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Chapter Text

                                                                                    Feathered Soil:

Chapter Text

A strange murmur through the green undulated through her plants that had nothing to do with the welcoming ripple of excitement that Ivy's entrance usually induced in the flourishing ecosystem thriving within her domain, sparking both a faint curiosity and defensive anticipation, for what she might encounter among her plants.

Cautiously, Ivy sought out the reason for her garden's excitement; her plants hadn't sounded any alarms but were also not giving off any familiar scents or tells pertaining to any of the scant few visitors Ivy ordinarily entertained on selected occasion.

As she neared the back of her hideout nearly completely overrun by all manners of expansive, exotic, and towering plants, Ivy stopped in her tracks, surprised.

A small child was standing amongst her plants, all of which were curiously investigating her with nudging creepers and flowering blossoms.

Camouflaged among her greenery as she was, Ivy made no movements to disturb the child; machinations of how best to make swift fertilizer of the girl, or else remove her from her sanctuary entierly preoccupying her mind as she watched. It wasn't entirely unusual for drifters and aimless youth to stumble their way onto her fertile grounds, but her plants usually saw to their swift removal at the first signs of any disturbance. This was a most unusual occurrence. 

When the girl's hand reached out to gingerly touch one of the buds blooming to life in inquisitive offering to her, Ivy reacted instantly; she'd watched countless humans tear off too many petals and tiny branches to risk any such sacrilege under her own roof. The plants instantly obeyed; creepers bursting forth to ensnare the child and hoist her up off the mossy, fern covered ground for Ivy to take a better look as she stepped forth from the greenery.

The child morphed, almost into something like a shadow, before reforming herself on the outstretched vines, no longer in their grasp, startling Ivy.

The girl looked over her now fumbling vines which were conflictingly twisting about midair to her for a moment, as if connecting her dominion over them, and Ivy looked over the small girl in turn, noting her caped frame and overly youthful stature. 

Ivy sincerely hoped the girl wasn't a new caped progeny of any of the cowled rogues of the city; the girl seemed far too young, even by the city's cruel standards. 

The child murmured something, in a language that felt old to Ivy's ears, all but a single word unidentifiable; 'Ninsar', Ivy recalled, was one of the many names given to the culture crossing concept of 'Mother Earth', and as the self-proclaimed goddess of the Green on Earth, Ivy smiled at the child for the apparent recognition. 

"I am she," Ivy replied loosely, her anger dimming slightly; Ivy commended her plants through her intrinsic connection to them, and allowed them to settle themselves.

A glint of light played off of the small clasp on the girl's white cloak, catching Ivy's attention; it looked to be a bird insignia, though Ivy didn't recall seeing its like anywhere among the city or its inhabitants before.

"Do you know where you are, little bird?" Ivy asked softly, stepping closer.

The girl looked up at her, her tiny mouth the only thing visible from under her hood.

"Do you speak English, at all?" Ivy asked, when the girl didn't respond.

The girl lifted a hand, and placed it on the vine she was perched on; almost instantly, a strange shiver glided along the connection Ivy shared to the plant, as if the girl was talking through the Green itself. 

Images, of a glittering city, of fluttering wings and blood-red skies flashed through her mind's eye before a calming, curious sensation trailed upwards to her body, hesitantly tickling near the edges of her mind. Ordinarily, Ivy would have batted the child away, unenthused by years of Gotham's inhabitants probing her troubled psyche to let anything near her thoughts where she didn't have to, but the girl's faint connection to the Green was enough for Ivy's investigative nature to get the best of her.

The brush along her mind seeped deeper, spreading the calming aura through her mind as it went, relaxing her body as it did so; the entity drifted over flashes of memory, wafting over countless recollections of her plants, to her notions of the city, to long conversations from which the feeling seemed inclined to simmer against.

Slowly, the feeling bubbled something into her along the connection to the Green; a shy, hesitant 'thank you', echoed in her mind before the feeling pulled away from her mind entirely, and traveled back to the girl through the vine's natural connection to the Green.

"What is here?" the girl murmured gently, so young and small that Ivy nearly felt something like pity in the remnants of her human heart.

"Gotham," Ivy answered grimly; "Outside these walls, it is a Hell on Earth."

"Earth," the girl repeated faintly, as if testing the word on her tongue.

A flowering vine nudged along Ivy's arm, curling along her side to invite her to lean her weight upon it as she thought the situation over; something inside Ivy was beginning to wonder whether she wanted to be rid of the girl after all.

Sixteen children, she lamented, had been lost to her already. She wasn't sure she could stand the thought of indulging in another.

"What's your name, child," Ivy prompted, lifting her feet to be cradled by her vines entirely.

The girl stayed silent a moment, likely working on a translated equivalent to offer, before murmuring again.

"Raven." 

"How old are you," Ivy asked, her curiosity openly apparent. 

"Seven?" the child replied dubiously, as if she wasn't quite sure of the number. 

"Who do you belong to?" Ivy asked firmly; curiosity and warmth withheld from her voice, as her hand absently stroked a bud to bloom beneath her fingertips. She fingered the blossom's petals lightly. 

The girl grew quiet again, looking down. She slid off the vine, but remained in the air, surprising Ivy yet again.

"No one," the girl replied sadly, "...Not anymore."

"What are you running from?" she asked more softly, the reflexive mellowness of her voice intended to keep the girl pliant.

The young girl was hesitant to answer, but didn't shift around in place, or drift within her floating position; Ivy wondered if the girl had any human habits at all. 

"I expect an answer, little bird," Ivy prompted tenderly, as she pulled a reaching branch into her lap, and pulled the yearning fruit from with the saplings form.

"...A bad man," the girl eventually replied, before a firmness took to her voice; "I don't want to talk about him."

Ivy tried to ignore the flutter of the Green trickling within her veins as her plants continued to bump and quiver around the little girl.

Ivy allowed her eyes to close, and thought things over. 

As she debated with her internal natures, she felt a disturbance along the foliage around her and opened her eyes to see the girl floating within arm's reach, her face still obscured.

"What do I call you," the girl murmured, not quite solid enough to be either question or statement.

"...Ivy. My name is Poison Ivy, to this ungrateful city," she answered, resentment freely dripping from her voice.

The little girl mumbled something to herself, in the language that Ivy couldn't understand before the girl tilted her head and regarded her again for a long silent moment, only the faint sounds of the plants steadily growing, filling the garden around them.

The little girl looked around; Ivy couldn't deny the scarce trace of pride that filled her chlorophyll pumping veins at the rare opportunity of someone witnessing the sheer marvel of her work. She smiled.

"...May I," the girl began softly, as she apparently noted the overly large Amorphophallus Titanum to her right; the girl didn't seem repulsed by the flower's pungent smell, surprising Ivy yet again, before the girl's attention seemed to drift back to her.

"... May I stay here?" the girl asked faintly.

Nearly every memory lingering along Ivy's consciousness screamed at her to refuse; indeed, Ivy opened her mouth to reflexively crush girl's apparent lack of fear for her, before every fiber of Ivy's body and stinging emotions bade her to reconsider.

The words of refusal, died on Ivy's tongue.

"You may stay," Ivy proclaimed, "-For the night, as long as you behave," she added quickly, her tone strict; "If you harm anything in my garden, I will not hesitate to till your body into the soil of my flowerbeds."

The girl didn't nod or respond at all, which Ivy found slightly curious.

"What's that?" the girl asked, pointing to the lumbering flower beside them.

"We're going to have a long night between us, if you ask me about every flower in my home," Ivy warned.

"I want to learn," the girl replied, as she flew next to the flowers great petals; "I wasn't allowed outside, I've never seen a.... 'flower', before."

A boiling, thorny rage flared up beneath Ivy's skin, memories of her own imprisonments and forced separations from the Green.

"That, is a carrion flower," Ivy stated, the vines underneath her molding themselves so she drifted to feet, "She is a rare 'corpse flower', as commonly called", Ivy furthored, looking over the specimen and its fifteen foot inflorescence fondly; "To attract pollinators -or, little bugs and things that help it create its successors," Ivy quickly interjected, assuming the girl's likely lack of knowledge on the natural world, "She emits a smell that resembles rotting meat, which most humans find repelling and displeasent."

The girl's tiny hand reached out to touch one of the giant petals; Ivy watched in something like absent pride as the child stroked the plant gently.

"I think it smells really good," the little girl replied, surprising Ivy greatly.

"Do you," Ivy replied, for lack of anything else to say as she wondered yet again, about the child's genetic makeup.

"It makes me hungry," the girl replied absently; Ivy felt the confusion leave her shoulders as the statement felt confirming enough, that the girl was likely less human than not.

"Are you hungry," Ivy asked, remembering dimly that humans often needed external sources of supplements to survive.

"Yes," the girl replied, after a moment.

Ivy reached up, and pulled a fruit from out of within a hanging vine, and held it out to the girl.

"Eat," Ivy prompted.

The girl looked at it, and then at her, and hesitantly reached out to take it.

The little girl bit into it, and Ivy noted the tiny, numerously sharp pointed teeth the girl had, as they bit into the hybrid fruit.

As the girl crushed the meat of the fruit in her mouth, trickles of juice running down the girl's pale lips, Ivy watched the child bodily shiver before lowering the fruit.

"It's strange," the girl commented; "It tastes... different than rice. It... feels more like something."

"Sweet?" Ivy offered, "A bit tart perhaps," she continued with an absent wave of her hand.

"Better than bread," the girl answered, as her hooded head fell to look at the fruit again; "Lighter, like it might not sink in my stomach and fall up after."

Ivy made an absent exhale of a reply; not feeling up to deciphering what the child might mean. 

"I have many things, in my garden," she stated, waving her hand again as she fell back into the supportive embrace of her plants; "there's much to choose from, if that doesn't sustain you," she informed the girl, gesturing to the fruit.

The girl seemed content at that, for lack of a better word to label the lack of visible reaction that Ivy could discern.

"Will you tell me more flowers?" 

Ivy hummed, as her connection to the Green shimmered inside her, and out through the greenhouse.

"It is late, little bird. I have work to do, and you should sleep; something tells me that you've flown a long way from home, to land here," she mused.

The girl didn't protest, and simply continued to remain floating in place.

Ivy thought over where to put the girl, and swiftly, a pinging spike of responding vegetation answered her silent question through her innate connection to all floral things.

Ivy beckoned the girl to follow, with a wiggle of her fingers and what she knew from practiced experience, was a calming smile.

As the vines beneath her lifted Ivy up, the girl rose alongside her effortlessly, without the aid of any plants.

The vine stopped next to a great tangle of hanging vines, thick with tiny leaves. From inside them, Ivy pulled a great blossom, big enough to hold the tiny girl's light frame, and waited for the child to crawl inside it.

The girl did, gently. 

"You will be safe here, little bird," Ivy murmured at the child, something dimly human prompting her to offer such false securities; "In my garden, nothing can harm you." 

Fruit placed gingerly at hand's reach, the girl coiled herself under her large cloak, the white shimmering fabric bouncing the dappled moonlight onto the foliage around her faintly.

"You will be warm enough," Ivy stated, reasoning from the greenhouse's consistently kept plant-growth inducing temperature.

At a flicker of her fingertips, the flower cushioning the girl raised up its soft petals, and curled upwards slightly, shielding the girl from spilling off to the densely overgrown jungle below.

"Rest well," she bayed, promising the girl a final, gentle command.

The girl quietly mumbled something untranslatable again, before Ivy picked out a faint murmur of her name.

Ivy studied the child, as if she were one of the great many species of plants housed in her walls.

She hummed dimly to herself, before beckoning her plants to ferry her elsewhere in her overgrown halls. 

Chapter Text

Ivy sensed, more than heard the child standing behind her, through the light pulses of the mossbed emanating from beneath the child's feet.

Ivy took a breath and looked up from her papers at the girl.

"I thought I told you to sleep," Ivy huffed.

"It's not night, anymore," the girl announced flatly.

Ivy sent a wave of inquisition through her plants, receiving a confirming answer in turn.

"So it seems," Ivy agreed; "Then it remains at what to do with you."

The girl remained silent, and Ivy thought back to the children she'd once had in her care; a grove of emerging things, reckless with youth, and abundant with energy. Always moving, always laughing, sometimes singing.

The child in front of her however, looked as though she might not have ever so much as smiled, in her short young life.

Ivy was admittedly grateful, for the girl's seemingly innate somber countenance, but felt it might be something to tend to.

Knowing what she did of people, Ivy didn't want to leave the girl to own devices; her mind wandering to the infinite shenanigans Harley was keen to get to, when left unattended for any length of time.

"Do you read?" Ivy asked genuinely.

"I learned," the girl replied; "But I wasn't allowed books or anything."

"Not allowed?" Ivy repeated.

"The cult said so," the girl insisted flatly.

The words rested poorly in Ivy's stomach.

"Come, if there's one thing I cannnot abide, it's uneducated youth," she proclaimed, raising her tired body from her desk chair.

She led the little girl though her laboratory chamber, to the far wall filled with textbooks and marked indexes, and ushered the child to a seat.

"You may read any of these," Ivy insisted, "But don't damage them. I'll be working about, so I'll attempt to answer any questions you might have, but I'd highly advise you to try to sort them out on your own first, as I don't like to be disturbed when I'm working." 

The girl didn't respond, but leaned over towards the shelf nearest her, and started tracing along the spines with her fingertips.

Ivy waited for the girl to pluck one of the volumes out, before treading back to her desk. 

As Ivy re-immersed herself in her research, equations and calculations spreading out across the multiplying pages in front of her, Ivy quickly lost her sense of time.

It was always a welcomed hassle for Ivy, working out a new genetic hybrid of plant; while fast growth and self-sustaining stability was a must, it was always tricky to curb the potential invasive spreading, that might strangle other, equally precious, plant life in its wake.

As she was trying to work out how thick she wanted the general diameter of the plant's potential bark to be, she felt herself being pulled back into reality as the sound of a small noise broke her out of her studious reverie.

Ivy looked up to see the child.

"Finished already?" Ivy asked incredulously, noting the closed book under the girl's arm.

"It doesn't say what half the words mean," the girl explained; "I'm not giving up, I wanted to ask about something."

Ivy turned in her chair, and waited for the girl to continue.

"All your books seem to read about the... structures, of plants. What they're made of in a tangible way," the child rambled; "You wrote notes in the empty spaces, over other words sometimes, about what they are, in a not tangible way."

Ivy hummed in an encouraging manner, prompting the girl to go on.

"Why did you do that? Don't people know how plants are already?" she asked, pure confusion in her raised inflection; "The differing forms of sentience and sacred life among all living things were some of the first things Azar made everyone study. Do the people who make books not study?"

Ivy's brow raised as she took in the girl's strangely lofty words before recalling the girl had mentioned something of a cult, in one of the girl's prior conversations.

"Most humans here, are not raised as you were. They lack things like empathy for anything that isn't immediately like themselves. There's precious few, that are willing to believe plants are sentient at all, or have any manner of thinking or feeling," Ivy growled, disdain sneering across her lips.

The girl looked to the book, and back to her.

"Ivy?"

Ivy hummed.

"Are humans bad?"

"Monsterous," Ivy replied, her mind's eye littered with multitudes of soured memories, each more horrific than the last.

The girl grew silent.

"You're not like them though," Ivy muttered consolingly, rising from her seat. She knelt in front of the girl, and waited for the child to raise her head.

"You can sense them, can't you?" Ivy asked tenderly; "You can feel the Green."

"I can feel all things," the child replied; "I can... sense their feelings. If they're happy or sad..."

Ivy exhaled in something like wonder at the implications the girl's statement held, her mind already busy with ways in which to nurture such a bond to the natural world.

"I'm not supposed to feel happy. Or anything at all," the girl revealed somberly, as if it were a natural train of her thoughts.

"Oh?" Ivy asked, slightly taken aback at the statement.

This time, the girl did shift slightly in place, and grabbed her arm shyly, but made no verbal reply. 

"Tell me," Ivy liltingly insisted, pushing her naturally enthralling presence further; her demeanor seemed to sway the girl's decision, as Ivy expected it would.

"My powers are driven by emotion" the girl stated, as if parroting someone or something long past drilled into her; "The more emotion I feel, the more power I unleash. And that's bad."

"What are your powers, little one?" Ivy urged.

"Astral projection, Soul-Self manipulation, empathy," the girl began, listing things off as if it were a well-worn area to her, "I can eat other's emotions, I can induce rapid healing in others and myself, telekinesis, teleportation, flight," the girl furthered, her tone growing almost bored; "I can make people feel things, I can make illusions, and I can see the future sometimes. Stuff like that."

The girl let her hand fall from her arm; Ivy wondered if it was odd that the girl didn't shrug, after such an apparently underwhelming recital. 

"That's quite an impressive list," Ivy replied, thinking over the powers the girl had, and what uses they might bring, and over what little powers Ivy knew other magical users in the city packed.

"You should be careful, on who you tell such things to, little bird," Ivy instructed the girl, her mind's eye already spinning up scenarios of other rogues and caped crusaders that would readily use the likely impressionable girl for their own gain.

"I know," Raven replied evenly, unfazed.

Ivy checked the connection to her greenery, and straightened herself up.

"It's about noon; we should probably get you fed and settled," Ivy declared.

"The... fruit, tasted good," Raven stated; "But I don't think I should eat it."

Ivy pondered over the statement, and thought back to the child's comment over the corpse flower, and to the general routine her rainy-day clown companion usually had for her slobbering twin beasts.

"Wait here," Ivy instructed, "I'll find you something," she said absently as her mind rushed with routes and plans of where to find and easily procure sources of raw meat.

Wordlessly, she instructed her plants to keep guard, and trotted to her room that stored her civilian clothing; showing up in the city clad in leaves or a skinsuit would only invite disaster, and Ivy didn't feel like tempting fate, without proper cause, which in this case, was not proper in the slightest. 

She slipped into easily passable everydayware, bundled her hair in a loose bun, and grabbed a thick coat to block out the Gotham chill ever-prevalent in the non-summer months in the city proper.

She left her hideout without fanfare, and began her walk at a brisk pace; it was a few miles to the butcher shop Harley usually ventured to, and Ivy wanted to make it before closing, to avoid having to break in and leave a well-mannered I.O.U. for the owner, used to them and such notices as he admittedly already was.

Halfway along her journey, she felt something tracking her progress down the crumpled outskirting streets.

She paused, and spun around; a hand clutching her coat, expecting a rogue or a caped crusader.

Instead, she saw a flicker of shadow ever so slightly ajar from its proper place on the derelict walls some odd feet in front of her.

"Raven, is that you?" she asked genuinely, her shoulders sagging; she supposed she should have expected the child to follow. It seemed an innately human thing, to disobey orders of staying put.

The shadow flew out from the wall, revealing a stylized form of the bird.  The shadow began consolidating itself in midair, as it came to a pause before her.

"Come on then," Ivy allowed, "But be discreet, please," she insisted.

The bird-shadow seemed to get the message, and the shadow compressed and shrunk again, and alighted on her shoulder; a proper form of the avian's strain.

Her shoulder felt strange, where the shadow-bird child sat; it tingled almost, in a numbed sensation, almost as if the area had fallen asleep, or else was disconnected from her body.

She made a mental note of it, before casting the thought adrift. 

"When we get into the city, little bird, it might be prudent to look human," she warned, as they drew closer to the edge of Gotham; "Do you have any inconspicuous dress?"

The bird on her shoulder didn't answer, but Ivy held the impression the child was thinking it over anyway.

Without warning, the bird flew off of her shoulder, pausing Ivy in her tracks to keep from being smacked by fluttering wings.

The bird landed as the child before her, still covered by her cloak.

The girl stood still.

Ivy sighed, and started to shrug off her coat.

"Stand there," she said, as she slid her arms free and approached the girl; "You might feel itchy, but don't take it off, okay?"

She slid the girl's cloak off, pausing to take in the girl's revealed face. 

It was almost human, the child's face; and it called to mind genera of hyssop and monotropa uniflora, for she was certainly pale as the ghost plant, and her hair was a deeply enriched indigo, though something about the girl's somber demeanor screamed to Ivy of delicate petals with light lilac hues. The girl's eyes, of which she had several pairs adorning her brow, were as vibrant as poppies, and through the child's moonflower skin, her cheeks lightly flushed with a color of bluebells.

Such a pretty, fragile, wicked looking thing, Ivy thought.

The girl blinked at her, with all six eyes at once, and looked at her, likely for some sort of reaction. 

"Yes, that would draw attention to you in the city," Ivy mused; wondering how best to tackle their new circumstances.

The girl raised her hands, and glided her fingers over her face, smoothing over her eyes.

Only two eyes, Ivy noted, remained; and they were a beautiful, achingly orchid. 

She drew the girl's cloak from her about shoulders, and helped the child into the overly large coat, making sure to do up the buttons to her neck, and handed the cloak back to the girl to hold, feigning the appearance of a security blanket.

Ivy looked the child over and felt contented with the look; it would pass easily, in Gotham.

"Alright little Larkspur, let's go," Ivy proposed, standing once more.

The girl followed her obediently; Ivy wondered if the strange domestic feeling was why people often took to walking dogs, thinking back to Harley and her hyena-hounds.

When they made their way into the city, they walked into it, slums first. Ivy stood a little straighter, and made sure to keep her senses keen; "Look sharp Larkspur," she warned, "The city is always hungry." 

"I can feel it," the child replied, walking closer to her; "It feels in pain. Like the whole city is screaming;" her voice slightly quivering.

Ivy thought briefly, that if she were human, it would be the time to take the child's hand in comfort; but being toxic to the touch as she was, she refrained. She placed a hand on the child's coat covered shoulder instead. She hoped it would be enough. 

"...Why does the city look this way?" Raven asked somberly.

"Forsaken?" Ivy offered, leading them onwards.

"Ugly," Raven answered; "Why is it black and on the ground?"

"Where else would it be?" Ivy asked rhetorically.

"Floating... Made of glass," Raven answered, as if those were natural and logical things to say; Ivy wondered if it was foolish childish fancy, or if the cult the little girl had hailed from was otherworldly in origin. 

"Unfortunately, this world only has landbound cities, and most of them are cesspools," Ivy explained.

"What's a cesspool?"

"A puddle of polluted water."

They walked on in silence, Ivy steering them past lumbering figures wasting away in the alleys and hunched-over croons congregating around flaming metal bins.

"If anyone makes a move on you, flee," Ivy ordered flatly, her hand clutching the girl harder; "I'll take care of things."

"Alright," the girl agreed.

They walked on until the collapse-ready structures blended into vaguely looked after buildings, and Ivy let some of the tension release from her shoulders.

"The man in the butchery looks scary, and I don't much care for him either way, but he trades fair, and he shouldn't cause us any trouble," Ivy informed the child, when the shop slid into view.

Ivy led the girl inside, and at the toll of the door's tingling bell, the gruff looking man behind the counter looked up from his chopping, as if he'd been pulled straight out of a cartoon. 

"Special order," Ivy started evenly, as she brought Raven to a halt beside her.

"That you, Red?" he asked, his voice thick and gravely. 

"Who else," she asked rhetorically, disdain thinly hidden from her tone.

The man grunted, slammed his uncannily large knife in the woodblock, and disappeared into the back.

Ivy tried not to tap her foot impatiently; a bad habit she'd picked up from Harley at some point in their past many jaunts.

The little girl wandered up to the counter, and pressed her face close to the glass. 

"Were those... things," Raven eventually landed on, "living, once?"

"In a manner of speaking," Ivy replied, "Farmstock from industrialized institutions can hardly be labeled as anything resembling 'living'."

"Meaning?" Raven pushed, looking back at her. 

"Meaning that Capitalism breeds apathy for the wellbeing of its perpetrators, and it perpetuates apathy for the animals under its grip," Ivy began, a familiar rant sprouting up from inside her core; "The whole of it all could easily be avoided, but of course human's are too attached to their relegated meat products, to consider the effect of their continued actions against not only the animals themselves, but to the environment as a greater whole-"

"-Special order," the man confirmed, returning from the back room, two large, wrapped bulging bags in each hand, cutting Ivy off at the spiel.

Ivy cleared her throat and adjusted her collar, quickly recollecting her composure; "We'll talk about it later," she promised the girl.

She stepped forward and claimed the meatsacks, and offered the man a curt nod in reply, before gesturing for the girl to get the door.

The bell chimed again, as they walked out and the door swung shut behind them; Ivy exhaled a deep breath at Gotham's chilly air and started up her even pace again.

"Are we walking more?" the little girl asked.

"You don't want to stay here, do you?" Ivy asked in turn.

As Ivy made to take another step, her vision swam in black, and as the world disappeared around her, her insides felt all gnarled, and all sense of direction and time rotted away, leaving only darkness and the tingling numb feeling Ivy dimly recalled from her shoulder.

Just as she was about to find strength in herself to make some sort of push against the darkness around her, the world returned, and it was a lush, vibrant green. 

Ivy looked up from the floor, to see her sanctuary around her, the girl standing a foot away from her, head tilted, meatbags handlessly held aloft at the girl's sides, encased in a dark shadowy blackness.

"D-did you-"

"I bought us home," the girl stated flatly. 

Ivy took a breath and picked herself up from the floor, moving slowly as to avoid upsetting her stomach further; "Convenient," she managed, after a moment of rebalancing herself.

Ivy looked at the girl and the magically floating sacks; the girl was far stronger, than she had expected.

A welcome surprise, she mused.  

"I'll show you the kitchen," Ivy reasoned aloud, baying the girl to follow.

When they arrived, Ivy put the extra bag in the deep freezer, and set about fixing up the one she selected to prepare.

She was unsure of whether the child was to prove fond of cooked or uncooked meat, or to what degree warming the meat might have, so she elected to make a little of both. 

The girl looked small enough that she was likely in need of the extra nutrients anyway, Ivy reflected.

Predators couldn't be raised on rice, Ivy resolved grimly, sectioning off the carcass. 

"You can sit, if you like," Ivy offered absently, noting the girl still standing behind her; "And you can take that off if you want," she added.

She watched the girl peripherally take off the coat and hang it on the back of a chair, her cape still folded over her arm, as she crawled into the chair next to her. 

Ivy returned her attention to the corpse in front of her; though it was usually Harley who was readily happy to portion out the meat, Ivy was thankful she'd done it enough to be familiar with the process. 

The fresh meat ready, Ivy rinsed her hands and took out a plate from the cupboards to place the pieces on before rewrapping the excess and placing it overtop the other bag in the deepfreeze. 

She rinsed her hands again, and plucked out a pan from the rack over the stove, and set about heating up the cuts, searing their outer layers and flipping them to keep their edges from cooking too much. 

When she was sure she'd browned the meat enough to warm it all the way through without cooking it completely, she poured the pieces back onto the plate and left the pan to cool. 

She carried the plate over wordlessly, and placed it in front of the girl before walking back to the drawers to pull out clean utensils.

She placed a fork and a knife on either side of the girl's plate, and had the forethought to pluck out a few napkins from their holster, to place beside the child as well. 

She stood in wait, with hardened resolve to see if the child would prove to have table manners on par with the clown queen of crime that so often left her kitchen in tatters. 

The girl stared at her plate, but didn't move.

Ivy wondered if she had missed something.

"What's wrong," Ivy asked, moving to get a look at the girl's face.

The girl turned to look at her, and then down at her plate as her hands tightened into tiny fists in her lap.

"I'm not allowed to touch sharp things," she murmured. 

Ivy exhaled in understanding; the girl was quite young after all, she supposed. 

Ivy pulled up a chair next to her, picked up the knife and fork, and started to cut the meat into more manageable, bite-sized cubes.

"What do you like to drink?" Ivy asked, as she cut the girl's food. 

"I drank water twice a day, every day," the girl replied firmly, as if she expected contention from it.

"...I think I can find you something a bit more lively than water," Ivy muttered, wondering how on Earth the girl had survived so long, in the dubious care of whatever cult she had come from. 

The meat cubed, Ivy placed the fork back in front of the girl and wait for her to take it up. 

The child was hesitant, and watched her carefully to make sure that grasping the fork was in fact what Ivy wanted.

She offered the girl a smile, when she held it in her hand, and drew back from the table as the girl set about to bringing the meat to her face; Ivy wondered if the nectar of the fruit, would be tolerable to the girl in a liquid intake, and set about making tea.

Feeling in the mood for a drink herself, she elected for a herbal, bitter blend balanced in flavor and strong in potency; it would be good to relax, and she was sure the girl would appreciate it, if the child's explanation of her powers was anything to go by.

She mixed her ingredients liberally, well used to making cups, and filled her waiting kettle with water, and switched on the heat before returning to the table to sit. 

"We'll have to wait for the water to boil, and then for the tea to steep and cool, before drinking," Ivy explained, resting a hand against her cheek.

The girl kept her attention to her plate, a portion of the food already gone.

"How do you like it?"

The girl looked up, a bleeding cube on her fork.

"It's good," she replied, before eating the next piece.

The girl chewed with an odd expression on her face, her eyes wider than they had been, as if she was taken aback by the substance in her mouth, which, to be fair Ivy reasoned, she likely very well was.

"You'll be eating this, more often than not I'd expect," Ivy stated flatly; "If my hunches prove to be correct."

The child looked up at her, eyes still wide.

"Juris said gluttony is wrong."

Ivy fought back a reflexive, offensive statement about what body part 'Juris' could kiss, and breathed steadily.

"Proper nourishment, isn't a sin," she stated in a tone that she felt accurately conveyed her willingness to budge on the notion, which was to say, none at all.

The girl didn't reply and turned back to the food.

"I don't know if I can eat it all," she murmured.

"Would you like me to help you?" Ivy asked, a coyish grin to her lips.

The girl looked up at her again.

Exhaling in a few slight huffs of amusement, Ivy reached over with her free hand, and plucked one of the bites of meat and bit into it, cleaving it in two, before swallowing and then finishing the second half.

The girl's face started to twitch slightly, in something Ivy almost felt certain was the budding beginnings of the girl's ability to smile.

She plucked another morsel from her plate as she waited for the kettle to scream.

She was going to get along with this girl, Ivy thought; the concept strange and devoid emotion as she mulled it over. She wondered what shape, she'd sculpt the girl to be.

The kettle shrieked.

Ivy rose to set it away from the heat, and switch the stove back off; with the aid of a well-placed potholder, she poured the hot water into the cups, enjoying the way the ingredients inside each swelled up and rolled around the tiny water currents, before leaving the kettle on a clear burner. 

"Remember, it's hot," Ivy warned, flashes of Harley scalding her mouth countless times crossing her mind as she ferried the cups to the table.

She placed a glass in front of the girl, before setting the other before herself as she reclaimed her seat.

The girl watched the plant matter settle in her cup; similarly enthralled in their movements, calling another smile to Ivy's lips.

She took another bite from the child's plate. 

The girl slid the plate between them, and took a cube for herself, in her fingers; Ivy noted the girl's elegantly sharp looking fingernails.

Ivy supposed they could paint them, visions of Harley covering her sinks with lacquered splatters of vibrant color as she adorned herself and the many refined patterns that Selina usually coated her claws in; if the little girl ever grew any interest in such normal human things.

She supposed she'd have to find a few such activities, at the very least. Harley and Selina often talked of the importance of enrichment on their animal companions' minds, and Ivy had tended her own living things long enough to assume that a child had several similarities to a sprig. 

Ivy watched the girl raise the still hot tea to her lips; expecting the girl to sputter or grimace.

The girl drank the tea steadily, seemingly unbothered by the temperature, and seemed more focused on the way the drink tasted, Ivy judged by the girl's steady swallows. 

The girl sat her glass down, and opened her mouth over her cup to let the pieces of plant matter fall back into the cup before taking a few huffing breaths.

It was a little gross, Ivy dined, but she felt the child could be forgiven, if this was truly her first experience outside of a near unbelievably bland existence.

"Do you like it?" she asked genuinely.

The girl looked at her, her eyes wider then they had been, and nodded rapidly.

Wordlessly, Ivy pushed her cup in front of the girl.

"This time, sip it slowly," Ivy instructed; "Don't guzzle it."

The child took the cup gingerly, and raised it to her lips slowly, a took a loud, slurping sip.

Ivy nodded once; the child would learn with practice, she figured, how to sip quietly, both dignified and refined.

The natural itch under skin picked up, as her mind wandered back to her tests and calculations; her theories and goals ever ignited on the edges of her thoughts.

She frowned slightly, and tapped her fingers along her cheek before sighing; she took another of the meat cubes to eat, as she resigned herself for a likely delay to her plans.

The child would need to take precedent, for a few nights, at least.

"Did I do something wrong?"

Ivy looked up to see the girl regarding her warily, the cup still clutched tentatively in her tiny hands.

"No, little bird," Ivy replied, pushing warmth into her voice; "I was just thinking about grown-up things, for a moment."

The girl looked at her, and Ivy recalled the girl's ability to sense emotion and made a mental note to be careful in future wordings, recalling Harley's keen intellect, and tendency to react to any shift in mood as though it was a negative reaction to something she'd done as a probable standard to go by. Harley's reflexive tendencies to jump and assume the worst of her actions was something Ivy had never been fully able to weed form the woman, as the blonde was forever scarred by her horrible, personal demon. 

"You're angry." 

"I was thinking of a bad man," Ivy replied. 

She pushed the thought of the clown menace aside, and focused on the girl, letting her connection to the foliage outside of the kitchen soothe her nerves.

"I wouldn't be angry at you, little cabbage," Ivy murmured, gazing at the aura of humility hanging about the girl's tiny frame.

"Even if I did something bad?" Raven asked, at the same time Ivy's mind clouded over with the memory of Harley asking 'But what'a 'bout if I fuck up 'real bad?'

"I'd be upset in the moment, depending on how bad it was," Ivy offered evenly, "But I would get over it quickly, and I wouldn't hold it against you, dear." 

Ivy placed her arms on the table and leaned forward slightly, and let her smile grow fond.

"You're safe with me Raven, I promise," Ivy lilted gently, in a manner that nearly echoed, what she had once said to Harleen.

The girl's face twitched again, and this time, the corners of the girl's little mouth started to upturn, filling Ivy with a strange, but pleased sense of satisfaction.

The girl continued to sip her tea, occasionally taking a successful, silent sip as Ivy let the moment and her thoughts drift between them.

She thought back, to her lost children; to the memories of them parading about the park.

"Can you tell me about the plants tonight?" the girl asked, almost brightly.

"Of course," Ivy replied, eyes falling shut; her mind already mapping out a favorable path for a tour.

"All their names too?"

"Names too," Ivy assured, tapping her fingertips against her chin.

At the sound of the child taking another well-meaning slurp, Ivy smirked; she had a lot to teach the girl, she thought, and she was almost amused to recognize that she was looking forward to start. 

Chapter Text

Harley tried desperately to bite her tongue as she held her stubbed toe with one hand, and keep control of her babies in the other; racked with eager excitement to be in the greenhouse again and feel real grass between their little paw-feetsies.

When she spun around to detangle herself from her babies leashes, the beam of her flashlight fell across something; focusing on it, Harley let out a started scream.

Instantly, the room was fully black, and Harley experienced what she could only describe as a complete lack of physical sensation. She wondered if she had quite literally, died of fright.

'Wouldn't that be tha' kickah', she mused, as she tumbled through the void.

She felt herself being... knocked, she supposed, back into reality, and winced at the bright light now blurring her vision; some feet from her, she heard the sound of her boys whimpering with what sounded like chuckles of indigestion.

Blinking the blindness away, Harley sat up to see a girl standing at the end of Ivy's kitchen table, clad in an oversized shirt she'd once left on one of Ivy's floors. -The wonder woman sigil looking rather endearing, on the little girl, Harley thought.- 

"Nice ta' meet ya', squirt," Harley offered, lifting herself up enough to sit more comfortably on Ivy's tiled floor.

The girl didn't reply, but thankfully didn't do... whatever, that strange maybe-dead thing, she had done before again.

"I'm Harley, Harley Quinn," she drawled, slapping a hand to her chest; "But you can call me Auntie Quinn," she started to ramble, "I had'a Autnie once't, an' she was a real firecracker," she mused; "Never did call me back on my seventh birthday, though. How was'I supposed ta' know that tennis shoes aint' supposed to go in the dryer, huh? Go figure."

"You linger here, in the plants, in the rooms," the girl stated flatly, raising the little hairs on the back of Harley's neck.

"Yeah, me and Red, we go way back," she explained airly, almost laughing at the happy memories.

"Speakin' of, kid, she anywhere around?"

The girl stood stock still, as if a militant nun was just waiting around a corner with a ruler, to catch the moment she so much as fidgeted.

"I'm gonna take that as a no then, huh," Harley figured.

"That's okay, I'll wait right here," she proclaimed, gesturing widely with her hands to point out just how not in the way, or needing of being tossed back into the void she was.

The girl watched her for a moment, so Harley watched her right back, used to such stares and lingering attentions; she hoped her charismatic personality was enough to detract from her body.

She really hoped that the kid wasn't so quiet from seeing the state she was in; in hindsight, Harley figured, yeah, it was probably regretfully that. She huffed in self-admonishing amusement. 

"These cutie-patootie boys here by the way, are Bud and Lou," Harley offered conversationally; "What's your name?"

The girl shifted slightly; so lightly that Harley barley noticed it.

"...Raven," the girl replied after a long moment; Harley was genuinely surprised that the girl had offered it.

"Ra-vvvvvvennnnn," Harley drawled, elongating the name greatly; "Good name," she remarked; "Classy, a touch of Edgar and Shakespeare, yet without the classicism or overused refrains," she mused in faux-dramatic toityness. 

"How long ya' been here, kid?" she asked, dropping the impression. 

"...Two weeks," the little girl answered.

Harley's brows shot up; a child? In Ivy's house? For Two. Weeks?!? 

There was no way that she wasn't getting to the bottom of this, she declared to herself; Quinzell Inc, was on the case!

"Neat! Where'd you two meet?"

"...She found me in a flowerbed."

Harley felt her heart sink, deflate, and sputter in what she imagined was a comical fart-resembling sound.

"Oh no, Red," Harley whined to the absent woman, "You's promised ya' weren't gonna do this again!"

Her mind raced along memories of plantpeople imploding and splattering green goop everywhere and found herself both overly worried and overly eager to see the girl-child explode.

"Alright sweetie," Harley exclaimed in a measured rush, holding her hands up calmingly; "Just listen to your Auntie Harley, and everythin's gonna be okay," she placated, already picturing the girl's small frame splattering into infinite bits of goo; "...I hope," she murmured, under her breath.

"I said she found me in a flowerbed, not that she grew me out of one," the girl replied as she crossed her little arms, her tone huffy.

Harley dropped her hands and sat back on her heels.

Her boys, finally back to themselves for the most part, chuffed their muzzles over her lap, and dug their noses under her palms for comfort.

"Well gee, that is a ring'ah," Harley observed.

The feeling of the answer started to fade, as the girl drifted closer, slowly.

Her boys started to whimper, and whined as she drew close; Harley didn't know why her babies were so upset over the little girl that they easily towered over in bulk, but figured they'd have made even less sense of the weird void-y place than she had, and did her best to calm them while keeping tabs on the girl edging closer. 

When she apparently got too close for their comforts, her boys made a break for the other side of the room, where they keened for her to join them; Harley however, remained still, as she watched the child sit on her knees in front of her.

"You're hurt," the girl murmured.

Harley bit back a tastefully biting and witty remark, and smiled gently.

"Happens, sometimes," she replied quietly; trying not to picture those times. 

The girl raised one of her hands, and held it out to a bruise on her cheek; Harley flinched out of habit, but felt her body calm, as a warm, unquantifiable feeling and glow, began to emanate from the girl's fingers.

When the girl finished running her fingertips over her cheek, Harley felt as though her jaw hadn't been broken in months, let alone days. Maybe in years.

She rubbed her chin in surprise, and took a moment to really look at the girl.

She was cute, for a whatever-she-was, she supposed. 

"Is she... like... looking after you, for somebody?" Harley asked genuinely. 

"I've taken her under my wing, as it were," a familiar voice rang out from the hall, blooming warmly in Harley's ears; the girl darted away from her, back to her post at the head of the kitchen table, and Harley smiled as Ivy walked into the kitchen, still coated in one of her heisting suits. 

Ivy walked over beside the girl, and looked her over a moment before turning her attention to her, surprising Harley; the thought occurred to her, that she hadn't ever seen Ivy take note of someone else before her, and Harley honestly wasn't quite sure what to make of those facts.

"Raven, this is Harley," Ivy redunatly introduced, a hand on the young girl's shoulder; "Harley, this is Raven. She's going to be staying with me awhile." 

The child looked up at Ivy, before looking back at her.

"I felt an intruder, so I grabbed her," the girl explained quietly; "But she felt like the weird feeling in the plants, so I let her go. She said she knew you."

"That she does," Ivy agreed; "You did well. Next time though, it might be best to let the plants take care of it," Ivy replied, a slight humming to her usual lilt.

Harley watched in rapt fascination.

"Count me both astounded and arous-"

"Do not finish that sentence in front of a six-year-old," Ivy warned.

Harley clamped her mouth shut, and grinned from ear to ear.

"You're going to be utterly insufferable about this, aren't you," Ivy growled, noting her barely contained delight.

Harley slapped her hands in front of her face, and emitted a high pitched keen from behind her still grinning teeth.

The girl tugged on the vines radiating leaves around Ivy's hip; "She's bleeding," the girl insisted, pointing for good measure.

Ivy looked from the girl to her, and Harley watched the dawning realization of emotion happen on Ivy's face, that only occurred when a person realizes that they've gotten so used to seeing their friends beat up and bloodied, that they've become completely desensitized to the images, and that to anyone sane, such conditions would be both startling and uncanny.

"I can help," the girl declared firmly, her little hands still clutchings Ivy's vines.

Ivy looked from the girl, over to her.

Harley grinned.

"She already fixed up a bit of my face real good, Red," Harley declared, tossing the child an approving look as she leaned against the wall behind her.

Ivy looked to the girl and gave her a nod.

The girl's face lit in determination, and she walked over to her again, causing her boys to whimper once more before Harley called out a few comforting chortles at them.

This time, when the girl raised her hands, Harley made sure not to flinch; Ivy never liked it, when her reflexes got the better of her, though the green woman would never admit it. It filled the woman up with guilt that wasn't supposed to be hers, and Harley lacked the eloquencey to make the plantwoman understand that it was because she felt safe enough with her to be on autopilot, that her autopiloted nerves flared up. 

The girl's hands were unusually warm, but that felt good against her protesting muscles; bringing her back into the moment.

The girl slowly smoothed over her skin, starting with her face once more, pushing and kneading it slightly from time to time, as if she were sculpting the skin or bone beneath; Harley pictured it fondly, the idea of the girl making her her own Pandora, a living box of a girl, handcrafted from clay and bad ideas. 

She hummed, when the girl moved her attention and blue-glowy hands from her face, down to her neck. The girl seemed a little less sure about bruises pressed there, but kept her firm determination in her furrowed brow just the same; Harley wanted to commend the girl for her dedication, but refrained from breaking the child's concentration.

The raw, soreness of her throat vanished, and Harley felt herself grow giddy.

The girl moved on to the visible contortion still lingering in her arm, from where she hadn't set the bone back quite right.

It was so surreal, the way the girl gently rolled the pieces of her arm back into their real homes, without any pain, or jarring, or much of any real sensation at all.

She halfheartedly wondered if this was some sort of matrix glitch. 

The girl moved to her wrist, fixing the snap it had suffered, as well as the breaks along her fingers and with an almost uncanny ease, she watched the girl pull fresh fingernails from her nailbeds on her seconds previously, three nailless fingertips.

The girl was starting to sweat, but remained silent; wordlessly, Harley offered up her other arm, flashes of Ivy's venomless scoldings thick in her mind when she was focused on fixing her up.

The girl worked over that limb too, tidying everything from the acid burn to the lacerations, and then promptly moved her hands to her chest, and started tackling her broken and many-times fractured ribs.

The child healed those too.

Harley decided that she was in awe, of this girl.

A little voice in her head, made her wonder if the girl was God, and if she really had died in that strange black void.

It wouldn't be such a bad afterlife to spend, Harley thought, if the current proceedings were anything to go by.

Harley giggled, and then stopped when the girl's hands started to dip too low; she quickly took hold of the girl's wrists and gently ushered them away. God-child the girl might be, be there were some wounds Harley thought, as she pressed her knees together, that even godchildren shouldn't see.

The girl looked faintly confused, but altogether just faint.

"Thank you, sugar," Harley crooned genuinely, for the girl's benefit; "I feel loads better already!"

"Actually, you look loads better, too," Ivy replied, walking closer; the child took a step back so Ivy could take a closer look.

Ivy looked her over, and seemed overtly impressed.

The redhead turned to look at the girl.

"She's still not well yet," the girl insisted.

"She's far better now, thanks to you, than she was before, little larkspur," Ivy retorted fondly; "You can look at her again in a few days, if you like, but at the moment I dare say you look like you could use some rest."

"We could all, use some rest," Ivy insisted, rising to her feet.

At a motion from Ivy's hands, Bud and Lou obediently started their trot to their monogrammed beds in Ivy's bedroom, that Harley had not quite nearly taken completely over. 

Harley bit back her truly compelling desire to push for a night filled with slumber party activities, noting the child's nearly drained face.

Yeah, Harley thought, she'd be fine waiting for the girl to be lively enough to play with.

In a show of her eager affection, Harley moved to signal to the girl, that she was ready and willing to scoop her up.

The girl looked up at her, a confused, blank stare on her face.

"She doesn't know human kindness," Ivy stated; "Or touch, likely."

Harley felt the mirth drain from her face, as her head slowly swiveled to regard Ivy's words face to face.

"That's horrible," she exhaled; she couldn't even begin to start to contain the expanding desire to rehabilitate the little girl, and get her used to being hugged, and talked to, and loved. 

Ivy grunted, and turned away; likely to inwardly curse her inability to touch non-inoculated skin.

"O-kay kiddo," Harley declared, turning back around to face the girl.

"I'm going to pick you up, okay? 'Cause you look like you're 'bout ready 'ta drop on your feet, and Ivy can't carry you without making you sick, okay?"

The girl opened her mouth, as if to reply, but Harley already had her hands under the girl's arms, and she lifted the girl up in a swift motion; even without her super enhanced strength, the small child was more than easy to pick up. She wondered if children were supposed to be that light.  

"Now ta' settle you in," Harley furthered, bringing the girl to rest on her hip.

"See? Not bad, huh?" 

She smiled, and waited for the girl to take the proximity in. 

Raven looked around the room, as if startled, before looking at her, as if confused. 

She didn't seem panicked though, which Harley was glad for; she didn't think she'd have been able to stand the outcome where the girl might've rejected and panicked at her touch. 

She pulled the girl flush against her chest, wrapping a steadying arm around the girl's back; "Okie-dokie, dolly-dove, let's get you ta' bed," she crooned. 

The girl relaxed slightly against her, as Harley turned to follow Ivy down the hall; by the time Harley made it to Ivy's room, the girl was practically melted against her, likely hungry for warmth and slumber.

"You're not putting her in our bed," Ivy warned, already halfway undressed from her skinsuit.

"Aww Red, she's so 'wittle," she cooed, "She won't take up much room," she insisted. 

"And I'm sure you'll be de-lighted to find her suffering from anaphylactic shock come tomorrow morning," Ivy muttered as she freed herself and picked up the shirt on the bed.

"I'll keep her on my side, don't worry," Harley insisted, already moving to place the already sleeping girl in the bed.

Ivy sighed a long, exasperated sigh; but she noted the woman put up far less of a fight then whenever Harley suggested letting her hyenas into the bed. She blew her boy's kisses, and their little ears perked up as she did so, before they rolled back over, each of them eager to get back to sleep themselves. It had been a long walk, from Joker's hideout. 

She chuckled softly as she tucked the girl under the covers and tore off the remnants of clothing she was still in, before shrugging on one of the pairs of shorts in Ivy's dresser, and tucking herself around Raven's little frame, and pulled her into a snuggled hug.

"'Night Peanut," Ivy murmured, warm and tickling, in her ear. 

"'Night Pam-a-lamb," Harley cooed, relishing in the feeling of the woman momentarily, resting along her skin.

Harley knew the cuddling wouldn't last all that long; she was something of a starfish, when she got to REM sleep and the redhead would be forced to sleep around her, she giggled, recalling many such mornings; as she closed her eyes, she realized that she felt better than she had in quite a long time.

She wondered how long she could make it last. 

Chapter Text

Harley groggily felt something pulling her away from the badger dressed in a bowler hat and the tea-table littered with poker chips between them; as the orange soda sky desaturated into a cool blue-grey, Harley realized that Ivy was shaking her shoulder, and that the woman was already dressed and mildly annoyed.

"It's past time to get up, Peanut," Ivy insisted. 

"Aww gee Red," Harley whined, feigning a yawn before snuggling back down in the comforter; "Babies need sleep!"

"Raven slept for three days, and is waiting at the table for lunch;" Ivy countered, "What's your excuse?"

"I got up a few times!" Harley whined.

"Me carrying you into the bathroom to dump your butt into the shower doesn't count," Ivy retorted, crossing her arms.

Harley huffed, but elected to sit up; the thought of getting to play with the kid and eat food was more tempting than the quiet whisper of the pillows.

"How bad was she?" Harley asked, as she started her morning-in-bed-stretch-routine; three days seemed too-long for a child to be down for the count. She threw an arm across her chest to test her shoulders.

"Almost as bad as you came in," Ivy replied gently, likely recalling; Harley pretended that she didn't want to wince at the still recent memory.

"I think she drew the pain into herself," Ivy continued, thinking aloud, "I'm not sure how, but, it would account for all the bruising she had yesterday..."

"Is she cool now?" Harley asked, stretching her other shoulder joint.

"She's probably still a little tired, I would think," Ivy considered, her hand on her chin, "But she's moving well enough and the bruises are gone. It's hard to tell if there's been any lasting effect, with how quiet she is."

"Have ya' teached her how not ta' be quiet?" Harley asked cheerily; picturing a few different ways she and the kid might be able to stir up some fun.

"No," Ivy replied flatly, giving her a 'look'.

"S'prolly important, for kids' developments," Harley pressed.

Ivy sighed and rubbed her temples.

"...Promise me you'll start small, at least," the woman pleaded, bringing a wide smile to Harley's lips.

"Sure thing Pammy," Harley agreed, feeling her eyes glint in anticipation.

"I mean it, Daffodil," Ivy insisted, her tone strengthening slightly, "She doesn't seem to have met most things yet, and I don't want you to shock her system too much all at once."

"I got it, I got it," Harley dismissed, waving her hand as she took to her feet; "'Steady roots make for good shoots'," Harley iterated, supplying the phrase the plantwoman was keen to rub over her face from time to time.

As she shrugged on a tank top, she offered the woman a smile.

"I got this," Harley insisted.

"Good," Ivy relented; "Now if you'd be so kind as to take care of the... presents, your furry friends left in my garden..."

"After lunch!" Harley screeched, jolting to the door to leave Ivy smoldering behind her.

She bounced down the hall, patting familiar load bearing vines and evocative fungi, and tumbled into the kitchen in a rolling cartwheel; simply enjoying the feeling of freedom flowing through her veins. She felt good, and it felt good to really feel that, she mused.

When she came to a stop, she handspringed to her feet, having carefully avoided knocking into the ceiling, and placed her hands on her hips, drinking the sights in.

The little girl was sitting at the table, wearing a white shimmery shirt that reminded Harley of supersuit styled leotards; she wondered briefly if some caped crusader had lost her at some point.

She cracked a smile at the girl and walked over to the hanging counters; intent on pulling out some cereal that was thankfully more sugary than any breakfast food had any right to be.

"Hey'a, pip-squeak," Harley greeted cheerily, as she pulled out the box; she started pulling out random drawers, intent on finding a spoon.

"The third one," the little girl stated.

Harley paused, and then tried the third drawer; it was filled with utensils, and while not exactly of the silverware variety, Harley was more than willing to pull out a ladle for breakfast use.

She tossed the girl a wider grin over her shoulder, and then walked over to the fridge, where she knew Ivy kept all manners of plant-based milks. She opted for what she assumed to be a coconut based bottle, and poured it liberally into the box, trusting the plastic pouch inside it not to leak.

She enjoyed the dead-eyed look on the child's face, as she let the door to the fridge close with a well-placed kick.

She took a seat across from the kid, and wiggled her eyebrows as she made a hearty dunk in the box with her ladle.

"Juris would give you so many disciplines," the child murmured airily.

Harley scoffed, grinning with happy teeth, and miming a snap; "Oh, if I had'a dime, for every time some snot-nosed louse tried to tell me what to do and how to feel about it, why, I'd be a regular dime-a-dozen magazine model."

"What's a magazine?"

Harley looked at her and took a swig from her ladle.

"It's like a... flat book. Mostly pictures, instead'a words."

The girl looked at her hands, and then back at her.

"So if you had enough dimes," the girl murmured, "You'd be on Ivy's desk?"

Harley's eyes widened slightly, and she let her ladle dip into her box.

"...Yes," she answered firmly; picturing the scene.

The girl fidgeted in her seat, and the sound of her babies' perky pants prompted Harley to turn to the doorway, where Ivy was determinedly trying to walk without tripping over Bud and Lou, and not succeeding very well at it.

At Ivy's admittedly endearingly annoyed expression, Harley took pity and whistled, catching the puppies' attentions. They sprang immediately to her, leaving Ivy to catch her breath on the doorframe, and Harley kissed them both good morning as they tried to wiggle their ways into her lap, and up to the cereal box.

"No-no," Harley screeched pushing the box out of their reach; "Those are Mommy's crunchies," she pleaded, trying to keep them from using her lap as a ladder to get to the sugary goodness.

The box raised, without any involvement on her part; Harley watched strange black magic hoist it aloft with ease, her hyenas momentarily forgotten, until they went back to trying to lick their way up her nose.

"Down, Down!" she insisted, trying in vain to wipe the foul smelling saliva from her nostrils. She grimaced and her boys chuckled and huffed happily on the floor; Harley had no doubts that they'd soon worm their way under the table, and into her lap, and even further into her heart.

"They're swell, ain't they?" Harley cooed, turning to the others.

Ivy took a breath without replying and turned away; which was usually about the nicest way she had of disagreeing with anything she didn't much care for, and the girl simply gawked at her, with a blank stare.

"What are they?"

"The boys?" Harley asked, as she started to eye the cereal box.

"Them's be hyenas, girlie," Harley replied, her tone lowering to heighten the tidbit's flare; "Savage scavengers of the savannah; ruled by their girl-power fueled queens and famous for their laughter," she explained dramatically as she cautiously plucked the box from its black magic prison. She hummed, pleased with the turn of events, and set the box back in front of her and went back to work with the ladle.

"Not many animals can laugh, so they're kinda really special," Harley insisted gently, as she focused on getting the maximum amount of proper cereal flake-to milk ratio on her improvised spoon.

Ivy walked over, a plate in hand; Harley watched her set it in front of the girl, and was surprised to see the dish sporting horse chunks instead of pancakes, or something else kid-friendly, like chicken-nuggies shaped like dinosaurs, or peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches cut into perfect triangles with the crusts cut off.

Harley lamented briefly, that she wouldn't be snitching such things off the kid's plate.

"Ivy says I'm sup'osed to be a carnivore," the girl murmured, catching Harley's thoughts.

"They had her on toast and rice," the plantwoman seethed as she set down a cup of what looked like orange juice.

"Kill them," were the first reflexive words out of Harley's mouth, unable to stop themselves.

"They're already dead," the girl murmured, lifting her neck up as Ivy went to tuck a napkin into her collar.

"Good riddance," Ivy muttered, though her face seemed surprised; "Anyway, little bird," Ivy dismissed, standing up as she looked them all over, "I thought we could take a break from touring the plants today."

Maybe Batman lost her? Harley guessed; Ivy's petname returning Harley's train of thought, He collected bird-kids after all.

"...Harley, wanted to spend some time with you, if you'd like," Ivy offered tentatively, interrupting Harley's thoughts again.

Harley, cheeks filled with cereal, breath held; waited to see if the kid would take the bait.

The girl seemed more interested in her meat cubes, than in answering; but after a prompting throat clearing from Ivy, the girl looked up from her lunch and up at Ivy, before glancing over to her.

"All right," she murmured, before looking back to her food, seemingly quite intent on continuing her meal.

She smiled, breathing easily, as she returned to slurping up the rest of her cereal.

"So," Harley spat between slurps, "Whatcha' want to get up to? Movies? Makeovers? Tag? Hide'n'Seek? Hop-Scotch? Cluedo?"

"I don't know any of those things," Raven replied absently.

"I'll be working in the lab today," Ivy warned, sitting down with a mug of coffee; "So I'd prefer you two to stay out of the gardens if you can. I don't want anyone getting eaten, or poisoned, or trampling anything."

"Board games it is then," Harley sighed; she looked over to the girl and smiled. "At least they'll be extra fun, since you've never seen them before, huh Sugar?" Harley mused.

"You'll have to look for them," Ivy interjected, thinking aloud; "I have no idea where you left them or if any of them still have all their pieces."

Harley slouched slightly at the news, her mind recalling various nights of havoc laid to gameboards and plastic tokens.

I do gots' my makeup kit here still, tho', she thought.

"Does she have any clothes yet?" Harley asked, her mind wandering the possibilities.

"No," Ivy sighed, her posture visibly weary; "I still need to throw her a room together."

"I sleep in the trees," Raven supplemented softly, before licking the blood off her spoon.

Harley tried to keep her eyes from lighting up.

"So... tomorrow we're going shopping?"

Ivy fought back a groan, her exhale relenting.

"If I can get this legwork done today, then yes," the plantwoman agreed; "We can go shopping tomorrow."

Harley squealed in delight; there wasn't much better then getting in some well deserved retail therapy. As her mind's eye recalled flashes of their more ludicrous shopping hauls, Harley couldn't deny that her excursions with Ivy never failed to get her feelin' like she was worth the collective sum of every gold card they conned outta' every gullable lug they doublecrossed.

She doubted they'd get that playboy Wayne fellow to fund another stint, but a girl was free to dream.

A slurping noise that wasn't her own, caught her attention; she refocused on the girl in front of her and felt some of the moment's buzz wear off.

Ivy would likely be focused on the basics for the kid; beds and dressers, toothbrushes and the like.

Harley made a mental note to look up the best, most funnest places, to furnish the child's incoming niche; her mind whirling away on excuses for swings and slides and other outlandish toys.

"What 'cha gonna be workin' on?" she asked Ivy; thinking, as she waited for the little girl to finish up.

"I've been working on some boosters for her," Ivy offered, sipping her mug; "She picked up a cough last week and there's no telling what exactly, in the garden set if off."

"I licked a slime mold and sneezed in an Angel Trumpet and Ivy made me spit out Devil Trumpet blossoms and also Ivy's coat was scratchy, and the Spidermums made my eyes water, and the garden is full of spores so," the girl offered, pausing for a short breath; "Ivy has to give me witch hazel baths 'cause she says I'm not allowed to take my skin off."

"Awww," Harley murmured, reaching over to ruffle the girl's hair before sitting back, "Red's 'prolly right then," she agreed, "She better sit this one out so she can make you feel better soon."

"I like it when she's working when she stops moving and the moss starts to make flowers in her hair," the girl murmured.

"Honestly?" Harley asked rhetorically, "Same. Finish up so we can play already! We're going to have so much fun, you and me," Harley urged; "Why, I'll bet we're gonna be a pair of regula' ol' chums, kid. Your auntie Harley's gonna learn you all the basics! Music, danicn', funny faces, knock-knock jokes-" she listed, ticking her fingers off.

She paused and tugged at her earlobe as she thought.

"Put your plate in the sink before you go," Ivy bade, as the child started to get up.

The girl hummed a bit, and used her shadowy powers to clean the table for her.

"And be carefull Sweetie," Ivy warned, shooting Harley a look; "Harls' likes to play rough sometimes and doesn't always remember to be considerate of others, and sometimes her idea of fun can be..."

"I'm sittin' right here, Red," Harley interjected, fighting an urge to scowl.

Ivy's look intensified, but warmed over when she looked at the girl again; "Anyway, if you feel like something might be a bad idea, then it probably is."

"For fuck's sakes, Red," Harley replied, shooting her hands up in exasperation.

"Language!" 

"Kiss my ass," Harley ribbed jovially, popping off the chair; she rounded the table and lifted the girl under an arm. Bud and Lou chuckled from their spots on the tiled floor.

"I tell ya," Harley rambled as she walked out of the kitchen, "It's like she forgets I was a doctor sometimes," she mused.

She couldn't hold it against the plant woman though; before she made it halfway down the hall, she pulled Raven onto her hip, and marched back into the kitchen, over to where Ivy was still nursing her caffeine.

"Forget something?" Ivy asked.

Harley bent slightly, to kiss the plantwoman good-naturedly.

Ivy hummed, pleased with the attenion, but tugged her shorts when she tried to leave again.

Ivy cleared her throat, and motioned to the soggy cereal box that she had left on the table.

Harley's gut instinct was to punch the box, shooting it across the room, where Bed and Lou scrambled wildly over themselves and each other to grab it, spilling milk and cereal mush across the floor.

"Demerits," Raven murmured evenly; "Six entire disciplines."

Ivy snickered; Harley couldn't help but grin at the sound and filed away the notion, that the little girl was capable of making the woman laugh.

"OK, for realsies this time," Harley insisted, squaring her shoulders, "We're ollies-outies."

"...Have fun," Ivy called warmly, as they dipped into the hallway. The hesitant kind of domesticity to the call nearly made Harley pause; it wasn't the first time she or Ivy had made such a gesture or encountered such a feeling, far from it, yet there was something about the weight of it, coupled with the weight of the little girl on her hip that made it feel more... solid perhaps, than it ever previously had been. As she continued to walk down the halls of Ivy's sanctuary, she pondered it vacantly.

"Where are we going?"

"Ever been to the living room?"

The girl thought about it, and shifted slightly to grip around her neck better.

"Are there rooms for dying?"

"Sure," Harley replied, her navigation reflexive; "Funeral parlors were all the rage for a while. Dunno if they're still around nowadays."

"Are there rooms for not being alive or dead? Or both?"

Harley grinned widely; "Sometimes kid, I think I've lived 'bout half my life in rooms like that."

"I lived most of my life in those rooms, too."

The cheeriness within herself deflated slightly; she held the girl a little tighter.

"That seems like a real shame, to do to a little girl as sweet as you, Sugar," Harley crooned.

The girl was silent for a moment, but nearly squirmed out of her grasp when they reached the living room, apparently eager to see it.

Harley walked them over to the couch, and plopped the girl onto the seat cushions. Bud hopped onto the recliner, well aware of to recline it with distributing his weight, and Lou started sniffing around the floor.

"Now sit there," Harley instructed, before glancing about the room; "I'll see what I left lyin 'round last time..."

She searched for a few moments, tossing bits of things she didn't recall littering along the carpet over her shoulder, Lou eagerly chasing after them. He was particularly fond of the things that crinkled, and Harley indulgingly threw those things extra hard, to give him a bit more excitement.

"How did you and Ivy meet?"

Harley's eyes darted over to the girl, who was sitting perfectly still; Harley half wanted to reach out and manually force the girl's legs to kick absently. She settled for reaching over and patting the nearest one a few times.

"Me an' Red, we go way back," Harley mused, remembering the fateful night; "We were both robbing the same museum and she drove us both from the cops in her getaway car! It was pals at first gals," she lilted happily.

"She didn't mind me stickin' round much after that. Then, well, when times got tough, I always seemed ta' come back here, and Pammy was always there, to patch me up and give me a place to stay. She's real thoughtful, for all the huffiness she likes to pretend."

"What's a museum?"

"That's a..." Harley trailed, thinking as she groped under the couch; "a place where people put things that are really old and don't belong to them, to show off to other people what really cool things they aren't allowed to have."

"Azarath had rooms like that," the girl murmured; "But the adults were allowed to use them I think? I wasn't."

Harley's hand brushed along the familiar feel of smooth, hard plastic.

She pulled out the remote and whistled; "This baby's been missing for three years, and the TV it went to is long gone," she enthused, her hands accentuating the point. She reached over Lou and placed it on the sidetable, to show Ivy for a good laugh.

"My turn, kiddo," Harley proclaimed, "What's an Azarath?"

"A dimension. It's a little pocket place, that doesn't exist anymore."

"Huh," Harley took in, her mind not quite sure how to picture such a description.

"So you're like, really far from home then, aren't you?"

The girl turned her gaze away and seemed to withdraw into herself, but lacked any of the physical movement that Harley was accustomed to seeing paired with such emotions.

"It's a good thing you found Ivy and me then," she slipped in, purposefully placing a hand on the girl's knee; "We'll make a good home here, that you can stay in."

After a few moments wherein the girl didn't reply, Harley's face started to sour, and she turned to look at what the girl was seemingly staring at.

Oh.

Harley had forgotten, that she had placed it there; the poster was a grim reminder, of the strained stages of healing she underwent, every time she returned to Ivy's gardens.

"That's... my Puddin'," Harley offered carefully; she wasn't sure how to broach the subject, of the grisly clown. Especially as she wasn't sure what Ivy had said about him, if anything, and she wasn't certain of what light, if any, she wanted to cast him in herself.

"His face has stab marks. Lots of them."

"He... deserves demerits, lots of times," she eventually offered, pushing a little lightheartedness into her tone as she looked over the holes and the pocket knife still embedded in his neck. 

The conversation felt uncomfortable; she'd wanted to get away for awhile and forget about the Clown Prince, but it seemed that no matter where she went, she inevitably took him with her.

Ivy always said I should take that fucker down, she thought as she stood up.

She walked over and tore the vandalized wanted poster off of the wall.

She'd no doubt regret it, once his voice started whispering in her ears, but for the moment, she puffed up her chest like the action didn't hurt and pretended that everything was okay.

She looked at the little girl on the couch, who was looking at her intently in turn, with big eyes and tiny hands.

It'd be okay, she thought. She'd make it be okay.

"All right Sugar, back to business," she declared; "I'm pretty sure there's something lying 'round here worth playing with."

On a whim, Harley decided to check the floor on the other side of the room and hopped over Lou, figuring she might have left stuff of intermediate importance on one of the shelves or tables during the times Ivy insisted she pickup.

"My father is a bad man," the girl murmured, stilling Harley's hand.

"He kills lots of people, all at once. Kill planets. Eats souls. He hurt my mother a lot so she ran away," the girl rambled quietly; "He said he wanted a family but he doesn't know how to love. I don't like him very much."

Harley closed her eyes, and took a steadying breath; her mind fighting itself to quell the tide of reasons why she should defend herself, or the Joker, or condemn him, or herself, or them both.

"My father said he created me so I should've listened to him. Did the horrible things he said to do," the girl continued.

Harley sat on the balls of her feet, and ran a hand through her hair.

Raven paused, and tilted her head.

"Ivy says I don't ever have to listen to what any man says."

A dark chuckle escaped Harley's lips.

Her hands ran through her hair again, and she let out a few more snickering breaths.

She took in a giant inhalation, letting the tension roll off of her shoulders, and crawled onto the couch beside the little girl. Lou huffed from across the room, and settled himself on the floor with an old water bottle.

"Pam-a-lammy's pretty smart," Harley admitted.

"...I think she likes me more than my mother did," the girl murmured.

"Yeah, Red's a real motherin' type," Harley agreed. She smiled widely as thoughts of the plantwoman scolding her and tending over her beloved plants rifled through her mind.

"She's got a real knack for it," Harley added.

She looked at the girl, more closely this time, and let the child's not-quite-human aura sink in.

"How 'bout I teach you how to play 'Miss Mary Mack?'" she asked rhetorically, slipping into perfect hand-clapping position.

"First," Harley instructed, grinning happily, "You gotta hold out your hands..."

Hours began to tick away, one child-oriented game at a time.

While she didn't seem to quite get the concept of 'fun for fun's sake' yet, Raven proved to be a quick learner, and seemed insistent on mastering both the concepts and executions of the games, as well as the words used and history hidden behind them.

At some point, Lou worked up enough courage to join them on the couch, and Harley was happy for his familiar presence at her back.

Eventually, Harley ran out of hand based games, and procured one of her many makeup boxes for her and the child to play with.

"Juris said that vanity is a sin."

"Lovin' yourself and dressing up is a valid part of human nature, and Juris can go eat a dick," Harley replied, patting the tiny stick of eyeshadow onto the girl's eyelid.

"What's a dick?"

"Type of bird, maybe? Might be a whale," Harley dismissed absently; "If you say that word in front of Pammy, make sure I'm not close enough to get smacked for it."

"Is 'smacked' a discipline?"

"With her expertise, I'm pretty sure it's a mastery," Harley joked, continuing with the pigment.

"Now you pick a color," she urged, nudging the pallet into the girl's hands.

Raven picked up the tiny sponge-headed stick, and looked over the colors, letting the stick over the golds.

Harley shut her eyes patiently, and kept still as the girl started patting the color onto her face.

"So what's this stuff for?" Raven murmured, "Does it do anything?"

"Gives some people allergic reactions," Harley teased, "But makeup can make people feel certain ways about you. Make them want to talk to you, make them too scared to talk to you, make people think that they should listen to whatever you have to say, whether they like you or not."

"Azarath had types of crystals that would light up different colors, if different sorts of things happened;" the girl murmured, spreading the gold sparkles down her cheeks; "Azar said they were important and Lordin said that crystal warnings were for the tactless."

"I like red and black myself," Harley replied conversationally, turning her face to let the girl powder the other cheek; "I gotta' signature sort of look that the city's all accustomed to. Let's them know what they're in for when they see me comin' round."

"What are they 'in' for?"

"Life, probably," Harley tossed.

She picked up a tube of lipstick and swirled it up.

"Pucker up," Harley instructed; "Make your lips like this," she added, pursing her own lips in demonstration.

The girl complied, and Harley set about layering the color along them.

"You got such a pretty face, kiddo," Harley observed fondly, "You're gonna be a genuine heart-breaker when you grow up."

"Azar said I shouldn't break things."

"Some things are meant to be broken," Harley countered, letting her thoughts ramble; "Piñatas, glowsticks... those glass boxes covering safety equipment and alarms most the time..."

"I know those mangy mutts aren't on my couches," Ivy's voice rang out, starting them all.

At the woman's voice, the hyeana's ears perked up and they started to chuff and heckle; Lou slid to the floor, but Bud, the more aloof of the brothers, remained in the sofa seat until Ivy actually entered the room.

"How'd it go?" Harley offered cloyingly, her tone cute as she started to dust the little girl's cheeks with blush.

Ivy exhaled tiredly to herself as she walked over, and looked them over.

"You two look like peas-in-a-pod;" Ivy commented.

She stuck a hand to her hip and ran a hand through her long, vibrantly red hair; "I was hitting a curb for a few nights now;" Ivy admitted, "But I think I have some good headway, if my current data systems hold up."

"Whatcha' got?" Harley asked, putting down the brushes; she watched as Ivy tiredly claimed the recliner her hyena had given up.

"Well, you have the full antidote already in your bloodstream," Ivy began, "So I was exploring the idea that if I were to draw your blood, I could make a new antidote from it. Problem is, I crafted your atidote specifically for your body chemistry, and Raven's not fully human."

"I'm magic," the girl interjected, confirming Ivy's assessment.

"I know Sweetie," Ivy agreed, rubbing her temples.

All at once, Harley felt a sharp, numbing pain in her arm. She screeched, more out the startlement, then the pain, and for the strange tingling sensation running up her spine and standing her hair on edge.

"Raven!" Ivy barked, leaping from the recliner; Bud and Lou started whining, upset with the sudden shift of energies in the room.

Harley looked down at her arm to see the little girl clamp tight to it by her tiny pointy teeth; she'd been bitten by her babies enough to know that there was a difference between types of bites, and Raven's chomp was certainly unsettling, but far from agressive.

Insistent, perhaps, as the girl seemed adamant about not budging.

By the time Ivy made it over to the couch and pried her off, Raven licked over the bite, the strange, soothing glow coating over the previously bleeding pockmarks rolling off of her tongue.

"Raven!" Ivy scolded firmly, turning the girl upright as Harley rubbed over her arm; "We do not bite Harley!"

"Liar," Harley murmured snarkily, causing Ivy's cheeks to redden as she strived to maintain her composure.

"I'm magic," the girl said again, slowly, as she were explaining something they weren't picking up on.

Ivy's scowl started to fade, and leaned closer to the child.

"Are you capable of shifting your genetics?" she asked faintly.

The girl, as if in reply, blinked, and opened nine red eyes, closed them all, and then opened them, revealing only four. Their red glow was impressive, Harley freely admitted.

"I don't know... how long it'll take?" she murmured, her pitch uneven in places, "I've never tried to change so much, before, after the first time."

"What was how you used to be?" Harley asked genuinely.

The girl started to redden, all over her skin. The air around her seemed to thicken, uncomfortably so, and felt as if it had been compacted in on itself for its weight.

The girl blinked again and it was gone.

"It was like that, only more. Horns and eyes and claws and things. I don't want to bring it back though. I like it when my hair isn't white."

"Huh," Harley offered.

Ivy exhaled, likely detoxing from the overworked exertion she routinely placed herself in, and stood back up.

"Well then, it seems I'm free for the night, or what's left of it," Ivy observed; Harley couldn't contain her grin as the woman looked them over, "Shall I start painting nails?"

Harley yelped in delight, and the girl seemed to perk up.

It was going to be a fun night, Harley felt.

Chapter Text

Selina sighed as she shut the door and took a moment to make sure that the pair of supervillains were actually going to leave the hallway this time, before doing up the locks one by one. When the last lock clicked closed, she placed a hand on her hip and turned around.

The little girl was watching her silently; she was dressed in a white leotard and cape, which made her wonder what superhero her friends had taken her from, and between the girl's large violet eyes and velvety loose-ringletted hair, she rather reminded her of dolls made out of shatterable materials.

She supposed that she'd be wise to consider the girl as easily breakable anyway, as she didn't much care for the thought of returning the girl to her friends in anything less than the condition she'd been left with her in.

It was weird enough that Ivy and Harls had a kid, let alone apparently cared enough about her well being to drop her off for the day while they sorted things out.

Well, she amended, she supposed it'd have made sense from Harley, as the woman had always hankered for a settled lifestyle with that nutjob of a boyfriend, but Ivy's role in the matter had completely caught her off guard as from the way they'd explained it, the girl was more Ivy's new attachment, rather than the other way round.

She'd have to ask her friends what exactly their plan was for the girl, at some point. She doubted the scheme would end well for the child, so she made herself a mental note to keep an eye on the situation and step in when needed. For now though, she was content enough to let the other two-thrids of the city's Sirens have their fun.

The girl didn't fidget any, as she continued to watch her; Selina half wondered how long she'd have been able to just stand there, thinking to herself before the girl did anything, but thought the better of it.

She was going to assume that as... Harley's 'niece', she was a child that would require entertainment, as much and as consistently as possible, to prevent any sort of tantrums or property damage.

Besides, she thought, the girl was sweet looking enough to spark her curiosity, and it'd been a few nights since she'd had anyone but her cats to talk to.

"Alright Honey," she began warmly, "Let's get started, hmm? What do you want to do?"

The girl remained quiet, prompting Selina to assume the young child was overly shy with new people, or else off put by her favorite black and stitched catsuit, or perhaps was unable to pull possibilities out of thin air without help. 

Keeping her tone warm and encouraging, she added, "We can color for 'awhile, if you want. I have some pens and markers here, or we can just sit down, relax a bit, watch some T.V." 

The girl's eyes widened slightly at the mention of coloring; "Alright, come sit at the table and I'll find some paper you can have."

The girl obediently walked into the kitchenette and climbed into a chair; Selina collected pens and pencils she'd left scattered around the kitchen in cups and drawers, along with a few highlighters and felt-tipped markers. She pulled out a small stack of blank paper from her printer in the den, and placed them in front of the girl.

She debated briefly, on whether she wanted to find something to place under the girl's area to serve as a placemat to potentially shield her table from getting marked up, but felt apathetic about it enough that she didn't bother; the prospect of finding a new table or two didn't phase her.

"I'll get us something to drink," she decided instead; turning to the strainer to fish out fresh cups; "What would you like?" she asked as she opened her fridge and scanned the contents, "I got water, juice... you probably shouldn't have soda..."

"Tea please," the girl replied evenly, without looking up from her papers.

Selina smiled despite herself; maybe the girl really was Ivy's, she mused.

She filled the child's cup up and popped it in the microwave to heat while she rummaged through her pantry for the cartons of teabags tucked somewhere inside.

She located the raspberry flavored carton and plucked a bag out as the microwave beeped; closing the pantry she headed back over, collected the hot cup, and dropped the bag in.

"Careful, it's hot," she warned, setting the cup on the table.

For herself, she poured a second cup of coffee, and sat down across from the girl, who was busy scribbling away on a paper with the black felt-tipped marker. Upside down as her perspective on the paper was, it looked almost like the girl was writing letters of some sort, as they seemed too precisely plotted to be coincidental.

"What'cha writing there, sport?" she asked absently.

"Now that Azarath is gone, I thought I should write all the things I know from there, so I won't forget it if I grow up."

"Azarath?" she repeated, the name unfamiliar.

The girl hummed briefly, her hair blocking most of her face; "My father broke it and there isn't any people there anymore."

"That's a same," she offered, sipping her drink; "I'm sure they were lovely people."

The girl didn't reply, so she took a long sip and continued to watch the girl write, the apparently dead, language.

A warm body pawed at her thigh; Selina adjusted her legs and a cat promptly claimed the space in her lap, she pet him absently, as she was beyond used to her pets clambering onto her for attention and warm places to nap.

She wondered vacantly, if she should investigate matters, or if she should simply try to warm up the girl, and enjoy the leisurely day before them.

The prospect of leisure won out; she took a paper herself and started jotting down a grocery list and a few reminders to herself for the week, before absently diverting her attention to doodling swirling little felines along the margins and empty spaces of her sheet.

Eventually, she got tired of sitting, and fetched the girl another stack of paper, as she seemed to run through the first stack rather quickly, scribing things down as she was.

Selina then took a seat in her lounge, a few feet away from the kitchenette, and opted to pick up the book she'd been reading when Harley and Poison Ivy had interrupted her earlier that morning.

The book was lurid, and held her attention enough to keep her turning the pages as one by one, couples of her cats crept out of hiding to join her in the afternoon sun.

One chapter turned into two, and dozens of pages turned into a few hundred, and Selina's concentration was broken only by a few more paper runs, and the occasional need to change positions and stretch her legs slightly; all of which gently annoyed her cats.

She took a longer pause for lunch; placing the book overturned on the armrest to return to the kitchen.

"Ivy said you're something of a reverse vegetarian," she lilted, breaking the girl's concentration; "How do you feel about seafood?"

"Do people not look at what they eat?"

Selina exhaled a brief huff of merriment; "Usually they look at it," she assured; "What I meant was, how do you feel about fish, shellfish; that sort of thing?"

"I've only ever had horse, I think?" the girl murmured, tilting her head.

"...I'll make up some shrimp alfredo," she decided; she'd ask who would feed a kid a horse of all things, but she supposed the fact that this was at least in part Harley Quinn's ward, answered the question enough as it was.

The meal was easy enough to prepare; it was one of many go-to meals for the days she didn't feel up to or had the time to make anything particularly energy or time-consuming.

It had the unfortunate habit of stirring up her cats however; she spent a fair amount of time prying her pets off of her legs and counters by handfuls as she worked.

Eventually, she had two pleasingly plated dishes, and held them patiently as the girl helped clear the table to make room for them, before setting them down.

Selina picked around her plate, twirling noodles on her fork and waiting for them to cool; she had substituted the noodles with chicken, in the girl's plate, and the child seemed happy enough with it, lapping up the sauce as she was.

The atmosphere of the room grew warm and quiet between them, Selina felt; she dared even to call it cozy.

Raven's initiative to put her own plate in the sink when she was finished surprised her, as well as the girl's apparent curiosity about where the water in the sink came from, when the girl watched her wash up the dishes.

The girl was filled with such questions, Selina quickly found; how the lights turned on, what the couches were made of, what her 'cats' were. It was as if the girl was in a 'why?' phase, yet terribly late in her youth about it.

Selina tried not to let it grate on her nerves, for the child was content enough to at least change questions or ask for further clarifications than just pushing her down a spiraling path of repetitious questions that she didn't care to hear the answer of.

A lot of her questions were about the cats in fact. 

Selina wondered what part of the world her "Azarath" had been, that she'd apparently never encountered one before. She didn't beeline towards them and start pulling tails though, so Selina counted herself lucky. 

In fact, the girl made no move to initiate contact with her pets at all; and more surprising, was that while most of her feline friends were skittish about new people at the best of times, her usually stranger-friendly cats were positively apprehensive about the little girl, which she chalked up to a hypothetical ability of her cats to recognize that children were, at least potentially, less predictable than adults.

The cats that were out and about, watched them carefully. The way the felines tracked the girl's slight movements around the apartment was almost uncanny, and it took the better part of an hour for Selina to realize that the way her pets were behaving, bore a resemblance to the way they'd sometimes stare intently at seemingly nothing on a wall or the ceiling; tracking something that to the human eye, was simply impossible to see.

Selina chalked it up to the kid being apparently 'magical'; guessing that she possessed some sort of aura that her cats were making up their minds about.

As the afternoon started fading into early evening, Selina figured it was long since time enough to introduce the girl to a different activity, as she'd promised Harley to help the girl 'learn how to have fun'; she didn't feel much up to card games, and since she was reasonably certain that Harley had long since stolen what few board games she'd ever bought, Selina opted to beckon the girl to the couch and introduce her to the rose-tinted world of heartfelt children's cartoons.

She truthfully didn't have much in the way of children friendly media; but the VHS of the lion movie that Harley had once gifted to her was good enough in her opinion.

The girl was undoubtedly enraptured.

Twice she had to gently reach out and manually lean the girl back against the couch to keep her from toppling to the floor as the girl kept rising to the edge of her seat. Her eyes were wide open and her mouth twitched silent fractions of words as she watched; occasionally the girl would shout at the lions on screen, in an attempt to alter the course of events.

From time to time the girl would turn to look at her, slack-mouthed as if looking for something; naturally, Selina pretended to be just as caught up in the drama as the girl was, nodding solemnly or gasping for the girl's benefit. In truth, the girl was more fun to watch than the movie, if only to see the pure unfiltered emotions overtaking the girl for the apparent first time.

Miraculously, Isis came out of the bedroom, unnoticed by the child as she continued to watch the story play out until the retired circus-cat crept up to the couch and slinked her way from under Selina's hands and into both their laps, her head rested happily on the child's knees.

"Traitor," Selina muttered lovingly at the cat under her breath.

She almost felt compelled to snapshot the sight; she felt Harley at least would momentarily appreciate the simplicity of it.

Instead, she let the film and the child's actions play out till the end credits, refraining from interference to instead observe the girl's actions the way a documenter might distantly observe their quarry.

The girl's arms tucked absently against the big cat, and she looked up at her with a clear level of amazement still written over her face.

Selina supposed she should have expected the avalanche of questions that then rained out of the child's mouth.

'What's a brother?' 'Why did the boys have hair and the girl ones didn't?' 'Did lions exist?' 'Could cats really talk?' 'How come lions were so small, and how did the pocket dimension they lived in fit in the magicless box?' 

Selina answered everything to the best of her abilities, trading practical knowledge for humor on slight occasion, and passed from answering anything she felt wasn't deserving of an explanation.

The girl begged off dinner, apparently hungry for more movies, instead of food, and so Selina indulged her with the only other child-friendly movie in her possession, which was also about cats and had also been a gift from Harley one year or another.

The housecat movie made far less sense than the prior movie, which Selina truthfully preferred, but the lightheartedness of it felt more suitable for the girl so Selina was content to sit through it; the girl picked up on the butler's sketchy behaviour right away, and was quicky to loathe the man for his apparent poisoning of the pets.

She seemed to grasp less of the movies societal concepts; her questions interrupted the movie, and several times Selina had to pause to explain a custom or phrase that the character's referenced, as the girl apparently had a very limited worldview as to the way the world worked and to how people navigated within it.

After trying to explain the concept of willing someone their property, what property entailed, and what the basis for a system of modern government and money were, the girl finally fell silent and they finished the movie more or less in peace.

The room grew darker, as the sun set; and as the time continued to pass, the girl began to tire, occasionally nodding off as she watched the movies repetitiously in turn.

Selina had chosen to return to her book, as the girl re-watched the films by request; occasionally glancing to keep track of the child and the cats that settled closer one by one. When the girl looked as if she were to fall asleep any moment, Selina set her book down, shooed Isis off of her, and scooped her up to deposit her in the bedroom.

Her bed was thankfully more than large enough to accommodate the child, Isis, herself, and the plethora of other cats that quickly congregated on its soft surface. She helped the girl out of her shoes and cape, and helped her settle under the comforter.

Isis quietly wormed her way against the child, purring happily as the girl loosely wrapped her arms around the beast.

"Harley always tells me a story," the girl murmured, when Selina made to get up.

She sat back down and thought a moment.

"Once upon a time," she began, her mind wandering over distant memories; "There was a sly, gleaming black Cat, and a great, big black Bat..."

"What's a bat?"

"It's a little like a cat, but they have wings without feathers," she answered, not missing a beat.

Slowly she spun a tale of how she'd met her brooding warmhearted crusader, inflating fact with fiction for a lighthearted, nearly fanciful tale of self-indulgence, that left Selina feeling as quietly happy as the girl seemed to look as she drifted off to sleep.

She watched the girl sleep for a brief moment, feeling a faint fond feeling in her chest, and carefully got up without disturbing the clowder of cats and made her way back to the couch to continue her book; a faint smile gracing her features.

A few hours passed by, in the darkness of the late night city; the usual noises of Gotham were a backdrop of familiarity that kept Selina's nerves soothed. The occasional siren and gunshot, reaching even her apartment's great height, was par to the course in even the nicer sectors of Gotham.

Just when she was starting to lose herself in her book entirely, a few knocks beckoned her to the door, and a sleepy, eye rubbing Raven stumbled out of the bedroom to help greet the pair of supervillainesses at the door.

"Hey Chick-a-dee," Harley cooed, bending down to offer the girl a welcoming smooch.

The girl hugged Harley back before Harley scooped her up, resting the girl along her hip.

"Thank's Kitty," Harley reaffirmed; "You're'a real pal."

"I hope she wasn't too much trouble," Ivy offered, glancing around the apartment, likely to spot any damages or evidence of things having spun out of control.

"She was just darling," Selina offered truthfully; genuinely unperturbed by having spent the day with the girl.

"Glad ta' hear it, Whiskers," Harley shot back cheerfully.

"Did you gals get everything... taken care of?" She asked carefully.

Poison Ivy nodded.

"It was a tight fit," Ivy began.

"-And a close call," Harley interjected happily.

"But I think we got everything. We can take her from here," she stated, squaring her shoulders slightly.

The pair of women looked exhausted, but satisfied; but not quite in the same manner that resulted from their usual heists or... carnal pursuits.

Selina passed it off as something she'd learn about sooner or later, if at all, and simply nodded good-naturedly.

The girl reached out, and Ivy took drew the girl into her arms almost reflexively; Selina smirked at the child who apparently had the courage to nuzzle up to the neck of the second most feared woman in all of Gotham City.

As Ivy made to leave, the girl made whine and the woman stopped; the girl twisted around in the green woman's arms and reached out as if to beckon her.

Selina leaned forward and the girl sleepily wrapped her arms around her, prompting Harley to giggle.

"Night, Auntie'Cat," the girl murmured faintly, before releasing her to worm her way back into her apparently found comfy place against the plantwoman.  

"Take care Kitty," Harley shot, slapping her shoulder merrily, as the pair made their way back out the door.

Selina hummed as she watched them reach the end of the hall, and returned Harley's wave until the elevator doors snapped shut in front of her.

A furry blur almost raced out to join them, but a swift foot caught Isis mid-attempt, and Selina expertly lifted the cat back inside.

She ran a hand through her hair, thinking over the absolute oddness of the day's events, and chuckled to herself.

The other rogues wouldn't believe her if she told them, she mused. 

Chapter Text

"Rise and shine, Sunshine!" a highly pitched, dramatically volumed feminine voice echoed, jolting Raven upright and fully alert. Through the ringing in her ears jumbling about her head, Raven's eyes opened to the familiar jubilant woman she'd grown fondly accustomed to.

Harley seemed in higher spirits than she was most mornings; an odd sense of peripheral alertness coming into focus diverged her attention. Raven looked around to notice that the section of foliage she was in, was vastly different then what it used to be.

"Surprise, Kiddo," Harley furthered, as Raven drank it all in; "Welcome to your super cool and fun new playground palace treehouse!" the woman exclaimed gleefully, "It's even got a slide!"

The... room, she was in seemed to have been made as if the other woman presiding over her care, Ivy, sculpted a great tree with a conveniently shaped space inside. There were lights bound by strings casting the space in a warm glow, what looked to be dressers, blankets strung from different heights, glass planes for viewing things, objects resembling weird hyenas, among countless other objects that Raven couldn't place a frame of reference for.

At Harley's overly eager expression, and her mid-summer excitement, Raven allowed herself a smile for the woman's benefit; the Earth woman's fascination with physical pursuits of interest was still altogether baffling to her, but endearingly so.

"We picked out some new duds for you too," the women revealed, pointing at the dressers; "Try 'em on!"

Raven bit back a reflexive statement of worldly possessions and vanity being inherent sins, and walked over to one of the dressers, finding what she could only frame as an abundance of demerit worthy fabrics to wear.

She could dismiss gods of growth having next to little need of cloth to obscure their forms, and be content in assuming Harley was justly demerited for her various states of indecency, and even rationalize the need to occasionally wear inadequate coverings when her garbs were being cleansed, but it felt sinful just looking at the colored fabrics, let alone the debate of putting them on her body.

She wondered, if perhaps different gods dressed their disciples differently; feeling more content at the thought, she decided that Harley was the likeliest example of proper earthly attire, and reached into the drawer.

She pulled out a short brightly colored tunic, with an odd sigil painted on its... front? The tunic Ivy had dressed her bore a sigil on the breast, she mused.

"You gotta put on undies too, kiddo," Harley instructed from the bed; Raven looked at her questioningly and Harley pointed to another drawer.

The drawer opened to reveal... things? Underthings, she supposed, that were meant to go around her legs. They too, appeared in an array of colors and sigils. she chose a pair at random, hoping the magical properties of the garbs would not clash with each other due to her lack of knowledge over them.

The socks at least, she was familiar with; she found those in a separate drawer along with several pairs of footwear lining the floor on a rack. The glossy black ones were noticeably prominent, for their lack of bright color in comparison to its brethren, so Raven selected them out of the rest.

"Almost there Chick-a-dee," Harley sang as she rolled over onto her hands, "Now find something for your bottom half," she instructed vaguely.

Resisting the urge to show the tediousness of the task on her face, Raven turned to the dressers again and started opening more drawers, eventually finding what looked to be ends of tunics that had been sheared off. Harley had worn such ends around her hips, she recalled, so it was by simple deduction that that was where the garment was to be placed.

Her cape, she noted, was hung on a tack, and her belt was right beside it; she quickly grabbed them too, and felt more like herself with them in place. She wanted to keep what little of Azarath as she could; she was the only one left to remember it, after all.   

None of the colors on her fabrics matched, she noted; she hoped that wouldn't be a problem. She did feel more human for them, which she hoped was a good thing; Harley's smile seemed approving, at least.

"Nice job Kiddo, we'll work on your style senses later," Harley commended mysteriously before sliding off the bed.

Raven allowed herself to be practically scooped up and instinct instructed her to clutch the woman tightly as she bounded over to a hole in the floor, and proceeded to grasp a pole and slide down.

When they landed, they were indeed still in Ivy's greenhouse, but judging from the types of plants around them, Raven guessed they were somewhere in the non-proactively hostile tropical subsection of the woman's seemingly vast recesses.

'Treehouse' did indeed seem to fit the odd, colorful structure, for it was in fact made from the forms of trees and other sturdy flora, and she supposed it resembled what she thought a 'house' ought to look like, in that it was a place where people sometimes lived in its interior emptinesses.

The ground around them also sported objects; some colorful and sleek, some tapering into affixation to the larger structure. She noticed a particularly large hyena some feet from them, eerily still and devoid of any sort of emotional spillover.

"Is that puppy dead?"

"That's a giraffe," Harley replied evenly, as if the declaration explained things; "It's a toy."

Raven opened her mouth to inquire further, but the woman hushed her preemptively.

"A toy is only the best, most probably wonderful thing there is," Harley rambled, leading her to the unmoving beast; "Toys are devices that which assists in the stimulation of person's baser instincts in a safe and reasonably happy manner! In short, they're for fun! and fun," Harley continued, giving her a serious look, "Is a vital part of the human experience."

"Azar said that I'm not supposed to have fun, because of my emotions being volatile," Raven interjected hesitantly; she didn't want to anger the memory of her former mentor, and she wasn't sure her new overseers really understood what she was capable of, to keep pushing fate as they allowed.

Still, a quiet, selfish part of her wanted them to continue as they had been, in giving her such earthly delights so admittedly, she was not insisting to the true path as she ought to have been.

"I'm Harley and my PHD says that I'm pretty fuckin' knowledgeable in how brains work kid, and in my serious prognosis," she declared, her posture stuffy, her emotions hot; "You're gonna' get all the fun you can stand, and it's gonna' be good fer' you!"

Harley waggled a finger at her, before a large grin broke over her face; it was still strange to see... expressions, on people, and Raven was certain she hadn't quite grasped their meanings or usages, but the study of language had been one of the few hobbies Azar had deemed acceptable to her, and Raven felt sure that in time, she'd learn.

Harley continued to introduce other objects and passtimes to her; walls for climbing, inclined planes for sitting-based-momentum transportation, simple pulley systems that allowed for object dispersal in a series of manual maneuvers, more 'giraffes', all of which came in their own subcategories like 'teddy-bears' and 'monkeys' and 'frogs'.

By the time the plant goddess summoned them for a midday sup, Raven found herself admittedly glad for the break; it felt like since she had been found in the flowers, a great many flowers were growing in her own head with new petal of lesson learned.

She wondered if that was fitting or not, as she picked away at the bounty on her plate.

It was also difficult not to think about the bounty on her plates, and their origins. Truthfully, she wasn't sure what horse was, but it seemed a larger sort of hyena, and they were very much alive and Raven was as capable of feeling emotions from them as she was of any of the plants and people in the city.

Therefore, she concluded that before they had been designated food, horses must have existed in similar states of being as Harley's hyenas, which was troubling to say the least, in that she wasn't supposed to consume anything living, as that was a direct draw to her... father's side of her body.

Perhaps, she thought, as she ate on, their overall state of inactivity proved them an exception to the rule, as even Harley and Ivy partook in the seared flesh from time to time.

Yes, she thought, clearly the 'food' was inert, and therefore no longer constituting as anything 'alive', and therefore not a sin apon a soul in a structural sense.

She paused her musings from time to time, to listen to her overseers; Ivy seemed tired, presumably from sculpting the great deal of greenery as Raven inferred she had, and Harley too, seemed to carry exhaustion about her shoulders under the veneer of chaotic expressionism; they both seemed deep-rootedly happy though, and for that Raven found herself desiring to add to their moods. To perhaps share in them herself.

She wasn't quite sure what things she ought to say to convey that desire, but recalling the great many lessons in humility and diligent deference she'd had in Azarath, she stretched the muscles around her lips, and sat up straight.

"Thank you, for the 'treehouse'," she murmured carefully, attempting to keep her voice as 'unmarred' as possible.

"I'm going to keep learning 'fun', and will use it often," she added, guessing on its apparent importance from Harley's earlier fixations on the subjects.

The women smiled, and proceeded to pamper her with encouragements and other phrases that apparently signaled a correctly handled exchange on her part.

She let the conversation between the elders pick back up between themselves, and quietly went back to her meal; the conversations drifted, as did Raven's thoughts; she wondered why it seemed to be both the matriarchs she found, drew in such odd devouts.

Azar's small population had been understandable; the congregation had sustained themselves indefinitely within Azar's pocket dimension, and it was only when she pulled her mother, and she supposed herself also, technically speaking, that their oddities began to manifest, presumably.

She wondered if Harley was a deity of chaos; an incarnation of the process of change manifested into the body of a person, or if she and by extension humans, were every bit as wild and exuberantly sinful as Juris had instructed her to believe.

She wondered, again, if it was by chance that she'd found herself under the study of not one but two deities of importance, or if it 'twere fate brought about as the probable result of her father's half of herself.

She let the thoughts drift away, the lesson's of Azar still strongly composing her state of being; never letting any particular thought or feeling linger much longer than it took for its appearance to be recognized and then dismissed.

She soon found herself sitting with her overseer in the great flowers, Harley at her back, fluttering about her hair like a handmaid, Ivy across from her, guiding their trip deep down into the faint and intangible trace of the Growing Place.

She tried to appease the matron by performing such rituals with her; she wasn't sure what sensing the pulse of life of the flowers would accomplish, but she trusted in her elders enough to assume that once she'd practiced it enough, the meanings and lessons would become clear.

Ivy's meditation seemed to take her astray into the plane of the growing place, and Raven was capable of feeling the plane, even if she wasn't quite sure how to enter it herself. Truthfully, she was more than a little apprehensive to enter it; her father no doubt sensed her fall onto Earth, she didn't want to lead him to the interdimensional growing place of all things, lest he vow to destroy that place for all times, too.

She also wasn't entirely sure that the growing place even wanted her inside it; while her mother's part of her felt... fine enough, poking at the plane as her astral self allowed for, her father's side was tainted enough that Raven was almost certain the dimensional bend not only felt it, but was reacting to it whenever she drew near.

When at last her efforts tired her, and her focus grew strained, Ivy drew her into her lap, and offered words of platitudes and praises, with rainy morning feelings of sincerity clouding out from her pores.

Raven wasn't sure she deserved such words, as it seemed a relatively simply task she'd failed at more than once, but the woman was warm in such a way that Raven couldn't explain, and therefore simply opted to not to try.

The woman wove hundreds of tiny, frail blossomed flowers into Raven's hair as she spoke to her, filling her nose with sweet scents and hazy eyes; her father's eyes slipped open, and Raven once again faced the whole of the harvest god sheltering her.

Through the red haze of her father's sight, Ivy was wholly wild; nature itself both plentiful and impersonal to the struggles of individual life, but nursing and supportive to it as a whole. A god of growth, a god of change, a god of renewal.

Such a strange departure, from the god of consistency and virtue that had been her old mentor, Azar.

When Ivy muttered something about 'time', which was still on Raven's list of things to learn about, she was once again left in the care of Ivy's devout, Harley.

Harley, still filled with the pleasantly warm promise of teaching her the ways of 'fun', tasked her to accompany her as she 'walked' her hyenas, the beasts apparently needing excessive tending to keep them healthy.

The prospect of leaving the flowers again made her apprehensive.

She paused, as Harley held the door open for her, the hyenas pulling at their tethers.

"What's wrong?" Harley asked, confusion on her face.

Raven admonished herself for her cowardice, and followed the woman outside.

Harley led them down the hard path, a set of tiny chariots under her feet pulled forward by the impulses of her beasts. The pace was leisurely enough that Raven was able to walk steadily with her, if she kept the rhythm even.

"Ahh," Harley exhaled greatly, "This is great, inn't Kid?"

"The city is loud," Raven offered; she didn't want to leave the flowers. She wasn't looking forward to the feelings of the people all overcrowded into one place building louder and louder into her head.

She didn't want to disobey instruction again however; she'd learnt from the last time, she thought to herself.

They walked a great long while; the sun faded into darkness and the moon occasionally peaked through the dense clouds above them.

Harley, unlike Ivy, had no qualms leading her through the city; the woman led her through one narrow passage after another, and seemed to let the noses of her beasts lead them more often than forging their path herself.

Raven couldn't deny a sort of wonder, that came over her as she drank in the ugliness around her; the people surrounding them withered from hopelessness and conviction rather than years of quiet study, the puddles littered with weird papers, the walls streaked with stains, scurrying of tiny cats with strange naked tails.

There were lots of bats.

Well, she assumed they were the bats that the Catwoman had referenced for they flew and had no feathers, and were drawn to orbiting flickering lights in dizzying circles. They seemed almost too tiny to be considered big or brave or wise, but Raven reasoned that size like most things was perhaps relative.

Her musings were cut short, when the tethers slipped from Harley's grasp, freeing the beasts into the city at full gait. The woman frantically called after them and gave chase, but Harley seemed far more innately familiar with their surrounds than she did, and Raven quickly found herself at a loss for direction.

She was alone once more, in the city.

This time, though she knew there was a safe green place to return to, what should have been a comforting thought only brought her something closer to sensations of quickened pulses and rising hyperawareness. The hyperawarness only brought more feelings leaked into her head, making her body feel weighted and slouched and red hot and ice cold and altogether dizzy and unpleasent.

She wanted to pull her soulself out of her body; she wanted to sit and meditate, to let the feelings that weren't hers drift away as they were replaced.

Her face felt wet.

Touching it, she concluded that her body wanted to cry.

"Hey... are you alright?"

Raven looked up, a bolt of apprehension mirroring the feelings she'd experienced when her mother caught her in the circle, and saw...

A child?

Though she'd never seen any, other than recently in her own reflection, she deduced that they must have been, for their small stature.

The child came up to her, slowly.

He wasn't wearing any tunic endings; but his underthings and tunic tops were very brightly colored and he had a shawl around his shoulders. He also had a thing on his, ringing his eyes. A sort of, stuck hood-shadow, she supposed.

"Are you lost?" the child asked, warmly.

Through no command of her own, her body started to cry.

Chapter Text

"Whaoh, whaoh, it's okay," he offered warmly, aproaching the girl, his hands outstretched and placating. The crying girl was younger than him by a few years at least, and her mismatched outfit stood out for its cape and chain.

Some sort of lost ward perhaps? A magician's apprentice maybe, for the overall air of grace about her. She must've come from Metropolis, he thought; Batman hadn't mentioned any girls about the city lately.

He finally reached the girl and stopped short in front of her, not quite if it was a trap or not; a lot of villains liked to cry before throwing punches, but the girl seemed more lost and confused than intentionally deceptive. He supposed she could still be dangerous, but he chose to give her the benefit of the doubt by placing a hand on her shoulder.

"It's okay, everything will be alright," he offered.

The girl rubbed intently at her face; he hoped she wasn't rubbing it raw.

"My name's Robin, what's yours?" he asked hopefully.

The girl's hands slowed, and she shook her head a few times; just as he started to grow worried, the girl turned to him, her hood drawn and head hung low.

"I'm Raven," she murmured in a voice that sounded faint and shattered; his heart started to swell for the girl. It wasn't cool to see kids younger than him so upset on their own in the dead of night. He wondered what happened to her to get her in such a state.

"Can you tell me what's wrong?" he asked softly, tilting slightly to peak at her face; moreso at her expression than her identity, mind. He hoped the action didn't seem insensitive to the girl. 

"The city's too loud," she murmured strangely, a croak in her throat. The girl rubbed at her face again, which made Robin wonder if there was a headache involved in the equation, or if the girl was experiencing a sensory overload.

He reached into his utility belt and popped a pair of noise cancelation earbuds into his palms; "Here," he offered, holding them out to her; "If you put them in your ears, they might help quiet everything down."

The girl hesitantly retracted them from his grasp and looked to put them in place; she was quiet for a moment, before she seemed to shake slightly and emit a lulled exhale.

He knelt slightly, so Raven could see his face as he mouthed the words of his next questions; 'Does that help?' 'Is there somewhere you need to be?'

As he was about to ask the girl if there was someone he could find for her, he felt a strange sensation on the back of his neck; the kind that usually informed him that he should move, as quickly as possible.

He spun around to see strange shadows moving along the walls of the building next to them.

Instantly, his hand went to his grappling hook while his other arm wrapped around the girl; his device shot them up towards a rooftop and the weight of the girl, adding to his own weight, strained against his shoulder.

When they landed on the roof, he spun to take note of the alley; finding it clear.

Hopefully; whatever it was, he thought, wouldn't find them on the rooftops.

After scanning the alley and the buildings for any signs of further strange activity, he turned back to the girl, finding her gazing off over the city on the other side of the roof.

"Careful, you don't want to fall," he warned, before remembering she likely couldn't hear him. He muttered to himself at that before trotting over, pulling an early welcoming grin across his face.

When he made it to the girl, he stopped in his tracks as the girl threw herself back from the edge, a large black shape flying up from the side of the building face. He righted himself as he recognized the blurred figure of Batgirl coming to land in front of them.

"There's trouble downtown," she informed him, her words a little forced from exertion; "Batman's in the middle of something on the other side of town and he needs us to check out the reports of activity around here-"

She stopped, taking note of the girl in front of her. 

"...Is she one of ours?" she asked, likely noting the cape as he had.

"I don't know," he replied, coming up next to them; "I found her in the alley down there, I brought her up here when I noticed something fishy about the shadows."

Barbara hummed, placing a hand to her chin; "This is going to be one of those nights, isn't it," she mused.

She lowered herself to her knees to get a good look at the kid.

"You alright honey?" she asked.

"I gave her my earplugs;" Robin cut in, prompting Batgirl to stand back up; "I think she's got sensitivities, maybe from hyperawareness training or something."

"I don't remember anybody visiting here, not with a kid in tow," Barbara thought aloud, "Do you?"

"Nah," he answered, shaking his head, "She's gotta be from Metropolis though, I mean look at her clothes!"

"More like from outerspace," Batgirl countered, "You ever see Manhunter try to blend in? She's a spittin' image."

"Should we take her with us then, do you think?"

Batgirl loosed another heavy exhale, before turning around to assess the scenery.

"We can't bring a kid on an investigation," she nearly sighed, "You know how Bats gets."

"We could leave her at the station," she suggested; "While we're at the station, we can figure out what's exactly going on around here that has everyone in a tizzy," she continued.

"We could leave her with Alfred," he countered, the picture of the warmhearted gentleman clouding his eye.

"Yeah, but if Bats finds out we brought her home and she isn't one of ours..." she warned.

He sighed, giving into the implications; they promised to be smart about things to be worthy of the team after all. He frowned.

Batgirl knelt down again, and held her arms open, a warm smile on her face; the girl clamored into her arms with little prompting.

At his scowl, Batgirl chuckled.

"Woman's touch," she replied gayly, already grappling away.

He shot after her; each of them repelling and swinging through the city streets with well-versed ease. The liberating feeling of moving through Gotham as they could, he reflected, was easily one of his favorite parts of the job.

On their way to the station however, a soundblast caught them off guard, forcing to change the arcs of their swings to reassess the city; down below, a good chunk of city block was frozen solid.

"That'd be the tizzy, I'll bet," he shouted over the din of frantic civilians; "Let's check it out!"

He swung hard and low, Batgirl right behind him; they landed a few steps from the encased entrance in an adjacent alley. Silently, Batgirl landed next to him, dropping the girl to the ground.

"Stay here," she ordered, motioning to the girl; Barbra looked up at him and nodded once, signaling him that she was ready to venture inside.

The air inside the building was absolutely frigid, it drew his breath out in short puffs and stung his eyes; Batgirl donned an emergency mask. They moved quietly, not quite sure what to expect, other than freeze rays, guns, and an army of brutish henchmen.

It wasn't long before they found all three; their element of surprise never seemed to last long after the first Batarang was thrown, Robin mused, knocking heads together.

Dodging the physical blows was relatively easy, though taxing; dodging the bullets was far more strenuous. Luckily, between himself and Batgirl, they were largely able to redirect the lines of fire out of harm's way, and come off it with only minor bruising and a few icy-splinters to show for it.

After working their way through the henchmen in the main lobby, they moved swiftly, cutting deeper into the building, trouncing each newly encountered henchmen one by one as they found them.

Robin held his breath when they reached the door to a large vault, sounds of the notorious supervillain monologing to his lackeys from behind.

He gave a signal to Batgirl, mimed a countdown as he readied his smoke bombs, giving her time to restock her Batarangs. Ready as they'd ever be, they bust through the door, each of them rolling into a readied stance.

Instantly, the weapons were trained in their directions, looks of soured grudges on everyone's faces.

"I've no time to entertain children," the infamously coldblooded scientist lurched, charging his freeze cannon.

"You won't get away with this, Freeze!" Robin shouted, filling his chest with bravery as he reflexively repositioned his footing.

As the smoke bombs almost loosed in his hand, he paused; as did the other occupants of the vault.

A white glimmering shape hovered in the center of the room, between them all.

Slowly, it seemed to take form, and dropped into the figure of the little girl.

"Get out of here!" He called, his arm readying his swing.

Batgirl clasped a hand around his wrist, stilling him; "Wait..." she drawled, focusing on the kid.

"What's this?" Mr. Freeze iterated, his tone flat but labored through the helmet glass; "The Bat sends another infant to fight his battles for him?"

Robin's teeth grit at the insult; he tried to push down the feeling, and work out how best to get the little girl out of there.

"My name's Raven," the girl murmured, her voice oddly sure of itself; "You feel sad. Angry. Hurt. I can help. I can heal things."

"Heal things?" the man repeated, gesturing for his men to hold positions.

"I healed Harley. I think I can help you, too," the girl replied, the dim light refracting off her cloak and into the surrounding ice.

"Boss, you don't really think tha-"

"Silence," Freeze bayed, quieting the man; "I've an eternity to live; if this child thinks she can change the course of fate, I'm willing to test it."

"But Boss," another man pleaded, his hands worrying over his gun; "What about the Bat?"

"What do you louts think I'm paying you for? Fan out!" He ordered, sending the men into a flurry.

Robin switched his posture, taking up a normal stance as the henchmen filed out around them, passing them to make their rounds. Four of them remained, their guns aimed at him, Batgirl, and the child.

"Alright child," the villain commanded, his tone colder than his heart; "Heal."

"I need your hand, please," the girl murmured, gesturing to it with her own.

Slowly, likely expecting a trick, the man switched his ray gun into his other hand, and twisted off the glove of his supersuit, revealing the icy blue flesh of the hand inside.

The girl lifted off the ground, hovering towards the man, and put both her tiny hands to the sides of his palm.

The air suddenly felt... slower. As if time wasn't quite up to its usual self somehow; a bright, blue-white glow radiated out from the girl's arms, which seemed to seep onto Freeze's hand and creep up his wrist. The light cast thousands of glimmering reflections into the ice and whirled beautiful, glistening patterns everywhere Robin looked.

The girl seemed to grow tired, or else refocused entirely on her apparent magic, and carried on from a soft landing on the floor.

Moments stretched into minutes, and the minutes started ticking into seconds as the blue glow working its way into Mr. Freeze's flesh spread out through the rest of his body.

As the light consumed the villain's face, Freeze fell to his knees, spooking his henchmen.

Batgirl knocked the but of a gun aimed at her neck away, and Robin quickly handsprung out of the way of a line of bullets gunning for his back.

A Birdarang sliced off a barrel aimed directly at Batgirl's chest, and a well-timed kick from his partner took care of a goon at his side.

They made short work of the rest of the men, leaving them where they fell, and Robin turned to check on the girl.

Both she and Freeze were kneeling now, the blue light almost washing out the villain entirely.

"Should we... stop them?" he asked cautiously; he wasn't sure what to do when it came to magic measures.

"Let's watch a little longer; if nothing else we need to see what she can do," Batgirl replied.

He nodded, and tried to huff some heat back into his hands and resigned himself to waiting once more.

He almost longed for more goons to fight, just to keep his body temperature raised.

"That's what you get for not wearing pants," Barbara chided, earning a scoff.

Just when he was about to suggest walking over to them to inspect the situation up close, the glow vanished.

The little girl and the supervillain both fell backwards, prompting himself and Batgirl to rush forward.

He reached the younger girl first, and lifted her onto his lap as Barbara checked Mr. Freeze.

"Tim, you'll never believe this..." she muttered, her tone conflicted.

She lifted the suited man with a grunt, slumping him into a sitting position.

His skin was a pinkish brown.

"We need to get them out of the cold," he realized, his mind racing with the possibilities of them all freezing.

Freeze started to shake himself, as if rising from a deep sleep.

He pulled himself out of Batgirl's grasp, nearly knocking her away.

Robin stood, drawing a few of his gadgets in hand.

Freeze looked himself over, a look of amazement on his face.

"Incredible," he murmured softly; Robin felt inclined to agree with him.

The look on the man's face hardened.

"I'm taking the child with me," he declared, reaching for the girl.

Batgirl got her first as Robin blasted Freeze's helmet with his smoke pellets.

Batgirl darted out of the line of crossfire as Freeze roared.

"You fools, my Nora needs her!"

Batgirl stopped, looking him dead in the eyes.

He could practically feel what she was thinking about; he was thinking it too.

"Look, Freeze, the kid's all tuckered out," Batgirl scolded, obscured by shadows; "Give her some time to recover. Turn yourself in. Maybe we can work something out."

"I'm not leaving without her," he insisted, "My Nora has waited too long for this; I won't lose her again!"

"You'd really trade the life of a child for your wife, Freeze?" Robin called, hoping to disorient him long enough for Batgirl to sneak out of the vault; "She'd never forgive you!"

"The child is my only chance, please," the man begged, sounds of him stumbling through the smoke echoing through the vault.

A few sounds of scuffle somewhere behind him caught Robin's attention.

"I can help!" a small voice insisted.

"Please," Freeze begged again, likely to the disembodied voice of the girl; "Save my Nora, I'll give you anything! Anything you desire!"

There was a sound of a grunt, and then the sound of Batgirl's footsteps navigating towards him through the darkness.

Batgirl shortly stepped into view, the girl clinging to her neck, who seemed nearly overwashed with exhaustion.

"I want to help," the girl murmured.

"Please," Batgirl begged, "Rest first."

"Either way, we all need to get out of here," Robin reminded, his mind already certain of the damages of the cold being done.

A loud crash echoed throughout the vault as a series of brash and crude declarations apparently collided into the last of Freeze's henchmen.

Robin cast a look to Barbara who looked at him with an equal amount of confusion; she shrugged. Robin turned to Freeze, who seemed wholeheartedly focused on the girl.

In through the vault doors, rushed a pair of multicolored hyenas, and Harley Quinn on a pair of roller skates.

"Chick-a-dee!" Harley sang, "Harl~ley's here!"

The girl in Batgirl's arm started to stir with what little energy she seemed to have remaining.

"This one's mine, Quinn," Freeze declared, turning his attention on the clown.

"No can do, Mr. Blue! That's Ivy's daughter. She's gonna' be real' mad if you don't hand her over," Harley replied chidingly as Bud and Lou growled menacingly.

"I'm sorry Quinn, but I can't let her go," he answered menacingly. 

"Come to Harley, Sugar," the villainous cooed, her voice sickeningly sweet in a way that Robin only knew she used for her hyenas, or for her 'puddin'.

The girl struggled in Barabra's grasp; the girl turned incorporeal and shadowed her way out of Batgirl's arms in an attempt to glide through the air to the Clown Queen of Crime.

"Harley, that girl can save my Nora," Freeze insisted, walking towards them; Harley adjusted her grip on her leashes, setting them both to one arm.

"Tell ya' what, Snowman," Harley offered as the shadow flopped its way into the crook of Harley's arm; the shadow solidified as the girl, who now seemed totally passed out.

"When lil'bit here is good enough for another round of miracle makin', I'll be the first to call yous'," Harley offered, her tone warm; "Jus' don't get no ideas 'bout roughin' her up till then, mind. Maybe find something to sweeten the deal, so's Red'll forgive you."

"Yes... that'll suffice..." the man muttered, resignation frostbitten across his tone and posture.

"Now let's get out of here before we all turn into popsicles," Robin insisted, hoping to spur everyone back into their senses.

Harley Quinn laughed, setting his nerves on edge before Bud and Lou took off at full speed, pulling a complete one-eighty back out the door.

"Should we go after her or..." he drawled, looking after them.

"Let's worry about him for now," Batgirl insisted, already whipping out her cuffs.

At the ensuing struggle, Robin found himself whistling at the sheer oddities of the evening while he drew a few Birdarangs to help Barbara retrain the man.

Batman was going to have a field day with this one, he was sure. 

Chapter Text

It was the blooming of lukewarmness around her tired muscles, that guided her eyelids open; faintly, a blurred blotch of colors clouded her vision, broadly comprised of mellow-reds and yellow-golds.

Her lips fell shut again, as her mind scrambled to piece together the strange sounds encompassing her; it took a few moments for her to realize that the sounds echoing oddly into her were being scattered about by the substance engulfing her.

It took a few moments more to realize that she was nearly submerged, as the sensation of water buffeting her body was nearly identical to her astral trances in the state she was in.

Her body's muscle memory of water vaguely called forth the memory of the baths overseen by her new matron; at the dim recollection of Poison Ivy, the syllables around her began to make sense, their translations coming easier and well defined.

Harley, she felt, was near her too.

The faint warmth in the water only served to make her realize just how cold she was; she was helpless to stop her body from shivering.

"Can't we make it go any hotter?" 

"It'd only damage her cells further; we have to raise her temperature slowly, Harl." 

The sounds drifted away again; her body or her mind lessening its grip on her soul.

Meditation came naturally to her, after the innumerable hours she'd spent practicing it on Azarath, for what little good it did them.

It the state of perception between worlds, she was comfortable; at peace.

She watched the movements of the stars glide along dimensional splits and lines of universal threads; the patterns of the globes renewing once or twice under her watch.

Content as she was to rest in the place forever, there was a begrudging part of herself tied to the awareness of her body, that quietly insisted the importance of her physical survival.

Coming into her body was always a bit of an unpleasant shock; being brought into sensory filled appendages and flesh encased awareness was more than a little jarring; Raven sat up, water streaming out from her nostrils and pores, her body taking the opportunity to steal in a few large breaths between the upheavals it took as it ousted the river water from her lungs.

She wiped the water from both of her eyes and smoothed her hair out of her face; when her body calmed, certain in its continuity, she looked around herself.

There was no sign of her overseer's disciple, or of her two laughing beasts, but Raven sensed that the nature goddess was somewhere nearby, which comforted her somewhat.

Raven glanced at herself; her form still clad within the mismatched clothes she vaguely recalled having put on. The flowers in her hair she could see appeared distressed from freezing over and thawing out. She rung out her violet locks a bit, tangled as they were, and noticed the plant she was sitting on.

Ivy it seemed, had left her resting on a great leaf floating in the water; one of the colossal 'lilypads' if she recalled their 'genus' correctly. Carrying her weight as it was, the great leaf bowed only a few inches under the water's crust. She smiled, running her fingers through the surface of the water, pleased to feel the river current trickling against her palm.

The humid air of the greenhouse felt sticky against her back as she sat.

An increasing focus of the sensation of wet cloth clinging to her skin became unbearable for her; Raven clawed it off, leaving herself free as the river carted away the offending garments, catching them on lilyweeds and other plants.

Somewhere in the weeds, there was a 'frog' chirping around the many quiet buzzing of 'dragonflies' flitting about the flowers, leaving the air lightly filled with sound.

She smiled, feeling a bit better; she supposed she could feel warmer, but she'd never felt as warm as she'd like and shrugged the idea off.

Raven let her legs dangle over the edge of the lilypad, the leaf sinking under her shift in weight until the water came up to her chest. She kicked her legs, feeling the long strands of moss between her toes and smiled at the odd feel of it.

She wondered briefly what walking through the water might feel like; Ivy had once mentioned something she called 'swimming'. The thought of trying it out on her own was little unnerving; Raven shifted her thoughts instead to debating whether or not she wanted to climb to the ground and scale her treehouse for new garments.

The idea won out.

Pulling her way up onto the dirt by the handfuls of arching grasses in each of her fists was a little difficult, as the lilypad gave way under her feet, but Raven managed the hoist after a few moments of determination and wasn't bothered by the streaks of dirt she was resultingly covered in; she walked contently through the great flowers, picking her way through paths and boxes and trees.

She wasn't sure where exactly, her treehouse was, but she was confident that she'd find it if she walked around long enough, large as it was.

The smells of the flowers drifted past her, and the many hums of the individual strands of life growing around her were quietly pleasant.

It made crawling through brushes and thorns more ignorable.

She found her treehouse after pushing herself through an entanglement of vines and felt a small cloud of... some sort of emotion she supposed, fill her chest slightly.

The climb up was both shorter than she expected and longer than she would have liked for the effort it took to climb it.

Just as she peered into the drawers of colourful clothes, a strange feeling caught her senses.

She stilled, and focused on it; her eyes blacking over.

Two strange presences, pulsing waves of emotion with every beat of their hearts, descending from the sky.

Ivy's warning flickered to mind, allowing Raven a moment to assess whether she wanted to leave the security of her overseer's sanctuary to her plants or if she wanted to follow the path of the chaotic disciple and charge her own path and investigate matters for herself.

She hastily pulled on her Azarathian tunic and slid down the hole-pole that Harley had shown her.

She pushed into the plants' senses, and felt them coiling about something further into the flowers. She followed the feeling, curious to see what they had caught.

She came to large, rippling bed slithering runners, slowly pulling a man and boy to a throng of pitcher plants, as if they meant to forcibly contain the intruders inside, where according to Ivy, anything trapped might get dissolved and digested.

Though she had no thoughts or feelings about the black-clad man, the boy was dressed strikingly similar to the one she'd cried with.

Their faces looked blank as they noticed her, their bodies expelling feelings of lingering afternoon sunsets and fast-paced city streets, which she took to mean they were thickly at the mercy of turbulent emotions.

Their appendages, torsos, and faces were entrapped by the wrapping vines, while they were unable to speak, it didn't seem to stop them from trying.

Raven thought a minute.

She didn't think it wise to use her powers too much, too soon, but she felt confident enough that she wouldn't have to, and that she'd be largely all right if it came to it; she could simply call out, and Ivy would come to her, she felt.

Her curiosity prompted her to reach out, and pry the vines away from the boy's face.

"You're a wrong Robin," she declared, looking him over; he looked older than the other boy, and his suit wasn't quite the same.

"I'm the first Robin," the boy declared, a weird range of emotions radiating from him.

"I'm Raven," she replied, reflexively following the earthly script of conversation.

"You're just the girl we wanted to see," the boy replied, as the man beside him continued to struggle.

Raven squinted at him; deciding that if he did anything to hurt her matron's plants, she'd stop him.

"My brother tells me that you helped Mr. Freeze a few days ago," the boy proclaimed, his tone weightless but his face smiling.

"I wanted to help," she replied evenly, thinking. He felt like soft cats or sleeping hyenas; Raven decided that was an agreeable aura.

His face lit up a bit, leading Raven to believe that he was pleased at her response; "It's good to want to help, helping people is important," he stated, wiggling a bit, "We came here actually, because we wanted to help you."

"Who are you?" Raven asked, looking from him to the man still struggling in vain against the plants.

"I'm Robin, like I said," he repeated, "My brother, the boy you met, was Red Robin, and the girl in black and purple was Batgirl. We work with Batman," he explained, nodding at the man beside him as much as the plants allowed; "We help save people in the city. Right now, we want to help save you."

Raven wasn't sure what exactly, the man and boy meant to save her from, but the mention of the 'bat' in the man's name caught her attention.

"Aunt Kitty said the Bat was big and brave and wise," she recited, a hint of excitement in her fingertips; "She said he couldn't catch her no matter how fast he flied but he was always there to break her fall. She said he keeps all of Gotham under his wings and chases all the monsters away so everyone can sleep at night."

"Aunt Kitty?" the boy repeated.

"Miss Whiskers," Raven offered confusedly; "Aunt Selina."

"Selina," he repeated, more intently than before.

Raven nodded; she didn't know how the boy couldn't know whom she was referring to, but guessed that maybe the city had so many people, it was hard for the boy to remember them all. It seemed a strange thought, as the people she'd known in Azarath had all seemed to know each other.

"Can you let me down?" the boy asked gently.

Raven thought about it.

She bit her lip.

The boy smiled warmly.

She reached out her arms and touched near the Green place, to eat the fear of the flowers. The flower's calmed, dropping the boy to the floor and started to settle themselves.

The boy dusted himself off and ruffled his hair a bit, hunching over at his knees before smiling at her.

"What are you helping me from?" she asked, still unsure as to his function.

"There's a lot of bad people in Gotham," he replied gently, "A lot of sick people who'll want to hurt you, or use you, or both. We want to keep you safe from them, and help you get back to where you belong."

"I belong in Hell," she answered flatly; the boy's face paled and his emotions cooled greatly. She didn't know why he was disturbed by her honest answer or why she felt bad for his feeling bad for it. 

"I prefer the flowers better," she added distractingly, lifting her arms up to reference the flowers around them; she hoped he knew she was referring to them, but with the boy's seemingly slow nature, she didn't want to assume.

"Ivy and Harley are unwell people," he murmured quietly, "You don't have to stay with them. We can take you home."

"I have a new home now," Raven replied, crossing her arms the way she'd seen Ivy move them for dramatic effect; "I like it. It has dolls and a giraffe and hole I can slide down."

"What about your old home, your real family?" he pressed. 

"They're dead."

The boy's face paled again, and the boy's aura started to seep deeply into a cold and almost colorless blue of sorrow.

"My old parents are dead too," he revealed.

Raven wasn't sure what to do with the information, but the boy was smiling sadly like it was some sort of gift; she dropped her arms from her chest.

"I know what it's like to be scared and alone, and what's it's like trying to find a new home. Come with us Raven, let me help you find that new home."

Raven stepped back, the back of her neck raising like the hackles of Harley's hyenas.

"I like it here. They're nice to me."

The boy's smile faltered a bit; he seemed genuinely sad for her, and Raven couldn't figure out why, and it was starting to make her body react.

"These women aren't nice," Robin countered gently, falling to his knees to even their faces, he took her hands his own; "These women are sick Raven, they hurt people for terrible plans, and sometimes just for fun; they may not seem like it now, but they'll teach you horrible things, and make you do horrible things. They won't be able to help it, it's the sicknesses inside of their heads they can't get better from."

"I don't want to lose any mothers again," Raven whispered, as she tried to ignore how cold her insides felt.

Her eyes started to tear up; around them, plants became encased in her soulself, through no intentional action of her own.

The sight of her own powers acting on their own accord made her heart start beating faster and stung her eyes; she bit her lip to keep it from trembling and tried to keep her chin lifted.

"Okay," the boy replied, surprising her.

The boy put his hands on her shoulders and grinned warmly again, his aura a glowing yellow-morning of comfortable weather.

"Please," she pleaded, "I need them."

"Why?" he pushed, almost as desperate as herself.

Her body's disquiet started to leak into her head; she felt herself too shaken to adequately articulate the impending struggle she'd reach with her father.

"We won't take you away, you don't have to worry," he soothed; she fell into him and locked her arms around his neck as the tears started flowing freely down her cheeks; the plants snapped and flickered wildly around the glade, helpless in the throes of her soul.

She let her eyes fall shut and sobbed.

She didn't know which thought was more painful, that the boy thought her overseers were wicked, or that he thought she was a good person.

"What is this meaning of this, Batman," Ivy's voice called gravely, breaking Raven out of the trance-like state of sadness.

Raven turned her head in time to see her overseer stepping into the glade, her aura a flashy hot rage, her face scowling closely.

"Get away from her," she seethed at the boy, frightening him back.

The boy pulled her with him, unwilling apparently, to let her go.

Ivy seemed to ignore him afterward, in favor of the man clad in black.

The apparent Batman freed a hand and started to cut at the vines that bound him, prompting a growl from Ivy.

The plants retreated in pain from the man, and he dropped to the ground, a small cloud of dust puffing up at his feet.

"Whatever you're planning Isley," the black-clad man growled, "End it, let the girl go free."

"I'm not holding her hostage," Ivy proclaimed, stepping forward, her aural form braced and swollen as if she were drawing power from the Earth to appear more mighty than she was; "She's mine now. She has no one else. She has nowhere else to go."

"What makes you think you're fit to raise a child?" he challenged.

"What makes you think you are?" she countered; her tone was dark, and made Raven think that maybe the Robins had something to do with the remark. 

"You'll poison her Ivy," the man insisted, bringing himself to his full height; the horns on his skull were frightful, Raven thought.

"She's not human," Ivy replied, growing more visibly off-put by the man; "She's safe with me."

"Is she?" the man pressed, "Will she be so safe when Victor comes after her? The man's more deranged than ever, Ivy. He's sick with feverous impulses, he'll stop at nothing to get at the girl, to bring his wife back."

"We had a deal," Ivy stated a little less intently; her aura seemed to flicker; "Raven will help Nora when she's ready."

"And if she can't? What then?" he questioned dryly.

"Your questions are starting to irritate me, Batman," Ivy dismissed, calling her plants to her arms; "I suggest you take your prototype progeny and get out of my home while you still have feet to carry you," she warned.

The man retreated a few steps, and paused; he looked at her, giving Raven a strange sort of impression that he was both very mighty, and very sad.

Batman looked back to the woman.

"I hope, for both your sakes," he growled, "You can take this chance to make things work. I'll be watching you, Isley. I'll find you again, if you don't follow this child's best interests."

Ivy stiffened.

The man pulled the Robin to him, and raised his hand into the air, and a loud, alarming crack rang out through the flowers.

When Raven opened her eyes and pulled her hands from her ears, the man and his boy were gone.

Chapter Text

“Maybe we shoulda' kept Batsy around a bit longer…” Harley wondered aloud.

“What was that?” Ivy asked, not having fully processed Harley’s words.  

“Do you think she’s lonely Red?” Harley keened, “We should find her a playmate.”

“She has your mongrels,” Ivy retorted absently, as she shifted through her stack of notes, having caught onto the conversation.

At the woman’s responding huff, Ivy turned to glance over at the girl, who was reading on the floor, flanked on either side by Bud and Lou.

In a breath, Ivy questioned if perhaps her partner had a point.

“Doesn’t Deadshot have a daughter?” Ivy wondered aloud, turning to the bottle-blonde.

“I thinks’ so,” Harley agreed; “I heard Eddie’s gotta’ niece or somethin’,” she murmured on, tapping her chin in thought; “I know one of Kitty’s frenemies got a new son, that Jason boy from the papers.”

“Nocturna?” Ivy guessed, the memory of the newsreel dim in her mind; “She took one of Wayne’s wards.”

“The redhead,” Harley agreed, “-Tho somethin’ tells me he’ll darken with age,” she chirruped.

Ivy exhaled heavily and sat back in her chair.

“I’m more pressed about the Bat, at the moment,” Ivy admitted grudgingly, “Truth be told.”  

“What’s ta’ worry ‘bout?” Harley drawled as she looped her arms around Ivy’s neck; Ivy patted them absently with her free hand as Harley used her head as a chin rest.

“I’m probably just being silly,” Ivy agreed; she exhaled lightly and tapped Hayley’s arm once more before getting up from the desk; “I just wanted a little while longer with her, before he found out, I suppose.”  

“Worrywort,” Harley agreed gently, her smile warm as she pressed a kiss to Ivy’s nose.

Ivy hummed, somewhat in allotment; “Victor called again today. He’s getting impatient.”

“So?” Harley asked; “What’s Frosty got ta’sweetn’ the deal?”

Ivy glanced over to the still unassuming child before glancing back to Harley; she leaned in, prompting Harley to do the same.

“Ten grand’,” Ivy answered quietly; as Harley’s eyes grew wide, Ivy gestured her to keep quiet and continued; “With five up front, already wired.”

“Are we hurtin’ for money, Red?” Harley asked gently, her tone quietly somber.

“Of course not Peanut,” Ivy reassured, rubbing the woman’s shoulder fondly; “But children are expensive, and money never hurts.”

Harley seemed to think it over a second before nodding agreeing.

“The money was a nice touch, he’s throwing it in because he knows that we know he’s good for it, seems how you crossed him in the bank. What he’s really offering is a free favor.”

“Aww, gee, no diamonds or anything ?” Harley lamented.

“Something tells me that favors will only come in handy the further we get on,” Ivy replied; “And I want to get this over with sooner than later, before Fries gets a little less gentlemanly about things.”  

“Are ya, sure? Lil’ tyke’s just got over all her frostbite,” Harley noted; her eyes darting over to the girl and back again.

“I’ve explained to Vic that it might take a couple tries, to get the best results for Nora, and for the safety of the child. -He’ll abide by the circumstances or find himself one popsicle short of a stand, if he’s not careful.”

“I think his stock melted a long time ago, Red,” Harley quipped.

“Anyway, I’m going to start the car; if you’ll get Raven and fetch the blankets?” Ivy prompted, placing a kiss of her own against Harley’s cheek before stepping past her.

Harley slapped a quick, affectionately placed smack on the exiting woman’s rump before trodding over to the living room floor.

“Heyya’ chic-a-dee,” Harley sang; the way all three little faces lifted up to look at her, made Harley’s heart all a little flutter. She smiled and angled her hands on hips.

“We gotta’ play with the Ice-scream man,” Harley explained; “You wanna put yer’ book away or take it with you?”

Raven looked back to the textbook littered with Ivy’s old penmarks before picking it up; she closed it and set it on the nearest endtable, stumbling to keep herself from getting bowled over by her boys’ inquisitive noses.

“Chop-pop!” she trilled, clapping her hands and holding them out.

The girl meandered back over and allowed herself to be scooped up; the boys were understandably interested in also getting picked up.

“Sorry boys, Momma’s gotta grab some snuggelies,” she placated, patting them consolingly as she ignored their attempts to jump up and climb into her arms.  

Harley grabbed the comforter dragging almost halfway off the couch, and paused long enough to stoop down and grab the girl’s cape, which she’d left along the back of the armchair.

She whistled as she walked to the garage, Bud and Lou hot on her heels.

“Rosebud” was already hot and trembling, idly waiting as a freshly coat-donned Ivy finished loading what looked to be an extra suitcase of supplies into the ‘secret’ undercarriage compartment.

“Dibs on-”

“You’re not driving,” Ivy insisted flatly, as she removed an empty nitro canister from the back.

“...Shotgun,” Harley huffed.

After regaining her merry spirits, Harley slapped the side of the truck twice and whistled.

Bud and Lou expertly lept up into the truck bed, using the lip of the truck’s hitch as a leverage point.

While her babies scrambled around, making themselves comfortable as they joyfully anticipated going on a car ride, Harley wormed her way into the passenger seat, stuffed the blankets behind the seats, and settled the kid on her lap.

A few minutes later, Ivy slid into the driver’s seat and looked them over.

“All set?” she asked.

Harley clicked her tongue and popped a thumbs up; Ivy took hold of the gear stick to move it out of park, prompting Harley to tighten one arm around the child in her lap and the other around her affectionately named ‘Oh-shit!’ suicide handle.

Much to Harley’s annoyance, Ivy didn’t reflexively floor it, so Harley took a breath and relaxed against her seat as Ivy flicked on the radio.

At the instant flooding of news reports caterwauling across the frequency, Ivy grumbled and twiddled the knob until actual music swept in.

The drive was pleasant enough; with the lack of a proper roof, they were all free to let the wind breeze through their hair and in the cases of Bud and Lou, lull their tongues over the sills.

“How does this ‘tv’ move?”

“It’s called a tran-sper-tational vehicle,” Harley explained to the kid, in her faux-doctor voice; “It’s a truck. It runs on gas.”

“What’s gas?”

“About three-fifty a gallon,” Ivy answered absently.

“In Azarath-”

“Everything ran on magic, yes,” Ivy finished; “This is Earth now, Sweetpea,” she chided, “Everything runs on fossil fuels and the blood of the working class.”   

“I hear solar is taking off in Metropolis,” Harley chimed in conversationally.

“When there’s a sunny day in Gotham, tell me about it,” Ivy huffed.

“I like to think we’re stuck in some kinda’ timey-wimey placey paradox myself,” Harley replied, gesturing with the hand from the handle; “Feels kinda liminal, is all.”

“It is weird actually,” Raven murmured, not-quite surprising either of the women; “The city is on top of an old magic place, way down, very down. Deep. That’s how come I landed here. I followed the lines.”  

“Huh, ya’ know, I figure Strange said somethin’ ‘bout Arkham bein’ haunted. Magic in the walls and all,” Harley mused.

“Let’s not talk about Arkham right now, please,” Ivy begged off; “I’ve had enough of that place for several lifetimes.

“What’s Arkham?” Raven asked innocently.

“It’s a place to put people to forget about ‘em,” Harley replied sternly before brightening up in an almost comically unsettling fashion; “It’s home away from home!”

“Harley,” Ivy warned; “Later.”

Harley sighed and settled Raven closer against her.

A few moments went by, before Raven ventured to speak up again.

“First-Acolyte-Robin said that you two weren’t to be trusted, and that you being nice to me is an outlier not to be counted.”  

Harley’s reply was an elongated, eloquent fart noise, made with her mouth.

Ivy smiled.

The not-so-abandoned Ice Cream Factory where Freeze holed himself up when not steeping in his misery in Arkham was just about as depressing as Harley and Ivy remembered it being.

“Gee, could use a few coats of paint, huh Red?”

“And some bulldozing wouldn’t hurt,” Ivy agreed, turning the engine to a halt.

Harley popped her door open while Ivy fiddled with the keys; Bud and Lou eagerly raced around the truck bed until Harley motioned for them to hop out, by which time Ivy was behind her, with the blanket tossed over her shoulder.

“Come here, Larkspur,” Ivy crooned, prompting Harley to wait as Ivy affixed the child’s cape about her neck.

“Alright, let’s go,” she urged; “Victor gets cranky left waiting.”

“I’ll say,” Harley agreed.

The guards at the stairs recognized them instantly, and for once, as the women were invited guests, allowed them uninterrupted passage through the front doors.

“Brrr,” Harley chitted, shivering at the instant change in temperature.

“You could have put on a jacket,” Ivy chided lazily, “Or any sort of real clothes.”

“Blasphemous!” Harley quipped, “This booty is too cutie to cover up!”

Rather than argue the point of the matter, Ivy simply draped the blanket over the blonde’s shoulders.

“That’ll have to do for now,” Ivy murmured; “I’ll give you my coat when we get back to the car,” she promised quietly.

Harley hummed.

“And Raven, best behavior, little bird,” Ivy warned.

“Okie-dokey,” the girl replied, the phrase obviously one picked up from the woman carrying her.    

Some of Freeze’s henchmen directed them to the main front office, where the man turned out to have been waiting for them.

He seemed as grim as ever, but his refined abject state of melancholy seemed almost defrosted, as far as either villainess could tell.

“Welcome, child,” Victor greeted morosely; his grin was tired and eyes were dim.

“Hi-ya’ Frech-Frise!” Harley quipped happily, unperturbed; “Nice ta’ see ya’ not so blue!”

“Yes. The… child’s powers are something quite remarkable,” Freeze admitted, as he looked himself over.  

“The transformation was perhaps unsuspected but one still appreciated, with time,” he continued. “It will take some getting used to. I hope the revival of my Nora, will help ease the recovery,” he added.

“Remember,” Ivy warned, her hand perched firmly on Harley’s shoulder; “Patience Victor.”

“Yes, yes,” he agreed, his words labored; “I’ll not harm the girl Pamala. I’ve waited so long… I can afford to get it right.”

Ivy looked him over for a moment, in a silent test of wills, before nodding once; she squeezed Harley’s shoulder softly, before withdrawing her hand.

“Come this way please, my Nora is down this hall, in my labs,” the man insisted; "Though I implore you to leave your canines here."

"Bud, Lou?" Harley cooed at the boys, "Momma's gotta go. You stay here, okie dokie?" 

A few henchmen bravely offered to keep them entertained, with well-meaning dog toys in hand.

At the sight of a tennis ball, one of the henchmen was quickly bowled over: Harley laughed and bid the group farewell, before nodding at Freeze to continue on.  

There was little way of a tour, as they went, but at Raven’s odd question or two, the villains were want enough to supply answers to her; after a quick rundown of what the building was, and what some of the more noticeable machines were, Raven pried loose the man’s tale of tragedy.

Harley stiffened her lips and tried to keep from getting watery eyed; matters of lovers were always something of a tender spot for the woman. Ivy however, remained largely unbothered; she supposed on some level she was more or less pleasantly inclined enough to wish the couple well, but she wasn’t close to the man or his wife, and was generally disinclined towards people in general.

Raven seemed the most affected; a state which Harley noticed absently as clutched the girl more tightly to her, to help keep out the cold.

Victor himself, was sporting a thick coat and winter apparel; caught somewhere between his previous subzero state and a complete return to normalcy as the man was, Harley internally wondered how the transition was affecting him.   

They were well into the labs, by the time Freeze had finished his overt lament for his nearly-late wife.

“Though my hands are no longer of subzero state,” he breathed, as his hand pressed against his wife’s cryo-pod; “I am still as far from my wife as any glass between us.”

“Alright Feathers,” Harley chirped, “Down you go~” she sang, as she let the girl slide onto the floor.

“When you get tired,” Ivy instructed, “Stop.”

“Yes Mam,” Raven responded, her attention already turned to the woman floating suspended in the tank before them all.

Freeze stepped away, allowing the child to pass him by.

Though Harley’s attention quickly began to wander about the hidden lab, Ivy remained focused on the child, and the villain standing quietly some feet behind her.

Raven’s tiny hands pressed against the glass; from behind her as she was, Ivy took note of the girl’s spiraling indigo curls. She made a mental note to spend some time thawing out the strands, as the child’s hair was already sporting spots of frost.

“Can she come out of the glass?” Raven asked, turning to the man.

“No,” he answered cleanly.

Raven took the man at his word, and faced the frozen woman once more.

The room seemed to dim, ever so slightly.

The electronics and various sensors recording Nora’s data failed to sound any alarm, but the atmosphere seemed to grow heavy and thick; the girl seemed to be drawing some kind of power to herself, that had nothing to do with sockets or wires.     

The child melted into a shadowy mass; still pressed up to the glass as it was, the quivering and nearly transient flicker of darkness would have been unsettling to witness, had the hardened criminals in the room not been so used to being immersed in the stranger ways of Gotham City.  

Harley’s consoling hand to Victor’s shoulder likely didn’t hurt matters either, as far as either of the grown women were concerned.

Raven’s shadowy state melted through the glass; Harley’s hands kept Freeze from rushing the pod, though the man stilled when the last of the shadow melted into the tank, revealing the child’s body left standing motionless outside the tank.

Inside the surrounding fluids, the shadow curled around Nora, and melted into her.

The tank waters seemed to grow black, for a moment, before a bright and familiar white-blue light illuminated from within, bathing the now extremely darkened lab in a faint luminous glow.

Ivy leaned against a nearby countertop.

Harley slowly coaxed Victor into sitting down, nearer to the edge of the room, where his emotions were less likely to cause the child any interference.   

She seemed to pulse in stages; spending just shy of three minutes in the tank before returning to her body to breathe and going back again.

Then it was five minutes.

Then seven.

Then eight.

At length, Raven managed to work in intervals just shy of ten minutes, where she then spent several seconds returned to her body, huffing panting breaths and bracing herself against the glass before going back again.

“Hey Viccy,” Harley chimed, breaking the man out of his silent and watchful reverie.

“Got any cocoa in tha’ joint?” she nodded at the kid and then gestured to her self; “Baby’s gonna be chilly and Mamma could use a hot tottie.”

The villain beckoned at his henchman, and a few of them retreated out of the lab and returned some thirty minutes later, pushing carts of steaming hot entrees and freshly brewed drinks.

Harley helped herself to a peppermint schnapps infused cocoa, while Ivy seemed reluctant to investigate any of the platters. As if in retaliation, Harley assembled a plate for herself, and one for Ivy, and brought it to the plant woman directly.

The hot water capped with squeezed lemon was not the most exciting drink Ivy had ever imbibed, but the warmth was refreshing, and helped melt the chill from her chlorophyll lined blood.

When at last, Raven pulled herself back into her body, and stayed there, the light in the lab brightened to its original state, and the atmosphere felt open and airy once more.

Inside the pod, Nora began to thrash.

Immediately, her husband was at the glass, prying it open as from around everyone in the room, alarms and frenzied systematic errors began to pile up.  

Swiftly, Ivy pulled Raven off the floor, so she wouldn’t be trodd on in Freeze’s pointedly focused retrieval.

She passed the girl off to Harley and helped rearrange the blanket about them both, which was made difficult by Harley’s emotional investment in the scene, as she kept trying to peak over shoulders and squirm around for a better view.

Ivy stepped to Harley’s side, and turned to take in the scene herself.

Victor sat on the floor, his wife in arms; the pair of them seemed weak, as if they were still thawing into themselves.

Around them, henchman scurried about, re-setting the machines and ferrying supplies in and out of the lab.

One of them stopped long enough to usher the supervillainesses and their young charge back up the stairs and into a repurposed breakroom, where they took seats on the couches.

As the women rubbed warmth back into their limbs, the henchman lit up the fireplace, and promised to return with more blankets and hot beverages, before scurrying off again.

“Should we go or…” Ivy mused.

“What’s tha’ point in doin’ a good deed if you don’t stick around for it?” Harley countered happily; she propped her feet up on the coffee table and released Raven, who wrapped in the blanket, tiredly scuttled over to the fireplace.

The girl thankfully didn’t edge too close, and the fireplace had a descent of grate that neither Harley nor Ivy felt the need to rattle off any warnings.

They waited for what seemed like hours, huddled in the small but admittedly cozy room, waiting for Freeze and his bride to emerge.

The henchman at least, were true to their words and kept their mugs brimming with warmed liquids and their fire well stoked.

When at last, Victor strode gently through the doors, Harley had to prod Ivy, who’d started to doze.

“How is she, Doc?” Harley asked brightly.

“Stable,” he answered; “As you said, Nora and I will likely need… another round, of the child’s tending, and while the disease is still corrupting her body, it has been regressed to a previous stage. One that I’m confident I can crush before it takes root again,” he promised ruthlessly; “But for now, she is resting,” he continued, his tone melting, “And for the first time in several long years, I was able to hold my beloved wife’s hand, and watch her smile as she drifted into sleep.”

“I have you and your child to thank for that,” he murmured.

Strange as it was, for Harley and Ivy to see the man display such an aura of hope-filled humanity, neither villainess seemed pressed to break the moment.

Fries looked over to the girl on the floor.

“Is the child well?”

“I’m awake,” mumbled the girl, clearly exhausted.

“I know I promised you a favor, but I’d like to give the child something as well,” Freeze proposed to the women; “For giving me the gift of my Nora.”

The man pulled something from his coat; catching the glint of firelight on the glass, Ivy quickly bade the girl to sit up.

Raven righted herself as Victor walked over, kneeled, and placed the trinket before her.

“I’ve no need of this now,” the man said smoothly, “Perhaps… It will bring you some joy, and find new purpose.”

Raven peaked out from the blanket, and drank in the sight of the tiny figure inside the glass; there were great feelings of longing seeped into the structure, which she felt empathetically.

“Do you see the key, there?” Freeze asked; “Turn it.”

Raven obediently wound the key, and then watched in amazement as the figure inside started to dance.  

Victor rose, and regarded the two woman before him.

“I’ll have some… cookies sent up,” he offered awkwardly, “You are of course free to stay as long as you wish.”

“And the last part of our agreement,” Ivy interjected calmly, “If you would be so kind.”

“Yes, of course,” Freeze agreed; “I’ll have it wired presently.”

“Thank you,” Ivy replied, nodding.

The man looked torn for a moment, caught between the idea of socializing somewhat, and the overwhelming exhaustion written across his features.

He compromised by taking up a vacant armchair, and traded good-natured conversation with Harley until the evening wore on; Raven seemed as delighted by the cookies as she had been the toy, and it wasn’t long before the warmth of her freshly given hot cocoa lulled the girl to sleep.

The adults spent a few hours more, chatting amiably, before Ivy bid the man good night and collected the slumbering Raven in her arms; the treasured music box tucked tightly to her chest.

Ivy took the passenger seat, and Harley found herself pleasantly surprised and mildly concerned that the prolonged chill had nullified Ivy’s fussing nature; the way the redhead looked with the kid tucked under her chin however, was enough to brighten Harley’s smile, and thrum her underbreathed humming higher by a few happy notes.   

Chapter Text

Harley bolted upright.

Everything was dark, and though the solid presence of Ivy slumbering beside her was groundingly reassuring, Harley couldn’t help but tremble as she succumbed to the feeling that something was very, very wrong.

As a master criminal, Harley was used to listening to her gut instincts; she wasted no time in attempting to ignore her sensibilities.

Ivy was hard to rouse, but the woman obediently slipped into the defensive as she took note of Harley’s demeanor and tightly drawn lips.  

Ivy sat up slowly; she glanced around the darkened room carefully, but found nothing apparent in her scan.

“What’s wrong,” Ivy then said, quietly.

“I heard somethin’,” Harley insisted; “An’ besides, everythin’… feels strange, doesn’t it?”

Ivy seemed to agree with her, because the woman quickly slipped to her feet; her breath was faintly visible, by a faint light seeping in from the hall.   

“...I feel it too,” Ivy replied, her body still geared in alert.

“The Bat don’t feel like this,” Harley observed, as Ivy tugged on a nightgown; “Maybe it’s the professor?”

“If Crane was here Pea-nut, we’d already be asphyxiating,” the woman countered.

“ Please , I used to sniff his shit for fun,” Harley deflected.

“ Used to,” Ivy repeated firmly.

Harley conceded the point and slid off the bed herself.

“Bud n’ Lou ain’t barking,” Harley noted, her tone low and wary.

“Be ready for anything,” Ivy warned; Harley nodded and grabbed for the well-worn baseball bat she kept at the headboard.   

The pair strutted into the hall, grim determination riddled across each of their faces.

“...Does something smell burning to you?” Harley asked.

Instantly, Ivy was awash in panic; the woman raced into the direction of her garden.

Harley tried to keep up, but even at her most determined, she found herself some few paces behind.

Ivy’s blood-curdling scream, told Harley that Ivy’s worst nightmare was once again, an unfortunate reality.  

Harley arrived in time to see Ivy fiddling frantically with the electrical box that controlled most of the garden’s automated processes; with likely intent to override the watering schedules to turn on the overhead sprinklers.

From behind the glass doors, Harley could make out the tell-tale orange glow of firelight spreading through the greenery; she felt sickened.

It always seemed that no matter how long they layed low, or to what extents they tried, that something would always inevitably blow their efforts back into their faces, Harley mourned.

As Harley through about the injustice of it all, a shadow darting through the cultivated jungle caught her attention.

“HEY!” Harley screeched, “Get back here!”

She pushed through the doors and bolted inside, intent on obtaining the intruder, and beating some answers out of them.

Ivy followed close behind, murmuring worriedly to herself about which specimens she’d be forced to choose over the others and promises of retributional bodily harm to the fire’s perpetrator.    

The redhead yelped as she spotted one of her favored flowering crossbreeds crumpling under the heat of the flames, and made to dash towards it.

Harley grabbed her arm tightly and dragged her onwards unapologetically; she’d learnt from past experience that saving plants not yet in the fires reach was the only option that saved more than one plant or two at all.

“Come on Red, we gotta’ catch tha’ bastard!” she cried, “-And find the kid!”

Ivy murmured the child’s name, as if remembering partially that she existed; Harley drug her down the path, fully intent on outspeeding the flames.

Ivy’s weight shifted, and Harley nearly whiplashed from the change of momentum as Ivy dug in her heels; Harley turned to get a better grip on the woman’s arm, but was surprised as Ivy pointed to something above them and screeched.

The tree, thicker around then most Harley had ever seen, was incoming practically on top of them, spinning from the sheer heat of the flames billowing up its barkcoated body.

During the seconds Harley was dumbstruck watching their impending death race up to meet them, Ivy bowled her over, in an effort to lessen the impact as much as possible.

It was therefore, a startling revelation then, when the impact did not come.

Cautiously, Harley creaked open her eyes to see the tree fallen around them; it was almost spatially impossible, the way that it was positioned.

But it’s non-Euclidean nature almost paled in comparison, to the way Ivy was quite literally, standing inside the thick of the flames, without so much as wincing.

“It’s not real,” Harley mused, as she watched Ivy inspect the flames further, before moving on to look after the supposedly burning foliage around them.  

“Who would go through the trouble of making this an illusion?” Ivy asked.   

“Doesn’t Zanna make illusions?” Harley wondered uneasily, her mind recalling the provocatively clad magician.

“Her’s aren’t… flat,” Ivy disregarded, as she stepped out of the harmless inferno.

“Neither is Hatter’s,” Harley added, her brain-wheels already spinning further along; “Tho his aren’t really magic, more like suggestions and stuff I think.”

“...Do you think,” Ivy began quietly, before her posture brightened; “The kid,” she stated flatly.

“To the treehouse!” Harley belted in agreement; relief started to mix with the adrenalin in her bloodstream, causing Harley to feel a little less coordinated than she’d have liked, as she and Ivy traversed through the jungle growth once more.    

More flickering shadows darted across their path and hovered around their peripherals, but the ladies now paid them no mind.

When they reached the treehouse, Harley fought a shiver; the tree felt as though it was shrouded in a sense of foreboding misery.

She clicked her tongue and decided she rather liked it, in a mild haunted-house sort of way what with its’ screams and abyss-like darkness lurking behind the windows.

Some of the sounds caught the forefront of Harley’s attention.

“Babies!” she screeched, recognizing the whines of her beloved hyenas.

Ivy wasted no time with the ladder, electing instead to ride a vine up to the tiny porch while Harley scrambled up the rungs as fast as she could muster.

Bud and Lou were thankfully alright, their whines and troubled postures huddled on the child’s bed as they tried desperately to soothe the child floating stilly above her bed, powerless to ease her apparently-troubled sleep as they nipped at her nightclothes.

Ivy shooed the beasts off the bed to climb onto it herself, Harley quickly following after.

The girl was shaking, and while she wasn’t tossing or turning, Raven hissed and growled intermittently, intermixed with sobbing gasps and incoherent mumbling that might have been in some unearthly language.

Harley tried to focus on keeping her head clear, despite her heart clogging her throat.

“Come on, wake up,” Ivy prompted, her tone gentle but firm; she placed her hand delicately against Raven’s shoulder but refrained from shaking her.

“Wake up Sweetie,” Harley added, as Bud and Lou nosed their ways into her lap.

Ivy frowned as the girl remained in the grim throes of her nightmare.

“Raven,” Ivy called, her tone more insistent as objects floating around the room began to wobble and distort.

Raven fell to the bed; a scream tore itself from deep inside Raven’s body.

Raven heaved upright, her many eyes flashing open a raw scarlet; black formless matter ripping itself from her throat.

“Raven calm down, it’s okay,” Ivy ordered pleadingly, “We’re here, Buttercup.”

The skin around the girl’s brow began to prickle and spike into two blackened horns.

“Fight it Birdie,” Harley insisted, as she wrapped her arms around the child; “You can do it!”

“It’s okay, it’s okay love, we’re here,” Ivy pressed; Raven growled a sound that sent the hyenas scampering to the edges of the room.

“Harley’s got ya’, too!” she reinforced, as the kid started to shake again.

Raven murmured something, the syllables layered against each other as if her voice had been broken into pieces.

Ivy shot Harley a look, one that said it was something to make note of.

“It’s okay, we got you,” Harley repeated more gently to the girl, as she rocked her slightly.

Raven began to settle back against Harley’s chest; Ivy leaned closer to lay a hand on the girl’s face.

“More bad dreams, little bird?” Ivy asked.

Raven refused to meet Ivy’s eyes; Ivy shot another shared glance to Harley, confirming the question, before looking back at the girl again.

Though none of them were strangers to nightmares, this was the first instance things had been so… intense, from the little girl.

Ivy ran her hand through Raven’s thick curly locks while Harley settled Raven more comfortably into her lap.

“...Memories,” the girl eventually said, before falling silent.

Bud and Lou crept back to the bed and cautiously put their front paws on the bedsheets, eager to join themselves.

“Raven, darling,” Ivy began, “please put the furniture down.”

“I can’t… turn them off,” Raven replied tersely; the girl seemed exhausted and lost in her own thoughts.

“I’m sure it’ll all come down when it’s ready,” Harley replied dismissively.

“Would you like us to sit with you, until you feel better?” Ivy asked.

Raven didn’t respond, but lifted her tilted head enough that Ivy could make out the tremble of her lips, as she nodded.

“Alright,” Ivy agreed; she settled herself next to Harley and let one hand fall to Raven’s arm, where her thumb made a few comforting circles on the girl’s skin.

“You don’t have to be afraid of nothin’ no more Suger,” Harley asserted helpfully, “You got us.”

“Yes,” Ivy agreed, as lifted her hand to stroke Raven’s cheek, “You have us. You’re alright. It’s safe here.”

“And you have the boys, and you have Auntie Whiskers, and Uncle Freeze, and lot’s’a others out there who care about you that you haven’t even met yet, ” Harley added dismissively; she patted the bed and whistled a quick note to invite the hyenas to join them.

Ivy begrudgingly made room by adjusting her legs, but seemed content enough when the pair finally settled.    

Raven didn’t seem as convinced as either of them would’ve liked, inciting them to share another concerned glance between themselves.

“Do you wanna talk about it, Little Bird?” Ivy asked, wondering if the girl’s troubled memories were once again of “bad men” and “Azarath”.

Raven shook her head.

“Should we bring her back to our room?” Harley asked.

“Just for tonight,” Ivy agreed, surprising the woman; “She has to get used to being on her own.”

“Maybe bein’ on her own is causin’ the terrors, Red,” Harley pressed gently, concerned.

Ivy exhaled a labored breath that was just as tired existentially as it was physically; she wondered if she should have procured a manual of some sort for childrearing.

“Maybe we should take her to the professor,” Harley suggested; glancing around the room; “If anyone knows about pasts and fears it's him.”  

“Perhaps,” Ivy agreed, eyeing the disarray of the treehouse; “Let’s get all this cleaned up first.”

Chapter Text

Professor Crane woke with a grumble and string of mumbled curses; while he was by no means a man of a normal circadian rhythm, he like many other villains often fell to bouts of light napping in lieu of proper slumber.

He almost winced at the bright and exuberant voice on the other end of the line; almost hung up on her on point of principle, but the offer and circumstances of the clown woman’s call were too curious to pass over.

He agreed to their suggestion and promptly hung up to set about readying his supplies.

The party arrived precisely at half-past three, child in tow.

Strange little thing, the girl looked to be.

Small, and clearly too young for the cape she was sporting, the child carried herself with a grace he’d never encountered in any youth before; the black horns emanating from her scalp seemed to attest to her inhuman nature.

“It’s good that you came to me, my dears,” he professed, “You’ll want to keep this one away from Tetch, if you care for her,” he warned, as noted the girl’s dollish face; “He means well but you know how fixated he gets.”

The plant woman grunted, perhaps in agreement; he never could tell with her, with how seemingly exasperated at everything the woman always seemed to be.

“Still, come in come in,” he welcomed, ushering the group into his lair, “Please take a seat and tell me more about this fascinating dilemma.”

When everyone was seated, Scarecrow laced his fingers together, and kept his gaze locked respectfully at the spot just under Harley’s nose; he didn’t dare risk encouraging… any of her behaviors by making direct eye contact, and nor did he wish to risk dismemberment by her plant controlling companion for ‘spurring anything on’.

“This here is Raven,” Harley introduced; the name already sparking curiosity and half ignored parallels.

Why would a harlequin need a blackbird, he wondered, before pushing the thought aside; he’d leave the riddling to Eddy.

“She’s got some troubles with some nightmares,” Harley continued.

“Not anything of my doing, I assure you,” he declared absently; he clearly remembered not having done anything than study his control groups for some stretch of time, and he hadn’t had any children go missing from his studies.  

“We want you to find out what she’s afraid of,” Harley clarified, interrupting his musings.

“...Intriguing,” he answered; “Fear, I can do,” he replied, standing.

He thought for a moment, and rubbed the sackcloth over his chin.

“Move the child to the armchair, I’ll be right back,” he placated, before venturing into his makeshift miniature testing lab; while he, like most villains, had many hideaways scattered across the city, he was forever thankful he’d nabbed the two bedroom apartment before Dent had. Made his life so much more organized, he mused as he rifled through his cabinet of oddly colored vials; and Harvey that much more prominently vexed.    

He selected a preliminary testing dose, and moderately sized needle of unnecessary long length, before returning back to his guests.

“Alright, now remember this is for science Child,” he began as began filling the syringe, “So please be as honest about your experiences as you can.”

The girl didn’t respond, which a little odd; he set the syringe on the counter behind her, before pulling a little packet containing a tiny sterilizing wipe from his coat pocket.

He grabbed the girl’s arm and tried not to chuckle as he all but felt the redhead behind him fuming.

“Not that my needles are rusty,” he chuckled; “at least not this one anyway,” he teased.

Harley snickered, temporarily reminding Crane of how much he enjoyed the clown’s penchant for malice; cleaning done, he returned his attention to the syringe.

“You seem to excel at sitting still, Child,” he rambled as he tapped the air bubbles out of the elixir; “keep doing that.”

The girl’s eyes twitched a bit, as he brought the needle to her arm; the needle slid inside the vein easily. The girl looked to the two women she’d been escorted by, likely in an instinctual drive for security, before turning her glance back to her arm.

Crane pressed the plunger; he did so slowly, more out of habit than mercy.

He did so hate it when errant air bubbles killed off his subject supply.

“Now, you should begin to feel yourself enter a state of woozy-like semi-lucidity, ripe for suggestibility and exploitation,” he explained happily; he paused his speech long enough to remove the needle and ruffled the girl’s hair.

“Luckily for you, Moppet, your Mommies have very specific plans for what we’ll uncover this evening.”

Unrestricted, a few more chuckles escaped him; oh, how he loved science.  

He grabbed a notepad from his coffee table, sending a few newspapers and magazines skittering across the floor.

He drug the coffee table in front of the armchair, the non-rubbered feet making a terrible screeching dredge across the wooden floor.

As he sat down he fiddled about his coat until Harley tapped his shoulder, an understanding smile gracing her belaying features.

He took the pen and nodded, dismissing the clown back to her seat before addressing the girl.

“Wonderful, now then,” he began, allowing the fabric of his mask to stretch about uncannily around his face, “Close your eyes. Tightly now, no peeking.”

The girl’s eyes closed obediently, prompting Crane to wish if only half of his test subjects could be so compliant.

“Good, good. Now, I want you to think back. Think carefully now, across everything you can remember. What stands out to you that you don’t like?” he asked purposefully, “What are you afraid to remember? What makes you quiver in the night?”

Ivy’s huff and Harley’s fidgeting were little more than background noise, as Crane watched the child; her face scrunched up slightly, in thought. It was as tho Crane could see the gears in her little head turning and churning around and around.  

Then, before his eyes, the girl’s face started to pale.

The child pressed back into the seat, as if she could put distance between herself and what was in her mind.

Her mouth started to twitch, and Crane caught glimpses of pearly teeth between in the beginnings of her snarls.

“Yes yes, keep thinking now,” he goaded; it was always such a delight to watch the fear take hold.

The girl started to tremble; her lips parted wider, and Crane noted with some interest that her teeth were almost animalistic in nature. A dog’s perhaps, he guessed, though animal husbandry was far from his strong suit.

The lights around the room began to flicker, which he at first nearly contributed to missing the payment of his electrical bill, before recalling that he had… ensured, that his landlord would require no reimbursements from him at all.

A strange black substance started to worm its way out of the chair, and cusp around the child’s body, lending him to believe that the girl’s nature was physically based in some way.

His grin widened.

He leaned a little closer to get a better look at the girl’s face.

Red eyes snapped open, a number of them far too many to not be surprising; off guard, he reeled back and nearly fell off his seat.

The girl made a sound with her mouth that Crane wish he’d been able to record for future use in other experiments.

Clearly on guard now, the girl was suffering from the full effects of the serum.

“What do you fear, child,” he asked clearly; there was little point for malice now, when there were too many things to learn.   

The girl growled, her little body hunched over herself; for a split second, Crane could have sworn he’d seen a flicker of forked tongue dart between her teeth.

“My father,” the girl murmured at last, in an accent far from the usual Crane could recall hearing.

“Ahh… yes,” he offered, jotting several of the observations he’d noted down, “Fathers tend to cause a lot of problems in young children. Tell me child, are you afraid of him touching you? Or was the type of man who yelled a lot?”

The girl was silent again, her pairs of eyes squinted closed as her face snarled absently around in the air, her body jerking as she tried to avoid the images and memories that plagued her.

“Denying your fears only increases their power,” he chided, as he wrote another note.

The girl hissed, but managed to still herself for the most part.

“My father is a demon,” she growled.

All at once, Crane noted that everything went absolutely bonkers, so much so that he briefly wondered if Harley had gassed him with some new strand of Joker toxin.

The flickering lights were now blaring like strobelights; his furniture had seemed to take life all its own and was now hovering and swirling about in the air of their own accord.

The women behind him yelped as the couch tipped up and flung itself into the ceiling, dropping them to their knees.

“Grab her,” he ordered, as he tried to forcibly keep the armchair firmly on the ground.

Thick vines slithered into life as Harley dashed by him, grabbing the bottom of the chair and rooting it into the floor below; Ivy joined Harley by the child’s side, and they pressed the girl’s shoulders back into the chair.

“This is getting interesting,” he mused, eager to see what else the night had in store.    

Question after question however, proved fruitless as the girl worked herself further and further into a state of refusal; she squirmed and hissed, likely suffering from hallucinations, and then intermittently tried to hold her breath, in vain attempts to calm herself down, even after he’d explained that her efforts were meaningless to the chemical reactions happening inside of her body.  

Not even a second, slightly stronger dosage proved helpful in prying anything more from the girl’s resisting psyche; occasionally she’d shriek or yelp a pointed ‘no’, but the word was all but useless for Crane’s purposes.

It took a third dose, of a full normal strength he usually reserved for the Bat himself, to break her down.

He was nearly impressed.

Whoever had trained her, had certainly done their diligence; he wondered if the Bat had lost a new charge, before refocusing to the task at hand and scribbled down a few more notes.

The girl sobbed, her shrieks meeting the clenched teeth of her captors on either side of the chair.

The amount of magical whiplash that they’d braced themselves through showed around their tired bodies and grim determined expressions.

He himself, also felt the strain of the interrogation, having likewise been flung across the room several instances; he could already feel that his back and his hip would be aching come the morrow.

“It’ll be easier for everyone,” he warned the girl again, “If you just tell us what you’re afraid of, child. We can do this all night you know. We could drag this out for days, if we wanted to. Weeks, even,” he continued, wiping the blood off of his lip; “I for one, would find it a pleasure, I do assure you,” he seethed.

The tension from the air, that had seemed so thick and stiflingly hot, seemed to dwindle as the girl started to fall quieter.

He took a moment to compose himself as the furniture, what was left of it, slowly came to their landings on the floor.

Harley shuddered once, while Ivy coaxed the vines encircling the child to slacken.

The girl tried to speak, and for a moment Crane was hopeful, until the syllables proved themselves to be mindless garbles.

He scoffed in indignation, annoyed at himself for getting so worked up over the thought that a child of all things could prove entertaining, as Ivy murmured something he didn't care to pay attention to at the girl.

A strangled sound cut off from the child’s mouth, which did catch his attention, prompted him to turn slightly, to face her once more.

“I’m afraid of the day I’ll be born again,” she murmured, barely loud enough for any of them to hear, through stuttering teeth and sniveling shakes.

The women above her exhaled in relief, apparently satisfied; the girl remained silent, save for the sounds of her labored breathing. 

Disgusting as the tears streaming down her face were, and the snot bubbling around her nostrils, Crane decided that the girl was an interesting person after all.

He wrote down the admission for prosperity, and kindly asked the women to take the girl and get the hell out of his apartment, at their refusal to leave the girl for further study.

After they left, and he was standing in the ruin of the quiet room, Crane added a final note, to keep an eye on the girl, as he had a creeping curiosity as to how the child’s fortunes would unfold. 

Chapter Text

“Do you have any idea what that could mean?” Ivy asked, recounting the phrase Raven had muttered under duress.

“It sounds mystical-y,” Selina replied as she inspected her clawtips; “I have a few contacts that might be able to help figure it out.”

“Would any of those figures not come equipped with the regalia of a Bat?” Ivy snipped.

“Don’t be catty, Daisy,” Selina quipped, resting her claws on her hip; “I’ll see about setting you up with Madame Zodiac -you like her, don’t you?”

Ivy crossed her arms and attempted not to grouse at the suggestion.

“She double-crossed me, if you remember,” Ivy recalled, her cadence cool but not entirely devoid of warmth.

“An unbiased favor is usually the best one to call in,” Catwoman dismissed, shrugging.  

The latex and leather-clad woman tilted her head slightly, her bottom lip pinned momentarily between her teeth.

“So how's she handling it? The kid, I mean,” Selina broached, her tone laced with a bit of awkward concern.

“Managing,” Ivy replied calmly; “She'll get over it sooner or later.”

“Or not,” she warned.

“You'd rather we take her to Arkham? - Or Thatch?” Ivy mused; Catwoman, in turn, exhaled a surrendering breath.

“Her magic is too strong to ignore,” Ivy stated offhandedly, giving the catburglar pause; “It'll only get stronger as she grows. I'd rather nip any offshoots in the roots now than risk any stranglers sprouting later.”

“You’re really going all in on this kid, Red,” she broached, her words cautious but tenderly hopeful.

Ivy took a minute to reply, visibly uncomfortable with the amount of human emotion she was no doubt being plagued by.

“Sidekicks are all the rage this season,” she offered at length, “Thought I’d cultivate the best prospect for my own.”

Selina nodded, the answer good enough to rationalize away; Gotham was strange enough a place as it was. There wasn’t any reason she could come up with, to stand contemplating the individual events that never stopped happening around her for any longer than she had to.   

That, and, Selina admitted, Ivy had always had something of a soft spot for the notion of raising children, dispute all her awful ways of bringing her dream of domesticity into being.

The train of thought led her back to the clown doll.

“Take it Harley’s pretty stoked,” she offered, not quite question nor statement.

Ivy’s features softened sadly, as they often did when mention of the woman was brought up; Selina hoped for both their sakes, their dances of Greek tragedy would come to an end, one way or another.

“She run back to the Joker?” Selina ventured.

“Not yet,” Ivy replied, the rain weighing down the great volumes of her hair; “Not that that means much.”

Selina restrained herself from biting her lip again and slipped on a warming smile.

“Maybe she’ll stick around this time, with the kid and all,” she tried, “The bastard could never give her that.”

“Perhaps,” Ivy replied, in a manner that almost made Selina wonder if Ivy agreed with her.

Selina allowed them both a minute to take in the comforting cacophony of the city, some odd number of stories below.

“Big heist tonight?” Ivy asked; surprising Selina for the companionable nature of her tone.

Taking advantage of the woman’s rarely surfacing humanity, Selina replied, “Reconnaissance; gotta’ figure out why Black Mask is vying to steal the Cat’s Eye Emerald out from under my claws.”

“You know it’s a trap,” Ivy drawled, humor on her tongue.

Selina exhaled an airy laugh; “Yeah I know. But a girl’s gotta’ set her standards, you know.”

“True,” Ivy agreed.

The woman stretched, and pulled her hair back, wringing some of the excess water from it, and let it fall behind her back.

Her eyes were brilliantly keen, which Selina was admittedly supportive of.

“Good luck tonight, Cat,” she offered, clearly taking her exit; “Let me know when you get to Madame Zodiac.”

Catwoman nodded; “Good luck with the chemical heist. Let me know when you need me to babysit again; little tyke was kinda cute.”   

Ivy turned with a flare, and her rotund elevator-vine began to unfurl while the woman stepped onto it.

“Tell the girls I said hi!” Selina called, as Ivy began to descend back down to the streets below.

Ivy waved a hand dismissively, as she fell below the edge of the building.

Selina allowed herself a moment to smirk, before cracking her whip with an excited zeal.

She turned, and readied herself her evening escapade with joviality.    

Chapter Text

“Time to get up, Buttercup,” Harley chirruped at the girl still moping in bed; she sighed and weighed the pros and cons of climbing up the flagpole to ‘escort’ the child out of bed. 

“We have to see a new friend today, Chuckles,” Harley explained, pulling herself up; “She’s not gonna stick you with nothin’, I promise. She’s really hard to get’a chance to talk to though, so we gotta’ meet her tonight.”

Raven didn’t respond. 

As she had since they brought her home from her appointment with Crane, the girl was refusing to budge from her vigil of silence and near-inactivity. 

Harley wondered how a light round of shock therapy might spark some life back into Raven’s face before the nagging voice with her dead-name in her psyche goaded her into foregoing the idea.  

“...You’re gonna’ worry Red, actin’ like this, Kiddo,” Harley then bartered, as she stood up and braced her hands on her hips.

Raven rolled over in bed, facing away from her. 

“I don’t want to go,” the child murmured faintly. 

Harley took a steadying breath and marched towards the girl; scooping her up without trouble. 

“Red and I wouldn’t let anything hurt you, not for realsies,” she quipped; “We just can’t fix a problem if we don’t know what’s wrong. We wouldn’a had to use Crane if ya’ just told us what’s been eatin’ you. Now we know what’s wrong, and we just gotta’ figure out what to do about it.” 

Raven squirmed in her arms; the girl’s arms wrapping tightly around her neck. 

Harley could feel nothing but resignation in the little girl’s body and noted the way she clung to her, as they descended from the treehouse. 

Ivy was waiting for them, by the time they reached the kitchen; she had a leathered bag in one hand and the truck keys in her other. 

“We’re losing moonlight,” Ivy warned; she held the door open for Harley to pass through, and wasted no time in locking it behind her.

“Did ya’ feed the boys?” Harley piqued, as she popped open the passenger door.

“Fed and watered,” the plant enthusiast warmly assured; “and they’ve already been walked, not that they won't lie about it when we get back.”    

“Thanks Red,” Harley chirped, some of her own tension melting away; she clamored into the seat as easily as the girl still clinging to her allowed. 

As she wiggled into position, Ivy turned the motor into gear and adjusted the rearview mirror; “Don’t thank me yet,” the woman warned, “We still have tonight to get through.” 

“Eh,” Harley huffed dismissively, “I can take another bruising or two.”

Ivy’s face, grim and anxious, did little to settle the mood; Harley fiddled with the radio for the first few minutes of their drive, just to find something to put any amount bounce and levity into the air between them. 

By the time the third song fizzled out into white noise, Ivy’s grip on the wheel had gotten more than a little tense. Her eyes kept flickering to Raven and to her, and then back to the road again.

Harley pinched the girl’s elbow, drawing out a short squeak. 

“Don’t antagonize her, Harls,” Ivy drawled. 

Harley fought the urge to stick out her tongue by burying her face in the child’s hair; lamenting the futility of emotional labor. 

By the time they reached the meetup, Harley figured the three of them were thankful for the reason to be out of the confined space. 

Raven, walking of her own volition, took Ivy’s hand as the truck doors slammed shut. 

The abandoned amusement park sent shivers of memories through Harley’s mind; she hissed in air through her teeth and forced a calming grin to her lips. 

The gate, chained with an ordinary padlock proved little hindrance as one of Ivy’s tendrils simply snapped it apart. 

“Mistah-J ain’t gonna be happy Madame Z’s squatting here,” Harley mumbled, as she followed Ivy in. 

“This is only a meet-up Harls,” Ivy reminded, “Besides, this place is just as much yours as it is his.” 

Harley glanced along the open-air aisles and between the half-collapsed novelty tents; the cold night air bringing scents and sounds both delighted and rotten.

Her mind raced, counting odds and probabilities of Puddin’ lurking somewhere nearby.

Ivy seemed determined; the familiarity of the woman’s stance was all Harley needed to know that the woman was ready to fight anyone , if situations arose. 

They traversed through nearly half the park before they came to the old fortune teller's tent; a deep faded purple and held together with little more than the tradition within the joints, it cast a fair contrast to the overly garish and pronouncedly lit sign above.  

“We’ve returned to carry you up the mountain,” Harley cried jubilantly as she pushed through the curtains; “No pig-theivn’ this time.” 

“I am indifferent towards that movie, but I admire your enthusiasm,” a deep, feminine voice returned. 

Inside the tent, the room was magically expanded; a massive amount of space sat overlayed around them, seemingly comprised of the magi’s personal effects. 

Madame Zodiac sat ready, and waiting. 

Two chairs were before her, and a large, comically stereotypical crystalline sphere rested in its stand beside them.     

Harley felt torn. 

About her favorite soap opera pairings, about weather socks belong with sandals, if ketchup was a smoothie, and if she wanted to stay for Raven’s unfolding, or if she wanted to race out into her old haunt, find the Joker, and…

-She wasn’t sure about if ‘and’. 

She elected to remain at the tent-doors; gazing out into the empty fairgrounds for any sign of anything she desperately wanted and dreaded to see. 

Ivy and Raven took a seat; the magi eyed them briefly. 

“This is the little one?” the Madame asked. 

Ivy bit back her instinctual sarcasm and nodded slightly, her shoulders stiffening; “She’s not entirely human; I don’t know if the human percentage has any meta or magi genes but she’s capable of immensely strong magics. Or at least, I assume they’re strong.”

“What magics?” the older woman asked curiously.

Raven didn’t sink into her seat, or move much at all; Ivy answered confidently, refusing to acknowledge the potential for future risk. 

“She healed Freeze’s wife, and Freeze,” she began.

“And shaved years off of you and Harley, by the looks of it,” Madame mused, having apparently eyed them over as well. 

“She came to us from another dimension, one she calls ‘Azarath,” Ivy continued. 

Immediately, the older woman’s focus seemed to consolidate; she leaned over onto the table, hands between her chin and elbows.

“That is strong magick,” the woman agreed; “Dimensional travel may seem rudimentary to some, but it is no easy or dismissable feat for someone so young.”  

Madame Zodiac’s brows lined with concentration. 

“What is it, that you are coming to me for?” 

Ivy straightened in her chair; her hand sought Raven’s shoulder of it own accord. 

“She’s been having nightmares since we taught her to sleep. Memories, apparently, of a volatile father who can supposedly destroy dimensions. She refuses to speak to us about any of it, so we pried some more information out of her, using Scarecrow’s fear toxin. Something about ‘being unborn’ ‘again’. We want to know what this means.” 

The magi hummed, drinking in Ivy’s words as the child bowed her head. 

“Why don’t you want them to know, little one?” Madame Zodiac asked. 

Raven’s mouth drew soured, evidently against the idea. 

A moment passed, and Ivy’s grip constricted against the child’s shoulder. 

“...The baboon said we must learn for our pasts, or we get hit with sticks,” Raven mumbled at length.

The woman hummed again, in amusement, and drew a card from her sleeve in resignation.

“Yes, the past can hurt,” she quoted goodnaturedly, “But the way of things is not always so… animatedly clear.”

After glancing at the card, she nodded to herself. 

“Touch the deck, please.”

Raven’s form did not budge. 

Ivy’s nails dug into the girl’s flesh. 

Raven winced, and twisted away from Ivy’s hand.

At least, Ivy noted, the girl had the sense to look abashed. 

“...Please. Don’t tell them,” Raven murmured. 

“The future can not be changed by being avoided, child;” Madame Zodiac supplied, “Touch the deck.” 

Helplessly, Raven looked to Ivy, her lip bit between her teeth.

Ivy cursed at the clear influence of Harleen within the gesture.  

“Why are you being difficult?” Ivy growled; “This is for your own good!”

Raven’s eyes broke contact, defeated. 

As Raven bowed her head once more, Ivy sighed and rubbed a hand against the child’s back. 

A tickle of feeling, welled up within Ivy.

It was a feeling she recognized at once, for the sheer foreignness of the sensation. 

Like the first night upon their meeting, Ivy felt the child through the Green. 

The anxiety, pulled at her in ways intimately human and frail. 

Ivy took a shuddering breath, and made an effort to exude her inhumanly alluring presence. 

“It’s alright, little Larkspur,” she soothed, “Harley and I are no mere mortals. We won’t leave you. We will work you through this.” 

Solemnly, Raven nodded once; slowly, a black tendril elongated itself from her form, and furled outwards to the deck of tarot positioned idly beside the magi. 

When it made contact, the atmosphere shifted; the room shimmered and for the barest of seconds, Ivy felt a cold, cold plane through the Green. 

Then, just as quick, the shadow was gone, and Ivy couldn't feel Raven’s connection, leaving her with the aching sensation that she was alone in the Green. 

Wordlessly, Madame Zodiac began to lay out her cards. 

One by one, the magi plucked a single card at a time from the stack, and placed them so that they began to form a completed circle. 

When the circle seemed to encompass twelve segments, she paused.

Still without explanation, she added one segment more in within the center.  

Madame Zodiac leaned back, and exhaled deeply.

“Let us begin.” 

Ivy returned her hand to Raven’s shoulder, as the girl lifted her head. 

The magi selected the first card from the circle; it was unnaturally black, save for a golden sigil embedded in the void within.

“You, little one, appear to be a little lost priestess,” Madame Zodiac began, her tone mystical and distant; “Your intuition is strong. Use it,” she bayed, “Your old ways will work no longer, which I think you’re beginning to accept, despite the confusion around you. Don’t ever be afraid to ask questions,” she added.  

Madame Zodiac overturned the second card. 

“Four of cups,” she observed; “You are too apathetic about life, for one so young. Your future is yours make meaning in, no matter how monotonous or strenuous it feels.”

The woman paused, and offered a slight smile; “The good news in this case, is that you have opportunities in front of you.”

Madame Zodiac overturned the third card. 

Almost as if she was unable to stop herself, she smiled. 

“Ahh, this is nice to see;” she flashed them the violet sigil and laid the card back in its place. 

“It seems you’ve found a happy home, with meaningful people to you,” the magi explained; “Was this an unfamiliar concept to you?”

Raven nodded. 

Taking it in stride, Madame Zodiac turned the fourth card. 

Her brows lifted slightly, but not with any hint of any emotion in particular. 

The red sigils on this card at least, were easily identifiable to Ivy; the three pentagrams were impossible to miss. 

“The three of you came together, as fate would have it,” Madame Zodiac witnessed, before proceeding; “The three of you shall have much more to face, do not discount the strengths of your cumulative skills. Together, you will accomplish many things that will give you great happiness.” 

Ivy’s posture softened slightly; the hand on Raven’s back rubbing a fond nonsensical pattern. Madame Zodiac turned the fifth card.     

“This one is as I expected,” the magi revealed; the orange symbol oddly foreboding, “You’re stalling. Your sacrifice, present and intended, is unneeded in the way you thought. As a personal suggestion, I implore you to reconsider the weight of your own happiness. I do so hate hanged men in ones so young.”

Madame Zodiac turned the sixth card.       

The magi stared at the card for several moments, before tentatively placing it down, almost as if she was waiting for the ten tiny yellow symbols on the card to change. 

Regardless of anyone’s potential feelings or curiosities, it remained stagnant.

“...I see now, why you came to me, and why you did not wish Pamala or Harleen to know,” the woman spoke seriously; her eyes burned with the intensity of the situational gravity, as she looked at Raven directly. 

“Your fate was tragic from the start. What happened… was terrible. But it was unavoidable, and you were not solely responsible. The tragedy that is yet to come, I think you know this too, is unavoidable. -At least in its entirety. But in knowing this, in accepting this, you have a chance to release yourself from the burden of it. Do not let guilt and shame eat you; burn it inside you. -Grow, change,” the woman added heatedly, “Break the cycle that has chained you. You are strong enough to survive the swords.”

With some trepidation, Madame Zodiac turned the seventh card.  

“You’re a little too young to be concerned with matters of love,” the woman stated, “But when you get there… your wheel of fortune is reversed. Or perhaps it is the wheel of your potential partner, these cards are terrible facetious at times. Fitting, I suppose, for the wheel,” she muttered, flipping over the next card. 

“Your father, I assume, shall be the one giving you great trouble. He’s an absolute tyrant to you-”

Darkness subdued the room, catching the woman off guard; she paused her reading to note the unnatural, eerily oppressive gloom. 

“Your soul is impressively potent,” the magi observed, as she eyed the void above them.

It was a void that seemed different somehow, from the tiny rectangles of blackness serving as the woman’s tarot deck.

Madame Zodiac looked back to Raven and looked her over again. 

“You’re demon-borne, aren’t you?”   

Raven hissed, her teeth wickedly long, thin, and sharp. 

“That would make your father… Beelzebub maybe? No?” the magi guessed, “-Perhaps you’re a daughter of Baphomet?”

Raven shook her head, her violet locks splaying in fallen halos around her face.

“...Hmm,” the woman thought, “Regardless, your father is objectively a very, very bad man. Don’t ever trust him, he’s trying to destroy you.”

Raven shot her a look; Ivy almost snorted for the look of sheer condensation the child’s face contained over the apparent patronization. 

The ninth card bore eight tiny marks; the look of them felt somehow uplifting.

“You will train. Hard. Relentlessly. You will do so for your rewards, if you want them,” the older woman noted. 

She turned over the tenth card, a blue flame flickered within the depths of its darkness. 

“With what the other cards have told me, the Devil tells me that you will carry the weight of your heritage. You will, to put simply, walk down a path you know you are powerless to leave. Again, I do not envy the wright on your shoulders, little one. But I do believe that you can try your best, and rise above what is expected of you.”

The eleventh card bore velvet shaded sigil; it radiated a slight warmth, though it did not reach far. 

“Interesting,” the magi noted, “You will make friends in very strategic places, I sense. Justice is fair to all, little one. I doubt you need to fear her.” 

“Speaking of fears, the twelfth card is attuned to yours;” Madame Zodiac turned her attention from Raven back to Ivy; “I know her father spang to mind under the toxin, but oftentimes our darkest fears are far more simply composed than that.”

The magi flipped the card and nodded. 

“She fears the loss of you and the feelings of family you’ve forged. Perhaps in time, the feeling of community and other relationships she’ll forge. -Do not blame her for the circumstances outside of her control. They will affect her greatly, and she will need you there to support her.” 

“This card,” the woman stated as she lifted the final card from inside the circle, “I will look at it first, and then decide if it is something you need to know.”

“That’s not part of the deal,” Ivy quipped, her tone a sweetly-clad warning. 

“The deal did not include a thirteenth card at all,” the woman returned, “This is more for me, than her. A moment please.”

Madame Zodiac looked into the thirteenth card, her expression unreadable. 

When at last her brows knit, she seemed to reach a conclusion. 

She laid the card face down, on the table. 

“I will train her,” the woman stated. 

Ivy’s fingers gripped into Raven slightly; it was a statement that plantwoman had been somewhat hoping for, but the admission was not as reassuring as she would have liked. 

“She will need many more, to train her after.” 

“Why?” Ivy pressed; “What ‘great’, ‘terrible’ thing are we to prepare her for?” 

“Trigon,” the Madame answered gravely. 

Red eyes flashed in the darkness, glaring out from within the great crystal ball beside them, emulating the same red eyes now seared into Raven’s face as she screamed.

Immediately, Madame Zodiac rose to her feet and lunged at the crystal ball, shattering it with a forceful shove to the unforgiving floor.  

When Madame Zodiac lifted her gaze from the broken shards, to lock eyes with Ivy, now cradling the girl to soothe her, the bargain between them went unspokenly understood.  

Chapter Text

“Let’s get out of here,” Ivy suggested warily; the diety’s exhaustion seeped easily into Raven’s skin until she too, felt lethargic and disinclined to linger.

It was a moment before Harley replied, as she seemed to be transfixed by the unnatural world outside of the tent. 

When she finally did look at Ivy, Raven noted the way her eyes were wide and how her golden aura had steeped to an anxious white. 

The change inspired a similar reaction in the plantwoman, one that Raven decided was subtly jarring.  

“Let’s go home, Pumpkin,” Ivy said softly, in a tone Raven could not decipher as plea nor statement. 

Harley’s fingers twitched, and then at once, the woman’s facade shifted, and her smile was back in place. 

Raven settled more fully into Ivy’s arms as the women walked back out into the grounds filled with runic-sculptured buildings and weather-torn tents. 

She found herself wondering their functions, and to what sort of god such structures were dedicated to. 

From within Ivy’s arms, she found she had a greater vantage point then she’d had previously; a symbol, crudely painted over an aging wall caught her attention: diamonds, patterned four in a tessellated array. 

The pattern was one she’d seen embedded into several pieces of the devout’s clothing. 

She felt a grand sense of understanding calm her; the grounds must have been in tribute to the force of chaos. It certainly explained the mystic inhabiting the liminal spaces, she concluded. 

The thought of the old lady felt… strange to consider. 

She supposed it was a great relief, that her new caretakers had not forsaken her. 

Oddly… warm, Raven felt something like a tickle within her throat.

A string of wordless sound trickled out from within her; a quiet recital of the same informationless pattern that the growth goddess had murmured to her many nights over, in the rituals before sleep. 

Raven did not remember much of the ride back to the Greenhouse; she recalled the clang of the metal fence as Harley forced it shut and the rumble of the metal beast that carried them, but nothing further until the plant goddess lightly scolded her and helped her to feast.

The sup was pleasant; as least for her. 

Her overseers seemed less… open to demerits as they usually felt.

Memories of her old congregation flickered at the edges of her thoughts, desperate to worm guilts and displeasures into her state of being. 

She ignored such thoughts, as best as she was able, and reminded herself that the women had taken the news far better than she had ever hoped they could.

She chose to feign indifference, over the way the strained faces and smiles brought pain into her chest.  

Even if they had a small resemblance to the monks of Azarath, she reasoned, she was grateful that they did not leave her. 

She could brace herself, and live with the parting of their previously carefree days; it was likely best she refrained from such sinful activities anyway, she decided. 

She continued to reason with herself, as dinner wore on and ended. 

She nodded dutifully when the plant deity informed her of her impending training, and waited patiently for the chaotic display to take her hand for the evening rituals. 

She was impressed; though the woman’s voice wavered a little more than usual, Raven noted the way Harley met her eyes determinedly, and held her gaze. 

Against Azar’s better lessons, Raven allowed herself to smile, as Harley oversaw her teeth brushing, and then again as the disciple tucked her into bed. 

The point in the evening’s lesson was elusive, as they often were, in Harley’s tales; she lacked context for many aspects of her stories, but found that she was more than grateful for Harley’s continued tutelage. 

And then, just as her soulself was pulling her into the first stages of trance, Ivy filled up the Green, and the intelligible elongated sound rose familiar and warm.  

The last thing she was cognizant of, on the fringes of her awareness, was of the disciple’s lips, bestowing honor against her brow.  

The plants felt different. 

Raven awoke into herself with little difficulty and sat motionlessly, assessing the shift.

While plants singularly did not possess strong sapience, the greenhouse as a whole housed a dizzying amount of life to key into; and while the change in the air was not a particularly strong emotion, it was… noticeable. 

Worth investigating, she felt. 

When her feet hit the grain of the living floor, she realized the hyenas that usually joined her were not in the tree with her.  

They had already been fed and walked, so their absence was somewhat puzzling. 

She theorized that they could perhaps have been sleeping in her overseer’s quarters, and likened that idea to be the ideal place to look first.

Rather than walk, she allowed her soul to blanket herself, and melt her up through the plant diety’s chamber floor. 

Her breath caught itself between her teeth; it took a heartbeat to remind herself that she hadn’t necessarily been forbidden from entering the sanctioned space, and that if she were quiet, she could likely avoid any demerits. 

Using the shadows on the walls, she drifted along the room to overlook the mats at the end of her overseer’s bed, and found them empty. 

Half of Ivy’s bed, was also missing its probable occupant.

Her face soured; the muscles pulling as her focus shifted. 

A quick brush against the edges of the Green informed her that the plants weren’t upset; leaving her to doubt that the disciple and her babies hadn’t dined to trample the garden grounds. 

Armed now with more questions than answers, she slid herself into the hall; therein she heard no sounds of running water or squeaking tiles, ruling out the bathroom.

Her teeth felt sharp against her lip. 

The ‘living room’ was also empty. 

Her book was where she left it; the object seemed almost trivial, now.  

A sense of loss and encroachment of failure began darkening the edges of her vision; with little else to contemplate, she merged into the kitchen as a final thread of ‘guesstimation’.

The kitchen door was open, streaming in a fraction of light from the ‘garage’, nearly blocked by the retreating form of the growth goddess’s disciple.  

“Where are you going?” 

The question fell from her mouth without her intention; a little startled by it, she clamped her mouth shut, hoping that her tone wouldn’t earn her reprimand. 

Harley turned oddly; odd for its slowness, with no bounce, and no glide of heel. 

The emotion radiating off of the woman was rampantly dispelling; Raven grit her teeth and forced herself not to rock back on her feet and hiss as reflex hit her before the realization.

“You’re leaving?” 

Harley’s smile wavered; it was the same, sad, crude smile that she remembered on the congregation. 

The pity, the shame, the regret. 

She felt her eyes begin to water. 

“Go back to bed, kiddo’,” Harley instructed; her words so blossoming, and yet so unconvincingly weak. 

For a moment, the lights flickered. 

She wanted to grab her. 

She knew she could grab her. 

She would get so many demerits for leaving; surely the woman knew better than to attempt such blasphemy?  

Her black soul seeped out; she felt the heatless coils and flicks like patches of denseless air. 

For a moment, it looked like Harley expected her to do it, too. 

The blood on her lip tasted sick. 

Her mother’s eyes had grown so wide in fear; her mother’s freight so loudly shrieked. 

No , she thought, bidding her soul squander; she didn’t want this woman to fear her. 

Optionless, she pulled her soul back up around herself and dived back into Ivy’s room; the time-defying seconds feeling far too long, for the panic welling in her throat. 

Without hesitation, she consolidated quickly and lunged at the sleeping deity, peeled back the cloths and tugged the woman she awake. 

“Harley’s leaving,” she stated, the moment the plantwoman looked cognizant enough to implore her.   

Instead of rising to her feet, as Raven silently wished the woman would, Ivy rubbed at her cheek and glanced about her resting place. 

The goddess sighed and grabbed the shimmery robe from her bed corner; wordlessly, Raven waited until Ivy had tugged it on before grabbing her hand. 

Before she melt them into the kitchen, her mentor shook her head plucked her hand away.

Ivy forced her to the bed and held her but a moment in place. 

“Stay here, Larkspur,” she bayed.

Raven watched her mentor close the door behind her; the woman’s steps fell evenly along the hall for some seconds, before the sounds drifted too far away. 

The numbers changed on the tiny tv box on the dresser.

‘Time’, she observed, changed slowly. 

A flash of change burned through the Greenhouse; she focused her attention on her senses, for any sense of explanation. 

None came. 

She sank back into the softness of the bed. 

She hoped the growth deity would go easy on her disciple; she had never seen such a troublesome monk held in such high esteem, as to be so personably met as Harley.

...She’d also never heard of a god so lenient, as Ivy was to allow such things. 

Raven pulled one of the pillows to her chest.

It wasn’t warm, like Bud or Lou, but it smelled like Harley and fit snugly against her like Ivy; she turned her attention away from the shadows on the wall. 

They looked too much like the faces of her old congregation. 

A terrible sound shredded through the Greenhouse; a rumble sounding too strange and startling to be Ivy’s metal beast. 

The numbers continued to change. 

Raven didn’t like how quiet it was. 

How… bad, the air felt.  

She melted back into the kitchen, a wave of intense pain overtaking her. 

The plants in the Greenhouse were incapable of warning her of their goddess’s distressed state; Raven collected herself to see Ivy sitting at the feasting table, her great jungle of hair shrouding her hand cradled face. 

Ivy’s sobs were silent. 

The situation was… new, to behold. 

Tentatively, with grave respect, Raven stepped forward. 

“Ivy?” 

Her voice, thankfully, did not shock the woman. 

Her mentor lifted her head, as if the effort was a great burden; reminding her of Azar.

There were signs of… emotion, in the woman’s face. 

With a pale semblance of normalcy, Ivy stretched a hand forth, beckoning her. 

Obediently, Raven climbed into the woman’s lap. 

Ivy’s hand came to rest against her scalp, fingers threading her violet curls; when the woman’s chin pressed against her, Raven’s lip caught once more between her teeth.

She felt the steadying breath, that Ivy drew into her lungs. 

“...There’s some things you should know, buttercup,” Ivy began, sending a wave of resignation through Raven’s system; “Harley…” 

Ivy stopped, and muttered words under her breath that she’d forbidden Raven from repeating. 

“Once upon a time,” the woman said instead, “There was a woman of the earth. She controlled the seasons and brought Green to the lands, so that Man might eat. She was content for a time, in her solitude, and knew nothing else.” 

Raven allowed her eyes to press closed, as her mentor began to work soothing patterns along the rootless blossoms in her hair. 

The sudden, tiny appearances of dozens of new lives, simple and sweet, felt an instinctual balm against the calamity of the moment.  

“One day,” Ivy continued, “That woman realized she was lonely, so sewed a companion from amongst the earth. A jester, with a tender heart. They were happy, for a time. But such things never last long, in the realm of mortals.”

Raven pictured Ivy, what she must’ve looked like; Mighty. Giving, perhaps. Strong.

“For you see, that jester did not belong to the goddess, not completely. Try as she might, Demeter could not convince her Persephone to stay, and the vile god that ferried Persephone to his underworld refused to let her be.”

Raven recalled the flat painting the disciple had torn down from along the wall; it had been only a brief moment, she’d seen his likeness. Only the sickly gold of his teeth, smiled within her brain.

“And so it was decided, that Persephone would spend half the year with Demeter, and half the year in Hell,” Ivy continued; “When Persephone returns, spring comes to the land, and the Earth is green again,” she explained. 

The growing warmth of the moment started to fade once more, and Raven tried to still a shiver.

“Harley is gone, Raven.”

The words, brutally true, were pitiless. 

Raven allowed herself to be repositioned, and looked into the breathless wildes of her mentor’s eyes and tried to imagine a world in which people could just simply… leave . 

“I will not leave you, little Larkspur,” the deity promised; “And you would do well not to miss her. She’ll come back to us, when Joker tires of breaking her.”

The memory of her introduction to the disciple sparked in her mind; contextually filling in gaps she had lacked. 

“...Why does she worship a god who hurts her?”

Ivy’s face darkened. 

“Because the world of Man is cruel.”

As Raven thought the information over, her mentor sighed, rising to her feet, and pulled her to her hip. 

“Come, little weed;” Ivy prompted, “You may watch a movie with me, and then we’ll go back to bed.” 

“...Do you have one that’s not the lion one?” Raven asked, thinking back to her evening with Aunt Whiskers; “...I don’t want to see any hyenas.”  

“...I think that can be arranged,” Ivy agreed, her footsteps echoing in the empty hall. 

Chapter Text

“Geez this place is’a mess,” Harley muttered, eyeing the waste; the trash left rotting around the grounds, while fitting, was still unsightly.

And smelly. 

She coughed, and then held her nose to walk past the expired foodstalls, Bud and Lou trailing some feet behind her.

Chattering as they were to themselves, Harley felt herself far more concerned with the rest of their surroundings.

Three days of nothing but false alarms and vacant real estate; Harley was growing a little twitchy.  

Red had insisted Mr. J. was still incarcerated, but Harley had to be sure; she agreed the old themepark had perfect potential for raising their new addition, but it was too easy.

He was here. 

She had to find him, before he found her. 

She had to be ready . 

Harley gripped her hammer tighter.

The park felt more haunted with every passing attraction. 

She’d vetted the old haunts closer to the batter accesses; the offices, the wagons, the carousel, the powerhouse. 

The Funhouse-

She bit back a shuddered; she’d noticed on the second night, how the park was playing tricks on her. The posters laughed and muttered amongst themselves as she trudged past; the sounds of the creaking old machinery ground her teeth and kept her on edge.   

She still wasn’t sure if something had been following her. 

Determined to remain undeterred, Harley pressed on, putting the unpleasant thoughts out of her mind by rattling off the other places she’d checked one by one, like a breathing exercise.  

The mini coaster, the security HUD; the parking lot. 

She’d doubted he’d ever bother with the old house of mirrors, citing it as more of a ‘lure the Bat into the premises for dramatic effect’ area; it’d been the first place she looked.

Joker was never a stickler for order -until it was funny, she amended, so they’d gone through most of the old buildings at random, whenever the piling trash and stored caches outgrew their delicate sensibilities. 

It was amazing there were any empty warehouses at all, what with her colleagues’ collective hoarding problems , she mused. 

She ducked into the bigtop, noting the mess of things decaying stagnantly as the ol’ gang had left them.  

She fought down the rising bile in her throat as her mind thought to her room in the back. 

Maybe I could burn it down, she thought sourly; light the whole place up in flames.  

The air ruffled, then suddenly felt colder, bringing the hairs on her neck to rise.

She spun around, expecting the Batman, come to scold her for falling into old patterns.

Ivy’s child, hung in the air before her instead. 

Slowly, the void with white eyes sank to the ground. 

Harley exhaled, relieved. 

“You gave me a fright, Sugar,” she admitted happily, twirling her hammer to rest the weight against the ground; she wondered if the park actually hadn’t been playing mindgames, and for how long the little girl had been tailing her. 

Some hours of the current night at least, she presumed, leaning against the rod as she thought the girl’s arrival over. 

“Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“Shouldn't you be at home?” the girl countered, her tone quite cross. 

Taken aback, Harley straightened. 

“Feathers, Ivy’s gonna’ be real mad if she finds you snuck out,” Ivy warned. 

“Ivy cried,” the girl stated; “The Green is sad. You don’t need the underworld. You need to come home.”

Confused, Harley stumbled over her thoughts until the connection sparked. 

Somewhat dejectedly, Harley laughed.   

Raven’s eyes began to water.

Regret washed over Harley’s sensibilities; she cursed at herself as the shadows around the tent started to move.

“Yeah, I guess after all these times I shoulda’ expected her to jump to that,” she admitted; guess that’s why she didn’t want to go clown hunting with me. 

Before the girl could admonish her again, Harley waved her hands. 

“I didn’t leave to go back to him, Sugar, I came here to make sure he’s gone. I didn’t want to bring you here if he was around,” she explained. 

The realization that the girl was there, in her ol’ digs sparked her up some.  

She gestured wildly to the park around them with a spin, and whistled into a large smile.

“One day, all’a this will be yours,” she cooed.  

“...What if he is here?” Raven countered dismissively, eerily echoing her conversation with Ivy prior.

Unequipped to have such a chastising conversation with a prepubescent child, Harley felt herself grow a little short of temper.

“Then I’ll rip his dick off,” Harley quipped sternly, crossing her arms.

“I’m going to tell that jackass off once and for all, Chick-a-dee,” Harley warned sternly, poking Raven’s nose, “and it’ll be no sight for little ladies.”

Hesitantly, the girl dropped the shadows. 

Harley bit her lip; she didn’t need her degree to taste the emotionally-manipulative lunge the girl was gearing to make. 

She wondered if she should feel affronted for the attempt.

“Momma Harley?”

The words lanced a piercing blow directly through her gut; she nearly bowled over to keep from short-circuiting. 

Part of her indeed, felt a dry satisfaction in that she'd been correct in her prognosis, but a larger part of her just felt happy. 

Hobbling slowly, Harley crept towards Raven and sank to her knees. 

The girl folded easily; her body light but solid within Harley’s arms. 

Harley’s hand twisted fiercely into the girl’s hair, dragging her closer. 

“Yes Baby, Momma Harls’s got you,” she declared, fighting to breathe past the golden feeling overcoming her; “I’m gonna’ go Clown hunting, and when I get back, you, me, and Pammy are gonna’ be right happy, okay? No take-backsies, we’re a family.”

She didn’t know if the girl was crying harder than she was, but the tears felt cathartic; fears, doubts, negging voices that wouldn’t die- all she pushed aside, to focus on the moment. 

Red’s gonna’ be pissed she called me mom first, Harley thought, chuckling.  

Harley pulled back, a fresh idea within her noggin. 

“Say, since Red’s gonna’ be pissed anyhow, how about we give her a present to surprise her with, eh Kiddo?” she offered, rising from her knees; she ruffled Raven’s tangled mane and squared her shoulders; “We’ll get her a couple’a new ‘derangias or something.” 

Raven’s somber eyes began to brighten; Harley offered her another smile, her mind filled with plans and formulations well underway. 

“First’s things first, we gotta rent ourselves a cleanup crew,” she cited, taking stock of the clutter once more, “Then we go tell Red the good news.” 

Chapter Text

The crack was thunderous, sharp as striking lighting. 

The accompanying air breezing against her skin was enough to refocus Raven’s concentration; her gaze narrowed dismissing Selina's presence at her back to hone in once more the assassin's face in front of her. 

“You must keep aware at all times, little one,” Talia commanded, steadily approaching her; “The enemy will not spare you their advantage.” 

Raven was small, so the woman had to bend to increase the chance of connecting her attacks; she could sense her guardians watching with mixed emotions, within the darkness beyond the circus ring.

Thinking of them lost her a moment to coordinate; in the seconds Raven had left to react, she pressed her tongue to the back of her teeth and blocked the blow with her arm, to better give herself an advantage. 

She pulled her tutor down by her collar, letting Talia’s weight do most of the work for her. 

Reflexively, her tutor huffed as she leaned into a roll; intending to right herself. 

Raven clung long enough the pressure of Talia’s body to leave her chest before kicking up under her tutor’s chin. 

With a grunt, Talia jumped back; Selina huffed in amused pride.

The assassin paused, running her fingers along her jaw. 

“You’ve learned something these past weeks,” she stated, seemingly pleased; “Good. Now impress me.”

Raven nodded, just as Talia dashed forward.

With handspring, Raven flipped backward until there was distance between them again, earning a fond belt of appraisement from the jester she’d taken the move from. 

Unfortunately, retreating put her in the reaches of her whip-wielding Aunt, who had no trouble swiping at her stomach with her long, razored claws. 

Carrying the momentum, Raven bent her torso and allowed the movements to spin her away; the claws snatched a few strips of the skin along her upper arm, but the intended damage had been negated. 

Talia was upon her once more. 

Unable to utilize the space of the ring, Raven braced her heels in the dirt and took the oncoming blows with blocks and workarounds; trading counters in equal procession until her breathing grew dangerously labored, forcing Raven to aim for more debilitative maneuvers.

Knocking Talia off her feet was no easy task, and Selina was quick to keep her from retreating.

Ignoring the ringing in her ears and the taste of blood in her mouth, Raven fought to keep fluid.  

With a final surge of desperate fueled frustration, she finally forced her tutor to the floor.

Her arms had constricted the woman’s neck despite Talia’s efforts at prying her off; her tutor swayed as she fell, so that her weight would bludgeon her into letting go. 

Expecting it, Raven constricted tighter, and let the floor hit her.

Stunned, she remained firm, forcing the woman’s airways to remain shut. 

She’d made the mistake of releasing her too early before.

As the stars began to dissipate from her vision, Talia spent a moment biting back gurgles of air seeking gasps.

“That’s good,” Selina called. 

Raven’s body went slack. 

Talia grabbed her arm and rolled her weight over her head, sending her cascading to the floor with a clatter. 

“I was testing her resolve,” Talia insisted, annoyed at the interference; wiping the dust off her suit.

The woman looked her over, as Raven wiped the blood from her mouth and rose to her feet. 

“She understands,” Ivy interveined, stepping towards the edge of the ring; the light bathed her in particles and apathy. 

“Good. I am not here to waste my time,” the assassin pledged; she looked back to the girl and adjusted her posture. 

“Without her powers, she falls short of her potential,” the woman appraised; “But she has taken to it quickly. She would make an impressive addition to the league…”

Raven stayed silent, obediently. 

“She’s not for sale,” Selina replied, cocking her hip as the assassin retrieve a water bottle from the boy at the ring-wall. 

Talia’s son looked first to his mother, before falling past her; his young eyes sharp and still seething from broken bone Raven had bequeathed him.  

“Yet,” Talia agreed, casting no glance over her shoulder or to her offspring. 

She returned to Raven and handed her the bottle; “Drink.”

The order’s tone, while stern, was used in what Raven had learned was the assassin’s admittance of fondness.     

She ignored the petulant two-year-old staring her down and drank freely, grateful for the chill to her racing pulse.

A hand to her hair was unexpected, but not disagreeable; Talia’s displays of affection were brief, but appreciated.    

“I’ve other business to attend to,” the assassin stated, her familiar departing phrase; “If she requires further need of my services, you may contact me in three days. Damien’s setbacks should be gone by then.”   

“Thanks Tally,” Harley chirruped, vaulting into a cross-legged seat on top of the ring’s wall. 

Talia looked back from the blonde to Selina. 

The gaze was thick, but understanding. 

The assassin dipped her head; the thief's bowed once in return. 

With little fanfare, Talia al Ghul beckoned her child follow and the pair stepped into the shadows, and were gone.  

Chapter Text

The plants sounded like hums; steady notes of of pitches and tones continuously echoing around the walls of the greenhouse and into the city beyond.

She’d explained to Harley once, that the green felt the way the powerlines sounded; thick, popping, thrums.

The choir of mute emotion was a saturated, but unthought about presence, now that’d she been living in it for so many weeks.

Months. 

Time was a more concise mental picture for her now, she noted. 

The unfamiliar sounds trickled at her ears again. 

They were so quiet, she almost wasn’t sure they were words spoken. 

“ₐᵣₑ ᵧₒᵤ ₐ𝓌ₐₖₑ?”    

She was awake, she was certain. 

Raven pinched her skin to be sure. 

The pain was instant, but minute. 

“ᴵᵗ'ˢ ᵐᵉ. ”

Who ?

Raven spun around, her eyes straining to make out every detail along the foliage in the dark; nothing but the plants and her scattered toys stood out amongst the shadowed shapes.
“ᶜᵃⁿ ʸᵒᵘ ˢᵉᵉ ᵐᵉˀ”

“ᴵ'ᵐ ʰᵉʳᵉ⁻”

Raven looked again but didn’t see anything, until a nagging feeling caught her attention.

She turned once more to the darkness, and noticed an odd little glow. 

Cautiously, on all fours, she crept after it. 

The glow seemed to grow brighter, near the water’s edge. 

Raven crawled to the bank of the stream. 

In the water’s reflection was her own face. 

As she tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, a face appeared underneath her own. 

Startled, Raven leaned back and bit in her breath. 

The face smiled, breaking through her reflection. 

The red glowing girl in the water had her face. 

The water felt cold to the touch; the girl disappeared in the ripples before congealing back. 

Curious, Raven wondered if the girl magicly didn’t need to breathe.

“My name’s Raven,” she offered, hopeful to make the stranger her friend; “Do you wanna’ play?” 

The girl vanished, causing Raven to frown.

A change in the air next to her however caught her attention, and found the red girl beside her.

“ᵢ 𝒻ₒᵤₙ𝒹 ᵧₒᵤ,” the girl sang.

Chapter Text

“Slower. Focus on your heartbeat, feel the way it changes rhythm,” he instructed, moving her hands; the gun realigned to the target.

“Wait for the moment between the beats,” he advised, “ That’s when you pull the trigger.”

Learned enough not nod in reply, Raven remained still.

Immobile. 

Focused. 

She closed her eyes, zeroing in on her heart. 

She held her breath. 

She opened her eyes; readjusted her aim for the movement.

Calmly, she waited until the dizziness passed; suppressing her body’s drive for movement the way Talia had taught her. 

Her eyes remained locked on the bottle.

The bottle perched on a windowsill, on a building on the opposite side of the one in front of her. 

Deadshot had ensured the chain of opportunity remained unbroken. 

Without the chance of luck, it was down to a matter of skill, to ensure that the shot traveled through the correct trajectory; passing through half-opened windows and the inhabited rooms inside.  

Her demon eye twitched; unused to focusing on something so small, so far away, for so long. 

When the minute splinter of a second between the thumps of her heartbeat stretched into eons, she pulled. 

The gun fired a straight shot.

She’d missed the dead center by a fraction of an inch, but it’d shot clean. 

She inhaled her next breath as she rested the gun; she wiped her eyes as her tutor observed her progress. 

“Keep up like that and I’ll be out of a job in ten years,” he mused, scratching his chin; “I think there’s more to those eyes a’ yours, kid. Come back two nights from now and I’ll have a real challenge for you. Let’s see if you can beat 30 blocks.”

Raven nodded and wiped her human eyes back into her face as Deadshot turned from the window. 

Raven followed, already expecting the ‘dressing down’ portion of the lesson.

She collected the implements her tutor passed her and sat once more, eager to take the device apart and reassemble it.  

“I like cleaning them,” Raven offered, the gun pieces clicking and falling into her lap.

Her words sparked a wave of mixed emotions; she ignored the taste of them to focus on pleasing ways the metal parts felt in her hands. 

“You know the drill,” he huffed at length; trading moment away to step into the kitchen.

The smell of meat bubbling in the pot was a softer note than the way the cotton swabbed sticks fit so easily into the crevices of the device. 

Both, Raven still found soothing. 

Deadshot allowed her to fixate on the pieces until the dinner process was complete. 

It was with minor reluctance, that Raven fit the pieces into the soft-lined case and joined him in the kitchen.   

She took a seat at the table and found herself met with a bowl of spaghetti; the meal her tutor had rewarded her with at each lesson. 

“Thank you Uncle Lawton,” she recited pleasantly, before picking up her fork.        

The man exhaled a bit; seemingly still unsure about the moniker. 

Harley had been insistent however, and the man seemed ultimately against arguing anything with her mom. 

As she ate, Raven noted her tutor was observing her once more, between bites of his own. 

“Am I dribbling?” she asked, after slurping down her forkful of noodles.

“You’re good,” he dismissed, breaking his gaze. 

“...Harley wants me to be prepared,” she offered, not for the first time. 

He sighed, fighting back a grunt. 

“If you were anyone else’s kid,” he started, trailing off. 

Raven shrugged, unbothered. 

“I like learning,” she stated, enjoying the way the man’s face contorted with withheld emotion; “Aunt Talia said my mind is sharp.” 

“...Yeah, I’ll give you that,” he agreed.

“...Can I play with Zoe?” Raven asked quietly, shrinking smaller as the man recoiled; “The only kid I get to play with is Damien and he’s snotty and isn't allowed to watch cartoons.” 

Raven watched him wage an internal struggle with detached interest.

She continued to enjoy her spaghetti. 

Deadshot’s expression eventually softened; Raven smiled earnestly.

“When you can land a shot inside the fairway through the eight o’clock express, I’ll think about it,” he dismissed.    

Chapter Text

“I can’t believe Harleen would squirrel you away all this time!” the man lamented, though something about the taste of his emotions made Raven wonder if he was actually sad at all.

“Imagine, calling up every cut-rate bozo and buffoon to train the youth of tomorrow without realizing my potential for stimulating the intellect!” 

The Riddler sighed dramatically and adjusted his hat. 

“Well, you’re here now,” he dismissed; “Ol’ Sackface said you were an interesting specimen for one your age,” he idled, tapping his cheek with his cane; “I do hope you prove able to entertain.” 

Raven followed him deeper into the lair, Harley's voice fading as they progressed; she noted the multitudes of green painted onto every surface and couldn't help but compare the shades to Ivy's 'natural' hues of the plants.  

It was a little disorienting, which Raven supposed was the strategic point; Harley had quipped that the running question marks were all points of inflated ego, which Raven felt was reason deficient, now that she could see them in person. 

Annoyed that she'd been lost in her thoughts, Riddler huffed and tapped his cane against a segment of wall. 

The wall slid up, revealing an overly frilled and feminine room behind it; purples, darker greens, and reds were welcome after wandering down the Riddler’s halls for so long. 

“In, in my dear,” he ushered, scooting her forward into the toy-filled room. 

The door shut behind them both, nearly startling Raven for the sound of the slam.

“Duela, darling,” the man called; “Uncle Eddie’s got a surprise for you!” 

At the summons, or perhaps the bribe, a girl burst out of a hoard of stuffed animals, and dashed over to them with surprising speed. 

Raven felt a bit taken aback at the bubbling girl; her hair was green, her skin pallid white, and her eyes were shining blue. 

Something about her seemed… like herself. 

Like her moms were.

Something…

Different.  

Aside from that, it was the first time she’d seen any child with ‘strange’ colorations besides herself, she noted. 

And the first time she’d had another girl her own age to talk to.

Raven smiled. 

Duela, who had equally been observing her, perked up at the expression. 

“Hi! My name’s Duela Dent,” she exclaimed happily, her tone rapid; the girl’s unbridled nature reminded her of Harley, which emboldened her.

“My name’s Raven,” she replied happily; “Do you want to be my friend?”  

With a screech, the girl launched into her, nearly bowling her over. 

Used to such affections from the hyenas, Raven laughed and hugged her back, appreciating Duela's apparent strength. 

“Excellent,” Riddler appraised; “Have fun girls, I’ll call you when supper’s ready!” 

With bated breath, Raven and her new friend barely contained their excitement as they waited for him to exit the room.

When the door slammed shut behind him, their focuses instantly shifted back to each other.   

“Do you like jokes?” Dulea asked excitedly. 

“Oh! What do you get when you cross a hamburger with a trombone,” Raven replied eagerly, quoting one of Harley’s many quips. 

“A flat bat!” she answered, after a moment’s pause. 

Duela laughed as Raven internally admitted that she still didn’t know exactly why the joke was funny, only that the adults her mom’s knew tended to like jokes about bats in them, and found herself grateful that the girl liked it, too. 

“My uncle says he’s gonna’ get that bat this time,” Duela declared absently; "He's got lasers this time."

“My mom said Aunty Whiskers got him first,” she replied, parroting one of Ivy’s quips with Talia. 

“I’m going to fight him too one day,” Duela said, spinning.

Raven followed her, softly inquisitive. 

“I’m going to make my Daddy proud,” Duela added, landing on her hands, her legs kicking over her face.

Raven dropped to her hands and knees to level closer to Duela's face. 

“I’m going to kill my father,” Raven chirruped; “He wants’ta to kill me first.” 

Duela pouted, unpleased with the thought. 

Duela rolled onto her stomach, tucking her feet under her chin. 

“I don’t know who my Daddy is,” she admitted; “Uncle Eddie says the boys all draw’d straws at the Sanitarium.” 

“My Moms found me in a garden,” Raven offered, laying on the floor herself; she kicked her feet back and forth, before putting her chin on her own hands to follow suit. 

Duela nodded, apparently satisfied with the answer; she hummed, still thinking, before growing oddly sober.

"Have you ever been there?" Duela asked. 

"Where?" Raven asked, her pulse quickening; "The sanitarium? Mom said it's the place 'the coppers put to forget about them', but Aunt Talia said it's a place where crazy people go."

Duela's face soured; Raven immediatly regretted her words. 

"I'm not crazy!" she hissed; "And neither is Uncle Eddie! -Or Daddy! Or anyone else who goes there."

"...I don't think you're crazy," Raven offered, her tone soothing; "I can do all kinds of stuff and my Moms don't think I'm crazy."  

“Can you make plants?” Duela asked, forcefully rolling upsidedown, “Or talk to dogs?”

Raven smiled; “Sometimes!” she answered happily, foregoing the urge to correct the girl about hyenas not being dogs; “I usually just talk to the girl in my head but I can kinda talk to plants and I can make shadows do stuff.” 

"You hear voices too?" Duela asked, surprised. 

"She has a voice," Raven agreed, nodding; "Red says she likes your hair."  

Duela popped out her limbs and rolled back to her hands and knees and laughed for several moments.

Used to such fits, Raven breathed easily until Duela was able to slowly compose herself.

"My voices said that they want to watch you bleed," Duela quipped.

Before Raven could reply, Duela sprang back, interrupting.  

“Show me the shadow stuff!” Duela demanded happily, seemingly used to getting her way. 

Enthused, Raven drew the shadows from the admittedly already dimly lit room.

With a bit of concentration, she condensed them down into two animalistic shapes, until they nearly resembled feathery a Bud and Lou. 

“Bird-dogs! Bird-dogs!” Duela screamed excitedly, bouncing up to touch one. 

Duela gasped and pulled her hand back; Raven felt a spike of fear until the girl giggled and put her hand to it again.

“You’re bouncey,” Raven commented approvingly, letting her magic fall away, “Like my mom.” 

Duela grinned widely. 

“I can do this!” she yelled, before jumping into a roll in the air; she landed perfectly, her arms outspread. 

Raven inhaled with delight, pleased to see the girl in pride. 

“You wanna' play ponies?” Duela asked, gesturing to a pile of toys scattered on the floor. 

At her responding grin, they both scrambled over to it, eager to engage in fun. 

Chapter Text

“Honeydew, who are you talking to?” Ivy asked, curious at the quiet chatter. 

With great ease, she slipped deftly between broad leaves and foliage to find her darling girl scuttling amiably about the mud. 

It took a moment for the girl to process her words; Ivy waited a long moment to watch Raven’s head swivel towards her with a blank stare. 

She was about to ask again, before noting the space past Raven’s cheek that had shifted in the light.

With a shriek, Ivy lunged forward, pushing the earth up over the tiny flame. 

“Raven!?” she hissed, caught in momentary adrenalin, queasy-anger, and fright; “What do you think you were doing? Starting a fire in my garden-”

Huffing, Ivy paused and paused to collect her breath and composure; her fingers pinched the bridge of her nose. 

“It wasn’t me, Momma,” Raven whined, shrinking back. 

Holding her patience, Ivy opened her eyes and lowered her hand. 

“And I suppose you’ll tell me it was who? Batman? -Harley? Duela?” she listed, growing terse. 

Raven worried her lip, apparently apprehensive.

“I-it was Red,” Raven admitted under Ivy’s stern gaze; “She told me to do it.” 

Ivy sighed lengthily, in effort to keep herself decompressed. 

“...We’re going to talk to Harley about this,” she ruled, taking Raven’s hand.

With no choice but to follow, Raven was led back through the gardens into the house proper; grunting through her daily workout, Harley paused from her place on the gymnastics bars and looked them over. 

She whistled lowly, reading them over for trouble. 

“Whatch’a fall into, sport?” Harley asked, prompting Raven to hunch her shoulders. 

“-She was starting fires ,” Ivy supplied haughtily, her rage thickening; “In my Greenhouse .”

Harley winced.

She swung her legs over to sit more ‘professionally’ and rubbed the weight out of her hands.

“Well Kid, you defiantly know better than to do that,” Harley mused humorlessly. 

“It wasn’t me!” Raven insisted, piping up; her lips began to pout with indignation and her eyes were pleading. 

“Oh?” Harley piqued, “Did you give the boys thumbs?” 

“She said it was her imaginary friend,” Ivy growled, pushing the girl over to the other woman before crossing her arms.        

With a short exhale through her nose, Harley slid down, landing her knees against the floor to keep a better eye level with the child. 

“Now Sunshine,” Harley warned, “It’s perfectly alright to play pretend or to have friends that Pammy and me can’t see, but it’s very mean to blame them for stuff if they didn’t do it.”

“-She told me to,” Raven instead, growing more upset.

“Well then,” Harley contorted gently; “Is she Ivy or me? Do you have to listen to everything she tells you? Even if you know what she’s telling you to do is wrong?”

Raven went silent; Harley internally relaxed over the minor victory. 

“...She wants me to hurt things. You, Mom, the boys…” Raven murmured. 

Instantly, Harleen was fully aware of every word her child was saying with an intensity she hadn’t used since her days under Arkham’s employ.  

A quick checking glance showed Ivy’s face crestfallen with equal concern; battling off the growing anxiety, Harley placed a hand to her daughter’s shoulder and kept her tone steady. 

“A lot of people have voices in their heads, telling them to hurt people too,” Harley confided; “It’s important to remember, that if you do hurt them, that you then have to deal with the consequences, Suger.”

Raven’s eyes grew less watery, as she explained. 

“Momma Harls’s got a lot of people in her head,” she offered; “So I know how’s ta’ quiet them down when they won’t behave. -The next time your friend tells you to do something you don’t want to, you tell them ‘no’. And if they don’t leave you alone, you tell me. -And trust me Sweetie,” she promised, running her fingers through the girl’s curls, “I’m a heck of a lot crazier then they are and twice as stubborn.”

“Thrice -at least,” Ivy corrected, fondly.

Hesitantly, Raven smiled.

Chapter Text

“Alright Sugar, remember what Momma Harley’s gonna’ learn ya’,” she quipped, swinging the giant hammer onto her shoulder as she skipped out of rhythm and came to a full stop beside her. 

Raven looked up, fixated, even as the shouts and scuffles behind them grew louder. 

“Watch and learn!” Harley cracked, as she spun on her heels. 

She flung her mallet just as the clique of men cleared the corner, striking one with enough force to down him from the single blow. 

“Yahtzee!” Harley screeched, her grin widening as the other men rushed forth before springing forward herself.

Her mallet materialized back into her hands; it tingled with the tempertureless sensations of Raven’s black magic as she tightened her grip reflexively. 

“Batter’s up!” she cried, ducking into the brawl. 

She grunted as her focus narrowed; her jump kick knocked the closest to the ground, sending a sudden wave of force through her ankles as the shockwaves carried through to her knees.

She landed awkwardly on her side before rolling onto her hands; the movements fluid, she spun her heel to knock the approaching man down and gave a hard kick to his face before grabbing the mallet and jumping to her knees. 

Snap deciding that the other man looked too lucid, she brought the hammer down, full-body force, against his leg with a terrible snap ; the man howled in agony as the leg visibly bent the wrong way in the wrong location. 

Keeping her momentum, she used the mallet’s massive weight to carry her through her turn; the metal extension clipping cleanly into the other man’s already bruised face with a sickeningly-satisfying crunch.  

Three men down, the remaining gaggle hollered and cursed with rage mixed apprehension as a couple pulled forth weapons of their own. 

A single burst of volley was all that managed to get off, startling her, before it was encased in black. The other guns barely had time to peek out of their pockets before their nozzles were bent with a fast crack .

She chuckled, the half-snort causing her to laugh fully; she bounced forward at the guy who’d fished out a knife. 

His handiwork wasn’t impressive; keeping him farther than arm's length was her only difficulty in the scuffle. 

A few knicks and one rage-inducing gash was all it took for Harley to snatch his wrist and with a quick overthrow of her heel against his shoulder, she spun them both to the ground and rolled him under her, pinning him with her knees; a quick twist and his arm was useless.

Reflexively, she pulled the shiny thing peeking out from under his jacket and pulled out the pistol he’d opted not to get bent, and turned it against his fellows with a grin.

She fired without much intent; but the general direction clipped one of the remaining blokes through the shoulder. 

Two of them took off running, their voiced aggravations not enough to override their survival instincts, leaving one last unlucky lad who lacked the higher thinking of his friends.

Before Harley could make her last move, a shadow melted up from the ground in front of him; Harley watched first in surprise, and then into blooming pride and amusement, as Raven solidified in front of the man.

Her roundhouse wasn’t the most powerful she’d seen out of all the meta’s she’d seen in her career; but for a girl her size and age, Harley was more than easily impressed. 

“Hit ‘em where it hurts, Sweetie,” she called, as Raven tested her training on her first ‘live’ opponent. 

Nimble as she was, the man wasn’t able to land a grab on her; it was almost too soon before he was on his knees, gurgling his own blood with a look of startled confusion over his pained features. 

Seemingly satisfied with the man’s humiliation, Raven pulled black and looked herself over.

Harley offed a whistle of smug contentment as the man staggered to his feet and slowly limped off.

“You tell your boys that Harley’s back!” she called after, ensuring the Streets would be run the news rampantly through the Underground. 

The exiting goon may have whined; she was too busy giggling to tell. 

She looked over to see Raven tonguing a bleeding fist.  

“Those knuckles will heal up in a day or two,” Harley promised idly, spinning the bat back onto her shoulder; “Gee Feathers, all that excitement really works up a girl’s appetite. Let’s go get some burgers, Momma’s treat.”  

Smiling brightly, Raven took her outstretched hand before returning her bleeding one back to her mouth. 

“And aft’a we’re done with that, we’ll go see what my Girls are up to,” she promised merrily, already picturing the unfolding events in her mind’s eye. 

“Momma’s gonna’ show ya’ what being Queen of Gotham is really about.”  

Bright and buoyant, she led Raven out onto the main city street and stopped when the line of cars and officers all aimed in her direction caught her attention. 

Harley sighed.

“ Freeze ! Put your hands in the air, Quinn!” one of the leading men called from behind the safety of the riot shields. 

A wave of black magic overtook the blockade. 

It passed almost instantly, leaving the officers’ guns broken and their cars flipped over.

Harley cackled wildly, almost slipping to her knees. 

The feel of Raven’s magic sucking her in flashed warmly, before the chill of temperturelessness set in.    

She was released past the line of cops, Raven’s hand at her shoulder; Harley stood, fighting to catch her breath.

Still winded and wheezing with laughter, Harley grabbed Raven’s hand and sped down the street to beat out the reinforcements that were no doubt already moving in.

"You break one little window and the whole city goes beserk," she mused, not regretting their evening in the slightest.  

Chapter Text

The entirety of their surroundings pulsed .

The vast room, which smelt awful and yet also sickeningly sweet, was teeming with people overgrowing each other, tangling in bouncing waves of motion in time with the overpowering music pounding through her ears. 

Harley said something to her; even in front of her face, smiling wide, Raven only caught hints of her voice under the being-encompassing sound.

She was handed two little blue objects, soft and squishable. 

Recognizing them as devices Deadshot and the other Robin had supplied her in the past, Raven obediently tucked them into her ears to help reduce the symptoms of the noise.

Harley’s smile brightened; she signaled her two thumbs up before tapping her wrist twice. 

Obediently, Raven nodded.

Harley disappeared through the crowds, leaving her to drink in the sights. 

Everywhere she looked, the darkness was illuminated by colored lights and tasteless magic that staticed across her tongue; stars sped dizzyingly across the ceiling, walls and geometric shapes edge-lined in rolling hues, beams of hyper-condensed color roving over the heads of the bobbing mass -even the people were adorned in patches of vibrant colors and materials.

Many of them wore the same diamond tessellated patterns of her mother; others still wore words and sigils that fell meaninglessly to Raven's understanding. 

Whatever god-celebrating festival she’d been led to, looked to be more consuming than any ritual she’d ever witnessed Azarath conceive. 

As the beats rose and fell, and rose and rose, the rhythm sped and dropped harder, sending the masses tizzying harder and harder in conviction.  

In the darkness, it was easier for her to maneuver around the fringe lining stragglers; a few attendees noted her presence, their faces curious and surprised. 

Harley returned, two bottles in tow and her jacket slung around her waist. 

She dropped to her knees in front of her; Raven felt herself grow curious as she fished a small paper from her ‘chest pocket’ before ripping off a segment.

Harley mouthed the word, ‘open’, and placed the tiny square on her tongue. 

Happy with her compliance, Harley giggled; the visuals delighting Raven for their meaning while nearly-devoid of sound. 

She then handed her a water bottle, which Raven gratefully accepted and tucked away into herself with her shadows for later.

She reached out, Harley happily taking her hands; her guardian soon swaying and spinning her only sometimes in time with the beat. 

As they danced, the pulse started to creep inside of her. 

The lights, the darknesses, the feelings of life radiating out from everyone around her was filling. 

Warm. 

Her powers started to leak out, but the feeling of it didn't bother her. 

She expanded herself through the room, her awareness reaching over the flickering illuminations until she could taste the essences of the rhythmic moment. 

She felt that she was finally beginning to understand her guardian’s dedication towards the celebration of life and living. 

For if she was alive before, she was certain that there was no more truer experience than the one she was in, for feeling alive . 

As the dancing wore on, the lyrics shifted along the thundering hymns, the people sweated into freer movements, and the colors and motions of everything started to bend and patternize; it reminded her of the way her skin tingled whenever she touched Ivy, but moreso.

It was as if she couldn’t draw in enough air into her body, and yet, as if she was breathing more fluidly than she realized she’d been capable of. 

As everything danced Harley continued to move with her.

Sometimes, Harley swayed or bent with others around her; so many of them apparently eager to greet her like brethrens of accolade. 

It felt good, to watch her mentor feel good.

Similarly, she supposed, Raven felt the rest of everyone else feel good, for experiencing everyone else feeling good.  

Harley didn't let her get far; even as she enjoyed the company if the other people, her guardian frequently returned her focus solely on her.

Hoisting her onto her hip, rocking and spinning her, setting her along her shoulders to better see the shifting tides of shapes and sound; it was a pulse of living shared between them and the others of the city. 

Eventually, thirst got to her; the water procured easily from her powers. She guzzled it down like greedy roots, finishing it shortly to sooner return to the rhythm.  

Patterns and glows dotted around her eyes even as they closed; she could feel the movements of Harley swaying her even in the moments they remained still. 

The building around them swayed and tilted beneath their feet, woozy and drifting. 

Every so often Harley offered her a sip from her own bottle; the glassed covered contents burned slightly, and pushed the heat of the music into her core. 

Happy, and relaxed, she felt her skin start to slide around her face. 

If the other people saw her shifting features, none of them seemed to care; Harley merely laughed, scooped her up, and razzberried kisses along her face.    

Chapter Text

“Easy now,” Ivy soothed, guiding Raven to sit without stumbling to the leaf-littered ground; her hands were warm and steady, which Raven felt fond of.

The change in elevation made her head swim slightly; a rush of staggering perception and unbalanced equilibrium.    

“You had a fun time, I take it,” the deity mused; Raven could only hum in response, not quite in the mood for nodding or direct eye contact. 

“Well next time shoot for a little less, if you please,” Ivy insisted; “Or at the very least ask me. -I can make far better ‘party favors’ then whatever you could scrounge up out there, and my stuff won’t leave you hungover afterwards.”  

Noting her guardian’s haughty tone, Raven sobered her thoughts for a moment. 

“...I’m sorry,” Raven warbled, quietly, hoping to change the direction of her mother’s thoughts. 

“No it’s alright Sweet Pea,” Ivy placated quickly, smoothing a hand over Raven’s hair; “I’m happy you had a good time. I just worry about things.” 

“You’re a good mother,” Raven replied evenly. 

Ivy’s heart leapt into her throat; she found herself unprepared for the swell of emotions such a simple statement could induce. 

Feeling a little wobbly herself, she slipped her hands beneath Raven’s arms and hoisted her into her lap, where Raven contently made herself comfortable by burying her face into her chest.

“Oh little Larkspur,” Ivy cooed, her fingers running through Raven’s hair once more; “Whatever am I to do with you.”  

Raven, pleased at the attention, let her mind wander. 

She thought about the lights and the pulsing, teeming, beats though wondered as to how she would be able to properly get across just how connected it all had been. 

At the feeling of her guardian’s plants gently gathering around them, Raven felt her focus drift; as with the people in the thriving building, she could feel herself glossing over the points of life more directly than her empathy.

She was inside the Green. 

She felt minutely, the way Ivy’s body shuddered at the sudden change of her intrusion, but more actually, she only really feel the way rivers of chlorophyll rivered between all growing things, and the sunshiny joy of her mentor delighting in her progresses.

The sunshine was very bright, actually. 

Raven had to squint, to better let her ‘sight’ adjust. 

Her mentor was some feet from her, a look of delight across her ephemeral features; she assumed her own projected construct was similar.

The moss was so soft beneath her feet; likewise, the long grasses tickled under her nose and glided lovingly against her legs as projected herself forward. 

The dappled patterns of shade and sunlight wafted cool patches over her scalp as the great trees towering above her washed past. 

The flowers were immeasurably vibrant; ferns, foliage, bushes, seeds. 

She could feel all of it, connected innately, in a primal way. 

She was not a Green-growing thing. 

But there was Green inside her body, and growing things under her skin, buried in her hair and behind her eyelids. 

When she had run close enough for Ivy to touch, the teeming hums of life strengthened.

Ivy’s hand, a collection of Green molecules against her cheek, bloomed flowers in its wake. 

Unable to speak, or perhaps, both of them simply unwilling, they yet felt no pangs of misunderstanding. 

Raven could feel the Wild, breathless eternity of forever in the goddess's domain; she was attuned to the ways her mother was connected to it, drew from it. Nurtured it. 

Joyfully, Ivy began showing her around; plants lost to time or human intervention, evolutionary offshoots, undiscovered species. 

Marvels of the growing world that Raven had simply never seen before. 

Her mother grew Jade Vines and Slipper Orchids from her palms; each of the plants springing up to bloom and fall and grow anew from the soil beneath their feet. 

Raven opened her palms, similarly offering her body as a channel to the Green.

The plants came black filled and twisted; she felt half a heartbeat of panic before the undisturbed nature of the Green around her kept her still. 

Her mother worked over the plants, curiously, before she too added her satisfaction to the connection of flora. 

Her physique was strange; a human, a demon, and maybe part plant.

The Green did not care. 

The Green simply grew. 

Curious herself, and pleased, she tested her newfound abilities by drawing up sheltered seeds from beneath the earth, coaxing them into full statures, allowing them to boom.

Ivy’s assistance came as a quiet cushion around her craft; a faint set of extra hands near the edges of her awareness, quietly molding her into knowing where to place her hands, how to pick from the stems, what to look for in the plants before they’d even grown. 

There had been few Green things she’d seen on Azarath; but they came to her willingly. 

The Green accepted their lost offshoots as their own, informing Raven that Azarath, or the components of it, had once been part of the Earth and then dimension in which it lay. 

Those plants too, came affected by her powers. 

Not afflicted, simply changed.

Evolved, perhaps.

Strains. 

Raven could feel the pulsing of everything under her fingernails. 

She closed her eyes.

She was back in the Greenhouse.

Around them, and even extending farther back around the Greenhouse, nearly everything was in Bloom. 

Ivy pulled her close again; her hums pooling into lilts of tune. 

Raven let the lullabies of her mother and the Green, ferry her into sleep.     

Chapter Text

“Keep up Slow-ky Poke-y!” Duela hastened, urging her on, “Uncle E’s gotta’ real good one this time!”

Raven followed her across the flashing floor tiles, hopping to each randomized cat-corned square after Duela did to avoid setting off the elaborate trap.  

“Isn’t this great?” Duela asked, her grin extensive as she gestured at the technological marvel around them. 

“Let us out!” a shout cried, catching her attention; “-Hey! You kids!”

Raven turned to face the hostages in the cages lining the sidewall; the lot of them looked various stages of confused and outraged but a few were huddled, quiet, and meek. 

“Quick! Get us out before he comes back!” one cried.

“-Please! Get help!” cried another.

“Pshh, what a bunch of babies,” Duela scoffed, posturing; “Right Raven?” 

Duela tossed her a glance, her grin itching for validation. 

Raven nodded. 

ᵀʰᵉʸ ʷᵉʳᵉⁿ'ᵗ ᵇᵉᶦⁿᵍ ᵗᵒʳᵗᵘʳᵉᵈ ᵒʳ ᵃⁿʸᵗʰᶦⁿᵍ,  Red agreed.

'Besides', she thought offhandedly; her mentors had all warned her about the consequences of meddling in other villains' affairs. 

“When Batman comes, he’s gonna light this place up like -BANG! POW!” Duela explained, spinning around her tile with arms out wide, her red and green hair flaring around her cheeks. 

“-It’s gonna’ look like Christmas!” 

“What’s Christmas?” Raven asked, before sinking to her hands and knees. 

Duela paused and looked at her oddly. 

“Jeez, you don’t know what Christmas is? I thought you said your moms liked you,” the girl replied, a little amazed.

Duela shrugged, putting the notion aside for both of them. 

“Anyway, Uncle Eddy an’ me are gonna’ watch from up there,” she continued, pointing to a wall panel on the other side of the room. 

“Do you think he’s gonna’ make it through?” Raven asked quietly, as she inspected the edge of her tile.  

‘Eh, who knows,” Duela dismissed, clasping her hands behind her back, her elbows sticking up; “Sometimes Uncle E’ jus’ makes up these traps cause he’s bored.” 

“He’s a very popular enemy,” Raven noted; “Uncle Crane says he’d be a harlot if he wasn’t a caped crusader.” 

Duela snorted; “Yeah, he’s kinda lame. Like, other superheroes exist too.”

“Really?”

“Yeah really!” Duela huffed, shooting her a look; “What, you think Lex Luthor just sits in his jammies all day, waiting for Batman to visit Metropolis?”

Raven bit her lip, desperately holding back questions about ‘Metropolis’ was and who ‘Lex Luthor’ might be. 

Duela, noting Raven’s unspoken confusion, groaned.

“I thought you said your Moms like, teach you stuff,” she chastised. 

“Only to kill my Dad,” Raven replied sheepishly.

“-Hey, kids! I’ll give you five dollars to get me out of here!” a man pleaded, holding out the bill. 

Duela looked over to the man and back again, before smiling cruelly.

“Sure!” She called happily, her face now a mask of innocence and naive intent.

Raven watched lazily as Duela bounced over across the tiles, and take the man’s money.

Giggling quietly, she looked over the cage doors and tapped them a few times as if she were concentrating on something.

Just as the look on the man’s face grew hopeful, Duela burst out laughing and back-sprung away.  

“Wait! You can’t-”

His cries went ignored as Duela chuckled and waved the note in front of Raven’s face; as it flipped and tapped over her skin, Raven’s face scrunched out of reflex. 

“I got five dollars!” Duela chirruped, pleased with herself. 

“Wanna’ get ice cream?” Raven suggested, recalling one of the places Harley liked to take her; "We can come back before Eddy knows we're gone."

Duela squealed, nodding enthusiastically in delight. 

Feeling proud of her suggestion, Raven smiled.  

“Jump in,” Raven offered, opening her black magic as the pair continued to ignore the shrieks behind them. 

Chapter Text

Harley screeched, her bat rocketing into the television screen with impeccable force.

Raven winced as the machine shattered, the moving images of the Clown’s ultimatum melting into glitched static before falling dark completely. 

“This is why we can’t buy nice things,” Ivy sighed, as she continued reading. 

“-But Red! Didn’t you see? He’s mocking me!” Harley fumed.

“Nothing out of the ordinary, then,” Ivy agreed, “I don’t know how many times we have to go over how that miserable clown doesn’t respect you for it to sink in.” 

Harley scoffed and rolled her eyes; “I mean, he’s got a kid,” she stressed. 

Rapt with curiosity, Raven pulled up the news on Ivy's phone; the feed was quick to offer half-blurred snapshots and clipped footage of the young girl’s face. 

“...She looks like me,” she murmured, catching her mothers’ attentions.

Ivy leaned over, her interest piqued. 

“Huh,” she remarked, a little taken aback. 

“See? He’s baiting me,” Harley seethed; “He thinks I’ll just… come crawling back! He thinks He can just dangle any ol’ bab in front of 'dumb' Harley’s face and she’ll swing right back under his rotten gums-”

As her volume raised, Bud whined; absently, Harley patted his head, momentarily calming herself.

Lou meanwhile, curled happily against Raven and continued his nap uninterred. 

“-I mean, he’s right of course,” Harley continued, prompting Ivy to set her book down. 

“What do you mean ‘he’s right’,” she asked cautiously, as she looked back over to her.

“I mean,” Harley clarified, wagging her finger for emphasis, “I am going to march over there and rescue that poor girl. -But I’m not playing dollhouse with his ungrateful ass.”

“Can’t we leave it to the Bat?” Ivy sighed, “I’ve got more work to do in the lab later.”

“Lab-schmab Pamma-lamb,” Harley countered; “The poor tyke’s got madness-inducing abilities. Only person who stands a chance of saving her is me.” 

“Or,” Ivy insisted, “You’re the most susceptible.”

“Possibly,” Harley agreed dismissively; “But we still gotta’ save her.”

“...But like, hear me out,” Ivy resisted, gesturing carefully; “What if… we didn’t save her. What do we care anyway?” 

“I care,” Raven replied, butting in. 

“See!?” Harley pressed, throwing an arm in Raven’s direction, “She gets it!” 

Harley puffed her cheeks in checked intensity. 

The plant woman sighed. 

“Do you think she’ll want to be my friend, if we help?” Raven asked hopefully, her eyes bright. 

Poison Ivy groaned, already regretting her decision to give in. 

“Don’t you already have enough friends, Lilac?” Ivy pleaded; “What about your ‘invisible’ friends?”

Raven tilted her head, still looking at the picture; “Maybe she is the girl in my head? She doesn’t talk about herself much.”

The notion seemed to mull inside Ivy's mind for a moment; Raven tentatively bit her lower lip, knowingly pushing the woman into caving.  

“Fine,” Ivy relented, gaining a squeal from her partner; “But we’re not taking her in. We’ll get her out of the Joker’s hands, and then she goes back to wherever he stole her.”   

Chapter Text

“That’s right Gotham!” The madman baited, chuckling into the microphone; “You have all of nine minutes before the entire City goes cuckoo ca-looney!”  

He curt laugh rippled menacingly, his excitement for the rising drama readily transparent. 

“-And Harley,” he added suddenly, breaking role mid-stride before his face soured as visage blinked unflatteringly in closeup; “If you’re out there listening, well let’s just say you better get here before this party grows paralyzed with boredom.”  

His face receded from the camera, leaving only a girl’s staring blankly; the rippling white and black of her leotard fizzled and swirled the longer Raven watched. 

Hers was a face to drown in. 

Raven blinked readily, shaking her head to free herself from the hypnotic trance.

“Bettah’ put on ya’ ‘special eyes’, kiddo,” Harley warned, dropping a hand to pull Raven along faster. 

Obediently, Raven blinked open her four red eyes and tried to keep pace; her cape lapping around her heels. 

In front of them, Ivy was already clearing a path through the stagnating crowds; her head remained affixed to the ground where her emerging shoots shot runners to part the people blocking her way. 

Above them, carried by a hardwire, was the Batman; trailed by Robin. The pair of them already hot on Joker’s case. Just as Raven noted the Bat’s presence noticed his shadow overtaking them and started to tense.

Feeling Harley’s feelings of frustrations mount, Raven expanded her soul to encompass her flesh and unfurled into her large shadowy bird form; within her, she swiftly encompassed Harley and raced forward, slowing only long enough to engulf her other mother before continuing on to the Media building hosting Joker’s hijacked stage performance. 

The city almost giving way before her for her speed, she melted through the outer walls with, leaving the Batman and his proteges several minutes behind her.

She released her mothers at landing, coming to a furled halt some steps before the hostage and the Clown. 

“Ahhh, what a reunion,” the Joker quipped, taking notice of their entry; he clasped his hands and splayed his grin wide before stepping towards them, his gestures filled with fake welcome. 

“Isn’t it so nice to have the family together at last?” he inquired leadingly; beside her, Ivy and Harley readied themselves, inciting Raven to quietly do the same. 

“It’s over, Joker,” Harley shot, standing her ground; “You an’ me is done for good .” 

“Ahhh, Harley… you wound me, you really do wound me,” he insisted, clasping a melodramatic hand over his chest; “You really expect me to let you run off to buy cigarettes -never to return, leaving me a single mother of four?”

“Four?” Ivy reflexively asked, perplexed. 

“ -Billion brain-dead screwballs,” he joked,  gesturing wildly to the screens set up around the stage, all reflecting the motionless girl. 

“-This little baby right here does all the works,” he explained, thumbing in the girl’s direction over his shoulder; “Why, five minutes and their brains will be fried enough to make our dear Arkham inmates looks like regular Joe- Schmoes , and ten minutes?” he drawled happily, “Woo-boy, now that’ll be some crazy shit!” 

As the Clown continued to cackle, Raven noticed Ivy shift in her peripheral; Poison Ivy was falling prey to the girl’s hypnotic trance. There were too many screens in the room to avoid the boring gaze; only the Clown as a safe place to focus, and Ivy strained to keep him in sight. 

Keeping her own eyes glued to the Madman, Raven pulled her hood further along her face and focused her attention on sensing Ivy’s innocuous, but signaling movements, while Harley kept the Clown talking.

Without responding back, Raven dipped out of sight into the shadows behind her to reappear before the somber girl. 

Who remained motionless.

Shapes danced in Raven’s peripherals; the movements blurred and unnatural against the fabric of her hood. 

The floor started to churn. 

Changing course quickly; Raven thought next to destroy the link between the cameras and the girl’s infectious stare.

Looking at her made her eyes burn; she blinked them in succession.

Raven felt as if things inside herself were shifting. 

Warbling. 

Teetering . 

Bats and butterflies tickled fluttering wingtips beneath her vision. 

The glitter was clouding. 

Her magic raised easily to her arms; the darkness wasted little time ripping down everything electronic in the room. 

“Harley! Baby, I did this for you ,” Joker cooed, ignoring the crashes around him; “Come home,” he pleaded.

“It’s over Joker!” rang out a youthful, confident cry; followed by a vibrantly clad young lad.

Raven clung to the girl’s side and took stock of the room as Batman and one of his Robin’s entered the scene. 

The Clown Prince of Crime shot the young boy a disgusted, and somewhat exhausted look.  

“Release the girl and nobody gets hurt,” Batman ordered. 

“Fuck that, Bats!” Harley cried, aiming her swing; “Momma’s karma is a bitch!” 

Raven turned her attention from the fight back to the girl. 

Her eyes were nearly unbearable . 

“...Who. Are you?” the girl asked quietly, surprising her.

“I’m Raven,” she answered honestly; “Are you Red?” 

“Red?” 

“The voice in my head,” Raven explained, her pulse somewhat quickening. 

“Probably?” the girl answered, somewhat awkwardly; “I make people worse. ...But my name is Ace.”  

“ACE-Y!” the Joker sang, catching their attentions; “Be a good girl and turn up the juice!” 

At once, Ace’s eyes glowed sallow with feverish emission; Raven stumbled back from the force of the radiating waves, which no time at all, bore into Batman and her mothers behind him.

Impulsively, Raven wrapped her magic around Ace’s eyes, blocking the signal. 

Harley spat the blood from her broken nose onto the floor and wiped the rest on the back of her hand as she stood up; the Batman, meanwhile, wobbled on all fours as he slowly attempted to collect himself. 

Ivy shook herself mean. 

“No fair!” Joker cried, stomping his foot indignantly; “I call Fowl!”

“And I call Light’s Out!” Harley rebuked, bringing down her hammer. 

Joker tumbled to the floor, the wind knocked out of him. 

Along with him, tumbled a metal ring encoded with tech and wires.

Her distraction dissipated her magic, allowing Ace her field of vision once more. 

Her eyes widened in horror at the device; Ivy snarled; her vines crushed the collar-resembling contraption without mercy. 

Ace moved to stand; surrendering her throne. 

Raven waited long enough for her other mother to get a few more bludgeonings in on the Clown for good measure; it was only when the Batman started to rize that Raven resumed her avian form and collected her family. 

She left the Madman to the Bat and his Boy, and claimed the girl and her mothers for her own.

Chapter Text

“Wow, you sure looked cool on TV,” Duela remarked from her position on the edge of the tub. 

Despite her numerous warnings, the young girl continued attempting to sneak peeks of Ace’s gaze whenever Ivy’s positioning didn’t block her. 

Harley kept watch from the doorway, a cup of microwaved mac’n’cheese in one hand and a plastic spork in her other; her expressions flickered between states of amusement and concern. 

“Shouldn’t you be at Eddy’s?” Ivy asked the red-headed child tiredly.

“Nah, he’s busy. Seeing Joker on TV made him mad. -Well, madder ,” she corrected, giggling. 

“His note said he’s busy plotting his next Blockbuster stunt,” Harley offered before taking another bite; she chewed noisily before swallowing it down; nearly spilling some on the floor as Lou tried to but his way into the bathroom. 

Harley nudged him back with her heel, balancing precariously.  

“She’ll be here the week them” Ivy drawled, already assuming the probable outcomes; “I suppose this is our fault for letting Larkspur teleport.”   

“If I cut my hair like hers, we’d look like sisters,” Raven quipped to Ace at the mention of her nickname; hovering near the sink, barely unable to contain her excitement, she regarded Ace with an eager curiosity that her mentors lacked the heart to stifle.

Duela likewise, seemed intrigued by the new inclusion; she toyed somewhat with the crumpling note that Riddler had pinned to her shirt. 

Both Duela and Raven fidgeted as Ace waited patiently on the lidded toilet; the moments stretching on as Ivy weeded out the last of the filament wires from under Ace’s skin. 

As the last few fell off the tweezers, Ace slumped, clearly exhausted. 

“We’re not related,” Ace stated factually; "You're nothing like me." 

“We could be,” Raven countered, taking on a few of Duela’s inflections, bringing out the redhead’s grin; “If I didn't wear my cloak, we'd match.” 

“Alright little Crocus” Ivy addressed, drawing back from Ace’s scalp; “I think that’s as good as it's going to get.” 

“I told you,” Ace whined uncomfortably; “It won’t matter.” 

“Relax, Clubs!” Harley lilted, planting a hand on the girl’s shoulder; “We’ll put all that rough stuff behind you. Build you a new life!” 

“Until the tumor takes me,” Acey muttered her gaze still affixed to the floor; “Or I level the city.” 

The moment hung heavy, as the group considered her words; their faces soured. 

Ivy looked Harley; the jester could only bite her lip. 

“Gee, that Waller really did a numbah’ on her, huh?” Harley offered her partner frivolously. 

“That stinks,” Duela observed, somewhat breaking the tension. 

Ace didn’t respond. 

Ivy rubbed a gentle circle along Ace’s back.   

“I can help,” Raven quietly offered; “No metal. Just magic.”  

Ace looked up, catching Raven’s gaze. 

“No one can help me.” 

“That’s defeatist,” Harley chirruped; “It’s alright, let Lil’ Bit give it a try.” 

Raven smiled eagerly, her own gaze hopefully bright.

Tentatively, Ace seemed to find solace or conviction in Raven’s posturing and nodded.

Raven placed her hands around Ace’s temple; her hands flared a shimmering light blue. 

Ace gasped, reflexively priming to pull away from inflicted stimuli; when in the same moment, the expected pain never came, Ace stilled, her curiosity piqued. 

Raven seeped her magic in. 

Her eyes closed as she pictured a mass of skin and sickness within Ace’s body; encapsulated by swirling neurons and shifting afterglows.

Whispering thoughts glanced along Raven’s psyche; Ace’s trusting brow pulsed beats against her skin. 

The Blue sank deeper, filling Ace all the way down before flaring enough to pull slowly back in; a net of cast water, binding agents in its similies of isotopes. 

Her pull cinched around what didn’t belong. 

She squeezed it tight; pulling it through space a time back, back before it ever had the chance to grow. 

Her Blue flared out; leaving Ace her own. 

Raven opened her human eyes.

Ace’s eyes started to water. 

Raven leaned forward and Ace lent closer; she climbed into Ace’s lap and wrapped her arms around her.     

In her throat, the Blue pooled; Raven tried to ignore the way 𝔱𝓗Ｅ 𝓛𝒾ţ𝔱Ł€ 𝐅𝕚𝓈ᕼᵉˢ Ｕs𝐄đ Į𝕥 тØ ˢｗᶤ𝓜.  

Chapter Text

The cartoon cat howled in pain as the wooden board slapped up into his face, flatting it instantly with a ‘th-wang-g-g-g’ .

Raven laughed as the cat stepped backwards, swaying side to side as the lump on his grew to absurd proportions; ᵢₜ 𝓌ₐₛ 𝒻ᵤₙₙᵧ ₜₒ ₛₑₑ ₜₕₑ 𝒸ₐₜ ₛᵤ𝒻𝒻ₑᵣ ₛₒ. 

She laughed and chuckled in all the places Harley had; the timing was regular enough for it to be reflexive for her.

ₐ𝒸ₑ 𝒹ᵢ𝒹 ₙₒₜ ᵤₙ𝒹ₑᵣₛₜₐₙ𝒹 ₜₕₑ 𝓌ₑᵢ𝓰ₕₜ ₒ𝒻 ₜₕₑ ⱼₒₖₑₛ. 

But that was fine; she didn’t have to laugh. 

Or smile. 

Sometimes Ace smiled. 

Cᵣₑₑₚᵧ. 

It was nice.  

ₛₕₑ 𝓌ₐₙₜₑ𝒹 ₜₒ 𝒸ₗₐ𝓌 ₐₜ ₛₒₘₑₜₕᵢₙ𝓰. 

Hunger, nawed a little at her belly. 

Ace picked at the cereal bits left in the bowl tucked inside her lap; ⱼᵤₙₖ.

Raven looked back to the TV. 

The cat melted from the hot iron.

Ｉ𝓣 𝓟𝓸Ｏ𝓛𝑒ⓓ ᗪσ𝐖𝓷, ∂ŕⒾρｐι𝓷Ꮆ 𝕚Ň ˢ𝓁ό𝐔g𝒽𝐬 ᵒ几𝕥Ⓞ т𝔥𝕖 Ｃᵃ𝐑ⓟ𝔢т.  

ᵢᵥᵧ 𝓌ₐₛ 𝓰ₒᵢₙ𝓰 ₜₒ ᵦₑ ᵤₚₛₑₜ ₐᵦₒᵤₜ 𝒸ₗₑₐₙᵢₙ𝓰 ᵢₜ. 

The pixels of the TV stuck in her eyes; she rubbed them, attempting to free herself from the stinging afterimages and sharp corners. 

“Are you alright?”

Raven turned a glance and regarded Ace. 

“I’m fine,” she stated, fighting the urge to ₗₒₒₖ ₐₜ ₕₑᵣ ₐ𝓰ₐᵢₙ. 

Ivy settled neatly into the armchair, a full bowl of cereal in tow. 

The sounds of her crunching were oddly distracting, filling Raven’s head with flashes of 𝕋Ⓔ𝐄ţħ 𝓐η∂ ώØỖ𝔩 αηᗪ Ｔ€έт𝓗 𝐀𝓃𝐃 ғŘιｇｈ𝕋 𝔞Ň𝒹-    

Bud and Lou were chuckling on the floor; she smiled at them fondly before catching Ace’s reflection in the shifting colors of the television. 

𝐒𝐀l𝐥๏𝐖 єⓨẸᔕ Ｂᵒᖇ丨η𝑔 𝓘几, she smiled at Ace, too. 

ₛₕₑ ₚₗₐ𝒸ₑ𝒹 ₕₑᵣ ₕₐₙ𝒹 ᵤₚₒₙ ₐ𝒸ₑ'ₛ; her fingers warm from tucking them under her thighs. 

Slowly, Ace returned her smile. 

𝐓нᵉ Ⓢ𝐏άᵗⓘᑕαℓ 𝐧𝔬𝔫丂ⓔŇŜ乇 𝔸𝐫σⓊ𝐧Ⓓ 丅Ħ乇 Č𝐚𝓣 ᵃ𝐍๔ 乃ᎥŘ𝕕 𝐰ⓐⓈ 𝔱н𝔢 ＯⓃ𝐥ү ƤαŘＴ Ｏғ ŕ𝒆𝔸Łⓘтⓨ ι𝓃 𝐓ⒽẸ 𝓈ᕼσ𝓌.

“Raven Sweetie,” Harley sang, rounding the corner of the couch with a bowl for her; “Put your feet down.”

H̴̱͈̎̑̀͌́̄̌͆ȅ̶͉̝̈́̊͐͝r̴͍̼̽̿ͅ ̶̻̭̼̹̊́ͅà̶̱̻̝̻̦͔̼̓̇̍̒̀̈́ͅṯ̴̩͗̾ͅt̴͇̻͔͐̃e̸̡̯̰̘̲̽͌̕n̵̢͈͍̼̩͇͚̯̈͝t̸͎̩̜͇̻͎͚͇̎͒͑̔̑́̅͘͘i̷̘̩̼̓̓̎͛ơ̸̛̥̫̺͓̯̌̌́͝ń̸̢̑̅͂̎̽̂͑͌ ̸̯̖̓͛̍͝͝f̵̨̭̮̘͋̈͛͝ḯ̷͈̠̠͕̥͎͑̍̋͌͋̅̕l̸̛̰̼̆̐͆͌͑͘͘l̷̡̥̤̤̈͒̈́̇̽͊̎̽e̶͇̐͋͒̍͝ḏ̵̑̈́̍̊̄̋̇̅͒͘ ̵̛̻̫͈̗̼̰͈̇͌̐w̵̢͎͍͌ȋ̶̤̞̯̣̆ṭ̶̪̝͇̣̙̠͈̻͎̊̅͐̐̄̊̅̉h̴̠͙͉̠̞͙͓̯̆̂̃̍̈́̐͜ͅ ̵̡͍̬̳̹̬͇̼͛̅̓̎̆̃̇̕͝i̵̭̟̪̘̩̋̓̃̋̈́̂ͅn̴̢͔̼̬͓̅̍̈́͋̅͝͝d̸͚̓i̴͔̩ģ̶͎͎͎̻̬̼͎͙̆͂́̕͜n̷̹̘̯̩̥̄̆̎̿̌̇̒̋̏ä̶̡̧͚̹̠̮̰́̏̓̓̈́ẗ̵̜͚͚́̔̆͠i̷̢̛̖͕͈̻̯͊̓̑͑̔̑͝͠o̷̪̿̈́ṇ̴̛̟̥̪͚̻̘̃̌͊̾̌ ̷͇̮̝̮̿̀͜a̴̢̰̯͙̗̟̱̦̫̪͛̓̅̐̒͠ţ̸̩͉̰͉̤͕̦͐͜ ̶͈͑͛̔̕ṭ̵̡̰͉͈̰̠̲͆̔͘͜h̷̻̦̫̗̲̐͒̆́͜e̴̜̮̲͕̤̮̾́ ̶̩̲͓̥̦̬̱̭͗̊̕i̸̦͎̮̖͕̻͕͕͓̐̏͠n̶̨̢̜̣̝̩͇̤͖͖͗̾̆̃͠͝t̷̛̥̰̩͛̔̈̏̈͋͝ȩ̶̡̡͍̟͓̖͈̗̯͌͂̂͊̇̆̽͝͝r̵̭̓̈́͛̏̾̈́̏r̴̘̲̣͎͓̉̇̑̓͝ȕ̶̯̱͔̖̩̙̹͓̭͒̿̌̋̚̕̕͜p̷̢̨̧̯̦̯͎͎̫̩̓̑̓̀ẗ̵̡͈͕́̒̓̐̍̌̏͝i̸͖͚͓̩̞̬̭̹̍̂͛̎̈̄͝ͅò̸̺̹̜̳͗͆̎̍̆͝ͅṇ̵̰̜͇͉̣͕̘̘̄̋̂̃͋̒̈́̌̍ͅ ̶̟͇̳͎͑̅͐̓̔̈́̕̚͝ơ̷̻̍͌͌̕͝f̵̟̻͍̰͆̎͐̒̕ ̵̣͖͎̲͕̣̻͚́̿ͅt̸̢̗̲̋͛̈́̍̔̍h̸̛̘̻̲̱̑͒̌͌̈́͝e̸̢̛̩̯̫͊͊͛̽̋̆̉̀ ̶̧̦͕͚̖̫̼͙͓̼̏̍̎͒̑̆̊̽͘ś̶͔͖̜̦̠̟̼̞̞̈́ḩ̷̧̬͔̳̯̤̼́̆̋̓͒͌͂̕͝͝o̸̢̗͍̝͜͠w̸̰̾̒̈̈͌̅̎͛.̵̨̠͚͈̻̰̭̹͆͆̃́̐̊̉̏͘͠

Her growl was inhuman. 

“-Raven!” Ivy barked, sitting up; her tone a warning.

The growl died in her throat as Raven slouched and allowed her feet to drop to the floor. 

Merrily, though likely forced, her mother dropped the bowl in her lap with a grin before settling herself on the arm of the couch next to Ace. 

ₛₜᵤₚᵢ𝒹.  

She swallowed the inner resentment and picked at her bacon bits. 

ⓉĦ€ 𝐅卂ς乇 Ɨηş𝓘Ｄέ 𝔱ħє ｂ𝕠𝔀Ł qᵘเẸ𝓉Łч Ｄί𝔰𝐭ᗝ𝓻𝐭ⓔⒹ ĮⓃｔ𝐎 ᖴί乇𝓵Ｄs 𝕠𝔣 𝐀Ğ𝐎ⓝ𝕀𝐳є๔ 𝐅Ļ𝔞ᵐ𝐞.  

The bowl shook in her hands, punctuated by flickering lights. 

No one looked at her but Lou.

Collecting her breath, Raven looked back to the TV, calming.   

She giggled as the Cat’s fishing line hooked around his own tail.

Chapter Text

"I gave Dent a call, he said he can pick up Duela night after tomorrow," Ivy informed the baking tasked blonde. 

"...Bastard could stand to spend some time with their own kid," she murmured under her breath; "I suppose it'll give Ace time to settle in," she added louder, for Harley to hear.

Harley's singing felling into a quieter hum as she took the information in stride.

The grin on the blonde's face informed Ivy that she was biting back a cheeky 'told you so' somewhere inside it. 

As her thoughts settled on the somber girl once more, Ivy felt her troubled mood return.  

“Hey, Harls?” Ivy asked softy, her brow furrowed; “Does Larkspur seem different to you?” 

“Hmm?” Harley hummed, her focus intent in as she carefully set the tray of freshly finished cookies on the stovetop to cool.

“-I can’t tell if she’s just growing up, or if maybe she’s just spending too much time with Eddie’s girl, or if Ace’s power has something to do with it,” Ivy explained, her tone half worried with her arms folded against her chest. 

She watched as Harley switched off the oven and slid her mits onto the counter, a smile still happily stretched along her dolled-up face. 

“I wouldn’t worry about it too much, Red,” Harley soothed, sling a hand around Ivy’s arm. She leaned in to kiss her cheek before adding, “Feathers can’t get nothing we haven’t seen before.” 

Ivy exhaled, letting the tension melt through her shoulders while from beneath her, the Green hummed comfortingly from under the floor.  

Harley threaded her arms around Ivy’s middle, and tilted her head to keep Ivy’s mouth near her own. 

“...I don’t know how to approach Ace’s powers,” Ivy admitted. 

Harley pressed a longer kiss into Ivy’s lips, humming a long, soothing breath.

At Ivy’s thoughtful expression, Harley thought back to her gradschool days. 

“Post-trauma stress and aversions, definitely,” Harleen thought aloud; “Some mild cherophobia. She seems to be able to control the intensity of her attacks so, some dark sunglasses maybe… Bud would make an excellent guide dog.”

Harley blinked and smiled, her entire demeanor perking up; “I can train ‘im up real good, Pammy! You’ll see! Buddy’ll be such a good boy!” 

“I’ll order some blackout specs and a cane then,” Ivy agreed, pulling Harley closer; Ivy's hands rubbed dangerously near the blonde's apron ties.

The pair enjoyed the moment, swaying slightly in each other’s arms before Ivy gently lifted Harley’s face for another kiss. 

A light set of scampering footsteps elicited a small giggle from the harlequin; drawing back a bit, Harley bit her tongue in delight for the likely 'ew, gross' one of their girls had likely scowled at the sight of them again.         

“-We best get these hotcakes to the plates, Pretty Momma!” Harley quipped, spinning on her heels to take up the cookie tray once more. 

“I’ve gotta’ eye on Lil’Bit,” Harley furthered, as she carefully held the pan aloft a doily’d platter; “So’s we should be good. She’s learned a lotta’ stuff these few months but, as long as she doesn’t start parroting Zsaz, I think we’ll be okay.”

“Do you think she might?” Ivy asked, as the cookies tumbled onto the plate, forming a hearty stack. 

“Eh, she’s just got some prodromal symptoms, we’ll see how it goes,” Harley dismissed. 

With her platter ready, Harley looked back to Ivy, positively beaming. 

“If she starts acting up I’ll run her through a wringer,” she decreed merrily; “Lil’Bit may be bad, but I’m badder. And she knows it.”

Ivy followed Harley out of the kitchen, plate in her hands. 

“Dunno’ if any of it’ll affect her magic stuff though,” Harley admitted, as they entered the hall. 

“I’ll give Z’ a call,” Ivy agreed.   

“Yes, that’s it,” Madame Zodiac praised, as she watched the props magically remain motionless.

Raven hummed, content to keep the objects in the air indefinitely; lightweight as they were, she didn’t feel much affected by means of any strain. 

“Now your concentration,” the occultist warned, nodding to Harley. 

The pistol shots were unexpected; her grasp on the objects faltered as the loud noises caught her off guard.

Through fast reflex, she was quick to re-engulf them before any could hit the ground. 

Harley giggled, letting her arms drop to her hips in consideration. 

Madame Zodiac muttered to herself before clearing her throat.

“You’re still struggling with reaching your center,” she observed gravely; the woman waved her hand absently, instructing Raven to release her hold once more. 

“She’s been good about meditating in the garden,” Ivy offered the woman beside her, as she pressed her fingertips to her cheek in thought; "There's just been a few... recent developments, that may be affecting her more internally."

Turning slightly Madame Zodiac looked over at Ace sitting quiet and uncanny across the room, a fidgeting, but ultimately behaving Duela beside her; before her expression stretched taught. 

“I can see the dilemma the Azarathians left us with,” she offered, inciting Raven to shiver. 

Feeling a mix of dread and curiosity, Raven scooted closer to Ivy, and wrapped an arm around her leg.

Ivy absently ran her fingers through the child’s hair. 

Madame Zodiac knelt down, attempting to take a closer look into Raven’s eyes before reaching out to manually keep the girl’s face aligned with her own. 

She gazed intently, in silence, for several moments; running thumbs along Raven’s brow and eyes until she grew satisfied. 

“They did something to you, didn’t they?” the occultist asked. 

Filling with visible apprehensiveness, Raven bit her lip slightly, unable to meet the woman’s gaze. 

Ivy’s hands rubbed into her shoulders; likely unintentionally, Raven could smell the shift in scents about her mother’s flowers and pheromones, in idle effort to keep her soothed. 

“They tried to… pull me out,” she offered, as the memories shuddered through her limbs; she twitched, and Madame Zodiac nodded in understanding. 

“How much of your psyche were they able to extract?”

At this, Harley bounded closer, taking the empty spot to Madame’s right. 

-αll rαvєn cσuld ѕєє wαѕ thє cσld ѕculptєd rσσm. thє whítє hσσdєd fígurєѕ. thє glαrє frσm thє gαríѕh líght вσríng thrσugh hєr ѕkull.

She couldn't see their faces; her mind or her emotions or her memory was avidly blocking them out, desperate to put more distance between her and the event. 

As she focused her mind's eye on ƭɦε ∂α૨ҡℓყ ∂૨εรรε∂ σɳε, ʝµรƭ ɓεɦเɳ∂ ƭɦε σƭɦε૨ร, her mind ejected her back into the present.  

Raven shook her head furiously and rubbed her temple; the memories had bubbled up swells of emotions and reactions, and she apparently did not want to relive any of them.

She could feel her soul magic, leaked out across the air, contorting every bit of the Bigtop it could touch.  

Not wanting to look weak in front of her friends and matrons, Raven fought to compose herself. 

“...I screamed,” she got out, stumbling over the syllables; “I stopped them before they could take me out of me.” 

Madame Zodiac’s demeanor fell soft; a wave of pity fell across the occultist’s face. 

“Yes, I sense as much,” she agreed; “It’s likely that in interrupting the spell, one of your alignment points were pulled out of place.”

“Is that going to affect her?” Ivy asked, her worry politely masked under firm tones.

The woman looked to her and stood; “With her youth, she can grow to compensate for it,” she replied flatly, before continuing, “I daresay some extra efforts in management shall be beneficial.”

Ivy nodded once, eyeing the blackness wafting above.

“The strain from her crown seems the most maligned,” the occultist noted, “For the moment, I’ve something to test a counterbalance. We can do the fine-tuning later, of course.”

The woman reached for one of the many pouches secured to her belt; Raven recognized it as the bag of sigiless runestones. 

After a moment’s fishing, the woman pulled out crystal as deep and light-catching as blood. 

In her other hand, the woman drew her sacrimonial dagger, wicked and sharp. 

“Now child, don’t move.”

Instantly tensing, Raven stuck her chin out and focused on her breathing; her body recalling similar states from Talia’s lessons. 

The sight of the implement aimed between her eyes flashed another jagged edge of memory; of the beam of color that had been pulled out of her skin. 

'ᵣᵤₙ! FᵢGₕₜ!!'

As the knife neared, her body filled with a primal and remembered fear. 

She shivered; sealed her eyes shut. 

Ivy's face radiated heat as she nuzzled it into her ear. 

"Easy, Little Lilac," she soothed, "It's alright."

The warm, lilting platitudes melted the shadows from the darkened figure; her mother's form. 

Arella had been watching, Raven realized, hope and fear lacing her remorseful face. 

Her mouth burned sour.  

Noting her continuing distress, Ivy's scents reacted, warming Raven's nose with citrus, honeydew, and clover.

Red tangerine pooled against her and Raven felt Ivy probe alongside her within the Green. 

-ą ɱơɱɛŋɬ'ʂ ƈơŋʄųʂıơŋ ơʄ ცơɖıɛʂ; ʄƖąʂɧɛʂ ơʄ ɧąʑɛɖ ąŋɖ ʂɧąཞɛ-ɖıʂɬơཞɬɛɖ ɱɛɱơཞıɛʂ.

ą ɠąཞɖɛŋ ıŋ ąŋ ąʂყƖųɱ, ą Ɩơცơɬơɱყ ıŋ ą ɖཞɛąɱ.

'ₛCᵣₑₐₘ!'

Powerless to comply, her mouth felt weighted; brimming with the tastes of chemical compounds and charged ions. 

"Hold her steady," the occultist warned. 

Ivy's hands kept her from swaying; she wondered if her mother's toxins were a popular anesthetic. 

-The cut was slow.

The blade, initially cold, grew dully-warm by the time it exited her skin. 

Madame Zodiac placed the gem to the still-bleeding wound and began to recite a few words; within seconds, the gem started pulling her blood into itself, and Raven felt her dark magic responding.

With great force, it nearly jumped out of her body, to grasp at the crystal. 

When it struck, the flash of light blinded Raven for an instant before cooling; the crystal felt strange burrowed into her brow. 

Some of the blood that had seeped down her face, coiled metallicly inside her mouth.

"Just like getting your ears pierced," Harley quipped: "How's about we do a ladies night, on account of you bein' such a good sport huh? How's that sound?" 

"Yes, a celebration of her new start," Mamadme Zodiac agreed; "If it works. -Try it now."

Reflexively, Raven raised a hand, her powers already curled some feet before her. Devoid of emotion, she sought to consolidate her stary matter on a whim, to find that connection of senses were sharper even than when she'd been in Azarath.  

She smiled. 

Chapter Text

The Bigtop was decorated in every direction, from the rafters to the ring. 

Music cut in, played over the staticy speakers lining the Bigtop; the stage lighting shedding patchworks of colorful hues across the assembled.

Elongated tables draped in white cloths flanked each side of the enormous space, engorged with cornucopias of enticing delicacies; meats, fruits, candies, soups; other meals tucked neatly into bowls, pots, and plates. 

The Banner spanning the width of the elaborate tent bore cheerful, playfully scrawling letters:

‘  ✗ MERRY CHRIST ❤ BIRTHDAY ❤MAS¡!! ✗  ‘

Raven, flanked on either side by Ace and the boys, seemed content sitting at her little round table of honor. 

“This is gonna be so good Red!” Harley squeed, clasping her hands in delight. 

Ivy sighed; the stress of setting everything up was starting to wear on her, and she wasn’t quite looking forward to putting so many conflicting egos under one roof without plexiglass or iron walls to lock between them. 

As if on cue, a holler rang out, marking the entrance of their first guest.

“Pleasure to grace your establishment, Ladies,” the Penguin trilled, tugging a young boy by the wrist; behind them, a gaggle of his goonies pulled in a cart loaded with colorfully wrapped packages of all colors and sizes, with most of the shapes ranging quite large. 

“Pengi!” Harley hollered, her boys Bud and Lou snortling chuff-filled greetings of their own. 

As Harley and Cobblepot conducted their cursory exchanges, Ivy motioned for the henchman to drop the presents off at the designated. 

The nephew looked around sheepishly for a few minutes before setting himself at one of the tables, which suited Ivy just fine. 

Riddler strode in next, Duela bounding in beside him on all fours; her color-clashing layers an assault to the senses.

“I am covered but not with clothes,” he riddled, as he flourished his greeting with a bow, “I can be given but never I show. What am I?"

“-A present?” Harley chirruped; “Aww Eddie, you’re so thoughtful!” 

He stood up again, his smile dazzling. 

Ivy waited patiently for something else to happen; the pair of them looked at each other a moment before Nigma started scowling; with a sigh, he tapped his cane against Duela’s back, who grumbled before pulling something small from someplace Ivy hadn’t quite discerned. 

The small menace to society trudged over to Raven’s table before plopping it in front of her. 

“Of course, that’s not the main attraction!” he added, clearly pleased with himself; Ivy almost smiled at the predictability of it. 

Behind him, four henchman in green heaved in one of Eddie’s patented puzzle boxes; “I’ve done you the liberty of setting up quite the puzzling little adventure for your little tyke,” he explained, thumbing his lapel.

“Say ‘thank you’, Raven,” Ivy reminded.

“Thank you Uncle Eddie,” Raven parroted; watching the world serenely. Beside her, Ace stayed silent; a fact made more pronounced by the blindfold wrapped gingerly around her eyes.  

Ivy wished she had half the girls’ apparent indifferences. 

“Uncle Eddie?” Penguin huffed, his pot-bellied stance jiggling in confusion and delight; “What about ‘Uncle’ Penguin, eh?” he squawked. “Ol’ Cobblepot’s done real good for ‘yous,” he warbled around his cigar, his disfigured thumb jerking towards the tower of gifts piled over the present-table.

“Thank you too, Uncle Cobblepot,” Raven replied graciously.

Penguin harrumphed, apparently satisfied; as she and Harley had suspected, the waddling business man held a clear preference for Raven over Ace.  

Penguin fell into a gentle conversation with Riddler as more villains trickled in.

One by one dozens of themed criminals entered, bringing entourages of henchfolk and stacks of crude or elaborately wrapped parcels; alongside their rival-peers, there were some Ivy recognized as part-timers and opportunistic hopefuls.

Selina, Talia, Crane, Lady Shiva, Killer Croc, Killer Moth, Mister Freeze and his new-to-crime wife.

Enough faces to fill half of Arkham, and a third of Blackgate or Belle Reeve.   

Some of the guests, as Penguin and Nigma had, brought their own proteges’ and civilian charges; from toddlers like Talia’s son to teenagers, most of the younglings seemed quiet and kept close to their mentors.       

There had been few ‘official’ invitations; other than a few specific individuals she’d wanted for networking purposes, she’d left the bulk of the party-planning to Harley, and from what she could tell, the jester had done excellent work in encouraging the right riff-raff to make their appearances. 

Everyone seemed to be playing nice, which Ivy thanked to the calming pheromones blooming from the elaborate patches of Greenery she’d strung into the party decor. 

By the time the influx of attendees finally slowed, the stacks of gifts had grown exponentially, and the party was well underway. 

Harley bounced from each guest to the next, greeting every villain and henchman with notable deft and charm.

Ivy sat regally, observing the proceedings from her Green-crafted seat, but smiled, as she watched Harley flit in and out of conversations with impeccable ease.

The time for greetings did not last forever, however. 

Harley began progressing the proceedings as the gathered crowd began to shuffle with dangerous restlessness. 

Raven began opening the packages; the bulk of which seemed marked for her, though a few of the Rogues had thought to bring something for Ace as well. Ace -and Duela, who had opted to join Raven at her table, eagerly assisted her daughter in slogging through the gifts.   

Raven was pleasantly cordial, sincerely giving thanks after every offering.

-And that’s really what they were, Ivy felt. 

Offerings. 

Bribes. 

Public displays of power.

None of them had any real allegiances to her or to Harley, let alone their strange, somber children. 

But word had gotten out that Raven had been the one to best the Joker and the Batman on live TV, and that she had been the one to offer a miracle to ‘Missus Freeze’, and that she was being trained across the fields. 

Her grandstanding ‘birthday party’ was the most civil way the city’s degenerates could think to make themselves known to her. 

Ivy didn’t trust any of them as far Harley could spit seeds, but she agreed it was a necessary practicality. 

So when she watched Harvey Dent and Two-Face work themselves up into a coin toss, she felt herself properly prepared for their outburst.   

They slammed their plate to the ground, shattering the porcelain and skittering peas and  plopped potatoes.

“I ain’t no Dummy Quinn!” Two-Face growled; behind him, Scarface hissed as Wesker tried to shush the wooden doll. 

“If she’s so special, prove it!” he goaded, jabbing his middle and index fingers in her daughter’s direction, “Right here, where we all can see!” 

The Green coiled around her; her fingers scratched along the pulsing vines. 

“If you want something from her, you must offer her something for her services,” Ivy stated, breaking her own streak of silence.

New blossoms flowered around her, filled with eyespots and rings of trigger-hair teeth. 

“And you gotta’ ask nicely ,” Harley decreed, wagging a finger.

Two-Face snickered, leading the crowd to rumble with mixes of whispers and nervous laughter; but Raven stould up.

The degenerates fell silent. 

“I can help you,” promised her orchid-eyed girl; Ivy’s heart swelled a bit with pride. The girl had grown in resolve, if not yet in years. 

Dent swayed on his heels; the coin flicked from his thumb.

The scratched face glinted in the stagelights.

It landed square in his palm, before he flipped and revealed it. 

He nodded to themself. 

“If you can give me what I want little birdie, we’ll give you two favors,” they promised; “but if you don’t, I’m going to carve you a brand new face for your Mammas to cry on.”

Ace took her feet, likely ready to intervene; Harley’s mutts began laughing their warnings.

“So whad’ya want ?” Harley pressed, leaning against her hammer; her own display of latent threat. 

“I want this nuisance -this maniac! -Gone!” they shouted. 

“It’ll hurt,” Raven replied, unfazed. 

Two-Face huffed. 

“I accept your contract. The bargain is binding,” Raven promised; Ivy stifled a snort at Dent’s barely restrained surprise. 

The man was too proud for their own good; she watched as Raven’s cloak enveloped her in her black, avian-eyed energy. 

Raven floated in place for a moment, which impressed no one in the room; and then her inky black tendrils enveloped Dent, and lifted him off the ground as if he were weightless. 

Looks of mild curiosity began welling up over the rogues’ faces. 

Ivy watched, nonplussed, as Raven’s magic bore into the man and pulled something out; a small shimmering that she couldn’t quite see if she observed it directly; Raven’s magic held it aloft in one tendril, as the rest of her magic began pulling the man asunder.

His screams filled the room.

The Bigtop’s cheery music continued to play. 

Bit by bit, the man was split in half. 

Blood and viscera dribbled onto the ground beneath him, causing a few faces in the crowd to turn away. 

Before Harley could warn her of the dangers of bloodloss, Raven’s magic began molding around the halves of Dent’s body, and began reforming each half independently as if they were pieces of putty.

Two bodies began congealing out of the torn whole. 

As they formed, the shimmering split between them, and two men fell to the ground, sputtering breaths of gasped syllables and blood soaked-consonants.

The silence amongst the other guests lingered, for a moment.

“Oh. My. God,” Kite-Man awed. 

“...This is some King Solomon shit,” Deadshot muttered. 

Slowly, each of the men on the floor pulled themselves up. 

The right man’s flesh held a redder hue than his twin’s, but both bodies seemed devoid of scars.

“You each wanted autonomy. You each have a body of your own,” her daughter decreed, sinking to her feet; “You both owe me two favors.”

The girl’s powers vanished, but her black coating her eyes remained.

Ivy watched as Two-Face looked himself over, cackling in laughter as Harvy Dent sank to his knees, weeping in elation.     

Ivy didn’t need the girl’s empathetic powers to see the stunned faces in the crowd shift into mixes of genuine respect . 

Gotham City belonged to the Joker no longer.

Chapter Text

Apologies for the Hiatus; life events happened and in the immortal words of Shrek: 'Well, the years start coming and they don't stop coming'

Enjoy this update! :D

Radios, televisions, internet apps, -all were looking at the 'reformed' District Attorney, healed from his conditions of burns and psychiatric maladies.
 
Paparazzi hounded Dent, leading Bruce Wayne to step in and pave the way for Harvey's integration back into 'civilized' society. 
 
For Harley, it was surreal to witness.

For Harleen....
 
Something inside of her felt healed, too.
 
Seeing Harvey's success reminded her of a feeling. An old one. One that she'd long forgotten.
 
The feeling that the lost could be saved.
 
Helped.
 
She herself, could be helped.
 
Fixed.
 
And it seemed the rest of Gotham was equally emboldened by this miracle; flurries of inked-in calendar dates, phone calls, and news reels follow their family for weeks after the 'birthday party'. 
 
She'd always held a deep rooted empathy for Mary Louise Dahl, even back as a Doctor, so it was with great relief that she'd penciled in Babydoll's appointment for one of her daughter's little 'miracle cures'. After hearing her story, Lil'bit had graciously aged her without an up-front payment (which her Pammy had GREATLY disagreed with) with the promise of payment within the year.
 
The news gobbled up her story too.
 
A full lifetime documentary: detailing her career, her struggles, her condition, her 'late-stage growth spurt'. 
 
The ex-con was set to rake in millions.
 
Neither the starlet, nor their little family was ever going to be in need of money again, provided they strayed away from doomsday devices, henchmen fees, and taxes.
 
Killer Croc had been the next in line, a few nights after.
 
He'd had so little to his name, (henching had never really worked out for him; a fact that had never failed to twist a tiny pain her side) but he'd brought their daughter meat and strange, twisting metal sculptures with an almost... reverent deference?  
 
His transformation had been quick, but the question her daughter had asked still rang in Harley's mind; -would  Waylen be happy, finally living as a normal human? No extra bulk? No natural shielding to bullets? No tearing into human flesh?
 
It had been a long time since she'd pondered such impossibilities.

Even longer, since she'd thought about her old job.
 
As the empty notebook rests neatly in her lap, Harley can't help but tap the pen to her cheek.
 
The thought of opening her own practice felt tempting; she would never get a better time to study her fellows.
 
A small, feminine echo of her past whispered hauntingly in her ears, that in helping her fellow criminals, she might yet find the way back herself...