Chapter 1

Bane looked her up and down as Harley could only stand there helpless, barely resting on her feet.

"So you are Miss Quinn, formerly the revered psychiatrist Harleen Quinzel." He said without emotion, speaking as though aloud to himself rather than herself or Pamela. "Curious."

His last word did not please Harley and she struggled a little, bringing her hands to circle his wrist, her fingers only just long enough.

"Is there something you hope to achieve Miss Quinn?" He asked looking at her hands; he tugged her slightly further forward. "Just what have you done to your face?"

"I could… ask you the… same thing." She said, trying to fill her lungs with enough breath to allow her steady speech, this man could snap her in two easily but as long as she could speak she was damn well sure it would be clear. Bane inhaled deeply, was it in the manner of a laugh or with offence she could not tell. Turning his head Bane addressed Pamela, ignoring Harley like she was some kind of child or animal whose opinion need not be considered.

"I seem to have come here for nothing, she is of no use." Unceremoniously, Bane let Harley go, pushing her from him as though repulsed and he fully turned to Pamela. "This however, is an impressive achievement. Enjoy it while you can, Ivy."

"What exactly does that mean?" Pamela asked, her eyes narrowing and her cheeks flushing.

"None of your concern."

His arrogance deriving from his massive strength irritated Harley beyond rationality and looking about her she saw his accomplices were down one end of the hothouse. The best thing she felt was to aim for the gallery and try and find an exit from there, she needed answers and the person to give her them was not here.

Bane turned like lightening when she started to run and his gaze followed her as she took an instinctive leap upon a vine and surprised even herself when she was able to dexterously clamber up it with quick speed. She heard running footsteps and shouting but neither the voice of Bane nor Pamela joined the throng. She did not look down but running towards one end of the gallery she was soon confronted by a thug clad in brown and black. She turned and sprung on her heel, dealing a high kick blow under his chin knocking him backwards, yet he didn't fall. It took two more kicks to the stomach and chest to bring him down but two men soon followed behind. The other end of the gallery was clear and turning she started to run that way. But again that giant hand appeared from nowhere and grabbed her by the hair, twisting her painfully round, her face brought into close contact with his. She levelled kicks and punches where she could but the hold on her hair became so intense she was sure he could rip her scalp from her skull. He caught one wrist in his other massive paw like hand and her assault was hindered.

"Where did you think you could run to Miss Quinn?" He asked his pitch slightly higher for he seemed genuinely curious. "Do you even know who you would run too?"

"Yes." She hissed.

"I can't hear you Miss Quinn."

"Yes…." She said and spat at his face whilst her free hand clawed across the flesh of his shoulder, piercing skin though nothing registered on Bane's face. Instead his hand let go of her wrist and levelled a blow across her cheek. His grasp held her in place as he did so but the overwhelming throbbing in her face threw all her senses off balance for a moment. Somehow she knew that was a soft blow, it was making a point, it was a warning shot.

"Who will you run too?" He spoke again.

"Mr J."

"Ah. The infamous Joker, the man you broke out of Arkham and who is doing his level best to be the thorn in Gotham's side."

Harley said nothing, Bane let her go and she stood limply still recovering from his blow, cupping her cheek which now stung with hot inflammation.

"Do you know where to find him?"

"No, but I will."

"And why is that?"

"Because… I need too."

Pamela appeared on the gallery and came up to them; she turned Harley's face towards her with her finger and saw the bruise appearing there.

"I do acknowledge Pamela, you have done well here, she is more able than I first imagined." Bane said but then turning his attention back to Harley he stepped in close, placing his giant hand gently on her shoulder. The touch made her want to shrink back but that would show fear and she was allowing him no more power than he currently owned.

"Have you considered Miss Quinn that this man may not want you to find him?"

"I will find him either way. It is my intention too."

"What do you remember Harley?" Pamela asked.

"Everything… I think… except how I came to be here."

"That is the most important part for it renders your previous dealings with The Joker immaterial."

"What, if anything do you know about Mr J?" Harley snapped, turning away from him and grasping the railings along the gallery. "He needs me, he always needs me."

"Is that why he threw you out of a forth storey window and left you for dead?" Bane said sarcastically, jerking her back towards him with his hand. "And since then he has taken no pains to find you, even I knew where to find you and until yesterday I did not know you existed. Does that strike you as someone who is needed? Hanging on the coat tails of such a man as he?"

Harley faced him and swallowed hard, tensing her fists to try and send all her remaining courage to her heart. She was far too angry to be thrown at Bane's words, he was trying to break her down and she would not let him. She edged up to him, her body language open and calm, she was not on the attack.

"You seem to see this as black and white, that by throwing me away he has forsaken me. But what about when he sees I have come back stronger?" She explained, daring his gaze with her big, bright eyes. "If you mean to kill me then snap my neck or let me go. You do not know us, what we are. I am he and he is mine."

Bane brought his hand up slowly and even Pamela edged a little as though ready to push Harley away from another blow. Instead he grazed the back of his fingers down the enflamed part of her cheek, the touch was so gentle, so strange in association with him that the touch did not hurt the damaged flesh at all. He looked quickly to Pamela and she nodded in agreement with Harley's words.

"He will come for her... eventually."

"You have convinced me." He said, his hand moved to the back of her neck and cradled it; he brought her forward gently and bent his head seeming to whisper in her ear. "You do not know us at all either Miss Quinn."

With that he threw her down onto the floor, the collision making her cry out and soon she heard rushing footsteps amidst Pamela's protestations to Bane. Soon she felt her hands bound behind her back and struggle and kick all she might, those thugs from earlier tied her and placed a bag over her head.

"Thank you for your cooperation Ivy."

Harley listened acutely, her hearing somewhat heightened as her sight was taken from her. Pamela's voice spoke low to Bane but she heard every word.

"Hurt her and you gain nothing, she is mad with love, she doesn't quite remember how much yet. He is rooted deep within her."

Harley felt a needle prick in her arm, and then with a sudden rush, the world went even darker.

…..

When awakening and seeing she was again in a plain, bare walled room Harley wanted to scream. As a psychiatrist she had spent her professional life walking down plain corridors and speaking to patients in plain rooms. They were bland and she hated them, she felt trapped and caged, she was Harleen Quinzel again in these rooms and that woman was a thing of the past. Inwardly she itched, burned with discomfort, the nondescript room hurt her, it hurt her mind. She moved her hands; they were bound in front of her, resting on her chest as she lay there. Using her shoulder she threw her weight forward, sitting up and she looked around her. The room was murky brown and more dimly lit than her previous lodgings and there was no window at all. All was square and simple, neither large nor small and there was only a bed and a bucket within its confines. Or was there?

She looked directly opposite and saw movement in the top corners of the facing wall, there were two cameras slowly rotating left to right. She was being watched all the time. Shuffling to the side of the bed she rested her two bare feet flat on the floor, it was a little cold but she ignored it.

Harley could not place how she knew but she sensed that she was underground; the air seemed different than even been holed up in a windowless cell in the city. An impatient, manic part of her rose within her and wanted to pace frantically, to burn off this agitation she had in her but no, she was being observed. As her periods of consciousness lengthened she begun to remember more and more of before, indeed all she could not remember was being thrown through the window, though the sound of the glass shattering haunted her like a spirit. She rubbed her fingers together on each hand to use up some energy and to give her something to do, when she felt like this she would find her tonic in Mr J. He would come to her, she never knew when but he would come and she understood then why she breathed, she never truly breathed as Harleen Quinzel. No that was speaking a strangers ideology about how life and the brain worked, she would sit and deal with the insane at Arkham trying to aid setting them straight. She didn't know how wrong she was, but he had freed her from that, he showed her there was no line, no code, no sane or insane. Freedom had given her leave to embrace herself and she had run with him.

'Harley, Harley, Harley. Why are you stood by the window gazing out, you need to be ready when I come.'

She had stood by the window in her new home, a smaller, danker apartment in a less noticed part of Gotham. Her eyes had been looking out over the crumbling buildings opposite needing some injection of life. Mr J had taken her shoulders and turned her around, she saw that familiar blade in one of his hands.

'What have I told you?' He said shaking his head, his free hand leaving her shoulder to squeeze under her cheek bones compacting her mouth, bringing it closer to his lace white, streaky face and smell his souring breath.

'Sit.' She had replied as best she could and the pressure on her cheeks increased. He bent his ear nearer to her mouth.

'What?'

'To sit.'

'Until?'

'Until you come.'

His other hand that held the knife had come up to her mouth now and the other held the side of her head. She never relaxed her aching jaw, she didn't even swallow, how could she when he was so near to her. The knife pointed at the opening of her mouth was maybe only a centimetre from entering it, was she scared? She was enthralled and enamoured with lust and terror, they were one in her devotion to Mr J. To love was to be afraid.

Harley remembered every moment of this interchange with crystal clarity and all that followed, he was always right, she must always be ready. For who knew when he would arrive or how? She pressed her knees together gently and rested her bound hands upon her lap. Harley's back was straight, it must be straight, she must not show a slouch or fatigue. Looking across at the opposite wall she noticed a small crack in its surface and that was her focus point. So she sat, unmoving even when the ache set upon her, she did not waver. Minutes past but she did not care, she looked at that same point and sat in that same manner for over two hours, she would do so for as long as she was physically able. Patience paid off for those who waited. Her stomach growled with agonising hunger and her throat longed to be quenched with water but she waited on.

'How did I do puddin'?' She often asked and she would be delighted if he gave her that deformed, sardonic smile of his with a gleam of the eye. It was a sight that sent her into a frenzy and relieved her with a rush of such insane love that she wanted to leap into his arms and kiss him all over. But Mr J did not like that, she had learnt it the hard way, he did not like that one bit.

The door to her right swung open and in stepped a dark haired man holding a small wooden stool and a bowl of something steaming.

"You need to eat." He said plainly. "I have to feed you."

Harley did not reply but she gave a nod of the head, the man came over, placed the stool on the floor and sat before her.

"What is your name?" She asked.

"Barsad."

"Is it possible to have some water as well Barsad." She asked with a hint of sweetness without intending to beguile. "Please."

"He said eat first."

Harley Quinn did as she was bid.