Preface: Word of caution, brief sensuality in this chapter.
Harley sat in a chair by the window, in the dark, holding a mug of green tea, while she stared vacantly at the street outside. Sleet was spattering down through the beams of the streetlamps.
She had gotten hold of the Wonderlanders, catching them just as they'd been released from lockup, the cops having figured out that they'd not been working for Tetch of their own free will. Natalia, the frontwoman of the group, had looked bleary and disbelieving when Harley had made her tentative offer. The group's effects, their instruments and so on, had been returned to them, and Harley had been able to get the committee their details and a demo CD on the spot!
The flush of that success had drained away with the realization that she would have to give some account of herself in a press conference. What would she say? Would she do what Selina had implied, and throw her past to the wind?
On the floor at Harley's feet was the letter Ivy had sent to her. Ivy was under security, and Harley doubted that she'd be able to get in touch in return. Considering she'd had a letter smuggled out, she might be under extra supervision now. The thought made her heart bleed.
She found herself reflecting on the dual legacies of her old life. On the one hand, all the craziness, the crime, the fear she'd helped cause. And of course there was what…he'd done to her. The last straw – and it could easily have been her last – was when he'd thrown her through a third-storey window. She hadn't even been able to get out of bed for a month. And he'd sent her a rose and get well card, and she'd been happy about it! She took a swallow of tea to settle her stomach. The disgust with him, and with herself, felt like an infection she'd never purge.
Wishing to escape the shadow of those memories, she'd turned to the other side. Those intoxicating moments of exhilaration as she somersaulted over security lasers, went toe-to-toe with the Batman, and the feeling of freedom to laugh at the world and revel in any indulgence that struck her fancy. Except they usually weren't her fancies, and it had come with the prices he exacted from her.
The only time she was free of that was with Ivy. It had actually been during one of those exciting evasive heists that she'd chanced to bump into Ivy who, it had to be said, didn't have Harley's finesse at dodging alarm systems. After they'd engineered a last-second getaway, they'd holed up together, and Ivy had offered her the chance to live on her own terms.
For a while, they'd been Gotham's Queens of Crime, and accomplished some challenging thefts, not to mention forcing the mayor to cancel plans to bulldoze Gotham parkland and stealing plants to increase Ivy's arsenal.
In between those they'd created a little haven for themselves. Well, in truth, Ivy had created it, and let Harley live in it with her. For all that Harley's living in her own little, childish world sometimes made Ivy snippy (especially regarding the hyenas), she'd kept them safe. They'd eaten, slept and generally lived together like family.
It had been comfortable, and they'd grown close, until the first time they'd…
Harley found her own thoughts stalling, and the flush creeping over her face again. Then she took another swallow of tea and scolded herself. Come on, Harleen. You were there. Hearing it from the Cat was embarrassing, sure, but you should be able to say it, at least to yourself. The first time you and Ivy had sex!
Still, she found that to approach such intense memories, and ones from beyond the veil of her rehabilitation at that, needed a run-up to them.
When Harley and Ivy had teamed up, they'd pulled off a number of thrilling capers. Ivy's way of making grand statements by her choice of heists (starting by ransacking the men's-only Peregriners Club) had been an inspiration to Harley. Indeed, Harley had become Ivy's personal quest, secondary to her plants of course. What Ivy came to represent was an example of what she could be, as a thief, but also as a woman.
It was after one particularly challenging and exhilarating job, stealing (or 'rescuing' in Ivy's terms) a collection of rare new plants from the heavily fortified Customs department of the Gotham Airport.
Due to some frantically improvised escapes on Harley's part, they'd both wound up pretty filthy, and once the plants were safely installed in Ivy's jury-rigged greenhouse, a number of hours were expended in the shower.
When Ivy had emerged, she'd found Harley excitedly watching the coverage of the sheer devastation and the inevitable security lockdown they'd caused. There was great satisfaction to be had in knowing they'd probably delayed flights and traffic for days to come.
Harley, still in her bathrobe, had invited Ivy to sit with her. Ivy's was a household devoid of junk food. The best Harley had been able to manage was a tin of salted cashews, and she held out the tin, and Ivy, still in her own robe and her hair wrapped in a towel, smiled and sat down to join her. Every so often they looked at each other and laughed or congratulated one another.
After an hour or so the news channel started repeating itself, the adrenaline rush started to wear off, and Harley was mildly surprised to find Ivy nodding off on her shoulder. She'd giggled and revived her long enough to say, "Hey, Red, I think it's bedtime!"
Harley and Ivy had been sharing the hideout's one bed from early on. Harley had thought it fun, like teenaged girls having a sleepover, and anyway the couch was too short. Ivy had rolled her eyes at this and usually insisted that Harley stay well on the other side of the mattress. This time they'd both been too tired not to just collapse into bed on the spot. Fatigue and elation made Harley lightheaded, and on impulse she snuggled up closer than usual and muttered, "I'm glad I'm with you, Red." Ivy didn't object, she just sighed and laid a hand on Harley's shoulder.
Harley felt an unexpected electricity in the gesture. Harley moved a little closer, then Ivy did, and then they were in each other's arms. Harley was just in her underclothes, Ivy in the t-shirt dress she usually wore at home.
Afterwards, all of these were on the floor, and Ivy was draped breathlessly over Harley, and she'd whispered, "I'm glad too."
She'd felt at once nervous and elated the next day, but Ivy was her old self: businesslike, focused, occasionally abrasive. Harley could now recognize that her persistently – not to say obnoxiously – urgent pleas for Ivy to 'lighten up' had been a mechanism through which she could be reassured that Ivy wasn't disgusted or angry with her.
Every so often, though, in the wake of a heist or even after an argument, Harley would catch Ivy looking at her with a soft-eyed expression she normally reserved for her plants, with gentleness in her gaze that made Harley's eyes sting to remember.
Some part of Harley, probably the psychologist, understood. To the world, Ivy was proud, powerful, aloof from humanity. Harley seemed to be the only person she particularly wanted to have around. It was only in those extremely private moments, with no mission or affairs of the instant that she could let herself show such tenderness. Looking back, even letting Harley into her greenhouse, where she talked affectionately to her plants, had been an enormous show of trust.
Before the cops finally captured them again, Harley and Ivy had slept together a few more times. They never really talked about it. Harley's self-enforced innocence and Ivy's self-image meant that it was just something that happened spontaneously.
Harley sighed. But looking back on it now, what was it, really? Hadn't Harley just been clinging to Ivy as a way to make up for the abuse she'd received elsewhere? Was that any kind of healthy relationship? Built on crime, dependency and furtive intimacy with someone just as mad as she had been?
Despite everything, Ivy had meant a lot to her. She'd come away with some good things, early lessons in empowerment for one. Safe haven long enough to survive to be rehabilitated.
She'd made it, in the end. She was free to go forward with her life. But not to go back. She couldn't stay with Ivy anymore, she was still in Arkham. It was time to start again…
She looked at the letter, and picked it up. She read it one last time, then folded it up and kissed it.
"Goodbye, Red."
Afterword: Harley and Ivy's exploits in their Queens of Crime phase are outlined in the Batman:TAS episode "Harley and Ivy," though the part about blackmailing the mayor is a reference to the "Pave Paradise" episode of the Flash series "Gotham Girls"
Harley's brush with death by way of falling out of a window and the subsequent receipt of a get well message from Joker form the finale of the episode "Mad Love."