Bleeding Heart

Lillian Persephone Fletcher grew up in an abusive home. Her relationship with her mother was close but her father was an abusive drunk who beat her mother. Lillian’s mother, Nora, had a passion for archery that was passed on from her parents, and as she taught Lillian archery, it became a bonding experience for them. Unfortunately when Lillian hit her teenage years her father’s abuse extended to her; it wasn’t only physical, her father raped her. Nora discovered the night of Lillian’s high school graduation and to save her daughter and herself, attempted to flee. Sadly, in her attempts to flee her husband woke and Nora was killed.

Lillian got out because of her mother’s sacrifice and put herself through college, excelling as a bookworm and nerd she met Bradley Thorne. Bradley’s major was the same as hers (Botany) and they bonded. She fell in love with him and trusted him implicitly. After graduation he proposed and they were engaged when they both became employed at LuxCorp.

LuxCorp had been carrying on experiments on mutants trying to extract their powers. Hearing rumors about the inhumane activities at LuxCorp, Lillian refused to take the job until she was guaranteed that all experimentations would be humane. Bradley teased her saying she had a bleeding heart for anything to do with nature. One evening in the laboratory with her fiancé, while performing an experiment her powers manifested. Dr. Thorne saw this as his chance to boost his career and suddenly looked down upon his fiancé seeing her as less than human.

He immediately reported his fiancé as a mutant and was rewarded with a raise and being placed as the head of the research division, calling all the shots on how the experimenting on his former fiancé which was less than humane, was to be carried out. One evening after excessive electroshock therapy, one of the guards on patrol thought he’d have some fun with Dr. Fletcher. His attempts to rape her grievously failed and gave Lillian the opportunity to escape.

Now, her powers fully known to her, her skin filled with chlorophyll and her appearance drastically changed from her fair-haired previous self she fled to the far edges of Gotham where she ran into Squirrel Girl. Bawling and completely disheartened she unfolded her life story to the woman. After several attempts to convince her to seek out and destroy Dr. Thorne, Squirrel Girl and Lillian became close friends.

Learning how to grow her own bow and arrows, Lillian became one to be feared in the Gotham community. One evening after ripping off a shipment from Wayne Tech, Batman caught up to her and a fight ensued. However because she had no training in hand to hand combat she was easily subdued. Batman foresaw potential in her and took her in. Due to Lillian’s mentor and her own past experiences, she did not trust Batman for a very long time. She was fascinated by his lack of reaction to her pheromones. After years of training at the hands of Batman she joined the ranks of the anti-heroes, trusting Batman ever so slightly and dawning the name of the poisonous plant her ex-fiancé teased her with: Bleeding Heart.