As the sun rose after a sleepless night, Poison Ivy made her way out of her tent and over to the gym Superman had referenced in the hopes of getting a shower. She was surprised to find the door open, and to hear water running in the locker room. She entered to see Jervis Tetch at the sink, shaving with a cutthroat razor.
"Good morning, Pamela," he said, noticing her.
"Jervis, what are you doing here so early?" asked Ivy. "It's barely dawn."
"A habit, dear lady, one instilled in me during boarding school," replied Tetch, turning back to the mirror. "Up before sunrise with a shower and a shave. A gentleman must always be clean and composed first thing in the morning. We got the cane otherwise."
"Charming," said Ivy, rolling her eyes. "But that's the patriarchy for you."
"I'm not sure it was the patriarchy so much as hundreds of years of tradition," replied Tetch.
"That's what the patriarchy is," agreed Ivy, nodding.
"I thought the patriarchy was a system where men held all the power and women were largely excluded," said Tetch.
"Yes, and your boarding school is one aspect of that patriarchy," retorted Ivy. "The patriarchy is complex, Jervis, and can't be understood with a single, simplistic definition."
"'"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less,'" muttered Tetch under his breath.
"What?" snapped Ivy.
"Nothing," said Tetch, hastily.
"Well, I hope you left enough hot water for the rest of us – I feel filthy from sleeping on the sidewalk," said Ivy. "Camping in nature is restorative and cleansing, but here I stayed up all night wondering how many dirty humans had walked over where I was lying. Never mind thoughts of them spitting and sneezing and vomiting…"
"I'm sure Superman doesn't allow anything like that to happen in his city," interrupted Tetch.
"Yeah, he's a worse control freak than Batman, which I didn't think was possible," sighed Ivy, coming over to study her reflection in the mirror. "I look like a houseplant someone's forgotten to water," she muttered. "And it's only been one day. I don't think I can take another sleepless night on the sidewalk."
"We just have to hope Superman will find us more suitable accommodation today," replied Tetch. "Anyway, you should be resting easy. Your constant criticism of Harley seems to have worked. She's through with Joker for good. That victory should help ease your suffering a little."
"You'd think," agreed Ivy, nodding. "I am pleased about it, don't get me wrong. At least I could save Harley from making my mistake, and from staying with an abusive man who's no good for her. Now she's free to be happy."
"Pamela, I do wish you'd stop pretending that you're primarily concerned with Harley's welfare," replied Tetch. "You and I both know that this is really about you."
"No, I care about Harley and I don't want to see her hurt," snapped Ivy. "That's always been why I've pushed so hard to break her and J up."
"I think not," said Tetch, running the blade down his cheek. "I sympathize, Pamela, I really do. I am familiar with your tragic backstory, and why you hate men because of it. And I know that your interest in Harley's situation is due to your unresolved issues from that. I had to do some very painful soul searching after my own disappointed romance, and I know how difficult such things can be."
"You mean your kidnapping and brainwashing of your secretary?" demanded Ivy. "Is that what you're calling a disappointed romance? Because I don't see anything non-consensual as romantic."
"You can see it however you wish - the point is I saw it as a disappointed romance, a rejection of me by the only woman I could ever love," retorted Tetch. "I imagine you went through a similar sort of agony when your lover betrayed and left you. You question everything, all your perceptions, your own judgment, your very identity. Who are you, if you could get fooled so easily by something that wasn't real? Despite my obsession with fiction, I have always thought of myself as an intelligent, capable, and objective person, and I was sent to a madhouse for my actions. It made me bitter and resentful, and it would have been very easy to stay that way, raging against the world for its unfair treatment of me. It would have been justified too. But instead I decided to take responsibility for my situation. I was not an innocent party, after all – I did kidnap the girl. And because of that, some part of me was complicit in my suffering, and had brought it upon myself. I realized I had been in the wrong. As you say, non-consensual isn't romantic, and what satisfaction would there be in keeping the girl with me against her will? There was no point if I could not be loved for myself. That wasn't love, because love cannot be forced, or one-sided. It has to be mutual, or it is not love, just some warped, selfish imitation of it. I realized that I had become a monster, I had done a monstrous thing to that poor girl, and I felt utterly ashamed. I resolved to be a better man. It was slow, and difficult, but I succeeded. I cured myself, and was released from Arkham, having learned my lesson. But I don't think you've learned yours."
"That's because there was no lesson to learn in my case," retorted Ivy. "Except that all men are scum, which I have learned. Your situation was completely your fault - you kidnapped a woman because she showed no romantic interest in you. But I volunteered to be an experiment for a man I trusted and loved, and who I thought loved me. That's not at all the same thing, and Jason using and abusing me was not my fault in any way. To even suggest that it was is victim-blaming, you jerk!"
"My point was that tragic situations are rarely just the fault of one person, even when it seems obvious they are," retorted Tetch. "Because we cannot be objective about our own suffering, we are always going to portray ourselves as the victim, so it's worth examining the situation deeply just in case. In your case, some part of you was obviously deeply attracted to Jason, despite his faults, and that part made you willingly devote yourself wholeheartedly to him. True, you didn't know the extent of his deviousness, and you didn't know he would use you and betray you, which is why the betrayal hit you so hard. You told yourself you should have expected it, that an intelligent woman like you shouldn't have been taken in by such a duplicitous liar. You berated yourself for not having seen it coming, for being so blinded by your love for him that you were willfully blind to his faults. And maybe he was a master at concealing them – some people are, after all. But the Joker is not. You're seeing him as you saw your betrayer – as some calculating, two-faced man who hides his true nature to lure innocent, unsuspecting women to him. But that's not the Joker – he's very open and unashamed about who he is. And Harley isn't blind to it. She knows him very well - she's experienced his abuse and ill-treatment many times. If your paramour had treated you like that, I daresay you would have run from him, and never done half the things you did for him. So I think you have to accept that their relationship is totally different from yours. You're not trying to save Harley from suffering what you suffered because you've completely misread the situation. You've seen it through your own lenses, bitter and twisted by your own experience. And that's why you're not happy about it now. Because your own pain is still there. You've used Harley's situation as a distraction from it for too long. But you won't be able to get past this unless you spend some time processing what happened to you, and work out the bitterness, rather than just projecting it on to your friends and their relationships."
"What are you, a shrink?" demanded Ivy.
"No, I'm just telling you what worked for me," replied Tetch. "Which perhaps means I am also projecting. But I do think it will help you, Pamela. You're not seeing the world the way it truly is – your terrible experience with a man has led you to believe that all men are like that. They're not. The world is not the horrible place that your pain has led you to see it as. The world is a wonderland, if we but have the courage to see that. To trust that it is, and to love the people in it generously despite being hurt by them. You were naïve when your lover betrayed you, which is why it hurt so much. But you need to be brave enough to trust again. And part of that trust is trusting people to know what's best for their own lives. Harley is an intelligent, capable woman. Insane, absolutely, no question about that. But you need to trust her to know what's best for her and her family. Otherwise you'll drive her away, and everyone else who cares for you too. And many people do, Pamela, if you just look around with your eyes open."
Ivy stared at him. "Oh my God, are you coming on to me?" she demanded.
"What? No!" he snapped. "You are most certainly not my type!"
"Yeah, because I'm a strong, independent woman as opposed to a Victorian hothouse flower," retorted Ivy. "And men like you are intimidated by women like me."
"There are many types of strength, and arrogance is not one of them," retorted Tetch. "I'm truly just trying to give you some helpful advice, as a friend. You see, you're doing it again – you think a man is only trying to help you when there's something in it for him. Not all men are like that, and not all relationships are transactional like that. Though I can't deny that I'm hoping if I keep trying to do the right thing, I will be rewarded with a clear conscience. Perhaps I will eventually be rewarded with my return to Gotham."
"If you think that's a reward, then you still belong in Arkham," retorted Ivy. "I'm no more fond of Metropolis than anyone else, particularly since Lex owns most of it, but I am kinda relieved we don't have to worry about some lunatic supercriminal just randomly setting off something. Unlike Batman, you know Superman will handle anything like that before it even starts…"
And that was when the roof began crashing in on itself. "Oh my God, what the hell is that?!" shrieked Ivy, coughing as she tried to see through the debris falling everywhere.
"Out the window, quickly!" gasped Tetch, grabbing her hand and launching them both through the glass. They landed on the ground outside, blinded by the dust and smoke that surrounded them. Ivy wiped her eyes and tried to see what on earth was happening, but there just seemed to be destruction everywhere.
"Jonathan, Edward, Harvey, are you all right?" cried Tetch, racing over to the tents. Rubble had fallen on them, but had mercifully missed its occupants, who all emerged as dazed and disoriented as they were.
"What the devil is going on?" demanded Crane. "I thought we were going to be spared random explosions in Metropolis – isn't their resident alien meant to have the chaos under control?"
"There's a certain type of chaos not even the Blue Boy Scout can control, Craney!" shouted a familiar voice, and everyone looked up to see the Joker hanging off the ledge of one of the damaged buildings, waving enthusiastically at them with Harley clinging adoringly to him. "And that's the combined insanity of the crazy clown couple!"
"No!" shrieked Ivy, furious. "No, it's not possible!"
The others all expressed similar sentiments of disappointment, except for Tetch, who smiled broadly to himself and murmured, "We're going home!"