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

[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."

[manofmyword]

"Trust me, hon," he says with a grin, "I'm kind of an expert on being incompatible with society."

[attending_physician]

"I'm prepared to take your word on that," she allows.

"But what makes you so sure that she can never get back...inside, as you put it?"

[manofmyword]

"Some things... you can't go back to being somebody who doesn't know that," he says, genuinely struggling to explain. "Like you can't go back to being somebody who was never raped. Or you can't go back to being somebody who's never killed anyone."

[attending_physician]

Harleen goes still.

She isn't sure which part of that lays her low, or if it's all of it together.

(Is it about him? Obviously someone was his first kill, somewhere he crossed that line, but the rest--

Did the example just happen to fit or is it true?

He didn't say it was about him. He didn't say it wasn't.

Forget that. What about the big picture? At some point, you cannot go back over a line. She cannot go back to the person she was before he walked into her office, for example. She wonders how much has changed.

Not a lot, she thinks, even as she knows her judgement is suspect.)



"It's too much of a change, from whatever she was," she murmurs eventually, part of her mind still on people other than the Bat.

"Being anyone else now...it must be like wearing a costume."

The corner of her mouth twitches at the joke, but it still strikes her as the right description.

[manofmyword]

The Joker grins, pleased to have communicated his point.

"Exactly," he agrees, separating out the sounds of the word in that way that he does.

[attending_physician]

She takes a deep breath to clear her head.


(He did say he would be honest with her.)


"Before we continue, I have to ask: were those examples hypothetical or personal?"

[manofmyword]

"You know damn well I've killed people."

That's not really an answer, but maybe he'd rather she make the question a little more explicit.

[attending_physician]

"I'm aware," she agrees.

"But I don't know if sexual assault was a random example or if you were making reference to a specific event."

[manofmyword]

"Not exactly," he says. "It's complicated."

Under some definitions, what happened with Aloysius would qualify. Not that the Joker wasn't constantly aware of where the real power lay in that situation.

He hasn't always had that kind of power, though.

[attending_physician]

"'Complicated' is frequently part of my job description," she points out.

"But you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

[manofmyword]

He shakes his head and waves a hand dismissively.

"I'm not really that hung up on it anymore. But, mm... let's start with our frrriend Aloysius."

His hands come together between his knees, sliding palm to palm. Back and forth. Back and forth.

"I know what he thought he was doing to me. You know it, too," he says, glancing at her. "I'm sure you thought the same thing. He's a doctor, I'm a patient, this place is a prison, not like I can say no, right? But I knew I could kill him anytime. Kinda takes the pressure off." His tongue touches his lips. "And I like it. I've told you about the guns; you saw me with Batsy. I like it," this time with a distinctly sexual emphasis, "when somebody pushes me around."

[attending_physician]

She nods once.

"But even when you like something, that doesn't mean liking it always, from everyone."

[manofmyword]

"Yeah," he says.

"And I haven't always been this good at killing people, and not everybody who wants to fuck me is that easy to kill."

He shrugs, opening his hands.

"Way back when. He saw me with somebody else, decided to make an offer. I told him I didn't want his money or his dick. He told me it didn't matter what I wanted. Pulled a knife on me. And y'know," he smiles, that same sweet smile he got when he was telling her about Dr. Larson the first time, "it was still a rush."

Another shrug.

"I fought like hell. I could show you the scars, but they're mostly in places I don't think you wanna look at. I had a big one right up under here for a while," he lifts his chin, touches the underside of his jaw, "but it went away, after a few years. Took me about that long to get it all – straightened out in my head."

His smile turns a little more crooked.

"He called me a freak a few times. I didn't like that word even before then, but that probably didn't help much."

[attending_physician]

Her first thought is that she wishes he was still lying to her.

(It could still be a lie. She has no guarantee it isn't, except for her gut feeling.

This is a thing that happened. This is a thing that happened to him.

It doesn't explain everything. It can't. It doesn't need to.

She wonders if he really would show his scars, if she asked.)



"No," she whispers at last. "I don't imagine it did."

[manofmyword]

"Well aren't you a sweetheart," he murmurs, his smile softening as he folds his hands in his lap.

Maybe it just goes to show he doesn't know people as well as he thinks he does, but he really didn't expect her to care.

[attending_physician]

"Not really."

They have been over this. Sweetness doesn't last in this place.

"But that doesn't make me devoid of compassion."

[manofmyword]

"Why waste it on me?" he wonders.

[attending_physician]

"Who else should I give it to?"

It's an honest question.

"Do you think you don't deserve it?"

[manofmyword]

"...I don't know," he admits.

"I don't really think of it that way, y'know?"

[attending_physician]

"As something you deserve?" she asks.

"Or as something even available to you?"

[manofmyword]

"I mean I don't think about deserving things," he explains, shaking his head and smiling crookedly. "Not that I think about compassion much either," he admits with a shrug. "Most people... well. You saw."

They treat him like a freak. Like something laughable, if they don't know him well, and if they do, like something terrifying and alien.

"It doesn't bug me or anything. But, mm..." He cocks his head, smiling softly at her. "It doesn't bug me that you're different, either. Actually," his tongue touches his lips, "I kinda think I like it."