#lovella

Her name is Lovella. When I first saw that name, I wanted to use it for a hypothetical fankid for the Luke/Luella ship (one of its name meanings is even "Wolf")... then I decided I really liked that name and wanted it for my self-insert.

She's around 5'9''--I wanted her at least a head taller than Aaron Cobblepot (5'2'').

She's autistic. This is one of the reasons she likes to indulge in all 5 senses (pastel colours, soft textures, delicious food, etc.)--it's a form of stimming for her.

She has waist-length pinkish-brown/rose brown hair, with a portion of it tied back in a heart-shaped bun, and pink eyes with heart designs in them. Like so:

She has a single superpower: healing/restoration. But her healing powers are the most potent in the world. 'Cause I was curious how a superhero with a single, non-combat power (such as healing, which I've always found appealing) would operate. This manifests as both a healing factor and the ability to heal others.

The healing factor: it's strong enough to grant regenerative immortality, as well as immunity to disease, toxins, drugs and alcohol, conversion, etc. Essentially, she's guaranteed a maximum human lifespan of 150 years. Additional effects of her healing factor include perfect health, enhanced fertility, and enhanced beauty, enough to put her in the realm of World's Most Beautiful People.

Healing others: this power often manifests as a glow, whether she's healing through physical contact or remotely (via healing energy/aura). It also manifests in her body, such as through tears, saliva, blood, hair, etc. (this also means a particularly monstrous enemy can heal itself by eating Lovella, though I personally wouldn't recommend it). Lovella is able to restore both living and inanimate targets, as well as enhance the fertility of others (i.e. fruits and veggies in her garden). Under certain circumstances, she can even resurrect the dead--namely, she has enough healing energy stockpiled, and she's able to revive the target before their soul passes on to the afterlife. Otherwise, all that happens is she reanimates a soulless zombie.

Her healing powers are dependent on calorie consumption--the more she's eaten, the more healing energy she has. If she expends enough healing energy and can't get any food or drink, she can no longer heal others, being left with only her healing factor. And if she burns through enough of that, she goes into a kind of safe mode where her body automatically sacrifices healing any injuries in favour of keeping her alive, no matter what.

Aside from healing, her realms of influence (so to speak) are food, love, and animals. And all these realms are interconnected: she uses her powers to grow super-delicious heart-shaped fruits and veggies that she's famous for (healing + food + love), she has no shortage of admirers due to her beauty (healing + love), she has a way with animals and can easily obtain ingredients like eggs, milk and honey from them (food + animals), etc.

Some lore I came up with for the origin of her healing powers: she has the soul of a phoenix, which has been reincarnating since the dawn of man (around 458000 B.C), granting its incarnations the restorative powers of a phoenix; Lovella is the present-day incarnation. This soul will continue to reincarnate until around the year 1 Million A.D., at which point the phoenix soul will be ready to pass on to the afterlife.

This phoenix mates for life--as in, the sum total of all its incarnations. Though Lovella has had lovers in her current and past lives, only one has ever had the honour of being chosen as a mate. As a result, Lovella's future incarnations have no interest in romance, even though she has no past-life memories and won't remember her mate until she passes on for good.

Months before the events of the first episode of Batman: Caped Crusader, after Penguin has established her territory and has just decided to take on Rupert Thorne, her gang has an altercation with one of Thorne’s allies that leaves Aaron mortally wounded, with Penguin ordering her gang to leave him. However, said ally gang has brought along their lucky charm—a young woman with peerless healing powers that they bought hired to keep from losing people. Though she’s supposed to limit herself to healing/resurrecting their men, she can’t stand to see someone hurt and not help if it’s within her power. So, when she sees an injured Aaron, close to death, she sneakily heals his injuries, allowing him to rejoin his gang later.

Penguin comes up with the plan to send Aaron in as a reverse mole to ferret out information on Thorne and his allies and feed them false information on her operations. Why Aaron? Because the recent conflict has provided the perfect cover story, that of a betrayed son abandoned by his family and allies, throwing his lot in with their arch rivals after his miraculous recovery. And more importantly, he’s someone she has firmly under her thumb can trust, who would do anything for his Mama, and is a more talented actor than her other son—he can sell the role of a disgruntled, treacherous underling better than Ronald.

Oh, the irony…

Aaron successfully ingratiates himself with the gang, and, of course, reencounters the girl who saved his life, named Lovella. Among the information he secretly gathers on their operations and properties (which become targets for his mother's long-range umbrella cannon), Aaron also learns more about Lovella, including the (supposed) source of her powers being her virginity. Meaning that, while the gang are allowed to look at her—and they do, extensively—they aren’t allowed to touch her, especially since the extent of what is allowed isn’t known. No one is about to risk losing such a valuable asset because they found out the hard way that HJs or BJs are considered “no longer a virgin” by her powers. This too is relayed back to the Penguin.

So begins a slow burn where Aaron and Lovella gradually grow closer, started by covert looks, then escalating into secret notes, covert touches, stolen whispers of conversation, impressing her with sleight of hand tricks. Occasionally Aaron is tasked with bringing food to her gilded cage of a room, granting them more chances to exchange words. If she got punished for whatever reason by being denied food, Aaron would sneak her some. As their secret relationship becomes more official and established, they even partake in indirect kisses, such as sharing drinks—the ritual is always the same, one would take a sip, pass the glass to the other, interlacing their fingertips as they do so, and then the other would sip by pressing their lips to the same part of the rim of the glass that the other’s lips touched.

There’s plenty of overthinking on Aaron’s end, because this is the first time a girl has ever expressed interest in him like this, not only allowing him to make these advances, but welcoming them--reciprocating them even! He’s well aware, as many have doubtless told him, that he had “a face only a mother could love”. She can’t be attracted to his looks… it must be his money, he is a Cobblepot after all. Or being the first of the gang to show her an iota of kindness. Well, he’s not about to complain… Meanwhile, Lovella learns that Aaron is actually a reverse mole still working for his mother, and not only agrees to keep his secret (good thing, too, as it’s not like Penguin’s men can kill her to silence her), but help him as well! After all, as the rival gang’s personal healer more or less, there are things she learns that only the inner circle knows…

Aaron eventually raises the idea of buying Lovella’s freedom from the man that “owns” her, thus depriving him (and potentially Thorne as well) of his “lucky charm”, even bringing her over to their employ instead! All tempting ideas for the Penguin. Of course, the man won’t part with her easily, so Penguin escalates her sales of drugs and guns (and, unbeknownst to her bumbling sons, people) to build up a tempting offer. Meanwhile, Lovella’s latest note exchange with Aaron requests two things: a heavy-duty tranquilizer, and to meet in a secret, neutral location.

On the provided date and time, Aaron sneaks away from Cobblepot Manor; he’s caught by Ronald, who he makes promise to cover for him. He arrives at the designated spot, an unoccupied apartment/hotel room. Lovella arrives soon after, having similarly snuck away from the ally gang during an operation after slipping them the tranquilizer. She emerges clad in a slinky silk dress, and exchanges her first real kiss with Aaron, followed by undoing his tie and shirt. Realising where this is going, Aaron protests, reminding her about her powers… to which she shushes him, presses a finger to his lips, and leans forward to whisper into his ear: “I lied.” Sexytimes ensue. 😉

In the afterglow, Lovella reveals the truth: her powers were never tied to her virginity at all (and she demonstrates by fixing something), but to her food intake. Upon first being captured by the human trafficking ring that sold her to Thorne’s ally, Lovella lied about the virginity part to ensure she wouldn’t be taken advantage of, either by the traffickers or her eventual “owner”; when one of the traffickers called her bluff and felt her up, she was able to fake a (temporary) power loss by expending her healing power and then not eating, warning that if she ever had actual sex, it would be permanent. Now, as a mob kid, if Aaron has learned one thing growing up, it’s that information is power. Lovella has willingly shared with him information that could be used to harm her if in the wrong hands. The weight of this act is not lost on him. So when she asks him to keep this a secret, even from his own family, he agrees.

However, he fails to take into account people knowing him well enough to notice a change in behavior. So when Aaron shows up the next morning practically glowing with satisfaction, his brother instantly realizes he’s had sex. And from who Aaron has been talking non-stop about the past few months, Ronald can hazard a guess as to who the partner was. And just in case Ronald was thinking this meant Thorne and his allies have lost their asset without any need to free her, Aaron’s mysteriously healing injuries continue (their mother’s physical abuse is a constant presence in the background). Mama may call him “the slow one”, but he can put 2 and 2 together.

And it pisses him off. Enough to pay Rupert Thorne himself a visit, and offer a deal… and information.

The plot thickens. Aaron overhears Thorne’s ally’s men vulgarly discussing what they planned to do with Lovella now that she’s “no longer off-limits” and realizes to his horror that the secret is out, and that if they want to buy her freedom, now’s the time. Penguin, Thorne, and their respective allies meet for a “friendly” game, with Penguin’s side continually raising the stakes with the profits made from her illicit sales, as well as strategically eliminating men on each side until it comes down to Aaron (having previously established himself as a terrible player on the latest of several attempts at the game) and Lovella’s owner (having not lost a game so far that night), with the latter finally compelled to bet Lovella. While Lovella’s owner subtly taunts Aaron with his plans for her now that her virginity is no longer a necessity (revealing the truth to Team Penguin), Aaron uses sleight of hand to cheat, winning their little hustle and Lovella’s freedom. Walking away, with her boys out of earshot, Penguin whispers to her right-hand man Iggy how much does he think a beautiful woman that can heal any injury and cure any illness would be worth…

With Penguin ordering him to keep it discreet (even from her sons, who she doesn’t trust to be involved with this side of her business), Iggy kidnaps Lovella, blindfolds her (so she can’t identify anyone), brings her to the Iceberg Lounge to forcibly extract her healing blood, hair, and tears (when she starts crying) for the Penguin’s own use, then prepares to sell her off. Luckily, she left a token behind for Aaron to find, cluing him into to her fate. Unable to find his mother to raise the alarm (because, y’know, she’s busy with the auction), Aaron eventually turns to the police, specifically Commissioner Gordon, the one guaranteed honest cop in Gotham. They manage to track down the trafficking victims just in time to rescue them, leading to a tearful reunion between Aaron and Lovella. Meanwhile, Penguin is pissed that her own son unwittingly foiled her sale.

After she provides testimony, Gordon arranges for Lovella to be flown back to her hometown for her protection. Faced with his inability to protect Lovella from (who he thinks was) Thorne’s ally, Aaron agrees and sees Lovella off with one last kiss, before returning to his normal life. Given the choice between staying in Gotham to work for the Penguin, or fleeing Gotham for a new life with his love, he’d pick his Mama every single time. No matter how much he loved Lovella… Besides, with the mysterious disappearance of Lovella’s former owner and his gang along with him, Penguin has already begun to expand her empire into Thorne’s territory. He still had a job to do, but not for much longer…

Cue the events of the first episode. Ronald tips Thorne off about the incoming strikes on each property. Penguin catches on to the leak and begins interrogating (and executing) suspects, such as Clarence. At the gala hosted aboard the Iceberg Lounge, Thorne meets with Penguin again, and hints to her that Aaron is the “itty, bitty birdie” that has been tipping him off and allowing him to survive each strike. Aaron’s blunder had already pissed Penguin off; it doesn’t take much to convince her that he’d turned on her for real. She summons her sons and Iggy to the storage room of the Iceberg Lounge, and confronts them on how she knows one of them sold her out to Thorne. While Aaron protests both of their innocence, Ronald immediately throws Aaron under the bus, prompting the latter to argue back defensively. Penguin interrupts them by saying she “knows” it was Aaron, who gets increasingly panicked as he tries to convince her of his innocence. His pleas fall on deaf ears, and Penguin has Iggy shove a bag over Aaron’s head, restrain him with his suit jacket, throw him into a trunk, and dump him into the room’s moonpool, all while he frantically begs for his life. Penguin laments that he was her favourite son, then promotes Ronald to her new favourite by default—an unspoken threat. Ronald realizes that Penguin is now onto him, that his next tip-off will reveal him as the rat, and runs to call Thorne for protection shortly after the gala ends. When Thorne leaves him hanging (“I don't think you're the kind of man I want in my organization. Hell, you just sold out your own mother, for god's sake.”), Ronald instead seeks out police protection, informs on his mother, and warns them of her missile launcher, minutes before Penguin uses it to destroy police headquarters. Penguin is arrested, and Thorne takes advantage of the power vacuum to move in on her territories.

From here it gets a bit open-ended. Depending on how the next season plays out, Aaron and Lovella's reunion can go one of several ways:

Aaron died at the bottom of the sea, but because his soul didn't pass on to the afterlife, instead sticking around as a ghost, he and Lovella go on a quest to heal his body and resurrect him.

Aaron survives the murder attempt, and is fished out of the Penguin's underwater dumping grounds shortly after her arrest. Upon finding him unconscious, but barely alive, he's sent to the hospital and hooked up on life support, where he remains in a coma for the rest of Season 1 (and potentially Season 2), in the hopes when he comes to, he can testify against his mother. He eventually awakens, but with a number done on his faculties (oxygen deprivation + extended immobility doesn't do wonders for one's health). The Penguin escapes prison and arranges for Aaron (and Ronald)'s assassination, but they're saved by the Batman. Ironically, this kills any remaining loyalty Aaron has to his mother, and he corroborates Ronald's testimony. Afterwards, they flee the city, assuming new identities (Robin Humboldt for Ronald, Mickey Newman for Aaron) and end up in Lovella's hometown, allowing the Lovebirds to rekindle their romance, alongside Lovella's own superhero adventures.