Title: Rappacini's Last Laugh (6)

Author: Allaine

Email: 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 6

Whap. Whap. Whap.

I'm not averse to having jokes played on me, you know. Otherwise I'd be little better than the humorless dweebs I targeted. But when somebody tells you to come right away, and then keeps you waiting in their antechamber for thirty minutes like a doctor with one too many patients, that is NOT funny. It's downright cruel.

Of course, my pal the chemist has a cruel sense of humor.

Whap. Whap. Whap.

Still, I clenched the handle of my paddleball a little tighter. Four hundred thirty-seven, four hundred thirty-eight, four hundred thirty-nine . . . if he wasn't out by five hundred, I was going to drag him out of his laboratory and whap my paddleball up his nose.

Luckily for him, I was only up to four hundred sixty-one when he came in, still wearing his white coat. "Awww," he said, taking in my dour expression, "why so glum, chum? Can't you see the laugh doctor is in?"

Just for that, I was going to keep counting. Four hundred sixty-two, four hundred sixty-three . . .

"Maybe a lollipop will turn that frown upside down?" he suggested, pulling one out of a pocket. Much to my surprise, the wrapper was blue. I guess I'd already told him about my preference for that color.

I finally set the child's toy aside and snatched the lollipop from his hand. "You took long enough," I grumbled. It was a Dum-Dum, I realized, as I tucked the candy into my mouth. Figures.

"It's a very pretty puzzle, your pretty friend's DNA," the chemist told me. "I had to run a few tests of my own. My muse is practically singing in my ear."

"My muse tops your muse," I told him. I showed him a wad of bills in one hand, and a closed fist with the other. "Where are my test results?"

"Hmph. Grouchy today. Nothing a little Smilex wouldn't cure."

"If I wanted a cure that badly," I replied, "a bullet would work just as well."

"True, true," he said, nodding sagely as he led me into his workroom. "Pammy's DNA is quite the bouquet, you know. The boys at the lab have the most sophisticated technology known to man on three different planets, and it took them hours to decipher them all."

"Them?"

"The Floronic Man is truly a genius," the chemist said. He said it with extreme reluctance, since both men were in the business of inventing clever toxins. "He's interspliced Pamela's human DNA with several strains of plant DNA, and not your common crabgrass either. Funny," he said. "I laid down twenty dollars she had crabgrass DNA. Looks like I lost, eh?" He cackled at his own wit.

I didn't join in. I was more than grouchy that day. My sense of humor was on strike. "Like what?" I asked.

"Oh, hemlock, belladonna, black nightshade, nux vomica, strychnos toxifera . . ."

I think he could tell by the look on my face that he'd lost me. "Strychnine and curare," he explained. "I have quantities of all these poisons in my lab."

I quickly spat the lollipop out and handed it back to him.

He grinned as he took it and threw it away. "It's a positive wonder she isn't dead," he continued. "But she's certainly more plant than human. I'm amazed to think Woodrue accomplished this on his first test subject." His eyes lit up. "I'd rather think your friend wasn't his first subject, though. It would soothe my ego."

I wondered how many women he poisoned to create Ivy, and I shivered.

"And there's something else," he added quietly.

The way he said it, I knew there was something wrong. "What?" I asked. My head rose so suddenly, I heard my tassels ringing.

"Well, there was also a mutated strain of sunflower."

"Sunflower?" I asked, bewildered. As far as I knew, sunflowers weren't deadly. "Mutated to do what? Eat flies with its tongue?"

"They couldn't say what the effect would be," he told me. "Perhaps it's the glue that holds the mess of poisons together in Pamela's DNA. Still, an odd choice. All I know about sunflowers is that they always turn to face the sun."

I just stared at him. Immediately I knew why.

Pammy was the sunflower. And I don't know how he did it, but the Floronic Man was the sun. When he genetically modified her, he didn't just create her to be deadly. He created her to be obedient. THAT was why she was always so inconsolable when they were apart. On some genetic level, she'd been programmed to be unable to function without him near! He made her LOVE him!

For a moment I thought I'd been injured. I thought I'd been cut, and blood was dripping down my forehead and getting into my eyes. Then I realized I was seeing red, I was so mad.

Mad? I was fucking pissed!

"That bastard," I whispered, clenching my fists. "He knew exactly what he was getting when he made her. He wasn't taking ANY chances that she'd drop him like a moldy tangerine once she realized she was the stronger one. He wasn't just experimenting - he was creating her to be his sidekick!" I looked at the chemist. "I'll KILL him for that!"

"Oooh, goody," he said excitedly. "I finally have a test subject for my Smilex."

I just chuckled bitterly. "Sorry, doc, but you might have forgotten - poisons don't exactly work on him."

He looked disappointed. "Well, that's just not right! You finally abandon this silly notion about not taking a human life, and you can't even kill him properly now! It's so sad," he sighed. He tried to remove his handkerchief, but he poorly faked surprise when it kept coming out no matter how much he pulled it out.

I sat back down and waited for his dramatics to end. Who was I kidding? I couldn't kill him, period. If I snuffed out Ivy's sun, she'd never be happy again. And I couldn't do that to her, even if her being happy meant her being with HIM.

The chemist finally stopped trying to be funny, a small pile of white fabric at his feet. "Oh well, you could always just kill him in a highly amusing fashion. He IS a bit of a humorless, pompous ass, after all."

"Doc," I said, grasping at straws, "is there any way to undo her genetic tampering?" If I could deactivate the genetic signals telling her to love him, then maybe she wouldn't care if I killed Jason. Heck, she might even help me! Now that was a thought that made me feel happy inside!

"Funny you should say that," he said, his eyes lighting up again. "That was one of the ideas I had while I was waiting for you to arrive."

"YOU waited!"

"It'd be tricky," he admitted. "I'd need some time. BUT, with her DNA sample and these lab reports, I could whip up a special kind of antidote that would attack her DNA at a genetic level."

"That sounds good," I said hopefully.

"She might even be alive when it's through."

"Oh," I said, slumping again. "Might's not going to be enough."

"What'll you give me if I guarantee it?" he asked slyly.

I glared at him. "I'm paying you enough, aren't I?"

"Oh, what's a few dollars more, Harley? You know I'm in it for the laughs! If you want me to put all of my unpredictable, near-lunatic genius into this, I need a little incentive!" He paused. "And threats aren't it."

"I didn't threaten you!"

"No, but you had a distinctly unfunny look in your eye. Quite unlike you, my dear."

After all our times together, and he wanted more! Well, I'd give him more, but he was OFF the Christmas card list! "If I changed Ivy back, Woodrue wouldn't have his own personal laboratory any more," I suggested. "Then you'd be the undisputed maker of poisons in this city."

"Hm, nice," he admitted, "but killing her would accomplish the same purpose."

"She'd be with me instead of him! You talk about your ego all the time, imagine what it'd do to HIS!"

"Why Harley, you sound like you're assuming a lot! What will you do if your bosom buddy isn't interested once she's free? MAKE her love you, perhaps?" he asked with an evil smile.

I was seething now, but he'd raised an unpleasant point. Even if this worked, at some point I'd have to confess my feelings, and I had NO guarantee she'd respond favorably. "All right," I said through gritted teeth, "what would YOU suggest?"

"Me, Mr. Carson? You're letting me write the jokes tonight?" he asked innocently. "Harley, my dear comedienne, it should be perfectly obvious to you. I've been begging you to take this Smilex off my hands for months. Only you were meant to use it."

"I just told you . . ."

"Right, right, right," he sniffed. "It won't work on him. Fine. If I can deliver you a cure for your dear friend Poison Ivy, you must promise to use my custom-made Smilex on your very NEXT hijinx. You must use it on someone, and you must bring a video camera. I want footage of the death. This is a field experiment, you realize. I can't exactly go out and commit crimes myself."

"You want me to kill someone with Smilex, and then get it on TAPE?"

"It's also for posterity reasons," he said.

I sighed. I could always just find someone whose sense of humor was irrevocably lost. "Fine," I muttered. "When will it be ready?"

He practically danced to the other side of the lab. "I'd be kidding you if I gave you a time, although I do so love kidding around," he said. "But I'd say that, even with my unpredictable brilliance, you have at least until tonight."

I looked at the clock. I had several hours to kill, ha ha. "Get it done," I said flatly.

"That's it?" he asked, looking injured. "No pithy one-liner?"

"I think the Floronic Man poisoned my ability to laugh," I replied. I had never been in less of a mood to tell jokes. The circus was closed, and the clown was in her trailer for the night

Now he looked outraged. "Now he's gone too far!"

I couldn't have agreed more.


I perched atop the gazebo and waited. I was so sick of waiting that day. Next time, I'm making somebody wait!

My biggest problem, besides injecting Pammy with an untested chemical and hoping it didn't kill her, was beating the Floronic Man. Even if Ivy didn't go into ultra-protective mode, Woodrue had the ability to control the plants around him and using them as weapons. The odds that I could lure them both somewhere without plans were slim to none. The easiest thing would be to attack him at their hideout, but I couldn't do that alone.

But I couldn't ask another villain. Generally, we don't try to kill each other. It's not good for our reputations. Plus Woodrue has a history of putting the NEAR in "near-death situations". Nobody would want the Floronic Man coming after them with revenge on his mind.

Asking the Batman or one of his little bats to help me kill him was out of the question.

The Judge wanted me dead as much as anyone else, and I didn't know where he was.

That left one other possibility, which perhaps would solve my other problem - Spoiler and Oracle.

After I left the chemist's lab, I got in touch with Barbara. "If you wanted to attract the Oracle's attention," I asked, "what places could you go on the Internet?"

"Well, from what my hacker friends are saying, I've heard about a dozen different places where she's nailed hackers trying to break in. Why?"

"If you tried something like that, and she smelled you out like she did in Arkham's computer database, is there any way you could send her a message for her eyes only?"

"Wellll, yeah, but I'd rather she didn't discover my identity in the process."

"Believe me, she gets the message, she'll be distracted long enough to escape."

Which is why I'm sitting atop a gazebo two hundred yards inside the west gate of Robinson Park. By now the Oracle got my message:

"I want to meet the Phantasm ALONE. If she's not there at seven tonight, or if she shows up with the canary, OR if she tries to knock me out, I have some extra-special poison gas that'll really put a rictus on someone's face. Toodles, Harley Quinn."

The Phantasm had told the Judge just the other day that she didn't kill any more. I was out to change her mind.

I looked down and noticed smoke was issuing through cracks in the roof of the gazebo. Oooh, really spooky the third or fourth time. "Nice of you to drop by," I said. "Got held up at the mausoleum?"

The Phantasm stormed out of the gazebo and looked up at me. "I don't like threats," she said.

"Funny, a so-called friend just said that to me."

"Where's the hostage?"

"Safe - for now. But I bet my special Smilex laughing gas is weighing pretty heavily on his mind right now."

I hoped this wasn't true. I wanted the chemist focused on the genetic antidote.

"So what do you want?" the Phantasm demanded.

"First of all," I said, hopping down, "I'm not the Spoiler. I know her, but I'm just a client."

"I'm not surprised," the Phantasm said. "Your criminal history doesn't match the profile."

"Oh?"

"You didn't strike us as - smart enough."

Ba-dum-bum-TSH. The audience laughs.

"But you can still tell us who she is," the Phantasm went on.

"Could do that, if you could do something for me first."

"And what would that be?"

"Help me kill the Floronic Man."

I couldn't really tell how she reacted to that, since she wore a mask, but from the way she went dead silent - har har, my capacity for making bad puns is at least undiminished - I figured I startled her. "It can't be too difficult a concept," I went on. "You tried twice before."

"That was before, like you said. I've changed, and if you're going to kill him, I'll have to take you in, regardless of your threats."

"Why? Afraid I'll deprive you the pleasure of killing him yourself?" I taunted her.

She shook her hook at me. I guess I struck something.

"Look, I don't know what he did to you," I said, "but I've got plenty of reasons to kill him myself, and I thought you'd like to help. If you're not interested, no problem, I'll have the pleasure all to myself."

"Wait!" the Phantasm shouted. "Why are you doing this?"

I looked at her. "What, looking to swap horror stories? If you have to know, I'm doing it for Ivy."

"Ivy!"

"Yeah, you know, the sidekick, the one who stopped you, the one you scarred? She's a good friend, and I just found out that when Woodrue experimented on her, he also altered her genes so that she'd be in love with him. You could argue he's been raping her every day of her life. So he's going to pay. What'd he do to YOU? Kill your lumberjack boyfriend?"

The Phantasm stood there for a moment. Then, in a move that completely floored me, she took off her mask. Ivy had been right. Looking back at me was an attractive blonde woman in her thirties. "He killed my older sister," she said.

"Don't expect me to take the mask off," I told her. "You can just check out the mug shots. So he killed your sister. Sounds like you've got a better reason than me."

She laughed, but there was nothing happy about her laughter. Not exactly my favorite kind. "Oh, I'd say so. If things had worked out differently, you would never have been in this situation. You see, before Woodrue turned Pamela Isley into Poison Ivy, he tried to do the exact same thing to my sister. But she died." Then she smiled ruefully. "Of course, after what you just told me, maybe it's better for her that she did."

While my brain was still trying to process all of this, one thought did appear - she was probably right. Telling the Phantasm that I was in love with her sister would have been REALLY awkward.

To be continued . . .