It was a beautiful summer's day in Gotham City. Unfortunately, the inmates of Arkham Asylum were locked inside. Poison Ivy sat next to her window, looking longingly up at the sunlight that she so needed to survive. In fact, she was about as close to the glass as she could be.

"Harley, I can't stand this anymore!" she moaned, looking down at the green grass growing so luxuriously and out of sight.

"Ivy, it's so hot in here," Harley whined, leaning up against the wall and fanning herself. "Can we shut the drapes?"

"NO!"

"Okay, okay…" she groaned, flopping over on the floor. "But will you clean me up when I melt all over the floor?"

Ivy was about to break down the window and jump out into the wonderful sunlight, when the cell door was slid open.

"Time for art class!" came the voice of a cheery nurse. Harley clapped and sprang to her feet, skipping out of the hallway. Ivy looked back at the window for a second, but walked out of the cell anyway.

"Is it outside?" she asked hopefully. The nurse shook her head.

"Sorry dear, it's in the rec room today."

"There aren't any windows in the rec room!"

The nurse shrugged. "Oh well."

Slowly, the other villains of Arkham began to emerge from their cells, looking particularly grumpy.

"I hate art." The Riddler whined, rubbing his eyes tiredly. Harvey Dent looked at him with great question.

"Hey Riddler, is that a nightcap?"

"What?"

The Scarecrow reached up, and pulled the nightcap off of the Riddler's head and showed it to him. It was green with purple question marks on it.

"Oh. Yes. It is, in fact, a nightcap."

"Girl."

"I am not a girl!"

"Can we stop it and get on with art or water polo or whatever we're being forced to do today?" the Joker said irritably, pulling Harvey back by the sleeve.

"Yeah. And besides, when you have two nightcaps, what would they say if you fed one of them three grapes and the other one a pineapple?"

"Um, I don't know. Three quarts of shut the hell up?" Harvey suggested. The Riddler scowled.

As the nurse led them down the hallway to the rec center, the Riddler was unraveling his newest riddle to those who were listening. Which was, to say, nobody.

"Get this. A hitchhiker walks up to a cave, right? And he has three dollars and five lollipops. But when he goes into the cave, he finds that he now has only two dollars, and seven lollipops, which are all salmon flavored. What happened?"

Everybody groaned, except for Harley, who cocked her head thoughtfully.

"Well, I would say that when he entered the cave, he dropped a dollar, and when he went back to go get it, the goblin that lives in the cave with his salmon flavored lollipops ran by, and they got stuck to his trousers. Meanwhile, the other regular flavored lollipops got contaminated by the salmon and are therefore now considered to be indeed salmon flavored lollipops."

Everyone, especially the Joker, looked at her with open mouths.

"What?" she shrugged. "I'm smart. I went to Harvard, don't you forget."

"You're amazing." The Riddler breathed. "Please be my new sidekick."

"Aw, you're sweet." She said, patting him on the face. "But I'm all Mistah J's."

"Take her, please." The Joker said in a hopeful tone.

"Can I really?"

"No, Mistah J, we're partners in crime!" she pouted, wrapping her arms around him from behind. He walked faster.

Ivy scowled. "Harley, he doesn't even care about you. When are you going to wake up and realize it?"

"Mistah J loves me, don't ya, puddin'?"

"No."

"See?" she beamed at Ivy, who rolled her eyes.

"Okay, here we are!" the nurse called, ushering them into the rec room. "Everyone find an easel!"

Ivy looked around, and saw that there was indeed a window in the rec room, which she did not know. Picking up the nearest easel, she walked over to the window and set it down next to it. Harley set hers up next to her, Harvey between Harley and the Joker, and the Riddler between the Joker and the Scarecrow so they came full circle.

"The light is really bright," the Scarecrow commented, blinking rapidly. "I can't see my easel."

"We'll just shut the blinds," the nurse said, walking over to the window, but Ivy growled and lashed a thorny tendril at the nurse, who backed off. "Or we can leave it the way it is."

"But I can't see."

"Turn your easel around then, idiot." Harvey muttered.

"What was that?"

"I said, turn your easel around, you GOD DAMN MORON!"

"Don't be mean to him," The Riddler put in. "Or I will tell you another riddle."

That shut Harvey up pretty effectively.

"All right every one, I want you all to paint something that you feel. Whatever emotion it is that you…yes, Joker?"

"Is hilarity an emotion?"

"Um…no. We're aiming more for happy, or sad, or…Harvey?"

"I don't feel emotions."

"Of course you do, everyone does."

"He really doesn't," the Joker interjected. "He is made of stone."

"It's true, I am."

"Just…whatever comes to you then. Emotion, ambition, desires…just paint anything."

Harley raised her hand. "I'm done."

"How can you be…"

"When you were chattering, I finished."

"Oh, well let me see then," the nurse said, bustling over. She would collect everything they had painted in the class and send them to the lab for further analysis, to further analyze the patients and try to cure them as best as possible.

Of course, Harley, having been a doctor at Arkham in the past, knew that this was what they were doing. She even worked in the analysis lab. Hell, she analyzed the Joker for a while. She didn't let on usually, but she was pretty smart.

"Harley, this is…"

"I know." She grinned. She had painted a graphic picture of her least favorite doctor stabbing her repeatedly in the back. The particular doctor was her coworker at one point, but he was also the one who had put her in Arkham once she went off the deep end. So she wasn't fond of him.

"What emotion did you have in mind, exactly, when you painted this?" the nurse asked, stepping away from Harley a bit.

"I don't know. Probably euphoria."

"Euphoria?"

"Yep."

"Do you know what that even means?"

"I HAVE A PHD!"

"Oh. Right. Very well," the nurse said, collecting Harley's "artwork" and putting it behind her desk. Harley smirked, and began her next work of art.

"I'm done." Harvey said, raising his hand. The Riddler let out a whine.

"I don't even know what to paint yet!"

"Then just paint a question mark," Harley suggested, her forearms slathered in paint.

"That…is…A GREAT IDEA!" he said, jumping up and down, clapping his hands. Harvey rolled his eyes. The Joker scowled in response.

"That is really gross. You have a giant freaking eyeball."

"Yeah. And whose fault is that?"

"I'm trigger happy."

"I noticed."

"I think it looks better."

"One- screw you, I don't care. Two, get over here and LOOK AT MY PAINTING!"

"Harvey…this isn't an emotion." The nurse said, peering over his shoulder. "It's a self portrait."

"And a damn fine one, at that."

"It's…interesting."

The portrait was, in fact, a nude portrait of him among a bed of flowers. Harvey beamed proudly, as the Joker dipped his brush into a glob of purple paint and slapped it over a most convenient place.

"Please. There are children here."

"No there aren't, idiot."

"Um, hello?" he said, gesturing to Harley, who sneered.

"I ain't no child, Mistah J, and you of all people oughtta know that."

"Harley? Can I ask you a question?" the Joker asked mildly.

"Anything, puddin',"

"If you went to Harvard…why is it that you cannot speak?"

She responded by flinging paint on him so it got into his hair. Incidentally, some of the paint met an unsuspecting victim- Harvey,

"MY HAIR!"

"Don't you mean…my rotten and exposed skull! My rotten and exposed skull!" the Joker leered, prancing around in a mocking manner. Harley giggled.

Harvey then dumped his entire paint supply over the Joker's head, who sputtered for a moment.

"I know what my painting is going to depict now," the Joker said after a while. "Your head up your ASS."

"Yeah? Well my painting is of your head up YOUR ASS!"

"Ooh, original," the Scarecrow piped in, idly painting brushstrokes on his canvas.

"I'll give you original." The Joker sneered. "Hmm. Who will my evil identity be? Let me just pop in The Wizard of Oz and THINK ABOUT IT FOR A WHILE."

"Yeah," Harvey interjected. "Why don't you pick someone with a brain, idiot?"

"Don't gang up on me," the Scarecrow said defensively. "This was a fight between you two."

Harvey pointed a gnarled finger at the Scarecrow. "One, in times of trouble, stick with your numero uno. Two, I will tell everyone your biggest fear."

The Scarecrow's eyes went wide.

"That's right, Crane." The Joker grinned. "And I'll use whatever it is against you."

"You actually can't," Harvey muttered out of the side of his mouth,

"What?"

"It's not really…something you can use."

"How so?"

"Well, you're not…"

"HEY!" the Scarecrow yelled. "No fair! I don't even know your fear yet," he whined, pointing to the Joker.

"I have no fears."

"Funny, that's our next subject!" the nurse called. "I want you all to paint your fears on the canvas before you."

"I'm not done." The Riddler said. "I was writing my latest riddle."

"I thought you were painting a question mark," Ivy commented idly, painting in large orange circles again and again, depicting the thing she longed for the most- the sun.

"I was. I did the dot see?" he told her, turning his canvas around. Harley wasn't paying any attention to this, she was painting a detailed portrait of the Joker.

"Everybody, show everyone your painting of emotions."

"The Joker befouled mine." Harvey said, turning his painting around, and pointing to the purple splotch. Ivy raised an eyebrow.

"That's rude."

"You know what's rude, Ivy?" he asked, curling his lip. "You."

"Well played." She said shortly in a mocking tone. "I only wish you could see the effect of your words on my insides. Oh, how they toss and turn before you."

"I am irresistibly attractive."

"YEAH you are, puddin'!"

"I didn't ask you, Harley."

"Mr. Nigma? What have you got for us?" the nurse asked, putting Harvey's painting behind her desk.

"It's a question mark. It represents my emotions because sometimes I don't know what emotion I am feeling and I often get confused by the world and my thoughts aren't straight. Also I am the Riddler and question marks are my thing. And also, I didn't know what to paint." He paused. "And it was Harley's idea. She's really smart. And pretty. Oops. Sorry."

"Ain't nothin'," she said, waving her hand in the air and blushing. Ivy smirked. He wasn't great, but he was better than that lowlife, the Joker.

"Wonderful!" she exclaimed. "Mr. Crane, what have you for us?"

He turned it around. "It's a pie chart of all the emotions that are affected by fear. If you look at this graph…"

"That's not a painting, it's a…"

"It was done with paint." He said indignantly. "I was a professor. I look at things analytically."

"Yeah, smart people!" Harley said, pumping her fist in the air. The Riddler smiled.

"Very well…" the nurse said. "Ivy?"

"It's the sun. I painted it because I was sad that I couldn't go outside where the sun was. Incidentally, did you know that I am an autotroph and actually require sunlight to live? And, as an institution, you are required to feed your patients once every six hours?"

"I taught her that." Harley beamed.

"Nobody gets special treatment, Ivy." The nurse said sharply. Ivy sneered back at her. And then the Joker pantsed the Scarecrow, breaking out into raucous laughter.

"That is enough!" the nurse said indignantly. "Mr. Joker, please restrain yourself."

"Ha. And I thought my jokes were funny."

"Your jokes suck." The Scarecrow muttered, pulling his pants back up.

"As if. That was hilarious."

"A little crude, don't you think?"

"Below the belt isn't too low for me."

"I GET IT!" the Riddler roared, slapping his knee suddenly. "THAT WAS FUNNY! You said "below the belt isn't too low for me" because it is literally low on someone's body AND low on the comedic ladder! YOU ARE HILAROUS!"

"Don't beat it to death." The Joker muttered, turning away. "Way to kill it."

"When in Rome," the Riddler shrugged.

"What does that even mean?" the Joker asked.

"I don't know." The Riddler shrugged.

"Then why did you say it?" the Scarecrow asked, still red in the face.

"Hey! This is an AB conversation, so C your way out of it!"

Everybody stared at him blankly.

"Everybody, cease and desist at once! I want you all to paint your greatest fears on your canvas."

Ivy began painting the depiction of her fear like the nurse had directed. It was her, in a pot, wilted.

Harvey was busy creating a picture of himself as an old man. Meanwhile. Harley was on her sixth painting. For some reason, she was a prodigy of the arts. This time, she was painting a vivid portrait of the cell, hoping to get a movement on redecoration. It was actually quite haunting.

"I don't have a fear." The Joker said, raising his hand. "How am I supposed to paint something I don't have?"

"Yeah, um…I don't have one either." The Scarecrow pointed out.

"Liar. I know!" Harvey said, raising his hand. "How about we all paint someone else's fears?"

The nurse considered this. If everyone painted someone else's fears, then the people in the lab could analyze what they thought of each other, and how they thought they could antagonize each other to greater effect.

"Good idea, Harvey!" she said. "Everyone? I want you to pick someone and paint a picture of their worst fear. If you don't know it, I want you to consider them and think about what their greatest fear might be."

"I CALL MISTAH J!"

"Wonderful." He muttered.

"Good, Harley. I want you all to pick someone different, so voice your decisions before you start painting."

"I already started," the Riddler whined. "Nobody else do Harley."

"No problem." The Joker smiled. "I'll do Ivy."

"Like hell you will," Harvey said, flexing his arm. "You do Scarecrow, I've got Ivy."

"I hate the Joker," the Scarecrow moaned. "He won't get me right at all."

"Don't you know Scarecrow's greatest fear anyway, Harvey?" the Joker asked.

"Yeah…"

"So if you do him…"

"What are you getting at, exactly?"

"Are you a MORON? If you paint his greatest fear, then you expose it to all of us."

"Oh yeah! Good idea."

The Joker patted him on the back and started studying Ivy, who scowled.

"You get your eyes off me, you rotten clown."

Meanwhile, Harley was busy at work. What the room didn't realize was that the Joker did, in fact, have a fear. What he didn't realize was that the only person who knew it…was Harley. Because she was a doctor at Arkham for a spell, and assigned to analyze the Joker, she knew everything about him. Smirking, she began to paint.

The Scarecrow, doing the Riddler, grinned. He knew so many of the Riddler's fears, he didn't know where to start.

Ivy looked at Harvey, deep in thought over his painting. The handsome side of his face was contorted in concentration, and she suppressed a smile. The idea had come to her.

"Joker? What is Harley afraid of?" the Riddler asked.

"I think the idea is to come up with something on your own," he muttered, staring blankly at his white canvas. "Not to ask me."

"But I only know her strengths, not her weaknesses," he said, staring at her blatantly. "Her beautiful, beautiful strengths…"

"Woah there, buddy. Kind of encroaching on my woman, there."

"Your woman!?"

"Yeah. Back off."

"You don't even like her," Harvey said, not looking up from his art.

"That…that doesn't matter." The Joker said, waving his hand aside, pointing to the Riddler. "Point being, back off."

"I will not!"

"You'd BETTER!"

"WATCH ME!" the Riddler yelled, pouncing on the Joker, yelling what was supposed to be a ferocious battle cry. "IF I WAS A CAT WITH FIVE PAWS AND THREE LEGS, THEN HOW WOULD YOU…"

"THERE IS NO SUCH THING!"

"SEE IF I CARE!"

"I DON'T CARE!"

"I AM NOT SURPRISED!"

Ivy nudged Harley in the side. "Harl, are you watching this?" she asked, scowling, but Harley was starry eyed.

"They're fighting over me," she whispered. "They must really love me."

"The Joker doesn't even like you!" she hissed.

"He has to! Look at him!"

"He just said he didn't, Harl."

"But he's so…"

"Please don't finish that sentence."

"Joker! Nigma! Cut this out immediately!" the nurse yelled, pulling them apart, with the help of Harvey and the Scarecrow.

"I'll KILL you, you inferior being, you!" the Riddler snarled. The Joker responded in the usual way, by bursting into laughter.

"And how…do you…propose…to do…that?" he forced out between laughs.

"Please! Go to opposite sides of the room, now!"

Harley beamed as the Riddler squeezed himself between her and Ivy, who didn't protest. She liked the Riddler well enough, especially as he had just attacked her adversary.

"Can everyone please show me their paintings now?" the nurse said, panting slightly. "We'll go in a circle, starting with you, Ivy."

"I did Harvey."

"Yeah you did."

"I don't get it…" the Riddler asked, looking back and forth between them. Ivy scowled.

"I didn't ask for commentary, thank you very much. Anyway, I painted Harvey's worst fear, which I believe is…"

And she turned her painting around, revealing Harvey with not one, but both sides of his face mutilated. This resulted in quite the surprisingly girlish squeal from the subject himself.

"Dude. Relax." The Scarecrow muttered. "My turn. My painting was of the Riddler, and having the many fears he has, I was forced to pick one and capitalize on it. The result was this."

The words "what is black, white, and red all over?" were scrawled across the top, and under it was the Riddler himself, hands on his head, with a giant question mark over it.

"The inability to solve the simplest of riddles." The Scarecrow explained.

"Um, it's obviously a bloody zebra." The Riddler scoffed.

"I hate you." Harvey said flat out.

"Thank you, for that."

"Don't flatter me."

"Joker? What do you have for us?" the nurse interjected, talking over the arguing men.

"Well, I did Poison Ivy, but, I don't want to show…"

"Please, we won't judge you."

"Now THAT'S funny," Harvey laughed. The Joker scowled, and turned around his canvas.

It was a picture of weed killer torn out of a magazine and taped to the canvas.

"Why is that not a painting, Mr. Joker?" the nurse asked sternly.

"You're so lazy, puddin'." Harley beamed.

"Not all of us are artistically inclined," he said defensively.

"I ain't pokin' fun," she said. "I think it's cute."

"My painting," Harvey interrupted, "is actually a painting. Of the Scarecrow's biggest fear."

"Oooh," the room said in unison, the nurse included. The Scarecrow turned a deep red.

"Harvey Dent, if you so much as…"

"IT'S A UNICORN!" Harvey screamed. "THE SCARECROW IS AFRAID OF UNICORNS!"

"NO!" the Scarecrow cried, sobbing into his hands. "Turn it back around, I can't look at it."

"You're afraid of UNICORNS?" the Joker spat out, an immense laugh boiling inside of him, ready to erupt in a volcanic explosion of hysteria. And when he could contain it no longer, he dropped to the floor in absolute maniacal laughter, and eventually hyperventilated. The nurse called the paramedics, and they had to drag him away so he could be properly subdued.

"Now that that's done with," the nurse sighed with relief. "Harley? What have you for us?"

"Mistah J has no fear," she said solemnly. "But he does have weakness, and I painted something that represents something as fatal as fear itself- the immunity to fear.

"You see," she explained, turning her painting around. "Fear gives you perception, it gives you restraint, and it gives you limits. Mistah J ain't afraid of dyin', so he does reckless things all the time and it's gonna do him in someday. People with fear are gonna be more careful."

The painting itself left everyone's mouths hanging open, It was the Joker, standing on a mountain of destruction with fire raining down on him, his body ablaze, a grin and maniacal glint in his eye.

"Harley! This is wonderful!" the nurse exclaimed. "And how deep!"

"WHY AREN'T I THE BEST?" Harvey screamed, breaking his painting in half over his knee.

"You painted a unicorn," the Riddler explained. "Duh."

"Riddle me this, assface." Harvey growled, "What has an ugly face, a retarded brain, and FOUR BROKEN LIMBS?"

"I…I don't know!" he gasped. "OH NO I CANNOT SOLVE YOUR RIDDLE!"

Harvey just sighed.

"Well, that's it for class today! Great job, everyone!" the nurse said, clapping her hands together like a cheerleader. Ivy reluctantly drew away from the window and filed out of the room with everyone else, while the Riddler tried extremely hard to solve Harvey's "riddle".

"Is it…three leaves and a hockey goalie with no nose?"

"No."

"Is it…a cat who went to the moon and came back to earth and brought the alien gene with him and infected the human race?"

"No."

"Is it…a balloon that was once filled with water but is now filled with pickle juice and pig brains?"

"No."

"Is it…a hall of many doors?"

"NO!!" Harvey screamed. "Get in your cell and SHUT UP!"

"But I want to know the answer!" he whined.

"It's YOU," the Scarecrow yelled. "For god sakes, Riddler, he means YOU!"

"Oh! …what was the riddle again?"

"God, I don't remember," Harvey sighed. "I'm tired." And he went into his cell, and since his cell mate was probably in shock therapy, he slammed the bars shut and turned off the lights and crawled into his bed. Ivy and Harley in turn filed into their cell, and as usual, Ivy gravitated towards the window and tended to her plants while Harley sat in front of the mirror and fixed her hair.

"I like art." Harley said simply, taking her pigtails out and fluffing her hair.

"Why can't we go outside?" Ivy moaned, looking at her skin and wrinkling her nose. It had turned from a vivid healthy green to a pale, lima bean color. She groaned and slid slowly to the floor.

But if there was one thing she had learned today-

Next time, just break the window.