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So, they kiss the first time, and it’s basically everything. Not everything, obviously, it’s just the heat of the moment and going around kissing people, and Harley will spend weeks trying to convince herself that this doesn’t mean anything, that it’s the least crazy thing that has happened to her in a life of fairly crazy things.
And yeah, it might not be that crazy, but only because it makes so much sense. Because Ivy is her best friend and her favorite person to talk to and the only person who loves her for exactly who she is and believes that she can be more. Not in a take-over-the-universe way, or a perfect-sidekick way, but the sort of way where Harley thinks her life might not be such a write off, like there’s still some good, or at least some trying, buried in her bones. Like she might still have a shot at happiness. In light of all that, the kiss makes a lot of sense. Since Ivy is sort of the person who matters most to her in the entire world.
So it might not be everything, and of course, once she and Ivy talk, everything is hypothetically fine. But it was something. Even Harley, who spends some days cartwheeling through a flurry of different realities, knows that.
Because Harley is smart. Ivy knows that too. Even if no one else seems to see it.
--
Themyscira is a different story.
Harley might have just come to terms with the fact that she could, maybe be totally, irrevocably in love with her best friend, but that’s just a feeling. It can’t change the mission, which is to celebrate her best friend who she may or may not be in love with, and said best friend’s upcoming wedding to a man who really is perfectly fine, except for the way that Harley hates his presence in her life. But she can’t begrudge him for loving Ivy, even if she hates it, because she totally understands what it’s like to love Ivy.
And maybe if she’d gotten her own shit together years ago, instead of always going back to the Joker, maybe she could have confessed to Ivy first. See, Harley understands that choices don’t always work out, and doing one thing sets another thing into action, and she’s accumulated so much regret that, if she were any less focused on the future, she might just collapse under it.
So there’s this bachelorette party. And Harley is in love with Ivy, but she also just straight up loves Ivy, so she’s going to do everything she can to make it a good trip. And it is! She uses her whole bag of tricks, including scaring the whole rest of the bridal party into their best behavior, and the nightclub is bangin. Dead supervillain husbands, and alive mortal husbands are forgotten, Selina’s basking in the particular chaos a room full of drink bachelorette parties and oil-slick strippers creates, and Harley ends up right next to Ivy.
Because she wants to make Ivy happy. Because she’s Ivy’s best friend. Because Ivy said she wanted them to be able to hang out this trip, and Harley would never refuse her that, and being close by is exactly the way she can keep an eye on Ivy’s general happiness levels, so it all makes a lot of sense, if you think about it the right way.
Harley’s drunk.
She had several fruity pink cocktails, and several more shots, and there’s something about the air in this club, she’d bet money it’s supposed to be intoxicating. All these things make Party-Harley come out. Party-Harley isn’t like normal Harley. Normal Harley likes chaos, and having fun, and smashing things and high-speed chases and quick getaways and crazy heists. Party-Harley likes these things too, obviously. But Party-Harley, real Party-Harley, not who she is when she’s trying to show up the other supervillains or make an impression on her home turf, predates Harley Quinn.
Party-Harley was around when Harleen Quinzel was sixteen and sneaking out her bedroom window, only once a month, and only when her homework was done, to get into the lacrosse team’s parties in her neighbor’s basement. Party-Harley went to frat parties with sticky floors, and got good at beer pong and rage cage, and when she turned twenty-one she went dancing and learned to make out with people in the middle of a club, surrounded by flashing lights and thumping base. Party-Harley even made appearances in grad school, when Harleen had a rare moment to take a Friday night off and slip into something sheer, heading for somewhere with music and people and yes, debauchery, but not the evil, twisting, how-far-can-this-go-until-it-hurts kind, but the sort that just happens, all those bodies against each other looking for something fun.
Party-Harley is younger, and softer than Harley Quinn, and entirely unguarded.
Party-Harley doesn’t come out much anymore, now that Harley’s always on the clock and all responsible for herself.
But something about this place, completely apart from her normal life, everyone else distracted and Ivy spinning her around until she’s the fun kind of dizzy, makes this old, familiar lightness rise in Harley Quinn’s chest. The kind of feeling where all she wants is a good time, and not even a time where someone has to end up bleeding. Just the heady rush of her body against someone else’s, drinks warm down her throat and in her stomach, an escape from everything tying her down. It’s Party-Harley, then, that tucks herself against Ivy, frat-party-muscle-memory flooding into her hips, reminding her how to move her body against someone else’s.
Harley’s half expecting Ivy to push her away. To remind them both of the careful rules of their relationship, and the way Harley tilting her neck up to feel Ivy’s breath against her skin is definitely not part of those rules. Poison Ivy, normally, is not the kind of woman who allows her best friend to grind against her in a club, and she is definitely not the kind of woman who grabs Harley’s waist and pulls her closer, moves their hips more purposefully together. But Ivy’s drunk too. She has a flush to her cheeks, and her hair is sticking to her forehead, and she’s so relaxed. Sober Ivy is usually very tense. It’s why she makes so many good choices. She had as many drinks as Harley, and the point of a bachelorette is to do things you can’t do ever again, and is this really any different than Jen stuffing bills into the underwear of naked men onstage?
Harley would not, absolutely never, not at all, for real, even try this if she thought Ivy didn’t want to. She might be in love with her best friend, but she is never in the business of forcing someone into sexual activity they aren’t wholly excited about.
Ivy has one hand tight on Harley’s hip, and another splayed across the bare skin on her stomach, and Harley can feel a warmth building between her legs that’s blurring any remainder of Normal Harley, leaving only Party-Harley, teasing and buoyant and seeking in her wake. She turns to face Ivy, and the expression she’s met with, blown-wide eyes and a secret sort of smile, doesn’t make Harley any less horny. Ivy tugs her close, pressing their bodies back together, and when she dips her head down to kiss Harley, in the middle of this filthy dance floor, a thousand miles away from any of their problems, Harley feels her whole body light on fire.
She wants to shove her body against Ivy’s, get them all tangled up in one another, maybe get on her knees in front of Ivy in the bathroom, but Ivy pulls back, panting, and shakes her head. Not here, she says, and when she grasps Harley’s wrist, pulling them both out into the night air, Harley follows like she was made to, like it was a lie to pretend she ever wouldn’t follow Ivy to the edge of the earth.
The air is cool, a light breeze against her skin, and for a moment Harley wonders if Ivy brought her out here to slow things down, to remind them of the rest of the world and stop this mistake before it goes any further. She turns to look at Ivy, to ask if this has ruined everything. Before she can get the words out, Ivy pressing her against the wall, biting at the base of her throat, hands warm, scratching lightly against Harley’s abdomen. Harley thinks she could stay like this, perfectly happy, forever, but she knows Ivy isn’t really this kind of girl. Ivy deserves things like a mattress, and walls, and Harley’s starting to think she deserves those sorts of things too. Not just quick fucks in alleyways, or Joker’s hand fisted violently in her hair, her body splayed under his, but the light, playful way Ivy’s fingers are teasing just past the waistband of Harley’s shorts.
The thing is that Harley always loves Ivy and they always have fun together. Even this, the way Harley’s skin is burning and the rapid-patter of Ivy’s heart, fills her with a lightness, a feeling like her body might become a hot air balloon and sail both of them away.
The ride back on the boat takes far too long. People around them are laughing, shrieking as water sprays them in the face. All Harley can focus on is the way her body’s vibrating and the hot twisting of her stomach every time Ivy’s breath ghosts across her cheek. The only thing that makes the wait bearable is trying to give as good as she gets, because she’s never been a pillow princess and doesn’t intend to start now, regardless of what everyone else thinks. Ivy’s hand is intertwined with her own, and when enough people on the boat look away Harley brings Ivy’s fingers to her mouth, scraping her teeth against fingertips. The second her tongue makes contact with Ivy’s pointer finger, Ivy’s whole body shivers, and she sends Harley an infinitely pleased, half helpless look that makes Harley’s thighs squeeze more tightly together.
Finally, they dock, finally Ivy kisses Harley outside the hotel, sliding her hands under Harley’s top, finally Harley returns the favor in the elevator, licking a stripe across Ivy’s collarbone, and then they’re in front of Harley’s door. She backs up against it, Ivy on her heels, Ivy’s hands at her waist, hot, impatient. But before this goes any further, even though it’s gone pretty far, Harley needs to be Ivy’s best friend. She needs to make sure this is okay.
She pulls out her key, but before she does anything with it she looks up at Ivy, a real look, the kind that pauses and breathes and asks, are you sure?
Ivy, without breaking eye contact, plucks the key out of Harley’s hand, swipes it through the lock, and pushes the door open. Then she turns back, tosses her hair over her shoulder, and grins at Harley. “Are you coming in?” Harley throws herself at Ivy so quickly it almost knocks both of them over, but Ivy, strong, steady Ivy, only braces their bodies more firmly together. The door swings shut, Harley drives them towards the bed, and then it’s all exactly like it should be.
Harley’s shirt off, Ivy’s legs, bare and long, their mouths together with a kind of pleasure that makes Harley’s head spin. It’s a blur, but it’s perfect, and Harley falls asleep with her face pressed against Ivy’s shoulder, hair twisted together, the sound of Ivy’s soft, only-for-her laugh ringing in her ears.
--
The next morning is weird, and the day almost goes badly, but Harley turns it around because she loves Ivy and she planned a good trip and can’t this be enough? Ivy’s satisfaction at saving a beautiful island, the gratitude in her eyes as she smiles at Harley, everyone finally having the right kind of fun?
--
Spoiler alert: it isn’t.
Returning the island to the Amazons is great, but it only serves as a reminder of the thing that got Harley into trouble in the first place – that she and Ivy make a great team. Harley’s good at doing her thing regardless of the circumstances, obviously, but there’s something better about it when Ivy’s at her side, something smoother and safer and more effective. She’s a better fighter with Ivy, and she’s a better winner too, more able to sink back into the ease of the celebration.
They drink, again. They watch the bonfire, which lights Ivy’s hair up into all these different, individual, beautiful shades, and it’s like Ivy’s forgetting to be guarded too, like the island is a place where she doesn’t need to be looking for danger.
Another little thing about Party-Harley? She loved making out at bonfires. It was the first place she kissed her first boyfriend, nervous Brian Jenkins at the end of freshman year, and she’s loved it every time since. They’re sitting by the fire, Ivy leaning back on her hand, opening her body up to Harley, and smiling like she knows exactly what she’s doing. And Harley has never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth. She leans in slowly, carefully, making eye contact the whole time so Ivy can see what she’s doing. Ivy meets her halfway. Her mouth tastes smokey, like a fancy tequila, paired with something fresh and clean that Harley’s learning might just be Ivy.
This time they end up back in Ivy’s room, which Harley prefers because it means everything smells like her. She flops onto the bed and tugs Ivy down on top of her, wriggling with pleasure when Ivy reaches around to unclasp Harley’s top. Ivy pulls off her own shirt after, and Harley takes a moment to really watch, to look at the woman in front of her. Moonlight streams in through the window, filling the room with an uncanny glow, and Ivy’s skin shines in it.
She’s beautiful, Ivy’s always been beautiful, but there is something terrifying and wonderful about seeing her without anything in the way. Just Ivy, green and glowing, hair falling to her waist. Harley knows that’s why this is working, this little pocket in time. It’s a place, briefly, where she and Ivy don’t have to be on any kind of guard. Where she can let herself fully crash into Ivy, under the cover of darkness, and no one but the moon will see.
Which is fine, because Harley knows the moon. And she’s not a snitch.
Ivy presses Harley into a kiss, long and slow, and Harley wraps her legs around Ivy’s waist. Ivy hums at the contact, pitching her pelvis forward, and Harley bucks against her stomach, searching for friction. Ivy’s mouth dips to her neck, sucking hard enough that a bruise will stand out tomorrow, bright and purple against Harley’s skin. Harley lifts herself into it. She wants this, to be marked by Ivy, to have some sort of reminder, a memento that this happened.
Ivy’s hands find her nipples, rubbing in a way that makes Harley’s spine tingle. All impulse, Harley buries her hands in Ivy’s hair and squeezes her legs tighter, slip-sliding against Ivy’s skin. Ivy dips lower, biting at Harley’s bellybutton, the scar there from an errant piercing, licking across the skin of her lower abdomen. Her hands part Harley’s thighs, fingers pressing against gymnast muscle, teasing in a way that makes Harley’s body jump, quaking with need.
She always needs Ivy. She needs Ivy to remind her that there are many ways to live, and that breakfast is important, and that Harley might, just maybe, deserve some kindness, but in this particular moment all her other ways of needing are eclipsed by this one.
Ivy’s mouth meets Harley’s pussy like some sort of fucking spell, like actual magic, and Harley shivers and gasps at the movement. It doesn’t take very long, which Harley thinks is mostly Ivy’s fault for being so good at this, and as soon as Ivy crawls back up Harley’s body, kissing her long and sloppy and slick, Harley slides her hand between Ivy’s legs and presses inwards, upwards, a fresh pulse of heat running through her as Ivy melts in her hands. Ivy like this, bucking at the movement of Harley’s fingers, moaning in a shuddery, vulnerable way is unforgettable. As wild, and still as steady, as trees bowing in a storm.
“Harls,” Ivy is gasping, “Harls, Harls, Harls-“ and Harley presses a kiss to her cheek, to her shoulder, to her throat, to every piece of skin she can reach, fingers steady, heart strong.
Yeah. Fuck Kiteman for ever getting to do this first.
When Ivy comes, shuddering like a leaf, she returns to Harley flushed and handsy, groping idly in a way that fills Harley’s heart. She squirms into Ivy’s touch, pressing herself as close as she possibly can, and brushes her hand up Ivy’s ribcage to make her laugh. It should feel heavy, after. It should feel like a mistake. But all Harley feels is light, and flushed, sticky next to Ivy and perfect for it.
She falls asleep in Ivy’s bed, with Ivy’s leg slung across her hip. Party-Harley stretches in her chest and yawns. The thing about Party-Harley is that she believes in things like love, and happiness. The thing about Party-Harley is that she’ll keep trying, even when everyone else would give up, for a peace like this.