Chapter 1 - The Red Carpet

"So, remind me... why are we after Catwoman again?" Dick’s distant voice whispered.

"For the last time, stop asking, Dick! We just have to find this notebook," Barbara replied over the comm-link piped into her cowl.

"Hey, don't use real names over comms!" Dick warned. His reply was predictably hushed and nervous.

"I didn't, Dick," she hissed back, immediately regretting how short she sounded with him.

"Oh, ha-ha, Batgirl," he said in a hushed groan. He knew she swung the double-entendre of his name around when she was either cheeky or nervous. It was obvious which one it was right now, and it had been all night.

"Alright, you've told me there's a notebook," Dick began again a bit more gently. "I could just really use something more to go on here."

"It's just... it's personal, okay? We have to find it!" Barbara said.

She squinted through her binoculars as Dick prowled past a long, beautiful patio window inside Catwoman's safehouse. Dist: 316m blinked in yellow digital text on the scope's integrated display. He gazed out in the general direction where he knew she'd be watching from afar, shrugged, and shot a coy smirk.

"Suit yourself," he whispered as he stalked off again, opening drawers and running his gloves over surfaces, searching for possible seams of hidden compartments.

Dick Grayson was many things to Barbara Gordon. First and foremost, he was a friend. Probably the closest one she had in the world, in fact. They'd developed that bond through their strange, secret union with the being they formerly called The Batman, someone who they'd both since learned was so much more than just a myth haunting Gotham's skies. Their intense mental and physical regimen under his tutelage also included various exercises in trust meant to root out any doubts and fears they had about each other and themselves. She'd shared more vulnerable secrets with Dick than she had with her own family.

As newly-minted disciples of Bruce Wayne's secret task force, Barbara also came to know Dick as a fighter, and a highly talented one at that. He was a gymnast in his past life, and didn't have the same instinct for combat that she did, but he was a fast learner, and would outpace her someday soon. Flying through the air on a trapeze and fighting were different languages with the same grammar to him. And through those two aspects — friend and fighter — Barbara knew Dick Grayson as a teammate. Someone who would have her back no matter what, against all odds, in any situation. No questions asked.

This time, though, he was asking a lot of questions.

The frigid night breeze dragged cold fingertips through Barbara’s crimson hair while Dick crept across the cone of vision in her binoculars. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she was definitely stretching the limits of his trust by bringing him in on this mission. Cold, midnight mist sighed nervously past her lips at the thought, and she lowered the binoculars. Another busy Gotham City night unfolded beneath her overwatch point atop the Clarefield building. A sweeping granite branch jutted out from the skyscraper's gaudy art deco crown a thousand feet above street level, and she crouched at its tip, patiently keeping a lookout. She felt like a bird sitting on a giant stone tree and watching ants busily work the concrete soil below. Gotham, for all its grime and sin, was a strangely beautiful city. For a moment, that thought made her forget her nerves.

And this, of course, gave her just long enough to feel the unfiltered shame at stringing Dick along without telling him anything. He deserved the explanation he wanted. He was her teammate, after all, and a damned good one for going in blind. That probably made Barbara a bad one. She pressed a finger to the base of her cowl's long, pointy ear, reactivating the mic.

"Hey. Sorry," she said. "I'm... yeah. I'm sorry."

"I know," Dick replied patiently. In the scope, his lips mouthed the words just before his voice spoke in the audio feed. "Just trying to be a good partner, you know?"

"Ouch," Barbara said, rolling her eyes as she refocused the tech binoculars. "Yeah, I deserve that."

"Almost as much as I deserve an explanation," he quipped with a smile. She watched through the scope as Dick hesitated at a doorway, second guessing himself. Catwoman, a particularly paranoid thief, left traps for other sticky fingers and curious eyes in most of her safehouses. Barbara smiled as Dick stepped carefully over a tripwire, and down the next corridor. There was nobody she'd rather have with her for this mission.

"I do owe you one, after we're done here," Barbara said. "I'll explain everything. And I'll take point on the next safehouse if this one's cold."

"That's very nice of you," he replied, "something a good teammate would do."

Barbara rolled her eyes. "You really know how to milk it, huh?" she chuckled.

"Mmm! Milk?" a voice echoed over her shoulder. Barbara whirled and tensed her body instinctively.

A towering, silky silhouette wrapped in purple and black stood just out of reach behind her. Hands rested delicately on curvaceous hips, and deep red lips smiled in the moonlight. Another breeze swept the top of the towering building.

"Cats love milk," purred Catwoman.

Barbara’s hand flew from the microphone button, ejecting the Batarang from the emergency spring-holster under her wrist before she even realized she’d done it. The polished metal sparkled in the night. "Where is it?" she growled at the thief.

She'd spent days preparing for this moment with Catwoman — poring over her case file on the cave's computer, studying her crime scenes, learning her patterns. Now the time had come, only it was on Catwoman’s terms. It unnerved Barbara that she'd been snuck up on so easily.

"Where's what, sweetie?" Catwoman asked. Her voice was syrupy and coy, and she casually caressed her own curves as she drew her hands to her hips. "I put a lot of things in a lot of places."

Barbara's eyes instinctively studied Catwoman's body language. She was calm: gloved arms akimbo, so no weapons in-hand; knees stiff, so not about to attack or pounce. The whip she kept was neatly wrapped around her waist like a belt, and she casually cocked a hip to the side. Her outfit offered a glance of deep cleavage just above the jumpsuit zipper to anyone who cared to look. She was relaxed, and barely even looking at Barbara. It was as though she wasn't interesting enough.

"I'm warning you," Barbara said, standing slowly from her crouch.

"Oh Batgirl. Funny thing!" she mocked. "I'm warning you too."

Relaxed. Barely even looking at Barbara — looking at the safehouse.

Suddenly, in Catwoman's palm, a small handheld detonator appeared.

"Wait!" Barbara cried. Catwoman thumbed open the detonator's trigger guard. 'Explosives Use' wasn't in her dossier. Panic chilled Barbara's veins.

"I really liked that place, you know?" Catwoman sighed. "You guys owe me one."

"Hey, know what else a good teammate would owe me?" Dick's voice asked secretly over the comm-link, his words somehow mirroring Catwoman's. Barbara's hand shivered a bit as she stared at the button in Catwoman's hand and wondered if this was the last thing she'd ever hear Dick say. "A big cup of coffee after we tak—"

"—Robin, get out! Evac, evac!" Barbara screamed in terror over the mic. Then, she wound up, and threw the Batarang.

It flew in a wide, curved arc toward Catwoman, one that'd be harder to dodge. She practiced this throw at least a hundred times every day, and she was confident that the knife would bury into Catwoman's forearm, disarming her. The wind seemed to hold its breath for the blade. It was a flash in the moonlit night.

Catwoman simply turned a shoulder and snatched it out of the air with her free hand. Barbara's eyes bloomed.

"Tick-tick-boom!" Catwoman sang, pressing the trigger on her detonator.

A flicker like lightning split the night open from behind Barbara, and a few moments after, a resounding, thunderous boom. At Catwoman’s safehouse, a massive ball of fire crashed through the same window where Barbara had watched Dick shrug and smirk at her. Glass and debris rained down from the sudden storm Catwoman had unleashed from Gotham's midnight sky. Screams of terror floated up from the street as pedestrians scrambled for shelter. Barbara's heartbeat pounded in her ears, and she dropped her binoculars in shock.

"Hope Bird-Boy made it!" Catwoman cackled from behind her.

Barbara growled and whirled around with balled fists just in time to see the kick that shoved her from the rooftop.

She had trained on the mat for years before she'd even heard tales of a nightmare bat flying through the city. The daughter of a cop had to know how to fight, and she knew from many painful lessons just how to rebound from an unexpected kick: knees soft, stomach tight, exhale on contact. She kept her weight on her heels, ready to roll back rather than resist while she sucked down the pain. Barbara had hit the ground hard countless times, and she'd always stood back up. The ground would be much further away this time, and she'd hit much, much harder.

Batman's training regimen included keeping a ready hand on the amazing, military-grade ziplining tool he'd designed, and Barbara was especially grateful for it now. Instead of trying to resist Catwoman's push kick, she let the momentum carry her out and away from the building, and even jumped with it to soften the blow. In another moment, fine-tuned over hundreds of rehearsals, she felt for the Batclaw's pistol grip on her belt, locked it to her wrist, and fired a zipline as she somersaulted in freefall. The rope connected right where she wanted — directly under the outcropping she'd been kicked from — and Barbara swung.

Gathering her focus, she traced a wide arc underneath, then pulled the retractor button to gain momentum, turning all her downward fall into an upward swoop. She hit the Batclaw's release as she sailed up over the Clarefield building's vaulted perch just in time to see Catwoman bounding off across the roof.

And just in time to realize she'd vastly overshot her swing.

She was quite high up now, and she'd been counting on that to get a good look at where Catwoman was going — it'd just worked far too well. Her arms extended reflexively to use her cape to glide, but it wasn't enough. She tumbled and skidded clumsily onto the rooftop as she came down, and groaned as she pulled herself to her feet.

Glad Catwoman didn't see that, she thought to herself. Or Batman. Or...

"Robin, come in!" she yelped as she keyed the microphone in her cowl, remembering suddenly.

No reply. Barbara blinked away an image of her dead teammate.

"Robin!"

"I'm out!" his coughing voice replied. Barbara glanced at the plumes of smoke belching from the safehouse window. "I'm out. Thanks for the early warning."

"Oh thank God," she sighed as she fell to one knee. "I'm so sorry! Oh God, I'm so—"

"—Don't be. Let me guess — Catwoman was watching?"

Barbara watched as the purple and black silhouette pranced acrobatically to the next rooftop. "Yeah," she said. "Closely. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, I'll run damage control and catch up," he explained. "There'll be a lot of debris and scared people on the street."

"You sure?" Barbara asked, rising to her feet.

"Yes! Go!" he shouted.

Barbara sprung to a sprint that rattled her voice as she ran back to her outcropping to gather up her binoculars. "Stay out of sight and do what you can. I'm so sorry!"

"Stop apologizing and go!" Robin said. "We lose her and this was all for nothing!"

"Not a problem," Barbara said, dashing to the ledge of the rooftop as she caught sight of a grapple point for her next zipline. "I know where she's going."

—

Barbara had been appearing in the Gotham night skies as Batgirl for a few months now. Of all the things about being Batgirl that she loved, seeing the city flow beneath her like a river of rock and steel was definitely in the top five. She wondered if even Bruce could ignore how exhilarating it was to zipline to a building, sail toward it, turn the momentum skyward, and take off flying into the night. She felt powerful and free, like a bird of prey. Every flight was just as amazing as the first.

This was one amongst many of the amazing things she'd learned from Batman during her time with him, things they just didn't teach in university-level criminology classes or at the police academy. The fundamentals — work the case, follow the clues, let the answer reveal itself — had brought her most of the way here. But one distinct Batman-specific lesson that Barbara remembered now was the way he characterized criminals into flowcharts of predictable behaviors depending on what traits they exhibited. Catwoman, a particular sort of thief, was all about the show; she lived for the attention. She didn't want to be caught and imprisoned, of course, but she wanted everyone to know this stolen gem or that missing money was her doing.

Naturally, Batman would call this part of his hunt 'The Red Carpet'.

It definitely wasn't 'The Chase' — that was a haphazard, desperate dash to an escape route. 'The Red Carpet' was more of a strut for publicity and admiration. Usually the perp appeared in dramatic fashion: a daytime bank robbery with cash fluttering in the wind, or a very public series of murders. Maybe an explosion in a downtown highrise apartment. Something that let them show off their style while everybody gawked. Then, they'd flee through a very carefully rehearsed escape route and make as much of a spectacle of the pursuit itself as possible. It was all about being seen, and then still getting away.

Catwoman had managed to elude Barbara once or twice, vanishing around an unexpected blind turn or a quick drop over a tall building. But never for long, though. Barbara always picked up her trail. What was more, Catwoman wasn't trying to lose someone tailing her; she knew she was being followed, and she was enjoying it. Even though the stakes were high, Barbara couldn't help but feel exhilarated too.

"Still got her?" Dick's voice asked, emergency sirens echoing distantly in the night against the audio feed.

"Yeah. We're halfway across downtown and she's barely even winded," Barbara remarked as she sailed. "Status?"

"No casualties. Lots of debris, but only minor injuries on the ground. Made a couple of quiet rescues. We got lucky, or Catwoman wasn't trying to do much damage. Building's being evacuated now."

"Good. What about you?" Barbara blinked away the bite of shame she felt from letting him put himself in danger. It should have been her in there, not him.

"I'm fine," he replied, his practiced nonchalance masking the smoke inhalation in his voice. "Could have scored a concussion from the airburst, but what else is new? Please tell me you've still got eyes on Catwoman."

Barbara winced at the thought of her teammate hurt or worse. If he was bleeding out right now, would he even say so? Probably not. She needed to end this. Beneath her flight path, the thief vaulted effortlessly over a series of ventilation ducts before finally trotting to a stop on a quiet rooftop.

"Still got her. Okay, her cardio is insanely good," she remarked.

"I'll make sure to suggest to the Boss that we search all the county's gyms for her ID card," Dick joked.

"Funny," she said. "But not a bad idea. Listen, Dick... I'm going in, you're staying back."

"Wait, what?" Dick said, seriousness suddenly weighing on his tone. "No, you heard what Batman said when taking on the heavy hitters."

Barbara found Dick's voice trailing away as Catwoman unzipped a small shoulder bag and produced a leather notebook. Her heart pounded, and she pulled her scope from her belt and boosted the zoom magnification. An embossed silver GCPD logo on the notebook's cover flashed in the moonlight, and in intimately familiar handwriting, Barbara saw a name written on the front:

James Gordon.

"I've got eyes on the prize," Barbara said with utter satisfaction at the sight of her father's notebook. "You're hurt, and I'm on top of her right now. We're one takedown away from a trip to the infirmary for you."

"Please don't do this solo," Dick urged.

"You're hurt. I'm not."

"I'm fine!" said Dick as he stifled a cough. "Stand by! We need to team up on this one. Or call Batman. She's dangerous!"

"Negative on both," Barbara replied. "I can hear the smoke damage in your lungs right now. I'm ending this."

"It's a two man job!"

"Or a one woman job," Barbara said confidently. "Stand by. Batgirl out."

"Barb, wa—"

Heavy hitters, Barbara scoffed to herself as she pressed the silence button hidden in her cowl and planned her zip to Catwoman's rooftop. You've gotta be kidding me, Dick. Whoever Catwoman was, she was clever, but she was small-time. She wasn't a metahuman — Batman's research had concluded that beyond all doubt. She didn't have an army of mobsters like the Falcone family, or an altered physiology like Waylon Jones. Catwoman was just what her name implied: one woman in a slutty costume. How heavy of a hitter could she really be?

Between Dick's injuries and an exploded luxury apartment, there was some collateral damage Barbara would have to account for, but with little more than instinct and legwork, she’d tracked down the mysterious thief who they were calling 'Catwoman.' It had occurred to her more than once to call Batman when she'd realized Catwoman had stolen the GCPD notebook, but this was more than personal. Taking down a minor cat burglar with a stolen intelligence asset would prove the city was safe with Batgirl even when Batman wasn't stalking through the night with her. She owed it to Bruce and her father to close this up without putting their secrets at risk.

Barbara coasted silently down from her perch, gliding on the slight updraft that most buildings had in the negative space between them. The best way to end fights was before they could start, and Barbara excelled at the direct overhead takedown that she'd used many times before on targets much bigger than Catwoman.

The thief sauntered around the blind corner of a rooftop stairwell, and Barbara scowled as she accelerated her dive. She settled for a quick landing to make an ambush on foot, and aimed for a spot a short distance away. Hundreds of hours of practice let her muscles act without thought: toe rolled to heel and spine coiled softly as she settled behind Catwoman and let her cape mask the sound of the landing. Quiet as a mouse, Barbara stalked to the corner that Catwoman had turned. Naturally, no one was there.

Anticipating the whistle of the whip to come from behind, Barbara faked turning the corner and instead did an artful cartwheel in the other direction, one both for show and function. The overhead whip strike left a loud, harmless crack echoing in the space where Barbara wasn't, and Catwoman strolled out from her ambush position, applauding mockingly. She'd circled around behind Barbara in the space of a few heartbeats. It was an unsettling thought, but it was all for nothing.

"Oh, very cute!" purred Catwoman as she recoiled her whip in a practiced flourish, wrapping it around the hourglass of her waist. "Why, with those moves and that sexy outfit, you're a shoe-in for the cheerleading squad, kiddo."

"It’s over, Catwoman," Barbara warned, producing a trio of Batarangs from her belt.

"Ooh, I like the name!" she replied in a voice dripping with fake admiration. "I was just going with what the news gave me, but 'Alley Cat' sounds so... sleazy. 'Catwoman!' I'm stealing that, too."

"What makes you think you can get away with steali—"

"—Hey, nice recovery on the rooftop earlier, by the way," Catwoman said, ignoring her. "Although I don't think you really stuck the landing afterward. Ouch."

Memories flickered in Barbara's mind from what little they had of Catwoman's profile on the cave's supercomputer: 'Extremely Manipulative', 'Narcissistic', 'Highly Intelligent'. Catwoman looked like a ridiculous slut in her outfit, but that truly was the disguise: she excelled at stalking her opponents while they stared at her cleavage, then finding their weaknesses and pouncing on them while they were distracted.

With less than a few minutes of ever having been face to face with her, Catwoman already knew the easiest way directly under Barbara's skin: capability. The thought that she wasn't good enough — that she was an impostor. One that certainly didn't belong next to The Batman.

"The notebook, Catwoman," Barbara said.

"This landing was way better. I get it — you were nervous, what with me kicking you off the roof and all."

"The notebook, Catwoman," she grumbled again, ignoring the jab. Barbara knew what Catwoman was doing, and seethed anyway.

"What'll you give me in return?" Catwoman asked.

Barbara counted criminal charges on her Batarang tips: "Felony explosives possession and detonation. Reckless endangerment. Attempted murder. I’d say at least two life sente—"

"—Murder? You mean to say I defended myself against two masked vigilantes breaking and entering on my private property by activating my security system right bef—"

"—curity system?! How the hell do you call an explosive trap a securi—"

"—right before they ignited a gas line, and destroyed my home!"

"Why am I arguing with you?" Barbara wondered aloud, squeezing her fistful of Batarangs more tightly.

"Look, Little Black Riding Hood," Catwoman began, "you're a public menace, I'm a public menace. If your boss has told you anything about me, it's that the only difference between us is that I know it."

"Very poetic. The notebook, Catwoman," Barbara said yet again. She'd lost count of how many warnings she'd given.

"You know, I haven't even bothered reading it yet?" Catwoman said, strolling a circle as she twirled her whip's handle like a vaudeville dancer spinning a cane. "I'm not a big Gotham Herald Best-Seller List kind of girl."

"Then give it here before I have to take it."

"Aww," Catwoman pouted mockingly at Barbara's threat. "Well just because I don't like it doesn't mean somebody else won't, though. Who wouldn't want to pay big money for the Batman's Bat-Plans?"

Barbara tensed as she circled opposite Catwoman, waiting for an attack. The slow, sultry runway strut of her gait made her body language hard to read. "Should I know what the hell that's supposed to mean?" Barbara said.

Catwoman was giggling to herself before Barbara's cheap bluff was even finished. "Oh come on. I know this thing doesn't belong to you, either. You think I don't know Commissioner Copstache and the Big Bad Bat have little meetups and compare notes? I'm Cat-Woman, sweetie. Not Cat-Girl."

Barbara burned inside, and Catwoman seemed to glow in the hate. She was like an experienced nurse who could always find the best vein to draw blood from. "The notebook, Catwoman," Barbara said through gritted teeth. "Final warning."

"How'd you find me, anyway?" Catwoman wondered, ignoring her still as they circled. "I know I lost you earlier."

"You did," Barbara said, smiling her own devilish smile for once. "But I already know this is your base of operations."

Catwoman's brow furrowed, and she rolled her eyes, suddenly realizing what Barbara had done. "You've been tailing me here! Didn't know I had a secret admirer."

Another valuable Batman lesson: sometimes letting the bad guys "get away" gives away more than an interrogation would. Barbara knew — at least, up until the highrise explosion — that Catwoman was mostly harmless. The things she stole were expensive, but easily identifiable, and therefore easy to recover. She often dealt in stolen cash and gems, most of which were insured. She could be allowed to roam free, at least for a while. With the notebook on the line, that time was over.

Only Batman had ever met Catwoman face to face until now, and his notes on those encounters were cryptic, so Barbara had to do her own hunting. Batgirl got lucky and managed to witness two separate Catwoman robberies. Rather than swoop in and strike (regardless of how badly as she wanted to) she simply watched, and learned. To Barbara, it was a minor footnote that Bruce forbade her from engaging; the research could be just as valuable, she decided.

And true enough, after both thefts, Catwoman circled back to a single location — the building they were standing atop right now. For Barbara, this was a delicious payoff.

"Guess you're not as sneaky as you think you are," she chided.

"Guess not," agreed Catwoman, waiting. "What are you going to do about it?"

Clouds of white smoke wafted up from ventilation exhausts, and an ambulance's distant wail interrupted the silence between them. A flock of pigeons peppered dark shadows against the moon. Catwoman waited. Barbara wound up, charged, and threw.

None of the Batarangs were on target, but they weren't meant to be; she just needed the knives to force Catwoman into a dodge that Barbara could exploit. She did dodge, and Barbara did strike, but the instantaneous heavy snap kick from Catwoman that Barbara had to struggle to block let her know that there was no exploiting this opponent. Her forearm stung through her gauntlet bracer. Barbara cursed herself for letting her desire to get in a fight cloud her caution, and heard a memory of Batman’s voice whisper something in her ear about underestimating opponents.

Following the momentum, Catwoman moved in and peppered Barbara with a fast combination of kicks and punches. They didn’t immediately register as any sort of martial art that Barbara knew, but all the fundamentals were there: attack without overreaching, defend vital organs and pressure points. But as she stormed into Barbara’s space without fear, Barbara recognized the eagerness. She faked one counterpunch and threw a different one, catching Catwoman completely off-guard, and following with a quick knee to the stomach that left the thief stumbling back. Underestimation goes both ways, Barbara thought, projecting the words through her eyes. Catwoman smiled as if she’d heard, and moved in to attack again.

They traded crosses and slips, kicks and dodges, all of them empty as far as Barbara could tell. Suddenly, Catwoman threw a vicious cross-counter to Barbara's lightest jab, threatening to take her head off with one swing. Barbara's mind swam, struggling to find a pattern and failing — Catwoman was, if not highly skilled, a completely unpredictable fighter. Her posture and body language made sense right up until it didn't, and her face seemed to twist between narrow-eyed murder and glib flirtatiousness in an instant. Suddenly, 'Heavy Hitter' made a lot more sense. They both disengaged after a few tense exchanges. 

"Been a long time since anyone actually managed to hit me," Catwoman said, breathing heavily. "You'll never be as good in a fight as your boss, but you're damn good!"

"He's not my boss," growled Barbara, recovering as well. "We're a team."

"'Kay!" Catwoman said coyly, casually running a hand along the curves of her thigh. "Where's your 'team' now, hmm?"

"Batman's on the way," Barbara lied. "Robin, too. Told me to keep you busy before they got here."

Catwoman huffed as though she'd heard an unfunny joke. "No, they didn't. If they did, they'll find what's left of you, I guess. See, I haven't even shown you my Tiger Style yet." With that, Catwoman lazily lifted a hand to the moonlight as though admiring her fingernails. Five viciously sharp metallic claws ejected from each digit with a gentle, synchronized click.

Barbara had read about the claw gauntlets in Catwoman's case file, and she hoped the thief didn't see her flinch before the gun oil and gym sweat in Barbara's blood caught up with her. Catwoman was threatening, but she didn't know that Batgirl — that Barbara Gordon — was the daughter of the very man whose notebook she'd stolen. James Gordon was a die-hard GCPD detective, and his daughter wasn't the kind of girl who caved to threats. She was the kind of girl who practiced arm-bar drills and counterpunch exercises with her dad for fun. She was the daughter of a truth-seeker. A door-kicker. A fighter who had never backed down. Barbara wasn't about to start now.

"And I haven't shown you how little that matters yet, Kitten," Barbara snapped, dipping into a fighting stance, quietly satisfied at the opportunity to use some of the tough-girl lines she'd prepped.

"'Kitten!' Stealing that, too!" Catwoman giggled again. She casually flourished her claws, offering them for Barbara to see. "Look, sweetie, we could do this for a few more minutes, and you could go to the emergency room missing all your blood. Or we could try and have some fun! Really get acquainted. Let's do that instead, yeah?"

The sweep kick that followed was unimaginably fast. Barbara was flat on her back before she even saw Catwoman close the gap, turn her hip, or crouch and swing her leg in a full circle. Barbara simply blinked, realized she had no feet under her, and watched the moon wince at her as her skull rang against the rooftop. A gasp squashed out of Barbara's lungs as she felt Catwoman leap on top of her, straddling her stomach and pinning her arms.

Whatever air Barbara had left squeaked pathetically out of her open mouth. She felt a cold steel claw graze her windpipe, and the image of her exsanguinated body laid under a bloody coroner's tarp flashed behind her eyes.

Then, just as quickly, Catwoman leaned down and stuck her tongue into Barbara's mouth.

It wasn't a kiss; not really, at least. That would require more lips touching lips. It certainly wasn't a friendly greeting either, and it wasn't a threat. It was a long, luxurious, warm lick. Catwoman's sizable bust pressed down into Barbara, who recoiled into the concrete, her eyes wide in confusion as the pain mixed with the unexpected, silky sensuality. Her head swam, and with a single string of warm saliva that stretched and split as Catwoman pulled away, it was all over before she could think.

"You're lucky I like you, Kitten," Catwoman purred.

Barbara growled and flexed every muscle she had. Jiu-jitsu reflexes screamed to life, and she turned a shoulder to throw her hips high enough to reach a leglock over Catwoman's neck from behind. But the thief had already vaulted into a handstand using Barbara's throat as a balance beam, and flattened her windpipe for a moment as she did. Catwoman cartwheeled away with a giggle, leaving Barbara coughing and gasping. She kipped to her feet just in time to throw a Batarang into the cloud of ventilation steam that Catwoman had danced through. The tinny ringing sound of metal against brick let her know she'd missed.

What the hell was that?! Barbara thought as she coughed her airway open. But this was at the top of Catwoman's profile: 'Uses Seduction to Disarm Opponents'. She tried to push the thought of hot, wet tongue out of her mind, tried to ignore the faint floral notes of berries, or whatever Catwoman's mouth tasted like. Was it wine? Was that how she managed to stay so warm in cold Gotham nights wearing nothing but that ridiculous Halloween costume that left most of her breasts spilling out of the neckline?

"Get it together, Batgirl," Barbara whispered to herself, tapping the other side of her visor to activate the night vision options. White lenses glowed over her eyes, and heat signatures exploded everywhere around her in bright reds and yellows from the steam vents — Catwoman had picked this rooftop for at least that reason. Barbara toggled the cowl's vision back off and stalked through clouds of steam waiting for the telltale wind up sound of a whip. The building sighed its white smoke silently into the night sky. No whip strike came.

A long while passed, and Barbara began to panic as she felt the notebook slipping away. No tracker, no heat signature. Damn it! she thought. Taking a risk, she jumped atop a maintenance shed. She could get a wider view of the rooftop that way, but she was also a very visible, convenient target. She toggled the heat vision back on briefly, her cowl's eyes glowing like beacons. A cold spot blinked blue on the opposite side of the building. She vaulted toward it — a series of skylight windows.

"Bingo!" Barbara said, readying more Batarangs as she sprinted. She's not catching me off-guard this time.

The view through the skylight gazed down to a private dressing room twenty feet below. Its walls and closet doors were lined with dark mahogany and decorated with rich black iron fittings to match the black leather benches and dark, moody paintings on the walls. Sconces cast warm, delicate candlelight onto everything, making the whole room look like a warm glass of whiskey.

Catwoman, undressing quietly, was the ice cube at the center of this glass.

Her glib green eyes looked up expectantly at Barbara the moment her face appeared through the skylight. Catwoman's boots and gloves were already off, and a lazy finger drew the zipper of her jumpsuit all the way down to her belly button, her creamy cleavage relaxing as the fabric gave way. Before Barbara could consider what was happening, Catwoman smiled seductively, and peeled off her jumpsuit. She wore nothing beneath.

Barbara turned her eyes a moment later, and couldn't withhold a gasp. She could sense Catwoman's gaze, still and unashamed, locked onto her. No, don't be shy, she seemed to say. Look at me. From her peripheral vision, Barbara saw heavy breasts spill from the plunging black neckline one by one. Catwoman channeled more than a little burlesque to the performance — her back arched high as she slid her arms from the sleeves, proudly showing her chest to the moonlight. Then, she turned and bent artfully down to the floor, sliding the jumpsuit over her thighs and buttocks as she did, gleefully casting a moon of her own into the night.

At the skylight, Barbara's head turned away, and it didn't. Her eyes averted, and they wouldn't. Barbara had a modesty that Catwoman obviously didn’t, but even that was stumbled as the private stage show played out as a series of snapshots that Barbara tried to blink out of her mind: breasts, thighs, cheeks, smiles. She couldn’t unsee the creamy skin pouring out of dark leather. After a short while, Catwoman produced a dark hanger from a closet door, lazily hung the jumpsuit from it, and began strolling toward a door on the far side of the room. She turned for a moment to cup a hand under each breast, juggle them back and forth, and make a kissy-face. Then, she waved goodbye.

Barbara scowled as she remembered Catwoman’s profile: 'Uses Seduction to Disarm Opponents'.

A distraction! Barbara thought to herself. She could change clothes and blend in here to escape! She pounded a gauntlet at the glass — the reinforced, bulletproof glass with no latches or moving panels. It’d take minutes with the micro-torch to get through, and Catwoman would be gone by then. She wasn’t even sure a blast charge would do anything except make a loud mess and cave the ceiling in, which wasn’t an option with potential civilians inside. How the hell did she get in? She must have gone in through the...

"...Front door!" The obvious answer leapt out of Barbara's mouth the moment she dashed away from the skylight and flipped off the rooftop, hooking a zipline to the roof to ease her landing at the building's front door two stories below. Three men waited at a subdued, dimly-lit concierge inside. At first glance, it was completely innocuous: there were no signs inside or out, and the men were formally dressed. It all even looked a little inviting. A hotel? A spa of some kind?

Barbara burst through the large, heavy glass door and sprinted to the concierge desk. The men there were slightly less taken aback than she expected, but the two larger, stockier ones stepped out from behind the desk as she approached. They sentried themselves at either side of the table, blocking passage to the doors behind them. The other man at the desk, thin and wiry as his moustache, smiled.

"Batgirl, I presume?" he asked, as though it weren't obvious or strange in the slightest. "Enchantée, mademoiselle. You have been invi—"

"—The Gotham Alley Cat! She's inside! I need to stop her!" Barbara growled as she approached. She didn't have Bruce's intimidating baritone growl, but she had anger.

The man smiled, imperceptibly annoyed at being interrupted. "Oui mademoiselle, but I must announce to our most esteemed guest that she may not enter—"

"—I'm going in one way or another," Barbara warned, eyeing the guards. They eyed back. She sensed at least one of them had a holster beneath his suit jacket. The doorman probably had a panic button under the desk. Silently rotating into place above them, Barbara noticed two very small cameras angled down to cover the lobby, so if the doorman wasn’t able to sound the alarm, somebody in the monitoring room would. Damn it, what was I thinking? Barbara wondered.

"Yes, Yes! I should hope so!" the doorman agreed. "And you are most welcome to! What I was going to say before I was interrupted was that mademoiselle may not enter the evening's social... without undressing first."

A hot flush of embarrassed rage boiled under Barbara's cowl. Undressed? Why did he say that? Were there more security cameras that had seen her watching Catwoman undress? Had they seen the kiss they'd shared on the roof? Did they think Batgirl was some kind of pervert?

"What... I'm... I didn't... on the roof..."

Barbara's voice stumbled, and the thin doorman, ever a polite servant, extended a hand asking for pause to speak rather than suffer another interruption. His other hand pointed to a gold-etched sign above the desk that Barbara had been too angry and hurried to notice.

"If mademoiselle will allow: clothing is not allowed here inside the Gotham City Hedonist Society."

Chills rained over Barbara's face, dousing the fire of embarrassment. Somehow, it made her even redder.

"The... what?"