Treat You Better


A/N: Hi guys, I'm back with my second Harley/Joker fanfiction. For me this is a beginning of a new era, so this story means a lot to me.
This is a different Harley/Joker story, slightly OOC with a romanticised Joker and an evil Batman, but that's what makes this story fun :D I just felt like writing it and if you guys feel like reading it we have a done deal.


I

"Wrong Situation"

I won't lie to you
I know he's just not right for you
And you can tell me if I'm off
But I see it on your face
When you say that he's the one that you want
And you're spending all your time
In this wrong situation


The pain was excruciating. I had never felt like this before. When I sat up the room moved with me and a groan escaped my lips.

My hands reached out to touch my swollen face and I flinched at my own touch.

"Bruce?"

There was no answer and I breathed out calmly. At least he wasn't here. When I looked at the alarm clock next to my bed I could see it was past 11. He was long gone in the office, but maybe he'd come by at noon to check on me. Or apologise.

After the room stopped moving I pushed myself off the bed and swayed momentarily but then began to move to our shared bathroom. Although I could feel the wounds the sight of my face was still a shook.

My right eye was swollen shut, my cheek bruised, my lips swollen and bloody. My arms were blue, and his fingerprints were all over my chest and arms.

Tears burned in my eyes as a voice inside me calmly said: If you don't leave now, he will kill you.

I took a deep shuddering breath, turned away from the mirror. As I sat down on the edge of the bathtub I couldn't stop myself from bursting into tears. For minutes I sat there weeping and sobbing. My body shook terribly.

He's going to kill me. I thought miserably. He's going to kill me.

The ringing of my phone interrupted my thoughts and I stood up taking a deep breath, wiped my tears and went back into the bedroom.

"Hello? This is Dr. Quinzel speaking." My voice didn't quiver at all.

"Quinzi!" A loud voice screeched at the other end. It was Sarah, my colleague and friend. "I wanted to talk to you about tonight!"

"Tonight?" I repeated rubbing my hurt head.

"Your engagement party!" She exclaimed happily and I suppressed the urge to groan loudly again. The engagement party.

"Bruce will be there at seven and he told me to tell you that you should take good care of yourself so you look your best tonight!" Sarah sighed dramatically. "Harleen you're so lucky, marrying Bruce Wayne!"

Yeah, lucky was a word that described this relationship.

"So I was thinking, we could go to –"

I hung up. Sara wasn't my friend anymore. She was Bruces friend. Everyone in this entire fucking city was Bruce Waynes friend. He was the good one, the one everyone looked up to and the one who deserved all the good things life had to offer him.

And if he beat the living crap out of Harleen Quinzel it was because she had deserved it. Why did she have to upset him the way she did? Why couldn't she just do what he liked?

He's going to kill me.

I stood up from the bed, went to our shared closet and got out all the clean clothes I could find. Then I hurried into the shower.

Things had been bad for a while now. But last night had been the worst. The warm water splashed down onto my sore skin and I couldn't fight my tears any longer. Bruce and I had been so happy once.

"No stop!" I yelled as he lunged for me again. Laughter errupted from my mouth, as Bruce continued to tickle me.

"Say it then!"

I couldn't speak because I was laughing so hard.

"Come on Harleen!" Bruce grinned and I doubled over in laughter.

"Ok!" I gasped. "Ok." I took a deep breath. "I pinky swear that I will always for the rest of my life not wear glasses until I actually need them."

"See?" Bruce laughed. "That's how easy it is to get rid of your compulsions, doctor."

I laughed underneath him. "Thanks that's good to know. From now on I'll tell my patients to just pink swear and all their problems with disappear."

Bruce chuckled. "You should try it, I'm sure it will work!"

I smiled up at him. I loved this silly side of him. His brown eyes had the warmest and most loving look in them I had ever seen. No one looked at me the way Bruce Wayne did.

"What are you thinking about?" He mused.

"How you make me feel like the most beautiful girl in the world."

The handsome man rolled his eyes. "That's an easy one, Harleen. You are the most beautiful girl in the world."

He pressed his lips against mine and I melted into the kiss and in his arms. Bruce didn't just make me feel beautiful, he made me feel safe. I loved him so much already, even though I hadn't even known him for that long yet. We'd only met a few months ago.

Bruce sat up and reached out his hand for me to take. He was very strong, stronger than my boyfriends before had been and I liked that. He pulled me to my feet.

"So, should we get back to dinner?" He chuckled.

I'd told him that I didn't really need my glasses and he'd challenge me to ditch them. We'd started teasing each other, tickling one another and had ended up on the floor. The candle was still burning as we sat down.

"Why do you wear them?" Bruce asked, taking the glasses off the table and looking through them, noticing that there was no different in the view.

"They make me feel strong." I admitted as I began to eat the noodles he had cooked for us. They were cold now due to our little stunt, but the still tasted good.

Bruce shook his head with a small smile and rolled his eyes. I wouldn't have taken myself seriously either if I was a strong as a presence as him. But it still hurt.

"Harleen." He said clearly, looking up at me with his warm eyes. "You are the strongest person I know. You're so brave and fearless...I like up to you."

"You look up to me?" I repeated. Now I was the one to shake my head in a disbelieving way.

"When I first met you, I was..." He began looking for the right word. When his eyes met mine he smiled at me. "Astonished. Not just by your beauty obviously." I blushed under his look. "But by your presence. They way you walk around Arkham..." Bruce leaned in forward and the two of us stopped eating. "You're in control there, you're unafraid and you believe in what you do. The world needs more people like you, Harleen."

I continued to blush and reached for my wine glass. "You're making me sound like a hero."

"You are a hero."

I giggled. "I'm not like Batman or anything!"

Bruce chuckled at this comparison as well, probably because it was so ridiculous.

"There a different kind of heroes, Harleen."

"Yeah." I took a sip of wine. "But if you're out in Gotham at night and someone assaults you, you wouldn't want me to come the rescue."

"Maybe not no." He grinned. "But I think if I was in such a place as Arkham I'd like to have you as my light in the darkness."

I had to laugh even though his words were so kind. "I don't think my patients see me as a light, Bruce. More like an annoyance."

Bruce wasn't laughing, when he looked up at me. "You're my light Harleen. You rescued me out my own darkness I had no idea I was stuck in. You just...you changed my life completely from the moment I met you."

I reached out to touch his hand. "I feel the same way about you, Bruce."

He had once told me that he had lost the woman he'd loved. That she had been murdered. I'd never experienced grief like that, but before meeting him I had been unhappy. And he lit my life up.

When we had first met I'd known. I'd taken his hand in mine and looked into his eyes and there was an instant chemistry I hadn't felt before. My boyfriends before had been different. I was younger then and we never really connected. We just had sex and broke up when things weren't as perfect as they had been before. It wasn't the same with Bruce. We took things slowly and took time to connect with each other.

It was 11:45 when I left our apartment. I only took a few sets of clothes and my toothbrush. I left everything else behind. After I closed the door, I breathed out relieved. Then I looked down at my hand, saw the huge diamond ring, opened the door again and threw the ring inside. Things had started to go downhill once the Joker had arrived at Arkham. When he became my patient however Bruce changed completely.

"Harleen!"

The door closed loudly behind him and I jumped because of the bang.

"Bruce, what's wrong?"

When he stepped into the kitchen I could tell he was seriously upset. His hair was dishevelled, his face red with anger and he was panting.

"What's wrong?!" He snapped and that's when I saw the newspaper in his hand. "Dr. Harleen Quinzel fights to protect the Joker in Arkham, refusing to treat him with shock-therapy. Although most of her colleagues disagree Dr. Quinzel does not believe it would improve his situation and she does not want to subject him to unnecessary pain." He threw the paper onto the table. "What the hell is wrong with you?!"

I held up my hand as he stepped closer. "Bruce –"

"Unnecessary pain?!" He yelled. "Do you know what this...this thing has done?!"

"He's still a human, Bruce." My voice shook slightly as his hand gripped my shoulder painfully. "And the shock-therapy wouldn't help him, not yet at least. I need to speak with him some more and...and you know I hate the procedure...I've never believed in it..."

No matter what I said, his rage seemed to just grow by the second. His grip hurt, but I was frozen and couldn't defend myself.

"This isn't about your beliefs! He killed the love of my life!"

"I'm sorry about that, but that doesn't mean we get to abuse him –"

That's when he hit me against the cheek with his fist. Pain radiated through me as my head was pushed to the side. Tears burned in my eyes as I stared at him, unable to move or say anything. My shock was mirrored in his face.

"I'm so sorry!" He cried out and pulled me against him. "I'm so sorry, Harleen. Please forgive me, please. I'm so sorry!"

I hugged him back tightly and the two of us cried in each others arms and I ended up comforting him. He had no idea what had come over him. He promised me it would never happen again. And it didn't. Until two weeks later.

I was on my own now. My Mum loved Bruce more than anyone else, because he was going to make me and (eventually her) rich. She would be no help. Sara had also fallen victim to his charm. There was one man here in Gotham City who was no friend of Bruce Wayne. The Joker was the only person I could go to now. The only question was whether he would forgive me or not.


So what do you guys think? :)