Prompt: The Joker is a master manipulator, capable of making even a practical woman with a doctorate in clinical psychology lose her mind. How did the deranged Clown Prince of Crime turn Dr. Harleen Quinzel into his equally violent lover and sidekick, Harley Quinn?
Harleen stormed through the dim halls of the facility, her ruby pumps clicking on the tile floor and her pale hands balled into fists. With each flicker of the old lamps, she felt her anger do the same. She had finally had enough of his sick, manipulative remarks.
For the past three months, Joker has been twisting her psyche like a handkerchief. She saw the gears turning in his head the first moment she walked into the patient ward. He had his hungry eyes set on her, ready to expose her darkest secrets and most guarded feelings. After the things he said to her in the last session, she couldn't take it anymore. She went home the following night and locked herself in her bedroom for a week. His voice repeated in her ears like an echo, tearing away at her brain. It became so bad that she took a few anti-depressants and sleeping pills, hoping she could pass out and make it go away. If it weren't for her damn gag-reflex, it would've. When she finally returned to work, Warden Sharp saw how thin and exhausted she looked. He had her immediately reassigned to a different patient. Today was her last interview with...him.
As she headed closer to the door of the interviewing room, her stomach did somersaults within her chest as she recalled their last conversation.
"You're drawn to people like me, Harleen," he said in a raspy whisper. "I can't quite put my finger on it, but there's a reason you want to fix me...something that keeps you coming back to me...something deep...something...personal."
"You don't know a goddamned thing about me! " she screamed, kicking her chair aside and storming to the exit.
"No, you're right...I don't. But I plan to...Don't you worry dear, I'll get inside your head one of these days, and then," he laughed, "We'll have a welcoming party..."
Finally, she approached the door. As she reached for the handle, her hands began to shake uncontrollably.
"C'mon Harleen, what are ya' so afraid of?!" she scolded herself. "The only person who knows you is you! What's he gonna do?!"
With a deep, slow breath, she rolled back her shoulders and pulled open the door. The room was barely lit, save for the one rusty lamp hanging from the ceiling. Beneath it was an empty wooden chair and a metal table. Sitting on it was an old tape recorder, withholding all of their grisly conversations. With her lip quivering, she took one uneasy step forward before stopping dead in her tracks. Her eyes cast to the figure shadowed in darkness, hunched in his chair on the other end of the table. The only hints the light gave of his appearance were a small patch of emerald hair and a sickeningly wide grin carved on his lips. Two bright pupils that were focused on the floor moved up like a vine to hers. That wide smile somehow became even wider.
"Harleen?" he muttered in a quizzical tone. "I was wondering where you've been..."
Without a word, Harleen sat in the chair and turned on the tape recorder.
"A little birdy told me you were out sick..." he cooed, "I hope you're feeling better."
Her eyes darted to his. "Fine...thank you," she growled.
"You know, I had to listen to a different therapist talk about my problems last week!" he shouted, slightly annoyed. "There's something so...comforting when you do it. Your presence just makes this place a lot less...lonely."
Harleen's eyes widened in discomfort. His tone was dripping with syrup, so sweet it made her sick.
"Well that's...comforting, thank you."
There was a brief moment of silence, the only noise being the hum of the lamp overhead.
"Aren't you going to ask me some questions, Doc?" Joker muttered curiously.
"I don't know...are ya' goin' to answer them honestly, or are ya' just going to mess with my head some more?"
Joker cackled high in his throat. "Wow! Touch a nerve, did I?! I'm sorry...was it something I said?"
Harleen grimaced as Joker's painted lips folded into a frown and his eyes turned mock-sympathetic.
"Ya' think I couldn't tell, hmm?" she asked, dangerously on edge. "You've been manipulatin' me since the moment we met, tryin' to get me to open up about my past and my life so you could tear away at my feelings and get me to bend before your will!"
Joker held up his cuffed hands defensively. "Yeesh! You really think I'm some kind of evil dictator, don't you? And to think...I was finally ready to...talk."
Harleen's ears perked up as she caught Joker's gaze. "Really?!"
Joker nodded his head, his smile growing. "In fact, I'm ready to have quite a deep conversation about my thoughts."
She leaned in closer, curiosity taking hold. She was finally going to decode the "Clown Prince of Crime".
"Please, go on."
Joker leaned back as if he was preparing to search deep into the depths of his soul."
"Fate has a kind way of ruining everything you love..." he started. "Fate is a joke people use to describe an unexplained chain of events, sometimes to represent a good thing. But, no, not for me. Fate seemed to be my enemy from the start. All the bad days, the nightmares, the endless struggle, it's all just fate pulling on your strings, wanting to tear your mind and body apart limb from limb."
"So...you're sayin' that madness was inevitable for you? It wasn't just that chemical bath that made you this way?"
"No...it was going to happen, chemicals or not. I started to feel the weight of that struggle sinking me down like an anchor on a boat. It seemed that no matter how hard I tried to move through this world, fate pulled me right back down! There came a time when I felt like death was the only thing I could turn to that could keep fate from coming back. But then...from the depths of my subconscious...I heard this little voice pleading with me. It said, "Where's the fun in that?! Why not give fate a taste of its own medicine! Life doesn't have to be a pit of misery! Show fate, show society, show the world that you don't have to let it weigh you down!"
He paused.
"I've got say, the offer was tempting. I could've just tossed away my sorrows and abandoned myself, letting that little voice guide me to a better world. But I couldn't. That little moral compass built into my brain told me to keep the other guy locked away. After all, we fear the unknown. We don't know what will happen if we let ourselves go, can we? So I continued to have this mental battle with myself for some time. But then, there's that little word..."
"Fate," Harleen repeated.
Joker snapped his finger. "Bingo! At first, I thought it was the Bat who pushed me into the chemical bubble bath, but now...I think fate did it. It was only a matter of time before I consulted that person inside that mental cage! Once I hit the pool, all locks on that cell were gone! He got out, set off some fireworks, blew some confetti, took the keys to the car, then locked me in the trunk! But the truth is, I don't mind it so much now! I escaped into playland and I don't ever want to go back to feeling sorrowful! Being crackers is so much more fun!"
"So you feel like letting go of your moral center, letting go of yourself, was the only way to keep you...sane?"
"It's strange, isn't it? It's a total paradox! You have to go crazy to stay sane! It's the only way to feel like you're not drowning on your own!"
Harleen nodded, her mind bathing in his words. Joker sighing brought her attention back.
"But there's one part of the madness contract I didn't read. I was going to be all alone in that magical playland. Sometimes I feel okay knowing that no one can rain on my parade, but the fact remains, there's no one to join in. Sometimes I think it's a road to nowhere and I'm battling it on my own."
"You, a madman who has an entire cult of followers willing to carry out your every order, feels alone?"
"Lack of physical presence isn't the only kind of loneliness. It's the feeling of being lost. You want desperately for someone to find you and understand you, to take the journey to madness with you and see the world through your eyes! You know what I mean, don't you?"
Harleen stopped, knowing full well the feeling he was describing. There were parts of her personality that were secret to only her. She didn't want to give him the opportunity to reach that.
"No...I wouldn't know. How could I? I'm not crazy."
Joker's eyelids became suddenly heavy, his smile stretching to the edges of his cheeks. It was an evil, deceitful, proud smile that sent chills down Harleen's spine. It was the look one would give you if they knew something you didn't, yet on Joker's face, it was highly exaggerated.
"See...the wonderful thing about being insane...you can sense it when others are too," he breathed. "We're like animals on the scent of prey. We can smell it a mile away and you, my dear, wear it like perfume."
Harleen quirked an eyebrow. "What the hell are ya' talkin' about?"
Joker reached a hand under the table and emerged with a file folder, similar to a patient's file. He slid it across to Harleen, looking at her with anticipation.
"Go ahead...open it."
Harleen's hands shook as she flipped open the cover. She gasped in horror as she saw her driver's license photo, medical records, prescriptions, call logs, court summons, and family photos. Tears streamed down her cheeks as her jaw fell open.
"How...h-how...did...you...get...my...FILE?!" she screamed.
"As you said, I have a cult of followers who will do what I ask! Getting my hands on this stuff was child's play! I told you that there had to be a reason why you're drawn to people like me! What I didn't know what that it was so...personal."
Harleen sobbed as she flipped through the paperwork.
Joker smiled wickedly as he sat up proudly in his chair. "Good morning, Ms. Quinzel. How are you this morning?" he mocked. "I'm your new psychiatrist, Doctor J. I'm here to ask you a few questions! Let's start with your childhood, shall we?!"
"Please! I'm beggin' you! I'll do whatever you want, just plea-."
"NO NO! I'm here to help you get it out! Let's start with your...father."
"No...," she sniveled.
"He was a hard-working man, wasn't he? Did everything he could to provide for his family, even if he had to pull the wool over people's eyes to do it! He was a professional con in the criminal underworld, right?"
Harleen shook her head, but there was no denying it anymore. He had her cornered. Joker reached for the file, pulling out one of the papers.
"But I guess all wasn't right in paradise, was it? It says here from this 911 call that he had a bit of a temper!"
"No...please...it wasn't his fault," she choked.
Joker grinned. "No, that's just it! It wasn't his fault. It was the other guy's fault. Your father wasn't right in the head, was he? Had a devil on his shoulder telling him what to do?"
Harleen wiped her nose on her white coat sleeve. "...undiagnosed schizophrenia that progressed into disassociative identity disorder."
"Right! And the other guy led him into some fights, huh? This 911 call was made by your mother. It says...he threatened you and your mommy dearest with a knife? They threw him in jail, but when they found out he was loopy, they sent him to a madhouse, right? Locked him away from you. This didn't sit right with you at all, did it?"
She shook her head. "I...c-couldn't understand w-why...he was the best dad in the world."
"So you went on a personal crusade and tried to fix him. You went to college, got a Ph.D. in psychology, and tried to help him. But you were too late weren't you...he died in that madhouse, didn't he?"
Harleen sputtered, placing her face in her hands.
Joker pulled out the file from the hospital. "And...as if things couldn't get worse...you discovered a little secret about yourself. Figured out that you and your dear departed daddy had a lot in common..."
"I...I'm not crazy...I swear...I'm fine!"
"That's not what it says from this court summons." Joker pulled out another paper. "It says that you had a slight...incident...in ninth grade. Something to do with a girl in your class."
"Her name...was Amy Bradrick. She was a pretty, popular, cheerleader that used to pick on me.."
"You weren't a popular girl in school, were you?"
She shook her head again. "She used to torment me...called me a fat, dorky, bitch. All the things she did to me..."
"But, thankfully, someone stood up for you, didn't she?"
"I didn't ask her to! I told her I could handle it on my own!"
"But she took control of you...that little devil on your shoulder...she took the reins...stood up to little Amy. What did she do, Harleen?"
She winced, the pain of the memory coming back to haunt her. "She...stabbed a fork in her eye."
Joker dissolved into laughter. "Sent her to the ER! She went blind in one eye!"
"I didn't want to, but she forced me to! Amy's parents sued my mother and took us for everything we had! It's a miracle we had my records sealed!"
"See! There's your problem! You're trying to mask it from the world! You take boatloads of medication to try and make the other girl stay away! She's protecting you!"
"SHE ALMOST RUINED MY LIFE!" Harleen screamed, not caring if a soul in Arkham heard.
"You know, I thought my little devil was trying to steer me wrong too. But he saved me, just like she saved you. Think of Amy as the whole of society, staring down their noses at people like us. They don't want us. We're broken to them. They try to "heal" us with pills and therapy, but what does it do? It suppresses us, reminds us of just how useless we are to them! We're outcasts, little-lost boys and girls searching for someone to love us and see the world as we see it! We shouldn't have to live on in misery! We shouldn't have to let fate or society pull on that anchor!"
Joker slowly stood up and walked as far as the chains would let him. He kneeled at Harleen's feet, grasping the tips of her fingers.
"Madness is our escape from the harsh reality of the world, from the judging eyes of the people around us. It allows us a chance to leave all the misery behind and puts our senses in free-fall. Let me help you, Harley. Let me help you get out of that cell. Let me give you a chance to understand people like your father, a chance to understand yourself. Let's take that lonely road together. Be my red queen of bleeding hearts, maker of the mayhem, monarch of madness. Be my Harley Quinn."
He leaned his painted face close to hers. Placing a small kiss on her cheek, he whispered into her ear, "What do you say, Harley?"
She took a sharp breath, cursing herself for her own vulnerability. She closed her eyes, desperately wanting it all to be some bad dream that she'd eventually awake from.
"Hiya, Harleen," a small voice greeted seemingly from nowhere. It was so clear that the person might as well have been in the room. "It's been a while. I'm ready to come out and play now."
Harleen hung her head as the world faded around her.
"This is gonna be so much fun!..."