#blossomreverse

The apartment smelled like damp walls and mildew that never quite left, no matter how many windows she opened or how much lemon cleaner she used. The floor creaked when she moved, and the pipes rattled every time the neighbor above her flushed their toilet—but it was hers.

Hers, in the loosest, most fragile sense of the word.

Rent was due in two days. She had $7 in her wallet. Her breakfast had been an expired protein bar she found in the bottom of her backpack, and dinner would probably be the rest of the rice she cooked yesterday.

But she was alive.

And most importantly—she was free.

The tiny kitchen was quiet as she knelt by the potted plants that lined the inside of her single window. They weren’t thriving, but they were trying—just like her. She sprayed their leaves with a light mist, humming softly under her breath, careful not to wake the baby next door or Gary upstairs.

Gary was the landlord. The one that gave her this place.

Old, grouchy, mostly harmless. He paid her to care for the flowers he sold in his rundown shop two blocks away. It wasn’t enough to live off of, but it was better than nothing. He didn’t ask questions either. Not about her name, age or family. Not about why she paid in cash. Not about why she always kept the hood of her coat pulled low when she ran errands.

It had been thirty-two days since she left the manor.

Thirty-two days since she’d lied to Alfred’s face.

Since she’d walked past the gates with her bag and never looked back.

Since she’d become someone else. Or at least tried to.

Her fingers trembled slightly as she reached for the tiny case on her desk.

The contact lenses were cheap, but they worked. A flat, soft brown that covered the bright, unnatural green of her mother’s legacy. She blinked slowly as she put them in, fingers steady despite how often her stomach cramped from hunger or how the floor still spun when she stood too fast.

She had to blend in.

Be no one.

Be small.

Still, some nights—especially when the sun fell too fast or the wrong person looked at her too long—the fear returned. Heavy and loud in her chest. That someone had seen her. That someone had recognised her. That he had finally found out she was gone.

She didn’t know why she kept expecting the family to knock on her door. They hadn’t cared then. Why would they care now?

The apartment was still cold when the morning light slipped through the cracked blinds.

Y/N rubbed her arms and breathed into her palms, waiting for the kettle to hum. The gas burner made a clicking noise before catching. She moved carefully, not wanting to wake the baby next door. The walls were thin—like the ones in her memories.

She glanced toward her plants lining the windowsill. They were her secret. Hydrangeas blooming out of season. Tiny wildflowers that hadn’t existed in this hemisphere in decades. The old roses that Gary had given up on now sprawled over their pot, heavy and full of color.

“I must have a green thumb,” she’d said once, and Gary had barked a laugh and said, “Kid, if that’s a thumb, I want a whole hand of yours.”

She’d smiled.

She always smiled.

Even when it was thin. Even when it was shaking.

⸻

The fake ID in her wallet said Emilia Forenzi, age 18, born in Venice. She’d forged the name, the history, the accent. She wasn’t very good at faking the accent, but people didn’t really listen to it in this part of Gotham.

They saw a pretty girl with sweet eyes and perfect manners.

Not a Wayne.

Not Poison Ivy’s daughter.

Just her.

She tried to get a job last week at a diner near the outskirts. The man behind the counter said she looked too soft for waitressing in Gotham, but she’d promised to learn quickly. He hadn’t called her back.

Still, she kept looking.

She only made just enough with Gary’s shop and the flowers in the nearby park he quietly “claimed” as his own. He was gruff, but he gave her an extra five dollars the other day when he saw her feeding a stray cat half her dinner.

“Don’t starve for that flea-ball,” he’d said.

She had smiled, then handed the cat the last bit of her rice anyway.

____

The nightmares came every other night.

She didn’t scream anymore. She learned to bite her lip in the Manor. But her pillow was often damp by morning.

They weren’t always the same—sometimes it was the manor again, the long corridors and cold dinners and the silence when she tried to speak. Sometimes it was the moment it happened. When they looked too late. When they reached too slowly. When they mourned too little.

But more recently … more often… she dreamt of her mother.

It had been so long since she’d let herself remember Pamela Isley. Ivy.

Green eyes like hers. A lullaby voice. Warm hands and flowery perfume.

She hadn’t thought about her in years—not really. Not since Bruce took her in and no one ever said her name again. Not since she learned that “Poison Ivy is a criminal, not a mother.”

But now, alone in her silence, in her little room with its stolen furniture and secondhand blankets, Y/N wondered.

Where was she?

Was she still in Arkham?

Did she know that her daughter was dead once? That she lived again?

A part of her felt guilty for not trying to reach out.

Another part of her was too afraid.

Because even her mother might not want her.

_________________

Y/N’s POV

Y/N had no working television, but the city didn’t need one to scream at her.

It screamed through the streets. Through the rising hum of sirens. Through the headlines splattered across cracked newspaper boxes she passed on her walks.

“Vigilante Brutality Increases in Crime Alley.”

“Masked Assault in the Narrows: Third Criminal Hospitalized This Week.”

“Batarangs Found at Scene.”

Some nights, she swore she recognized the marks.

A broken window too clean. A blood trail that vanished before it reached the curb. A body left in the perfect shape of Jason’s rage. A rooftop cracked in the exact angle Dick once used to land his kicks. A cigarette packet crushed under a boot with too much calculation—Tim.

And the shadow that never missed a target—Bruce.

They were out there. All of them.

Stalking the night harder than they had in years.

And she still told herself:

It’s not for me.

It couldn’t be.

Because if it was, what would that even mean?

⸻

Gary had warned her. Again and again.

That the streets weren’t safe. That something was shifting in Gotham—something darker, tighter, more personal.

“Stay in after dusk,” he’d told her tonight, setting a paper bag of groceries on the table. “These days, Gotham’s bleeding from the inside out.”

She nodded sweetly. Smiled, even.

Then locked the door the second he left.

But she wasn’t afraid of the men in alleyways.

Not the thieves. Not the dealers. Not the hungry strangers who eyed her when she passed by.

She was afraid of the people whom she used to see as brothers.

Because if she ever saw them again—if she ever looked into those familiar eyes and saw that distant, practiced guilt or the too-late affection…

She didn’t trust herself not to cry.

Not to break.

Not to forgive them too easily.

And she couldn’t.

Not after everything.

Not again.

Damian’s POV

It had been twenty-nine days and eleven hours since Damian had last seen his sister.

Not that he was counting.

Not that he had a tally scratched into the underside of his desk.

Not that he stared at the empty seat beside him in every class like it was mocking him.

But he knew.

And it infuriated him.

The others said she’d vanished.

The others said she’d slipped past them all.

But she hadn’t slipped past him.

Not really.

She’d looked him in the eye that morning—after their fight.

After he’d grabbed her. Cornered her. Called her a liar.

“It’s nothing that will matter to you soon anyway.”

He hadn’t understood it then.

He did now.

She’d meant goodbye.

At school, her name still came up.

Y/N Wayne.

The girl who suddenly “returned to Italy.”

Back to her “supermodel mother”—at least, that’s what her friends claimed. It’s what she had told them.

They all bought it.

They called it romantic. Mysterious.

Like she’d left for a glamorous life.

But Damian knew better.

The softness in her eyes before she left wasn’t joy.

It was resignation.

He had tried—quietly at first.

Digging behind the scenes. Asking questions without being obvious.

Then, after a week, subtlety died.

He skipped class.

He hacked into school servers, city cameras, bus routes.

He threatened. Intimidated. Pressured.

He found Silas. Beat him within an inch of expulsion. Again.

And when the school didn’t act fast enough, he made them.

Silas was gone the next morning.

But it didn’t satisfy him, because Y/N wasn’t anywhere.

At night, Robin bled through Gotham.

Damian stalked rooftops not for criminals—but for a slip of movement that might be her.

He shattered kneecaps for a name. Broke ribs for a whisper.

Even the villains noticed.

“Robin’s gotten… personal again,” Harley had murmured after escaping a busted safehouse.

But nothing helped.

Each time he paused, high above the city in the bitter dark, he swore he could feel her.

Somewhere below.

Somewhere lonely.

And not calling for him.

He hated her for that.

He hated himself more.

She belonged to them. To him.

To the family. To the house. To his routine. His mornings. His world.

And now she was gone.

_____

Dick’s POV

He hadn’t been back to Bludhaven in three weeks.

The people were worried.

The criminals were thrilled.

But Dick didn’t care.

He told Bruce he wasn’t capable of “handling other lives” until he found the one life that actually mattered.

And no one argued.

Not anymore.

At first, he’d tried to believe it was all temporary.

That she had just… run off to prove a point.

That she’d come back, pouty but forgiving, with that innocent little laugh and into his arms held open like a truce.

But one month later—there were no illusions left.

His little flower was gone.

And something in him had gone cold.

The smile?

Gone.

The charm?

Buried.

Even Jason said it once—gruff and to the point:

“You look more like Bruce every damn day.”

And Dick hadn’t answered.

Because Dick wasn’t Bruce.

Bruce had forgotten her.

He had abandoned her.

But Dick had known. He’d seen.

He just didn’t act.

She used to leave notes.

Little drawings tucked into his gear bag when he’d visit.

He’d find doodles of himself and her—with giant goofy smiles—under his glove cases.

He hadn’t kept a single one.

He told himself he was busy.

She was a kid.

She’d grow out of it.

But now?

Now he was in her room every other day—just sitting, just looking.

Searching every inch of that now-empty drawer like it was a crime scene.

And maybe it was.

Because something had died in that room.

He’d found the old plush once.

The elephant one.

Alfred said she took it with her—so the one he found was a decoy.

“She knew someone would check,” Tim had whispered.

“She planned this.”

And that shattered Dick in a way fists never had.

She didn’t even trust them to miss her.

He walked the alleys at night.

Not as Nightwing.

Just as someone looking for a ghost in a little green sweater.

The one she wore all the time when she was younger—the one that matched the flowers she grew.

He used to call her his little flower.

She used to love that.

She even wrote it in one of those diary entries he found—buried in the box of discarded drawings they’d all ignored:

“I wish he would call me little flower again. I think I’d feel like he loves me if he did.”

Dick never cried. Not even when his parents died.

But when he read that—he’d just sat down right on the floor and shook.

“You were the soft one,” Jason had thrown at him last week.

“Where the hell were you when she needed you?”

He didn’t answer then either.

Because the truth was brutal:

He’d been smiling for everyone else.

Just not her.

Now he didn’t smile at all.

And when he caught anyone slacking on patrol, skipping a corner, missing a lead—he snapped.

“We are finding her.”

It wasn’t just a command.

It was a vow.

A curse.

And every night, when he sat in the shadows of her room, that vow echoed again and again like a prayer to a flower-shaped ghost:

“I’m gonna find you, Y/N”

“I don’t care what it takes.”

_____

Jason was never good at guilt.

He could shoot it in the face, bury it in the ground, drink it away.

But not this.

Not when the guilt had a name.

A voice.

A laugh.

A heartbeat he couldn’t find anymore.

Y/N.

Red Hood didn’t patrol anymore. He hunted.

He tore through the underworld like a rabid dog, taking names, putting bodies in the ER, slamming faces into pavement hard enough to shatter teeth. Criminals whispered about it. That something had snapped in the Red Hood. That he’d gone fully off-leash.

They were right.

Because she was gone.

And someone had to pay for it.

He blamed Bruce, obviously. Jason always blamed Bruce. For being cold. For being blind. For never knowing what to do with someone soft. For burying himself in work while she withered upstairs. How the hell do you forget your own daughter?

But blame was easy.

What wasn’t easy was looking at himself.

He remembered the first time she came up to him. Little thing. Barely past toddler years, wide-eyed and sticky with jam, calling him “Jayshu” in that babbling baby voice.

He didn’t say anything back.

He remembered her knocking on his door when he returned after dying — begging him to come down for cookies she made.

He told her to leave him the hell alone.

He remembered yelling. Something about Poison Ivy. Something about how she was just a seed of villainy waiting to sprout.

She cried.

And he did nothing.

She never stopped being sweet after that. She just stopped hoping.

God.

She’d always tried.

And now she was gone — not kidnapped, not taken. She left.

She left them.

Left him.

She was somewhere out there in Gotham. Cold, starving, maybe scared, and trying to make a life for herself with whatever pieces she thought she could carry.

Because they’d convinced her — all of them — that the mansion didn’t have room for her. That she was a footnote in her own damn home.

Jason swore if she was dead—

No.

She wasn’t dead.

She couldn’t be.

He refused to believe that.

He was going to find her.

If he had to burn down every alley, question every creep, put a bullet in every bastard that even looked at a girl wrong—

He was going to find his baby sister.

And this time, he wasn’t letting her go.

Not until she knew what she meant to him.

Even if he had to drag her home, kicking and crying and hating him.

Because hate was better than fear.

Hate meant she was alive.

And he could live with that.

——————
TIm’s POV

Tim hadn’t slept in thirty-two hours. His fingers trembled faintly over the keyboard, dark half-moons carved under bloodshot eyes, the whites gone dull with insomnia and stimulants. The walls of his room were drowned in screens, all reflecting her face — what little he could still find of it.

Her school file. Old pictures. Surveillance footage from Gotham Academy — months old. The last known digital remnants of Y/N Eloise Wayne.

But it wasn’t enough.

He’d run every facial match algorithm. Every public transport log. Hacked through every ID registration, health record, housing file under her legal name. And she was gone.

“She’s too smart,” he muttered under his breath, rubbing his temple. “She lied. She planned. She’s not Y/N Eloise Wayne anymore.”

The revelation haunted him. It burned, rotted somewhere behind his ribs. She had vanished under his nose, wearing a false name like a cloak — and he hadn’t seen it coming.

He had gone through every file they owned on her. Every school note, every doctor visit, every written scrawl from her elementary notebooks. He replayed her school performance clips over and over, like decoding a cipher. Her smile made his chest cave in. The applause that followed felt like mockery now.

He didn’t even know her.

He thought he did.

Now, even the way she looked at him — polite, soft, cautious — seemed like a stranger’s ghost haunting his memory.

It was always her that tried. She came to him, not the other way around. He’d been too cold. Too preoccupied. Too… utilitarian. And now she was gone.

______

Bruce

Wayne Manor was silent.

It had been a tomb since the day she left.

Bruce sat in the cave beneath it, not the man in the suit but the shell. His cowl sat on the table beside a half-finished bottle of bourbon, the second one tonight. Or maybe the third. He didn’t count anymore. What was the point?

He hadn’t shaved. Hadn’t stepped into the office in days. Lucius had called. He didn’t answer. No one in the company knew why Bruce Wayne had vanished. But Gotham still had Batman.

Only, he wasn’t Batman anymore. He was something else now. Something starving.

At night he stalked the rooftops with animal focus. Interrogated criminals with bone-breaking efficiency. Asked questions. Searched every corner of the city. Every district. Every shadow. He didn’t rest. He didn’t breathe unless it was with her name in his mind.

His daughter. His daughter.

It repeated like a pulse in his ears.

It burned behind his eyes.

She was all he had left of Ivy — that mistake, that moment — but she had been more than that. From the instant he saw her, frail and bright-eyed, he knew. She wasn’t like any of them.

She was good.

And he’d abandoned her. Buried her behind patrol logs and briefing reports and other children. The guilt made him flinch from his own reflection. He wasn’t fit to be her father.

But he would bring her back. He would. He would find her, cradle her against his chest, and keep her. Lock the doors. Watch over her like a warden, not a parent. If that’s what it took.

Because the world wasn’t safe. And neither was he.

⸻

None of them spoke about the dreams.

Not Dick. Not Tim. Not Bruce. Not even Damien, who barely slept at all.

But each night they saw her.

Not the girl who vanished. Not the child who used to smile at them and draw them flowers.

No, in their dreams, she was older. Just a little. Sixteen, seventeen, maybe eighteen — and dying.

Sometimes she was bloodied. Sometimes drowned. Sometimes strangled. Her eyes always wide, always shocked, always alone.

They woke up breathless. Sometimes screaming. Always cold. Always guilty.

None of them could explain it.

She hadn’t died. Had she?

They told themselves it was the mind, punishing them for failing her. But something deeper twisted in their stomachs, something that whispered:

You weren’t just too late.

You were never there at all.

______

Tim

Tim hadn’t slept in forty-three hours.

His coffee was cold.

His shirt was wrinkled.

His hands trembled at the keyboard.

But he wasn’t stopping.

The Batcave was silent except for the hum of outdated servers and the sharp clack of his fingers moving too fast. The screens were filled with dead ends. Burned leads. Traffic cams from the docks. Street-side black markets. Pawn shop ledgers. None of them led to her.

Y/N Wayne.

Y/N Eloise Wayne.

Y/N Eloise Isley.

All versions. Dead files.

He stared at the access logs of the encrypted folder Alfred once backed up manually. The old section of the system not even connected to the current grid. Half of it was still mirrored from the pre-reset servers Bruce had shut down after the Joker War.

Tim was about to close it.

But then his cursor hovered over something.

CASE FILE_413-A — DECEASED: WAYNE, Y/N E.

He froze.

Click.

His breath caught.

The screen flickered to life with a full-color dossier.

A Bat-file.

Compiled. Stamped. Finalized.

Tim’s pupils dilated as the first image loaded.

It was a crime scene photo.

A girl — slender frame, (Y/S) skin, long tangled hair matted in blood — lay crumpled in a side alley.

Her body was twisted. There were vines curled around her hands like she had tried, in the end, to summon something. The file dated her death at age eighteen. The location: Gotham Lower East.

Another picture followed.

A toe tag. Her name.

Y/N Eloise Wayne.

Tim recoiled in the chair, the metal frame screeching against the floor.

He clutched the edge of the desk, knuckles white. The blood in his veins ran ice cold.

“No…”

The file was real.

Old. Buried.

Made by them.

There was Bruce’s signature. His own encrypted seal. A medical report from Leslie. Postmortem autopsy. She’d been stabbed. Multiple times. Lungs collapsed. Defensive wounds.

Motive listed: “Targeted for her parentage. Daughter of Poison Ivy. Daughter of Bruce Wayne.”

She died alone.

Tim’s stomach turned. Images blurred behind his lashes as his heart pounded in his throat. Then — faint, like an echo —

a memory.

her voice.

“It’s okay, Tim… I know you’re busy. Maybe next time…”

His hand clenched.

It made sense now. Her withdrawn smile. Her evasiveness. The way she flinched when someone used her name too sweetly. The edge of fear under her fake smiles. The lies about school. About friends.

She remembered.

“She knew,” he whispered. “Oh my god… she knew.”

Tim’s eyes scanned through the final page of the report.

A line written in someone’s hand. His own, maybe.

“We were too late.”

“She died thinking she wasn’t loved.”

“We never made it in time.”

He stood up fast, the chair clattering behind him.

No one else had seen this yet.

They didn’t know.

They couldn’t know.

But they would.

Tonight.

“They have to know,” Tim said, eyes still locked on the glowing screen. “We all failed her once. We don’t get to fail her again.”

____

The group chat pinged three times.

Then ten.

Then twenty.

❝ Everyone get to the Cave. Now. ❞

❝ I found something. ❞

❝ It’s about her. ❞

No one responded at first.

Damian left him on “Read.”

Dick ignored it.

Jason sent back a single skull emoji.

He should have expected these reactions since he has been sending the same sentence every day for the past few days.

So Tim lied.

❝ I know where she is. ❞

Within minutes, the Cave roared to life with engines and boots slamming against concrete.

Jason was the first to storm in, eyes bloodshot and helmet still on.

Damian followed, jaw clenched, already starting to bark—

“Where is she, Drake?! Where is my sister—”

Tim stood near the console, arms crossed.

“I lied.”

Jason lunged.

Fist in Tim’s collar. Slam. Back against the wall.

“You what—?!”

“I lied,” Tim repeated, voice low. “Because I had to get you all here. Because I found something.”

Bruce’s silhouette broke through the Cave entrance — suit half-on, stubble dark along his jaw, shadows under his eyes like bruises.

“Enough.”

Jason didn’t let go. Not yet.

“If this is another theory—”

“It’s not.”

Tim shoved Jason off. Hard.

The screen behind him lit up.

CASE FILE_413-A

Subject: Y/N Eloise Wayne

Status: DECEASED

Age: 18

COD: Homicide. Multiple stab wounds. Cause: Confirmed assassination.

Perpetrator: Unidentified rogue faction. Targeted for her parentage.

The room went still.

“What the hell is this,” Dick asked, already stepping closer.

Bruce’s breath hitched. Damian’s eyes narrowed. Jason froze.

“A fake?” Dick suggested.

Tim shook his head.

“Timestamped. Five years from now. This is from before. A different timeline.”

Damian scoffed. “You’re saying she died in the future?”

“She did die,” Tim said. “We all just forgot.”

They stared.

He opened the rest of the file. Images, recordings. Surveillance. Her body. Blood pooled in the alley. The report showed Bruce petitioned Zatanna and Constantine. There was a time ritual. Risky. Forbidden.

“You risked time to bring her back?” Jason muttered.

Bruce didn’t answer.

Tim’s voice cut in. Cold.

“We failed her once. She died alone. We didn’t protect her. Not any of us.”

Jason turned toward the screen. The photo flickered —

her eyes still open.

blood across her temple.

dirt under her nails like she fought to crawl away.

Damian took a step back. “No…”

“She knew,” Tim said. “That’s why she looked at us like that. Why she avoided us. She came back. And she remembered.”

No one moved.

The room was silent, suffocating beneath the cold glare of the screen where Y/N’s death flickered like an echo. The air clung to their lungs like ash — thick, bitter, and impossible to swallow. Damian had dropped to the floor, arms wrapped tight around himself, his head bowed low as if sheer will could reverse time. His lips moved soundlessly, whispering her name over and over, as if it was a prayer. As if saying it enough times would call her back.

Jason stood with his jaw clenched so tight it cracked. His eyes — wild and bloodshot — stayed locked on the image of her body. He didn’t look away, not even once. The blood. The dirt. The way she had died like a stranger in the street. He saw it every night in his head now, but nothing compared to seeing it in full color. The walls around his heart — already thin when it came to her — collapsed completely.

Dick had turned away. Not from shame, but from grief so raw it left his hands shaking. He dug his nails into his palms to stop the trembling. He wanted to scream. He wanted to tear the Cave apart and rebuild it out of something softer, something warmer — something that had room for little girls with flowers in their hands and letters in their drawers that he never read.

Tim stood with arms crossed, but his composure was an illusion. His voice was hollow. His shoulders slumped beneath the weight of knowing. He had chased every digital ghost in Gotham trying to find her — but this file was not just a clue. It was a memory clawing its way back. A record of a crime they all committed through silence, through neglect, through absence.

And Bruce… he hadn’t spoken since the image loaded. His breath had gone still. He looked at his daughter’s face on the screen — the girl he had summoned back into this world with rituals and desperation — and he saw her dying again. Just like before. All over again. She had called him “Daddy” in her last breath. He heard it in his sleep now.

They didn’t speak. Not for a long time. Each of them lost in the torment of the realization that this wasn’t just about a runaway child. It was about the daughter they failed — a second time. About the signs they missed. The eyes that begged them to remember.

They had dismissed her heartbreak. They had questioned her distance. They had shrugged off her quiet smiles as teenage moodiness. But now the pieces came together with devastating clarity.

She remembered. That’s why she changed. That’s why she ran. She remembered dying alone while they forgot her.

No one needed to say it out loud.

The mission had changed. This wasn’t about finding her anymore.

This was about getting her back before Gotham swallowed her whole again.

And this time —

none of them would let fate take her.

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The city skyline bled grey against the window.

Meetings stacked on his tablet. Stock reports in his inbox. A board call in twenty minutes.

And yet—

Bruce couldn’t stop staring at the box on his desk.

It had arrived with Alfred that morning.

No explanation. No label.

Just a quiet look. A subtle press of the old man’s hand on his shoulder.

“You may want to read this today, Master Bruce.”

He hadn’t opened it at first.

Didn’t think much of it.

Too many numbers. Too many decisions. Too many fires in Gotham to put out.

But now—he was exhausted.

And he needed something to distract him.

He opened the lid.

Dozens of envelopes.

All small. Some crooked. Many with bright, mismatched stickers and glitter residue.

A few had tiny pressed flowers taped to the corner. Others had faint crayon hearts scribbled along the fold.

He blinked.

Lifted one.

____

To Daddy

From: Y/N

____

The writing was messy.

Half the letters backward.

The “N” in her name was so big it crossed the entire envelope.

He hesitated.

Then slowly, carefully, peeled it open.

The paper inside was pink.

Lined notebook paper, torn at the edge. Crumpled. Wrinkled. Like it had been folded and unfolded dozens of times before she finally gave it to Alfred to deliver.

The handwriting inside made his throat tighten.

⸻

Hi Daddy.

I saw a movie yesterday with Alfred and it had a dad and a girl in it and they fed ducks. They looked very happy and the ducks were very cute. I want to feed ducks too.

Maybe if you are not busy we could go. There are ducks in the park. Alfred said so.

But it is okay if you are busy. You are Batman.

I still like you.

From,

Y/N

(PS I will bring the bread!!! Alfred baked it with me)

⸻

The final line was in all caps.

The “D” in bread looked like a flower.

He read it twice.

Then three more times.

By the fourth, he had to stop.

He closed his eyes.

The words burned.

The sweetness. The effort. The gentle apology woven into every sentence—as if even asking for a moment of his time was too much.

As if she already expected to be dismissed.

He reached into the box again.

Pulled another letter.

Then another.

And another.

⸻

Father, I got 100% on my test. Alfred says that means perfect.

I wrote a story with your name in it. Do you want to read it?

I miss you when you are gone. I am good, I promise. Please come say goodnight.

⸻

Some were barely legible.

Some were never even opened.

All were dated between age five to twelve.

All addressed to him.

⸻

He remembered the first time he saw her.

When Ivy had been cornered in that warehouse, she’d laughed in his face.

“Congratulations,” she hissed, as the chains tightened around her ankles. “You caught the eco-terrorist. Now go find your daughter.”

He’d thought she was bluffing.

But she wasn’t.

She led them to an address.

Run-down. Hidden.

And there—in Alfred‘s arms—was a girl.

Tiny. Pale. Eyes too wide for her face.

A stuffed elephant held in her hands.

Bruce had frozen.

Because when she looked up at him—

She smiled.

Small. Hopeful.

“Are you my daddy?”

He didn’t know how to answer.

Didn’t know how to hold her.

Didn’t even remember what he said that first day.

But she reached for him anyway.

⸻

Back in the present, Bruce pressed his hand to the letter again.

His breath shook.

⸻

Alfred

He had watched her for weeks.

Watched her smile politely. Lie sweetly. Slip in and out like a shadow.

And he had known something was wrong.

Something was cracking behind that smile.

He couldn’t do much.

Not anymore.

But he could make them see what they had done.

So he packed the letters.

Every single one he’d intercepted.

Every one she’d handed him, hopeful.

Every note that went unanswered.

Every truth her father never read.

He packed them in a box.

And gave them to Bruce.

“They always think they have time,” Alfred thought grimly, standing now in the empty kitchen.

Until one day… the girl is simply gone.

____

Bruce

He couldn’t stop shaking.

The box was spread out across his desk now—every envelope, every little folded note, laid out by date.

Color-coded by her own childish hand.

“2000—&—10”

“11 and a haf.”

“Thirtenth!!! (finally!!)”

“Fourtine”

He sat there, frozen, sorting them like pieces of a life he never bothered to memorize.

The birthdays.

The school plays.

The “Alfred let me help him make a cake today!” notes.

The “I got picked for science fair!”

The “I was the sunflower in the dance recital!”

The “Tim showed me the Batcomputer (don’t tell).”

He kept reading.

Letter after letter.

And what haunted him most wasn’t the content.

It was the tone.

How it changed.

At first, she always asked:

“Can we go to the park, Daddy?”

“Will you come see my painting?”

“Can we have breakfast together sometime, just us?”

And then she started writing more like:

“I know you’re busy. That’s okay.”

“I hope you’re safe tonight.”

“I watched the news. You looked brave.”

Then—

She stopped asking altogether.

Just sent updates.

“I won the English award this week.”

“Alfred said I looked pretty in green.”

“Leyla,my friend, let me braid her hair again.”

“It’s okay if you don’t have time. I just wanted to say hi.”

And still, he never wrote back.

He didn’t remember ever seeing these.

Had Alfred intercepted them?

Or had he just…

Not cared enough to notice.

His hand hovered over the last envelope.

It was dated exactly one year ago.

The handwriting was sharper now.

Grown.

Still soft. Still graceful.

But… no stickers. No drawings. No crayon hearts.

Just a white envelope.

Sealed with tape.

Her name signed in ink, small and clean:

From Y/N

He opened it.

His stomach dropped.

____

Dear Dad,

I hope you are well.

I know you are busy with work and the city and your responsibilities.

I just wanted to write this, maybe one last time.

I don’t think I’ll send more letters after this. It’s not because I’m mad. I’m not.

I just realized maybe I’ve been writing them wrong all these years.

I thought if I told you about me, you’d want to be part of it.

But maybe you already are part of too many things.

That’s okay.

I’ll still cheer for you. I’ll still think you’re amazing.

Thank you for giving me a home. Even if you couldn’t stay in it much.

I hope the city treats you kindly.

I hope I made you proud, even if you didn’t notice.

—Y/N

⸻

He didn’t breathe.

He couldn’t.

The weight of the paper in his hand felt heavier than any file, any blueprint, any death certificate he’d ever signed.

A whole year ago.

She had already stopped.

She had already stopped.

Stopped writing.

Stopped asking.

Stopped hoping.

But Bruce—

He wasn’t ready to believe that yet.

He didn’t call.

Didn’t ask Alfred to check.

He just left.

Tore out of Wayne Tower like a man with purpose, not panic. Like this wasn’t spiraling out of his control.

She’s just upset. She’ll come around and forget about it. She always does.

He told himself that. Over and over.

She’ll be there.

She’ll be home.

With Damian.

Back from school.

He just needed to be at the Manor when she walked in.

He just needed to see her. To hold her.

To apologize and make up for all the times he has been a terrible father.

The car couldn’t move fast enough.

He arrived at the manor in record time, stepping through the massive front doors with his jaw clenched, eyes searching the entry hall.

Empty.

Silent.

She’s probably upstairs.

“Miss Y/N hasn’t returned yet,” Alfred had said gently on the phone, moments before Bruce arrived. But Bruce hadn’t listened.

He was already in motion.

Then he heard the front door open behind him.

Footsteps.

Fast. Familiar.

Damian.

The boy stormed in, school blazer unbuttoned, tie yanked loose. He looked irritated—tense and brooding the way he always was after a fight.

Bruce turned to face him.

“Where’s your sister?”

Damian blinked. Frowned.

“…She’s not back yet?”

Bruce’s eyes narrowed. “You were supposed to bring her home.”

Damian scoffed, brushing past him with a grimace. “Tch. She probably left early.”

Bruce didn’t move.

Damian kept talking. “We had an argument, okay? She was being secretive. Again. I figured she’d run off to sulk like she always does.”

He sounded defensive.

But Bruce wasn’t listening anymore.

He was already walking.

Up the stairs.

Slow. Measured.

Damian hesitated in the hall, watching him ascend.

He sighed.

Fine. Might as well tell him now. Tell him everything.

About the Silas guy. The fake friend. The lies. She’s hiding something, and someone needs to say it.

He followed after his father, still stewing from the hallway encounter at school.

Bruce reached the end of the second-floor corridor.

The room furthest from the rest.

The door was cracked open.

He pushed it fully open.

And stopped.

Not because the room was plain.

He’d already noticed that last week.

Not because there were no flowers.

Not because the bed was neatly made.

Not because there were no shoes by the wall or coat on the hook.

But because—

Her elephant plush was gone.

The one thing she never went anywhere without.

The one thing he remembered from the very beginning.

It wasn’t there.

Something in his chest—

snapped.

He stood frozen in the doorway, eyes wide, breathing shallow. The sound of his own heartbeat pulsed in his ears like thunder.

It was too quiet.

Behind him, footsteps slowed.

Alfred had just returned—his keys still in hand, grocery bags half-unpacked in the foyer when Bruce arrived.

He didn’t speak.

Didn’t need to.

He stood behind Bruce now.

Looked into the same empty space.

And his heart cracked.

Not from surprise.

But from confirmation.

He had feared this.

Felt it in his bones.

Watched her slip farther and farther from them like fog through fingers.

Bruce’s hands slowly curled at his sides.

His voice, when it came, was low. Cold.

“Where the hell is my daughter?”

Alfred didn’t answer.

Didn’t have to.

The silence said it all.

Damian had just stepped into the hall behind them.

Ready to tattle. Ready to vent and snitch on his little sister.

Then he heard those words.

Froze.

Eyes narrowing.

“What…?”

His voice faltered.

“What do you mean by 'where'?”

Bruce turned, expression blank.

“She left.”

“Left where?”

No answer.

Alfred stepped into the doorway now.

Surveying the room. The bed. The desk. The missing pieces.

His voice was a whisper, breaking under the weight of it:

“She packed.”

“She’s not coming back.”

Damian took a step back.

His throat tightened.

He thought of their fight.

Thought of her eyes—wide and anxious. How she flinched. How she looked smaller than ever in that classroom, even when she tried to snap back.

And now she was gone.

She lied to him.

She smiled at him like nothing was wrong.

And then she disappeared.

Damian looked at the room again.

At the bed. The window.

And for the first time in his life—

He felt scared.

The room was still.

Frozen in time.

None of them knew how long they stood there—Bruce, Alfred, Damian—just staring at the doorway. The air felt heavy, like the oxygen had drained out of the house entirely.

No one spoke.

No one moved.

Until—

“Hey—”

Tim’s voice cut in from down the hall.

Footsteps. Quick. Measured. He’d just returned from Wayne Enterprises, backpack slung over one shoulder, something clutched in his hand.

A carved wooden box. Small, chest-shaped. Slightly dented at the corners.

The chess box.

The one she had made for him years ago. He found it today in his office drawer—the only thing he’d never thrown out. He was ready to bring it to her. Start again.

His boots scuffed against the polished floor as he turned the corner—then stopped.

Three of them were standing there.

Bruce. Damian. Alfred.

Silent.

Their backs to him. Faces turned to her room.

Something in their posture—

Something wrong.

Tim blinked.

“…What’s going on?”

Bruce didn’t turn.

Alfred lowered his gaze.

And Damian—Damian didn’t answer at all. He was pale. Rigid. Eyes fixed forward like a predator who’d lost his target.

Tim stepped closer, confused.

Then—

He caught a glimpse inside the room.

Empty bed.

No color.

No presence.

And the phone.

Her phone.

Just sitting there. Quiet. Dead. Untouched.

His breath caught.

“…No.”

He was already moving, storming past them, gripping the edge of the desk and yanking the cord out of the wall.

Pulled up the tracking software on his watch.

The phone pinged.

Last location: Here.

Status: Offline.

No signal.

No trace.

Nothing.

“She left,” Bruce muttered, the words rasping out like they were cutting his throat on the way out.

Tim’s fingers fumbled across the screen. “No—no, she wouldn’t just—She’s—she’s a kid, she’s just a—she’s—”

He was already spiraling.

Then Damian moved.

Like a switch flipped in him.

He was tearing through her room now—no hesitation, no restraint.

Sheets flung. Mattress shoved aside like it weighed nothing. The small rug kicked out of place. Drawers yanked open with violent force.

“Master Damian—” Alfred began, but the boy didn’t even hear him.

He was on his knees, dragging his hand across the floorboards, searching for—something, anything.

And then—

His hand paused.

A soft click.

One of the planks wobbled.

He dug his nails beneath the edge and pulled.

A loose board lifted.

Underneath,

a box.

Not tech.

Not cash.

Not escape supplies.

Just—

A box.

Wooden. Worn. Carefully hidden.

Damian pulled it free, shoving the lid open with a rough breath.

And inside:

Drawings.

Letters.

Painted cards.

Handmade bracelets, crumpled origami bats, scribbled “I love you” notes.

All of it—

For them.

“Tim’s the smartest,” one said in crayon. “He doesn’t talk to me a lot but I hope he knows I think he’s amazing.”

“Dick said I could come to the arcade next week!! I can’t wait I can’t wait I can’t wait!!”

That never happened.

“To Jason—I made you a snack today but I left it in the fridge because I don’t want to bother you. Hope it makes you feel better.”

Even ones for Bruce:

“I don’t need anything fancy. I just want you to be home sometimes.”

“Happy birthday, Daddy. I don’t know if you want to celebrate, but I got you this drawing anyway.”

The drawings were aged.

Edges curled. Smudges at the corners. One or two had obvious water damage.

Most were never opened.

Others looked like they’d been recovered from the trash.

No one spoke.

Bruce knelt beside Damian now, one hand trembling as he picked up a folded note.

“You’re my favorite hero even if you don’t talk to me much. I hope I can be someone you’re proud of. I try really hard. Even if I mess up. I’m sorry if I mess up.”

Tim stared into the box.

Into the pieces of a girl none of them really knew.

A girl who begged for their attention, then slowly taught herself not to want it anymore.

Then the door burst open.

“I’m home!”

Dick’s voice.

Bright.

Hopeful.

He was holding a paper bag in one hand and a small wrapped box in the other.

“Got the pastries she liked on her instagram—figured I’d surprise her. Did she make it back yet?”

They didn’t answer.

He froze mid-step when he saw their faces.

“…What happened?”

He looked past them.

Into the room.

And saw it.

The phone.

The empty bed.

The missing elephant plush.

The blank silence.

The box in Bruce’s hands.

The raw devastation on Alfred’s face.

The panic in Tim’s fingers as they tapped furiously on his screen.

Damian crouched on the floor. Trembling. Jaw clenched. Hands shaking in his lap.

Dick’s voice cracked.

“…Where’s my little flower?”

_____

The window creaked.

The air shifted.

All heads turned.

Jason.

Boots heavy. Leather scuffed. Red helmet tucked under one arm. He stepped over the windowsill like it was nothing, pausing mid-motion as his boot hit the floor.

Unlocked?

He frowned.

That window was never left open.

He would have to scold her for being so careless.

The room hit him like a brick.

Scattered sheets. Overturned drawers. Empty desk. The low hum of tension in the air.

And the silence—the eerie, heavy silence—of a room that had been picked clean of a life.

Jason turned to the others, arching a brow.

“…Okay, why does it look like someone just got abducted in here?”

No one laughed.

No one even flinched.

That’s when he noticed it—Bruce, standing beside the bed, face blank, eyes darker than coal. Tim crouched beside the desk, still glued to his tech, sweat at his temples. Damian near the foot of the bed, fists clenched, lips curled in furious silence.

And Dick—

Dick was on the floor, kneeling beside a small wooden box with shaking hands. His gloves had been tossed aside, like they were getting in the way. His face was unreadable, but his eyes—his eyes were wildfire.

Jason’s voice lost its sarcasm.

“…Where is she?”

No one answered.

He stepped forward, fast now. Eyes darted across the mess.

“What happened? What the hell happened?”

Then his eyes locked onto the pile in the box.

Small drawings. Crayon notes. Carefully tied bracelets, some frayed, some with beads missing. A hand-drawn sketch of the whole Batfamily… with a stick-figure Jason holding a cupcake labeled “Don’t be angry today.”

His throat tightened.

“…She made this?”

Dick didn’t speak.

Just slowly lifted a folded diary page and passed it to him.

Jason took it.

Read.

And everything inside him stopped.

“Today Dick smiled at me. He called me his little flower. He hasn’t said that in a long time, but I remember it every day. I hope maybe he says it again soon. I don’t know why he stopped. But it made me feel warm. It made me feel like maybe he loves me too.”

Jason lowered the page slowly.

“…She’s gone.”

Tim spoke, voice sharp. “We don’t know where. She left her phone, her tracker, everything.”

“She planned it,” Damian added bitterly. “She’s been planning it for a while.”

Jason’s jaw tightened. His helmet fell to the floor with a thud.

“Why the hell didn’t anyone notice?”

That was aimed at everyone, but especially at Bruce.

Bruce, who hadn’t moved in minutes.

“You,” Jason snapped, stepping forward now, finger pointed. “You’re her goddamn father. What the hell were you doing?”

“She was—” Bruce started, but Jason cut him off.

“She was invisible in this house for years, Bruce. She screamed for attention without making a sound. And you—what? You just let it happen?”

No one stopped him.

Not this time.

Alfred’s voice finally cut in—tired, gravel-soft.

“She left today. She was wearing her coat, and the plush was missing.”

Jason’s breath caught.

“The elephant?”

Dick nodded once. His face was still blank.

Jason cursed.

He spun toward Tim, voice sharp.

“You’re the genius—track her.”

“I’ve tried,” Tim snapped back, pushing to his feet. “She wiped her digital signature. Do you want to know what’s worse? We don’t even know her. We never bothered to. I have no clue what she listens to. Where she likes to go. What kind of clothes she wears. Hell—I just found out she’s the student rep two days ago.”

Dick finally stood up.

When he moved, he moved like a soldier.

Eyes dark. Expression flat. He took off his jacket, grabbed his comm from the desk, and clipped it to his belt without a word.

“Where are you going?” Jason asked.

“Where do you think?”

Dick’s voice was low. Controlled.

“I’m going to find my little flower.”

Damian stood too.

“If anyone finds her, it will be me.”

“No,” Tim said without looking at him. “If anyone finds her first, it’ll be whoever knows her best. And none of us do.”

His eyes finally lifted.

“But we’re going to learn.”

They didn’t speak again for a long moment. The weight of what they’d lost—what they had blindly let slip through their fingers—hung in the air like a curse.

But as the silence deepened, something else began to stir beneath it.

Resolve.

Not calm.

Not peace.

Something darker.

Possessive. Territorial. Obsessive.

She was theirs—their sweet, soft Y/N. The one with the doe eyes and sugar-laced voice. The one who baked for them and never asked for anything. The one they didn’t deserve—but still belonged to them.

And now?

She was out there. Alone. Vulnerable. Beautiful.

In a city like Gotham.

That was unacceptable.

Whether she wanted to be found or not didn’t matter.

She was going to be found.

She was going to be brought back.

And this time—she would never be allowed to slip away again.

Even if it meant burning Gotham down to find her.

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She didn’t hear the window in the other room slide open.

She didn’t feel the shift in the air until it was too late.

“Enjoy your field trip?”

The voice came from the dark like a blade sliding from its sheath.

She shrieked.

The glass slipped from her fingers and shattered against the floor as she spun around, heart slamming violently against her ribs. Her eyes struggled to adjust, and then she saw him. A silhouette leaning against the far wall near the fire escape window, posture familiar, rigid, unmistakable.

“Damian.”

Her voice cracked around his name.

He stepped forward slowly, and the faint streetlight spilling through the window caught the sharp lines of his face. He was not in full uniform, but he might as well have been. His presence filled the room like a storm front.

“What,” he asked coolly, “did you think would happen?”

Her lungs felt too small. “How did you—”

“You used your real name,” he cut in sharply. “At Arkham. Did you truly believe no one would notice?”

Her blood ran cold.

Arkham.

Tim.

Of course.

She stepped back instinctively, bumping into the counter. “I just went to visit—”

“I know who you went to visit.” His jaw tightened. “Are you insane?”

She flinched. “Don’t call me that.”

“Then stop acting like it.” His voice rose despite himself. “Arkham is not a park. It is not a school field trip. It is a containment facility for the worst minds in Gotham.”

“She’s my mother.”

The words burst out of her before she could swallow them.

He went still.

For a heartbeat, something flickered in his eyes. Not anger. Something sharper. Something complicated.

“And?” he demanded, but the edge had dulled slightly. “That gives you immunity?”

“She understands,” Y/N snapped back, fear turning quickly into defensiveness. “She understands what I am.”

“What you are?” His brows drew together. “You are our sister.”

She laughed weakly. “That didn’t stop you from treating me like a liability.”

The accusation landed harder than she meant it to.

His hands curled at his sides.

“You disappeared for months,” he said, voice dropping lower, rougher. “You vanished. We thought you were dead. And now you walk into Arkham alone.”

“I’m not dead.”

“Not for lack of trying.”

Her breath hitched. “You don’t get to—”

He moved suddenly.

Not to strike. Not to hurt. Just to close the distance.

His hand shot out and grabbed her wrist.

She gasped.

He was stronger. Infinitely stronger. She knew that. She had always known that. Even when they were children and he had been all sharp elbows and fury, he had been stronger.

“You are coming home,” he said tightly. “Now.”

“No.”

Her panic surged like a live wire.

“I am not asking.”

“I’m not going back.”

He pulled her a step closer.

She saw it then, not just anger. Not just frustration. Something frantic underneath. Something that looked too much like frantic fear.

“You think you can survive out here?” he demanded. “In this hole? In this city? Alone?”

“I was doing fine!”

“Working in a nightclub?” His voice sharpened dangerously. “Do you take me for a fool?”

Her stomach dropped.

“You followed me?”

“We have been searching for you every day,” he snapped. “You are not difficult to trace when you insist on using your real identity in high-security facilities.”

She yanked against his grip. “Let me go!”

“No.”

The word was iron.

Her heart pounded so hard she felt dizzy.

“I don’t belong there,” she said desperately. “You suffocate me.”

His grip tightened reflexively.

“You would rather suffocate out here?”

She felt it building under her skin — that familiar, uncontrollable swell of emotion and power mixing in her bloodstream.

“Let go,” she warned softly.

“Stop fighting.”

The plant on the windowsill shuddered violently.

Damian’s eyes flicked toward it just as the soil cracked.

Green erupted upward in a sudden burst, vines snapping toward the ceiling, curling instinctively between them. They did not strike him. They did not harm him. But they rose like a barrier, thick and alive, separating them in an instant of startled silence.

He released her wrist.

For a fraction of a second, both of them stared.

She hadn’t meant to. God, what did she do?

“I told you,” she whispered, backing toward the window. “I can’t control it.”

His expression shifted from anger to shock to something almost wounded.

She didn’t wait for it to settle.

She shoved the window open, scrambling onto the fire escape as the vines tangled briefly around the metal frame.

“Y/N—”

But she was already climbing.

Cold air hit her face as she moved upward, heart racing, breath ragged. She didn’t look back.

⸻

Back at the Manor, Tim’s fingers froze over the keyboard when the apartment feed went dark.

“Damian moved,” he said sharply.

Bruce looked up.

“He left ten minutes ago.”

Jason swore. „Damn brat.“.

They had agreed. One of them only. Careful. Slow. Controlled.

Not Damian.

Not first.

Bruce’s jaw hardened.

“Location,” he ordered.

Tim pulled it up.

Narrows.

Of course.

Jason was already reaching for his helmet.

“Before he ruins this.”

Dick exhaled sharply. “If she panics—”

“She already has,” Tim muttered, watching the security feed glitch with sudden bursts of green across the frame.

Plants.

Bruce’s eyes darkened.

“Move.”

⸻

On the fire escape, Y/N’s hands shook as she climbed higher, tears blurring her vision. She had tried to build something different. Something small and hers. And now they were here. Again. Always.

Below her, Damian stepped into the alley, gaze tracking upward.

He had not come to drag her back in chains.

But he had come to take her home.

And he was not leaving without her.

She was not built for rooftops.

That was the first thing her body told her as her shoes slipped against gravel and loose tar, as the wind clawed at her skirt and tried to pull her backward. Gotham’s skyline stretched jagged and unforgiving around her, all sharp edges and empty spaces waiting to swallow her whole.

Behind her, a window banged open.

“Y/N!”

His voice cracked across the alley like a gunshot.

She didn’t turn around.

If she turned around, she would stop.

If she stopped, he would reach her.

And if he reached her—

She didn’t let herself finish the thought.

She ran.

Her lungs burned almost immediately. She was not trained for this. She was not Robin. She had never been taught how to distribute her weight across unstable surfaces, how to measure distance with a glance, how to fall without breaking bones.

She was just a girl.

A girl with shaking hands and borrowed courage.

“Stop!” Damian’s voice cut through the night again, closer this time. Too close. “Do not take another step!”

She reached the edge of the building.

The gap between this rooftop and the next was wider than she had anticipated. Too wide. Her breath stuttered in her throat as she stared at the empty space yawning between concrete and concrete.

Below, the alley looked like a throat.

“You will fall,” Damian warned, voice low now, dangerous. “You are not equipped for this.”

“I don’t want to go back!” she shot back, turning just enough to look at him.

He stood several meters away, balanced perfectly on the roof’s edge as if it were solid ground. His chest rose and fell too quickly, eyes bright with something feral and frantic.

“You think I am asking?” he demanded.

There it was.

That edge.

That possessive sharpness that made her stomach twist.

“You’re not my jailer!” she cried.

His expression hardened. “If that is what keeps you alive, then I will be.”

The words struck her harder than the wind.

Monster.

The thought bloomed again in her mind, ugly and familiar. A monster with vines in her veins and a villain for a mother. A liability. A weakness. Something to be contained.

“I’m not a thing to lock up!” she shouted, and before fear could swallow her resolve, she ran forward and jumped.

For a heartbeat, she was suspended in nothing.

The world dropped away beneath her.

Her foot barely caught the ledge of the next building. Gravel slid. Her body pitched forward violently, hands scraping raw against concrete as she slammed down hard. Pain exploded in her palms.

She nearly slipped.

For one sickening second, her shoe dangled over open air.

But she dragged herself up, knees shaking, chest heaving. She had made it.

She pushed to her feet, dizzy but upright, and took two staggering steps back—

Too long.

She had waited too long.

When she looked up again, Damian was already landing on the same rooftop with effortless precision.

He didn’t even look winded.

Her heart dropped into her stomach.

She spun, searching for another escape route, but the next building was too far. There was no fire escape. No adjacent ledge. Only the city stretching out in impossible distances.

She backed toward the opposite edge without realizing it.

“Do not,” Damian warned, voice dropping into something almost unrecognizable, “take another step.”

She did.

Her heel scraped empty air.

She gasped and flung her arms out to balance, barely catching herself before gravity claimed her.

“Y/N.”

This time her name sounded different.

Not barked. Not ordered.

Pleading.

She hated that it made her hesitate.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said, and her voice trembled so badly it almost fractured. “I don’t want to be this.”

“You can’t hurt me. You are not hurting me,” he snapped. “You are hurting yourself.”

“I can’t control it!” she cried. “I can’t control any of it!”

The wind shifted.

And suddenly, they were not alone.

A dark shape landed on the far side of the rooftop.

Then another.

And another.

She froze.

Batman stepped forward first, cape swallowing light, presence swallowing air.

Nightwing followed, quieter but no less tense, blue emblem catching the faint glow of the city.

Red Hood landed last, helmet reflecting her small, trembling silhouette back at her.

The world felt smaller.

Boxed in.

Her breathing turned shallow.

“Kid,” Jason muttered, voice filtered through modulator, rough and strained, “this is getting old.”

She took another step back instinctively.

“Don’t,” Dick said quickly, hands lifting slightly, palms open. “Hey— hey, look at me. Just breathe, okay? We’re not here to hurt you.”

“That’s not what it feels like,” she whispered.

Bruce’s voice cut through the night, controlled but tight around the edges. “You went to Arkham.”

It wasn’t a question.

She swallowed. “She’s my mother.”

“And we are your family,” he replied immediately.

The words landed heavy.

“Family doesn’t cage you,” she shot back, tears finally spilling over. “Family doesn’t neglect you. Family doesn’t—”

“Family doesn’t survive losing you twice,” Jason snapped.

Silence fell like a blade.

Her eyes flicked to him.

Even through the helmet, she could feel it. The rawness. The fury. The fear.

“You think this is about control?” Dick asked softly. “You think we’re doing this because it’s fun?”

Bruce stepped forward one measured step.

She stepped back one frantic one.

Her heel slid.

“Stop!” Damian barked, panic finally breaking through his composure.

She wobbled violently.

Strong arms caught her from behind.

She didn’t even see who moved first.

One second she was teetering over empty air. The next, she was yanked backward into solid, unyielding muscle.

She screamed and struggled instantly, panic surging like wildfire. “No— let me go— let me go!”

Jason’s helmet was inches from her face as he pinned her arms to her sides with ease. “Enough.”

She twisted, kicked, fought uselessly. She was nothing compared to them. Nothing against this strength, this training, this coordinated precision.

“I hate this!” she cried. “I hate you! Why can’t you leave me alone like you did all my life?”

Her powers flared again under her skin, but there was no soil here. No roots to answer her. Just cold rooftop and iron grips.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” she sobbed.

“You won’t,” Dick said hoarsely, stepping closer, hand hovering uncertainly near her shoulder. “You won’t hurt us.”

Her breaths came too fast.

Too sharp.

Her vision blurred.

“Bruce,” Tim’s voice crackled faintly over comms from somewhere below, tight with calculation, “her heart rate’s spiking.”

“I know,” Bruce muttered.

Jason felt it too — the way she was spiraling, not fighting strategically, but unraveling.

“She’s going to pass out anyway,” he growled quietly.

Bruce hesitated.

For a fraction of a second.

Then he nodded once.

Jason’s grip shifted just enough for Damian to step forward.

She didn’t even register the small device in his hand until she felt the prick at her neck.

Her body jerked.

“Damian—” Dick started sharply.

“She will not survive another fall,” Damian snapped back, though his voice shook.

Warmth flooded her bloodstream almost instantly.

Her limbs turned heavy.

“No,” she whispered weakly. “Please don’t…”

The city blurred.

Her knees gave out completely this time.

Jason caught her fully against his chest as her body went limp, her fingers clutching weakly at his jacket before sliding away.

Darkness swallowed her.

For a long moment, none of them moved.

They just stood there, wind whipping around them, holding the fragile, unconscious weight of the girl who had nearly slipped through their fingers again.

Jason exhaled slowly. “Got her.”

Damian stared down at her face, jaw tight, eyes dark with something that looked dangerously close to guilt.

Bruce stepped forward and brushed dirt gently from her cheek, his gloved hand trembling just slightly.

“She will never run like this again,” Damian said quietly.

Bruce’s gaze did not leave his daughter’s face.

“No,” he agreed.

But whether that was promise or warning, none of them clarified.

Jason adjusted his hold, cradling her more securely.

She looked smaller like this.

Smaller than rooftops.

Smaller than Gotham.

Smaller than the fear they all carried.

And as they disappeared into the night with her in their arms, each of them understood the same twisted truth:

They would rather sedate her.

Chain her.

Track her.

Overwhelm her.

Than ever stand on a rooftop again and watch her almost fall.

_____

When she wakes, she will not recognize the ceiling.

For now, she does not wake at all.

She lies still in a bed that is too soft for the Narrows and too bright for the life she tried to build. The room is not the one she left behind months ago — not the too-clean, museum-like space that felt more like a guest room than a daughter’s sanctuary. This one is warmer. Lighter. The curtains are pale cream instead of sterile white. The shelves hold books she actually likes. There are plants by the window — carefully chosen, harmless ones. A thick rug softens the floor. There are framed sketches on the wall. Her old elephant plush sits carefully propped against her pillow, stitched ear slightly crooked, waiting like it never stopped.

She does not see any of it.

She is pale against the sheets, lashes resting too heavily against hollowed cheeks.

Alfred stands at her bedside with a glass of water and a physician’s report in hand, his expression composed but carved from something much older than calm.

“She is underweight,” he says quietly. “Vitamin deficiencies. Iron low. Dehydration markers present.”

Jason swears under his breath from the doorway.

Dick looks like he might be sick.

Damian says nothing.

Bruce stands at the foot of the bed, still in half-armor, gloves removed but gauntlets unstrapped. His eyes do not leave her face.

“She was starving,” Tim mutters, scanning through the lab readouts on the tablet. “Not intentionally. Just… not enough.”

“She was working in a nightclub,” Jason snaps bitterly. “What did you expect?”

“She should never have needed to,” Dick fires back, voice tight.

“That is not the point,” Bruce cuts in sharply.

Silence falls.

It is heavier now. Different. Not panic — something more deliberate.

Alfred clears his throat gently. “Master Bruce.”

Bruce nods once.

Tim’s fingers hover over another file. “If we’re going to do it,” he says quietly, “this is the safest window.”

Jason’s gaze flicks to him. “You’re sure?”

Tim’s jaw tightens. “If she vanishes again, we might not get a second rooftop.”

No one argues with that.

Bruce moves closer to the bed and gently brushes a strand of hair away from her forehead. She doesn’t stir.

“Minimal,” he says. “No more than necessary.”

Alfred nods.

The procedure is small. Clinical. Controlled.

A micro-tracker — smaller than a grain of rice — is inserted beneath the skin near her shoulder blade while she remains unconscious. It is done cleanly, efficiently, without ceremony.

She does not know.

She will not know.

When it is finished, Tim syncs the signal to the cave’s network. A blinking dot appears on the map of Gotham.

Stable.

Alive.

Here.

Damian watches the screen longer than anyone else.

Bruce finally turns to him.

“You disobeyed a direct agreement,” he says flatly.

Damian does not look away from the monitor. “She would have run regardless.”

“That was not the point.”

“She is my responsibility as well.”

Bruce’s eyes harden. “You do not get to decide that unilaterally.”

Damian finally looks at him. There is no arrogance in his expression now. Only something bruised and defensive.

“She was at Arkham,” he says quietly. “Alone.”

“And you believed confronting her by yourself would improve that?”

A flicker of frustration flashes through Damian’s eyes. “I could have handled it.”

Jason scoffs from the doorway. “Yeah. You handled it straight off a roof.”

Dick shoots him a look, but he doesn’t deny it.

Damian’s hands curl at his sides. “She panicked because all of you arrived.”

“She panicked because she doesn’t trust us,” Tim corrects, voice subdued.

That one lands.

Bruce exhales slowly, exhaustion bleeding through the edges of his control. “We will not repeat that mistake.”

Damian’s jaw tightens, but he inclines his head slightly.

It is as close to an apology as he ever offers.

Alfred adjusts the blanket around her shoulders, movements careful, tender. “She is not your prisoner,” he says gently, without looking at any of them. “She is frightened.”

Bruce’s gaze softens — only barely — as it returns to his daughter.

“I know.”

Do you?

The question hangs unspoken.

She shifts faintly in her sleep, brow furrowing as if caught in a dream. Her fingers twitch toward the elephant plush beside her pillow. Damian notices first and steps forward instinctively, but stops himself.

Jason moves instead, slower than usual, and carefully places the plush into her hand.

Her fingers curl weakly around it.

The room stills.

“She will wake confused,” Dick murmurs.

Bruce nods. “Then we will explain.”

“Not everything,” Tim says quietly.

Bruce doesn’t respond.

On the screen in the cave below, the blinking dot continues its steady rhythm.

Here.

Jason crosses his arms. “She’s not leaving again.”

It isn’t a question.

Bruce’s eyes remain fixed on her fragile form.

“No,” he says softly.

This time, it sounds less like a promise to control her.

And more like a vow to the universe.

Outside her window, the night deepens over Gotham.

Inside, the family keeps watch.

And for the first time since she ran, she is sleeping under their roof again — pale, fragile, and surrounded.

Not free.

But home.

_______

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Gotham did not sleep.

It rotted slowly under neon lights.

And Y/N rotted with it.

The nightclub pulsed like a diseased heart at the edge of the Narrows — bass vibrating through cracked walls, colored lights bleeding over stained ceilings, the air thick with alcohol, perfume, and desperation. It was not a place for a girl like her.

But Gotham was not a place for girls like her either.

She balanced a tray between trembling fingers, weaving between tables of drunk men and sharp-eyed women, her borrowed name stitched onto her uniform.

Emilia.

The name tasted like rust in her mouth.

She wore contact lenses now — dull brown instead of the vivid, unnatural green that had once betrayed her lineage. Her hair was pinned up. Her posture smaller. Shoulders rounded.

Invisible.

That was the goal.

Invisible girls survived.

She moved carefully, quietly. Smiled when spoken to. Nodded. Apologized. Collected tips. Endured wandering hands with the frozen politeness of someone who knew retaliation would cost more than silence.

She told herself this was temporary.

She told herself this was safer than Wayne Manor.

She told herself this was better than dying at eighteen in an alley with blood filling her lungs.

But sometimes, when the music got too loud, it sounded like screaming.

And sometimes, when a glass shattered, she flinched because in her dreams it was bones snapping.

She would wake up tangled in thin sheets, breath shallow, phantom fingers still wrapped around her throat. She never saw the face clearly — just shadows, just pain, just the echo of her own choking breath. The scent of iron. The feeling of being alone.

Always alone.

And somewhere in those dreams, faint but persistent, she heard voices calling her name.

Like a prayer that came too late.

⸻

She worked five nights a week.

Gary had protested at first, told her the club was no place for “a sweet thing like you.” But rent did not wait for kindness. Hunger did not wait for safety.

So she worked.

She ignored the way men looked at her.

She ignored the way one of the bouncers lingered too long behind her shoulder.

She ignored the way her hands sometimes trembled when she counted money.

She did not ignore the fear.

The fear was constant.

What if they find me?

The thought followed her everywhere. On the bus. In the shower. When she watered Gary’s plants in the early morning light. When she lay staring at the ceiling of her apartment, watching cracks form shapes like open mouths.

Would they chain her again?

Would they lock her inside the Manor and call it protection?

Would they look at her with that broken devotion and say they loved her while taking away every breath that belonged only to her?

Her chest tightened.

She pressed her palm against the nearest potted fern in the club’s corner — a decorative thing, barely alive from neglect.

It stirred beneath her touch.

Leaves unfurled slightly.

Green deepened.

She yanked her hand back like she’d been burned.

No.

Not here.

Not ever here.

Her powers were a whisper under her skin — a pulse that responded to emotion. And lately, her emotions were a storm.

She swallowed and returned to work.

⸻

The night it happened, Gotham was restless.

There were more men than usual. Louder. Meaner. The news had mentioned increased vigilante activity again — gang warehouses raided, drug routes destroyed, crime lords disappearing overnight.

She didn’t think it was because of her.

She told herself it wasn’t.

At table seven, a group of men in expensive suits called her over. The smell of cologne was sharp enough to sting.

“Smile more,” one of them said, fingers brushing her wrist.

She stiffened.

“I am smiling, sir.”

Another laughed.

“She’s pretty but young.”

“Too young for this place.”

“She shouldn’t be here.”

The first one’s grip tightened.

“You lost, sweetheart?”

Her heart began to pound.

Not again.

Not like this.

“I have other tables,” she said softly, trying to pull away.

He didn’t let go.

The music shifted. The lights flickered.

And then—

The doors opened.

It wasn’t dramatic. No explosion. No shouting.

But the room changed.

It was subtle at first — tension tightening, conversations dipping. A ripple.

Red.

A flash of red under dim lights.

A helmet.

A silhouette carved from violence.

Red Hood.

Her breath caught in her throat.

He moved through the club like judgment — quiet, controlled, lethal. Someone must have tipped him off. Maybe it was a trafficking ring. Maybe weapons. Maybe worse.

He didn’t see her.

Of course he didn’t see her.

She was smaller now.

Different.

Wrong.

The man at table seven released her when he noticed the newcomer.

“Shit,” someone muttered.

Chaos bloomed.

Two of the men reached for concealed weapons. Red Hood was faster.

The first went down with a brutal strike to the jaw. The second barely had time to lift his gun before it was kicked from his grip.

Screaming.

People scattering.

The bass cut abruptly.

Y/N stumbled back, tray crashing to the floor. Her ears rang.

Red Hood’s voice carried through the room — rough, commanding.

“On the ground.”

She froze.

That voice.

It hadn’t changed.

Lower, maybe. Harder. But it was him.

Jason.

Her vision blurred.

She didn’t mean to look at him.

She didn’t mean to memorize the way he moved.

But she did.

And something inside her cracked.

He finished disabling the men in seconds. Efficient. Ruthless. Protective in a way that felt almost instinctual.

He turned slightly, scanning.

And for a split second—

His gaze brushed over her.

Just another waitress.

Just another civilian.

He looked away.

Relief hit her so violently her knees nearly gave out.

He didn’t recognize me.

Good.

One of the criminals lunged unexpectedly, grabbing her arm in a desperate attempt to use her as a shield.

Her scream tore through the air.

Red Hood reacted instantly — fury igniting.

The man was disarmed in less than a heartbeat.

Jason slammed him into a table hard enough to splinter wood.

“Touch her again,” he snarled, “and I break every finger you have.”

Her chest constricted.

He didn’t know it was her.

But he still protected her.

Like he always did.

That made it worse.

Before he could turn to check on her—

She ran.

⸻

She didn’t stop until she was three blocks away.

Her lungs burned.

Her vision tunneled.

Her hands shook so badly she pressed them against a brick wall to steady herself.

He was there.

He was so close.

They were searching.

They would find her.

They always found her.

Her breath hitched — and the panic surged.

No no no no no—

The alley behind her shifted.

A crack split through the pavement.

Green burst upward.

Vines.

Thin at first.

Then thicker.

Curling around rusted fire escapes.

Twisting along brick.

Blooming.

Flowers erupted from concrete like wounds opening.

Her pulse roared in her ears.

Stop—

Please—

She clutched her head, sliding down the wall as the plants obeyed her terror.

She saw it again—

The alley.

The future.

Blood soaking into stone.

A hand around her throat.

A voice mocking her for being Bruce Wayne’s daughter.

For being Poison Ivy’s child.

For thinking she could ever be anything but a pawn.

Her powers had flared that night too.

Too late.

Always too late.

“I don’t want this,” she whispered hoarsely.

The vines quivered.

She pressed her forehead to her knees.

“I don’t want to be her.”

Her mother.

Poison Ivy.

Pamela Isley.

Villain.

Eco-terrorist.

Monster.

The woman who had smiled at her when she was two years old and called her beautiful.

The woman who had never come back.

Y/N’s fingers dug into her sleeves.

She had spent years trying not to think about her.

Trying to prove she wasn’t the same.

Trying to be small. Harmless. Acceptable.

And yet here she was — making flowers bleed from asphalt.

She laughed weakly.

“I can’t do this alone.”

The words slipped out before she could stop them.

She had run from her father.

From her brothers.

From suffocating loneliness and harmful cages.

But she had never run toward anyone.

Not once.

Her gaze lifted slowly.

Arkham.

The thought settled heavy and inevitable in her chest.

If anyone understood what it meant to carry poison in your veins and still try to live—

It was her mother.

Maybe she wouldn’t help.

Maybe she would mock her.

Maybe she would see her as weakness.

But Y/N needed answers.

Needed something.

Because the nightmares were getting louder.

Because the vigilantes were getting closer.

Because Jason had stood three feet away and she had almost broken.

She pushed herself to her feet.

The vines around her began to retract, sinking back into cracks like secrets swallowed whole.

She wiped her face with trembling hands.

“Arkham,” she whispered.

And for the first time since she had run away—

She chose a direction.

The decision settled into her bones like frost.

Three days later, Y/N stood outside her apartment building with borrowed courage and shaking hands.

She had not slept much since the nightclub.

Jason’s voice still echoed in her mind. The way he had defended her without knowing who she was. The way he would have recognized her if he had looked closer.

She couldn’t let that happen again.

Arkham loomed in her thoughts like a final confession.

She didn’t remember her mother clearly.

Not in faces.

Not in full conversations.

Only fragments.

Green.

Warm hands smelling faintly of soil.

A voice that had once called her my little bud.

And then—

Nothing.

Bruce had found her in a warehouse hidden behind illegal botanical experiments and toxin labs. She had been two. Maybe three. Too small. Too quiet. Malnourished but alive.

Pamela Isley had laughed when they took her away.

You’ll never keep her from me forever, darling.

But forever had come and gone.

And neither of them had found each other again.

⸻

The taxi driver kept glancing at her in the rearview mirror.

She sat neatly in the back seat, hands folded over her floral skirt, hair pinned carefully, posture straight. She looked like she belonged in a library.

Not here.

Not heading toward Gotham’s most infamous asylum.

“You sure this is the place?” he asked carefully as the gray walls of Arkham rose into view, jagged against the overcast sky.

“Yes,” she said softly.

“Family?”

She nodded.

He went quiet after that.

Arkham had a way of silencing people.

The building wasn’t just concrete and iron. It felt alive in the worst way — like something ancient and hungry crouched behind its gates. The air grew heavier the closer they got. Even the sky seemed dimmer above it.

When the taxi stopped, she stepped out slowly.

For a moment, she almost turned back.

What if her mother didn’t want to see her?

What if she laughed?

What if she looked at her and saw weakness?

But then she remembered dying.

Remembered being alone.

And she walked forward.

The guards at the front gate were unimpressed.

“No appointment.”

“I’d like to request one.”

“Name?”

She hesitated.

For weeks she had been Emilia Forenzi. Eighteen. Italian. Invisible.

But Arkham would not know that name.

And Poison Ivy certainly wouldn’t.

“…Y/N Wayne.”

The guards exchanged looks.

Recognition flickered.

Of course they knew the name.

Bruce Wayne’s daughter.

Poison Ivy’s child.

A headline waiting to happen.

“You can’t just walk in here,” one of them said firmly. “There are procedures.”

Her throat tightened.

“I just want to see my mother.”

“She doesn’t get visitors.”

Her pulse quickened.

Panic crept up her spine like ivy climbing brick.

Please—

“I won’t cause trouble,” she whispered.

They didn’t move.

Her breath came shorter.

The plants lining the perimeter fence rustled.

The ivy woven through Arkham’s outer walls trembled faintly.

Neither guard noticed.

But something subtle shifted in the air.

Her eyes — muted brown from lenses — seemed almost brighter.

Her voice softened further.

“I’ve come a long way.”

One guard blinked slowly.

The other’s posture eased without him realizing it.

“She’s been… stable lately,” the first muttered.

“She might respond better if it’s family.”

A pause.

“…Fine. One visit. Monitored.”

Y/N didn’t understand what she had done.

She only knew the gates opened.

⸻

Arkham smelled like disinfectant and decay.

Like something constantly scrubbed but never clean.

The halls were dim. The lights hummed faintly overhead. Doors lined the corridor — reinforced glass and steel — each holding something the world wanted forgotten.

She felt wrong here.

Too bright.

Too soft.

Her steps echoed too loudly.

Some inmates watched her pass with unsettling interest.

Some laughed.

Some whispered.

One man pressed his face to the glass and grinned too wide.

“Little girl in a graveyard,” he crooned.

She didn’t stop walking.

Her hands trembled.

This was her inheritance.

Not Wayne Manor.

Not gala dresses.

This.

When they reached the secure visitation chamber, the guard gestured for her to sit.

“She’ll be brought in shortly.”

The word brought made her stomach twist.

She sat.

Alone.

Separated by thick reinforced glass and a metal table bolted to the floor.

Her reflection stared back at her faintly in the barrier — pale, delicate, almost glowing in the sterile light.

She felt like an angel that had wandered into hell by mistake.

Her heart pounded so loudly she thought it might shatter the silence.

Then—

The opposite door opened.

Chains did not bind her.

But presence did.

Pamela Isley stepped into the room like nature reclaiming a battlefield.

Even in Arkham scrubs, even thinner than memory might have painted her, she was breathtaking. Red hair cascading in controlled wildness. Green eyes sharp and ancient.

Power clung to her like perfume.

She did not look broken.

She looked contained.

The guards left.

The door shut.

Pamela did not sit immediately.

She stared.

Y/N’s breath left her in a broken whisper.

For a moment, neither spoke.

Pamela’s gaze traveled over her slowly — assessing, calculating, absorbing.

Then something changed.

Something fragile.

“…No,” Pamela breathed.

Her voice wasn’t mocking.

It wasn’t theatrical.

It was soft.

Y/N’s throat closed.

She removed her contact lenses with shaking fingers.

The brown faded.

Green emerged.

Bright.

Unmistakable.

Pamela inhaled sharply.

The distance between them suddenly felt unbearable.

“My little bud,” Pamela whispered.

Y/N’s composure shattered.

“Mama.”

The word left her like it had been waiting for years.

Pamela’s hand lifted instinctively toward the glass, palm pressing against it.

Y/N mirrored her without thinking.

Skin to cold barrier.

Separated.

Close.

“So tall,” Pamela murmured. “So beautiful.”

Tears spilled down Y/N’s cheeks before she could stop them.

“I don’t remember you properly,” she admitted in a trembling voice. “I tried to. I tried so hard.”

Pamela’s expression cracked — something raw surfacing beneath her controlled exterior.

“They took you from me,” she said quietly.

“I know.”

“No,” Pamela corrected gently. “They tore you out of my arms.”

Y/N’s breath shook.

“I thought you forgot me.”

Pamela’s laugh was soft and broken all at once.

“Forget you?” she whispered. “Darling, you are the only pure thing I ever created.”

The words hit harder than they should have.

Pamela did not sit at first.

She stalked the length of the small visitation space like a panther forced into a cage too small for its claws. Only when her eyes had memorized every line of her daughter’s face did she lower herself into the chair.

Up close, the resemblance was undeniable.

Not just the green eyes.

The bone structure. The quiet intensity. The way emotion simmered beneath restraint.

“Let me see you properly,” Pamela murmured.

Y/N lowered her gaze instinctively before forcing herself to look up again. She hated how small she felt under that stare. Hated how much she wanted approval.

Pamela reached toward the glass again, fingertips splayed.

“You’ve grown into spring,” she said softly. “And they tried to bury you in winter.”

Y/N swallowed. She didn’t answer that.

Instead, she asked the question that had been burning inside her for years.

“Why do I have them?”

Pamela’s head tilted.

“The powers.”

Her fingers curled slightly in her lap.

“They don’t listen to me. Sometimes they just—happen. When I’m scared. Or upset. Or when I don’t mean for them to.” Her voice tightened. “I don’t want them.”

Silence.

For a heartbeat, Pamela simply stared at her.

Then she smiled — slow, dangerous, wounded.

“You are asking me how to stop being what you are.”

“I just want to be normal.”

The word normal tasted bitter in the air between them.

Pamela’s expression hardened.

“Normal?” she repeated quietly. “You are not a weed trying to survive in concrete, my love. You are the garden itself.”

“I don’t want to be,” Y/N whispered.

The glass separated them, but Pamela leaned forward as if she could crawl through it by will alone.

“Did they make you hate it?” she asked, voice silk over steel.

Y/N’s stomach tightened.

“No.”

Too fast.

Pamela’s eyes sharpened.

“How did you get here?” she asked suddenly. “Bruce would never allow this. He would rather salt the earth than let you step foot in this place.”

Y/N looked down at her hands.

“I just… came.”

“That is not an answer.”

Y/N said nothing.

The silence stretched.

Pamela studied her daughter the way she might study soil before planting something fragile in it. Searching for toxins. Searching for cracks.

“You’re thinner,” she noted softly.

“I’m fine.”

“You look tired.”

“I’m fine.”

Pamela’s fingers flexed.

“You smell like fear,” she said gently. “And smoke. And… cheap alcohol.”

Y/N’s breath stuttered.

She hadn’t realized.

“You are not fine,” Pamela concluded.

Y/N’s jaw tightened. She refused to let tears fall again.

“I just want to control it,” she insisted quietly. “The plants. The… influence. Sometimes people listen to me differently and I don’t even mean to. I don’t want to manipulate anyone.”

Pamela’s lips curved faintly.

“It is not manipulation to exist powerfully.”

“It is when they don’t have a choice.”

That made Pamela pause.

There it was.

Conscience.

Bruce’s influence.

Pamela exhaled slowly.

“You cannot erase it,” she said at last. “It is genetic. It is cellular. It is woven into you like chlorophyll in leaves.”

Y/N’s shoulders slumped.

“But,” Pamela continued, eyes gleaming faintly, “you can learn to guide it. Control is not suppression. It is understanding.”

Y/N looked up, hope flickering despite herself.

“You’d teach me?”

“If I were not trapped in this cement coffin?” Pamela’s smile sharpened. “I would never let you struggle alone with something that belongs to you.”

The word alone pressed into Y/N’s ribs like a bruise.

Pamela noticed.

“Did they teach you?” she asked.

Y/N hesitated.

“…No.”

Pamela’s jaw tightened.

“They should have,” she murmured.

The overhead speaker crackled.

“One minute remaining.”

The words fell like a guillotine.

Y/N’s head snapped toward the sound. “Already?”

Pamela stood abruptly, chair screeching against the floor.

“No,” she said sharply. “We are not done.”

Her voice shifted — deeper, edged with something ancient. The faint hum of the facility’s plant life responded. Ivy crawling along the outer walls trembled.

The guards outside shifted uneasily.

Y/N stood too, pressing both palms flat against the glass.

“I’ll come back,” she promised quickly, even though she wasn’t sure she could.

Pamela moved closer until only inches separated them.

“You will not disappear again,” she said, voice low and intense.

It wasn’t a question.

Y/N’s chest tightened.

“I—”

The door behind Pamela unlocked with a mechanical click.

Time was up.

Pamela’s composure fractured.

“You do not belong in his world,” she said urgently. “You belong where things grow. Where you are understood. If they ever make you feel unwanted—”

“They don’t,” Y/N said quickly.

Pamela searched her face.

She did not look convinced.

“You are mine,” Pamela whispered fiercely. “Before Wayne. Before Gotham. Before anyone.”

The guards stepped inside.

Pamela resisted for half a second — not physically, but emotionally. The plants along the corridor walls creaked faintly, responding to her pulse.

Y/N felt it.

That power.

That fury.

That love twisted into possession.

“I’ll come back,” Y/N repeated, even softer.

Pamela allowed herself to be led away, but her eyes never left her daughter.

“Next time,” she said calmly, “I will not let them take you from me so easily.”

The door shut.

The room felt colder.

⸻

Outside Arkham, the sky had darkened into bruised violet.

Y/N walked toward the gates in a haze.

Her mind replayed every word.

You are mine.

You cannot erase it.

You are the garden.

Her powers felt different now.

Less like a curse.

More like something unfinished.

But underneath that—

Fear.

If her mother was this intense through glass and steel…

What would she be without it?

Wayne Manor — Batcave

Tim Drake’s screens never slept.

He hadn’t either.

Lines of code blurred across multiple monitors as he combed through databases for the thousandth time that week.

Then—

A notification chimed.

Arkham Asylum — Visitor Log Update.

Identity confirmed: Y/N Eloise Wayne.

Tim froze.

For a split second, he thought exhaustion had finally broken his brain.

Then he opened the file.

Timestamp: 17:42.

Visitor: Y/N Eloise Wayne.

Inmate: Pamela Isley.

His heart dropped into his stomach.

“She went to Arkham,” he breathed.

After months of nothing—

Arkham.

His chair screeched backward as he stood.

“Dick,” he snapped into the comm system. “Jason. Damian. Now.”

Within seconds, the cave began to fill.

Jason’s boots hit the metal floor first. “You found her?”

Damian’s eyes were already sharp, searching Tim’s screens.

Dick stepped forward, hope and dread colliding on his face.

Tim turned the monitor toward them.

Silence.

Jason swore under his breath.

“She went to her?” Damian hissed.

Bruce’s presence descended into the cave moments later — silent, controlled, terrifying.

Tim didn’t need to look to know his father’s jaw had tightened.

“She used her real name,” Tim said quickly. “Which means she wasn’t thinking about surveillance. She’s either desperate or—”

“Or she needed something only Ivy could give,” Bruce finished coldly.

Dick ran a hand through his hair. “How long ago?”

“Thirty-two minutes.”

Jason was already moving toward the Batmobile platform.

“Then what are we standing here for?”

Bruce’s eyes were unreadable, but the air around him shifted.

“She will not be alone for another day,” he said.

And for the first time in months—

They had a location.

______

Y/N did not feel triumphant when she left Arkham. She felt hollow, as if something inside her had been gently uprooted and replanted somewhere deeper. The sky had dimmed into evening gray, and the air carried that metallic Gotham chill that always felt like a warning. She walked past the gates without looking back, replaying her mother’s words in her mind, not noticing the cameras mounted above the entrance, not thinking about visitor logs, not considering that her real name had weight. She had not come to Arkham as Emilia Forenzi. She had come as Y/N Wayne. She had not even realized what that meant.

Halfway down the road, the reality of something far more practical struck her. She didn’t have enough money for another taxi. The cash in her pocket had barely covered the ride there. She stood on the sidewalk for a long moment, biting her lip, glancing back at Arkham’s looming silhouette, and then forward toward the city. She could walk part of the way. There was a bus stop not far down the road. She folded her arms over herself and started walking, boots scuffing against cracked pavement, her thoughts louder than the traffic in the distance.

The bus ride was long and nearly empty. She sat near the back, forehead pressed lightly against the cool window, watching Gotham blur into streaks of yellow and red. She thought about her mother’s eyes. About the way Pamela had said you are mine. About the way she had not asked for details, not demanded confessions, just watched her like a starving thing seeing light again. Y/N did not know if that made her feel comforted or terrified.

By the time she reached her stop, the city had darkened properly. The Narrows swallowed light instead of reflecting it. She stepped off the bus and walked the rest of the way to her apartment building, shoulders hunched, mind distant. The stairwell smelled like mildew and fried oil. The hallway lights flickered faintly. Everything was as it had been when she left. Ordinary. Small. Safe in its own fragile way.

She unlocked her door and stepped inside.

Darkness greeted her. She closed the door behind her and leaned against it for a second, exhaling. Her stomach growled softly. She hadn’t eaten since the afternoon. She kicked off her shoes, set her bag down, and crossed to the small kitchenette. The apartment was quiet except for the faint hum of the refrigerator and the distant sounds of the city outside.

It started with something small — it always did.

She was sitting in the kitchen, curled on one of the tall barstools with a textbook propped open in front of her and a mug of tea in her hand. Her usual favorite — honey and chamomile — untouched. Dick had only been passing through the Manor that morning, en route back to Bludhaven, until he paused mid-step, his eyes locking on her.

“Little Flower,” he said, almost casual, but his voice hitched on the end.

She didn’t lift her head. Her cheek was propped against her palm, and her lips were slightly parted, breath too quiet. Her lashes trembled. Her eyes were unusual dull.

He crossed the kitchen in two strides. “Y/N,” he said again, this time softer. Concern bled through. “Hey.”

That got her attention. Her head snapped up — too fast — and she blinked at him like someone just waking from a dream. She smiled automatically, and he hated (and also loved) that about her — how she always smiled like it was her job to put everyone else at ease.

“I’m fine,” she croaked.

Dick’s brows furrowed. “That’s funny,” he murmured, crouching beside her and pressing the back of his hand to her forehead before she could stop him. “Because you feel like a fever wrapped in fleece.”

“It’s not bad,” she mumbled. “Just a cold. I still have to get to school—”

“No, no, nope. Absolutely not.” He was already pulling his phone out. “You’re staying home. That’s final.”

“I have a presentation.”

“I’ll present it for you. I’ll wear a wig. Get surgery and makeup to be half as cute as you and shorten my legs. It’ll be great. I’ll cry on cue.”

She gave a weak laugh. Her shoulders sagged.

Dick leaned forward, gently tugging her against him. “You don’t have to push yourself, okay? You’re allowed to be taken care of.” His voice dropped lower. “Let us take care of you.”

And just like that, the first domino fell.

⸻

She had expected more fight from Dick. But the real battle came twenty minutes later, when Damian came storming downstairs in his uniform and found her still in the kitchen, pale and swaying like a paper daisy in the wind.

“What is she doing here?” he asked Dick sharply, eyes narrowing. “Aren’t you supposed to be in your uniform downstairs and waiting for me?”

“She’s sick,” Dick answered for her. “Fever. Sore throat. Lethargic.”

Damian made a sound of pure contempt. “A minor inconvenience. My sister is stronger than a mere virus.”

“Your sister couldn’t stand up straight five minutes ago.”

“I’m not fragile,” Y/N said — but it came out more like a whimper than a protest, and she immediately went into a coughing fit.

“Tt,” Damian said, disgusted. “You sound like a dying goose.”

Dick smacked him lightly on the back of the head.

“She’s not going,” he said, more firmly this time.

Damian crossed his arms and glared. “Fine. But I’m sending Titus to stand guard. Can‘t trust any of you with her safety.”

“That’s not—”

But Titus was already at her side, nuzzling into her with a soft whine, curling around her legs as if she might disappear again.

Y/N’s heart tugged. “Thanks, Dami.”

He didn’t answer. Just turned and stalked off with his usual drama. But she caught the way his ears turned red.

_______

“Bed,” Dick said sternly, standing at the edge of the couch with his arms folded, looking every bit the overbearing parental figure he’d once sworn he’d never become. Not even ten minutes after Damian had left to go to school, Y/N had gone to the living room. She wanted to do some schoolwork and not slack off even when she felt like shit. But to her surprise (not) her oldest brother would not allow that.

“I said I’m fine,” she mumbled, blanket half-hugged to her chest. But Dick had her in his arms already. Her head to his broad chest.

“And I said bed.” His voice was gentler this time, but it brooked no argument. “Now.”

It wasn’t a suggestion.

Ten minutes later, she was tucked beneath two layers of blankets in her room — the same room that had only recently been refilled with her things. The elephant plush was nestled against her pillow. Titus lay sprawled at the foot of her bed, assigned by Damian with militant precision before he left for school.

Dick stood over her with a mug of tea in one hand and a digital thermometer in the other. The look on his face wasn’t warm — it was too tense, too strained. Every time he looked at her, it was like he was trying to count her breaths.

She rolled her eyes but drank the tea. He sat beside her and tucked a hand against her temple.

“Still hot,” he muttered. Then, half under his breath: “Still too hot.”

“Are you gonna take my vitals every five minutes?”

“If I could shrink myself down and fight the virus directly, I would.”

She laughed weakly, then coughed harder than she expected to. Her ribs hurt.

Dick’s eyes darkened. He pressed a hand gently to her back and looked like he was about to break down her immune system with sheer older-brother rage.

⸻

By mid-afternoon, her temperature had climbed.

“She’s at 39.4,” Alfred said in a hushed voice, leaning beside Dick in the hallway. “She’s sleeping, but her breathing is shallow. I don’t like how warm her hands are.”

Dick ran a hand through his hair. “I should’ve called a doctor.”

“You did everything right,” Alfred said. Then added, more quietly, “But perhaps you should inform your father.”

Dick hesitated.

He didn’t have to decide. Alfred already had.

Ten minutes later, Bruce Wayne was out of a board meeting and halfway home, leaving Lucius Fox behind with nothing but an insincere apology and the glare of a man who’d just been told his daughter was sick and hadn’t been informed immediately.

He arrived at the Manor like a storm.

“Why,” he asked as he stepped into her doorway, coat still flung over his arm, “did no one tell me my daughter was burning up?”

“Bruce—” Dick started, but Bruce was already moving.

She stirred when he entered. Blinked sleepily. “You’re home early,” she mumbled.

He went still. The sight of her was worse than he expected.

Her cheeks were flushed with fever, her lips dry, eyes half-lidded and glassy. She looked impossibly small beneath the layers of bedding. One hand clutched her elephant plush like a lifeline.

Something inside him cracked. He crossed to her and sat down slowly on the edge of the bed, brushing a strand of sweat-dampened hair from her face.

“I’m here now,” he said quietly.

“Daddy,” she whispered sleepily. The word was hoarse.

He froze.

And then he didn’t leave her side for the rest of the day.

⸻

Tim dropped into the cave late that night, eyes hollow from another twelve-hour stretch in front of every digital system he could access. Between corporate work and vigilante patrol, he’d still made time to set up two separate medical monitors for her room — just in case anything went wrong while she was asleep.

He also installed a retinal scanner at her door. Just in case.

He stepped inside her room under the guise of checking her fever, but lingered longer than necessary. Her breathing was soft. Her skin still too warm. She stirred occasionally, muttering things in her sleep that made his fingers twitch toward his tablet.

She was always too good, too pure — and none of them deserved her.

But she was theirs. And she was staying.

Even if he had to put tracking software on her toothbrush.

⸻

By the next morning, she was worse.

The fever hadn’t broken. Her throat was raw. Her nose was congested, and she barely touched the soup Alfred made.

The change was visible across the entire family.

Dick stopped his forced smiling. Damian barely spoke. Tim didn’t blink during his patrol.

And Bruce — Bruce stayed at the Manor. He read to her in low, grave tones. He wiped her forehead with a cloth. He held her hand and stared at the pulse in her wrist like it was the only thing keeping him sane.

Even Jason checked in.

Not through the door. Not loudly. But at midnight, when the house was still, the window creaked open and the floorboards whispered beneath his boots.

He sat beside her bed, hands gloved, movements careful.

“Don’t you scare me like this,” he whispered, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. “You hear me, Bloom?”

She didn’t answer. But she breathed — just enough.

The doctor came.

Private. Discreet. Paid well enough not to ask questions about the growling dog in the hallway or the collective glower of Gotham’s most dangerous men all crowded outside a feverish girl’s room.

“It’s not viral,” the doctor concluded with a quiet voice. “A severe immune response, most likely. But with proper rest, hydration, and this medication—” he tapped a slim white bag “—she’ll recover just fine.”

Bruce didn’t move.

Dick nodded. Tim took the bag.

Damian stood in the doorway, arms crossed, eyes locked on his sister with a silent, sharp glare.

“She’s too weak because she doesn’t eat right,” he muttered. “I keep telling her—”

“We’ve all been watching her eat,” Dick said, voice tight. “She eats.”

“Not enough protein. Not enough iron. You think tea and cookies will make her stronger?”

Bruce only murmured, “She sleeps too little.”

Tim added, “She gets cold too fast.”

Jason, from where he stood in the shadows, snapped, “Maybe because she grew up being ignored in a stone mansion, freezing her little hands off while everyone played hero.”

Silence followed. No one argued.

But all their eyes went to the bed.

⸻

The moment the door closed behind the doctor, the interrogation began.

“I don’t like the pills,” she mumbled, burritoed in her blankets and turned to the wall.

Dick knelt beside the bed. “They’ll help your fever.”

“No.”

“Y/N—”

“I don’t want to. They taste weird.”

“You’re not taking them for the taste.”

She burrowed deeper into the pillow. Her voice muffled. “I’m not sick. Just tired. Let me sleep.”

Damian let out a breath sharp as a blade. “You are sick.”

“You’re being dramatic—”

“And you’re being ridiculous, brat. Tt. Open your mouth.”

“No!”

He reached for the pill bottle, already halfway prepared to pinch her nose shut if she wouldn’t swallow on her own.

Dick stopped him with a hand.

“She’s scared,” he said gently.

“She’s being stubborn.”

Tim crouched by the desk. “We can crush it in honey—”

“She’ll taste it,” said Dick.

Bruce stepped into the room again, looming large in the doorway like a final verdict. “Give them to me.”

He approached her, slow and careful, but his presence was too heavy. Her eyes widened when she saw him, and she immediately shifted away, curling tighter into herself.

“Princess,” he said. “You need to take the medicine.”

She shook her head.

He sat beside her. “If I have to make you, I will.”

She didn’t believe him.

She should have.

⸻

It was Dick who held her in the end. His grip tight but not hurtful. She struggled — weakly, sickly, with tearful defiance — but her arms were too light. Her body too hot. She whined, kicked once, and let out a sob when the pill was pressed into her mouth and the bitter syrup followed behind it, held between firm fingers and cradled limbs.

And then Tim’s soft voice: “Just a little sedative, to help her rest.”

Her eyes fluttered.

“Why?” she whispered. Her voice broke. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because we love you,” Dick said into her hair.

She looked at him, dazed, betrayed. “This isn’t love.”

But she was too drowsy to keep speaking

________

When Jason returned that night — just past 1:13 a.m. — he didn’t expect her to be awake.

But she was.

He pushed open the window and landed softly on the carpet. Titus raised his head from the rug but didn’t bark. He knew Jason.

“Couldn’t sleep,” she murmured.

“You’re supposed to be knocked out.”

She smiled faintly. “Guess your little flower’s stubborn.”

Jason didn’t laugh. He crossed the room, knelt beside her bed, and studied her too-hot cheeks and glassy eyes. “You look like hell.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll find out who gave you this.”

She blinked. “It’s a fever.”

“Still. Someone coughed in your direction and I’ll rearrange their lungs.”

She laughed, but it turned into a cough. He leaned over and brushed her hair back, palm pressing gently to her forehead. She leaned into his touch, liking the coldness of his hands.

Still too warm. He didn’t speak for a while. Just stayed.

And then she said softly, “You guys overreact too much.”

Jason didn’t argue. He looked at her, eyes sharp and a little wild.

“I overreact because I remember what it felt like to lose you once,” he whispered. “I’m not doing it again.”

She stared at him. Eyes wide.

He leaned closer.

“You know what I think?” he murmured. “I think we should lock you in a nice, warm white cell. No windows. No exposure. No people. Just books and music and plants. I’ll bring you cookies. You’ll be safe.”

She laughed again, nervously. “That’s… extreme.”

“But you’ll be alive.” He crawled onto the bed, pulling her gently to him. “And that’s all I care about.”

She didn’t answer. Just pressed against his chest, too tired to resist.

He held her there.

And he didn’t leave until morning.

________

The others had patrol.

Dick had retreated to Bludhaven for an overdue meeting. Tim had returned to the Cave to track movement reports. Jason… well, Jason never reported anything. But he’d texted a blunt “You better not let anything happen to her” at 3 a.m.

Which left Damian. The least emotionally expressive. The most overbearing.

The perfect jailer.

He sat stiffly at her desk, legs crossed, scribbling something on school documents, half-watching her from the corner of his eye every third second. She lay bundled in bed, propped up by pillows, face still pale, still recovering.

But her eyes were clearer.

Too clear.

“You’re bored,” he muttered before she even said anything.

Her lips quirked. “Maybe.”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”

“You were going to ask to leave the bed,” he said without looking up. “Or to go outside. Or to play some insipid game. None of those are acceptable.”

She frowned at him. “You’re no fun.”

He smirked. “You’re no doctor. Stay put.”