Versus Batman

Once upon a time, on a quiet Tuesday night in Gotham City, the Second National Bank got a very unusual visitor.

Confetti cannons burst out of the vault doors — pop, pop, pop! Party horns blared where the alarm bells should have been. And standing right in the middle of the sparkling mess was Harley Quinn, twirling her giant, soft, cartoon mallet like a parade baton, laughing so hard she nearly lost her balance.

"Nobody move," she called out cheerfully to the startled security guards, "or do — I don't really mind!"

She tossed handfuls of fake dollar bills into the air, and they drifted down over the marble floor like the world's silliest snowstorm. Two nervous security guards had already been tied up with balloon ribbon, sitting in the corner more confused than scared, watching the whole spectacle with wide eyes. It was loud. It was messy. It was exactly the kind of caper Harley loved best, the kind with more confetti than crime.

But high above the bank, on a rooftop across the street, someone else was watching.

Someone dark. Someone quiet. Someone who had been tracking Harley Quinn ever since she'd stolen an entire truckload of whoopee cushions from a warehouse near Robinson Park. In Gotham City, a truckload of stolen whoopee cushions was practically a warning bell, and Batman knew that whenever Harley was up to mischief, it was time to pay attention.

He swept down from the rooftop on his long cape, silent as smoke drifting through moonlight, and landed without a sound right in the middle of the bank lobby — just as Harley finished stacking her very last bag of loot onto a little rolling cart shaped like a circus wagon.

"Bats!" Harley grinned, twirling her mallet in one hand. "Took ya long enough!"

She swung the mallet straight at him — WHOOSH — but Batman was ready. He ducked underneath it smoothly and looped a Batarang around the mallet's handle. With one quick tug, he yanked it clean out of her grip, and it clattered harmlessly across the floor.

Did Harley panic? Not for one single second. Harley Quinn never panicked. Instead, she flipped backward over a teller's counter with the ease of a gymnast, vaulted off a tall marble pillar, and sprinted for the big revolving door at the front of the bank, still giggling the entire way.

But Batman was faster.

He fired a grapple line from his belt — a thin, silver cord that shot across the room and caught neatly around Harley's ankle right in the middle of a cartwheel. She tumbled, mid-flip, and landed with a soft "Oof!" right in a giant heap of confetti she had scattered herself only minutes before.

For just a moment, she lay there in the colorful mess, blinking up at the ceiling and listening to little bits of confetti settle around her like snowflakes. Then she popped right back up, grinning, and reached into her glove for one very last trick — a tiny smoke pellet she always kept tucked away for emergencies. POOF! A cloud of haze filled the lobby, thick and swirling, curling up toward the tall marble columns.

But when the smoke finally cleared, there was Batman, standing exactly where he had been the whole time, arms crossed, completely unimpressed.

"Aw," Harley sighed. "Worth a shot."

Moments later, the doors burst open and Commissioner Gordon's officers rushed in, their flashlights sweeping across the confetti-covered floor and the two very relieved security guards. Harley didn't put up a fight. She simply held out her wrists for the handcuffs, gave a deep and theatrical bow, and blew a kiss toward the nearest security camera, as if the whole thing had been a stage show and this was her final curtain call.

"You'll get me next time, Bats!" she called out cheerfully from the back of the police car as it pulled away from the curb, her voice still bright with laughter.

Batman didn't answer. He simply stood on the sidewalk and watched the taillights disappear into the fog, heading toward Arkham Asylum, just as they had so many times before.

He knew "next time" with Harley Quinn was never very far away. But he also knew something else, something he never said out loud: that underneath all the confetti and the cartwheels and the mischief, Harley Quinn still had a choice left to make about who she wanted to be.

And someday — though not tonight — she just might make it.