This choice: First thing's first—Someone floated the idea of a pizza party? • Go Back... Ivy had been grown accustomed to squatting in Gotham City’s surplus of abandoned something-or-others since she began her villainous streak. The experience was hardly ever pleasant, given their tendency towards dilapidation and lack of functioning modern conveniences like running water and electricity. It had never particularly bothered her to go without.
Her latest home had been an abandoned brownstone in the bad part of town. Its involvement in a series of murders and some structural concerns meant that it was more or less unsellable as far as any real estate agency in Gotham was concerned. Fixing it up would have been the optimum solution, but the costly improvements would have been too much of a risk for an investment that would sit within walking distance from Crime Alley. Ivy had taken it upon herself to unboard the door and make herself comfortable on the second floor, and had been living there quietly for weeks before Harley showed up on her doorstep.
Just two days after she had taken Selina in, all her efforts to stay off-grid and out of sight were put into jeopardy.
“Omigod air!”
Harley fell to the floor, landing directly underneath one of the now functioning air vents. She shut her bright blue eyes as a chilly breeze pushed against her face, sighing appreciatively as it cooled her sweaty brow and blew her blonde pigtails.
“Omigod hot water!”
Harley shut herself in the bathroom and turned the pressure on full heat, ignoring the scalding temperature out of sheer love of having it available. She had shouted loud enough for Ivy to hear her on the other side, even through the hiss of the jets.
“Omigod my room has a dimmer switch!”
She fingered the dial, watching with a maniacal grin as the light dimmed and brightened corresponding to how far she turned it to the right or left. She stood there in her doorway for a full two minutes, marveling at her latest frivolity.
“Omigod ca—eh?”
Harley had plopped down on the old beat-up couch left over from the brownstone’s previous tenants, the rinky-dink television sitting catty-cornered next to a mostly empty bookshelf and an old computer desk without the computer. The overstimulated siren grabbed the clicker and pressed the power button, only to be rewarded with the sound of jittery static instead of the familiar melodies of her favorite cartoons. Harley flipped the channels up and down before she huffed and crossed her arms irately, her enthusiasm effectively ruined.
“Hey, what gives?!” Harley whined in her nasal accent, “No cable?! How am I supposta eat cereal in front of the TV on Saturdays when there’s no cable?!”
“Sorry about that.” Came a familiar silky tone as Selina Kyle, Catwoman, slung herself over the back of the couch with acrobatic ease, “I got the power and water turned on like that—“ she snapped her fingers “—but the cable guy won’t be here ‘til Monday.”
Due to the earliness of the hour, both of the costumed night-owls were still dressed comfortably. For two people whose hours of operation were mostly shrouded in darkness, eleven was pretty early in the morning. Selina’s loose-fitting flop clothes consisted entirely of a black tank top and a slightly darker shade of pajama bottoms, while Harley had opted for the more direct and casual approach, wearing a Supergirl t-shirt and an old pair of panties with the Warner Brothers logo on them.
“Aww!” Harley stuck out her lower lip as she sunk into the couch, pouting, “Now I wish I was back at Arkham… ‘least there they’ve got Dish.”
“Well at the rate our new roommate is going, I’d say that we’re both going to wind up back in our cells pretty soon.” Ivy’s surly tone poured suddenly in from the hall, “Selina, I left the water and power off for a reason!”
“Yeah yeah, I know; off-grid, save the planet, don’t go back to jail, yadda yadda.” Catwoman rolled her eyes as she clicked off the television, “But come on Ivy, what’s the point of all three of us hiding out here if we have to do it without showers?”
Ivy walked a little further into the second-story living room, her hands crossed tersely over her breast. She had been awake longer than either of her two roommates, and their combined lackadaisical attitude (plus the exact nature of their relationship, as vague as it may be) was beginning to grate on Ivy’s nerves. Getting the utilities turned back on and jeopardizing their anonymity was more than enough to cause duress as far as Ivy was concerned, but she seemed to be the only one who understood that laying low was essential in staying under the GCPD’s nose—how was she supposed to do that with a power bill every month?
“Look, just relax green beans.” Selina said, turning to face her fellow rogue with a confident smile on her face, “I’ve got this taken care of.”
“Really.” Ivy raised a bright red eyebrow at the notion, “Somehow I doubt that.”
Selina hopped up on the back of the couch, much to the amusement of Harley. Her state of undress was anything but modest. A black tank top and yoga pants were hardly the attire of a woman who had a plan. She whipped something out from behind her back, tucked into the waistband of her bottoms, and held it proudly in her slender olive-skinned fingers.
“What’s this?” Ivy snatched it away
“It’s the deed.” Selina purred
“The deed?”
“The deed.” Selina snatched it back before Ivy had a good chance to look at it, “Phoned up Gotham City Realty and told them I’d pay whatever they wanted for it. Took them about five minutes to get me everything I wanted.”
“You bought this place?!” Ivy’s elevated tone was a mixture of surprise and anger, “How did you… how could you…—?!”
“I told you already: big job, got away, lots of payout, now I’m rich!” Selina smiled widely in response to Ivy’s vicious scowl as she hopped off the back of the couch, practically towering over the shorter redhead, “Nothing illegal, nothing that’s gonna bring Batman or even a Robin down on us. Just me and my roomies crashing in an old brownstone that I just happened to have the money for. See? Totally legit.”
Ivy looked up at the statuesque Italian woman before her, her nose crinkled and her brow furrowed as she made the most dissatisfied face she could manage. Ivy and Selina had never exactly been unfriendly towards one another before, but the past few days and their mutual relationships with Harley had done more to sour their comradery than any truce or encounter had in the past. It certainly didn’t help that Selina was so beautiful. Tall and slender with prominent chiseled features… not green. Certainly Ivy held a high opinion of herself, but she couldn’t help but believe that if Selina had been a shorter, dumpier woman than it would have been so much easier to feel more comfortable with the new situation she found herself in.
“Do we have a deal?” a sly smile crept onto Selina’s face as she stretched out one hand
There was a tense pause between the three of them as Ivy looked her up and down again.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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