Chapter 5: The Ascension of Gotham
The city stretched beneath them like a wounded thing, its arteries of neon pulsing with the last desperate rhythms of a heart about to give out. From the summit of Wayne Tower, Gotham looked small—a toy city laid out on a table of steel and glass, waiting for hands to reshape it.
Ivy stood at the edge of the rooftop, naked, her green skin aglow with the same bioluminescent light that had once pulsated through the walls of her greenhouse. The night wind caught her red hair, sending it streaming behind her like a banner of conquest, and her eyes were half-closed as she breathed in the scent of a million panicked souls.
"Can you taste it?" she murmured, not turning to look at him. "Their fear. Their confusion. It's delicious."
Nightwing moved to stand beside her, his bare feet silent on the metal surface. The vines that had sprouted from his shoulders and forearms had grown more robust, more purposeful, curling and uncurling like fingers testing their strength. The thin layer of chlorophyll that covered his skin shimmered in the low light, and his once-crystalline blue eyes now held flecks of gold and green, like sunlight through leaves.
"I can taste everything," he said, and his voice was different. Softer, somehow deeper, as if the venom had rewired not just his body but the very timbre of his thoughts.
Batman was dead. The pitcher plant that had swallowed him would have completed its work by now, dissolving the Dark Knight into the nutrients that would feed Ivy's garden for decades to come. Nightwing remembered the muffled groan that had echoed from within those veined walls, but the memory felt distant, unimportant, like a dream half-forgotten on waking.
"Good," Ivy said, and there was genuine warmth in her voice. "Because tonight, we begin. Tonight, Gotham learns what it means to kneel."
She turned to face him, and the look in her eyes was one he had never seen before—not hunger, though hunger was there, and not love, though something like it twisted beneath the surface. It was the look of an artist staring at a canvas, a creator admiring the shape of a thing she had willed into being.
"You said you heard the city," she said. "You said you could feel it breathing. Do you still?"
Nightwing closed his eyes, and the sound of Gotham rushed in to fill the silence. A million hearts pounding, a million lungs drawing breath, a million minds churning with fear and desire and the desperate animal need to survive. The city was a hive, and he could feel every single cell of it pulsing with the same panicked frequency.
"Yes," he said. "I hear everything."
"Then let them hear you."
She stepped closer to him, pressing her bare body against his. Her hand came up to cup his jaw, tilting his head down so that their eyes met. There was a challenge in her gaze, a dare, and something else—something that looked almost like longing.
"You have control now," she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "The vines, the plants, they're a part of you. They'll respond to your command like they respond to mine. But you have to want it, little bird. You have to want it more than you've ever wanted anything."
He looked at her for a long moment, and in his mind, he saw the city again. He saw the streets he had once protected, the rooftops he had once run across, the people he had once sworn to save. He saw the world he had belonged to, the world that had shaped him, the world that had made him a tool of justice and order.
A tool.
Just like the ones Ivy used in her garden. Just like the vines that wrapped around his arms, the tendrils that had become extensions of his own body. He had been a tool his whole life, hadn't he? First for the circus, then for Batman, then for the Titans, then for anyone else who needed a weapon.
But Ivy didn't want a weapon.
She wanted a god.
"I want it," he said, and the words felt like a release, like a breath he had been holding for years. "I want it more than anything."
Ivy smiled, slow and triumphant, and stepped back from him. She raised her arms to the sky, her palms upturned, and began to speak in a language that was older than words, older than thought—the language of roots and sap and photosynthesis, of seeds splitting open in the dark, of flowers turning their faces to the sun.
The air changed. The temperature dropped, then rose, then leveled out to something that felt almost alive. And then Nightwing felt it—a stirring in the depths of his consciousness, a connection to something vast and ancient and hungry.
The vines began to move.
They poured over the edge of the rooftop like a waterfall of green, spilling down the sides of Wayne Tower in thick, twisting ropes. They spread across the streets below, carpeting the asphalt with living growth, crawling up the sides of buildings, bursting through windows, wrapping around lampposts and signs and the bodies of the people who had been too slow to run.
And with the vines came the spores. Ivy's pheromones, distilled and concentrated and released into the air in a cloud so thick it was almost visible. It settled over the city like a blanket, seeping through cracked windows and open vents and the desperate, gasping mouths of the people below.
The screaming stopped.
One by one, the voices fell silent. One by one, the panicked run became a pause, then a stumble, then a slow, dreamlike walk toward the nearest patch of vegetation. The citizens of Gotham kneeled in the streets, their eyes glassy, their faces slack with devotion, their hands reaching out to touch the vines that had come to claim them.
Nightwing watched from above, and he felt it all. Every surrender, every submission, every last bastion of resistance crumbling into dust. It was intoxicating, overwhelming, a rush of power so complete it made his head spin.
"Look at them," Ivy breathed, stepping up beside him again. Her body was trembling with excitement, her nipples hard, her skin flushed. "Look at what we've done."
"We did this," he said, and the wonder in his voice was genuine. "We did this together."
She laughed, eager and sharp. "That's right, little bird." She slid her hand down his chest, her fingers tracing the line of hair that ran from his sternum to his groin. "And this is just the beginning. Tonight, we take Gotham. Tomorrow, the world."
He was already hardening under her touch, his body responding to her with the urgency of a plant reaching for sunlight. But something made him pause—a flicker, a shadow, a moment of clarity that cut through the haze of devotion like a knife.
"Bruce," he said, and the name felt strange on his tongue. "He was the last one. There's no one left to stop us."
Ivy's smile sharpened. "There's no one left who would want to." She pressed the palm of her hand against his hardened cock, squeezing gently, and he gasped. "You're mine now, Dick. Completely and eternally mine. Do you understand what that means?"
He understood. He understood that the man he had been was dead, just as surely as Batman was dead. He understood that everything he had ever been, everything he had ever believed in, had been stripped away and replaced with something greener, something more vital, something that grew and thrived in the chaos.
"Yes," he breathed. "I understand."
"Good." She released him and walked to the center of the rooftop, where a thick bed of moss had begun to sprout from the concrete. She lowered herself onto it, her legs opening, her cunt already glistening with anticipation. "Now come here and show me."
He crossed the distance between them with the same predatory grace he had once used to leap between fire escapes, his muscles coiling and uncoiling beneath his shifting skin. He dropped to his knees before her, his hands finding her thighs, spreading her open so he could look at her—really look at her.
Her cunt was beautiful, in the way that all living things were beautiful. The folds of her sex were the color of crushed berries, dark and swollen with need, and the smell of her was intoxicating, a fragrance so thick and primal it made his mouth water.
"Go on," she said, her voice low and dirty. "Taste me. Taste what you've been missing."
He lowered his head, trailing his tongue from the base of her slit to the hood of her clit, and she gasped, her fingers tangling in his hair and pulling him closer. He lapped at her like a man dying of thirst, his tongue finding every ridge and crevice, savoring the taste of her arousal, keenly aware of the way her thighs trembled against his cheeks.
"Fuck," she moaned, arching her hips into his face. "That's it, little bird. Eat me like you mean it."
He did. He ate her with a hunger that was as much power as it was need, his mouth and tongue working her into a frenzy, his fingers sliding inside her and curling against the soft spot that made her cry out. The vines on his arms were reaching out too, wrapping around her thighs, her hips, her wrists, holding her open, holding her still.
"Please," she gasped, and the word was a surrender, a giving up of something she had guarded for years. "Please, I want you inside me. I want to feel you come inside me again."
But Nightwing wasn't done yet.
He pulled back, his chin slick with her juices, his eyes dark with a hunger that was only partly his own. "Not yet," he said, and the words were a promise and a threat. "I want to hear you beg."
Ivy's eyes widened, and then she laughed, a low, filthy sound that echoed across the rooftop. "Oh, you really have changed." She reached down, grasping his chin, tilting his head up. "Begging, is it? You want to hear me break?"
"I want to hear you come," he said, his voice dropping to a growl. "I want to feel you clench around my cock and know that you are mine, just as much as I am yours."
The words seemed to strike something in her. She pulled him up, her mouth finding his in a kiss that was all teeth and tongue, and when she finally broke away, her voice was ragged.
"Then take me, little bird. Take me and make me yours."
He didn't need to be told twice. He positioned himself at her entrance, the head of his cock pressing against her slick, swollen folds, and then he thrust forward, burying himself inside her with a single, brutal motion.
They both cried out.
She was so hot, so tight, so perfect around him, and the feeling of her cunt gripping his shaft sent waves of electricity crashing through his entire body. He held still for a moment, savoring the sensation, feeling the way her inner muscles fluttered against him, feeling the way his vines responded to her body, wrapping around her hips, her stomach, her breasts.
"Move," she commanded, her voice thick with desperation. "Fucking move, Dick."
He moved.
He fucked her with a rhythm that was primal and unrelenting, each thrust driving deeper than the last, each stroke scraping against the sweet spots that made her moan and curse and dig her nails into his back. The vines were moving with him now, wrapping around her limbs and holding her in place, suspending her slightly above the moss so that she was completely at his mercy.
"That's it," she gasped, her head thrown back, her eyes squeezed shut. "Fuck, that's it. Don't stop. Don't you fucking stop."
"I won't," he promised, his voice barely a whisper. "I'll never stop. I'll fuck you until the city crumbles and the world ends and there's nothing left but us."
The words seemed to excite her even more. She wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, and her cunt clenched around him in a rhythm that matched the pulse of the vines, the pulse of the city, the pulse of something ancient and hungry that was awakening inside them both.
"Come inside me," she begged, her voice cracking. "Please, Dick. Please fucking fill me with your seed and make me yours. Make me yours forever."
The orgasm built like a storm, rising from the base of his spine and consuming him with a fire that was both beautiful and terrifying. He felt himself lose control, felt his body surrender to the force of the pleasure, and when he finally came, he screamed her name—not as a prayer, not as a curse, but as a surrender.
"Ivy! Fuck, Ivy!"
She came with him, her body shuddering, her cunt milking him dry, and for a long moment, they were suspended in a perfect, timeless silence, two creatures of green and growth, joined in the most intimate way possible.
When it was over, they lay tangled in the moss, their bodies slick with sweat and sex, their hearts pounding in synchrony. Nightwing ran his fingers along the vines that now twined around her body, and he felt a love so complete it nearly brought him to tears.
"I meant it," he said softly. "Every word."
Ivy smiled, trailing her fingers down his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart. "I know, little bird." She pressed a kiss to his forehead. "And I meant every word too. You're mine now. Forever."
They rose, naked and transformed, and stood at the edge of the rooftop, looking out over their kingdom. The city had gone quiet, save for the whisper of wind through the vines and the distant, rhythmic sound of a thousand people breathing in unison.
"Gotham is ours," Ivy said, her voice filled with wonder.
Nightwing wrapped his arms around her from behind, his chin resting on her shoulder. "And the world will be next."
The city awaited its new gods.