"You aren't an imaginary friend," Harleen said. "You're an asshole."
"Isn't that a little harsh?" Daniel said. "It was a harmless prank. You're a doctor—aren't you supposed to be calm and collected?"
Then again, he thought, watching her reaction, maybe "calm and collected" had always been a bit optional for Harleen Quinzel. People didn't just wake up one day as Harley Quinn—there had to be signs.
"Even doctors have limits," Harleen Quinzel said, stepping straight up to him, grabbing his shirt in both fists and yanking him down to her eye level. For someone who had never been in a situation like this, she was adapting far too quickly.
"Calm down," Daniel said, glancing at her hands on his shirt with mild curiosity. "No need for violence. I'm your neighborhood-friendly imaginary friend."
"You just kicked Bane in the groin."
"That was different. He started it."
"You let me think I was losing my mind on my first day," she said, her grip tightening. "My first day."
"…the wave was too much," he admitted.
"The wave was too much," she repeated slowly.
"In hindsight, yes."
Harleen held him there for another second then released his shirt and smoothed it down with both hands, composing herself with what remained of her dignity.
"But aren't you a little scared," Daniel said, genuinely curious. "You know I'm not normal. You've seen what I can do. Yet you're grabbing my shirt like I'm some guy from the neighborhood."
Harleen opened her mouth then stopped.
He had a point and she hated that he had a point. By every rational measure she should be terrified of him.
And she'd grabbed his shirt.
Then someone screamed it first.
"BATMAN!"
The grapnel hook shot across the yard and caught an inmate halfway up the wall by his collar, yanking him back down like a bad idea being corrected. He hit the ground hard and didn't get up.
Batman landed in the center of the yard.
No announcement. Just the cape settling and the weight of his presence doing the rest.
The yard changed instantly. Men who had been screaming thirty seconds ago went completely still. Fear of the bat wasn't something Arkham inmates talked about openly but it lived in all of them, deep and unconditional, built from every rooftop and broken bone and night they'd spent wondering if tonight was the night he came through the window.
"All of you," Batman said. "Back to your cells."
Nobody moved.
Then Killer Croc decided he wasn't nobody and charged from the left, all four hundred pounds of him, roaring.
Batman sidestepped, caught him by the arm mid-charge and used every pound of that momentum to send him face first into the yard wall. The concrete cracked. Croc slid down it and stayed there.
Batman straightened up.
"Anyone else?" he said.
Three inmates ran back toward the building immediately.
Two more pulled makeshift weapons and came at him from either side. Batman dropped low, swept the legs of the one on his left, caught the weapon hand of the one on his right and broke his grip at the wrist, clean and fast, then put him down with an elbow across the jaw.
Four seconds. Two men on the ground.
The rest of the yard took a collective step back.
Harleen watched from where she stood, gun still in her hand, completely still.
"He's real," she said quietly.
"Very," Daniel said beside her.
"And he just did that in about four seconds."
"Three and a half," Daniel said. "But yes."
Riddler stepped forward from the crowd, green suit somehow still intact, cane in hand, wearing the expression of a man who believed this was his moment.
"Tell me Batman," Riddler said, already smiling. "What has cities but no houses, forests but no trees, and water but no fish."
He threw the bomb.
Batman kicked it straight back into his face.
It exploded.
Riddler stood there for a long moment, suit blackened, hair smoking, question unanswered. Then he sat down on the ground quietly and stayed there.
Batman's eyes moved across the yard and stopped on Daniel.
"You."
"Nope," Daniel said, pulling Harleen in front of him. "Nothing to do with any of this. Just here messing with her, enjoying my youth."
Harleen's head snapped toward him. "Enjoying your what," she said. "What does that mean, messing with her, I am right here—"
She drove her elbow back into his ribs.
Daniel took it without flinching. "I meant it as a compliment."
"That was not a compliment," Harleen said.
"Let's say your beauty attracted me," Daniel said simply.
Harleen turned and looked at him with the expression of a woman who had a doctorate, had survived a prison break, had shot two people and kicked Bane in the groin tonight and was not in the mood.
"My beauty," she repeated.
"You're smart, you're fearless, you walked into Arkham on your first day and didn't run when any reasonable person would have," Daniel said. "That's not nothing, Harleen."
She held the expression for another second.
Then looked away, the faintest thing crossing her face that she immediately decided nobody saw.
Batman watched this entire exchange without moving.
"...you two know each other," he said.
"No," said Harleen.
"Yes," said Daniel.
They looked at each other.
*****
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