thomas brandon iii ; batman (bystealth) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2010-08-27 23:59:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | batman, catwoman |
Who: the Bat and the (pre-suit) Cat
What: A meeting. In which there is not as much flirting as Eve might like.
Where: On the rooftops, since apparently Bats meets everyone on the rooftops.
When: Say last night.
Warnings: Zip! Well, maybe some slight blood. PG13 if that really bothers you?
Learning a new city was best done from above; when the streets laid themselves out beneath you obligingly like all those so-pretty maps they handed out to tourists. It was also high up, cooler than the sacked-out conditioner with its high pitched, metallic whine could manage and besides -- other people's precious objects were better than a Welcome Wagon's offerings could be. There was always the new place -- probably came with chilled air that smelled expensive -- but it felt cage-like. A too-quiet building, without the ribaldry that seeped through the cracked walls of Hamartia; sex and sweat and laughter and blaring television-sets, the occasional staccato rat-tat of gun-fire. The heavy blanket of privilege that swaddled the Aubade stifled anything so ordinary as noise. Besides - there were other reasons to get out and climb, until her bones shrieked and her muscles sang with the cacophony of movement, of stretching, of freedom.
Steamy-thick heat pressed itself around her with the sticky caress of a lover clinging too long the morning after; even this high up, Seattle was sultry, curling its fingers possessively and tugging her back in. It had been here Eve had taken her first real stretch, when running rooftops had felt like flying and then she had roamed on. Learned her limits, begun to need the prowling just as much as the thrill of an excellently executed steal. Speaking of --
Veins abuzzing, the catch knocked against gloved fingers as delicately she slid the window back into place -- intact, bar for a neat, small circle of glass missing from the pane. Almost too boring to count as an actual amusement, was security so little of a concern to the residents of -- she'd forgotten the name -- a building fringed with iron balconies like lace, almost too easy -- except the trinket now dangling from Eve's other hand had deserved a home where someone would love it enough not to wear it out on the street for anyone to catch a craving. Not a challenge, no but a greeting, 'hi honey, I'm home!' She coiled the chain into her palm, rubbed one gloved finger over a facet of the diamond almost lovingly, and tucked it into an interior pocket. Behind the mask, green eyes glinted appreciation, below the mask, lips curved. Job done, time for a run. Tools tucked away for the night, hair ruffled by the faint snatch of breeze, Eve sprang from the balcony perch to a rooftop and began to race.
It was a good night. Besides the last encounter with the drug dealer with training and a knife, anyway. But before that there had been four botched muggings, one interrupted rape (in which he dealt out several broken bones more for his own satisfaction than any sense of punishment), and progress on two of the murder cases he was investigating. He had not particularly expected a drug dealer to have knife training, which was his own mistake. All injuries were failures.
When the patter of steps and shadow of another slid across the roof, he had glove and gauntlet free of an arm which shone red. The first aid kit was unusually small, and he kept it in his belt, but now it was out and a very thin hook of a needle was glinting in the borrowed light of a nearby street sign. Protected by a crumbling bit of architecture at the edge of the building, he thought himself safe from prying eyes--and he would have been, if they had been below.
At the sign of the step, he looked sharply up, and the dark gaze under the cowl was unforgiving of the interruption.
If it hadn't been for that little snatch of light caught in the glisten of silver -- Eve's attention was caught, pulled toward the shine and whilst the needle was easily dismissed with fleeting disappointment, enough of a haul for one night -- the skulking figure crouched over was not. The little corner whoever it was had chosen to huddle in was well enough for the purpose; little light filtered through and it took a moment or two for Eve's eyes to adjust to the gloom, the blinking florescent sign picking out the needle, the blood, the shine of another's eyes.
"Sorry, hadn't realized I was playing in someone else's sandbox," she said, her voice warm and laughing and not sounding sorry at all -- an amateur perhaps? It had been a long time since she'd last been sliced, broken glass had a bite that took a lot of subduing and you learned that lesson quickly -- except, why would you carry around a damn needle and thread to sew yourself up unless you'd been bitten before?
"A regular damn boy-scout," she remarked, leaning back against the rooftop with a careless stretch that realigned her spine and then the flare of car-lights from below made the cowl evident and her laughter became more than an undertone. "Halloween's in a good couple months, pumpkin."
The Bat didn't find any humor in his situation. He could fight with an injured arm and sew it up later, and the blood was neither disturbingly bright (oxygen rich deep wounds) or disturbingly heavy, so while he needed stitches, it didn't mean that he felt himself in danger. He stared at her--or at least, there was a good chance he was staring at her, it was hard to tell with the shadow over his brow--for a good ten seconds before he decided to reply. "You're practicing early, then." The bare fingers, usually hidden by the impersonal gloves, gave him a sense of humanity he didn't like showing her--oddly, that bothered him more than the blood. He made a mental note to scour the rooftop to prevent any DNA matching.
He made no move to rise from his crouch, instead discarding the antiseptic wrapper that kept the needle clean with the casual intensity of an off-duty soldier on a nature hike.
"That's not boy-scout behavior," her teasing lilt came from above, her vantage-point enough of an advantage that she could see more of him than he of her -- back-lit by the light that illuminated him so well, she was little more than a sillhouette in black. What details there were were limited to that mask banding black against white skin, a fringe of ruffled curls behind it and of course, the gaze like cat's eyes in the dark.
He'd taken his time, unsurprised -- or at least, un-intimidated by the presence of another on his pitch to answer -- not a common thief, springing quick to defend a patch and this one was more profitable than most, although she had every intention of expanding to encompass the city -- show the whole place a little loving, after all. "Oh, sweetie," a shake of the head, a disappointed sigh, "I've no intention of practicing anything." Somehow, she made even the littlest of things sound like an invitation.
He made an unforgiving sound, like a grunt. It managed to communicate a general disdain that he didn't necessarily feel. That's what masks are for, after all. He debated for a few moments about whether to start stitching while she was sitting up there, but again, he decided not to take the inherent threat of another on a roof that seriously. It was not as if he had identified a female murder suspect with a liking for black and witty repartee. There were several other antiseptic pads, and he cleaned the wound off without flinching and started sewing up his own flesh, keeping the edge of his eye out for movement if he had to drop what he was doing and meet an attack.
There was little intention on her part to attack -- as she watched, arms folded across her chest (and heartbeat beginning a more human rhythm as her body adjusted to being at rest once more) Eve observed the general stature of her reluctant companion in conversation. In a word, big. He took up the darkness as though it were a comfortable and familiar blanket to wrap oneself in, entirely nonplussed by her presence -- that irritated. No ticker-tape parade, no welcome home was expected, but hell, a girl could expect a little curiosity -- it hadn't killed anyone, cat or no cat yet. A desire to needle, to prickle deep under the skin and wiggle there until the calm figure was a little less damn calm (who the hell decided to perform first aid on a rooftop? the answer, no one sane) began to creep itself inside her blood, whisper sinuously in her ear but the whim-quick desire to play with another -- cat and mouse style -- was hardly unusual.
"So stoic," was her next prod, tossed idly from above as Eve made herself comfortable against rough stone and crumbling brickwork in a way only she could. "Cat got your tongue?"
"Not all of us are here to play," he said, with an ironic lift on that last word that she had used upon first meeting him. He didn't mind admitting that he thought of the city as his territory, or sandbox, if you will. He was perfectly willing to be defensive about it. He wanted to know what she was doing on the roofs in a mask because he suspected it was something illegal. He couldn't prove it, however, and he wasn't going to fight her to see what was in that bag of hers. Unlike some of these trigger-happy idiots, he didn't go around attacking people at the least provocation.
"You don't look like you even know how," it was meant to be a tease, flirtatious -- but it turned into a sharpness, a flippant kind of stab that would be delivered with a twist of the wrist to make it hurt. There was something that itched deep beneath her skin, a discomfort and a downright damn annoyance that set everything off-kilter. Besides -- "Unless that costume is a really entertaining kink played out without a partner, you're not just practically wearing your issues, sugar, you just damn well are." A shift in body-weight against the tiles; one was loose enough that another person would send it skirling down above, a clattering greeting card. She wasn't another person -- the movement, careful picking placement of feet and the tile remained intact.
He'd assessed that roof and decided it wasn't a good idea to put his weight on it. He had a reluctant appreciation for almost all skills that didn't involve dead bodies, but again he endeavored not to show it. Being a man of practicality (despite his appearance) he wasn't insulted by her observation but he recognized his own abnormality in that way. "How observant. And what are you wearing?" Perhaps he raised his eyebrows behind the mask, perhaps he didn't. Either way, he looked up at her from what he was doing, then glanced back down to tie the stitch off. He pressed a little button on his belt and a little silver scissor like the kind old maids use to work on their sewing popped forth.
It just got better and better -- or more bizarre. The city was thrumming with people, different, weird, special and the one she'd encountered (possibly sane -- possibly not, she was leaning toward sane with a sense of the absurd) was snipping at stitches with a calm sense of the everyday on a rooftop -- in a bat costume. Couldn't forget the damn costume. He spoke though, in a way that made her think of words bitten off, like dollar bills counted out with tongue between the teeth and the same hard, unforgiving sound as the grinding of tile against crumbling mortar beneath her.
"Buy a girl a drink first," feigned shock, another shift of weight. Her muscles were tensing unbidden, pushing for running rooftops, sliding through spaces -- the way a trained athlete might long for the workout. Her unease would have shown on her face if you could see beneath the mask; nothing to do with encountering the Bat although he was hardly threatening right now at his needlepoint.
"You're new." The Bat didn't flirt. He was all business. It was an incredibly annoying habit. He clipped the thread, took every scrap of blood-stained thread, and tucked it away in what was unmistakeably an evidence bag. After a quick one-handed wrap, and he was putting the gauntlet back long. His arm was thick, but the gauntlet was thicker; he must have more little sewing kits in there. "There hasn't been a news article on you yet." The implication was that there would be soon.
Eve flirted every time she took a breath. It was instinctive, unthinking -- it was an easy way to crawl under someone else's skin and sit there. She liked that. Boy Scout below was more than prepared though missing his neck-tie; sharp eyes tracked the goings-on with idle interest. An evidence bag? Police didn't normally dress up like trick-or-treating and hang out on the roof-top squalor sewing themselves back together. He cleared up as though it were as important as the stitchery and then fingers and flesh were blotted out by his gloves, thicker than her own -- he slid back into darkness like it was home and she hadn't realized just how much of an impact one little hand made when that was all you could see.
"No. There hasn't." A glint of white teeth -- a smile. Pride; news articles? Really? The hell was wrong with a town where the longer you had been running it, the longer you'd been playing the game and getting better at it was heralded in getting sloppy, getting caught, getting put into print? "If I'd made the papers, it wouldn't be for this, pumpkin." True - more true than anyone else would know, and the smile became a grin.
Thomas Brandon learned the media is a tool. In Musings, the Bat had largely avoided it, as it was always entirely nonsensical and did more damage than anything else; he recognized it as an important aspect of society, however. His goal in this world was to be feared among a certain section of the population, and as long as the hints in the media stayed hints, that fear only prevailed.
The deviled cowl, the impassive gaze, the gauntlets, the shadows, all of it was made to intimidate. He understood that his moment of vulnerability negated much of that, but habit was habit. He turned away. "I hope I don't hear anything that would cause me to regret this interview." If she turned out to be a psychotic killer, he was going to have to reassess his instincts.
He spoke as if he might personally object -- and that that objection would be something worthy of noting. The arrogance of it was breathtaking and she would have laughed -- but at the same time, he spoke as if it weren't arrogance at all but simple fact and that wasn't something to laugh at at all.
"Oh, everything was off the record," she said, making a lazy assessment of precisely what he looked like without a scrap of humanity penetrating the disguise -- even if she had encountered him in another fashion, Eve was either too nonchalant (or too reckless) to have fear. With a lightness of step, she threw herself down to his side from her vantage-point, ready for the leap across to the next rooftop, the run; a momentary brush of leather and mask and the woman beneath them. The impassivity was irritating -- before he could object, move, a laughing, mocking graze of lips against where his cheek would be beneath the cowl. "Til next time, boy scout."