Authors' Note: Welcome back! If you haven't read Into the Shadows, part of the Little Secrets Superman Returns AU, you're going to be very confused. This fic takes place within about a week of the final chapter of Shadows, and continues the story of its lead characters, Jason Todd and Kala Lane-Kent.
The briefest possible summary of the story to date: Imagine Superman Returns filmed with Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder's characterization of Clark Kent and Lois Lane. And instead of another Last Son of Krypton, Lois' surprise pregnancy brought a set of twins into the world, Jason and Kala. This is very AU, and draws from both film and comics canon.
The Lane-Kent family has weathered all sorts of challenges and survives in defiance of all that Lex Luthor or General Zod could do to destroy them. The twins are now in their early twenties, and Jason is happily married to his high school sweetheart Elise Thorne, expecting twins of their own. Kala's path has been a bit more winding, as she struggled to find a relationship that will last. Jason is known to the public as Superboy, supposedly a clone of Superman, a ruse that helps keep his identity hidden. To further obfuscate the matter, Kala is only known as the Blur, and until recently has not been very active in the hero community. A minor mistake that could've had major consequences leads to her getting a scathing rebuke from one of the original Titans, with the implication that she was squandering her gifts as a dilettante hero. In true Lane fashion she reacted by going to Gotham City to train as a hero with some of the toughest teachers in the community: the Bats and the Birds of Prey.
Along the way she bumped into one Red Hood, who had recently returned to Gotham and who was operating with Batman's blessing, even if the cooperation was grudging on both sides. It was hate at first sight. Jason Todd had heard about Goth Barbie from several biased sources, and he didn't want a shiny Super bouncing around his town, having vapors at the kind of darkness Gotham holds. Meanwhile Kala made her living as a singer in a Goth band, and she had plenty of experience with self-centered arrogant edgier-than-thou types. He issued a challenge to try and scare her off working in his town, but it didn't exactly go the way he planned - Kala turned out to have a stubborn streak of darkness in her soul that he never expected from a Super. If he couldn't chase her out of Gotham, he decided to make sure she didn't suffer the same fate as some other newbie heroes such as himself. With Batman's blessing, Red Hood took over the majority of her training.
Learning to be a competent fighter without powers was just part of the curriculum. Stealth, teamwork, and field medicine were also on the syllabus. Along the way Kala and Jay learned a lot more about each other than they'd planned to, and discovered similarities that no one would've expected. His work with her also had the side benefit of bringing him back home to the Manor, at least part time. Mixed signals, uncertainty, and past mistakes got in the way, but disdain turned to respect, respect turned to admiration, and admiration turned to attraction. Eventually they fell into bed and into a relationship that both of them are still a little uneasy about naming. What they have works for them, and neither wants to examine it too closely for fear of damaging it.
As it turned out, the biggest obstacle to Kala becoming a hero wasn't her relative inexperience, her flaws both real and imagined, or even her extremely public day job. When she was only sixteen years old - the same age Jay had been when he 'died' - she'd been held captive by Luthor, and forged a desperate alliance with General Zod to keep Luthor from obtaining all the weapons secrets of the twenty-eight known galaxies. The terror of those days - and Dru-Zod's mental manipulation - left her with a shadow-self Kala had yet to fully confront. Jay knew all about dark sides, and what a person can do when driven to extremes of fear and rage. He helped her get a handle on the worst side of herself, partially because no matter how dark she could be, he always saw the light in her.
She became a full-fledged hero and gained peace of mind that she badly needed, but Kala lost one of the most important relationships in her life: her best friend and co-singer Sebast, who couldn't abide all the secrets she was keeping. She wouldn't even admit to dating someone, when they had always discussed each other's men before, and then was extremely evasive about who she was seeing. When she and Jay slipped up and let themselves be filmed kissing, Sebast was the only one to recognize the mysterious middle Wayne brother. He and Kala had a huge fight that ended with him walking out of the band. That one little video also outed their relationship to their respective families and the superhero community at large. And really, dealing with Joker, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, and Scarecrow was a piece of cake compared to her over-protective big brother finding out that Kala was sleeping with Red Hood.
The next chapter of Kala and Jay's lives begins as that revelation begins to impact everyone, and other forces act directly and indirectly on their world. Pieces of the puzzle are falling into place all around, but things are only growing more complicated.
Barbara Gordon had long since grown accustomed to phone calls to her secure line at all hours of the night, but she had her phone programmed with a special ring for certain numbers. One of them was Dinah, of course, Helena had her own ring, and she wouldn't have admitted under torture that another of them was Dick.
Still another was calling her now, her phone giving out a low insistent chirp, and Babs pulled herself away from her current research into Guyot-Perrin's projects to answer it with her usual clipped, "Oracle." Given whose ring tone that was, they would both know her concern was far more than professional.
A beat of silence, and Babs closed her eyes, knowing which of her girls was on the line just by that hesitation. Oh, Dinah and Helena were hers, too, her agents, her friends, but these were her girls. One of them as close to her heart as a daughter. "It is Shiva," Cass finally said, her voice hushed.
Babs had to literally bite her tongue to keep from saying, Come home. One, Cass would take it personally, thinking Babs didn't trust her to handle this. And two, she wouldn't do it. All she could accomplish was to make Cass feel guilty about disobeying orders. "You're certain?" she asked.
"Saw her." Cass paused, and added, "She rules here."
Babs leaned her head into her hands and only let herself curse in her mind, borrowing a few of Dick's pungent circus-slang expressions for the purpose. "Do not engage, Batgirl. I'll do some further research on this end first. You need to know what you're jumping into."
"I will search, too," Cass replied.
She couldn't say no, so Babs told her, "Be careful. Absolute secrecy."
And imagined she could hear a smile in the girl's voice as Cass said, "Yes."
Another pause as Cass handed the phone off, and Steph came on the line. "Hey, Babs, we're gonna play it cool. We don't know what Shiva's plans are, just that she's here, and there's a new wave of radicalism sweeping through the camps further south. My guess – and it's a purely unscientific hunch based on some hearsay – is that the more extreme elements of the group up here are leaving because Shiva doesn't play according to their rules."
"Probably a good hunch," Babs admitted, queuing up search programs on her computer to track any activity under any of Talia's known aliases. If Shiva was making a bid to take over part of the League of Shadows, sooner or later Talia would show up to deal with it. And she didn't want either of her girls in the middle of that. "I'm pulling all the data I can. You two, try to keep to passive information-gathering. I don't want to spook Shiva."
All the while she was trying to decide who best to send over to Libya. Dinah and Helena were both highly trained operatives, both adept at infiltrating enemy organizations … and both currently occupied in Gotham City itself. The power vacuum caused by Black Mask landing in jail still wasn't settled, though with Scarecrow in Arkham now, the loose ends in the city were currently being tied up by Two-Face. Penguin had quietly consolidated some of them into his own ranks, but Cobblepot hadn't made any overt moves in a while. And Joker was still out there somewhere, planning something. He was always planning something.
It was the kind of situation where, no matter how much data Babs was able to gather, nothing would make sense until some patterns began to emerge.
Steph, meanwhile, chuckled at her choice of words. "I know what you mean, but the concept of me spooking someone like Shiva… Now I wanna jump out of an alleyway and yell 'Boo!' just to see what happens. Even though I know she'd probably just flatten me. The look on her face would be worth it."
"I'd rather you didn't," Babs said, and heard Cass simply say 'No' from somewhere near the phone.
Sighing, Steph said, "It was a joke, guys. I'm blonde, but I'm not that dumb."
Babs heard Cass' voice a lot closer to the phone, and her tone was suddenly fierce. "Not stupid."
"Okay, okay," Steph replied, with a little laugh. "Ease down, I surrender – I have an above-average IQ."
Smiling a little, Babs hazarded a guess. "She won't let you trash-talk yourself."
Another heavy sigh, the kind only teenagers were capable of. "You're right, Batgirl is my personal self-image police. Which is ridiculous."
"Good," Babs said softly. Someone needed to stop Steph from agreeing with everyone who spoke ill of her. And Cass was just stubborn enough to make it stick no matter how many times she had to interrupt. Babs continued, "I'm going to let Batman know, but things in Gotham are highly unsettled just now. I can't send someone right away."
Cass cleaned close to the phone, and said, "We will watch."
Babs heard the faintest little noise, something that sounded like a smooch, and smiled. Trust Steph to deal with Cass getting in her space by kissing her on the cheek. Steph added, "And that's all we're doing, for now. I'll keep you posted, O."
"I appreciate it," Babs replied. "Take care of yourselves. Call in at least once daily; if you miss a day I'll assume you're compromised and send someone to extract you, no matter how short it leaves us here."
After they signed off, she sat there staring at the computer screen and not seeing it for several long moments. Dinah and Helena had both gradually taught her to trust her people in the field. And she could trust Cass and Steph not to endanger each other or civilians; the only thing she feared was them endangering themselves. Cass was driven to confront her mother, Babs knew. Sandra Wu-San had walked away shortly after her birth, and never tried to contact her. The few times they'd crossed paths, she seemed more interested in Cass' martial arts skills than anything about her as a person.
Sighing, Babs picked up the phone again to call Bruce. Internal League of Shadows politics weren't really their purview, but with the girls in the region – and civilian repercussions factored in as well – they'd have to get involved eventually. The only question was when. And how bad the fallout would be.
…
The last few weeks had been an absolute circus for Kala, still not used to being the main focus of the tour. Thank God, the tour itself was keeping the industry reporters away, especially since she'd been ordered to pretty much leave it to the label to comment. For now, she was fine with that. She had more than enough to keep herself busy just learning the new routines that had been necessitated by her being the only voice the crowd heard. It had always been challenging, doing this, but Kala was realizing more and more just how much of all of the work had been shared by she and Sebast, not all of which was on-stage. Yeah, it was a struggle to never have a moment alone, but then actually being alone was sometimes worse. Too much time to think, too much space in the loft, no need to inch out of bed in the morning to go sun-up. And no non-stop chatter, no constant laughter, no arguments over who got the toothpaste first. Even the thunder of the arenas didn't dispel that ghost, especially when she could still feel him dancing beside her even now.
After missing Jay for almost a week, Kala forced her to make excuses to the boys and stole a night to come over. Morgan had almost seemed relieved when she said she needed a night out, all the boys seeming to get the need for her restlessness. Of course they would assume she was going to him and they were absolutely right, she thought, shooting off a quick text. Once in the air, Kala oriented herself straight for Gotham.
She caught him just in time for patrol, using her key to let herself into the bunker. Jay was armoring up for the night, but the moment she came in, he stopped long enough to kiss her. "Business as usual?" Kala asked, when he let her up for air.
"Standard patrol," he told her, and tugged on her bound-up hair playfully. Kala swatted at him lightly, and blurred into her uniform. Sometimes it almost felt as if she truly was becoming someone else when she suited up, all of the stress and uncertainty vanishing at the sound of the zipper's pull. And lately, it was the best feeling in the world. Feeling eyes on her, Kala turned as Jay shot her a grin. "You know, I wouldn't mind watching that at normal human speed."
"And if you did, we wouldn't get out on patrol in time," Kala retorted, not even trying to hide her smile. And yeah, spending the time with Jay helped, too. They'd taken to flying most places – Jay just claimed he didn't eat for three hours before patrol, so her crazier maneuvers wouldn't result in rains of vomit on the unsuspecting citizens below – and Kala took his arm. "Ready, Red?"
"For you? Always," he laughed, and she rolled her eyes as they took off, picking a rooftop to lurk on.
They ran a typical Bowery patrol, drugs and gangs and robberies, oh my. By now, it was almost relaxing, a rhythm Kala could fall into just as easily as the dance routines for her most popular songs. Everyone in the East End knew Red Hood, so their typical method was for Jay to take point, and just as the bad guys realized they had a problem, Kala would come swooping in. Between the two of them, they tended to mop things up pretty quickly. For her, this was a welcome escape.
…
Of course, things in the Bowery rarely went according to plan. Jay and Kala busted into a drug deal, and there turned out to be reinforcements on the way. He dropped two guys, not reaching for his gun yet. No need to waste his non-lethal rounds, that shit was more expensive than good old-fashioned lead. He could hear men groaning in pain as Kala dealt with them, and then a sudden whack! That had a little too much metallic crunch in it, and he knocked out the man in front of him, turning to see what was up.
Some fool had gotten lucky, gotten a grip on Kala, and full-body-smashed her into the hood of a car. Jay's vision went red, and he drew his gun, but one of the guys closer to him took advantage of his distraction and tried to stab him. One rubber bullet to the thigh, and a boot to the face, convinced him to quit.
Meanwhile the guy who'd slammed Kala gave a barking laugh. "Caught the Blur! Now let's see what's under that uniform, little girl."
Jay would've shot him, but suddenly he couldn't see him. At least, not until he was lying on his gut, stunned, with his hands and feet zip-tied, all of which had evidently taken about a second. Kala stood over him, smirking, and quipped, "Normally I like forceful men, but I have a prior engagement, and you seem a little tied up right now. Sorry."
"Oh, man, that's terrible," Jay groaned, still laughing. They wiped out the rest of the men, leaving them bagged and tagged for GCPD, and Jay shook his head at Kala. "Really awful. Who do you think you are? Robin?"
"Guilty by association," she teased.
Jay smirked, and zip-lined to the next rooftop, still looking for trouble. Kala fetched up beside him, laughing at her own wit, and he aimed a punch to her shoulder. She caught his fist, her smile lighting up to supernova levels.
Glancing down, Jay didn't see anything that needed their attention. At least, not just now. "Wanna spar?" he asked.
"God, don't tell me you're bored already," Kala laughed.
"You're the one grinning," Jay pointed out, and gave in. Why not? They hadn't had many opportunities to train, lately. Call this a little al fresco exercise.
He swung, she dodged, he wrapped her arm in a chain, and they traded blows and blocks in an exhilarating rhythm. Kala's blood was up, she met him at every turn, even when he spun her around and yanked her close. She just reached up, grabbed his shoulders, and flipped herself over him. With the side benefit of pulling his own chain across his throat.
Jay laughed out loud, letting go of the other end of it, reaching back to grapple her. Kala was stronger, when she wanted to be, but she was laying off the powers for the moment. He threw them both to the ground, scuffling and growling at each other, but eventually he got her pinned. "I could always hover and dump you on your ass," Kala pointed out, but she looked entirely too happy right where she was.
"You could, but you're not," Jay pointed out, and popped his helmet off to kiss her.
Just like every time, the world went electric with that kiss, his nerves humming and zinging. This was Kala, by some crazy twist of fate a woman like this liked playing these kinds of ridiculous rough games with him, and holy shit Jay must've done something really right in a previous life to be getting this lucky.
Not that he was actually getting lucky. Not right now, anyway. Babs' digitized voice spoke in their comms. "Hood, Blur, if you're not too preoccupied, we've got a silent alarm six blocks north of your position."
Both of them groaned. "Your timing is impeccable, as always," Kala said, with a rueful smile for Jay.
"No rest for the righteous," he agreed, and got up, yanking the helmet back on. "Do you just get off on cockblocking me, Oracle, or is it the universe conspiring against me?"
"Little of both," Babs replied with a chuckle. "I didn't schedule the break-in, but I do enjoy needling the pair of you."
"It's how you show you love us," Kala said dryly. "C'mon, Jaybird, let's go bust some bad guys."
"Dunno if I'd call it love," he said, his voice a little wary. "Sounds more like she's on a power-trip, to me."
"If knowledge is power, she's the most powerful person in town," Kala replied, smirking. "Scratch that – most powerful person on the continent."
"Don't damn me with faint praise," Babs laughed.
Jay just rolled his eyes. "Enough, enough, let's go. Don't build up her ego anymore, K, she'll turn into Batman."
The two men breaking into a payday advance shop didn't know why their attackers were laughing, but Kala and Jay managed to wrap them up despite their amusement.
The rest of the night wore on, too busy for play. Toward the end of patrol, they stopped a scuffle between rival gangs; there was a lot of that going on lately, with Sionis still in jail and Crane in Arkham. Someone always had to try to be top dog, and it looked like Dent was making a bid this time, resulting in clashes with everyone else's men. There were also more ordinary gangs, not led by nutjobs in masks, although they tended to come off badly against the rogues' men. And that was before even mentioning the organized crime from old families like the Falcones. It was all a constantly-evolving mess, no stability at all, and in the Bowery was the worst of it.
Jay put a stop to what he could, and in the midst of tonight's ugly brawl, he thought he saw some familiar faces among Dent's men. His helmet's eyepieces could record photos, and he took a few to compare later. Then he and Kala finally signed off.
Back at his apartment, Kala headed upstairs to take her shower while Jay washed off down in the bunker. She usually took a little longer than he did – girl stuff – so he ran the photos he'd taken through an image matching program.
There were hits on three of them. Two had ties to the Falcones. The third was one of Penguin's. Jay frowned, looking them over, and read up on their known offenses in the police records and the things they were suspected of in the Bat-computer's database. It took a little longer than it should've – all three were low-level thugs, with most of their crimes being relatively minor. Their rap sheets were impressively long, however. Just how many times did a guy have to get arrested for robbery before he admitted he was no damn good at it?
Jay sighed, closed the files … and saw the time. Honestly he was surprised Kala hadn't come down here to pry him off the computer. Unless she'd gotten pissed at having to wait, and simply flown off. Chagrined, he headed upstairs.
Where he found Kala laying across the bed, and already asleep. Jay watched her for a few minutes, smiling to himself; she was just wearing one of his shirts and her panties, and they were cute panties. He'd seen that pair before, black with a set of big cat-eyes across the butt, and Jay had teased Kala that she should've bought a pair for Selina. She'd rolled her eyes at him for that.
She was the only woman he'd been with who would wear something like that. It was impossible to imagine any of them in something this whimsical. Rose came the closest, but she had a sharper sense of humor than Kala. Jay had seen her in a tank top with 'You say 'Bitch' like it's a bad thing' across the front, but she didn't go in for cutesy underwear. Then again, he shouldn't be surprised – that one night in the study he'd seen Kala in Superman pajama pants and a Cheshire cat shirt. Charming whimsy was definitely her thing.
Tonight she'd laid down with the lights on, and his copy of West with the Night was in her hand. Kala had obviously intended to wait up for him, she'd just lost the battle against sleep before he got here.
It'd be rude to wake her, and besides, sex wasn't the only reason they spent time together. So Jay put the book away, turned out the light, and carefully eased the blankets out from under her. As soon as he touched her, Kala murmured something in her sleep, grabbed his hand, and tugged him closer. He laughed, and kissed her shoulder. "Roll over so I can get the covers over you, K."
She blinked owlishly, clearly not awake, and rolled, letting him pull the sheets up over her even as he tucked himself in beside her. Kala immediately snuggled into his side, and he chuckled, "See you in the morning, Sleeping Beauty." Her only answer was another wordless mumble, drawing his arm around her tighter. Jay fell asleep with a smile on his lips.
A few hours later, he woke muzzily at some sound. It wasn't immediately identifiable, and not especially threatening, but it was a sound in his vicinity, and he'd trained himself to always be alert. The first thing Jay saw was a bleary image of glowing eyes moving around.
His reaction to that was automatic, gun drawn from beneath the pillow and the safety clicked off, already pointed at the eyes even while he was blinking and squinting to try and figure out what the fuck was in here with him. The eyes suddenly disappeared, and now he had no idea where the hell the thing was. A surge of adrenaline sharpened his vision, and just as he was taking the slack out of the trigger and preparing to fire on a last known position, he was able to see Kala staring at him in shock. She was standing near the foot of the bed, a glass of water in her hand. "Jay?!" she squeaked.
"Somethin' over there," he snapped, sitting up with his heart racing. How the hell could something get in without Kala hearing it? She turned toward the threat, and the eyes were back…
…on the back of her panties, as a matter of fact. At some point she'd taken the shirt off, sleeping in just the panties, and without his shirt to cover her butt, the freakin' cat eyes glowed in the dark.
"Jesus fuck on a glowstick," he groaned, clicking the safety back on. "It's just your damn cat panties, K."
"What?" she said, turning back to stare at him.
Now that he wasn't freaking out over some fucking cryptid in his apartment, it was kinda funny, and Jay laughed. "The eyes glow in the dark, K. Looked like some kinda animal in here. I'm not really awake, y'know."
Kala crossed her arms. "And you went on alert because of that? You almost shot me in the ass just because you saw a pair of glow-in-the-dark eyes?!"
At that thought, Jay felt laughter bubbling up inside. "Good thing I didn't. It'd be a crime to put a bullet in that sweet Kryptonian ass. Glow in the dark eyes and all." The look on her face made him lose it, and Jay was snorting and laughing uncontrollably. Almost shot my own girlfriend in the dark. Forget the old thought-she-was-a-burglar excuse. Officer, I thought there was a glowing-eyed monster in here so I shot at it!
He was laughing so hard that Kala eventually pounced on him in half-joking outrage, and they wrestled and tumbled around on the bed until Jay entirely forgot to laugh.
…
The boarding pass said 'Irena Dubrovna', and the woman carrying it had a passport and credit cards in that name as well. She gave the gate agent a charming smile as she boarded the early-morning British Airways flight from Metropolis International Airport to London Heathrow, then found her seat by the window. First class included coffee, breakfast, and an amenities bag from a luxury skincare brand. Her seat folded down to a flat bed, and they offered designer loungewear to snooze in. Not that she intended to do more than catnap on this flight.
She'd only be in London for three days, enough time to stop by a museum or two, and pay a visit to a particular privately-owned flat. She had to be careful, of course; the museums shouldn't even notice anything amiss until long after she'd flown home, taking advantage of British Airway's fancy new afternoon tea service at forty thousand feet. As for the flat, she didn't know when its owner would next stop in – this was something of a long shot, but if it worked out, she'd thoroughly enjoy it.
Touching down in London just as night fell, she borrowed a car from the rental agency and went to look up the address she'd found after much diligent searching – and a few pricey bribes. As she drove, she reflected that this was twice now that she'd traveled across the Atlantic to up the ante on their little competition. If it kept on, she'd have to keep things local; or expect her rival to do some traveling, too.
As a matter of fact, she was hoping the other woman was traveling right now. All anyone knew for sure was that she wasn't in Paris anymore, but Talia al Ghul was damn difficult to find. There was no evidence to indicate she was in London, but it'd be terrible luck if she turned out to be home for this visit. The woman calling herself Irena chuckled quietly; this was one time she didn't want to play cat and mouse.
She scouted the location carefully, then took a hotel room a few blocks away. Once it was fully dark, she unpacked her luggage. Some of what she'd brought was mere camouflage, intended to make the baggage agents blush – or gossip about her, instead of wondering who might be traveling around with a catsuit and a bullwhip in her luggage. All it took was a couple of pairs of handcuffs, a blindfold, and a couple of other whips to make them draw all the wrong conclusions.
Some of her more esoteric accessories, she'd brought in her carry-on bag, but goggles and lock picks could be disguised. No one had questioned the little tubes tucked into her bag; the TSA set rules about how many ounces of liquid she could bring, not what kind they could be. In uniform, she opened the window and breathed in the night. The Irena identity was left behind in the hotel, and Catwoman set out across the roofs of London.
Selina cased the flat very carefully. Standard security features, and then some decidedly non-standard ones as well. It took her a patient hour to bypass the sensors, cameras, and alarms, and finally step across the threshold, carefully navigating a series of tripwires and infrared beams designed to catch anyone who defeated the electronic system. Once in, she listened first, her nerves strung tight as few jobs ever managed to do, but the place sounded empty. It felt empty, too, and she had a good sixth sense for that.
That was no excuse to slack off, and Selina tiptoed further into the flat, still on high alert. She decided she liked the furnishings; a definite sense of style, given to deep colors and interesting textures. It was a space she could've curled up in with one of the many books in shelves along the wall, and a cup of tea from the fine china in the kitchen.
Doing so would probably be extremely dangerous, though, since Selina managed to find a weapon within reach of every seat in the place. The big armchair with an embroidered throw draped across it? That had a gun tucked into one arm, and half a dozen throwing knives in the other. There was a sword under the edge of the bar. And even in the bathroom, one of the vanity drawers was hermetically sealed to keep moisture away from the pistol and dagger hidden there. Selina shook her head; this looked more like paranoia than preparedness to her. Then again, assassins probably had a different idea of preparedness from almost anyone else.
She glanced in the bathroom and found a deep soaking tub alongside a shower stall with one of those fancy shower heads that sprayed from three different heights. On a rack to one side were high-end shampoo and conditioner, in a warm sort of amber and clove scent, and soaps and lotions that smelled of persimmons and spice. Just as she expected, every product in here was top of the line. Selina checked out the medicine cabinet, too, finding nothing much of interest, and took note of the face cream her target used.
In the end, she couldn't resist detouring to the bedroom, smirking a little at the tall four-poster bed frame with sheer curtains. Very dramatic, and Selina sprawled across it, looking up to where the fabric gathered together at the ceiling. Very comfortable, too, and Selina murmured to herself, "This would be a bad time to pull a Goldilocks."
She stood up again, stretched, and padded out, detouring among the bookshelves. There were a few small objets d'art there, just the kind of priceless understated antiquities Catwoman had made a name for herself liberating and reselling, but in the end she decided not to steal anything from Talia al Ghul.
Leaving something behind was so much more fun, and had the benefit of being unexpected. Now she could conclude her other business in London, fly back to the States, and wait for her little addition to be discovered.
'Kanine Boot Kamp', indeed.
…
Steph kept herself glued to Cass' side when they went out. They weren't trying to infiltrate the main compound anymore, just gather whatever intelligence they could on the periphery. That grated on both of them, feeling useless when they knew where Shiva was, but Steph had to admit that it was dangerous as hell to try and get close to her.
Disguises, at least, were easy; all they had to do was wear farrashia, the white silk covering that some older, traditional Libyan women still wore outside the home. It hid everything but their eyes, and with a little makeup to create the appearance of crows-feet, no one gave them more than a passing glance. Even other women, many of them dressed in Western-style clothes with hijabs that complimented their style, dismissed the pair as old-fashioned 'aunties'. Steph discovered that the light fabric seemed to help keep the sun's heat off her, too.
They didn't learn much in the markets, or by loitering near the coffee shops, but that seemed to mean that Shiva was keeping her people very quiet. Steph figured that was a good thing, since it meant less impact on the civilians. Most of the people here were just trying to live their lives, get an education, do their jobs, take care of their families, just like anywhere else. The conversations she eavesdropped on were mostly about dating, or work, or what had been on television the night before.
One or two, though, seemed more important. Hushed phrases that could be code words, men who automatically glanced towards the exits whenever they entered a room. It was tantalizing, but nothing concrete, nothing to hint at what Shiva was actually doing.
Cass believed her mother was trying to take over the whole League of Shadows. Steph wondered about that. Why would Shiva want it? Power and prestige, of course, but the way Cass talked about her mother, Shiva wasn't prone to that kind of self-aggrandizing behavior. She was a lone wolf more than a leader.
The daily check-ins to Babs were frustrating, having to tell her they had nothing new. She praised them for their caution, and noted that the refugee camps they'd left seemed to have stabilized. Whatever was going on in Libya, the radical factions Shiva had displaced had apparently been absorbed into other organizations, or neutralized. Steph had been glad at first, until Cass had looked at her and gravely shaken her head. "What's bad about them knocking off all the violence?" she'd asked.
"Under the Demon's command," Cass had replied solemnly. And yeah, that would explain why things had quieted down. If Ra's al Ghul had noticed trouble brewing and brought the rebellious factions to heel, it might mean he was headed here to confront Shiva.
Both of them tended to think in terms of Ra's. At the moment, he was far away from them, in one of his estates in Manchuria. Little though Steph and Cass knew it, they did have problems close by, and with someone who'd also figured out the trick of using a farrashia for disguise.
Very close by. Cass had been watching a cafe where one of Shiva's men was playing chess, wondering if the meeting was what it appeared to be, or something more. Steph had gone up to a stall nearby selling desserts to pick up some magrood. The date-filled cookies had quickly become one of Steph's favorites, but the seller was out of them, so she got ghreyba with almonds instead.
If she'd had any idea that Talia al Ghul had been there ten minutes ago and bought the last of the magrood, Steph's reports to Babs would've gotten a lot more interesting.