Chapter Text
Jack concluded the tour in the mansion’s courtyard, coming to a leisurely stop a short ways from the maze of hedges that took up most of the space. “I’m told there’s a setup for a tea party somewhere in this maze, and while I’m sure it would make a lovely backdrop for the rose ceremony I’ve yet to find it.” He shook his head sadly but perked up when a crew member motioned for his attention. “Now, loves, I’ll leave you all here to get acquainted while I go see to our next arrivals!” With that Jack scurried off.
Kara immediately grabbed her sister’s hand and started dragging her towards the entrance of the maze. “Tea tiiiiime~” Kara singsonged.
“No! You’re horrible with mazes! Karaaaa.” Alex groaned before turning back to Lena and Sam and mouthing ‘save me’.
Sam’s chuckle was cut off when Lena grabbed her wrist and started following the Danvers sisters. “Wait Lena no, not us too! I barely stopped you from setting fire to the last maze!”
“We might as well see all of our new home since we have to stay here for two months,” Lena said cheerfully, not deigning to reply to Sam’s comment about her pyro tendencies.
The four women entered the maze, marveling at the height and density of the green hedges that now surrounded them. “Someone put… a lot of time into this,” Alex muttered.
Sam snorted. “You can say that again.”
Kara released Alex’s hand and looked around, perking up and setting off in what to Lena seemed a completely random direction. “This way!” Kara declared confidently.
Alex groaned and traipsed after her wayward sister. Sam and Lena exchanged a glance, shrugged, and followed.
Twenty minutes and many dead ends later their group had somehow been separated.
“When did we lose Alex and Sam?” Kara asked suddenly, looking all around them.
Lena just shrugged. “I was making such an effort to tune out all of their complaining that I didn’t even notice.” Lies. She had noticed them getting farther and farther behind her and Kara about ten minutes in, and she had taken the opportunity to spur Kara faster with each turn, all to achieve this: “We should probably make sure we aren’t separated as well,” Lena purred as she grabbed Kara’s hand with her own.
Kara immediately turned red. “Oh. Um. Yes. Great. I mean, uh, okay.” Kara bobbed her head up and down rapidly and Lena had to bite back her grin. This had definitely been the right choice (sorry not sorry, Sam).
The other woman’s hand was warm and strong in Lena’s own, though she couldn’t help but be a bit annoyed that Kara’s hand wasn’t sweaty in the least, especially given how long they’d been lost in the maze. Still, holding the pretty blonde’s hand and seeing the red flush of her face and even ears made the little scheme well worth it, and she was soon humming happily to herself as they continued to wander.
Lena was a bit disappointed at how quickly Kara got over her embarrassment at their hand holding. The blush had quickly faded and Kara wasn’t even looking in her direction, holding her hand almost as an afterthought. She was very fixated on finding the tea party and was getting increasingly frustrated.
“It’s over there!” Kara exclaimed, finally stopping at a three way intersection and pointing forward and a bit to the right. “I know it’s over there so why can’t I get to it?”
Lena blinked at her for a moment, wondering how Kara could possibly know where their destination was. She consulted the map of the maze she had been building in her mind and was surprised to find the direction Kara was pointing was the least-explored area. Even though, now that she was thinking of it, all of Kara’s paths seemed to be an attempt to get there.
Curious to see if the tea party was indeed where Kara thought, Lena took the lead, tugging Kara along with her and ignoring the other woman when she pointed out that they had passed a certain hedge before. Or a particular rock or fallen twig or dip in the ground, etc. She honestly wasn’t sure if Kara was being dramatic or if she was just hyper observant, but Lena still added it to her mental notes on her new acquaintance.
Kara was finally quiet when Lena managed to guide them to a heretofore unexplored area of the maze (hyper observant for the win). They had to backtrack a few times, but finally, they found themselves at the heart of the maze. And, much to Lena’s surprise, they weren’t alone.
The heart of the maze was actually heart-shaped, with a disgustingly picturesque fountain in the center depicting an armored knight kneeling to kiss the hand of a long-haired woman in flowing robes. Water spilled over from the top of the woman’s head, giving her a veil of water that almost made it seem as if the knight was kneeling before a nymph, and the knight’s own helmet had a much smaller spout of water leaving it as well, in the place a feather may normally be. Behind the fountain was a long stone table, with oversized teacups and saucers, and even a large teapot, all carved from the same stone as the table itself and still seamlessly attached.
Lounging in one of the ornate stone chairs, somehow placed perfectly so she could only be seen by the new arrivals through the veil of water between the lady and the knight, was a woman with long, red hair.
Lena couldn’t make out the woman’s features and instinctively stepped a bit closer to Kara. She would never admit it, but coming across a stranger in a place like this was a bit… eerie. She glanced up at Kara’s face and froze when she saw the hard look in the normally-bubbly woman’s eyes.
In a few swift steps Kara was at the side of the fountain, pulling Lena along as well and using her now-tight grasp on the woman’s hand to keep her behind her. She was shielding her.
“What are you doing here?” Kara asked, her voice holding steel.
Lena peeked around Kara and watched the redhead blink at them slowly before languidly rising to her feet. “Waiting on you, of course. Though you took long enough that even the hedges were beginning to feel bad for you.” When the woman took a step forward Kara backpedaled, still keeping Lena behind her. The other woman rolled her eyes.
“If I was here to harm anyone they would be long dead, and you would be asleep at the very least.” The woman raised her hand and the plants filling the heart of the maze seemed to grow slightly, curling in on the three women just a bit. There was only one person Lena knew of with a power like that… fuck.
Lena tried to step around Kara, not wanting to let a stranger shield her when she was most likely the redhead’s target. Kara’s grip on her hand tightened and Lena only succeeded in being pulled more firmly behind her.
“I don’t think even Jack would enlist Poison Ivy for his show,” Kara said curtly.
Ivy smirked. “Mr. Spheer was all too happy to have Dr. Pamela Irving join his cast. Something about a genius botanist being a good potential friend for a certain scientist who ‘dabbles in redheads’.”
Ivy’s eyes found Lena’s, and the brunette bit her lip, mentally cursing Jack and his apparent lack of background checks.
“No need to worry, though,” Ivy glanced significantly to Kara, “Lena. I simply wanted to meet you in person. I usually want to kill people in your position,” Lena felt a small vine wind around her ankle in a vice grip, “but you are an exception.” The vine slithered away a second before Kara stomped on it.
Ivy walked closer but stopped a few feet from the two women. “The plants have told me you have quite a few interesting projects going on.” Ivy smiled and held out a business card. “Should you ever need the aid of a botanist, please do give me a call.”
Lena cautiously reached around Kara and took the card, surprised that the blonde didn’t interfere. She glanced at her and did a double take: Kara wasn’t even watching Ivy, but the sky above them.
Ivy noticed as well, giving Lena a brief nod of thanks for taking the card before backing up and mimicking Kara, squinting up into the sunny sky.
Lena couldn’t see a thing up there, but after a moment Ivy startled and turned to Kara with frantic, wide eyes. “Where is she going to land?”
Kara, eyes still trained on something Lena couldn’t see, pointed to a spot near the fountain, and Lena watched with rapt attention as Ivy coaxed the plants there to grow larger and larger, creating a sort of… funnel-shaped net?
A moment after the net formed Lena finally saw… something… hurtling down, headed straight for the impromptu plant net.
“REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!!!!!!” The cry crescendoed just as the object… or rather, person, was caught by the plants.
A woman with pale hair and even paler skin was dangling from the plants, the strips of clothing that made up her suit doing nothing to hide the fierce blush on her skin (though if it was from the fall or something else Lena didn't know). She wriggled her way out of the plant net, being surprisingly gentle with them considering, and ran over to Ivy, jumping up and straddling her waist, arms locked around the back of her neck.
“RED! How could ya leave me for some snooty scientist? I guarantee ya that type’ll care more about her work than her girlfriend!”
Ivy patted the woman’s back absentmindedly, her gaze on the plants that had caught her fall. Surprisingly they seemed no worse for wear- Lena realized it was thanks to the clever construction of the net, which she now noticed had been aimed at breaking a fall, large flexible plants making up most of the pit-like net’s arrangement.
Lena may actually give ‘Dr. Irving’ a call when the whole reality show thing was over.
For now she turned her attention back to the newest arrival, who was most certainly Harley Quinn. Judging by her entrance she hadn’t exactly had an invitation like her girlfriend. At least Jack had only cast one supervillain on his show. Hopefully.
“Where is she?” Harley demanded, looking around from her perch on her girlfriend. “Please tell me it’s not that blonde d… hey wait I know you!” Harley hopped off her girlfriend and trotted over to Kara excitedly. “We met at that little dive bar awhile back! You’re Kara, right?”
Lena felt Kara stiffen before sagging, finally relaxing her death grip on Lena’s hand. “That’s me,” Kara said with a heavy sigh. “Hello, Harley.”
“Red!” Harley whirled around to face her girlfriend, jutting her thumb towards Kara. “If you’re gonna leave me for some dumb scientist then I’m gonna leave you for this lady! She’s a reporter or something, but she’s almost as good in the sack as you are!”
Kara made a choking sound and Lena wasn’t much better off.
“When was this exactly?” Ivy had a dangerous gleam in her eyes and the plants around the garden almost seemed to vibrate.
“Oh you don’t get to be jealous when you’re leavin me!” Harley waved her off. “It was awhile ago anyway, and it didn’t exactly end on a high note. Some lady busted the door down and came in with a buncha agent-types yelling about someone being captured and held hostage?” Harley shrugged and Lena chanced a glance at Kara, who looked like she honestly wouldn’t mind being attacked by Ivy’s plants at this point. “I wasn’t even the one doin’ the tyin’ up that night!”
“Please stop talking,” Kara blurted, blushing so fiercely Lena wondered if Ivy had done something already.
“Whasso wrong about having some fun?” Harley asked. She threw her hands up towards the sky. “Bein’ a prude is for heroes! Villains and normies can do whatever we want!”
Lena’s mind was so busy conjuring images she wasn’t sure she wanted to see that she almost didn’t notice the confused look Ivy was shooting Kara, or Kara’s minute head shake. Almost.
Then Harley looked down and zeroed in on Lena.
“Oi! Are you the scientist Red’s leavin’ me for?” Harley was suddenly right in front of Kara, peering at Lena very intensely over the blonde’s shoulder. Lena jumped. “There ain’t no way you can handle Red, ya hear? If ya so much as step on a plant she’s up your ass for days, and not in the fun way.”
Lena pursed her lips. “You just fell on several plants, no?”
Harley froze and looked back to where she’d fallen. “Uh oh.”
Ivy waved a hand. “You didn’t do them any harm, though I would like to know where exactly you fell from?” She raised her eyebrows at her girlfriend and Harley suddenly beamed.
“Well I didn’t know where ya were at first, so I stopped by Arkham,” Harley reached into her bra and pulled out two blue… blobs? “And you obviously weren’t there, but these things were!” She tossed the blobs into the air and they stayed for a moment before puttering around. “I think they’re aliens or something? Anyway when I went back home I found the note ya left and figured these things could get me here faster! Only I didn’t know how to make em stop so I put em up.” Harley shrugged.
Ivy groaned. “So instead of thinking to see if I left you a note you immediately assumed I had been incarcerated?”
“It’s a fair assumption- you were very excited the last week or so and that usually leads to one or both of us behind bars.” Harley grinned and Ivy rolled her eyes.
“I simply wanted to give Dr… Lena… my business card. Now that I’ve accomplished that we’d best take our leave.” Ivy stalked forward and grabbed her girlfriend’s arm. She began dragging her into the maze.
“Ain’t this a dating show? We should stay awhile and watch the fun!” Harley whined. “C’mon, I bet I can figure out who’ll end up with who!” She pointed at Kara and Lena. “Like those two! They’re probably perfect for each other! They’ve been holding hands this whole time! Red! Lemme go!" Harley wriggled valiantly to no avail. "I just fell from the sky, you should be callin' me an angel, not draggin' me away!”
Ivy and Harley disappeared into the maze, swallowed by plants within moments.
Kara stared after them, then glanced down to see that she and Lena were indeed still holding hands. She gave the other woman a tight smile. “So that was… interesting.”
“Very,” Lena agreed, tucking the business card away in her pocket. If it had any poisons on it she’d probably be dead by now, so may as well keep it.
“Please don’t tell Alex about me and Harley,” Kara blurted.
Lena chuckled. “As long as you don’t tell Sam I took a business card from Poison Ivy without even bothering to wear gloves.”
“Deal.”
Their eyes turned to the two blue blobs Harley had left, still puttering about in the air.
“Any clue what those are?” Lena asked. She looked over in time to see Kara open and close her mouth a few times before shaking her head. The blonde finally released Lena’s hand and strode over to the little blobs. Instead of grabbing them from the air, however, she held her palms out and… cooed to them?
Surprisingly, the little blobs changed course and floated down to Kara’s hands. She curled her fingers around them and pet them lightly, cooing awhile longer before turning to Lena and holding them out. “These little ones are aliens like Harley thought, but they weren’t born on another planet so much as they were created on one. I think they were meant to be some kind of cleaner or helper but most people just kept them as pets.”
Putting aside how Kara knew any of this for the moment, Lena stepped forward and examined them intently. “So they’re kind of like… xeno-roombas.”
Kara snorted and the little blobs quivered.
“Did that just startle them?”
“They’re pretty much sentient. I’d say they have comparable intelligence to a cat or a dog.” Kara shrugged. When Lena held out her hands, cupped as if to hold water, Kara gently deposited one into them.
“It’s warm,” Lena breathed. She stroked the blob gently and it sort of hummed its appreciation. “How exactly does one care for them?”
“If they decide they like you they’ll stay nearby, but if you try to leave them alone in your apartment or something they’ll probably be gone when you return. They like hanging out in pockets and purses though!” Kara paused to pet the blob in her hand and Lena snickered. Kara rolled her eyes. “Or boobs, if Harley has a say in it.”
“What about feeding them?”
“That’s where their origin as a cleaning device comes in- they can eat anything. Even things here on Earth that don’t degrade or that are considered dangerous. It isn’t super well known, but the government has some of these little ones cleaning up old nuclear disaster sites and whatnot.”
Lena decided to chalk that knowledge up to Kara apparently being a reporter. Totally plausible. Yup.
“They can go without consuming anything indefinitely, but they kind of turn into a rock after awhile?” Kara adjusted her glasses with her free hand and deposited her little blob on her shoulder. “Anyway, they like eating whatever ya give them, they need to stay near you, and they really like being pet. That’s all there is to it. Oh and they love the sound of cooing. Not sure who discovered that.”
Lena cooed to the blob in her hands and it vibrated happily. “Can I keep you?” Lena whispered to it. As if in response, it floated up and onto her shoulder. Lena restrained herself from squealing in delight, not wanting to scare the little creature.
“I’m naming mine Vee,” Kara decided.
Lena cocked a brow. “In that case I’m naming mine Qui.”
“Key?”
“No, spelled q-u-i.”
Kara groaned and Lena gave her a wicked grin.
“Your name is Qui now, and your friend over there is Vee,” Lena told the little blob. It jittered and she cooed to it, causing it to nuzzle against her neck. “What a good little Qui you are!”
“Lena what the fuck is that?” Sam’s voice asked. Lena jerked her head up and saw Sam and Alex walking towards them, both women looking at the blobs on Kara and Lena’s shoulders with a mixture of intrigue and disgust.
“It’s definitely a Binnie,” Alex said. “Kara please tell me that thing isn’t your pet now.”
Kara looked offended. “Vee is my pet now, thank you very much! Also they aren’t named after trash bins!”
Alex gave her a look. “Yeah well until they change their official name to something pronounceable I’m going to keep calling them Binnies.”
“It is pronounceable! Just… not in Earth tongues.” Kara grimaced.
“I repeat,” Sam said, “what the fuck is that?”
“You have been wanting me to get a pet,” Lena pointed out.
“Yeah, I meant a cat or like… a goldfish. Not a slime alien!” Sam threw her hands in the air. “We got separated for less than half an hour, where the hell did you even find that thing?”
Lena, perfectly straight-faced, said, “Harley Quinn stole them from Arkham but left them here when her girlfriend dragged her away.”
If Sam hadn’t been rolling her eyes she may have seen the alarmed look Kara shot Lena. As it was, even Alex didn’t notice, too busy regarding the Binnies with utter disgust.