Oh hai! It's been such a long time. And I'm gonna be honest- I intended Disney to be the last one (that was the last one I think, I really don't remember :p oh it's been so long) and I'm uploading this special chapter BECAUSE I have a favor to ask. It's really easy, and it won't take too much time from anyone, but I'd really appreciate it if you could help me out :)
I'm doing this project for one of my classes on popular culture, and I'm doing it on fan fiction. So if you could maybe send me a message and tell me 1.) why you like reading/writing fan fiction, 2.) why you enjoy fan fiction 3) Things that you think are good about fan fiction and just stuff like that. I don't need anything really in depth, just a few sentences basically about how you feel about the fan fiction genre. You could always get more specific if you want.
That being said, I 1.) hope you enjoyed your Halloween (I dressed up as Poison Ivy, it was pretty awesome) and 2.) Hope you enjoy this chapter of Arkham Chronicles.
I apologize for blatantly bribing you with this update.
It was raining outside, and the cloud cover was thick. Some of the lights in Arkham were flickering on and off gloomily, but most just refused to stay on altogether. The entire asylum was plunged into darkness as the last lights gave up and shut off altogether.
"Hey Crane. Riddle me this. If one were to see a blue rainbow, how many other colors would he see?"
"That's impossible. There are infinite colors in a rainbow, it being a spectrum, so there is no way that there would be only one color."
"You don't get it at all." Nigma moaned. "The answer is...never mind. I don't want to waste my brilliant mind on you."
"I'm sure."
"Mr. Crane? Mr. Nigma?"
A nurse was at the bars. She was holding a candle, because most of the lights in the hallway were mostly out.
"Let me guess." Crane said, standing up. "We have to participate in team building exercises again, right?"
"Wrong." the nurse said, looking at her clip board. "We're experiencing a minor power outage here in Arkham..."
"We've noticed." Nigma said. "Do you want to hear a riddle? I don't care if you don't. Here it is. If I were to knit a blanket big enough to cover the world, how big would my pants have to be?"
"Size 0." the nurse said dryly. "Now come on. We're moving you to the only location in Gotham that has power."
"I'm flattered that you think I'm a size 0."
"Where is there power?" Crane asked, ignoring the fact that they were discussing ladies' pant sizes.
"Wayne Manor." the nurse sighed, a blissful look creeping into her eyes. "Unfortunately, I cannot be in attendance. I have to stay here and try to get the power back on."
She didn't sound very happy.
"Why don't you just give the place a joybuzz?" the Riddler suggested. "That would get it going, I'm sure."
"We confiscated the Joker's joybuzzer after the pool incident." the nurse said. "And I doubt that would work."
"Such a riddle." Nigma sighed happily. "Wouldn't you say so, Crane?"
"No."
The nurse unlocked the bars and swung them open, letting Crane and Nigma wander blindly in the dark hallway.
"Ow! You stepped on me!"
"I did not step on you, I stepped on your foot."
"Which is part of me. Riddle me this. If I stepped on YOU, would you like it? Yes. Because you're a masochist."
"No I'm not."
"Says you."
Nigma pawed around in the darkness, trying to find a wall he could cling on to. But while he was doing so, he ran into someone.
"Is that you, Mistah J?" the voice of the someone asked.
Nigma stood up taller and tried his best Joker voice.
"Why, yes. Yes it is."
"No it ain't!" she laughed, putting her hands on his face to feel around. "This is Eddie."
"Let's just leave the Joker behind."
"Hello, Ivy."
"Hi."
The Riddler tried walking forward, seeing as his plan to find the wall had failed. However, he only ran into someone again. And this person wasn't feminine and curvy, like Harley was. This person was quite burly.
"Watch it, whoever you are." a voice growled. "You wanna flip for your life?"
"This is the Joker." Nigma said. "You should hit him when you can see him. I mean me."
"Shut up, Nigma." the real Joker snapped. "He's not dumb, he knows what you sound like."
"Okay." Harvey yelled. "Whoever the REAL Joker is, please tell me now. Because I am one step away from being very confused."
"You don't know what we sound like?" the Joker said, dumfounded. "How can you NOT tell?"
"You must be the Riddler, because you're asking a lot of dumb questions." Harvey said, turning towards the Joker's voice. "So I'm gonna hit you."
"Harvey, no...!"
But it was too late- Nigma could hear the all too familiar crunch of fist on face as he punched the Joker.
"Um, OW!" the Joker yelled. "Dumbass."
"Shut up, Riddler."
"Yeah." Nigma smiled. "Why don't you just shut up? Haha. Ha. Ha..."
"Why is your laugh so weird?" Harvey asked. The Riddler just shrugged.
"I have a cold."
"That's not the Joker, Harvey." Crane finally sighed. Apparently he had only just decided to clue Harvey into Nigma's antics. "That's the Riddler. You punched the Joker."
"Oh. Oops.'
"Yeah. Oops." the Joker grumbled.
"Sorry buddy."
"Okay." the nurse said, coming back with her candle. "We now have an escort ready to take you all to Wayne Manor. If you would all follow me."
The group then followed the nurse down many hallways and staircases until they reached the entrance.
It had been ages since any of them had even seen it.
"I'm making a run for it." Harvey whispered to the group. "When they open the doors, I'm getting out of here. You can follow me if you want, but I wouldn't advise it. It's dangerous out there."
No one replied. They all just exchanged glances with each other.
"Good luck with that, Harvey." Harley said.
"Thank you."
A different nurse opened the front doors of the asylum, revealing the outside. The six villains looked at it with great awe, particularly Ivy.
"I don't want to go outside." Crane sniffed. "It's raining."
"Baby." Harvey said, stomping forward. "Wow, what a GREAT day for a car ride. That's it. No escape attempts from ME, no sir. There's no way I will..."
And he took off running.
This didn't go unnoticed, and soon two giant security guys were chasing after him.
"How far do you think he'll get?" Harley asked Ivy.
"Ten feet."
The Joker craned his neck to look.
"Oh, he only got about seven."
"Wow, that looks like it hurt."
Harvey was now on the ground, laying underneath the two security guards. The rest of the group piled into the escort, which was just a borrowed paddy wagon from Blackgate Prison.
"How come we're going to Wayne Manor?" Nigma asked once Harvey was put in the car.
"It has power." Ivy answered him.
"Well yeah, but why just us? Quite the riddle, isn't it?"
"We don't want you acting up while the power is out." a doctor answered them. Apparently, he was riding up there with them.
The wagon started up and started on its way to Wayne Manor.
"Won't the other patients act up? We ARE all insane, here." the Joker put in.
"You're a quite volatile bunch." the doctor replied easily. "And we hope this will be..."
"Let me guess." Harley huffed. "A healing experience."
"Precisely." the doctor smiled. "Mr. Wayne has some great activities planned for you."
Nigma, who was seated between Harvey and the Joker, shrank in his seat a little. He knew he should keep quiet, and that it was in his best interest to keep quiet, but he had the compulsion to tell riddles. It wasn't just an annoying habit. It was something he was forced by the inner workings of his mind to do.
"Riddle me this!" he blurted out before he could stop himself. "How many pages does an empty book have?"
He winced, knowing that soon, two fists would be launched at him from either direction.
But they didn't come.
Harvey and the Joker just sat there, staring at the opposite side of the vehicle.
"Aren't you going to hit me?" the Riddler asked, looking between them. "I said a riddle."
"Why would we hit you?" the Joker asked, in what seemed like a forcibly calm tone. "We would never hit you."
"No, of course not." Harvey added through clenched teeth. "It's part of the healing process."
The Riddler looked between them still, confused. But then he shot a glance at the doctor, and he understood. They could hit him in front of the nurses, because they had no real power, but the doctors did. It was for him to say if they were released or not.
"Let's go back to that riddle for a moment, Mr. Nigma." the doctor said thoughtfully. "You asked how many pages an empty book has. But wouldn't that answer be obvious?"
"I don't think seven gold coins is an obvious answer..."
"Of course an empty book would have zero pages," the doctor continued, ignoring Nigma. "Why would you tell such an obvious riddle? Is it because YOU feel like the empty book, and you've run out of pages?"
"I AM having a bit of a writer's block..." he mused.
"Don't listen to him, Riddler." Crane advised. "These doctors nowadays, they're full of crap."
"Well, duh."
The doctor looked affronted.
"Excuse me?"
"That was an obvious, and if I may say, quite lame attempt at analyzing the Riddler's psychosis. If you were to look deep beneath the riddle, you wouldn't see a book with no pages, you'd see a book with too MANY pages, which leads to his riddle compulsion, and when you finally reach the matter of psychoanalytical findings..."
"I'm pretty sure no one is listening to you." Harvey grumbled, leaning his head against the back of his seat. "Because no one cares."
A few minutes later, the vehicle came to an abrupt stop, and the six villains piled out. The doctor led them up the path to the front door of Wayne Manor, which sprawled over the hillside, regal and sparkling in the dark atmosphere of Gotham City.
As they were ushered inside by the doctor, an elderly old man smiled grimly at them.
"Master Wayne? Your...guests are here."
A young boy came out of the adjacent room, a handheld video game clutched in his hands. He looked up at the villains and gasped.
"Alfred, what are they..."
"It's all part of Master Wayne's plan." the old man sighed deeply, as if he disapproved. The young boy cast a wary look at the troop of criminals and disappeared again.
As Bruce's footsteps drew nearer, Harley craned her neck to get a better look. The Joker shot her a disapproving glare, which she merely shrugged off.
"Can't blame a girl for lookin'."
He didn't reply, but merely grumbled under his breath, crossing his arms.
Eventually, Bruce Wayne walked into the room they were all gathered in. He looked rather moody.
"Welcome to my manor." he huffed. "I just want to make it clear that this was not my idea. We can all blame Commissioner Gordon for that. However. I do have some activities planned..."
"Like spin the bottle?" Harley giggled. The Joker growled again.
"I do have a few rules." Bruce said. "One, don't touch anything. Two, don't touch any clocks. Three, I EXPRESSLY ask you to not touch the grandfather clock in the basement and set the time to 10:47. It'll confuse everyone. Now, if you would all follow me..."
Nigma looked around as Bruce led them upstairs. He was trying to think of a riddle that involved a grand staircase, a butler, and a porcupine when Crane nudged him.
"Don't you think it's odd that Bruce Wayne took the time to forbid us from setting that grandfather clock to 10:47?"
"Not really." Nigma shrugged. "It's only 7:30 right now. Imagine if that clock were set to 10:47. The entire room would be thrust into a different time zone, and if that's not inconvenient, then I don't know what is."
Crane let out a deep sigh.
"No, idiot. Think of it as if it were a riddle."
Nigma thought about it, and when he came to a conclusion, gasped.
"I've got it!"
"What?"
"10:47 can be calculated to mean 'porridge', and a clock can symbolize 'chocolate'...he doesn't want us to find his secret stash of chocolate porridge!"
"This is really how your mind works, isn't it?"
"I don't see how I could be wrong."
"Hmm. Well, we could test your theory and go to the clock and set..."
"Are you making secret plans?" Harley squealed, coming up between them. "I LOVE secret plans!"
"Harley!" Crane snapped as Bruce turned back to look at them questioningly. "Now...now Harvey's surprise party is ruined. Darn."
"You were going to throw me a surprise party? That's so thoughtful!"
Bruce turned around again. Nigma looked at Crane, confused.
"But we were going to go change the time on that clock." Nigma siad.
Crane slapped his forehead.
"I mean, I don't even know what I'd get Harvey for a present. Something that says 'I love you man, but not in a weird way'. What presents do you know that say 'The bromance we have is awesome'?"
"Will you shut up about the bromance?" Harvey grumbled. "I have an exclusive bromance with the Joker."
"We haven't discussed this." the Joker put in. "And I thought I told YOU to shut about this whole 'bromance' thing. It's getting old."
"You can't deny it."
"I can, and I am. And furthermore..."
"So, you're a billionaire?" Ivy asked, sauntering up to Bruce and sliding her arm around his shoulders. "How interesting."
"Fascinating." Bruce said dryly, completely ignoring her advances. Now at the top of the stairs, he opened a door and let the six villains file in. When he turned on the lights, Nigma was able to see that there were already three people in there. One was the boy they had seen earlier. As for the other two, one was a girl with long red hair and a very displeased expression. The other person in the room looked sort of like the young boy, except he was older. His arm was around the girl with the long hair.
All three of them looked angry.
"Bruce..." the older boy asked warily, looking at the six villains with contempt. "What..."
"Arkham dumped them on me for the night." he said in a low voice to them. "So...we're just going to entertain them until they get the power back up."
"Spin the bottle!" Harley insisted. Ivy nodded enthusiastically.
"No, Ivy, you can't play, your kisses are poisonous!" Nigma whined. "I don't wanna die!"
"It's not you I'm after." she hissed through gritted teeth.
"Oh. ...Why don't you want to kiss me? Riddle me that!"
"Just shut up."
"So..." Bruce sighed, gesturing to the villains, "This is the Joker, Two Face, the Riddler, the Scarecrow, Harley Quinn, and Poison Ivy. And these are...my friends."
"They look familiar." the Joker frowned.
"You've never seen them ever. They're new to Gotham." Bruce said smoothly, turning away from them.
"Yeah," the older boy said, looking at the red haired girl who was looking at Bruce, shaking her head slowly. "Uh, my name is...Tim."
The younger boy looked at him sharply.
"Dumbass, that's my name."
The red haired girl face-palmed.
"I'm Barbara." she said to the villains. "Commissioner Gordon's daughter. This is Dick and Tim."
"Gordon's daughter, hmm?" the Joker mused, stroking his chin. She looked at him rather fiercely, and he said nothing more on the subject.
"So..." Bruce said, clapping his hands together. "How about a game?"
"Spin the bottle." Harley and Ivy insisted at the same time.
"I'm up for it," the Joker grinned, his arm around Harley. She raised an eyebrow at him.
"Why?" she asked warily. He looked down at her, a pause on his face, his eyes searching for an answer.
"So...I can kiss you?" he asked. Harley looked at him suspiciously for a moment, but then she grinned.
"Aw, I love you too, puddin'." she hugged him tightly around the waist, and he patted her head, sighing.
"I'm not playing that game." Crane insisted. "Ivy's kisses are poisonous. I don't want to end up dead along with Nigma and this fool." he pointed at the Joker, who scowled.
"Monopoly." Bruce said, letting the box fall on the ground with a thud in the already formed circle of people. "It's simple, it's easy, and it should last us a while."
"I call the horsey!" Harley squealed, diving onto the box.
Since there weren't enough pieces for the number of people playing, Bruce had to dig up some extra trinkets for everyone else to play with.
Half an hour later, everything was going pretty much as expected.
"Well well well, Harvey 'Poor' Face, I see you have yet again landed on Marvin Gardens." the Joker cackled, leafing through his huge pile of money. Harvey looked down at his ten dollars of play money, and then he looked back up at Bruce.
"Can we play with real money? You know...if we have it? I think that would make it easier."
"Seriously?" the Joker deadpanned to Harvey. "You want to play in terms of real money with a god damn billionaire?"
"WELL IT'S STUPID THE REAL WAY." Harvey bellowed, throwing his ten dollars at the Joker. The two pink bills fluttered slowly towards him, and landed gently in the middle of the board. Harvey clearly felt this wasn't a clear enough representation of his anger, so he hit the board with his fist, causing everyone's pieces and hotels to fly in the air.
"Riddle me this." Nigma said, avoiding the flying pieces. "How did the Joker get so much money anyway?"
"I have all the good properties." he said easily. "The money just comes."
"But how'd you get the good properties?" Crane then asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
"Luck."
"LUCK HAS DONE NOTHING BUT BETRAY ME!"
"Harvey, for god's sakes, calm down." the Joker snapped. "Go flip your coin or whatever."
"I would, but then I'd have to give it to your for rent on stupid Marvin Gardens."
"You should be happy to stay in Marvin Gardens, it's quite the respectable establishment."
"Um, there's absolutely no money in the bank." Dick said, looking behind Harley, who was the banker. She looked innocently back up at him.
"Really? I had no idea."
"THIEF!" Tim shrieked, pointing at the Joker. "Lemme at him Bruce, I can take him, really..."
"Calm down." Bruce said, holding onto the back of his shirt. "Don't make me send you to bed."
"I don't live here."
"Then...really? Where do you live?"
"My house."
"Oh." Bruce paused. "Well, you're here an awful lot. I just thought that was, you know...because you live here."
"No, I definitely don't."
"For the record," Barbara said, "Dick and I don't live here either."
"It's like my world is turning upside down."
"Okay, okay, okay." Crane said, standing up. "I think it's time for a new activity. Harvey is about to throw the monopoly board out of the window, Ivy is growing plants up through the floor, and Harley and the Joker are maki...oh look, they're gone now." he threw up his hands. "Awesome."
"Dick, can you go get them?" Bruce said, looking at him. "I can't have them wandering around. You know why."
"Aw, come on." he whined. "Who knows what I could walk in on and see them doing...whatever."
"Yeah." Tim nodded seriously. "They could be cutting up pictures of Bruce or drawing mustaches on him."
"Yeah." Dick said slowly, looking at Tim out of the corner of his eye. "Yeah, I definitely don't want to see that. It would be too disturbing."
"Riddle me this! I'll go." the Riddler said, standing up, and before Bruce could stop him, he was off.
Nigma wandered around aimlessly for a good ten minutes before he finally came across Harley and the Joker.
"Hey. Guys." he said, clearing his throat to announce his presence. "Everyone's wrapped in the riddle of where you went. Time to go back."
"Fine." the Joker scowled, cracking his neck and walking past the Riddler, but he didn't hesitate to bump into him with a little extra force before he did. Nigma scowled.
Harley stretched out, looking at Nigma, satisfaction on her face.
"Guess what?" she grinned.
"Riddle me what?" he asked. Harley pointed, and he looked. It was the clock Bruce had told them not to touch. Harley proceeded to approach it.
"Whaddya think he's hidin' in this clock?" Harley asked, stopping before it, rocking back and forth on her heels. "Mistah J and I've been thinkin'. We think it's where he keeps all his cash."
"I'm sticking with my chocolate porridge theory." Nigma insisted. "Come on, we'll miss the next board game."
"Eddie, don't you get it?" Harley asked. "All the riches in the world could be behind this clock!"
"I see." he nodded, turning back around and walking up to her. "Chocolate porridge is quite valuable these days."
"No," she scowled. "You know what...never mind. Let's just go back upstairs. It looks kinda expensive, and all I got is this play money stuffed in my pockets."
"Hold on." Nigma said as she turned to walk back to the room everyone else was in.
"Wait wait wait...what are you doin'?"
"I'm checking out this clock." Nigma responded, playing with the hands. "I could really go for some chocolate porridge right now. And I've always been fascinated with clocks, you know, and this one..."
"You can't touch that." Harley said, grabbing his wrist and pulling him back. "You don't know nothin' about clocks. I know you're smart and everythin', but you don't need to touch what ain't yours. And I know you can't pay for that if you bust it."
"Let me just..."
"No!"
"Harley, come on." Nigma stamped his foot a little. "Let me just put the time back."
Harley crossed her arms.
"Fine, but if you break that, you're gonna hafta report back to Bruce Wayne, and he ain't gonna be to happy with you."
"Oh, please." Nigma laughed. "Riddle me this. What could Bruce Wayne possibly do to me that would cause me any sort of harm or misfortune?"
Harley paused.
"Yeah, I guess you're right." she said. "Go ahead. Do whatever you gotta do."
"Riddle me this. What time is it?"
"I dunno, like, 10:47?" Harley shrugged.
The Riddler stood on his tiptoes to reach the massive hands of the grandfather clock, and turned the hands to 10:47.
There was a huge clunking noise, and the clock seemed to slide out of the way. No- it WAS sliding out of the way, and a passage opened up. Harley crept forward next to the Riddler, her eyes wide.
"Eddie, it's a secret passageway!"
"Riddle me that." he whispered.
"NIGMA!" someone yelled. "GET YOUR SORRY ASS BACK HERE. WE AREN'T DONE PLAYING TRIVIAL PURSUIT, AND IT'S BEEN YOUR TURN FOR HALF AN HOUR AND WE'VE JUST BEEN SITTING HERE."
Nigma looked at Harley and she shrugged.
"C'mon, Eddie. I don't really feel like pokin' around in some creepy tunnel. It's prolly fulla bats anyway."
"Yeah, probably." Nigma said, and he and Harley made their way back up the stairs to the Trivial Pursuit game.
"Finally." Harvey grumbled, throwing the dice at the Riddler. They bounced off his face and he scowled.
"All right, all right." he said, sitting down next to Harvey. "I just don't think you should throw stuff at your brofriend."
"Um...what?"
"It's a new word I just invented." he said, his face lighting up. "Brofriend. It's the word for one of the people involved in a bromance. We have a bromance, you are my brofriend."
"Nigma." Harvey said through clenched teeth. "You're making it really hard on me to NOT punch you in the face."
"I thought it was clever." Nigma sniffed with some arrogance, sitting up straight and rolling the dice. He saw Bruce give Dick a long side glance.
"Riddle me this. I need a nature question." he said, landing on a green space.
"You don't need to preface everything you say with 'Riddle me this', you know." Ivy scowled, pulling a green card out of the deck. "Here's your question- how many leaves does," here, Ivy closed her eyes and took a deep breath, "poison ivy have?"
The Ridder looked at her blankly.
"No, give me a real question."
"That is the real question, dumbass." she snapped. "How many leaves does it have?"
"You don't have any leaves. My answer is zero."
"Really?" the Joker looked at him, no humor in his face. "Really, Nigma?"
"What?" he asked. "Should we look at this analytically? Should we perhaps look at this question as not a determination of fact, but rather as a puzzle of the mind? Perhaps it is implying that Poison Ivy is the creation of leaf? Or maybe that she is leaf itself! Could we perhaps describe as Ivy as the culmination of nature and war bonded together to create the perfect, deadly mutant? Or do we consider her with sympathy and awe? Thinking of all this, could we maybe..."
"THREE." Ivy screeched, springing up to her knees. "A POISON IVY PLANT HAS THREE LEAVES."
Nigma shrank under her shadow. Then-
"Poison ivy is a real plant?"
Ivy screamed in rage, something she rarely did, and slapped Nigma across the face with a plant tendril.
"Now, now, Ivy." the Joker patted her shoulder. "No need to get mad at Eddie. He just doesn't know any better. Or...anything really, for that matter."
"I could resent that." Nigma sniffed. "But thanks anyway."
"No problem, copycat jerk face."
Nigma stiffened, but ignored the comment nonetheless.
"This game doesn't show of the proper components of my intellect." Crane said. "Can I change some of the cards?"
"No." Bruce said. There was a great deal of exasperation in his voice. The phone rang.
"Change the cards." Harvey muttered. "Cheater. You know I only know the sports questions."
"Yes, my adjustment would eliminate all sports cards."
"This is why you suck." Harvey said, flipping his coin. "The coin thinks so too."
"I'm glad your inanimate object has an opinion." Crane said. "It's reassuring to me that I'm not the craziest. Tell me- does your coin have an aggressive or passive personality?"
"Aggressive." Harvey said morosely. "And sometimes, I feel like it doesn't really love me like I love it. Like it's using me."
"All right, guys." Bruce said once he was off the phone. "The power is back on at Arkham. I'll escort you back to the van."
"We haven't even played spin the bottle yet." Harley muttered, crossing her arms.
"It's all right, Harl." Ivy said, patting her friend on the back. "We'll get them later."
"God, that would have been awesome." Dick sighed, watching them walk away. "Can you imagine? If I got to k..."
He stopped, for Barbara had jammed her elbow into his ribcage.
"Dude." Tim shook his head at Dick before he wandered off into an adjacent room.
Meanwhile, the six villains were back in the van with the doctors and the nurses, who had somehow mysteriously disappeared while they were in Wayne Manor.
"I wonder what was in that tunnel?" Harley asked Nigma later as they walked up the pathway to the Asylum. "What it lead to?"
"I have told you one billion times." Nigma sighed. "Chocolate. Porridge."
She just shook her head.
"Whatever."
The door to Harvey and the Joker's cell slid shut with a final clang. Once the nurse had walked away, Harvey looked over at the Joker.
"I know you cheated in Monopoly."
"Um, hello? I'm the Joker. OF COURSE I CHEATED, STUPID."
"Hey! HEY! DON'T CALL ME STUPID, STUPID. I'm the one who formulated the brilliant plan to Bruce Wayne's secret!"
"YEAH, BUT...wait, what?"
"Remember when he said not to turn the clock to 10:47?"
"Yes. What about it?"
"I totally had this awesome plan to sneak down there and turn the time to that. Just to see what was under there."
"And?"
"I didn't." Harvey said, flipping his coin. "Coin told me not to."
The Joker shook his head at him.
"Harvey, honestly...I just don't know about you."
Harvey just shrugged, and eventually went to bed. All six wondered as they slept what that secret could have been, none of them knowing the full irony of the truth. Of course, Harvey didn't know what irony even was, so it's possible to say that it wouldn't have really affected him at all.
There you go :) Not nearly as much arguing as usual, but I feel like that can get a little old, don't you? I try not to pile on the humor too much, to me, it eventually just seems like I've made them argue in every way possible before. I wanted to do something will a little bitter but funny irony instead. I hope it was good for you too :)
EDIT: Thank you so much to everyone who has/will help me out with my project about fan fiction. I really really really really appreciate it. You guys are super awesome.