Chapter Four-
The second Harleen stepped into Dr. Jefferson's office, she immediately knew that something was wrong. Dr. Jefferson was in a disheveled mess, his clothes were wrinkled and looked as if he had slept in them. His notes on the Joker were spread over any and all flat surface, including the floor. And he was muttering to himself. Harleen looked around in shock, she had never seen Jefferson or his office looking like this.
"What's going on?" She asked as she continued to look around the room as she stayed in the seemingly only spot of floor by the door that was not covered by papers.
"Harleen!" Jefferson cried sounding as if she were missing piece of his puzzle, a piece that was suppose to be missing or impossible to find and yet he had found her. "Stay there!" He ordered her as he began to search for a path from his spot to her. When he didn't find one, he used his foot to gently move some papers out of the way and slowly made his way to her. "Harleen, just the person I was wanting to see!" He exclaimed when he finally made it to her. Her grabbed her by her shoulders, his thumbs finding their way under her shirt to her skin.
"Well, here I am." Harleen said not so gently shrugging off his hands, she really needed to speak with him about his touching her. Not only was it inappropriate but it was also unwelcomed. "Dr. Jefferson, I would really appreciate it if you would sto-"
"Harleen!" Jefferson cried grabbing her again and pulled her flush against him, his hands roaming over her back.
"Dr. Jefferson!" Harleen cried in shocked outrage as she tried to push him off her but he was a lot stronger than he looked and was holding her firmly to him.
"Oh Harleen I need you!" Jefferson said and grabbed her ponytail, pulling at it and snapped her hair band causing her hair to cascade down her shoulders.
"Stop it!" Harleen yelled and stomped on his foot, Jefferson let her go to grab his foot. Harleen huffed and brushed her hair behind her ear as she took in Jefferson again. She noticed things she hadn't seen when he had been across the room. There were dark shadows under his tired eyes. He hadn't slept in days. Against her better judgment, she felt sorry for the man.
"Harleen, why did you do that? Weren't we having such a nice moment?" Jefferson asked and she no longer felt sorry for him.
"You need to sleep. Go home, I'll finish up… whatever it was you were doing before I interrupted you." Harleen said and a spark of remembrance flew through his eyes as he looked around the room as if just remembering that he had been doing something else besides trying to molest her.
"What day is it?" Jefferson asked his voice taking on a urgent tint to it, his eyes widening and becoming a little more wild.
"Thursday." Harleen said a little unnerved at his sudden change in mood.
"No!" Jefferson cried running back to his spot on the other side of the room. "No, no, no, no! Where have the days gone! I don't have enough materials! How can I write the book when he won't give me anything to work with!" Jefferson moaned pulling at his hair.
"Dr. Jefferson, how long have you been here?" Harleen asked.
"Not long enough." He muttered to her as he bent down and scooped up a pile of papers, took a half step to the right, and dropped them again. "So many notes, but nothing to show for it."
"You need to go home and sleep." Harleen told him with concern, the Joker was obviously getting to him, he needed to take a break from the Joker. "It might do you good to take some time off and just rest."
"No, no, no, no. I can't. I have too much to do and not enough time to do it." Jefferson told her as he picked up another pile of papers only to drop them in the same spot he had picked them up from. Harleen sighed before making her way to Jefferson and rested a hand on his arm.
"Markus." She said to him catching his attention, she had never once called him by his first name.
"Harleen." Jefferson whispered looking her in the eyes, he went to pull her to him but she stopped him.
"Markus, listen to me, you're having a mental break down. Go home, take a few days off, take your wife out on a date, forget about the Joker and your thesis paper on him for the next couple of days. I'll get all your notes on the Joker sorted and by the time you get back everything will be in order for you to write your thesis paper." Harleen told him firmly taking him by the arm and led him back to the door. She gently pushed him out of his office and shut the door before he could even realise what she had just done. She pulled out her phone and called Aaron Cash, the head of security to come make sure Jefferson was safely escorted home.
After she had taken care of that, Harleen focused back to the mess of an office with a heavy sigh. She was instantly regretting her promise to Jefferson, but she couldn't go back on her word now. So with another sigh, she pulled out a spare hair band and put her hair in a messy bun. It was time to start tackling Jefferson's notes on the Joker and find something useful for him to write that damned thesis paper.
-?-
Her back hurt, and her eyes were beginning swim. It had taken her a lot longer than she had planned to sort through all of Jefferson's notes. At first it seemed that every note on the Joker was useless and held nothing for the thesis paper. It also didn't help that she had no idea what statement Jefferson wished to make with the paper, what he planned to write about. But after the fourth hour mark, after she had mentally said 'Fuck it', she had found it. A connection between the false stories of his past. It wasn't much, but it was something.
For the next two hours after that she had searched the other notes for the same connect or even a connection of their own. And, now that she knew what to look for, she was easily able to find the connections. She had just finished sorting the notes, piling the notes with the same or similar connections into their own piles. Harleen was starting to get a theory, but she needed the recordings of each sessions the notes came from to actually solidify her theory.
But right now what Harleen needed most was a good cup of coffee. She stood up and stretched her aching muscles that were screaming at her for being bent over so long. After popped her back a few times, she left the office and made her way towards the lounge room. On the way there she bumped into a familiar face, the guard from the cafeteria: Robert.
"You're still here? I thought a beautiful girl like you would have left already to go clubbing or to go on a date." Robert said before laughing as if he had cracked the most hilarious joke.
"Nope, not me. I don't do the clubbing or dating scene." Harleen said forcing on a smile.
"Oh?" Robert asked as he held the door to the lounge open and motioned for her to enter before him. "You one of those gals who don't like having just one guy at her disposal? Gotta have them all?" He asked innocently as she walked by him to enter the lounge, stiffening when she felt his hand brush her ass. She glared at him over her shoulder but he made to look as if he hadn't even realised what he had just done, as if it were an accident. And maybe it had been, she had no proof that he had done it on purpose.
"Wrong. I'm a young woman who likes to focus on her work." Harleen hissed at him as she made her way over to the coffee pot, she wanted to get her coffee as quick as she could before going back to Jefferson's office and lock herself in the room and focus on the different connections between the notes.
"I see." Robert said and she felt him slither up behind her. "But you know what they say, all work and no play makes a woman's pussy shrivel up and die." He pressed himself up against her, locking her in between him and the counter, he kissed her neck as he presses his crotch against her ass. "Don't worry, baby, Imma feed your pussy." Harleen made to escape from him, but he wound his arms around her chest, pinning her arms to her side.
"Stop it." Harleen whispered as fear gripped her as her brain froze, she had never been molested like this before. Usually it was grop to the ass, maybe even a crotch brushing her leg, but nothing like this. "I-if you don't let me go I'll scream." She threatened.
"Scream all you want, slut, everyone already knows you're fucking Dr. Arkham and Dr. Jefferson. Ain't nobody gonna believe you. And besides, you know you want it." Robert whispered to her as he sucked on her earlobe while be began to not only thrust his hips against her ass, but also begin to squeeze her breast through her shirt. "Oh baby." Robert moaned as Harleen whimpered in disgust.
Her brain seemed to kick back into gear when one of his hands slid from her breast and started to head south. Harleen screamed as she headbutted Robert before using her body to shove him away from her. She spun and used the momentum of her spinning to slap him, knocking him to the ground where she then kicked him in the balls while spitting at him. After that, she took off running down the hall. She didn't know where she was going all she knew was she needed to get away from Robert.
Harleen also knew that she needed to tell Dr. Arkham what had just happened so that he could take the appropriate measures. But her body was actually running farther from Dr. Arkham's office and she didn't want to chance turning around to head in the right direction incase Robert was following her.
Harleen slid around a corner and into the first opened door she came across. She slammed and locked the door, backing away from it as she waited, listening for any signs that Robert had chased her. Her back hit a wall and she allowed her body to slide down it and pulled her knees to her chest, never taking her eyes off the door.
When Robert never appeared to continue his molestation on her, Harleen relaxed enough to allow the tears she had been holding back to fall from her eyes with a loud sob. She felt dirty and her skin itched. It felt as if there were thousands of tiny insects crawling all over the parts of her body that Robert had touched. She wanted to go to her dorm and scrub herself clean, but at the same time she was scared that he was waiting right outside the door, or even down the hall just waiting for her to try and leave.
Another sob forced it's way out of her throat as she buried her head in her knees and just cried. She hated to cry. It made her feel as if she were a little girl that just wanted her daddy to hold her and make everything better. But she didn't have a dad. Never did. And none of her foster fathers had made her feel safe enough to become her father. And because she never had a dad to make sure everything was okay, to make her feel safe, to make her feel stronger, she always hated feeling like she wanted her daddy. Because she knew he would never be there.
-?-
Harleen's eyes snapped open with a start. She looked around. She was still curled in a ball against the wall. Her eyes were sticky and dry. She had cried herself to sleep. Her eyes took in the dark room she was in, it was an office. Jefferson's office to be precise. And something had woken her up.
Still staying curled against the wall, in between the couch and bookcase, she scanned the room to try and find what had woken her up. Her piles of paper were still where she had left them. The door was still shut. The only thing she could make out that was different was that the light was off. She could have sworn that the lights had been on when she had come back from…. When she had come back.
Harleen shifted nervously. Someone had somehow come into the locked office to turn off the light. They had seen her curled in a ball and had done nothing but turn off the lights. Movement on the couch caused her to freeze. Had Robert managed to come into the room? Was he waiting for her to notice him before her continued to molest her and possibly rape her?
Harleen slowly turned to look at the couch, afraid that Robert would be there. She blinked when her eyes caught the steel blue eyes of the Joker calmly watching her from the couch. He smiled at her softly before beckoning her towards him. She didn't move. Her mind and body were numb. First she found Jefferson in the middle of having a mental breakdown, then Robert molests her, and now she was alone with an unrestrained Joker.
Her eyes flashed over to the panic button that was on the other side of the room by the door. She knew that if she even tried to make a break for it that the Joker would be on her before she even took her first step. An annoyed sigh from the Joker caused her to look back at the Joker who had moved so that he was now leaning over the side of the couch, his face right next to hers.
"Come now, Harley, I'm not here to kill ya. I'm not even here to hurt ya." The Joker said, his voice was silky and smooth. "Plus, if I wanted to kill ya, I had plenty of chances to do so while ya was sleeping." She didn't know how she felt about that.
"What are you doing here?" Harleen asked and watched as the Joker watched her. The smile on his face was lighthearted but his eyes were hard and murderous.
"I just came here to confirm a little rumor that's been flying around the office." The Joker said sounding more like he was gossiping by the water cooler instead of sitting in the dark office of his Psychiatrist on a couch next to the Psychiatry student shadowing his doctor.
"Rumor?" Harleen asked as she curled in on herself more. Had people already heard about Dr. Jefferson's mental breakdown? Would he be let go? What would happen to her?
"Oh, the little rumor that you were Molester McHandsy's latest victim." The Joker growled out and Harleen was instantly brought back to when Robert had molested her some hours ago. Her eyes teared up, was he bragging about what he had been able to do to her? What lie was he sprouting about her now? She blinked to find the Joker's face right in front of her. "So it's true?" He asked before hopping off the couch and began to prowl around the room hands behind his back.
Harleen watched him with fear in her eyes, wondering what he would do. Would he laugh? Would he tease and taunt her? Would he call her a dumb bimbo like everyone else? She screamed when he began to pick things up and toss them with angry growls. He continued to do this until he had tossed everything he could and then he just stood in the center of the room, head pointed towards the ground so that his hair was covering his eyes and panting hard. Suddenly, the Joker stopped panting and crouched down.
"Sorry." He said actually sounding sorry as he messed with something on the ground. Harleen blinked and looked at what he was doing, and nearly laughed when she saw he was fixing her piles of paper that had gotten mixed up during his tantrum.
"You don't have to fix them, I can re-sort them later." Harleen told him shyly, it felt a little weird to have the Joker straighten up her piles of notes that were on him.
"Now what kind of man would I be if I let a beautiful, smart young lady to clean up my mess?" The Joker said as he finished the last pile and hopped up from his crouch to skip back to the couch. He stopped and tilted his head at her, taking in the way she was curled up against the wall. "Now that can't be comfy." His hand shot out and gently gripped her elbow. The second his hand touched her, Harleen went ragdoll allowing the Joker to manipulate her body the way he wanted. "There, all comfy." He said pleased with himself when he had her situated snug against the arm of the couch.
"Thank you." Harleen said softly, not really knowing why she was thanking, just that it felt right.
"Well, I just couldn't let my favorite Doctor be uncomfortable." The Joker said shrugging her thanks off as he jumped on to the couch and wiggled around until he himself was comfortably sat snug against Harleen so that she was now snuggly in between the arm of the couch and the Joker. "Still comfy?" He asked her and she nodded mutely. "Good." The Joker all but squealed as he threw his arm over her shoulder. "If I do anything that makes ya uncomfortable, just let me know."
"I will." She told him meekly causing him to stare intently at her for a long minute as he searched her eyes and face for something. When he found, or didn't find, what he was looking for, he smiled and pulled out a doll from within his Arkham issued sweatpants.
"Good, now tell your Uncle Joker where that bad man touched you." The Joker said handing the doll to Harleen who stared at him in shock. When she didn't take the doll right away the Joker shook it a little, and when she still didn't take it from him the Joker growled angrily shaking Harleen from her shock and took the doll from him. She looked up at him through her eyelashes wondering if he really wanted her to us the doll to point out where Robert had touched her. "Wait!" The Joker cried before jumping off the couch and ran over to Jefferson's desk, being extra careful not to mess up her piles of paper, grabbed a clipboard and pencil from the desk before racing back to the couch. He jumped back onto the couch and situated himself so that he was now facing her, clipboard and pencil in hand, face eager to hear what she would say while his eyes held a dark and murderous look. "Okay, I'm ready now."
"Um, he, uh, he first brushed his hand against my butt." Harleen whispered turning the doll over and pointed at the doll's ass. The Joker's eyes narrowed before he focused on the clipboard and began scribbling.
"Uh huh." The Joker muttered as he scribbled, his tongue poking out of the side of his mouth. "And then what did he do?" He asked once he was done scribbling.
"He, uh, then pressed his crotch to my butt as he held me against the counter." Harleen told him and watched as the Joker's grip on the pencil tightened while his face remained calm, the look in his eyes darkened.
"I see." He muttered as he went back to scribbling on the paper, when he was done he looked back at her expectantly.
"He then ki-kissed my neck." She muttered pointing to the doll's neck. The Joker's grip on the pencil tightened again and she wondered if he was going to break the pencil.
"And then?" The Joker asked.
"He grabbed my breast while holding my arms to my side." Harleen told him. The pencil began to crack with how hard the Joker was gripping it.
"He touch anywhere else?" The Joker asked his voice calm despite the death grip he had on the pencil.
"No." She whispered looking away from the Joker.
"You're lying." He whispered back, the disappointment that she heard in his voice caused her to look at him. Was he disappointed that she let Robert molest her for as long as he had? Or was he disappointed that she was lying to him. That seemed to hurt more than she wanted it too.
"I'm not. He didn't touch me anywhere else. His hand had started to head south. But I stopped him! I head butted him to get away from him before slapping him and kicking him in the balls. I then ran away and locked myself in here." Harleen told him quickly. The pencil snapped and his face suddenly became demonic.
"He tried to pet your kitty?" The Joker asked, his voice was monotoned and that scared Harleen more than if he was angry. Suddenly the Joker shot up from the couch and dashed to the office door. Harleen shot up and somehow made it to the Joker before he was able to even take a step out of the office. She grabbed him by his arm and pulled as hard as she could, using her weight and momentum to swing him back to the center of the room. And was impressed how he managed to dance around the piles to keep from knocking them over.
"Don't…" Harleen whispered shutting and locking the door, pressing her back against it. "Don't kill him."
"What was that Harley-girl? You don't want me to kill him?" The Joker asked stalking towards her, placing his hands on either side of her face. "But if I don't kill him, then who will?" He asked before leaning in close to her, his lips just a hair's breath away from hers. "You?" He whispered darkly as Harleen's body began to shake. She couldn't tell if she was terrified or excited and that scared her. "No." The Joker pulled away with a dark smirk. "I don't think you're quite ready for that yet." He lifted up his hand and slammed it onto the panic button that she had forgotten was right next to her. "So you just relax and leave everything to your Uncle Joker."
Harleen screamed when the office door was flung open, causing her to fly into the Joker's chest knocking them both to the ground as the guards swarmed the office. Everything was a noisy blur as the guards demanded to know if she was hurt as she was yanked off the Joker. Some guards yelled insults at the Joker as they beat him black and blue. And the Joker laughed the whole time. It overwhelmed her so much that her eyes rolled to the back of her head and she passed out.