Harley sat in the doctor's lounge updating her case notes. Her last session with Jonathan Crane had gone rather well, she thought. Their conversation was smooth if not a little bizarre. Crane had been a mental health professional himself once, and it broke Harley's heart to have to put up with delusions that the patient could have easily diagnosed in himself. 'With all the doctors that end up in Arkham, the GCPD should start putting medical students on watch lists,' she thought, chuckling to herself as she signed her name and date at the bottom of the report.
Her impromptu session with Ivy had put her in an excellent mood. Although Harley didn't fully understand the extent of her patient's powers yet, she had confirmed that Pamela was more human than she thought. Harley had also come to the conclusion that Pamela was likely suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which, although fairly obvious, was not denoted in her file. What happens when you give a narcissist super-human abilities? Poison Ivy. That's what happens.
Dr. Leland sat down on the couch next to Harley with an exhausted sigh.
"Long day?" Harley asked, cheerfully.
"They're all long days, Dr. Quin." The older woman said, her eyes partially closed.
"It's Quinzel." Harley smiled. She liked Dr. Leland, she was serious, but also strong willed and sharp as a whip. Harley wondered if that's what Pamela would have grown up to be if she hadn't met Jason Woodrue. Of course, she probably still would have been a narcissist, but a narcissist for the greater good at least.
"I'm sorry." Leland mumbled. "The Joker was my last session and I always come out of those things worse than before."
"Oh." Harley was somewhat intrigued, after all, the Joker made for a fascinating psychological study, but what she really wanted was to tell Joan about the progress she'd made with Poison Ivy.
"Clarence told me you visited Isley's cell today."
Harley almost squealed with joy at not having to bring the topic up herself. "I did."
"Why?" The woman asked, not looking at her.
"Well..." Harley started, trying to sound a little less excited than she was. "In our first session, Dr. Isley made a comment about how the whole 'vixen of the vines' routine usually included the use of pheromones. But she used that word, she said 'routine'. When I was a gymnast my strong suit was the beam, I was pretty terrible on the floor so my coach would make me stay afterwards to practice my floor routine over and over and over again until it was perfect." Harley paused for a moment to make sure Joan was still listening. She was. "The more I practiced the more I hated it, and come competition time I was dreading it even though I could have done that routine in my sleep."
"So..." Joan said, hoping to lead Harley to the end of her analogy.
"So..." Harley said, "I think that, at this point, the temptress act is nothing more than a floor routine, and Ivy is tired of it. But every time she gets into that setting with a doctor or an authority figure, she starts it up like she's on autopilot. Just like I could do my choreography with my eyes closed."
Joan raised an eyebrow. "Is your theory that Poison Ivy is dissociating?"
"Well, no. Not exactly." Harley told her. I'm saying that the only way to talk to the woman underneath it all is to disrupt her routine. Keep her on her toes because otherwise she'll wall up and start going through the motions. That's why I'd like to hold our next session outside."
"What? No. Absolutely not. There's grass in the yard, Dr. Quinzel, and she's Poison Ivy." Joan was adamant.
Harley smiled and pushed her glasses back up the slope of her nose. "I'd like to give her the benefit of the doubt."
/
The wind whipped at Harley's trench coat as she looked at her watch for what felt like the 100th time. Her long hair was pulled back into a ponytail rather than her usual bun, but the wind had even corrupted that by pulling her bangs out of their bobby pins. Bangs were fine for around the house or dinner with a friend, but in this professional setting Harley thought they made her look entirely too young. Her teeth began to chatter and she thanked her lucky stars she had worn black slacks and a red turtleneck that day rather than her usual skirt and blouse. And then she wasn't alone anymore.
Harley gasped as the Dark Knight materialized behind her. "W-w-where'd you—"
"Dr. Quinzel?" Batman interrupted her stammering.
She nodded in confirmation. Harley had been a citizen of Gotham her whole life but had never been this close to Batman, and he had certainly never addressed her directly.
"What you're doing here is risky. Even with me around." He warned in his gravelly voice.
Harley nodded again, but was brave enough to speak this time. "I really think it will be OK. If not, then I will go down for it without protest."
Batman smirked, he liked this girl already. "You're new here?"
"That's right." Harley said, trying to keep the hair out of her eyes. "It's my first week."
His cape flapped in the wind as he spoke. "And they stuck you with Poison Ivy? That's a difficult assignment."
"Well Dr. Leland and I are the only women on staff and she seems to have her hands full with The Joker." Harley pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders.
Batman's jaw was clenched. "I see you are learning from your mistakes. Ivy can't be trusted around men."
Harley noted the shift in his expression and guessed there was probably some personal history there that she should look into. "I think it's more that men can't be trusted around Ivy."
To Harley's surprise, Batman nodded. "Perhaps."
A moment of silence passed between them as he sized her up once again. "You won't know where I am." He said, finally. "But as soon as I see her make a move I'll be down there."
"You mean 'if' you see her make a move." Harley clarified.
Batman smirked again and the two were hit by a gust of wind so powerful it knocked Harley off kilter. She steadied herself, but when she looked up the Dark Knight was gone. "Sheesh." Harley Quivered.
*****
The sunlight jabbed Poison Ivy in the eye like a dull knife. It had been two weeks since she'd collected her vitamin D directly from the sun rather than a supplement and although initially disorienting, she could already feel the nourishment soaking into her skin. She glanced down at her hands which had turned back to their usual healthy shade of green. Cooped up in a cell for two weeks, Ivy had begun to look human.
Dr. Quinzel was off to Ivy's right, leaning against the weathered building. With the wind whipping about and her hair up in that ponytail Ivy decided Haleen could pass for a sports model, the ones who were posed hiking outdoors with their Labrador retriever even though their bodies were clearly built in the gym.
"Your skin!" Dr. Quinzel yelled over the weather.
"Photosynthesis!" Ivy yelled back, walking towards her.
"Well you look beautiful." Harleen told her once they'd reached a safe distance for the normal volume of a conversation.
"I know." Ivy deadpanned with all the self-assuredness a woman could possess.
Harleen shoved her hands in her pockets. Deluded as it was, Ivy's confidence could be intimidating, and anyway, it wasn't like Harley's compliment had been a lie. "Did Jason Woodrue think you were beautiful?"
Ivy crossed her arms, pulling them tightly to her chest. "I'm past the point of caring what that meatsack thought. He's dead." She laughed with a hollow satisfaction. "Decapitated. Twice now."
Dr. Quinzel cleared her throat. "Did you...?"
Ivy sighed. "Unfortunately, no. The Bat did that, well the second time at least."
"I'm sure there's a scientific explanation for how he was able to come back..." Harleen tightened her ponytail which was rebelling into just a loose mess of blonde hair.
Ivy's striking features were softened by a tepid smile. "There is an explanation for most things in this world, Harleen." She knelt down and pressed her hand into the grass. "But there are other, more fantastic phenomena..." a white lily grew up between her green fingers, "that exceeds even the wildest imagination." She picked the flower and held it out to the young doctor.
Dr. Quinzel took it from her, nose red from the cold and cheeks rosy from the gift. "Why did you want to be a botanist?"
"It was the only thing my mother let me share with her. She grew roses. Beautiful roses, but she restricted them. Trimmed them too finely, never allowing them to come into their own." Ivy told her, looking past the doctor out beyond the gate. "She treated me just the same, like one of her roses."
"So you've always been a flower." Harleen's words dripped with pity. Ivy didn't answer, so she continued. "Is that how Professor Woodrue saw you?"
"Professor Woodrue lied to me." Ivy spat, her frustrated tone contradictory to her relaxed stance.
"He complemented your acumen." Dr. Quinzel said, hoping that Ivy's inevitable outburst wouldn't be too severe. "He respected your intelligence."
"No." Ivy said. "He saw a shy girl, insecure in nearly every respect, and pounced. He locked me up and treated me like a human lab rat. Caged me like an animal, injecting me with any toxin that suited his fancy. He wasn't even taking notes at the end, he was just shooting stuff into my bloodstream for the fun of it, to see how long I'd hold out. He tortured me and took a lot of pleasure in doing it."
Harleen felt a bit queasy. With what this woman had endured, it's no wonder she'd ended up in Arkham. That experience could have driven anyone mad. "Why do you think he did it?"
The frustration was now evident in every aspect of Ivy's affect. Green eyes blazing, she whipped around to look the doctor straight in the face. "Because he was a man and men break things just because they can."
"But those toxins he injected you with didn't kill you, they made you Poison Ivy."
"Yes." Ivy laughed mirthlessly. "It appears everything but my humanity survived."
"Pamela." Harleen said, taking Ivy's hand in hers. "Why are you still giving him your power?"
"I'm not!" Ivy shouted, yanking her hand away. "I am mother nature's chosen protector! I am the most powerful villain in Gotham City!"
Harleen allowed her eyes to grow wide, trying to look like the innocent child she knew she could. "Wanting to save the environment doesn't sound like the plot of a villain, Pamela. It sounds like a hero."
Ivy was trembling with rage. "I am only a villain to weak minded humans who soil what the Earth has so graciously afforded them in the name of personal wealth."
"But Pamela," Harleen said, far too bravely for the circumstances. "Don't you see? You're villainizing your cause by association..."
"My name is Poison Ivy!" Expression filled with uncontrollable fury, Ivy turned her palms to the sky imploring the blackberry bushes in the corner of the yard to rear their heads like spiny serpents. But just as they began slithering towards the doctor, Ivy let out a yelp and fell to the ground, a batarang clattering off of her skull. "You didn't have to aim at her head." Harley looks at Ivy's unconscious body in disgust, because of the green blood that slowly slipped out of the back of her head.
*****
Harley sat quietly in a chair near the bed, watching Poison Ivy's chest slowly rise and fall. She was mesmerized by the serenity of her emerald features. The gauze that was wrapped around her head had tamed her clearly rather unruly red hair. The Arkham Asylum infirmary staff had diagnosed her with a concussion and stitched up the laceration left on the back of her head by the batarang.
"You don't actually need those, do you?" Ivy asked rhetorically, her eyes still closed.
Harley sat upright, alarmed at the sudden disturbance and a bit embarrassed for how intently she'd been staring.
"Your glasses." Ivy clarified when she didn't respond. "They're not prescription, are they?"
Harley looked down at the round glasses she had been absent mindedly twirling in her fingers. "No." She admitted. "They're not prescription."
Ivy smiled, opening one eye and then the other. "The accent, the glasses...You're an imposter, Harley."
Harley quickly unfolded the glasses and pushed them back onto her face. "It's Harleen."
"No," Ivy chuckled, "Harleen is who your parents hoped you would be. But you're Harley. The girl next-door, the guy's gal, the cool chick, the female jock. You always have your hair pulled back and would wear a sports bra every day if you could. You like cold pizza and action movies and would rather sit and watch the game than help your mom in the kitchen."
Harley was blushing a deep shade of crimson and intently examining her shoes.
"You may have fooled them, Harley Quinzel, but I see you. It took me a second to figure you out, longer than it usually does, but I know what you want."
"Oh?" Harley asked, pretending to be unamused. "And what's that?"
A wicked grin spread over Ivy's lips. "You want someone to take charge. You want to be dominated."
"Alright, Pamela." She emphasized the name. "I think that's enough."
Ivy leaned her head back into the pillow. "There's no shame in it, Harley, really. Everybody wants something."
"I think that batarang may have knocked a few screws loose." Harley crossed her arms.
"Your body language is communicating that you've closed yourself off." Ivy said. It had taken four days and some collateral head trauma, but she finally had Dr. Quinzel on her toes. "See? Anyone can be a psychologist; they just have to watch."
"I'm a PSYCHIATRIST, and if you think diagnosing me as some cheesy Hollywood archetype and then making a rather broad guess at my sexual preferences is therapy then it's no wonder you haven't ever made any progress here." Harley huffed.
"But was I right?" Ivy asked, that feral smile still stretching her lips. "Your muscular definition is rather impressive, including the muscles in your neck which means whatever sport you played, you either expected contact or it was important that your head be able to stay in line with your body. Usually with tennis players the racket arm is slightly bigger than the other, but yours seem to be symmetrical, so I don't think you played Tennis."
Harley shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She wasn't sure why she was allowing Ivy's eyes to prowl over her so aggressively, but for whatever reason she was powerless to stop her.
"It's not softball, that would be too on the nose and your legs tell me you've spent more time jumping than a softball player would. You're too dense to be a basketball player and your lats are too wide for soccer..."
Harley was incredulous. "Why do you know so much about this stuff?"
"I work best outside. That's where I did my schoolwork and there was always some sort of athletic rehearsal going on." Ivy replied quickly.
Harley rolled her eyes. "It's 'practice', not 'rehearsal'. Now can we wrap this up, Dr. Isley? You're wasting both of our time."
"Somewhere along the line you decided that I needed a friend. You realized that I respond negatively to authority figures and so you took a more relaxed approach. I respect you for that, no one else has ever been brave enough to regard me as anything other than a ruthless psychopath, so I applaud you for attempting to fish out my humanity. The problem is, me spilling my guts to you without anything in return does not a friendship make. I've decided I should learn some things about you- for friendship's sake."
Ivy watched as Harley swallowed. She had beat her at her own game and Harley knew it.
"Naturally my next guess would be Track and Field, but you're a bit top heavy which contradicts the leg power required for those events. Taking all the variables into account, the only two conclusions I can draw is that you were either at least a four sport athlete, or you were a gymnast, and because you maintained your grades well enough to attend college and then medical school, I'm going to assume it's the latter. You, Harley Quinzel, were a rather accomplished gymnast, weren't you?"
Harley scoffed. "That's not psychology. That's just understanding body composition."
"You're right, Daffodil. And I will take that as a confirmation. Each sport requires a different mental approach as well as a physical one. Gymnastics is an extremely intense, all-encompassing hobby. At the higher levels it's really more a job than a recreational activity. You are used to extremely demanding authority figures. You've been conditioned that way. That is what you want. So I've compounded my previous assumption by looking at past behavior patterns. That's psychology, right?"
"Is this punishment for my explanation of an eco-system?" Harley asked.
"Partially." Ivy chuckled somewhat good-naturedly. "And for bringing Batsy to my therapy session."
Harley uncrossed her arms, stepping further back into her part of the doctor/patient dynamic. "I'm sorry if you feel like I betrayed you."
"Well it's clear you can't trust me, Doctor." Ivy leaned forward and gently pulled the glasses off of Harley's face, placing them on her lap. "I know you're smart, Harley. You don't need the prop."
Harley smiled despite herself. "OK." Her voice came out hoarser than she'd intended.
"The doctor's said they were on strict orders not to restrain me. Were they listening to you?" Ivy asked.
Harley nodded. "I thought having you restrained in an enclosed space might be triggering. Plus, there aren't any plants in here, so I figured the risk/reward chances were in my favor."
"It only takes one kiss for me to gain complete control over a person, Harley, and my body is essentially a toxic waste dump so poisonous that extended time with me in an enclosed space can and has killed people. I don't need my plants to be dangerous. The risk is always greater than the reward."
How Ivy could make comparing her body to a toxic waste dump sexy, Harley had no idea. "Well I thought the head injury might have slowed you down."
"Were you a collegiate gymnast?" Ivy changed the subject.
Harley sighed and moved to the foot of Ivy's hospital bed rather than the stiff folding chair she had occupied. "I was a scholarship collegiate gymnast, yes."
"Mmm." Ivy noted the encroachment,
"I was even invited to the Olympic Trials." Harley's proud smile was tainted with sadness.
"And?" Ivy raised an eyebrow.
"And..." Harley got up. "This isn't my therapy session."
"I believe that's called 'deflection', Doctor." Ivy said, jokingly batting her eyelashes.
Harley chuckled. "I think you should stick with plants and leave the therapy to me."
Ivy shrugged. "I think we can both agree that I would make a far better psychiatrist than you would a botanist. Can we call that a breakthrough, Dr. Quinzel?"
Harley leaned in close to the older woman's ear, her lips almost touching the emerald lobe. She held that position for a moment before whispering "no." Ivy felt an unfamiliar cold tingly feeling stroll from her ear through her veins. Ivy didn't know what the feeling she was having about this woman but she didn't want it to end.