Poison Ivy's greenhouse was not that of a normal Teflon covered half tube with a few scattered plants inhabiting it, it was a terrarium of life all twisting and shifting as they would with a breeze but in the absence of such atmospherics, it was the work of the femme fatal herself as her anticipation overflowed to the life around her. The Gotham sky dark and quiet as the delivery that would change their lives was eagerly awaited, so much so that the small posse of people passing through the large glass front doors were allowed to authorization without interference.

"Your Cadmus Pod, Ivy." Lex Luthor announced striding confidently into the greenhouse home of Poison Ivy. As usual he was dressed impeccably in a sharp suit and crisp white shirt, his bald head shining slightly in the glare of the overhead lights.

"Excellent. I have all I need now." Ivy said happily slinking over to the pod resting her green tinged hand onto the glass front.

"Are you sure that I can't persuade you to keep at least one of the genomorphs to help with the pod?" Lex said raising one perfectly manicured eyebrow. Ivy bristled.

How dare a man try to dictate to her in her own house what she should do.

"Perfectly sure, Luthor. It was enough to have to tolerate the imbeciles who are installing this device." She snapped looking back to her colleague of the light. He kept his expression flat as if he was not afraid of Ivy at all. She didn't like that. Not one bit, men in her opinion were to serve her and the ones responsible for the mess that the planet had become.

"Whatever you say Pamela." Lex said with a placating smile.

Ivy held in a growl. He was a useful person to have onside, to annoy him now would mean that he would work against her in the future and that was something that she really did not want.

Instead she bristled holding in her irritation, inadvertently making the flora around her twitch and prime ready to defend their mother.

"We have finished Mr Luthor, Sir." The technician said hesitantly, this new environment making him nervous.

"Perfect." He purred, "As always, a pleasure Ivy." He nodded to the woman in green then turned and led the technicians out of the greenhouse leaving the Doctor of Botany alone with her newest acquisition.

Ivy watched until they were well away then crossed to her work station, a patch of vines pulling back to display a finger long tube-like cryogenic device.

"One month, one month and I will be able to hold you my darling." She murmured scooping it up into her hand, an embryo held in the glowing green light visible but no bigger than the top half of Poison Ivy's thumb.

"Your my daughter, my legacy, my way of fighting back. None shall harm you and together we shall show the world. You and I, my beautiful Rose. My perfect thorn." Ivy crooned to the frozen blob of tissue and potential.

Ivy entered the tube into the Cadmus pod as she had been shown by the scientist's weeks prior and with a beaming grin stepped back to watch as the green light of her modified pod illuminated the twitching roots and boughs of the residents.

"One month." She said this time not to the creature in the pod but to herself, a mantra to which she could live by until the time was right.

She installed the special plant that would imbue her child with knowledge above the tank where the genomorph would have stood. She wanted this child to be all hers, to know what she knew, to be her reflection. Then she carried on with her latest plan, a gala for an oil company that needed to be disrupted. It was minor but it was low risk, now that she was growing her perfect Rose she didn't want to chance a stay inside and miss the key moment.

"Ivy's up to something." Nightwing declared one arm removed from his super suit. It had been a long patrol and one of the only ones that Bruce would let him do alone, but he was a senior damn it, he should be allowed more freedom.

Jason lay flat on his back in the centre of the training platform.

"What makes you say that?" He asked not moving from his current position sweat dripping from his forehead.

"She's been too quiet. It's been five weeks since the Oil Gala fiasco, and even that was minor." Dick said rationally, he'd pulled off his suit half way now leaving the front to lie limp across his thighs and the base of his body..

"That's it?" Jason laughed, "What do you think B?" He called out.

Bruce spun the large chair before the Bat computer round, his face pensive and brooding,

"I think you both did well tonight, some solid leads found." He said evasively. In truth he too thought it had been too quiet on Ivy's front of late and was sure that she was plotting something, but it was near dawn and the boys both had school in the morning.

"I will look into the Ivy hunch more tomorrow." He said, Dick opened his mouth to protest but closed it again as Bruce swung the chair back round effectively ending the conversation.

Dick growled and stomped off back up the metal staircase to the library ready for bed.

"Red." Harley cried excitedly bouncing on her toes. "Somethin' is happenin'"

The pod before her flushing from a soft green light to that of a harsh yellow. The body of a young girl inside twitching slightly, her hands curling and uncurling.

"Hold on!" Ivy shouted back to her friend. "I'm just starting the opening sequence."

Moments later the two women stood together before the pod excitedly apprehensive. Would the girl know who she was? Would she recognise them?

The chamber drained out the amniotic fluid leaving the body prone upright.

'Pftssssss.' It hissed, the door swinging open a fraction.

But that was enough for Ivy as she dashed forward to wrench the chamber door fully open.

Rose was pretty, her freckled skin a delicate shade of alabaster, her body proportioned as a girl of fourteen would be and her hair a beautiful auburn darkened and falling to her middle back drenched in the fluid.

"My Rose, my flower, can you hear me?" Ivy asked her right hand gently settling on the left cheek of her daughter.

"She's awful gooey Red. She gonna be okay?" Harley asked from a few feet away.

Rose gave a cough spitting out the last of the fluid, lurching forward into her mother's arms.

Eyelids heavily fluttered open, emerald eyes suddenly confronting the world. Rose took in the smiling woman in front of her, all soft skin and shades of green and red.

"Mama?" She ventured. Poison Ivy laughed nodding.

"Yes, yes, I'm Mama." She said happily pulling her daughter into her arms.

Over her mother's shoulder Rose took in her surroundings, the green lights, the vines and plants, the lightening sky and Harley.

Home.

"I'm your Aunty Harley!" Harley waved, her pale face split into a huge grin.

"Hel-hello." Rose said carefully testing her voice for the first time consciously.

Ivy pulled back from her daughter, not fazed by the viscous fluid that formed strings between them.

"We should get you cleaned up. Come on." Ivy stepped back away from the pod allowing Rose to tentatively, still holding the arm of her mother, step out of the chamber into the crisp air of the greenhouse, the smell of compost hitting her nose.

Ivy led her to the bathroom of the Botanical house and handed her daughter a pretty sundress of soft cotton and under things.

"We will be just out here." Ivy assured her with a smile. Ivy brushed her palm lightly over the back of her new child's head.

She returned to her companion leaving Rose to clean herself off.

"So, how much does she know Red?" Harley asked, she had taken a seat on the organic couch in Ivy's lab waiting for her friend to return.

"She knows up to high school level in education and everything that I do." Ivy answered proudly. She crossed to the chamber and pulled off the plant she had designed for the education of her daughter.

"Right." Harley drew out. "Does she know about Mr J and the Bats?" Ivy nodded,

"She looks like me do you not think?" Ivy said happily, looking back to the bathroom door.

"Yeah spitting image. Look, Red, I'm happy for ya, I am. But I just think that maybe having a brat about isn't the best idea." Harley reasoned.

Ivy scowled at her companion.

"It's not? If the Justice fools can have children then I want one too." Ivy spat back setting the plant onto the lab table.

"So she is actually your daughter then? Not just a clone. You've told me next to nothing about the sprog Red."

"She's my daughter, mine and the heir Francis Black." Ivy said shrugging. She turned her attention to the computer; she had taken all her scientific notes on the machine during the rapid growth of her daughter.

"Black?! Seriously!" Harley exclaimed, Francis Black had just come to own one of the largest corporations in the world, he was worth billions, and was old Gotham money, not as old as the Wayne's or the Elliot's but old.

"He was handsome, and upon closer inspection his DNA seemed to be a good fit for mine so I seduced him." Ivy said calmly reasoning away her creation of the man's child.

"You gonna tell her she got a Daddy?" Harley asked.

"Nope. Not unless she asks."

"What about school?" Harley prodded getting up to move closer to her friend,

"What about it?"

"Well ya gonna send her there or not?" Harley asked impatiently. Ivy paused in her note taking and looked at the clown.

Ivy sighed,

"Yes, school would free up a lot of time in childcare. Gotham Academy, if she is to go I want her positioned to do the most damage." Ivy decided, Harley laughed.

"Good plan Red."

Any reply Ivy was about to say died in her throat as the bathroom door opened.

Rose watched as the goopy fluid circled the plug hole then vanished.

She was born, she was in existence. She felt that she was fourteen, she had the knowledge of a fourteen year old and higher, but she had no memories, only green.

This was her first day, her first day with memories. She knew how to read and how to write but had never been taught, she just knew it.

"My name is Rose." She said to herself. The spray of water disguising her voice.

She turned the tap off and stepped out of the bathtub, she was still uncertain on her feet having not used them before. Quickly she dressed in the clothes she was given, her new body chilling rapidly in the dawn air.

Rose went to open the door to the now wet bathroom but froze hearing voices.

"So she is actually your daughter then? Not just a clone. You've told me next to nothing about the sprog Red." She heard Harley say,

'Stay here, they may not say anything if you go out now.'

Rose's hand rested on the door knob,

"She's my daughter, mine and the heir Francis Black."

Who is Francis Black? She thought to herself. She couldn't hear much after that,

"You gonna tell her she got a Daddy?" Harley asked. Rose heard that for definite.

"Nope. Not unless she asks." Ivy said.

Rose stepped back from the door in shock. Her mother would keep things from her. She had no memories to base her reaction off of but the betrayal struck her right between her ribs.

Barely an hour old and she was being hidden and kept from view.

I will not be lied to. She told herself squaring her shoulders before marching over to the door and pulling it open.

High school sucks.

It sucks even more if you have three hours sleep and spend the evening swinging from rooftop to rooftop.

Jason groaned. Sophomore year was going to be the same as the rest it seemed. It wasn't that Jason disliked the work, he loved it, really, it interested and stretched him and he liked the challenge, what he didn't like however were the people. The bratty spoiled rich kids and their backstabbing competitive ways. He would never fit with them, with their disgusted looks and sneers. Even now weeks into the term and he still could not reconcile with their name calling and the sheer otherness that they presented, for the kid to have been brought up in the Narrows before being adopted, the privilege of this environment still shocked him.

"C'mon replacement." Dick said clapping Jason on the shoulder knocking him forward slightly.

"I don't see why we can't just have a tutor." Jason grumbled. Dick laughed; waving to a guy he was on good terms with,

"Buck up and shut up Jason, it's not forever." Dick said walking off to his friend leaving Jason stood alone in the gates.

Rose was nervous. So nervous she felt sick. She had done nothing like this before, school, it was a foreign concept to her. She was excited too but Harley hadn't exactly been glowing in her retelling of her school days.

Still she clutched her black backpack to her as she stood in the gates looking at the imposing building, like everything in Gotham it was of Gothic design and the dark stone building inspired a sense of dread in her.

Rose turned her head and spied the dark haired boy about her age, his face down cast and shoulder slumped slightly as if to make himself slightly smaller.

Find someone, a boy, smile at him and ask for help. Your gifts will tie him to you, don't worry. Her mother's voice floated through her head at the sight of this boy.

"Hey." Rose called over, the boy looked up shocked. Rose smiled at him, her face glowing prettily.

"Me?" He sought clarification pointing at himself. Rose nodded.

Sucking in his lower lip Jason made his way over stopping a couple feet from her.

"Hi. I'm Rose, it's my first day." She greeted a warm feeling filling her at the sight of his blush.

"Urm, I'm Jason, Jason Todd." He smiled back, "It's definitely not my first day."

Rose giggled a little,

"You need help knowing where to go?" He offered stepping into the school grounds, Rose nodded and followed him.

"So, you got a last name Rosie?" He asked his accent slipping through a little, just enough to remind Rose of Aunty Harley.

"Yeah, Isley." She said happily. Jason stopped short and fixed her with a look she didn't recognise.

"Poison Ivy? Pamela Isley? She's your mother?" Jason deadpanned.

"Yes, is that a problem?" Rose asked moving into his space a little. She had been alive about a week and had watched her mother and Aunt move, absorbing their manipulation tricks.

"I think you may become very popular or very unpopular, it depends." He said confusing her more.

"Okay." She said slowly, "You'll still help me won't you?" She batted her eyelids a little at the slightly taller boy.

"Sure, come on." Jason said nodding to her to follow him.

Rose trailed after him to the office and registered for her classes, all the same as Jason, and then followed him to their first period.

Jason threw himself into a random seat in AP English not thinking about the girl he had promised to help. Rose stood awkwardly by the desk, spying an empty one over the other side of the classroom.

Jason looked up at the pretty girl sympathetically, nobody around them would move not for a new kid and not this late in the term.

Reluctantly she left his side to take the empty seat.

"Who are you?"

Rose looked up from stashing her bag into the expectant but scowling eyes of a blonde girl seated at the desk in front of her.

"Rose Isley." Rose said with a tight smile. She waited for the recognition that came with everyone else when they heard her last name. The office receptionist being particularly harsh with her disgusted look.

"Right, I'm Gretchen Mathews, Gretty." She introduced. "You don't have to follow gutter trash around all day you know, you can be with us." Gretty gestured to the girls surrounding Rose, they were pretty and manicured, they seemed to be the IN crowd.

"Thank you. Why do you call him gutter trash?" Rose asked politely. She glanced over to Jason, his fists clenched below the desk, he was listening and the girls knew it.

"Because he is." The brown haired girl giggled next to her. Gretty laughed,

"Hey, Gutter Trash. We've stolen your girlfriend." Gretty called over.

"Fuck you Mathews." Jason shot back his accent really bleeding in the profanity sparking imitations and giggles in the girls.

Rose watched it all happen and did nothing.

The chatter only fell when the tall teacher walked in with a towering set of books.

"Austin week, take a copy, there is one for each of you; we will be looking at Pride and Prejudice. No arguments." They announced.

And like that her first day had begun in earnest. She stayed with the girls and became adopted into their little clique even if she didn't know what they were talking about half the time.

Jason didn't see Rose again until two days later when they were in the library together.

"How did you lose the girl brigade?" Jason asked bitterly pulling out a seat next to Rose from the library desk populated only by her.

"They have gone shopping. I decided to get some work done in the free period." Rose answered sweetly. He made her nervous slightly. She didn't know why but resolved to ask her mother about it.

"Ahh right." Jason said pulling out a large book, the Count of Monty Christo and ruffling his thick dark hair, it was cropped short on the sides but left longer on the top and it flopped slightly forward over his forehead reminiscent of an 80s TV character.

"What are you working on?" He asked after a minute of them sat in silence.

"I'm trying to find someone. Francis Black." Rose answered quietly after a moment of consideration.

"I know him; he's a friend of Bruce's. Bit of a douche if you ask me. Why? What do you want with him?" Jason said quickly.

Rose looked back to her computer screen.

"Mama said he could be my father." Rose replied quietly. If Jason was shocked he didn't show it. In fact he just nodded and pulled out his phone.

He liked Rose, he really did, something about her made him want to protect and cherish her but he had to tell this to Bruce now. He had kept the information of Ivy's daughter from his adopted father and brother for long enough.

To Bruce, From Jason

[Got a girl in my class called Rose Isley, said Pamela is her mother and Francis Black is her father. Might be worth looking into.]

He sent the message and not thirty seconds later he got a reply.

To Jason, From Bruce.

[Keep with her. I'll pick you two up, if she is Ivy's daughter we should proceed with extreme caution.]

Jason turned to Rose,

"You can come to my place tonight if you wanna, could talk to B about your Pa."

Rose frowned but nodded.

"That's kind of you, thank you."

They fell back into silence. It seemed to build until neither one could bare it.

"Hey, look I'm sorry about the names they call you." Rose finally ventured.

Jason shrugged,

"It's fine." He said nonchalantly. Rose shook her head,

"No, it's not. I tried to get them to stop but they accused me of having a crush on you." She said blushing a little at the end.

"You know, you are nothing like your mother." Jason murmured. This confused Rose.

"How do you know what my mother is like?" She prompted.

Jason's eyes widened as he realised his error.

"News reports." He answered quickly trying to school his face back into neutrality.

Rose hummed but did not seem convinced.