A/N: Selina Kyle is based on the likeness of Kate Beckinsale; Joan Leland is based on the likeness of Thandie Newton.
Harleen completed the triple handspring across the floor mat and stood straight, back arched and on pointed toes as she raised her hands in the air. She heard the sound of little hands clapping and turned her head to smile at the little girls sitting cross-legged and lined up along the mat.
Saturday morning had come once again and her day was about to begin at the Gotham Academy of Gymnastics and Dance. She had been a student at the Academy when she was a young girl and eventually became an instructor there. It was her way of 'giving back' to the school that had opened so many doors for her in her life.
"Alright, ladies, time to get warmed up." A tall, leggy brunette said stepping onto the mat beside Harleen.
Selina Kyle gave Harleen a curious look, raising an eyebrow before approaching the girls. Harleen sighed, knowing that look was in regard to the bruises she was sporting. Selina had been working there for a couple of years and the two women had a comfortable working relationship. They were both part-time, but very good at what they did and faced scorn from some of the other instructors which had only served to cement their easy friendship.
Harleen stepped off the mat to start the MP3 player and bounced back to stand beside Selina as "Poker Face" by Lady GaGa began to play. It was wholly inappropriate music lyrically, but the girls were too young to understand the context. It was upbeat and fun and that was what Harleen needed right now.
The women led the girls in their warm up and then floor exercises as they did every weekend. The classes began with the youngest girls and then went on with increased age and skill level as the morning progressed. In the afternoon Selina would teach Martial Arts while Harleen taught Ballet.
Once the days' classes ended and the instructors had showered was the dreaded staff meeting. That was when the ten instructors gathered in the cramped office to sneer at one another. Tensions were running particularly high this day as the regional gymnastics and dance competition was fast approaching.
Apparently some of the other 'ladies' didn't think that Harleen was carrying her weight around the Academy as of late, what with being a doctor working with the worst criminal mastermind the City had ever faced and all.
They discussed what Harleen's new schedule would be since she had taken so much time off in recent weeks. She would still be coaching at the competition, but her hours were cut back considerably. Harleen bit the inside of her lower lip so hard she thought it would bleed.
Afterward, Selina caught her arm as the women headed out the door.
"Hey, wanna get a drink?" Selina grinned. Harleen smiled.
"I couldn't think of anything better." She replied.
The women made their way to the Green Lantern Bar and took a seat at a booth along the outer wall. The food was lousy and the men were lecherous, but they liked it all the same.
"Bitches every one of them," Selina said returning from the jukebox which began playing Leslie Gore's "California Nights." She shook her head and gracefully slid onto the bench seat and fixed her soft brown eyes on Harleen.
"So what the hell happened to you?" Selina asked taking a sip of her beer, keeping her gaze on Harleen.
"I got mugged," Harleen replied, averting her gaze.
"You'd be a bad criminal, you're an awful liar." Selina nodded and smirked. "Looks an awful lot like when the Joker choked the Hell outta you. I was called in to cover your class that night, you know. I had plans too."
"With Bruce?" Harleen asked trying to change the subject.
"Nice try. So what happened? He get out of his straightjacket?" Selina prodded.
"He hasn't been in one for months," Harleen said staring at her glass on the table. "There hasn't been a need to restrain him for some time." She looked back at Selina who was staring at her open-mouthed.
"You were with him with no jacket, handcuffs, or anything? For months?" Selina balked with disbelief.
"It's easier to get him to talk when he's unrestrained. Anyway, I shouldn't be discussing this with you." Harleen folded her arms across her chest and sat back.
"You're lucky he didn't kill you." Selina said.
"Who said he did anything? Like I said, I was mugged." Harleen persisted and Selina rolled her eyes.
"Sure, muggers have a penchant for strangling their victims because guns are so overrated." Selina said sarcastically.
"I pissed him off." Harleen said in a quiet voice. Selina looked at her thoughtfully and snorted.
"I'll bet anything its sexual frustration," Selina said in a light, teasing tone. Harleen frowned back at her.
"What?" She balked. Selina laughed.
"You've been seeing each other for months now. He probably thought it was finally time he made his move." Selina grinned. Harleen's mouth dropped open.
"It's not like that at all!" Harleen cried. "He has no interest in me whatsoever! We are not seeing each other! He's my patient!"
"None?" Selina's mouth twisted into a grin and her eye lit with mischief. "The guy has been locked up for over a year, Harley and you're the only woman he has any contact with. I'll bet it was like sex for him. He seems like that kind of a pervert; that he'd get off on just choking the hell out of a woman. Choking you was probably more satisfying to him than choking his…"
"Selina!" Harleen cried out, her cheeks flushed. Selina laughed.
"Next time, just go in there and crawl across the table and tell him you want to run your fingers through his nasty green hair. I'll bet he'd love it." Selina grinned and patted Harleen's hand.
"His hair isn't green anymore." Harleen said looking across the room and sighing.
"Yeah?" Selina said. "What does he look like anyway? I've only seen the pictures on the news where he's in that awful clown make-up."
"Well after the hearing next week, everyone will know." Harleen said sadly focusing on the stained-glass lampshade hanging over the pool table.
"He's blonde." Harleen said absently. "He's handsome, even with the scars. He has beautiful hazel eyes. Sometimes it's hard to think that he's the monster he really is."
"Except when he comes at you and tries to choke you to death," Selina said. Harleen sighed.
"Yeah," she said quietly. She glanced up as a young African-American woman entered the bar and looked around lost. Harleen sat up and waved.
"Joan!" She called. Selina looked around the booth wall and back at Harleen.
"She's your boss?" She asked quizzically.
"Yeah," Harleen replied scooting over making room for Joan Leland who slid in beside her.
Like the other two women, Joan was dressed in jeans and a fitted cotton tee. She fixed a pleasant smile on Selina and extended her hand.
"Hi, I'm Joan, and you must be the Selina I've heard so much about," she said cheerfully. Selina arched a brow at Harleen.
"I come up a lot at the nuthouse?" She said with a hint of sarcasm and the other two women exchanged guilty looks and then faced her again.
"Well I don't know anyone else who's dating Bruce Wayne." Harleen smirked and winked at her.
"You sure about that?" Selina snorted and smiled back. Joan looked between them uncomfortably.
"So how did you meet Bruce Wayne?" Joan asked. Selina relaxed and a soft smile played across her catlike features.
"Well, I work at this crappy coffee shop over in the Narrows and he started frequenting it a while back." She shrugged. "I tend to think it's because he liked the service." She winked. The other women laughed and Selina ordered a round of drinks.
Three rounds later and the 'ladies' were trading obscene stories about friends and ex-boyfriends as well as making narrative commentary on the other bar patrons.
"So I grabbed him by the hair and chased him out of the apartment with a hammer and locked his ass out." Harleen chuckled. Joan looked at her wide-eyed.
"And he was still naked?" She squeaked. Harleen nodded quickly and grinned.
"Yeah, the neighbors called the cops and he was arrested for indecent exposure. Heh, serves the bastard right, he thought he could screw around on me, in my own apartment no less." Harleen smiled at the not too distant memory.
"I knew there was a Hellcat hiding beneath that sweet exterior." Selina smiled, stirring her mojito. Harleen smiled back but paused on the inside.
I know there's something hiding behind that coy little vanilla smile of yours, Harley. Harleen blinked the Joker's words away and turned toward Joan who was speaking.
"Well, he was nothing like that, but our relationship did crash and burn in spectacular fashion nonetheless." Joan sighed.
"What happened?" Selina asked. Joan looked at Harleen from the corner of her eye and sipped her drink before returning her gaze to Selina.
"He just wasn't the man I thought he was." Joan said and then coughed into her hand and smiled politely. "Anyway, my Grandma is after me to move back to Detroit and find a man there." Joan said shaking her head.
"She says Gotham is just full of a bunch of 'crazy white boys' who are trying to blow up the City. Like all the decent men are in Detroit." Joan said rolling her eyes.
"She does have a point there." Selina said tilting her head and sipping her drink.
"There aren't any nice guys in Gotham." Harleen mused.
"Hey, speak for yourself, toots! I found myself a billionaire." Selina laughed and poked at Harleen across the table.
"Does he make you laugh?" Harleen asked.
"He doesn't make me cry." Selina replied.
"I miss my crazy white boy." Joan said propping her elbows on the table and sighing dramatically as her chin fell into her hands.
The girls all laughed and ordered another round. Before long Selina dragged Harleen from the booth and they were dancing to the music playing on the jukebox. Selina, being the taller of the two, spun Harleen and they engaged in a drunken Tango.
"I think that guy's checking you out," Selina 'whispered' loudly in Harleen's ear, her breath heavy with alcohol.
"What guy?" Harleen said looking around; Selina grabbed her face in her hands.
"Don't be so obvious about it. Over in the corner, green suit, brown hair." Selina said. Harleen tried to glance without being obvious only to see a figure retreating to the exit.
"Damn, well I suppose it wasn't meant to be, Harley." Selina giggled and hugged her tightly. "Don't worry, I still love you, baby."
"You're quite drunk." Harleen said poking Selina in the side.
Harleen leaned back in her office chair and tossed a file onto her desk and blew a breath out as she swiveled her chair and glanced out the window. She'd left the bar and come back to Arkham to sit in her office and look over the files of the other four patients she was treating.
However, being sober would probably help. She giggled and took a long drink of her coffee and stood up to stretch.
The Joker had consumed so much of her time and attention lately that she hadn't been reviewing her other cases to the extent she should have been.
Joker was a full-time job but as Doctor Arkham and the new ADA Anthony Hall had made it clear the other day, he wouldn't be for long. They too had noticed the bruises on her face and neck and Harleen had come up with her 'mugging' cover story.
She still wanted to try to get through to the Joker, keep him in the Asylum. Anywhere else he was dead; it was only a matter of time. She knew if given enough time she could get through to that part of him that was still a rational, if sick, person. She could find a way to strip him of the anger and violence which consumed the Joker.
And she would have to begin with his obsession over Batman.
Since Batman had left the scene after the Joker's capture, Joker had been despondent, like someone missing their lover. Harleen always hated the comparison, but she could not deny how Joker's eyes lit up and his mood brightened whenever someone brought up Batman.
Then there was his insistence that Batman was innocent of his crimes. He would tell anyone who would listen that Batman didn't kill anyone, insisting that if he would kill anyone it would have been Joker. Joker had endured a long recovery of the leg that Batman had broken when he shot a grappling hook though it; and he still held a bizarre affection toward the man.
"It's not every day a man finds his other half." Joker had happily told her one day.
This of course supported Harleen's assertion that Joker held no interest in her as she'd told Selina. If she could only see the way he looked when he talked about his enemy.
His obsession over Batman was boundless and he's even concocted a story that Batman's crimes had been committed by the late Harvey Dent. That he'd somehow convinced the former District Attorney to go after the people responsible for the death of his fiancée and the police had framed Batman to preserve Dent's image.
Then there was the matter that he didn't believe that Harvey Dent was really dead and was recovering in secret somewhere. Joker was sure that Dent would reemerge and wreak havoc over the City in the name of Rachel Dawes.
Joker also thought that Batman had been screwing Rachel.
Joker had told Harleen more about Batman than he had about himself.
"Aren't we supposed to talk about whatever I want to?" He'd asked innocently when Harleen had insisted that they change the subject from Batman. Then he'd gone back to talking about chaos and the evils that men do and how boring Harleen was.
He loved pushing her buttons. She smiled at the memory of the one time he'd said anything about her that could be construed as sexual.
"Nice tits. I'm sure they're real 'cause I don't think they make fake ones that small." He'd said maliciously.
Yeah, Selina, he was really interested in her.
"Batman and Joker sitting in a tree K I S S I N G," Harleen giggled and finished her cup of coffee. She walked over to the small, two-cup coffee maker in the corner of her office. She poured some water from a bottle into the top and flipped the switch on.
"Oh, why waste your time with him, when you could have me?" She said in a pleading voice while making a pouting face. She laughed at herself and closed her eyes.
As the brown liquid began filling the glass pot she heard the unmistakable clicking of the door latch and turned to see her office door opening.
A chill ran through her body as she watched him enter, the only sound was that of her mug as it shattered at her feet.
She had never been so sober in her life.