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Listen, Dani wasn’t her kid.
Selina didn’t do kids.
She’d vowed to never become a parent at age thirteen, because by that point she was basically parenting her younger sister and it sucked. Selina was not Bruce—she didn’t go adopting every kid with sad eyes and a tragic backstory. If she wanted to be a mother, she could’ve married Bruce when he asked.
It started at a museum in Manchester, England. Selina was in and out with minimal issue—living in the same city as Batman made every other heist drab in comparison—but she couldn’t help but notice she wasn’t the only one sneaking around. The other person was invisible, but Selina’s goggles had thermal vision. And they were following her.
Every time Selina glanced behind, that same smear of red would be present in the corner of her vision. It couldn’t be a security guard. They’d have announced themselves by now. They wouldn’t have been able to keep pace as she left the museum, leaping from rooftop to rooftop.
A block away, Selina took off her goggles and mask. The night air felt refreshing on her sweaty skin.
“You know,” Selina said, without turning around, “if you don’t want to be caught, you shouldn’t follow anyone.”
Selina turned to look at where the person had been. She wasn’t concerned about them seeing her face. It was dark. Without her goggles on, she couldn’t see anyone, but she had well-honed instincts. She knew they were still there.
There was a flash of light, and then a kid stood before her.
A kid.
She couldn’t have been older than twelve or thirteen, with iridescent white hair and glowing green eyes. In the night air, she looked like she was made of moonlight. She stared at Selina, mouth agape. “How did you know I was here?”
“Trade secret, kid.” Selina’s eyes fell to the small, bejeweled dagger clutched in the kid’s palm, which she recognized from the museum’s catalog. She felt a breath of relief. The kid hadn’t been there for Selina, hadn’t been sent to spy by one of the many criminals Selina had pissed off. She had probably just been curious about Selina.
“You’re lucky it was me,” Selina added, “I won’t turn you in. But be careful, you don’t want to get caught again.”
Selina went back to her hotel, and this time, she didn’t see the kid trailing behind.
She thought that’d be the last she saw of her.
But then, three months later, Selina was walking through Paris’s 5th arrondissement, scoping out the location of her next heist. It was someone’s apartment; a client had hired Selina to steal the contents of a safe. Selina wandered into the alley behind the apartment building, scanning the area for potential entrances and escape routes. It was also good to note the surrounding windows, to account for the possibility of a civilian spotting her.
She hadn’t accounted for the kid rummaging around in the dumpster, who emerged a moment later, clutching a red beanie.
The kid spotted Selina and scowled fiercely. “Aw, come on!” she said, in English, “How’d you find me again, Catwoman?”
It was a good thing Selina had an excellent poker face.
She’d never seen this kid in her life. Not that she could remember, at least. Her stomach roiled with alarm. How did she know Selina’s identity? If she knew, who else knew? Could the kid be trusted not to snitch?
The kid had ratty, black hair, pulled back in a ponytail. Parts of it looked matted. Her sweatshirt and jeans were covered in dirt and stains, and Selina could smell her from six feet away. If she wasn’t homeless, she was definitely close to it—clearly, she was not being taken care of.
“C’mon, you gotta tell me.” the kid clasped her hands together and leaned toward Selina, bouncing slightly. “I know it’s a trade secret or whatever, but I really wanna know!”
Selina considered denying her connection to Catwoman, but it seemed futile. The kid seemed sure. Denial would only piss her off.
Selina raised a brow. “Fairly certain this is a coincidence, kid. I wasn’t looking for you.”
“Oh, don’t lie to me! Then what are you doing here?”
What was the harm in telling her? Worst case scenario, the kid had some connection to the mark, but Selina had dealt with worse. Besides, it seemed unlikely. The kid’s unwashed attire looked out of place in this wealthy neighborhood.
Selina angled her chin towards the building. “A client hired me to steal a safe from the penthouse apartment in there. I’m just scoping the premises.”
“Oh.” The kid blinked. “I can get that for you.”
Two rings of white light enveloped the kid, transforming her into a familiar figure. The girl from Manchester. Before Selina could react, the kid turned invisible. She returned a minute later, safe clutched in her hands, and turned back to her dark-haired form.
“Did I do it this time?” the kid asked. “I’ve been trying to make my invisibility extra invisible-er—is that a word? Invisible-er? Anyway, did it work?”
Blue eyes stared up expectantly.
“I couldn’t see you,” Selina answered, taking the safe, “But the only reason I could last time is because I was wearing thermal imaging goggles.”
The kid tilted her head. “What’s thermal imaging?”
“It allows you to see heat.”
“Woah, really? That’s so cool! How do I get some?”
“You have to order them custom,” said Selina, which was technically true. Selina ordered them from a military manufacturer.
“Oh man, is it one of those things only adults can buy? Then I’m never gonna get them!”
Something about the way she said it made Selina’s eyes narrow. An instinct she couldn't quite define.
“Hey, where’s your family right now, kid?”
As soon as she saw the kid’s expression, Selina regretted the question. She should’ve known better than to ask. Family was a sore topic for lots of people, nevermind twelve-year-olds with a concerning lack of adult supervision.
“Nowhere near here,” the kid said bitterly, kicking a trash bag. “The man who created me tried to unalive me last time I saw him.”
Unalive, Selina mouthed. It was such a childish word. This was just a kid, who’d been subjected to a terrible life—and Selina better not discover the name of this kid’s father, because if she did, she wasn’t sure she could stop herself from enacting revenge. Selina had plenty of contacts who’d be more than happy to beat up a child abuser.
“And don’t call me kid. My name’s Dani.”
Do you have a trusted adult looking after you? Selina wanted to ask. But she knew from her own time as a troubled kid that it was likely the easiest way to alienate Dani. That kind of question always made Selina panic. Still, she couldn’t in good conscience leave this kid alone without verifying if she was safe.
But what would she do if she found out the kid wasn’t safe? Now that she knew about Dani’s powers, she strongly suspected she was homeless. Dani could steal food using her powers, but finding things like shower and laundry must be tougher.
Dani had good reasons to avoid the authorities. Her father was abusive, and the foster system was notoriously terrible for metahuman kids. Dani’s powers were useful; it would be easy to exploit her.
“Hey, let me buy you lunch,” said Selina.
Dani crossed her arms and scowled. “I don’t need your charity! I can take care of myself!”
“Of course,” Selina said calmly, “I just want to thank you for helping me with my job.”
Dani was more amenable after that, and Selina took her to a nearby pizzeria. While the kid chowed down slices with the vigor of a bottomless pit, Selina was able to extract more information: Dani was short for Danielle, she’d come to Paris to break into Marie Curie’s laboratory and speak to her ghost, but she’d been thwarted by the fact that it was full of tourists during the day. The kid seemed to earnestly believe she could speak to ghosts. Hell, maybe she could.
Towards the end of the meal, Selina was reluctant to leave Dani behind. She suspected Dani felt the same—the kid had been nibbling on her last bit of crust for a long time now.
“Do you want a job?”
Dani’s head snapped up. “You mean like… working for you? Doing all the Catw—”she glanced around, lowering her voice“—all the stuff you do?”
“Yes. I’ve been looking for an assistant,” Selina lied.
“Yes yes yes, oh my gosh, yes, I’ll be the best assistant ever, I wanna learn how to pick locks, can you teach me how to pick locks?!”
“Sure, kiddo.” Selina hailed the waiter and asked for the check. “Let’s go to my hotel—it’s not smart to discuss this in public.”
In reality, this was a test. Selina kept her eyes on Dani, wanting to see if the kid alerted anyone before going into a stranger’s hotel room. She didn’t ever pull out a phone. At the hotel, Selina laid out her terms: 600 dollars a week, free room and board, free food, and any travel expenses paid. Dani agreed immediately. It made something uneasy twist in her stomach. Was Selina exploiting the kid, hiring her like this?
But what else was Selina supposed to do? Leave the obviously homeless kid on her own? Offer her food and shelter, no strings attached? That would be strange and suspicious to anyone with a reasonable amount of caution. If they were in the US, Selina could direct the kid to a Justice League-funded shelter for metahumans—but they weren’t in the US.
Dani watched eagerly as Selina demonstrated the process of unlocking the safe. Selina promised to buy locks so the kid could practice. After, they messed around with the thermal goggles and Dani’s powers, trying to see if there was a way to make Dani undetectable. Dani had some way to control her temperature, but she always made herself either too hot or too cold.
Selina offered to let Dani stay the night on the couch in her hotel room, and she agreed.
“Is there anyone you need to call, to let them know you’re staying?” asked Selina.
Dani rolled her eyes. “No one’ll notice I’m gone.”
Selina laid in bed wide awake that night, wondering what she’d gotten herself into. This was temporary, right? It was just for a little while, until Selina could find the kid a good, safe guardian.
The next few weeks settled into a pattern. Selina and Dani got breakfast at the hotel, then Selina would do any work she needed to get done, and give Dani assignments on lockpicking, or stealth, or memorizing a building’s floor plan. Afterwards, they’d explore the city, tour museums. Selina took Dani on a low-stakes heist—a woman hired Selina to get some valuables back from her ex-boyfriend’s place.
One night, Selina monitored the cameras as Dani broke into Marie Curie’s laboratory. Dani returned a while later, disgruntled: “She was so antisocial! She didn’t want to talk to me at all!”
Selina was bemused. “Why’d you want to talk to her, anyway?”
“I just wanted to know what dying from radiation felt like. Did it—did it feel like she was slowly coming undone, melting from the inside…”
Selina hadn’t wanted to move from Paris quickly, too worried about uprooting Dani.
She hadn’t expected that Dani would get restless. One month in and she was practically bouncing off the walls, begging to leave the city. “I don’t like staying in one place for very long,” Dani explained.
Selina scrolled through flight bookings on her laptop. She’d already paid a contact to get a shiny new birth certificate and passport for Danielle Kyle, but she hadn’t expected to use it this soon. “How do you feel about Tokyo?”
“Where’s that?”
“Japan.”
They went to Tokyo, then Cairo, then Hong Kong, then Jakarta, then Moscow. Selina didn’t really have a plan, jumping between cities where she had previous criminal contacts and cities where they could, “Just lay low and see the sights.” Selina had always loved travel, but it could get lonely. It was far less lonely with a hyper twelve-year-old, who soaked up any information like a particularly enthusiastic sponge.
Dani had some significant gaps in her knowledge. It turned out she didn’t even know how to read. Luckily, Selina was able to teach her the basics quickly, so she didn’t seem to have any kind of learning disability. It made Selina’s heart ache when she thought about it; Dani must’ve been on her own for a long time.
Eventually, they needed to return to Gotham. Selina didn’t have infinite travel funds.
Surprisingly, Dani was excited about it, especially when Selina told her how she planned to make her grand reappearance as Catwoman. They would be robbing the Crowne Gallery in Bristol. There was a showcase of new, upcoming artists, and Dani would be stealing Alfred the Upside-Down Cat by Damian Wayne. Selina didn’t tell Dani about the Waynes’ secret, but she did tell her Batman would notice the theft, and how this was all part of pranking him.
But first, Selina needed to send a message.
DangerousCat to Oracle: can you please disable the camera monitoring Damian’s, and only the camera monitoring Damian’s art during the Crowne showcase on Friday. Trust me, I have a plan. It’ll be really funny. I’ll owe you one.
Oracle sent a message agreeing soon after.
Selina stared at her laptop, grinning giddily. Bruce would have a hell of a time figuring out how she stole this painting when there’d be footage of Selina standing on the other side of the gallery the whole night.
Selina would have a cover story to give him, of course. Something involving holographic technology that she actually did own. She wouldn’t let him discover Dani’s involvement; Dani shouldn’t take the fall for a crime Selina planned.
The night the gallery opened passed slowly, though that was partly because Selina wasn’t the one enacting the heist. She wandered around, looked at other art displays, made small talk. Bruce showed up, too. Their conversation wasn’t nearly as awkward as it could’ve been.
Dani’s job was to hover near the painting, invisible, wait until no one was around, and then grab the painting and fly off. Simple.
There was a commotion towards the end of the night, as someone realized Damian’s painting was missing. Selina, who’d gotten the coded all done text from Dani an hour ago, glanced at the chaos in amusement.
From next to her, Bruce cast an assessing look.
“Who, me?” Selina clutched a hand to her chest. “I’ve been standing next to you the whole night, how could it have been me?”
Selina batted her eyelashes innocently.
Bruce narrowed his eyes.
Dani loved her new painting.
Selina hadn’t explicitly said she could keep it, but Alfred the Upside-Down Cat looked fantastic hanging above Dani’s desk in its gold frame. The cat, Alfred, looked adorable perched on its back with its paws in the air, and the brushstrokes made the cat’s fur look like it was really moving.
Dani was chilling in her bedroom when Robin burst through the window, sword in hand. He glanced between her and the painting, then dashed toward the painting and started pulling it off the wall.
Dani leaped forward, grabbing his shoulder. “Hey, that’s mine!”
Robin pushed her away. “No, it’s not.” He knelt on her desk, carefully pulling the frame off its tack. “You were a fool to steal this painting, I have placed trackers within its frame.”
“That’s cool. But haven’t you heard of finders keepers?” Dani said, hesitating.
She didn’t want to fight this guy. She’d need to use her powers to do it, and Selina had stressed the importance of secret identities. But she couldn’t call Selina for backup either—right now, Selina should be in the middle of a long rooftop chase with Batman, as per their plan.
“I am its rightful owner!” said Robin.
Dani cocked her head. “I thought Damian Wayne was its rightful owner?”
Robin paused, with the expression of someone who’d been caught in a lie.
Dani snickered. “Yeah. You thought you could pull one over on me? Obviously I looked up who painted it before I stole it, dummy.”
Then she punched him.
Unfortunately, Robin was a better fighter than she anticipated, and dodged before her hit could land. Before she could blink, she was facedown on the carpet, hands wrenched behind her back.
Robin attached metal handcuffs to her wrists. “You are a thief. I am arresting you.”
Then he turned his back on her, examining the painting to see if it had been damaged in their scuffle.
Rookie mistake.
Dani phased through the handcuffs and threw them at him. He jolted and caught them reflexively (those were some impressive reflexes) before scowling at her.
Dani smirked. “There ain’t no pair of handcuffs that can hold me.” Then her lips pursed, and her tone sharpened, “Why can’t you just let me keep it? If I do, I won’t tell anyone about how you’re a painting thief.”
“I am no thief!”
“Oh yeah, then why’d you put trackers in someone else’s painting?”
Robin’s silence was very telling.
Dani continued, “Like I get it, that was really clever, cool trick. But why can’t you steal some other painting? This one matches my bedsheets!” She raised an arm towards the comforter Selina bought her: black with gold constellation patterns. “It matches my aesthetic! You wouldn’t ruin my aesthetic, would you?”
Robin was quiet for a moment. “You really like the painting?”
“Uh, duh! Look at those adorable little kitten eyes. Isn’t that the cutest cat you’ve ever seen?” Dani went to say something else, maybe about how there were a million other paintings Robin could steal instead, but Robin surprised her.
He nodded, decisively. “You may have it, then.” He put the painting back in its place, then strode towards her window. Glancing back, he said, “Take good care of it.”
Dani’s brow creased. “Sure, okay.”
Robin vanished as quick as he’d appeared, leaving Dani with a vague sense of confusion. Something about their whole interaction felt off, but she couldn’t figure out what.
Eh, it was probably nothing.
Hours later, Selina returned, and Dani became nervous. She’d have to tell Selina about Robin. What if Selina thought she was incompetent because Robin found them?
Except when Dani told her, Selina laughed so hard she doubled over. “You just—convinced him to let you keep it? Oh, that’s perfect, kitten, never change.”
“I’m very persuasive,” said Dani.
“Are you sure she’s not your kid?” Holly asked, glancing towards where Dani sat at the kitchen table, headphones in, watching the homeschooling program Selina registered her in.
“Shut up,” said Selina, instead of saying she wasn’t sure at all. Every day, it was becoming harder and harder to convince herself this was temporary. There was still work to do—she needed to find some way to tell Dani that she was welcome in Selina’s life anytime, whether she wanted to continue heists or not.
But until then, she’d keep letting Dani brainstorm ways to break into the Smithsonian.