Who would have thought such a tiny, itty bitty little thing could change my life so much?

Okay, maybe he wasn't that itty bitty. More like tiny. A tiny human with all the force of an hydrogen bomb behind that crazed, maniacal smile of his.

Humans are tiny compared to the rest of the Earth, so my comparison still counts!

But where are my manners? My name is Quinzel. Harleen Quinzel. Gosh I've always wanted to do that. Actually the full title would be Doctor Harleen Quinzel, although I'm no doctor of medicine. I'm a psychiatrist, yep, a shrink! When I was little I actually dreamed of being a gymnast after I watched the Olympics at the tender, impressionable age of five, and for a long time I was really good at it. And yet when I was growing up and going through my teenage years I found my second passion in my life: psychology.

How ironic, isn't it! One love of mine about the strength of the body, and the other about the mind! I tried to juggle them for a long time, but sadly I'm no circus performer. It was hard for me and it broke my heart to do it, but eventually I had to chose which of them I wanted to devote my life to. After months of angst and no small amount of cognac involved, I finally settled on psychology and threw myself into my studies with all the passion and love I could muster! Years of my life dedicated to nothing but my now one true love!

Well, that and the occasional party. I'm not that boring after all.

Anyways after I had that shiny little piece of paper in my hand I went off to become a pretty successful psychiatrist, if I do say so myself. Good enough to actually get me landed in the Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane after a pretty short time. Ah, Arkham. My love and my greatest fear, both my fortress and my prison. Honestly I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I accepted the position. I just heard so many stories of famous, insane criminals put there by none other than Batman himself, truly unique cases of just how far the human brain can fall in its depravity. And now I was being offered a chance to study and help them!

My rosy glasses were shattered pretty quickly, but the shock of it didn't stop me from staying. If anything, after picking up the pieces, my resolve only increased. I wanted to help these people, as naive as that sounds in hindsight, but these people need at least one person to believe that they can change, that there is some good left in them somewhere. In a way I still do, but now I know there's more than one way to help these kinds of people.

And all it took was a little hostage situation! Who would have thought? A hostage situation thanks to a certain insane, pasty white, green-haired, yellow-teeth individual who is far too obsessed with the color purple for how own good. Have you guessed yet? It's Joker. Of course it's Joker, but still! A surprise is always fun, isn't it?

I can still remember when I first saw him...

She had seen him many times, actually. In blurry snapshots plastered across headlines, crime tabloids crowing about his newest schemes while lamenting upon what Batman would do next, in artistic renditions based on police sketches. One memorable time he had been caught running along the rooftops by a cameraman for Gotham News, although he looked no bigger than an action figure at such a distance, the four-second video clip had still given her chills. There was a certain way he moved, something strange that made part of her brain seize up and warn her of danger.

The amygdala. Controls the flight or fight response. Can't distinguish a real threat from a perceived threat which ends up with a lot of people freaking out even if their lives aren't really in danger. One of the main reasons anxiety even exists.

Harleen shook herself a little, snapping herself back to the present. She hated it when she started to do that. She started categorizing things when she was stressed, trying to break everything down into neat, logical, scientific order as methodically as one would dissect a frog to label all of the parts inside. As if by peeling it open they truly understood the frog better. She had been trying to break herself of the habit, but she knew it was far easier said than done. Her degree wasn't going to be wasted on her.

She knew the doctor was waiting for her to say something, so she tried to crack a smile and a joke. "He's shorter than I thought he would be," she said at last, her eyes flicking to the grinning man behind the glass. Maybe it was because she was wearing heels so their height was more equal, or something else. She had always imagined the Joker to be tall and thin, so tall that he would scrape the ceiling and tower over her.

Well, she at least had the thin part right. It was almost like an illusion of some sort, the way his body flowed, so that he really did look quite tall until she was close enough to realize that she probably would come up to his nose if she stood right in front of him. Not so much like the Slenderman-esque type she had built up in her head, then.

Doctor Bartholomew was gazing at her far too intently for her liking. "If you're feeling uncomfortable, I can call someone else," he said softly. "He is a very high-risk case and I know seeing him can be...overwhelming. We have doctors who have been here for decades who still refuse to go anywhere near his room."

A part of her wanted to leap at the opportunity, to grasp the lifeline he was throwing at her and haul herself to the shore before the ocean went over her head, but that was a tiny part that was growing weaker by the minute. Another part of her was eager to truly prove herself. Everyone here knew she was a respectable psychologist, but there had always been the smug look when they thought she wasn't watching, the bets to see how quickly she would break or fall down like the rest of them. The vultures waiting to pick apart the corpse of the innocent.

That was not going to happen to her. She was going to sink her teeth right into the greatest patient in Gotham City and she was going to enjoy it.

"Not at all, sir!" she replied, glancing once more at the Joker. "I can do this."

Bartholomew looked as if he didn't quite believe her, but he nodded anyway. At the gesture one of the nurses led her to the glass door and pressed the intercom button. "Step away from the door," he ordered. And Joker, grinning, complied.

And that was how she found herself sitting in front of the most dangerous, most maniacal, most cunning archvillian of all of Gotham City. There were running bets on how long it would take him to escape from the asylum this time. She heard a rumor that there was a lounge where the staff kept tallies of how many times he had been incarcerated, and that the marks led all the way around the room like the drawings of a madman. She heard a story about how he once escaped by ramming his head against the door of his previous cell until it cracked, and that's why the glass for Joker's cell was reinforced and twice as thick as everyone else's. She had no idea how many of these stories were actually true and how many were made up just to see if the younger staff would believe them. The senior members had a rather twisted sense of humor, she had found out very quickly.

Knowing the Joker, they might all be true. And yet, it was just as possible that none of them were.

A hiss escaped through his teeth when he saw her sit down and she watched as they parted, like two great gates to a castle opening, and his red, viscous tongue swiped over them with agonizing slowness. "Hello Doctor Quinzel," he spoke in a voice that was far more pleasant and calm than she would have ever expected him to make. It ran down her spine like a knife. "Are you to be my new doctor?"

"Yes I am," she replied calmly, adjusting her posture and hitting the button on her tape recorder. She tried to remember all the safety tips she had been schooled on impromptu before they had led her here. Don't get within arm's reach of him. Don't let anything else get within reach either, especially small or sharp things. Don't let his laughter freak you out. When he leans forward get away from him before he can bite. Don't feed him, he can feed himself, he's lying if he says otherwise...

"Oh good, I like it when things change up a bit," Joker went on with a wider grin. "You're very pretty, you know that?"

"Thank you," she replied coolly, leaning back in her chair in an effort to appear more calm than she really was. "I wanted you to answer some questions for me, if you would please."

He chuckled. Every single note snapped against her vertebrae like a violent musician jerking on the strong of his instrument, and she felt her muscles stiffen a little in response. "Yes, yes!" he crowed, rocking his chair a little and slamming the legs onto the ground. "Ask, ask away! I dare you!"

Sudden mood swings and mania. Probably his bipolar disorder starting to leak through. The list of illnesses the doctors believed him to have were enough to make a good door-stopper, but Harleen didn't want to discredit everything. Definitely psychopathy and bipolar, those were the two he had for certain, but with how incredibly erratic he was it was impossible to really nail anything down. After all the schizophrenia theory really started to fall apart when there would be periods lasting years of him being completely lucid and sane while simultaneously off of any sort of medication whatsoever. Except maybe snorting his Joker venom, knowing him.

"Alright," she said, taking her pen and clipboard and flipping to an empty sheet of paper. "Let's begin with your childhood."

She didn't expect to get any solid answers there, of course, and true to form he didn't give her any. Every time he was asked about his past he always told a completely different version—she had a whole list of previous stories he gave to other doctors—with details varying so wildly that she wondered if his free time was spent imagining different scenarios of his life as a form of escapism. Perhaps nostalgia? Or perhaps a traumatic childhood he tried to repress through happier, fake memories? Yet with how he constantly changed them she didn't think so. He didn't seem to care about how happy they truly were, and there was no consistent theme or detail so she couldn't pin down some underlying factor to each story.

Yet he was polite, most of the time, and genteel. It was always a toss up with how he would react to his treatment, and with her he seemed to be at least genuinely interested in what she had to say. Harleen knew this time she wasn't imagining the openly grateful looks her colleagues were giving her whenever she left his cell, and each time she left she felt more and more proud of herself.

Hell even Joker seemed to be catching it.

"I don't know why, Doc, you're just so easy to talk to," he said during one session without a hint of irony to his voice. He was busy scooting his chair around in a circle, creating a most unpleasant screeching sensation, but she was ignoring it for the moment.

"I'm glad you think so," Harleen replied, fighting down a smile as she checked her notes.

He turned a corner of his mouth to her, with only his eyes moved in their sockets. She didn't think she'd ever get used to that smile. Wasn't he in agony, holding it in place like that all the time? Or did his muscles lock up that way forever? There was no way what her grandmother said about faces getting stuck was true, was it? "Maybe it's your charm," he said, although a snicker punctuated his words. "Everyone here is too...serious. Serious I say!" The last words he shouted at the nurse hovering outside the door. "But you? You're great. You're smarter than all the others, you know that being so grim all the time is a bad idea."

Something niggled at her brain for a moment, and she ignored it. He had turned to face her completely now, giving her a full view of that smile. "Everyone has different methods," she replied to him calmly, trying not to stiffen. "I suppose mine just works well with you."

"Indeed they do," Joker said with a chuckle. "Much better than everyone else's. Are you sure you're new? You're awfully good at this already for someone so fresh."

It hit her then, that nagging feeling that finally broke through that stupid fog in her brain that had lulled her into a sense of complacency. Psychopathy, a master manipulator—it was how Joker managed to have henchmen and allies who would break him out of Arkham despite the horrid, twisted creature he was. He went after people who had something to prove, or a weakness he could exploit. He would break people down and yet build them up, just like he was doing now. Mocking her for being so inexperienced yet making her believe that she was amazing despite it. An absolute classic move that was on the very first page of the warnings she had received and like a completely idiot she had fallen for it, or at least started to.

"I'm afraid I'll have to cut this session short, mister Joker," she said, her voice far calmer than she felt, given the circumstances. Her stomach was roiling and she was doing her best not to let her hands shake as she arranged her clipboard properly. She had to get out of here now, and once she was out she was going to request an immediate transfer from Bartholomew, she was clearly unfit to work with Joker and—

His low, deep laughter made her freeze and she unwittingly looked right at him. Piercing, dark eyes caught her and held her in place, just like a snake mesmerizing a mouse.

Then he struck.

Harleen had no idea how it even happened. One moment he was restrained in his chair (or was he?) and then the next he was out of it, right in front of her with his hand gripping her coat and yanking her to her feet with so much force she could do nothing but obey. Her scream was cut sort by something sharp and cold pressing against her neck and she froze, immediately identifying it as metallic. Oh God did he have a knife? When the hell did he get a knife?

"Yes, Doc, let's end the session," he purred into her ear and oh his breath was rancid. Yet somehow sweet. It made her want to vomit and she swallowed, her heart racing.

The amygdala. Controls the flight or fight response. Absolutely real threat right in front of her, right here. It was currently screaming its head off at the rest of the brain and in turn triggering it to flood her body with adrenaline. The brain stem. Center of all the primal instincts, it was currently taking the wheel while the rest of her thinking, acting brain was frozen by the shock of the sudden events.

"Open up!" Joker screamed at the door, spinning her around and crushing her to his chest. "I'll do it! I'll sink this right in her neck and you'll be cleaning the blood off for weeks!" He laughed then, high-pitched, disjointed, everything she had always imagined it would sound like and worse.

She saw the worried faces of the nurses, of the rest of the staff, but they couldn't do anything to help her aside from opening the door. "You and I are going to take a walk," Joker hissed into her ear, making her stumble forward with him. "This way, sugar."

Because he brain hadn't completely shut itself down yet, Harleen had a half-second to make about a dozen decisions and then discard them all. Her rational brain was slowly waking up and she decided to just play along with Joker for the moment. It was his game, and while everything was going his way he wasn't going to end it too soon. Frontal lobe. Center of logical, rational thinking. What made humans so different from many other animals.

Joker lurched forward, nearly dragging her along with him, and she worked her feet to keep up with him. They passed the staff and every single one of them looked at her in fear, and some in resignation. It was a death sentence and she knew it. Her knees trembled and any moment she felt like she was going to be sick. He was going to kill her, he was going to—

"Once we get out the door, you're going to come with me," Joker whispered into her ear as they entered the stairs, avoiding the elevator entirely. There was a wet, sliding sound and his tongue traced the shell of her ear. "We're going to go on a nice, long walk together, Doc."

She whimpered, listening to his responding giggle with a fear that threatened to make her pass out. "Why not let me go?" she whispered, knowing the question was most likely useless but she had to know.

Third stage of death, bargaining. She skipped right to the end, like a Monopoly card on her life.

"Because I have plans for you, little one," Joker replied. He was enjoying himself far too much, his giggling a near constant as he hauled her down the stairs.

Please let there be guards on the ground, she thought to herself. There was at least one of them by the entrance, please please—

There was no one. Harleen wanted to scream. Stupid, absolutely useless David and his stupid quarter-hour coffee breaks! If she ever got out of this she was going to throttle him with her bare hands.

The front desk gasped at seeing them emerge from the stairwell and Joker got to shouting again, once again telling them all that he wasn't afraid to kill her. That if they tried to call anyone or do anything he would drive "this" right through her carotid artery and all of her blood would be on the floor in five minutes. It was marvelously effective, all the other did was stare in terror as they made their way to the front door.

"Excellent job!" Joker said to them all, reaching for the handle. "Now I must bid you all farewell, I—"

That was as far as he got. As soon as the door swung open a massive black shadow dropped from it. Harleen only saw what happened in vivid fragment of her memory. The shadow moving, the shadow coalescing into a figure who was gripping the top of the doorframe tightly, using it as leverage while he swung down and delivered a kick that landed precisely on Joker's face. In an instant he was ripped away from her, but his grip still lingered and threatened to pull her down with him.

This time she let her scream burst out, scrabbling as she tried to catch herself or break free, but the strong, steadying arm wrapping around her jerked her to a halt better than any of her feeble attempts. Immediately she was warm and safe, yet the person who held her felt more like he was made out of stone than flesh. The room spun and she clung to the arm, readying herself while everyone else rushed forward, broken out of their stupor by her savior.

She turned her head, words of thanks forming on her lips only to die there when she finally noticed who it was who saved her.

Batman.

The Batman.

She had never seen him before either, but oh there was absolutely not a single person in Gotham City who didn't know what he looked like.

And he was looking right back at her. White slits of eyes boring into her with an intensity that stripped her bare, like how she would look at a particularly interesting patient while mentally dissecting every bit of their personality they revealed to her. She swallowed.

"Are you alright?" Batman spoke, and the descriptions of his voice being rough and gravelly did not do what she just heard any semblance of justice whatsoever. What kind of morons were in charge of writing the news anyway?

Harleen was still shaking, her eyes flicking to the prone purple figure sprawled on the ground, and she somehow managed a nod. "Y-yes," she stumbled out once she managed to make her lips work. Everything felt blurry and unreal, she was wobbling too much and her head felt sick with dizziness.

Shock. Aftermaths of a traumatic experience. She was coming down off her chemical high and the aftermath was starting to set in.

Then she was being pried away from Batman, and the second she was gone he knelt down to examine Joker. She couldn't stop staring at him, enraptured by what she was seeing.

"Who the hell tries to escape using a pen?" she heard someone hiss, but not to her.

"Well it almost worked, didn't it?" another person, Marlene, snapped.

Just then David came rushing out, looking wild and panicked, and right after he appeared Doctor Bartholomew came rushing from upstairs, all culminating in the appearance of Jeremiah Arkham himself to come and see what all the fuss was about. Batman spoke to them coldly and methodically, saying that someone from the asylum had called the police desperately for help and he had intercepted the call and that was why he had gotten here so quickly.

Harleen barely heard the words. She didn't care how he was here, he just was and that was enough.

Not once did she take her eyes off of him. Not even when he climbed into the Batmobile and rode away like a specter in the night, disappearing as quickly as he had come.