Everything was so bright the first time she opened her eyes. She didn’t yet know enough to fear the lights, or reach for them. But she saw them and began to know what they were, and saw the way they haloed the head of the man who bent over her.
“Hello, there.” His voice was rich and smooth, and he smiled. She slowly became aware of more people – women in white coats poking and prodding and testing at every part of her body, people behind clear walls pressing furiously down in front of their laps. But the face in the light was the one that stole her new focus every time she blinked.
“Does she talk?” The man turned to his nurses. They were hitting her with small mallets and making her limbs move, and she screeched when one of them pricked something long and sharp into her arm.
“Not yet, Doctor, no. She’ll have to be taught.”
‘Well, just add it to the list. She needs to learn a lot.” The doctor leaned over and inspected her eyes, her mouth, her nose. She couldn’t find it in her to be afraid of him. “My name is Doctor Darkwood,” he said, slowly and clearly, “And you, Ferak, are my greatest triumph.”
Ferak slowly smiled back and opened her mouth, and a soft, happy noise escaped her vocal chords. She was newborn and confused by all the bustle around her, but she had found a parent’s face, and for now that was enough. *****
Ivy was there first. The location that Batgirl gave her was closer to her house anyway, and Ivy relished the time in those woods. But besides, there was something very satisfying about making Batgirl think that she had been left waiting.
The night was clear enough that Ivy didn’t notice her shape approaching when Batgirl arrived. “Sorry I’m late. I had to finish clearing you with Oracle. If you ever feel like selling or giving away any of the information she gives you, keep in mind it means I’ll have to give her a toe for payment.”
Ivy chuckled. “Bloodthirsty little bi-“
“Best friend I’ve got,” Batgirl cut her off. “And it took a lot of vouching to get her to trust you.”
Ivy just smiled wider. “Then it’s good to know you do trust me.”
“With my body, at any rate.” Batgirl walked off farther into the woods before Ivy could quite realize that she had been joking.
“So where are we going?” Ivy asked when she caught up.
“Oracle found the coordinates for something that sounds like Ferak’s home. Somehow managed to hide out in the woods for at least a year now, maybe two, without being noticed,” Batgirl explained, then stopped, and turned to face Ivy again. “There’s something you should know before we get there.”
“Go on.” Ivy stopped and laid a hand on her hip. “What’s so solemn?”
Batgirl spoke quickly, “Oracle traced the money in this place to Darkwood Labs.”
There was a silence after the words faded away, and Ivy let her hand fall. “You’re serious? He’s back?”
“That’s how it looks. I mean, we can’t be sure it’s him in person. But a lot of the same money went into this place. It looked like he’d been saving up since…”
“Since my last run-in,” Ivy filled in. “Really, I should have guessed. Something like Ferak has his stink all over her.”
Batgirl bit her lip and started to walk again; Ivy was at least not as immediately infuriated as Oracle had thought. “Did you find anything else out about her?”
“Nothing we didn’t get before,” Ivy admitted, her steps faster and more focused now. “But I couldn’t stop thinking about it if I wanted to. I’ve never seen anything like her, not even heard of anything that mammalian that my powers could affect. But if it’s Darkwood behind this then it makes sense.”
“I never had the pleasure of knowing the man, myself.”
Ivy practically snorted out a laugh. “He was a nutcase even when I worked for him. I can’t believe he ever called himself a scientist. His experiments made no sense, they only ever worked because of luck and duct tape. He was unethical, he was obsessive…yeah, I’m gonna believe he’s just been lying low trying to make this new thing work.”
“Well don’t hold back,” Batgirl laughed softly, but it faded when she saw how serious Ivy was. “Then what do you think it is he’s doing, or trying to do? What is Ferak?”
“Hell if I know for sure. But Darkwood…when I got my powers, it was from some whacked-out experiment where he was trying to turn a plant into an animal. To take its consciousness and give it a body that could better express it. It didn’t work, it was never going to work, and I felt just how much pain that poor shrub was going through because of it…” Ivy sighed, and the two women continued deeper into the woods. “But if Josiah Darkwood is anything, it’s persistent. I guess I didn’t stop him from trying again.”
Batgirl let her fingers brush over Ivy’s wrist. “You will,” she assured her. Then a soft beeping inside her cowl signaled a call from Oracle, and Batgirl tapped the side to answer it. “What’ve we got?”
“Finally managed to get a satellite fix on the place, but it’s still pretty hard to see,” Oracle replied, and Ivy leaned against a tree to wait the conversation out. “Lot of foliage, not a lot of light. Good news is it’s not all that big a place, and it doesn’t look like they’re exactly expecting visitors.”
“Great, thanks. We’re on our way in.”
In that short time, Ivy had made her way up into the higher branches of the tree, and she called down, “I think I see it. You ready?”
“Ready,” Batgirl called back up, and tapped her headset again. “I’ll report in later.”
“I’ll be waiting,” came Oracle’s reply.
When Ivy was back on the ground, she was the one who led the rest of the way to the new, hidden Darkwood Labs with a fierce fire in her eyes.
*****
Oracle was right – there was a pair of guards wandering around the perimeter of the building, but they didn’t seem to be expecting much of anything to happen. Ivy and Batgirl moved quietly through the brush, Ivy’s powers helping to move aside the louder branches and twigs that could have given their position away, and soon enough they approached a side door, locked and sealed but out of the way of the patrol.
“So this is what you and the Batman spend all your time on,” Ivy murmured close to Batgirl’s ear. “Is it always this easy?”
“Not at all,” Batgirl replied. In her hands, she manipulated a portable scanner, taking stock of the electronic lock on the door and sending its signals back to Oracle. “I’m lucky Oracle’s not busy tonight, usually I’d be beating those goons up and taking the key.”
“We still could,” Ivy chuckled. “But this works. I’m just not used to making such a quiet entrance.”
The sensor beeped quietly and displayed a code that Batgirl typed into the keypad. With a click and a soft hissing noise, the door slid open. “Got it,” Batgirl grinned and poked her head inside the facility. Inside, it looked like any normal office building on a shoestring budget. The floors were sparsely-carpeted, with the grainy, muddled sort of rug that barely warms a room. There was cheap wood paneling on the walls, a few scattered decorative plants, everything trying to make the place look innocuous. “It looks like a broke dentist’s office,” Batgirl said, as she and Ivy stepped inside and closed the door behind them.
Ivy gave a short laugh and started down the hallway. The building was large and square, taking advantage of every bit of space that it had out in the woods, and all along the hall were doors leading to larger rooms deeper inside. “There’s got to be an office or something. Darkwood takes pretty obsessive notes, if we can just find those journals…” she trailed off, hearing a stifled laugh behind her. “What?”
“Nothing, nothing.” Batgirl hid her smile and passed Ivy, walking in front of her now. “Just it’s cute, you thinking about paper journals. Do you even have a computer?”
“Oh shut up.” Ivy kept her focus on the doors, and on keeping her eyes out for any more security. But the new lab was so far out of the way, so well hidden in the woods that the guards outside seemed to be all there was. Darkwood’s best hope was in not being found in the first place, and with all of the money funneled to the science, there wasn’t enough to spend on securing the lab any more.
After a short while, Ivy cracked open a door and let out her breath as she motioned for Batgirl to follow. The study was dark and small, and Ivy felt right at home. “Hasn’t changed a bit,” she said, and started to flip through the books on his shelf. There was indeed an older-model computer sitting on the desk, but before Batgirl could even get it turned on, Ivy smirked and tossed her a leather-bound book, filled with looping handwriting.
“Shut up,” Batgirl told her, and started to read. There were five of the journals in total, each filled to the brim with detailed notes, plans and experiments. Ivy leaned against the bookshelf with one of them while Batgirl pored over the desk, and they started to piece the story together.
*****
Ferak was six months old and growing fast, as the doctor had promised she would. She had been awakened into a body four feet tall, and had already blossomed to five and a half. Today she was outside, in a small courtyard built into the facility. It only held a few square feet of grass, a barely-flourishing apple tree and a few stolen rocks to sit on, but Ferak was enchanted.
Doctor Darkwood was seated on one of the rocks with his notebook, as Ferak had become used to seeing him. She knew that he was watching her, but that was usual as well. It didn’t bother her, or stop her from playing in the sun, to know that the doctor was taking notes.
Every so often, he gave her a small command. “Stretch your arms up for me, please?” or, “Why don’t we see how long you can run for, make a nice little circle.” Ferak obeyed with a bright smile on her green face. Every new movement merited another flurry of writing, and soon Ferak bounded toward her creator to peer over his shoulder.
“What this?” Her speech was stilted, but she had been learning, and Darkwood smiled. Ferak made a small noise when he patted her head, a reedy purr that no pure animal could make.
“I’m just making sure that I remember how wonderful you are,” Darkwood told her. “Run along, keep at it.”
When she was busy with a butterfly that had found an apple blossom, Darkwood turned back to his notes. “Ferak truly is a remarkable creature,” he wrote. “She is growing fast, and I believe the exposure to natural sunlight is speeding the process. It is fascinating to watch her develop, and see which genes take which forms in her growing body. Her skin seems to have incorporated chlorophyll in place of melanin, but her human DNA is unmistakable. I never thought the Isley girl could be so useful, but her contribution was invaluable. She is perfectly human in shape, yet growing – as I pardon my own pun – like a weed. Her mind is progressing, though not as fast as I would have liked. It will still take quite some time to educate Ferak enough to unveil my experiments, and finally prove my genius.” *****
Batgirl read over Darkwood’s notes four or five times before the magnitude of a tiny detail hit her. She looked over at Ivy, who was still reading, and swallowed. “You were right,” she said, putting the notebook down and marking her page. “Obsessive. He just keeps writing the same thoughts every time he thinks of them.”
“Never mind the ramblings.” Ivy had found the earliest journal, and looked through the first entries. “This is…crazy. Even for him. Do you know what he did to make this thing?”
“What did you find?”
Ivy snapped the book closed. “Genetic modification. He took some poor fern or whatever he found out here and spliced it up with human genetic material. Grew himself a plant-child. Do you even realize how much that should never have worked?”
“But it did?” Batgirl stepped closer to Ivy, carefully picking her words “Maybe he really is a genius.”
“That’s the worst part,” Ivy said and crossed her arms. She clutched the closed journal in her hand and refused either to read any more, or to let the evidence out of her sight.
“Ivy…when you worked for him, what kind of files did Darkwood keep on his employees?”
Ivy narrowed her eyes and thought back. “Pretty standard, I thought, if paranoid. Man was a scientist, I didn’t think twice. Payroll stuff, of course. Fingerprints. He wanted blood samples from time to time for whatever he was – “ Ivy stopped cold. “Give me that!” She held her hand out for the journal. Batgirl gave it to her, the page still marked, and simply waited while Ivy read.
The Isely girl….her contribution“That sick bastard,” Ivy growled, slammed the book down and started out into the hallway without a further thought.
“Are you okay?”
“Not the time. We’ve got to find her.” Ivy stood for a moment out in the hall and paused, before picking a direction and starting to walk fast. “I can feel her, sort of. Just enough. If we follow that, we find Ferak. And when we do…Darkwood is going to pay.”
*****
In the little house in the former wasteland, Harley enjoyed her quiet evening alone. She loved the hustle and bustle of her day care job, but even a girl like her got worn out once in a while.
The scouts were going as strongly as Harley had hoped. All of the first batch of girls had re-enrolled multiple times, along with a few more faces. After the first couple of week-long sessions, Harley had doubled the length. More and more girls started to show up, having been told of the adventurous fun that their friends were having. Harley kept each new session as entertaining and exciting as the last – she did a better job of keeping the supervillains away this time, but there was still plenty of pretend adventure. Harley was thinking about setting up a camping trip someday soon, and plenty more ideas buzzed around in her head.
The best part was, Harley was making real money. The downside was evenings spent going over records and finances. But it was worth it.
Harley sat at a small table in the living room, her TV quietly buzzing in the background, a cool glass of lemonade sweating onto the papers, and a hyena on either side of her, blocking her in. Harley sucked on the end of her pen and made her notes, adding up the money she’d made, listing money she wanted to spend. She was comfortably settled, so much so that she didn’t get up the first time the doorbell rang. Harley meant to ignore the visitor until they left; it was strangely late for company anyway, and she was busy. Oh, and in the toxic swamp of a super-villain. No one should want to be visiting now.
But something pounded on the door again, and Harley looked up. Bonnie and Clyde growled in unison, and she stood slowly.
“Babies, it’s okay,” Harley murmured to soothe them. The door pounded for a third time, and then Harley heard a loud pop and a hiss of gas. “Get away!” she shouted, and Bonnie and Clyde retreated to the bedroom. Harley followed after them to close the door, then grabbed a makeshift bat (really a fortuitously-shaped branch). The knocking had stopped, but Harley approached the door slowly, ready to attack her would-be attacker at any moment.
“HA!” Harley threw the door open and slammed the branch down, but there was no one at the door. Instead, her strike smashed a small, spherical device on the doorstep, and the gas leaking out of it sputtered and stopped. She held her nose and gingerly reached down to pick the thing up when it had stopped making noise. To her immense surprise, when she unplugged her nose all that Harley could smell was a rather expensive, flowery perfume. When she turned the gas bomb over, she could see the sharpie-drawn smiley face on the other side, and a folded note taped down next to it.
With an audible gulp, Harley hurried to take care of the situation. She grabbed an old plastic bag out of the kitchen and wrapped up the bomb before taking it to the farthest dumpster she could get to in her bare feet. Just as she had when she’d left the Joker, Harley silently thanked Ivy for the immunization – if there was anything poisonous in the gas then she couldn’t tell, and she didn’t want to take any chances with the general public. It took a few minutes with a wobbly, undecided mind before Harley plucked the note out of the bag. She dumped the bomb and ran back home, abandoning her paper work in favor of curling up with her pets for comfort, and slowly, when she thought she might be ready, opened up the paper.
“Greetins, puddin’ pie! (Harley’s heart leaped into her throat, along with her lungs, stomach and spleen if she could tell just by the weight of the feeling.)
Some little birdie of mine has been watching over you! It’s sooo good to see you getting out there and making a name for yourself! I’m told you look well. I can just about see you, sitting there, maybe you’re dressed in that little red thing you used to like. Reading my words, hearing my voice in your head.
And those adorable little minions you’re getting! Harley, my dear, you’re so much cleverer than I ever gave you credit for. (“My scouts?” Harley whispered. Her fingers were white against the paper, and she squeezed Clyde hard enough for the hyena to protest and back away.) Just think of the possibilities! I should have thought of warping little impressionable minds long ago!
Now you get ready, because I’ll be seeing you soon, very soon. But I won’t tell you just when. It’ll be a surprise.
J”
There was another hand-drawn smiley next to the signature, and several hearts doodled on the back of the letter. Harley nearly forgot to breathe as she lay in bed with it, biting her lip and occasionally looking all around the room, as if he would be there right then to watch her.
“I’m not gonna let anyone hurt my girls,” Harley promised Bonnie, who looked up with something as close as a canine could get to a nod. She made one last trip before turning in for the night; Harley took the note to Ivy’s compost pile and ripped it into the tiniest shreds that she could.
*****
Ferak’s world had become a lot smaller since she had gotten lost. She hadn’t even noticed at first, she had only been glad to be home and safe once again. The only thing that changed was that her handlers were around more, that she wasn’t allowed out into the outside forest. It didn’t matter, she hadn’t wanted to. For these past couple of weeks, the small enclosed courtyard was enough sunlight for her, after the scare.
But even that light was being denied to her, and Ferak drooped. If she could just get away for a few moments, all that she wanted to do was go out into her courtyard. She didn’t even want to go back to the woods. They led to scary places where she didn’t want to be. But why were they keeping her away from the sun? She had tried to get out in the last few days, tried to find her way there herself, but the building was so big and maze-like, and all she had done was make people angry.
Today she was in one of the cold rooms, the white ones. They always put her in here when something unpleasant was going to happen; whether it was testing or discipline Ferak didn’t know. She just sat on the metal table, her legs crushed up toward her chest and her arms wrapped around them. She was alone, but she wouldn’t be for long.
There were two nurses who stepped into the room. No one person ever wanted to be alone with her, except Doctor Darkwood himself. It was a man and a woman, both strong and somewhat burly. The woman walked right past Ferak to the other side of the room, to rustle in the cabinets, and the man gave her an insincere smile. “Well, how are we doing today?”
“Ferak want the sun,” she murmured into her knee.
“Good, good,” the man said absently, and patted her huge shoulder. “Now listen, sweetie. The good doctor says we have to do a couple things with you today alright? Gotta keep teaching you. You like that stuff, don’t you?”
Ferak looked up at him. In the fluorescent light of the lab, her skin looked pale and sickly, and even her hair was flatter than when she was outside. “Learning time?”
The woman reached for Ferak’s arm and wrenched it back, jabbing a shot into her arm before Ferak could protest. “That’s right. Just relax, now, let the shot do its work.”
“Ooo…not sleepy shot,” Ferak mumbled a protest. She swayed on the table as the tranquilizer started to take effect. Why did they make her sleepy for learning time? She liked to be taught – well, she had liked it when Doctor Darkwood taught her. When she was learning to speak and to grow and to live. Now all the lessons were on obedience, and they weren’t as good.
When she was good and woozy, the training started. Ferak’s nurses, her handlers, pulled and prodded at her skin, and Ferak felt hot and strange feelings where the electrodes went. The nurses talked to one another, and Ferak heard their words, but they were hard to understand. “Doc wants her subdued before she gets more antsy. She tore one of his cabinets off the wall trying to get out the other day. Can’t tell you how pissed he was.”
“Man, is that what happened?” The man finished wiring her up to a strange new machine that Ferak didn’t recognize. “No wonder.” He turned back to her with that fake smile on his face. “Okay, so you hang tight. So let’s get this started.”
Ferak struggled against the bonds, but only until she felt something hot and bright rushing through her body. She cried out as the electrodes buzzed, and the shocks ran into her mind.
“No fighting, now,” the woman told her. “Come on, you lousy little brute.”
The shocks started anew each time Ferak tried to move. She tried to escape from them but it only made them worse, and she was crying, and she was ignored. Ferak couldn’t tell what they were trying to teach her. She wasn’t learning, she was only hurting. It only stopped when she fell still and quiet, but started again each time she looked up, and tried to understand.
While in the hallway there hid two people that Ferak knew, who listened and understood.
*****
Ivy bit down hard on her lip, and felt Batgirl’s strong hand on her shoulder. The two of them had found Ferak’s location after a frustrating trek through the maze-like lab; Batgirl guessed that the winding hallways were meant to keep visitors out, and Ivy determined that they kept Ferak in. For either reason, or both, the two heroes weren’t able to find Ferak until the damage had started.
The hum of the machine and the sparkling shocks overwhelmed the room, and made the women silent as they slipped inside. Ferak had already fallen unconscious by time they entered, and Ivy bristled to see the slack look on her face. There was a potted plant in the corner of the room, but Ivy didn’t even bother. Instead she struck personally, pulling back her fist to let it fly right at the back of the male nurse’s head.
Batgirl leapt into the fray while the confusion persisted – the woman turned toward her partner only to find an indigo fist headed for her cheek. The nurses tried to fight back, but they were caught so off-guard that they might as well have done nothing. Within moments, Batgirl and Poison Ivy were the only two people conscious in the room.
“Give me a hand.” Ivy was at Ferak’s side in an instant, and awkwardly ran her finger across the creature’s brow before untying her.
Batgirl helped Ivy remove the electrodes, carefully taking them to a safe place to be put down. “You’re taking her with us?”
“I am not going to leave her here!” Ivy said fiercely. “So help me carry her.”
“Is this a bad time to remind you what happened to Gotham the last time Ferak was out of this place?” Batgirl took Ferak’s legs and hefted them over the side of the table to get her ready to move. “What exactly are you planning to do with her when you get her home?”
“Look, I don’t know,” Ivy snapped. “But I’m not leaving her! She’s my…whatever the hell she is, she deserves better than this. Better than him.”
Batgirl just nodded, and let Ferak’s arm fall across her shoulders. Ivy took her other side, and together they started to wade out into the hall. They hadn’t made it far, however, before Ivy tensed, set Ferak down carefully against the wall, and turned toward a pair of footsteps running their way. Batgirl followed her lead, prepared for anything. And when Josiah Darkwood rounded the corner, all three knew what was coming.
“Oh dear…I should have known you’d find me.” Darkwood’s brown eyes shifted between Ivy and Ferak, hardly even noticing Batgirl’s presence. He was by all accounts an average-looking man, but something in those eyes glimmered with the insanity that Batgirl saw far too often; the burning drive to do something no one had done before, at any cost. “She looks just like you.”
“I’m stunned.” Ivy’s voice was cold and her stance was firm, blocking his path. “I know everything. You sick, crazy, vile excuse for a man.”
The doctor glanced at Batgirl now, and his confused eyes widened even farther. “I did hear my Ferak talking quite a bit about a Bat.”
A plant in the corner rose up and whipped Darkwood on the side of the cheek, and Ivy’s eyes glowed with fury. “Your fight is with me! It’s always been with me!”
Ivy had control of the houseplant; Darkwood was still too stunned by the presence of the women in his lab to react; Batgirl ducked out of the way and covered Ferak from the fight about to come. It shouldn’t take more than a minute, but Renee didn’t want to see the strange girl hurt in the fray. Ivy might never forgive herself.
“You kept my DNA for how many years?” Ivy’s power surged through the hall. All of the plants that Darkwood had positioned to make the place feel less sterile turned on him, rose up from the hallway and peeked out of rooms. They did Ivy’s bidding and battered the man who had hurt her.
Batgirl watched with a proud, hidden smile, until she heard stirring breath behind her. Ivy’s power had woken all of the plants nearby, and Ferak along with them. Her green, glazed eyes opened, and Ferak began to whimper. “Papa? Who hurting Papa?”
Batgirl hushed her quickly. “Ferak, it’s me, Batgirl. Do you remember? Me and Ivy? From the woods?”
“Friends…remember…” Ferak was growing clearer every moment, and she watched over Batgirl’s shoulder as Ivy landed a devastating blow on Darkwood’s stomach. “Friends hurting Papa? Stop! STOP!”
“Ivy, we’re gonna have to switch!” Batgirl stood when Ferak did; she was dwarfed by the woman and not too confident against her anger.
A few feet down the hall by now, Ivy whirled around to see the problem. Ferak was on her feet, her hair floating in the air above her head and her eyes brimming with tears. Darkwood’s collar was clenched in Ivy’s fist, and the man was already thoroughly beaten.
“I won’t let him get away with this,” Batgirl promised. “Just please god calm her down before she rampages.”
Ivy growled, nodded, and threw Darkwood hard in Batgirl’s direction. She ran forward and caught Ferak’s eyes. “What then, what’s wrong?”
“Papa hurt!” Ferak tried to run forward, but Ivy grabbed her arm. Ferak fought against Ivy’s pull, the first time anyone ever had, and it strained them both to fight. But in a matter of minutes, Ferak backed down, her teary eyes gazing at Ivy for an explanation. “Why hurt Papa?”
Ivy stared back into her face, like a funhouse reflection of her own. “I need you to listen, Ferak. I’m your…friend. We’re going to take you someplace better. Where they won’t hurt you like that again.”
“Outside? No teaching?” Ferak repeated. “But why hurt Papa?”
“Because your ‘papa’ hurt me a long time ago,” Ivy growled, and willed her to understand. “He’s a bad man. He hurts the forest, just by taking it into his lab. He hurts you. I’m not going to let him do that.
Ferak was quiet; across the hall, Batgirl was loud. She had only finished what Ivy had under control, handcuffed Darkwood and secured him in her custody. “Do you even understand how incredibly illegal all this is?” She shouted at the man as he knelt against the wall for stability. “Human cloning? Environmental protection charges? And I bet this lovely place doesn’t even have a building permit.”
Ivy listened to the tirade, and a weight she hadn’t realized was there lifted away. Not only was Darkwood caught, but Batgirl knew exactly why he had to be.
“Must…must leave Papa to go outside?” Ferak asked as she figured out the condition.
“Yes, that’s right. But you can come with me,” Ivy told her. She still exuded her powers, now forming a calming aura around Ferak’s mind. “That’ll be better, right?”
Ferak nodded at long last and shut down her defenses. She slumped against the wall for one last look at Darkwood, and followed Ivy and Renee out the door into the free world. She had been wanting to go back into the sun.
*****
Morning broke over a Gotham forest that swarmed with police, scientists, reporters and hangers-on, all waiting for the story to break. Ivy and Renee looked down on it all from Ivy’s rooftop. They had been sitting this way, in silence studded with small talk, since they brought Ferak to a remote office of WayneTech labs.
“I’m employed there, I can make sure they take care of her,” Renee had assured Ivy. She hadn’t worried about breaching her identity until they were on the roof, and even then, it felt like so little next to what Ivy had been put through.
“It must have been because of the accident,” Ivy spoke out in the silence. “Something in my genetics made me live through that, gave me the powers I have. Must be the same thing that makes Ferak tick.”
“I suspect. We can find out, if you want. Wayne’s people are really good at what they do. They're just good.”
Ivy thought for a moment, then shook her head. “She’s been poked and prodded enough. Maybe when she learns who to trust.”
Another quiet minute went by, and Renee looked over at Ivy. She sat up strong, not angry anymore, but refused to be seen sad, and she had never looked more beautiful. Renee felt a deep and sudden desire to rip off her cowl, to be able to share that pain with her. Instead, she threw her arms around Ivy and pulled her tight. “It’ll be okay,” she whispered.
Ivy was startled at first, but soon her small white hand curled against Batgirl’s chest, and she allowed herself to lean in. If there was a tiny tearstain over the costume when they finally parted, no one would be able to tell in the dark fabric. They stayed together as long as they could, and Ivy watched after her when Batgirl finally swung away.
Ferak would have to learn who she could trust, and who to harden her heart against in order to keep safe. Maybe Ivy had learned the opposite lesson in the last few months.
