it's just you and me against me...

[attending_physician]

This recording does not exist.

(She’s told that more than once in the course of trying to get a hold of it.)

Someone who is not a member of the police, or affiliated with the district attorney’s office, or acting as counsel for the suspect would never be allowed into the interrogation room; especially not someone who is also a vigilante criminal and wanted by the police.

(Harleen replies more than once that she understands, but that she still needs the recording.)

She tries the commissioner, and the district attorney, but in the end the solution is much simpler. There are cracks still in the GCPD; small things can still be bought.

“I need this,” she tells the lieutenant. “I’m his doctor. I need to know exactly what I’m dealing with.”

He is sympathetic and only asks for half of what she’d expected to pay.

Two days later, a nondescript brown envelope turns up in her mailbox, containing an unlabeled DVD.



The picture quality is shit; the fact that most of the lights in the interrogation room are out certainly isn’t helping matters.

Harleen realizes why the lights are out the second before they come back on.



The question is a stupid one. She pulls a face that she’s glad no one can see.

She expected more from the Bat.



He’s talking and the Bat isn’t listening.

”They're only as good as the world allows them to be.”

“... these civilized people—they'll eat each other.”

Harleen is.



The Bat dials up the violence to avoid playing the game.

(How many bones did she break? Does anyone know?)

The Joker gives up the addresses and the Bat tears out of there like her cape is on fire.

Eventually, an officer is sent in to guard the door.

The minute he responds to the Joker’s question, Harleen knows this is going to go very badly.



The Joker steers the officer out of the room.

If she turns the volume up, she can hear shouting from down the hall, though the words remain indistinct.

And then the explosion.

Harleen turns the video off when the screaming starts.



All told, she watches the interrogation three times from start to finish. She rewinds, takes notes.

By the time the Joker’s next appointment rolls around, she feels about as prepared as she thinks she ever will.

Comments

[attending_physician]

Harleen only just manages not to roll her eyes.

"I don't think I can manage that 'flip you onto the desk' trick. We'll just have to entertain ourselves some other way."

[manofmyword]

Undaunted, he blows her a kiss.

[attending_physician]

To say she's feeling a little punchy today would be an understatement.

(She's gotten used to his face, adorned only with scars. It had been strange to see the make-up on the tape, even smeared and faded as it was. It had been stranger still to see him treated like a thing.

Like something that could be broken and no one would care.

She's hardly about to diagnose him as a misunderstood choirboy, but either the law means something--to everyone, all the time--or it means nothing at all.

Put more simply: fuck the police.)



"So. How many of his friends were cowards?"

[manofmyword]

The Joker presses a hand to his heart. "You ask the best questions, have I ever told you that?"

He smiles brightly.

"But unfortunately, I can't answer this one, 'cause he never told me which ones were his friends."

[attending_physician]

Harlene shrugs.

"We'll just have to live in ignorance, then."

[manofmyword]

"Mhm." He cocks his head and adds, "If you wanna talk about knifing cops, though, I'm game."

[attending_physician]

Harleen pretends to consider it.

"Let's table that for now.




Tell me about freaks."

[manofmyword]

Some of the humour leaves his face.

His tongue touches his lips; he looks at her thoughtfully for a moment, then murmurs, "You do ask good questions."

[attending_physician]

She's almost tempted to apologize.



"That's what I'm here for," she replies softly.

[manofmyword]

He smiles again, small and oddly affectionate. Or maybe not so oddly.

"People really like that word, for some reason." A short pause. "I don't."

[attending_physician]

She'd guessed as much, but saying so seems...rude.

"Okay.





Did your father like that word?"

[manofmyword]

"It wasn't his favourite, actually," the Joker admits. "I got a lot of it everywhere else, though."

[attending_physician]

"And you used it on the Bat," she adds.

[manofmyword]

"Mmm. Did I?"

This is not actually an evasive answer, or at least not completely.

[attending_physician]

"With particular emphasis."

[manofmyword]

"I said it," he acknowledges. "But it was really more of a warning."

[attending_physician]

"About the civilized people of Gotham?" she hazards.

[manofmyword]

"Something like that," he agrees.

"Not that I thought she'd listen. But I felt like telling her anyway."

[attending_physician]

"She doesn't seem terribly receptive to advice."

Harleen drags her lower lip between her teeth.

"I'm listening."

[manofmyword]

"You already heard it all," he points out.

With a wistful smile, "I was so happy when I heard about her, you know? There's really not a whole lot of people in the world who're anything like me. But she doesn't realize. She thinks she can have it both ways, and she can't."

[attending_physician]

"What do you mean, 'both ways'?"

[manofmyword]

"Mmm," he says thoughtfully, drumming his fingers on his knees as he tries to come up with the right words.

"The Bat isn't really a person," he starts, his gaze wandering across the ceiling. "The Bat is a legend. A myth. She's trying to scare the law into all the bad little boys and girls in Gotham, and y'know what? It was working for a while there."

He takes a breath, straightens, shakes his head.

"But you heard the way she was talking. She knows how to play it," a fond smile curves his lips, "does she ever, but she still thinks she's playing. Like it's something she can just put on and take off. Like she can be this lurking angel of terror and still pretend she doesn't understand what it means to be," he makes an expansive gesture with both hands, "outside."

[attending_physician]

"Outside," she murmurs, mulling over the word.

"...you don't think she can be anything but the Bat. Not whoever she is underneath, not anymore."

[manofmyword]

"The Bat is who she is underneath," he insists. "What time is it, five o'clock? I bet you anything she's walking around right now pretending to lead a normal life, and I bet you anything it's nnnnot working out for her. And then she tries to tell me I'm a lowlife who kills for money." He snorts, affronted. "You know, it's not like it's not true, but it's not who I am. I've killed people for money. I've killed people for a lot of things. And if I wore a red suit it wouldn't make me Santa Claus."

[attending_physician]

Harleen is quiet for a moment, considering.

"She can't be a part of the society she's trying to protect. She's made herself into something incompatible with that society.

According to you."