[LN] He flies through the air with the greatest of ease

[goddamnwingman]

Even after months in New York, Dick still found himself in places that weren't necessarily well known to him yet.

However, going from the middle of a large number of Manhattan high rises to...what could only be described as a suburban residential area was a new one on him.

Luckily, he'd been low enough to the ground that the inability to grapple on to another building didn't do more than make him groan as he hit the ground in a tumble to take away some of the momentum. He flipped back to his feet, blinking at the area around him from behind his mask before reaching for an escrima stick as he tapped his communicator. "Nightwing to Oracle. Or Batman. Or Robin."

Static in return. "Oh, that's just great."

Comments

[goddamnwingman]

It wasn't like Dick didn't know a lot of Harley's history. After all, she was incredibly intelligent, had been one hell of a psychologist. Probably still was, really. It wasn't her fault that she'd fallen under the spell of the Joker, after all.

The stuff she'd done afterward, yes, still very much her fault and something to take responsibility for. But...

Dick took a moment, then reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Tell me that she's here on her own?" Just because she was the only other one at the North Pole, but he wanted to know if the Joker was around, somewhere.

[matchmadeinhell]

"You-Know-Who hasn't shown up, thank God, but given Kuk's tendency to yank villains, he's someone we might have to look out for."

Kon paused.

"She's been through something pretty heavy, though, 'Wing. Apparently, before all this, she got kidnapped to some alternate dimension where she was forced to fight in these gladiatorial death matches that she kept getting revived from. A few other people here were pulled from that same universe, too - like Brainiac 5 and Invisible Kid. So they were able to vouch. And it was...bad. Real bad."

It sounded horrible.

"She's...a little more with it. Apparently, she kicked Joker to the curb before getting pulled there, and is trying to never get pulled back into that. She's taken a liking to the good we do here, talks about caring if the people she mentored in that universe survived..."

All good signs.

"Who the hell knows if she can stay on the straight and narrow - I told her I was appointing myself her unofficial parole officer while she was here, to keep her out of trouble, but I think she's got a better chance of sticking with it this time than she's ever had, maybe. More than any of the other times she's tried, anyway."

He paused.

"I think I got through to her a little bit on the evil ex front. Told her if Joker showed up, I'd try to help her not get sucked into that again, since, you know, Knockout. I get it. That seemed to hit some notes with her, someone on our side of it knowing what it's like to get suckered in by a psycho like that."

[goddamnwingman]

It took a few minutes for Dick to figure out how he felt about it. It wasn't that he didn't really believe Kon. But Harley'd tried to go straight before and as soon as Joker was on the scene, it didn't seem to change anything.

Finally, though, he tilted his head in acceptance. "I'll do what I can as well, you know. I mean, I don't know exactly what it's like, but I've had a few experiences. And it's better for everybody if she never has to deal with him again."

Dick didn't talk about Tarantula for a reason. And it didn't entirely apply here, either, but it gave him enough of an idea to want to be able to help.

[matchmadeinhell]

"She's still pretty crazy go nuts but she seems to be pretty sold on the bringing joy to people thing and we've been trying to guide her penchant for chaos towards raining it down on the bad guys."

And it actually was pretty effective.

"And when we really need her to listen, Nova, the big guy in charge, somehow manages to get her to. Speaking of which, you ought to meet him. He's a superhero from the other world - the one that merged with ours."

A pause.

"Well, from a version of it anyway. In his universe, his world never merged with ours. Guy's a triple threat. I got briefed on him once, he's basically like a cosmic, even-more-overpowered version of Kal. When he's fully powered, he could blow up a planet by sneezing the wrong way and all the crazy space people that don't listen to anybody else listen to him."