Ford's chin thunked against something hard. He startled awake, glass-shattering laughter fresh in his mind. Scrambling up, his foot slipped on some loose papers and he fell backwards against the chair. It tipped backwards and stopped mid-descent before getting set back down on all fours, safe again.
"Nice one, Poindexter."
Ford readjusted his glasses and glanced over his shoulder, scowling.
Stan stood there with a cheesy smile and waved at him. "Morning, sunshine."
"You did that on purpose," Ford immediately accused, pointing at him.
Stan shrugged. "I got no idea what you're talking about, Stanford," he said with a self-satisfied smile, gesturing out. "Your elbow just slipped out from underneath ya out of nowhere."
"And you just so happened to be standing nearby."
At the very least it looked like Stan had actually avoided stepping on any of the papers that had since fallen to the floor. Ford leaned over, to grab the scattered papers and place them back on the makeshift table in front of him.
"Happy little accidents." Stan paused then, rubbing a hand under his chin in mock thoughtfulness. "Or, you know, 'something something the dangers of falling asleep at a desk.'"
Ford rolled his eyes, going back to organize his notes. "So I wasn't expecting to fall asleep."
"Come on, the couch isn't even ten feet away."
Ford didn't bother looking over. "Well, if it had been within my ability, I wouldn't have slept at all. This isn't some inconsequential project that I can put off. I'm going to keep a steady pace on thus until I've figured something out."
"Ford," Stan said, serious now, "it's been a month."
The words hit. Ford said nothing, dutifully trying to ignore the fact as he picked a sheet of paper to look over.
"You can't keep doing this, Sixer."
He tried for a moment to read, but his mind refused to comprehend the concept strung together by the words. He paused in his attempt of working to respond. "Actually, I very well can, and already have in the past." Ford told him, matter-of-fact. "Under much worse conditions for considerably longer." How long, he wasn't sure, but he knew it had been much longer than the few weeks he'd spent here in Gotham.
Stan sighed heavily and reached over, closing the book over top of the notes in front of Ford. "Yeah, that doesn't make this great in comparison."
Ford looked back over at him. "It's hardly bad."
"You know you literally sleep more at the desk than you do the friggin couch, right?"
"Okay. Fine. I'll make sure to stop falling asleep in the chair then, I prom-"
"No, I mean all of it." Stan interrupted him. "You're not racing against a countdown and yeah, it sucks, but at this rate you're gonna wind up dying in your forties with gray hair."
"I'm not going to be working on it that long." Yet, Ford suddenly didn't feel truly confident about that, and stopped himself from thinking about what another decade like this would be like. He wasn't going to acknowledge that possibility, he wouldn't. "The sooner I figure out a solution the sooner I can relax." Excluding the chance of Bill's anger aftwards. Maybe-
"Yeah, and maybe the sooner you wind up getting hit by a bus because you walked into traffic after going a third damn day in a row without sleep." Stan said, throwing a hand up.
Ford closed his eyes, and pushed his glasses up to rub at the marks on his nose. Stan had a point, and Ford didn't like it, because he was right.
"Has anybody died in the past month?" Stan asked.
"Several people-"
"Uh, no , try again."
Ford let his glasses back down. "...Not that we know of."
"So, no. Pretty sure he's the kind of guy that would let you know just to mess with you."
That actually calmed Ford down a bit. Bill definitely could have, but... Stan was right. Bill probably would have delighted in letting Ford know what had happened, purely out of knowing the turmoil it would cause him.
"Any big bad doomsday devices here?"
"According to something you said, previously - possibly." Ford replied lightly.
Stan waved out a hand, prompting him. "So..?"
He paused, conflicted. "There's still any number of other things Bill could do or has already done." He said, though no longer arguing as much as he was just voicing the concern now.
"Well, whatever it is, it's nothing too bad you can't bounce back from. I mean, look at me," Stan said, gesturing at himself proudly. "I got warrants out for my arrest and I'm doing great!"
"...You have warrants out for your arrest?"
Stan stopped. "... No?"
" Stanley! "
Stan put his hands up, unconcerned. "Hey, nothing's out for ' Stan Pines! ' Without a doubt, hundred percent, mostly."
" 'Mostly ?'"
"Can't exactly go asking at police stations to double check or nothing, you know." He explained nonchalantly.
Ford laughed weakly, and Stan patted his shoulder.
"...You gonna dial it back?" He asked, eventually.
Ford didn't want to. "I should." He really didn't want to. It wasn't just the possible dangers, or the nightmares, though of course those were a factor too. It was knowing Bill still had access to everything and... There was just a lot to it that made his skin crawl, to put it simply. He wasn't going to think about it. As long as he had material he could try to work off of it for a solution. This was only a temporary situation, but continually having to remind himself of that as more time went on was... it also felt temporary, to a certain point, and he didn't know when that reminder would eventually start ringing more false than true.
"I could be close." Ford said, but he already knew that wasn't true.
"Look," Stan said, "I'm not saying stop. Sooner you can put that jerk in the rear-view mirror the better. You being tired all the time isn't helping you out, though. Plus, you know," he waved a hand, glancing away, "if something winds up happening you're not exactly gonna be able to get that far running off of two hours of sleep for the whole week."
Ford sighed, running a hand through his hair. "You're right," he conceded, though he wished it wasn't the case. He wished he was only a week or two off from being done with this, but... he really wasn't, and this wasn't going to help him.
Stan shifted slightly, hands going into one of his pockets. "Sorry, what'd you say?"
"I said you're right, Stanley. In actuality, this is at a point of impeding my current progress, and frankly my physical condition... at the moment is..." Ford slowly trailed off, getting distracted by the oddly mischievous grin on his brother's face. "Why are you smiling?"
Still beaming, Stan shrugged. "Ah, maybe it's just nice to know I'm not going to find you asleep at a desk every day." He wasn't even trying to make it sound like that was the real reason behind his smile.
Ford watched him suspiciously for a moment more before Stan gestured for him to go on.
Ford continued, albeit distracted and wary. "I'm not in the best physical condition, and even if I was in a less populated area it would still be an unnecessary risk." Really... he didn't know why hadn't he thought of this back when he was in Gravity Falls. At least, in the brief period of time when he thought he had enough safety measures up around the portal. Yes, he had been wrong about that, but he should have been taking advantage of the sleep available at the time. "I'll allow myself to properly sleep."
"You better or I'm dropping a bucket of water on ya next time I see you sleeping here." He said picking at a paper.
"Do not , you'll destroy all my notes." Ford warned.
Stan shrugged. "Ah, don't worry. I'll just make sure to get it all on you." He let go of the paper. "Any of this cult stuff looking like anything?"
"Well... It's a lot of good material. I ruled out a couple of methods already, ran them through to no success." There wasn't very much applicable material left for him, though it would require a lot of testing. "I still have more to try out, though. I'll experiment on this last set of sigils next. I'm just working my way through the safer and more straightforward ideas first."
"Oh, that's real comforting." Stan told him sarcastically. "Don't get yourself killed trying some voodoo or whatever it is."
"Sigils."
" Anything you're trying." He said.
"I'll be fine." Ford assured him. "In regards to earlier about sleeping though... are you a light sleeper?"
"Ford, we can move the couch into the bedroom if you're really worried Bill's sneaking out when you're asleep." Stan said lazily.
"I was going to say if he attacked you, actually."
Stan blinked, like he hadn't been expecting that, taking a moment. "Uh, yeah, I'd wake up. It looks like you haven't been getting into any fights or anything like that after you sleep anyways, so the guy isn't really getting a lot of fighting practice in."
He could still get in with a gun . "As long as you put something in front of your door that will make a sound when it opens, then he can't surprise you. I could also add a lock on your door."
"Christ-" he put a hand over his face, "look, I really don't think we need any more locks in here."
"I'm just saying, it wouldn't hurt."
"Do you wanna look over and see what you did to the front door again?" He asked, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.
"Yes, I vastly improved the door's security. I don't think that was by any means a bad idea." He could install some locks on the bathroom door as well... Really there was no sensible reason to not install new locks on the doors and window inside of the apartment.
"I'll put a bottle or something in front of my door when I go to sleep, if that makes you feel better." Stan said.
"Every night?"
"Every night," he promised.
"Good." Ford would still install at least one lock anyway, to be on the safe side. The locks inside the knobs could be turned with even just the edge of a coin or a fingernail. "Are you really not going to tell me why you were smiling?" He asked, changing the subject.
A small smile edged back onto Stan's face. "Sorry, I don't know what you're talking 'bout." He said with a shrug.
"Stanley-"
"Sorry, Ford!" He said, snatching his keys out of his pocket to hold out. "I gotta be a responsible employee," he said with a hand to his chest, "and go set up the club for tonight. Boss wants everything purple or close to it and lemme tell you, purple stuff isn't that easy to find for Valentine's Day."
"You're avoiding the question."
He shrugged, happily as he stepped backwards. "Guess you'll just find out when you find out."
" Comforting ." Ford replied sardonically.
Stan pointed at him with his index fingers. "Now you know how it feels to be on the other end of 'vague and cryptic.'" He turned around then. "Hey, you could always go out and try to meet someone."
"I'll pass, thank you very much. Worst day for that." Ford said, rolling his eyes. "I'll just be glad once the day is over with."
Stan smiled, pulling at an imaginary bow tie with a small dance as he made it to the door. "Suit yourself, more for me."
Ford let out a huff of air with a small smile, finally getting out of the chair and stretching his stiff back. "Good luck on the decorating."
"Good luck on the nerding." Stan said with a two fingered salute as he went out the door.
The Iceberg Lounge wasn't the only place in town that wasn't glitzed out in pink and reds, but it had to be one of the best damn looking ones. The purple hues livened up the room from its usual blues, and in comparison to the red sea floating around almost everywhere outside the door it was a refreshing change of scenery.
Ice-like pillars and formations throughout the club helped illuminate the room, with purple lights spread around. Suzie and Juan were putting up more decorations, the only thing left was some more cable work on 'speakers,' (cough bugs cough) and the flowers which Lou was taking forever on. Not for nothing, but hey, the club was looking pretty great.
The doors let out a quiet beep, only loud enough to be heard when there wasn't any customers around or music playing, and Stan turned to see a cart full of flowers getting wheeled through the door.
"Took ya long enough, Lou. What? Were you trying to get a date with the florist?"
An incoherent mumble came from behind the cart and Stan leaned his head around to see Lou, who was half bent over.
"Hey, something going on?"
"No," they said, with a strained voice, pulling themselves back up straight, "stomach's just a lil wishy-washy right now."
"Okay, then-"
"Just like, I dunno butterflies, ya know? Florist was kind of a jerk. Not the one with a lazy eye. That one, though - man, feels like it's following you through the store. Might be, too. Think he can control that like some kinda- some kinda camera or something, you know?" They stopped to breathe, wheezing quietly on each inhale. "With a... lil' remote... control?"
Even completely out of his breath, they still couldn't stop talking. "They don't even got an electric security system, Lou, he's not gonna have a camera in his fake eye ." Stan said. "Just catch your breath then get the flowers set up."
They gave a thumbs up, opting for a quiet, "you got it."
Stan walked off to carry the usual decor to make room for the Valentine's Day decorations and was shoving it into the back of the coat check in. He wasn't even thinking about Lou until he heard Suzie yelling over to them from back out on the main floor.
"Yaps! You gonna come help out anytime soon?" She shouted over to them.
No response, none he could hear.
"Yaps?"
Stan came out of the closet and spotted Lou still over by the flowers. They held a hand up, and once Stan got close enough, he could hear them still wheezing . Heck, if anything it'd gotten worse.
"Hey uh... think I'm allergic," they said in a rasping voice.
"Hell of a day to realize you got a flower allergy," Stan said, gesturing for them to move. "Get away from the flowers, you're gonna keep breathing it in and getting worse."
"What's going on?" Suzie yelled out.
"They got some kind of flower allergy. You're on flowers, set them out and make sure Yaps doesn't get near any of 'em."
She smiled, jogging up to grab the abandoned cart. "Don't gotta tell me twice to take the easy job."
"Just do the downstairs for now, and put 'em in water." He turned back to Lou. "Go upstairs, find some allergy medicine and fix up the private rooms, got it? Nothing around the flowers."
"Got it." Lou answered, pushing off of the wall.
Stan checked back, making sure they were headed up the stairs before he went over to a phone, making calls and checking on entertainment for the night.
Less than an hour passed and he was hanging up on a call with some new act for the night when he heard more quiet wheezing. He groaned. "Lou! Seriously, what part of stay upstairs-!" He cut himself off when he looked up and saw Suzie instead.
She had a hand leaned on the wall. "Think I got sick from Lou." She told him, with a rattling breath.
Oh, damn it. "You can't catch allergies."
"Yeah," she wheezed. "No shit."
"You don't get sick that fast either. Okay." Stan rubbed his face, aggravated, thinking. "Okay, okay," he said, pulling his hands away from his face and getting up to look around the room. It had to be the flowers, there wasn't anything else Lou had brought back besides them. "Follow me and don't touch anything."
Stan walked to the break room near the back wall, avoiding passing any more of the flowers. "Alright, sit down and don't move . Flowers are friggin' poison or something, I don't know . I'm checking on Lou, and if you don't see me in five minutes then you don't gotta worry. Juan'll get yous guys to the clinic." He went over to the fridge and chucked a water bottle over to her, hardly waiting.
He doubted Ford was going out of his way to buy flowers, but considering their luck Stan had to make sure he got to Ford before any of this mess did.
Despite spending the majority of his time in Gotham thus far in his office at the university, Ford didn't actually know his own office hours. Although, perhaps it was because he was here more often than not that he hadn't bothered to remember them. He didn't have to worry about making sure he was here for them if he was going to be there regardless.
Knocks at his office door were starting to become more frequent now. Even though students stopping by did interrupt whatever he was currently working on, he was actually surprised to find himself enjoying the brief and unexpected breaks from his own work. After hours of untangling possible solutions out of a book with no certainty there was even a single reliable sentence inside of it, it was a calm respite to spend a half hour walking something through concepts he already knew such as covalent bonding or Newton's laws. Last week, he'd even had a chance to help a student with a higher level biology course they were taking! They only mentioned briefly having difficulty understanding and Ford had immediately offered to help. He had a degree in it, after all, he was perfectly qualified to offer help even if it wasn't for his class.
Ford was currently in his office with a student explaining the creation of ammonium. He had flipped over the chalkboard beforehand and was writing on the other side of it now. He stopped with quiet concern at the whining wheeze that came from the table. He curled the chalk in his hand, looking away from the unfinished steps in balancing the chemical equation.
The source was the student, leaning in towards the table with a page of notes beside him. "Sorry," the student apologized, "'m fine."
"No," Ford said, "it's quite alright, but... are you sure you're okay? Is it asthma?"
He shook his head. "I don't have asthma. I'm pretty sure it's just nausea and allergies. My-... my valentine got me flowers today." He half-heartedly smiled.
Ford frowned. "That is sweet, but...is this what your allergies are like ordinarily? Nausea is usually more indicative of food allergies." Not to mention that it was rare for a singular allergen to trigger both respiratory problems and nausea. "Did you eat anything odd today?"
"Ha, I didn't eat anything for breakfast."
Begrudgingly, Ford let it go. It was odd, but it didn't sound like anything dangerous. He continued his explanation, making no further comment on the wheezing. After the student left, Ford took out the cultists' Ethereal Beings book out, flipping it back to the page he'd left off on. There really wasn't anything that fit Bill's description, but well... he could just try any preventative measures for beings mentioned in this book and hope it applied to Bill.
Even what really didn't apply to Bill was at least interesting. The way the book described some of these beings definitely made him curious as to what they actually were. Angel-like beings that were actually from other dimensions appearing in forms that couldn't quite comprehend them. Their form appearing to shift over each other like multiple forms tangling to exist where only one was expected.
He got pulled out of his thoughts, hearing a slightly muffled high-pitched wheeze. Curiously, Ford went to the door, opening it and seeing his student not even five feet away on the floor, sitting against the wall.
He gave Ford a small wave. "Hi, Professor."
"You-" Ford didn't know his name. He checked his watch. "You left 20 minutes ago, what are you still doing here?"
"Uh... breathing, mostly," He answered, between breaths.
"Were you unable to walk?" Ford asked cautiously. Nausea and shortness of breath were an odd combination, but anything more and it could be a sign of something dangerous.
"Only...a little... mostly I just got kind of dizzy."
"Does your chest hurt?" Ford moved over to him, kneeling down only close enough to be able to check his eyes. Pupil size matched, but they were highly dilated considering the lit hallway. "Do you feel like you have a fever?"
He blinked, watching Ford and seeming confused by the two simple questions. "Uh... nothing hurts."
Less likely to be a heart condition. "Are you burning up?"
"No."
"... You need to go see a doctor."
The student started taking noticeably shorter breaths, an attempt to stop wheezing perhaps. "I can't really afford that, ha."
"The school clinic will at least see you for free." Medication and actual treatment was another matter, but first he had to know if he had a serious condition or not. "Do you need help getting up?"
"... Could I just lay down here instead?"
"No." Ford helped him up, making sure the student was stabilized long enough for Ford to have a chance to walk back into his office. He took a loose piece of paper to write a note on and pulled off a piece of tape before walking back out into the hall again.
He stuck the note onto the front of his office door and locked it before turning back to the student and urging them along down the hallway, a hand hovering near the backpack he was wearing in case the student lost his balance.
" You gotta be friggin' kidding me ...!" Stan knew how to get to Gotham State University, but he hadn't known the campus was going to be this much of a maze. He had gone to three different buildings to find the right place and now-?!
' Office Hours cancelled due to medical emergency. At campus clinic. ' Ford's handwriting was hastily scratched onto a loose piece of paper taped to the door's glass window.
With a groan, Stan turned back for the stairs again.
Sure, at least he was at a clinic. He didn't know what this disease or whatever was though - or what it was going to do!
There hadn't been absolute chaos on the streets when he drove here or anything. Some concerned faces, or people having trouble breathing, but Stan had still seen people walking around with flowers, so the whole city hadn't really gotten what was going on yet. He told Oswald what had happened, so hopefully if Oswald would call him up if he found out anything more about what was going on.
Stan stopped in the middle of the hallway when he saw an open door leading into a small staff kitchen area with someone standing beside the coffee machine. He knocked on the door frame and stuck his head inside to ask what building the clinic was in, then followed signs until he finally made it to what better like Hell be the clinic. Out of breath from running around, he slowed down as he made it to a stainless steel door with a red plus sign above it.
Pushing open the door, Stan found himself in a relatively big room that was half-full of young-looking students, most of which all looked to be in about the same condition as Lou had been. He caught a glimpse of the familiar color of Ford's trench coat in the crowd, his back facing Stan as Ford was turned towards some kid beside him.
"Ford!"
Ford turned, surprised and Stan could see him with two fingers pressed to the kid's wrist and his watch held up in front of him. "Stanley? What are you doing here?"
"What do you think I'm doing here?! I went to find you in your office and you weren't there." He walked over to him.
Ford stood up to talk to him. "Did-? Are you okay?"
"I had to run to a gajillion different buildings here to find you." Stan gestured out widely. " What's a school even need this many buildings for? "
Ford shook his head. "It's a campus."
"Hey... I'm not dying, right?" The kid wheezing behind Ford spoke up.
"Oh- No. Definitely, not, no." Ford turned to tell him, and soon after paused for just a moment with a flicker of uncertainty on his face. Stan could just read the silent ' probably ' Ford didn't add on, but at least he had kept that to hims- "Most likely." Never mind.
Stan put a hand on Ford's shoulder to talk to the kid. "He's joking. You're going to be fine." Probably . "Ford, come on, time to get out of Poisoned Central before we get whatever's going on."
Ford glanced back at him, a question on his lips that he pulled back on before talking to the kid again. "They're going to call your name to see you at some point, don't leave before then. I'll see you in class once you recover, James." He hesitated slightly on the name.
The kid looked at him, confused and quiet for a long beat. "... My name's Jeremy."
"Yeah, that's what he said," Stan said, before tugging on Ford's shoulder. "See ya kid, stay away from plants."
Ford shot him an odd look.
"Like... drugs?" The kid asked slowly.
"Yeah, sure those too."
"Goodbye, Jeremy." Ford waved as Stan pulled him out of the clinic and they started walking down the hallway.
Stan let out a breath as they got out. "One of your students or something?"
"Yes, he was at my office hours and exhibited some concerning symptoms. Now- Plants ? What's going on?"
"Don't know who did this or what this even is, exactly, but it's getting spread around with flowers," Stan told him.
Ford perked up, pointed back down the hallway. "He mentioned getting flowers today!"
"My two friends from work started getting sick-like after being around the flowers. Thought it was just allergies at first 'cause of the wheezing."
"Everyone seemed to have the same symptoms." Ford began, thinking out loud. "Chest tightness and a nervous stomach advancing into difficulty breathing, nausea, confusion, and drowsiness. Dilated pupils, odd sensations in legs and fingertips. Slight discoloration in veins and mild cyanosis."
"What?"
"It's-" He breathed in, running a hand through his hair. "It's just when your skin turns blue due to a lack of oxygen in the blood at the surface. The vein discoloration is such an odd symptom, though! Jeremy's veins took on a green tint. I've never even heard of that before. I've heard of green blood, yes, but only under extreme conditions."
" Okay , so at least it's not green blood. What's the worst we're talking here?"
"The most extreme condition I've seen thus far has been vomiting and passing out, but we need to find a direct source of the allergen or infectant." Ford walked with a renewed energy, speeding up. "If we find an infected flower, then I can analyze it in the chemistry lab!"
Stan grabbed onto Ford's sleeve, to pull him back. "Hey- hey slow it down. I'm not exactly keen on messing with some flower and puking my guts out a few hours from now."
Ford stopped in the hallway, staring at him, completely dumbfounded. "You... don't want to find out what's happening," he said slowly.
"What?" Stan had expected- well, he'd expect Ford to get upset or try to insist, but he hadn't expected... whatever this was. It wasn't even a sad expression as much as... Ford just looking lost and Stan didn't know why.
They fell into a long silence, both of them struggling to find a place to even just begin to understand the other.
What was he even supposed to say to that? It was like the possibility that someone wouldn't want to chase down some weird mysterious disease for the fun of it was completely beyond Ford. It should have been pretty straight forward. Right?
It was dangerous and it didn't make sense. If they just played it safe they could get through this scot-free without catching some virus. Sure, it wasn't fatal, plus there'd be a shot or pill for it before the end of the week no matter what. He guessed it could be fun, but...
All at once, he came to a startling realization, and all of his confusion was redirected at himself.
What was he even saying...? Here they had the perfect chance to run around on something fun with almost no consequences and his idea... had been to hole themselves up and wait for it to pass? Why? Just to play it safe? Since when had he become was he the 'play it safe ' guy?
Worst case scenario, they got sick for a week. That was nothing. Heck, he didn't even have to worry about how he'd make it through the week if he got sick. Not like Cobblepot would fire him for it so he'd still have his job.
He'd never been in a better position to get sick, not since he was a kid! He could afford to be reckless and, if you really thought about it, in a way, he actually owed it to himself to take advantage of the cushy living situation while he had it!
"Stan?"
He came back out of his thoughts to realize Ford was still staring at him, looking at a loss for how to continue.
"You know what? I don't even know where that came from." Stan let go of Ford's sleeve. Maybe it was all the babysitting he wound up doing at work. That sounded right. A bad habit picked up having to make sure nobody screwed up too much during a robbery. "We don't exactly have anything to lose here, chances are we're both already infected anyways."
Ford noticeably relaxed, shoulders dropping and that expression on his face finally changing. "Depending on what it is, we may be fine. It seems to be relatively fast-acting."
Stan hummed. "Took maybe a half hour before Suzie started wheezing from the flowers. Hey," he hit Ford's shoulder, "you got bags and gloves?"
"What kind?"
"You know, like medical ones so we can grab the flowers without instantly getting the Valentine's Day stomach flu."
Ford turned to look back. Stan followed his gaze down the hallway in the direction of the clinic.
"Excuse me, step aside, important doctor business coming through." Stan strode through the swinging set of doors into a hallway of patient care rooms and around into the first open room with so much as a pause. "Hey, you. I need gloves for Doctor Pines, STAT, where's the storage closet?"
"Is this a scalp retractor ?"
"Yeah, I got really into character while I was back there. Got a couple of weird scissors and a chest tube looking thing too."
"Oh, I can use the scissors," Ford said, pulling one out of the bag and carefully cutting a purple latex glove as Stan drove. In one glove, he cut a hole in the latex at the crux between two middle fingers then on another all the way down the side of the pinky finger. He put a hand into the latter glove, his pinky finger and edge of his palm uncovered, then stuck the hand through the remaining glove, slipping one of his gloved fingers through the small hole between fingers. It looked a bit awkward with the extra material, but it successfully covered his entire hand and he did it like he'd done it a million times.
"You always do that?" Stan asked him.
"Normally, no. I have safety gloves that fit, but I left them back home in 'Nebraska,'" Ford said, starting on the gloves for his other hand. "Do you remember where you left the flowers?"
"They were on the table when I left, but I called in a couple of the club staff early to clear it out. Chances are, they're out back."
Ford peered over when they reached the club. "Is this where you work?"
"Yeah."
He paused. "It looks... really high-class. And legitimate."
"Ha, and you thought it was going to be a bad cover where criminals hang out at." Ford had never said as much, but Stan could tell it wasn't what Ford had been expecting at all. "Joke's on you!" He gloated. "It's a fancy schmancy night club and a cover where criminals hang out."
"Alright, yes, I was expecting it to be smaller and maybe not quite as fancy," Ford said, barely admitting anything.
Stan scoffed, still smiling. "You should see the inside next time."
As the car pulled around to the back, there were the flowers on the wall opposite of the building, with some caution signs set up around them.
With masks over their faces and sleeves rolled down, they walked over to the dumpster. Stan held out a large bag for Ford as he carefully set a bouquet inside, then walked over to a dumpster and took off his gloves to toss them in.
Stan zipped the bag shut, walking over to dump the face mask he'd used for all of one minute.
One short drive later, and running up a few flights of stairs, leaving Stan out of breath, they were inside a classroom with hard black countertops and sinks.
"This where you work?" Stan asked, between breaths. "Looks real nice and legitimate."
Ford was pulling out equipment onto the nearest table in a rush of activity. "Is that because of what I said about the Lounge?" He said, glancing over just long enough for Stan to flash him an innocent smile and shrug.
"Usually clubs don't look that big!" Ford defended himself with a bad excuse.
"'Legitimate?'"
He waved his hand at Stan and handed over another face mask, and a pair of safety goggles for good measure. "Just let me analyze this."
Stan let it go for now, grabbing a chair. He pulled himself up to the counter and leaned on it to watch Ford work. The goggles on his face didn't take long to start hurting and the face mask was almost immediately like breathing in a stuffy room without a window.
Ford took a flower from the bouquet and disassembled the flower for samples, taking it apart to get thin pieces to set between microscope slides. Various petals, leaves, stems, and smaller pieces from the center of the flower - it reminded Stan of high school all over again, except he wasn't tossing wadded-up paper balls across the room when the teacher wasn't paying attention.
"Jeez, I don't think I've been in a classroom in years. I think I remember why I didn't like labs."
"Because they didn't want us to burn anything for fun or education." Although Ford's face was hidden there was still the glint of a smile in his eyes.
"Ha, that too." His stomach knotted up. "You remember Miss Brock?"
"I do."
"Remember her eyebrows?"
Ford pulled back from the microscope with a snort, laughing quietly.
"Best damn accident that whole year." Stan grinned.
"Well, it would never have happened if she'd taught us herself how to properly use a bunsen burner." Ford said. "Why didn't you like labs?" He asked, lowering his eye back to the microscope to look between slides.
"These nerdy things," Stan said, tapping at his own face. "Goggles never fit, and this mask is even worse. Might as well be a paper bag."
"Oh, no, the goggles are worse."
"You gotta be kidding me."
"The masks barely even do anything," Ford said.
Stan scoffed. "For you, maybe. Me, I feel like I can barely breathe in this thing." ... Oh, wait.
They made eye contact then, both realizing at about the same time.
"Take a deep breath...?" Ford suggested.
He struggled, already a bad sign, and when he breathed out there was a distinct wheeze. He groaned loudly, the guttural noise barely getting past his throat. "How come I'm the only one that got it?!"
"Don't say that, I'll wind up getting it next." Ford said, focusing back on the slides, working at a faster pace this time. "Did you ever touch any of the flowers, even indirectly?"
Stan thought back and shook his head. "No, there's no way. Besides, you were the one in a clinic full of sick people."
"If there wasn't any tactile contact with the flowers then it has to be some sort of inhalant." He moved aside and gestured for Stan to look.
Stan leaned his eye down to the microscope and... "Oh, wow. Dots."
"I can't believe you still don't wear your glasses." Ford said, nudging him back again. "Alongside the pollen and mites, there's been the same type of particle, but only on the outer layers of the plant. Some kind of allergen that was likely sprayed onto the flowers, although I don't know how any of the florists made it past morning without all becoming afflicted." He disposed of the flowers and began to clean the equipment.
Stan wheezed, taking off his mask. "Ugh, that's gonna get annoying." At least it was a little bit better to breathe without the mask. Not a lot, but it was still something. "Well, I guess I got twenty minutes before I sound like I work full-time as a squeaky toy."
"Well..." Ford pulled off his goggles, adjusting his glasses and rubbing the marks out of his face. "Well, we could always go to the source and see what we find. Since flowers are still being distributed there's a chance there could be something there to negate the inhalant."
"Probably'll find that, plus someone with a vendetta against Valentine's Day and a lot of time on their hands." He joked, briefly, before wheezing in a breath after the long sentence. "Actually," he said, "might find that." Hey, it was Gotham city.
"... Do you think they'd still be there?"
Stan hummed. He did have twenty minutes. "Wanna see how quick we can find out?"
Ford let out a breath, even with the mask on, worried about breathing too much. On the bright side, Stan's condition hadn't progressed beyond a rather consistent, but quiet, wheezing sound as he breathed and a twisting stomach. He'd stopped raising his voice above a whisper even with nobody around.
"Remember," Stan said, arm crossed over his gut, "if anyone asks, you say we're flower inspectors... here for a mandatory inspection."
"If they know what they're doing, wouldn't they try to lock us into a closet or similar so we didn't alert any authorities?"
".. You know what, scratch that... if anyone asks, run."
" That seems like a worse idea actually. "
"Not if you run fast enough."
Ford held back from pointing out Stan's condition, partially for the sake of conversation and partially because, for all he knew, Stan's symptoms wouldn't progress any further as long as he didn't breathe in any more of the inhalant.
It turned out there was only one large plant nursery in Gotham and that they distributed the majority of flowers out to the various retail stores. There were a good number of independent greenhouses, but, really, the Green Thumb Nursery had a frighteningly strong monopoly over the flower market inside the city.
At the moment, they were sneaking around on an upper level that overlooked the majority of the greenhouse. Workers on the lower level would occasionally enter with carts to grab a large number of flowers, then exit back out large warehouse doors to take a cart of flowers back to their vans. Nobody looked up, so they weren't really hiding per se. 'Investigative observation' really had to be the most accurate terminology for what they were doing right now.
"Not to jinx it..." Stan started, "but there's no muscle around here."
"I can't tell if you're saying that's a good thing or a bad thing." It sounded good, but Stan didn't seem thrilled. Although, that could have just been the nausea and insistent breathing troubles.
He shrugged. "Might mean whoever did this... is outta dodge. Or. This wasn't a team effort."
"You think it might have just been one person?" He supposed it wouldn't be too hard, all it would take was sneaking in and covering the flowers with the allergen.
"If it is, that rules out a few people."
He wished he could question Stan over all the possibilities of who it could be, or who it might not be, and more about them so he could look out for the signs, but it just wasn't an effective use of time and Stan's breath.
"If it was only one person, then they would either have to be down there spraying everything they could, which we haven't seen, or they would have to have figured out a way to spread the allergen en masse."
Stan pushed up from the railing and snapped his fingers, croaking at a normal speaking volume, "The sprinkler system!"
Ford perked up. "You're right! If it was one person, then that had to have been the most effective way to spread it. Even a team of people should have used the sprinkler system, as that number of strange faces would raise suspicion among the ordinary workers. If that's the case, there could still be supplies somewhere along the water main ."
They turned to look back to the ground floor as the large door opened again, allowing a worker to push cart through.
Stan pulled on Ford's trench coat and croaked, "Come on." which was all the encouragement Ford needed. He had to force himself to slow down in his eagerness, more than once getting a few feet ahead of Stan before realizing and backtracking to reach him again.
The greenhouse itself didn't have any water system directly underneath. After some searching and Stan jimmying the lock into a short building nearby they found the water system. Inside was a metal floored interior and large water pipes running along the wall.
Ford pulled the mask down from his face. When he set off, his footsteps reverberating against the metal loud enough that if anyone was still down here it would alert them. He had to slow himself down to a near-torturously time-wasting pace.
Finally , they reached a series of stairs that led down to an intersection of pipes. The sound of rushing water loudly thrummed within the circular room. On the floor below there were platforms here and there. One of them had several bottles and what looked like lab equipment strewn about on top of it.
"Ha!" Ford shouted victoriously, his voice echoing in the room and getting quickly drowned out by the thrumming noise. "Come on, Stanley!" He said, already headed for the stairs.
As soon he reached the ground floor he went over to all the equipment. He remembered only a bit late to pull his face mask back up, but it should be fine.
There were a few small spray bottles on the platform with blue-tinted liquid inside of them. A portable beaker carrier was beside them, with the majority of the glass vials emptied out. The ones that weren't empty were filled with a distinct, nearly neon-green liquid that reminded Ford of a prop from some low grade horror movie like the ones he watched during his childhood. So many of them had some toxic liquid glowing bright green. Sometimes it was alien blood, sometimes something radioactive, but no matter what it was always the most dangerous and exciting thing in the movie. Everything else on the table varied between tools that were likely made for botany and leftover, unlabeled chemicals.
"Any idea which one of these isn't poison?"
"Uh..." Ford scanned back over every item he saw, but nothing was labeled and there wasn't so much as even a scrap of paper to give a hint as to what anything was. " Hm ."
"'Hm?' That's always good."
"Well, I could tell you that one of them is the 'poison.'"
Stan walked up beside him to get a look at everything. "Mad scientist's russian roulette then." He struggled to get through the 'r's. " Got it ."
"We can just take all of them back with us and see what works," Ford reassured him. "Either one of these is the antitoxin or it is the toxin and I can make an antitoxin from it."
"You can do that?"
"I have a keycard that works for every door within the Chemistry and Physics building on campus, I can do a lot of things." It wasn't the best security measure for a new professor to have that much access, but,well, he wasn't going to point it out to anyone. "We should probably do something about the sprinkler system, though. The water running through it is likely still infected and it's going to continue spraying the inhalant onto more flowers."
One broken sprinkler system later, Ford collected enough samples and disposed what remained into the small gaps of the grated floor. There couldn't be much of anything down there, so he assumed it should be fine.
Stan let a pipe drop with a metallic clatter, fondly looking at the busted mechanisms. "Ah, good ol' property damage... I've missed you."
"This would definitely count as defensive, right?" Ford asked. "Temporarily shutting down the sprinkler system." Someone would fix it eventually, so it did count as temporary.
"Oh, definitely, definitely." Stan wheezed.
An angry voice suddenly yelled out in the room behind them. "YOU!"
" Book it! " Stan shouted hoarsely, turning and facing the only direction they had left.
When Ford turned, he saw a figure in a red and black harlequin-styled jumpsuit stomping towards them from out of what they had thought had just been a small storage closet, but apparently was not. He recognized her from the few black-and-white photos accompanying the newspaper articles he had read weeks ago, though he only remembered one thing about her.
Harley Quinn, right hand to the Joker.
He took a couple of fleeing steps, but was quickly jerked to a stop when Stan grabbed on to his trench coat.
"Don't book it- she's got hyenas!" Stan whispered.
" What?! "
Sure enough, when he looked back, as if on cue, two gray-coated hyenas were coming out of the door behind her, drooling from open and sharp-toothed mouths. Hunching shoulders led up to muscled necks adorned with thick red collars on both of them.
"How?! How does she have hyenas ?!" Ford whispered back. " We're in the middle of a city in New Jersey,Stanley! "
Stan waved a hand at him, and pulled his mask down to talk to her. "Hey, HQ! Good to see you." He couldn't quite reach his normal volume to talk, and the longer his sentences went on the more out of breath he sounded. He slowly nudged the recently-used pipe out of sight. "Now, look - I don't know what's going on," he said, with an appeasing smile, "but let me promise it's not what it looks like."
The hyenas ran up to them, excited, snapping their mouths. "Yeah," Harley said, "'cause it looks like you're destroying the evidence for some scheme, pal! Where's Penguin, me and him I are having a talk! Right now! "
For some reason, Stan eased up. "Oh, wow, it really isn't what it looked like. Broken clock or.. something, huh." He uselessly tried to clear his throat which just sounded painful. "Hey, we didn't do this, okay? We were gonna host a whole romantic special for couples at the Lounge... jack prices up, flowers went and got us sick." He breathed. "Him and me just got here, to figure out what was going on."
Harley got right in his face, eyeing him up and down critically. "Oh yeah?"
He put his hands up. "Promise."
She scrutinized him for a second more, lips puckering out, before looking over at Ford.
He quickly turned his hands up too, pulling down his face mask. "We were destroying it to stop it," he defended immediately.
She leaned back down, at some point having gotten on her tippy toes in order to stare them down. Arms crossed, she finally relented. "Okay, so you didn't do it."
The hyenas snapped a bit closer to the twins and Harley snapped at them. "Babies, SIT!" They both sat down with whines and Harley lovingly petted their heads, a hand for each one. "Good babies," she told them in a sweet voice before turning back to Ford and Stan.
She cleared her throat. "Sorry about yelling at you." She put her hand out. "Name's Harley, nice to meet you."
Ford shook her hand slowly. "Nice to meet you."
She waited for a second, not letting go of his hand, then... made a face at him.
"What?" He asked, pulling his hand out of the handshake.
"You're not real good at meeting new people, are ya?"
"Excuse me?"
"When you meet someone, you tell them your name too!" She put her hand out insistently. "Here, try it again."
"...Okay." Ford hesitated, but put his hand back to shake hers again. "Hello."
"Hey! Name's Harley, Harley Quinn. Nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you, Harley. My name is Ford."
Harley smiled brightly. "There ya go!" She let his hand out of the handshake naturally this time. "See, wasn't so bad, was it?"
Not since the hyenas had stopped snapping at them, though he found he wasn't actually concerned about them now. They did seem fairly trained, and at the very least Stan knew this woman and they seemed to be on relatively good terms. "No, not at all," he agreed.
She nodded her head, satisfied, before slapping Stan on the arm. "Hey, how come you didn't tell me you had a twin?"
Stan shrugged. "Never came up."
"I didn't even know you had a brother working with you for Penguin though!"
" I am not working for Cobblepot ," Ford quickly corrected.
"Yikes," Harley commented, "not even your boss and you don't like him."
Ford briefly glanced at Stan. "N-No. No, that's not it. I just didn't want the misunderstanding."
"That's okay. I just figured, ya know," Harley, unexpectedly, grabbed one of Ford's arms to point at his fingers as she talked, "I mean with your weird hands and his weird not-hands it just made sense you'd-!"
Ford jerked out of the grasp, causing her to stop. "I would rather you didn't touch me, actually," he told her, folding his arms behind his back and out of reach.
Surprisingly, she actually seemed, well, regretful. She laughed nervously, index finger hooking at the edge of her mouth. "Heh, sorry," she apologized, with a small anxious gesture of her other hand. She took a step back, exiting out of Ford's space and shrugged both hands out then. "Wasn't thinking."
He felt Stan put a hand on his shoulder, though Stan talked to her. "Personal bubbles too, Harley, come on."
"Heh, yeah." She stuck out her hand again, a nervous smile on her face. "Can we get another do-over on meeting again?" She asked.
Ford hesitated, and Harley rambled on for a moment.
"You know, you got one and now I get one? Third time's the charm?" She tried, hand still stuck out.
For some reason, it got a short laugh out of him, and his arms unwound from his back. "Ha, I'm actually not a fan of that phrase," he said amiably, going to grab her hand for the handshake, although still a degree slow and uncertain still. "Hello, I'm Ford."
She started to smile, quickly becoming less nervous. "Nice to meet you, I'm Harley Quinn!" She said, shaking hands with him and letting go once more. Then, with an excited smile she stuck her hand out yet again. "But if you don't believe in third time's the charm, then how about one more for good luck?"
Ford smiled, laughing quietly, and took her hand again, shaking it for a fourth time.
She smiled brightly now, clasping her other hand over his as well. "Nice to meet you. I'm Harley Quinn, but you can call me Harley!"
"It's very nice to meet you, Harley. Please, call me Ford," he responded, with a shake.
With both hands clasped over his, Harley brought his hand up as high as their faces, then all the way back down before letting go this time. "There! That one was perfect, right? Or we could do one more if you wanted!" She suggested comically, slowly stretching her hand back out again with a playful smile.
Ford waved his hands. "No! No, no more. That one was perfect." He agreed.
"You sure?"
"Positive, thank you."
"Alright, if you're sure!" She pulled her hand back, standing up straight again. "So if this wasn't you or Penguin and you ," she asked pointing to Ford, then Stan, "then who did this?"
"We ah, actually didn't figure that out." He'd actually been content not knowing, although now he wondered what kind of person created the toxin.
"Yeah, we were just-" wheeze "-about to get out of here." Stan jerked a thumb over to point at the stairs.
"Is that so...?" A new voice interjected from above.
At the top of the stairs was a red headed woman, her hands planted on the railing overlooking the three of them with a nettled look in her eyes. She wore a pleasant green with gloves that had a texture that looked like unruly weeds growing at the end, up her forearms.
"Hello...?" Ford greeted her, uncertain.
"Did you two shut down the sprinklers?"
"Ahm..." Ford avoided looking back at the temporarily broken sprinkler system.
" And where are all the vials I left down there? "
" Don't answer that. " Stan whispered out of the side of his mouth, swaying slightly on his feet.
" RED! " Harley yelled up at her, arms clenched against her side and walking towards the staircase to meet her at the bottom. The hyenas bounced excitedly, padding alongside Harley.
Ivy put a hand up to her head, grimacing, as she made her way down the stairs.
"Who is that?" Ford whispered to Stan.
"Poison Ivy. Loves plants, hates men."
"... We're not starting off on a great foot here."
" No kidding ."
Harley tapped her foot, barely waiting for Ivy to reach the bottom of the steps.
"Harls, please, I'm-" She started, tiredly, but was quickly interrupted.
"You ruined my whole day! Mister J and I were going to have the most romantic day - a nice dinner, sweets, stolen jewelry," Harley listed out on her fingers. "But now! Now, he can't even sit up, much less go out on a date!"
Ivy paused, surprised. "He got you flowers?"
"Well-!" She momentarily losing steam momentarily to explain. "He hadn't yet. First he was getting flowers for his suit, you know, to make himself look good for the day for me, but he didn't get that far!"
"He uses living flowers for his suit ?" Ivy asked, shoulders hunching up. " That- "
" Nuh-uh! This was going to be our first good Valentine's Day! It's the first year neither of us's been imprisoned or in Arkham. I finally think I'm going to get a romantic Valentine's Day with my Pudding, but then your wacky flowers give him stomach cramps! Why couldn't you have picked any other day?"
"Valentine's Day kills thousands of defenseless flowers every year. Instead of getting taken care of properly by the couples that buy them for one another they die within days when they could have thrived for much longer."
Harley threw her arms up into the air, and angrily shouted, "why couldn't this have been the year you tried to kill Christmas for all the pine trees?! Trees are bigger than flowers anyways, and it's a bigger holiday!"
"Just because there's something worse doesn't make Valentine's Day any less a despicable-!"
"This was important to me, Red!" Harley cut her off, voice coming back down to an ordinary level as she crossed her arms in front of her squeezed her fists in towards herself. "But, no." She sniffled, running a fist underneath her nose and pacing aside with a sweep of her arms. "No, you had to go and make this one of the worst Valentine's Days of my life. Thanks," she finished sadly.
Ivy watched, chewed down on her lip as Harley stood silently. Ivy made short frustrated sounds. "I was just- mmMF -" She finally groaned, pushing her palms up against her head. Sighing, she let her hands fall back down to her side, hair in her face. After taking a deep breath in, she pushed her hair back. " Okay , fine. If it'll make you happy, I'll give you the antitoxin to give to that miserable , toxic, two-faced li-"
Harley latched onto Ivy, squeezing her with a big hug, a quiet smile lighting up her face. "Really, you mean it? Even though you don't like him?"
"If the only way you're going to be happy tonight is if he can give you chocolates or go out somewhere with you, then, sure ." She looked pointedly at Harley. "You have to make sure he starts using plastic flowers for his suits from now on, though."
"Deal!" Harley smushed her face into Ivy's shoulder, squeezing her in a tight hug. "You're the best, Red!"
"There's just one issue." She said, before side eyeing the twins. " Someone smashed all of my samples, so it's going to be a bit difficult to create the antitoxin."
"We didn't smash any of your science junk," Stan denied, oddly slow.
" Threw it away, then ." Ivy accused.
"...I didn't throw nothing away." He started to teeter over dangerously, and Ford snatched a hand out to pull him back upright with a spike of concern.
Stan gave a thumbs up, righting his balance. "Slipped."
Ford cleared his throat, keeping a hold on Stan's sleeve. "I took a few samples."
Ivy looked over at him skeptically. "How many is 'a few?'"
"One of each. I had planned on figure out an antitoxin, which is beginning to become a bit of a necessity."
"It's not a necessity." She said. "It does wear off eventually."
"How long would 'eventually' be?"
"It depends. Now, give me the red one."
Ford hesitated. He'd really rather just take it back to a lab and make the antitoxin himself.
She continued at the short delay, impatient. "You said you had them."
"Which one is the red one?" Ford asked, suspicious.
"Hey," Harley waved her hands for attention, "here's an idea," she suggested. "Why don't both of you go over and use all the doo-dahs to make the antitoxin?"
They both responded at the same time.
"I don't want any help, Harley."
"I could figure it out myself fine."
"See! You're already in sync and everything. It'll be fun!" She encouraged.
Ivy groaned quietly. "The sooner we fix this..."
"The sooner I can get back to my Pudding for the rest of Valentine's Day," Harley finished the sentence, both a purposeful reminder and a plea. "Right?"
"... Right ." Ivy said.
They didn't precisely work together on creating the antitoxin so much as Ivy barely tolerated his presence as she went through the steps. At most, Ford passed her a tool or did a minor procedure which he would ask about before doing. Anything he could do to speed up the process without aggravating her, really.
He would have preferred taking the sample back to a lab himself, but she had made the toxin herself, so reasonably she was the best person to make the antitoxin to it.
Stan and Harley were sitting on the floor cross legged, and Ford kept glancing back just to ensure he was alright. Stan didn't seem to be doing much talking, likely due to the confusion and drowsiness. Harley seemed alright with that though, telling some story that Ford couldn't hear very well. The hyenas had since settled down and seemed content, laying down beside her, each with their heads resting on her lap.
Ivy released the tube of gas into the mixture made. "Once this finishes dispensing, Harley can take this back and make her 'Puddin' feel better." Ivy said.
"You really don't like him." Ford noted.
"Let's just say that if Harley didn't like him still, I would have poisoned him by now with something much worse and more permanent than this."
" I see ..." Saying she disliked him was apparently an understatement. "What did he do?"
"He's a creep and he treats Harley as nothing more than a doormat. Everyone can see it except for her, and good luck talking to her about it. It's all ' my Puddin ' this and ' Mistah J ' that. I've tried, but she just refuses to see it. And ," Ivy continued, "he has no respect for plant life whatsoever."
"... I'm sorry," Ford said after a while, unable to come up with anything else to say.
"You're sorry ." Ivy eyed him suspiciously.
Ford crossed his hands over each other uselessly. "It just sounds like a difficult situation, that's all - watching a friend suffer without being able to do much about it."
Ivy said nothing in response, returning to stare silently at the dispensing canister in front of them and Ford took this in a sort of relief, afraid to say anything that might provoke her (and definitely avoiding any discussion regarding plants).
"Have you met him?" She asked after a long silence.
"No. At this rate, I probably will though." It would be just his luck.
"Believe me, you don't want to meet him." Ivy warned him.
"I didn't want to meet anyone in Gotham, actually." Ford replied. "Regardless, though, it seems to keep happening."
Ivy's expression shifted into a smirk, and she nearly looked amused. "You shouldn't have gone into a city if you didn't want to meet people."
"This wasn't my first choice. I used to live in a house isolated away from everyone."
"Well, if you ever get tired of meeting people you could always move back."
"In theory." Ford's hands faltered for a moment. "Why do you stay in Gotham?" He asked, genuinely curious. "There isn't much plant life in the city."
"Not much, but it's still important. If I don't stay here to protect them and keep them from getting trampled on, nobody else will." She answered, momentarily glancing back to where Harley sat beside Stan.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Welcome to the chapter that was originally planned to be released 4 months ago.
aLSO - I'm VERY excited to finally introduce Harley and Ivy! Harley is one of my favorites and I'll be frank here... I may have teared up out of pure happiness rereading some of the scenes with her. We're finally starting to hit some of the backed up drabbles I've been writing since chapter two.
inuchara2511 it's been a year since your review about scared about me leaving. I'm finishing this baby even if it takes me five years, trust me, I'm not leaving it half-done.