The Last Laugh

“There,” Scarecrow said lazily after handing a bottle full of the fear toxins to Joker. “It’s finally finished. Can we go now?”

Joker looked up and pursed his lips, clearly annoyed that he had ruined his, ‘Joker time.’ He had his head resting on Harley’s lap and she stroked his hair lovingly. Well, she tried to stroke it, but her arms were still hand cuffed together.

“What?” Scarecrow asked, rising out of his chair. “Do you not want it anymore? Because if not, I’ll be sure to take it with me.”

“Alright, alright, keep your straw in your shorts,” he said with a chuckle and stood up to investigate, much to Harley’s dismay. “Now, where is my toxin?”

“On the table,” he informed him and started heading towards the door.

The Joker’s guard (the third guard), a big guy with a plastic clown mask, blocked his path.

“Ah, ta ta ta ta ta!”he began, shaking his head and his finger side to side. “How do I know that you didn’t...how do I put it...SABOTAGE, oh, I LIKE that word! How do I know that you didn’t sabotage my hallucinogens?”

“You don’t,” Scarecrow began to answer, grabbing onto Harley’s arm. “But what’s life without a little risk?”

He once again tried to push pass the guard, who roughly grabbed him by the collar and pushed him at the Joker.

“You, and me, and my dear little Harley Quinn are going to go out on a heist!” Joker informed them, glancing over at Harley for a fraction of a second and tracing the outline of his lips with his tongue. “Just to make sure it works...properly.”

“As you wish,” Scarecrow answered unenthusiastically, rolling his eyes. “But Harley sits by me.”

Joker held his arms up in surrender and flattened his lips so that they imitated a ducks bill. “I’ll drive!”

“On second thought...” Scarecrow mumbled quietly so that only Harley could hear it.
The three of them and Joker’s thugs arrived at Gotham City Bank with throbbing headaches, thanks to Joker’s reckless driving.

“Come on kiddies!” Joker yelled out to Scarecrow and Harley, spinning around in a circle, gun in hand. “This was where my, uh, career got started! Before I ever met, but had definitely heard of, Batman. I didn’t even have my threads back then! Hehehehehehe! Ah, good times, good times.”

Scarecrow slipped on his mask and sighed. “I feel like my old self again.”
The three descended up the steps and Joker kicked open the glass doors, laughing as he did so.

“I’m back!” he yelled as his thugs filed in around him with guns shooting off and waving around wildly.

The men and women behind the desks immediately threw their arms up in the air as if it were an instinct; which, by now, it most likely was. The customers opposite them ducked down onto the marble ground.

“Boys! To the vault!” Joker commanded, snapping his fingers. He then pointed to Scarecrow and said, “And you, pick a, a volunteer...hehehe!”

“And what about me?” Harley asked, folding her arms as Scarecrow left her side.

“You, my little Harley Quinn,” he began mumbling, not looking at her. “You will get your role in due-ah, time.”

“What do I do in the meantime?” she whined.

“Just stand there and look pretty!” he giggled, and then smacked lips. “Shouldn’t be TOO hard for you.”

Harley let out a deep, agitated breath and leaned against the wall next to one of the hostages. She slid down until she was in a sitting position and turned to the quivering man on her right.

“Two men, and one of me,” she began with a sob, resting her head on the man’s legs. “Which one am I supposed to choose? I mean, there’s my ex-boyfriend Jonathon, who’s super smart and super sweet. He’s also been protecting me this entire time. But, he’s kinda not Jonathon right now...And then there’s Joker. Ah, Joker. The complete and total opposite of Jonathon. He’s more mysterious and unpredictable, a loose-cannon. What do you think?”

“I think you should ditch them ba-both and go with someone who’s NOT a psychopathic killer,” he said, looking at her from the corner of his eyes with a hopeful smile.

“I think we found a winner,” Scarecrow announced, looking down at the man whom Harley was conversing with, with a vaguely annoyed look on his face. He picked the man up by his lapel and sneered slightly in his face.

“Ah, I’m excited!” Joker said boisterously, flashing his yellow teeth. He trudged over to the victim and dragged him to the center of the bank. “Alright guinea pig, you are about to be the, uh, the very FIRST man to try out my fear toxin. Isn’t that EXCITING?”

The man stared at him terrified, and Harley watched miserably from her spot on the floor.
“Give me the button, crop protector!” Joker commanded to Scarecrow, who handed him the button that dispersed the toxin into the air.

He looked at it eagerly, and then hastily pressed it. A massive blur burst into the air and blew directly into the man’s face. He closed his eyes and yelled out in pain, and then reopened them and stared, horrified. His yells turned into desperate, terrified screams of terror.

“AHHHH!” he yelled, trying to look away from the two figures around him. “GET AWAY FROM ME!”

Joker burst into a fit of hysterics at the sight of the man cowering on the floor.

“Oh, this will NEVER get old!” he cried out. “You know, Scarecrow, we could make a good team!”

“Drop the toxin, Joker,” a gruff voice yelled out from the entrance of the bank, and their heads all whipped towards the black-clad man.

At this point, Harley had somersaulted over to the Joker, stood up, and leaned casually onto his body, curving her body into an elegant, yet seductive, pose. The Joker wrapped his arms around her, staring down at the button that had just released the toxin that made the quivering man on the floor into the position he was currently in.

“You want some, Batsy?” Joker asked, playing catch with the button, and then slipped it into Harley’s hand.

“Your, turn, Harles,” he whispered into her ear, winking at her. “Don’t disappoint.”

Harley looked at the button that dispersed the toxin, up at Batman, and then back towards the Joker. She smiled; she was willing to do anything for her prince.

“Hey Bats!” She giggled, flipping and cart wheeling her way over to him until she was a few feet in front of him. The Joker and Scarecrow continued their previous activity of robbing the bank. “Nice to see you again outside of the clinger. But we can’t spend too much time with the whole meet-and-greet thing: what the Joker wants, the Joker gets.”

She swung her leg around so that it nearly collided with Batman’s head, but he ducked just in time. He grabbed her by the back of her arm and pinned it onto her back. She winced in pain, but proceeded to giggle. Harley kicked her leg up so that it hit the bat in his head, which was responded with a grunt and he staggered away from her.

“You’ve got spunk, Bats,” she giggled, resting her hands on his shoulders. “But you’re gonna need to do a lot more than this to finish me off.”

She proceeded to pull herself up into a handstand over his head and flipped off onto the other side. She landed in a crouch and swung her leg around so as to trip him, but he jumped away. He picked her up by her neck and flung her into the wall. He turned around and went for his real target; the Joker.

Harley growled in frustration, and then leaped at him so that she landed onto his back.

“Don’t walk away from me, B-man!” she yelled, pulling him down backwards.

She flipped him around so that she straddled his abdomen. She pinned his arms down and grinned down at him, her fake red smile even wider than it was before.

“Ha, pinned ya,” she announced.

Batman brought his legs up so that they hooked around her neck and pulled her down so that their positions had been switched around. He held some sort of tazer-like thing in his hand and was pointing it at her face. Harley thought she was done, and her grin slid down into a glower, until she realized that she still had the toxin in her hand. She quickly pressed the button and released the toxin into Batman’s face. He coughed and spluttered, rolling off of her, but he never started screaming like the other man did. Harley rolled up into a
backwards somersault and then up into a handstand. She glared, upside down, at Batman.

“Hey, what gives?!” she whined, kicking her legs up in the air. “Why aren’t you going psycho?”

“Because,” he answered gruffly. “I have already taken the antidote to the toxin. It no longer affects me.”

“Then what’s the point of this?” she flipped back onto her feet and threw the toxin at Batman, who caught it with ease. “Now it’s time to catch back up with Mr. J!”

She cart wheeled out the door just in time to see the Joker and Scarecrow climb into the van.

“Hey! Wait for me!” Harley yelled, agitated. She ran into the car and slid the door shut just as Batman came outside.

“Phew! That was a close one!” Harley sighed, falling back into a pile of money.

“Harley,” Joker growled from the driver’s seat.

The care jerked to the side, slamming her into the wall of the car, sending a bolt of pain down the side of her head.

“You didn’t finish off the Batman.”

“I know I know!” she moaned, rubbing the side of her head. “But we messed up. The fear toxin doesn’t affect him; he’s already taken the antidote. Something SOMEONE forgot to mention.”

“Do not precede point fingers at me,” Scarecrow said from the passenger seat, mask still on. “You could’ve killed him ANYWAY. You did not need my fear toxin; you have already killed hundreds of people beforehand.”

“You try killing the Batman!” I yelled, crawling up so that I was between the two of them. “It’s a lot harder than it looks. Oh, wait, you have. And guess what? YOU FAILED!”

He glared at her through the slits in his mask, muttering something about how if Crane wasn’t in his head right now…

“Alright, CHILDREN-ah,” Joker interjected, braking the car so that Harley flew forwards and slammed into the dashboard. Joker picked her up by her blond, shaggy hair. “What happened to my fear toxin?”

“Batman got it,” she moaned out in pain, and she felt blood dripping down the side of her head.

He threw open the door and dragged her out, not letting go of her hair. Joker smashed her against a brick wall somewhere down a dark alley.

“Harley, Harley, HARLEY,” he growled at her, her face contorted into utmost pain. She tried to hide it, and actually succeeded. “What am I going to do with you-ah?”

“That’s ENOUGH, Joker,” Scarecrow said lazily as he climbed out of the van. “Do not try Dr. Crane’s patience. If you do so, you try MINE.”

“But my toy has UNSATISFYING results,” Joker replied roughly, not turning around. His tongue grazed his lips. “Let’s talk about it inside, shall we?”

He kicked open the door and pulled her into the elevator and onto the fourth floor, with Crane’s outcries following behind. He threw her down and then kicked her horrendously in the stomach. She coughed a couple of times but didn’t move, or show any signs of retaliation.

“Well, at least you’re loyal, dog,” he told her, finally stopping and kneeling down by her face. “Do you know why I chose you to be my little harlequin?”

She didn’t answer; she just sat there and stared into his eyes. The elevator door opened, and he kicked her into the room.

“I chose you because you were EASY,” Joker began, picking her up gently and propping her up against the window. “You are my toy - something that I created, and that is why I value you. I had the ability to reduce an independent, good-looking, and thriving young woman to a willing slave who has given up all hope of a normal life for ME. But, that was your last chance. And you FAILED me. And do ya know what happens when you FAIL?”

He didn’t give her a chance to answer him, for he picked her up and threw her out the window. She didn’t let out a scream, or try to find something to help her; she simply fell. When she hit the ground, she realized that what he had said was the truth. He didn’t love her; and she didn’t really love him. Crane was right; she liked the attention she was getting from him and that was all.

Although the fall didn’t kill her; though she wished it did, for all she heard before she fell unconscious was his laughter.