Caitlin Snow (doomed_love) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-05-02 00:04:00 |
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Entry tags: | door: dc comics, harley quinn, poison ivy |
WHO Harley & Ivy
WHAT Meeting in Gotham
WHEN At the designated time and place.
WHERE Gotham, Abandoned Warehouse
WARNINGS None.
Gotham was darker than she remembered. Grittier, even. Harley wasn’t entirely sure what to think, particularly after a trip to Arkham revealed that she wasn’t an employee. A quick search in the phone book revealed that she didn’t exist, and the phone call to her apartment, which she had hoped would ring through to her bland answering machine, was answered on the second ring by a woman with a screaming baby somewhere close by. She felt lost and she didn’t even have the Joker to fall back on. Even the object of her obsession was missing. That was why she so readily agreed to meet Ivy in Gotham at the designated time and place. Maybe she had answers, or at least direction.
Harley was malleable at this point and this meeting, along with any others she might have, would define her in this world in a way she couldn’t yet fathom. She clung to the memories of the Joker that she had left, even though none of them were necessarily good ones. He’d tried to strangle her once, during one of their sessions, and that was the memory that played over and over in her mind. She felt like the noose was tightening around her neck, but how to escape and what came next were things she just didn’t know. She was still Harley Quinzel, but she was in love with the Joker. She just hadn’t named it yet.
Dressed in black pants, flat black shoes, and a white blouse, Harley didn’t quite look like the Harlequinn Ivy might have been expecting. Her blond hair was pulled back into a tight bun and the circular glasses she wore sat on the bridge of her nose comfortably. She approached the building with some trepidation, primarily because it was empty and she would be alone save for Ivy. She realized, a few days after her brief conversation with Brielle, that she did know who Ivy was. She’d been an inmate in Arkham in Harley’s time but that didn’t help her too much by way of what to expect. “Hello?” she called, stepping inside the building. It was dark, but that didn’t scare her. The silence did.
"You came." That voice had a way of carrying, despite the gentle volume of her freshly husked murmur. It moved like wafts of perfume. The warehouse was empty, damp and dark in the way that only neglect could bring. Even the asphalt under their feet managed to smell sour, slick with mildew and angel tears. The wooden walls were warped and in a sad state of ill repair, most of the windows were busted out by neighborhood tots with their angry rocks. Moonlight slanted in like silver straight razors across the damp concrete, and it highlighted some bare footprints along the floor.
In the far corner rested a stack of crates, her ramshackle throne. Ivy sat atop one, long legs crossed over splintered wood. Her eyes glowed like dying neon in the dark. "You don't remember me, do, Harl?"
Harley stilled immediately when she heard the voice, though she stopped herself from looking around to find the source. She vaguely recalled Pamela Isley as being another occupant at Arkham Asylum, but she hadn’t studied the woman extensively. All she knew was that she went by Ivy and that the woman identified more as a plant than a human. It wasn’t the craziest thing she’d heard before. While she knew she should have been afraid of the woman who was quite capable of killing her, Harley wasn’t. She respected the power the other woman had, of course, but she couldn’t very well be afraid of her patients, could she? Granted, Ivy wasn’t her patient, and they weren’t in Arkham Asylum, but Harley considered those only minor details.
The second time Ivy spoke, Harley drew her gaze across the warehouse in front of her and rested on the woman atop what amounted to a stack of crates. Harley began moving again, and she didn’t reply until she was standing a few feet in front of Ivy. “Only vaguely,” she admitted. “You were in Arkham, with the Joker. I glanced over your file when I first started working there.” Harley clasped her hands together behind her back and simply observed.
Mention of Arkham made Ivy go quiet and still, the name twisted like so much hate in her stomach, she could taste it on her tongue. It tasted like metal, medication, and so much death. How could Gotham lump her in with those psychopaths? Her time at Arkham had been far from any picnic comparison, and Ivy would never truly forgive or forget the people responsible for her incarceration. "I was never with the Joker," Ivy spit the words like venom as she straightened, obviously not caring for that association.
The tone with which Ivy replied sent a chill down Harley’s spine. “That wasn’t-” She wanted to defend herself, to clarify what she’d meant, but she didn’t want Ivy’s anger turned on her. Survival was the name of the game, wasn’t it? Harley was quiet for a few long minutes, trying to calculate her next move. “How do you know me?” she asked, keeping her voice calm and steady. Hearing the poison in her words gave Harley a small dose of fear, but she worked valiantly to cover it. It was clear that Ivy knew her in some form, and considering her reaction to the Joker, it likely wasn’t through Arkham or the object of her obsession. It made her think that maybe Ivy was different from the snippet of a person she remembered. Harley wondered just what Ivy knew about her, if she knew of her future. She hadn’t been able to look, unwilling to risk giving herself away to Bailey.
Ivy's silence was punctuated by a few deep breaths. She seemed unwilling to speak or answer any questions, and her eyes glowed like nuclear key lime in the shadows... but then, a prelude. The crate beneath her creaked in a whine of rotten wood, and she seemed to need to unclench her teeth before she could speak. "We were.. close once." Sentiment was strange, because she once alternately adored Harley and was irritated by her. Yet having none of that now, even the irritation, brought about a strange loss of gravity somewhere in her chest. Humanity was a weakness, it always had been, and Ivy had no interest in siding with the humans like they say she eventually did. Birds of Prey? What a joke. "But oh well," she straightened with a debutante shrug. Who cared? Harley's ignorance was probably for the best.
Everything about Ivy was interesting, from the glowing eyes to the way she held herself. The woman cut an impressive figure and the creak of wood along with the admission that they had been close once, reached right into Harley and snapped something in place. Or maybe broke it. “We were?” she asked, genuinely curious as she took a step forward. Her stance shifted just slightly, her movements more fluid now instead of the careful, controlled motions they’d been before. There was something about Ivy that was curious and to know that she had known Harley in some way had her willing to brave the woman’s wrath to find out just what her future held.
The casual way Ivy seemed to brush off whatever relationship they might have had scared Harley enough to widen her eyes and advance even closer, until she was just at the foot of the crates Ivy was perched on. “No, wait. Can you tell me? I don’t...Catwoman mentioned something about a Suicide Squad? And Batman...I was taunting him but I-” She was at a loss for words, something she rarely ever was. “I don’t exist here. I need something. Please.” Harley was lost and so close to breaking. There was desperation in her voice and it took only another moment before she dropped to her knees. She couldn’t quite bring herself to beg, not vocally, but she needed something and Ivy was the only person thus far who Harley thought would actually give it, whatever ‘it’ was.
This woman was nothing like her Harley, she was an alien stranger by every comparison, and Ivy's expression contorted into one of perplexed apprehension. Of course, the costume was missing, but aside from that, the young woman seemed a lot more.. sane. Begging didn't work on Ivy, she'd lost sight of those emotional connections a long time ago. Or, she should have. Something in the way that the girl dropped to her knees made Ivy hesitate. She had other things to do, a greenhouse to oversee, a city to bring to its knees.. but she didn't rise from her broken throne to leave just yet. Closer, it might have become apparent that Ivy didn't seem to be wearing clothes. Not clothes by any standard outside of the garden of Eden's, anyway. Her namesake twisted up a curvy stretch of twin stems, and the leaves laid flat against her skin in order to give the illusion of a short, sleeveless dress. "We were friends," she said finally. The words were clipped to prevent Ivy from adding anything else. Her only friend. Sitting up a little straighter, Ivy leaned forward to survey Harley in the shadowed dark. Something fascinated her about this whole misfortune. "Forget about Suicide Squad, that's not important. You obviously know the Joker at this point in your life.. but you're not Harley Quinn yet.." Maybe it wasn't too late.
Her gaze didn’t drop to the floor like her knees did but the change in height left her about level with Ivy’s feet. Slowly, her eyes traveled upward, taking in the bare feet and legs, the color of her skin, and the stems of ivy that provided the leaves that clothed her. Harley found it highly appropriate, but she wasn’t going to comment just yet. There was still the need for information and Harley would do everything in her power to not piss off the woman before her. Her gaze stopped at Ivy’s shoulders, but when the other woman spoke, she finally met her eyes. Friends? Was such a thing possible? The only indication of her surprise was the slight widening of her eyes. “I know the Joker. I’ve had private sessions with him. He’s...we’ve made progress, together. He trusts me.” Harley paused, as if debating on adding the last part. “That was the first thing he said to me,” she admitted. “That was why he opened up to me, I think. Because of my name. Harlequinn, he said.”
Disgust betrayed Ivy's expression as the woman mentioned the Joker. She very much doubted that the Joker trusted anybody, but she didn't say as much. Instead, she lifted her chin and regarded the smaller woman from her arena seating. "You're in love with him?" She made it a question only because she knew that Harley would be some day, but whether it was that day today remained to be seen. Her eyes glowed in the idolatry of ritual candles, and her expression was in unreadable lock down as she tried to imagine a future where Harley wasn't psychotically attached to the jazz hands man's hip. Harley and her were always the closest when he was not quite in the picture, but she simultaneously could not envision a Harley without his influence.
Not many people liked the Joker. She didn’t expect Ivy to like him, but she didn’t quite expect the hate she saw in the other woman’s eyes. The question made her freeze on the spot. “No!” she insisted, almost too quickly to actually be taken seriously. She was a psychiatrist, despite not existing here, and it was one of the cardinal rules, wasn’t it? Don’t fall in love with your patient. Harley thought she was making progress with him through and she thought, if given enough time, she’d be able to help him. It was Batman’s fault that the Joker was the way he was and it was that thought that put a hard, angry glint in her eyes. “Does it matter?” Harley asked, her voice displaying some of the anger she felt. It wasn’t directed at Ivy, not in the least, but it was there, simmering beneath the surface. “I don’t exist here. There’s a chance he doesn’t know me.”
"Of course it matters, sweetheart." The anger in the little blonde's tongue actually surprised Ivy, it was not something that she'd ever attributed to Harley before. The clown chick was a violent psychopath, sure.. but she'd always seemed a bit jovial about the whole thing. Was that injured pride that Ivy scented? Red drew a leg up - pastel limeade in the dark - her bare heel digging into the splintered edge of that topmost crate where she sat. Her glimmering knee rocked curious, and Ivy pinned it in place with her spindled elbow with a forward lean of slink muscle. "So make yourself exist here. Make yourself known.. and just as that clown's little tag along bitch." Long fingers brushed vibrant hair out of her eyes with a smile that all encouragement. "Who is going to respect that?"
The angry storm only seemed to grow behind Harley’s pale blue eyes. Was that really what she was to become? The Joker’s sidekick? Part of her was thrilled, overjoyed that she had mattered to the man who fascinated her, but another part of her balked at being described as a ‘tag along bitch’. She was valuable, and she could prove that. She’d show the Joker just what she was capable of. Batman could come after her and maybe, just maybe, he didn’t know about her. She’d save that one for later, a scheme coming together in the back of her mind to dupe Batman into trusting her. But first things first. Harley took Ivy’s encouragement greedily, drinking it in and letting in manifest alongside the anger. Gotham would know her, the new and improved Harlequinn. “No one,” she answered, and her lips curved into a dangerous smile. “But that’s not me, not yet.” The ‘not ever’ was there in her tone, even if she didn’t say it.
Harley lifted herself up, standing once more in front of Ivy. “I’m not going to be your tag along bitch either,” she informed the redhead before her with a crocodile smile. “But I do want to get to know you better, Ivy.” She wouldn’t make the same mistake she apparently had with the Joker, but who was to say they couldn’t be...allies at the very least. Partners in crime. Harley liked the ring to that and smiled wide, more akin to the sort of smile Ivy would expect from Harlequinn.
"We'll see, little card." Ivy uncrossed her legs and the exposure would have been pornographic if not for those strange leaves concealing the apex of lush thighs. Ivy stretched her arms above her head, as if tired. In this shitty light she was still green, the faded luxury of a rainforest canopy. With a tilt of her head, and a poison twitch of her grin, Ivy tilted a sculpted cheek onto her bare shoulder, watching. "We shall see.. but you should run along Miss Quinn, before cats or bats catch whiff of us." After all, Catwoman was probably still sore about the whole truth serum poisoning thing.