Chapter 3

Bruce awoke a few hours later to the sound of ear-piercing screams coming from Harley's room. Not exactly surprised, he was out of bed and next door in seconds.

"Harley," he said, gently shaking her shoulder as he tried to wake her up from her nightmare. "Harley," he said a little more firmly, not wanting to scare her as she woke up, but wanting to get her awake as quickly as possible. Harley was out like a light, though, and still screaming, so Bruce went full-on Batman and yelled "HARLEY!" shaking her roughly at the same time.

Harley came flying awake with a gasp, caught in mid-scream. "I'm here, it's Bruce," he said to her, rubbing her arms. "You were having a nightmare, Harley. You're awake now," he told her as she sat stunned in bed.

"Bruce," Harley said weakly, still gasping in terror from her dream as Bruce sat down facing her on the side of the bed.

"It's ok," he said again, even though, honestly, it really wasn't. Her nightmare wasn't a dark twisted fantasy produced by overactive REM; she was remembering things that had actually happened to her in the last several hours.

"Oh, God, Bruce," Harley mumbled raggedly, leaning forward to hug him tight. Bruce hugged her back even tighter, wrapping his arms solidly around her as he pulled her to his chest, stroking the back of her head to try to soothe her.

"I'm here," he murmured into her hair as Harley whimpered a little bit. Bruce sat with her rubbing her back and stroking her head as she clung to him, wishing desperately that he could erase the last twelve hours for her. But then, she'd still be stuck in the Joker's clutches, wouldn't she? He sighed, thinking how unfair the Universe could be sometimes as he cuddled her close.

Harley's breathing gradually slowed as they sat together in the dark, not speaking beyond Bruce's interspersed comforting murmurs. "How am I ever going to survive this?" Harley finally asked him brokenly, causing Bruce's heart to clench tight at her hopeless tone.

"It's just the first night, honey," he said to her encouragingly. "It'll get better," he promised, even though he really had no idea if it would.

"I ought to see a therapist," Harley said on an empty, bitter chuckle. "But there's nowhere I can go without Joker finding me."

"You don't need to say he's the one who did it to you," Bruce argued. "Don't they have to keep sessions confidential?"

"I guess," Harley said dispiritedly. "I mean, yes, technically. But therapy is all about being honest. I don't know… I don't even know how to talk about what happened without talking about Joker and what he did to me," she sighed. "It's all connected."

"Can you talk to me about it?" Bruce asked her. "I know I'm not a therapist, but you are. Would that help at all?" he asked her. Harley sighed.

"Maybe," she said doubtfully. "I don't know, Bruce. Trauma treatment is about managing flashbacks and triggers and containing memories for the first several phases in order to get stabilized. It can be years before you start to really process what happened," she said, starting to sound more like a psychologist, which Bruce thought was actually a hopeful sign.

"Can you read back up on how to do all that then?" Bruce asked her. "And do it on your own for the first part? You can talk to me about how you're working on it if you want." He was still rubbing her back as they talked and he finally felt Harley's tension start to ease.

"I guess I could," Harley said thoughtfully. "I mean, really, learning the skills and how to use them is the majority of the therapy work at first, and you're right, I do already know that and understand how to apply it. Hell," she laughed bitterly, "I used to teach patients at Arkham how to do it. Awful lot of trauma survivors in there," she said.

"You have a lot of parts in your brain, you said, right?" Bruce asked her.

"Yeah," Harley said. "Why?"

"Could the therapist one therapize the rest of them?" Bruce suggested. "Does it work that way? Like are they all divided into one job per part?"

"Oh," Harley said with more interest. "I don't know. Maybe. That's a really clever idea, Bruce," she said, sounding a little more alert and hopeful.

"I am Batman," Bruce said with absolutely zero modesty, causing Harley to giggle.

"You know, I used to think that I had my parts all figured out," Harley said with a sigh. "I mean, you have to get a shit ton of therapy yourself to become a therapist. And I thought I had achieved integration, and laid all my past traumas to rest, and was completely ready to go forward therapizing other people." She made a disgusted sound.

"Hell, I even thought I'd be better at it than other people because I had been through traumas of my own and worked through them. Goes to show where arrogance will get ya," she muttered sadly.

"You'll figure it out again," Bruce told her comfortingly. "If you did it once, you're halfway there." Harley laid her head back down on his chest and squeezed him with more of a caress than a panicked grip this time. She idly began tracing her own circles on his back with a few fingers as she held him.

"You are being so good to me," she told him. Bruce's grip on her had relaxed under her tender touch to what suddenly, to him, felt like a sensual embrace. He tensed at the realization.

"What?" Harley said to him, lifting her head back up. "What's wrong?"

"I… don't want to make you feel uncomfortable," Bruce said, acutely aware that he was holding a rape victim in his arms.

"I don't feel uncomfortable," Harley said. "Do you?" she said curiously, sensing that something was off.

"No. Maybe," Bruce said, embarrassed, which was in and of itself a novel sensation for him.

"Why?" Harley asked him gently. Bruce cursed mentally. His emotions towards Harley Quinn had been all over the map tonight and now, well, he didn't mind at all the way the way holding her had felt; he just felt damn guilty about it. Plus, he didn't date. Not for real. Or fall in love. Or feel things. Anything. And how the hell do you date a rape victim, anyway, and not rush her but keep holding her and -

"Talk to me, Bruce," Harley said, removing a hand from his back to lay it on his stubbled cheek. Bruce heaved out a sigh as he reached up to hold her hand in his even though he slowly removed it from his face and laid it on his chest, under his.

"I don't know how to talk about this," he admitted.

"About what?" she prompted. Bruce huffed.

"This." He said unhelpfully. "Us. Feelings. What - I shouldn't be feeling -"

"What are you feeling?" Harley asked him. Her voice had stayed so gentle and she was being so kind and dammit, she sounded more together, too, and in control - less helpless and terrified and -

"I like you," Bruce said softly. "A lot."

"What's wrong with that?" Harley said, and Bruce could hear the smile in her voice. He groaned.

"I don't like people, Harley," he said to her. "I don't even have friends, really, besides Alfred. I don't date, I fuck. I don't care about people, I don't feel sorry for them, and I definitely don't fall in love with them."

"Are you falling in love with me?" Harley asked him.

"I don't know," Bruce muttered, intensely thankful that they were in the dark and he didn't have to look at Harley while he said it. "I shouldn't, it's so fuckin' inappropriate. You came to me for help, not to be drawn into another relationship, and you just got raped -"

"I'm falling in love with you, too," Harley said. Bruce stilled, stunned.

"Harley -" he said thickly.

"Just kiss me," she said. Bruce gently found her lips in the dark, being careful of her broken nose, and softly kissed her, more tenderly than he had ever kissed a woman in his life. Harley slid her other arm out from around his chest and wrapped both of them around his neck to hold him, kissing him back as sweetly as he was kissing her.

Before Bruce could even process what was happening, he was making out - but carefully, because of her injuries - with Harley Quinn. And frankly, it was more romantic and less sexual than any amount of face-sucking or fucking he'd ever done before and to his shock, he liked it.

Bruce had never felt protective of any of his past partners. Respectful, sure. But he tended to fuck strong women who took what they wanted and didn't need a hero. Nice and easy and emotion-free, just the way he wanted.

But Harley - and what she'd been through, and how utterly devoted to her it made him feel - God, he could spend the next year doing nothing but kissing her because what it was doing to his heart was entirely strange and new and amazing. Because holy fuck, he cared about her, and Batman did not care. But apparently, he did, and Bruce Wayne did, too, and no wonder people got so ridiculously sappy about falling in love because this was insanely, addictively, incredibly, amazing.

Harley was thinking to herself that this was what love was supposed to feel like - not like what she'd had with Mistah J. And of course it would be with Batman. She'd always liked him, honestly, deep down under her bubble-gum layer. There was something so sexy and safe about him that called to her parts in distress even when she couldn't hear them crying.

Why had she instantly determined that she had to get to Bruce when her mind had slipped free tonight? She'd instinctively known that he'd protect her and she'd suspected that she'd probably love him for it, whether or not the feeling was returned. But him loving her, too? And being all alpha-male protective and fantastic beyond her wildest hopes?

Despite the fact that her life for the last however long she'd been with Joker had been absolute hell, and even though her mind was re-traumatized and her body was ripped to pieces, Harley felt so incredibly happy as she kissed Bruce in the dark.

When Bruce finally pulled back, his voice sounded awe-struck. "Harley," he said to her. "What the fuck have you done to me?" She giggled.

"Same thing you've done to me, I guess," she said happily. Bruce smiled to himself.

"I had no idea love felt like this," he admitted to her. "I probably wouldn't have stayed such a cranky bastard all this time if I'd ever once felt something like this for someone."

Harley sighed with contentment. "I've been in love before, like puppy love when I was younger, you know," she said to him. "And we're not even gonna talk about the insanity with Mistah J. But this, Bruce? This is completely different and so. much. better." she said.

"And, for the record, I like your cranky bastard. A lot," she said sexily. "You're hot as hell when you're like that. And so romantic that you melt my heart when you're sweet like this. So never stop being both ways, ok?" she said.

"Ok," Bruce answered her, smiling.

"Will you sleep in here with me for the rest of the night?" Harley asked him.

"Of course, baby," Bruce said to her, giving her another kiss before unwrapping his arms from around her and standing up. "You should pee before you go back to sleep," he told her, picking her up from the bed. "Less chance of more nightmares."

"God, you're a protective, sexy hunk of a man," Harley said with satisfaction, making him laugh.

"Talking about peeing is sexy?" he asked her. "And not in the kink sense," he growled at her before she could even go there. Harley giggled.

"It is sexy, though, because you're taking care of me and I love you for it. And I need it," she added wistfully.

"I will always take care of you," Bruce told her seriously.

"And I will take care of you, too," Harley promised him as he set her down by the toilet. "Because I think your heart needs a lot of tender, loving care, Bruce Batman Wayne," she whispered, kissing his cheek.

"You're not wrong," Bruce said honestly. "I'm kind of a fucked up mess." Harley giggled.

"Superman's gonna be so proud of you for getting into a relationship," she teased as he walked out the door to let her pee. Bruce groaned.

"God, he is, isn't he?" he said. "Dammit," he muttered to himself, but it was with a little laugh as he shut the door. Because even the thought of Clark seemed less bothersome when he was in love, he realized, and that realization made him groan even more at what was happening to him, except he wasn't really upset.

When he carried Harley back to bed a minute later, she got herself carefully arranged on her non-injured side. Bruce hesitated when he climbed in next to her. "I'm worried I'll hurt you in my sleep if I spoon you," he said to her, deciding finally to lay with his back to her but pressed up close.

"I'm happy as long as you're here, Bruce," Harley said tenderly, wiggling a little closer to him.

"I love you," Bruce said, getting it out for the first time.

"I love you, too," Harley told him, but then she giggled. "You have to kiss me now, you can't just say it for the first time and go to sleep with your back turned," she insisted. Bruce laughed but he turned and pushed himself up to lean over Harley's face and kiss her.

"I love you," he said one more time, his breath mixing with hers as he barely pulled away from her lips.

"I love you, too," Harley said back, sighing happily into one last kiss before Bruce reluctantly tore himself away to lay back down behind her.

When Harley fell asleep a little later on, pressed up close to Bruce, not a single nightmare haunted her for the rest of the night.