Wren and Selina have claws (laminette) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-06-29 23:41:00 |
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Entry tags: | catwoman, door: dc comics, mister freeze |
Who: Catwoman and Freeze
What: A visit
Where: Freeze's icy basement
When: Shortly after Damian leaves
Warnings/Rating: Hissing?
With Damian’s departure, Freeze was given time to think. Primarily, however, he wanted to finish what he was working on, and put the final adjustments on the machine still taking the city’s heat away. Whether or not those final adjustments doomed the city or freed it was still up in the air. He was still partially convinced that certain people would show up and make sure it never reached the former goal, because that was what they did. Inevitably they would find him. Or he wouldn’t be able to resist the opportunity to go up and make sure the city’s fears were confirmed.
He watched the news, too. Soon enough the snow may very well fall and everyone would tremble as their homes froze into lifeless shells … or perhaps not.
With a critical eye he held up the thin addition to his freeze gun and peered at the fine mechanisms within. The gun itself was still within reach for the moment when it was time to see if he was successful … or for the moment when someone else decided to find their way down into his basement hideaway. Possibly he could get two birds with one stone if that happened. But only if he was given time to finish - and so Freeze pulled down the red goggles and picked up his tools again, carefully continuing to weld the fine meshed metal together.
The Cat didn't like the cold. She liked warmth and sunshine, like any good kitty cat, and she didn't need the Bat's urging to come talk to Victor Fries. He wasn't even that hard to find, and she wondered if maybe he did belong to the baby bird. The kind of villain that did everything for the love of a woman probably wouldn't be very good at hiding anything. But then the kitty cat didn't put a whole lot of faith in things like love. Love was shackles and domesticity and someone who wanted to own you, and Selina had no intention of being owned by anyone, not ever. But if Victor Fries could love a woman enough to freeze the world to save her, well, then he wasn't like the Joker or Scarecrow, He might listen to reason, and this particular visit wasn't like a heist for the Cat. It wasn't fun, and she didn't want to play with this particular mouse. No, she wanted answers and, preferably, agreements.
Now, all those potentially positive thoughts about Freeze, they didn't mean the kitty cat was going to be any less careful. Her own Freeze didn't boast female weaknesses that she knew of, and she wasn't taking any chances.
Dressed to the kitty cat nines in black, claws and her whip serving as a belt, the Cat pulled her goggles over her eyes and used her claws to cut a circle of glass in an upstairs window. Removing the vent off the room she entered was kitten's play, and she was silent as a black cat was supposed to be as she made her way down to the frozen basement. That vent opened without a hiss, and she dropped onto her booted feet with entirely too much silence for anything but a cat burglar, any sound easily eclipsed by his welding.
"Busy?" she purred, a black shadow against the wall that slinked forward without any concern for the weapon he was building, her whip already in her hand and ready to divest him of his little toy if he so much as pointed it in her direction. "The Cat just wants to talk. No need to get pawsy."
A pause in the sharp noise of welding let in the voice - smooth and velvety, laced with the sort of wordplay that ran nails down the blackboard of his soul. Freeze glanced sideways and saw the black-clad figure moving toward him with a whip in hand. She was much more familiar, but the opposite of Damian: there was a sense of unfamiliarity about her, the costume being a little different, the voice not quite the same, rather than a tinge of recognition about an unrecognizable person. Still, Catwoman was Catwoman. He knew her distinctly, and that included (most) of her motives.
“I am not the one who should be watching their hands, cat burglar.” Svelte and sleek and very, very good at sweeping the little but important things out from under people’s noses. His grip on the welding tools instinctively tightened. “I tire of these interruptions. What do you want?” At this rate, he’d never get anything done before his time behind the door was up.
She'd never been up-close and personal with her version of Freeze, so she had no idea if he was her version or not. Selina, this Selina, was more than ten years younger than her counterparts in other timelines (though that wasn't immediately evident behind the goggles, cowl and suit), and she hadn't danced with being an antihero yet. This kitty cat was still firmly a cat burglar, despite a few very adult encounters with a Bat, and no hero in her version of Gotham.
"Does Freeze not want to play with the kitty cat?" she asked, walking to his work table with enough sway of ample, black-clad hips to explain her appeal. It was something she used to her advantage normally, that inherently raw sensuality, but if Damian was right about Freeze then that wouldn't work here. Pity. It was the easiest way to get the things she wanted without anyone bleeding. "I don't want to bite you," she assured him, all lush lips upturned. "I want to help you," she said, and it wasn't a lie. Helping her would help him, after all. She wound around behind him, a cat coming too close and too intimate, and she leaned against the work table beside him. "Tell me. Does Freeze know the Talons?"
Through the red goggles he could see her coming closer, the heat sensors lighting her up as bright as the welding had been in a room as cold as this one. It was true that she was inherently appealing, but there was nothing in that appeal for Freeze. He watched her, stony and expressionless save for the narrowing of his eyes hidden behind the goggles.
This close, her whip would almost be useless, but so would his freeze gun. In hand-to-hand combat, she had the advantage. But this was his territory: frozen and dark, lit only by gleaming green and red lights on the various machines that kept the world around him cold. Her suit almost certainly wasn’t designed for his kind of weather.
“I’m busy,” he said shortly, and then snorted when she said she wanted to help him. “You mean you want to help yourself. I can’t say the term is familiar, though I don’t often pay attention to the world outside.” Talons. Presumably something else out in the world, causing problems for people. So long as they stayed away from interfering in his work, they could remain unfamiliar to him. Freeze turned his attention back to the project at hand. One last wire sealed to the device and he could shut it and test it at long last. “Stealing from them can’t possibly require my assistance, nor would I give it to you regardless.”
He was right about her suit. It was made to withstand a lot of things, but only short-term. Unlike the Bat, Selina exchanged armor and protection for speed. Being fast and agile, that was the kitty cat's biggest asset, and she wasn't going to ruin it with a coat. Even so, she'd added some insulation to the suit, a thing layer, but he was still right. The cold would get her eventually, which meant their little chat? It wasn't going to turn into one of Gotham's longest.
"Since you're a busy man, I'll keep it brief," she said, and she didn't bother purring at him, not this one. If what Damian said about Freeze's wife was true then, well, that particular parlor trick wasn't going to work. "I don't know where you come from, which Freeze you are. But in my world, the Talons want to kill Victor Fries for knowing how to keep them alive. They're afraid you'll tell the Bat how to turn them off." Her green eyes were bright behind the yellow of the goggles, bright enough to be seen through the protective glass. "And these Talons? They're definitely mine, and so is this Court of the Owls. So even if you aren't my Freeze, they'll still want you dead. The kitty cat just wants to help."
She pushed away from his work table, the silky smooth movement hiding the need to keep moving in order to keep warm.
The Court of the Owls was as unfamiliar as the Talons, but while he had no real reason to believe that Catwoman was about to tell him the absolute truth, she also didn’t have much reason to throw out a lie that elaborate. In her world, he knew how to stop them? In her world, they wanted him dead? He barely even knew what they were. Of course, that never stopped anybody, no matter how intelligent they seemed.
“Selfless as ever,” he said monotonously. “Tell me who they are and what they are, and then, of course, what you expect out of this, and I’ll consider making a deal with you.” Two in one day. He was practically going soft. Freeze kept a watchful eye on Catwoman as well as on his tools - but avoided the various nearly-frozen lockboxes under his workbench, knowing that under their cracking locks, one of them held Damian’s recently-requisitioned “gift”.
"Selfless? Me? You must be thinking of a different kitty cat," she assured him. She didn't notice how his gaze avoided the boxes at his feet, and she had no reason to think she wasn't the first person to pay him a visit. After all, she was there alone precisely so Damian wouldn't get involved with the big, bad villain.
"They're assassins that work for the Court of the Owls," she explained, and she turned and idly looked at the items on the table, something to kill time and nothing more. She crouched next, and she started poking at those little lockboxes with a claw. The Cat did like locks - and breaking them. "You found a serum to bring the dead back," she informed him casually, as if that was an everyday occurrence. "You created it. I want the dead to go back to sleep," she added, and she looked up at him from her crouch. "So we do this. I bring you a DNA sample from a Talon, and you figure out how to put them back to sleep. In return, you can use the little sample to help your wife..."
She straightened. "Assuming you have a wife."
He didn’t move when she crouched down to prod at the lockboxes. He didn’t speak when she told him about a world he could never recall, about actions he’d never made. Bringing back the dead was not a goal he’d ever anticipated needing, because he was not about to let Nora die and make it something he needed to look into. He would find a cure.
Her last words were the final straw, though. When he spoke, it as as cold and emotionless as ever, disguising the shards of icy rage rising in his eyes - hidden behind the goggles.
“How strange that I would create something like that, and then give it away,” he said, as if musing on the concept --
Freeze lashed out. He intended to grab her by the throat and catch her claws before they could get anywhere near him, though likely that much wouldn’t be fully successful. The rage was evident on his features now even if his eyes were still hidden. The welding tools were knocked to the floor, breaking ice on the way.
“And don’t you ever speak of her again,” he snarled. Twice in one day people had brought her up casually, as if to use her as a bargaining chip against him (which, unfortunately, she quite often was). It was enraging and degrading, and from the mouth of someone who barely knew what love or dedication were, it would not be tolerated.
Her whip caught his wrist as soon as he moved, a slim, black vise that threatened to crack the bones if he advanced as she moved back. "I don't want to hurt you, and I don't want to hurt your wife. I don't know what you know about me, but I'm not one of the good guys, and I only want to keep all nine of my lives. My Talons will try to kill you. Helping me means they aren't around to do that. It's a no-brainer, so don't go hissing at the kitty cat."
In a good-faith effort, she unwound the whip and stepped back. The snarl was interesting, and it reminded her of her Bat. She did like men that felt as much as he seemed to. "Help me, and I'll help you, Freeze, and we'll all go home without any claw marks. Wouldn't that be nice?"
Quick as any cat, she was. Freeze’s expression faded very slowly from furious rage to the cold, distant hatred that almost seemed to fuel him when it came to the various and sundry heroes and villains in Gotham. The whip squeezed his wrist, keeping him from going any further forward, but his freeze gun was still in reach.
“I don’t believe you,” he said, in response to her not wanting to hurt him - because what she wanted depended entirely on what her goals were at any given second. “But … ” And this almost hurt to admit to. “ … I would rather not take my chances, if you are, somehow, being honest. If they truly want my life, then I’ll give them a reason for it.” Freeze unconsciously rubbed his wrist when the whip let it go and considered his next move. “You can provide me with a sample? Fine. Provide it. I will investigate this as I see fit, and if there is a confirmation of what you’re saying … then I will find your solution. And I will give it to the Batman.”
A last-second proviso, thrown on to keep her on her toes. If these Talons really were so dangerous, then Batman would have every reason to want them stopped as well.
“Possibly you as well,” he added after a moment.
She wound the whip around her waist, and she rolled her eyes behind those yellow goggles. "The Bat and I aren't a happy little couple, which I'm assuming is the case wherever you're from." She didn't add that it wasn't her doing, but rather that this Bat didn't know the Cat, hadn't met her until this strange and unfortunate little turn of events. "Giving the Bat the solution won't help you, but fine. As long as I get mine, then we can do business. If you want to play in the boy's club, then I guess you boys are on your own," she said, and she smiled wide, red, red lips turning up in a smile that wasn't at all nice.
"But if you're looking to stay alive, I'm a much better bet," she added, her gaze sliding across the frozen laboratory. "I assume there's a reason you're freezing us all?" she asked, though it was idle, something that didn't matter. His answering honestly, it wouldn't change anything.
"Either way, someone will come after you if you don't thaw this place up. Have you met Ivy?" Because now that, that was a threat. Kill enough of Ivy's plants with this cold snap, and Ivy would do what neither she or the Bat would. "She doesn't like it when her plants die, in case you don't have her where you come from."
Batman not knowing about a threat that even Catwoman was concerned about didn’t seem like a situation that would last very long, but then again, this entire encompassing background - being in people’s heads, sharing a door with another world, the few people he knew being from strange and differing universes - wasn’t exactly standard. Freeze sighed and stepped back from Catwoman, ignoring the various undercurrent threats between her words.
“Why do any of us do anything?” he said wearily, and then waved a hand, brushing off the threat of Poison Ivy and her far too deep-seated love of nature. “She has a greenhouse somewhere, I assume; until the power goes off, she’ll likely ignore me. And once her plants die, it will be more than cold enough to kill her, too.” It wasn’t said with any real malice. He didn’t have anything against her … yet. “The city will survive. Someone else has already seen to that, grudging though I am to comply.”
Selina tipped her head, the movement entirely catlike, and her youth showed in the movement. 20, 21, no older, and oh, so curious. She couldn't help it, after all. She was a cat. "Who did that?" she asked, even though she knew there were only a few people who could beat her here, and even fewer who would.
Like a cat distracted by a new toy, or a reflecting light. Freeze picked up the addition to his freeze gun and examined it for any collateral damage caused by his own ferocious movements.
“The son of Bruce Wayne,” he said drolly, his interest already turning away from the woman who’d broken into his warehouse and ahead to the sample she claimed she’d provide him with. “He was here maybe an hour ago. Two at most. I didn’t even know Wayne had children, or at least ones he’d be willing to acknowledge.” Another faint shrug.
She almost hissed, but she controlled herself. Silly, silly, baby bird, showing his hand that way. And she was going to give the Bat one hell of an I told you so once she got back to Wayne Manor. She'd broken with Damian so he wouldn't involve himself with Freeze, and all he'd done was come right over here and given one of Gotham's villains some facetime. She wanted to shake the baby bird until his feathers fell off. Rule one: Never give the villains more information than they had before you showed up.
But none of that showed on her face as she straightened her head. "I don't know anything about that. Like the kitty cat said, she prowls in other circles. If you need me, I'm with the sirens, not with the billionaires that keep us all beneath their heels." And she said that with enough venom that her dislike of the upper class, at least, was genuine.
She turned, typical feline dismissal, and it seemed an afterthought when she stopped (even if it wasn't). "What did he offer you?" she asked.
Even if she’d scowled or cringed, Freeze might not have noticed it. He was a little more than absorbed in his work again, picking up the freeze gun (for once not in a threatening manner) and carefully starting to attach the upgrade to it. If she’d simply left, he would have eventually realized he was alone again, but it would have been some time.
“A variety of things,” he said in response to her question. “Access to funds and resources. I turned them down, though not the possibility of them being available in the future. It often takes more time and failure than I’m willing to put up with to simply steal everything I need.” He made no mention of the glowing vial locked away that she’d come so close to finding earlier. There was no point in handing out that kind of information when it wasn’t necessary - and it was almost never necessary. “This machine won’t hold up forever, in any case. Once I’ve gotten word of access to what he offered - if I get word - then I shut the machine down.”
Let her think him weak. He would not lose the opportunity to investigate a Lazarus Pit’s chemical makeup just to hold onto some strange semblance of superiority.
Damian didn't have access to funds and resources and, based on what the baby bird had told her, she was pretty sure she knew exactly what he'd offered Freeze to thaw out the city. It took every little bit of control not to hiss her anger, because if she'd let Damian come with her, this never would have happened. Oh, the Bat was going to get one hell of an I told you so.
Originally, she'd intended to head straight to Wayne Manor. But now? Now she was going to find a Talon to beat into submission, stitches and headache be damned, because she might claw the Bat within an inch of his life if she saw his face just then. A Talon would do as a substitute, and she'd get Freeze his sample. And then, after she was calmer, then she'd claw the Bat within an inch of his life - when she was calm enough to enjoy it.
"You think I'm a very stupid Cat, don't you?" she asked, but she didn't wait for his reply before moving, two elegant flips putting her right back where she started. She climbed into the vent, and she held her temper until she was outside, in Gotham's cold, black night.
She was going to kill Damian once she got her paws on him.