Chapter Text
There’s a nest in the chokecherry tree. Harley stands underneath it, grinning.
“What kind of bird made this?” she calls to Ivy.
Ivy looks up from under her garden hat. “No idea. I do plants, not birds.”
Harley cranes her neck even further. “There’s a baby! I see a baby! No, three babies! Awww, they’re so cute! Come see!”
Ivy sighs, abandoning her jasmine plant to come and join Harley under the tree. “Where’s Mama Bird?”
“Hey, it could be Daddy Bird. Ya never know.” Harley points to the birdbath, where a brown bird is preening on the edge. “Over there.”
She loves this place they’re setting up together, her and Ivy. It’s the closest thing Gotham has to an English cottage, and there’s plenty of space for the garden Ivy is slowly coaxing out of the Gotham soil. There’s a synagogue ten minutes away, and she doesn’t really practice anymore but she goes once a month and feels a little better each time she does. Every Sunday morning Ivy makes breakfast and Harley washes up and they tend to the garden together until it gets too hot and then they sit on the porch and drink lemonade and talk until the sun goes down. And every other week they do something mildly illegal- beat up a jerk trying to rob someone and then rob him, or smash up a construction site to save some wildflowers, or find one of the Joker’s goons and pummel him, just for kicks.
It’s a good life. It’s the life Harley really wants , if she thinks about it, even though there’s still a black-and-red harlequin costume stuffed in the back of their closet. She can’t bring herself to get rid of it, not just yet. It’s only been three months since Harley escaped Mistah J’s twisted little paradise in the bowels of the old Arkham Asylum, after all. Baby steps. She’ll get there eventually. But for now, she’s happy where she is.
“Huh.” Ivy adjusts her glasses and peers at the bird. “Looks like a robin to me.”
“Awww, baby robins! Batsy would be jealous.” Harley giggles at the thought of Batman feeding earthworms to a trio of hungry baby birds wearing tiny capes and gold R’s on their chests.
One of the babies hops to the edge of the nest, fluttering its tiny wings. Harley watches it, wondering if this is its first flight.
The baby robin cheeps loudly, pitches forward- and falls, its wings flailing helplessly. Harley shrieks and dives for it.
“Don’t!” Ivy cries, one hand stretched out. Her vine scoops the baby bird out of the air, catching it in a flower. The vine wraps around the tree, putting the baby back in the nest safe and sound. The parent bird is watching from the birdbath, bright eyes staring at the two of them like it doesn’t know whether to trust them for saving its baby.
“Poor baby,” Harley murmurs. “Ain’t ready to be on its own.” She looks up at Ivy. “Why’d you stop me from rescuing it?”
“If you touch it, the mama bird might reject it,” Ivy explains. “They don’t like our scent. They see us as dangerous.”
“Great parenting, Daddy Bird,” Harley huffs. “If I was a bird I would never reject my baby just ‘cause somebody dangerous had touched it.” She sighs deeply, looking up into the tree as the parent bird flies over to make sure its babies are all right. “Little Robin Redbreast sat upon a tree,” she mumbles. “Up went the pussycat and down went he. Ivy, it must be really nice, bein’ a bird.”
Ivy kneels down by the jasmine again. “Well, don’t you start trying to lay an egg.”
Harley snorts with laughter, staring up into the tree as she continues the old poem. “Down came pussycat, away Robin ran, says little Robin Redbreast- catch me if you can.” She giggles. She’s standing in her own garden reciting nursery rhymes to a family of birds. And, as if on cue, the neighbors’ white cat is sitting on the wall, lashing its tail as it looks hungrily at the nest in the chokecherry tree. “You better run, Robin Redbreast,” Harley says. “Or learn to fly better.” She laughs as she remembers the way the baby bird tumbled. Now that the danger is over, it’s pretty funny.
And then, just as suddenly, she stops laughing. A sick feeling sweeps over her, leaves her gasping.
Baby birds. Falling out of the nest. Broken wings and broken birds. Little Robin Redbreast.
“No,” Harley whimpers. “Oh, no, no.” Her head spins like a merry-go-round, and colors are flashing in her eyes- white and purple and green…and red.
“Harley?” Ivy straightens up, looking at her with concern in her eyes. “Harley, are you okay? What’s wrong?”
“What day is it?” Harley manages to say through deep breaths.
“May…23, I think.”
Harley lets out a little cry of dismay. “May? ” That means it’s been nine months, nearly ten.
Ivy comes over at that, putting her hands on Harley’s shoulders. “Honey, what is it? Do you need to go inside?”
“Mm-hm.”
Ivy leads Harley inside and to the couch, sitting her down. She goes to the kitchen and gets a glass of water, pressing it into Harley’s hand. It’s cold, and Harley grips it hard.
“Drink that, then we’ll talk, okay?” Ivy says softly.
Harley nods and sips the water. Ivy sits next to her, rubbing circles on her back.
When the water is mostly gone, Ivy takes it from her and sets it on the coffee table. “Better?”
“Yeah.”
“Want to talk?”
Harley sighs. “No. But I have ta.”
Ivy wraps an arm around her shoulders, drawing her in close. “Whenever you’re ready, love,” she says softly. “I won’t push you.”
And it’s that, just that, which makes Harley decide to come out with it. She’s been holding in the secret long enough that she almost forgot about it, and now she can’t hold on to it anymore. Ivy won’t push her to talk, and she won’t push her away once she does talk.
They trust each other, and that’s something she never had with the Joker.
Harley takes a deep breath, preparing to tell Ivy everything.
Instead, she starts crying. The ugly kind of crying, with snot running everywhere and her face getting all blotchy and red like her old makeup when she didn’t bother to take it off. Ivy retrieves a box of tissues and hands one over, looking bewildered, and Harley blows into it with a clown-nose honk. It would be funny if everything wasn’t so awful.
“I’m a terrible person, Pam!” she wails.
“If this is about the things the Joker made you do, you’re not responsible for all of that,” Ivy says firmly.
But Harley shakes her head. “It’s not! It’s what I did! I- I hurt the baby Robin, and then I left him all alone in the dark because it was the only way I could get out and he’s been down there forever and he might even be dead and if he is dead then it’s all my fault!”
“…okay,” Ivy says, sounding very confused and very concerned. “Harley, if you mean the baby bird in the yard, it’s okay. You didn’t hurt it, and it’s not dead.”
Harley shakes her head. “Not that robin! Robin robin!”
“What robin?” Ivy asks helplessly.
“Batman’s Robin!”
Ivy’s eyebrows go up. “ Oh. Uh…didn’t we see him last night? He’s okay, Harley. He’s fine.”
Harley lets out a sob. “No, he’s not. I mean he is. But I mean the second one. The dead one.”
Ivy frowns. “Harley, what are you talking about?”
Harley sniffles into her tissue. “He ain’t dead. Or he wasn’t three months ago. But maybe he is now, and if he is then it’s my fault.” She looks pleadingly at Ivy. “It was the only way I could get out!”
“The second Robin is dead, Harley,” Ivy says gently. “Joker killed him in an explosion, remember?”
Harley shakes her head furiously. “No, he didn’t. He just made it look like he did. He’s got the baby Robin under Arkham Asylum, and he’s hurtin’ him. I know because- because I helped him do it. I was so awful, Ivy! I hurt him so bad! And then when I cut ties with Mistah J I just left him there! I-I knew Mistah J wouldn’t come lookin’ for me if he had the baby bird to play with. But now I can’t stop thinkin’ about him!”
Ivy’s mouth dropped open somewhere in the middle of Harley’s speech. “The Joker’s had Robin all this time? How long has it been? Why hasn’t Batman found him yet?”
“It’s been nine months,” Harley mumbles. “Batman thinks he’s dead, so he hasn’t been lookin’. And he has the shiny new one now.” She wipes her nose and looks back up. “It was six months when I escaped, Pam. I helped Mistah J hurt the baby bird for six months. And- and I was jealous that Mistah J liked the baby Robin better than he liked me, so I liked hurtin’ Robin! I- I didn’t even feel bad about it until I left, and then I forgot until just now!” Another sob shakes her. “I forgot about the Joker torturin’ a kid somewhere! I was just so happy bein’ here with you that I just…didn’t wanna remember, I guess.”
Ivy wordlessly reaches out and presses Harley’s head to her chest. “You still have me,” she says. “I promise. No matter what.”
Harley nods, curling into Ivy, and they sit there like that for a long time. Harley closes her eyes and lets everything go, letting herself just exist with Ivy.
This really is all I ever wanted.
Finally, Ivy sighs. “Harley?”
“Hmm?”
“Where does the Joker have Robin?”
Harley sits up. “Under Arkham Asylum. Waaaay under Arkham Asylum. Nobody goes down there anymore, and Mistah J knew Batsy would never look there. Mistah J likes it there, so Robin’s probably still there. If he ain’t dead yet. He was in pretty bad shape when I left.” She fights off another wave of guilt and tilts her head. “Why?”
“I know you’re not going to want to hear this, Harley, but we can’t just leave the kid there, if he’s still alive. And if we try to tell Batman about it, he’ll think we’re lying, and then we’ll be in Arkham Asylum.”
“So we’re gonna rescue Robin? Us two villains? ”
Ivy sighs, stands up, and goes to the bedroom. She comes back with her Poison Ivy outfit and Harley’s harlequin suit in hand. “Yeah. We’re gonna rescue Robin.” She tosses Harley’s suit to her.
Harley catches it in one hand, feeling a little bit sick at the thought of putting it on again. But if they get caught by Mistah J, she’ll need to act like her old self in order to get Ivy out.
She sighs. “Where’s my makeup?”
“Under the sink,” Ivy says, and then “You don’t have to come, Harl. I can do this by myself.”
In answer, Harley digs out the plastic bag containing her clown makeup. She strips off her shirt and jeans and steps into the legs of the harlequin suit. “Like heck you’re doin’ it by yourself. I gotta face up to it sometime.”
“Are you going to be all right if we run into the Joker?” Ivy asks, already in the tights and corset of her own costume. She reaches behind her and unfastens her ponytail, sending red waves cascading down her back. Harley sighs dreamily. I have the prettiest girlfriend. Then she shakes it off and gets back to business.
“Well, with any luck, we won’t. And just in case we get unlucky, I’m takin’ Beatrice. Mistah J won’t shmooze me back to his side with his teeth busted in.”
“Harley?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Harley adjusts the suit’s frilly collar around her shoulders. “Now get the Wildlife Sanctuary on the phone, cause we’re savin’ a baby bird.”