Harley ran.
The light wind rippled through her hair, sending strands flying across her face as she tore along the streets. She didn’t hear the horns that shooed her off of the road, didn’t see the people she ran into. All she knew was running away. It wasn’t until she was lost and alone in the Gotham night that Harley realized that she didn’t know where she was going.
She slowed to a stop and collapsed on a bus stop bench, still sniffling and wiping away stray tears. She had no home of her own—as soon as she had left school, she’d run to meet her Joker, without wasting the time to find a place to live. Her only home was with him, and she couldn’t go back, not now. And there were no friends to go to. Only Doctor Crane…but Harley couldn’t go to him, either. Her Joker had told her she couldn’t. In Harley’s mind, that was all that mattered.
She sat on the bench for a long time before the idea came to her. It was by a sheer stroke of luck that she was nearby, and Harley leapt up and ran again, this time to safety.
*****
Poison Ivy did not expect visitors to her home even at the best of times. Nor did she consider midnight on a weekday to be the best time for company. So when she heard the knock on her door, Ivy was far too curious not to see who could possibly be calling.
Harley stood at the door, her hair disheveled, thick white make-up streaked with tears, huddling into herself to keep warm in the chilly night. “Can I come in?”
“Harley? What are you doing here? What happened to you?” Ivy asked, stepping aside to let the girl in.
“I didn’t know if you’d let me,” Harley said, dodging the question and sinking into Ivy’s couch. “After the whole flower bit, but I didn’t have anyplace else I could go.”
Ivy bit her lip to be reminded of the April Fool’s incident, but she couldn’t be too mad at the girl sitting in front of her. “You’re forgiven, Harley,” she said gently. “Joker isn’t, but you are. What happened?”
Harley’s eyes welled up with fresh tears, and she wiped off more of her make-up on her sleeve. “He hit me!” She wailed. “I messed up and I made him mad and then he hit me.”
“Oh god, come on, let me get you a towel or something,” Ivy offered, awkward in the presence of Harley’s tears.
“Why would he do it, Ivy?” Harley asked, her eyes fixed on the older girl. “I was just tryin’ to help him! I mean…I didn’t do what he told me to, but I wasn’t trying to give it away or anything, I was trying to be good, it was just a mistake! Why would he…” She trailed off, blowing her nose into the dishtowel that Ivy had handed her.
“Because he’s a monster, Harley,” Ivy said bluntly. “He doesn’t care about anything but himself.”
“He cares about me,” Harley insisted, and Ivy sighed. “He does, he told me so. He promised he did.” But Harley’s eyes betrayed a trace of doubt.
Ivy didn’t have the heart to shatter her delusions. She couldn’t quite say why, but Harley’s state was upsetting her, and she wanted to do something to help. “Stay here for a bit then, if you want. Clean yourself up and try to get some sleep, I’ve got some work to do if you’re going to crash here.”
“Really?” Ivy nodded, and Harley lunged forward, grabbing her in a hug that took Ivy by surprise. “Oh, thanks Ivy, you’re a real friend.”
Ivy pried the other girl off of her, but smiled gently at her. “Go on then. I’ll wake you up when I need to.”
Harley tried to thank her again, but a wave of fatigue broke over her, and she flopped over on the couch without so much as undoing her pigtails. She was asleep in minutes, and Ivy crept back to her little lab to work.
*****
The Joker was thinking, and thinking hard. He was furious with himself, and had nothing to take the anger out on. He was forced to just pace the floor of his hideout, snarling with no one to hear him.
The Joker did not lose his temper the way that he had. It was not what he did. The Joker was calm in his planning, controlled, never letting his feelings get the better of him. But there was no way to undo what had happened. In a fit of anger, he had alienated a valuable asset, and left himself vulnerable. Now he had to figure out how to get her back.
The room was almost unnervingly quiet without her. Some strange, foreign little voice in Joker’s head was nagging him to do something. “I know!” He yelled in response, sitting sulkily on the stolen bed he’d been sleeping on.
“This won’t do,” he muttered, stroking his pointed chin with a long finger. “She knows the plan, and doesn’t know a lick about keeping a secret.”
He didn’t want to listen to the other reasons crowding around his mind. She’s so adoring, they whispered, I miss her.
“I do not!” Joker shouted again, clenching his fists. “What’s the use of arguing with myself if I’m going to be such a twit?”
Whatever reason he decided to use, he had to get her back. The only question now was finding her.
*****
“Get up.”
“Ooww…mommy I’m sick, can’t go…”
“Harley, wake up.”
Her blue eyes snapped open, and Harley looked around groggily. “Ivy…I don’t feel so good,” she groaned, sitting up slowly.
“I figured as much. Hold tight,” Ivy instructed, sitting down next to her with a needle in her hand.
Harley squirmed and tried to get away, but found her arm tight in Ivy’s grip. “Noo, c’mon Ivy, I hate shots! Stop it, c’mon!”
“Stop wriggling like that.” With a modicum of patience, Ivy jabbed the needle into Harley’s arm and pulled it out quickly. “There, it’s done. Now you’ll feel better.”
Harley rubbed at her arm, but she could feel the clouds lifting from her mind, and she breathed more easily where she hadn’t even noticed a problem. “What was that for?”
“The poison,” Ivy answered. “I told you once, I built this place on an old dump. It used to be a laboratory, but never a safe one. The air around here was toxic for months after it shut down, and now my little friends are keeping it that way.” She smiled out the window at her lethal garden. “The shot will give you the immunity you need if you’re going to stay here. I’m already immune, so it doesn’t affect me, but you’d have been dead within a few hours if I didn’t get you an antidote.”
“Oh…thanks, then.” But Harley still glared at her arm where she’d been hit.
“Now let’s get a couple things straight.” Ivy stood and stretched out her arms. “I’ll let you stay, but you’re gonna have to help me out. I don’t have a television, my phone is for my use only, and if any of my plants die on your watch you will be held personally responsible, you got that?”
“I got it,” Harley promised, rolling back over on the couch.
Ivy grabbed her arm again and pulled her to her feet. “Come on now, you’re up. Make yourself useful, the girls need breakfast.”
“Girls?” A watering can was shoved into Harley’s hand before she could complain, and Ivy led her over to the door.
“You can feed the trees,” Ivy started, indicating a small grove to one side. “My flowers aren’t likely to take to you very quickly.”
“Uh…okay.” While the older girl crooned over the bright and dangerous-looking blossoms, Harley stepped warily over near the trees. She poured the contents of Ivy’s watering can over their roots and trunks, recoiling slightly from the acidic green color of the water. “You sure this is safe?”
“For you, yeah,” Ivy called back. “Make sure you splash the leaves too, they like that.”
With a shrug, Harley tossed the rest of the water up into the leaves, and she could almost swear that she heard contented noises coming from the trees.
“Oh, they like you.” Ivy smiled as she walked up next to the girl, and patted one of the trunks. “Good work.”
Harley smiled, and the two of them went around Ivy’s poison garden together before heading back inside.
“How’d it happen, Ivy?” Harley asked her later, when there was no more work to be done for the afternoon.
“I told you, because he—“
“No, not to me, to you. The whole flora bit. Howcome you don’t need a shot like me? And do you like, talk to them, or what?”
Ivy seemed almost surprised at the question. “Why?”
“Cause I’m curious, is all. If you don’t wanna tell just say so,” said Harley, looking rather hurt.
“No, it’s not that. It’s just…well, no one’s asked me that. Not for a long time.”
“Well I’m askin’.”
Ivy chuckled. “Okay then.” And with a deep breath, she went into her story.
*****
Pamela Isley had been working too late again. The air in the lab was hot and humid, and full of strong perfumes that made it hard to breathe. But all he same, Pamela loved what she did.
She had been younger, then. Her skin was more tan, hair less wild, and a pair of small, square glasses hid her green eyes. And her youth only added vigor to her cause. Pamela had always been an avid environmentalist, and the passion had driven her to study biology and botany when she attended Gotham U.
That study, however, had practically forced her into an internship with the lab, and Pamela hated the place where she had to work. Dedicated to studying, at times genetically altering, and most importantly making money off of rare plants of every kind, the owners of the lab didn’t care how much pollution they pumped into the world as a result. Despite the rallying cries of several environmental groups, Pamela’s voice among them, the lab was still going strong, and it was still the only place nearby hiring interns from the university.
She liked to be alone when she worked. Pamela would often stay late into the night, watching over the experiments when no one else cared to. So it wasn’t strange for her to see yet another “do not touch” sign posted on a pane of glass. One of the older and more pompous scientists always refused to let a lowly student handle his precious tests.
Pamela fought back a cough as she passed the thin glass, and she went to visit her Venus Flytraps—whom she had named individually and took special care to feed and attend to each night. Even tonight, with her cold, she lingered in the lab for quite a while before picking up her coat to head home.
But when the lights went out, a strange glow still shone from somewhere inside. Pamela narrowed her eyebrows and put down the jacket. The light was coming from behind the glass barrier, where a flowering plant stood softly glowing, drinking in some toxic-looking liquid at its base.
There was more outrage than curiosity on Pamela’s face as she slipped into the testing room, ignoring the posted signs that wanted her to keep out. She could feel a heat emanating from the experiment, and she coughed again as the light started to pulse slightly, as if it had a heart of its own to beat.
“What in the world…?” She reached out a hesitant hand to touch the luminous flower…
…and with no warning, the entire lab was engulfed in a ball of light and heat and sound.
The explosion destroyed the entire building, and every bit of plant life inside. But somehow, a few moments after, Pamela woke up. She groaned and rubbed her temple, wishing she could drown out those awful screams…and then she remembered that she had been alone.
“Who’s there?” she called, now seeing the pale, almost chalky tone that her skin had taken on, feeling stranger than she had ever felt.
The same wailing cries responded, growing fainter, weaker, and finally petering out into nothing.
Pamela Isley was the only thing left alive in the lab. She had heard the plants dying all around her, she realized. Somehow, she had been able to understand. And she wept for a long time before she was found.
*****
“That experiment was trying to give the plant a kind of consciousness,” she explained in the present to a rapt Harley Quinn. “When I touched it, it malfunctioned and the test failed. But there was some weird gene in my blood that kept me from dying. Instead, it gave me the plant’s consciousness, turned me partly into it,” she finished with some measure of disbelief on her own part. “I know how it sounds.”
“Wow…so then it all makes sense, kinda. Maybe. I think.”
Ivy chuckled. “Well, maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. But that’s how it is. My plants listen to me, because I’m the one who understands them. And since then, I’ve made my life out of protecting them, at any cost. I made my home here on the remains of the lab. No one wanted it, because I’m about the only thing that can live here, besides my girls. And now you,” she finished.
“Right. “ Harley jumped up from her seat. “Thanks, Ivy. Ya know, you tell a pretty good story!” The clown-girl beamed and skipped off, leaving Ivy with her plants and her memories.
*****
The classic sound of a bank alarm bell rang out into the night, and Batgirl jumped to action. The streets had been so quiet for the last few days. The alarm was almost a relief; as long as there were crooks out and about, they couldn’t all be sitting around plotting.
Renee rounded the corner on her line and landed perfectly on her feet, taking in the scene in a second. She was at the back of the bank, where a white van waited with open doors for whoever had tripped the alarm. Her first action was an obvious one: Renee walked to the driver’s seat and took the keys out of the purring ignition. Then she simply sighed and waited.
It wasn’t long before two masked figures came running out of the back door, both weighted down with bags of cash. Renee put a gloved hand over her face and rubbed her temples. The pair were dressed in matching black-and-white stripped shirts, the man wearing black pants and the woman a uselessly short skirt. His hair was spiked, hers held in a high ponytail. They were both grinning ear to ear. They had even hand-drawn dollar signs on their bags.
“Alright, who the hell are you supposed to be?”
The girl dropped her bags and put up her fists, standing in a cocky pose that she must have thought looked cool. “Hah! Batgirl! We were hoping you’d show up! You’re no match for…” She looked over at her partner, who had been trying to salvage the money, and elbowed him sharply in the chest.
“Oof! Oh, right. No match for Intolerable Robbers, Intolera-Bill—“
“And Bad Penny!”
The two of them stood back to back, the money forgotten as they waited for a reaction. Renee just stared at them, completely unconcerned, and let out another low sigh. “Look, just go home, will you?”
“Nuh-uh, not after all this work!” Penny shouted, pointing to her clothes.
“Alright, fine,” Renee shrugged, and went to work.
It was over a few minutes later. Renee laid Bill out on his side where he had passed out, and tried to ignore Penny’s annoyed shouts from where she sat tied up in the string of a grappling hook.
“This isn’t over, Batgirl! I mean it! A Bad Penny always comes ba—“
Renee’s kick to her face was perhaps more violent than she’d intended, but effective nevertheless. Soon, she was able to get back on her patrol, shaking her head and muttering under the sound of the wind, “What the hell is wrong with this town?”
*****
As the days went by, Ivy started to notice Harley’s enthusiasm dimming, and she could see the way that the younger girl kept sighing out the window. “What is it, Harl?” she asked on the fourth day, catching her in one of those moments.
Harley heaved another loud sigh. “I miss him.”
“You what?!” Ivy nearly shouted.
Harley cringed a bit, but kept going. “I do, Ivy. I mean I know what happened and all, but it was just the one time…he was so good to me all the rest of the time. And I love him, Ivy,” she added, looking up at her friend with wide, innocent eyes.
Now Ivy sighed, and sank down next to her on the couch. “Harley…”
“No, I do. I know I do. I oughta give him a second chance.”
“And when he hurts you again, what are you going to do?” asked Ivy bluntly.
Harley had no answer. “He won’t…” she said quietly. Then louder, “He won’t. I won’t let him if he tries, okay? How’s that?”
It isn’t going to work, Ivy thought. But to Harley she said, “Fine. But come back here if he does, do you hear? I might not be exactly used to this, but I don’t want you hurt, okay?” She put her hand on the other girl’s shoulder, almost comfortingly.
Harley’s face broke into a wide smile. “You got it, Ivy. You’re too good a friend for me.” She grabbed Ivy up in a close hug, and the other girl couldn’t help smiling.
“Go on, then,” said the redhead, pushing Harley away. “Go back. See how much I care.”
“You care a lot,” shot back Harley, and with a final squeeze and a big grin, she skipped away from Ivy’s home, and safety.
*****
The night wind threatened to blow away the old fedora that covered the Joker’s shock of green hair. He cursed the world and pulled it back on, longing for the day when he could afford to be seen. But right now, it was worthwhile to have mysteriously disappeared, and so he hid.
The only problem was finding her. He had rather hoped that Harley would have come to her senses on her own and come crawling back, but she hadn’t. So the Joker could only wander some of the worse streets in Gotham.
“Now where the hell could she have gone…”
The Joker would not stand for his world being changed as abruptly as it had been by her absence. He didn’t know why it bothered him so much not to have her around, and he didn’t care to figure it out. He just wanted the problem solved, and quickly, so he could get back to his plans, and the things that really mattered.
Then finally, he spotted her walking down the street, on her way back to the blood bank. She hadn’t seen him, and he took a momentary pleasure in shadowing her, grinning widely. He loved when life worked out the way he wanted.
Harley turned around before Joker could make his big entrance, and screamed. “Aahh! Stay back, I gotta mean punch and I’m not afraid to—Mister J?”
Joker smiled again and tipped his hat at her. “Now what’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?” He asked her with a wink.
“Lookin’ for you!” Harley stopped herself from leaping forward into his arms. “Are…are you still mad at me?”
His lips twisting into an indulgent smile, Joker reached out a hand to smooth back the blonde hair that had escaped from one of her pigtails. “Nonsense. I don’t have any reason to be, do I?”
“Not at all, Mister J! I’m gonna be so good this time, you’ll see! It’ll be just like before,” she said excitedly, beaming up into the chalk-white face. “I’m so sorry I made you mad, Puddin’. I’ll never do it again, promise!”
“Good.” Joker let go of her and started to walk off, trusting that she would follow. “Let’s go, then. We’ve got a lot of work to do if your little plan is going to make a good joke.”
“You mean we’re using my idea?”
“Of course! Why wouldn’t we?”
Harley melted again, to think that she could be useful to her Joker. “Aw Puddin…”
“Keep up, now. Or I’ll leave you behind.” He kept on walking, hands in his pockets, listening to the footsteps that skipped along behind him with a wicked, satisfied grin on his face.
