Harley pointed the gun at the trembling hostages, beaming in excitement as she called, "How's it coming, puddin'?"
"Nearly done, pooh!" called back Joker. He emerged from a room in the museum with an armful of treasure, including a diamond-studded tiara, which he placed on Harley's head. "There you go, milady! A crown for the queen of Gotham!"
"Aw, puddin', it's beautiful!" she exclaimed. "Do I have to call you your majesty now?"
"Nah, puddin's good," he chuckled.
"What about King J?" she asked.
"My subjects can call me that," he said, waving his hand. "My doll don't need to call me a lotta fancy titles."
"Aw, but it's kinda sexy to be intimate with you and call you a cute, playful, professional name," she purred, kissing him. "Mistah J."
"Oooh, I like that!" he giggled. "Keep that one! Now, hostages," he said, turning to face them. "I'm gonna be a nice guy and let you go."
They stared at him in shock. "Thank…thank…you…"
And that's when Joker ripped out his gun and shot them all in the face. "Only joking!" he laughed. "Just wanted to see the looks on their faces right before I delivered the punchline!"
He kept giggling, pulling out a knife to mutilate the faces into smiles. "Y'know, Johnny's little fear toxin thing gave me kinda an idea – maybe I can invent a gas to do this smiling stuff for me! Would save having to dry clean the suit to get the blood off every time!" he laughed. "But then I'd lose the pleasure of the hands-on approach, and the satisfaction of a job well done."
"Plus it's really hot watching you work, Mr. J," purred Harley. "We need to get back to the car soon so your Harley girl can show you just how happy you make her."
"That would be very unladylike behavior, pooh," he giggled.
"I ain't a lady," she retorted. "I'm a bad, bad, bad girl. And I love my bad, bad, bad man."
He kissed her, cupping her face in his gloved, bloodied hands. "You're one hot little number like this, pooh," he whispered. "In your cute little clown costume, to match mine, your face all white and red and bloodied..."
"Puddin'!" she whined. "Let's go to the car if you're gonna do the dirty talk!"
He giggled. "Okie dokie! My work here is done anyway," he said, beaming at the corpses as he hoisted the bag of loot over his shoulder. "Let's beat it, kid!"
"You're not going anywhere," growled a voice. Batman had appeared in front of them, with a few improvements to his costume. He had added a utility belt for one, with gadgets and weapons he could use. "You're going back to jail, Napier."
"Dunno who this Napier guy is, Batsy!" giggled Joker. "You don't see me calling you Wayne, do you? Because even if that's who you were, it's not who you are now. I'm the Joker, and you're the Batman. It may be crazy, but that's the world we live in!"
"You're wrong," growled Batman. "The police are cracking down on the criminals. Your friends have been locked up. Gotham is going to be a city of order now, a city where decent people can live in peace."
Joker laughed hysterically, shaking his head. "No, no, no, Batsy!" he giggled. "It won't be! That was the city you ruined, with your straight and narrow justice, with your black and white and good and bad and your obsession with stopping crime! And now you've got something even worse! You've got madness in the streets, insanity running rampant! And that's gonna do a lot more damage to your precious order than organized crime ever did, believe me!"
"Why would anyone believe you?" demanded Batman. "A man who calls himself the Joker…"
"And that's the joke!" giggled Joker. "Because you never know when I'm serious or not! But trust me, Batsy, right now I'm not kidding! When one kinda order collapses, the thing that fills the void isn't more order. It's chaos. And that's what you got now, Batsy. Random, violent chaos."
"Are you coming to jail quietly, or will I have to restrain you?" demanded Batman.
Joker grinned. "Yeah, let's see what you got in your bag of tricks, Batsy," he murmured. "I'll go first!" he said, reaching into the bag and grabbing a tommy gun.
He began firing repeating rounds at Batman, laughing hysterically as Batman dodged out of the way, running for cover. Harley joined him by firing her pistol at Batman, grinning insanely.
Batman ducked behind a pillar, reaching into his utility belt and withdrawing a Batarang. He flung it at Joker, the metal slicing off the barrel of the gun and rendering it useless. That just left Harley to deal with, he thought, as he threw a smoke grenade at the clowns.
Harley coughed and choked, looking around for Batman but blinded by the smoke. And then a dark shape leapt on top of her, knocking the gun from her hand and kicking her to the ground. He cuffed her hands behind her back, and then looked around for the Joker. He was racing toward the door, and Batman pulled out a grappling gun, firing the hook at Joker as the rope twisted around his legs and brought him down. Batman came over to handcuff him to find him still chuckling.
"Nice toys!" he laughed. "You've been busy since our last encounter! Can't wait to see what you bring to the next party!"
"There won't be a next party," growled Batman, handcuffing him. "You're both going to jail, and you're going to stay there forever."
Joker laughed hysterically. "Now who's the Joker?" he chuckled, beaming at him.
Batman ignored him, pulling him and Harley to their feet and dragging them out of the museum.
…
"Just put them in here, Mr. Wayne," said Matron Leland, leading Batman down a wing of cells as he dragged Joker and Harley behind him. "It's our new wing for…the more mentally unbalanced of our inmates. It's a good idea to keep them separate from the regular prisoners after Ivy managed to…strangle a few inmates with some vines."
"They deserved it," muttered Poison Ivy, who sat in her cell, petting her plants as they curled around her. "Humanity will only use and abandon you. It deserves to be destroyed."
"I didn't abandon you, Pam!" roared Harvey Dent, across the cell-block. "You abandoned me! The moment I wasn't handsome or powerful enough, you left!"
"You left first!" she screamed. "All men…always leave me first…won't trust them anymore," she murmured. "Won't trust anything but plants."
"We call it the Arkham wing, as a casual nickname," said Leland. "You can see why."
Batman paused in front of Dent's cell – he had finally woken up, but his mind had remained as damaged as his face. He sat on his bed, flipping a coin and staring off into the middle-distance.
"Is he going to be brought to trial?" asked Batman, softly.
"He can't really defend himself, Mr. Wayne," said Leland, gently. "Mr. Dent's not in there anymore. He's gone."
"The only trial I deserve is this one," growled Dent, glaring up at Bruce with both of his faces as he held up a coin. "Heads or tails. The coin decides my fate, not a courtroom full of idiots. Fate is the one, true justice, Mr. Wayne. Maybe someday you'll understand that. Can't hide your sins from fate. One day they'll all be laid bare before you, burned away, and you'll be revealed for the monster you truly are."
Joker giggled as Batman dragged him off, turning away from the former District Attorney. Further on down the cells was Jonathan Crane, scribbling notes to himself and looking up only to glare at Batman. And then there was Jervis Tetch, muttering nonsense quotes to himself repeatedly. And further on were more and more cells with more and more inmates, in what looked almost to be a never-ending chain of madness.
Batman's heart sank as he shoved Joker and Harley into the single remaining cell at the end of the corridor. "Told ya, Batsy!" giggled Joker. "Look at all the good your order and justice has done! Just take a look around!"
He laughed hysterically as Harley curled up against him, kissing him and beaming. Batman turned to go. "You know this won't hold us, right?" called Joker, after him. "We'll all be out again soon! Out on the streets, spreading our madness, causing chaos and destruction! And it's all thanks to you, Batman! See you soon, buddy! See you real soon!"
His maniacal, mocking laughter followed Batman out of the cell block. And deep in his heart, Batman knew he was right. He was responsible for all of these people, all these insane, monstrous, murderous people. He had created them. They were his responsibility, and he was damn well going to live up to his responsibility to protect Gotham from them, even if he had failed to protect them from themselves. He had failed once again, and now he was doomed to pay the price for his failure over and over again, night after night, living among the insane.
It was enough to drive anyone mad.
The End