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Wedding days are supposed to be happy.
It's all Ivy can think as she gets ready, white dress and wavy hair and everything she never thought she'd ever want.
She tries to tell herself she wants it, now. That things have changed, that she's not just hiding.
And maybe she would want it, if. She tries to cut those thoughts off right there, the maybe I'd want it if it was with Harley, because that can't happen. That isn't how this works.
It's too much to expect, that she could have what she really wants and not get her heart broken. At least this way, she knows things are safe. You can't be heartbroken when you're not really in love, right?
That, too, she pretends she doesn't think, because it's almost easy to pretend to herself that the affection she feels for Chuck, the way she doesn't hate being with him, is enough. Is love.
She almost convinced herself it was, once. Until she kissed Harley and Harley kissed her and everything she'd tried so hard to pretend wasn't there suddenly became impossible to ignore, because kissing her fiancé is pleasant enough, but kissing Harley was like a supernova.
Ivy perfects her hair for the thousandth time today because it's something to do, something to distract her. She can't think about kissing Harley, or she thinks she might actually die, burn up under the weight of everything that's happened and the memories she wishes she didn't have, because it hurts, that she can't have those moments anymore.
But this is the right way. Being with Harley is like fire, setting her skin and heart and soul alight, but fire burns people. Fire hurts. She doesn't think she can afford that kind of hurting, not anymore, not again.
Being with Chuck has never been like fire. It's something bland and safe and nothing-at-all, and she knows it can't ever hurt her in a way that matters. Because she cares about him, but it's not the kind of caring that takes over her whole being, the kind that's enough to make her put herself in any kind of danger just for a chance of keeping someone safe.
That overwhelming care only exists within her for two things: nature, and Harley.
Don't think about Harley.
Harley who she wants to see so much it hurts, but also wants to look away from on the off-chance she might be able to forget her.
That's a lie, too. She could never forget.
Ivy is sure that even twenty years from now, living wherever she and Chuck live, doing whatever married couples do (the kind of future picture she's trying hard to ignore, otherwise she doesn't think she can go through with this), she will still be thinking about the few moments she and Harley got, the snippet of a life that might have been hers.
She knows, in the part of herself that knows all the things she's trying to forget, that even then, no way Chuck can touch her will ever make her burn like the memory of Harley's kiss. And nothing he could say will ever stitch itself into her heart like Harley's I love you, so tentative and hopeful on a sun-washed morning that felt like a dream.
Don't think about it.
In an hour or so, she'll go out into that wedding venue she killed a random guy for, and she'll stand up in front of the altar and say words, and she will try, so hard, to pretend they mean everything to her. She will act like her heart is his (inasmuch as anything about her could ever be a man's possession, because she's still Poison Ivy), and pretend like it's not already splash-painted red-and-black, like Harley didn't tie it to hers unknowingly and irrevocably, that day she gave Ivy the first gift she ever received.
In an hour or so, all of this will be over, and Ivy will be... not happy, but that's always been too much to ask. Settled, maybe. She can hope for that much, right? That she could settle down as well as settling for.
She sighs and adjusts her dress yet again and tells herself, once again: don't think about Harley, and then she takes a deep breath and walks out the door because there's a portrait to be taken, and that's when everything blows up in her face. Because there Harley is, two unconscious men on the floor beside her, some kind of chaos swirling just like always, and Ivy tries to hold on to that truth, the chaos that she knows can hurt her, her annoyance that this day is spinning out of control.
Because if she doesn't think about that, then she'll think about everything else, and what was difficult enough without Harley here will become impossible, when Harley's standing right in front of her, all blonde hair and wide grin and impulsivity, and everything Ivy wants.
She focuses on the anger, because today has to go right, even if it's bittersweet.
But when Harley walks away crying, and Ivy stands alone in the middle of the room, all she can taste is the bitterness. And she almost thinks that none of this is worth it, after all.
But this is her only choice that doesn't involve taking a leap out into an uncertainty that scares her, and so she takes a deep breath and readies herself to walk down the aisle.
It's only when the wedding goes down in flames behind her, the man she tried so hard to make herself love flying away, that Ivy finally sees it. This was never going to work. By having everyone else show her the truth, she let herself realise it at last. That even if Harley breaks her heart, she'd rather have a few weeks with her than a life with a man she only loves halfway. That she feels more just when Harley smiles at her than she did standing at that altar. That the kind of love she feels can't be pushed down, made to conform, to reshape itself into something different, into a safer affection.
Maybe she wasn't meant to love in moderation. Maybe she was always meant to jump into the flames.
So when Harley says she loves her, Ivy only pauses for a second. A second where she lets herself realise how right that is, a world where she loves Harley and Harley loves her and they don't have to hide it, a world where she actually lets herself feel what she's been trying to push down for so long.
She's in love with Harley Quinn, and that's the kind of fire that's worth jumping into. Worth risking the burns.
“I love you too, Harls.”
They drive away from the ruins of Ivy's wedding, sirens chasing them down the road. And Ivy thinks that this isn't going to be easy, but it's going to be worth it.
And she lets herself feel it, love and guilt and sadness, all of it tangled up inside her, so much better than feeling nothing at all.