"Barbara?" Jessica Cruz said from the doorway.

Oracle turned around with a sigh. "Any idea where you're taking me?"

"To The Watchtower." The young Lantern told her, her tone as friendly as was possible given the present situation.

Barbara nodded gravely. She had no idea what awaited her up there, but she did know that the prospect of being isolated in outer space with people she'd just condemned to the entire world didn't exactly make her feel at ease. "Did they ask you to take me forcefully?"

"They said you'd come willingly." Jessica told her.

Oracle nodded and began pushing her wheelchair towards the door.

"Would you like help? I can push you." The Lantern offered.

"No." Barbara shook her head. "I can do it myself." It had been two hours since she'd sent the tweet. In that time, Wonder Woman had given a press conference assuring the public that the actions of their Game Maker were completely necessary and truly the most humane way to deal with the volatile Poison Ivy.

"Can you confirm the Game Maker is Barbara Gordon? Formerly known as Batgirl?" One of the reporters had shouted.

Wonder Woman looked stunned. "Where did you get that ridiculous notion?" She'd asked.

"Barbara Gordon herself, Ma'am. She took personal responsibility for the Poison Ivy murder on twitter."

"Well that's just silly." Wonder Woman somehow remained collected. "There is no verifiable evidence to back up Ms. Gordon's claim. We have no affiliation."

"And that's the official stance of the Justice League?" Another reporter asked.

"Yes. That's all for now." The goddess snapped her binder shut and exited the podium.

38 minutes later Wonder Woman had to return to the podium to retract that statement. As careful as the Bat-family was about protecting their identities, once the press had a lead, it wasn't terribly difficult to make some meaningful connections. So the League was forced to disavow Barbara and her actions. It wasn't long after that Jessica Cruz showed up in the control room to take Barbara away.

The redhead propelled herself down the hall, the Lantern keeping pace beside her. She could see the press gathering outside the glass doors and had to stop for a moment to gather herself. To her surprise, Jessica rested a reassuring hand on her shoulder, and after a deep breath, Barbara Gordon wheeled herself out into the blinding sunlight- unmasked.

But it wasn't just press on the steps of the Hall of Justice. It was protesters too. Thousands of them already. It looked like there were representatives from both sides of the argument- for and against The Arena. The sound was incredible, the chanting so loud that Jessica couldn't hear when Barbara asked her "How are we going to get out of here?" Not that she would have had much time to respond, as the press were storming the steps, the protesters not far behind. And now Barbara and Jessica were pinned.

"Step back!" The Lantern told them, but her voice was drowned out by the muddled chanting. "I SAID STEP BACK!"

"Ring!" Barbara yelled over the noise, pointing to her 4th digit. "Use the ring!"

Jessica nodded in understanding, yelling one more "Step back!" before activating her ring. Green light began to emanate, growing rapidly until it cocooned the two women within a force field that allowed them to push their way through the crowd. But as they passed by the press, the chanting began to grow louder. Barbara could feel the vitriol seeping through the force field and Jessica became more and more frustrated as the protesters began banging their fists on the glowing green surface.

"What's going on?" Barbara asked as the Lantern's expression turned from frustration to anguish, and then anguish to fear. The walls of the force field were beginning to close in on them. "Jessica, what's going on?! Barbara asked a bit more frantically as the protesters continued to beat on their shield.

"I…it's…" Jessica struggled. "I'm afraid…I…I can't…"

And suddenly there was a sound like a dirigible being popped and the chaos was that of an entirely different nature. The bubble had exploded, throwing the protesters to the ground. There was already blood, Barbara could see it, but the look of horror on Jessica's face was much worse. Then there was running, and shoving, and screaming, and suddenly Barbara wasn't in her chair anymore. She was on the ground and there were feet on her back. Heels and boots and sneakers trampling her into the pavement.

Barbara couldn't breathe. Her chest was cracked; she could feel the broken ribs pressing into her lungs with each gasp. She couldn't lift her head to find Jessica, and she couldn't call out to her either.

"Barbara!" A male voice was beside her. "Barbara." He said again. It was Flash.

"Help me." She gasped.

"Barbara." He cupped her face in his hands. "I need your help. Why didn't Poison Ivy kill The Joker before."

"W-what?" She grunted, confusion, pain and the screams of others swirling around in her head.

"If Ivy loved Harley, and Joker beat Harley, why didn't she kill him before?" He tried to clarify his question over the noise.

"S-she…" Barbara forced out against the pavement. "She would have never forgiven her."

"Harley was Joker's psychiatrist at Arkham?"

"Yes." She grunted.

"W—"

"The file's gone. But March 1st, 1997." Barbara told him before he could finish his question.

He nodded reverently. "Goodbye, Barbara." And in a flash, he was gone.

"Let's go." He clapped his hands and booted up the system in record time. And then he was running. Through time and space, bending it, bisecting it, moving past the pain and heartbreak this dystopian future had caused. Past The Joker's cruelty, to Lois, to Harley…Arkham Asylum, Gotham City, March 1st, 1997.

Flash whipped past the red convertible, past the blonde distracted by the cells on either side of her…and right into the brunette walking briskly ahead. He bumped her just slightly, just enough for her to stop and look back, trying to find out what she'd tripped over. The blonde wasn't paying attention and had to adjust her trajectory at the last possible second in order to avoid a collision, ending up on the opposite side of the brunette then how she'd started.

"Please don't take this the wrong way, Harley…" The brunette addressed the blonde "but why are you here?"

Harley's breath caught in her throat. "Ex-excuse me?"

The woman's face softened slightly. "With grades like yours you could have gone anywhere. Why are you here? Why would you subject yourself to this?"

Harley was relieved. It seemed to her that Dr. Leland had meant her comment as a compliment. "To be honest Joan, I'm simply fascinated by the criminal psyche, extreme personalities especially. Working here is actually a bit of a dream come true."

Joan snorted. "That will wear off quickly." She started off down the hallway again. "I hope you're not planning on writing a tell-all book about this. These people can see a cash grab coming a mile away. They are animals and they will use any leverage or perceived weakness to get the upper hand."

Harley kept in stride with her boss, her strong gymnast legs easily carrying her weight. "Well you can't deny there's an element of glamour to these super criminals…"

They were passing the first set of cells now. A man peered out of one on the left hand side, obsessively licking the glass.

"But no, on principal I am not at Arkham simply for the elevated profile." Harley finished.

"Then there's a chance you might survive here." Leland said, stopping with her back to a seemingly empty cell.

Harley looked over the woman's shoulder at the warmly lit three-walled room. A shelf containing a variety of potted plants was set against the glass. Harley could see one of them blooming, an eye-catching crimson blossom.

"Step away from the glass, Joker." Dr. Leland implored a patient in the opposite direction of Harley's attention, then sighed, lowering her voice back to a conversational volume. "You'll come to know the occupants pretty quickly. Which ones are beyond hope of reform and which ones just happened to lose their way. It's a fairly simple delineation in most cases."

Harley watched as a woman's hand reached out from behind the brick portion of the cell and watered the potted plants. Harley squinted her eyes, unable to tell if the green tint to the woman's skin was just a trick of the light or some sort of bizarre condition. "And what about the other cases?" Harley asked, brushing by Dr. Leland towards the woman's hand as it retracted with the watering can back out of sight. "The ones who aren't so cut and dry?"

Dr. Leland turned to see where Harley was headed. "Master manipulators. They will set a trap and have you wrapped around their finger before you know it. You have to continually remind yourself that you are in charge of the situation. You are not powerless." Leland watched for a moment. "And that one?" She pointed to the cell which Harley was now standing directly in front of. "She's the worst one."

"Who?" Harley turned away from Dr. Leland to peer into the cell and was startled by the breathtaking redheaded woman standing just on the other side of the glass. It was not a trick of the light; the woman's skin did in fact have a green tint to it. But what Harley found considerably more engrossing was her eyes. They shone an almost alarming shade of harlequin green, like they had been colored by an electrically charged magic marker.

"Poison Ivy," The redhead purred in response to Harley's question, her breath creating clouds of condensation on the glass. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance."

That's what we call the darkest timeline, folks. Head over to Mad Love- A New Beginning for the brightest. If you guys have been reading my oneshots, you might have noticed a few hints ;)

BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEE