A/N: Can you hear it? Can you hear the music from 'Chariots of Fire' as I cross the finish line of this final chapter?
What Love Is
By Semerket
Chapter 18: The End is the Beginning
POP.
The henchmen gurgled and coughed as he sank to the floor.
"Now who's the cold one?"
She exited the room knowing that there were two other henchmen that would come running to investigate the gunshots. As she headed down the hall she could hear thundering footsteps as Joker's henchmen came barreling down the around the corner.
"Quinn are you-"
POP.
POP.
"Hey!"
POP.
POP
She headed back to the room, and making a mental note that there were seven of them, she said, "Okay kids, it's me again. Now keep your eyes closed and just do what I tell ya." She made her way over to each one and made them stand and form a single-file line. She moved each child's arms so that they understood to place their hands on the shoulders of the kid in front of them. "Now no peeking! We're gonna walk for a bit and I'll tell you when you can open your eyes."
Taking the hand of the child in the front, she quietly led them out of the room and down the hall past the two dead henchmen. After turning the corner she told them they could open their eyes. The little brunette, the same one she had spoken to earlier immediately began whimpering uncontrollably. "Oh come here, sweetie." Harley picked her up and carried her and motioned for the others to follow her. They ran down several long corridors until Harley found a door that would lead them outside. Unfortunately it was chained shut.
She put the little girl down and had everyone stand back. Pulling out her pistol, she shot off the padlock and unraveled the chain. Carefully opening the door she poked her head outside. She could tell from the angle of the building that they were at the side of the large warehouse and in the distance she could see the police cars. "Okay guys, we have to be real quiet and stay close to the wall okay?" They nodded in understanding and followed close behind her. As she approached the front of the building she peeked around the corner and couldn't see any henchmen in front of the warehouse. Of course not- they didn't want to get gunned down by the police, but that didn't mean Joker didn't have snipers in the windows- as a matter of fact she was expecting it.
Studying the immediate area she noticed a tall set of shrubs off to their left. Tall enough to conceal them. The shrubs had a dusting of red on the tips of the leaves that immediately reminded her of Ivy. She was determined to finish this and get back to her if it was the last thing she did.
"Okay guys, see those shrubs. You'll have to hide behind them and make your way to the police, but you have to stay real low and be real quiet the whole time. Understand?" It was a lengthy crawl they'd have to make, but they could do it.
The oldest ones understood right away, but the smaller ones seemed uncertain. "C'mon you can do it." She urged them on.
The little brunette said to her, "Thank you, Miss Harley." Getting on her hands and knees she crawled after the others. Harley waited until they had all made it to the other side. When they got close to the police cars several SWAT members grabbed them and took them to safety. Harley released a breath she had been holding in. She headed back inside. She had unfinished business. If anyone knew how to find and defuse Joker's bomb, she would. She was always better at making them than he was.
[[[[[[[[[[[]]]]]]]]]]]
A heavy silence had blanketed the police perimeter at the sound of the gunshots. Time stood still for several agonizing minutes as Gordon considered the consequences of his failure to negotiate with the clown terrorist. A few seconds after the gunshots, he noticed the familiar cackling of the Joker through his walkie-talkie. Slamming the device down onto the pavement in outrage, breaking it into several pieces, the evil laughter stopped abruptly as the batteries scattered across the cement. His intense moment of fury ended in relief when a member of SWAT, smiling, discreetly directed his attention to where the children were being brought to the other side of the police barricade. His immediate thought was that it had to be Batman who had released the hostages, but realizing that it was impossible since Batman had just left, that meant that it must have been Harley or someone else on the inside that released them. Perhaps dropping her arrest warrant wouldn't be the worst mistake he could ever make.
[[[[[[[[[[[]]]]]]]]]]
Joker located- check. Hostages released- check. The only thing Harley had left to do was locate the explosive and then she and Ivy would no longer have to worry about the police or the Joker. Harley knew that the bomb Joker flaunted to the police, the one in the main room with him, was just a decoy to distract Batman and the authorities. He must have hidden the real one somewhere else, and if she knew Mistah J, he probably put it somewhere the police would be least likely to search.
Joker's thugs were spread around the exterior of the warehouse, but inside the actual building they were mostly concentrated where the Joker was, with the scant few that had been supervising the hostages. However, the manufacturing part of the warehouse was empty. There was no one to be seen- no police, no thugs, no nothing.
It had to be there.
Harley jogged down a long, dimly lit, gray corridor. It was only a matter of time before Joker realized what she had done. Time was of the essence. Hoping that she was running in the right direction, Harley made a left at the fork. Just as she rounded the corner she found herself standing face to face with that familiar evil grin. "Going somewhere, Harl?"
"M… m… Mistah J!"
He smiled and calmly inquired, "Why is the news reporting that the hostages have been released?"
"Um…"
"Are you trying to make me look like an idiot, Harley?"
"Mistah J I…"
She didn't have time to finish her sentence as she was viciously head-butted. Grabbing her by her hair as she kicked and screamed, Joker dragged her into a nearby storage room.
[[[[[[[[[[[]]]]]]]]]]
Batman addressed his two, albeit odd companions. "Gordon is reporting that the hostages were released." He was clearly relieved. This would simplify his objective significantly.
"I like good news." Selina said.
Ivy snapped, "I told you that Harley would never do such a thing!"
Batman answered in a superior tone, "There's a first time for everything."
She glowered at the Dark Knight as small green tendrils forced their way through the crevices of a tiny vent positioned above them. Ivy made the plants pause in their growth pattern and she looked to Catwoman and Batman for confirmation. They were underneath the building standing in the wake of a huge serpentine vine. She had managed to coil it like a giant garden hose beneath the foundation of the building. "Once I break through the floor it's unlikely that the noise will go unnoticed."
"Understood."
Nodding, her eyes glowed and there was a loud crumbling noise as the growth knocked out a sizable portion of what constituted the floor of one of the many rooms in the abandoned facility. Ivy was content to allow The Rodent to take the lead on this.
"Ivy, you come with me. Catwoman, you look for the bomb."
Ivy demanded imperiously, "I'd rather look for Harley."
"And miss the opportunity to thrash Joker?"
Ivy was positively torn as she weighed her options. He was in need of a good thrashing…
"Fine."
[[[[[[[[[[[]]]]]]]]]]]]]
With her head held high and a sashay that seemed more appropriate for a runway model than a wanted criminal, Ivy strode down a long dusty corridor with a haughtiness unique to her personality all while keeping pace alongside her crime fighting nemesis, who by comparison stalked through the halls like a hungry animal. Once an open doorway was within sight, Batman sprinted wordlessly down the corridor towards what Ivy assumed was the clown's location and by extension the explosive's. If he thought that Ivy was going to try to keep up with him then he had another thing coming. The way he took off without her sent the redhead two very distinct messages: 1.) that he didn't expect her to be of any assistance whatsoever and 2.) that he'd rather she hadn't become involved at all. 'Then he shouldn't have come to my house,' Ivy muttered to herself.
POPOPOPOPOPOP!
Ivy recognized the familiar sound of automatic gunfire. Though that gunfire was typically trained in her direction by the police. She assumed that the Rodent had made contact with Joker's henchmen. She increased her stride as she was eager to see what was transpiring. Ivy eventually made it to the entryway of a vast open room filled with conveyers and various bits of old machinery. She cautiously leaned around the entrance to survey the room.
The first sight to greet her was thick, white smoke. Typical. She rolled her eyes at Batman's predictable antics. She shifted her body back behind the safety of the cement entryway as she could hear a grappling sound and more gunfire. Knowing how the Bat operated, Ivy assumed he was prancing around in the rafters by this point as Joker's henchmen scrambled to find him. The panicked shouting and the sound of bullets ricocheting off of rafters and elevated pipes told her that much. After a few moments the smoke cleared, giving her a good view of the room and what would soon become her battlefield.
The room was split into two levels. There was a lower level which contained old unused conveyers, rusted equipment, and something that appeared to be a bomb. The second level, Ivy's level, was made up of metallic walkways with a thin metal bar to mark a safety barrier. On the other side of the vast room Ivy spotted the Joker; he was barking orders at his henchmen and shooting indiscriminately in the general direction of where he thought Batman might be.
She chuckled to herself as she watched two of Joker's buffoons go down at a distance, no doubt to a batarang upside the head. Fools. Ivy was almost certain that this was the part when a sidekick or various other criminally confused crime fighting associate (see: Selina) would interfere to aid the flying hamster, but she wasn't either of those things. She was Poison Ivy and Batman could go straight to hell. She was perfectly content to stand there and observe the Rodent's struggle against uneven odds all by his lonesome. It would also be amusing to watch him pommel the Joker.
Some popcorn would have been nice too.
Ivy recognized this entire situation for the magnificent opportunity it was. Her two enemies were fighting each other- she could simply stand back and let nature take its course. If the Rodent was victorious, then she could benefit from the deal that she and Harley made with Gordan, but if he died… Oops! And then she could just sweep in and turn Joker into a little purple stain. Either way, Ivy felt this was an easy win. Unless of course the bomb went off… She scowled, she had nearly forgotten about that part. She sighed, perhaps it would be better if the Rodent came out on top…
[[[[[[[[[[[[]]]]]]]]]]]]]
Catwoman had been snooping about, looking for any other hostages when she was drawn to the sound of someone sniffling in a storage room.
"Oh, Harley!" Selina rushed over to the battered woman. Harley's face was badly bruised and her lip was broken. Her nose was also bleeding. By the state of her dress she could tell that other things had happened to her. Bad things.
"Kitty?" She said roughly. She was crying as she tried to correct her clothing. Harley's hands were shaking terribly. She began crying more in frustration as she struggled with her buttons.
She spoke gently, "Hey." Selina gently moved the blonde's hands aside and buttoned her shirt for her. "Ivy is here, Harley. She'll be glad to see you."
"No!" Harley cried in frustration.
"Don't you want to see her?"
Harley grabbed Selina's arm in a vice-like grip. "You can't tell Red what happened."
"But Harley, she loves you she'll und-"
"She'll lose it and get herself killed! Now promise me!"
"Harley, I know that…"
"You don't know anything!" She began yelling shoving and slapping at Selina hysterically. "You promise me you won't tell her! Promise!"
Selina teared up. "I promise, Harley."
The blond calmed down and wiped her tears away. She leaned into the other woman and Selina just held her for a while. Pulling back Selina helped Harley to her feet. Her foot was obviously bothering her as she limped unsteadily. "Thanks, Kitty."
"Don't mention it. We need to get you out of here. You need help."
"No." She said sadly. "I've survived much worse." Then she explained, "Besides, I was on my way to defuse the bomb. I figured out where he hid it."
"I thought it was in the main room."
"No. That's just a decoy for the cops."
[[[[[[[[[[[[]]]]]]]]]]]]]
Stepping into the room, Ivy willed her large serpentine plant to burst forth from the center of the room. From it came a multitude of mutated tentacle-like appendages that darted outward like angry serpents, growing, and shifting to extend themselves unnaturally. The vegetation rapidly engulfed the lower level of the room and began its rapid ascent up the walls in the same fashion that ivy creeps. Some of Joker's henchmen had sense enough to flee before the exits were blocked. The others, trapped and surrounded by vegetation and out-of-control gunfire, tried to hold their ground against the monstrous plant's appendages as they closed in like heat seeking missiles on their targets.
The plants had undoubtedly caught the attention of the Joker and Batman. It awed her that Batman worked so hard and went so far out of his way to arrest henchmen just to send them back to Arkham so that they could all escape again and terrorize the populace. Batman detested killing and went well out of his way to achieve non-lethal takedowns, however, Ivy was the extreme opposite; she believed in the power of permanent solutions. So in the interest of fairness she did take into account the deal she'd made with Gordon and Batman's preference for nonlethal takedowns. She considered them for a few seconds before she resumed killing people.
With a barely perceptible flick of her wrist, a gargantuan vine swatted one of Joker's lackeys, sending him flying from the first level to the second level, tearing through a metal guardrail in the process until his body lay limp against a nearby wall at an odd angle, obviously dead.
Ivy was positively thrumming with energy as she could feel the growth's life force as acutely as she felt her own energy. There were approximately nine clown themed henchmen left. They were ridiculous looking- wearing clown masks or clown makeup. Though Ivy suspected the ones wearing masks were beginning to regret having that visual obstruction over their face. Where they had been focused on firing at Batman as he skirted around the room, they were now aiming their weapons at the vines, though their bullets had little effect save to rattle Ivy's nerves.
With another short gesture of her hand, she used another appendage on the second floor of the room directly across from where she was standing. The large vine swiped over several of them, some were sent flying headfirst over the railing to the hard floor below, while a handful were slammed into the wall with such a force that it cracked the cement wall. No one would be walking away from that.
Ivy flinched when she heard the familiar 'zing' of a batarang sailing right by her head, imbedding itself in a nearby wall. She glowered in the direction it had come from. Batman was perched on a rafter, his eyes impossible to see at a distance, but his stance told her everything she needed to know. She could almost hear his monotone voice 'no killing'. The batarang was a warning. She held his gaze defiantly as if to say, 'what are you going to do about it?' Their brief glaring match was broken by shouting as Joker launched a low-grade rocket at the plant in the center of the room.
Ivy snarled as her beautiful growth exploded when the grenade made contact. She could feel its life slipping away, but she would still make the most of what little strength it had left. She thrust her arm forward in Joker's direction, while a huge thick vine, moving at a preternatural speed, wrapped around the clown's legs, toppling him over as he dropped his weapon.
He shrieked, "You plant slut!"
The vine lifted him up before slamming him into the ground. "Ow!" The plant lifted him up again and slammed him into the ground once more, repeating this process until it had developed a momentum, body slamming him over and over again like a gorilla with a ragdoll.
"Ow!"
Thwaaap!
"Damn it!"
Thwaaap!
"You-"
Thwaaap!
"OW!"
Thwaaap!
"Slut!"
Thwaaap!
"I… Kill!"
Thwaaap!
Ivy grinned wickedly at the cartoonish scene.
The redhead took a moment to locate Batman and upon failing to do so, she realized that the little rat must have slinked off while she was distracted with pummeling the Joker. Her eyes narrowed as it occurred to her that this had probably been his plan all along: use her as cannon fodder while he went for the explosive, wherever that might be.
Ivy was about to continue in her Joker-thrashing when she heard a familiar voice, "Red!"
Ivy spun around to see Catwoman and Harley coming out of the corridor. The first thing she made a note of were the bruises on Harley's face. Catwoman was helping her hobble along over to where Ivy was standing.
"Harley." Ivy's excitement was somewhat muted as she recalled that she was still supposed to be upset with the blond for running off without so much as a word of warning. Harley was oblivious to her reception as she reached out and pulled Ivy into a hug and squeezed. The redhead returned the hug in earnest as she complained gently, "You're hurt."
"I'm justa little banged up is all."
Ivy took a step back to assess the damage that he did to Harley this time.
The plant finally entered its death throes, loosening its grip on the evil clown, giving him time to push himself to his feet. His ability to stand was a testament to his own insanity as the number of broken bones would have kept a normal person on the ground indefinitely. Pulling a revolver out of his purple suit jacket, he trained it in the direction of the two women.
"Now you can watch her die, you slut!"
"Red!"
Ivy turned and saw the flash of a gun. She pulled Harley to herself and covered her as she heard the shot go off.
Between Harley's sprained ankle and Ivy holding her so tightly, they both fell over. "Red!" Harley shook the plant hybrid but she wasn't moving. Harley rolled her over and could see greenish blood pouring down her back.
Harley glanced up to check on Joker, but he was currently being distracted by Catwoman as she whipped the gun out of his hand and vaulted over his head.
"Red!" Harley cried as she cradled the woman and rocked back and forth. "Please, Red. You have to wake up now. We have to go home now. It was supposed to be me, Red. It was supposed to be me, but I got you killed. I'm so sorry."
"No." The redhead spoke without opening her eyes. "It was supposed to be him."
"Red!" Harley showered the irate woman in kisses.
"Harley, Batman is going for the bomb, but you'd know more about how Joker wires his explosives, and Catwoman is clearly busy."
"But-"
"If we don't stop it from detonating we won't be able to outrun the blast."
"Oh, this is all my fault!"
"No. It's the Rodent's fault. And Joker's… I suppose."
"Go."
Harley hesitantly stood up and jogged away.
Ivy crawled on her stomach towards one of the dead henchmen on the upper level. He had a rifle lying beside him. She glanced up to see Catwoman struggling with Joker, it should have been an easy fight for Selina, but the little bugger seemed to have an infinite number of knives and firearms in his purple suit. After what felt like an eternity, Ivy made it to the rifle and grabbed it. She frowned when she realized it wasn't actually a gun.
It was a crossbow.
Picking it up, she was surprised by how light it was considering its size. There was a single bolt lying nearby. Picking up the bolt she reached behind herself and gently swiped it along her back, wincing as she did so. She made sure the tip was coated in her toxic blood. Then she proceeded to load the somewhat awkward weapon. She failed four times before she successfully mounted the bolt properly. Now the real challenge began:
Standing up.
Pushing down with all her might she was able to push herself into a sitting position. Bracing herself against the wall on the right, she managed to get herself into some semblance of a standing position. She carefully aimed the weapon with both hands. She would only get one shot so she had to make it count.
"Are you ready to die, Kitty Kat?"
He held up a bright purple detonation remote.
Ivy tried to slow her labored breathing to steady the weapon. It was now or never. She pulled the trigger. The only thing she heard was the click of the trigger followed by silence as the bolt was released. Silence, and then angry screaming as she realized that it had embedded itself in Joker's arm, pinning it to the wall. He dropped the remote and reached over with his good hand as he cursed. Joker was resistant to many toxins and poisons; however, Ivy had dipped that bolt in enough of her own blood to send even that freak into anaphylactic shock if it didn't kill him outright.
He was already frothing at the mouth as he shrieked, "You plant bitch! You want that whore, then you can have her!"
"I don't need your permission!" Ivy spat.
As he was distracted trying to pull the bolt out of the wall to free his hand, Catwoman took her opportunity to knock him unconscious with a roundhouse kick to his head.
Leaning back against the wall, Ivy let herself slide to the floor, leaving a green trail of blood along the wall. She was so tired.
[[[[[[[[[[[[]]]]]]]]]]]
When Harley made it to the actual bomb Batman was already at the scene. The caped crusader was sitting on a crate as he meticulously removed the lid on the trigger mechanism and flashed a light inside. The bomb itself was nothing too special as far as improvised explosives were concerned. A detonator and trigger mechanism was stored in a rectangular metal container no larger than a shoebox. It was wired to about forty barrels of high yield nuclear materials.
The Dark Knight didn't bother looking up as Harley limped over. "Is the Joker incapacitated?" He asked in his usual monotone.
"I dunno!" She chirped, "But he has a detonator, it could either blow us up outright or set the timer tickin'!"
"The timer has been activated- we're at about thirteen minutes."
Harley came over and peered over his shoulder. The box was loaded with wires of all different colors of the rainbow, with purple and green being the most common. The blond let out a low whistle. "It's pretty."
Batman rolled his eyes and got to work, carefully clipping different wires. Grabbing a thin blue wire, he moved his clippers to cut it when Harley exclaimed, "DON'T CUT THAT ONE!" The caped crusader nearly leapt out of his seat as her shrill voice obliterated his concentration.
Six minutes.
"Don't scream like that!" He snapped, "If you have something to contribute than spit it out!"
"It isn't that one." Harley rolled her eyes as if to say 'duh'.
"How do you know?"
"Because… it's blue." She punctuated her statement with a nonchalant shrug.
"And that means?" To suggest that Batman was feeling impatient would have been a tremendous understatement.
"Mistah J doesn't like blue! Cut the fat pink one instead."
"Why?"
"Because pink is EXCITING!"
4 minutes.
"Quinn, this is a life and death situation…"
"I understand!"
Batman hesitantly prepared to cut the pink wire, "You do realize that if you're wrong we all die?"
She nodded solemnly. Then as his hand twitched on the wire clippers, "WAIT! Don't cut the pink one!" He flinched, nearly dropping his clippers. "I figured it out- it's the yellow! Very clever, Mistah J! I almost didn't think of it!"
2 minutes.
Batman glared at her, "Why yellow?"
She looked at him as though he were crazy, "Because it's hilarious!"
"Quinn, get out." He pointed to door.
Harley gasped and pointed towards the back of the room, "Oh no, behind you!"
Batman stood up and spun around waiting for a fight. He was baffled when he didn't see anyone, then he turned around to see Harley grab his clippers, wink at him, and clip the yellow wire.
He braced himself for the very real possibility that they would both die in an instant. A few seconds later, he glanced at the timer, which had effectively been shut down.
"See, I told ya!" Harley chirped, "I know my boom booms!" She continued, managing to sound rather intelligent for a change, "Most of these wires aren't connected to anything, B-Man. He doesn't know how to make a complex one like I do, he probably found the formula for this thing on Youtube or somethin'. You only had to cut the one. He'd have blown himself up if he'd used any more than that!" Harley beamed with pride.
A single bead of sweat rolled down the side of Batman's face as he considered the fact that he had been briefly outwitted by Harley Quinn. "Good work, Quinn. I'll put in a good word to Gordon."
Harley sighed in relief. He stalked towards the door, but hesitated before leaving, he said to her, "We will never speak of this again."
[[[[[[[[[[[[]]]]]]]]]]]
When Pamela opened her eyes she was greeted by darkness. She blinked furiously thinking that she had gone blind, but calmed down upon realizing that she was actually in a darkened room. The familiar beeping and the hum of medical instruments immediately alerted her to the fact that she was likely in a hospital.
"Red?" A familiar voice whispered near her right ear. She could hear footsteps and then the lights were adjusted to be functional, but not uncomfortably bright for her.
Ivy shifted her head to the right and was able to make out Harley's familiar rosy cheeks. Her voice was rough, "Harley? Harley, are you all right?"
She was asking because she could see the bruises on the blonde's face. "Yea, don't worry about me, Red. It's justa few bruises. I'll be fine." She smiled happily and Pamela felt her squeeze her right hand. "Do you remember what happened?"
"All too well I'm afraid." Ivy chuckled.
"How ya feelin'?"
"I feel all right, but tired."
"The doctors say you're gonna make a full recovery."
"What happened to the clown?"
Harley grinned mischievously. "Yea… so Mistah J is back in Arkham and the city didn't go kablooie."
"That's good… I suppose."
"Yea. And Gordon is holdin' up his end of the deal so we don't have ta worry about bein' arrested unless we commit another crime. Though we should probably still be careful because it isn't public knowledge."
"Good… that's… real good, Harl." The blond leaned in and kissed her on the forehead, "I love you. Ivy."
"I love you too, Harley." She smiled before she drifted back to sleep.
THE END?
A/N: Well, thanks for reading and sticking with it through my slow as molasses updates at the end there. I really enjoyed writing this pairing. This story is completed, but my Harley and Ivy stories will continue into a second fic called 'Fruitful Endeavors'. It can be accessed by clicking on my author name and it'll probably be at the top of the list. :-)