Surrounded by blob monsters and assassins and metahumans, it’s not surprising that Deadshot/Floyd Lawton (or anyone in the Squad, really) might want to protect Harley–she’s barely 5′6″, and a girl. But Floyd’s (surprisingly well-developed) relationship with her is neither as sexist nor as simplistic as that.
Though you might expect him to, Floyd doesn’t protect Harley from the blob monsters. Firstly, there’s no need – they’re both killers. Secondly, she would probably shoot him for trying. Floyd trusts Harley to handle herself, which means he takes care of her, but only when she needs it. More importantly, he trusts Harley to take care of Rick Flag, not once, but twice – the importance of which cannot be overstated, given that his death means the immediate execution of each and every one of them. What Floyd protects Harley from is herself–when she’s distracted by the dead blob thing in the middle of a firefight, when she has a flashback on the stairwell, when she runs straight towards the enchantress without thinking. They’ve barely known each other a day, but Floyd already knows her. He can distinguish between what Harley needs to be protected from (her bad habits) and what she can handle on her own (pretty much everything else) because he sees her as a partner and treats her as such.
Even knowing what she’s capable of, Floyd never makes the mistake of seeing Harley as a ticking time bomb. Everyone else on the Squad (Boomerang in particular) seems to treat her like she’s radioactive–pretty to look at, but hazardous to your health. Floyd is the only person who treats her like a human being, instead of just a pretty weapon. Harley’s even guilty of this herself – hiding her relationship with Joker, masking her vulnerabilities, running headfirst into danger – and she does it mostly with words, her second-deadliest weapon. What Floyd does in Suicide Squad is bypass her words entirely. Whether they’re speaking with words (in the stairwell, during shootouts), through glances (on the helicopter, or on the roof), or through touch (on the car, fighting the Enchantress), Floyd can always tell what Harley’s really saying, which allows her to be her truest self with him. It’s like they operate on a level of understanding that no one else in the Squad can touch, which is why their relationship becomes tactile halfway through the film–they don’t need words anymore.
Wow that got long. ANYWAYS Floyd and Harley are sweet and lovely and perfect and wonderful together (and Will Smith better be in the freaking Harley movie or I’m fighting someone).