Barbara and Tabitha's words impressed Selina vividly. However, she had no chance to put them into practice, because of what happened with Ivy. Because Ivy took Selina with her to rob (or so Selina believed) at the home of a Wayne Enterprises scientist named Roland Charles. At first, it seemed very funny. Because Ivy had her perfume scented by Roland Charles and his family, and that had the effect of putting them at her mercy. Selina took the necklace from the scientist's wife and went to see what else there was in the house that could be stolen. But meanwhile, Ivy killed the scientist using her new powers. Selina was horrified, and although Ivy later defended herself claiming that the scientist "tortured" the plants, she decided to abandon her.

Not only that. Later, after a brief chase, Gordon handcuffed her and took her to the GCPD Central Precinct because Roland Charles' relatives had given to the Police a description that matched her. However, at the precinct they found that Ivy had hypnotized the pólice officers with her perfume, and also Lucius Fox, who was participating in a mysterious project called "Project M" that interested Ivy (she had taken Lucius Fox with her for him to give her more details). They were almost attacked, but they managed to flee (Selina took the opportunity to give Gordon a slip).

Meanwhile, Bruce was dying in the Wayne mansion, victim of Ivy's poison. Ivy had gone there to learn more about Project M. She got Alfred to let her in by hypnotizing him with her perfume, and Bruce to give her more details by giving him a kiss (her lipstick was also hypnotic). After getting to know what she wanted to know, she scratched him, and the poison began to affect Bruce, making him hallucinate.

And what did he see? He saw someone tied hand and foot onto a bed, wearing only a kind of leather briefs. And he saw a woman next to the man, wearing a kind of bikini, also made of leather, studded with metal rivets, very high boots, and holding a whip. And as he approached, he discovered, astonished, that the man in the bed was him! And the woman with the whip was … Selina?

'Come on, honey,' said Bruce's lookalike. 'Do it, now!'

'You are a bad boy. And since you're a bad boy, I'm going to punish you with some whipping,' said seductively the Selina in the leather bikini.

That said, the Selina with the whip began to flog Bruce's double. But the surprising thing was that Bruce's double did not scream in pain. He, instead, screamed in pleasure. As if he was sexually aroused. Bruce tried to intervene, but he found that his feet were stuck on the ground and he could not speak or move. The Selina with the whip turned to him and said,

'You see? This is what I really am. I'll do anything to survive. Anything.'

The scene changed. Bruce found himself in an alley. He saw a woman dressed in clothes that left much of her skin exposed. For this detail and for her insinuating gestures, there was no doubt that she was a prostitute. Bruce approached her. The prostitute turned her face towards him. And she was Selina too!

'This is what I am,' said the prostitute-Selina. 'I'll do anything to survive. Anything.'

'You!,' said someone.

Bruce and the prostitute-Selina turned around. The newcomer was …Bruce?

'How much do you ask?,' he asked the prostitute Selina .

'It depends on what you want. A blowjob? A handjob? Butt-fucking? Complete fucking?,' the prostitute-Selina asked insinuatingly.

'Well ... a blowjob,' said the Bruce-client of the prostitute Selina .

And a horrified Bruce had to witness how the prostitute Selina made a blowjob to ... him? And again and again, Selina repeated "I'll do anything to survive." He wanted to do something but he had his feet stuck to the ground and once again he could not speak.

The scene changed.

He found himself in the middle of the Sirens club. And on the stage, it was, once again, Selina. She was doing what was indisputably a striptease. And among the audience that howled and shouted were the Penguin, wearing a top hat and smoking from a cigarette-holder, Edward Nygma, who was wearing an extravagant green suit with question marks stamped everywhere, and James Gordon, who had a mustache. And there was Bruce himself, uttering obscenities that made Bruce sick. But once again, he was unable to do anything. The Selina of the stage, when she was only with her underwear, pointed to him and said "this is what I really am, I'll do anything to survive".

Once again, the scene changed.

He was in the middle of the alley where his parents were killed. But he was not alone. Right on the fire escape from where Selina had witnessed everything, there was someone else. A mysterious masked figure, who wore what looked like a broad cloak.

'Who are you?'

'Why do you ask me if you already know the answer?,' asked the mysterious figure, with a strange voice that seemed to come from a speaker.

'Why am I here? Why am I in the alley where my parents were killed?'

'Because this is where I was born,' the figure retorted.

The figure jumped on Bruce. He covered himself with his arms, terrified.

'Look around you!,' a voice shouted.

Bruce uncovered his face. He was in a huge natural cave. And at a distance from him, it was once again that mysterious masked figure. Bruce could see that a kind of horns or pointed ears protruded from his mask, he could not have said exactly what they were. He wore a huge cloak that fell almost to the ground. His suit was completely black, and he wore on his chest something that looked like a bat with its wings spread out. However, he could not see his face.

'What is all this? What is this place? Who are you?'

'Why do you ask me things whose answers you already know?,' answered the mysterious figure.

And then the figure transformed into a huge flock of bats, which fell on him. Bruce screamed in terror. He had never liked bats. He began to swipe to get rid of them. And suddenly he found himself in the dining room of the Wayne mansion again. Gordon was leaning over him, pouring a liquid for him to drink. And he saw Alfred not far from him, rubbing his head.

'What... what happened?'

'You were hallucinating, Bruce,' Jim Gordon explained. 'Because of the poison from Ivy. Fortunately, we had the antidote,' he held up a vial.

'I'm ashamed, Master Bruce,' said Alfred, helping Bruce get up. 'I should have resisted. But that perfume overwhelmed my mind in a tremendous way.'

'I'm sorry I hit you in the head, buddy,' Lucius Fox said. 'But you didn't want to let us in, you said they were Ivy's orders.'

'No matter. Bruce is fine, that's what it matters.'

Before Gordon left, Bruce explained to him and Alfred what he had seen while he was under the influence of Ivy's poison. He was sure it was not just a hallucination, it meant something. Gordon nodded.

'It may have to do with you being worried about Selina. If what you want is for me to give you some advice about girls, I'm afraid I'm not the most appropriate person. I've ruined all the relationships with women I've had. But I think Lee can help you.'

'Master Bruce, don't you think you should definitely forget Miss Kyle? I think what she did the other day was breaking up with you. It may be better that way,' Alfred objected.

'No, Alfred. I won't do that. I'm going to fight for her,' Bruce replied firmly.

Although reluctantly, Alfred accompanied Bruce to the Narrows (he did not even want to hear about Bruce going alone to that dangerous neighborhood). Bruce explained to the doctor what had happened with Selina, and the content of the vision, hallucination, or whatever it was. Lee Thompkins just listened and took notes, she only asked for some clarification from time to time.

'You must know that Selina is going through a very complicated situation,' Dr. Thompkins told him.

'Yes, I guess it must not be easy for her to see how a friend of her becomes a homicidal maniac," Bruce said, thinking of Ivy.

'Yes. But there is more.'

'And what is?'

'That, she has to tell you when she's ready.'

'How? I don't think she wants to talk to me after what she told me the other day.'

'We'll see. At the moment I told her that you're going to give a speech at the Wayne Foundation Annual Gala. Maybe you'll find her out there. If you find her, talk to her.'

'What do I tell him?'

'You can tell him what you saw in that hallucination or vision or whatever it was.'

'Do you think it means something?'

'Of course I do. It perfectly describes why Selina acts as she acts. Since her mother abandoned her in an orphanage, she has only had one goal in life, to survive. That is why she feigns indifference for what happens around her. That's why she has associated with criminals like Fish Mooney or The Penguin. But she can't do that anymore. She wants to live. But she doesn't know how. And to live is to love. But for someone who during her whole life has received little true love or no love at all, unlike you, that is terribly difficult. Are you seeing where I want to go?'

'Yes,' answered Bruce after thinking about it for a long time. 'I think what you want to say is that if I want Selina to love me, I must love her first, and to love her requires loving her as she is, with her past, with all the things she has done, with the life she has had.'

'I wouldn't have expressed it better. I would add this, for her to overcome what happened on the day of your parents' murder, she must forgive herself for not having done anything. That can be even more difficult than forgiving others. She may have to do something that she considers a redemption for all that.'

They were talking for a while longer. Lee told her how she had become a sort of queen of the Narrows and how she was looking for ways to settle disputes peacefully. Perhaps for that reason she had suffered an assassination attempt with a bomb transported by a toy airplane, the work of one "The Toymaker", but whose instigator had not been identified (it was Edward Nygma but she did not know that). She told him about her dispute with someone called Sampson for the control of the Narrows. She told him about Edward Nygma, who, according to her, had changed a lot, so much so that he was no longer "The Riddler". And she told him about Butch Gilzean/Solomon Grundy, who apparently was beginning to remember who he was. Finally, the conversation ended because Lee had to meet with Sofia Falcone for business matters.

The day of the gala arrived. Bruce was accompanied by Alfred. He was to give a speech about the activities of Thomas and Martha Wayne Foundation that he did not have much interest in (he just had to read what was written on some papers). While he paused in the boring reading, he looked at the huge windows of the room and for a moment he could see a curly hair peeping over the sill and then disappearing again. There was no question about who was there. Bruce took a deep breath.

'I'm going to tell a story. A true story of a boy who had suffered a tragic loss and an extraordinary girl from the streets.'

And Bruce told his own story and Selina's. True, he spoke in the third person and referred to the boy and the girl with invented names ("Bat" and "Cat"). And he omitted some details. But he took care not to omit those aspects more favorable for Selina. Everyone applauded and Bruce returned to his place with Alfred. He looked at the window and again he could make out the top of Selina's head poking slightly above the sill. She had heard everything. But before Bruce could say anything, it was Ivy Pepper who held the microphone.

'Nice speech, billionaire boy. But now, it's my turn.'

Several armed thugs entered the room, closing and blocking the doors with chains and bolts. Panic spread through the room. Bruce knew what he had to do.

'Ivy!,' he rose. 'It's me who you want. Let these people go!'

'Very noble, billionaire boy. But no. True, I want you more than anyone else here, but if you are the only one being turned by me into a floral arrangement, my message will not be heard at all. Look!'

One of the thugs (they seemed to be spellbound by Ivy) deposited a pot with a strange plant in it on one of the tables. Ivy approached, and after complaining about how much humans ill-treat the plants, she blew on the pot. From the plant they came a kind of spores that got into the nose and mouth of one of the present. And then, something horrible happened —flowers started sprouting from his ears, nose and mouth; his skin began to acquire an earthy tone, and soon he fell dead to the ground, turned into a kind of human bouquet.

Bruce stared at the scene, pale with horror. Following Ivy's orders, two thugs grabbed him and put him in the middle of them all. Alfred tried to oppose but he was knocked unconscious.

'Yesterday I took pity on you and gave Gordon and Fox the antidote for the poison I had put in your veins. But today I won't be so compassionate. I suggest you breathe hard and it will be faster.'

Ivy took a flower out of the flowerpot and made as if to blow, while the thugs violently held Bruce.

Bruce closed his eyes.

And just at that moment, a whip crack resounded. Bruce opened his eyes. He watched Selina crushing that strange flower with her foot. None of the thugs reacted; they all stared at Ivy. Selina took advantage of it, picked up the pot and went to one of the windows.

'Tell your thugs to release Bruce or I'll throw it into the street,' Selina warned, holding the pot outside the windows.

Ivy snorted with anger.

'OK.'

The thugs released Bruce. Bruce ran to the unconscious Alfred, who just then began to wake up. But Selina instead threw the pot to the street. Everyone heard it break.

'What have you done?'

'Just preventing you from turning these people into flower arrangements like you did with those other people, Ivy,' Selina replied quietly, holding her whip with her right hand.

'Are you on their side, then? The side of those who have hurt us?'

'But are you hearing yourself? What's happening to you, Ivy? You weren't like this.'

'Neither you were. But this will be the last time you cross my path. And this time, there will be no antidote!'

Ivy took a step toward Selina. But she smiled once more and took from her pocket a small vial of greenish liquid.

'Gordon came to see me this morning. Besides telling me what you did to Bruce yesterday, he told me some interesting things about this liquid. For example, that it's what you need to turn Gotham into a rainforest like you said in that video that came out on TV this morning. I figured you'd be around here doing something like this so I decided to take it with me. What if I drop it on the floor?,' she held up the bottle with two fingers.

'You win. I'll let you live. But give me that liquid.'

'You know? I don't think so. Especially considering that you have several armed guys here.'

Selina dropped the vial and crushed it with her foot.

'Kill her!,' Ivy shouted. 'Kill them all!'

Ivy left the room while the thugs started firing. But maybe because they were under Ivy's spell they were too slow. So Selina had time to hurl herself on the ground and knock one down with her whip. She took his gun and threw it to Bruce, who in turn knocked a table to the ground to take cover from the shoots and gave the gun to Alfred, who used it to respond to the fire from the thugs. Selina ran to the door on all fours, with her prodigious catlike agility, took a pen that Bruce gave her and used it to open the padlock with which the thugs had blocked the door. At that moment Gordon and several police officers entered and started to respond to the fire. Bruce, meanwhile, to Selina's desperation, because she wanted him out, ran from table to table, helping people out.

'You're going to have yourself ki...!',' started to say Selina, exasperated.

And just at that moment, a bullet hit her! Selina put her hands to her belly and fell to the ground. The last thing she saw before the darkness enveloped her was Bruce's anguished face shouting, "Hold on, Selina! Stay with me, stay with me!"