"Damian!" Selina shouted from where she sat on the park bench to where Bruce's son was perched atop the play structure. "You have to keep your hands to yourself, dude. We don't hit our friends."
"You're not my mom!" He shouted back.
"Charming," Selina rolled her eyes, turning her attention back to Harleen. "Either I kill him, or he's going to lead me to drink again, I swear to God."
Harleen took a sip of her coffee. "I'm not sure murder is the best solution…"
"Then what do you suggest?" The brunette asked, tossing her now empty to-go cup into the trash can a few feet away.
"Umm…parenting?" Harleen suggested.
"I'm sorry, did you not just hear him?" Selina asked. "Hey, Damian!" she called back over to the boy. "Who's your mom?"
"Not you!" was his immediate reply.
Harleen tried not to laugh, but… "Just be the adult, Selina. Whether he likes it or not, he lives in your house."
The brunette scoffed in response. "What an adorable notion. And anyway, Mother of The Year, where's your kid?"
Harley's first survey of the playground was calm, but when she couldn't locate her son, she shot up to her feet. "Anthony?"
Selina stood up too, but not quite as aggressively. "Damian, where's Anthony?"
Silently, Damian pointed across the park to the tree line just before the road.
"Harleen," Selina got her attention. "One: he's over there. And two: I'm pretty sure people who need wheelchairs don't just stand up."
Horrified, the blonde glanced downwards and found that she was, indeed, standing, her wheelchair a few feet behind her. It was too late to fix that now, so she started at a sprint over to where Anthony was standing alone, watching the cars pass by through the trees.
Harleen grabbed him by the arm, spinning him around and finding his face was soaked with tears. Her nervous anger instantly gave way to concern and she knelt down in front of him. "What are you doing over here?"
His bottom lip quivered. "They said to come play."
"Who did?" the worry was evident in Harley's voice.
"The…" Anthony, now 3 years old, was having a difficult time articulating his answer. "The...the inside guys," he tapped his head with his palm, and then did it again, harder this time. And again and again before Harleen grabbed his arm once more and stopped him from taking another swing.
"Honey, no…don't do that," Harleen urged, gently massaging his arms where she gripped him.
"They said they needed my help, Mama. They said somebody was being mean," Anthony stared down at his shoes.
"Ant," Harleen began, putting her hand under his chin and lifting his eyes up to meet hers. "Do these 'inside guys' sound like Mom? Do you hear them out here," she tapped her ear, "or in here?" she moved to her temple.
Hesitantly, he reached out and gently poked her temple.
"OK…" Harleen nodded slowly. "So you know how sometimes Mom talks to you in your head? Does it sound like that?"
"But it's not Mom!" Anthony began to cry in earnest again.
"Shh…it's OK, Bud," Harleen stood up and lifted him off the ground, holding him to her hip as she drew her phone out of her pocket. She called Pam 5 times and each one went to voicemail. She must be in a meeting.
/
"And we're sure the headpiece is a necessary aspect of the ensemble?" Poison Ivy questioned.
Batman nodded. "Unless you're familiar with the engineering of extraterrestrial explosives…"
Ivy grimaced as she loaded the camera and helmet onto her head and fastened the straps. "Happy?"
"Very much so," Hal Jordan chuckled.
Ivy decided to ignore the Lantern, as he really wasn't even worthy of her attention, so she instead directed her question at Batman. "Remind me why I'm doing this again?"
"We don't have time to bring in the hazmats," Batman told her as he booted up the live stream so he could see through the camera Ivy was wearing.
"Fine," Ivy smoothed her hands down her body suit, adjusting her gloves for no other reason than to dispel with any nervous energy before Batman could detect it in her. "Let's go, I don't have all day."
Green Lantern deposited her about 50 feet from the device. The area had already been cleared, so there weren't any civilians, just abandoned storefronts.
"Do you have any idea how much healthier the planet would be if it actually looked like this?" Ivy asked as she approached.
"23%, Ivy," Batman reminded her through her earpiece. "Emissions are down 23% and we didn't have to kill anybody."
"Well, sure, if you'd rather settle for mediocrity…" Ivy stopped a few steps short of where the explosive was strapped to the side of a building. "Can you see it?"
"Yes," Batman confirmed. "Give us a second."
Ivy sighed, crossing her arms and making sure the camera stayed pointed at the target. A few minutes of silence passed. "Have you at least determined the planetary origin?"
"…Patience," Batman intoned.
Poison Ivy took a step forward, hoping to get a better look at it herself, but as she did, the display changed colors, from neon green to red. "Any idea what that means?" she asked.
"Pamela, back up!"
She felt her head slam back against something hard before she could react. With a groan of pain, she realized she was on the ground and that her vision was glazed over.
"Ivy!"
She shook her head, trying to do away with some of the mental fog the blow had caused, but soon realized that not all of it was in her head. There was actual smoke rising from her body. She was covered in a green gelatinous substance that was rapidly dissolving her suit.
"What is it?" Batman asked, watching from the first person view as it ate away at the fabric on Ivy's body.
"I'm not sure…" Ivy attempted to focus. "An enzyme of some sort."
"Are you immune?"
"Yes, evidently. But this suit isn't, so you're going to have to cut the live feed."
/
"Harl!" Pam greeted as she closed the front door behind her. "I think I've compiled a definitive ranking for the Lanterns."
Silence.
Pam frowned, checking her watch and setting her keys down in the bowl.
"Harleen?" she tried again, walking into the living room to find she and Anthony asleep on the couch, Harley's arm pulled tight around him. Toys were strewn around the room…Ivy almost had a heart attack when she saw a potted plant knocked over on its side. "Harleen," she repeated, in a harsh whisper this time.
The blonde slowly opened her eyes. "Hey…" she said, groggily. "You didn't answer your phone."
"I left it here this morning since I wasn't going into the office," Pam explained.
"Oh," Harley sat up slowly, careful not to wake Anthony. "What the heck are you wearing?"
"What?" Pam looked down at her pink crop-top and jean shorts. "Oh, right…It's been an interesting day. Don't worry about it."
"Yeah, we had an interesting day too…" Harley rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. "We went to the park with Damian and Selina, and then Anthony proceeded to throw basically a day-long tantrum."
That didn't sound like Anthony. He was usually a pretty mild-mannered kid. Pam gently brushed the bangs back off his forehead and saw that his face was, indeed, red and puffy from tears.
"He said he was hearing voices, Pam," Harleen continued. "And…I don't know…what if it's my kind of voices and not yours?"
Pam shook her head, combing her fingers through his hair. "I don't think you have to worry about that, Harl."
"What makes you so sure?" The blonde wanted to know.
"The problem is, his connection to the green isn't strong enough for him to respond to their cries," Pam explained. "He hears their suffering, but he is powerless against what's ailing them."
She began to gently shake him awake before Harley could protest.
"Mom? Are you home?" Anthony asked, his eyes still closed.
Pam smiled, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek. "I am, and I need you to come somewhere with me."
He was fully awake now, gazing up at her. "OK."
Harley looked questioningly at Pam as she helped Anthony off of the couch and followed as Pam picked him up and exited through the back door, walking across the yard.
With a wave of her hand, Pam directed a vine on the other side of the greenhouse door to unlatch it for them.
"Mom…I don't wanna be in here…" Anthony complained, wrapping his arms tighter around her neck and hiding his face against her shoulder. "It's too loud."
A chill ran up Harleen's spine, but Pam's expression remained the same as she nodded sagely. "Anthony, what's your favorite room in the house?"
"My room," his words were muffled against his mother's skin.
"Why?" Pam asked
"Cuz all my toys live there," he told her.
Pam smiled. "Well…this is my favorite room because all my friends live here and they always have a lot to say."
Anthony detached himself slightly, clearly confused. "Who are your friends?"
"Do you know what this is?" Pam asked him, referring to a large blossom pinker than her shirt.
He looked. "Flower."
Pam laughed. "That's right, but do you know what kind of flower?"
"Flower," Anthony repeated like she hadn't heard him correctly the first time.
Pam grinned, looking over her shoulder at Harleen. "He's so sure I almost want that to be the complete answer." Harley giggled and Pam turned her attention back to the task at hand. "It's a chrysanthemum. Can you say chrysanthemum?"
Anthony shook his head.
"You're not even going to try?" Harley asked.
He shook his head again, his bottom lip pouting in trademark Quinzel style.
"Well…" Pam pulled them back on track, forfeiting that particular battle for now. "All of these flowers in here, all of my friends, have a lot to say, but, unfortunately, not many people can hear them."
"How come?" Anthony asked.
Pam shrugged. "You have to be very special."
Anthony furrowed his brow. "Are the flowers the inside guys?"
Confused, Pam looked to Harley for confirmation. She nodded, so Pam told him "yes."
"Can you hear them?" The boy asked.
"I can."
"Can Mama hear them?"
Harley came to stand next to him, taking his hand in hers and shaking her head. "I'm not special enough. Just you and Mom."
Tears began to well up in his eyes again. "No, Mama, you are special!"
"I know that, Kiddo." His distress was so adorable Harleen had to fight the urge to take a picture. "I'm just special in different ways. Mom's plants don't like me all that much."
"They like you just fine," Pam guaranteed.
Anthony mulled that over for a moment. "But why are your friends always sad?"
"Are the friends in here sad?" Pam asked.
Anthony closed his eyes to listen. They weren't crying like the others. They were singing.
"See? Flowers are just like people. Sometimes they're sad, sometimes they're happy.," his mother's voice wove its way into his head.
"But—but then why were they hurting?" Anthony asked.
Pam sighed, leaning in to rest her forehead against his. "Because humans can be cruel, Sweetpea."
"But you don't have to be scared," Harley assured him, placing her hand on his back. "That's our job, OK?"
30 minutes later, after two read-throughs of The Giving Tree, Harleen had him tucked into bed. Pam was changing into a nightshirt when the blonde joined her in their bedroom.
"Oh, I don't fucking think so," Harley said, stopping her before she could get the crop-top all the way over her head. "You owe me an explanation for that craziness," she indicted Pamela's fashion statement.
"There was an accident today," Pam told her, a bit of annoyance in her tone as she let the fabric fall back into place. "My suit did not take kindly to a foreign substance, and so my suit is no more."
"But that suit has been around longer than our marriage!" Harleen was clearly upset.
Pam raised an eyebrow. "Umm…the extraterrestrial enzyme was exceedingly apologetic?"
"Well, good! It should be," Harleen huffed, plopping down on the bed. "But my question is about the California beach babe aesthetic."
"Kara was the only woman with a change of clothes at The Watchtower," Pam explained. "Kara is, by all accounts, a California beach babe."
A wide smile spread over Harleen's face then, which Pamela took to mean she was now permitted to change.
"Wait a minute, Supergirl…" Harley grinned, walking on her knees to the foot of the bed and looping her fingers into the waistband of Pam's shorts, pulling her closer. "I've never had a Kyptonian before…"
"Well," Pamela leaned in, whispering lasciviously: "Since I'm not a Kryptonian, I don't see that changing tonight."
Harley pushed her away, "Boo, Pam. You're no fun."
The redhead sighed affectionately. "Harleen…would you like to wear an alien's jean shorts?"
"Oh thank God!" Harley immediately snapped out of her pout. "I thought you'd never ask." She roughly unbuttoned them, stripping the garment off of Pam's legs in record time. "It just makes more sense with the hair and all that."
"Mhm…sure…" Pamela wasn't opposed to humoring her.
Harley looked up expectantly. "I'm going to need the shirt, too."