A/N: wtf I m literally a piece of trash I missed my upload date agAIN? My god I apologize I don't even have an excuse I just forgot. So yeah I am now officially changing the "upload date" to a vague once a week. I can do that.

Anyways, enjoy! This be hella long.


After watching team one and team two head out, Nightwing headed towards Arkham. As far as the Arkham guards were concerned, Ivy was still being detained, but Nightwing knew the Arkham reports weren't always accurate. He just hoped Ivy hadn't escaped overnight. That would only make his job harder. When he was about halfway there, he felt a slight tickle in the back of his mind, something he was able to identify as telepathic probing.

M'gann? Dick projected the thought.

It's me. He felt the Martian respond with a nod. Sorry to intrude; I know you don't like that. I have a couple questions though.

Though he has been doing it for years, it still felt a bit odd for Nightwing to speak mentally without voicing his thoughts. What do you need? Because of his difficulty, he often mouthed the words he thought, which probably didn't make him look very sane. But then again, that doesn't really matter when you're speeding down the road at 90 miles per hour.

Is there anything else we need to know about this parasite? Being the medic of the team, I thought it would be good for me to know in case something happens. I might be able to help figure something out too. M'gann's voice was level.

There isn't much else besides what I told you. Batman explained a lot of the scientific matters behind it, but I don't really remember the details, but I'm sure you could easily figure that out. Pull up a Wikipedia page on your phone or something. That's really the best I can get you for the scientific matters. Batman did, however, have a hypothesis. He thinks that basically, that the spores are only released when the fungi's connection to the nervous system is severed. When the fungi realizes its host in useless, it releases spores in order to spread and survive.

Great, Dick could feel M'gann's nod. That's really helpful. One last question: how do you two already know so much about a problem that started less than twelve hours ago?

Nightwing chuckled harshly at that. We don't, really. These are all just educated guesses. If we're right, then we're lucky. Batman and I are kind of the first-responders when things like this happen, so it's pretty much our job to bullshit our way through them. We do our best to understand what's going on, be we never really know for sure. Making assumptions is part of the job.

Oh, okay. M'gann sounded a bit unsure. Well, let me know if you figure anything else out.

I will.

And with that, Nightwing felt M'gann leave his mind, with perfect timing too. He was just pulling up to the Arkham gates. Pulling up the guard's window, he took off his helmet.

"I need to interrogate Poison Ivy. May I enter?" Dick couldn't help but smirk at the guard's frightened face; he must be a rookie. Most of the Arkham guards were used to the Bat family paying some of the inmates a visit.

Driving through the now opened gates, he made it inside and repeated his request, and soon enough he was outside Poison Ivy's cell.

"Ivy." Nightwing addressed the redhead who sat at her small desk, lovingly stroking the leaves of a small potted plant.

She responded with a disconcerted hum, which Nightwing didn't necessarily find surprising. She didn't always feel inclined to talk to him.

"I think you know why I'm here." Dick continued. "There has recently been an infestation of a certain parasite, one that I think you might be familiar with. The Ophiocordyceps unilateralis?" Dick really hoped he pronounced that right — mispronunciation didn't really help him seem intimidating. "Batman and I have found a mutated version of that parasite infecting some small parts of Gotham, and all signs are pointing back to you. You have one of two choices. Either prove that this wasn't you and help us figure out how to stop it, or admit that it was you and help us stop it. You're going to be helping us either way, so you the quicker you tell me what you know, the sooner I leave you alone."

"Sorry birdie, but I don't know nothing about that Ophio-whatchamacallit." Ivy turned around in her chair, and Dick would be lying if he said he wasn't surprised to be met with a very un-Pamela-Ivell-like face.

"Harley?" Nightwing squinted at the pale-skinned woman in front of him Damn, the red hair is weird. "Where's Poison Ivy?" His befuddlement was quickly replaced with a stern, no-nonsense demeanor.

"I dunno." Harley shrugged, tugging off the red wig. "Gee, that wig was gettin' itchy, couldn't you have come any sooner?"

Dick fought back the urge to sigh. Harley Quinn was quite possibly one of the hardest people to interrogate — she always got off track and spoke nonsense.

"Why are you in Ivy's cell?" Nightwing decided to start with the basics.

"I dunno." Harley shrugged again. "Pammy just told me that she needed to get outta here without causing a fuss, so she said that if I stayed in her cell, I could dress up like her. She also said I could have this flower!" Turning back to the plant she had been stroking, Harley ripped the red bloom off of the thorny stem, sticking it in her blonde hair. "Doesn't it make me look pretty?"

"…Sure." Dick tried to steer the conversation back to the task at hand. "Do you know where she went? Do you know what she was planning to do?"

"Nope and a nope!" Harley sang, fiddling with the flower in her hair.

"Okay," Nightwing tried not to get frustrated. "Is there anything useful you can tell me about Ivy?"

"Her favorite ice cream flavor is Strawberry! We always get Neapolitan though, when we have our gal nights, because I like the chocolate and vanilla."

Dick finally gave in to his urge to sigh. Taking a deep breath, he asked Harley his final question. "Okay, so if you're in Ivy's cell, why haven't you been reported as missing from your cell?"

Harley grinned. "I dunno!" She was telling the truth, but she couldn't help but smile knowing that her ignorance was pissing off the previous Boy Wonder. "Pam just said she'd take care of it. She's such a good gal-pal."

Dick resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Okay then. Thank you for the information."

"You aren't going to make me go back to my cell, are ya?" Harley stopped Nightwing's retreat. "I don't wanna go back, this cell smells like Pammy and it's really nice. I like it." She pouted.

"You don't have to go back." Dick sighed again.

"Yay!" Harley cheered. "Thanks, bird-brain!"

Nightwing shook his head. He hated it when Harley called him that, but it was kind of humorous. Making his way back to the exit, he made sure to stop by Harley's cell to see what Poison Ivy had rigged up. Reaching the presumably empty cell, Dick couldn't help but grimace when he noticed a red and black lump curled up on the bed. Unlocking the cell, he stepped in to inspect the form. Taking its pulse, Nightwing sadly wasn't surprised to find it non-existent. She killed a guard and dressed the corpse up like Harley. Sometimes I forget how sick these people are. Rolling the corpse over, Dick closed the dead brown eyes of Poison Ivy's victim.

As he made his way back to the front entrance, Dick stopped at the head guard's desk.

"Poison Ivy escaped, Harley Quinn is in her cell, and there is a corpse dressed up as Harley in her cell. I'll let you deal with Harley, but I have to go find Ivy now." Ignoring the guard's surprised and panicked look, Nightwing stalked out to his motorcycle and made his way out of the Arkham courtyard. Activating his comm . link, Dick spoke, his voice laced with irritation.

"Ivy escaped, but we don't have any leads to where she might be. We'll have to deal with her later. Team two, where are you at? I should be at your position in about twenty to thirty minutes, depending on where you are."

"Wall damn," It was Wally who responded first. "That sucks. We're in Grant Park. We found a couple of zombies shambling around, and we're pretty sure there are some infected ducks or something, which makes this a hell of a lot harder."

"Copy." Dick smiled at Wally's casual way of communicating. The speedster didn't seem to get into "mission mode" very often, but he was still highly effective. "My ETA is fifteen minutes. Where about in the park are you?"

"The southwest corner." It was Jamie who responded this time, his beetle most likely telling him their exact location.

"Be there soon. Nightwing out."


By the time Nightwing had caught up with team two, he was pulled away from the mission at hand when he received a call from team one.

"Nightwing?" Aqualad's voice crackled to life over the comm . link.

"I'm here. What's going on?" Nightwing swung away from his team and sat down on a bench — a highly unprofessional move, but it really didn't matter at the moment. The rest of team two was literally on a goose hunt. Nightwing wasn't needed at the moment.

"I had team one split up and begin herding together the people of North Gotham and distribute gas masks. Because the infection is only in South Gotham at the moment, we're going to begin evacuating the civilians up here before moving south."

"Logical." Nightwing approved of Kaulder's decision.

"Yes, however, we'd like to find a place for these people to stay without just abandoning them outside of Gotham. I understand that you have connections, so I was curious as to see if you could arrange some sort of refugee camp?" Also logical. There was a reason Kaulder was the official leader of the team.

"Yeah, I'll get right on that. Go ahead and lead them across New Trigate Bridge and I'll make sure someone's there to take them off your hands." By the way they were speaking, it sounded as if they were talking about passing a couple kids off to a babysitter, not all of North Gotham to someone yet to be found.

But so is the heroing business; everything except the most dire of situations was handled with a nonchalant manner.

Disconnecting from Kaulder, Dick paged Bruce. "Hey, Bruce, Kaulder is heading towards New Trigate Bridge with the majority of North Gotham, can you make some calls and set up temporary refugee housing?"

Dick could hear Bruce sigh over the comm. "On such short notice? Maybe, but it will be hard." Bruce always hated it when Dick asked him to pull strings, even if it was for a good cause.

"Great, thanks Bruce."

"Aliases please."

Dick — pardon — Nightwing, just laughed and cut the call. Bruce had time to be grumpy later.

Connecting with Aqualad again, Nightwing relayed his message. "Batman's setting something up."

And with that, Dick rejoined team two on their goose hunt.