This chapter needed to be heavily edited in order to be posted on FFN. If you want to read the unedited chapter, you can do so on the AO3 version of this story. If you do, please heed the warning and tags.
Out of all the sensations that could be felt in the human body, Harley would vouch that fear was the most overwhelming one. It worked into the bone. Became one with the flesh. And that's what fear did to Harley when the Joker stepped out of the elveator, and into the room.
Nausea. Dizziness.
An annoying ringing in her ear.
All of it came full force as footsteps came closer to her. She could hear more footsteps, and looked to see a handful of men behind her lover, aiming guns into the air to secure the room. Instinct told her what to do, despite the murderous look on his face that sent enough tremors through her spine strong enough to break it. A pained grunt wheezed out of the man next to her feet, and she used his pain to glorify herself to the Joker in an last ditch effort to soothe the Joker. Harley didn't quite know what caused that look to return, but she knew it was addressed to her. In her trance of fear, her senses seemed heightened to immeasurable extremes - able to feel the earthquakes caused by his steps toward her, and the tornadoes caused by his impatient, angry breaths.
"P-Puddin..." she started, pointing toward a wounded Spider-Man and a murdered Two-Face, "I got em' for you, Puddin'. I-I-"
Harley's body violently flinched at the cold touch of the Joker's hands around her arm. Grabbing her forearm, he took his free hand to yank the pistol from her. A steel flash gleamed in front of her in an instant, and she found herself crashing down onto the floor from the pistol whip. Peter felt the massive thud next to him, and opened his strained eyes to see blood splatter next to him. He followed it by centimeters up into Harley's petrified face. A black, bloody hole seemingly substituted her mouth, lips only distinguishable by the slight tremble as more blood seeped through them. It was then that he noticed a small, bony protrusion sticking out of the little pool of blood next to her chin.
Was that a tooth?
Harley's eyes locked into Peter's as the Joker's shoes parked themselves in his peripheral.
The fear in her eyes...
Peter had no idea it was possible for a human to feel such pain. He could see it. He could feel it. It sent him into a trance that made her eyes seem bigger and bigger by the second, until for a moment, the world had become nothing but her trembling eyes - massive windows into a soul that was on the verge of collapse. Those windows were shattered, world torn apart as Peter was brought back down to Earth when the Joker grabbed a handful of blonde. Giving once last look at each other, Peter could've sworn her mouth "Help me" or "Please help," either one of the two, before the Joker dragged her up to her feet by her hair.
Reluctantly, she gave into his will, standing back onto her feet. An unexpected kiss met her lips. Squeezing the side of her cheeks, her left side still raw from the hit just seconds ago, she moaned in pain into his mouth, before he disconnected their touch just as quickly. He licked the smeared red circle around his lips with his tongue and looked at her as she started breaking down, throwing herself into a fit of jagged cries.
"I want you quiet." The Joker's tone was eerily deep, dripping with a poison that suffocated the room. Following his command, he cupped his hand around her mouth to stifle her cries. He couldn't help but find himself amused by how his smiling hand tattoo sat against her mouth, providing a stark contrast to the horror and pain on her face. Hesitant feet backed up toward the doors. They were from the soldiers, unsure of whether or not they should be present for one of the Joker's violent outbursts. Their question was answered when he turned around and waved his hand nonchalantly.
"Don't get cold feet on me now, boys," he reassured, out of breath from the uncontrollable anger building up inside. "You're welcome to watch."*
First, the Joker paced around with his hands in his pockets. "You never listen, Harley. I told you to stay put! Then, you not only disobey me, but you ruin my five-star show! Ask Veck-" The Joker paused and corrected himself with a chuckle. "Well, if the bastard was still alive, that is. Ask him what my one goal was for this mission! Do you know?!"
A sorrowful wheeze came out of Harley as a response, her pure fear preventing her from even forming a coherent sentence.
"It was for Two Face to be brought to me breathing! BREATHING!" The Joker ran over to her and choked her with his two hands. "BREAAATHIIING!
"Yes! He was going to die! But by my hand! MY! HAAAAND!"
As a cry for help, she reached out her hand and used her remaining strength to gently caress the Joker's cheek.
He yelled, slapped her hand away. "Why couldn't it have been you?! Why are YOU the one still breathing?! Why are YOU the one always screwin' up my plans?! WHY WON'T YOU LEAVE ME ALONE?!"
The Joker took his hands from Harley's throat and back slapped her so hard, Peter could've sworn he broke her neck. Agony was the only thing that coursed through Peter's veins. Knowing that this was how Harley was treated on a daily basis for God knows how long, destroyed him.
He couldn't move in his pain. Couldn't even breathe.
Peter could only stare in fright at the suffering the Joker bestowed upon the woman that loved him unconditionally. The Joker closed his eyes, tilted his head up to his ceiling and ran his hand through his slicked hair.
"Harley…" the Joker groaned. His tone was oddly dark, almost sounding defeated.
Harley whimpered on the ground, waiting for the Joker's bout of fury to pass over. It wouldn't come.
"...I'm so tired of you, Harley. So I'll use you for the only thing you're good for. One. Last. Time. And then kill you like you killed Harvey Dent. How's that for goin' out with a 'bang'?" The Joker tossed his head back in laughter, amused at his own disgusting pun.
Fully sobbing now, Harley shook her head and shriveled up. "No. John, no..." she choked out from the blood pooling in the back of her throat, clumsily dripping out of her mouth.
"Don't call me 'John!'"
She ignored him, pleading, sliding down dejectedly onto her knees. "You promised, John. You promised me you would never do this to me again..."
"My fingers were crossed." The Joker looked down at her with emotionless eyes. "You are gonna make my pain go away. And since you're already on those filthy knees of yours, you're off to a fantastic start."
Everything went black, still, and cold to Peter when he heard those words. What did the Joker mean by that? A multitude of horrifying scenarios ran through his head, settling on one that gave him more pain than the bullets embedded within him.
Could it...?
No.
No one could be that evil...
Could they?
Time couldn't be wasted guessing. Pain washed over Peter in waves, but he still found strength to stand onto his feet. After all, his healing factor would kick in soon, if it hadn't already. Holding an arm across his upper chest, Peter stumbled toward the Joker.
"Hey, grngh, you bastard," Peter groaned out through his pained grimaces, drool and tears dripping off his chin.
Automatic rifles trained onto him from the sudden movement. "Boss, look out!" They didn't shoot, but the Joker heeded their warning. He exercised surprising speed, wrapping his arms around Peter's neck in a maneuver that he was too incapacitated to properly deal with.
In a chokehold, the Joker clenched his metal teeth towards Peter's ear as he growled into it. "And you! You pesky fuckin' punk! Why won't you stay dead?!"
Gloved fingers reached for the pistol in his coat, before he paused and reached for one of his "party tricks" instead - a long needle filled to the brim with exact substance that went into his products that contained the deadly laughing gas.
"This time, you won't crawl your way out of this one."
Before Peter could retaliate, the Joker stabbed Peter over and over and over with the needle into his stomach. With one last stab, the Joker buried the needle in as deep as it would go, giving it a generous shake to make sure not a drop was spared. Proudly, the Joker flung the needle out and laughed, tripping Peter down next to Harley's feet. The little sympathy Harley had left was no longer felt for herself or anything in the world. She'd wished to die a long time ago and for the world to burn along with it. But now, sympathy went to the young man lying mutilated on his back, two wounds in his body, and at least ten different stab wounds into his body.
A silent prayer was said for Peter through closed eyes as the Joker approached her again. Harley only wished she could give him a swift death like she intended. For somebody she deemed so misguided and reckless, he deserved that much.
Harley's eyes shut and snapped her head away as the Joker took her for himself. So exposed. It was a disgusting scene. Made even worse when she looked past the Joker to see that his thugs were scratching at their rising erections. Peter could see them too, even as he felt the substance take over his motor controls. It seared him and burned him through the inside out like a fire. And there was nothing he could do about it. Only wish that he could stop involuntarily laughing at the terrible scene he heard with his ears.
And that was the lowest he ever felt in his life.
Ever.
Every moment of the rape, Peter saw in explicit detail as he laughed. Even so, he desperately pushed his body to crawl toward them, still laughing, though he could feel the fire inside getting cooler.
All of it.
Everything about this was the sickest thing Peter had ever experienced. But he could never imagine the pain that Harley was going through. Through her pain, she opened her reddened eyes and looked into Peter's. Never before had he ever seen a person look at him with such humiliation and regret. But the next thing that happened was the final straw.
"I think I've changed my mind, Harley. Maybe I'll keep you around so that you can bear my child after all. A new sibling for your deceased son! How does that sound Harls! Huh?!"
Harley's eyes shot open. It was the most fear that she had ever felt. "No! Please! John, please! I'M BEGGING YOU! GOD, PLEASE DON'T DO THIS TO ME!"
And that was enough for Peter to hear. His laugh's got slower, throatier. An aggressive bite could be heard towards the end of them. Grimacing through his teeth with his veins bulging out of his neck, Peter laughed away the remains of the substance within him as his fast acting antibodies took care of it. It helped that his body had been exposed to the substance before, which probably helped to speed up the process. Deep, angry growls transformed from the laughs, and with one full take, Peter hollered in anger at the top of his lungs as his body victoriously fought off the substance.
Spider-Man was back.
"I'm almost there, you useless bitch!"
"NO! YOU'RE DEAD!" Peter bolted up and rammed himself into the Joker, sending the man careening into the machine gun on the side of the room.
"Shoot that son of a bitch!" Bullets sprayed in a frenzy at Peter as he rolled away, drawing the fire from Harley on the ground. Seizing an opening as some of the thugs reloaded and others zipped up their pants, Peter fastened on his right web shooter and began plugging up the gun barrels. But then he heard rustling to his left and saw her.
Harley scrambled onto her feet, screamed at the top of her lungs and ran straight for the glass window leading outside.
"HARLEY! NO!" Peter shouted.
He bolted after her but was too late to do anything. Glass shattered everywhere as she powered through and willfully sentenced herself to her own death. Peter slid onto the ground, belly first, letting the glass cut into his clothes, skin, and gunshot wound. He supported himself with his left arm and reached his other arm over the edge to fire a string of webs into the dark.
This time, he hoped he'd make it. That his web save the woman he loved. Not take her life. And just when everything went to slow motion, he heard a angry holler above him, and saw red take over his vision. A boot had been launched into his face.
"Not so fast, Spider-punk!" A thug said over him.
He shot bullets at the ground as Peter rolled away before shooting a web into the thug's face.
"Gah!" The web stunned him, making him trip and drop the gun.
Peter gritted his teeth.
No holding back.
Not anymore. He pulled on his web and launched the man toward him, sending all his strength into his left fist - past the pain from his wounds. And past the pain in his heart…
Blood and pieces of shattered bone coated Peter's knuckles. The other two goons pulled out their pistols and started firing at Peter. Peter reached for the man he killed, quickly picked him back up and used him as a human shield to make a way across the office. Peter's human shield sucked up all the bullets like a sponge until Peter threw the man into the nearest goon. Before the other had time to react, Peter tackled him to the ground and yanked the gun from him.
Taking the gun into his own hands, Peter pulled on the trigger multiple times, right into the thug's chest. With each bullet that Peter fired, he screamed in pure anger for Harley and his life in general. He emptied the clip, stood up over the decimated corpse, and tossed the gun. The final thug shoved the meat shield off of him and looked in horror as Peter approached him, his eyes nearly on fire from his rage. He stood over him and cracked his knuckles with a single hand.
Sirens could be heard directly outside now. Law enforcement was on his heels, but Peter could care less.
"The cops won't save you from me. No one will."
He backed up against the wall and pleaded for mercy. "Please, man, it ain't that serious, 'kay! J-Just chill out!"
"Is that when you thought when you got yourself off to Harley getting raped?!" Peter grabbed his victim by the shirt and began wailing haymakers onto his face.
Normally, Peter always pulled his punches, but he didn't feel a need to with this scumbag. It wasn't long before the bones in his face were starting to cave in. Peter could hear the muffled sounds of the police breaking into the building, but he drowned it out and let himself continue to black out in his rage. He felt a hand grab his right arm and whipped his head to the right.
It was Batman.
"You've done enough," Batman insisted, referring to the man who was well past dead underneath Peter, his face all sorts of disfigured.
Batman slightly rotated his arm and studied the broken device on Peter's wrist. It couldn't be anymore obvious that the kid before him was the infamous Spider Man, coupled with the web shooter and the incident the other night. Batman desperately wanted to chastise him for not following advice by stating away from criminals. But Batman had to be urgent. On top of that, there was the condition of the "kid"… bloodied and beaten with obvious gunshot wounds that seemed to affect him. Batman simply grunted and frowned at Peter.
"Where is the Joker?" Peter's eyes shot open and panic hit him like a truck.
That's right. The Joker. That cockroach.
How could he be so blinded and distracted to forget about him?
Through a painful wince, "Where'd he go?!" He shoved Batman off of him and paced left and right around the room. "WHERE'D HE GO?!" A jolt hit Peter's brain as his thoughts of the Joker snapped toward Harley. No. She was the priority. Not the Joker. His death could wait. Peter raced to the shattered window. Leaning over and looking down the multiple stories, he could see nothing below him but a swarm of police cruisers, ambulances everywhere, and a loose, black web swinging gently in the breeze.
No one was there. And Peter could only assume that the rapid back and forth of the paramedics below were for Harley's body. Batman only stood, watched and studied the frantic behavior of Spider Man. All it took was one good look at his eyes to see how far gone the man was. How dead inside he was. Peter stumbled over to Batman and put both his fists on Batman's chest.
"You have to help me find him!"
Batman grabbed Peter by his shirt and pinned him up against the nearest wall. "You need to pull yourself together!"
Before Bruce could chastise the young man any longer, he got a transmission from Catwoman. He touched his right ear with two fingers and let her speak. "Hey, Vengeance. We got the perimeter secured. No sign of the Joker. Looks like these bastards got away with how they trashed Dent's palace."
Batman grunted and replied. "Continue rounding up the suspects. I'll be down there shortly."
"Actually… I ran into a little… issue. I'll catch up with you later, hun."
"Selina, wai-" The transmission cut off before he could finish.
Batman tapped his ear a couple of times, hoping it was just a technical issue, but sure enough, her voice never came back. He turned back toward Peter and let him have it.
"Look at you. You've gone too far. This is why I told you not to look for Quinn. You don't have the maturity to stomach the world in its darkest form, because that is what the Joker and Harley are. Do you really want to become like them?" Batman said, pointing at the decimated bodies that were a result of Peter's rage. He let go of Peter, giving him space to collect himself. "Do you want to become as violent as them? As ruthless as they are?" A tear escaped Peter's eye again as Batman's words hit home. "Every step you take down this path is a step further from humanity."
Peter shook his head and slowly stepped away. It was obvious to Batman that he was on the verge of a mental breakdown. Batman approached slowly, carefully trying not to provoke him any further. Peter looked back and forth between his two hands, then up at Batman. There it was. That look in his eyes. The look of someone mentally snapping.
"Easy there…" Just like he had expected, Peter turned around and bolted for the window. "Stop!" Before he knew it, Peter had jumped out.
By the time Batman made it outside, Peter was nowhere to be found.
At Her Breaking Point...
There was a heartbeat.
Then silence.
Then another heartbeat...
The pattern continued until consciousness was established. And then finished when Harley Quinn opened her eyes.
At first, there was a blinding light above her. But soon, her surroundings were rounded out as her eyes adjusted to the light. Those same senses proceeded to overwhelm with pain in every last inch of her body, and a disgusting feeling of fire in the areas she was violated at. It was a terrible feeling. Like cold hands were still there touching her when she didn't want them to.
And that is when Harley closed her eyes again in regret. Regretful to know that she was still alive. Regretful to know that she even survived her suicide attempt. Regretful to know that the man she sacrificed herself twice for, would rape her. Again.
Harley could hear voices. They sounded frantic and in panic. With her eyes still closed, she could also decipher that she was in some sort of makeshift bed. She would need more information that only her eyes could provide her, if she wanted to know where she really was. But she kept them closed. Because she just didn't want to be there. Why did she have to survive her fall? How did she survive her fall? Curiosity strangled her mind as her eyebrows furrowed, but even still... she kept those eyes closed. She just didn't want to open them. No matter what.
Harley could feel the left side of the bed gain extra weight. Someone sat down next to her.
"Good. You're awake."
Harley recognized this voice.
"Harley...? You can hear me, right?"
With regret, Harley fought past the pain. Fought past the lingering feeling of hands touching her in places she never wanted to surrender to anyone ever again.
She opened her eyes.
It was Catwoman. Mask off. And tears staining her eyes.
Selina gently took Harley's right hand in her own, and placed a glass to her palm. "Here. Drink water."
Harley only stared at her. Then, she looked past Selina, toward two women that appeared to be nurses - professional, yet unprofessional at the same time. Harley concluded that she wasn't in a hospital, rather, in an underground clinic. Most likely one that Selina used herself.
With her head fixed into place, Harley drug her eyes to look around the room. It looked more like a small studio than anything. Then, her eyes found Selina's again.
Selina nodded, reassuring Harley that everything was okay. "You're safe. No one knows you're here. You're far away from...-" Selina let in a jagged inhale, evidence that she'd been crying. "-...from everything."
Dragging her eyes to the glass in Selina's hand, she stared at it before opening her mouth that was caked shut with blood, to roar out and punch the glass away.
Selina didn't flinch. She just let it happen. Let Harley do whatever she needed to do to get it out. To get everything out. Because Selina knew how she felt. She knew how it felt to be inside your body, yet outside at the same time. As if your body didn't belong to you anymore. Like it was used and discarded, and left with you, like you were somehow supposed to use it like you always had.
Selina knew how Harley felt.
That's why she grabbed Harley's trembling hand, and let the woman scream at the top of her lungs, for as loud and as long as she needed to.
At His Breaking Point...
He couldn't do it.
He couldn't push the button.
Peter's thumb hovered over the "call" button under the name "Old Man" in his phone. He knew he needed to flee Gotham and confide in his surrogate father. But he just couldn't admit that he failed.
He couldn't admit that he bit off more than he could chew.
He thought about all his options, the most popular one being that he hunt down and brutally murder the Joker for what he did to the woman that somehow stole his blackened heart. But somewhere along his journey, Peter lost his edge. Pure anger and hatred for all things evil no longer motivated him. Now, as he finally worked up the courage to dial the number, the only thing that motivated him was misery.
The phone rang for seconds until it went to voicemail.
Peter swallowed a lump in his throat, on the verge of tears again.
Truly alone, he knew there was no one else to talk to. Especially now, since he believed Harley to be dead. He hung up the voicemail and redialed the number. "C'mon… please…" A few seconds more of ringing, and Peter finally heard that all too familiar groggy groan come from the other side of the line. "Pete… that you?" Peter struggled to contain his trembling voice and answered.
"Coulson… I need you… I need you so bad."
