Diamond in the Rough

AN: A Marvel/DC crossover, blithely ignoring the massive differences between canons. Nothing belongs to me. Thanks to Rainpuddle for the prompt.


"Merde!" Remy yelped as the bullwhip cracked on the narrow ledge he was balancing on. "Look, cherie, I have to have that diamond back!"

"What diamond?" responded the woman in the catsuit playfully, still toying with the bullwhip in her hand. Her mask did very little to hide the fact that she was a beautiful woman, with slanted green cat's eyes that revealed nothing beyond a playful shrewdness that Remy rarely met outside of the Guild.

Remy leapt at her suddenly, feeling ridiculous until he felt warm leather under his bare fingers. He got in close enough that she couldn't use the whip on him, pinning her to the wall and looking for where she had secreted the diamond away.

"Meow," she panted into his ear, wiggling in just the right way. Remy resisted the dual urges to get the hell out of Dodge and to press himself closer, and murmured, "All I want is the diamond."

She smirked. "That's not all, I'd wager."

Remy sighed. This was why he never came to Gotham. The museum job had seemed simple enough - the security systems had been laughably easy to circumvent and the guards had been a breeze to slip around - but once he'd gotten to the roof, he'd encountered this infuriating creature who had stolen the diamond from out of his grasp. He hadn't been so humiliated - and invigorated- since he'd been a pup.

He'd resisted doing anything... rash... so far, but as the woman smoothly escaped his grasp with a move that would have made Belladonna smile, Remy couldn't help but think that this was his kind of woman.

He followed her down the ledge, trying to think of Rogue and the Guild and why he needed this particular diamond so much.

"You're much cuter than the two-bit thieves we usually get," she said, trailing a claw-tipped finger idly across his trenchcoat's lapel. "And I'm impressed that you managed to get the diamond without attracting Batman's attention."

Impressed or disappointed? There was something in the way she said the name of Gotham's most terrifying vigilante that made Remy wonder about the intelligence of his next move.

"It wasn't difficult." Remy shrugged modestly. "I'm Gambit."

"Catwoman," she replied.

He moved closer, grasped her hand and raised it to his lips. "Enchante."

He straightened, and eyed her skin-tight outfit. "So, chere," he said, pushing all thoughts of Rogue firmly out of mind. "If I can find where you hid the diamond, can I have it back?"

"Depends on how skilled you are at searching." Breathy voice, with just the right amount of emphasis on double-edged words. Remy had never met a woman capable of purring like this one. He grinned, sliding his hands over feline curves and replied, "I won't disappoint."

Catwoman laughed. The sound contrasted perfectly with the harshness of the Gotham night and the icy wind beating at their ledge, and Remy wondered if perhaps coming to Gotham hadn't been an even bigger mistake than he first reckoned.