A/N: Okay, so. It's been two years since I started this story. Let me start by saying that I am profoundly sorry to all of you that followed this story that it's taken me so long to continue it. I really don't have a good excuse. I certainly didn't forget about it—this story has been on my mind the whole time. I'm just not good at making myself finish things, especially if I don't know how I want the story to go. I stare at the computer, let myself get distracted and then leave to do something else, saying I'll finish it tomorrow. There's also been some issues with depression, schoolwork, missing schoolwork, trying desperately to catch up with schoolwork…anyway. I suck and I owe it to you guys to finish this thing. I know how it ends, but I don't really know how to get there, so please bear with me as I puzzle it out. Thank you all for your comments and your subscriptions, and I hope you enjoy this chapter.
"Harley, will you turn that damn thing off and pay attention?"
Harley pouted and clicked the mute button, silencing the zany cartoons flashing across the screen. "All right, all right, keep ya shirt on, I'm listening."
"As I was saying," Ivy continued stiffly, "I need your help with something. Tonight."
Harley sat up straighter and rested her chin on crossed hands. "You got a heist in mind, then? About time, too, I was getting—"
Ivy shushed her. "It's just a small job, but it's crucial to my plans. I can't accompany you, though. I need to prepare things here."
Curiosity roused, Harley scooched closer to Ivy and grinned. "So what's your big plan, Red? Gonna use a buncha spores to enslave Gotham, or trap the Bat in a patch of meat-eatin' plants? Ooh, maybe we could—"
Ivy shook her head. "I can't tell you right now, Harl. It needs to be finished before I let you know." She pulled a slip of paper from the pocket of her lab coat and handed it to Harley. "I wrote down exactly what I need you to get for me."
Harley shot down that idea immediately. Being kept in the dark was not something she handled well. "Aw, c'mon, Red! What's with all the secrecy? You can tell me, I promise I won't say a word to anyone!" Harley worked up her best sulky pout to lend weight to her plea. It never worked on Mr. J, but she hadn't tried it on Pam yet.
She had expected to receive no response, at best, but was surprised when Pam's cheeks colored ever so slightly and she shifted her gaze to the area past Harley's shoulder. "Look, Harl, I just need you to do this for me, okay? Everything will be explained tonight, but for now I need you to trust me."
Stubbornness, one of Harley's defining traits, settled into place like (appropriately) an old mule. But the beseeching look on Ivy's face brought on a twinge of guilt, and Harley uncomfortably reminded herself that she owed the gal a lot. Ivy had consistently given her a place to stay when she had nowhere to go, had patched up her bruises and cuts and sometimes even broken bones without any demand for compensation. Hell, Red hadn't even given her any grief over the previous day's incident.
"All right, all right…I'll get your—" she glanced at the jumble of technical terms, "…plant stuff. But you better tell me what's going on when I get back."
Ivy smiled, all cool reassurance. "Don't worry about that. I'll explain everything tonight."
The sun had barely disappeared over the horizon, leaving a smudge of pink and orange that kept the rest of the sky from falling into blackness. The bored gate guard stared dismally at the street beyond his post. He'd been written up by his hardass boss twice that month for reading on the job, or he would have already opened the newspaper that he kept under the desk.
The stifling weather did not help his mood.
The light poles up and down the fence had already come on when he thought he caught a flicker of movement far down the line. Picking up his flashlight and baton, he cautiously made his way down the high barbed fence until he reached the spot where he'd seen something. There was no one in sight. Just an old, discarded shopping bag that had blown up against the fence.
He snorted to himself. It's not like anyone could have scaled the fence, anyway.
As soon as the guard had strolled a few yards from his post, Harley put on a burst of speed and vaulted to the roof of the low structure, using it to spring over the high fence and land gracefully in the interior of the compound. Without missing a beat she continued into a light-footed sprint towards the nearest shadow. She grinned giddily, pleased with her performance. The poor sap would never know she'd gotten past him.
She crept towards the research building, sticking to the shadows and nimbly avoiding patrols. From the satchel on her hip she pulled a device that she'd been saving for a long time. It had been acquired at great risk, but now was the time to use it. A deft toss of the quarter-sized EMP device disabled a security camera—several months before she had managed to get close enough to the Bat to swipe several of them from his utility belt, and had actually managed to give him the slip afterwards. It was the only time she had ever managed to get her hands on some of his tech, and may never do so again. As for the camera, the guards would definitely come to investigate it when the monitor blacked out, but she wouldn't leave any clue that there was a break-in.
Harley threw a grappling hook onto the second story ledge of the lab and was up in an instant. She plucked the tiny EMP grenade from the camera—it was a one-use only device, but she couldn't leave it to be found by security—and slipped away towards the windows. Already a pool of light was bobbing closer as a guard came to check on the camera. She sidled along the ledge until she was well away from the rent-a-cop before going to work on a window with her set of picks.
The jester eased the window open and sprayed smoke into the room from a canister. When the smoke revealed no lasers, she slipped into the room and swiftly closed the window behind her, locking it again for good measure. The last thing she needed was for some abnormally observant guard to notice the open window and call the cops.
Harley took a moment to observe her surroundings. Looked like a series of offices. She needed to find the actual labs. And they would undoubtedly be secured by some kinda card reader, so she'd need to find someone with clearance…
She crept to the door, then thought better of it. No cover out in the hallways, and they would all be brightly lit. Maybe even have cameras watching them. She paced about the room until she found a vent and pried the cover off of it.
Sneaking through the ventilation system was always a pain, but a girl couldn't be stuck up about how she got the job done. After about fifteen minutes of duct crawling, she found the laboratories. The vent was too small to squeeze through, but with the location in her mind, the rest should be a cakewalk. Now that her objective was in sight, maybe she could afford to make a bit of a ruckus…
Anderson rubbed bleary eyes and skimmed through his notes again. Another late night…another frustration in his research. He was so close to improving the plant hormone that the company had released the previous year. If he succeeded, the supplement would cause fruit to ripen faster and to be more resistant to frost. Working on a personal project had its benefits and drawbacks: if he had a breakthrough, then he alone could claim credit for it, but the lack of an assistant took its toll on him.
His concentration, already worn thin by lack of sleep, was shattered by loud voices out in the hall. Someone was shouting—no, several people were shouting. In Anderson's exasperation, the possibility that something was wrong didn't occur to him. He was only aware that he had no patience to spare and someone was interrupting his work. He walked briskly towards the laboratory door to vent his frustrations on whomever was making that racket. He had just reached for the handle when some new sound penetrated his self-concern. It sounded like a cry of pain. Anderson sidled over to the long, horizontal window and peered down the hallway as best he could from his position.
He needn't have bothered. There was a muted crack and a man in a security outfit stumbled into view, clutching his jaw. Before Anderson could register what was happening, a thin figure clad in an outrageous patchwork of black and red flipped across his vision and landed a spinning kick in the guard's ribs. The man went down, hard, as another guard rushed the woman from behind, nightstick raised. Before he could make contact, she caught his arm in both of hers, planted her body against his center of mass and hurled him into the window. Anderson leapt backwards in shock as the guard thudded against the safety glass, leaving a spider-web of cracks across more than a foot of the window.
Anderson was struggling to regain his composure when he noticed that the woman was looking straight at him through the cracked window. She gave him a big grin and a cheery wave before stooping and deftly snatching a card out of the lapel pocket of one of the unconscious men. Anderson's blood froze when she moved towards the door and he stumbled for the fire alarm as the lock clicked behind him.
He was stretching his fingers desperately towards the alarm when he felt a hard blow against the back of his knee. Anderson's leg buckled and he crashed into the wall. A tutting sound came from behind him.
"Now why do ya wanna go and spoil all the fun, egghead?" A pair of small but surprisingly strong hands grabbed his lab coat and hauled him back to the center of the room. Anderson could only whimper in fear. In a flash of movement, he found the woman quite abruptly straddling his chest, her face inches from his own. There was nothing arousing about the situation.
"Oh god…I know who you are. Please, please don't kill me."
The chalk white face broke into a big, toothy grin. "What makes ya think I'd do somethin' like that? You and me are pals, eggy." Her hands tightened painfully on his shoulders, nearly cutting off his circulation. "Right?"
Anderson nodded so vigorously that his head cracked against the floor.
"Good! Now I gotta favor I need from you, and then we can all get out of this dreary old place." Quinn stood and pulled a slip of paper out of her outfit and tossed it down onto his chest. Anderson sat up shakily and unfolded the paper. There was a short list of chemicals scrawled across it. As he read the tidy scrawl he felt his blood run cold. Quinn was bad enough, but with this many plant hormones on her list she could only be working with Poison Ivy. He wasn't sure if that was worse than the Joker, but if either of them came upon him he was done for.
Even though his best chance for coming out of this mess intact was to cooperate fully, he felt he had to make some effort at resistance. Just a small one, anyway, so that he could tell the police and his supervisor that he hadn't helped a wanted criminal willingly. "I'm sorry, Miss Quinn, but if I give you all of these I'll lose my job. Or-or go to jail! I can't—"
Quinn sighed pitifully and pouted at Anderson. "Why ya gotta strain our friendship like this, eggy?" She sniffled. "It makes me think you don't care about my feelings." A manic grin split her face and a great sense of foreboding began to form in Anderson's chest. Before he could backpedal on what he had said, she had dropped her arms around his shoulders. "Maybe I could change your mind," Quinn whispered in a husky voice.
Before he could protest, she stepped back and slammed her knee into his gut. He remembered how to absorb a hit from his boxing days back in college, but the force of her blow still knocked the wind out of him and left him staggered. On the floor, gasping for air and trying not to vomit, he felt that he had done his duty as far as resisting went. Anderson shrank back as Quinn hauled him to his feet.
"So whaddaya say, egghead? Think ya could help a gal out?"
Harley slammed the door open and bounded triumphantly into the apartment, the bag containing her recent acquisitions slung over her shoulder.
"I gotcha whatsits, Red! Now you promised to tell me what's going on!"
The smile slowly faded from her face when her arrival went ungreeted. Harley moved uncertainly to the door to Ivy's private chambers, the rooms that housed all of her plants. Slowly, cautiously, she eased the door open and peered around it.
"Red?" No response. "Ivy? …Pam?"
She tilted her head, bells jingling forlornly, and tried to catch a glimpse of her partner through the labyrinth of plants. When no redhead appeared, Harley lingered, hesitant, on the threshold of the greenhouse. Dangerous plants grew in there, and Harley had never learned to tell which was which. If she was with Ivy, she would have nothing to fear. If, however, she got into trouble and Ivy really wasn't around…well, better to stay out of the greenhouse.
Just as she was making up her mind to leave well enough alone, a low whistle sounded from the depths of the jungle. It was slow, taunting, an unmistakable beckoning quality to it. An invitation and a teasing poke all in one.
Harley pursed her lips and scowled. What was that crazy broad playing at? She set down the bag and took a tentative step into the greenhouse, then another. Still no sign. But as she walked, plants shrank out of her way, leaving a clear path forward. Curiosity began to mix with her annoyance and she crept farther in.
The room wasn't very large, but it was crammed so full of plants that it felt cavernous and disorienting. Harley was careful not to trample any of Ivy's precious flowers or she would get mad and maybe kick her out of the apartment. When she felt she was near the opposite end of the room, she came upon a curtain of thick vines that blocked her view. She hesitated, but that same whistle sounded from just on the other side of the vines, so Harley huffed irritably and started to push through them. It didn't take long to get through them, but it was a hassle, and when she pushed the last vines aside she was determined to give Ivy a piece of her mind.
What she found in the clearing at the end of the room left cleared all such thoughts out of her head and left it blank and reeling.
Ivy stood framed by flowering vines that stretched from floor to ceiling. Carefully cultivated flowers, lilies and orchids and more, formed two neat rows that left a path open from Ivy to where Harley stood frozen. Ivy herself…Harley couldn't ever remember seeing her like that before. She wore her usual green, leafy costume, but it was different. It was more. Delicate shoots wound around her arms and legs, and up into her hair, keeping it tied up in a pretty bundle. The redhead stepped towards Harley with a smile she couldn't quite figure out. She was starting to get nervous. All of this looked like Red was courting someone, but that was ridiculous. Maybe she'd finally gone loopy.
Just as Harley opened her mouth to ask if she had, in fact, gone crazy, Ivy was suddenly right in front of her and pressing her lips to Harley's. Her brain ground to a screeching halt, then went into overdrive, a hundred conflicting thoughts and emotions buzzing through it by the time Ivy had broken the kiss. Her embarrassed blush could probably be seen even through the chalk white face paint. Ivy was leaning her weight to one side, arms crossed, waiting for something.
Then she got it, and started giggling. "Ya got me, Red. This is payback for what I did the other day. Ya really had me going for a minute—!"
Ivy pressed a finger to her lips and she stopped talking at once. Her partner still had that odd look on her face. What was the dame playing at? This wasn't so funny anymore.
Slowly, carefully, she pulled off Harley's mask and looked straight into her eyes, unblinking and with a solid determination that Harley had only seen her wearing when she was working on her plants.
"No more jokes."
Harley bit her lip, unsure of how to handle this. She was slowly coming to think that Ivy really meant all this. This was all because of that kiss she'd surprised her with the other day. It had just been a joke, for crying out loud! She didn't mean to make her friend go crazy. And she opened her mouth to say all of that, but something stopped the words from coming. Her face grew hotter and she found that she had to look away from the other gal for a moment.
Harley thought back to that kiss the other day, and to the one just a minute ago. The first kiss had mostly been a joke, but it had also felt right at the time. Like it was just the best way to respond to Ivy's words. Now that she started to entertain the idea that maybe, maybe this wasn't so crazy, she was overcome with doubt and confusion. With her eyes still anywhere-but-Ivy, she felt the redhead's fingers slip through her own and give her hand a gentle squeeze. Harley brought her eyes back to meet Pamela's and what she saw settled her nerves, but also set her heart racing.
Pam knew how she felt. Knew, and understood. What was more, Harley saw that Ivy had decided to move past her fears because she truly cared for her. A hot flush spread through Harley's face. She smiled awkwardly, a goofy, lopsided grin that conveyed uncertainty and nervousness more than humor, but still showed a small release of tension. Ivy pushed her headpiece back as she had done her mask a minute ago. Harley's hair, sweaty and unkempt from being trapped in the cap for several hours, spilled over her head. It wasn't the luscious, silky hair that Pamela was used to, but it only made the blonde girl more endearing.
Ivy reached out and mussed Harley's hair like an aunt would do to a small niece, and Harley giggled, the tension slowly flowing out of her. The lighthearted jest was something she understood, something she could grasp like a life-preserver in a sea of doubt. Pam smiled at her, asked a question with her eyes, received the answer in kind. She gently cupped Harley's face and pulled her close.
Harley's pulse fluttered. 'This is it.' She felt like a schoolgirl back in junior high, about to share her first kiss. But the junior high Harleen Quinzel had never expected that she might one day be kissing a girl.
Her eyes drifted closed as a sense of peace fell over her. It took her a moment to realize that she felt safe, secure. As much as she loved and doted on Mr. J, she'd always had to be careful, always a part of her on edge. His volatile nature wasn't his fault, of course. The poor dear was always under so much stress. But the fact remained that she had to be as careful with him as if she were handling nitro-glycerin.
But here with Ivy, she felt…well, not relaxed. Not with her heart doing its damndest to bust through her ribcage. But she felt safe.
She felt Pam hesitate mere centimeters from her, and this time Harley leaned in and kissed her.
Ivy wrapped her arms around Harley's upper body, one hand going to the back of her head, and they were locked together in a twisting, blushing . Harley felt herself falling back and suddenly the soft moss was beneath her and Ivy was on top and 'oh dear…'
The rest blurred by in a haze of pleasure and passion.
Wrapped around each other in a tangle of bare limbs, Harley and Ivy shared a brief moment of contentment in a life filled with danger, turmoil and hatred. Harley nuzzled more snugly against Pam's breast as the redhead stroked Harley's blond hair.
"Harley?"
"Mnhm?" She sounded on the verge of drifting off to sleep.
"Will you stay with me?" A note of anxiety tinged her words.
Without opening her eyes, Harley smiled and squeezed Pam tightly. "Mnhm…"
Relief and excitement coursed through Pamela Isley and she planted a kiss on her new lover's brow as her gentle breathing and heartbeat lulled the girl to sleep.