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“You cannot run from your problems, Harley!”
Harley ignores Bane, keeps kicking at his hand pointlessly, hoping he'll give up and let go, because otherwise she and Ivy are both plunging into the flames.
“Hate weighs you down,” he says, and she glares at him because hey, he's the only thing weighing her down right now. “Only love sets us free.”
And she can't help it, her eyes going to Ivy, the realisation smacking into her like a ton of bricks. Because when she hears love, all it means is Ivy. She doesn't know how or when it happened, when the two words became one and the same, but it has never been clearer than right now.
It's been so hard to understand, the way she loves Ivy, because Ivy didn't hurt her and own her and make her try so hard to get the smallest scraps of affection. Because Ivy loved her at her worst, stood by her through everything, never once made her feel like she was nothing. And Harley has never had love like that before, so she couldn't see it for what it was.
But she can see it now, in this moment where both their stories could end. Love has meant Ivy for so long, and she never even knew it. But now she does. And she knows what she has to do.
“Ivy.”
“No.” Ivy understands it straight away, what Harley's going to do, because she's always known Harley like nobody else does.
“It's okay,” Harley says, and it is. It finally all makes sense. Not just this, the loving someone in a way that means you'd die in a moment for them, but who actually deserves that kind of love. And it's the person who would do anything to stop you from making that choice for them. The person who would never, ever ask you to.
“Don't,” Ivy says, layered with some type of desperation. “Don't do this.”
But Ivy has everything ahead of her, and Harley's not about to let her lose that. She's heard people say that loving means letting go, and she'd never really understood it, because all she wanted to do was hold on tight. She gets it, now. Loving someone so much you'd sacrifice everything for them to be happy, even though they would never ask it of you. Loving someone so much you'd let them go so they can find their fairytale ending without you, rather than pulling them into the fire you'll burn in.
“Have a good life. Get married, make babies. Name 'em Harley. The girls and boys.”
“Harley!” Ivy says it like her heart is breaking, but Harley knows that isn't right. She might break Ivy's heart for a little while, but not forever. Ivy will find the strength to go on, and Harley will have done the best thing she ever did, because she found the person worth giving everything for.
She just wishes she'd known it before now.
“See, it totally works. You know I love you.”
But not how much. Ivy doesn't know that. Even Harley didn't know that, until this moment, where the realisation blew the world apart like a tangled-up explosion, and she doesn't have time to find the words for what it is, because it's everything.
And it's too late for everything. It's too late for anything but goodbye.
So she says it, and holds on to Ivy one last time, and wishes she'd seen it sooner, that this is the person she wishes she could hold forever.
And then she lets go.
She lets go, and it's like gravity takes her slowly, reluctantly, and she silently thanks gravity for that, for letting her see Ivy's face one more time.
And then Bane grabs onto her, and they grapple in mid-air, and she can't tell up from down, and all she can think is please, let Ivy be safe, let her have got out.
She looks up once more, for the last time, once she's got the better of Bane, in time to see Ivy vanish from sight. She never thought Ivy's absence could make her so happy, but it does. Because it means she's safe now. And Harley can stand anything, if Ivy is safe.
She smiles, and closes her eyes, and waits for the flames to embrace her. She must be close now. She can feel heat burning her face, and the end is near, and that's okay, because Ivy–
Someone grabs her by the ankle and swings her round, a vine wrapping her waist to hold her upright, and she looks up into Ivy's face. She is all steel and determination, and Harley can read her expression, as Ivy's arms wrap around her and hold her tightly, cradling her to her chest as they rise out of the Pit: I will never let you go.
That's what she sees there, and she doesn't even wonder if she's just seeing her own feelings reflected back, because Ivy's determination fades into a smile of pure relief, as they rise into the cold of the night air, as she realises Harley is safe.
Because maybe love means letting go and holding on, and maybe Ivy's made her choice.
Harley has fallen before. In love, and into danger. She has literally plunged from the brink for more than one person.
The difference was the other one used to push her.
Joker pushed her, and she fell, because that's what she thought love was.
But it isn't.
She knows what love is, now, because she made that choice again today. The choice to fall, this time for Ivy's sake. And Ivy caught her.
It's what loving someone has always meant, to Harley: them being the person she would literally fall for. But that was just the love she gave.
And the pushing was never the love she deserved in return. The catching is. She knows that, now.
Because Ivy has always caught her, in every way. Ivy caught her when she fell for Joker, when he pushed her, and now, when she chose to fall for Ivy, too.
It all makes sense, now, for the first time in her life, as she wraps her arms around Ivy tightly and holds on, because she was ready to fall, but she's so happy Ivy caught her.
There's nothing out here except them and the stars, and Ivy is looking at her like she's everything. No-one else has ever looked at Harley that way, like she's their whole world. No-one else has ever caught her when she fell.
Ivy smiles at Harley in the starlight, like she's worth every good thing. And Harley has never seen anyone more beautiful.
She has never loved anyone more.
And she hardly even knows how it happens, but suddenly she's kissing Ivy and Ivy's kissing her and it's like stars colliding, it's like the truth after so long lying, it's like nothing she's ever felt.
It's like everything falls into place, because of course she's in love with Ivy. It only took her so long to see it because she never knew love could be like this.
But now she understands, and for a moment, everything is right.
And then she gets it: she's kissing Ivy. She's kissing Ivy.
Her best friend. Her engaged best friend.
The spell breaks, and so does the kiss, and they're left staring at each other with luminous shock, painted silver by the stars.
But as much as she feels like she's waking from a dream, the knowledge doesn't go away, fading with the moment. It buries itself deep in her bones, and she doesn't understand how she could ever not have known it: she loves Ivy. She's in love with Ivy.
And if love means catching someone when they fall, if love means kissing someone like they're your whole world, then Harley thinks that maybe, just maybe, Ivy's in love with her, too.