For a long moment, the inside of the car was silent except for the sound of a burger wrapper.
Nightwing started to take a bite, then stopped with a sigh.
Even he could not pretend that this was normal.
“What is she doing here?” he asked finally.
“I’m helpin’,” Harley said, somehow managing to say it quite clearly even though her lips never touched. Her lipstick was a dark matte, and getting a dark matte just right required surgical precision that she could somehow still manage in the back of a moving vehicle without any lights.
“In case he needs backup!”
“That’s why I’m here,” Nightwing pointed out.
“Sure,” she said, somehow making the word sound entirely composed of vowels, snapping her compact shut. “Now.”
Nightwing sighed. “I was ten minutes late.” He looked to Batman, who said nothing. “Ten minutes.”
“A lot can happen in ten minutes,” Harley said, primly putting her things back into her bag.
Batman still said nothing, but tilted his head just enough and just long enough that Nightwing knew he was looking pointedly at his fries.
“I’m not apologizing for the fact that I wanted real food,” Nightwing said. He turned around in his seat to look back at Harley. “Have you seen his little protein shake things?
“You know he’s not a robot.”
Harley and Nightwing both looked at Batman. Nightwing turned back around in his seat. “I had a busy day, I didn’t have time to eat, so I got some food. It was a totally reasonable thing to do.”
“What’s even your day job?” Harley wondered. “Y'ain’t gettin’ paid for this.” Then she gasped. “Are ya in college now?” she asked, delighted.
“He dropped out,” Batman said before Nightwing could respond.
Harley gasped even louder.
“Now, wait a minute,” Nightwing began, before Harley interrupted by cuffing his ear. “Ow! Harley!”
“That’s Dr. Harley to you, young man.” She looked to Batman. “Tell him he has to go back to school.”
“He’s an adult now,” Batman said. “He can do what he wants.”
Harley narrowed her eyes at Nightwing. “Is that why ya had that mullet?”
“Is this what youthful rebellion looks like when a dork tries to do it?”
“You’d know better than I would,” Batman said.
“Hey!” She backhanded his shoulder, then sighed. “I guess I did go to med school.” She reached over Nightwing’s shoulder to grab a fry. “But I also did a lot of coke.”
Nightwing, mid-sip, choked on his iced tea.
“A looooot of coke,” she added, chewing. “In retrospect I was prolly self-medicatin’.” She put a hand on Nightwing’s shoulder. “Not that that makes it okay,” she said. “Listen to your Aunt Harley. Don’t do coke.”
“If ya needed money for school, ya coulda called me,” she said.
“You don’t have any money.”
“I can get money.” She paused. “An’ I’m real good at gettin’ scholarships.”
“You’re a genius,” Batman reminded her, managing to make the statement of fact sound not at all complimentary.
“That did help,” she agreed.
“Why is she actually here?” Nightwing asked.
“She has some leads on Crane.”
“I’ve been tryin’ to find him so we can have a nice talk about medical ethics,” she said with a grin.
“She wants to cave his skull in with a giant hammer,” Batman corrected.
“An’ you’re gonna try an’ stop me!” she agreed, still just as cheerful. She leaned forward to drape her arms over the headrest of both front seats. “We’re gonna have so much fun.”
