Harley and Ivy: Chapter 5
The door opened and Johnny came in. The first sight to greet him was Harley standing there with her shirt hanging open. Now Harley was slightly shorter than most women and it has been said that without her makeup she looks somewhat like an innocent little girl but one thing was for sure. Harley was a very well endowed woman. Johnny took one look and then blushing madly he forced his eyes up to stare several feet above Harley. Quickly he removed the white lab coat he had been wearing. He had put it on when Doctor Krantz assigned him to work with him for the rest of the day to help differentiate him from the other guards in Arkham. Quickly he handed the coat over to Harley to cover herself and looked away as the young woman slipped into the coat.
"Okay." Ivy thought to herself. "When Harley and I escape from Arkham, I've got to make sure that Johnny here doesn't get killed. He's been nothing but a gentleman to Harley so that's the least I can do." Ivy was a little surprised that she cared at all but chalked it up to Harley's blood in her making her care.
"What's happened?" Johnny asked in confusion. Looking around he spied Dr. Krantz dead body at his desk. Leaping back slightly from Harley he reached behind him and pulled out a stun gun. "Harley." He said sadly. "Why? The doctor only wanted to help you!"
"Whoa! Whoa! It wasn't us Whistler! I promise! You got to believe me! While me and Ivy were having the blood transfer thingy going, the nurse killed the doc!" Harley replied raising her hands defensively.
"And why would the nurse do something like that?" Johnny said unbelievingly.
"She was on the Joker's payroll. He paid her to kill Harley as soon as she got a chance." Ivy replied drawing Johnny's attention to her. Johnny couldn't help but notice that her shirt was hanging open as well. Once again Johnny forced himself to look at Ivy in the eyes.
Harley suddenly did a spinning side kick and knocked the stun gun out of his hands straight into Ivy's open hands. Johnny wasted no time and spun around to make a run for the door but was stopped as Harley grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him farther into the room and got to the door first and slammed and locked it in one fluid motion. Ivy tossed the stun gun back to Harley and made her way towards Johnny.
"Don't hurt him Red. He's really a nice guy."
Ivy shot a suspicious glance at Harley but then said. "I'm not going to hurt him… If he stays smart and doesn't do anything stupid." As she passed the rose mound she reached out and broke a portion of the vine off. The vine shifted and twisted in her hands as if it was a living snake. Harley could see the wicked looking thorns on it pulled back into the vine until it looked nothing more than a green piece of rope.
Johnny having looked over at the mound as Ivy got her vine from it could see the dead nurse's withered hand stuck out from it. He turned white as Ivy approached him with the piece of vine in her hand.
"Calm down Johnny. I told you that I'm not going to harm you and I wouldn't lie about that. Now turn around and place your hands behind your back." Ivy instructed him. She could see in his eyes that he was thinking of making a fight for it.
"Please Whistler." Harley begged him. "Just let her tie you up."
Johnny sighed. He knew he was no match for Poison Ivy. The fact that Ivy wasn't up to full strength from her body processing Harley's blood and at the moment they were actually evenly matched was unknown to him. Finally he turned around and placed his hands behind his back.
Ivy placed the vine on the back of Johnny's wrist and mentally commanded it. The vine promptly twisted around and around both of Johnny's wrists making living plant handcuffs.
"We need a way out of her Johnny. What would you do if you were us?" Ivy asked him conversationally as she turned him around and lowered him down to sit on the floor of the room.
"I would turn myself in and explain what happened in this room." Johnny stated sullenly.
Ivy looked at him and then laughed. "Don't become a criminal Johnny. You wouldn't last a day."
"Hey Ivy?" Harley called out.
Ivy turning noticed that Harley was pulling at and looking at the identity badge that was pinned to the lab coat. "These things have magnetic strips on them. That must mean they are used to open the security doors. What if we just use Johnny's card to go out the staff's entrance to Arkham?"
"Surely it can't be that easy?" Ivy thought to herself. "If it was that easy, surely one of the other inmates of Arkham would have done it before now."
"We would need his pass code to use in addition to the card." Was all she said to Harley.
"Whistler? Won't you tell us your code?" Harley said bending over to talk to him.
Johnny turned his head to keep from staring as the stolen lab coat Harley was wearing flared open exposing her breasts again. "No." Was all he said in response.
"Damn it Johnny! Don't make me force you to tell us! I promised I wouldn't hurt you but we need to get out of here! Do you want to see Harley killed by the Joker? You know that is going to happen if she doesn't get away from him!" Ivy raged at the man.
"I won't help you use my card!" Johnny seemingly defiant said back. "I won't help you use the front of it or the BACK of it either."
Harley frowned at the strange way he had answered and unpinning the card from the lab coat she turned it around and looked on the back of it. Carefully written on the back of the plastic card in pen was a series of numbers.
"Thank you Johnny." She said using his real first name for the first time and then she kissed him on the forehead. She showed Ivy the code numbers written on the back of the card and then going to a med cabinet she got a needle and a vial of clear liquid.
"What are you going to do?" Ivy asked her in surprise.
"I'm going to knock Johnny here out so there won't be in question of whether he helped us or not. I don't want him to get fired for doing the noble thing and saving us." Harley replied as she filled the needle.
"Are you sure you know what you are doing?" Ivy asked watching.
"You are forgetting Red. Once long ago I used to work here as a head shrinker myself. This is just a simple tranquilizer. Johnny is going to go to sleep and be none the worse for wear when he wakes up. Oh by the way, Johnny? What kind of car do you drive?"
"A beat up old Ford. Why? Oh not my car too?" Johnny asked as Harley fished in his pants' pockets and pulled his car keys out.
As Harley injected the fluid into his arm she smiled apologetically. "Sorry. It's not like me and Red can call for a cab to pick us up outside Arkham's gates you know. We'll try to leave your car somewhere they can recover it though, I promise."
Ivy went over to the dead doctor's body and carefully she peeled his lab coat off as well. Placing the coat on, she checked the identity card on his coat and noticed that he hadn't written his access code on his card. "Oh well, we'll just have to hope that Johnny's card can get us all the way out to the staff's parking area." She thought to herself.
In retrospect, the escape was so easy it had been almost boring. Ivy had snagged a few more rose vines to use as weapons if they had been challenged but here hadn't been anyone to challenge them at all. The Infirmary was very close to the staff only areas so a short walk down a corridor got them to the first door. Sliding the card and typing the numbers on the back of it opened the door easily. There were many doors and checkpoints but they didn't run into any staff because it was dinner time at Arkham and the checkpoints were empty as all of the staff was busy getting the inmates back to their cells and feeding them.
Reaching the last door in the staff area and swiping the card one more time opened the door to the staff parking area just as the sun was starting to set. Ivy had been a little worried they would have to waste valuable time searching for Johhny's car. She needn't have worried on that issue either. All the cars in the staff parking lot were new cars, except for Johnny's.
"As if I needed any more proof that Johnny is one of the few honest people working in Arkham. How else could the rest of these people afford such new cars on the salaries they get working here?" Ivy thought in disgust to herself.
Harley climbed into the driver's side and Ivy with a shrug allowed her. Ivy knew how to drive of course but cars made pollution and pollution kills plants so she avoided using them when she could. If Harley wanted to drive, Ivy was willing to let her.
As they neared the huge iron gates that lead out of the back of Arkham, Ivy readied several of her vines. Harley noticed nervously that the vines were sporting extra long deadly looking thorns.
"Red? Let me handle this. It would be best if we made a quiet escape." Harley said nervously as she pulled up to guard station beside the gate. Taking Johnny's card she stuck her arm out of the car and held it up to the camera.
The guard inside the bullet proof guard booth glanced away from a TV playing an old black and white movie, glanced at his security monitor and hit the gate opener and went back to his movie.
Harley blinked several times as the massive gates slowly opened and looked over at equally stunned Ivy. "Wow. Arkham has really gotten lax lately. It's no wonder the crazies escape so often." She commented as she started the car and drove out of Arkham and headed towards Gotham City.
They drove for many miles, always going down little used side streets or back alleys when they could. Ivy idly wondered where Harley was going but still being so tired from the blood transfusion she allowed the younger woman to take the lead for now.
Feeling the car pull to a halt Ivy's head jerked up as she had almost dozed off.
Looking around she realized they were in the nearly empty warehouse and storage district of old Gotham.
Harley had pulled into an empty grassy lot. A lone light post with a buzzing blinking light was the only thing to shed any light in the darkness.
"We need to go from here by foot Red." Harley said as she turned off the car's ignition and turned to look at Ivy.
"Where are we going?" Ivy asked.
"To one of Mr. J's, er, I mean The Joker's hideaways. This lab coat is just not doing it for me and I want to get some of my old clothing. Once I pick up my stuff from there we can go to one of your hideouts."
Ivy frowned. She could understand why Harley would want to change out of the white lab coat which kind of stood out in the dark but she wasn't thrilled with her going back to wearing her old harlequin costume. Having no better suggestions and being exhausted, she shrugged. "Sounds good to me I guess."
As they left the empty lot they heard a barely audible rustling noise with a few unmistakable air wrench noises. Slowly turning back, they looked at the car illuminated by the one street light in the middle of the bare lot.
The car was now up on blocks, missing its wheels… And its doors and if Ivy was to hazard a guess she imagined most of its interior including the car seats. There was no one in sight around the car or any signs of where the stolen car parts had gone.
"Damn, they're good." Ivy said in respect to the gang that was obviously in the area.
"Aww." Harley whined slightly. "I promised Johnny I would leave his car somewhere they could recover it from. There is hardly anything left of it now."
Ivy shrugged. "Oh well. Arkham's insurance should have to pay for it. He lost it while at work and it was work related. Maybe if he is smart for once in his life he'll tell them it was in a lot better condition than it was and Arkham will buy him a better car than that piece of crap was."
Harley's downcast expression lightened. "Yeah. It would be nice if Johnny got something out of helping us."
"Yeah I guess." Ivy replied in an offhand way. "Now let's get out of sight before that gang decides to 'strip' something else other than the car."