Leather Wings
Partnership can be tricky
Kathy Brown sat on the bus station. It was a cold, rainy day in Gotham City, the most criminal town in the whole world, at least Kathy thought so. It was a good thing Batman was here. Her grandmother had told her about Batman when she was a little girl. Now she was 16 years old, and finally Batman had come back. Okay, not the old Batman, now it was a new one of course. And Kathy knew who it was…
Terry McGinnis, 18 years old. How did she know that? Well, she was on her way to Bruce Waynes house to start working for the new Batman.
Since she was eight, she had trained kung-fu and kendo. Her idol was Catwoman, even if she had been a villain, Kathy still admired her.
A couple of weeks ago, some gang had attacked her. Batman came just in time, but Kathy had taken care of them by herself. He had become very impressed and offered her a job as one of his partners.
He had taken in one person to be one of his partners a couple of months ago, but it couldn't hurt to take one more in, he had said.
She was so excited!
"I wonder who the other person is?" she thought.
Just then, the bus came in. She paid her ticket, and took a seat at the end of the bus.
"He said, his name was Aaron, nothing more." she thought.
The bus stopped just outside the town. She jumped off and started to walk to the lonely rode, up to Bruce Waynes house. She stopped at the gate, and pushed the button on the gate.
"Yes, who is it?" a cold voice asked, in the phone.
"Eh, my name is Kathy Brown, I shall meet…
"Ah, Kathy!" another voice said. It sounded like Terry. "Welcome in!" he said.
The gate opened, and Kathy went upon the rode to the old house.
A young boy opened the door.
"That most be Terry." She thought. "Wow, he's cute!"
Another man showed up in the door.
"Oh, my god! Is that Bruce Wayne? The old Batman! Oh, this is so cool!!" she thought.
"Welcome." Bruce said. He looked so old and tired. It was hard to believe that he had been Batman.
"Eh, thanks." She said quit.
Terry smiled.
"C'mon, don't be shy to old Brucie!" he laughed.
Bruce stared at him.
"Brucie?!"
"Eh, excuse me Mr Wayne?" Kathy asked.
He turned to her.
"What?"
"Sorry, that I ask, but I have to know." She took a deep breath. "Is it true, that you and Catwoman had a relationship, when you two was young!!??"
He just looked at her.
"Why do you want to know?" he just said.
"Well, I'm a big fan of her, and I just wanted to know…"
"I thought you reminded me of a cat, when I saw you fight." Terry said. "You…hissed at them too."
"Hissed?" Bruce asked.
"Eh…"
"But, now I think we shall stop talking and show her the Batcave, Bruce." Terry said. "Can I take your jacket, Kathy?"
"Ah, yes, thank you!"
They went in to the living room. Bruce went to a huge clock, and pulled a lever. The clock opened, and a dark stair showed up.
"Wow…" was the only thing Kathy could say.
They went down the stairs, and came into a huge cave. The Batcave…
"C'mon, Kathy!" Terry said. "I shall introduce you to Aaron."
"He's down here?" Kathy asked.
"Well, yeah. He enjoys being with the bats…"
"How's he like?" she asked excited. "What does he look like?"
Terry should just say something, when Bruce interrupted him.
"He's special…in his own way." He said. "He looks a little different, than other people, so please, don't stare at him."
"Eh, okay…" Kathy said. "So were is he?"
"I don't really know…" Terry said. "He can be very hard to find, especially with all this bats."
"Eh, what?"
"What are you saying, McGinnis." Bruce said. "He's right above us."
Kathy looked up. There was only a lot of bats up there.
"They're only bats up there, Mr Wayne" she said.
"Look closer…" he said.
She did as he said. It was hard to see.
"Can't we turn on the light?" she asked. "It's very hard to see."
He did as she asked and suddenly the cave was a lot brighter. All of the bats started to shriek and flew away, except for one. It hand right above them, and it was big. A lot bigger than the rest of them. It started to shriek too, but it didn't flew away. It flew right down to them!
Bruce stepped forward, Terry just smiled.
"Knock it off, Aaron!" Bruce yelled. "You don't want to scare away your new partner, don't you?"
"New partner?" Kathy thought. "Shall that "thing" be my partner?! What about Aaron?"
Terry just laughed.
"Kathy, Kathy…" he said. "That is Aaron!"
The bat landed right in front of them. It…it was a human-sized bat, with some humanparts. He had taller legs than a bat, and when Kathy looked closer, she saw that his face wasn't all bat. He looked like a human, with bat-wings, long pointy ears and fur. He had bowed, like faun-legs, yellow eyes, and long sharp tooth.
He looked at her, and smiled. She just stared.
"So, who is this cute lady?" he asked her.
She didn't answer, so Terry answered for her instead.
"This is Kathy Brown." He said, then he turned to Kathy. "Kathy, this is Aaron Langstrom."
Aaron looked at her.
"Yo, Kath, what's up?" he said and hold out his hand…or paw?
She didn't answer. She didn't hold out her hand either. She just kept staring.
Bruce walked up to her.
"Kathy, what did I tell you about staring at him?" he whispered.
Then she remembered. No staring! She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
"Hello ba…Aaron!" she said and shook his hand…or paw?
There was something about him, that reminded her of something. Then it came to her. His last name!
"You're Kirk Langstroms son!" she said.
"Yep, that's me!" he smiled.
"I thought that you looked like that Man-bat, my grandmother told me about."
Bruce looked at her.
"Your grandmother?" he asked. "How does she know about that?"
Kathy looked surprised.
"I thought I've told Terry about that? Haven't he told you yet?"
"No, I guess he didn't…" he said and looked at Terry.
"Hehe…"
Kathy smiled.
"My grandmother is Barbara Gordon!" she smiled. "So, I guess she know quite much about you, Mr Wayne."
Terry interrupted.
Well, now that you know that, I think we should fix some things…"
Kathy interrupted him.
"Is that what I think it is?" she said excited. She had her eyes on one of the glas-boxes, with suits. She had her eyes on Catwomans costume.
Bruce nodded.
"Yeah, that's her suit." He said.
Aaron walked to Kathy.
"So, you like Catwoman?" he asked.
"Yeah, I sure do!" she said happy.
"Want to try it?" Bruce asked.
Kathy turned to him.
"Really?"
"Sure, I think you going to need it very soon, Shadowcat…"
