Harleen Part 8/19
Author: BlueSuede
Title: Harleen
Rating: PG13/T
Genre: Friendship/Romance
Pairings: Chloe/Bruce
Summary: Chloe is on a recruiting mission, trying to pin down Gotham's infamous Dark Knight. In order to learn more about him, she begins interviewing those he's captured. What will she do when the Joker escapes and begins targeting her?
Warning: I understand that this story may not be entirely consistent with Nolan's Batman. Mostly this will be a result of my growing up with Batman the Animated Series.
banner by cheryljluv
First Chapter
Previous (Chapter 7)
Next (Chapter 9)
"Forgive me for asking, but you seem a bit upset. Is everything all right?"
Chloe sighed. "It's just...this work at Arkham. It's starting to get under my skin. I don't know. I shouldn't let it stress me out like this, but today was especially bad. I guess things have been starting to take their toll on me."
"This may be none of my business, but why do it? Is this book of yours worth it?"
The corner of her lips twitched. "I never take on a project unless it's absolutely worth it."
"But these people...they obviously frighten you. You were very shaken this afternoon."
She nodded slowly, looking at the raindrops hitting the window pane.
"So what could be worth putting yourself through all of that?"
"I know it doesn't seem like a book is that high of a goal...but it's not just about the book. There are other...factors. There's this huge grand scheme that I can't really explain, but it's worth putting myself through a little anxiety. I work for some people, really good people, and they asked me to take on this project, and these are people...when they say 'Jump'..."
"You pull out a trampoline. But I'm afraid I don't follow. I still don't understand what makes it so important."
Chloe chuckled softly. "I wish I could get into it." She looked up at him. "And I really mean that. You're really easy to talk to. Has anyone ever told you that?"
Alfred set down his cup of tea and smiled at her. "It's been mentioned a time or two."
Chloe set down her cup of tea as well and looked at her watch. She sighed heavily. "Alfred?"
"Yes, Miss Chloe?"
"He's not coming is he?"
Alfred sighed as well. "Probably not, Miss Chloe."
"I'm surprised he hasn't called. I guess..." she chewed her lip, "I mean, I don't mind that he got hung up...it happens" --And who knew it better than her?-- "But I thought he would have at least expected him to call to let us know." A sudden flash of insecurity hit her. She looked imploringly at Alfred. "He's not the sort of guy that would do this on purpose is he? I mean, if he doesn't like me, there's no reason to invite me over and then stand me up."
Alfred leaned forward and rested a hand on Chloe's shoulder. "Miss Chloe, I've known Master Bruce for many years, and I can safely say that he thinks much more highly of you than that. I promise if he hasn't called, then there's a very good reason." He hesitated for a moment, before adding, "Although I can't promise he'll be able to give you an explanation." Chloe frowned. "I'm sure he'll apologize the moment he gets the chance. For now, if you don't mind, I don't get a lot of company, so would you care to join me for dinner?"
Chloe smiled warmly. "That sounds nice, Alfred. Thank you."
"After that I'll bring you home."
"Thank you, Alfred," she said again.
_ _ _ _ _
When Chloe went home that night, after a brief but excellent dinner with Alfred, she still wasn't feeling quite herself. She supposed that at the end of the day, it was just the de ja vu that being stood up had sent her through. It wasn't a good feeling, age aside, and she resented Bruce for calling up those old feelings.
But she trusted Alfred easily enough, and he insisted that whatever happened, Bruce had wanted to be there. Her forehead creased slightly as she remembered Alfred mentioning that Bruce might not be able to give her an explanation. That sounded like something she would say, not something other people told her.
The furrow in her brow deepened as she toweled off her hair, heading to bed. It was still raining outside, she noticed.
She shivered, unsettled for a reason she couldn't name. She tried not to allow her mind to flash back to her morning at Arkham. As thunder rumbled outside she suddenly thought she heard the sound of that low, dead laughter and she jumped, screaming quietly, looking around the room.
Realizing she was as alone as usual, she clutched her heart and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. Well, at least there were no witnesses to her incredible cowardliness. The boys would never let her live it down if they knew how jumpy she was getting.
She smiled uneasily at the thought, throwing back the covers on her bed and trying to force herself to relax.
Chloe tossed and turned the whole night, muttering in her sleep, vague nightmares that she wouldn't remember come morning coursed through her mind and when her alarm went off in the morning, sunlight streaming brightly through her window, she shot up in bed screaming. Trying to catch her breath she took in her surroundings, realizing that she'd been dreaming. There was nothing to be afraid of. She flopped back in bed, still panting a bit, but her muscles relaxing. She let out a long, slow breath as she looked at the beautiful day outside, so different from the incessant rain they'd been seeing lately. Disappointed with herself, she rolled onto her side, intending to snuggle into the covers a bit more and relax, since she didn't intend to go into Arkham today.
And she saw it. Her heart raced and she could hear her own pulse throbbing in her ears as she slowly reached for the object. There, resting on the pillow next to her, was a playing card. A Joker. She dropped it as if it had burnt her, scrambling out of bed so quickly she could have put Bart to shame.
She looked around the room, snatching up her robe and heading straight into the hallway. She needed to have someone search her room to make sure there was no one else in there. In front of her door was the daily paper, which she would have stepped right over in her moment of panic, except that the headline caught her eye:
JOKER'S NIGHT OUT
She snatched up the paper and skimmed the article quickly.
Apparently last night the Joker had broken out of Arkham. But he was back in his cell now, the article confirmed. Batman had captured him before the night was up.
Chloe swallowed tightly, looking up and down the hallway to make sure no one had seen her. She knew the smart thing to do. She should call Oliver and Company and have them search her room and double up her security. She should turn the playing card into the police and submit herself to questioning about why the Joker might be targeting her. That was the smart thing to do all right, but she wasn't going to do it.
Every single member of the league would insist on packing up her things for her and shipping her home. They didn't like her being in danger, which was understandable, but she had a feeling she was close to something. She suspected she was going to get some important answers from her meeting with Lucius Fox coming up, and the fact that the Joker had left her a calling card...it had to mean something.
She'd struck a nerve somewhere. She wanted to know what it was.
She hurried back into her room and changed as quickly as possible, not totally comfortable in the room at the moment, but as soon as she could be she was outside the hotel, hailing a cab and offering him an ample bribe to get her to Arkham as fast as possible.
_ _ _ _ _
The sound of confident heels clicked across the linoleum floors as Chloe made her way down the various corridors of Arkham Asylum. She barely took a moment for her usual greeting the guard outside the Joker's wing as she brushed past him, barging through the doors and making her way to the end of the hall, ignoring the sounds coming from the other inmates.
She stopped in front of the Joker's cell, and didn't flinch when she saw him lying in bed, his face bruised and a bit swollen, his arm in a sling. She held up the card and raised an eyebrow at him.
"You called?" she asked.
There was that manic smile, the one that made her stomach roll. He clucked his tongue in a disapproving manner. "Ooh...naughty girl. Shouldn't you be handing that to the police?" His dark grin broadened. "Or maybe you don't like cops anymore than every other inmate in here. Tell me, Miss Sullivan, do you think you'll end up on the other side of this glass one day? I bet you do. We're all just a little bit crazy on the inside."
Chloe stepped closer to the cell, ignoring his words. "What do you want, Joker?" she demanded.
"I wonder what kind of maniac you'd be," he continued, not paying her any mind. "The killing kind, perhaps? The laughing kind, the muttering kind, or the foaming at the mouth kind."
"Why did you break into my hotel room? What were you looking for? Were you trying to send me a message?"
"You know what I think? I think you'd be the kind they have to put in a straight jacket. You'd sit in a corner, rocking back and forth and flinching at loud noises."
"WHAT DO YOU WANT?" she practically shouted at him, annoyed with his game.
"TO LET THE MADNESS OUT!" he yelled back, matching her volume, his voice gleeful. Chloe faltered, moving back a step. "I want to let it all out. To let every man and woman find his or her inner lunatic. You see, Miss Sullivan," he sat up in bed and started walking toward her, "I'm a man of vision. I like to imagine a world where no one has to hide what they really are." Chloe swallowed tightly as he continued advancing toward her; she forced herself to hold her ground. There was bullet proof glass between them after all. "I imagine a world where killers can be killers without having to be afraid of being thrown behind bars, where psychopaths can be free to indulge in their obsessions, where confused teenagers can express themselves through gang violence without being judged by their piers. I imagine a world that doesn't need Batman because it's already killed him off. I truly am a visionary, Miss Sullivan, you see." He pressed his hands against the glass, his breath fogging it as he continued to speak. "I envision a world where the sane people are behind bars...where they belong."
_ _ _ _ _
"Dr. Quinzel," Chloe pounded on the door to the doctor's office. "Dr. Quinzel! Harleen! I need to discuss something with you!" she shouted, beating against the door futilely.
"She left early this morning," a voice echoed down the hall. Chloe stilled. She turned and headed around the corner where Dr. Crane was leaning calmly against the wall of his cell. He looked up at her, pleased that she'd come to him immediately.
"Where is she?"
He lifted a shoulder and dropped it. "No idea. She was frantic about something, though. As are you," he added with obvious pleasure. "Do tell me, Miss Sullivan, what has you so frightened this fine morning? Having nightmares again?"
Chloe dragged her hand over her face. Her mind raced, trying desperately to fit the pieces together. There was something she was missing and she couldn't figure out what it was. She took a deep breath and steadied herself. "Goodbye, Dr. Crane," she said firmly, turning on her heel and heading for the door.
_ _ _ _ _
"What do you mean you need to change hotels?" Oliver asked her over the phone as she walked down the long drive outside Arkham, grateful for the unprecedented sunny weather. "I mean, of course I'll take care of it. It's no problem, but is everything all right? Chloe, what aren't you telling me?"
"I can't talk about it right now, Ollie. Sorry. But I think I'm close to something. I'm not sure. I'll let you know as soon as I get it figured out, but I just need this favor. I've got to go."
"Chloe, wait--"
But she was already hanging up.
Forty-five minutes later she was in the police station, walking straight up to Officer Montoya's desk and blatantly asking, "Where does the Bat Signal come from?"
Montoya looked up from her paperwork, startled. "What?"
"The Bat Signal. It has a source. Where does it come from? Who controls it?"
"I'm afraid that's--"
"Don't give me the 'classified' BS, Montoya. I have a lot of respect for your intelligence, and I'd appreciate the same courtesy. The cops, the news, everyone in this town has some sort of public vendetta against Batman even though he continually saves their lives and throws their criminals behind bars. The Bat Signal is proof that somebody is aware of that, that someone is willing to call him in for help. Where does it come from?"
Montoya's eyes darted around warily. Finally, she muttered. "Come with me."
Satisfied that she was finally going to get some answers, Chloe followed Montoya into a back room, just outside of an interrogation cell. Montoya rounded on her.
"Look, Sullivan, you can't go shouting that kind of stuff around the station. You said it yourself. There's a public vendetta against the Bat. Half the force is divided on the fact, and it definitely doesn't help that half the force is also corrupt," she finished in a harsh whisper. "Trouble is we don't know which is which. So if you start shouting that stuff around there, people are gonna start asking questions. They're gonna start putting pieces together, and anyone who's got a bone to pick with the Bat might start to realize what's been in front of them for a while."
"Which is?" Chloe pressed.
Montoya's eyes darted around, making sure they were really alone. "I think the Commissioner has some sort of relationship with the Bat...an understanding. Batman helps Gordon out, and Gordon doesn't put too many men on the Bat's case...so he can't get caught. Gordon sleeps safer at night knowing the Bat's out there, and quite frankly, I do, too. So do me a favor, and don't rock my boat, got it?"
Chloe nodded. "Get me in to see Commissioner Gordon."
Montoya met her eyes fiercely, searching for something. Apparently she passed the test, because after a moment, the woman clarified, "Off the record?"
"Of course."
And suddenly she was being brought into Gordon's private office. There was no one there at the moment, but Montoya told her to wait there. "He'll be around in a few minutes. He's on his lunch." She paused on her way out the door and glance over her shoulder at Chloe. "Don't touch anything."
As soon as the door shut Chloe scoffed. "Don't touch anything?" she repeated. "God, she doesn't know me at all."
Immediately she was pulling her lock pick out of her purse and opening the Commissioner's filing cabinet, rifling through it in search of anything relating to either Batman or the Joker. At first she didn't find anything, but then the file, "Napier, Jack," caught her attention. Attached to the name was a list of names, as if it was uncertain what the real identity was. "Jack [?], Jack Napier, Red Hood, Joker." She pulled out the file and started rifling through it. It was a jumbled mess. There were various reports, barely complete in almost every case, they raised more questions than they answered. But one caught her attention immediately. It was a psychological profile from Arkham Asylum, written by Dr. Harleen Quinzel."
Although the subject has a reputation for violent tendencies, this predilection is mostly due to childhood abuse and victimization, resulting from a physically violent father and neglectful mother. His personality is somewhat childish in regard to a love for joke-telling and laughter, but essentially is harmless in this respect. Crime history is without question the work of a perfectly capable, highly intelligent, sane man, constructed to look like the work of a sick mind in order to pursue his vendetta against alleged vigilante known as "Batman." It is also possible that the subject is faking insanity in order to avoid the death penalty, but more importantly, to gain sympathy and attention, which he obviously craves due to his obviously sub-par upbringing.
Chloe reread everything as if to double check that she had the right Joker. Had Dr. Quinzel gone off her nut? How could a trained psychologist be so taken in by an obviously demented sociopath? She flipped the report over to the back and saw that Commissioner Gordon, too, had been mystified by this analysis. He had written Harleen's name and credentials on the back with a large question mark beside them, as if he suspected some research should be put into the matter.
She heard voices outside the door and quickly shoved the file back inside and shut the drawer, rushing over to the chair in front of Gordon's desk and seating herself, hoping it would look like she'd been there the whole time.
"Thank you, Montoya, that's very interesting," Gordon's voice carried through to her as he cracked open the door, before entering fully. Chloe rose to shake his hand.
"Commissioner Gordon," she greeted. "Thanks for taking some time to see me. I wanted to talk to someone I could trust."
Gordon raised an eyebrow at her, returning the handshake before walking around his desk to sit down. He leaned his elbows on his desk and pressed the tips of his fingers together, eyeing her thoughtfully. "Well, Miss Sullivan, I'm all ears."
Taking a deep breath, Chloe pulled the Joker out of her pocket and handed it to him, sitting down.
Gordon studied the card stoically, then he lowered his glasses slightly to peer at her over them. "Explain."
"I've been interviewing subjects at Arkham asylum--including the Joker. I found that in my hotel room this morning. And I understand that last night the Joker broke out."
Gordon rubbed his brow as though trying to erase the wrinkles that had formed there over the years. "I see. You think because of these interviews you were doing, he's targeted you?"
"I'm not sure."
"What exactly would you like me to do here, Miss Sullivan? As I'm sure you're aware, the Joker is back under lock and key. Offering you protection at the moment would be superfluous and, quite frankly, a waste of my insufficient funds. If he were still at large, that would be an entirely--"
"I don't want protection," Chloe assured him.
His brow furrowed. "Well then, what?"
"I just thought it was something the police should know. In case last night--God forbid--ever has a repeat, it would be good information for us both to have...and--" she caught his eye "anyone else you think might be interested."
Gordon didn't reply, but, like Montoya, searched her eyes for a few minutes as if testing her. Then he nodded. "Thank you, Miss Sullivan. It was wise of you to come here with this, and I will make sure that the information is handled appropriately. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a detective's chops to bust."
He escorted her out the door politely, but she jumped in surprise when he shouted from his doorway in a very angry voice, "BULLOCK! Get in here!"
The overweight Detective with the doughnut fixation jumped guiltily at his desk and cringed. As Chloe walked out, she noticed the satisfied smirk on Officer Montoya's face as she kept her head down. Chloe rapped her knuckled gently on Montoya's desk and mouthed a Thank You when the woman looked up. Montoya nodded, then returned to her work.
Chloe left the police station and checked her phone for messages. The one she was looking for, from Oliver, gave her the address of her new hotel, where Bart and Clark had already moved her things. But there was also a second one from Bruce, profusely apologizing for the other day, and distinctly lacking in--you guessed it--an explanation.
She bit her lip longingly, wanting badly to call him back, but knowing she couldn't. Her meeting with Lucius Fox was tomorrow, and she had some research to do.
Previous (Chapter 7)
Next (Chapter 9)
Question: I know that everyone has varying tastes, and I'm struggling a lot with this story. I have vague notions of where I'm going to take it, but some things are very hazy (hence the unusual amount of time between chapters). So, I wanted to get some input, particularly regarding the Chruce relationship, which, I know, is developing painfully slowly (sorry!). How far are you guys interested in seeing their relationship go? I'd rather not drag the fic out any longer than I have to (it's already so involved, and I'm trying to give the plot justice), so at the rate they're going, I'm not sure how far along I see the pair getting by the end. Kissing? Absolutely. Some cheesy, Valentine's Day appropriate lovey-dovey-ness? No problem. Smut? Might take a bit more effort. Serious relationship in which they really get to know each other? I may not be finished until next Valentine's Day. But if that's what people really want, I'm willing to go at it, with the understanding that it's going to take a long, long time. So, if you have a particularly strong opinion, or want to see something particular evolve out of the relationship, please mention it. I'd like to gauge what people are interested in from this.
Thanks for all your support so far!
Blue