"On a Wing and a Purr"

Disclaimer: Nightwing and all related characters belong to DC Comics. Felicia Hardy, the Black Cat, belongs to Marvel Comics and Marvel Studios. No profit is made from this story and it is done simply for entertainment value.

Author's note: We all know about Batman and Catwoman, right? Well, what if Nightwing found his own cat to play with? Hence, this crossover has been born. The story has no definite timeline, although it borrows elements from Nightwing Comics and the 90s Spider-Man animated series. Other than that, so long as you know who the characters are, there shouldn't be any problems.

Wayne & Hardy Foundation charity ball

New York City

A large group of partygoers was attending a charity ball organized by Felicia Hardy and her mother Anastasia. Alfred Pennyworth, the butler and retainer to Bruce Wayne, escorted his employer's adoptive son Richard "Dick" Grayson to meet Felicia, a stunning young woman with a beautiful Blonde hair

"I apologize, Miss Hardy," Alfred said, "but Master Wayne has an emergency to deal in Gotham and has requested that Master Grayson step in on his behalf."

"Nice to meet you, Miss Hardy," Dick greeted, offering a hand to shake.

"Nice to meet you, too," Felicia answered, and just as she took his hand to shake it, he gently brought it to his lips for a brief kiss. This small action made her blush slightly. Charming.

"Would you like to talk for a while?" Dick asked.

"With you? Of course," Felicia replied, and guided Dick over to the bar. Each of them ordered a drink, Felicia noting with some amusement (and appreciation) that Dick's was nonalcoholic. Smiling at her newfound companion's avoidance of intoxication, Felicia opened the conversation. "What brings you here? Other than the obvious?"

While Dick and Felicia were getting to know each other, a jet-black helicopter flew towards the building where their party was being held and began to descend on the rooftop. After a few seconds, it stopped on the landing strip and then armored soldiers exited the helicopter. They hooked grapples to the edge of the building and threw attached ropes down its side. Their commanding officer stood ready to give orders.

"First team, rappel down," he ordered. "Second team, go through the building itself." The first squad of five soldiers rappelled down the side of the building, while a second squad of five entered the building via roof access. This left the commanding officer on the rooftop, and he pulled out a cell phone and speed-dialed someone. "It's started."

Inside the ball

The soldiers rappelling down the side of the building crashed through the window. At the same time, the squad that entered through the roof entrance of the building made it into the ballroom to cut off would-be escapees. Mere seconds later, the leader of this operation entered, looking like he owned the place.

"This is how it's going to go down," the man declared. "We are going to relieve you of money and your jewelry. Do nothing except what we tell you and say nothing funny, and you'll all be allowed to leave here alive."

"What is the meaning of this?" one of the partygoers asked and tried to move past the armored gunmen. The leader of the gunmen aimed his pistol at the man and pulled the trigger. The unfortunate partygoer dropped dead, the bullet having struck him in the head. The gunman then turned to face the others, and gestured toward the first casualty of the evening as a silent threat.

The other partygoers, for the most part, gave in, not wanting to suffer the same fate as their newly dead fellow. Immediately, they began putting their jewelry and money inside a large black bag one of the other gunmen was holding out.

"Excellent, I see you get the message now," the leader of the gang remarked, as more partygoers deposited their valuables into the bag. He turned to his other cohorts. "Lock it down, and kill anybody that tries to get inside." After giving that order, he headed off with four other gunmen while the rest continued to collect the partygoers' valuables.

Awful nice time for Spider to be busy, Felicia thought to herself, looking around as the group of armored gunmen came to them.

"Wallets and jewelry in the bags," one of the gunmen ordered, watching as they proceed to put wallets and jewelry into the black bag he held out. Dick watched the gang finish collecting money and jewelry and take the full bags to their leader.

"Excellent," commented the leader. "I see you've followed my orders to the letter. Now down on your knees!"

"You have our money; what else do you want?" asked Felicia.

"Bargaining chips," the leader replied. "That would be you." The other gunmen shoved people to their knees and tied their hands behind their backs. Once that was done, they started patrolling the ballroom while their cohorts patrolled the rest of the building and their leader supervised the ones in the ballroom.

"You won't get a penny from me!" declared J. Jonah Jameson, publisher of The Daily Bugle. "I don't knuckle under to terrorists!"

"I'm sure your wife or son will pay for you," the leader retorted with an audible sneer.

While Jameson kept the gunmen occupied with his tough talk, Dick was busy trying to slip free of the plastic cuffs he was in. "Pretty organized for a bunch of thugs looking for quick cash," he mumbled so that only Alfred could hear.

"Indeed, Master Dick," Alfred agreed quietly. "Your gear's ready in the usual place."

Dick nodded to him, but it wasn't going to be so easy to get at said gear. The building was under constant patrols by the armored gunmen. Even if they didn't find his gear first, how was he supposed to get at it without alerting them to what he was trying to do?

"Have you set the explosive charges where I told you?" the ringleader asked one of his men.

"Yes, sir," the gunman answered. "The explosives have been placed as you ordered. The building is locked down from the inside, but the police have shown up."

"Right on time for my demands, don't you think?" the leader remarked. Just then, two more gunmen came in carrying in a large video recorder and pointed it at him, cuing him silently to speak once the recording function had been turned on. Even better, the camera had been wired into the broadcasting equipment in the building, which gave them an even bigger stage to make their demands.

"People of New York, my team of commandos and I have taken everyone in this building as our hostages," the ringleader spoke into the camera. "I will execute one of these overfed plutocrats per hour unless my demands are met. Said demands are that the sum of one million dollars is paid for each of these hostages, and the clock is ticking.

"If I see any web-slingers or wannabe devils or other costume fetishists with a fondness for playing hero near here, I will kill every one of my hostage immediately. For the record, when I said I was going to kill one hostage for each hour that passed, I meant at the start of each hour, specifically this one."

To illustrate his point, the leader dragged a female hostage in front of the camera and pointed his gun at her head. The young woman was trembling with terror and had her eyes closed as though trying to shut out what was happening.

The ringleader pulled the trigger, and a shower of blood and brain matter and skull fragments exploded where the woman's head had once been. This sight of casual cruelty elicited screams from the hostages, and a young man who might have been her sibling or lover yelled his anger at the ringleader.

"You have one hour," he spoke stonily. The soldiers turned the camera off and dragged the woman's corpse out of sight, placing it near the man they'd killed earlier.

As much as Dick didn't want to admit it, that killing had been a perverse blessing in disguise, insofar as it had given him enough time to free his hands. It was seemingly for naught, though, as one of the gunmen had spotted him and roughly hauled him up to their leader. "What do we do with this guy?"

"Take him out of here and eliminate him," the leader ordered.

"Yes, sir, right away," the gunman responded, and handed Dick off to two soldiers that took him away to another room.

Inside that room, the men shoved Dick to his knees and one of aimed a pistol at his head. In the split second before he could pull the trigger, Dick got to his feet and disarmed the gunman with one chop to the nerves in his arm. He then took down the others before they could muster up the awareness to react in time.

Having knocked out the armored gunmen holding him, Dick headed to a ventilation shaft and pulled it open. He crawled inside and through the shaft to a secret room where a Nightwing costume and other equipment awaited him.

"Good old Bruce," Dick muttered to himself as he changed into his costume. He finished up by putting his mask on and strapping the utility cuffs to his wrists and calves. He then picked up his escrima sticks and activated the surveillance system to locate the other gunmen. Having done that, he went on the move.

Three commandos were patrolling the first-floor corridor, but one of them is leaning against the wall lackadaisically. The other two, who were staying on task, looked at him somewhat irritably. "Come on, get back on patrol," one of them grumbled.

"Why? Nobody can get in here," rejoined the relaxing commando. He paid for his presumptuousness, along with his two comrades, when Nightwing pushed out of the ventilation shaft and took them all down.

Meanwhile, two more armored commandos watched the media and police from their perch at the window, snickering with disdain at the gathered cops and reporters. "Do those idiots actually think we are going to release the hostages when we get what we came for?" one of them asked.

"Yeah," agreed the other. "Soon as we get the money, we're gonna get away clean, and everybody in here except us is gonna be dead."

Those two also paid for their presumptuousness, as Nightwing took them down as well.

Inside the ballroom, the commando leader was getting worried. "Where are Johnson and Kennedy? They should have been back by now."

"Don't know, but Anderson and Briggs aren't reporting in, either," one of the commandos answered. "I'll take Owens, Blake, Edwards and Sanders to search for them."

True to his word, that commando did take four of his fellows to search for their missing comrades. A few seconds later, he came back in unwilling flight through the door, passing out as Nightwing entered the ballroom. The darkly clad vigilante walked towards the leader of the gang, only to be halted mid-step by the remainder of his forces. Without even pausing, Nightwing began to fight them.

"What did I tell you?" the ringleader asked with cool anger in his voice. "What did I warn you not to do? Well, you've done it, and now all these people are going to be dead because of you, 'hero.'" To demonstrate, he grabbed Felicia and put her in a one-armed headlock and while the other hand pointed his gun at her head.

At that moment, Nightwing picked up a silver tray and threw it like a Batarang at the leader's head. The impact disoriented him enough for his gun to slip out of his hand and his grip on Felicia to loosen. This allowed her to break free from him while elbowing him hard in the stomach. In an instant Nightwing finished the job, knocking the commando leader out and taking his detonator.

"Oh, my God, Richard!" Felicia exclaimed with dismay. "He's dead!"

"No," Nightwing corrected. "I saved him and he told me about the bombs. Now can you help me lead these people out of here? He'll meet you there after we're finished.

"No problem," Felicia replied, and she and Nightwing escorted the former hostages out of the ballroom. The police helped take care of the former hostages while also apprehending the commandos that had taken the building hostage. Seeing that their work was done, Nightwing "disappeared" to become Dick Grayson, who was now being treated by the EMTs.

Felicia spotted him and ran over to him, glad to see him alive. "Thank God you're safe!"

Dick smiled charmingly at her. "You maybe wanna get a cup of coffee some time?"

"Yeah, I'd love that," Felicia replied.