The Eye of Anubis - Chapter 02 (Part 03)
Main Pairing: Batman / Catwoman
Rating: PG-13 for now
Author's Notes: Arsenal needs to learn that you shouldn't play with stray Cats.
Summary: Being the Hand of a Goddess isn't easy, especially when duty pits a girl against the Dark Knight, but the new Catwoman has a mission, and nothing is going to stand in the way of its completion. Not even Batman.
The Eye of Anubis
By Nightmare and Winged Dreamer
Chapter Two, Part Three
----- Chicago, A Few Nights Later -----
"Sorry," Arsenal muttered at a sleepy pigeon glaring at him from a good twenty feet away as he yanked his crossbow bolt free of the concrete case of the water tower at the top of the Marina City building. Another sharp yank on the bolt's rope released the metal stake from a building across the street and he quickly reeled in the rope around his hand. Tucking the whole thing back into his quiver, he stared out over Chicago and wondered what he was doing out here when Roy Harper could have been asleep in his hotel room with his daughter Lian curled up next to him. But of course, Roy had felt restless as always once Lian was asleep and decided to go out into the night.
That restlessness had not warranted two hours of absolutely nothing for him to take care of and sheer boredom. Pulling out a set of specialized binoculars, Arsenal decided that if he didn't find anything to do on this sweep, he was going back to the hotel.
One thorough sweep of the glittering cityscape and Arsenal was immediately glad that he had chosen the top of the Marina City building as a vantage point over Chicago. Just a handful of streets away, there was something odd about one of the Field Museum's skylights. Finally, something interesting for him to do.
Not ten minutes later, Arsenal was flat on his stomach on the museum's peaked roof, his side pressed against the roof's decorative edging to hide as much of his body in shadow as possible. His gaze and gun were firmly trained on the single open skylight not twenty feet away. Someone had gone inside that way to avoid alarms, and if they didn't want security chasing after them on their escape, this was the way they would be coming out. Roy grinned. The poor sap wasn't going to know what hit them.
Ten more minutes ticked by before anything happened. The first thing Roy saw was a single gloved hand catching the edge of the skylight. Immediately followed by its mate, it gave the impression that whoever was coming out had jumped up to catch the skylight's sill. The rest of the intruder followed only a second later, a cat-eared cowl preceding the shapely, black-leather clad woman out the window as she rose from the darkened void between roof and linoleum. Once solidly on the roof, she turned and carefully shut the skylight once more, double-checking it as if she were a security guard before straightening again. Looking satisfied with herself, the moderately buxom, curvaceous young woman turned to leave.
Roy watched in utter fascination as the woman cat-strutted away, her hips swinging for balance on the sloped roof, his eyes glued to her leather-clad ass. God, and did she have a nice ass, accompanied by beautiful hips and legs that seemed to go on forever. She moved with an almost hypnotizing feline gra…
Feline! Catwoman!
Climbing silently to his feet, Arsenal crept up behind Catwoman and pressed the barrel of his gun to the middle of her back. "Looks like cats really do have nine lives. I heard you were dead."
Supple, soft looking black leather pulled tight over slender shoulders as the woman stiffened for a split second. She relaxed almost as quickly and reached above her head slowly. At first it seemed as if she were putting her hands up, but instead it turned into a back-popping stretch. When she answered, her voice was a velvety purr. "That wasn't me."
Never having actually dealt with Catwoman before, Roy had no basis on which to test the truth of her claim. All he knew about her, he had learned in passing from Nightwing. For now, it was enough. Besides, he was much more interested in the alluring way her leather one-piece flowed with her beautiful body than if she was the real Catwoman. "Really? Your costume says different. What were you doing in the museum?"
"Browsing. I like to window shop, but I don't like crowds. I prefer… more intimate settings." Without much warning, the woman dove gracefully forward, did a quick flip and then spun, walking slowly back up to Arsenal, completely unheeding of the pistol still pointing her way. It was all over before Roy had really had time to react, but surprisingly, she didn't flee. "Hello, Arsenal," Catwoman murmured and her glossy black lips curved in an alluring smile. "It's a pleasure."
Oh boy. Roy felt his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed, and he adjusted the grip on his gun to get himself back on track. Now was not the time to give in to the pure sexuality practically flowing from the woman in front of him, no matter how much he was tempted. And oh, was he tempted. "It will be a pleasure only if your 'window shopping' was for items in the gift shop and you plan to come back tomorrow to actually purchase them."
"Oh, don't worry, hero. I prefer to look. I didn't take anything." One corner of those voluptuous lips turned up and her voice seemed to drop just a little lower. "Frisk me and see for yourself if you think I'm lying."
That was a trap. That was so very much a trap, and there was no way in hell Roy was going to fall for it, because he knew if he frisked her, he would trigger an electrocution mechanism or release a potentially poisonous gas or chemical or who knew what else. He didn't care if the leather hugged her body like a second skin. If there was anything Arsenal had learned during the few times he had worked with Batman, it was that even skin-tight costumes could hide deadly secrets. Raising his gun a little higher, he gave her a cautiously distrusting look.
"I'd turn out my pockets except that I don't have any." A simple shrug and she folded her arms. "If you're satisfied… I've got places to go."
"That depends. Where is your 'shopping spree' going to take you?"
"Maybe the diner down the street, maybe the nearest hotel for a catnap. I haven't decided yet. I'm just out enjoying the sights tonight. How about you? What brings you out in the middle of a quiet Chicago night? Since we're being conversational and all."
"Business." A lie. Lian had begged him for weeks to go on this trip after seeing a movie that took place in Chicago until he had finally given in, but Catwoman didn't need to know that.
She looked him up and down then stepped forward, moving closer with that same smile on her lips while completely ignoring the gun in his hand. "You sure it wasn't something more along the lines of… pleasure?"
Arsenal could feel his resolve crumbling in the face of her smile. "And if it was? What would it matter to you?"
"That was a bit sharp. I thought we were being conversational." Catwoman was standing in his personal space now, his arm holding the pistol out past her shoulder. A step and a half more and there wouldn't be anything but clothing between them.
A cool breeze off Lake Michigan blew towards them, sweeping the alluring scents of well-oiled leather and female musk right into Arsenal's nose. He felt his resolve crumble a little more. "You said you aren't Catwoman. Who are you then?"
"No. I said that wasn't me. She was my predecessor. I am Catwoman, but I'm not that Catwoman. I'm my own Catwoman, if you will." She let out a soft, amused laugh and took a half step closer. "Isn't your arm tired yet?" Turning around, the new feline femme fatale put her back to him and sighted down his arm and the gun barrel, backing up until there was only a scant few inches between their bodies to do so. It was almost painfully obviously that she was delighting in teasing him.
Quick as he could, Arsenal shoved the gun back into its holster before the sight of Catwoman's supple back got the better of him. "S-So she really is dead."
"Yeah." There was more sadness in her voice now and a lot less of the playfulness though her tone never lost its purr. "I was there."
"Oh. Uhm…" Roy didn't have a clue as to how to respond to that. Instinctually reacting to the sadness in her voice and the odd relaxed state her body language advertised, he murmured, "I'm… sorry."
Now she turned, pivoting to face him once more. Her smile was softer as she offered a quiet, "Thank you." And then she was stepping back one measured step at a time. "It was nice to meet you, Arsenal. Tell Dick I say hello the next time you see him and that I really did have a good time. He made an excellent examiner."
Alarm bells immediately went off in Roy's head at the mention of Nightwing's name, and in that instant he was focused again on his job. "Uh, sure… Who's Dick?" he asked, playing dumb in hopes of getting more information. Either the Outsiders or the Bat Clan had a breach somewhere in their security, or Dick had been stupid and slept with another woman he shouldn't have.
"That would be telling." With a playful wink she began a graceful series of three back flips, each of which brought her that much closer to the edge of the roof.
Muttering a curse, Arsenal took off after her, only to watch in fascinated horror as Catwoman threw herself from the museum's two-and-a-half storey roof. There no other buildings for her to land on and Roy didn't see how she would-
She unwound a whip from around her waist while in mid-flight, lashed the end of it onto the flagpole, and threw herself another two-hundred feet away to land in a somersault on the museum's lawn, barely missing the road. She was off and running before Roy could even think to go after her, and by then it was much too late.
Roy sat down hard on the roof's edge and pulled a communicator out of his belt. "Nightwing, this is Arsenal. Nightwing, you there?"
"This is Nightwing, Arsenal. What's up?"
"I think Gotham's leaking… or something."
"What do you mean, Gotham's leaking?"
"The cat lady's crazy. Fucking gorgeous, but absolutely off her rocker. She said to say 'hi' by the way, Dick." Roy's voice was both amused and taunting and no little bit condescending. "Said to tell you she had a 'great time' and that you 'made the perfect examiner.' … So. Did you get her number?"
Silence reigned on the other end of the communicator for all of five seconds. "The hell?" came the flat remark, followed by a, "I heard you the first time!" when Roy began to repeat himself. "Examiner?! I was just an examiner?! And how the hell does she know my name?!"
"I don't know. Pillow talk maybe?" Oh this was good… It was so fun to rub Nightwing the wrong way sometimes.
"I didn't sleep with her!"
"…You know what? For once I actually believe you on that." Sobering up a little, Roy looked up into the night sky. "I'd say you guys have a problem."
"No shit! You think?!" A loud sigh rattled over the communicator's speaker. "Dammit… If she knows my name, then what else does she know? Examiner… Jesus, she really was just testing herself. But for what?"
"I couldn't even begin to tell you, Wingman." Roy got to his feet and dusted the seat of his pants off. "But I've got a lovable little girl waiting for me back at the hotel. I just thought I'd let you know about this. I'm in Chicago by the way. … Do you think Batman has her number?"
"No, because Batman doesn't even know she's around, and if you tell him, Roy, I will hurt you. What was she doing in Chicago?"
"She called it browsing. Window shopping. She didn't take anything… that I could tell anyway. I'm standing on the roof of a museum. A two story museum that she just launched herself off without a care in the world. Looked like a female version of you only hotter."
"Thank you for the left-handed compliment," Nightwing grumbled. "So you let her get away?"
"And you didn't?"
The only answer Roy got was an unintelligible mumble. "Anyway, thanks for letting me know. I'll call Oracle and get searching for a possible leak."
"Any time, bro. Have a good one."
"Yeah, sure. Hug Lian for me." The line went dead.
----- Blüdhaven -----
Sighing, Nightwing stared at his communicator for a long minute, contemplating the mess he had just found himself in. And he knew it was going to get worse before it got better. Resigned, he turned his communicator onto a familiar channel. "Oracle? Nightwing. We have a problem."
Next in Chapter Three: No secret is safe from the Batman, not even one kept by his kids.
Rating: PG-13 for now
Author's Notes: Arsenal needs to learn that you shouldn't play with stray Cats.
Summary: Being the Hand of a Goddess isn't easy, especially when duty pits a girl against the Dark Knight, but the new Catwoman has a mission, and nothing is going to stand in the way of its completion. Not even Batman.
The Eye of Anubis
By Nightmare and Winged Dreamer
Chapter Two, Part Three
----- Chicago, A Few Nights Later -----
"Sorry," Arsenal muttered at a sleepy pigeon glaring at him from a good twenty feet away as he yanked his crossbow bolt free of the concrete case of the water tower at the top of the Marina City building. Another sharp yank on the bolt's rope released the metal stake from a building across the street and he quickly reeled in the rope around his hand. Tucking the whole thing back into his quiver, he stared out over Chicago and wondered what he was doing out here when Roy Harper could have been asleep in his hotel room with his daughter Lian curled up next to him. But of course, Roy had felt restless as always once Lian was asleep and decided to go out into the night.
That restlessness had not warranted two hours of absolutely nothing for him to take care of and sheer boredom. Pulling out a set of specialized binoculars, Arsenal decided that if he didn't find anything to do on this sweep, he was going back to the hotel.
One thorough sweep of the glittering cityscape and Arsenal was immediately glad that he had chosen the top of the Marina City building as a vantage point over Chicago. Just a handful of streets away, there was something odd about one of the Field Museum's skylights. Finally, something interesting for him to do.
Not ten minutes later, Arsenal was flat on his stomach on the museum's peaked roof, his side pressed against the roof's decorative edging to hide as much of his body in shadow as possible. His gaze and gun were firmly trained on the single open skylight not twenty feet away. Someone had gone inside that way to avoid alarms, and if they didn't want security chasing after them on their escape, this was the way they would be coming out. Roy grinned. The poor sap wasn't going to know what hit them.
Ten more minutes ticked by before anything happened. The first thing Roy saw was a single gloved hand catching the edge of the skylight. Immediately followed by its mate, it gave the impression that whoever was coming out had jumped up to catch the skylight's sill. The rest of the intruder followed only a second later, a cat-eared cowl preceding the shapely, black-leather clad woman out the window as she rose from the darkened void between roof and linoleum. Once solidly on the roof, she turned and carefully shut the skylight once more, double-checking it as if she were a security guard before straightening again. Looking satisfied with herself, the moderately buxom, curvaceous young woman turned to leave.
Roy watched in utter fascination as the woman cat-strutted away, her hips swinging for balance on the sloped roof, his eyes glued to her leather-clad ass. God, and did she have a nice ass, accompanied by beautiful hips and legs that seemed to go on forever. She moved with an almost hypnotizing feline gra…
Feline! Catwoman!
Climbing silently to his feet, Arsenal crept up behind Catwoman and pressed the barrel of his gun to the middle of her back. "Looks like cats really do have nine lives. I heard you were dead."
Supple, soft looking black leather pulled tight over slender shoulders as the woman stiffened for a split second. She relaxed almost as quickly and reached above her head slowly. At first it seemed as if she were putting her hands up, but instead it turned into a back-popping stretch. When she answered, her voice was a velvety purr. "That wasn't me."
Never having actually dealt with Catwoman before, Roy had no basis on which to test the truth of her claim. All he knew about her, he had learned in passing from Nightwing. For now, it was enough. Besides, he was much more interested in the alluring way her leather one-piece flowed with her beautiful body than if she was the real Catwoman. "Really? Your costume says different. What were you doing in the museum?"
"Browsing. I like to window shop, but I don't like crowds. I prefer… more intimate settings." Without much warning, the woman dove gracefully forward, did a quick flip and then spun, walking slowly back up to Arsenal, completely unheeding of the pistol still pointing her way. It was all over before Roy had really had time to react, but surprisingly, she didn't flee. "Hello, Arsenal," Catwoman murmured and her glossy black lips curved in an alluring smile. "It's a pleasure."
Oh boy. Roy felt his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed, and he adjusted the grip on his gun to get himself back on track. Now was not the time to give in to the pure sexuality practically flowing from the woman in front of him, no matter how much he was tempted. And oh, was he tempted. "It will be a pleasure only if your 'window shopping' was for items in the gift shop and you plan to come back tomorrow to actually purchase them."
"Oh, don't worry, hero. I prefer to look. I didn't take anything." One corner of those voluptuous lips turned up and her voice seemed to drop just a little lower. "Frisk me and see for yourself if you think I'm lying."
That was a trap. That was so very much a trap, and there was no way in hell Roy was going to fall for it, because he knew if he frisked her, he would trigger an electrocution mechanism or release a potentially poisonous gas or chemical or who knew what else. He didn't care if the leather hugged her body like a second skin. If there was anything Arsenal had learned during the few times he had worked with Batman, it was that even skin-tight costumes could hide deadly secrets. Raising his gun a little higher, he gave her a cautiously distrusting look.
"I'd turn out my pockets except that I don't have any." A simple shrug and she folded her arms. "If you're satisfied… I've got places to go."
"That depends. Where is your 'shopping spree' going to take you?"
"Maybe the diner down the street, maybe the nearest hotel for a catnap. I haven't decided yet. I'm just out enjoying the sights tonight. How about you? What brings you out in the middle of a quiet Chicago night? Since we're being conversational and all."
"Business." A lie. Lian had begged him for weeks to go on this trip after seeing a movie that took place in Chicago until he had finally given in, but Catwoman didn't need to know that.
She looked him up and down then stepped forward, moving closer with that same smile on her lips while completely ignoring the gun in his hand. "You sure it wasn't something more along the lines of… pleasure?"
Arsenal could feel his resolve crumbling in the face of her smile. "And if it was? What would it matter to you?"
"That was a bit sharp. I thought we were being conversational." Catwoman was standing in his personal space now, his arm holding the pistol out past her shoulder. A step and a half more and there wouldn't be anything but clothing between them.
A cool breeze off Lake Michigan blew towards them, sweeping the alluring scents of well-oiled leather and female musk right into Arsenal's nose. He felt his resolve crumble a little more. "You said you aren't Catwoman. Who are you then?"
"No. I said that wasn't me. She was my predecessor. I am Catwoman, but I'm not that Catwoman. I'm my own Catwoman, if you will." She let out a soft, amused laugh and took a half step closer. "Isn't your arm tired yet?" Turning around, the new feline femme fatale put her back to him and sighted down his arm and the gun barrel, backing up until there was only a scant few inches between their bodies to do so. It was almost painfully obviously that she was delighting in teasing him.
Quick as he could, Arsenal shoved the gun back into its holster before the sight of Catwoman's supple back got the better of him. "S-So she really is dead."
"Yeah." There was more sadness in her voice now and a lot less of the playfulness though her tone never lost its purr. "I was there."
"Oh. Uhm…" Roy didn't have a clue as to how to respond to that. Instinctually reacting to the sadness in her voice and the odd relaxed state her body language advertised, he murmured, "I'm… sorry."
Now she turned, pivoting to face him once more. Her smile was softer as she offered a quiet, "Thank you." And then she was stepping back one measured step at a time. "It was nice to meet you, Arsenal. Tell Dick I say hello the next time you see him and that I really did have a good time. He made an excellent examiner."
Alarm bells immediately went off in Roy's head at the mention of Nightwing's name, and in that instant he was focused again on his job. "Uh, sure… Who's Dick?" he asked, playing dumb in hopes of getting more information. Either the Outsiders or the Bat Clan had a breach somewhere in their security, or Dick had been stupid and slept with another woman he shouldn't have.
"That would be telling." With a playful wink she began a graceful series of three back flips, each of which brought her that much closer to the edge of the roof.
Muttering a curse, Arsenal took off after her, only to watch in fascinated horror as Catwoman threw herself from the museum's two-and-a-half storey roof. There no other buildings for her to land on and Roy didn't see how she would-
She unwound a whip from around her waist while in mid-flight, lashed the end of it onto the flagpole, and threw herself another two-hundred feet away to land in a somersault on the museum's lawn, barely missing the road. She was off and running before Roy could even think to go after her, and by then it was much too late.
Roy sat down hard on the roof's edge and pulled a communicator out of his belt. "Nightwing, this is Arsenal. Nightwing, you there?"
"This is Nightwing, Arsenal. What's up?"
"I think Gotham's leaking… or something."
"What do you mean, Gotham's leaking?"
"The cat lady's crazy. Fucking gorgeous, but absolutely off her rocker. She said to say 'hi' by the way, Dick." Roy's voice was both amused and taunting and no little bit condescending. "Said to tell you she had a 'great time' and that you 'made the perfect examiner.' … So. Did you get her number?"
Silence reigned on the other end of the communicator for all of five seconds. "The hell?" came the flat remark, followed by a, "I heard you the first time!" when Roy began to repeat himself. "Examiner?! I was just an examiner?! And how the hell does she know my name?!"
"I don't know. Pillow talk maybe?" Oh this was good… It was so fun to rub Nightwing the wrong way sometimes.
"I didn't sleep with her!"
"…You know what? For once I actually believe you on that." Sobering up a little, Roy looked up into the night sky. "I'd say you guys have a problem."
"No shit! You think?!" A loud sigh rattled over the communicator's speaker. "Dammit… If she knows my name, then what else does she know? Examiner… Jesus, she really was just testing herself. But for what?"
"I couldn't even begin to tell you, Wingman." Roy got to his feet and dusted the seat of his pants off. "But I've got a lovable little girl waiting for me back at the hotel. I just thought I'd let you know about this. I'm in Chicago by the way. … Do you think Batman has her number?"
"No, because Batman doesn't even know she's around, and if you tell him, Roy, I will hurt you. What was she doing in Chicago?"
"She called it browsing. Window shopping. She didn't take anything… that I could tell anyway. I'm standing on the roof of a museum. A two story museum that she just launched herself off without a care in the world. Looked like a female version of you only hotter."
"Thank you for the left-handed compliment," Nightwing grumbled. "So you let her get away?"
"And you didn't?"
The only answer Roy got was an unintelligible mumble. "Anyway, thanks for letting me know. I'll call Oracle and get searching for a possible leak."
"Any time, bro. Have a good one."
"Yeah, sure. Hug Lian for me." The line went dead.
----- Blüdhaven -----
Sighing, Nightwing stared at his communicator for a long minute, contemplating the mess he had just found himself in. And he knew it was going to get worse before it got better. Resigned, he turned his communicator onto a familiar channel. "Oracle? Nightwing. We have a problem."
Next in Chapter Three: No secret is safe from the Batman, not even one kept by his kids.