The third time she sees him, it's almost a disaster.
The Museum of Natural History is hosting a traveling exhibit of ancient Egyptian treasures. Wonderful old things – statues, jewelry, cups, bowls, tools, wigs, mummies, you name it – with wonderfully large price tags attached.
She wanders around during visitors' hours with a mental shopping list, looking for the items her buyers will be interested in. For high-end thefts like this, you want a client lined up ahead of time. The antiquities black market is a little more forgiving than that of art or even jewelry, but she prefers not to take the risk without the guarantee of a reward.
Browsing turns up four necklaces, several rings and bracelets, and a little statuette of Sekhmet in pink granite to keep for herself. Expensive, small, eminently portable; yes, those will do quite nicely.
After the museum closes for the night, she returns, slipping through the gaping cracks in the security measures with practiced ease.
It's been just over two months or so since her last job, but this one is very different than raiding a jewelry store – or, for that matter, burglarizing a rich fool's penthouse. She wonders if Batman will find her.
If he doesn't, just as well. She could certainly use the proceeds from this job, and she certainly can't afford to piss off any more clients.
If he does, on the other hand…
If he does, this is going to be fun.
She'd never admit it, but her heists have been getting stale. The Bat's presence – the unknown challenge of it – is waking up all her old instinctive fire. She remembers how he looked, fighting the LoBoys, how he blocked her strikes the night of the botched jewelry heist, how he pinned her against the rooftop.
Oh, yes. Fire is a very apt word.
She feels like rushing the job, but suppresses that urge and works as carefully and methodically as ever. She's a professional, and she takes pride in the subtlety, the invisibility, of her work. She ran jobs in Gotham for five years, unnoticed by the mob and the cops, before an altruistic act (there's a lesson there, she thinks, wry) flashed her into the Bat's awareness.
No reason to get sloppy on this job just because she's impatient for the epilogue.
She packs the jewelry and statuette into a snugly cushioned case, stows it, and heads for the roof.
She's planned ahead for this one, and she's not going to get caught out with another big black bag. Nothing the Bat can strip from her in the middle of a fight… although, if it weren't for the lost profits, she isn't so sure that she wouldn't mind.
When she emerges onto the roof he's already there, black on black in the nighttime city.
"Meow," she says, making fun of him whether he knows it or not. "Ready for another round, lover?"
Disappointingly, all he says is, "Give me the bag," in the same growled tones as their first encounter. Then he adds, "No tricks."
"No fun," she says, all mocking velvet. She sighs as if it pains her, then stretches up to remove the small backpack slung over her shoulder. He watches her, posture wary, but she moves slowly and carefully, holding the backpack out, letting it dangle from her fingers. "Come and get it."
He waits a beat. She draws her arm in, winking at him. He moves towards her and she steps away from him, teasing, until they're both in the right places.
Then she drops the backpack and, in the same motion, pulls out the only thing inside it: A whip.
It's not a great weapon - theatrical, worthless against guns – but he doesn't use guns – and aren't they the definition of theatrical at this point anyway? Cat and Bat, striking sparks on the rooftops? Might as well enjoy it -
Grab the handle. Uncoil. Once around and – crack! The leather tip moves faster than the speed of sound and catches him across his chest. He grunts and staggers back. She brings the whip around again and tears a jagged rent in his cape. He's off-balance.
She loops the whip over her shoulder and runs.
This was always a possibility – she was hoping for it, after all – and she made a plan. She learned from her first encounter, from watching the doomed street gangs, from the paralyzing weeks the Joker was tearing the city apart; you can't rely on traditional methods and win against Batman.
You can't use guns. You can't use force. You have to do the unexpected and unconventional. The second it becomes a standard fight is the second you lose.
And she's not going to lose tonight. She's not going to lose - to him - ever again.
She comes to the end of a block and stops, but not because of the too-wide gap made by the elevated rail line below. She pulls down her glove to check her watch and sees what she expected to see: It's too early. She'll have to stall.
He lands behind her and she turns.
"Don't you owe me a favor?" she asks, feigning desperation. "Small, helpless, allergic to green rocks?"
"No," he says.
She makes a disappointed noise. "Maybe I'll move to Metropolis."
He moves abruptly – faster than she can raise the whip, faster than she was expecting – and grabs her by the wrist. It's painful and she hisses.
"Where is it?"
"You're hurting me," she snarls, looking pointedly at her wrist until he (grudgingly, it looks) loosens his grip. "Where is what?"
He forces her to walk forward a step, moving her away from the edge. "What you stole tonight."
She grins, running her tongue over the edge of her teeth, over her lips. Sways towards him, making him lean back. "Somewhere you can't find it."
The elevated train rumbles in the near distance.
"That's my cue, handsome," she purrs, leaning closer so she can break his hold. She kicks him in the abdomen, then jumps over the roof edge. Swings down onto the line she prepared earlier. Uses her claws to sever it from its anchoring point on the bricks.
She sweeps down and lets go just as the train thunders past beneath her. Lands on the last car, but doesn't try to keep her balance. Instead she rolls with the impact and the speed, buries the razor-tipped claws on her right hand into the metal of the train with desperate strength -
The muscles of her arm and shoulder light up with white-hot pain -
- inertia and the force of the airflow bounce her towards the edge - just chaos and a deafening roar of wind -
She gets her feet braced against something. Digs her claws deeper. Pulls herself into a shaky crouch two heartbeats away from death. Breathes in despite the wind whipping past her.
Insane. That was insane. But if it worked...
She looks over her shoulder at the swiftly receding building.
Batman's standing on the edge of the roof with his torn, useless cape, watching her.
She waves and blows him a kiss, laughing, exhilarated, victorious.
In the morning, she goes back to the museum as a civilian visitor. The Egyptian exhibit is police-taped off and cops are standing around, taking pictures and talking. Trying to figure out whodunit and how.
Good luck, she thinks irreverently. She walks right past them without turning a hair and retrieves the case from where she stashed it last night – inside the women's restroom.
The newspapers report that the cops are calling her "Catwoman".
She approves.