Flashes of red and blue streaked across the streets of Gotham, police sirens heading to the screams and shouts of citizens in need.
The city felt like a war zone.
And yet, Dick Grayson thought solemnly to himself, it could be worse.
Within hours, the air could be thick with insanity-inducing Fear Gas. Cars thrown around like footballs by vines the size of cranes.
All that could come to pass, but it won't.
Perched atop a rooftop overlooking Drescher District, one of the more dilapidated areas of town, Nightwing activated his comlink. "Alfred, what's the status on Batman?"
"Still quite unwell, sir. The medicine has kept the poison at bay for the moment, but I'm afraid it's like applying industrial-strength duct tape to a crack in the dam. Sooner or later, something may well have to give."
"He's been through worse. He'll pull through this." With a solemn sigh, he added, "We all will."
"I look forward to popping the morning champagne. I shall keep you updated on Master Bruce's condition. For now, good hunting." The butler signed off the connection.
Standing with a sigh, the dark-haired vigilante's masked stare lingered on a nearby billboard, advertising the mayoral campaign for Lincoln March.
"Now there's a guy you can trust," Dick remarked sardonically to himself.
He checked his wrist gauntlets, and then, without looking…
"It's about time." He detected the cat burglar's sudden presence behind him.
Ascending the fire escape to the top of the building, Selina sauntered across the tiled surface with her inventory fully restocked.
New mask. A spare whip clipped to her waist. Usual operating gloves. And a pair of specialized goggles over her head.
"Took me a minute to remember where I stashed all of this," she told him once within talking distance. "Thankfully this safehouse hasn't been discovered by some of my more…persistent admirers."
"Right. Where to?" he wanted to know.
She nodded in the direction facing west. "Down there about three blocks, then take a right. You can't miss it."
"I better not." Stalking ahead, Dick wasted no time.
Taking a brief running start at the edge of the building, he soared to the next building and kept going.
Vaulting over an air conditioning unit, he launched into the air when there was no more rooftop to walk on, wall-running lightly along an adjoining building's brick surface before jumping and catching a flagpole.
He swung upwards and then transitioned into a near peerless somersault, tucking his limbs against his torso before landing on a slightly smaller rooftop.
From there, it was walking, more walking, and finally, as he turned a corner-
"Nice moves." He came face-to-face with Selina, leaning and leering against a rooftop exit.
She had gotten there before him. Somehow.
"You move fast," he commented, brushing past her.
"Kitty knows how to pounce when it's urgent," she purred after him, briefly extending her artificial claws before sauntering after him.
He casually vaulted over another unit before taking out his grapnel gun to scale a building taller than his legs could ever hope to launch him.
Firing it into the air, he waited until the metal hook caught onto a ledge and seamlessly grappled him up to the ledge, and then-
"Need a hand?"
Selina was already on top of the building, smiling cheekily at him with her arm outstretched.
Ignoring her, Nightwing hauled himself up and over.
Maintaining his determined pace, he marched forward stoically while she followed.
A news helicopter passed by them as neon signs everywhere pierced the otherwise Gothic atmosphere.
Very quickly, Selina decided to pierce the silence between them. "So I was thinking, Dick-"
"Told you not to call me that."
Smirking, she tried another route, "How about 'circus boy', then?"
He stopped. "How'd you-?"
"While Mr. Magoo was in the kitchen fetching yours truly a nice warm drink, I gave myself a little self-guided tour. You know, you really should put a password on that computer. Otherwise, just anyone could have a lookie-loo," she purred at him knowingly.
He turned around with a sigh. "Just couldn't help yourself, could you Selina?"
She shrugged as only she could. "Can't blame a cat for being curious, now can you? And I must say, it's quite an honor talking to one of the Falling Graysons."
"The Flying Graysons," Dick corrected her with gritting chagrin.
"Didn't fly for very long, did they?" Selina responded sarcastically. Maybe too sarcastic.
"That's funny." Dick gave off an entirely humorless scoff before walking on.
Selina bit her lip for perhaps scratching at a still raw nerve, ultimately following up, "Look, I didn't mean to offend. I tend to make tasteless jokes in life-or-death situations. The brooding one usually ignores them anyways."
"He ignores a lot of things," Nightwing said, going down some steps connecting the building they were currently on to the next.
"You're not wrong there," she murmured, though perhaps for different reasons than him.
After another moment of silence, Selina probed a little further, "So how did he recruit you anyways? Some sort of online application you had to fill out?"
"If only it were that simple." They both walked along a grated catwalk where the sounds of police sirens were wailing underneath.
Once things seemed to clear up, he continued, "My parents were murdered by the mob. Payback for the ringleader in our circus not paying protection money when they asked so 'nicely' the first time. The hit was ordered by a piece of human garbage named Tony Zucco. I saw it happen. Afterwards, Bruce took me in. Trained me. Gave me a chance to bring the man who killed my mom and dad to justice."
"So you'd end up like him?"
Dick stopped, turned, and answered her as truthfully as he ever did. "So I wouldn't."
She paused, taking in what was said.
They both did.
"Anyways…" He resumed walking. "Bruce made me who I am today. Gave me something to fight for when I didn't even think there was anything worth living for. He's a better man than he'd ever give himself credit for, but even with that, well…" Dick shrugged his shoulders before finally admitting, "He can be a bit of an asshole sometimes."
"That's an understatement," Selina agreed.
Dick kept walking and talking. "We had disagreements- more and more as I got older. Eventually, it got to the point of no return. I said things I probably regret, and Bruce, well, you can never tell with him. So I pushed myself out of the nest, and found a new place to protect. Occasionally I checked in on Alfred and some old friends, but for the most part we kept our distance. Then Arkham City happened."
"What a shitshow," she muttered under her breath.
"That's one way of putting it."
"Were you still the Boy Wonder when Ivy was first spreading her crazy all over town?"
"No. I was out of the picture by the time she came along. Back then there was another Robin…" Dick hesitated to speak further, ultimately stopping and starting anew. "But I have heard things about her."
"Whatever you heard, believe me, she's even crazier," Selina told him.
"Can't be any crazier than Crazy Quilt," Nightwing joked over his shoulder.
Her immediate expression was of amused befuddlement.
"Sorry, inside joke." He turned back around. "He laughs, too, y'know. Sometimes."
"Hmmm. So why does Bruce do it, then? Save a city that's already dying on the inside?"
There was a pause from Grayson this time.
And then…
"Why do you do it?" he proposed instead, throwing the question back at her.
Selina provided her default answer. "I like money."
"Lots of folks do, but they don't commit several felonies a week to boost their bank accounts," he kept the pressure on her. "There's more to you than that."
"Oh really?" she was skeptical, to say the least.
"Why else would Bruce trust you?" Dick pointed out, and to that, she had no immediate retort.
He briefly looked over his shoulder at her, meeting her conflicted stare.
"I'm not just doing this for me, okay?" she finally elaborated. "There are people in my life- people I care about. If I don't do what I do, bad things could happen to them. And if I let it happen, well, that's on me."
He gave a subtle nod, as if considering every word she said.
It wasn't until they went across another catwalk before Dick finally answered, "You remember what happened to the Waynes at the Monarch Theatre, right?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Little bit before my time, but sure. Anyone who's anyone in Gotham knows what went down there."
"Bruce wouldn't want me telling you this, but…" Giving a sigh, the former Boy Wonder did anyways, "The night the Waynes died, the headline on all the papers the next day said that only two people died. If you ask him, well, a young boy walked in that alley with his parents. He died right there with them, and something else walked out."
Selina listened with a sobering expression on her face.
"You say Gotham's dying. Maybe it's been that way for a long time. But Bruce doesn't give up. Even if it kills him, he'd do anything to make sure the people down there don't have to suffer through what he did."
They stopped at the edge of the last building before a sizable gap separated it from the rest of its towering colleagues.
"He used to be fond of saying: when the gun is pointed at you and yours, it's a tragedy for everyone. But if you see the gun pointed at someone else, and you choose to do nothing, that's just as bad as pulling the trigger," Dick finished up, leaving Selina with that.
Soon, however, both of their attention was commanded by what laid ahead of them.
They stood side-to-side now overlooking the Kanigher & Infantino Memorial Greenhouse.
It was a medium-sized building that had been abandoned for some time.
Abandoned by the Sirens for years and abandoned by the public for even longer.
A glasshouse was visible on the top level, the clear glass showing off rows and rows of overgrown plants, unsurprisingly mutated beyond normal size.
Then, a pair of double doors leading into the rest of the building.
"Here we are," the brunette woman sighed, sliding on her goggles and activating her Thief Vision.
In an instant, her world was distorted with an orange layout, highlighting all the plants inside of the greenhouse.
She looked left to right, up and down, studying every angle of the greenhouse exterior for a few good seconds before reporting her findings back to Nightwing.
"The plants on the ground- they're like motion sensors. Get close enough to one, and it alerts the rest of the weeds to your position," she told him. "The doors are probably locked."
"How'd you get in last time?"
"Opened a window on a lower floor. Rule 2 of stealing other people's stuff: if you're stupid enough to ignore Rule 1, never go back in the same way again," she told him, pushing her goggles back up.
"Noted. So what's the play?" he asked. "You are the expert in this kind of stuff."
She looked at him. "Got something in that tight little onesie to not make you have to touch the ground for long periods?"
"Cute." Reaching behind him, he produced his line launcher. "And yeah, I do."
"Good. I'll get to the door. Then you follow and try to look prettier than usual," she winked at him, before suddenly diving off the edge of the building.
Dick primed the gadget for use, remarking sarcastically under his breath. "You sure know how to pick 'em, Bruce."
Uncoiling her whip mid-freefall, Selina cracked it with a fierce forearm flourish, swinging the end of it over the side of the building.
Snapping the tail securely around the rooftop railing, she maneuvered her body towards the flat building surface, and very quickly came up to the solid brick wall.
Digging her clawed fingertips and booted heels against the slight cracks and crevices in the vertical infrastructure, Selina retracted the whip and reclipped it to her waist.
From there, the Cat pounced as only she could.
Ascending meters at a time, she launched upwards with well-timed bursts.
Not losing her grip along the way, she climbed and climbed…and finally scaled the railing itself.
Sitting atop the cylindrical bar in a classic feline pose, the brunette did a quick scan of her environment.
Broken shards of pots and other containers littered tables where vines the size of anacondas slithered down and pooled around on the floor.
"Just like dodging lasers, Selina," she told herself, touching down gingerly on the ground. "Nothing you haven't done before."
With the grace of a trained ballerina, she launched forward.
Tiptoeing and dancing around the mutated flora, she moved swiftly and stealthily.
Gradually making her way across the shielded plant nursery, one step at a-
"Shit!" She jumped up on a table as a previously unseen vine slithered out from underneath, just barely missing her foot.
With a low sigh, Selina made the best of her current position, crawling on all fours across the flat surface while more and more vines congregated on the floor below.
"Now that I know you're loaded, Batman, you're definitely buying me a new house after this," she mumbled to herself, reaching the end of the table and touching back down on a clear stretch of ground.
"Complete with a state-of-the-art kitchen. An indoor spa, let's see…" She skipped over a scattering of smaller vines. "Can't forget the outdoor pool, Selina. A billionaire is footing the bill, after all."
More tiptoeing around.
Then finally…
"Still got it." She made it to the double doors, which were thankfully devoid of any vines.
An experimental tug on the handles informed the cat burglar that the door was indeed locked.
Something that was easily remedied, however, as the wily woman reached inside her cleavage and produced a lockpick.
From there, she inserted it in the right keyhole, and went to work.
And that seemingly was the cue for the metallic hook to drill into the wall above her.
From across the building, Nightwing launched horizontally across the air on his specialized zipline.
Going from one point to the next, he seamlessly traversed the distance until he reached the wall, and then kicked off with the natural acrobatic skill he was born with.
Landing just in time for the-
Click.
"Alright." Doing away with her handy tool, Selina opened one of the doors, revealing darkness inside. "Not my personal best record, but it'll do the trick."
Pocketing his own gadget, Nightwing remarked, "You know I could've just carried you over here on the zipline, right?"
"Sorry to disappoint, but I only let the big guy carry me around like a damsel in distress," she teased him, leaning against the door with a coy expression. "You're just not my type."
He couldn't help but smirk as she playfully threw his earlier words back at him.
Nevertheless, the dark-haired vigilante pulled out his escrima sticks, activating the tasered tips.
"I'll take point. Just stay on my ass, alright?" Cracking his neck, the first Robin made his way inside.
"Mmmm, don't have to tell me twice," Selina cooed after him, following him into the darkness as the door slammed shut.
"Alfred, are you there?"
Keeping his eyes on the poison-veined Bruce Wayne still laying on the table, the butler activated his earpiece, connecting him with Oracle.
"Always, Miss Gordon." Pennyworth maintained a look of stoic concern while monitoring the young billionaire's vitals on screens.
"So how did, y'know, Dick take seeing her in the Cave?"
He raised an amused eyebrow. "Much better than expected. I feared Master Dick would truly, as the young people are so fond of saying nowadays, 'lose his shit'."
"Well, we've all had a long night. Couldn't blame him if he did, given Selina's very illustrious track record. And then there's Bruce's decision to bring her in the fold altogether. I still don't know how I feel about it."
"Master Bruce usually has his reasons. Perhaps he sees something in Miss Kyle that even she has yet to see in herself," he offered in terms of an explanation.
"I hope you're right on that, Alfred." Oracle was reluctant to believe that theory. "For all our sakes. God, just when we think we're done with Arkham City, well, Arkham City isn't quite done with us."
"Indeed. And what of the efforts to locate Poison Ivy?"
"Bruce is going to lose his shit for this, but no leads. She's gone radio silent."
"You don't say?"
"Robin went back and combed over the area where Bruce was attacked. He tracked her pheromone signature up until the trail went cold. We think she might've figured out a way to mask her scent."
"How very shrewd of her."
"You could say that for just about everything she's pulled off tonight. Even from the beginning, she's been five steps ahead of us."
"Perhaps, but I have full faith that Master Tim and GCPD will find Ivy and put a stop to her madness before it's too late."
"I have faith too, Alfred. But, God forbid, if she's able to unleash her first wave in Arkham City and my dad's caught up in it, I don't think Tim would forgive himself."
"We needn't burden ourselves with that possibility, Miss Gordon. If Miss Kyle is as good as her file would suggest, we'll have Master Bruce traversing stony gargoyles in no time," he reassured the hacker.
"Let's hope. What would we do without you, Alfred?" came Barbara Gordon's weary yet grateful voice. "I'm going to reconnect with Tim. Talk to you soon."
The link soon disconnected, leaving Pennyworth to resume his watchful duties over the unmasked Dark Knight.
"Just a little bit longer, sir." Walking over to check his pulse, the protector of Gotham's protector allowed himself to express more emotion than his professional role would typically call for.
Bruce's heartbeat was becoming weaker and weaker by the moment.
"Help is on the way."
Author's Note: Hope you enjoyed this one. Really enjoyed writing the Selina/Dick dynamic. Next time, I suspect there may be a few surprises in store for the impromptu duo. As always, feedback and reviews are much appreciated. Even more to come soon!
