Title: Rappacini's Last Laugh (4)
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 4

I believe I've mentioned the Iceberg Lounge? Nice place, if you're one of those people society considers "bad guys". Personally, I don't think I'm a bad guy. First, I'm doing a public service. Second, I'm a "gal", not a "guy". Ha!

Anyway, you can walk in and order a drink in your tassels. Plus, anything you do or say pretty much hits the underworld grapevine within two hours. If you want the other "Rogues" and "Freaks" to know something, you do it at the Iceberg.

Here, I'm known as a bit of a lush. It helps the image. The idea is to be liked, without being taken too seriously. I'm the clown girl, right? Life of the party? It's a precaution, it really is. Otherwise people might try to kill me. Maybe getting beat on is Ivy's thing, but not me!

. . . I can't believe I just thought that. Jason is the one I hate, not her. But she just drives me up the WALL sometimes.

Anyway, except for the rare occasion where I really want to get drunk - usually due to the aforementioned plant duo - I bounce in, sit at the bar, and order a Jack and Coke. The bartenders know - when Quinn orders "Jack and coke", hold the "Jack".

I drink a few of those, pretend to get completely smashed, and usually end up in somebody's lap. It's common knowledge that I have a thing for ears when I'm drunk. Then Penguin leads me into his office so I can sleep it off. Most people, he just shows the door. But I'm one of the "special" clientele, so I get the office.

Once I'm inside, we do business. Which is why I'm there in the first place. After Ozzie, wily bird that he is, figured out just how much of the "bubbleheaded blonde bimbo" was an act, it was silly pretending otherwise with him. But only in private.

Not to mention, he stopped looking down his nose at me when he figured it out. Oswald's such a snob.

And that, my friend, is the long answer of how I ended up in Harvey Two-Face's lap tonight, playing with his scarred ear. (By the way, ICK!)

The short answer is he was the closest guy to the bar. Well, the Riddler was pretty close too, but ever since he started dating the new henchwench, I've learned not to play with him. They say she keeps a jaguar for a pet, and I know she's the jealous type.

"You know what we've always appreciated about you, Harl?" Two-Face was growling as Penguin waddled over to our table.

"What's that, Hah-vey?"

"Your lines - of symmetry," he answered, letting his eyes travel down the length of my body. Naturally he likes how my costume is bisected down the middle and along the waist. It's kinda like his suit. Of course, his leer slowed down a little as he examined how the line passes evenly between my breasts.

That's me, life of the party.

"Really, Miss Quinn," Penguin said dryly from behind, and I faked a guilty leap out of Harvey's lap. It was more grateful than guilty. "I suppose I should be grateful you've never manhandled my staff with your earlobe fetish."

"Sorry, Pengy," I slurred, backpedaling and almost capsizing someone else's table.

"You weren't interrupting anything, Penguin," Two-Face grumbled.

"I noticed that Miss Quinn was taking an exceptional interest in the left side of your body. I thought I would intervene before your other half became jealous and started a fight," Oswald Cobblepot said smugly.

"I coulda taken the wuss," Two-Face retorted.

"I am certain. Miss Quinn, perhaps you'd do better on the couch?"

"You my therapist, Ozzie?" I started giggling, as if this was the funniest thing in the world. In fact, it was very not funny, and I felt ashamed for saying it. Sometimes I have to make sacrifices, even if it means not spreading humor to the world.

Oswald smiled thinly. "As the only person here who's never been found legally insane, I suppose I'm most qualified."

That was only slightly funnier than my line, but I laughed like he was Richard Pryor. At the rate I was going, I would have to toilet paper the Gotham Stock Exchange if I was going to feel good about myself again.

I waved coyly to Harvey as I was led gingerly back to the Penguin's office. Nothing against Ozzie, because he's got plenty of brains and, as he said, he's not exactly handicapped with a twisted sense of reality - but he's short, and it's weird being led around by him. Like I'm a guest in a house, and the host's twelve-year-old son is showing me to my room.

"Thanks," I said as he closed the door behind us. "Harvey's ear is like the world's biggest scab."

"Wouldn't Mr. Nigma have been a more pleasant selection?"

"The 'matchmakers' got quiet after the new Echo took care of her predecessors. Why should I set their tongues wagging again?"

He chuckled. "Quite. Indeed."

A while back, right after I'd made a name for myself, some genius had decided that I would be perfect as Edward Nigma's sidekick for several reasons. Eddie and I agreed they were all perfectly asinine, but few others did.

One reason was that my "jokes" would be a good match for his riddles. People don't get how opposite they really are. Riddles are head-scratchers. Jokes are thigh-slappers. Riddles have to be explained, whereas everybody knows that if you have to explain the joke, it isn't funny. Riddler looks down on my jokes as juvenile. I say a riddle is what happens when you make a joke three times as long and remove all the humor.

The other two reasons were sorta related. Eddie is a pretty smart guy - if you ignore the limitations imposed by his insanity, including his self-defeating compulsion to tell the Bat where he'll be tomorrow night with riddles the Bat always manages to solve. But even with his trick cane, he's no terror in a fistfight. Hence the need for henchmen who could buy him time to finish the heist and get away.

For a few years Riddler used a couple girls he named "Query" and "Echo". They were busty, physical types with a penchant for fishnets and tight leather. Apparently the relationship was sexual as well as professional. Whether or not he did it as part of a game of one-upsmanship with the Floronic Man, who merely had one gorgeous sidekick sharing his bed, I don't know. What I do know is that people, even Rogues at the Iceberg, began whispering that I could protect Eddie with my acrobatic fighting skills. And my outfit left no doubt that I fit his alleged requirement that his henchwench be beautiful.

I don't know if that's really a requirement. Eddie and I don't talk much anymore. Whenever we exchanged two words, people started saying we were going to join forces again. Nobody really understood that I didn't WANT to be a sidekick. Back then, the only other woman who committed crimes on her own was Catwoman, and she kept a lower profile than most. Compared to Ivy, Query, and Echo, I was viewed as an aberration.

Okay, so most Rogues are viewed as aberrations. Let's say I was viewed as a BIGGER one.

Anyway. besides making us the barest of acquaintances, the rumors also earned me the hostility of Query and Echo, who really did have quite the gutter mouths. Penguin once suggested that if the rumors really came true, at least he wouldn't have to see those two tramps in his establishment again.

As it happened, that wasn't necessary. The new Echo came out of nowhere, stole Nigma's heart, and drove those two bitches out of Gotham. For that, I can certainly stop myself from falling into her boyfriend's arms in the future. And I remain my happy, independent self.

Although I wouldn't mind stealing a page from the Riddler's playbook. I could have a partner, someone to watch my back during a job - or wash my back in the shower. Maybe a buxom redhead with a face that launched a thousand police cars . . .

I realized I had missed Penguin's last words. If I daydreamed like that more, he'd start thinking I was an airhead again. "What was that again, Ozzie?" I asked, banishing one last naughty mental image of Pammy "assisting" me.

"So," he repeated with annoyance, "are we here to buy - or sell?"

"Trade."

"Ahh," he murmured. "You'll have to start, you know."

I sighed. Penguin would hear my information, then tell me what he knew. Some of it, anyway. He'd claim he knew most of it already, and give me only crumbs in exchange. Pengy loved being a broker of all things, including information, and he was proud of his haggling ability.

"There's a new hacker in town, calling themselves the Oracle," I began.

"I know," he said dismissively. "He - or she - has taken it upon themselves to clean cyberspace of hackers."

So Spoiler wasn't the only one. "And the Oracle has hired muscle."

The Penguin looked interested, and I knew we'd entered new territory for him. "Protection?"

"More offensive than defensive. I was - helping a friend, and the Oracle thought I was the target. So she - "

"You're sure the Oracle's a she?"

"I'm assuming it. Oracles were women historically."

"People lie on the Internet all the time, my dear," Penguin observed. "If they say they're female, generally the opposite is true."

"So what, I'm suppose to say 'he or she' from now on?"

The Penguin grunted. "Go on."

"She sent two do-gooders after me. One of them I'd never heard of."

"Bats?"

"Not exactly. This should appeal to you, one was a bird. And not the Boy Wonder, either."

Penguin took a deep breath. "The Black Canary is in Gotham? How - stimulating."

I rolled my eyes. A tall, stacked blonde named after a bird. Naturally he was captivated by her. "The other one, Canary called the Phantasm. Creepy guy - "

"The Phantasm? You're sure?"

He'd gone from excited in a good way to excited in a bad way in two seconds, and I looked at him suspiciously. "Comes and goes in a cloud of smoke, skull mask, wields a hook?"

Penguin leaned back in his chair. "That's the Phantasm. I thought I'd never hear that name again."

"Who the heck is the Phantasm?"

"My dear, you should know, considering you fraternize with Poison Ivy. The Phantasm was our very first killer vigilante. He tried to murder the Floronic Man."

I gaped. I'd never heard that, not even in all my precious psychiatrists' files.

"Oh, yes," he said, relishing the act of storytelling more than the role of information broker. "Tried a couple times, then vanished like the smoke he uses to move through space, however he manages THAT little trick. It never made the papers, because the police hushed it up. Some think Woodrue killed him instead, although I doubt it. He'd have bragged about it. I say the Bat ran him out of town. No killers on his watch."

"Then why is the Judge still out there?" I asked quietly.

Penguin frowned. The Judge was a sore topic. He'd once tried to kill Ozzie with a sword and a giant gavel. Killer Croc and Harvey were also on his list of near-misses. "I wonder that myself," he said. "At any rate, won't Woodrue be tickled pink when he gets the news?"

I almost told him I was sorry the Phantasm didn't succeed years ago, but I didn't. You didn't joke about other Rogues being killed by vigilantes. It struck too close to home. "How'd Woodrue survive, anyway?" I asked instead.

"Why, Ivy saved him, of course."

Of course.


"I've got bad news, and I've got good news that could be misconstrued as bad news," I told Barbara Gordon the next day.

The Spoiler looked at me. "What's the bad news?"

"The Oracle is still out there, and I don't know who she is."

"And the 'good' news?"

"I do know who she has working for her."

Barbara blinked. "What?"

"I got jumped by a couple costumed do-gooders last night. Ever heard of Black Canary?"

She nodded. She looked pale.

"How about the Phantasm?"

Barbara gasped.

"I guess that's a yes. Geez, was I the last to know?"

"My father - I hacked into my father's files a few years ago," Barbara said quietly. "I read about the Phantasm. They say he kills. How could this possibly be GOOD news?"

"Well," I said brightly, "we know more now than we did before!"

Barbara groaned.

"Look," I said, "it's not as if you're living hand to mouth without your hacking gigs. Why not take a couple weeks' off? Because frankly, improved security isn't going to matter. If the Oracle can afford to hire those two, she'll always have the better computers, the better technology."

"You're not helping!" she retorted, her voice muffled because her arms were folded on the desk and her forehead was resting on them.

"I'm trying!" I said defensively. "They think I'm YOU, so they'll come after me again. Hopefully, next time I see them, I can get access to the Oracle." Oracles and computer hackers - the next person who says "There is no spoon" gets a boxing glove in the nose.

"Better yet," I added, "maybe I can pull a crime so big that the Bat shows up too."

"Why would that be better?"

"I hear the Bat and the Phantasm didn't exactly hit it off the first time. Maybe if the Phantasm takes a swing at me with that hook of his, the Bat will take him down instead."

"Hook!"

Oops. Guess Daddy's files weren't complete.


"Hello?"

"Hey, Ivy!"

"Harley," she said with more warmth than she used with anyone else other than Jason and whatever plant she happened to be near. "How are you?"

"Laughing every minute," I said cheerfully. "Want to catch a movie tonight?"

If the Phantasm had plans to give his old pal Jason Woodrue a ring, I didn't want Pammy there. Partly because she'd be in danger, and partly because I didn't want her saving his sorry behind like the last time.

"Not tonight," she replied casually. "Rosebud's feeling frisky today."

Ewww.

"He told me to forget about the fig leaves today and walk about the hideout like I was Eve in the Garden."

This was a much more pleasant image, but the idea of Jason's eyes crawling all over Ivy's nude body as a prelude to putting his hands on her . . . I'd stopped feeling nauseous around Ivy a long time ago. Now the streak was over, and she didn't even have to be in the same building to pull it off.

And sometimes Woodrue employed henchmen! If he was having her parade her charms in front of a bunch of slimy hoodlums -

"Harley? Are you still there?"

I realized I was strangling the phone. Slowly I unclenched my hand. "Yeah, I'm here," I said. "It's all right, actually I have some smiles to take care of anyway."

"That's good, Harley. Oh, I have to go. My mighty oak beckons. We'll do lunch later! Ta ta."

My mighty . . . ugh!

I threw the phone down and didn't care about the dial tone. Why? Why! What was the allure? Why did she obey his every command like he was some kind of Svengali? I'd asked myself that question a hundred times. Especially after those nights when I held and comforted her after a particularly bad breakup. The pain of her injuries was always less than the emotional pain of her separation. Even when I kissed her tears away and she desperately took my lips in hers, I knew she was trying to take her mind off Jason. I sensed she was never more than half-successful, either. Harvey would appreciate that, but not me.

She probably didn't even know I wanted her. She just thought I was giving her what she needed, because that was what friends (and servants) did - whatever she asked.

Could this be the fabled true love that made her worship him so?

It couldn't be! She was a completely different person around him! Love didn't transform a person the way illegal chemicals transformed Clayface!

Was it drugs? Could Ivy even BE drugged? Because she certainly couldn't be poisoned. Was it hypnosis? A microchip courtesy of the Mad Hatter? Some kind of weird Oedipal complex, the creation in love with her creator?

To understand, I needed to understand Poison Ivy. I knew Pamela Isley. I needed to know the thing Woodrue had created. What exactly was this beautiful flower with poison in its stem?

I went to the rudimentary bathroom and dug through my toiletries. My hairbrush yielded plenty of blonde hairs - and a single red strand.

"Do Not Assume," I murmured. "DNA."

I needed more Smiley gas anyway for tonight's big score, a.k.a. bait for the Phantasm. Maybe my friend the chemist could give me answers.

Or at least a good laugh. He's good for that.

To be continued . . .

Author's Note - the women described in Riddler's life were all inspired by the story "Harlots of Hades" by the fanfic author Query, as well as her overall body of work. I was hoping to get her permission for a more official appearance by "Dee", but I didn't hear from her, so I will have to settle for this homage. You can find her work here at FFN.