The girl, told him her name was Ivy Pepper
Suguro had taken her to one of the faction's safe houses rather than the main facility, giving her space so she wasnt being overwhelmed. He'd had Jaina's duplicates bring food, water, and clothing more appropriate than a hospital gown, then given her time alone to recover.
When he returned hours later, out of the mask and combat gear and now wearing his normal clothes, she was sitting cross-legged on the floor surrounded by vines and plants growing from the old walls that had definitely not been in the room before.
"You make these?".
"These? Oh the plants were already there. Just small. I helped them grow." She studied him with those bright, green eyes. "You're the fear toxin villain. Why did you save me?"
"Save" is a strong word. I extracted you because your Quirk is powerful and has applications I'm interested in so I'm offering you a new path I'll give you resources, protection, and a purpose in exchange for your cooperation with me and my people. It's a business arrangement, im not doing this out of pure kindness or pity."
She was quiet for a long time, then said, "They're going to keep hunting me. The heroes. They think I'm a monster for what I did to those men."
"You are a monster but that's not an insult, it's just what people like us are. The question is whether you want to be a monster alone, constantly hunted, always looking over your shoulder. Or a monster with purpose"
"You're not like other people...," Ivy said slowly. "You don't... feel right. Like you're wearing a costume and you're not actually human underneath."
Suguro was surprised by how perceptive that was. "That's accurate. I lack normal human empathy. Most people are just objects to me, useful or not useful, interesting or boring. Does that bother you?"
"No. It's refreshing, actually. You're not lying about caring about me, at least that's honest"
"Then stay. Join and join me and I'll help you continue your growth, develop your power, help with research that interests you. The only requirements are that you contribute to what I ask you here and you don't betray us."
Ivy looked at the plants she'd grown, then back at Suguro. "I'll stay. For now, but if you try to control me like they wanted to control me, I'll kill you."
"Very well, though I should mention that trying to kill me would not ended well for many who have tried."
"Fair." She almost smiled, it was a strange expression on her alien features. "Should I be scared of you? Your reputation says people should be scared of you."
"Most people should be, but I can tell you're not most people. We'll work better together if you're not terrified of me constantly."
"Good, because I'm not scared of you"
He stood looking down at her
"Welcome to Crane's Wings, Ivy Pepper. Try not to kill the other members, some of them would be difficult to replace."
Ivy's integration into Crane's Wings was unlike any previous recruitment.
Where other members had clear roles and maintained professional distance, Ivy simply inserted herself into Crane's spaces and operations with the casual certainty, like vines growing to claim territory. Within a week, plants were growing throughout the main facility, vines climbing walls, flowers blooming in corners, modified species with bio-luminescence lighting the darker corridors.
Suguro found it disrupting but did not particularly care as she stayed out of his personal carefully controlled laboratories, but he also found it... interesting. The plants served practical purposes, some were surveillance organisms Ivy could perceive through, how she did he couldn't figure out, others could produce new compounds useful for his research, she even somehow created two large carnivorous plants he recognized them as looking like Venus fly traps but they were so large that they could eat a full size man...
"You're changing my workspace without permission," Suguro mentioned one evening, finding Ivy in his office growing something that looked disturbingly carnivorous near his chemical storage.
"Your workspace needed life," she said simply. "Everything here is dead, It's unnatural, I'm just fixing it."
Suguro considered insisting she remove the plants, but found himself reluctant. The bio-luminescent specimens provided better lighting than his installed fixtures, and the air quality had noticeably improved with plants processing CO2 still in the air of the abandoned factory warehouse they set up in. She also stayed out of his labs which was what he actually cared about and knowing how to manage people realized to let this pass if it guaranteed loyalty.
Their research collaboration began slower than what he would have liked but it quickly became the most productive partnership Suguro had ever experienced.
Ivy's understanding of botanical biology was instinctive rather than academic, as she hadn't needed to study or read textbooks, she'd simply grown up communicating with plants and could understand them at levels human scientists could never reach as her quirk did make her part plant.
Their first joint project was developing what Suguro designated **Strain Verdant**, a hybrid compound combining his fear toxin with pheromones Ivy could produce. The result was a toxin that created hallucinations specifically of nature attacking the victim, which while not having much use in the concrete sprawl of Gotham did have another use. He had received word that Bane was looking for new weapons that could be used in a jungle or dense forest and that he was supplying a narco-terrorist group in the Amazon. Crane, recognizing the potential payday, began looking to perfect this strain with ivy however he did make sure to not explicitly tell her why they were making it. She was under the impression it was a personalized weapon for her later on.
When testing it on a procured subject (a captured street gangster sold to them by his gangs rivals) produced dramatic results. The subject experienced visions of vines strangling him, and then his body began to shake as he thrashed around on the floor and began to claw at his neck trying to rip off the vines that he thought were there. Suguro realized the man was not breathing, noting the toxin had fully convinced his brain that breathing was not possible, then in his final moments he had activated his quirk, a pair of metal claws from his knuckles. The man's final moments were him slashing the claws at his neck trying to cut the vines that were strangling him but in the end, Ivy and Suguro just saw a man slice his neck open and kill himself unknowingly.
"This is extraordinary," Suguro said, documenting the results while Ivy watched with a similar level of interest, both did not care for the corpse on the ground.
Then Ivy turned and looked at Suguro for the next minute as he wrote down what they saw, Ivy had studied him with those shining bright green eyes. "You always talk about breaking someone's mind like it's a science experiment. Like they're not a person."
"That's because to me, they're not. They're just test subjects. Does that bother you?"
"No. To me, it's the same; it's just, you really are exactly what you present"
"Is that a problem?"
she laughs smirking at him while he is confused and looks up from his work to look at her
"No"