Bat-Catcher
DC and Marvel involved in ownership, not me!
This is based mainly off animated series stuff and comics but it could incorporate movies too, I think.
Brooklyn Wayne is passive in the tight hold of blunt, meaty fingers digging into her arm. Chain links clicked and jangled as she was lead down the cold, bleach scented hallway, still a bit in shock if she was to be perfectly honest about it. Being escorted into Arkham as a new patient was never something she expected to experience in her life. She put people in this place, she was not supposed to join them for an extended stay that had nothing to do with her masked counterpart making sure a resident was still where they should be.
Were she in full regalia, the cloak of darkness and armor about her person she would feel far less vulnerable and, well, human wasn't the right word for it, perhaps unstable in a spiraling helpless way might be. Being here and out of costume made her feel like she was falling, like a turtle removed for its shell, like she was real and open the way she didn't feel when she was ensconced in Kevlar and symbols that made her a beacon for the safety of others. In this place, she felt like she needed the Bat more than anything.
It was unpleasant to know that while Batwoman might be able to win in a fight against those trapped within thick walls, Brooke couldn't because her identity didn't allow it. She was helpless in Brooke's persona and Batwoman simply could not be called upon; Batwoman knew well over a hundred different fighting styles but Brooke had only ever dabbled in self-defense. Brooke could not defend herself worth a darn, not against real criminals and that was what she would be forced to conform to. Words were the only weapon a woman in business had open to them and words might not even come close to being enough to save her.
She licked her lips and wished she thought better of it when an inmate, oh, no, a patient she actually did not recognize smirked seductively at her while her guards walked her forward. Avoid whoever that was, she decided. This was not going to be pleasant.
Robin better hurry, double time or she was bound to give herself away to the exact wrong people, and she was not even talking about the guards. She put over half of the people within the walls where they were even if they did not know that just yet and she hoped they never, ever did. It would spell doom in big dripping letters.
She was ushered into a small room and obeyed meekly when instructed to surrender any and all of her personal possessions in exchange for a very drab gray jumper and cheap canvas shoes. They smelled of cheap soap and what she worried might have been their previous owner. The shoes fit but they felt, and it might be in her imagination like they still had sweat from whatever person had them potentially not long ago. Maybe the inmate had died, no blood, so probably strangulation. She was not helping herself.
A mental institution. She just never expected this even when she should have. When she'd been drugged on toxin she'd even been here before, in a hug- me- jacket but she never thought she'd be back!
There was nothing particularly classy about her situation and everyone believed she had gone round the bend thanks to years of stress and pressure to live up to the standards of a life she was born to. They said it was only natural for her to crack after what happened to her parents and being forced to step up into the business so young. The big bad business world was too much for a helpless little girl to tackle, of course. Of course! Yes, of course!
Just the thought made her grind her teeth a little. Many a man in her world had been forced to concede to her at one time or another because they might think she was young and foolish, but at some point, she had proved them all wrong. Many had called her crazy on occasion for one considerably brash choice or another, but she had yet to be wrong nor to live to really regret a direction she had taken her company. They could say what they liked about her personal choices but her shareholders rarely attempted to challenge her.
She could only guess that one of them, and she had some good guesses who hired someone to impersonate her. There was a flat zero she could do to prove it though considering she was out in a cowl and cape which rendered her incapable of offering herself an alternate location. Dick and Alfred stepped up instantly to swear up one way and down the other that she had been with one or both of them but no one believed them.
After watching herself attempt to kill Fox and a few other members in her company, seeming well and truly out of her head or high, she would have sent herself to a bit of therapy as well. Since it had been criminal acts that were unprovoked by toxins from Joker or even Crane, which Gordon had her tested for in an attempt to help her, she found herself about to mingle with the criminally insane. Just before they loaded her up, she looked into Jim's eyes and saw a sort of grief hiding there; this was not how he hoped to see the little girl from that bygone crime scene end up.
The booking or admission process took a rather long time. She let them drag her through it without much thought, sort of switching to autopilot after a time because she had no desire to be where she currently was, wanting to be on the street clearing her name alongside her partner. If she wanted to save her sanity she needed to think and think fast, solve the crime with her wits rather than her feet. Getting out was above all her top priority.
Brooke almost did not notice once everything was finished and she was tossed into a room with a simple bunk on one side and two chairs bolted to the floor on the other. Rearranging the room was clearly not allowed. Three walls were brick, painted drab, chalky white, but the fourth wall was mainly construed of gorilla enclosure grade Plexiglas so they could see their charges at all times. There were a couple potted plants pushed up close to the Plexiglass like someone tried to make the place homey but it was sort of a failure. Fishbowl much? Not exactly dignified or in any way offering anything for modesty.
The room smelled of lemon, cotton and maybe mold. Pleasant indeed.
For a second she did not notice the shape of a body on the top portion of the bed but motion caught her attention swiftly, making her body tense and force her to fight the initial instinct to move into a defensive stance. The unhealthy green tint to the skin peeking out from the drab gray uniform was highly familiar. The woman lounging on one of the beds was a far cry from a comforting sight as she rolled gracefully up and swung shapely, dancer toned legs off the side to dangle.
Red hair spilled around thin shoulders as Poison Ivy leaned forward, folding like a contortionist to peer at her, rose petal red lips smirking a sort of greeting, "Well, well! Didn't know I was joining the high society when I came here. Guess I didn't read the fine print about this being a country club."
Brooke resolutely did not respond, she simply crossed the room and sat on what she guessed was her block of wood they called a bed. Though she found little time to sleep it was a very nice bed sitting in her room, nothing like what passed as a mattress here. Going to bed was a treat on any given day. Funny how she now would have the time to sleep and would not even get to use that lovely bed for it.
Isley slithered down with a sort of liquid, creeping vine motion that was a little too familiar. "So, what are you in for, honey? Double parking?" her voice always held a sultry aspect regardless of who she was conversing with.
Brooke looked to the floor sullenly, squashing most of her initial responses that would have revealed the anger, she instead hunched in on herself to appear out of her depth, "I didn't do it."
Ivy snickered, imposing herself into Brooke's space by perching on the opposite side of the lower bunk, "Oh, neither did I!"
Brooke's eyes snapped up and she struggled not to glare the way her counterpart would, she tried hard for a sardonic smile instead, "Right."
Pamela's smirk slid into a bit more of a smile that could be called normal or real, "Around here, that's everyone's story. What I asked is what you're in for, not how innocent you are."
Brooke Wayne would probably tell Pam, would have no reason not to, "Four counts of battery and attempted murder... Embezzlement from my own company and charity organizations I was supporting in addition. They say I went insane and started trying to off my most loyal employees because I thought they had turned on me. I'm apparently mentally unstable from past traumas and they suggested paranoid schizophrenic as one option but they want to determine a full mental workup and diagnosis." She nearly laughed for just a moment, "One of the D.A.'s shrinks thought I might suffer from multiple personality disorder because of my wildly varying behavior from my criminal behavior to my normal behavior on top of my insistence that I was innocent."
Did having an alter ego count as having multiple personalities? Part of her really wanted to ask that question just to get a reaction out of the witless little puppet man that reminded her too much of a meeker Crane.
Ivy frowned, "That sounds like a lot of speculation for you having ended up here."
Brooke shrugged, "It wasn't anything to do with what I wanted. The D.A. and Judge made the decisions, not me."
The other woman scooted into her personal space, draping an arm over her shoulder, motioning to the room with the other, "Well, welcome to our little resort! Where the green grass can't grow, the sun never shines, the food crawls away on its own, and you hear every sound amplified at night. The staff is ever so helpful, always asking you how you feel, and whatever ails you, they promise a cure."
"Sounds lovely..." Brooke swallowed and forced a tired smile, trying to tap into her usual charm but not quite finding it. Batwoman did not need charm and being around Ivy normally meant she was in a mask.
"Oh, trust me, it is!" Ivy simpered knowingly. "Want to greet the other girls once they let us out of the cage?"
Not so much, no, but what choice did she really have? She settled for a hesitant sounding, "Sure?"
It turned out she was to meet a few doctors before she ever met the girls. They lead her away to a small little room where they asked a lot of questions she did not care to answer. After the shot of something orange they plunged into her arm things began to get rather fuzzy on the details. Once she was finished with them she felt much better than she had in years. She was light as a bird, happy enough to sing. Whatever there was of Batwoman inside her was relegated to a locked room and even Brooklyn was almost pushed to the side. What she was now was disconnected to either side of herself and it was the most freeing thing she ever experienced. She almost doubted even the Scarecrow's toxin could touch her now because nothing in the world could ever bring her down enough to frighten her. It was so hard to really think so she stopped trying, stopped filtering her actions through all the usual channels and just was. Honestly, even though she knew she should, she could not find it in herself to care.
The great, wealthy American industrial philanthropist, queen of Gotham, sat hunched over her plate in the cafeteria. Those metallic blue eyes were dilated and fixed in absolute focus on her project. Conversation at the table had been something of an experience with the way the girl could not hold a topic for long. All that sharp intelligence hiding in those eyes, hiding behind an easy smile and fake indolence Ivy had been faced with before was glassed over now.
She had been picking apart the orange in absolute fascination, studying it like it held the key to life for the better part of half an hour. Harley had been highly amused by the girl at first but her amusement turned to worry after a while. Brooke and the Harlequin had met before when Harley kidnapped the billionaire and her date last time she had been free. Somehow the woman seemed to have earned a little respect from the former doctor.
"Hey," Ivy ventured, nibbling at her lip in concern, "you haven't actually eaten anything, hun, and with those meds, you've really got to eat or you'll be sick soon."
Brooke looked up at her from her hunched position over the table, eyes wide and open like a child, "Oh, right!" She agreed easily, smiling with big dimples before popping something into her mouth. After just a moment she began singing a merry little tune, nibbling orange between choruses.
Harley and Ivy exchanged glances, unsure what to do with their dinner partner. The singing was gaining attention for others in the room, maybe because it was a children's song, or maybe it was because she actually had an enchantingly sweet voice, but attention was bad in a place like Arkham.
"Hey, sugar, you might want to tone it down a little," Ivy suggested.
"Now, now! Ivy, let the girl sing if that's what her little heart desires!" Joker spoke with his typical theatrical sway, jumping from his table behind them, grinning and overly excited per usual. "Come on, Brookie! I happen to know a piano in the common room and a captive crowd just dying for a little entertainment!" He flourished his hand out to the famous newcomer in invitation.
Even drugged it was more than possible to pick up the inherent risk in listening to any request from that signature voice and its changeable cadence from high and playful to low and dangerous. For a moment Brooke's eyes widened and her posture hunched like her mind was telling her to be afraid of an offer from this particular man, but it was fleeting enough that it was easy to miss. A dazzling smile slipped onto her face, "Yeah?"
"You bet your life, dearie!" His grin grew impossibly wider when the poor girl trustingly placed her hand in his and let him drag her off like a prize.
Ivy sprang up and followed, shaking off her dumbfounded horror in favor of keeping a poor confused girl from being strangled with a piano wire. Why anyone allowed a piano in an establishment when the Joker was around was something only bureaucracy could answer. She rounded the corner in time to see Joker lift the girl up and plant her on the piano like she was his personal songbird before he sat down, fluffing imaginary coattails and playfully flexing his fingers.
"Pick your poison, Brookie!" He tittered.
She smiled, shrugging her shoulders, "It's up to the maestro."
Joker cackled at that and everyone in the room had turned full attention on the pair, waiting, no doubt, to see if she was about to die, "How about a little ragtime, liven up the place!" The clown began to play, fingers dancing swiftly over the less than tuned keys in a decidedly syncopated rhythm, "Chime in if you know it!" He encouraged.
Brooke's eyes lit up and she hopped off her perch, starting up a little dance, grinning happily as polyrhythm filled the normal quiet, "Mr. Piano Man, please! Tickle those ivory keys!" Her fingers danced in front of her like she was imitating playing, her dance and the way she sang reminiscent of a bar in some 1800's movie, "No one can noodle the way that you doodle those rickey-tickey melodies!"
Joker looked almost surprised like it was unexpected, and it was rare for anyone to surprise him, at least not pleasantly. The song fit very well with the clown's overall personality and it was a far cry from surprising that he would play it, but the fact that a rich heiress knew it was decidedly more surprising. People like her were supposed to listen to Chopin and very posh music of culture, not a fun little bar tune. There she was, all the same.
Her voice was jazzy, playful, "Mr. Piano Man, please! Do what nobody can do! Your trembling tremeloes are gonna drive me to ruin. You're left don't know exactly what your right hand is doin', oh-" Then she was dancing, forgetting to sing, throwing her arms out to the sides and twirling round and round like she was caught up in the music like it was alive and floating around her for her to chase. With how gone she was, maybe she could see sound at this point. She might be dancing with fae by this stage of her medication.
The funny thing was, everyone was watching, almost seeming enchanted by the sane little girl thrown into the nut house. Joker just kept playing and if she did not know better she would say he did so just so Brooke could keep dancing. There was nothing sensual about her dance, particularly not when she was dressed in those shapeless jumpers, but there was a princess quality to it that was a reminder of who she was. Grace like that was born and raised, probably drilled into her from the moment she could walk. High society was a den of monsters that loved to dance and strut so anyone in that world had to know how to move along to the sway.
Harley must have reached some kind of limit because she bounded over to Wayne like a kitten drawn to a bouncy mouse on a stick. The rich socialite let her in with a sort of refinement coupled to girlish glee and the two began to dance with no sort of coordination at all, twirling around like ballet dropouts. Even Ivy herself had to crack a reserved though unintentionally fond smile while she watched.
"Riddle me this! What does an heiress do in an Asylum?" Nygma whispered from her right.
The former botanist did not answer, just shook her head. She supposed the answer might be: joins the nuts. He probably had something with more of a pun involved but she did not want to hear it. Rather than dwell on it she watched a few other inmates get up and join the dance. Maybe what an heiress did in an asylum was crack the nuts because so far the girl seemed to have won over her share. The orderlies even looked a little like they wanted to join in.
While she had the medicine in her she felt perfect, no pain or sadness could touch her, but coming down off of it was not so pleasant. Her head, her whole head hurt so much! She could not move but felt too bad to hold still. She was desperate to find a place, a position, anything that would make the pain a little less, but moving made the pain spike and that made her vomit. That hurt too. Even water was far beyond her ability to keep down so she stopped trying to get the taste out of her mouth. At one point she found herself crying into the bucket out of sheer misery. Her body felt weak, her mind was clouded, she hurt more than any hangover, closer to what a severe concussion was like. Body and mind were an absolute wreck and she had no energy for this.
A body slowly slithered down from the top bunk and that was proof enough that Brooke was nowhere near alright because she never even realized the other woman was there. Rather than leaving the way Brooke assumed she had, a cool cloth was run up under her hair and then over her face. Ivy was methodical in her work, weaving her dark hair in a relaxed braid to keep the hair from her face, cleaning her face from saliva and tears, then positioning her on her side.
With that accomplished Ivy slithered onto the bed and positioned herself at the head, leaning against the wall and petting Brooke's shoulders like a self-appointed caretaker. Pride demanded she protest but bone-deep weariness kept anything from getting past her lips. It was sort of like having Alfred with her, or perhaps a far more distant memory of her mother. That thought had her instantly sick again but Ivy was more than ready, the bucket already in position.
After her body calmed a little she noticed a hesitant knock and moved her eyes up to find Harley standing at the door, hesitant and nearly shy, "How's she doing?" The question was obviously for Ivy.
"Peachy." Ivy retorted blandly.
"Those meds are putting her through the ringer." Harley observed, her generally light and happy tone seemed a bit more sad, "poor kid."
It was a little surprising when Harley walked over and took the bucket away to rinse it before coming back and lounging on the bed as well, her blonde head resting on Brooke's knees. It might have been a good idea to protest but being ensconced by the two women was sort of comforting in the strangest way. She felt protected and at ease, the way being corralled by her enemies never should feel. Her eyes found their way closed and sleep covered her with a rare swiftness.
The next thing she was aware of was Ivy's snarled words, "She doesn't need that stuff! Can't you see it's making her sick?"
A calm, very bored male, the doctor if memory served, replied, "Her body needs time to adjust. All medications take time to regulate in the body. In no time she will grow accustomed to it and it will no longer cause this reaction."
"She's not crazy!" Harley hissed, "you're not helping her! Treating nonexistent symptoms will only-"
"You gave up your right to diagnose and treat patients, Miss Quinzel." The doctor sounded just a little harsher. "Now step aside, ladies, and let me do my job. Or would you rather be escorted out?"
The silence seemed to be the answer and when the bed dipped Brooke opened her eyes, already knowing it would be her doctor sitting there. The orange liquid was in the syringe and he was rolling away her sleeve.
"No," Brooke insisted, well aware it was that stuff that had been the root of her miserable situation not long ago, it was the reason she was so out of control, "I don't want it!"
"I'm afraid it is not optional." He informed her before the needle stung into her flesh.
Breakfast came and went with Brooke once again eating very little, too distracted by things no one else was seeing. Is ever there was anyone more like a squirrel than Harleen it was a drugged Brooklyn. The socialite was absolutely unrecognizable as herself. While she was known to be playful she was also known to be tactful and a bit reserved to an extent. As she was no versus the way she was when she walked in the door, she was an entirely different person. If there was a way to describe it properly, Pam would say it was like watching the wear of time and the hardness of life being stripped away to leave an adult as nothing but a child. She was unassuming, fearless, unreserved, painfully innocent.
It was hard not to worry about someone like that in a place like Arkham! It had only been two days and the redhead was frazzled. It was worse than trying to keep Harley out of trouble!
Ivy glanced at Harley and Dent as they all watched the heiress of Wayne Enterprise running around the room, flipping herself over couches, and doing handsprings or cartwheels, "This is why they shouldn't put sane people on that stuff. Case very much in point."
Harvey had been watching Wayne with a sort of study that seemed overly intense even for him. He was silent, fingering his coin, dual eyes far away even though they did track the motion of the girl running around the room. Where she had the energy was a mystery for someone that skipped lunch to follow the dust mites around the windows. Sort of a sad commentary, but other prisoners eventually joined the girl in her chase of the ever elusive dust particles that were absolutely everywhere.
"Penny for your thoughts?" Harley trilled sweetly at him, fingers threading round and round a blonde curl.
The dual faces turned to her and he seemed more disturbed than usual, which was saying something, "I've known Brooke for a lot of years, considered her, once, one of my best friends."
Ivy nodded, almost feeling sorry for the former lawyer, "I imagine it must be strange seeing her in here then."
He shook his head and turned his mismatched eyes on Brooke again, "Yes, but for a different reason than you're thinking."
Harley cocked her head to one side, thin brows furrowing in puzzlement, "What then?"
Harvey looked angry most of the time, harsh and brutal, but it softened into something more human, something sad, "Seeing her like this, I just realized that I've never seen her happy before. Her eyes light up and sparkle when she's happy, her shoulders are higher, she walks differently. I can see it now, now that it's gone."
"What's gone?" Harley turned her eyes to their topic of bouncing discussion.
"The grief..." he mused, "or maybe it's just... the weight. She always did try to solve everyone's trouble, took everything to heart, I just never noticed how much she took on before. Even when we were younger I've never seen her this light."
"That's..." Harley looked a bit more intently on the girl now perched on one of Scarecrow's shoulders, "kinda sad."
Ivy's eyes turned lazily back to Brooke, widening when she saw what she was doing. She let out a strangled noise of distress, springing from her chair and dashing over to rescue the girl from what could be a deadly mistake. Everyone knew the former doctor was not fond of touching, people, happiness, people, anything. Crane grumbled his indignation and Ivy wrangled the both of them in something of a panic. Scarecrow could be downright horrible when he was in one of his moods, his encounters with his own toxin making his a rather bipolar sort of multiple danger.
"I didn't know Ivy took a shine to anyone but her plants." Harvey mused, watching the scene with interested amusement.
"She doesn't usually... but there's something about your friend... makes ya want to like her. She seems like she'd got a good heart under all that hyperactive nutty kid thing she has going on."
Dent frowned, eyes going almost half-mast, "She does. She used to be... open, like this, but life made her harder, made her get tougher. Deep down though, she's still as soft as she once was and I guess this proves it. There is no way she is guilty. She's too noble for something like that and too smart. People don't give her enough credit, they just see her smiles and doe eyes, not her intelligence."
"People tend to be kind of blind that way..." Harley smiled and sighed, "They don't look deep enough to see the real person, just look at the superficial, what they want to see. It's human nature."
"Maybe when this is all over and she's out she'll at least remember how to smile from her time in here." He watched the Riddler slid in behind Brooke when Ivy's focus was fully on Crane, "If she lives that long."
Harvey stood up and marched himself over to the situation, shoving Nygma away from his old friend. The Harlequin watched Brooke's face light up when she saw Dent, like his partial disfigurement was nothing, and throw her arms around his neck like she had yet to even notice he was around. As lost as she was, maybe she never did see him.
Brooke gets sick every night and every morning, right before her injections. It fast became public knowledge around Arkham and everyone had a remedy to offer up. A few of them even seemed to work when Harley and Ivy tried them. An improvement was something even if it was not everything. Even Nygma picks up on the fact that the doctor is over medicating Wayne though it is oddly Crane that ultimately pointed it out while they all sat at one of the little tables to play cards. The discussion grew rather intense as they all discussed it. Dent was sure the doctor was being paid off by whoever framed her to get her out of the way. Nygma said it was just incompetence. It might have been a little interesting that none of them believe she was guilty but they were all criminals and they could spot innocence when they saw it.
Ivy falls directly on Dent's side of the argument, surmising that it is a payoff the way it always seemed to be in Gotham. Corruption was rampant like litter in the streets.
"Dagget has pulled this before trying to get her out of his way." Dent's raspy, sandpaper voice snarled as he threw down two cards.
"Well, it can't be the same guy he used last time." Crane snickered, "But a man of means can always find another desperate urchin with a little skill and a lot of desperation."
"I should send him a little gift..." Ivy ran her fingers over the edges of her cards, "Some of my babies would eat him right up."
"How prosaic of you." Nygma drew from the deck before discarding, "I'd say a reckoning would really deserve something with a little more originality."
Only when someone squeaks in terror do any of them look up from their card game to take notice that there is a decided absence of a Brooke shaped bouncy human in the room, no longer doing handstands on the arm of the sofa. Ivy was the first to let her cards go flying when she jumped to her feet but Dent was not far behind. Crane and Nygma eyed the pare before casting knowing side glances at each other.
"Mother hens..." Crane whispered under his breath.
The two sprinters comically skid to a halt when the lumbering, dripping figure that smells of swamp stomped into the room. Jagged teeth showed from under curled lips as the deformed man a growl greeted them. A scaled, musclebound arm was held aloft at his side while Brooklyn dangled from it like Croc was her personal gym, fearless the way only insanity generally produced.
"How the hell!?" Ivy's voice was sharp and well past astonishment but she was quick to move in and pry the girl away from the deadly mistake that had somehow not cost her life or limb yet.
Croc rumbled and grumbled but stood for the experience, not attempting to injure the girl and not daring the challenge Ivy. He hissed a few times and bared his teeth but that was mild behavior considering his usual. Once Wayne was extricated Ivy shoved her into a chair with strict instruction to stay and not move. Threatening the others with a sound thrashing were they to allow her to leave the room again, the redhead army of a woman marched Killer Croc back to his delegated whole in the ground.
How Brooke managed to not only get into that locked portion of the underbelly of the place but also managed to keep herself from being killed while clearly annoying the Croc enough to make him bring her back... well, none of them had any idea. They were admittedly a bit awed though even if they would never admit it in a million years. When Ivy returned she found Brooke had commandeered Riddler's cards while also using him as a chair; the man was accepting it, sitting there peeking over her shoulder at the cards, and the girl was also wiping the floor with the men at the table.
What exactly was Brooklyn Wayne anyway? How the hell did she handle all these criminals as if she had been doing it all her life? What sorcery was this?! How was Pam not supposed to worry herself to death? The girl was a walking magnet for danger! How did her parents deal with the stress? Oh, right, they were dead. Good thing she did not ask that question out loud.
Nearly the entire population of the asylum was plastered to the windows facing the drive as Brooke's butler and adopted son left. The two look utterly shell-shocked, almost wavering when they walked to the fancy car. Both the old man and the college student seemed to have aged about ten years in half an hour. The kid might be getting gray hair from the experience; Ivy and Harley surely thought they were. Seeing the lady and chief of Wayne Enterprise in the state she was in after around two weeks of those drugs must have been more than a little shocking to anyone that had not been watching.
While Wayne still smiled, still danced, still glowed like a lightning bug, the parlor of her skin was a lot more gray and the bruises under her eyes were so dominant that her pretty though glassy eyes simply looked wrong. The track marks on her arms made her look like a junkie. The worse the girl looked the more protective Ivy and Harley became, almost gaining a resemblance of a pare of Medusa's anytime anyone ventured too close to their charge with anything but clearly good intentions. Dent would punch any man, even orderlies, that seemed like they might have pushed her or bumped into her.
The day before they lost track of her, causing mass pandemonium through the halls, but they found her safe and sound, curled up on the couch with her head in the lap of none other than Crane. The two were placidly watching a horror movie on the television. The Scarecrow had his fingers laced casually behind his head, seeming perfectly content with the fact that he had someone in his lap that was not groveling in terror. It did nothing to relax the two women but they grudgingly allowed things to remain as they were until the credits rolled.
Arkham residents knew Ivy and Harley had become a bit invested in keeping the Wayne girl alive; phrases like 'super protective' and 'won't let anyone look cross-eyed at her' were the less diplomatic wording. Things were becoming dire and bets began passing between groups over exactly how long it would take before a certain doctor lost a hand and or head mysteriously some dark evening. By this stage, everyone was inclined to believe the doctor was taking money under the table because no doctor would watch a girl like her deteriorate the way she was. Riddler and Dent were fairly certain they knew exactly who was behind it, they had connections even on the inside that most did not have, and if Dent happened to have been in the hall when Alfred and Dick passed by, if he happened to slip them a little information, exactly who was going to tell on him? No one, that was who!
Brooke strolled into the room, her walk a sort of light-footed stagger that changed directions randomly as she followed some unseen floating objects. Whenever the drugs were beginning to wear off, just before the sickness kicked in, there was sanity to be seen in the girl, deadly sharp intelligence that cut its way through the heavy fog to reveal what was under the manufactured insanity, but it was only noon and that clarity was not to be seen for many hours.
People trickled away from the windows and turned their attention back to their usual entertainment. Things relax and everyone settled into their usual places on a couch or a chair while the dark-haired heiress makes her way round and round the room. It is rare that she ever settles, and when she does she twitches and wiggles her feet or wrings her hands like she simply cannot stop. The only time she rests is when the drugs are wearing low and she drops from pain and sheer exhaustion.
Harley snapped to attention without warning and that got everyone else to look up from the television or book they had been paying mind to. Brooke eased herself onto Joker's lap, straddling him, arms loosely around his neck. The toxic green eyes widened a fraction, his gloved hands finding her hips like it was a reflex, and he stared at her with a fixed sort of fascination. Brooke says something, maybe ask him a question, head tilting to one side as a frown creasing her brow. He looked up when she did, her eyes followed something and his attempted to locate whatever it was.
When he looked back to her face there was an increased focus and his thumbs rubbed over a set of hip bones, fingers flexing seemingly without thought. That was when Harley sprang to her feet, magazine rolling up as she stormed forward. In a single fluid motion, the blonde tugged Brooke off the man's lap and reeled back her other arm, slapping the clown with the magazine hard enough he nearly fell out of the chair.
"Wha'd ya think you're doing to her, huh? Lecherous old clown! Taking advantage of the poor girl when she doesn't even know what's up and down!"
A good many jaws hit the floor considering everyone in the room had been expecting Brooke to be the subject of wrath, not to have Harley turn on Joker. It was as rare a sight as anything anyone generally saw even though the pare had been going through a bit of an offseason.
"Ow." Joker rubbed the side of his face in irritation.
People leaned forward in their seats when a scowling Ivy slithered in at the blonde's side, both shielding the confused woman behind them. Ivy's fists were on her hips but they could fly at a moments notice, so everyone knew.
Joker's hands shot up in a placating motion, his smile a hint nervous, "Now ladies! I would like to point out that I was not at all at fault in this situation!"
"You're always at fault, Joker." Ivy sneered.
Joker turned his smile to a more respective target, "Harley, dearest, you know I only have eyes for-"
"Can it!" Harley reared back with the magazine again and the Joker only just ducked it.
When Joker made to escape he was blocked by a slinking Ivy, her body coiled like a snake ready to strike, "Taking advantage of a girl while she's down is really so like you, vile as it is!"
"I didn't do anything!" Joker protested rather loudly, "She asked me if I knew why there were-"
"Don't bother! Given half the chance you'd have done something unsavory to Brooke, it's what you do." Ivy picked up a plastic vase and threw out the fake flowers.
"Ladies! Really! I assure you my intentions were utterly without malice! Just because she's got a few... heh... bats in her belfry by no means-"
"Right, right! Keep talkin', maybe we'll believe ya!" Harley twirled the magazine in her hand.
Given some fast talking the Joker did manage to keep them from wringing his neck but it was a near sort of thing. After so many years being beaten and kept in check by Batwoman, the man was starting to learn never to incur the wrath of a crazy woman, and decidedly not two. Batwoman was good for him, or so Riddler said, hiding his smile behind a cup of tea. The ivory skin had a few welts by the end but the clown mainly escaped unscathed. The girls assumed his intent was lecherous or murderous, trying to take advantage of her. They would have been wrong but no one had any idea. The true reason for the sudden shift in those crazed though still intelligent green eyes was actually due to the fact that something in his brain noticed a very similar something to someone he could not place, given a few more seconds before the girls started yelling at him and he would have realized who she reminded him of, but the moment was broken and the thoughts scatter without taking root. The moment of clarity lost beneath waves of chaos, or so was hopefully the case.
The fact that Brooke asked him why the little bats flying overhead always followed him might eventually resurface in his mind. Hopefully not at the wrong time though.
It never seems to get easier even if it does become more expected. Having the sweet, mindless, numb haze lifted would never stop feeling like being hit by a freight train, all the suppressed emotions flooding back at once along with the sheer physical pain. The best she had been able to do was stop herself from being quite as violently ill with a bit of past knowledge under her absent belt. Her mind feels like it has been put through a ringer and she is not fond of her drugged behavior even if she is not always sure what parts of her memory are valid and what was hallucinated. Even now, with the medication wearing thing she can see flickering lights and glowing dragonflies among a great many other things.
The tiny room, what she is guessing might be a broom closet she has no memory of climbing into is dark save the light peeking under the door. The darkness makes the dancing lights all the more harsh and unforgiving in a way that no longer seems at all friendly when she's not out of her mind. She thinks the pain in her body is a direct result of the drug, perhaps because it is attacking her mind with such pervasive violence that the mind can do nothing but interpret the attack as pain. It is highly likely that all her nerve endings are on fire at all times the way they are now only the drug makes her less receptive to feeling it properly. That constant buzz in her body, the tingling that tells her to be constantly in motion must be the translation for the pain.
She hides her face in her hands to try to clear her mind just a little more but it's not totally successful. She feels rung out like an old rag left in the water far too long, long enough mold has begun to grow.
A set of hands find her shoulders, making her jump at the realization that she is not alone, but they are gentle and careful when they guide her down. She is allowed, even wordlessly encouraged to hide her face in the juncture of a neck and shoulder. After being in Arkham so long she realizes how conditioned she has become to blindly trust those around her. Every last person, inmate or doctor, is actually an enemy, she knows that when she is lucid, yet her responses are more trusting initially than they have been since she was very young. Time showed her never to trust, never to be vulnerable, never to be anything but utterly in control. It is demoralizing and humiliating to understand that all her shields, her pride, her protection has been crushed to dust with every injection. The Brooke of the establishment trusts everyone and is as open as a book with its nice hardcover stripped off.
All her enemies have her at their absolute mercy and she practically offers her throat to the knife every second of every day. Interesting that none of them have taken the offer yet. Maybe they all know her secrets and are just waiting for the right moment to rip into her.
It is a male shoulder and she knows she should know which nefarious villain it belongs to but thinking, focusing is actually painful, making accurate conclusions as difficult as trying to pick out patchwork squares and fit them into a correct pattern while blind.
"They are killing you slowly, you know. Not softly, just slowly." A low, quiet rumble of laughter answers the question of identity instantly, "We here at Arkham might be mad, but we're not blind!" Joker was actually whispering, almost serious.
Brooke's mind screamed very loudly for her to sound an instant and hasty retreat from her proximity to her greatest enemy but her body refused to listen, "So I noticed." she mumbled into that pasty skin.
His hand come up and begin to rub at the knots of muscle in her neck, light movement of fingers working into her skin to uncover the tension beneath. The touch is cool and she realizes she might have a fever because he is so much cooler than she is. "I'm hiding you for a little while to see what they might do when their charge can't be found for her medication. It should be a riot!"
A deep breath through her nose made her nearly burrow closer to him, trying to identify what she found. His skin smelled of spice, but not like a hot sauce. it was more subtle, like herbs, it was; "You smell like spiced chai," Brooke realized, not even noticing she said it aloud. Normally he smelled of gunpowder, chemicals, and blood metal.
Joker laughed, but it was nothing like his usual cackle of manic and malicious glee, it was a normal sounding, human laugh, "Not quite out of the woods, are you?"
Ah, that was what the other part was, "Pine."
"Maybe." He agreed like he followed her disconnected logic, or maybe he was just making conversation.
His fingers were expert, finding the places that hurt like he could see some kind of map on her skin. It hurt every time he found them but after a minute or two, the pain would go away where he was working. Someone like him, maybe he actually could see pain, read it in the language of the body somehow, or maybe he had some sort of sense for it. It would make sense with how he unerringly always knew when and where she had been injured. Joker could sink his claws into a wound if she ever encountered him while she was healing from another. This time he was finding those places but it was not accompanied by more pain, just comfort. It might have been the strangest thing she encountered to date in the asylum.
Her eyes were heavy and she blinked them a few times before letting them fall closed a minute. She was just so tired!
The next time she blinked, her vision was blurry and she knew something had startled her. A few blinks and she knew she had fallen asleep. Asleep with the Joker, how far had her sanity slipped? That was about as deadly as any mistake could get!
"Oh, hello boys!" Joker chirped, too friendly, "Sorry for crawling into your little closet, doc! But... I just needed a moment or two alone with Gotham's most sought-after lady! Had to see what the fuss was about, you know?"
It was about the time that she realized Joker's hand had found its way under her shirt but it was just sort of resting on her back, not really doing anything, though his other hand was in the crook of her knee, keeping her leg draped over his lap. It should have felt threatening or something, but she had an odd feeling he was playing to his crowd. She could almost fall asleep on him again for all the lack of threatening he felt to her at the moment. The doctor and orderlies, on the other hand, looming against the light in the doorway... Joker did not feel like the threat, and wasn't that a kicker?
"Get them out of there!" The doctor snapped.
Hands were suddenly everywhere, snatching at her and hauling her up, and she found it surprisingly more easy to follow the flow, her legs stronger than they had been in weeks. There were fiver orderlies to one insane man and two for her. Ordinarily, she might be insulted but she was supposed to not only be a helpless rich girl but also drugged even if she was coming down. Joker was grinning, confined by large and muscled men that his smaller frame seemed dwarfed by but having battled him before she knew he still held the full advantage. He did not look it but he nothing but lithe muscle and no flab, nothing soft for a fist to connect with.
"I can see the appeal," Joker stage-whispered, "sweet, kind of melts in your mouth, like cotton candy."
Brooke's lips curled, wanting badly to snarl like her counterpart might have, and she hoped he was lying.
"Take him back to his room!" Her doctor snapped, and the men jerked on their strongholds.
Joker just sort of shrugged them off without even trying, leaving clenched fists empty-handed, his acid green eyes fixed on the doctor's hand as if that was the only thing worth looking at. Brooke followed his eyes and saw the syringe. In that moment she considered throwing away her cover and simply bolting, getting out any way she had to. The Clown Prince of Crime would be right behind her though and that was the only thing that stopped her.
"That's a few more cc's than you usually give her." Joker commented casually, but then his hand shot out, slapping the needle out of the doctor's hand to let it sail far down the hall and shatter on impact, "Maybe you should measure that out again? Wouldn't want to overdo it."
Red crept into the doctor's face and it struck her as odd and very foolish that the man did not seem frightened of the clown, a man that had all of Gotham locking their doors three times over every night, praying it would be enough. "Get him back to his room!"
Joker hiding her away bought a little time but that was all. Maybe it helped and maybe not because Wayne seemed worse now than she had before. That might have been because she was confined to the room but it was a little hard to tell when she was swinging round and round on the bunk bed, using the pole like an overdressed dancer in a club. Maybe not that bad, but she swung round and round in circles with shocking ability. Pam had to wonder what kind of dance classes this girl had gone to in her life. A rebellious period? She was singing about cotton candy of all things.
It might not be a good idea to let the girl spend time with Joker ever again.
Pamela Isley rubbed at her temples to stave off the headache the day was giving her. Why was she trying to help some rich girl again? Maybe because girls had to stick together in a place like this.
"Ivy!" Brooke giggled, pausing her gymnastic performance, "Ivy, guess what!"
She wanted to say she did not want to know but she obliged anyway, "What?"
Brooke drops onto the lower bed and cracks up into a fit of laughter almost enough to make the woman worry Joker had slipped her something. Dark hair bounced wildly as the other woman shot to her feet, eyes wide and utterly wild with the kind of insane glint that usually made people take a step back. Throwing her arms out to the sides, she twirled once and stopped, "I have a secret!"
"Do you?" Ivy supposed she should not encourage the behavior but she let it go on anyway, sitting on the lower bed.
Brooke ran and jumped onto the bed beside her, grinning like a little kid, "I'm Batwoman!" she whispered.
Ivy froze for an instant, eyes wide as she stared at the billionaire. For a split second she wondered, entertaining the confession, but then the poor girl resumed her twirling on the bedpost. At each turn, head lolling back as far as it would go, she whispered, "I'm Batwoman!" then she paused, giggling wildly, "Bats in the belfry!"
"Right..." Pam mumbled, pinching the bridge of her nose.
"I am! I really am!" Brooke insisted, her words broken up by her laughter.
Ivy reached forward to pat the girl's head when the swaying paused, "Sure you are, hunny."
It was something of a celebration when it was proven, apparently by Batwoman, so the papers said, that Gotham's darling was in fact innocent. The reports did not go into great detail initially but it did not escape the notice of anyone that the good doctor tending to the billionaire was lead away in the middle of the day and did not return. The fact that a police car drove away not long after he was escorted out was equally observed with a great deal of satisfaction.
Very nearly every last inhabitant of Arkham was muttering a plethora of "knew it" and "told you she didn't do it". There was actual excitement running around the drab place and the news stayed on significantly longer than it normally would have. Pam and Harleen, in particular, seem to have added strut in their steps when they walk around the halls, smug as cats with the cream.
Once the medication is finally free from Brooke's system for the last time and multiple stacks of papers are signed and delivered, it is time to leave. There is quite a turn out as she is being lead away to freedom. Faces she knows and does not know offer her cheery congratulations and well wishes, which of course she accepts gracefully. The parting words with her enemies are what nearly puts her into a tailspin though.
Harley hugs her for an exorbitantly long time, sniffling and babbling before she finally lets go. Ivy gives her the female equivalent of a punch in the arm and a hearty bit of best wishes. It is as much a shock to Brooke as it is to her criminal adversaries when she pulls them both into a hug. It has been a long, long time since she hugged anyone of her own free will but she has no idea how else to thank the two women that might be the only reason she got out alive. They were saints if her memory served, which really put an intense kink in her general worldview. Then again, she always said everyone deserved to be saved. This was a good reminder if ever she found one.
They gather up into a line once she is out of the women's portion. It is like a receiving line and nothing has ever been more uncomfortable or terrifying but she walks down that line anyway. Her lips are pulled into a smile that she does not allow to drop even as she listens to happy and potentially threatening - Crane and Joker- promises to visit her when they get out. Her smile manages to stay put even through the 'when' not 'if's' about them getting out. Sadly she knows by now that they are absolutely correct. Arkham is a revolving door.
She promises to visit them and she probably will just to be sure they are still where they should be. 'Grin and bear it' is her mantra through the process, even though she can't help wondering in the back of her mind how her life went so drastically wrong that Brooke Wayne is friends with Batwoman's list of greatest enemies. What a world!
Alfred's wrinkles are deep and the bags under his eyes have their own luggage, but the smile is gleaming bright when he opens her door, "Happy Coming out, Miss Wayne! It is ever so good to have you back! I rather missed our conversations that followed the general logic of reality."
Brooke smirked, "It's good to be back, believe me!"
Dick tossed her bag into the trunk before he nearly tackled her to the ground, "I cannot tell you how glad I am to have you back! You have no idea how hard it is to wear your suit!"
Brooke swatted her boy on the arm playfully, "Thanks, I think."
She glanced back just before she slid into the car. There were big smiles and many waving hands crowded at the windows. It was natural to smile back and give a little wave. The funniest part of the moment was the minuscule tug of regret in her chest. While they might have been nearly drugging her to death during her stay she could honestly say... she had not been so happy and free in years. Maybe she had never been that happy or felt so cared for before. She almost felt like it was a loss to step away from it. It was hardly a logical feeling but she missed that light feeling, maybe even might miss her... friends.
"Anything the matter?" Alfred asked, worry coloring his voice.
"No, everything is fine, just as it should be." Brooke climbed into the car, beginning to mentally sever all those emotional strings that would probably get her killed next time she faced those people in a dark alley. Brooklyn might be allowed to have an attachment to those people but Batwoman had to keep her head. She would box the entire experience up in a neat little box that she would never touch because happiness was a dangerous allure. Wayne Enterprise would be investing in Arkham, however, updates and improvements were decidedly in order. When reporters asked about such a choice, she would laugh and tell hem it was a precaution just in case anyone else ever framed her again. That would get a laugh, of course. Maybe, just in case they were watching, she might add that she wanted to repay a few people for kindnesses shown her while she was there. They would understand she thought. Arkham needed a garden, maybe a nice and tuned piano, maybe a larger, better furnished common room. The list was very long.
Note. I have zero excuses for any of this! None! It popped into my head late at night and it kind of got out of my control. It's just crack, that's all it is. Just insanity, sorry not sorry.
I heard Mr. Piano Man sung by Annette when I was a super little kid and I feel like Joker would have liked the song so I have no other excuse.