InsaneJournal

Who: Juniper Oakland and Brad Butler
What: Brad stumbles onto something he shouldn't, and the dominoes start to fall.
Where: Gotham Botanical Gardens, Gotham City
When: Early Sunday morning, June 5th, 2011
Warnings: You know. Just a minor bit of villainry.



She was so close. So close to getting it right. All this time she'd spent, every day a new experiment, each minor alteration by minor alteration – it was slow-going, and frustrating, and she knew that it would all be for naught unless she found the perfect combination. After so many duds, there were only so many possibilities left to her, and she knew she was close. She knew it. Juniper could feel it in her blood. The next one would be the right one. Yes, the next one...

But it wasn't. Neither was the one after, or the one after that, and by the time the sun was starting to peek over the horizon, Juniper's exhaustion nearly reached the point of tears. Tears that no one could see, not even Rhiannon. All her life, she'd never been a disappointment. Never. She'd always shone, making her babies shine with her, and now shouldn't have been any different, yet she's finally found herself a hurdle she couldn't seem to overcome. She was on the verge of greatness with this toxin, the ultimate weapon, the poison that would make her famous and strike down anyone who had dared to underestimate her – but only if she could find the last elusive piece to the damn puzzle. She was so close she could practically taste it. What the hell was she missing?

She needed a break, she decided. Needed an hour or two to clear her thoughts, undisturbed and without distractions. She began with a stroll through the gardens, passing by her favorite flowers, one hand trailing behind her to pet them like a loving yet absentminded mother. Her thoughts were elsewhere, otherwise she would've given them the love the deserved, but not tonight. Stepping out of the lab was helping, but it still wasn't enough. She was still too distracted. She needed to think.

Turning abruptly to her right, she found a bed of sunflowers, tall and proud, and laid down among the hard stalks with an exasperated huff. Her red hair fanned out beneath her head, and her bare feet stayed firmly planted in the dirt, knees pointing skyward. The loose-fitting sundress she was wearing slipped down around her thighs, but Juniper didn't notice. As soon as she closed her eyes, she didn't noticed anything – not the touch of the dirt against her skin, as soft as any mattress, nor the warmth of the artificial sunlight or the shadows cast by her yellow Amazons, nor the sound of a door opening and closing on the other side of the compound. Juniper was asleep as soon as her head touched the ground, her fingers wrapping around two stalks on either side of her, tightening as she wrestled with equations and compounds in her dreams. For five minutes or an entire winter, she didn't know which, she was lost to the world. But then the world called her back.

"Hello? Hello?" Juniper's eyes flew open. A man's voice. Unwanted. An intruder. "Anybody home?"

.... A man's voice. Juniper's expressionless face blossomed into a grin, and she sat up eagerly. "The last piece of the puzzle," she whispered, voice breathless. Then she laughed, absolutely giddy as she stood up, and took the nearest sunflower in her hands, kissing it fondly. "Of course. This whole time it was just a silly old man."

Wicked eyes darted over the gardens and only stilled when they found what they were looking for. There, over by magnolias. She recognized him – one of the Bat brood, and a cop besides. "Oh, yes. He'll do nicely, won't he, my darling?" she murmured into the golden petals, examining her new specimen from afar. "Very nicely indeed..."