Harley and Ivy: Chapter 6
Harley led Ivy through grimy back alleys and industrial areas before finally leading her into the abandoned Gotham Lucky Ace Playing Card warehouse. Ivy could barely see in the gloom of the night a large billboard over the building that showed a hand holding a handful of cards, in which Aces and eights and one joker card showed.
Entering the dark warehouse Ivy almost thought that Harley had made some kind of mistake. The vast empty warehouse was, well just that, empty.
Reaching the middle of the warehouse Harley fished around in the dust on the floor and finding a ring tugged open a concealed metal plate. Ushering Ivy down in the dark hole in the floor she waited till she had climbed in behind her and pulled the plate back over them. Plunged into a dark pit in the ground Ivy was just starting to feel uncomfortable when Harley clicked a unseen switch inset to the wall of the staircase they were in. Lights near the steps in the stairwell came on and Ivy could see the stairs continued downward.
Finally reaching another metal door, Harley rapidly typed a code on a keypad beside the door and after a moment the door slowly creaked open.
"We're home." Harley said with a smile as she clicked on the lights.
As they entered the Joker's secret lair, Ivy could see a large square room with two other doors leading off in different directions. The walls were painted in various shades of orange, green and purple. There were chairs upholstered in bright, and Ivy thought to herself gaudy purple vinyl. Hanging on one wall was a massive oil painting of the Joker holding a severed batman cowled head. At the Joker's feet lies Harley. Ivy was sure the impression was suppose to have been of Harley lying at the Joker's feet looking sexy but the thing she couldn't help but notice was that the Joker in the painting had one of his feet firmly planted on top of the prone Harley. To Ivy it looked like the Joker was using her as a literal doormat.
She glanced over at Harley to see if she would look at her ex-puddin's image in the painting but Harley ignored the giant painting and immediately went over to one of the doors in the room.
"I'll be right out Red. Make yourself comfortable."
Ivy with distaste looked at the gaudy furniture and even though tired, she refrained from sitting in them. Within a few moments she heard the door open and looked over. Harley was now once again dressed in her familiar black and red harlequin costume. Ivy was at least grateful that the woman had left the horrible white face makeup off. She did have the hood of the costume with its jester's tassels on covering her blond hair though causing ivy to frown at her.
"I know Red, I know. The costume reminds you of… Him. But I have nothing else to wear. It'll have to do at least for now."
"The costume does have one redeeming feature." Ivy said as she slowly walked over to Harley.
"What?"
"It is oh so skin tight." Ivy grinned as she rested one of her hands on Harley's hip and slowly slid it up her side. "I can't see any visible bra or panty lines under it either." She purred.
Harley began to blush and look slightly nervous. Suddenly her eyes widened. "The babies! I forgot about the babies!" She yelled as she raced over to the other as yet unopened door of the room.
"Babies! What babies?" Ivy asked in confusion.
Harley jerked the door open and clicked on the lights in the other room. "Babies! Momma is home…" Ivy watching saw Harley freeze in the doorway and wondered why she suddenly trailed off.
"Harley? What's wrong?" She asked as she crossed the room to look over Harley's shoulder into the other room.
Several bright spotlights had been trained to shine on something hanging in the middle of the room. As Ivy cocked her head, she could see two dark reddish masses hanging from chains. Below the objects was a mass of what looked like bloodied dark furs.
"Lou? Bud?" Harley's voice cracked and broke.
Stepping around the frozen Harley, Ivy made her way into the room and crossed over to the hanging objects. As she got closer Ivy could smell the unmistakable coppery smell of blood.
"Dogs? Skinned dogs?" She asked out loud.
"They were hyenas." Harley's voice sobbed out. "Me and Mr. J. stole them when they were just pups from the Gotham zoo. I raised them. I feed them. Mr. J had standing orders with his henchmen that when him and I got caught and sent to Arkham that they would take care of them and make sure they got fed."
Ivy spotted a white rectangle stuck to one of the bloody bodies. Reaching over she tugged it off and found it was a single piece of paper. Holding it up to the light she read out loud.
"I just want you to know how sorry I am Harley if you are reading this. The Joker used his one call when he was booked at Gotham police station and gave us a coded message to skin the hyenas alive. We drew straws and I ended up having to be the one to do it. Please don't hate me Harley. I had to. The Joker knows where my family lives. Once again. I'm sorry.
Signed Lenny."
Ivy squinting her eyes saw tiny printing on the bottom of the paper.
"I know this won't make you feel better but I didn't skin them alive but gassed them first so they wouldn't feel any pain. Don't let the Joker find out please?"
"I'm sorry Harley. I know they must have meant a lot to you." Ivy said turning to look at Harley expecting to see her crying. To her surprise Harley was clenching and unclenching her fists. With an animal like scream of rage she grabbed a long butcher knife that was sitting near the door on a table and raced back into the main foyer of the underground hideout.
"Harley? Harley what are you going to do?" Ivy yelled nervously. "Everyone in Arkham knew that Harley had a very real temper. It took a lot to make her angry but when she was, even the Joker was a little leery around her. Ivy could easily imagine Harley running all the way back to Arkham and beating on the main gates to be let in so she could kill the Joker for destroying her precious babies.
Racing to the door she saw that Harley had pulled one of the gaudy chairs up to the painting hanging on the wall and was viciously slashing the Joker's face on it.
"You rotten son of a bitch bastard!" She yelled at the painting as she slashed it. "You couldn't be happy with just planning on destroying me? You had to take it out on Lou and Bud too?"
The upper portion of the painting of the Joker was completely destroyed. The only part of the painting still left was the bottom half with Harley at his feet.
"And you! You stupid bitch! You worthless stupid bag of shit!" Harley began snarling at her own image. "How could anyone love such a stupid idiot that couldn't even see how worthless they really are?" Harley began slashing at her image with the same fervor she had attacked the Joker's image.
Ivy racing across the room grabbed Harley around her waist pinning her arms to her sides. Harley dropped the knife but kept spitting at her now destroyed image.
"Stop it Harley! Stop it! You are not worthless! You are not stupid! The Joker had this done to make you feel just this way! Don't let him win! You are better than this!" Ivy yelled into Harley's ears as she held on to her with all her might.
Eventually Harley's screams of rage and self condemnation wound down till she was sobbing and crying.
"We'll make him pay." Ivy said softly to her trying to calm her down.
"Pay. Yeah he'll pay all right." Harley finally said. As Ivy eased her grip around Harley's arms, she suddenly shrugged out of Ivy's grip and ran back into the room where the skinned hyenas were in.
"Harley? Don't go back in there." Ivy yelled in frustration as she followed her in.
Harley however didn't go to the hyenas but over to a large box made to look like a Jack in the Box. As Ivy reached her side she saw that Harley had opened a panel on the side of the box revealing a safe's combination lock.
"Stand back Ivy." Harley said to her as she worked the combination.
"Afraid I'll see the combination?" Ivy asked slightly hurt.
Harley looked over at her in surprise. "What? No. I just don't want you to get hurt by the security system. Now stand over more to the side."
Ivy moved sideways till Harley finally nodded her head. Giving the combination dial one last turn, Harley then leapt to the side herself.
The safe door opened and Ivy felt a breeze as a red blur shot past her, missing her by only a foot. She felt a reverse breeze as the red blur came back again. After a few more times, the red object wound to a stop and Ivy realized it was a giant boxing glove on a extremely high powered spring. If she had been standing directly in front of the safe, she knew the glove would have smashed every bone in her body. As the glove came to a complete stop she started to step back in front of the brightly colored Jack in the Box.
"NO!" Harley shouted and racing over grabbed Ivy to keep her from moving.
Suddenly the top of the Jack in the Box popped open and a clown with a giant mallet came out of the top on a spring. It randomly smashed at areas in front of the box, all the while mechanical laughter rang out. That too finally wound to a stop and the mallet wielding clown finally tilted drunkenly to the side. Finally Harley released Ivy from her grip and stepped over to the safe and pushed the boxing glove to the side. Reaching into the safe she pulled four big black bags out and started to fill the bags with bundles of money.
Ivy blinked at the amount of money Harley was hauling out of the box.
"This is the Joker's mad money." Harley explained as she continued to work. "It gets costly buying high powered electric joy buzzers, explosives for whoopee cushions and cyanide gum to fool your enemies."
Finally Harley was done and handed two of the bags to Ivy and took two of them herself. "Okay Red. I'm ready to go. There's nothing here for me any more."