I have an aunt. I've only met her a few times, but I see her often, smiling at me from the television or the newspaper. Mom is always quick to flip the channel or whisk the offending page away before I can get a good look, but when she's gone and Nana is asleep, I watch for as long as I want, drinking in her gleeful face. Sometimes they even have footage of her swinging and cart wheeling around with her face covered in greasepaint, laughing and taunting the Batman.
I know I shouldn't, but sometimes I root for her.
Amber Peel to see Harleen Quinzel. I frown and cross out 'Harleen Quinzel', replacing it with 'Harley Quinn'. The woman at the front desk of the rarely used Arkham Asylum Visitor Wing raises an eyebrow and looks from the clipboard and back to me. She doesn't say anything, though, and instead gestures for me to follow her through security.
I am relieved of my jacket, bus pass, and house key before I'm taken into a large room with a table in the middle. There's a red stain on my side of the table and now I'm not so sure this was a good idea, but it's too late to back out when the door opposite me slides open and two guards lead her in.
She looks at me for a moment and squints her eyes. "Do I know you?" she asks, her voice is a cartoonish-ly amplified version of Nana or Mom.
"I'm Amber Peel," I answer, but I'm met with a blank expression, hopefully adding: "Sharona Quinzel's daughter?"
Her eyes grow larger with recognition, "She ain't here, is she?"
"I took the bus."
Harley seems to accept this and relaxes slightly in her chair, "Then why're you here, kid?"
"I wanted to talk…"
She snorts and gives one of the guards at her shoulder a nasty look, "Relax a bit Jimmy, I'm not goin' anywhere just yet. Not with my lovely niece right here in front 'a me!" She turns back smiles at me, it's sweet enough to give someone diabetes, but also frayed slightly around the edges like she'd wish her meeting with the twerp to end soon. "What's on your mind A-cakes?"
"Come home," I whisper, fidgeting slightly.
"Excuse me?" Harley leans forward.
"Come home," I look at her and, for once, not even her eyes are smiling.
Instead they narrow and a dangerous smirk crawls across her features, "Why would I want to do that?"
I don't say anything, frightened by the sudden venom in her voice.
"Answer me," her voice is childishly pleading, almost a whine.
"Nana cries–" my voice catches, both out of fear and oncoming tears, "–all the time and Mom– Mom hasn't been the same. We need you, Harley–" my voice catches again, not out of emotion, but the realization that this is the first time I've ever said it out loud, "–Everyone says that you broke, but they never realized that your family broke too."
Her blue eyes widen and she looks like she's chewing my words, seeing how they taste. After a few moments of absolute silence, she tilts her head back and laughs. It echoes off the walls and bounces straight into my mind. They say that his laugh is terrible, but I don't believe them, nothing can be worse than this.
"But I am home," she sing-songs, "Arkham, the hideouts, I've never been more at home in my life!"
The guards finally drag her away and the receptionist leads me back in the waiting room. I'm trembling and tears are threatening to spill over my eyelashes, she was supposed to be kind and fun, like she is on the news, she was supposed to nod and join me on the bus back home.
"I'm sorry," the receptionist says, smiling like she's relieved that I'll never return.
But she's wrong, I'll come back, I have to keep coming back until Aunt Harley finally agrees to come home with me.
Author's Note: Alright, my first contribution to the fanfiction world, fingers crossed that I did Harley Quinn justice.
And I completely ignored the comics when it came to Harley Quinn's family, instead creating my own for her.