"You know I blame you for everything, right?" Michelle asks dully, her bandaged hands folded in her lap. The glass has been picked out of her hands, and the wounds have been wrapped tight by clean white bandages. The quick work of someone wanting to lock her up as quickly as possible.
"I'd guessed. But you know," The Joker says from his spot on the bench beside her, now down to just the vest with the hexagonal patterns that make Michelle dizzy to look at (they confiscated his long purple coat, and at the moment, are counting out all the knives they took out of his pockets), "You did have a choice."
"Oh?" She asks, in monotone, glancing sideways at him from the corner of her eye. "And how was that? It was doing what you said or being killed."
"Exactly. You could've just picked to die, instead of joining us on this…wild night. There's always a choice." At 'wild', he waves his hand in a circular motion, as if the rather traumatic events of the night could be personified as a sort of tornado. Michelle just groans under her breath, sitting as far away from him on the bench as possible, burying her face in her sore hands.
"That's not a choice. That's not…fair."
"Oh, but it is. You had two, count 'em, two choices, and you picked one of them. That's perfectly fair, don't you agree?" He holds up two fingers to illustrate the point even further, and she glares at him from between her fingers before sighing and leaning back against the cell wall.
"You're insane."
"And who's to say that you aren't?"
Now that throws her off. She doesn't answer him, and though his voice holds a tinge of something that sounds like controlled annoyance, anger (or maybe amusement? She can't tell) as he says it, she pretends that she didn't hear him and instead stands, beginning to pace. The two of them are getting glares from everyone in the entire department, it seems; it's not surprising. She hasn't even tried to proclaim her innocence yet, because they won't listen to her, they don't listen to anything she says to them, such as her winces when they move her injured self around roughly, or when she asks to be in a different cell than the Joker.
"All the others are filled," they tell her, "and the only other cell that we could put you in is full of men."
"The Joker is a man." Michelle notes, as they finish patting her down for weapons (there are none) and her brown jacket is confiscated. Her hands are re-cuffed behind her back as they turn her around and shove her into walking with them, already leading her towards the cell with the Joker waiting idly inside of it. Michelle distantly thinks of what poor bastard had to pat him down, and feels a bit bad for him, before she almost trips and that snaps her back to reality.
"Yes," The very annoyed female officer walking behind her growls, "But we can watch one guy easier than ten." She gives no room for argument, and Michelle offers none as the door is slid open, the cuffs are pulled off of her wrists, and the Joker waves slightly as Michelle is shoved inside and the metal doors clang behind her.
A cop walks by and slams his nightstick against the bars near the Joker's head, and while the loud noise makes Michelle jump, the man beside her doesn't even flinch. His calmness at the moment is too eerie to let her calm down enough, now that they're caught. Well, he's caught; she's not sure what's going to happen to her. A man walks in and orders they all stand down, and Michelle raises her head to look at him. He looks middle aged, but dignified, and she sort of respects that for some reason. She recognizes the picture of the dead man that saved the life of the mayor and figures out that this is the same man, and blinks. That's something you don't see every day.
"What do we got?" She hears the mayor ask, and doesn't look up to them because she settles back in the holding cell, her eyes closed. Lord is she tired. This Gordon (she's caught his name by now) recites in a very eloquent manner that they don't know jack shit about the Joker, before the mayor gestures to her and she raises her head, now staring on bored. Bandages wrap around her forehead from where her scalp was cut, and there's a dark bloodstain running from her hairline down her cheek and circling her eye.
"And her?" He asks, and Michelle sighs. She's already given a very scant report to them, as it's all they wanted to hear from her; her name.
"Michelle King, she says. We've got a file."
Michelle visibly flinches and the Joker glances up, now somewhat interested. Gordon goes on.
"Michelle Harley Queen, name changed to King after adoption, age thirty three. No living blood relatives, only an adoptive brother; Nathan Anderson. Adoptive parents deceased as well," Gordon reads aloud from a file that had been retrieved for him, as Michelle taps her foot on the floor at a relatively quick pace. "No aliases, no prior arrest record. Nothing but lint in her pockets."
There's something he reads and then his expression seems to darken, before he closes the file and glances at her. She's hanging her head, hair sweaty and blood-dried and stuck to her skin, but still hanging in her face enough to obscure it. The policemen seem to shrug it off, as the mayor speaks again, and tells Gordon to go home, naming him Commissioner. Everyone claps for him, even the Joker and, a moment after regaining herself, Michelle after she sits down beside the Joker again. The man took down a psychopathic terrorist and faked his own death, after saving the mayor's life from the same psychopathic terrorist; hell, she's impressed. Why not congratulate the guy?
As the crowd seems to disperse, Michelle calming down again, she can just feel the Joker staring at her. After a few minutes of this silence, she eventually swings her head to glare at him and practically screams, "What?!" He smiles at her almost demurely, though whatever affection she might think she sees there is very, very fake. She knows it, too.
"Harley Queen?" He asks, coyly, and she just groans and puts her head in her hands as the cops tell her to shut up from their side of the bars. She gives them the finger when they turn their backs on her.
"You're going to make a horrible pun now, aren't you?"
"If I were going to do that, then I'd have called you Harlequin by now. You shouldn't make assumptions."
"I don't have any reason not to. I mean, it's you."
Yes, she's getting a little cocky being surrounded by policemen; sure, they hate her too, but they're not going to stand by and let him kill her or beat her or something, and he's probably not going to try while they're in here. He just closes his eyes and smiles to himself, as a thug in another cell complains of not feeling well. Not very much later, someone is walking towards the holding cell, accompanied by cops, and Michelle's eyes narrow.
"Michelle, baby," James says, in a warm and caring voice, rushing up to the bars (but sure not to touch them), eying the Joker warily before looking back to Michelle. She's just staring blankly at him. "I thought you were dead. I'm so glad to see you."
She rockets to the bars and sticks her hands in between them, her fingers closing around James' throat as she begins to throttle the life out of him.
"You did this to me! You did this! You, you, you you you you you YOU!!" She shrieks, throttling him wrathfully, before a cop maces her in the face. She lets go of him and her hands come back to her face, and as soon as she looks up through blurred tears at the noise in front of her, she's maced again, this time not just in the eyes; she inhaled it as well, so now her nose and throat and lungs burn like fire. When she drops against the bars, hands over her face and tears streaming down her face as she chokes, they take it as a charge at them and then they tazer her. Twice.
A half hour later (after she recovers somewhat from the accidental double-tazering), she's being processed. Her eyes are still stinging, her vision still blurred, her muscles spasming occasionally, and her mouth burns like she's eaten chili peppers. They take her prints and take her mugshot, which is looking beat half to hell by now, before she's lead somewhere other than back to the (now empty) holding cell that she was sharing with the Joker earlier on. It's a small room with nothing but a table and a cop sitting on the other side of it; she doesn't recognize whoever they are. There's a pad of paper and a pen between them; now they're trusting a Joker henchman (unwilling, but the grimy title remains) with a pen. They must really not be threatened by her, and she's not going to give them any reason to. Well, other than her trying to strangle James, but that's different.
"Sit." The cop orders, as she's lead to the chair (in handcuffs). She sits, before the male officer begins what Michelle already suspects is an interrogation. He takes the pen and paper and prepares to write, leaning back in his chair.
"Alright, King; let's go through all of this. Why'd you join up with him?" He asks, point-blank, and Michelle's not sure if this is regulation interrogation tactics or not, but then again, how would she know?
"I didn't want to." She states, still looking very tired. No sleep in hours; days, it felt like. The cop raises an eyebrow. Of course he doesn't believe her.
"Right. Then how'd you end up with that mask on? In that truck?"
"I was kidnapped. At a party."
"Riiight."
There's silence for a moment as he scratches something down on the pad of paper, and she just sits there on the other side of the table. He's flipping through a file that she's staring very pointedly at. He shakes it in her face.
"Interesting history you've got here. Changed your name back in '96, didn't you?"
Her eyes follow every movement of the file, and she grits her teeth when he waves it in her face. "Yes, I did. After my parents died and I was adopted."
"Listen, let's cut the shit," The interrogating officer says, leaning forward on the table. He's young, and cocky, and probably doing this whole thing wrong. "You might as well give us a confession that you willingly joined that clown sucker's little knitting group," He jabs a thumb at the left wall for some reason, "'Cos nobody's going to believe that bullshit story about you being kidnapped and forced to help out."
When Michelle hears this, she leans forward over the table, angry. "It's not a bullshit story! My name is Michelle King, and I was kidnapped from the Wayne fundraiser party! There were so many people there that saw it; you can't be so stupid as to not be able to corroberate this." She jabs a thumb on the table, infuriated, and then throws herself against the back of the chair. At that same point in time, there's a loud slamming noise against the left wall, and it makes Michelle jump. "What the hell was that?"
"It's not important," The officer says distractedly, looking at her pointedly. "Alright, if you're not going to admit to that, then just tell us where Harvey Dent is."
"I didn't even know he was gone! He's gone again?!"
"He's been kidnapped, and we're looking at you clowns."
"You guys are shitty cops; shouldn't you have been, oh I don't know, fucking watching him??" She snaps, her nerves far past frayed tonight. The cop leans back in his seat again, staring at his pad of paper as he writes. He doesn't answer any of her questions, of course. She's in a bad mood now, after James and all this shit. "Can I have my phone call?" She asks, staring at her dirty and sharply broken nails. She should probably file those down soon enough, maybe bite them. The cop drops a cell phone in front of her (this guy is still giving her the vibe that he's a very new or very stupid cop) and she dials Nathan's personal cell number, tapping her foot against the floor. It rings twice, before she hears his voice.
"Anderson."
"Nathan, it's Michelle."
There is silence on the other end for a moment.
"Michelle...where are you?"
"Gotham PD. Maced twice, then tazered twice. Now interrogated. Not happy here, Nathan."
"Well, I can't help that, now can I? It's not my fault that you helped a killer-"
"I DID NOT HELP THE MAN." She loudly growls into the phone, though trying to keep herself calm, and the cop stares at her for a moment before the door is opened behind Michelle's back.
"It's not looking that way, Michelle. You know, I can't really help you. It would be...bad publicity. Imagine what your adoptive parents- my parents, actually -would say if they were alive to see you." He talks very kindly, very gently, but his words sting as horribly as ever, and makes her feel horribly guilty for something she didn't want to do. Her voice is quivering as she pleads, leaning into the table and splaying her palm over it.
"Nathan, I'm...I'm sorry, I didn't have a choice-"
"But you did, Michelle."
That makes her freeze. She knew Nathan Anderson was heartless, but could he really be this cruel? She wants to cry, and she's on the verge of starting, like she always is when Nathan scolds her. Leaning back, she puts her elbow on the table and lays a hand over her eyes, hanging her head despondently.
"You're...you're joking, aren't you? Aren't you? Oh God, Nathan, you're joking, this is a horrible joke..."
"Then do you want to hear the punchline?" He asks her, very calmly, and from his voice, it sounds like he's smiling on the other end and Michelle can almost see him drinking Cristal from a tumbler up in his penthouse as he speaks to her. "Here it is: I'm disowning you. You and I are no longer siblings, King. You're going to rot in prison, maybe even Arkham, and I'm never going to speak with you again after this phone call ends. Now, before I hang up on you and have someone start up the paperwork for getting a bloodsucking parasite removed from my family line, is there anything you'd like to say to me?"
It's not even a question of what she's going to say to him.
"This is the reason why your wife committed suicide I hope she's burning in hell waiting for you you sonofabitch-" She screams into the phone and instantly hears him hang up on her, while the cop interrogating her practically runs back to the table and rips the phone out of her hand, before running out the door with the other cop and slamming the door behind him.
And now she's alone. She puts her head in her hands and begins crying, while another cop walks in and stands against the wall to watch her.
It's been a few more minutes, and Michelle has her head down on the table, her cheek pressed against it; she's got a headache from crying and her eyes are red, her cheeks still flushed. She and the cop are ignoring one another. There's commotion outside, and the cop looks between Michelle and the door.
"I'm not moving." She says, dully, and after another moment of consideration, the cop goes to the door and looks out, before exclaiming "Shit!" and grabbing his gun, running out. Michelle knows that something is wrong. Something is very wrong. It's way, way too quiet.
An explosion rockets through the building. She was right. It makes her fall from her chair, before she grabs the paper and pen that the interrogating cop left behind and, very quickly, begins to write.
"My...name...is...Michelle...King..." She breathes out the words she's writing, before going silent and merely watching her hurried scrawling, her heart pounding like a drum. After a few precious moments of writing, she hears footsteps and flips the pad of paper over, so what she's written can't be seen, and looks at the door, eyes wide. Someone leans in the still slightly cracked door, and smiles when they spot her.
"We're leaving." The Joker states, his purple coat thrown over his shoulder, and he walks in quickly and grabs her by the upper arm, dragging her out the door at a good clip. After a moment of her keeping up with him he lets her arm go and throws her his coat, which she catches and holds to her chest, and runs after him as they head for the cells.
"What happened?" Is the only thing she can muster to ask. It's a very dumb question, yes, because it's kind of obvious what happened, but she has to ask anyway.
"We went out with a bang." Is all he'll tell her, and for a moment, Michelle really thinks about running away. Just running. He can't ostensibly catch her, can he? If she hides herself in the police department? He does have to escape, of course; maybe she can get away if she just makes herself too much trouble to catch.
But, where's she going to go after that? If she stays, they'll lock her up in prison- Nathan's warning about the possibility of that madhouse Arkham flits through her mind and makes her inwardly shiver -and that'll be the end of it for her. They'll eat her alive in prison. Nathan has abandoned her, the bastard. James probably wants to kill her now (he left, spitting insults at her, after she tried to strangle him) and she'd rather die or walk with the Joker than go back to that asshole. She's got no jobs left, and nobody is going to hire her. She's a wanted woman. Right now is the line between being forced to do what the Joker says and willingly following him.
There really is nothing left for her to go back to.
A moment later she comes back to reality to notice that the Joker has a hostage, some random guy he's holding a knife to- no wait, he's holding a potato peeler to his throat -and leading away. "Coming?" He calls back to her, but doesn't stop walking, and after a horrible, horrible moment of trying to choose what she's going to do, Michelle runs after the Joker to catch up. "Good girl. I was thinking you'd try to run." He sounds at least marginally pleased, and she sighs.
"Yessir."
They hurry out of the building and after a moment, pile into a police car, the Chinese man shoved into the driver's seat. "Take the wheel." She barely hears the Joker tell him, before she opens the door to the back seat and drops into it, not really feeling it. Someone (she already knows who) drops into the seat to her left, and the car starts. His coat sits in her lap, like some horrible sort of purple knife-filled cat (that's a horrendous simile, Michelle notes to herself, and wonders why she even thought of it), and she doesn't notice that the coat is wrapped around a flimsy file with her name on it. Michelle just stares, so blankly, out the window as they tear down the street, the lights of Gotham looking so much brighter than usual on this pitch-black night. She chances a glance at the Joker and he's hanging his head out the window like a dog, and he looks so peaceful, doesn't have a care in the world. She's envious. So much so that she doesn't want to see any longer, and turns back to stare out her own window.
"The night just gets blacker and blacker." She mutters, closing her eyes. There's an odd giggle to her left, or maybe that was just him clearing his throat, she can't tell.