Disclaimer: I own nothing but my words and my mind. DC owns everything else.

Authors Note: So if you've read Mad Love its inferred (but is pretty common knowledge) that Harley basically slept her way to good grades whilst at college. It's also pretty much common knowledge that Jonathan Crane was still teaching psychology at Gotham University during that time and so would have been one of her professors... Yeah. Just putting it out there.

Anyway they seem to get on both in the Arkham games (Asylum/Knight) & in BTAS so I thought id jump on what I believe is called the scaryquinn band wagon and write this rather long drabble. But seriously imagine if they did and now they both have to pretend like hell they didn't out of fear Joker will find out and literally kill them. I like thinking everyone secretly figured it out anyway, or at least Ivy has. And riddler. Of course.

"You all forget. I knew her long before any of you."

That morning Harley had emerged at breakfast looking considerably black and blue, her left eye swollen and sunken into her head. It had been their anniversary the day before and in celebration he had carved a 'J' into her chest, above her heart. She thought it was the sweetest, most romantic thing he had ever done. He thought it was hilarious. Everyone else just looked on in profound horror until Ivy had piped up and started screaming at the clown. The couple had been removed, Joker taken to isolation and Harley was confined to her cell. The rouges had been talking amongst themselves about Harley, about how she was getting worse, wondering how she could let that monster abuse her. It was when they started suggesting she might have always been messed up that Crane had spoken up. Reminded everyone that he had in fact known her the longest. Longer than the doctors and Joker, longer than Ivy. He had been her friend for years, he had been her teacher before that. He sighed, wishing he hadn't said anything. Nobody had responded verbally but all eyes turned to him, evaluating his sad manor. He held his head in his right hand, his left twirling his breakfast around with his fork.

"You're all so quick to jump to her defense once she's sobbing uncontrollably in her cell on her own, reflecting on how truly awful it is, how devastated you all are for her. But none of you care, not really. Perhaps maybe you do Pamela" he said turning to face Ivy. "But I suspect you may have your own selfish agenda with her... I think you enjoy having her to manipulate as much as he does-" "Do not compare me to the clown!" She retorted, cutting him off before he could finish. She stood before him, shaking slightly with rage. "She's my best friend? I love her!"

"But do you?" He intercepted, sounding both sarcastic and angry, frowning in irritation. She looked at him dumbfounded, his eyes were glassy and that surprised her. He put down his fork and stared at her intensely. "Do you love her? Really? Do you even know her past that stupid harlequin costume?" He trailed off dropping his head, returning to face the table and uncomfortably rubbing the spot between his eyes. As if he was trying to stop himself crying. Ivy had to admit, seeing him look so utterly defeated over Harley's little punch up was beginning to irritate her. She'd dealt with this for years, been Harley's shoulder to cry on since the beginning and now here he was getting so choked up over her friend. "So she was a student of yours Crane? Big deal. I didn't realize you could become so close with somebody just by marking their midterms?" Her tone was venom and at that he stood up to leave. "You know nothing" he spat at her on his way out. She didn't. None of them did.

Once back in his cell, he relieved his frustration by violently tearing his bookcase off the wall. After that he collapsed on his cot and staring up at the ceiling, began telling himself that he had finally stopped caring about her. A rampant tapping on glass distracted his thoughts and reluctantly he looked up to see Harley pressed against the glass of her cell, opposite his. She looked concerned, her eyes searching his from across the small walkway. She breathed onto the glass and wrote 'U OK PROF?' in the condensation. He sighed deeply before smiling back at her sweetly and nodding. Her mouth twisted into a grin but her eyes still looked at him sadly, she was worried about him. He approached the glass of his own cell and stood thinking for a while before he breathed on it. He wrote 'MISS' before shaking his head and rubbing it away, leaning his hand on the glass. She watched him sigh, rubbing his eyes before looking up at her. She pressed her own hand up to the glass and mouthed 'Im sorry'. For a short while they did nothing and finally she breathed onto the glass again and drew a smiling face with glasses on. He couldn't help but feel a little bit better. She was okay, she knew what she was doing. He just missed her.

...XO...

They had arranged to meet outside a coffee shop in midtown Gotham. Odd he thought, considering the university campus was absolutely littered with them. But she had insisted that this was her favorite haunt. They made the very best coffee with extra cream and marshmallows and besides, she could sit outside and smoke without anybody seeing them together. She had been quite the chain smoker then, always seemed so wound up, edgy... like a tight spring or a bomb counting down. And maybe the smoking did help her nerves, considering how much she had weighing on her mind, the crazy amount of pressure she was under to be perfect at everything, he wasn't at all surprised. She had told him in his office once about her mother's judgmental nature. Her mother had expected her to be an olympian, really her only memories of childhood was of her being pushed to be better, s

summers spent training, competitions she won and lost. A rebellion at some point was natural. So when she started to flunk gymnastics and started burying her nose in psychology books, her mother had called her bluff, ensuring she studied just as hard as she had trained. And now here she was, majoring in a subject she didn't really understand and only sparked an interest in to spite her mother. The only thing that shut her up was the constant flow of perfect grades, and so she continued to pretend and prove herself. And after bribing and blackmailing her smarter peers for answer sheets began to seem too risky, she decided to jump the gun and start seducing her professors. She was after all young, beautiful and manipulative. She had never had a serious relationship, sure she'd slept with boys she'd met at gym training, but that had always seemed more like another way to get back at her mother for something. She didn't really get the attention she wanted, she certainly never got much affection from her siblings or her mother and her dad had been in Blackgate for as long as she could remember. So for her, sleeping with boys she didn't really care about filled some little void and sleeping with sad old men in exchange for good grades felt no different. If anything it felt better? At least she got what she wanted out of it and managed to make them feel a little better about themselves. She was determined, you had to hand it to her.

Anyway, he was meeting her to go over her last paper. He normally didn't give his students feedback in person, but he had long stopped denying to himself he had a huge crush on her. And besides she liked Crane. Actually liked him. Because he was different to the other professors. He was not a sad, desperate old man who had long given up on their subject, fallen out of love with their boring old wives and who lived in a massive house filled with their own books they had written. He did however surround himself with his work.

That was the difference, he lived for this, he had a purpose, a goal. He wanted something. Like she did. He was still passionate, whats more he was rebellious. Everyone knew his teaching upset the university staff. Rumors spread about his unconventional methods, students of his that had gone mad. People thought he was strange, scary even but she saw more than that. She didn't quite know what, but there was more to him. On the other hand he was not terrible looking, his clothing and haircut gave him the appearance of a middle aged man, but in reality he was not much older than her. And he was always kind, very shy. She liked that. She was very honest and he was very passive, she was fun and he was always so serious, he was reliable and she was someone who was desperately trying to hold it together. Needless to say they were actually great friends and often had talks in his office after lectures and had been known to lunch together sometimes. She kept waiting for him to ask, but he never did. It was becoming harder to keep the routine she had already. Besides, she didn't make a habit of sleeping with nice guys.

When he arrived she was already outside with a well used ash tray in front of her. She was sat with her legs on the chair, a book resting against her knees, taking sips from her coffee cup whilst gazing down at the pages intensely. She looked up to see him approaching and rushed to put her things away. Taking out a thermos and pouring the hot liquid into an empty cup on his side of the small table, she looked up at him and smiled sweetly. "They make great coffee here but the tea's not all that, so I thought id bring my own for ya". He sat and she pushed the cup towards him. He thanked her and brought out his papers from his briefcase, handing across a copy of her essay heavily scribbled over with red ink. She took it and frowned before sighing heavily "that bad huh?" she remarked flicking through the pages. "Well my dear, I actually feel the premiss of your argument was-" She interrupted him by raising her hand, signaling for him to wait. She put down the paper and reached into her bag taking out a cigarette and a lighter, she lit it and inhaled deeply, relaxing back into the chair. "Okay, now hit me with it" He smiled at her, she really was quite funny. He continued on, working through each of his points and in places she nodded and asked questions. She got another coffee and he had two cups of tea and she gradually worked her way through the rest of her cigarette pack before producing another and eventually they stopped talking about her paper and moved on to just talking. About her, about her family, about her dad in Blackgate, about how her she thought her mother took interest in her successes and nothing else and how she felt that meant she didn't really love her. She even asked about him, and when he rambled on about his latest Fear research and how the university once again didn't agree with his proposition and how he had to work around that in order to do his work, she actually looked interested. They talked for hours, she made him laugh and he complimented her and in all this time he felt himself becoming slowly, slowly more taken by her. At which point he decided it best to leave. However, it being very late by this point and away from Campus he thought it best to take her home. It was barely walkable after all, and though he thought she might protest, her dorm being out of his way, she happily excepted. "So professa what happens if some thug emerges from the shadows and decides to rob us, ya gonna protect me?" she teased as they walked through the streets. He looked at her and couldn't help but smile, proudly and wide, "Oh I can be very scary when I want to be." She drew closer to him, believing every word he said. She really did like Crane, an awful, awful lot. And for a minute she considered the thought that she'd been waiting for him to ask her for a while, but he never did. And he never would. But she had been waiting all the same, maybe because she wanted him to.

They arrived outside the door to her building, she turned on her heels and faced him, he thought, to thank him. He was quite surprised when she took his hand and gazed up at him pleadingly. "Wont you stay?" she asked quite innocently and for a second he was lost for words. "Im on the ground floor, thats my room there" she said pointing to the window closest to them. "It makes it very easy for sneaking people in and out." All this time she was smiling up at him and still she had his hand gripped in hers and still he didn't know what to say. He opened his mouth, but he didn't quite know how to word what was on his mind, but it didn't matter she knew what he was thinking anyway. "Im not gonna sleep with you for grades Jonathan" she answered him meekly. Her eyes didn't look harsh as he expected them to, but rather guilty, as if she regretted that her actions made him think that. He looked down at her seriously, moving closer to her, he moved his hand up to gently touch her face. "Then why?" and why indeed? She was beautiful and captivating, there was something about her that made her unlike everyone else. In much the same way she saw him, he saw her. There was something about her that pushed against the norm. Sleeping with all her professors seemed to be just one way she refused to conform, she did it because why shouldn't she? When everyone else slaved away over books till they went crazy she didn't have to. She didn't really have to do anything she didn't want to. So why was she here, asking him to stay with her. "Because you're a nice guy. A really, really nice guy. And I don't make a habit of sleepin' with nice guys." She decided that tonight however, she wanted to start. He responded with the most sincere smile, cupping her face in his palm. He knew he should say no, he knew it wasn't right. He knew she was acting on impulse and that she'd regret it or worse, she'd just see him like all the others. He knew he should say no. And yet, he later remarked to himself, that second to the screams of pure fear, Harleen's repeated cries of 'yes' were quite possibly the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.