Rumplestiltskin 6 (part two)
Title: Lust and Lunacy
Series: Rumplestiltskin 6/10 (part two)
Rating: M for mansex NC-17
Disclaimer: If I owned Batman (etc) the movie would have been a LOT less kid-friendly. There’s also one line lifted from one of the comics. Bonus points if you spot it.
Thanks to meletor_et_al for the beta.
Warnings: TOASTERS- It was originally supposed to be a frying pan, not a toaster. I hope it doesn’t make the scene (you’ll know what I mean) comical. But there’s serious weapon potential in toasters.
*~*~*~*
They were a good distance from the Narrows and of all the pieces of bad luck it was rush hour and Gotham was trundling along at a gridlock. As adept at maneuvering through traffic on her bike as Harley was, Ivy still valued her life a little more than that. The second fastest way to the Narrows - other than straight there - was actually to leave the city, go around it and re-enter just before the Narrows. It avoided the business district and most of the major roads, all of them if they detoured a little more, and considering Gotham’s traffic hour, would probably cut their driving time in half.
Of course, that plan had hinged on Harley not getting lost.
“I’m more of a city girl,” she said in self-defense, turning right at a fork. Harley decided not to mention that she had no idea if right was the direction that they were supposed to be going in, or if they had been driving in circles. “Besides, working at Arkham, working with Mista J, I never had any reason to be poking about outside Gotham.”
Ivy groaned in frustration. “Well just pull over then at a road sign and we’ll try to figure it out from there.”
It sounded like a good plan, better then Harley’s had been (Her plan consisted of driving about until they found where they were going and hoping they didn’t run out of gas) and Harley was so busy watching out for road signs that she almost didn’t see the caravan pulling up behind them, going far too fast for such a narrow, winding road. She glanced back over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of Ivy looking absolutely terrified.
“Jerk!” she shouted. “Slow down!” Harley sped up to avoid being slammed into from behind. She felt Ivy twist about to look at the driver who seemed determined to run them over.
“He’s not…” Ivy’s fingers dug into Harley’s sides. “Get off the road, Harley. I don’t think he’s conscious.”
Harley grinned happily and sped up a little more. “Hold on,” she warned and jumped the bike up onto the stone wall bracketing the road. They drove along there at breakneck speeds before Harley swerved sharply to the left, sending the bike jolting off the wall and rattling over the grass and out of harm’s way before she skidded to an abrupt stop.
They watched as the caravan increased speed, weaving from side to side before it fishtailed wildly and hit the wall, going into a spin, front and rear of the caravan smashing against the stone, breaking off pieces of metal. Finally it came to a slow stop, most of the front ripped away and the back looking as though someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. Harley started up the bike again and drove over to the wall before parking it and dismounting. Ivy didn’t say anything, though she was looking a little greener than usual and she got off the bike in record time.
The driver was slumped against the window, eyes open, blood seeping out of his mouth. His hands were still locked around the wheel, white knuckled.
“I know him,” Harley said thoughtfully. “But it’s hard to tell with his face messed up like that.”
Ivy snorted disdainfully. “Does it matter?” she asked. “He’s dead; we’re alive…Though perhaps he has a map we could use.”
Harley stared at the man and then nearly jumped a foot in the air when he blinked and his lips started to move as though he was repeating something. It didn’t look anything like ‘help me.’ “Uh, Ivy, he’s not dead. He was wearing his seatbelt and apparently it worked just fine.”
“Well kill him if you like, I don’t really mind either way.” Ivy examined the door to the caravan, which had been badly bent out of shape in the crash. “I still say we see if he has a map. Dead or alive, he’s not going to be driving anywhere else in such a state. Harley, be a dear and get this door off please. I don’t think I can manage it.”
Harley squinted a little. If you took away the bruising on the driver’s face - and wasn’t that odd, since he’d only just got in the crash - and the haggard exhaustion, he was quite striking. In fact, only one man she’d ever met looked quite like that. She burst out into delighted laughter. “Ivy, you won’t believe who the driver is.” She walked around to the side and gave the door a solid thump with her shoulder. It screeched unhappily but didn’t budge very far. Harley put one hand on the doorframe and tried again, this time it clattered inwards.
Ivy shrugged and followed Harley into the caravan. “I’m sure I have no idea.”
The caravan was a disaster from the crash but there was blood on the bed and a box full of chemicals and scientific books and machinery had spilled over that spoke of far more interesting things. Harley stepped over the wreckage of the kitchenette and opened the partition between driving area and living space.
“It’s Doctor Crane.” She slipped into the passenger seat and watched for a moment as he shuddered and whispered to himself. “Doctor Crane?” Harley put on her best Asylum Voice and touched him gently but firmly on the shoulder. “Doctor Crane, we’re here to help you.”
He moaned and shut his eyes. “Go away.” Crane’s voice was hoarse. He let go of the steering wheel and wrapped lacerated hands around his arms, leaving smears of red over an already bloody shirt. “You’re not there and I’m not here.”
Harley gave Ivy a concerned look as she came through the door. “He’s completely loopy,” she pronounced, squeezing the back of his neck at two pressure points. Crane’s head lolled forward and he slumped against the wheel, out cold.
Ivy sighed and chewed thoughtfully on her lip for a moment. “We’ll see what’s lying about in here, stick anything useful on the back of the bike and bring him along, just in case he starts making sense again.”
“It’s going to be a bit of a squeeze on the bike,” Harley said. “I don’t think three of us will fit.”
Ivy sighed. “Well stick him on the bike with the stuff and we’ll just have to push the damn thing and walk back.”
Harley rubbed at the neck of her harlequin suit. “Ivy…we still don’t know where we are.”
*~*~*~*
Alfred’s face swum into view and it sounded like he was saying something through a very long tunnel stuffed with cotton. Bruce groaned and shut his eyes again but the sound and light was insistent now, creeping in through his eyelids and clearing into something comprehensible as words.
“A glass,” he managed to say. “Over my head.”
“More than that, I’d wager,” Alfred replied and a cool cloth settled over Bruce’s forehead. “You’re a very lucky man that he didn’t finish the job. I gather that you took him up to the caravan and he took advantage?”
Bruce, despite the splitting pain in his head, found he couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Something along those lines.” He tried opening his eyes again and squinted up at Alfred. “He won’t be moving fast, he’s injured.”
Alfred made a face. “Doctor Crane took the caravan. I took the liberty of calling the bank to cancel your credit cards, sir, and about an hour ago I received a call from some sporting company wishing to know if you would like to face their campaign for their new climbing equipment, including pockets that won’t allow men such as yourself to drop items like wallets.”
“I’m not going to fall asleep Alfred.” Bruce eased himself into a sitting position and realized he was in his bed in the hotel. “You don’t have to talk to keep me awake.” He flinchingly brushed his fingers over the bandages on his temple. “He hit me with a glass.”
“Sir, you’re repeating yourself.” Alfred said unhappily. “Your pupils are uneven as well, he definitely concussed you. I thought about calling the police, but if Doctor Crane is driving your camper then…”
Bruce tried to get up but his head spun and he was forced to fall back against the pillows. “No, I’ll find him. This is my fault, I underestimated him, I assumed he was through fighting.” He took a deep breath and tried again to get up, swinging his feet over the edge to rest on the floor before pausing to let his head adjust. “God, he’s not well, he won’t last five minutes if he has another fit again.”
Alfred helped Bruce to his feet, though his expression clearly said he’d rather Bruce was staying put. “I believe that is the least of your worries, sir. He took the lab Lucius set up and I believe that he might have formulated a possible cure. The…the blood in the padded room you made, some of it looked like chemical equations. With the equipment in his control, there is a chance he could stabilize his insanity and become a menace again.”
It made sense to Bruce, but at the same time, all he could really wrap his mind about was the idea that Crane was trying to drive a caravan when he was obviously not well and he was going to crash. He couldn’t get the image of Crane out of his head; the one of Crane sitting in the bed, looking beautiful and fragile in that oversized shirt, lips swollen and skin patterned with the bruises Bruce had given him, asking for a kiss just before he’d made his escape.
“Why didn’t you kill me?” Bruce muttered, leaning on the furniture for support. “I need to get back to the Batcave…I can’t go after him like this.”
“You can’t go after him at all, Master Bruce,” Alfred said sternly, as though Bruce was six years old and trying to climb up the kitchen shelves for the condensed milk. “You are going to stay in bed and rest. A concussion is not something to be taken lightly.”
Bruce caught a glimpse of himself in the vanity table’s mirror and stopped. If he’d looked like hell that morning, he now looked a lot worse. “The walking wounded,” he said, mostly to himself. “He’ll have a fit again and drive off the road.”
Alfred caught hold of his arm before he fell down. “Good riddance to bad rubbish, is what I say, sir. Now please, go back to bed.”
“He was broken long before I got to him,” Bruce said tiredly. “You know, it was a glass he hit me with. I’d brought him orange juice and made him scrambled eggs and toast. Why didn’t he kill me? I would have if I were him.”
“Sir,” Alfred gently maneuvered him back into the bed. “I think perhaps you should rest a little and save any thoughts regarding him for later.”
Bruce let Alfred draw the covers back up around him wondering why his own pulse had to sound so damned loud. “He kissed me first.” It was important that Alfred understand that. He didn’t want Alfred thinking badly of him.
Alfred pursed his lips but only said, “Well, I can’t say I didn’t suspect Doctor Crane.”
“I don’t think he had a very nice life.” Bruce could hear his voice slurring tiredly.
Alfred was still making a face like he was holding his tongue. “That’s no excuse, sir.”
Bruce nodded. “You’re right.” He shut his eyes, feeling like a little boy again on the nights when his parents were out for the evening and Alfred would tuck him in. “But maybe it’s a reason.”
*~*~*~*
Jonathan woke abruptly but the only indication that he was no longer asleep was a slight twitch of his eyelids. He stayed perfectly still, taking stock of his situation as best he could without opening his eyes. Every single bruise on his body was demanding his attention and he had a splitting headache. A slight shifting of his legs reminded him of the very acute aching inside him but his hands had been freshly bandaged and they actually felt good, all things considered. The bruising on his face didn’t feel quite as painful either, though his skin felt a little sticky. Jonathan grimaced and opened his eyes. His first coherent thought beyond comprehending the pain he was in was; ‘For Christ’s sake, not again. I’ve spent all day waking up.’
He was, of all places, in a greenhouse - or what remained of one after a rampaging jungle had taken out the majority of its structure - lying on a bed of leaves which was surprisingly comfortable though it stank of rot and wet earth. Sitting next to him in a little pile was one of his suits and his spare pair of glasses, complete with under-things, shoes, socks, tie and cufflinks. He swallowed down what might have been a lump of emotion, or might have been nausea and put his glasses on gratefully. Jonathan rose slowly, in consideration for all his pains, and stripped off the borrowed clothing, grateful to be back in his own things. He was knotting his tie when a curvaceous woman with brilliant red hair and a friendly smile appeared from within the tangle of plants.
“Hello, Doctor Crane.” She sounded a little hesitant. “How are you feeling?”
Jonathan adjusted his tie and smiled grimly. “I’ve been better,” he said honestly.
She raised an eyebrow. “Well, you’ve been worse as well. You were sitting in a wreck only an hour ago making precious little sense. I put some of my own salve on your face and hands though, it should help. I believe the color is already a lot better.”
“It is, thank you.” Jonathan flexed his hands. Indeed they already felt as though there were scabs stretching under the bandages and not open cuts. “As for my previous state - I was poisoned by my own gas, and I consider frequent fits of insanity doing quite well, all things considered.” He gave her an appraising look as he eased himself back down into a sitting position on the leaves. They had enough give that he wasn’t in too much discomfort and it certainly felt better than standing did. “You must be Doctor Isley.”
She shook her head. “Not anymore. It’s Poison Ivy, though you may call me Ivy. And this is Harley Quinn.” Ivy stepped aside to reveal a young woman, pretty in an unassuming, girl-next-door sort of way with blonde hair and a little snub nose. “Perhaps you know her better as Harleen Quinzelle, she worked in your Asylum.”
Of course, the two that Batman had been asking him about. It struck him as wonderfully ironic that a cute little thing like Harley had beaten the Bat badly enough to leave marks. He wondered if it would be inappropriate to congratulate her on a job well done.
Ivy settled herself in what looked like a swinging chair made of vines and Harley perched on top of a horizontal root thick as Jonathan’s torso. The fact that she had worked under the same roof as he had was less of a shock then it might have been. He hadn’t spent much time getting to know the other doctors beyond a professional capacity but even then, some of them seemed like they’d been as unsettled as he was.
“Somehow I find myself unsurprised,” Jonathan replied dryly. “I can’t say I remember you, but I imagine you can gather how busy I was at the time.”
Harley nodded. “You an’ me both, doctor. You an’ me both.”
“Do you prefer Scarecrow, Doctor Crane, or Jonathan?” Ivy asked politely, crossing her legs to expose a more than decent amount of thigh. “It’s a bit trying these days now that everyone I know seems to have two or three names and there really isn’t any protocol for situations like this.”
Jonathan wanted to pinch the bridge of his nose to help ease his headache, but settled for taking a few deep breaths. “Doctor Crane is fine. I haven’t seen much of the Scarecrow since the Narrows went up in smoke, I’ve been too busy trying to remember how to be Jonathan Crane, though I understand that you have something of an interest in the Scarecrow.” One of his hands came up of its own volition to brush against the bruising on his cheek before he caught himself and settled his hands back into his lap.
Ivy smiled slightly. “I’ve got a business proposition for you, Doctor Crane.”
She stood again, coming to crouch next to him, invading his personal space. Ivy put one hand on his thigh and leaned in so their faces were very close. Her breath was sweet like sugar cane and her hair smelt of warm growing things. He realized she wasn’t hued in blue or yellow shades of pink like most Caucasians were, but she was tinted green. One cool hand brushed over his hair and down his chest, long nails trailing lightly behind.
“I realize I haven’t looked in a mirror recently,” Jonathan said dryly, “but I do recall being struck several times in the face. Unless I’ve missed my guess, I’m not exactly making the bruises look rugged. On top of that, I can definitely remember my track record with women and I’m gathering from this rousing display of feminine wiles that you want something more than a business proposal, and I highly doubt it has anything to do with sex at all.”
Ivy sat back, looking startled. “Harley.” She sounded surprised. “It’s not working.” She took his face in her hands, pressing painfully against his bruises. “You don’t feel any…different?” Ivy asked. “Think carefully, this is important.”
He took a deep breath and considered his physical and mental state. “No. Professional curiosity bids me ask what it is that I’m supposed to be experiencing, though.”
“Pheromones,” Ivy snapped, obviously irritated. “You should be experiencing the effects of my pheromones. Are you positive you’re not madly in love with me and would do anything for a kiss?”
“Lust gas, God…of all things.” Jonathan shook his head, a slow smile creeping onto his face. “I’m terribly sorry, that won’t affect me. Working with pheromones clearly has its drawbacks.”
Harvey waggled a finger at him. “Ain’t so, Doctor Crane. It works on everyone, ‘cept me, and that’s ‘cause I’m immune to poisons and toxins, just like Ivy here.”
“No, really.” Jonathan shut his eyes for a moment. “I’m gay.”
“That doesn’t matter!” Ivy exclaimed. “It works on everyone!”
He could feel his face turning a rather nice shade of pink and glared at them to combat his embarrassment. “As you are both doctors, I take it you’ve heard of the Kinsey scale. I’m a five and we are fewer than most people would like to think; so no, your pheromones won’t work because there is nothing about women that I find sexually attractive. However, if it is any consolation, I think you are incredibly beautiful and I’m sure that since the three of us are all intelligent people with similar goals in mind, we can all get along without resorting to things like physiological manipulations.”
Harvey leaned over so far that for a moment Jonathan wondered how it was physically possible that she wasn’t falling flat on her face. “Well that explains a lot,” she said, half to herself, half to Ivy. “But not the suits.”
“I beg your pardon?” Jonathan snapped.
She looked at him as though she hadn’t been staring at him intently. Her grin was something the Joker would have been proud of. “Well I’d had a twenty in the pool that you were queer as a three dollar bill, but then one of the inmates pointed out that your suits didn’t fit you properly and you wore sweater-vests, which isn’t synonymous with queer, only that you’re one of those pseudo-English types who all seem gay but most of ‘em aren’t.”
Jonathan wondered if he was very good in the next three seconds if God would have one of Ivy’s plants swallow him whole. “There was a betting pool at Arkham running on if I were gay or not?” He asked incredulously. “And the inmates were betting?”
Harley shrugged. “Shame, I can’t collect now.” She hopped down from her perch, still looking at Jonathan if he was some sort of interesting specimen. He had the acutely uncomfortable sensation of knowing what one of his own patients must have felt like. “Ah well,” she said abruptly.
“Well, whatever the case,” Ivy seemed to have gotten over her initial shock. “There’s a few hitches in the plan I’ve been concocting and you’re the man who can fix them.”
Jonathan frowned. “Not at the moment I can’t.” He tapped the side of his head self-depreciatingly. “Once I’ve got myself back in my own head, I’ll be willing to discuss whatever plan it is you have, but at the moment, my primary concern is stopping the fits.”
“How long would that take? In your best estimate?”
“A day, three at most.” Jonathan shrugged at her surprised expression. “I’ve got a few ideas for antidotes to the toxin. If none of them work then I’ll probably be wholly insensible and therefore of no use. You’ll have your first answer by tonight.”
She smiled and gestured for him to follow. “We’ll get your lab set up at once.”
*~*~*~*
It was late in the evening when Harley stopped by the little lab to see how Jonathan was, considering he hadn’t emerged since he’d started and it had been almost eleven hours.
“How’s it goin’?” She peered over Jonathan’s shoulder at the notebook full of equations he had next to the potential serum. “Looks complicated.”
Jonathan put his glasses back on and turned to look at her. He’d rolled up his sleeves in concession to the heat and the top buttons of his shirt were undone, his tie hanging loose over the sweater-vest. Except for the bruises - that thanks to Ivy’s salve had almost entirely faded - he looked much like he had back in his Arkham days on a late night in the lab. She resisted the urge to ruffle his hair.
“It’s unfortunate,” he said distractedly. “I have no reliable test subjects to experiment upon. I fear I’ll have to just stick it in my arm and hope for the best.”
She leaned against the desk, crossing her legs at the ankle. “Well, Ivy wants to go out tonight, have a bit of a run about Gotham for the fun of it and I wanted to know if you wanted to come along.”
“I don’t think Ivy would appreciate my tagging along.” Jonathan smiled nervously at her and it was hard to believe that he had ever been half responsible for bringing such mayhem to the Narrows. He looked like a kid afraid of being picked on in the playground.
Harley made a ‘pshaw’ sound and waved a hand about to negate what he’d said. “Nah, Ivy’s just not much of a people person. She’s had a tough run of it with men especially, but she doesn’t mind you, I can tell. She asked me if I thought we needed a side-car for the bike an’ she wouldn’t have if she was intending to get rid of you right away.”
Jonathan glanced back at his work and then sighed. “I’ve been putting it off…” He picked up a beaker of sap colored liquid and turned it over for a moment before setting it down again in a somewhat nervous, fidgety movement. “God, I feel like Doctor Jekyll.”
“You’re gonna take that right now?” Harley found she was actually worried about him. “Are you sure?”
“Not at all.” Jonathan put a needle into the beaker and slid the plunger up, as the chamber filled slowly with the syrupy liquid. “It may kill me, it may destroy my mind, or it might not do anything at all. We shall see.” He tapped the needle to get the air out of it and handed it to Harley while he tied a bit of rubber tubing around his bicep. “If I wind up like a vegetable,” he said softly, taking the needle back, “please kill me.” He slipped it into his vein, shut his eyes and pressed the plunger down slowly.
Harley watched, holding her breath in anticipation.
Jonathan gave her an arch look. “It’s not going to take effect for another half hour. Or, at least, it shouldn’t do.” He unwrapped the tourniquet, rolled down his sleeves, took off his glasses, pulled off his tie and removed his sweater-vest. Reaching under the desk he pulled out the straight-jacket. “Help me get this on.”
She did the buckles up as he instructed wondering if she could have done the same had she been in his position. Harley doubted it. “If it’s not too personal a question…” She trailed off, binding his arms into place. “I’m not…”
“Just spit it out,” he said in exasperation.
“Someone tried to strangle you. Prob’ly the same someone who bruised up your arms and wrists, an’ I’d bet my life on there being a whole mess of ‘em under that suit.” Harley kept his gaze, watching as he flinched a little with each accusation.
He lifted his chin. “What, exactly, is your point?”
Harley shrugged sadly. “I don’t bruise easy, but I figure if I did, I’d have looked a lot like you a few days ago. You don’t get that sort of damage done in one day. Those are layers. I jus’…I think I might understand, that’s all, if you ever…You’ve been missing for two weeks, who did you go to? Ivy’d be happy to make a detour an’ kick his ass if you want.” She gave him a strained smile. “Not that it’s any of my business.”
Jonathan shook his head, staring down at the floor. “It’s not,” he said tightly. “But thank you, and no, there’s no need for that.”
“There was blood on the sweatpants you were wearing before, an’ it didn’t come from someone else. I’ve seen you flinch when you sit. Are you all right?”
Jonathan flushed unhappily. “I’ll be fine in a day or two. It’s not…I’ll be fine.”
“You shouldn’t have to know that.” She wasn’t what she considered an affectionate person, not really - unless one was talking about the Joker - but Harley gave Jonathan a fierce hug anyway. He stiffened, shoulders tense under her arms and then sagged a little in her embrace. “We’re not nice people, you an’ I,” she said into his hair and he smelt of fear and expensive shampoo. “But us villains have got to look after each other.” Harley planted a kiss on his forehead then let go, a little embarrassed, and went back to her position against the desk.
He shut his eyes and let his head tip back. “It’s all right,” he said tiredly. “He almost, for one second, made me believe that he cared.” The corners of Jonathan’s mouth turned up in a nasty smile. “And then I hit him with a toaster.”
Harley laughed. “Nice.”
They sat in silence then, waiting for the drug to take effect.
Around twenty minutes after he had injected himself, Jonathan started convulsing so hard he fell off the chair and lay, spasming on the floor. Harley dropped to her knees and pinned him down, shoving the tubing he’d used between his teeth so there was at least something to bite down on. His eyes were open, wide and terrified and he convulsed so hard he nearly threw her off and then laid still, eyelids falling shut.
Harley checked his pulse and found it was steady and regular. “C’mon, Doctor Crane,” she muttered. “Wake up.”
His eyes opened again, and he sat up, a slight smile touching at the edges of his mouth. “Doctor Crane isn’t here right now,” he said and laughed like it was an old joke. “Unbuckle my arms.”
“Uh…” Harley eased back a little. There was something slightly less than sane in his expression. “If you’re not Doctor Crane…”
“Scarecrow,” he said, turning so she could reach the straps. “And I believe you said something about causing a little mayhem?” Scarecrow stood with none of the trouble that Jonathan had shown, long sleeves of the straight jacket pushed up out of the way.
Ivy came in then, dressed and ready to go out. They stared at each other for a moment before she nodded. “I think you’ll like what we found,” she said and led the way out of the make-shift lab.
Sitting out on an oversized leaf was the burlap mask. Next to it, several canisters were labeled: Evidence, Fear Toxin.
The Scarecrow ran a finger along one of the seams of his mask. He gave Harley an odd look. “Better get your glad rags on,” he said, and cut off the sleeves to the straight-jacket with garden shears then unwrapped the bandages from his hands.
Harley did as she was told, still daubing on the last of the greasepaint when she returned. Ivy was waiting on the motorbike and the Scarecrow had traded Jonathan’s suit pants for leather ones, though god knew where he’d found them. The canisters lay empty and he had filled little vials full of the gas and had them strapped on about his waist like a gun-belt. He was wearing the mask and had picked up a scythe that had been lying around the greenhouse. Either he or Ivy had apparently gone completely around the twist because he was sitting astride a horse.
Harley tossed him her motorcycling, fingerless gloves. “Here,” she said shortly. “It’ll help protect your hands.”
He put them on, and she got the impression that he was still giving her that odd little smile underneath the burlap. Harley decided she officially liked Doctor Crane much better than the Scarecrow. At least he was reasonably insane, not completely bat-shit crazy.
She shook her head and got on the motorcycle. “I’m not even gonna ask where you got that horse from.”
Ivy sat behind her and wrapped her arms around Harley’s waist as she started the engine. “My babies found it wandering around. There’s a few of them, still running wild after the Narrows incident. They found their way here to nature.”
“Right.” Harley revved the engine and headed off out of Ivy’s little kingdom. “Y’know, I thought things were weird around Mista J. but Ivy, this is a whole new house of fun.”
TBC
Series: Rumplestiltskin 6/10 (part two)
Rating: M for mansex NC-17
Disclaimer: If I owned Batman (etc) the movie would have been a LOT less kid-friendly. There’s also one line lifted from one of the comics. Bonus points if you spot it.
Thanks to meletor_et_al for the beta.
Warnings: TOASTERS- It was originally supposed to be a frying pan, not a toaster. I hope it doesn’t make the scene (you’ll know what I mean) comical. But there’s serious weapon potential in toasters.
*~*~*~*
They were a good distance from the Narrows and of all the pieces of bad luck it was rush hour and Gotham was trundling along at a gridlock. As adept at maneuvering through traffic on her bike as Harley was, Ivy still valued her life a little more than that. The second fastest way to the Narrows - other than straight there - was actually to leave the city, go around it and re-enter just before the Narrows. It avoided the business district and most of the major roads, all of them if they detoured a little more, and considering Gotham’s traffic hour, would probably cut their driving time in half.
Of course, that plan had hinged on Harley not getting lost.
“I’m more of a city girl,” she said in self-defense, turning right at a fork. Harley decided not to mention that she had no idea if right was the direction that they were supposed to be going in, or if they had been driving in circles. “Besides, working at Arkham, working with Mista J, I never had any reason to be poking about outside Gotham.”
Ivy groaned in frustration. “Well just pull over then at a road sign and we’ll try to figure it out from there.”
It sounded like a good plan, better then Harley’s had been (Her plan consisted of driving about until they found where they were going and hoping they didn’t run out of gas) and Harley was so busy watching out for road signs that she almost didn’t see the caravan pulling up behind them, going far too fast for such a narrow, winding road. She glanced back over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of Ivy looking absolutely terrified.
“Jerk!” she shouted. “Slow down!” Harley sped up to avoid being slammed into from behind. She felt Ivy twist about to look at the driver who seemed determined to run them over.
“He’s not…” Ivy’s fingers dug into Harley’s sides. “Get off the road, Harley. I don’t think he’s conscious.”
Harley grinned happily and sped up a little more. “Hold on,” she warned and jumped the bike up onto the stone wall bracketing the road. They drove along there at breakneck speeds before Harley swerved sharply to the left, sending the bike jolting off the wall and rattling over the grass and out of harm’s way before she skidded to an abrupt stop.
They watched as the caravan increased speed, weaving from side to side before it fishtailed wildly and hit the wall, going into a spin, front and rear of the caravan smashing against the stone, breaking off pieces of metal. Finally it came to a slow stop, most of the front ripped away and the back looking as though someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. Harley started up the bike again and drove over to the wall before parking it and dismounting. Ivy didn’t say anything, though she was looking a little greener than usual and she got off the bike in record time.
The driver was slumped against the window, eyes open, blood seeping out of his mouth. His hands were still locked around the wheel, white knuckled.
“I know him,” Harley said thoughtfully. “But it’s hard to tell with his face messed up like that.”
Ivy snorted disdainfully. “Does it matter?” she asked. “He’s dead; we’re alive…Though perhaps he has a map we could use.”
Harley stared at the man and then nearly jumped a foot in the air when he blinked and his lips started to move as though he was repeating something. It didn’t look anything like ‘help me.’ “Uh, Ivy, he’s not dead. He was wearing his seatbelt and apparently it worked just fine.”
“Well kill him if you like, I don’t really mind either way.” Ivy examined the door to the caravan, which had been badly bent out of shape in the crash. “I still say we see if he has a map. Dead or alive, he’s not going to be driving anywhere else in such a state. Harley, be a dear and get this door off please. I don’t think I can manage it.”
Harley squinted a little. If you took away the bruising on the driver’s face - and wasn’t that odd, since he’d only just got in the crash - and the haggard exhaustion, he was quite striking. In fact, only one man she’d ever met looked quite like that. She burst out into delighted laughter. “Ivy, you won’t believe who the driver is.” She walked around to the side and gave the door a solid thump with her shoulder. It screeched unhappily but didn’t budge very far. Harley put one hand on the doorframe and tried again, this time it clattered inwards.
Ivy shrugged and followed Harley into the caravan. “I’m sure I have no idea.”
The caravan was a disaster from the crash but there was blood on the bed and a box full of chemicals and scientific books and machinery had spilled over that spoke of far more interesting things. Harley stepped over the wreckage of the kitchenette and opened the partition between driving area and living space.
“It’s Doctor Crane.” She slipped into the passenger seat and watched for a moment as he shuddered and whispered to himself. “Doctor Crane?” Harley put on her best Asylum Voice and touched him gently but firmly on the shoulder. “Doctor Crane, we’re here to help you.”
He moaned and shut his eyes. “Go away.” Crane’s voice was hoarse. He let go of the steering wheel and wrapped lacerated hands around his arms, leaving smears of red over an already bloody shirt. “You’re not there and I’m not here.”
Harley gave Ivy a concerned look as she came through the door. “He’s completely loopy,” she pronounced, squeezing the back of his neck at two pressure points. Crane’s head lolled forward and he slumped against the wheel, out cold.
Ivy sighed and chewed thoughtfully on her lip for a moment. “We’ll see what’s lying about in here, stick anything useful on the back of the bike and bring him along, just in case he starts making sense again.”
“It’s going to be a bit of a squeeze on the bike,” Harley said. “I don’t think three of us will fit.”
Ivy sighed. “Well stick him on the bike with the stuff and we’ll just have to push the damn thing and walk back.”
Harley rubbed at the neck of her harlequin suit. “Ivy…we still don’t know where we are.”
*~*~*~*
Alfred’s face swum into view and it sounded like he was saying something through a very long tunnel stuffed with cotton. Bruce groaned and shut his eyes again but the sound and light was insistent now, creeping in through his eyelids and clearing into something comprehensible as words.
“A glass,” he managed to say. “Over my head.”
“More than that, I’d wager,” Alfred replied and a cool cloth settled over Bruce’s forehead. “You’re a very lucky man that he didn’t finish the job. I gather that you took him up to the caravan and he took advantage?”
Bruce, despite the splitting pain in his head, found he couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Something along those lines.” He tried opening his eyes again and squinted up at Alfred. “He won’t be moving fast, he’s injured.”
Alfred made a face. “Doctor Crane took the caravan. I took the liberty of calling the bank to cancel your credit cards, sir, and about an hour ago I received a call from some sporting company wishing to know if you would like to face their campaign for their new climbing equipment, including pockets that won’t allow men such as yourself to drop items like wallets.”
“I’m not going to fall asleep Alfred.” Bruce eased himself into a sitting position and realized he was in his bed in the hotel. “You don’t have to talk to keep me awake.” He flinchingly brushed his fingers over the bandages on his temple. “He hit me with a glass.”
“Sir, you’re repeating yourself.” Alfred said unhappily. “Your pupils are uneven as well, he definitely concussed you. I thought about calling the police, but if Doctor Crane is driving your camper then…”
Bruce tried to get up but his head spun and he was forced to fall back against the pillows. “No, I’ll find him. This is my fault, I underestimated him, I assumed he was through fighting.” He took a deep breath and tried again to get up, swinging his feet over the edge to rest on the floor before pausing to let his head adjust. “God, he’s not well, he won’t last five minutes if he has another fit again.”
Alfred helped Bruce to his feet, though his expression clearly said he’d rather Bruce was staying put. “I believe that is the least of your worries, sir. He took the lab Lucius set up and I believe that he might have formulated a possible cure. The…the blood in the padded room you made, some of it looked like chemical equations. With the equipment in his control, there is a chance he could stabilize his insanity and become a menace again.”
It made sense to Bruce, but at the same time, all he could really wrap his mind about was the idea that Crane was trying to drive a caravan when he was obviously not well and he was going to crash. He couldn’t get the image of Crane out of his head; the one of Crane sitting in the bed, looking beautiful and fragile in that oversized shirt, lips swollen and skin patterned with the bruises Bruce had given him, asking for a kiss just before he’d made his escape.
“Why didn’t you kill me?” Bruce muttered, leaning on the furniture for support. “I need to get back to the Batcave…I can’t go after him like this.”
“You can’t go after him at all, Master Bruce,” Alfred said sternly, as though Bruce was six years old and trying to climb up the kitchen shelves for the condensed milk. “You are going to stay in bed and rest. A concussion is not something to be taken lightly.”
Bruce caught a glimpse of himself in the vanity table’s mirror and stopped. If he’d looked like hell that morning, he now looked a lot worse. “The walking wounded,” he said, mostly to himself. “He’ll have a fit again and drive off the road.”
Alfred caught hold of his arm before he fell down. “Good riddance to bad rubbish, is what I say, sir. Now please, go back to bed.”
“He was broken long before I got to him,” Bruce said tiredly. “You know, it was a glass he hit me with. I’d brought him orange juice and made him scrambled eggs and toast. Why didn’t he kill me? I would have if I were him.”
“Sir,” Alfred gently maneuvered him back into the bed. “I think perhaps you should rest a little and save any thoughts regarding him for later.”
Bruce let Alfred draw the covers back up around him wondering why his own pulse had to sound so damned loud. “He kissed me first.” It was important that Alfred understand that. He didn’t want Alfred thinking badly of him.
Alfred pursed his lips but only said, “Well, I can’t say I didn’t suspect Doctor Crane.”
“I don’t think he had a very nice life.” Bruce could hear his voice slurring tiredly.
Alfred was still making a face like he was holding his tongue. “That’s no excuse, sir.”
Bruce nodded. “You’re right.” He shut his eyes, feeling like a little boy again on the nights when his parents were out for the evening and Alfred would tuck him in. “But maybe it’s a reason.”
*~*~*~*
Jonathan woke abruptly but the only indication that he was no longer asleep was a slight twitch of his eyelids. He stayed perfectly still, taking stock of his situation as best he could without opening his eyes. Every single bruise on his body was demanding his attention and he had a splitting headache. A slight shifting of his legs reminded him of the very acute aching inside him but his hands had been freshly bandaged and they actually felt good, all things considered. The bruising on his face didn’t feel quite as painful either, though his skin felt a little sticky. Jonathan grimaced and opened his eyes. His first coherent thought beyond comprehending the pain he was in was; ‘For Christ’s sake, not again. I’ve spent all day waking up.’
He was, of all places, in a greenhouse - or what remained of one after a rampaging jungle had taken out the majority of its structure - lying on a bed of leaves which was surprisingly comfortable though it stank of rot and wet earth. Sitting next to him in a little pile was one of his suits and his spare pair of glasses, complete with under-things, shoes, socks, tie and cufflinks. He swallowed down what might have been a lump of emotion, or might have been nausea and put his glasses on gratefully. Jonathan rose slowly, in consideration for all his pains, and stripped off the borrowed clothing, grateful to be back in his own things. He was knotting his tie when a curvaceous woman with brilliant red hair and a friendly smile appeared from within the tangle of plants.
“Hello, Doctor Crane.” She sounded a little hesitant. “How are you feeling?”
Jonathan adjusted his tie and smiled grimly. “I’ve been better,” he said honestly.
She raised an eyebrow. “Well, you’ve been worse as well. You were sitting in a wreck only an hour ago making precious little sense. I put some of my own salve on your face and hands though, it should help. I believe the color is already a lot better.”
“It is, thank you.” Jonathan flexed his hands. Indeed they already felt as though there were scabs stretching under the bandages and not open cuts. “As for my previous state - I was poisoned by my own gas, and I consider frequent fits of insanity doing quite well, all things considered.” He gave her an appraising look as he eased himself back down into a sitting position on the leaves. They had enough give that he wasn’t in too much discomfort and it certainly felt better than standing did. “You must be Doctor Isley.”
She shook her head. “Not anymore. It’s Poison Ivy, though you may call me Ivy. And this is Harley Quinn.” Ivy stepped aside to reveal a young woman, pretty in an unassuming, girl-next-door sort of way with blonde hair and a little snub nose. “Perhaps you know her better as Harleen Quinzelle, she worked in your Asylum.”
Of course, the two that Batman had been asking him about. It struck him as wonderfully ironic that a cute little thing like Harley had beaten the Bat badly enough to leave marks. He wondered if it would be inappropriate to congratulate her on a job well done.
Ivy settled herself in what looked like a swinging chair made of vines and Harley perched on top of a horizontal root thick as Jonathan’s torso. The fact that she had worked under the same roof as he had was less of a shock then it might have been. He hadn’t spent much time getting to know the other doctors beyond a professional capacity but even then, some of them seemed like they’d been as unsettled as he was.
“Somehow I find myself unsurprised,” Jonathan replied dryly. “I can’t say I remember you, but I imagine you can gather how busy I was at the time.”
Harley nodded. “You an’ me both, doctor. You an’ me both.”
“Do you prefer Scarecrow, Doctor Crane, or Jonathan?” Ivy asked politely, crossing her legs to expose a more than decent amount of thigh. “It’s a bit trying these days now that everyone I know seems to have two or three names and there really isn’t any protocol for situations like this.”
Jonathan wanted to pinch the bridge of his nose to help ease his headache, but settled for taking a few deep breaths. “Doctor Crane is fine. I haven’t seen much of the Scarecrow since the Narrows went up in smoke, I’ve been too busy trying to remember how to be Jonathan Crane, though I understand that you have something of an interest in the Scarecrow.” One of his hands came up of its own volition to brush against the bruising on his cheek before he caught himself and settled his hands back into his lap.
Ivy smiled slightly. “I’ve got a business proposition for you, Doctor Crane.”
She stood again, coming to crouch next to him, invading his personal space. Ivy put one hand on his thigh and leaned in so their faces were very close. Her breath was sweet like sugar cane and her hair smelt of warm growing things. He realized she wasn’t hued in blue or yellow shades of pink like most Caucasians were, but she was tinted green. One cool hand brushed over his hair and down his chest, long nails trailing lightly behind.
“I realize I haven’t looked in a mirror recently,” Jonathan said dryly, “but I do recall being struck several times in the face. Unless I’ve missed my guess, I’m not exactly making the bruises look rugged. On top of that, I can definitely remember my track record with women and I’m gathering from this rousing display of feminine wiles that you want something more than a business proposal, and I highly doubt it has anything to do with sex at all.”
Ivy sat back, looking startled. “Harley.” She sounded surprised. “It’s not working.” She took his face in her hands, pressing painfully against his bruises. “You don’t feel any…different?” Ivy asked. “Think carefully, this is important.”
He took a deep breath and considered his physical and mental state. “No. Professional curiosity bids me ask what it is that I’m supposed to be experiencing, though.”
“Pheromones,” Ivy snapped, obviously irritated. “You should be experiencing the effects of my pheromones. Are you positive you’re not madly in love with me and would do anything for a kiss?”
“Lust gas, God…of all things.” Jonathan shook his head, a slow smile creeping onto his face. “I’m terribly sorry, that won’t affect me. Working with pheromones clearly has its drawbacks.”
Harvey waggled a finger at him. “Ain’t so, Doctor Crane. It works on everyone, ‘cept me, and that’s ‘cause I’m immune to poisons and toxins, just like Ivy here.”
“No, really.” Jonathan shut his eyes for a moment. “I’m gay.”
“That doesn’t matter!” Ivy exclaimed. “It works on everyone!”
He could feel his face turning a rather nice shade of pink and glared at them to combat his embarrassment. “As you are both doctors, I take it you’ve heard of the Kinsey scale. I’m a five and we are fewer than most people would like to think; so no, your pheromones won’t work because there is nothing about women that I find sexually attractive. However, if it is any consolation, I think you are incredibly beautiful and I’m sure that since the three of us are all intelligent people with similar goals in mind, we can all get along without resorting to things like physiological manipulations.”
Harvey leaned over so far that for a moment Jonathan wondered how it was physically possible that she wasn’t falling flat on her face. “Well that explains a lot,” she said, half to herself, half to Ivy. “But not the suits.”
“I beg your pardon?” Jonathan snapped.
She looked at him as though she hadn’t been staring at him intently. Her grin was something the Joker would have been proud of. “Well I’d had a twenty in the pool that you were queer as a three dollar bill, but then one of the inmates pointed out that your suits didn’t fit you properly and you wore sweater-vests, which isn’t synonymous with queer, only that you’re one of those pseudo-English types who all seem gay but most of ‘em aren’t.”
Jonathan wondered if he was very good in the next three seconds if God would have one of Ivy’s plants swallow him whole. “There was a betting pool at Arkham running on if I were gay or not?” He asked incredulously. “And the inmates were betting?”
Harley shrugged. “Shame, I can’t collect now.” She hopped down from her perch, still looking at Jonathan if he was some sort of interesting specimen. He had the acutely uncomfortable sensation of knowing what one of his own patients must have felt like. “Ah well,” she said abruptly.
“Well, whatever the case,” Ivy seemed to have gotten over her initial shock. “There’s a few hitches in the plan I’ve been concocting and you’re the man who can fix them.”
Jonathan frowned. “Not at the moment I can’t.” He tapped the side of his head self-depreciatingly. “Once I’ve got myself back in my own head, I’ll be willing to discuss whatever plan it is you have, but at the moment, my primary concern is stopping the fits.”
“How long would that take? In your best estimate?”
“A day, three at most.” Jonathan shrugged at her surprised expression. “I’ve got a few ideas for antidotes to the toxin. If none of them work then I’ll probably be wholly insensible and therefore of no use. You’ll have your first answer by tonight.”
She smiled and gestured for him to follow. “We’ll get your lab set up at once.”
*~*~*~*
It was late in the evening when Harley stopped by the little lab to see how Jonathan was, considering he hadn’t emerged since he’d started and it had been almost eleven hours.
“How’s it goin’?” She peered over Jonathan’s shoulder at the notebook full of equations he had next to the potential serum. “Looks complicated.”
Jonathan put his glasses back on and turned to look at her. He’d rolled up his sleeves in concession to the heat and the top buttons of his shirt were undone, his tie hanging loose over the sweater-vest. Except for the bruises - that thanks to Ivy’s salve had almost entirely faded - he looked much like he had back in his Arkham days on a late night in the lab. She resisted the urge to ruffle his hair.
“It’s unfortunate,” he said distractedly. “I have no reliable test subjects to experiment upon. I fear I’ll have to just stick it in my arm and hope for the best.”
She leaned against the desk, crossing her legs at the ankle. “Well, Ivy wants to go out tonight, have a bit of a run about Gotham for the fun of it and I wanted to know if you wanted to come along.”
“I don’t think Ivy would appreciate my tagging along.” Jonathan smiled nervously at her and it was hard to believe that he had ever been half responsible for bringing such mayhem to the Narrows. He looked like a kid afraid of being picked on in the playground.
Harley made a ‘pshaw’ sound and waved a hand about to negate what he’d said. “Nah, Ivy’s just not much of a people person. She’s had a tough run of it with men especially, but she doesn’t mind you, I can tell. She asked me if I thought we needed a side-car for the bike an’ she wouldn’t have if she was intending to get rid of you right away.”
Jonathan glanced back at his work and then sighed. “I’ve been putting it off…” He picked up a beaker of sap colored liquid and turned it over for a moment before setting it down again in a somewhat nervous, fidgety movement. “God, I feel like Doctor Jekyll.”
“You’re gonna take that right now?” Harley found she was actually worried about him. “Are you sure?”
“Not at all.” Jonathan put a needle into the beaker and slid the plunger up, as the chamber filled slowly with the syrupy liquid. “It may kill me, it may destroy my mind, or it might not do anything at all. We shall see.” He tapped the needle to get the air out of it and handed it to Harley while he tied a bit of rubber tubing around his bicep. “If I wind up like a vegetable,” he said softly, taking the needle back, “please kill me.” He slipped it into his vein, shut his eyes and pressed the plunger down slowly.
Harley watched, holding her breath in anticipation.
Jonathan gave her an arch look. “It’s not going to take effect for another half hour. Or, at least, it shouldn’t do.” He unwrapped the tourniquet, rolled down his sleeves, took off his glasses, pulled off his tie and removed his sweater-vest. Reaching under the desk he pulled out the straight-jacket. “Help me get this on.”
She did the buckles up as he instructed wondering if she could have done the same had she been in his position. Harley doubted it. “If it’s not too personal a question…” She trailed off, binding his arms into place. “I’m not…”
“Just spit it out,” he said in exasperation.
“Someone tried to strangle you. Prob’ly the same someone who bruised up your arms and wrists, an’ I’d bet my life on there being a whole mess of ‘em under that suit.” Harley kept his gaze, watching as he flinched a little with each accusation.
He lifted his chin. “What, exactly, is your point?”
Harley shrugged sadly. “I don’t bruise easy, but I figure if I did, I’d have looked a lot like you a few days ago. You don’t get that sort of damage done in one day. Those are layers. I jus’…I think I might understand, that’s all, if you ever…You’ve been missing for two weeks, who did you go to? Ivy’d be happy to make a detour an’ kick his ass if you want.” She gave him a strained smile. “Not that it’s any of my business.”
Jonathan shook his head, staring down at the floor. “It’s not,” he said tightly. “But thank you, and no, there’s no need for that.”
“There was blood on the sweatpants you were wearing before, an’ it didn’t come from someone else. I’ve seen you flinch when you sit. Are you all right?”
Jonathan flushed unhappily. “I’ll be fine in a day or two. It’s not…I’ll be fine.”
“You shouldn’t have to know that.” She wasn’t what she considered an affectionate person, not really - unless one was talking about the Joker - but Harley gave Jonathan a fierce hug anyway. He stiffened, shoulders tense under her arms and then sagged a little in her embrace. “We’re not nice people, you an’ I,” she said into his hair and he smelt of fear and expensive shampoo. “But us villains have got to look after each other.” Harley planted a kiss on his forehead then let go, a little embarrassed, and went back to her position against the desk.
He shut his eyes and let his head tip back. “It’s all right,” he said tiredly. “He almost, for one second, made me believe that he cared.” The corners of Jonathan’s mouth turned up in a nasty smile. “And then I hit him with a toaster.”
Harley laughed. “Nice.”
They sat in silence then, waiting for the drug to take effect.
Around twenty minutes after he had injected himself, Jonathan started convulsing so hard he fell off the chair and lay, spasming on the floor. Harley dropped to her knees and pinned him down, shoving the tubing he’d used between his teeth so there was at least something to bite down on. His eyes were open, wide and terrified and he convulsed so hard he nearly threw her off and then laid still, eyelids falling shut.
Harley checked his pulse and found it was steady and regular. “C’mon, Doctor Crane,” she muttered. “Wake up.”
His eyes opened again, and he sat up, a slight smile touching at the edges of his mouth. “Doctor Crane isn’t here right now,” he said and laughed like it was an old joke. “Unbuckle my arms.”
“Uh…” Harley eased back a little. There was something slightly less than sane in his expression. “If you’re not Doctor Crane…”
“Scarecrow,” he said, turning so she could reach the straps. “And I believe you said something about causing a little mayhem?” Scarecrow stood with none of the trouble that Jonathan had shown, long sleeves of the straight jacket pushed up out of the way.
Ivy came in then, dressed and ready to go out. They stared at each other for a moment before she nodded. “I think you’ll like what we found,” she said and led the way out of the make-shift lab.
Sitting out on an oversized leaf was the burlap mask. Next to it, several canisters were labeled: Evidence, Fear Toxin.
The Scarecrow ran a finger along one of the seams of his mask. He gave Harley an odd look. “Better get your glad rags on,” he said, and cut off the sleeves to the straight-jacket with garden shears then unwrapped the bandages from his hands.
Harley did as she was told, still daubing on the last of the greasepaint when she returned. Ivy was waiting on the motorbike and the Scarecrow had traded Jonathan’s suit pants for leather ones, though god knew where he’d found them. The canisters lay empty and he had filled little vials full of the gas and had them strapped on about his waist like a gun-belt. He was wearing the mask and had picked up a scythe that had been lying around the greenhouse. Either he or Ivy had apparently gone completely around the twist because he was sitting astride a horse.
Harley tossed him her motorcycling, fingerless gloves. “Here,” she said shortly. “It’ll help protect your hands.”
He put them on, and she got the impression that he was still giving her that odd little smile underneath the burlap. Harley decided she officially liked Doctor Crane much better than the Scarecrow. At least he was reasonably insane, not completely bat-shit crazy.
She shook her head and got on the motorcycle. “I’m not even gonna ask where you got that horse from.”
Ivy sat behind her and wrapped her arms around Harley’s waist as she started the engine. “My babies found it wandering around. There’s a few of them, still running wild after the Narrows incident. They found their way here to nature.”
“Right.” Harley revved the engine and headed off out of Ivy’s little kingdom. “Y’know, I thought things were weird around Mista J. but Ivy, this is a whole new house of fun.”
TBC