Author's note: this story will have references to multiple events across multiple media/canon, but it will hopefully be broad enough that you can imagine it as whichever versions of the characters you like best. Except for the live action movies, as they don't really lend themselves to a larger, more comic-booky universe.
Trigger warnings in this chapter: descriptions of violence, abuse, and attempted sexual assault.
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Harley was scared. Of what, she couldn't say. It was a general sense of unease, fear of what was to come. In three days time she would be released from Arkham Asylum, not for the first time but she was determined, desperate, for it to be the last. Even now she didn't really know why she did what she did that night, almost three years ago. The night she saved Robin's life and cut ties with The Joker for good. However, she had no regrets about what happened. She and Mistah J- no, she thought, Joker, had interrupted some sort of holiday gala or other snot nosed blue blooded party taking place on the top floor of the Wayne Enterprises building. They had been intent on robbing the partygoers of all their cash and valuables, and if they happened to rob a few stubborn guests of their lives in the process? All part of the fun. The instant Joker had fired a shot in the air from his revolver, Bruce Wayne, who had been giving a speech in front of a podium in the middle of the room had turned and ran, disappearing through a door on the other side of the room amidsts panicked, drunken screaming.
Harley had seen him bleeding, choking, and nursing broken ribs. She had heard him swear, and laugh once. Only once. She had even seen him trip over his cape once, very early on. All of this, and one other occasion, led Harely to believe with a doubt and contrary to most other criminals in Gotham; the Batman was human. But when the skylight above them shattered, raining glass all around them as a massive black shape with glowing white eyes hurtled down towards them, in that moment, Harley felt sure he was some sort of monster. A spirit, or wraith, born from the blood coating the streets of Gotham to punish the wicked and serve the righteous. Batman landed right in front of the Joker, snatching the pistol from his hand before he'd even fully recovered from the shock, wondering how the hell did Batman get there so damned fast?
"Playtime is over, Joker." He stated, his already deep voice augmented somehow. Harley quickly snapped out of her shock and hoisted her cartoonishly large but very real hammer over her shoulder, preparing to swing.
"You're forgettin' someone Bats!" She hollered before swinging as hard as she could at his head... She blinked, confused, as her empty hands swished through the open air in front of her.
"Actually, I think you're the one that forgot something lady." An obnoxious voice sounded behind her. Harley whirled around, her eyes widening briefly then narrowing in rage at the boy standing before her, twirling her hammer absentmindedly over his head.
"You! Give that back ya' little shit!" She said, stamping her foot. Robin just chuckled before bringing the hammer down in front of him and leaning on it. The boy couldn't be older than twelve or maybe thirteen, but already he annoyed her far more than even Batman ever could.
"Harley, you idiot!" The Joker snapped, making her clamp her mouth shut and spin back around to face him. "Forget the birdy, we got bigger fish to fry!" He grinned, a small knife sliding out of his sleeve and into his hand before slashing wildly at Batman.
Batman dodged the attack easily, catching the Joker's wrist and twisting it, not enough to break but enough that he gave a sharp cry of pain and dropped the blade.
"Puddin'" Harley cried before rushing forward, only for Robin to catch her foot with the head of the hammer, causing her to fall flat on her face, momentarily stunned. Batman then grabbed the Joker by his collar and lifted him up in the air, nearly a foot off the ground. The madman simply giggled, nothing but joy in his eyes as if it were simply his older brother swinging him through the air, pretending he was a plane. "You're both going back to Arkham, and this time you won't be getting out." Batman snarled, barely containing his rage. He had been hunting the Joker relentlessly for nearly a year after what he'd done to Barbara Gordon, one step behind him all the way. Now he finally had his hands on him, and it took every ounce of his immense will not to dash his head against the marble floor until his brains were showing.
"That's where you're wrong kiddo!" The Joker laughed as acid sprayed forth from the flower pinned to his lapel, hitting Batman right in the eyes. His mask withstood the corrosive substance but the lenses covering his eyes immediately began to melt. He dropped the Joker, stumbling backwards and swiping at his eyes, attempting to remove the lenses before the acid ate all the way through and caused serious damage. "Batman!" Robin shouted, dropping Harley's hammer and rushing to his partner's side. Harley lifted her head, blinking the fog from her eyes as she saw Batman hunched over, Robin hanging onto his shoulder, panicking at the fact that he wasn't able to help. Huh, she thought. He really is just a kid ain't he? He acts all tough but he's still just a little boy. Something in her seemed to stir at the thought, a hazy image of another Robin, years ago, clouding her mind. The a purple gloves hand swam into view, reaching for the pistol that she hadn't even realized Batman had dropped in front of her. For a moment she hoped her Puddin' would also help her to her feet, but he barely spared her a glance. Calmly, like he were just doing some mundane task, he walked over to the dynamic duo, a smile on his face and evil in eyes, before dropping the hammer back on the revolver and pressing the muzzle against the back of Robin's head, right behind his left ear. Harley watched the boy go still, his body tensing as he realized what that sound was, his young mind struggling to comprehend what was about to happen. Suddenly she was standing in a long abandoned warehouse, a camera in her hands, looking down in barely masked horror at the bloody, broken Robin on the floor in front of her. She felt his blood on her face, mixing with the makeup and running down to her chin. The Joker stood next to her, his grip on the crowbar impossibly tight as he continued to viciously beat the boy before them. She had listened to his screams of agony for nearly an hour, but now he was still and quiet, as if he couldn't even feel the blows anymore. Sickened, Harley realized that he probably couldn't. This infuriated Joker, who only beat him harder before heaving a great sigh. "It's no fun if you don't scream kid." He muttered, almost to himself. He shrugged, a telltale sign that he was done with his little game, before raising the crowbar a final time and burying it in Robin's skull, finally killing him.
"Oh well. Let's go home hun." He said, as if he simply hadn't been able to find something he wanted at the store. It was as they drove off into the night, away from the warehouse that was rigged to blow, she heard it. A strangled, agonized wail that cut through the darkness and straight into her heart as she realized Batman had found the body of his partner, his friend, his son. That was the night she knew without a doubt that Batman was human. That was the night she stopped laughing as much at her Puddin's jokes, the night she started flinching a little more any time he made a sudden move. She had finally seen what everyone else saw when they looked at Joker, and try as she might to ignore it, she couldn't help the doubt that creeped at the back of her mind from that day on. Now she watched, feeling helpless as Joker was about to do it again, kill another of Batman's children. It hadn't been a one off, it hadn't been out of rage, or for revenge. Joker had killed that boy for fun, plain and simple. And she had helped, by standing idly by and watching it happen, she may as well as have killed him herself.
...no. No.
NO!
In an instant she was on her feet, swiping her hammer off the ground where Robin had dropped it. Something in her broke, and Harleen Quinzel took control again. And she saw some deranged fucking party clown about to murder a little boy in cold blood.
"You sick, sadistic, callous, motherfucker!" She hissed through gritted teeth, spitting the last word like it was poison on her tongue. Joker turned to look at her, head cocked in confusion before his eyes widened in fear at the look on her face as she brought her hammer around in a wide arc, fully intending to take his head off with one mighty swing. He stepped aside, but not quite fast enough as the hammer connected with his shoulder, shattering his collarbone. Robin's instincts and training finally kicked in as he dropped to the floor just as the gun went off, the bullet pinging harmlessly off of Batman's armor and imbedding itself in the wall on the other side of the room. Stunned guests and stunned vigilantes watched as Joker stumbled sideways, clutching at his ruined shoulder, eyes wild as he stared at Harley in disbelief. Batman had finally removed the ruined lenses from his cowl and he simply stared at Harley for a moment, not daring to believe she'd finally snapped out of Joker's spell. "Quinn?" Robin said breathlessly, not understanding what had just happened. She stalked towards him, hammer raised threateningly, and in that moment Joker seemed to suddenly remember that he was the one with a gun. Thinking back, Harley couldn't remember hearing the gunshot, the rush of blood in her ears drowned out any other sound. But she certainly felt it rip through her chest, just barely missing her heart as she was rocked backwards by it, straight into Batman's arms. Joker turned and ran, knowing Batman wouldn't leave Harley to give chase, and he disappeared through the same doors Bruce Wayne had used, presumably towards the elevators. Batman held Harley close, pressing a hand to her chest to stem the flow of blood as he barked an order to Robin, or maybe even one of the guests, she didn't know or care in that moment. She was too focused on the fact that she was seeing Batman's eyes for the first time as they stared at her with worry, rage, and intense focus, seemingly all at once. She was delighted to learn that his eyes were the same shade of blue as hers.
"Hehe, neat." She whispered, before everything went black.
It was almost two weeks later that she woke with a start in the med bay at Arkham Asylum. Tubes and wires were sticking out of her at all angles it seemed, and from all places she noted with disdain. A nurse to her right had just finished changing her I.V and was startled when she realized that Harley was looking at her. "Goodness, you're awake!" She said, along with the other staff members of the Arkham hospital wing she had expected Harley to never wake up.
"How come I ain't tied down?" Harley asked quietly, her voice raspy, throat dry. The nurse just smiled, shaking her head, "he wouldn't let us." She said simply, nodding towards the other side of the bed before walking off to check on the other patients. Harely turned her head to the left and gasped as her eyes settled on the man sitting next to her bed. Batman sat there in a too small plastic chair, his chin resting on his chest as he dozed. She noted with great shock that the bat symbol on his chest was wrecked, two large holes surrounded by smaller dents bending it inward. Someone had caught him square in the chest with both barrels of a shotgun. Sloppy, she thought, something' musta distracted him, otherwise some two bit jackass with a sawed-off never woulda got him. She cringed slightly, realizing that that something may well have been her since he seemed to have come here to check on her after his nightly patrol. She also realized that despite the beating she knew his armor could take, surely he must have a few cracked ribs at least. Why hadn't he gone home to get treated? Or back to his cave... Or Hell, where he probably came from.
She laughed a little at that before stopping short, a coughing fit wracking her body and a sharp pain shooting through her chest. The sound woke Batman, who instantly vanished, reappearing on her other side a moment later with a small paper cup filled with water. She drank slowly, smiling when she was finished.
"Thanks, B-Man..." she whispered.
The memory made her smile, it was the start of her strange friendship with Batman. Over the last three years as she was rehabilitated, both physically and mentally, he had visited her at least once a month. He didn't speak much, opting to just listen to her ramble on, switching from topic to topic at breakneck speed. It took nearly a year for her to believe that he wasn't angry with her, that he didn't blame her for anything the Joker had done. She was thankful that they rarely talked about him, and felt blessed that the crazed clown hadn't tried to contact her. After his shoulder healed he just went back to his same old schtick as if he'd never even met Harley Quinn. Over time Batman began to warm to her, speaking a little more freely, shocking her to the core when he started leaving his voice modulator off while they talked. He started to bring her gifts as well, usually books, producing them seemingly from thin air, like a magician, making her giggle every time. After the first few months when Batman was convinced she was serious about wanting to change, he had spoken to Doctor Leland about transferring her to the minimum security wing. No longer was she confined to a 6x6 plastic box, monitored every second of the day. Though the door locked from the outside and there were bars on the small window, for the first time in a long time she had an honest to goodness bedroom. She was almost going to miss it, she decided as she climbed into her small bed, thumbing the knot of scar tissue on her chest through the thin material of her nightshirt. She considered reading a few chapters of the latest mystery novel Batman had given her (she was convinced that he had the entire Hardy Boys collection hidden somewhere wherever he called home, but he would neither confirm nor deny this) but decided against it as she flopped down on her pillow, turning on her side and closing her eyes. Not ten minutes later however, just as she was on the verge of falling asleep, she heard a strange clinking sound, like metal on metal, then a small, insistent whirring sound. She could've sworn she'd heard it before, but chose to just ignore it. But as the sound got louder and more urgent, she gave a small huff before sitting up and looking over at her window, more pissed than curious.
No. No no no no no no no no-
A second after she realized that the hook from a wench had been clipped onto the bars on her window, it and a large portion of the wall around it was ripped from the side of the building. And there he stood, grinning like the maniac he was. "Honey! I'm hooooooooome!" The Joker announced before stepping through the hole in the wall. Harley was frozen in fear, having nowhere to go and nothing to defend herself with. The Joker glanced around her sparsely decorated room, his gaze landing on the desk next to her bed; piled high with books and toys and every other trinket Batman had brought her to help pass the time. His eyes narrowed, as if he knew where the gifts had come from. It terrified Harley to think that he probably did.
"What are you doing here?" She whispered, hating how small her voice sounded. Without warning he sprung forward, flying through the air and landing on the bed beside her, one hand on his hip and the other propping up his chin. "Why, I'm here for you of course! Thought I'd spring ya a few days early, just 'cuz" he said with a wink, trailing his fingers over her hip. She suppressed a shudder at his touch, his rancid breath and warped smile making her nauseous. Not for the first time she wondered how she had ever thought of him as anything other than revolting.
"I'm not going anywhere with you." She said, eyes narrowed, glad not to hear the fear she felt in her tone.
"Oh Harley" he said with a tsk, "still mad? I thought I'd give you some space, let you cool off a little. Guess I need to teach you a lesson? Remind you who you belong to." His eyes narrowed, smile gone from his face as he gripped the front of her flimsy shirt, ripping it open effortlessly. She smacked him, hard, but unfortunately seemed to hurt her hand on his bony face more than she'd hurt him. He chuckled darkly before back handing her twice as hard, making her see stars as he pushed her down on the bed. Her blood ran cold and her fear was amplified tenfold as she realized that none of his goons were outside. That meant they were spread out in the rest of the asylum, causing mayhem, causing a distraction. Batman won't get here in time. She thought, closing her eyes as tears streamed down the sides of her face. She turned away as Joker tried to kiss her, he gripped her chin and wrenched her head back around to face him, oozing hatred. She was proven wrong a moment later though as she heard something whip through the air, the Joker crying out in pain. A batarang, not one meant for distraction but one made purely of cold, hard, razor sharp steel, embedded itself in the Joker's shoulder; the near surgical precision of the expert throw slicing through the nerves of the brachial plexus. The hand holding her face went limp as Joker lost feeling in his arm and he cried out again as a grappling hook was shot at his ankle; not wrapping around the ankle as it had done so many times before but going through it. He screamed as he was dragged off of her and back through the hole he had made into the darknened courtyard outside. Harley climbed off the bed, shakily standing and walking over to the hole, one arm propping her up on the wall, the other covering her exposed breasts. She listened intently, waiting for the banter that was always traded before Joker either escaped or was knocked out by Batman. But it never came. Instead she just heard a dull pounding, over and over, and after a moment each thud started to sound slightly wet, like meat being tenderized, and with a start she realized that's exactly what was happening. She climbed through the hole and ran to Batman, hunched over the Joker, one knee planted firmly on the ground, his foot pinning Joker's good hand above his head as he rained blow after blow down on his face. Harley gently wrapped her arms around him from behind, pulling him backwards and off of the Joker. "It's okay Batman, it's okay. It's over." She whispered as she led him away from the mangled clown. His face was barely recognizable, more red than white. Both of his eyes were already swollen shut, and most of his teeth were missing or broken. Harley couldn't tell if he was unconscious or dead, she didn't care either. Batman leaned against her, breathing heavy as his eyes screwed shut, willing himself to calm down. Harley removed the shredded bits of her shirt, not caring if Batman saw her almost completely naked, and used them to try and wipe some of the blood off of his face. She confirmed what she already knew, that not a drop of it belong to the Batman. The act startled Batman, snapping him out of the rage fueled fog he seemed trapped in as he took in the small woman before him. She was nearly a foot shorter than him, lithe and agile, with the musculature of a seasoned gymnast. She was breathtakingly beautiful, even to someone as jaded and emotionless as he had trained himself to be. Slowly he reached up and unclasped his cape, removing it and wrapping it around her shoulders. She smiled at him and melted into his arms, wiping away the tears she hadn't realized she'd still been shedding.
"Thanks B-Man..." she whispered.
Nearly an hour later Harley sat under a tree in the courtyard, still wrapped in Batman's cape, having refused to give it up in exchange for a new shirt. She watched as Batman and Nightwing engaged in a heated debate with Commissioner Gordon and Doctor Leland, her one time mentor and current psychiatrist. She only caught snippets of their conversation but knew it was about her. Doctor Leland was apparently advocating that after tonight's nearly traumatic event Harley should stay for at least a few more weeks for evaluation, and Gordon had been against releasing her at all. "-too fucking dangerous and you know it!" She had heard him nearly shout at Batman before calming himself and returning to the hushed tone he was using before. When questioned as to how he got to her so fast, Batman explained that he was alerted the instant the alarm was tripped in the minimum security wing. He had instructed Nightwing to take one side of the island and Robin, sorry, Red Robin she thought with a small huff of laughter, to take the other. Batman would take the middle and the two younger crime fighters would meet him there. He knew exactly where the Joker would go and that his henchmen were meant to slow him down. Joker himself was alive, for now, having been loaded onto a stretcher and taken for medical treatment. It was unclear if he would ever wake up, having sustained massive brain damage. In his rage Batman had essentially beaten the man into a coma.
Harley felt a tap on her shoulder and looked up to see the newly minted Red Robin standing next to her, an awkward smile on his face. He had a spiffy new suit too, black and red (nice, she thought, obviously inspired by moi) with a cowl similar to Batman's, minus the pointy ears. He was a few inches taller than when she'd last seen him, and not quite so scrawny anymore, but looking close she could tell he was still the same cocky little shit she'd last seen nearly three years ago. "Hey kid, long time no see. Nice suit" she added with a wink, smiling warmly at him.
"Thanks, I designed it myself" he said, clearly proud, "it's uh, it's good to see you again. I'm glad you're okay." This surprised her, after all she had done she didn't think many people cared that she was even alive, much less about how she was doing. Her smile widened as she noticed Nightwing and Batman heading towards her. She could tell the first Robin was uneasy, though Batman remained stoic and unreadable as ever. Behind them Doc Leland was glaring daggers at their backs, while Gordon was simply walking away, shaking his head. Nightwing stopped short a few paces away, crossing his arms. He breathed a sigh, glancing at Red Robin. "For the record", he said, masked eyes landing on Harley, "I think this is a terrible idea." Batman just ignored him, offering Harley his hand a pulling her to her feet. "Are you ready to go? I'll send for your belongings tomorrow." He said.
"Uh, sure? Where exactly am I goin' B-Man?" She asked, glancing between the three heroes.
"...I'm taking you home."
...
If you don't review and let me know you want more, then I won't know if I should keep writing or not will I? :p no promises on how often I'll update but this story will be multiple chapters.