Title: Rappacini's Last Laugh (3)
Author: Allaine
Disclaimers: All characters are property of DC Comics. No profit intended, etc., etc.
Feedback: As always, greatly desired and usually responded to.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: None.
Distribution: If you want it, just ask.
Summary: Poison Ivy is mad in love, and Harley Quinn is sorely vexed by it. A DC Elseworlds fic.
Chapter 3
She looked redundant with life, health, and energy; all of which attributes were bound down and compressed, as it were, and girdled tensely, in their luxuriance, by her virgin zone. Yet Giovanni's fancy must have grown morbid, while he looked down into the garden; for the impression which the fair stranger made upon him was as if here were another flower, the human sister of those vegetable ones, as beautiful as theymore beautiful than the richest of thembut still to be touched only with a glove, nor to be approached without a mask.
Another entry in my file on Poison Ivy. No doctor ever wrote that, though. Well, not unless you consider me a doctor, and my license was revoked long ago.
I've mentioned these files before. It wasn't a coincidence that I became Harley Quinn only after I had my opportunity to treat Ivy and the Floronic Man. Like I said, I came to Arkham to study the inmates, to become one of them. I knew that when I became a criminal, I'd be entering a completely new world populated by killers and psychopaths. An amateur like me could get killed.
But people tell their doctors all kinds of things, even the crazy ones. By the time I resigned, ha ha, from Arkham, I had complete files on every major and second-tier villain in Gotham, not counting the sane ones. And there are fewer of those than you'd think. Of course, I've begun to suspect that every man, woman, and child in Gotham is terminally depressed, so maybe it's not much of a leap from "depressed" to "deranged".
You don't swim with sharks unless you've done your research. I know their likes and their dislikes. I know what gets their panties in a bunch, and what cools them off. Useful information like that. Nowadays it's not that important. I'm an outgoing blonde with a nice rear and a long list of incarcerations at Arkham, so I'm acceptable to them. Plus Ivy can be a real terror on the occasions when Woodrue locks her out (or throws her out), and I'm just about the only other person who can calm her down. Ivy on the warpath? Give Quinn a call.
Ivy . . . I was saying something about her, wasn't I? Oh, the file. I update the files with my Arkham passwords. It pays to know what the other wackos are talking about.
A while back I read a story by Hawthorne titled Rappacini's Daughter. It's about this scientist who raises his little girl around poisonous plants, and eventually instead of killing her, the toxins get into her bloodstream and turn her into a poisonous person. She kills with a touch, and at the same time she's the perfect picture of health.
That, I realized later, was Ivy.
The first time I saw her after I traded in my lab coat for tassels, I was sitting at a table in the Iceberg Lounge. Nobody really paid me any mind, especially since I didn't have my mask on. Back then, before I got my custom-made suit, I couldn't eat or drink anything while I was wearing the homemade mask. Everything tasted like powder.
People just took me for a new groupie, or a wanna-be villain, and went about their business. I didn't sit there with stars in my eyes every time somebody like the Riddler or the Scarecrow walked by. After you've heard them rant in group therapy a few times, you never look at them the same again.
Then Poison Ivy strolled in. I later learned she was there to set up a meeting between Ozzie and the Moronic Man. Naturally he couldn't be bothered to show up himself, so he sent Pammy in as if she was the hired flunky he treated her like. I also later learned to get really irritated by that.
Anyway, Ivy struts into a room filled with men - aka, filthy animals who were killing the Green - and women - aka, stupid whores who allowed men to do what they liked.
When I read Rappacini's Daughter, I thought of this moment, seeing her like this. Once again she was clad in leaves that barely covered her waist and her breasts, her skin a rich green, her hair a luxuriant red. She gave off a faint aroma that was pleasing, like flowers, and at the same time metallic, like poison. I felt a trifle ill.
Ivy has that effect on people. She claims it's from her breath, but I think she secretes it from her pores like an insect sending out pheromones. Around Ivy, people can get a little queasy. They look sick, and Ivy's lush beauty looks even better by comparison.
She can control it, to a degree. The A-list rogues, those who have the reputations to match her "rosebud" Jason, never get sick from being near Ivy. It's a sign that Jason respects them, even if he dislikes them. Ivy doesn't even give them her respect, but out of slavish devotion to Jason, she holds back when she's around them. Henchmen are still fair game.
Anyway, if you think seeing this woman enter my cramped doctor's office at Arkham in her asylum uniform was a turn-on, imagine seeing her like this now, the jungle predator in control of her surroundings. I almost let my drink dribble onto my motley.
And then she took a small detour and came over to my table. I shifted my legs uncomfortably. I felt flushed, like an orchid in one of her tropical greenhouses. "Yeah?" I croaked, my mouth dry enough for cacti to grow there.
Ivy sneered at me. "You tramp," she said.
I gaped at her. What, could she smell me like I smelled her?
"I know how you lusted after my Jason in Arkham," she went on, "and now you think by putting on a costume and pulling a themed crime or two, you can make him yours? You pathetic fool, he'll never look twice at you."
If the sight of Poison Ivy was an aphrodisiac, the sound of her was a cold shower.
And I distinctly felt my nausea increase a few notches after Ivy went on her way, satisfied that she'd stamped out yet another contender for the title of "Jason's Dearest Petal". I scurried to the ladies' room and spent a few minutes trying not to throw up.
You would THINK that would be the end of it.
Four days later, she showed up on my doorstep. It was pouring rain, and the only thing keeping her from looking like a drowned rat was the pride she clung to.
"Oh jeez," I said. "Look, I'm not interested in Woodrue, honest. So if this is where you give me a boiled rabbit in a pot or something, just don't, okay?"
"Of course you're interested," Ivy sniffed. Actually it was more of a sniffle. "All women want my Jason."
Then her face crumbled, and I realized that until then, she'd been doing a good job of desperately clinging to her dignity and not showing it. "But I want him more than any of them. Doesn't he see that?" she whimpered.
Poison Ivy whimpers. Believe me, I've seen it. It's not a pretty sight.
I didn't need a soaking wet drama queen who could turn me on and off like a light switch in my hideout, but she was one of the most feared people in Gotham and I was still trying to make a name for myself. She obviously didn't want to ask to come in, no matter how badly she wanted out of the storm. I sighed. "Would you like to come inside?" I asked.
"I don't know," Ivy said, and I pretended I didn't hear her teeth chatter. "Do you call this hovel a hideout?"
"It would be an honor," I grumbled.
"Very well." Ivy swept in like the diva she fancied herself, but when I closed the door, shutting the wind and rain out, I could see her shiver with relief. "I can't stay long," she added. "Soon my rosebud will call me back to him."
"Good, because I've only got the one bed and I'd rather it didn't get wet," I replied.
"Hmph," she said. "Like I would spend the night in this roach-infested wreck."
She was there two days. It was like one of those sitcoms where the snooty relative comes to stay and finds fault with everything. A bad sitcom. And I'm a great judge of what's funny. This wasn't funny.
It didn't help that by the next morning, my body was saying, "How about we share the bed instead of me taking the couch?" while my mind was saying, "How about giving me my bed back and leaving me the hell alone?"
Apparently a botanical experiment had failed miserably, completely throwing Woodrue's timetable for a heist all to hell. Naturally Ivy had done something wrong when he wasn't watching her every move. Naturally Ivy agreed with him, and during those two days she was prone to indulge in bouts of self-loathing where she labeled herself a failure as a lover and sidekick, and Jason was right to throw her out. Other times she wailed that she couldn't live without him, and then I had to physically console her.
I thought I was an odd choice, considering she knew me only well enough to accuse me of plotting to steal her boyfriend.
"Well," she sighed, "obviously I had to take refuge somewhere in the storm."
"You guys have, like, five or six hideouts," I pointed out. "Why not just go to an unoccupied one?"
"Oh, I couldn't!" she said. "The plants there would inform him of my presence, and he would be so angry with me."
"Oh-kay," I said slowly. Sure, the plants would just send him a text message. That was before I was introduced to some of their genetic experiments on plants. Now I know that if I tried breaking in to one of his greenhouses, he'd be there in fifteen minutes. Probably not enough time to kill me before the plant life did. "A hotel then. You've got plenty of money"
"And broadcast my shame to the world? Hardly," she scoffed.
"You must have friends," I pointed out, trying not to choke on the words. There was no way this woman could have friends.
"Any man would just try to take advantage of me," Ivy said hatefully. "And the women in Gotham - they're just so catty."
The only other woman of consequence in Gotham's underworld was Catwoman. From what I'd heard, she had a forceful personality, and probably wouldn't take any of Pam's bullshit.
"So you came to me because - "
"Well, I wasn't going to say this," Ivy replied, "but you're the only woman I know who wouldn't dare refuse me."
"Why?" I asked. Once again, fool that I am, I thought she sensed the physical effect she had on me.
"You're too new at this. You didn't have the power to turn me away and not suffer for it later," Ivy said matter-of-factly.
She was right. That WAS why I let her in.
"So how did you know where to find me?" I asked.
Ivy just gave me a look that suggested no tidbit of information was not within her grasp. Then she went over to the window and sunned herself.
I just prayed this was a one-time spat between the "golden couple" of the underworld.
As usual, the joke was on the clown. A month later, after Pammy crashed with me at a different hideout - three days this time - I did a little digging. It turned out that Woodrue "fired" and "rehired" his personal love slave every few months. Seems the star quarterback and the homecoming queen were a trifle dysfunctional. The biggest joke was, everyone knew it. Ivy was deluding herself - what a surprise! - when she claimed that she didn't dare let the "secret" out that she'd been dumped by her boyfriend.
I went on a bit of a crime spree after that. I made sure they were headline-grabbers. I also acquired my signature equipment from new contacts in the black market, including my special laughing gas from my pal, the comedic chemist. I hit a series of improv nights with nothing more than Smiley gas, a loot bag, and a phone book. You'd be surprised how funny "Mary Smith" sounds when you've had a whiff of Smiley.
I also spray-painted moustaches on the private art collection of one of the biggest stuffed-shirts in town. It worked for Daffy Duck. I bet the fat cat would have found it amusing too, if he wasn't so upset about how much the restoration would cost. I tell ya, they should thank me for taking the money off their hands. Obviously being rich kills your sense of humor.
And I introduced Batman to my Mega Joy Buzzer. He was out long enough for me to write "JUST MARRIED" on the rear windshield of the Batmobile. Ha, like anybody would marry him!
Of course, then he came up behind me and took my toys away, so I guess he didn't get the joke. He never does.
A few days after I used one of my memorized escape routes to break out of Arkham, Pammy showed up for the third time. I let her stay, but I was getting tired of hearing the same lines over and over. Even a good joke gets old, and Ivy wasn't even funny the first time. I swore this would be the last time. A trip to the Iceberg confirmed that I was making a name for myself, and I figured the next time I saw her fighting tears on my back step, I'd be able to stare her down and send her somewhere else.
Two months later, Ivy made her usual pilgrimage to my latest hideout. She must have kept close tabs on me to find me every time. It was almost like she was waiting for Jason's next outburst. And a rational woman would, but she always claimed this was the last time she would fail him.
When I opened my door, she had a black eye, a bloody nose, and a bleeding wound in her right forearm from where he'd stabbed her.
There was no way I could say no, and when she thanked me later that night after I patched her up, I knew I'd never turn her away again. And not because of any Hippocratic Oath, either.
When the sounds coming out of her mouth were, for the first time, as sweet as the charms she displayed, I was doomed to fall for her.
All it took was a "thank you".
A clown does live for the applause, after all.
To be continued . . .
(Author's Note - Rappacini's Daughter was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. You can find it over the Internet.)
