Jonathan Crane knocked on the door to the warden's office in Arkham Asylum. "Come in!" called Harley, cheerfully.
"I just wanted to let you know that the attack has begun as planned…" he said, but trailed off when he saw the scene in front of him. Harley was sitting on a tattered sofa, while J.J. lay with his head in her lap, holding a tablet and watching the footage of the fear gas attack in Pauli's Diner. Harley stroked his hair back as they both watched the chaos, giggling to themselves.
There was nothing inherently wrong with the tender moment between mother and son – it just seemed completely bizarre when coupled with the act of brutality J.J. had committed the other day. The juxtaposition of the clearly violently insane young man being treated like a sweet and caring child was disturbing to say the least. Especially when Harley blew out a bubble of gum, and J.J. looked up at her and asked, "Oooh, gum for me, Mommy?"
"Sure thing, sweetie," she said, pulling the gum out of her mouth and tearing it in half. She plopped one half into his open mouth, and then returned the other half to her mouth.
Well, some bird mothers regurgitated food for their offspring in the wild, thought Crane, trying to rationalize the behavior. But then nature was generally disgusting. Crane tried to erase the image from his mind – he cleared his throat and repeated, "The attack has begun as planned, as you can see."
"Yeah, not bad, grandpa," said J.J., nodding. "This fear gas stuff of yours is all right. I was skeptical, I gotta admit, but you did a good job getting the ball rolling. But the Arkham Night's gonna take it from here," he said, standing up, putting on his helmet, and stretching.
"Why were you skeptical?" demanded Crane. "I was fear gassing people before you were even conceived!"
"Well, your file says that the doctors doubted your competency to achieve anything like mass terror," said J.J., nodding to a pile of folders on the desk. "Apparently they thought you were just a raving lunatic."
"Raving lunatic?" repeated Crane, heading over to the files. "How dare they? I gassed Dr. Murphy and Dr. Kellerman under this very roof!"
"It was a Dr. Young who wrote that," said J.J. "And Mommy says she was kinda an idiot, so it makes sense that her beliefs would be wrong."
"Dr. Young was the one who thought she could cure your Daddy," said Harley, nodding. "So yeah, total idiot."
"You've been studying our files?" asked Crane, flipping through the names on the folders. They included everyone involved in the attack, plus Joker. "And your father's?"
"Yeah, Mommy's told me a lot about him, but it's always good to read other perspectives," said J.J. "But his file just confirmed what Mommy always told me – he was clearly a great guy. Respected and feared by everyone in Gotham, and beyond. That's quite a legacy for me to live up to, but I'm going to do my best."
"You are living up to it, baby," purred Harley, kissing his cheek. "Your Daddy would be so proud of you."
"And you should see the crap those idiot doctors wrote about Mommy!" chuckled J.J. "Saying she was a victim of Daddy's – that he twisted her mind and brainwashed her and that she became codependent on his abuse, like some sorta Stockholm syndrome! They didn't know Mommy at all!"
"No, they could never understand what Mr. J made me understand," murmured Harley. "I was like them once, thinking I knew better than everyone. But your Daddy showed me the truth – he opened my eyes to what the world could really be like. A place of fun and laughter and happiness, if we only had the courage to embrace the madness and see it. He saved me. Without him, I woulda gone through life blind to reality, going through my daily grind of fear and loathing, like everyone else in Gotham. Your Daddy released me from that. He made everything fun, and the world bright. He gave me you. Whatever he was to anyone else, he was my angel. And I know he's smiling down on us now."
"Yes…heaven is definitely where he is," agreed Crane, hoping they couldn't detect the sarcasm in his voice. "And I'm sure he'll be very pleased that his son is carrying on his legacy of attacking Gotham and baiting Batman."
"Well, let's hope," agreed J.J. "Sadly there's no file to read on Batman – God knows he could have used a psychiatric evaluation or twenty. Parents getting murdered in front of his eyes at a young age and all – again, it's so obvious Bruce Wayne is Batman when you think about it. I'm actually shocked you people couldn't figure it out earlier."
"Mr. J always said knowing who Batman was would have spoiled the fun," said Harley. "But if he knew it was Bruce Wayne, I think he would have appreciated the joke. A billionaire with all the money in the world, so rich he can do whatever he wants, and he wants to dress up in a Halloween costume and beat up criminals. That's just hilarious."
The door opened again. "Good news – Penguin's guys switched allegiances just like you said they would," said Two-Face, striding into the room with Riddler behind him. "They're in my gang now."
"Excellent, Harv," said Arkham Night. "I knew I could count on you."
"Yeah, and here's the head back, just like you asked," said Two-Face, handing a bag to the Arkham Night. "A few of the guys wanted proof of Penguin's death, but after they saw what you did to his face, they folded like a pack of cards."
"Of course they did," said Arkham Night, nodding. "Brutal violence works every time. Harley, go put this somewhere safe, would you?" he asked, handing her the bag.
"Sure thing, sweetie," said Harley, skipping over to go put it in the safe.
"And how's your robot army coming along, Nygma?" asked Arkham Night, turning to him.
"Yes, sir, it's producing steadily, sir," said Nygma, clearly terrified. "It's a highly efficient production line, creating hundreds of robots daily. I designed it specially for mass production as I needed hundreds at a time to guard my riddle rooms and trophies…"
"Great, I didn't ask for your life story," interrupted Arkham Night. "Shut up."
"Yes, sir, I'll shut up, sir," said Nygma.
"Then do it!" snapped Arkham Night, striking him across the back of the head. "Geez, yak, yak, yak – I don't know how you people put up with him when you were locked away in here together."
"There were a lotta swirlies," agreed Two-Face, nodding.
"You know how you're described in these files, Nygma?" asked Arkham Night, gesturing to the desk. "Baseless ego compared to feeble intellectual ability. Like your whole life is a giant case of the Dunning-Kruger effect, which I'll explain since you won't know what that is. It's thinking yourself smarter than you really are, when in reality, you're just about average intelligence. I don't give these Arkham doctors credit for much, but they're certainly right about that."
"Yes, sir, I'm sure they are," agreed Nygma.
"Wow, good job," said Two-Face, impressed. "Not even Joker could have got Nygma to admit he isn't all he thinks he is in terms of brains."
"Yes, the Arkham Night is…even worse than Joker," agreed Crane, glancing at Harley, who just smiled lovingly at her son. Crane wondered if she appreciated or even realized what sort of monster she had created. But then he suspected she was so far gone from the realms of sanity that she didn't care anymore – clearly nothing mattered to her except vengeance for the Joker, and carrying on his legacy in his son.
Crane supposed he should have felt sorry for J.J., a child having no choice but to become a worse version of his father. But then his actions left very little room for sympathy – it might be a fact that he was still an innocent child, but that was very difficult to reconcile with someone who had done what he did to Penguin.
But then Crane had never bought into the theory of childhood innocence anyway – his own childhood bullying had shown him the monstrous deeds children were capable of. There was no inherent goodness in children in his mind – they were just wild animals without any sense of morality or empathy. So he supposed he shouldn't be surprised at J.J. acting the way he did – his father had been a perpetual child in that regard, with no moral compass or compassion for others. And if his mother had wanted the same for him, it was no surprise he had turned out the way he had. He couldn't imagine Harley ever having disciplined J.J. - she clearly completely indulged him. But he couldn't figure out how much of his behavior was due to her intentions while rearing him, and how much was due to the boy being the son of the Joker and sharing his same insanely homicidal genes. It certainly didn't settle the old nature vs. nurture debate, but it did make him feel grateful he had never decided to reproduce.
"Ok, Craney, should we get over to Ace Chemicals?" asked the Arkham Night, turning to him and startling him out of his musings. "If you wanna make your fear gas bomb, the clock is ticking. And I certainly don't wanna be late for Batsy. While he's hunting us down there, that should give Nygma and Harvey enough time to finish getting their respective armies together to launch the assault on Gotham. With the city evacuated thanks to Craney's threat, taking over should be a piece of cake. The cops will be powerless against an army of thugs and robots, and Crane's fear gas bomb if Batsy doesn't stop him in time."
"And if he does?" asked Crane. "Do you have an ace up your sleeve so we're both not dragged off to jail before this begins?"
"Oh yes," said Arkham Night, and Crane could hear the glee in his filtered voice as he imagined his father's smile splitting his face. "Oh yes, I do."