"So...what now?"
Michelle asks, dully, as the car comes to a stop outside that lovely warehouse she's not looking forward to walking back into. The Joker pulls the coat out of her arms and opens his door, slamming it shut and pulling his coat on- Michelle is still inside the car and can't him put it on too well, but it looks like he's tucking something away -quickly, before she gets out and he glances at her.
"Well," He begins, pulling on a spare pair of gloves from his pocket, "Whatever I feel like. You should've learned that by now, Missy." She just stares on, eye twitching slightly. "You're kind of useless, but I guess that everyone was at some point in time, too. You'll learn." He flashes her a smile, a rather deranged one, and she breaks eye contact and looks to the Chinese man still sitting in the car, not wanting to get out.
"What about this guy?" She asks, tapping her foot on the door. But when she looks back, the Joker is already walking towards the building, ignoring them almost, as a couple masked thugs (where do they all come from, Michelle thinks, since she for some reason has thought that he would be running out of people willing to work for him, since everybody that works for him dies) walk out and grab the Chinese man, and her as well.
"Bring 'im." She thinks she hears the Joker call back, but can't be sure as one thug drags her towards the building and the other drags the as-of-yet-unnamed man too. So she's still treated as a prisoner, which kind of makes sense, since there's been no confirmation that she's not just trying to play them so that she can escape.
"Easy, easy!" She snaps at the masked man dragging her, and he just drags her harder in response, so she gives up as they walk into the building. It's still dim, dingy, smells like rot and mothballs (and blood, she notes), and though there are less masked thugs than before, they're still there, ambling around listlessly, playing cards, doing regular thug things. At least, Michelle thinks they're thug things; she hasn't ever been a thug before (though she's probably going to be pretty soon), and so she wouldn't really know. They drag her along, and toss her back in her room. Again. She wants to scream.
And, well, she does.
"MOTHERFUCKER." She shrieks, once, kicking the wall as hard as she can. Then she sits down, and she stares at the door, and goddammit all, she waits.
He's humming something as he strolls down the familiar hallways, a concrete jungle, her file in his hands. It'll be a good way to kill some time, at least, and if she starts giving him trouble, he can just traumatize her again. Maybe break the light for her room and let her rot in the dark for a day or two; that would work. The masked goons are parting like the Red Sea as they see the Joker, and he ignores them as he heads into his small office. And he drops into a rusted steel chair (it's going to break under him one day, he knows it will, but that's what makes this chair his favorite) and flips it open, skipping the boring parts like her blood type and finger prints.
"Now, let's see why Missy hates the dark."
It only takes a minute or two of reading the police file before he starts laughing.
Michelle is pissed.
She hasn't eaten in god knows how long, and all they throw her is an apple core. She's starving, and angry, and chewing on an apple core that's already been slobbered all over. She had thought it was a good idea to follow the Joker out of the PD, but now she's having second thoughts. How long has it been since they came back to the warehouse hideout? She had fallen asleep, so she now has no idea; it was dawn when they arrived, it could be any time now. Maybe a day, maybe two, maybe it's only been a couple hours. It's probably only been a couple hours.
The door opens and she glances up, glaring at the Joker as he smiles at her (she's too angry to notice that the way he's smiling isn't normal, isn't natural; there's something horrible about to happen but she can't see it). "What do you want?" She snaps, forgetting that hey, you're in his world again, you'd better not be such a dumb bitch, as he shuts the door behind him.
"Moody today? Can't imagine why, Harley." He drags out her middle name and to Michelle, it sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard.
"Don't call me that." She growls, and doesn't even realize her mistake as he ambles towards her, easily.
"Why not? Personally, I always liked that name."
"Yeah, I'm really going to listen to what you like. You're crazy." Michelle still doesn't recognize her stupidity, at least, not until he grabs her by the back of the neck and drags her to the lone chair (bolted down) in the room..
"You know, I'm not. Really." He starts, speaking almost dismissively as she tries to fight him off and he slams her into the wall. "Everyone always says it though; I'm so cray-zee. But I'm not." Blood runs down the side of Michelle's face and she presses a hand over the cut on her forehead reopened by the slamming, still trying to shove him away from her. "But, I'll tell you what's really crazy. Crazy is a woman that stays with the husband that beats her until she can't see straight, because he loves her, he doesn't mean it." He grabs her wrists as she tries to punch him, and he presses his thumb against her forefinger and presses it back until it snaps, while she screams. "Crazy is all the little people on Wall Street running around like ants when the stock market dips a few inches." Michelle tries to slam her foot down on his and he slides it out of the way, before slamming his knee between her legs; he hits bone, and he hits it hard. Instantly, her knees go weak and she drops, only held off the floor by the hand in her hair. "Crazy is a wife leaving her devoted husband when he takes a knife to himself to make her happy again." He shakes her hard at that, her head hanging limply on her shoulders.
"Crazy," He says it quietly in her ear, already pulling her back towards the bolted down chair, "Is the reason you scream like a cat when the lights go out."
As soon as he tells her that, she jerks her head up to look at him, her eyes wide, mouth agape. He laughs in her face at the sight of it.
"That's right, I know. I've got to say, it's a pretty tragic story. For a minute," He throws her in the chair, and when she tries to shoot out of it and run towards the door, he socks her in the eye and she falls back into the chair, limply. "I thought it was some kind of mediocre Shakespeare play. It was so tragic it looped back to hilarious." He snatches her hands and walks around behind the chair, handcuffing them there. "Stalker comes in and kills your parents, kidnaps you, at what, age fifteen? Ah, it doesn't matter. Keeps you in his pitch black basement, chained to the wall, for three years." He adds too much inflection on random words, barking them in her ear with a terrifying sort of glee at seeing her begin to shake. "Poor baby." He pats her cheek as he says it, seeing her begin to cry, before laughing and continuing on, already walking over to grab the extra rope laying in the corner of the room. "Then, one day, he unties you because you've been good. And what do you do to pay him back for that? You beat him to death with a chunk of concrete." He walks back, almost skipping really, faking a frown at her. "Not nice. I hope you're not thinking about trying that with me." He ties her up so that she can't move at all, getting more excited for the reaction once she actually figures out what he's going to do, instead of wallowing in her bad memories.
"Isn't the world a funny thing?" The Joker asks her suddenly, and she jerks her head up to look at him, tears streaming down her cheeks, and she just stares. He's not looking at her, staring off at the wall without a smile, and Michelle hangs on every word. "People say that there's good, that there's justice, but you know better, don't you? You know all about the world, and all its random injustice." He looks back to her, and for some reason, she gets hopeful that he's going to let her go, that he's going to pity her. "That's why I like you, Michelle. That's the only reason you're still alive." He smiles and pats her cheek again, and for one horrific moment, she lets her hope show in her face, in her eyes. And he starts laughing, and her face drops.
"Oh, are you getting hopeful?? You're hilarious, Missy, did you know that? I tell you that you're only alive because I like you, and you think that's good!" He turns and strolls towards the door, before pulling a gun and shooting the one fluorescent light in the room, sinking it into blackness. She starts screaming.
"Don't!! Oh god, please, don't leave me!! Please!! I'll do anything!! Don't leave me here!!" She shrieks, trying to pull out of her bonds, and she finds out that she can't move at all. She continues to scream after him and he stops in the doorway, seeming to think for a moment, before turning around and walking back towards her. She looks so relieved, and smiles up at him slightly as he comes to stand in front of her chair again.
"I knew I'd probably need this."
Michelle watches with a cold pit in her stomach as he pulls out a roll of duct tape, tearing off a piece with his teeth. She starts screaming, "No no no!!" over and over again, trying to lean back in her chair and away from him, and he just smooths the strip of tape over her mouth, muffling her screaming. The Joker seems pleased with this, smiling, before turning around and walking towards the door.
"Now, don't run off anywhere, Missy." She hears him say, with a slight laughing tone to his voice, before he slams the door behind him and the room goes pitch black. She starts shrieking.