dami can't (leavethenest) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-12-04 19:15:00 |
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Entry tags: | catwoman, damian wayne, door: dc comics |
Who: Damian and Selina
Where: Gotham U
When: Recently
What: Selina interrupts some learning to ask about a tomb
Warnings: Mild swearing. That's about it.
Damian sat in the middle-right of the lecture hall, his expensive laptop directly in front of him with a notepad to his right and a pen between them. Gotham University had enrolled him early with ease, finding the tests he took to be beyond most college scores and his father’s money promising. Who didn’t want a Wayne at their university? Especially one so set on actually running the business that Bruce seemed to be throwing away. He could see his professors’ eyes light up like Damian brought a cooked goose to a poor man’s Christmas dinner. And, so far, college wasn’t too bad. Most people were intimidated by him, but the brave and reckless were quick to accept him into their little circles and introduce him to being an eighteen year old.
Within a couple weeks he was walking the school grounds with “Seven Nation Army” blaring from his earbuds as he gave grumpy nods of recognition to one or two students if they were lucky. Damian had a reputation to upkeep after all. The grumpy, honest, rich loner thing was doing a pretty good job so far. In class he didn’t answer questions unless specifically called out, but payed attention most of the time. Some professors, mostly the sharp retired business types, deserved the sort of dutiful attention that no one could imagine a child of Bruce’s to have. Other professors, like the one today, deserved only raised eyebrowed indifference. Environmental Economic Policies. Run by an older woman who had clearly too much LSD during her days as a dirty hippie in the hobo parks of Berkeley. She was entirely illogical. The type who would proudly hold up holiday traffic with a big sign and protestors to save the whales even though the longer the cars sat there, the least likely anyone in their cars could possibly give a damn.
And, she hated Damian, too. Not just because he was a brat, but Wayne Enterprises was the second biggest Man (next to Luthor of course) that any delusional hippie would want to take down. Most days she’d let him goof off in the back of the class, but once and awhile (likely when she was feeling menopausal?), the professor would call on him and pick a good fight about renovating natural habitats for a new bank building or something of the sort. Today was that kind of day. They were towards the end of a already ten minute argument on environmentally protected lands.
“The white bellied woodpecker has five different uninhabited habitats nearby. This plot of land that needs to be developed for a new apartment complex for Section 8 families is more important than a stupid bird.” Damian said with a loud, cold clarity like someone had opened a window during a snow storm.
“So, you would happily put an endangered animal at risk to build apartments for people.”
“Not just people. Below the poverty line families.”
“Ah, Mr. Wayne. But this is an economy class. Wouldn’t the presence of low income families bring the market down?”
“Professor Holloway.” Damian snapped his laptop closed so he could stare down at her like an angry judge. “It’s a proven fact that the more families we help into the middle class boosts the economy. There will be plenty who fail, but as citizens of Gotham, we have to give people the chance to better their lives.”
“And, that’s how the Waynes managed to lose quite a bit of money in one fiscal quarter under your grandfather. If you keep giving money away without thinking about the consequences, you might be looking for section 8 housing yourself.” Holloway ended the conversation, quickly moving onto something else before Damian could get really upset. As she started to go on about the economic importance of parks, the littlest Wayne sighed as he pulled his laptop screen back up and went back to goofing off online.
Selina had spent plenty of time at Gotham U. in her younger years. Well, a few years back. The kitty cat liked to play older than she truly was. But she'd spent plenty of time there, fingers in the pockets of this wealthy student or that wealthy professor. She'd done quite a bit of "shopping" on the university grounds, and she'd even landed the job that put her in the suit at a college bar that wasn't very far from where she was standing just then. Memories, and the kitty cat didn't like thinking about her own past. The problem was that she wasn't enjoying thinking about the future very much these days either. Back then, when she'd gotten caught for a liar and taken a job that was too good to be true, she at least had a vision for her future. Now, the kitty cat was padding around Gotham without a plan. It wasn't like her, and she didn't like it.
The dead grass crinkled underfoot, and ice threatened to cling to the kitty cat's boots, and she couldn't remember the last time she'd walked out in daylight like this. She was dressed in low jeans that she might as well have been poured into, and a ribbed sweater in strikingly bright green, off the shoulder and nearly as loud as her eyes. Cat's-eye makeup, and a pretty Wayne emerald on the clip that held her spike-ink hair out of her eyes, she entered the building Damian's class was in like trouble with a sway.
She was the kind of thing that was impossible not to notice, but she managed to slink into the back of the classroom at the end of that argument about woodpeckers. That was the thing about kitty cats - they were very good at sneaking into places, and classrooms were no exception. She lifted a finger to her ruby lips, silencing a cute little blond thing who noticed the swish of her tail, and she slid into the seat behind Damian without making a sound.
The kitty cat leaned against the back of the baby bird's chair, and she looked at his screen for a few seconds before meowing, interrupting the professor with a voice that carried loud and clear from the back of the room. "Professor Holloway," she purred, and anyone who knew her would recognize the dislike in that rumble of consonants and vowels, "can you tell us how Gotham would fare, economically, if the Waynes didn't give money away? Because I can't think of anyone else in Gotham who's willing to part with their presidents. Can you? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we'd lose all our orphanages, most of our hospitals and shelters, and a lot of construction work that was contracted by Wayne Industries just to create local jobs, despite the fact that outsourcing would have been cheaper, just so that the money could go back into Gotham's economy. Or am I wrong, Professor Holloway?"
The old hippie stuttered as her stringy blonde hair fell in front of her face as she tried to push it back and show some decorum. There was surprised rage in her expression. Not just because someone had the audacity to interrupt her class, but because it was some pretty little thing defending Wayne. Damian figured she was having flashbacks to some charity dinner where a piece of arm candy ripped her a new one. He grinned, tilting his head back to look up at Selina before looking back at his professor. All charmed satisfaction.
“Excuse me.” Holloway finally spat out. “You can’t walk into a lecture and interrupt class. I’m the one in charge here and-”
“Sounds like she’s avoiding an argument to me.” Damian said loudly with a roll of his eyes that sent the entire class was snickering. Holloway’s face turned red and that usual laid back disposition changed to pure, unfiltered rage. The loose skin on her face seemed to stretch and wiggle on her skeletal cheekbones and Damian could have sworn he saw her eyes almost pop out of their sockets.
“GET OUT. GET OUT NOW.” Holloway bellowed from her pulpit. “DON’T YOU DARE COME BACK TO THIS CLASS, MR. WAYNE.”
“Does that mean I should study for the final or-” Damian raised his eyebrows as the class kept laughing nervously. He turned in his seat, pleased as kittens in a yarn factory as he looked up to Selina. “Did you bet Grayson I’d get kicked out of school by now? I think this counts as cheating.” Damian was already packing up his things and scooting past classmates to get to the stairs.
Selina gave the baby bird a lush-lipped smile before looking back up at the teacher. Those jowls weren't pretty, and the kitty cat considered telling her as much, but it was entirely too much fun to watch the woman turn red. She held her kitty cat tongue, which gave Damian a chance to sass the woman to the point of exploding. Tsk, tsk, baby bird.
"Who said this had anything to do with Fingerstripes?" Selina asked as Damian stood. "Maybe I just wanted to help increase the baby bird's cred," she suggested, her smile turning into a grin as she jumped over the back of Damian's seat and stood on the arms, even as she crouched down and kissed his cheek. The kitty cat did love the spotlight, and she got way too little of it these days.
Step, step, step, and Selina climbed over the back of the chairs until she reached the front of the room. She considered scaling the pulpit, but she didn't want jowls to have a heart attack, so conformed herself with leaning against the podium instead, arms crossed and her chin against them. "That screaming really isn't a good look for you," she said, loudly enough for her voice to get picked up in the microphone. "You might want to consider some botox. Oh, wait, no. Bruce Wayne is on the board here, isn't he? And you couldn't possibly take any money from the Waynes. You might want to wait on that botox, since you won't be accepting your salary in the future." See? The kitty cat was helpful.
Now, Damian had been in the papers before. Fifth page kind of thing. News blogs that wanted one last uplifting story after reporting how the sky was falling. Damian’s identity as Bruce’s son didn’t shock the city, but his own commitment to charity and going to school was. When he gave out kittens to help with post-traumatic stress disorder without cameras or some kind of ribbon cutting ceremony, he was hailed a practical do-gooder like Thomas Wayne was. Not quite newsworthy, but still enough to make a buzz. This though. This was going to end up on youtube. He could already see members of the audience sneaking their phones out.
Professor Holloway was too laser focused on Selina to even noticed the crowd or Damian. She took a step back, shocked, but not one to let some hussy get the better of her. In a moment of angry, loud clarity she shouted “The Waynes would have this entire region industrialized just to make the city think they’re actually helping people. It’s all for show!” The red anger turned black and sharp, as it typically does in older women. “And, you’re clearly just another casualty of the Wayne machine.” She pointed a wrinkled, tan finger at Selina. “I give you a month before you’re on a talk show promoting a book on how this new Wayne isn’t the charitable boy he says he is.” And, then she looked past Selina to Damian standing on the steps of her classroom. Waiting for the punch to land.
Damian was better than Holloway at masking his emotions, but the fact that the old woman wasn’t completely wrong about something quirked his brow. Selina wasn’t the type to exploit pain, but maybe there would come a day that she gave up on him in the same way she gave up on the Bruce here. Just insinuating that made him angry. “I’d get that finger out of her face, if I were you, Professor.” Damian said loudly brazen, voice tumbling down to the two women and out across the crowd.
Selina wasn't, as a rule, a big defender of the Wayne name. In fact, she'd never done it before. She hated what the Waynes stood for, and she hated that they had everything, while the real people of Gotham had nothing at all. The kitty cat hated all of it, and yet here she was, defending the richest family in Gotham. She would have been worried about losing face, if it wasn't for the fact that anyone who actually knew her would assume she was fleecing baby Wayne of daddy's money. Face, saved.
"Who says he won't be the one on the talk show talking about me?" Selina asked, all cheek and smugly knowing grin. Come on. This bag of jowls couldn't actually believe that the baby bird could handle her. She looked over her shoulder at the tiniest Wayne, just as he snapped about the finger wagging in her face.
Huh. Bristly baby bird. She did like it when hints of his father showed through.
The kitty cat turned back to look at the professor, and she leaned in close enough to nip the tip of that finger. "Careful. You got him angry," she said before backing away and doing a perfectly executed flip onto the arm of one of the seats just off the stage. Oohs and ahhs, and maybe the kitty cat just liked the spotlight, or maybe she was trying to diffuse the situation. She'd never own to the latter, of course.
Damian rolled his eyes a little at her showing off and then motioned to the door. “You know what, Holloway? I’m going to have a park opened in your name where all the white bellied birds can fly free. You should start preparing your speech.” He smirked and started up the stairs towards the exit, waiting outside for Selina to meet him in the hallway. When she showed her pointy ears, he gave her a dry, unamused look that she knew to mean the exact opposite by now.
“Looking for a free meal, cat?” He asked her, crossing his arms as he leaned on the wall behind him. Damian’s eyes rose to the family jewel she was wearing, nearly guessing where it came from, before looking back at her. Even though the little bird belonged to a world far away from a college campus, he looked like he was blending in as well as a Wayne could. His normally formal attire was replaced by a black pea coat, designer jeans and a tshirt that had some local, terrible rock band across it. It didn’t look natural to anyone that actually knew him, but it was convenient that no one at this college did.
Selina's prowl out of the room was slow and intentional, chair arm to chair arm, and it felt good just to be able to move again, the stitches gone and the soreness they'd brought with them a memory. She took her time joining him in the hallway, and she pressed her shoulders back against the opposite wall, hips canted forward and demeanor entirely functional kitty cat. "Who said the kitty cat was hungry?" she asked, looking over his choice of wardrobe with a grin that widened as her green gaze slid down his body, then back up. He looked nothing like his daddy in that outfit, but it suited him. And she looked nothing like the kitty cat in her hobo sweater. "We're both playing parts today," she added, just that, and no further comment on his attire.
She pushed away from the wall, and she came close, close, before turning and leaning against the wall beside him, shoulder to shoulder. "Is there anything the kitty cat should know about canopic jars located by the necropolis of Dra' Abu el-Naga' on the West Bank of the Nile?" she asked without warning. He'd known about the artifacts to create the Pit, and if Ra's was asking her to fetch something for him that was dangerous, well, the kitty cat wanted to know that going in. "There's supposed to be the inscription on them of a man, standing over what appears to be a closed double helix at the top, the bottom is open."
Damian was good at keeping his confidence, but when she prowled close his eyes darted to the side like she was embarrassing him. He recovered quickly, exhaling a breath that had been caught in his throat as she rounded to the side of him. She needed information. Of course she did. Appeasing his grandfather wasn’t going to be as easy as stealing some artifact from a museum. “He who inspires great terror.” Damian said ominously after a moment. “There’s always a lesson my grandfather chooses for these sorts of quests. In the Dra’ Abu el-Naga rests the bones of Amenhotep and his mother.” His brow raised sternly, seeing a correlation even if it didn’t have anything to do with the cat.
He looked at her. “How much does Ra’s know about you and me?”
The explanation meant nothing to her. She put on a good show, but she wasn't very educated. That had caught her up multiple times during her career, getting her snagged when she was pretending to be something she wasn't. She'd gotten better, but she still had no idea what Damian was talking about. Back home, Gwen had checked out all her jobs and, before Gwen, Lola had; she'd never hunted for her own mice in those days, and she had to take the baby bird's word when it came to this one.
It wasn't the explanation that surprised her, but the question did. She turned to face him, shoulder still against the wall and her gaze unflinchingly settled on his face. Oh, she knew she'd embarrassed the baby bird earlier, but she liked reminding him of who she was every once in awhile; he tended to forget. "Nothing. He said the Bat and his birds had me domesticated, and he said there were some jewels for me in the cavern that I could keep for myself. I don't think he knows about us," she said, but she sounded worried. "Why, Damian?" The mention of the dead king's mother struck a chord, of course, but the kitty cat didn't think Ra's knew enough to be sending the baby bird messages through her.
Damian kept his eyes fixed to a place beyond her shoulder before she asked why. Suddenly his eyes snapped up to meet her unflinching gaze. “My mother said the birds and the bats are the ones who tamed me.” His grandfather might have been planning to make an example out of Damian. If he would have stayed with his mother, the kingdom would have been his. Maybe the same lesson could be learnt by the cat. If she stayed away from the birds and the bat, she’d have all the jewel stealing adventures she could ever want. “If he’s asking for the canopic jars, that means he wants the remains. Hearts, lungs, kidneys. The kinds of things dead royalty aren’t too keen to give up.”
He bit down on his lip in thought with an expression that was very Grayson. “If the Lazarus Pit works here, that means there’s some element of magic capabilities. And, grandfather doesn’t just collect trophies. He could do something with those jars if you bring them back to him.” Damian didn’t like any of this, even though he knew it was exactly the kind of thing Selina signed up for. “I know you don’t want a lecture on safety precautions or consequences for your actions, but this whole thing reeks of stupidity.”
Selina didn't like Talia al Ghul. She'd never met her, but she didn't need to meet her. She knew what the woman had done to her own child, and she'd seen what this Bruce's version of the woman had done to him and to Gotham. Even in her own time, the baby bird existed, and some of his origin there must have been the same as the young man's before her. No, there was no love lost between the kitty cat and the woman who had given birth to Damian. "Your mother was wrong," she said simply, more hiss in the words than she intended there to be. Moments like this, it was hard to forget how young Damian had been before coming here, and the kitty cat had a soft spot for broken youngsters, even if she didn't own up to it.
"I knew he wasn't asking just to ask, baby bird. Why do you think I'm here?" she asked. Oh, she knew she was walking a tightrope, one that couldn't hold for very long, but that's what she always did. She'd intended to turn against the Bat, to turn against the boy in front of her, but she was finding it hard. If she could just steal, just be who she'd been before, when she'd straddled the fence, then it would be fine. But she was starting to realize she might have come too far for that. The kitty cat she'd been wouldn't have stopped to consider what Ra's might use the jars for, but here she was, pawing at the baby bird for information, instead of just going to claim her trinkets.
"Don't we want to know what he's up to?" she finally asked, pushing away from the wall. It was a good way to play both sides of the coin, and that was starting to look like the best option in this game she'd started playing. "I get paid, and we find out what he wants. He'd just send someone else for it, if he really wanted it, and we wouldn't know about it." See? They kitty cat could reason it all out, if she just thought about it for a second.
Damian paused, shoulders up as he weighed the options and then nodded to agree with her. “All right.” He moved away from the wall and started walking with her towards the outside doors. “Even if magic can’t exist in that tomb, you need to be careful of basic traps that I’m sure you’ve had some experience with. Most assassins, including the Talons, developed their own traps based on old ideas. In the Middle East, you have things like spikes, poison, pitfalls. That kind of thing. Amenhotep was a warlord, so expect a lot of ancient weaponry swinging from the walls and ceilings.” He opened the door for her, stepping out into the biting cold winter afternoon.
He walked a little longer, hands in his pockets before turning back to look at her. “If there is magic in that cave.” Damian tried and failed to look concerned. “It would have to do with the Amduat. A book written in his time about the different stages of the afterlife. Like the Divine Comedy in a way, but for Egyptians. My mother told me stories of the twelve trials. Some of them are good, some of them are very dangerous and tricky.” He stopped, then quietly. “I don’t like you doing this alone.”
"You're really telling the kitty cat to be careful of magic?" she asked, falling into step beside him. She was a practical kitty cat, and fearing magic generally wasn't part of the equation. Now the traps, those she paid attention to. All thieves knew to expect traps and trip wires, especially if they went breaking into very special places. Old Egyptian tombs had to count, right? She quirked a brow when he stopped. "You don't think someone's going to notice if you hop a plane to Egypt with me, Damian?" she asked, her lips quirking upward in sheer entertainment. Not only would her cover be blown, but he'd earn himself quite a little reputation, not to mention wagging tongues about the Wayne men and kitty cats. She shook her head. "Your daddy needs you here," she added, which was true. Bruce was trying to mend fences, but she wasn't sure he'd be able to do it alone, and the baby bird was certainly more persuasive than Bruce was.
“What do you think the Lazarus Pit is? Bath salts?” He puffed up like an angry robin squawking at a cat climbing his tree. “Just watch. That place is going to be cursed and you won’t know what to do.” Damian ignored that cats like her always landed on their feet. He liked to think she had to claw a little more without him around. He let it drop, though. If she wanted to play tag with a couple mummies, he wasn’t going to stop her. Especially since the next thing she said was just as frustrating.
“You show up at my class, make a scene,” he started counting on his fingers “tell me about some unexplored tomb you’re going to be spelunking and then say I can’t go because I need to babysit the rest of the family?” Damian threw his hands up in his old man grumpy fit. “This is bullshit.” Jade gasped in horror in his head. Yeah, he said it. Damian didn’t swear much, but when he did it was supposed to show he was really serious about something. A bad habit he picked up from having Roger in his head when this all started.
She never thought of the Pit as magic. Maybe it was, but that seemed entirely too whimsical. Kitty cats liked whimsy, but Selina would rather be practical when it came to things that she was stealing or things that might kill her. "If I don't know what to do, I'll call," she told him, as if she would be able to get a signal in an Egyptian tomb. And anyway, she really didn't think Ra's was sending her all that way to die. As a test, maybe, but not one she couldn't pass. He was crazy, and he did nothing more impressive than repeat the same thing, over and over, like a broken record, but there wasn't a win in sending her off to die that way. Maybe she was giving him too much credit, but she'd heard so much about the al Ghuls at this point, and she expected them to be impressive.
She watched him count on his fingers, her expression exasperatingly fond as he progressed. She laughed when he threw his hands in the air and cursed. Her laugh was an honest and throaty laugh, sensual without meaning to be, and then she leaned in and kissed his cheek. "Where do you think you're needed most, Damian?" she asked as she pulled back. Let him decide.
Damian sighed, giving a sort of reluctant smile at the peck to his cheek that was a mix between a smirk and a grimace. He was like a child who didn’t want to admit he loved his birthday. Or an old man who tried really hard to pretend he didn’t like grandkids running around his yard. “I want to go with you.” Flatly honest, never one to wonder what it was that he wanted. Even if that didn’t quite match up to what his family, what this city needed. He sighed, rolling his eyes dramatically. “But, I’m needed here. And, I need to take college seriously. Or at least not flunk out in the first month.”
Another exasperated sigh, this one directed upwards like something beyond a tomb had cursed him with responsibilities and maturity. He looked back at her with that unamused Wayne squint that meant a lot more than it seemed to imply. “Call me when you get back. I’m giving you a week and a half tops or I’m going to go looking for you. And, you don’t want that.”
She smiled. She'd known what he'd pick, if she left the choice to him. The baby bird never let her down when it came to choices. Well, there was the incident with the Talons, but she was choosing to forget that for a moment. Even what had happened with Jaybird wasn't something she criticized; she would have done the same thing, after all, hatred of the green goop aside. Well, maybe with Jaybird she would have thought it over for awhile; she wasn't particularly close to that bird. But had it been Bruce, or Damian, or the kitten? She would have made the same, exact choice.
"I won't be going for a few days at least," she said, moving away from him, hips swaying as she began down the hall. She turned down the way, facing him and walking backward, expecting walking traffic to part for her. "Blondie and I are trying honesty," she said, all exaggeration and air quotes. "I need to get her okay before disappearing for a few days. Miss me," she ordered, calling the command from down the quickly crowding hallway.