Issue #6 – Gotcha

"Can't this thing go any faster?" Robin asked.

"It only takes ten minutes to get to Gotham in the T-Jet," Cyborg replied.

"The sooner he's behind glass, the sooner I'll feel better."

"Me too. This is the longest ten minutes of my life. No wonder he turned to a life of crime. His material as a comedian is terrible."

Starfire and Beast Boy had led Joker down the corridor to the T-Jet, Cyborg, Robin, and Raven keeping guard on him as well. The rest of the Titans had tagged along too, curious in case there would be action. But there was no action. Joker had persisted to tell joke after joke, each one worse than the last, until Starfire finally asked, "May I please explode his voice box? One short blast to the throat should do it."

"Oh come on. The one about the priest and the penguin, that one wasn't so bad," Beast Boy said.

"Leave it to you to find scatological animal humor funny," Raven teased.

"Hey, it's more fun than a barrel of monkeys." Beast Boy's skin stretched, his frame became bulkier, and suddenly he was a gorilla.

Raven covered her mouth to suppress a chuckle. He was so cute sometimes.

"Titans! Focus!" Robin barked.

Beast Boy immediately reverted back to human form, but he looked back at Wonder Girl, Superboy, and Kid Flash standing on the ramp. He rolled his eyes.

They rolled theirs back.

"I'll be glad when Joker's back in Arkham," Superboy muttered. "That way Robin will chill the hell out."

"Me too," Wonder Girl and Kid Flash echoed. Then Kid Flash added, "If he chills out…"

After Joker was loaded, Robin and Cyborg boarded, and then they were off. They had only been off the ground for a minute, and Joker had already shot through three jokes, laughing hysterically at himself. Robin sat across from him, arms crossed, unflinching. The laughter bounced off him like rain drops on an umbrella.

"Did you ever hear this one, kid? A lady walks into a butcher shop complaining about some hot dogs she had just bought. 'The middle is meat,' she said, 'but the ends are sawdust!' 'Well,' the butcher replied, 'these days it's hard to make ends meat!'" He clutched his sides through the straight jacket and howled with laughter.

Robin refolded his arms. He still had himself on full alert, but by now, Joker's routine was starting to wear on even him. One time while fighting Poison Ivy, she had covered him in poison oak. Everywhere. He had scratched for a full week, even been scolded by a teacher for 'adjusting himself' in class. Looking back, it seemed much less irritating than this.

"Okay, okay, how about this one. Two girls go to this costume party, right? Both dressed as Betty Boop. When they see each other, they get very angry, because they can't stand the thought of someone else wearing the same costume. They start feuding, and one of them grabs the other's name tag and changes it so it reads, 'Betty Bop.' The second immediately did the same, and thus they were both wearing the same wrong name tag and were angrier than ever.

"Suddenly, there was a moan. Oooowwwwoooo! And a ghost appeared to them, also dressed as Betty Boop. It moaned, "Bewaarrre! Bewarrre, mortals! I was once such as you, but through my pettiness and wrath I came to this! Oooo! Beware, lest ye too suffer my grim fate! Beware!" But the two girls, being pigheaded as women are, ignored the ghost and kept feuding.

"Things continued along these lines until there was a scat-singing contest. When it was the first girl's turn, she did an amazing, a spectacular, an astounding job, so much so that the audience insisted on an encore! This made the second girl snap, and she was so mad she snuck up onto the bandstand and slipped a big bomb into the bass drum. But being a rank amateur, she overestimated the length of the song, and it ended before she could get away. The drummer hit the bass drum, the bomb went off, and both the girls and several innocent bystanders were horribly killed!"

The Joker started to chuckle. "And the moral of the story is: Bop, Bop, Boo-Bop: She Bopped, Bam, Boom!" The Joker clutched his sides again, and this time he howled so loudly that he rolled backwards on the floor, kicking his feet on the ground in a hysterical fit. His sandals flew into the air and struck him in the face.

When the laughter finally subsided, he had tears in his eyes, which streamed down his face. He struggled with the straight jacket, but finally forced himself up. "You're not laughing." He frowned. "Are you all right?"

Robin didn't flinch.

"The silent treatment? I understand. You picked that up from Bats. But you used to be so chatty. So carefree. You used to smile. What happened?"

"Shut up," Robin muttered.

"Why are you not happy?"

"I said shut up!" He struck the bars of Joker's cell with his staff, and Joker stepped back. He did as he was told and finally shut up.

"I don't know what you did back there," Cyborg called. "But thanks! By the way, we're now arriving in the beautiful and dismal Gotham City. Next stop, Arkham Asylum."

"Oh, goody," Joker sighed. "Home sweet Hell."

The T-Jet lowered, and it shook slightly as it came to a standstill. Cyborg rose from the driver's seat, and he stretched his arms. "The guards are expecting us. I'll go down and meet them. Can you handle bringing him out?"

Robin nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I got it."

"Alright. Good."

Cyborg hit a button, a ramp lowered, and he stepped outside. The smell of cool country air floated into the ship and struck Robin's nose. He thought of fishing, and the river, and camping trips with his dad.

Robin said nothing as he opened Joker's cell and guided the man down the ramp. But that didn't stop the Joker from talking.

"Say, kid, have you ever heard of Cesar Romero?…no? Well, I guess he was before your time. Most of what he did was complete shlock, but there was this one TV show in the 1960s where he was just dee-lightful. It was a good show too, I think you would have liked it. But on the show, he played a villain, and every time he showed up, he had some kind of wacky scheme with some goofy goal to aggravate the heroes. It was all rather pointless and silly, but as the wee Joker lad I was, it had me rolling on the floor splitting my pants with laughter! I must say, if that show had been on the air for only a year longer, instead of being a comedian, he might have inspired me to become an actor…."

Robin looked up, and he saw Cyborg standing next to two guards. It all happened in an instant, within the blink of an eye, but the guards reached for their guns. But before they could even undo the holsters, there was a crackle, an a streak of electricity arced through the air and struck Cyborg in the back. He screamed, his body glowing blue, and then he started to smoke. He collapsed to the ground. His face turned towards Robin. The red eye, the one on the mechanical side of his face, it flickered then went out.

"Cyborg!" Robin called.

"It's a good thing I didn't become an actor, though I must say I'm impressed," Joker said. "You saw through the act the whole time. A hypnotic bowtie! Ha! That is bonkers—even for the Joker!"

A rumble started in Joker's throat, the beginnings of a chuckle. The guards almost had their guns out, but before they could turn off the safeties, two darts sailed through the air, one striking each of the men in the throat. They clutched at their necks, then they stiffened. Their faces stretched into hideous smiles, like they were masks carved from wood, and then they started to laugh. They collapsed to the ground next to Cyborg, laughing. Kicking. Twitching.

Robin shoved Joker down, and he raced down the ramp, drawing his staff. Stopping at the bottom, he cursed himself, because it should have been so obvious. The face he stared into was pale. The costume was red and black like a court jester's. She smiled.

"Hey there, junior Batman! I'm so glad you could come out and play."

"Harley Quinn," Robin muttered.

"That's the name! Don't wear it out, because I don't know where I'd steal a new one. All the good ones are taken." She squealed, and she stood on her tiptoes, waving behind Robin. "Puddin'! There you are! How was San Francisco? Did you bring me anything?"

"Just a new pet bird," Joker sneered, and he lunged, wrapping his arms around Robin, pinning Robin's arms to his side. "Did you really think a straight jacket could hold me? I sleep in these things when the fire goes out in winter!"

Robin flexed his muscles, managed to get his feet on the ground. He crouched, tried to shoot himself into the air and out of Joker's grip. But Joker held on, pulled him back down, and held him up so his legs were mostly useless. He was strong. Why was he so strong? Robin strained again, but again nothing. He kicked at the Joker, and Joker sidestepped. Robin's fingers grazed his utility belt. He was so close. He had been in worse situations. He could handle this.

Then he heard the crackle of electricity.

Harley had produced something that resembled a tazer, only the metal prongs were about six inches long, and the electric arc leapt through the air upon reaching the top.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Har!" Joker laughed. "Turn that thing down some! We stole that from Lex Corps's military division. It's designed to take out tanks and fellows like the Tin Man over there. There's no telling what that'll do to bird boy at full power!"

"Oh, good thinkin', Mistah J!" Harley reached for the knob, and she turned it down. One single click.

"That's a girl!"

Robin struggled harder, but now Joker's arm slipped over his throat. He was losing oxygen. Harley held out the tazer.

"This is going to hurt you a lot more than it's going to hurt me, kid!"

The last thing Robin saw was the metal prongs reaching for his throat. Then everything went black. BZZZAAAT!