In the city, few citizens deem it necessary to stare up at the heavens as they travel to and fro, for what is the point? Electric lights, which sparkle throughout buildings and along the streets, create such a glow as to block the heaven's twinkling effervescence. All are more content to stare at the gray stones they tread upon, and are the poorer for it, for if Gotham's denizens merely glanced upward they would see a remarkable sight.
A figure garbed in black from head to toe steadily makes his way up the side of Gotham General Hospital, climbing with bare hands up the edifice from window to window, each leg of the journey marred with scrapes and scratches. Agonizing minutes pass before the figure gains the outside of the twenty-first floor, room 2111. A muffled sigh is heard as a bloodied hand reaches inside a hidden pouch lining the figure's costume, removing a bizarrely shaped glasscutter. One end is placed onto the glass pane, and the other simultaneously emits a high-pitched radio frequency to jam any nearby security measures. The figure then reaches inside the freshly carved opening and unfastens the window, knowing full well that the blood and scrapes should mar any fingerprints, enough to prevent identification. There were other ways to gain entry, but none as painful and unforgiving as the 21-storey climb.
With catlike grace and stealth our intruder enters the room and walks towards the bed. Great care must be taken at this stage so as not to disturb the police guard outside the door. The figure looks down at the bed, and finds it empty...
Suddenly two hands grasp around the intruder's face, covering the eyes, as a familiar, bubbly female voice whispers, "Guess who?"
The assault from behind is countered by a swift judo flip before the girl could utter a single gasp. As she's tossed over the intruder's head her hands grab a hold of the mask and pull it off. She lands with a dull thud on the bed and looks back at her attacker's exposed face. She recognizes it all too well, and in a befuddled manner manages to say his name, "Bruce Wayne?"
Bruce looks back at her with equal incredulity. There she is in a dull green hospital gown, the curvaceous side-kick of the Joker, sans costume and make-up, and sporting blonde pig-tails, "Harley Quinn."
The voice used by Bruce was one Harley recognized as well. It wasn't Mr. Wayne who spoke, but "Batman!"
Bruce winced at her exclamation. Surely the guards would have heard her yell. Instantly, he grabbed a hold of her and tossed her out the open window, and he immediately followed suit. Harley screamed as she felt the wind whip across her face while staring down at the rapidly encroaching ground. By the 12th floor Bruce had reached her and wrapped her around one arm. With the other he removed his grapple gun from the costume's secreted pouch and fired. The grapple grabbed hold of a nearby rooftop and they began their trek across Gotham, swinging from building to building. Harley dared not let go, unless she wished to become a new form of sidewalk art.
It took a few swings before Harley became comfortable enough with her new mode of travel that she could speak once more. There was only one thing on her mind, "You almost to killed me!"
Bruce's voice no longer resonated with the dark knight's tone when he answered, "No, I didn't."
"I'm not talking about the warehouse, ya dope," she snaps back, "I know that wasn't you! They said on the news that it was you, but I knew it wasn't. Stupid media always gets things wrong. They actually said I was dead, can you believe it? Anyway, I knew the character that shot me may have looked like you, but I heard him laugh, and he sure laughed an awful lot like Mr. J. No one laughs like Mr. J, except Mr. J, and obviously you're not Mr. J, although..."
"What are you talking about?" Bruce asks as the grapple recoils and he fires a fresh line. Harley gulps each time this happens, forcing the nausea back down to her stomach.
After it subsides she continues, "That stunt at the hospital. You almost killed me!" Harley frowns when Bruce doesn't reply, and she returns to staring at the beautifully lit streets and buildings down below. Spying what she wanted, she then develops a huge grin and elbows Bruce in the side, causing him to lose his grip on her. She plummets downward and grabs hold of a flagpole underneath. Spinning around it she uses her momentum to launch herself onto an adjacent rooftop, landing in a perfect gymnast's Y-formation, with a wince. Rooftop gravel does not go well with bare feet.
She looks back for an instant and seeing no pursuer she then runs towards the door, "Sorry Brucie, I know how much you like sweeping girls off their feet, but my heart belongs to another! I'm sure you'll find someone else, someday!"
A twist of the doorknob and she's greeted by Bruce Wayne's stern visage, "I wish you wouldn't do that."
"Gaah!" she screams, before slamming the door in his face and turning to run the other way, "That was different. You get so used to seeing Bats' and his pointy ears that the minute something else shows up, you nearly jump outta your skin..."
She leaps across one roof to another and heads for the door. 'Of course, you've gotta wonder, Harl old girl, what are you going to do once you get away? I can't go running around Gotham in this flimsy thing...' she pauses as she takes a quick survey of her garments, '...and I thought the gowns at Arkham were bad! This leaves nothing to the imagination. Is it just me, or do doctors in general have no shame? Mr. J might like it, though...'
She pauses in front of the door and bites her lip. With a gingerly twist of the knob she slowly pulls back on the door, her heart racing. There's no one there...
She's about to breathe a sigh of relief when she feels a hand on her left shoulder. Harley turns with a start, and composes herself enough to scream, "What the heck are you doing? I'm only trying to see Mr. J! Why can't you leave me alone?" She falls to her knees, "We've got issues to resolve..." and she punches at her pursuer in the one spot he's sure to yield, only to strike at thin air. She then feels two powerful hands squeeze her shoulders from behind, and a stern voice whisper in her ear, "Mr. J-is-dead."
"You're lying!" Harley screams as she pulls away from his grasp with a manic strength, losing her balance in the process. She lands roughly on the gravel-covered roof and notices the blood stains on her shoulders. Looking back at Bruce she could see the blood dripping from his fingertips, "It looks like I'm not the only one with issues..."
Bruce then clenched his hands into tight fists and Harley winced at what he was about to do. Bruce only frowned as he crouched down to her level, "I'm not going to hurt you. I need...Ivy needs your help. Joker shot her and she's lost a lot of blood..."
Harley then took a long look into Bruce Wayne's eyes and she knew the truth. "You killed him, didn't you?" she asks with a contempt filled voice.
"Maybe," Bruce answers, his voice more a whisper, "Maybe not. Whatever the case, he's now beyond anyone's help. However, someone else you claim to deeply care for needs your help and the question is, are you now going to abandon her the same way Joker abandoned you?"
...
The evening sky around Wayne Manor is spotted with intense heat, with red and orange flames striking high into the black air as if trying to ignite the heavens. Commissioner Gordon hasn't moved from his vantage point on the lawn outside the fire gutted home, his eyes transfixed on the orgy of destruction. After staring at it for the past few hours, he has realized just how tired he is of it all. Turning towards his left he sees Gotham's firefighters dutifully battling the blaze with water, none venturing inside at the Commissioner's beckoning. There wasn't anyone inside worth saving. Feeling a hand on his right shoulder Gordon turns with a start and looks up at the grinning, unshaven face of the rotund Det. Bullock.
"Commish," Bullock begins in a surprisingly soft tone, "I thought you'd want these back." Bullock presents Gordon with the Commissioner's badge and police issue. Gordon gives a very tired, soot covered smile and takes the two articles.
Bullock then sits beside the Commissioner, "No hard feelin's, Commish. Ya felt you had to do this on your own, and I respect that. So long as it's over I can even forget about the throbbin' headache ya gave me."
Gordon gives a smirk, "It's over."
Bullock turns away and stares into the fire for a moment before continuing, "Then what about Harley Quinn's breakout from Gotham General ten minutes ago?"
The Commissioner frowns and sighs heavily. Bruce had left with Ivy. Dr. Arkham said Ivy was cured, that Ivy was now more rational than most. Ivy is sane, and Quinn...Quinn's just as crazy as ever. 'I thought I had it figured out, Bruce,' the Commissioner broods silently as he removes his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose, 'but this makes no sense. What in the world are you thinking?'
"Commish?" Bullock's gruff voice rouses Gordon from his thoughts.
'I could tell him your secret, Bruce,' Gordon surmises, 'and we could stop this before it gets out of hand...like I could have done before...ah, who am I kidding?' The Commissioner then clears his throat before addressing Bullock, "Get an APB on Quinn. Other than that, we've got nothing." And so, he sits back and waits.
...
"I thought she'd be in Arkham."
Bruce Wayne has brought Harley to a small alcove, nestled between two buildings in downtown Gotham. Bruce merely has to press a button on his belt and the alcove wall collapses, revealing a hidden entrance. Harley cautiously peers inside the pitch blackness, unable to make out a thing. Bruce presses on another button after they enter, turning on the lights and resealing the entrance.
Harley's eyes take a moment to adjust to the brilliance, and she soon spies the object of her search in the centre of the room. With leaps and bounds she crosses the cold stone floor to the prone form of Ivy, her best friend, lying on a gurney. Around her are countless machines, each one connected to Ivy's body, monitoring and maintaining her vital signs.
"She's not going back to Arkham," Bruce answers.
Harley ignores the response and touches her friend's arm, "Hey Red...uh...how you doing?"
Ivy smiles.
"As I said, she's lost a lot of blood," Bruce interrupts. "I tried some transfusions, but there was a problem. Her body continuously rejects the fresh blood, even though it's an exact match..."
"The spores," Harley interrupts.
"Spores?"
Harley solemnly kneels beside her friend, "She's got these teeny, tiny little things that travel through her blood and kill anything...different. Why do ya' think she's got such a high affinity for poison? These spores only recognize each other and her own cells. Dr. Arkham kept a supply of her own blood for just such an emergency, but Ivy didn't like that arrangement much. It's one of the reasons she pumped me full of her own concoction that first time we met. She saved my life...so one day I could save hers, and keep her out of the nuthouse. It was our little secret..."
"We'll get you ready," Bruce replies as he reaches for the transfusion kit...
Time passes as Bruce Wayne prepares the necessary equipment, and the three occupants of the room utter not a single word during this period. Harley manages a faint smile as she's prompted to lie next to Ivy on a second gurney. She winces as the needle is inserted in her arm and then watches as her own life's blood flows through the clear tube to her friend. Ivy stays uncomfortably silent throughout the ordeal, providing an aura of death within the room for its other inhabitants, and it's under this foreboding cloud they wait.
At the end Bruce sighs and passes between the two women to remove the needles. Ivy's is removed with a quick tug, but for Harley he takes a moment to bend forward, seemingly taking a closer look at his handiwork. Harley seizes the opportunity and grabs a nearby scalpel, bringing it to Bruce Wayne's throat, stopping just short of cutting flesh. He doesn't even budge and wonders why it took her so long to do so.
"Now listen," Harley mutters in a slightly slurred speech, the transfusion had taken its toll, "I'm pretty sure YOU killed Mr. J, the man I loved, and common courtesy dictates that I have to kill you because of it. Self-mutilation is a dead giveaway. Batman never kills, and now that he finally did he's making himself pay a penance by climbing a building, barehanded, the result of which are two very painful and bloodied mitts. Now, I said I'm pretty sure, not 100%, so I need you to just provide a minor confession, for purely esoteric purposes, of course, and then the fun'll begin, 'kay?"
Bruce bears a very grim frown as he begins to speak, "Are you sure you want to do this? Joker treated you horribly."
"So?"
"If you want to avenge his death you'll have to kill Ivy too. She helped stop him."
Harley twists her lip at this and thinks before replying, "I'll ask her that myself, and I'll deal with it. You're wasting time..."
"...And you," Bruce interrupts, "have a very difficult choice to make. You've been given a rare opportunity here, Harley, something people in our line of work take for granted each time it comes up. We've all lead violent lives, and paid for it with the torture, mutilation and death of loved ones, which causes us to go and commit more violent acts as retribution, which has its own repercussions, which are followed by more retributions, and so on. An endless cycle of death and despair that you, Harley Quinn, have the opportunity to end here and now! If you kill me, then sometime, somewhere, somehow there will be consequences, there will be more death, your own or someone you care about. I know, I've lived my life seeing this happen again and again and again...hell, I've been a part of it! But you, you can stop it by simply dropping the knife..."
Harley's eyes are beginning to well up ever so slightly. She knows Batman is one of the good guys, that he cares, that he just helped save Ivy's life. But still, she loved Mr. J, like no one ever could. She loved him and now he's gone. She asks one more time, the scalpel beginning to shake in her hand, "Did you kill him?"
Bruce closes his eyes and gives a faint whisper, "Yes."
TO BE CONTINUED...
A figure garbed in black from head to toe steadily makes his way up the side of Gotham General Hospital, climbing with bare hands up the edifice from window to window, each leg of the journey marred with scrapes and scratches. Agonizing minutes pass before the figure gains the outside of the twenty-first floor, room 2111. A muffled sigh is heard as a bloodied hand reaches inside a hidden pouch lining the figure's costume, removing a bizarrely shaped glasscutter. One end is placed onto the glass pane, and the other simultaneously emits a high-pitched radio frequency to jam any nearby security measures. The figure then reaches inside the freshly carved opening and unfastens the window, knowing full well that the blood and scrapes should mar any fingerprints, enough to prevent identification. There were other ways to gain entry, but none as painful and unforgiving as the 21-storey climb.
With catlike grace and stealth our intruder enters the room and walks towards the bed. Great care must be taken at this stage so as not to disturb the police guard outside the door. The figure looks down at the bed, and finds it empty...
Suddenly two hands grasp around the intruder's face, covering the eyes, as a familiar, bubbly female voice whispers, "Guess who?"
The assault from behind is countered by a swift judo flip before the girl could utter a single gasp. As she's tossed over the intruder's head her hands grab a hold of the mask and pull it off. She lands with a dull thud on the bed and looks back at her attacker's exposed face. She recognizes it all too well, and in a befuddled manner manages to say his name, "Bruce Wayne?"
Bruce looks back at her with equal incredulity. There she is in a dull green hospital gown, the curvaceous side-kick of the Joker, sans costume and make-up, and sporting blonde pig-tails, "Harley Quinn."
The voice used by Bruce was one Harley recognized as well. It wasn't Mr. Wayne who spoke, but "Batman!"
Bruce winced at her exclamation. Surely the guards would have heard her yell. Instantly, he grabbed a hold of her and tossed her out the open window, and he immediately followed suit. Harley screamed as she felt the wind whip across her face while staring down at the rapidly encroaching ground. By the 12th floor Bruce had reached her and wrapped her around one arm. With the other he removed his grapple gun from the costume's secreted pouch and fired. The grapple grabbed hold of a nearby rooftop and they began their trek across Gotham, swinging from building to building. Harley dared not let go, unless she wished to become a new form of sidewalk art.
It took a few swings before Harley became comfortable enough with her new mode of travel that she could speak once more. There was only one thing on her mind, "You almost to killed me!"
Bruce's voice no longer resonated with the dark knight's tone when he answered, "No, I didn't."
"I'm not talking about the warehouse, ya dope," she snaps back, "I know that wasn't you! They said on the news that it was you, but I knew it wasn't. Stupid media always gets things wrong. They actually said I was dead, can you believe it? Anyway, I knew the character that shot me may have looked like you, but I heard him laugh, and he sure laughed an awful lot like Mr. J. No one laughs like Mr. J, except Mr. J, and obviously you're not Mr. J, although..."
"What are you talking about?" Bruce asks as the grapple recoils and he fires a fresh line. Harley gulps each time this happens, forcing the nausea back down to her stomach.
After it subsides she continues, "That stunt at the hospital. You almost killed me!" Harley frowns when Bruce doesn't reply, and she returns to staring at the beautifully lit streets and buildings down below. Spying what she wanted, she then develops a huge grin and elbows Bruce in the side, causing him to lose his grip on her. She plummets downward and grabs hold of a flagpole underneath. Spinning around it she uses her momentum to launch herself onto an adjacent rooftop, landing in a perfect gymnast's Y-formation, with a wince. Rooftop gravel does not go well with bare feet.
She looks back for an instant and seeing no pursuer she then runs towards the door, "Sorry Brucie, I know how much you like sweeping girls off their feet, but my heart belongs to another! I'm sure you'll find someone else, someday!"
A twist of the doorknob and she's greeted by Bruce Wayne's stern visage, "I wish you wouldn't do that."
"Gaah!" she screams, before slamming the door in his face and turning to run the other way, "That was different. You get so used to seeing Bats' and his pointy ears that the minute something else shows up, you nearly jump outta your skin..."
She leaps across one roof to another and heads for the door. 'Of course, you've gotta wonder, Harl old girl, what are you going to do once you get away? I can't go running around Gotham in this flimsy thing...' she pauses as she takes a quick survey of her garments, '...and I thought the gowns at Arkham were bad! This leaves nothing to the imagination. Is it just me, or do doctors in general have no shame? Mr. J might like it, though...'
She pauses in front of the door and bites her lip. With a gingerly twist of the knob she slowly pulls back on the door, her heart racing. There's no one there...
She's about to breathe a sigh of relief when she feels a hand on her left shoulder. Harley turns with a start, and composes herself enough to scream, "What the heck are you doing? I'm only trying to see Mr. J! Why can't you leave me alone?" She falls to her knees, "We've got issues to resolve..." and she punches at her pursuer in the one spot he's sure to yield, only to strike at thin air. She then feels two powerful hands squeeze her shoulders from behind, and a stern voice whisper in her ear, "Mr. J-is-dead."
"You're lying!" Harley screams as she pulls away from his grasp with a manic strength, losing her balance in the process. She lands roughly on the gravel-covered roof and notices the blood stains on her shoulders. Looking back at Bruce she could see the blood dripping from his fingertips, "It looks like I'm not the only one with issues..."
Bruce then clenched his hands into tight fists and Harley winced at what he was about to do. Bruce only frowned as he crouched down to her level, "I'm not going to hurt you. I need...Ivy needs your help. Joker shot her and she's lost a lot of blood..."
Harley then took a long look into Bruce Wayne's eyes and she knew the truth. "You killed him, didn't you?" she asks with a contempt filled voice.
"Maybe," Bruce answers, his voice more a whisper, "Maybe not. Whatever the case, he's now beyond anyone's help. However, someone else you claim to deeply care for needs your help and the question is, are you now going to abandon her the same way Joker abandoned you?"
...
The evening sky around Wayne Manor is spotted with intense heat, with red and orange flames striking high into the black air as if trying to ignite the heavens. Commissioner Gordon hasn't moved from his vantage point on the lawn outside the fire gutted home, his eyes transfixed on the orgy of destruction. After staring at it for the past few hours, he has realized just how tired he is of it all. Turning towards his left he sees Gotham's firefighters dutifully battling the blaze with water, none venturing inside at the Commissioner's beckoning. There wasn't anyone inside worth saving. Feeling a hand on his right shoulder Gordon turns with a start and looks up at the grinning, unshaven face of the rotund Det. Bullock.
"Commish," Bullock begins in a surprisingly soft tone, "I thought you'd want these back." Bullock presents Gordon with the Commissioner's badge and police issue. Gordon gives a very tired, soot covered smile and takes the two articles.
Bullock then sits beside the Commissioner, "No hard feelin's, Commish. Ya felt you had to do this on your own, and I respect that. So long as it's over I can even forget about the throbbin' headache ya gave me."
Gordon gives a smirk, "It's over."
Bullock turns away and stares into the fire for a moment before continuing, "Then what about Harley Quinn's breakout from Gotham General ten minutes ago?"
The Commissioner frowns and sighs heavily. Bruce had left with Ivy. Dr. Arkham said Ivy was cured, that Ivy was now more rational than most. Ivy is sane, and Quinn...Quinn's just as crazy as ever. 'I thought I had it figured out, Bruce,' the Commissioner broods silently as he removes his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose, 'but this makes no sense. What in the world are you thinking?'
"Commish?" Bullock's gruff voice rouses Gordon from his thoughts.
'I could tell him your secret, Bruce,' Gordon surmises, 'and we could stop this before it gets out of hand...like I could have done before...ah, who am I kidding?' The Commissioner then clears his throat before addressing Bullock, "Get an APB on Quinn. Other than that, we've got nothing." And so, he sits back and waits.
...
"I thought she'd be in Arkham."
Bruce Wayne has brought Harley to a small alcove, nestled between two buildings in downtown Gotham. Bruce merely has to press a button on his belt and the alcove wall collapses, revealing a hidden entrance. Harley cautiously peers inside the pitch blackness, unable to make out a thing. Bruce presses on another button after they enter, turning on the lights and resealing the entrance.
Harley's eyes take a moment to adjust to the brilliance, and she soon spies the object of her search in the centre of the room. With leaps and bounds she crosses the cold stone floor to the prone form of Ivy, her best friend, lying on a gurney. Around her are countless machines, each one connected to Ivy's body, monitoring and maintaining her vital signs.
"She's not going back to Arkham," Bruce answers.
Harley ignores the response and touches her friend's arm, "Hey Red...uh...how you doing?"
Ivy smiles.
"As I said, she's lost a lot of blood," Bruce interrupts. "I tried some transfusions, but there was a problem. Her body continuously rejects the fresh blood, even though it's an exact match..."
"The spores," Harley interrupts.
"Spores?"
Harley solemnly kneels beside her friend, "She's got these teeny, tiny little things that travel through her blood and kill anything...different. Why do ya' think she's got such a high affinity for poison? These spores only recognize each other and her own cells. Dr. Arkham kept a supply of her own blood for just such an emergency, but Ivy didn't like that arrangement much. It's one of the reasons she pumped me full of her own concoction that first time we met. She saved my life...so one day I could save hers, and keep her out of the nuthouse. It was our little secret..."
"We'll get you ready," Bruce replies as he reaches for the transfusion kit...
Time passes as Bruce Wayne prepares the necessary equipment, and the three occupants of the room utter not a single word during this period. Harley manages a faint smile as she's prompted to lie next to Ivy on a second gurney. She winces as the needle is inserted in her arm and then watches as her own life's blood flows through the clear tube to her friend. Ivy stays uncomfortably silent throughout the ordeal, providing an aura of death within the room for its other inhabitants, and it's under this foreboding cloud they wait.
At the end Bruce sighs and passes between the two women to remove the needles. Ivy's is removed with a quick tug, but for Harley he takes a moment to bend forward, seemingly taking a closer look at his handiwork. Harley seizes the opportunity and grabs a nearby scalpel, bringing it to Bruce Wayne's throat, stopping just short of cutting flesh. He doesn't even budge and wonders why it took her so long to do so.
"Now listen," Harley mutters in a slightly slurred speech, the transfusion had taken its toll, "I'm pretty sure YOU killed Mr. J, the man I loved, and common courtesy dictates that I have to kill you because of it. Self-mutilation is a dead giveaway. Batman never kills, and now that he finally did he's making himself pay a penance by climbing a building, barehanded, the result of which are two very painful and bloodied mitts. Now, I said I'm pretty sure, not 100%, so I need you to just provide a minor confession, for purely esoteric purposes, of course, and then the fun'll begin, 'kay?"
Bruce bears a very grim frown as he begins to speak, "Are you sure you want to do this? Joker treated you horribly."
"So?"
"If you want to avenge his death you'll have to kill Ivy too. She helped stop him."
Harley twists her lip at this and thinks before replying, "I'll ask her that myself, and I'll deal with it. You're wasting time..."
"...And you," Bruce interrupts, "have a very difficult choice to make. You've been given a rare opportunity here, Harley, something people in our line of work take for granted each time it comes up. We've all lead violent lives, and paid for it with the torture, mutilation and death of loved ones, which causes us to go and commit more violent acts as retribution, which has its own repercussions, which are followed by more retributions, and so on. An endless cycle of death and despair that you, Harley Quinn, have the opportunity to end here and now! If you kill me, then sometime, somewhere, somehow there will be consequences, there will be more death, your own or someone you care about. I know, I've lived my life seeing this happen again and again and again...hell, I've been a part of it! But you, you can stop it by simply dropping the knife..."
Harley's eyes are beginning to well up ever so slightly. She knows Batman is one of the good guys, that he cares, that he just helped save Ivy's life. But still, she loved Mr. J, like no one ever could. She loved him and now he's gone. She asks one more time, the scalpel beginning to shake in her hand, "Did you kill him?"
Bruce closes his eyes and gives a faint whisper, "Yes."
TO BE CONTINUED...