Metamorphosis
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'I have a bad habit of searching for beauty in beasts'
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Chapter 1
It had been a long night; she'd only gotten home at 5am, and after 40 minutes of sitting numbly on her kitchen floor wondering what the fuck she was doing with her life had she dragged herself into a scalding hot shower, letting the hot water wash away her evening of sin. She had dressed quickly – underwear, panty hose, pencil dress and black suede high heeled pumps – and haphazardly ran a brush through her hair as she contemplated tying the wet blonde tresses around her neck and strangling herself with them, Robert Browning eat your heart out. Begrudgingly she dried her hair, knowing that she couldn't exactly turn up at work looking like she should be one of the patients. Tidying up what remained of the previous evenings makeup, Harleen stared at her reflection in the mirror.
"Fraud," a voice in her head taunted, "Pretty little liar playing make believe."
Her expression tightened, eyes hardening. "Shut up," she hissed, staring back at herself, "You don't get to tell me what is real anymore."
"You're a liability;" it sang in reply, "It's just a matter of time before you fuck it all up."
"You don't know anything," Harleen growled, "Shut up!"
"What are you going to do, little H? You going to kill me? Huh?" Harleen could have sworn she heard a cackle behind her. "Murderer," the voice whispered, "You can't escape what you did... You can't escape-"
"Shut up!" She screamed back, her fist flying at the mirror before she knew what she'd done, "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"
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The ride to work had been silent. She had rather sensibly chosen to take a cab, knowing that she wasn't exactly fit to drive. She overpaid and wordlessly climbed out, walking towards the building with an expressionless face. Her colleagues said their polite hellos and Dr Quinzel replied with quiet greetings, eager not to engage any of them into conversation. She wasn't in the mood for idle chit chat, too nauseas to care about Dr Teller's weekend plans or see Dr Wilfred's wife's sonogram of their unborn child for the millionth time. Luckily her co-workers seemed to sense her mood and nobody attempted to talk to her. She strode as quickly as she could through the corridors to the staff kitchen for an Arkham-grade espresso, and then to the sanctity of her office. Once there, she locked the door, dumped her bag on her desk and turned on her laptop. As the machine hummed to life, she grabbed a glass of water from the cooler and set it down, rummaging through her desk for a dissolvable solution to her headache.
"I'm still here, Harleen," the voice whispered, "Right here, under your skin."
Dr Quinzel swallowed roughly and did her best not to acknowledge her aggressor. She logged onto the Arkham system and found her schedule.
New patient, first thing.
She frowned. This was against procedure. Patients couldn't just be handed over, there was a process, a way of doing things that involved lengthy conversations over psychiatrist suitability, risk assessments and close examination of the patient's file compared to the experience of the suggested doctor. None of this had taken place, yet there it was. New patient. First thing.
She had twenty minutes before the session was due to start. Her therapy room was a minute's walk from her office – like most of her colleagues, she preferred to keep the spaces separate. She didn't know the patient, she hadn't been able to read up about him, figure out her strategy, adjust her angle to match his personality. She looked up and grimaced – going into these sessions blind was not something that she was fond of. She wasn't incapable, far from it, but with a hangover that could kill and the voice in her head, the thought of someone new was unsettling.
There was a timid knock on her door and Harleen looked up. "Come in."
Her assistant, a mousy middle aged woman named Selma, scurried in, handing her an overflowing patient file in dire disrepair. "Your 10am, Dr Quinzel," she said remorsefully, aware of the usual procedures that had been jumped over, "Dr Arkham sends his apologies for the short notice but the patient was only admitted yesterday evening and you're the only therapist with a free morning. He needs an urgent assessment. He's been here before, last time he was a patient of Doctor Peters, but-"
"Doctor Peters had a nervous breakdown," Dr Quinzel replied with a sigh. "This guy is that bad, huh?"
Selma swallowed and handed over the file. "Dr Arkham's assistant didn't specify, Dr Quinzel."
Harleen accepted the file and motioned for Selma to leave the room. She placed the folder down in front of her and grimaced at the state of the cover – torn, dirty, held together in places by tape.
"Like you," the voice whispered.
Harleen scowled, muttering under her breath. "Go away."
She flicked open the file and skim read: murder, arson, larceny, torture, drugs, murder, numerous assaults on police officers, plus the usual turf war, gang rival crap that she saw every day. More murders. Jeez, the guy was a piece of work. There was a photo, but it was stained, and the picture was blurred. She could make out a pale bare chest with dark smudges of what she supposed were tattoos, and hair that was a dull shade of green. The facial features were mostly washed out, as if a thumb had scrubbed over the picture to erase the man's characteristics.
A light bulb went on in her head and she flicked back to the first page. It was him. The Joker. There was a note by the name; Refer to patient as Mr J in order to avoid triggering psychosis.
She almost choked on her coffee. Christ, if calling the guy by his name was enough to set him off, she would have to tread carefully to say the least.
Run of the mill psychopath, she supposed despairingly. Nothing particularly new. Another knock on the door, and this time Dr Harleen jumped, startled from her thoughts.
"Yes?"
"My apologies for interrupting you, Dr Quinzel," Selma said anxiously, "But your 10am is on his way."
"Shit," Harleen replied, leaping from her chair, pulling on her lab coat in haste and reaching for the file on her desk. She walked quickly to her therapy room, hoping that she was still going to be able to arrive first. She liked to be in the room when the patient was escorted in, in control of the situation, eager to establish herself as the dominant force to ensure that the patient respected her from the off.
As it was, her new patient was already waiting for her, surrounded by what could only be described as an entourage of guards – two at each side, two behind – and the patient himself was visually distinctive and interesting to say the least, and his metallic gaze was fixed on her as she strode down the corridor towards him.
.
.
He had a new therapist.
It wasn't particularly a grand event, but in the monotony of life at Arkham, anything to break up the time was a welcome distraction to the dark recesses of his mind.
The woman was pretty, young and blonde. Boring, by all accounts, once you got over her knockout body and pouty little mouth (which he was trying really hard to do).
She was petite, small framed beneath the oversized mandatory Arkham-issue white coat that all the docs wore. From his perusal of her, he'd observed that she had legs for days, her calf muscles well defined and strong in her pointy toed suede pumps. The skirt of her pencil dress was just long enough that it skimmed the tops of her knees, the stark navy fabric flashing through the bottom of the white coat she she moved with purpose through the grey halls of the asylum – taking him to a new therapy room, he'd figured with disinterest.
The woman had a nice face, for all that it mattered, which it didn't. Not even when she boldly met his gaze as they met outside of a door. There was a small window about four fifths up the grey door, and above this was a tiny red plaque with the name 'DR. HARLEEN QUINZEL - THERAPY ROOM' etched in black block letters.
"Our sessions will take place in here," she said, more to the guards than him. "I expect him to be here, on time, at 10am sharp, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Preferably lucid and in a pleasant mood."
Joker snorted in amusement at her prickly authority, feeling the indignance emanating from his guards, who were clearly rankled at her orders. But the little woman was above their paygrade, and so they grunted in agreement and shoved him into the room via the shoulders of his strait jacket as soon as she'd unlocked the door. The room itself was a pale blue box. There was nothing of character, nothing to pique his interest or give him any clues as to his new doctor's personality.
Seeing her eying the strait jacket sceptically, one of the guards stepped forward. "With all due respsect, miss Quinzel, the jacket stays. Dr Arkham's orders."
The Joker watched the exchange with mild interest, seeing very clearly how irked the little blonde doctor became at being addressed in such a manner.
"I'm a Doctor, not a miss, Mr Cash," she replied briskly, and the Joker didn't miss the way her jaw clenched, "I have a PhD to prove it. Now, unless you think yourself more capable than I am to conduct this session, I must ask you to leave."
Turning her attention away from the guards in clear dismissal, she sat down on a worn leather armchair, gesturing again for the two straggler guards to leave the room just as the Joker plopped down gracefully into the matching couch across from hers.
The guards looked uneasy at the thought of leaving Joker with her, but her eyes narrowed insistently and they left, shrugging in defeat at her apparent frightening lack of self-preservation. He gazed across at her, studying her visage in detail and committing the features to memory. Her bone structure was flawless, even he could grudgingly admit that, and her eyes were a piercing azure blue. Noticing his scrutiny of her face, she met his gaze evenly, a challenge clear in her eyes.
"Hello there," J purred at her, and she raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you... pretty?"
The other eyebrow went up and she made a shorthand note on a pad to her right. "Good morning, Mr J," she replied, "I'm doctor Quinzel, I'll be your psychotherapist for the foreseeable future."
J grinned, flashing her his silver grill in something close to a genuine smile. "What happened to the good doctor Peters?" He asked, "I liked him."
More shorthand notes. Her eyes never left his face, and only the tightening of her lips betrayed her mild annoyance. "You know perfectly well what happened to him, Mr J," she said blandly, a pinch of sarcasm seeping into her tone, "You're an intelligent man, I see no reason for you to pretend otherwise."
The smile fell from his face, then, and his eyes narrowed.
When he offered no verbal response, she made another small note and then went on, "We will be commencing two-hour daily sessions from Monday next, until such a time as I can gauge how responsive you are to my methods, wherein Dr Arkham will review your case. Then-"
"Yada yada yada," J interuppted with a scowl – more scribbling from the blonde - "Got it. Boring doctor-patient introductory crap is received and understood."
He expected her to chastise him, but she nodded somewhat sympathetically. "I imagine it gets repetitive."
J gaped at her. "What, you mean hearing the same old shit time after time isn't the very thing that gives my life meaning? You wound me, doctor Quinzel." He even managed to look mildly affronted.
She wrote another note. "Your frustration is understandable, of course. Not to mention the fact that the lack of a permanent doctor prevents you from forming a bond of trust and holds you back from making progress. You have a high IQ - I do believe you're considered to be a genius – no doubt you'd rather hear something other than the usual stuff."
The Joker stared across at her and shrugged. "You can def-in-it-lee skip the inkblot test."
The blonde doctor wet her bottom lip with her tongue and rolled her shoulders, her eyes gleaming. She leaned towards him a little, and J, annoyingly taken in by her, mirrored her action. She gave him a small smile. "Why don't you tell me about your first kill, Mr J?"
Letting out a cackle of delight, Joker's grill flashed. Out of all of the things he'd expected to come out of that pouty little mouth, that certainly was not it. "And what makes you think I remember it?" He barked at her, not sure if her reaction to his sudden outburst – or lack thereof – was pleasing or not.
"Everyone remembers their first," the woman replied breezily, "Even you."
The Joker squared his jaw and leered at her. "I was fifteen. She was older, in senior year. She came onto me during my paper round and I let her have her wicked way with me."
The doctor looked unimpressed but made a small note all the same. "Do you often use sex as a means of deflection?"
Joker scowled. Who did this bitch think she was, talking to him like that? And then he surprised himself by replying, "I killed my first guy at nineteen. Beat him to death with a mallet from his own garage."
The doctor thought on this. "It takes a lot of strength to use a mallet like that," she observed, more to herself than him. "It sounds like a very bloody and a very slow way to die."
"It was," J answered, "He didn't have a face left by the time I left him."
"Why a mallet?"
Her patient shrugged. "Why not a mallet?"
"Why not indeed," she mused, then, "It seems awfully personal, is all," she explained, "To have killed someone like that."
"It was personal," the Joker growled back at her, his anger from the night of his first kill rushing back, "He-" He caught sight of her pen flying across her notepad, jotting down all kinds in unintelligible symbols that even he couldn't understand, even though her baby blues remained firmly focussed on his face. "Never mind," J muttered petulantly, slouching in his chair.
Nonplussed, the doctor moved on. "If you could pick a weapon of choice, what would it be?"
"A knife," he shot back at her. "Up close and personal, every single time."
She nodded. (A part of his brain wondered what the fuck she was nodding for). "Yes," she said eventually, her voice so soft that he felt inclined to look at her properly. She was faraway, no longer in the room with him. "I'd imagine there wouldn't be the same amount of satisfaction from-"
She stopped dead in the middle of her sentence, as he had done just moments earlier, and flushed deeply, almost flinching when she realised his burning gaze was settled on her face. She rearranged herself in her seat and despairingly glanced back at her patient, who, annoyingly alert as ever, had not missed the tone of her response.
Tucking this away for future consideration, the Joker sneered across the space between them, clearly finding her almost-slip up amusing, but there was something else, too; a dark and desperate curiosity blooming in his eyes that had his doctor swallowing from the intensity of it. Suddenly she was drowning in the moment, overcome for the first time by his presence, her gaze caught in the trap of his own. There was such power there, such danger... it was intoxicating, exhilarating, addictive, and being there, in the very centre of his universe with his stormy eyes fixed upon her own, she felt...important.
It was she who broke the spell, managing to tear her eyes away from his own, and was surprised when a sense of loss bloomed in her stomach. Across from her, her patient growled deep in his chest.
Straightening her back and pushing her rising sense of panic away, Harleen smiled benignly. "Fifteen is quite a young age to lose your virginity."
The Joker scoffed. "Spare me the lecture, mom."
She noted something down. "Interesting choice of words," she observed, "Your mother must have been a worrier. Aren't they all?"
"What about your mom?" The Joker asked, trying to steer the conversation away from himself. "Did she worry about you?"
"No," the doctor replied bluntly, "She didn't."
J clicked his tongue. "And how does that make you feel, doc?" He pressed, almost sounding like he cared, "Having a mommy who didn't love you?"
His doctor smirked and raised an eyebrow. "I would imagine that it would have been an awful feeling, had she and my father not died in a car accident when I was six," she replied evenly, the look in her eyes communicating very clearly that she was onto his little game. "Did your mom love you, Mr J?"
"I'm not talking about my fucking mom," he spat back, venom filling his eyes as he leapt to his feet.
The doctor nodded again. "Of course," she replied, a gentle soothing tenor coating her voice, "Some memories are painful for us to revisit."
"Fuck you," the Joker hissed, his temper quickly becoming frayed at her disturbing lack of fear. "You dumb bitch, you don't know a fucking thing about pain."
"Okay," she said, her eyes following the coffee table disinterestedly as he kicked it across the room, only blinking as it crashed into the opposite wall.
At the noise, four guards flooded into the room, and the doctor frowned, glaring at the intruders. "Next time, you knock before entering my therapy room," she practically snarled, "I have the situation in hand."
She glanced up and stared calmly back at the green haired man standing over her. His chest was heaving, his grey eyes glinting like gun metal as he watched her reaction. Without breaking his gaze, he vaguely heard her addressing the guards and felt himself being forcibly pulled from the room, but his eyes never left hers.
When she was almost out of view, he saw her lips stretch into a deliciously wicked smile.
.
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When he was gone, Harleen closed the door with all the dignity she could muster, and then she flopped down onto the couch and closed her eyes.
In all of her wildest daydreams, she had never imagined that he would be like that.
He was enthralling.
The man was clearly dangerous... his very presence screamed Predator... but there was something else, too; something she had actually managed to tap into, something which had made him open up to her. It was endearing, really, how he'd gotten lost in the moment and been honest without even realising it.
When she'd finished her master's degree and started her doctorate, she had never imagined that she would get the opportunity to one day work at Arkham Asylum, especially not with such high-profile inmates, and now to be able to work with the Joker himself? It was just incredible.
Looking back over her notes, she hadn't written much at all about his verbal responses. Most of her scribbles were about his body language, the tightening of his eyes, the pursing of his lips when he had chosen not to voice his displeasure, the small crease between his eyes when he had frowned.
Luckily, she had enough to form a report on, but a large part of her was surprisingly reluctant at the thought of sharing what had been discussed between them.
She felt protective over him... she'd seen the vulnerability in his eyes when she'd mentioned his mom and she greedily wanted to keep that for herself.
Even more surprising was how physically appealing she'd found him. The strait jacket had hidden his torso but she'd seen enough pictures to know of the broad shoulders and muscled body that lay beneath the coarse fabric. She'd expected to find his mouth repulsive, what with the silver grill and all, but all that did was add to the sense of weirdness about him that she was strangely drawn to. He didn't look weird, he just looked like himself, like he'd been born with neon green hair, facial tattoos and snow-white skin.
And his eyes...
Wow. His eyes. To say that she'd been left hot under the collar would be an understatement. His eyes were like gravity, pulling her closer, and even the memory of their mercury depths left her feeling like she was on the edge of something huge.
Returning to her office, Harleen typed out a quick report outlining her proposed treatment method and emailed it straight to Dr Arkham. It wasn't anything spectacular, merely a few notes on how she was planning on approaching his case in an informal manner in order to establish a sense of trust between them. She had made a point of highlighting the attitude of his guards and their disrespectful treatment of her, and said she wanted complete authority over all of Joker's treatment from here on out. She put herself across confidently, articulate and determined that her methods would work. She was surprised when her proposed treatment was approved less than two hours later.
Once she would have hoped for a huge promotion, recognition for her work, but after meeting with her latest patient, she wasn't so sure.
Since their session, she had flicked through his files more than once, studied up on the things he'd told them in the past, but there was never anything concrete, never anything of substance for her to latch onto and make progress from.
She was so sure she would be able to make a difference with him, if only he was willing to let her in.
.
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Having been manhandled back to his cell, J stood in agitated silence as the straitjacket was removed from his person, and then he was shoved inside, the door slamming behind him.
He groused across his cell and lay back on the cot, staring up at the ceiling as he thought over his time with his new shrink.
It was obvious that she was young, he could practically hear the optimism in her voice, a sickly chirpiness that kicked at his insides whenever she spoke. A few wasteful years talking to the crazies in here would soon knock that out of her, he mused, subconsciously picturing her full lips forming silent words.
Her eyes got him the most – cornflower blue, bright and bold against the whites of her eyes – they held a certain remote astuteness that didn't quite match the rest of her. Sure, she seemed professional enough, and her approach was a new one, he'd give her that, but there had been moments, nanoseconds in time where he'd seen something in her, or rather not seen something, and it was that what had her on his mind. She wasn't afraid of him, that much was clear, and he was triply annoyed, entertained and pleased by this.
As the listless hours stretched out, he could imagine her as a cheerleader. Perhaps not the head cheerleader – she was too grounded for that, not peppy enough – but she was certainly graceful and athletic, with that immovable quiet confidence in her eyes that told him she wasn't quite as impressed by him as he would have liked.
She'd held her own with him and he was satisfied that she'd be a suitable plaything for a while, if only for the sheer entertainment of getting inside her head and breaking her down.
But that last smile as he'd left the room...
That smile disturbed and enthralled him with equal measure. That smile had potential, such beautiful, terrifying potential. Because it was his smile.
Of course, she was physically attractive. He wasn't blind.
There was a tone to her legs that said she worked out, a flash of understated strength to the planes of her wrists (the only real exposed parts of her that he had seen) but the rest of her was wickedly curvaceous. In his mind, he stripped her bare, picturing the creamy expanse of her toned stomach, a small waist, a soft but pleasant sturdiness to her shapely thighs, a toned rump that would spill from his hands. He could practically feel the weight in his hands of the exquisite heaviness of her well-proportioned and pert breasts. He imagined her pale, pliant body, naked and vulnerable to his ravenous touch. She was colourless, unmarked, white, clean - he wanted to scribble on her empty flesh, draw pictures on her skin, tattoo her soul and scratch out her innocence, scrape away her humanity and fill her up with wickedness and ecstasy and bubblegum hues of bright whirling colours, to cover her in diamonds and taint her with his touch.
Such thoughts were doubly surprising because they were alien to him.
Sexual interests were for lesser, much baser beings.
He believed himself to be on a much higher plane of existence than the lusty thugs he employed, the meathead pricks who gawped after women and talked in great detail about their sexual conquests. Women scratched a physical itch; they provided something of a release, an outlet for his endless energy, but time after time he'd found their stamina lacking, and frankly sex was pretty boring. Sure, he was a red-blooded male, and he wasn't exactly celibate, but he didn't get attached or fantasise about women.
And he certainly was not the type to pine. But pine he did.
He'd first seen her on a Wednesday afternoon, and she constantly filled his thoughts afterwards. He analysed everything she'd said, every twist of her lips, every darkening of her eyes. He was counting down the days until he was due to see her again.
He even thought about her name, played with it, made it shorter, made it matter.
In his mind, Doctor Harleen Quinzel became Harley Quinn, like a harlequin, and he imagined her decked out in black and red diamond lingerie, crawling towards him across his bedroom with a breathy "Mister J" on her lips. Even that was a novetly – he'd never brought a broad back to his home, let alone allowed one into his bedroom.
He wanted to kiss her, fuck her, make her scream out for release and make her weep with lust. He also wanted to hurt her. Colour her skin with bruises and cut his way into her very soul.
It was just such an enjoyable pastime, thinking of ways to defile and devour his pretty new shrink, but somewhere along the way, it stopped being just a pastime and twisted itself into an overwhelming urge to possess, to fuck, to cherish. Even he was disturbed at that last one, but it was undeniable.
Just like her.
.
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She'd been mentally frazzled ever since she'd met him, the voices in her head growing louder, bolder, to the point where she had found herself struggling to drown them out - her demons liked her new patient, they wanted to play with him - a line or two of cocaine usually did the trick and she'd been drinking more, too, dragging herself out to the clubs to lose herself amongst debauchery and deafeningly loud music. When she'd been younger, she'd used gymnastics and running to exorcise the ghosts of her pasts. As she'd grown, she'd found that same escape in dancing: she could forget who she was, forget the prim little doctor she was supposed to be, forget the things she'd had to do to claw her way to the top of her class... she could just be.
If he could affect her so much in just one session, she was terrified of what would become of her sanity if she continued treating him.
But there was something there, a similarity, a shared thread in the tapestry of life, and she'd subconsciously made a touch more effort with her appearance on the morning of her next meeting with him. Harlot red lipstick, this time, and darker eye makeup than she would usually would for work.
She was late for their next session by one minute. Just one.
The corridor was empty. and from the outside it appeared the room was in darkness. Good. Business as usual. She grabbed the door handle and entered, resting her forehead on the back of the door and sighing in relief that she'd made it first.
Dr Quinzel turned around, eager to set up the room as she preferred it, and shrieked when she found a tall, strait-jacket-wrapped body in front of her, practically pinning her against the door. She dropped the file, hearing it clatter at her feet.
She looked straight ahead, her eyes staring into the indent at the base of her patient's pale neck. His pulse jumped in his throat – she could see. She shivered, her heart thundering in her chest with the beginnings of panic, and her head was filled with the scent of the man in front of her. From this distance she could smell the distinct odour of smoke – the kind that came from fire and skin, rather than cigarettes. There was an odd chemical note to it, too, and something spicy that made her want to inhale again.
"Look at me," he said quietly, seemingly through clenched teeth. Dr Quinzel swallowed thickly, somewhat refusing to comply. The man moved closer, pressing her against the door. "Look at me," he said again, harsher this time, with more metal behind it, more authority, and Harleen did, powerlessly raising her eyes from the man's neck to his face. Silver capped teeth, skin so white that it was practically translucent, and then the eyes. Dark, glinting in the dim light like steel. She was paralysed, frozen against the door by the power of his gaze. His hair was the most vivid colour she had ever seen, a green the colour of radioactive waste, of sour apple candy, of salt fires.
Words caught in her throat, and the man in front of her gave her a dangerous smile. "Good morning, Doctor Quinzel-ah," he said, drawing out her surname as his eyes searched hers. "You are a sight for sore eyes." Her tongue flashed out to wet her lips and his gaze followed the movement. "Are you afraid?" he asked, his voice like silk against her skin.
"Should I be?" Harleen replied, somewhat defiantly lifting her chin. The man in front of her barked out a slow, crawling laugh and she clenched her jaw. Her resolve strengthened – she was not going to be mocked. "No, Mister J, I'm not." She slid around him, turning on the lights and walking across the room, ignoring the scattered papers at his feet.
Mister J followed her first with his eyes and then with his feet, flopping down on the chair she offered him. "Shouldn't you be a good little girl and clean up that mess?" His head jerked to the tatty file in front of the door.
Harleen held his gaze, unwilling to show him weakness again, and her lips lifted into a small smile, feigning disinterest. In all honesty she really should pick it up, but this was a power play, and she could not afford to lose. "It can wait."
Mister J laughed again, slouching in his chair like a teenager. "Spunky one, aren't you? I like that."
Dr Quinzel shrugged, pulling out a pen and a clipboard from a filing cabinet. "Shall we begin?"
He nodded at the chair opposite him, as if he was she doctor and she the patient, and she shook her head. "I'll stand for now."
Yes, she thought, standing was good. Standing made her feel in control of the situation.
"Yeah, right," the voice in her head mocked; Harleen gritted her teeth and shuddered, fighting the urge to respond. She glanced down at her patient and swallowed thickly when she realised he'd seen her little tick. The voice in her head was humming away to a tune only it could hear. "Takes a crazy to know a crazy, dear."
She gripped onto the back of the armchair and forced a smile. "How have you been, Mr J?"
The Joker shrugged. And then his eyes lit up, and a grin crawled across his face. "Nuh-uh, doc-tor. Today we are going to talk about-ah you."
"There's not much to know," Harleen replied, altogether hating the way he was taking in every single nervous twitch she made. "I've had a boring life."
A muscle in the Joker's jaw ticked. "If there's one thing I can't stand, Doc, it's a liar."
Offering him a small, chagrined – defeated - smile, Harleen finally sat down. "What would you like to know, Mr J?"
Joker let out a cackle of pleased laughter. "Where did ya grow up?"
"New York State," she easily replied, "Parents died when I was six in a car accident."
"And then..." He prompted her to go on.
She gazed at him tiredly – she hated discussing her childhood - and bit the skin of the inside of her cheek. A determined, disbelieving expression appeared on his face and she hurriedly went on, "I went to live with my, uh," she struggled to find the word, "Eccentric grandfather for a few years, until he died and I was put into foster care."
Joker nodded in interest, absorbing this information. "And by eccentric you mean..."
Dr Quinzel shrugged nonchalantly, but her eyes sparkled with humour. "Not entirely mentally coherent," she said, giving him a look that told him to change the subject.
"What was foster care like?" Joker asked her, watching intensely as several emotions fought for dominance over her facial expression. When a small, secretive smile appeared, he raised an eyebrow. Interesting.
"It taught me to survive," she replied, choosing her words carefully, "It showed me the importance of being resilient, and how to make the most of my resources."
Joker leered across the table at her, the weight of his eyes pinning her to her chair. "The usual fighting and petty crime, then?"
Doctor Quinzel neither confirmed nor denied his accusation, absentmindedly running a finger along her jaw. "Spoken like a man in the know," she said quietly, a strange feeling of solidarity bubbling up inside of her as she realised that the Joker had inadvertently revealed that he'd spent time in foster care as a kid. Seeing his less than impressed (mortified) expression at her response, she went on, "I kept my grades up through high school and when I turned eighteen I found out that my parents' life insurance policies had left me enough money to comfortably attend college, so I applied. Graduated from USF with a 4.0 in criminal psychology. Completed my doctorate there, did some volunteering to build up my work experience. Then my money ran out and I applied for a job here. I've worked here about six months." She stopped and smiled, surprised at how much information she'd chosen to reveal. "I'm sure you've heard more interesting life stories."
Joker glossed over this. "USF? He repeated, "As in Florida?"
The Doctor snorted. "I spent my life in the back streets of Harlem, Brooklyn and Queens, Mr J. Florida felt like a million miles away from the grey New York I knew." She blushed a little, feeling she'd given too much away, but Joker grinned, pleased at the details.
"So you went from street rat to damp rat?" The question wasn't unkind, just observatory, and Dr Quinzel gave him a shy smile.
"I suppose you could say that."
.
.
Later, back in his cell, Joker thought back over his most recent session.
Blonde doctor had a past.
She hadn't denied it when he'd mentioned petty crime and fighting, and after their earlier exchange about liars, he knew from her lack of response that she'd been a scrappy teenager.
Yes, Joker thought. Blonde doctor was interesting indeed.