A Gotham Christmas, part two - Selina.

[Part one]


I was lying of course, when I told Alfred I had somewhere to stay. I hadn’t been back to Gotham in four years and the last time I was there I was a brain-broken mess with grave dirt still under my nails. All my nests and safe-houses in the city belonged to my Robin days and there wasn’t one Batman didn’t know about. Not safe ground to lay my head.

It was nearly dawn and I was exhausted. Talking with Alfred for the first time since before I died left me so drained I could barely steer my bike. I could have walked into any hotel and take a room. I had money and identities strong enough to stand up to even Bruce’s detective skills but I wasn’t there as Jason Todd. I was there as Red Hood.

I didn’t know if Alfred would tell Bruce what had happened, or if Bruce would find out another way but... I couldn’t deal with him right now. I needed rest.

I don’t know if it was the time I’d spent with little Cat or Alfred’s mention of Selina but I found myself turning north, towards the old Haynes building.

It surprised me to find that the area had been gentrified a whole lot since my time. The once abandoned old department store had been gutted and turned into a trendy nightclub. Even so close to dawn, party goers wandered onto the streets like confetti in the wind. But the roof was still the same.

I nearly fouled the jump and found myself dangling over a six story fall by my fingertips. Good thing my reflexes are still sharp, even if my mind was half asleep already. I dragged myself up and through the hatch behind the south gargoyle.

Just before WWI, Alberto Haynes – an Italian immigrant opened a little general store on what had once been the northern edge of Gotham. By the forties, it was the grandest, most lavish department store in the city. In the sixties, the great grandson of said Alberto, keen to keep the family business afloat, invested everything into building a railway station on the roof, hoping to connect it to Gotham’s elevated train system. However the city engineers refused. The foundations of the building would have been shaken apart by the vibrations and weight of the trains. Bankrupt and in disgrace, Haynes had the rooftop station boarded up and a year later, the building was abandoned.

Why this little detour in to Gotham’s past? Because knowing shit like that could save your life one day. The fact the station was still there, in all its art decoesque glory was a secret known to me and one other – the beautiful Selina Kyle, known to most of Gotham and the world as Catwoman.

Sel’s safehouse in the old station master’s quarters had the sort of style that made you think of film noir – black velvet, red silk and dangerous liaisons. It was everything that remembered and loved about her. I had no right being there but I fell into that bed without a single thought and was out like a light.

The sound of pearls on cut crystal woke me but she leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Go back to sleep.” Her voice was as dark and smooth as smoke and for a moment I thought I dreamt it. But then she slipped into the bed beside me, her satin skin warm against my own as she brushed her fingers over my eyes, closing them softly. “Sleep.”

The sun was low through the geometric coloured glass when I opened my eyes again. She was still there – my first crush and in the truest meaning of the word - my first lover. All sleek skin and toned muscle. The greatest catburgler in the world and the embodiment of feminine grace.

The corner of her lip twitched as I looked at her, her eyes still closed. “I can hear you thinking, Jay. And it needs to stop.” She rested one lazy hand on my shoulder and pushed me down.

It had been five years since the last time I’d been in her company and in her bed. A dark and stormy night in more ways than one. She had sheltered me, taken me into her arms and with gentle words and even gentler actions; taught me how to make love. A street whore from age twelve, I knew the mechanics of sex but she taught me the meaning of pleasure. I had been two month shy of my sixteenth birthday and very soon to die.

Five years and the lifetime between that night and this. I buried my face between her thighs and gave back all she had given me so long ago.

It was dark before we prepared to part with no more words than that. She pulled up the zip of the formfitting suit as I laced up my boots. She looked at me for a long time, goggles dangling. “You shouldn’t have come back, Jay.”

I shrugged, unable to meet her eye.

She lifted my chin. “Forget Gotham. Forget him. Make a new life for yourself.”

I pulled away and shook my head. “I can’t run anymore. It has to end. I have to end it.”

Her hand was at my throat then and I could feel the razor tips of her clawed gloves prick the skin over my jugular. She pulled me into a violent kiss, splitting my lip. She lapped at my blood, hissing sharply as she kissed me again. Her eyes were a feral green that made me think of Eric.

She threw me back onto the bed, still kissing me with a brutal intensity that left me breathless. What passed between us then had nothing to do with affection but deep and visceral lust. Our day of lovemaking had broken to animal need, like sudden thunderstorm and somehow I knew this was her way of saying goodbye.

She left me there, bleeding from a hundred shallow scratches and some not so shallow. Some that would scar and mark me forever. A sign on my skin of what she had done to my heart. What we had done to each other.

Night had fallen as I cast my jumpline, the red mask covering my face as I threw myself into the Gotham sky. I would never see her again. That I knew for sure. This too must end.


[Part three.]

A Gotham Christmas, part three - The Joker.

[Part two]


It wasn’t as hard to find the Joker as I’d expected. I don’t know if it was luck or fate that the police scanner in my helmet caught the codes for a robbery downtown.

Star Labs. The only place in Gotham with the facilities to make Strychnodide - one of the main ingredients of Joker Venom. It didn’t take a detective to work that one out.

I made my way over the rooftops, finding my rhythm swing by swing. Gotham; the city that made and remade me. My womb and my tomb. Months of training back in the bar, sleepless weeks of redesign and modification to refine my suit - all for this. But being there, breathing Gotham’s smog laden air brought my senses back into focus like nothing else.

I felt alive again, driven and purposeful in a way I had not known for five years, or even known I was missing. Tonight I would kill the Joker. Tonight I would revenge myself.

The only problem was Batman.

The trail to the Joker was too easy and too clean. I wouldn’t be the only one hunting tonight.

Better to move fast and make the most of whatever unhindered time I had.

The Joker’s goons were as slow and predicable as I remembered them and it was painfully easy to pick them off one by one, downing and silencing them. I didn’t kill them. I could have, there was no reason not to but something about being back made me fall into my old non-lethal training.

And then I had him, a perfect line of sight on the Joker. The green hair. Stupid purple suit. That rictus smile. My hands, already resting on the butt of my pistols clenched and tightened. And shook.

I thought I could do it. I thought I’d be able to face my murderer without feeling the panic and bile rise in my throat. I had rehearsed this moment in my head over and over for so long and now the time had come and I was shaking.

Each bone that broke, every wet gurgle as my lungs collapsed, the sound of steel on skin as the crowbar shattered my young body. And his laugh. Oh hell, the sound that has haunted my ever night since. I swallowed hard, trying to push back the fear.

I hesitated too long, just a second too long. He turned and saw me.

He was talking, trying to banter with me but I fought to block out the words. Instead I found my knife, Talia’s knife. I was going to do this right. Up close and bloody, and with my own hands.

I ran at him but the air filled with green gas and the seals on my helmet visor slammed shut. Joker venom. I switched to infrared and gave chase, throwing a line as he jumped from a window. The fear was gone now, replaced with the rage that had fuelled me thought the darkest nights. I wanted him dead. I wanted his blood on my hands and to watch the light leave his eyes.

I was so blind in my rage that I didn’t realise at first he was leading me towards populated area. Civilians. Oh shit!

There was green in the air again as he tossed deadly party favours towards the crowd of late night shoppers. Somewhere in the leg of my suit, fail-safes kicked in. An auto-injector shot anti-venom and adrenalin into my thigh and I grunted painfully. Can’t fight if you’re dying but the second’s distraction was costly.

And then someone in the crowd screamed and I saw the wings of his cape ripple against the sky.

Batman had arrived.

Joker’s goons had somehow caught up with us and a fight to keep the civilians safe become a fight to survive.

We moved in tandem, covering each other’s back and reacting to each other’s strikes. Five years lost and fighting at his side still came as naturally to me as breathing. I hate myself for how good it felt. How much I loved it.

“Nice of you to join the party.” I muttered, turning around him to catch a batarang from his belt and throw it hard, breaking the hand of goon just as he was about to release more gas.

“Now isn’t the time.” He growled in return.

I hate myself more for how good it felt to hear his voice.

Then for a moment the crowd seemed to part and I had a perfect line on the Joker. My instincts were so sharp, my mind so in the moment I didn’t hesitate this time. My pistol snapped into my hand like an extension of my own body. My finger moved over the trigger, smooth and steady and without uncertainty. I had him. His laughing face in perfect silhouette.

The bullet left the barrel just as Bruce’s batarang connected with my hand. I grunted, feeling the left metacarpal break. The bullet skewed grazing the Joker’s cheek and turning his ghostly complexion bloody.

He cupped his bleeding face and frowned. “Ouch! That actually hurt! You might be wearing my old shtick but that doesn’t give you the right to mess up my look!”

I swapped hands smoothly, pushing down the pain to take another shot but he was running and Bruce was barrelling down on me. I know I clipped him but the wound wasn’t fatal, not fatal enough. I missed. I failed.

And Bruce was on me. The thrill of fighting with him dissolved into bitter rage as we clashed, circling and snarling like tigers. He tried to reason with me, intimidate me into standing down. I don’t even remember his words. All I heard was the sounds of the Joker getting away, his laugher ringing in my ears.

“Why!” I screamed, kicking his legs out from under him and yanking the cloth of his cape to keep him off balance. “Why let him live! He killed me, he took me away from you and you let him live!” I could feel the spit on my lips, the rage in my heart. “How many people have to die before you wise up? After what he did to me, to Barbara! How many more will die?”

I had him pinned down, my knee on his wrist and I landed punch after punch. I felt more bones break as his cowl cracked.

“It’s not our way.” He gasped, rolling us over and ripping the knife from my hand.

“Your way!” I shouted. “Your way. Because of your way, children die!” I had him again, my hands on his throat. “I died because of your way!”

And then a kick that sent me flying. It wasn’t Batman. It was Nightwing.

My big brother.

I tried to draw breath but at least two ribs were broken. Dick was on me, beating me back as Bruce tried to get up. I couldn’t see his eyes behind those demon red lenses and he couldn’t see mine but I knew there was no love in his expression.

It was all I could do to keep him from overpowering me. I couldn’t win. At this point, I wasn’t even sure I could get away safely.

And then there were sirens and flashes of red and blue. The cops had arrived. It was time to go. Again, training kicked in and all three of us scattered, vanishing into the shadows.

I limped away, swinging up to find a rooftop on which to safely lick my wounds.

I had failed. The Joker was still alive. The man who murdered me was still alive and I was laying on the gravel of Gotham’s ceiling, feeling my body fight me for every breath.

I cried then.

And it stated the rain. As if the city understood. Maybe Gotham still cared after all.

[Part four]