She's Sunshine, She's Grace, She'll Punch You in the Face

Chapter 71: Ivy's History Lesson

"We will call if we need any help." Marinette waved at Damian's family as the two of them got into the car to go meet up with Ivy.

"No speeding." Bruce warned. "And please be safe." He waved along with the rest of the family.

"Don't worry." Marinette spoke through the open window. "I'll keep him in check."

Damian scoffed as he pulled out of the garage and Marinette rolled her window back up to look over at him.

"How long will it take us to get there?" She asked.

"Not too long. Five minutes maybe."

"Okay." Marinette pulled out her phone. "I'll let Ivy know." She then put her phone back into her bag but she stopped to look at the kwami's. "Plagg, you know you can't travel around with me all the time now, right?"

"I know that." Plagg rolled his eyes.

"Good luck with him at school." Marinette giggled towards her boyfriend.

"How much trouble can he really cause?"

"You would be surprised. I kind of feel bad for some of the things he put Adrien through in the past."

"Come on!" Plagg joked. "Adrien needed some fun in his life and you know it."

"That might be true but you went about it the wrong way." Tikki scolded.

"Yeah." Marinette looked over at Damian. "Aren't kwami's just tons of fun?"

"I don't know how you live with all of this fun that you are having." Damian joked sarcastically.

"At least you won't have to hide him from your family. I'm pretty sure there were times that my parents thought I was insane."

Just then, Marinette received a text and she pulled out her phone again to look at the message.

"Ivy said she will be waiting for us right outside the apartments with Harley. They should be easy enough to spot."

"Okay." Damian nodded. "We'll be there in a few minutes anyways."

Eventually, the teens pulled up to the address that was given and the two women could be seen sitting on the apartment steps drinking what looked to be iced coffees. Damian parked the car on the side of the road and cut the ignition.

They stepped out and made their way to the front of the car to hold hands before they walked together to the base of the apartment steps.

"Hello, Marigold." Ivy spoke in a cheerful voice.

"Hi, Ivy. Hey, Harley." She smiled.

"Hiya, Marinette." Harley jumped up to hug her. "That lip of yours sure is healing fast." She pulled away to look at her.

"Oh, right." Marinette touched her lip. She had almost forgotten about it.

"And you better keep you mouth shut about it too." Damian glared at the spunky blonde.

"Hello to you too, Mista Wayne." Harley waved. "As friendly as ever I see."

"Relax, Damian." Marinette gently squeezed his hand before looking over to Ivy. "So, what exactly are we doing here?"

"That's a great question." Ivy stood up. "Follow me."

Everyone followed Ivy as she walked down an alley between two apartment buildings.

"As is with any city, it was once teeming with organic life long before it was built into the concrete jungle you know it as today." She spoke as she walked. "Gotham was once home to some of the rarest plants to have ever been known, or so people say. Others say that the natives of this land made these plants up as part of their religion or cultural beliefs."

Ivy finally reached the back side of these buildings and walked to a small 20 by 30-foot patch of dirt with a run-down children's playground in the middle. She sat on one of the three swings with grace.

"Gotham is said to be a cursed city and I fully believe this to be true. In whatever documents historians could find about this place, mostly extremely ancient cave drawings, people depict that this place was once a paradise but then one day it dramatically changed and no one is really certain why."

"Okay." Marinette nods. "What does this have to do with plants?"

"Well," She smiles. "those same cave drawings depict a beautiful and possibly magical rose that could only be found in Gotham. I am very in tune with nature as you may know and something about this place has always confused me. Most of the time I can feel every root running underneath this city but this exact place is very different. Nothing grows here no matter how hard I may try, but that's not all. The second you stepped foot onto Gotham soil, it awoke something deep in the ground here that is just begging to be free. It's something healing and something light, just like you."

Harley had made herself comfortable on the swing next to her while she was telling her story and by the time Ivy was done, she spoke up eagerly to explain.

"What Red here is trying to say is that we think you awoke a magical flower that has been dormant in Gotham since before this place got all gloom and doom."

"Are you sure this plant isn't dangerous?" Damian scowled at the women.

"I'm positive." Ivy had a determined look on her face. "I can always feel when a plant is poisonous or harmful in any way but this is far from it. Honestly, the closest thing I can compare it to is maybe something medicinal and healing but a billion times stronger."

"So, what do you want me to do?"

"Just you standing here is making it stronger. I'm starting to pinpoint exactly where in the vicinity it is at." Ivy stood up and closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath before opening her eyes again. "How do you feel about dirt?"

"It's okay, I guess. Why?" Marinette looked confused.

Ivy walked a few feet southwest of the swing she was sitting on and knelt down. "It's here. Do you think you can try and meet it partway?"

"You want me to dig?" The confusion still didn't leave her face.

"It may be quicker to bring it to the surface. I'm afraid if any of us tried it, it may go dormant again. Clearly, it's looking for you."

"You brought her here to dig up dirt?" Damian crossed his arms.

Ivy ignored him and instead gave Marinette a soft smile. "If you don't want to dig, we could always just wait. But I do feel like if you touched the soil, you would bring back it's ability to bring nutrients to the plants."

"Okay." Marinette looked down at the ground and pointed by Ivy's feet. "Right there?"

"Yep." She smiled.

Marinette felt kind of silly about it all but knelt down anyways to touch the ground. She looked in amazement when she pulled her hand away to see that the grey dirt that she once touched turned a rich shade of brown in the perfect shape of her hand print.