Field Trip (Closed)

Participants: Selina Kyle and Stephanie Brown
Open/Closed: Closed
Location(s): Blüdhaven
Time of Day: 11PM-ish
Weather: Overcast
Summary: Two ladies with some history have an unlikely team-up on very sanctioned Bat-business.

"Listen, will you just relax, hon?" Selina shifted gears, flicked a switch and grinned like a lioness cornering prey as the cab bucked under them. The vehicle belched a gout of purple-blue flame from behind and leaped a median that should've been impossible to bypass. Careening with a shriek of rubber onto the on-ramp, the black, sleek machine slid around a panicked taxi and burst onto the highway.

Catwoman's leg muscles flexed, pushing the gas pedal and watching the speedometer climb with an amount of smug satisfaction that was probably alarming. "I told you, I punched my card and got the Batmobile for the night totally on the level. Besides, he's got like ten others hanging in the cave. If he needs wheels he's got options. Or he could just call his boyfriend in Metropolis and ask for a ride."

Selina looked at the blonde in the passenger seat of the Batmobile. She glanced over the suit, particularly the symbol spread across the younger woman's chest. "Something about those cowls, you know? Just sucks the fun right out of someone." She still thought that Stephanie Brown would've made a much better Catgirl than Batgirl.

That level of fondness was one of many reasons Selina had summoned Stephanie that evening for some important work that required the pair's unique skillsets. The location of that work was, unfortunately, Blüdhaven - which was coming up fast with Catwoman's breakneck speed.

"Listen, will you just relax, hon?"

Stephanie clung to the passenger-side arm rest – or what passed for one in the Batmobile - her knuckles white beneath her gloves. Her cheeks swelled as her stomach lurched, the cab beneath her bucking wildly as the car shrieked around a taxi, bursting onto one of Gotham’s highways. As asphalt was eaten up beneath thick tyres, the flashing lights of the city at midnight further blurred through the windshield due to the vehicle’s pace and erratic movements, she glanced over to her driver for the evening: a cat-suited Selina Kyle. Rather than share in Steph’s want to barf, she appeared to be smiling rather smugly, as if happy to be putting the bat-themed racer through its paces.

With another turbulent swerve, Batgirl’s side of the car swung out onto the wrong side of the road, inches away from an approaching van. She squeezed her eyes shut, remembering – not for the first time during their brief journey – why she preferred the sleek elegance and manoeuvrability of Bat-cycles.

“I think I’m gonna hurl…” she muttered under her breath, the oncoming truck narrowly missing the vehicle’s wing mirror, the blaring of its horn rapidly passing the pair by, becoming little more than a distant squawking in a heartbeat.
"Something about those cowls, you know? Just sucks the fun right out of someone."
Steph opened her eyes slowly to find Selina eyeing her critically, most notably the Bat sigil emblazoned across her chest.

“Have you ever tried smiling when your pork chow mein is trying to make a rather spectacular reappearance over Batman’s leather upholstery?” Not that it was likely Selina would have cared: Steph had spent years trying to impress Bruce Wayne and had only just started making some sort of headway. Catwoman, on the other hand, had spent decades doing what the hell she wanted, Bruce be damned, and it seemed to work out just fine for her.

Another horn sounded, and Steph’s grip on the arm-rest tightened reflexively. “Car. Car! CAR!” With a flick of her wrist, Selina guided the Batmobile around the vehicle ahead. “Are you even watching the road?” The answer, obviously, was no. When Steph had agreed to aid Selina in some sort of business – the details of which had been rather vague – she’d expected to run into some sort of trouble. Trouble was, after all, a common element in the vigilante lifestyle.

She’d not expected to be in a car wreck before they’d reached their destination though – an outcome that seemed increasingly likely.

Selina Kyle

Selina wrinkled her nose. Stephanie getting sick in the Batmobile might make for a pretty funny story, but there, in the moment, the burglar would rather she not. "Yeah, well, I'm sure there's a button around here somewhere for a Bat-barf bag." She was almost positive, in fact, that one existed. Would probably rinse your mouth and give you free tax advice, too, before it sealed itself up and launched into orbit so you wouldn't have to find a Bat-trash can to chuck it in.

Stephanie was shouting something, and Selina glanced down from where she'd been checking her reflection in a mirror. Deftly, the Batmobile slid around the car that Batgirl was so passionate about. Catwoman smiled openly at the next question, white teeth flashing, rimmed in painted lips. "Enough," she said with a shrug of one slim shoulder.

The mile markers for the highway that ran between Gotham and Blüdhaven flashed by, almost as quick as blinking. "At this rate, we're going to get there quicker than I can find my way from the bedroom to the kitchen in that mansion," Selina said, amused but kind of serious at the same time. "How's the stomach, kitten?" she asked, being kind enough to not stare over at Steph and (this time) kept her eyes on the road, instead.

Stephanie Brown

‘Enough’ was not a word Stephanie appreciated when it came to describing how focused one was on the road. She would have preferred something along the lines of, ‘Yes, I am focused’ or ‘Totally focused’ or even ‘Mostly.’ ‘Enough’ just seemed like a way of making ‘not really’ sound better. Not that she intended to explain any of this to the cat-burglar at the wheel. Doing so, Batgirl figured, would only encourage Selina to pay less attention to Gotham’s traffic, probably out of spite.

With the Batmobile back on the correct side of the highway, Steph relaxed her vice-like grip on the car’s interior – even if just a little. ‘At this rate, we're going to get there quicker than I can find my way from the bedroom to the kitchen in that mansion.’ The blonde vigilante side-eyed her driver.
“If we make it at all,” she muttered under her breath, before focusing on the evening ahead – namely trying to work out where they were going and what they were doing; Steph was still very much in the dark about basically every detail.

“Where is ‘there’ exactly?” She’d have tilted her head and affixed the semi-reformed burglar with a searching look were her gaze not glued to the road – apparently one of the better ways to deal with car sickness. “My stomach’s fine…I think. Just don’t take any corners. Like…any. At all. Not even a small one. Probably for a good ten, fifteen minutes. Just drive straight.” Reaching out a gloved hand, she prodded one of the car’s many controls, blasting herself with cold air from the vehicle's ‘Mr Freeze’ level air conditioning unit. “I really wish these suits breathed more…” Not that it was as tight as Selina’s – Steph doubted she’d have been able to move in a cat-suit that clingy.

Selina Kyle

Selina swerved around another car, between two semis that were trying to pass one another, and then around a Corvette that thought they were hot stuff, leaving all in the rearview mirror and then gone. "What's life without a little risk?" she asked, almost dismissively, at Stephanie's muttered comment. Her grin tapered into a crooked and vague smirk at the request to only drive straight.

"There is here," Selina said. The Batmobile slid smoothly over five lanes of traffic and onto an off ramp, mounting a median to scoot around another vehicle that was ahead of them. "Ready to roll?" Catwoman asked, jabbing at a few of the controls. Autopilot was engaged, and waiting instructions. Meanwhile the cab shuddered and panels split and contracted, opening the air above them to the night.

The thief climbed out of the driver's seat until she was perched preparatorily atop the back of it. The Batmobile jolted, the rear tires leaving the road in a way that threw both women skyward. Catwoman piggybacked on the momentum, and following a crack of her whip and an artful corkscrew through the air, she landed on a rooftop without a sound.

Selina reached up and pulled her goggles into place over her eyes. Looking back at Stephanie, she asked, "You good?"

Stephanie Brown

Stephanie could have predicted that Selina’s responses to questions would be vague and non-committal, about as useful as her just sitting silently and blatantly ignoring the Bat at her side. “And where is here, exactly?” Steph had lived in Gotham all her life, but she’d been born in the age of a little life-changing invention called GPS. She didn’t need to know the length of every street, mentally chronicle the intersections or know her norths from her souths – that’s what she had Oracle for. She knew Gotham’s centre, the docks, swathes of Burnside: she had reason to. The rest of the time she just called for directions.

‘Ready to roll?’

With Catwoman’s query, the vehicle’s autopilot was engaged, and about the pair the cab began to spit and open, the night air rushing to buffet their masked faces. It was a welcome relief having been subject to a swerve that had carried the Batmobile across five lanes of traffic – some of it oncoming. Steph had never been quicker to unbuckle her seatbelt, and soon enough, she had adopted a pose that near-matched Selina’s, crouched and ready to take to the air.

With a jolt, the rear tyres bucked, launching both women skyward. The former burglar chartered their course, cracking her whip, corkscrewing artfully, before signalling their destination, landing atop a nearby rooftop. Stephanie’s approach was far less acrobatic, but none-the-less impressive. Throwing out her arms, she spread her cloak to slow her descent, casting a large, imposing shadow over the ground below, and angling toward the Cat, dropped into a neat crouch at her back.

‘You good?’

“I’m fine…I think. Ask me in ten.” If she was going to puke, she’d have puked by then. Rising quickly to her feet, Steph moved to stand at Selina’s side. “So when are you actually going to tell me what we’re doing here? Is there a password or something I need to give you, or a brief game of twenty questions we need to play?”

Used to working with Barbara Gordon, Batgirl tended to be given too much information about any given undertaking. Being kept almost totally in the dark was a new thing, and Steph wasn’t sure she liked it.

Selina Kyle