“Happy jailbreak day!” Harley screamed from the rafters, showering confetti down to the living room.
Ivy craned her neck to look up and chuckled. “What are you doing up there, babe?”
Harley swung from one of the vines and somersaulted her way to the floor, sticking the landing, per usual. “I’m surprising you, of course!” She pecked her BFF GFF on the lips. “Today marks the Anniversary of our escape from Arkham.”
“Umm, but we escaped from Arkham many times. Which one of the jailbreaks are we celebrating?”
“The one where you made me pass out and kidnapped me and yada yada yada the rest is history! Now we’re blissfully in love!”
“Amazing turn of events you’ve recounted there.” Ivy simply smiled with half-lidded eyes.
“Lovesick lovebirds!” Frank hollered from the couch. “Can you pipe down for sec? I’m trying to watch my favorite show on The Füd Network!”
Harlivy exchanged confused glances. “Since when do you watch füd network?” Ivy crossed her arms.
“Does Frank even need to eat?” Harley said. “I just realized I have no idea how Frank works.”
Frank ignored and pouted, but his eyes were still glued to the TV. “Ivy, I’ve known you for twenty years and know almost everything about you and yet you can’t even remember that I haven’t missed an episode of The Next Top Iron Master Chef! That hurts!”
“OH! Err, yeah! That IS your favorite show.” Ivy said nervously before muttering to Harley under her breath, “It’s honestly so hard keeping up with Frank’s favorite shows. He watches a concerning amount of television—"
“Now hush!” Frank said. “They going into this chef’s back story. Can you believe her father iced her out for years ever since she decided to become a chef?” He tearfully sobbed. “The woman’s on TV and he still won’t talk to her! Some parents just don’t deserve to be parents.”
After wiping away a tear, Frank perked up, “Hey, she got daddy issues, like you two!” He laughed heartily; it was like a flip of a switch.
Harley and Ivy shot him a look. “Oh, trust me, she’s better off without him. Look at where she is now!” Harley said with a peaceful grin.
Frank continued, “Now, this other chef, they’re saying she got excellent knife skills… I’m trying to see how she assembles that salad.“
The three of them watched in silence as the chef on screen expertly chopped beets, sauteed green beans, and drizzled a red wine vinaigrette.
“Ooh! She does have a way with that knife!” Frank cheered, as though she just scored a touchdown.
She assembled a beautiful, hearty salad after some more finishing touches. The judges on screen nodded their heads, impressed with the chef.
“Ugh, I would LOVE to eat that salad right now,” Ivy groaned. “Vegetarian salads are always just missing… something!”
“Consider it done!” Harley said. She bolted for the door. “Keep your appetite up! I’m going to make THE BEST vegetarian salad you’ve ever had! It’s going to knock your socks off! I’m running to the store and coming back!”
“No, wait, Harley! Let’s just make a reservation at Mama Macaroni---!” The door slammed shut. Harley was already out of earshot, leaving her hungry meta human to probably watch some old white southern lady’s show where she makes a concoction or casserole from throwing 3 sticks of butter and a pile of sugar into a clear glass bowl. Ivy slumped on the couch, a confetti drifted onto the tip of her nose. She blew it off. “I hope she comes back soon, I’m starving.”
“if you kept your mouth shut the first time I asked politely, maybe you would’ve went to Mama Macaroni and maybe you could’ve brought me back some garlic knots,” Frank said, clearly still hurt about Ivy forgetting one of his favorite shows.
Ivy groaned into her hands. “I’m sorry, Frank!”
~~~
Harley was enjoying the domestic routine. Ever since she and Ivy came back from their Eat, Bang, Kill Tour she was settling into the delights of home life quite well. She became an avid baker despite many mishaps with the oven. Who knew things could explode so easily from just an oven! And almost everyone has one of these! It definitely inspired and fueled her next plot…
But anyway! Everything was so simple, and very nicely so. Not in the way that simple meant boring. But simple in a nice way. The way things should be. Everything felt easy. Sure love was complicated and Ivy was her first real relationship—and maybe codependency was still something to work out, but hey! It sure beats being thrown into a vat of acid!
Her love for Ivy knew no bounds. She would shoot the moon and bring it to earth for her. The devotion was near manic sometimes. She sometimes thinks all her villainous energy was channeled into romantic gestures and sometimes she wondered about world peace and if it was actually possible if everyone knew what she was feeling in the world.
She wheeled her shopping cart into the produce section, humming a delightful tune. It must have caught somebody’s attention because they tapped her on the shoulder. She turned and her face fell.
“Oh, hi Bane.”
“Hello, Harley!” he said jovially. “I am also going shopping for a nice dinner.” He lifted up his basket. He looked oversized for the basket he held. It was filled to the brim. Why didn’t he just use a cart? “You might not want to get that living lettuce. There was a train wreck and tons of hazardous material exploded near a plot of land in the vegetable valley so now the vegetables are contaminated!”
Harley looked at the section of living lettuce. “Oh, I’m making something for Ivy and she won’t want that. She’s a vegetarian.”
“Don’t vegetarians eat vegetables?”
“Yeah, but she would be eating one of her babies. Every plant and tree has a little voice to her it’s so cool and cute at the same time.” She swooned.
“Does that mean she’s not a vegetarian then?”
“No, she is a vegetarian, but—”
“Or is she a vegan? I can call my friend, Erin, who is the vegan police to decide this matter.”
“Well, she eats vegan pasta. And she did eat that Cobb Salad once, but that was because of Selina. Anyways, I think this still makes her vegetarian.”
“It’s not ‘anyways,’ it’s ‘anyway!’ Also, that pasta sauce is made from tomatoes which are plants! It may even be a fruit!” Bane said with his finger in the air, making a point.
“And is Dr. Poison Ivy not a plant? Is she eating herself?”
“Stop!”
“That would make Dr. Poison Ivy a cannibal! Or a carnivore? Either way, she is one of the most formidable villains of us after all!”
“She’s not a cannibal, Bane! This is really a silly argument, so if you don’t mind I’m going to leave--”
“Ah, then is this not hypocritical of her? She cannot claim to love plants and then eat them for sustenance.”
“Are ya calling my Ivy a hypocrite, Bane?” Now Harley had to defend Ivy’s honor. There was nothing else more important at this moment. Nothing. Her life hinged on this.
“Perhaps she is confused?” Bane shrugged. ”I’m simply pointing out a fact…"
Harley and Bane spent the next three hours debating on various topics in the produce section of the supermarket. Over the fruit stands, the following topics were debated:
- Whether tomatoes were indeed a fruit or a vegetable
- What is a fruit
- What is a vegetable
- Mama Macaroni’s vegetarian pastas, were they truly vegetarian?
- Ivy = vegan?
- What is a vegan?
- Ivy is actually a cannibal (?)
- Ivy = carnivore?!
Many supermarket patrons had gathered on opposing sides of the aisle, intrigued by Bane and Harley arguing with each other. A whiteboard was pulled up with several colorful venn diagrams to illustrate the various intersections between fruit and vegetable, overlaps between vegetarianism and veganism…
Harley sighed in agitation. She whipped out her phone.
27 missed calls from Ivy.
Harley winced at the number of unread text messages.
But she googled the definition of a carnivore. “According to Oxford Languages, a carnivore is ‘an animal that feeds on flesh.’ When has she ever eaten flesh? I mean, without Selina there?”
“But what is flesh to Dr. Poison Ivy?” Bane said with both hands on his head in confusion, chomping on his seventh celery stick to fuel this debate session.
The supermarket patrons nodded and sounded off with affirmations.
Harley, holding a megaphone she pulled out of thin air, shouted, “Alright! We are going to settle this once and for all, Bane! Let the masses decide!! Everyone who believes Ivy is a vegan, stand to the left side of the bananas! Everyone else, to the right!”
The patrons shuffled over to their respective sides quite fearful of Harley’s wrath.
Bane, also magically holding a megaphone, replied, “No, no, no! You all have it wrong!”
“Fooooood fight!!!!!!!” someone in the crowd shouted, pelting a tomato at another.
Tomatoes went flying in every direction.
As the people on the right grabbed tomatoes to throw at Harley, Harley pulled out her bat from her shopping cart and charged at Bane. The crowd roared.
“Harley!!” a voice cut through the pandemonium.
Several vines grew from the tomatoes being thrown in midair. The potatoes sprouted. The lettuce heads suddenly came alive and bowled over the crowd in the produce section. A green colored meta human emerged from the kale and broccoli spears positioned to take aim and skewer whoever came in her path.
“I. am. Fucking. Starving. What is going on here?” Ivy said, eyebrows knitted in confusion and hangry.
“Oh hey, Ives!” Harley squeaked.
“I came to check up on you since you’ve been gone for what THREE hours at the market?”
“Ah, yes,” Bane said. “The Dr. Poison Ivy herself is here to settle the argument! How fortuitous.”
“Settle what argument?” Ivy raised her eyebrow.
Harley grabbed a living lettuce head which yelped at her grip, “It’s nothing, Ives, let’s just go.”
“Dr. Poison Ivy, do you or do you not identify as a vegetarian?” Bane said, pointing a microphone at her. “All of Gotham is awaiting your answer.”
Ivy pinched her nose in irritation. “What? The fck? This is what you’re arguing about? How about this: I fcking identify as hangry.”
Harley nodded her head. “That she is! And now suffer her wrath!”
“I’m going to turn this supermarket into a fcking Edin 2.0 unless I get some food in me, got it? Now, move assholes!”
Ivy grabbed enough scallion pancakes to fill the shopping cart. Harley and Ivy checked out in awkward silence with the cashier.
“Do you have a loyalty card?” The curly haired cashier deadpanned. There was a banana peel on his shoulder. He clearly just wanted to go home.
“Agh, shit I forgot it at home. Did you bring it?” Ivy emptied her pockets.
“Ah, no.” Harley shook her head.
The cashier impatiently shuffled on his feet. “Your total is 69.99.”
“Wait, can you look up by phone number?” Harley asked.
The cashier rolled his eyes. “Yes.”
“Okay, it might be your number or mine. Can you try mine?” She rattled off her number.
The cashier shook his head. “Didn’t work.”
Ivy offered hers.
“Paper or plastic?”
“Are you fcking kidding me? That is the stupidest question!” Ivy blurted. “Ugh, sorry, I’m—”
“Yeah, you’re hangry. I know.” He handed them the receipt. “NEXT!” he shouted to the next customer, who commented, “All of that and we still don’t know if she’s a vegan or not.”
“I know right,” the cashier agreed.
As Harley and Ivy walked out the store, Ivy muttered, “Next time, I’ll do the grocery shopping.”
“But Bane called you a hypocrite!”
“Honey! I DO NOT care what Bane says. You don’t have to defend me every time someone like Bane says something like that.”
“Okay, I’m sorry, Ives… hey, wanna grab some boba on the way home?”
“I’d fcking love that.”
As they continued walking, they overheard someone behind them say, “Yeah, Bane made way more sense back there. Harley’s such a ditz.”
Ivy dropped the groceries. She whipped her head around, summoning the forces of Nature. “What did you just call Harley?!”