Batman Begins/Dark Knight Madness Is Like Gravity

Disclaimer: All places, characters, etc. are property of their respective owners. I make no profit from writing this.

AN: Warning, violence, abuse, character death, and a whole lot of angst are contained below. Very dark themes, read at your own risk. Reviews are always welcome and appreciated, constructive criticism is cherished, and flames are discouraged (they don't help anyone in the end, so please write something nice and/or constructive, or nothing at all).

Most of the story is told in Flashback, _Italics_ connote specific flashback incidents, while plain text is general memories/thoughts.

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It was a hot summer day, and thought the temperature climbed to nearly a hundred degrees, she could do nothing to suppress the shudder that welled up from the deepest recesses of her memories.

Harleen Quinzel walked along the riverbank towards her childhood hideout and the childhood friend who was to meet her there. Although she had been free of the Joker for over a year now, she could not help but wonder how she had gotten to this point in her life. As she strolled along the grassy shore, her mind wandered back along the dark and twisted path that her life had taken since her first days observing at the Arkham Asylum.

_The balding, middle-aged doctor sat behind his desk. He said nothing, but just waited for the session to start as usual. His patient sat in the single chair against the far wall, not moving. _

"_You wanna know how I got these scars?" He asked in the high, nasally voice that had terrified the city not weeks earlier. "I used to live with my grandmother. Mom died and Pop wasn't around, so Grams had to take care of things. She did alright for a while, but old age caught up sooner than she thought- y'see… madness pops up in the family from time to time, and Grams was no exception."_

_He ran his fingers through his now dirty blonde hair and craned his neck before continuing. "I woke up in the wee hours of the morning and heard her in the kitchen. She was staring into space, washing the same knife over and over." His eyes flickered away from the doctor for a moment, as if trying to assess the next part of the story. His voice was beginning to head towards that deeper, terrifying rasp._

"_I asked her what was wrong and she spun on me, drawing blood on my chin. I started to cry and she __**screamed**__ at me, 'you're always crying, boy! Why can't you be a good child?' I tried to back away, but she caught me by the ear. 'Why can't you smile for Grams, hmm? Let's put a __**smile **__on that face.'" He growled the last sentence, as if tearing the words with his teeth as they passed through his scarred lips._

_On the other side of the two-sided glass, Dr. Harleen Quinzel ruminated over the story. It was not the fact that the story changed with every session, or the disturbing scenarios that the madman dreamed up. It was his voice. There was something compelling about it. Often during those first few weeks of her internship she found herself hypnotized by it, particularly on those rare occasions when he lowered it to his menacing, grating snarl._

_Even before his voice, it had been his words that had enticed her. She had heard of his infamous last words before he had been arrested, the words that had drawn her to this facility for her internship, the challenge that a dedicated psychiatric student like her couldn't resist. _

"_Y'see, madness, as you know, is like gravity… All it takes is a little…push." _

_She needed to know what pushed him. To Dr. Harleen Quinzel, there was nothing else at that moment but the powerful enigma that was The Joker._

Looking back even now, she could say why she had become so fascinated by the Joker, but could not find words to describe why he had supposedly taken an interest in _her_. Scenes blurred through her mind as she recalled how she finally been allowed a private session with the madman, how he had ensnared her curiosity and, as she seemed to strip away the layers of the Joker persona and reach the real man underneath, captured her heart.

Stupidity was the first word that came to mind when she remembered the moment she had broken her patient out of the Asylum. Naïve as she had been, she had thought that she had reached his true self, a man whose complicated but beautiful mind could not be understood by the scars, bars, and guards that smothered him on the inside. He needed to be free, and she had helped him to it.

It had been thrilling at first, his commanding, or rather, _demanding_, presence had showed her the error of society's ways, guiding her away from the shackles of her culture that had so ensnared her. They worked brilliantly together, he a self-proclaimed Agent of Chaos, and she his loyal sidekick.

All along she knew it was wrong, but she was drawn to his powerful persona like a moth to the flame, aware of, but unable to prevent, her own destruction.

Other memories flitted through her awareness, clearing again on one moment that would be forever crystal clear in her mind.

_The white cream had been surprisingly cold on her fingertips, and even more so when she smeared it on her swollen cheek. Her battered face was a smattering of all sorts of blue and purple hues- and what was worse, she clearly remembered feeling that she had deserved it! Mr. J loved her, and he would only hurt her when she really needed it, right? She had tried to cover the bruise with her own makeup, as she had many times before, but this time the tints had simply refused to dull. Knowing that her Puddin' would be angry if she wasn't pretty for him, she did the only thing she could- she used his makeup instead_.

Cringing again as she passed over the memory of her first Harlequin makeup application, Harleen found herself further unsettled by the last snippet of that particular memory; Mr. J had _really_ liked her new look.

Her thoughts fast-forwarded again to the sound of a wailing alarm.

_She had messed up on the bank's security system, something she knew she'd get a fresh bruise for before the day was through. Cop sirens drew closer by the second, but the Joker remained perfectly still._

"_Puddin, let's get out of here!" She begged as she reached for his arm._

"_Not just yet, Harley, my dear," he licked his lips and closed his eyes as peacefully as if he had been listening to a lullaby, "I want to listen to the song."_

"_What song, Puddin'? We gotta go __**now**__!" She reached for him again._

_Opening his eyes with the slightest annoyance, cocked the pistol in his hand, and aimed it directly between her eyes. "It's the symphony of the siren. I love hearing their futile attempts ate keeping the peace, especially their little sirens," his voice dropped to a detached, gravely monotone, "I'd appreciate it if you didn't interrupt it again."_

She had known with absolute certainty that he would have shot her in cold blood, and that he would lament it no more than he would stepping on an insect. Had she meant so little to him? How could she devote herself to someone who would murder her without a second thought? Then, suddenly, it was clear. He didn't love her, he didn't care for her, all this time he had kept her around because he felt the need to posses her. She was his, and woe to any who tried to take her away from him, yet she was easily disposable when he no longer found her pleasing. She would never be free unless he killed her himself. Her epiphany brought her to an abrupt decision: Leave the Joker, run and hide and escape from his control.

_He had gone out, as he usually did, when she decided to run. She packed a bag, grabbed wads of money from various stashes, and disappeared into the dark Gotham night. She ran as far and fast from the city as she could, living from day to day, moving from place to place, always keeping one eye on the road behind her._

_She ran for months, and still he haunted her. Every shadow hid a white mask, every alley rang with the dying echo of a dry cackle, and every bed whispered of the nightmares it would bring when she lay her head down upon it. The whole experience quite nearly drove her mad. Then one day, it just stopped. Just as she thought the evil plague would never cease, it suddenly lifted like a heavy fog before a swift breeze. She couldn't explain it, but the menacing feeling that had haunted her simply ceased to be. She still ran for several weeks after that, but when two months had passed without feeling as though she was being hunted, Harleen finally thought that she was free._

_Slowly and carefully, she started to make her way back to the quiet town that she had called home._

Her memories apparently content with the replaying of her life story finally relented their intrusion on her thoughts and she was free to think of happier times as she continued her stroll along the shore. It was such a relief to walk along this riverbank again. She had missed it in the years that she had been away, but now, returning to the stream that had been the center of her childhood, Harleen felt at peace.

She was a little late, but she knew that Pam would forgive her. Red, so nicknamed for her untamable red locks, was never one to hold a grudge. Time was on her side, and she was going to enjoy it.

Harleen rounded the final bend in the river, coming to the 'secret spot', the childhood hideout that she and Pam had claimed as their home away from home. Pam was already there, standing ankle-deep in the river with her back to Harleen as she, too, drifted back through childhood memories. Harleen was about to call out to her oldest friend when cold fear reared its ugly head and suddenly seized her heart.

"N-!"

She tried to scream, but his purple-gloved hand was clasped tight around her throat.

"Shouldn't have stopped seeing me, Harley. You should know I'd never let you stop seeing me." He heard him chide her as he started to walk away, dragging her by her throat as her feet kicked futilely in the sand.

There was no room for logic in her panicked thoughts. No, "How did he find me?", "What is he going to do?" or, "How can I get away?" There was only "why?" "Why can't I escape him?"

Even that thought seemed to slow and fade as the world grew darker. 'Not much longer now,' she mused in her reverie. She heard a scream of rage off in the distance… or was it nearer? It was hard to tell. Suddenly the weight was off her chest. Lungs gasped greedily as the new intake of oxygen returned Harleen to her senses. The world seemed to come back into focus and… was that Pam fighting him off?

Harleen shook the fog out of her head and rose to her feet. Pam was on the Joker's back, tearing and scratching like a wild animal. With a roar, the Joker shook her off and threw her onto the riverbank.

"Red!" Harleen yelled in desperation, running toward her fallen friend.

"Uh uh, Harley. I'm not done with you yet." He licked the scars on his lips as he reached for her wrist. Harleen screamed, new strength filling her as she turned and tackled the Joker into the shallows of the river.

"Harley, this is a side of you I've never seen." He faked astonishment. "Too bad," he crooned sinisterly, "I kinda like it." He barked out a laugh.

Harleen couldn't take it. A primal scream emanated from her lips as she curled her fists and thrashed out again and again at his jaw. He laughed maniacally the whole time, his scratchy pitch rising and falling with each hit.

She needed to stop the laughter. Stop the laughter!

"STOP LAUGHING!" She screamed. She fastened her hands around his throat, closing his airway, and still it came. That laugh that had haunted her all those years, it rasped out in a ghostly, evil gasp. She squeezed harder, repeatedly slamming his head under the shallow water and onto the floor of the river, and hearing the audible _crack_ as his skull connected with a submerged rock.

Suddenly, the Joker had stopped laughing.

She loosened her grasp, letting his limp frame drop under the water; the pasty make-up slowly rinsed off and mingled with the swirling blood in the river as the water passed over his submerged face. It was over.

With an anguished cry, Harleen Quinzel knelt beside the corpse of her tormenter.

It took a few more minutes for Pam to come to, but Harleen didn't notice. Pam approached Harleen cautiously, not knowing what to make of the scene in front of her.

Harleen was still kneeling in the shallow water beside the lifeless figure. His haunting make-up, Pam noticed, had been completely washed away, and Harleen was idly turning his favorite knife over and over in her hands.

Pam felt a surge of pity. Knowing that her friend had been in a delicate mental state even before today's terrifying scene, she decided that it was time to take her troubled friend home.

"Harley, come on hun, let's get you out of that river and back safe at home."

Harleen froze, terror gripping her body.

Pam could not have known, but as she repeated the statement, Harleen heard something very different.

"_Let's put a smile on that face."_

Her eyes widened as she looked back to her closest friend. And there it was. Pamela's once familiar face was now smeared with cakey white makeup. Her trademark red hair framed passionless black eyes and a ruby red smile that grinned from ear to ear.

The face that had haunted her nightmares for years, the face that had washed away in the river mere minutes ago, grinned madly back at her. Harleen could almost hear his insane cackle at his last and most perfect joke.

"I'd never let you stop seeing me." She giggled wildly, her eyes wide in hysteria.

"What do you mean?" Pam asked, taking another tentative step toward her distressed friend.

"_Let's put a smile on that face."_ Echoed in Harleen's mind.

"Yes, let's" she agreed, her voice screeching back to the ridiculous pitch that she had tried so hard to escape.

Flipping the dagger in her hand, Harleen lashed out at Pam, cutting her throat from ear to ear. She couldn't hear her dying friend's gurgling cries over her own laughter.

Her eyes wild, Harleen knew with startling clarity that there was no escape. The Joker's finest Joke would follow her until the end of her days; painting the face of every stranger she passed with his horrible visage.

"It's just like you always said," she whispered as she walked toward the center of the river, "'Madness is like gravity,'" she stopped in the knee high waters, "all it takes," she knelt in the river, bringing the water level to her chest, "is a little…" she brought the blade to her wrist, "_push_."

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AN: Thanks for reading, hope y'all liked it.


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