[OPEN.] I don't need nothin' (well that's not so)

[Harleen Quinzel]

Brillo pads. That’s what being in the cells in Arkham felt like. A small cot sat in the corner, wire poking through the plastic covered mattress. A brown, scruffy blanket lay strewn across awaiting the nurses to make the bed when it’s occupant went therapy. There were no sheets; she wasn’t permitted after the last few times they’d been used to escape. Now, when she slept, her skin stuck to the plastic wrapping; just like it did when she’d lay down in the nurse’s office during school with a fever. There was a desk and chair, bolted to the ground, in another corner. Crayons and large newsprint paper were on that, a half finished picture Poison Ivy’s newest plant was most prominent on top of the other brightly colored pieces. The cell’s occupant wasn’t a huge fan of her friends’ leafy loves, but this one had been a motley mixture of all her favorite colors; red, green, purple, and black.

But back to the brillo pad theory. The floors, walls, and ceiling were all the disgusting gray black color of the kitchen tools. The bed, the blanket on the bed, the floor the bed was on, and nearly everything else in the cell was scratchy and itchy- down to the green scrubs she wore to designate her as a maximum security patient. And to top it all off, the walls, windows, and asylum in general had holes throughout it. You could almost see through them to the outside world but it would take years to dig your fingers through the holes and untangle the wires to find freedom. It was much easier to let someone do it for you, especially someone with explosives.

Harleen Quinzel, better known as Harley Quinn nowadays, was the occupant of the aforementioned cell. Her blonde hair had been given several good scrubbings since she’d been captured again by the Batman. The red and black that had been carefully sprayed in like a human graffiti project had been washed away. Her face was clean and her eyes revealed unrest. She’d been let out of solitary a week ago and had been given common room permission two days ago. But that didn’t matter now, in the late night hours. She was alone in her cell and most of the patients were asleep around her. Those that weren’t were not the kind you disturbed at late hours of the night. It wasn’t as if she could call across, through the small window in her door, at the others- she’d tried and ended up on heavier sleeping medication.

She slept so little when out of Arkham the doctors had thought her sleep deprivation would require no sleep medication- that she’d just fall into deep slumbers on her own at night. But she was already so accustomed to the sleepless state of being (she had gone to med school, after all) that she just spent most nights lying awake on her little cot. They’d begun to put her to sleep chemically, but she’d get used to the medicine within a week and return to her insomniac habits soon after. When the medication did work, when she was able to sleep, the dreams were a horrifying mixture of blood and her childhood. She preferred the drunken feeling of sleep deprivation to those.

It was one of her sleepless nights tonight. She could hear the other patients moaning and groaning around her, the footsteps of the night watch men and night shift nurses, and drops of the leaking roof by her cell door, and the very loud sound of her heartbeat filling her ears. Harley lay on her back in the cell, her hair and head hanging off the edge of the bed. Mistah J had once told her that the best ideas came when the world was turned upside down and she was desperate for an escape plan. She needed human interaction like Red needed plants, and she needed the Joker like the other woman needed oxygen or carbon dioxide (or whatever she was breathing now).

Plus, being in Arkham just bothered her. She knew that the doctors didn’t really care about their patients, just their wallets. She knew what they talked about around the water cooler, and she knew what certain doctors did with certain patients behind closed doors. Her own doctor, Joan Leland, had been a mentor to her before the Hecame along. The woman kept trying to ‘bring Harleen out’, by bringing up memories and talking about her months on the payroll at the asylum. She didn’t get it. Not a lot of people got it. He did.

She heard unfamiliar noises just then; scrambling of feet and jumbled words she couldn’t make out. She hoped it was just the morning coming along faster then she’d thought or break out. If it wasn’t, that meant a patient was being brought in or having an episode. One meant annoyance, the other could mean danger for the few of the rogues that weren’t locked away at the moment. She rolled off her bed with a thud, leaping to the little glass window in her cell door. Harley pressed her nose to the glass, trying to catch of glimpse of what was happening.

[Helena Bertinelli]

Helena had always though of herself as more of the "night owl" type. She'd never been one to go to bed early, never been the sort that needed alot of sleep. In college she'd been able to pull all-nighters easily and had watched more than one sunrise over Sicily with her friends. This, however, was becoming ridiculous. She'd been surviving on little more than short naps and caffeine for more than a week and, unlike in her college days, she had to find the energy to do much more than just stay awake during her classes. On something like three hours of sleep (if she was lucky) she had to go to work and act as though nothing was wrong, and then proceed to spend her night jumping around rooftops and going on criminal scavenger hunts all across Gotham City.

She was actually beyond the point of exhaustion, in that state where you stop yawning and nodding off and simply go numb. She didn't know how Nightwing still managed to seem so damn chipper. He was out all the same, insane hours as The Huntress was. But then, Helena reasoned, she didn't know how he spent his days. What she wouldn't give just to be able to sit down and close her eyes for a half an hour or so. The little patience she possesed was wearing very, very thin.

Huntress took a couple of deep breaths, trying to force her lagging mind to focus, as she walked silently down the dark and musty hall behind Dr. Leland. Behind them, she could still hear the man she'd brought in with her yelling and struggling against the attendant he'd been passed off to. It hadn't been difficult to track him down, but he had put up quite a fight. Indeed, Helena's leg was throbbing dully where he'd managed to land a strong kick. For days the vigilantes had been catching hints that something was being planned. This crony hadn't exactly been trying to hide himself either, standing in the middle of an alley in the Narrows, passing off some suspicious looking packages.

However, they knew enough of the Joker's style to see that this man was probably a distraction, a disposable part to make the whole operation look more complicated or confusing than it actually was. At least they knew it was the Joker who was behind it. That meant that the situation was serious and deadly, yes, but they also knew where to start. If anyone was going to know where the Clown Prince was and what he was cooking up it would be the loon whom they had, thankfully, just recently brought back to the asylum.

When they got to the cell near the end of the hall the doctor paused and the vigilante stepped past her. Even though it was quite dark within Huntress could see the outline of a face peering though the glass. She banged on the tiny window hard with one gloved fist; partially to get her out of the way so she could open the door, and partially to let off some steam. She turned the key in the lock, pulled the heavy iron door open, and stepped quickly inside making sure the door slammed securely behind her. A moment later the single lightbulb in the room flickered on as Dr. Leland flippled the switch that was located outside the door. Leaning back against the wall Helena looked into grease paint rimmed eyes in front of her and said bluntly,

"Where is he Quinn?"

Not that she really thought she'd get an answer like that. No, she was definetly going to be here for a while.

[Harleen Quinzel]

Harley’s stomach grumbled as she pressed her face against the glass even more firmly. She squished her nose for a moment before rolling her face to the side and squashing her cheek against the attack-proof class. What did they have Wayne Corp building Asylum windows now? Maybe they were coming out with a whole line of Loony-bin home products. The thought made a giggle slip past her lips, even as she registered that she’d appreciate a top-of-the-line Wayne built cot. She doubted she’d get one, though. Or even need one. After all, Mister Big Bucks had split the scene not longer after Gotham had been hit. And anyways, it’s not like she’d been spending much time in the joint. Every ‘visit’ she spent less and less time. Joany had pointed that out herself. Her Puddin’ needed her, she had told the elder woman happily. Of course she couldn’t be locked up in the slammer when there were things that needed to get done.

Harley spotted a familiar shadow down the darkened hall. In fact, she spotted two. One looked beaten up, both looked tired. Harley was slightly pleased to see both, one infinitely more then the other. Joany may have been her doctor, and she may have her own opinion on Harley’s ‘new life’, but she was the only place who didn’t think she was a stupid blonde. Joany tried to talk to her as if she was any other random girl plucked off the streets. Sometimes she used medical terms as if to try and prompt Harley back into ‘Doctor Mode’. Harley tended to chuckle during those times, the straight jacket they kept her wrapped in didn’t allow for a better reaction.

It was the other shadow, looming over her doctor that caused Harley’s brows to furrow. The Vulturess. She looked slightly bruised, slightly worn. Harley thought she looked like a dishrag that gotten dropped on the burner accidently and washed too many times before then; worn and saggy-looking. She needed some smiles. Harley was trying to figure out who she’d brought in (Mistah’ J would’ve made a right ruckus and would hardly have been caught my Vulture girl, and all the other uncaptured Rogues were in the next row over) when a hand collided with the glass. This did a number of things, the least of which was proving how unbreakable the glass really was and the most dramatic was forcing Harley to jump two feet into the air and scamper backwards.

The blonde eyed the door suspiciously as it swung open with a loud creak. Harley could spot Joan just outside, PDA out and hand on the control panel outside of her cell. The lights flickered on and Harley gave a wave to the older woman- who waved back- before the door was shut again. Not, of course, before Purple Princess could stride in looking even more ragged up close. Harley gave her a scathing look before turning on her heal and plopping down on her cot. Her hands flew to her hair, fixing the frayed looking pigtails before clearing her throat and tilting her hair up at the other woman.

“Woulda tidied me and my joint up if I’da known I was gunna get a visitah’.” She said cracking her back and crossing her legs as she met the Huntress’ eyes. She ignored the question with ease, playing with her left pinky toe.

“D’ya have any gum? Joany gives me some after I take my pills,” She gestured tipping the paper-cup back into her throat for effect. “But, uh. I dun think I’ma get them any time soon.”

[Helena Bertinelli]

Helena stifled an exasperated sigh. No, she wasn't getting anywhere fast. But then, one never did with Harley Quinn. She was a complicated character, at once so brilliant and cunning, and yet in posession of a seemingly childlike mind. She'd been a doctor, treated patients, written papers for medical journals; and now she spent her days sitting on a sagging cot in an insane asylum, playing with bright blonde pigtails and snapping bubblegum. Not that she was spending too many consecutive days in the asylum anymore, Helena reminded herself ruefully. Keeping doctors in Arkham was proving to be a challenge as of late, and Harley Quinn was forever being broken out. However, at that moment, the fact that she had recently spent so much time on the streets with her clowny boyfriend could prove to be very useful for The Huntress.

Was is even remotely acurate to call him her "boyfriend", though? Harley surely thought he was. Actually, she seemed to think they were soulmates, two halves of the same whole. The Huntress, like most people, simply saw a delusion Miss Quinn and a manipulative mastermind who called himself The Joker. Harley followed her man around like some kind of puppy that had been stepped on countless times but just didn't understand that it ought to give up. Helena found it revolting. Not that she was cynical or sour when it came to love; she was Sicilian! It was in her blood to enjoy the romantic aspects of life! But this side-show of a relationship was anything but romantic. Joker didn't love her, the evidence of that was plain for all to see every time they brought her into Arkham and washed off her face paint to find deep purple bruises and ominous white scars. Harley waved them off as the results of love taps and occasional lovers' quarrels but then, she was delusional and completely obsessed. There was no way to make sense of something based in madness and no point in trying. No matter what the twisted psychology behind the clowny partnership was, the fact remained that Joker did, in fact, keep her around and allowed her to be involved with his schemes in a way no one else was.

At Quinn's request for gum Helena rolled her eyes. This was how almost every interview she had ever had with the bubbleheaded blonde had begun. All it meant was that she was probably going to be as cooperative as usual...which meant barely cooperating at all. She rapped on the cell door and when it opened she stuck her masked head out,
"Doctor, you wouldn't happen to have any gum, would you?"
Without a word the doctor reached into the pocket of her lab coat and pulled out three pieces of Bazooka bubble gum and handed them to the vigilante. Yes, this was routine...a very bizarre routine.

Helena closed the heavy door behind her and tossed two of the little wrapped rectangles to the clown. The third she began unwrapping for herself. Maybe having something sugary in her mouth would do something about the maelstrom of a headache that she was developing. She popped the pink powdery block into her mouth, letting the papers fall to the floor, and chewed silently for a moment or two, trying to decide where to go next with this interrogation. At the moment she really didn't want to have to play mind games with the criminally insane; but if that was the only way she was going to get any information out of Harley Quinn (and it was definetly looking that way) then she'd have to go along with it. Hoping she's placated her with the gum, Huntress tried a new vein of questioning,

"So, have you heard from your Joker lately, Quinn? How's he doing?"

[/blockquote]

[Harleen Quinzel]

Days at Arkham had a pattern. It was dull after you got used to it, for the most part. If you were any average patient you saw your therapist twice a week and split your free time between education, common room, exercise, and volunteer work. You were taken on walks around the Asylum, through its lovely gardens. Level three patients were allowed cigarettes. Doctors split their time between seeing patients, writing papers and journals, and talking around the coffee pot in the staff room. Not one of them smoked. Sometimes better behaved patients had roomies. Sometimes lower level doctors shared an office.

Members of the elite Rogues gallery were slightly different. If you were a Rogue they locked you in a small metal cell with nothing but a cot, thin blanket, and a drilled-down chair in the corner. The doors had a small window, 8 inches by three inches. It was just big enough for doctors to peep into your private life; like an overprotective parent. These criminally insane patients went to therapy at least three times a week; strapped to chairs, electrified, and/or drugged up. Some were forced into solitary for being naughty. If you were well behaved you were allowed to visit the common area. If you were really well behaved they didn’t use the ol’ chain-and-fire-hose on you in replacement for a shower. However all the Rogues had one thing in common; interviews.

And not the good publicity ones either. Ratman, Boy-Blunder, Bat-Bitch, Bite-Wing, and now Vulturess liked to pay visits to Arkham in feeble attempts to figure out what was going to happen. It was odd, really. Rogues rarely partnered up, but when they did they were equally as likely to protest their partners innocence as to fink on them. Harley, fairly obviously, spent a lot of time in these interviews. She wasn’t sure what was more amusing; that they thought she’d tattle on the Joker or that they thought she actually knew much of any incriminating evidence against him. He sure as hell didn’t trust her that much.

She liked when the Vulturess came the best. She was amusing; she liked to kill. It wasn’t like playing with the Bratpack, it was dangerous. Danger, to Harley, was an equivalent to fun. She had an accent, poorly hid. It was warm and slightly rumbling; like old timey movies were everyone rode around and scoots bare-chested on holiday. It brought a smile to her face. They had a pattern, she and Vulturess. The purple clad woman came in like a grump and demanded information. Harley demanded gum. The first few times she was sure the other woman was going to bite her or squish her or eat her or something. The look on her face had been a mixture of surprise, disgust, anger, and confusion. It was delightful. But she’d apparently gotten used to this, because all she received as an eye roll before she asked Joanie for gum.

Harley let out a happy giggled, her smile spreading across her face. Joanie had the best gum. It was the rectangular kind, wrapped up in plastic and a comic! The doctor kept a big tub up them in her office, just for Harley. If she was being good that week, and forthcoming in their session, Harley would be permitted to take and pocket a few pieces. As the Huntress stretched her hand forward with two such pieces of gum, Harley accepted them with sheer glee. She tucked one of the pieces into her pocket for an after-lunch snack before carefully (and quickly) peeling open the other one. She popped the hardened piece of gum into her mouth, sticking it to one side of her teeth and chewing hard. The first few bites were always jaw crushing, rewarded eventually by soft, sticky gum and that gum-juice-ooze. Harley smacked the gum, blew a large bubble, popped it with her tongue, and retracted the substance into her mouth before nodding. Quality control.

She looked at the comic, giggling slightly but not appreciating the irony of it. All Harley did was mumbled “Dumb broad”’ before flicking it at Huntress and blowing another bubble. When the other woman finally asked the expected question, Harley just rolled her eyes.

”My Joker? Nope. They dun let us get love lettahs. I tried once, when Puddin’ was locked in and I wasn’t. Joanie told me when I got captured that theyuh, didn’t tolerate that kinda mail. Didn’t she tell ya that?”

[Helena Bertinelli]

Helena watched silently as Quinn eagerly unwrapped her treat. She peeled the wrapper away almost lovingly and retrieved the tiny comic from inside. She giggled approvingly at it as she chomped on the candy like it was a four-star meal. She would be amused by Bazooka Joe comics. For a pair of villains that ran around dressed up like clowns, Helena had always thought that The Joker and Harley Quinn had a rather lame sense of humor. Their lines always sounded like they'd been ripped out of a bad volume of knock-knock jokes. At least some of the other crazies, like the Riddler for example, usually had some good material. There were riddles of his that Helena was still trying to deceifer. Even that nutter in the Narrows who had been causing trouble recently got his lines from good sources, you couldn't go wrong with Lewis Carrol.

Huntress wondered why none of the other Rogues gave the Joker a hard time about his less-than-hilarious jokes. Then again, there was a reason why he was called the King of Crime in Gotham. He was truly more dangerous than most of the other villains put together. The Riddler often foiled his own plans by writing too many riddles, and that character in the Narrows had so far done nothing more sinister than a robbery and a couple of strange kidnappings. The Joker had his own filing cabinet at the Gotham PD, and just about every scheme he started wound up killing someone or destroying something...even if he was stopped long before the plan was complete. When you were that deadly, Helena reasoned, everybody had to laugh at your jokes.

When Harley finally did get around t oresponding to Huntress's continued questioning, her answer was as unhelpful as ever. She might not have been lying, (of course Arkham dettainees couldn't recieve love letters!) but she was clearly avoiding the question of where Joker was. She knew. She had to! Even if she hadn't gotten a single syllable of a message from him since she'd been locked up, she knew something. If they wanted to stop the Joker before he put whatever he was planning into motion, they'd need the information Harley could give them. Helena was growing increasingly frustrated, she so did not want to spend the night in the nuthouse. She'd been hoping to get this over with, head straight home (to hell with the mob for tonight), peel herself out of this godaweful costume, maybe heat up a bowl of something from the fridge, put a DVD in, and get some much needed sleep. She tried to remember now if she'd had this migraine when that pleasant train of thought had come to mind because, in retrospect, it seemed she must have been delusional to think she was getting out of this one easily.

Huntress tried not to cringe as the clown spoke to her. There was a mile long list of things that made Harley Quinn one of the most annoying people she had ever encountered. Not the least of these things being her voice. To begin with, it was high-pitched and nasal and usually quite loud wit ha bizzare pattern of inotation that involved squeaks and squeals. She was forever hyperactive, particularly when talking about "Mistah J", and spoke far too fast. AS if that wasn't bad enough, there was also that accent that came from who knows where. Granted, Helena had a bit of an accent herself, the result of thirteen long years in Sicily. Usually, she had a great deal of sympathy for anyone who mispronounced a word or struggled with the English language. This was an exception. Almost every word she spoke was shortened, cut-off, slurred, or mashed together with another word. Her speech was fraught with bad sentence structure and double negatives. Overall, it gave the impression that she was either much younger or much stupider than she truly was. At this point, the whiny tone was just making Helena's head hurt that much worse.

Younger than she was...well, maybe that was it. In many ways, she was dealing with the mentality of a child. Quinn possesed a great deal of intelligence and could be quite cunning, but her thought process was often very juvenile. The way she looked for treats, played with her hair, was easily amused. Even the rather disturbing way in which she saw the Joker as both a lover and a father-figure, all pointed to her being more of a girl than a woman. This wasn't a new revalation. Harley's file at Arkham had the term "age regression" in it so many times it was almost a thesis on the subject. By destroying her mentally, the Joker had forced her backwards into the mind set of a ten-year-old. It was witnessing twisted things like this that made Helena wonder, occaisonally, how her life would have turned out if she'd given into her Zia's pleading and her Zio's yelling and stayed in Italy indefinetly. But, if she hadn't come home to Gotham, she wouldn't be helping to stop whatever madness the crazy clowns were planning this time. She was helping to make things better. Despite all of their differences, she knew she was an asset to the work of the Bat Family.

Keeping Quinn's childishness in mind, Helena decided yet another different tactic might get her some results. Pulling herself up off of the wall, Huntress walked the few paces over to where the bolted-down chair was and sat herself down on it. It wasn't much more comfortable than the wall, but it put her on the same level as Harley. She stretched out her legs, which she could already sense were bruising where she'd been kicked, and crossed her ankles.

"Ya, I think she did mention that there are restrictions on your mail. Well, you must be getting pretty homesick, huh? It's been almost three weeks since we brought you in here...it's been a while since you've stayed in Arkham that long. How've you been?"

Perhaps being conversational would get her to reveal something. Anything. Helena just needed a little bit of a clue. Something she could pass of to Nightwing so he could get Oracle working on some leads. Then, she could go home.

[Harleen Quinzel]

Harley sat there, though never still. Her fingers twitched and her toes curled and unfurled without a set pattern. She could never sit still; even in a straight jacket she managed to sway or dance or do something to keep her body from getting bored. Her mind took a lot more to get bored than her body. Her mind was always reeling without trains of thoughts- constant spirals of thoughts. She chewed the gum, rolling it over and tongue and pressing it to the roof of her mouth. She twisted her tongue into fun shapes, sliding the gum with each movement. It wasn’t long before the wad fell from her mouth. Harley looked at the wad sitting her lap almost dumbfounded, though it surely wasn’t the first time. Sometimes she just got so excited over the little treat that it hopped right out of her mouth!

Instead of popping it back into her mouth, Harley pressed the wad of gum to the wall using two of her fingers to spread it into the shape of a heart. There it would stay until the orderly came (once a week) to clean her cell up and change her sheets. It wasn’t the first time she’d done this, but it was the first time she’d been able to do it with the bright pink comic-gum. Usually people that would let her get away with such a thing weren’t…well…Joanie. And those kinds of people always had ‘normal’ gum. Boring gum. Gross gum. Blue and green gum. Certainly not her type of gum. Joanie was the only one (besides Huntress, as of a few moments ago) that gave her fluorescent pink chewing treat.

She giggled for a moment at her improv-art, the smiling curling up at the corner of her mouth. She stuck her tongue out as she pressed the corners into just the right shape, running the protrusion over her lips before turning back to the vulture lady. She reached a hand up to run through her hair, pulling the rubber bands free from the tangled mess. Harley ran her fingers through the strands for a few moments before carefully replacing them in perfect pigtails. She’s managed to convince Joanie to give her two bands instead of just one just that morning. The pigtails hindered her therapy, but she would cry and snivel and no cooperate if she was forced to wear just a pony tail or her hair down. She cracked her neck, tilted her head, and met the other woman’s eyes before leaning forward.

“Home is where ya’ heart is.” She almost sung that line, placing her elbows on the table and propping her jaw up on her hands. “And my heart’s not here…so uh. Ya I’m lonely.” She bit at her thumb nail, the only one long enough to do so. Joanie made sure her nails were cut short so she couldn’t inflict harm on the orderlies…again. It had happened only once, and the womancop needed to shut her mouth! She had been talking smack about Mistah J the second time she’d been brought in. She was one of the fem-eee-nests. She kept saying that he was ruinin’ her, and makin’ her dependant on him! Well duh, that’s what Harley liked. She’d attacked the woman with ease, and had been given solitary for just a week. The woman had been chastised for taunting a new patient and sent to another ward. Some people just didn’t know how to deal with other people. She wondered if the Vulture was worried about Harley attacking her.

“Puddin’ all alone, ya’ know. He dun have me to clean and cook and make ‘im happy. And who knows whatsa goin’ on wit his socks!” Harley’s eyes went wide at this. It was one of her main concerns- if he had enough socks. She had a thing for socks, especially his with their little man-garter belts. It made her shiver as she sat there. “I’ma home sick, ya. Maybe you coulda sweet talk Joanie into letting me outta here on good behavingness? I’ve been soooooo good, ya’ know.” She bat her eyelashes up at the other woman, grinning even wider.

“I’m not gunna give you information, ya’ know. I know whatcha tryin’ to do, makin’ me give up info on my Puddin’. I’m smatta than you think, BirdieShmirdie.”

Harley was smart, and she wasn’t one to deny it. It was always other people that were calling her names, making faces at her, and the like. She and the Joker were the smartest people she knew, Joanie coming in second. Joanie may have been your typical smart doctor, but she just didn’t understand some things that she and Puddin’ did. Huntress was as far down on the list as she could get, right before the Bratpack. Harley gagged at the thought of the Batsy family, her nose wrinkling. They were stupid bottom feeders.

She knew what the Vulturess was trying to do to her, get her to give information. The Big Ugly Bird would then run off to the Bats and give them all the information she could get in a pathetic attempt to fit in. Even Harley could pick up that they didn’t want the Purple Beastie in their little family; she was too much fun (and too smart for them). Harley was fiercely loyal to her Puddin’ and nothing, nothing could make her give up information about him. But she could toy with the woman.

“Butta, he’s stayin’ with someone I suppose,” She tapped her nose, giggling. “An ol’ friendy!” She leaned forward, her tone hushing as if she really were about to give out secret information.”He’s very tall an’ thin. You’da know ‘im if you seen ‘im.”