try imagining a place | closed

[criminallysane]

WHO: Harley Quinn and the Joker
WHERE: Their hideout in De Chima
WHEN: The night of Saturday, Feb. 8
WHAT: The end of your favorite clown power couple?
WARNINGS: Child loss, language, violence, manipulation, angst, domestic abuse, memories of death (including death of a loved one), mentions of clown sex, and a literal elephant in the room.

Joker has neither seen nor spoken to Harley in a week. In fact, he's barely seen or spoken to anyone except his probation officer. For the past eight days, he's been almost exclusively hidden away in his office at the Laugh Factory, sometimes literally tearing his hair out while trying to pinpoint the reason why it all went so wrong. When did he become such a joke? How did he manage to screw everything up this catastrophically? And, most importantly, how can he fix it? Two months ago, he had the opportunity to finally, finally fight Batman. He'd worked his ass off for that chance, desperate to show this world's Bats just who he was and what he was capable of. It had meant months of planning, scheming, schmoozing. It had meant acquiring a criminal record here, and the power inhibitor that still clanks around his ankle when he walks. And in the end, when it was just him and Bats, face to face at long last, he'd choked. Let the man take him in with almost no fight at all! All because Bats had—thanks to Joker's own virus, oh irony of ironies!—shown up for the fight wearing the body of Barbara Gordon. Unable to bring himself to hurt her again, Joker had, instead, surrendered like a little bitch. That was strike one. One month ago, he was literally eaten alive by some other universe's generic, off-brand vampire version of Batman. After all the times Joker's fought his own Batman (and countless other do-gooders) over the decades, always holding his own, this dopey knock-off managed to dispatch him like he was nothing at all! Fake Bat even called him unoriginal before finishing the job, which was, perhaps, the cruelest part of all. That was strike two. He returned from death to find himself in another world entirely, this time as a retired family man, of all things. He loved nothing more than his dear wife and daughter, and he sent sad, rambling, needy letters to that world's Bruce Wayne that Joker is now mortified to recall. He'd been a no one there. A has-been, an also-ran! No longer a threat to anyone except, perhaps, the occasional bluegill. Why, even Scarecrow had had more clout! And the truly horrifying part is, Joker knows full well that Harley remembers every moment of that life together. She remembers their child. (Who is not real; he can't let himself forget that. Lucy was not real, was not real, will never be real.) Harley also remembers the things he said, the promises he made. And he knows that from now on, for the rest of his life, she'll believe that he is capable of showing her that sort of tenderness again. She will, in fact, probably come to demand it. And all of that, friends, is strike three and he's out. It's just been one humiliating failure after the next here lately, in such prolific quantities that he can't even chalk it all up to bad luck. No, clearly something has gone wrong with him. And after a week of pacing and ranting and contemplating, Joker has finally figured out what it is: Since arriving in this world, he has allowed himself to become weak. To feel actual feelings. To care about others, in his way, and to hesitate sometimes before pulling the trigger. And it's ruining everything. He needs to rectify this, effective immediately, and beginning with Harley. Once she's gone, he can begin dealing with all the other problems. And once they've all been dealt with, why, then his true glory will be able to shine again! It all seems so simple, when he looks at it like that. All he has to do is stop giving a shit. He thought he'd learned that lesson a long time ago, but, well, better late than never. Feeling much better now that he has a plan, he showers, shaves, and puts on a fresh, crisp purple suit. Arranges his hair just so. Takes an extra moment to polish his wingtips. A man must always dress for success, after all, and never more so than when he's at his lowest. When the clown smiling back at him from the mirror looks like utter perfection, so beautiful that Joker can't help himself from pressing a lipsticked kiss to his own reflection, he can almost believe that the past few months never happened at all. He's as successful and charming and lethal as he ever was! And the last thing he needs is a dippy, clingy, needy henchwench who will only hold him back. He's whistling to himself by the time he reaches their hideout. Life is good tonight, and it's about to be so much better! His posture is relaxed and confident as he lets himself in the front door; he looks like he's on top of the world. "Harley!" In the foyer, he flings his arms wide as he calls to her, beaming. But it's only a showman's pose, and there's no kindness in his smile. Back in their normal reality, he would be planning to murder her tonight. Here, however, where death is so impermanent, he's going to have to play things a little differently. "Daddy's home, Pumpkin. Did you miss me?"

Comments

[madlove]

When Harley had woken up from what she now thought was the most blissful dream imaginable, she had had maybe a minute to feel more wanted and loved than she could remember ever being. More importantly, she’d felt content. For a mostly-crazed clown, who talked to herself and who constantly had a ball of rage knotted up in the pit of her stomach and who often wondered if she was even worth anything, ‘content’ wasn’t something she had much familiarity with.

Even when she’d been Harleen, content simply meant complacent, lazy, mediocre. Content meant she’d just given up and was going to take whatever life happened to give her.

But for that first minute, with George’s -- Joker’s -- arms tight around her and her face pressed into the crook of his neck, she’d thought oh, maybe it will be different now.

And then he’d gotten up, like he didn’t remember any of it, and walked out.

In the days since, Harley had done about four things: drink, sleep, drink with Barbara Gordon, and doodle on a sketchpad. Everything else had seemed to have fallen by the wayside. She’d eaten enough to survive and then left every bowl and cup and utensil in a huge pile in the sink, leaving the kitchen a disaster. She’d showered but was always either accompanied by a bottle of tequila or had just leaned against the shower wall and tried to nap, not caring if she accidentally drowned herself. She’d stopped bothering with tv because she’d put her mallet through all 80 glorious inches of it on Day One.

And the thing was that, normally, she’d have been frantic over where Joker had disappeared off to, especially because things had been tumultuous since that Apocalyptic clusterfuck months before when they’d beaten the shit out of each other. She’d have been thinking about Valentine’s Day and what amazing, stupendous, over-the-top present she was going to give him. She’d have been puzzling over ways to smooth things over. Except now, when she needed him, possibly more than ever in the years since Arkham, he was gone.

She knew -- she fucking knew -- he remembered Lucy. That there was no way he didn’t. And instead of staying, and talking to her, or even making sure she was alright, he’d walked the fuck out on her.

Sure, Harley was needy. And clingy. And obsessive. She was overbearing and often irrational. But beyond all that she was loyal. She would have thought that for all their arguments, for all his dismissals of her affection, even with every bit of frustration she’d caused him that this would be the one goddamned time he’d actually step up and not be an asshole.

Apparently she was wrong.

The notebook she’s been doodling in only has one page in use. Harley’s been painstakingly sketching Lucy’s face in as much detail as possible. Erasing and trying again, over and over, because the details are never quite right. They’re close, but something’s always off. It’s missing the mischievousness of her smile, or the bounce of her pigtails, or sparkle in her eyes. And, of course, she doesn’t have any pictures to keep or use as a reference; those exist in another world entirely, as lost to her now as Gotham is.

It’s frustrating the hell out of her.

She’s angrily erasing another wrong line, hunched over the living room table and sitting on the floor in leggings and a red sweatshirt. And who the hell knows where she even got a getup like that. It surely wasn’t at the front of her closet of crazy and attention-seeking clothing. She’s apparently ditched the clown makeup, and the eyeliner, and the lipstick, and any makeup at all, and even a hairbrush. Bud and Lou are resting on either side of her, whining every so often to make sure she knows they’re there. And Lucy -- fucking Lucy; they’d named the elephant Lucy -- has ventured further into the hideout than normal. Fitting as far into the huge open living space as possible.

She doesn’t so much as lift her head when she hears the front door of the hideout open. If anything, she’s more resolutely trying to get the curve of Lucy’s cheek right when she hears Joker’s voice, loud and booming and full of a showman’s projection.

Well, whoopdie-fucking-do. He’s apparently gotten bored of whatever he’s been doing for the past 8 days and decided to grace her with his presence.

By now, Harley’s had enough time to feel truly bitter about his absence. She feels hollow, almost. Her insides are all wrong, and her thoughts are all twisted. And she knows she’s somehow, simultaneously, supposed to have a loving husband and beautiful daughter while she’s also meant to be alone without anyone she can honestly and truly trust to open up about how little and insignificant everything in this world now feels.

“Where the hell have you been?” Harley’s usually bright, and bubbly, even when she feels awful. Or she’s angry and rage-driven, with a deadly light in her eyes. Right now, she’s neither, like someone’s actually cut her puppet strings and left her on the ground like a broken and discarded wooden doll.

[criminallysane]

Her initial pose is no huge shock. She’s been here alone, after all, without her beloved Clown Prince! Of course she’d be feeling a little glum, like a dog when its master has been away on business. But he would have expected her to leap to her feet and throw herself into his arms, to cover his face with kisses and tell him how thrilled she is to have him back. That’s how this works. That’s the fucking script.

Instead, she’s doing… this. Joker’s smile shifts abruptly into a frown. That’s no way for her to greet him! Who does she think she is?

He steps into the living room, where he takes in with one sweeping look the mess she’s made of the place. “Jesus, Harley.” Not that she was ever much of a housekeeper, but this is on a whole new level. And what in the blazes did she do the tv? Everyone knows he breaks the tvs in this relationship!

He turns to regard her with a look of frank disgust. It feels like he’s seeing her for the first time, the former Dr. Quinzel now reduced to a slovenly, drunken, worthless pity party for one. The idea that he ever had sex with this woman, much less allowed her to connect herself with his brand and ride on his coattails for so long, suddenly seems like the greatest humiliation of them all. God, he really has let his standards slip…

“I’ve been out. Trying to track down the man who murdered me, if you must know.” He sneers down at her face as he approaches, deliberately avoiding looking at whatever is in that sketchbook of hers. “Can’t imagine why I didn’t ask you to join. All this wallowing and… what is that I’m smelling, tequila? Could have added some real charm to the journey, I have to say.”

[madlove]

Under any other circumstances, the revelation that someone had murdered him would have had her in a whirlwind of concern and fury. After all, what did he mean he’d been murdered? And when? And who had done it? She would have been declaring that she was going to bash in the head of whoever had dared put a finger on her puddin’!

But now all he gets is her glancing up a bit, the pencil stilling against the paper. “What are you even going on about? What happened? You ran off for a week and someone beat you to death?” And then, under her breath, adds, “Like that’d be any big surprise.”

She’d also normally be far more embarrassed by her current state. Harley’s always meticulous about the way she looks and it’s clear that she just doesn’t care right now. That, more than anything else, makes her want to punch him in the face for his polished shoes and crisp suit. The idea that everything they remember from that other world can be shrugged off so easily by him, that he can make himself appear normal, that’s infuriating. Even if he’s not lying about some alleged murder, even if he’d been viciously tortured to death, even if he’d been busy tracking said murderer down, she can’t wrap her head around the idea that he’s not showing his grief and pain somehow.

And it’s good that he’s avoiding looking at what she’s drawing because she doesn’t want him seeing it anyway. She picks the sketchpad up, pulling it flat against her chest so he can’t see it even if he wanted to. It was a very this belongs to me, not you gesture that was accompanied by a flash of something in her eyes. Brief, barely-there before it’s gone resentment.

Then her expression smooths out again. “Are you just making shit up? That’s a new low.”

[criminallysane]

She typically believes his lies so readily that it hadn’t dawned on him that she might not believe him now. Especially since—for once—he’s actually telling her the truth.

Joker stares at her, momentarily speechless. Where is her righteous indignation on his behalf? Where is her empathy? Her protectiveness, her passion for him? Here he’s just confessed to having been slaughtered, which frankly is embarrassing enough in its own right, but it would have been worth it if it would snap her out of this funk. But she’s acting like he just lost a little cash at poker night or something. Like having been murdered is really nothing to get too worked up over.

What's happened to her?

He allows himself to glance down at the sketchbook she’s clutching, and though he can’t see what’s on it, the hairs on his forearms prickle. Whatever she's been drawing in here all alone, it can't be anything good. Is she still back in that house by the sea, he wonders? Her mind drifting, untethered, between all their lives and realities?

With the book pressed to her chest and her hair every-which-way, she looks vaguely feral. The overall impression reminds Joker of peering into the cells of the truly insane inmates back in Arkham, the ones who were too far gone to even be fun to toy with. It's chilling.

He never thought she could be like those people. Even at her most obnoxious, Harley radiates an energy, a vitality, that's impossible to miss. She might drive him crazy, but she's always at least lively. This lump of a woman sitting on his floor now, though, barely seems alive at all, and is nothing like his Harley. Joker doesn’t want to get any closer to her. In fact, the sooner she’s out of his house for good, the better.

“At the Swear-In,” he says, more quietly. Not that he owes her an explanation. He doesn’t owe her diddly-squat, and certainly not with the way she’s acting. But if she’s going to think he’s a liar, it should be for something he actually lied about. Heaven knows she’s got plenty to choose from on that front. “Didn’t you wonder why I never came back?”

[madlove]

He’d left her to go out without any real explanation so many times, and particularly so in the last few months, that her expression turns incredulous at the question. Didn’t you wonder why I never came back?

She had, particularly when he’d disappeared for the Swear-In, and even after he’d left 8 days ago. Except this last time Harley had realized that it wasn’t just about him abandoning her. She can get by on her own pretty well under normal circumstances. She certainly wasn’t in need of anyone to ‘protect’ her. But this time… this time she’d needed him in a way she never had before. And he hadn’t been there.

He’d been like every other person in the world that a younger, sharp-eyed Harleen had been certain she couldn’t trust. And definitely not trust with anything precious. He’d been her father who’d ruined her mother’s life, something she’d sworn she’d never let happen to her. She’d been her deadbeat dad of a brother, Barry, who had five kids who the fuck knew where that he didn’t take care of. She’d been every man and every mean-spirited woman in her life who’d tried to take advantage of her or treated her like a blonde bimbo.

If Joker had come back, apologetic for leaving, had explained where he’d really been for the past week-plus, Harley would have crumbled. She’d have welcomed him back with open arms, and set aside her own pain to tend to anything he needed.

Instead, he’d walked in like everything was just dandy, thanks, expecting her to welcome him home like a military wife who hadn’t seen her husband in eons.

And in that instant, something inside her snaps, so obviously that Harley swears she can hear it. Something comes untethered in her brain and she’s not even thinking about whether he’s still wearing a power-neutralizing ankle monitor, or whether he even has healing powers in the first place. All she can think about is Lucy, and her sweet, round cheeks, and the way Lucy had giggled when George picked her up and tossed her in the air, completely free and without doubt that her father would catch her.

Harley’s hands are gripping the sketchpad so tightly her knuckles are stark white and it’s only with some effort that she’s able to unclench one hand to reach behind her to the end table to pick up an ugly, modern lamp that she throws at Joker with all the force she’s capable of, not caring where it lands. Her aim’s, luckily, off, and it hits the remnants of the television and shatters, glass spraying everywhere.

“You sonofabitch.” Harley’s voice starts soft, venomous, the intensity ramping up with each word. And she doesn’t bother going around the living room table or either of the hyenas, just steps up on the metal tabletop and hops over to the other side, barefoot and wild-eyed. “You left me here -- alone -- with two hyenas and an elephant named Lucy, without giving a single shit about what we’d remembered, and who we’d remembered, and the life we had and you’re asking me if I wondered why you didn’t come back when you went to a fucking beach party?”

His mental questions about where her compassion and empathy, her protectiveness, her passion had gone were mirrored in her own head. How could anyone, even him, be this heartless, self-centered, and selfish? How was that even possible?

“Do you even care that we had a daughter? That she’s gone? Do you care about anyone except yourself?” By now she’s screaming like she can’t stop herself, not caring if it turns her throat red and raw.

[criminallysane]

He’s never seen her like this. Even at the end-of-the-world party, when the gloves came off in earnest and she beat him to within an inch of his life, she was still Harley. But this insane, shrieking, throwing-things hellcat, this is someone else entirely. He almost preferred her quiet feral routine.

His own narrative for what happened to them these past two weeks — which feel more like half a dozen years to him, but so be it — is that none of it was real. He’s lost two daughters now: one with Jeannie, and one with Harleen. The first one broke him completely. He cannot process a second.

If Lucy is only a delusion, a figment piped into his brain by this sick world as one of its games, then perhaps he’ll be able to bear her loss. If she was real, however — if, somehow, she might still be real somewhere, alone and afraid and wondering why her parents abandoned her — and he has lost her forever, it will be more than he can ever come back from. It’s bad enough, isn’t it, that he and Harley both know what a weak fool of a man he became for them? The idea that his sweet Lucy might have actually existed, then been stolen from him like the others, is so horrific that it cannot possibly be true. And damned if he’s going to let the deranged shell of a person in front of him now convince him otherwise.

He doesn’t flinch as the lamp shatters behind him, nor does he back away when she advances on him. He’s done with being emotional, and he’s done with being shoved around by people who aren’t even fit to kneel before him. He’s the Joker, and this is his house.

He smirks at her, the same knowing, condescending smirk he’s given her countless times when she’s done something he deemed foolish. “You actually believed that?” Slowly, he begins closing the distance between them, glass fragments crunching beneath his shoes. “Do the math with me here, ‘Ronnie.’ This world, which you know to be deceitful, offers you everything you ever wanted, all wrapped up with a bow. The perfect family you never had. The perfect cottage by the sea, the perfect daughter, the perfectly loving, perfectly pussy-whipped husband! Batman is retired, you never went crazy, and I, oh, I want nothing more than to spend every waking minute dancing with you by the seashore.” He shakes his head, his expression turning almost pitying. “And you believed it? Really?”

[madlove]

Harley practically withers in front of him. Far worse than any time she’s ever tucked her metaphorical tail between her legs and admitted defeat. One second she’s all fire and fury, the next she looks like someone’s dumped a bucket of ice-cold water over her head. Like it’s managed to sneak past her skin and slip into her veins. She can actually feel something cold slither through her chest.

Her hands have started violently trembling against the sketch pad, and she can’t hold them still, no matter how much she wills herself to.

The idea that Lucy was some figment of her imagination, the thought that George was nothing more than a wish, makes her feel like the wind has been knocked out of her. If she knew what he was burying in his mind, why he was burying it, she never would have picked this fight. She would have let him believe whatever he needed to believe to survive it. She would have shouldered her own grief without a word to him.

But she doesn’t. Because he’s never told her.

In her current state Harley can’t put the pieces together like a puzzle. She can’t call up how he’d put his arms around her and asked about the baby, how he’d acted afterward, and pair it with their current situation to come to any sort of logical conclusion.

And now all she can think, when she looks at him, is that he’s trying to deny their daughter even existed. Forget that he’s saying he never loved her, not in this world or any other. It hurts like a knife to the gut, of course. But it’s not the most insulting thing about it all. His denying Lucy, though, that aches so badly that she can hardly breathe. “She’s real.”

The tremors in her hands have only gotten worse, but she manages to flip the paper so he can see the face she’s so painstakingly worked on. Like it’s an actual photograph that will somehow prove it to him.

“Goddamn you, she’s real. We both held her. You put her to bed every night. You told her stories. You let her come out on the boat with you when she was well-behaved. We watched her play on the beach. And with your stupid dog. She sang songs with made up lyrics to make you smile. She loved you and you’re acting like she wasn’t real? Look at her.”

[criminallysane]

Before he can stop himself, Joker looks at the page. And there she is, unmistakably: his baby, his Lucy. Inexpertly rendered, of course, but it’s her. The mischievous smile. The bright eyes, wild as his own but the same shade of blue as her mother’s.

His expression flattens as it used to during the duller psychiatric evaluations. His eyes deaden; his mouth sets itself in a blank, straight line. What’s happening in his heart cannot be allowed to register on his face, and Joker hides it like the professional liar that he is.

Inside, behind the blank mask of his face, he is remembering everything about his little girl. He remembers pacing the living room of the cottage with the baby against his chest, singing softly to her and dancing with her and trying to ease her into sleep. He remembers finger painting with her on the beach, with her wearing nothing but a diaper so that she wouldn’t ruin her clothes, standing there at the easel together and contemplating their joint masterpiece — a violently pink tree in a top hat — with all the solemnity of Michelangelo. He remembers her with steamed carrots on her nose; her giggling like a fiend in the bath; her insisting that he give all of her action figures and stuffed animals a goodnight kiss on the cheek before anyone could go to sleep ‘so they don’t have bad dreams.’

He remembers, too, thinking that he had against all odds been given a second chance. That Fate, who had snatched his first family away from him, who had made him into a monster, had shown itself to be capable of mercy in the end after all, and had granted him this one last chance to do things right. He remembers literally kneeling beside his sleeping daughter, his hand resting on her tiny back, and praying to the God his own mother had believed in, overcome with gratitude that even he, who was so deeply unworthy, could be given such a blessing.

But none of that really happened: it was all just a trick. And what an injustice it would be to Jeannie and their daughter, both of whom really did exist, and really did die because of him, if he allowed himself to grieve over some figment of the imagination to the same extent that he grieved for them. They were real. They died horribly. And he will never be absolved of that, no matter how many Lucys and Ronnies his twisted mind conjures to soothe itself. To equate the one with the other would be a betrayal of the very worst kind.

His dead eyes shift to look at Harley, who suddenly appears much more human. The part of him that was once George longs to pull her into his arms and kiss her hair, to soothe her and hold her and let her cry herself out on him. The rest of him understands that that is the path to weakness, and that this is not his Ronnie, and that if he ever hopes to once again be himself, he must remember how to resist these small, human temptations.

“She was a fantasy,” he says, and his voice is as flat as his expression. “A delusion.” He swallows, refusing to let a lump settle in his throat. “A test, if you will. To see how cheaply we could be bought.”

[madlove]

“It was not a test. Or a mass delusion. Or a fantasy. Because if it was, if it was this world fucking with our heads again, giving us everything we wanted, then you…” She reaches for his hand, except it’s different than how she would usually do it. Harley’s a lot of things: overwhelming and suffocating and determined to make him love her no matter how long it takes. Usually when she touches him it’s possessively, like she’s worried he’ll disappear, and her grip is accordingly strong.

The only time that changes is when they’re truly alone, those rare moments when it seems like he’s stopped fighting her, like on the train heading to this very hideout or when they’re intimate and she stops worrying so much about what she’s doing right or wrong and just enjoys him. In those moments, she’s tender and open and vulnerable, and in this moment she’s not grabbing his hand in a vise grip. She’s gently stroking his palm through his leather gloves, running the tips of her fingers against his, featherlight and soft.

There’s still a desperate wildness in her expression, but there’s also a willfulness. “I know it was real, that it wasn’t just plucked from my mind to trick me by giving me some fantasy life. Because if it was, then why would we have argued about Crane? Why would we have changed everything about you? Why would I have been afraid of the man you are right now? I love you. I love the danger and excitement. And a part of her longed for it too. George was wonderful, but if he was just a fantasy he wouldn’t have kept things from her. And…”

There’s no avoiding the lump growing in Harley’s throat, no matter how many times she swallows. It only seems to get worse and larger, making it harder to speak. “If this world was trying to buy us with our fantasies, why would it have given you memories you seem to hate so damn much?” That part is like a blow to the throat; he seems so dismissive, so disdainful of that life, even though it had been wonderful. And Harley’s so lost on how he could think so poorly of it when they’d been so happy. “How would you know about my shitty family? I only told you that there.”

She’s still not willing to let go of the picture of Lucy, so her free hand moves to his wrist stroking lightly in the space between the sleeve of his jacket and his glove. “Baby, all I ever wanted from you was what you promised in Arkham. Us against the world. That we’d love each other and fuck each other and take anything the world threw at us together. That’s the fantasy I’d remember if this was all a trick. I just want…” What she’d always wanted, really: to be the person he trusted and leaned on. She can weather his anger and his moods and his obsessive nature with Batman. But she wants to face this -- the way she wants to face everything else -- with him, instead of at odds with him.

[criminallysane]

He can’t bring himself to respond properly to that. He should; he knows he should. He should go point by point through everything she’s said and tear it down, explaining that all fantasies require a bit of pain to be believable, and that a delusion does not become real simply because two people have experienced it together. But he doesn’t have the strength to do it, not right now. His shameful grief over Lucy is too near to the surface and too raw. If he begins talking about anything related to her in any sort of detail, he will fall apart completely.

Already, the temptation to look at the madwoman in front of him and see his wife is almost more than he can stand. Harley’s fingers are so familiar and intimate against him, and it would be so easy, wouldn’t it, to scoop her up and take her to bed? To kiss her, and lose himself in her, and fuck away all their pain for a while? He’s been so alone this past week, as he was alone for all those years before she came into his life in the first place, and does he really want to go back to that? Can he truly bear to lose her?

He exhales and lowers his head, his eyes closing for a moment as his shoulders slump. That other life seems so near to him now, as if with the slightest extension of his hand he might grasp it again and be back in the kitchen with Ronnie and sweet Lucy and the sound of the seabirds on the wind. And even if they can't have that again, surely they could build something similar here? It wouldn't be the same, but it would be something. And they would have each other…

Once upon a time, he believed sanity was a trap. It lured you in with promises of happiness, of peace, of a warm and steady life filled with the people you loved. In exchange, it demanded obedience and smallness; it insisted that you play by the rules and never ask for too much. And in the end, it always shortchanged you, anyway.

And perhaps that's the trap that's calling to him now. Is that the choice he’s being given, he wonders? Behind Door A, the Sanity Door: True companionship, with a woman who understands him and somehow loves him anyway. Meaningful friendships with people like Barbara and Crane. The chance, perhaps, to build the kind of life that the world will approve of. And Behind Door B, the Other Door: His goddamned self-respect. His clear-headedness and the realization of his full artistic vision. The chance to be someone, to be back in the game. And, oh yes: Batman. Who, he reminds himself, only spoke to the man behind Door A out of a sense of pity.

There is no choice there. There has never been a choice, not since that night years ago, when his family was burned alive and his very face was stolen. Fate is not merciful, and she does not give second chances. And she has never, ever rewarded the timid.

His jaw sets, and he opens his eyes. There’s a focused intensity in them now: he knows what he must do.

Quietly, calmly, and with his hand still in her grasp, Joker meets Harley’s gaze and says, “We tried 'us against the world.' And we had a good run, Kiddo, but let's face it: it's just a lousy show." He actually manages to smile, a pitying little smile, because she is small and weak and has chosen Door A, whereas he is going to be strong enough for both of them and correct her error. "Time for you to get your things and go."

[madlove]

Harley can’t count the number of times she’s let him trick her or let her own mind play tricks on her about him. Even now, when he doesn’t snatch his hand away, when he lowers his head and closes his eyes, when his shoulders slump, almost seeming defeated, Harley thinks he understands, he fucked up by walking out, sure, of course, but he realizes that if we stick together we can get through this, we can figure it out, we can belong to each other and experience some version of happiness.

She’s so certain of it that she’s moving closer to him even as he opens his eyes and looks at her. And that’s when she realizes that the expression in them doesn’t match how she’s hoping he’ll react.

He might still be letting her touch him, but she’s not so sure that even feels it. He’s once again looking at her like she means nothing to him; she’d been worthwhile when he’d needed to get out of Arkham, useful when he needed some muscle behind him, had a reason to keep her around when he had grunt work that needed to be done. And maybe she was good enough for an occasional roll in the hay, maybe he hadn’t even been seeing her that whole time, the way he hadn’t back in the kitchen with the smell of burnt pizza rolls in the air.

In that other life, she’d given him everything: her career, her love, her loyalty, a daughter. And he’d loved that version of her. She thinks she’s given him everything she possibly could in this life too, and somehow it’s not -- it’s never been -- enough.

“You don’t mean that…” she whispers, her fingers still on his wrist but no longer stroking him. “You can’t mean that. Not after…” Not after they’d seen how good they could be together. The sorts of things they could create together. Not after Lucy. Because Harley’s still convinced it all happened and nothing he says to the contrary is going to persuade her otherwise. “You promised to protect us. You--” The different realities are clashing in her mind. George had promised that. George had told her she was safe with him. That nothing could keep him away from her. And at that moment, that’s all she can focus on.

He’d promised. He’d fucking promised. “You said you’d always choose me.” That horrible drowning feeling is coming back, like she’s caught in an undertow she can’t escape. And even though she’s already said it, she finds herself repeating more forcefully, “You promised to protect us.”

He’s the Joker. He’s the fucking Joker. When he wants something, nothing stops him. If someone gets in his way he annihilates them. And she can’t imagine what roadblock he thinks exists now that’s more powerful than that.

[criminallysane]

He knew she was going to pull that one out of her sleeve. All the sweet, banal, stupid things George had told her, she’s got them all stored up to use as weapons against him now.

In a way, Joker is relieved that she wasted no time in using this tactic, because it confirms that his assumptions about her were right on the money. She will be expecting George from now on, or at least something very much like him; she will no longer be satisfied with what they had before. She’ll want tenderness and empathy. She’ll probably want babies, too, and no more Batman, and for her and their little family to be the focus of his entire existence. In short, she’ll want him to be everything he most dreads becoming.

Getting rid of her is a matter of self-preservation. It’s as simple as that.

And now that she's made that abundantly clear to him, any lingering temptation to pull her to him falls away, and he can once again see her for what she is. She is not his wife, not any of his wives. She is not the mother of his child. She is not even a particularly satisfying girlfriend. What she is is a threat, a crazy, obsessive groupie who outlived her usefulness to him a long time ago, and who’s only still here because he hasn’t bothered to dispose of her.

Looking at her, with his pitying smile still in place, Joker thinks wistfully of how much easier all of this would be if he could simply kill her. Then this could be a nice, clean, straightforward job, maybe even with room for a memorable punchline. As things stand, however, she’s just going to be his crazy ex, who’ll probably still be crying over him and their imaginary baby six months from now. Calling him at all hours of the night, begging him to reconsider. Reminding him, You said you’d always choose me. God, it wears him out to just think about it…

He reaches up to cup her cheek, keeping his touch deliberately gentle. He wants her to see that he’s not acting out of anger here; this is not some impulsive decision he’s going to change his mind about as soon as his mood shifts. He knows precisely what he’s doing, and he means every bit of it. “I did choose you,” he reminds her. “Every morning, every evening, every time I longed to strangle you and feed you to the seagulls, I chose to protect you instead.” He cocks his head slightly, and his hand slides up to stroke her unruly hair. His voice is as gentle as his touch; he’s speaking to her as if she were a child. “And what did I get for my trouble, hm? A wife who couldn’t cook, hated my friends, and picked fights over nothing. A house in the middle of nowhere, isolated from anyone and anything worth seeing. Letters from Batman that reeked of pity, and who could fucking blame him?” He leans in, close enough that every bloodshot vein in his eyes is visible to her, and his fingers tighten in the rats’ nest of her hair. “Choosing you,” he explains, still smiling, "cost me everything."

[madlove]

Everything he does, every precise movement he makes, chills her. She’s trying to see George in him, not because she wants George back, but because George understands.

George wouldn’t turn his back on Lucy, on her. She doesn’t strictly want George, she wants a Joker who’s wild and crazy and unpredictable who can allow himself to channel whatever part of him was George, at least when it comes to her. She wants him to love her, of course, but she also wants the thrill that comes from a high speed chase. She wants to know he’d protect her, but if it’s done over irrational jealousy or imagined slights she doesn’t mind that either. She wants him to dance in the moonlight with her and hold her tenderly to him, but if it’s to celebrate some elaborate caper all the better.

She wants his affection and loyalty, but she doesn’t want to destroy who he is. And she doesn’t want to go back to being hardass Harleen who didn’t know how to loosen up.

It’s all irrelevant, obviously. He’s looking at her the way he has so many times before. Like she’s not worth scraping off the bottom of his shoe. Like she small and stupid and useless. Like she’s an annoying growth that won’t leave him alone instead of someone he could trust with anything: his secrets, his plans, his desires. It’s all information she would take to the grave, no matter what bat tried to get it out of her.

But he doesn’t understand any of that, does he? He never has.

“And you loved every second of it,” she says like she’s absolutely certain of it. Like any doubts about George’s love and devotion never existed. “You woke up every day and you were grateful for your new life. You and I danced every night because you wanted to. You were a good father to Lucy because you adored every bit about her, from her toes to her pigtails. Every time we made love you thanked God that we met. I didn’t ask for any of it. I didn’t twist your arm or destroy you or take anything away from you.”

Her palms itch and she wants to slap him, see his head snap to the side and hear that satisfying crack. If she hadn’t managed to calm herself by trying to bring him back to her, by trying to make him understand, she would done it too.

“You chose all of it.”

And he’d chosen a version of her that barely knew him. Somehow she had been enough even though Harley doubted Ronnie would have known how to straighten out a sideways bank job. Ronnie wouldn’t have known what to do if they’d gotten caught and their home had been invaded. Ronnie wouldn’t have been able to wrangle a gang of clowns with ease.

“You chose a version of me who wanted you to be normal. Who didn’t understand how incredible we could have been. Don’t you dare blame that on me.”

[criminallysane]

She’s right, of course. He did love it, and that’s the worst part of all.

She somehow managed to turn him against himself, to ferret out the weakest part of him and put it in charge of all the rest. With her, he had allowed himself to become the nothing he’s always secretly feared that he is, and that had been enough for her. What terrifies him is that it had been enough for him, too. With Ronnie, he’d known the kind of peace and acceptance he hadn’t felt since Rebecca; he'd had someone who had made his life warmer and better and somehow fuller, just by being present in it. And, unlike Rebecca, Ronnie had known exactly who he was, what he was hiding, what he had done. She’d known he was part monster, and she’d been willing to open her heart to him regardless, and yes, goddammit, he had loved her for that.

But to hear it all laid out before him like this now only serves to humiliate him further. It’s one thing for him to know that sex with his wife had often been a spiritual experience for him, the kind of intimacy that actually merited that awful phrase, making love. It’s another thing to hear that his lunatic soon-to-be ex-henchwench knows it. The Joker does not make love, and he certainly has never thanked God over something like getting a little pussy. He despises the way Harley says it all, too, like his weakness for her was obvious, like she’s known it from the beginning and has maybe even been laughing at him for it all along. It cheapens the whole thing, and that’s for him to do, not her.

He lets go of her hair and snorts, shaking his head. His tone turns derisive. “You’re pathetic. Are you even hearing yourself? How insane you sound?” He pulls his hand away from her grasp. “I made do with the version of you that happened to be on hand, all right? As I’ve always done. You want to make that something more than what it was, tell yourself some delusional fantasy-story about how, ooh, once upon a time, little Harley was sane and loved and capable of actually being a good mother? Fine.” He turns away from her, done with her, and gives her a dismissive flip of his hand as he begins walking away from her. “Do it on your own time. You’ve got ten minutes to get out of my house.”

[madlove]

As he’s walking away, Harley says the one thing Ronnie never believed.

“You never deserved her.”

It’s become increasingly apparent to her that Joker knows the memories are real, even if he’d insisted they weren’t. Because he’s not correcting her comments about George by telling her that it was all a delusion. Just making up excuses about why she’s an idiot for still clinging to it. It’s only when Lucy is brought into the conversation that he mocks her for thinking any of it’s real.

She doesn’t understand why. But what she does understand is that he’s, in effect, denying the existence of their daughter. And George? He never would have done that. She thinks George would have grotesquely murdered anyone who dared put Lucy in danger.

Her hand falls to her side, closing into a fist, while the other clutches Lucy’s picture to her chest again.

Both Bud and Lou have gotten up by now, the pair growling low and deep in their throats. They can sense she’s distressed and it’s put them both on edge. And even as he walks away, the hyenas move to flank her. It’s unnecessary, but right then she’s grateful for it. There’s the vaguest sense of support from them and it somehow makes her feel less alone in all of this.

“The only thing you’ve ever done that’s been worth a damn is be a father to her. And now, the second you have a chance to run, you’re abandoning her. She deserves better.”

Lucy deserves better than Harley too, that’s something Harley wouldn’t hesitate to admit. But at least one of them is determined to acknowledge and remember her. She can’t help but be suddenly and thoroughly disgusted, and the sharp shake of her head, along with the way she turns on her heel to head to their bedroom to start throwing whatever she can in her purse, does nothing to hide her disappointment in him.

She’s always seen him as larger than life, bright and effervescent. Impossible not to love, even at his cruelest. And now she’s wondering what the fuck kind of man convinces himself that his daughter never existed. And her... Harley knows, in that moment, that she’s worse than her mother. She is pathetic, just not for the reasons Joker’s saying.

[criminallysane]

He stops in his tracks. It’s abrupt and completely involuntary, as if her words are a hook that’s caught him by his spine. You never deserved her.

They’re the same words he’s told himself countless times about Jeannie: I never deserved her. If she’d had sense enough to stay away from him, she would still be alive. They’re the same words Batman told him about Barbara, using Barbara's own voice to do it: You don’t deserve her. They’re the words he used to pray over Lucy while she slept, too: I don’t deserve her, Lord, but please… As if anyone could ever think he was worthy of anything but death. As if anyone could let him close without being hurt for their trouble.

His eyes shut again, and he would swear he can feel every pulse of his heart. Once again, Harley is right. He knows she’s right. He’s fucked up everything he ever touched. He is lethal to everyone who comes near him, but above all else, he is death incarnate to the people he allows himself to care for. The only truly worthwhile thing he ever did was to love with his whole heart a little girl who never even existed, and that love is now a weapon with which his own sidekick can destroy him.

He tries to summon a snide, snappy response, the sort of thing that would normally come to him as easily as a smile. Nothing springs to mind. There’s an inexplicable lump in his throat again that makes the thought of speaking seem like a bad one, anyway, so perhaps it’s just as well.

He feels called out, naked and exposed in the worst possible way. This shouldn’t surprise him, because of of course this Harley would know how to hurt him. She has all of Ronnie’s memories. She knows where his heart is and how best to slice it open, because George was a fool and showed her.

Even more painful is the terror that perhaps she’s right about all of what she’s saying: perhaps Lucy is still out there, and there’s some way he could reach her, and he’s abandoning her for no reason at all. Perhaps if he would just man up and devote himself to the task in the right way, he could discover the secret of manipulating space-time, and then he could retrieve his angel from the hellhole he left her in, and perhaps save Jeannie and their baby while he's at it.

If Lucy herself were waiting for him behind Door A, crying for him, would that change his decision?

Lucy is not real, he reminds himself. She’s not real… But oh, God, what if she is?

Cracks seem to be snaking through him, just below his skin. He can feel them opening up, widening, like an exoskeleton coming undone. What wouldn’t he give to see his baby again? To have her tiny hand safe in his again, and to know that as long as he’s alive, no one will ever dare to hurt her? God, what wouldn’t he give to see her grow up? To meet the woman she might have become?

Slowly, he turns to look back over his shoulder, and his mask has fallen away. He is, for a moment, every bit as exposed as he feels: eyes wide and hurting, lips parted, both warring sides of his heart on full display. But Harley’s already turned away, stalking off toward their bedroom, and he can’t quite bring himself to call after her.

Joker stands there in the living room, shoulders slumped, motionless as a tin soldier, for a long time. He listens to Harley moving things around in the other room. He thinks about Door B, and about Batman, and about what anyone deserves in this life, and how meaningless that word ultimately is.

He knows that if he wants to fix this, if he’s going to have any hope of trying, he needs to go to Harley, now, and tell her what he thinks she needs to hear: Yes, Lucy was real. Yes, I loved her, too. Yes, sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe without her, like I will never be able to breathe again. No, this is not the first time this has happened to me, and no, I can promise you, it will not get easier. And yes, of course, yes, it is always my fault.

And then what would happen? She would forgive him, almost certainly. They would talk, and she would cry, and then they’d probably have sex. And then he would forever be that weak, timid, normal man again, in both their eyes: some horrible hybrid of Jack and George, trapped in the Joker’s body and grieving for people he can never, ever save. He and Harley would, by definition, have to devote themselves to trying to find a way back to Lucy, who is, in all honesty, probably not real. After everything this world has thrown at him to test him, Joker puts nothing past it anymore, including creating and taking away a child just to sharpen his sense of grief. So he and Harley will, then, spend a deathless eternity here, chasing after the dream of a lost child, and everyone around them will wonder at what point, exactly, the Joker lost his balls and went completely off-track. He’ll turn into George in this life, too, but with none of the satisfactions of retirement. He’ll just be lost, a grieving father for all time.

Because Lucy is not real. And that’s the real trick behind Door A, isn’t it? Door A masquerades as sanity, love, hope, and family. But in the end, it’s just a sham, the most pathetic of wild goose chases, and is far sadder and crazier than “insanity” ever will be. The secret behind Door A is that there's nothing there at all.

As the minutes pass, sense slowly returns to him, and the intensity of his grief begins to lessen again. He’s passed the test, he thinks. He’s heard the sirens’ song and resisted it. He’s going to be all right.

By the time Harley returns from packing, he’s gotten himself a ginger ale (doing his best to overlook the mountain of mess she’s left in the kitchen) and is seated on the living room couch, flipping through a magazine. He doesn’t look up at the sound of her footsteps, but simply asks, as if nothing had happened between them at all, “Did you get everything you needed?”

[madlove]

Harley takes her anger and disappointment and grief out on their room. She upends drawers, even ones she doesn’t need to, she tosses aside anything that isn’t hers or that she doesn’t want to take because it would only be a painful reminder. She rips apart the contents of closets, rifles among odds and ends, rips papers off the walls like they’re nothing but old, peeling wallpaper that needs to be removed. She literally tears the comforter in two, sending down feathers everywhere, and takes one half of it. It’s going in the trash anyway — why would she want that to bring back memories of the years since they met? — but she’s taking half of the fucking thing in a petty attempt to make a worthless point.

There’s so much she doesn’t understand or know about him that would have changed this conversation completely. And, in all honesty, she hadn’t made that comment — you never deserved her — to slice at him. She’d said it because she believed it to be true with the way he’s acting and what he’s said and what information she knows about him.

Harley knows how much his work means to him. And she’s been willing to put her life on hold to help him with it. She’s been willing to sacrifice her career and, in all likelihood, her future for him. She was being truthful when she’d said that all she’d ever wanted from him was what he’d promised her in Arkham. And maybe she’s gone about trying to get him to make good on those promises all wrong. But it doesn’t change two very simple facts: George without the Joker never would have been able to adequately protect his family, and the Joker without George is functionally useless to her. She knows there’s a George (or a Jack-like person) in there, somewhere. But without that ability to love and trust her what they have is meaningless. It’s her throwing herself at him over and over while he laughs at what an idiot she is. George’s love for Lucy — for both of them — had made him strong. The Joker’s inability to face this, whatever’s behind that, makes him weak.

And by the time she comes back into the living area, hyenas on her heels and Lucy the elephant perking up as if she’s wondering if she’ll be coming along too, Harley’s expression is nothing but pitying. She’s still furious, still so hurt that every breath hurts. But she pities this man who can’t face everything he had, everything he could still have, because a part of him isn’t strong enough for it.

“I have enough.” She’d left a lot behind. Most of it didn’t matter anyway. For the most part, all she cares about is everyday items she’ll need and her drawing of Lucy. Bud and Lou will follow. The elephant will fit in her purse. The rest…

“I don’t know what happened to you before we met. I don’t know what happened to you after Arkham. But I hope you figure it out before you end up spending the rest of your life alone, trying to prove a point to a man who doesn’t give a shit.”

She turns to head out the door, then hesitates, looking back at him over her shoulder. “And maybe you’ll eventually figure out that loving you never made me weak. The only thing that made me weak was refusing to accept that you’re another man who doesn’t give a shit.”

[criminallysane]

He used his time with the magazine well, carefully losing himself in its glossy pages, its cheesy celebrities, its inane articles. This is the real world, and it’s a farce, and anything that might ever have made him feel something is now far away and fading, just a rapidly-receding dream. His entire future stretches before him now, he thinks. He can be exactly who he wants to be. He can once again be a force of nature, untouchable and horrific! He can unleash a pure, brilliant, wonderful evil upon this joke of a world that will make what he did at Christmas look like child’s play.

He’s going to show this world’s Batman how the dance was done in his Gotham, and no tricks or illusions have the faintest chance of stopping him.

In this state of mind, Harley’s goodbye speech — which he imagines she was in the bedroom working on, trying to find the right words so she could really give him the old one-two on her way out — barely even register. Blah, blah, blah, Batman doesn’t care about you. He actually rolls his eyes. Talk about old hat… What he and Batman have is eternal, and exists on a level her poor stupid brain will never comprehend. Nothing new there. He just wishes she could have thought of something more interesting for her final words. Then again, her mind never was her main selling point.

And of course the bitch has to finish it off with a comment about how she’s actually not weak at all, even though she’s the one who’s been sitting here in a pigsty sobbing over fantasies. He sobbed plenty himself, to be sure, but that seems so distant now, like something that must surely have happened to someone else. In fact, now that he thinks about it, that might have just been in a movie he watched, or the result of some chemicals misfiring in his noggin. He would never have cried in the first place, for heaven's sake, much less sobbed helplessly over something that didn’t even happen.

The only thing Harley says that does sound true and sensible to him is the very last bit, about how she failed to realize that he was just another man who doesn’t give a shit. That one gets her a chuckle, because hasn’t he been trying to convince her of that for years?

“Well, you never were a quick learner.” He flips a page in the magazine, to make it obvious that he’s only been halfway listening to her. “But you got there in the end. Now, you be a good girl out there and keep your chin up, and you’ll find a new Daddy replacement to snap you up in no time! Ta-ta, Harley.” Deliberately not looking at her, lest the sight of her walking out the door unravel all his self-control, Joker offers a waggle-of-the-fingers sort of wave and begins to chuckle again. “And don’t come back.”

When the door shuts behind her, he begins laughing in earnest. It starts out low and warm, rising up from the chuckling, meanly triumphant. He’s done it! He’s gotten rid of her! After all this time… The laughter feels like a magic spell as it grows, wrapping around him and protecting him. As long as he’s laughing, nothing can hurt him. He tosses the magazine aside and rises to his feet.

“It’s the beginning of the rest of our lives, boys,” he announces, even though there’s no one else present. He spins in a slow circle in place, still laughing to himself. He came here to dispose of her, and he’s actually fucking done it. And now that this first step of his recovery is complete, he’s certain that the rest of it will fall into place in a jiff.

He’s still laughing when he leaves the living room. Still laughing when he enters the bedroom and sees the disaster she made of it. He flops down on the bed, feathers flying, and flings both arms out, giddy, and begins making snow angels in the feather-mess. Ooh hoo! She really tore the place up, didn't she? Proof of her anger. Proof of how much he hurt her, the little idiot.

She's left little pieces of herself everywhere, he notices. A spangly top tossed here. A few tubes of lipstick in a sorry pile there. He's going to be finding the detritus of her for ages, he knows it already. But that's fine, really, because it's not like there's going to be any more of it coming. The two of them are finished for good this time; she's been amputated from his life like a festering limb. He won't ever again have to fend off her kisses, or grit his teeth against her giggle, or cringe at her terrible jokes.

He’s hooting with laughter now, and obviously that’s why his cheeks feel a little damp and his eyes sting. That happens sometimes, after all, when a man laughs too hard for too long. He keeps on laughing until his throat is raw, the sound turning shriller and shriller until he chokes on it.

She’s gone. He did it. She’s gone, she’s gone…

You never deserved her.

He thinks of Ronnie on their wedding day, her fingers threaded through his as they stood together in the beach town’s tiny courthouse. He remembers the look in her eyes when she told him she was pregnant. Remembers her squeezing his hand during labor, and the wild determination on her face, and how certain he’d been that this woman was braver and stronger and crazier than he had ever been. He remembers loving her, desperately, and knowing he would do anything in the world to make her smile.

No, he never deserved her, and that's just fine, because she’s gone, anyway. Hell, maybe she never even existed in the first place.

But her pillow, he discovers, still smells like her. Joker rolls onto his side, clutching it to him, and shivers, and buries his face in it so that he can breathe Ronnie in with small, shuddering breaths. He’s fine, he reminds himself. He’s fine, it’s all fine. Just too much laughing, that’s all.

He focuses on what matters, and murmurs against the pillowcase the one word he must never forget, the one that will protect him from all snares and defend him against all sanity: “Batman. Batman. Batman…” Each time he says it, he feels better.

He's just going to hold the pillow for a little while longer. There's no reason not to. Just a few more minutes, then he'll get back to work. After all, there is so very much work to be done. And no one now to get in his way.