There was no single word accurate enough to describe the pain felt by Tim Drake in virtually every inch of his body as Poison Ivy's vines continued to consume him in their thorny tomb.
Once they reached his arms, a few vines snaked around his right forearm and squeezed against his elbow, causing his fingers to involuntarily slacken dropping his staff to the floor below.
As the vines continued to slither around the Boy Wonder's writhing body, he could feel his breath being literally drained, the vines now wrapped around his torso and waist several times over. The thorns punished him without mercy, inflicting continuous doses of pain with every spurt of resistance.
"Can't…. get...free," he gasped, his breath depleting between every painful wheeze.
Ivy only laughed at his weakened voice, before cooing to him softly. "That's the idea, dear."
The plants complied, strengthening their vice grip over him. He could feel his insides practically squeezing out of his skeleton with every excruciating second, and it was now nearly impossible to slice through them with his forearms pinned against his sides.
"Let's see how many feathers I need to pluck to make you squeal, bird boy!" she sneered, relishing over his agonized shrieks of pain.
"The knife," he suddenly thought to himself, instantly remembering one of the spare knives that he kept in his utility belt in case of a situation like this.
Adrenaline running through his veins, Robin instinctively reached into his utility belt, his fingers desperately grabbing at his leather pockets. At this point, he was starting to lose feeling in them, but the resilient nature of the Boy Wonder won out, at least for now.
Just as his fingers closed around his spare knife, the vines squeezed even harder, causing him to wheeze out loud.
Unable to breathe, he finally collapsed, his limbs falling limp in an effort to conserve energy.
He had just barely managed to conceal the knife in his palm, his final trump card secured for now.
"That's enough for now. We don't want to roughen up our new play toy, now do we?" Ivy grinned overconfidently.
The vines loosened their hold on him, obeying Ivy's commands and allowing him to lurch forwards.
He could feel their vice grip loosening, but only enough for him to breathe again. At this point, he could hardly feel anything below the waist, but that was the least of his worries.
Robin was now at the mercy of the toxic temptress herself.
"Besides, this isn't just payback, it's personal," she added rather seductively, as the vines holding him lowered down to the floor.
He could only curse himself as Ivy gracefully picked herself back up, his seemingly final victory now undone by a single instance of premature gloating.
"What's wrong Robin? Did you really think that you could handle me all by yourself? Did Batman tell you I was easy?" she taunted playfully, pure arrogance laced in every word.
"If you think these weeds will hold me Ivy, then you're dumber than you look," he retorted in kind, causing her to laugh ecstatically.
"Good point. I suppose that we'll have to make you a big more…...submissive, wouldn't you say?" she smiled, putting her finger to her mouth almost like she was thinking. Finally, her eyes lit up excitement, and she gestured towards him almost bemusedly.
Before he could react, another vine shot out of the ground in front of him. The mouth suddenly peeled back, revealing a horn-shaped opening that meant one thing, and one thing only.
"Gahhh!" The third Robin gagged and coughed as the vine sprayed her hypnotic mist directly in his face. The vine immediately retracting into the ground afterwards, Robin soon found his vision blurred by the influx of pheromones that completely wrecked his prior train of thought.
While his initial struggles were violent and energetic, his later struggles would become more subdued, almost sluggish as the pheromones started to take hold over his body.
"That's it little Robin! Keep fighting it! Once you run out of energy to flap your little wings, then you're mine!" came Ivy's seductive voice, the sound of her melodic vocals reverberating through every corner of his mind.
"Have….to fight it," he grunted under his breath, trying to stay emotionally sober with the pheromones pounding away at his mental defenses second by second.
Struggling to concentrate with her cloud of influence still hovering above him, his resilience kept his disciplined mind clear for the moment, but the rest of his body was slowly turning against him.
The pheromones were a bullet train of lust that could barely be fought by his sheer strength of will, but Ivy herself was a physical force that could not be ignored.
Involuntarily and against his better judgment, his eyes shamelessly consumed her curvaceous body that slowly, sensually drew closer to him.
Simply staring at the plant queen was like glimpsing at human perfection in motion.
Each long and sumptuous crossed in front of the other in a hypnotic manner. Gliding along the floor at an effortlessly sensual pace, her hips swayed to the sound of her own enthralling laughter. Her prison jacket hugged her exquisitely feminine curves and accentuated her cleavage, with a mane of stranded fire cascading down her back. But all of those paled in comparison to those luscious, inviting-
"No," he told himself emphatically, fighting off the unfiltered stream of thoughts threatening to infect his disciplined psyche.
Shaking his head as to force himself back to reality, he could only look on helplessly as she neared him, taking her time as if she was a model on the catwalk and he her admiring fan.
Finally, she strutted to a halt in front of him, striking a confident pose with his head lowered.
With one dainty finger, she lifted up his drooping chin, smirking as his resentful eyes met her jade gaze.
Every defiant word that he wanted to hurl at the leering vixen completely dissolved in his mouth when his eyes drifted upwards to me. He was still completely entranced by Ivy's pheromones, gazing almost dreamily at her beautiful yet poison-laced lips as they curved into a mocking sneer.
Sensing the almost intoxicating waves of complete infatuation radiating from him, Ivy simply smirked before taking a step back.
"Oh, does the Boy Blunder like what he sees? Go on dear, I don't mind when people stare," she taunted confidently, flaunting her body just inches away from his roaming eyes to consume.
It took his remaining willpower not to oblige to her tempting offer. She spoke them with such fluidity, such authority, that he could literally feel the words trying to escape out of his mouth.
Ivy of course noticed his conflicted expression and laughed as she stroked the side of his face with one finger, running her adorned yet slightly smudged nails ever gently down his bruised cheek.
"Didn't think the rumors were true, did you?" she teased him, regarding his state of helpless infatuation with great amusement before removing her hand from his face.
"Yes, I do have that effect on people. I have my babies to thank for that, but the Bat never seems to notice." Lips curling disdainfully with the mere mention of the Dark Knight, the flirty spark then returned to her eyes as she sized him up.
"But you just can't keep your eyes off me, can you little Robin?"
Flinching at her enticing words, he found himself powerless to stop Ivy from running her hand down his chest, tracing his R insignia.
Every fiber of his being screamed at him to do something, anything, but given the current tug-of-war between mind and body being waged, that was easier said than done.
"I could kill you, for what you've done to my babies," she hissed coldly, before musing further, "But that would be such a waste of your potential. Especially, when it could be put to better use."
"I'd rather die than help you," he snarled defiantly, no hesitation needed in his response.
"Loyalty to his master. I can appreciate that," she purred, running her crimson dipped fingernails down his face ever affectionately. "Now, if you're willing to do all this just to get to me, I wonder..."
Letting her words hang between them, she suddenly leaned in towards him, her dreaded lips literally inches away from his.
"What will you do for me?"
"Anything." That was what he wanted to say, what she wanted to hear.
The words were almost out of his mouth before he even realized it, but at the last possible second, he averted her spellbinding gaze.
"You're a criminal...a psychopath," he maintained, almost speaking to his own conflicted self rather than the bemused beauty.
"Did Batman tell you all those hurtful things about me? He's so judgmental, you know. So what if I've killed a few heartless businessmen and backstabbing scientists? The world is better off without them," she chided dismissively.
"They had friends...families...you killed them in cold blood," he retorted again, eliciting an apathetic snicker from her.
"Maybe they should've thought of that before they decided to kill my babies. I simply repaid the favor," she shrugged almost nonchalantly.
"What about the innocent people you killed along the way?"
Her reply was cold and callous. "What about them? The earth bleeds thanks to the pollution that mankind has created over centuries. The blood of my children taints the hands of those you think are so 'innocent.' They've earned their fates."
"It doesn't matter what you think they did to wrong you and your 'kind.' Those lives weren't yours to take," he fired back, slowly finding his own independent voice again away from her hypnotic influence.
His words seemed to resonate with Ivy, who upon stepping back looked past him to her plants.
"You remind me of someone I once knew," the former botanist reminisced, disdain palpable in her voice. "She was naïve, too trusting of others. Weak."
Her eyes then drifted back to him. "She's dead now. But that doesn't mean you have to be too."
Before he could react, the eco-terrorist suddenly breathed into his face, releasing the next wave of pheromones into his vicinity.
Robin took the blast head-on, gritting his teeth as he felt the intrusive fog in his mind thicken.
With every passing second, he could feel the pheromones starting to break through his mental barriers, tempting him with erotic promises and lustful teases that began coaxing his already straining muscles into a more relaxed and submissive state.
"Good. Just let Mother Nature do the rest," came Ivy's doting voice, caressing his ears.
Feeling the vines grow heavier and heavier all around him, Robin's knees even began buckling with this seemingly impossible weight bearing down on his shoulders.
It was too much. She was too much.
Barely registering her continued gloating from the outside, Robin could feel himself starting to descend into the pleasurable haze that had nearly consumed him, until….
"You're stronger than you know, Tim. Use that to your advantage." The words of Barbara Gordon suddenly shot through the abyss, shining a much-needed light through the darkness.
It was at that moment, that he truly opened his eyes.
Find the strength of will in her guiding voice, Robin concentrated on getting rid of the other voice in his head, the one that had nearly taken root inside.
Instead of fighting Ivy's influence with only his raw willpower, he instead allowed Gordon's words to wash all over him like a wave, reenergizing him.
As anticipated, the vixen's voice became more and more subdued as Barbara's voice continued to ring out, cleansing her polluting influence from the edges of his disciplined psyche.
With the last of her pheromones exorcised from his mind and his body now responsive to his independent thought, Robin was finally free.
But she doesn't know that.
Her triumphant grin stretched from corner to corner as she leered at the seemingly docile hero, his head bowed to her with no sign of further resistance.
Stroking along Robin's unmoving chin, a swell of confidence coursed through the ecoterrorist's body as she towered above his bound form.
"No one can resist Poison Ivy, little Robin. Not even-" she started to declare, before Robin's head suddenly shot forward in a dizzying blur of motion.
Before she could even think to react, Robin caught the smug Ivy off guard with a brutal headbutt to her gloating face.
As his forehead smashed into her mouth, Ivy's eyes briefly widened in surprise before the rest of her body crumpled down to the ground.
It wasn't enough to knock her out, but it was certainly enough to keep her down for the time being.
Grunting heavily with renewed energy, he frantically began thrashing around in the thorny net with her concentration momentarily broken.
Flipping out the knife in his still bound hand, Robin immediately stabbed it through the larger vines. As the liquid squirting out, he sliced upwards and continued until he reached the vines coiled around his throat.
The faint winces and whimpers that escaped Ivy's now writhing body were quickly sounded out by the shrill wails of the vines being cut down.
He could feel the larger ones tightening their thorny embrace against his arms, but relentless in his struggle to get free, Robin used the pain as a necessary motivator and continued maneuvering his blade around his chest.
Finally, he was finally able to cut through the largest vine still wrapped around him, and with that freed his entire torso. Now with both arms free, he ripped out the last remaining roots still wrapped around his waist before nearly collapsing to the floor.
He managed to catch himself just before hitting the ground, taking a moment to regain his footing before examining some exposed spots in his chest armor where the thorns had penetrated.
Picking up his fallen bo staff, he groggily clambered to his feet before cautiously approaching the downed plant queen.
Her back now to him, she had started to crawl away with one hand still clutching her lower jaw but he quickly closed the distance between them.
As if sensing his footsteps, Ivy rolled over on her back, now sporting a bloody mouth.
Without hesitation, he leveled his bo staff at her throat, the very tip of his staff just centimeters away from her Adam's apple.
"No more mind games," he growled, before nodding at the crimson marring her previously immaculate complexion. "That was me holding back, by the way. Way back."
"You are strong," she breathed out, a streak of what seemed like admiration mixed in with her usual venomous delivery.
"It's over Ivy. And whether you like it or not, you are too," he grated.
"For now. Believe me, lover. In one minute, the roles will be quite reversed," she smiled.
He scoffed, unflustered by her cryptic words. "Keep talking, and in one minute, you'll be unconscious."
"You've got me," she beamed somewhat cheerfully, before adding in a husky whisper, "But can you keep me?"
He drilled the blunt end of the staff into her throat. "That answer your question?"
She smiled even with the staff pressed uncomfortably against her throat, but unbeknownst to him, the smile wasn't intended for him.
Out of the mess of severed vines behind him, something slowly crept out of the mass of green and began slowly snaking through the grass.
As it drew ever closer to the unsuspecting Boy Wonder, a small yet peculiar object slid down her jacket sleeve, right into her awaiting hand. As her silhouette leaned over slightly to the right, the object was fully revealed: a small knife.
"I'm going to say this once. Get up," he ordered, keeping the weapon trained at her throat. "You try anything else, and you're leaving on a stretcher."
Ignoring his thinly-veiled threat, she looked up at him with an almost quizzical look etched across her expression.
"Me? Whoever said anything about me?" she said innocently, her eyes flickering briefly behind him.
Twirling his body around just in time, he severed the vine previously hurtling towards the back of his skull with a well-placed slash right down the middle.
The vine flopped down to the ground harmlessly, just like all the others.
Whoever said anything about me?
It was only a second later that her last words truly hit him, but even then, the realization was a second too late.
He whirled back around only to be greeted by a now standing Poison Ivy, now facing him with only inches between them.
Cursing himself for turning his back to her, Robin raised his staff to rectify his mistake once and for all.
He took exactly one step forward, before the searing pain in his gut overwhelmed his adrenaline surge.
A slight wince escaped his lips as he slowly directed his eyes down at the wicked-looking blade now sticking out of an exposed stretch in his lower torso, her hand still wrapped around the handle.
His face remained frozen in shock as he raised his gaze back up to her sneering visage.
"I win." As soon as those two words oozed out of her mouth, she plunged the blade in even deeper.
While numb to the initial penetration exploded into his side, Robin sorely felt the sudden surge of blinding pain now exploding into his sides.
As Ivy continued to pierce through the chink in his body armor, a greenish liquid began dripping down from the blade unto Robin's trembling thigh, with the rest being injected into his bloodstream.
His face contorted in an agonizing grimace as the pain began burning through his insides, before eventually spreading to his arms and legs.
Losing feeling in his legs almost immediately, the same numbing sensation starting to spread upwards as he collapsed right into Ivy's waiting arms.
"Hush little Robin, don't say a word. Ivy's gonna kill the Bat for you," she tauntingly sang into his ear, leaning forward to keep him up on both feet.
Brow furrowing in both confusion and shock, he tried with every fiber of his being to lift his staff, to reach his utility belt, to do something.
Much to his surprise, every stray movement he took was rewarded with another blinding surge of pain. Even his spine felt like it was on fire.
As the knife twisted through his abdomen, he tried to hide his vulnerability behind a quickly deteriorating wall of resilience, but not even that could suppress it for too long.
Within seconds, he had lost feeling in his arms, and with it his hold over his signature weapon.
As the weapon slipped through his unmoving fingers and clanged to the ground, Robin let out one last audible gasp before his legs gave out fully.
Sensing his body now becoming dead weight in her grasp, Ivy cruelly yanked the blade out of his stomach and let nature do the rest.
Robin collapsed immediately, his almost lifeless body now little more than a human statue at her feet.
Barely able to taste the dirt with the numbness crawling up his throat, the now horrified Robin found himself a prisoner within his own body.
With his limbs now paralyzed, he was at the complete mercy of the plant queen herself, her seemingly prophetic words from just minutes earlier now coming true.
Placing her hands on her hips seductively, she circled around the now motionless Robin, gleefully relishing every moment of his captivity.
"What did you do to me?" he demanded, still paralyzed.
"I'll spare you all the scientific details, given your current…predicament." Her lips then curled into a wicked grin. "I trust you know about the toxins of the poison dart frog?"
"Its…. toxins affect the nervous systems of predators in its…. natural habitat. But you…modified it for humans," Robin figured out, his speech patterns now slurred thanks to the toxicity now reaching his mouth.
"Well aren't you a little detective!" she purred, condescension dripping in her lyrical voice as she continued circled around him.
Regarding the blade still in her hand with an almost perverse fascination, she turned back towards him. "Imagine my surprise when I found a plant capable of similar effects, buried deep within Strange's little playground. By the time I sensed its cries, the poor darling had nearly passed on."
Pausing briefly as an angry shudder coursed through her body, Ivy turned away from him. "It was the last of its kind, a rather petite pillar of nature's purity all but trampled over by the meat. By the time I brought it back here, it was already too late. Your pollution had poisoned its petals and dried up its roots. Not even the sun could heal her broken heart."
Her mournful lament then turned into a vindictive smirk as she kneeled down next to him. "Before dying in my arms, she gave me a gift. Something that you're enjoying right now."
Robin only gritted his teeth, saving whatever energy he still had left as she directed her condemning gaze towards him.
"What you're feeling now, this sense of complete helplessness, is the pain that my children have known as second nature for centuries. The earth cannot be cleansed of mankind's sins, but at the very least Mother Nature can cleanse the earth of mankind. You should be honored though. Unlike the rest of the meat you will atone for your sins."
A resolved look briefly lit up Robin's paralyzed face as he glowered up at her.
"When I get out of here-"
"When I allow you to leave," she corrected him curtly, her eyes flashing dangerously at him before continuing, "You will do exactly as I say. You should be used to following orders from a superior, in any case."
"I don't take orders from delusional psychopaths," he spat. "I'm not doing your dirty work, now or ever!"
"Silly bird, I only said that you would help me. I never said that it would be of your own free will," she purred knowingly, patting him on the cheek patronizingly before standing back up.
Regarding her fallen adversary one last time, Ivy then turned on her heel and walked away.
"He's all yours, my darlings!" she called out over her shoulder.
A plethora of gnarled roots immediately burst from the ground, but this time they found no resistance from the Boy Wonder. Curling around his legs first, they easily bound his legs together, before creeping up his torso.
Panic flooded down his face as he watched the roots continued to wrap around his torso before spreading to his arms.
As her exotic laughter continued to ring out throughout the hotel lobby, Robin had no choice but simply watch as the mutated roots swallowed his body whole, his head now the only visible part of his body.
"He'll stop you!" Robin called out after her, eliciting an amused chuckle from the plant queen.
"Darling, if I could defeat his little errand boy with ease, what makes you think the Batman poses a threat to me?" she asked softly.
"Because he beat you at the asylum. And he'll do it again here, no matter what you throw at him!"
Ignoring him for the moment, she held out her arms, prompting yet another wave of vines to descend from the ceiling and lift her off her feet.
Raising her high above the ground, the vines then gently placed her down in the now reassembled throne.
Crossing her legs, she then looked at him with a rather mischievous glint in her emerald eyes.
"Well, that's why I have you, little Robin," she smiled.
But before he could argue any more, the roots clamped over his mouth, silencing him. As his eyes frantically peered below, he could already see that the roots had completely mummified his body neck-down.
A firestorm of emotions flooded through Robin's mind as her taunting laughter boomed over him, but only one stood out above the rest.
Fear.
"Welcome to our world, Robin," she declared triumphantly, reclining back as the roots stretched over his domino mask.
The last thing that the Boy Wonder ever saw was the haunting image of Poison Ivy leering over his prone body before his world faded to black.
