Author's note: OK, so...similar to Ch. 17, this is about as close to an 'M' rated chapter as you're going to see in this story. It's...I don't know, Tinkered with it for a while to be able to get my point across without changing the rating, but "eh". Lemme know if it's too much.
You got him? Anthony typed, sending the message quickly. It was roughly a 15-minute drive to Wayne Manor, and Karen had left 25 minutes ago, so even with lag time he should be getting the response he wanted.
Bee: yep.
…he'd been hoping for a little elaboration.
How does he look?
Anthony waited, watching his screen as the bubble popped up to signify she was formulating a response.
Bee: cute.
Well that's supremely unhelpful, Anthony thought, before another text message came in.
Bee: be home soon
So he'd have to be patient. Fine. He could be patient. He'd been waiting on bated breath for the last 6 hours anyway, 15 more minutes wouldn't kill him, would it?
…it might. It actually might.
Anthony picked up the hose, checking to make sure it was set to 'shower' before beginning his rounds in the garden…for the second time that night.
He's stress gardening again.
Shouldn't he be asleep?
Perhaps we should tell Ivy…
Anthony rolled his eyes, attempting to tune them out.
If he's going to entertain us twice in one night, you'd think he'd be able to put a shirt on by the second.
…but that wouldn't be nearly as entertaining, would it?
"Honestly," Anthony scolded, even though he knew they couldn't hear him. "A man is allowed to garden whenever he prefers in whatever state of dress—or undress!—he prefers. Thank you for your unsolicited input." He shut off the water. "And if you two—that's right, you," he pointed an accusatory finger at Hyacinths and the Snapdragons. "Continue this disruptive behavior, so help me, I will replant you."
He seems angry.
I like him when he's angry.
Nope, he was done. Anthony was done. Gardening was supposed to be relaxing, he was not finding this relaxing. He turned around, heading back towards the house, passing his tree as he did—the one Barbara and Dick had gifted him before his birth that now stood tall in his yard.
He's concerned about the boy, it enlightened the others.
I don't see why, the Snapdragon replied. He's in the Sister's care.
But the sister can be reckless, the tree reminded them. Our man is kind. Our boy is gentle. The man fears his boy's innocence will be lost, like the sister's was.
The sister was never gentle to begin with, the Hyacinth argued. Our boy wants to be good, not just powerful.
Anthony sighed, deciding he'd leave them to their disagreement—which he couldn't intervene in anyway. But he did pat his tree's trunk, resting his hand there briefly before continuing inside.
He remembered how smooth that bark had felt under his fingers when it was just a sapling and he just a boy. He'd known that tree longer than he'd known Jolene. Longer than Karen. Longer than Duke…
It'd survived two replanting's and a close encounter with a lightning strike during an especially bizarre Gotham summer…and it was oddly reassuring, it being there, planted firmly in Anthony's backyard where he could see the branches out his bedroom window, where they sometimes knocked against the glass during windy nights.
Growing up, Anthony had been 'the boy'. The boy who watered it, who helped it to grow. And now it was grown, just as Anthony was. Anthony was 'the man' now, and Duke was 'the boy', and now the tree was big and strong enough for the boy to climb in its branches…the ones Anthony had helped bring to fruition with every drop of water he'd fed it.
Duke had been waiting for this night for a long time. Anthony knew that, Anthony was proud, it was just…yes, his boy was so kind, so gentle, and 10 felt…young. Young to be exposing him to that world, to those dirty streets.
Then again, Duke had been exposed to it—in one way or another—since the day he was born. It was bred into him, Anthony supposed. And the only thing he'd thought was more fantastic than Poison Ivy being his Grandmother, was Batman being his uncle—by marriage, of course, but whether Anthony liked it, whether Pam liked it, the Quinzels were now as much a part of the Bat-Family as the Waynes.
And never, not in a million years, did Anthony want to stand in the way of his son and something he loved. Duke felt this was his calling, just as Jo had, just as Damian had…he wasn't happy just sitting on the sidelines. He wanted to be in the thick of it. Wearing the suit, wielding the weapons…Anthony had long ago accepted that his son took more after Karen in that regard then he—who'd always been content cheering from the bleachers—and that was fine. Truly, it was. But Anthony would always worry. Just as he worried about Jo, just like he worried about Karen, and just as he still worried about his Mother. Yes, the immortal metahuman.
He'd just pulled a t-shirt over his head when the door opened, and Duke entered positively beaming.
…with his cheek sliced open and obvious bruising around his eye…but it was hard to notice that stuff as his grin stretched from ear to ear.
"Karen, you said he was fine!"
"No…" Karen corrected as she stepped inside, closing the door behind her. "I said he was 'cute', not 'fine'. And he is cute."
"And fine." Duke defiantly announced. "Aunt Jo let me drive the hovercraft. Best night of my life!"
"On the water?" Anthony was aghast.
"Yeah," Duke nodded excitedly. "These guys were trying to sell humans, Dad! So Aunt Jo was like 'not on my watch', and we went on this awesome boat chase, and they had guns, but we had Grandma's grenades—not the ones that kill people, the nicer ones that just paralyze them for a bit cuz Aunt Jo didn't want to accidently hurt any of the people below deck—but so when we caught up to them, Aunt Jo had to tie the boats together, so she let me drive, and she said I was really awesome at it!"
"Then what?" Karen prompted him.
"Oh! Then we put everybody in handcuffs and turned em over to Auntie Babs," Duke said with satisfaction. "And Aunt Jo said me and her make a better team than she and Uncle Damian, and that I'm the best Robin she's ever worked with."
Anthony chose not to point out that Duke was the only Robin Jo had ever worked with. Just didn't seem necessary, and Duke's enthusiasm was infectious, so he let it be. Besides that, Duke was typically a pretty reserved kid, played his cards close to his chest, so this unbridled joy they were getting to witness felt pretty special. "Does your face hurt? Looks like you didn't make it out unscathed," Anthony remarked instead.
"Carrie offered to close it up, but he said he'd rather you did it," Karen told him as she stripped her coat off. "I'll make you some celebratory pancakes, Bud. Sound good?"
Duke smiled slyly. "You think I could…get some chocolate chips in those bad boys?"
Karen laughed, kissing him on the cheek. "I think that can be arranged…" she moved forward, placing a hand on Anthony's chest and giving him a quick peck on the lips. "Would you like some pancakes too?"
"Yeah," Anthony grumbled. "Banana, please."
/
"You can't say that kinda shit," Damian hissed. "The walls are way too thin."
"You should probably shut me up, then," Jo suggested, hiking the hem of his t-shirt over his abdomen, strongly encouraging him to do the rest.
He obliged her, and she giggled as he pushed her against the wall.
"What?" Damian panted, his lips pressed to her skin, yanking her sweats down to her ankles as he kissed her neck.
"Too thin for a little dirty talk but substantial enough to shove me against?" she helped him by stepping out of the fabric. "That's some wack-ass logic."
"I'm going to take your advice now," he told her, leaning down into a heated kiss as he hoisted her up—Jo doing the rest by wrapping her legs around his waist, her hands fisting in his short hair while he walked them over to the bed.
She sat up once she'd landed on the bed, raking her nails up his back with her right hand while her left worked to pull down his briefs…at the same time as he was attempting to pull her tank top over her head. "Come on, Man! We don't have time for miscommunication!" she complained, resigning herself to his plan by finishing the job and tossing her tank top off the bed, leaving her in a sports bra that Damian slipped his hand under as—
"Mommy!"
"Goddamn it!" they cursed in unison, Damian disappointedly retracting his hand and climbing quickly under the covers, mumbling "really should have locked that" as Jo followed suit.
"Ya think?" she mocked as Delilah flung their bedroom door open.
The girl happily climbed onto the bed without hesitation, taking no issue with her parents' relative state of undress. "Mommy, look." She thrust her hand forward to show off the large diamond ring she was wearing on her finger. "Daisy and me are getting married!"
Jo wasn't quite sure how to respond. She wanted to laugh…but maybe that wasn't the right way to play this. So instead she just asked: "Am I invited to the wedding?"
"Yep!" the girl confirmed enthusiastically. "And Daddy too."
"Delilah, no," Damian said like he wasn't sure why Jo had allowed this to be entertained. "No, you can't marry your sister."
"Why not?" she demanded, her ginger curls bouncing grumpily as she took on a full-body frown before attempting to climb over Jo so that she could speak to her Father face to face.
"Whoa, whoa, hold your horses," Jo wrestled her back down beside her. "We're gonna wait a second to enter Daddy's personal space, alright? He's still a little excited."
"About what?" Delilah wondered.
"About—uh—wrestling," Jo decided. She really wasn't in the right headspace to parent. "But he's right. You can't marry your sister."
"Well—well how come?" Delilah asked—somewhere between angry and heartbroken. "Aunt Carrie's married to a girl, and so is Grandma and Nana. How come I can't be married to a girl?"
Damian was awkwardly adjusting himself below the blankets, sweat beading on his brow. "It's not the fact that she's a girl that's the problem. It's because Daisy's your sister. You can't marry your sister."
"B—but I love Daisy," she protested, tears gathering in her eyes.
"And that's great," Jo consoled her with a gentle squeeze of her arm. "I love Uncle Anthony too, but I love him in a different way than I love Daddy."
"Like how?"
"Like…I want to kiss Daddy, and hug Anthony."
Delilah wrinkled her nose. "Yuck. I don't wanna kiss anybody. Only hugs."
"Perfect," Damian clapped. "Problem solved."
"Lilah," Terry said sternly from the doorway, his arms crossed and his expression austere. "You cannot just take Kitty's pretty things. That's called stealing."
"But I wanted it!" Delilah shouted back like that was a winning argument.
Dealing with this ridiculousness on no sleep wasn't exactly ideal, Jo decided. And the fact that the kids were awake at 7am was just…when did they grow out of that? "Guys, we have a door. The door was closed. We're tired, alright? We love you, but we're tired."
"What in tarnation…?" Daisy filed in behind her brother. "Keep it down, Mommy. I cannot think with all this commotion."
"Right," Damian nodded sagely. "Because this is our fault. That makes sense."
Daisy raised an eyebrow from behind her pink glasses—all of which looked rather ridiculous on a four-year-old. "Mommy, are you frustrated?"
"In literally so many ways," Jo sighed before pulling Delilah onto her lap and tickling her mercilessly. The girl shrieked with excited laugher, wriggling until she'd slid off the bed and back onto her feet.
"Terrence, I need you to make sure your sister puts that ring back where she found it, and then you all need to get dressed for Nana's party," Damian told them, trying to exert some control over the situation.
"Nooooo!" Daisy suddenly wailed, dramatically falling to the ground. "You can't make us wear clothes!"
"I can, and I will," Damian assured her.
"Don't make us match!" Daisy pleaded from where she was…making snow angels? Sprawled out on the wooden floor.
"I just—I said get dressed!" Damian was somehow still surprised at his children's antics. "I didn't say you had to match. When have we ever made you match?"
"Can me and Lilah match, though?" Terry asked, stepping right over his sister. "Can I wear Daisy's pants?"
"Wh—," Jo looked over at Damian confusedly to find he was mirroring her expression. "Why is this a thing?" she directed her question at the kids. "Can this not be a thing?"
"I wanna wear my pajamas," Lilah decided. "And a tiara." She added. "And a cape."
"Ooh, me too!" Daisy sat up excitedly. "Lilah, let's wear our same pajamas!"
Damian pinched the bridge of his nose. "You just said you didn't want to match…"
"But that's no fair!" Terry protested. "Who will I match with?"
"How about Dad?" Jo suggested, reluctantly climbing out of bed and grabbing her sweatpants from where she'd discarded them only moments earlier.
Terry pouted. "That's no fun."
/
"OK…" Pam set the waffle down in front of Harley. "Belgian waffle with strawberries, whipped cream, and maple syrup. Shall I get you the bag of white sugar from the cabinet as well? And maybe a syringe so you can just mainline it?"
"No…but I'll take some Nutella," Harley grinned up at her.
Pam rolled her eyes, turning back around and heading towards the pantry, mumbling "you're lucky it's your birthday," as she went.
"More like I'm lucky you remembered it was my birthday!" Harley called after her before smiling broadly down at her plate. "Waffles waffles waffles, waffles waffles waffles," she sang to herself, cutting into it with her fork as Pam returned, plopping the jar of Nutella down beside her.
"Happy?" Pam prompted.
"So happy," Harley replied with a mouthful of food, chewing contentedly as she watched Pam stand above her. "You gonna sit down?" she took a drink of orange juice. "I can share my Nutella…"
Pam cleared her throat. "Wait here, please." And again, she left the table.
"Yeah, don't really have a choice, do I?" Harley noticed she was heading for the stairs this time, and watched her ascend them before taking another bite of food, humming as she chewed. Being 70 was pretty alright, she decided. I mean…somehow I'm still not all that saggy. Well not 'somehow'… let's not pretend like this marriage wasn't strategic, Harley chuckled to herself. But yeah. The first few hours of 70 hadn't been too shabby. She looked good! Felt good. And that was a surprise. 60-year-old Harley probably would have called her crazy, but it was nice. The sun was shining—even though it was September—the birds were chirping…
Harley raised an eyebrow as Pam returned and gently placed a wrapped box on the table in front of her. "For you," she said, sitting down across from her.
"I thought we'd open presents when the kids got here," Harley said.
Pam ran a nervous hand through her hair. "I'd really rather the kids didn't see this."
"Reeaallyy…" now Harley was intrigued. She snatched the box off the table and shook it next to her ear. "Is it…a strap-on?" she joked…until she noticed the blush in Pam's paled cheeks and how her gaze immediately fell to her lap.
Harley's jaw dropped. "You didn't!" she squealed almost childishly once she'd ripped the paper off.
Pam's face was buried in her hands. "You're making fun of me, aren't you."
"What?! No!" Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod. "Babe, this is like—I mean—far and away the best present ever. You actually went into the store and bought this for me?"
The redhead peaked out from between her fingers. "The clerk kept hitting on me."
"Why?" was all Harley could ask as she grinned giddily down at the thing.
"Because I'm—,"
"No, I know why she hit on you," Harley laughed. "I mean what possessed you to make this purchase? You've been pretty adamantly anti for like all 44 years of our marriage."
"Well, I…" Pam cleared her throat, needlessly adjusting her glasses. "I wasn't…umm, the concept made me uncomfortable, as you know…but I—well I knew you…"
She wasn't sure where this was going, but Harley was very much enjoying this verbal roller coaster.
"So," Pam tried again. "I'm not sure if you remember, but about 6 months after you got your legs back…"
"When we were young and fun and Scrabble wasn't our primary source of entertainment," Harley helped her out.
"Right," Pam acknowledged. "Well, you were feeling good and solid in your physicality. You'd completed your initial physical therapy and muscular rehabilitation, and you were gearing up to work with Bruce again…"
"Uh huh…" Harley sat forward, bracketing her plate by leaning her elbows on the table.
"Well, one night you went out drinking with Selina—this was back before she got sober, of course—and I was on a business trip, so you…well, you texted me. Things like how you missed me and were excited for me to come home—which I found very endearing—but then you quickly escalated into a laundry list of things you wanted to do to me upon my return…the most graphic of which had to do with pulling my hair and…well…that," she nodded towards the box in Harley's hands. "You were evidently extremely inebriated because when I came home, you made no mention of it…so I went into your phone and deleted the messages to ensure you wouldn't remember because the entire concept just sincerely stressed me out. I mean—it absolutely sounded like something I'd be interested in doing to you, but for me…I just wasn't ready to be that vulnerable and I…I want to apologize for my invasion of your privacy, but it felt necessary at the time."
Harley dropped her bottom lip from where she'd been holding it between her teeth. "So…I think what you're apologizing for is going into my phone to delete a drunk sext I sent you," she couldn't keep herself from laughing. "You know what I'm actually pissed about, though? That you can remember said drunk sext in enough detail to buy me a gift for a specific sex act I referenced 36 years ago, but cannot remember Valentine's Day is on Februrary-fucking-14th. What sort of bat-shit, compartmentalized thinking…" Harley shook her head, another swell of laughter hitting her suddenly. "So why now? You still haven't answered my question."
Pam rapped her fingers on the table for a moment before continuing. "I remember feeling disappointed with myself, that I couldn't entertain a desire of yours that was clearly so specific. And I remembered thinking that perhaps, in another life, I would have enjoyed that. Or Pamela would have enjoyed it if that power hadn't been so severely abused." She took a deep breath. "And now I feel terrible for taking this long to get comfortable with it because you—well, there are some things you just can't do anymore, so…I don't know. I'm sorry. This was the best I could do."
Harley just watched her for a moment, attempting to take all this seriously before she just couldn't anymore. "Is this the lesbian version of ED medication?"
Pam smirked. "I suppose…although I'm really not sure how enjoyable it will be for you."
"Plenty—," Harley coughed after trying to force too many words out of her mouth at once. "Plenty enjoyable. Can we cancel the party?"
/
"Were you scared?" Terry asked, his eyes wide.
"Pfft, no way," Duke assured him as he lounged against a tree, a pair of sunglasses (unnecessarily) shading his eyes. "There's no time to be scared. It's do or die, that's all there is to it."
"Did Mommy help protect you?" Terry wondered, sitting forward on his knees, hanging on every word.
Duke shrugged casually. "We're a team. We gotta help each other."
Carrie snickered as she listened in on the conversation from the picnic table a few yards away.
"What?" Anthony asked, picking the candied walnuts and blue cheese out of his salad and transferring them to Karen's plate.
"Your son's a goddamn hero, is all," Carrie teased, taking a bite of her hotdog. "I don't know what Jo would do without 'im."
Anthony stared her down. "You think you could eat that hotdog a little less salaciously? It's confusing me."
"She's not eating that hotdog for you, Bro," Courtney informed him as she plopped down on the seat next to Carrie, kissing her on the cheek. "No mayo, can you believe it?"
Karen raised an eyebrow, popping a walnut into her mouth. "What on your plate requires mayonnaise?"
Courtney looked deeply offended. "Umm, I think you mean what on this plate doesn't require mayo."
"She's from the mid-west, guys," Carrie explained. "It makes sense to her. But because we're not insane, Babe," she meaningfully took Courtney's hand, looking her in the eye. "We just can't support it."
Courtney snorted at that, pulling her hand away and shaking her head. "You guys are nuts."
"Jolene!" Damian shouted, clearly upset the plate of food he'd made her was getting cold. "Stop terrorizing the children and come eat."
"Terrorizing implies they're not asking for it!" Jo called back from where she was spinning in circles with Delilah tossed over her shoulder.
"What?" Pam spoke up from where she was sitting with Selina, Bruce, Barbara, Dick and Harley at the other end of the table. "Nowhere in the definition of terrorize does it make that a stipulation. Perhaps you meant it implies they're not enjoying it?"
"Hey, I know this sounds crazy, but what if you—like—weren't a nerd for two seconds?" Jo mocked, slowing to a stop, Delilah's beaming grin now visible.
"No! Mommy, don't stop!" she complained, pounding on Jo's back with closed fists. "Go again! Go again!"
"Sorry, Kiddo," Jo sighed, lowering the girl back to her feet. "Hoes gotta eat too."
"What's a—,"
"Hey there, Delilah!" Harley interrupted her question…and Pam's eye roll was so exaggerated Anthony was afraid, for a moment, her eyes might get stuck. "Comere and show Nana the present you got me."
That distracted her for long enough to allow Jo to slip away, jogging over towards the seat Damian had saved for her. Her mouth was full of food before she even sat down.
"Hey, aren't we supposed to have three?" Damian asked, realizing one of their children wasn't accounted for. "Where's Daisy?"
"Umm…" Jo twisted around, scanning the yard, but came up empty. "Hey, Mom," she leaned forward so that her view of Pam was unobstructed. "Daisy? Any idea where she wandered off to?"
"She fell asleep out here, so I moved her onto the couch," Pam told her before resuming her conversation with Dick.
"Should we be worried about how much that kid sleeps?" Damian wondered.
"No," Jo answered quickly. "Please, it's a blessing, don't ruin it. Now, Anthony, I'm so glad you're here. There's a pressing matter we need to discuss."
Anthony narrowed his eyes. "You're…so glad I'm here…at our Mother's birthday party?"
"Whatever she wants to talk to you about, it's going to be weird," Karen warned, chewing slowly on another walnut.
"Anthony," Jo sighed. "Look, Man. We need zippers."
"Zippers?"
"Damian and I need zippers in our suits because we keep getting cock blocked at home and it's putting a strain on our marriage," Jo elaborated.
"OK, well, I don't know about a 'strain'…" Damian corrected Jo's exaggeration. "But yeah, it's the worst. Turns out getting to sleep with her was like 40% of the reason I married her."
"60 for me," Jo told them. "60 easy. 70-75, some days."
"Wh—no!" Anthony couldn't believe this was an actual question. "No, I'm not—I'm not helping Batman get laid while he's on the job."
"Then don't think about it that way," Damian prefaced. "Think about it like you're helping your Brother-in-law get laid."
"Yeah, by my sister!"
"Come onnnnn," Jo whined. "Plllleeeeaaassse."
Anthony just shook his head, refusing to look his sister in the eye for even another moment. "I can believe Mom let you have children."
Seeing that her request was falling on deaf ears, Jo tried the other person that could be of service. "Karen, K-Dawg, K-Money, K…fuck, I don't know. Help us out. Be a friend."
"No," Karen was laughing. "Getting cock blocked by your kids is a natural part of life. If it were an Olympic sport, Duke would have won the gold medal."
"God, seriously," Anthony agreed under his breath.
"Before you even ask," Harley piped up from the head of the table...where she had evidently been listening. "The answer is yes. All the fucking time."
"Could be worse," Selina joined in. "They could refer to Jo as 'the floozy' and call you 'disgusting' every time you try to show her physical affection."
A look of guilt flashed across Damian's face and his eyes fell to his plate.
Selina gasped. "So he does have some shame."
"Helps to not have someone you feel a natural allegiance to whispering lies in your ear," Harley pointed out.
"Here, hold on," Selina stood up from the table, reaching into her back pocket and producing her credit card sleeve. "Do you take card, Dr. Quinzel? Figured I'd just pay for the whole hour if you've got more wisdom to dispense."
"Debit only," Harley deadpanned, watching as Delilah climbed onto Pam's lap.
"Grandma, there is enough food for you to have some," the girl assured her, casually lifting Bruce's burger patty out of its bun and taking a bite like it'd been intended for her all along. "We can share this meats," she suggested.
"Meat, singular, darling," Pam corrected, pressing a kiss to the girl's temple. "And that's very kind, but unnecessary I'm afraid. I already ate."
"Because of the sunshine?" Delilah asked, running greasy fingers up Pam's green arm.
Pam cringed and Barbara silently handed her a napkin, holding in a laugh at the obvious nausea that had overtaken Pam at the feeling of animal fat on her skin.
"Yes, that's right," she mumbled, tossing the used napkin onto the table.
"How come you don't have a birthday, Grandma?" was the girl's next question.
"Oh, well, I do," Pam attempted to explain, grabbing the plate Harley was handing her and holding it under the dripping burger patty in hopes of saving her white dress. "I just choose not to celebrate it."
"Are you as big as Mommy is?" Delilah wondered.
Pam sat the girl up straighter, hoping to make their positions more comfortable for the both of them. "We're about the same height, yes,"
"No, in oldness," she corrected, taking another bite of the patty and sending Bruce groaning up to his feet at the realization he wasn't getting it back.
"Lilah," Harley took over for her. "Your Mommy was our baby. Me and Grandma's. We used to hold her on our laps when she was as little as you."
Delilah looked confused. "But—Mommy's not little, she is big. And grandma is big, and Nana and Kitty and Grandpa are bigger. Did you…" she furrowed her brow, her almost gray blue eyes squinting. "Did you hold Grandma too?"
"No," Bruce said as he sat back down, watching his granddaughter closely as he closed the bun on his new burger and raised it to his mouth. "Grandma is magic. She hasn't been little in a very long time. She's been the same—umm—bigness," he attempted to use her vocabulary. "Since before your Nana was even born."
"So then how big is she?!" the girl demanded, setting the greasy patty angrily down on the plate Pam was still holding for her.
"You familiar with Jesus Christ?" Selina asked.
"I am!" Terry shouted excitedly from behind them.
"Great, well, he was your Grandma's lab partner back in high school."
Pam rolled her eyes, both at the comment and at how amused Harley was by it. "I am 108 years old," Pam told her, evidently the only one at the table still taking it seriously.
Delilah's eyes widened. "That's…so big. So then…how come you look as little as Mommy?"
"Magic," Bruce reiterated.
"Yeah," Pam smiled-though it was tinged with a bit of sadness. "Magic."
/
"Daisy was so bummed she missed the party," Harley lamented before Pam's lips moved against hers in another heady, languorous kiss. "We should have woken her up for cake."
"I sent her with a slice," Pam consoled her, moving her lips down to the hollow of Harley's throat before running a hot tongue back up her neck, interspersing it with wet kisses along the way, and eventually tugging gently at her earlobe with her teeth.
"Oh, that's good," Harley sighed contentedly—referring to the cake, but definitely the other thing too—watching as Pam pulled the oversized t-shirt she wore to bed over her own head, setting it down gently beside them. Harley was powerless against the grin that spread over her face and Pam took notice, sitting back on her heels.
"I think you might be enjoying this a little too much."
Harley giggled, "I think I'm enjoying it the exact right amount," she placed a hand on Pam's waist to pull her closer. "If you had any idea how many ab workouts I did for you…" she mused. "How many hip thrusts…"
Pam chuckled, engaging them in another slow kiss. "I think we utilized those abilities just fine without the toy."
Harley smiled, brushing Pam's hair back away from her face. "You know you don't have to do this for me, right, Pam-a-lamb? Really, I mean, it's an awesome sentiment, but I'll survive…I think."
"Mmm…but don't you want to see how far I've come, Dr. Quinzel?" Ivy teased, sliding down and pressing a kiss to Harley's abdomen, just above the region where she no longer had feeling. "Aren't you curious?" she swirled her tongue around the tip of the plastic that stood upright between Harley's legs.
"Y—yes," Harley choked, sweat beading on her brow at the sight. "F—fer science."
Pam smirked, dragging her chest deliberately up Harley's body until she was hovering just above her lips.
"You're perfect, you know that?" Harley breathed.
"So I've been told," Pam murmured, her delivery almost…sadistic as she teasingly brushed her lips against Harley's, pulling back when her wife attempted to angle for more.
Harley whimpered, perhaps the most aroused she'd been in the 10 years since she'd lost her legs again. She ran her hands over Pam's taut stomach, moving to her hips to gently guide her downward.
It was eerie, her green skin in the moonlight, the ridges of the vines just below the surface casting shadows like tree branches across the otherwise smooth expanse. Her long red hair cascaded untethered down her bare back, and her eyes glowed—verdant and unworldly—in the darkened bedroom, their focus fixed intently on Harley.
Ivy.
Harley suddenly felt the pressure of tears mounting behind her eyes. She hadn't…seen Ivy. In a long time, she hadn't seen her. Not like this.
Ivy was the one who'd insulted her. The one who'd gotten her shot. The one with the angry, warning hand around her throat. The coping mechanism. The monster that lived within, teaming like her vines just below the surface of her poisonous skin. She'd been a thing for Harley to marvel at and then throw away, to discard for the opportunity to put Pamela back in the driver's seat.
A statue to crack. A shell to break.
An illness. Something other. Something for the world to see but to cover up at home.
Harleen couldn't imagine Ivy would ever want to be with her, not after everything she'd done to Pamela. Not after she'd hurt her. Betrayed her trust.
…but here she was.
This was—this was it. Ivy was here, Ivy was…vulnerable. Ivy was hers.
Ivy was her patient, Pamela was her wife…but in this moment, she was all in one. She was everything.
"Ivy," Harley whispered between the other woman's soft moans. "Ivy."
Slowing her rhythm, Ivy leaned down over her, capturing her lips in a searing kiss. "Yes?" she panted, her eyes closing.
Harley smiled up at her, running her hands down her back to cup her rear, encouraging her to keep her pace. "I love you, Poison Ivy."
Despite Harley's insistence, Ivy slowed to a more methodical rhythm, slowly opening one eye and then the other as she smirked. "The best Doctor I've ever had," she simpered playfully.
Harley trailed her hands lovingly up her back, tracing the patterns of the vines best she could. "And you're the best birthday present."