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#01 - Comfort
If her relationship with Mr. J has taught her anything – and it has taught her a boatload of things (not least about him, or the people they worked with, but mostly about herself, her threshold for pain, and her ability to endure hardship) – it's that she can sleep just about anywhere: on king-sized beds with mattresses so soft you disappeared in them, curled around her babies on chilly stone floors, even upright, tied to a pole somewhere or hung from the ceiling; but never in all this time has anyone bedded her on roses, the way Ivy can do with a mere thought.
#02 - Kiss
Feeling your lover's lips on your own as part of a morning ritual is an indulgent sweetness, no matter how foul their breath; yet Ivy can't help forcing her to choose mint leaves if that's the case – after all, admonishing her to give up sweets before had gotten her nowhere.
#03 - Soft
Harley's touchy-feely, and loves running her fingers over every inch of Ivy's skin and hair – she's silky as a rosebud and just as beautiful when she blossoms.
#04 - Pain
Ivy can be as prickly as a thornbush, but she takes care of the little hurts she causes.
#05 - Potatoes
"Your home-grown fries are simply to die for, Red!"
#06 - Rain
Be it a drizzle in Gotham or a deluge in Chile, Harley's learning to gauge the water quality by the weight of Ivy's frown, the ease of her expression.
#07 - Chocolate
"You call this dinner?"
#08 - Happiness
True bliss is coming home from a day spent not getting locked up and finding an extra bubbly bubble bath waiting for her – Red's own recipe – with the special addition of her favorite plant lady already soaking in it.
#09 - Telephone
After the debacle of their first meeting, Ivy cuts off her own landline and with it, all Harley's communication with the clown – the girl needs to dry out completely if she ever wants to be sober.
#10 - Ears
Ivy takes one whiff of the corn Harley bought in a show of goodwill before she sneers in disgust: "Take them back, I'll grown my own – these are not organic."
#11 - Name
That old dude everyone still gushes about may be right that it doesn't matter if she calls her girlfriend Ivy or Pammy (or something sickeningly sweet if she wants to be annoying), but Red, hmm, now that's special, the kind of made for her special – jealousy actually jabs Harley when anyone else uses it; it's her own private endearment, endowed with the force of spontaneous creativity and instant adoration that knocked her off her feet her when they first met – in short: it's got history, and everyone else should rinse their dirty traps with green soap before so much as thinking of using it.
#12 - Sensual
There's something about the way Ivy cares for her plants that's more than just maternal, more than sexual even, like it transcends the relationship of living organisms to a plane that's beyond her understanding, and yeah, as weird as it sounds, Harley finds that incredibly arousing.
#13 - Death
"I think I just died a little," Harley giggles weakly, breathlessly, twitching and squirming as Ivy kisses a line up her stomach.
#14 - Sex
"Red, I'm bored and I need you, like, really, really need – please tell me you're not still punishing me for forgetting to water your plants last Sunday."
#15 - Touch
Harley loves to lean over Ivy's lilies as if to inhale their scent, loves to blow on them lightly so their stamens sway, loves to trace her fingertips down the sepals' curves and enjoys every little shiver it sends down Ivy's spine.
#16 - Weakness
Over the years, they've suffered through a lot of pains, scrapes, and crises together, explored the murky recesses of each other's minds, and painful and scary though it was at times, because they had to keep pretending to be strong when they were not, it left them with the knowledge that they can weather every storm, that there's nothing they need to hide from one another.
#17 - Tears
When Ivy once again soothes Harley's sobs by kissing the salty runnels on her cheeks, Harley realizes with a start she's never seen the other woman cry – and wonders if she still can.
#18 - Speed
When the grocery list contains candy, Harley's finished shopping faster than the Flash – and forgets half of the essentials.
#19 - Wind
Harley is patient and waits weeks and weeks and weeks, until Ivy starts sitting down without looking at her seat again, before she whips out the whoopie cushion once more.
#20 - Freedom
When Harley gets released from Arkham to make space for patients more in need of their care – by which they mean more dangerous, more unpredictable, more of everything they don't perceive Harley to be; well, she's gonna be back and she'll take Ivy with her.
#21 - Life
"Ew, are you experimenting with plant babies again?"
#22 - Jealousy
Ivy does whatever she can think of to keep Harley away from the clown, because somewhere deep inside she knows if the girl laid eyes on him again, she'd be back in his clutches, Ivy forgotten.
#23 - Hands
The hardest part about being in costume is not getting to touch Ivy until it's all come off and she can rip the gloves from her fingers and dig them into Ivy's skin, parsing every inch of it until they lie both sated and spent and not at all ready for a refreshing shower until they've slept off the day's adrenaline.
#24 - Taste
"Ya know," Harley singsongs as she dives under the covers, skilled liked an aquatic creature, twisting herself between Ivy's legs, kissing a pathway up her shins and thighs, pausing only to tickle her behind the knees, "I've been dying to get my mouth on something juicy all day – and I'm not talking steak."
#25 - Devotion
Ivy knows that Harley falls in love easily, indiscriminately, sometimes even impulsively, in the most complicated ways imaginable – Ivy knows, because it's happened before and it will happen again, with Harley setting off the second her attention has locked on another target, because Ivy, Ivy doesn't show her enough affection, can't, in fact – she's a scientist, she lives for her work, through her work, and she's sure Harley understands that too, no matter how much she gripes about it sometimes, which is usually before one of her escapes, but the thing is, the thing is, she always comes back, always, like she never left at all, and although it's painful sometimes, because it makes Ivy feel like a rebound, someone you return to when you're out of options, it's not that with Harley at all, Ivy knows, she understands, and if she's honest with herself, she will continue to love Harley just a tiny bit more every time she has her again.
#26 - Forever
Sometimes, when Ivy is puttering about in one of her greenhouses, talking to her plants or developing the next Big Thing, Harley feels like a million years pass until they see each other again – millions of years filled with so much agony and boredom and rage that boredom brings, she wants to set the entire city of Gotham aflame, just to have something to do, just to have someone feel the fire in her bones.
#27 - Blood
When Selina nicks Ivy and a splash of red appears, Harley's both furious and delighted: furious because no one gets to harm Ivy, delighted because Ivy bleeds red like Harley's costume, like Ivy's hair, like her name, because it means she's still more human than she'd like to admit, that there's something connecting them, but even if she wasn't – red-blooded, human – it wouldn't matter, because she'd still be her Red, they'd still have shared countless experiences, created countless memories, together, and that's all that counts.
#28 - Sickness
Thoughts of her are a constant presence in her body, if not her mind, spreading like a cancer and infecting every nerve cell until it becomes so painful she can't breathe without her; she needs her here.
#29 - Melody
A chill runs through Ivy when Harley sings nursery songs under her breath, because she's afraid the girl might be losing it again, the way she did when she thought she was pregnant, hugging her belly and repeating Hush, little baby endlessly, but this time, oh thank you Mother Nature, this time, she's kneeling in front of one of the test tubes of Ivy's phyto-embryos, an expression of wonder and curiosity on her face.
#30 - Star
"If you could make a wish, Red, what would it—no, don't tell me; you want us to be together forever!"
#31 - Home
"Anywhere, with you."
#32 - Confusion
Harley doesn't understand the fuss people make about relationships: like, once you're together you're not allowed to be too friendly with anyone else or your partner might get jealous, or even if your partner doesn't care who you hang out with as long as you return – might even encourage you to seek out other people – there's almost some nutjob who'll judge you for the over-abundance of love you have in your heart, who doesn't understand the different kinds of loves you have for the different people in your life and that no matter what happens, one new love will never erase the old, because they're all separate and distinct and each cherished individually.
#33 - Fear
She thought that after everything, after Arkham City, the Asylum, she'd have nothing more to lose, but Crane showed her just how wrong she was.
#34 - Lightning/Thunder
Fine, if Ivy rather wants to pat her plants all day than go out and have fun with her, Harley will just have to kidnap a pipsqueak superhero from school and force him to have fun with her – in his other, older, and decidedly more handsome form, mind you.
#35 - Bonds
"Feeling kinky tonight, are we?" Harley giggles nervously, all her squirming useless in the face of the firm grip of Ivy's vines and her death glare.
#36 - Market
"Y'know, we could actually make a ton of money if you did your thing with your plants and had them grow foodstuffs, but nooo, you have to dismiss a brilliant marketing idea and call it over-harvesting and catering to greed."
#37 - Technology
The thing about Ivy is that even though she's a scientist and uses all this fancy equipment for her experiments, she can be so complicated and last century about the most commonplace of practices – so, okay, Harley gets that she can communicate through plants, fer Chrissakes, but how is Harley supposed to contact her if she won't even use a cell phone?
#38 - Gift
"Look what I gotcha," Harley giggles as she drops the bundled-up Batbrat in front of Ivy and sketches a bow; in a stage whisper, she explains: "I found it twittering on a bough nearby and thought you might like another slave-boy to run your errands."
#39 - Smile
Harley works hard to get Ivy to laugh, to make her flash those pretty choppers and throw her head back from the overwhelming hilarity, but it's always when Harley does nothing in particular that Ivy's lips curl up, and it's always so fond, Harley's heart can't help but melt.
#40 - Innocence
They have far from the whitest vests, but when they're together, none of their past transgressions matter anymore.
#41 - Completion
After a job well done, they always make out on the piles of money, giggling and high on endorphins.
#42 - Clouds
"This one's a sheep, that one an chainsaw-wielding maniac, and look, that's Supes on a rocket – c'mon, Red, play with me."
#43 - Sky
"C'mon, Red, I'm sure you can grow beanstalks as high as heaven – I wanna walk on the clouds and see if they taste like cotton candy, and what do you mean am I high on something, I don't care that I won't actually be able to do any of these things, let's just do the thing and have an adventure among the stars; I'll even pack an oxygen tank if you insist."
#44 - Heaven
Harley likes to watch The Green Mile just for the opening sequence, and the excuse it gives her to twirl Ivy about the room – not that she needed any, but Freddy sings it so much better than her.
#45 - Hell
Demons ain't much fun to be around, and this epic magic battle was kinda unfair from the beginning, because what are normal people to do – apart from enjoying the view – but Harley disregards all the trouble they've been through the moment Ivy is brought into it.
#46 - Sun
Unlike Harley, who'll merely become paler than a vampire, Ivy actually shrivels if she doesn't get her daily portion of Vitamin D – or whatever it is the chlorophyll in her blood produces – which means plenty of holidays in shiny places, even if that shiny place is just the roof, but hey, at least they get to hang out and bake together; never mind that the midday glare makes her all itchy and stuff, but it's okay as long as it'll get Ivy to oil her skin.
#47 - Moon
"Red, I can't sleep tonight – let's make out some more?"
#48 - Waves
Even years later, they fondly remember their very first crime sprees that were the talk of the town, on every reporter, cop or criminal's tongue – their notoriety has only grown since then.
#49 - Hair
Harley loves to fall asleep with her nose bumping into Ivy's scalp, so her floral scent follows Harley into her dreams.
#50 - Supernova
Tick, tick, boom – the sound her heart makes every time they meet; or was it the cuckoo clock in her head?