Harley stood in the yard behind the asylum wearing the athletic clothes she'd packed for the gym later- spandex shorts and a bright red sports bra. "This is stupid." She said under her breath. "Seriously, Harley. This is dumb."
'Nuh-uh.' The little voice in her head replied. 'Ya got this, Harleen. Jus' look at'cha, Girlie. Still look 16 if ya ask'in me.'
Harley glanced over her shoulder, making sure she was truly alone. "Well..." she said with a nervous smile. "Here goes nothing." And with that she took off running across the grass, her bare toes digging into the dirt for traction. Once she'd reached the correct speed, she high-stepped then planted her right palm into the ground and used her momentum to flip her legs over in the air. She combined the cartwheel with back-handspring and finished the run off by pushing hard with her legs and tucking her knees to her chest. Head over heels she rotated in the air, landing the back-flip with a satisfying 'thud.' She instinctively straightened out her legs after she stuck the landing, raising her arms above her head and arching her lower back- presenting the successful skill to the imaginary judges. Wearing her brightest camera smile, she bowed to the fence and then to the building.
"See, Harleen? What'd I tell ya?" The voice asked. She smiled to herself and walked back to her starting position, then began another run at the routine, this time repeating the sequence twice before sticking the landing.
She panted, a shit-eating grin on her face, her tongue hanging out of her mouth like a dog as she sat down in the grass.
"Ya just get too wrapped up in'ya own head sometimes, Girlie." The voice scolded.
Harley stretched contentedly and spread out on the grass, watching the sun as it set the sky ablaze in brilliant shades of orange.
The Dark Knight watched the young doctor from his perch atop the asylum. She was sprawled out in the lush green grass, enjoying the unusually vivid sunset. Despite Poison Ivy's general toxicity, the greenery surrounding Arkham always seemed to improve while she was in lock-up. As the sun began to slip behind the Gotham City skyline, Dr. Harleen Quinzel roused herself by pushing up into a handstand and then kicking her feet over her head until she was confidently carrying herself away across the lawn.
"Hmm..." Batman thoughtfully regarded the enigma that was this woman.
/
Ivy sat in her cell watching as the other patients were ushered into the cafeteria. She drew her legs tight to her chest and wobbled into a lying position much like an egg would. An egg with consciousness, of course. Humpty-Dumpty, specifically. The Joker had somehow found a way out of his straight-jacket long enough to punch a guard in the teeth and had been moved to the maximum security block, meaning Ivy was now truly alone. 'Good riddance. That crude clown can rot down there.' She thought. No company was better than The Joker's company. No company used to be better than any company, in Ivy's opinion. But something was changing- shifting inside of her. She wasn't sure exactly what it was and she certainly wasn't sure if she liked it, but it would have been irresponsible not to at least recognize the disturbance. She stared for a long while at the fern across the room. It wasn't growing at the rate she'd expected it would. That measly little fern was supposed to be her escape plan, but it simply wasn't strong enough. Ivy didn't even have to look at it to know. She could just feel it
"Hey!"
The redhead sat bolt upright as Harley suddenly thrust herself into view. Harley smacked a plastic rectangle against the glass and Ivy quirked an eyebrow at the foreign object.
"What's that?" She asked, momentarily excusing the sensual whisper from her tone.
Harley grinned. "Movie night."
*****
"Listen, Dr. Quinzel..." Poison Ivy was trying her best to keep at the woman's heels, but it was proving difficult what with the doctor's quick strides and the restraints fastened around Ivy's ankles. "You're new here, so it's possible you're unaware of the fact that I have been permanently uninvited from movie night."
Harley finally stopped in front of the door to the makeshift theater, Ivy felt like she'd just run the 800 meter.
"Oh no, I'm perfectly aware of that fact." Harley inserted the key into the door and turned the handle. "We had to look at that incident for our expense report. Projectors are not cheap, Dr. Isley."
"Exactly, so..." The door swung open to reveal an empty theater.
"So...this is a private screening." The blonde grinned, holding the door open for her patient.
Ivy was apprehensive as she stepped inside. "Why?"
The shut the door behind them. Ivy hadn't noticed Harley wasn't wearing her lab coat when she'd retrieved her from her cell, but without the coat the doctor just looked like a well-dressed co-ed. Harley leaned down and unfastened the restraints.
"OK, so hear me out." Harley started. "No judgment, alright. I'm taking my doctor gloves off right now. Just one educated woman talking to another educated woman. Look," Harley loosened her necktie until it hung casually off her collar. "This is totally informal."
Ivy furrowed her brow, unsure of where this was headed.
"I think that a lot of your...problems," Harley began, "Come from the way you're treated, or, you know...the way you have been treated."
Harley started into the projector room before Ivy could respond, and came out with a pile of neatly folded clothes. "Here," the blonde said, "I guessed your size."
Ivy regarded each piece of clothing she had provided- lightly washed blue jeans and a casual V-neck T-Shirt.
"Green, naturally." Harley grinned as Ivy examined the shirt. "It will match your eyes. Do you know what color your eyes are?"
Ivy assumed that was a trick question because the alternative was that Dr. Quinzel was exceedingly stupid. "They're green."
"Well, duh." Harley giggled. "I mean the shade. It's called harlequin green. And I just think that's kinda funny," (Ivy noted the slip in her accent). "Because my dad used to call me his little harlequin when I was a kid."
Ivy understood. "Harleen Quinzel, Harley Quinn."
"Ha. Right! I've just never met anyone with eyes like yours. Not that you need a bigger head at this point, but they're very pretty."
"I know." Ivy took the clothes into the projector room to change, utterly confused by the informality of this therapeutic approach. She discarded her Arkham uniform as quickly as she could, substituting it for the clothes Harley had provided. The jeans proved somewhat difficult to pull on, the fit didn't exactly accommodate for Ivy's...well...ass.
"So here's my thinking." Harley began speaking as soon as Ivy was back. "The more people villainize you, the more in touch you get with your plant side. So to get you linked back in with your human "roots", if you will- sorry for the pun- I thought you might like to be treated like a normal person. Even just for one night."
"But I'm not a normal person." Ivy wasn't quite seeing the logic.
"But you are. Somewhere in there, not far below the surface." Harley's eyes were kind. "Your skin takes away any hope of anonymity, not saying you'd want anonymity, but it must be exhausting to have to be Poison Ivy all the time. Most other meta-humans I've seen can hide if they want to. They can take a break from everything every once and a while and just simply exist."
That same strange feeling- the "disturbance"- had now taken up residence in the pit of Ivy's stomach. "But I have a higher calling! I am Mo—"
"Mother Nature's Chosen Protector." Harley finished. "I know. But guess what? Batman is Gotham's chosen protector- the human population at least- and he gets to take a night off if he wants."
The feeling was becoming more familiar. It was anger like poison thrashing around in Ivy's throat. "Batman is nothing more than an XY chromosome with some fancy gadgets. I am the all-powerful embodiment of the life force of this earth!"
"Ivy." Harley said in a calming tone. "You were just a woman once. A smart woman, I'll give you that. But in your essence just a woman who wanted to save the environment. I know you say you didn't want a husband, and maybe that's true or maybe, you know, opinions would have changed. Maybe you would have wanted a family or another PhD or whatever. An evil man ripped that away from you, took any chance of a normal future just like that." Harley snapped her fingers to illustrate her point. "And you got mad. That makes sense. You got really, really mad and you took it out on what you thought that man represented- mankind. But listen, Poison Ivy, Pamela Lillian Isley...here I am, a human being just like he was a human being, asking if you'd like to watch a movie with me. Because I think we could have been friends, Pam. And you look awesome in those jeans."
Ivy opened her mouth to say something, to let the venom flow...but nothing came out. There was nothing to say. This was an earnest and heartfelt kindness extended to her by her therapist. It felt odd, alarming even. Not altogether uncomfortable, but still "significant" in some way. And so Ivy simply offered a somewhat weak sounding "OK" and went to sit down.
"OK." Harley beamed and set up the projector, joining Ivy in the audience soon after.
/
Harley looked over excitedly to gauge Ivy's reaction as the opening credits of The Silence of The Lambs began to roll.
Ivy pulled her eyes away from the screen. "Yes?"
"This is an iconic opening sequence." Harley simpered, boring holes into Ivy's emerald features.
"Jodie Foster breathlessly running through the woods?" Ivy was unconvinced.
"Yep!" Harley shimmied happily and turned back to face the screen. "I always wanted to try that obstacle course."
"Mmm." Ivy acknowledged, trying to watch and hoping that this wasn't how the entire film was going to go.
"I always thought Jack Crawford was kinda yummy." Harley offered sometime later. She glanced over at Ivy who evidently vehemently disagreed. "Did you ever get made fun of as a kid?"
"I thought I was your friend right now, not your patient." Ivy was getting a little frustrated at the constant interruptions.
"Pfft." Harley chuckled. "Have you ever had a friend before? That's the kind of stuff they talk about."
Ivy sighed. "No, not—"
"Oooh, ooh, ooh, this is a good scene!" Harley interrupted and pointed to the screen. Ivy couldn't help but smile, both at how ridiculous this woman was being and how right she had been about her temperament. Ivy sighed again and watched as Hannibal Lecter was introduced.
"His eyes..." Harley whispered. "They just...get into your soul, you know?"
"They look like yours." Ivy replied nonchalantly. If she had looked over, she would have noticed that Dr. Quinzel was blushing.
"No I wasn't made fun of as a kid. Why?"
"Huh?" Harley mumbled as Clarice was trapped inside the storage unit. "Oh, umm...it's just your hair."
Ivy suddenly felt a bit self-conscious, something she hadn't felt in a very long time. "What's wrong with my hair?"
"Nothing! It's beautiful." Harley placed her words strategically around the swells in the film's score. "We had a red-head in our neighborhood growing up, the boys used to call him Ginger." She stopped to gasp at the head in the jar.
Ivy chuckled. "I thought you said you'd seen this movie before."
"Oh, I have, dozens of times. Anyway, you're not really a 'Ginger'. You're more of a 'Red'." She offered Ivy a piece of gum. This time, Ivy took it.
Ivy didn't watch much of the movie after that, electing to instead watch Harley's reactions to it. The woman was comically animated, her eyes wide with child-like amusement at everything she saw. She was clearly ambitious; Ivy had seen that during their sessions. She wanted to be the best athlete, psychiatrist, and person she could, but there was also something in there that Ivy hadn't considered before- genuine curiosity. It also crossed Ivy's mind that with what had happened with her gymnastics career, Harley wanted to prove to herself that there was something in this world that she was legitimately good at because she had clearly lacked the self-esteem to get to Olympic trials on her own. Ivy thought about her flowers and how sometimes water and sunlight wasn't enough to make them grow. Sometimes they required coaxing. She made it a point to walk through her greenhouse every morning, whispering to her babies, giving them the confidence they needed to blossom.
Hesitantly, Ivy leaned into Harley's ear, careful to make sure their skin didn't touch, and whispered "You didn't need him. You could have made it on your own" as sweetly as she could muster. She watched as Harley's jaw twitched, but didn't respond. Ivy smiled to herself and turned back to face the screen. She had planted a seed in the young woman that, with the right coaching, could someday convince Dr. Quinzel to believe in herself as much as she did her patients.
"Having a friend for dinner." Harley repeated the last line of the film as the credits began to roll. "Get it? Of course you get it. You're a genius."
"I am a genius." Ivy confirmed, a benevolent smirk still plastered onto her face.
"Well?" Harley smiled nervously. "What'd you think?"
"Well..." Ivy started, adjusting her hips so she was facing Harley straight on. "I don't think you could have chosen a worse movie to show to your criminally insane patient."
"You're not insane, Pam." Harley propped her elbow on the armrest between them. "You're just misunderstood."
Ivy laughed. "I think it might be a little of both, if I'm being honest."
"Well honesty is the key to any good friendship. Honesty and trust. But those things are even more important when you're by yourself." Harley's voice sounded lower than usual.
"OK, well, I'm telling you 'honestly' that watching The Silence of The Lambs with your patient is a pretty blatant no no. I mean, calling a cannibal an anti-hero hardly sets a good example for a sick mind like mine." Ivy's tone was good natured and Harley smirked in response.
"What do you think the moral was?" The blonde asked, distractedly drawing circles with her finger on the arm rest.
"'The lesser of two evils' or 'it's OK to do the right thing the wrong way sometimes.' You can take your pick."
"Mmm..." Harley squinted like she was deep in thought, all the while moving the circular motion of her finger slowly off the arm rest and onto Ivy's leg.
The older woman prickled at the contact and was almost afraid to ask. "What do you think the moral was?"
Harley parted her lips and inched forward. "I think...it's saying...even the worst bad guy can be good...for that one special person..."
Ivy cursed herself as Harley continued to advance. She had grossly misjudged how closely this woman's confidence was tied to her sexuality. Idiot, Pamela. Idiot! "No." She whispered with their lips only a half a breath apart. "We...I...can't."
Harley pulled away quickly, a look of deep shame etched into her immature features. "Oh my god, I'm such an idiot."
Pamela was feeling steadily worse. This was the outcome she had wanted when they met. Ivy was going to manipulate Dr. Quinzel just like she would any other mark. But now, looking into those cerulean blue eyes, she did not want to break this woman. She wanted to help cultivate her. "Don't say that. You're not an idiot." Ivy's voice was catching.
"No," Harley cackled, suddenly baring a passing resemblance to The Joker in Ivy's mind. "I am. You're just a tease. That's your schtick, right?"
"No, Dr. Quinzel, please." There was something uncharacteristically desperate in Ivy's tone. "It's not like that this time. It's..." her usually extensive vocabulary was abandoning her. "I can't. I mean, physically. I'm poisonous. And more than that..."
"Go ahead." Harley was on her feet at this point, hands on hips, foot tapping impatiently.
"If I corrupt you, how am I any better than my professor or your coach?" Ivy was on her feet as well, wishing with every fiber of her being that her jeans weren't so tight.
"'Corrupt' me?" Harley scoffed. "Of course you would think that's what's happening because you're the most powerful force on the planet, right? Pamela, can you imagine a world that doesn't revolve around you? Where someone, someone like me, could make their own choices?"
"Harleen, stop." Ivy's tone had turned stern. "I told you that you wanted to be dominated. That's all this is. I'm powerful, angry and could- and WOULD- take advantage of you. You are attracted to the idea of me, that's it!"
"I am the therapist here, Pamela. Stop trying to diagnose me. You're not doing this for me, you're doing it for you. You can't stand the idea of fucking up my career path. Of making another little Pamela turn into an Ivy. Is that what you think will happen? Pam I'm gonna drop this nugget a' wisdom on ya free of charge: you were already fucked up before ya met Woodrue, that's why ya chose him in the first place."
The anger started to bubble up in Ivy's stomach again. She would need to find a way to alleviate this suddenly volatile situation before her temper flared to something she wouldn't be able to control. It only took her a moment to make her decision. "This isn't your choice, Dr. Quinzel. None of it is. I—I used my pheromones on you. It's chemical. I was trying to trick you so you would help me escape. This isn't you. It's me."
Harley's face began to drain of color. "I thought the pheromones didn't work on women."
"I lied." Ivy watched the woman straighten herself up. The change in her tone- from excited to romantic to furious- had been so sudden that Ivy hardly had the time to process it before it was over and the monster had returned to its den.
"Thank you." Harley said, in a truly bizarre response to the situation as she tightened the knot on her tie. "For not taking advantage of me."
/
Harley stood over her bathroom sink, hands placed firmly on the porcelain sides for support. Harley's hair, which had started as a bun placed high atop her head had gradually sunk throughout the day as a result of her various physical activities. The knot itself appeared to droop as if it had a depression all its own. The bangs flopped lazily of out of the tie, not exactly rebelling, more just "existing." Harley didn't want to look in the mirror. She knew the obvious pain and desperation in her eyes would hurt to fully realize. So she stared down the drain, hoping something detestable would crawl out and swallow her whole.
Harley had gone into the evening "session" with a plan. She was going to prove Poison Ivy was capable of empathy and she was going to do it by taking a play out of the villainess' own book. Harley planned to seduce her patient in the hopes that Ivy would be able to make a connection between Harley and Ivy's former self, thereby ending the cycle of abuse that Ivy had been living since the day she left Pamela behind. But she had underestimated Ivy's cunning. The vixen had been two steps ahead of Harley throughout this entire process, and so during what should have been Harley's moment of definitive victory...all she could think was how much she wished Ivy would actually kiss her.
"What'd ya think, Harl? You could actually trick Poison Ivy inta bein' better?"
"Shh..." Harley said, gently rocking back and forth, her eyes shut tightly.
The voice laughed. "Ah, she got'cha good, Harl. She dosed ya up with that sex pollen stuff so alls ya could think about was fuckin' her."
"Shh..." She was louder now and moving with more force.
"Dr. Quinzel?"
Harley felt like she was under water and the voice was coming from somewhere on deck.
"Dr. Quinzel?!"
Harley's eyes snapped open. There were hands on her back, stopping her momentum.
"Harleen, are you OK?" Dr. Leland asked.
The younger doctor blinked, grabbing the life ring she'd been handed. "Yes, thank you. I'm sorry."
Leland held her shoulders and took a thorough look at Harley, clearly concerned. "I take it your slightly unethical scheme didn't quite go as planned?"
"No. I got all I needed from her." Harley's face then split into a wide grin and she pat Dr. Leland on the shoulder. "She's not irredeemable, Joan. In fact, I think she's on the right track."
Joan arched an eyebrow at both the assertion and the rapid change in affect. "Really?"
"Really." Harley nodded. "But I will take you up on those Joker sessions. Just two or three. Give Ivy the chance to stew a little. Maybe she'll be ready to commit to her recovery when I get back."
/
Ivy was pacing furiously back and forth in her cell. She felt sick to her stomach. Guilty, even. Her actions had consequences, Ivy knew that. But for the majority of her infamous career, she hadn't been interested in what they were or who they effected because she wasn't human, so what did it matter? Those fleshy meatsacks could all drop dead at once and she wouldn't care. In fact, she might have celebrated. And then there was this girl, this sweet, legitimately well-meaning girl who was just trying to do a good job. Just like Pamela had been trying to do a good job with her apprenticeship. And Ivy had broken the girl like she would a common man, or like a common man once did her. Ivy convinced herself it wasn't about this girl in particular. It was the sentiment of the thing. This girl represented centuries worth of female oppression and here Ivy was, suddenly filling the role of the typical male aggressor. She did this sort of thing all the time to men- manipulated their emotions and physical desires, bending them to her will, but men deserved that treatment for the grief they'd caused. This girl's only offense was being good at her job and believing that she, Poison Ivy, was somehow redeemable.
What a useless emotion, guilt. It was a reactionary response to a circumstance now out of one's control. So inefficient. So...human. And anyway, Ivy had already fallen on her sword. Her sentence would be extended another lifetime and her danger classification would be increased. Now, of course, Ivy didn't actually have a pheromone powerful enough to control women yet, but they didn't know that. Dr. Quinzel would go running to Dr. Leland and Leland would go running to the judge. They would take her plants away and her occasional yard privileges as well until the great and powerful Poison Ivy was reduced to a dehydrated husk of her former self. And for what? For some stupid girl? No. For the bigger picture. Because Ivy was a hybrid- plant and woman. And though she firmly believed plants had more of a right to this Earth than humans did, it was not all humans that she took issue with. Pamela had been a woman once too. And Harley was right, she had given Jason Woodrue her power, or more accurately, she had allowed him to continue to rob her of it for years after the fact. What happened to her was more a crime against women than it was plants and yet the only use of her femininity since then had been for nefarious cause.
So maybe Dr. Quinzel would always hate her for what she did, or at least for what she said she did. But there was also a chance that Harleen would understand someday. Understand why Ivy had rejected her. Understand why Ivy had to choose for her in that moment.
Ivy finally stopped pacing and looked at her reflection in the glass. For a moment, the face that was looking back at her was Pamela's. Pamela as she would have been now- a woman of principal, but not of fixation.