AN: Thank you for your patience, I haven't updated this fic in over a year so I'm grateful for both anyone who came back and any new readers. I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Chapter Two – Men Make Me Laugh

Croc looked down. Aside from the Squad there weren't many people open to spending time with him. He had been called a freak from a very early age because he did resemble a crocodile and over time the pain had gotten worse, the alienation was much worse. He looked at Pamela and came to sit next to her.

"You really do like these pretty plants," he said with a soft laugh as he put his hand on the grass.

"Gentle," Ivy reminded him and Waylon rolled his eyes.

"I'm not an idiot, you really feel you should be thinking of me with Clayface level intelligence," he rolled his eyes and Ivy hummed.

"Do you know how many of my pretty babies Basil has crushed. He doesn't understand how wonderful it feels for a girl to have a symbiotic relationship with botanicals." Ivy rolled over and raised her eyebrow, "How are the sewers?" she asked him and Waylon blinked down painfully.

"I miss those days, a secret society where I wasn't cursed with a chip in my head able to blow me up. I've seen it before, people being blown up. Turns my stomach knowing it could happen to me," he admitted and Ivy nodded.

"So, is there a reason you've come to visit little old me instead of your friends at old Arkham?" she asked him and Croc froze. He didn't want to admit to wanting company and not really having that many people to ask for it from. He had heard that Ivy was out and that she had relocated and he craved some of that freedom. He didn't want to admit to also craving the flower girl.

"You with Harley?" he asked and Ivy smiled as she stretched an arm out into the grass.

"Oh, Waylon," she said with a grin to him as he flinched to that name. It was the same reaction she had whenever anyone thought about calling her Pamela. Those were names that could have had good and decent lives, clean lives. They were mutated either by choice or by birth. Still it allowed her to keep at least a shadow of control over the man. "Did you come all the way out here to ask me on a date?" she said and Croc paused, his body tensing.

"Nah, not a date. Can't find a woman to go out with me. After spending time with Waller, don't really want a girl to go out with me," he shrugged and Ivy saw the disappointment in his eyes. She sat up slowly and ran a hand down his arm. This would comfort him, right?

"You have friends though," she said, "Although I find that a lot of the time, I don't have the need for friends and find that kind of relationship frivolous. You have friends, people who care for you. I think within me there's a part of me who cares for me and since you're neither flora or fauna, you should take that as a compliment."

"I do Ivy, I do," Croc nodded again. "Do you think things would have turned out differently If you weren't a plant?" he asked and Ivy smiled gently.

"I think that I might be married with a child and I might not respect the biological world as I do now," she shuddered, "That would be awful, just thinking about it sickens me and will give me nightmares for days. No, I finally am home with my gorgeous plants. I just have to protect them from men that don't understand them," she ran her fingers through the grass once again.

"No chips inside your head?" he asked and Ivy smiled.

"Fortunately not, I never do like being told what to do. I need to be free, free to grow and spread my roots. Free to take care of my babies," she said as she reached up towards a tree and let her hand slip over the leaves. She laughed softly.

"Well then you're lucky. It's too late for me," Croc commented, "only way Waller will remove the chip is if I'm too ill, too weak and feeble to go on her missions," he bowed his head. "Not even really allowed to talk about it, only reason I can to you is because I'm sure you know about Harley."

"Of course I know about her," Ivy smiled, "I know more about her than anyone although she doesn't believe so. She just thinks that her special Mr. J will listen to her but he hears but never listens, he doesn't want to listen the way that I do," she smiled and then looked up at the sky.

"I see that the moon is nearly full, I wonder how my loves will take to that," Ivy said and Croc hummed.

"Mind if I look at the sky with you?" he asked and Ivy came closer to him, slipping her arms around him.

"Be my guest," she told him before humming. She really did love the flowers and she felt honored in the protection that they wanted from her. She wouldn't let anyone hurt them again.

…

…

Ivy was making her way down the market and her eyes caught hold on a flower shop. Everyone made jokes with her at Arkham that she most love the flower shop because they would sell her pretty babies but Ivy saw it as just a more important form of slavery.

These monsters cut down these flowers at the highest point of their lives and then they would get given to others who would put them in a vase with not nearly enough water and they would kill them. She hated the very idea that these flowers would turn up dead in somebody else's garden. It haunted her mind so much. She closed her eyes and stroked a rose, wanting to provide it some relief from its pain.

As she touched It, she heard a voice and smiled. Harley had been talking to a rose, telling Ivy how much she loved her and how she missed her, giving ideas of how she wanted to spoil her girlfriend with the frivolity of shopping trips. Ivy had no need for those clothes that humans draped over themselves but she missed Harley and so maybe she would give in to this request this time.

It was only with her that Ivy would put up with such a…human idea.

"Tell her that I love her too," Ivy said as she pressed a kiss to the flower petal, "Just as I love you my darling, thank you for passing along that message. Maybe there is still time to replant you." Picking the flower bouquet with the red rose in it, Ivy cradled it with a baby and walked out without anyone noticing her. She wouldn't contribute to the savage slavery of the natural world.

"I'll take care of you my dear," Ivy told them before seeing a man approach her. She bowed her head. She didn't want to deal with any more men and after seeing Waylon, seeing Eddie wasn't one of her priorities. She smiled to him with a coldness in her eyes.

"Riddle me this, why are you like a fine wine and a fine china plate," he told her and Ivy raised an eyebrow.

"Because you want us both for dinner tonight?" she asked, "or at least our presence with you," Ivy let her fingers run over the plants. She was far more interested in them than she was in this man opposite her.

"I have a little case that I need your help in," he told her and Ivy laughed.

"And just how do you think that you would enlist my help. You know that one kiss from me and you'd become my loyal and obedient pet so give me a good reason why you expect for me to accept that poor excuse for an invitation."

"Because I know how you can get revenge on one of the biggest environmental opponents whilst you help me lock up an oil baron," he told her and Ivy paused. She might even say yes to this particular proposition.