The Last Kiss
After the events of 'Girl Trouble' Selina is stricken with a strange toxin that Ivy created up in her lab. Batman must try and find an antidote before he loses her forever. Takes place after "Shelter From the Storm" and "Girl Trouble".
Disclaimer: I do not own Batman or Gotham.
~ The drive into the city wasn't an easy one. Gotham was well known for it's historic traffic jams and the odyssey of getting Selina to the hospital in the driving rain would forever infuriate Bruce. He could do little more than hold Selina up in the back seat. Her body seemed to have weakened from whatever it was she had been poisoned with.
The rain made everything slower and Alfred, normally very respectful to other drivers, was quick to succumb to road rage.
Finally, the beacon of hope appeared in the form of the towering pillar of Gotham Medical Center. If Selina could be helped, she was being taken to the right place. Alfred pulled into the ambulance bay as is he owned it, and waved to nearby orderlies.
"This woman needs help!" he shouted in a gruff voice.
Alfred pulled Bruce aside just as he was about to lift Selina out of the car.
"Sir." the butler said calmly. "I need to be the one to take Miss Kyle inside. Alone."
Bruce pushed back the errant hair that had fallen over Selina's face. She was having trouble breathing now. Her breaths coming in short, asthmatic gasps.
"What? Why?" Bruce barked.
Alfred's words were careful and hushed so Selina wouldn't overhear.
"If you bring her in, sir, you will be recognized as Bruce Wayne. Those vultures at the gossip rags are already hunting for a picture of you two. If they find that strange toxin in her system and manage to link it to that Ivy person, how long before Gordon traces it back to you? Your secret would be out, sir. I need to be the one to take Miss Kyle to the hospital. I can say she's my niece."
"Alfred, I destroyed Ivy's lab and now she's in the wind. I have no idea what Selina has been dosed with." he whispered guiltily.
"You have the samples." Alfred offered as the pair of orderlies came out to the ambulance bay with a stretcher. "Perhaps the antidote is among them. Now, get in the car and don't let anyone see you." Bruce didn't like the idea of leaving Selina. She seemed so helpless just now. He knelt down before her and saw her gaze was unfocused and lost.
"Selina?" he whispered.
"Everything's dancing." she whimpered.
Bruce saw her face was still bright red and burning hot to the touch. Her eyes still milky from whatever was in Ivy's booby trap.
Bruce felt his head was spinning. He had taken on too much in his role as Batman. If he hadn't decide to play hero, Selina wouldn't be dying now.
"I'll take Miss Kyle inside." Alfred said calmly. "You take the car back to that fancy computer of yours and figure out what's happening."
Bruce nodded and pried Selina's hands off him.
"You have to go with Alfred." Bruce whispered.
"What's happening? Bruce?" she gasped sadly.
Bruce was quick to jump into the driver's seat before the orderlies spotted him. Alfred taking over the burden of Selina's care. He watched is friend explain that she might have some kind of drug overdoes and saw Selina being wheeled away on the stretcher to get real help.
Bruce felt a pain go off in his chest that he couldn't follow.
~ "It wasn't my fault!" Ivy said hotly. "Cat backed out at the last second, and everything went to hell."
Harvey Dent stared absentmindedly at an episode of Doctor Who on an old fashioned TV. His befuddled mind trying to make sense of the plot.
"How convenient Fish didn't make it out with you." Jonathan Crane said. He never raised his voice, but Ivy felt herself shudder at the tone. There was something so unnatural about her classmate Jonathan Crane. He was a genius, no doubt, but when she looked into his eyes, she saw nothing was there. It was like he was a ghost.
"I suppose I should thank you for the vaccine you gave me to our toxin." Ivy said sarcastically. "Made things more convenient when the time came."
"Our toxin?" Crane huffed. He finished sorting out samples and putting them neatly under microscope glass.
"That hallucinogen was my father's work, Miss Pepper." Crane reminded her.
"Yes, and it was unstable until I came along." she said smartly.
Crane looked at her with those horrible dead eyes of his.
"I take it you're here because of some misguided retribution?" he asked lazily. "Perhaps you seek vengeance on the menace and your old friend."
"That freak destroyed my lab, Jonathan." Ivy hissed. Her eyes growing wide at the pure hatred she had for Selina right now. "All my research, all my supplies and all my plants. I can't produce more of our hallucinogen or toxin until I can regrow them. It will take months and we don't have months or the facilities."
"No one can grow the required plants better than you." Crane admitted. "It's troublesome that Gotham has so few green houses."
His voice was so indifferent to the desperate situation, Ivy became incensed.
"Crane, Dent won't be under my control much longer. A week at most and I have no means to reproduce the lipstick I used." she said.
"That would be troublesome, if it affected me in anyway." he said coldly.
"If I'm arrested, I will tell them all about you. All you're little experiments with our classmates. Stimulating their fear responses so they are too afraid to even go to class anymore. How we worked together to make the toxin and how Fish funded us." Ivy threatened.
"You think I'm scared of you?" Jonathan said with a particularly horrible grin.
Ivy took a step back. There was a lot about Crane that scared her, and she never scared easily.
"I've had monsters coming to get me for years, my dear." Crane said lazily. "Nothing scares me anymore."
~ Bruce had no choice but to drive back home. He had to find out what was so special about Ivy's work and what it was that Selina was sprayed with. Best case scenario, it was on her laptop as well as a quick fix, worse case, it was a guessing game.
Selina's black cat was waiting for him in the cave when he got there. They stared at each other as though both offended by the other one's presence.
"I won't bother to ask how you got in here." Bruce said to the cat.
The black cat, interested, hoped up near the key board and watched him as if to help.
The super computer was capable of breaking down a simple laptop in seconds. All it took was the right command and it sorted Ivy's research into neat little piles.
Bruce typed 'antidote' into the laptop's search engine and came up empty. He typed 'booby trap', 'hallucinogen' and 'toxin' and found nothing that would help him.
"Ivy must use code words. Very clever." Bruce said to the black cat who only meowed back at him.
There were detailed plans of chemicals Ivy was working on. But they were like another language to him. He wasn't as good at chemistry as he would like. Ivy was a genius at the craft apparently. Her math skills were way beyond his as well. Formulating an antidote on his own would be beyond his powers.
"I don't have the proper facilities to find out what's in these canisters." he told the cat. "Lucius Fox might have to help."
The black cat looked at him curiously.
"Don't give me that look." Bruce said to the animal.
~ Selina couldn't keep the nightmares at bay. They come for her as though they were some terrible army. They knew what scared her and they were coming. She could feel hands with longer fingers pulling on her hospital gown. Hands as cold as ice were crawling up her skin.
She shut her eyes and still saw them coming for her. Their eyes were burning like fire.
"Selina!" they called to her in a merry voice.
"No." Selina moaned.
She could feel the creatures in bed with her now. Their limbs boney and she could feel their sharp claws cutting on her.
~ Alfred watched Miss Kyle let out a blood curdling scream from her bed.
A nurse was quick to help her, but the poor girl cried pitifully that something was attacking her.
He had never seen Miss Kyle like this before. It was enough to worry him.
"You said your niece was exposed to some kind of drug overdose?" the doctor asked skeptically.
"I'm not sure what caused this, sir." Alfred said primly.
"We'll have to do a blood panel and find out what she took." the doctor sighed. "It might be that new designer drug all the kids are buying."
"Can't we give her something to calm her?" Alfred asked. Two nurses were trying to keep Selina from tearing at her own skin.
"Not until we know what's she's taken." the doctor said bitterly. "I've never seen a reaction like this before."
~ Gordon let out a loud sigh when Dent's voicemail picked up again.
"Harvey, you asshole, this is Jim. Call me back. We need to discuss this Ivy Pepper situation. You dismiss all charges after I gave you a perfect case and then you run off with her? You need to call me back!" he growled into the phone.
Gordon pushed end to hang up the cell phone and regretted it wasn't as satisfying at hanging up and old fashioned phone. He was angry at the world just now.
With the discovery of the red triangle gang's hub of drugs and money, the feds had descended on the Narrows and were pushing Gordon out. There were wild rumors about the masked vigilante being responsible for the distraction of Old Gotham Prime and Penguin was now MIA.
Penguin would turn up eventually. Bad pennies always did. What really troubled him was Ivy Pepper and her sudden release from what was supposed to be an air tight charge of accessory to a felony drug charge.
What was Harvey thinking? Ivy kissed him and proclaimed her innocence and the fold decided to drop all charges? Then, it was like Harvey was her lap dog. He followed her out of his office after the press conference and drove away with her.
What was happening in Gotham?
Sorry for such a long absence. Work Sucks! It takes up all my free time. If I could make a living out of writing fan fiction, I would be one rich bitch.