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Guest: Making this an overly feminist fic was not at all my intention, though I respect your opinion.
With Nigma and Ivy moving like participants in a three-legged race, Crane was the only one mobile enough to scout ahead. Not that there was much that needed scouting. The hall was empty, the stairs were empty, and as far as Crane could see, the living room and the path to the front door were empty as well.
"Can you manage the stairs?" Crane asked as Ivy and Nigma limped up to meet him.
Ivy eyed the stares with the distrustful look usually reserved for used-car salesmen and politicians from the opposing camp. Never taking her eyes off the stairs, Ivy tried putting weight on her injured foot. It bore enough weight to suggest Ivy hadn't broken her toes, only severely bruised them, but not enough weight to allow Ivy to safely navigate the stairs under only her own power.
Good thing she had her mute helper.
Crane descended the stairs first and then waited for Ivy and Nigma to make the treacherous journey. The Riddler stood on hand, ready to lend support should Ivy's leg buckle or her gritty determination fail to overcome physical damage. Ivy was smart enough to forgo her pride and accept the Riddler's offered help about halfway down the stairs.
Moving like a pair of fragile seniors in a commercial for a stair lift or walk-in safety tub, Ivy and Nigma made it to the bottom of the steps without either of them falling and being unable to get up. Proving the universe didn't give a shit how much effort it had taken everyone to tackle the stairs and remain alive, a most terrible and shrill screaming came from upstairs.
"You've got to be kidding me," Ivy said. A few seconds later, once she had time to process the screaming and her comment, she added with much greater urgency, "That's Harley!"
"Get to the greenhouse and I'll meet you there," Crane said.
"Are you sure?" Ivy asked.
"No, I'm not sure! In fact, I've rarely been so unsure! So go before my mind returns from vacation and I leave Harley to whatever it is that's making her shriek."
Ivy limped toward the front door and the Riddler headed after her. Just before he left, though, Nigma placed a hand on Crane's shoulder and then gave him a thumbs-up. Crane was fairly certain the Riddler hoped he died, encouraging gestures be damned.
Crane faced the slope of the stairs with the grimness of a mountaineer surveying Everest from a base camp. What was wrong with him? Why did he care what happened to Harley? How did he go from being the Master of Fear to Dudley Do-Right? He was not cut out for rescuing damsels in distress. He wasn't even cut out for rescuing himself most of the time.
By the time Crane had climbed the stairs, Harley's wordless screams had evolved and grown syllables. She was obviously yelling at someone, and the list of possible suspects was very short, unless some new intruder had climbed in a window while everyone's back was turned. Dreading what he was going to find, Crane opened the door to Harley's room.
Harley was standing atop her bed and was holding an unplugged lamp above her head. Crane looked in the direction Harley was facing and saw who she intended to throw the lamp at. Crane only wished Harley had something heavier to toss.
"Harley," Crane called. "What's happening?"
The blonde lowered the lamp, tucked it beneath her armpit incase she needed to throw it after all, and pointed a finger at the confounded man sitting in the corner.
"That creepo jerk was watchin' me sleep!" she shrieked. "And he was touchin' my stuff and doin' who knows what else!"
Zsasz had his hands raised, as though he expected to be arrested. "I was only reading," he said, and tilted his head towards the book he'd placed on the floor next to him.
"Yeah, that book was under my bed! That means he was standing' right there and he coulda killed me!" Harley wailed.
"But I didn't," Zsasz pointed out.
"I bet you thought about it!"
Zsasz shrugged, noncommittal. Everyone in Gotham, if not in the world, knew him well enough to call him out if he'd claimed no thoughts of murder had passed through his mind.
"Harley, don't waste your breath on him. Get off the bed and come with me," Crane said.
Harley deposited the lamp back on its nightstand, and then hopped off the bed. Before she traipsed over to Crane, she took the time to stick her tongue out at Zsasz and blow a series of raspberries. When Crane dared to hope Harley was done acting like a defiant kindergartener, she puffed out her cheeks like a blowfish and made a second stream of rude noises.
"I think he's got the message," Crane mumbled.
Harley's tongue darted back inside like the offspring of a mouthbrooder. She followed Crane out of the room and slammed the door behind her.
Crane and his blonde tail had nearly made it to the stairs when something a thousand times more off-putting and mind-scarring than finding Zsasz lurking in the corner burst from Ivy's room. It was the Joker, severed vines still wrapped around his ankles, and, with the exception of a sock, not a stitch of clothing to be seen anywhere.
The two parties stared across the hall at each other in perfect silence.
"Uh, Puddin', you're sorta…naked," Harley said once a little of the shock had worn off.
Reacting to Harley's voice, the Joker staggered like a zombie toward the terrified pair, one arm outstretched to add to the impression Leon S. Kennedy needed to come and deal with him. Since Kennedy wasn't available—and Zsasz wasn't interested in fending off that kind of zombie—Crane and Harley could only stand aghast as the groaning, shuffling clown shambled for them.
The Joker collapsed, crawled to Harley's feet and reached up to paw at the hem of her shirt. "It was horrible, Harley! Even more horrible than that dream I had where McDonald's went vegetarian! There were plants everywhere, and they- they- touched me! I was molested by plants! Shame! Woe is me! I think one of them was poison oak! Does this look like a poison oak rash to you, Johnny?"
If Crane had been in possession of a bomb, he would have detonated it at that moment. Being blown to smithereens was certainly no worse than being asked to diagnose the Joker's below-the-belt dermatological problem.
"I don't know, I don't care, and why won't you just die?!" Crane screamed.
"Come on, Professor, don't say things like that," Harley said.
"Yeah, Johnny, if I die, I'll just come back as a ghost anyway," the Joker added.
"Go to Hell! I don't care if it exists or not! Go there!"
"Woo! Woo! I'm going to haunt you! Boo! Naked ghost!" The Joker reached a warm and living but spectrally-pale arm at Crane and Crane lost whatever feeble hold he had on his self-control.
"Haunt me then! But first I'll have the pleasure of knowing I rid the world of your despicable hide!"
"How are you going to kill me, Mop-man? Stab me with your protruding hip bones? There are supermodels who eat more than you," the Joker said.
"We'll see who has the last laugh," Crane replied.
"Go eat a sandwich. And make me one while you're at it! Extra mayo and nothing green."
Crane stomped down the stairs, leaving Harley alone with her exceptionally degenerate boyfriend.
"He isn't going to make me a sandwich, is he?" the Joker asked.
"No Puddin', he isn't. But maybe we can get you some pants," Harley responded.
The Joker looked down and admired the view. "Nah, I like being naked. I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner. I'll be able to commit crimes with impunity. Who's going to touch me now? Batman? He wishes."
Harley shrugged. "Okay, Mister J, whatever you say. But don't come cryin' to me when you get shrinkage."
Crane made it to the front door unmolested, which, considering the seething state the erstwhile professor was in, saved anyone he might have met a huge pile of grief and self-esteem-destroying verbal abuse. Too furious to do more than give a cursory glance left and right before venturing outside, Crane stepped onto the open expanse of Ivy's lawn. As he headed for the greenhouse, he waited for Bud and Lou to approach him so he could drive them away with a withering glare. He was almost disappointed when the two hyenas didn't show.
By the time he was halfway across the lawn, the total absence of any faces, friend, foe, or furry and snouted, began to turn Crane into a paranoiac. Ivy should have called out to him to let him know she'd made it to the greenhouse, and Bud and Lou were always looking for some new victim to lick and jump upon. So where the hell was everyone?
A gunshot provided a clue you didn't need to be Philip Marlowe to interpret. Crane threw himself to the ground, instinctively covered his head, and wished he had a trench he could duck into. Even on his stomach, Crane was easily the largest target in the green no-man's-land. To make matters more dire, Crane was equidistant from the protection of the house and greenhouse, and wasn't even sure where the shot had originated from. He didn't know whether advancing or retreating would put him in the line of fire, or even if he was the intended target. Maybe the shooter was aiming for someone else.
And maybe not. Crane swallowed hard. Why did people keep trying to kill him?
No, karma was not an acceptable answer.
Another gunshot rang out, and Crane, already in the closest thing to defilade the yard offered, was able to pay more attention this time, as he wasn't scrambling for nonexistent cover.
The gunshot was loud, but not loud enough to make Crane's ears ring. That meant the shooter was some distance away. The sound was also coming from the direction of the greenhouse, which meant at least the Joker hadn't found a stray weapon. Beyond that, Crane couldn't tell much else.
Deciding he needed to do something beside lie there and hope he wasn't in the crosshairs, Crane crept forward on his elbows, like a soldier crawling under barbed wire. That form of locomotion carried him maybe three feet before his injuries reminded him of their presence.
There was no way Crane would be able to crawl any distance, never mind to safety, without being overcome by pain and likely reopening all the cuts Ivy had so carefully bandaged. Having eliminated that option, he considered what remained: staying put and hoping he was mistaken for a freakishly large and skinny beetle, or using his undamaged limbs to scurry for the greenhouse and its weapons cache.
Crane mulled it over and decided he was just a little sick and tired of being the victim. He'd been choked, kidnapped, stabbed, kidnapped again, shot at and, perhaps worst of all, had seen the Joker naked. It was his turn to spread the misery around.
And, perhaps less optimistically, if he was going to be shot, he'd prefer it be while he was standing and at least making an attempt, not hiding like a snake in the grass.
That didn't mean Crane was just going to run off like every idiot blonde in every idiot horror movie ever made. Before he ran for it, he was going to scope out where he was running to. Still hugging the ground, Crane squinted at the greenhouse and the shed beside it. He thought he saw a shadow reflected on the left wall of the greenhouse, but he was too far away to determine if the shadow even existed or was a trick of the light, and if it did, what its source was.
Mysterious shadows that even the cast of Finding Bigfoot would be skeptical of were not sufficient reason to stay grounded. Crane took a deep breath, looked left and right as though he was about to cross the street, and then pushed himself to his feet.
Crane might have been made primarily of harsh angles and long limbs, but that served him now. He wasn't particularly strong, but being built like a whippet meant he could run like one.
The times Crane had run if not for his life, at least for his safety, had to number in the thousands. This was just one more occasion to feel his legs piston and his pulse race as disaster closed in on him.
It wasn't until he was seconds from the greenhouse that Crane's brain brought up a very important detail: how was he supposed to open the door? Super-genius that he was, he couldn't remember how the door opened, probably because last time he'd been in the greenhouse, he'd nearly been eaten and had suffered horrible mental trauma because of Mel's hungry vines. If it swung inward, that wasn't much of an issue. Crane could use his uninjured shoulder to push the door open. If it opened outward, he was going to run face-first into the glass and probably knock himself out.
Praise random chance, the door swung inward! Crane had just enough time to lower his shoulder into position before he and the door collided. The door, doing what most doors had been designed to do since the beginning of time, admitted entrance.
All the speed that Crane had built up tearing across the lawn like a cheetah became his main concern once he cleared the threshold. There was very little space between the door and the first creepers of Ivy's thriving arboretum. Before Crane could fully apply the brakes, he found himself tripped by vines and sprawled out in a patch of unidentifiable, leafy foliage.
The plants took much more offense to being bulldozed than plants usually took to anything. The greenhouse came to life, vines, tendrils, leaves, and other green parts writhing and twisting around Crane. He immediately stilled and hoped Ivy had left enough traces of her pheromones on him for the plants to pardon the intrusion and not treat him like Broderick Bode.
After a few seconds of inspection, the plants decided they would forgive Crane for breaking into their home, stepping on them, and disrupting their peaceful photosynthesis. Crane let out the breath he'd been holding as the vines retreated and the leaves stopped shaking. Now all he had to worry about was Ivy finding out he'd mashed her ferns. And speaking of Ivy, where had she and Nigma gotten to?
Suddenly there came a tapping, as of someone gently rapping. Crane somehow doubted he'd been visited by a raven, though. He concentrated for a moment and listened hard. He realized the tapping was coming from his left, and thus looked that way.
To his surprise, he found the source of the tapping was Edward Nigma. The Riddler, even though Crane was staring straight at him, continued to peck away at the glass wall of the greenhouse. Crane raised an eyebrow. Now that he had lost his voice, the Riddler had turned into Hector Salamanca. Crane couldn't say he preferred mindlessly tapping Riddler over mindlessly chattering Riddler.
"What? I see you! Stop!" Crane shouted. He began to rise from the floor, though halted when the Riddler started waving frantically and pointing at Crane.
"You're useless," Crane said.
Nigma stopped flapping and returned to knocking on the glass with renewed urgency. Crane began to feel like an animal in a zoo, hounded all days by idiot children who couldn't keep their grubby mitts off the Plexiglas.
"What are you trying to tell me? Is that… Is that Morse code? I don't bloody know Morse code off the top of my head!"
The Riddler rolled his eyes, disgusted, as though Crane had just told him he didn't know basic addition and subtraction. Since advanced communication obviously wasn't going to work, Nigma turned to charades. He raised his thumb and extended his index finger, making a symbol that would have gotten him expelled from any school in the nation.
"A gun? Who has a gun?"
Nigma pointed at Crane.
"No, you imbecile, I don't have a gun."
The Riddler made another hand gesture, this one equally likely to be frowned upon by school administrators.
"That's it, I am going to end you."
Crane rose and the Riddler had another conniption fit. This was getting ridiculous. No, scratch that, it had been ridiculous from the beginning. Now it was infuriating.
The Riddler hit the dirt. That was a rather odd reaction, Crane thought, though Nigma hadn't been all there since losing his voice. Maybe grief had driven him into a new, stupider form of insanity.
Clarity arrived a moment later, though Crane would have much preferred to keep thinking the Riddler's feeble grip on sanity had slipped a little more. Instead, Crane's ignorance was cleared by the boom of a third gunshot, and the accompanying burn of a bullet grazing his forehead and nearly erasing an eyebrow.
Crane fell back into the plants' camouflaging embrace. Careful to keep his arm below the level of the tallest greenery, Crane pressed a hand to head. It came away wet, and unless he'd started bleeding some exotic color, Crane knew he'd find his palm smeared red. Not that he really wanted to see anymore of his blood on the outside, having, just the night before, seen plenty of it. Without looking, Crane wiped his hand on his pants.
As he lay there out of sight like a little bunny in a field, Crane tried to figure out who was shooting and what his next course of action was going to be. In all the gunplay over the past hours, the various weapons brought to Ivy's house had been treated like the ball in a street hustler's shell game. Last Crane had seen, though, the Shark had come up the winner, snagging both the Joker's and Black Mask's guns.
This didn't seem like the Shark's work, though. Crane, unless he was getting entirely the wrong vibe, had thought the Shark was miserable and just wanted to leave. He didn't have a score to settle or a body count to rack up; he had a criminal empire that missed him. There was no need for him to hunt down and kill everyone.
So it probably wasn't the Shark. Crane did the math. The Joker, Harley, and Zsasz were inside and obviously not responsible. White didn't fit the bill. Who did that leave?
Black Mask.
Great.
It wasn't like he was a lethal sadist who had already tried to beat the Riddler to death and had been drugged, duct-taped, and locked in a shed or anything.
Crane sighed and wiped a trickle of blood from his forehead.
Author's Notes:
Dudley Do-Right is a cartoon Canadian Mountie.
A mouthbrooder is a type of fish—and there are several—that raises its young in its mouth.
Leon S. Kennedy kills zombies in the Resident Evil series.
Philip Marlowe is a detective created by Raymond Chandler.
The cast of Finding Bigfoot has used a wide variety of techniques, including bacon bait, in an attempt to find Bigfoot. They've yet to be successful…
Broderick Bode was a Harry Potter character strangled by Devil's Snare, a magical plant.
"Suddenly there came a tapping, as of someone gently rapping" is from the opening stanza of "The Raven."
Hector Salamanca was a character on Breaking Bad who communicated by ringing a bell.