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Maybe she was a little crazy.
It’s understandable to think that of her. After all, she had a promising career as a physiatrist and she gave it all up to be with a madman who didn’t love her. Right? At least, that’s what the news said. They spewed their nonsense to the public and no one even batted an eye because, hey, this is Gotham. Crazier things have happened than an odd dame running off with a pasty faced creep.
Thing is, Harleen knew better. She might not have been the sharpest tool in the box, but she wasn’t as dumb as they made her out to be. She didn’t get through college by sleeping with her professors, she actually worked for the grades she got, and yeah, they weren’t the best, but they sure as hell weren’t the worst! She was a good student and a good doctor, and all of her classmates knew it. She knew how to handle those who couldn’t handle themselves or who refused to be handled at all. Harls knew how to handle herself, too. In her little high heels and pencil skirts, she could conquer the craziest of minds whilst paying her own bills, buying her own food, and keeping her own self sane. Hard to believe, but she was a pretty good gal.
But no one would believe a good gal like her would fall in love with a guy like him.
So, instead, they called her dumb, naive, insane. But they didn’t know her like he knew her, like he knows her. They weren’t there for the sessions in that little gray room with the red leather couch bolted to the floor. They didn’t see him tied there, strapped down with his arms in a straight jacket, green hair covering his even brighter green eyes. Nobody but her saw his eyes sparkle when he spoke of his latest run-in with the Bat. Only she saw him struggle against his restraints, pulling and pushing and practically begging for her to let him out. How badly he wanted to be free, only she knew. And she was okay with that. She didn’t want to make a book of his childhood, or sell his dreams and stories for profit. She just wanted to be trusted by him, and his words told her that she was.
It could’ve all been lies, of course, but damn did he sound convincing. The way the words danced on his tongue, how they slipped and slid out of his throat and into her mind. He led her on so well, made her think she had him against the ropes, then bam! He hit her from behind with another sob story from his childhood.
How she fell for his lies were the only stories they told. Those were the only facts they spewed, the only evidence they could muster of her insanity. But facts can be false, and evidence can be tampered with. Harleen did not fall. She jumped. He walked further and further down into the abyss and she followed, willingly, eagerly, just to see if she could survive the trip to the bottom. She reached his fingertips so many times. She came so close to pulling him back out, and when she finally grasped his hand, she realized she did not know the way out of the hell they had created. Or rather, the hell he had created for her.
Truthfully, it scared her. It terrified her conscience, and he made her skin crawl. But in her dreams, he was kind and gentle. He was a man hiding behind a monster, too afraid to show his face to an unforgiving world. These dreams kept her going, kept her glued to her uncomfortable chair across from him, kept her asking questions to that blood red smile.
Again, truthfully, she had no idea whether or not her dreams were reality, or even if her reality was comprised of dreams. All she knew was that she loved every second of it. She loved the rush of adrenaline of being with a man who could kill her at any second. And so when she took her final leap into that dark abyss, she took it remembering that she would fall right into his arms. She wanted to know him, wanted him to trust her, and even if she was trapped with him in his cage, at least she was able to see it when no one else could. She kept her sanity close to her chest, or maybe she never really had it all, but either way, she knew the truth.
While her fall was willing, his was less so.
She understood his incapacity to love. She had once felt the same before she had met him. Her past flings had led to nothing more than heartbreak or boredom, but when she loved him, he was anything but. Her body may have been broken by him, but her heart remained strong, and her attention was never devided. She knew in her heart of hearts that he felt the same, but unlike her, he did not have the same willingness to fall so fast and so hard without fighting back.
Harley took the punches and taunts with grace, for she knew it was his method of coping with this new development. Make no mistake, his slaps were not frequent, and she always (eventually) met them with fierce words or wounds of her own. They were not always kind to each other, and they didn’t need to be. They both understood just how dangerous the other could be when the right buttons were pushed, and they both knew how to avoid said triggers. But in a love like theirs, anger is hot and long-lasting, and it must be released before it can cause permanent damage. They knew how far they could go before they crossed a line, and though they pushed (he more than her) they made sure not to shove the other off the edge.
Bruises and bite marks, hickeys and broken bones, black and red eyes, all of these were common occurrences between them, and though Harley sported more than he ever would, most if not all of them were consensual and not at all out of anger. They turned her on when she looked at herself in the mirror. Pain was pleasure and pleasure was pain to her, and to him. Doctor Leland’s evidence of “abuse” was something she craved, but nobody ever seemed to understand that, Red especially.
Poison Ivy never truly understood Harley’s relationship. She thought it selfish and cruel on his part and childish and naive on hers. Pam believed in the freedom of women and plants, but she could never quite grasp how contradictory she was when dealing with Harley. You see, Harls wanted what she had, she enjoyed it, and never in a million years would she dream of giving it up. She was not insane, and even if she was, wasn’t everyone in Gotham? When Red tried to argue with her or keep her away from him, was she not denying Quinn her freedom to choose who she wanted to spend the rest of her life with?
When she would present these facts to Ivy, she was met with, “Harls, how can you not see how abusive and toxic he is? He has coached you into believing that he’s good for you, and that’s the worst part! Please, Harley, for the love of God, leave him!”
And though Harley trusted Red, she trusted her gut more. The little voice inside her head would say, “Stay, Harleen. Look at how happy you are! For the first time in a long time, you’re smiling!”
She knew they would never believe her if she told them the truth, so she stuck with the dumb blonde bit, and they fell for it, just as she had fallen for him. Even so, some days it was hard to bear the burden of the world pitying her for something she didn’t want pity for.
“Oh well,” that little voice in her head would say when Pamela would scold her. “Maybe you are a little crazy.”
And maybe she was. But she was okay with that.