Mad Love (Harlivy version)

Chapter 2

"Pamela Lillian Isley." Harley read aloud as she cracked open the thick file on her desk. The envelope showed signs of wear on its binding, Harley could tell she wasn't the first psychiatrist to delve into Ms. Isley's medical file, but with any luck, she might be the last.

Pamela's mugshot was paper clipped to the inside cover and Harley was reasonably aghast at how gorgeous the woman could look even in such an unflattering setting.
She flipped past the photo and noticed Ms. Isley's age was redacted, but her birthplace was there: Seattle, Washington. Harley herself had never been to Seattle. She'd never even been outside of Gotham, in fact. 'OK, well, that's not entirely true', she acknowledged. As a child and teenager Harley had been an accomplished competitive gymnast and her talent had taken her all across the country competing for medals and awards. Even so, those trips were hardly meant for the enjoyment of the athlete. The girls weren't allowed out of their hotel rooms and had a strict curfew and diet regimen that they lived by. Gripping the sides of the file now, Harley swore she could still feel the chalk on her hands. She wiped them on her skirt despite protest from her rational mind.

"Isley, born to wealthy parents..." she skimmed, "advanced botanical chemistry and botanical engineering...Dr. Jason Woodrue." Harley stopped and heeded the addendum next to his name. She flipped to the appropriate page of the file. "Dr. Jason Woodrue," she repeated, tapping her ballpoint pen against her lips. "Floronic Man..." There were two pictures of the man included in the file, one of a somewhat zany looking brunette, and the other some horribly distorted creature with elongated features and a nymph-like body constructed of...well...wood, it appeared. What Harley found more alarming was the young woman standing next to his more human likeness. She was pale with freckles splashed across her bare face. Thick, black-rimmed glasses teetered on the end of her nose and her dirty red hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail. Stray locks of hair had fallen onto her shoulder and despite her immature age, there were heavy bags under her green eyes. Harley knew that look, she knew it well. It was the look of a student who had pulled an all-nighter cramming for a test or trying to finish some paper. The young woman's posture was lacking, making her appear small and meek in comparison to the lanky man standing next to her. Her smile was also tired, half-hearted. But it wasn't just that. The woman was smiling at her professor sheepishly, like she was embarrassed to even be looking. She was taking advantage of his removed attention to gaze at him. And it was really not a smile at all, now that Harley looked closer, it was the beginnings of a bashful grin. The woman in that picture was not the villainous Poison Ivy, she was Pamela Isley, as nature had intended.

Harley had planned to turn in for the night, but when she opened her desk drawer to stow her files she found a collection of video tapes, as many tapes as there were files. She shuffled them around until she found what she was looking for- the tape labeled "Pam." Fleetingly, Harley wondered what Poison Ivy would think of that nickname and Harley smiled a little, doubting she would like it.

She pushed the tape into the VCR which stood along with the TV in the shadows of the heavy curtains near the window. Pushing her round glasses up on the bridge of her nose again and examining the remote, Harley triumphantly pressed the 'play' button. The black screen gave way to an image of that same young PhD candidate from the photo. She was sitting across a table in an empty room. A man's voice came from somewhere behind the camera.

"Why do you want to work at Wayne Enterprises, Dr. Isley?" He asks.

She looks uneasily at the camera, clearly uncomfortable. "Well..." She says, finally. "I want to change the world. I want to help save it, and your facilities are arguably the best in the country." Despite her ambitious language, Pamela's voice was rather quiet, although the melodic quality Harley had noted earlier was still there.