Barbara was sitting at her desk pouring over the data from the samples Nightwing, Robin, and Spoiler had gathered in the field. She twirled some hair around her finger as she frowned at it.
"Hey," she glanced up at the scientist standing in front of her desk, "hate to be a bother, I'm TJ by the way, but is Red Robin AWOL today? It's like," he checked his watch, "ten, and he's always early or never leaves- I can't tell. I just wanted to know if he ran the type B samples."
"He didn't. I did." She smiled, rummaging around on her desk and then handing him the results sheets. "And nice to meet you, TJ."
"You too Batgirl." He glanced down at the sheet, nodded once, and started to leave. "Oh," he turned back, "do you know what happened to the type O samples?" He winced. Barbara thought for a moment, before standing up and walking across to Tim's desk.
"I think he had them," she said, more to herself than to him as she bent over to rummage through the drawers of the desk.
"Okay good," he sighed as he followed her over. "Because I thought I lost them."
"Nah, Red Robin is more of the 'I need this so I'm gonna borrow it' kind of guy. He probably just took them off of your desk." She let out a cry as she found them, holding them out triumphantly to TJ. "There you go, no harm done."
"Yes! Thank you." He smiled at her. "Now I'm going to go run these tests all over again because someone fell asleep in the petri dish."
"Right. Sorry about that, he's trying his best," Barbara smiled.
"Oh no judgement. I broke the centrifuge the first time I ever used it, so you can blame me for having to find a new one in the first week." He shrugged goodnaturedly. Barbara giggled and covered her mouth, smiling.
"So that's who that was! You know the Flash had to sprint around half the country trying to find one," she laughed.
"It was not my fault," he defended. "My coffee knocked itself over."
Barbara giggled again and a couple of the other scientists glanced at them. She winced. "Was that too loud? I feel like that was too loud," she smiled a little.
"No it was fine. Everyone here just has sticks up their butts." A scientist paused as he walked past. "You heard me Johnson." Barbara had to smother her laughter this time. He was so sweet, and she couldn't help but note, so cute as well.
"Well, regardless. We should probably get back to work," she sighed, still smiling broadly.
"Yeah you should," Barry Allen agreed just as the alert that he'd keyed in his code to get into the labs popped up on both Barbara's and Tim's computers. He smiled at Batgirl. "How's it going short stuff?"
"'Short stuff?' You wound me, Flash. I'm wounded," she laughed and hugged him. "It's going good. Did you bring Impulse with you? Did you get something to eat yet?"
"I got here like two seconds ago. Of course I got something to eat." He smiled at her. "Impulse stayed behind this time. Where's Red Robin and the big guy?"
"Red Robin's on break and Bats should be coming in soon. Care to sit?" Barbara asked, walking back to her desk. She offered him her chair as she sat on her desk, meticulously organized and neat.
"Nah I'm good." In an instant Barry was standing beside her. "Anything new?" TJ jumped when he suddenly spoke from behind him. "And who are you?"
"I'm um… TJ. You're the Flash," he said slowly, breaking into a grin. Barbara smothered her giggle with her hand over her lips again.
"He's a scientist here," she clarified. "Though I think you can deduce from the uniform, even if TJ couldn't." True, Barry was wearing a black Star Labs sweatshirt over his bright scarlet uniform, but he was still in uniform nonetheless.
"Hey wait." Barry was standing in front of TJ in an instant who flinched back. "I know you. You're the one with the coffee."
"It was one time!" TJ cried. "And I just wanted coffee before all the creamer expired."
"You're one to talk, Flash," Batman said as he walked into the lab. "I once watched you sprint across a room and break four pieces of high-tech stealth equipment in less than a second. Cool your jets for a bit," he smiled a little. It had been a while since they'd seen Barry here in Gotham, and his presence was a change that lightened everyone's mood.
"Batman!" Barry had hugged him and moved out of arm's reach before he could react. "Long time no see."
"Right," Batman smirked, his cape falling over his shoulders. They stood in silence for a moment before he looked at Batgirl expectantly.
"Oh no, go on, you two have your moment before I interrupt," she grinned.
"Shut up." Barry flicked the ear of her cowl. "So what's the Gotham 4-1-1?"
"A lot, actually," she sat down in her chair, crossing her hands over her lap. "I have the extensive notes and recent test results on a flash drive for you, but there are two major points, the first of which is that a full-body blood transfusion works, and there are some side effects."
"What? Really?" He was standing next to her.
"Damn it," she jumped, and then smiled up at him. "Can you not sit still for more than thirty seconds? Yeah, it works. Catwoman got bit. She's all right, but she has some brain damage side effects. Extreme emotions trigger violence, and she's kinda got a taste for her meat uncooked now. Kinda the same problems you were having, in your initial months after you were bit-" Barbara pulled the drawer of her desk open and took out the flash drive- "so if you guys at Star Labs figured out how to curb that, we'd like to know," she smiled a little.
"Sweet." He had it in his hand before she could move. "I have some info for you." He plugged a flash drive into her computer and was moving the mouse around before she could move her chair out of his way. "Okay open. Most recent file. Charts." He clicked through documents. "Here we go, dated this morning. Basically-" He froze. "Give me a moment." He put his hands on his head and began pacing. "Zombie brain."
"Take your time," Barbara reassured him, smiling.
He waved at the screen. "I don't know. Look at that for a second." He continued pacing as the scientists watched him. "Yes, staring will help the situation." They immediately looked busy. Barry'd been like this from the early stages of the outbreak. He was bitten saving one of the Green Lanterns, only his faster healing rate kept him from turning completely. The longer he went without connecting with the Speed Force, the worse it got. "Okay." He was back at the computer. "I now remember what the charts mean."
"Then go on," Barbara laughed. She liked when Barry was around.
"We figured out the whole 'people spontaneously turning into zombies' thing." He grinned. "Well, for the most part."
"Oh! Okay," Barbara sat forward and pointed at the chart. "So this is…?"
"Chart of the spontaneous changes in Central City," Barry brushed it off. "Okay no, the cool stuff." He scrolled rapidly through the document. "We've been running autopsies on known cases of random Infection because for some odd reason you people here have this weird thing about treading lightly around the fact that these were once people and we're kinda… I am not helping my case of people not hating me by talking like this. Anyway, look." He ran past a series of reports. "Cancer, heart attack, brain aneurysm, blood clot, pill overdose- so suicide but don't tell his family. So basically," he straightened up, "just like if you fatally wound someone- excluding head shot or decapitation- and they turn into a zombie, only we didn't know they were dying and/or about to die. The system is too busy fighting or dying to fight off the Infection, and it takes over. Essentially saving the host in its own twisted undead way." He beamed. "Pretty good right?"
"What?" TJ asked.
"The spontaneous Infections were the result of the people dying," Barry stated simply, staring at him.
Barbara frowned at the computer screen. "I don't know if I'd say 'good', but it is very interesting," she commented. TJ cleared his throat and stepped back a little as Barry turned away from him.
"But wait, there's more." He started searching through documents. "We know the common way to to turn is to be bitten. Zombie bodily fluid is put into our system via saliva, blah, blah, blah, avoid their blood, all that nonsense. But then there's the fact that we're all neutral carriers. That means when our system is too busy fighting off another disease or it's just dying, we turn. But look at the neutral carrier thing a little closer. And," he brought up a new diagram, "here. We made a few assumptions, but we think they're pretty sound." He gave them barely a second to look at the screen. "Okay, we think everyone has different levels of resistance against the Infection. I won't say levels of immunity because no human is immune except for a few rare exceptions. I keep forgetting what all these charts mean right now, so we'll do live action. So if Batgirl, Batman, me, and…" he glanced around and saw TJ standing nearby and listening, "him were all exposed to the Infection in its neutral state. So when it first got here before we turned into walking meatsacks, so forget about the Infected, they're actively and fully Infected so we're just talking about the Infection as a… harmless little contagion. Ignore the Infected because obviously they'll Infect you no matter what. But in the beginning when we were passing this around without knowing it- bodily fluid contact still - one of us would zombify immediately when we got it. The other three are carriers."
"What's your point Flash?" Batman asked.
"Okay everyone's body is different at perceiving the level of threat. Let's say you were the one immediately Infected," he pointed at Batman, "you have no resistance against the Infection. None. You're like the Native Americans when the white settlers brought smallpox. You stood no chance, but the rest of us," he gestured between him, Barbara, and TJ, "all had the capability for our body to recognize the Infection as a threat, but not fight it off. So it's just in our blood now. However, let's say TJ and Batgirl exchange bodily fluids- blood, saliva, or otherwise," he winked at Batgirl, "and TJ becomes a zombie. Rawr, you're a zombie." He pushed TJ over by Batman. "Why did he turn and not Bar-Batgirl?" Flash asked. "Think about it. They both theoretically exchange bodily fluids- unless he's just splashing his blood on her and her skin is really dry and absorbed it, but she looks like she moisturizes- so why did just him change?"
"Because her resistance against the reintroduction of the Infection was stronger," Batman muttered, running a hand across the bottom of his mouth.
"We've only run a few basic tests, but we've seen the difference in two different neutral carrier blood samples being able to fight off the introduction of a different neutral carrier blood sample."
"So if no one has immunity like you said," TJ spoke up, "then no matter how… resistant someone's blood is, they could turn at new contact at any time?"
"Yes!" Flash cried. "Exactly."
"That's not a good thing," Batgirl reminded him.
"Isn't it?" Flash asked. "Isn't years and years of natural selection what made the white settlers so much better at fighting smallpox than the Native Americans? The people who didn't die from it lived to have kids who went on to have kids who lived even longer and on and on to gain better immunity. So in theory, shouldn't we be able to find the people with the highest resistance we can and… fake natural selection?"
"So what? You want to synthesize blood?" TJ asked. "Do test tube embryos? Force breeding? What? We don't have years for humans to naturally become immune to the Infection."
"You're right," Batman agreed. "But this is more than we knew before. Get samples and start running tests and sequencing genomes. Let's see if we can find out more about the higher resistance." TJ nodded and walked away.
Leaning back in her chair, Barbara sighed. "That is good. Better than what I had, that's mostly concerning Gotham-" she looked up at Batman- "A couple of Infected ran away from Nightwing and Robin last night, and they sent in some samples for me to test."
"Did you run the samples?" he asked, staring down the bridge of his nose at her.
"Yes. There were huge amounts of Fear Toxin in them," she answered. "Crane's gassing the Infected over there."
"Whoa, cool," Barry said. Bruce glared at him. "Sorry, but we haven't heard of something fundamentally changing them before. It is cool."
"Could you tell if the Fear Toxin was administered pre-Infection?" Bruce asked.
"Post-Infection," Barbara smiled. "Apparently their 'basic instinct' to kill and feed isn't the only one they have."
"Fear," Barry chuckled. "Hell I'd be afraid if Nightwing and Robin were coming after me."
"Which means we can- hopefully- reverse some of the brain damage. If other parts of the brain can be unlocked like Scarecrow has with the fear toxins, 'reawakening' the fear center of the brain, that could mean that the neurons might not be dead, just dormant." Barbara rubbed her legs and thought for a moment. "I think there's a lot of work to do with it, but this could be a step in the right direction."
"Hey, sometimes that's all you can hope for, right?" Barry joked. Bruce thought over the news.
"Flash, how long are you planning on staying?"
"Long enough for me to catch up on all the research. It's not like I came to Gotham to go sight seeing." He knew that technically speaking, he shouldn't be there at all. Heroes didn't stray out of their cities anymore because they weren't welcome in anyone else's. It was a Justice League member who had first contracted the Infection off planet. Many of the less human members were immune, and the League members were the first neutral carriers to spread the disease worldwide. The people didn't remember the casualties the League itself suffered, they only remembered them as the cause. The Batfamily members were accepted by the people of Gotham, but if they knew a League member was in the city, they might riot. The scientists had learned to accept the Flash's appearances because it was the only way they could keep in contact with the lab in Central City.
"Well then let's get caught up." Barbara tossed some samples to Barry. "You want to do the honors of the chemical analysis on the Fear Toxin?"
"It would be my pleasure." Barry mock bowed before grinning and disappearing further into the lab.
Batman was still in the lab with Flash, and Nightwing was on supply runs, which left Red Hood in charge of city patrol. He yawned as he watched people file into the old City Hall to get their food rations. Damian had wanted to go in with his father, but with Steph refusing to come off of her break and Nightwing out of the city in a scouting party, Bruce had made him stay behind, and he was pouting quietly over the comms. Jason knew he wasn't completely trusted in a leadership role. He didn't really mind. With everything else going on, there wasn't any point in being mad at Bruce for his strict orders and trust issues.
Jason absentmindedly scratched at the cheek of his mask as he wandered back over to his bike. People glanced at him as he walked by. He could always see them hesitate when trying to decide on how they should react to him. Treat him like a friend like Nightwing or like an overlord like Batman? Fear him for who he'd been or thank him for what he was doing now? Most tended to decide on a quick smile before continuing on with whatever they were doing. He guessed the mask unnerved them, and even if he smiled back, they couldn't tell. Others wanted to stop and talk to him; sometimes he'd stop to listen. The people who actually wanted his attention either had a problem they wanted fixed, wanted to talk about their appreciation for Batman, or wanted to know if he had plans for his day off.
He started his motorcycle, and everyone looked around at the unfamiliar noise. He made a quick note of the officers helping with the rations and gave a short wave to the one checking off the entries before driving off. He started making lazy passes through the neighborhoods. With a bored sigh, he activated his comm.
"You have anything interesting?" he asked Damian.
"An old lady was telling me that she ran out of bunion cream," he muttered.
"Ouch, I am so sorry." Jason winced empathetically.
"That's alright. If we weren't spread so damn thin, I would be pissed, but we have Spoiler on break, Catwoman still resting, Nightwing on Supply, Batman in the tower… We barely have enough people for one on each shift," he kicked a rock as he walked along the edge of a building. Titus strolled on the sidewalk below, every once in a while glancing up at Damian to make sure he was still there.
"I'm a little offended that you don't think I can handle this, but then again, I don't think I can handle this."
"Don't worry, I'll bail you out with Father when you screw up," Damian smirked.
"I always knew you were good for something," Jason muttered drily.
"Hello," someone spoke up over the comms, "is Batman there?"
"This is Red Hood. What do you need?"
"No one from the Uptown bridge is responding to their comms."
"Thank you. Robin, contact Batman. I'll go see what's up." Jason turned his bike toward Uptown. "Hopefully it's just a technical problem."
"A technical problem is still technically a problem," Damian answered, and Jason could hear the smile in his voice.
"You're a problem," Jason muttered. "And I told you to comm Batman. You know I'm going to get my ass chewed if he doesn't hear every little thing that goes wrong."
"Ugh, fine," Damian sighed, pressing his comm to switch the feed. "Batman, Todd is investigating a potential problem on the bridge into Arkham. None of the attendants are answering their comms."
"Keep me updated," Bruce ordered.
"Tell Flash I say hi!" Jason joked, but Damian had already switched the feed.
"Why would Flash want to hear from you?" he muttered.
"Well I don't want to hear from you," Jason retorted, "but you don't hear me complaining."
"Yeah yeah, just do your job," Damian scoffed, and then he dove off of the roof, landing gracefully next to Titus.
"Whatever kid." Jason rolled his eyes behind his mask as he drove. He could see the bridge up ahead. "I… don't think it's a technical problem." He parked his bike by the the bridge and vaulted off. He rushed over to the the first body lying on the ground and crouched beside him. Lifting the man up by his shoulders, he saw the bemused and dazed expression. The man sighed longingly when he dropped him back down. Jason switched his comm feed.
"Right, we need a full shift change at the Arkham bridge ASAP," he relayed to Damian and Bruce. "And medical transport for the current guards. They're not hurt they're just… bewitched." He took stock of the scene. "Did you know every single one of our bridge guards is a guy?" he asked in a joking tone. "That seems like a serious lapse in judgement."
"Ivy," Bruce said darkly. "I'll relay the orders to Gordon, Red Hood, don't do anything until I get there."
"Okay, let me repeat that for you," Jason said. "Every man on this bridge is currently dreaming about flowers. And you want to send more men after her?"
"Jason," Bruce said warningly. "Orders."
"I know," Jason groaned. "But do you want to take the time to bringing in more of the thing she's the best at manipulating? You're all going to look really ridiculous charging her with a bunch of gas masks. I'm not trying to disobey, but what am I wearing? Come on Batsy, think it through. What's on my face?"
Bruce hesitated for a long time, before he sighed quietly. "I'm going to trust you, Jason, despite my better judgement. I'm giving you a bit of room. Don't screw this up."
"Got it. I'll be careful." Jason grappled up to the nearest building, running along rooftops as he searched the streets below. After a few minutes of looking, he spotted her walking down the main street to Downtown. "Found her," he muttered into the comm. He flipped forward. His grappling hook caught in the side of a building as he landed just in front of her. "What are you doing here, Prickle Bush?" Ivy had recoiled when he dropped down in her path, but now she glared at him.
"Whatever I want," she snapped. She attempted to walk around him but he blocked her path.
"And what is that?" He crossed his arms.
"To take a walk," she said sweetly.
"Then why don't you turn around and walk back the way you came," he suggested. Ivy frowned at his emotionless mask, annoyed by him.
"And why don't you run on home to granny before the big bad wolf gets you?"
"Cute."
Ivy seethed when she realized exactly why he was the one who had stopped her. His red hood had a rebreather. Even though his mask hadn't changed, it suddenly looked smug, and she wanted to rip it off his face.
"So what are you going to do, hero?" she taunted. "Haul me back to Arkham?" She gave him a slow smirk. "How long do you think it will take me to cross the bridge again?"
"We could do an all girl guard," he argued.
"Not a problem." Ivy shrugged. "Just takes a little longer, and the ones not affected," she looked at him meaningfully, "get hurt." She rolled her eyes when he turned away from her, his hand at the comm in his helmet.
"Orders?" Jason asked shortly. Ivy cocked her hip as she waited.
"We can't have her wandering the city," Bruce growled.
"And what do you propose we do?" Damian asked. "Detain her? We already have Dent, we don't need another Arkham patient."
"We just need to get her back into Uptown," Bruce snapped.
"How?" Damian countered. Jason resisted the urge to tap his foot as he let them argue it out. He glanced over at Ivy who was boredly examining her nails. "We can't keep her from crossing the bridge, and resisting will only get people hurt. Unless you're suggesting we just kill her, we don't have a choice, Father." Jason could practically see Bruce pinching the bridge of his nose. "Just have Red Hood keep an eye on her," Damian suggested.
"What?" Jason cried. Ivy glanced at him.
"She can't control you with your Red Hood mask on, and you can take her out if she causes trouble," Damian reasoned.
"I don't like it," Jason muttered.
"Me either," Bruce agreed.
"Then what do you think we should do?" Damian pressed. Sometimes Jason forgot that the kid was a master strategist smart enough to rival his father. He ground his teeth together, hoping Bruce would come up with a better solution. He didn't want to spend his time tailing a toxic flower.
"Are you done?" Ivy asked, crossing her arms. Jason held up one finger.
"Just let her do whatever she came here for, and let her leave. No confrontation necessary," Damian reasoned.
"Fine," Bruce snapped. "Red Hood, do not let her out of your sight, and keep us updated."
"Got it," Jason growled, flicking his comm off in irritation. "Well come on, Palm Tree. Let's go."
"Excuse me?" Ivy dropped her arms.
"You wanted the Gotham experience, you got it." Jason held his arms out. "Bat and all."
"I do not need to be followed like a child," she snapped.
"I beg to differ." She could almost hear the smirk. "Now I don't exactly want to spend my time with a weed, but it's either Gotham under supervision, or go home." Ivy seethed, her hands clenching. She stormed forward.
"I could strangle you in vines and leave you here," she fumed as he trailed after her.
"Yeah but you don't exactly blend in in that outfit." She shot him an angry look, flicking her long red hair over her shoulder. Her black and green, skintight suit made of leaves didn't hide her identity well, and the bright green lips and eyes were a dead give away. "And the next person to find you won't be as courteous, Pussy Willow."
"Call me a ridiculous plant name again, and I will rip your throat out," she hissed.
"Calm down, Pansy," he yawned, and she shot him a withering look. "So where are we going?" He shoved his hands into his pockets as he followed her. She didn't say anything. "Hello?" Silence. "Anyone there?" Nothing. "Do you even know?"
"Will you stop talking for like two seconds," she cried, whirling on him. "No I don't know where I'm going, okay? I just needed to get out of that stink hole for a while and wanted to see the city that I once lived in. Is it too much to ask to do that without a chattering monkey breathing down my neck every few seconds?" she demanded.
"I wasn't breathing down your neck," Jason mumbled. Ivy groaned in frustration and spun back around, marching forward. He was silent for a little bit. "The Downtown shopping center is still standing. Isn't shopping something normal girls like to do?" Ivy looked back at him, smirking.
"Do I look like a normal girl to you?"
"Fine," he put his hands up, "it was just a suggestion. Go ahead and mindlessly wander the city. Helps me patrol." She ignored him, continuing forward toward Downtown. Eventually he cleared his throat, and she looked back at him curiously. He was standing at the street corner she'd just passed. "Bridges are out everywhere but the Narrows. But by all means, continue that way." Ivy's face was set in anger as she stormed back toward him. She brushed him as she passed and had to refrain from attempting to poison him.
"You're the most annoying person I've ever met," she told him.
"I get that a lot." He shrugged. "But at least I'm not a plant." Jason followed a step behind her.
"Better a plant than a man."
"See, I knew that was coming. Am I going to get in trouble next for wearing cotton polyester blends?"
"I'm too distracted by how terrible your clothes are to care what they're made of."
"At least they're not leaves," he retorted.
"And at least I'm not a moron," she sighed. Once they passed through the Narrows, they started to see people. A group of women eyed them suspiciously on their way for a lunch break. Jason gave them a quick wave. Ivy stared around her, surprised at how clean it was. The people of Gotham still took care of their city while corpses rotted in the streets of Arkham. All of the abandoned cars had been driven or pushed out of the streets and into parking lots to make the place less cluttered. Even the people were cleaner, and they actually talked to each other instead of keeping a hand on a knife in their belt as they shuffled by. An elderly man stopped Jason as he was walking.
"Poison Ivy is in Gotham," he whispered to him. Jason patted the man on the arm.
"I'll get right on that." He continued to follow Ivy as she wandered around looking at everything. Everyone was staring at Ivy, moving to the other side of the street when she passed.
"Batman," Jason pressed his comm, and Ivy glanced back at him, "we may want to be careful with how people react to the whole walking evil tree in their midst." Ivy ignored him as he listened to whatever the reply was. "Okay, are you going to actually think of somewhere you want to go, or are you just going to stand here gawking and making everyone uncomfortable?" he asked her. Ivy glared at him before her smile turned sweet.
"Do I make you uncomfortable?" she breathed, moving closer to him. She arched her body toward him, putting her hand on his chest as she looked up at him through her lashes.
"Very," he muttered, carefully taking her hand off his chest and stepping away from her. Poisoning him wasn't at the top of the list running through his mind of what she could do with that hand. "But that could just be the whole leather jacket in the sunlight thing."
"Then why don't you take it off?" she teased, brushing her hair out of her face as she smiled coyly.
This was a very bad idea, he thought. Jason took a deep breath and shook his head imperceptibly as he closed his eyes. Poison Ivy had undeniably honed her craft, but he wouldn't be that easy to sway. Two could play this game.
"Nah that's good. But let me know if you need to find a shadier spot when you're done with your photosynthesis." He cocked his head lazily to the side. "Or is that an all day thing?"
"I'm starting to think you like the sound of your own voice," she grumbled, irritably crossing her arms as she stepped away from him and started walking again.
"Well it is pretty nice." He rubbed a hand across his jaw as he followed beside her. Ivy recognized the action as something men with stubble or facial hair commonly did and immediately wondered if he had any.
"Yeah it goes along with your giant head," she muttered.
"Which one?" Ivy turned to stare at him incredulously, pausing in the middle of the street. "What? The enchantress doesn't like when someone can out seduce her?" She hadn't failed to seduce or trick any man since college, and here he was toying with her. Her jaw clenched.
"That's not seduction. That's imbecilic." She couldn't tell if this was his attempt at flirting, or if he was really just that annoying.
"I can't understand you when you use such big words," he said sarcastically.
"I think that's because the mask cuts off the oxygen to your brain."
"Nah, just your pheramones." He stretched. "How long has it been since you've been unable to make a man fall madly in love with you and do whatever you want? You're whole seduction bit suffers without it." He knew he was lying. She could probably win over most men from twenty feet away without saying anything. "I bet the fact you can't control me just eats at you doesn't it?"
"It makes me feel better that your mask looks as stupid as your face probably does," she hissed. The fact that he could hide his reactions behind his mask was infuriating her. She just wanted some real reaction from him.
"Coming from a Tree of Chem," he countered.
"You're childish," she snapped.
"I know." Jason shrugged. He smiled at how upset she was getting.
"Annoying."
"Big time."
"The most loathsome man I've ever met."
"Probably."
"And that is saying something," she added.
"Doesn't surprise me," he agreed. She looked up at the sky and groaned. She had never found someone she hated more than the man standing in front of her. And that included Batman.
"I'm ready to go back. Anything to get away from you."
"Finally," Jason sighed, pushing the button on his utility belt to call his bike to him. He wanted to get her out of the city as quickly as possible. "You're going to put me off vegetables for a week."
"I hope you choke to death on a brussel sprout," she spat, and he burst into laughter.
"That is literally the worst insult I have ever heard," he continued to laugh. Ivy stepped back from him. Her hands curling into fists at her side, and she was thankful she couldn't blush. "No seriously, keep insulting me with healthy food. It's adorable." She wanted to hit him, bury him in vines, poison him. Anything to stop feeling so suddenly embarrassed.
"How about I mangle you with them instead?" she snapped.
He chuckled. "You think you're threatening, but that's still hilarious." She wished he was still sarcastic and emotionless. She started walking back toward the Narrows. "Aw," he followed her, "don't walk away. I just didn't know dieting would be dangerous."
"Keep talking and you won't be able to eat anything healthy or otherwise," Ivy snapped.
"Well if you keep that attitude up," he taunted as his bike pulled up in the street, and he pressed the button on his belt again so that it idled beside him, "you can walk back." He climbed on the bike and sat expectantly with his hands resting on the handlebars. Ivy would have rather walked than do what he wanted, but instead she went over.
"Would you rather I have this attitude?" she asked in a low voice as she brushed past him, her hair spilling over her shoulder as she gave him an alluring smile. Jason sat up straighter on the bike and tried not to be aware of the way her her hair faded from deep red to an almost bright orange like a tiger lily, or the way her body curved around him as she sat behind him, or her lips right beside his neck, or they way his mask may filter her pheromones but not the floral way she smelled. Shit. She was good.
"Actually, no I wouldn't," Jason said shortly. He turned his head to look at her over his shoulder. "But I'm sure there are some great guys in Arkham who would love it. Might I suggest a zombie?" She gave him a venomous glare as he turned away and started driving.
"I hate men, but I actually pity the woman that has to put up with you," she told him. Her hands were practically crushing his waist as she held onto him, but he didn't care. He just wanted to get her back in Arkham, and not because she was a threat to the city.
"You know, everyone says that to me, Poison Oak. I wonder why."
"What did I say about the name thing?" Ivy hissed. She hoped she was leaving a bruise with how tight she was holding his waist but doubted it. He felt really well built, and it annoyed her that she'd noticed.
"That it's charming and adorable?" he asked.
"That I can strangle you without lifting a finger."
"You know, I may remember something about that." Jason sped up when he made it to the main road. "But I could have been distracted by the idea of carrots attacking me."
"And I could easily kill you with them, you ignorant pig."
"Well don't spare my feelings," he muttered.
"I won't."
"Then I guess it's a good thing that we won't see each other again," he said in relief when the bridge came into view.
"The thought of that makes you too happy," she mused. "I have the strangest desire to make you miserable."
"Don't you dare," he threatened.
"I think I'll come back." She smiled when he groaned in frustration. "I hope that's not inconvenient?"
"Are you Satan's personal helper?" Jason asked as he crossed the bridge.
"Only to those who are really lucky," she mumbled by his ear as he slowed the bike to a stop. His hands tightened around the handlebars. "You just provide a chance to be amused by your pain." She got off the bike.
"Well I like you too, birch."
"Thanks for the tour, idiot," she said as she turned away.
"Feel free not to visit any time." Ivy waved over her shoulder as she sauntered away. Jason watched until she was out of sight. He activated his comm.
"Damian, I am going to fucking kill you."