Oh wow his lips were surprisingly soft. That was the first thought that crossed Harleen's mind when her brain started working again after kissing Batman. Kissing Batman. Oh goodness that was just about enough to set her brain reeling again. His lips were thin, and that wasn't because they were always pressed into a line she could now tell, and even though they barely moved against hers Harleen couldn't care because the mere feeling of them alone was incredible.
Then she realized, a moment later, what she was doing and oh dear lord what was she doing?! It was Harleen who ended the kiss, just as much as she began it, and she all but leaped away from Batman, releasing his clothes as if his touch had burned her. But Batman had not moved so much as a single muscle. "I—oh my god I'm so sorry about that," she babbled, feeling her face scorch in embarrassment and shame. She was even more grateful, now, for the face paint since she was pretty sure Batman would have been able to see her flush without it, even with how dark it was.
She was such an idiot. Did she have no control over her brain (or her hormones for that matter) whatsoever? Why did her IQ always take such a nosedive whenever Batman was anywhere near her?
"Harleen," Batman's voice broke through the darkness, hard as stone and somehow sounding unfazed but Harleen knew that was a lie. No one just got kissed by someone randomly and shrugged it off so calmly. Batman had to be the best poker player on the whole planet. "Listen to me now, and this time don't ignore what I say to go play upon your fantasies."
His words struck her like blows, and thankfully her embarrassment began to burn away in the face of her anger. He was good in that too, absolutely infuriating her in the fewest amount of words possible. Harleen always thought she had quite a large amount of patience, especially knowing the job and profession she went for, but somehow Batman just made all of that fly right out the window like it never existed in the first place. "Forget this night. Forget everything that has happened so far. You got out of a very dangerous situation, alive, and you need to thank all of your lucky stars for that because almost no one is that lucky."
Harleen scowled and opened her mouth to say that was more skill than luck (and his help but he didn't deserve to hear that with how he was speaking to her) but he went on as if he never even noticed.
"Go back home. Focus on the rest of your life, and forget about this new hobby of yours before it consumes your life."
"Like how it's consumed yours?" Harleen immediately snapped back, unable to her herself, but the words had barely been spoken before Batman was leaping over the side of the roof. His grappling gun fired and he swung away to the nearest building, his cape flaring behind him in a way that was both incredibly dramatic and quite frightening, and Harleen knew he had heard her and was just ignoring her at this point.
Not that it made her any less right, though.
She stood there for a time that was far longer than necessary, arms crossed, just angry and fuming and fuming over how angry she was and glaring at the spot where she had last seen Batman as if he was still there for some reason and could see her glaring. Which was ridiculous, of course, but at the moment she was really just too angry to do anything was so infuriating, he didn't understand anything, why didn't he let her help him, she had just proved herself to be more than competent on her very first fight against Scarecrow of all people. Alright she had lost the fight int he end but so had he! And it wasn't like she had immediately lost!
Besides what gave him the right to brood on the events of the past forever and turn him into some great hero fighting crime and not her? Harleen had come to terms with herself on the fact that she had been changed forever by her experiences, whether she liked it or not, and the sooner she stopped trying to fight what she was becoming the better. Batman was just going to have to get used to her, he wasn't the only hero in the city anymore.
More sirens were coming, more flashing lights and oh goodness was that a SWAT van she hoped it wasn't. Her heart thumped and even though she was a whole building away she still felt uneasy and like she was far too close for comfort. The red and blue lights flashed alternatively along her hiding spot and she picked up her pole to creep away, using the gargoyles for cover. Then she could pole jump to another roof and then another until she reached the place where she had left her car. A far trashier piece of equipment than the Batmobile, but at least to her credit no one would look twice at her once she washed all the makeup off.
Now all she had to do was start jumping...She gulped a little at the thought and took a running leap to get going. She could do it but being suspended so far above the ground on nothing but a pole made her extremely uncomfortable still. She had to find some parkour teachers, Gotham was the best city in the world for rooftop parkour, there had to be dozens of them around.
Thankfully there were very few people on the roads at this hour because Harleen was fairly certain she would have gotten into a wreck on at least five separate occasions if she had been paying the slightest bit of attention. Which she was not. She was fairly certain in hindsight that she had blown through every single red light and stop sign possible and maybe swerved into the opposite lane just once but since no one was on the road no harm had been done. And since, from what she could tell, there was not a single cop in Gotham of all places (probably all drawn to where she and Bats had left Scarecrow but still) so she managed to get off scot-free with her crazy driving.
"He's such a jerk!" she was yelling at no one in particular while she sped down the road, the environment around her a blur. "Why do I keep coming back to him and trying to get his attention? What's the point?!"
You're right, it's quite pathetic, that dry, clinical part of her brain spoke up to quip. But being obsessed does such things to you.
"Oh shut up!" she growled, yanking her wheel with far more force than was necessary, coughing the wheels of the car to squeal horribly as she turned the corner. Oh maybe she should slow down, that wasn't really a good thing to do, she might flip her car over or something.
Batman does it all the time!That annoying and completely unwanted part of her piped up with it's absolutely unnecessary bit of information. He even did it while you were riding in the Batmobile with him! Remember that? You got to ride in the Batmobile!
"Yeah it was great, until he yelled at me again. Now you shut up too!" Was she yelling at herself now?
Yes, are you actually arguing with yourself at this point? The analysing part of her brain asked. Are you sure the weight of all of this isn't just driving us insane?
Harleen gave a snort. "Yeah, if that whole incident with Joker didn't put me in an asylum on day two of the aftermath I think I'm pretty stable."
Of course you are, whispered a deeper, darker part of herself that her instincts naturally tuned in to hear. Didn't you see how well you took down Scarecrow? Like a natural. Once you embrace it, everything becomes so much easier.
"That was always the crux of the issue," Harley muttered, her voice serious. "Accepting and not accepting. Struggling and giving in. Giving in is the hardest part, the acceptance and the embrace of the change."
Not much of a change if you ask me, the dark voice whispered seductively. You can't change into something if it was always there, that makes no sense.
On the contrary it makes perfect sense, her doctor self raised its head to challenge the voice with cold reason. Personas are an occurrence in people who have endured trauma, and the facets that make up our personalities are -
I'm not here because of trauma, thank you.
You're here because of BATMAAAN! Oh his jaw is so sharp, you need to touch it the next time you two -
"Will you all SHUT UP!" Harleen yelled at the top of her lungs, slapping her hand against her steering wheel. That's it she was tired of this, time for the radio. She cranked the volume up so loud she was pretty sure the astronauts running the International Space Station heard it and flew down the road, just thinking about how angry she was at Batman, trying not to wreck, and ignoring the scattered parts of her brain vying for dominance. It worked for about ten seconds.
I've always been here and are you about to tell me something as silly as no one has a hidden part of themselves that they, themselves, are not even aware of? Come on Quinzel, you're an idiot but you're no clown.
And you are not Freud.
How you feel about Batman is definitely Freudian, though!
That flutter of excitement at the mere thought of Batman was just cringe-levels of embarrassing.
"BUT YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO CUT ME OFF-" she began singing, obnoxiously, at the top of her voice as if to drown out her own arguments and humiliation.
But to bring back the original topic: I've always been here, so why does Batman even need to be a factor? Who says you need him? This Harley Quinn can do a solo performance!
Batman is a the root of the issue, her doctor part said, he needs to be here or else nothing makes sense.
"MAKE OUT LIKE IT NEVER HAPPENED AND WE WERE NOTHING- "
And why not have Batman around, it's Batman! He's so incredible and strong and brave and dark and did you see how he manhandled Scarecrow like oh god what a hunk—
"AND I DON'T EVEN NEED YOUR LOVE-"
He is not the root of the issue! Joker is! Joker and Arkham Asylum and all the other countless people who had their lives changed or torn away by a single, vile act of cruelty. Criminals who take and take because it suits them and uncaring of all the damage they leave behind!
Maybe she should have taken those pills Batman gave her after all.
"BUT YOU TREAT ME LIKE A STRANGER AND IT FEELS SO ROUGH-"
That isn't wrong, technically, the doctor part of her brain admitted with hesitation. But this hero obsession definitely is.
No it isn't. Wanting to change things, wanting to make them better, has nothing to do with it. Batman had no Batman to inspire him, he simply understood what was wrong in the world and went to fix it.
"NO YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO STOOP SO LOW-"
Why did she know that Batman had no one to help him? There was no way she could ever know that, but something in her gut told her that it was right.
Not accepting our help is a foolish move, her doctor voice murmured, and Harleen could feel the shift even as her heart raced from it. But constantly tagging him along and trying to get his attention isn't going to work. It's pathetic.
ANY attention from Batman is good attention!
"HAVE YOUR FRIENDS COLLECT YOUR RECORDS AND THEN CHANGE YOUR NUMBER-"
But we want him to like us, her inner self purred.
"GUESS THAT I DON'T NEED THAT THOUGH-"
We have to build our way up though. Like in college. If we want to fix the world we can't start so big. Just look at all the patients in Arkham, only a dozen or so are Batman's main enemies. The rest of them are just dangerous, insane people, and how often do they get talked about?
Her heart jumped into her throat, nearly choking her on her realization. Oh, oh, she was right. That was...why did she never notice that before? Was she really that blind to the little problems around? To all of the ugly parts of the human life?
Even her brain had shut up for a moment, chewing on that and trying to remember any of the other patients at Arkham. She could pull up names, but out of pure, long habit only, and their faces kept slipping from her. So focused on the big picture and the loud booms she didn't notice all of the smaller parts falling through the cracks. Which is what many of those in Arkham truly were, the pour souls who slipped through the cracks of society to eventually become dangerous, crazed individuals. The unfortunate part was that everyone was so wrapped up in the fact that they had people like Joker actually being in the building that they completely forgot about the dangerous, homicidal and suicidal man in the cell on the next floor because he was sexually abused as a child by his uncle.
Her hands tightened, bile rising up to her throat. She remembered the mugger in the alley and the terrified woman. No Joker, no Scarecrow, but god if helping that woman escape hadn't made her feel so proud of herself. That was one of the proudest moments of her life, when she actually did something that mattered, even if in a little way.
No, she was going to help. She had to. It hurt, having to turn away from Batman but...
Because this is bigger than Batman, her logical part whispered. This is about humanity in general. Ours, as well as the concept itself.
Besides, that little singsong part of her giggled, wouldn't it be much more fun if Batman would chase us instead?
A part of her brain really did faint at the idea and Harleen groaned before realizing where she was at and slowing down before she passed her building.
Parked there for a moment, she sighed and looked up, up past her building and into the dark Gotham sky. The Batsignal was out, stark and sharp against the clouds. The city itself praying for the arrival of its angel.
The idea of not being able to answer it made her heart sink, but she would be...there still, in her own way. Picking up scraps, doing little things, silent and unnoticed, forgotten in the menagerie.
And yet, it was important. It had to be.
When she walked into Arkham the next day it was with bleary eyes and an extra shot of espresso in her coffee, before she went right to work upon her new idea. Harleen could feel the puzzled stares as she picked up her files and instead of turning to the high-security hall, she instead went downstairs to the sections of Arkham that housed the less dangerous patients of the asylum. Of course she would go back to Joker later, she couldn't let him think he was intimidating her, after all,but now she had smaller fish to fry.
Harleen flipped through the papers as she went down the stairs. David Banksey, heroin addict with delusions, Suzanne Yu, suffered from a mental break after her mother locked her in a closet for three years, Rick Mahul, gang member who was in a mental asylum for his dissociative states and not for the fact that he killed four people.
Stuff to make her stomach churn, but when compared to people like Clayface, Poison Ivy, and Joker, this all sounded like it was relatively minor. And yet these people were still hurting, they still had stories that needed to be told and problems that could have been fixed potentially had no everyone been sweating over the big stuff. There couldn't be a cop for every problem in Gotham, there were simply too many to cover, but even the superheros who weren't limited to such things never bothered, and none of them ever saw justice or help. And even if they did wish to talk, they hardly would to a cop.
But they would talk to their therapist, though.
They talked surprisingly easy, to tell the truth. Perhaps they always needed someone to open up to, someone who felt like they truly cared, or maybe Harleen was just that good at talking to people. Anyone who wasn't Batman, anyway.
Putting out her feelers, she listened and listened and took notes. There were accomplices, someone who suspected their neighbor of being up to no good, someone being a victim of another and suffering a breakdown, a former gang member selling out those in his gang he had a vendetta against...so many dark and dirty tangles in the web of Gotham's underbelly. The more days Harleen devoted to listening, the more the dread in her stomach grew. It was like listening to a tidal wave growing and growing and how was she even supposed to stem the tide?
Even helping one person is better than helping none of them.
Once she had gathered up her courage, she decided to tackle her first solo mission small. A man talking about where his neighborhood was and how there was a local stalker who preyed upon women. He thought that the man did something awful to them, since eventually all of those women disappeared. Harleen did a little research first, and found that at least three of them had moved away, no doubt to move away from their creepy stalker, but several others had just gone mysteriously missing. Police suspected a stalker, but no one had pinned down a suspect.
Except for the man, who said he was certain it was his downstairs neighbor. Of course no one believed him because he was diagnosed with paranoia. But Harleen figured it couldn't hurt to take a look.
What she wasn't quite expecting to see from the roof of a nearby building, however, was to watch the man come out of the front door of his building dragging what was clearly a body in a bag behind him.
Oh god, oh good lord—
Harley had attacked at once, shock and rage feeling her as she came crashing down upon the man and knocking him out cold with her pole. At first she thought she had killed him and to be totally honest that wouldn't have been that bad of a thing but at the same time she didn't want to just murder people. Batman never killed, after all.
She tied the man up and then peeked in the bag just to see if she had made a mistake in her identification and she was never going to unsee that, ever. Harley flinched and threw up in the gutter a few seconds later, shaking all over from the sight of this man's twisted work. Then when she finally picked herself up she ran to the nearest pay phone and made a frantic, panicky call to the police that she didn't even have to force too hard before hanging up and climbing back to her hiding spot on the nearby roof.
Harley waited way too long for a squad car to show up and she was glad she had the sense of mind to tie the man to a street light (right next to his corpse) because he woke up about halfway into her wait. She watched him, bored and chewing on some gum (helped her breath after vomiting) as he struggled and tried to yell for help through his gag. Finally an officer showed up, was promptly freaked out, and then soon four more cars were rolling up in far too quick of a time to be anything less than criminal and Harley finally decided to call it a night.
That was one of the most horrifying things she had ever seen in her life. Only Joker and her nightmares with him had topped that. And that's why it felt so good to put him away.
Buoyed by her success, she tried to very next night to interrupt a meeting of a gang of drug dealers and bring the cops in on them. She didn't even get to the building she needed to go to when she screwed up her pole jump over to another building and ended up falling into an alley. Lucky for her she landed in a dumpster and didn't injure herself, but also unluckily the crash made so much noise that Batman himself probably heard it. She heard yells, shouts, and then feet running toward her and then she was the one running for her life to escape the pursuit of a bunch of angry meth heads.
Alright those parkour lessons for real. And to stop being so damn confident.
There was another time Harley caught a thief after he robbed a bank, but not before she had to fight him and knock him unconscious. Not those sparring self-defense lessons either, a real, full-blown fight where every move felt too fast and every single mistake could cost her her life. She was bloodied and bruised by the end of it but she was the one who delivered the roundhouse kick to his head to knock him out, but then immediately afterwards she had to limp her way to safety because the sirens sounded like they were right below her.
She called in sick the next day, and the day after that, because when she awoke (still in full Harley costume) her muscles had locked up and she could barely move an inch. Harley had to force herself to hobble to the shower and only after standing under the steaming water for twenty minutes did she feel like her body was working like it was supposed to. She kept herself on painkillers for most of the next three days and finally forced herself to go to work before anyone became suspicious, but it was weeks before she felt good enough to go running around again.
Then Harley literally lassoed a mugger and dragged him to a police car, crashed the party of a Scarecrow fear toxin dealer without managing to get sprayed (although she did bang her knee against a stool), juggled Molotoves into a warehouse filled with Joker venom (he had escaped again and she thought it was time for well-deserved payback) before almost literally being caught by the clown himself that had her diving into the river to avoid detection and nearly drowning in the process. Batman had also showed up and that scared her more than any of her other efforts combined and she had laid away her suit for a solid month.
Thankfully, from what she had heard, Joker blamed Batman and said the "red and black little sidekick" was Robin. Batman believed that Joker had set the fire himself to lure him there, and had not been aware that Robin had already gone away to join the Teen Titans a while back. Harleen was glad to just get out of there with her skin intact and mission accomplished.
And now her efforts had brought her here, to the house she was watching now. One of her patients had told her about it, a former neighbor who, in his breaks from reality, would start sobbing and babbling about how horrible life must be for the mother and daughter who lived next door to him. The father of the family was abusive scum of the earth and for some reason the authorities could never quite get him or pin him down.
Well, not this time. Harley waited quietly, watching the lights in the house which never flickered, and yet no one came walking by. It had been like that for several nights now, so when a scream broke the silence she jumped so hard that she nearly dropped her pole.
Sadly in this part of Gotham screams weren't uncommon so it was hard for anyone to get overly bothered by one. Which left her to save the day.
The screams were unbearable, two of them, rising and falling in pitch and tone and thank the lord the front door was unlocked, she had learned how to kick them down but that would look really suspicious on the police report later. She found them as she expected them, the mother sobbing and already covered in blooming bruises while her daughter crouched in the corner, shaking and watching her father beat upon her.
Harley felt her blood boil. "Hey. asshole!" she sang, feeling her grin widen at the excitement of the fight coming.
He whirled, only to have her pole slam into him.
"Why don't you actually pick on someone who can fight back?" Harley continued, hitting him again, and again, and ignoring the stunned looks of the other family members.
He had been in fight clubs, though, apparently, which explained why he recovered so quickly and launched at her. He wasn't a caught druggie or fleeing criminal, he was a violent man who enjoyed doing violent things to people and thought he earned the right to do so. So he was far more dangerous.
Harley had to bob and dodge in her fight, weaving in blows, but she didn't seem to be doing much immediate damage. He was slowing, but not fast enough.
"Mind your own business, bitch!" he yelled, throwing a lamp at her.
It hit her and then he was on her, a punch landing on her ribs with no softness behind it, it was like being hit with a car and Harley screamed. Then a blow to her face slammed the world around, and her reflexes kicked in before her brain, rolling her out of harm's way before she got up and kicked up, catching him under the chin and sending him reeling back. Harley had to stay focused, he was recovering, he was—
She gripped her pole and swung it, hitting his knee and forcing him to the ground, but then he caught her pole when she tried to hit him again. He spat out blood, got up, and Harley's other foot slammed into his face, knocking him out cold.
Harley was left panting and shaking in the aftermath of the fight, wincing with each breath that she breathed through her mouth since blood was pouring out of her nose. That was...intense. Her ribs burned like fire, but she was alive and the mother was looking at her in shock and the daughter at her in awe. And that...felt really good, honestly. Worth the beating.
Heroes usually said something inspiring at this point, right? "You should leave him," she blurted out without thinking. "You deserve better than this pile of trash."
Even more unthinking, she dug around in her suit for her money, which she kept tightly packed in her corset. She was a doctor and the huge wad of bills she pulled out made their eyes widen. "Here,' she said, shoving it at them. "Take all of it, take it and leave and get yourself a better life. I mean it."
She had to leave. All of this was too much.
"Thank you," she heard the tiny voice of the girl following her as she left.
When she got home she cried, but only for a few moments because her face hurt too much. She felt like a giant boot had just stomped on her and was she still doing the right thing? Getting beaten up every night, all to stem the tide of this nonsense that always seemed to grow more and more with each passing night? How did anyone handle it? How did Batman?
She looked at herself in the mirror, makeup half-off, bruised skin showing underneath, eyes heavy and dreadful.
But the girl had looked at her, filled with hope and awe, like she had just seen a miracle itself. A superhero. And had thanked her.
If that little girl never had to experience a night like this again thanks to her, then it was more than well worth it.