Chapter Seven: Physical, Mental
Seven days. Approximately seven days to heal from a gunshot wound to the torso, barring any complications. It would take another ten days before full function could be restored, organ damage took longer. It was a trifle for Harley, really. Barely of note, another scar that would fade into the patchwork of her body. And yet, Mr. J understood how it would stand out in her mind for the rest of her life, a symbol of her commitment to him. And the lessons her unknown future would hold because of one tiny little hole. Harley would not see. Not yet. The patterns emerged and she was blind to them. But hovering over her bed on day five, everything finally clicked, and Mr. J had to smile at the elegance of it all.
Initially, he had come to her bedside to assure his dominance over her. She had been gone too long, without proper motivation. Phone calls could only last so long and her increasingly vulgar voicemails began to grate on his nerves. A reminder was needed of who was in control. She was beginning to slip away and he could not allow that. But as he stared down at her sleeping form, her breaths staggered from nightmares, wild hair strewn across the pillow, the details came together at last. The little things, information gathered from Livingston, Doc, and his latest acquisition, everything added up. And he could easily see where this wild ride would take her.
It was time to let her fall down the rabbit hole and open the doors that led to a new beginning. The time for her physical awakening was over. The time to work on her mind had finally come.
A sharp crack startled her from her sleep, a delightful combination of sound and physical torment as a hand slapped down on her ass. She didn't turn towards the attack, instead smiling into her pillow. "You had better be the busty, brunette dominatrix I ordered." Another strike against her ass made her moan and she rolled over to grin at her lover. "Eh, close enough."
"You shouldn't sleep with your back to the door," Mr. J said, his eyes intensely watching her as she stretched. "Thought I taught you better than that."
Sitting up, she couldn't help but laugh. "But then I would have missed out on your creative wake up call."
Mr. J grunted as a response, slipping a gloved hand into the oversized pockets of his trench coat. "Brought you a gift. Something to pass the time."
Harley clapped excitedly with a happy squeal, like a child. "Ooh! I love presents."
A book landed in her lap. It was old, greasepaint fingerprints meshed into the basic black leather. "Seriously? I'm gone a few days and you can't be bothered to wash you hands?" Even without seeing his bare hands, she knew he hadn't. They would be filthy with caked makeup, blood, and gasoline. "This is why we can't have nice things, you know."
"No," he said. "It's because you keep burning or breaking all the nice things."
"Because of all the damn smudgy fingerprints. It's like living with a four year old sometimes," she commented, opening the book carefully. "What is this?" Hand scrawled notes, meticulous and precise, strangely mixed with bold, aggressive writing in places.
"You, my dear, are looking at the secret diaries of a former psychiatrist."
"Not mine so it must be-"
"Jonathan Crane's."
Suddenly, the strange dissonance between the two different styles of writing made sense. "Where did you get this?" she asked.
"Breaking into Arkham is surprisingly much harder than breaking out." Mr. J pushed her legs, roughly, off the bed, making room for him to sit.
"Yeah, a big thanks for breaking Crane out, by the way," Harley said. She wasn't even sure if she was sarcastic or not. "You do know he's going to come after me, right?"
Mr. J just smiled at her, enigmatically. It was one of his most annoying traits, that stupid grin of all knowing superiority. Made her want to rip off his face at times. He rarely kept secrets from her, but when he did, she always regretted the outcome because it was usually for her benefit. Lessons she didn't want to learn but needed. His ever tightening leash on her actions.
"I fucking hate you, sometimes." She rolled her eyes at him.
Another sharp crack whipped through the air. It took her a moment to register her body had fallen backwards on to the bed, her face flooding with the pain of Mr. J's slap to her cheek. The sting curled around her like an old friend who had returned after being gone too long. His hand ripped through her hair, yanking her back up to a sitting position, turning her head to a painful angle to stare in her eyes. That cold expression across his features.
"You know how I feel about you lying to me, Harley."
The throbbing in her scalp, the dull ache of her cheek, ignited her lust. She couldn't move her head, but as close as he was, her tongue darted out to capture the taste of greasepaint and lipstick on his lower lip. The feel of his essence on her tongue invigorated her senses and yet, she felt strangely out of place, almost trapped by his rough hand in her hair. Her lust instantly evaporated. It wasn't an unusual motion for him to manhandle her as such, but after several days of no contact, the sensations stirring inside her were no longer sexual. They were predatory. Fight or flight.
"You're right, Mr. J. I was lying." And she smiled. She was always a fighter.
Her fingers came up to lightly stroke his makeup covered face. "I fucking hate you all the time," she spat at him, as she gouged her fingernails down his cheeks, eliciting a rare grunt of discomfort from him. The hand in her hair yanked her away from him, his other hand curling into a fist. Before she could react, he landed a harsh blow to her chin. Another fell, and then another, her vision darkening with each punch. She became limp in his grip, unable to focus enough to fight back. His hand disentangled from her roots, letting her drop down to the bed. Harley should have enjoyed the beating, the torment of pleasure radiating from her pounded face, and yet she felt unsatisfied. At that moment, she was unfulfilled. And full of fury towards her aggressor.
Mr. J leaned over her, trickles of blood pouring from the tiny nail marks in his cheeks. A drop of blood splashed onto her nose, the smell so vile and human. His eyes narrowed as he searched her face, seeing the haze in her eyes, the anger hidden beneath. "You've been away too long, Harley. You've forgotten who rules you."
It was an effort to stay conscious as he continued to brutally beat her body, no longer focusing strictly on her face. But, as his own form of kindness, he avoided the area with the gunshot wound. She made no sound, each hit failing to produce the usual gratification, as her mind went to dark places of rage. How dare he limit her? Stop her from doing as she desired. What was worse was that he wore his gloves the entire time. His beating wasn't the personal touch that she so often craved. It was cold, hard, and disgusting. The waves of bliss that filled her as his fists collided into her soft flesh could not make her happy. Not this time. Her physical desires could not outweigh her current mind space.
"Stop," she whispered through breaths she could barely catch.
Mr. J peered down at her. "Oh, did I hurt you, Harley?" The sarcasm was unmistakable. "Want me to get you an ice cream cone?" His hands pressed down against the bed on either side of her head, his chest pinning her to the mattress.
"Seriously, stop," she said, feeling ire at his belittling of her, more so than she had ever felt before. Then everything changed inside her, the tendrils of fury slipping away. The way his body pressed against hers made her feel claustrophobic forcing her anger to dissipate. Closed in, trapped. She needed to be free of his confines, his hot breathing in her face. His scent of cigarettes and death. The sweat that clung to his shirt slicking against her. Flight took over. She, vainly, struggled against his hold, pushing up at his body with her weak hands, crying out for the first time in frustration and panic when he didn't budge. The way any woman would when being attacked.
Mr. J seemed to consider her actions as he looked down on her. "You're really not enjoying this." If she didn't know any better, she'd have thought he was concerned for her. He raised a hand to stroke her bruised chin but she turned her head away. "Damn, Harley," he said, moving off her. "What the hell is going on with you?"
The instant she was free, her adrenalin kicked in and she pushed off the bed, swiftly moving to the corner of the room, as far away from him as she could get. Harley brought her knees up to her chin, wrapping her arms around her legs, staring at him as he stood. Mr. J made no move towards her, instead turning to look down at the rumpled bedsheets. Her mind raced, a mile a minute, trying to figure out what just happened. Her reactions didn't feel like her own and yet, at the same time, they were as real to her emotionally as anything else. Her state of id was reeling from the sensations, drawing away into itself, as a child would.
"I don't know." Her voice was still fragile but carried clear through the space.
Mr. J looked over at her, holding her eyes, analyzing as he always did. He would see inside her, see that she still felt the pleasure of the pain, and was torn by her own illogical reactions, maybe even ashamed. He would feel no pity, calculating his next move with her current frail state. Deciding whether to leave her or take her with him. All this ran through her head, making her smile. She really did know his mind at times, especially when it came to how he viewed his Harley.
The closed door burst open, Thomas and Geoffrey rushing in, likely having heard her scream. Thomas took one look at Harley in her corner, face beginning to bruise, and turned his fiery blue eyes towards Mr. J. "Get. Out."
Harley could see the rage boiling under her friend's skin, the desire to do great violence. Even huddled as she was, she wanted to see him take a go at Mr. J, unleash that anger as he had done to her. Despite her murky emotional state, she would still see the project to a close. When Mr. J didn't move, Thomas nodded to the butler who drew a gun, aiming it at Mr. J. Harley was too stunned to speak, watching the alpha male aggression radiate between the two. Dogs fighting over a bone.
"I said, get out," Thomas spoke again.
Mr. I ignored the butler's gun, seemingly unconcerned as he approached Thomas. "Whatever you say, Tommy-boy." Then he leaned over to the red-headed man and said something into his ear. Harley couldn't hear the words, but it made her friend's eyes widen in surprise. Then, with his usual flourish, Mr. J pushed past Thomas with a "Be good, Harley" as he left the room.
"Geoffrey." Thomas' voice was strained. He coughed to clear his throat. "See the visitor out."
The butler followed Mr. J out, not holstering the weapon. She prayed she wouldn't hear the sound of gunfire. With the overwhelming presence of Mr. J gone, Harley began to think through what the hell just happened to her. Her anger, the rage, could almost be understood. An instinctual reaction to a threat that was dominating her. Mr. J wasn't wrong. She had been gone for too long and was starting to slip away from his controlling grip. Her mind going in directions that it wanted to, as opposed to listening to him. But the fear, the panic, that was entirely new. She was a force to be reckoned with, not some girl cowering in a corner.
Crouching down in front of her, Thomas reached a hand forward slowly, waiting to see if she pulled away. When she didn't, he gently touched her shoulder, examining the injuries to her face carefully. His expression hardened. "I am going to kill him."
With a light touch to his hand, she shook her head. "Please don't."
"How can you protect that...thing, that monster that did this to you?" Thomas was livid and repulsed by her request.
"I told you before," she sighed. "I like the pain."
He sat down in front of her, one knee up, his face changing to an exasperated look. "You were screaming. We both heard you. It didn't sound like you liked it."
"I can't explain it." Harley looked away. "It wasn't my normal reaction. I know why he came at me, to reenforce our bond. This is the longest I've been away from him since Arkham." She could feel her cheek stretching painfully as she spoke. Her jaw wasn't broken but it came close there. "And he made a promise to keep me safe so I wouldn't randomly lash out at others. But, then, all of a sudden, it was like a cage had been put around me. I panicked. I needed to get away and that's why I screamed. It wasn't the pain or the beating. It was just him, his presence, being so close. Like I was suffocating."
Saying the words out loud killed her inside. Too hard to believe that she felt that way, even for one second. She could feel the tears filling her eyes, not yet falling, and she buried her head in her knees. A flash and she was reminded of Peyton Riley, the same gesture of grief the girl had displayed. Harley was nothing like the sick girl but there was an unspoken kinship of disconcerted women in her head. A soft hand touched her hair. Thomas' attempt to comfort.
"There has to be another way, Harleen. I mean, you've been here for days and you haven't tried to hurt me or Geoffrey. You've been the very picture of restraint, well, mostly. Why do you think you need him?"
She lifted her head to look at him, her tears still lingering, unspilled, in her eyes. "You have no idea how hard it is to stop myself. You got a small demonstration yesterday but you have no fucking clue how difficult it was for me to back away from you. Everything I said, I really wanted to do. But I kept reminding myself that Mr. J wouldn't approve of my actions. I wish I could say that it had something to do with our friendship, but you and I both know better. Like I said, if I didn't have his words constantly in my head, you'd be dead by now at my hands."
"No wonder you freaked out," he said, removing his hand from her head. "I mean I'm not a psychologist but it sounds like you couldn't handle his physical presence as well as his mental one. It's one thing to always hear that inner voice, telling you he's in control of everything you do. It's another to have the hand literally reminding you of it."
"I never minded before."
"Yes, but you said it yourself. This is the first time you've really been away from him. You're seeing who you can be without the constant threat of what he'd do to you."
It strangely made sense to her. "But without that threat, how will I be able to keep hearing the voice that tells me to stop? I don't want to compromise who I am. I can't go back to being that dull, overly controlled waste of space I was before."
Thomas smiled, touching her knee. "Then don't. You're an intelligent woman, the only one I've had any real respect for." His sexism reared its ugly head. "'It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.' Find your middle ground, where you can stay in control and still be who you are. You don't need him."
She shook her head. "But I do love him. He's everything to me."
"'No one loves the man whom he fears.'"
"More Aristotle?"
Thomas shrugged. "He had wisdom. Do you truly love the Joker? Or is it just part of this mind game you two are engaged in? Clearly, you're afraid of him in some way. Otherwise you wouldn't be sitting here on the floor looking like you got hit by a train."
"I don't care about that," she said. "I don't care that he hit me. I don't even care that he'll likely kill me at some point. Remember, I didn't care that you nearly choked me to death. That doesn't matter to me."
"But what should matter is that something in you fears him, for whatever reason," he said. "The fact is that you panicked when he attacked you, regardless of your indifference towards your eventual fate. That's not love, Harleen. It never can be."
She opened her mouth to retort but closed it again as his words delved into her mind. Was there any truth to Thomas' words? She thought back to that night in Gotham General when Mr. J stole her away, after he first saw her true self. The moment that she realized she loved him. A secret from him, one that she would never speak aloud. Something so deep, so real that he could never share it with anyone else, not even the Batman. And he cried over it. The only time he ever had in her presence. Perhaps the only time he had ever done so in his life. An unforgettable moment that filled her with so much love for him. Yet, even back then, she feared him. Their original dance, the back and forth between them as she tried to heal his sickness. His prying words and hands, digging through her secrets as no one else could. And every time he got closer, she got more scared. Not of what he'd do, that outcome was certain from the start, but of what she'd become because of Mr. J.
She once told Mr. J that with Guy, the man who turned her into what she was meant to be, there was love. But in her id state, she couldn't really love him. More a remembrance of what they once had before he broke her mind. Could the same be true of Mr. J? Her mind wasn't fully broken when she knew her love for the clown, and yet, weeks later, she still felt the same, didn't she? The blur of her training with Mr. J passed through her head but she couldn't remember how she felt day by day, except the rage, the lust, and the fear. There was fear then. But was there love?
Damnit. Harley leaned her head back up against the wall. Her life was so messed up, turned around, she didn't know what to think or feel anymore. Thomas was thoroughly confusing her with his concern for her well-being. Who was supposed to be corrupting who here? She appreciated his compassion but she no longer wanted it. Before she came into his house, she was so certain of everything and now, it was a garbled wreck.
"I think I need some time alone, right now," she said.
Thomas nodded and stood. "I'll have Geoffrey drop you off some supplies for your injuries. And don't forget to take your antibiotics."
After he left, she sat there, numbly, trying not to think at all. She didn't know how long she sat there, huddled in the corner, but eventually, her need to move around outweighed her listless melancholy. Tired, but knowing she would be unable to sleep, she found Crane's journal hidden among the folds of the bedsheets, and opened it. A distraction for her weary mind. Away from the emotional for a little while as analyzed the book.
It was as she expected. Formulas, extracted from the science of his toxin, new variations. Scientific notes, utilizing his degree in psychopharmacology to the fullest, half of which she didn't understand. A little too heady for her as it wasn't her field of study. Pompous journal entries fully of logical evaluations of his incarceration at Arkham. Everything was mixed with feral drawings and the bold lettering of his alter ego, Scarecrow. Less frequent in the earlier writings, growing more and more prominent as the journal continued. A sign of his Dissociative Identity Disorder becoming worse as the days passed.
For Harley, the writing only became interesting once he began to write of her. A couple of early mentions were unflattering, Crane believing her to be an inexperienced hack who couldn't handle the toughened criminals in Arkham. But his later entries seemed to focus on her and her treatment of him after he gassed her and awakened her dark desires. Hate filled words, threats, mostly from Scarecrow, blended with his cool analyzation of her change from the cautious Harleen to the murderous Harley. He often commented on his left ear itching after the surgery to reattach it. His notes became bitter. He truly despised Harley for what she had done, but at the same time, he also lay the blame on himself for not taking more precautions, sucked into the moment by the Joker.
The last few entries mentioned that Crane had found a means to escape but did not detail a plan. The Scarecrow's words were clear. Vengeance. Harley already knew all that. As she reached the last page, she was surprised to find it torn out. Crane had some OCD issues so it was rare that he would deface a book as such. But she could see the writing had been hard enough to leave an impression on the next blank page. She grabbed a pencil from a cup on the nightstand and lightly rubbed over the pattern on the page. When she was done, Harley looked at the words and numbers, recognizing them instantly as a feeling of suspense and foreboding passed through her.
Thomas Elliot's home address.
She opened her mouth to call for Thomas, to alert him to the danger he was in. But a loud crash from downstairs stopped her, a sound familiar to her criminal mind. The sound of wood splintering. Someone had broken down the front door.
Things were about to get interesting.
A/N: Sorry about the long wait, folks. I had a bitch of a time trying to write this chapter. I must have rewritten this about five times. This is the last we'll see of Mr. J's perspective for awhile as the story is more about Harley's journey. Anyways, thank you for your continued support and I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Questions, comments, feedback? Please review.