Ivy woke from sleep unceremoniously, as per usual, rubbing the light layer of crust that flaked away from her eyelids. As the grow-house slowly came to around her, then the glass ceiling straining the city's poisoned dawn into tinted light her children could barely make use of, she couldn't help lazing in her cradle of woven vines awake, but not yet online, while her plants crawled near like attention-starved puppies.
She sent each of them a pulse of acknowledgment and felt them settle one by one. Then she rose, willing the vines to release her by degrees, dropped to the floor bare-feet, and dragged her weary body to the bathroom. Once upon a time, Ivy would have drawn a hot, bubbly bath that had scalded at least two exes, anf could take up to ten minutes to prepare on a good day and twenty on a self-indulgent one.
But that was a long time ago.
Her biology had made heat painful now, so she turned the water cold and hopped in, scrubbing herself down with the loofa she kept telling herself was bad for the environment but couldn't bring herself to part with.
She walked out still dripping, a towel twisted around her hair and another wrapped over herself. Outside, her children were already presenting themselves to her before she had even cleared the doorway, assembling into a leotard with vines threading at her shoulders and hips.
The panels layered in dark climbing greens that shifted with the dim morning light, vine-work curling up her thighs in looping patterns that stopped just short of decorative as a full, deep red rose bloomed on top of her boastful chest. Clothed at last, Pamela pulled the towel from her hair, then let the red cascade past her shoulders to her back in easygoing waves that reminded of petals on blooming daylilies.
She walked the perimeter first, touching bark and checking soil, moving from one to the next, if only to show her plants the warmth of her attention that they want as much as they deserve…
The Belladonna, especially, got a longer visit and more extensive care, since it had given generously to the cause the night before and ought to be rewarded.
Afterward, she went to check on the condensation she'd left on low heat, only to suddenly remember why she was bothering with this at all.
"Remarkable," Pamela said to no one in particular. "He's still out."
Given the nature of his extracurricular activities, she wasn't surprised.
Villains like her has schedules, and often took long stretches of rest between jobs.
Vigilantes, on the other hand, ran themselves ragged for a cause that was nothing if not lost, which was as admirable as it was idiotic.
He needed the rest. She got it, she did.
Alas, if she and Gotham had one thing in common, it was a mutual lack of patience, while the latter continued—with impressive dedication, if she may add—to fall apart at the seams.
'For someone so determined to save Gotham, he had a funny way of showing it.'
The vine curtain parted invitingly as she approached, and stepped into the smaller room fully expecting to find him still curled up like a shrimp where she'd dropped him the night before. Instead the mattress sat empty in its hammock of woven green, with the shallow impression of him being the only evidence he'd been there at all. He'd been up, out and about long before her.
Perhaps she'd been too hasty with her judgement.
Pamela asked the vines of his whereabouts, and was then informed of his departure around five hours ago. And when she asked why none of them had thought to stop him, they said something about pheromones and scent, and had let him through on that basis.
Pamela glared at the nearest plant.
Even if it could, she doubted it would have the decency to look sorry.
"Wake me up next time."
She intoned, and turned back toward the bench, reaching for her notes when the vines along the east wall stiffened all of a sudden. Then it hurried to inform her that one of the Joker's many vans was waiting on the perimeter.
Ivy set her notes down, rolled her shoulders back, and started toward the perimeter.
She couldn't work out what they wanted here. The Afflicted didn't scout, or strategize, or show up on anyone's doorstep for any reason that didn't begin and end with causing harm, and had thus left her and her garden mostly untouched as a result, since the list of people capable of causing Poison Ivy any meaningful harm was incredibly short, and none of them, to her knowledge, traveled by clown vans.
For a moment Pamela considered meeting whoever it was at the perimeter, if only to sate her curiosity, then considered more seriously having the largest of her plants smash them and that… Hideous van both to smithereens, before a second signal from the vines gave her reason to do neither.
Rowan had, evidently, acquired one of the Joker's vans for himself. The why she could only speculate on, though it wasn't much of a mystery given that Gotham had devolved into the kind of place where looking like a raving lunatic was considerably safer than appearing sane.
Pamela stepped onto the vines reaching for her by the window, letting them carry her through the thick jungle of her making, and down the ground floor where the boy greeted from the driver's seat. "Ivy!" Rowan pat the side of the van with visibly pride. "I got us some supplies!"
"Supplies?" She repeated, mouth dropping in confusion the moment he threw the door open. The supplies part, she understood perfectly. It was his height that Ivy just could not wrap her head around. Just yesterday, he'd only stood to her chest. Ivy was absolutely certain of it, had even made a mental note of how she'd had to look down to meet his eyes, but overnight the kid had somehow shot up to match her in height.
Now, while she might have the body of a supermodel, Ivy was well aware she'd never been the tallest person in any room, as all her classmates from twenty-four years of academic hell could attest to.
But, from the her boobs to the top of her head was easily ten to fifteen inches of extra skeleton that Rowan had apparently decided to just acquire in a single night!
Pamela had had growth spurts herself during those awkward teenage years she'd rather forget, but this couldn't possibly be normal, or natural, or, and Ivy was painfully aware of the irony given her own situation, anything even remotely close to standard human biology!
Growth spurts happened over months, sometimes years, with the body gradually adjusting to new proportions. What he'd apparently done overnight should've shattered his bones, torn his muscles to shreds, and probably given him about fifteen different kinds of bone cancer in the process.
Hell, the sheer metabolic demand alone should've killed him, or left him a whimpering mess on the floor at the very least! 'Or maybe this isn't Rowan at all.'
Ivy raised her hand sharply as he lifted the paper bag overhead triumphantly. "I found a bakery that was still open… Well, relatively speaking. The bread might be a bit stale, but it won't kill us." Pamela looked at the bag, back at him, then at the space above his head where several inches of empty air should have been, pointedly ignoring his mumbled: "I think,"
While the imposter continued digging through the supplies, oblivious or playing at it, her vines quietly slithered into position like a nest of serpents. Then he turned, hands falling to his sides as he finally noticed the greenery coiling around his legs, creeping up the walls, and blocking every exit.
"Uh, Red? You good?"
"Who are you? What have you done to the Imp?"
"What?"
He tilted his head in that puppyish way that reminded her painfully of the golden retriever she used to own as a kid, then knocked on his mask, even checking his gauntlets for good measure.
"I am him? I don't know what you want me to say here. I mean, I get I kind of shot up overnight, but this is Gotham… Weirder shit usually happens before breakfast."
'Fuck,' She hated that he actually had a point.
With an annoyed harrumph, Pamela folded her arms. "Remove your mask, and we'll see."
"There's this thing called a secret identity," Rowan said, glaring at her like she'd just grown a second head. "Ever heard of it?"
"I dragged you practically naked out of a bathtub and put you to bed. I think that ship has sailed." And it wasn't as though he'd be recognizable regardless, what with the six eyes and the blood-red skin.
After a long, silent standoff, the helmet finally came off with a short hiss, the white hair springing back into its usual disorder, swept into a wavy mane that framed a sharp, angular face with six eyes, three of them milky from the scar running from his brow to his jawline. Rowan looked at her, visibly annoyed as he asked. "Is this good enough for you?"
"… You grew…?"
"Kind of," He answered, heated gaze raking over her silhouette. "And you're…"
"Hot, yes, thank you for noticing." Pamela snorted sarcastically, flicking a stray strand over her shoulder without quite realizing she'd done it.
"I was going to say breathtaking, but that too." He craddled the helmet back under his arm. "Now that we've got the formalities out of the way, are you going to help me bring these in or not?"
A snap of her fingers and the vines immediately dove at the van, stripping it of the chemicals in the time it took her to circle around to the passenger side.
"What are you doing?" The boy—no, Rowan wondered.
"We have places to be and things to rob, don't we?" Pamela shrugged, leaning over and throwing the driver's door open from the inside. "Well? Would you like me to roll the red carpet for you while I'm at it, Imp?"
Rowan swung himself back into the driver's seat, pulling the door shut behind him, helmet dropping into his lap as he turned the key. He had already picked through everywhere worth picking through, and still come up short.
The only option left was Cobblepot's old black market.
Hotly contested once upon a time, the place had been largely ignored since D-day. The Afflicted weren't looters by nature so much as they were destroyers, so a warehouse full of contraband was considerably less appealing than something they could amuse themselves with immediately. Moreover, logic dictated that chemicals would be behind doors and vaults that these creatures of impulse would quickly lose interest with.
Of course, this was all his assumption…
Cope, if Rowan was being honest with himself.
With a sigh, he pushed the gas, driving off into the city in silence.
The Joker's livery did its job well enough that the Afflicted barely spared them a second glance.
For a little while neither of them felt the need to fill the silence.
The occasional howls echoing through the streets already had that handled, though the reprieve didn't last long since Pamela, who'd been side-eyeing him for several blocks now, finally gave into her curiosity. "So… You grew."
"I believe we've established that."
"Is it a Demon thing?"
Although Pamela was a woman of science, who said science and religion couldn't co-exist? Even if her specialty wasn't the metaphysical, now that she had a bona fide Demon right next to her, she would have to be a fool to let this opportunity go to waste.
"I don't know, but I don't think it is."
"… How do you not know?" Pamela's brows pinched as she lifted one leg and crossed it over the other, unaware the motion had drawn his gaze to that very specific part of her. He'd have happily lingered a little longer, too, if her head hadn't suddenly morphed into that of the Joker's.
"Fuck!" Rowan flinched so hard the wheel jerked with him, nearly causing the van to veer into a building before he corrected, while Pamela, still blissfully unaware of what he'd actually seen, simply clicked her tongue. "Get your head out of the gutter, sweetheart."
He coughed to hide his embarrassment, then hurled himself to the previous topic like a lifeline. "It's not like there are other Demons walking around for me to compare notes with."
"The Bat isn't one?"
Given his whole schtick and his habbit of vanishing into thin air, then the inclusion of a Demon in his operations, she'd figured the Bat was one too. Apparently not. Tilting her head slightly, Ivy eyed the boy with fresh curiosity. "What is he then? A vampire?"
Rowan glanced her way and chuckled, his voice, now stripped of its childish pitch, stirring a deep rumble in her chest. "Believe it or not, he's human through and through."
"Oh…" Her eyes followed his, half expecting to catch them lingering somewhere in the deep ravine of her chest. It was hard to tell, you see, for his eyes had no irises, only bright and even brighter lights where the uninjured ones sat, yet once she adjusted, she realized they were on her face instead.
She hadn't registered until then how sharp his features had grown, nor how… Well that playful, boyish, crooked smirk looked on his face. Despite herself, Ivy couldn't help but avert her eyes, the hand she'd rested on the cupholder extension retreating to her lap, onto which Rowan quietly set the paper bag.
Pamela glanced at him before parting the mouth of the bag, revealing five croissants and a small pack of chocolate dip inside. "Like I said, they might be a bit stale, but there's still a few days of shelf life left. I checked."
A grin tugged at her lips as she turned one of the croissants over in her hand, handling it like it might spring to life at any moment. "I don't like chocolate."
He shrugged. "Then toss it if you want…"
Usually she would have, but after catching his glances from the corner of her eye, Pamela finally decided to give it a try after years of abstinence. Truth be told, she'd never actually disliked the taste of chocolate. She only hated it because Woodrue would buy her a few every time he did something that upset her, and he upset her quite often.
Even now, Ivy still couldn't tell how she'd failed to see him for what he was… The first time could be chalked up to puppy love, maybe even the second and third, but the days she had actually been happy with Woodrue could be counted on one hand. In fact, she never got the feeling he was attracted to her so much as he was attracted to her brain. It was flattering in its own way, but it had stung Pamela more than she'd care to admit, and gone a long way toward shaping the femme fatale she'd grown into.
He had never once thought to bring her food unless he was making up for something, and on those very rare occasions, it was always the cheapest option he could find!
Yet, like a woman possessed, she would rationalize inside her own head that his research needed the money, while cradling a bar of Hershey's he picked up from the gas station like a godsend. It still pissed her off to think about it 'till this very day.
"… You don't have to force yourself if you hate it that much."
Snapped out of her stupor by Rowan's dry comment, Pamela finally noticed the croissant she'd crushed in her hand and flushed.
She dipped the croissant into the rich chocolate he'd probably reheated, then devoured two in a handful of bites, suddenly acutely aware of how famished she'd been. Ivy had just gotten to the third when the sound of his stomach reached her ears.
Ivy hadn't thought he could get any redder, but Rowan was full of surprises tonight, it looked like.
Her eyes flicked down to the croissant in her hand, and for a fleeting moment she entertained the idea of giving it to him whole. But a villain was still a villain, and Ivy had an image to maintain, so she tore it in two, dipped his half into the fatty chocolate, then offered it to him.
The entire time, her eyes remained locked on the window, her embarrassment masked beneath a convenient interest in the asphalt unspooling past.
Perhaps Ivy should've paid more attention, because instead of taking it with his hand as any normal person would, Rowan chomped down on her finger along with the croissant. Ivy snapped her head around, hand jerked to her chest, the phantom graze of his sharpened fangs still searing a hot, traitorous line across her fingertip.
It hadn't hurt, though she almost wished it had.
The brat, meanwhile, whistled smugly to himself.
'Two can play at that game.' Ivy thought viciously, her thumb catching the smear of chocolate at the corner of his mouth in an unhurried stroke. Then, before Rowan, or she herself could fully process the gesture, she brought her thumb to her lips and licked it clean.
"Don't be wasteful, sweetheart."
The remainder of the drive was, unsurprisingly, quiet after that.