Who: The Bat and Catwoman What: CrazyBats is on the loose, part 1. Where: Gotham. When: Recent. Warnings/Rating: Violence.
It was harder to get through the door to Gotham that Wren had expected, and her panic had been escalating steadily since she'd heard from Laura, until Laura confirmed the absolute worst. It completely eclipsed her headache and the lingering pain from her bruises, and the guilt quickly overtook everything else too. Was this her fault? Had she caused this by sending him away? She tended to forget just how broken Luke was, because he did such a good job of pretending. But she knew better, she did, especially after the memories. She'd let her own hurt blind her, and she hated herself so very much for it. The only thing that kept her from hiding in Silver's bathroom and slitting her own wrists was the immediate need to find Luke, to fix it.
Her idea to go through the door wasn't actually hers at all. When Selina had come back through the previous day, she'd left a long note voicing her concerns about Bruce, and the note was very specific: If anything went wrong, come back through the door. Period. And Selina had been right. Wren didn't even know who had lied to her, who to be angry at, and she was shaking with a combination of that outlet-free anger and so much fear. What if Luke really killed someone? What if he went to jail? What if they executed-
No.
For once, Wren didn't argue. Saving Luke was the most important thing, and if she needed to let Selina be in control to do that, so be it.
She crossed.
Selina had no idea what happened in Las Vegas, and she came to herself on the other side of the door just like she always did - cluelessly.
She was in the center of her apartment, and she immediately clicked on the notes in the phone to read anything Blondie had left for her.
And then she was moving, even before she'd finished reading the last word. She was across the living room of the nest she was temporarily sharing with Jaybird in seconds, and she was in the suit in under a minute, goggles down, cowl up and whip wound around her waist. She had a utility belt low on her hips, which wasn't a normal accessory for her, but that note had told her everything she needed to know and a quick scan of the police frequencies let her know she wouldn't be needing to go back to Las Vegas to handle this.
Oh, the kitty cat was very, very angry, but there was time for that later. Just like there would be time for Blondie to sob all over the antihero once it was all said and done, but that time wasn't now. Oh, no.
The police bands told an interesting story, one that sent her in the direction of crime alley. Now, the kitty cat was a great burglar, and she was a damn good fighter, but she didn't have the martial arts training the Bat had under his belt, and she was under no illusions that this would be easy. She could call for help, but she didn't, and she didn't even need to question why. When she'd been in a similar situation, the Bat had come for her himself; the least the kitty cat could do was return the favor. She would just have to move really, really fast.
With a radio tucked into her ear, she took to the building tops, glad that crime alley was so close to the nest. The radio reports indicated escalating levels of fear as the Bat turned against the city, and she posted to Damian and Bruce's beloved John Blake by transcription, not wasting any more time than that before finding a balcony on the edge of the alley and listening, looking for something to guide her movements.
When the Bat stepped outside, he saw a very different Gotham than the rest of the city looked out upon that night.
It burned, just as his parents had told him, flames swirling impossibly high towards the inky black sky, reds and yellows and oranges, tipped with cool blue, emitting smoke that blended in quite well with the darkness. Blood stained the streets and spilled down the sides of buildings, adding in the metallic tang of copper to the sharp stench of fire and smoke and things being burned to a crisp. They screamed for him, the citizens of Gotham, his people, and he heard their cries. In his mind, he was not turning against his city. Oh, no; he was saving it. Finally, he was doing what needed to be done. Maybe they didn’t see that now, but when the filth and scum was wiped from existence and Gotham began to prosper once more, they would. They would see, and they would recognize him as their saviour, and all would be as it should.
He wore a suit similar to his own, yet there were a few distinct alterations. A lighter, less encompassing cape. Armor which lacked the bulk and heaviness of his usual, sleeker, and his gauntlets were those of an assassin, with retractable knives. The cowl remained the same, though his belt was lined with weapons which served to be lethal rather than merely incapacitate, and slung over his back was a sword, similar to the one Ra’s Al Ghul had trained him with all those years ago. No guns, but then, he had never needed those. Cowards utilized firearms, and he was not a coward.
Fear in Gotham spread quickly. When the first criminal fell to his blade, a convicted murderer set free by a corrupt system who had begun to dabble in human trafficking, it exploded like wildfire, and the police arrived in record time. Which, the Bat reflected, as he watched the cars with their flashing sirens skid to a stop, was interesting. They were so slow to respond elsewhere, so utterly inadequate, yet when it was the Batman who broke their petty laws, they dropped everything and ran. Interesting, yet pathetic. Sickening. What had they ever done for Gotham? He had sacrificed everything, accomplished far more than they ever could. They should be thanking him. Instead they trained their guns on him and ordered him to stop, that he drop his weapon, and when the Bat refused, they fired. It was laughable, really. He dodged the bullets with ease, and struck down each and every officer afterward, though he did not kill them. No, his vengeance was for the sinners, though he would show no mercy to those who stood in his way. The officers were alive, yes, but with varying degrees of injuries they might or might not recover from.
And so the Bat continued onward, and fear spread. Fear, exactly what he wanted, though had he been capable of rational thought, Bruce would have recoiled from the reputation Batman was garnering with frightening speed. Perhaps, later, he could claim it was a copycat, because Batman didn’t kill, and he didn’t use a sword, but there was no thought of such things now, when he believed what he was doing was necessary. Right, even. He hunted, and when he found his prey, he spilled their blood as they had spilled that of the innocent, of the good, and his parents whispered their approval in his ears, and he basked in it.
A young man, part of a gang whose brutality had been steadily increasing over past weeks, was his newest target. He’d run, as though he could outrun the Bat, and found himself at a dead end. A dead end which, fittingly enough, was in the very alley where his parents had been murdered, though there was no sign of that now. The Bat withdrew his blade as he approached the man, and he moved like an assassin now, a killer, not like he usually did at all. It was disconcerting, particularly to those who knew him, as did the fire which burned in his eyes and hinted at something mad, or at the very least, something very wrong.
The kitty cat missed the first victim to the Bat's blade by mere minutes. She headed for the sounds of the sirens, staying high and out of sight and, when she silently slid down to crouch on the roof of one of the many cop cars in the area, the blood was still warm on the pavement and gurgling from the man's mouth.
Now, Selina knew her city. The Bat might think he knew it better than anyone, and maybe he did, but these corners of the world were hers. She'd grown up here, in these places, and life wasn't all jewelry heists and stolen works of art. She knew the man on the floor, because human trafficking of any kind was one of her special areas of interest, and the man's culpability cleared up any doubts in her mind about what was going on. If she wasn't in such a rush, she would have made a tiny beeline to the Batcave and found out where Bruce was keeping Crane. She would have to pay the doctor a little visit after all this. He'd earned it for all of his hard work. But there wasn't time for vengeance just then. She climbed back up the escape and, now that she knew Bruce was going after criminals, she followed the exodus.
The criminals in Gotham were smart, which was the problem. They were crueler than in other cities, harder and meaner, but they still ran from the Bat, and they couldn't get away from this Bat quickly enough. The Cat dropped down onto the sidewalk, and she waited to see which way traffic moved - and then she moved in the other direction. She passed bodies and blood, and she didn't stop. No point. That Bat was too skilled to leave anyone alive when he didn't mean to. There was no aid to offer, no lives to try to save. It said something about the woman she was without someone to keep her on the straight-and-narrow, the fact that she stepped over pimp and dealer alike, and she didn't even wince.
The sound of a chase up ahead caught her ear, and she left the ground and scaled, using her whip to move from roof to roof with ease. She was overhead when the young man reached his dead end, and she looked down at the scene for a second. She didn't recognize the boy's face, but he was young, and that made the choice for her. Had he been one of Gotham's worst, she might not have been so quick to intervene, but he was just a boy, and Bruce would hate himself for it afterward. The trafficker he might forgive himself for, the dealers and pimps that dotted the sidewalks too, but not a boy, one obscure enough that the Cat didn't even know his face.
She scaled down the escapes and, once she was in range, she sent her whip flying, winding it around the sword's blade, sure the specially made leather wouldn't split through. She yanked hard once the tiny metal spikes caught, with no intention of remaining hidden; her only goal was to make his grip falter long enough for the young man to get away. She dropped down onto the ground, boots intentionally loud and commanding attention, and she didn't look at the boy when she told him to, "run."
A boy he might have been, not yet as hardened a criminal as those he chose to associate with, but in the Bat’s eyes he was something much different. Not human, but a monster, parasitic and destructive, eating away at Gotham’s foundation until it crumbled upon itself. They were all like that, in one way or another, but not all needed to be destroyed; some could be tamed, forced into submission. Those he would leave alive and deal with later, once the filth had been washed away, and the new dawn came. He would lead Gotham into its future, and he would ensure it achieved greatness.
All in good time, however.
The boy was afraid as he braced himself up the dirty brick wall, begging for mercy, and the Bat could practically taste his fear, bittersweet, so different than usual. All of Gotham’s criminals knew about Batman’s one rule, but without it, there was no line he wouldn’t cross, and that in itself was indeed terrifying. He advanced upon the boy (no, the beast, hideous and snarling even as it attempted to sway him through pity) and prepared to strike, to bring the blade down in a diagonal sweep with enough force to sever his head from his body, but then-- then, something went wrong. The blade did not fall, but went in the opposite direction instead, and the sword would have been wrenched free from his grasp had he not reacted as quickly as he did. He turned at the sound of an intruder in the alley, to face the one who had interfered in his work. The boy ran as he was told, and the Bat let him go; he was only one. One amongst hundreds, all of whom would fall to his wrath tonight. He would simply find him later.
He tilted his head to the side as he regarded the newcomer, a threat sharp as the edge of his blade in the tiny movement. Look, his mother hissed from over his shoulder. Look at what she’s done. She wants you to fail, Bruce. She wants Gotham to burn. Stop her. The Bat nodded as he approached, his hold on the blade firm and sure despite the whip wrapped around it. “You should have taken your own advice and ran,” he told her, and his voice was cold, flat, devoid of everything that made him Bruce.
Selina kept the whip around the blade, barbed edges tight, until the young man ran out of sight, and then she turned her attention to the looming figure only a few feet away. She'd never feared the Bat - not hers, and not this one, but the kitty cat's survival instincts were honed from years of necessity, and she knew she couldn't let her guard down just because he was Bruce. She wore no kevlar, had no significant armor. Her advantage was speed and movement, and none of that would do her any good with that blade in play.
"Maybe I will," she said of his suggestion that she run, and she intentionally backed toward the escape. "I have places to be anyway, Bat. You've been ignoring me lately, and I've made new friends, powerful friends. I work for them now," she taunted, and it was a dangerous game, but she needed to get him following her, instead of seeking out a new target. Once she had him up, high above Gotham, along those flat and unforgiving rooftops, then she'd worry about keeping him still long enough to call the tin man in. But she needed him away from all this first, away from Gotham PD and their quickly nearing sirens. If they got their hands on him, there would be no good ending here.
She flipped back onto the escape, not turning her back on him, and she sang her whip down at that blade again, yanking upward this time with an unforgiving snap. Here, Bat. "You didn't trust me. Why is that?" she asked, the question not pertaining to her fake little story about working for someone. "Is it because of who I am beneath the cowl and the whip?" And she had no idea how much he knew about her antecedents, about her Russian name and her mafia family, but that didn't matter either. It might be the push she needed to get him following. High up, it would be easier for Tony to find them. And she could hold him off long enough. She was fast, she reminded herself, even as her heart beat a wild staccato in her chest.
And then she just stopped thinking at all. She scaled, and she let a few caltrops fly along the way. They might hurt him, but they'd make him angry, and that was what she wanted. As she eased over the building ledge, she fished a bolas out of her utility belt. If she could just get him down... "Or is it all just an act, Bruce? Do you just want to get close to the kitty cat? You can tell me. I won't purr to a soul," she said, straddling the ledge and looking down at him for a moment, all red lips and a smirk smile.
Oh, her taunting was effective, but not for the reasons it normally would have been. The Bat recognized her in a vague sort of way, as one of those who claimed to be his allies but in truth were merely liars, and he bristled at the implication that he should care about this woman or pay her any sort of attention. It was the mention of powerful friends which resonated with him, however, and prevented him from simply dismissing her as unimportant and continuing on his way. The powerful in this city were the corrupt, and if Catwoman was working with them, then it stood to reason that she was one of the parasites he needed to destroy. Ra’s Al Ghul had taught him a great deal, and his methods were true, but his end goal was wrong. Destroying Gotham was not the answer; destroying that which tainted it, the criminals and the corrupt, was what needed to be done, and he was the only one who could accomplish it. She had chosen her side, this woman, and so she would suffer for it.
“Trust you?” He advanced as she found higher ground on the escape, and in his eyes she had become no better than those he had already struck down, whose blood stained his blade, and the knives hidden beneath his sleeves, a secret of his very own. “I would never trust someone like you. Liars, every single one. You, and the ones who call themselves my children,” he snarled, as though he found the prospect revolting. “They dare steal my name, my symbol, as though it is theirs... but they will answer for what they’ve done. All will be set right.” His parents, ever present just over his shoulder, agreed, and he watched as the fire blazed behind her, and blood poured from the sky like rain. “I know exactly what you are, cowl or no cowl. I will not allow you to destroy Gotham. Your blood will cleanse it, as will theirs. A fitting fate.” The upward tug of his blade was only encouraging the inevitable, and he followed the path she left, scaling the fire escape with ease, his movements more fluid than they usually were without the excessive bulk and restraint he was known for. The blade was sheathed for now, secured over his back, but he didn’t need it, really, and as he hauled himself onto one of the grated platforms and found a caltrop she had so kindly left behind, his eyes narrowed behind the cowl. Pain was a distant thing now; he could have been shot and likely only would have felt a sting. But it infuriated him, that she would dare attempt such a thing, and he veered off to the right, balancing himself on the railing as she looked down at him.
Careful, Bruce. His father needn’t have worried. The Bat met her smirk with a cold stare, looking for weaknesses in her suit, of which there were many. “Yes,” he said after a pause. “I do want to get close to you.” He smiled, but it was an empty, inhuman thing, and then he sprang, a human missile, full weight and an arm brought up across his chest to add extra pressure on her throat.
Selina would have been tripped up by his words, though she would have done her best not to show it. She would have been hurt by his reasons, and she would have searched for truth in his toxin-addled speech. But she'd left Selina behind at the bottom of the climb to the great height, and she forced herself to leave those emotions be. There would be time enough for anger later, time enough for the jagged edges of his words to burrow beneath her skin too. Now was about focusing, and she wouldn't be very good at her job if she couldn't shut everything else out and concentrate on the matter at hand.
"How do we lie?" she asked. "I don't want your name, and I don't want your symbol. I don't want anything of yours," she added, heat rising in her voice, dismissiveness in her tone. "You're not a real man, Bat. You hide, and you fear, and you skulk in the shadows," she taunted, and it was harder to get those words out, but she wanted him the rest of the way up, and she was concerned that the caltrop he'd just found would irritate him beyond continuing. "Your little birds, they're worthless," she added with a hiss, and those words would have stuck in her throat under normal circumstances. But these weren't normal circumstances, and she was very much playing it by ear.
Her bright green eyes almost glowed in the Gotham night as she watched him climb the rest of the way, and her head tipped in the most feline of manners when he said he wanted to get close to her. Oh, how she'd wanted to hear those words, but that smile was all wrong, nothing like Bruce's seldom-seen grin, and she swung her other foot over the edge and onto the roof just before he sprang.
His weight was expected, and she braced for the impact, which would have winded her under other circumstances. Her head tipped back with that pressure against her neck, and she registered the lack of weight in the suit he was wearing, the increased agility he had. "You've turned into one of them now, Bruce?" she asked, sounding much more like herself now that he was there, where she wanted him. "You're like the Joker, like Scarecrow, like Riddler? You kill innocents and hurt babies? Is that who you are? Is that who your parents wanted you to be?" she asked, maneuvering almost imperceptible to slide her knee into his groin, then higher, even as her claws extended and came down hard against the small of his back, one to each side, knowing they would punch through that thinner suite and make his kidneys scream. There was an apology on her lips, an "I'm sorry," that just managed to find the night air as she kicked his groin hard, attempting to shove him off as she made to roll away.
Her radio fell from her ear, clattered, and she glanced toward the thing. As long as it kept transmitting, the tin man would find her.
The Bat scoffed at her insistence that she didn’t want anything of his, as though she was selfless, and her so-called care came with no attachments whatsoever. “You lie in order to get close, to slide the knife in my back when I least expect it. You wish to see me fall,” he accused, “and to see Gotham fall with me, but I will ensure you fail.” Liars, all of them, claiming they knew some other version of himself, when he was the only one who had existed, who did, and who ever would. They sought to confuse him, to attempt to manipulate him into a misstep which would cost him his life, but oh, he saw the truth now, and their plans would be thwarted. “Am I hiding now? Am I sulking in the shadows?” He spread his arms wide for a moment, the cape extending with him, and the look in his eyes became almost manic. “Word has already spread. Gotham knows its salvation has come. I do not fear. I am fear. They run from me, they hide, and they beg like cowards. As they should,” he added, almost proud of what he had accomplished so far.
As for his birds being worthless, he simply laughed. It was a cold, sharp sound, devoid of any humor; mocking, even, her attempt at getting under his skin. “They are not mine,” the Bat told her. “But yes, they are worthless. When the time comes, they will either obey me and follow or be destroyed. The choice is theirs.” As for her, however, he had already decided her fate. Criminals were not shown mercy, nor were they given a second chance.
He forced his arm against her neck as he pressed his weight against her, not realize that, in this instance, the added bulk of his usual armor would have worked in his favor. “No,” he snarled. “I am not like them. I will hunt each and every one down and kill them, as I should have done a long time ago.” It was the mention of his parents that elicited the closest to a real, human response the Bat had given thus far; a slight widening of his eyes coupled with a roar similar to that of a wounded animal as he lashed out blindly, enraged. “How dare you speak of my parents, as though you have any right. You don’t know what they want. You never knew them,” he spat, just as her claws came down on either side, and he roared again, reaching for the blade over his shoulder to end this once and for all.
But he never had the chance to slide it free. The kick to his groin didn’t hurt as much as it would have under normal circumstances, but the Bat still felt the impact, and air escaped his lips in a hiss as he let himself be shoved away and rolled with the motion in order to end up in a crouch. He glared at her, eyes burning, but the clatter of her radio caught his attention, and he reacted with surprising speed to snatch up the little device before standing, only the hint of a struggle visible, due to the ache left behind by her claws. “What is this?” The Bat smiled, just as empty and disconcerting as the one prior. “A way to lead them to me, perhaps? The entire Gotham police force could not stop me. Whoever this is transmitting to would fare no better.” He let it rest in his palm and closed his fist around it, as the knives hidden in his gauntlets slid free, glinting in the moonlight. “Your claws against mine, cat,” he taunted.
It was hard to ignore his claims, the plans that were nothing like him at all. "And all those years fighting a different fight, were you wrong then? Was the Bat wrong for decades?" Her voice was a knife, a taunt and a challenge to think. "Or are you wrong now, Bat? Are you being controlled by someone now? What if you are?" she added, peppering in doubt. "What if your thoughts before this night were your own, and these ideas are just something a bad man put in your head? You know Crane. You know how he works, Bruce," the last sentence was softer, almost a plea, and it was followed up by a shake of her cowled head. "Not the kitty cat? They get a choice, but I don't? I guess that's only fair, seeing as you didn't trust me." And there was hard truth there, truth that went beyond that night and the toxin.
She flipped back toward the edge of the roof when he rolled away, an easy move, despite the bruising pain at her throat from the weight of his arm. "I saw your parents. I saw them die down there. I saw how scared you were. You decided to help this city for them. You were better than the rest of us, at least until now. Now you're nothing they would want to see. Stop now. For them, Bruce. Come with me, and-" But he had noticed the radio, and she shook her head with a lush-lipped grin on her face. "I wouldn't lead any of your noisy little birds anywhere," she said, grateful for the distraction from what had become an emotional demand that he come with her. "It's not connected to your little flock. The kitty cat got tired of listening to their chirping." Which was true enough, and which she could manage with perfect honesty. As for leading anyone to him, and she moved back, further toward the ledge. "You don't want me to lead anyone to you? Fine. Move away from it. Leave it there." Because that worked in her favor too. It was stupid and selfless (the kitty cat never, ever acknowledged those things about herself), but she just wanted to get him away from the last location the men in blue had pinpointed. Away from that northmost corner of crime alley.
"Drop it. Crush it. And come after the kitty cat. I want to see those claws," she purred, and she slid a bolas at his feet, watching them tangle around his ankles, threatening to topple him. Either he'd fall, or he'd been aggravated enough to leave the earpiece and follow. Win, win, for the kitty cat. Well, she would rather not have to deal with those knives in his gauntlets, but she was a cat, right? She just hoped that story about the nine lives was true.
The opposite roof, the one she jumped to a moment later, was darker and quieter, and the one beyond that darker still. She looked over her shoulder, knowing he'd get up, even if the bolas made him fall, and she stopped in the center of the far end, glancing once toward the sky, even though she heard no tin man approaching. The claws on her own gloves were at the fingers, long enough for damage in a fight, but without any distance. If she had any chance here, it would have to be by taking the upper-hand early. And so she waited until he got close enough, and then she swung the barbed end of her whip around his throat before he could grab her. She used the leather's snap to yank him forward, even as she ran into him and flipped over him, feet on his chest for just a moment. She needed to get him down and trussed. There was no other way to win this, and the kitty cat knew when she was outmanned and outgunned.
“Yes,” he snarled, without hesitation. “Look at this city. What has decades of clinging to my morals, to my foolish rules, accomplished? Criminals have no rules. For each one I lock up, ten more appear, and the system is so corrupt that most walk free in the end. And for men like the Joker, like Crane, they cannot be caged. They always escape. Death is the only way to put an end to their reign of terror.” Under different circumstances, the Bat might have recognized that this was the same argument Jason had made time and time again, and he was who he was because he’d refused to accept that there was only one way, but Crane’s drug blinded him to so many things, and he only heard truth in his own words. “No one is controlling me,” he said, brushing off the possibility with a frown. “For the first time, my mind is clear and my eyes are open. Crane--” And there was a moment of hesitation there, the wisp of a memory he couldn’t quite recall; something about Crane, about Jason, the sting of a needle in his arm and the fear of... of... of what? But it passed, and he shook his head, irritated with himself for allowing her to affect him in such a manner. Nightmares, nothing more. “Crane is a monster, and he will die as one. As for you, you’ve made your choice, haven’t you? I know who your friends are. You are who you choose to associate with. Trust is for fools,” he spat. “I trust no one but myself.”
He shook his head when she continued to speak of his parents, like she knew what they would want better than she did. Lies, all lies, to trick him, but the Bat knew better. They were there, after all, on that rooftop with him, his mother and father, and it was indicative of just how effective the drug was that he didn’t see anything wrong with the hatred in their eyes as they looked upon Selina, hallucinations or not. “I’m doing this for them, don’t you see? Their lives were taken from them, and so I will take the lives of all those who threaten to destroy what they’ve created. You don’t know what they want,” he repeated angrily. “Stop lying.” His gaze moved from her to his parents, which in reality was merely empty space, and they smiled at him, reassured him that yes, this was what they wanted, and oh, wasn’t he such a good boy? As long as he succeeded, they would stay, and Gotham would be saved. He’d failed them once, the night they died and he was too afraid to do anything; he wouldn’t do so again. As for the little radio, the Bat eyed her suspiciously, attempting to discern whether or not she was telling the truth or simply spewing more lies. The device was meant to lead someone here, he was sure of that much; he simply wasn’t sure who, not yet. However, the Bat had no particular desire to find out, not when the police were already on his trail and he had so much more to do, so he did exactly as she said; he crushed it in his fist, the act requiring practically no effort at all. There. Whoever it was might still find them, but not if he lured her away, or simply killed her quickly and slipped away into the night.
If the radio and the continued talk of his parents wasn’t enough to incite his rage, the bolas certainly did the trick. Criminals were not usually so sophisticated, relying on guns as though they were a shield which made them invulnerable, but the Bat had trained extensively, and so he had skill enough to keep himself from falling. Maintaining his balance didn’t change the fact that his ankles were still tangled, however, and he sliced at the bonds with his knife before looking up in time to see her leap to the opposite rooftop. Very well. The Bat suspected she had some sort of ulterior motive in mind, and as he approached, crossing the distance between the two buildings with ease thanks to his lighter armor, he caught her glance towards the sky and wondered if she was waiting for someone. Perhaps. Did she truly think she was capable of taking him down, though? The thought was almost laughable. He approached with a slow stalk, prepared to strike, but her whip caught him around the throat before he could make his move, cutting off his angry snarl with a choked gasp of air. Clever of her, even the Bat could admit that, but Ra’s had taught him to predict his enemies’ movements, and he saw what she intended as she ran at him, and rage helped him to recover. Take him down, would she? They’d see about that.
The Bat closed one hand around the whip, using it for traction as her feet found his chest, and he dug his heels into the ground to distribute his weight evenly, making it more difficult to lose his balance by favoring one side over the other. He sliced in an upward arc with his free hand, palm back and the sharp-tipped knife extended, as she flipped over him, twisting his upper body to follow in an effort to ensure the blade cut through fabric and into skin. A torn suit meant nothing; no, he wanted blood.
Oh, it was hard for the kitty cat to hear that argument thrown back at her. She'd spent years saying the same thing, hadn't she? That lethal force was the answer? Much of her young life had been spent in the pursuit of vengeance - the kind of vengeance that left no survivors. Even more recently, in the past year, she'd lost her best friend and vowed to kill the person who took her. And who had stopped her with his logic, his arguments about killing only making things worse? Who had pursued her and taken the gun from her hand? He had - her version of him. And now he was saying the same kinds of things the kitty cat had said back then. She still saw logic in some of it, in some people dying. The Joker was never going to reform. The men and women that hurt children in the underbelly of Gotham, didn't they deserve death? Crane, Crane who had ruined lives on both sides of the door, Crane surely deserved to meet his end. The Cat would love to sink her claws into Crane's throat and watch the blood seep from his body. But, no. Those were her desires, not the Bat's. The Bat was the one who constantly kept her from taking life - her Bat - and this one was no different in that regard. She had to remind herself of that, because it would be so easy to just agree. To point him at the most horrible criminals in the city and let him go. He'd kill her before he went, but she'd always had a death wish, and what did it matter if he decimated Gotham's very profitable trafficking district?
Thankfully, his hesitation about Crane gave her that blink of sanity she needed to pull away from her own ideas. "Crane does deserve to die, but you know that killing him won't solve anything. His life isn't valuable; it's the people his death affects that you want to spare. Every criminal has loved ones, families, and what happens then? They pop up and want the same vengeance. It's a neverending cycle, Bat. You know that and-" Even to her ears, her argument sounded hollow. She had her morals, tarnished as they were, but she still had trouble making his argument. So she stopped. "You're better than killing them. You. It's not about them. They deserve to die, but you don't need that blood on your hands. You've given this city everything. Don't ruin all that work now because Crane got you with a needle that you didn't tell anyone about. Don't let him control you like that."
When the earpiece shattered, she didn't even react. Hopefully they were high enough that the tin man would catch their movement across the rooftops. And no, she didn't think she could take him down, not like this. It wasn't that she doubted her own skill in a fight, because she didn't. But the one constant in a fight that could be won was the fierce determination of her opponent to stay alive. She felt no fear, and others did, and that was a weakness for them. But being fearless against someone crazed like he was, it was worse than fighting Talons, and the kitty cat had learned about that the hard way. Add his training - training she didn't have - and it definitely gave him the upper hand. His quick escape from the bolas was proof of that, and she wished he had that bulky suit instead of the light one he was wearing. All that bulk made it hard for him to keep his balance, but the kitty cat wasn't going to win this fight, and it hardly mattered. She was buying time with blood, that was all.
The slice upward with that blade, as she flipped over him, did surprise her. She thought she'd be too quick for him to manage it, and she hissed as the tip slit a clean path from side to side, high under her ribcage, then diagonal to her hip. Blood welled, and iron kissed the air, but that didn't stop her from slamming her boot against the small of his back as soon as she landed, her knee impacting higher a second later, and her claws finding the same spot on his kidneys that they'd gone for before. Quick, and all her weight in it, in an attempt to tip him forward and pin him. "Are you in there, antihero?" she asked, because that was her last ace in the hole. Bruce wasn't going to stop for her, not out of recognition of her, and the Cat wasn't sentimental enough to think he would - even if it was sentimentally that found her on that rooftop to begin with. "Or are you going to let him kill Blondie? That's just like you. The driver would fight it. The driver would fight him. But you're not going to do a thing, are you?" she taunted.