It hurts to see Ivy hold onto her anger and hatred because she ultimately hates herself for not being able to protect her children, as though the outcome that led to it was something that she could control. She describes herself as a soulless monster and yet offers so much compassion towards others and demonstrates her care in the ways that she is able to: from getting onto Bruce's case when he's being more of a self-sacrificing idiot than usual to looking after Dick and the other kids as she is able.
And poor J'onn coming into this world that is so fraught with its own bloody history and pain. There's so much to parse through just from No Man's Land and the formation of the Gotham Council to how everyone is currently freaking out over the goddess revealing herself that it has to be overwhelming to try and piece together for a newcomer. Yet here he is, a stranger to everything that has happened, offering her a bit of compassion in return, to let her know how much she means to the others. Even if J'onn wasn't already on his way to being a member of Gotham already, Ivy would probably claim him as one of hers no matter what.
Yeah. She fits in perfectly with the rest of the Council to be fair. Probably everyone in Gotham who survived through NML. There's a LOT of survivor guilt there, and they're all nursing self-loathing to some extent as a result. Hard not to, when you were the one in a hundred to live while the ninety nine others died.
Which J'onn, at least, very much gets. To an even more horrific extent. Which in some ways maybe helps? Because he's fully fresh from horror himself, and at least in Gotham he gets to say that. As ugly as some of his feelings right now are, he's not alone in them either. I doubt he would have told Clark about his brief moments of hating his own daughter for leaving him, but Ivy gets it. So fully. I'm not sure how much that's helping J'onn right now, to confront it so soon, but at least nobody's going to flinch from him because of it.
And yes, Ivy has fully adopted him already. Like, he gets a choice about it, obviously. But she's already mentally marked him one of hers. Heh.
and presumably marked him with the child pheromone she mentioned in this chapter as well. ( or does she have to find a way to sneak past his telepathy to actually tag him without him noticing)
She's not quite that far yet, his circumstances are still too up in the air. He might decide to leave Gotham yet, since he only stayed because he was nearly dead anyway. She'll wait to see how things go once he's recovered a bit, if he'll still decide to stay, before she thinks about fully claiming him like that. For now, he's just mentally noted as 'let no one hurt him, if he stays he's mine'. Emotionally, she's already claimed him, but formal claims will rest on his decisions down the line. Heh.
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