It was around four o'clock in the morning, and downtown Gotham was in chaos. Inside the Batmobile, on his way back from foiling a robbery at Gotham National Bank, Bruce spoke urgently with Alfred over the comms as they tried to work out what was going on.

"From reports that are coming in, sir, it seems that Poison Ivy is on the loose." Alfred's voice sounded distinctly nonplussed to anyone except Bruce, who knew what it sounded like when Alfred was nervous.

"Ivy? She hasn't been around for a while." Bruce thought back to when they'd battled high above the streets – it had been months ago. He wrestled with the steering wheel and the Batmobile careened around a corner, knocking over bags of rubbish and scattering their contents in its wake.

"Well she's certainly making her presence known at the moment, sir," Alfred said drily. "Although, from what I can ascertain, she's being entirely chaotic – no patterns, no specific targets, just rampant destruction. I would proceed with caution, sir; she seems rather savage."

"Noted. Thanks, Alfred." With a press of a button, Bruce was launched into the air out of the Batmobile, his cape billowing behind him while the car rolled to a stop. When he reached the highest point of the jump, the cape snapped out either side of him, giving him huge black wings that bore him aloft as he soared over Gotham's rooftops. In the distance, he could see the helicopters, belonging to both news reporters and police, circling like vultures. The air was filled with sounds of sirens, voices magnified by megaphones, breaking glass, crumbling tarmac…it was a cacophony. He alighted on the corner of a rooftop and crouched there, surveying the situation below.

Ivy was in mid-air, supported by plants that were carrying her down the street. In her wake, some buildings were nothing but ruins, others still standing but unrecognisable, the road littered with huge chunks of debris. She was still systematically attacking each and every building she passed, ripping the windows out so shards of glass showered the sidewalks, vines shooting into the open spaces and appearing to search every storey they could reach, before returning to her and doing it all over again somewhere else. Each time the vines returned, they seemed to speak to her, but whatever they were saying only made her more frustrated. She screamed aloud, the sound carrying up to Bruce's vantage point. It was horrible, filled with pain. He scowled.

A shot rang out from somewhere, and Ivy shrieked with rage. She clutched at her ribcage, her attack momentarily halted as she dealt with the blood seeping between her fingers. Within seconds, however, she gathered her senses and aimed her arm in the direction the bullet had come from, sending her plants after the attacker.

Without further ado, Bruce dove off the rooftop and down to the street, landing right in front of the seething mass of vines and leaves that took up most of the road. He dodged and leapt around, not taking any hits but managing to draw the plants away from the police officers. Having successfully distracted them, he grappled up the side of an apartment block and clung there.

"Ivy, stop this!" he growled.

She turned and stared at him as if seeing him for the first time, and he finally got a good look at her. She was distraught; her face was streaked with angry tears that were still flowing, her hair was wild and unkempt, her body was tense and shaking. And her eyes…he'd never seen her look like that before, not even when they'd been fighting to the death. She was wild, like she'd lost all humanity and replaced it with fury and instinct. "No!" she screamed. "I have to find her! I have to look everywhere!"

Thankfully, she'd stopped destroying the buildings around them for the time being, but she was poised among her plants, ready to spring, and Bruce knew she was balancing on a razor's edge. Her words suddenly registered. Her…?

Oh. In a flash, he remembered Evelyn Carter. The woman who'd screamed, the woman who'd scoured the internet for news on Ivy's exploits. He'd warned her away from Ivy, twice, attempting to nip her growing infatuation in the bud, and he'd thought at least the second time the message had got through. She'd apparently left Gotham before Christmas for several weeks, due to a family emergency, but…what if she'd been in the city the whole time? He'd missed it; he'd been distracted. Ivy had gone quiet and so had she, so stupidly he'd taken the 'facts' at face value and let it go. He had too many foes to deal with – if one of them decided not to commit any crimes for a while, he tried to look upon it as a blessing. Stupid, he admonished himself.

His analysis of the situation took about twelve seconds. Meantime, Ivy was catching her breath, clutching her injury, watching him. Around them, the whirring blades of helicopters, the sirens, the shouting, and the blinding spotlights faded into insignificance.

He looked into her eyes. "Tell me what happened, Pamela," he said, speaking firmly but not aggressively. He was trying to calm her down. After they held each other's gazes for a moment, he grappled upwards and vanished from sight onto the roof of the apartment block.

Ivy swallowed. He'd actually managed to get through the furious haze that was hovering over her mind – she felt herself properly thinking, for the first time in hours. Batman could help her. He could figure it out, take her to the right place to find Evelyn and whoever had taken her. She took a deep breath, and called the plants back. The vines retreated slowly, the smaller ones wrapping around her body and the larger vanishing beneath the broken tarmac, leaving the street plant-free except for one, which lifted her up to follow Batman to the roof before sinking back into the earth.

He was there in the shadows, away from the prying eyes of the helicopters still circling, standing tall and shrouded in black. When Ivy reached the roof and stepped onto a solid surface, she felt her shaking legs give way, and Batman watched her impassively as she slowly sank into a graceless heap. She felt the hot tears streaming down her cheeks, and tried to focus instead on the injury on the side of her waist. She encouraged soothing leaves to grow over it, pressing down like a compress, staunching the flow of blood with their many layers. The pain was sharp and searing, but it gave her something to focus on, and she felt herself growing slightly calmer as a result.

"Tell me what happened," he said again in his trademark gravelly tone.

Ivy ran her hands through her hair, pushing it off her face, and fixed him with her teary gaze. "Someone took my Evelyn. I want her back. I need her back." The calm hadn't lasted long – her shoulders shook with suppressed rage.

"Do you know who took her?"

"No!" she cried, clenching her fists. "If I did, I wouldn't need your help."

Batman looked thoughtful. "Why would I help you? Any other time, you'd be locked up. You're a criminal."

"But Evelyn is an innocent," Ivy hissed, anger causing her to rise to her feet and advance on him. Under his cape, where she couldn't see, Bruce got a batarang ready. "You would never let an innocent person get hurt if there was something you could do to stop it, right? So stop it. Find her. Help me."

Under his cowl, Bruce frowned. He'd never seen Ivy so desperate, and he knew that desperation made her much more dangerous. "And what happens if we find her? What are you going to do with her?"

Ivy sighed, and all the fight seemed to go out of her. "We were going to get out of Gotham," she said sadly. "I tried to send her away first, but she wouldn't leave me, so we decided to go together. We had it all figured out. Just her and me, living a life, away from anything that might hurt her. Including my past."

"Why?"

"Because I love her. I love her more than I've ever loved anyone or anything, and I know that it's real. She reminded me what it was like…to be human." Ivy laughed, a hollow, empty sound. "Like that did her any good."

Bruce looked at her, and he realised that she was, for once, being completely honest with him. She was in love, and she'd been trying to give herself a chance at having a life with the one she loved. She'd tried to keep Eve safe by sending her away, even though it would have broken her heart. Somewhere deep down inside him, he felt a tiny stab of sympathy, although it was far outweighed by the feeling of righteousness now his previous warnings to Eve had come true. He refrained from saying 'I told you so', instead moving to the rooftop's edge. Now was not the time to gloat. "We need to get away from here; if we don't keep moving, the helicopters will catch up with us." He didn't actually say that he was going to help her, but the implication was there, and Ivy was grateful. "Quickly – can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt Eve? Did she have any enemies, any people she disliked at work?" As he questioned her, he shot his grappling gun out into the darkness beyond the building, then tugged it taut and opened his free arm as an invitation to Ivy.

"I don't know; I never met anyone she worked with. She kind of…gave up her life for me." Slowly, Ivy approached him and allowed him to put his arm around her waist, holding her securely. While her heart now belonged to another, she could appreciate the solid bulk of his torso and the muscles hidden beneath the armour. It was reassuring, giving her something tangible to hold onto when her world was otherwise in turmoil. She placed her arms around him and clasped her hands together, holding tight.

Batman lowered his head towards hers, and the words he spoke were barely audible. "Pamela, listen to me. Don't lose your head. We'll figure out who took her. We'll find her."

Ivy nodded, her face a mask of determination. He was right – she couldn't lose her head now, not when her Evelyn's life might be hanging in the balance. "I know we will."

They leapt together off the roof into the darkness.

Stuck in the chair, exhausted and terrified, Eve struggled to free herself. She had no idea how much time had passed since Mortimer had kidnapped her; she was hungry and incredibly thirsty, the handkerchief stuffed in her mouth having absorbed any and all moisture. Her limbs were stiff, and she dreaded the moment Mortimer returned in case he wanted her to move. As it was, she hadn't seen him for hours, and she had a sneaking suspicion he'd gone home to bed. The lab had been pitch black for a long time, and she had given up trying to escape, but started to fight again with renewed vigour when she realised the sun was now starting to come up.

With a grunt of exertion, she tried once again to shuffle the chair closer to one of the benches. It was both good news and bad news that the chair wasn't bolted to the floor - good news because it did move slightly; bad news when Eve realised she had overreached herself and the chair was tipping over. At the last second she managed to lift her head so it didn't smash into the floor along with the rest of her, but it still hurt like hell. She groaned and wriggled around fruitlessly. Her right arm was stuck underneath her now, and was rapidly going numb.

Her legs, however, had much more freedom, and she began to pull hard on the rope tying them underneath the chair. She soon realised after a few minutes of frantic pulling that the knot wasn't coming undone any time soon, and nor was the rope going to break. She yelled angrily through the gag, the sound only barely audible, but then her body sagged in defeat and she rested her head on the floor. God, she felt so useless! She hated feeling like she couldn't do anything, but that was exactly the situation Mortimer had put her in – Ivy had no idea where she was, she had no idea how long she would be stuck there, and she didn't even know if Mortimer was coming back or what he might do if he did.

Eve lay there for a long time, and with no clocks visible she had no clue what time it was, only that the sun was now up and trying to assert itself against the grey clouds clogging up the sky.

She must have fallen asleep at some point, because she was awoken by the door slamming open and Mortimer whistling a jaunty tune. "Good morning!" he called. When he spotted her on the floor, he had the nerve to laugh. "Oh dear. Get into a bit of trouble did we? No matter; I'll give you a hand." He approached and tipped the chair onto its back. Eve started to protest and tried to shout at him, but her anger quickly succumbed to the pain in her right arm as the feeling returned, a thousand pins and needles stabbing over and over. It was almost unbearable, and she cried out.

Mortimer tutted. "It's your own fault, you know," he said briskly, moving behind her and lifting the chair back onto its feet. He then came round to face her again and gave her a very serious look. "I'm going to take the gag off now. I've got water, and if you keep quiet, you can have some."

Eve glared at him, but then nodded resentfully. She really was incredibly thirsty.

Mortimer ripped the tape off her mouth very quickly, making Eve cry out again. As he pulled the handkerchief out of her mouth she was very tempted to bite down on his fingers, but she refrained and instead took small, careful sips of water from the sports bottle her offered her.

When she was done, Mortimer wiped her mouth with the sleeve of his jacket, then stood back, looking her up and down for a second silently. He retrieved a high stool from a nearby bench and proceeded to perch on it in front of her. "Have you heard the news?" he asked.

Eve shook her head. Of course she hadn't; she'd been stuck in the lab all night.

Mortimer continued speaking as if she hadn't responded at all. "Our mutual friend has been looking for you. She tore up most of downtown in the process, but then Batman turned up, would you believe, and then they left together! What do you think of that?"

Again, Eve didn't speak, choosing instead to glare at Mortimer as ferociously as she could. She didn't care if he was just making conversation or not; she refused to give him any clues to what she thought or felt for Ivy.

He waited, then frowned when he saw she wouldn't say anything. "I'm afraid we might have a bit of a wait on our hands if we want her to find us. So, how about we find a way to pass the time?" He reached into his pocket.

And pulled out a gun.

Eve blanched. She didn't know much about guns, but she knew that they were capable of doing. Fear rushed through her body, and she desperately tried to claw at the tape binding her arms. Mortimer aimed the gun forwards, point it right at her chest, and her panicked scrabbling subsided. When she was still again, he let the gun rest across his knee, then looked at her expectantly.

"Come on then, Eve, tell me about her. It might save your life."