"Hey, don't try to make yourself into a big man in this!" snapped Joker, suddenly grabbing the pen away from Crane. "I won't let you insert an unreliable narrator into the chronicle of my life's greatest achievement! Anyway, you can't make me do anything, and you never would, because you're a complete coward! And I certainly ain't intimidated by you, so I ain't paying you nothing!"
"Well, I mostly hold Jervis responsible for overreacting," snapped Crane. "I don't know why we had to burn down the whole apartment, rather than just his bed."
"Had to be sure," murmured Tetch. "The whole place was contaminated, so it had to be sterilized. Couldn't risk it spreading."
"Couldn't risk what spreading, exactly?" demanded Joker. "What kind of diseases do you think we got?"
"I shouldn't like to speculate," retorted Tetch. "But the image needed to be burned from my brain, and the only way to do that was to literally burn it away."
"And yet, I bet it's still there," replied Joker, grinning.
"Not if I don't let myself think about it," replied Tetch. "Which I don't, as long as I keep repeating nonsense to myself. 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe…"
"Speaking of nonsense, what happened at the zoo?" interrupted Two-Face.
"Oh yeah, the zoo story!" chuckled Joker. "Now there's a yarn and a half! You remember how Harley wanted to keep the diamond we stole for Pengers? Well, it'll come as no surprise to anyone that she also wanted to keep the two panda cubs from the moment she laid eyes on them."
"Oh my gosh, they're too cute!" shrieked Harley, as she stared at the sleeping baby pandas in their cage at the zoo.
"Says here their names are Li Li and Jiang Jiang," read Joker from the sign in front of the cage. "Female and male. That's good – that means whoever we sell 'em to can breed 'em, which will make them worth more."
"They can't breed a brother and sister!" exclaimed Harley. "That's all kinds of wrong!"
"Harley, the dumb animals don't know they're related…" began Joker.
"That just makes it even more wrong!" exclaimed Harley. "I won't sell 'em to anyone who's gonna do anything like that with 'em! In fact, I don't wanna sell them at all! They're just so cute and precious, I just wanna cuddle them all day long!" she cooed. "Can I keep 'em, puddin'? I'll feed 'em and walk 'em and take real good care of them!"
"Of course you can't keep them!" snapped Joker. "What is it with you wanting to deprive me of my billions?! I'm never gonna make any money if you keep begging me to keep everything we steal! Besides, the babies would use 'em for a chew toy, just like they did Bruce Wayne. Except these are so small, they'd be able to fit 'em in their mouths and rip the squeakers right outta them!"
"They'd do no such thing!" snapped Harley. "The babies love cute things, just like I do!"
"Yeah, they love to eat them," agreed Joker. "Trust me, you bring those home, and the babies will chow down on them immediately. And you'll have contributed to the extinction of an endangered species. Mind you, I'm shocked that pandas aren't already extinct – they seem too stupid to survive in the wild. And you know me, I'm all for survival of the fittest."
"But puddin', they even have names that sound like the names I've always wanted for our kiddies," pleaded Harley. "Arleen and J.J. You can shorten Arleen to Leenie, which is like Li Li. And Jiang Jiang is basically J.J…"
"Harley, we are not keeping these pandas because they have names that slightly resemble your weirdly specific names for our imaginary children!" snapped Joker. "Now get real! And help me throw these things into sacks!" he ordered, breaking the lock off the cage with his crowbar.
"We can't put 'em into sacks – they'll suffocate!" exclaimed Harley. "Just let me carry 'em! They're such precious little fluffbundles!" she cooed, as she entered the cage and tucked a sleeping panda cub under each arm. They continued to snooze, while their mother merely yawned and rolled over, ignoring them.
"See, how does this species survive in the wild?" demanded Joker. "No maternal instinct! If these were real wild animals, threatening to take her cubs would end in our faces being ripped off. But she just rolls over and goes back to sleep – you deserve to die out, you pathetic excuse for a bear!" he shouted at the panda.
"Yeah, I don't know how anyone could let these little angels go!" sighed Harley, cuddling the sleeping cubs as she carried them out of the cage. "We can't sell 'em, puddin'!"
"We can and will," retorted Joker, as they headed away from the panda enclosure. "Speaking of which, I wonder if there are any other valuable critters around here," he said, looking around. "We could have a mass wildlife sale, a bestiary blowout if you will!" he chuckled. "Can't hurt to take a look around and appraise the merchandise."
"It's been ages since you've taken me to the zoo on a date," said Harley. "So we can have one now," she added, threading her arm through his and balancing a sleeping panda cub between them.
"You always say it makes you sad to see the hyenas in cages," retorted Joker. "Why would I take you someplace that makes you sad on a date? You know I only wanna spread smiles and laughter, not sadness."
"Yeah, it does make me sad," agreed Harley. "But we can just avoid the hyena enclosure. Or free them, and take them with us."
"Hyenas ain't valuable though," replied Joker. "No point in taking any animals that ain't valuable. Anyway, the babies would definitely be jealous if we brought other hyenas home."
"Not if they were female hyenas," replied Harley. "And if they took a liking to each other, we could have little hyena babies running around…"
"Yeah, that's just what we need," interrupted Joker, sarcastically. "As if adult hyenas don't make enough of a mess around the hideout, you wanna have babies running loose too?"
"I'll clean up the mess, like I always do," retorted Harley.
"Eventually," retorted Joker. "And I think you're underestimating the amount of mess baby hyenas would make."
"It'd be worth it to have such cute, sweet little things in your life," replied Harley. "Just like it'd be worth putting up with all the inconveniences and messes that a baby of our own would make…"
"But much like a human baby, hyena babies don't make you money," interrupted Joker. "They're not worth anything to anyone, except their parents. Anyway, if I'm gonna be a big time entrepreneur, I don't have time for pets or a family. As a big time entrepreneur, my only focus is on making money. And there aren't very many ways of making money out of animals…"
Their attention was suddenly caught by a strange noise, a sort of hissing, growling noise that morphed into something between a dog bark and a duck quack. They looked at the cage next to them to see two small creatures hissing and tearing into each other in an incredibly violent and ferocious manner.
"What the hell are these things?" asked Joker, excitedly. "I love them!"
"It says they're honey badgers," said Harley, glancing at the sign. "Talk about your species that seem like they should be extinct – it looks like they're gonna do that to themselves by ripping each other apart like that."
"Are you kidding? This is how they prevent the species from growing weak and pathetic," retorted Joker. "They weed out the weak until only the strongest survives. Darwinism at its finest, which I'm a real big fan of. In fact, it's largely my philosophy in life – I eliminate people who can't take a joke, so that only those with the strongest sense of humor survive. It's all for the good of society, and to help ensure the future of the human race."
"You're a real hero, puddin'," sighed Harley, adoringly, leaning against him and kissing his cheek.
Unfortunately, her leaning over to kiss him unbalanced the sleeping panda cub hanging from their joined arms, and tipped it over the railing into the honey badger enclosure. The two critters instantly separated, baring their bloody teeth at the intruder and racing to attack it.
Harley clapped a hand to her mouth, and Joker just watched silently as the violent assault took place amid high-pitched screaming and snarling. When the honey badgers separated at last, there was no trace left of the baby panda.
Joker turned to glare at Harley. "Thanks a lot, Harl!" he shouted. "We just lost one half of a big paycheck! Plus now nobody can breed the stupid things! Why must you sabotage every attempt to make my fortune?!"
"I'm sorry, puddin'!" sobbed Harley, both for being yelled at and at the loss of the panda cub. "It was an accident!"
"Never mind – we'll just have to gouge the price of the remaining one!" snapped Joker, grabbing the still sleeping panda cub away from her for safekeeping. "I don't see any other way for me to make money now!"
The honey badgers, satisfied at having dispatched the intruder, now went back to tearing each other to pieces. Joker looked down at them fighting and mauling each other, and an idea slowly formed in his head as a smile formed on his face. "Scratch that!" he chuckled. "Cockfighting has got nothing on honey badger baiting!"
