He killed a man that night, and Batwoman caught him.

His first thought was that his father would have been displeased. Father was a lingering specter, his words and teachings sticking in every place and situation he would have wanted him to stay the hell out of; he had no choice in which hollows his memory settled. His laws were rigid even years after his death, and as much as he wanted to scrub them out he couldn't.

Bruce Wayne had been a man who had made his own laws and had lived by them so religiously, the laws had become synonymous with him. So, every man and woman that followed the laws of the Bat kept him alive in sharp ways.

The others kept him honest. He wasn't sure if he hated them for it or not.

"You're a stupid fuck, showing up like this," Batwoman said as she dropped from the eaves. Her heels clicked a staccato beat as she stormed over to him. "You disappear for months, then kill a guy while dressed like that? What were you thinking?"

"Leave," he snarled, adopting that gravelly throb of authority in his voice that his father had used as effectively as a whipcrack.

It glanced off her harmlessly. She didn't so much as blink.

"No."

His lip curled.

"You're not needed here. I have this handled."

"Handled?" she echoed, blue eyes blazing. "Handled? You killed him!"

"Handled," he repeated calmly, coolly.

"Damian, you're out of control."

His name hung in the air, pendulous, and it shivered over his skin. He honestly could not remember the last time someone had used it. Had it been Drake, during the explosive fight that'd chased Red Robin out of the city? Had it been the Commissioner, when she'd called him a monster and told him that the GCPD wouldn't hesitate to bring him down if they crossed paths again? Had it been Pennyworth, on his deathbed? Had it been Grayson, when he'd pleaded with him to tell him that he was kidding, that he hadn't made the deal?

He couldn't remember. He had been gone for a full year, so it'd been at least that long.

"Never use real names in the field," he growled back, fisting both hands in his cape and turning away. "Does the concept of secret identities fully escape you, Stephanie?"

"Who're we hiding our identities from?" She shouted, shaking her head. In the dark of the alley, her hair was bright and pale as an August nimbus. Really, she should have had it tucked under a mask or a hood; it was too bright and distracting for what they did. He'd told her that before, though, and she'd never listened. Vanity. "It's just you, me, and the dead guy."

"Those are the rules," he said coldly. "You know them just as well as I do."

"Last I checked 'no killing' was also a rule."

Her voice rang, high and clear. She was getting angry, and she wasn't prone to random fits of temper. He knew that he'd crossed the line, but he'd be damned before he admitted that aloud to her. He'd caught this thug in flagrante delicto. He'd had his pants bunched at his knees, the woman beneath him shrieking in time with his thrusts. He'd had a knife to her throat, a knife that had slipped before he'd hit the cement.

Damian hadn't been quick enough to save her. The rage that simmered just under his skin constantly anymore had boiled over, and he hadn't cared that the punch he'd delivered had been accompanied with a sick, final pop.

There'd been a black pleasure, a release, in that sound. Damian hated himself for it, but he'd been bred to be a killer, not a savior.

"It was an accident."

"Come on, do you really think I'll buy that for a second? I know you. You don't have accidents-not anymore. Where have you been? Nobody has seen you in months. I thought-I thought you were dead."

Ha. If only.

"Go," he snarled. Even to his own ears, he just sounded tired.

"No." She stepped closer to him, unabashedly unafraid, head held high. He realized, with some surprise, that her head only came up to the middle of his chest. In his memories, she'd been much taller. "Damian, what has gotten into you? What's going on? Let me help."

And she really thought that she could help, didn't she? She was naive enough to believe that he wanted to be 'saved'-or was even capable of it.

"You can't," he told her leadenly. He shot a line to the rooftop, leaving before she could argue further.

Hopefully, the stupid woman would just give up.

For her own sake.

Yes, they kept him honest...or had tried to keep him honest, at least. The others had given up on policing him or had died or disappeared.

Batwoman was the only one left. It was only a matter of time before she went the way of all the others.

Gotham had several flavors of psychotics, classifications for the different levels of insanity that poured from its broken homes and into its gutters. There were those who did horrific things with reason, who repeated the things that they themselves had endured-battered children who grew up to become bullies themselves, like Black Mask and Croc. There were those that killed and maimed to certain patterns, fulfilling obsessive-compulsive needs-the Riddler and his clues, the Joker and his punchline, the Calender Man and his dates.

And then there were those few that resisted classification, that had left humanity and reason far behind. Those were the ones that had bloomed when they didn't fear the shadow of a Bat falling over them.

Child kidnappings weren't rare by any stretch of the imagination; not in Gotham, and not in recent years. It was the M.O. of dozens of the big name rogues, so he hadn't been able to connect it to anyone in particular. The sheer number of missing children-thirty in the last month alone-had made the search his highest priority, but it'd also put it on a reckless fast-track. He'd missed the obvious signs, the things that the Greatest Detective would have picked up on.

The trail led him to the forest. To the Green. To the mythical heart of the natural world that throbbed below the manmade steel and concrete of Gotham City. To the world where Poison Ivy was elevated from woman to goddess, to where her rule was absolute.

He'd stumbled into her garden unprepared, but what he saw in her beds forced him to act immediately.

Ivy had gone back to the Green. In the absence of the true Batman, the Arkham bunch had strayed into corners far darker than anyone had thought imaginable. Their obsession with Batman had been personal, and Damian just wasn't him. He couldn't hold their interest like Father had, so they no longer performed for him.

They did what they wanted to now, and didn't care if he knew. Before, they'd been like unruly children searching for attention, always advertising their crimes in hopes that the big bad Bat might grace them with his presence.

Poison Ivy hadn't left any glaring clues behind, so he hadn't been prepared when he happened upon her nest. Her children lay at her feet, lethargic and satiated, some only twisted up in leaves while others had been half consumed by the flora. Arms became branches, skin became bark; her plants were slowly devouring the boys and girls, but they were too doped up to realize that they were dying.

She'd never targeted children like this before, not in his memory. Something had changed, and Ivy had redefined her complicated relationship between humanity and the Green. Sometimes, she embraced the innocence of all living things. Sometimes, she pruned.

Usually, what she did could have been considered dead-heading-plucking away the buds that were spent or spoiled, so that the fresh ones could be stronger. It was immoral, but beneficial on a natural level. But not this time. Not anymore.

"You've gone too far," Batman said as he melted from the shadows. "This is sick."

Ivy canted her head towards him, her gaze dissecting. She was a beautiful creature, all luminous green-gold skin and red hair. She was unashamedly naked, no coy sprigs of foliage covering her genitals anymore.

She'd given up on being human, because it'd been the human in her that had loved Batman once upon a time.

"Oh," she murmured softly. "You."

"Let them go."

"I would think that you, of anyone, would see what a good thing it is that I'm doing, little Bat. The city has gone mad, and these little ones have sought sanctuary. They came to me, not the other way around." Ivy spread her hands wide, gesturing at her half-human, half plant garden/menagerie. "I give them love and protection-do they look mistreated? Do they seem unhappy? No. They're finally touched, finally embraced, finally whole."

"I do hope that you're joking," he snarled, "Because if you aren't, I'm embarrassed on your behalf. Set them free and give yourself up, or I'll start doing some pruning."

She laughed, showing wide yellow teeth.

"Look at you. You're trying so hard to be him, I just want to pinch your little cheek."

He shifted his weight unselfconsciously. What had given him away? No one had been able to tell the difference. He could mimic his father's voice, his movements, more perfectly than anyone else could dream of. He had been bred to replace the Bat, so how could she have looked at him and just known?

"I am Batman," Damian bit back.

"Darling, I'm a gardener. Don't you think that I can tell a grafted plant when I see one? Tell me, do you even know what that is-what you are?"

She slid in his vision, the verdant edges of her brightening and blurring. His readouts had read negative for any of her known toxins; in his haste to get down to the children that might still be viable, the ones that he could maybe save, he had thought that enough.

Shit. She'd changed more than he'd realized. She was putting out some new poison, and he'd been taking it in by the lungful. How could he have been so stupid, barreling in?

He blamed his time away. He blamed the frustration that had pushed him to killing that rapist earlier, the bleak, dark satisfaction that he'd felt when his neck had snapped. He blamed Grayson for being gone, his father for leaving him. He blamed Stephanie, because the stupid woman had been right.

A vine snaked up from the forest floor, looping around his neck and dragging him down onto his back. He tried to struggle, but his body wouldn't listen, wouldn't move.

"Let me go, Ivy," Bruce Wayne rumbled through him.

"Changing your song already? Tut-tut. Grafting is the process of joining a desirable stem of one plant to the less desirable, but hardier rootstock," Ivy continued, ignoring him. "It's unnatural propagation, but man uses it to make such pretty things. They aren't real, you know. Not the real children of the scion or the stock. Just...a useful combination. Pretty, pretty fakers that take some genetic material from both sides and try to call themselves individuals."

His heart jackhammered in his ears. He was hyperventilating, some cool, reptilian corner of his mind told him, which was only spreading her spores through his system. He couldn't stop himself, though.

She had him.

He wasn't ready to wear this suit. He wasn't his father. What had made him think that he could be half the man Bruce Wayne had been?

"You're a useless bag of hot air and meat," Ivy said, clucking her tongue. She stroked soft green fingers over the curve of his cheekbone, her touch oddly gentle. "Living, you're allelopathic. Everything around you withers up and dies-and that's not your fault. You got that from your father. It's a shame, really. But don't worry, I'll put you to good use for my babies. Now give us a kiss, Batboy."

She smelled dizzyingly sweet, honey and jasmine and spice so thick that he was almost positive that he'd be smothered. She kissed his neck, cold lips against his racing pulse, and the way her red hair flooded his peripheral vision reminded him of Mother.

Red hair that smelled like honey and spice. A mother that was not a mother at all. Barren, yet fruitful all at once.

But god, he wanted to give her everything. He wanted to please her, to please Mother, to make all of his mistakes right-

"Hey! It's no fair picking on an easy target! Besides, you're way too old for him. You could be his grandmother, and that? Is gross."

The spore poisoning made him remote and calm, a cork bobbing on a peacefully calm sea of devotion to the Green Mother. Even Stephanie's loud, strident voice couldn't totally cut the haze, though it tried.

Oh, he thought, as he watched Batwoman drop from the trees, She followed me. She followed me, and now she is going to get herself killed. Why didn't she listen to me? She should know better.

Ivy seethed cold fury.

"Don't interrupt, girl. This doesn't concern you."

Stephanie stood out in the gloom of the forest, her hair as bright a gold as the soft motes of pollen that hung in the air. She wasn't wearing a rebreather. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"Wow," she said, hands squared on her hips. "I am getting so tired of people telling me that tonight. He's a bat, and I'm a bat, and that makes us kind of a thing, you know?"

Yes, she should definitely know better.

"You bats," Ivy hissed, vines pulling away from the trees and dancing like live wires. "You think that you know best, but you're wrong. He was always wrong, always trying to transplant me into smaller and smaller pots. I won't have it! I won't let my children suffer!"

"A mother doesn't serve up her kids as fertilizer!" Stephanie shrieked, and there was a note of personal pain there that Damian's muddled-up head couldn't quite place. "A mother tries to do right by her kids. You're a monster! Look at yourself!"

Mother. Mother, mother, mother. He could feel the consonants and vowels slide and bunch in his mouth. He'd read his father's files, so he knew that before she'd been the fourth Robin, Stephanie had been a-

Oh.

He got it, then.

Roots pulled up from the ground, some with children still attached like weird, heavy fruit. Batwoman leapt out of the way, dodging with an ease that surprised him. She had changed in the year since he'd last seen her-she'd gotten good. Either she'd found an excellent sensei, or Drake hadn't come back to help her keep the city clean.

Damian closed his eyes, holding his breath. The deal he had made had been a costly one, but it had come with appropriately hefty benefits. If he could keep from breathing for a minute or more, his system would burn through the toxins. But Stephanie couldn't last that long, wouldn't be able to hold her own against what Ivy had become, so-

There was a single, heavy smack of flesh-on-flesh. His eyes sprang open just as Ivy collapsed, unconscious.

Stephanie flexed the fingers of her right hand.

"Amazing what a good old fashioned punch can accomplish," Batwoman grinned, her eyes a little too bright. "People always told me to use my head, that there were some problems I couldn't solve with punching. Well, what do they know, anyway? Punching solves lots of problems."

She was less than steady on her feet, making him wonder how much of a sway Ivy had had on her-how much she had been forced to conquer by sheer force of will in order to throw that haymaker.

"Did you-" Damian sucked in a hard breath as he ripped the vines off of himself and got to his feet, trying to clear his swimming head. Focus. He had to dig deep to center himself once more. His cheater's body burned through the toxins. "-did you come here to save me?"

He wasn't sure which part of the idea was more ridiculous-the fact that he was immortal and therefore didn't need saving, or the fact that she would brazenly stick her neck out for him like that after all that had happened.

No one else would have come for him; the GCPD wouldn't have collectively pissed on him if he'd been on fire. He knew that.

Then again, Stephanie had just knocked Poison Ivy out with a single punch, so everything about the situation was a little bit ridiculous.

"Don't make a big thing of it," she said, breathless. "Just pay it forward, Bats. C'mon-we have to skedaddle before she wakes up." Sirens blared in the distance, getting closer. "Man, I love the power of a well-placed 911 call. That's our cue to leave this in the hands of the hard-working Gothamites. I'll take my payment in the form of a hot shower, if you wouldn't mind."

He considered that for a moment, listening to the approaching sirens. They had about a minute and a half. Popping a capsule from his utility belt, he opened a bottle of spray foam. It was general-purpose, able to smother fires in a pinch. He sprayed Ivy's body liberally. It'd clog her pores, rendering her unable to spread the golden dust of her influence. He imagined that it'd hurt. He hoped it would.

"I'll drive. We need to do a thorough scrub-down as quickly as possible."

"Awesome. I apologize in advance to your upholstery. We are groooodyyyyy."

Nothing was said during the drive back to the cave. The aftereffects of Ivy's pollen made them both feel lethargic, seasick and slightly drunk. Steph hadn't had protection against breathing in the spores because that function had been damaged weeks before, but she didn't have the technical know-how to fix her suit. Being the lone Bat had come at a steep price. Damian couldn't say the same, though-he'd had the tech, but hadn't realized what he was getting himself into. It'd been a rookie mistake, one that he wouldn't have made had he known how Ivy had been literally growing and evolving that year. Stephanie had been aware of Ivy, but she'd known better than to thunder into her garden without backup-or a reason dire enough to take the risk of not coming back out again.

Watching Damian disappear into the trees-and knowing that he would get his ass handed to him-had been a sufficient reason.

They stumbled out of the car and into the shower wordlessly, leaving a trail of leaves, mud, boots, and gloves in their wake. The Batcave's shower was airy and large, locker-room style. It was an all-purpose shower without stalls or doors; all kinds of things needed to be dragged in there and hosed down, so it wasn't made specifically for domestic use. Steph usually wouldn't have stripped down anywhere near Damian, but she needed to wash off any pollen or irritants Ivy's plants had left behind. A nice hot shower and not breaking out in a literally killer rash were more important than privacy, so she just steeled herself and started undressing.

He hesitated before taking off the cowl-she could tell that he was thinking the same thing. The politics of mixed company was not something that the Batcave had been designed to address, really. Ever the boys' club.

But whatever. She'd known him since he was a kid-he was almost like a fucked up little brother to her. Nothing weird about that.

That thought evaporated as soon as he'd peeled the batsuit off.

At some point, Damian had grown up. He'd taken after his father's build, though he lacked Bruce's bulk. He had broad shoulders tapering down to narrow hips, hair on his chest and trailing down his belly. The muscles in his back and arms shifted under his dusky-tan skin as he washed himself. He didn't have a mark or scar on him-just unbroken skin the color of clover honey, the best that genetics could give.

Holy shit.

There was no way that she could call him a little boy anymore. Sharing a shower had been her worst idea that night, which had been a night just chock full of bad ideas.

Steph didn't realize that she'd been staring until the bar of soap she'd been holding slipped out between her senseless fingers. The noise was deafening in the silent shower. Incriminating.

Damian looked at her over his shoulder, eyebrows arched. In that second, he was a stranger. He was a man that she didn't know, and she had to shove down the impulse to cover herself up. The only thing that had changed in the last thirty seconds was her perception, but the Damian Is Actually a Man epiphany was world-shaking. She had to turn quickly so that he couldn't see how red her face was.

"You dropped the soap," he said, very calmly.

"I was done with it anyway."

"Tt. Don't cry to me when you slip on it and break your neck."

It wasn't until later that she wondered why she hadn't thought about going up into the house proper to wash.

Once the adrenaline had drained out of them and various aches and pains were starting to bloom, it wound down like any other night patrolling. In their line of work, critical saves were a regular occurrence. They cleaned themselves up and moved on, keeping track of their personal scores without making mention of who was in whose debt this time around.

Steph took her time with patching herself up and redressing. Even if his attitude needed at least fifty major adjustments-and she still had to come to grips that he'd turned into an adult at some mysterious point-she was secretly relieved that Damian was back. Gotham had been without a Batman for months. It wasn't a gender issue, really, though she'd thought that it was at first. She was just as capable as any other member of the Bat clan, but she'd been the only representative of said clan. Gotham needed a Batman-needed the Batman, which wasn't possible anymore-and a single Batwoman hadn't blared the yellow symbol loudly enough. She'd done her level best, but her presence hadn't deterred crime the way the shadow of the Batman always had.

No, they gave her shit, like she was some little girl pretending to be a big damn hero. They pushed her and pushed her and pushed her, because she wasn't him. It'd frustrated her nearly to tears, but Steph had never been the type to cry when someone told her she wasn't capable of being a real threat, a real fighter, a real Bat.

But at the end of the day, she was a real human, and it showed. She hadn't had backup, hadn't had resources, so the hardships of the last six months were mapped in messy new scars and bruises. It was a good thing that Steph had given up on having a life and relationships outside of the batsuit, because, by her personal estimation, she was getting pretty ugly.

She scrutinized herself in front of a mirror for the first time in a long time, seeing all her new scars in proper lighting. She traced a worming trail of fresh pink tissue down her side, frowning. Her pale skin and all-too-human body showed every mark.

Vanity had taken the backseat, but that didn't mean she wasn't a little self-conscious of how she looked, now. She'd pledged herself to Gotham the same way a nun pledged herself to her Savior. It gave her a reason to stop trying to have a normal life, an excuse to keep fighting until her scarred-up body gave up on her.

With the way things had been going, that 'until' had felt like sooner rather than later. So, she was silently relieved to have Damian back and wearing the cowl. She might have been the only one happy to see the little bastard wearing his dad's pointy ears, but she didn't care. She knew that he could convince Gotham that the ghost of the original Batman had risen again, and that alone could save countless lives.

Hopefully, saving his ass would make him feel obligated to include her in his new Bat dynasty. She needed the backup, the boost, and whether he liked it or not, he needed her, too. She'd proven her worth to him just like she'd proven herself to dear old dad.

His and hers.

Steph pulled the snug thermal shirt of her undersuit on over her head, having had more than her fill of looking at herself for one day. Still barefoot and leaving damp footprints in her wake, she joined Damian in the middle of the Batcave. He sat at his father's chair by the computer console, her ripped suit spread across his lap and his head bowed over it.

"I cannot believe that you're still wearing the Batgirl uniform," Damian said, not looking up. The disassembled bits of her black-and-purple suit were spread around him, and he was busily fixing and remaking things with tools she wouldn't even be able to name. He had a man's hands now, large and rough, but he worked with the tiny electronics almost delicately. He was the guy who'd rebuilt the Batmobile by himself, at age ten. "At your age."

"I'm calling myself Batwoman, so don't give me that. Look, some of us have to wear last year's fashion because we can't afford anything else," Steph said sourly, sitting down. She ran her fingers through her wet hair, separating it to be braided.

Damian just snorted, holding a screwdriver in his teeth.

"You look like you crawled out of a gutter," he said dryly. "I find myself wondering if I should simply abandon fixing your uniform, since even an excellent one wouldn't fix your face."

That barb hit. Hurt. Maybe he'd meant it to, or maybe it'd just been their usual depreciating banter. Regardless, Steph rubbed one of the pearly snail-trails of scar tissue on her arm and looked pointedly away.

"And you look like you finally hit puberty," she said, forcing herself to sound cheerful. It rang a little tinny. "Should I bake you a cake? I could totally bake you a cake."

He did look at her, then, just his very blue eyes flicking upwards.

"I see that you haven't changed at all. Just as crass as I remember."

"What can I say? My charm is endless."

"Unlike my patience with your idiocy, which is already being taxed."

"You say the sweetest things."

He wadded up the patched suit and thew it at her.

"Enough. This will hold for the time being. I'll drive you back home," he offered, which was his way of thanking her for saving his ass. For most people, a ride home was simple courtesy, but for Damian playing chauffeur to anyone meant that he felt especially obligated.

Her stomach knotted. No, that was not how he wanted to end the night. Better that he just sit and brood in his cave and dwell on a what an ungrateful, low-bred woman she was. She didn't wanted dropped off at her non-existant doorstep.

"Don't worry about it," she said, stepping into her uniform and tugging it up to her thighs. "I'm a big girl."

"Your suit was damaged. Your home is on the outskirts of the city, so you'd be chanc-"

"I don't live there anymore," Steph cut in, though admitting it jabbed little slivers of glass into her lungs. "I sold my place."

She could almost see the cogs and wheels turning in his head, the son of the World's Greatest Detective figuring it all out.

"Where do you live now?"

"The Compact," she said airily, like living out of your car was the most natural choice in the world. "I'm revolutionizing hobo-Bat-chic. I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner. I mean, now I never have to hang up the cape. Being on call's easy if you never leave the street."

"You're an idiot," Damian deadpanned.

That stung, but he didn't know better.

Steph smiled. Her lungs burned from the scream she was holding in.

"You know me, D. Always living on the edge. I'll see you around, okay? Next time, call when you need backup."

He swung his chair around, already getting back to work. Not so much as a derisive tt. Had turning him down hurt those mythical feelings that he may or may not have had?

Maybe.

"You know your way out," he said, voice clipped.

Oh, did she ever. Damian wasn't the first Batman to tell her to get out. She wrestled her suit on the rest of the way, pulling her cowl on over her wet hair.

Just as she was turning to leave, he called, "My father would have been embarrassed to see you call yourself Batgirl at twenty-six. I will fabricate a more age-appropriate suit for you. Come back in three days."

Stephanie stopped, balancing on the balls of her feet, and stared at the back of his chair. He hadn't moved to face her, addressing the monitor in front of him instead.

"So...I'm on the Wayne bankroll again?"

"I'm merely saving myself the humiliation of being associated with an ill-equipped Batwoman," Damian told the screen loftily. "I'm protecting my brand."

Steph smiled at the back of his head. This time, she didn't have to force it.

"That's good enough for me."