Scarecrow's Note; I'm not letting the author in on this one, she's blabbered enough. Worse than Tetch... This chapter is about my expertise. Read and learn, children. But remember, nothing can be what it seems, and if you lock your door tonight, you still have to survive the monsters in the closet and under your bed! There's no escape. Did that shadow just move? Safety is a fairy tale your parents convinced you was true, an illusion. You know I'm right, don't you? ...Hush! Do you hear that? Listen! Is the pounding coming from the floorboards, or are the rats in your walls a bit clumsy from rabies? Oh, I'm sure it's nothing. Nothing at all...
... ... ...
Jonathan simply watched the other man as he waited for Nygma to go through his amusingly predictable cascade of reactions. He knew when Edward finished, he'd ask the question. He was not disappointed.
"What, exactly, do you mean by that?" the Riddler's voice was completely flat, lacking any emphasis. His mouth was set in a straight line - not pressed, simply set, and his eyes seemed to flash like glass, although he had never moved them from the man across the table.
"I mean what I said. If you kill the Joker, you're a dead man."
"You're not making any sense, and not in the whole creepy grown-man-reciting-nursery-rhymes way, even. I can figure that stuff out well enough. But, you're just way off-base here. Everyone despises that man- no! That... Thing! I bet his henches would even send 'thank you' cards. What are you on about?"
Crane gave the insult no notice, knowing Edward was trying to turn the tables and get a rise out of him. That wouldn't work on the professor. "To answer that, I'm going to need you to answer some questions of my own first. Do you, truly and honestly, plan to kill the Joker?" Jonathan asked, but no longer with eerie calm. His posture seemed to be weighed down by decades of exhaustion. He sounded as though his words always went unheeded and his explanations had been repeated several hundred times.
He sounded... precisely like a teacher.
"Yes," answered the Riddler immediately, determination set in every inch of his demeanor.
"Do you believe that you are capable of killing the Joker?" This time, Crane's voice held a bit of the usual mockery that Edward found familiar. He bristled, then wondered if that was another trained response to the man in front of him. He didn't like it, regardless.
"I can. I can and I will. Did you even hear me? This. Is. Brilliant. This will work, this will finally work, and he'll be gone, and I'll be almost as happy as I would be if it were the Bat."
This was the opening Jonathan wanted. "Fine, let's imagine you can," he replied with derision. He spoke slowly as his most logical professor persona unconsciously slid into place like a tweed jacket. "In the scenario you've given, theoretically, I didn't hear one of the most important parts of your plan. What method do you believe you would use in order to kill Harleen first?"
Edward gaped at him for a long moment, anger turning to mild confusion. "I don't need to kill Harley, she's not even with the Joker right now."
"True," Crane replied, "she isn't. She's temporarily staying with Pamela, is she not?" Edward gave a sharp nod and glared at Jonathan suspiciously, but for once, said nothing. "Yes. Let's say your plan works. You manage to capture, keep, and kill the Joker. Something which, if I may remind you, not even Batman has ever managed. We'll say Joker follows the logic you expect him to follow, and does what you believe he will do... Though he won't, for the record. Unpredictability is the only thing predictable about the Joker. But we'll say he does. Given how quickly the word moves underground, I assume Harley will be almost immediately informed of the death of her," here he paused with a moue of distaste, "Puddin'. She'll most likely know before you even have the chance to announce it with your usual... flair."
Jonathan held up a hand before Edward could respond. He picked up a pencil and an old envelope from his unfortunate host's junk mail. He began to sketch out a graph. Edward quickly deduced Crane was creating a depiction of how the Rogues of Gotham interacted, as well as the Bat, adding a few important non-Rogue individuals. He added arrows, X's, and lines between the circles, working as efficiently as Edward ever had with a crossword from the paper.
As Edward watched Jonathan draw their city's interactions as a social network, he had to agree that it was a fairly accurate representation of which people in the underground would willingly speak with one another. He still didn't see the point of it, assuring himself that if there was a salient point, he would certainly have already seen it. Nor did he want to sit around watching Jon sketch, for that matter. He had places to go and clowns to kill.
"I'll make this easy for you, Nygma. I've changed it from an exercise in psychology, which involves thinking of others - not your forte - to something that suits you better. Now, how many people here do you see who would be happy to see the Joker's dead body?"
Edward quickly glanced over the diagram. "Pretty much all of them. I can't think of anybody he hasn't screwed over at least once; he's a danger to all of us. I, personally, think he's a danger to the universe itself, in some way. His existence has to break some law of something or other. It's not possible for one man to be that much of a nuisance," the Riddler shrugged.
Crane was used to, and occasionally even enjoyed, Edward's off-topic musings. Right now, though, he was determined to stay on track. "Indeed, except for one obvious exclusion, most would not mind. Now, how many people do you see that you agree would be likely to interact with Harley - affectionately, somewhat amiably, or with basic tolerance?" For most Rogues, basic tolerance was an expression of amiability, after all.
Edward looked again, and the pieces were beginning to click into place. "Almost all of them."
Jonathan gave him a mocking smile. "Very good, Eddie." Ignoring the other man's growl, he continued, "Right. So, we can assume that it's a given that when Harley hears rumors that the Joker has been killed, she will investigate those rumors immediately, no matter what she has to drop and regardless of why she is currently separated from him."
Edward frowned, leaning back in his chair and pushing away the already memorized chart. "It's not that I want to hurt Harley. Even you connected both of us to her as people willing to tolerate her."
"Irrelevant, Edward. Think! Why does the Joker keep Harley around? Why does he moderately encourage her affections despite his annoyance with her? We know why she loves him - she's completely off her rocker and apparently blind - but why does the Joker need her?"
Edward blushed. When he replied, he actually stammered, which Crane could appreciate the humor of even in his serious mood. "I... well, I always found that to be... fairly obvious."
Crane let out a chuckle. Edward was appropriately disturbed by the sound.
"No," said Jonathan, "that may be a perk, but it's not why he needs her. She is... his human shield. Sometimes literally, in the physical sense," he sounded a bit angry at the idea, the Riddler noted, as Crane continued, "but she also acts as an emotional human shield."
Edward simply arched an eyebrow, and Jonathan heaved an irritated sigh at his friend's confusion. As socially dense as Crane could be, this was a dynamic that even he realized years ago. "Hypothetically, if you were to kill Harley, the Joker would probably kill you, but not out of love. It would be more like... a child being angry over a broken toy, in a way. However, he is easily distracted at times, in the short term. None of his goals circle around the girl... Not that I'm entirely clear on what exactly his goals ever do circle around, other than Batman," he added wryly. "Something shiny might even catch his fancy, pulling his attention from his revenge just long enough for you to hide. On the other hand, for Harley, the Joker is her raison d'être. She's not herself without him; at least not a self she remembers."
Edward gave a short nod to show that he was following. He was getting impatient, but he was following.
Jonathan had no wish whatsoever to kill Harley. That did not mean that he was above discussing a hypothetical idea of her death. This was Gotham, after all.
"This is something I thought was understood by the entire underground; a sort unwritten rule. You can't safely kill him, unless you kill her first."
Edward managed to sputter out a sound that was very similar to the word, "Why?" Given time, he'd be able to figure out the issue, Jonathan knew. At the moment, however, he did not necessarily want Nygma thinking for himself. Professor Crane would walk him through the concept.
"She would show you no mercy, Edward. Harley would pull you straight out of Hell because she could do a more efficient job of torturing you than the demons. If, that is, you could ever manage to kill her... Mistah J!" he said, using an alarmingly accurate impersonation of the girl's high-pitched voice and accent.
"She will learn of his death, and she will react. She will have lost her only meaning in life, in her sadly twisted mind," Cranes mouth pulled down at the corners at this. Edward knew that the Scarecrow and Harley were friends, of a sort, so he didn't comment. After a moment, Jonathan continued, "When that happens, I assure you, she will find a new one. What do you think that new goal will be? Hmm?" He steepled his almost unnaturally long fingers in front of him, resting his elbows on the table, and watched Edward intently.
Edward rolled his eyes at the simplicity of the question. "His killer. Me. I get it, Jon, she's going to come after me. As much as I don't actively desire to harm Harley, possible collateral damage will not stop me in this. A girl in face paint certainly won't stop me in this. The clown has to die. I can handle her."
Jonathan barked out a short, mirthless laugh, scoffing, "Okay, let's say you could handle Harleen, in her pure blind rage and grief. Personally, I have doubts of you besting the child on a good day, but that's a debate for another evening. That aside, consider this; she wouldn't be alone. You are forgetting the point," he held up the envelope between two long fingers, the graph demanding Edward's attention. "Do you think she won't seek out comfort from her 'friends?' Do you think she won't have many shoulders to cry on? I'd bet even Croc would be willing to try to comfort her, seeing as he will be able to hear her wails from the sewers. Cobblepot would give her - well, loan I should say - anything reasonable if she asked - weapons, chemicals, vehicles, information..."
Jonathan paused, eyes rolling up to look to the ceiling, as if for help with his explaination. The ceiling had nothing to say about the subject. Jonathan trudged on alone. "It's evolution. It's culture. It's the way humans are. Don't you see? Very rarely do humans leave a beautiful, victimized, sobbing woman sitting alone. Not even strangers. Most people aren't like... us. Even if she did not try to kill you, others may try, just from seeing her in that state. Of course, that's irrelevant, since she would kill you.
"More to my point, the child has always been a sad story, Edward. A pitiable character in this game, but an important one that you have not even taken note of in your plan. It's not really that hard to imagine the sentiment which she already engenders amplified by Joker's death, is it? Ivy would be on her side simply out of habit, Fries is ridiculously easy to manipulate with this type of grief, even Jervis would likely call her 'Alice' and revert to type while designing a chip that would fry your higher reasoning to the point where you'd be sitting in Arkham in a puddle of your own drool!"
Edward snorted at the psychologist, clearly disbelieving such a thing was possible. Irritatingly, he was beginning to see a certain logic in Crane's words, in spite of himself.
Jonathan's hands flew to the air beside his head in a gesture of annoyance as his speech quickened. His voice raised slightly in frustration at Edward's willful blindness. "If you kill the man, you destroy the woman. If you destroy the woman, she will be insane with grief. She will be all over Gotham hunting you, all the while sniffling out her version of a story of loss and love, and," he took a breath, "and her hatred of you. It will continue until every last person simply shrugs and agrees to help her kill you out of affection, annoyance, pity, or... for fun, Nygma, because they can. You know the people we're dealing with! I estimate it might take as much as three days, and that's a generous estimate. The entire city will be your judge, jury, and executioner!"
Edward shook his head defiantly, unwilling to release his grip on what he knew was a masterful plot. "They would not. They would give me a damned parade for getting rid of the Joker! Harley has her resources, real or hypothetical, but I have the plan. I can easily think of one to eliminate Harley from the equation. She's not going to pester and whine someone into destroying me!"
At this, Jonathan sighed, almost wistfully, and sat back in his chair. He looked at Edward with something that could be pity, if the Scarecrow were capable of pity.
He wasn't.
... ... ...
SN; At least one thing's been written right. Pity doesn't suit me. Stay tuned for some soul crushing for The Leprechaun Boy and my idea of a good time... Whenever her royal uselessness deigns to get around to it, that is. I wonder... Why aren't you begging pathetically for reviews, child? A sudden burst of Allodoxaphobia? Why do you keep writing? You do dislike children. I think we both know it's Athazagoraphobia, you'll feel better if you stop lying to yourself.
AN; I'd actually like it very much if you would conveniently forget me, 'Crow. I get it. I'm not letting you be sadistic enough in this story. Roger. Back in your cage!
Um, you get used to him? No worries.
...Okay, fine, I worry a little.