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Chapter Text

One.

In the quiet moments, the walls of the Arkham medical ward fade into the off-white of his cheap apartment, and Euijoo feels like he cannot breathe. 

There is blood on the ground. There is laughter ringing in his ears. He's lying on his front, and in the darkest moments of his nightmares, he's awake with an incomprehensible certainty that his chest is not moving. 

His mouth tastes foul with the remains of an argument. It had been five days since they'd fought. He'd thought it would be enough time to move out of the shitty motel he'd been crashing in. Three days, and anyone following him would surely have given up by then, or already made their move. Two days to settle back in. Blowing the thick layer of dust settled over his unused guitar, bedsheets carrying the scent of must and grime of the Narrows.

It had been a few months since he'd last returned, but he'd thought that meant it was safe. Two days of choking on cheap take-out because he'd still been nervous to go outside. Two days of standing underneath the shower with the temperature turned up to boiling. Two days of headphones slammed over his ears like it could block out the laughter. 

Five days of a detox, so the same smile didn't pull quite as tight on his lips. Five days, and he'd been just beginning to feel the impacts of withdrawal. 

Lying in the medical cot, he thinks he was naive. The boy from a month ago had been so sure that he'd managed to hide. The boy from today thinks that his secret apartment had never been as secret as he thought it was.

If you cannot control when the prey will run, you better fuckin' know where they're gonna run to. 

He'd known the detox would get bad after a week. He'd known his time was running out. Heading to the small stretch of shops - less than a mile away - had been his chance to pick up enough tins of food that he could choke down between lapses in sleep. 

He'd thought a cheap laptop would have been nice, if he could make his money stretch that far. Maybe, now that he was finally done with [____], he could finally put the beginnings of that Library Science degree to use. 

Then there is the door. It swings open without Euijoo laying a single hand on the cheap wood. It's not even dark, it's the middle of the day, and he's never been afraid of monsters that lurk in the dark but he'd thought they would stay in the dark. And standing in the doorframe is that same monster.

"Pumpkin," says the monster. The redacted space that Euijoo won't put a name to. "Baby, why'd you leave?"

The walls of the medical room in Arkham should be safe. There is not enough space beneath Euijoo's cot for a monster to hide. There are bars on the window that keep the shadows out as much as they keep him inside.

They still look like the stupid walls of his apartment. The cheap colour of paint that was once white but has since yellowed with age. 

They'd fought and it hadn't even been the first time, and five days had passed so Euijoo thought he'd have gotten over it already, but there's one thing that monsters hate and it's-

It's-

It's people thinking they can get away.

So [____] holds a gun and then Euijoo is on the floor even though he knows he's in the medical ward. He's screaming because there's blood in his mouth - because he's bitten through his lip but he doesn't realise it at the time. 

There's laughter and there's laughter and there's a choked giggle through the blood in his mouth and he's on the floor - and he's pretty sure he's been shot - which is silly, there are no guns in Arkham . And there's a hole inside of him and it burns like nothing he's been able to compare, and the tiles beneath him are cold but warming up and-

Someone keeps laughing, even though the monster has left. 

Euijoo wants to tell them to stop, but he can't breathe. There are sirens in the distance and people holding him down by the shoulders. He's not in his apartment but the pressure is still there and he realises his throat is raw. It's been a month and he's still not fully detoxed, because it isn't painful from screaming but laughing . 

Then it doesn't matter whether the walls are the medical ward with orderlies and wardens trying to keep him still, or from his apartment where the ambulance crew try and put him back together. Passing out from blood loss and the cold needle of sedation feel similar enough, either way. 

----

Two.

In the not-so-quiet moments, Euijoo plays along with the Arkham staff. He lets them manhandle him into physical therapy and answers their questions with a.. detached sort of honesty. They talk about moving him from the medical ward soon - like they're not in the room still, and like he can't hear every word they're saying. 

He eats his meals quietly and breathes in the fresh air when they're allowed out into the courtyard. There's a minor break-out two weeks after his arrival, and he doesn't make any attempt to join in. 

He knows the punishment would be severe, and he knows that any dream of leaving this place soon is naively optimistic. The siren on the wall wails and at least the sound is loud enough that even when the room is left completely empty, it never quite becomes a quiet moment. 

This isn't the ward for patching up wounds. In Arkham a fight breaks out practically every morning, so there's an entire space dedicated to setting dislocated limbs and stitching up bleeding cuts. The staff are trained to intervene but it's usually the skill of the prisoners that prevents anything more drastic from occurring. No use in whittling down the fun opponents when there's such little else to do, it seems.

Euijoo sits in the long-term ward alone, most of the time. In the bad hours of the detox he's thankful for it. There's no one to see him retch into a bucket or shiver so badly that he soaks the sheets through with sweat. He can look as pathetic and curled up as he wants, and his only company is the guard stationed at the door. 

In the days where his mind is clear - the moments he'd told himself he'd cling to, back when he'd first had that stupid fight and decided to leave for good - he doesn't mind the isolation either. He sits and wonders whether this is something he brought upon himself.

He thinks he was good, once.

He thinks he wanted to do good. 

He thinks that if he'd never met [_____] he might have been something else. Someone who wasn't in the medical ward of a prison. He wishes he weren't so mild-mannered to everyone he'd met, and that he wishes he could go back and tell himself not to be naive. 

That not all monsters looked like monsters at first glance. 

Then he wonders whether it would have changed anything. Whether it's worth thinking about, because when it comes down to it there's nothing he can do about the choices he'd made. All those people he's hurt are still hurt. If that part inside of him is still good, it's buried beneath layers and layers of dirt and grime and Gotham smoke.

When he's being kind of himself, he wonders whether that dirt could have been shifted. Whether the force of the bullet could have pushed through the build-up of who Euijoo had become, and in that hole in his spine had revealed something that could have been .

There is not much kindness in Arkham. Most of the time, Euijoo thinks he'd try to wash off the dirt only to reveal something already rotten beneath. 

----

Three. 

It's one of those not-so-quiet moments when Euijoo first meets Nicholas.

The clouds must have broken. A rare occasion in Gotham, but Euijoo can see sunlight cast across his legs, black shadows cut into the silhouette of the bars across the window. Someone is shouting in the distance. When isn't someone shouting in the distance. Euijoo is too far away to hear what's being said, so the sound is more like white noise than the pretence of a conversation.

There's a medical ward nurse at the other end of the room. It looks like she's restocking a temporary first aid kid, judging by the excess of bandages, sterilising alcohol and the complete absence of anything sharp. He can see the pieces of a padlock laid across the table. The pager in her pocket hums at the same time the security guard at the entrance stiffens. 

It's the only warning the three of them get before the door is flung open.

"Got another one for you," says a warden. He's fairly built, in the way that all the staff who work man-handling the prisoners here have to be. He also has the same glint of sadism in his eyes. Also practically a requirement to work here. Gotham wonders why so many villains appear in the shadows of the city, and yet they still reward the hard won cruelty of its citizens. 

Euijoo knows that better than most. Something in the air suffocates anything that could once have been good. There's a bullet in his spine to prove it, and a long history that's landed him behind bars in the first place.

The warden is not smiling. Despite the door and the glint and the overwhelming presence, beating down on Euijoo, his lips are pressed together into a grim line, and that's what keeps his breathing steady.

That, and the fact that there's someone behind him.

 The warden has one arm behind his back, and as he steps into the ward he shoves it forward, revealing that his hand has been wrapped around the wrist of a prisoner. He doesn't let go even when the prisoner stumbles with the force of the movement. He doesn't flinch when the room is suddenly filled with other people.

A doctor, another nurse, then two prison guards armed with electrified batons. They're not supposed to be drawn in the medical ward. Euijoo's not sure that rule has ever been followed,  though the long-term ward is usually significantly calmer than the short-term one. That might be something to do with the sedation its inhabitants are often under.

The prisoner, and the cause of all the fuss, is someone Euijoo has never seen before.

It's a man. Young, probably around Euijoo's own age and a couple of inches shorter - if Euijoo could get to his feet. His lip is cut and bleeding slightly onto his chin, but he doesn't seem to be making any effort to stem the flow. There's a large purple bruise on his cheekbone. His eyes narrow as he scans the room, lips pressed together with almost as much contempt as the warden pulling him along. 

There are two things that stand out about him. 

His hair is bright red. From this distance it's hard to see whether it's dyed, and Euijoo instinctively shivers. They'd dyed his own hair back to black when he'd arrived, but he can still feel the sting of bleach against his scalp when they clean the floor. There's something odd about the undertone of his skin as well, but it's impossible to make out anything more from this distance. 

The other thing that draws Euijoo's attention is how tightly the man is bound.

There are shiny metal cuffs linking his wrists together. A similar pair connect his feet, leaving him shuffling instead of taking full steps. Curiously, there's also a thick metal collar fit around his neck. It almost looks like there's a plastic seam keeping the material flush to his skin. 

Everyone surrounding him looks to be on guard. Euijoo is also room, but not a single glance has been spared to his small corner of the ward - they don't want to draw their eyes away from their prisoner for a single moment.

A meta, then.

Euijoo's been around Arkham before. This may be the first time he's been completely limited to the medical ward, but his previous visits had him encountering a good proportion of the inmates - including those who were metas , persons with extraordinary abilities. 

They're the ones who get called 'rogues' by the media. They're the ones who have a personal history with Batman that isn't just the wrong side of a mob agreement. They're the ones who give the 'revolving doors' of Arkham its name. 

No wonder they're being so cautious around this new prisoner. 

"A mild sedative should do it," says the doctor. He casts a look to the nurse who'd already been in the ward, and she fumbles with the abandoned first aid kit like she can't close it and get to the stored drugs fast enough. 

The warden grunts. "I forget this place is here," he says. It shows in the relatively few guards normally posted, the fact that Euijoo has missed meals on occasion because no one has come to take him to the mess hall. It shows in the grime on the walls, the yellowing colour of what would once have been considered-

Considered -

It's hard to think of his apartment when there are so many other people around. He's lost some time, the conversation has moved on, and he's still blinking away something painful when his brain can finally make sense of the words again.

"- isolation," says the warden. "You'll like that, won't you, flower?"

It's an odd choice for a nickname, but it's dehumanisating and therefore serves its purpose. They've moved the prisoner to a bed now. The plastic wrap crinkles under his weight and the doctor taps a needle across the room, inspecting the clear liquid inside.

"You sure this is gonna do the job?" The warden asks, this time directed to the doctor. "Mild is regulation, but it's also weak. If you wanna up the dosage just to be sure, no one here is gonna snitch. Might save us a clean-up later, if anything."

The doctor glances between the sedative and the prisoner. It looks like he's sizing him up - not as a patient but as a cut of meat. Euijoo's stomach twists. He's been trying not to think of the smile in the warden's voice, because a smile is close enough to laughter that it's dangerous - but he's not sure the clinical detachment is much better.

"It'll be fine," the doctor says eventually. "After his nice stay in isolation, we'll have a better idea about whether the dosage should be upped. Remember - no sedative is regulation."

There's a pause. They exchange looks, and then they laugh.

The sound is a nasty little thing. It's cruel enough that Euijoo wouldn't even need to hear the proceeding conversation to immediately feel sick. His stomach twists and he's overcome with nausea. The detox has mostly passed by now, his stay in the long-term medical ward soon coming to a close - but it's done nothing to fix the-

The-

The nightmares. The memory of the monster in the door and how [_____] held the gun and how Euijoo had pleaded. The taste of the argument  and how he'd screamed he was done, really, this time - and how it had ended up being true after all because now-

He hears cruel laughter and maybe it's because he hasn't had an episode for a few days now, but his stomach twists and he starts gagging.

The nausea tastes like metal. It tastes like the venom they're still trying to hook him off, because years of use cannot be undone in just a few weeks, and it's only the fact that Euijoo's had nothing else to practice except holding it off that he doesn't throw up all over his front. 

Unfortunately, the sound of him choking on his own saliva gets the attention of everyone else, who suddenly realise that the ward is not as empty as they'd assumed. 

Euijoo has no semblance of dignity to try and maintain. He splutters and he isn't surprised when the nurses remain solidly on the other side of the room. They don't come to help and he isn't expecting them to. Instead, he focuses on his breathing and the sunlight that still spills over his bedsheets.

It takes a moment, but he's eventually able to get his breathing under control again.

The doctor is still holding the needle when he looks over at them. One of the guards has his hands on their prisoner's shoulders, pressing him into his seat on the bed. They've rolled up his sleeve. It reveals more muscle than Euijoo would initially expect from his slim frame.

The warden is staring at him. He knows who Euijoo is, even if he's just one of many wardens in Arkham and they've never personally met before. His lip is curling in disgust. No, he recognises Euijoo from the news reports and the previous breakouts and the long, long list of crimes haunting the streets of Gotham. Euijoo's face, plastered right next to [______].

They'd have been smiling in the image. Euijoo can't remember a time when he hadn't been smiling, or laughing. That's why it had all felt so good.

The warden looks at him like he's the dirt under his shoe. Euijoo's very presence in this room is what's causing the oily slick to the floor and the slow turn to yellow of the walls. The emotion in his eyes is not hatred but like something small and revolting has dared to exist within the same space as him.

Perhaps it's the fact he's just pulling back from the brink of an episode. Euijoo's not sure what possesses him, but he turns his body as far as he can until he's completely facing the group and then he smiles.

He still has nightmares of the monster, of the name he refuses to put into words. He knows that he is not the only one. And he knows that in many of those nightmares, his own smiling face is the one of a second monster. 

He's not sure what he wants to gain from this action, but he feels a sick sense of satisfaction when the warden takes an unconscious step back. 

It doesn't matter that it's quickly drowned out by guilt and self-loathing. For the second it's there, Euijoo is invincible. He meets the eyes of the prisoner without thinking.

They look at each other.

The prisoner must recognise him. There are a few faces in Gotham that have been burnt into the subconscious of the streets, and Euijoo has had a month to come to terms with the fact that his own is one of them. The tug of the smile at his cheeks is already becoming too painful to handle.

But the prisoner doesn't look away. His eyes are brown - such a small detail visible even from their distance across the room from each other - and the bruise on his cheekbone is fresh. The guard hasn't removed his hands from his shoulders and the prisoner makes no attempt to escape anyway.

He seems oddly calm, given the situation. He just keeps staring at Euijoo instead of turning away. Even when the doctor does eventually approach with the syringe outstretched in his hand, he hardly even blinks. There's a furrow to his brow. 

But he doesn't seem scared. Euijoo doesn't know his name but his face has now been burnt into the backs of his eyelids. A lack of normal interaction over the past few weeks has him clinging to this odd encounter like a lifeline. Or maybe it's the fact that there truly is no fear in those eyes watching him. 

It makes Euijoo wants to shiver. The coldness of the man's expression and yet the warmth contained within his gaze at complete contrast with each other. 

Arkham has no shortage of oddballs and weirdos, yet it's rare for Euijoo to feel like someone has truly looked underneath his skin. It's... off-putting, almost.

That's not quite the right word. Euijoo isn't put off by his actions. It's foreign and unnerving but if anything there's something about the man that Euijoo thinks he could understand. 

The needle of the syringe buries itself into his neck. Euijoo sees the moment that the drug takes effect. It clouds his vision and the sharp almost-intelligence of his gaze peels off into something more relaxed. Without a further word - the warden sending one last sharp disgusted glare to Euijoo - they haul him up by the handcuffs over his wrists and drag him back through the door.

It closes behind them with a soft click. The guard originally positioned at the door has resumed his station. His shoulders are back and his jaw is set. The nurse's hands are shaking slightly when she returns to the first aid kit on the desk.

Euijoo can't imagine either of them will remain here for long. The staff turn-over is almost as high as the revolving door of prisoners. 

Neither of them turn to help him in his new slightly-stranded position. Euijoo has all the time in the world to make himself comfortable again. He starts to shift back into his seat lying propped against the thin pillows, preparing for the way the movement will tug at the wound still painful at the base of his spine. It's then when something catches his eye.

He almost thinks that the episode earlier has clung to his psyche more than he'd realised.

But an hour later and the flower lying on the sheets of the bed, right where the prisoner had been sitting, is still there. 

----

Four.

They don't tell him they've given up hope.

That would be kind. Nothing Euijoo has done to end up here would give him the grace of deserving kindness, so he cannot complain. Instead, an hour after waking up one day, a month and a week after his arrival, a warden comes to collect him.

It is not time for physical therapy yet. 

They are still pushing a wheelchair in front of them. 

He does not deserve kindness so he does not deserve the privilege of listening into his own medical assessment. He does not get a contribution to the decision. He did not know the statistics before this moment - though privately he thinks he'd lost hope the first time he woke up after the scene in his apartment.

He has not regained any feeling in his legs. He doesn't need to be told the exact specifications of how the bullet cut through his spine to change that fact. A month and a week of physical therapy has not made any progress - he can read the faces of the therapists just as well as he'd be able to read their notes. 

The fact that Arkham is also giving up hope on Euijoo ever being able to walk again simply means that they're joining him in that understanding. 

They present the wheelchair to the side of the bed. They do not help him manoeuvre himself to a sitting position, and he has no belongings to collect to take with him. He does think he'll miss the window, as they wheel him to his new home - another cell in a line. This one has several support bars fixed to the walls at least. 

The cell door closes behind him. Euijoo's hands find the wheels of the chair and settle there, the faint thought that he'll have a lot of time to practice getting around in the small confines of the room. 

And just like that, his stay in the Arkham long-term medical ward comes to a close. 

Chapter Text

Four. 

Like most citizens in Gotham, Nicholas knows the names of the rogues that call the city their home.

Killer Croc. The Riddler. Alley Cat - though that one is debatable at times. Scarecrow, who fills the alley with chemicals that make you hallucinate your worst nightmares. Two Face. Penguin. The Joker and the boy that used to hang off his arm; Harlequin. 

It won't be long before Nicholas' own alias - Poison Ivy - begins to make rounds. He'd known that when he started out. He'd smiled at the thought of people knowing his name and therefore knowing his cause . If it made them hesitate the next time they drowned a native plant in weedkiller for being an 'eyesore' - well, maybe he'd go a little easier on them.

Not too easy, though. Nicholas thinks the city is being choked to death on humans. The ones that pollute the dock waters and tear down trees and fill the air with suffocating smoke; to them, the promise of easy means that he'll kill them a little faster. 

Of course, it isn't long before that lands him in Arkham. 

The place where the 'no hopes' get sent. Those too violent and dangerous for Blackgate, pent up in a shitty little ex-asylum that everyone pretends doesn't have a break out every month or so. At least if they stick the criminals in Arkham, they'll know exactly where to do a roll-call the next time that the walls come down. There is some measure of control to be found in expectation.

So when Nicholas finds himself face-to-face with Batman halfway through choking a yacht party to death with vines, he isn't surprised that he gets shipped off to Arkham. It doesn't even bother him that much.

He simply needs to wait until the next time a fight breaks out, and then hop over the walls with the help of the ivy in the courtyard. He doesn't plan on staying more than a few weeks maximum. Just long enough to really scout out some of the other rogues - it's always a good plan to keep an eye on possible threats, so he knows who's toes he doesn't want to step on by accident - and then a quick exit. 

They've made a good attempt at lessening the effect of his influencing pheromones by kitting him out in scent-patches and a rubber collar lined with thick metal. He's also expecting the sedation to a certain extent. 

He isn't expecting that when they drag him into a frankly abandoned-looking medical ward, that it isn't going to be empty.

The nurse looks like she's almost about to piss herself when they drag him in. The guard that holds his shoulders makes sure to dig his fingers into the skin, enough pressure that there will be print-shaped circles left on his skin for weeks. His cheekbone throbs with a hit the warden had given him earlier. He's sure his lip is still bleeding from the shoe to the face, but it's too much of a power play to keep the stain on his mouth. 

If he ignores the scared nurse and the uninteresting guard, there is only one other person in the room.

One bed filled at the very end, right underneath a small window that's so high up in the wall it's impossible to see through. It's one of those days where it could almost seem sunny. There are beams of light falling against the bedsheets, but there's still a distinctive grey cast on the sliver of sky that is visible. 

The person propped up in that bed is watching with a combination of boredom and curiosity.

Nicholas recognises the face.

Harlequin, also known as Euijoo from the days before the Joker got his hands on him, has been missing from the public eye for two months. There'd been rumour of an argument, but none of the Joker's goons are stupid enough to gossip and also think they'll still be breathing a few days later. There'd been information from corrupt cops that had spread the knowledge of Harlequin being shipped off to Arhkam - and not a single word since.

Nicholas... can make a guess why.

The Euijoo sitting in the bed at the other side of the room isn't Harlequin. They've dyed his hair for starters - a deep brown cast that's doing a decent job of hiding the bleach underneath. As if they don't all know what's just beneath the surface.

His expressions are smaller, lacking the laughter and the smell of blood that always followed the Joker and Harlequin on the streets. His movements are contained. His hands are folded over in his laps, almost demurely, and his cheeks are a little fuller. 

At first glance, he could seem watered down. There's a reason Nicholas has been pulled into a back room. He knows without it needing to be said out loud that Arkham has... particular methods of keeping its residents calm. There's a chemical concoction that's soon to be pressed into his neck to keep his powers at bay. It isn't a huge leap to assume that Euijoo has been worn down by the same sedation. 

Except- to Nicholas, that isn't what he's seeing at all

There's a light in Euijoo's eyes that wasn't there when he'd been hanging out of the car window. His eyes have been glassy from drug use - but that has been Joker venom, pulling his lips into an uninhibited smile and spiking his voice into cruel laughter. His movements had been wide because there had been pale hands against his wrists, forcing him to contort into whatever giggling shape was required.

Once you look past the laundry list of crimes, the difference is clear to see. The man by the Joker's side had been a shadow, all corners and edges and a thick layer of looping laughter over anything true that might have once been there.

The man in the bed is smaller, yes, but the corroded edges have all been stripped back. The poison has been fleeced from his skin like the rotten layers of fruit. It has all been burnt and damaged and now - this is the seed inside, a small shoot of life against all the pollution. 

He is vulnerable and probably still drugged out of his mind, but there is a sharpness to his expression that has never been there by the side of the Joker. Something soft and wide-eyed and like the person who'd long since been abandoned in the mind of everyone else.

They have given up on Euijoo. This boy in the bed has been known as Harlequin for far too long. It is no longer his name.

Even when his mouth stretches into a grin wide enough to give the staff around them nightmares, Nicholas doesn't look away. He meets Euijoo's (not Harlequin, not even when he's laughing like this) eyes and refuses to flinch. 

The fingers pressing bruises into his shoulder grip harder. The room is unsettled. An uneasy sickness has spread in the silence, like they're all waiting for the laughing to start and don't quite know what to do with themselves when it doesn't arrive. 

Nicholas thinks that the wardens and the guards can't bear to think of themselves as intimidated. They refuse to cross the invisible line drawn across the room, like something about Euijoo is infectious and they'll become contaminated the moment they step too close.

They are small minded. They grip harder and expect him to look at the approach of the doctor with the needle, but Nicholas doesn't care about the sedation - and hasn't since he realised exactly who was in this medical ward with him. He'll be getting out of Arkham despite their attempts to keep him here. Some attempts to intimidate him and a few days in isolation will not be changing that. 

He does twist his fingers. There are a few flower seeds pressed under the skin of his palm. He can use his fingernails to graze his skin and set one free. Even as the needle slides into the soft skin of his neck, Nicholas has finished with his creation.

One flower. Small enough that it will not be noticed by the almost hilariously unobservant prison staff. Bright enough that it will almost certainly be noticed by the room's other inhabitant, who is still making eye contact with Nicholas even as the sedative begins to take effect.

----

Three.

It is not a well known fact, but Nicholas Wang - also known as Poison Ivy - hates the Joker. 

Well.

There is more nuance to it than that. A lot of people hate the Joker, and a lot of people don't need a reason to. He has haunted the streets of Gotham for long enough for everyone to have a monster story. 

This is not the reason that Nicholas hates the Joker. There is a much better clarification to explain his feelings:

It is not a well known fact that Poison Ivy hates men who take advantage of other people. 

It is not a well-known fact yet .

One day it will be. It will be synonymous with his name. The bright red hair, the plants and the fact that he can hate with the power of a thousand suns. It is not specifically men that Nicholas hates, but they are certainly the ones who fall under that characterisation most often. 

People who see others and instead of a soul, see a warm body. Or something that can be shaped and twisted until nothing remains of the original person, who'd only ever been reaching out their hands for someone to hold them. He hates people who take advantage of the environment. They pollute the waters around Gotham and laugh when the plants growing by the shores turn brown and wilted. They bid for development plots on the last few green spaces, and then suffocate the soil with heavy concrete.

These two types of people are often the same. Nicholas hates them both, and when he finally turns Gotham into a paradise of his own making - with lush soil and crawling vines and a sky that is finally blue - he will hang their bodies from the walls until they turn into fertiliser.

Nicholas Wang, Poison Ivy, hates the Joker because he is one of them.

He builds bombs that shoot sparkling tangles of streamers, wrapping around the necks of animals drawn to the glitter. He releases brightly coloured smoke that twists around the leaves of the plants stretching towards the sun like a noose. The Joker does not play by anyone's rules but his own, and he will take down the last few seedlings clinging to Gotham city life in a heartbeat if he thinks it will be funny.

The Joker took Euijoo Byun and shaped him into something cruel and sharp and laughing, then shot him in the back. He took a boy who could have been anything - who would have cared for the plants Nicholas left on his windowsill - to someone who'd pour bleach into the soil and rip open the fragile petals with the ragged tips of his nails. 

He'd no longer been Euijoo. He'd even had that name stripped from him - labelled as Harlequin instead, the sidepiece to the Joker and his little pawn in a game of chess that stretched across city districts. And once that had all been taken from him, they'd put him in Arkham of all places. Like they wanted the prisoners to tear the newly formed, brave man within the Harlequin pieces apart. 

He learns most of this after meeting Euijoo, of course. 

Nicholas' prior curiosity develops into something else the more he learns. He listens to the gossip of the staff - isolation isn't really as sound-proofed as they think it is - and casts well-placed questions to the other inmates when he's finally let out. 

His plans shift without any conscious thought directing them. He'd once envisioned leaving the walls of the former asylum the first moment he had the chance - but now that just seems short-sighted and naive.

He would be abandoning Euijoo to the crows. Letting the birds pick apart the soft pieces before they ever had a chance to grow into something more. Leaving him to rot behind the pale walls and linoleum floors. The thought of it makes Nicholas feel a little ill. Euijoo is not meant for this place. He will be suffocated here, just like any shoot too small to reach the light by itself. 

So Nicholas' plans change. He cannot see himself leaving without Euijoo with him, and it needs to be soon. 

There is the whisper of a break-out on the wind. It will be the perfect opportunity.

----

Two. 

They meet for the first time properly in the yard.

It is raining. Gotham is so close to the water that the air is usually heavy with water. It's why the clouds hang so low and dark most of time time - and it means that no one is surprised when there are days where it seems like it will never stop raining. It had hammered down on the old spiral towers of Arkham through the night. The wind hadn't been too strong, but there are still a few tiles lifted out of place and deposited in fragments on the ground.

They've been mostly cleared up by the time the inmates get released into the yard. Mostly. It is still raining, a damper on the mood of anyone trying to break out, and the warders don't actually care if the remaining shards get inevitably used as weapons.

As long as it doesn't happen on their shift, that is. And as much as the rogues in Arkham don't tend to be looked upon kindly by the wardens and orderlies, there is no denying the underlying corruption between the 'normal' prisoners and the guards. 

The rain is no longer the never-ending downpour it had been in the night. Over the course of the day the storm has lost some of its fight. It comes down like a fine spray. The kind of weather that doesn't look heavy but soaks you to the skin the moment you step outside. 

There are no coats in Arkham. The inmates huddle close to the walls with overhangs like they can leech warmth from the thick stone walls, pretending like the jutting buildings provide some shelter from the weather. Cigarette smoke twists in the air and for the price of a few of a pack, the guards supposed to be monitoring them turn a blind eye to the contraband exchanging hands. 

Nicholas does not mind the rain. He's not about to waste his thirty minutes of 'outside time' curled up against some wall, and he hates the smell of smoke. Intead, he lets the water soak through his clothes. The air always clears up slightly after a storm of this size, and he lets his mind reach out to the moss on the ground just as much as the sparse patches of vines clinging to the side of the building.

This is why they wanted to keep him sedated. It had worked in isolation, but the boredom has also left his body with nothing to do except work out how to process the chemicals faster. By the fourth day here, the 'mild' doses they've been keeping him hooked up on are completely ineffective.

He's not paying attention to his surroundings, but he's also not unaware. Someone gets a little too close and Nicholas turns around on instinct.

"Hey." 

The person hadn't been approaching him. That seems like an important distinction to make. Because the person he'd just spoken to is Euijoo.

He's not huddled up under the overhang either. His back is straight where he's sat in the wheelchair and some of the colour has washed from his hair. They'll need to dye it dark again soon if they don't want any of the bleaching at the ends to be visible. The ends of his lips are quirked up but it isn't a smile. The rain has completely soaked his clothes and his tires are coated in the grey sludge created when water mixes with the gravel of the yard.

It looks like Euijoo had just been trying to get past him. But the sound of Nicholas' voice had caught his attention and now he stares at him. 

"I recognise you," he says eventually. "You left the flower on the bed."

"I did."

Euijoo frowns. "Why?"

That's a little harder to answer. How can Nicholas put his emotions into words without sounding like he pities Euijoo? It's hard to say that he hates the Joker when the real reasoning - of his hatred of people that use and throw away and don't look back - isn't yet a well-known fact

"You looked like you needed a pick me up," he decides on eventually. He almost keeps talking: You deserve more than what he left you. No one else here is going to see that. But that's coming on a little strong and Nicholas is trying to play it cool. He can't go running his mouth if he wants to make a good impression.

It's obviously not the answer Euijoo is expecting. Maybe there's a slight hint of pink to his cheeks, or maybe Nicholas is searching for what he wants to see. "Oh. Thank you? That was nice of you to think."

Perfectly bland. Distance maintained and a forceful end to the conversation through lack of interest. Euijoo is nice but guarded. Polite but wary of Nicholas' intentions.

Nicholas aches for more. He wants to speak to Euijoo properly. Get under his skin and find out his actual thoughts. Push until he gets to the guarded pieces of personality behind that wide-eyed reserved shell. 

He'll come back with more flowers if that's what Euijoo wants. They'll speak again when Nicholas can come up with a proper conversation. He'll get them both out of here, and they'll be able to talk without the watchful eyes of the guards and the cold shiver of the rain soaking their clothes. 

He drags a hand through his hair. It's so wet that it immediately flops back into his vision slightly embarrassingly, nothing like the cool manoeuvre he'd imagined in his head. "What can I say? I'm a nice guy."

Euijoo looks like he's about to raise an eyebrow before realising they have never spoken before this, and that he cannot call out behaviour he'd never seen before. Nicholas imagines that Euijoo can see the nerves he's trying to swallow down. He's not sure why that image twists his stomach a little. He thinks he can admit he's desperate for Euijoo to like him, but the piercing gaze is almost different to that.

A whistle blows. It's a high shrieking sound that signals the end of their time outside.

Most of the inmates are already lining up. Their clothes are damp simply from proximity to the downpour, and even if the insides of Arkham won't do much to warm them up, at least the leaks in the ceilings can be easily spotted and avoided. 

"I'll see you around," Nicholas says. He grins at Euijoo, sending an almost flirty look his way before he can stop himself. He doesn't stick around to see his response. The whistle screams shrill again and Nicholas joins the mass of people heading inside. He's not sure whether his hands are shaking from nerves or the cold. 

----

One. 

The alarms are wailing.

The sound is loud and ear splitting and still does nothing to drown out the cries of the inmates. Those tile shards from last week have come in handy. Nicholas pushes the long sliver he'd managed to tuck into his waistband and sharpened with plastic cutlery into the soft stomach of a guard who tries to get in his way.

It won't kill him. Probably.

Well - Nicholas hadn't stabbed him with the intent of killing him, at least. As long as the prison riot gets put under control quickly, they'll find the guard and stop him from bleeding out with a couple of minutes to spare. He'd left the shard in his flesh, even though it would have been useful to carry with him, and he'd put him in a mockery of the recovery position as he moved the still-warm body to an empty room.

It had left sticky trails of blood on the floor. This wasn't the first time this hallway had seen such violence though. Nicholas could see brown stains like grout in-between the stone slabs he hadn't gone anywhere near. It wouldn't be the last, either.

Not planning to let a set of footprints get in the way of his escape, Nicholas hops over the small puddle. He swings the baton he'd stolen around his hands. One heavy hit against the lock on the cell in front of him loosens to pieces of metal into place, and then cutting open his palm to release the remaining seeds lets small vines crawl into the mechanism.

Nicholas sits on his haunches and lets his thumb stroke over the plant as it works. It's the first time he's had a proper connection to the Green in weeks. He lets himself savour the feeling only as long it takes to open the lock, and then he stands back up.

The door swings open.

It's a small room. A modified cell with almost no bars in sight, leaving the person inside trapped. It's a well-known fact that Arkham used to be a psychiatric facility before they gave up treating the crazies of Gotham , and this is simply one place that bears that reminder heavier than others.

The walls are slightly padded. They were almost certainly white once, but Nicholas doesn't think they could be described as that colour for a long time now. There's barely enough room to stretch properly. It cannot be legal according to any New Jersey state laws, but he gets the feeling that, like with most things in Arkham, the laws tend to turn a blind eye.

"What did you do to end up here?"

Euijoo is in his chair at least. He's pressed it up against one of the walls as far as it can go, leaning back so the back of his head just brushes against the padding. They have re-dyed his hair. It's back to that same shade of dark-brown, and his eyes are round when he turns to look at Nicholas.

"Pointed out a missing lock," Euijoo tells him. There's a pallor to his skin. In the time they've been apart, Arkham has done its best to suffocate the small parts that had survived the Joker. "Opened my mouth when I wasn't supposed to."

"Doesn't quite seem like the punishment fits the crime."

Euijoo turns his head. His hands drift to his wheels so he can rock back and forth slightly, pushing back from the wall. "I've hurt a lot of people. What is the punishment for that? I can't blame them if they want to search for disobedience. I might have killed someone they knew. To that, a simple bed in Arkham isn't enough."

Something in Nicholas' jaw tightens. 

"I can't blame them," Euijoo says.

And perhaps he has a point. In a nicer world, Nicholas might be able to concede some understanding.

But the more realistic perception goes like this: the type of people that Euijoo might have hurt and that deserve compensation - they are not the type of people that end up working at Arkham. It's obvious when looking at the non-rogue prisoners. The guards here either ignore the violence or place bets on the newest broken bones. Cigarettes and sharpened plastic knives get traded beneath the noses of wardens who don't care just as long as they get a cut of the profit.

The others are sadists. Anyone actually wanting to do good is driven out of this place like the clouds of Gotham sky chasing the few rays of sun. They simply cannot survive. 

Evil and suffering have long since permeated the stone walls. They ask why Arkham seems to warp the mind of anyone who steps through the heavy gates, and then ignore the answer.

"It won't change anything you've done, though. Isolation will not bring a lost sister or brother back to life. Letting yourself get beaten into submission by a warden on a power-trip will not reunite a child with their parents. Not if they're already rotting in a graveyard."

Euijoo flinches. His hands have tightened until his knuckles have gone completely white. To someone else, his expression might look mostly unaffected. To Nicholas, he can see the barest simmer of anger and the pain of guilt.

"Why are you telling me this? Why did you come here?"

A siren wails behind them. Closer. Nicholas didn't hide his trail of bodies well enough to stop anyone following the trail of blood right up to Euijoo's cell. They need to move soon. 

"I don't think you deserve this," Nicholas says. When he speaks, it's completely true. He will not lie to Euijoo right now. He needs him to believe him. "You are so much more than what he did to you. You could have been so much more if he didn't try to destroy you - I can see that, and I don't think you have to take all that damage without letting what's left have room to grow."

Euijoo stares at him. "You're not making any sense. Is this what other people think- thought when they had to talk to me? I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me."

It's because his thoughts aren't quite in a straight line yet. The sedative may not have lasted long on his powers, but Nicholas is suddenly aware of just how soupy his mind feels. Has it been like this since he entered Arkham? 

Clarity comes like a lightning bolt. His actions make perfect sense to his mind. That is the most important thing to focus on, when there is nothing he can do to reevaluate. He must be able to rely on his own thoughts and feelings. Reason slips through his fingers like soil, but dirt must catch beneath his nails - and that is enough for Nicholas to cling to.

"I think you are more than Harlequin," Nicholas says. "I think you know it as well. I think you could be so much more, left in the ashes of how the Joker abandoned you. And you're never going to get to be more if you stay here."

Something in Euijoo's expression changes. "Don't ever say that name again."

His voice is choked. Stretched and strained thin and cold, tinged with whatever is the complete opposite of laughter. But he doesn't deny Nicholas this time. He doesn't turn him away.

They don't have much time to escape now. But Euijoo leads the way through the pale corridors like he's memorised the floor plan of the entire building. The accessibility of Arkham leaves something to be desired but they make it to the courtyard anyway. 

It's still cloudy. Of course it is; it's Gotham after all. 

The dandelions growing in the cracks of the concrete stretch towards Nicholas. The ivy on the walls pulls against loose brick. Nicholas smiles and stretches back, crooking his fingers until the walls simply cannot resist the pull of stem and leaf and the sinewy chokehold on the masonry. They crumble. The noise is drowned beneath the sirens and the shouts of the inmates. 

"I have a ride outside," Nicholas says. "We just have to step through these walls. I mean every word I have said today."

"You're not normally like this. I've seen you around. You poke and you push and you smile, and you don't tell the truth this easily."

"You're different," Nicholas admits. "I'm pretty sure I'm still drugged. And... this is important."

Euijoo stares at him. He wheels himself up to the hole in the brickwork, and doesn't mention the way that the vines curl softly around his seat and his tires - like they just want a touch and don't care they will be ripped away for their desires. Like they do not betray Nicholas through the truest baring of his soul.

"I want to be more," Euijoo says. "But I don't know if I can be. I think there is something in my mind that is unforgivable and I don't think any amount of good can change that in the end."

"But you can try."

Euijoo has not looked away, but the power of his gaze impossibly grows stronger. It is like he sees Nicholas and then looks past that, further into something that he hadn't even realised was there in the first place. 

"Yes," he says, and his voice is thick again. "I think... I would like to try."