BAE Chapter 91

“Something on your mind, Miss Gordon?”

Ivy’s staring. She has her hands in the pockets of her lab coat. For perhaps the first time, she doesn’t seem guarded in any way. She’s beginning to trust, and her actions with the proposals have given her a sense of being if not in control, then at least not totally helpless. She’s not happy about being stuck in this tower, but she can live with it.

“I don’t know which is more distracting,” Barbara says, taking a few steps closer and stopping. “Seeing you like this or in your leafy leotard.”

“The leotard,” Ivy replies without hesitation. “That’s its job. I have to get close for pheromones. The outfit helps.”

“I meant for me personally.”

Ivy looks down at herself and plucks at her tee, which is tucked into the mom jeans with a belt.

“This works for you?”

“You have no idea.”

Ivy snorts. “What are you? Some kind of nerd?”

One corner of Barbara's mouth curls up. "Me? Never. I'm not bad with computers."

“I’m sure you’ll find it very attractive when I explain to you how much energy consumption is needed for serious computing and the damage it does to this planet. I wouldn’t even have to make it about plants. How’s farming going in northern Africa right now?”

“You’d be preaching to the choir, but I’d like it. Can we help with that, though?”

Ivy snorts. “You don’t need me for that, but it takes a lot to adjust. You can’t just move your crops to the right climate. And I control plants, not the soil. Where are you going with this, Miss Gordon?”

“Why so formal?”

“Because I don’t know if I overstepped.”

There it is. Barbara feels a surge of triumph. Ivy the villain is by no means dead. She’s in there, but that concern, that anxiety—that’s Ivy the person. Change is happening. It can’t happen overnight, but this is evidence that Barbara isn’t delusional.

“I’m the one who should be worried. I need to be careful when I’m functionally your boss.”

Ivy sighs. “Did I ever tell you how I ended up like this? It’s because I didn’t set a boundary with my professor.” She means Woodrue; it’s all in Bruce’s files, and it’s a big part of Barbara’s reasoning. Ivy didn’t give herself these powers. She was a victim long before she was the bad guy. That’s true of most bad guys, and it’s the only reason that Barbara tolerated the Batman once she grew up enough to understand. If Bruce hadn’t been the Batman, he would’ve been something much worse.

“I’m giving this project to Lucius Fox. I trust him. He’ll be in charge.”

Ivy’s eyes narrow. “Where are you going?”

“Nowhere. I want to be here, working with you.”

“You’re suddenly interested in horticulture?” Ivy asks dryly.

“I am, but not exactly. That’s your department. But you have ideas, and just your ideas are enough to make the board drool. I think with the technical and logistical support that I can provide, we can turn those ideas into the kinds of actionable proposals that will be so irresistible that… you ever see the movie with the chef and the rat on his head?”

“Why bother with all that? They let me have TV,” Ivy says, folding her arms. “You have an inside track to COO of this section.”

“I don’t want a house of cards. Well, I do,” Barbara admits. “I mean, I’m tempted. But the right thing to do is to show people that doing things the right way can work. And if I’m your boss, I can’t flirt with you.”

“Oh, you think I’m going to fall for a pretty, smart girl who treats me like a human being?”

“Probably. I mean, you just described Harleen Quinzel.”

“I mean one who isn’t crazy.”

“Too early to say on that one. What do you think?”

“I think it sounds too good to be true.”

“Good things are allowed to happen, Pam.”

“Not in Gotham.”

“I used to think that too. We have to try.”

Ivy snorts. “I expect to be incentivized.”

“Do you accept flirting from your very equal coworker?”

Ivy rolls her eyes. “I guess.”

“On a more serious note,” Barbara says. “Jokes aside, we do seem to have a lingering side effect.”

Ivy sobers. “Go on.”

“So I’m historically straight,” Barbara says, pointing at herself. “When Seed hit, that kind of changed. I feel like we have to be really careful how we talk about it.”

“It might not be as controversial as you think. A penis can provide a lot of pleasure, and history has owned out that putting a penis in a vagina is literally so much fun that empires have fallen because of it. You grew it, you learned what it could do, and you liked it,” Ivy says.

Barbara shakes her head. “That’s what I would’ve said to. But that’s not it. I didn’t lose my…” She wiggles a finger. “Virginity for a while. Way before that I was noticing stuff.”

“Stuff?”

“Girls.” Barbara puts her hands out and moves them in an hourglass shape, tracing the curves of Ivy’s figure. “Like a teenage boy. A cute girl with big boobs would jog past on the sidewalk jiggling and I’d get all horny.”

“You sure you aren’t just closeted?”

Barbara nods.

“What about now?”

“Now I’m not quite as… visual. But I slept with Summer Gleeson.”

“Lucky you.”

“Right? Look, the sex was nice, but what was amazing was intimacy with…” Barbara sucks her breath in through her teeth. “Another woman. I liked that. So I don’t know exactly where I am now, but I know that I’m sorry that I had to go last night. I know that I’m not thinking about my ex as much. Anyway, I know that this isn’t just me. Seed is popular. Popular enough that we have women seeking it out on the street. It’s not just novelty.”

“If we’re talking about physical attraction, this could be hormones. It could be brain chemistry.”

“Pam, it could be brain structure that Seed is changing without us realizing it,” Barbara says firmly. “This has to be studied. Wayne Enterprises cannot sell a **** that turns you gay without fully understanding what’s happening and making sure that people know. Was this an intended effect?”

Ivy shakes her head. “No. It’s just supposed to be a sensitive penis that can ejaculate. It’s not supposed to change the way that you think.”

“Well, it is. I’m thinking that we need to open applications for trials on the cure. Start collecting data from willing women who’ve undergone the change. We can include stuff in that questionnaire to see how widespread this effect is. We need to be discrete. And we need a medical doctor. In-house.”

“You cannot be serious,” Ivy says, seeing what Barbara’s getting at.

Harleen Quinzel went to medical school, and Barbara needs a physician on this team to help determine exactly how Seed has changed its victims beyond just the penis. She also needs discretion with a subject that has such sensitive political implications.

Should Barbara approach Harley Quinn?

Or find another doctor?