Wren and Selina have claws (laminette) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-11-09 13:59:00 |
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Entry tags: | catwoman, death, door: dc comics |
Who: Selina and Death
What: An unwelcome visit
Where: The nest
When: Within minutes of this
Warnings/Rating: None
Crossing back to Gotham was almost a relief for Death. Finding herself in a new mind on the other side of the door had been unsettling even to her, and she had been worried that things would have changed on her own side as well. But the dank Gotham air was as heavy as it had been last time she had crossed, and that was somehow comforting. What wasn’t comforting was the instant sense that something had happened, and she sighed. She still wasn’t certain how it worked when she wasn’t there - the people that died when she was on the other side of the door. They were simply no longer there, and that worried her. How could she be certain that they went where they were supposed to? It was something she had no answer for, so she did her best to put it out of her mind.
What Death couldn’t set aside, however, was the knowledge that hit her of those who had just recently been lost. She knew who each of them had been, their place in the world, how they were taken from it. Something sharp and green throbbed in her mind, and yes, that would have to be addressed as well. But so too would the cause of so many’s end.
In the space between one blink and the next, Death stood above Bruce, reaching down to touch his forehead. He slept, or at least refused consciousness, and she would allow him the peace of her brother’s unguarded realm. She knew, even from their one short talk, that she would need to speak to him again soon enough, to attempt to reassure him about being the one to deliver people to her (absent but still final) hands. That was a talk for a different day, though, and she turned her attention a short distance away.
Within another breath, Death perched in the open window of the bathroom, one leg tucked up as she watched the young woman that scrubbed at the crimson slick of her skin. It wasn’t time for this one to take her hand, but Death could let herself be seen. Maybe she would be able to help her in keeping Bruce’s inevitable guilt from being too overwhelming. A cat (one of many in the place) curled around her side as it re-entered the window, climbing up onto her lap to welcome her. Death greeted it with a soft trill of a purr, indistinguishable in tone from any of the feline residents of the apartment. At least to the human ear. She scritched fingers behind her new friend’s flicking velvet ear and waited for Selina to notice her.
Getting out of the catsuit had been hell. It involved twisting her torso, and any movement sent knives along the deep wound from under Selina's arm, to her opposite hip. It had taken longer than she'd liked, and she hadn't even started until she'd managed to get Bruce out of cowl and gauntlets. There was no time just then for stitches, not until she got Bruce out of the suit, until she ensured her claws hadn't punctured deep into his kidneys, so she made due with a messy row of bandages on skin gone too pale, too cold, and she slipped on a grey t-shirt, one stolen from Bruce's endless collection at Wayne Manor. The grey fabric reached to mid-thigh, and she rinsed the blood from the ends of her short hair, making quick work of all of it.
Somewhere along the line, Selina had lost her phone, and her comm had been destroyed on a rooftop, and she had no way of knowing how things were going with the baby bird's hunt for Jaybird. All she knew was that now, here, there was silence, and that was a blessing. It was a balm to her anger, to the rage that spiked whenever she thought about how this all might have been prevented if Bruce had just trusted her. But he hadn't. He'd trusted Ivy. That stung worse than his blade to her stomach had.
Selina was tense, on edge, listening for movement in the other room, imagining a rush of wings as she scrubbed. But she knew she didn't imagine the movement at the window, and she left the sink behind in a movement at was almost too fast to be human, a turn, and she grabbed the whip she'd left on the counter, sending its barbed end flying at the woman in black on the sill. It sent the cat howling away, but Selina knew the cats could take care of themselves. Bruce couldn't, and she was concerned that the sirens that had been chasing them all night had silently found their way to her door. But this woman, the one Selina's whip kissed around the throat, she wasn't one of Gotham's finest, no blue and badge, and that only made Selina more distrusting. "Get out," she hissed, anger in her bright green eyes.
The whip caught for one fleeting second and then slithered to the floor as if it had passed right through what appeared to be a solid body. Death simply looked at Selina as if the young woman hadn’t just tried to maim her (or worse), and shifted her weight so that she was perched cross-legged on the too-narrow sill. “It was unnecessary to scare her away,” she said of the cat that had made a very quick exit from the scene. She curled her spine just enough to rest elbows on thighs, her shoulders hunched closer to her ears. There was a sense of calm to her, the hint that very little could ruffle her feathers. Even being struck at with a whip.
Death's eyes traveled another path over Selina, and she sighed. “You keep moving like that, and you’ll split yourself open. And I didn’t actually come here to work tonight. So please, Selina...” She gestured at the sink. “Finish up and sit down? Doesn’t have to be in here. You can go out by Bruce if you’d like, though he’s still unconscious.”
"Finish up and sit down?" Selina asked incredulously, and it was only the resting man in the next room that kept her quiet. "If you want me to be calm, then you use the door, and you don't come in here knowing my name and telling me what to do. We're staying in here, and you aren't going near him," she hissed, moving backward until her body blocked the door and (she thought) the woman in black's exit.
Everything in Selina's posture said she'd fight to the death to keep the strange woman from the bedroom, though her exhaustion showed and the smell of blood on the air told its own story. "And don't tell me what it's necessary and not necessary to do with my cats. Who are you?" she demanded, knowing fully well that she wasn't up to another fight tonight. It didn't mean she would shirk one if it came, but the kitty cat was very much hoping she could send the intruder out with loud meows and hisses, without need to extend her shredded claws. She listened for movement from the other room and, hearing none, she carefully crossed her arms over her chest, mindful of her stomach and the bandages there. "Five seconds to tell me what you are, or I'll find out on my own." Because that trick with the whip? The kitty cat hadn't liked that at all.
With a soft, patient smile, Death unfolded her legs again, extending them until her toes just touched the floor. She rested her hands on the windowsill and moved her heels back and forth to her own rhythm. "Sorry. I tend not to use doors much - it's easier not to - and I guess I'm out of practice." She smiled wider, something warm. "Bruce didn't appreciate it when I dropped in on him either. He knocked a chair over. ...Not quite a whip strike, but it was fun to see." She watched as Selina moved, her smile fading as she sighed.
"Listen. I'm not here to do anything. I've been on the other side of the door all night and I get back to things being a mess. I wanted to check on everyone." She went quiet, likely extending her five-second deadline, but she simply looked at Selina, still and calm. "...you already know, Kitty. Stop hissing for a moment and you'll see." Her voice had gone quiet, something caught in the back of her throat that almost sounded like a purr.
There was a flare of pure jealousy in Selina's green eyes at all that familiarity about Bruce. The kitty cat didn't like that warmth either, especially not when it came from someone who helped themselves into her apartment. "Then take the hint, and get in the habit of knocking," she said, when confronted with whatever Bruce's reaction had been. Oh, and the kitty cat didn't like that this girl knew Bruce's name, knew hers, knew too much. Knowledge was dangerous in Gotham, and Selina wasn't feeling any more charitable as this conversation progressed.
"A mess? You say that like you have a right to know what's going on with any of us," Selina finally said, defensiveness in every syllable, in the very way she held her injured body. Was this woman just some other secret Bruce was keeping? The Bat was really racking them up these days, and each new secret made Selina bristle more at being distrusted. "I don't know anything," the Cat said defiantly. "If you're some powered heroine, we've never met." Oh, Selina knew about the JLA. She knew about Superbore, and she knew about Wonder Woman. Maybe this was someone else on the team of superpowered do-gooders. Either way, that wasn't the kitty cat's scene.
“Oh, I probably won’t,” Death shrugged in response to a change of her habits. “I’ve had this one long enough that it’s pretty much stuck now. Plus, when I do knock, it’s horribly cliche and freaks people out more than I think it should.” She gave a loose shrug as she pushed to her feet, reaching down to pet at the new cat that had slipped past Selina and into the room to twine around her ankles. She gave another soft trill as she ran fingertips under its chin, peering back up at Selina from her bent position.
“I have a right to know what goes on with all of you. Every single last one. And I do. Even though you all insist that you don’t even know me.” She stood again, expression flattening. “I know that Bruce is unconscious and that two of your cats are fighting over a food bowl. I know that Dick is in Metropolis and John and Tim are in the cave. I know every hair on the head of every person you call a villain in this town. I know that you are going to bleed through those bandages soon if someone doesn’t properly patch you up.” Her shoulders actually tensed as something, somewhere, grabbed her attention, a frown forming. “And I knew that Bruce was wrong about his family and that thing in the cave.”
"Let me make myself clear. The kitty cat doesn't care how much it freaks other people out. You come here, you knock, and you tell me who you are, with your superhearing and your supervision, or I'll find a way to make my whip work next time." Because that explained away all the knowledge the other woman had, didn't it? Selina wasn't Bruce. She had no idea what Bruce's relationship was with this woman, but she wasn't in the mood for games. Kitty cats played, but only on their own terms, and this was her scratching post, not the woman in black's. It was bad enough that the cats seemed intent on betraying her.
"And a word of advice, most people in Gotham don't take kindly to anyone feeling they have a right to know anything about them. Me included," Selina added. She took the comment about the Lazarus Pit to be nothing, just more supersomething giving the woman information, not any real knowledge, mainly because it didn't cross her mind that Damian wouldn't succeed. As for the bleeding, the woman was right about that, but Selina wasn't going to give her the pleasure of acknowledging the statement. "Don't you have someone else to scare? Because it isn't working with me, and I'm not letting you near Bruce." Line in the sand, and the kitty cat might die fighting, but she would fight, there was no doubt of that.
Death sighed and put her hands on her hips, weight cocked to one side. There wasn’t going to be any fight, not physical at least and not on her end, but she maybe felt that Selina was being a little too stubborn. But she was easily able to meet that with her own, especially when she knew something was happening with the glowing green pool in the Batcave, could feel it like an itch all along her skin. It sang to her across the city like screeching birds that only she could hear, and for the first time in her long existence, she felt nauseous. It maybe made her patience a little shorter than it should have been with Selina, and she was beginning to think that perhaps she should have made a stop at the cave first instead of to visit a hissy Cat.
“It’s my right because that’s who I am, Selina. As much as your claws and purring are you.” She reached over and rapped her knuckles against the frame of the window. “Knock, knock, I’m coming in.” It was too snide, and in the next moment she took a deep breath she didn’t technically need, and blew it out again in a frustrated sigh, angled upward to ruffle the front section of her hair with the breeze of it. Her hands fell away from her hips, and she waved one a few times as if to clear the air, and shook her head. “No, no, that was rude, I know. I came to see how you were, not to scare you. And to see Bruce, because he’s not going to understand that it was their time to go. The people.” Her eyes flickered over Selina’s shoulder toward the room where Bruce slept. “If you think it might help, you can tell him I was on this side and I took them. That everyone is exactly where they’re supposed to be.”
Oh, she hadn't seen stubborn. Selina had gone from orphanage, to brothel, to the streets, and she knew better than to trust some strange, nameless woman that showed up in her apartment uninvited. "Seeing as I don't know who you are, what you think your rights are don't matter. The kitty cat didn't invite you in, and she isn't going to let you stay. And Bruce spent all night in Metropolis, and he just got back," she added, bright green eyes and oh, so much stubbornness. "So I don't know what you're talking about." And whatever this woman was talking about, about people being where they needed to be, Selina wouldn't have bought it anyway, even if she understood. People took lives. End of story. The kitty cat had learned that on Gotham's cold and hard streets. There was nothing else, no one else to blame and no one to pray to. "So take your eye makeup and your goth getup, and go," she added, all unimpressed kitty cat. She'd talk to Bruce about his taste in women once he was up and about; this one was even worse than the lawyer.
If Death wasn't starting to feel that strange ache of something going on in the cave across the city, she likely would have had more patience, been less likely to write off this visit. But it was beginning to hurt, actually hurt, and that had never happened to her before. In all her eons of existence, she'd never felt anything quite like it. She stepped closer and with that one step, she was inside Selina's guard, much closer than was comfortable in any circumstance, much less this one. Her eyes were dark and deep as she met Selina's bright green, holding secrets and ages of life and death.
Death listed off a number. It wasn't a small number. She was close enough that her breath should have been felt on skin, but there was nothing there. After a pause she continued. "That is how many people died in this city tonight, and almost half of them followed the man that is in that room." She pointed unerringly in Bruce's direction. "Who was not in Metropolis tonight, though you can keep that story for everyone else if you want. But I know he was here, and if I'd been through the door, I would have been following after him, just like I followed you through that brothel, Selina." She held that moment, the time stretching on in a nearly airless held breath before she was on the other side of the small room again, just as intense but at least with space between them. "Now I have to go see a bird about a pit."
She turned, as if to climb out the window, but there was that soft feather sound from before, and she was gone.
Selina did not like anyone in her space, even when she wasn't bleeding, and it was only the knowledge that she wasn't in any physical shape for a fight that kept her from lashing out just then, that and the distinct feeling that whatever she tried would be as ineffective as her whip had been. The words from the woman's mouth felt like threats, like knowledge of the things Bruce had done, that she had done. She wondered who this new villain was in Gotham's underbelly, and she already knew she would try to fight - fruitless or not - should the woman attempt to push past her and out of the bathroom.
But the woman was gone a moment later, and relief eclipsed those words about the pit. Selina shut off the water and, first aid kit in hand, she went to check on Bruce.