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Unexpectedly, the alarms hadn’t blared just yet — She holds her breath, manufactured clawtip resting upon the glass of the box, eyes pinned to the necklace that was kept inside it, chain in the most heavenly silver, pendant crafted with this pure diamond as clear as what protected it.
She feels how her hand tenses over it as she stares, a huntress entranced with her prey. It always makes her heartbeat a little faster, no matter how many times she does it, how many jewelry boxes she fills out, how many of the same carvings she can spot on different pieces with her eyes, sharpened as the gem’s edges. It never gets old. She’s the lioness that keeps on hunting.
Selina grins as she traces the circle around the glass, relishing in the screech it makes in the empty space of the store. The dark bathes her, marble walls and luxurious decoration painting the picture of her surroundings that she breathes in, along with the chandelier right above her head, drapes of more beautiful, starry-small gems.
They scintillate like a full moon in the night sky, she thrives.
The practiced thief in her mind knows how every step after this goes, how she’ll let the chain weigh against her fingers as she makes a run for it. She knows of the alarm that’ll blare the second the circle of glass, perfectly drawn, falls off for her to close in for the kill, reach and take the prize that already belonged to her.
She knows. And the blood still thrums in the tips of her ears when she hears the first shriek of the siren, grin widening and mind quickly counting the beats of the time she’d have left to gather more. Glass falls apart more and more quickly, pearls and rubies and silver and gold coming to her arms through that consumption, the rush of the chase mixing everything into nothing but all-too-familiar motion blur.
Then it stops when it has to. The alarms continue to blare, she goes still in the middle of the store, standing elegant and victorious from the first battle.
He steps in from behind her, she hears the echo of his footfall — Maybe imagines it through the noise, but she knew the sound in so much detail now, it might as well be here.
“There you are.” She says, taking a second before she glances behind. “Almost late. You had me thinking Gotham’s vigilante was taking a well deserved vacation.”
“I couldn’t possibly do this with someone like you roaming the streets.” He bites back, the flash of grit, straight white teeth flashing in the dark. Selina can’t help at how her grin tugs at the corners of her painted lips. “Cease and desist immediately, Catwoman. This ends here.”
“Aw, come on. You know me so well at this point, you’re aware just that won’t work on me.”
She clutches the jewelry in her hands. Some of it would definitely be lost in the fight to come, but she could always come back for it later.
Batman eyes her and she eyes him back. There isn’t a lot of time for any sort of contact when you’re enemies — Somewhat — but Selina knows how to relish what little she gets too. It’s one of her many reasons to be there, to live this way.
Headlines would often paint the Catwoman as someone frivolous, an egocentric, megalomaniac of a woman who was in it for nothing but the materialism, perhaps in an attempt to fill a void, shine light into it through the gold. A rare few theorized behind her motives, penned theories of a possible noble reason obfuscated by the same sparkle.
The truth that sat there, in this marbled, embellished home, was a mix of both, much like all of what Selina was. All of them were pieces in the same jewelry box, shining in different colors but of similar worth. The classy socialite, the passionate animal protector, the skilled thief. She was never incomplete, never unaware of herself. Selina was whole.
(It made those stays at Arkham, temporary as they were, all the more degrading. Having to sit in the plastic-white of the cell as she heard the screech of these madmen, Joker’s manic laughter, Two-Face’s grumbling, Poison Ivy’s mutters toward her plants. She’s nothing like them, to even consider the possibility she might be was a full on insult — But that’s a digression. She’s not there now, and she won't be any time soon.)
But like a jaguar’s bite is stronger than a lion’s, the thief in her was rather overpowering. She knew what she wanted above anything else, from the thrill of the process to the satisfaction of the result.
And she always knew, pupils blown wide when she caught a glimpse of him, what the ultimate prize would be.
“Not saying anything?” She jabs, tilting her head at him, who just continues to look forward, ever so serious, so strong. “Then, I’m afraid I’ll have to go now. The night is young, you see, and I do have my hands full.”
Selina presents her finds of the night, raising them towards him slightly in a taunt, and he rushes forward just as quick as she pulls back, chuckling. Batman tense like a tightly pulled string, though not about to snap in the slightest.
“I’d love to see you some other time, though!”
Oh, he’s perfect.
She makes a run for it — Something that comes as naturally as breathing, posture coiling before it releases in the sprint of a cheetah chasing her prey. She’s the one chased now, in all literal definitions, but when you get to the core of it, you can see how it spirals and reverts.
Because, and she’d repeat it over and over if needed, he’s perfect. Mystery and raw strength and intelligence and willpower wrapped up into a single man, operating on those ideals so completely opposite to hers that kept them locked together like this, both the cat and the mouse at the same time, rushing as they did in this never ending cycle.
Selina feels the cold air of the night against what little skin of hers was exposed, cooling down onto the latex of her suit, and her breath barely slows for a moment as she keeps running, slipping into the path towards the innermost parts of the city. He’s right behind, she hears the quick, heavy sounds of his run.
Now, it’s only a shame that she’s not chasing him in the literal sense.
Runner’s high will do something like that to you — She takes her turns and she sees him in her mind, instinctively clutching at the jewelry. There’s no denying there was something special between them, about the way she felt for him.
Its crown jewel was her sense of wonder towards the man, but it grew into so much more than that, smaller, shining gems connected together that made her so unable to keep her hands to herself, powering that all-consuming drive to reach and take.
It’s the feeling that there was something noble about him, this genuine sense of heroism, the idea that what he’s doing is right, which feeds the actions themselves. From that, the desire to pry into something so unknown and study it down to every last nook and cranny, trace the outlines of how it's carved. What does he think about her, compared to all the others he faces so often, and then by herself? Does he believe her to be a corrupted reflection, or the one cracking the mirror?
Does he think he’s doing her good too, by chasing her through the streets like this? It’s almost a sweet thought, something that clearly doesn’t belong in their current scenario in the slightest — Her taking a leap into another alleyway, so quickly she doesn’t have the time to feel the air of the place, humid and smoky and cold all at once.
Batman as this sort of saving grace, a true dark knight. Maybe he’d outrun her, catch her when she’s out of breath and sweep her off her feet. “You’re better than this, Miss Kyle. You could change.” Or something similarly saccharine, bait dangled just barely over her head, hypnotic.
He’d hold on to her, one hand on her waist, the other holding hers, both of them panting. Tired of this life, aren’t you? The universe would ask in its echoic voice, and they’d embrace, her face resting against his shoulder. She’d smile softly rather than grin. The inky black of the sky is cut through with the white of flying doves, they take a step back from each other and his hands are on her shoulders before they’re on her mask.
It slips. Blond hair cascades over her shoulders and green eyes shine in the dark. He smiles at her too, and couldn’t they have it like this? Both stepped down from their roles in this game, and it’d be like being ripped rather than whisked away from a moment, but wouldn’t the pressure be worth it when the coal turned into a diamond, transparent and pure as it was?
…yeah, no way. Selina would have to admit there’s something sweet to it, kicking the past behind and building this little picket fence around them so it doesn’t come back. Family pictures and fancy dinners, toasting fine white wine and smiling at each other. Spring weddings, two kids and a few cats. No masks, albeit maybe citing them in these inside jokes they’d mutter at each other when laying together in bed.
The tangent makes her think of some of the men she met unmasked, those bachelors who were oh-so-taken with Selina Kyle’s allure. It’s hard finding a good man in the traditional sense when you’re in that sort of environment, the thief in her saw the thief in them when they leaned in and showered her in flattery, looking for a way to climb up the hierarchy of Gotham’s elite, but she’d met the odd few.
Bruce Wayne seemed to be the peak of that rare archetype. A smile like white gold, full of lighthearted jokes and sincerity. She remembers every detail of their more intimate conversations, the time he’d been so open about how the fact she’d served jail time didn’t change the way he saw her, that he believed she was doing her best to be a good person.
Selina couldn’t not be jaded, considering the life she’s led, but even when trying to pry Bruce’s box open in her mind, to find what sort of ugliness he might be hiding, she finds nothing. True gold, rather than just foil. It’s sort of tantalizing, something she couldn’t describe with any word other than sweet.
However, she knew what was even sweeter.
After all, what’s even the point of Batman beyond the mask? Not that she doesn’t think whoever he is without that doesn’t make an exceptional man too, but again, Selina knows what she wants, how to spot those crown jewels. She wants him like this, in the deep dark of the night, buzzing with adrenaline, it’s the peak of his shine.
To think he was capable of something that saccharine, though, only made him all the more tempting. The thief in Selina is rather overpowering, and so she dreams in heists, of taking the most precious treasure and keeping it all for herself.
And she did have the determination to do it all. She keeps running through every ache and swirl of thought, ever so practiced, only stopping on her tracks when there’s nowhere to turn to, and they’re caged between those two tall brick-walled buildings, a chain link fence in front of her, a yellow sign marking the dead end.
But it’s all part of the hunting game, even then.
“It’s over now, Catwoman. You’re cornered.”
She chuckles through her loss of breath, raising hands in mock-surrender before she turns, even though they’re closed into fists.
“Am I, now?” She asks in a purr, smiling at him, whose expression stays strong like steel. “You’re always so confident you’re going to catch me, yet I always find a way out.”
“I’ve put you behind bars before, and I’ll do it again as many times as I have to.” He retorts quickly, taking a step forward, she can detect his intent on trapping her.
Unarmed as usual, too, because Batman doesn’t kill, and rarely ever does he truly injure. That’s a lock to open, if Selina had ever seen any of those. A sliver of opportunity.
“You know I’m really not that bad.” She says, but it’s mostly to keep the conversation going. Her heart still pounds, harsh and fast enough she still feels it all over, that the adrenaline can keep her going for when he charges forward, and she avoids it entirely, feeling the air being cut next to her with the hit. “Don’t you have any more crucial problems to solve?”
Batman says nothing, she takes a leap behind when she avoids another blow, clutching at the jewelry.
“Are you being shy again?” Selina teases, grinning. “It’s okay, there isn’t really any use to it. I already know I’m your favorite.”
“You don’t need to steal like this.” The remark resounds across the alleyway in that deep baritone of his that she adored. “You’re taking away from other people’s hard work for your own enjoyment. .How does it even give you any, knowing this?”
She shrugs, he goes for a hit, tries to pin her against the brick wall, but she avoids it with nearly no effort at all. “Do you think about why being this pawn of justice satisfies you so much, Dark Knight?” She asks him, watches how he grits his teeth. “Exactly. Why ruin your fulfillment by trying to rationalize it like this?”
He takes a moment to reply. A nerve struck, she thinks, her eyes narrowing.
“I’m not doing this for my own enjoyment. I have a sense of duty.”
Her teeth grit too, frozen into the grin. Their fights are always like this, a step forward and a step back, calculated but fast, she kicks and he crouches, he throws a punch and she hops away.
Who else could give her this, along with such a perfect opportunity to rip him away like the forbidden fruit hanging from the tree?
“Oh, you do?” She taunts, close to full on leering at him, and there’s this fraction of a second where neither of them move, their eyes just meeting. “Then why don’t you just close in for the kill already?”
Batman, a single reach-and-take away — She’d have him like the most beautiful, most prized black diamond of her extensive collection. The greatest heist, what crowned her this city’s apex predator.
His carving is in the way he thinks, even in the deepest, most subconscious way, that this could happen the other way around, that he’d be the one to take Selina away from her life in one way or another. He couldn’t, no matter how much time and space he occupied when it came to her thoughts. How incomparable he was to any other men, how well they fit together, even with one framed against the sign that proclaimed the lack of paths to escape through in its doomed tone.
Selina knows what she wants, but does he know that as well, is the question. Is he aware that he’s not just being a hero now, that as much as his deeper intentions hid behind the darkness, with the way her pupils dilated upon his image, she could still catch on to them?
“I’m right there, don’t you see? I’ll surrender, if you can take me down.”
There’s something undeniable there, on his part too. It might not be on the same level as what Selina held, but it colored every action of his. The fighting, the attempts to bring her to justice, are so easy to be seen as their little moments. The times she’s whisked away from the gala to the balcony to share brief toasts and longing looks, the playful banter, eons more lighthearted than what they truly share. Of course, neither of them needed any of this when what already happened, on the other side of the analogy, was so much more satisfying. She didn’t need it.
Stares. Beats counted. The moon gleams above them and the party — The traffic, the city’s bustle — resounds in the distance, noisy but so easy to be completely forgotten.
He reaches for her, takes her hand — Tries to hold onto it, knock the stolen pieces off their balance, pin her in place again — and she sees how his eyes are highlit in the darkness, the wind blowing against them.
He was worth so much more than a lifetime in a jewelry box, absolutely, if he was hers, she’d encase him in glass, have him on a rose red velvet cushion to perfectly preserve every bit of his shine, not a scratch to be placed upon someone so beautiful.
Wouldn’t it be so truly lovely like this? If he didn’t understand what he wanted deep down, she could make him do it, in a way. Not take away his drive, but show him how much better it was on the other side, take him away. They could become unbeatable, if he just let the chains that kept him in this place fall, and made way for others in his power, the thrill of having them piled in his hands.
(Or not even that, if he didn’t want to really join in. Truth be told, she wouldn’t mind just keeping him as her favorite piece of her own collection, either. There are multiple ways to put the same piece on display. She was willing to work with what she had, as long as she had it.)
Movement keeps flashing, thoughts swirl faster, her fingers tense, claws unsheathed with the way she wanted to sink them into something. With the way the images come to her mind, with how close he gets to touching her — Even in these easily avoided attempts at restraint — she has what she wants, although only temporarily.
Selina wants it to keep going so badly more than her limbs ache with effort. She wants to go through with every step of the plan. It’s about the process and the result, in equal measures. In thrill and afterglow, she’d have him either way, as long as it was permanent.
Her breath sucks in fast when she narrowly avoids another blow, and maybe it’s that consumption creating a mind of its own, maybe it’s the adrenaline making her forget her own limitations to such a degree they’re not there anymore, but she charges, fast and hazardous and sharp, and he’s there.
“You can’t do it, can you?” She questions, grinning. Her eyes never leaving his.
Selina’s leg is up, effortlessly with how flexible she is, foot set right next to his knee. The arm of that side holding onto what she’d stolen, the other against the wall.
His back to it, and he’s the cornered one. Still ever so magnificent, strong, near infallible. This mysterious black panther that prowled his way of the darkness, holding danger into himself even when he was completely still, as now.
“You don’t want to.”
He stays, she grins. Jewelry, metal and gems weigh in her hands, but not a thought is spared to the sins on her shoulders, now more than ever. She leans forward, eyes falling half lidded, and he continues to not move a muscle.
To set an objective and reach it, it’s essential to see the target with your own eyes — Whether that looks like elegant Selina Kyle stalking around the jewelry store she’d invade the following night, or the lioness crossing paths with the panther she wanted to catch, that as strong as he was, still couldn’t compare to the multifaceted power of the queen of the jungle herself.
And his perfection means he’s fallible in the way every piece of jewelry is. Man-made, and therefore imperfect, but that was part of their beauty too, what made them material rather than ethereal. He has his sense of duty, his determination, his tactics, but he’s still human, Batman himself, without even accounting for whoever laid behind the mask.
They’re all equal parts of a whole in the end.
Selina can’t tell if she says anything afterwards — Then let me steal you away, she could swear the words were at the tip of her tongue, but she doesn’t hear them, in the same way she doesn’t hear anything else in the following second, and she couldn’t possibly speak up now, once her lips are meeting his.
Her eyes flutter shut like it’s the first time, all so innocent and darling, but it doesn’t last long. She keeps her hand and foot in place, keeps him trapped, and relishes in how he leans into it, paying no mind to the thought of what would come later.
It’s the reach into the glass box before she takes a hold of the target.
He tastes fresh, the lightest hint of sweetness to it that she knew may just be a psychological thing, and she can feel he’s still tense when she leans in more, their bodies close, barred through the stretched, impermeable fabric of their respective suits. She reaches — Presses up more — and feels a hand over her waist that neither of them would mention later, if it ended the way it usually did.
Selina loves him, she does. She loves him in the way those couples in the events she attended could never understand, no matter how much they showed each other off like prizes as they mingled. That was barely scratching the surface of how precious she knew him to be, how deeply she appreciated the way they fit together, through both carvings and cracks.
The way they pull away from each other to breathe is hopeful as the kiss itself, her hand that kept him trapped falling over a broad shoulder, her eyes kept closed. Both of them belonged there, under this moonlight, only barely away from alarms and sirens they would catch on before the stimuli even hit their minds.
And he, especially, belongs here, in her hands. The very thought makes her nails sink into him as they share the kiss, smile still all over her face. The dreams ever so close, the high peaking as she muses if it’s now, in that night that he’d open his eyes, that she’d catch the prey, now that she managed to turn the game around in every way—
“You don’t have to do this” and “You shouldn’t do this” and “You’re better than this” drowning into the deaf echo of the midnight that belonged to both of them. Her lungs burn, not with exertion but with how the kiss goes on, but the urges that only indirectly commanded her grow so loud, she wants to surpass every limit. She wants it and she wants it now—
“You’ll have to give this up one day, Miss Kyle.” …that’s a new one.
When they part again, he speaks, without as much of the bite as he usually did. They’re not enemies in that split second — Or ever, truly, but it’s now that it resurfaces. Selina keeps her smile under the idea that she’s the one to get him in this headspace, at this moment.
“One day, you’ll understand how and why I don’t.” She replies back in this whisper, every word in that exact order could have made up a taunt, but it’s not, and she’s well aware he knows it’s not, even if he doesn’t truly comprehend what it all meant.
Her hand slides down his shoulder, laid over his chest for counted seconds. Is it now? Did I get him? It’s almost a bit embarrassing how uncertain she feels, but he wouldn’t be the ultimate prize if he didn’t also pose the ultimate challenge. He stares at how she touches him rather than her eyes, but even in the dark, Selina could catch on to those blown pupils, even if nothing else on his expression was clear.
She’s running out of time in one way or another, though. To go back to running, to hold onto him as he finally surrenders and lets himself be caught. She stares at her own hand as well, one of the rings she’d taken circling around one of her fingers, fourth of the left hand.
Her favorite catch of the night, she’d concluded in that instinctual second, entranced with the black diamond. And she sees Batman’s hand near hers, the consumption continues to rush in her blood, she takes it as she looks into his eyes.
(She could be so much more vicious than she is, it was all boiling just under her skin.)
It’s daydream-like when he’s still enough for her to lace their fingers together, she’d wonder if it’d even happened if this didn’t go the way she wanted. The seconds continuing to be counted, the decisive moment was now.
The tip of her ring finger meets his, she smiles. It’s a tenderness that doesn’t belong in their usual dance, but it could hardly be called a trap, insincere. Her other hand coming towards this one, she takes the ring between two fingers to slide it, the question hanging in the air heavily.
They’re close enough that he knows she wants him. And, again, it’s a reach away to—
But Selina’s body instinctively recoils. He moves in one of his quick charges, she moves in one of her acrobatic hops, avoiding him trapping her without a thought, she knows when she catches sight of the distance between them now, the tension of his position. Not a word exchanged.
Sounds come back into the scenario. Faraway traffic and bustling and howling of the wind. The ring falls onto the floor, too delicate to cut through the buzz that covered it.
Well, what a shame.
She glances at him one last time, Selina puts her grin back on, nodding in his direction. “Good luck trying to make me give up, then.”
They kick back into full motion, rushing black dots in an even blacker midnight, the eternal cycle of the predator chasing prey. Not a thought spared to the sun that was to rise, or the promise so casually left behind.
She still holds on to her words like both a dagger and precious necklace — Not once had she lied.