. (spacecowboys) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2014-02-12 10:45:00 |
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Entry tags: | batman, catwoman, door: dc comics |
Who: Selina and Bruce
What: Stealing something that was already stolen (1/2)
Where: Outside Gotham
When: Recently
Warnings/Rating: Nope
Selina still called Marvel home.
She didn't have an apartment in Gotham; she hadn't bothered since Blackgate City and the repossession of her home and everything in it. Oh, now that she was back in favor, she could have found a new place to rest her paws, but she didn't trust that anything would last, not with Watchtower and all the little things the Feds were making her steal for them. No, it felt like Gotham was very, very temporary, and she liked going home to a place where maybe her brain wouldn't explode on the whim of Amanda Waller. Or - since he seemed to be controlling everything these days - Lex Luthor.
Home was Marvel. Dull, dull Marvel.
But there was the teensy matter of Project X, the Squad, and they were keeping her busy these days. Unlike the JLA, which had made her feel like maybe all that wing flapping about how she was a "better kitty cat than she pretended" was true, the Suicide Squad made her feel like a dog on a leash. And the kitty cat hated dogs.
For the past five days, sun-up had found her back at Blackgate City, where Lex and his monstrosity of a Watchtower loomed over every single little delivery. More Kryptonite, intel on the little yellow ring, a back-up power supply, all delivered as the sun rose, and the kitty cat could only hope that Eddie was relaying the intel back where it needed to go.
After all, these risks were supposed to be for something, weren't they? Even though she hadn't heard from the little green riddle in days.
And then there was tonight. She was all healed up, and she didn't have a lot of confidence that was going to last for long. It seemed the Syndicate had some itty bitty computer genius stashed away, and Lex wanted it. Something about boom tubes and teleportation that could be integrated into Watchtower's system, and the kitty cat had a very, very bad feeling about this. Oh, it wasn't just the fact that thinking about going back into any Syndicate property made her fur stand on end. No, there was also the fact that she was fairly sure she'd already stolen that itty bitty computer.
It made the base of her skull throb just thinking about it. Oh, and there wasn't any solution for that either. Tony was a busy, busy tin man.
The Syndicate had moved what little survived her last visit to a facility a few miles outside Gotham, which was both convenient and too close for comfort. And it was underground, which wasn't her favorite thing ever, but she knew the entire sewer system that headed out of the city very, very well. After all, she'd spent months down there with Duela Dent. And, on the brightside, she wouldn't have to deal with Tinder and the Warhogs this time around, since the Syndicate was sure to have cleared all the gangs out of the space.
Clad in shiny black, night-vision goggles down, she dropped down into the furthest point in Gotham's old, no longer functional sewers. It wasn't exactly a vacation spot that she'd wanted to revisit, but hey, no one asked her opinion these days.
And, when it was all said and done, she would rather do this than think about all those pesky emotions she wasn't dealing with.
Bruce was angry.
It was a familiar feeling and often a welcome one; there were so many things to be angry about, after all. Damian’s death. Watchtower. His own failures, weight upon his shoulders he was forced to bear. Anger was easier than grief, easier than sadness. It was armor, protection, and it was the only way he could pretend to be fine when in reality he was anything but. And now he had something new to be angry about, it seemed. Selina’s in trouble, that was what Luke had told him. There would have been more elaboration but he really didn’t know very much, though Eddie and Tony were, apparently, aware of the situation, whatever it was. That angered him. No one had told him; that angered him too. They were fools to think he wouldn’t find out, and he didn’t need the details to be able to put the pieces together because he did know some things, and those were enough.
He knew she’d been in Gotham. He knew she’d been in her suit, and he knew that was a very, very bad idea due to the warrant hanging over her head. Which meant that she’d either taken an incredibly stupid risk or she no longer had reason to worry about being caught, because she’d already been caught. Bruce didn’t know how the Suicide Squad kept their members in line, but he suspected it was more than just threats; the pain Wren had described might have something to do with that. Because, see, he wasn’t stupid. Grieving the death of his son hadn’t affected his intelligence. It had only made him less observant than he normally would have been, but no more. He didn’t ask Eddie, he didn’t ask Tony, and he didn’t ask Selina. He wanted answers, and the only person he trusted to get them was himself. He’d do this his way, and he’d deal with those who had chosen to keep secrets from him later.
The government didn’t scare him. Lex Luthor didn’t scare him. Amanda Waller and whoever else ran the Squad, they didn’t scare him either. He’d deal with them, too. All in good time. Something had changed in him, shattered and broken, the night Damian died, the night he’d watched Firefly fall to his death and done nothing. His capacity for mercy had been severely diminished.
Selina had no idea that Luke had tipped him off, and that worked to his advantage. This, trailing her, was easy. Ever since Eddie’s visit, he’d become more Bat and less Bruce. Feelings were hidden beneath kevlar and black, and helplessness was lost in broken bones and torn flesh. Easy, yes, and so he watched. He waited. He saw her go into Blackgate City, day after day, and it was only when she changed direction that he followed. Into the sewers but he didn’t hesitate, and his anger, his focus, kept him from thinking about the last time they’d met, about the guilt he still carried over the marks he’d left behind.
Selina didn't think anger was an out, not for this Bat, not for hers, but she wasn't the one handling those kinds of things in this Gotham. And she was trying to focus, because whether she wanted to admit it or not? These Suicide Squad jobs were insanely difficult for one person. Sure, she'd known Project X had gotten its little nickname for a reason, but she'd thought herself too good to be in any danger. Well, except for the bomb. The bomb worried her. But the jobs? They hadn't worried her at all, not until she'd started actually working them. Every single one left her outgunned and outnumbered, and maybe this little Project X did deserve its moniker.
So she was careful, attentive, and more aware than she normally would have been. The kitty cat stole for fun, for the rush, but this wasn't fun, and she wasn't looking forward to going home empty-handed either. Maybe she'd get lucky and find another little box inside. If not, she was going to do some damage so that Waller and Luthor didn't doubt that she was there at all.
Carefully, she made her way through miles of sewers, suction cups affixed to knee, elbow and palm, and the slimey tops of the sewers were the best option for surprising the men below. And surprise them she did. She made it through three checkpoints of two before she realized she had a tail. Armed, fights all the way down, and she could take two men with no trouble. Plus, she had enough ties to bind an army. But after that third set of men, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and she realized she had company.
And company was something she really, really did not need.
She slowed her step, not climbing to the sewer's ceiling as quickly as she had the times before. Slow, slow, and she risked a quick turn around the next bend. Her infrared told her there were six guards at the next junction, which meant she was close, but she was more interested in finding out what was behind her. It was a risk, but the last thing she needed was something unknown to deal with in a six-against-one fight.
She pressed herself back against the wall, made quick work of scaling up and hiding herself above a pipe instead of clinging to the ceiling, and she waited to see who her little stalker was. She had her whip ready, and she'd drop whenever they came into sight. A strangle hold with that strip of leather was enough to blackout anyone with a bare neck.
Unfortunately, she wasn't accounting for cowls.
He wasn’t there to help her, at least not yet, and so he kept his distance. Each step, every movement, was carefully timed to ensure he didn’t get too close, and though Bruce followed suit in staying up instead of down he utilized a different method. He might lack superpowers but he made up for it in technology and weaponry. If nothing else, he was resourceful. He let her handle the men at the checkpoints, not at all concerned with how capable she was in that regard. Keeping her in sight would require too much proximity, but luckily he didn’t need to actually see her to know where she was, or who was in his path; heat, sound, and motion sensors painted a clear enough picture for him behind the cowl. And so he knew when she slowed, when she turned the corner, but he wasn’t concerned. Ideally he would have liked to have been able to tail her unnoticed until she reached her destination, but he could adapt. He wasn’t stupid enough to think that the two of them doing this together was a good idea, but he wasn’t leaving, either.
A few steps away from the bend, and he slid down to ensure his weight didn’t make too much noise when his feet met the ground. The purpose of the cowl was to protect his neck, of course, and a strip of leather wouldn’t do much good in that regard. He moved forward, and he braced himself.
She had that strip of leather ready, drop and already lifted when the cry went up behind her, the sound of her boots making someone curious. They would come investigate, and that could make this very tricky little job impossible. She cursed beneath her breath, even before she realized who her little tail was. Oh, this wasn't good. She couldn't afford for this to go wrong, not when she was already going to return empty-handed.
And then she realized who that looming black shadow was, and she realized that her bad day had just gotten so much worse.
"Don't follow me," she said, hiss and inflection, and she was off before he could answer. Now, her only chance was to get ahead, in, and out before anyone else noticed that something was wrong. Blaze the place, then go, but she couldn't worry about where he was during the chaos; it would only slow her down, and then they'd both get killed. Not that making it out of here was any kind of given. But she could do it, she thought, if she quieted the curious men up ahead. But she couldn't do it if he slowed her down, or if he asked questions. And the fact remained that he shouldn't be there.
She tried to put all of that out of her mind as she leapt over the head of the guard that was coming her way, a timely boot to his temple knocking him down without so much as a whimper. She bound him sloppily, not wanting to risk the extra time it would take to gag him. Maybe a mistake, but someone would come looking if she waited too long, and it was a fight against the clock now.
She didn't bother with the ceiling again; she couldn't risk how long it would take, and so she readied the gun that was clipped to her thigh, and she raised it as she approached the five remaining guards. She managed to hobble two of them, and then it was hand to hand, and they had very impressive weapons. A few hits to the temple and back, but she got them down, and she didn't look to see where that looming black shadow was. The door was right there, and she had no way of knowing when they'd send someone out to look for the guards that didn't check. Worse, she didn't have Eddie to disrupt security for her, and she didn't have the time to break in elegantly. Her infrared was useless against the wall up ahead, embedded into the sewer like it'd been born there.
She began setting the explosives.
Normally, Bruce didn’t take very well to being ordered around. But these weren’t normal circumstances and, even though he didn’t fully understand the situation, he did realize that stopping to ask her questions or otherwise attempting to get in her way would only complicate matters for the both of them. That didn’t mean he intended on leaving, however. He stood, and he melted back into the shadows, around the corner, silent as though he’d never been there at all. The temptation to interfere was there, yes, but he managed to hold himself back until the men were taken care of and she turned her attention to the wall. Whatever she was here for was clearly behind it, which was easily discerned. He weighed his options, considered waiting, but in the end he went forward; he couldn’t keep still.
He didn’t speak. Whereas she was quick, he seemed achingly slow. Regarding the fallen men, stooping to ensure they were properly, and securely, bound, and then he looked up to watch her set the explosives. He stepped back, scaled the sides of the sewers, and waited. This wasn’t his mission; it was hers. For now, he was simply a shadow. Her shadow.
She was too busy to look back.
Well, no, that wasn't exactly true. She didn't want to. And she didn't think about him, either. About whether or not he was back there keeping any of those men from screaming out. She refused to dwell on it, because she couldn't risk depending on him, and because she couldn't risk needing to worry about him once she was inside.
And the end of the day, messing this up? It would be as good as a bullet to the brain, and that wouldn't do anyone any good. All the lies, all the subterfuge, they all would have been for nothing.
So, she set the explosives at the pressure points, and she moved back and pushed the button for the mini-detonations. If her intel was right, the door would come right off its hinges. If her intel was wrong, well--
5, 4, 3, 2, 1--
Duck and cover as the debris flew outward and inward, and she was inside before the smoke cleared.
The underground facility was narrow and tight, and smoke every few feet indicated that she was trying to obscure visibility in the confined space with thick, acrid bombs. Alarms blared, and gunshots could be heard in the distance, desperate things that ricocheted off the tight corridor walls. Distractions or intentional gunfire, and it didn't matter. She'd take anything she could get as far as distractions went. She was back on the ceiling, knees and elbows and palms, and she only stopped when feet ran beneath her, audible through the thick and cloying smoke. She threw decoy bombs down passages she didn't use, shot her gun against those walls, and she kept going to the building's centermost room. She counted footsteps, and determined there must have been twenty men running around the corridors, and she hated the Suicide Squad for being so aptly named.
When she reached the center room, she dropped down. The two men there were easy, scared and unsure, and she took her time with that door, counting on the smoke for cover. Snick, and the alarm started blaring louder and faster, and a self-destruct began counting down.
Well, at least she wouldn't need to blow the place up.
Inside, the room was a huge vault, secrets in boxes and so many lasers protecting them all that she had no idea how she was going to manage it. She stood there, gaze going up, up, to where that last laser touched the ceiling. Through the speakers, a lockdown was being announced in two minutes, to preface the self-destruct in three minutes.
And, for the first time, she allowed herself to hope that Bruce had just turned around and gone.
In all truthfulness, he didn’t want her to worry about him. Better if she focused on the task at hand and forgot he was there. He was more than capable of handling himself, after all, and she was the one who, in his opinion, needed to be worried about. She might not have asked for his help, might not have even wanted it, but that didn’t matter. Not for a minute did Bruce think any of this was by choice; like the JLA, he was certain Selina had been forced into this somehow even if how she’d been caught to begin with might not have been chance. She was good, he knew she was. Too good to be caught unless it was intentional.
But those were thoughts for later. Like her, he used the smoke for cover and added his own once the door was blown. She went up, sticking to the ceiling, but he stayed down. Obscured by the smoke, his movements muffled by gunfire and alarms, he took down everyone who crossed his path with brutal efficiency. The bullets didn’t faze him, not even when one came a little too close, sound and air just past his ear. It was as though nothing here could truly touch him, and maybe that was dangerous, that mindset, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it. Instead he worked on additional cover while she worked on the door in the center room, and that self-destruct countdown which began, well, that didn’t worry him either. The prospect of his own death didn’t frighten him even if it should have. Why panic when, instead, he could decide that they would both get out before the place destroyed itself?
“Two minutes isn’t very long.” His voice came from behind, over her shoulder, as he regarded the lasers. He’d learned a thing or two from Eddie, and his own technological skill was nothing rudimentary, but he couldn’t handle all of them. “I hope you know which box you need,” he told her. “I can clear you a path, but it won’t last long.” Even that would be tricky, but anything was better than her braving the lasers on her own.
Okay, so maybe she wasn't surprised to hear him behind her. After all, something had kept those twenty pairs of feet from storming back in her direction. "I think I already stole what I'm here for," she told him, looking over lasers and boxes as she talked without thinking. "Eddie has it, and that won't do me even a teensy bit of good, so I was going to take something similar and blow the place up." Simple, as if that wasn't an insurmountable task. But all her tasks were insurmountable lately; she'd gotten used to it. "I think I have the blowing the place up part covered, don't you?" There was a smile in that question, one that she would have flashed in his direction if it wasn't for that clock counting down. "As for looking in the boxes, I need Eddie in my ear for that." She had no idea what kind of information her goggles relayed back to Nigma that let him look through steel boxes, but whatever it was? It didn't work for her.
She considered his offer to clear her a path, and she wasn't a dumb kitty cat; she wasn't going to tell him no. After all, staying alive was just a tiny bit important. After a few more seconds of looking at the lasers, she pointed at a box that was just about the same size as the box that had housed Eddie's new baby, just the same dimensions as the box she'd been sent for. It was in the corner, three levels up, and the distance through the lasers was minimal. "I'm going for that one. I should only need twenty seconds." It was still a lot of time to risk with a minute left on the clock, but those lasers looked like they had some bite to them. And maybe she didn't actually ask for his help, but she'd worked with her version of the Bat plenty in her world, for one reason or another. If he said he could manage it, then she trusted him to manage it.
Whatever she was here for, Bruce knew it wasn’t some tiny trinket. And maybe that was what clicked in his mind, the alien tech Eddie mentioned, Selina having stolen something that he now had in his possession; it was a reasonable conclusion, he thought. And it certainly made more sense, her having stolen it as opposed to him procuring it on his own. He was all the more determined to have a conversation with Eddie but now wasn’t the time, and the way she described her intended plan, so simple and matter-of-fact, made him frown. Scowl, more like. He certainly saw nothing to smile about as the clock ticked down and his response was short, clipped, and entirely unamused. “Yes.” An explosion was certainly already in the words and neither of them could stop that. As for looking in the boxes, he couldn’t do anything on that front. His usual tech wouldn’t work and he made a mental note to look into that, to see what Eddie had that allowed him to. But, again, now wasn’t the time, nor was it the time to ask why Eddie wasn’t in her ear in the first place.
His offer to clear a path wasn’t quite optional; he would have done it with or without her agreement. Her lack of dissent simply made it easier. The sooner she got her box, the sooner they could get out and the sooner he could get to the bottom of whatever mess she was currently wrapped up in. He was silent, sliding a device from his belt and working, working, until he had it, until one by one the lasers vanished to leave a visible path to the box in question. It wasn’t perfect, and would still take skill to navigate but he did, at least, have faith in her ability. “Twenty seconds. Move.”
Oh, she knew he was angry. The lines of his mouth were severe, and she knew that wasn't just the Bat being the Bat. No, he was angry. Maybe he was angry at her. Maybe he was angry at everything, but that was nothing new. It made her think of that memory of him as a teenager, and she almost hated the fact that he'd been so like the Bat from her world then. He was like that man now, and the set of his jaw in the cowl just made her wonder if they'd ever get the man he'd been before Damian's death back. But the thoughts fled as quick as they came, because twenty seconds wasn't long enough, and two minutes was going to be pushing it, and wouldn't it be ironic if he died down here, in a Syndicate vault? She was fairly sure the Suicide Squad intended her to be a weakness for him, and here she'd gone and given them precisely what they wanted. She hated being predictable.
He started clearing the lasers, and she moved before he told her to. By the time the last one went, she had the box in her hand, and she had to flip over the last two that slid back into existence. "Piece of cake," she purred, though it hadn't been. It wouldn't have been without him there. The box, and whatever useless little trinket it concealed, was tucked into the pouch on her utility belt, and she gave him a look. "Well? What are you waiting for, Bat?" she asked, and before the last syllable was past her smile-lush lips, she'd used his shoulders as a foothold, up and into the rafters of the vault. She was fishing the specially designed explosive out of her belt as she went, and she hoped her schema was correct, because there was only one chance at this. She placed the explosive in the far right corner, and she detonated as she flipped back down to the vault ground.
But nothing happened. Just a crumble of nothing, and the counter was under a minute, since she'd wasted precious time on a useless explosive. This wasn't going according to plan.
"Run," she managed, because they really had no other option that she could think of. Sure, if she had time she could have figured something out that was more elegant. But improvisation, she was good at that too, and she was out the door of the vault without waiting to see if he was behind her.
The corridors were still thick with cloying smoke, and the remaining guards wandered in blind desperation. She tugged her goggles down, and she ran the way they'd come; she was counting on his better vision to redirect them if she was misremembering, but she was good at being blind, and there just wasn't time to stop and think. Not when the emergency backup doors were already closing up ahead, the corridor getting darker and darker with each second that passed.
He watched, and he waited. Muscles tensed in preparation to flee, counting down the seconds in his mind, but he wasn’t afraid. There was no fear of dying. There wasn’t even any fear for her, of her dying instead. All that existed was determination, hard and burning, and the surety that the two of them would escape. Maybe Damian’s death should have made him even more afraid of losing the people he loved; maybe it had. Maybe it simply manifested as a single-minded desperation to succeed where he had previously failed. Bruce didn’t think about what would have happened if he hadn’t been there, deliberately, and he simply looked at her when she purred that her little theft had been a piece of cake. She was impulsive, like Damian. That made him angry enough to want to shake some sense into her, but instead he merely curled his hands into fists and gave her a look in return when she asked him what he was waiting for. He didn’t move when she used his shoulders as a foothold; he was firm and unyielding, not so much as stumbling as she pushed off, and his gaze followed her up into the rafters. She was wasting time, and why? The place was going to self-destruct on its own. “There isn’t time, Selina,” he began, frustrated, but it was no use; she’d already placed the explosive or whatever it was down and returned back to the ground by the time he’d taken a step forward.
And then nothing happened, and she’d wasted time for nothing. He’d already begun to move before she told him to run, because with the counter ticking down, well, running was their best option. They had to get out. There was no time to stop, to pause; he just kept running. He wasn’t going to die down here, not like this, and neither was she. In the midst of darkness and smoke he could see that the doors were closing. Past them, down the sewer line, and up. He was already mapping out the route in his mind.
There wasn’t even time to speak, which was why he didn’t ask for permission before he pulled her against his side and took a running leap. Through the doors, and they hit the ground in a roll, one that was meant to protect her and put most of the impact on himself. In an instant he was up and pulling her with him, telling her to go, to run. There was no time to stop.
The roll did precisely what he intended, but she couldn't help but look back as the doors closed just inches from their feet. He might not be dwelling on the fact that she should be dead, but she was. She'd been playing this Project X thing off as nothing, as nothing she couldn't handle, but she couldn't keep her entire body from shaking at how stupid she'd been. But he was pulling her up before she'd even let the shock settle, and it was just instinct that made her do what he said. Go and run, and she knew the sewer layout as well as he did. It was only when she reached the first set of bound guards that she hesitated, feet dragging to a still and precious seconds lost. They'd be in the blast zone there, and--
The explosion was a rolling thing. It began in the core of the underground structure, at the vault, and it spread outward. It felt like thunder from where they were standing, and the ground shook underfoot, even as the sewer ceilings began to crumble overhead. Whoever was there when the wave hit would be crushed, and it was somehow different to leave bound men to die, than it was to let the guards inside try their luck at running. After all, they were taking their chance at running, weren't they? She pulled the blade from her utility belt without saying a word, and she wasted even more time cutting ties at ankles and wrists. She didn't wait to see if the men got up, and she didn't wait to see if they ran. No, she was already running herself, and she didn't waste any time looking at Bruce's face. Oh, she knew he wasn't going to let this go. He wouldn't let her joke it away, but she'd try. She needed to figure out what she was going to say, but there was no time. The floor was cracking underfoot, and the ceiling was crumbling badly enough that it was almost impossible to see through the pieces that were falling.
They reached a second set of guards, and an intersection, and there were screams behind them, even as she stopped to cut the ties of the men on the floor. The wave was in the sewer now, the ground above caving in on whoever was still behind them, and they still had a hundred feet to go until the opening.
In reality, there was no time to stop for the guards. Bruce always considered all options, weighed his choices, and he knew the logical course would be to leave them and keep going. He could have, and he almost did. But when she slowed to a stop he followed suit, calculating how quickly they could cut the binds in order to stay ahead, to still make it out in time--
And then the counter reached zero and the explosion hit. He braced himself as the ground rumbled and shook and, above, the ceiling began to crumble, and suddenly his sense of urgency spiked to a desperate level. They needed to get out. He turned, saw Selina stoop to cut the guards’ binds despite the fact that there was now a very, very real chance they might not make it out alive, and in that moment he wished he was a different kind of man. That she was different, too, that they could leave these guards to their fate and not feel guilt or remorse. But it only lasted a second, because there wasn’t even time for wishes. They would move more swiftly if the two of them worked together and so he did the same, slicing through ties, and then he ran without looking back. He didn’t think about the screams, or the sound of the ceiling caving in. He just kept going until they reached the second set of guards, and in his frustration he seized hold of her upper arm, tugging her away from the guards and pushing her in the direction of the exit.
“Keep going,” he snapped. “Run, and don’t look back. I’ll follow.” Even as he spoke, he was cutting through the binds, swift and sure. When it came down to it, if it was a choice between himself and Selina, it would always be her. He would always risk his own life first.
Wasn't that cute? Oh, he moved her forward with that grab and push. Of course he did, because he was stronger than she was. All the fights she'd won with her version of this man had nothing to do with strength. No, they had everything to do with the fact that she was lighter, faster, and she wasn't weighed down by all that kevlar. He managed to move her, but she didn't run once he let go of her. Instead, she turned right back around and crouched to cut the other man's ties. "It's faster if you don't play hero, hero," she said, already back on her feet by the time the words were done.
And then she did run.
The ground under their feet was turning into nothing, crumbling as they moved, and she could see the endless maw that was opening up beneath them. The kitty cat hated uneven footing, but there wasn't time to dwell. The sewer ladder to the surface was still attached to the trembling wall, and she had a feeling it wouldn't hold for the climb, but she had to try.
One rung, two run, three rungs, before the ladder screamed in a protest of loosening screws. It fell, and it was only her whip , which snapped out and catched the lip overhead, that kept her from tumbling into the now-nothing below. And she wasn't concerned about him. Oh, no, with his little grappling hook he would be just fine. But her whip was for soaring, not hanging by a thread, and there wasn't much room to swing and get a good jump up over the nothing that had once been the sewer floor.
Oh, and everything continued to crumble, and even the lip that held her whip wouldn't hold on for more than a few seconds. She could just wait for his heroics; she knew he wouldn't let her fall. "They say cats always land on their feet, but I don't think that works if there's nothing to land on," she quipped. He was going to grab cher regardless; no point in actually swallowing her pride and actually asking for help.
The fact that she did the exact opposite of what he told her infuriated him. It reminded him of Damian, as most things did, and the memory of that night was still fresh in his mind, as though it had only been hours since it occurred. Since then, a lot of things angered him in ways they hadn’t before. Bruce had always been angry, that was no secret, but not like this. He’d changed, and he didn’t know whether or not it was temporary. But now, now wasn’t the time to figure out the answer. “If I play hero,” he repeated, incredulous, and had there been time he would have said more. There wasn’t, though, and with the last ties being cut there was nothing left to do but keep running. Again. Fortunately, even with his kevlar, he was too used to moving with the added bulk to find gaining momentum difficult. He didn’t need to look behind him to know what was happening, and he let her go for the ladder first, let her try to climb, before grasping the first rung.