A/N
Sorry for the wait, I have another chapter ready to upload Wednesday!
"A hero cannot be a hero unless in a heroic world."
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
Episode IV: One's Left Behind, Part II
As usual, Wayne manor is shrouded in a stifling veil of darkness, both literal and metaphorical. With all the curtains and windows shut, only small fragments of life pierce through into the main room, forming bright streaks across the floor in multiple directions. If anyone were to walk in, they would expect the owner to be during a grieving period. In fact, Richard's always assumed Bruce is in a perpetual mourning period for his parents, so it makes much more sense than simply disliking the sun.
Bruce isn't a simple man to look at. With Alfred, and with pretty much every other person he has ever gazed upon, it's fairly easy to guess what makes them tick. Bruce- he's an interconnected web where the patterns weaved by the spider changes every second of every day. Guessing some of the pattern is obvious, whereas the rest shifts and changes without a hint of anyone noticing.
Having spent years attempting to work out the inner-goings of Bruce's fractured mind, he's long since decided he never actually wants to find out what's inside his head. From what he's experienced, it wouldn't be anything close to good.
"Something on your mind?" Bruce speaks up from his seat, hands holding the arms of the chair firmly.
"Should there be?" he counters from his own chair, although much more relaxed than his mentor and adoptive father.
Alfred stands up from his chair without a knowing look on his face before clearing his throat and taking his leave, obviously acknowledging the argument about to happen. It's happened so many times that Alfred has become like a dog sensing an earthquake
Seemingly, Bruce also anticipates the heated conversation incoming as he takes up a much more authoritative position on the chair, with his back straightened and his head fixed perfectly on Richard.
"I'm guessing you knew about Bane," Robin begins, icily staring at his mentor.
"What about him?" Bruce returns.
"Don't play games with me, Bruce, tell me what you know. It's my team on the line here," he answers back, shooting down Bruce's denial.
"No, Richard, it's my team. And this is no game."
A few years ago, he would be astounded by the sheer stubbornness and secrecy usually displayed during these types of conversations. Now, he's come to take it as a sign of a hidden motive. When he hides things from him, it's normally because he has an agenda to be fulfilled which needs him to not know.
Despite their relationship as apprentices and mentor, Bruce picks and chooses what information he wishes to impart on his protege. Both Bruce and the Batman are control freaks, that is for certain.
"Sooner or later, I'll find out. You might as well tell me know before anyone gets hurt," he gives it one last try at cracking Bruce.
"If I knew what you were talking about, I'd tell you."
Their intense and brief conversation is cut abruptly short by his phone buzzing in his pocket.
After a momentary glare at his mentor, he looks at the message.
His eyes go wide.
"Wally's in trouble."
Hidden behind a tree, surveying the greenhouse they've tracked Ivy down to with Conner and Artemis crouched either side of him, Robin inwardly chastises himself for not being there when his team needed him. It's bad enough he's the second choice leader, but the fact he's wasn't there to help doesn't ease the issue.
Being apart of a team generally entails being there for each other, even Batman knows- and made sure to teach him that.
"Any idea what we're going to be running into in there?" he asks the clone and archer to his sides, since they're the ones who acquired the information from Blockbuster.
In a strike of good heroics from Superboy and Artemis, the villain is secured- though unconscious and somewhat battered- and waiting to be picked up once they rescue Wally and M'gann. Good work, if he says so himself; those two working together is a formidable force for any super villain.
"Probably more damn plants," she replies, shivering as though remembering something. "They get everywhere."
"We can deal with plants," Conner grunts.
"If you say so," Artemis rolls her eyes.
At least Conner is characteristically arrogant and Artemis is equally as sassy as usual. Who knew all it would take to get them back to themselves is a good fight, which actually makes a lot of sense actually- no time to think and regret the past.
"We do this clean and quick. We have no clue what's going on in there and to be honest, I don't want to wait and see," Robin commands, looking to both his friends and giving them an encouraging nod.
Cracking his limbs, he rushes towards the door of the greenhouse, Artemis stealthily following him, and Conner normally stomping the floor into submission with every step.
Black Canary definitely needs to work with Conner on his stealth a lot more. Even the Joker attracts less attention than Conner running, with mini-earthquake movements.
Breaking the handle of the clear door, he creeps his way inside, making sure to leave the door relatively open so Conner doesn't shatter it to pieces opening it.
Quiet. Though it's a greenhouse, he doubts it should be this silent. There's no sign this is even a greenhouse at all- no sprinklers or heaters churning as they maintain the plants.
"Spread out and stay quiet," he orders, and the two following him nod and go their own ways, Conner heading down the left and Artemis down the right.
Heading down the middle, his extremely quick reactions is enough to save a glass bottle he brushed against from falling to the floor, his hand grasping the bottle, relieved.
Turning it over, his recognises the street symbol for venom labelled onto the glass.
Of course. Another coincidence.
Ivy isn't exactly the biggest recreational user of venom- or a fan of it at all- so the only logical explanation for having it is that two working together somehow. Both Bane and Poison Ivy are dangerous individuals; together, it makes them a foe to reckon with.
With all this new information, it seems imperative that the team rescues Wally and M'gann before whatever villainous plan they have concocted takes form.
Intending to free their captured friends and inform them of developments before Bane and Ivy arrive- if they aren't here already- he signals for the rescue team to pick up the pace.
Searching the entire greenhouse between the three of them doesn't take too long, but still no sign of their friends have been found.
"Are you sure they're here?" Robin questions once they've gathered.
"There was no reason for Blockbuster to lie... and it would seem like the place Ivy would imprison them," Artemis answers.
"No reason that you know of," Robin counters, starting to think the worst of the situation. "Unless... this is exactly where he wanted us to be."
"Yeah, I think so," Artemis adds, staring in the direction of the entrance.
Both him and Conner turn around and see what Artemis was talking about.
Both Wally and M'gann are standing directly in front of them, relatively unscathed but with sickly pale faces, and bright green veins creating caverns on their foreheads and cheeks.
"Ivy's spores have got them," he states, taking up a fighting stance. "We have to shake them out of it."
"How?!" Conner grunts, clearly divided on how to react.
Luckily, he has Robin to lend him a hand.
"We have to take them down," he answers, leaping forwards at Wally and attempting to at least grab the speedster before the spores activate him into battle mode.
Unfortunately, the spores seem to have already taken their effect, and Wally easily sends him crashing into Conner with one movement; or maybe two- he's moving too fast for Robin to even notice.
Quietly annoyed Conner didn't break his fall in the slightest, he picks himself up off the floor just in time to be miraculously outside the greenhouse on the floor with a bloodied mouth.
"Speedsters," he spits out a few droplets of scarlet.
Staying down until Wally casually strolls into striking distance, he coils up like a cobra waiting for a mouse to fall into it's trap. Hopefully, the entranced speedster doesn't notice the grapple gun he slipped into his hand.
Once the ginger-headed idiot is within range, he launches himself to his feet and pulls out a bunch of smoke pellets, throwing them to the ground.
As expected, the smart yet sometimes uselessly straightforward speedster runs around the smoke trying to find him.
A loud grunt rings out as the speedster falls to the floor, rope tightly tied around his waist, and as the smoke clears, Robin punches his friend directly in the face before he could vibrate his way out.
"Sorry," he half-heartedly apologises to his enslaved slaves before taking a breath and going back into the greenhouse.
If Ivy was here, she probably would have a nuclear meltdown at the amount of destroyed plant life. The entire content of the greenhouse is shredded and scattered around the glass building.
Amusingly, despite the structure being made of the easily breakable material and the inhabitants fighting are Superboy and Miss Martian- the two strongest on the team- no glass is broken apart from the shattered bottles and containers around the building.
A small blessing, however, as the two are still beating each other with hard shots. Though Conner is much more physically tough, M'gann is much more flexible and intelligent- he wouldn't ever presume to say that in front of Conner though- and it's showing. M'gann is slowly creeping to an upper hand in the fight, using her telekinesis and flight to avoid, whilst simultaneously, attack the clone with punishing blows.
Nothing appears to be fazing the clone at this point, but it's only a matter of time before one shot puts him down for a while.
When that happens, M'gann will be left with him and Artemis, the latter of which is standing at the other end of the room, wondering what to do. Having two humans up against a Martian who wants to hurt, and possibly kill them, isn't exactly great odds.
And when the odds aren't in his favour, Batman had one clear rule: find an equaliser, and use it.
Despite all the powers Martian's have, their crippling weakness often proves to be their greatest downfall. Fire is a dangerous weapon to be using against a Martian they call family, but with the right amount of attention and carefulness, it could work.
He doesn't want to seriously hurt her, although he might just have to in order to stop her from hurting Conner.
Sprinting as fast as he can over to Artemis, and dodging pieces of debris as he goes, he goes over his quickly formulated plan.
"We need fire. If we get the right amount of it, we can disable her without permanently putting her out of action. Any ideas?" he briefs.
"What about the plants?" she points out the mass amounts of plant material around. "They're flammable, right?"
"It's risky. It could end up spreading too much," Robin analysis, mulling over Artemis' suggestion, and since he doesn't come up with a better one, they might as well take the risk. "Let's do it. Hitting over there would be best."
"I got it," the archer assures, straightening her back and nocking one of the many trick arrows- this one projects a small burst of fire upon impact- she has stored inside her quiver.
Releasing the arrow, it lands perfectly on the selected target, engulfing it in flames.
As it spreads along the plants, M'gann falls to her knees, sweat pouring from her forehead, and green skin going paler by the second.
That's enough, Robin silently prays the fire stops spreading, but it does the exact opposite, spreading even faster than anticipated.
"Conner, get M'gann out of here!" he yells at the clone.
However, before he could even move and rescue the alien from the predicament, a powerful gust of wind blasts into the fire, cutting its oxygen away and putting the growing blaze out.
When the wind fades away, Wally stands there with a darkly annoyed expression on his face.
"You could have killed her."
"We can't stay here," Robin begins, making sure to analyse each of their demeanours, and found them either unusual or more extreme than normal. "Kaldur knows where we are, but... so does Batman. He's hiding something from us, and it's something big- I found a bottle of venom inside of the greenhouse, and since it's safe to say Bane is working with the Light- since Klarion took him away- it's also not a stretch to assume Ivy is too. That means the Light is growing, and I suspect Batman knows more than he lets on. At least, more than usual."
"What are you saying? That Batman has plans of his own? If so, not too weird," Artemis scoffs.
"Since he hasn't told me what his plans are, I assume it has something to do with us," Robin adds on, and Artemis makes a shrugging gesture. "The fact is: we can't trust Kaldur to keep his mouth shut, and we can't trust Batman to let us do our jobs."
"So, we just pack up and run away?" Conner grunts.
"Not run away," he counters, a painful grimace creeping onto his face. "I have something else in mind."