AN: I know, Valentine's Day was weeks ago. I cannot meet self-imposed deadlines. Sorry. :P
I don't own Batman: the Animated Series. Please review, any constructive criticism would be most appreciated. I hope you enjoy it!
If there was anything particularly remarkable about today, Poison Ivy did not know what it was.
She had spent today as she had the several days before it- in an abandoned warehouse by the docks. A few renovations had rendered the building suitable for keeping the plants in her possession, and the seclusion allowed her to work on developing a new strain of plant hormones in complete solitude and peace. Well, almost complete solitude and peace.
Today, Ivy was finding her work disrupted very often. Harley Quinn, Ivy's "roommate", was being a lot more distracting than usual. This was made odder by the fact that Harley was actually being much more quiet than Ivy was used to. The girl had showed up at her door a few days prior, Joker having tossed her out again, and after she had made her best puppy-eyes, Ivy had begrudgingly let her stay.
There followed the usual lecture about Harley's unhealthy relationship from Ivy, with Harley interjecting statements in her "Puddin's" defence every now and again. Harley then spent the following days, as was typical, methodically working her way through all of Ivy's junk food and tissues. This behaviour was normal for her at first, and Ivy had learned to ignore the occasional sniffle coming from the room where Harley had hidden herself away. After this period of "mourning" the clown-girl went back to her usual chirpy self, which was fine by Ivy as well, as she had also learned to ignore Harley's singing and humming.
However, the routine that the two had fallen into was unexpectedly broken.
Despite recovering yesterday, Harley seemed to have lapsed back into her depression. Ivy was the fist to wake up that morning, and when Harley did emerge, she did nothing but mope about the warehouse. This was strange. Harley rarely, if ever, moped about anywhere. Generally, she alternated between skipping and cartwheeling. Such despondency was unnatural for her.
Ivy was more than aware of the volatile and unpredictable mood swings that Harley was capable of having, so at first she did not think much of it. As the day wore on, however, and Harley's mood showed no improvement, Ivy began to feel disconcerted.
Harley's new demeanour was much safer in a building where delicate work was being performed, and decidedly less annoying, but Ivy found herself developing an unpleasant, niggling feeling as she watched her friend flop around like a depressed ragdoll. There was something in Harley's eyes that it pained her to see- and Poison Ivy disliked having sympathetic feelings towards organisms that could not perform photosynthesis.
Shortly after midday, she found she could take no more of Harley's sighing, and went to confront the girl. Joker was well known for his ability to manipulate; yet Ivy felt that Harley's could rival his. The "Rogues Gallery" were hardly the most empathetic band of people, but the girl had managed to make the majority of them develop a slight fondness for her. This, Ivy had to admit, was an accomplishment. Now, Harley was making Ivy even more concerned for her than usual, to the point where she had left her work and gone to see what the matter was.
She found Harley curled up on the worn excuse for a couch that she had dragged in off the street yesterday (much to Ivy's displeasure).
"Harley?" The girl extricated her face from the sofa pillow. Now Ivy looked, she could see soft traces of her whitish makeup on her face, like she had applied it recently and then clumsily washed it off.
"Oh. Hiya, Red. I thought you were workin'." Her voice was small and quavered pathetically, like she was on the verge of tears.
"I was," growled Ivy. She sought for a way to phrase her next question. "What's the matter with you?"
"Matter? I'm just fine." Harley gave her a very unconvincing smile.
"Come on Harley. You've been sulking around here like a moody teenager all day. Something's wrong, and I'm not going away until you tell me what it is."
Harley opened her mouth to reply. There was a pause, in which her eyes began to fill with tears and her lip trembled. Eventually, she all but wailed, "It's Valentine's Day!" and flung herself dramatically to lie facedown on the couch, where she began to sob softly.
Ivy's eyes narrowed. Valentine's Day? She must have lost track of time. Normally she spent today seething with her knowledge of the thousands of flowers that were being massacred so humans could have something to tempt their romantic interests with. But why was Harley so upset about it? To Ivy, today was just another pointless holiday that resulted in the murder of innocent plant life, apparently it meant much more to her friend.
"Oh Harley," she sighed in a much more exasperated voice than she had intended.
Harley managed to pull herself together a little, and sat up, snivelling.
"I'm sorry Red," she sniffed. "It's just- I always spent Valentine's Day with M-Mistah- Mistah…" Her voice broke, and her eyes started to water again.
Ivy took her by the shoulders to prevent another bout of sobbing. "Look Harley," she began, and then was unsure how to continue. "It'll be fine," she ventured.
"I know I'm being stupid, but I was sure that Mistah J would come and pick me up today. I got my costume on and bought some stuff for him and everything. We always spend Valentines together." Harley sniffed a little more.
"Harley, you don't need that clown," said Ivy. This had about as little effect the many lectures that had come before it.
Harley shook her head. "You just don't get it Red."
"No actually, I don't," snapped Ivy, her already-thin patience waning. "You're always more than happy to go crawling back to Joker yourself. Why are you so upset that he hasn't come for you today?"
"Because it's Valentines Red!" Harley howled. "Valentines is the day where the guy takes care of the girl and does something special for her! I just expected that Mistah J would come and do somethin' special for me." Her indignant shrieking trailed off into a miserable whisper in the last sentence, and she hung her head.
Ivy growled inwardly about Harley's views on the roles of a couple, but let them slide. Her friend was having a crisis, and needed consolation, not a lecture to disabuse her of her dangerously sexist outlooks on relationships. Well, in Ivy's opinion she was in great need of both, but the latter could wait for now.
Ivy's face hardened in determination. "Red?" Harley asked, eyes widening as she noticed her friend's change of expression.
"Put some nice clothes on Harley. We're going out," said Ivy firmly.
"Thanks Red," said Harley, giving a weak smile, "for taking me out today."
Ivy nodded curtly as she walked side-by-side with Harley; trying her best to ignore the shop displays they passed that were advertising tacky bouquets of flowers.
"So, where are we going anyways?" Harley asked, fiddling with the large glasses Ivy had made her wear to hide her face.
"Westward's," Ivy answered, and then jumped as Harley flung her arms around her.
"Westward's? That swanky new restaurant?" Harley's smile grew more genuine, and she planted a kiss on Ivy's cheek. "Oh Red, you're the best friend a gal could have."
Perhaps it was no wonder that Harley Quinn regarded the Joker as a dream boyfriend, if the woman that she considered to be the "best friend a girl could have" was an eco-terrorist who would be more than willing to kill a hundred people to protect one flower, but Ivy appreciated the sentiment.
Harley appeared thoughtful for a moment. "Wait, today's gonna be real busy. Are you sure we'll get a table?"
Ivy smiled, applying some new "special" lipstick that she had been working on. "I'm sure I could get the waiter to arrange us something."
Fifteen minutes later, the two women were almost there, the lights of Westward's blinking at them from the end of the street.
"I can see it Red! I can see it!" Harley giggled. Her enthusiasm had not diminished since she first learned of their destination, and although her smiles and laughs were shadows of the ones she could normally produce, Ivy considered this a marked improvement.
Ivy looked up at the restaurant. She couldn't quite make it out due to the distance away it was- but she could already see that it was a nice building; tall, with warm, friendly lights shining from the large windows. Perhaps this Valentine's Day had the potential to be tolerable after all, plant slaughter notwithstanding.
Then the restaurant exploded.
The two were too far from the blast to be affected, but the sound and sudden burst of heat and light made them jump back and caused a ringing in their ears. The other people on the street began screaming and panicking, several pushing past Harley and Ivy in their haste to get away.
"Oh," said Ivy, watching as flames licked away at what was left of Westward's.
"Hey, look!" cried Harley, pointing upward.
Ivy followed her gaze and saw, above the fire, green and purple fireworks snaking into the air. They exploded with bangs that rivalled the sound the restaurant made when it went sky-high, and the showers of lurid sparkles that they gave out began to form into a pattern. The pattern turned out to be a love heart, with the letters "J+HQ" in the middle.
The sound that Harley produced when she saw this threatened to make sure that Ivy's eardrums were properly perforated. She flung her arms around Ivy and pulled her into a tight embrace, making incoherent shrieks all the time. Above them, Joker's apology painted the early evening sky.
"Look! Look!" Harley squealed, "He does love me!"
Ivy extricated herself from Harley's arms and opened her mouth to protest.
"Harley, this is just another sick trick set up to lure you back to him- he doesn't care about you, he never has!"
Either Harley could not hear her friend's warnings over the yells and screams of their fellow pedestrians, or she simply chose not to hear them, because her only reply was to grab Ivy into another hug.
"Mistah J sure knows how to make a gal feel special. This is the best Valentine's Day ever!"
The sound of approaching sirens made the two women duck into an alleyway, and when Ivy looked around, Harley was no longer there.
When she got back to the warehouse, Harley was not there either, and neither were her things. The only trace that the clown-girl had ever been there was the old sofa. Ivy threw herself down onto it, and embraced the exasperated fury bubbling up within her.
Harley had not even properly acknowledged how she had dropped everything to spend some time with her. Ivy detested Valentine's Day, and yet she had participated in it, just because it meant a lot to her friend. Yet, after Joker's display, Harley had run off back to him without any hesitation, totally forgetting Ivy. It didn't matter to Harley how badly she was treated by the clown- he always came before the people who truly cared for her. Perhaps there had been a slight improvement this time, though; after all, Joker did not usually have to do anything to get Harley to go running back to him.
As Ivy pondered the infuriating hopelessness of Harley's predicament, she noticed a piece of paper taped to the door. She approached it, and took it down. It was a note, clumsily written in red sharpie. Opening it out, Ivy began to read.
Dear Red,
I'm real sorry that I just ran off like that. I wanted to get back to Mr. J quickly so we could spend the rest of today together. I've never been good with writing this sort of thing, so I'll just keep it short.
I really appreciate you doing what you did for me, what with you not liking Valentine's Day and all, and I don't know if that came across enough, so I thought I'd better put it in writing. You took time to make today special for me, even though you had better stuff to do. I want you to know that, even though we didn't get the chance to spend today together, I would've had a great time. We should go out again sometime- I'll pay and everything!
I love you Red, I hope your work goes well.
Harley
P.S. I'll say hi to Bud and Lou for you!
The bottom of the page was dotted with smiley faces, and the corner bore a black lipstick print.
Ivy smiled, in spite of herself. Tucking away the note in her pocket, she returned to her makeshift laboratory to recommence her work. Now she could spend the rest of Valentine's Day with her plants- they were, after all, much less emotional company.