"What, Riddler, you scared? You can't take it? YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME?"

"Calm down Harvey. I only asked you to pass the bread."

It was lunchtime at Arkham Asylum, and the inmates were not happy. It had been a long, grueling day, full of shock therapy and various treatments. In fact, the Joker had been treated three times that day, so he wasn't exactly himself, to say the least.

"I'll pass you the bread Harvey, I'd pass it to myself, but I can't seem to find the desire for bread right now, say Harley, do you think you could wipe the water off the outside of my glass? It's condensing, and I can't say I care for it. And did you get your hair cut? I like it."

"He's always like this after therapy," Harley said ruefully, patting him on the shoulder and wiping off his glass with her napkin.

"Ugh. Look at her." Ivy was saying, watching Selena Kyle eat at another table. Selena, AKA Catwoman, was a new addition to Arkham. She was eating a salad.

"I have been." Harvey commented. "Hot stuff."

"No, you insensitive clod." Ivy scowled. "She's eating a salad."

"Oh. I like a girl who appreciates her steak," Harvey replied, waving a bit of steak on his fork under Ivy's nose. Ivy scowled and batted it away.

"I don't eat food." She sniffed. "I absorb the sunlight and convert it into…"

"Ugh, don't make me learn." Harvey groaned, stirring some macaroni and cheese around on his plate. The Joker was organizing his peas in order of size.

"I must say, I don't particularly care for this cafeteria food," Crane mentioned scornfully. "It's awfully watery."

"Mine isn't…" the Harvey said, looking down at his untouched food. Everyone stopped in their tracks and looked at him. "What?" he asked.

"Harvey, that means it's been…tampered with." Harley said. "They're drugging you."

"Why?"

"Are you a complete and utter idiot?" The Riddler demanded. "Come on. Even I understand this concept."

"I don't get it."

"Listen." The Riddler said, putting his fork down. "We have self defense today. And they're drugging up the strong ones. The Joker, you…I'm just surprised they haven't tried me yet."

The Joker burst into peals of laughter. Harley smiled.

"Aw, he's coming back!" she said, hugging him.

"Self defense?" Ivy asked. "Why?"

"They think we're too weak, I guess." Crane shrugged. "Can't say I blame them. I can't press thirty pounds myself."

"That's lame." Harvey sniggered. Crane shot him a reproving glare.

"Who's going to teach us?" Ivy pressed. "I can't see any of the nurses doing it…"

Crane shrugged.

"I don't know. Someone from the outside, I think."

Ten minutes later, at self defense.

The six patients were waiting patiently, some more so than others, in the room in which they would be taught to defend themselves. Harvey was doing pushups in a corner to warm himself up, and the Joker was fast asleep in the middle of the floor, Harley beside him, stroking his hair.

And when their instructor walked in, every jaw in the room dropped.

It was Batman.

"What are you doing here?" Harvey asked, sitting up. The Joker stirred.

"I'm teaching you self defense." He said simply.

"Awesome." Crane smirked. "Finally. I will be strong."

"Okay everyone, get into groups of two." Batman announced

"Hey, Eddie…" Harvey sang. "Want to be my partner?"

"Hell no." he snorted. "I don't fancy dying." And with that, he walked over to Crane, who was reading a book on proton density,

"It's just a bit of light reading," he explained, closing it. "To stretch the mind. You know."

"I actually don't." the Riddler said. "But I'll pretend like I do, so you won't explain it to me."

"Should I be your partner?" Harvey was asking The Joker, who was still fast asleep. "The coin says no, but I don't really want to work with Harley."

"Mih. Goway." The Joker mumbled into the carpet.

"WAKE UP, YOU JACKASS." Harvey yelled, kicking him in the side.

"OW!" he yelled, writhing on the ground. "You're the jackass."

"Get off the ground and be my partner."

"Partner for what?" he mumbled groggily.

"I'm going to punch you in your face if you don't stand up right now. I'm not even going to flip the coin to see if I should. I'm just going to do it."

"Fine," he grumbled, standing up slowly. "Ugh. Three treatments in one day. That can't be humane."
"I can't pretend you don't deserve it," Ivy said from across the room.

"Now, as you can see, there are six punching bags in the room." Batman said, pacing. "I want you to set yourself up in front of one, next to your partner if possible. I want you to deliver your best right hook to it, so I know precisely what I'm dealing with here."

"Shouldn't you already know this?" The Riddler asked, razing his hand. "I mean, you have fought each and every one of us multiple times.

"I don't have the time for your petty chatter." He scowled. "Now punch."

There was a deafening sound from Harvey's station as he knocked the bag clean off the hook.

"Finally. Something I'm better at than Harley," he smiled, looking over at her. She was scowling at the bag that was nearly bigger than she was.

"This isn't even fair." She said.

"Oh, come on. You can hold your own against Batgirl," Batman said. "Give it a whirl."

"Batgirl is a lot smaller than this." She huffed.

Ivy, however, had given up entirely and was sitting down on the ground, braiding her hair.

"Come on, Joker, you can do it. Snap out of this shock funk and PUNCH IT!" Harvey was yelling encouragingly. "I know you can!"

Something crossed the clown's vague face, and as his vacant eyes closed, his mouth contorted in concentration, and he swung as hard as he could at the bag.

But he missed.

Harvey just shook his head.

"What's up with him?" Batman asked, pointing at him.

"Shock therapy," Harley said sadly. "Three times. Just today."

"Excellent." Batman grinned, patting The Joker on the shoulder. "Keep trying, buddy."

"Leave me the hell alone."

"There we go!" Harvey said, clapping him on the back. "That's the spirit. If you need someone to really boil your blood, just go talk to The Riddler. That usually does it for me."

"Don't you come near me, you psychopath." The Riddler scowled. "And I am only standing up to you because you probably don't give a crap."

"That's right I don't. When do they serve dinner?"

"Now, Harvey," Batman said, moving on, "You're doing great. Would you mind demonstrating that right hook for us?"

"Um…" he said, flipping his coin. "Sure."

He walked up to the front of the room, and punched the Riddler right in the face.

"Hey." He whimpered from the floor. "Riddle me this…"

"Riddle me this?" Harvey asked incredulously. "You just got punched in the face, and you're telling me a riddle? You don't know me, do you?"

"Only because you scare me."

"Okay. Not that that wasn't good Harvey, because it was, but you really want to do is straighten your arm more. It gives you more power. No, don't lock you arm, you could hurt yourself."

He reached over and grabbed Harvey's arm, positioning it into the proper punching position.

Now, Harvey wasn't sure why Batman was teaching him to punch more powerfully, for he was under the impression that he was pretty unstoppable as it was. Were he not in Arkham, that was.

"Wait. I do not understand. Enlighten me, please." Crane said, raising his hand. "Show me how to be powerful."

"Show me how you punch," Batman said, walking over to Crane and the Riddler, who was picking himself up from the ground. Crane gave him a quizzical look.

"I don't punch." He said. "I fear knuckle strain."

"Okay. Well, make a fist."

Crane then did some sort of odd maneuver with his spindly hand that was definitely not making a fist.

"As you can clearly see, I am non experienced in the art of fist making." He said.

"I can see that." Batman frowned. "Well then. Looks like we've got some work to do."

"It's hopeless," Harvey coughed behind his hand. The Joker was now sitting behind Ivy, braiding her hair.

"Teach me how to fishtail," she told him. He nodded, concentrated on the braid. Harley was frowning at the two of them.

"You never braid my hair, Mistah J." she pouted.

"I don't talk as much," Ivy said. Harley scowled.

"You don't even like him."

"He's braiding my hair."

"I can see that."

"Alright girls, settle down." Batman said. "Now Crane. What you want to do is make a fist like this, and really lay it into the bag."

Crane, once again, did an odd maneuver with his arm that did not look like punching.

"Yeah. He'll never get it." The Riddler sighed.

"I will too!" he exclaimed, getting angry. "I…will…have…THE POWER!"

And he smacked the bag so hard that it rattled the whole room.

"Woah." Batman said, his jaw dropped. "You do have the power. I am a marvelous teacher."

"He's like the Hulk." The Riddler gaped.

"Excuse me?" Batman whispered. "Did you just utter that name in front of me?"

"Um…no…?"

"I HATE the Hulk!" he screamed, kicking a hole through the wall. "He isn't super! He's super dumb, that's what he is!"

"Excuse me, but having been recently compared to the Hulk, I resent that." Crane said, raising his hand. Harvey responded by doing what Harvey does best.

Clobbering him.

"I want the power!" the Riddler whined. "Riddle me this- why can't I have the power?"

"Power is money. And time is money. Patience, my friend." The Joker replied.

"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?" Harley screamed. "WHAT HAVE YOU BECOME?"

"One with the earth," he responded, looking innocently up at her.

"Okay. Heads I punch you in the face, tails you're going back to that shock room so they can shock your brains back." Harvey said, pulling his coin out of his pocket. Flipping it, he examined the side that was face up. "Punch it is. Sorry, my friend. It's for the best."

And he punched him in the face, just as he said he would.

"What…the…HELL!" the Joker screamed, swiping at Harvey's legs and knocking him over. Harvey growled and came back with a swipe at the Joker's face, but he evaded him, standing up and stomping on Harvey's broad back with all his weight.

"OW!"

"That's what you GET!"

"He's BETTER!" Harley cried, clapping.

"All right, all right, calm down everyone," Batman said, pulling the Joker off a wheezing Harvey.

"You don't come here much. This is how all of our sessions usually end up." Crane said seriously, examining the scene from a distance. Ivy had crawled away from the fight, and was now huddled in a corner, making little daisies grow on the wall.

"Now Harvey," Batman said. "Your attacks were good, but the defense seriously lacked. There was a moment when the Joker got you under the chin…"

He was briefly interrupted by a cackle from the Joker.

"Shut up." Ivy said from the corner. Apparently, now that he was back to normal, she didn't like him anymore.

"Thank you. Anyway, you could have easily blocked that attack with this maneuver."

And he held his hands in front of his neck.

"Um, duh." Harvey groaned, rolling his eyes. "Even I know that."

"Then why didn't you do it?" the Riddler asked. "Why?"

"Shut your face or I'll shut it for you."

"That is not constructive." Batman reprimanded. "But yes. You really should shut your face. Now Harvey, I'm going to attack you, and you're going to block it. Ready?"

But Harvey didn't block it at all. Instead, he grabbed Batman on the wrist and flipped him over on his back, sitting down on him.

"Go go go!" he yelled, pointing to window. "Escape!"

"But it's locked!" Harley cried, tugging on the latch.

The Joker looked around the room, and saw a drinking fountain on the wall. Walking up to it, he wrenched it from the wall and flung it at the window, shattering the entire apparatus.

"Yay!" Ivy exclaimed, jumping out into the sunlight. But then she paused.

"Harvey? What about you?"

"Go! Save yourselves!" he cried, motioning for the rest of them to pile out, which they did.

"Oh, you're so selfless and heroic!" she cried.

"I wouldn't go that far," he said, looking down at the coin that was tail side up. "Heads I would have saved my own butt."

"We're FREE!" the Riddler exclaimed, running into the distance.

Ivy, after a moments hesitation, jumped back into the window and ran to Harvey.

"I'm staying with you," she said.

"Why?" he asked. Batman grunted. Harvey elbowed him in the face to silence him.

"Because it's where I belong," she whispered. And he kissed her, and it was beautiful, that was until Batman regained full consciousness to find two super-villains kissing on his torso. So of course, he responded negatively and knocked them both out.

As for the escaped villains, since they were trained so well in combat and self defense, it took a whole five months for Batman to track them down and drag them back into Arkham.

Incidentally, the measures Batman had to go to in order to bring each and every one of them back included breaking all of Crane's bones, for he was all powerful.

Needless to say, he no longer has the power.

But if you ask him of his glory days in the realm of the strong and powerful, he still gets misty eyed. After that, he pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and exploits your biggest fear. So I wouldn't ask him.

During the months that Ivy and Harvey were alone on their ward, they built a relationship that was pure and honest. But when the Joker, the Riddler, Harley and Crane came back, they were mocked endlessly, and forced to hide their love. Making Harvey more bottled up and volatile than he ever was.

And all was restored.