"Is he dead?" Harley asks, inspecting Feline who was strapped to one of my wooden kitchen chairs, bound by a rope.
He may have been rendered unconscious by whatever The Bat injected in him, but we didn't get a chance to ask how long it would last so we had to take precaution. The last thing we needed was Feline waking up with Harley's insanity still running through his system.
Frost and I were at my cabinet near my sink trying to get him to coax the Green forward so it can bring the makeshift box up and toward the surface of the soil but it's proving to be very difficult for him to successfully bring it up, being that raising something from the soil was such a delicate matter.
I was beyond frustrated and so was Frost, trying to walk someone through using the powers it took years to master is more difficult than I thought. Pure emotion may cause us to access each other's abilities more easily than others, but this particular one requires a type of finesse that Frost is having great difficulty with.
"Just keep trying, keep focusing, you'll know it when you feel it, and no Harley, he's just knocked out " I answer Harley as I reassure Frost. He nods as he continues circling his hands over the soil trying to dig deep to the log that was deep beneath it, I get up and run my fingers through my hair nervously, we were running out of time.
Sunrise was in about twenty minutes and we've got everything we need, it was just that fucking crystal we needed and getting it was the hard part. I buried it deep as a precautionary measure, but now, with everything that's happened, I was deeply regretting that decision.
The clock was ticking and we still had no crystal, I walked over to the table and sat down, Harley followed suit sitting across from me.
"So, The Bat really helped you? Like let you escape?" he asked, we sort of filled him in when we got back but I didn't get a chance to answer all of them because the moment we got back I was trying to get Frost to bring the log to the surface.
That was about thirty minutes ago, we were all frustrated at this point but I couldn't blame Frost, they type of skill I used to do that is very specific and purposeful, and without the experience of having my powers for as long as I had, to say it was difficult was an understatement.
We didn't have all night because the night was almost morning, but pressuring Frost wouldn't make this process any easier, we needed him focused and calm if this was going to work.
No matter how stressed I may have been at the fact that time was just ticking away, I had to keep it hidden, Frost knew what needed to be done and I'm certain that he wants his powers back just as badly as I wanted mine, it's just a matter of having patience and hoping that we can get it in time.
"Yeah, she did? She never really seemed like the sentimental or loving type, but apparently Feline has a special place in her righteous heart, go figure," I answer, nodding towards the unconscious Feline, thankful that Harley was providing me with a slight distraction from the current situation.
"She really loves him that much, huh? To let you all go like that. It must be nice, having someone you love care about you more than themselves, more than their goals," Harley says, his voice trailing off as he turns to look at Feline.
I realize at that moment the opportunity that this situation has afforded me. This is the first time I get to talk to the real Hartley, not the Joker's boy, not the psychiatrist, but the real Hartley, the sane one. I look at him inquisitively, he turns to face me and notices my stare,
"What?" he asks.
"So you're completely sane, right? And you remember everything that's happened so far in the not so sane Hartley's life?" I ask and Harley, who I now realized was actually my Dean again, for the first time in years, he was Dean, my pretend big brother.
"Yes," he says, his voice laced with discomfort,
"Everything, down to the darkest deeds. It's odd actually, I remember everything, I know it was me that did it, but it just...it feels like I'm looking at an entirely different person like I was possessed."
"You mean after you fell into the chemical vat?" I asked.
"No, way before that, a long time ago, back when I was a kid being beaten John, my so-called father," he answers, taking a deep breath before continuing,
"I was always fucked up Sam, from the beginning, Mr. – I mean, the Joker just...capitalized on it, brought to the surface. But I've always wanted this deep down, to feel what it was like to take a life, to snuff out someone's spark, it was a dark desire that I just suppressed for years.
As much as I want to lay all the blame on him, all he did was take advantage of an already difficult situation."
"So...you were always wanted to kill people?" I ask.
"Well, not full-on kill people, but hurt them? Yes. It progressed the more my father abused me, soon it went from a slight whisper, 'hurt someone, cut someone, break his leg' and then it just progressively got worse, 'smother him, slit his throat, shoot him'.
But I always suppressed it, and it always felt like I was in a consistent battle with my desires and what the world wanted from me at least until...well until..." he trails off again.
"Until...what?" I press on.
"Until I met you," he answers, finally looking at me in my eyes.
"When I met you, things weren't as bad, yeah I still had urges, but they slowly faded, no longer screams but back to the whispers, and then they eventually stopped completely. I felt like...well, I felt like this.
Like I do right now...normal. I guess that's when I got cocky. I thought that now that I was normal I could go off and be normal, desert the life that I thought was far behind me," he asks, and that small pang of heartache reveals itself inside me for a moment and freezes over with Frost's powers.
"Desert me," I say, coldly, my voice full of a steel resolve, not a flicker of the tears that would have welled up came forward, again I thanked this aspect of Frost's powers that shielded him from showing his emotions.
"Yes," he answers honestly, and his honesty actually surprised me,
"You were apart of that life, and that was the life I never wanted to remember. I cared about you deeply, but I thought that if I kept holding on, I'd be holding on to the pain that my dad caused me, the pain that my mind kept reminding me of. But...as you can clearly see," he said, nodding towards Feline,
"That didn't work."
"Why?" I ask.
"Why what?"
"Why did you stop loving me?" I ask, my voice quiet, my heart may be frozen, but there was still a little quiver in my voice, a quiver of the old Sam that I hated.
Even with Frost's powers, I still had a small piece of my old self still deep inside and apparently even cryokinesis couldn't freeze away.
"I didn't," he answered.
"Bullshit," I curse back, the anger bubbling slightly inside me.
"No, Sam, I didn't. I pushed you away, yes, but I could never stop loving you...even...even when I'm like that," he gestures once again towards Feline,
"I tried to stop, I tried to bury the feelings I had for you, and it, well it made crazier than I already was. So when I saw you again, after all those years, when I heard you were in trouble, I wanted to regain what I'd lost, but being the self-centered idiot I was, I didn't even see what I'd done to you, why you hated me so much, rightfully so.
You had every reason to hate me, and instead of understanding that, instead of letting you find your way back to me, I turned my emotions to someone else. Turned to Joker, and that gave me some peace I guess, at least, if I loved someone like him, I could...I could punish myself for what I'd done to you. That was the plan whether I knew it consciously or not."
"You loved him because you wanted to punish yourself?" I asked, the realization becoming more and more apparent.
"Of course, what I did to you, cutting you out of my life like that, I needed to be punished, badly. So, what better way to punish yourself that to fall in love with a man who would not only beat the hell out of you but...but never truly love you the same way.
It was sort of the perfect comeuppance for me," he answered, shrugging his shoulders and I just looked at him with bewilderment.
"But, the problem with redirecting love is that...well, it starts off as redirection and then...then it turns into something else. Soon you can't distinguish the desire from the punishment. Soon, you start to really fall in love with the person you rebounded on. I couldn't have you, so I fell in love with him, literally.
So...I became Harley Quinn, the Joker's boy, and Poison Ivy's fuck buddy. I got my best friend back, a boyfriend, and my darkness. In theory, that should've been enough," he continues, trailing off again.
"But it's not?" I ask.
"No. Not really. I love Joker, as much as I hate to admit it, we found love in our relationship. A deeply toxic and dangerous one, but...love nonetheless. The chemicals at ACE just made it more solidified, even if I wanted to, I couldn't stop loving him, it runs too deep if not deeper.
And for a while...that was okay. That darkness was something that I asked for, and I got it. but there was a problem with that darkness."
"Problem?" I ask.
"Yeah, problem, because no matter how much darkness is in your soul there's still just a sliver of light, one thing or idea that keeps you up at night, that makes your otherwise perfect existence still...imperfect," he answers.
"I'm not following," I answer back, not seeing where he was going with this.
"I love Joker, regardless of how it started or where it began, the love I share with him is never going anywhere, with or without the insanity. But...then there's you."
"Me?" I ask, trying to get to the answer, this is the deepest a conversation between Harley and me has ever gotten. He's never been this raw or real with me and while I still had him, I needed to hear the truth, the truth behind what he's talking about.
"Yes. You. I think...the way I feel about I mean...I think it goes beyond just you being my friend, I think that I—well, I feel like I'm in l—" he starts but before he could finish, we were all stirred by the rumble of the ground beneath us and I immediately turned to Frost who the both of us forgot was still present in the room.
"I got it! I think I got it, Ivy, what do I do now?" he asks, and as much as I needed Harley to finish his thought, this was more important at the moment.
I didn't even realize how long we were talking and the moment I looked at my clock and the subtle navy blue sky starting to take on a lighter shade outside. We were just a few minutes away from sunrise.
We needed to focus, I quickly ran over to Frost who was still circling his hand over to soil as it started to part underneath his hand and I watched as the log started to rise beneath it. But at the same time, I heard the subtle groan of Feline.
"Alright, just pull your thoughts forward, think open, open up to me, coax the log open," I instruct.
"Can't we just break it open," he suggests, his voice full of stress.
"No, it's oak, by the time we broke in it'd be to late, and I'd kill you before I let you hurt them anyway, so just focus and let it open to you, Harley watch Feline, make sure he doesn't get antsy," I answer, and Frost closes his eyes.
He pulls his hand back and the makeshift box slides open revealing the bagged crystal inside, I quickly grab it and just as Frost lets go, the box snaps shut and I hear Harley yelp out as he's knocked to the ground. I quickly get up and turn around to see Feline standing hunched over still strapped to the chair.
Apparently having knocked Harley back with his hand and I watched as he jumped into the air, backward, crushing the chair beneath him, and loosening the ropes.
He makes a beeline for the door, and Harley, reacting solely on emotion, uses Feline's catlike reflects to leap after him, landing on him but upon impact, slamming his head, hard on the wooden doorknob, and Feline's head immediately starts bleeding.
"Harley!" Frost screams out, him and I quickly rushing over to assess the damage, to Feline's head.
"Sorry, I was just trying to stop him. I didn't realize how strong I was," he answers.
"It's fine, I know, I was about to hit him with a cold blast too, he would've hit it either way," I say, trying to calm Harley down as he looks on fearfully.
He really didn't mean to hurt him, and seeing regret like that in Harley's eyes was...different.
"Well, it doesn't matter now does it, if he's dead it won't work," Frost says, anger filling his voice as he lifts Feline's bloody head,
"Fuck! It's bad, Harley why isn't he healing?"
"I told you I have a slight healing factor, slight being the operative word. I heal faster than other people, but I can still be hurt."
"Well, shouldn't it be healing?"
"Not if it's too deep, it'd be like if I got shot, I'm not like you guys, my body absorbs impact but it doesn't erase injuries as quickly as you three, I could still be hurt. And if it's bad enough, be killed."
"Oh fuck, fuck, fuck," Frost panics, as he tries to stop the bleeding,
"We've only got two minutes left before the sun rises, what—what are we gonna do?"
"What we were already going to do," I answer,
"Feline has a healing factor, shit, he's got nine lives right, nine chances to die and be brought back with his healing factor.
He said last time he got shot a few months ago so he's on life number six, if we can get his powers switched while there's still breath in his body, he'll get his powers back just as he dies and his healing factor will kick in."
"But we don't know if it'll w—" Frost starts but I'm already loosening the bag and dropping the crystal into my hand,
"Right now we don't have a choice," I answer and the crystal glows a blue and burns as I toss it to Frost.
He catches it as it fades to green glow, he throws it towards Harley who grabs it and it turns a bright yellow and it lands on Feline's exposed stomach and glows a reddish-purple and it bounded off its own accord from Feline's stomach.
I caught it midair with the bag and just like before, once it made contact with the inside of the bag it released a while pulse of energy, but this time, the force projected inward, thrusting us forward slightly and we all looked around the room to see if anything had changed. I looked towards the clock and the sun was rising. Nothing had changed.
"We're too late!" Frost cries out angrily,
"Fuck! Fuck! This is some bullshit, some fucking bullshit."
I feel myself start to get emotional, the prospect of being stuck like this becoming more and more of my reality and my heart became heavy with sorrow. Just as the sunlight started to beam in, further rubbing salt on the wound, Feline was the first to be covered by its beam as it slowly crept its way in and he leaped up from the ground, startling the three of us, his eyes glowing yellowish hazel as his pupils turned to slits.
"Five," his voice echoed ominously, speaking in a voice that didn't sound anything like his own, and he blinks, his eyes returning to their natural state.
He cracks his neck a little as his hair fades back to its deep black color along with his skin regaining its natural pigmentation and his head was healing the bloody wound,
"Fuck, did I die again? Ugh, down to five, what's wrong with you guys?"
I quickly turned to Frost who took in a sharp intake of breath as the sun's beams hit him second from the window and watched as his skin faded from a light washed out green to a pale white, almost blue color and his eyes glowing white along with his hair losing all it's pigmentation, becoming shock white.
He breathed out and the air in front of him became a mist. I was next, I felt the chill leave my body and the warmth of my blood filling with chlorophyll, as I took in a fresh breath. I watched as my hair regained it's pigmentation and returned to its fiery red color and my skin slowly took on its signature pale hint of green hue and the delicious pores reopening in my skin to the glorious scent of nature that surrounded me.
Then there was the feeling, the pulsing feeling that flowed through my body, the Green was with me again, so were my children, I could feel them in and around me, I was back, I was me again. I was only able to relish the moment for a moment when I looked back and noticed that Harley was backing away as the sunlight hit him and he had his hand on his head as he stumbled back, disoriented.
"Sam, I don't—I don't feel so good," he was barely able to get the sentence out before he fell to the ground I quickly got to him as he writhed on the ground like he was in pain.
"What's wrong, what's happening to him?" Frost asked, his voice echoing with the icy chill over it returned.
"I don't know, his hearts racing and his body temperature is fluctuating rapidly, it's like he's going into shock," I answer, reaching out with the Green to sense the trouble going on in his body.
"Sam, Sam, it's happening, it's coming back, oh god, I can feel it. Sammy, I'm scared," he answers, the fear radiating from his voice making me wish there was something I could do to help him. Everyone else's transition was smooth, why was his like he was being tortured.
"That happened to me too, when I uh, when I became like him, it was like something was trying to get out, tearing it's way out," Feline answers, his voice small and quiet, starting to recall what it was like to become Harley for a night.
"Harley, it's going to be okay, you just—I guess—you just have to let it happen, it's going to be okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I say, tearing up a little. I didn't understand why this was hurting so much, he wasn't dying but...but it felt like I was losing a side of my best friend, my brother, that I wouldn't get to see again, and it fucking hurt.
"I know, I know," he says, trying to recollect himself,
"I have to tell you something—I have to tell you before—before I go back, before—ah—before it comes back," he says, still struggling against the insanity that's spreading through him.
"It's okay you don't have to," I say, holding his hand as he squeezes tightly.
"No, I have to now—I may not get another chance. I thought—I made myself believe that the love I had for you was just—just friendly, brotherly even, nothing more.
But in the back of my mind, I knew there was something—missing between us, something more, but my mind wouldn't let me even entertain the idea that I might feel—ah.
That if I could do it all over again, I would choose—Ivy, I think that I might still be—in love—with y—" he starts.
"You might be what? Come, Harley, come on," I say, the tears running down my cheeks. I needed to hear him say it, if he said it, it would be real and I knew that I wouldn't be alone, but I watched the light leave his eyes, the spark that brought back the old Hartley completely gone.
I watched him release an agonizingly slow breath as his body stopped struggling.
His skin fades back to its unnaturally pale washed-out color, and his hair loses its dirty blonde color, now being replaced with his signature platinum blonde, with the blue and red highlights fading in.
He blinks a little as he tilts his head a looks at everyone around him curiously. I let his hand go and wipe the tears from my eyes, Hartley Quinzel is gone now, Harley Quinn has returned.
"What? Do I have something on my face?" He asks, his faux Bronx accent having returned as he looks at me and I quickly smile at him, hoping that he doesn't notice the puffiness of my tear-filled eyes.
"Uh, no, you're fine, we're just uh...we're glad you're back," I answer, but there is just the slightest hint of a lie. I'm glad he's okay, but...but I just wanted a few more minutes with Hartley, just...just a few more minutes.
"Did I go somewhere?" he asks, genuinely confused.
"Everything's fine Harley, you're fine," I say getting up and Frost is immediately on the ground-hugging and kissing Harley on the face,
"Oh Harley," Frost says, between kisses,
"I'm so sorry, I didn't," he says, kissing him again on the cheek,
"I didn't mean it, I was just so full of emotions and I'm not really an emotional person," he says, still kissing a more than willing Harley.
"Sorry about what," Harley asks, kissing and licking Frost's neck, making his way up to his earlobe. Harley doesn't mind the extra attention, he and Mr. J had a deal when it came to monogamy.
Joker could sleep with as many girls as he wanted so long as he never slept with a boy, and Harley could sleep with any guy he wanted, but I was the only one he could keep a consistent sexual relationship with, aside from the Joker.
Anyone else, he could only fuck every once in a while, and even then, only people the Joker was okay with him fucking. Frost and Feline were the only two others, outside of myself that could sleep with Harley.
Which is why he was a willing participant with Frost's affections. Frost always had a thing for Harley and every now and again they would hook up.
"About choking you and trying to kill you," Frost admits, pulling away, just a little embarrassed,
"Is there anything I can do to get you to forgive me?"
Harley just smiles deviously.
"Water under the bridge under one condition?" he says, running his hands down his back and lying it on Frost's ass.
"Anything," Frost says.
"I get to top you tomorrow night? Let me have a go at this ass," he says, still holding onto Frost's butt.
"Deal," he says, and he hugs Harley tightly.
"I should pass out more often," Harley says, hugging Frost back.
"You never let me fuck you? You told me you were strictly top" Feline says, crossing his arms annoyed.
"Well, let me try to almost kill you and then we can talk," Frost answers, getting up from the ground and helping Harley stand up. Harley takes my hand and smiles as he pulls me closer and I follow limply.
"You okay, Ivy?" he asks, and Feline and Frost look at me, their eyes full of concern and knowing, but I give them a look and they turn away, it wasn't their place to but in.
I force a smile, kissing Harley on the lips, he returns it and looks at me, still awaiting my answer,
"I told you, I'm just glad you're okay, you're back to your old self, now we don't have to baby you like Feline when we talk about killing people," I joke, and Harley laughs a little, along with Frost, Feline just rolls his eyes.
"Sorry, I'm not into killing innocent people, just not in my nature, call me a diva if you want, doesn't fit my style," he says, catching on to me trying to change the topic and Harley smiles, accepting my explanation.
"Sure Feline, your hands are as clean as they come," Harley adds in.
"Didn't say I don't kill people at all, I just have a brand to uphold," Feline says.
"More like some pussy to uphold, he knows if he kills an innocent person he can't get between The Bat's legs anymore," Frost adds in.
"Eat a dick, Frost," Feline counters.
"I'd much rather suck one," Frost fires back and we all laugh. The topic of conversation had been changed, it was no longer on me and Harley but on Feline.
I thanked the Green that I didn't have to dwell on our conversation any longer. Harley still held my hand for a few more moments, as he does sometimes, and after a few minutes or so Harley called the client and we all went to drop off the crystal.
The man didn't say much or speak to us, he was a military man, that much I could tell, and he was wearing a uniform, with his last name embroidered into it, 'Flag', an odd last name. He handed us a duffle bag full of the 40,000 and we divided it among us. 10,000 a piece.
Feline and Frost headed to the club and Harley asked if he could come over to get dressed so we can meet them there, Joker wasn't going to be back in town until Monday and it was still a Saturday night.
The four of us had 10,000 dollars burning a hole in our pocket, we were all ready to let loose and have some fun. But I couldn't get what he said out of my head, or more importantly, what he almost said.
"Harley," I call his name, he was in my other room down the hall, doing his makeup in the mirror since I inadvertently destroyed my bathroom when I had Frost's powers,
"Do you really hear voices?" trying to soften the blow of the question I really wanted to ask him.
"Sometimes," Harley responds offhandedly, still applying his signature red lipstick as if he'd said something as simple as, 'yes, I have a car too.'
"What do they tell you?" I ask, interested.
"To slit your throat and smother you in your sleep," he pauses, his voice deadly serious, as he stares at me in the mirror with a murderous glint in his eyes. I cock my head, and he smiles and laughs a little,
"I'm kidding Ivy, that's not what they say."
"Oh, real funny Harley," I say sarcastically, feigning a laugh.
"So you're gonna ask me what you really want to know or are you just going to keep playing twenty questions," he says, lifting his mascara to his eyelashes and blinking as he applied it.
"What do you mean?" I ask, feigning confusion.
"Please, Ivy. I've known you too long for you to lie to me convincingly, now what's wrong?"
"What do you remember from being sane?" I ask, just getting straight to it.
"Not much," he answers, honestly, leaning into the mirror to get a better look as he put the mascara on his other eyelash,
"It's all still sort of fuzzy, I remember tidbits, you know, kind of like trying to watch a VHS tape but those tracking lines keep getting in the way.
I get like snippets of conversation, moments, feelings, not much though. Honestly, I don't really want to remember, it was kind of weird, why do ask?"
"Because...well because you said something, or you were trying to say something," I start, but I can't bring myself to say it because of a memory of what sane Harley told me, it was still so present in my mind.
I could ask him about what he was going to say, but I just felt like Harley would try to change the topic or he'd lie, I needed an answer without asking that question.
"Trying to say what? What do you mean?" he asks, turning to face me.
"Would you kill me, Harley?" I ask, and Harley shifts uncomfortably before smiling,
"If you wanted to play rough Ivy, all you had to do was ask, I didn't know you were into—"
"I'm serious Harley," I assert my voice, knowing this is how Harley would take this kind of question and he looks at me,
"I can see that," his voice losing its Bronx accent as he answers.
"If the Joker wanted you to kill me, would you? If you had to pick between him and me, who would you pick?" I ask, my voice shaking slightly with emotion, Harley puts his mascara down and shakes his head.
"If this is about me trying to get you two to hang out, I'll stop, you guys don't have to be friends, I'll stop trying to get you two—" he starts.
"Harley, answer the question, if you had to pick, who would you kill?" I ask him and he just looks at him and his eyes dart around the room and he takes a deep breath.
"I don't like this game Ivy," Harley says, his voice returning to the accent, but now it sounded more childlike and innocent, he was scared, but I had to press and get an answer.
"Please, Harley, I—I need to know?" I ask, my heart swelling with emotion. The sane Harley told me a truth, but I needed this Harley, the real Harley to tell me.
Regardless of how he says he feels about me, I needed to know the truth, if it was life or death, which one of us would he pick.
"I'm not picking between you two, alright, and that's the end of the discussion I love you both, that's your answer," he says, and he starts to walk away, I grab his arm.
"Harley—" I begin.
"I said end of discussion!" he screams at me, and this was the first time ever, Harley was the one in charge. He was speaking to me like a grown man, the bass and absolution in his voice made me let his arm go and I looked at him as he stared at me his eyes full of reprimand.
He grabbed me by my shoulders and pulled me close to him and through clenched teeth and seething rage he continued,
"Don't ever ask me that again, alright, ever!"
I nodded, and his face softened as he kissed me, ever so gently, releasing me and pulling me in deeper as he looked me in my eyes,
"I love you with all my heart and I love him with all my soul. I'd rather die than have to pick between you too. So if your question is who I'd pick, I'd kill myself," he answered.
And for a moment, when I looked into his eyes, I realized that maybe, just maybe, sane Hartley underestimated what the two of us had. Maybe even insane, Harley still loves me just as much as he loves the Joker.
He releases me and I watch as he walks down the hall, picking up his bat that he left in the kitchen, and throwing it over his shoulder as he left, shutting the door behind him. I hear a ding and walk over to my phone that was on the dresser and lifted it up.
\\ I'll see you at The Siren's Club in twenty minutes, be there and let's see if we can get Feline to play with us tonight, already got dibs on some Frosty ass tomorrow. Can we stop talking about sad stuff?
I smile, and type back,
//Yeah, sure. And it's a date. Feline's in the middle, you fuck him while he fucks me. See you in twenty.
\\ 😉 🍆 💦 Can't wait!
He responds.
I put my phone back in my pocket and smile a little. Truth is, asking Harley to pick between The Joker and me was foolish. Do I love him? Yes. But maybe, maybe that's all our love is supposed to be.
Maybe I don't need to be his 'true love'. As much as I can't stand the Joker, as much as Harley has revealed to me about the true nature of their relationship, he admitted that the love he felt for him was real.
He loves him differently than he loves me, and maybe that's okay. Harley and I tried the relationship thing many years ago, but it didn't work out. Maybe after all this time, if we tried again, maybe...maybe it could.
We are different people now. But parts of our love were in different directions, while Harley loves the Joker with all his heart, and loves me with all his soul. I'm much the same.
I love Harley with all my heart, and part of me will always have a piece of me that wonders, what if, what if we got back together, what if our love was able to flourish both sexually and romantically, what would that be like.
But in all honesty, the same rings true for me. I love him with all my heart, but...I love the Green with all my soul. If I had to pick between the two...I don't think I could. With that knowledge in mind, I realized the absurdity in my question, why would I ask him to choose between what he loves and his devotion when I can't do the same.
I shake off the ridiculous insecurity and accept our relationship as what it was. Trying to see more when our souls are both tied to other things was probably just a shock of our powers being switched, the stress, that's what it was.
I accept this reality and I make a move to leave the room and suddenly I feel a rush of warm air course all around me. My vines and plants starting to wrap around me, not defensively or in an attempt to hurt me, but almost like a hug.
I couldn't explain it, but I felt like I was being hugged deeply, with such an overwhelming sense of love and peace that I felt myself being brought to tears. This wasn't my power doing this, it was someone else, something leagues more powerful than me, it was...it was the very thing that gave me my power in the first place.
I heard a voice in my mind, almost a whisper, and yet it felt so powerful and ancient,
"I've missed you, Ivy, my little drop of poison."
The warm breeze slowly left the room and the vines returned to rest in the ground below, I felt my powers extending, growing, and expanding.
I felt my hair from the tips turn from the deep red color to a dark shade of emerald green, and slowly slid it's way up halfway through my hair, giving me an ombre of red at the top and green at the bottom. I felt more deeply connected as my skin turned from a hint of pale green to a more olive-like color.
I was brought to my knees, in thanks and I cried so heavily that my head was throbbing. My vines felt my distress and wrapped around me comforting me, and I just cried more. I've felt the Green before, felt warnings and some senses, but to have the Mother talk to me directly, that had never happened before, not until today.
I finally found the strength to stand and smiled around the room, even if Harley and I couldn't find that type of love together, I already had that other love in my life.
A love that filled my soul just as the Joker filled Harley's and I thanked Mother Green for reminding me of that fact. I walked and headed towards the door and turned back to the ground, calling my babies from the ground, with an ease that was no doubt a result of my power advancement and spoke,
"I love you with all my soul, nothing will take you from me ever again," I said and I felt my babies coo at my devotion and sent them back down to rest.
I have Harley and I have the Green, that's more than enough love for me. I smiled as I walked outside, closing the door behind me as I headed off to the Siren's Club to catch up with Harley.
________________________________________________________________________________
"So the operation went off without a hitch, hm?" Amanda Waller asks as she inspects Ra's Al Ghul's Mutatio crystal safely encased in the black cushion of the metal briefcase.
"Yes, ma'am. They defeated our most powerful metahuman, secured the rock, all before The Bat had a chance to step in," Sargent Rick Flag answers, militarized and stoic.
"Well, I admit, they are quite talented. One call from you and not only do they secure the artifact but they kill Binate, and he's been trained by our very own. Colonel Jason finally approved my Suicide Squad, finally understanding just how dangerous Ra's Al Ghul's artifacts are, especially his Book of Lazarus still in the wind," she closes her eyes, fantasizing about wielding such a weapon,
"The power that book can give the government, the knowledge, we'd be an unstoppable force of nature.
None of our men would ever die, no nuclear weapon would affect us, and no country would dare challenge us. With those dark secrets, we'd go from being a global superpower to being the absolute authority.
He's given us full resources to search for it, but finding it is the easy part, getting it with all the mystical protections and enhanced persons is the hard part. That's why this was Squad's first unofficial field test, and they've passed with flying colors.
I suppose Strange was right, they do make a great team," Amanda answers, smiling broadly.
"Where are they now?" she asks, coming out of her fantasy state and back to her cold and commanding tone.
"At Braeden Keen's Club, the Sirens."
Amanda perks up as she leans forward, "Sirens, I like that, it has a nice ring to it. When we have intel on the books last known location them yet, we'll need more time, but all systems are go once we find the location of Book.
Ra's may be dead, but before he can resurrect himself we need every available member searching the globe to find the Book's last known location, understood?"
"Yes, Director Waller," Flag answers.
"You are dismissed," she says, and he takes his leave as Amanda swivels in her chair facing the all glass windows as she smiles darkly,
"My Squad? My Sirens? No....I've got it," she laughs,
"The Suicide Sirens."