Wren and Selina have claws (laminette) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-02-21 23:31:00 |
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Entry tags: | beast, catwoman, plot: switch |
Who: Selina (with a brief Wren appearance) and Henry (who is normally the Beast)
What: Getting the naked man clothing
Where: Passages
When: Recently
Warnings/Rating: None
There was no warning. The change was abrupt as waking from a very bad dream, and Henry almost fell over when he tried to step forward with his right paw and realized it was five fingers gripping at empty air. He realized somewhat belatedly that he was cold, a sensation that had not taken him a very long time. The air plunged all the way through him, gripping the goosepimples on his skin and pressing down to reach his bones, shriveling all his limbs close to his body in an ultimately pointless attempt to replace what he’d had only a moment ago. Henry let his chin drop slowly to look down the length of his body, wondering at how fragile the long muscles and pale skin looked when he was used to seeing the now-familiar pads, claws and fur.
Awkwardly he put one hand back to keep himself steady, feeling fingers that felt bald without the grip of curved claws slide uselessly down the peeling wallpaper. Henry lifted the other hand and touched his face, feeling the alien smoothness along the curve of his nose. He pushed from the wall and righted himself on two wobbly legs, attempting to grip the carpet with pathetic stubs of toes and finding the lack of a tail difficult to manage for a few seconds as he tipped back and forth. Feeling like a foolish colt trying to walk in spring and yet somehow overjoyed with the sight of his ridiculous long pale feet, Henry looked up and down the hallway.
He realized he was alone in Daniel’s world. Daniel was not in sight (not that he actually knew what Daniel looked like), and as always, Daniel was not in his mind to assist. Daniel was purely words on the page except in the most rare of circumstances--dreams, typically--but fortunately they had gotten into the habit of communicating regularly, and despite the strangeness of the place, Henry wasn’t frightened. He simply needed to obtain some clothing, and he could navigate this strange landscape with Daniel’s resources.
It was, admittedly, a considerable first step.
Selina still hadn't managed to leave the general vicinity of the hotel.
Oh, she knew where home was - where Blondie's home was. She had contact numbers, addresses, all kinds of useful things on her phone. Her last trip to Vegas had resulted in her having no knowledge of where Blondie lived, and Blondie kept things updated in the phone now as a result; no point in repeating the past. Which meant Selina could have left hours ago. She met with Dickie, and then she wandered the dusty hallways. She'd left the roof the normal way; using the stairs. Gravity didn't like her much in the desert this time around, but she found she didn't mind it like she should.
And that was why she stayed in the hotel. It wasn't that she was someone other than herself; she wasn't. But there were things missing. Important things that she knew should be there. The Pit hunger still swirled in her belly, and she still wanted to chase trouble until it caught her by the tail and made her scratch to go free. But there was something calm there too. Something she couldn't remember ever feeling, not in the entirety of her little life. She knew it had something to do with not being the Cat, but she didn't want to think about it too much.
No, Selina wasn't wandering the halls to think. She was wandering the halls to get used to her own fur.
She was dressed in skinny jeans that clung to her long legs, along with a snug grey t-shirt that bore a faded black Batlogo. She had heavy boots on her feet, and her chunky black hair was held in place by a clip inlaid with diamonds and onyx. She looked like any hipster college student anywhere, and the only thing that was missing was a pair of earbuds in her ears. But there was something more to her that made her stand out as she prowled the halls of the dusty old building; grace.
She stepped off the landing and turned to go back down the next flight of stairs, but something at the end of the hall caught her attention. Now, whip or no whip, Selina didn't scare easily. Scaling a building might be harder than it should be just then, but she could still claw and scratch and fight like nobody's business; she wasn't afraid of something at the end of a hallway. She wandered toward the movement, and the movement came into view and became a person. Her green eyes (duller now than in Gotham) were still bright things lined in kohl as she took in the naked man in the hallway.
"I guess you don't have anything for me to steal," she purred, still all Cat in the way her lips tipped up warmly at the corners, her voice all husky tease and invitation and no shame whatsoever.
Henry turned away from the window, from which he’d been studying the long flat landscape, the cluster of monstrous tall buildings crouching in the center of it, and the otherwise empty sky streaked with thin strips of dull gray. He tipped his head slightly, unsmiling, trying to take her in. He visibly sniffed the air, lifting his chin and flaring narrow nostrils in a very brief, ultimately useless movement. He got nothing but dust, and the marked difference in the senses available to him showed on his face, which creased in surprise and consternation.
Henry’s deliberately carved face was generally without line, and his skin was very pale, both things that implied newness and youth--but Henry was old beyond his years, and it showed in the recovery of his expression and the serious depth to his eyes. He inspected her instead with eyes alone, finding his sight ten times improved from what it had been. She was very exotic to his eyes, her dark hair cropped as short as a man’s yet keenly feminine. His expression became admiring fairly quickly, also equally transparent, but it was a subtle emotion and not a physical reaction--the latter would have been immediately obvious, since he turned to face her fully. The lines of his body were long, as he was very tall, and his fingers and feet were elfin under rough hair the color of oak moss.
The result of all this watching was an extended pause, at least thirty seconds long, in which he simply stood there and stared at her. He was not in the least bit embarrassed or concerned about his appearance; it had been some time since he had been clothed, and he wore a cloak only in sleet and hail. He was aware, intellectually, that it was inappropriate, but it didn’t show in his manner. There was much about him that was solemn without immediate necessity. He attempted to speak lightly. “Alas, but my heart is left,” he told her. He gave her a smile that could have melted chocolate with absolutely no effort. It was gentle and handsome without intensity.
She wouldn't have been a very good thief if she didn't pay attention to things, and Selina didn't need Gotham to be a very good thief. She caught the sniffing, which marked him as someone who didn't spend a lot of time in these unimpressive hallways. Her side of some door, then, not someone from here. The nudity said something too. It spoke of someone who had either got kicked during sex (doubtful, he didn't smell of it), or who normally didn't wear clothes. She hummed thoughtfully, a sound deep in the back of her throat that sounded like she'd found an unexpectedly shiny distraction. Animal, robot, non-human of some kind. Maybe even an artificial intelligence. She smiled a lush grin at her own wandering thoughts, and she moved closer with a confident sway of her denim-clad hips. Maybe he was a nudist? Doubtful, but possible.
As for the admiring expression? Oh, that was nothing she didn't expect. She knew she didn't need Gotham for that either. The fact that he didn't rise to the occasion just marked him as older than he looked. The teenage boys she took care of had to hide beneath cushions and behind couches every day; older men didn't have the same problem. She liked the challenge better, which was why she never wound herself around one of the baby birds for fun. The chase was part of the foreplay, and little boys didn't know how to play that game yet.
Pretty fingers and pretty feet. No, definitely not human. He would have been dirtier. And the lack of inhibition was decidedly frank, and unlothario in nature. She leaned one hip against the wall, her kohl-lined eyes appraising, and then she rolled her torso so her body was pressed back against the flat surface. Her head stayed turned toward him though, and her smile widened. "Oh, I don't think you have a heart that I can steal. Don't tempt me, though," she said; she did like a challenge. As for that smile? It made her laugh outright, a warm laugh, as if he was part of some special secret. "I play that game for a living," she told him, before glancing down the hall. "How about we steal you something to wear instead?"
Henry wrapped long, sparsely muscled limbs around his upper torso in an attempt to ward off the cold. Such an observant woman would note that his right arm was slightly more muscled than his left, the latter defined in a different way, a way that suggested stamina and not great power. There was no red or bronze from the sun, and nothing to suggest pampering except for a mere lack of dirt. The distance of his gaze and his continuing examination of his surroundings implied that despite his appearance and her beauty, he was not immediately concerned with the chase. Other, heavier things weighed on his mind.
“I would be grateful, though I am no thief, and I do not know that I would like to begin my presence here in such a manner,” he admitted. He was quite serious in an absent-minded way, as only well-born men that happen to be very naked can be when they’re preoccupied with life or death matters. The way she spoke of games when he brought up stealing hearts suggested to him not a courtier in search of a husband but a whore in search of a customer, but Henry had known many such women and found them to be generally amiable and pleasant to him. No judgment passed his thoughts or his lips, though he did assume she was native to this world as he was not. He looked her over and gave her a rueful smile. “I see you do not have any cloth to spare, however.”
"It's exactly how I want to begin my presence here," she assured him, her smile something enigmatic that lived between teasing and truth. Her face lit up a little with the thought, because maybe she would feel more like the Cat she was supposed to be if she helped herself to a little something on the way back to the boring lair of domesticity that Blondie and the antihero shared. But then she'd have to come back for him, and who knew what would happen to him here, naked, in the dark hallway. More smile, and he was lucky she wasn't feeling predatory. But no, even here, Selina preferred being chased to chasing. He was safe, even though she was fairly certain he didn't need that safety, not from her.
She looked down at herself when he said she didn't cloth to spare, and she plucked at her worn shirt with graceful fingers that were smooth and youthful. "I would give you my shirt, but I don't think it would fit you," she said, and she moved closer then, a push of hips to get away from the wall, and stalk that was all feline as she finished closing the space between them in the hallway. Closer, and she noticed his arm then. Her sage-green gaze dropped, lingered, and then she looked up at his face. "That isn't a gun arm," she said knowingly, even as she held her own arm (the right) forward for him. Like him, she was a little uneven. Nothing you'd notice right away, but her whip arm was definitely more defined than the other. "A sword? An ax? A bow?" she asked, a curious little tilt of her head and no attention whatsoever to his more intriguing attributes.
She jerked her head then, a little movement, toward the stairs. "I can get you something from my door. It might be a little big, but it'll be better than me taking my shirt off for you."
He turned slightly to accommodate her approach, like a dancer--and like a fighter. He kept his weight centered and he was getting his grace back quickly, like a half-remembered skill not practiced for some time. She moved like a woman wise to the ways of men and the world, and he managed to stop thinking his dire thoughts and focus again on her lithe warmth as she got within reach. His eyes widened slightly, not through any particular effort, but in the shadow of the window panes. His eyes were hazel, old weathered wood and deep forests.
He chuckled through closed lips. It was a dangerous sound, though he himself had no warning about him. “An axe is beyond my strength even on my best days.” He did have an accent, very slight and hinting of foreign lands, but it was no land on a map in this world. The antiquated turn of phrase made him sound behind, yet he made quick conclusions. “A gun. This is a weapon of this world?” His eyes flashed over her head. He was more than tall enough to manage it. The gaze grew speculative when she mentioned her door, and he nodded at the offer. Anything, at this point, would be better than what he had. “I can pay,” he suggested.
She could appreciate graceful movement. She'd had a Bat fetish for years, hadn't she? For all the Bat's bulk, and despite the weight of the suit and the laws of gravity, the Bat could be as graceful as Dickie in his own way. She'd always appreciated that, all that raw power and the ability to glide like silk. So, she noticed when he kept his weight centered like a fighter would, and she noticed the nuanced difference between these movements and the turn from the hazy window when she'd first gotten there. Oh, he was interesting, wasn't he? Her expression, which had turned inquisitive as she neared, reverted to something warm and intimate when his eyes widened slightly. She did love tells. It was the thief in her. She might not have Eddie's wit or Bruce's detective skills, but she was great face-to-face.
When he said he couldn't raise an ax, she gave his arm a closer look, and then she looked at his face again. The accent registered, but it wasn't important to her. The farthest she'd made it from Gotham was Metropolis, and she didn't have a point of reference. The one thing that got her caught more often than anything on high-end jobs was her lack of knowledge of things beyond grimy streets. His accent was just an accent to her; it didn't tell a story.
Now, the question about the gun, that was telling. "I'll show you," she said, because he wouldn't be able to shoot it. Where was the harm? She didn't hate guns like the Bat did. They just weren't her preferred weapon, since they could be turned against her if things went wrong on a job. She turned, and she reached back even as she did it, hand brushing his hip, then curving around his wrist and tugging, before letting go again. "Oh, I'm not charging you anything. I want to see what you can do once you have something decent to wear," she said, hedonism dripping from every syllable.
He’d been exaggerating some about the ax. Henry was certainly capable of hoisting one, even the kind used in battle, but he wasn’t built with that kind of hewing in mind--not enough in the shoulders, too much in the height. Besides, he didn’t have a mark on him that was immediately visible to her, with the window and wall at his back. Only the way he held himself and the fact that he had not told her that sword and bow were beneath him hinted that he was at all capable of doing anything more than a waltz on a bored day.
That and the slow, thoughtful age in his eyes, especially when he looked away from her face.
The touch to the curve of his hip seemed to break a barrier he’d been careful not to cross. He twisted his palm, not quickly, but with obvious intent and enough time to pull away. Allowing his fingers to drag down over the fine bones that made up the joint between her finger and thumb, Henry took a very deliberate step back. It spoke of a polite warning. The hazel eyes went a little dark, in a way that was not entirely pleasant. He frowned.
“Sooner rather than later,” he said, in a tone intentionally curbed. “It has been a very long time since I’ve touched a woman and I would prefer to do it with some semblance of humanity.” It was spoken almost as if he was scolding her, except he was looking upward, at the ceiling, at something or someone that wasn’t there. He was listening for something that was now beyond human ears. A sense of inhuman dislocation colored his movement. A series of muscles contracted, somehow making him more compact. It looked like he was ready to fight someone off, but he wasn’t seeing anyone. “Sooner,” he repeated.
He frowned. She laughed. "Calm down. I'm not purring at you," she told him. "You'd know if I was." Because even she realized she came on strong. The Pit in her veins made that particular tendency even stronger, but he was safe with her. "And you just touched a woman, or don't I count?" she asked, tease and a glint in her eye, and the definite feeling that she wasn't very serious about things. You could take the Cat out of the girl, but she still liked to bat at mice.
She moved ahead of him then, toward the stairs, and she thought over his comment about humanity as she went. She thought about that impatience too, the glance toward the ceiling. If he was a job, she would have said she needed more pre-planning to get it right. But he wasn't a job; he was just a naked mystery in a hallway, which was almost as good, even if it didn't come with a payoff. He was a distraction from Bruce, from whatever she'd find at that quaint little house in the suburbs. A glance over her shoulder showed her all those flex-tense muscles of his as he repeated that word, sooner, and she just shook her head. Just like a man; always in a hurry.
By the time she reached the steps, she had turned to look at him, her hand gliding along the railing as she tipped her head, beckoning him forward. "Now that we've established that I don't want to have my way with you in the hallway, why don't you tell me who you're worried about?" she asked, all curiosity without intent, the need to know things that had always been part of her, even as a little girl. She almost asked him what he normally was, but she waited. Sometimes pouncing right away wasn't a good idea.
He was no mouse. He didn’t move like one, he didn’t think like one, and while he might not have had her sinewy way with the cool air and the soft dust, he had a soft tread and he probably could have managed walking down the railing as well as he did the stair. He wound down it, taking first a couple steps to the left and to the right, making sure she was about three steps ahead of him and out of his reach. This was habit, but he was more aware of her than he had been when they were still in the hallway.
Henry was the one that did the chasing, in every circumstance.
“I think you mistook my meaning, lady,” he said, with a deadpan address that took the implications of the RenFaire entirely out of the word. “I don’t think I would mind a tumble in the hallway, but our meeting is poorly timed.” He said it with a very faint apology and a hint of hidden teeth. If she looked back he had a smile for her, and if the first one would have melted chocolate, this one would have lit candles.
“I am not worrying, at the moment. I am planning. Archers must be good planners, or we miss our mark.”
Mouse was a relative term when it came to Selina. Anything too prey, too easy, too quickly caught bored her. She liked challenge, and anything challenging was made to be batted at, to be poked at with claws. She would take a snap of teeth with the same pleasure as a warm around around her waist, and she hadn't played that kind of game in a year. She'd been a very good girl, and where had it gotten her? Oh, she'd caught herself a Bat, but she'd broken a family apart in the process, and she had no idea how to keep said Bat now that she had him. It all left her feeling antsy, and playing, that helped. That always helped.
She was impressed by the softness of his steps on the stairs. He should have made more noise, given his weight, and he should have been felt more against the wood, and the fact that he didn't made her smile a conspiratorial little smile that he he could just catch the corner of. "Are you sure you aren't a thief?" she asked, entertained by the three steps between them, impressed as well. Selina wasn't easily impressed. Tony had managed it, Bruce managed it, and Damian had managed. Maybe he'd join the list, if he was lucky.
"I'm a lady, am I?" she asked, and there was a fair dose of purr in the question. "Do I get diamonds? I'm sure ladies get diamonds," she said, and she could tell by his deadpan that he meant it. This wasn't Tony's teasing (her expression went somber for just a second). No, this was genuine, and she discounted robots and artificial intelligence as options. "You'd have to catch me, and I'm not sure you could manage it," she said of a tumble in the hallway. It wasn't a no, but the line was delivered with the kind of confidence that said she would take a lot more work than that. Her smile said she was worth the effort.
"You're planning to shoot the ceiling?" she asked, tease and taunt, rounding onto the landing that housed the DC door.
Henry was a leader. He made absolutely no attempt to impress, because an inherent confidence at birth and a ground-in refusal to give in to hell bestowed him with the assumption that he would, eventually, make his worth known, be you enemy or friend. He did not consider this woman an enemy, nor even a potential enemy, but that did not make him trust her. Henry needed very little from the people around him these days. He was not a charmer the way he once was. For why should he be? What would it win him? No love, for certain. Not revenge, either. These were all he cared about. It made him more like steel than like carved wood, and it took some of the humor out of his hazel eyes.
“If your attention is worth diamonds alone, you sell yourself short, I imagine,” he said, again with a serious but also without any coy suggestion. He had said he could pay, and he planned to use Daniel’s money, but the Beast had owned little of any real worth. Gone was the young man that valued wealth and birth. He had left it for a lark and then lost it in a war. Diamonds and jewels were now simply means to an end and the lure of other people without anything important on their minds.
Henry set pad and then heel onto the landing, rotating so he continued to face her. He liked her open manner, as any gently-born lady would have run screaming and done him absolutely no good at all. Her ease in the building of many doors suggested much to him, and he valued her acquaintance and therefore treated her as more than what he assumed to be her profession. “Are you really in need of diamonds in your world?”
She just grinned at his comment about her attention, a smile that retained youth while being entirely mature. It was a contradiction, but then she was a contradiction. The sum of her parts should have added up to create a girl that lacked any femininity, but she managed to retain something inherently more female than most women in dresses. And as for being a girl? No, she was young, but there was nothing about her that pretended at youth. Not like this, anyway, when she was in control and at her best. It took toxins and plagues to bring out the girl she was, and she was good at hiding it so deep that even she didn't know it was there otherwise.
Was she really in need of diamonds? "No," she assured him as she made her way down the new hall. Her back was to him now, but she would hear (react and turn) if he closed the distance between them in any way. Her voice carried, but it didn't speak louder than the natural sway of her hips. "I don't need diamonds," she assured him, coming to a stop beside a door that shifted and changed to become something gated and grand. Helpful little hotel. "I like them. I like the power that comes with shiny things, and I like the thrill of taking them from people," she said plainly, because here in the dark it was just gloaming and cobwebs, and because she wasn't that Cat from Gotham just then.
Despite the fact that she slipped her key in a door that led right into Bruce Wayne's bedroom. She typed before crossing, fingers quick on the keys of the phone, because Blondie would need instructions once she found herself in that bedroom. "Leave the door propped? And if the woman on the other side doesn't check the phone, tell her to," she said, pocketing it into the denim jeans a second later, and waiting for his agreement before crossing.
His reaction to the Door was not at all like hers. He stepped back rather than forward, as if the beautiful gates might grow claws and reach out for him to sink into his pale flesh and never let him go. It was a fear, but a visceral fear, a sharp flash full of alarm and anger. The hazel eyes went young and wide as he saw the Door change, for his Door had always been the same, and he had not been near enough to Daniel to see through the man’s eyes. Henry retreated solidly to the opposite end of the hall, facing the door and ducking his chin to watch it through the extreme of his lids. He almost growled, but he hadn’t the vocal chords or the instinct for it. He just went still and watched it for a solid ten seconds, waiting for something more to happen.
Nothing did, and he slowly straightened, though he didn’t quite relax. He disliked the Doors and the long halls ten times more than he had a few minutes ago. “Magic,” he said, with extreme distaste gone dry with age. “Many people earn what is theirs, and that is all they have. Use caution with your thrills before they do you ill,” he warned the woman. It was not a threat, just the voice of experience. He had absolutely no idea it was an old message she had likely heard a dozen times.
Henry again settled his arms over his chest, not going near the Door for more reasons than one. “If you think she will listen,” he agreed, finally choosing to settle with his back against the wall and both knees up in some semblance of patient modesty. He glanced aside for a window but none immediately met his eye.
His reaction to the door was surprising for just a second. "Never been on this side," she said once that youth had fled his eyes again. It wasn't a question; it was a statement. "It'll happen again. You'll get used to it," she promised, no coyness or teasing for the first time in the conversation. She still remembered her first time in Las Vegas. Her smile warmed, and she liked him more for his lack of understanding. She always had a soft-spot for the underdog, for her street boys, her working girls, her stray cats. Just then, he'd joined their numbers for a second. She wouldn't forget it. "The first time I was here, I had no idea where to go, nothing to wear, and I didn't even know where to go steal anything," she admitted, waiting until he straightened to do anything at all. It was a courtesy, the waiting, and to someone who knew her it would have been a non-verbal indicator of acceptance.
Magic, and she didn't respond. She didn't care for it much either, but there was nothing they could do to change it. She didn't like concentrating on lost causes. Underdogs, yes. Certain failure, no. But she smiled again when he mentioned people earning what was theirs. "I only take from people who have more than they need, people who won't miss what I take. People who live the good life, while others starve. People who look down their noses, who think they have a right to look down their noses. I want them to know I was there. I want them to know they lost something," she explained, the kind of passion that one usually associated with a lover in her tone. "She'll listen," she added.
And then she walked through the door.
The blonde that took over on the other side of the threshold was dressed in a black catsuit, cowl back and goggles atop pale blonde hair. Wren did look at the phone right away, without being told to, because it was just habit now, and she looked up once she was done scanning the small screen. She looked even less concerned with his nudity than Selina had, if that was possible, and she just sized him up quietly before crossing to the room's huge, walk-in closet. She had less sway than Selina when she moved, she was slower, all her actions inherently lethargic in a way that still managed to be sensual. She pursed her lips as she dragged her black-gloved fingers along shirts and shirts and shirts.
And then she returned to the door with a grey dress shirt and black slacks, both which she took the time to neatly fold as she draped them over her arm. She looked like she wasn't going to say anything at all, but in the end her sheepish expression said she couldn't help herself. "What's your name?" she asked, a curious tilt of her head that wasn't quite natural yet.
He was watching closely. It was obvious he had never seen anyone go through a Door before, not with any kind of concerted movement, and the sight was new to him. It was, again, inherently magical, and it made him wary. It was easy to forget, however, that Henry was a magicker himself, though he didn’t like the name. He always had been, and the curse did not make him magic; quite the contrary, it had prevented him from working his own ability quite neatly, and he felt that absence, though not as keenly as he might have many years ago.
He tipped his head too, a natural mirror of what she did when she moved, and as she moved away he pushed with his heels and rose to his feet in an assembly of movement. The soft blonde was somehow more disconcerting than the keen, open dark-haired woman. He smiled at her, but it was a new one, and meant to soothe. Henry had always been a natural with people. In the past, it made him manipulative even without the magic at his disposal. A charismatic leader, adept at leading his people into certain death.
“Henry,” he told her. It was his name, told without pause and without blink. It was the name he had taken with him when he’d left his father’s fold, and traveled amongst the people as a fiddler that they had liked far more than the useless second prince in the castle in the hills. A deeper tip of his head, in the same way. “What’s yours?” Reaching out long arms, he spread two palms for the clothing.
Wren didn't need soothing just then, but she didn't mind it either. She had no idea who he was on the other side of the door, but she didn't recognize him as anyone threatening, and that was all that really mattered. Anyway, she was pretty sure Selina wouldn't have opened the door to Bruce's bedroom in front of someone dangerous. Still, she'd spent enough time in her life with men to know he was completely harmless, but maybe that's why Selina was helping him. She was, admittedly, curious.
"Henry," she repeated with a smile, slow and a little too sandpaper rough to fit the pale blonde exterior just right. She slid the folded clothing to the end of her hand, so the tips of the pants and shirt made it through the door, without any part of her touching it. "Wren," she answered, without any attempt to demure or hide her identity. After all, no one was going to have hidden identities after this. But she couldn't remember ever seeing anyone named Henry on the journals. She wasn't very good with public interaction, but she did read almost everything that went on. Until recently, she hadn't minded her inability to make friends easily. But she did these days, having lost the two people she confided in most for different reasons, in rapid succession.
"Do you need anything else?" she asked a moment later, because dwelling wouldn't change anything. Normally, she was a dweller, a worrier, a replayer of memories. But it didn't seem so important now, when nothing stayed and nothing was permanent. Distraction was the man of the hour, and she gave him a smile that went a little brighter. "Don't let Selina con you."
Henry was starting to realize that the sudden appearance of naked men in hallways did not discomfit the women of this age. He found that vaguely entertaining; there was a time many years ago when he would have found it a beguiling challenge, but now it seemed only a footnote in his mental entry of the world around him. Without growls and temper, Henry found that he lived much in his head. How not? There had been no one to speak his mind to in a long time.
He smiled in amusement. “Con me? Out of what? My skin?” Henry had nothing of value and none of his vulnerabilities were immediately apparent--outside of the obvious maleness of standing there without clothes. When he’d been a young man Henry had been quite smug about his natural attributes, thanks very much, and right now there was simply a lack of shame. He lifted the shirt to examine it. “Very fine,” he said, admiringly, looking at the close weave of the gray shirt and its small buttons.
“Can you tell me how to go to... something called the Turning Berries Place?” He was asking politely, all while he tried to figure out the zipper on the pants so he could widen the waist long enough to stick a leg through. Folding at the waist to wiggle toes through the first sheath of cloth, the new tight paleness of his skin stretched down the just visible curve of his shoulder down the scapula, revealing the first of many old scars. Battle wounds: long harsh marks likely of blunt blades, something that looked like claws or teeth, and even a puckered mark that was the ugly leaving of an arrowhead, much larger than the scars left by typical bullets. That particular mark went jagged down the back of his ribs toward the middle of his spine. He turned once more to step into the pants and pull them up, again facing her. His front was almost completely unmarked, complete. Like two sides of a coin. Someone from Henry’s age might ask why he was always running from battle, if such scars were to be read casually.
Wren gave him a quiet, knowing smile when he asked what Selina could possibly con him out of. "You'd be surprised," she replied. She might not share any personal feelings or thoughts with the black-haired thief, but she knew enough to know that precious gems weren't the only thing the younger woman tended to steal. The quality of the clothing was acknowledged with a nod. "They're Bruce's," she explained, even though they had sized to something more appropriate for Luke. But the quality was still the same, and if there was one thing she'd already realized during her brief visit to Wayne Manor, it was that everything was quality. But, and it was worth mentioning, she wasn't staying there herself. That was another story, though, and there was nothing of it in the calm look she gave him, quiet ice, distance, careful curiosity when it came to his of shame and lack of posturing attempts.
His question made her smile, though, a slow-widening smile that was all fondness and no smirking. "Turnberry Place," she corrected, and it was softly done, enough that it didn't sound like a correction at all. As for the scars, she had her fair share of experience with those. Luke's body was littered with them, but there was nothing like claw marks or teeth, and she did notice they were only on his back. But she didn't immediately think he was running from battle, though she had a hard time figuring out another scenario. She considered it as he fought with the pants, and she looked up to meet his face once he was done. "Selina can get you there, if you want her to. I lived there once. Ages ago, it feels like. Or she can get you a cab, and give them directions," she suggested too, because maybe spending too much time with Selina wasn't a good thing.
"Why only your back?" she finally asked, the quiet candor something that would be familiar to people who knew her. She might be filling in for the Cat, but some things were too much her to part with, and that harmless quiet was one of them. Even in the black suit, that trait prevailed. "You don't seem like you would run, and there's more than one encounter's worth," she said, because she knew how scars looked when they were layered, over and over onto each other like painful pages in the same story.
A different man might have offered to return the clothes, or send some kind of payment for their worth. Henry was born into privilege, however, and the clothes hadn’t been given through any particular hardship, so he thought nothing more to it except to say, “Perhaps you will thank him for me.” It gave the option that perhaps she would not, as the manors in his youth were filled with young women who gave him clothes in the dead of night through windows, and none of them were particularly eager to inform husbands or male relatives. Henry began inspecting the little buttons that made the shirt impossible to pull over his head, and with delicate but extremely strong fingers, he started picking them out of their tiny, carefully threaded little holes. “Very fine work,” he said again, staring at the exceptionally detailed embroidery work, which he imagined to the product of many hours, even days.
“I will ask her, if she is willing. If not, I will walk. I can go a great distance on two feet.” He smiled, almost pleased with the prospect of walking upright, but concentrating more on his buttons. “She is a generous woman, Selina.” There was a very slight pause between the end of the sentence and the word, as if he was not sure what kind of title to put in front of it. Farmwives were mistresses, their daughters were misses, courtiers were ladies and whores could be almost anything at all. In the end he obviously decided to use Wren’s phrasing to be on the safer side of things.
One hazel eye gave her a speculative look against the ridge of his cheekbone before he again focused on the garment in his raised palms. “I fought a very long, losing war. I was an archer, and archers stay farther back from the fighting, at least until the battle turns.” Abruptly he stretched his shoulders back, settled the length of the shirt over his left forearm, and raised two hands to draw back an invisible bowstring. Then he let the arrow loose, turned slightly very much the way he had ducked into his waist for the pants, and mimed a brief circle of his arms, as if to carry something. “We picked up men and arms and ran a great deal, to fight another day. So yes, lady, I did a great deal of running.” He looked very sober and sad when he said it, and lowered his arms completely rather than fighting again with the buttons.
"Why?" Wren asked of thanking Bruce. "He didn't give them to you. I did," she said simply. She knew the clothing belonged to Bruce (or to Luke, she wasn't precisely sure), but if she gave it away, then the thanks should still be hers. It was the tiniest shift in perspective from the norm, though she didn't recognize it as such. She had no desire to go out and steal from the rich, and any anger she felt toward the wealthy was entirely her own, an old thing sown on fertile ground over years and years of life. No, it was just a tiny tweak, a quiet show of defiance. As for the work being very fine, she just made a thoughtful sound. The clothing was of the calibre that she had when she worked at Caesars, back when she made thousands of dollars in an hour. Now, life was generic ice cream and cereal, and cheap hotels, and a hundred dollars for multiple hours, and that was on a good night.
But then he was talking about walking, and she had to smile. "Maybe you should let her put you in a cab," she suggested, because the comment that followed about archers made her realize he'd probably never seen a car. "It's safer," she added, because she had no idea who he normally was in Las Vegas, but she didn't want him getting hit by oncoming traffic, either. As for his war, her normally grey eyes turned soft and sorry. She didn't know about war, but she did know about loss, and that showed on her face. "I'm sorry," she said, and it was a heartfelt thing, true emotion and sentiment in the words.
She circled back to Selina, then, and to Selina's perceived generosity. "I'm pretty sure no one has ever described her as being generous before. If you let her near Turnberry, you'll probably lose something valuable." She didn't think Selina could control herself in a place like Turnberry, even with whatever changes Las Vegas had wrought in the younger woman. "Do you have a key to your person's apartment?" she asked with practicality. Knowing that Turnberry required at least that much, and that was if he could charm the doorman to get into the lobby. He might have to be willing to part with some wealth to get in, after all. The thief could open the door for him, but only at a price.
She stepped back then, waiting for him to do the same, so that she could cross once more.
He acknowledged her sympathy with a grave nod, but he didn’t pursue the subject. Like many veterans he wasn’t interested in reliving the years he had lost, not even if he had come away victorious. It was not that he wished to lose those memories; many good things had happened, small, valuable things of friendship that he valued in the most private of ways, but it was a long hard fight that had ended in death and imprisonment, and such facts yet remained. He had no wish to discuss either one, and thought it likely better she didn’t know more sadness on his account. There was no need.
He shook out the shirt and pushed one arm into it, filling the length of silvery gray material with clean muscle and soft indentation of flesh. He was narrower in the shoulders and thinner than Bruce Wayne, and the material went tight and baggy in one line diagonally across his chest. He paid no attention. Instead he said, “I thank you, as well.” He smiled again at her, but it seemed as if from a great distance. He’d known many people who liked to give away things that were not theirs, and he thought of ownership differently. (Not as severely or fiercely as the Beast, but with perhaps the same amount of inherent privilege.)
“I have no keys, but Daniel has written instructions I am to give the man at the gate.” This, presumably, to have an escort to the apartment where he belonged. The Turnberry Place staff would probably be unsurprised that more men dressed expensively but without shoes turned up at Daniel’s behest. When he saw her retreating he folded into a polite yet earnest bow that took him down at forty-five degrees and then up again. “Delighted to meet you, Wren.” He stood back.
Wren wasn't surprised that he didn't pursue the subject of loss, and she didn't push him. Talking about loss didn't make it better, and she liked to keep her own grief close. No one else would understand how it felt to lose someone, not if it wasn't their loss, and it almost felt wrong to explain to someone who would just nod and say all the right things in sympathy. She didn't talk about Silver much because of that, and she only managed to talk about her maman now, after all the years without her. She understood, and she didn't push.
She could tell his second thank you was more distant, but she didn't understand why. But she didn't push about that either. She wasn't good at new, and she was really bad at idle, and she realized that was something that was making this transition harder for her. In the end, she didn't push about that easier. She just nodded when explained about the instructions that Daniel had given him. She tried to remember if she'd ever spoken to someone named Daniel, but she couldn't remember. At least he wasn't anyone that had caused any problems, since the name wasn't familiar. "It was nice to meet you too," she said politely, and once he backed up, she crossed the threshold again.
The change back to Selina was likely more jarring after all that pale-slow quiet. She was loud boots in the hall, and a confident smile on her lips that radiated. She looked him over, inky brow arched and a whistle on her lips a second later. "You look better with clothes on," she said without restraint.
Henry gave her a look all sardonic amusement. It was accompanied by a slight narrowing of the pleasant hazel eyes, a tip of his chin meant to indicate a rueful reaction without being any such thing, and a deliberate long-fingered hand down the length of his left arm. “You wound me deeply, dear lady.” He bowed slightly, but this one was not at all like the one he had given Wren, as it had more hip in the turn of his body and a little more in the way of fingers and chin. The subtleties of being born into court life.
He straightened again and said, calmly, “Wren said you might procure me a Cab to... Turnberry.” He enunciated carefully but his memory was good and he replicated Wren’s tone well. To accelerate the process and also imply that he was in a hurry, he took a small step in the direction they had come, toward the stair.
Selina grinned and grinned at that rueful reaction. She liked the sardonic expression on his face, and she liked the impudence in the bow. Oh, yes, she was glad to be setting him free on Las Vegas. Like she'd told Eddie, everyone she knew was less interesting here. They were all like wild creatures who'd been domesticated overnight, but he didn't have that feeling to him. She might not know him, might have never have met him before, and she might never see him again, but she could absolutely appreciate that about him.
She turned her back to him, denim and grey, the movement a graceful swivel on the foot of one boot, and then she called over her shoulder. "Well, if Blondie said I would," she told him, entertained that Wren had decided to call the shots about something for once in her life, and equally amused that she'd wasted it on this. "Keep up, if you can," she added, a challenge in the command as she rounded the stairs and headed toward the entrance.