Wren and Selina have claws (laminette) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-04-30 12:07:00 |
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Entry tags: | catwoman, damian wayne, door: dc comics, red hood |
Who: Jason, Damian and Selina
What: A theft and a reunion
Where: The Batcave
When: Recentish
Warnings/Rating: The little birds are screechy
Selina had cabin fever. It felt like she’d spent days without existing, because that’s what it was like for her when blondie was in Las Vegas; she just didn’t exist. Oh, sometimes she had moments of clarity, but that was only when things were really intense, and blondie had been too sick for intense since the fear gas incident. Which meant Selina was itching to sink her claws into something by the time she fought her way back to Gotham. It was dangerous, just how cooped up she felt, because kitty cats didn’t like being locked away, and it meant she was all the more desperate to feel the thrill of anything.
Shiny black catsuit, boots, whip looped around her waist as a makeshift belt and goggles over her eyes, and Selina went for shiny things first. She left three jewelry stores behind, sirens blaring and only one piece missing from each - the best, the crown jewel of the collection, the thing that shone the brightest. By the time she had the bright idea to help herself to some wheels from the recently pinpointed batcave, she had an emerald choker around her neck, an emerald bracelet on her wrist and an emerald pendant shining dangerously from the zipper on her suit. Green stones, she knew, brought out the kitty cat’s eyes. As long as it wasn’t Lazarus Pit green; she could still see that green goop trying to drag the baby bird under, and she didn’t like the memory. Yes, stealing something shiny and fast would make her feel much, much better.
Selina used the baby bird’s entrance into the batcave, opting to go left, instead of heading right to the Pit. There hadn’t been any alarms when she was there before, and she was counting on being gone before anyone knew she was there this time. She stayed close to the walls, using her claws and the traction on her boots to avoid any obvious triggers, and she didn’t stop until she was lower, beneath the cave, standing in front of a shiny, shiny batpod. “Come to kitty.”
Damian hadn’t been to the heart of Gotham city in weeks. The Lazarus Pit needed to be fit with every security measure Wayne Co. could offer and Damian took it upon himself to do most of the work. It was a little like a self punishment in a way, but it was mostly to show Bruce some good faith. The Lazarus Pit would have been cemented over without his cooperation and he could see that this version of his father was actually trying. Damian craved acceptance, even as a teenager and to have a project to work on with Batman felt like he was taking a step closer to that.
Dressed in dirty jeans, a black long-sleeved shirt and with his hair a mess like he had just gotten out of bed, Damian picked up some essential electronics for the Pit and started making his way towards it. Passing by the “Bat Computer” he noticed movement on one of the security feeds that trailed all the way to the nearby batpod. A look of annoyance crossed his face as he walked along the ledge to look down at where the batpod was stored. “Stop!” Damian yelled from the cliff that was only about a story higher than where Catwoman stood. He looked closer at the figure hovering over the batpod and scowled.
“Really.” Damian asked incredulously like the teenager that he was. “Really?” He repeated with an extra hint of almost high pitched anger as he dropped the electronics in his arms and climbed down the rocks towards her.
Selina didn’t stop when he yelled at her. Why would she? The kitty knew it was the baby bird, but she wouldn’t have stopped for the Bat either. What were they going to do? Lecture her until she hissed? Anyway, if he brought his feathered butt down to where she was and insisted on sparring, well, the kitty cat was more than ready. A fight was almost as good as sex or stealing things to calm her. She kept moving, and she climbed on the batpod but didn’t do anything to actually start the pretty, sleek, black machine. Her thigh slid over the seat, all slick black against leather, and she leaned forward against the handlebars and looked up at the ledge, watching his progress. “I was bored,” she admitted, because that was the long and short of it, wasn’t it? Alright, so maybe there was more, like the glimmers of Las Vegas she’d gleaned over the past few days, and how cooped up she felt, and how her blood was just boiling with the need to get into trouble. Kitty had an itch, and even the pretty, shiny things hadn’t scratched it. “It’s not like Daddy Bats can’t afford a new one,” she said, lazily stretching along the bike’s length. She did like motorcycles.
Damian sighed heavily at her response as he dangled from a rock by one hand and then dropped next to her. “I would have let you borrow it. He might have, too.” Selina was taking his toys without asking and Damian did not like that. It brought back something childish in him. “I’m going to give you a moment to say goodbye to the bike before you leave empty handed. Go start trouble somewhere else, lunatic.” He stepped forward and put one hand on the front of the bat pod to claim ownership of it.
But, there was something strange in Damian’s eye. Like he almost wanted her to say no and fight him for it. They had promised to play fight with each other once she healed up and Catwoman looked as ornery as ever. When he was a kid, fighting didn’t make him feel anything but superior and better than most out there in Gotham. Now he had more pent up aggression and testosterone and a good fight with someone like her would make him feel better.
"Now, that's adorable."
On the ledge above them, looking down at the two lovebirds squabbling over the motorcycle, stood the Red Hood. The metal mask, the color of arterial spray and stop lights, showed nothing, the eyes just bright slits through which he watched them, no mouth to speak through, just a blank space where a face ought to be.
He'd come because he had to. Why else? Jason had to see what the place looked like now that Gotham had shifted into some strange, tweaked version of itself and Bruce had apparently never heard his name. He wanted to see what the cave looked like, now that his entire existence had been wiped out.
The place wasn't all that different. Young and soft the new Bat might be, but the cave was still as dark and cold as ever, the waterfall the same ice cold, heady pound against the mask as Jason walked through it. There had been a time when coming to this place was the end of the night, coming home, and its darkness had felt comfortable and safe. Now it was an echoing shell you could only hear the sound of the water in. There was something more, too. Something was sour in the air, a faint whiff of something fetid and familiar, a hum through his bones that made him more uneasy than he would willingly admit.
Jason had been planning on checking the computer, hacking in to find out what information Bruce actually had on him. He hadn't counted on the place being occupied by anyone other than the Bat, and he'd been looking forward to seeing him, actually. He would have relished the opportunity to take his feelings at being forgotten out on him in person.
But no. Peering over the ledge, all he saw was a cat and a bird having a tiff about a motorcycle, acting like children. The Red Hood was wearing a dark leather jacket, pants tucked into boots with steel toes hidden in the leather, good for climbing, running, blunt force trauma. "Don't mind me, keep going. But if you're going to take it any further than wrestling, just warn me, and I'll give you your privacy."
Selina sat back as soon as she heard the voice. Oh, the kitty had been planning to do precisely what the baby bird wanted. She was already prepping for the fight, claws reaching out along the handlebars, body ready to lift and use the bike’s frame to get the upper hand on the baby bird by flipping overtop him and catching him with a sharp-tipped paw from behind. But the voice changed it all, and the kitty cat sat up, back a long curve of graceful black. She didn’t know the voice, but she liked the bad attitude that was all wound up in it, like trouble and snakes and bad things come to call. The kitty was, after all, in a mood for a fight. She wouldn’t slice the baby bird to shreds, but unknown visitors didn’t get the same leniency. And if she liked to play with her prey before she devoured it? Well, no one could blame her; she was a cat, after all.
She watched the newcomer lean close to the ledge and peer down, and she smiled a cheshire smile. With the goggles on, her age was impossible to determine, and she was all curves and shine from that distance. Her smile was blood-red trouble, and she pushed the auto-start on the bike and kicked into into a sweet purr, all without moving it at all. One booted foot landed on a handle bar, and then she swung it over, until she was sitting sideways on the sleek machine, hands braced at her hips and all her attention on the ledge above. “Baby bird, I think your older brother is here for a visit,” she said, the metallic red hood giving the newcomer away. “The kitty cat thinks jaybird should come closer,” she added, “unless he’s scared?” There was a definite taunt in the question, and she looked over at Damian to see who he was more concerned with - his favoritest Hood, or the kitty cat trying to steal Daddy’s batpod.
Damian was in the middle of a grin, but when Jason spoke it hardened in a snap like he had woken up from a good dream. There was a familiar dark seriousness on his face. Like something went wrong and he was the only one who could fix it. His body jolted up at the hollow sound of a man speaking through a mask. That glittering red shine was anything but welcome in the Batcave. Giving a wayward look back at Catwoman, he slowly backed up to get a better look at the Red Hood. Damian had always thought Jason Todd was the dumbest of all the Robins. Easily manipulated, too headstrong for his own good and nothing more than a common street rat. He didn’t see the similarities between them, even if he did wear the man’s shirt when he went out to play.
“What do you want, Todd?” Damian could feel his fingers twitch, still edging for a fight. “Last time I checked, you turned in your Batcave key.” Robin was possessive over the Bat name, much like many who had held the title before him. The symbol of Batman meant something to him, to most in the Bat family, and it was Robin’s job to do what he could to protect it. Stray cats and broken birds weren’t about to tear this fragile and new sanctuary apart.
No, Jason wasn’t scared of the cat and the fledgling brat. “You’re the one who turned on the getaway bike,” he said. He scaled the rocks quickly, making his way down toward them with a few neat hops and drops. The handholds were familiar, and he found them with ease. He’d never been the acrobat that Grayson was, but he’d always had the agility to hold his own, and he’d had years of training to hone it since he’d been running around in underwear. Street rat he might have been, but he’d learned things there, then and now, that the spoiled kid in front of him likely couldn’t even contemplate. It just went to show what was wrong with Bruce, that he’d let his kid grow into such a little bastard.
Jason didn’t know Damian at all, really, and the Catwoman in front of him might be difficult to place in age, but she was certainly younger than the one he’d known, certainly different. “Really? I guess I didn’t realize those privileges got revoked on death,” he said. There were weapons under the coat and in holsters at his waist, but he didn’t touch them. “I just wanted to take a look around, see if anything had changed, aside from the Bat. The place looks nice. You must stay busy keeping it up? I mean, there must be some reason he keeps you around.” His gaze shifted to Catwoman, sitting on the rumbling bike. She was still easy on the eyes, all those curves and that pure danger smile. It was a bit of a shame that she’d ended up with Bruce, really, although that was likely off the table now.
“Who said I turned the bike on to flee the tiny jaybird?” the kitty cat asked, and she spared one glance for Damian - the kitty didn’t want to make sure he was holding up okay; nothing like that. “Maybe I think you make for a convenient getaway,” she suggested, which was obviously untrue, since she was no longer straddling the bike. Still, the purr of the engine filled the air around them, and she did like it as a distraction. She closed a clawed hand around one handgrip, and she revved, kickstand still firmly in place. The grin that all followed was all bad things and dark promises, but there was anger hiding behind the bright green eyes when she pushed the goggles up on her head. “Jaybird isn’t a very polite houseguest, is he?” she asked Damian, the cave, no one. So maybe she was a little protective; so what?
Selina left her beloved batpod, and she walked up to the newcomer, all unintentional slink. She rounded around behind him, a cat circling something she was deciding whether or not was worth pouncing on. When she spoke again, it was over Jason’s shoulder, green eyes fixed on Damian. “He wants the same thing we want,” she said of Jason’s reason for being there. “Isn’t it obvious? This is turning into the Daddy Bats orphanage, where all the little things with fur and feathers come after Batman forgets they exist,” she explained, stretching against Jason’s back and purring in his ear. “Isn’t that right?”
Damian didn’t move from his spot near the bike, watching Catwoman circle and sniff the Hood out. Though there was little about the ex-Robin that impressed him, Damian knew he’d lose fighting the man in street clothes. Catwoman alone was hard enough to take on while wearing jeans, but the Hood, too? He’d have to try and end this peacefully. That was something he wasn’t used to. Damian knew all of the Bat lectures and could launch into one of a thousand of them, but he knew it didn’t work on Jason Todd. He was too stupid and arrogant to see past his own line of thinking. There was no compromise with him, there never would be.
“No. Todd wants what he always does. A medal for being the one Robin that got away.” Damian relaxed his posture while still looking like an impatient host of a party. “If you’re feeling nostalgic, I can give you a tour.” Offered with a sort of deadpan that was almost like Pennyworth.
Jason's head tilted back and up when the Cat wandered around him and pressed her pretty length against his back. He didn't move away from her, but didn't follow her with his eyes, either, still looking ahead while she murmured into his ear, along the side of the mask. "The new Bat can do what he likes," Jason said, with too much scorn, too much bristle to be nonchalant. "I didn't come here for him, or to cry because he doesn't know any of us. I have better things to do." The mask tilted as his attention turned to Damian. "Hardly. You'd have to give Grayson that medal, first. I don't like him, but I wouldn't take that away from him. You're not on that list, funny enough. Still haven't managed to make your own way without him, I guess."
Jason glanced around the cave, its dark depths and rough rock, the echo of voices, the plash of water on stone somewhere far off, and, still, that hum that made his fingers twitch. "You don't have to give me a tour," he said. "You just have to tell me what's here that wasn't the last time I dropped by."
Selina almost hissed with annoyance. The kitty didn’t like being ignored. Not by little red hoods, not by baby birds. She was fairly sure that all that glancing meant Jaybird could sense his little green pool somewhere, and she was pretty sure that would go over about as well as her clawing someone’s new couch would. She stepped away from Jason, and she wound around Damian before making her way back to the batpod and sliding her thigh over it. “He’s asking about the baby pool,” she said, which maybe she shouldn’t have, but kitty cats didn’t like being talked over. As for the Bat, Selina decided (just then) that she didn’t like anyone in the Batfamily. She gunned the engine on the bike, and she tried to decide if she could get it through the sliver up ahead in the rock without ruining it. It would be tight, but she was scarily good with something fast between her thighs, almost as good as she was with the whip that was looped around her waist. “Maybe you two should just look me up when you’re done puffing your feathers up at each other,” she said, gunning the bike into motion.
“Seriously, Selina?” Damian shot a look at her and flapped his arms at his sides slightly like the annoyed baby bird that he was. He didn’t know why in the world he thought she could keep a secret, especially when all she did was use it against him whenever it fancied her. He turned as the engine roared off. “Hey! Why don’t you just start a blog about it on the internet! That way everyone knows!” He was shouting into nothing now, arms still waving angrily as her and the bike vanished out of the cave. As the roar turned into a purr before completely quieting into nothing, Damian sighed and turned back around to look at Jason Todd.
“My mother is Talia al Ghul, making my grandfather the man who brought you back to life.” Damian made a motion for Jason to follow him, climbing back up the rocks. “I was thrown out of their house when I was ten for joining up with my father, so I’ve been trying to prepare for when he does show up.” Damian looked down at Todd as he was about halfway back up the cliff. “And, he will show up.”
The baby pool - Jason didn’t like the sound of that, not one bit. He watched the Cat shoot out of the cave like someone had dropped her in a bath. Needy as ever. She was a criminal, of course, but not the kind that concerned him, and she fought on the side of the angels often enough that she skated by with a pass. She hadn’t killed anyone who didn’t already deserve to be killed, as far as he knew, thus she was simply a dangerous variable, difficult to categorize. He’d need to keep an eye on her, but she wasn’t a threat. Not for now, anyway.
When she was gone, Jason began to close the distance between himself and Damian. When Damian named his mother, he very nearly stopped in his tracks, but in the end only slowed with surprise and almost tangible disgust. “Talia,” he said flatly. So Bruce had fallen into bed with her? That didn’t surprise him as much as it should have, but the thought of being related, even tangentially, to the al Ghul line was not one that appealed to him. It did send a lot of pieces falling into place, clicking coldly in.
Jason climbed back up to the main level of the cave with easy, practiced speed. “And Bruce trusts you?” he asked, vaguely incredulous. Bruce willingly took in the son of Talia al Ghul and trained him as Robin? Had he lost his mind? Well, perhaps that question was irrelevant. He halted at the edge of the cliff. “I don’t even know where to start,” he said. “You’re Ra’s’ grandson, so you decided to use your bloodline to create a pit here. In the cave.” He stalked quickly toward him, and there was no longer any mistaking his reaction - he was furious. “Why!? What in god’s name got into your head to make you think bringing it here was a good idea? What was your plan? To throw the dead in there if granddad comes calling and starts murdering heroes in this city one by one? Pop them in and see how they turn out, like a fun experiment? That isn’t how it works, kid, and if you really are from that family you should know that better than almost anyone.”
Jason punched the mechanism on the side of the mask, and the latch clicked. He pulled the thing off, clenching it tight in his right hand. The face under the mask couldn’t have been older than 21, so the shock of gray through his dark hair spoke to some other cause. “I was lucky,” he said. “But make no mistake, those Pits are not right. You don’t have the right to bring someone back. No one does. You do that, and I promise you, you’re no better than Ra’s.”
Damian walked over to the main computer as Jason worked the details out loud. He had to rant, that’s what the Red Hood did. Hearing the ex-Robin’s voice grow closer, Damian turned to watch the mask click open. His expression turned from blank to curious. Todd was barely older than him, unlike the one he knew back in his world. “We saved Batwoman with that Pit. You told Grayson to go looking for it. I know you think you’re special, but when it comes to those chemicals, you aren’t. Only the weak go insane and the psychotic abuse it.”
“And, for the record, Batman trusts me because I’m his son.” Damian rose his chin a little to look Red Hood in the eyes. “You don’t know anything about me. No one here does. But, I know you, Todd. I know Selina. And, I know what the Lazarus Pit can do.”
"That wasn't me," Jason said flatly, and that was clearly meant to be the end of that particular story. He stopped a few feet from Damian, glancing briefly up at the computer. Though it had initially been his entire reason for coming, hearing that there was a Lazarus Pit in the cave had reshuffled his priorities more than a little.
"It isn't just chemicals," he said. "It's a lot more than that, and you know it. Don't try to pretend you can always predict it, or that everything will turn out fine, no matter what. This is beyond playing with fire. Healing an injury is one thing, but bringing the dead back is something else."
Jason looked Damian up and down. He was older than he'd expected, but of course, he could have been any age. "Then he's an even bigger idiot than I thought," Jason said. It wasn't a taunt - it was grim as the grave. Even if the kid was telling the truth, and he was really fighting alongside Bruce purely because he was loyal to his father and it seemed like the right thing to do, who knew what Ra's or Talia might have done to him? For all anyone knew, all they'd need to do was show up and say a trigger word or something to let him off his leash. Nothing that came out of that family could be trusted. "No, you know someone I've never met," he corrected sharply. "And that Selina isn't anyone I know, either. She should be about ten years older, to start." He narrowed his gaze at the empty floor. Once upon a time, in another universe, his costume had been out here, in a glass case, a memorial for the dead. Its absence, like the absence of so many other things that ought to have been there, was much more keenly felt than he'd expected.
“News flash, Todd, we’re from a comic book. Bringing people back to life in the Lazarus Pit is not only normal, but the least of our problems. Besides, we’re not just looking out for ourselves now. There’s a whole different set of people in Vegas that get injured if we do. What do you think happens if we die here?” Damian rolled his eyes and huffed childishly as if to put a fine point on how much Jason didn’t understand. The man was all emotions, all hurt egos and broken ideals. As someone who was controlled and rejected by his mother, Damian couldn’t be the least bit impressed.
He turned and started typing away at the Bat Computer, adding in Jason Todd’s new information while editing out the old. It was normally Oracle’s job in his world, but Damian was picking up the slack everywhere. “I know you’re new here, Todd, so I’ll break it down for you in terms you can understand. We’re all from different times, different dimensions of Gotham, but we’re the same people. The last thing I remember was being a ten year old and then I show up here eight years later without a memory of anything in between. But, I’m still me. Just like you’re still the Red Hood.”
“It isn’t normal,” Jason said, with mounting frustration. “Is this a game, to you? Is it a joke?” He was so flippant Jason could hardly even believe it. “I know there are people tied to us, but that doesn’t somehow make it alright.” If Damian wasn’t going to take his grave mistake in hand, then Jason would have to do it himself. Everything could be turned off, even restoration pits from hell. He’d find a way.
Jason stepped up close behind him, watching him type information into the computer, just the file he’d wanted to see. Well, if Damian was editing the thing, then he’d filled it with information of the version of Jason he’d known where he came from. That meant there had likely been nothing there about him at all. He turned away from the screen, his hand balled into a fist, one more sting. “You’re ten? That explains a lot,” Jason said, vitriolic sneer with a kick if anger, eyes fixed on the empty spaces where so many things should have been. “I am still the Red Hood,” he said, voice gone low. “But whatever happens in the future, that’s up to me. And I say that whatever happened to draw me into that kind of mistake where you’re from, it won’t happen here. I won’t bend on this just because I was wrong in the future in another reality.” He looked back to Damian. “You find a way to get rid of the thing, or I will.”
Damian clicked and typed new information in for Jason Todd. Update: Now aged early twenties. Recently became the Red Hood. Shortsighted, traumatized. Still a moron. Sense of humor only surfaces when it’s convenient. Mild caution should be used. Oracle was going to be so pleased when she found that Damian was updating her information for her. “It’s not my responsibility anymore. If you have a problem with the pit, talk to Batman. I made sure it was in his cave not only for security purposes, but so he could have the final say.”
He turned and looked at Jason, expression muted in that Wayne sort of way. Damian pointed to a nearby table that had thick fabric draped over it. He pushed a button and with a thunk an overhead light lit up the table to reveal Jason Todd’s old Robin vest. It seemed a little bigger than he might have remembered, a bit darker red too, but it was definitely his. Next to it lay a pair of thick black combat pants, a large utility belt and a mask. “I took your vest back in my Gotham. It’s one thing to have Batman’s biggest failure hanging up like a shrine in the Batcave. Completely different case when his son is wearing the uniform.”
The words on the screen were just so many silly little arrows pinging off of Jason, pointless. He didn’t care what Damian thought of him, didn’t care, even, if Bruce read those words and took them as fact. If he did, then he was an even duller than he’d suspected. “Fine. But the consequences stay the same.”
The sight of his old costume made Jason go briefly still, his eyes fixed on it. It was like coming back from a war to see that someone else was living in his house, wearing his clothes, and talking with his friends. It was the same feeling he’d had when he returned to Gotham and saw Drake alongside Bruce. There was no question about it - he had been usurped, and so forgotten that Bruce’s brat could take his uniform and steal it for his own, in the guise of making things right, erasing the past. Forgotten, and left behind.
Jason looked down to the red mask in his hand, from the red robin vest to the sharp, bright, sanguine shine of the metal. He fixed the mask back on, clicking it into place. “You’re wrong,” he said, walking toward the waterfall, and the brush beyond where his bike was hidden. “Not killing the Joker, that’s his biggest failure. And you, you make a close second, right behind it.”
He walked through the waterfall, the blasting rush running over the mask and the black jacket, making both briefly catch the dim light outside, then disappear. A few moments later came the roar of engine exhaust into the black night, fading swiftly away.