The antitoxin, or at least what Ford hoped was an antitoxin, didn't take very long after his short conversation with Ivy. He wouldn't dare to say it out loud, but truthfully Ivy could have been making a worse toxin this entire time and he wouldn't have known. He was familiar enough with the process of making an antitoxin, and nothing Ivy had done thus far seemed out of place from the process.
This was her own designed toxin though, and while it was incredibly impressive, it was also incredibly concerning. It could only be a few small changes for the process to create an even worse toxin as far as he knew. It was Poison Ivy's creation and he truly knew little about it while she knew everything about it.
The only solid assurance he had that Ivy was truly making the antitoxin was knowing that she seemed tied into making one for Harley's 'puddin'.' As long as he made sure Ivy gave them the same substance, it had to be safe. Granted, she definitely didn't seem to like Joker at all, but it was clear enough that she cared about Harley.
Ford watched as Ivy took two vials and poured the liquid into both. "Do you have any syringes?" Ford asked, passing over the caps, leaving them on the counter for her.
"Do you know how to do an intravenous administration?" She asked back, casual enough for the most part although Ford could pick up the doubt in her voice.
"Yes. I used to work with some, ah, poisonous creatures." He said, going to pick up one of the capped antitoxins. The liquid's original red coloring had since developed to a warm purple.
"I don't have any here." She said, picking up the remaining vial and turning away from the table.
Ford turned as well, tucking the vial into the safety of an inner pocket of his coat.
Harley seemed to have already perked up where she was sitting cross legged on the floor with Stan and cheerily waved at both of them as they started to walk over.
Stan meanwhile kept himself leaned against the railing and gave a much smaller wave of acknowledgement.
"See," Harley said, getting up and actually patting them both on one of their shoulders, "fun science time together!" She stood up straight, hands casually set on her hips. "Now was that so bad?"
He glanced over at Ivy who glanced over at him at the same time to share a brief look of understanding. They broke eye contact to look back at Harley once more.
Aside from the constant undercurrent of worry over Stan's condition, it really hadn't been bad. Even Ivy's palpable distaste for his presence had become something less pronounced and more neutral after some time. He couldn't remember the last time he'd worked alongside someone on some strange experimental process. Or more accurately, when he had last 'assisted.' Certainly it had to have been alongside Fiddleford...
"It was... enjoyable." Ford focused on his current circumstances rather than linger on the past. "I've never seen a crossbred toxin like that before." He added in genuine admiration, feeling Ivy glance at him for a very brief moment out of the corner of his eye.
"It wasn't a 'fun science time,' but it was fine." Ivy said diplomatically to Harley.
"Just perhaps not the best circumstances." He treaded lightly.
With a glance past Harley, Ford now saw Stan who was in the middle of using the railing behind himself to stand up, hyenas standing curiously nearby. Ford stepped around Harley. "Excuse me."
Stan didn't even seem to notice Ford was right there until he was grabbing Stan's arm and helping him up. "Hey." Stan said in way of acknowledgement. His breathing was shallower than before, and a small worry wormed its way into Ford's heart that Stan's airway could close up. It shouldn't though.
When Ford had been inside of the campus clinic, he'd watched the young man he'd brought with him get worse over time as well as everyone else in the waiting room. He'd seen nearly the entire range of the toxin. From the vague confusion on strangers' faces to others that began to vomit and pass before being taken out of the lobby. If it got any worse after that, he didn't know about it. Maybe it did advance to a point that completely restricted someone's breathing though.
Standing here wasn't doing anything to help him either way though. Ford cleared his throat, hyper aware of the slight sway in Stan's balance even while his brother stayed leaning back against the railing. "Needless to say, but we're leaving."
"Me too." Harley said. "I gotta get back to Mister J. He's probably getting lonely."
Ivy's face pressed a couple fingertips to her temple momentarily. "And so you're not here when Batman shows up."
"Oh. Ha, yeah that too." Harley said, pointing to Ivy, only slight concern crossing her face.
Ford was thrown off. It felt so alien, to be worried over getting found by some vigilante. Ford hadn't even considered anything Stanley and he had done today as criminal, but all at once it felt that way now. It wasn't, as far as he was concerned, but he also didn't need to get involved in some misunderstanding simply because they were here. "How long does he usually take to show up to... one of these situations?"
Harley hummed. "Well sometimes he shows up in the middle of it."
"Wonderful." Ford said, his throat strained now.
"I wouldn't particularly worry about it if I were you." Ivy pointed out with the slightest of a bitter note before following it with a detached shrug. "Besides, you have someone obviously infected with you."
"A fair point." Ford conceded. "Regardless, we'll just avoid him." Stanley was still technically a criminal, after all.
Stan snorted, amidst the wheezing, which just came out odd.
Ford cleared his throat, though it didn't help the muscles there relax at all. Facing two people in costumes and a couple of hyenas, he was suddenly struck by how odd this should have been. Instead it felt like something entirely else. He couldn't quite identify what though it tugged at something in his heart.
A feeling hardly necessitated any analysis though. Especially now, they needed to go. Typically he would say. 'It was nice to meet you two?' However, meeting both of them had been concerning, but he didn't think they would particularly enjoy hearing that.
"Well... ah, goodbye." Ford said.
"Thanks." Ivy said blandly, for whatever reason.
"Don't worry, Red. I can always bust you out." Harley promised her, putting a hand on Ivy's shoulder with a smile that seemed infectious enough to cause a corner of Ivy's lips to turn up. "Good luck with Batsy!" She said, starting to bound towards the door, the hyenas jumping after her. She twisted her body around to wave back at Ford and Stan. "See you around, and nice to meet you. Promise I won't sic the puppies on you next time!"
In spite of his own worry, Ford smiled. He waved back at her before she went through the door.
When he looked back Ivy was already walking towards her table of equipment. Ford freely moved with Stan towards the staircase. He paused at the top of the stairs, glancing back to see Ivy gathering items into a large black bag. He half considered yelling a final 'good luck' to her, but decided against it.
He continued down the metal and stone lined corridor and back to the car with Stanley. Worry seemed to settle down and spread into Ford's chest even once he'd used a syringe from the bag of stolen- Ah, a syringe from the bag of necessarily facilitated medical supplies to administer the antitoxin into Stanley's arm.
Ford let out a sigh of relief, once he'd placed a small piece of gauze over the small wound, putting all the supplies back in the bag and starting the car. "At the very least you shouldn't get any worse, though it will take some time for you to get better." He checked around the abandoned side road as though someone was going to rush up on them just now that they had found a moment of safety. There was no one though, so Ford check on Stan. "Do you feel like you're going to puke?"
Stan nearly smiled. He had leaned back in the passenger side seat, head slotted into the space between the headrest and the door. "Not here." He said, his hand aimlessly patting against the middle console.
"So that's an 'after you get out of the car' then." Ford smiled wryly.
Stan made a short, abrupt laugh that roughly escaped his chest. It sounded painful, but if it was then Stan didn't let it show on his face.
At that point, there was a ringing that filled the car. It stopped for a second, then rang once more.
"Shit." Stan said, clumsily trying to extricate the cell phone out of his coat.
Ford reached over after a second, and pulled it out for him.
Stan gave a brief nod of thanks, and leaned back again answering the phone, evidently trying to quiet his wheezing. "Hey Boss."
Ford abruptly tensed at that, watching Stan. He could only hear one half of the conversation and not a very enlightening one at that.
"Mmm." Stan murmured.
Then after another moment. "Yup."
"No." He quietly breathed, voice coming out taxed for the continued lack of minimal air. "The clinic."
A long pause before Stan finally spoke. "Long story."
He straightened up in the seat a bit. "Yeah." Voice pitching in appeasement. Was Cobblepot getting upset at Stanley?
"Uh..." Stan trailed off, confusedly glancing around then his gaze caught onto Ford's face. "Hold on." He said before simply holding out the phone to Ford.
Ford's chest froze up into a solid brick of ice as he looked at the phone for a moment.
"Ford..." He said plainly, keeping it out in the air between them. "can't talk."
Hesitatingly, Ford took the phone and held it up to his ear, dreading the presence that he knew was on the other end of the line. "Hello?" He spoke into the phone, fingertips pressing into the seam at the side of the hard plastic.
An inquisitive voice, responded. "Hello." Though fairly grainy across the line, it was still composed in a very precise manner.
It immediately brought Ford back to the practiced, polite formality ingrained into the voices he heard at scholarly conferences from the more seasoned and reputable scientists. Every note carried just so with an absolute, natural ease as though they had never spoken any other way. An inimitable result from countless meetings and intellectual discussions with fellow scientists for several years.
The voice had always filled Ford with a quick and easy reverence before, knowing what had been behind those perfected tones. The same voice from Cobblepot filled him with an icy and unerringly certain wariness of the man. Oswald Cobblepot had not been active in legal business for long, his activities as The Penguin, however, stretched back many years in the newspapers.
He may as well have been talking to a literal mob boss. He bitingly though to himself. Then Ford realized, that's what he was actually doing. Ford could practically see the man, standing deceptively civil beside a wooden desk as his fingers calmly flexed around a black phone held to his ear.
"Stanley-" Ford began, "with his current condition, he can't speak very well. Nor breathe or walk very well, for that matter." Ford looked back at Stan, mutely beseeching him for what he wanted communicated so Ford could just end this call already.
Frustratingly, Stan just frowned at him with clear confusion.
He couldn't fault Stan for it in the slightest, but the entire situation was already making him feel like his skin was prickling all over. "What did you ask him?" He spoke into the phone, feeling his jaw working unnaturally. His voice didn't sound disjointed or similar despite his own feelings otherwise, thankfully. It felt like it was coming from something besides himself.
Briefly, there was a cold silence from the other end. "I asked where he was."
"He's with me." Ford answered, immediately regretting the phrasing since the next logical question would be 'who are you,' and frankly, Ford didn't want to answer that question. "I'm taking him back to his apartment. He's been infected with a toxin from some flowers that he handled earlier today, and he's in no condition to do anything."
"I see." Cobblepot started, like he had hardly considered what had been said. Ford immediately felt a flare up of resentment as he expected Cobblepot to tell Stanley to come in all the same, and he nearly missed what Cobblepot actually said. "Please, let him know to call me as soon as he feels well then. If I don't hear back from him, I'll be sending someone to check on him."
Someone to check on him? "I understand." Ford said. "Goodbye."
"Goodbye." The word thankfully echoed back to him, and the instant Ford heard it he ended the call before Cobblepot could possibly decide to ask anything else.
Swirling resentment circling his mind, Ford handed the phone back to Stan who took it easily.
"Hey." Stan's voice pulled Ford out of his thoughts. When Ford looked over he noticed Stan had put the phone back up to his ear and had been talking into it rather than to him.
Caught off guard, Ford just stopped to watch Stan.
Even after a few seconds, Stan's expression didn't change and he didn't do so much as check the phone itself or say anything else into it, still keeping it held up beside his ear.
Ford had to force himself from breaking the silence.
After nearly an entire minute, Stan's expression finally changed and he turned the phone around to check the screen.
"Stanley." Ford said, starting off in a tone that even he could recognize was rife with concern, but thankfully Stan was surely too gone to notice. "Stanley, how aware are you of your current surroundings? On a scale from one to ten."
Stan had looked back at him and answered without hesitation. "Ten."
Ford crumpled his fingers across his face, pushing his glasses up into his hair as he took a thin breath inwards. He allowed himself a second, before putting his glasses back in place and beginning to make sure Stan was actually buckled before driving.
"Confusion is one of the symptoms, Stanley. You, I have to mention, do not have that much awareness right now." He supposed that wasn't too bad considering it was actually a fairly minor symptom. He wasn't so sure why exactly that, of all things, was what nearly sent him over the edge. Maybe it was because he was only just now realizing that Stan had been pretending to be better than he was and Ford had no idea for how long he had been doing that. He didn't even know how bad Stanley actually was at this very moment! He should have known!
Ford squeezed his hands around the steering wheel, and took a quick glance at him. Stan had his hands crossed across his stomach in what looked like a casual position. "Nausea is too." He pointed out plainly. "Antitoxin cannot get rid of toxin that has already attached to your tissue, what your body has already absorbed."
"It doesn't fix the already developed symptoms or sustained damage." Ford continued to explain. "It only neutralizes the remaining poison so you can start to heal."
Your body has to do the rest.
Ford let out a breath. "For all we know, you could be like this for a long while."
There was a palpable silence that felt like it was clustering thickly in the air.
"... What?" Stan finally asked.
"Your body-" Ford nearly felt himself curse. "Your body has to fix itself still, of what has already been messed up." At whatever stage it was at when the antitoxin entered Stanley's bloodstream.
Stan nodded his head slightly. "Okay."
Ford tried to shake off the nerves. He'd given Stanley the antitoxin. The only thing left that could even help was just allowing him to recover. Actually. The fact that there was so little that could even be done to assist the process was beyond frustrating.
Stan's voice unexpectedly pulled him from his thoughts. "Hey."
"Yes?" Ford quickly glanced over at Stan who was pulling himself up a bit. "What is it?"
Stan shook his head. "The antitoxin..."
Ford gave a single nod to let Stan know he was listening.
Stan wheezed between nearly every other word. "Gotta give that to the clinic."
"The... clinic?"
After a fair bit of back and forth, and wheezing, Ford found out that Stan was talking about the Memorial Free Clinic which was somewhere on Park Row. Specifically, he wanted Ford to give the antitoxin to Thompkins, who Ford hoped was a doctor. Why this precise person at this clinic, Ford didn't press for the literal sake of Stan's breathe.
Stan had mentioned 'the clinic' during his short portion of the phone call with Cobblepot, which he suspected was somehow apart of this. He doubted Cobblepot told him to do this since Stan definitely hadn't been able to communicate that they even had the antitoxin. Maybe it was just to get the antitoxin off of their hands which Ford didn't need so much of. It shouldn't take any time and it would help more people at a medical clinic.
Ford parked the car alongside the road nearby the clinic, not particularly surprised to see the name 'Wayne' attached to the clinic's name. Apparently it was the last name of some family with enough money to support multiple buildings, organization, scholarships, and who knew what else. He swore every campus building had some 'Wayne' room or wing.
Ford took another moment looking over Stan, scanning him like he might catch something important that meant Stan shouldn't even be left alone even for a short minute. All he had to do was just tell the person at the counter to give the item to Thompkins though, it wouldn't take any time. "How close are you to vomiting?" He asked, carefully pouring a small portion of the antitoxin into another vial to keep with them, just to be safe.
Stan waved him off. "I'll be fine." He insisted.
Stan wasn't fine. Ford frowned, carefully putting the smaller capsule into the cup holder.
"'m just laying down." Stan insisted, voice thin, but really he did seem to be slightly better than he had been before. At least speaking wise.
Nonetheless, Ford took the medical bag in the back seat and emptied the contents out before handing the plastic bag to Stan. "This is for if you need to vomit. Do you understand?"
Stan took the bag, holding it in his lap. "Yup."
"Okay." Ford stressed, promising perhaps more for his own sake than Stan's. "I will be right back."
Stan gave a brief wave to show he heard as Ford got out of the car and locked it.
Ford kept a fast pace as he walked towards the building, only barely pausing after pushing through the door. There were several people inside the small waiting lobby, but the check in counter seemed to only have a couple of people in line. As he started to walk towards it though, a relatively loud voice to his left within the quietly wheezing room caught his attention.
"Eyyy! There he is!"
Without thinking, Ford quickly stepped around the counter entirely, going right through the door beside it. Thankfully, it led into a hallway rather than a bathroom or small room. He shut the door cleanly behind himself, briskly walking down the hallway. He kept an ear out behind him for the door to open, on edge and restraining himself from actually running. When he finally made it around a corner, he paused for a second to collect his thoughts and properly hear any noises coming from the direction of the waiting lobby. He could vaguely hear a voice in the distance, but otherwise nothing.
He only just now registered how he had, within seconds, further complicated this short drop off.
He couldn't just stick around in that lobby though! Who knew who that had been?! It had to have been someone mistaking him for Stanley. He wasn't going to risk finding out if it was someone friendly or not when Stanley was still virtually immobile on his own. Even if Stanley was safe somewhere, Ford didn't want to meet anyone else today! Not today!
Ford's eye caught onto someone in scrubs and a mouth mask walking down the hall, and he turned to catch their attention. "Excuse me," his voice sounded thin and hasty, though he quickly got it back under control. "I'm looking for someone named Thompkins."
"Sir," the man said, caught off guard, "did you check in?"
"No. I'm not here to check in. I just have to deliver something to them." When the man's expression didn't ease up, still cautious, Ford actually pulled out the vial itself for show. "Sincerely, I just need to deliver this."
As soon as the man saw the vial of purple liquid his demeanor completely changed. Far more than Ford had actually expected consider his own admittedly, suspicious introduction. "She's right this way." The man said, turning and leading Ford back down the way he had started with a quick stride.
Needless to say, Ford wasn't a fan of the overly accepting behavior. Surely, Stan wouldn't have sent him to deliver the antitoxin somewhere dangerous though. At least not to someone directly dangerous themselves.
Only a few doors down, the man urgently knocked on a door. "Doctor Thompkins?"
"Yes?" A voice answered on the other side of the door, before the door was opened by a fairly older women behind it. Her gray hair was tied up into a bun at the back of her head and she wore a white lab coat over her outfit. Her gaze flicked to the man then back at Ford, who she looked at for a second longer than seemed normal, before looking back to the man.
"You've got a delivery?" The man said to her.
"Of course, thank you." She said without a single hesitation as though she had already known about him. Ford quickly glanced down the hallway. No glowing red exit sign.
Doctor Thompkins turned back briefly towards the inside of the room, and opened her mouth and frowned a bit. There was the sound of splashing liquid into something plastic. "Just stay there on your side, please. I won't be long." She told the unseen patient, before exiting and closing the door. "Come along then." She said to Ford, urging him to walk alongside her, "my office is clear."
"Alright." Ford said stiffly, trying to keep his distance with the woman who seemed to stay at a pace so they would be side by side.
She didn't say anything along the way, before coming to a door that indeed seemed to lead to a homely looking office which she gestured for him to enter. After he stepped inside, keeping a cautious eye on her, she entered as well and closed the door after herself.
"Do I get to ask why you're in disguise?" She started, a small amused smile, of all things, on her face.
"What? No, I'm- This isn't a disguise." He told her. "I'm not who you think I am, I'm his brother."
The doctor looked him up and down for a moment, not suspicious, but Ford couldn't tell if she still believed him or not. "Alright then." She said. "What's the delivery?"
It took Ford a moment to recalibrate himself to his situation all over again, not knowing what to make of Doctor Thompkin's ready acceptance. Ford pulled out the antitoxin and held it out for her. "It's an antitoxin for the current outbreak," he explained. "One milliliter is one dose which should work when the symptoms are farther along. St- My brother told me to give it to you."
Doctor Thompkins brightened up almost immediately. She took the antitoxin from Ford, looking it over for a moment. "Thank you." She said, looking back up at him. "How long ago did you take a dose?" She asked.
"Well I- I didn't." He answered. Immediately, he became hyper aware of himself. His slightly thin voice, his tight throat and chest, his 'anxiety' symptoms that had been a constant for the past half hour. It probably said something that such symptoms hadn't stuck out to him as odd. Well, it either said something about him or his experiences this past year. He didn't care what that was though either way.
"Ah." Doctor Thompkins said with a small pause. "Did you know you're in Stage 1 of the outbreak already?"
"I'm just now realizing that, yes." He said. "Apologies, but I believe-"
"Don't worry, I'll get a syringe, you stay here." She told him with an appeasing wave, heading off into the hallway. It only took a couple moments before she returned, and began instructing him to sit in a chair.
Ford knew this woman was very unlikely to mean him harm, but he tensed up in the chair, regardless. His mind immediately throwing possibilities of what she could be injecting into him instead of the antitoxin. He rolled up a sleeve, enough to allow access for the injection.
"You need to relax your arm." She told him, after using an alcohol wipe for the area, holding the syringe in hand.
An image flashed through his mind of Doctor Thompkins with yellow eyes and her hand arched back with the syringe, winding it back to plunge into him. Several other scenarios flashed after that in the back of his mind in response to it, and he shifted tightly. "Right." He said, quickly thinking how he could just administer antitoxin to himself once at the apartment. He forcibly pushed the idea back though and relaxed his arm.
While Ford was still in an inner debate with himself if his fear was irrational or not, she pushed the syringe in. It immediately incited a knee jerk reaction, a spike of panic crossing him as he looked at her face expecting a sudden expression change. Not even half a second later though, she removed the syringe and was putting a bandage over the spot. The injection was so quick that it was over in no time at all. She was already disposing the trash and putting the supplies aside on her desk for the time being.
Ford stood, rolling down his shirt sleeve then shrugging his arm back through the arm of his coat. He couldn't help thinking about the possibility that he had just been injected with some poison or anesthetic that would just take a few moments to kick in. However, that- surely Stan wouldn't send him to someone that would so readily do something like that. Although, he wasn't even entirely certain of that. All the same, he tried to keep the idea at the back of his mind as much as possible.
"I appreciate it." He said, standing up.
"It's no problem at all. It's what I do." She said, turning towards him again. "Is Stan alright?"
Maybe she really did believe he wasn't Stanley. "He got the antitoxin half an hour ago, but he had developed most of the symptoms by that point, unfortunately." Ford told her. "I apologize, but I need to go and take him home."
She didn't take any offense whatsoever, and even agreed, giving him a brief and very fast list of what to do for him until the absorbed toxin wore off. He tried not to think of the care instructions as an attempt to stall for enough time for drugs in his system to take effect. She was going through the list faster than she could have been.
As they exited into the hallway, Ford nearly forgot the person from the lobby room, but remembered just as Doctor Thompkins had told him goodbye. "Excuse me," he interrupted her leave, "but which way is a back door, please?"
She paused. "The back door?"
"Ah... yes."
"You know, there is a front door." She said, a smile reaching her kind eyes.
He smiled briefly, though it was significantly less funny on his end of things right now. "Yes, but there's some people there I would rather avoid."
"You haven't been here before, have you?"
"No? Why?" Ford asked.
"This clinic has a very strict no violence policy." She told him.
"Ha." He chuckled. "I'm sorry, but I don't really think a policy is actually going to stop certain people. Especially considering how extreme certain people in this town seem to be."
"It does when this is the only clinic that treats everyone free of charge and confidential. That last part is important to a lot of people." Doctor Thompkins replied easily. "If a known criminal gets shot, this is the only place in the city they can get treated for that without getting turned into the cops."
Ford processed that for a moment, curiosity getting the best of him. It actually made enough sense to be plausible. "And it works?"
"Believe me, it works. In the past ten years, less than a dozen people have ever broken the policy. Less if you don't count the ones who weren't conscious enough to know where they were."
She continued amiably, nodding her head down the hall. "Some people still like taking the back door though. Take a left and go down the small set of stairs." She told him. "And make sure to tell your brother I said stay out of trouble."
"I will." Ford said, too antsy to feel grateful. He'd be appreciative later, provided he didn't begin passing out before making it out the door. "Good luck, Doctor Thompkins."
"Stay safe." She said, turning away with a purposeful stride.
True to her word, the back door was after a set of stairs, leading out into the alleyway behind the building. When Ford made it back to the car, Stan was still in much the same position as he had been when Ford had initially left.
"How are you feeling?" Ford asked, putting the keys into the ignition.
"Kinda... better." Stan said. There was no signs that he had done anything other than perhaps shift to get more comfortable.
"Good." Ford responded, "Don't forget you're still poisoned though."
Stan shrugged as though it was just a trivial fact by this point. Considering Stanley was already improving, it could be, if actually wasn't worse off than he seemed.
All in all, the drive back was calm and it stayed that way up until the point when they entered the building and Stan made a loud groaning noise at the sight of the stairs. Ford would have been lying if he said he hadn't been initially concerned. Stan's petulant and grumbling nature though put him at ease. It was the most himself he had seemed since Ivy had showed up.
The pair moved in tandem, making their way up the stairs together. By the time they reached the second set of stairs though, Ford really might as well have been carrying Stan. It was partially Ford's own fault as Stan's pace had only been slowing down and Ford had, in response, just picked him up more rather than taking only two steps at a time. Finally at the door, they were both wheezing.
Getting Stan to his own bed was easy and thankfully Stan didn't seem at all concerned about how Ford had messily tossed the blankets over him since Ford didn't quite have the energy that would require pulling the blankets free from under Stan before covering him up. He'd pulled a bucket out from under the sink and gotten a cup of water to put beside the bed for Stan.
By the time that Ford's own breathing had evened back out, he'd finally come to accept that Stanley really wasn't pretending to be in a better condition than he truly was. Stan's wheezing was actually going down now, even from what it had been before the two of them had climbed the stairs up to the apartment.
Ford let himself relax for a moment then went rummaging for a shirt in one the dresser's drawers that was now considered his. As he did, he pulled out a dark cloth from the bottom of the drawer that turned out to be a black tracksuit with orange accents.
"Stanley, you put your track suit in my drawer." He said, holding it up for him to see.
Stan lifted his head off the pillow, squinting at the tracksuit for a long moment before letting his head fall back down again. "No, I didn't." He said.
Ford rolled his eyes, turning back to the drawer and balling up the suit and returning it back into one of Stan's drawers. After retrieving a clean set of clothes, Ford did a final check on Stan to make sure he was fine. Then he took a shower and changed.
He set the different vials from Poison Ivy onto his makeshift desk in their- in the living room. Belatedly, he realized that he had just brought concentrated toxin into an apartment building full of people. Not particularly the safest thing to do, but he would take it to his office at the university tomorrow.
Ford had to admit that Ivy's toxin, crossbred from a variety of plants, was very interesting. It was the most interesting chemical substance he'd had a chance to examine since well- since a while. The lab experiments of his own classes were simple and straightforward to him. He had done several variations of these same experiments before. They were all familiar, which was relaxing, but that also meant none of it was new to him.
Poison Ivy's toxin had been the first truly new chemical compound he had encountered since his anomaly research. He hadn't fully realized just how much he had missed it until now, when all he could think about was seeing what he could find out about it. What it could react to? A thousand questions and possibilities, that would already have him leaving for the campus laboratory even despite the possibility of toxic inhalants from stray flowers if it weren't for his worry over Stan's condition overshadowing his curiosity.
Ford glanced over the notebooks on the desk. His hand went past the ones filled with research and possibilities about what to do with Bill and hovering over the blank ones.
He pulled out one of the few hard backed journals. It was a red violet, a slightly more purple hue than his research journals of Gravity Falls had been. He set it down on the desk and began to sketch Ivy's lab as they had originally found it, leaving space to write in later.
Soon after starting though, Ford paused, lifting the pen back from the page.
Stan laid on his bed, an empty bucket and water sitting near his face as most of his confusion lifted. He had started getting kind of hazy about the time they'd gotten to the greenhouse and it kept getting worse.
He remembered sitting on an uncomfortable metal floor and realizing that if he needed to get out of there that he wasn't able to do that on his own anymore. Heck, he hadn't even know what way was out anymore. And Ford? Ford could just leave him behind, he knew it. Ford would leave.
He'd only managed to relax because Harley was by him. She'd notice if Stan couldn't keep up with them if they started moving. He'd bet that she'd even help him at least long enough to get somewhere safe.
From there, it got a lot harder to keep track of. Stan finally getting back to his car, recognizing it as soon as he sat in it. A call from Oswald that he'd passed off to Ford when it got too complicated. He'd say it was a miracle he remembered the rest of the gang were still poisoned, except he was pretty sure Oswald had asked about them and it had just taken Stan a while to piece together that they could drop the antitoxin off where they should be at. Telling Ford where to take the damn stuff felt like it took forever though.
Ford had gotten frustrated too, probably because his ideal evening didn't involve getting slowed down because he had to drag Stan around.
Eh, getting poisoned wasn't really Stan's ideal evening either. It wasn't getting stabbed though.
Just as Stan was deciding he might as well sleep, he heard footsteps heading towards his room and the door opened.
Ford entered calmly, pausing for a moment and looked at Stan like he was trying to scan something off of his expression. He wasn't wearing the trench coat and he had some book in a hand at his side, his other hand stayed where it was barely touching the door knob. He hesitated for a moment before walking over.
To Stan's surprise, Ford walked to the dresser beside the mattress and sat down, his back against the dresser, not looking at him.
"What are you doing?" Stan asked.
He held the book in his lap for a moment before he answered, beginning to adjust. "...Sketching."
Ford settled into a more comfortable position then opened the book up on his knees. He flipped to one of the first pages and from where Stan was at he could see the right page, blank, and the left where there was an unfinished sketch. Ford uncapped a pen, holding the left cover of the journal steady with a hand hand as he carefully began drawing.
Stan watched the sketch develop for a minute or two, before eventually closing his eyes. Listening to the quiet and familiar sound of a pen softly scratching across paper, he started to fall asleep.
Black shoes on a metal railing gave way as Robin, drenched from head to toe in water that turned the bright colors of his leotard dark, gracefully dropped into a sitting position on the edge of the small water tower that fed into the Green Thumb Nursery. The cape, however, fell to the metal with a loud thwap and with zero grace to speak of. He grimaced slightly at the sound, the expression deepening when the communicator on his belt beeped. Lightly dripping, he picked up the communicator and pressed a button on it.
"Robin here." He answered.
To his surprise, Alfred answered rather than Batman. "Are you in a position to talk at the moment?" The butler asked calmly. "You sound a bit out of breath at the moment, sir."
"No, I can talk." He glanced around the ground, but didn't spot anything. Not a surprise, really. Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn had to have been long gone by now. "Is Batman okay?"
"I'm afraid since you left, his condition has worsened. However, I called you to inform you of another matter."
"Is it a good other matter?"
"Would you consider robbery a good matter, sir?" Alfred asked with a barely there sarcasm.
Robin groaned, running a hand over his face.
Alfred continued. "It seems that Wayne Laboratories has just suffered a break in."
"When did that happen?!"
"Roughly thirty seconds ago, sir. Judging by the security footage it seems the culprits were three individuals wearing black."
"Alright, I'm on it!" Robin stood up and walked over to the ladder, sliding down it to the ground.
"Might I inquire as to what happened with Poison Ivy?"
"Uhh..." Robin trailed off.
"Well I'll leave you to be the one to tell Master Wayne once he has recovered, seeing as it won't be anytime today. Do be careful, Master Dick."
"Will do, Alfred." Robin promised before placing the communicator back into his belt again.