Killer of Hero Entry!
Title: Holdin’ Out For A Hero?
Universe: DCU
Genre: Gen
Rating: PG
Character: Harley Quinn, Joker, Batman, Amazons, etc.
Word Count: 1305
Notes: Tweaked her history to make more coherent sense than the comics.
Summary: She’s a good guy now?!
So, she was playing solitaire now. No, that wasn’t right. He was playing solitaire now. He always was. He was the man on the card. And her? She was an opera piece. And the spotlight was on her now. She was going solo. Truthfully, she never was…not even now. And them? Well, it seemed that everyone knew their role; except she just didn’t quite know hers anymore. And this was beyond just the Big Bad Bat. This literally was them. This was everyone.
She knew where her place was, at Mist-The Joker’s side. So what was she doing with the Amazons? What was she doing with the likes of them? With the rest of the good guys? Once, if you had told her that she would be spending her time with a bunch of goody goodies she would have assumed you meant someone finally lobotomized all of Arkham.
But this wasn’t Arkham. Here she actually healed instead of receded. After all, Joker practically owned Arkham Asylum and that meant she was in his domain. Of course, she wasn’t going to get better! How could she get better in the place they had first met? Everything spoke of him, even the broken fingernails on the scrapped chair arms. It was kind of funny. Before, she didn’t have this problem at all and before-well, she didn’t think they were saints-but she believed they were right.
Ivy had a real cause she believed in but, and she can’t believe she's agreeing with them now, Ivy was going about it all wrong. Fries had a story of tragic love…Harley understood his motives completely. Scarecrow had research to do! He just ended up getting carried away…sort of like how she had.Then there was The Riddler. He was never as bad as the rest of them, and Harley thought him rather harmless…but he had reformed hadn’t he? Seemed like him, doing whatever suited in order to appear smarter…Harley doubted he held real insanity. Really, Harley thought they should have been best friends by now. After all, what had she done but…reform as well?
She hasn’t forgotten that night, driving back to Arkham in his car…Batman’s…The Batman. It made here think of being dropped off after a joyride with a guy you liked. It hadn’t felt like such a big deal at the time. She had almost wanted to invite him in…into the asylum. As if, they really had just went for a cruise and now he expected to get some. She’d imagine Mistah J to get a laugh out of that one. He always said Batman belonged there with the rest of the crazies. The Joker. Not Mistah J. She almost hadn’t caught herself for a second there.
It really hadn’t felt like a big deal at all. She was getting what she wanted and she wanted out. She was helping Arnie’s name while she was at it, poor man. Harley never forgot a friend. The real problem though, as always, was whether she could forget a lover. She had tried to get along without The Joker, without anyone, for a while…start her own gang. For the first time it was more to prove something to herself than to him.
But still…it was as if her motivation was gone without The Joker. There was no reason to do what she did without him, was there? He had created her after all. Her name was the name he had bestowed on her, like a pet’s name. Who was she kiddin’? She was nothing . She truthfully wasn’t Harleen anymore…she was out too far for that. But Harley Quinn? His harlequin? She just couldn’t be that anymore. And how that had stirred in her she’d never know. When had she started to want out the right way? When had she started to not want to break out?
Harley can recall being set free; finally, she was able to get out of Arkham on parole. That trip with the Batboy appeared to have paid off. There was nothing new in that, however. She had been “cured” before…right? But this was somehow different. Before, he had always come to get her. He had always inexplicably show up, a flamboyant image of glamour that set stars in her eyes. He had always come to rescue her. Despite his talk, he seemed to go out of his way to seemingly upset her…to harass the newly redeemed blonde. Like always, she would go back. This time there was no going back.
The saddest thing had to have been that before…before Harley had thought her hero to be The Joker. She truly did. He had saved her from something, she knew not what. She had wanted to be him and be with him and be whatever he chose. Now…she had to lie to herself that all they had had was a boss/employee relationship. That he was Mistah J and not Puddin’ out of formality. That he was The Joker…not her Clown Prince…not her anything…not hers. And that hurt. That really did. Because he never was.
She was barely hearing news about him at the time to begin with. She had caught bits of all sorts of things. She knew the mighty Joker to have fallen from grace in the criminal underworld, ever the Lucifer. She wondered then, how he felt to not even have her with him at the time. She had heard some strange things about a death. She had heard about fights. She heard about those a lot. She would hear about his time in and out of the asylum. It was weird how the other inmates always seemed to update her, even when she was trying not to care. It made her feel like the wife of a man in Vietnam or some such war. Like all the other war buddies who came home before that certain soldier where looking out for the little wife. It sort of made her feel special, however guilty she felt about that.
Once out of Arkham, she heard even less. Then there was that deal about dimensions and other things she couldn’t get her brain to fully process Like usual ,she was never truly independent with the Amazons, they were a help group for her after all. Then there was Holly and once again she was feeling the old need to latch on to someone. Suffering from a sort of dependant personality disorder, the doctors at Arkham had written in her psychiatric file. She hoped this friendship had nothing to do with that.
Harley had even tried to visit The Joker while on one of those nutty dimension trips. She told herself it was for closure…or because they could all die any second now…or something along those lines. He didn’t remember her at all. She didn’t think she’d be so affected but she was. Turns out it wasn’t her Joker. It wasn’t The Joker.
So now, here she was. It was her solo on stage but not really, she had Holly. She had a friend. She had given up the costume a long time ago. She couldn’t be a good guy by that name. Harley Quinn. She couldn’t do it under something he made for her. That was his…this was her. Odd to think she had once killed in his name, done unspeakable things all for his sake. So, she wasn’t Harleen. Maybe she never was…maybe he was right about that but, she was still Harley. The nickname existed long before he did.
“Call me Harley, everyone does.”
He was wrong about one thing, at least. This wasn’t a stage she was stuck on. She wasn’t destined to be stuck like he was, playing a game in which winning was in failure. She wasn’t like him and his precious Batsy. She was Harley Quinzel.
For now, anyway.