The front steps of Arkham Asylum were a familiar haunt for the news crews of Gotham City. Through the years, the ancient, worn stone had held correspondents reporting on everything from unexpected escapes to brand-new inmates. Today, they were packed rail to rail with reporters from every channel that had an office in Gotham. The news crews eyed each other with familiar contempt and casually shifted toward the spots with the best view of the podium on the top landing.
"So what's the deal?" a GBS cameraman asked, keeping an eye on his equipment while he relaxed in the company of his camera-toting cohorts from other channels.
"Can't be an escape," another pointed out, pausing to take a drag on his cigarette. "Someone woulda told us before now."
"Maybe it's that boat thing."
"Boat thing?" A man with CHUCK stitched on his work-issued shirt looked up from his coffee, confused.
"You didn't hear?" the GBS guy asked incredulously.
Chuck rolled his eyes. "I was up till two last night helping Miss Priss up there edit some stupid story about a surfing squirrel." He nodded to a reporter, who was staring fixedly at herself in a small mirror. "What I wouldn't give to be working with Vicki Vale," he added enviously.
"You and me both," muttered the GBS man.
"So...the boat thing?"
"Oh, yeah. You know that old prison boat? That one Bolton had the mayor on?" Chuck nodded, taking a sip of his coffee. "Some tourist on a motorboat was gawping at it and heard someone screaming. When the cops showed up, they found fifty people in black uniforms strapped to bombs walking around some track so they wouldn't blow up. Weird, right?"
Chuck's answer, if there was one, was drowned out by the flurry of activity on the stairs as the front doors opened. Dr. Carlson, head of the asylum, took his place at the podium, flanked by his staff of psychiatrists. The cameramen immediately darted to their tripods.
Dr. Carlson looked out at the crowd, chin held high. "Good morning," he said briskly. "I won't waste your time or mine with pretty words. I'm here to announce that as of today, Arkham Asylum is officially closed."
"What?" gasped half a dozen members of the crowd.
Carlson favored them with a ghost of a smile. "To put it simply, we no longer have the funds to continue operating. We can no longer afford to house, feed, and treat this city's population of mentally ill inhabitants." He looked directly into the cluster of cameras. "The residents of this city have made it abundantly clear that we, and our patients, are an insufferable problem. Allow me to return the favor." A pair of doctors, grim-faced, swung the doors open behind him. "From now on, our patients are your problem."
A cascade of former inmates poured out of the doors toward freedom. Men and women clad in the clothing they'd been arrested in (or secondhand castoffs from charity organizations) streamed past the reporters. Some took a moment to smile or gibber in a vaguely friendly fashion at the crowd. Others ignored everything in favor of putting as much space between themselves and the asylum as possible. At the end of the driveway, a pack of buses waited to ferry them to their final destinations.
The crowd of normally-dressed ex-inmates faded to a trickle. Then, filling the doorway in all their colorful, deadly glory, the Rogues Gallery of Gotham City sauntered into the sunlight. "Hi, Mom!" the Joker crowed, waving gleefully at the bank of cameras. Harley Quinn, at his side, blew them a kiss. The Riddler, passing by with a henchgirl on each arm, tipped his hat to the cameras and skipped merrily down the steps. The Scarecrow, possibly smiling under his mask, made it his business to stare down anyone who happened to be where he wanted to go.
The crowd of news crews, who had been struck speechless at the sight of Gotham's population of minor criminals, froze in place at the sight of Gotham's most infamous heading directly at them. Then, with the enthusiasm shown by people who really, really wanted to see tomorrow, they threw themselves out of the rogues' paths and watched in silence as they strolled along.
"B-but you can't just let them go!" A teenager with a boom mic, immediately regretting her outburst, dove behind her crew in an attempt not to be instantly killed as the last of the rogues passed by.
"What am I to do? Keep them in my basement?" Carlson looked the cameras directly in the lenses, ignoring the pack of reporters waving hands for his attention. "I could tell you about the deplorable state of mental health care in this country, particularly the lack of long-term care facilities, but the long and short of it is that every bed in every institution from here to Metropolis is full. Not only that, but no one else has the capacity to care for our inmates with...special needs. We've managed to find most of them jobs and places to live. The rest..." He sighed. "Well, maybe the rest will work something out for themselves."
"You can't just let the Joker out!" gasped someone in the crowd.
"Perhaps you didn't hear me. The asylum is closed." Dr. Carlson took off his ID badge and tossed it carelessly behind him into the empty building. "If you have any further questions, take it up with the mayor."
The doctor and his staff shoved past the news crews and trudged to the parking lot. Cameramen refocused on their shaking, unnerved reporters. "A-and there you have it," one stammered, clutching his microphone like a safety blanket. "Arkham Asylum is closed. We'll be sure to keep you updated as further news breaks."
Dick Grayson, sometimes known as Nightwing, sighed with complete and utter bliss as he inhaled downtown Gotham's wonderfully familiar fetid stench. He was home. Well, perhaps not home - after all, his apartment in Bludhaven was miles away - but at least he was on the right planet again. Being in a city that he'd prowled countless times as a teenager was merely the icing on the cake. The cherry atop this confection of happiness was the fact that, for the first time in days, he was out of his Nightwing gear and in a pair of delightfully comfortable blue jeans.
When the call had come to save Keystone City, he and the rest of the Justice League - even the lowest of the low-ranking heroes - had flocked to the threat as soon as they could. The giant green scaly monster had fought them, and they'd fought back. It had tried moving to other cities, and they'd followed it. It had tried to go back to its home planet, and the Justice League piled into their few spaceships like schoolchildren on a field trip and took off after him.
The ships were small, sleek, and suitable for crews of ten or less. At least fifty heroes had crammed themselves onto each one. They'd followed the alien monster, stopped it from wrecking some landmark on its home planet, won the trust and favor of its government, forged a peace that would last across the centuries, and all that typical stuff that the League tended to do. And now, at last, they were home, free to stretch out and do whatever they pleased. And right now, after days of half-rations and alien cuisine, nothing would be quite as pleasing as a gorgeous, luscious, mass-manufactured burger from a cheap burger chain.
The neon lights of a nearby convenience store blinked a cheerful greeting to him as he sauntered toward a Happy Cow burger joint. He strolled inside, basking in the cheerfully tacky decor that was as familiar as the back of his hand. Bright posters on the walls advertised burgers with every imaginable condiment and topping combined in dozens of delicious ways. A plastic cow statue wearing the Happy Cow uniform waved robotically in the center of the dining area. Music from the kid's play area chirped through the air. "Tip to the left! Moo! Tip to the right! I'm a happy cow!" chipper voices chanted enthusiastically.
"May I take your order, sir?" a hideously familiar voice crooned.
Dick looked at the counter so quickly that he nearly snapped his neck. Behind the cash register, clad in a cheerfully clashing uniform of rust-brown and golden yellow, there was the Joker, beaming at him from underneath a standard-issue visor with TRAINEE stitched on it in bright yellow letters.
"You!" Dick gasped, stumbling as he pulled himself out of his instinctive combat stance. Civilians did not threaten to punch the Joker in the nose, nor were they generally trained in nineteen different methods of doing so.
"Watch your step," the Joker said, a hint of concern - CONCERN? - in his voice. "I just mopped." He cleared his throat, then, like any good fast-food robot, he recited "Welcome to the Happy Cow, home of Henrietta the Happy Heifer! Can I interest you in trying our Bovine Bacon Bonanza, with two quarter-pound patties and three layers of crispy bacon?'
Was this really Earth? Had they fallen into some weird alternate dimension on the way home where the Joker was a normal, average guy? No. Even if there were infinite dimensions, there would never be one where the Joker was good. "I...ah...no. No. I'm...not hungry." Dick backed toward the door, watching for the Joker's inevitable attack. He had to be up to something. There must be some trick, some plot, some evil plan to poison Gotham.
The Joker pouted. "Seems like no one wants burgers today. So much for the profit margin, eh, boss?"
Dick risked a glance toward the empty seating area. The manager - with the word MANAGER helpfully stitched on his shirt - nodded miserably in agreement with his infamous employee and edged a little farther back into the relative safety of the plastic booth.
Without another word, Dick fled into the street. His immediate instinct - to go suit up and kick some clown ass - was tempered by the fact that the Joker was certainly intelligent enough to notice that Nightwing had the exact same haircut, build, and skin tone as the guy in the 'Property of Bludhaven PD' t-shirt that had been there moments beforehand. No, this situation would require a different approach. He pulled out his cell phone. "Bruce? You're not going to believe this..."
Thirty minutes later, the door to the Happy Cow slammed open, shattering the glass. In one bound, a black-caped figure hurtled through the air and snatched the Joker by the neck, slamming him down on the countertop with well-practiced brutality. "You're going back to Arkham," Batman growled.
The Joker blinked up at him with his very best innocent expression. "Haven't you been watching the news?" the Joker lilted, or at least, as much as it was possible to lilt with a fist wrapped around your windpipe. "Arkham's shut. Gone forever."
"What?" Batman growled, expecting the punch of a punchline or the ever-humorous attempt to stab him in the back while he was distracted.
"It's true, Bats. So sad that such a fine old establishment should close its doors. I have such dear memories of the place. The beatings, the torture, those fascinating little electrical devices...ah, but I suppose one can't expect the inmates to take over the asylum every day." He leered, fond and bloody memories obviously playing out behind those bright green eyes.
"Uh...Batman?" Someone was tapping on his shoulder. Batman briefly glanced to the side to see a balding man in a Happy Cow Manager uniform waiting politely for his attention. "He's right. I mean, the asylum's closed," he said. "The man in charge said that they were closing because they couldn't afford to stay open." He paused, noticing the purplish flush of oxygen starvation creeping over the Joker's face. "Can you...uh, can you let him go? He's not doing anything wrong."
Batman stared at him with the kind of intense, burning silence that begged to be filled with answers.
"I hired him," the man went on miserably. "The man at the asylum was looking for jobs for the cra- um, the ex-inmates," he corrected, frantically trying to avoid calling the Joker crazy to his face. "I said I'd give one a chance, so they gave me...him," he said, trying to sound happy about it.
Batman grudgingly let the Joker up. The clown jumped to his feet, immediately taking his position behind the register. "So, Bats..." he grinned. "Can I take your order?"
Batman leveled a glare at him. "I'll be back," he promised grimly.
"Wanna go see a movie?" the Joker offered coquettishly. "I'll be off at eleven."
"You can go now, if you want to," the manager offered desperately as Batman swept toward the door. "I can hold down the fort by myself."
"Oh, I couldn't!" The Joker held a hand patriotically to his heart. "A good employee never leaves his post! And I'm a good employee, right, boss?"
The manager looked at his restaurant, with its empty dining area, broken door, and resignation notes from all his other employees piled in a heap on his little desk in the back. "You're perfect," he said, suicidal depression lurking behind every word.
Batman left the Joker to his subtle terrorizing of the manager and grapneled up into the night sky. Arkham, closed? Not if he had anything to say about it.
(to be continued)
Author's Note: I borrowed the prison ship from the animated series episode "Lock-Up". I also may have borrowed a certain something from a certain Arkham-based video game. I definitely borrowed some lyrics from the great Luke Ski's Dada Slide. Hyperactive flamingo forever, y'all!