The Villain Wrangler
Alex, when he had woken up that morning, had assumed today would be the same as any other day, not to say that this was a bad thing, of course.
Most days for Alex were quite fulfilling, being the human equivalent of a fairy Godmo- Er, Godfather was quite satisfying, seeing children who had gotten the short end of the stick having their deepest most intimate wish granted was something he would never get tired of.
Usually Alex would be handed a file of a new child after he had been able to grant a previous child's wish, most of the time those wishes would be quite simple, most wishes were to play a game with their favourite athlete, get their own treehouse or spend a day as what they would like to be when they grew up.
Pretty simple given how most people felt the inner need to help these children, athletes most of the time would be honoured to play a game with one of their littlest fans in need, usually family members were rounded up to build the child their very own treehouse, the foundation paying for the expenses and most organisations were happy to let the child learn what a day in the life of their employee's was like.
Simple, fulfilling and utterly satisfying to see that child get their wish granted.
Of course, there were more complicated wishes, some children wanted to spend a day with a superhero which would usually take longer due to tracking the hero down, but most heroes felt that it was their duty to grant the children their wishes, some superheroes (Notably the flash who was quite eager) had even given the foundation contact numbers if other children had asked for that wish to be granted.
This wish. . .was notably different.
"Excuse me, I don't think I heard you correctly." The Gotham wish fulfilment foundation's CEO stated to the parents across from her desk.
"Our daughter would like to meet Catwoman. We realise this is a rather. . .unorthadox request, if you can't grant it we would entirely understand." The woman stated, looking as if she had already accepted that the wish wouldn't be granted. The foundation definitely wouldn't grant this wish.
The woman in the black business suit took in a deep breath and let it out. She had never refused to grant a wish before, it was against their policy and it would look terrible for her to turn down a severely ill girl's wish. The best she could do was give it to one of her worker's and hope they found a catwoman lookalike in time.
She flashed them a confident smile, "We will do our best to grant your daughter's wish Mr and Ms Stevenson, but I must admit, this wish may not be successfully granted, please do not raise her hopes."
Mr sand Ms Stevenson looked at her gratefully, "Thank you, Ms Burch, we understand entirely."
The couple left the room and Ms Burch rubbed her head in iritation, this was going to be a long day.
-x-Line-Break-x-
Alex stared into space while waiting in his cubicle for a new assignment to be sent in, he loved his job but the waiting was pretty boring and hard to get through in between wishes. Not that he wanted more wishes! That would mean that more children were injured or sick. . .
"This one's for you, Pencil!" A file loudly slapped onto his desk, jolting Alex out of his desk and onto the floor.
"Argh!" He yelled out, blushing heavily in embarrassment. "Uh, thanks."
The man snorted in amusement and walked of to his next destination.
Scrambling back into his cheap desk chair, which creeked under him, Alex opened the folder and began reading his newest wish maker. There was a before and after photo of the girl, the first showing a girl with brown hair in a pony tail, wearing a goalie uniform smiling while holding a soccer ball. The other shows a girl in a hospital gown with a shaven head smiling at the camera, but there was an exhausted look in her eye's
Name: Sarah
Age: 9
Gender: Female
Description: Sarah is a tomboy who likes to play soccer, reading comic books and her cat Mitsy. She dislikes onions, obnoxious people and Romance movies. She hopes that when she is older she will be a Veterinarian.
Wish: She wishes to meet catwoman.
Alex's mind took a moment to catch up with the information on the file.
Catwoman? A villain?! A criminal. . ?
His boss must hate him, he finally thought as his mind caught up with itself, she was leading him to failure.
Taking a breath in, Alex looked at the photo of Sarah and let out a sigh. At least Catwoman was a non-hostile villain, it didn't matter if he was getting set up for failure.
He would grant Sarah's wish.
-x-Line-Break-x-
Putting on his most non-threatening clothes (A white button up under a cheap black vest with black dress pants and a black nerdy bow-tie under a blue cardigan), Alex channeled his , he was going to have to be his least threatening today (Something easily done for a man of 5ft6) and stepped out from his ratty apartment and into Gotham's night-life.
Due to the constant criminal activity in Gotham many (Or most) jewlery stores in the city had night guardsmen who made sure no suspicious figures would linger around the stores front or back. Hopefully he wouldn't be arrested tonight.
Or beat up.
Or shot.
Or robbed.
Or beaten up, shot and robbed.
You know, the normal hopes of a Gotham citizen going out at night.
He'd been staking out (What was he, a cop?) a Jewler that was frequented by Gotham's very own Catwoman, he had looked up records of News reports and written them down, making a chart of sorts of how recent her last robbery was and how long it had been from her last robbery to then.
6 to 8 weeks seemed to be the most common length of time in between the Jewler's 'visits' from the Catwoman.
Sarah had 3 months left.
Usually that wouldn't be considered too tight a timeframe, maybe if he actually was a cop and he was just trying to arrest her it would be, but it wasn't something that trivial.
It wasn't just robbery, it was a child's life and what basically amounted to her dying wish.
So Alex had been braving the dangerous environment of Gotham's nightlife to watch the Jewlers and waited for the Catwoman to show up.
He'd been doing this for approximately 5 weeks and having the sleeping schedule of a bat (Ha!) was starting to screw with him. Lucky him, he'd only been beaten up once! And they guy hadn't even taken anything, so he wasn't that bad off, except for the fact that his body screaming at him to go to sleep or a hospital wasn't exactly helping his reaction time.
So when a leather clad cat landed behind him he took a while to catch up with the world around him, leading the cat to have time to push him over and land on top of him, in a straddling position.
"What's a little boy like you doing out so late, keeping me from my jewels?" A low, seductive voice drawled out, a finger coming up to lift his chin, bringing Alex's face into the light.
Even though he wasn't even REMOTELY interested in women, Alex blushed heavily, he couldn't help it that he didn't react well to flirting!
"Um- uh'm, I'm- My name's Alex winters from the Gotham wish fulfilment foundation and I was hoping you would be able to help grant a little girl's wish today." After stuttering like an IDIOT for what felt like half a minute Alex kicked himself into a sentence that had been burned into his mouth with the job, saying it so many times it felt more like an instinct than an action.
The Catwoman's eyebrow quirked curiously, "Excuse me?"
"A-a little girl named Sarah has 1 month and a few weeks left to live, her wish was to meet you." Even in the ridiculous position Alex's voice held a somber tenderness to it.
"And why would I believe you?" The Catwoman stood up from her straddle over him, a hand coming to rest on her hip and her head tilting slightly.
Alex pushed himself up and looked up at the Catwoman, subconsciously flustered with how much taller she was to him. "I would like to believe no one has asked you this before, I don't have much proof other than some easily forgable documents and a little girl in a hospital room."
The Catwoman stared for a moment, as if considering if he was worth her time, before smirking, "Give me your details, I'll contact you once I decide."
Alex aquickly dug through his messenger bag and pulled out his and Sarah's files, which included Sarah's hospital name and room number.
"Thank you in advance," he smiled up at her, she returning with a small quirk to her smirk.
-x-Line-Break-x-
Bleary eyed, Alex walked into his small apartment sized kitchen the next morning making a pot of coffee and putting bread in his crappy toaster before sitting at his tiny breakfast table, coffee in hand and toast in mouth before noticing some files on said table.
They were the files he had given the Catwoman last night, along with a sticky note with the words 'I will, 2014/06/14' written in cursive on it's purrple surface.
Alex looked up to his calendar and saw the date written was for tomorrow.
(The next day)
Alex stood in his best clothes next to Sarah's bed, he had already met her a few weeks ago to introduce himself so she was at least somewhat comfortable with him.
"She's coming today?" Sarah asked for the thousandth time, Alex replying "Yes" with a smile.
He had told the hospital staff that in case of emergencies Sarah should be left on her own to have her wish granted, just in case one of them saw Catwoman and the police came or, even worse, BATMAN.
Alex was to stay with Sarah until Catwoman came, at which time he would leave and let Sarah live her dream on her own.
Finally, Catwoman arrived, although not the the DOOR, per se.
A knock came from the room's window, both Alex and Sarah's faces turning to see a woman clad in a very familiar costume balancing on the barely there windowsill, in high heels.
"She's here!" Sarah cried, clapping her hand's excitedly. "Open the window, open the window!"
Alex chuckled, "Alright."
The woman fluidly landed on the floor in a crouch before standing up, stretching to her full height. "Hey there, Sarah." She gave a fluid wave.
Sarah gasped, holding her hand's over her mouth, "You know my name?!"
Catwoman smiled, "Of course I do, it wouldn't do for me to not know one of my best fans, right?"
Sarah beamed brightly and beckoned Catwoman over to her bed, at which point Alex excused himself.
(2 hours later)
The lights in Sarah's room dimmed and Catwoman came out through the door to see Alex and Sarah's parents sitting in waiting chairs.
"How was it?" Alex asked, already knowing from the content aura Catwoman was giving off.
"Wonderf," She smiled, "I didn't know I had such a dedicated fan."
Mr and mrs Stevenson stood up from their chair's and approached the infamous cat burglar.
"Thank you, for doing this." The father said, a sad thankfulness in his eye's. "She always looked up to you!" Mrs Stevenson exclaimed, smiling while her eye's watered.
The woman smiled serenely, "It's alright, it's been a while since I've had a child look up to me in more than a literal sense." Looking out the window, her eye's drew themselves to a giant bat symbol in the sky, "I believe it's time I leave, your daughter is a very wonderful girl."
Before leaving through another window, Catwoman handed Alex a piece of paper, "You can contact me from this number at nights, in case there's another wish I can help with."
She gave Mrs Stevenson a pat on the shoulder and a smile to Mr Stevenson before jumping out of the open window and running across the city's rooftops before from their sight.
After being thanked by the parents again, Alex left for his apartment, deciding to sleep in tomorrow.
-x-Line-Break-x-
*Is absolutely enamoured with the Villain Wrangler idea* I hope you guys like this fanfic! I'm hoping to write a few more chapters, probably with the villains: , The Penquin, MAYBE the riddler and The Mad Hatter.
So, did you guys like this chapter? *shift eye's* Ya know, if ya want, you could tell me, in a, ya know, COMMENT *Manipulation powers ho!*
Anyway, bye guys!