Title: Rappacini's Last Laugh (9/10)

Author: Allaine

Email: All characters are property of DC Comics. No profit intended, etc., etc.

Feedback: As always, greatly desired and usually responded to.

Rating: PG-13

Spoilers: None.

Distribution: If you want it, just ask.

Summary: Poison Ivy is mad in love, and Harley Quinn is sorely vexed by it. A DC Elseworlds fic.


Chapter 9

"Does anyone have any ideas?" the Phantasm asked as she backed away.

"Not - being - torn into - drumsticks - sounds nice," I gasped.

"Why the hell can't she do the same thing to him?" the Phantasm demanded, waving a hand at Ivy.

"My babies can only target one person at a time!" Ivy screamed back. "And with my rosebud gone, the vines will just go on - "

"Killing me," I grunted.

The Judge came at the Phantasm with his sword in the air, but she grabbed a nearby chair and shoved it into him. The legs took him in the gut, and he stumbled backwards. "Can't you make your 'babies' target him instead? You're Poison fucking Ivy, aren't you!" she snarled at Ivy.

Ivy was dragging herself across the floor, away from the two killer vigilantes. "He can kill you for all I care," she sniffed.

"And your pal too," Phantasm shot back. She hurled the chair at the Judge's head, but he sliced it in two with his sword.

Ivy looked at me doubtfully. "But Jason said - "

My left shoulder was finally dislocated, and my scream nearly drowned out the popping sound as tears sprang to my eyes. "Pammy," I managed to say.

Desperately she refused to look me in the eyes.

I felt my right ankle snap, and I howled, knowing that the leg was going to break any second now.

"No!" Ivy cried out, anguished. She raised up her hand, and I was dumped unceremoniously onto the floor. I wanted to be relieved, but I landed on my poor ankle, and I almost blacked out.

When I finally turned my head, Ivy had redirected the floral defenses at the Judge. His arms were pinned to his sides, but he was able to swing his sword enough that he sliced one of the vines clutching at his legs. Phantasm was finally able to get past his weapon, though, and she kicked him soundly across the face, knocking his wig and mask on.

When the Judge's face came into view, I saw . . . someone I'd never seen before. You'd think after all that waiting, he'd at LEAST have the decency to be someone exciting. But no, I got a guy who looked like the Ken Barbie doll.

Groaning, I pulled myself up with Woodrue's table and my one good arm. Ivy was still on the floor, now trying to get the manacles off her ankles, but I knew from personal experience that she couldn't do it with her bare hands. I also knew her plants could do it for her, but like she said, the number of plants that half-filled the room couldn't restrain a man and help her at the same time.

If I wanted to give her my chemist's special shot, she couldn't do much to stop me. She wasn't even looking at me. She probably didn't mean to, but that hurt. I wanted to think she'd check to see if I was okay first. Not to mention I wasn't okay!

Just a little prick in the back of her neck. All I had to do was get the chemicals from the vial to the syringe.

Which I wasn't going to do as long as my left arm wasn't listening to me.

Trembling with the knowledge of how much this was going to hurt, I plodded toward the room's other entrance, dragging my broken ankle behind me as I slung my duffel bag over my good shoulder. IF the Judge managed to get past the Phantasm, I'd need something other than two good limbs to defend myself. I went over to the doorjamb and, miraculously without falling over, slammed my left shoulder into the wall.

I didn't get a second miracle. This time I fell over, and the room swam before my eyes. Not even the Bat had ever hurt me this much. He never had to. But gee, Ivy gets involved and I get broken in two places. Never would have predicted that.

Coughing, I rolled onto my side and found my left arm was responding again. I struggled to get my leg pouch open again, and then I extracted the syringe and vial. They were certainly more fragile than me, but unlike me they'd managed to avoid taking damage. The room I'd fallen into was pitch black, but the light coming from the other room was all I needed. I jammed the needle into the vial and pulled back, letting the liquid flow into the syringe.

If Ivy would just look at Woodrue once with anger instead of mindless love . . . that was my biggest fantasy of all. Why couldn't that come true too?

Suddenly I felt myself hoisted onto my feet from behind. "Oh great, not again," I thought before I noticed I was behind held by human arms, not plant life.

Unfortunately, the arms belonged to the Floronic Man.

"Funny," he breathed into my ear. "While I was waiting back there to see who would exit first, I never thought it would be you."

"See, until yesterday I was a great judge of what's funny," I growled, "and I would have said that wasn't funny at all."

One of his arms changed places, so that it was wrapped around my neck. It's hard making witty remarks when you can barely breathe.

"Sad, then," he replied. "Sad that you're not Giovanni after all. He didn't die, you know. Now it is you who gets to be Beatrice. You too 'must pass heavily, with that broken heart, across the borders'."

I wanted to retort with a quote of my own, but like I said, talking wasn't really an option.

The only option, therefore, was to stab him in the thigh with the needle.

I could always have more made - assuming I lived another day.

He cried out and slapped at my hand. The syringe snapped, and I dropped the plastic pieces, leaving the needle still in his leg. Then Jason threw me aside, and in the dark I had no idea where I was falling until my shoulder hit a wall. My left shoulder, naturally, and I whimpered as I slid to the floor.

Then he started screaming somewhere behind me. I didn't dare move. With my broken ankle, it would have been pointless. Besides, the noises he was making - they were kinda creeping me out. Instead I began rummaging around in my bag for a weapon I could defend myself with, or at least something to light the room with.

My fingers wrapped around a chill metal cylinder, and I shivered.

"What the - HELL was in that?" Jason said somewhere to my right.

"Hopefully, a rewind button," I said before remembering that he didn't know where I was until I had spoken. Whoops.

Not that it mattered, because he found the light switch a moment later. The light hurt my eyes, but I opened them in a hurry when I felt him fall on top of me. "Sorry, you bitch," he snarled, "but I have no sunflowers in my DNA for you to remove."

"Just whatever alterations you needed made if you were going to survive Pammy's touch," I replied. I flicked the switch on the side of the canister in my hand, and I heard a hissing sound. Almost instantly I noticed a strange odor.

Jason's head snapped around. "What was that!" he demanded.

"Something you've always needed," I told him. "A good, long laugh." Either Ivy's poison was going to keep me immune, or it wasn't. Either the chemist's cocktail worked on Jason, or it hadn't. In a minute we could both be dead or alive. A no-lose situation, when you thought about it. Except for me maybe dying. And him maybe living.

Now THAT was funny. And I started to laugh.

And so did he. I found that incredibly satisfying, and impossibly hilarious.

"Your - your silly laughing gas, ha ha, cannot affect me," he chuckled in disbelief. Laughing disbelief, of course.

"It's not silly, you jerkoff, hee hee," I retorted. "It's s-so funny, you'll DIE laughing!"

Jason could die! I was so thrilled, I began laughing hysterically. I was literally "rolling in the aisle", and my ankle was burning, and even THAT was funny.

My own laughter was exceeded only by his, harsh and braying. Blood sprayed from his mouth, and a little spattered my tassels.

I was screaming with laughter, but at that point I think I was just plain screaming too. My whole body felt like it was rocketing toward some internal boiling point. Suddenly it wasn't funny any longer, but I couldn't stop. All I did was laugh, while my insides roasted. Oh God, oh God, was THIS what the chemist had wanted me to use all this time? I heard the insane laughter coming from my mouth, and that was the opposite of what I'd always tried to do. I wanted people to smile, not go mad!

I felt something leaking from my eyes. I couldn't tell if it was tears or blood. I hoped the chemist meant it when he said only I was worthy of using Smilex. That way, it would never be used again after I died. It could only bring true laughter to one person - its creator.

My hands were over my mouth. I had a vague notion that it was the only thing keeping me from laughing my organs out of my throat. Then I felt my hands pushed away, and I blacked out.

Finally. All this dying-but-not-quite was starting to become a running gag.


I coughed as I opened my eyes. Where was I? Gingerly I lifted my head.

I was in a dimly lit room. I was lying in bed. There was a tube running out of my arm. Apparently I was in the hospital.

Then I groaned. "It IS a running gag," I thought.

"Well, you finally woke up."

I turned my head slightly. A woman in white was walking toward me.

It was the Phantasm, sans costume.

Maybe I was dead after all.

"What - " I tried to say, but she put her fingers over my lips.

"Don't try to speak," she said. "You've been unconscious for over three days. I wasn't sure if you'd make it." She chuckled. "I wasn't sure if any of us would the other night."

I tried to speak, but she wouldn't let me.

"Let me think," she continued. "Nod if I'm right. You want to know why you're alive?"

I nodded. I wanted to know a lot of things, but that was one of them.

"Partly due to around-the-clock medical care for the past few days," Phantasm told me. "But mostly due to your friend Ivy. She saved you."

I stared at her. Oh shit. If she'd saved me, then she must have saved Jason first. He was still alive. Damn, damn, damn!

She saw the bleak look in my eyes. "You're thinking about the Floronic Man, right?" When I nodded, she smiled. It was a savage, joyous smile, and I stopped breathing. "Oh, he's dead, all right. Lucky for you she picked you first."

I was stunned for a moment. And then, a tiny laugh trickled up my throat and past her fingers. For the first time in days, I laughed like I used to. My sense of humor was back.

"She's awake?"

The Phantasm stood up quickly and turned around. At last I could speak freely - or at least, freely ask for a drink of water, because my throat felt like sandpaper. "Just now," she said to someone I couldn't see.

"Good. We need to talk."

"She just - "

"Gotham's been in a minor uproar since Woodrue was uprooted. She can listen, and she can nod her head."

A seated figure emerged from the shadows and came closer. It was a woman in an electric wheelchair, I saw. Like the man in the Judge costume, I'd never seen her before. But from the way she spoke to Phantasm, I had a pretty good idea of who she was.

"Oracle," I whispered.

"Hm, very good," she said. "I can see we'll do just fine together." She adjusted her glasses and adjusted her long black hair so that it fell behind her shoulders. Like the Canary and the Phantasm, she was pretty hot - who were these people? Charlie's Angels?

Of course, none of them were as beautiful as -

"Ivy?" I asked.

The Phantasm's hand moved into my field of vision with a cup of water, and I drank carefully. My throat felt a little better, and I stared at Oracle. "Where's Ivy?"

"Sleeping," Oracle told me. "But we can talk about her later."

"I wanna see her," I whined.

"And I'd like to walk again, but we don't always get what we want," she replied sharply, and I frowned. "First of all, I studied the gas canister you used on Woodrue and yourself. The residue doesn't match anything in my databanks. What is it, and where did you get it?"

"Smilex," I said. "Killer laughing gas."

"You've never used lethal gas before."

"I never wanted to kill someone before."

"Point," she conceded. "Who created it?"

I hesitated. I wouldn't exactly endear myself to some people if I turned the chemist in.

"I will not allow that gas to be used again EVER, Quinn," she said coldly. "It's an abomination. And if you're going to cooperate . . ."

"Cooperate?" I asked. "What is this, a Russian prison?"

"Harley, you murdered a man the other night. At the moment, nobody knows it was you except for Phantasm, Canary, Ivy, and myself. That can change."

I chuckled. "Man inhales gas and laughs himself to death - I think they'll be able to connect it to me."

"The autopsy findings were already released. Apparently there were so many different toxins and chemicals in his system, the coroner is amazed he didn't die ten years ago. The best they could say is that Woodrue's immunity ceased functioning, but they don't know why THAT happened either. Phantasm and Canary - I'm sorry, Andrea and Dinah, you might as well learn their names - took you and Ivy away. Right now, they're pinning the murder on the Judge, who was the only other person on the scene when the police arrived. Considering he's attempted murder in the past, it's not a major stretch for the police to think that."

"Andrea . . . what do you mean, I might as well learn their names?" I asked suspiciously.

"I'll get to that later."

"Oh yeah? Then what's YOUR name?"

She smiled. "Helena Bertinelli."

"Oh, now it all makes sense," I muttered.

"It will."

I looked away and pouted.

"Harley Quinn."

"What?"

"Look at me. As I said, I'm the only one who determines whether or not you go to prison for murder."

"Prison? Ha! Everyone knows I'm insane."

"You went to Jason's hideout with poison gas, chemicals which somehow ended his immunity to said poison, and a syringe to inject it with. You're best friends with his sidekick Ivy, and Ivy's medical history includes several injuries attributed to domestic violence. And you killed him. A prosecutor could argue you knew exactly what you were doing, and since Andrea has described to me what sounds curiously like the actions of a sane, if extremely angry woman, I'd bet the state could locate psychiatrists who are smart enough to tell when someone is insane and when someone is faking it," she said. "How does life in Blackgate sound?"

As I've described, it didn't sound good at all. No escape routes, no secret caches, no nothing.

"Even if you DO manage to beat the rap and return to Arkham," she went on ruthlessly, "everyone will know you killed the Floronic Man."

"So?" I asked. "Jason wasn't exactly known for his social skills. No one will be sorry he's gone."

"True enough. Do you like westerns?"

I blinked, thrown off by her strange question. "Uh, no, not really. I was always more of a - "

"Comedy girl, right?" she asked.

I nodded.

"Well, I love westerns. And do you know what happens in westerns to the fastest guns?"

I shook my head. Was this how she paid for her freelance hacking patrol? Film reviews at the Gotham Post?

"Every young kid looking to make a name for himself seeks out the fastest gun in the West and challenges him to a draw. I mean, if Pat Garrett could say 'I shot Billy the Kid', then the man who killed Pat Garrett could say, 'I shot the man who shot Billy the Kid'. Do you see what I'm getting at, Harley?"

I thought I did. She was saying that there were people who would want a piece of me because I killed Jason. Not because they liked him, but because it was an easy way to make their reputation. And in the Gotham underworld, reputation is everything, people are crazy, and nobody is afraid of taking a life. I could be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my - very short life.

I gulped.

"NOW does it make sense?" she asked me gently.

"You're saying - it doesn't matter if I know who you are or not, because all you have to do is tell the police everything you know," I said, and I trembled.

Oracle, or Helena, smiled at me. It didn't SEEM especially cruel or sadistic, but why else would she be doing this to me? "I'm not trying to scare you, Harley. But in my experience, people like you need strong boundaries. If you do what I ask, you'll be smiling when it's all over. If not, well . . ."

"There's a chemist," I said.

I gave him up. It didn't bother me as much as it might have. He'd been acting like a total jerk lately, and having personally sampled his wares for the first time, I didn't think I could use his product again in the future. Still, he HAD created the mixture that helped kill Jason, and for that I'd be eternally -

"Wait!" I cried out. I tried to sit up, but my body protested vigorously, and I lay back. "The chemicals he made me, the stuff I gave to Jason - it was meant for Ivy. It was supposed to - "

"I told her already," Andrea said from the other side of the room.

"Yes, you were trying to cure some kind of genetic compulsion, correct?" Helena asked, frowning.

"I used the last of it. I gotta get more from him, or Ivy's gonna be in love with Jason forever!"

"I don't think that's feasible, Harley," she said.

I closed my eyes. I broke her heart the other night, and I'd go on breaking it for the remainder of Pammy's days. It wasn't supposed to happen like this!

"We'll worry about that later," Helena said, shrugging. "First - "

"No," I growled, opening my eyes and glaring at her. "You can send me to prison, you can get me killed, but I've gotta cure Pammy whether you like it or not. I'm not sayin' nuthin' else otherwise."

Helena looked at Andrea. "Can you do anything for Isley?" she asked.

"I can run some tests, but it's not going to be easy. She's not exactly safe to approach."

"I can hack into Arkham's files. They must have data there on how to safely handle her," Helena said.

"I may want to consult with my mother too," Andrea said. "She's a better doctor than I am."

"Wait, you're a DOCTOR!" I said, looking at her. "And you wanted to kill him? What, what about the Hippocratic Oath thing?" Ha, more like Hypocritic!

She did look a bit sheepish. "I was angry," she said. "My sister was going to be a doctor too. I thought - I would kill him for all the patients my sister would never treat. Later I realized how foolish that was."

"It didn't seem foolish the other night," I said darkly.

"No, it didn't," she agreed. "Not until I returned from our first meeting, anyway."

"Our first - you set me up!"

"She told us," Helena confirmed. "Andrea knew you'd promised to include her in the killing. But she went in to keep you from killing Jason, not help you. I had Dinah in reserve in case things went sour, but the Judge knocked her out from behind. By the time she came to, Andrea had the Judge under control and you were almost dead. Fortunately Dinah was at least able to help clean up the scene."

I took it back. Even the Phantasm tried to screw me over the other night.

"So who was that guy anyway, since we're giving names?" I asked.

"His name was Jean-Paul Valley," she said. "Apparently he was indoctrinated into some sort of cult and trained to be a Judge."

"You mean THE Judge."

"No, I mean A Judge. It seems there are more out there. Which is part of the reason why we're having this discussion. AND," she sighed, "why I will do everything I can to determine what makes Ivy love Jason, and how it can be cured." She must have seen my sulky expression, because she shook her head. "Forget it, Harley. It's all I can offer you."

Finally I broke down. "What else do you want?" I asked. "What do these Judges have to do with me?"

"Let me tell you a little something about myself," she said.

There she went, going off on tangents again.

"My father was a very important man in one of Gotham's crime families," she explained. "When I was ten years old, my parents were murdered in a drive-by shooting. I was also in the car, but I was lucky, after a fashion. The bullet that hit me only paralyzed me from the waist down. From that moment on, I dedicated my life to seeing the killers punished. Eventually, as I got older and turned to computers as a means of moving beyond my wheelchair, I decided it was organized crime itself that was responsible."

"Then why are you hassling hackers?"

"It's just a small part. Crime is crime, whether it's organized or not. Mafia, gangs, lunatics like the Floronic Man - the Batman has the right idea. The police aren't doing enough."

"So you're a crimefighter."

"Exactly. Except, like Nero Wolfe - you don't know who I'm talking about, do you?"

"Nope. Sorry. Do you know who Doctor Rappacini is?"

Helena looked blankly at me.

"Then we're even. Go on."

"As I was saying," she said, looking skyward for a moment, "I can't use the information I've gathered from a wheelchair. So I hired the Black Canary as my field operative. She was looking to re-establish herself after leaving the JSA. Later, when I realized she needed a partner, I used my hacking to track down the Phantasm. I offered her the chance to accomplish her goals without taking lives."

"So do you call yourselves anything? Oracle's Posse, maybe?"

"Birds of Prey, actually."

I snorted. "Guess you've never seen a canary."

"Don't laugh. You'll be joining as soon as your ankle heals."

My eyes got big. "Excuse me!"

Helena laughed. "It's because of the Judges, you see. They're out there killing people, taught by a cult called the Order of St. Dumas not to question their own actions. They're fanatics, crusaders. And until now, nobody seems to have realized that there's more than one. They tend to lie in wait until a member of the order has killed, then take turns. It creates the illusion that a single Judge is traveling from city to city."

"And how did YOU figure this out?"

"Please. I'm the Oracle. Anyway, we were able to extract some information from him before the police approached, and I've decided to send Dinah and Andrea after the remaining Judges. That means I'll be alone here in Gotham."

"And you expect me to just take their place, right wrongs, yadda yadda?" I asked.

"Something like that."

"Don't kid a kidder," I retorted.

"I'll leave the jokes to you, Harley. I'm more of a straight man - woman, that is. Look, I'm not saying you have to become another Batman or something."

"Good, because I'd need to have my sense of humor surgically removed."

"I want you to be undercover," she explained. "So much of my work is predicated on gathering information. You're one of the most well-known members of Gotham's criminal underworld. You're a hell of a source, and I intend to use it."

"So I can still commit crimes?" I asked hopefully.

She frowned. "No."

"Well, that makes NO sense at all! How am I supposed to maintain my standing with the others if I stop breaking the law? Pretty soon, I won't have any information to give you."

"All right," she sighed. "You can go on with your big, flashy comedic stunts like you did with the stock exchange building. But NO major property damage, NO hurting people, and anything you steal HAS to find its way back to the owners!" she said, pointing a finger at me. "You want to make people laugh? Then you do it without breaking my rules."

I moped. "I guess I can work something out."

"And I need the Spoiler's identity."

"Oh, come on!"

"I don't want her arrested. She's the best hacker out there, next to me. I want to hire her. Like you, she has fingers in parts of the underworld I can't get to. She'll have to restrain her troublemaking impulses just like you will, but eventually, I'm hoping the two of you could make a good team."

"Eventually? How long do I have to do this for you?"

"I think that, with time, you'll want to do this."

I started crying. Why did all the great comedians have to overcome such adversities?

To be concluded . . .