The run-in with the mugger last night set Harleen straight for her while. She immediately went home and put her shopping away, before emptying her bag of what she needed and putting her pyjamas on. As she sat on her sofa, however, her eyes were drawn to the small grey kitten that she had bought from the corner store. It was elegantly made, composed of two different colours of grey cloth. It looked like something that you would give as a gift to someone in hospital when they had an injury, a little token to show that you cared about them in their current situation.
She played with the kitten for a few minutes, bending it's paws and moving it around. The entire experience put a smile on Harleen's face. It was such a childish thing to do, but Harleen enjoyed it nonetheless. It was good to be childish every once in a while, especially when you were alone and with nothing to do. She eventually managed to tear herself away from her new gift and make some dinner for herself, all the while thinking about how much of an excellent gift it to would be for the Joker. Once she had done all that, Harleen settled down for the night and switched on the TV, trying to take her mind off of everything that had happened over the last few hours.
The next day that she had a session at the asylum, Harleen found herself up bright and early. She did her morning routine and ordered a taxi to the asylum as she normally did. Changing into a red blouse, tight brown pants and black high heels, she checked that she had everything that she needed for the day ahead and went down to the street to patiently wait for her taxi to arrive.
By the time she arrived at the asylum, she seemed to be the last one there. Everyone else's cars were parked up and it was lucky that she did not have her own car due to the lack of parking spaces. Harleen wasn't surprised by the amount of cars, especially when she had her sessions later on in the day ever since the schedule had been changing for her to have longer sessions more times a week with the Joker. She paid her taxi driver and entered the asylum, quickly signing her name in and walking through the doors to the lobby. She then walked straight for the staff room and prepared for the rest of her day. As she changed and put all of her stuff away, Harleen made sure she put the kitty in the side pocket of her lab coat.
Everything seemed to be going according to plan, by Harleen's standards. She had chatted with her colleagues, including helping both Dr. Leland and Dr. Young on their respective cases, before telling them all about her progress with the Joker. She did not mention anything at all about the stories that he had told her about, instead mainly focusing on her theories as to what exactly was wrong with him. Eventually, one by one the doctors went to their respective sessions, leaving Harleen nothing to do but go to her office and wait for a while until her session with the Joker was about to start.
By the time the session was about to come around, Harleen had prepared herself in the best usual and possible way. Her notebook was out, her pen was ready and she was absolutely prepared for anything that the Joker could verbally throw at him. As the Joker arrived, Harleen noticed that something was not quite right. It seemed that the Joker was speaking to someone who was escorting him as if they were the best of friends. The guard didn't respond that much, but Joker seemed a lot more energetic than usual.
Entering the office, Joker watched as the guards closed the door behind him. He then walked towards the desk, sitting down in his chair and smiling straight at her.
"Good morning, Dr. Quinzel." Joker was calm, more calm than he normally was.
"Good morning Mr. J." Harleen replied. "How've you been?"
"Excellent." Joker grinned. "Just excellent."
"That's great to hear." Harleen smiled in response. "It's good to see you're in such a good mood today."
"I'm always in a good mood when I have a session." Joker continued to grin. "You know, Doctor Quinzel, I live for these moments with you. They excite me to no end."
"I'm glad to hear that, Mr. J." Harleen started to reach into her pocket, where the soft kitten toy was lying, waiting to be used.
"Ooh?" Joker looked curious. "What've you got for me?"
"Well, I only thought it was the best I could do." Harleen smiled. "I'm not allowed to bring large gifts into the place, but I thought I had to get you something for being such a model patient over the last few months...so I got you a kitty."
"A gift." Joker smiled. "It's not often people give me gifts, Doctor. It's very...unexpected."
"Well, it's the least I could do." Harleen started to move the toy's paws with her fingers. "I hope you like it."
"I do, indeed." Joker smiled, watching as she played with the kitten. "You're so thoughtful."
Pushing the kitten towards his end of the desk, Harleen moved the hair out of her eyes and began to look at her notes. As she was looking, however, she noticed out of the corner of her eye that the Joker had turned his attention from the toy and was now directly looking at her.
"You know very well, Dr. Quinzel, that I look after those people who do me favours." Joker smiled.
"You know I'd do anything to help you get out of here, Mr. J." Harleen smiled.
"Well, there is a certain something you can do for me, Doctor." Joker grinned.
"Anything, I mean, yeah." Harleen immediately perked up.
"As you know, Doctor Quinzel, I've been trapped. Restrained in this jacket for the longest time. Every time that I see you, you don't see me fully." Joker sighed. "So, I was wondering whether or not you would help me to get out of this damn thing."
Harleen's eyes widened. "Mr. J, you're in that jacket for my protection."
"And I appreciate that, Harley. But that's why I'm hoping that you'll see it as an itsy bitsy favour. I just want to stretch my arms for a little while. You'll be perfectly safe."
Sighing, Harleen took a while to answer but eventually nodded her head. He had been true to her with his promises so far and she was completely sure that he would keep his word and not hurt her. "Okay, Mr. J. But you have to promise me that you won't hurt me."
"On my mother's life." Joker squinted and smiled at her, moving his head from side to side a little as he did so.
Harleen took a deep breath and stood up behind her desk. She slowly moved around and watched as the Joker rose to his feet. He turned around immediately and allowed her to undie the straps that tied Joker together, before pulling the thing off of him and allowing herself to fully see his full body. Only then could Harleen fully see the tattoos that covered his entire body. Since he was wearing no shirt underneath the jacket, Harleen looked straight at the tattoos all over his chest. The skull with the jester hat on, the repeated 'HA's, the playing cards on his neck, the smile over his belly button, the multiple tattoos on his arms and his hands, including the smile on his lower arm and on his hand respectively. Harleen couldn't believe any of it, the beauty and the craziness left her in a state of shock.
This allowed the Joker to do whatever he wanted.
Turning around, Joker stretched his arms and grinned. "The problem is, Harley, I couldn't give a damn about my mother."
Harleen wasn't expecting it. Suddenly, she tumbled to the floor as the Joker's hands pressed right into her shoulders, almost slamming her head straight on the floor. Joker then walked straight towards her desk and crouched down on his knees, before hovering his thumb over the panic button she had installed and slamming down on it, sending alarms off all over the asylum.
"Well then," Joker cackled. "Here we go!"
Turning to the door, Harleen watched as the security guards standing outside the door immediately rushed through, training their guns at the Joker. He placed his hands in the air, comfortable at the situation he was in. At the same time, Harleen began to stumble to her feet. She moved as far away from the Joker as she could, shocked at all the lies he had told her and the bitterness that he threw at her.
"Stop right there, clown!" One of the security guards shouted. "Don't move a muscle!"
"Oh don't worry." Joker grinned. "I won't have to."
Suddenly, without remorse, the security guard nearest to the door trained his guns at his comrades, shooting them all quickly and precisely in the part where their armour had its chinks. He then removed his helmet and his riot gear, showing off a three-piece black suit that he had wore especially for the day.
"Good to see you, boss." The man said, smiling at the Joker. "Especially good to talk when I'm not in character."
"Cut the chit-chat for now, Frost." Joker snarled. "We're not done here. Grab our precious Dr. Quinzel, we've got places to be!"
Joker immediately kicked one of the dead guards in the face and grabbed the machine gun lying at his feet, before firing a few bullets up in the air. He then rushed out of the office, shooting wherever he could in a chaotic frenzy, cackling the entire time. He walked down the corridor near the office window and did not show restraint at all, firing through the window into the yard with a psychotic stance.
"Come on boys!" Joker cackled, firing at the inmates and guards that were currently outside in the yard. "Let's have some fun!"
Harleen did not worry about what her patient was doing at the moment, with his accomplice steadily walking towards her. With no other option, Harleen began to scream at him. "Get away from me!"
"Dr. Quinzel." The man yelled back. "I really don't want to hurt you, doll."
Harleen simply grabbed the nearest thing, a large book from a bookshelf and threw it straight at the man's face. Not expecting it, the man dodged at the last second but caught the back of the book in the nose, stunning him for a second and allowing Harleen to make a last ditch attempt towards the door. The man was not dazed for long, though, and quickly cornered her once more before she reached the door. Grabbing her around her waist, the man lifted Harleen off of her feet and began to wrestle with her, the fierce blonde doing her best to free herself from his grip.
"Jesus, Mr. J's got a fiesty one here." He muttered to himself, moving his head away from whatever elbows she was trying to fling at him. "Calm down, lady!"
Eventually, the man simply began to bore of wrestling with her and tried to drag her away from the door, allowing Harleen to use her gymnastics training to push off from her desk and send him straight into the wall. The man's back connected with the brick and the impact forced him to drop her. Free, Harleen made the error of looking back to see what he was doing and was caught with a stiff punch to her forehead. Hitting the floor like a bag full of bricks, Harleen was straight down for the count.
Breathing heavily, the man simply grabbed his gun and flung Harleen over his shoulder, exiting the office to all the chaos around him.
By the time she managed to regain consciousness, Harleen had no idea what had happened. Her vision was blurry and her head beat like a drum. She was seeing two of everything around her and could not even get a grasp of where she was. Out of instinct of what she remembered, Harleen kicked out behind her with a scream and alerted the man carrying her to the fact that she was awake. In order to combat her, the man simply clenched his fist and drove his knuckles straight into one of the muscles in her back, causing Harleen to scream out in pain as she tried to fight his grip. However, amidst all of the scrambling and fighting for freedom. Harleen looked up and saw the words 'Electroconvulsion Ward'. Her eyes immediately widened to what was going on. She looked around here and did her best to try and get free of his grip once more, only to have him dig his knuckles forcefully into her back once more.
The electroconvulsive ward was where they kept all of the bays for electroshock therapy. Harleen always thought it was a brutal method of helping to relieve psychiatric illnesses, due to the idea of electrically inducing a seizure into a patient. It was a horrific form of treatment in Harleen's eyes, something that she never wanted to witness. But Harleen had no clue why she was being dragged to one of the treatment room and what exactly was going to happen.
On her way she saw countless bodies of both medical staff, psychiatrists that she had met and security guards. All of them lifeless in pools of blood. There was no remorse, no mercy and no regret to whatever these animals were doing.
As she was dragged into one of the treatment rooms, Harleen saw the horrific set-up laid before her. There was a bed with leather straps in the middle of the room, hooked up to a small machine with two metal rods. She could hear the sound of Queen's major hit 'Bohemian Rhapsody', which further added fuel the flame of her anger. She hated how calmly all of Joker's goons were going about all of it. Harleen began to fight more and more fiercly, kicking and punching at the man with all of her might. He dragged her over to the bed and placed her down, having to get another person to strap her legs in with the leather straps as he focused on ducking her punches and restraining the top half of her body.
Much to Harleen's horror, the two men managed to succeed.
She screamed and sobbed, covering her glasses with condensation from her tears. As much as she did not need the cheap things, they had become part of her outfit and she cared about them like she cared about all of her belongings. Eventually, the sound of Bohemian Rhapsody died down and was replaced by the maniacal laughter of the man she had come to recognize by the sound of it.
Joker walked through the door to the treatment room and rubbed his hands together, before holding them outstretched and bouncing around like a happy puppy who's owner had just come home. "Well then, what do we have here?!"
He immediately rushed forwards, pushing the light above Harleen's face directly towards her. He smiled at her from afar, a curious look on his face, before going close towards her once again. "Here we are, Harley. The roles are reversed."
"Why are you doing this?" Harleen sobbed. "After everything we've been through?"
"Everything we've been through?" Joker laughed. "Are you kidding me? You really think I'd tell my entire life story to some blonde klutz who wants to make a profit from it?"
Harleen's eyes widened. "You mean..."
"And now the lightbulb goes on!" Joker cackled, switching the ETC machine beside them on to it's lowest setting. The machine began to hum with electricity, allowing Joker to pick up the metal rods. "There's always been this thing about me. I've said it to every single person who asks me except you. If I wanted to know anything about my past, which I don't, I'd prefer it all to be a multiple choice flip-book."
"You lied to me!" Harleen screamed. "You played me for a damn fool!"
"That's right!" Joker cackled once more. "And you fell for it hook, line and sinker!"
"I thought you loved me." Harleen sighed. "I thought you cared."
"No, Dr. Quinzel," Joker smiled. "You love me."
Joker began to connect the rods with angst, the sound of connecting electricity zapping off of them in quick succession.
"Now you're gonna feel exactly how I felt." Joker smiled. "If they were all true of course.
"So, what?" Harleen looked up at him. "Are you gonna kill me, Mr. J?"
"No, I'm not gonna kill ya." Joker grinned. "I'm just gonna hurt ya, really, really, bad."
"You think so?" Harleen grinned in response. "Well, I can take it."
"Big words, pumpkin." Joker nodded. "Frost! The belt!"
Joker dropped one of the rods to the medical cart and grabbed a leather belt that had been flung towards him. With a smile, he shoved it straight into Harleen's mouth.
"You'll probably wanna bite down on that." Joker continued to grin. "Otherwise you'd probably bite through that lovely tongue of yours."
Picking up the other rod, Joker looked behind him. "Maestro! Music!"
The track of Bohemian Rhapsody was turned once again and Joker slammed the rods straight into Harleen's temples, sending a wave of electricity straight through Harleen's body. She immediately screamed and slammed her eyes shut, feeling the immense pain as the electricity coursed through her bones. She continued to scream and yell out in agony, all the while muffled by the strap in her mouth. She bit down harder on that belt than anything else she had ever done before, screaming into it as she started to convulse on the bed. She had to do something, something to take her mind from the pain.
And then everything went quiet, as if the world had muted. As she continued to scream, Harleen noticed that everything went black as her body began to shut down.
She could still feel it though, the pain roaring through her. She could feel herself moving with it, like a puppet on strings. She had to think of something, a nice memory that could take the pain away.
And with that, she opened a vault of memories that she had wanted to keep shut.
Harleen remembered everything. She hadn't always been Harleen Quinzel, famed psychiatrist to the criminally insane. A few years prior, she was Harley Quinzel, ditzy troublecauser and downright half-brained menace with a wicked sense of humour. She wore her hair in pigtails, wore more make up than she was used to and never listened to the rules that her teachers or her parents put out for her. In fact, the only reason that Harley had managed to pass her university examinations with such a high record was by giving all of her individual professors...'the time of their life' during afterschool detention.
All these memories came flooding back, taking over Harleen's brain like a swarm. The old Harley finally took control after many years in the backdrop of her mind, the Harley that had barely any inhibitions on what was right and what was wrong.
Harleen Quinzel was gone, lost forevermore. The professionalism that she had worked so hard to create had been ground into dust.
And then there was the Joker. Taking over her mind like a sickness. The new Harley immediately latched onto him, using the memories of their laughter and their bonding during their sessions to find something to hide the pain from the ETC. After a while, she had nothing but love for the man. She could not hide it, any of it. She would be the help that the traumatized man needed, not some stupid doctor that thought that thought that they knew the Joker better than her.
He had mentioned a nickname, one that he had enjoyed being called back before he became the Joker. He had said it made him feel so happy, so loved. Harley latched onto that nickname. If anything could make the Joker happy, it could possibly be being called that again for the very first time in what could be years.
He was her Puddin'.
And she'd never let him forget it.