Chapter 10

Getting out of bed was a wonderful experience, more wonderful than he'd ever felt because for the first time since he woke up here he actually had money. 

Granted, he had work to do but he would happily do so. No such thing as a free lunch, most times. 

He'd already decided that he wasn't going to school for the day, he had some arrangements to make. 

As such, he soon found himself at the same flower shop where he usually stocked up on flowers. Though he had some stashed in his inventory, it wouldn't be anywhere near enough for even one kilo. 

Walking in, he found the store devoid of customers as usual. People in Gotham only needed flowers when they wanted to attend a burial or send a gift basket. 

The florist's eyes lit up in recognition as he walked in and up to him. Before the man could talk, Liam had already pulled him into his compulsion. 

"Who owns this shop?" He asked. 

"I'm the owner. It was my father's before he passed away." The man answered, his expression vacant. 

Liam nodded at that before proceeding. "Do you have somewhere you keep the rest of the inventory of flowers?"

"It's in the back room." The man answered. 

A smile erupted on Liam's face. "Great. Take me there."

He was led far back into the shop by his entranced victim. Soon, he was in a decently sized storage room where flowers of different kinds were plentiful. 

Giving the man one more order to round up all he had of the ones he wanted, he watched as sizable piles of Chamomile, Calendula, Peppermint, Poppy and Hibiscus were arranged neatly on the floor in front of him. 

"How much did these cost you?" He asked. 

"Around ten thousand dollars."

Luckily, the money that he was paid in was organized in bundles. Grabbing the collection of flowers, he vanished them into his inventory before pulling out the amount he needed and giving it to him. 

"Go about your business as usual and do not tell anyone what happened today." He was about to turn and leave before he paused, turning back to the man who was regaining focus in his eyes, putting him back under his control. "Give me the number of your supplier."

•••

He repeated the process a few times for the next few hours, thankful for the limitless space in his inventory as he had stocked up on a very huge amount of flowers. 

Despite how he could have gotten away with just compelling them and taking the flowers for free, he ended up spending sixty thousand dollars today. Twice the amount he initially planned on spending. 

He also had a realization on his way to the second shop; flowers were usually sold at a higher price than the seller got them. The fact that he simply paid them the price they got the flowers for meant that he would spend much less than he thought. 

With that in mind, he decided to get more flowers than he needed at the moment and stock up for the future. He'd spent seventeen thousand on the ones he needed to fulfil Kevin's order and the remaining forty three thousand on the rest. 

He wouldn't be running back to a flower shop anytime soon and even if he ran out, he had the phone numbers of a few flower companies to call. 

Shutting the door behind him, he sank into the nearest chair in exhaustion. He was still physically energetic but mental fatigue existed. 

"That was the easy part. Now for the hard one." He muttered under his breath. 

-[Batcave]-

For the third time in the last hour, Bruce felt like pulling his hair out. He'd managed to get a sample of Valerie's blood that night in the hospital as well as look through her scan records. 

Truly, she was cured of cancer. From her blood, he was able to find something and it confused him to no end. The compound found in her blood was a scientific wonder. 

If what he was able to glean was correct, whoever gave her this was a genius. Though he was able to identify the chemicals and materials used, the way they were processed and combined was impossible to recreate. 

Needless to say, he failed. 

Staring at the large screen with the chemical structure of the miracle drug, he released his tenth sigh of the hour.

A second screen to the side showed a different chemical structure, this one for the toxin that was used to poison Joker's thug. 

'I think the two might be connected.' He thought. 

In both instances of the Joker's plots in the past week, the thugs were beaten in the same brute force manner but there was no evidence left behind. 

He'd interrogated the thugs and even then all he got was 'a monster'. One of them managed to identify that he wasn't huge so that ruled off monstrous physique from his target's possible features. 

The one that was the most scared was the thug who got bitten with the toxin. After it wore off, he was too scared to talk. From the mad mutterings, he found out that he shot his assailant through the chest but he didn't die. 

'High regenerative ability or high durability.' He pondered. 

On another note, he needed to keep an eye on Valerie's brother, Vincent. He was the only one conscious when the police arrived but the description he gave didn't match what he'd gathered so far. 

Something was off, he just didn't know what. 

He hated not knowing things. The fact that such a dangerous metahuman was roaming through his city was deeply unsettling. 

-[Liam]-

*Knock!* *Knock!* *Knock!*

He groaned upon hearing the knocking on the door. He'd spent the last two hours grinding and merging powdered flowers as carefully and as fast as possible

He'd have to dig out the weighing scale from one of the closets later to check his progress. It was monotonous and work but the incentive of money pushed him forward. 

Making sure there was nothing implicating around him, he shot off the kitchen floor and made his way to the door. 

His hand barely wrapped around the door handle before he knew who it was. 

"You know, when normal people get kidnapped and almost killed, they tend to take some time to relax and not go to school." He said dryly as Vincent walked in, bag on his back. 

"Oh you know me, being a model citizen and bettering the community, one history class at a time." The brown haired boy quipped as he dropped the bag at the foot of the couch before sinking in. 

A laugh escaped Liam. "Well you're in a good mood today."

"Of course I am. Valerie is getting discharged tomorrow morning, she's cured and we have tickets to a party tonight. Everything is right with the world." Vincent said with a content sigh. 

Locking the door, Liam had a confused look on his face. "I'm sorry? We?"

"Yes, we. Nate's dad is away for a few days so he's throwing a party at his house and we're invited." Vincent explained. 

Liam only grew more confused as he leaned back against the wall. "Who's Nate?"

"Tall jock with rich parents. He's on the track team." Vincent said as if that explained everything. "He sits behind you in Math class." He added. 

"Not helping. Besides, how did I get invited if I don't even know the guy?" He genuinely didn't know who Nate was. 

There were more than a few guys at their school, most of which checked the dumb jock stereotype. 

"Well he knows me and I know you; ergo, you're invited. Plus, do you know how many people came up to me asking about you?" Vincent asked rhetorically with a proud smile. 

If the invite didn't already get his attention, this did. 

"And why are they asking you?" He asked. 

"Because I'm your best friend and your late meeting with puberty raised a few questions and dropped a few panties." The brown haired boy answered, wiggling his brow. 

Liam gave him an exasperated look. "Well they can keep their panties up because I'm not going. Have fun though." He said, turning to the kitchen as Vincent groaned. 

"Come on! You're basically mini Superman and you're afraid of a party?" Vincent asked, trying to convince him. 

Liam came back out of the kitchen with a soda in hand. "First off, Superman can fly. I can't. I don't spend my afternoons saving kittens from trees. Second, I'm not ready to spend the night watching girls fall over you."

"Over us. They'll be falling over us. You're hot now, remember? Not as hot as me but you'll live." Vincent corrected, joking goodnaturedly. 

Liam took a sip of the bottle in his hand before leveling a flat look at his friend. "Thanks for the words of encouragement. Still not going."

Despite his refusal, Vincent's smile grew. "I knew you'd say that so I brought this." He pulled out a small red piece of paper with 'IOU' messily written in crayon. 

"You've got to be kidding me." The serpent human muttered under his breath. 

"Nope. The class field trip where I covered for you after you puked and blamed it on the monkey. I'm calling in that favor." Vincent said, quite proud of himself. 

"Vince, that was six years ago." Liam argued but the other boy wouldn't budge. 

"My point still stands."

He could ignore it. He could just say no and continue working like he was supposed to be doing. 

Liam rubbed his temple tiredly before letting out an equally tired sigh. "Fine."

"Yes! I knew you'd come around. Also, can I get some of that?" Vincent asked, smiling from his 'victory'.

"No drink for you." Liam shot back bitterly, walking past him.