Batman and Catwoman: Crime Comic? or Romance Novel?

Keeping Up

The elevator doors shut noiselessly, but the penthouse still echoed with the sound of the lamp and decorations shattering on the floor. Roland Daggett let his tornado of anger leave its mark behind him as he crossed the room to the bar. The glass was easy to reach but the effort it took to open the bottle riled him up even more so that the cup went flying towards the stairs and the alcohol was drunk from the source.

With his face turned to the bar, he felt the breeze come in from the just opened terrace doors, and he expected that to be his assistant, Stryver.

"How far has Milos gotten? There was supposed to be a run tonight!!"

He chugged his drink and didn't wait for a reply.

"Call him, and tell him I am NOT waiting longer."

"Such impatience for such a little man."

Daggett spun around towards the voice that wasn't Stryver's.

"Y-you!" He waved the bottle accusingly at the young detective casually sitting on the arm rest of his sofa seat.

"You're breaking and entering!"

"You've done worse."

"I haven't done anything!"

"But you've sent your men to do your dirty work."

"You can't prove any of it."

"Just like you can't prove my being here." Blake got up and walked towards Daggett.

The CEO staggered back and scoffed a laugh.

"I-I have cameras." the liquid swished out of the bottle as he swung his bottle-holding hand towards the cameras.

"They won't run till I let them," a new, darker voice joined the duo.
"You stole the Gerbinites from the museum."

"Last I checked, you kept them from being stolen."

"But I bet if I look, I'll find a stolen Wayne Enterprise centrifuge in your possession." Blake pretended to read from a flip pad.

"You go after a drug stone, steal a centrifuge, your company's a pharmaceutical. It won't be hard to pin this one on you. What are you planning?"

"You haven't figured it out?" Daggett mocked surprise and wagged a finger at the vigilante. "I'll tell you! I'm not making the drug, I'm making the antidote! I'm the hero! You pin me, you'll be the fo-"

Batman was in his face within a second, holding Daggett by his collar.

"Where's the machine?!" He roared.

"Go ahead, search my warehouses. You won't find nothin'!" Daggett laughed, fully aware that the machine wasn't in any of his places.

"I'll get some uniforms, we'll check his places out. Can't hide an industrial centrifuge just anywhere."

John walked back to the elevator, and Daggett watched him leave, but the second he turned around, the Batman was gone.

Outside the building, John leaned on his bike, his arms crossed over his chest as his foot tapped impatiently. Five minutes after he had come out, Daggett stumbled out of the building, Stryver right behind him. The assistant opened the passenger door for his boss, then ran over to the driver seat. Not a second after Stryver raced the car out onto the streets, the blue and black motorbike raced after it as the Batman followed his target from above.

OoOoOoOoO

Catwoman squatted behind the brick ledge of the abandoned apartment complex. She stayed hidden in the shadows as she watched some upper class thugs strutting around the bar with either a gun or drink in hand. Usually she'd say something to Isis*, but her pet was the reason she was here. Whatever their plan was with the drugs, Isis was going to be one of their involuntary guinea pigs. Selina was angry and worried, and she knew she shouldn't be here in such an emotional state, but that grey cat was her only family. She crept closer to the edge, like a cat stalking prey. Her gaze was stuck on Milo, the drug lord, who was carelessly trying to convince a shaken up Roland Daggett. They became interrupted by men wearing lab coats, who kept walking in and out of the room. She moved on the roof, following the "scientists" with her eyes, down to the lowest floor of the building.

Selina made a quick and rash plan and leapt across to the other roof, but only her toes landed on the a/c while her heels pulled her back. She recognized her mistake the second before her feet slipped off the vent system, and off the roof, and she prepared herself for a pancake landing. It didn't happen. Strong arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her closer to their body, and Catwoman opened her eyes to the pointy winged bat emblem blared across his chest. The Batman. With one arm he held on to her, stronger than rollercoaster railings, and with the other he held the grapple gun which pulled them back to the same roof across, luckily unnoticed.

Once back, he placed her on her feet and she had to steady herself from the gliding. Batman was only an arm crossing away from being really mad at her, but Selina only took a second to sigh in relief before she went back to being her coy self.

"Well darrlin', we have to stop meeting like this!" She swayed her body as she stepped closer.

"If I thought that, you'd be lying down there dead."

"But that's not something you're willing to allow," she sing-sang as her fingers danced across his kevlar chest.

"Why are you here, Selina?" Batman asked, refusing to fall prey to Gotham's siren. "For a cat?"

The last bit struck her close, and she walked back.

"Isis, is not just a cat. She's family, my only family. You seem like one who would understand, fighting for the only few people left in your life?"

"You have family. Dr. Tompkins? Jennifer? Jim Gordon?" he visibly paused. "Even the Waynes."

Selina turned back to look at him and scoffed a laugh.

"Wayne? You mean Bruce. Why'd you say his name like that?" she snorted. "Jealous?"

"That would imply I have feelings for-"

"But you do, don't you?" She caressed his exposed jaw.

"You shouldn't be here, Selina. Not around these people," he said as he walked away, avoiding her question and care.

"You do care about me." she whispered to herself, but loud enough that he heard, and he sighed.

"Enough to not want to see you get hurt."

Selina smirked and leaned back over the edge.

"Let's test that theory," she teased with mischief radiating in her eyes.

It took him half a second to realize what she meant to do.

"Selina! What are you-" she jumped off before he could finish and he leapt off after her. He was just about to grab her when she pulled out her whip and wrapped it around a flag pole, swinging around it to land on her feet. He put out his own grapple gun just barely before it would have been too late and tumbled into a landing a few feet from her.

"Try to keep up!" She smiled at him and stealthily made her way in to the building.