After the excitement, Harley walked back to her apartment and entered her room.
The night was still and quiet. She looked at her hands. They had something red on them.
That's strange...I
Harley cut herself off when she saw a stain on her skirt as well. She opened her mouth and covered it in alarm. Further inspection revealed a small trail of it. At first, she thought it was blood and should wash up because she was injured. That's funny, though, she didn't feel injured. She suddenly blushed like someone was watching her.
"Oops!"
That's when she started to smell a peculiar smell, like rotten eggs mixed with paint thinner and pepper spray.
Wait a minute! Harley noticed a huge red wet stain on her purse and quickly connected the dots.
Alarmed, she threw open her purse. It revealed all of her things saturated in a stinky orange-red goo.
It's leaking. It's freakin leaking!
Harley muttered silent curses as she dug the broken vial of fear toxin out of her purse.
That woulda come in handy, too!
Angrily, she walked over to the waste basket to dispose of the broken vial. She then walked back to the couch and continued to curse to herself. She sort of knew the formula for it from doing favors for Crane when she was still with Joker, but it would take her months to manufacture more, and that was if she could get hold of the ingredients.
"That would a come in handy for non-lethal self-defense," Harley sighed to herself.
She continued to regard her purse, dripping wet from the chemical spill.
Carefully, she emptied her purse and then rang out the remaining liquid into the bag of the waste basket. There wasn't a particularly safe place to dispose of it, and if it got into the water supply, there was a chance it would make everyone who came in contact with it hallucinate. She took another whiff of the air; her whole apartment now smelled like rotten eggs.
"Good thing this stuff evaporates if it's left out in the open," Harley said to herself.
She took a seat on the couch again, avoiding the wet spot where she placed her purse. Her smile turned into a little frown as she continued to breathe the paranoia producing air.
Sweat started to bead on her forehead. She defiantly took another deep breath.
Nothing was happening. She went back to the waste basket and looked at the quickly dissipating liquid. There was still some left. She decided to get another glass vial and try to salvage what she could.
Carefully, she picked up the bag of the waste basket, tied it together, poked a hole with a needle, and attempted to funnel off whatever was left into a new glass tube. She smiled a little as she saw drops of red orange fluid collect in the test tube. After she drained most of the bag's contents, she quickly corked off the tube and placed it on a level shelf. This time she was not going to carry it around in her purse where it could get broken.
She took another whiff of the air. The smell was getting better.
Harley continued to wait for signs of hallucinations. The air usually got wavy as her heart rate increased. Then, she would either freeze in catatonia or pass out. Tonight, though, it seemed like she was going to be okay. Either that, or she was already having a nightmare and just wasn't aware of it.
While she was waiting for the chemical cocktail to take effect, she pulled out her little black book and tried to dry the pages off.
I hope I didn't ruin it. Harley thought.
Luckily for her, the book was spared. It was in one of the interior pouches of the purse and only got some drops of orange on the outer corners of the pages. It looked kind of like blood, and it gave the book a strange character.
She took yet another whiff of the air. She could now barely smell anything except for the spicy lingering aroma of the pepper spray. She decided she was in the clear. It was time to clean up and get ready for bed. She left her skirt and her purse out in the open to dry a little more. She could not clean them until she was sure the fear toxin had dissipated.
It also looked like she would be taking a dry bath tonight. She scratched a sudden itch and frowned a little.
"I was looking forward to a warm shower and some me time," Harley said with a pout.
She looked toward the bathroom then smiled to herself as she imagined what chaos would ensue if the toxins got into the water. Sometimes it was nice to be a Batman villain.
Of course, she wasn't much of a villain anymore, not since she got away from the Joker and his gang and started working with Batman. Once you earned the title, though, it tended to stick, and she had definitely earned that title.
"Hmm...I wonder what I'm afraid of..." Harley asked.
She took another whiff of the air.
"I guess the answer's nothing..." Harley said carefully.
Wearily, Harley found herself going into another flashback, but the sound of loud laughter quickly drew her out of it. She snapped to attention. Briefly, the air looked like water waving around her.
Oh no. It's happening.
"Na ha ha ha!"
"That voice..." Harley whispered to herself.
"Harley, daddy's home!" It was the Joker's rotten putrid squeaky demented voice.
She covered her ears and eyes.
"No, no, you're just a phony. Get away from me, you pathetic excuse for a clown!" Harley screamed.
Suddenly, two pasty white hands grabbed her face and covered her mouth.
"Now, Harley, where are your manners? Is that any way to speak to your other half?" Joker's voice cooed.
Harley bit into the glove in a desperate bid to get away. The creature that had her reeled back in pain.
She quickly ran to the closet for her mallet or maybe her baseball bat.
The Joker suddenly grabbed her from behind. She let out a frightened squeal.
"Well, well, well, if it isn't my picture of sanity...a walking example of perfect mental health...the beautiful and let's not forget stable, Dr. Harleen Quinzel..." Joker's raspy voice cooed.
She felt a hard slap in the face that knocked her to the floor.
"Face it; you're as crazy as a loon!" Joker's voice hissed.
A knife suddenly found its way into her hand, and she was standing in some ally with several dead bodies around her. She walked past a mirror and noticed her reflection; she wore a jester costume stained by blood. In front of her were Batman and Nightwing tied to a chair.
"Go on, and be who you really are, who I made you to be, my Harley Quinn," Joker hissed as he handed her a gun.
She found herself drawn, without her consent, toward Batman and Nightwing. She found herself lifting the gun, and...
"Harley, don't do it!" Batman's voice shouted.
"Sorry, B-man, sometimes a girl can't help herself..." Harley said as she pulled the trigger. She winced and covered her eyes, not wanting to see any more blood.
Joker's laughter rang in her ears. She uncovered her eyes in shock only to see a "bang" flag sticking out of the gun. She threw it behind her and focused her attention on the laughter.
"I'm not afraid of you! Show yourself!" Harley screamed.
The Joker's cackling continued.
"Of course you're not afraid of me, dear. This isn't even about me, Harl. It's about you!"
Harley felt someone tap her on the shoulder.
"You're afraid of what you could become; what you will become..." Joker's voice continued.
She felt a hand reach out and grab her.
"...of what you were in the past..."
Harley grabbed the Joker's hand, but when she pulled it into the light, it was just a hand, no Joker attached.
"...before you started cosplaying superhero, LARPing about with the dork knight and blue bird boy, and all of those Robins... did you ever wonder why Batman feels the urge to hang out with scantily clad teenage boys? The guy's perverted, Harley..."
"Takes one ta know one..." Harley growled.
She somehow found a baseball bat behind one of the garbage cans and began swinging it wildly.
The sound of Joker's sinister laughter filled the alley, which melted away to reveal her apartment.
"...just be aware that things are never what they seem with me, Harley!"
She swung her bat again and missed.
"...and maybe not with you, either..."
"What's that supposed ta mean?" Harley asked.
"Oh, I'm sure a smart little doctor like you can figure it out for herself," Joker's voice sang.
The laughter continued to get louder and louder, until it felt like it was all around her. It was inside her head. She crouched by the couch, holding her head screaming, "Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!"
The laughter ended almost as quickly as it came. Harley was left kneeling in the middle of her living room.
The night was again silent. It looked like the hallucinations from the diluted fear toxin had worn off.
Harley carefully cleaned herself up, laid out some fresh work clothes, and tried to get the stains out of the couch and off of the carpet. For the most part, it worked. The only thing that lingered was a stale smell.
"I guess I'll get an air freshener after work..." Harley said.
She then grabbed her giant mallet from the closet and placed it in her bed.
Harley put a finger to her chin.
"I know there's a joke I could make about this situation, but I'm just not in the mood tonight," she said to herself.
She pulled out her little black book and recorded the night's events.
I guess I'll revisit them later. Maybe my sense of humor will have recovered by then.
She put her hand to her heart. It was still beating fast. She lay down next to her mallet and drifted off to sleep.
The blaring of her alarm clock woke her up. It was a normal alarm clock, no clown theme; the one she had in Gotham was one Joker gave her that laughed at her instead of beeping. There were several days when she felt like hitting that one with her mallet.
She sat up and put a hand to her head.
"Ugh, why did it haf ta be clowns?" she whispered, wincing at the thought.
She went to her closet. Her old jester uniform was still hanging there, but she hadn't worn it in months. A sick feeling made its way to her stomach when she looked at it. She grasped the hanger it was attached to and took it out of the closet and just stared at it. There were many times she considered donating it. After all, it was a painful reminder of her time with him. She shuddered as she thought about the Joker and her nightmare from last night.
"He's wrong. I don't haf ta be some evil clown!" Harley said to the costume defiantly.
As she held it, she imagined holding herself, a beaten battered version wearing dark eye makeup and white face paint to hide her scars and bruises.
"...but, it's us, Harley," the figure she was imagining told her.
Harley winced, closed her eyes, and then put it back in the closet. She wasn't ready to let go yet, and she didn't know why. She had never planned to wear that outfit again since arriving in the new universe, not after everything the Joker and later Batman did to her in it. It was the only piece of clothing the Joker would let her wear when she was out with him. No one could even see who she was with all of the makeup. That was the idea, though. She didn't matter. She was just another henchman he could kill at a moment's notice.
She winced again and tried not to think about all of it, but the memories started coming back like a flood from a tainted river. For years she mistook his hatred for love, his cruelty for kindness. Not a day went by without her kicking herself for being so naive and stupid.
The so-called heroes were almost just as bad, making her work off a debt she wasn't fully responsible for and treating her like a child. Still, though, she preferred Batman to the Joker. Batman might have treated her like a kid, given her curfews, and blackmailed her with threats to turn over knowledge of past crimes, but at least he trusted her a little.
Now, though, she was being given a fresh chance, an opportunity to do it all over...and she almost messed up last night by spilling the fear toxin.
An alarm on her phone beeped, drawing her out of her self-pity-laden daydreams. It was time for work.
She quickly pulled the uniform she laid out for herself the night before, fixed her hair in a bun, and straightened her glasses.
Harley took one last look in the mirror before heading out. This outfit reminded her of something she wore as a doctor at Arkham. All of her outfits did, though.
"How do I look?" she asked the mirror.
Her reflection turned around and stated, "you look great, Dr. Q!"
"Thank you, Harley," Harley said with a slight look of bewilderment. She then turned her back to the mirror, rolled her eyes, and pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose. Apparently that fear toxin was stronger than she thought.
Great, more things to worry about.
She made her way to the subway, hoping she wouldn't start hallucinating at work.
Maybe I should call in sick?
Author's Note: I might take a break from writing this for a little while until I feel like I have a better grasp of where I want this story to go. Feel free to leave comments, questions, requests, or reviews, though.
