Author's note: I know, I took forever, I'm sorry! :( BUT, to compensate, the chapter is twice as long.
Thank you for waiting and reading, I hope you remember to review at the end of the chapter, because review is love. #s2 Plus, I added a character whose name starts with a K... if you get who he is, leave a HELLS YEAH in your review! hehe
Once again, thank you for staying and I hope you like the chapter! x
5. AN ACTION CHAPTER
Last time Ivy felt so angry, so powerless, was so long ago that she could barely remember it, as if her father's death pulled a cargo from her chest and she could finally breathe. It wasn't as if she was okay with her little broken family being destroyed, but to be released from a toxic environment was renewing.
She was in somewhere toxic again. Not only because there were people trying to harm her, but because she could feel the toxicity of the things happening to her almost to a chemical spectrum and there was no explanation for that, she only knew it was happening.
Could she count her awakenings in months already? She knew the numbers and she could tell that she was spending more time awake lately (two meals without closing her eyes between them for the past ten counts) and maybe it was giving her a better notion of time.
However long it was, Ivy was sure that months had passed. Not that many, but certainly a few. Her baby sister was born already, no doubt. She wondered how Babs was hanging on and hoped that Jim and Selina were helping her. The school year was over too, and she didn't even take her finals - not that she missed it, she would never be willing to dedicate her time for calc II -, but it was a shame to have to delay her degree.
Finally, Ivy wished for Harleen's drug – the drug she helped develop -, wished for it to take away the fog in her mind and maybe, just maybe, she would see clearly at last in a very long time.
Those days were the most helpless Ivy had ever felt and her thoughts always drifted to Babs-after-breakdown, as if everything was connected, how she looked both lost and found at the same time. There was a certain wildness in Barbara that wasn't there before, a wideness that reflected a broken notion of joy that was hard to fix. (but they did it together – her, Selina and Jim) Anyhow, Ivy was fascinated about it. Happiness was such a strange concept in the mind of the mad.
She wondered if the same thing was happening to her and smiled. What a great fucking piece of irony it would be.
[...]
It was morning when Ivy woke up with no restrainers, no needles, singing birds outside her graded windows of a new room, breakfast and company. A friendly face for once that made her almost think she had been rescued.
"The tables changed, it seems," Ivy said with a raspy voice, a little bit of a joke. The guy sitting by her bed looked up at her all surprised, big blue eyes taking their time to realize that she was talking to him.
"Pamela!" he stood up with a jump and quickly put on a glass of water for her, handed it to her with cold fingers. "I'm so sorry this is happening to you."
She was midway with her glass of water and frowned, for she didn't know why he felt the need to apologize.
"I don't get you, Jonny, you know that, right?"
He stepped closer. Harleen's pal from psychology classes always stroked Ivy as a crazy-eyed scarred kid, but that probably was because she had seen him at his craziest and scariest attached to a hospital bed after his father made some experience with him. Was there one kid in Gotham that wasn't broken?
Jonathan Crane. Fully recovered, although orphan, his poster child history landed his ass at Gotham U. In her opinion, it was kind of messed up that he was studying psychology, but Ivy herself was a botanic genius and Selina was an awesome art guru, so you can never guess what's someone's vocation.
It was that Jonny crazy eyed but sort of normal that got closer to her face, almost tearing up, making her cringe a bit.
"I shouldn't have told him," he whispered and it suddenly made sense why he was there: because he was somehow involved in her kidnapping.
"Jonathan," Ivy hushed, almost a warning. It was just his name, but it demanded an explanation that he was quick to give.
"She gave me the drug – Harleen. Told me you had cooked it and I thought it was brilliant, Pammy, brilliant. That's why I told him. I never thought…"
"Why did Harleen give it to you?" she asked, but thought better and changed her question. "How is she?"
Jonathan swallowed and looked down ashamed.
"Of course I'm not allowed to tell her that I know where you are, which is killing me. But she misses you."
"Does she k-," she started, but he quickly shook his head. Good. Ivy sat up noticing that she had only enough strength to do little things, and her body was sore in weird points. How long had she only been from bed to bed, allowed to walk to the toilet and the shower and nothing more? Most of those times were only foggy half-remembered dreams. "You need to get me out of here, Jonny."
He then furiously shook his head.
"I can't, don't you think I tried?"
She held his hands, locked her eyes in his. Ivy knew well that she could look just as crazy eyed and scary than him, but now she had to plead for emotion.
"Please," she begged, feeling her eyes water even though she had given up on crying a long time ago. "Please, I think they will kill me."
Still, he shook his head.
"There's no reasoning with them, Pam. They made it clear that if I try anything, we are both dead."
Well, that wasn't very helpful, she knew. But she also knew Jonny, knew that he was kind-hearted, that Gotham had tried its best, but still hadn't hardened him, so if she had ever had a chance of anything – getting out or causing a distraction or putting a bullet in Woodrue's skull – he was that chance. Maybe.
She needed him on her side and if he already felt guilty, maybe she was halfway there.
"What does that mean?" Ivy asked, sitting straight and moving aside the sheet that covered her legs. She was wearing cotton shorts and a white tank top that would not be enough in a very short time, if she was locked up for longer.
"It means that they are insane, Pam," Jonathan replied, his blue eyes huge with fear.
Now, Ivy knew that it wasn't hard to trigger fear in Jonathan Crane, but that was a different circumstance. She needed him to use this fear to trigger other emotions that would help them both.
"Jonny," she said low, getting closer to him as he sat down her bed. "Did they catch you too?"
Nervously, he shook his head no, but something in his posture demonstrated uneasiness, as if there were more to the story.
"Well, they are trying to make it look like I'm part of them, but I'm really not, ain't I? The moment I tell anyone where to find you, I'm a dead man. I have to watch them looking for you but I'm unable to anything about it. I'm locked up, but I can leave."
"They are looking for me?" Ivy asked, her hopes raising up one more time. "Who?"
"Your family. The cop and the Cat and Harleen. I saw them at the gardens the other day and they were telling the baby about how that was your favorite place."
Ivy smiled, a true smile this time, with home in it, and her vision blurred with tears. Her little sister, they were talking to her about her and the things she liked and damn, home was so close!
"How is she? The baby, do you know her name?" she asked, blinking the tears away and when she could see Jonathan clearly he was frowning; before she could realize, he was reaching for her face and whipping off one of her tears.
Ivy's first instinct was to pull away or snap his wrist, because there was a thing about men that she couldn't pass through (fuck you, dad), but she needed Jonny, so the hand that she raised to push his, ended up holding his.
"She's tiny," he finally answered. "I didn't get very close, but I could see that she didn't have much hair. I don't think I understood her name, but she's smiley and cute," he told her, his voice calming. "You see how this is fucked up, Pammy? At first, they only caught Does, but they got greed, they took you. And the people who love you, they won't forget. They won't give up. And if Woodrue doesn't get the results he wants, there's no way you're getting out of here alive."
That was all very alarming and a lot of info that Ivy decided to put her mind into later, because at that moment, all she could think off was Babs and the baby and Selina. Oh, Babs, with her brokenness, her heaviness, her issues that the girl somehow managed to be part of, to help ease; Selina, who was her biggest partner, her best friend; and the baby, dammit, she really wanted to see the baby and protect her and be there for her – for all of them. Instead, she was somewhere else, locked up and used.
Who had a fucked up life now?
"It's not fair," the girl said looking down, her voice low. It was good that Jonathan was so close, because she didn't want to say it again.
A pair of tears fell in her crossed legs. It was a long time since Ivy had seen herself in the mirror, and she knew that her hair was longer, messier than it used to be even when she lived in the streets after those days, before these other days.
"I know, Pam," Jonny said, his hand still in hers. "I'm sorry."
Ivy Pepper never let herself cry, but those weeks in confinement were breaking her, consuming her. Her walls weren't strong enough, the more she tried to rebuild them. The things that were happening to her were beyond everything she could imagine: of mean, heartless world, and she was from Gotham. She had seen mean and heartless. Jonathan was right, everything there was fucked up and she wanted to go home.
With a tight chest, Ivy let out a hiccup and maybe a little cry, because the next thing that happened was that Jonny – broken, lovely Jonny – hugged her and she hugged him back, hiding her face on his chest and letting out that cry.
"I'm so sorry, Pamela," he kept saying, caressing her tangled hair. "I really am sorry."
Ivy Pepper had held on to time her whole life: the seconds that ticked as she waited with a mocking smile to see Selina bite one of her hints about her bad taste for men, the minutes that counted down for her so deserved class break, the hours that took for meeting Harleen in the halls at the end of the day and spend the evening in her apartment with no worries about getting home late, not even her girlfriend's terrible cooking skills breaking the magic of being together. She did count the time in amazing moments too, but they still needed to come a little bit closer for her to grasp them. At that moment – that short, brief, everlasting moment - Ivy could feel her inside heating up with something beautiful and nice. She could see how Barbara was able to move on and it was so bright she could barely keep her eyes open.
Ever since she was knocked down, drugged, dragged, Ivy couldn't figure out the measures of time. There was a certain despair of how it stretched and tangled making everything look amorphous, but there was a way out and things were looking up, she could feel it.
And it was all because of him.
Who would ever think that a boy could give Ivy Pepper new hope?
Taking a deep breath, Ivy pushed back just a little, allowing some space between her and Jonny.
"I believe you," she told him, although she still wasn't sure she did it completely.
Jonathan took a deep breath, his hand pushing away the hair that was falling on her face. She was sure she looked like a mess.
"Pam-" he began, but she rested two fingers on his lips.
"Shh, say no more," she asked him and then kissed his cheek. "Thank you for coming. I'm glad to have a friend now."
It looked like he would apologize again, but he closed his mouth just in time. Instead, he looked at his hand frowning.
"What the hell," the boy whispered, looking closer and so did Ivy, their foreheads were practically touching.
It was his right hand, the one he used to whip the tear from Ivy's cheek. There was a burn on the inside and back of his hand, as if he had touched some sort of hot string: superficial and red.
"Looks like nettle burn…" Ivy commented intrigued. "Didn't you notice?"
"No," Jonathan said, shaking his head. "It didn't even sting."
"Nettle doesn't usually sting, it makes sense."
But as they wondered, the scar already looked like it was getting better, less reddish. They heard a beeping sound and the boy moved uncomfortably.
"That's my cue," he said apologetically, getting up and Ivy held his hand again, made him stop midway and look at her.
"Would you come again?" she asked, being as polite as she'd never been. "Bring me news about my family? Harleen?"
Jonathan smiled and then nodded.
"I hope so," he said and she let him go. "I'll try harder for you, Pammy."
"A hairbrush and longer showers would be nice," she suggested just before he crossed the door and saw him smile. If he managed to get her a few things, maybe she could even kiss him for real. And if she looked better, maybe she could get more and faster from him – with him. She didn't have those curves for nothing after all.
[...]
Ivy Pepper was a late bloomer. They all knew it, but they also knew that she was tiny and mean and it was better not to bother her. When she went back to school at the age of 13, she was the only flat-chested girl in ninth grade, but when the queen bee of class tried to point it out, the girl ended up with a broken finger.
When she turned fourteen, puberty hit Ivy hard and fast and on the course of two months she grew out of her clothes, got taller than Selina and Barbara, gained curves and an impressive pair of breasts, consequently attracting more looks from males than she was used to – and that made the girl extremely uncomfortable.
It was the last week of school when Ivy felt done with all the looks and stares, after, as she ate her green apple during her lunch break, she decided to ask the 11 grade guys –
"What the fuck you looking at?"
Which made them laugh and comment things like "Uh, she bites" and "she could bite me", that made her frown with confusion and worry, all of this sounding too familiar to her taste. When she got up to go back to class, four of those guys corned her, all talking at the same time things that she didn't understand, because they were men and they were four and they were blocking her way.
"You got hot, Pamela, when did it happen?"
"My parents are out of town, maybe we could have some fun."
"The five of us, huh? Some group fun."
Ivy refused to lower her head, but she was sure that her eyes betrayed her, showed the fear she was feeling. They couldn't do anything, could they? They were at school.
"Out of my way," she pushed, but one of the guys held her arm. The following five seconds were blank and when she came back to her body, one of the guys was on the floor moaning in pain – probably the one who held her – and she was pointing a knife to the guy that looked like their leader. "Let me through," she said, this time her voice was firm.
They let her and once she was safe in class, she texted Barbara to go get her after school.
As soon as she got home (she didn't give many details to Barbara of why she insisted on that ride, even though everyone knew how against she was of the "elite way of coming and going"), she looked for Selina and found the older girl in the bathtub relaxing.
"Uh, excuse me?" Selina asked, opening only one eye to see who was daring to enter.
"Did you just get in there?" the redhead asked, noticing the foam all around the bathroom, and the other girl frowned.
"Maybe."
"Well, move over, then," she said, starting to take off her clothes and Selina opened both eyes, sat straight.
"What? No!" she protested. "Do you have any idea of the complexity of combining the bath salts to make these perfectly balanced white bubbles? Ivy, fuck off, I didn't calculate the volume of water for two people. This is not a vegan bath!" she was just throwing around arguments to make Ivy stop, but it wasn't working.
"That's not even a thing!" Ivy shot back, one leg already inside the tub. "Come on, I need to talk to you!"
"Fine!" she finally gave in, leaving enough space for Ivy to sit, both girls with their knees on their chest.
Too late and slowly, Ivy knotted her hair in a bun, the points already wet, and Selina watched her.
"What happened?" she asked, but the younger girl didn't answer it right away.
"I'm gonna ask you something," the younger girl said and Selina nodded soberly. "Are you a virgin, Sel?"
Selina frowned.
"Where did that come from?"
"It's a yes or no question," Ivy replied and waited, same way the other girl waited for an explanation that didn't come.
"Yes."
"Do you want to have sex?"
"You said it was one question," Selina pointed.
"I said I needed to talk."
"Will you answer my question?" Ivy was silent and then she nodded, so Selina continued. "Well, yes, I do."
"Why haven't you yet, then? You're pretty, guys must want you."
Selina looked away, thinking, although she already had an answer ready.
"I don't think anyone passed me enough trust to go for it."
"I see," the redhead said and they fell silent, barely looking at each other, both girls thinking and then "At school today, four Juniors tried to corner me," she said, finally answering Selina's question. "They said things…"
Ivy blinked and looked up at Selina, who was watching her, and she felt her cheeks wet.
"I don't think I like the attention," she admitted and Selina nodded.
"You see how I felt when Babs started to talk about using my appearance?" the older teen said, her voice calm, almost sweet. "But she was right, we do have it, don't we? You were a cute kid, but you got beautiful and so fast. It's gotta be confusing."
"I like the changes, though," Ivy shrugged. "I liked to buy new clothes and finally get to wear a bra…"
Selina chuckled.
"I didn't like it at all, especially the periods," Ivy moaned. "You'll get used to it, but it doesn't get less sucky. Man, how I hated it – the puberty. I tried to hide it as much as I could and it took a while, but I got it – how this… beauty had possibilities."
She said "beauty" as if it wasn't really a blessing, but some sort of curse one had to learn how to handle.
"See, that's the thing, isn't it?" Ivy cut raising her voice a little, but she was quick to slow down. "I mean, we have it and we may not like it – the beauty and the attention -, but we also want things and maybe we can take these things our way."
Selina stared at Ivy the whole time, her face a mask.
"I've no fucking clue what you're saying."
Ivy opened her mouth a couple of times and closed it again, thinking faster than she was able to put in words and sighed.
"V, what happened?" Selina asked one more time and with that question Ivy found her start point.
"I like my body, always did. I like how it's fluid and how it changes and how personal it feels. My body is the one thing I'm a hundred percent sure I can protect. But I don't like men. I don't like how they looked at me when I was little as if I wasn't smart enough to understand and how they look at me now as if I'm a thing. I don't like how they act like they could take me and make me theirs. I'm my own person and I fear that men can try and put me in a box for their own liking. I don't fit in boxes, Sel."
Selina knew that feeling. She herself felt too big for this world, but she said nothing, waiting for Ivy to get to her main point, to the reason why she insisted on getting in that tub in the first place.
"I don't want to walk the streets of Gotham under the pressure that someone, clinically insane or not, may try to get me to do what they want without my consent and I know that's what Jim is trying to avoid by teaching us all of those self-defense skills, but this is real, Sel. At school, there are people looking at me like I'm some sort of prey and there are ways of hunting me. Tell me you never felt that way."
The older girl shrugged. The water was beginning to cool down.
"I'd be lying if I did," she answered, because it was true. More than once, Selina had felt uncomfortable with the looks she got, or knew some guy was following her, but she was always good at finding an escape route, at disappearing. One thought always crept in the back of her mind, though – about what would happen the day she wouldn't be able to find it. "What are you trying to suggest?"
Ivy rubbed her own skin, spreading the bubbles on her arms.
"That we become the hunters. I don't want to be a victim of trauma, you know? How women are subject to men's will by force and forever left to deal with it? This is my body, I want to lose my virginity because I chose to, not because someone took it from me. I've seen what angry, possessive men can do and I don't accept it. I want to own my changes."
That was a beautiful ideal, if you asked the teens what they thought about it. There was something beautifully sad about how Ivy's experience with her father made her so mature and thickened her skin, but didn't it also traumatize her already? Wasn't she hard on people, almost unable to trust anyone, brave yet scared of the real world? Didn't her words make it clear?
After a minute of silence, Selina reached her hand to Ivy in the universal gesture of "come here" and the redhead turned around. Barbara nice up bring made it for a nice house and the tub was fairly big for two teenage girls to share. The older girl unknotted the bun of Ivy's hair and it fell heavily on the water, going down her waist in tangled locks. She slowly watered the long red hair of the younger girl, trying to untangle it with her fingers.
"You need to cut your hair, you know?" Selina commented, already ready for Ivy's sharp answers, but what she got was a little chuckle.
"You're such a weird cat."
It was so rare to have Ivy cracking a joke that Selina smiled surprised and tickled the girl pinching her waist.
"Shut up!" she said and they both laughed. "Open the drain and let half of the water go, this is getting cold. I'll open the hot water again. And get me the conditioner, will you?"
Ivy did what Selina asked and they were in silence as Selina worked on the long red hair of the younger teen, the tub getting warm again. It was Ivy herself who broke the silence one more time.
"Maybe we should try to set to lose our virginity."
"Should?" Selina wondered, her fingers now running easily through V's hair.
"Could," she corrected and Selina hummed. There it was, the real reason why Ivy started that conversation. She had a plan and she continued talking. "Like… we could find someone we like enough to have the minimal amount of trust to let them in. You know how men are dumb, we can lure them to do what we want, make them think it was all their idea and charm and whatever it is they think make them special and they will forever believe it was them when it was us all along."
"True enough. Sounds like a good plan, but where would we find them?"
"Definitely not in any party at the Narrows," Ivy said thoughtfully. "It's harder for me, I guess. You have Bruce Wayne."
Selina shook her head even though Ivy still had her back turned to her.
"Bruce and Silver are back together."
"What?" Ivy turned abruptly, clearly shocked. Why wouldn't she be? Silver had a much troubled story than she and Selina together. "When the fuck did it happen? I mean, it was literally a couple of months ago that we had to witness your PDA on the balcony."
Selina rolled her eyes knowing all the shit she had gotten after that birthday and dismissed Ivy with a hand gesture. After that day, she and Bruce had had a short life because, well, that 15th year was a bit hectic for her. Turned out that they still were in two very different pages – a discussion they had every other day – and the transition back to Barbara's (even Barbara's transition itself) conflicted with her streets background, it still was confusing for them. Bruce had secrets he didn't want to share same way she had secrets too personal to let him in and at last they found themselves in an impasse. Plus, Silver was trying her best to win him back and Selina found out pretty soon that she had zero to none patience to fight because of men. She much rather fight for herself.
So yes, no more Bruce in her life.
"It was February," she corrected. "not a couple of months ago."
"Who is this Silver anyway?" Ivy commented. It was rhetorical, but Selina answered anyway.
"How come you didn't meet Tabitha's niece yet?"
Ivy thought for a second.
"I might have seen her in some tabloid, but I've never seen her live. You know Babs takes you to the friendly get togethers, I go to the intellectual meetings."
That happened because Ivy was a certified genius. She didn't even complain about not going to the social parties, because she really rather interact – in her words – with people who had interesting things to say. In other words, Ivy was much of a snob, but what only a very selected group of people knew was that the redhead had one major obsession after science: tabloids. She'd check every single paparazzi website whenever there was an event and she could even go as far as buying magazines to know what had happened in the celebrity world and she'd complain about how people was dumbly wasting the world and how sad it made her.
Truth was that, even if it wasn't to judge people, Ivy Pepper was a mainstream pop culture whore and if you couldn't find the joke in it, you had some bad humor.
"The word 'tabloid' even sounds wrong coming from you," Selina joked and Ivy rolled her eyes. "But look, it's no big deal, that I'm not with Bruce anymore – not that I've ever really been with him – because I like your idea and it feels better to find someone new for this," she wondered.
"You really think so?" Ivy wondered and Selina nodded.
"No attachments," she said. "Just… find someone and go for it."
"Yeah," the younger agreed. "Exactly."
There was almost no bubbles left on the water anymore, but the water still was warm. They inverted positions and this time Ivy was the one washing Selina's hair.
"You know that country club Babs keeps insisting us to go?" Ivy asked and Selina nodded. "I went there once and there are a lot of guys our age and older playing tennis and polo. Bunch of paddies, but most of them are cute. Rich teenage boys are so dumb when it comes to girls, I'm sure we can select a couple of them worth the try."
"You really thought it through, didn't you?" the older teen mocked and Ivy said nothing for a couple of seconds.
"I actually just remembered the country club thing. But I admit that the other part was bugging me since lunch."
[...]
For the rest of the week, the girls came up with plans and back up plans and arguments, and agreed not to kill anyone who didn't understand the meaning of the word "no" (just knock him unconscious and scream). It was a warm May and Barbara got extra excited when they asked her if she had some spare bikinis, and even though the gallery wasn't doing as well as it was supposed to do, she insisted on taking everyone shopping.
By Saturday, the first weekend of summer break, Jim dropped the girls in the country club before going to work and they put their plan in action.
"Can I sit with you?" Selina heard a boy ask and she looked at him through sunglasses. He was tall, green eyed, tanned skin, red-ish hair and large shoulders, but she didn't find him exactly cute, already knowing that he wouldn't make it to her list. She looked around with her fork in mouth, saw a lot of empty tables and then looked at him again, who was quick to add, "It's a bit embarrassing to sit alone."
Oh boy, he already started it wrong.
"Embarrassing for… who?" she asked, slowly chewing the piece of orange from her fruits salad and they boy smiled.
"Me, actually," hum. Better. She shrugged and he sat down next to her. He had a tray with burger, fries, a huge cup of red juice that could be strawberry or watermelon and Selina's first thought was that Ivy would totally disagree with that meal. "I'm Tommy Elliot," he introduced himself and the girl smiled, not taking his stretched hand.
"Selina Kyle."
To be honest, even after all the planning she and Ivy had put their minds into doing, what was really bothering her was the gallery's books, the feeling that there was something wrong with it, so Selina didn't feel much interested in anything involving men. As Tommy tried to engage in conversations - meaning: talk about himself waiting for her to sound interested and have her asking questions that he was willing to answer – she only held her bowl of salad and ate it with lazy mouthfuls while watching a bunch of teens and kids being loud in the pool.
"Kyle, you said?" Tommy went back to it, trying to catch her attention. "I don't think I know any Kyles," he commented and she said nothing. "Who are your parents? I never saw you at school."
"Dude, you make a lot of questions," she said as a way of answer and instead of biting his untouched sandwich, he smiled in a way that she guessed was supposed to be charming, but didn't quite work.
"I'm just intrigued. I'm pretty sure I'd remember you."
Her eyebrows went immediately up with how corny that was and she made quite the effort to keep her mouth shut (something that Ivy would one hundred percent not do, the redhead had a way of putting guys in their places that was admirable) and looked away as he put one French fry in his mouth.
There was only one word she could think of – terrible – and as her eyes drifted away, she saw two guys chatting and laughing a few feet away. They looked a couple of years older than her; one of them was black with short, curly hair and clear eyes and the other was mostly with his back to them facing the pool, but he had olive skin and dark, straight hair in a bun, she could only partially see his profile when he turned to look at the other boy sometimes, so she didn't have much to judge. The black guy was a cutie, though.
Just when she was going to look somewhere else, the black guy looked straight at her and there was no way he knew she was staring, for she still had her sunglasses on, but he shot a glance at Tommy, who was still talking – this time about his family business in an attempt to make her talk about hers – and raised an eyebrow to her as if making a silent question that she weirdly enough understood and silently answered with a tiny smile and her own raise of eyebrow.
Tommy, then, went on about his parents' accident a few years back and how Thomas Wayne helped save his mom, but not his dad and how Wayne was such a close friend to his dad that he was named after him and the only reason why she actually paid attention was because of the bitterness of his words, as if all of this was a great pain in his ass.
The fact that she was actually listening this time made her not even realize that the black guy had gotten closer and interrupted them by excitedly greet Tommy with all the hit-on-shoulder-strong-handshake-half-hug manly way of greeting their bros.
"Hey Sam," Tommy replied half confused, half glad for seeing someone he knew.
"I thought you'd be in Mexico by now, man!" the guy, Sam, said and somehow she recollected that Tommy had mentioned about his friends going to Cancun first thing after classes were over, but he had to stay.
"I'm going in a few, because my mom is bitching about me getting a job for a while."
He said 'job' as if it was a curse one was supposed to handle, but once again Selina decided to keep her mouth shut. She rested her empty bowl on the table and finished her orange juice with a couple of gulps ready to leave, but wasn't quick enough to avoid their attention turning to her.
"Do you know Selina Kyle?" Tommy introduced her as Sam sat across from her and he reached his hand to greet her. She took his hand. "This is my friend Sam Bradley, he's a Junior in my school. Well, Senior now, right?"
Tommy said all of that with such tone that was almost nauseating, but Selina practically didn't noticed, because Sam Bradley up close was much more than a cutie. He was hot. He had beautiful brown skin and hazel eyes, was well built and with amazing white teeth. It was clear that he was athletic even with his torso hidden under his tee, and he obviously didn't care about Tommy's sharp comments. Instead, he looked at Selina intrigued, his hand holding hers a couple of seconds too long than a normal handshake.
"Right. Aren't you the girl who was talking to Bruce Wayne by the pool?" he asked innocently, but the light in his eyes said something like 'wait for it'.
"I did talk to Bruce earlier, indeed," she replied, a bit of curiosity in her voice and he smiled, leaning on his chair's back. "Do you know him?"
"Yea, he's my science buddy. I wasn't sure it was you, it was almost hard to recognize you dry."
Against all her principles, Selina blushed.
"With all these clothes on?" the girl tried to ease the color in her cheeks by joking along and Sam laughed a loud, long, warm, body-shaking laugh that meant 'yes'.
As soon as they had arrived, she and Ivy had gone to the tennis court, because she always wanted to learn and understand that sport and within the hour she had completely associated it with ping-pong – which was one of her specialties back in the flea – and Selina was, differently than Ivy, having a lot of fun to the point that she sort of had to be expelled from the court because no one else in the beginners class could beat her.
"I guess I'm just that good," she said as the teacher, under the pressure of the other students, ushered her to go get a drink and a half hour break to rest. To their joy, she didn't come back. "Bye, bitches!" she exited, dropping her racket on the way out.
Just then she realized how sweaty she was, so she headed to the pool's outside showers, stripped down her summer dress and let the cold water wash down the sweat from her skin. She had no idea she was making a scene until she opened her eyes and saw that the only people in and by the pool making noise were the children. Every single teenage, boy and girl (which weren't that many, it was still morning), were looking at her and the only thought she had was 'I'm not even that hot, can you guys chill?'.
"Selina?" someone called her, then, and there was Bruce finding all of that funny by the look on his face. She closed the faucet and smiled.
"Hi, B."
"I just saw Ivy. Never thought I'd see you here."
"I could say the same," she said, running her fingers through her hair to make the curls be the way she wanted them to stay. Bruce was shirtless and that was the first time she had seen him with less than 2 layers of clothes; he was gaining weight and muscles with all that training Alfred had him doing, but he wasn't buffy, just athletic, and he looked sweaty too. "Don't you have your own pool and track course and tennis court and river?"
"Yeah, but my fencing classes are here and I decided to do some Tai Chi too."
She frowned.
"I'd like me some Tai Chi, I love The Last Airbender!"
Bruce laughed a silent, short, ticklish, reddening-cheeks laugh that meant 'nerd', and it was the lightest thing ever, making her laugh too. He stepped closer and opened his arms to receive her hug not caring that she was wet same way she didn't care he was sweaty. He was so tall now, she had to be on the tip of her toes.
"If you really want to come for the Tai Chi, it's every Saturday at eight with all the older ladies and oriental people and stuff," he said, after they stepped apart. "I could get you on the way and we can come together."
She nodded.
"I'll talk to Babs and let you know," the girl replied already trying to reorganize her agenda, because she wasn't lying, she really wanted to learn it. Rumor had it that it was calming and she was pretty sure Jim would approve her doing some 'calming exercise', as he liked to say. She'd have to rearrange her hours in the gallery, though. "But hey, how are things going? Where's Silver?"
"Right here," Silver bittersweet tone came from Selina's right, making her turn slowly, focused on not showing any strong emotions, like the mad will she had of punching the blond in the face because of her syndrome of superiority. "Selina."
"Silver."
There was a pretty dense and uncomfortable silence as Selina reached for her dress and put it on without drying off, because it was too hot anyway, and Silver walked the couple of steps to stay by Bruce's side, held his hand in an almost possessive way that could make the other girl roll her eyes in a normal day, but not that morning, when Selina was trying to be nice.
"Okay!" Cat cut the silence, really wishing to tell Silver to piss all over Bruce already if she was so worried about her territory but instead saying "I'm hungry. I discovered that I'm a tennis genius and extinguished all my energy, I gotta eat. Nice to see you, B."
With no further words, she turned around and headed to the restaurant where she was then and not much later Tommy took the liberty to sit with her.
"You know, Bruce and I used to be friends," the boy said and Selina glanced at Sam, who looked at her like 'there it is'. "Like real good friends, growing up together and all the bullshit, until the accident happened and Thomas saved my mom. Things have been weird ever since."
She was dying to know why Tommy hated his parents so much, but she was afraid to be sucked into one of his monologues, so she kept quiet. Sam, on the other hand, started to fill the silence breaks with all kinds of questions, letting the boy go on about playing chess in the manor and silly boys' fights about stupid reasons.
"I still don't understand how you two came to this weird dynamic you have now."
Tommy sighed with Sam's commentary.
"You wouldn't understand, Sam. All you need to know is that we used to be best bros and now we aren't and that's fine."
Oh, it didn't look fine from Selina's angle.
"Doesn't it make you sad, Tommy?" she asked again breaking her own rules, her voice with a mock edge that he didn't seem to notice. "I mean, he literally never told me about you. Like ever. And I'm his best friend now."
Thomas, who had a dreamy look focused in anything at all, turned and focused on Selina.
"Are you?" he asked in the weirdest way. "Looked like lover, though. Did you know he has a girlfriend?"
Selina smiled and so did Sam. He had seen her talking to Bruce, then. Perhaps that was why Sam pushed the subject in the first place, perhaps he knew something that she didn't – which was very possible, since he knew the boy for a while.
"Just friend. And his girlfriend hates me, but who gives a fuck? You look so… tense, though, about it. Your friendship with him, I mean, not his girlfriend. Do you miss it? I can describe a few things to you, if you want."
"What do you mean?" he asked, slowly eating his already cold food. "Like what?"
Selina shrugged.
"Maybe start with something simple, like how it is to kiss him."
She saw Sam clearly suck in a breath in an attempt not to laugh, failing miserably and transforming it in a cough access, and Tommy frowned, chewing a fry thoughtfully as if it was really an option to be considered and then he shook his head.
"Why would I even… no, thanks," and then "You just said that you weren't lovers."
The girl smiled and raised an eyebrow.
"So… what?"
That went on for a while, Tommy wondering at things, Sam making strategical questions that'd lead the other boy to talk about Bruce, and Selina adding in with commentaries that implied some man crush that was going on until Tommy got a call from his mother, who was waiting in the lob for them to go home and Selina was left, finally, only with Sam.
"I'm guessing he's always that way," she said as soon as he left and Sam chuckled.
"Obsessed with Bruce Wayne?
"Completely gay for Bruce Wayne," she corrected and this time it was inevitable: Sam laughed his full laugh again.
Sam Bradley had a laugh that grew in his chest and shook his shoulders, a smiled laugh with eyes closed and hands hitting surfaces – a knee, a table, his stomach – and it was adorable. He looked straight out of a toothpaste commercial.
"You know, me and my guys always joke about it. Yes, he's always like that. His friends don't care because they have their own males to obsess with, but anyone outside their circle notices and it sort of became a habit, to make them keep talking about their male crushes, because it's so hilarious."
Selina smiled, crossing her arms.
"You're quite the bully, Sam Bradley."
"Well, too bad they are such white boys."
And this time, Selina was the one to laugh the carefree laugh that she only reserved for Ivy and Barbara and it was kind of embarrassing how he unlocked that drawer so fast and easily. Not even Bruce had access to it yet, she didn't know exactly what happened there. It was that face of his, she supposed. The kind of face that made you wonder how could a seventeen years old be so beautiful.
"I think I like you," she said and at that moment he paused, as if she had said some sort of magic word that blocked his brain for a few seconds, and then he defrosted.
"I can see many reasons to like you too, Selina."
They talked. A lot. And while they chatted, she exchanged a few texts with Jim Gordon and Ivy, just to make sure she knew where the other girl was.
CAT: Progress?
IVY: not really. Rich boys are such a disappointment.
IVY: You?
CAT: Maybe. I'll keep you posted.
CAT: Do you know Slam Bradley?
JIM: I do. Good cop, has a kid about your age. Why?
CAT: I just met his son.
CAT: Reliable?
JIM: Yes.
It was almost three in the afternoon and after he had talked about his father's detective work and Kory, the Canadian exchange student that was living with them (who happened to be the guy she saw him with earlier), and after she mentioned that she and her friend Ivy were sort of adopted by Jim Gordon and Barbara Kean, that Ivy was there in the club too and that she was helping with the family business, something that was proving to be more challenging than expected, he said
"You know, Kory and I were planning on spending the rest of the day playing videogames at home, but maybe we can do something else if you… and your friend want to come."
Selina looked up at him with a smile. They were walking around the courts, to their left was the pool, to their right, the ramp that led to the main building.
"Well, isn't it escalating quickly?" she commented and he bit his lip embarrassed. The girl continued. "I don't know, how does this Kory deals with the environment?"
"What?" Sam exclaimed, clearly confused.
"The environment," Selina said again. "You know? The three Rs, animals and plants, the veganazi bullshit and stuff?"
"Oh, God, don't even tell me!" he said, probably a bit too loud. He got some shushing from the yoga people under the trees. With his voice down, he continued. "I mean, he's Canadian. Almost drove my mom mad with those three Rs thing and he cooks his own food… he's obsessed with the ocean and has the most absurd apnea I've ever seen. He says he wants to be an oceanographer and move to an island in the Caribbean or something. I didn't even know that there was such a thing as oceanology."
At that point, Selina already was smiling, typing a text to Ivy. Did she accidentally find the perfect pair of guys for both her and Ivy? It looked like, yes.
"Oh, God, I'm boring you," he mumbled in a cute way. She had noticed that he was good at being charming and saying what she wanted to hear, but at that moment he seemed really worried to be ruining his chance. "You're checking your phone, I'm totally boring you."
In his defense, he looked so upset for supposedly failing her that she even fed that act a little bit more. It was ladies choice day anyway and he was so committed to her that she was willing to see where it'd go.
"I don't know yet, Sam. Let's find that Kory guy and Ivy before we jump into conclusions, what about that?"
Ivy who, meanwhile, was having a more weirder than exciting day.
The first thing she did too, when they arrived, was to go to the tennis court to learn the sport, but she got a different instructor than Selina, a very touchy guy who was probably still trying to pay his tuition with a shitty job and in return had a terrible tendency of getting too close. By the third time he came behind her to show how to position herself, she was done.
"Excuse me, how old are you?" she had asked. He was tanned and hot, but he also was an adult and that made things not okay in her opinion.
" I'm twenty-five," he answered with a smile and still too close and she made a face.
"Well then, pedophile, this is not the cold opening of cheap porn. Back the fuck off."
Just the sight of that instructor nauseated her, so Ivy gave up on the tennis making a mental note to report him later, and then headed to other quarters. She passed by the Tai Chi group where she spotted Bruce Wayne between two ladies and he waved to her. Against all her principles, she caught herself waving back, but quick corrected herself by going to the stables without looking back.
Many people would complain about the smell of horses, but Ivy didn't really care. It was all part of many circles of life and it filled her chest with an undeniable joy that she only knew how to deal with when she was among her plants. She wasn't the only one to enjoy the company of the horses, because the stable had a fair amount of people bringing and taking animals to the horse track.
The main reason why Ivy had gone through the stables was because it was the shortest way to the gardens, but when she was halfway through it, one of the horses breathed right in her hair, making her jump in surprise. The horse – that no longer after she realized was a mare – made a sound pretty close to a laugh and the person who was brushing its mane laughed too.
"She likes you," the person, a girl that only got into Ivy's line of view a step later, said. She was blond with dark eyes and a beautiful, large smile. She also looked fairly familiar, but V didn't try to remember from where.
"Hi."
"Forgive Royalty, she's just a clown teen," the blond continued, petting the white fur of the mare and Ivy took a closer look at the animal.
Her mane was as white as the rest of her fur, her eyes were kind, the color of liquid chocolate, and she was a true beauty.
"It's okay," Ivy replied automatically, reaching to pet Royalty's neck and the mare sniffed her hair again excitedly. The other girl still brushed her mane.
"Maybe it's the color of your hair," she wondered. "She must be wondering if you're made of carrots and apples."
Ivy smiled. She was separated from the mare and the girl by the stall's door.
"That's a poetic line of thought," she said still petting the animal. "But girl, I ain't no food." That last part was for Royalty, but she shot a glance to the blond and saw her smiling. "I'm Pamela, by the way."
"Silver."
Oh!
Oh.
Okay, time to keep it cool.
"Is she yours?" Ivy asked, instead of asking the other thousands of questions that ran through her mind.
"Basically," Silver answered. She probably had no clue who Ivy was. "I've been with her since she was born, which… wasn't so long ago really. She's so adorable, but they won't sell her to, not after my uncle…" she drifted off, unable to say what had happened to her uncle for things to get unfriendly, but she didn't need to. Everyone knew what the Galavans did, especially Ivy, who had to be in one end of the tug war for Barbara's sanity. Silver shook her head, laying the brush on a hay square. "Anyway. At least they let me take care of her when I come here."
"Maybe Bruce Wayne could buy her for you," Ivy commented before she was able to shut her mouth and Silver looked at her with surprised eyes. "Isn't he your boyfriend?"
The blond smiled with a spark of joy that Ivy had seen before – in Selina – and she didn't know what to feel about it. Bruce Wayne had cast a spell on both of them and the redhead was in no position to take that from anyone.
"I guess that comes from dating the richest teen of the country, okay," she said, not a single drop of annoyance in her voice.
"Or maybe I follow way too many paparazzi on Instagram," Ivy replied, at the same time thinking about the real reason why she knew it – because her best friend was his ex.
"Would you like to mount?" Silver asked after she nodded and Ivy shook her head.
"No, thanks. I'm just heading to the gardens."
"Oh, okay," the blond said, sounding almost disappointed (or maybe Ivy was reading a lot into it). "Nice to meet you, Pamela."
"Same, Silver. Royalty."
They waved goodbye and Ivy finally went to the gardens, where she had to suffer twice in two different moments, because of two guys that tried to hit on her by showcasing their completely wrong and boring concepts about flowers. She dispensed them by proving how they were full of crap and should pay better attention to their biology classes and then, afraid to extend the torture for too long, she headed to the only vegan restaurant of the club – a cute, intimate house in the middle of the garden.
When she was finally by herself, with no touchy instructors nor annoying teenage boys to interrupt her guacamole sandwich experience, Ivy was finally in peace. She spent way too long in the quiet of the nature, only exchanging texts with Selina until the warmth of the middle of the day was too much to handle, forcing Ivy to head to the pools.
After five minutes in the water, the girl sat by the pool, her feet enjoying its freshness, under the shadow of a tree that was hitting in the right angle, large enough for a couple of people to sit.
Even though the place was filled with loud kids and teens, Ivy still felt peaceful, she even closed her eyes for a few until she sensed that someone sat by her side. Immediately, the girl looked to her left and saw that none less than Bruce Wayne, decided to join her. His black hair was wet and his skin a bit tanned. He was careful not to sit too close.
"Hi Ivy," he greeted, completely ignoring her death stare.
"Wayne."
"Oh, come on," they boy, elbowing her as if they were old friends. "You're always so willingly committed to avoid me, can't we be over the past already?"
"I don't know, Bruce. Are you over that night and that alley?" she replied acidly and partially regretted it the following second. But only partially.
"Touché," he said taking a deep breath and then smiled. "But you already called me Bruce, so that's a start."
Ivy scoffed, even almost smiled.
"Don't hold your breath."
She wanted to say a lot of things to him, most of them because of Selina, because she knew what would happen if he kept playing with her friend's heart, even though Cat was completely oblivious to it. Their terrible dynamic would not only ruin Selina, but Silver would also get a lot of share on the drama and she looked like a decent girl. Troubled, but decent anyway. Ivy wanted to tell him that she met Silver and that he should cherish her, because girls are a beautiful thing that deserve love and respect – two things that wouldn't be possible if he was a man whore -, but he was laughing and making small jokes, trying to crack her walls. The Bruce Wayne that Selina liked to talk about.
The one she had met was wounded, as wounded as she was at the time, but the boy in front of her now had learned how to copy. Ivy kind of envied him and kind of understood why everyone was in love with him.
"V?" Selina called from behind them and they looked back at the same time. She was a few feet away, beyond the fence, with a black guy by her side. "Explain me again why do you even have a phone?"
Frowning, Ivy reached for her phone, that was on top of her clothes behind her, not even an arm's reach away and checked it.
"Seriously?" the younger teen exclaimed. "Fourteen texts in the past five minutes?"
"Do you ever know what urgency means?" Cat replied totally ignoring the crossed conversation that Sam and Bruce were having. They did go to the same school. "I found us a ride."
Ivy was reading through the texts Selina had sent (most of them were "WHERE ARE YOU SRLY!"), but the last one was the one that made her snap her head up and look in the other girl's eyes interested.
CAT: OVC, I need you!
OVC stood for Operation V-Card, which wasn't a very original name, but they liked it, and Ivy typed an answer so fast that the result was even funny.
IVY: not hafin ga focking treesone.
Selina's phone biped, she read the text and then rolled her eyes.
"Do you trust me, V?" she said, partially annoyed, partially disappointed. Ivy sighed. When they came up with their plan, she never thought that it would end up happening so fast, and now Selina already had everything set. How could a girl react?
"Okay. Fine," she whined, getting up. Ivy fished her shorts and top from the floor and caught her purse.
"I will go see if Kory is ready," the guy that came with Selina, Sam, told her. He was twirling a car key in his fingers. "We gotta talk about those fabrics later, Bruce."
The billionaire nodded.
"Whatsapp me and we'll discuss it," he replied before the guy left. Both girls were looking at him trying to understand.
"You in the fashion business now?" Selina asked and the boy rolled his eyes.
"No, it's a science project we're developing, but you seem to be in a hurry and that's a subject that needs time to be explained."
"Okay, that makes me not want to know," Cat replied. "I mean, you know I have the-"
"Attention span of a cat, yes," Bruce completed. This time, it was Ivy's turn to roll her eyes.
"Yeah, you're such soulmates, whatever. Let's go, already," she said taking a couple of steps in Selina's direction and ignoring their clear embarrassment, but then she remembered of something and turned to Bruce again. "By the way, I introduced myself to your girlfriend as Pamela, so…"
She could practically see the wheels turning and then he got it.
"Sure, don't worry."
When she turned around again, Selina was heading to the ramp that led to the main building looking at her cellphone.
"You're BFFs with Bruce now?" the girl asked without looking up and Ivy scoffed.
"You wish, Selly. Do you care to explain?"
"Okay," Cat started going up the ramp with even steps. "His name is Kory with a K and he's-"
"The black guy?" Ivy interrupted already confused. She was sure they had called him Sam.
"No, that's Sam and I got dibs on him. Your guy is called Kory with a K that is short for something else that Sam said he could never remember the right pronunciation. He's Canadian, like Inuit Canadian, and he wants to live in an island to save the ocean or something."
"Have you seen him?" the younger girl asked concerned and Selina stopped. They were in the highest point of the club and could see the pools and the courts and the stables in the distance.
"Not exactly, I just saw his back, he had his hair in a bun and a beautiful skin color, but only Sam came to talk to me. I know what he told me: that Kory is an exchange student living with them until the end of the summer, that he's sixteen, that they were going to spend the rest of the day playing videogames, but maybe we could change that."
Along Selina's monologue, her phone buzzed a couple of times, but this time she didn't check it, just waited for Ivy's reaction, which wasn't exactly how she thought it'd be.
"Is this his idea?" the redhead asked, hyperventilating a bit and Selina stepped slightly closer.
"He thinks it is," she assured, and then she held Ivy's shoulders. "V, this was your idea. I know you're going to OVC eventually, but I want you to remember that you don't need to do this today. Hell, I'm not even sure what I am going to do! You're strong and badass and knows what to do if this dude has trouble to understand the word no. Okay? Don't hesitate to punch him in the dick."
That made her laugh and then Selina's phone buzzed again.
"What the hell is going on?" Ivy asked, snatching the phone from Selina's hand.
"Hey!"
"Jim?" the redhead exclaimed, checking the exchange of texts. "Since when you need the reassuring of a cop?"
"It's not just a cop, it's Jim. And he knows Sam's family, I just wanted to make sure. You can't blame me for being a little careful."
Ivy shook her head.
"You can only be sure when you're sure," she philosophized, both girls looking down the pools in the safety of the AC of the main building. They saw Silver St. Cloud and Bruce Wayne all touchy and kissy like a couple straight out of a magazine. "She's hot," Ivy commented, tilting her head as they watched them.
"As fuck," Selina agreed, her tone accusing that she wasn't sure how she felt about it.
The younger girl, then, eyed the older with calculated examination and concluded.
"You're hot too," which made Selina smile, her eyes still on the prettiest couple of Gotham. "And probably more awesome."
At that, the older girl laughed, finally looking at Ivy again.
"It's not a competition, V," she explained and the other girl looked slightly confused.
"You know I was just beginning to get used to you two being a thing."
"Well, we aren't. He's a friend, that's all. I mean, used to be, I'm not so sure where we stand anymore, but-"
Ivy scoffed, because it sounded a lot like bullshit. How could they pull the plug on their friendship every now and then and still be completely okay on the next moment? And to think that she almost gave him a chance.
"Don't do that, he's nice!" Selina cut her line of thought. "Maybe too nice, but it's okay."
"I know. But shouldn't a nice person accept the right one unconditionally?" Ivy asked, only a second later realizing the use of 'right one' as referring to Selina and Bruce and she decided to bury it, because she was raising a valid point there.
"I don't know, V. Everything has a breaking point, even people."
That was a good come back, Ivy pondered still watching them by the pool.
"But Silver… do you think the size of her boobs can soften his breaking point? I mean, she is Tabs niece and she is a Galavan," she rambled, almost losing track of thoughts. "See where I'm getting?"
Selina nodded.
"She's got some darkness in her," she said and Ivy agreed.
"So do you," the redhead completed, but Selina shook her head.
"No, V. I've got heaviness."
"Is there a difference?" the younger wondered.
Soberly, Selina nodded again.
"Heaviness is hard to carry. Is quite easy to spot really," she explained. "You've got darkness, like Jim. But Babs is heavy. Do you see it?"
Putting it that way, Ivy could see it, understand it and not like it, but instead of opening a whole discussion about it, she said-
"That's quite clever for someone who refuses to go to school," saving that discussion for the right moment, one when she'd have the right arguments to top Selina's.
"It's the heaviness," the older girl replied so seriously that it was also kind of sad.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Ivy asked, optioning not to give it too much thought and focusing on what was urgent.
"I don't know," Selina answered, her eyes drifting through the hall to see if Sam would show up. "But I think I can do it."
Oh, Ivy was sure Selina could do it, because whether she'd admit it or not, Cat was more experienced in getting men to do what she wanted. Ivy, on the other hand, wasn't so sure she'd know what to do, being so new to this whole 'I'm a woman' business. Babs and Cat made it look easy, but one could never be too certain.
"Relax, okay?" Selina reminded her as they walked towards the reception. "Babs said that there's nothing worse than being all tense, so tell your brain to let the feelings be. Try to let yourself enjoy things. And also, tell Kory with a K that you're ha-"
"Hard to please, so that way there's a small chance of him at least try to pretend that this can be pleasurable to me too, I know," Ivy completed. That was another piece of advice they got from Barbara completely at random like most of her best advices were delivered.
Selina smiled, doing a little happy dance after hearing Ivy's words.
"You've kissed him already, didn't you?" Ivy asked and Selina's smile widened. "If this sucks to me, I swear to God I'll kill you."
The other girl relaxed in an exaggerated way, just to throw the younger off. Cat knew how mad Ivy could get when things didn't go her way and people didn't care about it.
"Come on, V, this can go either great or terrible for both of-" but she drifted off as she saw Sam and Kory coming from the right side of the building, where the gym was, the same direction Ivy was looking at. Both girls were equally flabbergasted. "Holy shit."
"You think that's Kory with a K?" Ivy asked quickly, her eyes scanning every inch of golden skin that he was exhibiting.
"He… uh…" Selina chocked and she had to close her mouth. "He's built like a Greek god."
And he was. Practically Sam's height, with muscles well defined and a beautiful smile, Kory with K had no flaws.
"God bless Canada," Selina said under her breath and Ivy stepped forward, still mesmerized by his beauty. She didn't even feel sorry.
"I got dibs," were her only words. And that sealed the afternoon.
[...]
"Welcome to Jitters. I'm Selina and I'll be your waitress today. Coffee?"
"You're new," one of the blondes of the table said as the other accepted a mug of cop and Selina agreed with a nod.
"Second day, but I promise I'm very efficient," the girl replied and then looked at the woman who was talking to her, taking in another shock. "You're Felicity Smoak," she breathed out before she could refrain herself and the blond looked at her surprised.
"That wasn't weird at all," Felicity said, looking at the lady across from her with questioning eyes.
"I'm sorry, that was totally… sorry!" Selina stuttered. What the hell was wrong with her?
"How come you know who she is?" the other blond asked. She was a cop, according to the badge in front of her and the credential on the table read Laurel Lance.
Selina smiled and shook her head remembering the awkward way she first heard of Felicity's existence and how embarrassing it was.
"An article in a teen magazine about billionaires 'peasant' lovers."
Felicity made a face that Selina could relate to at the word 'peasant'.
"Oh, God, that article," she whined.
"I know, right?" the teen agreed, feeling just as ashamed.
"You don't strike me as someone who's read teen mags, though, Selina," Laurel said, but not in a suspicious way, just curious.
"And I don't. My sister does and she showed me this one because-" she was about to say it - because I'm a peasant girlfriend too -, but this time her brain froze her tongue in time. "-of reasons and okay, I'd probably had forgotten it by now, but when I mentioned it to my boyfriend, he just fangirled about you and how you're an awesome hacker and how Wayne Enterprises has been trying to hire you for ages yada yada yada," she took a deep breath, realizing that she was never that chatty. "I'm sorry, I swear I'm not a blabber, can I take your orders?"
Selina fished the notepad from her pocket ready to take notes and the two women exchanged an amused look.
"Wayne Enterprises…" Felicity said. "I don't know if I would adapt."
Selina shrugged.
"It's kind of like here, but in larger scale," she answered pretending not to notice that they were paying attention to her. "But without the vigilante bullshit."
"How long have you been here, Selina?" the hacker asked and Cat sighed.
"It's my own fault, isn't it? I started talking," the teen said dramatically and the women chuckled. "It's my second week. I rented a loft and looked for a job because I don't know how long I'm staying."
"You look like a fine girl," Laurel commented, eyeing her. "What made you leave?"
Selina frowned, considering if she should throw one of her smart answers, but she had the official, right one in her pocket and there was no harm in letting more people know, was there? So she took the piece of paper that was one of the posters she had hung in Smallville, unfolded it and put it in the table between the two women.
"It's because of her," she said. "It's because of my sister."
[...]
Have you seen Ivy?
Contact Selina Kyle on haveyouseenivy. tumblr. com or call. Any info is important and welcome.
[...]
Star City was a weird city on the border of Ohio and Michigan that had a thing for crime and colorful vigilantes. With the lead on Palmer Technologies, Selina had a start point, but instead of going straight for it, she decided to observe the city and the company. She used her stashed money to rent a loft, found a job and within a week she was posted in front of the brand new building of Palmer Technologies.
The building, as well as many places in Star City, was new because of an explosion that happened around the same time there was a huge worm hole above Central City. Now, Selina didn't know if those things were related, but she did know a lot about worm holes because she watched Interstellar about seven times with Bruce and Ivy and each time she got a new theory or trivia from them.
The owner of the building and head of the company, Ray Palmer, had gone M.I.A. when the explosion destroyed it, letting everyone to think that he was dead, but apparently it was impossible to die in this city; when he came back, things got pretty intense. Apparently, people weren't dealing with the company the way he would and that caused some tension that took some major law enforcement to settle.
As a matter of fact, that city was intense. The Green Arrow had no chill and just his face had her bored, every time he talked, all Selina could hear was "wah wah wah". He did have a dubious moral compass when it came to bad people, but this hero stuff never rang well on Gothamites. Every day, something would happen that Selina would find herself wondering or verbalizing "if it was Gotham…", because really, if those kind of things ever happened in Gotham, the Penguin would probably make a couple of phone calls - to the Riddler and maybe the Tigress – and have that people running by the end of the day.
Of course, that also made Star City way more interesting than Smallville, but even to watch ants build their anthill would be more interesting than Smallville. Watch diamonds turn into graphite would be more interesting than Smallville. So there was that.
And yeah, you could say that she was enjoying it. Of course she now had a job very different from her gallery management, there was a boss to report that wasn't her adopted mother and she had to handle the smell of sausages in the morning, which wasn't ideal for someone fourteen weeks pregnant, but she was fine.
If there was something Selina knew how to do it was to handle herself.
There was no denial, though, that she'd have to figure out how the city and Palmer Technologies had something to do with Ivy's kidnapping. Selina assumed the worst at first, but since her approach was so bad in Smallville, she decided to try something different and just lay low this time.
It became easier as she befriended one of the major employees of Palmer, Felicity Smoak, who decided that she was her new favorite waitress; they always had a good chat, especially because Selina could catch most of references the blond would make thanks to years of nerd friends.
At night, in her loft in Orchid Bay, Selina'd take her fish coaster, flash the UV light on it and just wonder. Wonder if they still had time to find Ivy alive, wonder if the clue the Pond had sent was what she really needed, wondered how they could possibly know all of that about Ivy and wonder if she wasn't reading too much into it, if that SC clue wasn't about Ivy, but about the Pond itself, a way to get her closer to Fish and hew new tank.
She would never know for sure until she knew for sure.
It was the second week there when she started to work on Jitters and the fact that she met Felicity right away was a plus. The hacker would always drop by for coffee, usually with a friend, and for some unknown reason they'd be always up to rescue Selina from nasty costumers. Not that she needed, but it was nice to know that the 'protect yo girls squad' was strong around there.
"What a beauty like you is doing serving tables, babe?" asked a guy much older than her; he was wearing Palmer's uniform, but didn't look like a high tech guy. Selina smiled ironically; it was her third week there and there wouldn't be a day that the dickness of men would surprise her.
"Trying to pay my rent," she answered casually filling his mug with coffee. Before he could even touch her ass, she held his wrist midway the movement, pressing a very sensitive and painful point in a way that'd snap his bone with the right move. "I wouldn't try it," she warned and released his wrist.
The guy hardly look at her anymore.
"Having any trouble, Sel?" Laurel asked, passing behind her. This time, there were three of them: her, Felicity and Thea, and they sat on the next table. Selina scoffed.
"Don't worry, I'm from Gotham. Being rid of douchbags is kind of my specialty. The usual?"
"The usual," Thea answered for everyone and Selina nodded, going straight to the kitchen to get their food, but not without hearing her say. "I love this girl."
"Arg, I swear to God, these are the most stinky sausages I've ever smelled," Selina complained as soon as she hit the kitchen. She organized three plates on a tray and cut three even slices of blueberry pie.
"I don't know what you're talking about," one of the girls said. "They smell delicious to me."
The concept of delicious plus sausages was so unthinkable to Selina that she couldn't even wrap her mind around it, but before she could point it out, they were all interrupted by shouts, the teen midway to filling Thea's glass of red fruits juice.
"EVERYBODY FREEZE AND START COLABORATING, BECAUSE WE ARE TAKING YOUR MONEY!"
"Seriously?" Selina heard someone say. Her first instinct was to duck behind the table, and then she remembered that she was well hidden behind the kitchen counter. "This is the Green Arrow's city," the person continued and they heard a loud scoff.
"To bad he only works at night. Now gimme the money!"
"Amateurs," Selina mumbled to herself, holding herself not to roll her eyes.
Now, if there was something Selina was damn good at, it was to mind her own business. It had been her thing for most of her life, so you would suppose that it was exactly what she did, but no. Instead, the teen saw herself quietly choosing knives by their sharpness, small and big, until she had 4 of them in her hands. Quietly, she moved to the open door balancing the weight of a knife and completely focused. Those robbers were so bad, they didn't even check the back room yet.
"What the fuck are you doing?" one of the girls hushed. She was ducked behind the counter and Selina put a finger on her lips in the universal 'silence' signal.
Carefully, she peeked the room to see where each guy was and, for her surprise, they were all near the cashier, three guys partially masked with small guns and very bad posture. It was so similar to something that would happen in Gotham a couple of years before that it almost felt like home.
"Now, the older guy started to say, turning to the people with his gun pointed at the costumers, "I don't wanna see any funny business, so why don't yall put your phones right where we can see?" but since no one moved, he shot the ceiling, making a rain of cement shower upon himself. What a dummie. "I SAID PHONES ON THE TABLES!"
Selina rolled her eyes as everyone started to put their phones on tables. The guy that talked had his back to her while the others were ushering the cashier to put the money in a bag. He was wearing a jeans jacket, but she had seen that there wasn't a lot of resistance on his other layers, so she aimed his right arm – the one he was holding the gun – and threw a knife.
It hit spot on and before he could even react, she already had invested in their direction, other two knives gone hitting one of the robbers on the shoulder and the other on the leg. By the time the gun of the first guy hit the floor and he looked at his arm, the knife hanging on in his bone, she was on top of him craving another blade in his shoulder and as he fell, howling with pain, she kicked another guy and disarmed him, also using his body as a shield, so the third guy, the one with the knife in his leg, wouldn't be able to have a clean shot.
She pushed the guy on top of the other and they stumbled and fumbled, the one with the hurt leg still being the one in better shape, so Selina grabbed a chair, but it was nailed to the floor, making her breathe once with annoyance as the robber watched her for a couple of seconds.
"For fuck's sake," she breathed out and grabbed the next chair, this time one that could be moved, made of iron, which was way better for what she had planned for it, and with a gracious and fierce turn she hit the guy straight in the face, making him drop unconscious.
As she stepped forward to kick the gun from his hand, the other guy, the one Selina had hit in the shoulder only and was on the floor, grabbed her ankle making her lose balance, but as she fell, she was closer to the gun, so the moment he tried to climb on top of her, she pointed it at him, unlocking the safety with a loud click.
"Don't even think about it," she warned as he stayed there frozen, eyes on the barrel of the gun, blood dripping from his shoulder to her uniform. A couple of years being trained by Jim Gordon had her on automatic to not hit anywhere deadly, but if that guy as much as tried anything, she wouldn't even be sorry.
"SCPD!" someone shouted, bringing Selina back to her body although she didn't take her eyes – or gun – from him. It was Laurel, she knew, and even though she was a district attorney, she could do a few things that the girl wasn't entirely sure what they were, but was enough to bring some order. "Selly, are you alright?"
The concern in her voice was dispensable in Selina's opinion. Now that the adrenalin began to drop, she could hear the whisperers and a kid crying and the guy she hit twice moaning, steps towards her as Laurel pulled the robber from her and took the gun, someone helped her up, people called her name.
"I'm fine!" Selina finally replied after another three or four people asked the same thing. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"That was crazy, you could get hurt," Felicity commented without hiding the worry in her voice and Selina scoffed. "No, seriously. Didn't you get scared?"
"Nah," the teen replied, smoothing her messed, semi-bloodied uniform with disinterest. She really didn't.
"How could you?" Thea asked, a frown in her face. "Where did you learn all that?"
"I'm from Gotham. And my dad's a cop."
"So is mine and I wouldn't do something like that," Laurel insisted and Selina sighed. "Like never."
"I'm from Gotham," she said again as if it explained everything and didn't quite getting why it was so hard for them to understand.
"Seriously, Selina," the lawyer continued. She had finished knotting the robbers' hands and they already could hear the police sirens. "You could have been hurt."
"So what? Look, scars are just proof that you lived, and besides, I never miss a throw, my dad taught me how to handle knives bef-"
But before Selina could continue, the world went black so fast she didn't even process it. It was as simple as that: one minute she was standing and sassing and in the blink of eyes, she was on the floor being supported by Felicity and one of the girls from work, way too many people around her.
"What the hell," she gasped at the same time about four or five people asked variations of the same
"Oh my God, Selly! Are you okay?"
To which the only answer she had was
"That was new," and then "I gotta end this."
As if that blackout reminded her of something (and that something was that she was fifteen weeks pregnant and she couldn't, shouldn't be pregnant, because she was seventeen and Bruce was sixteen and he was nowhere to be found and that baby was a Wayne and she was a stray cat).
(how did a stray cat ended up with a billion dollars baby inside her belly?)
No. She had to end it.
"What?" Felicity asked frowning, because Selina didn't make any sense.
Before anyone could stop her, the teen already was on her feet, a bit dizzy but strong in her legs. She had abused of those four months limit and she had to make some calls.
"Selina, hold on!" Laurel called out, but Felicity gestured that she'd handle it, going after the teen.
"Tell her not to worry, I won't run always and I'll answer all the questions, blah blah blah," Selina said almost bored to the person following her, her eyes on the screen of her phone as she googled what she needed to know.
"It's not that," the hacker replied, reaching the teen and touching her shoulder. Sighing, she put her phone down. "You fainted. What happened, you seemed fine."
For a couple of seconds, she considered saying it. It's be different than spilling a joke for Sam Bradley, because it'd be her finally telling someone something that she kind of didn't admit to herself, kind of wanted anyone to know and that was a whole lot of a big fucking deal.
"It's just low pressure, I was about to have a little break to eat some fruit," and since Felicity didn't move or said anything, she just shrugged it off. "I'll be back, I need to make a call."
[...]
It's Bruce Wayne. I can't talk now, but leave a message and I'll get back ASAP.
"Hey B, it's me. I'm in Star City now and no Ivy yet. I don't really have something to say, it's just… I miss you. Be safe."
