This Mad World

Shadow Of The Bat

His breath was hot in her ear, even hotter than the blood pounding through her head as her heart beat madly against her ribs. So hot, so wet against her skin, and she could hear the horrid whistling of air in his throat before it morphed itself into a phlegmy laughter.

"You and I are going to take a walk," Joker whispered in her ear, voicing the words like a lover."This way, sugar."

His hands were still on her, holding her still while he dragged her along a dark, endless corridor. Every glass door they passed showed another Joker inside a cell. One tied to the ceiling, one bouncing off the walls in a straightjacket, one rocking in the corner and laughing maniacally, one casually sharpening a knife while whistling a cheerful tune, one sitting in a chair made from human skin—

"See? A nice home for you and me," Joker leered into her ear as they stopped in front of an empty cell. Except, as she stared, she realized it wasn't empty. There was someone standing in the corner, head down, posture submissive and obedient. "Oh darling~!" Joker sang and it was the worse sound Harleen had ever heard in her life. She immediately felt a cold sweat break out over her body.

The woman in the corner lifted her head, and Harleen saw that it was her.

She woke up screaming, jerking upright with the sheets tangled around her limbs from the thrashing she had done in her sleep. There was sweat covering her body and her heart was pounding even out of her nightmare, causing her whole body to shake with it. It took her a frantic, panicked moment before she could tear her limbs free of the blankets and sit freely on the bed.

REM sleep, when the most vivid dreams occur, when the brain is most active during sleep. The limbic system, the center of emotions and the expression of them, and the storage of memories. Major parts included the hippocampus, vital to storing memories and spatial navigation, the hypothalamus, important for regulating sleep and hormones, and that goddamned amygdala. Controls the fight or flight response. Essential to experiencing and handling certain emotions, the most notable of them being fear.

Harleen trembled, listening to her brain pick itself apart in an attempt to rationalize and categorize all of the recent fears and emotions that had been welling up in her over the past few days, all hopelessly as her thoughts always jerked back to Joker when she was the most vulnerable. Not even in her sleep, in her own apartment, could she avoid him.

Just like that her tears came welling up inside of her like a flood and she buried her face in her pillow and cried. She and her pillow had become well-acquainted with her tears these past few days, but nothing she could do could stop them when they came. She screamed and cried, reducing herself to an inconsolable mess within a few seconds as her wild emotions ran rampant inside of her. God when she got a hold of herself her and her limbic system were going to have a nice, long discussion about what was appropriate for her to feel and not feel on a regular basis.And she was going to pound her amygdala into a pulp because was getting tired of putting up with its shit.

A sudden flood of shame and humiliation and blessed anger came through her and she pushed herself out of her pillow, still sniveling and her face soaked, and jumped to her feet. She was barely thinking at all, her frontal lobe clearly on a nice, long-overdue vacation that had been piling up since she first started college. The fucker. In the driver's seat for so long and then letting her midbrain take care of her after the first traumatic experience she ever had in her life.

Operating only on instinct and emotion and the barest trickle of logic, she stripped out of her clothes, leaving them behind her in a trail as she went to jump in the shower. Harleen didn't even bother to turn it on until she was already in the tub and the initial blast of cold water made her shriek, but she didn't jump out and waited for it to warm up. If anything the sensation was like a slap, jerking her out of her downward spiral and letting her think clearly for a moment.As the water poured down her body, she began to feel herself calming down. Slowly, but still. The shower was a wonderful, cozy place where she could always unwind and relax at the end of a long day, the warm water and scent of soap coaxing her into a state of ease no matter what.

Thanks for explaining that one, Pavlov.

Harleen lingered for what was an entirely unnecessary amount of time, but she was going to stay for as long as she liked thank you very much. She even bothered to wash herself again even though she had already done that before going to bed, if anything because she liked smelling like her favorite strawberry shampoo.

When she came into her kitchen, wrapped in her fluffiest bathrobe and feeling miles better about herself than when she first woke up, she glanced at the clock. 3:12 am, just great. This was her last day of her three-day impromptu vacation that Jeremiah Arkham had given her in the wake of Joker's escape attempt and she was going to walk into work later without even a good night's sleep. He had even offered to transfer her to some other asylum in the city, but Harleen had refused, much to everyone's confusion.

But she couldn't even explain it to herself. While she absolutely did not want to see Joker in her life ever again, she knew that working in Arkham Asylum would make that impossible, and he wasn't the only highly dangerous criminal they housed in their walls. Yet, would running away really solve the problem? The mental scars were already there, nothing she could do to change it now, and even if she was physically separated from Joker, she knew she would never truly escape him. Not when her own mind was against her. And there was that tiny little fact that she had been trying and utterly failing to ignore ever since the offer came up, the one she kept resolutely telling herself did not play any part whatsoever in her decision-making process.
Moving out of Arkham Asylum meant that she would almost certainly never see Batman ever again.

Of course four days ago that had never bothered her. In fact if the subject had been brought up she might have laughed. "Well of course I would never see Batman!" she would have said with a cheerful, indulgent smile. "After all, no one does! The only person who really sees him on a somewhat regular basis is Commissioner Gordon and he can only get into contact with him by blaring a giant Batsignal into the sky and hoping Batman decides to swing by!"

To say Batman was a bit like an angel was hilariously ironic, but nonetheless the comparison had its points. After all one was well aware of the presence and existence of angels—at least if you believed in such things but thankfully Batman was very much physical and real—even if the work done by them was almost never truly seen or felt. Angels could come when called and were helpful, defending the innocent and delivering justice when needed, but one rarely ever saw them at work. Just like how Batman was in a sense Gotham's guardian angel, his presence very much felt, but almost never seen, yet his actions always turned the city toward a better future even if the many citizens living there were not even aware of it.

"Oh, he comes in here all the time," Deborah said to her as Harleen watched the Batmobile grow smaller in the distance. "About once every other week or so, usually with some dick tied up like a turkey slung over his shoulder. Always gives the older staff a riot when he comes by."

Harleen glanced at her incredulously. "You're kidding," she breathed.

Deborah chortled and shook her head. "Nope. Honest to God, Harleen, you'll stick around here long enough and you'll see him plenty. No more than a few seconds, but still. With most of the criminals here being people he put here he likes to keep an eye out, I guess. Heck with lunatics like Joker and Mr. Dent always breaking out within a few months we just message Gordon so he can contact the Bat, they're too dangerous for anyone else to handle."

Only for a few seconds, she had been told. But Harleen wanted more than that. She wanted to see Batman, at the very least to thank him for saving her, and...

And what? her brain rather pointedly asked her. Great, the only time it took a break from hyperventilating and now it was lobbing personal, probing questions.

Harleen ignored it, focusing on putting waffles in the toaster, and while she waited for them to pop out her eyes landed on the stack of papers spread out across the island. The most notable being the notes she had been jotting down throughout her past three days. The rest were printouts of newspaper clippings, pictures, old cases she dug up on the internet, and every other interesting scrap of information she could find that led her to her notebook: all of them centered around Batman.

What indeed?

She picked up her notes, briefly scanning over them without really reading them. VIGILANTE, she had scrawled in a big, black Sharpie under her first bullet point, the one thing she believed everything else hinged upon. No one became a vigilante out of nowhere, after all, and especially not one for an entire city. Most just stuck to their neighborhoods or areas of living, but this was something so much bigger, removed from the selfish nature of other vigilantes she found and studied. Yet the personal nature of the case was unavoidable.

Under vigilante she had a further list of points, some she crossed out and others untouched. Trauma, narcissism, altruism, hatred/distrust of law enforcement, personal matter, and the list went on. Narcissism and the law enforcement parts she had crossed off pretty quickly, and it was the trauma part she expanded upon. Of course she couldn't entirely eliminate it just because she couldn't actually know without knowing Batman's identity, but it was still the best and most logical guess.

She clicked her recorder on and stated the date and time and began speaking while she busied herself with organizing her papers. "So far out of all the motivations I have catalogued, I have come to the conclusion that trauma is the most likely driving force behind Batman. Altruism, while a strong part of his psyche, is another symptom, not a motive all on its own. Whether the trauma took place in childhood or during a more recent time is impossible to say, as is whether the trauma happened to him personally, or to someone close such as a family member or friend. Much like how the father of a daughter who has been raped will kill her rapist, if it is possible."

With a loud click, the waffles popped up, making her jump and whirl to face the source of the noise. She glared at the offending appliance and forced herself to calm down. While the waffles did smell delicious, she knew that if she interrupted herself mid-thought then she would lose the train entirely. Besides they were probably too hot anyway.

"However, based on my personal interpretation and a study into what I think is the psyche of Batman, I am inclined to believe that the trauma happened in childhood, and to himself personally. For such a devoted individual, the trauma must be deeply rooted, something that shaped him into the person he is today and he subsequently bases his whole life around it. Most vigilante adults simply patrol the areas where they live, a selfishness that does not fit with Batman's altruism, which inclines me to believe it is a manifestation of an innocence stolen in childhood. The inner child manifesting itself in the belief that one man can right all the wrongs in the world, like a superhero. Not to mention from the data I have gathered, I find the idea of Batman having a family to be highly unlikely. No man who works a day job—or one who has to take care of a family if he doesn't have a job for that matter—has the time or energy to run around Gotham all night fighting criminals. He still needs sleep. And his whole family would have to be in on the secret, and while it is possible I find the idea of so many people sharing such a secret without anything getting out improbable. A bachelor with no day job is the most logical conclusion.

"As an additional note: I would like to point out that I do not think Robin is his son, as many people have theorized. For one, I highly doubt that any mother would let her nine-year-old son go off and fight dangerous criminals on a nightly basis, and there is no report of a Batwoman, so to speak. An adopted orphan, a child out of wedlock, or a child with a deceased mother are all far better explanations, but in this case I must throw my lot in with the orphan one. There is a distinct lack of warmth in the interactions between Batman and Robin."

That wasn't quite how she wanted to phrase that. With a sigh Harleen tried to organize her thoughts. "To clarify: I do think Batman cares for Robin, cares for him very deeply. He is very concerned with his sidekick's safety. However their interactions are far more reminiscent of a mentor and his favorite student, and lack the closeness that a true father and son would have." She clicked her recorder off. Yep, that sounded pretty good, that was a good place to stop. Not to mention she hadn't planned on doing a whole recording session like her other times, and the smell of those waffles was really distracting.

Hours later she found herself in another cell, although this one did not have Joker in it. She couldn't even look at him now, she did everything to avoid the hall in which his cell was kept in. Everyone else looked at her with such pity and confusion when she refused to put on one of the easier jobs, insisting that she could still interview the more dangerous criminals as long as it wasn't Joker.

She hated him. She wanted to be rid of this fear, the clench in her gut that happened every time she so much as thought of him. But she couldn't, not yet.

Thankfully not everyone in Arkham was so volatile. Dangerous, but far less likely to try and use a pen to hold her hostage in an escape attempt.

"And what in the world makes you think I know anything about Batman?" the man in front of her asked, slouching backwards in his chair with all the laziness of a cat. Harleen knew better than to trust it, though, especially when his file mentioned his love of theatrics.

"Because you play mind games with him all the time," Harleen replied patiently. "I would say aside from Joker it's a safe bet that you know the most about Batman that anyone else."

He laughed in delight, tilting his head back as he roared at the ceiling. "What a flattery, Doctor Quinzel! Tell me though, what demands an answer, yet asks no questions?"

Harleen tried not to sigh. That was the downside of asking Riddler anything, but she was more than willing to endure it if it provided her with anything. "Me?" she joked, figuring that the question was also a jab.

"Of course not!" Riddler gasped, looking genuinely surprised and offended at her answer. "A phone, you silly! Honestly, you graduated with a noggin like that? Tsk, tsk." He gave her a sharp, analytical look that made her spine stiffen and reminded her that Riddler was anything but the playful trickster he liked to make himself out to be. There was a coldness to him that Joker distinctly lacked, and Harleen honestly had no clue which she preferred more.

She gave him a grin. "College turned it all to mush, I'm afraid. My riddles involved what makes the human brain tick, and no one ever gave me riddles quite as literally as you."

"Tick tock tick tock, your clock is running out, Doc," Riddler said, placing his ankle on his knee.
  
"Oh don't look at me like that, I don't mean anything dangerous by it. You've been caught in his web, haven't you?" He gave her a sharp, knowing grin. "Once the Bat's shadow passes over you, you never really escape it. He'll draw you back in eventually, no matter how long it takes. And you've gotten the attention of Joker as well. Two out of three, Quinzel. If you want my advice, I'd run as soon as possible. Find someplace better before those two titans come for you. Getting caught between them is the last thing a pretty girl like you wants."

His words made her gut clench again, and she forced herself to swallow and smile at him. His words struck deep, and their barbs hung on no matter how much she tried to banish them from her mind. "Thank you, but I think I'll be fine."

"Fine?" Riddler repeated with a laugh. "You're trying to dig up info on the Bat, you're anything but fine!" His grin stretched. "When one does not know what it is, then it is something. When one knows what it is, then it is nothing."

This time she was prepared for a riddle, and this time she made her brain think. "A riddle," she replied.

"Precisely!" Riddler exclaimed, clapping his hands together with a loud snap that almost made her jump. "I knew your brain was in there somewhere! And tell me Doctor Quinzel, who is the riddle?"

Harleen felt her expression shifting. "Batman," she said without hesitation.

"That's right. And once you know what he is, then he becomes much less interesting. Nothing, even. That's his beauty: his mystique. Stop digging, Quinzel. You'll only end up in disappointment."

Irritation pricked at her. She came here for answers, and while he did unwittingly provide her with one, she wasn't about to just sit around and let him berate her. "Many have heard me, yet nobody has seen me. I won't speak back unless spoken to. What am I?" she asked, thanking herself for reading up on that book of riddles before she came to talk to him.

A long, dramatic sigh. "An echo. Fine, Doctor, you have made your decision." He tapped his fingers against his ankle. "Driven he is and driven he will always be, and a more clever man I have yet to see. A shadow passing over the moon, for all his hard work he asks no boon. What drives his little heart? What takes it apart? This man I have seen, to me nearly a stone being, perched upon the highest peak like a gargoyle, yet in the wake of all his toil, his true character is shown, a man of flesh and bone."

Harleen raised an eyebrow, impressive despite herself. "Poetry from you, Riddler? That's quite surprising."

"And why so, Doctor? I am a man of art, after all." He sucked his teeth as he smiled. "Just as he. One must be well-educated to solve my riddles, after all."

"Indeed," Harleen said, trying not to sound too excited in case Riddler decided to play around and rile her up. He was well-known for doing that. But she was indeed on the right track, if she was interpreting Riddler's hints correctly. "A man of flesh and bone. Flesh and bone can be hurt, unlike stone."

"Oh yes, Doctor, indeed," Riddler said, his lips pursing. "What can be broken, but still work? Blood flows and flows, yet it does not die."

"A heart," Harleen said without a moment of hesitation.

"Good, good," he replied with a small cackle. It reminded her far too much of Joker's. "His heart breaks. He bleeds and bleeds through the cracks but does not die. Outside, stone. But inside...soft."

Harleen griped her clipboard so tightly her fingers ached. "And just how do you that? What makes you so sure?" she questioned.

"No longer a phone, I see." He raised an eyebrow at her comically. "Because I know, Doctor. I am a smart man. And I have seen it. I have watched his heart bleed." He waved his hand a little. "He has to save people, he can't live without it. Understand that, and you understand him."

"If that was true then you would have gained the upper hand over him a long time ago," Harleen retorted. "It's an important part of him, but not his entire self."

"True enough, Quinzel. It's best if you use me, but do keep me cool and especially don't lose me, because without me you're useless. What am I?"

She tried not to sigh again. "Your brain?" she hazarded.

"Aha, close! Your head, Doctor Quinzel. Take care not to lose it during your research."

--

Yet digging up info on Batman was far harder than she expected. She did build what she thought was a wonderful profile on him, yet despite what Deborah had told her she still had yet to see him again. It seemed like fate itself was against her. Every time she had a day off, or when she wasn't on her shift, he dropped by. Harleen would only hear about it later from the excited gossip of the others, and if she a more paranoid person she would have thought that Batman was deliberately avoiding her for whatever reason.

Which was utterly ridiculous. She was sure he didn't even know her name. If they passed each other on the street she doubted he would recognize her.

And in direct contradiction to that, Joker never left. He was unavoidable with where she worked, and eventually she did have to start walking by his cell. He always waved at her, crooned her name, and on one memorable occasion licked the glass of his door as she walked by. It was driving her slowly mad, having all of his attention on her like that. It didn't even feel like a real person was interested in her, more like a force of nature that was set on tearing her to pieces in the slowest, most agonizing manner possible.

She loved Arkham, with its strange, twisted charm. But when her investigation started to peter out into nothing and Metropolis offered her an incredible, well-paying position in one of their psych wards with a conspicuous lack of a crazy, obsessed clown as an inmate, she had to jump the ship.

So why did it feel so wrong to do so?

The paper was in her hands, her eyes glued upon it as she walked home. She barely read the words, it seemed like they were all sliding off her brain each and every time she tried. She wanted this, she tried to tell herself. And a part of her did, but it also felt like such a waste. A waste of all her efforts these past few months, a waste of her talent, hell a waste of her future.

A future of what? Another potential hostage when one of the many inmates decided to use her for their next breakout plan?

"If you just give it to me then this won't have to get ugly."

Her steps froze and she paused, just outside the mouth of an alley that the voice came from. She knew precisely what that sounded like, and knowing how late it was there could really be only one explanation and if Harleen knew what was good for her then she wouldn't try to interfere. But then again, when did she ever know? Considering where she was currently (or perhaps formerly) employed then her ideas of self-preservation clearly left much to be desired.

Hand digging into her purse, she pulled out her phone and turned to look into the alley. She expected to see what her head would usually conjure up when imaging a mugging. An innocent victim, a rough looking man with a knife or perhaps even a gun, that sort of thing. For the most part she seemed to have it right. What she didn't expect, however, was the can that the man was holding up to the woman's face as she dug shaking hands into her bag, tears streaming down her face. Was that a can of spray paint or something?

"What the hell?" she was so surprised that she spoke the words out loud, although she wasn't aware of it until she saw the both of them tense up in alarm. Then panic hit her at being discovered and she blurted out the first words that her bravado demanded she say. "I'm calling the cops!" She turned on her phone and began dialing.

"Don't you dare, bitch!" the mugger snarled, whirling to face her, pointing his knife in her direction.

Reacting instinctively, panic hitting her for no good reason because he hadn't even moved, Harleen gasped and threw her bag right at the man's face. That was a phenomenally stupid idea, and the only reason it worked was because none of them had been expecting it in the slightest. It hit home, slamming into the man's face, making him stumble a little and with that distraction his victim seemed to gain a tiny bit of courage and she wrenched away from him, bolting out of the alley and screaming at the top of her lungs as she fled down the sidewalk.

You're welcome, Harleen thought sarcastically, which was the only thing she got time to do before the mugger was upon her.

She shrieked and tried to back away, but instead of using the knife on her, like she was fully expecting him to, he sprayed her full in the face with whatever was in the can. It was not paint, she immediately figured, but some kind of chemical that invaded her mouth and nostrils and sent her into a coughing frenzy.

Her head pounded. Dizzy. The world spun insane on its axis and right before her eyes was no longer a faceless man, but Joker wielding a knife. "I'm going to cut you up nice and slow for that," he hissed and cackled, holding the blade up for her to see.

A scream built in her chest, but would not come out. She was falling, falling...yet right before she lost consciousness completely, she saw a shadow pass over the moon.

"You need to get over yourself."

She turned in the darkness, coming face-to-face with a woman wearing a red and black jester outfit, with a fully painted face that hid her features behind bold black and white patterns.

"What are you talking about? Who are you?" she demanded, feeling her heart racing. Something about her looked and sounded oddly familiar.

The woman shook her head, tut-tutting her a little. "Harleen, Harleen, you've got to embrace your inner harlequin if you want to move on with your life."

"I don't get it," Harleen protested, trying to walk forward but her legs would move. "What do you mean?"

"You'll find out soon enough."