revmeup | call me out

He smiles when she flips him off. "Well, I don't know about everything, but..."

The outfit shows off a lot of parts of her that Malcolm happens to find really nice. He realizes that he's a hypocrite in thinking that she looks amazing like this but also wanting to make her look a bit more conservative in order to meet his mother. Maybe that's not so strange though.

Malcolm hands Harley her glass before he lifts her legs and sits down on the couch, placing them back down in his lap. "You look beautiful." Definitely not a lie. He runs his fingers up one of her calves.

Harley takes a sip and sets the glass down on the table. She moves her legs off his lap and sits up to cross them primly.

"Tryna butter me up before you tell me all the ways I'm not good enough for the brunch crowd?"

"No," he says, "just stating facts. And I never said you weren't good enough. I said we needed a plan so that we can make a good first impression on my mother. Do you know how important a first impression is psychologically?"

Very important. Malcolm wants his mother to at least accept her, even if she doesn't like her at first. Harley's in his life and she's not going anywhere, so they need to be able to at least tolerate each other.

Harley can't help but roll her eyes and reaches for her drink again.

"Now how would I know anything about psychology?" She loved that Malcolm never treated her like an idiot, but apparently even he wasn't immune to the curse of forgetting the hot slutty blonde has a motherfucking PhD.

So maybe she's a little bitter about a lifetime of microaggressions and lashing out more than necessary under the convenient pretext of their current "disagreement." Maybe.

"Go on, tell me your grand plan. Do you have a bullet point list? Is there a slideshow?"

He holds hands up as a mea culpa. In his defense, Malcolm explains psychology to everyone. It's one of the things people find annoying about him.

"No, I didn't have time," he shoots back. "So the first thing we should think about is what you're going to wear. Do you have anything business casual or dressy but not too revealing?"

Basically not what she's got on at the moment. Not that she has much on at the moment.

Harley scoffs. Anything she has that covers more than it reveals is also mostly sequin, and the only business-y clothing she has is a jacket stolen from him. Plus, it's not like Jessica can unsee Harley's underwear.

Change the top layer all he likes, they'll all know what's going on underneath. How's that for a metaphor?

"I can figure something out."

"Or a sweater with a nice pair of jeans," he tells her. "That could work too. We can go shopping if you don't have anything like that."

A sweater and jeans might work well for her. They might be able to find something in her aesthetic that's still appropriate for brunch.

"Alright," Harley agrees with some reluctance, "but only because I like spending other people's money."

She swings her legs up and stretches them across his lap again, so she had at least been a little bit appeased.

"What next? Hide my accent, dye my hair, laser tattoo removal? Lay it on me, babe."

He'll take that. He's probably going to come out of this several thousand dollars poorer, but if she looks good and makes a good impression on his mother, then it's worth it.

Malcolm rests his free hand on her legs again and takes another sip of his drink. "Your accent and hair are fine." He sees zero problem with them and his mother will get over them. "The tattoos are... there's not much we can do about them. Laser removal is up to you, but that won't be happening before brunch anyway."

Depending on what they pick out, most of her tattoos will probably be covered anyway. The ones on her face... aren't great, but they are what they are. Malcolm has debated broaching the topic of having some of her tattoos removed, if she wants to do that, but he's on thin ice right now and he doesn't trust it to not come out as a judgement. Therefore, he's steering clear of that topic for now.

"We should probably discuss what you're going to answer to some of the questions that she will inevitably ask you."

Harley tenses in that pause as he considers her tattoos, so leaving that topic off the table was absolutely the correct instinct. She takes a large sip of her drink and tries very, very hard not to make too much of a sour face.

The things a bitch does for love.

"Fine. What questions?"

He notes her body language. Dodged a bullet with that one. For the record, he doesn't mind her tattoos. He just knows that a lot of them are related to Joker, and he isn't sure if she still has them because she wants them or if it's because tattoo removal is a long and costly process. Malcolm is willing to help her with that if it's something she wants.

"Let's start with 'What do you do for a living?'," he says. One question at a time and they can talk about her answers.

"These days?"

Harley swings her legs down again to plant her feet on the floor. She sets her elbows on her knees and leans forward with a shit eating grin.

"Your son."

Did Malcolm really think this would ever be easy?

It's going to be a long night.

"Yeah, that's definitely not what you're going to tell her, especially not with my sister there too." Malcolm is pleased that Ainsley is going to be joining them. She'll be a buffer. He figures that Harley and Ainsley will get along pretty well. His sister isn't as uptight as his mother.

"Are you doing anything for work right now?" he asks.

Fuck him, that was funny. Harley huffs and tries to think of any possible way to describe what she does that will be sanitized enough to pass this stupid test.

"I'm..." She spins her hands in the air, as if she can grab the right answer. "Freelancing? Between gigs. At the moment."

Malcolm rests his head back against the couch and sighs gently.

"Honestly, most of the women she's tried to hook me up with are trust fund kids who don't have jobs either, so if she says anything, I'm definitely going to bring that up." He turns his head to look at Harley. "What do you technically do? Please tell me you're not technically a criminal."

Harley laughs. She can't help it. This whole thing is so ridiculous.

"It's a little late in the game to start worrying about that, don't you think?"

Has he really never wondered about this before? What kind of job does he think she could get with her history anyway?

"Oh, God, you are, aren't you?" Some profiler. Not that he didn't know she was a criminal, he just didn't think she was active any more. "Please don't do something that gets you sent to prison."

He's gone off topic now, but being without her would really mess him up. Not being able to see her or hold her. He already hated visiting his father in prison. He didn't want to have to visit her too.

"Awww Malcolm," Harley coos, realizing he really didn't know. She'd never hid it, but he'd never asked before. "You're supposed to be good at your job!"

She sets her drink on the table so she can take his face in her hands and kiss his cheek. Her fingertips are cold from the glass.

"I'm... selective with the jobs I take. No hits, no weapons deals, none a' that shit. I don't want to get my ass thrown behind bars either, you know? But I mean, what else am I gonna do? Who'd hire this hot mess for anything legit?"

"I am good at my job," he mumbles. Deep down, he'd known what she was doing, though he was hoping that she was at least trying to keep her nose clean. The fact that she's not killing anyone or committing any violent crime is at least a plus.

"You have a PhD in Psychology," Malcolm says. "I can understand it might be hard to work with patients again, but you could probably find something in research."

Harley sighs heavily and gets up. Sure, he's got trauma out the wazoo, but Malcolm is still wildly blessed with privilege. Of course he thinks starting over after burning your professional career to the ground is easy. He did it with the FBI and the NYPD handed him his dream job on a gold platter.

"No decent gig is going to have me, Malcolm. I mean, fuck, how do you think the world works?"

Malcolm watches her get up and pace. "Why not? You're smart, you're good. You've made mistakes, but lots of people have. You'd be an asset to a research facility. They'd be stupid not to have you."

Apparently he's not drawing the parallel here between Harley's life and his own. It had been nothing for him to start up with the NYPD, thanks to Gil, but he'd also like to think that it's because he's good at his job. The FBI threw away one of the best closers they had. The feds' loss is NYC's gain.

"God, Malcolm!" Harley rounds on him, pinning him to his seat with one knee between his legs and her hands on his shoulders. "It's not. Going. To happen."

Her mouth is pressed into a hard thin line and she squeezes her eyes closed as she tries to keep her shit together. "Let it go, okay?"

Harley slides off his lap to slump next to him with her head in her hands. "Just... give me a list of whatever it is you want me to say and I'll stick to the script."

His eyes widen and he looks up at her when he ends up pinned to the couch. Malcolm isn't really scared of her, even though he knows she can kick his ass.

He takes a long drink of his whiskey when Harley sits down next to him, then gently reaches for one of her hands.

"No," Malcolm says quietly. "I don't want you to have to stick to a script. Just... don't insult her and don't talk about any obvious criminal activity. We'll be fine."

He's realizing that he doesn't want to turn this into a dog and pony show. Harley is who she is and he loves her for that. Either his mother will accept it or she won't.

Harley doesn't look at him, but she squeezes his hand. Her fingers are cold.

"So we're done with rehearsals, Professor Henry Higgins?"

"Yeah," he says. Malcolm brushes a piece of her hair back, then puts his arms around her and pulls her into his lap. "I'm sorry."

He may have a point about her needing polishing - they both know it - but he's being kind of an asshole. Harley knows what she can and can't say in front of his mother. She's not an idiot.

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