Bruce Wainright has (onerule) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-06-20 00:14:00 |
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Entry tags: | batman, catwoman, door: dc comics |
Who: Bruce and Selina
What: An encounter in which Bruce clues in too late.
Where: Charity ball in Gotham.
When: Recently.
Warnings/Rating: None.
One of the things the kitty cat liked least about this Gotham was the way things always seemed larger than life. Back home, when Joe or Cobblepot got it in their heads to turn Gotham upside down, it was never like this. Prisons didn't fall and rise overnight, and the entire city didn't feel the impact of the Rogue of the Week's funtime activities. But this Gotham had always been different that way, from the very beginning; Selina had just forgotten. Seven years would do that to a kitty cat.
It had taken less than a month for her to remember.
In the wake of Bane and Deadshot, Gotham was busy doing what Gotham always did. It was recreating itself into the same elitist, upper-class driven city that she so loved and so hated. The police had a renewed sense of caring, and the citizens felt they'd bonded during their ordeal. Selina knew the camaraderie would be short-lived, but the take was good when people felt positive. It was as if the prison going up in the slums was actually going to be a beneficial thing, and as if the veritable decimation of all of Gotham's slums hardly mattered. After all, to Gotham's bluebloods, the people who lived in those places were hardly people at all. It was like spring cleaning, and nowhere near as messy.
Seven years away had given Selina a very healthy hatred of Gotham's wealthiest citizens. Oh, she'd already had a burgeoning distaste when she'd been here last, but a year with this Bruce made an easy life for the kitty cat. Seven years back in her world made for hard days without food and, finally, a contract with Cobblepot that she hadn't even signed with her own blood. Not to mention the lovely little blackmail promise of joining the JLA in order to avoid the Suicide Squad, only to learn that she was going to be the JLA's token suicide girl.
But she'd adapted, and she'd landed on her feet, because cats always did. She'd changed herself into something that combined the best parts of everything she'd learned while she was here, and she'd left the little kitten that had chased the Bat behind.
Well, that only happened after said Bat told her they'd never work, but who was keeping track? As for this Bat, she'd stopped thinking about him a year in. No point, and she decided Eddie had been right all along. He would have sent her meowing, just like hers did once she got him back. No, the kitty cat hadn't thought about this Bat at all.
And now, with a city on the mend, Selina was doing what she'd learned to do so well in the intervening years; infiltrate.
The charity ball was being held in Gotham's Art Museum, and the kitty cat still couldn't care less about art. But the Van Gogh that was going to be on display to commemorate the Rebirth of Gotham, that was something the the kitty cat did care about. Oh, Gotham's downfall had netted her a very nice penthouse in Wayne Towers under the name of Irena Dubrovna, but she hadn't stolen anything challenging in over a month, and she still hadn't found the right level of adrenaline and distraction now that she was back. Plus, she hadn't been through the door very much, because Blondie had gone insane, and that had been a little problematic. It all meant that she was itching to make a dent in someone's pocketbook, and she knew that Gotham was in happy recovery mode. They'd never see her coming.
And there was one good thing about the JLA: Even if she got caught, someone would spring her. Who was going to get themselves killed in the name of country if it wasn't her?
The woman that entered the charity ball barely resembled the kitten she had been. No more spiky hair, no more bad attitude that she wore like a whip. She was still lush lips and sway, but even that was different. She'd grown into herself. Her eyes were a mossy green, darkened by age and life, and as long as she didn't try to show off using words that she didn't pronounce quite right, she could fit right in on looks alone, and no need to try as hard as when she'd wandered these elitist halls in the past. For all that she hated the aristocracy, it was still in her blood, even if she hadn't quite figured out her antecedents yet. She'd stopped looking when she'd gotten too close, but she knew there was a treasure chest there; for once, she just wasn't sure she wanted to break into it.
And tonight was about quality time with a little Van Gogh, and not about the secrets of her birth. She wandered, laughed, danced, drew attention and listened to the curious whispers of who? and her name?, all while mapping out the security, exits, entrances and accessible air ducts and backstage areas. But the simpering women and the overeager men she was socializing with didn't even notice her inattention. Why would they? And she wasn't worried about Bruce. Blondie was supposed to be home asleep, and Bruce would never, ever think to find her here, even if he did decide to make an appearance. And what were the chances of him recognizing her? Slim to none, since she knew he was still looking for a very young, very foolish kitten.
The charity ball was well underway by the time Bruce Wayne arrived, which meant that his appearance didn’t draw the same sort of attention that it would have had he arrived fashionably early, or even with the rest of the upper crust, whom he doubted were here because they cared about Gotham or those who had less than them and whose suffering was so much greater. Over the years, his tolerance for the wealthy had deteriorated, and it had become increasingly difficult to play the role of playboy billionaire and drag himself to charity balls and parties and the like, wearing a mask in order to hide the fact that he did, in fact, wear a literal mask in other areas of his life. In this new Gotham, the price of living a double life took an even harsher toll on him.
Especially now, in the aftermath of Bane’s reign of terror.
Bruce could not forget the state his city had been in when he arrived. He could not, and he would not, just like he would never forget how the government had turned its back on Gotham, or how those in authority had done nothing until the very end, or how his family had failed to prevent disaster after disaster from befalling his city in his absence. Oh yes, they’d banded together once he returned, managing to work as a cohesive unit once more, but as the dust settled old hurts and tensions arose again, and frankly he was disappointed in them. All of them, though he had yet to verbalize that to anyone. He was disappointed in Gotham, too, in its inability to fight for itself, to fight for liberation, unless they had an example to follow. Batman had been intended to be a symbol, one to inspire hope and change, but these people were so slow to act, still like puppies who needed to be dragged around on leashes in order accomplish anything. It made him miss his Gotham, which had made so much more progress. This one, he feared, was trapped in an endless loop of chaos and destruction, doomed to repeat the same pattern over and over despite his best efforts. This was a place in which a super prison built upon people’s homes was condoned, where a criminal was placed in charge of such an institution. It made him sick as much as it made him sad, and while he had denied Bane’s words, in the following days and weeks, Bruce felt very, very alone.
Before, Selina would have been the one he turned to, but he hadn’t spoken to her since before he left to find Ra’s. Luke had kept his secret well, and as far as Bruce was concerned, she was still the same woman he’d known then, and he simply assumed her absence was due to Wren and her fragile mental state. The antidote to the toxin had, he was sure, come from her, which meant she was still around. He almost reached out countless times, almost asked about her, but in the end he refrained every single time and, inevitably, decided to find her in person and speak to her then. With no Alfred to all but force him to have a social life, it was tempting to shun the spotlight and the public and remain in the Manor, which he was still cleaning up and repairing after its occupation by Bane’s men, but he forced himself to go. The Van Gogh, he thought, would be too much for Selina to resist. She would be there. And so he went, his injuries (which were chalked up to a ‘skiing accident’ when he’d visited his doctor) having healed enough that his upper body was only slightly stiff as he moved, not something most people would notice unless they either knew him well (which no one did) or happened to be paying a great deal of attention to his posture and mobility (they weren’t).
He was, however, looking for an entirely different woman, which was a mark against him. Short hair, bright green eyes, and young, that was the Selina he remembered, and as Bruce moved through the crowd, letting the meaningless conversation wash over him and responding in kind when he could be bothered to, that was the Selina he was looking for.
The kitty cat would have liked to pretend that she didn't notice his arrival. After all, seven years was a long time, and she hadn't seen Bruce Wayne in all those years. Oh, she'd seen a Bat, but not the man behind the mask. Even at social events like this, which Selina had never stopped attending, he'd never come near her. He knew who she was outside of the suit, she realized, and he hadn't wanted to get close. So, maybe the kitty cat could be forgiven for noticing when he walked through the door, all things considered. Seven years, and he wasn't the same man she'd left behind a month earlier. Older now, she noticed things she hadn't noticed as a kitten. He carried himself differently. He was still older than her Bat, but not by much, not anymore. He was injured; she remembered how he moved, remembered well enough to notice the stiff posture. He was angrier, too, and she wondered if that meant he was angrier than when she'd last seen him here, or angrier than the Bat she'd known; she wasn't sure.
It was strange, being in the same place as him. When the kitty cat she had been had first encountered this Bat, she'd felt anger that she'd lost her own version of the man. This kitty cat regarded the bored billionaire across the room with mixed emotions. Over her champagne glass and with a tiny little smile for the dignitary at her side, she watched him. She wasn't very obvious about it, but she watched. And she should stay away from him, she knew. That Van Gogh would be much, much harder to get her paws on if he knew she was after it. It never occurred to her that he would be there looking for her, fully aware that she wouldn't be able to resist such a prize. She wasn't used to how his mind worked anymore, and her Bat only bothered with her when she stole entire art galleries worth of Van Goghs.
Excusing herself, she made her way to the wall where Starry Night was on display, two guards flanking each side and unbreakable glass protecting the painting from fingers and light. She looked as appreciative as all the other socialites that stood there, and she listened to them chat about their own accomplishments, all under the pretense of caring about Van Gogh's whorls of blue and gold. She counted the feet between the guards and the edge of the painting, and she leaned in close to gauge the depth of the glass. A glance overhead, casual, told her where the nearest air duct was; not close enough. Down? She tapped a stiletto against the floor; solid. Oh, well, the kitty cat might just need to make a scene. She fingered the very good, very fake diamonds at her neck, and she glanced over at the man holding a glass of champagne out for her with a cool smile. Oh, yes, and where was the Bat? She glanced over her shoulder, knowing that figuring out where he was in the room was much, much more important than the location of the armed guards.
Bruce had become so accustomed to being watched that, by this point in his life, he was capable of taking note of every single pair of eyes upon him without ever turning his head in one direction or the other. His gaze moved swiftly, and only a select few could pinpoint where his attention actually was as opposed to where he wanted everyone to believe it was. Clusters of people glanced his way and whispered, while others were more blatant about where their eyes were drawn, but few lingered. He, on the other hand, pretended he wasn’t looking for anyone, that his wandering gaze was the result of the kind of disinterest that came with being wealthy, powerful, and shallow, when his interest was fickle and rarely captured for long. He’d always hated that facade, but he hated it more than usual tonight, and it made him ill-tempered beneath the surface, which he likely should have recognized as reason for concern. Maybe he did, on some level, but he didn’t dwell on it. As he moved about the room, pausing, mingling, then continuing onward, he didn’t see Selina; well, not his Selina. He noticed the woman no one could place, of course. Someone like him, who noticed everything all at once, would never have missed her. But he didn’t know that he should have been looking for someone older, someone different, and so he dismissed her as being just as unimportant as everyone else in attendance of this ridiculous farce.
Dismissed her, that is, until he got a better look.
It was only inevitable that he would end up close to the evening’s star attraction, a painting which held no significance for Gotham or its struggle, or any at all, save for the fact that it was famous. Bruce could appreciate art, but as he looked at it, he felt nothing but contempt for how well-guarded it was, how much care the wealthy and powerful showed for an inanimate object when they were so willing to turn a blind eye to the living, breathing human beings who would be displaced by Arkham City, and those who would undoubtedly suffer within its walls. He recognized everyone gathered around the painting in one form or another, save for the mystery woman, whom he couldn’t recall ever having seen before, and he had been to a depressingly large amount of galas, balls, and similar functions. Yet, the more he looked at her, the more he felt an irrational sense of familiarity, as though he should recognize her, though try as he might he simply couldn’t place her. It bothered him, and perhaps that registered in his expression, because a second later one of the dolled-up socialites was simpering in his direction, questioning whether or not Van Gogh’s masterpiece appealed to his tastes, which brought forth a wave of tinkling laughter.
A beat passed, then another, and Bruce smiled. “Oh, it appeals to me,” he said. “I’m just having trouble understanding what a painting has to do with the rebirth of Gotham. Or what any of this does,” he waved a hand around, “for that matter. In fact, I’m not exactly sure what rebirth we’re meant to be commemorating in the first place.” Silence followed his words, and he watched as the smiles on those around him faltered, wavered, and uncertain glances were exchanged. Give these people the truth, he thought, and they had no idea what to do with it; they lived in fantasy worlds, constructed from their own wealth and self-indulgence. But he kept smiling, and when a waiter passed with a tray of drinks, he took a glass of champagne and tossed the entire thing back in one gulp.
Selina noticed when he looked her way, and she noticed when he discounted her. She wouldn't let it bother her; at least that was what she told herself. She had enough confidence for most of the women in this room, with the exception to everything that pertained to the billionaire that didn't even find her worth lingering on as a woman. Well, she wasn't surprised, was she? Another version of him had already turned his back on her, why shouldn't this one do the same thing? And she wasn't the little kitten that liked to wind itself around his legs looking to be scratched anymore; she needed to remember that.
She went back to paying attention to the take, champagne flute in her hand now and someone droning on in her ear. Was she Italian? Was she Russian? Where was she staying? Was she in town long? And she wondered that all these rich, rich people could be so blind. She gave the man a lush, lush red smile, and she pointed at the painting with her champagne flute. "What do you see?" she asked him, only to end up being regaled with some romantic drivel about how the greens reminded him of her eyes. Men. She swayed one hip toward him, a come hither that didn't require words, and she purred in his ear about how very much she'd like to touch it. The painting, of course, but the way the man went red around the collar said her little ploy had worked. He stammered, and he promised her he would see what he could do. She gave him a smile that was all seductive invitation, promise in sleek black with a slit up to her thigh. Men. And he went off to whisper in the gallery owner's ear.
She watched, and she would have kept watching, but Bruce's voice interrupted the enjoyment of her inevitable success. She almost groaned. She didn't know if she was pleased that he was still so much worse at the bored playboy facade than the Bruce back home was, or whether she wanted to hiss at him the riot act for doing a very bad job of hiding his true motives. Everyone on the journals knew who he was, but the knowledge wasn't confirmed or universal. And she should keep her kitty mouth closed, but she already knew he wasn't going to recognize her, and with that certainty came riskiness. If he was going to have an epiphany about her, it would have already happened. Talking wouldn't hurt anything, would it?
"We're commemorating our ability to have very, very expensive art to look at again, Mr. Wayne," she said, the purr huskier than it had been once. "There weren't any Van Goghs in Blackgate," she informed him, since most of the people in the room had been in the prison early on, only to pay their way out just as early on. She lifted her champagne flute to him, finally turning her head just enough so she could get a good look at him close up. Around them, the rich and elite agreed, and they started talking amongst themselves about how terrible their one, two, three hours in Blackgate had been. She just looked at him, mossy green eyes and a hint of black accenting the green. "Or did you avoid Blackgate entirely, Mr. Wayne?"
Little, inconsequential things registered in his peripheral vision, like the brief interaction between the mystery woman and some rich idiot who was effectively reduced to the behavior of an inexperienced schoolboy when she turned her charms on him. But Bruce was very, very good at not reacting, at giving no indication he’d noticed something at all, and to everyone present his attention was solely fixed on himself, his champagne, and the cluster of socialites who’d unwittingly become his audience. Their feathers had been ruffled, that much was obvious, yet he had a hard time caring. If it hadn’t been for the sake of his family, he might have dropped the pretense entirely. He didn’t hide his face behind the cowl for his own benefit, after all; it was all for them, for the people he cared about, even if he’d done a very good job of driving them away without intending to.
The interruption made him look up from the depths of his glass, and for a very, very brief moment, he stared. It took a great deal to catch Bruce Wayne off guard, but somehow, this woman had managed. He recovered another moment later, of course, his expression becoming politely attentive, though internally he was trying to place her voice, her face, anything that would soothe the nagging feeling of familiarity that just wouldn’t seem to stop tugging at him. “Ah,” he said, masking his disgust as those around him discussed their ordeals as though they understood what true suffering was. Mere hours in Blackgate, and they thought themselves victims. He wondered, then, how his parents had done it; then again, they hadn’t been typical of their class, and it had gotten them shot in an alley. “I see. Prisons, of course, are no place for fine art.” He smiled when she asked if he’d managed to avoid Blackgate, and he took a casual step forward, closing some of the distance between them, a careless sort of maneuver that spoke only of being closer in order to better carry on their conversation. “I did manage to avoid Blackgate, in fact,” he said, his smile becoming just a touch tighter. “I was in Switzerland during the entire ordeal. Lucky timing, I suppose.” He considered making some sort of comment about the lack of government intervention, or, god forbid, about the Bat’s timely return, but he bit his tongue instead. “Did you suffer the same temporary incarceration as many of the others, Ms...?”
Selina had spent multiple lifetimes trying to get the Bat's attention. Before ending up here, when she'd been just a kitten, more trusting than she had any right to be, with a Bat that was nearly as young, nearly as naive. Here, where everything had been different enough to make her believe she could actually belong. Home, the past seven years, and a much harder Bat, jaded and broken in a way this one had never been. And now? Now she knew she had his attention, and she wasn't sure that she wanted it. She wasn't sure if she wanted to be recognized, or if she wanted him to walk away. Indecision was a very dangerous thing for a thief, and she didn't like it. Oh, even when Selina Kyle wasn't being a thief, she was still a thief.
She could feel the disgust coming off him in waves, and that was something she hadn't experienced in a very, very long time. Her interactions over the past seven years had been with the Bat, not with the man, and the Bat never shared. Oh, he slept with her, but sharing was out of the question. "Terrible places," she agreed about prisons, something like entertainment lurking behind her green eyes as the selected group of socialites agreed with her. The man at her side solicitously handed her a fresh drink, which she took with a flick of faux-jeweled wrist that was believable enough to hold up under scrutiny from any of these partygoers. "Switzerland? What a lucky break, Mr. Wayne. I'd just gotten into town, and I found Blackgate unavoidable," she said with a very delicately crafted shudder. She took a sip of her champagne, and she licked her lips in a way that wasn't at all refined, but that made the men gathered move in closer. So easy, she thought, and she held her hand out to Bruce, wrist relaxed and fingers slightly curved, expecting the proper greeting for someone of high social rank. The gesture made the women whisper behind their hands, but Selina just smiled. "Dubrovna. Irena Dubrovna."
This would have been much easier had Bruce known he was looking for a different Cat, but he was woefully unaware of how Selina had changed and was left with an inexplicable sense of familiarity and a steadily rising desire to solve this particular puzzle. And here he’d thought this would be yet another tedious social event. He barely managed to suppress an eye roll when the socialites agreed with the woman’s astute observation that prisons were terrible places, and what he thought might be amusement in her gaze made him wonder if she despised these people as much as he did. She acted like one of them, but then again, so did he, though he wasn’t always as convincing as he ought to be. “Your timing was unfortunate,” he remarked. “It’s a pity that prison was one of your first experiences in the city.” Once again, he held himself back from making some sort of social commentary; these people would likely have been too ignorant to understand, or too rich to care. He was one of the rare few who didn’t move closer when she licked her lips, no less distance between them than there had been before the gesture, though the way she extended her hand and the expectation that came with it did cause his eyebrows to raise ever so slightly.
Never one to be openly rude, however, he accepted her proffered hand and lowered his head enough to bring his lips to her knuckles. A symbolic kiss likely would have been enough, but he actually made contact with her skin, light and fleeting before he straightened and let his own hand drop. “A pleasure, Ms. Dubrovna.” The name didn’t ring any bells, though he did have a vague sense of having encountered it somewhere before, perhaps in passing, without a solid idea of where or in what context. He smiled, all false charm. “What brings you to Gotham?”
"My timing is always unfortunate," she assured her, something proud in her smile that she didn't bother to hide. The gathered crowd tittered at the joke, as if they understood, and she glanced back at the painting as she tried to decide whether to push him into saying what he really felt about the people gathered. She wondered that he could want to save this city, when he barely tolerated its most influential residents. "But it doesn't matter, does it? Those of us with enough money got out with just a terrible story to tell." She tsked, the sound drawing attention to the stark red of her lips. "It's just such a shame that the criminals are running free right now. So very dangerous, wouldn't you say? The new prison is supposed to make us all sleep safer in our beds, and I for one can't wait." There was a twinkle in her moss green eyes, a push, bait, because she wanted to see if he would take it. And maybe it wasn't very nice, pushing his little buttons in public like this, but the kitty cat had seven years of chip on her shoulder. All things considered, he was getting off easy.
Her smile warmed for a moment when he kissed her hand, power in the fact that she had pushed him to it and pleasure in the act itself. "Irena, please, Bruce," she purred, using his given name as if it was her right, without it being offered, confidence in that boldness, and in the way she held his gaze for a brief second. And she hadn't said that name aloud in so long that it made her glance back at the painting for another reason entirely. A beat later, she looked back at him, recognizing that false charm for what it was. "Business," she assured him, before looking at one of the men gathered and glancing toward an open balcony. "It's getting crowded in here," she told the man, who immediately reached for her arm. If she was going to steal this painting, she needed to get Bruce Wayne away from it; it was time to break up the party, because she had no excuse for wasting the night bantering with him, did she?
Bruce smiled, but he didn’t feign laughter along with the others. Gotham’s upper crust may have earned his contempt, but even they had the potential to change and deserved to live as much as anyone else in the city. Life was life, regardless of who it belonged to, and he would never stand by and allow one to be taken or damaged even if some might say they deserved as much. A murmur rose amidst those gathered at the mention of having a terrible story to tell, and he knew if given half a chance any of them would jump at the chance to rehash their greatly exaggerated tales of hardship and suffering behind bars. “A terrible story is a small price to pay for getting out, isn’t it? Preferable, of course, to not getting out at all,” he said mildly. He was certain no one here cared about those who had died in the Blackgate explosion, no more than they cared for those caught in Arkham’s destruction, or left in the street as reminders, victims of Bane’s cruelty and his men’s unwavering loyalty. He eyed row after row of glasses filled with champagne as a waiter passed by, but he didn’t reach for one, listening with a vaguely bored expression as Irena went on about Arkham City and how she couldn’t wait, which inspired others to voice their agreement. If he didn’t know any better, judging by that twinkle in her eye, he would have thought she was baiting him. It was bait he shouldn’t have taken, but the thought of the new prison and who had been put in charge raised his hackles beneath the surface. “We’ll all sleep safer in our beds because we’ll still have one,” he said, gesturing around at the small crowd. “Our homes aren’t being decimated to build the prison, after all, and our money will ensure we won’t need to worry about ending up behind its walls.” He smiled, then, a too-bright thing, and it came again, that sense of discomfort and awkward smiles from those close enough to hear. Ignoring the reaction his comments incited, he gave in and reached for another glass of alcohol, raising it in a sort of mock toast. “To Arkham City,” he said, and tossed the liquid back. He was nowhere near drunk, but no one here needed to know that.
There was something about the way she said his name that made him pause, a hiccup in his practised apathy. He drew back slowly, fingers slipping from hers, and he watched as she glanced back at the painting, a careful sort of blankness shielding his gaze from being read. “Irena, then, if we’re to be on a first-name basis,” he said. Business certainly didn’t clarify her reason for being here, but the vagueness of her response wasn’t surprising. He merely nodded, gaze drifting back to the painting as she remarked that it was growing crowded and had a willing volunteer to whisk her elsewhere in less than a second. The gathered crowd began to shift, as though preparing to move, but Bruce remained where he was. “It is rather crowded,” he agreed. “A common occurrence at events like these, I’ve found.” The man seemed intent on drawing her out to the much less populated balcony, and not all that inclined to wait, and he let his gaze shift from the painting back to her as he waited to see how she would react.
She tsked when he mentioned the fact that the homes of Gotham's wealthier citizens weren't being decimated. He was so much worse at this than the Bat she'd spent the past seven years dancing with; some things never changed. She held up her champagne flute when he toasted, the stones on her wrist jingling happily, and she watched him with unhidden intensity as he tossed the glass back. Oh, she knew he wasn't drunk. She knew that tiny little glass wasn't enough to affect him at all, but she assumed no one else knew that. "I've heard interesting things about Dr. Crane. I can only assume he's very qualified, if he's been put in charge of such a place," she theorized. She knew she was poking an open wound, and she knew that keeping at it would risk her take for the evening, but she couldn't help that one little jab. It was one thing not to kill the rogues in his little gallery, but letting Crane run that prison? It was too much for the kitty cat to stay quiet about. It was one of the things she didn't remember fondly about this upside-down Gotham - the fact that the villains always won. Oh, it went both ways; she hadn't legitimately seen the inside of Blackgate here, and she had spent her fair share of time in the prison in real Gotham, but she'd rather do a little time, if it meant there was a break from the bigger, badder rogues. After all, it wasn't like any prison could hold her, not for long.
She smiled when he agreed to call her Irena, and she hid that twinge again, the one that ached at not being recognized. The kitty cat hated aching; it only made her want to behave more badly to eradicate the pain.
She willingly took her volunteer's arm, and her eyes narrowed just a little when Bruce insisted on staying there with the painting. The last thing she wanted to do was pretend she cared about whatever drivel the man leading her toward the balcony was saying, but it looked like she wasn't going to have a choice. She'd need to humor him until Bruce decided Starry Night wasn't nearly as interesting as whatever socialite grabbed his attention next.
On the balcony, her companion talked about his own attributes, and Selina half listened, half plotted. It took her fifteen minutes to finalize her plan, and her poor companion ended up being drawn further into the balcony's curtained privacy and chloroformed, the tiny vial hanging in a decorative trinket from a chain tucked into the front of her dress. She shed the faux diamonds and the faux pearls, and those were tucked into her clutch. She slipped on long, clawed gloves in satiny black, tugged her whip and belt from beneath her dress and looped it around her waist, and she made quick work of scaling the exterior of the museum. Who said a girl couldn't work in heels?
She climbed into the window overhead, took out the little guard on duty, and spent the next five minutes getting into the ventilation system. She didn't drop down on the floor with the painting, though. Oh, no. Very, very quietly, she spent the twenty minutes dripping a tiny vial of acid on the shaft's metal floor, and then she spent the next hour cutting through the drywall, until she was just behind the painting. Once she cleared away the white and revealed the back of the frame, she could see and hear the signs of the party around the edges, even through the protective plexiglass.
And she was counting on Bruce Wayne having wandered away.
In the early days, Bruce’s facade had been near flawless. When he was younger and less jaded by the ugliness that lurked beneath the shiny, glitzy exterior of Gotham’s upper class, he found it easier to pretend to be one of them. Lucius took care of business while he threw his money around on frivolous purchases, attended parties, drove fast cars, and did it all with beautiful women on his arm. But with age and time came a growing sense of weariness with the shallowness of his existence, even if it was all a lie, and his behavior tonight was a result. Or maybe it was just a side effect. If anyone had paid any attention at all, it would be chalked up to alcohol and Bruce Wayne being Bruce Wayne (he had managed to cultivate quite the reputation before he began to grow tired of it). Her remark about Crane, however, sparked a steely sort of hardness in his gaze that, until then, had been absent. His jaw tightened, just for a moment, his lip curled into the start of a physical expression of disgust, and then he caught himself. All gone, just like that, and he gave a careless sort of shrug as though Jonathan Crane inspired no strong feelings in one way or the other. “I don’t doubt that he’s the best man for the job,” he said airily, “but it’s still early days yet. A lot could change between now and when the prison is complete. We’ll simply have to wait and see.” There was no hint of a threat anywhere in his tone, but oh, it was one, not that anyone in attendance would recognize that. He inclined his head as Irena left for the balcony with her ardent admirer in tow, though his gaze, for all extensive appearances, remained on the painting.
He was blind to a lot of things, yes, despite being incredibly shrewd in other areas of his life, but he wasn’t lacking in intelligence. His mind was constantly active, never dormant, and even the littlest details collected from day to day were remembered, processed in the gears and cogs that fueled his thoughts. There was that irritating sense of familiarity, the way she seemed to intentionally attempt to goad him into reacting, and amidst that, the fact that he knew Selina wouldn’t pass up this opportunity, yet she was nowhere in sight, coupled with Helena’s observation that something was ‘off’ about her. He mulled it over, even as he kept count of how many minutes had passed since Irena and her companion had disappeared.
Half an hour, which was generous, and then he went looking.
It took him five minutes to find the poor fool, blissfully unconscious and hidden behind some very convenient curtains. There were still pieces to this puzzle he was missing, as well as pieces that didn’t fit, that he didn’t understand, but trying to solve it without all the pieces would only drive him mad. Instead, Bruce slipped back into the party; the Van Gogh was obviously the target, and better to keep an eye on it where it was visible rather than attempt to recreate her tracks and possibly give her the opening to act in the process. Waiting was difficult, but he could be patient; he mingled, he moved about the room, and all without taking his attention off of the Van Gogh. He could have alerted the guards, but he didn’t want to. At some point, he ended up at the center of a cluster of socialites, primarily women, recounting the tale of his skiing accident as they listened. He was positioned close to the painting, but not too close, angled on the right-hand side, rather than directly in front of it. Even as he spoke, he watched the guards, he watched the glass, and he watched the painting itself.
There was a rush of power at managing to coax out that steely gaze of his. Oh, she'd spent the past seven years as the recipient of another pair of grey eyes glaring at her, but they were different, he was different, and there was something about getting beneath his skin that made her purr. There was something about making him sting, if only for the briefest moment, that made the kitty cat pleased. After all, he hadn't tried to find her. He hadn't tried to contact her. Any part of her that had believed Eddie's little fairy tale seven years had given up that ghost as the days went by here, and now she just wanted him to sting. After all, kitty cat's had claws for a reason, and drawing blood was one of them. She watched his jaw tighten, and she watched his lip curl, and she wondered that the silly little socialites here thought him harmless. Oh, she wasn't a stupid kitty cat. She'd always known why he liked her. There was violence to him, anger, rage, and she was just grey enough for him to be able lose all those feelings inside her, while still allowing himself to walk away, hating her and maintaining his little facade of noble Bat. "I'm sure he is," she lauded of Dr. Crane, the smile on her lips a little too pleased, a little too entertained. As for Crane, she'd tangoed with worse over the past seven years. Jonathan Crane seemed like a good night's sleep after her rogues. And she recognized the meaning behind his words of caution, even if the others collected didn't. He was going to try to stop the prison, or try to stop Crane's appointment. Interesting. She really should tell Ollie. Shouldn't she?
But none of that mattered in the moment. In the moment, she needed to get the painting out without being noticed, and she couldn't find the esteemed Mr. Wayne through the gaps between drywall and frame. Well, she wasn't going to risk losing a perfect set-up. She'd just have to move quicker if the Bat decided to spread his little wings.
The distraction was perfect. Far away from the painting itself and in the entryway to the museum, and right on time. The boys were very young, seven and eight and nine, and they ran beneath arms and legs with cans of spray paint raised. Running madly, they drew criss-crossed lines of red along the walls and over the works of art. Oh, the glass would protect all of them, but there was nothing like screaming boys for distraction. And if they began spraying paint across the guests as they ducked the guards, well, that hadn't been her idea, had it? The socialites screamed, which just added to the chaos. As for the small smoke bombs they threw at people's feet as they went? Surely that hadn't been her idea either. The neon smoke rose, making visibility such a challenge.
And one second, Starry Night was slumbering peacefully. The next, it was entirely hidden by a little smoke bomb that came from a new hole in the drywall. She slipped the painting out, quickly got rid of the frame, and rolled the piece of art into the protective sheath that she'd unfolded while in the vent. The tube was slung across her body, and she moved. She didn't waste time waiting to see if Bruce Wayne had gone right for the painting, or if the boys had (as instructed) tripped him up along the way.
She didn't waste time on anything. She'd destroyed her entry point with the acid, and once she reached her exit on the roof, she destroyed that path too. She didn't look before swinging her whip to the adjacent building, heels and black. This was her rush, and cat suit or not? She was good at it.
The appearance of children armed with spray paint and smoke bombs, screaming up a storm, was unexpected, but Bruce was far calmer in the face of their intrusion than the rest of those in attendance. Oh, he feigned distress, but in the midst of screaming socialites attempting to protect their million-dollar suits and dresses, shouts from the guards, and rising smoke, he managed to slip through the sea of bodies unnoticed as he made a beeline for the Van Gogh. Unless there was a new thief in town, which was doubtful since he would have known, it had to be Selina, despite that conclusion making very little sense. But there was time to sort out the missing pieces later; he’d barely made it halfway to the painting before a small cloud of smoke obscured it from view, and he knew with certainty that he only had seconds before it wasn’t there at all. Damn. He changed course, veering to the right and towards the balcony, and while the boys’ attempts to position themselves in his path were admirable, not even the residual stiffness in his upper body was enough to allow him to be slowed down by children. He maneuvered around them, caught one’s arm before he could let another smoke bomb loose and gave him a look that was all Bat and no playboy, and then he was out in the open air of the balcony, sizing up the side of the museum and wondering if he could scale it in his thousand-dollar suit and only a rudimentary safety harness masquerading as a belt to assist him.
He managed, but he made it to the roof too late, just in time to see her back as she swung to the adjacent building and made her escape. In his other suit, he would have given chase, but like this he was practically useless. Bruce sighed, his steps slowing as he reached the edge of the roof and watched her disappear into the night. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered if he should have attempted to contact her sooner than this. But he’d gone looking; that was why he was here, and how was he to have known about... this? Though, he didn’t even know what this was, and he still needed confirmation that this was Selina, despite having enough evidence to be near certain that it was.
Contacting her directly was an option, of course, but he thought of someone else to check with first, the only other person who would know if Selina had indeed changed.