A Chat With the Cat

by KF fan

When he was 14, Kid Flash once had a pivotal talk with Catwoman in which she opened his eyes to the possibility of pursuing a villain girl. Now four years later his wife Jinx would like to thank her.

**Author's Note: In Chapter 18 of my story Speedsterized, young Kid Flash met Catwoman**

Kid Flash zipped back to the bed he shared with his wife Jinx and slipped under the covers next to her where she lay on her side propped up on one elbow watching him. She smiled that he still zipped around, modestly even though they'd been married a year and he was an impossibly well toned speedster. He adopted the same posture as her, leaning on the opposite elbow and smiling at her from an inch away. He leaned forward and rubbed his nose slowly on hers.

Finally, she pushed on his shoulder with a chuckle. "You do that so often I think you're trying to rub your freckles off on me. You're such a cornball."

He beamed at her, loving how she looked with her long pink hair down like this. "Is that so bad?"

She took her weight off her elbow and lay her head down on the pillow still facing him. He mirrored her actions, his face again just inches from hers.

She sighed. "A lot of times it is," she said, quickly adding "Not-not from you or Flash. But some of the others use it like a weapon. Truth, justice and my way. But you both have such innocent intentions."

He smirked and she understood that it referred to the irony of this remark after the last two hours.

"How did a nerd, cornball like you ever consider dating a hip villain girl, anyway?" she whispered, only meaning it rhetorically but he answered anyway.

"I told you!" he chirped then continued in a soft whisper. "I snuck up on you guys outside the museum you were going to rob and I loved the way you spoke about all the antiquities. You were so smart."

He leaned forward and rubbed his nose on hers again. "And then I saw how beautiful you are . . "

She luxuriated in it a few moments.

"I mean, it's surprising that you were even open to seeing a villain girl like that? Robin wouldn't have been. Gar wouldn't. Garth wouldn't. "

"Well . . Catwoman," he explained as if that should be enough.

Jinx's eyes narrowed slightly thinking it through. "You . . you thought she was hot sooooo . . . you could accept that a villain girl could be attractive?"

He chuckled. "No! Though, I met her once and-and she was really hot. Va va va voom!" he laughed.

She smirked and rolled her eyes. "That's so anachronistic. Has any guy said that in 40 years?"

"I heard Uncle Barry repeat it once, when I was 10 years old or something. He said some guy said that about Aunt Iris not realizing he was her husband."

"Anyways," said Jinx, now leaning forward to rub her gray nose on his freckle dusted nose. "You met her and . . ?"

"For-for no particular reason, we started talking. I . . . I almost thought afterwards that maybe she'd already been curious about the psychology of heroes, us junior heroes in particular."

She nodded, continuing in a whisper and avoiding his eyes as she sometimes did when talking about her earlier career path."I heard that about Catwoman. Asking people questions about their motivations. I mean, it was something they said at the academy."

"Really?"

"Yeah! Do you think, we only scouted the heroes? You were also supposed to know which villains you could count on for what."

"Were you supposed to count on Catwoman?"

Jinx shook her head. "Uh-uh. We were told that she was too mercurial to rely on."

"Hey, I'm mercurial," he grinned.

She rolled her eyes at the joke and patted his rear under the covers. "Not speedy buns! Prone to sentiment changes. They said that she was oddly interested in everyone's psychology and that you couldn't rely on her because she was a true loner though sometimes it almost seemed like she was working with The Bat even though you could never quite prove it. That's what they told us. So, how did you encounter her?"

"I wanted to see how Gotham looked at night so . . . "

"So, being a total freak, you just casually ran 3,000 miles across the country like somebody else might run a city block."

Wally shrugged. Yeah, basically.

"And as I was running up and down the City streets I saw someone leaping from building to building. At first I thought, 'Bat', right? Gotta be The Bat going for position in Gotham. But the silhouette of that person clearly wasn't The Bat or littlebat either. So I ran up to the top of one of the buildings and there she was."

"Annnnnnnd you just started rapping with her."

"No! I didn't just start rapping with her. I-I wasn't sure what to do. I hadn't caught her doing anything and I'd heard that same not quite sure which side she's on kind of stuff, too. We started talking and she asked me about what was frustrating for me and I think I said something about how it was impossible to meet girls."

Jinx chuckled and pushed against the muscle of her slender husband's chest. "You ridiculously trusting cornball nerd! You didn't think anything of talking about your private life with a maybe villain!"

He grinned and shrugged bashfully. "She's very good at getting you to talk. Anyway, she said I should consider villain girls."

"She did?!"

He nodded. "Uh huh. She said a girl might be treated really badly," his voice dropped to a barely audible whisper and he leaned in even closer to her. "That people might be totally unfair to her and that she might react to that by going to the other side but that wasn't what she really was. It was only circumstance that put her on that side."

He edged closer till his lips almost touched hers just speaking. "And a girl like that might only need someone to show her an unexpected kindness to help break out of it."

He finished and kissed her and they embraced feverishly.

An hour later they finally untangled.

He pulled his red and yellow uniform on beside their bed in a momentary blur. She was still working on her shoes.

"You have to introduce me to her," she commanded.

"Hon, I just met her that one time."

"It's not right that you have more great female mentors than me. You had Aunt Iris and you had Catwoman and now you have Z. It'd be ridiculous for a boy in a unitard to have so many more good female mentors than me."

"Thanks for reducing me to just a boy in a unitard. Can't I get man in a unitard or at least guy?"

"Fine. It's ridiculous that a guy in a unitard has so many more good female mentors than me. Now, chop chop," she clapped twice. "Get on it."

He inhaled deeply. "I'll try. But you know how it is with territories and everything. And Gotham belongs to The Bat. If he catches me zooming around his City over and over he's gonna be pissed."

"What could he do?"

His blue eyes went wide behind the yellow mask of his uniform. "He's Batman! I don't know! And I don't wanna find out."

"Too bad. You have to introduce me to her."

"But hon!"

She glared.

Kid Flash sighed. He nodded reluctantly.

It didn't happen right away. He came to realize what a fluke of luck it had been for him to run through Gotham for the first time and right away see Catwoman leaping from building to building above him that time. He started super speeding to Gotham all the time, any night when he had a few extra minutes he'd take off and then zip through the city streets vibrating his body to not be visible.

Over the next six weeks he counted 37 times that he'd run across the country and crisscrossed the streets of Gotham trying to see Catwoman. But he had no luck. He never saw her. He never even caught a glimpse of something or someone that he might momentarily think was her. He had monitored all the Gotham papers, news stations, facebook, twitter and Gotham City Police web sites for hints about where to find her but it was like they were all working against him. There hadn't been a mention of Catwoman anywhere in that entire time.

But he'd told Jinx he would and she was so anxious to meet Catwoman. So, he was running through Gotham for the 38th time and bemoaning his bad luck, his thoughts overwhelmed with frustration when he decided to stop. He spied a likely spot where no one would see him, deep in shadows at the end of an alley between two tall buildings and near a burnt out street light. He zipped to a halt, not bothering to keep his vibrations going and tried to clear his head so that he'd be a good observer. Wouldn't want to miss her because I'm not focused, he told himself. He took a deep breath.

"What are you doing here?" came the icy grunt from behind him.

"Aaaaa!" Kid Flash yelped and jumped three feet in the air, spinning around upon landing only to be confronted by Batman.

"What?! How could . . . ?! This is the first time I've stopped, the first time I allowed myself to be visible. How did you know where to-"

"I'm Batman."

Kid Flash gulped and nodded. The Bat advanced to a point just a couple feet from him and it was hard for him to restrain the urge to retreat. He felt no more the Dark Knight's equal in this situation than he would have when he first squeezed into his uniform at 11 years old.

"Yes sir," he said in a voice that sounded like 11 year old Kid Flash's.

"Tell me what you're doing here."

"WellsirIhopeyoudon'tmindmycallingyousirIt'skindofafunnythingthatbringsmeintoyourcityandbelievemeIagreethatit'syourcity. I'llhustlemyredandyellowcoveredselfoutofhereassoonasIcanbecauseIunderstandthatthisisyourcity. YouseeI'mdoingsomethingformywifeJinxandcanIjustsaythankyouagainformarryingusWhoknewbeforethatthatyou'reajusticeofthepeace. ThoughyoukindofspookedmewiththewayyousaidthetilldeathdoyoupartstuffImeandidyouhavetoemphasizetheworddeathlikethat?ItreallyspookedmeIalmostwetmyself. AnywayummywifeI'mdoingthisformywifeshewantstomeetCatwomanseeImetCatwomanoncebeforenotthatIwasn'trespectingyourcityI-"

Batman held his hand up in front of Kid Flash in a stop gesture. "Speedsters," he grunted with a slight shake of his head and he pressed one button then another on a particular square of his utility belt. Wally heard his terrified voice played back, not at the frightened rate at which he'd spoken but slowed down to normal speed.

"Well, sir. I hope you don't mind my calling you sir. It's kind of a funny thing . . . "

When the replay finished, Batman pressed a button at his utility belt and stared at Kid Flash.

"Your wife wants to speak to Catwoman?"

"Um, yeah, I mean yes sir."

"Why didn't you ask me about it?"

Kid Flash looked left and right. What?!

"Um, well, you're kind of an intimidating presence, sir, and I spoke to her the very first time I was in Gotham. So, I sort of thought it wouldn't be hard to find her again. Only-"

Batman leaned slightly forward and spoke through gritted teeth. "You spoke to a villain in my city and didn't tell me?"

Kid Flash had heard that in one of Flash's early fights with Mirror Master, the villain had shrunk Flash to an inch high. This must have been what it felt like.

"I-IyessirIshouldhavesaidsomethingtoyouonlyIdidn'tcatchherdoinganythingandIthoughttherewassomeuncertaintyabout-"

Batman held up a black gloved hand right in front of Kid Flash's face, shaking his head slightly.

"Stop. Take a deep breath and then speak normally."

Kid Flash nodded 87 times. He took 17 deep breaths and went as excruciatingly slowly as he could, thereby approximating normal human speech.

"I should have. But I didn't catch her doing anything. And I thought there was some uncertainty about whether she was actually a villain."

For several painful seconds, Kid Flash wondered whether this would be good enough for Batman or would he do . . who knows what. He never said that it was. He just went on.

"I might be able to arrange something."

Kid Flash was momentarily perplexed, almost flinching while waiting for another terrifying reproach but instead hearing something . . encouraging.

"You . . you could? You really could? Oh, wow! How?"

Batman grunted in a sign of annoyance. "Back channels."

"Bat channels? What?"

"Not Bat channels! Do those ear wings restrict your hearing?"

Kid Flash reached for both of them. "No!" He protested. He loved his uniform's ear wings.

"Back channels. I don't name everything after myself! Back channels!"

Kid Flash had his head bowed now. "Sorry sir."

There was a long pause. "You're a good hero. I wouldn't do this for just anyone."

Kid Flash's eyes went wide. He straightened up proudly, now feeling 7 feet tall. I'm a-a good hero! Batman thinks I'm a good hero! Batman!

Just then, a Gotham City Police car went by with its siren blaring. Kid Flash instinctively turned for a moment to see what it was and watched it roar through the nearest intersection. He turned to Batman.

"I guess that's your cue,huh?" he said turning back toward the alley. Only Batman wasn't there. Kid Flash looked left and right. There was no one. He hadn't gone around him. He looked up. He wasn't there either. He wasn't in the alley either.

"What the f-?!"

There hadn't been the slightest sound either. He looked all around again, to no avail. Seriously, what the . . . ?!

He looked around a few seconds more, considered this whole encounter for another moment decided this was a pretty good result after all and super sped himself out of Batman's City and back to Jump City nearly as fast as he could. He raced across the bay to the Tower and up the stairs, finding Jinx in the kitchen where he stopped in front of her grinning ear to ear.

"Honey, great news! I contacted Batman and he said he'd get a hold of Catwoman for us!"

Jinx's eyes narrowed in skepticism. "What?"

"I said, I-I contacted Batman and I, uh, asked him to help me out and he-he said he'd contact Catwoman for us."

"No you didn't."

"What?"

"You didn't contact him."

"I . . . most surely did, young lady," said Kid Flash not looking at her but down at one particular floor tile.

Now she was laughing. "On top of you being the worst liar on the planet, you don't know how to contact him. He found you, didn't he?"

"Well, I could have contacted him!" Kid Flash protested. "I could have asked Flash to speak to him at a League meeting or something."

"But you didn't. He found you."

Kid Flash sighed in defeat. "Yeah, he found me. It was the-the first time I stopped out of 38 freaking times racing around that dump of a City. The first time! 52 square miles of corrupt shithole that I crisscrossed 38 times and I stop once, just once to take a deep breath and clear my head because I'm not making any progress and there he is at that exact spot, right behind me! I almost jumped out of my uniform. How could he possibly-"

"He's Batman."

Kid Flash sighed.

"So, he wanted to know what the hell you were doing running around his City, right?"

Kid Flash nodded. "Does he have to give the death glare to other heroes? I mean, seriously?!"

"And . .?"

"I told him."

Jinx's pink cat eyes went wide in anticipation. "And . . ?"

"And he death glared me again because I didn't tell him that I'd spoken to Catwoman when I was 14 but in the end he said he'd contact her through back channels," he made air quotes at those two words. "And he said he'd do it because I'm a good hero."

Jinx was impressed. "Really? He said you're a good hero?"

Kid Flash grinned and nodded 74 times. "No foolin'. Batman said I'm a good hero!"

Jinx patted his back. "Jeez, that's really good, Wally. Holy crap. Batman thinks you're a good hero."

"And he must think you're pretty good, too, Hon, otherwise why would he do something like that for you?" He gave her a big hug.

Jinx nodded into his yellow clad shoulder considering this. Yeah, he must. She stood up straighter and taller when he finally let go. "But, how will he contact you?" she asked.

Kid Flash shrugged. "He's Batman."

A week later, Robin approached Kid Flash in the great room where he was playing a video game against Beast Boy and, despite it being BB's favorite game, doing quite well thanks to manipulating the controls 10 times faster than the green teen could.

"Wally. This is for you," said the Titans leader holding up a post-it note in the doorway.

Kid Flash zipped beside him and took the note from his hand. His expression brightened. He totally ignored Gar's giggling while destroying Kid Flash's unattended soldier in the game.

"Is this from . . ?" Kid Flash tried to imitate Batman's death glare.

"You . . . think someone constipated sent you that message?"

"No! That was death glare!"

Robin shook his head. "I know death glare. I lived with death glare. I had to look into death glare to ask someone to pass the salt. That was not death glare. That was . . my shoes are too tight or . . I'm lactose intolerant and I ate a wedge of cheese a half hour ago or . . the tweet that I sent yesterday isn't getting any likes or-"

"Alright! Alright! Was it from him?"

Robin nodded.

Kid Flash read it again. It said only "Roof, 127 Fourth Avenue, 1:17 a.m. July 16"

"You know what it means?"

Kid Flash nodded several dozen times.

He and Jinx were on the roof at 127 Fourth Avenue in Gotham City 15 minutes before the appointed time. They were both nervously quiet,looking around left and right every few seconds waiting for the approach of Catwoman, not quite sure how they expected her to arrive. Finally, at almost 1:17, the silence was broken by his asking, "I told you that she used the quote about girls from The Lady Eve, didn't I?"

Jinx nodded. ". . the good ones aren't as good as you probably think they are and the bad ones aren't as bad. Not nearly as bad." She whispered from memory.

"Not nearly as bad," chuckled a sultry voice from behind him and Kid Flash jumped three feet in the air.

"Does everyone in this stupid city sneak up on everyone else?!" he demanded after landing and turning to find Catwoman, in her signature black suit just a couple feet from him. She smirked at his discomfort while Jinx approached from 15 feet away.

"So, I was told that a young couple wanted to speak to me. Is that right?"

"Well, really it was me," said Jinx holding up one hand slightly. "I'm Jinx."

"I know all about you."

"Well, then you know that we're married and, well, I-I wanted to say thank you."

Catwoman smiled. "For what?" she asked though Jinx felt certain that she knew exactly why.

"For speaking to him four years ago," she nodded toward her husband beside her.

Catwoman shrugged. "I happened to encounter the prettiest red haired boy you've ever seen on a rooftop and he was intelligent and well behaved so we had a very nice conversation. No big deal."

Jinx sighed deeply. "No, it was a big deal. Because . . . see, it was like this. I-I was in a terrible place, mentally. I-I'd been treated horribly as a little girl for . . for this," she said gesturing to her face and hair with one hand. "Horribly. I cried myself to sleep so many nights when I was a little girl. And it was like a dagger into my mother that I was being mistreated and she couldn't protect me. And that hurt me on another level. I . . I felt like life gave me a choice of accepting all the horrible things said and done to me or-or going against everything that all those assholes said was good, all the lame establishment that let them get away with it, that pretended to care about everyone but that didn't give a shit about me. So that's what I did. It doesn't excuse it but that's why. If the system and those people were good then I would choose bad. It-it was a reaction not a, not an impartial choice. But I wasn't gonna back down and-and everything you do in that life just gets you in deeper. I wasn't thinking of getting out. Not at all. And I wouldn't have had any idea how to get out if I had. And that's when he came along!" said Jinx, nodding again to Kid Flash beside her, her voice almost cracking and her eyes glistening with tears she refused to shed.

She took a deep breath and finished it with a chuckle and as she did, he zipped to her side and grabbed her near hand in his red glove, intertwining their fingers. Catwoman glanced there and also noted the look of concern on his face.

"Can you imagine the kind of ridiculous, cornball nerd he was to meet me and five seconds later tell me I should leave everything that I'd made my life into, everything I'd achieved? I was freaking dangerous. I hurt people. Soon, I could have been invincible. All that shit. I knocked him out and put him in a cage and still he gave me flowers and told me I could do better. No one ever gave me anything and no one ever said things like that to me. And he was so sincere. For the first time in . . forever I asked myself about what I was doing. And, at least the way he tells it, it's partly because he had a talk with you and you got him to think about villains and maybe they aren't nearly as bad as everyone thinks. So . . so thank you."

With that, a lone tear made its way down Jinx's cheek. "Oh gods, I can't believe I . . ," she sighed and shook her head wiping the tear with her free hand.

"She's not usually the crying type," attested Kid Flash.

"I'm not!" she chuckled, also wiping at the corners of her eyes.

"And you not only got out of the villain life, you married the hero who helped you leave," said Catwoman.

Jinx nodded. "I want to be with him."

"I want to be with her,"Kid Flash quickly added.

"You seem like a good couple," smiled Catwoman. "And, god, you really do have cat eyes," she smiled.

"They're beautiful," whispered Kid Flash and she cast a mischievous thank you glance at him.

"So, did all the heroes accept you right away?" asked Catwoman adopting a pensive stance with one hand at her chin.

Jinx laughed. "Some of 'em did. It helped that they completely trust him. And Raven did right away because she could tell I was sincere. But it took more than a year and I don't know how many patrols and fights before Robin actually trusted me."

"The . . little fascist in elf shoes," she said looking at Kid Flash and quoting him from four years previously.

Jinx nodded and glanced at her husband. "That's what he used to call him. Now they're best friends."

Catwoman guffawed at this. "You and the little bat are best friends?!"

"We-we both reacted to the image of the other that the media was putting out," explained Kid Flash. "But it wasn't true, about either of us! He's . . not actually a fascist. And . . he doesn't wear elf shoes any more."

"How about you?" Catwoman asked Jinx. "Who's your best friend?"

"Argent, but she's an auxiliary Titan not a regular member with us or East. She's not around all the time."

Catwoman nodded and she was about to ask another question when Jinx questioned her, "What about you? Who's your best friend in the business?"

Now, the mysterious, black clad figure moved about the roof, nimbly circling the couple going from one edge to the other.

"My best friend?" she raised one eyebrow. "Hmmmmmm. Well, cats are sort of loners you know. In a way, I could almost say The Bat," she nearly purred and laughed at the wide eyed looks that both Jinx and Kid Flash gave her at that. "There aren't a lot of candidates for friendship among the crew in Gotham. They're not like the rogues that Flash deals with are they?"

Jinx shook her head emphatically.

"I couldn't imagine all Batman's villains getting together at one particular bar. Most of 'em are psychopaths, not figuratively but actually diagnosable as psychopaths. And if it ever happened, Batman would take the place down." She looked to Kid Flash now. "Is there actually a bar like that in Central City."

He glanced from side to side. "Flash told me not to say anything about it," he answered sheepishly.

Catwoman laughed. "So, it's true!" She spun around with a carefree laugh. "Speedsters are so different from Bats."

"Flash is a total super nerd," said Jinx. "Even more than him," she pointed to her husband with her thumb.

"Hey!"

"And you?" asked Catwoman.

"I'm a book lover, a maven for literature."

"So, the two of you are well matched?"

They smiled at each other then both nodded.

"And, it helps a girl with pink hair to have a boy with bright orange hair beside her, doesn't it?" smiled Catwoman.

"Totally," smiled Jinx. "And he's crazy fit but he's not gigantic. What woman won't look ridiculous next to Superman or Aquaman or Captain Marvel?"

"And, I've gotta hand it to you for striking a blow for girls everywhere and making the boy put himself on display instead of you."

"Why not? He's so pretty!" laughed Jinx.

"Please. I'm-I'm not on display."

Catwoman walked around behind him and gave a snicker returning to stand in front of him looking him up and down in his tighter than skin tight red and yellow unitard.

"Oh yes you are."

"Flash and I wear . . relatively revealing uniforms-"

"Relatively!" laughed Catwoman.

"-because we have to, because we're super speedsters. Regular clothes fall apart or catch fire. I have to wear this."

"You notice he didn't deny being pretty," laughed Jinx.

"They never do," chuckled Catwoman.

Kid Flash rolled his eyes. There was no way to win this, not with two of them making fun of him.

They talked a while longer on matters both serious and inconsequential and Kid Flash could see that Jinx clearly liked talking to Catwoman. She liked her. A few times they ganged up on him but he didn't really mind. As the minutes passed by he was smiling more and more seeing Jinx laugh and enjoy the conversation knowing that Jinx had gained another mentor of sorts.

" . . Oh, gods, you should have seen him telling me that The Bat called him a good hero," laughed Jinx.

"You got all pumped up about it, too!" protested Kid Flash.

"The Bat doesn't appreciate how powerful kind words can be. And how necessary they are. One suspects that's why Littlebat is in Jump City."

"Speaking of which, so are we," said Jinx. "I don't know how often we'll ever get back to Gotham and, if it's alright with you, I'd like to keep in touch."

Catwoman nodded with a smile.

Jinx beamed and gave Catwoman a number to call and an email address, the one that went through Cyborg's unbreakable encryption so it was perfectly safe. She and Catwoman hugged and then Kid Flash and Catwoman hugged. He turned and picked up Jinx to carry her like a bride across the threshold of a new home back to Jump City. When he turned back around, she was gone.

"She was 30 feet away from the edge and 50 feet from the door. What is it with people in this City?"

Jinx shrugged. "She's Catwoman."