Asylum
Prologue
File 000 - "I Need Your Therapy…"
Pretty, pretty please
If you ever, ever feel
Like you're nothing
You're fucking perfect to me…
- P!nk
Dr. Harley Quinn's Office
The silence was thick. Not a single word passed between them as Harley sat on her modest Ikea rocking chair, clasping her clipboard and a small notebook in her lap. She eyed Bruce Wayne, seated across from her, hands folded, head filled with thoughts. Superintendent Wayne was a man of many secrets, few words, just silent whispers, some grunts. From what she gathered, his decision making was flawed but came from his heart. Or so she had hoped as she awaited some sort of answer for her question. As the youngest psychiatrist working in the Sex Crimes Unit of the Gotham Police Department, the thirty six year old woman already ruled out in her head the possibility that he was a potential sex offender, but there was a deeper story here.
"I don't mean to pry, but what happened? Why are we here? I can tell you're not a pervert, at least I can hope that I can testify to that, but I need you to be honest with me, for the sake of the law. For the sake of this report that I owe my boss at the Gotham Police Department. I can't possibly walk this blank piece of paper to the A.D.A tomorrow. I need to know why we are here. You are being charged with soliciting drugs to a minor. That's a very serious offense. You can go to prison and even though I can keep you off the list, if you want any strings pulled, you need to pull them now. Because there's talk of rape and-"
"I never touched her," was all he could muster.
"I see that. I don't think you need to go on any lists, but I need to understand where you were coming from. There are pictures of you giving this girl a prescription bottle, this underage freshmen, filled with pills. Mr. Wayne. Bruce. You have to start talking," Dr. Quinn said, her voice hinting at a plead, a little bit enough of a whine to get him to lift his head.
"What if I cooperate, what do I get out of this?" Bruce Wayne's dark eyes met her own crystal blue pools and for a moment, time felt as if stood still before he looked back down at the ground. Harley arched her back for a moment and the rocking chair. She straightened her spine, cocked her head to the side, "Will I get off?"
"I don't know. Depends on how much you're willing to cooperate, how much of a deal are you willing to cut, and what actually happened. I'm still a doctor here, we can talk." Harley tried to add a reassuring quality into her tone of voice but Bruce Wayne was a boulder, unmoved by any sort of help he was offered, "It was reported that you were seen handing Esperanza Cruz, an underage freshman at Gotham Community College, a pill bottle filled with prescription drugs. May I ask why?"
"You know why, you read the report," Another curt reply from Mr. Wayne as his eyes traced the carpet on the floor.
"What was in the pill bottle?" Harley asked, with the pen in her hand, she pushed out a blonde bang from her eye. "I got a report from the head of the Drug Task Force that said the pill bottle was a certified prescription was for Dilantin, an anti seizure medication. You could be charged with soliciting drugs to a minor, Dr. Wayne. It's a serious offense, I'm doing the best I can, but you have to cooperate with me. I can try and make this as minimal as possible but you're leaving me with a lot more questions than answers and that's what you don't want."
"I gave a low income student, on a high scholarship, with no insurance, with a medical history of seizures, seizure medication, while my office works on her paperwork to get her Medicaid. I don't see the problem Dr. Quinn." Dr. Bruce Wayne was one of the first deans of a community college to become a millionaire, his picture had been featured in the local publications as well as publications about schools throughout the country.
Gotham Community College was a hub of well equipped teachers who were offering a great education and Bruce Wayne was at the forefront. As a graduate with a PhD from Columbia University, he became a Science professor, obtained a seat on the board, and with the current Superintendent was about to retire, Bruce Wayne was named the most likely successor. Gotham Community College or G.C.C. was a hub of great thinking.
And now scandal.
"Let's talk about you for a second… You like to help people?" Harley inquired into the void. Everytime she glanced at Bruce Wayne, all she
could see was an abyss of memories of hurt, frustration, and a small need for heroics swirling around in one man, "You've had such a good track record at the school, I would hate to see something happen because you were trying to help out. Just… cooperate with me."
"I'm the dean of a local community college, yes, I like to help people."
"Do you think that maybe if your parents were around, you wouldn't carry all this guilt? Survivor's guilt?" Harley asked, her face made an almost wince, knowing that she was treading into very delicate waters.
Bruce Wayne glanced up her, smirked, sneered, and then spoke, "My parents are off limits. I don't want to talk about them."
"If this goes to trial, nothing is off limits," Harley said matter-of-factly as she began to write in her notepad. It was only swirls at this point, no definitive words, no impressions, nothing. Just a circle that kept on growing into a bigger swirl, "Everything gets to be used, nothing is inadmissible. Even your house's caretaker, Pennyworth, is going to be brought in for questioning if he hasn't been already. This is bad, Mr. Wayne. Really bad. You should not have given her that pill bottle."
"No, what I should've done is not get caught and then I wouldn't have to deal with this. What would have happened if that poor girl died because she didn't have her seizure medication. The press would have had a field day, I would have had to cancel school. Do you think that the college could've handled that? It would've been a disaster. I did what was best for the school. For the school, not my dead father. Or mother. They're gone." Bruce Wayne's voice hinted at emotion but his body language gave off pure detachment. A shrug in his shoulders here, an even tone of voice there, a scowl.
"Well, I don't think I can be of much help here." She closed her notebook firmly so that it slammed. She unclipped the papers from her clipboard and slid them in the notebook, "It'll be my recommendation that your teaching license be revoked, mandatory probation, you'll be sent to the Gothams Correctional Facility-"
"You are a big fucking bitch, you know that? You're going to ruin me? I'm going to ruin you. I'll make sure to sue the entire Gotham Police Department for slander while I dig up how many cases were fucked up by the D.A. How many criminals have gone back on the streets because of shitty deals made by Gotham PD. I didn't touch that girl, I didn't rape that girl, all I did was give a low-fucking-income student the opportunity to have an education. I will be so rich by the time I'm suing the entire city of Gotham, I won't even need my teacher's license. I'll have the union pay for everything," Bruce Wayne's raspy voice was filled with fury, his charcoal eyes were ablaze with rage, malice, dark thoughts. His tone was even, matter-of-fact, hard. Harley leaned back in the chair at the severity of his threats, she crossed her legs, adjusted the hem of her pencil skirt and folded her hands.
"You're threatening me? Do you have a pension for the violent?" Harley asked, her soprano-esque voice ringing in the cold therapist's office. "I wanted to find the truth. This is all going to get dug up in court. It seems that you were trying to do a good thing even if it wasn't through the right channels. That's admirable. You seem to be a genuine person, Mr. Wayne. I know you're not a pedophile, I know you were doing the right thing, but how am I supposed to go to my boss and tell him that you deserve a break? Do you think he'll do that for me?'
"Depends how much more cleavage you're willing to show," Bruce said coldly, his eyes avoiding looking at her. Instead, his gaze found a window. A brightly lit Gotham, on the verge of dinner, reflected in the background; city lights and loud music, "Listen, I don't mean to give you a hard time Dr. Quinn, I'm dealing with lots of stress right now, and I just wanna get home. If I'm going down for this, I'd rather go down swinging, and it means I gotta get my lawyer on the phone to figure this out." For the first time, Bruce Wayne stood. Well over six feet, muscles underneath a black turtleneck, gray slacks, black hair slicked to the side. Handsome but rough around the edges.
"I didn't know this session is over… It was supposed to be an hour. We barely got through thirty five minutes. Half the time, you were quiet…" Harley said, setting the notebook aside. She stood up from her rocking chair, "Dr. Wayne, you don't seem to understand the severity of this matter. I'm doing all the best I can to help you, but you don't seem to want my help. My hands are tied here. I'm asking for a little more cooperation."
"You wanna do dinner?"
"What?"
"I asked you if you wanted to grab dinner. Maybe we can talk this over lasagna or pizza, I know a great deep dish place," Bruce Wayne walked over to the coat rack, picked up his raincoat from one of the hangers. He quickly put it on, adjusted the lapels, then began to button them.
"I don't think that's a really good idea. I mean, you literally called me every bad word in the book, I don't know that I can set myself up for a date with you," Harley said, walking over to her small hand-me-down desk, opening up a drawer, and throwing her book in there. Behind her office chair, she picked up her raincoat, and gingerly adjusted the sleeves that had been inside-out within the jacket.
"I'm… sorry." Bruce lowered his head as he continued to button down his coat, "Esperanza's gonna play for the softball team. I coach the girls in the spring. I really wanted her. I'm in anger management but that's why I love coaching the sports. You can say whatever you want, no one really holds it against you. You call a psychiatrist 'a big fucking bitch', you spend your whole life regretting it." He was finally finished.
"Well, I might be able to do you a favor, if you're willing to sit and listen to me for a bit about what I think would be really great for Gotham. I've been dreaming about this day for years and I think you're the right person to talk about it with," Harley said, her eyes widening a little in mystery as she placed her raincoat on. She began adjusting the sleeves.
"Oh yeah… What is it?"
"A hospital."
"Sounds interesting enough..."
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