eddie likes to (riddlethem) wrote in rooms, @ 2014-05-12 22:58:00 |
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Entry tags: | !dc comics, *log, eddie nigma, selina kyle |
Who: Riddler and Catwoman
When: recently!
Where: Gotham
What: making up and then chasing down a cult
Warning: violence
Eddie wasn’t one for perching on rooftops. He loitered in the alley below the apartment of Mr. Bubbles and waited for that light to go out. It made him feel like Gotham in the old days. Steam pouring out of gutters, cats rustling around trash cans and the nice side of town using their spotlights to show off how many lavish parties they were having. Eddie caught sight of two dancing with each other in the clouds and wondered when was the last time he saw the bat signal. No, it didn’t really exist here, did it? How goddamned fitting was that?
Mr. Bubbles looked out the window, too, probably wondering the same thing and then glanced down at Eddie. He wanted to be followed. Like a new age religion handing out pamphlets outside of their alien exhibits, he wanted Eddie to come on inside and learn how he too could touch the hand of god. Eddie’s mind was a twirling, changing thing. A rotating puzzle box of gears and springs that didn’t always work towards efficiency. When Mr. Bubbles looked down at him, all the moving parts in the Riddler’s mind stopped like a snake freezing in tall grass.
Well?
Eddie’s mind was filled with a light sensation. As if each brain cell was turned into a bouncy ball to ricochet off each other. It would be torture for any other genius. The kind that liked things permanently sharp or orderly. But, Eddie was always a little too fucking gonzo for that. He smiled brightly at Mr. Bubbles and watched him move away from the window to turn the light off and leave. Eddie saluted with another smile. Selina was going to hate walking into a trap like this, but there was no fucking around with psychics. He entered in coordinates to Selina and then turned to climb up the catwalk.
Eddie wasn’t one for perching on rooftops. But, sometimes a man had to step out of his comfort zone to get things done.
Selina always missed Gotham when she was away. If she was at all introspective, she might have realized that was one of the reasons she always left, to get that feeling back, to remember what she loved about this place. To feel, for a brief time, like she belonged in this world. But Selina wasn't introspective, and all she knew was that she loved her city in that moment.
The apartment over the shop had enough furniture in it now to open an antique shop, all stolen from mansions and manor homes and rich socialites that didn't care about anyone in the slums. It was clutter and tacky, the apartment. It was nothing like the penthouses she'd spent the past year occupying. It was like her Gotham, and maybe introspection would have lent some clarity to that too. But Selina wasn't introspective.
And any introspection she did possess was currently focused on the question of why she was doing this, rooftop to rooftop after Eddie sent her the coordinates, sore arm barely complaining thanks to the exhilaration of the whip's snap. She was catsuit black, goggles down and boots loud against the final roof, gravel beneath the tread as she moved toward the man in the distance.
No, she didn't think of Eddie Nigma as a man made for rooftops. Her version of this man had spent his time trying to destroy this city. Sometimes, she thought this version of this man just wanted to destroy her. But in that moment? In that moment she was more curious cat than anything else. The time in Gatsby had, to a certain extent, made her realize the lay of the land in Gotham. They didn't need a Bat Signal. They were due for a green question mark that lit up the sky at any moment. Bruce hated the city. Eddie didn't.
And maybe that was her reason for being there, sway and the same old cat as always. "You're into rooftops these days?" She hadn't seen him since his time away. If she realized that he looked older, different, she didn't say anything about it. Not yet.
Eddie had thought sometimes that Selina was trying to bring him down, piece by piece. Everyone who knew him eventually found out about that gamble he made with the bomb in her head and each time he thought that it’d be enough to ruin his reputation for good. How easy would it have been for Wonder Woman to kick him out of the Justice League? And, he wouldn’t even be able to argue against it. Even after years of fighting the Syndicate, it didn’t matter here. He was just a rogue with a good heart and the ability to fuck up so badly it hurt everyone in a ten mile radius.
“Riddle me this: What’s more out of place? A green man on a roof or a meow face walking down the street?” He smiled at her. Eddie was wearing a more modern Riddler get up. Dark green suit, purple tie, black shirt and black domino mask. Up his sleeve was his mother box Machina and strapped to his chest was both a bullet proof vest and two pistols. It was hard to go outside without immediately grabbing a shotgun or something heavier. This was a softer Gotham. This only required so many guns and a man could fight in a perfectly tailored suit without worrying about getting too much blood on it.
“Bubbles can read my mind. And, he’s going to be leading us to the witches den. Cults aren’t all that different from rogues. They want to show and tell once and a while.” Eddie had no idea what kind of danger was waiting for them. If it really was only going to be a presentation of horrors or something more sinister. But, he wanted answers and he knew that Selina did, too. Once a curious cat, always a curious kitty.
“Before we go I want to apologize in case I die horribly in a magic related accident.” Eddie gave her a smarmy wiggle of his brow, tattooed hand running through that streak of white on the side of his head before he took of his glowing violet glasses. There she could see the age. The scars along his face from fights and brawls over the years. When he stepped closer, the light made his dark eyes look troubled. Though, how was that new?
“Selina.” He leveled a look at her and the humor slowly drained from his voice. “I’m a fuck up. It shouldn’t have taken you long to figure that out about me. What’s worse is that over the past five years I’ve had to admit to people I trust that I’m not as smart as I think I am. When you last saw me, that’d never happen. As far as I was concerned, I was the smartest motherfucker in the entire door.” Eddie talked more and more like Stephanie everyday. The cursing, the cadence of her modern lower class Gotham accent. “I risked your life because I thought I was the best. I didn’t even think it was going to be an issue. And, it was stupid of me. But, worse than that, it was a terrible thing to do to you. No one should feel so out of the loop and worthless like how I made you feel. Okay? Maybe it took Diana giving me a verbal beat down to apologize, but I am sorry. I really am.” He exhaled and loosened his shoulders as if a demon was exorcised right there on the spot. Eddie knew it wasn’t going to fix a whole lot between them. That time needed to heal those scars, but he gave her something she had deserved for a long time.
The amount of silver-lined temples in the kitty cat's life was growing; she didn't like it. It made her think of mortality, and there were men she'd just never thought of as mortal. The man standing in front of her was one of them. The Bat was another, and she wasn't sure she liked seeing eventual death looking back at her from either of them. Oh, Eddie was different. She didn't see the perpetual drive to suicide in his face, but she saw something else. She saw age, and she saw the Syndicate, and maybe that was worse.
She wasn't like Bruce; she didn't hate this Gotham. The memories she had of this place had seen her through the years she'd been gone. She didn't want the Syndicate here, and Eddie reminded her of a world where only four people had been left standing. Oh, she was sure they won somehow, eventually, because didn't they always? But when she'd left, they weren't the ones who were winning.
"I walk down the street a lot these days," she finally admitted, an exhale for Mr. Bubbles, who would apparently be leading them on a chase that was more appropriate for the JLD than for them. But the resources here were limited; they would make due. They always did. But he wanted to talk first? Alright. She could do that. And maybe that was a sign that she'd changed some herself, because before? She would've quipped and avoided, maybe hissed and clawed. It was still her first instinct, but she knew it wouldn't fix anything, and she'd known (the second she'd decided to return) that it was time to fix things. Or, maybe, just to start.
She took in the scars along his face, the darkness in his eyes when he took off the glasses. Another exhale, and she walked to the edge of the roof. She looked down at the city, really looked. She saw it for everything that it was, and she saw it for everything that it wasn't. "I didn't mean for Lasso to open up old wounds. I was explaining why I wasn't here, and she's horribly easy to talk to," as if that was some kind of crime; maybe it was in Gotham. "I forgot she had her sister solidarity thing. I always forget that about her. I never knew her that way, and it's new to me, that aspect of her." She was stalling. Of course she was stalling, and she took a deep breath and turned to look at him again. "I was hurt. I was angry. I still am. But it wasn't just the bomb. It's everything here," she motioned with her arm to the city that was now over her shoulder. "I went from being involved in everything, to not being involved in anything. It made me bitter, and it made me angry to feel excluded. Life with the JLA, when I was away, it was different. I didn't expect to come back here and not belong. We've discussed so many times that this Bat is different? Without him, I don't know where I fit. Without him lobbying for me, I'm not sure I fit anywhere. But I want to figure it out, and I don't want you for an enemy."
Another shrug of black-clad shoulders. "I ran into Babs. My Babs and I were close, but this Babs only knows me as someone she should arrest. But I ran into her, running away from the city because she doesn't think there's a place for her here, and I actually tried to convince her to start up the Birds." She chuckled, and she knew she was rambling now; she didn't much care. "Can you imagine? Me being the one that tries to push that into existence." She shook her head. "I've been a bitch. I'll probably be one again. Maybe I've changed too much for Gotham. Maybe being in another door has made me want things I can't ever have here. But I don't want to be the thorn in your side, and I don't want to take away what you've accomplished. Even if it seems that way."
“I don’t know where I fit either.” Eddie admitted and maybe Selina was the first to hear that. He only really cared about fitting with Stephanie right now and making their lives exactly how they dreamed it would be from their broken down little hole in the tunnels. He wasn’t Justice League material no matter what Bruce said or how much Diana took a liking to him. He wasn’t batfamily either, no matter what he was to Stephanie Brown. “But, I know it’s harder for you.” Eddie added thoughtfully. Of course it was. Meow face didn’t have a person that was always there. She didn’t have the Dark Knight. It was about as strange as no bat signal in the sky.
He listened to the rest of what she said and inhaled slowly as if he was taking it all in. Babs feeling displaced was a strange thing. Not that he gave that particular bat much thought, but Eddie believed she belonged in the core of the bat family. That was just how things worked. Which of course lead to the next riddle: was there even a bat family left? “This Gotham is a broken clock.” He said after a moment. “You were just trying to make the damn thing work again.” Eddie took a step closer.
“And, I don’t care if you’re a bitch. To me or in the general direction of other people about me. Deep down? At my core? I’m a complete fucking asshole.” Eddie smirked and shrugged those green shoulders. “I just don’t want us hurting each other anymore. It’s not natural. It’s not right.”
If there was one thing she wasn't expecting him to say, it was that he didn't know where he fit. The grass was always greener, and she tended to perceive him as being at the heart of absolutely everything. Her green eyes went surprise-wide, and she looked away when he said that he knew it was harder for her. "Bruce sees me as an expectation, just like the rest of it," again, she looked over her shoulder at the city, and then back at him. "I'm sorry for dragging you into the middle of that too," because any way you clawed it, it was two-plus years of her clawing at someone, with this purple-clad man in the middle. "During the fighting in Marvel, he disappeared on me. I was badly injured, and he knew it, and he left to go drink with you and Steph. I was so hurt. And I don't want to be angry and hurt about you three anymore. He didn't tell me things, and I didn't know what was happening. I didn't realize how much that bothered me until I ended up in another door, one where I know everything that's happening in their version of the League." There wasn't any anger in it, only a new kind of candor that she still tripped over as it poured from her. She'd regret it later, but clearing the air here was good. "My point is, it isn't actually you. It never was. I forget that at times. I'm trying to remember it going forward."
She sighed when he said Gotham was a broken clock. "And maybe it's missing too many parts to ever put back together again." She looked over at him when he smirked, and she gave him a smile that was almost vibrant. "But that doesn't mean we can't use the parts to build something else, right?"
“I didn’t know.” Was a good theme for their relationship, right? Eddie had no idea what happened over in Marvel with the aliens and he hadn’t made it a point to ask around. He didn’t really give a damn about that door. Why would he? But, that wasn’t the point. The point was Bruce had left Selina high and dry before going off and having a relaxing evening with the only two people in Gotham who he felt comfortable with. Wasn’t that a twist of the knife for meow face? “I let myself get between you and the Dark Knight.” He said wisely, sounding much older than he had the last time she saw him. “Never should have done that.” Another apology without actually saying it. He pressed his lips together and looked away from her. Sometimes he was embarrassed about the man he used to be, even if he’d never admit it out loud.
But, then she smiled.
Eddie loved that smile. It spelled out a love for the city that felt like a secret between just a few people. It made him think that if Selina really did love it here for all its contradictions; it’s pain and joy, it’s darkness and light, it’s tragedy and humor, then eventually the rest of the regulars would feel it, too. And, hell, if they didn’t, a new Gotham could spring up from the ashes. Eddie could live with that.
He gave her a messy smile, genuine and kind of sweet as if he hadn’t expected it to happen and then pushed his violet glasses back on his face. “Clocks are so last century, anyway.” Eddie pointed towards Bubbles slowly walking down the street, watching the silhouettes talking on the roof from over his shoulder. “Shall we?”
"Of course not." He wouldn't have known, not if Bruce didn't bring it up, and she was certain Bruce hadn't. She was the one who always talked about Bruce; it wasn't the other way around. Even with people he trusted, and she'd realized that somewhere along the line. But she wasn't expecting Eddie to say he'd gotten between them. She just looked at him for a few seconds, this older Eddie with the battle scars and ink. "Nothing would get between you and Stephanie." She smiled when she said it, because she knew that repairing things with him meant repairing things with the blonde bat eventually. After all, Stephanie only clawed in his defense, and everyone in Gotham knew it. "You can't actually come between people, not if both of them want to keep you from doing it." Simple, no blame, and the damage was already done. She'd tried to come back from it, tried to drag Bruce back from it; it wasn't going to work.
She hadn't seen that messy smile he gave her in ages, and it was like stepping back in time for a blink. Then the glasses were back on his face, and sharing and caring time was over. But she felt better, oddly. Unexpectedly. "Clocks from last century can buy a kitty cat a lot of things that shine," she countered, and she nodded, whip in her hand and curiosity about how he was going to get down. "How do nerdy academics climb down buildings?" she asked, a hint of lush smirk in the question.
"And, just out of curiosity, what are the probabilities of us exploding in some horrific magic fireball this evening?" The whip hissed.
“An academic? Hardly. I never graduated high school and college degrees are for chumps.” Eddie gave a smarmy little smile and ping went Machina. “I like to think outside of the box.” And, when he stepped off the edge, a barely visible, multi-color plate shimmered under his shoe before vanishing the second he hopped off it. If they were racing, Selina would win by a mile this way, but Bubbles wanted to lead. He wanted to give a tour and so there was no chasing tonight.
And, lead Bubbles did. He started walking briskly towards the abandoned part of Gotham that had once been a super prison. There was nothing on the streets, the electricity seemed to barely work and the only figures that could be seen in alleys were hooded and did not want to be seen. “Oh, I don’t think we’re getting a lightshow.” Eddie said quietly, under his breath even though he was sure Bubbles was listening in. “I think it’ll be something much more sinister.”
The streets seemed to turn warm and the faint smell of dried flowers, pale musk and synthetic oil started to drift towards them. There was smoke, too, but that wasn’t so unusual in this part of town. Bubbles looked over his shoulder again before suddenly zagging towards an alley. Locks were turned, cellar doors thrown open and the smell of ritual hit the salty Gotham air hard. “I don’t have a plan.” Eddie confessed suddenly. “And, I’d bet money you don’t either.”
"Are we requiring degrees to call someone an academic? I thought the only requirement was a disgusting amount of smarts." Like most little girls born into Gotham's underbelly, Selina had no schooling to speak of. In Gotham, school didn't make or break a rogue, and they both knew it. "It was a compliment. Just take it and smile that dorky smile at me." And when intelligence had become a good thing? Well, that was anyone's guess.
She heard the ping of his little box and, for once, the very thought of it didn't make her blood boil. She just rolled her eyes at his theatrics, because that hiss of whip? Not theatric at all. She went quiet as her feet found the sidewalk, and she didn't like magic. She'd had her fair share of run-ins, none of them good. Normals the magic-wielding members of her Gotham called people like her. And those damn magical thieves always made her work harder than she liked.
"I never have a plan," she admitted at that cellar door. She looked up for whip-holds. She looked down for cellar windows. She looked at that cellar door, the one that had been so nicely throw open for them. "I hate walking in the front door." Which she proved by snickting her whip at an edge of roof. In and down, and she was suspended from the ceiling of that cellar in minutes. Eddie? Oh, Eddie had the little box. She knew he'd be inside by the time she got there. But she? She wanted a way out that wasn't that door, and that didn't rely on unknown technology.
It was dark in the cellar, and Selina had no idea who the girl on the makeshift barrel-alter was, but perhaps the Wonder Woman shirt the girl wore should have been an indication. The girl was on her back across the barrels, crying and held immobile by something Selina couldn't see. In fact, Selina couldn't see much of anything. Candles above the altar cast the girl's face in light, but everything else was black and void. Unnatural darkness, and Selina really hoped she was imagining movement in that gaping maw of nothingness.
Intelligence being a compliment earned a tiny little what from the riddled man. His eyebrows waved in surprise and he had no idea where she picked that notion up. Not that he was complaining. Eddie offered her that dorky smile she asked for, all Gotham carnie mixed with too smart for his own good.
“I’ll meet you inside. Where will you- no don’t tell me. Bubbles.” Eddie was getting used to feeling that bubble wrap around his brain and he knew every time the hold got a little too tight, their tour guide was listening. Once the cat was gone, Eddie thought about boom tubing in. He thought about being tricky because being tricky was a lot more fun than playing it straight. Wasn’t that what they were expecting, though? Instead, he took off his violet glasses, straightened his tie and walked right down in the cellar.
“You are the man with many eyes.” The voice of a witch cawed over the flicker of candles and burn of incense smoke.
“Thank you!” Eddie chimed loud, brightly. No fear in his voice which made a couple bubbles pop pop.
“See the sacrifice we will make and believe in our holy power!” The flames of the candles suddenly burst to life in bright red fire. There were boxes and crates from Old Gotham stacked as barriers between himself and that darkness. A girl screamed for help and a ping sounded across the cellar. Eddie had to get to her, but first he needed to know what the hell kind of witch was in here.
A wave of multicolored light shimmered into the darkness before being eaten whole. Another ping that told Eddie she was not quite human anymore. Bubbles pushed and pushed until the riddle man’s head started to feel numb and his feet fell asleep. “You could have saved us a lot of time and put this on the internet, lady.” Eddie grunted and started thinking of riddles, math equations and his favorite Civil War generals. He jumbled them all together, numbers and names and question marks until Bubbles blinked and Eddie had enough time to pistol whip the man hard in the middle of his forehead.
“Goddamn, I’ve been waiting to do that all night.” Eddie felt like a fish wiggling out of octopus tentacles. He winced and looked up to see the candles glow brighter. Before him was a woman who looked as if she were made of yellow wax. Her arms long enough that her knuckles could scrape the floor and the cellar ceiling above. She had a crooked witch’s nose and beady red eyes with a smile that reminded him of the Joker. The lights around her brightened before they suddenly turned back into that unnatural darkness and pulled him close to the altar.
Selina, from her perch in the cedar rafters, thought Eddie's entrance was all Gotham rogue. She didn't think of him that way anymore, and there was a very lush smile in remembrance. Oh, she'd hated her version of the Riddler. He'd killed hundreds of Gotham's poorest, just to get to the Bat. But this man? This man had never been that rogue, not that she'd seen, and it had been a very, very long time since she'd seen him as anything but a member of the batfamily or the Justice League.
As for the disembodied voice in the dark, she wasn't really interested in its holy power. Now, she'd seen enough of the JLD to know not to look for a puppet behind the curtain. Magic, she knew, was real. She just didn't like it.
She heard the ping. She waited. And then Bubbles went down, and see? This was what Selina hated about a magical fight. She had no idea why he'd gone down. But she wasn't going to question it. She followed Eddie's lead, and she dropped down from her perch, feet soundless on the cellar floor. She knew that they (whoever they were) knew she was there, because Eddie knew she was there. No matter.
She looked up in time to see that waxen visage, long arms and knuckles and that witch's nose. The flash of light, and she really needed to consider contacts, because she hated eyes that looked anything like Joe's. She saw Eddie move closer, and she was fairly sure he wasn't going over to say a willing hello.
Then darkness again, that void, and she couldn't see the little green man at all. And Selina? She was very, very good at making impulsive decisions. And that? Was what she did just then. She ran, flipped in the air, and landed on the altar, between the girl's knees. But her whip, her whip sang in the direction the yellow woman had been. She couldn't see anything now, even the candles had silenced, and the cellar was preternaturally cold. She hated it.
Her whip caught something, and she yanked.
Eddie hit the altar just as he heard a whip sing over him and he ducked down like the floor was his best friend. The whip pulled and splashed goo on him as the witch screamed. His hands felt warm and then suddenly stiff as if they were growing thick skin right there in the darkness. “Wax!” Okay, maybe that was a little obvious. Eddie rubbed his hands together, crumpling up the drying wax off his hands and then reached up to see how the poor girl was tied to the alter. Untying rope in the dark was something any rogue worth their weight could do in their sleep. “If you feel a hand, that’s me.” Eddie warned up to where he assumed that black cat above and then reached up to feel the girl’s arm, an elbow, wiggling fingers and then that rope.
As he was working on the bounds around the girl’s wrists the room began to light up again and suddenly there were a handful of cloaked figures made out of wax by the alter. PING! PING! and energy blasted through two of the figures (Eddie knew Selina could make work of the rest), splattering their goopy bodies against the wall. If the cat watched, the wax wiggle, wiggled even after being obliterated as if they were trying to reform. “Do you have any gadgets!?” Eddie called up as the witch’s howling began to shake the cellar, knocking over barrels and bursting crates. “Freeze! Ice something, damn it I thought I had one here...” Eddie began going through his jacket as if he had a solution for everything before the melted wax began crawling up his riddled leg. Eddie tried to blast it away, scrambling for another corner of the cellar as the lights went out again.
Total darkness filled the cellar and the wax bubbled.
“You insist on being sacrificed, too? FINE! More for the heavenly father!” The witch bellowed and tried to hit the cat off the altar.
That wax caught the kitty cat in the arm, but it didn't make a ding in the suit, not beyond weighing it down. It reminded her of the smells of old Gotham's churches, the ones where little women prayed their rosaries as their lives came down around them. Selina had hated those churches as kitten, because people huddled inside them with hope, without doing anything to change their own fates. Now, she understood, but then it had just seemed unbelievably stupid.
And she wasn't really surprised to find that something was holding the ropes. It made her grin in the dark, even as that circle of waxen effigies came into view. A trick. It was all a trick. She flipped off the altar, leaving Eddie to the ropes as she yanked the other effigies, out instead of in, trying to avoid another wax bath. But she stopped when the wax kept moving. Wax didn't move. And then she realized the wax that had begun below her elbow was now keeping her elbow from bending.
Okay, maybe not a trick.
And, oh, the kitty cat had gadgets. Things that went boom. Things that iced? Not so much. And now they had a pool of wax that seemed to want to be their friends. Think, kitty cat, think. She pulled an acid bomb from her utility belt. Two, but they were tiny, and she wasn't sure it would be enough to eat at the ocean of saints that was crawling toward them. And it was useless to burn off her arm and his leg. But it was the best she had.
She jumped up onto the altar as the voice cackled, something swatted her, and it felt human enough - human enough to almost knock her into a pool of wiggly wax. She retreated in the darkness, but they still needed to get to the girl. Lights, they needed lights too.
She aimed at the corner of the altar, where they might be able to clear away the most significant path and where (maybe) that witch was standing - It was, at least, where her voice came from. Selina lit up the room with two flash bombs tossed into the corners behind the altar, knowing she and Eddie would be just fine thanks to their eyewear. The light was blinding and bright, and then she slammed the two acidic bombs down against the largest concentration of wax. Slam.
Eddie made the girl a priority, quickly freeing her from her binds before slipping Machina off his wrist and strapping it to hers. “Stay next to me, okay?” Eddie’s voice was calm because chaos made Gothamites like himself and Selina thrive. The girl nodded slowly, a little awed by the quick thinking cat and the magic riddle man. Ping! A light covered the girl’s body, shimmering a waterfall of color that pushed back any wax trying to snatch her back. Giving Machina looked like stupid trust, but the box was loyal to Eddie and any attempt to steal it from him would end poorly for the girl. The green man wasn’t worried, though. The Wonder Woman shirt made him think she was a fan.
Another scream from the witch as Selina slammed down the acidic bombs and sent fragments of wax flying. The bubbling slowed and the witch tried to talk tried to tell them something about her righteous god. Eddie wasn’t listening and he was sure meow face wasn’t either. Eddie ducked behind the altar, aiming his gun next to Selina’s foot and then shot at a barrel of moonshine. Then another. The smell of strong, old alcohol filled the room and immediately hardened the fragments of wax in their way. The witch wasn’t screaming anymore and the only light came from Machina and a few flickering flames by the entrance.
“Party’s over, let’s move!” Eddie let the girl run ahead and then made sure Selina was good before heading out after her. He saw Bubbles at the entrance and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and dragged him up the cellar stairs.
Selina was fine. She tore at the sleeve of her suit as she moved, wanting that wax gone, and she didn't bother with theatrics this time. She took the steps, walking backwards and keeping her eyes on the cellar, just in case anything tried to come after them. She wasn't sure how wax reanimation worked; she didn't really care. The only thing she was sure of? Was that this stupid magical threat was more dangerous than she'd assumed.
She didn't stop until they were out on the street, and she shoved her visor up, mossy green eyes full of questions. Who had been controlling the effigies? Why? Oh, Selina knew perfectly well that most rogues weren't like Joe. Chaos? Chaos wasn't normally the endgame. She looked at the girl's Wonder Woman shirt, and she cocked her head, all curious cat. "Do you like her?" she asked of Lasso, not really expecting an answer. Not unless the girl was exceptionally brave. She couldn't tell, not yet, but the fact that she walked out on her own steam, that was a good sign.
She looked Eddie over, her attention drawn to his leg. If he'd gotten hurt, Stephanie would surely kill her. "Okay there, Riddle?"
The girl held her arm out for Eddie, who carefully took off Machina and strapped her to his wrist with a soft ping. Then, she looked up at Selina and then away just as quickly. Selina wasn’t just pretty, she was Catwoman. “Wh-who?”
“Wonder Woman.” Eddie pointed to her shirt while he was kneeling over the unconscious Bubbles, checking his pockets for something useful.
“Oh- oh yeah!” The girl looked up at Catwoman brightly. “I run a fan blog about Wonder Woman sightings. Wondy-”
“Weather dot com.” Eddie finished her sentence, looked up again and squinted. “You’re Carol Cake Puncher?”
“W-whaawow. Wow.” Carol stuttered out a laugh. “You read my blog?”
“I read most things on the internet about the Justice League.” Eddie smiled and pulled out a wallet from Bubbles’ pocket. “Don’t judge me, meow face.” He pointed at Selina and then waved his finger as he slowly stood up. Giving his leg a little shake, he winced and then shrugged. “I’ll be okay.” Eddie wasn’t tough but he was durable. “So. We have Miss Cake Puncher here who runs a Wonder Woman blog and let’s see,” Eddie went through the wallet, passing over the money and taking time to go through receipts. “Well, well. Bubbles liked buying things from pawn shops. Nothing here is specified, but it gives me a trail to follow later.” Eddie pocketed the receipts and then tossed the wallet back down on Bubbles.
Beneath the torn sleeve of the suit, Selina's arm looked like she'd spent too long in the sun, but that certainly wasn't going to kill anyone. She smiled at other woman's bright expression. How typically Gotham. Anywhere else in the world? There would be waterworks. Here? The girl was laughing and smiling and talking about Wonder Woman blogs with Edward.
When Eddie told her not to judge, she rolled her eyes. And she took the money without question. It would go to the boys in the warehouse. It was the least she could do, seeing as she'd delivered two new ones to Jaybird's doorstep just that morning. She tucked the bills into her utility belt, and she looked at the pawn shop slips, wondering how they would possibly lead him anywhere. But then she wasn't a detective; she never had been. She could crack the hell out of a safe. But that's about all she could crack. Breaking and entering? No one better in Gotham. But this was something completely different, and she didn't like it.
"Are you walking our little blogger home, or shall I?" she asked. "Are you even allowed to walk attractive women home?" She was all tease and grin, and it felt nice to be teasing him again. Oh, the ache was still there, but there was a lot less than there had been. She was glad.
Eddie grinned at the tease and watched Carol blush at being called pretty by Catwoman. He made an educated guess on who she’d rather walk her home and took a step back. “You better. I’m tired of being in doghouse hell.” Carol gave a shy look up at Catwoman, a little braver than before and nodded before stuttering out a thank you to the both of them. Eddie waved his hand dismissively. Sure, he was the Bat’s right hand man and the Justice League’s IT guy, but he did not like the feeling he got when people showed him gratitude for being a hero. Selina and Eddie weren’t supposed to save pretty girls from evil witches, but here they were doing it anyway.
“I’ll let you know if I find something.” Eddie took another step back as a white, threading circle started to form behind him. “And, I’m glad you’re home, Catwoman.” He smiled his dorky little smile and then jumped into his portal.