The Joker's Pet
Preface
It started before she ever stepped foot in Arkham Asylum. No one had ever had confidence in her, not her parents, teachers, professors, no one. She had graduated both high school and university with honors, she'd fought so hard, but still the people closest to her found the things she didn't do well enough, at least that's how she saw it.
Anyone not in her pretty little head would have seen things differently. Everyone thought highly of her, her accomplishments, her determination, her passion. The problem was what no one saw; she was not only immersed in studying psychology, she was herself mentally ill.
It may have been the many forms of abuse of her childhood. It may have been the constant bullying. Hell it could have been simply genetic; the real problem was she COULD see it.
She fought hard to hide it and misdirect people from her tumultuous mind. She carefully hit her sudden bursts of anger, depression, hyperactivity, and even emotions she had no name for under "migraines." She would slink away, no one the wiser. The destruction of objects and of her own body was hidden well, no one ever noticed.
So when she was accepted to work at Arkham Asylum she knew, deep down where she wouldn't admit it, that she was stepping into the lion's den. And when she met HIM something clicked in a way it never had. She thought it was her big break, she'd learn how the Joker's mind worked, she'd decipher what made him, well HIM.
What she could never have guessed was that HE could see in HER mind. She may have been on the edge of true insanity but he was already there. She never stood a chance at understanding, unlocking his secrets, because he was a sociopath and highly intelligent. He would use all his most devious tricks to break her, make her his, because while many would contend that sociopaths don't have emotions, they do, they're just different and tempered with a lack of conscience.
Harleen was his prefect project. She would be his masterpiece, his toy, HIS.
He used her own childhood traumas and cast himself as the child. He complimented her work, her looks, even telling her she was the only one to ever truly understand him.
Through their sessions he worked his special type of "magic." Showing anger when she'd slip and mention some wrong that had befallen her, making her feel safe. He twisted her already present perception of reality, telling her how the orderlies and other doctors whispered about her, how he felt helpless to defend her.
His mission to heighten her paranoia had a two pronged goal, make her trust only him and grow her anger at the other professionals at Arkham.
Once this was in place he worked on her sense of good and bad, of righteousness and evil. This was far simpler than he had planned due to her minor in university; anthropology. It made complete sense in her now fragile mind that every culture sure be allowed to follow its own social norms, and so the criminal culture was the same. If we accept that a culture's tradition and social norms are a natural right then it is only responsible to accept ALL culture's rights to perform their rituals and behaviors.
His sexual innuendo and flirtation only furthered the connection he had forged.
By the time his henchmen had freed him from the asylum, on a night he knew she wouldn't be there, she was completely his.
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