Obsession

You can credit Bob Kane for the creation of Batman, and Christopher Nolan and his cast (especially Heath Ledger) for the film that inspired the circumstances specific to this story. I am merely an amateur using their work as inspiration.

Author's Note: Firstly, I apologize in advance to fanboys for the considerable liberties I take with canonical origins and explanations. If you have a problem with original characters, this is not the story for you. This is a Batman fanfic and yet weirdly I'm pretty sure Gordon and the Joker both get more "screen time." A special thanks goes to The Joker Blogs channel on Youtube, though the stories are considerably different. Also, issuing a fair warning this story, like the film that inspired it, pushes the whole Teen/PG-13 thing. There's quite a bit of violence, some language like "crap" and "screwed over", drug references (mostly for psychiatric purposes and, after all the story does feature Scarecrow, some more nefarious purposes) and implied sexuality (more in this fic than in the movie). This fic started out as a way for me to try to figure out how they could have my friend's favorite villainess realistically without the Joker, and then, when I was watching Wicked Attraction on one of the Discovery channels it became a story all on its own, of which the Joker was definitely a huge part. Given the extreme unlikelihood of an actor who can hold a candle to Heath Ledger or the invention of a time machine allowing me to journey back in time and save him, the only way I could express this story was as a fanfiction. Rest in peace Mr. Ledger, and if I'm wrong about that time machine thing ...

For we are shaped and fashioned by what we love.

Prologue

A woman stormed in, slammed a heavy case file on the table, and sat across from him, pulling her chair out as roughly as was humanly possible. "This is the part where I'm supposed to make you think I'm your friend so you'll confide in me but I figure you'll see clean through that in about thirty seconds so I'll skip the niceties. I'm Dr. Quinzel and yes, I know perfectly well I'm not your idea of a good thing but I'm the only thing standing between you and lethal injection so get used to it, and don't you dare start laughing." The Joker studied her curiously, wondering why she wasn't frightened. Most women were frightened of him - so were most men, actually - and he thought he knew why. Apparently most women thought he would ravish them as soon as they turned their backs, and for some reason this thought was especially unpleasant. But she, if anything, looked annoyed. She was pretty, but not extraordinarily so, and he thought she might be a lot better looking if she would take down her dirty blond hair from the bun she had put together rather sloppily and if she'd bother to wear make-up (then again, it was three o'clock in the morning, after all).

"Who says I want you there?" he asked as belligerently as he could. He was exhausted, he had been sedated, presumably with some kind of opiate, he was in a straightjacket, he was barefoot, and his leg was chained to the table. That's what you get for escaping from MCU in such a flashy way, he told himself.

"Because you want to live and all the other doctors are either scared of you or asleep or you've already refused to cooperate with them," she answered without skipping a beat. Even though she was obviously very pissed off about being called at three in the morning, she was smiling a little. He guessed she probably smiled a little all the time, no matter how she felt.

"Who says I want anyone there?" he corrected himself.

"You want to die?" she asked, flipping open a notebook and writing something hurriedly.

"No."

"Then you don't want to be executed."

"I don't care."

"You don't care if you live or die? You don't even care how you die if you die?" she asked, finally understanding what he was saying. She stopped her frenzied writing, and actually studied him for a minute. She looked him in the eye - that was unusual too. Her intense brown eyes bore into his own without a hint of fear, only curiosity. And they were quite a pair of eyes, deep and burning with something he thought he recognized. Then she wrote something down in the little notebook, breaking off eye contact with him. He got the impression she didn't want to. Suddenly, for reasons he couldn't explain, he wanted desperately to touch her face, to feel the smooth, fair skin against his hand, to caress the high cheekbones and the blood-red lips ... "Why not?" she asked, looking up again. He didn't answer. Oh, what he'd do with her now if it weren't for the straight jacket and the chain. She sensed the way he was studying her, and she pulled up her blouse a little bit but otherwise ignored it.

"Look, Mr. ... what am I supposed to call you exactly?"

"J," he answered without a thought, and she raised her eyebrows.

"Hm. Mind telling me your real name?"

"And make it easy for Gordon to find me? No."

"What if I promised I wouldn't tell him?"

"Why should I trust you? You said so yourself, you're not my friend."

"Do you trust anyone?" he stayed silent. "Look, if you don't start answering some questions here, the DA is going to take your belligerence as a sign of competency and he'll send one of his shrinks down here and I promise you, they will find you sane if you curl up in a ball and insist you're a lobster." He shrugged, and she shook her head and started to write something in the notebook. Apparently her pen ran out of ink and she tapped it against the paper and swore at it as though any amount of chiding could make the pen suddenly refill.

"Do you always have such a short temper, or just at three in the morning?" he asked, amused by her struggles with the pen.

"Only when I'm dealing with individuals like you. I'm sorry, does it bother you?" she asked sarcastically.

"Where are you from? Virginia?" She was taken aback, and took a minute to make sure her accent wasn't bleeding through, and asked,

"How'd you know? I don't have an accent anymore, do I?"

"When you swear, I can hear it, because you don't talk like that except, like you said, when you're dealing with individuals like me."

"Yeah, I'm from, uh, from Last Chance. It's a little Podunk place nobody's heard of where everyone's married to their second cousin. And you?"

"Same place," he answered, doing a dead-on impression of the accent she used to have, and she almost laughed. "You don't remember me?"

"No, really, I think I can eliminate most of the Southern United States but ..."

"What's your first name?" he asked. Every part of him was burning to come across the table, and he started trying to find a way to work himself out of the straightjacket that wasn't noticeable.

"Harleen, and it's not supposed to be the question game here ..." Harleen Quinzel ... that was an interesting name.

"Do you understand where you are?" she asked, taking a serious tone.

"Yes."

"Just for the record, where are you?"

"What appears to be an interview room at Arkham Asylum."

"Do you understand why you're here?"

"Obviously, the powers that be think I might be crazy."

"Do you know why they think that?"

"It probably has something to do with the incident at Gotham General."

"And the ferries."

"Don't rub it in."

"Why did you burn the blood money you got from the mob?"

"As long as I can get hold of my supplies, I don't need anything else. These mobsters don't care about anything – if they could make the same money sweeping floors they'd do it in a heartbeat."

"And that offends you?" He shrugged. "So, why did you kill those people, if not for the money?"

"That depends."

"On what?"

"On who's asking."

"Their families," she said, catching him off-guard. All the others had given the professional answer - me, the police, the DA ... But he was as composed as ever, sucking on his cheeks. "Don't do that," she said softly. He ignored her.

"You know, I've always wondered why they want to know so badly. Doesn't change anything."

"Understanding why makes it easier."

"No it doesn't. Whether I say I killed them because it turned me on or I think I'm the Angel of Death, they're still dead."

"So do you think you're the Angel of Death?" she asked.

"No."

"Do you get any kind of sexual thrill from hurting others?"

"No. No. You notice most of the people I kill are men?"

"So you're heterosexual?"

"Yes, is that relevant?" he asked, and tried to look at her as suggestively as he could, but she was looking down, writing away in the little notebook.

"Maybe," she answered. After a moment, she looked up at him over her glasses. "So, if not for money, sex, or because you're the Angel of Death, why?"

"Now who's asking?"

"The DA's office, they're making sure they get the trial most of Gotham is screaming for. Why don't you want to cooperate with anyone here?"

"Why are you here?"

"It's my job to be here."

"Not at three in the morning."

"Because I don't want you to die."

"Why not? You don't believe in the death penalty."

"Of course I do, there's plenty of men who deserve it, but I don't think you do." That made him laugh, and she still didn't flinch away from him. "Why not?" he finally asked.

"People who deserve to die are the ones who were sane when they did it."

"You think I'm crazy?"

"Sane people care if they live or not, or at least about how they die. They also don't burn a multi-million dollar fortune or laugh when they're punched in the face by overzealous arresting officers."

"Is that what you're going to tell the DA?"

"Yeah. Whoever it is now. This town gets worse and worse," at last, her voice betrayed weariness.

"Why don't you leave?" he asked, cocking his head, trying to read her face. She'd been through Hell - most people wouldn't have known that to look at her, but there was something in her face that was hard, cold ...

"Because the rest of the world is just as awful," she answered candidly. "Now, why don't you ..."

"I don't want to deal with the little dog-and-pony show right now," he answered roughly. She looked at him, seeing him as a human for the first time.

"When's the last time you ate?" she asked, her whole tone changed now. She really had a sweet voice, soft. A guy could get lost in it. He had to think about the answer.

"Two days ago."

"Have you slept at all since your arrest?"

"No."

"All right. Guard!" There was a loud buzzing sound as the door opened slowly and one of the armed guards who was standing right outside entered with a key to the chain on the Joker's leg and a new set of shackles. "Get him some food and then take him to his cell. I'll examine him in the morning." She didn't look at him again, but once again he sensed that looking away was something she had to force herself to do. She wanted to look at him. She gathered her things and started to leave, but as the guard unchained him he jumped up, and the guard, surprised by his sudden swiftness wasn't able to catch him before he slammed into her and pushed her against the wall. He had worked one of his hands free of the straightjacket, and with it he grabbed hers and pushed it against his face so that her finger was digging painfully into one of his scars. Surely she would be afraid now - nobody in their right mind wouldn't be afraid at this point ... But she didn't flinch.

"It's okay, Officer," Dr. Quinzel shouted as the guard, panicked, pulled a gun. She took J's hand and lifted her sleeve to reveal what looked like three deliberate cigarette burns, and put his fingers on the old wounds, feeling the scar tissue. "We all have our scars, J," she said soothingly as the guard grabbed the loose arm and forced it roughly back into the sleeve of the jacket, than jerked him away by his shoulders. "Get some sleep," she added as he left and another guard ran to her, as though to make sure she was really okay. Crazy, crazy, crazy, he thought gleefully.