[ H ]

What Harley couldn't understand was why the walls had to be so devoid of colour. The dark grey was so bleak and plain that it felt, ironically, that it was overwhelming. Harley needed stimulation and she needed something to think about beyond the dark clouds her cell walls reminded her of. She was tired of thinking about the rain to distract herself. It was enough to see and hear it through the tiny window higher up in her cell wall, above her bed. This was where Harley spent most of her time, lounging about and contorting herself into various positions to keep herself flexible and capable. It would often be the case that guards happened to be passing by whenever she started her routine of stretching and limbering up - what a coincidence, huh?

Harley didn't care. She would use it to her advantage if she could.

She'd spent a lot of time the night before contemplating how different she was inside her head when it was just her thinking things to herself - when the voices were quiet. She'd realised she was more intelligent, lost her accent and used vocabulary more effectively. Harley even mentioned words in her head that she'd never said out loud.

"QUINN!"

Whoop-dee-doo, there was Snarly Charlie.

Harley sprung up from her bed and trailed over to the cell door, pale fingers curling deliberately around the bars, her head dropped to the side playfully,

"Hey, Charls..."

"First of all, that's not my name-"

"Specifics, Charls..."

"Stop it."

"Come on, Snarly Charlie, I coulda gone for worse, you know?"

"Shut it, Quinn."

"Now, boss, that ain't no way to be speakin' to a lady!" Harley squeaked her indignance, her voice raising beyond the bounds of what the asylum would consider 'complacent'. Snarly Charlie shifted about on the spot in his big, bulky armour, glancing about to make sure no-one was about to come over and reprimand him for breaking protocol by way of provoking an inmate. Once sure that the coast was clear, he leaned in a little closer.

"Listen to me. You're just a freak behind bars, missy. You ain't some big shot killer, you're just a nutcase."

"Bub, it ain't no insult to be callled a little nutty."

"Oh, I can do better. You wanna know the best thing about this, Quinn? No-one will believe you if you tell them what I said."

"Poooooh-ey! Bpppppllllttttt." Harley sounded a raspberry, jerking her thumb downwards in one quick motion to voice her dissent. Snarly Charlie didn't seem to be too pleased with her lack of reaction.

"Y-you're nothin' but a dumb, ditzy whore."

"Keep 'em, comin', old Snarly. I've been hit with worse." Harley taunted, wondering what it was they drilled into their guards when they trained them. This guy was like a sheep begging to be sheared.

"You-"

But he'd gotten too close to the bars, and Harley's hands shot out to grip at his armour, jerking him towards her with one sharp motion. Her high pitched, keening laughter began the moment she'd gotten her hands on him, and only increased once she'd smashed his head so hard against the bars that he bled... profusely. She laughed the whole time, even when the larger group of nearby guards arrived to swarm on her and knock her out.

All the noise and bustling and bodies and commotion hadn't stopped her from seeing another inmate down the corridor (her cell was a north facing one, right at the end of the hallway) being escorted away. She'd seen him before, Harley was sure, because... how could you forget someone like that? His hair was vibrant green and his skin was pure, alabaster white - littered with the tattoos he'd acquired for himself. A tiny little intricate 'J' took up position on his cutting, left cheekbone. His torso held the mantle of the rest of them, and Harley was sure there were more to be added. The last time she'd seen him she'd spotted the perfect set of teeth he kept beneath bright red lips. He was a showman, Harley remembered. He'd certainly been enjoying the show she'd put on, by the look of him in that brief couple of seconds she'd seen of him through the thick mass of guards. The men and women he had shepherding him towards his cell had a hard time containing him as he laughed and threw his head back in glee. The Joker was not a man you forgot. Once he caught your eye he had it forever.

Harley was not sorry for any trouble she'd caused the staff of Arkham Asylum. Why would she be?

There had been a time when Harley had actually cared about things like that - she'd been compassionate and kind and a little too gullible. None of that was ever destined to last for long when she'd grown up the way she had and it had all gone downhill early on in her 20s. It had begun so casually. Harley remembered times when she would be out and about, heading to the shops for a loaf of bread or to the park for an evening walk, when she would hear a voice. Every time she heard it she would always turn to seek out who had spoken, glancing over her shoulder so frequently that she became paranoid. The paranoia only dragged her deeper into the madness, sadly. Soon the voices became more demanding, and grew exponentially - to the point where she couldn't even keep track of them - couldn't make note of them or distinguish them from each other. Her eyes started to do funny things, too; things she enjoyed. She'd see things strangely, things that weren't there, or she'd see things in such an exaggerated capacity that it would scare her. One cat became twelve, three lampposts in a row became an entire fleet, and a single parked car would became a legion of tanks. The paranoia got worse from there - breakouts of shrill, maniacal laughter and displays of extreme behaviour in public soon caught the attention of the GCPD; and Harley was taken in to be evaluated. She'd been locked up in Arkham Asylum for a good year now, and all traces of her former compassion had escaped her along with her sanity.

It wasn't until about a week later that she received the first note. It was snuck in with her food, folded haphazardly and tucked under a stale slice of bread. One of the edges was stained a little with the mush they'd served her, but apart from that it was untouched. After her demonstration last week, Harley had been banned from the cafeteria for a solid month. She wasn't sure what kind of a lesson this was supposed to teach her, for all she did know for sure on the subject was that it had at her most lonesome, and caused her to be exceedingly grumpy and irate. Harley had actually been in such a foul mood that she considered tearing the note up before she'd even opened it, but then she caught sight of a cutesy, tiny little pink bow stuck to the underside, and the glee that filled her was so great that she tossed the tray of food up in the air with a big whoop and excitable round of applause. Harley paused to listen out for staff members coming to investigate the noise, but it was the majority's lunch break, and so she was safe for the time being.

'Dearest Harley Quinn,

a birdie with such talents and spice and vigor shouldn't be cooped up in a cage!

said birdie should be allowed to fly FREE and prosper.

whaddya say? ready to be FREE of this joint? ;)

three flaps of a wing says birdie wants to fly FREEEE!'

Harley blinked uncomprehendingly at the odd note. Birdie? Harley had never met no birdie, nor had she ever owned one.

Unless... was she the birdie? Oh! Codenames! Just like spies and secret agents! Harley loved a good roleplay. She was buzzing about with excitement now - so invigorated by it, in fact, that she flipped about her cell until she'd worn herself out with the effort. That took a few hours. Once panting and sweaty and out of breath and momentum, Harley slumped back on her bed; thinking the note over. 'Three flaps of a wing says birdie wants to fly free' - what did this mean? What did it even imply? All it brought to mind was Robin - Batman's cute little sidekick. Mmm... Robin... what could she do with that? The concept had promise. Whoever this was, though... would they understand the message if she broadcasted it for them?

No harm in trying, right?

Harley got to her feet again, pacing forward to the bars. Hours had passed since the note had been received, so there were now sheep milling about, blindly following the orders of their farmer overlords. Harley snickered, bashing her head against one of the bars to her cell lightly. She waited uncharacteristically patiently for a guard to pass by, and took in a deep breath before screaming, at the top of her lungs:

"ROBIN! ROBIN! ROOOOBIIIIIIN! OH, TWEET, TWEET, TWEET! HAHAHAHHA-"

She continued this same pattern in rules of three until it became a chant, and once again, the guards came to neutralise her.

"That's enough, Quinn! Boy, are you determined to be a troublemaker this week, huh? Put one of my guys in the hospital just the other day. Don't go easy on this one, boys; she's a menace."

[ ? ]

She waited for the signal just like she'd been told to - followed Joker's instructions to a tee. She'd had dealings with him before, and had learned the hard way that it was not wise to disobey the Joker in any way, measure or form. He was a generous man when he was getting what he wanted. The sudden, disturbing cries of Harley Quinn's hollers from down the hall sent shivers up her spine and brought goosebumps to her flesh. That woman was not well. Harley Quinn was a lethal combination in a place like this - she was pretty and completely cracked and as insane as the worst of them, and yet she was still clever - she still had her intellect. It hadn't surprised her when word had reached her through the right sources that The Joker had caught sight of her and wanted her. Now for what, exactly, she had no clue. She liked to keep the need to know mindset - it kept her safe, and it kept Joker generous - which kept the money flowing.

"ROBIN! ROBIN! ROOOOBIIIIIIN! OH, TWEET, TWEET, TWEET! HAHAHAHHA-" Harley continued to cry out at the top of her lungs, the chant taking on a musical lilt now, accompanied with the sound of something colliding with metal to serve as the beat. It was a clever message, too, and she found herself oddly proud of Harley. Nice interpretation of 'wings'. It was what she'd been told to listen out for, and that meant she was obliged to take a highly detailed note of it (as Joker would accept nothing less) and get the little scrap of paper passed along to him as promptly as possible.

[ H ]

Harley awoke in solitary confinement - arms trussed up in a straitjacket and all. The works. They'd done a real number on her. With no hands to push the hair out of her eyes and mouth, she resorted to tossing her head aggressively from side to side until her face was free from her own intrusive, long, blonde strands. Harley whined quietly to herself, wriggling about on her backside, her legs tangling and writhing about as she tried to get to her feet. The act took her a good ten minutes, but eventually she developed a system of pushing herself over to the wall with her feet, and then using that as a surface to wriggle up, playing the resistance to grab a position and push herself until she was upright and on her feet. Not that this did her any good, but... the sense of accomplishment was something she could hold onto while she had all this... nothing around her. This was worse than her cell - and it was supposed to be - at least her cell had a bed and a window. Harley jumped once, twice, a third time - needing to express her outrage somehow.

"You're going to regret this, pigs!" She shrieked childishly, that thick accent of hers colouring to to make it seem like the taunts of a petulant child.

Harley was so much more. She was a fucking hurricane.

She sped about the room, flipping and jumping and twirling and rolling to prove her point - to add imagery to the label she'd given herself. Harley screamed in indignation and would have been pulling her hair out with her madness if her hands hadn't been strapped so tightly to separate parts of her torso. All in all, Harley didn't react to the experience all too well. She'd only been in solitary once before, and it had been so much worse; but that didn't stop Harley from responding just as badly.

On what she was sure must be the third day of her isolation, Harley managed to give herself a nosebleed by headbutting the only hard thing in the room - the door. The rest of the room was padded and somewhat sound proofed, and the material was all white, so she gladly bled all over that.

The sixth day (if Harley had been counting right - she never did) was an interesting one, because she received a second note along with her dinner of slim pickings. She struggled with the paper but eventually managed to use her toes to open it, and squinted at it, tilting her head to try and read it.

'what a home arkham's been to the little birdie~

sadly, all birdies must one day leave the nest and venture NEW HORIZONS!

the day is coming, little birdie... GET READY. ;)'

The nice little touch this time had been a sparkly little green smiley sticker, placed very purposefully at the end of the message. Harley gave a little peal of delighted laughter upon spotting it, and tried her best to peel it off to keep, but found that after a good few hours of trying; she simply couldn't.

Harley was too eager for what was to come to sleep properly that night, so she stretched and practised and when she was done with that she curled herself up into the best foetal position she could manage and simply rocked frantically to keep herself moving. She had to keep moving. Always. Always had to be moving.

They must have slipped her pills and medications into her food, because she wasn't seeing anything or hearing anything, and everything was still as boring as it had been back in her cell a few levels up.

Harley was still rocking when there was a rattle of keys just outside, though she perked up and prayed to a God she just didn't believe in that it was her rescuer. She rocked even still when the key was inserted into the door, and when the door began to heave open. Whoever it was pushing it was impressive with their strength - usually it took two or three guards to get that thing open. Harley finally pushed herself over to the nearest wall and struggled to her feet when he stepped into the room. Eyes accustomed to the darkness the way that they were now, Harley saw his eyes before she saw the rest of thim - they flashed white and were open slightly too wide. It was terrifying and thrilling and intoxicating just to be in such a presence. Harley took a few steps to approach the light, squinting against it to make out his silhouette. He had his arms outstretched and his lips parted to reveal a shocking display of teeth. He beckoned to her, shirtless and intimidating,

"Come along, little birdie... we gotta bust you outta this cage."

He licked his lips, beckoning her still, eyes (she could tell, even in the gloomy darkness) never leaving her, though his head gave a slight nod on repeat in an unintentional movement. He was eager for her to join him - that much was clear. Harley had even suspected it was him behind all this, but what use could she be to The Clown Prince himself? He was right up there at the top, while she was quite literally stuck down here at the bottom.

He got impatient then and grabbed at her once she was close enough to him, snatching her out of her isolated room and yanking her away with him down the abandoned corridor towards chaos.