eddie likes to (riddlethem) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-06-04 21:19:00 |
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Entry tags: | catwoman, door: dc comics, riddler |
Who: Riddler and Catwoman
Where: Eddie's apartment
When: A day after Bane gets canned
What: Getting recruited for the JLA
Warnings: Steve Trevor :[
Alone in his bedroom, Eddie Nigma was frantically getting ready to go on vacation. Dressed in his riddled PJs, a black math shirt (“For every upside-down A, there exists a backwards E”) and a Wayne bathrobe with a fancy embroidered W, he threw a large suitcase on the ground and started tossing clothes in. He was not a man of Hawaiian shirts and khaki shorts. Eddie was a man of dark, fine suits and only getting dressed after 8pm. A tropical paradise in the sun seemed to clash with this idea, along with the fact that pale nerd was kind of his thing, which meant no matter what he did he wasn’t going to blend in. So, he decided to stick with jeans and t-shirts. The last thing he wanted was to give off some rich dad vibe, anyway. The room was quiet with only the sound of shirts being taken off the racks and Gotham cars puttering past under his open window. Stephanie’s tuxedo cat, Bandit was asleep on his bed and Matilda the mutt was running from the closet to the suitcase with a ball in her mouth, both waiting to be babysat by Jenneal who lived two doors down while the two sweethearts were away. Eddie never saw himself as a lover of animals either, by the way, but he stopped counting everything that had changed in this new Gotham.
“I guess I should throw in one Hawaiian shirt.” He said to the cat and dog, the sound of coathangers being pushed together and drawers being opened echoing out of his closet. Matilda just wagged her tail in response, dropping a slobbery tennis ball at his feet and Bandit didn’t even look up. Cats. Eddie stepped out into the middle of his bedroom, a tacky green Hawaiian shirt in one hand and the tennis ball in the other. “I don’t know, this might be too much. Even for me.” He said to the dog, throwing her ball out of the room into the hallway and then turned to hold the shirt up while he looked in the mirror. It was one of those light green numbers with an awkward set of buttons, an uncomfortable collar and print designs of hibiscus flowers and words like Margaritaville in blocky island lettering. Eddie wasn’t even sure when he bought the thing or why. “Arkham luau?” He guessed, mouth screwed up in the kind of frown that suggested he wanted to burn the poor, innocent shirt.
Selina was torn.
Oh, that wasn't anything new, not for her, but that didn't mean she liked it. She could still remember the last time she saw the man in green, all those years ago - this man in green. The memories were fond ones, but then so many of her old memories were. They had hardened with age, coalesced into something unpleasant, but the memories were still there. Stubborn memories, thought the kitty cat. And she knew, despite not having seen any of this Gotham's residents face-to-face, that this Eddie was precisely the same as that one had been. Oh, she'd spied on all of them. After all, that was part of her job these days. And, maybe, she would have done it anyway. It was easy enough to keep her little kitty cat eyes peeled in a Gotham that wasn't looking for an older Cat. And the chaos had helped. It had made it easy to watch little birds get broken out of Blackgate, and little Bats rescue girls that flew, and little blonde rallying the feathered troops. As for the Bat, she'd kept an eye on him too, but for different reasons.
Oh, the JLA wasn't blatant about their reason for recruiting her, but their agenda made it fairly easy to add up the numbers and get one, big bad Bat as the answer.
But she hadn't worried about that too much in her Gotham, and she wasn't worrying too much about it here. After all, her status as an undercover JLA member meant no one actually knew she was playing for the other team. She still stole everything she wanted to. The only difference was that she was on a leash now, one that could be yanked back whenever someone wanted to yank on it. But kitty cats were very good at getting out of collars, and that's what she told herself to help herself sleep. If she needed to, she could get out.
Or, that was what she'd told herself, until that morning.
The call about bringing Eddie in was unexpected. But, in retrospect, she should have seen it coming. There had been sightings of Supermenace in Metropolis, and whispers of a Lantern, and the government got testy. The order to keep hands off Gotham while things were bad hadn't netted the desired results, and she was almost sorry for Ollie, who would have to deal with Amanda Waller's attitude as a result. Regardless, the assignment remained the same, and she wasn't a free enough kitty cat these days to tell them to fuck themselves.
Which explained how she found herself perched in Eddie's open window, a very different Cat than the one he'd known. The black suit she wore was still snug and slick, but she had given up the cowl in favor of something more practical. The eyemask was in place, the lighting visor back and her long hair loose. She was a smirk in stiletto heels, a whip wound around her waist and practical boots on her feet. She was an amalgam, changed by her past in this place into something that didn't quite fit or match.
"Even you can't get away with wearing that monstrosity, Edward," she purred.
Eddie had a hot, blurred moment of recognition and unfamiliarity that made his dark eyes go large. He snapped his head to the side and she could see all his gears ticking, tocking with Gotham survival instincts. He had three guns in the bedroom, one he could reach in a couple seconds and two he could lunge for later. If he could get to his server room he could have the whole upstairs of his apartment on lockdown and wait for whoever was after him to get bored. But, then he heard the word Edward, saw the eyemask and knew it was a kitty cat. Whatever danger was brewing his eyes vanished in a snap; easily replaced by a fond sort of slyness. “No, you’re right. I should put it out of its misery and give it to the dog as a chew toy.” He said, standing up a little straighter as he rocked back on his heels and let his mind try to calculate all the reasons why the kitty cat was there.
“I’m not used to hearing your voice yet.” He said simply tossing the green shirt on the ground for Matilda to rip apart later and got to work closing the suitcase. Halfway through zipping it up, he changed his mind and went to grab some extra socks. “I’m going to be out of town for a couple days. So, if you’re here to pitch a heist idea or you need me to break the security locks on a giant prison again, you’ll have to wait.” Eddie looked up to her, crooked smile and heavy eyelids as if his little sister had just barged in and asked him to go get her ice cream right before some big date.
She knew what that look in his eyes was. Regardless of where she'd been, the kitty cat always knew when she'd managed to surprise someone, no matter how good they were at faking it. It almost made her purr, really, the power of it. But she didn't move from her spot on the sill immediately, not this time. She let him figure it out, and she gave him a smugly feline smile when she caught the recognition in his gaze. She wasn't self-conscious about the changes in her appearance. No, if anything, she liked the even playing field. Oh, the kitty cat knew that Eddie was still much, much older than she was, but she was less a child than she had been, and with that came something like equal footing. "Dogs don't have any taste," she said with exaggerated sorrow, as if she deeply felt the fashion sense slur of the canine race.
"Has it changed that much?" she asked of her voice. Oh, her appearance had. But her voice? She hadn't considered it. "I'm not here for pleasure, Eddie," she said, because a heist or a break-in, those things would be pleasurable. She jumped off the sill then, more grace and confidence than she'd had in her youth, now with more experience behind the movement. She was still slink, but she didn't feel the need to play it up as much as she had then. She crossed the room, and she sat on his closed trunk, black-clad leg crossed at the thigh.
She pulled the paper from the utility belt that fit low on her hips, and she held it out to him. A Federal warrant, all his crimes on paper, a criminal sentence that ended in something much, much worse than the Suicide Squad. And, at the end, Stephanie's name as a known accomplice. "I've come to give you a way to wipe all that away, but you can't meow at the little blonde bat about this, Eddie, or the deal's off." She put up one glove-clawed finger. "Don't shoot the messenger. I hate wasting any of my nine lives."
“It has, it has.” Eddie confirmed about her voice, eyebrows up to tell her that her swishing velvet walk had changed, too. If she really wanted to know where on the kitty cat scale she landed, it was some strange mix between the woman he knew who dressed in all green and when the kitty’s suit was a shade of purple. The youth was still there, her heart still intact, with a familiar mix of confidence and street smarts that a kitty only learnt from a couple good falls. But, Eddie didn’t elaborate. The kitty already knew, she walked like she knew how much she had grown.
He took out his glasses that blinked online with a familiar violet glow as if he were using them to read and took the papers from her. The violet light shined over the words and Eddie looked like he was hit really hard with the serious stick. That bright geeky grin vanished into a tight expression that was trying to find his own way out of this. There were a number of ways, all viable, but they all cost him Stephanie. If he wanted to be a hero and didn’t play nice with the government, his own self sacrifice would likely lead to a manhunt for her anyway. If he convinced the world he was a crazy criminal again, he’d lose everything and hurt Stephanie more than putting a bounty on her head. Eddie rocked back to sit on the floor next to the luggage, rubbing his jaw with his hand as he kept reading over the paper like he could find a way to prove she was pulling his leg.
“I had some federal ties.” He said, voice a little lower that didn’t match the way he talked about capers, or Stephanie, or breaking into things or even Arkham. In fact, Eddie Nigma finally sounded like he was an eighty-year old trapped in a thirty-something’s body. He glanced over to the window, paused and then like magic it slammed closed with metal blast shield that had a sloppy question mark painted across it. Around the apartment, she could hear things locking up and closing on their own like the whole place was haunted. It might have seem paranoid, but Eddie’s brain could work a lot faster if he didn’t have to worry about Stephanie barging in. “I knew they weren’t going to play nice forever, once they figured out what I can actually do. I knew it.” Eddie scooted back a little to rest against his bedroom wall and snapped off his glasses to look at Selina.
“What’s the offer?”
The kitty cat recognized that expression as the same one that had crossed her face when Steve Trevor had lured her somewhere to make her a very similar offer. Stevie had picked her for the team, over Ollie, and she was pretty sure he'd been trying to do her a little favor. After all, not many people had been romantically stomped into the ground by members of the trinity; they needed to stick together. But it had still been an ultimatum, however you looked at it. And Ollie had still joined the team in the end. But now wasn't the time for reminiscing. Instead, she just watched his face change, as if she hadn't just handed him a paper that would make his life very, very difficult, however he chose to proceed. She watched him sit to the floor, and she felt sorry for him in a way that she didn't let touch her expressive, mossy green eyes. Eddie had tried to reinvent himself, but Gotham had a long, long memory, and the kitty cat knew that better than most.
"I didn't have any, unless you consider warrants ties," she admitted of ties to the government. The only ties she had were to a family that she still didn't know, but that liked the idea of trying to kill her. And she hoped he didn't ask how things worked, because that wasn't going to make him feel any better. She watched him scoot, and she looked into his eyes for a few seconds after he snapped the glasses off. "They're concerned about individual power with no checks or balances," she said, and it didn't even sound like her; it was definitely a party line. She didn't explain that every one they chose was chosen for a reason, for a connection that weakened someone they wanted to keep in check. She wasn't even supposed to know that, but she'd become a smart kitty cat in this Gotham, and it had stuck with her in her own version of the Dark Knight's city.
But that wasn't the offer, was it? "Your warrants, gone. Control over all the hacking and computer work for the JLA. A promise to keep Stephanie from being implicated in anything that happens going forward." And wasn't that last bit a way to sweeten the pot? It was a much nicer deal than she'd gotten, all things considered. But she was just an expendable way to bring down a Bat, wasn't she?
And, that’s when Eddie laughed. It wasn’t a super-villain he-heh-ho-he or a high pitched cackling that would send her running. It was dry, mirthless, pity for the both cat and green man. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’s just that. From what it looks like, I’m being recruited by the government to do the same thing I’ve done for the last sixty years for free.” His little shoulders shook a little and that all knowing smirk returned, though not so brightly.
“I need a drink. Going forward. Jesus. You do a good fed impression, kitty.” Eddie crawled to his feet, swatted her arm with the papers and waved his hand over his shoulder to follow him out into the living room. His apartment was aptly geeky. Posters of robots shooting lasers, a couple green accent walls, a giant advanced flatscreen. His dog running around somewhere in the background. All of it modern and tidy like a software genius given too much money. He lead her into the kitchen, taking off his Wayne family bathrobe to drape on one of the barstools up against the counter and he got to work making an old fashioned under the upside down hanging question mark on the ceiling. Eddie looked up to her with a silent question if she wanted something to drink, too.
“JLA. The Justice League of America.” He said his country’s name with oozing patriotism and went to work putting the pieces together. “Which implies the real Justice League, because it’s not us meow face, is out of America’s jurisdiction and it’s making people nervous.” Eddie busied himself with glasses, bitters, booze and sugar. “And, they should be. Especially here. If anyone else besides the Bat shows up, who knows how that’s going to shake out.” He looked up to the kitty cat, hands flat on the counter. “Tell me how it worked in your world. Tell me anything you can. I need information.”
"Laugh, Riddler, but you're not the one that gets sent into every unchecked, dangerous place before the really valuable people get there." Because, and she hadn't been expecting that when the offer was made, that was what she did. If they needed someone imprisoned in Arkham, she got the job. If they had some strange house to break into, she went in first. If someone needed to risk life and paw? Call the kitty cat. She hated it. It really wasn't that different from the Suicide Squad, and wasn't that what she'd been trying to avoid in the first place? Back when the Bat had been watching her back, things had been pretty good in Gotham. But then he forgot, got busy, got bored, had other things, and she ended up in very hot water.
She watched him go for his drink, and she followed after a long pause. "Don't insult me," she said of doing a good fed impression. She barely noticed the decor. It reminded her that this wasn't the Eddie she'd known for the past seven years. He wasn't a hardened Blackgate criminal. He was still a machinating nerd through and through, and that made her think of how things had been here. There wasn't any point in reliving the past. She shook her head. "I'm not dressed for cocktails," she purred, and there was enough confidence in that purr to indicate that she was very, very good at fitting in during formal events these days.
He was right in his explanation, and her green eyes said as much. She slid up onto the counter, easy grace and still more comfortable with a perch, height, than on her feet. That hadn't changed in the past seven years. "There have been sightings of multiple supes, and my Supes is a menace, Eddie," she said. That was true enough, and everyone back in her world feared the combined power of Superman and Wonder Woman, with their lack of humanity. And Bruce didn't help. Oh, she knew he'd had some Kryptonite somewhere, her Bruce, in case Superman needed containing, but that hadn't worked so well.
"How it worked," she went on, wondering what his little question-riddled mind wanted to know. "Stevie or Ollie told me when there was a job, and I did it. The kitty cat didn't have any kind of clearance, Eddie. Someone was creating robotic versions of the trinity when I was last home, and we were trying to find out why. Which meant the kitty cat was scheduled to go in blind and figure out what was going on. But, and this wasn't actually said aloud, we were bait. Plain and simple. Bait." She reconsidered that drink. "The Ollie here is from my timeline. He'll spent all his spare time telling you that you can't meow at the Batfamily, unless the government wants you to, and then you're supposed to do it on their terms."
Eddie shook his head at the kitty wandering into dark places without any information as if to say that ended with him. It sounded like they put actual heroes on the team who naturally didn’t give a damn about thieves, hackers, crooks or gangsters. So broken Gotham kids looked after broken Gotham kids. This whole thing did sound like a glorified Suicide Squad with even more chances to fail, but Eddie was an optimist. He stacked the deck. He cheated. And, he knew if that meant having a little more control in her claws, the cat would do the same damn thing.
He went back to work crafting his drink, complete with a little green sword stabbing a cherry and once it was finished he shook it a little at her to ask if she was sure this wasn’t a cocktail kind of night. “Which explains why they didn’t bother with a hacker until they absolutely needed one.” Eddie took a long sip of his drink, sighed and leaned back with his arms folded. “If we’re going to be playing damsels, it ought to be on our terms. This whole taking orders from Stevie...Steve Trevor?” Eyes wide and mouth open a little. Like a train being pulled to a sudden stop, wheels screeching, passengers flying out the windows, train cars bending on the tracks. And, Eddie gave her a look like he was surprised the man hadn’t killed himself already. The riddled man understood the virtue of being in love with a strong woman, but one that had the warmth of a marble statue was a fight Trevor was never going to win. A sand trap he was never going to escape.
He took another sip, this one seemed to be ceremonial for Trevor and then shook his head. “And, I never knew Ollie to be a government hound. He was always so, so liberal. And, fun to annoy. Really fun.” Eddie frowned, pressing the edge of the glass to his forehead and almost got lost in his thoughts for a little while. After a moment he looked back up to the cat. “How long do they have us leashed? Forever? Until Bats dies? Because he’s going to outlive all of us.”
"Edward, stop being a bad influence," she said when he shook the drink again. She shrugged her shoulders. "Someone needs to hack Watchtower if it shows up in the sky one day," she said practically, because she'd spent enough time with Stevie to know the concerns now. And if she hadn't trusted the Bat not to abuse his power? Well, the kitty cat might have been worried too. But this wasn't a cause for her. It was an out. "I don't care who wins, and I don't care who loses. I just want my get out of jail free card, and I'm told it'll come once everything is secure." And she knew, better than anyone, that was subjective. But as long as they let her do what she wanted outside of the assignments, she was willing to play nice. That didn't mean the kitty cat wouldn't go on the run if she decided it was in her best interest. After all, she'd already had a price on her head before. And she trusted Bruce not to get caught in any trap. And maybe it wasn't precisely as selfish as she pretended, but that did matter.
"Steve Trevor," she agreed. "He's onboard because he's Diana's weak spot. Do you see a trend, Eddie? Stargirl, an old Lantern, J'onn, Katana,." She knew that Eddie, with all the smarts in his little green head, would see the strategy right away, even if they hadn't been told it outright. As for Ollie, she rolled her eyes, and she slid off the counter with all the grace of an annoyed cat. "Ollie's a liberal democrat, Edward. He doesn't like unmonitored power in the private sector." She shook her head. "I don't think Bruce is their biggest concern. He doesn't fly, and he isn't likely to produce any super powered offspring and change the whole of humanity by breeding little supes." And, reluctantly, as she drew a nail across his kitchen counter, "we've done some good." Reluctantly, because the last thing she wanted to do was admit that she derived any pleasure from doing anything good.
Eddie gave a small laugh, the kind that sounded more like a cough than anything else. It was a good plan. Devious in a way only the government could be and Eddie couldn’t help but appreciate it for that. Most of the people selected for the team were out powered by the real Justice League, but could easily formulate and bait ways to take each of them down if needed. And, he thought that most of them must have been forced in one way or another, which made for questionable team dynamics. Though, when did League members ever really get along?
Her justification and metaphorical brush off the shoulders didn’t impress him. “Don’t try to simplify it. Not to me.” He looked up at her, dark eyes sharp and knowing without actually prodding her for more insight. Eddie just knew. If things really came down to what the government thought it would, their whole world would turn into a tangled mess. And, no amount of clean slates could really wash away what needed to be done. Eddie was a rogue, after all, a different class of rogue than Selina and he understood mess. He understood the rest of the world didn’t forgive as quickly as an Arkham alumni. He understood sacrifices made didn’t wash away no matter how many riddles or jewels you poured on top of it.
But, maybe he was projecting a little. Selina only really had to care about herself at the end of the day, but Eddie always had Stephanie’s safety in the back of his head. More importantly, he had her, their happiness as a top priority. And, if she was part of the bat family that could get messy. Which called for a drink or two. He nodded along with the assertion that Bats wasn’t their biggest concern, making a small noise like they were underestimating the brains of the operations and then finished off his drink. Deciding to just pour the whiskey straight for his second round. “I want to do good.” He said and for once that urge didn’t come along with a need to be in the spotlight. Eddie didn’t want to be a superhero. He simply wanted to do good. “Even if it’s just some. And, with Steve and Ollie on the team, I’m sure we’re not going to have a choice in the matter anyway.” Eddie shrugged, goofy smile itching back across his face. “Plus, getting the chance to be a big know-it-all in front of hero types will be entertaining all by itself.”
He sighed, drank and sighed again. “When do I start? I was going to take Stephanie away from here for a couple days. Promised her I would. And, I was going to get the kitty cat a souvenir, but now I don’t know if I’m in the mood.” Eddie said all lofty as if denying her a souvenir was a true offense. “Do you need anything from me? I can sign some papers in my green blood if you want me to.”
Selina wasn't made to be part of a team. Like any good thief, she worked best alone. She was pretty sure Stevie understood that, and she was pretty sure that explained the peace and quiet she had between jobs. If Ollie was in charge, he would have tried to domesticate her entirely, but Stevie was willing to let her think she had freedom. She knew it was just pretense, but it made the kitty cat feel better. "And here I thought you'd want me to cut to the chase," she said of simplifying. "They don't want to hide you, Eddie. You don't even need to be a secret, unless you want to convince Ollie that you should be. The only secret is the real agenda." She scoffed. "As if taking the same name as the Justice League didn't make that obvious enough. The kitty cat is a secret." She smiled. Because, oh, yes, everyone knew the Bat wouldn't get within a hundred feet of her if she was allied with the government. That, at least, she knew to be true. And as for the fact that she knew who the Bat was? She hadn't thought to share that with them for seven years. Ooops. "After all, they need their own little man in a watchtower."
As for doing good, Selina tried not to think about it after the words had left her mouth, but his mention of it had her focusing her green eyes on him, the look reminiscent of the kitten she had been. "Do you think they're too powerful?" she asked of Bats and Supes and Lanterns and wonderful Women. She'd heard enough spiels about them not answering to anyone but themselves to almost believe it now, but when she thought back to this Bat, she had her doubts. She was done tangling with vigilantes, but the memory was still there, betraying her.
She watched him pour the whiskey down his throat, and she knew he'd made his choice. How he would explain it to Stephanie, that wasn't the kitty cat's concern. Just like how Ollie would explain things to Dinah wasn't high on her priority list either. Since this little recruitment had occured, she'd spent most of her time trying to stay alive, and that had been harder than anticipated. The fact that Bruce was likely to do precisely what they feared and set up a better system of control with the Batkids after the situation with Bane? The kitty cat could pretend not to care about that either.
She was slink and sway as she approached him, boots making no sound on the kitchen floor, despite their obvious shiny black weight. She stopped close enough to run a claw along his chest, to his chin, which she held in order to look into his eyes. For a moment she looked confused, the memory not clicking quickly enough, and then she stepped back. "Take the blonde bat on vacation, Edward. Someone will contact you about signing day once you get back. I'll let them know you're looking forward to joining the team." She began to retreat, but she stopped midway. "Don't give them a reason to kill us, Eddie," she added. She knew he liked to talk, and she knew Stephanie liked to talk to the Bat. It was a warning, but not a threat.
“Let me ask you a rhetorical.” Eddie mulled over all the Supers and Wonders and Lanterns. “Would you trust the guy with the biggest gun in the room who isn’t afraid to kill who he thinks is a bad guy? Or the human taking orders from a secret council of old alien men? Or a goddess who deep down believes our society doesn’t match her crazy ideals? You’re a smart kitty. The second something doesn’t line up with their ideal of vengeance, or justice, they’ll destroy everything in their path to get it.” There was a noticeable lack of Bat in that statement. The Bat had different pieces of darkness in him, parts Eddie could understand because deep down they were both men driven by twisted compulsion. But, vengeance? Justice? Punishing the evil? All of that was beyond the riddled man’s grasp. Worse than that, he didn’t believe in it.
Eddie knew the Bat had that vengeance streak, too. So did Stephanie. He saw it in her when Muerte was given forgiveness. When deep down she wanted Muerte to suffer, to be punished. But, Eddie believed there were enough mechanisms in place to keep her and most of the Bats from turning into glorified Jason Todds. The rest of the superhero world? Not so much.
He didn’t keep rambling as she stepped forward, amused and quietly appreciative as only a man who held all the secrets and memories of Gotham could be. Eddie watched the claw move up his math joke t-shirt and lifted his neck obediently as she propped his chin up to look at her. A willful participant, passive and oh-so sweet about it. His dark eyes held a special kind of intensity and amusement that was just as Gotham as her silent boots on his kitchen floor. As her eyes flashed like a picture stuck halfway in the projector, he raised his eyebrows curiously. Eddie liked all the questions it put in his head and he closed his own eyes for a moment with a smile. Enjoying the slow untangle of the uncertainty of all of this.
“Don’t worry, meow face. Tonight Eddie Nigma becomes a man.” He toasted her as she walked away, the clink of ice seemingly signalling the apartment to open back up in a musical series of clanging metal and ringing locks.
Selina didn't like rhetorical questions, especially ones she knew the answers to before they were even asked. "You sound like Ollie and Stevie," she said, and it didn't sound like a compliment. But the kitty cat knew he was right. "In my world, Supes and Wondy were together. It terrified everyone. Lois and Stevie made the supes more human. Without that-" She didn't finish her sentence. She didn't need to. "The kitty cat was hoping, when she ended up back here, that the words Trinity War would just be a bad memory, but I don't think so, Eddie." As for the Bat? He challenged authority in his own way, and that wasn't going to earn him a pass in this regime. It he was going to end up in the clear, well, no one would have offered the kitty cat a get out of Blackgate free card, would they?
She almost asked him, as she turned to leave, if Bruce had asked about her. Oh, the Bat knew she was in town. She knew he would have known the antitoxin had come from her. But he hadn't reached out, and he hadn't looked and, she suspected, he hadn't asked either. It was a good reminder. A good way for the kitty cat to remember how things stood between them. Oh, she knew he'd come if she meowed, if she was in trouble, but that wasn't the same thing as being wanted, was it? No, she'd already learned how that ended.
She stopped for his toast, but it was just a hesitation of those quiet boots on his floor, a slowing to the sway and slink. She wanted to apologize, but what good would that do? She was just playing her part, and he would just play his. "Welcome to the team, Edward," she said instead, a glance over her shoulder that said she would go and stir up a world of trouble to obliterate whatever guilt tonight's actions had caused her.
She reached her gloved paw into her utility belt, and she pulled out a federal issue, microscopic comm in a tiny black box. The box she tossed over her shoulder for him to catch, but she didn't wait to see if he managed to palm it. "Once you get back from your vacation, turn it on," she told him. "They'll be in touch."
Eddie had noticed a lack of asking about the Dark Knight from the kitty cat. And, later while he was a little drunk, he noticed a lack of asking from the Dark Knight about the kitty cat. He didn’t expect the two to act like a real couple or even as if they were in love. He expected concern. He expected the faintest echo of the kind of worry that he felt for Stephanie. It was a sign that things were not so different here, wasn’t? The Bat would get consumed by helping his city and in the process push the cat aside. Eddie imagined a world where only Stephanie did the wanting or only the riddled man did the pursuing and knew it would never amount to what he currently had with the blonde bat.
In his kitchen, he was too busy thinking about secrets to mull over his favorite bat/cat ship. He caught the black box effortlessly, turning the thing over in his hand as he lightly sipped his drink. Mysterious, he liked that. “I wonder if we get codenames?” He said out loud, another rhetorical meant to be funny and he turned to look up at his glowing Riddler trophy as she left. Drinking until the neon green got a little fuzzy.