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Birds and Bees	By : defying3reason Category: DC Verse Comics > Batman Views: 2564 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Batman, or any aspect of the broader DC Universe, and I make no money from my fanfiction

Chapter List
- 20
- 21
- 22
Chapter Twenty One
Roy felt like ass, but in an intimately familiar way. The last clear memory he had was of trying to drink Grace under the table. He didn't think this specific ass-ish feeling was the result of a hangover though. This was Cheshire's work.
Roy tried to sit up, and found that it wasn't just his weakness holding him down. He cracked open his eyes, hoping to get a look at his restraints, and found himself face to face with a wide-eyed sparkling blue stare instead.
"Yah!" The owner of said wide-eyed stare yelped and fell over. Roy would have clutched at his head if he could move his hand. As such, he had to deal with the pain shooting through his head without even the instinctive, ineffectual, but comforting gesture.
Harley Quinn righted herself, then bent down and waved in front of his face. "Hiya Red! Took ya long enough to wake up. No wait, come to think of it, you woke up in half the time it normally takes people after Chesh spritzes 'em with her stuff. You been poisoned by her a lot or something?"
Roy groaned out something unintelligible but vaguely threatening. Even though there was no chance the ditzy clown girl could have understood him (Roy wasn't even sure what he'd tried to say), she seemed to get his intent. "That ain't nice. I guess I'd better go get Chesh and see what she wants to do with you. I'll be right back, so don't try and escape or nothing!"
Groaning again, Roy rested his forehead on the cool cement of the floor, took a deep breath, then made a renewed effort to sit up. He got a little further before he was yanked back down again. He craned his neck a little, and was finally able to catch a glimpse of the restraints, which felt bizarrely different from anything he'd ever been tied up with.
Which made sense, because they were plant vines, and Poison Ivy wasn't really his rogue.
Jade slunk into the room, wearing a fancy green negligee that would have distracted him terribly if he weren't already far too pissed off and fearful to be horny. "Hello Roy."
"Hi. You wanna tell me what the fuck is going on?"
Smirking, Jade knelt in front of him, making quite the show of her long, shapely legs and bouncing cleavage as she did so. "I wanted to see you again."
"So you poisoned me and shoved me in a van?" He guessed, anyway.
"Give me a little credit please. It took some effort to get you out of the clutches of that horrible giantess you were carousing with."
Now he kinda wished Cheshire's poison mixed better with alcohol, because a smack-down between Grace and Jade was definitely worth remembering. Still though, more pressing issues. "If you wanted to talk to me you could have just showed up at the house again. I haven't exactly proven myself unwilling to spend time with you, you know."
"I do." Jade stretched out next to him, then leaned forward and hooked one of her legs between his. Roy tried to creep away, but Ivy's vines tightened and held him in place. Jade ran one of her long, dangerous nails up and down his face, putting just enough pressure to remind him what they could do but not enough to cause damage. "I'm interested in a bit more than a parenting chat this time though."
"Uh…flattered but spoken for?" Which wasn't true, but she didn't know that (hopefully).
"Ah yes, Nightwing. We'll deal with him if you won't, darling. I've been giving it some thought recently and…well, I'm getting older. I'm getting tired of running around like this. I want what you offered me."
Roy blinked at her in confusion. "What I…offered…you?"
"The house, the baby, your hand in marriage? You must remember that darling, it was the last conversation we had before you left with our child. You said you could pull some strings and get my record wiped clean."
"I could have when we were twenty. It's been over a decade since I made that offer Jade."
"I didn't want it then," Jade said with a frown. "But I want it now. I'm ready now. I want to see my daughter without having to hide. And I want you…More and more lately, I've regretted my selfish choices. Roy, you're the only person I've met who's ever seen anything of value in me, anything worth saving."
"I see. And to show me your appreciation, you decided to drug me and tie me to your basement floor with monstrous plants?" Roy asked pointedly.
Jade leaned back a little, giving him some space to breathe, but kept her leg pressed against his thigh. "I didn't expect you to accept my offer. Not yet, anyway. But my cards are on the table: I want custody of my daughter, and I want you. Whether we do this your way or mine remains to be seen, but one way or the other, we will be together."
She grabbed his face on either side with her claws and pulled him close. Roy tried to fight it, but Jade planted a powerful kiss on his mouth. He kept it close-mouthed and tried like hell to wriggle away, so she elbowed him in the gut and used his startled cry to turn it open-mouthed.
Roy felt even more sick (not to mentioned used) when Jade finally got up to leave. His mouth was coated with something sticky and waxy, and the sickening-sweet taste of it made him want to vomit.
Jade walked over to the doorway, swaying her hips unnecessarily as she went. She turned when she got to the door and smirked at him again, and that's when he noticed the acid green lipstick smeared over her mouth and put it together. She was working with Poison Ivy, and Poison Ivy turned makeup into weaponized aphrodisiacs.
If he didn't willingly marry Jade, she'd just drug him into it. It's not like his consent could make much difference to her.

Grace was sitting on the curb in front of one of Keystone's seedier watering holes, surrounded by crushed water bottles and two empty aspirin bottles, when Dick roared up on one of the loudest, least fuel efficient, American made monsters in his motor cycle collection. He tried not to enjoy it too much when the hulking woman bent double and, swearing loudly, clutched at her head.
It was petty, but he still didn't like the fact that Grace had tried to score with his ex the night they broke up (because he didn't believe for a second that Grace had only shown up to comfort Roy and have a few drinks; she was on the outs with Anissa again too).
"Jesus H Christ on a motherfucking pogo stick! What the fuck is wrong with you Grayson?!" she demanded.
He calmly removed his motorcycle helmet and regarded her with a cool expression. "I'm not sure I follow you."
"Asshole. Why the fuck are you in your civvies? I thought I told you I wanted you here to detect!"
Dick climbed off of his bike and walked past her. "And in broad daylight, I do that with much less notice dressed as a civilian than in my spandex. Now what happened?"
"I told you already. Roy got grabbed by a psycho bitch."
Dick pressed his lips together, but gave no other outward sign of how annoying he found her attitude. Not for the first time, he wished Roy hadn't convinced the over-compensating meta bouncer that she was superhero material. "Could I get some details please?"
After much coaxing, he was able to get the cranky, hung-over woman to expound a little on the events of the previous night. She and Roy had been stumbling their way out of the parking lot (so that she could get him back to his place and jump his bones went heavily implied), when a van pulled up and out jumped Cheshire and Harley Quinn. Roy had been too inebriated to be of much use (which was, again, its own cause for worry given his history), but Grace had put up a pretty decent fight, and lost.
"Did you see what direction the van went?" Dick prompted.
Grace shook her head, then grabbed it with her hand and winced. "Nope. Too busy spitting out blood and getting back on my feet. That baby-mama really packs a punch."
"I know." Dick hated fighting Cheshire.
"So what's the next step?" Grace asked, a note of impatience in her voice.
Dick was about to tell her that they needed to call Wally, when his phone rang. He fished it out of his pocket, and Grace sneered at him. "You're not actually gonna answer that, are you? We're busy."
"Hey Wally," Dick greeted, not exactly surprised to hear from the guy.
"Hey dude…uh…you're not still in the area, are you?"
"Just got back, actually. Roy got kidnapped last night. Is Lian still with you?"
Grace's face paled at that. "Shit, I forgot about her."
"She just came back from her house," Wally said. "She said the door was kicked in, so she didn't go inside but just came right back here. And Roy's not answering his phone."
Dick had just walked by the smashed remnants of Roy's cell while pacing around the empty parking lot. "Somehow that doesn't surprise me. Look, I know you're busy right now, but would you mind keeping her with you until this is sorted out? Cheshire took Roy, which makes me think she'd be equally interested in going after their daughter."
"Of course Lian can stay here. How much do you think I should tell her about why though?"
Dick sighed, not sure how to answer that himself. "Tell her that her parents are having a tiff, and that people are on it, and she just needs to stay with you until we work this out. If it seems like she's having a hard time, call me back and I'll swing by and talk to her before I leave for Gotham."
"Gotham?" Wally and Grace repeated.
Dick rolled his eyes. "That's where Cheshire and her friends are. Look, I've got to go so I can get to work on this."
"Yeah dude, of course. I'll let you know if Lian wants to talk to you," Wally promised before hanging up.
Grace crossed her arms over her chest. "What now?"
"There isn't much to be learned from this parking lot," Dick said. "But it looks like Cheshire swung by his house first. I want to go in and take a peek, then I need to make some calls, then I'm heading back to Gotham. You're welcome to come with."
Grace nodded, and walked over to his bike.

They didn't find much at Roy's house that Dick didn't already expect. The place was trashed, the coat he'd left behind had been clawed to shreds, and dozens of family photos and pieces of Lian's artwork were missing.
Dick was standing in front of a blank patch of wall in the hallway that used to hold a watercolor Lian had made of her and Roy, frowning. It was tempting to use all this as an excuse to dwell on the decision he and Roy had come to. And he would, but after they had Roy back.
"While you're rocking your detective mojo, I'm just gonna pop across the way and check in on the squirt," Grace called.
Dick nodded, not really caring if she noticed.
He knew Cheshire making scattered visits at the house was a bad idea, and Roy had brushed off his concerns. Not only that, he'd made Dick feel guilty for having them. Made him feel jealous…
Because he kind of was. Which was stupid, and not even a little fair. Dick had had some pretty serious relationships other than the one with Roy. He'd been engaged more than once, after all. Still, the commitment of having a kid with that psycho…it was a pretty strong tie.
'You shied away from having that kind of tie with him,' Dick reminded himself. Roy offered him everything, and he'd walked away. And now the guy might be dying, without Dick getting the chance to explain that his decision was hurting the hell out of him, and that he wanted more time to reconsider.
"Alright, this emo shit isn't helping anything." Dick wiped at his face, gave himself a mental shake, then got his phone out again.
"Hey Bruce…oh don't even. Nine am is a perfectly acceptable time to make a phone call, and you did pick up…I yelled at you when you did it because I'd only gotten three hours of sleep! You're probably on hour five, at le-two? Well anyway, that's not important. Do you still have Selina's number? …For a hook-up, why do you think I want her-did you hang up on me?"

Roy wasn't exactly surprised that his headache and weakness didn't improve with time, but it was really shitty to have that particular worry confirmed. He'd long since worked whatever Jade had initially hit him with through his system, so that meant the new stuff was taking its toll, and the new stuff scared him.
He didn't see her again for the rest of the day, but Harley made another appearance. She skipped up to him, waved cheerfully, and then bent over at an odd angle to look him over. "Hm…you got really pale Red. And you're all clammy. Guess we don't need these anymore." She stood up straight, whistled, and the vines retracted. "That's better!"
Roy didn't bother changing position. He was feverish, and the cold cement felt nice against his face. "Where's Jade?"
"Around. She asked me to check up on ya. Gotta say, you're not looking too good."
"Well she is poisoning me."
Harley shrugged, then sat down cross legged in front of him. "If you're getting poisoned, does that mean you don't want dinner?"
Roy rolled his eyes up so that he could give her an incredulous look. She still might have missed it, since he was flat on the floor. "No, I don't think I can eat."
"Well we might need ta get ya an IV then. Not right away though. I think you'll keep for a few more days." She cheerfully slapped his arm stub, and he suppressed the urge to growl at her. "Hm…so if she's poisoning you that must mean you said no. How come you don't wanna marry Chesh no more?"
"For starters, she's poisoning me."
Harley took a moment to consider that. "Y'know, it's not great, but I wouldn't call it a deal breaker."
"No, I suppose you wouldn't."
Harley sniffed. "I'm just saying…if you ever actually loved her, you could overlook a few quirks if you wanted to."
"Abduction and poisons are quirks?"
"Sure they are. So you really don't want to marry her anymore?" Harley asked, eagerly leaning forward with her pointed chin in her hands. Roy groaned and closed his eyes, then shook his head. Harley frowned, lower lip trembling. "That's awful! You guys got a kid together and everything! You could, you could run away and start fresh and have a house with a yard and a swing set! It'd be perfect!"
"Jade doesn't love me Quinn," Roy snapped. "I'm not even sure if she loves Lian at this point."
"Course she does! She's always thinking about you guys. I know she's a little grumpy, but trust me, she really wants this to work out."
"Yeah, well if she'd ever gotten pregnant by any other guy, I'm sure he'd be here on your fucking floor instead of me. I'm just the instrument that helped bring about our child, and I serve as Lian's retainer."
"That ain't true Red. An' it's really awful that you think all those mean things of Chesh. Lookit all the trouble she went through just for you!"
Roy snorted. "You've got more issues than I thought."
"Yeah, well you're mean." Harley jumped to her feet and left in a huff.
Roy curled in on himself and clutched his head with his hand. As soon as the door slammed shut behind Quinn, he sat up straight and started looking around the room for anything useful in effecting an escape.

Lian was sitting on Irey's bed crying hysterically into a pillow when there was a knock on the door. Irey had been rubbing her back, but she stopped, rested her hand on Lian's shoulder, and looked at the door. "Who's there?"
The door opened a crack, and a woman Irey had never seen before poked her head in. "Hey chicky. I'm friends with Lian's dad. Is it okay if I come in and talk to her?"
"Uh…" Irey looked blankly between her sobbing friend and the strange (and freaking huge!) woman. "Li…what do you want to do?"
Lian lowered the pillow. Her face and eyes were red and her nose was running. Irey had never seen her so emotional before. "C-c'mon in Grace. D-did you g-guys find a l-lead yet?"
Grace shook her head. "Sorry princess. Dickie-bird seems to have some ideas, but we haven't actually set out to save the day yet. I wanted to swing by and check in on you before we left though. Hey, don't sweat it Lian. We'll find him. And I'll beat the hell out of your mom, so she'll think twice before trying a stunt like this again."
Irey went to get Lian a box of tissues from her mom's bedside table and got them to her hand in half a second. "See? Grace and Nightwing are on it. Your dad'll be back in no time."
"Listen to your friend kid. She's a smart one."
Lian wiped at her face, and when she turned to look at Grace she was more composed. Grace smiled reassuringly, but her face fell at Lian's next question. "Can I come with you?"
"I don't think that's a good idea honey," Grace said with a frown. "We'll get your dad and bring him back and everything'll be fine, but you should wait here while we do it."
"I can help. I-I know I can help."
"Lian, you don't have any powers," Irey hissed.
"Neither does Daddy," Lian hissed back. She returned her attention to Grace. "I don't need them! I've been…um, I know how to fight. I can help, I promise."
Grace smirked. "Hey, I wouldn't mind having another hero on the case, but the thing is, if I showed up with you, then your dad'd kick my ass as soon as we rescued him. I'd rather be on his good side right now, so you're just gonna have to stay here."
Lian looked at Grace in some confusion. "Since when do you care if someone gets mad at you?"
She looked satisfied about something. "Never you mind Princess. Just sit tight and hang out with your buddy. I'll have your dad back to you in no time." Grace went so far as to ruffle Lian's hair, and then she skulked out of the room.
As soon as the door was shut Lian took her hair out of its ponytail and started frantically running her fingers through it. "I hate it when she patronizes me like that. She barely listened to me."
"Well she's kinda right Lian. If you showed up at a supervillain's hideout your dad would have a cow," Irey pointed out.
Lian scowled. "I can help. I'd definitely rather help than just sit here and worry about him."
"I guess." It's how Irey would feel if it was her dad in a hostage situation. "So who taught you how to fight? Your dad barely shows you anything."
"If you help me sneak out and run me to Gotham, I'll tell you."
"Lian, Dad told us to stay right here. He said Cheshire might come after you."
A hard, cold look came over Lian's normally soft and pleasant face. "I hope she does."
Irey chewed her lip, and started pacing across her room. Finally, she nodded. "Okay, I'll bring you to Gotham. Why do you wanna go there anyway?"
"Because Mom lives there. I heard Daddy and Uncle Dick talking about it the other day. Plus we should stop by Damian's and see if he wants to help."
Irey breathed a sigh of relief. "Yeah, getting Robin is definitely a good idea."

Damian was taking a run through the grounds of the manor when suddenly Impulse was running alongside him. She waved at him, then veered off to some trees about twenty feet away. Intrigued (and mildly concerned that he was hallucinating-he had suffered a minor head injury during the previous night's patrol, after all), he followed after her.
Impulse was leaning against a tree with her goggles down, and much to Damian's surprise, Lian was sitting on a small boulder. "Hi Damian."
"Hello…what are you both doing here?"
"We've got a mission!" Irey announced brightly. "Want in?"
Lian shook her head in incredulity. "That is not how you invite someone on a team-up."
"Like you would know," Irey pouted.
Damian made an impatient noise and folded his arms over his chest. "What team-up? What is this all about? Lian, you're not ready for fieldwork."
"He's training you?!" Irey shrieked.
Lian glared at her. "Irey, stealth. We're trying to do this without Alfred and Mr. Wayne and frickin' everyone finding out we're here, remember? Sheesh. And yes, Damian's been training me. The boy does know how to fight without superpowers. I'd thought he was the obvious choice for an instructor."
Damian narrowed his eyes. "I'm much more than an obvious choice. But again, I must insist that while you've learned a great deal under my tutelage, I'm not comfortable bringing you into a combat situation."
Lian touched his arm and gently steered him a little further into the cluster of trees. Taking the hint, Irey gave them some space. "Dami…my dad was kidnapped. His life is in danger and everyone wants me to just sit in my room and wait for them to fix it. But I can't just do nothing when I know I can help."
"You could also complicate the situation."
"I'm asking you as a friend. Dami, please come with us. And if you don't, can you at least not tell on us?" She grasped his hand with both of her small ones with a pleading expression. He hated seeing her so distressed.
"Alright, fine. But if you're going to work with me then you're going to listen to me. I have more experience than Impulse, and a thousand times more than you. You will defer to that expertise without question while we're in the field."
Well that got the look of distress off her face. He couldn't exactly read the expression that replaced it, but she finally gave her assent in a choked voice. That was something.
"Very well then. Follow me." Damian set off towards the manor with the two girls in tow.
"Hey, where are we going?" Irey asked.
"We're not allowed to question him," Lian said, rolling her eyes. "I'm going to put forth the suggestion that you tell us what's going on before we bump into your dad though."
"Father has a board meeting in twenty minutes. He left for it an hour ago so that he could meet with Dick first." Damian paused. "They're looking for your father, aren't they?"
"Uncle Dick is, yeah."
"Hmph. He might have asked me for my input as well. At any rate, only Pennyworth is in the manor, and the last I saw of him, he was employed in dusting the useless knick knacks and heir looms on the third floor. We won't be seeing him."
The girls followed him into the house and through the maze of rooms on the first floor before speaking again. "So where are we going?" Lian asked.
"You're not going to be able to follow my rules, are you?"
"Probably not, no," she answered, a glint of challenge in her eyes.
For whatever reason, Damian didn't find it as annoying as he usually did. He felt his lips twitch in something near a smile, and then he turned and started walking towards the hidden stairwell again. "We're going to the Cave. You need to be outfitted with supplies and, if you're doing this kind of work now, you'll need a mask."
"Oh. Well that's cool."

Dick had been a bit concerned about showing up at the Wayne Enterprises building with Grace, but thankfully the rough mannered, heavily tattooed meta also had her own misgivings about spending any amount of time in an upscale office building that she wasn't breaking into for work. She offered to cruise the streets and see what she could pick up off of contacts, and Dick happily jumped on the suggestion that they part ways.
He was so concerned about Grace that he didn't give much of a thought to his own appearance. Since he'd been driving around on a motorcycle for most of the day, he was wearing a heavy leather coat, jeans, muddy boots, and his hair was a sad combination of windswept and helmet-shaped.
Tim and Tam were walking through the lobby when they saw him (he still couldn't get over the fact that they'd been dating with nearly identical names for three and a half years without one of them cracking and adopting a new nickname). It looked like Tim was bringing his girlfriend lunch. They both slowed their pace and then stopped walking with the same amused expression on their faces.
"Hey Dick," Tim finally greeted.
"I'm sorry Mr. Grayson, but we do have a minimum standard of dress in this building," Tam teased.
"Really? Because I remember running through here once in my little league uniform," Dick said. "You guys seen Bruce?"
"No, but he should be upstairs…unless you boys have a thing going on?" Tam asked. Tim eyed Dick curiously.
"I'm just here for some info. I'll give you a call if it gets interesting," Dick said in a low voice. "Anyway, I'll leave you guys to enjoy your lunch. Nice seeing you Tam." He nodded another goodbye at the couple, then strode over to the elevators.
As he passed through the building on his way to Bruce's office, Dick noticed a lot of employees start to sneer at him for his unkempt appearance, until they caught a better look at his face. It was pretty funny, actually. He'd always liked messing with the suck-ups back when he'd still lived with Bruce.
After exchanging pleasantries with the administrative assistant, Dick walked into Bruce's office without knocking, figuring it was okay since he was expected. And he immediately regretted his stupid-ass assumption.
Bruce was sitting at his desk in work clothes, while Selina Kyle was perched suggestively in front of him. Her expression was far from welcoming, and she had her arms folded across her chest, but the rest of her body language didn't match. She was leaning into his space and besides that, her legs were spread pretty far considering how short the skirt of her suit was. And then there was the fact that Bruce had a hand on her inner thigh.
Dick stage coughed. Neither of them moved.
"Hello junior," Selina finally said, glancing over her shoulder.
Bruce rolled his desk chair back, thankfully removing the groping hand to do so, and had the nerve to look at Dick with a calm expression, as though he hadn't walked in on anything the least bit awkward.
"Uh yeah, hi." He should have been used to this by now. He'd been walking in on Batman and Catwoman having awkward, frustrated, sexually charged power battles since he was too young to know what they were. And he'd learned long ago that the best way to deal with the situation was to ignore it. "Hey Selina. Thanks for showing up."
"Not at all." She pointedly crossed her legs, choosing to remain perched on the edge of Bruce's desk. Dick momentarily wondered (as he did with the shoe choices of many females in the costumed community) how Selina walked and fought in those heels. Not that she was dressed for a fight, but he knew she could be ready at the first hint of one.
Dick had dressed in drag more than once for undercover work during his adolescence, and he'd usually kicked off the heels if he needed to do any running.
"I'd heard you needed my help with a case?" Selina prodded.
"Yeah. I was wondering if you'd heard anything else about Cheshire's team-up with Harley and Ivy."
"Oh, that." Selina looked a bit disappointed, but it barely lasted a second before she adopted her put-upon yet business-like manner. "It's been going on a bit too long to just be a team-up at this point, and besides that, I'd heard that Cheshire and Ivy were more than just coworkers. Of course, it's equally likely that that's just fantasy-fodder for the pervs of the criminal world."
Dick hadn't ever heard anything about Cheshire being bisexual, so he was willing to dismiss the rumor. If any costumes worked together long enough, whatever their affiliation, whatever their gender, they were invariably rumored to be sleeping together (it was just coincidence that Dick actually had slept with most of the close teammates and friends he'd been accused of having relationships with).
"Any thought on a location for them?" Dick asked.
"I have some people I can ask. From what I hear, Ivy's still interested in a collaboration with me, so she's kept lines of communication open. But before we continue," she said with a pointed look at Dick's hopeful expression, "I want to know what beef you've got with Cheshire before I commit to something that could be dangerous."
"She abducted my boyfriend." Dick thought it best to just come out with it (and that boyfriend would sound more compelling than ex-boyfriend). Dick had learned some years ago that being direct with Selina worked wonders. If you treated her with respect, more often than not she made an attempt to return it.
He really wished Bruce would come around on that particular strategy.
"Ah." Selina sighed, scrubbing a hand through her short black hair. "We're all thinking the same thing here, aren't we?"
"Sending you in as bait? I assume so," Bruce responded.
"We don't even have to go that far," Dick said, not liking the distinctly pissed off look Selina wore in response to Bruce's blunt answer. "If you let out word of your interest in joining them, we could set up an ambush and you wouldn't even need to be present."
Selina shook her head. "There's no way to do that without word of my involvement coming back to them. Cheshire in particular has an impressive network of informants, and even though she's only been in Gotham a short time, it's already extensive enough to rival my own. If I help you even the slightest beyond bare bones information, it will get back to them and it will make hell for me."
"Then I guess I'm just going to have to appeal to your good nature."
Selina laughed, a deep, throaty sound, while Bruce snorted derisively and rolled his eyes.

Dick left the office a short time later for his meeting with Grace. Despite Selina's ultimate refusal to directly help him, he didn't consider the meeting a complete waste of time. He'd piqued Selina's interest, and often times that was enough.
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Birds and Bees