For those of you that are reading this for the first time HELLO HI HOW'RE YOU?! So a few things that are important to know (like actually important).
These first 3 chapters were the beginning of when I was going to make this a full-on fic and then decided not to. So now they're just a 3-shot drabble.
NOTES ON THE HARLEY QUINN / JOKER RELATIONSHIP IF YOU'RE NOT FAMILIAR WITH IT:
This is an abusive pairing. It's part of who they are, how they were written and it is necessary for that to be portrayed. That being said, TRIGGER WARNING. Especially for abuse but also just in general, I really want you guys to be safe so I want you to know that that's gonna be a heavy theme here.
If you're a fan of Joker and Harley in all their verses I want you to know that I'm kind of picking scenes and traits from the comics, the animated show and from the new Suicide Squad movie, that goes for both Joker and Harley's characters. But I'm also incorporating in Klaroline aspects and traits so yeah, Caroline/ Klaus will be OOC because they're Joker and Harley in this world. For those that asked earlier, yes other TVD characters will be making appearances as DC heroes/villians. (Which WOW AM I EXCITED FOR!)
In case you didn't know I'm super super super supe excited for this fic and I really hope you guys like it so your reviews make me really happy. So enjoy!
Their Beginning (Part I)
She was one of the brightest psychiatrists of her time, or she was according to Gotham's annual medical journal. Praised for her unique field, Caroline Forbes was the most sought after expert in the criminal psyche in the entire state, if not more. She'd stood as expert witness at more trials for criminal masterminds than she could count. Next to the Batman, she was the number one person to thank for taking some of the worst of the worst off of the streets.
It was only when he came into her life that things started getting...out of hand. He was fascinating. Utterly fascinating. Of all the villians she'd seen he was the one that intrigued her most. Niklaus Mikaelson. More often known as the King on the streets he was the pride and joy of Arkham Asylum. And Caroline's new patient. Where the other ones were clearly disturbed, The King took the term to a completely new level. There wasn't a redeeming bone in his body. His motive wasn't revenge or love or any of the other motives that she'd come across in her years.
All he wanted was chaos. Pain. He killed for fun and he took pleasure in every last second of the torture he inflicted on his victims. And torture was a kind work for what this monster did to his kills. The first time she sat down with him he terrified her, but another part of her brain was more...intrigued by him. The part she ignored, at all costs.
"Tell me about your childhood." They sat alone in one of the dank rooms that was tucked away in the Asylum. The place they'd deemed worthy of the king. "Parents, siblings, pets, where you lived anything." She looked up through her glasses catching his eyes boring into hers sending a chill down her spine.
Silence greeted her and if anything it only unnerved her more. "Look, we both know you're not getting out of here anytime soon. The only thing you can do now to earn favor with the courts is give us some information to better understand you."
"What do you see when you look at me?" His voice took her aback and she fought the urge to jot down the word 'accent' on her notepad. Instead, Caroline swallowed, looking him over. The standard scrub-like clothes that they'd issued him did nothing to hide the tattoos that covered his upper body, the bruises he had on his knuckles and the blatant attractiveness of the man that sat in front of her.
"I see someone who is crying out for help. Someone who needs to be understood." He chuckled and leaned back in his chair, his muscles flexing as he did so.
"Noble of you to think sweetheart."
That was all he gave her, for three months, that was all there was. She poured over paperwork about him, picking apart account after account of all the horrible things that he'd done. Even at nights, when she went home, she would think about him. He would creep into her dreams, her nightmares and she would wake up in the morning in a cold sweat as she thought of all the things he was capable of.
She was so fascinated with him, looking so hard into his past to try to find a reason that he did the things he did that she missed the way he would use her. The way he manipulated her, pryed at her. She was leaving herself open to him and before she even realized...she was hooked. He had her. And he wasn't letting her go.
It wasn't until she saw the box sitting on her desk that she realized what he was doing. A bracelet shone out at her, a small notecard propped up against it with an elegant scrawl across it.
'Come see me some time. -K' was written across it and for a moment, Caroline stood frozen, torn between reporting it to one of the guards and being confused as to how he'd gotten it to her. The latter won out and before she knew what she was doing, she'd grabbed the box, leaving the note on her desk as she marched down the hall towards the stairs.
In no time at all she was standing in front of his cell. He grinned when he saw her standing there, her hair escaping from her bun in tendrils, falling around her face as her blue eyes pierced his through her glasses.
"Dr. Forbes." He sat up on his bed, grinning as she held up the box.
"How did you do this? How did you get out? Who's working for you?" His grin widened and she squashed down the small part of her that was fearful of him.
"Do you not like it?" He stood now, approaching the door as he smirked at her.
Caroline didn't answer. Instead, she stood there and glared at him, waiting for him to answer her question for once.
"I figured you deserved something pretty. Pretty girl, pretty bracelet. Was I wrong?" Caroline shook her head, her hand closing tight around the box in anger. With a shake of her head and an exhale of pure annoyance before she turned and marched angrily down the hallway.
It was his voice sounding after her that had her stopping in her tracks, knowing he couldn't see her.
"Or perhaps...I was just lonely down here. All by my lonesome. Looking for someone to spill all my secrets to."
She smiled slightly and right then, although he couldn't see her, he knew he had her.
"My father he was...a cruel man. Always so angry with the lot of us. Me in particular." He was lying back on his bed playing with a ball they'd given him so the isolation wouldn't make him insane. Or...more insane than he already was. She sat with her legs crossed in one of the metal chairs they left in the room, her pen flying across the page as she took notes on what he was saying. "My mother you see, she whored around on him and I was the product of one of those dalliances."
She looked up at him, noticing the way he looked back at her, as if he was picking her apart where she sat. Caroline looked back down quickly, swallowing.
"He would hit me. Mostly when I talked back. Or sometimes when I was sitting doing nothing. It didn't matter much to dear old dad." She looked up at him, her pen frozen over the paper.
"How long did this go on for?" Her voice was soft as she spoke to him, empathetic.
"When I was old enough, I did to him what he did to me. Never fear Dr. Forbes, no one lays a hand on me or something I care about and gets away with it unscathed." His words sent shivers through her yet they weren't from fear. Caroline cleared her throat and Klaus grinned.
"Anyhow, it wasn't always so bad. My brother, Elijah, he took us in. He would take care of us, sometimes try to distract us as my father went on one of his rampages. I remember one time, my brother was with a girl of his. They were," He gave her a suggestive look and smirked as Caroline sat listening at full attention. "You know. And we all came running into his room, begging for him to hide us from my father. He had his pants around his ankles and he told us to hide under the bed when my father stormed in. Although my father, in his drunken state, didn't notice Lijah's pants lying on the floor and he tripped, cracked his head open. We had to rush him to the hospital and Elijah tried to relay the story to the doctors. His face was so red." He laughed and at the sound of it, she couldn't help but laugh too.
Something in her mind changed then when it came to Klaus Mikaelson.
"He's just a kid inside," She was all but jogging trying to keep up with the head of the Asylum. "His father abused him, everyone in his life left him and now he just wants to be accepted. He just wants to be loved. If you just told this to the courts people would-"
"They would see what I see. They would see a young woman being manipulated by a mastermind criminal." He turned on her and Caroline stepped back a few steps.
"I'm not being manipulated." She snapped back, "I'm doing my job. You hired me to evaluate these people and that's what I'm doing. This is my evaluation."
"Dr. Forbes. With all due respect, no one is going to put this man up on the stand again. He'll be here until he dies. That's what happens to psychopaths. The sooner you accept that he's nothing more than a master manipulator, the better off you'll be. I don't want you seeing him again."
With that he was gone and she was left standing in the hall, her mouth hanging slightly open as she processed what he had said to her.
No. No he wasn't manipulating her.
"He's not." Caroline muttered, pushing her glasses further up her nose as she turned around and went back to her office. "He's just…he's misunderstood."
She pulled out every file she had on him, determined to prove her point when she finally came to a realization.
"He was just trying to make people laugh. He was trying to bring some humor to this town and that…that Batthing got in his way." She looked down, her eye catching the note that he'd given to her with the bracelet. Slowly, Caroline picked it up, holding the thin paper between her fingers as she stared down at it. "Batman just got in his way."
It was right then that she knew what she had to do. Consequences be damned, she was not going to let that man that…genius die in a cell in an Asylum where he clearly didn't belong. She loved him. She loved him and she would prove it to him.
First things first though, she had to get him out of this place.