Disclaimer:I do not own any Batman Begins/ Dark Knight characters. All other characters are mine.
"Hurry up, we're going to be late." Joker banged on the bathroom door, he'd changed into his janitor disguise hours ago; greyish-blue overalls and black boots.
It was now 8 o'clock, and the party had already started down the street at the Prewitt building. Inky limousines and glistening guests crowded the giant building, and the entire street was lit by the chandeliers in the lobby.
"One second." Cat howled back in response, fitting golden flowers into her ears and needlessly readjusting the tight dress. She was a clear 6, and yet Joker found it necessary to buy her wine, strapless evening gown in a 4. The bodice was embroidered with silver swirling patterns, and the form-fitting style displayed her curves in the 'most distracting way possible' according to Joker. It just meant that the dress was tight and uncomfortable.
"We don't have a second." He shouted just as the door opened and Cat stood before him. Her green eyes were rimmed in dark eyelashes and eyeliner, brown eyeshadow created a smoky effect on her top lid. The rest of her makeup was fairly neutral, save for the sharp contour, and her usual burgundy lipstick was replaced by a simple nude-colour gloss. Her hair was carefully curled and pinned behind one ear, falling freely over her left naked shoulder.
"Well?" Cat slid her arms awkwardly down her sides, looking down at the long skirt. "What do you think?"
Joker answered by pulling her to him by her waist. Cat pushed him away, however, crossing her arms over her chest. "You are NOT going to ruin this lipstick, it took far too long. And besides," She smiled flirtatiously and picked up her black purse from the bed, "Tonight, I'm taken."
"Watch Napier, I don't trust him around you." The comment was barely above a whisper, spoken to the floor. Cat cocked her head sympathetically, and she walked over to straighten Joker's collar fondly.
"He reminds me, oddly, of you."
He looked up at her and traced her chin with the tip of his forefinger, his eyes were unusually dark despite the lack of face paint and his gazed seemed transfixed on her lips.
"Exactly."
"What's your play with him? Why are you hiring someone to do a job you could easily do yourself?" Cat asked, slipping her feet into black stilettos and strapping them around her ankles. "A guy in the underground? Sounds like a load of bullshit to me."
When he didn't reply she straightened in curiosity, pondering the answer to her own question.
"He's insurance, right? This is all some twisted initiation."
Joker licked his lips in thought and sat quickly on the bed, wringing his hands in his lap.
"'Joker' has always been an idea," He explained quietly, "A frame of mind. And the best thing about an idea is that it's immortal, it can't be killed. I, however, can. And in five years or so, Gotham won't remember my own face, they'll remember the scars, the smile, they'll remember what I stood for and what I believed in. I found Napier in a juvenile prison when he was 15, and I've spent the last 10 years perfecting him. Like you, he needed..encouragement; but I think he's almost ready. We are agents of chaos, and some day he will take my name and my mission."
It was a lot to take in, realising that the Joker had a predecessor. But even more alarming was the promise that he would eventually give up his name, and Cat knew that he would keep his image for as long as he lived, it was everything he was and ever hoped to be.
"So, what?" She shrugged angrily, crossing her arms. "You're just going to keel over and die, hand everything to that gangster? You going to sign me over too while you're at it?"
"Sweetheart, please, it has taken me years to build this legacy. You think I'm going to bet everything on my own life, this is bigger than me." He pulled her in for a hug, and despite her outrage she buried her face in his shoulder, tightening her arms around his waist.
And for the hundredth time, seemingly with her every waking moment, she fell for him like rain.
"You're not gonna say something 'Hallmark Card'?" Joker seemed surprised by her lack of poetic conveyance, and his wisecrack masked an irritated want for her sweet words, possibly even a need.
"Hm?" Cat turned her face from his jacket, knowing that if he could read her thoughts, it was a mountain of sugary crap about her feelings. Instead she opted for. "I don't hate you."
She felt him smile against her hair. In a world of serial killers and mobsters, when the entire world was against you; these words were worth a thousand.
Caterina made her way down to the hotel's lobby, thankful for the elevator that took pity on her stilettos. At the double-door entrance and complaining loudly to his men, Napier was pacing. He was dressed in a simple black suit and bowtie, his diamond cane tapping the floor impatiently.
"Sorry." Cat briskly walked across the carpeted room, pulling her uncomfortable and falling neckline up, as was the curse of the strapless. She paused beside him and extended an elbow. Napier goggled at her, shamelessly letting his eyes wander her body.
"Well, well, well, if it isn't my diamond." He grinned and bypassed her elbow, instead hooking his arm around her waist. "Let's go, my dear."
The two walked smartly down the street, looking like a pair of magazine models in the glamorous atmosphere. A red rope and security guard monitored the crystal door entrance, and he was carefully checking each couple's invitation before granting them entry.
"My dear, I think I should kiss you." Jack murmured against her ear as they moved up the line, she frowned at him in question. "A good con has attention to detail, if you truly were my date tonight and looked the way you do, I would undoubtedly kiss you."
They were mere feet from the Prewitt's entrance, and yet Cat let Napier snake a hand gently around her neck and press their lips together softly. The kiss was perhaps a second longer than either of them intended, and the guard cleared his throat politely to check their invitations.
Cat fumbled in her purse for the fake cards, cursing her foolishness, and still her heart raced as they passed the entrance with ease to enter the dazzling party.
Three large chandeliers dripped from the ceiling and cast their shimmery light around the giant lobby. The floor was white and black marble, and tables draped in scarlet tablecloths held gourmet plates of food. A large illuminated bar with mirrored edges was serving drinks freely to awaiting guests, and a small orchestra played an enchanting waltz from the roped-off centre of the hall. Cat gazed around the party, frozen in the glamour like a deer in the headlights.
"Come on." Napier, his hand still holding her waist, guided her across the hall easily. She found comfort in his hold and affectionately moved against his shoulder.
"In position." a voice crackled to life from her invisible earpiece. "There's three men guarding the staff entrance." Over the line, Cat heard the familiar tang of a silenced pistol, and the loud crash of a chain-link fence being kicked open. "No men guarding the staff entrance." Joker chuckled into her ear.
Cat scanned the hall carefully, her gaze finally resting on the 'do not use' sign attached to a silver elevator beside the exit door.
She gently elbowed Jack, and nodded towards the restricted elevator, a familiar deranged grin broke over his face.
"We found our way up." Cat murmured, pretending to readjust her earring while activating the com-unit instead. "Where are you?"
"Ready when you are, how many guards?"
The armed guards, while most were dressed in neat suits and formal-wear like the guests, all had a holster-shape bulge in their left pockets, and thus were fairly easy to recognise.
Cat found an excuse to brush past each guard, her golden wedding ring drawing a line against the suit of their jackets. In a small compartment of the ring, was a tube of fluorescent ink that shone blue in ultraviolet light. When every guard was marked to be easily identified, they retired to the centre of the hall.
"12 in the main lobby, all identified." Napier muttered, turning to face Cat to feign a flirtatious whisper. She smiled and kissed his cheek lovingly, just as a guard walked past and deemed them unsuspicious.
Jack brought a hand up to caress her cheek, two thin contact lenses perched on the tip of his thumb and forefinger. Cat ran her hands through her hair, masking the fact that Napier was carefully fitting the lenses over her eyes with a gratefully steady grip. She blinked them into position, and viewed her ice-blue irises in a makeup mirror from her purse.
"Wow." He brushed some hair from her eyes. "Blue suits you."
The lenses reflected ultraviolet light, and the invisible lines painted on each guard reflected bright blue to her eyes. "Okay, seems to be working." Cat drew her face close to Jack's, and found it easy to hastily identify each guard as they paced the hall, shining like fucking beacons.
"Now?" She whispered against his cheek, waiting for Joker's command.
"Now, activate the smoke and mirrors."
Cat took a deep breath and eyed Napier accusingly. "Try not to enjoy this too much."
With a breathy gasp Caterina fell forward, her limp body pressing against the waiting arms of Jack Napier. He gave a yell of alarm and kneeled against the floor, Morgan still draped against him in the most innocent way possible.
"Help me, I need some help here!"
The surrounding guests mimicked his concern and circled the fainted girl in a gaggle of bystanders, the orchestra had silenced in a dying wheeze of a flute. Jack tightened his hold protectively around her, and Cat felt his hands wander a bit too freely.
"Watch it." She hissed with minimal lip movement, only to have him drop her to the ground roughly.
"Unconscious, can't talk." He warned, brushing her hair from her shoulders to present her to the guards like an appealing piece of meat to a shark.
The guards rushed over, all twelve surrounding the two of them in urgent concern. Cat cracked open her eye, slightly, and after identifying that all twelve guards were present she made a quiet humming noise at the back of her throat for only Jack to hear.
"What happened?"
"Is she alright?"
"Did she take anything?"
Napier was shaking violently, playing the terrified lover in an Oscar-worthy performance.
"I-I don't know." He stammered wildly, checking the pulse in her neck with two fingers. "She was saying something about feeling unsafe, about that man moving on her, and then she drank this champagne and I knew immediately my darling wasn't well."
Jack pointed angrily at a bald man in the crowd, appearing to be in his mid-forties with a curled moustache and mean look. The guards turned to him with guns drawn, and descended around him shouting accusations and questions. The poor man was paralysed in fear, unable to defend his innocence and was soon hauled from the party by the livid guards.
"I've never seen that woman before in my life." Baldy cried to no avail, and his shiny head was already disappearing from the glass entrance. The guards not escorting him for questioning were calling ambulances; ultimately every guard had left the hall undefended.
Cat opened her eye into a slit and surveyed the crowd still around them, no flashes of blue met her gaze and so she hummed again, beginning her act of waking from a deep sleep.
The crowd gasped as the unconscious girl opened her eyes slowly, staring up at her loyal lover.
"Oh, thank God." He pulled her tightly against him, tears shining in his eyes as the crowd began to clap happily. "I thought…I don't know…C'mon we need to get out of here."
Cat's eyes fluttered wearily and she grabbed his hand. "Please, I don't want to see him, can we go around the back."
"Of course." Jack helped her to her feet and took her weight against his shoulder. "We'll use the elevator." He waved gratefully to the crowd with his free-hand, as if thankful for their actions, and they stumbled across the hall to the restricted elevator.
As soon as the mechanical doors shut them off from the rest of the party, Cat peeled herself from Napier's torso and readjusted her dress.
"What the hell was that, Handsy?" She frowned at him from the far side of the elevator, leaning herself against the cool metal. He made no excuses or justifications, and merely shrugged with a sly grin.
"You two in the elevator?"
"Yup." Cat answered lightly, popping the 'p' and drumming a beat on the handlebar. "Did you get the USB to the control room?"
"Thanks for the distraction, sweetheart. It should be on the belt of a thug." Joker answered. He was fairly proud of how he smuggled the 20 civilians from the bus into the Prewitt building, dressed them up as his clown-masked thugs with guns taped to their hands, and tied up his own men as their 'hostages'. That way if the SWAT team found them before they were able to destroy the boats, they would kill all the real hostages before realising their mistake.
The elevator gave a friendly 'ding', indicating that they'd entered the business levels, and opened into the dark halls of the Prewitt.
"Okie dokie." Cat grimaced slightly, and pulled the skirt of her dress away. It tore from the Velcro, revealing that the strapless bodice was really attached to a pair of black leggings. She dropped the fabric in the elevator and walked out into the hall, Napier followed closely behind.
A few silhouetted figures stood in perfect position, guns held, masks obscuring their features, SWAT wouldn't be able to hear the strangled cries of the prisoners beneath the masks and layers of duct tape.
"Thank you." She sang sarcastically and pulled the USB from a clip on a hostage's belt, twirling the silver stick in her fingers. "Let's go Napier, computer's this way."
Before he could make his usual sleazy reply, the wall to their left exploded.
"On the ground! Drop your weapons." Shrieks and commands blasted louder than the machine gun, and white chunks of plaster dusted the corridor like icing sugar. Caterina threw herself to the ground and shielded her head against her forearm. Beside her, Napier was cradling his knees to his chest and glancing through the wide hole to identify their attacker. A second round of gunfire stamped a line of round holes millimeters above their heads, the sharp explosions ringing through her ears.
"So intense." Jack laughed hollowly, the right side of his face harboured a series of cuts and gashes from flecked debris. Cat wasn't faring much better, and despite being pressed against him, his voice was mostly muffled.
Caterina pulled the black handgun from its concealment against her chest, ignoring the smirk from Napier, and reloaded it quickly.
"That's what 'make-up' gave you to defend yourself?" He laughed again, this time at the size of her gun, and brandished an AK-47 that she didn't remember him acquiring.
"It's not the size of the gun that matters." Cat muttered, holding the gun in two arms and swinging around to face it through the gaping hole. She watched the flakes of debris helicopter to the floor, and float ever so slightly around a concealed and crouching figure. The handgun fired two shots, one hitting the man behind the machine gun and the other striking the man behind him. She sat back, pleased, as the two security guards suffered perfect headshots and died.
"It's how you use it." Cat smirked, but the pride in her eyes lasted only for a moment and more gunfire echoed around them as reinforcements arrived. Jack hefted the AK to his eye and thundered through 30 rounds of deafening bullets, sending plaster and bullet-shells flying like insects. Cat could barely hear herself think above the roar, and thus her aim was completely off.
"Sounds exciting!" Joker commented casually through the com, as a bullet narrowly missed and tore a chunk from Cat's hair. "Could you finish your little party soon?"
She swore loudly, ripping ammunition from her shirt and cramming it into the Glock's chamber. "Joker, my darling, you know I love you. But if you keep talking I'm going to kick you so hard, you'll be shitting your teeth for a week." She finished with a snarl, finally landing a bullet against a security guard's leg.
To her utter mortification, Napier's Ak-47 was unmistakably more effective in a firefight. In the time it took her to lock and load her Glock, the AK had taken out three targets already with the rapid and insane rounds of bullet spray. The final bullet fired and the final body fell, Cat and Jack got to their feet with bloody faces and heaving chests.
"Think that's all of them?" Cat laughed sarcastically, kicking one of 15 dead security guards.
"All that righteousness got them hurt." Napier tutted, alarmingly, with a very Joker-like grin and wicked gleam. He prodded the barrel of his AK against the shoulder of a guard, as it taunting him to get up.
"Whatever." She refused to acknowledge this resemblance, and with the back of her hand she smeared some blood that was oozing from her lip. "Watch the debris, we shouldn't be far from the control room now."
They turned down the decimated hall, passing a ring of Joker's thugs tied up loosely and dressed in hospital staff uniforms, who nodded respectfully as Cat walked past. Eventually the hall opened up to a large computer room where 15 desks sat in rows, all sporting their own monitor and computer for running the system, it was the government's spying room, and was slightly intimidating to be in.
A small box wrapped in silver paper caught her eye, it was sitting innocently on the desk of the closest computer to the door.
"For you." She threw the present over her shoulder to Jack, who opened it eagerly and squinted at the credit card that he was given. The bank account access codes were written on the present's label, along with the sum of 2 million dollars.
"So, you got what you came for, it was good working with you." Cat tried to wave him off nonchalantly, and booted up the computer without turning to him. She was confused and slightly afraid of the gangster, of the way he seemed to get into her head and manipulate her.
"Yeah, see you real soon, my dear."
And Jack Napier cradled her neck suddenly, embracing her from behind and pulling her lips against his. "Real soon." He played with the 'r' in his throat, and with her long hair, their lips still pressed together in a soft kiss.
"Careful," She pulled away, leaning her forehead against his and enjoying the recklessness of the moment. "Stealing other people's toys won't make you any friends."
Napier seemed satisfied with the simple kiss he stole, and grinned at her one last time, flashing his silver capped teeth, before turning and heading back up the corridor.
Cat watched him go, a cocktail of emotions flooding through her. She shook her head slightly, remembering her mission, and plugged the USB drive into the computer, accepting the prompts to download the file. The lights overhead flickered as the system struggled to fight the new virus that was infecting its capability. She knew the job had succeeded when the com-unit in her ear spoke to her.
"Seems everything's operational." Joker declared proudly. "We are good to go, bombs away! Come upstairs, sweetheart, you don't wanna miss the fireworks."
The Prewitt building was a satellite for information, collecting and sending image processing all over Gotham city. The top floors, however, were reserved as penthouse suites for late night workers or VIP's. Though rarely used, the rooms were lavishly furnished and obsessively well kept.
In the penthouse, the entire North wall was well-cleaned glass, opening the room to the glistening towers and skyscrapers of Gotham. A modern black, square-framed bed looked out to the huge windows, with black and beige floral sheets and an ornate black headboard.
Cat walked up the stairs to stand beside the large window and look out over the shimmering docks, two large boats were hovering in the bay, casting shadows of light behind them.
"Beautiful." Joker sighed beside her. "When ordinary citizens are given the chance to hurt each other without consequence, it really brings out the charm in society."
From far below the party seemed to be subdued, and a few expensive cars were driving back into the streets of Gotham after a night of champagne and being interrogated by the police.
Cat searched for his hand, and clutched it in a sudden burst of unease.
"What do we do about Batman when he finds us?"
Joker shrugged, and was more focused on unzipping his janitor disguise to reveal his usual purple suit underneath. "Even he's not fast enough to stop a radio signal, those boats are scrap-metal any minute now."
"I got a funny feeling about this," Cat murmured her thoughts out loud. "Like tonight...won't end well."
He laughed curtly, running a hand through his hair. "No. Not for those boats. And for us? I hope you consider me a good end to the night."
"God, I love you." She sighed. "Just, promise me you'll be careful tonight. Losing you would break what's left of me."
"I'm always careful." Joker scratched the back of his neck with the barrel of his gun. She elbowed him playfully, but couldn't shake the tugging in her mind. The com-unit hanging from his neck suddenly crackled with an unfamiliar voice.
"We got him Mister Joker, on our way to the Plant now."
"Good work." He praised the voice with a smile. "If he dies, leave him. If he doesn't, get him some new clothes."
Cat watched him cautiously, playing with his fingers as an absent minded gesture. "Who's that about? What's the Plant? Is it a Chemical Plant or something"
"Just a little insurance," Joker brought his fingers to his lips and whistled sharply, the Chechen's three rottweilers bounded towards them from the stairwell. "The birth of a new generation."
A sound of distant thunder rang through the room, and with it, an artificial echoing rumble. It was a sound that threw her back to racing through the streets of Gotham, a machine gun at her hip, and the rollercoaster of an upturning truck.
"SWAT's here." Cat acknowledged the approaching helicopters, grabbing her chain belt from Joker's offering hands. She loaded a round into the chamber of her Glock, and smiled weakly up at him.
"Time's up."