The Bat and the Flower
"I'll be right back!"
"Harley, NO!"
The shrill voices pierced his throbbing cowled head from the dregs of unconsciousness. They did nothing to ease the pounding ache in the back of his skull.
"But Mr. J. will be so proud of me!"
A red and black splotch swam into view as he groggily opened his eyes.
"Harley, come back. Cat will be here any minute. We said we'd do this together."
A green blur snapped into focus as his mind parted the fog obscuring his senses.
"That kitty ain't gonna try nothin'! I'll only be a sec, Red, you'll see!"
Clanging footsteps jarred against his ears, making him wince in pain. Feeling slowly pricked into his arms again, only to reveal his entanglement in a web of strong cables and vines.
Vines…
His hazy mind shot into full alertness as the green-clad back of a redheaded woman jolted into his field of vision. The red and black figure was nowhere to be seen. He strained against the constricting cables and foliage that bound him, but to no avail. The woman noticed his revival from sleep, and turned to force the glittering green eyes of Poison Ivy on his captive form.
Eyes that glittered with rage.
She struck at him, slamming her fist squarely into his jaw. He nearly gasped at the surge in pain from the unexpected attack, but held it in. His experiences had taught him that pain was not something to cower from.
"YOU!" she shrieked at his face. She punched him harder, connecting with his temple and sending his vision spinning again. She hit him again, and again, laying siege to his body with her fists. Blood soon flowed from her knuckles as well as his wounds, so brutal were her assaults. Tears rolled down her face as she savagely beat at him with every last ounce of her strength, howling in maddened fury.
Finally she relented, shuddering back and gasping for breath. He regained enough wits to croak out, "Someone once told me that you should never start with the head, it numbs the next blow." He nudged his head up to look at her through blood-soaked eyes. "Guess I was righ-"
Her hand shot up to his throat, squeezing cruelly and choking out the rest of his sentence. Her eyes shoved into his, pulsing with hate.
"NEVER," she grated out in a low whisper, "ever use that motherfucker's words in front of me again."
She threw his neck back into the wall, banging the back of his head harshly against the cold, ivy-laced concrete. He blinked the stars out of his eyes before staring up at her again as she stood up to her full height.
"What score do you have to settle with the Joker?"
She glared at him at the mention of the name. "Oh, like you don't know," she growled. He gave no reply, simply gazed up at her indifferently.
"Do you SEE what he does to her?" she exploded, pointing wildly in the direction the red and black figure had disappeared in. "Do you just not notice the bruises she tries to hide, or the black eyes she paints over, or the fucking Jack-o-lantern of a body she lets bleed out so he won't beat more out of her?"
She lowered her pointing hand in quivering rage, advancing towards him again. "All so she can run all around Gotham bailing out his ass, and breaking him out of Arkham, and collecting his chemicals, and – and helping him fight YOU." She shook her head in disbelief at him. "This is…all. Your. Fault. If you weren't such a nuisance to him, he wouldn't have to go around blowing up Gotham, and she wouldn't have to follow him around day and night."
Suddenly, her storming rage calmed, and an eerie quiet of a dawning new idea took hold of her. Her livid expression evaporated, and a small smile flowered over her lips. He felt his stomach tighten in knots as her eyes glittered dangerously down at him. She knelt down to his eye level, leaning forward to whisper in his ear.
"Of course," she breathed, taunting breath chilling his bones, "she's not the only one with such…devotion to him, now is she?"
His eyes snapped fully open, pulse quickening.
"Don't think I don't know about your little secret…"
His heart stopped.
"…how you two like to…pound each other into the pavement in the dark, when you think no one's watching."
Fists fruitlessly clenched, he could only stare up at her in shocked silence as she withdrew to meet him in the eyes again, satisfactory grin leering at him just out of reach.
"Oh, don't try to hide it," she sneered at him when no reply came forth. "It's so obvious! The way you look at him, the way you two fight each other…it's not like how you deal with the rest of us. There's always been something…different about the way you meet his eyes." She brought her hand up in mock tenderness to his chin, wiping off some of the blood that had spilled from his mouth. "And he's just the same way about it. From what she tells me about him, it's always Batman this, Batman that, precious Batsykins day in and day out." She chuckled tauntingly at him. "He always finds a way to cross your flight path, and even when he doesn't…it's like nothing else exists to him in the world."
Her eyes drifted up to the space above his head as she reflected on her words. His brow furrowed at the sudden pause in her jeering tirade.
"Which is why I expect you to keep this up."
At once, the vines that were digging into the gaps between his plates of armor withdrew themselves, settling back against the wall and yanking the cables with them/
Disoriented by the unexpected turn of events, he stared dumbstruck at the wall of ivy behind him, then braced himself against it, hefting himself to his feet. His muscles ached from the imprisonment, but he would manage; he had been in worse predicaments before.
"Oh, and don't ignore that ache in your muscles," called a voice over his shoulder. He turned away from the wall to the retreating form of his captor-turned-liberator. "My vines have secreted their most potent of neurotoxins. Had I allowed the process to continue uninterrupted, you would now be dead." He stood flabbergasted, about to open his mouth to demand an explanation, when she cut him off.
"Break our agreement, though, and you'll find that the situation can be easily…reversed."
He watched her progress down the dank tunnel beneath what he assumed was Toxic Acres, and called out his last question to her.
"Why?"
The question stopped her, yet she remained silent.
"Why do you give a damn about Harley Quinn?"
She slowly turned back to him, her expression nearly unreadable.
"I think you know damn well why."
It was an expression he recognized in himself. He slowly nodded his understanding. She nodded back, and then with a swish of red hair and black cape, they both vanished into the night.
xxx
"YOU WHAT?"
The shot glass in Catwoman's claw shattered in her boiling rage.
Ivy sighed. "I couldn't stop him," she repeated dully. "He got away before I could finish him." She brushed past the catburgler to scoop the shards of glass into the trash can of their townhouse. "He's a clever one, for a bat. Guess we choose our men well."
Catwoman bristled at the memories dredged up from the remark. "Couldn't have at least snuck a kiss in there, before he flew the coop?"
"If I'd had your help, maybe," Ivy shot back. "I don't remember seeing you at Toxic Acres tonight."
"Oh, excuse me for trying to scrape a friend's self-esteem back together," Catwoman snarled. Ivy gave her an inquiring look, as a sob burst through the townhouse. Both women snapped their heads to the closed bedroom door where the cry had issued from.
"…how long has she been here?" Ivy asked, worry spreading over her features.
Catwoman sighed deeply. "Past hour," she answered softly. "She won't let me in, or respond to anything I say, or even listen to me at all…" She trailed off as Ivy, heedless to her words, rushed to the door and disappeared into the room. The lock clicked.
"Don't worry, I won't wait up," Catwoman grumbled as she reached for another glass of milk.
In the locked bedroom, Ivy delicately stepped towards the sobbing figure of Harley Quinn kneeling on the floor, face buried in the fabric of her bedspread.
"Harley, what happened?" Ivy asked quietly, putting her arm around her friend's shoulders.
It was a long time before the blonde could control her crying enough to lift a tear-stained face, blue eyes running with black makeup smears.
"I-I…" she stammered out in between shuddered breaths, "I…just wanted-ted t-to make hi-him…happy. Make P-Pudd'n proud…" she broke off again in tearful convulsions. Ivy waited, as she always did, for Harley to continue.
"B-but…" she started up again, "he-he…" she trailed off once more as she rolled up her right sleeve, revealing a chain of savage bruises, gashes, burns, and bite marks of her Puddin's imprint. Ivy gasped at the gruesome sight that marred the pale flesh of her friend.
"He kicked me out again!" she wailed into the still night air, as Ivy took her into her arms.
"Shhh," she crooned as the fragile body she cradled shook with sobs. "It's alright, Red's here." She pressed a kiss to the blonde head, then lifted up the harlequin's chin to kiss her dripping nose. She felt the other's body tremble at the touch, then brought their lips together in a tender kiss. Harley whimpered, then moaned into Ivy's mouth, responding to the contact wholeheartedly. They deepened the kiss further as Ivy gradually brought them both down onto the black and red bedspread.
Harley moaned again as the cloth of her costume fell from her neck to her waist, her breasts held tenderly in her lover's hands as she engaged her in gentle kisses.
"Ivy's here," the redhead breathed into the woman beneath her, before claiming her Harley's lips completely.
xxx
How dare she.
The thought could not escape the Clown Prince's head.
How DARE she try to murder my Batsy without my permission. As if the little slut can even think on her own. That little fucking WHORE, I'll slice her open like a fish, that ungrateful little-
His mantra was suddenly interrupted by a familiar silhouette that covered him in darkness. He sheathed his bloodied knife and turned to the other man on the threshold of the motel room door.
He smiled at the man, wider than he'd planned to.
"Knew the little bitch couldn't hold you for long."
The crusader glimpsed the knife handle stained with fresh blood as he walked toward the man sitting on the bed. The blood recalled the memory of his promise, and the poison pounding in his veins that threatened to betray him without warning should he break that promise. He would have to work on an antidote once he made it back to his Batcave, but for now he was bound by Ivy's demands.
As he sat down on the edge of the bed he watched his enemy unsheathe the knife again, running his finger along the edge of the blade with that gleeful look in his eye that Batman could never ignore. He reached out to grab it, murmuring, "Let's not think about her right now."
But the clown, ever protective of his knives and looking to irritate his Bat, wrenched it out of the knight's grasp, as a black gloved hand clenched around his wrist in an effort to grab the knife away. Batman growled and grabbed him by the shirt roughly while trying to wrest the blade from the madman, yet Joker was quick, and sent the tip down in between his glove and gauntlet. With a roar of pain and anger, Batman threw Joker off the bed and into a wall, before lunging himself after him to deal his next blow at the overly-difficult freak.
The freak caught his fist before it slammed into his face, and burst out a few giggles as he kneed his attacker in the stomach, sending him to floor and immediately following him down.
The air was soon filled with ferocious snarls and cackling as they pummeled each other to bruised and bleeding heaps on the floor. Soon clothes and armor were torn away, and the growling melded into kissing, the laughing into moaning, and the fighting into a rollercoaster of fierce, desperate lovemaking.
A hastily-written 3AM venture into the parallels between Batman and Poison Ivy's mutual interests for criminals of their own gender who dress in clownlike attire. Poor Selina, left out of the fun...