Descending down the steps of the unknown, the two followed the emerald light at the end of the darkness.

Leading with his blue-hued batons in both hands, the last living Flying Grayson remained vigilant as they tread deeper into the certain uncertainty of the greenhouse.

Selina Kyle, though outwardly unflinching, kept a wary hand on her whip as they ventured further and further inside.

An unspoken silence penetrated the space between the two for a few moments before finally…

"Hey, the guy with the puppet- he still around?" Dick asked, breaking the seal first.

"Actually, it's more of a she now," the brunette answered. "The old man disappeared, parts unknown. Rumor has it the new Ventriloquist killed him. Peyton…something, I think."

"Huh, that's a shame. I never could figure out how he made that ugly thing talk."

"Even homicidal maniacs have talent," Selina mused.

"Go figure." He finally touched down on solid ground and kept walking.

Walking right into a large room lit by glowing green bulbs sprouting from roots on the ground and walls.

The humidity was palpable as he looked at what once was a fully functional, makeshift laboratory.

Atop tables and counters there were pots and pots of flowers containing heart-shaped flower petals, somehow able to still flourish without direct sunlight.

"Devil's Ivy," Selina commented, answering the question that was already forming in Dick's head as she entered the room as well. "Always one of Red's favorites."

"Must be a relief to stand so close to a plant without it trying to kill you," Nightwing teased, examining the rest of his surroundings.

"Don't jinx it, blueboy," she replied sarcastically, relaxing her grip over the whip, somewhat.

He didn't have far to look before coming across something metallic on a nearby counter.

Upon closer inspection, it revealed itself to be a handheld tape recorder.

"See that last time?" he asked the cat burglar.

Her silence speaking for her, the brunette woman marched forward and took it in her hand, pressing play.

"They're still calling to me." A broken, fearful woman's voice came from inside. "They won't stop calling to me."

Selina's face was unreadable as the tape continued, "The littlest ones especially, they're just so frail. So…unable. They need someone to protect them. Someone strong, who can speak for the unspoken for. I'm the only one who knows what they've been through. I'm the only one who could- no. I couldn't even protect myself from…from him."

The young man in blue and black looked over some of the flowers.

"What I did to that doctor in the hospital, I didn't want to. He made me do it. He said he would give me medicine to take the voices away. He said he would make me feel better, but Jason said the same thing. I trusted him, and he- he did this to me."

The brunette gave a sigh as Dick walked over to a door.

"...sssshh, it's alright, baby. I know you're scared. I'm scared too. They don't understand, they never will. But I do. I know what it's like to lose everything. To be taken advantage of." A tone of bitterness carried those last few words.

A pause ensued, and then, she continued with a hopeful rise in her voice. "But we found each other, didn't we? Apart, they see us as nothing. But together, together we can be something- something more."

The first Boy Wonder tried the door handle. Unlocked.

"I feel your pain, my darling. I know what they did to your brothers and sisters. How they mutilated them with their machines. Ended their lives just so these heartless men can have their parking lots and polluting factories. You've lived this fear all your life, haven't you? But maybe, maybe one day we can make them feel scared for a change."

Then, the tape ended.

"And a supervillain is born," Nightwing commented sardonically.

Selina tossed the recorder away before turning to him with a look of pure deadpan. "And that woman had a PhD once. God, between her and Harley being certifiable nutjobs, it really does make the argument that higher education isn't all it's cracked up to be."

"Tape mentioned her needing to be on meds. Maybe if they stuck to the prescription when she was at the asylum, we wouldn't be in this mess." Dick grabbed the handle and pulled towards him, opening yet another level of the lab.

"Pretty sure there's not a drug in any pharmacy that could bring Ivy back to the land of sanity once she went off the reservation," she scoffed at the thought. "You'd have better luck getting Victor Zsasz to stop making modern art masterpieces out of every person he meets."

"Maybe," was his measured response, holding the door as the leather-clad woman passed through first.

"Trust me, the only medicine she deserves is another round of shock therap-whoaa!" Mid-sentence, Selina was yanked off her feet and brought into the next room by an unseen force.

Surprised but barely for long, Dick Grayson sprinted after her, entering into another large room.

A room even bigger than the first.

"Not again," the short-haired woman groaned as she was strung upside-down, what was soon revealed to be a vine coiled around her left ankle as her arms dangled above the ground.

The vigilante quickly scanned his surroundings, his eyes filled with ghastly imagery that could be taken straight from a horror film.

A stainless-steel slab table once reserved for dissecting lab animals now housed a different kind of organism: a human being.

Or at least, the remains of one.

Skin and flesh had rotted away with time, leaving a mostly intact skeleton with a mossy bed of flowers growing out of the ribcage.

He turned to see other tables with similar results.

Decayed and decomposed men and women with still living vines slithering through their near skeletal remains.

Some still retained vestiges of who they once were.

Tattered bits of clothes and shoes clung to otherwise lifeless, time-withered bodies.

"My God," he murmured under his breath, unnerved at what he saw, but only for a moment.

By the next, the vigilante was already turning to the upside-down Selina Kyle.

Sheathing his escrima sticks, he reached into his belt. "Hang on, I'll get you down in a-"

"Look out!" Her eyes widened, prompting him to whirl back around…

… and see one of the corpses sit up from the table!

Somehow, someway, the skeletal upper half peeled off the flat surface, seemingly of its own volition.

Dick's masked eyes narrowed.

Nothing's ever what it seemed in this town.

And as if on cue, a slender vine slithered out of its jawbone, coiling up in the air like a serpent becoming aware of fresh prey.

He didn't go for his sticks.

The vine lunged.

He went low instead.

Unclipping a metallic, wing-shaped projectile from his waist, he hurled it with precision at his moving target- and missed!

The vine somehow zigzagged out of trajectory, evading the mid-air collision.

Forcing Nightwing to readjust on his feet…by launching off them entirely.

Leaping vertically in a spectacular, spontaneous motion, the young man twisted, twirled around…and nailed the vine with a spinning jump kick right when it was at point-blank range.

The side of his boot connected nimbly against the serpentine body, knocking it down to the ground.

But before it could rise up-

Tsssskt.

The taser-tipped end of his escrima stick smashed against its head, splattering chlorophyll over the floor and rendering the rest of the plant limp almost instantly.

"You weren't kidding about her home security," he remarked grimly, standing up fully to witness even more of the same.

More vines emerging from corpses, all zeroing in on him.

Reaching into his belt, he produced another winged weapon- his equivalent to the Batarang.

The Wing Ding.

"Heads up!" Throwing it to the side without even looking, he armed himself with both escrima sticks as the projectile ricocheted off the nearby wall…tore through the air…and finally sliced through the vine holding Selina Kyle up by the ankle.

True to her name, the brunette landed like a cat, her feet touching the ground first after some swift mid-air maneuvering.

"I'll look for the damn cure. Why don't you be the dashing hero and keep me safe?" she told him over her shoulder before slinking away to frantically search the room.

"Done." Nightwing assumed his signature martial arts stance, batons at the ready as the vines hissed and hovered around him.

There were some in front of him. Some behind him. Some on his blindside.

He was calm. He was grounded.

One of them lunged.

He was ready.

Jabbing the baton right into the serpentine head, the masked man ducked as another tried swiping at his cheek.

He swatted away at its body with the other hand before twisting out of the slashing trajectory of yet another of the weaponized plants.

Using both batons, he battered away another vine in a one-two combo.

Another hiss from the left prompted his next action.

Solid swing of the stick sent yet another one reeling out of range.

Two came at him this time. One for the head. One for the body.

He sidestepped and performed a side flip for good measure, backing up once they all established another perimeter around him.

"Alright, one weed whacking at a time. Let's not get greedy here, folks," he teased them in typical Grayson fashion, right as they did the exact opposite.

They all came at him.

So he fought them all.

Jab and smack and duck and weave.

He went from move to move without pause.

A blur of blue and black.

"Damn it!" He could hear her frustration from the other end of the room.

"Keep looking." Jerking backwards to avoid a slash of thorny wrath against his chin, the agile man stopped his freeflow of combative motion, turned on his heel, and raced in the opposite direction.

Unsurprisingly, the many followed the one.

They followed, and he led them…right to a nearby table.

Kicking off the ground, Nightwing launched himself vertically with an effortless corkscrew in mid-air, briefly turning his world upside-down.

Leaping over the table, he landed on his feet, fully charged.

They all converged on him.

He smiled…and smashed both ends of the escrima sticks together!

In a dazzling display, a flurry of focused bolts of electricity shot out in all directions, striking each and every vine.

And frying them instantly.

The now burnt ends of several snake-like plants flopped down to the ground.

He waited for more. None came.

Relaxing his stance, Nightwing sheathed his sticks behind his back and walked around the table.

"Any luck?" Brushing some dust off his shoulder, he approached the master thief who was leaning against a wall.

Her expression said it all.

"Nope, but I did find this." She cynically tossed him another tape recorder.

Catching it, Dick sighed before something in him- either morbid curiosity or just the detective in him- prompted him to press play.

"I killed a man today." Pamela Isley's voice came alive in his hand, a remorseful whisper from the past.

"He wasn't like the others. He didn't want to hurt us. I almost let him go when he said…" There was a pause, and then, an answer. "It doesn't matter. He would've told the butchers in blue, and they- they aren't our allies. Not after they shielded Jason from our justice."

Pushing off the wall, Selina walked over to where something caught her keen eye.

"But he'll get what's coming to him soon. We just need to be stronger. More able. That's why I did what I did today. For us, my loves."

Nightwing turned to a nearby corpse, a limp vine protruding from its ribcage.

"He told me he had a wife. He said he had children…" Isley's voice tapered off again before she finished in a noticeably colder tone, "But now I have children, too."

The tape ended.

And Dick could now see the wedding ring still on his bony hand.

Some things were better left unsaid.

He tossed the recording device aside and put two fingers up to his earpiece. "Alfred, talk to me."

At once, the Englishman's voice sounded over the radio channel. "Unfortunately, I bear only bad news, sir. Master Bruce's condition is worsening. He's burned through almost all the medicine, and I fear-"

"Is he alive?" Dick wanted to know. The only thing he needed to know.

"...for now, yes." Pennyworth carefully chose his words.

"Then that's good enough. Keep him breathing on that table, Alfred. We'll be back soon." Signing off, the vigilante walked over to where Selina was standing, or rather, kneeling at.

On her knees, the cat burglar was tracing her fingers over something on the floor.

"What do you got?"

"Trapdoor," she informed him without looking up.

Her fingertips finally caught on something. A latch.

Unlocking it, she opened the hatch up, peering down into yet another level of green hell.

She looked at him with a piercing look. "You first this time."


Nightwing landed on what used to be a solid tiled floor.

It was now a mossy mat with uneven cracks where roots had broken through.

The air remained thick with humidity, comparable to a rainforest in the heat of summer.

Looking forward and then backward soon revealed that he was in the middle of a hallway.

"Excellent deduction, Master Grayson," he murmured under his breath, doing his best impersonation of the butler's dry sense of humor. "Master Bruce would be most proud."

The walls were spaced far apart enough that there was room for them both, if barely.

Unsurprisingly, the smell of rot lingered down here as it did above.

Straight ahead was a doorway, the physical door long gone.

He found a vine the size of a python slithering up through a hole in the ceiling, but aside from that, nothing that seemed hell-bent on strangling and/or eating him at the moment. So far, at least.

Activating his Night Vision, he scanned the environment through a new lens of scrutiny.

No hostiles. No aggressive movement from below.

Just the calm before the inevitable shitstorm.

"You didn't die down there, did you?" Selina called down at him.

Switching back to his normal visor, he cracked his neck. "Nah, can't get rid of me that easy."

He did one last look around before following up in a louder voice, "Alright, it's clear."

No sooner had he said it, Catwoman dropped down, landing nimbly on the ground behind him.

"God, it stinks down here, too," she groaned, rising to her full height as he headed towards the doorway. "You're keeping it together, all things considered."

"Been doing this since before I was old enough to drive the Batmobile, Selina. When you've seen one spooky supervillain lair, you've seen them all," he answered her with a stoic confidence that reminded her of the Bat himself.

The texture of the floor remained soft and mossy as they entered the new room, also lit up by the same emerald bulbs in the ceiling.

A second laboratory just as, if not bigger than the first.

But somehow even more disturbing.

Dust-covered beakers, flasks and containers adorned some countertops, broken syringes littering the floor but that all paled in comparison to what Dick Grayson's eyes bore witness to.

Something that once vaguely constituted a man literally growing out of the far wall.

He paused in place, and, after casting her green eyes over the laboratory setup for a moment, so did Selina Kyle once she followed his gaze.

The back and waist of this humanoid were tethered to the wall that held him upright, an unnatural merging of flesh to concrete.

From the neck down, his skin had been peeled off completely, replaced by something very grotesquely resembling tree bark.

His feet were mangled and twisted into brown roots that dug into the ground.

And then, there was his face.

Mutilated couldn't even begin to describe it.

What looked like hardened tree sap trickled down his nose and lidded eyes, the effects of which presumably were what kept his face frozen in time.

A broken branch protruded from the area where his left ear once existed.

Tube-like vines dripped from above and then fed directly inside his skull.

"Guess he really pissed her off," Selina finally remarked, daring to take a step further to examine the plant/human hybrid.

The dark-haired vigilante scanned the man again.

Like before, his Night Vision didn't pick up on a heartbeat.

But something about this…being just seemed hostile.

"Poor bastard," she lamented, reaching out with one hand to touch his chin.

Nightwing's eyes narrowed as he re-examined the vines pulsing out of his head.

Something wasn't right.

"Keep an eye on him." Turning around, he looked over the countertops. Started yanking out drawers from underneath. Still nothing.

"What? He's dead," Selina scoffed skeptically over her shoulder.

The acrobatic young man was unconvinced. "Ever heard of Ra's al Ghul?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "Am I supposed to know who that is?"

"Let's just say in this town, dead people sometimes have a habit of not always staying dead."

"If you say so." Sighing, she turned back to the immobile corpse.

Curious, she noticed something peeking out slightly from inside his mouth.

Reaching with her fingers, she gripped something solid, and pulled.

It came loose in her hand with a disgusting pop.

Another tape recorder.

"For the love of…" Hissing in an irritable breath, Selina pressed play while calling out to him, "Hey blueboy, you better hurry up so we can get the hell out of-"

"Hello Jason."

"- here?"

Nightwing looked up as Isley's voice sneered into the room.

Her tone was harsher than before.

And yet, to Selina, more and more familiar.

"What was it you always told me? No success can come without a little experimentation?" Disdain and satisfaction converged into a cruel laugh before the woman continued. "You thought you could hide from us after what you did, didn't you? You thought the Batman could keep you safe? Mmmmm, you thought wrong, my love."

The brunette took a step back.

"Ever since I woke up in that hospital, I only thought of finding you. And ripping the flesh from your body like plucking leaves off a dead branch." Her voice built like a raging volcano. "My only regret about killing you, Jason, is that I could only do it once. But then I realized that death was too good for even you. It would be a waste to let go of such an important man in my life, so I did what you always taught me. I thought outside the box."

The once-protégé of the Dark Knight heard subtle rustling around in the ceiling and in the walls all around them.

"I'm something else now because of what you did to me. So now, I return the favor."

A horrifying realization was dawning on Dick, the more and more he studied that body that had become one with the wall.

"My dear, darling Jason, I'm going to make you into something else, too. Something special just for you. My creator. My liberator."

"Selina, get away from him right now." Nightwing armed himself with his escrima sticks.

"My Floronic Man."

The thing once known as Jason Woodrue opened his eyes.


Author's Note: This is a character reveal some time in the making. The Floronic Man and Poison Ivy have been intertwined for as long as I've been reading comics (a very rare shout-out to Batman and Robin for actually starting that trend), so bringing him into the story at this point and time just felt right. I also felt that this chapter was the right time to explore more of Ivy's past, and see more of the journey that brought her to the here and now. Of course, it's completely reasonable to question why Jason is even still...in existence, if you can even call it that. To that, I'll only say that when Ivy said that she killed him in the past, that was true, as a matter of interpretation. The problem, like with many super-villains in Gotham it would seem, is that Jason didn't stay dead. Or rather, she didn't allow him to stay in the grave peacefully. As she alluded to above, it would appear that the plant queen repaid an old favor, and experimented on Jason much in the same way that he once experimented on her. Of course, results may vary. ;)

Thanks for reading! Much more to come. Feedback much appreciated!