. (spacecowboys) wrote in rooms, @ 2014-08-24 20:58:00 |
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Entry tags: | !dc comics, *narrative, selina kyle |
Narrative
Who: The Cat
What: Narrative
Where: City Hall
When: Recentlyish
Warnings/Rating: Nope
The Cat had no idea what day it was. And the Cat had no idea what time it was. And the Cat didn't care.
Day had poured into night had poured into day, and all that mattered was the pouring. Time elongated, and more time meant worse odds. No one told her, but she knew, and even this small period of rest felt like time wasted. Time enough to rest after-
After what?
But no, time enough then. Now was a bathroom, marble and broken mirrors and were they still at the bar? No, City Hall? She couldn't remember. It really didn't matter. No one had answers, too scared of Ra's, and it hardly mattered whose blood stained her claws now. They were swinging blindly, and she was just following the lead of the blonde in purple. Strategy had never been the Cat's specialty, and it had been her instinct to go down. Sewers, Wonder City, Gotham Underground, and maybe that was Eddie, or maybe it was her time there, the Joker's Daughter, the Talons, and Dr. Phosphorus. Down, not up, but she couldn't think clearly, and that was exhaustion and the threads of anxiety making her turn too quickly whenever she thought she heard a familiar voice, saw a familiar face in the shadows.
Chasing down demons, and it was a Catch-22. If they found Ra's, they might find Bruce.
But they would find Ra's.
And who went looking for clowns when they feared white facepaint and red noses? Coulrophobia, and she had the Ra's version, and she couldn't convince herself that it was a silly fear.
As a child, she'd managed. Every fear, every touch, every broken bone, every night hungry, every night scared, she'd convinced herself they were nothing. She couldn't now, and age had made her soft, and love had made her weak, and this progression of terrors wouldn't stop.
But then, neither would she.
And so this bathroom, smashed glass and marble, and she'd given up on shoving the sharp-silver bite of the epinephrine into her thigh; it took too long. Zipper down, and her stomach was becoming a landscape of bruises with red-dot centers.
At least it was fast, the rush.
She leaned against the wall of the stall, door opened because why bother with pretending anymore? She closed her eyes, and she tried to think of something good, of something wanted. The loft. The loft and-
No.
Stop.
The wanted things were fears, and that didn't help. Fears, mistakes made, things she couldn't ever take back, things she might not ever get back. Fears, and they turned into weakness. Fear of loss made her hesitate with each fall of fist, each snap of whip, each decision, each leap. It was hard to follow your gut when feelings made everything bright red. The heart, the mind, and she'd been right when she said they made a person weak. They did. They were open wounds, purple and black, fitting colors for raw and angry and swinging blindly, bleeding on anything that would be bled on.
But that wouldn't get them anywhere. City Hall, bar, underground, rooftop, it wouldn't get them anywhere. It would paint the streets with blood, but that was all it would do.
No. She needed to focus, and focus was breaking-and-entering, and focus was the sweet snick of a picked lock, and focus was the Mona Lisa under her arm and an empty jewelry display case in the Gotham Museum.
Exhale.
The Cat left the bathroom, zipper up and goggles over bloodshot eyes of pinpoint mossy green. Focus, and the lockpicks in her hand felt better than the gun and whip had over the last few days. City Hall? Papers, a computer, Ra's couldn't be doing this alone. This wasn't just Ra's al Ghul. Somewhere, somehow there had to be something, a trace, a path, something to follow, something more valuable than blood splattered against a wall.
Something to let them know how this ended.
Or how it was supposed to end.
She was anguish and pain, held together by slinky black and metal teeth. She was sobs that echoed off stately white walls. She was silence, because what was the point of words? Saying she missed him was inadequate. No, she'd do this, because this she could do.
A lock snicked. This she could do.