AN: Thanks for the reviews!

"Let him go, you son of a bitch."

Joker ran his tongue over the scars, tilting his head towards Isley. "You sure you want those to be the last words he hears from you? I mean, not that it doesn't fit you to a T, but I was thinking more along the lines of uh, 'goodbye' or something."

Jonathan would never have thought he'd be concerned for the Joker's safety, but the way Isley was glaring at him, the spark of anger in her eyes steadily growing into an inferno, he found himself wondering, for the first time since meeting him, if the Joker would get out of this alive. That Tetch and Nigma looked similarly enraged and worried didn't help matters. Only Harley remained on the sidelines, hands twisting nervously through her hair as though she might start pulling it out.

"Mistah J…please don't hurt hi—"

"Oh, now you wanna talk to me." From his position, Jonathan couldn't see the Joker's face, but if his tone was anything to go by, he was not happy. At all. "Know what? If you want me to do favors for you, breaking out without so much as stopping to say hello is not the way to go about it."

Harley looked as if she were about to be sick on the floor. Jonathan didn't particularly care if she was; he'd never been fond of this carpet. The bed sheets, on the other hand, those had been nice. He wished he'd had the sense to vomit on the floor as opposed to the blankets. Oh well.

Once again, he was struck by how absolutely ridiculous his thoughts became when faced with death.

"Puddin', I didn't mean to, that is, I—"

"Harley-girl, you know what would really get you on my good side right now? Not interrupting." He readjusted the razor; Jonathan could feel the pulse of his jugular under the blade again. "Look, if everyone's said their goodbyes, then I—"

Jonathan felt a change in the pressure against his throat; first it increased, but only slightly, not enough to cut, and then it left entirely. He blinked, glanced down as much as he could without moving his head, and caught sight of what looked like a black-gloved hand around the Joker's wrist.

"Game's over."

"How do you do that?" the Joker asked, sounding more amused than anything, and echoing Jonathan's sentiments exactly. How had he gotten behind them? Jonathan had been focused on his friends' reactions, true, but the sight of the Batman stalking around a room was hard to miss. Had he gone through an air vent or something? Certainly that would explain the lapse in response time.

"Let him go."

"But Bats, Jonny said I could do this." He tried flicking his wrist back towards his captive, only to be pulled away again. The Batman's hand tightened and Jonathan could have sworn he heard the bones in Joker's wrist grinding. "You can't just disregard the rules 'cause you lost. It's not fair."

"What is he talking about?" Nigma asked, venturing a step closer. What he hoped to accomplish, Jonathan wasn't sure; Batman may be preventing the Joker from making a killing slice, but the situation was far too delicate to run in trying to free him.

Oh, hell. On the off chance he got out of this alive, this was not something he wanted to discuss. He doubted his friends would take it well. "It's nothing."

"Nothing?" The Joker laughed in his ear, breath blowing Jonathan's hair slightly. "Agreeing to let me kill you is nothing now?"

Damn it.

"He wouldn't do that," Isley said, almost automatically, though her eyes darted from the Joker to Jonathan for a second. Oh, they definitely weren't going to take this well.

"Hate to break it to you, Red, but not only would he do it, he did. But hey, don't take my word for it. You can ask Jonny yourself. Or Bats."

Isley closed her eyes, opened them again while shaking her head, as if determined to push the thought from her mind. Jonathan couldn't help but notice that the others looked less than convinced.

"Jonathan?" Harley's voice was soft, barely audible. She was still wrenching her hair in her hands though she looked less likely to be sick now. "Jonathan, that's not true, is it?"

It hurt, to look at her, to know the reaction telling the truth would cause. "It…it's not like I asked him to kill me, or said all right when he found me. I was trying to—it was that—"

"Told you so," Joker said, singsong.

"Jesus." Nigma's voice, as low and shaken as Harley's had been, and the hurt was worse than ever.

"It wasn't—"

"Let go." The Batman, deep and rasping, making Jonathan go rigid. The pressure of the Joker's arms around him kept loosening slightly, then tightening again. He realized Batman was trying ineffectually to pull the clown off, while the Joker tried to stab him, caught in a tug of war neither could turn the tables of. So pointless. Yet again, no one grasped that the Joker would get his way regardless of all effort to the contrary. No one realized that they were only prolonging the inevitable. If it weren't for his friends' concern, he'd be feeling boredom by this point.

"No. I won."

"I don't care."

The Joker clicked his tongue. "Well, that's sportsmanlike. You agreed to the game, Batsy."

"I never said I'd play by the rules."

Honestly, why did he let himself be drawn into these conversations? It seemed to Jonathan that if he was the vigilante, he'd be willing to let go of the Joker's bladeless hand long enough to knock the clown out. That was his problem, listening. Or pretending to listen, anyway, if he really listened they wouldn't be in this fine mess.

"It's what he wants. I'm doing him a favor. I try and do a good deed, and this is the thanks I get?"

"This is low, even for you." Disgust radiated from his every word. Jonathan wondered if he honestly expected criminals to care what he thought of their morals.

Joker felt the same way, apparently. "How do you figure that, Bats? In what way is this worse than, I dunno, mass slaughter? Or that little assistant DA that—"

The Batman did something Jonathan couldn't see at the Joker fell silent at once. "You've pushed a man to suicidal levels because you're jealous that he got attention he didn't want to begin with. And you're trying to justify your actions using conversations with the mental patient you've driven to the edge. What is wrong with you?"

"Nothing."

Jonathan recalled the line he'd given Batman long ago, 'not my diagnosis,' and had to bite his tongue to keep from saying it here. Somehow he doubted the Joker would let it slide as the Bat had, especially given that the clown had just been told off by his obsession for tormenting Jonathan.

"This is beneath even you. I thought you liked a challenge, Joker."

Lovely, provoke him. I'm sure I won't suffer worse for that.

"Already had the challenge, darling. You might have missed it, but I won." He tried moving his wrist again, hissed in a way that could have been pain or pleasure when he was unable. "C'mon, sweetie, I'm trying to help a friend here."

"How was that a challenge?"

"Come again?" the Joker asked. Jonathan winced. He wasn't sure where this was going, but it sounded like a ripe opportunity for the Batman to give the Joker ideas. And that was the last thing he needed, with the razor by Jonathan's throat and whatnot.

"It wasn't a challenge. You read him like a book, save for the one time. And then you agreed to do things his way with no argument at all. If you consider that a challenge, then whatever passed for your standards has slipped."

The Joker tried pushing his wrist forward again, to no effect. "Excuse me, Bats, but you're missing the bigger picture here. This confrontation wasn't the point. The point is, when I started things with the little scarecrow I intended to push him over the edge. That was the challenge, and this game of his proved that it worked so well, I didn't have issue with killing him his way in gra—"

"Of course it worked. You took someone whose mind was fractured to begin with. All you did was make the break wider. That's a challenge to you? If that took effort, you're losing your touch."

What the hell is he doing? Does he want me to be tortured? Actually, that would explain so much of their current conversation; if the Batman secretly wanted him to suffer and was provoking the Joker into it so he could keep his hands clean. If he wasn't so annoyed at the constant mentions of his being insane, he might have been disgusted. He realized the Joker had gone stiff as a board and closed his eyes, bracing himself for pain sure to come.

It didn't. To his surprise, the sensation of the Joker's arms against him disappeared completely. He opened his eyes, blinking.

"Fine." The clown's tone was flat, slightly annoyed. "Fine. Go on, Jonny."

He didn't move. He can't seriously be letting me go.

"Come on." Nigma had his hand, gently pulling forward. He let himself be led, still floored with disbelief.

There's a catch. There's got to be a catch, he wouldn't agree that easily. He realized Isley was standing before him and almost flinched, expecting a blow, but before he could, her arms were around him again. This time he was the one being held tightly enough to cause suffocation.

"You stupid boy. What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking," he said, letting himself be held but not hugging back, "that I could beat him and get out of the city." Even to himself, the excuse was weak, and Isley shook her head, hair brushing against his face. She was about an inch taller. Anyway, no one besides the Batman could ever beat the Joker, not unless he wanted to lose. Still, at least the game would have won him a pleasant death, an opportunity surely lost now. That didn't make him suicidal, just sensible. Opposed to being tortured.

It was perfectly understandable. If only he could make everyone else see it that way.

"Happy now?" the Joker asked. Jonathan looked up, to find that the statement hadn't been directed at him, but the Batman, who was still holding the clown's wrists.

"I'll be happy once you're off the streets again."

"Riiiight. Because Arkham's so wonderful at keeping us in line." The Joker rolled his eyes, giving yet another ineffectual pull against his captor's grip. "I know bats don't have the best vision, dear, but I'm sure by now your fantastic observational powers have in fact alerted you that all six of us have broken out. In less than a day. Who's even left at the asylum right now?"

He paused, looking to the other villains, waiting for an answer. None came.

"God, you try and kill one little strawman and everyone turns on you. Lemme see." He stopped again, tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth as he thought. "Er…Maxie, Calendar Man, Dr. Destiny, Croc…eh, nobody worth mentioning. The point is, Arkham holds inmates about as well as a cardboard box holds acid. I'll be out in what, three minutes?"

"Not this time."

"Keep telling yourself that, Bats." He shrugged, as much as he could. "If it helps you sleep at night. Personally, I don't mind the constant têtê-á-têtê. Makes me feel so loved."

On the last word he leaned back, grinding his body against the Batman's. Unsurprisingly, the vigilante pulled away, disgusted, and the Joker used the opportunity to ram backwards into him, sending him crashing against the wall. Jonathan winced, imagining the impact of the flamethrower against the Bat's body. Even through the Kevlar armor, that must be painful. He heard a sharp intake of breath as the Joker wrenched his arms free, backed away, turning to face the Batman.

Batman made no move to stop him, and as the Joker had moved his hands to the igniter and firing triggers of the flamethrower, Jonathan couldn't fault him for that.

"Now. I've got Jonny-boy to deal with, and I trust there won't be any, uh, interruptions this time, Batsy?"

"How," the Batman rasped, still sounding winded, "do you plan to slit his throat while you're threatening me with that?"

"I don't."

Batman responded with a blank look. Jonathan went cold, regardless of Isley's body heat against him, heart hammering. He had a guess that he knew what the Joker meant, and he knew for certain that he wouldn't like it.

"See, what you said about challenge struck a chord with me. I've made far, far too easy for Jonny up 'til now, and I can't have people think I'm going soft. So I think I'll go back to the original plan." He moved his hand off the igniter trigger, patting the hose. "And Batsy, unless you want everybody else to go up like a tinderbox as well, I wouldn't interfere when I take this outside."

Isley's hands unwound from Jonathan's body, slowly. He'd become too panicked to notice.

Not like this. He'd known, or at least some part of him had, from the moment he'd seen the Joker in the apartment that he'd had no chance. The clown had decided to kill him, and when the Joker wanted something, he got it, no matter what. But not like this.

Beggars couldn't be choosers, true, but even so. Of all the ways to go in this world, death by burning was one of the worst. Possibly the worst, for most people, but he'd always thought drowning would be the most miserable. Damn you Batman. You had to give him ideas, and now it's come to this. I don't want it to be like this. I don't.

The Joker turned, slightly, making sure to keep the Batman in his vision. "So. How about a little fire, Scarecro—"

The word wasn't yet finished on his lips when Nigma, Isley, and Tetch pounced.

The Joker was not a good fighter. He was resourceful, yes, and brilliant with his knife, able to see little openings and weaknesses that others missed. There was no doubt that with preparation and some warning that action was to be required, the Joker could fare incredibly. But when it came to actual fighting, Jonathan had observed, he didn't do it well.

Not that he wasn't a brutal fighter. He was, and if given the slightest chance would play hard and dirty, do whatever it took to win. But he tended to avoid hand-to-hand combat, and there was a reason for that. He was greatly lacking in balance and coordination and tended to spend fights flailing around until he got his hands on a weapon to bludgeon with or someone to throw into the path of his enemies.

Had he forewarning that the three were going to jump on him, Jonathan had no doubt that he'd have been able to come up with some sort of defense. But he didn't have forewarning, and the fact that his hand was off one of the triggers and the Batman tackled him from the other side as soon as he was pushed off balanced didn't help at all. Jonathan watched, shocked to the point of detachment, as the Joker went crashing onto the living room carpet, the others piling on top of him.

"Mistah J!" Harley finally stopped twisting her hands through her hair, making a move as if to run forward to his aid. Jonathan grabbed her about the waist, pulled her back. "Jonathan, they're gonna hurt him!"

Good. "No, they won't. And he's got a flamethrower, it's not safe to go over there."

"Not—ow—not anymore," Nigma managed. There was a clattering sound, and he saw the flamethrower, fuel tanks rocking slightly against the carpet as it was shoved away. He and Tetch stepped back as Isley remained, fists and nails flying at the Joker's face until the Batman pushed her aside, slightly, and Nigma pulled her away.

Leaving a very unhappy Joker lying face down on the floor, the Batman sitting on top of him, pinning his arms behind his back. If he wasn't so very, very dead as soon as the man got free, Jonathan might have found the situation amusing. It still was, somewhat. Even the Batman appeared to be smiling slightly.

"You know, Bats." Jonathan noticed that there were trails of blood starting down his face from where Isley had scratched him. "If you wanted things to get more intimate, you could have dragged me into the bedroom." He smacked his lips, managing to make the sound more obscene than usual. "I'm not much of an exhibitionist, but hey. If that's what makes you happy—"

He was cut off as the Batman shoved his face into the carpet for a moment, then reemerged, makeup smeared and mixed with blood and stray rug fibers. Jonathan nearly laughed, and then felt a hand tight on his arm, pulling him off of Harley. He looked down, saw Isley's hand wrapped there, noted the blood under her nails, and, upon being tugged, let himself be dragged to the other side of the room. She shoved him onto the couch, Nigma and the others gathering around her, Harley trailing in last.

"We need to talk."

Oh, this was going to be just wonderful.

AN: "How about a little fire, Scarecrow," is from The Wizard of Oz.

Dr. Destiny is not a Bat villain, but he is an Arkham Asylum inmate. At least, in Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth and The Sandman. I'm not sure if he is in the regular comic continuity, but yeah. I love me some Sandman and I will homage it whenever I can.

The bit about the Joker's fighting abilities comes from a conversation I had while watching The Dark Knight with my family:

My Mom: …He doesn't fight very well, does he?

My Brother: He's an idiot.

Me: …Leave him alone, he's trying really hard!

This is what watching movies with my family is like. I sometimes love it, other times (2001: A Space Odyssey) it makes me want to throw things.