No Place in My Heart for a Criminal Like You

Back to Harley’s POV

I was now officially, Harley Quinn. I had been on the scene with The Joker for a couple of weeks now and I feel fine. Although we still hadn’t done anything drastically major nor had I met the Batman, everything we did together excited me. Whether it’d be robbing banks, crashing the party scene or killing people, I was happy as long as I was with The Joker. When I was with him I felt…safe? I felt as if no-one could touch me. I felt as if we were good together, just like the original Bonnie and Clyde. Together I knew we could manipulate and dominate Gotham. If we put our heads together we’d be able to take over the city; not that The Joker wasn’t capable of that without me.

All of Gotham knew that whenever The Joker was mentioned, bad news was sure to follow. Now that another clown has joined him as his femme fatale sidekick, it can only mean momentous danger. By now, Gotham should realise that the city is no longer safe…or safer than it was.

I like that I had this effect on everyone. When people looked at me now, I’d see fear, disgust and most of all weakness. All my life I’d felt so weak and helpless towards everyone else. My family always “advised” me on what to do with my life. When I was involved with gymnastics, I was never allowed to do my own routines. I’d have to follow routines that had been made beforehand and had been followed by many others already. In Arkham, I was told which patients I’d be analysing instead of being able to pick or even a choice of patients. I already knew The Joker was a natural leader and was aware of what he was capable of, so it didn’t surprise me that he was able to manipulate me too. I suppose I’m just an easy target to try and manipulate. I wasn’t scary looking at all and I couldn’t even attempt to intimidate anyone. On first appearance, I stereotypically looked just like an adorable, little, bimbo.

But not anymore. I’d no longer let anyone boss me around. The Joker being an exception, as he was the one who helped me be who I was today. I needed a role-model and he was the one I’d be following. He was like my master, as he taught me things, scolding me whenever I didn’t follow his rules, and he would give me orders in which I would obediently abide by. Him aside, however, I’d be the one in control. And I was now no longer afraid of his henchmen. In fact, I had gotten to know them all a lot better. Whenever The Joker wasn’t around and I had nothing else better to do, I’d talk to them. None of them tried anything on me. I’m assuming that was because they were either very loyal of terrified of The Joker. Not wanting to upset The Joker in anyway, I didn’t tell him that I talked to his men. I knew how protective he was over me and I knew he didn’t like me going near any of them. So, to make sure I was never caught with any of them, our talks together would only be brief.

For future concerns, I’d have to practice fighting, so I was more experienced when the time came. The only way to practice was fight against The Joker. Although I thought it sounded quite fun to begin with, trust me, it isn’t. I thought that he’d go a little bit easy on me, since I’m smaller and less experienced than him. Obviously not. He doesn’t give me a chance at all, which isn’t very fair. Whenever I’d try lunging for him or punching him, he’d merely grab my arm and throw me to the floor. However, I think his hits are little less weaker than they could be. I’ve felt his punches and slaps before at times where he was sincerely angry at me and they were nowhere near as weak as the ones where we were sparring. But that’s not to say that the hits didn’t hurt at all, because that would be a lie. He made the fighting look easy, but I was no competition for him. But I knew that whenever I did land a punch, they were powerful. He’d stumble back slightly with a quiet groan, which he attempted to cover up, but he’d regain his composure almost instantly afterwards.

Many nights I’d end up badly injured, but I thought nothing of it knowing that it was for my own benefit. The Joker was willing to give up his own time to help me fight. Only once did we use knifes while fighting. But that didn’t turn out too well. I was too worried that he’d severely stab me or I’d stab him, leading to one of us being either critically injured or worse dead. We both agreed that fighting with the knives wasn’t a good idea. I couldn’t bare to even think of The Joker’s death and me being the one to kill him only exacerbated the idea. The Joker was my life now and I wouldn’t know what to do without him. I wanted to think that the feeling was mutual, but I had a feeling that The Joker was indifferent on the idea. He had, however, admitted to me that he didn’t want to kill me. But I highly doubted that he’d be upset if I was to pass away. I could only wish for him to have the same sort of feelings towards me, but I knew this wouldn’t happen. Nevertheless, I had now no intentions of wanting to change the way he was. Maybe I could fix something that was broken, but his soul was completely shattered. He was too far down the road of malice to turn back now. I didn’t expect anything more from what he was and I didn’t have a problem with that. All I asked for was for him to still want me around. I never wanted him to bore of me or leave me astray. I just wanted to be looked after like he had been doing.

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“You know, I’ve never liked that Bruce Wayne,” The Joker stated nasally. He had been staring out of the bedroom window for five minutes without saying a word, with his hands behind his back. I had been lying on my stomach on the bed as I read Gotham’s newspaper quietly. There was an article on the front about me and The Joker with a photo to accompany it. Nothing new.

“What you thinking, J?” I asked as I looked up from the paper.

“Hmm, nothing. What do you think of him, puddin’?”

“Meh,” I replied indifferently. “Why don’t you like him?”

“Too…arrogant for my liking. Wasn’t to happy with him touching you at his fund raiser either. Remember that, hmm?”

“Yes, J. I remember.” It seemed so long ago now that I thought about it. I never took The Joker to be the jealous type. I didn’t have anything against Bruce Wayne; he had, after all, tried to save me from The Joker. But I do agree that he is very arrogant and conceited. Nevertheless, he was friendly and gentle.

“Whaddaya say we go over to Wayne Enterprises, hmm?” He asked as he turned around to face me.

“And do what exactly?”

With a malicious grin, he replied with, “Let’s have some fun.”