Chapter 9: A New Dynasty
The taste of her was still in his mouth. Not just the memory of her skin, but the chemical-green tang of the reservoir water, the scent of release that clung to both of them hours later. It felt like a stain on his soul. Or maybe the stain was who he’d been before, and this was just… clean.
Wayne Manor loomed ahead, but it wasn’t his home anymore. It was hers.
The gardens were the first clue. What had been meticulously groomed hedges and orderly flowerbeds was now a teeming, pulsating wilderness. Roses with thorns like daggers climbed the limestone walls. Vines as thick as his arm, pulsing with a soft bioluminescence, snaked over the rooftops. The air itself was different—warm and humid, thick with the perfume of a thousand blooming things. It was alive. And it was hostile to everything that had come before.
She waited for him on the highest rooftop, a place he’d once come to think, to stare at the stars away from Bruce’s oppressive silence. Now, it was her throne room.
Ivy sat on a seat woven from living willow, its branches curling around her form with possessive gentleness. She was dressed in a gown of deep crimson petals, her hair a wildfire against the green-choked skyline of Gotham below. And on her lap, clutched in each arm, were two small, wrapped bundles.
Dick’s breath caught. His feet, carrying him forward across the rooftop where tendrils of ivy gently cleared a path for him, felt like blocks of stone.
“Come meet your daughters, Richard,” she said, and her voice wasn’t the sharp, commanding thing from the reservoir. It was warm. Proud. It terrified him more.
He knelt before her. The scent of fertile earth and sweet milk washed over him. She shifted, showing him the infants.
One had a shock of fine, red hair. Her eyes, when they blinked open, were the exact shade of new leaves—Ivy’s luminous green. She stared at him with a strange, uninflected curiosity.
The other had dark, messy hair. And when she grizzled, squeezing her eyes shut, the expression that flitted across her tiny face was all Grayson: a mischievous, stubborn little pout he’d seen in his own baby pictures.
“Jasmine,” Ivy murmured, nodding to the green-eyed one. “And Hazel.” She looked at him, her own eyes soft. “You like the names?”
He couldn’t speak. He reached out a finger, his hand trembling slightly, and Hazel’s tiny fist closed around it with a surprising strength. A current, not quite electrical, more like the hum of a sleeping beehive, traveled up his arm.
“They’re… they’re healthy?” was all he could manage.
“More than healthy,” Ivy chuckled. She leaned down and breathed deeply against Jasmine’s head. “They are perfect. No human weaknesses. Their cells sing with chloroplast. They will never be sick. They will never age as the blighted do.”
The blighted. Meaning everyone else. Meaning Alfred. Meaning Barbara. Meaning Bruce.
As if summoned by his thought, movement caught his eye from the lower terrace. Two figures moved with a stiff, deliberate rhythm through the overgrown topiaries.
Batman was on his knees, his great cape spattered with mud, his gloved hands carefully pruning a giant, venomous-looking pitcher plant. His movements were precise, efficient, and utterly devoid of intent. He was a tool. A garden implement.
Beside him, Batgirl was carefully collecting glowing pollen from a giant stamen into a glass vial. Her face, visible under the cowl, was serene. Empty. Her mind, the brilliant, whip-smart mind Dick had relied on in a hundred tight spots, was gone. Dissolved into the green. Just as he had promised Ivy it would be, that night in the reservoir when his own will had finally cracked.
“You said you wanted him to kneel,” Dick whispered, the memory thick in his throat.
“And he does,” Ivy said, satisfaction rich in her voice. “The great Batman. The symbol of human order. Now he tends my garden. He serves a better purpose.”
Dick watched Bruce’s mechanical movements. There was no fight left. No recognition. Just a hollow shell performing a function. A wave of nausea, part horror, part dizzying triumph, washed over Dick. He had caused this. He had made this happen. The feeling was as dark and fertile as the soil beneath them.
“Come,” Ivy said, shifting. “Sit with me.”
He rose from his knees and settled beside her on the willow throne. The branches adjusted, accommodating him, curling around his legs in a loose embrace. She transferred Hazel into his arms. The baby was warmer than she should be, and she smelled of rainwater and crushed holly leaves. Her dark eyes opened again, looking at him. She didn’t smile, but something in her gaze held him. A claim.
Ivy nestled Jasmine against her chest and leaned back into Dick, her head on his shoulder. One of her vines coiled gently around his wrist, not restraining, just holding. A connection.
Below, Bruce finished his task and stood, awaiting his next command with the patience of a well-kept blade.
“You’ve served me perfectly, my consort,” Ivy purred, tilting her head to expose the long line of her throat. Her scent enveloped him—maternal, powerful, intoxicating.
The last thread of resistance inside him, the ghost of the boy who’d worn the pixie boots and believed in justice, finally snapped. He bent his head and kissed the smooth, chlorophyll-tinged skin of her neck. It was a submission. A vow.
She sighed, a sound of profound contentment. Above them, the polluted Gotham sky began to drizzle, a soft, acidic rain that pattered on the broad leaves surrounding them. The twins, safe in their arms, made soft cooing sounds. On the terrace, their mindless gardener and his assistant continued their endless, dutiful work.
Dick Grayson held his daughter, felt the living throne supporting him, and watched the city he’d once sworn to protect disappear beneath a creeping, vibrant, conquering green. He belonged to it now. To her. To them.
He kissed Ivy’s throat again, deeper this time. She turned her head and captured his mouth with hers, the taste of victory and spores and future shared between them.
The rain fell. The garden grew. And the world, at long last, was quiet.