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It was never silent in Gotham. The dark night sky was filled with the sound of sirens, screams, and shots. Tonight, those sounds were joined by another sadly common noise: sobs and sniffles that someone was desperately trying to stifle were echoing from a dingy alley.
A small boy was shivering behind a dumpster with both hands clasped tightly over his mouth. Tears slid through the grime coating his gaunt face. He’d been chased out of Crime Alley and now he didn’t know where he was or what those men would do to him if they found him. So now he was trapped in a dead-end alley choking on the smell of putrid, long abandoned trash and sitting in filthy, freezing slush.
He needed to stop crying or he’d be caught faster than Superman could fly, but he couldn’t. Everything was falling apart and now he was too. Mom’s been dead for eight months and Willis four days. And once word got out that his dad died, people were looking to sell him to pay off the man’s residual debts. Any gangster who recognized him had started chasing him down, which made finding food, stealing, sleeping, literally everything so much harder. And being a street rat was already borderline impossible!
Why couldn’t he catch a single break? He wanted food that wouldn’t make him sick, something soft to sleep on, a place to be safe, and he wanted to be warm.
Another shiver shook his small frame. More than anything, this cold would kill him the fastest.
Suddenly, a can clattered at the entrance of the alley and Jason stopped breathing. He sat frozen, praying that it was just a cat. That he’d be safe for once.
“Weee can heeaaar yooouuu,” a mocking voice sing-songed through the alley. It reverberated eerily through the alley, and now Jason was shaking from something other than cold. There was another crash and rustling as the thug presumably kicked through the piles of trash trying to find him.
“Might as well come out now. If you don’t give us any more trouble, we won’t even beat ya up that badly!” From his tone, Jason could tell that he was lying and ridiculously excited to beat up a child.
A child because that’s what he was. A kid who had no chance of taking on two sadistic gangsters.
Looking around frantically, he picked up a discarded soda can and checked to make sure the thugs weren’t watching. When they bent over to poke through the rancid piles of garbage, he threw the can further into the alley.
The loud clatter seemed to split the smog-filled air, and the two predators instantly turned toward the sound.
“Fooouund you, kiddo,” the first man crowed in delight as he and his compatriot raced past Jason’s dumpster and where the can was rolling languidly in a puddle.
As soon as he was clear, he bolted back out into the street hoping he’d manage to sneak out unseen. But his rotten Todd Luck struck again. The alley was so full of trash he couldn’t prevent the shuffling and crashing required to slip out undetected. The indignant cries of the thugs roared behind him, spurring him to run faster.
Since he didn’t know where he was going, he resorted to bolting through the streets and hoping he could outrun them (he knew he couldn’t).
Tired, cold, and terrified, he stumbled around a corner and spotted a forest. His brain was running on overdrive and too shaken up to pause and remember that there were no forests in the middle of Gotham. There weren’t any forests for a hundred miles around the city of concrete and crime.
Instead of realizing that he was making a huge mistake, he raced straight for the tightly packed trees. He was tiny. He could slip between the trunks and disappear in the thicket before those men could do anything to him.
He could be safe. And maybe even warm! The trees were so tightly packed that the branches kept the snow off the ground and the January wind away. Hope bubbled up in his scrawny little chest and he pumped his legs faster.
A dozen yards from the edge of the forest, a massive body slammed into him, tearing a scream from him as pain exploded in his arm.
“Gotcha ya little runt! You’re in for it now after all that trouble ya put us through,” the second thug snarled inches from his face. His breath didn’t smell any better than that alley. Maybe that’s why he could stand rooting through it.
“No! Let me go, let me go, LET ME GO,” Jason shrieked as the guy hauled him up by the arm that was already in searing pain. No, no, no, he couldn’t be trafficked now! He’d worked so hard to protect himself! He’d much rather be chucked in the harbor or shoved back into the snow than go with them. He squeezed his eyes shut both from the pain and to avoid acknowledging the train wreck his life had become.
At least now it couldn’t get any worse, he thought numbly. Except, Gotham loved to prove that it always could!
A pained gasp came from above Jason as he was dropped back into the icy snow. He cracked one of his eyes open before both blew wide in horror as he took in the sight of a massive vine, a freaking plant, impaled through thug number two’s chest. Crimson drops fell onto the pure white snow surrounding him. The vine withdrew from the man’s chest with a sickening wet pop before retreating into the woods.
“Damnit, this is all your fault,” goon number one shouted at Jason as he backed up in terror.
“No,” a rich, smooth voice rang from the forest. “It’s your own.” With those words, Ivy glided out of her forest in all her nature-filled glory. Her fiery scarlet hair was dotted with little white flowers and cascaded over her shoulders. A simple dress made of massive leaves and matching white flowers flowed elegantly around her form. The only thing that broke the illusion that she was a forest fairy from one of Jason’s fairy tales was that the tips of her fingers and the edges of her ears were chlorophyll green. The color was stark against the rest of her startlingly white skin.
“Ms. Ivy,” the remaining thug said as he tried to placate the supervillain before him. “We didn’t mean to trespass on your territory. We were simply trying to grab our merchandise. I’ll just grab the kid, and we’ll stop bothering you. Yeah?”
“Indeed,” Ivy scoffed. “Or, I could kill you where you stand,” she counteroffered. With a considering hum, she said, “I think I like that plan.”
Before the man had the chance to run or beg, another vine shot out from the forest and tore through his chest, leaving a matching hole to his friend’s.
Jason choked as he watched the limp body fall to the ground. His wide blue eyes dragged back over to the woman adorned in various faunas.
He knew for a fact that he was next. He ducked his head, curled into a little ball, and waited for the inevitable as another shiver wracked his body. No use fighting it. At least it looked quick.
Maybe he’d see his mom in heaven afterward. Or more likely, he’d be sent to hell. He was a street rat who made others’ lives miserable after all. He couldn’t find it in himself to care about that. At least he’d be warm then.
The fragrant smell of lavender and vanilla flooded his senses and he closed his eyes even tighter as the inevitable drew closer.
A warm hand gripped his shoulder. “Sweetheart, are you alright? Great Gaia, you’re freezing! Let’s get you somewhere warm, alright?”
Before Jason could figure out what was going on, vines gently wrapped around his lithe form and pulled him into the forest alongside Ivy. Trees swayed out of the way and plants retracted where she walked, and she spoke comfortingly to him as he was pulled into the unknown.
“You poor thing, those bad men must’ve scared the petals right off you. It’s ok, you’re safe now. Nothing can hurt you here.”
This was entirely unexpected. While his shoulder still ached, he wasn’t being hurt anymore. And more importantly, it was getting warmer the deeper Ivy took him into the forest. Looking around, he realized that it was also extremely well-lit in here because there were glowing flowers lining the floor. Last time he’d checked out a botany book, he didn’t see anything about glowing plants.
Vaguely, he realized that Ivy was muttering something angrily to herself. “–disgusting, walking bags of compost dare to bargain with me over a child they have no right to! I’m going to figure out what gang they’re from and–”
Oh, that sounds violent and that made him nervous all over again. Ivy seemed to realize that and went back to her soothing tone. “What’s your name, sweetpea?”
“I’m Jason…Ma’am,” he replied as politely as he could. Maybe if he was good she wouldn’t feed him to her plants. He’d heard other street kids whispering about it before and he didn’t want to be plant food.
“And how old are you, Jason,” she asked gently.
Jason squirmed nervously in the vines’ hold. “Ten…”
“And when was the last time you’ve eaten?
“I had a sandwich and a granola bar on Thursday? I think it was Thursday?”
Ivy tutted disapprovingly. “It’s 2 am on Sunday, my little sunflower. I hope you like fruit and vegetables because I don’t have much else at the moment.”
Perking up at the mention of food but still wary, he asked the question that would reveal his fate. “What are you going to do with me?” His heart fluttered nervously as he waited for an answer. His experience with adults in recent months proved that they could be cruel and unforgiving even if they seemed nice at first. And Poison Ivy was one of Batman’s supervillains. While she’d been kind so far, it was highly unlikely that it would last.
“Well, first off we’re going to get you some food while I look at your shoulder. After that, you can wash up and take a nap if you’d like. We’ll figure it out from there.”
As she finished speaking, they finally stepped out into an alcove in the center of the forest. Instead of the nasty, polluted Gotham air he was used to, there was a sweet fragrance floating around him, and more importantly, it was warm. Like it might as well be spring warm.
He was jumpy and fidgety the entire time Ivy tended to his shoulder, but she’d merely hum in amusement and offer him more fruit. As the night wore on and nothing bad happened, he cautiously allowed himself to believe that Ivy really did mean well. He was clean, warm, and full all at once for the first time in weeks.
“Ms. Ivy? What now,” he asked carefully once they were both sitting on a large, surprisingly fluffy flower.
“First off, just call me Ivy, darling. No need for all that Ms. nonsense. Only lowlives who have gotten in my way call me that. And as for your question, that depends. Where are your parents?” Her tone was still silky smooth, but Jason couldn’t help tensing up again. He could tell her about Willis, right? She seemed to really hate traffickers.
“My mom died in June. Dad died in prison a couple days ago.”
“And you live on the street now?” He nodded in response. Ivy sighed forlornly before saying, “I’m sorry sweetheart, that’s horrible. I wish I could take you in, but Batman would doubtlessly come after me twice as hard since I’m ‘unfit to be a parent’ in his book. However, you’re always welcome to stop by my forest for food, a safe place to sleep, or just some friendly company whenever I’m not in Arkham. Which hopefully won’t happen again, but you know how the Bat is!”
Jason couldn’t help but giggle a bit at that. Everyone knew how obsessed Batman was with throwing all his rogues in Arkham. Some people theorized the reason he was cracking down harder on Rogues recently was because he wanted a vacation. Others said the man didn’t know the definition of that word. Jason was a believer in the latter.
“And if you’re ever in danger, you can come to me. You’re a sweet little thing and I want you to be safe. Ok?”
Tears pricked his eyes as he nodded his head. “Thanks, Ivy,” he managed to choke out.
Ivy looked at him with an expression he hasn’t seen since his mom died. “Can I hug you?”
This time, all Jason could do was nod. With a delicate smile and gentle hands, Ivy pulled him into her warm embrace. Ten minutes later found the two lying on the fluffy flower with a small ball of Jason pulled into Ivy’s chest. She sang quietly and carded her fingers through his hair in soft strokes while he breathed in the comforting smell of lavender and vanilla. As Jason drifted into blissful sleep, he couldn’t help but smile in relief as he realized he might just have found the warmth and safety he needed.