Chapter 73: The Things She Did for Nature 

Ivy sat in an armchair, reading the results on her computer.

Beside her rested a large Venus flytrap, its reddish traps turned towards her. Her free hand absently stroked one as she scrolled, a slight frown forming between her brows.

The trap closed around her finger.

“Patience, darling.”

It reluctantly opened.

As cute as her babies were, they could be terribly greedy. She had fed them that very morning, yet they already wanted more.

How adorable.

Her lips curved briefly before her attention returned to the screen and the smile faded.

Last night had taken a rather unexpected turn.

She had gone out with Harley on what the blonde insisted on calling a date. Ivy would hardly consider stealing a car, robbing a convenience store and getting into a shootout with the police a date. She had a little more taste. 

Harley had enjoyed herself, and the spicy ramyeon they ate until the police arrived had been quite tasty, so it hadn't been a bad night. 

After escaping the police, they had come across Boy Wonder Junior chasing the Riddler and Harley decided to join in the fun.

Ivy had declined.

She had already endured enough excitement for one evening, so she left Harley to her entertainment and headed home. On the way, she passed near Sprang Gallery and noticed the police cars surrounding it.

Curiosity brought her closer.

Black Mask’s men had taken the place hostage.

Hardly interesting.

What caught her attention was happening on the roof.

One masked man held a child while shooting at another masked man hiding behind a ventilation unit. Some disagreement between Black Mask’s employees, perhaps.

Then the second man threw a flashbang.

Ivy looked away before it went off. When she turned back, he was running towards the gunman. He threw a tiny object at his head, accomplishing little beyond annoying him, then tackled him.

The fight was briefly entertaining, though that wore off quickly. Had they continued much longer, she would have left.

Then the child fell from the fire escape, and the other man jumped after him.

That gave her pause.

She approached the edge of her own roof and watched him catch the boy, only for their fall to stop abruptly.

A meta, then.

One that had decided to play hero and was doing a rather poor job of it. He had been shot, seemed to have little control over his powers, and was well on his way to getting both himself and the child killed.

Right on cue, the boy slipped from his grasp.

The man remained suspended in the air, reaching helplessly after him.

Ivy’s fingers tightened against the ledge.

Before she could intervene, the man moved.

He caught the child again, held him against his chest and, after another alarming descent, managed to fly them both back to the roof.

Perhaps Gotham would get a new hero after all.

The Bat would be delighted.

That man was more territorial than a black walnut tree, and about as welcoming to anything trying to grow in his shadow.

Unless it was a child, of course. He kept collecting those, dressing them in circus clothing and—

The man collapsed.

Ah.

He had been shot, after all, and it would seem he lacked a healing factor. If flying was the extent of his abilities, Gotham’s newest hero would have a remarkably short career.

There was blood on his arm and along his side. Unless someone stopped the bleeding—

The child pulled off his jacket.

Ivy watched him tie it around the wounded arm, near the shoulder, before removing his shirt and wrapping that around the wound itself.

Resourceful.

The boy looked unsteady, occasionally pausing as though moving too quickly made him dizzy, but he kept working.

How old was he? Ten? Eleven?

Keeping his head and acting under those circumstances was more than she would have expected from most adults.

He looked familiar, too.

From that distance, she could not see his face clearly enough to place him. Ivy drew on the Green, sharpening her sight until his features came into focus.

Timothy Drake.

Of course.

That child had a talent for finding trouble.

At the beginning of summer, he had wandered through West End and gotten himself kidnapped. Fortunately for him, Harley had been nearby. She recognised the men who had taken him as members of a child-trafficking ring that had appeared towards the end of spring and intervened.

That had eventually led to Ivy and Harley joining Batgirl and Black Canary to dismantle the operation.

Ivy might have killed hundreds of people, but children were saplings, not yet responsible for the damage their species inflicted upon the world. Even the most poisonous tree deserved the chance to grow before being judged for its fruit. 

The Drakes had returned from Indonesia a couple of weeks ago, if she remembered correctly. Another expedition, this time considerably more successful than their usual outings.

More than fifty million dollars in gold and jewellery, quite an accomplishment for amateur archaeologists.

The treasure had arrived in Gotham that week, following whatever legal procedures were necessary to claim it. 

Humans and their endless greed. 

Gold and jewellery were much more appealing than banknotes that could be traced. Black Mask must have smelled a particularly good payday.

On the opposite roof, Timothy pulled off the unconscious man’s mask.

Ivy went still.

Mattheus Octavian Innocenti Garcia.

His name was almost as annoyingly long as he was annoyingly mysterious.

She had investigated him after their conversation at his pub. There had been plenty to find about his life, but nothing that explained his powers.

At least she now had confirmation that he was a meta.

Except…

If he could influence emotions, why had he allowed the gunman to shoot him?

Why fight him at all?

She had spent days waiting for her interest in his proposals to fade. When it persisted, she had stubbornly considered the possibility that his influence simply lasted longer than she expected.

But an ability strong enough to make her seriously consider abandoning years of work should have been more than enough to stop one man from pulling a trigger.

Instead, Mattheus had gotten himself shot and nearly killed.

She was certain something had happened in that park. Her anger had faded in a way it never did, leaving her willing to listen when she should have wanted to strangle him.

None of this made sense.

Ivy looked down at the unconscious man.

She needed to know.

Leaving her rooftop, she crossed to the gallery and landed a short distance from them.

Timothy turned at her approach.

Recognition widened his eyes, and he immediately began looking for a weapon. Finding nothing nearby, he searched Mattheus’s pockets and pulled out a gun.

“Stay back!”

His hands shook, but he pointed it at her.

Brave little sapling.

Ivy put him to sleep before he could do something regrettable, then she took Mattheus home.

Healing him came first. Letting him bleed to death before she finished with him would have defeated the purpose of bringing him there.

Once his injuries were dealt with, she collected several samples for testing.

She had barely begun when Catwoman arrived.

Catwoman, of all people.

Just how many people had this man charmed?

Selina had been unusually fierce, too. She checked on him, tried to wake him and then confronted Ivy as though prepared to fight her over the right to take him away.

Ivy might have found that insulting under different circumstances.

As it was, she already had the samples she needed. There was little reason to keep Mattheus, and even less reason to spoil a long friendship over him, so she let the kitten take him.

Which brought her back to the results on her screen.

Ivy scrolled up and read the relevant section again.

He was certainly unusual.

Calling him a meta, however, had been premature.

His DNA more closely resembled that of Homo Magi than that of ordinary Homo Sapiens. There were also several traits similar to those found in metahumans, yet she could find no metagene.

A magician?

An apprentice, judging by last night's performance.

That would explain why his powers were so different from one another. Metahumans generally had abilities that followed some kind of pattern, but flying and manipulating emotions? Those two had absolutely nothing in common.

Of course, certain aliens, like the Martian or the super boy scout, possessed a wide range of seemingly unrelated abilities, but Mattheus wasn't an alien.

Being a rookie magician would also explain his lack of control over his powers.

On the roof, he had managed to turn floating into flight only after watching Timothy fall to his death, the circumstances forcing him to do something he clearly hadn't known how to do moments earlier.

Perhaps the park had been similar.

An instinctive response rather than a deliberate attempt to manipulate her.

Ivy leaned back in the armchair, absently stroking the flytrap as it nudged her hand, her eyes never leaving the screen.

Even if Mattheus had influenced her emotions that day, she could no longer use that to explain her continued interest. Whatever had made her listen, she had spent several days examining his proposals with a clear head.

She had looked for flaws and naturally found plenty, but she had also kept thinking about how to work around them.

Ivy closed her eyes for a moment.

She was seriously considering it.

The corporation. The foundation. Research, restoration and enough influence to make governments pay attention without growing roots through their offices.

Even the political part.

Especially the political part, irritatingly enough. She knew perfectly well how much damage could be done by someone with money and access to the right people. There was no reason that influence had to remain entirely in the hands of those poisoning the world.

It would take work.

An exhausting amount of work involving people she would want to feed to her plants before the first meeting ended.

Still, what did she have to lose?

She had spent the better part of a decade pursuing her current methods. There were victories she could point to, places she had protected and people she had stopped, but there was also the same endless struggle, with another company ready to take over whenever she destroyed the last.

She had gotten nowhere near the change she wanted, so she might as well try something new.

The trap closed around her finger again.

Ivy looked down.

“You really are insatiable.”

It opened at her touch, and she smiled faintly.

Harley would be unhappy.

Very unhappy.

Ivy would have to move her babies somewhere safe before telling her. Somewhere Harley could not reach during the inevitable tantrum.

The thought made her smile disappear.

If Harley hurt one of them in a rage, Ivy could lose her temper. She knew herself well enough to admit that.

Harley had already suffered through enough abusive relationships.

Ivy refused to become another person in her life who hurt her.

She stroked the reddish trap once more, then returned her attention to the computer.

First, somewhere safe for her plants.

Then she would speak to Harley.