Scott had often wondered how Ivy and Harley's friendship worked, but he decided not to question the inner workings of female companionship and was content to just sit in the backseat of Ivy's nice pink convertible. He watched the back of Harley's blonde head chattering away to Ivy whose red hair was blowing back in the wind just under the scarf she had tied on.
Ivy was a little more receptive and less chatty. Scott could tell she was a clever and intelligent woman, quite a power house.
Harleen's voice grew louder and higher-pitched, her accent coming in thicker. Once in a while, the redhead would look back at Scott who was enjoying the plush leather upholstering of her car.
They whizzed by the tall, black sky scrapers, past the famous, Wayne Towers, and through the outskirts, winding along a swampy road.
She pulled up to a modest, bachelorette house that was kept nicely with a stunning array of plants and garden.
Inside was a kitchen adjoining to a dining room, where Ivy heated up some tea.
In an effort to strike up conversation with a super villainess or eco-terrorist, who had recently and not for the first time, escaped Arkham Asylum, Scott said, "Harley tells me you're a very good friend to her. I've heard lots of nice things about you."
Hugging his arm, Harley jumped in, "Oh the best girl friend a gal could ask for! Ivy's always there for me, always got my back, don'tcha? I dunno where I'd be without her." She ended dreamily, staring into Scott's glasses.
He wise-cracked, "With Joker."
Her bubbly face grew serious and she scowled, her voice suddenly lowered and deeper, the sane Harleen Quinzel peeking through, "Puddin'…Don't even joke about that."
Ivy leaned her elbow on the table; chin propped in her hand and nodded, "Mmhmm…" She gave Scott a secret look that confirmed that even she had trouble keeping Harley away from the abusive criminal mastermind.
If Scott was growing nervous or intimidated by all this madness, he did not show it, and Ivy was beginning to wonder if the boy was aloof. The only nervousness he showed was when he spoke to her.
Harley babbled, "Ivy and I are each otha's only girl friends! In Ivy's case, I'm her only human friend, isn't that neat? When I was interning, I wasn't really liked by my contemporaries. They all thought I was some blonde bimbo. Ivy prefers plants to humans. She hates men too."
Alluring Scott with her sparkling green eyes, Ivy asked, "Scott would you be a dear and go get the kettle for us?"
Standing up chivalrously, Scott went ahead to grab the teapot.
When he was out of earshot, Ivy leaned over to Harley and whispered in her ear behind a hand, "I've got another job you and me. To put one last laugh on Joker."
Harley's eyes rounded, "Oh no! I hung up the clown costume once and for all!"
Rolling her eyes, Ivy murmured, "You should have heard the things he was planning and saying about you in the nut bin. He's planning a break out soon enough, you know he's just going to make his disloyal minions suffer."
Harley weakly whimpered, "Mistah J…can't hurt me anymore, I won't fall for it."
She swept the back of her hand up on her forehead, and whimpered, "Oyy…."
Ivy wiggled her arched brows at Scott and said to Harley, "Who knows…Joker might go after your new guy."
Chewing her finger nail in fear, Harley ran up and leapt into Scott's arms, causing him to drop the teapot which would have clattered messily and hotly to the tiled floor had not a thick stemmed, vine-y branch lashed out and caught it in a broad leaf.
Ivy reached out to the plant and it drew the vines holding the tea to her, serving the table.
She nuzzled his neck and hollered, "Oh Puddin', I won't stand to see anythin' happen to you!"
The durable, hardened rubber-like armor cowl Bruce Wayne wore on his night job dully glinted the moon light over Gotham next to the large circular yellow and black Batman spotlight, in the pitch black, smoggy sky.
He flexed his fingers in the sturdy gloves of his suit and shot his zipline down at a lower building, flying through the night air with his cape whipping behind him.
A minute voice buzzed on, in his earpiece, Alfred his butler instructed in his British accent, "I just got the current location on the hostage that was on the police radios. Should I zero in on it for you?"
Batman gruffly muttered, "Please."
His cowl vision flickered and he saw in some sort of 4-dimensional, x-ray vision, every outline glowing blue.
A cursor circled his target-a bent orange skeleton tied up, surrounded by walking skeletons with transparent guns.
Bruce quickly summed up how many he would have to deal with, and shot his zip line to the roof, before swinging in, feet first through a window.
Machine gun fire rattled at him as soon as the shattered glass fell and he quickly turned his cowl vision back to normal.
Sweeping his thick cape up, Batman deflected the bullets and jumped up, kicking two thugs out in the face with a foot in each.
Their skulls crushed backwards and they fell unconscious.
He quickly whipped his hand to the side and flung a batarang up that caught its razor sharp spoke in the barrel of the gun an approaching gangster was holding up. When the gangster fired, the gun exploded in his hand, dangerously near his face, scalding him.
Grabbing a section of iron pipe from the wall and wrenching it off with brute strength, Batman whirled around, smacking a guy across the stomach with it, jarring his entire body.
He swung up and thrust the metal pipe at another dark and approaching figure, which parred his heavy swing with a, "Whoa, whoa, it's me,"
Bruce cursed under his breath when Nightwing stepped up, hands up in defense.
He growled, "Why aren't you out helping the Bat Girl? I didn't ask for your assistance tonight, I thought we were doing missions solo now."
Night Wing sneered, "She said she didn't want my help! Besides, I thought you might need a hand,"
Twisting his cape around a corner, to locate the hostage, Batman countered, "I clearly do not. Do you even know what my objective is tonight?"
The younger man smirked, and Batman cursed, "Alfred…"
Brushing his ungelled black hair to the side, Dick narrowed his eyes under his black eye mask, puffing his chest out with the sleek blue bird emblazoned on it, "I've done some digging of my own before coming here that you might be interested in…"
Bending down after finding a person with a bag over their head tied up on the floor, Batman untied the hostage. It was a young girl, ruffled socks and polished black Mary Janes on.
He whipped off the head bag and stared down, aghast.
Night Wing dropped his arms and faintly said, "No…"
The untied little girl slumped forward in his arms, her head leaning back, smiling widely up at him.
Her dead ash gray eyes were half closed her pearly first pair of teeth outline and etched in red blood, jagged lines gashing upwards at the corner of her lips.
The steely heart underneath Batman's high-tech armor and gear thudded rawly, he could not fathom or stomach…
With barely shaking fingers, he pushed the little eye lids down, and closed her grinning mouth.