Nine Lives [Catwoman]

[The Joker]

Players: The Joker & Selina Kyle
Location(s): Selina's place
Plot Summary: The Joker wants to have a talk with one of his gal pals.


The only sound on the street was the harmony of a man's whistle tied into the rhythm of worn loafer soles tapping the cold stone sidewalk. The Joker was alone on Gotham darkened corners and oddly enough there were no sounds of shouting, gunfire, or sirens ringing out in the distance. The wind of nearing winter was chilly and perhaps that was enough to drive the busy bodies of Gotham back into the warmer seclusion of the great indoors, but of course that would not last; in Gotham the winter time meant that the crimes committed became that much colder. Joker supposed the good people of the dark city just needed to get familiar with the chill first.

To protect himself from the drop in temperature Joker wore his usual purple suit, as immaculate and unstained as ever, accompanied by a green and red scarf that was wrapped tightly around his throat; Harley had knitted it herself. Joker whistled a jolly tune as he stalked down the street with hands shoved into his pockets, his eyes cast at the gray ground as his slender legs made long strides with each step. The Joker had a good friend he needed to see, one that he hadn't seen in quite some time. He had heard she was palling around with Harley and Ivy not too long ago, back when he had taken a bit of time off in light of Batsy's death.

His reasoning for visiting her wasn't at all about the Sirens business though, Joker had nothing against a group of lovely ladies getting together in the midst of his tardiness from Gotham. There were much more important things that needed addressing, and much more personal. Slowly Joker's gaze lifted from the cracked grounds of the city and stared up at the complex that stretched upward before him. It was the home of one Selina Kyle, and very briefly Joker wondered what it was he would be intruding.

Selina was also enigmatic to him. She often played the bad girl on the wrong side of the law, toying around with many she came into contact with and often drawing the attention of one man in black. But there were the other times when she was an ally of the Bat's and actually worked to put the others of the Arkham bunch back in their cells, conversely there were those moments when she could be downright murderous and blow a man's face off - rest in peace Roman Sionis. Joker bowed his head in mock-respect, a light smile on his face as his head lifted once more.

Digging his hands out of his pocket Joker gripped the purple cane he'd been carrying in the crook of his arm and gave it a lively twirl before forcing his way into the apartment building's front door. A few of Joker's men had been placed into position to watch Ms. Kyle's home, it would have been very troublesome had he traveled all this way and the woman wasn't even in, so he knew very specifically that she would be unknowingly awaiting him as he arrived. Once the Joker arrived on scene those lackeys of his were quickly to disperse and entertain themselves however they saw fit while he and the cat were given their moment of privacy; he didn't need those bumbling idiots overhearing anything he had to discuss with the cat burglar.

Joker ascended numerous flights of stairs before finally reaching the landing where Selina Kyle's room lay. The clown's feet were soundless on the floor as he all but hovered toward the woman's door. Usually Joker was nosey and loved drawing attention unto himself, and perhaps he would have kicked Selina's door open or knocked to let her know he was there to see her, but today a different approach was taken. With admittedly very little effort, the Joker picked Miss Kyle's lock and allowed himself into the woman's apartment. He had to clasp a hand over his mouth to keep from giggling too loudly.

[Catwoman]

How incompetent does the Clown think I am? Selina Kyle was not in the most grand mood. She stood in her lavish apartment before one of the tall windows that looked out onto the snow-brushed Gotham skyline. The curtains were drawn almost entirely, providing just enough of a break between them for Catwoman to glare - nose wrinkled in distaste - at the camouflaged form of one of the Joker's goon who was hunkered down on an adjacent rooftop. Did the Clown honestly think that she wouldn't realize her place was being cased?

Either the Joker was underestimating Selina, overestimating himself, or somewhere between those two. Catwoman was sure she hadn't been spotted - stealth was her thing, naturally - and for the moment she'd resigned to play along with the Joker's scheme. The goons that the pasty-faced freak had sent were good. Almost too good to match his usual reckless brand of crime. Had it been nearly anyone else that the henchmen were watching, they would have gone unnoticed. Catwoman wasn't just anyone, though.

In the line of work that Selina had chosen, you didn't just squat in your home and hope that no one found you out. No, Catwoman had a good deal of equipment in use that ensured her anonymity. The Calculator's prices might be steep, but no one could say the guy didn't deliver. Her short, black hair was disheveled in the most stylish way, but beyond that she wore only a black, lace-trimmed tank top and a pair of unassuming charcoal gray sweat pants. The urge to slip into her catsuit was fairly strong, but then the Joker would know that she had been expecting him, and Selina wasn't sure if she wanted that to be the case or not.

What's the Joker playing at? The feline felon's eyes narrowed even more, and she stepped away from her window at last. Selina was cunning enough to know that the Clown's intentions couldn't be predicted. Catwoman was, however, fairly certain that he wasn't planning something... unfriendly for the Princess of Plunder. The Joker didn't go to such sneaky lengths when he just wanted to hurl an exploding cream pie at your face. Selina knew that the creep most likely wanted something from her. Information, her services. Who knew?

Selina didn't, and that's why she was so irritable. Catwoman didn't like playing into anyone's hands, especially the white, bony, spindly knuckles of the Joker. He was the member of Gotham's rogue gallery that the feline felon had associated with the least over the years. Beyond obvious reasons, because Selina didn't like being out of the loop, and she didn't like being ignorant. You couldn't work with the clown prince of crime without being painfully aware that he was going to stab you in the back at the end of it. Sure, any other rogue would do the same, but at least Catwoman felt better capable of rolling with their punches.

Selina paused and took a deep breath. She knew, just as she had known about her apartment being watched, that the Joker was almost outside her door. There was a moment where she decided whether or not to get a preemptive strike on the Joker, or let him play his little game a while longer. Catwoman gave a frustrated exhalation of breath, and curled up on her sofa before a crackling fire and a news reel where Viki Vale was reporting at the ice sculpting contest going on downtown. Selina looked around. Her kittens knew better than to lounge around. Whether because they detected what was coming, or sensed Catwoman's fur standing on end, they had all left for the evening or hidden themselves.

So much the better.

Selina took one last breath to settle her nerves, and picked up a steaming mug of tea, assuming seamlessly the facade that she had been settled down for the night. There was a nearly imperceptible scrape at the lock to Catwoman's door. She knew the sound of a lockpick at work too intimately to not recognize it. Selina could even hear the tumblers rolling into alignment, and unlocking the door. Absently, Catwoman called - not even looking away from the screen. "Make sure to close the door behind you. I don't want to heat the entire floor." So the game would go on... At least for a little longer.

(OOC: Sorry this sucks! I had a much better post half-written, then my comp crashed. -_-# Hopefully it's not entirely awful!)

[The Joker]

"Make sure to close the door behind you. I don't want to heat the entire floor."

The Joker stopped in mid stride, his form freezing in a pose of rigid terror only momentarily petrified. His jaw was slightly slack, his white hand still clasped tight over his mouth, and his eyes wide. The cat had sensed him and knew that he was there, the surprise was out of the bag! No doubt the fools he'd sent to keep an eye on her weren't good enough to escape the careful - and borderline - paranoia of a cat burglar such as Selina Kyle. Joker's plans always fell apart when he allowed too much to hang on the shoulder of the hired help. Unfreezing from his petrified state the Joker tossed back his head of emerald hair and cackled like mad. "Ha ha ha ha ha!"

Slowly he entered into the room where Catwoman was holed up, leaning in the doorway with a grin on his painted lips. The Joker wiped an imaginary tear from his eye and focused on the curled up woman who was apparently awaiting him knowingly after all. "That's why I like you, Catwoman, no one can pull the wool over your eyes! Or fur, whatever you wanna call it - haha. "

[/b] Straightening up ever so slightly the Joker narrowed his eyes on the woman. "Nice digs by the place, I imagined there'd be hairballs all over the place or some sort of extravagant version of hoarders with diamonds and jewels stacked as far as the eye could see. This is pleasantly simple though."[/b] Joker nodded to himself as he looked around the place, carrying himself about as if he were critiquing a new apartment and Selina was barely even there.

He crossed the room with quick steps and soon flopped down onto the couch with Selina, after knocking her feet aside of course. "Feet belong on the floor." He smiled. Leaning back into the back cushion of the sofa Joker placed his arm on the back of the couch and folded back at the elbow so that he could rest his head in the palm of his hand. "Sooo," He sang as his crossed feet waved side to side on the floor. "How ya been?"[/b][/blockquote]

[Catwoman]

There was a moment - however brief - where Selina actually fooled herself into thinking that she wouldn't have to hear it. Then, after a few seconds of silence, it came. The sound of the Joker's skin-crawling laughter. God, it's so annoying, Catwoman thought irritably. She wasn't in a very hospitable mood, despite what her facade may have said. Being visited by the Clown in her home wasn't ideal. Honestly, Selina had thought that her penthouse was pretty off-radar, at least in the eye of Gotham's rogues. Apparently, the feline felon had been wrong.

The pasty-faced creep himself sauntered into the room, and Catwoman only spared him one, vague, dry look over her mug. Viki Vale continued her report. The fire continued to crackle. All the while, Selina felt her patience being sucked dry. Few people could get under her skin so quickly as the Joker. If there was one thing that Catwoman knew about the Clown, it was that he liked the sound of his own, high-pitched voice. She did her best to drown out, or ignore the flowing monologue that he commenced upon entering the room. She didn't even pounce on him when he pushed her legs down.

All in all, Selina was very proud for maintaining her indifferent air. Sure, there was a slight bristling when he actually touched her, but other than that Catwoman kept her eyes on the flatscreen, and continued to blow on the steaming tea in her cup. The Joker flopped down on the sofa next to her, and she immediately thought of purchasing a new couch altogether. A shame, really. "Pretty well," Selina said in regards to the question. "That is, until a chortling clown helped himself into my apartment a minute ago."

[The Joker]

The silly little kitty was trying to ignore him, well wasn't that just precious. A lot of people who dealt in the world of Gotham's underbelly liked to try putting a wall between themselves and the Joker. He was the most famous and the most vocal in their world and not many others appreciated his showmanship, too bad for them Joker was never one to be shut out or ignored. He was persistent and he stayed dedicated until he finally got under your skin - that or he got bored of you and put a bullet in your skull; same diff.

"Helped myself? I was practically invited! You knew I was coming, kitty, and yet you didn't leave or try to stop me from entering. Now why is that?" The Joker leaned a little closer with his red lips pinched together in a thin crimson line, "Hmmm?"

[/b] Selina could play irritated and distant as much as she'd like but the facts were the facts, she had allowed a mad man into her home and was doing absolutely nothing to drive him away. "It's because you know I have something to say to you and you're interested in knowing what that something is!"[/b] Joker retreated from his closeness to the thief and let out a small laugh. "Curiosity killed the cat don't ya know."[/b] His voice was bone chilling, a completely different tone than he'd been using ever since stepping foot through her door; yet the pleasant smiling face remained.

"Straight to the point, right? I know you've been getting rather chummy with billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne, hell the whole world's known! But things have gotten a little bit more official haven't they? That is, if you neglect the fact that you're here in Gotham and old Brucey is....where again? Ha ha hee hee."[/b] The Joker watched the woman's entire body, he hadn't come to really poke at the weakspots of a relationship doomed to fail but he could not deny the amusement it brought him. Leaning forward, away from the back of the couch, Joker scooched to the edge of the cushioned seat. "Mister Wayne is a conundrum isn't he, but an interesting conundrum! All this hush-hushness since his return to the public eye, his globe trotting. I hear rumors kittycat, and they ain't too pleasin'!"[/b] Joker shot a glare at the woman, his face contorted by the anger and malice that was so tightly laced in the very words of his sentence. "What about you? Any rumors about your boytoy that you'd like to debunk...or confirm?"[/b][/blockquote]

[Catwoman]

With every passing moment - every spoken syllable - the Joker was getting harder and harder to ignore. That was only because he was really trying, though. Selina looked over to him without turning her head when he spoke of being "invited". Catwoman hated how easily his words resonated within her. The babbling of a madman shouldn't be thought of seriously, but Selina knew how masterful the Joker was at manipulating those around him. For a moment, she was soundly stumped - falling for his particular brand of insanity. Why had she allowed him access to her home? Her most sacred, precious place?

Catwoman wasn't easy to egg on, though. She knew how to pluck at other's heartstrings too well herself to let the same trick - or, at least, a variant of it - work on her. Selina knew when to play what cards she had. Letting the Joker in rather than ditching, or attacking him, was the best and most strategic move she had been able to make. She just needed to maintain her own self-control until the Clown got bored and left himself. Catwoman was a little peeved that he'd called on her apartment directly, but if it hadn't happened now, it would have occurred sooner or later.

The Joker had a knack for knowing what no one wanted him to. Selina just wondered how long he had been aware of her personal residence. Most criminals were unaware of her alter-ego as Selina Kyle, honestly. It was a secret that Catwoman had kept over the years, and what allowed her to remain anonymous in the public eye. Of course, Harley was privy to that knowledge, and she must have confided in her "Puddin'" after the disbanding of the Sirens. Selina refused to dwell on that, though. If you knew Selina Kyle was really Catwoman, it wouldn't be very hard to track down her public address.

The feline felon managed to remain uninterested in what the Joker had to say, even when he strayed onto the topic of Bruce. Of course he didn't know anything, Selina reasoned. Part of the Joker's madness meant that he didn't want to know what man was behind the cowl of the dark knight - at least, not really. He could toy with Batman whenever the chance arose, threatening to cut the mask from his face, but it never happened. That meant that the Joker was bringing up Bruce just at a bid to get under her skin.

Catwoman looked over at the Clown with a vague light of interest in her eyes, as if she were playing along with the juvenile game of a two-year-old. "Since when have you been interested in my love life?" she asked near the beginning of his rant. Then Selina sat back and allowed him to prattle. Once he was done, a small, sly smile was on the Cat's lips. "Honestly, I could care less what he's up to on an international scale," she admitted indifferently. "I tend not to pry too much at the lives of my boyfriends. It's not like I'm an 'open book', exactly."

Selina looked over at the Joker in a disinterested way. "All I know is that he's great in bed, and buys me expensive things." Catwoman had answered the Clown easily enough. She hoped that all the freak wanted was a little conversation to entertain what would have otherwise been a boring evening. That being the possible case, Selina thought that she could play along. She'd been doing fine so far, hadn't she? Besides, if she could gain a little insight into the Joker's agenda in the process, so much the better. "And what about you?" Catwoman placed her mug on the coffee table. "I heard you and Harley got back together."

[The Joker]

So much like a true cat she was. The indifference, so proudly and defiantly displayed that it borderlined onto complete ignorance of the man sitting beside her rattling off word after word. Joker was certainly not the type to enjoy his words falling on deaf ears, he did not like having others brush him off as if he were non-existent but in that singular moment inside of Selina Kyle's home he couldn't help but smile at the passing moments. Try as she might to play uninterested and stare off in some direction adjacent to the Clown, it was only all to obvious that every single word the Joker spoke struck and sunk in just as he wanted. The Joker did have to commend her through, her bravado was certainly impressive, if even just a tiny bit.

Joker did not come to the woman's home thinking that his mere presence alone would cause her to quake in her boots; she was no Cobblepot. He also wasn't nearly off the hinges enough to think that bargaining or a fight would be her immediate go to offense, that was more the Black Masks' MO. Catwoman was so vastly different from the rest of the rogues gallery in Gotham city, most likely because she wasn't insane like the rest of them; which in a way made her the least sane of them all. No fear and no hostility, instead Catwoman would sit and listen and think. Think that she could stand her ground against him. Think that she could endure his words and antics. Think that she could outsmart the Batman's greatest nemesis. Think that she would be able to survive now that she was most definitely in the Joker's crosshairs.

Calmly the woman stated her uncaring of whatever it was boyfriend Bruce was doing traveling all over the globe; whether it was the truth or not didn't matter all that greatly, it was still not an answer Joker cared for. Bruce Wayne was known to have a string of women on his arm, not many of them lasted the month, would it be totally out of character to not tell Selina what it was he was doing overseas - it was said even his board members did not know. Joker frowned for a moment, his eyes narrowing dangerously at the woman beside him as he tried to will the true answers to manifest out of thin air. But suddenly topic was changed onto him and Joker could not help but beam with delight as his red smile stretched upward. "Oh yes! Harleykins never strays too far for too long. Incidentally, its been said that during our last split that she found comfort in others." Green accusing eyes pointed at Selina.

"The Sirens? Cute. Hahahaha. Y'know I've always been interested in what Harley and Ivy got up to together, as much as I hate that redhead, heehee. But add you into the mix and things get a whole lot interesting-er! Plus the leather and the whip, and things get down right kinky! But no one plays with my Harleykins like I do." The Joker's smile turned jagged, his voice went deep, and his eyes shined with something that seemed very life threatening - for others that is. "Anywho! We're here to discuss you! Well, actually, not really."

[/b] Joker jumped up to his feet, hands behind his back, and began pacing the floor in front of Selina and her comfy couch.

"I've never paid much attention to Bruce Wayne to be honest. He's no different from the rest of the boring spoiled rich brats around here, well minus the whole being an orphan thing - ha ha! Sure I could squeeze a good billion out of him, but that's hardly fun or interesting! No, Bruce Wayne doesn't interest me in the slightest, or so I thought. But here's the thing, Brucey may be putting himself in between dear old me and my pal Batsy. You can see where that'd be an issue, right?" In mid-pace Joker snapped his head to glare at the kitty curled on the sofa. "If he's doing what he's reportedly doing...well, he may be distancing himself from that boring 'who cares' crowd and just may become an interest of mine."[/b] Joker finally came to a stop as his soulless pupils faced Catwoman directly.

"You know how I get when I find an interest in something, just ask Harley."[/b] The Joker's tone was no longer lighthearted, nonchalant, and conversational, now he spoke darkly and with a rasp that choked in his throat like a person desperately holding back something that so viciously wanted to jump out and be unleashed. "If you don't know what it is Bruce Wayne is up to then you'd better find out, and if it is to arm the rest of the world with more Batfakes then you'd better change his mind...or I can administer a chemical bath that'll change a lot more than that." Joker licked the corners of his mouth and then smiled, "Keep in touch, kitty."

The psychotic killer clown then turned away from the thief and peacefully let himself out of her home. He had given her fair warning, a calm and peacefully delivered message that if followed could see her soon reunited with her boytoy and both would be problem free, when it came to the Joker. If his warning was not taken seriously however, Joker would have to visit Catwoman again and the next time around there would be very little serious talk and a lot more torture - in a fair fight Selina could almost without question take the Joker, but he had already gathered her identity and her home address behind her back, imagine what else he could do without the woman knowing. Who could even say if her cup of tea had no traces of poison in it? And of course once he'd taken care of her, Bruce Wayne would be next on his list.

There was only one Batman, one Dark Knight; and no one was going to upset that balance. Not as long as the Joker was around to make things right.[/blockquote]

[Exit Joker]