
"Same."
Another small coincidence. Gotham was full of them.
When Harley's stop came, she stood, hesitated, then smiled. "See you around, Eli."
He nodded. "Yeah. See you."
She stepped off the bus, heart lighter than it had been all day, and didn't immediately know why.
Eli stayed seated until his stop, staring at the empty seat across from him long after she was gone. The pressure beneath his skin had eased during the ride. He hadn't noticed until now.
That bothered him.
And comforted him.
Batman dropped silently into the alley behind the bus depot twenty minutes later, scanning for signs of Joker's handiwork. There were none. Too clean. Too quiet.
He paused, reviewing the day's events.
Gray-skinned man. No escalation. No territory marking.
Harley Quinn. Stable. Improving.
Joker. Waiting.
Batman frowned.
Something was changing.
He didn't yet know whether that was a threat.
At home, Harley kicked off her shoes and leaned against the door, closing her eyes.
No laughter. No commands. No echoing voice in her head.
Just… quiet.
She thought of the bus. The way Eli hadn't stared. Hadn't asked invasive questions. Hadn't tried to save her or fix her or make her into something.
Human.
She smiled faintly.
Across the city, Eli stood at his window, looking out at Gotham's skyline. The pull beneath him was faint tonight. Manageable.
He rested his hands on the glass, grounding himself in the cold.
Still choosing.
Still human.
Harley didn't turn on the lights when she got home.
She stood in the doorway for a moment, keys still in her hand, listening to the apartment breathe. The refrigerator hummed. Pipes knocked faintly in the walls. Somewhere outside, a car alarm chirped once and died. Ordinary sounds. Predictable sounds.
She locked the door. Checked it twice. Didn't check it a third time.
That was new.
She set her bag down carefully, aligning it with the wall instead of letting it drop wherever gravity decided. Control in small things helped when larger things felt uncertain. She shrugged off her coat, folded it instead of tossing it over a chair, and paused when she realized she was doing it deliberately.
Progress, she told herself. Or maybe overcorrection. It was hard to tell sometimes.
Harley crossed to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water, watching the way her hand trembled just slightly as she lifted it. Not fear. Not excitement. Residual energy with nowhere to go. Her therapist—back when she'd briefly allowed herself one—had called it stored vigilance. The body remembering what the mind was trying to forget.
She drank slowly.
The bus ride replayed in her head without invitation. Not the whole thing—just fragments. The way Eli hadn't stared. The way he'd listened without prying. The fact that the silence between them hadn't felt like judgment.
That part unsettled her.
Not because it was bad. Because it was easy.
She pressed her thumb into the edge of the counter, grounding herself in the dull ache. "It's just a conversation," she murmured aloud. Hearing her own voice helped. "People have those."
Still, a familiar whisper tried to creep in at the edges of her thoughts.
Careful.
Not Joker's voice. Not anymore. This one was quieter. Smarter. The voice of experience.
Careful meant don't project. Don't attach. Don't mistake neutrality for safety. Harley had spent years building entire emotional worlds out of scraps of attention. She knew how dangerous that could be.
She moved to the living room and sat on the couch, curling her legs beneath her without thinking. The TV remote lay untouched on the coffee table. She didn't turn it on. Noise for the sake of noise wasn't comforting anymore.
Her eyes drifted to the mirror across the room.
She still flinched sometimes when she caught her own reflection unexpectedly. Not because she didn't recognize herself—but because she did. The absence of makeup, the calmer posture, the lack of theatrical exaggeration still felt unfamiliar. She was used to armor that jingled and laughed and distracted.
This version of her didn't distract.
This version had to feel things.
Harley leaned back and closed her eyes.
A memory surfaced unbidden: laughter echoing too close to her ear, fingers tightening around her wrist under the guise of affection, praise that always came with conditions. She didn't push it away. She breathed through it, naming the sensations as they came.
Tight chest.
Cold hands.
Jaw clenched.
"Not happening," she whispered. "Not now."
The memory loosened its grip.
She opened her eyes again and stared at the ceiling, tracing cracks the way she had that morning. She thought about the patients at Arkham. About the teenager who'd asked who he was without being funny. About how she'd answered without fully believing it herself.
Still someone.
She smiled faintly.
The thought of Eli surfaced again—not as a fantasy, not as a symbol. Just a person. Someone tired. Someone careful. Someone who carried himself like he was afraid of taking up space.
That, she realized, I understand.
Harley stood and walked to the window, peering out at Gotham's lights. Somewhere out there, the city was being itself—cruel, beautiful, exhausting. Somewhere out there, the man from the bus was probably doing something painfully normal. Eating leftovers. Standing at a window. Trying not to think too hard.
The idea brought her an unexpected sense of calm.
She touched the glass lightly, then pulled her hand back, as if catching herself before forming a habit.
"Slow," she told herself. "One thing at a time."
She turned off the kitchen light she'd never turned on, brushed her teeth, and changed into sleep clothes. When she lay down, she didn't curl into a defensive knot. She stretched out instead, arms loose at her sides.
Sleep didn't come immediately.
But when it did, it came without laughter.
And that mattered