He sat at his desk, perturbed. Not the desk in the Batcave, but in his private "public" study; the one where the billionaire was expected to go when he needed to get work done and not be disturbed. He never used this desk except when there was some scandal involving his company and he wanted the press to get glimpses of him through the shaded windows of the room. Technically, that was what he was doing now.

 

The note that the police officer had handed him- the man's name had been Royce, a veteran cop of twenty-four years, as he had discovered with a background check that Stephanie had given him on short notice- was an informal summons. Officially, the police were not allowed to arrest him while on private property unless a judge had given them a warrant. He guessed that was the only reason why Gordon hadn't marched down there himself to slap some handcuffs on his wrists.

 

Wayne, the message read, no subtlety in its lack of respect or adherence to convention.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bruce shook his head. He had done no such thing. He fought as hard as he could to defend the sanctity of the city himself. What would doing such a thing as removing the police accomplish?

 

The only thing he could think of was someone trying to frame him. Who was it? A conspiracy amongst police officers to get themselves higher salaries with a political stunt? Some rogue element of the underground that wanted the police occupied with a scandal while setting up for a crime? Or was this another attempt made by Lex Luthor to bring him down?

 

Despite what Clark had said in the Watchtower, Bruce did not trust that man. He had made numerous attempts to bring down or absorb Wayne Enterprises, even hiring an assassin to take him down to control business. None of them had worked, obviously, but he knew what the man was capable of. As the Dark Knight, he had personally fought against Luthor once, hand-to-hand. The businessman was no fighter, but it hasn't been about personal issues. Batman had left evidence scattered around Metropolis that Lex had funded the Joker during his mob raids across the city, but he'd somehow slipped the noose due to his money and by blaming subordinates of his company for the misdeed.

 

Somehow, Lex was still allowed to continue his unlawful actions.

 

The more he thought about it, however, he grew less concerned over Lex and more about what would happen if his other hunch was correct. While Lex had never displayed any interest in Gotham's well-being in the first place, there were others who actively sought to ruin it. What would happen if the police were so distracted by him that they didn't notice something else happen? Something really bad?

 

A disaster. No focus on others but only themselves, the police would be blamed for something really bad while they were too busy with their own. The press would have a field day if anything worse than a bank robbery happened. Maybe even something less than that depending on how the police reacted and whether or not they succeeded in stopping the crime.

 

Bruce stood up as he drew the connections in his head. He stepped into the elevator hidden in the closet of the study, the doors sealing him in the metal box as it descended down to the Batcave.

 

Who would have a motive to destroy Gotham? 

 

He blinked.

 

Okay, bad question. The real mystery there would be who didn't have motive to destroy Gotham. There was a better question he needed to answer. Who would use Bruce Wayne as a way to destroy Gotham?

 

It had to be someone who would be able to access his money fraudulently. Someone who could have access to his accounts or access to someone who would know his passwords. Someone who was in the right place and could get something if the police force...

 

Bruce started running even before the door opened. He knew he would time it correctly, so he fit through the elevator doors just as they would be big enough to let him pass.

 

Who was the one person that had become a part of his life at around the same time as this scandal? Who was the one person that would have access to Tim, a man that knew almost all of Bruce's passwords? Who was the one person that had succeeded in drawing his attention away from Gotham City?

 

 

A mysterious, red-haired nymph who had just happened to share some of Tim's interests in street-racing. He should have seen it before. The question wasn't who had a motive to destroy Gotham. It was who had a motive to wipe out the whole world just for herself and her plants.

 

Poison Ivy.

 

He ran all the way to the large computer, getting a sliding start when he landed in the large chair all the way over to the screen. He had to assume that Tim was compromised, maybe Barbara too. Tim was always spending time with Pamela, and Barbara had the computer abilities to actually use his account with his multiple step verification codes for the passwords that Tim wouldn't know.

 

 

Stephanie was not there. She had, apparently, left the manor to follow Officer Royce, based on the post-it note he found on the keyboard. It was perfectly normal; anytime Bruce Wayne had a guest at his mansion, a member of the Bat family would tail them to make sure they weren't there to scope him out or members of the criminal underground. Or, in one case, under Ivy's control. That had been how they'd found her and sent her to Arkham the last time.

 

On the computer, he quickly typed in the necessary commands to bring up camera footage of Ivy's known hideouts. He'd let her roam free for long enough. He should have settled this days ago after Brainiac's invasion.

 

The screen revealed seven live recordings. None of them showed any indication of being recently used- they all looked exactly the same as they had last time he'd checked on the day of the invasion. Well, six of them did. The seventh was merely a live recording from Stephanie's cowl as she moved throughout the city. 

 

Frustrated, he turned off the computer's recordings and searched for Tim's whereabouts. He had claimed to be simply out shopping, though the computer's map of the city proved otherwise. The signal pointed to a place nowhere near the markets of the inner districts but closer to the center of the city. The downtown police department.

 

Cursing, Bruce pulled up the live footage of the Robin outfit. The screen adjusted to return to the seven live recordings, then arranged itself into two rows of four as the eighth recording came up on screen. The final recording showed nothing but blackness; the suit was still in the Batcave.

 

He rechecked Tim's location on the screen. He had inside architecture of the G.C.P.D. building from the Batman's several ventures inside and diagrams from several public servants. From those diagrams, he found Tim in the police armory lockup.

 

Got it. Bruce then retrieved the camera footage from that particular room in the building. When the ninth recording came up, all of the recordings rearranged themselves into three rows of three. The one at the lower right corner was one of only two shot in color, the other being Stephanie's live transmission. 

 

In this recording, he saw a young man of moderate build standing in a room of fire.

 

Alarmed, Bruce shut down all of the camera recordings and had the computer open files for all cameras of the building. It took a painstaking few seconds to process his request, but when it did, he found bodies lying on the ground on each screen. They were moving, which meant Ivy hadn't corrupted Tim enough to get him to break rule number one, but he was certainly fine with knocking them all out while he sabotaged their firearms, nightsticks and other assorted weapons.

 

No! He spotted Gordon as one of the bodies on screen, slumped over a desk in the police work station. Just in case the man was awake, he tried getting him on his cell phone. He didn't get a response, nor did he see the commissioner stir.

 

On one of the screens, the picture revealed a bunch of raggedy, awake men not in uniform shouting from behind bars, though the footage did not come with audio. Tim walked by each of the cells. He didn't unlock any of them, but he did stop to punch one of them that tried to grab for him. That made the others back off from the bars.

 

This was what Ivy wanted. Half the police force of Gotham taking their final pay checks from Bruce Wayne, the other half broken, without weapons and unable to do anything as she wreaked havoc on the city. With Tim compromised and Dick out of town, that left only him to stop Ivy. Him and-

 

He cursed again, standing right up. The chair tipped over behind him and rolled a short distance away. He reached over to grab his earpiece from atop a nearby table. He ordered the screen to put off the footage of the police building a bring back the footage from Batgirl. It began processing as he slipped the comm link into his ear. "Stephanie!" he hissed sharply. "Tim's attacked Gordon! You need to get down to the G.C.P.D. building and help before-"

 

"Hello, Batman."

 

He froze, looking back at the computer. The image had finally come up and widened to fill up most of the screen.

 

It revealed a pair of hands fumbling with the camera hidden within the cowl. A finger brushed it off of the rest of the mask and handed it off to a different, meaty hand with a navy blue sleeve. The camera shuddered loudly- his technology did have audio features equipped on the Bat-suits, even if he didn't have that in his house- before it stopped, resting on a woman.

 

No, not a woman. A goddess.

 

Pamela Winters, or whatever her real name was, stood in front of the camera, wearing the dress he had described to her earlier in a perfect fit. It was perfectly tailored to her perfect body with perfect semblance of motion and beauty in the same perfect woman. Perfection.

 

His mouth went dry. His cock, on the other hand...

 

She grinned at the camera. She wouldn't be able to see him through the lens, but she seemed to be staring right into his eyes with her piercing green ones. The neckline on her blue dress barely even existed and was nowhere near the neck. The hole above her hip running around the side and out to the back. How had she even gotten this dress made for her so fast? It had only been three hours since she'd left his mansion.

 

Her red hair got tossed around as she shook her head violently at whoever it was holding the camera. "I think it's working," a male voice said. It didn't sound like Tim.

 

Royce, he guessed. How else would Winters have the camera if Stephanie had been following Royce?

 

"I know, my dear," Pamela said to the cameraman. "I can tell from his heavy breathing."

 

Bruce sucked in a breath and held it.

 

"Well, well, my senses appear to be deceiving me," Winters mocked. "I could have sworn I heard something from Batman. I wonder if he's jerking off right now."

 

"Who is this?" Bruce said in as threatening a voice as he could manage.

 

"Think of it as a mystery. One you're never going to get." Royce moved closer to her on a wave from her, zooming in for a facial closeup. 

 

"I know you're working for Poison Ivy," he returned coolly. "Don't try to pretend you're with the Riddler. Tell me what you want?"

 

"Ah, but that's where you're wrong, Batman. I'm not working with Poison Ivy." Pamela put up both hands in front of her face and pulled a ring off of her finger. Her form blurred- not the screen, just her figure, as the area behind her remained the same. Where there was once a milky white face with pursed red lips and not a single blemish, the blur reverted to a green face with several small vines and plant salves lined across her cheeks and forehead. "I am Poison Ivy!"

 

Bruce started. Where had Ivy found this magic? What was that ring?

 

"And tonight, the whole world will see me for what I truly am. The one who finally defeats the Bat."

 

"How is this possible?" he demanded.

 

"Tonight," she continued, "will be the end of Batman. The plaza of Gotham Square- a symbol of the heights of man- will be the place where the greatest man shall fall." She nodded sharply, and the camera recording suddenly became a screen of static before buzzing out.

 

Bruce stood back from the computer. No, this couldn't be real. How had he not seen this before? 

 

Tim was under her control, Stephanie was down and everyone else in the Bat-family was unavailable. The Watchtower would be of no help to him here if Superman were truly busy while the rest of the core members were dealing with Brainiac's aftermath and remaining forces. He was the only person who could stop Ivy now and he couldn't even look at her without letting his cock control his brain.

 

He turned and strode over to the chamber where his suit was. The new utility belt would be inside already. Bruce placed the flat of his hand on a panel in front of the chamber and waited as the hydraulics hissed to announce the opening of the chamber.

 

The bat suit had a large paper taped over the chest plate. He grabbed it, reading the words written in Lucius's handwriting.

 

 

He put the belt on last after putting the rest of the uniform on. It wasn't a costume or an outfit to him. It was a lifestyle that he needed to take with all seriousness, which involved maintaining the integrity of the Bat-suit. That was why he had needed to immediately take it all off and run to the nearest cliff in the cave to take off his pants and shoot out over the edge.

 

 

 

 

 

Ivy looked down in shock. She had been standing before a mirror, undressing herself so she could put on the smaller dress she had ordered for her real form, but when she had taken off the large blue dress and grabbed the small blue one, she had noticed something about her naked body.

 

It wasn't her body.

 

She looked back up at the mirror again. Her outer layer of skin was still green, but her figure had a different tone. It was the same body that Pamela Winters had when she wore the ring.

 

Tentative, she raised her hands to rub across herself. It was no illusion, something she found out when she felt her breasts; they were now larger than they had been long ago. Her hips were wider too, with the exact same proportions as Winters's.

 

Well, that was nice. Even if Bruce Wayne liked the dress no matter what, it would be an extra measure to make sure he would like her even more when she got out of the dress. Too bad about the smaller dress that was tailored to fit her old form. Three hundred dollars in the trash.

 

She wasn't after money, though. It was just a tool she could use to wage war against her enemies. What she wanted was the Batman at her side when she inevitably crushed mankind. 

 

She shrugged the dress back on, calling her plants to her. Creeping vines entered the room behind her, and she could see in the mirror that they carried pure green oak leaves and stem petals of flowers in their clutches. The vines slithered up her clothes and placed the two leaf types respectively her breasts and waist. The oak leaves that formed her panties were a familiar sensation sorely missed.

 

She hadn't worn this in a long time. She had been forced to avoid dressing in either green or plant outfits, even under her clothes for fear of someone recognizing her. Considering the frequent make-out and sex sessions she had with Tim Drake- mostly doing them just because she knew Bruce would be watching enviously- it had turned out to be a wise decision due to the odds of her being undressed.

 

She breathed in, adopting a posture of seduction then correcting it while in the mirror. Once she felt satisfied with the pose, she memorized the way it felt and let it drop. She turned away from the mirror and went to her laboratory.

 

Batgirl was busy in the corner, fighting against the officer she had been tailing hours before. Well, not exactly fighting, since she was winning by miles. They had been at it for hours, but neither Royce nor the captured hero had had enough of each other. Ivy stood bemused; the sight looked absolutely ridiculous of two meat sacks trying to see who could out-fuck the other. Both had orders to stay quiet while their mistress worked over the intricacies of her plan.

 

She didn't care much who was under the mask of Batgirl. Matter of fact, she didn't really care about Batman's underlings or friends. Tim was just an object she could use to further her goals, as was Alfred. She would find a use for Batgirl sooner or later. If not, her plants did need food sometimes.

 

The voodoo potion was still where she had left it near the end of the room. Ivy had managed to produce more of it on a grand scale once she had identified the shavings inside of it. Curiously, the shavings had not been organic as she had been led to believe by its low boiling point. It was actually what she could define as a metallic calorie. It was just a small speck of carbonic metal with pure heat within it.

 

Thirty-two beakers of them inside of an cooled incubator. She herself was immune to the affects; she had devised a permanent antidote after identifying the compound with some special modifications to account for her unique chlorophyll-based veins. She didn't know if it worked, though, so she still kept some of the regular, temporary antidote around for whenever she was going to use the voodoo potion.

 

Ivy frowned. Despite what her unknown benefactor had given her, she had absolutely no interest in whatever his "new world order" would be. All she wanted was for mankind to perish and for her and her Bat to start anew amidst the dominant floral life. That meant, even though she acknowledged that she never would have been able to conquer the Bat without the voodoo, she would have to kill him too.

 

And she would have to kill the rest of the Bat-family as well. Not immediately, of course; they would be useful if she turned them to war against man. But when it was just them and her, she would kill the Dark Knight's family. Or maybe she wouldn't. She had only known that she would keep Bruce.

 

And she would get him this night. With the spray bottle she had used for getting Batgirl to begin fucking Royce, Ivy opened the incubator, unscrewed the top of the bottle, and poured in as much of the potion that the bottle could hold. She still had a few in reserve afterward. 

 

She doubted she would need them. In fact, she doubted she would even need the voodoo potion. With her now enhanced body, her pre-implanted commands in Batman's head, and her total pheromonal domination of his Bat-suit, he would stand no chance against her. She would only use the spray bottle if there was a genuine need for it.

 

She turned around and faced the fucking couple at the opposite end of the room. The sound of breaking glass had attracted her attention. Royce was savagely pounding Batgirl against the counter and they had knocked over a few samples of a new plant breed she was developing. Annoyed, Ivy mentally ordered Royce to take this to another room. Without stopping the fucking, the heavyset man picked up Batgirl and moaned as he walked out, promptly falling on top of her the second they got out of the doorway.

 

Idiots. The plant breed they had knocked over inside of the beaker was going to be a new plant that would not only be flame-resistant, but also capable of starting fires. Thankfully, not all of the samples had been destroyed, but they weren't ready yet. She had been hoping to have had them ready for her attack on the city, but they hadn't cultured as fast as she had wanted them to. No matter. Even without them, she was ready. 

 

She spent the rest of the daylight hours in what was left of Gotham Square.