Philia part V

'Lena? That movie you wanted to watch is on the catalogue now. Have you finished your homework?'

No answer. Holly frowned.

Sighing, Holly grabbed her phone from the coffee table, Helena must have be listening to music with her headphones again.

Lena? The Cat Returns is on Netflix. Wanna watch with me? I'll make us some popcorn :)

Sorry, too tired. (sleepy emoji)

R u sure? It's only 10.

No answer.

Even though Holly believed in miracles, that one was a tiny bit hard to believe. When Helena was five and she moved in with Selina, the girl never went to bed early. I was actually a routine fight between mother and daughter until one day Selina gave up and said she could sleep as late as she wanted as long as she was ready to school in time every morning.

So Holly decided to check it out. She knocked on Helena's door, no answer, she pushed the door a little, the lights were out the Helena lied asleep in her She-ra pyjamas. Well, maybe she had a busy day at school. Holly sighed and went back to the kitchenette thinking about stealing a bit of Selina's nice martini when she found a handmade chocolate truffle wrapped on yellow cellophane with a post it on the top of It, 'For Holly' written on Helena's curly handwrite.

'Awwwn, cute!'

She took the candy and a glass of martini and went back to the sofa, there was another thing she have been wanting to watch but it was not appropriate for a nine years old and it didn't involve enchanted cat royalty.

ooo

Helena sneaked out of her room, her mom was still out and she knew she wouldn't be coming at least until 3. She tiptoed silently to where Holly lied asleep, her plan was working. It wasn't hard to take one of her mother's prescription sleeping pills, crush it and put it on Holly's favourite coconut cream filled chocolate truffles. Alfred taught her to make them, and they were very good. Helena turned off the TV, some weird vampire drama with a lot of blood was on. They needed to talk about Holly's taste on fiction. She grabbed the throw blanket from the chair and coved Holly, she didn't even stir. That stuff her mother was taking was strong. Maybe they should talk about that too. When her mom and Holly stopped being mad at her that is. Helena felt a pang of guilty, but it didn't last.

ooo

That was being a very, very demanding job. She had to go in three terrible dates with Brad Ritchie, the most absurdly dull person she even known in her entire life to get information for that heist. He was a new money guy, with no idea what to do with his millions so, she thought, he had spun a wheel of rich people's hobbies and picked art. Most of the things he would buy were pure overpriced pretentious crap, but he recently bought a genuine piece of Mughal art that was in her client's wish list for a very long time.

And also Brad was the kind of the guy that made her job feel less than a crime and more like a public service. Of course only herself and her client were being serviced, but so what? They were part of the public too.

The actual heist was no trouble at all, the penthouse apartment was easy to break in, she hacked the security system in just a few seconds and the lock in the vault was from a model she had already done before, the actual harder part was to find the small black velvet box among all the crap he collected. It was a stunning piece, a dagger, it's handle was sculpted jade with gold, rubies and emeralds embellishments. If her client wasn't paying an obscene amount of money she would have kept it for herself. A girl can enjoy nice things.

She was about to leave the scene, already thinking about the sinking in her bathtub with her new honeysuckle bath salts when he appeared with his ridiculous flying rat costume.

'Put it back.'

She just rolled her eyes. What gave him the strange idea that dress like a weirdo gave him permission to give her orders?

'Selina, put it back.' He said again grabbing her arm.

'How did you even know I'd be here?' Selina asked perplexed.

'I know about you little business, Catwoman. You got famous. I knew exactly what you were doing with Brad Ritchie.'

'Yeah? And what was that exactly?' Was he calling her an opportunistic slut? Well, she could admit that she was opportunistic and being a sexually available single mom made you slut according to Brenda, that bitch head of Helena's school PTA.

'Seducing him to steal from him.'

'So what if I was? It's nothing of your business. Unhandled me!' She said pulling her arm back, but he didn't let go.

'Put it back.' He said one more time, one too many.

Selina used the arm he was holding to elbow him in the stomach, Batman took the hit, but didn't seen out of breath like she expected and instead tried to grab her again, but it was too late, Selina had already started to flew. He chased her through the rooftops.

'I see that you have been training' she shouted between jumps. 'You might be all big and strong now, but I'm still faster.'

He didn't answer to her provocations just kept pursuing her, and as she jumped each time higher and faster Selina felt adrenaline coursing through her body like she hadn't felt in a very long time. She found after a while that the reason for the face to be starting to hurt wasn't caused by the cold wind at all, but because she haven't been able to stop smiling during the whole chase. And to give Batman a little of credit he had almost touched her a few times, each fleeting contact even through their full covered bodies sending electric straight to her centre.

But the fun ended when the sirens started to wail coming from the city. Batman stopped and Selina, from safety, observed him, it was like he was hearing some sort of comm, then he left following the sirens. He didn't look back at her. But he didn't before either.

ooo

Bruce is tired, if running after Selina wasn't hard enough, he had already stopped three muggins before getting to her, and there was a robbery at a department store downtown with a hostage situation, fortunately nobody died but two cops and a victim were shot. Police and people didn't trust Batman yet to complicate matters, and he wasn't exactly trying to be friendly either. But what really got to him that night was Selina. Why was she still leading a life of crime? Haven't she changed at all? Or had she changed indeed, but not improved? He knew she was a good person, so why did she continue doing bad things? He couldn't wrap the reason around his mind.

He was going to stop at the study to get his laptop for his report when he had such a weird flashback that he thought his tired mind was playing tricks on him.

Selina was coming down from the window, the wind coming from outside blowing her curls and the curtains. But that Selina was even younger than the one he remembered from their first days, she also wore a pair of neon purple sneakers what child Selina wouldn't never be caught dead wearing. Her wide smile was missing a tooth.

'Hi! Have you seen my Alfie?'

Yay! We had classic BatCat dynamics in this one and you had a peak on Miss Helena. And she is a piece of work as expected to a kid raised by Selina and spoiled by Alfred and Barbara as her pseudo-grandparents (but Barbara will personally gut anyone who points that to her, her own daughter is after all just a few months older than Helena). Bruce also has to let his lovesick memory Selina go and face the real thing, meanwhile Selina's anger don't stop her feeling other things for Bruce. Hmmmm.

There is A LOT of story to happen still, guys. I hope to be able to keep you with me until the end.

Keep taking care of yourselves and your loved ones. I'll be back soon.