Follies of Fate

Chapter 3

The light flickered on, went dark again, then blinked back through the rim of the door. It did this a couple of times and I had to shut my eyes so I wouldn't get that seasick feeling that strobe lighting tended to give me. Whatever building I was in I was pretty sure it was older than anything I knew of in Gotham. I couldn't think of anything inside the city that sported cellars like this. There were plenty of old warehouses, but the shape and contents of this room suggested a manor or house.

That meant I was probably outside the city limits. Hopefully not too far out. I kept my eyes closed and took a few deep breaths at this realisation. I may have been getting better at getting away from the Joker, but if I was right and I was outside the city, escaping on my own was sounding more and more difficult.

I was lucky I kept my eyes closed, because the light flickered again and shut off completely. I waited a while, then sighed when I realised the light probably wasn't going to come back on anytime soon.

I crouched back close to the wall and lent my forehead against my knees, closing my eyes and regulating my breathing. I'd never truly gotten used to absolute darkness, even having experienced it so many times before. No matter what I would still feel that trill of fear hit me when the lights went out and there was nothing to see. I'd been holding out pretty well since I'd been thrown in here, keeping my mind elsewhere so I wouldn't focus on the fact that I was essentially blind. I just had to make sure I kept breathing carefully. In and out, in and out.

Few people ever experience true and complete darkness. I've had arguments about how disorientating it can be with a number of people throughout the years. I've tried to explain in as many ways as language will allow that the fear comes when you realise you can't see your hands when they're so close to your face you can feel your breath on them. Or than eventually if you start to move around you can actually loose all sense of what's up and what's down, so much so that sometimes it can feel like your suspended in nothingness. I shuddered and pressed further into the wall; I remembered that feeling, that maddening moment when your senses begin to lie to you and you're not sure why the blood is rushing to your head, or if you're actually standing on solid ground.

I remember trying to explain it to a work friend of mine once. She just about drove me crazy with her inability to truly listen to what I was trying to tell her.

Won't your eyes adjust eventually?

I smiled slightly at the memory and slowly stretched my legs out, keeping my back flush to the corner I was propped against. In the end, she never came to grips with the concept that there was nothing for your eyes to adjust to. There was no light, so small twinkling of whiteness for your eyes to cling to. But then again, Colleen never really understood much outside gum, men and flirting her way into a bonus.

Breath in, breath out...

There was one thing that could be said as a positive for absolute pitch-black darkness. Without your ability to see, your other senses quickly re worked themselves to pick up the slack. It had been something I had started practicing about a year ago, on the recommendation of the Dark Knight. I just had to make sure I kept focused and relied on what my other senses were telling me. Could I hear anything useful? Was there any strange smells?

I took a deep breath, held it, and listened.

Nothing.

There wasn't a single sound coming from this room. No rats or creepy crawlies anywhere near me, no creaking of wood, no movement of air, and most importantly, not a single sound from behind the door. The room was almost completely silent. I let go of the breath I had been holding and took another one.

Still nothing.

I breathed out.

One of the first things I realised when I started relying more on my hearing was that nine times out of ten, you wouldn't hear the noise you were searching for it you were trying to hear it over the sound of your own breathing. I made the discovery very late one night when I had woken up to the horrifying sound of someone banging through my kitchen. Or at least what I thought sounded like someone in my kitchen. I rolled out of bed and curled myself into the small space behind my door, my heart beating in my ears and my breathing uneven. I had tried to listen, tried to focus on where the sound was coming from, but I hadn't been able to figure it out. So I closed my eyes, and held my breath, thinking that maybe the less sound I made, the harder it would be for whatever or whoever was out there to hear me.

Turned out it also made it easier for me to hear what was going on.

The sound I had heard turned out to be nothing dangerous, just some washing up I had left precariously balanced beside my sink slipping around. But it taught me a lesson, a lesson I had used again, and again, and again throughout the many sleepless nights I spent balanced on the balls of my feet behind my door after being woken by some random noise or movement in my apartment.

I heaved a sigh and tried to focus on the room again. I didn't need a reminder of how tired I was, I already knew all too well.

I sucked in a deep breath through my nose this time, trying to identify a smell. It was a long shot. It was a skill that I hadn't refined nearly enough for it to be useful, but I was trying, and with Batmans help I was slowly getting better at it.

Another deep breath.

There was something in the air other than the thick murky smell of stale air and rotting wood. Something organic and sweet that hit the back of my throat after a few more deep pulls through my nose. It smelt like a forest floor, moisture and lichen and rotting leaves with a sweet undertone of something poison.

I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't been searching for something out of the ordinary, I would have just assumed the air in the cellar put a bad taste in my mouth.

There was an odd sound too. A cracking noise that was barley audible and could have just been a creepy crawly scuttling around the room. Something from outside the door, soft footsteps padding on stone, the scraping of a chair, then…

Pop. I jumped at the sound of glass breaking and someone swearing loudly outside the door. It was a feminine voice, high and winy and so familiar it sent an involuntary shudder through me. Harley Quinn.

There was a pause and the light outside the door came back on brighter and fiercer than before. I blinked my eyes open wearily and frowned as more soft cursing and chair scraping sounded from outside. Then silence. Fine, if Quinn was outside that was just fine. I could deal with Quinn, and judging by the lack of abusive yelling she was alone. No goons. If she came into the cellar I could be hopeful about living through the experience.

My eyes adjusted to the light and I started squinting into the darker corners of the room, pulling my attention back to the odd smell I had sussed out before Harley had busted the light bulb. The new light bulb I could only assume had replaced the broken one was more powerful and lit the cellar a little better. This was a good thing.

It took me a few moments to spot the cause of the smell, but eventually I did. In the left hand corner of the room, stretching out over the broken wine rack and climbing towards the centre of the wall and roof was a vine. Well, a muddled mat of several vines all intertwining and curling into each other as they pushed their way through the brick. I narrowed my eyes at the little plot of dark green, as the familiarity of it clawed at my memory and I tried to recall why I knew those vines and that smell.

The smell and the plant didn't remind me of something I realised after a long moment. No, it reminded me of someone.

…Poison Ivy

Or more specifically her plants. Each vine or flower she created held that undertone smell of poison and forest floor. It was like each plant she manipulated bled that smell through its sap and life blood.

Shit

I stared at the vines, watching far more closely as they curled and continued to grow slowly right before my eyes, pushing with enough strength to crack the bricks they were clinging too. Yep, Ivy was here. No way those little plants could be sprouting the way they were without a little help from 'Red'.

Why would Ivy be here? Joker and Ivy weren't on talking terms. They didn't associate with one another unless it was for a friendly Poker game or it had something to do with Harley. I shook my head, right now that didn't matter.

If Ivy was here…and if she was here on her own free will, all I was going to worry about was how much harder it was going to be for me to get out of here. Joker by himself I might be able to handle if presented with the right opportunity. Ivy, Joker and whoever else was currently skulking around upstairs was going to be the equivalent of a suicide mission.

I huffed and softly smacked my head back against the bricks behind me. Ivy and I didn't get on. She didn't like me much. Well, to be more specific, she considered me a small frustrating ant that didn't warrant her attention and I didn't have her on my list of bad guys that may snatch me off the street at any moment.

In fact, there were only a few times I had met Poison Ivy, and in all honesty I didn't know nearly as much about her as I probably should. Actually, thinking about it, I could count on one hand the amount of times I had had contact with Ivy.

There was the park last thanksgiving when I had interrupted her while she was working on infecting the pond with a viral fungus that released toxic spores when it came into contact with sunlight. I hadn't meant to disturb her, and I certainly didn't realise Batman had been tailing me since three streets over because of an idle threat from the Joker. She wasn't impressed when he swooped down out of nowhere and cuffed her.

Then there had been outside the grocery store nearly a full year ago, when I had literally run into her as she was trying to avoid the police on foot. She hadn't recognised me until she was being arrested, both of us had been a little confused from the concussions we'd sustained from the full impact with each other, then the ground.

Then finally, the first time I had met her. It was so long ago it seemed like another lifetime.

I remembered it not because it was the first time I had met Ivy, but because it was when my little sister had last come to visit…

October-ish 3 Years Ago...

"I'm so sorry about Mark, sis. He was an asshole anyway. You deserve better."

I rolled my eyes at my little sister but couldn't help the smile that crept onto my lips. It was nice to have her here.

My family lived in a small no name town in the deepest country America had to offer and to this day I couldn't understand the attraction. I had moved out to Gotham shortly after I had turned 18, wanting to experience the big city in all its glory and tired of knowing everyone around me. It had been hard (and still was), but even with all the drama, the kidnapping and the supervillans, I wouldn't dream of going back. Gotham was my home now.

My parents never understood, especially after the Joker incident they had all but begged me to come back to the country with them. Where it was safe, and calm, and the biggest event of the year was when someone lost a chicken or a cow gave birth. Madison, however, had understood and argued my case stubbornly until my parents relented and backed off. Finally taking no to mean NO.

Madison was five years younger than me and had been the trouble child of the two of us. She was as kind as you could get, but she was a bit on the wild side, and often found herself the centre of the rumour mill at home. I always looked forward to when she would come a visit me, and I always enjoyed the wide eyed way she would look at Gotham, excited that there was a place that accommodated and matched her energetic personality.

She was here for her 17th birthday. The way she told it, she had woken up yesterday morning and decided she wanted a little bit of freedom to do as she pleased on her birthday, and getting on a bus to Gotham without anything but a text letting people know where she was, was the best way to get it.

As far as our parents were concerned, I was currently aiding and abetting a fugitive by letting Madison crash on my couch, but I was relieved to have her here. Madison always made me feel better when I was down, and at the moment, I was at the lowest point I'd been in a while.

Mark and I had finally split up. The last few months had been a whirlwind of hellish arguments and tense make ups. Finally, I'd just had enough. The actual break up was a calm conversation over a cup of coffee.

"Thanks, Maddie. Its nice to have you here." I grinned at her and took as sip of my hot chocolate, rubbing my eyes tiredly and contemplating the menu.

I was leaning towards the spaghetti special. Pasta was my comfort food.

My phone buzzed urgently on the table top next to us and I jumped, staring at it.

"If that's mum and dad, tell them the answers no again." Maddie laughed, but stopped when she saw the look on my face. I didn't have a good poker face, I had probably lost a few shades of colour in the past second. I snatched up the vibrating little phone and answered it, not bothering to say hello. I listened for a moment, letting the person on the other end of the line talk, then hung up when they were done and set the phone down.

"So…" I said shakily after a moment, smiling at my sister and trying to make it seem like the past few minutes hadn't happened "What do you want to do next?" Maddie raised an eyebrow at me, narrowing her eyes.

"Oh no, no way, you don't get to brush this off like that. That's happened three times since I got here. Now who's calling you?!"

I winced and mulled over how to answer that question, coming up with a whole lot of nothing. Any answer I gave would have Maddie in an uproar of wrathful vengeance and I doubted it would do any good for anyone. I took a deep breath, preparing to lie through my teeth, when there was an almighty crash from somewhere else in the mall and people started screaming.

Maddie and I froze, everyone in the little café did actually as people began sprinting past the beautiful glazed windows outside; tripping over themselves to get away from whatever mysterious danger was behind them.

"What's going on?" Maddie asked, standing from the table and taking a few steps towards the front door.

"Maddie no!" I grabbed her wrist before she could get far and pulled her back, standing and wrapping an arm around her shoulder.

I didn't know exactly what was happening, but I knew the panic splashed across the faces of the people running for their lives. I'd experienced it before. Nothing good was going to come around that corner and into view.

Maddie tried to shrug me off but I clamped down hard on her, turning wide eyes to my little sister and shaking my head.

"Not out the front door" I whispered, pulling us further back through the throngs of people now getting up from their tables to investigate. I let go of her just long enough to grab our bags and tried to hide the fact my hands were shaking.

I had to pull it together. For Maddie's sake I had to keep a level head.

I couldn't let her get hurt.

I took a deep breath and seized Maddie's hand, pulling her towards the swinging door that lead into the little kitchen. There was a back door to the café that came out onto the side parking lot. I'd checked when we came in.

It was something I was doing more of now. Checking exits to make sure I could get away quickly.

There was another crash and the front window shattered, something that looked like a huge green tentacle snaking through the razor sharp remains and sending everyone scattering away in terror.

Maddie screamed.

I probably would have as well if my vocal chords hadn't seized up.

The giant green thing raised itself up, its bulk blocking the ceiling light before it crashed down, slamming into the ground like a mini earthquake.

Maddie screamed louder as the shock wave knocked both of us off our feet along with almost everyone else in the café. I scrambled to my hands and knees and grabbed at her, fumbling to get a grip on her jacket and drag her away from the mayhem.

"Maddie come on!" I yelled it and even then I wasn't sure she heard me over the wails of the crowd. Maddie reached out and took a hold of my shoulder, letting me haul her up we got to our feet and bolted for the back room, pushing through the swinging doors and tumbling into the kitchen.

The emergency back door was in sight and I threw myself at it, desperately trying to pull it open.

It didn't budge.

"No!" I slammed into it in case it was one of those 'push' 'pull' moments, then stepped back and slammed into it again. "No, no, no! It's locked!" Maddie was holding so tight to my arm it hurt.

"What do we do?!" She asked, eyes wider then I'd ever seen them go before.

I opened my mouth to answer, tugging at my hair as I tried to think through the haze for something that would get us out of here.

Before I had a chance to say anything there was a groaning sound, like hinges being ripped away from their frame and the hulking green mass began pushing through the door into the kitchen.

It moved so fast, snaking along the ground as more little tendrils rose up from it and curled around the kitchen benches, sprouting leaves and tiny white blooms as it covered everything it touched.

"They're vines…" Maddie whispered from next to me, staring in terrified awe as the realisation hit her around the same time it occurred to me.

One of the smaller vines curled forward and made a grab at Maddie's leg and she squealed, slamming the heel of her boot into it with sharp repeated movements until all that was left was a slop of green mush flipping and twitching on the floor.

Another vine made a grab and I yanked Maddie out of the way, stumbling back and letting out a scream when my hand connected with something burning hot.

"Are you ok?" Maddie asked as she slammed her shoe into another reaching vine. It made an odd squealing noise, thrashing around like it was trying to avoid her.

I turned enough to see what I had scorched my hand on and noticed for the first time the boiling pot of water still perched on the flame of the industrial sized stove. An idea popped into my head.

A stupid, panic induced idea.

"Help me!" I think I screamed it.

I didn't explain the plan, just tugged Maddie's arm and reached for the pot. She saw exactly what I was trying to do and with her help we managed to slide it to the edge of the stove.

With one final push it toppled, sending bubbling hot water and semi cooked spaghetti spewing out over the kitchen floor. Maddie hauled herself onto a free space on counter and I managed to brace one foot on an open drawer so I wasn't ankle deep in the boiling liquid.

The water splashed around, connecting like a tiny wave with the huge vine that was still cracking and expanding into the room and sent it reeling back as the heat burned and shrivelled its more delicate off-shoots.

From somewhere nearby there was a terrifying, otherworldly screech.

I held tight to Maddie and counted two breaths before the back emergency door burst off its hinges and flew across the room, slamming into the opposing wall and making both of us scream.

"Who hurt my baby?!" A woman appeared, fiery red hair and too pale skin, bright eyes and pointed claws on long, elegant hands. The vines curled around her, almost lifting her from the ground as the swirled across her feet like snakes.

Poison Ivy

She spotted us and I forgot how to breathe.

It happened in slow motion. One minute Maddie was in my arms, clinging to me with all the strength she had. The next she was gone, screaming my name as a vine caught her ankle and lifted her bodily across the room.

"Maddie!" Ivy had my little sister wrapped up tight before I could even step down onto the slippery floor and a moment later something connected with my face so hard I saw stars right before I saw the ceiling.

"You're going to pay for hurting my baby" Ivy's voice seemed far away and I lay there, back sopping and hot, head throbbing and nausea blooming in my gut. My vision spun and I wondered if I would ever be able to stand again.

"Katey! Katey help!" I could hear her, I could hear Maddie but I couldn't see her through the haze. I groaned, rolling to the side and gagging when the world rolled with me.

I had to help Maddie.

From here I could see her feet. The tips of the boots I had bought her last Christmas just in the edge of my sight as they floated a foot above the ground, disappearing into a mess of vines.

Ivy's bare feet were in front of her and I could head Maddie gasping.

Ivy was hurting her. Ivy was hurting my little sister.

I had to help Maddie.

The pot we had knocked over was just to my right, I grabbed it by the handle, steadied myself and gave myself just enough time to lock eyes on the mess of tangled red hair that was Ivy's head before I launched up and swung the heavy piece of metal in one go.

All my weight was behind it.

It was gonna leave a bruise…

If Ivy ever woke up.

The mad plant lady dropped like a stone when I connected, the pot making a sound like a gong as it slammed into the side of her head and sent her careening to the floor.

She landed with a heavy thump and all her vines slumped with her.

I dropped to all fours, scrambling to my sisters side as she fought her way out of the now slack green ropes that had been trying to squeeze the life out of her and gathered her up in a hug that probably did a better job of suffocating her than Ivy ever could.

Maddie pushed the last vines away, then collapsed into my hold, sobbing hysterically.

I didn't cry.

I just sat there, holding her too me and stroking her hair. There was nothing but white noise in my head for a long time. Then slowly, ever so slowly, it gave way to a burning feeling in my chest that I recognised after a moment as anger.

I was angry.

We stayed on the floor of the café until the police, and The Batman, arrived.

I was surprised I had recognised the smell in the room and associated it with Poison Ivy, though Batman had explained to me once that she exuded very distinct pheromones that were meant to be remembered as either threatening or attractive depending on who was on the receiving end. Like a plant attracting bees or warding off something that wanted to eat it.

Maybe that was why it was familiar enough for me to recognise even though I hadn't met her that many times.

I hated thinking about that day. Since then Madison hadn't come to visit me again. We still talked, she still called every other day, but she didn't want to come back to Gotham.

I had gone to see her once of twice in Metropolis when she had moved there, listened to her rave about the attractive man at her work called Clark who was just so utterly sexy in a nerdy kind of way and how annoying it was that he only had eyes for Supermans girl Louis.

But she wasn't ever really the same wide-eyed care free girl after Poison Ivy. She just sort of…lost some of her nerve.

I stared at the vines in distaste from across the room. It always made me upset and angry thinking about this, about how little Ivy had cared about hurting my sister. My family, my little sister who was so wonderful and stupid and excitable. I stood carefully and without really considering how foolish it was made my way over to the little vines and looked down at them.

These days I was always angry, you were either angry, or you were scared out of your wits. Angry was easier to cope with.

But this angry wasn't for me, it was for Madison, and with that thought I jammed the nail I had used on my cuffs as hard as I could into the vines fleshy little green veins.

They squealed and retreated back into the crack they were growing from. I moved back to my corner and sat down. I felt a little childish but I shut that thought up.

Small pleasures Kate, I reminded myself. They make it easier.

Authors Notes: Da dan da daaa dan da DAAAA! Please Read and Review, it makes me smile.