Title: chicken soup for the closed heart
A/N: For Gotham's Most Wanted zine! I love the antics these three get into, with Selina forced into the responsible role because she's the only one of the three with some conscience.
Summary: Ivy was sick. It was a situation Selina enjoyed far more than she expected. Especially since Nurse Harley was on duty with poisonous medicine and the pinkest room they could stuff the sick patient in.
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Ivy was sick. Selina took a moment to contemplate the thought, to fully savour the situation she found herself in. Poison Ivy, Pamela Isley, one-woman army and stone-cold bitch, was sick. Sick enough to need help, to ask for help.
And the well-known misanthrope needed Selina's help.
It was hard enough to think about, let alone believe. Yet, Selina couldn't doubt the evidence in front of her. Sprawled across Harley's plush, king-sized mattress, an extremely grumpy Ivy glared at the ceiling. Her fingers tapped the blankets ceaselessly, her jaw clenched so hard Selina could have broken walnuts against it. She looked like a cantankerous alley cat. She also looked entirely out of place buried amongst Harley's infinite plushies.
How Harley had managed to force Ivy into her bedroom, Selina had no idea. The whole place looked like the residence of a punk princess, a strange hybrid of cute frills and black leather. Neither of the two vibes fit Ivy and put together they just looked even more garish.
"Ahh." Ivy breathed out harshly before forcing herself up into a seated position. Her red hair clung to her sticky skin, giving her an oddly deflated appearance. There was a reddish tint to her green skin. All in all, she looked like a sick person. A very cranky sick person. "I'm leaving."
Selina snorted inelegantly. There was the Ivy she knew and tolerated. From across the room, she gestured at the foot of the bed and raised a brow. "How? You broke your leg. And you have a fever."
Ivy fisted her hand and hit the mattress. A shark plushie fell off the bed. "The fucking hyenas broke it." Her hair had a life of its own and rose, giving her a lion-like mane. Maybe it sensed its mistress's rage. "I'll kill them."
"You'd be doing me a favour." Selina wrinkled her nose as she thought of those mangy mutts. The number of times she'd almost lost a cat to them—she should have kicked them out months ago.
"Hey!" Harley growled as she entered the room holding a tray laden with food. She was dressed as a sexy nurse, though that didn't make her glare any less intimidating as she stomped her foot. "Stop being mean to my babies!"
Selina rubbed her forehead. By now, she should be used to Harley's level of chaos and nonsense, but somehow the woman continued to surprise her. At least the soup looked decent. "Did you really need the outfit?"
Holding the tray in one hand, Harley arched her back and jutted her hip as she mimicked a pin up poster. "Of course! It's part of the care package!" She blew a kiss to Ivy. "Don't you just love it?"
Not caring a wit about the fanservice, Ivy's expression grew colder than the tundra. "Pick one of them to die or they all will."
"Neither!" Harley carefully set the soup down on her side table before turning to Ivy. She bent forward and poked her sick friend on the cheek. "I'll take good care of you in exchange."
"You'd have to do that anyways!" Ivy swatted her hand away, her scowl only increasing in intensity. "This happened because of you."
"She has a point, you know." Selina crossed her arms and leaned against the wall, more than content to just watch the show instead of participating. "We had a deal. Your hyenas are supposed to stay in the basement."
"They do!" Harley pouted, puffing her cheeks as she glanced up at Selina. "I was only taking them out for a walkie."
If Harley intended for that to be reassuring, it was the exact opposite. Selina groaned and closed her eyes. There were enough eyes on their shared residence without the hyenas as is. "Oh, so I should expect more missing pet flyers? These things are a nuisance."
"They're not things, they're family." Between the pig-tails and the pout, Harley was akin to a sulking toddler. Sometimes Selina couldn't believe that she had a degree and keen intuition. "They just get hungry sometimes but they know better than to mess with you. Or your cats."
"Oh, and is that why they tackled me?" Ivy asked, her smile as sharp as a razor blade at the slight. "Food? They think I'm weak?"
"They just bumped into you! It's not their fault you were holding poison. And it didn't just splash on you, it hit them!" Harley huffed, crossing her arms. She turned up her nose. "Maybe you should be more careful."
Ivy's voice dropped dangerously low. "Are you blaming me?"
Selina could practically feel the vines crawling through the pipes and concrete. She groaned. "Don't break the place, I just finished paying for it."
"My plants are hungry." Ivy pushed her hair out of her face, steeling herself as she tried to get up. "Maybe I should give them a snack."
Harley grabbed her shoulders and firmly pushed her down. "You're still sick and stop saying that!"
At this rate, Selina was going to get a headache. Or become homeless. It was time to step in. Slowly, she approached the struggling pair. "Harley." She rested her hand on her shoulder, squeezing it tightly. Just enough that the threat was there. "Next time, the hyenas are gone."
Harley glanced at her, then looked away. "Fineeee."
"Great." Selina turned to Ivy and tried not to smirk. Maybe she should take a picture later, for blackmail. "It's too late to go back to your room, just live with it."
Ivy's frown deepened, as though she heard Selina's thoughts. "I—" she protested.
Harley cut her off. "If you want to leave, I have to feed you."
"Huh?" Flabbergasted, Ivy stared at her.
Harley picked up a spoon. She smiled deviously. "Should I pretend this is a train? Or maybe a bee coming to pollinate?"
"…fuck you." Ivy snatched the spoon.
"Great, we have a deal! I'll go get a cooling pack." Harley sprang to her feet. Blowing another kiss, she spun on her heel and skipped out of the room. "Just you wait, I have great patient care."
"Fifty bucks says she kills you," Selina said the second Harley disappeared.
"It's not a bet if we're both on the same side." Ivy tucked her hair behind her ear and took a careful sip of the soup. "Huh, not bad."
"So she really can cook." Selina shook her head. Was it something Harley had picked up after she'd changed, or was it something a lonely psychiatrist had learned after pulling long shifts? "It's not poisoned?"
"Probably not." Ivy took another spoonful. She closed her eyes as she swallowed, as though absorbing information on it. Maybe she could; Selina never fully understood her meta abilities with plants and their poisons. "It's fine."
"Maybe I should bet she'll actually heal you." Selina reached forward, pressing a hand to Ivy's neck. "Your fever doesn't seem that high and if you can talk and eat like that, I guess that other poison didn't actually hurt you that much."
Ivy stiffened under her touch and Selina recoiled. They stared at each other for a long moment before Selina looked away. "Force of habit," she muttered in lieu of an apology.
"Habit?" Ivy lightly touched her neck.
"That…it's an old memory." Selina clenched her hand. A very old memory. It had been years since she'd let herself think of her childhood on the streets, even longer since she let herself think of Maggie and Holly and how they used to be.
Ivy studied her before changing the topic. It was oddly tactful of her. "The poison was just a paralysis."
"But you can move?"
"Barely." Ivy flopped back on the bed, her hair spreading around her. "I doubt I could actually make it back to my room."
"And here you were trying to act so strong." Selina snickered. Maybe she should have let Ivy try, if only to see her flop off the bed and stumble down the hall. "I'll get you a Tylenol."
Ivy scowled. "I don't need any medicine. It's not like they work on me anyways."
"That's why you don't turn your blood into a pharmacy cocktail," Selina muttered, rolling her eyes. "Then I'll just grab one for myself. If I have to keep dealing with your weird foreplay, I'll need it."
As she left, she dodged the plush piranha Ivy hurled. "You really are doing better," Selina teased before disappearing down the hall.
In the distance, she could hear several small thuds as Harley got her care supplies. Clearly, she was going after more than just a cooling pack, and Selina was both scared and curious to find out what it was. Either way, she'd have to especially make sure she didn't get sick after this. With Ivy's vindictive personality, Selina would suffer two-fold in Harley's hands.
A soft nudge shook her out of her stupor. Selina peeked down to find Alexander, a calico tom, brushing against her as she walked. She chuckled, reaching down to give him a good head rub before entering her bedroom.
Perhaps it was because she had worn a costume for years now, whether it was for good or evil, but Selina had a well-stocked medicine cabinet that could rival a drug store. Amidst ordinary painkillers and bandages, there were black market drugs to cover any niche injury. Selina's finger brushed against each bottle as she checked for more over-the-counter solution.
The first one on the second row froze her.
With shaky fingers, she pulled it out and stared at it. A baby's cough medicine. Grape flavoured. Only a third of it used. The bottle was brown.
Selina should have tossed it long ago. She should toss it now.
She wasn't quite ready to let go of that dream, of her daughter returning home.
Pressing her forehead against the cabinet, Selina sighed. Ivy wasn't the only one vulnerable tonight, it seemed. This wasn't the time or place for these thoughts. They certainly weren't the right people to have these thoughts around. Even now, Harley and Ivy still tried to pry into her relationship with Gotham's protectors, hoping to extract the valuable secret identities she carefully guarded.
Who knew what they'd do if they found out about her daughter or her sister or any of the people Selina had stepped on to get to where she was now?
"This is stupid," Selina muttered to herself as she returned to Harley's room. She'd just make sure Ivy was alive, that Harley wasn't up to no good, and then she'd retire for the day. It had been a trying couple of hours. She'd earned a rest.
"Are you seriously staying all night?" Ivy snarled.
A rest she was definitely not going to get. Selina braced herself as she entered Harley's room. As expected, Ivy was still lying on the bed, though now with a neon blue ice-pack on her forehead. Her hands kept reaching it, trying to tear it off, but Harley kept swatting them back down.
Harley sniffed. "I have to, you're too stubborn to heal up otherwise."
The surprise was Harley. As usual. Perched on the bed right next to Ivy, she wrapped an arm around Ivy's shoulders to hold her in place. The bowl of soup next to her was half-finished, so Selina didn't have to worry if Ivy would starve tonight. On Ivy's knees, a laptop perched precariously.
Noticing her return, Harley waved. "You're back!"
"I thought I should keep the house in one piece," Selina drawled, glancing at Ivy. "Ivy too, I guess."
"Like you'd last ten minutes with just her," Ivy scoffed, not buying the bluff.
"We're watching a movie," Harley interrupted, grinning. "Wanna join?"
"I…" Selina pursed her lips, her excuse on the tip of her tongue.
"Please?" Harley begged, batting her eyes. "With a cherry on top."
"If you leave me alone with her, I'll kill you." Ivy crossed her arms as she leaned back, accepting her fate. "Sit on the bed but don't get too comfortable. The second it's done, you're both out."
"Comfortable?" Selina laughed, slipping into the empty space. "Like a cactus like you would let me."
She didn't need the reminder. She already knew better. The moment Selina got comfortable with them, the moment she spilled her secrets, these quiet moments would come to an end.
And she wasn't sure if she was ready for that.