Who: Riddler and Poison Ivy Where: The Gotham Police rooftop next to the batsignal When: Recently What: A little villain chit chat and makin outs Warnings: Mild adult themes?
On principle, Riddler didn’t like surprises. Yes, he was a man of many mysteries, but they were all his own or very easy to quantify and analyze. In his line of work, surprises usually led to an uncomfortable cell in Arkham and right now that was at the top of his list of Things he did not want to happen. That said, this Gotham, this magnificent brand new Gotham, was a little too predictable. Even his new favorite goody-goody, a Batgirl with anger issues, was predictable and easy to push. Great minds needed challenges to stay healthy and strong, which meant sometimes doing things that were a little illogical. A little mysterious.
Ivy fit the bill. He liked her not just for those varying shades of green she liked to dress up in, but because she was a reminder of what they had without playing the same game twice. See, Riddler usually only worked alone and if he did work with someone else it was calculated, planned and usually involved some kind of clever twist he thought up days before even approaching his fellow villain. This wasn’t any of that. They weren’t comrades or teammates like him and Scarecrow. They didn’t owe each other anything. There wasn’t some kind of mutual goal. If anything, they were just sizing each other up. And, for once, Riddler was okay with that.
Dressed in a darker green with no glowing bowler hat to speak of for the sake of mild camouflage, he had one of his men drop him off at the south end of the Police Station building and he made a climb towards the Bat Signal. This was something he would not do on his own, not in a million years. He barely showed up at most of the traps he set for heroes and walking around on a police station was more of a Joker act than his own. He took solace in the fact that Gordon hadn’t shown his bushy little mustache lately and so the likelihood of him just hanging out on the roof shooting the breeze with Batman was very slim. Still, he couldn’t ignore the little electric thrills from nearly throwing himself on the mercy of the police.
Once he climbed to the top, he moseyed over to the Bat Signal curiously. His walk was all swagger like some brilliant urchin who managed to trick his way into some elegant party. “It looks different.” Riddler said, his thumb caressing over the sharp ears and rigid wings. “Sleeker. I like it.”
At the heart of her, for Ivy did still have a heart. She monitored its pressure for differences between night and day, she analyzed her hemoglobin cells beneath microscopes, she measured the rate of beats. She used to document her findings on hard drives, alter the evidence in centrifuges and beakers of plant compounds. It was still there, the muscle and its network of blood-engorged roots(even if her blood was not really blood anymore). Her organs were functional, adaptive to chemicals. Her liver enzymes could dissolve botulinum toxin and actually derive a nutrient from it. Ivy supposed it was a lot like what plastic surgeons managed to do with turning botulism into Botox.. her body was just ahead of the curve. Ivy'd done all of those little experiments on herself in the beginning, when her rebirth was still new.. still frightening. Not many things made her pulse race anymore. Who did she have to fear, after all?
The Bat Signal seemed like the perfect place to meet, although Ivy was not one for irony. It seemed so organic to her that there was no safer place for a couple of walking wanted posters like themselves to get comfortable. Unless Commissioner Gordon was hiding out in some mancave underground bunker, he wasn't in this Gotham.. not yet anyway. What reason would they have to light the signal, anyway? With Ivy and Riddler playing a chess game of cautious company, and the Joker off surely pining over the loss of his traitorous clown princess.. the city was quiet tonight. Contrary to some beliefs, Ivy preferred the quiet. She didn't thrive on chaos or puzzles or bullet wounds. She'd be just fine on her own, a deserted island with just her and her lab. Making the world better from a distance.. but of course, Ivy wasn't one to try the same thing twice, and that dream had already been destroyed for her long ago. That was the problem with notoriety, really. Her name was out there, what she could do was unrivaled. There was always going to be some government sleaze, some kingpin, some Dr. Strange or Black Mask dragging her back to Gotham for this or that. A creature like Ivy couldn't disappear.. not completely.
She'd been on the roof for a while now, laid out on the far east edge where the large steel door of the rooftop entrance from the police station below kept her hidden. The only sign that she'd arrived at all were the tangle of vines around the door's heavy handle, looping around the side of the crow's nest to effectively keep the door from opening. No need to get disturbed. At the sound of Riddler's voice, Ivy slid her legs back from the roof's ledge and stood. She went for traditional tonight, lime leggings that fed into forest green boots, boots that climbed so high. She'd ditched the bathing suit look for an oversized tank top that slipped off one moonlit shoulder. Her skin wasn't naturally pale, not anymore, but with concentration she could control the level of chlorophyll that seeped into skin's pigment, and right now there was none when she strutted up from behind the dead Bat Signal.
"You were always a man of simple tastes."
In his hand was the infamous Riddler cane. It wasn’t as elegant as the movie version or even from the old Adam West television show, but it made up for it in style. The question mark handle was square with oversized metal screws and gears, one side riddled with different buttons all with their own use and the other solid metal stained with a couple drops of Batgirl blood. He meant to clean it off, but it was a nice reminder of how easily he owned her the first time they met. He tapped the Bat Signal with the nose of his cane, smiling at the tiny brass noise that stretched across the rooftop before he turned to look at Ivy.
“That’s true. For example, I think my favorite part of your little get up has always been those boots. So simple, dangerous and green.” He leaned on the cane, one hand in his pocket as he looked at her with a smirk. It was interesting to see the differences with this Ivy and the one he knew. Just like it was interesting to learn about all the different versions of himself.
"I remember.." Her voice was a dreamy whimper caught in the wind, soft in her approach. She smelled like honeysuckle, the juice that bled from freshly cleaved granny smiths, mint, and skin. It rode the air, invisible but intoxicating as any poison dust cloud. "You mentioned the boots before," she explained with a lulling tilt of her head. "You look different." Somehow, some way that she couldn't explain, and it brought Ivy closer. If fear was in their equation, it was not evident because she mossied close enough to brush her fingers over the front of his clothes. As if she could feel out the braille subtlety from one fabric to the next. She glanced up at him with eyes that glowed nuclear, Chernobyl grapevines. Her lips moved, and the whisper was barely there at all, ".. but still the same." Although her attention was firmly planted on his face, she was very aware of the hand in his pocket, of the casual lean against his cane. It could be said that the two of them were the smartest in Gotham.. Nigma might have preferred his puzzles, but Ivy was all science. "We're not so different, are we?" Neither of them killed, not without true purpose.
Riddler watched with just his eyes, his expression never changing from that smug, know it all glint that he was famous for. Maybe his eyes told a different story. Maybe they were busy trying to find the things that were not the same, the parts that were still dangerous and how easy it would be for her to overpower him. They had that urge in common, too, even if his own need to mentally crush enemies was to prove a point. She, like a woman, had probably a million different reasons why she was this way. “No, I suppose not.” He tilted his head down, inhaling the English garden scent she carried around with her. It needed more roses, but maybe that’d be too obvious.
“I think that’s why you and I kept our distance. My shade always clashed a little with yours.” He was more of a neon green kind of man. While everything about her was natural and leafy, his colors came from all things engineered and manufactured. Riddler lingered for a moment then moved away from her touch, rounding her casually like a gentleman sizing up a statue in a gallery. “How often do you venture this far away from your garden? Personally, if I don’t see the sky for a couple days, I consider that a good week.”
Roses weren't for Ivy. If she was going to go English in pheromone, it would be based on the Tower of London. Climbing ivy with rust and so much yearning to be free. Her fingers slipped away from him with an unseen smirk when the Riddler rounded her for inspection. He wasn't the simpleton man to ogle the sweet swoon of her curves, although if he was looking for weapons.. he was wasting his time. Ivy was not a woman of guns or knives. She didn't need them, and it had nothing to do with pride. Although obviously a less powerful, less confident entity would load themselves down with such. Confidence had never been her downfall, just the distrust of manmade items.. the underestimation of men. How could anybody be against her cause? Ivy promoted the growth, the flourishing of Gotham.. creatures like Joker only wanted to destroy it. How was there ever a comparison, a discrepancy on which side to join? As for the Bat, he was functionally useless. The Bat had his morals, but morals were not everything.
"My gardens protect themselves.. although I prefer the sunlight." Any plant would. With the barest tilt of her head, atomic eyes gleamed over one sleeve-slumped bare shoulder to catch a glimpse of him. "You're a man that prefers the indoors.. your computers. How does it feel to be beneath the moon?" The air might not have been fresh, but she was. She brought with her the garden of Eden, all he had to do was take a deep breath.
Riddler did his homework, but anyone with even a basic knowledge of Gotham knew how powerful she could be. He remembered being surprisingly amused by reading of her various exploits in the Sunday morning paper. Whether it was flowers that swallowed men whole or roots that could rip through buildings, each incident proved she was dangerous like a witch from a fairytale. Her weapons could appear out of thin air, or in Ivy’s case, sprout from even the most unforgiving pavement. He admired it, but again, it was always from afar. Like she said, he was a man of technology and computers. Things that couldn’t exist in her Eden.
Still, he did take a good lungfull of it.
“It’s easily the least interesting thing for me to look at.” He said dismissively at first before the part of his mind warning him to keep his guard could fight to the surface. The sensation of just standing near her was exquisite, as he expected, but he worked hard to keep himself from becoming some drooling, paralyzed puddle for the police to find later. He took the question more seriously, standing at her side as he looked up at the moon for the first time he had been in this Gotham. “In folklore, the moon changes people. You can see evidence of this mentality in the way our local superheroes behave. Even some of the rogues gallery. But, not me. The moon makes me keenly aware that I won’t change. I can’t. The Dark Knight can take off his symbol, but I’m incapable.” He turned his attention to her, his smirk was still there along with the aloofness in his eyebrows, but the Riddler was actually being sincere. “You’re the same way.”
Her eyes diverted from him, although Ivy did not look upon the milksweet moon. Rather she watched the horizon of Gotham's nightlife. The street lights, the headlights, the decrepit factories in the distance that bordered the bay. Their rust and carelessly disposed of barrels still tainted the water. "What is the point in changing?" Words rode a wistful breeze, and this close even her breath was invigorating and lush, something tart and sweet that turned the city air into a gush of pomegranate. "Everyone else falls behind, reforms, or goes soft.. it keeps me ahead of the curve." What was the point in regressing? Why play gentle when the world continued to be so cruel?
Ivy supposed that Riddler did the things he did because he was bored, but Ivy exacted justice. Nobody else would(or could) do what needed to be done, she was the only one. The new mother of this foul Earth. For the longest time, she simply stood there. Beside him and yet unaffected by the proximity of his body. Green by green. The wind cracked like whips from this high up, and it pulled stray petals and leaves from the rubied tangle of her curls, that suicidal tumble that plummeted all the way down her spine. Lily of the valley and some of her namesake were strung through a few thin braids. The wind carried her essence like mustard gas, dangerous in its own way. Tropical floral, overripe fruit, fresh orgasms. She turned on him quite suddenly, slaughtering the rooftop ambience with a regal lift of her chin and a sharpening of gas chamber eyes. "I didn't ask you up here to chat. I imagine the Joker will be quite put out over what I did to Harley, and I want to know where you stand." There was an utter vacancy of emotion in that beautifully carved face - would the wrong answer mean she'd have to destroy him here and now?
Ahead of the curve. Riddler let that sink in, cane firmly planted into the hard roof of the police station like someone raising a flag in enemy territory. If everyone was ahead of the curve in Gotham, could this mess ever be untangled? And, if not, then why was Batman still fighting? Why didn’t he just let go and admit these night creatures had rightfully taken over the city for their own? Certainly with Batman out of the picture, Riddler could see themselves tearing each other apart for land, money and their own personal marks of victory. The whole city could be flattened and built anew. Without green menaces and killer clowns. Wasn’t that the right thing to do?
It made Riddler understand that Batman, Batgirl and the rest of them weren’t concerned with what was right. They wanted to play the game, even if the house was stacked against them, and they would die trying to win. And, for someone who lived for the game himself, who knew what the cycle of win and lose looked like, Gotham was already nirvana. “Where I stand.” Riddler whispered after her, treating each word like a carefully scripted piece of code. Grinding the end of his cane down into the roof like a dying cigarette, he looked at her. His expression filled with calculations.
“I’m an opportunist, you know that. When Joker blows a hole through a building, I construct a nest. But, he has always been more dangerous than beneficial. To me. To the girl in my head.” He turned his body a little, enjoying another breeze carrying the scent of her garden as he wondered if he could construct something so simply delightful with lines of zeroes and ones. “He’s going to come after you. I don’t think you understand the severity of that.”
Ivy wandered close to the ledge to trail a fingertip along the deep, cemented grooves between the stones that gilded their rooftop soiree. The gloves were not her traditional elbow length green but rather fingerless vinyl, cropped just beyond the wrist. She scratched a nail against the mortar, drawing a deep breath as the Riddler recited truths she knew too well. "The Joker is welcome to come for me.." Her eyes rolled sidelong for an asp slit glance in his direction. "He's a madman, we all know that. There is no method, nothing he wants except for that which he wants in the moment." There was movement on the ledge now. With her back to him, she was the outline of one of Pan's nymphs beneath the moonlight. Beestung curves and those boots, baby's breath caught in the briars of her cherry hair. The ledge held whispers, the barely there slither of skinny little grass snakes. Of course, they were not snakes at all but tendril vines. The English ivy of her namesake, the same desperate green that crawled up the Tower of London to watch men pray, get racked, and die. Innocent men, guilty men, the insane...
"He's crazy, but that doesn't mean I underestimate him. He is only a man, after all.." Turning to face him, her eyes were bright. Unnaturally so, toxic gas and radiation spiraling through the iris. Hypnotic, a magician's coin. "He'll come after my plants, probably with a bomb strapped to some kitten." Closer, she moved in. Hatcheting him apart with her eyes, the man with his sturdy cane. "Unless you know something I do not know.." The vines behind her sprawled, aching and sleepy beneath the moon. Leaves unfurled, but no flowers bloomed.
Riddler was playing a game of tag with his senses. He’d let himself wander off into the floral somewhere and then just before his mind was about to fall off into a tumbling stupidity, he’d snap it back. A whiplash that woke him up and kept him temporarily sharp. These little mental exercises were more dangerous than tangoing with the Bat sometimes because losing a grip on his perfect and evolved brain would destroy his identity. But, he craved a challenge. Especially since they seemed so hard to come by these days. So, when Ivy turned to look at him, she could see his eyes snap back into focus, doing its very best to fight her hypnotic stare even though chemistry and biology were against him.
“Asking for a secret?” He asked, silently begging Sadie to take the reigns for him. She could resist Ivy, couldn’t she? Sadie, who was particularly disturbed by his recent obsession over Batgirl, refused. This means war. “I only have one secret about the clown. It may be useful to you, it may not.” The man in green gave a casual shrug, eyes rolling up to the night sky innocently.
"Well, if you told me... it would just be between us." Her palms lifted in display of the celestial ocean above them. The eerie quiet of the roof they'd chosen as an even playing field was their world, just theirs. And below, where some of the low lifes of Gotham still milled the streets at this hour, that was so beneath them. Riddler and her weren't like the rest of them - the guns, and the knives, and the mindless crime.. that was Joker's playground. But they could be separate, they could be better. The direction of her boot heels was deft, the subtle pendulum sway of her body. Green on green, didn't he think that they matched for a reason? "Wouldn't it be nice to have something that was just between us?" Her voice lowered to a dripping honeycomb whisper, she was inches from him. It was like that murmur came not only from the swooning tulip of her mouth, but from above.. from behind him.. inside his head.
"We could work so well together," she ran a gloved hand out to his arm, risking a barely there touch as her fingertips crawled down past his elbow, then his wrist. "You can break into Arkham's security system, I know you can.. I want you to help me." It wasn't that Ivy couldn't do it herself, but it tended to involve a lot of work on her part.. escaped inmates, broken trees.. messy. Absinthe eyes watched him with the kind of sultry, kittenish expectation that said she didn't see how he could say no, not to lil ol' her.
Once, when young Edward Nigma was a high school dork desperately looking for footing beyond the chess club, he wandered into a party thrown by kids so glimmeringly popular he thought they were gods. They passed around a cocktail mix of anything from their parents liquor cabinets and he readily tried to fit in with the rest of them by drinking until everything blurred. Three drinks down, he found himself on a sofa somewhere in the basement with a pretty straw-haired junior that begged him to help her cheat on the next test. The mix of intoxication and attention was too much for the teenage genius, so he relented. She could have whatever she wanted as long as she kept batting her eyelashes.
It was moments like this that made Riddler the man he was today. Cunning beyond repair, bitter and alone. He had worked so hard to not only be better than everyone else, but to stay far removed from their little wars and games unless he made the rules and set up the playing field. But, here he was on the roof of the police station, guard down and losing by ten points to the woman in green. Did he hate himself for it? Maybe a little. But, the alternative was staying in his hole, away from the moon and interesting little gardens. “I rebuilt the security system myself.” Riddler blurted in a mix of confidence and mumbling affection. His eyelids fluttered a little as he searched for some kind of rock to climb on, some sort of life vest. He asked for Sadie again, but she was gone pouting somewhere. Fine. Working with Ivy couldn’t be too detrimental, right? Even if it did hurt his alliance with the Crow for now.
“The question is, what do I get out of it?” The Riddler smiled at her sweetly. He was happy to throw himself in her corner, but he deserved a treat for being a good little mastermind.
Oh, he was hers. They were all hers. His question made her smile, a lick of pink to moisten poison petals, a glisten of venus fly teeth as Ivy stroked her gaze from his eyes, down to his mouth, his neck, his suit. He didn't back away, so she pressed closer until the line between them could have been a blur of cells, costume against buxom costume. Her arms claimed him gently, not wanting to scare him off while her bare fingertips walked up the back of his neck. She smelled like the food of forgotten gods, milk and honey. Floral afternotes that invaded the senses, compelling. Come on the lilies begged. Give in the night blooming jasmine moaned. "What do you want?" Her green eyes lifted, the gas chamber doors opening like a swirl of tarnished copper gone to beautiful mildew, a haunting pit to lose oneself in. It was a dangerous question to ask, but she did it anyway. Cats weren't the only ones that got curious.
In the haze she was spiraling him into, the Riddler could almost see his green suit of circuits and wires stretch their little claws to grasp at her blooming flowers. His own artificial electricity should have clashed with her vicious roots and thorns, but they were threading together with ease and purpose. If she hadn’t wrapped her arms around him and forced his gaze with irradiated looks, he’d scurry back to his little hole of computers and generators. Steel, neon, pipes and screens. She’s never be able to beat him in that world and that notion alone was enough to just let go of winning this conventionally.
Despite the high he was riding, Riddler still had that cavalier rise of the brow. The smirk that seemed to say he knew what he was doing even if he did not. The cane was more of a support system now than it had before and though there was an array of buttons across the top to fend her off, he did not reach for any of them. “Just a little taste of poison.” He whispered gently, his voice losing the theatrics it took to become a green menace. She couldn’t take full advantage of him and drop him off on the station’s steps like a newborn child if she wanted help with Arkham. But, Riddler wanted to get lost in her Eden. He wanted someone to turn his calculations and processes off.
The simplicity of the request was unexpected, and dangerously so. A risk that few would willingly take, if they even knew what they were asking for. A taste of her could be cyanide, it would be opium, it could be life salvaging herbs, or a flood of arousal. It was a roulette wheel of her preference at the time, and the first rule of business on the other side of the door was that you never bet against the house. His mind was right in one regard however.. while she didn't need him, she wanted him. Besides, its not like she killed men for wanting to scratch at the rash she promised. Once upon a time, maybe. But a woman could let bygones be bygones, and the Riddler had never been a true enemy of hers. More of an intrigue, a pawn in a game of chess that she'd never learned how to play. Ivy said nothing when she tilted her head back, clinging to him as entwined and dangerous as her name. A palm sculpted along the fine line of his jaw while the other caught the back of his neck and pulled him in for a kiss. Her lips were velveteen absinthe, offering stars behind the eyes and enough adrenaline to soar blood through his heart, his limbs, his brain. If he was electricity, she was a power source.
He lost his grip on the metal cane, letting it drop with a loud clank on the rooftop. In the heart of Gotham, it barely made a sound, something akin to a bird fluttering between branches or a row of tiny icicles shattering on gravel. Even if it was as loud as a bell over some colonial town, he wouldn’t have heard it. Riddler would never get used to someone giving him something he didn’t have to bribe, cheat or lie his way into receiving. Especially something that was this good. Everything that wasn’t created by him usually seemed cheap, used an unimpressive. But, Ivy worked in different fields, different circles of knowledge than he did. What she offered was exactly what he needed. A break from existing only in his own egotistical world.
Riddler wrapped his arms around her, hands wandering over the thin fabric of her hanging tank top and through the tangled waves of red hair. The fog she had stretched over him was replaced with a sharp awareness and focus that he wasn’t expecting. He had wanted the kiss to be akin to some kind of lovely slumber, but instead it rejuvenated him, letting his identity stay intact without over thinking or analyzing the softness of her lips and the way her skin felt like a mix between petals and flesh. It was the perfect sensation for a man like him. A place between knowledge and ecstasy he didn’t think was possible.
All that existed was on the rooftop. The Bat Signal was a dead backdrop to their embrace, a shadowy curtain before the display of limbs tangling like briar, fingertips digging for purchase in the soil of his back, the skin of his neck, the nape of his hair. The divinity of her arch was languid, a blossom that budded and thrived even beneath the moon. She surged against him with a feminine sound that was all ache. It belonged in bedsheets, not on the roof of a police station.. but that made it all the more perfect for her. How Ivy loved to inspire things, to grow things, where they didn't belong. When she licked at his mouth, it was a tingle of mint leaves with the sweetness of crushed pears. Was he trembling? She liked that. Her hands found their way down his chest, measuring the palpitations of his heart, she could taste the static quiver of his lovelorn breath. Whatever word she moaned into his open mouth, it sounded something like Perfect...
When she drew back, it was abrupt, shaking the bloodrose tumble of her hair out of her face while the clouds spread above them and the moon played witness to their debauchery. "Ready, then?" As if she had to ask.
Like a shot of energy after weeks of little sleep or a loud slam echoing through silent darkness, his nerves reverberated like violin strings being plucked by every sound and touch from her. The whole whirlwind of intoxicating spices and sultry fruits ended faster than he wanted, but it was good to keep the question mark thirsty. Boredom was his true enemy and its equally powerful hold could complicate this more than it needed to be. But, she was changing the rules to his game and that was interesting all on its own.
When she let go to look at him, that mischievous dimple charming him back to the rooftops of Gotham, he grinned back as all those cold, calculating processes clicked back into their places. Everything about him was as it was before, but now he had better things to do than idly harass Batgirl or worry over Joker. Purpose filled his veins as he let her go and turned away to pick up his cane and twirl it like a ringmaster. "After you."
Tonight Gotham was going to be just a little more green.