Chapter 21: The Great Gotham Team-Up, Part Three
THE MAINLAND GOTHAM CITY SEWER SYSTEM - TWENTY-ONE YEARS AGO
On this very evening, as Ra's al Ghul and Talia al Ghul paid up big to get eight-day-old Astrid Arkham out of foster care (in a manner of speaking), an altogether different drama played out beneath the ground between another purloined child, and another beautiful young woman of dubious moral fiber.
In an outflow room, stinking of raw sewage, Catwoman sat at a small table, nursing a glass of red wine. Across from her, sitting tied to an office chair with a bungee cord (that Selina Kyle had had lying around her apartment for reasons even she did not recollect), was an unconscious Robin. And he too had a wine glass in front of him, though his was empty.
And Robin was just starting to come around.
His blue eyes fluttered beneath his domino mask. His mouth turned into a frown as he had apparently caught a whiff of the room. His eyes opened, and settled on Catwoman, before they smoldered in anger.
"Good morning," Catwoman said, and took a sip of her wine.
Robin didn't say anything.
"Don't worry," Catwoman said. "I have something for you to drink, too."
She reached down into the grocery bag at her feet, and pulled out the bottle of wine, before setting it on the table.
Then she reached back into the bag, and pulled out a Capri Sun juice pouch. It was the Fruit Punch flavor, and had ad art of two kids playing volleyball on the front.
Catwoman used the claws on her right hand to snip a corner off of the juice box, whereupon she expelled the radioactive-looking red liquid contents into the wine glass before Robin.
That he was tied down and couldn't use his arms was of no concern to Catwoman. She had an inkling that it would be amusing, and even if it would be so to no one else but she, such temptations were indulged.
"Ohhhhh, fuuuuuuck youuuuuuuu," Robin said.
Catwoman smiled. "You kiss your mother with that mouth?"
"My mom's dead."
"Yeah?" Catwoman asked. "Mine too. We should start a club."
Robin intensified his glare. "You think this is the first time I've been kidnapped?'
"No," Catwoman said. "You're Robin. You're in triple digits by now."
She kicked up her feet on the table, right next to the glass of wine. "So what's he like?"
"Batman?"
"No," Catwoman said, lacquering her voice in sarcasm. "William Henry Harrison."
"Well, he was prone to disease. Died of pneumonia thirty-one days into his term. Most presidential historians don't even count him."
"What? Not actual William Hen- Yes! Batman!"
"A serious pain in the ass," Robin said. "Now when I say that, I mean he is a pain in the ass who is serious. Not an intensified pain in the ass. Although..."
"So he walks the walk," Catwoman said. "He really is no fun at all, huh?"
"He has his moments."
"Such as?"
"Ask him yourself," Robin said. "He's right behind you."
Catwoman rolled her eyes. "You really expect me to fall for that?"
"But I am right behind you."
Instinctively, Catwoman jumped up and turned around, knocking over both the chair in which she sat, and the glass of wine from which she had been sipping. It spilled its contents on to the table, but did not fall off and break.
There was Batman, standing a few feet away. Big as life, and twice as… Selina Kyle didn't have a word to finish the sentence.
"Well," Robin said from behind her, "he's a little fun."
"So," Catwoman said, ignoring him, "you decided to show."
Through clenched teeth, Batman asked "Where… is… the Venom?"
"This the first time you've ever made a deal?" Catwoman asked. "See, I give you what you want, if you give me what I want."
"What do you want?" Batman asked.
"Hmmm," Catwoman said, tapping her chin. "Y'know… I haven't quite made up my mind yet. There's money, but that's boring. If Bruce Wayne has so much of it, it can't be very special."
Batman's eyes narrowed. That was the biggest response she'd gotten so far, and she had no earthly idea why.
"I know," Catwoman said with a grin. "The Batmobile. I want the Batmobile."
Batman lightly shifted his head to the side so he could look at her out of the corner of his blue eyes. "What do you want the Batmobile for?"
"To drive," Catwoman said. "Clearly you're not having fun with it. You're not having fun with anything."
Batman simply blinked, and said "No."
"What? No negotiations?"
"No."
"In case you haven't noticed, I still have the Boy Wonder all tied up."
"Two things," Batman said. "One. We both know you're not going to do anything to Robin. You've never killed anyone."
"That you know of."
"And two," Batman said. "I don't need you to free Robin. Robin can free himself."
Catwoman opened her mouth for a quip… but before she did, she felt the bungee cords with which she had bound Robin lightly drape around her neck.
Then she watched the little shit walk around her, stand next to Batman, and fold his arms.
"Now," Robin said. "One more time. Where… is… the Venom."
Catwoman sneered. She leaned back against the table. Without taking her eyes off of either of them, she grabbed the wine bottle and threw it a few yards to her right. It landed in the water of a moisture outflow basin that was about twenty feet wide and God knows how many feet deep.
"It's in there," Catwoman said. "Under the water."
Batman looked from her, to the outflow basin, and back ag-
FWOOM!
A rush of water.
A loud roar.
A flurry of green scales.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Catwoman said. "Did you ask about the Venom? I thought you said 'Killer Croc.' Yeah, that's my bad."
All eight feet of Killer Croc stepped out of the basin. She could feel his footsteps reverberate in the very brick upon which she stood.
Batman spared a moment of shock to glare at her.
And she just smiled back. "You're not the only one who can get bigger people to fight their battles for them, Sailor."
Batman and Robin, in tandem, fired their grapnel guns at the exit pipe, trying to lure Killer Croc out to friendlier climes. Killer Croc roared yet again, and then followed them out.
Which left Catwoman alone.
She had told Killer Croc that he could slap Batman and Robin around however much he wanted, but his payment hinged on them still being alive when he was done.
Catwoman picked up the open bottle of wine, raised it to her lips, and-
CRASH!
The lower half of the bottle exploded in her hand. She was covered in small shards of glass and cheap Cabernet Sauvignon.
As Catwoman's shock subsided, she saw the offending article that had caused the small explosion stuck there in the table.
A Batarang.
Someone who sounded female cleared their throat, and Catwoman turned toward the sound.
There stood a tall woman, almost six feet, in black plate armor. Her utility belt, the Bat insignia, and the lining of her cape were yellow. And her long hair was red.
"Howdy," Batgirl said.
Catwoman had often fantasized about how a fight between herself and the skilled, infuriating, enticing Batman would go. Selina Kyle did not like her odds.
But Batgirl?
Yeah, she'd do in a pinch.
Batman and Robin left the outflow room, and ran down the narrow passageway, before hanging a right into a brick corridor.
Killer Croc decided to cut them off… by smashing through the brick wall to their left.
Croc wiped stray bits of brick off of his scaly shoulder, before snarling and advancing on them.
"Fall back," Batman said. "Fall back!"
Robin ran back the way he came. Batman stood his ground, got a couple of explosive charges out of his utility belt, and threw them at the ground. He brought his cape up to protect himself just as they went off.
BOOM!
The corridor collapsed in a hail of red brick. Batman brought his cape down and had just enough time to catch his breath, before of thick, scaly hand punched through the brick pile.
Killer Croc's hand was so fast and so strong that his claws left scratch marks on the chest of Batman's armor.
The wall of bricks around Killer Croc's powerful, flailing arm began to shift and loosen… before he heard muffled thumps, and a roar from the other side.
It seemed that Robin had cut back around and had thrown some of the more combustive and festive contents of his utility belt at Croc.
Killer Croc extracted his arm from the loose pile of bricks, and Batman could see light from the hole that Croc had made.
Taking Robin's cue, Batman went out the same way he came in. Once he had reached the passageway, he saw Robin using his grapnel gun on the walls and ceiling to stay out of Killer Croc's reach, zipping up and over to his pursuer's fury.
"Come and catch me, dipshit!" Robin yelled before letting the grapnel line hoist him up in the air. Killer Croc's meaty arms wound up tackling empty space before he lost control, and launched himself face first into the small stream of green muck at the center of the passage way.
Croc got to his feet and growled. Batman ran to his front, and stared him down. As Croc got to his feet, Batman unleashed a pair of pellets that he had retrieved from his utility belt.
He threw them at Croc's feet, and they ignited.
Plumes of silver foam erupted on the concrete, encasing Killer Croc's wide reptilian feet.
That adhesive had been tested by Lucius in the WayneTech labs. Batman had been told that they could stop a monster truck from moving, but he didn't know whether or not Lucius had actually brought a monster truck into the lab in order to physically test it.
Imagine Batman's shock as Killer Croc groaned and, after seemingly minimal struggle, brought his feet out of the silver adhesive foam.
So…. Killer Croc was stronger than a monster truck now.
Killer Croc set his yellow eyes on Batman and snorted a rip of the air around him… before his eyes went as wide as saucers.
Croc caught something's scent.
He wildly and blindly brought his right arm around… and it found Robin, who had been trying to sneak up behind him.
Robin flew into the wall of the passageway so hard that his head rocked back, colliding with the brick. He fell to the floor in a heap.
Batman saw this and roared. He dug two Batarangs out of his belt and drove them both into either side of Killer Croc's neck…
...only for the metal of the Batarangs to bend and warp on contact.
So not only had Croc's strength increased since the last time Batman had seen him, but his skin had gotten exponentially tougher.
Killer Croc turned and looked down and Batman, his thin lips fixing around his razor sharp teeth in a queasy and terrifying approximation of a smile.
Then he drove his head dead center into the front of Batman's cowl.
Batman dropped to a knee, and his vision went gray.
Batgirl was a pugnacious little shit, Catwoman would give her that.
She hadn't had time to bring her hand down to her belt to get her whip before Batgirl fired her grapnel gun.
The hook went around an overhanging pipe, and in Batgirl swooped like Indiana Fucking Jones, delivering one of those tacky yellow boots of hers right to Catwoman's mush.
Catwoman spun from the impact, but she didn't fall. The back of her tongue caught traces of blood in her mouth.
She spat, and tried to stare the advancing Batgirl down.
No quips from our ginger friend. All steely green eyes and confident stance.
This told Catwoman that Batgirl was, similar to her boss, no Goddamned fun at all.
This also told her that Batgirl treated every fight like a test she had to cram for. She had contingencies on top of contingencies, just like the patience-thinning man for whom she toadied.
Which meant that Batgirl would not react well to surprises.
She was coming in for a right.
Catwoman wasn't even going to try to block it. Batgirl was wearing plate armor. It slowed her down, but it also added momentum to whatever she landed. Speed was the order for the evening. She was wearing a thin, skintight Catsuit, she might as well take advantage of how light it was.
Catwoman flowed around the right cross that Batgirl threw, before she came up with a left elbow of her own that she counted on Batgirl dodging.
Good. Let her think I'm slower than I actually am. Let me actually be fast enough to stay safe.
The claws came out for a slow flurry that she hoped to God Batgirl would dodge.
If I disfigure you, Bats will never let me hear the end of it.
Dodge it, she did. Batgirl put her back into a lunge kick that Catwoman sidestepped.
Then… Catwoman got the urge to gamble.
She let off a roundhouse kick with her right leg…
...and Batgirl caught her foot.
Catwoman was hoping that Batgirl, with her sudden run of good fortune, would revert to self-defense 101.
And she was not disappointed.
Batgirl yanked Catwoman's foot toward her, and knelt.
Ideally, what Batgirl just did would have done was brought the offending attacker down into a split. Most people would thereafter be rendered a shrieking, blubbering mess at having their crotch hit the floor as the midpoint in the straight line between their two ankles.
But this was Catwoman, and she could do a split in her sleep… And one memorable time with an ex-boyfriend, she actually had.
With Catwoman in the split, and Batgirl kneeling down in front of her, they were face to face.
And Catwoman could see the confusion play out on Batgirl's face beneath her cowl. Where is the screaming and the swearing? That happened every other time I did this.
Catwoman smiled. "Nice try, Batginger."
Then she hit Batgirl in the face with a right hook that was so devastating that Catwoman saw the poor girl's eyes roll back in her head.
Killer Croc's maw opened impossibly wide, and descended on Batman's head.
Batman was spared decapitation by a shower of concussive pellets that detonated around Croc's skull.
From behind them, Robin called out. "You want me to stay down, you gotta put more work in, you shitheel!"
Croc growled. "How do you work with that kid?"
"Carefully," Batman said, before he took off his utility belt, and used it as a melee weapon. He brought it up under Killer Croc's chin with all his might, and staggered him enough for Batman to dive between his legs and roll through to the other side.
Batman yelled. "Robin! Sigma!"
Robin nodded. "You get him to hit the high note. I'll go up top."
Batman nodded back. He turned back around… only to walk into a kick to the chest from Croc. He flew into the brick wall behind him, and Batman had to squint from the fine mist of red dust that arose upon impact.
But he still had his utility belt in his hand.
He moved in. Killer Croc swiped at him with his colossal right arm, but Batman ducked it. And while he was down there, he wrapped his utility belt around Killer Croc's ankles, and fastened the buckle.
"What the…"
Batman didn't think that his utility belt would fare any better than the silver monster truck foam… but if Croc destroyed the belt, then every gadget inside would go off. And that, needless to say, would be interesting for all parties involved.
As Batman looked up at the clearly confused Croc, he detached one of the three spikes from the underside of his left gauntlet.
Killer Croc's skin was now tough enough to destroy Batarangs… but the thinnest skin on the human body was the eyelid.
He was going to have to be delicate about this. A miniscule fraction of an inch off in either direction, and he'd risk destroying Killer Croc's eyeball. And unlike his other body parts, Batman wasn't entirely sure Killer Croc's eye would grow back.
Batman secured the spike between the index and middle fingers of his right hand, and up came the uppercut.
Bullseye!
The spike lodged in the upper part of Killer Croc's right eye socket, leaving the yellow eyeball itself undamaged, but the skin above it spewing blood.
Killer Croc reared back and roared…
...right underneath Robin, who was hanging from the ceiling by his grapnel gun. In his right hand was a palm full of knockout pellets.
Which he dropped right into Killer Croc's open mouth.
Only one or two ricocheted off of Croc's lips and teeth. Down his gullet the rest of them went.
Croc swallowed, coughed, and looked around him in confusion.
Then he belched. Out of his mouth came a thick gray cloud of noxious knockout gas.
Killer Croc staggered. "You… pieces o'... shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit."
Croc fell forward, and Batman had to leap out of the way to avoid the impact.
SPLAT!
Killer Croc landed face first on the concrete floor, the spike from Batman's gauntlet sticking up in the air.
Batman yanked it out as Robin dropped to the floor.
"You alright?" Robin asked.
Batman grimly nodded, and said "I'll live."
Any victory that Catwoman was going to extract from Batgirl was going to be a hollow one. This she knew.
It was abundantly clear to Catwoman that Batgirl was essentially trained to be a shock trooper, whose MO was to hit people once and drop them, before she moved onto the next one.
Long fights did not favor this Batgirl. Catwoman knew that Batgirl did not have the conditioning for extended fights, and that plate amor she was wearing was only slowing her down and making her tired.
Catwoman, on the other hand, was freed from luring Batgirl into feints with her ostentatious show of logy agility. That being the case, she was actually speeding up as the fight progressed.
Batgirl raised her right yellow gauntlet in front of her face, and pressed a button, letting the three spikes eject wildly.
All Catwoman had to do was duck.
She went down low to sweep Batgirl's leg. It didn't knock her down, but it did stagger her.
Catwoman sprang upward, bringing her right elbow into Batgirl's jaw. Blood flew from her mouth as she whirled with the momentum.
Or she tried to, anyway. Mid-whirl, Catwoman grabbed one of the horns sticking up from her cowl with one hand, and a handful of cape with the other.
Catwoman spiked Batgirl's head into the concrete floor like a football.
A groan escaped Batgirl's bloody lips as Catwoman brought her right leg up for a stomp.
Batgirl log-rolled out of the way in the nick of time.
The virtual eternity that Batgirl took getting to her feet meant that Catwoman had more than enough time to relieve her bullwhip from her waist.
Batgirl's eyes went wide when she saw Catwoman rear back.
CRACK!
The force of the whip crack was so strong that a sliver of yellow lacquer came off the gauntlet that Batgirl raised to defend herself.
Catwoman brought the whip back, waved it in a circle over her head to build momentum, and…
CRACK!
The business end of the bullwhip wrapped around Batgirl's left gauntlet, and she smiled with pink teeth at Catwoman, convinced that she had her right where she wanted her.
Which was what Catwoman wanted Batgirl to think.
Muscle plus plate armor meant that Batgirl was heavy. Heaviness ment leverage. This also meant that Catwoman could use the bullwhip tight around Batgirl's arm to slingshot herself toward her.
And that is precisely what Catwoman did.
She saw Batgirl's green eyes enlarge in shock as she rocketed toward her. It might have been her imagination, but Catwoman swore that she distinctly heard and "Oh, sh-"
THWACK!
Batgirl's head rocked back as the loose whip fell to the floor. More blood fell down her lips and chin. She collected herself, threw a slow right that Catwoman just had to lean back to dodge, and-
THWACK!
Another right across Batgirl's jaw. Catwoman heard an undignified "GACK!" escape her mouth, before came in with a lunge kick that barely got off the ground.
It was time to finish this.
After sidestepping the lunge, Catwoman brought her left foot all the way up until it rested on the slouching Batgirl's right shoulder. She saw the confusion in Batgirl's eyes.
Then, Catwoman pulled in with her left leg while moving forward with her right.
The result was a flip kick with all of the power in Catwoman's body that…
WHAM!
...caught Batgirl under the jaw so hard that she was lifted off of her feet.
Catwoman landed on her hands and knees after the resulting backflip, with adrenaline coursing through her body.
Batgirl landed on her back, out cold.
Catwoman rose to her feet, and raised her hands in the air.
"Winner! And still champi - UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH!"
Catwoman rose to her feet, and raised her hands in the air.
Batman fired the shock dart from his gauntlet.
"Winner! And still champi - UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH!"
The dart hit Catwoman in the small of her back, and veins of blue electricity wrapped around her body. She jittered in place for a moment, before keeling over onto her left side.
Batman walked toward her prone body, grabbed her by the wrist, and dragged her over to the metal railing around the outflow basin that Killer Croc had mangled after he had emerged from it. He got a pair of cuffs out of his utility belt, and handcuffed Catwoman to the railing by her left hand.
From behind him. "Here, let me help you up."
Robin was helping Batgirl to her feet. She shook her head and spat some blood on the concrete, before she met Batman's gaze.
It wasn't that he was unable to keep the disappointment at Batgirl's failure out of his face. It was that he wasn't entirely convinced he wanted to.
Batgirl lowered her eyes to the floor, and sheepishly put her hands behind her back.
"Robin," Batman said. "Do you still have the signal for the tracker underneath the Venom truck?
"Sure do," said Robin.
"The two of you secure it," Batman said.
As his two sidekicks left the room, he turned to face the cuffed Catwoman, who was just now coming to.
"You," Batman said, gravel in his voice.
Catwoman shook her head, and asked "Me what?"
He thought for a moment about crouching down to get to her level, but she didn't deserve it. Not tonight. So he remained standing.
"You had no intention of harming Robin," Batman said. "And you knew I wasn't going to agree to any demand you made."
"You don't know that, Sailor." The application of the shit-eating grin was instantaneous.
Batman closed his eyes and sighed, before opening them again.
"Catwoman," Batman said, "Selina… You did this for attention."
That's when the grin went away. Beneath that Catwoman cowl, Selina Kyle's face was a fright mask of anger.
"Why?" Batman asked. "What's changed since the last time I saw you?"
Catwoman sneered, rolled her eyes, and flipped him off.
"Am I really a bridge you want to burn?" Batman asked. "I put up with a lot from you, but if you turn your back, you're in the cold. And you'll stay that way."
Catwoman spat at his feet, and looked up at him with defiance.
Footsteps behind him. "Batman?"
Robin and Batgirl had returned. He walked up to them.
"Did you secure the truck?" Batman asked.
Robin looked at Batgirl sheepishly, before he held out a jagged piece of machinery with loose, severed wires and a blinking light.
"The signal tracker," Batman said.
"And the rest of the truck is MIA," Batgirl said. "It, and the Venom it's carrying, could be anywhere underground."
"We can just ask Catwoman where it is, right?" Robin asked.
Batman closed his eyes, and glowered behind his mask. "By the time I turn around, Catwoman will have picked the lock on her cuffs and escaped."
Robin snorted, as he walked around him.
"Oh, come on," he said. "Catwoman isn't that g… Aw, shit!"
Batman turned around.
The Batcuffs were just hanging off of the mangled railing. She had even picked up her discarded whip before she vanished.
She really was that good.
He turned back to his recently kidnapped protege and his recently battered associate.
"We failed," Batman said, glaring at both of them. Then he walked between them, bumping into both of their shoulders as he advanced into the interior of the sewers.
"Don't worry," he could hear Batgirl telling Robin. "We'll get 'em next time."
The record must state that they did not, in fact, get 'em next time.
A mere eleven days after The Great Gotham Team-Up, Barbara Gordon would be in a wheelchair. Three months after that, Jason Todd would be dead.
And while both conditions (though the unwanted intervention of magic in the former and the whims of an insane Greek Goddess in the latter) would only be temporary, it did cast one hell of a pall on their relationship going forward.
SELINA KYLE'S HARLOW STREET APARTMENT - TWENTY-ONE YEARS AGO
Selina leaned against the sill of the open window, a cheap beer in one hand and her other hand scratching the head of her one-year-old black cat Isis.
She had showered the sewer stench off of her, and got into an oversized t-shirt over a pair of pink undies, and got a bottle of Michelob out of the ancient and noisy Kennmore fridge that came with the apartment.
So she stared at the Gotham skyline, just… thinking.
You did this for attention.
She was at that breezy point she always spotted, the stage of admission before playing it cool, so Selina grunted and asked herself if she really was that obvious.
Was it obvious to Batman that her heart may or may not have boiled in her stomach the instant she heard that Bane had broken him, possibly permanently?
Was it obvious how much she missed him for the month he was away?
Was it obvious that when she learned he'd slept with Talia al Ghul, that she was nowhere near as cool with it as she attempted to convince herself she was?
Selina grunted and took a pull off of her beer. She swept away every other thought, save for that one hopeless, silly, foolish, sentimental, bullshit thought that she kidnapped a child and stole a truck full of green goo in a reckless and foolhardy attempt to talk to the boy she liked.
Oh, you are so getting repressed later…
And it would be. Selina Kyle would remain aloof. Catwoman would remain pragmatic. God would still be out of town, and all would be fucked up with the world. The status quo was a beautiful thing.
The door to her apartment opened. Her contact had arrived.
Pamela Swigeld was the one and only sidekick that Catwoman had ever had. She went by the codename "Mouse," and she didn't last long before Selina decided she worked best as a solo act.
But Pamela still owed Selina one favor, and tonight was the night she called it in. While Catwoman tussled with Batgirl, and while Batman and Robin went to war with Killer Croc, it was Pamela's job to take the truck and hide it elsewhere in the sewers after she had removed the signal tracker. That way, even if those caped schmucks took her to jail and she was put to the question by the GCPD, she'd honestly have no idea where it was.
Yeah, she did this just to see Batman, but that was no reason she couldn't bring in some black market bucks at the same time, right?
Selina turned and looked at Pamela. "So where'd you stash the Venom truck?"
Pamela Swigeld was an almost intimidatingly pretty black woman in her mid-twenties with short straightened hair and delicate brown eyes that did not handle the emotion of embarrassment well.
Selina knew this because Pamela looked deeply embarrassed at present.
"Well," Pamela said, "see, here's the thing…"
Selina closed her eyes, rolled them beneath her lids, and groaned "Ohhhhhh, Christ."
"I ripped out the tracker," Pamela said, "and drove the truck elsewhere in the sewer like you said, so you could pick it up later. But, um… The sewers are identical, y'know that? I was… I was lost down there after I stashed the truck, and I swear to Jesus an army of cockroaches chased me for a whole block. I tried forever to find a manhole cover, and by the time I came up on Seeley Street, I had no idea how I got there. So…"
Selina stared daggers at Pamela.
"So what you're telling me… is that you did such a good job hiding a truck full of millions of dollars worth of illegal, experimental steroids… that even you don't know where it is?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
The headache was instantaneous. She put her beer down on the window sill, and massaged her temples.
She was supposed to pay Killer Croc a hundred grand for that show he put on with Batman and Robin tonight. She was supposed to double it if he got pinched, which he had. And now she was going to have to pay it out of pocket. Yeah, she had access to the cash, but Jesus, what a fucking nightmare.
This is why I don't have a sidekick anymore...
Selina put her hands at her sides, and decided that now was the time that she could look at her old associate without leaping across the room and beating on her until she stopped twitching.
"Thanks for the effort," Selina said through clenched teeth. "But this hasn't been the best night for me, and I would very much like to be alone right now."
Pamela nodded…
"Oh."
...before she reached into the pocket of her overcoat and pulled out a small, tied-off baggie filled with green plant matter.
"I scored some weed, though," Pamela said. "Y'know, as a 'Sorry I Fucked Up' present."
Selina's eyes went down to the baggie of weed, before they went back up to meet Pamela's.
Eh, screw it…
Selina felt the warmth seep into her eyes. She smiled sweetly. She held her hand out to her.
"What kind of person would I be if I turned away the best friend I ever had?"