Random Acts of Senseless Silliness: Catfight
By Nikoru-chan
Disclaimer: Tim Drake/Robin, Dick Grayson/Nightwing, Bruce Wayne/Batman, Catwoman and Commissioner Gordon belong to DC Comics, Warner Bros., and whomever else. Not me. Likewise, Miss Deep, and the mentioned-in-passing Yomiko Readman belong to Hideyuki Kurata, Shutaro Yamada, the Ultra-Jump division of YJC, and whomever else. Again, this does not – unfortunately – include me.
Further note: This is a sillyfic. A very silly sillyfic, though given my inability to write humour, it may not actually be all that **funny** a sillyfic. It is the product of my muse giving me the intense desire to stuff around with this concept a little while ago, and is a whole lot more lecherous than anything I've ever written before, so consider yourselves warned. This is also a TWT (Timeline? What timeline?) It doesn't fit in anywhere special.
. . .
Okay, okay, okay. Before you continuity buffs finish braiding that uncomfortable looking noose, I guess I'll slot this in somewhere after episode one of the R.O.D. OAV, but before episode two (i.e. the books haven't hit the Indian market as yet). In DC terms, this is set after Catwoman has had her rather spectacular nervous breakdown and descended into multiple personality disorder (costume change and all), but before the reboot of the series. It is also before the 'Bruce Wayne, Murderer" story arc.
On reading through it, I come to the conclusion that you don't really need to know a huge amount about R.O.D. to get at least some entertainment out of this fic, but if you've seen a picture of Nancy McHarry's usual, er, work attire, it will probably make a little more sense. As soon as I find a URL where you can find a pic of her, I'll send it along to those who are interested.
As always, comments and criticisms are eagerly sought – let me know what you think! I'm really keen to get them on this fic – it's my first sillyfic, and my first crossover, so I Really Want And Need Feedback!!
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Tim Drake was not happy.
Tim Drake was very not happy.
This may, of course, have had something to do with his location at the time, or more specifically - since he was in the not-unpleasant Wayne Mansion Library – his position in said location.
To whit, suspended three metres from the floor, securely bound with an unmarked variant of the bat-ties and cord. Oh, and upside down, just for good measure.
Tim Drake – for he was out of costume – was very, very not happy.
Damn you, Dick! I'll friggin' KILL you for this! He snarled mentally, being unable to do so verbally due to the gag his 'big brother' had so thoughtfully provided.
Bound and silenced as he was, he wasn't going to be found anytime soon. Which meant, of course, that he had to free himself. And then think of a suitable revenge.
I should have seen it coming. Things've been quiet, Nightwing's been getting antsy. I should have seen this little practical joke war coming! 'Little'. Heh. No, this won't be a 'little' war at all. Not by the time I'm done gutting that sonova. . .
His mental tirade, and equally ineffectual physical struggles against Dick's extremely well-knotted ties, were interrupted by the subtle creak of the library's huge bay windows.
Hope flared, someone's home to rescue me? And died just as rapidly. No, no-one in this house is that noisy, not even Alfred. Heck, especially not Alfred. He was shaken from his memories of a foiled midnight cookie raid by footfalls pacing closer.
The figure belonging to the steps came into view. Tim would have gasped, save for the gag in his mouth.
Tentative, body language screaming discomfort, the woman approaching the rare books shelf was a far cry from the usually slinky, confidence-oozing burglar persona that Robin had come to expect from Catwoman. Then again, the normal Catwoman would never have been heard. But the normal Catwoman wouldn't have tried to kill Commissioner Gordon, either. Heck with that, the normal Catwoman would never run around on a job wearing a black leather brassiere and stiletto heeled boots! Not, he had to admit, that she didn't have the figure for them. If she'd had a fraction of the sex-oozing steaminess of her old self, she'd have looked spectacular. Impractical, but spectacular. As it was, she just looked impractical and uncomfortable. Adolescent enough to appreciate the outfit, but detective enough to note the uncharacteristic behaviour, Robin did the only thing he could – he continued to watch her closely, trying to determine what exactly it was that she was stealing. Because she sure didn't come in here just to look!
Obviously not noticing him, Catwoman ran her leather-gloved hands over the spines of the books, affording Tim an extremely good view of the brassiere (and cleavage within it) that he'd admired so much before. Why do I get the feeling Superboy would kill to be in my position right now?
With a pause, she pulled a volume off the shelf, one Robin recognised as a recent acquisition, a rare volume of Beethoven's biography that Bruce was planning on donating to the Gotham City Library later that week. Beethoven? Where's the cat theme in that? As well as her looks, her modus operandi is really off it's game this time round. With a satisfied sigh, she slid it into a pouch slung off her hip.
"My, my, aren't we the bold one, stealing books. You're lucky it's me here. My partner would never forgive you." Tim stared, and below him Catwoman turned. Unlike the burglar's entrance, this woman had arrived completely unheard.
Again, the previously-resented gag saved Tim a great deal of embarrassment, this time as it prevented his jaw from dropping. The new arrival, while dressed in a similar fashion to Catwoman, with a full leather bodice, leather pants and sleeves bordering a plunging décolletage, left the cat-burglar unequivocally for dead. She looked, at least superficially, extremely capable of bringing every puerile adolescent male fantasy to life. Tall and leggy, with chin-length cropped hair and red pout-y lips, the woman posed unconsciously, showing to spectacular advantage a curvaceous figure. The only edge to the fantasy was her eyes. Dark and determined, they seemed to take in everything in the room at once, including, Tim thought, squirming, himself. I am in **so** much trouble if she really has spotted me! How the heck do Bruce or I explain what his neighbour's kid is doing strung from the ceiling by extremely expertly tied high-tech cords?
He was saved from further concern by Catwoman's fumbling snatch at her whip. The staccato crack of the length filled the air, though the second woman dodged easily. Two gorgeous women in matching black leather duking it out below me. Maybe I won't gut Nightwing after all.
"Wh-who are you? What do you want?" Unnerved, Catwoman started edging around, pacing the woman opposite her, to move towards an exit.
"My name is of no concern to you." The woman said with an easy arrogance, "and I want the book you just stole."
"You can't have it! It's mine! I stole it, I'm keeping it!"
"Tsk, tsk. Seems like the profile
on you is at least somewhat accurate. A possessive thief."
"Better that than an
over-endowed leather freak!"
"First off, you're wearing leather too. Secondly, the only reason you're not 'over-endowed' at the moment is that Jim Ballant's moved on." She paused, posed, and took in a deep breath. "Why Catwoman, surely you're not feeling a little . . . inadequate?"
Catwoman's response was a garbled shriek of rage followed by another lunge that her opponent easily dodged.
"This is getting tiresome." She spun, kicking the burglar into a shelf with a meaty thunk. As the woman approached the stunned Catwoman she casually reached to, and then through the pouch on the other woman's waist. Withdrawing her hand through the sack, Robin noted that she held the book tightly clasped between her fingers. She foiled the burglary! Who is she? A new vigilante in town?
Then she looked up, directly at Tim. "And that, as they say, is that." Walking off, book still in hand, she blew him a hot, breathy kiss over her shoulder. "Baiiii!"
Blood that had been pounding through his head from being suspended upside down suddenly drained away at her statement. She saw me! She saw - faced with the situation, and the intentionally swaying hips of a woman that was rapidly ghosting away, Tim Drake, the third Robin, squire to the Bat and survivor of numerous conflicts, did the only sensible thing he could think of.
He fainted.
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When he came to, both women were gone. So, he noted as soon as a now-concerned Nightwing let him sit up, was the book.
So she wasn't foiling the robbery. She was perpetrating her own. I should have known. After all, she was both pretty and competent. Why are all the intelligent, beautiful, or sexy ones thieves, evil twins/clones or psychotic mass-murderers? Babs excepted, of course. With an irritated sigh, he shoved Nightwing's solicitude away. He hadn't forgiven his big brother, not by a long shot. Not when he was going to be the one who had to explain what had happened to the book, and the library, to Batman.
Batman took it surprisingly well, all things considered. He merely gave Robin five full seconds of The Look (not the suicide-inducing full seven seconds, but worse than the confess-everything-you've-ever-even-thought-of-doing-wrong three seconds) and set Oracle onto finding out everything she could about the mysterious intruder. There wasn't much to be inferred from the library 'crime scene' itself, except that whoever she was, she was a lot more professional than Catwoman in her current state; all the security monitors had been inactivated before they recorded her presence.
Given the build-up of tension in the Cave, Robin might well have been forgiven the huge sigh of relief he heaved when the bat-signal painted the sky.
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They landed to see an uncharacteristically grumpy – but not worried - Gordon. Batman frowned. Not obviously, of course, but with a slight tightening of his already dour mouth. If they'd been called away for something minor . . .
Gordon cut directly to the chase. As he turned to Robin, the parcel in his hands came into view. Rectangular, small, and wrapped in simple brown paper, it looked solid.
"This came for you today. I guess you might call it . . .express delivery. It arrived in my locked safe, in the locked cupboard of my locked office." He looked mildly irritated. "We don't know who put it there, but we subjected it to every analysis we've got. It's not a bomb, heck it's not in any way dangerous that we can detect." The mild irritation shifted to full blown annoyance. "But the paper wrapping resisted any of our attempts to undo it. Here," he tossed it to the Boy Wonder, "open it, then tell me which particular nutcase it is that we're dealing with this time."
Robin's fingers picked the parcel out of the air. As soon as his did so, the brown paper fell away. It wasn't, so far as he could detect, even tied or taped down.
Inside was the book, and with it a note. Robin felt his lips stretch into a goofy grin. The biography was in pristine condition. Wordlessly, he handed it to Batman before turning to the note. His grin faded.
The note read: 'It wasn't the one I wanted after all. So, until the next time, bye bye!' It was signed with a brilliant red lipstick kiss on the bottom corner, next to an elegant signature. As the paper disintegrated, the lipstick kiss fluttered up to plant itself on his neck, unseen by the other denizens of the rooftop. . She knows! She knows my identity! But how? She must have known before! There wasn't anything in my situation nat the library to indicate that I was Robin, just that I had ticked somebody expert off.
"Well? Who is it? Who're we facing this time? None of the Arkam inmates have escaped, likewise Blackgate, so . . ." Gordon fixed Robin's face with a severe stare, one mirrored with a factor of ten by the Bat behind him. The boy wonder fought the urge to laugh, or to cry. Conclusion: She knew who I was, both day and night versions, before she even stepped into the Library. So now we need to find out who knew **that**. Oddly, he felt his grin return, at least she gave the book back. Whoever she is, she's more than just a common thief.
"Miss Deep. Her name, or alias, or whatever is Miss Deep. And she's gone now, 'until the next time' she pops around to steal something." Gordon stared at him.
"Robin, Miss Deep is a government agent, though I'm not entirely sure which government, or which agency. The GCPD was ordered to have all its resources on standby to assist her and her partner as-needed, while they were investigating the destruction of the Library of Congress. We lent her and The Paper a helicopter to get to Washington and New York, which they promptly crashed on arrival. Apparently, they found a paper plane more useful." With that, Gordon's ill-humour returned, and he wandered off, muttering about budgets and irresponsible agents.
The urge to laugh won out. Robin rocked back on his haunches and laughed until he choked, not even swayed by the Bat's glare.
Whaddaya know! Once in a while they turn out to be the good guys! At least, I hope so. If she ever went bad, the world would be in deep! Realising the pun he'd just made, Robin descended into fresh giggles.
Without a word, Batman launched a line and jumped, with him Nightwing. Robin pulled himself enough together to follow. As they 'flew' Nightwing manoeuvred himself to be near his little brother.
"So, was she pretty?"
"Uh huh. More than you will ever believe." It was true, too. Competence, as well as skin-tight black leather, did hold a certain charm.
"All's forgiven?"
Robin paused, then, "yeah. All's forgiven." Not forgotten, but forgiven. Who am I to hold a grudge? Especially when I've put itching powder the whole way through a certain person's underwear drawer!
Revenge is sweet.
END
So, liked it? Hated it? Utterly confused by it? I really want to know what you think – as I explained in the intro, this fic is a lot of 'firsts' for me, and I need feedback to know what worked and what didn't. So, please C&C!! **puppydog eyes**
Oh, and yes, I do realise there are a lot of plot gaps and holes (and a couple of third-wall issues), too many for this to fit comfortably into either universe. Oh well.
Also, for those who weren't sure, Jim Ballant (sp?) is the artist who worked on Catwoman some time ago, before her big psychiatric mess. He had something of a habit of inflating her . . . assets. Almost from panel to panel, sometimes.