[color=ghostwhite]Partly to his surprise but mostly to his relief, Harley sank into the chair with no more than a few token protests and started to answer Nightwing's questions. Or, sort of, in a round about way. Mostly she complained about the Joker being awful ([i]surprise, surprise[/i]), told Dick not to involve himself in this evening's events ([i]Yeah, that'll happen[/i]), had a few moments grief over her lot in life ([i]I really don't want to feel sorry for her, but it's happening anyway[/i]) and then switched back to a much more familiar emotion, anger. He was glad she was willing to talk but her answers weren't exactly the easiest to decipher.

As Dick listened to Harley's answers in silence, giving a few quizzical smiles or raised eyebrows to encourage her to continue, his brain worked to piece together what she was saying with the facts as he knew them. [i]She says she's through with the Joker, we'll see how long that lasts, but at least she's not here working for him.[/i] When she got to the part about Batman leaving her to die, he internally rolled his eyes but kept his outward face sympathetically immobile. [i]Super-villains will see things how they want to see them.[/i] But the most interesting thing was that she didn't seem to mind him going after Joker, even hinting that she knew where he was. Sure, she made it sound like she wanted to be the one to get him but at least she wasn't doing the old [color=ff0000][b]"Don't hurt my puddin'!"[/b][/color] routine, a definite improvement.

Resisting the urge to stroke his chin in a complentative manner (Bruce and Tim both did it while investigating but somehow Dick couldn't see it as anything other than funny looking) he surveyed Harley from behind his mask. What could he do with her now? He still needed to know where Joker was but Harley didn't seem to want to tell him at all. But... well, call him a sucker if you want but he wanted to believe that she was sincere in her contempt for the clown and didn't want to nip that in the bud by knocking her out and tossing her into Arkham. Of course, he couldn't exactly let her run around free, not after she tossed a frag grenade into a room full of people and savagely beat a man with a baseball bat. If he let her loose, she'd likely end up killing someone or getting killed, neither of which Dick was going to allow.

Of course, there was always another way, though he might live to regret choosing it. He couldn't let her go, he didn't want to take her in so he'd have to keep an eye on her personally. It might prove useful, given that she likely had a much better idea of where their mutual target was but hell if this wasn't going to be an ordeal. He swept his rakish fringe to one side in a habitual motion and spoke to her. [i][color=dodgerblue]"Listen Harley, no one is as glad as me to hear you're keen to stick it to the man with the green hair, really. And while I'm glad to hear you want to go and ram one of his jokes down his throat, you've clearly got no more of an idea where he is than I do. Now we could do the whole thing where we fight and you end up in a GCPD van heading to Arkham... or you can help me find the Joker and I'll help you force feed him his own funnies."[/color][/i]

Nightwing extended a hand and gave his best winning smile. To be extremely modest, it was pretty damn winning. [color=dodgerblue][i]"I know it's a lot to think about but this is limited time offer, I'm in something of a rush. So what do you say, want to be signed in a vigilante deputy for the night?"[/i][/color] He prayed she'd shake and make it easier and, hopefully, better for both of them.

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