Normal font = present, italics = past (10 years ago)
DC owns everything.
Yeah, we were just two friends in lust
And baby, that just don't mean much
You trained me not to love
After you showed me what it was
-Meet Me in the Bathroom, The Strokes
"Harleen. How are you?" Jeremiah Arkham purred through a venomous smile.
"Fine," she attempted to strain one of her own.
"Any exciting plans for this weekend?" he inquired casually as he leaned back in his chair.
"No," she shook her head.
The thought of doing anything productive for the next two days was daunting, as she just planned on falling asleep that night and waking up Sunday afternoon. It'd been an exhausting week, what with her indiscretion on Monday, his own pseudo-meltdown on Wednesday and Thursday night's strange and inexplicable events.
"The reason I ask is because you've been working far too hard. You look like shit, Harleen. When was the last time you slept?" he frowned.
She ducked her head, hoping to evade his acerbic gaze. It was true: her youthful face ordinarily managed to exude a radiant charm, but as of late, it glowed dimly with the dull fatigue of a woman who had seen and heard far too much.
"I'm afraid that you're not cut out for this," he crossed his arms.
"Didn't you already know that when you assigned me to this case?" she asked dryly, lifting to head to peer into his beady eyes.
He rolled them and waved his hand blithely, dismissing her comment.
"Now, I know you've only had two sessions since we last spoke on Monday, but I need to know if you've learned anything from him. We're running out of time. His trial is scheduled to occur six weeks from now and don't tell me you've wasted two whole weeks already," he issued angrily.
Since the Joker's initial arrest three weeks ago, his case was quickly becoming one of the most high profile the city had ever had to handle. It was moving through the system faster than the eye could blink, and had even managed to take precedence over other celebrity cases. Many agreed that it had already reached an iconic platform and would shape up to be one of the most heavily analyzed criminal cases that Gotham, and the entire nation, had ever seen. The national media had even given it a perpetual slot on the nightly news, on an endless rotation of interviews with expert criminologists, psychiatrists and academic scholars. It had also sparked several national debates, ranging from mental health to domestic terrorism. As well, the media hawked the case, hoping to pull any information out regarding public enemy number one; reporters camped outside the Asylum gates, the Police Headquarters and the new District Attorney's office at any given hour. The public was split: half wanted him dead in a Blackgate electric chair and the other half wanted him in solitary confinement at Arkham. This, of course, did not account for the opinions of the criminal underworld.
From the time he was arrested and booked in mid-September, he had been securely transported to his initial court appearance the following day after spending a night in County. After being advised of his charges and rights, he, of course, was not eligible for bail, and was immediately whisked off to the Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane where he was placed in a maximum-security cell. He underwent a seven-day transition period, wherein he was neither assigned a psychiatrist nor received psychiatric care. On his third day of transition, he was plucked out for a preliminary hearing, in which it was determined that there was enough evidence to support the charges against him. The following day, he was placed in front of a judge and the District Attorney. At his arraignment, the judge considered him to be indigent (perhaps because he had a tendency to burn his material wealth) and assigned him a Public Defender while the DA officially charged him with a laundry list of felonies, which included everything from aggravated assault to possession of a weapon of mass destruction. When asked how he plead, he stood mute, thus automatically placing a not guilty plea. Both the Joker and the ambitious new DA refused to bargain a plea deal. The former was too apathetic and the latter didn't even want to hear the defendant's voice; as a Gotham public servant who was the successor to Harvey Dent, he wanted a trial. The judge determined the case to be trial sufficient, no plea was made, and a date was scheduled. A number of cases were pushed back in the backlogged system to ultimately settle for a two-month waiting period for two reasons. First, it is a crime truism that the longer a case sits in the system, it is only to the increasing benefit of the defense and the DA was not looking for miracle. Second, according to both the judge and his defense, this time frame would allow for Arkham Asylum to make a preliminary assessment on his mental state. It was a judicial compromise in every way: the dogged prosecutorial side would attempt to fry him as quickly as possible and the defense team would receive a slot of time to wait and hope for an insanity diagnosis.
Yet the poor Public Defender assigned to represent him hardly compared to his legal opposition. He'd earned decent grades at a middle-tier law school and had applied for a PD position to gain some experience such that he could eventually run his own private firm. He'd enjoyed two years on the bar before the system flung one of the hottest cases of the century into his lap. This, of course, was no accident. It was intentional and political and just about anything but accidental. Additionally, he became publicly scorned, despite the fact that he would have rather defended anyone else in the world than the towering man with the Glasgow grin (who, by the way, nearly made him faint when he briefly visited him at Arkham). The bloodthirsty public wanted a successful conviction, and it only made sense for them to disparage the man whose entire salary was funded by their taxpayer dollars and who was also potentially the barrier between the Joker and the death penalty.
Conversely, the new DA was far more experienced. His glowing resume indicated that he possessed an Ivy League pedigree and excelled through Columbia and eventually Yale Law. He'd also recently put the Maroni family consigliore behind bars who had somehow slipped through Harvey Dent's successful RICO conviction, further earning him the adoration of a public so recently deprived of justice. Yet the disparity in legal competency and public approval didn't end there. Ironically, and unbeknownst to the general public, Jeremiah Arkham had assigned the Joker a certain psychiatrist based on the latter's resolute demand.
"Look, Dr. Arkham – " that same psychiatrist sighed.
"Now, state jurisdiction demands that we provide a Substantial Capacity Test under the MPC to determine insanity," her superior drummed his fingers impatiently.
"I know that – "
"Lacks substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to control it," he read off his clipboard.
"Capacity, my dear. That is the key word," he snapped his head up to stare at her.
She blinked in silence as he continued.
"Does he possess the capacity to appreciate wrongfulness? Does he not? Do you possess the capacity to assess this? No. No, you don't," he jabbed his finger at her.
"And whose idea was it to assign an intern to such a high profile case?" she countered.
"Hedemanded you. I don't know why, Harleen, but he demanded you! The man wouldn't speak, or even open his mouth for that matter, unless it was to ask for you. It only made sense to give him what he wanted. And I thought… I really thought that maybe you could have done something with this. When I saw you defend your thesis, I thought you were cutting edge. You were just the kind of fresh-faced, optimistic bundle of energy that we needed for this place. Sadly, you're just another disappointment in a long list of them. This was your chance to prove to me - to everyone - that you could have been something."
He shook his head and sighed grumpily.
"Well, that's no matter," he scoffed, "after today I'm taking you off the case."
She knew that she'd been a political pawn from the start, but two sleepless weeks had somehow whirred by in a flash. It was clear to her that Jeremiah Arkham was squirming as well. He needed the Joker to stay in his institution to advance his political aspirations, but how could that ever happen if a pseudo-competent PD and an equally inexperienced psychiatrist were set to square off against a hardnosed and popular DA?
Yet while she knew all of this, a heavy knot formed in her stomach and she suddenly felt uneasy.
"No, you can't. He's my patient," she pleaded.
"Harleen –"
"He's my patient," she suddenly snapped with incensed rage.
"And this is my institution," he rebuked in a roar and she slammed her mouth shut.
"Now you need to remember your place, Harleen. After today's session he is no longer yours to treat," he seethed.
She swallowed heavily and shut her eyes, though she could continue to feel his caustic fury stinging at her.
"And were you not previously begging me to take you off the case?" he further sneered.
"Am I fired?" she murmured after a moment and reopened her exhausted eyes.
"No," he laughed his haughty, pompous laugh.
"Heavens no!" he chuckled hard, "you'll be reassigned to a case that's more in your… realm of capability. Perhaps a nonviolent patient."
He issued a mordant smile and she nodded numbly.
"Now get the hell out of my office before I change my mind. Though remember, my dear, there's always Park Row."
As per routine, her patient had been delivered to her in a swift, if not irritable, motion by the three same Arkham guards. After exchanging waves and hearing the door shut, she glanced at the man on her chaise nervously, though was thankful once again for the white straightjacket that constrained his entire upper body. She scanned his face for any signs of anger or aggression as memories of him slamming against her desk during the previous session flashed through her mind. He blinked at her indifferently, his visage entirely blank, and she internally remarked on his incredible ability to reset after an outburst. Though she didn't know what to say, and so they sat in silence for several moments.
She periodically assessed his face, which was looking remarkably better than it had during their second session. Though he was clearly still exhibiting signs of withdrawal, it was apparent that he was on a shaky road to recovery. Yet while his face, which was no longer ashen, was improving, his mental dependence on substances was not. His increased irritability and mood swings were the two most poignant symptoms, though she wondered if the withdrawal was affecting any mental failing he may have, such as schizophrenic tendencies or paranoia. Though she highly doubted him to be paranoid in any capacity. His confidence, which teetered on a narcissistic realm, would have shattered any trace of a paranoid trait by now.
"Now, is your desk wired to the floor?" he suddenly asked, interrupting her thoughts.
"Pardon?" she blinked, snapping out of her own head.
"At bank teller windows, one has to intentionally lift a floor lever with her toe to alert security. Ah, but you just get to smash a button underneath your desk to summon the boys in blue," he grinned haughtily.
"Of course you would know that," she sighed and pursed her lips.
"Not personally, no," he scoffed, "only schmucks rob teller windows."
"And why is that?" she asked quietly.
"It's amateur in every way. First… any given cashier has maybe a grand in it. Secondly, they will almost always drop a dye pack into your bag, and then you're really asking to get… caught. And finally, it's a wonderful place to have your photo taken. So while you're milling around, waiting for Lisa to hand you lunch money, you're pissing in your own grave," he began chuckling loudly.
"I see," she mumbled.
The silence resumed, despite his abnormal attempt at small talk. Normally, it was Harley constantly having to blather on before she pulled anything substantial out of him. She would have jumped at any opportunity to listen to him discuss anything criminal, but she wasn't in the mood today. Of course, this was something that he noticed.
"Why aren't you talking my ear off with questions?" he finally tilted his head.
"After today I'm no longer your psychiatrist," she said numbly.
"What?" he spat and an intense flicker of emotion flashed across his face.
"That's right," she nodded, "Arkham took me off your case. You're now free to terrorize someone else."
He narrowed his eyes.
"I don't want another shrink," he sneered.
"That's not up to you," she muttered.
"And it would appear that it was not up to you either," he retorted.
She ducked her head shamefully and attempted to brace herself for the next round of acidic comments. Though she knew that anything Jeremiah Arkham ever said to her would have paled pathetically in comparison to one of the Joker's compliments.
"How's it feel to be such a disappointment?" he issued a mock pout.
She bore her gaze into her empty notepad and bit her lip hard.
"I always knew that you'd end up doing something so laughable as entering the human services," he continued with a sneer.
"Harleen, embarking on a noble crusade of compassion to help the downtrodden with her bleeding heart and exuberant optimism, only to be knocked down by political self-interests and bureaucratic chess games. Though, it's entirely your fault… for entering a field… so marred by irrationality," he smirked.
"What do you mean?" she furrowed her brow and lifted her head to meet his dark gaze.
"Everything about your work evokes deeply imbedded symbolism for religious zeal. You push for the enforcement of societal… norms… and the status quo. You seek to aid the downtrodden, the deviant, and the mentally defective through a form of healing. The… normative… Catholic tradition is to treat society's outcasts with compassion and love. You don't seek punitive measures for deviance, but rather, you feel a moral obligation to form a relationship with the disadvantaged. You're on a mission to help people, to heal people, to understand people. So while you spent all those years securing yourself a scientific degree, you're really subjecting yourself to a career driven by ancient religious underpinnings of sentimentality. You want to give to people, spiritual alms if you will, and that's because your empathy is biblical. Your career is driven by a personal desire to help others, which is ultimately driven by compassion. And yet compassion, like love, or heroism, or benevolence, is utterly… irrational."
"I disagree," she shook her head.
"That's because you're trained to disagree. It's already wired into your subconscious, so don't even bother. From the minute you were born society told you right from wrong. Anyone who acts outside of the status quo is considered deviant. Now these deviants, who remember, are resistant to societal norms, are immediately labeled as dysfunctional. It only worsens from there. Most are slapped with a personality disorder… Antisocial…. Borderline…. Take your pick. And that's because you're trained to hand out these diagnoses. You're trained to think in this socially obedient paradigm. If I told you I wasn't crazy, would you believe me?"
She averted his gaze once more and furrowed her brow in ruminating thought. Yet just as her thoughts began to steer toward - was it comprehension? - she shook her head.
"Are you going to impart your drabbling monologues onto your next psychiatrist?" she pursed her lips and met his coal eyes.
"Oh no, I only save those for when I see my little pet!" he grinned widely, which per usual, engulfed the bottom half of his face.
"Excuse me?" her eyebrows shot up.
"I didn't come here to listen to some white-collared sap who can't tell his left from right drone on all day about psychobabble," he rolled his eyes.
"You didn't come here on your own accord," she reminded him.
"Do you think I just got caught?" he cackled, "that I got nabbed by big old Batsy and got thrown in here to languish for my deeds? Oh no, I'm not that sloppy at all. No. You see, a little birdie told me that a certain new intern was causing quite a buzz at Arkham. You can hide behind that lab coat of yours all you want, baby, but you're certainly better to look at than the rest of the eunuchs this place employs. You see, I wanted to come to Arkham," he snickered and his grin grew even larger.
"Why?" murmured fearfully.
"Because it got boring out there! I needed a vacation, and where better to do that than at Arkham with my favorite toy? Oh sure, you still need some dusting and refinement, but you've been very fun so far. And really, it's not so bad here – I'm considering making this my second ha-," he giggled, "hacienda."
"I'm not a toy," she snapped.
"You're mine," he said simply, "you always have been. You always will be. And don't doubt me when I say that I'm very, very possessive."
"You came here on purpose? I thought you were a man without a plan," she narrowed her eyes.
"You'll never know, will you?" he smirked.
"Just when you think I have a plan… I don't. Just when you think I don't have a plan… I do. I love to keep 'em guessing, sugar. That's what the Joker does… that's why… the Joker… is the wild card."
She stared at him for a long moment before she cleared her throat.
"You said there are two Jokers in a deck. Is that why you came here? To mold me into what you are?" she asked quietly.
"You don't need molding, dollface, just a bit of tweaking. But don't worry, Daddy will have his Harley fine-tuned and running in no time," he scarred smile grew.
"Stop calling yourself that," she sighed and rubbed at her temples.
"Says the girl with Daddy issues," he shrugged casually.
She gritted her teeth together and had to exhale shakily, though he couldn't miss the flicker of rage that danced through her light eyes.
"C'mon, why don't you throw your shoe at me again?" he goaded with dark glee dancing in his own murky eyes.
"Let's see what else you can do. We both know that the range of your emotional spectrum spans much further than what you've been displaying thus far. Much, much, much, much, much farther," he grinned ominously.
She exhaled once and rigidly composed herself.
"I was a very volatile teenager, as most are," she said simply.
He shook his head vigorously.
"No. No, no, no, no, no. No. I never knew what I was going to get with you - not that I'm complaining though. You were a fun little box of emotional instability," he started to giggle.
"As one would experience with most teenagers," she countered.
"Whatever helps you sleep at night, cupcake. Though it doesn't seem like you've been sleeping much these days. Perhaps your insomnia is encroaching upon your ability to accurately assess matters around you, particularly the state of your own self. How is your pea-sized noggin faring against all of the stress?"
"I'm not stupid," she scowled, "and you know that."
"You're not… unintelligent but there are sharper crayons in the box," he rolled his eyes.
"I'm smart," she retorted.
"You're brash," he snapped, "you're reckless and impetuous and hotheaded and you never know when to shut… the… fuck… up."
"I was that way," she corrected.
He snorted and rolled his eyes once more.
"Shall we take a look at the scuff mark that you so graciously placed on this wall the other day?" he turned his head to nod at the black streak left by her hurled heel.
She averted his gaze in shameful embarrassment.
"You're a loaded gun, Harl. Now, depending on how you play your cards, that can be to your detriment or to your benefit," his scarred mouth curled into a wide grin.
She shook her head blindly but couldn't find the vocal capacity to object.
"Where's that spunk, kid?" he continued, "where's the girl who bashes a man's head in with a blunt object?"
She quietly zoned out and stared heavily at her blank notepad. He watched her carefully, drinking in every twitch and catatonic breath she took. An incredible smile formed at his lips and he couldn't help but bounce giddily in his spot on the chaise. As he gauged her deadpan face he began giggling uncontrollably.
"You in there, kiddo?" he issued through a laugh.
She didn't respond and he cleared his throat before sitting perfectly still.
"Harley," he commanded simply.
She snapped her head up and blinked at him with perplexed eyes.
"Harley," he repeated, slower this time.
"What?" she furrowed her brow.
The corner of his mouth twitched.
"Nothing," he shrugged casually.
"What did you just ask me?" she blinked at him in confusion.
"I didn't ask you anything," he issued innocently.
"Oh," she said quietly.
The ticking of her desktop clock thundered in her ears and she slowly picked it up. She delicately brushed the face and sighed deeply, shutting her eyes.
"We have five minutes," she murmured in a strange tone.
"Oh please, Harl, don't be so dramatic. We both know that this is not the end. In fact… it's only… the beginning," he grinned.
"You're wrong," she shook her head and reopened her eyes.
"I'll see you in a week," he smirked.
"Want to bet?" she suddenly sneered.
"Yeah," he nodded, his smile growing wider, "if I'm not back in your office by next Friday, I'll leave you alone."
"Forever?" she narrowed her eyes in suspicion.
"Sure," he shrugged.
"No contact. No keeping tabs on me. No popping back out of nowhere. No killing me. No killing anyone close to me," she reeled off with her fingers.
"Fine," he rolled his eyes.
"And if you win?" she asked quietly.
He smiled enigmatically and she had to swallow down a lump in her throat.
"If I win… I get this straightjacket taken off of me," he shrugged his constrained shoulders.
"I get rec room privileges. I get dining hall privileges – no more of that faux-beef crap. And lastly, I get a kiss from you," he grinned flippantly.
She crossed her arms defensively, though she began chewing on her bottom lip in cogitating thought. It was an enticing offer; the prospect of never having to see him again on his own volition was tempting, because then she wouldn't have to be constantly looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life in the event he did escape Arkham (that is, if he was being serious about taking a vacation). On the other hand, he was asking for quite a bundle of privileges – privileges that many of the other inmates, including nonviolent ones, had not yet earned.
"I don't know if I would be able to secure all of that for you," she hesitated.
"Oh Harley girl, you silly little riot," he chuckled, "by the time I'm done with whoever and whatever Jerry throws at me, he's going to toss me back in here with any and every demand you ask of him."
She chewed her lip for a moment longer.
"Everything but the kiss," she finally declared.
"Nope," he shook his head, "everything and the kiss. Now stop haggling before I throw something even more unsavory in there."
He started cackling and the deafening noise caused a searing flash of pain to slam through her head. She rubbed at her temples painfully before she sighed.
"Fine, it's a deal," she muttered in concession.
"Excellent," he grinned broadly.
She glanced at the clock and noted with an inexplicable amalgamation of relief and melancholy that they only had a minute left in their session.
"Well, I guess I'll see you in passing," she smiled plainly at him.
"See you next Friday," he corrected, "and feel free to wear some lipstick."
He began screeching in resumed laughter and as if on cue, the door flew open.
"Goddammit, clown, do you ever stop laughing?" Frank snapped at him.
It'd been a week since the night at the bar, and since then, Harley had to seriously repress some strange feelings. She suddenly felt self-conscious when she was around him and that wasn't something that she could exactly place her finger on. They'd hung out the night before with Tony and gotten completely blitzed for no reason at all, but that was nothing new. In fact, it was becoming routine for all of them, at least for Jack and Harley, to get loaded and chew the fat. Though those two had agreed to go see a Saturday matinee – some shitty horror movie that they planned on laughing at – but Harley never showed, which was probably why a very irritated Jack scaled the fire escape outside her window to confront her. He'd been doing that all week otherwise, as she had told him, hilariously, that she was too lazy to go buzz him in from the living room and she hardly heard it half the time anyway.
Yet as he let himself into her chaotic room to snap at her, it suddenly dawned on him that she wasn't there. He glanced around in slight confusion; if she wasn't out with him, she was in her room, at which point he would eventually join her and field her idiotic questions about her psychology or physics homework. He noted the fifth of vodka and a crumpled half-filled carton of cigarettes on her dresser and frowned. They were new additions to her cluttered room and as he casually shoved the carton into his dark slacks, he decided at that very moment to venture into the rest of her tiny apartment.
He poked his head out her door and squinted over at the couch, but it was unoccupied alongside a muted TV. An older episode of Freaks and Geeks was playing, and he quickly deduced that she must've been around. A quick glance at the closed bathroom door sparked an ugly, irritated energy to course through his brain, and he stormed through the door with incensed words bubbling at his mouth.
He found her sitting in the bathtub, knees curled to her chest, and just as he was about to verbally accost her, he froze. Very little rendered him speechless, but as he gaped at the petite blonde nestled into the tub, his entire wrath had dissolved. She was flicking a lighter on and off in monotone repetition and staring dully into the flame. Her thumb struck the wheel at perfectly timed intervals, producing a flare and then destroying it as quickly as it appeared. He drank her in from head to toe, from her mismatched socks up to her unusually messy hair. It was tangled and framed her face, hid it even, but that was not enough for him to miss the black eye that spanned her left eye. Her lip was cut, albeit superficially, though the nick was certainly noticeable and had barely healed over in a scab.
"What the fuck happened to you?" he asked quietly.
She didn't respond and continued her strange routine. He watched her thumb, covered in a chipped layer of red nail polish, strike and release the wheel. Strike and release. Strike and release. He assumed it must have been therapeutic for her in some way and he leaned down to get closer to her face.
"Hey," issued quietly.
She continued to ignore him and as he glimpsed into her vacant eyes, he quickly realized that she simply was not there. She'd checked out somewhere, though he wanted to know exactly where that was. After a moment, he slowly climbed into the bathtub and sat on the opposite side from her. He had to pull his long limbs up to his chest and he snapped his fingers out in front of him.
"Harley," he commanded.
He watched for any sign of her return yet gauged nothing.
"Harley," he repeated louder and reached out to snatch the lighter from her hand.
The flame singed his own thumb, though he managed to yank it from her grip. She snapped out of her daze and blinked at him with a jarred expression on her face.
"What happened?" he asked darkly.
She raised her fingers to her cut lip and a wave of terror washed over her face. They moved up her cheek and patted at her skin, though she flinched, as if she'd forgotten about the deep purple bruise that marred her eye. Her bottom lip began to tremble and she raised her glassy eyes to meet his.
"Um…" she swallowed heavily.
"Who did that to you?" he asked in a low, even voice.
"Roger," she croaked, "he… he tried to… to…"
"What did he try to do?" he suddenly asked with an edge of menace in his voice.
"I-I… I was on the couch and he came home and started talking to me. And I wasn't even really paying attention to him. It was three in the morning and I was half asleep watching some stupid movie and all of a sudden he's on the couch talking to me and telling me how much I look like my mom and the next minute he's on top of me and trying to shush me and I'm trying to hit him and he's hitting me back really hard," she paused to point at her black eye.
"And… and… and…" she trailed.
"And?" he demanded in a growl.
"He started to choke me. I couldn't breath and then he's ripping at my shirt and I remember looking over at the coffee table and seeing his beer bottle. So I smashed him over the head with it and didn't stop. I kept doing it and I was screaming at him, telling him I was going to kill him. I hit him until the bottle shattered, but he got up and fled before I could do anything more. And I have no idea where he is right now... Fucked up and half-dead somewhere probably," she moaned loudly.
She buried her head into her knees though he unclenched his jaw and visibly relaxed.
"Self defense," he said simply.
"No," she raised her head to meet his gaze.
"That's not what I'm upset about. I wish… I wish I had killed him. But then it's like… what am I capable of? What is inside of me that would… allow me to think that was okay? I picked up a shard of glass and my first instinct was to do horrible things to him," she sighed.
She held out her right hand for him to see the deep red line spanning the length of her palm; she'd gripped the shard so tightly that it bit into her own skin.
"We all have monsters inside of us," he said simply.
"But I don't want to be a monster," she croaked.
It was silent for a moment before he sighed deeply in exasperation.
"If you want him dead but don't want to do it I can have that taken care of," he murmured.
"Would you do it?" she blinked at him with large, perplexed eyes.
"Do you want me to?" he asked quietly.
Another silent moment passed and she pulled her knees closer to her chest.
"Have you ever killed someone?" she whispered in fearful wonder.
His dark, indifferent eyes blinked once and that was enough confirmation for the hair on the back of her neck to rise.
"How old were you?" she asked sadly.
"Sixteen," he said plainly.
"Why did you do it?" she murmured.
"Told to," he issued.
"By who?" her voice cracked.
He shot her a cutting, almost disappointed glance. It was a glance she often received from him, as he had increasingly high expectations for her. As every day passed, he set the bar higher and higher. She had to scramble to keep up otherwise she'd receive a caustic comment or glance. So she furrowed her brow in deep contemplation and mused through several possibilities until her face lit up in revelation.
"Is your dad a made man?" she asked carefully.
He nodded and she relaxed, suddenly pleased with herself that she had passed yet another one of his tests.
"Are you Italian?" she asked abruptly and raised a doubtful eyebrow.
"No," he said simply.
"Well you must have an Italian grandparent or something," she offered.
"I don't know," he issued apathetically.
"That would be the only way he could be made. And the fact that he must be an exceptional member of the family," she continued.
He merely blinked.
"Is Tony made? Is his dad? Are you?" she fired off with a furrowed brow.
"Not yet. Yes. No, and I never will be," he responded accordingly in a dull monotone.
She chewed at her lip and nodded vacantly as she processed his words.
"When was the first time you saw someone die?" she finally whispered.
"Ten," he answered blandly.
Her jaw dropped and she blinked at him for a long moment in utter disbelief.
"What happened?" she asked, alarmed.
He shrugged apathetically.
"I couldn't sleep so I went downstairs and… let's just say that my dad was taking care of some business in the kitchen," he issued.
She stared at him, jaw unhinged, and she hugged her knees tighter.
"That must have been horrible," she whispered and her large eyes glimmered with tears.
"It didn't bother me," he shrugged.
As she struggled to keep her eyes dry, his own were completely void of emotion.
"Did you feel anything when you killed that person?" she croaked.
"No," he said simply.
"Nothing?" she raised her eyebrows and she couldn't control the single tear that rolled down her cheek.
"Nothing," he blinked.
She had to wipe at the stray tear, suddenly embarrassed.
"You can sleep at night?" she whispered in a raspy tone.
"I sleep like a baby," he issued with a smile.
It was a chilling, emotionless smile and as it engulfed the entirety of his face, she shivered.
"There's something wrong with you," she shook her head.
"You think?" he raised an eyebrow and smirked.
"Have you ever felt… anything?" she suddenly asked.
The grin fell from his face and he furrowed his brow in confusion.
"Heartbreak? Longing? Happiness?" she pressed.
"Happiness," he finally said with a tint of suspicion laced in his voice.
"Not when you're high or anything. Genuine happiness," she blinked at him.
He shrugged and nodded after a moment. She closed her eyes, willing for them to dry themselves, before she reopened them. He was staring at her curiously and she slowly pulled herself up onto her knees to shuffle over to him. She curled up in his lap, half expecting for him to shove her off, but he surprisingly allowed her to wrap her arms around his waist and bury her head into his collarbone. He shifted uncomfortably, though she only held onto him tighter.
"I'm sorry," she said sadly.
"For what?" he sighed in exasperation.
"That you've had to experience all of that," she mumbled sorrowfully.
"Harley, it doesn't bother me. None of it bothers me," he said in a low, even voice.
"And that's what I'm sorry for," she murmured.
He blinked hard in confusion as she nuzzled deeper into the crook of his clavicle. It took his brain a lengthy moment for him to process the gesture and he had to swallow uncomfortably. Slowly and carefully, he curled a hand around the back of her neck and pulled her head from his chest. It was her turn to blink up at him in stupefaction, but he cupped her chin tenderly and tweaked it to drink in her damaged face. His gaze lowered down her neck and stopped at a large red and purple splotch that raked from her jawline to collarbone. He lost sight of its entirety, as the thin white fabric of her top hid the remaining portion of the bruise, and he skirted his hand south to undo the top button of her blouse. She gazed at him longingly and watched him slowly undo a second button before he gently pulled the gossamer fabric back to assess the mutilated area. He quickly determined that she had very sensitive skin. A sea of broken capillaries internally pooled a glut of blood, creating a dark red-purple mass that juxtaposed harshly with her fair complexion. If a solid throttle was enough to taint her this austerely, he wondered how she would look on the worst day of her life. Then again, she did scramble out as the victor, and he suddenly wondered how that sonuvabitch was looking.
After a moment, he pulled his hand back but she snatched him by the wrist. He blinked at her in resumed confusion as she guided his hand back to her blouse, her burning eyes trained on his puzzled ones, and he watched her slowly undo the third button. Bemusement quickly dissipated into lustful comprehension, and he glanced at her heatedly before his hand followed suit and leisurely unbuttoned the rest of her shirt. She gazed at him achingly and slinked her arms around his neck. His own gaze explored her petite and battered upper body, drinking in every bruise, freckle, and mark. He stopped at a thin, spidery scar on her left ribcage and after a moment, smoothed a thumb along its length. She shivered against his curious touch before he placed his hand against her flat, silky stomach and moved it north, brushing up her cleavage and stopping at her collarbone. His fingers spread out at the base of her neck and his eyes rose to meet hers.
"I thought we were completely platonic," he recycled her words in a husky murmur.
"That's hilarious," she quipped with a coquettish smirk.
She could feel his warm breath grow thicker and his hand moved up her neck to grab a fistful of her hair. He tugged her forward and crashed his lips against hers in a forceful kiss. She moaned against his mouth and snared her fingers in his curls, pulling him in deeper. They tugged at each other's faces trying in vain to get closer to one another, though it was already quite physically impossible for them to do that. She bit his bottom lip aggressively and he grunted, suddenly growing hard underneath her. His tongue pushed at her teeth, demanding entrance, and she relented. Their tongues wrestled shamelessly, deepening the kiss and fighting for control. He pushed a bra strap down before ultimately attempting to battle with the clasp. As he clumsily fumbled with it for a long moment, she laughed into his mouth before there was a knock at the door.
Both their heads snapped toward the noise and they glanced at one another in a daze.
"Harley," her mother called out, "are you in there?"
"Uh, yeah," she responded in a fluster as she furiously attempted to re-button her blouse.
"Hold on," she yelled over her shoulder.
She stood from the tub and grabbed a toothbrush before popping it into her mouth. He snickered at her, still splayed out casually in the bathtub, before he tapped his upper arm. She glanced at her own to discover her loose bra strap hanging off her shoulder and quickly yanked it back into place, beneath her newly re-buttoned blouse.
He smirked at her and, after a brief moment, she opened the door to greet her mom who, per usual, was wrapped up in her thick red bathrobe. Her dark tangled hair framed her exhausted face, and Harley watched the eyes that had been passed down onto her prick heavily with tears.
"Can I talk to you?" she asked softly, almost fearfully.
It was clear that she had been crying. Her puffy eyes certainly gave her away, but it was the extra tint of haggardness in her face that revealed she'd been carrying a heavy burden that only a mother would ever come to know.
"Um sure," she responded quietly, pulling the toothbrush out of her mouth.
She turned to place it back at the sink and the nervous wreck at the door apprehensively craned her head into the bathroom to find Jack sprawled out in the tub. Almost as if in relief, she sighed before issuing an affectionate smile.
"Oh hi honey," she greeted sweetly.
He returned the smile and raised his hand to greet the oblivious and pathetic woman. Yet there was an endearing quality packaged alongside her zanier traits, and he tilted his head cordially.
"How are you, Mrs. Quinzel?" he asked politely.
Harley glanced at him and wondered where his superficial (or was it genuine?) charm stemmed from. Perhaps it was that Southern gene imbedded somewhere deep inside of him.
"I'm okay. Thank you for asking, sweetie," she smiled absentmindedly.
"Alright, Mom," Harley declared and gently grabbed her hand, "let's go."
She led her into the shadowy cave that was the master bedroom. The shades were drawn tightly, though a trickle of sunlight filtered through the tiniest of cracks in a window. She had to squint to make out the disheveled bed, though even in the darkest of nights she knew exactly how to navigate the room.
"What did you want to talk about?" she asked softly, though she knew perfectly well.
In fact, she knew how this entire conversation would go. She could recite it by memory, if asked to. It was like a broken record, playing over and over and over. Repetitive, distorted and cyclic. It was the turntable needle scratching in the back of her head every time she walked into the apartment and looked at the closed door to her mother's room. Though this record didn't break in Gotham; its inception occurred years ago in New York, simply because broken homes aren't ameliorated by a change in address.
"I'm so sorry," her mother started to cry.
"Mom," she said quietly, "it's okay. You don't have to cry."
"I don't know where I've been. I haven't been a good mother," she sobbed.
"It's okay," she repeated numbly.
"No it's not," she shook her head, "look at you. Look at me. Look at what I've brought into this home. A monster," she blubbered.
"Mom," she reached out a hand to touch her frail shoulder.
"I'm so ashamed," she cried harder, "if your father were still here he would take one look at us and turn around."
"That's not true," Harley started to tear up, "Mom that's not true."
"I've failed you. I'm supposed to keep you safe, and instead, I bring evil through the front door," she bawled and buried her face into her hands.
"Dad wouldn't turn around," she shook her head.
"You think so?" she whimpered and raised her head to peer at her with red, glossy eyes.
"He'd come back if he could," she nodded sadly.
Her mother began nodding forlornly, but she watched her shoulders crumble underneath the weight of her petite, assuaging hand.
"I don't know how to live without him," she started sobbing again.
"I know, Mom," she nodded numbly.
"Don't call me that. I'm not a good mother," she shook her head.
"You were," she assuaged, "you and Dad were great parents."
"I've been so selfish," she hiccupped.
"It's okay," she repeated expressionlessly.
"No!" she suddenly shouted, "it's not okay. I can't even keep my children safe. I… I've failed you both. I've completely lost sight of what my duty was. I spent all these years as a mourning widow when I was supposed to be a mother. So many years lost on sleep and prescriptions and for what? More pain and loss?"
She broke down into a screeching sob fest and Harley had to exhale shakily.
The painful moment prompted her to turn toward the room's dresser and open up a small maple box, which was meticulously placed next to a half-filled glass of water. The box itself was simple. It was smoothly polished and possessed a single, golden clasp. She opened it easily, the hinges thoroughly worn from years of use, and fished through its contents. She pushed past her father's military medals, including his Purple Heart and Bronze Star, and finally picked out an orange prescription bottle. After holding it up to her face and silently reading the label, she unscrewed the childproof lid, shook out two pills, and pressed them into her mother's hand.
"Here, Mommy. Take these," she assuaged in a soft tone.
The sobbing woman paused her cries to shakily accept and dry swallow the pills, though Harley picked up the glass of water from the dresser and offered it to her. She precariously took it, taking the tiniest of sips, before idly shuffling toward the disheveled bed. Her daughter helped lower her down into a fetal position before she sat down next to her and began rubbing her back in a slow, soothing rhythm.
"Maybe we should take a rest now," she offered lightly.
She nodded her head in a catatonic bobbing motion, though her delicate fingers began wiping strands of wet, mahogany brown hair from her eyes. After a moment, Harley stood up and gently took the glass from her hands before she leaned over to drag the heavy duvet over her mother's small body. Though when she turned to leave, the frail woman snatched her hand and issued a single, weak squeeze.
"You're such a good girl," she smiled up at her daughter, "my little baby girl."
Harley smiled sadly at her and she began to firmly tuck her in. As she watched her mother's lovely blue eyes flutter shut, her own pricked with heavy tears. She gently patted her head before leaving the dimly lit room and closing the door with a whisper of sound. She then paused outside the bathroom door and began wiping at the several stray tears that had fallen from her lids. After a moment of hesitation, she took a deep sigh before precariously entering.
He was still splayed out in the bathtub and his dark eyes immediately connected with hers. She sighed again and set the glass down at the sink before slowly sitting down on the bathtub edge. There was a moment of silence as she stared out into space, and he patiently waited for her to rejoin reality.
"Sorry," she finally issued in monotone.
He blinked up and her and sighed.
"I don't understand why you're always apologizing," he shook his head.
"Did you hear any of that?" she turned to glance at him.
"Your walls aren't exactly thick," he tapped the wall to his left.
She glanced at the single partition dividing the bathroom from the master bedroom and sighed heavily.
"Sorry," she repeated and he gave her a sharp look.
"What's the first piece of advice I ever gave you?" he asked flatly.
"Never apologize for anything that you do," she restated quietly.
"The same goes for things that are out of your control. Now don't let me hear that word come out of your mouth again," he ordered.
She nodded numbly and zoned out once more in a disconnected trance. After a moment, she began gnawing at her cut lip and her teeth accidently ripped through the scab, effectively snapping herself out of her stupor. She wiped at her bleeding mouth before smearing her hand against her dark jeans. He was watching her very carefully and when she turned to meet his ruminating gaze, she furrowed her brow.
"What?" she blinked.
"Nothing," he issued simply.
She wiped hard at her lip, smearing the back of her hand, and she abruptly stood up to rip off a length of toilet paper from the roll.
"Fuck," she muttered under her breath as she began dabbing at her crimson blood.
He continued to watch her in rapt curiosity until she raised her head to meet his stare once more.
"What?" she reissued, raising her eyebrows.
"It's nothing, Harley," he said simply.
She narrowed her eyes in suspicion.
"You can leave, you know. You don't have to sit here and watch my shitty life," she snapped.
She returned to dabbing at her face and he casually propped an elbow up onto the tub edge. He ran a hand through his sandy hair and he tilted his chin up toward her.
"Child…ren?" he asked nonchalantly.
She paused to sigh deeply before crumpling up the bloodied tissue wad in her hand.
"I probably never mentioned why I moved to Gotham, did I?" she peered at him with exhausted eyes.
He waited for her to continue.
"My brother got transferred to Arkham. Psychotic depression," she murmured.
He was silent for a long moment.
"What'd he do?" he asked quietly.
She dabbed at her lip, which had stopped bleeding, before she tossed the tissue wad into the trash bin.
"He didn't really do anything," she said after a moment, avoiding his gaze.
She shut her eyes and ran a pair of soiled hands through her thick blonde hair.
"Maybe you can't tell, but the depression gene runs pretty strong in the family," she glanced at him and jutted her thumb toward the wall.
"He struggled with it on and off for as long as I can remember," she continued, her face slipping back into a vacant daze, "I mean even when we were kids he would say the most peculiar things. It was just… normal depression growing up - if you can call depression normal. He'd be sad. He'd sleep a lot. He lost interest in just about everything. Though it started to get really bad when he hit sixteen. That's when Dad died. Thinking about death evolved into thinking about suicide, and then it started to turn psychotic. He had pretty intense auditory hallucinations and would go on about how he had voices that talked to him. It was scary, but he could control it. Then it started to get violent when he was… nineteen."
She paused and furrowed her brow.
"Yeah, nineteen," she nodded pensively, "We started hiding all the knives in the house. He wouldn't try to hurt us though… it was for him. But then one day he flew off the handle and somehow found one. I don't know what I was thinking, but my first instinct was to fight him for it. It wasn't to run away… it was to fight him because, you know, I guess I'm not that smart."
She strained a soft laugh and shook her head.
"In the struggle he accidentally cut me," she tapped at her rib absentmindedly, "it barely cut through the dermis, but it still scarred for some reason. Though it bled a lot initially, I remember that. I couldn't feel it, I just remember looking down at my shirt and there was all this blood and I was so… scared. And he didn't say anything. He just stared at me with these dead, heavy eyes, until he pointed the knife in my face. And I couldn't move because I thought I was staring into the eyes of Death himself. Then he said… he said, Harley, if you don't admit me right now I'm going to kill myself. And I was bleeding and weaponless and thinking, am I going to die or is he? So I tried to talk him down for so long, thinking that I could get him to stay. I told him that I wasn't mad, that he was just having a bad day, and that I would heal. I tried everything, but then I suddenly realized, through all the begging and the tears, that he had to go. He wasn't coming back. He had to go and there was nothing I could do."
"That was the worst day of my life. Realizing that," she whispered and stared down at the ground.
"At least with my dad, he just was gone," she continued, "that was really bad at first. But he'd been deployed so he was hardly ever here to begin with. And it was comforting to pretend that he was still deployed, or to at least know that he died with honor. He died a war hero, Jack. He died as this incredibly honorable man, so deeply loved by everyone. By his country, his family, his neighborhood, his barber, our bodega guy. Everyone."
She shook her head with a faint smile before her eyes glazed over once more.
"With my brother it was so… surreal. Watching him deteriorate like that. Over the years, I watched him become someone else. And not only that, but I watched everyone in his life pull away from, because there's no honor in being crazy. At least to those people, anyway. I watched his girlfriend leave him, his friends distancing themselves, and eventually my own mother couldn't even stand to be around him. Maybe she was scared of him, or maybe it was the fact that he looks too much like my dad. He started slipping pretty quickly after that, and I had to watch his mind make him do… terrible things to himself. So while everyone in his life ran for the hills, I stayed. And so I spent all these years, holding on to him with this vice grip because I was so fucking terrified of losing someone else in my life, only to realize that he'd never been in my grip at all."
It was his turn to silently zone out, though she knew that he was listening. He didn't exactly have a way with words, but the fact that he hadn't booked it yet gave her an immediate sense of comfort. She pursed her lips in reticence and wordlessly left the room. After a brief moment, she returned wielding a creased photo and clambered back into the bathtub. She nestled comfortably into his lap, propping her legs up onto the tub edge, and began smoothing out the edges of the photo. Jack peered down at it, past the blonde hair tumbling over her shoulder, and she cleared her throat.
In the photo, Harley was smiling broadly with a mouth full of metal braces. Her cheeks were rounder and she appeared to be in her early teens, probably thirteen or fourteen. A taller, blonder boy had his arm wrapped around her shoulders and issued an equally large grin. They shared the same smile, though it was clear that his teeth had already survived several years of orthodontic torture. In contrast to her round face and full cheeks, his cheekbones were quite defined. Yet while he had much sharper features, his mop of blonde hair and crinkled blue-green eyes were enough to convince one that they were most definitely related.
"Peter," she said simply, pointing at him.
She pulled out a second photo and held it up higher for him to see.
In this one, two children and a man sat on a blanket at what appeared to be a very crowded beach. The girl, who was merely a toddler, was wearing a crooked pair of oversized Wayfarers on her face and her blonde hair was pulled up into two spunky pigtails. She was pointing stubbornly at a sandcastle that her older brother appeared to be working on. The man, their father, was also working on the project, though he was mid-laugh. He possessed the kind of overtly masculine features that women often flocked to, complete with a blonde buzz cut and a sharp jawline. Clearly a very fit man, he had the traditional Eagle, Globe, and Anchor tattooed on his left shoulder, immediately recognizable as the iconic emblem of the United States Marine Corps. Beneath that, in large letters, was the official motto of the Marine Corps: Semper Fidelis. Latin for "Always Faithful". The tattoo extended into an intricate, colorful sleeve that spanned shoulder to wrist, which included a wide range of art, from an icon of Saint Peter to a dark-haired pin-up girl that looked an awful lot like her mother.
"Coney Island Beach," she murmured wistfully before placing the photos down.
"You don't have siblings, do you?" she craned her head up and blinked at him.
He shook his head and she nodded absentmindedly.
"What's your mom like?" she asked almost inaudibly.
He paused for a long moment and she held her breath for an answer.
"I never really knew her," he said blankly.
"Does that bother you?" she turned around in his lap to gaze up at him.
He shook his head, eyes glazed and vacant.
"I wish I was like you," she confessed sadly, "unfeeling and apathetic."
"Harley," he issued in a dead monotone, "just shut up."
She opened her mouth to retort but faltered and eventually closed it shut. His words took a moment to fully marinate, until she started to cry. It was the sniveling, pathetic kind of crying complete with whimpers and quiet wails. He sighed heavily and shifted underneath her, displacing her comfortable position, until she eventually just slid off his lap and curled into herself. He fished her lighter and cigarette carton from his pocket and lit one up. If he was going to have to be around such a mawkish display of petty emotions, he needed a slight head buzz. He took several very long drags before pulling the cigarette from his lips and offering it to her.
She shook her head petulantly, similar to that of a stubborn child, and he rolled his eyes before sticking it between her teeth in pacification. As it effectively impeded all her mournful noises, he leaned forward and planted his hands firmly on her sides before lifting her back onto his lap. She issued a whine of what he construed to be protest before she sniffed sadly and curled back into him, much to his discomfort.
"She was very compassionate," he said after a moment, "too compassionate."
Harley was silent for a long moment before she pulled the cigarette from her lips.
"What's wrong with compassion?" she finally murmured.
"I don't know. Maybe you can tell me," he said quietly.
A long moment passed before she stuck the cigarette back in her mouth and sucked hard at the tobacco. She had nothing more to say to him and he to her, though after a minute, he snatched his cigarette back because, after all, he wasn't a goddamn charity.
Sorry for the update delay. Life hasn't exactly been routine - what with finals encroaching and the fact that I go to school an hour and a half outside Boston. Anyway, the next one should be up much quicker. As always, thanks for reading.