Chapter 23: Those Things on Cop Cars that Make Noise
NINETY MINUTES EARLIER...
"Selina…"
The dreams where she fell were the most common. But here she stood on air, above a mountain range bathed in purple twilight.
And his arms were around her waist.
"Selina…"
She looked down and saw the arms across her naked stomach were decked out in black gauntlets and gray armor.
And his voice came again.
"Selina…"
His breath was in her ear, raising the hairs on the back of her neck, raising gooseflesh on her bare arms. She closed her eyes, smiled, and asked a question she knew was important, but she wasn't sure why.
"Sailor," she said, "has anyone ever told you that you sound a whole lot like Bruce Wayne?"
A deep chuckle sounded in her ear. Oh that's got to be Bruce, she thought. Batman doesn't chuckle. Or giggle. Or laugh. He'd set his suit on fire if he ever did. Bruce is wearing a Batman costume just to tease me, that's all.
"Turn around and find out," he said.
Her bare feet somehow found purchase on the nothing that she was standing on. Her naked back brushed against the chest of his armor. She turned to him and-
Catwoman woke up, and immediately saw that she was tied to a chair.
I gave up a sex dream for this?
She looked around the room in which she sat. There were meathooks on the wall, telling her she was in an old slaughterhouse. Given how cramped the room she was in actually was, she had to guess she was in the loading bay. She'd have bet that if she turned around, she'd have seen two big doors chained shut. There were no more trucks coming to this place to take meat away anymore.
Catwoman looked back down at her hands bound to the chair, saw that her black Catsuit was coated in dust from the imploding building from which she had escaped. She started to struggle, and then stopped when she noticed something.
During the fight with Talia when she attacked her with her own whip (a whip that she lost when the building came down) she had given her a crack that opened up her catsuit and sliced her open along her left forearm.
It seemed that the person who had tied her to this chair had also stitched up her wound.
She went back to struggling her way out of the bungee cords binding her to this old wooden chair, when a voice came in over a loudspeaker above her.
"Subject eight," the voice said. "Kyle, Selina. Prior exposure to gasses and toxins… None."
It was a voice that was paradoxically low and wispy. It was a voice that could curdle milk all on its lonesome.
And Catwoman knew who the voice belonged to.
"Scarecrow!" she called out.
"Hello, Catwoman," Scarecrow said. "I thought you retired when the Batman went away. But now that he's back, so are you. Predicting that would have been like predicting a sunrise."
Catwoman struggled harder against her restraints. "What do you want, Crane?"
"To know what scares you," Scarecrow said.
Stupid question.
Scarecrow had gassed all of the heroes in Gotham at one time or another, and most of the villains as well.
"In all of our years of lighting up Gotham," Scarecrow said, "I've never once exposed you to my wares. Someone who can leap across rooftops and dally with Batman without a care in the world? My-my-my-my, it must take something special to put the fear in you…"
She ran across a number of smart-ass things to say. None of them were particularly threatening or funny, so she just continued to struggle.
"Let's find out," Scarecrow said. "I think this experience will be most enlightening."
Then it came. The hiss of Scarecrow's fear gas coming from nozzles embedded in the ceiling.
Catwoman took a deep breath, and held it.
"You do realize that my toxin can be absorbed through the skin?" Scarecrow asked over the loudspeaker. "Holding your breath will just make you turn blue."
Catwoman let her breath out, and started struggling against her binds again.
It was too late now. She had never asked herself what terrified her the most in this world, and now she would find out.
What if what scared her most in life was just the simple act of getting gassed by Scarecrow?
What if that's what she was seeing right now?
Because if that was the case, then… Then that's actually kind of lame.
She'd been exposed to Scarecrow's gas for, what, twenty seconds now? And she hadn't seen anything. No hallucinations of dead relatives, or sharp-toothed beasts, or vaguely phallic monsters loosed from the collective subconscious. Just a shitty slaughterhouse that was so old that grass was growing out of the cracks in the concrete floor.
"Why… isn't… It… WORKING?"
Scarecrow himself, rail thin and still in his noose and burlap bag, busted out of the small side room from which he had been observing the proceedings. He came up to her and stopped when he was a few feet away.
"Is-Is it the nozzles?" Scarecrow asked himself. "It can't be! They worked on the first… seven…"
Scarecrow stopped when he saw something. Catwoman checked his eyeline and stared at what he was staring at.
There were small tufts of grass growing out of the cracks in the floor, and above them were little orange spires, no more than an inch high. It took her a second to work it out, but she finally figured out what was going on.
The grass was sucking up the fear gas.
Even through his mask, Catwoman could see the agitation building in Scarecrow. It showed in the shoulders, and how they were tensely rising and falling as he breathed.
"No," he said." It's her!"
There was a knock on the small exit door on the other side of the room. It was so loud that both Catwoman and Scarecrow jumped.
Scarecrow slowly walked to the door and slowly opened it. And Catwoman could hear the person on the other side of the door say two simple words.
"Hiya, Doc!"
Scarecrow immediately slammed the door and locked it.
Catwoman didn't actually see the person on the other side of the door… But she would know that tragically New York voice anywhere.
"HARLEY!" Catwoman yelled. "IT'S SELINA! HE'S TAKEN-"
Scarecrow turned on her. "Will you shut up?"
"Now that ain't no way to treat a lady, Doc," Harley Quinn said from the street beyond the door. "I come all the way from Arkham to see how you were doin' now that our sessions had been called off, only find you tyin' up broads and slammin' doors in my face!"
Harley knocked on the door again, and Scarecrow started backing up.
"You know what I'll hafta to if you don't open this door, right?" Harley asked from outside. "I'll huuuuuuuff… And I'll puuuuuuuff… Annnnnd I'llllll get-my-smokin'-hot-plant-lady-girlfriend-to-make-big-long-vines-come-out-of-the-ground-in-there-and-have-her-jam-them-up-your peeeeeeee-hooooooole."
The ground inside the slaughterhouse began to rumble. The concrete on the floor began to crack.
And two massive vines emerged from the floor directly in front of Catwoman, kicking up enough debris and dust to necessitate her closing her eyes.
While they were clenched shut, she heard Scarecrow cry out in surprise and shock.
When she opened them again, Catwoman saw that one of the vines was dangling Scarecrow upside down. His burlap mask had fallen off, and his thin, sandy hair was dangling below his thin, pinched-looking head.
The other vine ripped the door clean off of its hinges, before it receded back into the ground.
Harley was the first to enter. She was wearing cut-off jeans beneath a t-shirt that helpfully informed all who read it that its wearer had successfully completed the Meat Tornado Challenge at Big Belly Burger. She had sandals on, and a wooden baseball bat over her shoulder. Her blonde hair was in pigtails, and her face had a lot more color than the last time Catwoman had seen her.
Then Catwoman realized that what she was seeing was Harley "in a better place in her life," and all of her interior recoiled.
Poison Ivy came in behind her. Vivid green eyes, lustrous red hair in a braid coming down over her right shoulder. She swayed as she moved, her upper and lower torso as well as her feet covered in what Catwoman could only classify as "cabbagey bits."
"Doctor Crane," Poison Ivy said, her husky and seductive voice carrying across the air like smoke. "It's been too long."
"You think to scare me, witch?" Scarecrow asked. "Nothing scares me."
"Nothing except Batman," Ivy said. "And people have been dying because of that. Not that I'm complaining. A few less sacks of angry, stupid meat in the world make Ivy a happy girl. And besides…"
She leaned forward. Her mint ice cream skin seemed to get more vivid. Her hair looked like it became a deeper and more enticing shade of red. Her already full ruby lips appeared to plump further.
"...who said anything about scaring you?"
Catwoman had seen this before.
In fact, Catwoman had had this done to her previously, before Robin of all people stepped in and saved her.
"I've always respected and admired you, Jonny," Poison Ivy said as she slinked toward him.
Scarecrow seemed to know what was about to happen.
"No!"
He reached his arm out, and a jet of fear toxin erupted from a jet hidden in the sleeve of his lab coat.
It coated Ivy's face… and had no effect at all.
Of course it wouldn't, Catwoman thought. The toxin used plant bases, so Ivy was immune. It wouldn't affect Harley either, as she used to huff fear toxin for fun back in the day, and had developed an immunity of her own, even to the stronger strains.
"Why do you want to resist me, Jonny?" Poison Ivy asked. "Do you mind if I call you Jonny?"
All resistance within Scarecrow seemed to vanish in the span of a sentence. "I… Well… No. No I don't at all."
Ivy smiled. "Good. Such a smart man you are. It seems strange that we never teamed up in the old days."
"It does," Scarecrow said listlessly. "Now that I look back on it."
Harley was looking back and forth between the two of them, knowing what was about to happen.
Catwoman knew what was about to happen as well, and her stomach turned at the thought of it. The effects of Ivy's poisons varied, depending on her antipathy toward her target. And Catwoman knew she really hated Scarecrow.
"Intelligent minds such as ours could have made such a difference."
"Yes…"
"And they still could," Ivy said. "Would you like that, Jonny?"
"Yes," Scarecrow said. "Yes I would."
"Good," Ivy said. "Now… Give me a kiss."
She leaned in. Their lips were mere inches apart now.
Catwoman piped up. "Uh… Pammy?"
Ivy turned to Catwoman, the effects of her pheromones and powers of seduction instantly ceasing. She did not look happy.
"What?"
"I've seen you do that to people before, and I really don't want see Scarecrow puke blood from his eye sockets." Catwoman looked down at her restraints, then back at Ivy. "I'm kind of in a delicate place right now."
Ivy threw up her hands. "Well what do you suggest I do with him, Selina?"
"Um… Knock him out?"
At this, Harley's eyes lit up.
"Dibs!"
THWACK!
With blinding speed, Harley had lugged the baseball bat off of her shoulder, and cracked Scarecrow across the face with it. Blood from his mouth was dripping off the floor.
Ivy shrugged her shoulders. Her vine let Scarecrow go, and he landed on the busted concrete floor directly on his neck.
"You wouldn't mind untying me, would you?" Catwoman asked.
"Ugh," Ivy said as she started walking toward her. "I have to do everything for you, don't I?"
Ivy worked the bungee cords tying Catwoman to the chair as her vine receded back into the earth. And all the while, Harley stood over the unconscious Scarecrow.
"Some of his teeth came out," Harley said. "He's gonna need a dentist… Aw, but he gets the laughin' gas, and I don't… Now I made myself sad..."
When Selina Kyle, Pamela Isley, and Harleen Quinzel shared an old animal shelter in Robinson Park that they had converted into an apartment, Selina asked Pam what she saw in Harley.
"I have no power over her. I have no means to compel her to do my bidding, and yet… she stays with me anyway. I need to know what that means."
Conversely, Selina had asked Harley what she saw in Pam. Her response was a great deal less solemn.
"Red hair? Green skin? IT'S LIKE GOIN' DOWN ON CHRISTMAS!"
Selina thought there was more to it than that, but thought better of pressing the issue.
Whenever Harley and The Joker were on the outs, Harley always came sniffing around Ivy, and Ivy always took her in. And whenever Harley inevitably went back to The Joker, Ivy tried her hardest to impress upon her that The Joker was only going to hurt her again.
And then Harley killed The Joker, so something apparently worked.
Standing in the alley outside the slaughterhouse on this balmy July evening, the sound of distant helicopters and nearby crickets being their only accompaniment, Poison Ivy was working her tongue along her gums.
"Inhaling Crane's toxin always gives me dry mouth," she said, and went back to working her mouth.
Harley looked at Catwoman and smiled. "How ya been, Kitten?"
"I've been... Actually, you have no idea how confusing a question that is," Catwoman said. "How did you know I was here?"
"We was in the neighborhood," Harley said. "Saw Doc back there draggin' ya behind him like, well, a dead cat. Couldn't let that slide. Anyway, I hear you're a millionaire now."
"Yes," Catwoman said. "Yes, I am."
"Gotta quarter?"
Catwoman looked down at her dusty Catsuit, then back at Harley. "On me? No."
Harley made a Pffft sound, and said "Rich folks are all the same."
Catwoman smiled. "I almost got married, too."
"I heard about that," Harley said. "Broke it off?"
Catwoman nodded.
"I thought so," Harley said. "I'd say it was because a lack of a stable model for intimacy in your youth manifests as a fear of commitment combined with unresolved feelings for Batman, but then I'd hafta start chargin' ya."
And it was at this point that Catwoman stopped smiling.
"How's this whole Undyin' thing been treatin' ya?" Harley asked.
"Well," Catwoman said. "I lost my whip."
Harley made a pouty face. "Awwwwww."
"I kicked Talia al Ghul in the crotch."
Harley looked scandalized. "Oh, Kitten. Ya just don't do that to another lady."
"I wanted to live," Catwoman said, "So yes I did."
Harley shrugged.
Catwoman's mind drifted to the thought that she hadn't had time to deal with, outside of a dream.
"And…" Catwoman said, "I found out Batman's secret identity."
This caught both Harley and Ivy's attention. Ivy's eyebrows were slightly raised in interest, but Harley's eyes were wide, her mouth agape. She tiptoed over to Catwoman, took her hand, and came in close, as though they were going to share a secret.
"Is it Bruce Wayne?" Harley asked.
Catwoman found it impossible to hide her incredulity. "What?"
Ivy groaned. "For the last time, Harley, Bruce Wayne is not Batman."
Harley looked at Ivy defiantly. "Oh, how do you know? Have ya ever seen Bruce Wayne and Batman in the same place at the same time?"
"Yes," Ivy said. "Yes, I have."
Come to think of it, so had Catwoman. That time Batman saved Bruce from Deadshot at the Gotham Stock Exchange.
So that means Bruce can't be Batman… Right?
"And besides," Ivy said. "Not seeing two people in the same place at the same time can't be the only criteria. You haven't seen Hugh Jackman and Batman in the same place at the same time either."
Harley rolled her eyes. "Well, that's just…"
Then she stopped. Harley's brow furrowed. Her lips puckered into a little frown. Her pale blue eyes darted back and forth, as though she were solving equations upon thin air.
Then her face lit up in a Eureka moment. She thrust her arms to the heavens in victory and proclaimed, for all the world to hear:
"HUGH JACKMAN IS BATMAN!"
Ivy blinked, and flatly looked at Catwoman.
Catwoman shrugged as if to say "I dunno." Because she didn't.
"I'm going to try to steal a bottle of water," Ivy said. "This dry mouth is killing me."
As she walked away, Harley called out "Have fun, Red!"
Ivy gave a thumbs up over her shoulder, and disappeared around the corner. Catwoman saw Harley look after her with a dreamy, wistful expression.
"Love looks good on you," Catwoman said.
"I know," Harley said.
There was a knot of worry within Catwoman's chest. She wanted to let it go, seeing how truly happy Harley was…
...but she just couldn't.
"She's going to try to get you to do something terrible," Catwoman said. "You know that, right? Say what you want about Talia al Ghul, but she only wants to kill ninety percent of the people in the world. Ivy wants to kill all of them. Except maybe, on a good day, you."
The smile slowly eroded from Harley's face. Some of the light left her eyes.
"I know," Harley said.
"You know?"
Harley looked at the ground, put her hands in the pockets of her cut-offs, and turned to Catwoman.
"Everyone gets to thinkin' I'm stupid," Harley said. "That I'll fall in love at the drop of a hat, and do anything the other person says 'cause I got no mind of my own. And yeah, I get why people think that, stickin' with Mistah J as long as I did."
Harley looked Catwoman in the eye. "But no one ever considers how if Red tries to kill everybody, I'd be the only one who could stop her."
Catwoman tilted her head.
"Red kept tellin' me and tellin' me I was too good for Mistah J, and I kept on goin' back… Until one day I just believed her, and I used my mallet to turn Puddin's brains into actual puddin'. If I didn't show the same faith in her that she showed in me, then… I'd just suck."
"So the power of love is gonna turn Poison Ivy into one of the good guys?" Catwoman asked.
"Sounds silly, don't it?"
"It does a lot more than sound silly."
"But it worked for me, though."
That caught Catwoman off-guard. "Are you seriously telling me you pulled a face turn?"
"Why not?" Harley asked. "It ain't like I'm not better off now than I was then. You hear about what I'm doin' in Arkham?"
"Yeah," Catwoman said. "You're giving out therapy to the patients in a wing in Arkham…"
"Yup!"
"...in exchange for sharing a cell with Ivy."
Harley put her hands on her hips. "It ain't the booty call privileges I do it for… Well, not just the booty call privileges. There's this thing Red does with her pinkie while I'm-"
Catwoman held up her hand. "Just… skip to the end, please."
"I'm actually tryin' to help people in there," Harley said. "It's what I wanted to do before I met Mistah J, and now I'm doin' it! I might not be successful a hundred percent of the time, but just tryin' to be one of the good guys feels better than bein' a villain ever did."
Catwoman opened her mouth, then closed it, before she finally said "So Harley Quinn is the only thing standing between the world and plant-based genocide."
Harley winked at her.
"I hope you don't mind me saying this," Catwoman said, "but that is far from a perfect situation."
Harley shrugged her shoulders. "Who said anything about perfect? It's just better than what we had."
Catwoman...really couldn't argue with that. She held out her arm and gestured for Harley to move closer. She did, and Catwoman wrapped her in a hug.
"This whole situation works out," Catwoman said, "put me on the visitor's list at Arkham, alright? I worry about you."
"Mmmmmmm," Harley said as she rubbed Catwoman's back a little too slowly. "If ya really feel that way, Kitten, all ya had to do was ask."
Catwoman broke the hug. "Harley, no. Well… No."
Harley shrugged. "Your loss."
The sound of footsteps in the alley meant that Poison Ivy had finally returned. Harley saw her and held her arms wide.
"Red!" Harley said, walking toward her. "Ya get your dry mouth situation taken care of?"
Ivy held up a half-empty bottle of water to signify that yes, she had.
"Lemme check," Harley said.
She took Ivy's cheeks in her hands, and got on her tiptoes. Harley kissed Ivy with a depth and a passion that Catwoman found both heartwarming and disturbing in equal measure.
Harley broke the kiss. She put her arm around Ivy's waist, Ivy lifted up the back of Harley's t-shirt so she could put her hand in one of the rear pockets of Harley's cut-offs.
As they made to leave the alley, Harley called out behind her.
"See ya 'round, Kitten" Harley said. "And if you see B-Man, tell him I really liked that circus musical he was in."
They started walking away, and Catwoman could still hear a bit of the conversation they were having.
"Ya give any more thought to the thing we talked about?"
"Harley, I am not growing marijuana in my greenhouse."
"Whaddya got against the little Mary Jane plants?"
"I have nothing against the little Mary Jane plants, but what you plan on doing with them sincerely gives me pause."
As Harley and Ivy left the alley, Catwoman folded her arms and reflected on what the last half hour had given her to think about…
...and then she skipped past all of the uncomfortable stuff, and realized that she had talked to three certifiably insane people in the last thirty minutes, and they all had doctorates.
Catwoman took a deep breath, and said "Thank Christ I dropped out of high school."
The world came back to Talia al Ghul with a shrill whistle and the warm bloom of plain white Christmas lights.
She was on a bed in the hotel section of the 1898 tunnels, the whistling entering the forefront of her brain and making her headache worse.
Until it stopped. She looked to her left, her head lolling on the pillow, opening the one eye she could still open, and saw David Hyde in his wetsuit, his back to her, taking a tea kettle off of a small, portable stove.
She was in David's room.
Talia looked down at herself. Her leather jacket and her boots had been removed, though her leather pants were still on, and dusty from her fight with Catwoman.
Her arms were marbled with bruises. She lifted her black tank top undershirt and saw that the wounds she had suffered from Selina Kyle's claws had been stitched closed.
She looked back up and saw Hyde standing over her, plain mug of tea in hand, the string and tag from a bag of Twining's Earl Grey hanging loosely over the side.
The cheap stuff.
"This is for you, by the way," Hyde said, using the mug of tea to gesture at her. "Can you sit up?"
Talia looked at him a bit, before she said "We will have to find out eventually."
Everything hurt as Talia lifted herself with her arms. She brought her legs down to the side of the bed, and felt a voluminous throb starting in her groin, and spreading out to the bottom of her stomach, to the tops of her thighs.
Oh, dear God, I hate Selina Kyle so much…
But now she was sitting up, her feet on the dull, ancient red carpet. Hyde held out the mug of tea, and she took it.
The tea tasted… cheap.
"We are in your bedroom," Talia said, the stretching of her muscles in her face as she spoke making her headache worse.
"Yeah," Hyde said.
"Why are we in your bedroom?"
"Because you told everyone not to go into your bedroom," Hyde said.
She took another sip of tea, and set it down on the end table. She lowered her head, and stared at her own feet. She stretched her face, even though it hurt, because she was trying to open the eye that was swollen shut. When she couldn't she sighed, and looked up at Hyde.
"I would like to see a mirror, please."
Hyde folded his arms. "I don't second-guess people like you when their minds are made up… Is your mind made up?"
No, Talia thought, but I cannot avoid this.
"I would like to see a mirror, please."
Hyde nodded. He walked to the dresser, pulled a small hand mirror out of the top drawer, and came back with it.
Talia took it, and looked.
Her left eye was swollen shut, as the entire left side of her face was swollen to the extent that it looked as though a stalk of rotten cauliflower had taken bloom just beneath her skin, distorting the shape of her face and discoloring it. Her right eye was entirely bloodshot, her brown iris lonely in a sea of red.
And her face was dominated by four long, vertical slashes, extending from the middle of her forehead, going down her cheeks and nose. They were deep, they looked to be permanent, and they appeared to be closed by…
"Super glue," Hyde said.
Talia looked at him.
"Non-porous," Hyde said. "No chance for infection. It's how I closed these."
He pointed to the three long scars on the side of his face that he had gotten while fighting Aquaman.
Talia stared at him a while, and weakly said "We match."
"That's one way of looking at it.
Talia looked back at the mirror and tried to see beyond herself. Past the appearance and surface emotions to what was underneath. To see where she was to go.
And she saw defeat.
Talia al Ghul had lost fights before. This was nothing new. The simple fact that she had lost to Selina Kyle (through low and unfair means, but still) did not, in and of itself, bother her to the extent someone on the outside looking in would assume.
But it was what that loss represented that hollowed her out.
She had been planning for years to bring her Beloved out of his self-imposed exile. She had brought a man back from the dead, hired one of the most dangerous people on Earth to assist her, set a plan in motion to destroy Gotham City itself. She had toiled, and toiled, and when she had revealed herself to Bruce, he had turned her away.
Which he had done before. What he had not done before, was ask her a simple question:
"Am I a good man?"
And Talia… couldn't answer that.
She knew how her Beloved would define "a good man," and that definition reeked of weakness. Of a man who would stoop low, spending infinitely more energy than warranted to protect those whom the world would not miss from harm and death.
And he had done it before. His definition of "a good man" had not stopped them from their respective moves in the tango that was their relationship over the past decade, but it was here, it was now, that presented him with difficulty. His aspiration to live up to his own foolish notions had frozen him in place.
So it must have been a distraction! It must have been the Kyle woman who linked him to the dirt and detritus of the world that that he fought so doltishly to protect. And so she would meet Selina Kyle on the field of battle, and remove her heart from her chest.
But Selina Kyle had not only defeated her, but had battered and permanently disfigured her. And to add insult to injury, it was during this fight that she had lost her sword, her jian, the weapon given to her by her father at age eleven. Her favorite weapon, the weapon she used to express herself.
Coming to this city was a long and humiliating process of being parted with the things that mattered to her the most. Her sword. Her dignity.
Her love.
The foremost image in her mind as she broke down the damage done to her face into its basic component shapes was that of her Beloved and the son they were to have turning gray, turning to ash, dissolving in the air around her. Leaving her with nothing.
And the four slashes on her face were evidence-permanent evidence-that she had irretrievably wasted the last ten years of her life.
She put the hand mirror down next to the mug of tea that she was not going to drink, and slowly rose to her feet. She did not want Hyde to help her… and he must have sensed that, because he did not.
"What next?" Hyde asked.
Talia took a deep breath.
"I am leaving Gotham City," she said. "There is nothing here for me now. I am not on the LexCorp targeting system, and I have ways to evade the patrols outside of the perimeter."
Hyde nodded. "And… the offer about the League helping me take Atlantis?"
"It still stands," Talia said, not looking at him. "No matter what happens here, you will have our help, when the time comes."
"Good," Hyde said, and after that, Talia some movement out of the corner of her eye.
She looked at him and saw that he had his hand out, as though he expected her to put her hand in his.
And, driven by some urge she could neither interrogate nor explain, she put her hand in his.
"Daughter of the Demon," Hyde said. "I am honored to have entered your employ…"
Hyde bent down and kissed the back of Talia's hand. His full lips seemed to spread their warmth to her entire arm.
"...and I am grateful to have made your acquaintance."
She took her hand away. Possessed by whatever force that drove her to put her hand in his in the first place, Talia said:
"You are not bound to this place anymore than I am. You can leave Gotham City if you so wish."
Hyde stood up straight, and said "I came here to fight Batman. So fighting Batman is what I'll do."
A series of images strode across the mind of Talia al Ghul.
David Hyde stomping Bruce Wayne's face into a red mulch. Gutting Selina Kyle with his bare, calloused hands. Beating Dick Grayson to death with one of his own severed limbs. Twisting Barbara Gordon's head all the way around, and popping it off like a champagne cork in a velvety spray of crimson blood.
And that warmth that had spread throughout her arm quickly spread to her whole body.
Talia limped to the door. When she got there, Hyde spoke again.
"When we take Atlantis," he said, "that's a lot of empty real estate left over after everyone's dead. Thinking maybe I'll settle down in whatever's left. Hell of a lot better than up here. But do you know what would really be nice?"
Talia closed her eyes, and immediately felt every inch of her skin crawl. She knew where this was going. She was practically broadcasting how vulnerable she was, and David Hyde, which she had at least a small degree of respect for until just now, had decided to descend like the scavenger he was.
"A queen?" Talia asked, with no small amount of irritation. "An ornament at your side as you survey a land of ash? A symbol of status to bring you above your pitiful station?"
Hyde squinted at her. "It sounds silly when you say it."
"Because it is silly, David."
Hyde nodded. "But… you said it. Not me."
Talia stared unblinkingly at him.
"I was gonna say a submarine," Hyde said. "One with a nuclear reactor, not the kind you can get on the black market."
Talia closed her eyes, and let her breath out through her nose in a hiss.
"Are all men so infuriating?"
"Around you," Hyde said, "I imagine they pick up the habit. But since you put the thought in my head, once I'm done here, maybe I should look you up."
Talia looked down her nose at him.
"The League of Assassins has secret lairs and safehouses all over the world. We are trained in stealth and evasion. If I do not wish to be found, then I shall not be found."
Hyde grinned, and folded his arms.
"I used to find buried treasure before I got into the supervillain game," he said. "Doubloons underneath derelict tankers in the Caribbean. Ancient statuary behind dead reefs off the coast of Crete. My job was finding rare and wonderful things in a shitty world… You won't be hard to find at all."
Talia looked at him.
She felt like smiling at this strange man David Hyde, before she turned and left the room. Before she collected her things. Before she left Gotham City.
She didn't.
But she felt like it.
As she avoided the street lights on the way back to Harlow Street, Catwoman was left alone with her thoughts.
Thought, rather.
Just the one.
Bruce Wayne is Batman.
It was absurd.
As she stepped onto Harlow Street proper, keeping an eye out, Catwoman reckoned that if Bruce Wayne was Batman, then there came a point in the day that Bruce Wayne quite literally gave up being Bruce Wayne.
One of the richest men in the world, head of Wayne Enterprises, playboy of legend, actually parted with that to put on a bat costume to fight bad guys and put himself in grave danger. Not the rich boy grave danger like racing cars or spelunking, no. Actual grave danger.
And that was just silly. Who would do something like that? Who would take the time off from plowing through models and actresses to…
Wait…
That wasn't right.
She'd said herself, to his face, that she'd noticed he wasn't actually dating anyone, in direct defiance of his reputation. Hell, she'd hit on him herself at that last Christmas party after she called off her engagement to Josh, and she'd turned him down, saying that they shouldn't do something they'd both regret.
Selina Kyle had thrown herself at Bruce Wayne, and Bruce Wayne turned her down.
Which…
Which is…
"Which is something Batman would have done," Catwoman said softly to herself as she skirted another street light a block away from her apartment building.
Yeah, someone with a guilt complex and monstrous self-loathing issues talking about regret? Yup, that's Batman alright.
Okay, what about that whole Gotham Stock Exchange thing? The one where Batman saved Bruce Wayne from Deadshot? That had to be evidence that Bruce Wayne and Batman were two different people, right?
Catwoman asked herself: Is it possible for a human being to be in two places at once?
To which Catwoman responded: No.
Catwoman asked herself: Okay… But is it possible for Batman to be in two places at once?
To which Catwoman responded: ...Maybe.
Batman had a reputation for the impossible. A mortal man with no powers, keeping up with heavy hitters like Superman and Wonder Woman. He could pull something like that off. With, like, tech or something.
WayneTech.
Goddammit!
Oh, and there was another log on the Bruce-Wayne-is-Batman pile: Bruce knew Wonder Woman!
Yeah, Wonder Woman was an ambassador from that island she came from, and she knew a ton of public figures. But industrialists and tech guys? She hadn't seen any pictures of Wonder Woman hanging out with Elon Musk. Or that chode who ran Twitter.
But the guy who ran Twitter was a white supremacist, though. If she'd seen pictures of Wonder Woman hanging out with Herr Manbun, she'd have had questions.
Catwoman now stood on the stoop of her apartment building. She let out a long sigh, and at the end, she just said: "Shit!"
It echoed down the street a little, but she didn't care right now.
With each step she took up the stairs to her apartment, she felt more and more foolish. He was in front of her the whole time, and…
She stopped on the poorly lit hallway leading to her apartment, her eyes wide. That one idea seemed to consume her entire body with its ramifications.
He was in front of me the entire time.
And if that was true, then… then that meant…
Thump… Thump… Thump…
It was coming from the stairs behind her.
Footsteps.
Heavy ones.
Thump… Thump… Thump…
Catwoman turned around. She didn't know anyone who lived on this floor. She didn't know if anyone lived on this floor at all, come to think.
She extended her claws, and backed up. Whoever this was sounded big.
Thump… Thump… Thump…
Catwoman saw a shadow forming at the top of the stairs. Dark… Vast...
Thump… Thump…
They were at the top of the stairs now, their silhouette in full view… And it was one Catwoman recognized immediately.
Catwoman peered into the shadows and called out.
"Batman?"
Batman stepped into the light. The face visible beneath his cowl was dripping with sweat.
At first, Catwoman thought he'd changed up his armor design, going for a darker look instead of the gray. But a more careful glance told her something else.
That wasn't a darker armor.
That was his regular armor covered by an almost obscene amount of blood.
Catwoman saw that Batman was bleeding from a wound on his shoulder.
He opened his mouth to say something, before his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed a few feet away from her.