Poison Ivy entered carrying medical supplies. Dark hair.
Green-tinted skin from years of plant integration. She moved with purpose, her expression analytical.
Bruce lay unconscious on the medical table. His breathing was shallow. His right wrist showed the bite mark, already surrounded by black and red veins spreading across his skin like a network.
"What the?," Ivy murmured.
She set the IV bags on the stand. Three liters of saline. Two units of blood substitute. Electrolyte solutions. Everything Bruce had calculated he would need.
Ivy found Bruce's left arm and positioned the IV needle with precision.
Her hands were steady. She'd worked with biological transformation long enough to understand what the body required during radical cellular restructuring.
"The venom is already spreading," Ivy said quietly, observing the vein network. "Your metabolism is consuming resources faster than I anticipated. But then, you calculated for that."
She secured the line and started the first drip.
Ivy pulled a chair over and sat. She wasn't going anywhere. She needed to monitor this transformation closely.
Six hours passed.
Ivy checked the monitors every thirty minutes. Heart rate: elevated but stabilizing. Blood pressure: dangerously high, then dropping, then spiking again. Temperature: 102 degrees and climbing.
The black and red veins spread further across Bruce's body. They branched from his right wrist up his arm, across his shoulder, down his torso. Like his body was being rewired by some external force.
"Your vascular system is adapting beautifully," Ivy said, though Bruce couldn't hear her. "The venom is integrating rather than attacking. That suggests your immune system recognized the mutation as beneficial."
She switched to the second IV bag.
Twelve hours passed.
Ivy called Selina. The phone rang twice.
"Status?" Selina asked.
"He's unstable, though his vitals are performing like his body is at war with itself," Ivy said. "Temperature is 130 degrees. Heart rate is irregular. But the pattern suggests this he may be dead if his temperature started to increase more "
"He knew what would happen?" Selina asked.
"He know this ," Ivy said. "Bruce doesn't improvise biological transformation. If he went through with this, every variable was accounted for."
"How long?" Selina asked.
"Twenty-four hours, minimum. His body needs time to restructure at the cellular level. The spider venom is rewriting his DNA sequence," Ivy said. "This isn't simple mutation. This is comprehensive biological redesign."
Selina was quiet.
"He'll survive this," Ivy said. It wasn't a question.
"Yes," Selina agreed. "Bruce doesn't fail."
She hung up.
Ivy sat back and observed Bruce's unconscious form. She'd spent decades studying plant biology, cellular adaptation, genetic integration.
But this—spider venom rewriting human cellular structure—this was something different. Something that required precision and patience.
She had both.
Eighteen hours passed.
The thirteen IV bag emptied. Ivy switched to the fourteenth without hesitation.
The veins had stopped spreading. They were holding at Bruce's shoulder and ribs. The pattern looked almost intentional—like some kind of supernatural tattoo mapping a blueprint across his body.
Ivy leaned closer, studying the pattern.
"The venom is creating a network," she whispered. "Not random. Strategic. Your nervous system is being rewired to accommodate the new sensory input and motor control."
She checked the monitors.
Whatever was happening inside Bruce's body, it was stabilizing.
Twenty-two hours passed.
Ivy was still there. She'd brought notes. She was documenting everything—the vital sign patterns, the physical manifestations, the timing of cellular restructuring. This information was invaluable. Understanding how spider venom could successfully integrate with human biology rather than destroying it had applications far beyond Bruce's individual case.
Bruce's fingers twitched occasionally. His eyes moved beneath closed lids. REM sleep. His brain was processing the transformation even in unconsciousness.
Ivy made notes.
Twenty-four hours and seventeen minutes after the injection.
Bruce's eyes opened.
The irises were different. They reflected light like polished metal. Blue, but reflective. Like mirrors had replaced his pupils.
"Where am I?" Bruce's voice was hoarse.
Ivy stood immediately, setting her notes aside.
"Medical room beneath Wayne Manor. You've been unconscious for exactly one day," Ivy said. "How do you feel?"
"Everything hurts," Bruce said.
He tried to sit up. His body didn't respond correctly. Too heavy. Or too light. The sensation was disorienting.
"That's the venom rewriting your nervous system," Ivy said. "Pain is your body signaling that it's processing the mutation. That's normal."
Bruce finally sat upright. His hands were shaking. He looked at his right wrist. The bite mark was still there, surrounded by the network of black and red veins that extended across his body.
"How long was I unconscious?" Bruce asked.
"Twenty-four hours. Vital signs were chaotic for the first eighteen hours. Heart rate spiked to 185. Blood pressure reached dangerous levels. Then everything stabilized," Ivy said. "Your body knew what to do."
"Expected," Bruce said. He swung his legs off the table slowly. "The spider venom I selected was the most mutated specimen. Its genetic code was already optimized for integration."
"How you were sure, this will be successful," Ivy said. It wasn't a question.
" Well, may be it was my intuition or to say i had beleive in my self, i will survive."
Ivy moved closer as Bruce tried to stand.
Bruce put weight on his feet. Immediately his balance shifted. The world tilted.
"I'm fine. Just disorienting," Bruce said.
Ivy steadied him. Her green skin contrasted with his as she gripped his arm.
They tried again. This time Bruce stayed upright. His balance was still wrong, but functional.
"The world is too loud," Bruce said suddenly.
"What?"
"There's a hum. In the walls. In the electrical systems. The HVAC. I can hear the generator three floors down. Clearly. Like it's in the room with me," Bruce said.
Ivy's eyes narrowed.
"Enhanced hearing," Ivy said. "Your auditory nervous system is processing frequencies beyond normal human parameters. The spider's sensory adaptation is integrating with your biology."
"The sensory enhancement is more acute than I anticipated," Bruce said. "But this is manageable. It will adjust as my nervous system adapts to the new input."
Ivy studied him carefully.
"You've studied the mutation template extensively," she said.
"In detail," Bruce said. "I need food. My body is demanding caloric intake to fuel the transformation."
"There's a kitchen one floor up," Ivy said.
"Help me walk," Bruce said.
They made it as far as the mirror in the corner of the medical room.
Bruce stopped in front of his reflection.
His body muscles were healed and all sacrs were gone. But the black and red vein network was visible across his shoulder, his ribs, down his right arm. It glowed faintly under his skin. Like neon patterns tattooed beneath the surface.
"I feel like something's moving inside me," Bruce said.
"That's the venom still integrating," Ivy said. "Your nervous system is being rewritten. Neural pathways are forming that didn't exist before. The sensation will pass."
Bruce raised his right hand and looked at his palm.
Something happened.
Golden webbing shot out from his wrist. Thin. Sharp. It hit the wall and stuck.
Ivy didn't flinch. She simply observed.
"Web generation," Ivy said. "The spider's DNA is expressing through your biological structure."
The webbing retracted automatically, pulling back into his wrist. Then it fired again. Uncontrolled. At the ceiling. The floor. The far wall.
"I don't have control," Bruce said. His voice was controlled, but there was tension underneath. "My hand is firing without neurological input."
Ivy grabbed a metal tray and held it as a shield. Webbing stuck to it repeatedly, then withdrew.
"Your nervous system is treating web generation as a defensive reflex," Ivy said. "Your body perceives threat and responds instinctively. This will improve as your conscious mind learns to govern the reflex."
"I need to establish conscious control immediately," Bruce said.
Bruce focused on his hand. The webbing fired three more times before stopping.
He was breathing harder now.
Forty minutes later, Bruce was walking.
His balance was better. Still not perfect, but functional. His gait was different though. More fluid. Like his muscles were responding to input that wasn't there before.
He sat down carefully on the edge of the medical table.
Ivy handed him a protein bar from the supplies she'd brought.
"You need substantial caloric intake," Ivy said. "Your metabolism is consuming resources at an elevated rate. The transformation required approximately 8,000 calories of energy. Probably more."
Bruce ate it without tasting it. Then another. Then he drank an entire liter of water.
"My body is demanding resources," Bruce said. "The cellular restructuring is still accelerating."
Ivy's phone buzzed. She checked the message from Selina.
"The news is reporting Superman activity in Metropolis. Massive explosion. He contained it," Ivy said. She turned on the small television in the corner.
The news anchor was mid-sentence: "—reports that Superman has contained the situation. No civilian casualties reported. Authorities are still investigating the cause of the explosion, but sources suggest a deliberate attack on a Luthor Technologies facility."
Ivy glanced at Bruce.
"The world is becoming more populated with enhanced beings," Ivy said.
"The world was always this dangerous," Bruce said. "We're just becoming capable enough to recognize it now."
Bruce flexed his right hand. Webbing formed across his palm, controlled this time. A golden web pattern that held for three seconds, then retracted completely.
"Control is improving," Bruce said. "The neurological integration is accelerating faster than anticipated."
The news switched to Gotham. Gang violence in Crime Alley. Missing persons reports. Nothing unusual.
Ivy turned the television off.
Spider venom had integrated seamlessly with Bruce's cellular structure. He was no longer entirely human.
He was something more.
And that was exactly what he'd intended.