Disclaimer: Some people call me the space cowboy. Some people call me the gangster of love. Some people say I own these characters and not DC Comics. Those people are wrong, and frankly I wish they'd shut up and stop calling me those things.

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Partners

Black cape billowing in the night, Batman strode across the rooftop towards her. While Catwoman normally looked forward to these nocturnal tete-a-tetes with him, his face lacked that downward curl of his lips that was the only difference between the intense, angry glower she found so sexy, and his usual disapproving grimace. She knew why, and it galled her. "You've been avoiding me," he said in his gravelly voice.

It had been months since she'd gotten away from him with her loot intact. She'd had to resort to keeping her ears open, watching the news for sign of JLA-type disasters or waiting for one of Gotham's assorted freaks to hold the city hostage just to be able to steal enough to get by. Annoyed as she was, she ignored the implication with feline dignity. "You've been so busy lately," she said with the air of a bored socialite. "It's enough to make a girl suspicious. Who knows what alleys you've been tom-batting around in lately?" That brought out the glower. If crime weren't enough to anger him, humor at his expense always did. She didn't usually resort to puns, though. Blame that on the kid.

"I think you should put those jewels back, Catwoman." No sense of humor at all.

She caught a flicker of movement on the rooftop across the way, two stories above their own position. She arched her back in a lazy stretch. Smiling, she said, "And I think you should take ballroom lessons, Batman, because this dance is getting old."

"Who needs to learn new steps when the old ones work just fine?"

Oh my. Was that a joke? It was. She absolutely hated having to leave that alone, but her new partner was already in motion. Calling him off now would bruise his adolescent ego, and besides, she planned to leave with her prize this time. Forcing herself to keep her eyes on the pupil-less white lenses that covered his eyes, she said, "Not a good attitude, Batman. It's that sort of thing that will make a woman start looking for a new dance partner. You never know when some young lion will want to cut in-"

And at that point, the young man's airborne foot slammed into the back of Batman's head, sending him hurtling over the edge of the roof towards the alley below. The teenaged boy in the domino mask and the black leather bodysuit with the stripe of orange running across both arms and down his chest in the shape of a 'V' blinked in surprise. "Is he okay?" he asked. As much as he'd been hardened by life in Gotham's east end, he was still charmingly innocent about some things.

Unfortunately, in this case, innocence cost them precious seconds. The sound of compressed gas escaping followed by a line unreeling could be heard. She gave the boy a shove in the opposite direction and said, "Better than we're going to be if we don't make tracks." They both took off, running across the roof and leaping over the alley. Well, she leaped. He did a mid-air flip with a twist. Good kid, but an inveterate show-off.

It didn't take long for the Bat to take up the chase. It was one of the more intense chases she'd ever undertaken. She made good time across the rooftops, and the kid stayed right with her, but they weren't able to lose him. She headed for the ground, laying a trap for him using her young partner as bait which allowed her to shred his grapple-line with her razor-sharp claws, but the two of them hadn't been able to take him down, and their whips were gone as well.

It was getting to the point where it looked like only one of them was going to get away, and while she was deciding which one that was going to be, the kid took that decision away by leaping over the both of them, jabbing his two fingers into Batman's eyes, breaking the lenses in his cowl, allowing both of them to take off. It'd take him some time before he could clear his vision and get the pieces of lens out of his eyes without taking off his cowl, but as they ran down the dimly-lit streets, their options were thinning. "This way!" he said, turning into a dark alley.

"Wait!" she called, stopping at the mouth of the alley. "That's a dead end!"

"That's what he'll think too, come on!" he urged, waving her in.

She hissed and followed him, but said, "If you're wrong, I won't leave enough of you for the Bat to arrest!"

As they headed further into the narrow alley, he grinned at her, blue eyes sparkling in the moonlight. "Trust me," he said. She supposed trust was necessary in this sort of arrangement, but it wasn't easy for her to come by. They alley dead-ended in a concrete wall, as they'd both known it did. There was a fire escape landing on one of the buildings, but it was fifteen feet above the ground, with no ladder. Not to code, but then a lot wasn't in this part of Gotham.

They could reach it with a whip, but without it, she had no hope of jumping that high. He couldn't even reach it standing on her shoulders, although given how much he'd grown in the few months since she'd taken him in, at this point it might be the other way around. He grabbed her shoulders and indicated where he wanted her to stand, with her back to the wall opposite the fire escape. "Give me a boost," he said, taking two steps back.

An expression of feline curiosity crossed her face. She steepled her fingers and cupped her hands together, holding them in front of her, palms facing upward. He ran forward and jumped, landing with one foot in her hands, his knee bent. She lifted with as much force as she could, and he extended his leg, leaping upwards. While still ascending, he put both of his feet on the brick wall and pushed off, his body arching upwards across the alley in a twisting back flip. His hands managed to grab hold of the bottom rung of the ladder."Me-ow!" Catwoman said appreciatively. She knew the kid was good, but she wouldn't have thought that jump possible.

He grinned at her. His ankles were just low enough for her to leap up and grab hold, which she did. He said, "Batman'll be here any second, Selina. You'll have to climb up me. Watch the claws, willya?"

"You know kid, you're a little young to be inviting strange women to climb on you," she said as she pulled herself up, "and if you do, watching for the claws is your responsibility." She grinned in his face as he blushed bright red, although whether he did so because of her teasing comment, because of the effort of holding both of them up, or (more likely) because her climbing meant that her arms and legs were wrapped around him and her body was pressed against his was having the obvious effect.

She spared him the embarrassment and pretended not to notice his...duress, and climbed up onto the landing, giving him a hand up. They climbed the escape and leapt on to the rooftop of the building that made up the end of the alley. He was about to run, when she stopped him with a hand on his wrist. "Wait," she said, "this is the best part." She pointed to the mouth of the alley, where Batman stood, glaring up at them.

He'd been cautious about entering the alley. He knew as well as she had it was a dead end, and he'd suspected a trap. He strode into the alley and said, "Grand larceny isn't enough? You need to add contributing to the delinquency of a minor?" Batman had blue eyes. He'd cleared the lenses, and she could see his eyes. The first time she ever had. Even in the darkness she could see that they were as blue as-

"Holy tight-ass..." Dick muttered under his breath.

"Isn't he though?" she said softly, smirking. Loud enough for him to hear, she said, "Just bringing him into the family business, Batman." Unable to resist, she added, "You should find a good woman, settle down, have some little Bat-lings of your own. Or is it that good women aren't your style?" she teased. With that shot fired, she turned and walked away from the edge of the roof.

"Be seeing you, Bats!" Dick called, waving jovially before following after Selina. As they crossed the roof, he said, "He can't possibly think you're old enough to be my mother."

"Probably not, but it's best to keep him guessing. So did you enjoy your first prowl?"

"Damn right!" the teen said eagerly, grinning at her. "How'd I do?"

Selina laughed indulgently. There was something to be said for having a cub along on hunting trips. She tousled his curly black hair and said, "Well let's say, you got the drop on the Bat, poked him in the eye, and we got away scot-free, with the catnip in hand," she said, patting the bag with the stolen gems around her waist. "I'd say you did good, Tiger."

"I'm still not sure about that name," he griped.

"You picked it," she noted.

"From the choices you gave me. And you gave me some real stinkers. Come on, admit it, wouldn't you find it embarrassing to be working with 'Catboy'?"

She laughed, "Yeah, that wasn't my finest work. Look, I'm not big into the naming thing, alright? I'm a woman, I like the cat theme. The name suggested itself. I don't drive a Cat-illac, have a group of henchthugs called the Cat-men, or throw Catarangs. Besides, your idea wasn't any better. Using a childhood nickname your mother gave you as a street-moniker is bad enough, but a bird? With a cat?" Catwoman shook her head at him and said, "That'd never work."

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Later that night

"I can't believe it, Alfred!" Bruce said, fuming as he returned, stepping out of what they referred to only as 'the car'. "He was barely a teenager. If that!" He stalked towards the computer, pulling off his cowl and seating himself in the single chair, saying, "I've always thought she wasn't really a bad sort, just misguided, but bringing a boy with her on a heist. It's unconscionable!"

Alfred nodded impassively. Without anyone but himself to confide in regarding his nighttime exploits, Batman had placed Catwoman in a category separate from the rest of his enemies. She didn't murder innocents or attempt to hold the city hostage, all she did was steal. If he could somehow stop her from doing that...suffice it to say that Alfred suspected his young charge's interest in the feline wasn't purely altruistic. Alfred decided it might be wise to attempt to...well, redeem might be too strong a word, but at least repair the damage the young man had done to Bruce's image of Catwoman.

"It used to be very difficult to keep you out of the cookie jar, you know," Alfred said. Bruce grunted, not really listening. "And between your parents and myself, we certainly didn't teach such behavior to you."

Bruce blinked in surprise, then turned to look at Alfred, the expression on his face suggesting he thought his old friend might be losing it. "Did you need some vacation time?" he asked.

"The point, Master Bruce," Alfred said curtly, "is that children learn to steal without being encouraged by their elders." Bruce frowned, fingering his chin absently.

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The next morning

Dick tossed and turned in his bed, the movements becoming a violent thrashing as he re-lived the last night he'd spent with his parents and Haly's Circus. Zucco threatening Pop Haly, the last routine they'd done together...he knew what was coming. He'd have given all the loot in his share to keep from having to see it again, but you can't close your eyes on a dream. The sound of the line snapping, the screams from the audience, the sight of the bodies of John and Mary Grayson crashing to the sandy ground below. Broken.

He woke to the sound of his own screams. He clutched his knees to his chest, burying his head between them. A light appeared in the hallway outside. His door opened. Most sixteen year-old boys kept their doors locked, but it's not like that would have kept Selina out. She asked, "Your parents?" He bobbed his head yes, and she walked towards him, sitting down on the bed next to him and putting her arms around his shoulders, offering words of quiet comfort.

He was grateful for that comfort, but he hated that he needed it. Hated that she saw him like this, sobbing in the darkness...

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Stealing's one thing, but it's only part of the job. There's more

in Chapter 2