Poison Ivy walked in carrying medical supplies. She had dark hair and skin with a slight green tint, something she got from years of working closely with plants. She moved with purpose, her eyes sharp and focused.
Bruce was lying on the medical table, completely unconscious. His breathing was shallow. On his right wrist was the spider bite mark. Black and red veins were already spreading out from it, like a web growing across his skin.
"What the…?" Ivy whispered to herself.
She hung up some IV bags on the stand. Three liters of saline. Two units of blood substitute. Electrolyte solutions. Bruce had planned all of this beforehand. He had calculated exactly what he would need.
Ivy found Bruce's left arm and carefully put the IV needle in. Her hands were perfectly steady. She'd worked with biological changes enough to know what a body needs when its cells are completely restructuring themselves.
"The venom is already spreading," Ivy said quietly, watching the vein pattern grow. "Your body is burning through resources faster than I expected. But you already planned for that, didn't you?"
She made sure the line was secure and started the first drip.
Ivy pulled a chair over and sat down. She wasn't going anywhere. She needed to watch this transformation very closely.
Six hours passed.
Ivy checked the monitors every thirty minutes. Heart rate: high but starting to settle down. Blood pressure: dangerously high at first, then dropping, then spiking again. Temperature: 102 degrees and still rising.
The black and red veins kept spreading across Bruce's body. They branched from his right wrist up his whole arm, across his shoulder, down his chest. It looked like his body was being rewired by something from outside.
"Your blood vessel system is adapting beautifully," Ivy said, even though Bruce couldn't hear her. "The venom isn't just attacking. It's blending in. That means your immune system saw the mutation as something good."
She switched to the second IV bag.
Twelve hours passed.
Ivy called Selina. The phone rang twice.
"How is he?" Selina asked.
"He's unstable, but his vitals are acting like his body is at war with itself," Ivy said. "Temperature is 104 degrees now. Heart rate is all over the place. If his temperature keeps climbing, he could die."
"He knew this would happen?" Selina asked.
"He knew," Ivy said. "Bruce doesn't do biological experiments without a plan. If he went through with this, he must have calculated every variable."
"How much longer?" Selina asked.
"Twenty-four hours at least. His body needs time to rebuild itself at the cellular level. The spider venom is rewriting his DNA," Ivy said. "This isn't a simple change. This is a complete biological redesign."
Selina was quiet for a moment.
"He'll survive this," Ivy said. It wasn't really a question.
"Yes," Selina agreed. "Bruce doesn't fail."
She hung up.
Ivy sat back and watched Bruce's still body. She had spent decades studying plant biology, how cells adapt, how genes mix together. But this—spider venom rewriting a human's cellular structure—this was something completely different. This needed precision and patience.
She had both.
Eighteen hours passed.
The thirteenth IV bag was empty. Ivy switched to the fourteenth without any hesitation.
The veins had stopped spreading. They were now just covering his shoulder and ribs. The pattern looked almost on purpose—like some kind of supernatural tattoo mapping a blueprint on his body.
Ivy leaned closer, studying the pattern.
"The venom is creating a network," she whispered. "Not random. It's strategic. Your nervous system is being rewired to handle new sensory input and motor control."
She checked the monitors again. Whatever was happening inside Bruce's body, it was finally starting to settle down.
Twenty-two hours passed.
Ivy was still there. She had brought notes and was writing everything down—the vital sign patterns, the physical changes, the timing of the cellular restructuring. This information was extremely valuable. Understanding how spider venom could successfully merge with human biology instead of destroying it could be useful for many things beyond just Bruce's case.
Bruce's fingers twitched now and then. His eyes moved under his closed lids. REM sleep. Even while unconscious, his brain was processing the transformation.
Ivy kept making notes.
Twenty-four hours and seventeen minutes after the injection.
Bruce's eyes opened.
His irises looked different. They reflected light like polished metal. Blue, but shiny, as if mirrors had replaced his pupils.
"Where am I?" Bruce's voice was rough.
Ivy stood up immediately, putting 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 right. It felt too heavy. Or maybe too light. The whole sensation was confusing and threw off his balance.
"That's the venom rewriting your nervous system," Ivy said. "The pain means your body is processing the mutation. That's normal."
Bruce finally managed to sit upright. His hands were shaking. He looked at his right wrist. The bite mark was still there, surrounded by that network of black and red veins spreading across his body.
"How long was I unconscious?" Bruce asked.
"Twenty-four hours. Your vitals were crazy for the first eighteen. Heart rate spiked to 185. Blood pressure reached dangerous levels. Then everything stabilized," Ivy said. "Your body knew what to do."
"As expected," Bruce said. He slowly swung his legs off the table. "The spider venom I used was from the most mutated specimen. Its genetic code was already optimized for merging with a host."
"How could you be so sure this would work?" Ivy asked. It wasn't really a question.
"Well, maybe it was my intuition. Or maybe I just believed in myself. I knew I would survive."
Ivy moved closer as Bruce tried to stand.
Bruce put his weight on his feet. Immediately, his balance shifted. The room tilted.
"I'm fine. Just feeling a bit dizzy," Bruce said.
Ivy steadied him. Her green skin contrasted with his as she held his arm.
They tried again. This time Bruce stayed on his feet. His balance still felt wrong, but he could function.
"The world is too loud," Bruce said suddenly.
"What do you mean?"
"There's a hum. In the walls. In the electrical systems. The air conditioning. I can hear the generator three floors down. As clearly as if it's right here in this room."
Ivy's eyes narrowed.
"Enhanced hearing," she said. "Your auditory nervous system is picking up sounds that are beyond normal human range. The spider's sensory abilities are blending with your biology."
"The sensory boost is stronger than I expected," Bruce said. "But it's manageable. It will settle down as my nervous system gets used to the new input."
Ivy watched him carefully.
"You studied the mutation plans very thoroughly," she said.
"In detail," Bruce said. "I need food. My body is demanding calories 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 his old scars were gone. But the network of black and red veins was clearly 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. New neural pathways are forming that didn't exist before. That feeling will go away."
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 there.
Ivy didn't flinch. She just watched carefully.
"Web generation," Ivy said. "The spider's DNA is expressing itself through your body."
The webbing pulled back into his wrist automatically, then fired again. Uncontrolled. At the ceiling. The floor. The far wall.
"I don't have control yet," Bruce said. His voice was calm, but there was tension underneath. "My hand is firing on its own, without my brain telling it to."
Ivy grabbed a metal tray and held it as a shield. Webbing kept hitting it and then pulling back.
"Your nervous system is treating web generation as a defensive reflex," Ivy said. "Your body feels a threat and responds without thinking. This will get better as your conscious mind learns to control the reflex."
"I need to get conscious control right now," Bruce said.
He focused hard on his hand. The webbing fired three more times before finally stopping.
He was breathing harder now.
---
Forty minutes later, Bruce was walking.
His balance was better. Still not perfect, but he could move around. His walk was different though. More fluid. Like his muscles were responding to signals that weren't there before.
He sat down carefully on the edge of the medical table.
Ivy handed him a protein bar from the supplies.
"You need a lot of calories," she said. "Your metabolism is using up energy very fast. The transformation probably burned about 8,000 calories. Maybe more."
Bruce ate the bar without tasting it. Then another. Then he drank a whole liter of water.
"My body keeps demanding more," Bruce said. "The cellular restructuring is still speeding up."
Ivy's phone buzzed. She checked the message from Selina.
"The news is reporting Superman activity in Metropolis. A massive explosion. He contained it," Ivy said. She turned on the small television in the corner.
The news anchor was talking: "—reports that Superman has contained the situation. No civilian casualties reported. Authorities are still investigating the cause of the explosion, but sources suggest it was a deliberate attack on a Luthor Technologies facility."
Ivy glanced at Bruce.
"The world is getting more and more people with special abilities," she said.
"The world was always this dangerous," Bruce replied. "We're just now becoming capable enough to see it clearly."
Bruce flexed his right hand. Webbing formed across his palm, but this time it was controlled. A golden web pattern held for three seconds, then pulled back completely.
"Control is improving," Bruce said. "The neurological integration is happening faster than I expected."
The news switched to Gotham. Gang violence in Crime Alley. Missing persons reports. The usual.
Ivy turned the television off.
Spider venom had merged perfectly with Bruce's cellular structure. He was no longer fully human.
He was something more.
And that was exactly what he had wanted.
---