Post by lizity on Feb 3, 2012 20:39:12 GMT -5
Selina’s arm slid through the offered one of the man that helped her out of the limo they’d just arrived in. He was some internet millionare that had founded some company that she couldn’t remember the name of to make his money. Not that it mattered, she wasn’t interested in his money… at the moment. No she’d just needed a date that would have been invited to this particular party so she didn’t have to crash it… for once.
She’d only been in the US for a few weeks now. The last four years had been spent moving from city to city across Europe, finding and acquiring things for her ‘little’ collection. A prized artifact here, a shiny piece of priceless jewelry here. The little things. Just thinking about all the things she’d taken over the years made her smile to herself. It wasn’t so much the fact that she had them it was the thrill that she got in taking them too. It was all a viciously fun game of life to her and she wouldn’t have traded it for anything.
This party though had two things she was looking at the acquire for her collection. The Gotham Museum was hosting an event for the wealthy contributors to get the first viewing of a priceless gem collection. She’d been following the gems in the news for a few months but she’d been wrapped up in other business and hadn’t been able to get into the states. Now she was here and the gems were calling to her so sweetly. The Cat’s eye, the biggest yellow diamond the world had ever seen and the largest, multifaceted ruby she’d ever seen in her life called the Demon’s Heart. Before the week was out she’d have them both.
Three nights later she was kneeling on the roof of the building looking down through a sky light. The museum was dimly lit with security lights and of course all the security that was laced through the building. She’d done a good job of surveying things when she’d been there for the party. She’d learned ages ago what to look for when it came to things and she kept up on the systems as they advanced. That was probably the hardest part of what she did in the late hours of the night. Good thing she was a night cat.
The claws in the fingers of her gloves shifted out as she flexed her hand and she cut a hole in the glass. She had to lay against the glass to reach her arm all the way through to clip a small electrical box onto the wire of the alarm on the window, keeping the circuit completed so it wouldn’t go off before unlocking it and sliding through. She didn’t use a rope, just a whip if she really needed it which worked better than any rope. She’d been using it for years but right now she didn’t. She hung onto the edge of the window, swinging her legs till she could flip herself over to land on the second banister, light as a cat. She poised, balanced perfectly and crouched down.
In the moments that she stilled to let the sounds and feel of her surroundings settle around her she heard them. Voices, quiet and whispered but voices that were not supposed to be there. She slid down, grasping hold of the banister and then the rails as she slid down and hung for a moment before dropping to the bottom floor then slid behind a display. Two men stood in the room with the very two gems she was after. They were hooded, faces completely obscured from her vision even when she flipped the night vision lenses down on her goggles. Well that wasn’t right and what was even less right was the fact that they were trying to take her ruby.
Standing up from her hiding place she rested a hand on a leather clad hip and cleared her throat. “Excuse me gentlemen.” Her voice purred and she gave them a smile with brilliant white teeth. “While I appreciate the work you’re doing to free my ruby from it’s horrible prison I have to ask you to step away and let a professional do the work.”
The men looked up at her, shocked she hoped as she couldn’t see their faces. One rasped in a strange guttural langage and then crushed his fist into glass, shattering it and grabbing the ruby. The second man charged her and she saw his eyes reflect some light with red intent as alarms started going off all over the building.
~~
He'd been tracking the two cultists for two hours; They'd taken a meandering route around the city before finally arriving at their destination, they were as careful as they were paranoid. Or they knew someone was following them. Unlikely Bruce thought as he watched them slip in the front door of the museum aided by a guard within. Too convenient, thieves were getting lazy, then, it was much easier to pay off a guard than it was to break in. He crouched on the head of the gargoyle standing out from the building it was extended from. Its face was twisted in a brutal expression, a stone forked tongue hanging out of its mouth. Bruce spread his cloak, readying himself to catch the updraft that would lift him up and carry him over to the lower laying roof of the museum.
It was thin he caught another figure bounding across the roof tops and Bruce sank back into the shadows. Another cultist? no, this one knew what he - No, she - was doing, she scaled the building as easily as a spider might, making her way to the skylight that admitted the faint silvery glow of the moon. He couldn't help but smirk to himself, the thief was in for one hell of a surprise. He waited until the graceful thief disarmed their security and slipped inside before launching himself from the gargoyle, the wind catching in his cape and stiffening it allowing him to glide gently across the street as silent as a bat in the night, landing lightly in the place the thief had been but moments before. He edge to the skylight and looked within, the female thief was confronting the two cultists with, their voices echoing off the vaulted walls and ceiling of the old Gotham Museum of Natural History.
Bruce dropped inside landing on the upper level, he balanced on its banister and, continuing to watch the exchanged and evaluate this newcomer. She was out of her league, even i she didn't know it, he'd witnessed the cultists using what looked very much like magic though Bruce himself was more than a little skeptical and had chalked it up to some high tech gadgetry, he knew of several Wayne tech devices that could have emulated the same effects.
At the guttural command Bruce glided silently above and then dropped behind the two in a crouch. He drew himself up to full form his black cloak wreathed about him like an enveloping shadow, his eyes glowed white and bold from the darkness. In the shadows of darkness, I stand in the light. His hands snatched out as quick as the woman's whip and caught the two cultists by their heads, thrust both together and smashing their skulls together, they crumpled to the floor in a heap and the ruby rattled across the floor to Catwoman's feet. he glowered at her and stepped beneath the sky light, the pale moonlight illuminating his grim set jaw and giving form to the cloaked crime fighter.
"Hand it over." he said coldly holding out his gauntleted hand from the depths of his cape, savage spikes extending from it to his elbow. "The police are already on their way. I'll let you run this time, if you leave Gotham and never return."
~~
Well, the party just kept getting bigger now didn’t it. She was expecting the guards to show up any minute but Gotham’s protector and dark knight? Mmmm, this should be interesting now.
The skin tight leather of her suit didn’t creak like most leathers did, instead it was silent giving away the idea of something softer than the protective layer she wore. Or as protective as the leather was. Really she relied on moving fast and not getting hit than she did on being protected from the actual hit. Leaning over she picked up the ruby, her clawed gloved hand wrapping around it as she felt the weight of it.
“So you’re the Batman? I always wondered what you looked like.” She mused, eyes moving from the ruby back to him as she stalked forward slowly but carefully on heeled boots. She had the gate of a feline, all liquid grace and smoothness, never mind the sex appeal of a fine body but that was all part of the plan. “Somehow I thought you’d be taller.”
She only got so close though, walking a wide circle around him, moving herself closer to the other thing she’d come for. “You’ll let me leave? No jail? Just let me run alike my marry little way? It’s tempting you know, but if I left I wouldn’t get to spend any more time in your company. I think you might miss me if I left to soon, Batman.”
Lifting a hand she rested the ruby on top of the glass case that held the diamond then stepped in front of it and slowly moved closer to him. “The police are slow, we still have another three minutes at the lease to get to know each other.” She offered a hand with a sly smile, claws glinting in the flashing lights of the alarms.
~~
He remained silent as she spoke, watching her as she walked slowly towards him, he allowed her to circle him though he didn't move to face her. When she ceased her pacing she was infront of him again and balancing the precious stone on the glass case it had been taken from. She was asking him questions, her tone a soft mocking one. His eyes narrowed, most criminals he faced were far less confident in his presence. The last one had pissed himself and nearly passed out from his fight. He could have done without the pissing but the nearly scaring himself unconscious had been most helpful, but Bruce would have no such luck with this one.
"Last chance" he said, voice monotone an unimpressed. Catwoman was offering her hand, soft as a flower beneath the glove he had no doubt, but this flower had thorns, he noted as the moonlight glinted off the claws that tipped each digit. Batman made no move to take her hand, instead he gave a low growl that might have been a warning or merely a sound of irritation. "The ruby. Now."
He had fought few women and he did not exactly relish the thought, old habits died hard and he'd always been taught hitting a woman was wrong. In this case? He might have to make an exception. He couldn't deny the fact that her body was pleasing though his eyes stared resolutely into hers despite the leather cat suit with zipper pulled down to reveal her bust.
Sirens could be heard on the horizon in a building crescendo, her time was running out and Batman was running low on patience.
~~
“Last chance? I suppose I should be scared of you shouldn’t I? After all the things that people say about you on the streets.” Frankly she wasn’t scared of him but she was just that confidant in herself. She’d always been like this, from the moment she’d been old enough to understand what confidence was.
He didn’t take her hand so she turned her hand over. Flexing her fingers, examining the claws a moment and shrugged. “I guess I’ll have to come by and pick it up later. Maybe the museum will gift wrap it for me if I ask nicely.” She turned to go, walking toward the doors, hips swaying distractingly. Her hands smoothed down her hips before one grasped the handle of her whip as she turned back, flicking it out and wrapping it around the ruby and flicking it back too her. Catching it easily she winked and used the distance between them as a head start, already flicking her whip up to pull herself back up toward the window.
She was fast and agile, pulling herself back up to the second level and then up further and back out the window. While most women learned to run in heels at some point in their lives she made and art form of it as she hit the room and took off. The whole of her body was build for this. She felt adrenaline pumping through her veins and it made a smile pull across her lips even as she heard the sound of him coming through the window behind her.
The weight of the ruby bumped against her hip as she ran, whip coiled in her hand as she flicked it out here and there to grasp something and pull her across a gap between buildings until he caught up to her. She knew he would, just looking at him she could tell he was in just as good of shape as she was and the men on the streets said he could move like a shadow. So could see, but she wanted to see what his man was made of. Was he truly a myth, or was he flesh and blood under all that thick leather?
She paused, still not out of breath, legs a shoulders breath apart as he landed on the roof where she had just a few second behind her now.
“Generally when a woman walks away she’s not interested in the attentions of a man.” She half purred half growled, looking back over her shoulder at him, eyes hidden behind the red ting of her goggles.
~~
She had begun to walk away and Batman made the mistake of relaxing, he was turning his attention back to the two cultists when he heard the crack of her whip. He turned just into to see it coil around the ruby and go zooming across the distance to land softly in her hand. They always had to do it the hard way. She was lashing out with her whip again, climbing up to the second level, Bruce threw a batarang, its edges slicing through the air to plunge and stick with a resounding vibration as it cracked the concrete mere inches from cutting her whip in twain.
His hand want to the grappling gun and shot the grapple up to the window where its claws extended and clung to the pavement outside, it rocketed him upwards and he was climbing out the window from the floor only a pace behind. Catwoman was bounding across rooftops and if she dared to look back she would see only darkness and empty air, when she stopped, she might have been foolish enough to believe she had lost him.
Batman landed softly on the lip of the building's roof his boots scraping against loose debris as he stalked towards her purposefully. He was tired of chasing criminals around the roofs, he'd rather be at home lingering in the biting misery of Helena's departure, by all right he should have turned her and himself in to the Gotham police. Salvatore Punchinello was far from being an upstanding citizen but Bruce had determined many years ago that he could be no man's judge and certainly not his executioner. Still, a part of him was glad she was gone from the haunting memories of her family and safe from the grasp of the Gotham mafia.
"You're only making this more difficult on yourself" he said coldly his hands balling into fists, this time he wouldn't let his guard down. "the ruby." he asked, no, demanded, holding his hand out once more. His other hand, hidden by his cape, was reaching for another batarang, next time she went to whip herself away he'd cut the cord and take the ruby from her.
~~
“I could say the same thing to you.” If he was getting to her it didn’t show in her body language or voice. It stayed the same sultry purr even as she turned to face him, taking a few steps back to get some distance between them still. It wasn’t cowardness that made her step back. No no, she knew the intelligence in a retreat when need be, if only to set up for the next attack. Plus the one that runs away lives to fight another day.
Her head tilted to the side slightly, a smile still played over her pretty painted lips. “We can do this all night you know. Aren’t there bigger and badder things out there for you to be chasing after. Murders and the what not? I’m harmless, for the most part. Well, at least I don’t go around killing people, that has to count for something right?”
She flicked her wrist making the whip swirl like a cat tail behind her, thrashing in irritation.
“But I will defend myself if I have too and I’d rather not scuff up my new boots tonight. So you go your way and I’ll go mine and we’ll pretend you couldn’t find me. Museums have insurance for these kinds of things.”
~~
"They're called priceless for a reason" he retorted as she lashed her whip She could make all the excuses she wanted, true enough, there were far worse than her running around the streets of Gotham, or the roof tops as it were but Bruce wasn't one for the dim gray areas of morality. "Enough games" he said, whipping his cape aside with a flourish meant to distract while his hand shot forward, the batarang cutting through the air to slice the whip off at its handle, crippling her ability to flee.
And then he was on her, his fists striking out as she dodged and weaved nimbly while he pressed the attack leaving little if any room for her to counter. A brick column jutted out from the roof and she dodged around its narrow length his fist crashed into its corner, slamming through the brick and mortar sending shrapnel flying in its wake, a fist sized hole in the column ( a chimney) where his fist passed through.
She was good, as he expected, but was she good enough he wondered? he feinted right and came at her with the left fist, ducking a the last moment and spun around his leg making to sweep her off her feet at the knees.
~~
“Everything had a price, don’t let people fool you.” She snorted a laugh. It was true though, everything had a price tag, just most people couldn’t think of how to pay for it was the problem. She just avoided the whole pay part and it worked out better for her. Or at least less stressful.
His patience gone and he was coming at her and she couldn’t help but smile. His attempt to distract her wasn’t as effect as he would have liked but he cut her whip off half way down and she glowered at him. It wasn’t like she didn’t have more at home but that was beside the point. She didn’t attack back often, dodging, sweeping his fists to the side, side stepping kicks, dancing back lightly on her feet. Once in a while she’d lash out to try to rake claws across some part of his body, testing the strength of his armor all over, testing him too. He was fast, faster than anyone she’d ever fought against before and she liked the challenge of it. He made her think on her toes, made her keep moving and dancing.
His fist shattered the brick and she arched a brow as she played cat and mouse around the chimney with him. Was he getting angrier? Angry men make mistakes and that’s what she wanted out of him, wanted him to make a mistake she could explode.
He tried to sweep her feet out from under her but she jumped, bunching off the chimney to kick at his head.
~~
he dodged to the side and she past uselessly beside him to landing nimbly on her feet behind Batman. he was on her immediately but she was turning and slashing at his face, he caught her by the wrist and wrenched her towards the brick chimney, her back hitting hard against the brick, the breath exploding from her lungs. he kicked out at her, catching her in the gut as she doubled over he brought his knee up to smash her into her face but she was too quick to recover and she rolled away one hand holding her stomach.
He was coming at her once more, slowly, but Catwoman would take the offensive this time, pouncing towards him, smashing the heel of her palm into his jaw snapping his head to the side. She kicked out and he deflected with his arm, countering with a fist that she slipped inside and raked her claws across his face tearing at the mask and drawing a long cut down his cheek drawing blood from three angry wounds. He ducked under another attack before capturing her in a tight bear hug, lifting her off the ground with seemingly inhuman strength, his arms squeezing the air out of her. \
~~
It was hard to think when the breath was knocked out of her and left her gasping. For a split second the world slowed down to the gasp of her lungs as the air back into them and then everything sped back up again. She saw his knee coming and pushed it to the side, using the momentum to roll out of his grasp but it was just for a reset on their positions. She pushed off again the moment her feet hit the ground and went right back at him, a fury of razor claws. Cats may purr and smile but they also hiss and have claws.
Hit. Dodge. Slash. Dodge. The fight was still to even to call a winner one way or another. And then he bulled into her instead of dodging, taking a slash across the face just so he could wrap his arms around her. She could feel the muscles in his arms and chest flex as he started to squeeze and she struggled but it just made him grip tighter and squeeze more air out of her lungs. So she stopped fighting him, flexing her own arms to give herself just enough room to take short breaths then did the least likely thing he expected.
She leaned forward, pressing her mouth against his. Her lips were soft and full with the taste of watermelon chapstick still on them. She lifted her legs, wrapping them around him as her fingers fumbled at his belt, pulling the first thing she got her claws on as her mouth and tongue distracted him.
Drawing back from the kiss she crushed the ball full of a strangling smoke in her hand after taking a deep breath of her own and held it. His arms slackened and she brought her knee up into his groin, making him release her.
As much as she wanted to stay and keep fighting with the first person to give her a challenge in years she knew a good exit when she saw one. By the time the smoke cleared the only thing left of her was the latter half of her whip.
She’d only been in the US for a few weeks now. The last four years had been spent moving from city to city across Europe, finding and acquiring things for her ‘little’ collection. A prized artifact here, a shiny piece of priceless jewelry here. The little things. Just thinking about all the things she’d taken over the years made her smile to herself. It wasn’t so much the fact that she had them it was the thrill that she got in taking them too. It was all a viciously fun game of life to her and she wouldn’t have traded it for anything.
This party though had two things she was looking at the acquire for her collection. The Gotham Museum was hosting an event for the wealthy contributors to get the first viewing of a priceless gem collection. She’d been following the gems in the news for a few months but she’d been wrapped up in other business and hadn’t been able to get into the states. Now she was here and the gems were calling to her so sweetly. The Cat’s eye, the biggest yellow diamond the world had ever seen and the largest, multifaceted ruby she’d ever seen in her life called the Demon’s Heart. Before the week was out she’d have them both.
Three nights later she was kneeling on the roof of the building looking down through a sky light. The museum was dimly lit with security lights and of course all the security that was laced through the building. She’d done a good job of surveying things when she’d been there for the party. She’d learned ages ago what to look for when it came to things and she kept up on the systems as they advanced. That was probably the hardest part of what she did in the late hours of the night. Good thing she was a night cat.
The claws in the fingers of her gloves shifted out as she flexed her hand and she cut a hole in the glass. She had to lay against the glass to reach her arm all the way through to clip a small electrical box onto the wire of the alarm on the window, keeping the circuit completed so it wouldn’t go off before unlocking it and sliding through. She didn’t use a rope, just a whip if she really needed it which worked better than any rope. She’d been using it for years but right now she didn’t. She hung onto the edge of the window, swinging her legs till she could flip herself over to land on the second banister, light as a cat. She poised, balanced perfectly and crouched down.
In the moments that she stilled to let the sounds and feel of her surroundings settle around her she heard them. Voices, quiet and whispered but voices that were not supposed to be there. She slid down, grasping hold of the banister and then the rails as she slid down and hung for a moment before dropping to the bottom floor then slid behind a display. Two men stood in the room with the very two gems she was after. They were hooded, faces completely obscured from her vision even when she flipped the night vision lenses down on her goggles. Well that wasn’t right and what was even less right was the fact that they were trying to take her ruby.
Standing up from her hiding place she rested a hand on a leather clad hip and cleared her throat. “Excuse me gentlemen.” Her voice purred and she gave them a smile with brilliant white teeth. “While I appreciate the work you’re doing to free my ruby from it’s horrible prison I have to ask you to step away and let a professional do the work.”
The men looked up at her, shocked she hoped as she couldn’t see their faces. One rasped in a strange guttural langage and then crushed his fist into glass, shattering it and grabbing the ruby. The second man charged her and she saw his eyes reflect some light with red intent as alarms started going off all over the building.
~~
He'd been tracking the two cultists for two hours; They'd taken a meandering route around the city before finally arriving at their destination, they were as careful as they were paranoid. Or they knew someone was following them. Unlikely Bruce thought as he watched them slip in the front door of the museum aided by a guard within. Too convenient, thieves were getting lazy, then, it was much easier to pay off a guard than it was to break in. He crouched on the head of the gargoyle standing out from the building it was extended from. Its face was twisted in a brutal expression, a stone forked tongue hanging out of its mouth. Bruce spread his cloak, readying himself to catch the updraft that would lift him up and carry him over to the lower laying roof of the museum.
It was thin he caught another figure bounding across the roof tops and Bruce sank back into the shadows. Another cultist? no, this one knew what he - No, she - was doing, she scaled the building as easily as a spider might, making her way to the skylight that admitted the faint silvery glow of the moon. He couldn't help but smirk to himself, the thief was in for one hell of a surprise. He waited until the graceful thief disarmed their security and slipped inside before launching himself from the gargoyle, the wind catching in his cape and stiffening it allowing him to glide gently across the street as silent as a bat in the night, landing lightly in the place the thief had been but moments before. He edge to the skylight and looked within, the female thief was confronting the two cultists with, their voices echoing off the vaulted walls and ceiling of the old Gotham Museum of Natural History.
Bruce dropped inside landing on the upper level, he balanced on its banister and, continuing to watch the exchanged and evaluate this newcomer. She was out of her league, even i she didn't know it, he'd witnessed the cultists using what looked very much like magic though Bruce himself was more than a little skeptical and had chalked it up to some high tech gadgetry, he knew of several Wayne tech devices that could have emulated the same effects.
At the guttural command Bruce glided silently above and then dropped behind the two in a crouch. He drew himself up to full form his black cloak wreathed about him like an enveloping shadow, his eyes glowed white and bold from the darkness. In the shadows of darkness, I stand in the light. His hands snatched out as quick as the woman's whip and caught the two cultists by their heads, thrust both together and smashing their skulls together, they crumpled to the floor in a heap and the ruby rattled across the floor to Catwoman's feet. he glowered at her and stepped beneath the sky light, the pale moonlight illuminating his grim set jaw and giving form to the cloaked crime fighter.
"Hand it over." he said coldly holding out his gauntleted hand from the depths of his cape, savage spikes extending from it to his elbow. "The police are already on their way. I'll let you run this time, if you leave Gotham and never return."
~~
Well, the party just kept getting bigger now didn’t it. She was expecting the guards to show up any minute but Gotham’s protector and dark knight? Mmmm, this should be interesting now.
The skin tight leather of her suit didn’t creak like most leathers did, instead it was silent giving away the idea of something softer than the protective layer she wore. Or as protective as the leather was. Really she relied on moving fast and not getting hit than she did on being protected from the actual hit. Leaning over she picked up the ruby, her clawed gloved hand wrapping around it as she felt the weight of it.
“So you’re the Batman? I always wondered what you looked like.” She mused, eyes moving from the ruby back to him as she stalked forward slowly but carefully on heeled boots. She had the gate of a feline, all liquid grace and smoothness, never mind the sex appeal of a fine body but that was all part of the plan. “Somehow I thought you’d be taller.”
She only got so close though, walking a wide circle around him, moving herself closer to the other thing she’d come for. “You’ll let me leave? No jail? Just let me run alike my marry little way? It’s tempting you know, but if I left I wouldn’t get to spend any more time in your company. I think you might miss me if I left to soon, Batman.”
Lifting a hand she rested the ruby on top of the glass case that held the diamond then stepped in front of it and slowly moved closer to him. “The police are slow, we still have another three minutes at the lease to get to know each other.” She offered a hand with a sly smile, claws glinting in the flashing lights of the alarms.
~~
He remained silent as she spoke, watching her as she walked slowly towards him, he allowed her to circle him though he didn't move to face her. When she ceased her pacing she was infront of him again and balancing the precious stone on the glass case it had been taken from. She was asking him questions, her tone a soft mocking one. His eyes narrowed, most criminals he faced were far less confident in his presence. The last one had pissed himself and nearly passed out from his fight. He could have done without the pissing but the nearly scaring himself unconscious had been most helpful, but Bruce would have no such luck with this one.
"Last chance" he said, voice monotone an unimpressed. Catwoman was offering her hand, soft as a flower beneath the glove he had no doubt, but this flower had thorns, he noted as the moonlight glinted off the claws that tipped each digit. Batman made no move to take her hand, instead he gave a low growl that might have been a warning or merely a sound of irritation. "The ruby. Now."
He had fought few women and he did not exactly relish the thought, old habits died hard and he'd always been taught hitting a woman was wrong. In this case? He might have to make an exception. He couldn't deny the fact that her body was pleasing though his eyes stared resolutely into hers despite the leather cat suit with zipper pulled down to reveal her bust.
Sirens could be heard on the horizon in a building crescendo, her time was running out and Batman was running low on patience.
~~
“Last chance? I suppose I should be scared of you shouldn’t I? After all the things that people say about you on the streets.” Frankly she wasn’t scared of him but she was just that confidant in herself. She’d always been like this, from the moment she’d been old enough to understand what confidence was.
He didn’t take her hand so she turned her hand over. Flexing her fingers, examining the claws a moment and shrugged. “I guess I’ll have to come by and pick it up later. Maybe the museum will gift wrap it for me if I ask nicely.” She turned to go, walking toward the doors, hips swaying distractingly. Her hands smoothed down her hips before one grasped the handle of her whip as she turned back, flicking it out and wrapping it around the ruby and flicking it back too her. Catching it easily she winked and used the distance between them as a head start, already flicking her whip up to pull herself back up toward the window.
She was fast and agile, pulling herself back up to the second level and then up further and back out the window. While most women learned to run in heels at some point in their lives she made and art form of it as she hit the room and took off. The whole of her body was build for this. She felt adrenaline pumping through her veins and it made a smile pull across her lips even as she heard the sound of him coming through the window behind her.
The weight of the ruby bumped against her hip as she ran, whip coiled in her hand as she flicked it out here and there to grasp something and pull her across a gap between buildings until he caught up to her. She knew he would, just looking at him she could tell he was in just as good of shape as she was and the men on the streets said he could move like a shadow. So could see, but she wanted to see what his man was made of. Was he truly a myth, or was he flesh and blood under all that thick leather?
She paused, still not out of breath, legs a shoulders breath apart as he landed on the roof where she had just a few second behind her now.
“Generally when a woman walks away she’s not interested in the attentions of a man.” She half purred half growled, looking back over her shoulder at him, eyes hidden behind the red ting of her goggles.
~~
She had begun to walk away and Batman made the mistake of relaxing, he was turning his attention back to the two cultists when he heard the crack of her whip. He turned just into to see it coil around the ruby and go zooming across the distance to land softly in her hand. They always had to do it the hard way. She was lashing out with her whip again, climbing up to the second level, Bruce threw a batarang, its edges slicing through the air to plunge and stick with a resounding vibration as it cracked the concrete mere inches from cutting her whip in twain.
His hand want to the grappling gun and shot the grapple up to the window where its claws extended and clung to the pavement outside, it rocketed him upwards and he was climbing out the window from the floor only a pace behind. Catwoman was bounding across rooftops and if she dared to look back she would see only darkness and empty air, when she stopped, she might have been foolish enough to believe she had lost him.
Batman landed softly on the lip of the building's roof his boots scraping against loose debris as he stalked towards her purposefully. He was tired of chasing criminals around the roofs, he'd rather be at home lingering in the biting misery of Helena's departure, by all right he should have turned her and himself in to the Gotham police. Salvatore Punchinello was far from being an upstanding citizen but Bruce had determined many years ago that he could be no man's judge and certainly not his executioner. Still, a part of him was glad she was gone from the haunting memories of her family and safe from the grasp of the Gotham mafia.
"You're only making this more difficult on yourself" he said coldly his hands balling into fists, this time he wouldn't let his guard down. "the ruby." he asked, no, demanded, holding his hand out once more. His other hand, hidden by his cape, was reaching for another batarang, next time she went to whip herself away he'd cut the cord and take the ruby from her.
~~
“I could say the same thing to you.” If he was getting to her it didn’t show in her body language or voice. It stayed the same sultry purr even as she turned to face him, taking a few steps back to get some distance between them still. It wasn’t cowardness that made her step back. No no, she knew the intelligence in a retreat when need be, if only to set up for the next attack. Plus the one that runs away lives to fight another day.
Her head tilted to the side slightly, a smile still played over her pretty painted lips. “We can do this all night you know. Aren’t there bigger and badder things out there for you to be chasing after. Murders and the what not? I’m harmless, for the most part. Well, at least I don’t go around killing people, that has to count for something right?”
She flicked her wrist making the whip swirl like a cat tail behind her, thrashing in irritation.
“But I will defend myself if I have too and I’d rather not scuff up my new boots tonight. So you go your way and I’ll go mine and we’ll pretend you couldn’t find me. Museums have insurance for these kinds of things.”
~~
"They're called priceless for a reason" he retorted as she lashed her whip She could make all the excuses she wanted, true enough, there were far worse than her running around the streets of Gotham, or the roof tops as it were but Bruce wasn't one for the dim gray areas of morality. "Enough games" he said, whipping his cape aside with a flourish meant to distract while his hand shot forward, the batarang cutting through the air to slice the whip off at its handle, crippling her ability to flee.
And then he was on her, his fists striking out as she dodged and weaved nimbly while he pressed the attack leaving little if any room for her to counter. A brick column jutted out from the roof and she dodged around its narrow length his fist crashed into its corner, slamming through the brick and mortar sending shrapnel flying in its wake, a fist sized hole in the column ( a chimney) where his fist passed through.
She was good, as he expected, but was she good enough he wondered? he feinted right and came at her with the left fist, ducking a the last moment and spun around his leg making to sweep her off her feet at the knees.
~~
“Everything had a price, don’t let people fool you.” She snorted a laugh. It was true though, everything had a price tag, just most people couldn’t think of how to pay for it was the problem. She just avoided the whole pay part and it worked out better for her. Or at least less stressful.
His patience gone and he was coming at her and she couldn’t help but smile. His attempt to distract her wasn’t as effect as he would have liked but he cut her whip off half way down and she glowered at him. It wasn’t like she didn’t have more at home but that was beside the point. She didn’t attack back often, dodging, sweeping his fists to the side, side stepping kicks, dancing back lightly on her feet. Once in a while she’d lash out to try to rake claws across some part of his body, testing the strength of his armor all over, testing him too. He was fast, faster than anyone she’d ever fought against before and she liked the challenge of it. He made her think on her toes, made her keep moving and dancing.
His fist shattered the brick and she arched a brow as she played cat and mouse around the chimney with him. Was he getting angrier? Angry men make mistakes and that’s what she wanted out of him, wanted him to make a mistake she could explode.
He tried to sweep her feet out from under her but she jumped, bunching off the chimney to kick at his head.
~~
he dodged to the side and she past uselessly beside him to landing nimbly on her feet behind Batman. he was on her immediately but she was turning and slashing at his face, he caught her by the wrist and wrenched her towards the brick chimney, her back hitting hard against the brick, the breath exploding from her lungs. he kicked out at her, catching her in the gut as she doubled over he brought his knee up to smash her into her face but she was too quick to recover and she rolled away one hand holding her stomach.
He was coming at her once more, slowly, but Catwoman would take the offensive this time, pouncing towards him, smashing the heel of her palm into his jaw snapping his head to the side. She kicked out and he deflected with his arm, countering with a fist that she slipped inside and raked her claws across his face tearing at the mask and drawing a long cut down his cheek drawing blood from three angry wounds. He ducked under another attack before capturing her in a tight bear hug, lifting her off the ground with seemingly inhuman strength, his arms squeezing the air out of her. \
~~
It was hard to think when the breath was knocked out of her and left her gasping. For a split second the world slowed down to the gasp of her lungs as the air back into them and then everything sped back up again. She saw his knee coming and pushed it to the side, using the momentum to roll out of his grasp but it was just for a reset on their positions. She pushed off again the moment her feet hit the ground and went right back at him, a fury of razor claws. Cats may purr and smile but they also hiss and have claws.
Hit. Dodge. Slash. Dodge. The fight was still to even to call a winner one way or another. And then he bulled into her instead of dodging, taking a slash across the face just so he could wrap his arms around her. She could feel the muscles in his arms and chest flex as he started to squeeze and she struggled but it just made him grip tighter and squeeze more air out of her lungs. So she stopped fighting him, flexing her own arms to give herself just enough room to take short breaths then did the least likely thing he expected.
She leaned forward, pressing her mouth against his. Her lips were soft and full with the taste of watermelon chapstick still on them. She lifted her legs, wrapping them around him as her fingers fumbled at his belt, pulling the first thing she got her claws on as her mouth and tongue distracted him.
Drawing back from the kiss she crushed the ball full of a strangling smoke in her hand after taking a deep breath of her own and held it. His arms slackened and she brought her knee up into his groin, making him release her.
As much as she wanted to stay and keep fighting with the first person to give her a challenge in years she knew a good exit when she saw one. By the time the smoke cleared the only thing left of her was the latter half of her whip.