I'll be your net

Dick Grayson. Nightwing.

[nightwxngs]

venusinvines:

It was hard to tell if his heart was racing because his body was trying desperately to warm itself up, or if it was something else. If it had to do with the way Dick leaned into him, just barely touching, giving him permission to put his arm around him. And he was about to, hand having already moved to brush over his back just as he heard the noise too.

He didn’t want to go, which was a strange realization even than the moment he had realized he didn’t want to leave Dick alone and in danger. Strange to have that desire to remain with him, despite the danger that that would put him in. What he wanted was to stay there by his side, try to offer any little bit of warmth he could––or maybe what he wanted was to be close to him.

It was a dangerous choice, not to dart for the door immediately, to risk even a few more seconds, giving the other Robin the chance to walk in on this. Ivy knew that even if he didn’t see him, he was going to know that he had been here, the vines wrapped around Freeze’s body, Dick’s house plant overgrown and covering the floor around them. But it was worth the risk, to even partially show Dick that he meant all that he had said, and it helped that he had the excuse of trying to offer a last bit of warmth before he left Dick alone with the aftermath of the encounter. Knowing that there was no room to hesitate gave him the certainty to even try.

Without hesitation, Ivy wrapped his arms around Dick for the briefest of seconds, something of a quick embrace with the excuse of transferring a bit of warmth. It was over in an instant, really, as soon as it had happened, Ivy getting up and starting as quietly and quickly as possible toward the door, but even just that sent a strange mixture of feelings through him. There was a swell of warmth from the contact, yes, but there was also something else he couldn’t quite identify. There was no time to think of it now, though.

At the doorway, still open and waiting for him to make his escape, he turned back to Dick. Find me, he mouthed, before giving him a little nod, ignoring the shivers wracking his body as the heat finally started returning. Even as he finally left, all but running down the stairs, retracing his steps, he knew, somehow, that Dick would.

[nightwxngs]

venusinvines:

Even before he had finished offering the suggestion, he was ready to take it back, realizing just how ridiculous it sounded, him offering to get close, to likely touch him. Him, a rogue, someone who was irrevocably everything that Dick had spent much of his life fighting against, offering to get close enough to cause irreversible damage, under the guise of helping. He was well aware how suspicious it sounded, even at a time like this, when they were both freezing.

So he hadn’t been expecting Dick to even consider agreeing, yet alone look up at him and suggest that it might be worth trying.

And now that he had agreed, Ivy was suddenly strangely nervous. Suddenly, he wasn’t quite so concerned with the fact that one of the Robins, who wanted to see him in Arkham for the rest of his life, would be here any minute. He didn’t care so much that Freeze could pull out of the trance the pheromones had put him into any second, because now he had to get closer to Dick. Ivy knew that this was purely practical, that it was just a way to keep them both from going into hypothermic shock before the other Robin got here to take care of things, but it felt a little like there was something else, too. Because this was an enormous show of trust. It would be so easy, once her was that close to him, to take him under control of his pheromones, or to give him a quick kiss of death. But he didn’t want to do either of those things, and it seemed like Dick knew that as well as he did.

So if he was a little awkward as he shifted over closer to Dick, maybe it was because he was suddenly acutely aware that the only person he had been close to without sinister intent in recent memory was Harley, and even that wasn’t something that happened often. He gave Freeze another touch, mostly to give himself a second to get up the courage to actually get close to Dick, and then finally kneeled down next to him, so that they were shoulder to shoulder, close but not touching.

It was hard to ignore the way his heart was pounding in his chest, but he was already certain that just being shoulder to shoulder wasn’t going to help either of them much. What they really needed to be doing was something he could only describe as hugging, but that thought was too daunting.

“Can I… do you mind if I put my arm around you? I won’t do anything, I promise, but I don’t think just sitting here is going to do much…”

He should have been nervous. He knew that. But he was so damn cold that he couldn’t even bring himself to worry, his muscles so tense and aching that he couldn’t feel whether or not his own heart was racing, his teeth chattering so much it was impossible to hear himself think. Pure animal drive, as if he was in this moment entirely a body, doing whatever it took to get warm. He’d never been so cold in all his life, even with Freeze practically paralyzed on the floor under his weight and the force of Ivy’s pheremones

    “Yeah, go ahead--” he started, leaning himself a little closer, but he was interrupted by the sound of shattering glass in the next room, his bedroom, like the window shattering, the tinkling sound of his window pane falling in pieces to the ground below it--

Tim.

That was Ivy’s cue to go. He knew it was. But even the vague proximity of their bodies, barely radiating any heat but doing just enough from this close distance to taunt him with the promise of a little human warmth, was enough to make him reluctant to move away, or to let Ivy move away -- even though he knew the second Tim disabled Freeze he’d be able to warm up again. But which was worse? A few more moments of cold, or destroying the tentative trust the two of them had somehow managed to build up over the course of this weird, crazy night, and their even stranger interaction before it? 

 He locked eyes with Ivy, and then nodded his head towards the sound of the shattered window, the almost imperceptible sound of Tim’s light feet dropping carefully down onto the floor beneath the window. 

     Go, he mouthed, eyes a little wide, glancing at the doorway -- still broken open from where Freeze had made his way in.

[nightwxngs]

venusinvines:

“I don’t know,” he said, frowning despite himself. Maybe this wasn’t the conversation to be having when they were both in the process of freezing, and it was unclear if Victor would stay under the pheromones much longer, but it was hard not to think about. “It’s pretty valiant to try anyway. Seems like the sort of thing you’d do, being who you are and everything. I’m not saying you have to leave now, but, you know, I doubt there’s any of us, vigilante or rogue, would be able to stay out of it for long if we’re right within arms reach of everything, watching it all happen, everyone trying to pull us back in.”

And maybe, now that they were talking about it again, he was thinking about what it would be like to have as close to a normal life as someone like him could. To leave Gotham and everything else, maybe go back to school, settle somewhere and become an environmentalist instead of an eco-terrorist. It was a nice thought, but he wasn’t sure he was that brave. Maybe that’s why he was so insistent on Dick considering the idea, maybe he wanted, in some way, to see if it was possible. 

“I think there’s a certain point where you have to think about saving yourself, too.”

The chill felt as if it was in his very bones, and he was well aware if he let his body temperature drop much lower Dick was going to have a lot more to worry about than Freeze wrapped in vines on his apartment floor. The idea of going into hypothermic shock in Nightwing’s apartment while Red Robin was on his way over was less than appealing, but the only vague solution––and not one he was even sure would help considering how cold they both already were––involved getting much closer. And Ivy was fairly certain that Dick was still wary enough not to want Ivy touching him in any way shape or form.

Still, there was something in the pit of his stomach, an familiar but unidentifiable feeling, that told him maybe it wouldn’t hurt to just suggest it, considering how badly Dick’s teeth were chattering, how painfully lethargic the cold was starting to make him feel.

“I mean, if we got closer, it might help. But I’m not sure. I don’t know if I’m much warmer than you right now…” Ivy trailed off, decidedly not looking back at Dick as he made the suggestion.

I think there’s a certain point where you have to think about saving yourself, too.

It sounded a lot like something Barbara had told him, a long time ago, before Bruce’s death, just before their break up, when they’d been fighting more often than not. You can’t protect other people if you’re dead; you have to protect yourself first. He’d written it off, at the time; he couldn’t protect anyone if he wasn’t willing to put himself between them and danger; he couldn’t protect anyone if he was busy thinking about saving his own skin.

But... in retrospect, she’d been right, hadn’t she? That’s exactly what Bruce’s death had shown him: Bruce had tried so hard to save people, for years, and he’d gotten himself killed doing it. So maybe Ivy was right, too -- if just stepping away from the fight, like he’d already done, wasn’t enough, maybe he needed to do whatever it took to keep himself safe, even if it meant he couldn’t necessarily protect Jason and Tim and everyone else in the process. 

Ivy’s second suggestion, though, was the surprising one -- he couldn’t help but look up at him, an instinctive look of disbelief crossing his face for a split second before he realized that if this was Ivy’s elaborate plan to try to pheromone him and kill him or something even more sinister, he really hadn’t given the man enough credit as a villain. If he was willing to nearly freeze to death himself and willingly text one of the other Robins just to get Dick to trust him enough, well...

     “Might be worth a shot,” he said, forcing his teeth to stop chattering so he could say it without sounding as uncertain as he was. 

[nightwxngs]

venusinvines:

He was surprised when Dick corrected himself, made it clear that he had actually trusted Ivy, believed him, despite all the signs that had been pointing to him doing the exact opposite. If their positions had been reversed, he would’ve assumed that Dick would tell anyone and everyone his identity; one moment of, what, connection didn’t make up for years and years of antagonism. That didn’t feel right, though, because maybe it was a start. Ivy hadn’t been lying when he had agreed not to hurt anyone innocent if he could help it, he hadn’t been lying when he’d done any of the things he did when he was in Dick’s apartment last. And maybe that didn’t change the past, but it certainly felt like it changed the future. Wasn’t this proof of that?

So maybe it wasn’t such a surprise that Dick hadn’t expected him to tell anyone. And maybe it also wasn’t a surprise that the one person Ivy had told, he had told in a strangely normal way, as if recounting a chance encounter with a new friend, not being handcuffed to the radiator of a former vigilante. Maybe that’s why it had been a no brainer to run to Dick’s aid, when his slip had proved so dangerous.

It was stupid to think that any of them could truly get out of it. Stupid to have thought Freeze might just take what he said at face value, not use it for villainous purposes. As he kneeled there at Freeze’s side, shivering now, but strangely alright with it, maybe because of how close he was to Dick, there was a part of him that truly wanted it to be possible.

“I know,” he said quietly, the understanding clear in his voice. “It’s like I said before, as long as we’re here in Gotham, I don’t think it’s possible for us to stay out of it all. No matter how hard we try. We don’t get to have a normal life. Not here.”

     “Maybe I should stop trying,” he said, his voice low, but even as he said it he... wasn’t sure he meant it. It would have been easy, in its own strange way, to go back to the life he knew, the life he had always known; being a vigilante was most of what he remembered, the routine he’d built and the trellis around which his life had grown. Even before that, it wasn’t as if he’d been a normal person. It wasn’t something he knew how to do, as much as he was trying his best to pretend at it now. 

But... to leave Gotham? To leave behind the only home he had ever known, the only people he came even close to calling family since his parents’ death? Even if he wasn’t running around the rooftops keeping the city safe... who was going to keep Jason safe? Or Tim? Or Steph? With Bruce gone, he was the closest thing any of them had to a role model. He was the only thing keeping Jason from doing something terrible, sometimes. The only one keeping Tim grounded. 

Or was that not true? Was that just an extension of the same hero complex that had him jumping in front of super villains to save innocent civilians, even when he stood no chance at winning?

He shook his head a little, trying to shake himself out of his thoughts. It wasn’t productive, right now, to get himself into an existential tangle trying to figure out what his life meant when he was probably on the border of hypothermia, his teeth chattering so furiously his jaw ached and smarted.

     “There’s gotta be a way to warm up...”

[nightwxngs]

venusinvines:

He couldn’t believe he was actually going to do, couldn’t believe that he was the one who was deciding it was the right choice, but there really wasn’t anything else he could think of to do. With Freeze easily able to overpower them both, especially in the unprepared states they were in, they needed help, and Dick was right. Still, that didn’t make it feel any better. The anxiousness at the thought of Dick being left alone to likely end up killed by Freeze was confusing, but there was no time to let that distract him now.

Especially given how obviously his teeth chattered together as he gave Ivy his password.

The reassurance that he would come find him afterward was just the push he needed to do what he would’ve thought ridiculous only moments ago. He opened his phone, found the contact Tim and typed out a quick message, not bothering to make certain it sounded like something Dick himself would write.

Freeze in apartment, need help ASAP.

He sent it off before he could come to his senses and remember that texting someone who wanted him locked away forever was one of the stupidest things he’d ever done. Only a second’s pause, though, before he sent off another text, for good measure, to ease his mind.

Don’t bring Jason.

“There. And now I suppose we wait,” Ivy said, growing more aware by the second that the cold was getting to him. Still, though, he leaned down, and put a hand on Victor’s cheek again, hoping the extra boost would help. He hesitated for a long moment of silence, debating doing another thing he never did. Looking back at Dick, he decided it was the right choice. “I’m sorry, by the way. I didn’t mean to bring you back into things,” he muttered, voice quiet, and not only because of the cold.

The only thing they could do now was wait, Dick still putting a fait amount of weight on Freeze to keep him pinned down and complacent. He thought about asking Ivy to throw him a blanket, but it was the kind of cold even that wouldn’t help, bone-deep, like he might shatter. He was starting to get used to it, already, numb to the feeling of being numb.

     ‘I should have seen it coming,’ he admitted.

He shifted, a little, looking up at Ivy, who can come closer to him as he spoke -- and he only realized belatedly that the intent there had been to come closer to Freeze, to help keep him under control for the time being. 

     “I didn’t mean I should have assumed you’d tell someone who I was,” he corrected himself, though he wasn’t entirely sure why he was correcting himself. Ivy had told someone who he was, and that would have been a perfectly reasonable thing for Dick to assume, present situation -- and past evidence -- considered. But he hadn’t assumed that. And he still found it a little hard to believe, as naive as he knew that made him. Ivy had said he didn’t want to hurt anyone, and while anyone with an ounce of reason would have reminded him that Ivy was handcuffed to a radiator and trying his best to get out, well... he’d sounded so genuine, so sincere about it all.

Dick wanted to believe him now. That was the worst part.

     “I just meant... getting pulled back into things. Everyone said I wouldn’t be able to stay out of it, but I guess I just hoped...”

[nightwxngs]

venusinvines:

There it was, that hero complex. No matter if he insisted that he was done being Nightwing, that he wasn’t going to be a vigilante hero any longer, there were somethings that apparently didn’t just go away. Ivy wasn’t surprised that he was more concerned with what could happen with the rest of the people in the apartment than them getting out of there safely. Normally, he would have just rolled his eyes and left him there to deal with the problem himself. Hell, normally he wouldn’t have even come to his apartment to try to help him in the first place. But things were different now, even if he didn’t like to admit it, and even if he didn’t care about what happened to the other people in the apartment building, or Mr. Chen downstairs, he did care about what happened to Dick.

“Well, I can’t leave you here alone with him. He’ll break free of the pheromones the moment I can’t keep touching him, and he’ll kill you,” Ivy sighed, something nearly frantic in his voice, only made worse by the wavering of his voice from the cold as it started to effect him even more so. Funny, how only a few weeks ago that option would’ve sounded great to him, getting rid of one of the vigilantes so easily. But they didn’t want to see that happen to Dick, especially not because he had accidentally led Freeze here.

Ivy let out a deep sigh. There didn’t really seem to be any other options. He took a few steps back out into the living room, and very slowly grew Dick’s potted plant even more, across the floor over to him. He hated having to subject the poor thing to even more, but he couldn’t think of many other ways to help in case he broke through the pheromones sooner. So he gently encouraged the stems to wrap around Freeze, now huge leaves hugging him tightly, silently telling the plant that doing this would save Dick, telling the plant it was worth a few minutes of pain to keep him safe.

“Unless you have a better idea, I’ll stay here until the other Robin gets here, so that I can keep Freeze under the pheromones as long as possible, but the moment we hear him, I’m gone, alright? If he sees me here, he’ll cart me off to Arkham, no matter what,” he said, finally satisfied with the leaves and steam helping to hold Freeze in place. Ivy looked at Dick’s phone in his hand, and then back to Dick. “Once the Red Robin has taken care of Freeze and they’re both gone, please come find me. I’ll need to save your plant again. Now, what’s your password?”

It was as good a plan as they were going to get, and honestly, he was shocked that Ivy had agreed to any part of it. Even more shocking was the note of panic in Ivy’s voice, how actually concerned he was that Freeze might kill him if Ivy left him here alone. He appreciated it, yes, but he wasn’t really sure what to do with that. 

Now wasn’t the time to linger on it, though. Not when they needed to get moving now if either of them stood any chance at surviving this. 

     ‘3425,’ he said, thought chattering teeth, though the proximity of his overgrown houseplant near him, helping him to restraint Freeze, was having an almost warming effect, just knowing that if he had to let go for a second, all wouldn’t be lost. His head still ached from the concussion, his vision still blurred around the edges. He wasn’t doing well, here, but he only had to hold out a little bit longer.

He watched, for a second, as if making sure Ivy was going to do what he’d said he was, with the phone. 

     ‘I promise I’ll come find you,’ he added, as if the extra confidence would give Ivy permission to do what Dick knew he really didn’t want to.

[nightwxngs]

venusinvines:

What solution, exactly, he had been expecting was far beyond his thoughts, but, as he looked back at Dick still keeping Freeze in his place as he tried to break from of Ivy’s control, he hadn’t been expecting this. The request was so outlandish to him that it actually took a few seconds for Ivy to properly process what he was asking. He wanted him to call the other vigilantes, and the two that hated him the most, it seemed. Ivy knew that Jason was the dead Robin, and he had to assume that that meant Tim was the Robin who had replaced him, the Robin that was immune to him somehow.

Maybe another time he would have cared that he now knew their actual identities, and that Dick was basically giving him their phone numbers, but right now he was too surprised, and too cold to think much of anything. Alarms were all but going off in his mind.

“You want me to call two other Robins? You want me to call them?” he asked incredulously, not making a move to get his phone. “I’m not calling the dead Robin. He’ll kill me if he finds me here, he nearly killed me last time. And the other one, he’ll ship me off to Arkham, you know he will the moment he sees me. I came here to help you; I’m not doing anything wrong. And I can’t leave you here with him while they’re on their way, he could break free any minute.”

Ivy stood up, looking between Dick and where his phone was in the bedroom. After a long minute, he had a better idea. He did go and get his phone, but he made no move to hand it over to Dick, or to make the calls himself.

“Let’s leave. If we go now, we can get to a safe distance before it wears off completely, and then you can call whoever you want to come get him. Once I’m out of your apartment and they can’t use that as an excuse to do anything to me.”

It made sense, from Ivy’s point of view, he knew it did. The fact that Ivy had come to his aid at all was shocking enough, voluntarily getting involved in the business of a former vigilante. Calling any of the active vigilantes -- and yes, Jason, who Dick knew would probably have shot first and asked questions later no matter what Dick tried to say to him -- was a stupid idea.

But what else could they do? Just run?

Running away had never been Dick’s strong suit. He’d always been the one running into danger, not away from it, not when there was anything he could do to help -- not even, really, when there was nothing he could do to help. That’s why he’d become Robin. That’s why he’d become Nightwing. That’s why he’d trained and trained to make sure there always would be something he could do.

Sure, he wasn’t Nightwing anymore. But it wasn’t something he could just shake.

     “We can’t just leave him here,” he said, double checking that the handcuffs were secure. The pheromones seemed to still be doing their job, at least for the moment, but he could see Freeze fighting it. “What if he hurts someone else? Mr. Chen, downstairs, or anyone else who lives in the building? What if he freezes the entire place and kills innocent bystanders because we just left him here?”

He knew arguing about it was only going to make things worse, only going to waste their time. He needed to be coming up with a plan, some third option the two of them could manage to agree on, before Freeze completely regained his composure and went back to trying to kill him. And before both of them went into hypothermic shock.

[nightwxngs]

venusinvines:

He had barely even finished saying the words, didn’t even have a chance to figure out of the pheromones had worked or not, before suddenly Freeze was being all but tackled to the ground by Dick. Even with the cold, his reflexes were still fast enough to step backwards out of the way, and it only helped that Dick had aimed the fall away from him. It was apparent that, whether his pheromones had worked or not, the movement took Victor enough by surprise that he couldn’t stop it. They were both on the ground in a second, Dick on top of him holding his arms behind his back. 

Luckily, Ivy was ready for action even though he had been taken nearly as much by surprise. As soon as Dick said the words, nodding towards the drawer, Ivy sprung into action, immediately shuffling through the contents to pull out the handcuffs. He went back to Freeze and Dick, trying his best to help get the handcuffs around Freeze’s wrists, the task made even more difficult by the material of his suit. But there were more important things to worry about in the moment; not even handcuffs were going to keep Freeze down for long if he was still conscious and himself, and he cold was starting to make Ivy shiver, his vines retreat away from the freezing air surrounding them. So he kneeled down beside the both, close to Freeze’s face.

“Victor. It’s alright, you have nothing to worry about, not when you’re with me. You know that,” he said, voice soft and gently, as he reached out and stroked a finger along his cheek again. And for a second, he stopped struggling beneath Dick, stopped moving in favor of lying there looking up at Ivy half-confused. The half-sigh of relief came to soon, though, because the look on his face changed, as if the veneer was cracking at the edges. He was doing what the Bat had always been so skilled at doing, fighting for control. He wasn’t sure if it was because of his mental strength or if it had something to do with his body, the cold and machinery keeping him alive, but something wasn’t sticking.

Ivy looked back at Dick, trying not to think about the way his body was starting to shake from the cold, his plants practically begging to leave. “It’s not going to last long,” he said simply.

He kept as much weight on Freeze as he could, keeping him pinned even as Ivy’s pheremones, however briefly, did their work. Even through his clenched jaw, his teeth were starting to chatter, his entire jaw beginning to ache with the effort of not shivering. 

What could he do? He couldn’t feasibly keep holding Freeze back for too long, even with the handcuffs. Not long enough for anyone else to get here, most likely, and certainly he couldn’t get up and go find something else to help... He wasn’t prepared for any of this, anymore. The separation between Nightwing and Dick had kept him safe, but now... Would anyone be nearby? Close enough to help? Quick enough to respond?

He really thought he’d gotten out of this all, but maybe that was naive. 

     “My phone,” he said, glancing between Ivy and the bedroom, where his phone was charging on the bedside table. “Text Jason, text--” What could Barbara do? “Tim. Call them. Both of them, hurry.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to ignore the fact that he was literally giving the names and phone numbers of two other former Robins to Poison Ivy of all people, but what else could he do?

[nightwxngs]

venusinvines:

As soon as the ziptie snapped, several things happened. Dick pushed himself up to his feet, a little unsteadily but still up, nonetheless. Ivy took a step forward trying to force Freeze toward the door, as he willed his vines back off of Dick’s arms and back to him, and Freeze held up his freeze gun, training it on Ivy for a second, before instead slowing aiming it the vines moving too slowly across the floor, thanks to the cold he was giving off. 

For once, instead of immediately springing into action to protect his children, he stopped. Ivy stopped in place, still holding out a hand all but ready to attempt to attack, but doing nothing. His eyes flickered over to Dick, now standing, but looking a little worse for wear. Even with the two of them, there was no way they could overpower Freeze, not in the state Dick was in, and not with the cold creeping into his bones, making it harder to will his children to move.

“Do you care more about your little plants, so weak in my wake?” Freeze’s robotic voice sounded, as he followed the slow progress of the vines with the tip of his gun to Ivy’s bare feet. He paused for a second as if contemplating his choices. “Or do you care more about Nightwing?” he finished finally, turning and snapping the gun back up to point at Dick’s chest.

He was only glad that Freeze had turned to look at Dick instead of him, so that he couldn’t see the reaction. Still, Ivy knew that he was well aware of it, why else would he have even suggested that? And it made him angrier. Angrier still that he was having trouble seeing a way out, that the cold was making it hard to think clearly. Or was it something else. But he had to try something. 

“It sounds a lot like you’re saying exactly what I just asked you not to say, Victor,” Ivy said voice scolding, taking another step toward him, hands up as something of a false surrender. “You’re aiming your gun at the wrong person anyway. He can’t help you, and you know that. I can.”

And he reached out and grabbed Freeze’s face with both hands, releasing his pheromones.

He didn’t know if Ivy’s pheromones were going to work -- as far as he knew, all Ivy needed was contact with bare skin, but Freeze was more machine than human, and he couldn’t imagine Ivy had ever had reason to try. But even if it didn’t work, he had to take the risk that it did: this was his only shot.

Arms free, now, his mind finally stopping its dizzying spin, he launched himself forward, sprinting for where the two of them were. There wasn’t a weapon in sight, nothing even remotely resembling his staffs -- which were tucked in the back of his closet, now, with his costume -- but he was still proficient in hand-to-hand martial arts.

It was half tackle, half sweeping Freeze’s legs out from under him, throwing his own body weight so that Freeze didn’t fall directly onto Ivy. Landing on top with honestly more acrobatic grace than he’d expected from the situation, he managed to pin Freeze’s arms behind his back, just barely.

     “Handcuffs,” he said, teeth gritted with the effort, as he looked back at Ivy and nodded towards the kitchen drawer where they’d been sitting since the last time Ivy was in this apartment. Freeze struggled beneath him, and he could already feel his blood running cold and sluggish in his veins. “Hurry.”

[nightwxngs]

venusinvines:

“He’s one of them. He can help me save Nora.”

Ivy couldn’t help but roll his eyes despite the circumstances. It was always about Nora. He was fairly certain Nora was long dead, that unfreezing her, even if Freeze did somehow find a cure for her illness, would kill her anyway, after being frozen for so long. There was absolutely not evidence that Dick or any of the other vigilantes could help cure Nora, and yet. “Victor, does that really seem true to you? You’re a smart man, you’ve noticed he hasn’t been out with the others since the Bat died. Crane’s going to help you, just give them time,” he said, shaking his head.

“We can’t trust Crane,” was his only reply, robotic voice grating as he stepped closer to Ivy. He had to suppress the urge to take a step backward as the cold got closer. But he couldn’t argue with that sentiment; he had never really trusted Crane, even as they attempted to work together. Oddly enough, though, since the night he had woken up handcuffed to Dick’s radiator, he was becoming less and less certain that it was worth it to even try to trust Crane. They already had some of his blood, though, and it was hard to know what other options there were.

“No, we can’t. You’re right. But I told you what I did because I thought we were friends, Victor, and this doesn’t seem like the sort of things friends do to each other. It was just a story, it wasn’t supposed to be a reason for you to come find him,” Ivy pouted folding his arms over his chest, maybe overplaying the childishness a little, trying to appeal to Freeze’s sensitive side, the same reason he kept using his name. He wished he could just use his pheromones on him, but he’d never tried, and it was safe to assume the suit would protect him.

At the very least, Freeze was distracted by their conversation. He was closer to Ivy now, though, and the cold was making him shiver already, his blood running cold, the vines getting a little looser. But he still pushed on. If Freeze wasn’t going to listen, then he needed Dick free from that chair to even stand a chance for both of them. The vines curled over Dick’s wrists to around the zip tie, getting tighter and tighter.

“Are you feeling sentimental for the old Robin, Ivy? It sounds like you’re going soft,” he said, another step closer to him. 

This time Ivy did take a step back. But as he stepped back, he dropped the facade of pouting, and stood up straighter. He very deliberately raised a hand, and made a fist, the vines immediately snapping through the zip tie, while simultaneously there was a crash from the living room, signally the house plant was doing just what he was asking of it, despite the cold. 

“Do you want to say that again, Victor?”

The feeling of the plant -- for he could tell, now, that it was a plant, twining its way between his hands, wrapping around the zip tie -- was strange, not unpleasant necessarily, but not unlike having a bug crawling up your leg. He did his best to ignore it, did his best not to squirm away or make any unnecessary movements as he strained to listen to the conversation going on across the room.

It was just a story, it wasn’t supposed to be a reason for you to come find him.

So Ivy had told Freeze where to find him. He should have known. Or, at least, shouldn’t have assumed better of him. Of course the rogues talked, of course someone was bound to find out after he was naive enough to bring Ivy to his home and let him walk away knowing where he lived. He might not have been Nightwing anymore, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a target to anyone he’d thwarted when he was.

But Ivy was there, trying to... what, talk sense into Freeze? Trying to get him to let him go?

As soon as the zip-ties snapped, he yanked his arms from behind his back, pushing himself up onto his knees and then his feet, trying to get into a defensible stance, at least ready to run if there was an opening.

Dizzy. Vertigo. The room spun around him, nauseating, and he blinked it away. The concussion meant he was in no shape for this, but he had to do something.

[nightwxngs]

venusinvines:

Freeze’s harsh, robotic voice was easy to hear through the thin wood of the door, and the sound of it sent a chill through Ivy’s body that for once had nothing to do with the cold that followed him everywhere he went. His heart was beating too fast, his breathing already a little ragged just from the run over, and he still had no idea what he was going to do except try to reason with him. Ivy listened closely, ear nearly pressed to the door for something. And it came only a few seconds later. Freeze’s voice again, the scraping of a chair against the floor, and then a small bang, like something had been knocked over. As soon as he heard the noise, he finally pushed through the door vines at the ready, immediately reaching back out to the houseplant again, making it grow towards him in case it was needed. As soon as he was in, he followed the noise, stopping in the doorway to take in the scene, Freeze standing over Dick, stuck in a chair, knocked over on the floor, hands bound. But why? What did he think he could get out of a vigilante in his pajamas? 

“Now, Victor, it isn’t very nice to tie someone up in their own home. Besides, you shouldn’t even be here in the first place; I thought we were friends,” he said, pouting even as he held out his hands, the vines slithering down his legs across the floor to wrap around the legs of the chair. 

Maybe he didn’t strike quite the imposing figure now, in sweatpants and a tank top, vines wrapped up his arms looking out of place out of his normal costume, bare feet tracking dirt from the streets and the gardens into Dick’s apartment, but the anger might as well have been radiating off of him. He made another motion, and a third vine, one that had been wrapped around his arm, shot over to help pull the chair back upright. He tried to ignore how hard it was with the cold, how much force it took to get the vines to move, how he could already feel goosebumps up his arms. But the vines kept moving, albeit slowly, up the chair to Dick’s hands, wrists, to help him break free when the time came.

“Why don’t talk like the civilized people about what you’re trying to do tying up someone who cares about my children,” Ivy suggested, looking at Freeze. He thought the best plan of attack was to act as if this was all normal, although it was anything but that.

He must have been concussed.

That was the only explanation, wasn’t it? For Poison Ivy walking into his bedroom, in sweatpants, covered in vines, apparently trying to talk Freeze down. His head was aching as it was, a constant and painful thrum, like his heart had been relocated up into the back of his skull and was working overtime to pump blood into the rest of his body from there. It wasn’t exactly the best situation for thinking straight, and while he hadn’t really thought about his strange interaction with Ivy all those weeks ago, it somehow seemed to make sense that he might.... what, hallucinate him here? 

It could’ve been Crane. It could’ve been some new kind of fear toxin. That was another possible explanation for why he was so confused, why he couldn’t figure out what was going wrong. Tim had said something about some of the rogues working together, something he’d tried to ignore as just a bad guilt tactic to get him back into the suit.

His vision was blurring around the edges, a little, but he looked up and saw Freeze making his way over to Ivy. The pounding of his own blood in his ears was making it hard to hear as Freeze moved away from him, hard to tell what they were saying to one another.

And then suddenly there was movement, near his hands, though he couldn’t at all tell what it was that was moving.

[nightwxngs]

venusinvines:

Luckily, Chinatown wasn’t horribly far from the park, and it was even closer using Croc’s sewers; being one of the only people on good terms with Waylon had always had its perks, and tonight was especially helpful. But still, it felt like too long from the time he had jumped into the tunnels in Robinson Park, to the time he was resurfacing in an alleyway in Chinatown with Wayon’s navigational help. At least he hadn’t asked Ivy why he was heading to Chinatown in his sweatpants in the middle of the night. Ivy would have to remember to give him a few water lilies for his home when he got a chance. Barely anyone was around, the streets being less safe than usual given the Bat’s death, which made it easy to make his way to the now-familiar building, using one of his vines to unlock the front door without the proper key.

Ivy realized, as he started up the stairs, taking them two at a time, closer and closer to Dick’s apartment, that he should’ve thought of a better plan besides just to run in. He wasn’t used to doing the saving, wasn’t used to needing any more of a plan than free my children. So he came to a stop outside of Dick’s door, waiting there, listening and thinking for a second, already able to feel the familiar cold wafting from inside, unnatural. Even with a wall separating them, the cold felt like too much already, but he was determined. But he reached out with his mind, and easily connected with the plant that he had saved on Dick’s windowsill. It was still terrified, still too cold, but even being on the other side of the door, the plant felt more focused, calmer. So slowly, as to not attract attention if possible, Ivy told the little house plant to grow. To keep growing and growing in a way that a plant like that shouldn’t have been able to grow, ready to be used when he made it into the apartment, when he decided how best to confront Freeze.

Freeze was logical, Freeze was a good man. Freeze would listen if he talked to him, talked him down from whatever strange and misguided plan, likely to save Nora, he had come up with upon hearing about Nightwing’s apartment. And Freeze could kill him in a second if he decided Ivy was getting in the way somehow. The selfish part of him told him to leave, and save himself. But the emotional part of him knew he couldn’t do that. So Ivy put a hand on the doorknob, vine making sure the lock was unlocked, and listened, waiting for the right moment.

     “Don’t play dumb, Nightwing,” said a voice in the shadows, sending a shiver down his spine. So much for being able to pretend that this was some coincidence, that he was just a civilian that Freeze had no reason to attack, that he wasn’t really in any danger, that Freeze might underestimate him.

A hundred questions ran through his mind simultaneously. How had Freeze found him? How had he known who he was, who to target? It had been weeks since he’d officially given up being Nightwing, over a month, and now Freeze had chosen to come for him -- why? What had changed? And what was he planning on doing, now that he had him? Would anyone know? If Freeze took him away from here, Barbara would probably be able to track him, might notice something was wrong, but what if Freeze just killed him, right here, on the floor of his bedroom? Would anyone notice? Would anyone know?

None of the answers he could come up with instilled him with any kind of confidence. 

Behind his back, he struggled with the zip ties. There was nothing within reach behind him -- why would there be? He was home, he was in the one place he was usually safe, could let his guard down. He was in his pajamas, didn’t even have shoes on to use the shoelaces to wear down the tough plastic binding him. His frozen muscles protested any attempt to break out by force, and he couldn’t help but let out a groan of exertion as he tried.

     “What are you doing?”

He stilled, watching as Freeze made his way out of the shadows and towards him, grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him forward to make sure his hands were still bound behind his back. His chin hit the floor first, and then his shoulder, pain sparking through him, exacerbated by the cold.

[venusinvines]

a friday night, sometime after 1am ( @nightwxngs )

It was rare that he was actually asleep in the middle of the night, but tonight, he was. He had fallen asleep on the floor of the greenhouse, cuddled closely with a group of his favorite children surrounding him, vines of ivy curling over his bare feet, up his legs, over his arms. Sleeping like this was one of the only ways he woke up truly well rested. But that wasn’t going to happen tonight. His children woke him up after only a few hours of rest.

A message brought through roots and vines, a message brought through the Green, one from a child he barely knew, but one that he recognized as soon as the touch of the Green hit his mind. Dick’s houseplant. The one that he had saved. His first thought was joy, joy that the plant was still alive, that Dick had managed to keep it so, but as soon as he was a little more present, he realized it was reaching out to him for a reason. The Green spoke to him in feelings, and there were so many that flooded his mind in a rush; surprise, terror, anger, helplessness…cold. 

It was Freeze.

Ivy felt his heart sink as the realization hit him and the Green became silent again. This was all because of him. He had made the mistake of telling Freeze about his strange run in with the former Nightwing, he had made the mistake of trusting him, and now Dick was in danger because of him. He was in danger because of his kindness. Ivy didn’t even bother changing from the sweatpants and tank top he had fallen asleep in before jumping up, gathering his vines.

The irony of him running to try to save Nightwing was not lost on him at all.

[nightwxngs]

He’d been asleep, when it had happened. 

Asleep one second, and cold, the next. So cold that his muscles had seized, frozen in place, so he couldn’t move. He’d been asleep, and then he’d been cold, and then there had been a sharp, unbearable pain at the back of his head and everything had gone dark. 

When he came to, he was restrained. It wouldn’t have been a problem, in his costume, where he always had something sharp within quick reach so he could pick a lock to slice open a zip tie. It wasn’t an insurmountable problem now except that he was still so cold, and it would take him a while to warm his muscles up enough to maneuver himself out of the binds at his wrists and free his hands. 

The cold meant Freeze. Even in his blurry, drowsy, likely concussed state he knew that much. His best shot, he knew, was to play dumb. There was a chance it was a coincidence -- slim, but non-zero -- and that Freeze didn’t know who he was.

But how had Freeze found his apartment? How had Freeze known who he was? 

     “Hello?” he called, tentatively, his voice coming out hoarse. “Who’s there? What’s going on? How did you get into my apartment?”

[nightwxngs]

venusinvines:

His reaction to Ivy’s words almost made him want to go back on what he had said, and promise the impossible, but there was no point in lying to him, even if he did maybe feel the slightest bit guilty that he couldn’t give him what he wanted. The fact that he was seriously considering actually trying not to hurt everyone felt important to him, but he knew the vigilante type like Dick wouldn’t be happy with a halfway. Maybe if they hadn’t spoken this whole time, if he had done what any other rogue in his position would have done and pheromoned him instead of talking to him, then maybe he could’ve just left it at that and taken the luck that he had had. But as it was, he couldn’t.

“I wish I…well… if there’s anything else I can do, let me know. I owe you something that I can promise I’ll give you. You don’t deserve disappointment,” he said with a shrug, like it was a normal thing to say, a normal thing for him to say to the former Nightwing.

He pulled the blanket off of his shoulders and threw it on the back of the couch, taking Dick’s sudden interest in his game as the sign to get the fuck out. Ivy took a few slow steps toward the front door, and then stopped, turning back around to look at him one more time.

“Valerian root with lemon balm. Make it into a tea. It’ll help you sleep,” he offered, before opening the door to leave. “Thanks again, Dick.”

[nightwxngs]

venusinvines:

It was no surprise that that was what he asked as his favor. Even if he insisted that he wasn’t Nightwing anymore, he still wanted the same thing, and it was hard to blame him. But it wasn’t something that Ivy could promise, not without giving up everything that he had built his life on. And he couldn’t do that, not without trying harder. There was too much opportunity open given Batman’s death, and no matter what Dick’s argument for it was, that people were better than that, he had always been more of a realist.

“Every time I’ve given someone a chance to prove that they’re not just out for themselves, that maybe they care about the earth as much as their own lives, I’ve been disappointed. Everyone who has had the chance to treat me like a person has shown me that they do deserve it. Except for Harley… and you,” he explained, as if that was going to do anything to change what he was asking for.

It was true, though, everyone except Harley, and except him. And he had had even less of a reason to treat him this way than she ever did. Ivy shook his head, mostly to himself, and looked back at Dick, not really knowing himself what he was planning on doing after this.

“I’ll try not to hurt anyone who is innocent. And I’m not Two-Face; it’s innocent until proven guilty. That’s the best I can do, until people start proving to me that you and Harley aren’t outliers. But I’ll try, okay?”

It was what he should have been expecting. Hell, it was more than he should have been expecting, more than he should have hoped for. And yet, he couldn’t help but let out a small sigh of disappointment. It wasn’t logical: how could one brief conversation with a criminal handcuffed to his radiator change his mind and end his villainous ways? That wasn’t realistic. Not even at a stretch.

He didn’t know where ivy was coming from. He didn’t know what Ivy had been through, what had convinced him that this was the best way to live his life. He probably never would. And he couldn’t just change someone’s moral compass with a bowl of re-heated Chinese food. He knew that. He wasn’t going to sit here and argue anymore.

But...

       “Yeah, sure,” he said, finally, sitting back down on the couch, picking up his Xbox controller and starting his game up again. He wasn’t Nightwing, anymore. What Ivy did wasn’t his problem.

[venusinvines]

nightwxngs:

     “Don’t worry about it,” he said, with a nod. This was weird. This whole conversation, from the second he decided to let Ivy go; in something like seventeen years of crime fighting, he wasn’t sure he’d ever sat down and had a real honest-to-god conversation with a criminal, but suddenly Ivy didn’t feel so much like a criminal as just another person with different goals than him.

He wasn’t exactly going to go around town talking down criminals and trying to figure out their motives for all the destruction they caused, or capturing them and handcuffing them to his radiator until they started to sound reasonable – maybe that was taking this a step too far — but this was different, so different, than anything he had done as a vigilante, than anything he had done as Robin or as Nightwing. Than anything he could have done as Batman.

Wasn’t it?

     “Just do me a favor, instead.”

It didn’t feel like a very smart idea to agree to doing a favor for someone who was Nightwing not a few weeks ago, but it seemed like the right thing to do, after everything that he had done tonight. The right thing to do. Since when did he think about the right thing to do considering humans? It was hard to say if this whole situation had been a good thing or not, if that was how he was going to leave here thinking. Still, he couldn’t say that he minded. And if what he asked was something unreasonable, there was nothing saying that he couldn’t just not do it. He was considered one of the bad guys after all, it wouldn’t be too surprising for him to go back on his word. Only problem was that even thinking that made him feel strangely off.

He looked around the room, like maybe he was going to see something that made any of this seem normal, like something would jump out at him and tell him this whole thing was just an elaborate hallucination.

“Alright,” Ivy nodded after a pause, “A favor seems fair.”

Finally, he actually moved away from the window, stepping a little closer, half suggesting that he was nearly ready to leave, but mostly so that he could get a better look at Dick. He set the half eaten bowl of Chinese food down on the coffee table and looked at him. Just as attractive as expected, but more than that, he just looked tired, like he hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in a long time, like everything was starting to wear him down. It made him want to help.

“I’m assuming you’ve got something in mind. Be gentle with me, alright?”

[nightwxngs]

He didn’t think this was going to work.

In fact, he was almost positive it wasn’t, but he wouldn’t feel right about it if he didn’t at least try. If he didn’t leave this conversation like he’d at least made Ivy think about what he was doing, didn’t try his best to get through to him and maybe, somehow, make a difference by doing something other than dragging someone off to prison. 

He had to try.

      “Try not to hurt anyone.”

He let out a tired sigh, but he matched Ivy’s movement, facing him.

     “I know you don’t care about people, I know you think we’ve destroyed nature and we deserve it. But most of the people out there.... they don’t deserve it. You want to go after corporations that are polluting the groundwater or whatever, sure, but... most people are better than that, if you give them a chance to prove it to you.”

[nightwxngs]

venusinvines:

As soon as the handcuffs were off, Ivy gave his hand a stretch, glad to finally be free from the constraints. It would’ve made the most sense to hightail it out of there immediately, abandon the Chinese food, no matter how good it smelled, and run. After all, Dick probably wanted him gone just as badly as Ivy wanted to be anywhere but here, except maybe that wasn’t completely true. It felt almost anticlimactic just to walk out of the door, but then again how strange would it be to sit around and eat his leftover Chinese food like this was normal?

So instead of either, he finally pushed himself up to standing with his now-free hand, wincing slightly as he did. As soon as he was standing, blanket still on his shoulders, he turned back to the window sill, looking down at the plant. He was silent for a minute, taking a few tentative bites of the food while he reflected.

“Hm, look at you committing to change,” he muttered, a private half smile on his lips. “I think you’ll be happier once you let yourself have the freedom. If you change your mind, though, I make a pretty good excuse.”

Another pause, mostly so that he could eat more of the leftovers, and then he turned back to Dick.

“I…feel like I should give you something, considering what you’ve done for me, but…” he shrugged slightly, “I didn’t bring anything with me besides my shorts and my charming personality. This was a bit unexpected.”

     “Don’t worry about it,” he said, with a nod. This was weird. This whole conversation, from the second he decided to let Ivy go; in something like seventeen years of crime fighting, he wasn’t sure he’d ever sat down and had a real honest-to-god conversation with a criminal, but suddenly Ivy didn’t feel so much like a criminal as just another person with different goals than him.

He wasn’t exactly going to go around town talking down criminals and trying to figure out their motives for all the destruction they caused, or capturing them and handcuffing them to his radiator until they started to sound reasonable -- maybe that was taking this a step too far --- but this was different, so different, than anything he had done as a vigilante, than anything he had done as Robin or as Nightwing. Than anything he could have done as Batman.

Wasn’t it?

     “Just do me a favor, instead.”