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The first ten minutes of watching the Joker act like a gym teacher from hell and humiliate the Riddler through a series of increasingly moronic exercises were ten minutes well spent. The second ten-minute interval was less satisfying. And by the time the half-hour mark rolled around, Zsasz and White started to feel like a pair of successful businessmen forced to watch a marathon of all the groin-kicking comedy movies they'd loved when they were twelve.
"I can feel my IQ dropping," White complained as the exhausted Riddler crawled across the floor in front of him.
"Look on the bright side: it hasn't got that far to fall," the Joker said, taking a momentary pause from abusing the Riddler.
"Shut your mouth, clown," White said.
"What? Sharks are mindless eating machines. I learned that during Shark Week. You're not going to question the sanctity of Shark Week, are you? Isn't that like shark Christmas?"
White clutched his head. "Just shut up. Please. Shut up and go away."
"Am I being culturally insensitive? Should I say shark Hanukah, shark Kwanzaa, or shark nondenominational winter celebration?"
"Take Shark Week and shove it—"
Zsasz and the Riddler knew a good distraction when they saw one, and knew how to exploit such a fortuitous boon. While White and the Joker argued over Shark Week, and White waved one of his few remaining fingers in the Joker's face, both the puzzler and the serial killer made discreet exits. At least Zsasz had the luxury of making his escape on two feet; the Riddler, too terrified of catching the Joker's eye and being subjected to more nightmarish treatment, slithered away on his stomach.
While the Riddler carefully crept his way toward the front door and freedom, Zsasz decided to take a little walk upstairs. Since any hope of watching TV or just sitting alone and undisturbed on the couch was as misplaced as hope in a politician to keep his promises, Zsasz needed something else to entertain him. His favorite diversion was more-or-less denied to him at that moment, so he looked for anything that could keep him occupied before he found himself sticking a knife into someone, anyone, regardless of the consequences.
His legs carried him from the stairs to the rooms that occupied the upstairs. His first stop, purely by chance, happened to be Harley's room. The door creaked as Zsasz pushed it open, but Harley was still deep in blissful chamomile-induced dreams and didn't stir.
Which was probably for the best, considering what had just wandered into her room, how loudly she would have shrieked when she saw him, and how dead she'd have been had he stabbed her to shut her up.
Ignoring the snoring blonde, Zsasz poked around the room. He looked in the closet and found clothes he wasn't particularly keen to try on. Harley's dresser likewise failed to contribute anything to Zsasz's meager wardrobe.
On the verge of giving up and going elsewhere, Zsasz saw the corner of a book protruding from beneath the bed. He approached the novel and picked it up. The cover design was Spartan, with a black background and a golden bird of some sort. In Zsasz's opinion, the bird looked like a kingfisher.
"The Hunger Games," Zsasz read aloud. The title was familiar, though Zsasz had only the vaguest notions of what the book was about. Arkham's library wasn't exactly on par with the Library of Congress, and what beat-to-shit, coverless, and/or partially burned or eaten books it did stock rarely found their way into Zsasz's hands.
Zsasz read the summary on the back of the book and decided reading the book would probably be more entertaining than tearing out its page and making origami. All he needed now was a quiet place to read it. He looked around the room. Nobody was screaming about Shark Week, and Harley barely snored. Perfect. Zsasz shut the door to block out the residual voices coming from downstairs and seated himself in the corner.
While Zsasz snuggled up in his private library, the Riddler inched his way outside. Once he was out of the house, he stopped moving like a python and started using his legs. He got to his feet, scanned his surroundings like any cautious herbivore would, and, like many an unfortunate ungulate, was promptly taken down by predators.
Mere feet from the door, Nigma was beset upon by Bud and Lou. The hyenas had been entertaining themselves with exhuming everything in Ivy's flowerbed, but because plants didn't wiggle, scream, or curl into a ball, Nigma was a much better playmate.
The Riddler's escape ended with him scrambling on his hands and knees back inside, and slamming the door on Lou's snout. The hyena yelped and wisely went back to playing with something that lacked the limbs necessary to close a door.
Nigma collapsed flat on his back and estimated his heart would be failing in the next thirty seconds because there was no way the organ could possibly withstand so much strain without total collapse and possible explosion. Ditto his lungs. Yep, both the cardiac and pulmonary systems, pushed beyond their limits, were headed for imminent disaster like the cataclysmic meeting of a big-rig and a…
Maybe he'd actually been a little premature. If you had time to think about and visualize your impending organ failure as a multi-car pileup on the highway, said organ failure probably wasn't as dire a threat as you initially imagined.
"The poise, the technique, the gallons of sweat! A-plus! You pass! Hell, you graduate with honors!"
The Joker was, a moment later, on the Riddler, showering him with exuberance no teacher who wanted to keep his job would dare demonstrate. Nigma, hardly able to stay on his feet, was swept along as the Joker, one overly-friendly armed wrapped around the Riddler's waist, waltzed his reluctant student around the room.
"Did you ever think about auditioning for Dancing with the Stars?" White asked as he watched the spectacle the Joker was making.
The Joker froze in mid-step and gazed into the eyes of his horrified dance partner. "We should! At least I should! I don't know about you, Eddie. Maybe they can pair you up with Nancy Grace."
"I don't want to be paired up with Nancy Grace! I- I don't want to be on Dancing with the Stars at all!" the Riddler exclaimed.
"You do have two left feet," the Joker said.
Before the Riddler could respond, the Joker spun him away like the partner in an especially passionate tango. Nigma, sent twirling like Cobb's totem, was only stopped when the back of his knees struck the couch. He fell backward onto the sofa's cushioned seat and wondered if curling into the fetal position and crying were acceptable reactions to the idiotic insanity he'd been through.
"I never thought you had it in! When you first enrolled in my class, not even duct tape could hold you in place. Now here you are, sitting all by yourself. I don't even have to hold your hand. I'm just so proud." The Joker covered his eyes and began the most overdramatic weeping to be seen and heard outside a teenage girl's bedroom.
"Thanks for the ride, but I'm getting off the short bus," White said.
"What? Why? I was an excellent bus driver, and all the kids loved me. Most of them survived," the Joker said, wrangling his emotions and revealing completely dry eyes.
Terrified that he would next find himself thrust into a driving class with the Joker—the worst driving class not to feature a cartoon sponge—Nigma dragged himself off the couch and tried to slink away unnoticed. His green jacket might have aided his escape if he'd been in the jungles of Vietnam, but against the light living room walls the jacket acted like a road-worker's reflective vest.
"Where're you going, Eddie?" the clown asked.
The Riddler's brain stalled. He kicked it. It belched out a single word.
"Bathroom."
The Joker went still and took on the air of a scientist contemplating an advanced physics problem. Actual concentration was the last thing Nigma ever expected to get from the Joker, especially in response to the word "bathroom".
Before Nigma could torture himself by trying to decipher the Joker's actions, the clown said, "I was wondering about that. Toilet paper is made of plants, right? So what does Ivy do?"
"Use leaves?" White offered.
"But that's still plants."
"Uh-huh. Well, like I said earlier, I'm off the short bus and I'm not speculating any more about this crap. You want to find out what goes on in Ivy's bathroom, that's your prerogative. I think I'm going to take a nap. Don't bother looking for me." Having said that, White walked from the living room.
"This is a mystery for the ages! Eddie, I've got a mission for you," the Joker said. "Answer the eternal riddle of Ivy's bathroom, and then report back to me."
Nigma managed to find the cojones to offer the Joker a weak little salute before he hurried off. The previous day's tour of the house was so fresh in the Riddler's mind the paint wasn't even dry yet, and he made his way straight upstairs and to the bathroom. Then he kept going down the hall.
Hoping it wouldn't end with him being treated like one of Henry VIII's wives, Nigma opened the door to Ivy's room just a crack. Though the view wasn't great, Nigma was unwilling to widen the gap and give anything mean and green the chance to thrust out, snare him, and drag him howling to his doom. Squinting through his peephole into the gloom of Ivy's room, Nigma could make out the shape of a bed, plus a ridiculous number of vines, creepers, and general vegetation. At least most of said plants weren't moving. Much…
"Ivy," Nigma whispered.
When no one responded—including the uncountable plants—the Riddler decided to push his luck. He eased the door open a few inches farther and hoped his bravery earned him big bucks and no whammies.
"Ivy," Nigma whispered, this time louder.
A few of the vines twitched and the amorphous sheet-clad shape on the bed shifted. The Riddler realized what was happening: Ivy was asleep, and her plants likewise were dormant. Waking her up probably meant waking them up as well.
Now aware of the connection, and the problems it was sure to cause, Nigma had even less desire to enter Ivy's room. He decided to wake her up from afar. Leaving the door ajar, Nigma went in search of things to chuck.
Ironically, in locating the perfect throwing object—something soft and without sharp edges, but heavy enough to fly at least ten feet—Nigma ended up answering the question the Joker had been dying to know. His made-from-100%-recycled-paper solution in hand, Nigma exited the bathroom and returned to the hall outside Ivy's room.
The Riddler opened the door as wide as he dared at estimated the distance from himself to the lump on the bed. He then drew back his hand and pitched the roll of toilet paper into the room. The roll landed in the center of the bed, bounced off of the person sleeping there, and then rolled off the bedside and out of sight. Nigma held the door knob, and his breath, and prepared to slam the door and run if the plants turned aggressive.
Two people emerged from the tangled bed sheets. Neither of them looked particularly alert, at least not until they saw the Riddler standing in the doorway with an astounded expression on his face. Then, at least from one of them, there was a mad scramble for decency.
Acting as though his lover's husband had just burst into the room, Remington in hand, Crane tried desperately to cover himself. He gathered the surrounding sheets up in great bunches and pulled them up to his chin. In his haste, he also assimilated Ivy's top into the mountain of bedding. Not that she seemed to care in the least.
"What do you need, Nigma?" Ivy asked in a perfectly normal tone that did not suggest she was exposed from the waist up.
"Nothing," the Riddler peeped.
"You didn't wake us up for nothing. And stop staring! This is the natural state of the female body!" Ivy snapped.
The Riddler couldn't make his eyes behave, so he forced himself to turn around and face the wall. "I, well, you see, yes."
"Okay. How about you try that again? What was so important you couldn't knock first?" Ivy asked.
"The Joker's alone. White left—I deduce he's sleeping in the van—and Zsasz is somewhere," Nigma explained. "If we present a united front now, our chances are optimal."
Ivy wrested her shirt from Crane's stranglehold and slipped it on. "Alright, that's great news. Let's kill the clown."
"How?" Crane asked, only his head above the mound of sheets he'd horded about himself like Smaug's golden treasure.
"If there's nobody guarding the door downstairs, one of us could slip outside, get to the greenhouse, and retrieve the guns. Or," Ivy motioned to the greenery in her room, "we could choke the life out of him with one of my beauties."
"Or find something sufficiently heavy and bludgeon him to death," Crane offered.
"Or—" Nigma's contribution was cut off by the Joker's hand on his shoulder.
"Eddie, what happened? Did you get lost? I'm going to have to put you on a leash like a little redneck toddler!"
The Riddler nearly jumped out of his skin. Since biology meant he couldn't leave his epidermis behind, he had to settle for getting six inches off the ground and emitting a noise like a dying guinea pig. The Joker giggled at the shrill squeal but kept his fingers firmly embedded in the scant meat of the Riddler's shoulder.
"I was—" The Riddler's excuse was cut off as the Joker looped a shoelace around his neck and proceeded to garrote him.
"See? I told you that I'd put you on a leash. We can't have you wandering off. You might get hurt, and I'd hate to be responsible for that," the Joker said as he pulled the ends of the shoelace tighter.
Nigma clawed at the shoestring. It was pressed too deeply into his throat to get so much as a pinky underneath it. He collapsed to his knees and tried grappling with the Joker instead. That might have worked if he still had the coordination for it. His oxygen deprived body was, somehow, even a poorer fighter than usual.
"It isn't so much fun when it's happening to someone like Eddie, is it? When I'm being strangled, it's hilarious," the Joker taunted.
"You're damn right it is."
The Joker looked up just in time to see Ivy's kung-fu foot launch toward his nose. The clown had clear and painful memories of having his face rearranged by Batman's fists of justice, and wasn't looking forward to a repeat performance. He managed to duck his head so Ivy's toes met Sheetrock instead of schnozzle.
Ivy made an impressive dent in the wall, and in retaliation the wall compressed her toes to the point she was sure she'd suffered compound fractures in every bone in her foot. Bolts of agony shooting up into her tibia, Ivy toppled over and clutched at her howling appendage.
Nigma and Ivy having been incapacitated, it all came down to Crane. His first instinct was to pull the sheets over his head and hope the Joker didn't notice him there. His second instinct, no more noble but at least a bit smarter, suggested he try slamming and locking the door, thus keeping the psychopathic clown outside. His third idea, no longer an instinct, more of a learned stupidity, suggested he rise up and defend Ivy, and maybe Nigma, if the wormy little bastard was lucky.
Knowing he'd hate himself for it, Crane threw off the covers and jumped from the bed. Even quicker than anticipated, the self-loathing kicked in, because the moment Crane's feet hit the ground, he realized how vastly he'd overestimated the healing power of a one-hour nap. Jarred by the landing, the nastier of his injuries began to bark with vigor, and Crane suspected his arms would be nearly useless in the tussle that was bound to ensue.
The Joker turned from his two disabled opponents and faced Crane. The clown eyed him up and down and was so amused by what he saw that the force of his laughter left him doubled over. Crane took that to be a bad sign.
"Really, Johnny, really? I'm supposed to fight you? I don't think I can. I mean, I've got a reputation to uphold! What would the criminal underbelly think of me? I'd be a laughingstock, and not the good kind, either," the Joker said.
Crane blustered, "I'm the Scarecrow, damn it, not some fragile old woman!"
The Joker shook his head. "And that's the problem. Old ladies are hilarious. What's funnier than 'help, I've fallen and I can't get up'? Then they wave their canes and varicose veins around. It's a gas. But you? I could break both your hips and hardly get a chuckle for my efforts."
"If I'm so unspeakably boring, then why did you have me tortured?!" Crane demanded.
"You weren't so boring last night. At least then you could move, and you did get off a zinger or two against Zsasz. Now you're like a broken yoyo. You go to the bottom of the string, but you don't come back up. Who wants to play with that?"
"I do!"
Ivy, the freshly crowned queen of off-camera one-liners, tried her sneak attack a second time. With the Riddler to prop her up on the side of her injured foot, Ivy launched another kick at the Joker. This time she aimed for a bigger target: the clown's purple-clothed posterior.
Even with her gimp foot, Ivy's second attempt was a rousing success. The Joker was propelled forward into the jungle of Ivy's room. Vines, already riled up by their creator's pain, wasted no time coiling around any part of the clown they could snare.
"Get out of there, Jonathan!" Ivy shouted.
Crane didn't need to be told twice—he felt stupid enough having to be told once—and he got his long legs in gear. Ignoring best he could the pain hustling brought on, he slipped past the struggling Joker and, with a last sadistic look back, slammed the door.
"Now what?" Crane asked.
The Riddler opened his mouth—no doubt to say something condescending about how narrow Crane's field of perception was, or how a child could plainly see the next step—and lo and behold! Nothing! Not a peep, a whimper, a single bloody syllable. Glorious silence from the smart-mouth on legs.
Crane wished he'd thought to strangle the Riddler earlier. This was infinitely better. Hell, if Nigma maintained his silence, maybe Crane would forgive him for that whole Taser episode.
And maybe America would stop loving bacon.
"We don't take any chances. I want these bastards out of my house, and the only sure way to do that is at gunpoint. And, in the Joker's case, maybe with a mop," Ivy said.
From the room behind them, there came a terrible thumping sound, like something full of bones and meat being slammed against the wall, then the floor, then the wall again.
"Probably going to need a squeegee, too," Ivy added.
Author's Notes:
In the comic Streets of Gotham, Zsasz makes children fight to the death. I think a certain best-seller gave him the idea.
The Library of Congress has over 32 million books.
Nancy Grace was on season 13 of Dancing with the Stars.
In the movie Inception, Cobb's totem was a top that would, in a dream, never stop spinning.
SpongeBob has failed his driving test dozens of times, and has during those tests caused bodily injury to his teacher, pedestrians, and the police force.
Henry VIII had six wives. Two lost their heads and one died of complications from childbirth.
"No whammies, big bucks!" was a cry often heard on the game show Press Your Luck, which was recently resurrected and renamed Whammy. In the show, if a contestant got a "whammy" they lost all their money.
Smaug is the dragon from The Hobbit, who has a predilection for dwarf gold.