Nova wasn't sure at which point she actually became Nova - mainly because she wasn't aware of things like time or the date, or how much of either was really passing. At first she tried to count the seconds and the minutes and the hours, but it was hard to focus on it and near impossible to keep up when she had nothing to note her progress down on. Poison Ivy would never tell her when she asked, either. All she wanted to talk about was plants. She sometimes sat right by the bed, and sometimes she sat over in her little throne armchair in the corner, and she spoke about plants. Non-stop plants. It was all Nova heard for (what she assumed was) days and days on end.

That was until she started to receive visitors.

It appeared Ivy, even being the anti-social misanthrope that she was, had let the criminal world know about Nova's... 'birth'.

And so, every now and again, she would receive a few visitors. It felt exactly like she were a newborn baby, and everyone was coming to meet Poison Ivy's newborn little baby girl for the first time. They talked to her and treated her like a baby, too. Well, most of them did. Some appraised her, all broken and ruined and half dead, and spoke as if she were a new weapon they might be interested in buying. The man formerly known as Oswald Cobblepot and currently known as Penguin was one she remembered. Penguin had looked at her that way and appraised her and inquired about her and had even made an offer to buy her services, and of course Ivy had kicked him out, but he had this hardy determination in his eye. He was the only one Nova worried over.

Ivy wasn't too impressed with those people and they weren't allowed to stay for long. She'd kick them out and then do that disingenuous cooing over Nova that she'd performed at the asylum. Nova didn't speak to her. She didn't speak to anyone.

Eventually, the Clown Couple themselves showed up - gifts and grenades in hand. They carried them like they were flowers and handled them very carelessly. Nova was half dead anyway, so she couldn't find it within herself to care too much. Ivy just seemed to be used to it by now, but she still shooed and hissed and snapped at them and nagged at them to hurry up and leave with their explosives and their unwanted gifts.

"We heard your little leaf had been, uh, how do I say this?" Joker actually paused for dramatic effect, "A victim to a toxic rainstorm, and so we scrounged some time out of our busy, busy, oh so busy schedule. And look! The leaf is just as battered as they say! What'd you do, Pammy? Stick the girl with needles and smash her about with a hammer? Lock her in a room with a load of ravenous, rabid aligators? Strap her to a rocket and light it with some dynamite? What did you do?"

His concern, of course, was all entirely fake.

Ivy sighed and pinched at the bridge of her nose,

"The first guess is the closest to it, minus the hammer."

"So you just... you pumped her fulla... nasty stuff?" Harley shrilled, mouth all slack as if she were appalled. Who knew? Maybe she really was.

"I made her like me, Harley. It was a gift and she wanted it."

Nova let out an outraged cry, but she'd already been gagged, and so none of the words could be heard well enough to be deemed understandable. Harley frowned, lower lip jutting. Joker grinned, savagery all over his pasty, tattooed face.

"Oh, don't tell me you disapprove, Harley. You jumped into a huge vat of chemicals for him." Ivy snapped, examining her nails.

"See, Harley, this is how it goes down when you argue with vegetables," The Joker intercepted, checking his watch, "Daddy's on a schedule, baby. We have a, uh, Bat-train to catch!"

"Oh, puddin'! I thought we weren't doin' the train thing!"

"Consider it a... gift. Merry Christmas, baby!"

"It's June," Ivy monotoned, rolling her eyes. Harley and Joker were too wrapped up in their quirky 'hooray's and their mad 'huzzah's. After finally, finally calming down, Harley skipped out to go wait in the car and The Joker strolled over to press his J ring to the gag in Nova's mouth. This seemed to pass well enough for him as a kiss to the ring - a symbol of his immense criminal profile. Ivy looked at it in disdain when it was offered to her and said something like: "I'm not going anywhere near that thing. Who knows where it's been?"

Joker set fire to twelve plants on his way out as a form of punishment, and Ivy had to rush around to distinguish them all.

Luckily, blissfully, this granted Nova some time alone. Alone with her thoughts, alone with the pain, alone with all the plants, alone with... nothing and nobody. She remembered Ivy had been boasting about how Nova's recovery time would be half of what Ivy's had been, because she'd created the perfect antidote for the damage that had been done inside of her. She'd also claimed Nova needed photosynthesis in order to heal effectively now, as she was more plant than she was human. The plants seemed to agree. They were everywhere - all around her all the time. They curled their way around her paralysed form and behaved like needy cats, nuzzling at her and demanding her attention. The thing that came across as the most disturbing to her was that as time went on, the part of her that adored it was growing larger and more and more dominant all the time. Sometimes she slipped up inside her own mind and referred to the plants as 'babies' or 'children'.

Just like Poison Ivy did out loud.

Nova wanted nothing about them to be similar. Her hatred of that woman was burning so strong that even Ivy's pheromone trick couldn't force her to dote on the villainess again. Ivy was very, very irritated by the fact.

And so, what Nova was told to be three and a half months passed. Kept alive by nothing but photosynthesis and nourishment from... whatever it was Ivy was administering to her.

Eventually the day came where Ivy removed the straps that held her down and assisted her in sitting up. Ivy perched herself on the bed next to her, venomous eyes trained on her every inhale and exhale, her every alteration of gaze, her every movement, and no doubt her every thought, if she could have. Nova bristled under the scrutiny. The plants curled themselves around her in places and helped her with the task of staying upright. They fed her, too, lending her their energy through contact alone. It was... a blessing. How could anyone wish to harm such caring, generous things such as these plants?

Yes, it was true that she needed to protect them.

Yes, it was true it was her duty.

But it was not true that Nova had wanted this.

A deep surge of pure, tantalising rage unfurled inside of her. Months spent gagged and unable to speak for herself. Denied the modesty and privacy for things such as using the bathroom or washing came to mind. The humiliation of having countless criminals stop by to gawk at her and comment on her wrecked, ruined, obliterated body with only Ivy to speak on her behalf. Ivy, who was a narcissistic, heartless, cruel, ego-maniacal, abusive monster. An internal bout of devastation wracked through her at the thought of the many, many times Ivy had tried to win her favour back with pheromone laced kisses Nova had never consented to. Sitting up just then had felt so entirely like she was falling - falling, with no hope of a soft landing or a parachute or a hero piloting a jet coming to save her. Nova wanted to tear, to rip, to break free of the thing she had become. Ivy had forced her to become a monster, and not even just because the 'plants needed her' - but because it was so clear to see that the bitch was lonely and needed so desperately to not be the only one. Nova refused to give her that. She would not grant those desires. She would not stick around to validate Ivy's existence or to look pretty for her. She would not be her little protégé, or her love pet, or whatever else Ivy had in mind for her. Nova didn't need to be around Poison Ivy to help the plants of Gotham. No. She didn't need to be anywhere near her so called benevolent 'creator'.

Ivy looked unbelievably proud of herself and her work. She cupped at Nova's cheek and played with the girl's hair with her free hand.

Nova clenched her fist, trying not to let the strain show in her forearms as she sat motionless under Ivy's petting and admiration. She needed to wait for the right time. The key moment - and then she could be free.

She'd even play along... if that's what it took.

Nova allowed her expression to soften, to become awed. The very corners of her lips curved upwards into a beautiful smile and her eyebrows arched in blissful disbelief of what was before her. This was the look she'd seen Harley fix The Joker with, and she copied it to a tee. It was enough. Ivy was fooled - happy to play the all-giving, all-loving creator,

"Everything is so... beautiful. The plants..." Nova breathed in faux wonder.

Ivy's fingers trailed in carresses along her cheekbone, intoxicatingly sweet breath fanning against her skin as she laughed,

"This is only where it begins, petal. You and I are going to take over all of Gotham... and then... the world."

She spoke it as if it were a sacred vow between them, and Nova nodded along gamely.

"And then... the plants can be free?" She asked hopefully, taking on the role of a child.

"Yes, my sweet little thing. No more bombs or fires or men to ruin the world."

"Paradise..."

"Precisely."

Nova's little act must have been very convincing, as Ivy patted at her cheek and then wafted away to go and tend to the plants The Joker had targeted with his tantrum.

"Stay here and let the plants nourish you," she'd ordered on her way out.

Easy.

She was making it too easy.

The world... brightened, suddenly, and then darkened immeasurably, in the same instant. Voices were...

No, not voices. Giggles.

What was so funny?!

Nova gritted her teeth in indignance. Something scurried across the room.

A shadow?

Another thing scurried across the ceiling.

Scratchy, shimmering, neon writing appeared all over the walls in a flash and disappeared just as promptly. Nova squinted, rubbing at her eyes. She'd made out a few of the words, she reckoned-

Escape. Goddess. BURNING. Muted.

A noise ran through her head like static. Radio static.

She shuddered, dragging herself out of the bed. It was a bit of a struggle to find her balance; to stay upright. The babies- plants were all too eager to help. Like a newborn baby deer, or a fawn, Nova stumbled through the other door to the outside world - the one that wasn't the one Ivy had left through. This meant she was able to make her way, slowly but somehow surely, round the back of the house. One foot in front of the other. Just keep going. It's getting easier. As discussed before, there was nothing and nobody for miles around. No other occupied houses, no vehicles to escape with.

Her plan was quickly falling down the drain.

Well, she'd walk if she had to.

Barely a step beyond the bounds of the property and a vine wrapped harshly around her ankle and tugged her backwards with a harsh yank. She was lifted right off her feet and landed face first on the grassy terrain. Friction and speed worked against her to leave her burning all over once again as she was dragged backwards through the dirt. Screams and cries left her in droves but her captor simply granted her no sympathy or care. Yanked off the ground at last to dangle upside down before Ivy, she sobbed and tried to scream but her throat was raw and still damaged.

"Oh, no, sweetheart. Did you really think me foolish enough to fall for your pathetic attempts at acting?" Ivy cooed harshly, tugging on Nova's hair hard enough to make her believe she was going to lose it.

"LET. ME. GO!" Nova roared, thought it felt like it was ripping her throat to shreds. A plant, much smaller than Ivy's, but empowered by the sheer rage Nova was holding inside herself, rose slowly from a spot just behind Ivy, slightly to the right of her, and trembled with it's need to be more. Nova had no idea how to give it that, but through sheer will and determination (and also, possibly, a somehow still lingering sense of self preservation) she got it to move. It quaked a little at first and merely swayed, but then, see, Nova got frustrated and she gave it a push with everything she had building up inside her, and it flung itself straight at Ivy.

It knocked her right off her feet.

Nova was about to go for the second hit when something sliced right through the vine that was holding her with the efficiency of a knife slicing through soft butter. It whirred around above her head as she fell, returning to it's owner. For the second time, Nova hit the ground face first. Ow.

The scratchy neon writing flashed again. The edges of the world quaked and trembled and shook for her. It was like being dizzy and upside down and-

WHAT WAS SO FUNNY?!

"Florence Caldwell?" A extremely gruff voice inquired from somewhere either above or behind her. Nova grasped at the grass and the dirt and dug her nails and her fingers into it to give her something to hold on to in order to assist in hauling her up to confront the... voice.

She already had too many of those.

"Help-" Nova was yanked away from him, a vine around her throat, a strangled gasp took up the remainder of what she had been about to say.

"Walk away, Batman! This one is mine to punish!"

"That's not going to happen, Ivy."

Nova cried out when her back collided with the glass of the greenhouse, and she screamed when she broke through it, shards of glass cutting at her and embedding themselves in her skin. A quiet, low sob left her, and her spine arched to try and escape the dozens of sharp little points of pain. It was no use. She wasn't allowed to die. Ivy wouldn't let her, she knew, not after all her work.

There was conflict outside, a miniature war going on between Batman and Poison Ivy. So the metallic slicing thing that had set her free from Ivy's vine had been... a Batarang?

This was the moment she had been waiting for. This was her time to escape. If she could just-

WHAT WAS SO FUNNY?!

Who was even laughing? Who was that? Harley?

It was just... an octave too low to be Harley Quinn. But then who was laughing?

It unnerved her to not know who's laugh that was. It downright disturbed her that she could hear it so clearly that it was like someone was laughing right into her ear. She wanted it to stop. She needed it to stop. It was driving her-

Oh, but that was the thing. She was no psychologist, she was no expert, but she was hearing voices and laughter and she was experiencing mood swings and everything was just so... so... heightened. It was probably a good thing that she was aware of her own wavering mental state, but that didn't change the fact that it was wavering. There was all the neon... flashing... scratching... and the...

Oh, God. Her mind was so fucked.

Another thing to despise Poison Ivy for. Another thing to kill her for.

Tear her apart.

She would.

Nova struggled with it but she achieved the feat of pulling herself upwards and clambering out of the broken side of the greenhouse, away from the glass and the brown flower pots and the fertiliser. If she thought it had been near impossible to manage walking before, it was nothing compared to now. Every single flex of a muscle ached and rocketed raw, overwhelming pain through her system. At least she wasn't burning anymore. At least there was no fire shooting through her veins and at least she could move. She could move. Staggering past the fight and out into the world, to a place that was safe, was all she had to do.

Come on, kid. You've beaten worse odds.

A vine shot out from Ivy to knock Batman aside, but somehow he caught it and used it to close the distance between them and swiftly delivered a blow to Ivy's face that cracked across the space they occupied. Nova's heart clenched in her cold, dead, ruined chest and blinding, hot rage unfurled once more. She needed to be doing that. That was her right.

This obnoxious, self-righteous impulse is what kept her camped in the position she'd hidden herself in. It was essentially what got her caught.

The two of them parried and sent out attacks and defended in turn in such a magnificent display of each of their power that all Nova could do was sit there and stare, uncomprehendingly. But as the battle went on it was quickly made clear that Batman was just that bit faster, just that bit stronger - and it only took two or three missteps and mistakes on Ivy's part for him to swoop in and claim the victory. The very moment Poison Ivy was knocked out and fell to the ground with a thud which was the very opposite of all the grace and elegance that she was, Nova lost control of her composure and her cover, and started to laugh.

Just like the ever constant giggle in her head, she laughed and laughed - like Harley Quinn. Like The Joker. Nova laughed in a manner which could only be described as maniacal, and Batman, unsurprisingly, whipped around towards the noise and closed in. Being such a tiny little lithe thing that she was, Batman only had to wrap one of his gigantic hands around one of her delicate little wrists in order to lift her entire body off of the ground. She was so much smaller than he was. Still, she laughed and cackled and giggled as she swung, and he asked her, once again,

"Florence Caldwell?"

Nova gave a shake of her head through the fits of giggles,

"She died and nobody was around to mourn," she told him, and the hysterical giggles dissolved into tears, and suddenly she was not swaying anymore but drooping in his grasp. He looked... sad for her. Like he was grieving her sanity. It was true. It was nice of him.

"What did Ivy do to you...?" Batman asked her in something akin to, if not horror.

"She ruined me."

"Do you have... Hmm..."

"Lock me up. Do what you want, just... just get me away from here. Hide me from her. Please. I am begging you."

Batman sighed but ducked his head in acknowledgement of her plea, and handcuffed her wrists.

Nova slept in The Batmobile, and when she woke - once again, she was back in Arkham Asylum. Back in her cell. But, more importantly than anything else, she was away from Poison Ivy.