Wren and Selina have claws (laminette) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-02-08 13:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | catwoman, door: dc comics, huntress |
Who: Selina and Helena
What: Checking on a sleeping kitten
Where: Wayne Manor
When: Recently
Warnings/Rating: None
Selina was surprised to find herself back in Gotham.
The kitty cat had honestly believed that Blondie would keep her out forever. When she'd crawled back through, after leaving Stark Tower, she'd believed that she would never see her city again. But here she was.
Selina checked for messages, and she found was the tin man's last words, and that made her want to turn around and disappear. That had never felt like a blessing before, the fact that she could become completely lost in Blondie's mind. That she could cease to exist and spare herself all the carnage she had wrought.
But the kitty cat was a curious thing, and despite Blondie's recovery from the effects of the plague and the green goop in her veins, Selina still felt off. She felt like she had as a child in that orphanage, the one who stole all day long, only to have nothing when she crawled into bed at night. She felt that hunger in her belly, the clawing need to hoard, and she wanted to catch herself a Bat with the same kind of greedy desperation that she felt the night she'd Pitted Dickie.
Oh, the kitty cat remembered. She remembered why too.
More than anything, Selina knew that this, everything that had happened, meant she needed to stay far, far away from the Bat's nest. She had messed things up during the toxin. This time? This time she'd killed and Pitted people and started a plague. Oh, no, there was no coming back from this.
But the kitty cat could be a sentimental thing, and she wanted her goodbyes, even if they didn't look like goodbyes to anyone else. In the end, she scaled the exterior of Wayne Manor, where she knew Bruce wasn't in residence. She perched in the kitten's window, cowl back and goggles around her neck, bruises still marring the skin beneath her eyes and her hair damp from exertion. Her green eyes were Pit-bright as she regarded the girl on the bed.
Helena, too, had thought that Morgan might keep her in Vegas for a bit longer, but with the city the way it was, it had only been a few days before she was allowed back through again. The bruises, courtesy of a few seizures on the floor, were fading now into yellow and green, instead of the near black-blue that they'd been when she woke up. She was still tired though, not the bone deep tired she'd been when they'd moved from the bunker to Drake Manor, but still tired.
The ravenous hunger had tapered off and she'd gained back a few of the pounds she'd lost while hooked up to IVs. Not all though, and she was still wearing multiple layers of clothes to keep that fact from being readily apparent to anyone.
Even kittens needed secrets.
And some secrets weren't really secrets. Without Tim at Drake Manor, she found herself back at Wayne Manor again, lightly dozing on the bed. It didn't take any effort to maintain the place between half-sleep and half-wakefulness, not when she was safely nested amongst a kitten's share of pillows and comforters, too relaxed to notice the feeling of someone's gaze upon her.
Selina knew she shouldn't be there. Every minute she spent on Wayne ground increased the chance she might get caught by the Bat. She didn't want to focus on that. She didn't want to consider whether the actually wanted to get caught or not. She was done with introspection. Cats were never introspective, and following their lead had always served her well when everything else failed.
And yet here she was, like a dog come home and nothing like a cat at all. But the girl on the bed was special. She was proof, hope, something silly that the kitty cat would never own to wanting. But still, the kitten was special, even if she was stupidly self-sacrificing in a way that was all Bruce and nothing catlike at all.
Selina jumped off the sill, and she padded across to the bed, where she sat and looked at the sleeping girl. She could see the weight lost from being sick, but Selina didn't worry about that much. The kitten had made it through, and she'd get her strength back. Even if Selina left the nest entirely (as she intended to do), the kitten would still be there. That counted for something.
The mattress dipped slightly with Selina's negligible weight, and she waited to see how long it would take for the kitten's senses to kick in and let her know she was being watched.
The change in weight caught Helena's attention, rousing her slightly towards being more awake and aware than asleep. But she was in Wayne Manor and it never occurred to her that anyone would try to attack her here.
With a soft noise, she simply rolled towards the other person, one eye cracking open enough to see who it was. Selina. It could have been Tim, and Hels still held onto the hope that one day Kara would show back up, just like she had shown up that day on the journals. Quiet exhaling, she curled around, sleepy and lazy until her head was resting on Selina's thigh.
"Hi," she breathed out, cheek rubbing against the thicker muscles of her leg.
Selina thought it said a lot about the kitten's life, that she didn't immediately jump up and become defensive. If someone landed on her bed without warning, something that weighed more than a cat, Selina would have her claws in them before she asked questions. But then the kitten had been raised in a house like this one, and not on the streets.
The easy affection, too, was something unfamiliar to Selina, and she looked down at the girl and thought it explained so many things about her, that willingness to trust and hug. It also put her in danger in a way that nothing else did in Gotham, and she wondered if Feathers had talked to Bruce about Ra's threats yet.
But then the kitty cat reminded herself that this was a goodbye, and she didn't ask. She just ran her fingers through Helena's hair, fanning the brown strands out over and over. "Feeling better, kitten?"
"Mmm," was all the answer she gave, warm and low as she settled into the touch. Hels had missed someone's hands in her hair, undemanding and perfectly welcome, like her mother's had been when she was home. Kara occasionally did it, but it wasn't quite the same. It wasn't the same when her father did it either and it hadn't taken long to realize that Momma Cat was comfort and Daddy Bats was the problem solver.
"Mostly. You?" She asked after a few minutes of post-doze haze. There was no big rush to wake up and be alert, to go running out or figure out why Selina was here in her room. No, for the moment she was content to lay here in her nest, head in the other woman's lap, having her hair petted and brushed across her back.
Selina would have disagreed that any version of her, regardless of universe, could be an issuer of comfort. It clashed sharply with her own youthful interpretation of herself, and she couldn't think twenty years down the line to realize she might grow into a very different Cat, under the right circumstances. She didn't think too long, either, on the fingers she was running through the girl's hair, because that didn't actually count as comfort. The kitten had been sick. What was she supposed to do?
The Cat considered telling the girl that, no, she wasn't feeling better. That her head raced, and that she couldn't stop and think about the tin man without wanting to scream. She hadn't come here to vent, and she hadn't come here to feel better herself, so there was no point burdening the nearly-slumbering girl looking back at her with eyes so similar to Bruce's that it hurt. She didn't tell her, either, that this was goodbye. Instead she just smiled, green eyes bright and fond. "As good as new. Go back to sleep, kitten," she suggested.
It never occurred to Helena that this might be anything more than a visit. Not the hands in her hair, so much like her mother's while not being hers, nor the sparkle bright eyes, glittering more than any stone had a right to. Instead she smiled, just a curl of her lips as she pressed her cheek into Selina's thigh, one hand coming up to rub at the other woman's ankle, fingers on a slow back and forth over the sharp part of the bone.
"'M glad," she murmured, voice lilting over the sleep-drawn syllables. "'M glad," Hels repeated before cracking a giant yawn. "Would have missed you." Even if this wasn't her mom or her cat, the suggestion was listened to and followed, awareness drawing out of her and easing her body further into the pile of pillows and blankets.
Selina stared at the kitten a few minutes longer, even after the girl drew further into the blankets. It was better this way, she reminded herself, and then she eased herself up carefully and backed away. She had a list of things to do, places to go and things to steal. She'd feel better once she started, and she knew herself well enough to know that. But backing away from the sleeping kitten was still hard. But Helena was safe here, and recent events had taught the kitty cat one thing about her ability to fit into the Bat's little family: She couldn't.
The window made no sound as Selina climbed through it, back into the Gotham night. It was time to give that Bat a run for his money. After all, that was her purpose here, wasn't it? It had taken so many deaths and her own mind going dull-sharp with green to remind her, but she remembered now.
She closed the window after she went, the gesture as much symbolic as to keep the slumbering kitten safe.
And if leaving Wayne Manor for good felt like leaving home? Well, the kitty cat wouldn't admit it - not even to herself.