Story: 25 Days of Femslash (chapter 11)

Authors: Blood_Covered_Pheonix

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Chapter 11

Title: Building Snowmen

These days it was hard to find something to laugh at. Things with Mista J had gotten so dark that not even the best gags would make him laugh, he would roll his eyes and turn back to his desk with a broody expression. He only laughed when B-man was around, and even that seemed fake to her. She’d gotten so sad over it that she’d stopped trying to make him laugh. She’d given up and went back to mooning over girly things in her room. She’d put on her face paint and costume and roll around on her bed with a magazine for hours until the Joker yelled an order at her. She always complied, always did her absolute best hoping to surprise him with something so well done that he’d smile at her. It never happened though. After weeks of behaving in this manner, always sequestered away and never happy, despite her chipper attitude, Harley was tired and sad. She didn’t want to laugh, she wanted to cry.

Red had picked up on it, from the way she acted at the door or when they ran into each other while Harley was doing errands, her friend had known something was wrong. So she’d broken into the hideout and all but kidnapped Harley. After tossing her into the convertible and jumping down afterwards she heard something she’d missed, something she’d craved like no other thing. A snicker. It was laughter, mirth. Even if it was just Poison Ivy being her usual derisive self, mocking the security in the Joker’s hideout, it was laughter. She’d spent a few nights with Red that were full of fun, they talked and gossiped, and had tickle fights and over and over Red laughed, mostly at her. But she still laughed and that sound alone filled Harley with happiness. She’d gone back to Joker eventually, but she’d come back to Ivy when things started to get to her again.

Most of these occasions were during the bitter Gotham cold snaps, when snow lay on the ground in great piles and most criminals would rather huddle inside then bother a heist. Harley thought it was just fine because Red was crabby in the cold. She hated it. The sun wasn’t present for very long and it was always weak when it was so she was tired. Every plant outside died and she felt their pain. Winter was a hard season for a plant hybrid. It seemed weird to be happy when your friend was angry, but Red was much easier to entertain when she was grumpy because she found some ironic humor in everything. She was always smirking or grinning wryly at some offhand remark Harley had made. Occasionally Harley would feel the need to be mischievous and do something less pleasing.

Once Harley had concealed a snow ball as she walked into the house, meeting Red in the kitchen with a kiss and very unpleasant impact to the back of her head. Harley would never forget the look she got as she pulled away, eyes hard but the rest of the face adoring. She hadn’t liked Ivy’s retaliation during her shower that morning, but she’d enjoyed the cackles Red was emitting as she tossed snowballs at her. They pranked each other for days until an incident involving an ice ball had caused a cease fire. So they’d agreed to do outdoor winter activities. Harley had pushed for building snowmen in the park. Ivy couldn’t think of anything else so they’d gone with that after sleding, ice skating, hot chocolate and all of the other activities Harley had thought of. Snowmen were the only thing left and both were determined to do something amazing.

“I was thinkin’ that we’d do Batman wrapped up in a bunch of vines on the ground. The snow is perfect for it.”

“That’s not really a snow man, Harley.”

“It’s a snowBATman. It’s even cooler!” Harley shot back.

“Well, alright. We’d better get started.”

After about two hours, Harley understood two things about snowBATmen, they were very hard to build and they made you very cold and wet. They had a sort of man looking block with points on top of its smaller rectangular upper protrusion surrounded by lumpy snow pillars. Ivy scowled at it angrily. “This is ridiculous. Its snow, I should be able to bend and twist it to my will with no problems. I can create a miracle anti venom, I can communicate with plants, I’m solar powered and I can’t build a snowman!” She growled.

“Aw, Red don’t take it personally, snowBATmen are hard to build. Its just the material. Our hands are frozen stiff. Let’s go home and try again tomorrow.”

Poison Ivy didn’t like the idea of spending another afternoon getting cold and wet, but she wasn’t going to devastate Harley like that, she’d said they’d make a snowman after all. “Alright, we can get a warm bath together. I like the sound of that.”

Harley was equally pleased by that idea and spent the whole ride back to the hideout snuggled up against her side. By this point Ivy was quite adept at driving with one hand due to her current occupation as a super criminal and the fact that Harley had no compunction about curling up against or on another human being at the most inopportune of moments. Once they reached the hideout, Harley ran inside, stripping off clothes as bounded up the stairs. By the time mounted the top of the stairs she could hear Harley turning the knobs to regulate the water temperature. She took her time disrobing, opened the curtains over her bed to let in the wane sunlight, and pulled an outfit out of her dresser. She walked into the bathroom and set the clothing on the toilet. Harley was dipping her toes in the water experimentally. Ivy came up from behind her and hugged her around the waist. Harley started before leaning into her. “Red, you scared me.” She chuckled and gave Harley a kiss.

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