Work Text:
Sunset is damn near the only time Selina Kyle thinks Gotham City could pass for beautiful; the burnished gold and burnt orange and ferocious pink of the last of the sun’s light ripples out through the fog and smog. It’s a warning, as much as it is a farewell. Whatever safety daylight brings to Gotham, it’s fragile and fleeting, and the more privileged denizens chase golden beams home, where presumably safety shelters them until morning. Selina doesn’t like to consider herself fanciful, but sometimes she wonders what that kind of innocence must feel like. Where she sits, dangling over the edge of a fire escape, waiting for inky night to smear into the horizon line, it feels so far away.
She loops her arms over the railing, chin settling onto the only patch of metal that’s reasonably clear of rust, and lets out an impatient huff. It takes so much longer for the sun to sink in summer, and it makes her work so much more unforgiving than the long nights of winter. Patience is an important part of theft, but it’s a skill that sixteen years of life haven’t managed to instill just yet.
Selina is still frowning into the distance, when she feels the fire escape rattle and groan, as it accepts new weight onto it’s precarious structure. It only takes a quick glance to confirm the small frame and blonde hair belong to Holly, however, so Selina resumes her brooding as she waits for the girl to reach the top landing. Her legs are sweat-sticky where they brush against Selina’s, but it’s the slow-blooming bruise on the twelve-year-old’s face that catches her attention. Holly doesn’t seem to notice, too busy hooking her arms over the middle rung of the railing, leaning forward in a mimic of Selina’s pose.
“I was afraid I missed you,” Holly announces, sounding not at all like she looks: brash and confident, despite the bruise and the red that frames her big brown eyes. “Guess it’s not dark enough yet?”
The truth is, Selina needs to get to work regardless. There’s nothing in this part of town worth stealing, and by the time she gets where she needs to be, it’ll be dark enough to slip into a good position. She can’t afford to miss this score, either - there’s rent due at the end of the week, and the only thing in her fridge is half a carton of dried-out rice and a bottle of ketchup with a negligible expiration date. Unfortunately, the sudden weight of Holly’s head against the side of her shoulder feels like a much more pressing matter.
“Not nearly dark enough,” Selina agrees, looking over her shoulder at Holly. She’s a brave kid, and that’s a good thing. Nobody in this neighborhood gives two shits if someone slaps their little girl around, or really about little girls in general. That is a fundamental truth Selina knows without question. It’s the brave ones who survive to adulthood, who do something about their circumstances. “Want to go get some dinner?”
She can’t afford it, but that’s never exactly stopped Selina before, and maybe she can’t help seeing herself in Holly - wants to be something to the kid she’s never had. In any case, Holly jumps up fast enough to make the fire escape sway, and Selina is surprised to hear her own laughter echo down into the alley below.
—-
They catch a bus to a better part of town, and it’s already dusk by the time they arrive. Holly has spent the entire ride asking Selina all kinds of questions the older teen doesn’t particularly want to answer. Really, she likes the kid, but she’s not exactly interested in explaining to Holly that romance is probably dead, and even if it wasn’t, there’s not a lot of room for anything genuine in her life. (It’s not something she wants to talk about on a bus, or to a little girl who still has some kind of light in her eyes.)
So instead, she teaches Holly a few tricks of misdirection to kill the time, and before Selina realizes what she’s doing, they’re off the bus, and she’s standing on a street corner whisper-instructing Holly Robinson in the fine art of pick-pocketing. Even Selina knows how irresponsible it is to let the kid practice for the first time here, though, so she does the honors of demonstrating and also acquiring money for dinner. It’s almost comical, the look on Holly’s face, when Selina holds up the fifty dollar bill at the end of the block, and even if it means Selina has to pick pockets for the rest of the week to feed herself, she thinks it might be worth it.
Dinner comes out of a food truck, something hot and spicy, and luxurious to a pair of teens who’ve been eating cold leftovers for at least a week. It’s cooling off rapidly now that the sun is gone, and Selina becomes more and more aware of being out after dark. Which is….new, and she can only assume it’s because there’s a kid to look after.
“Hey, Holly. Let's catch the bus back now, okay?” She points to an ice cream truck ahead, and grins. “We can get popsicles or something to eat on the way home.”
It’s probably more food than Holly’s had at once for as long as she can remember, but she doesn’t seem to be paying attention to Selina. Instead, she’s staring down an alley, and when Selina glances that way, she sees what Holly does: a sleek young cat, entirely too thin, blinking out at them.
“Well, shit.”
—---
Of all the ways Selina Kyle has intended to spend her evening, this isn’t one of them. Holly is covered in little scratches, which Selina can’t even see anymore in the dark, and the pair of them are standing underneath a tree in Robinson Park.
(The irony of the name is not lost on Selina, but she’s presently too annoyed to find it amusing.)
She can hear the distinct sound of a can’s pop-top being peeled back, and the sudden aroma of tuna is almost enough to turn Selina’s stomach. They bought four cans several hours ago, after Holly first discovered the cat, and now Selina has nothing but resentment for the odor. Above them, the black cat hisses, which is absurd because they’ve fed the damn thing more than it’s ever had in one night before. She’s beginning to also resent her fondness for strays: girl and cat alike.
“Holly, I don’t think he wants to be friends.” Selina can only just see Holly’s silhouette, framed by the park lights some distance away. This is an objectively terrible place for two teenage girls to be at
any
time of day, but particularly in the dark. They’re both runners, not fighters, and every instinct in Selina says to snatch Holly up and run. Instead, she squints up into the tree, attempting to identify which dark shadow belongs to a malnourished cat. “Maybe we should let him be?”
“Everyone needs a friend, Selina.” Although she can’t see the girl, she can easily envision the stubborn jut of chin. “Besides, I don’t like tuna. It’ll go to waste.”
Selina sighs, because she’s smart enough to know when she’s cornered. “Okay, give me the can.”
It takes a few seconds of fumbling to find each other’s hands in the darkness, but Holly slides the canned tuna into Selina’s grip. Honestly, climbing an unfamiliar tree in the dark is a fully
stupid
thing to do, and she’s going to have to do it one-handed. She reaches up to feel for the biggest branch, and ignores the ominous hissing above her.
“Listen, buddy. We both know you want the damn tuna.” She finds the branch she wants, and jumps up enough to hook her arms over it. Not for the first time, she envies all the neighborhood boys who can so effortlessly pull themselves up onto things. It takes balance and effort to swing her legs up onto the branch. “So stop hissing and let me give it to you.”
On the ground below, Holly giggles. It’s the first time she’s properly sounded her age.
Selina grits her teeth, and feels around for the next branch, while the cat’s sharp hiss settles into a low growl. Okay, he’s probably scared. He’s been cornered, too. She finds her next perch, and repeats the process, slowly making her way several more feet into the air until she can finally see the cat’s amber eyes glowing down at her. She pokes into the can of tuna, pulls out a few pieces of meat, and nudges it onto the branch.
The cat stares at her. She stares back.
After a few minutes, it creeps forward, and carefully eats the pieces of tuna as refined as if he’d been at some fancy restaurant. Selina’s about to add another piece when a sudden weight drops to her shoulders; she nearly falls out of the damn tree, but recovers her balance as the cat leans over to shove his head into the tuna can. She can feel his rumbling purr.
“Hey, Holly? What do you think we should name him?”