fille_fatale | ( IC CONTACT )

I'm good talking like this.

Is there some reason you're not willing to meet? It's a small ship, it's not like we won't likely run across each other.

[She's silent for a long breath, talking herself through not caring about what she's seen. It lets her sound a little more nonchalant.]

Saw some of your videos.

[He's quiet for a moment, frowning.] Okay. Is there some reason that made you unwilling to meet me?

That was a lotta guys who look just like you.

Those were my brothers, but none of them are here, just me.

So you've got like a thousand identical brothers? I'd say that must have sucked for your mom but I'm pretty sure you weren't born.

Even accounting for casualty rates, I probably still have well over a billion mostly identical brothers. And you're right, we weren't born, we were created by cloning and grown to... a manageable age in tanks, then we were decanted and began training.

[w h a t.

She wouldn't get it if she hadn't seen the video, but she's feeling cagey and prickly and penned in because now she's got someone to answer to, and he's a freaking clone. Her stomach keeps twisting, keeps reminding her of what it feels like to fall four stories and she has never wanted to claw Bruce's eyes out more, even if it's not him, just his stupid face that she can't get out of her head--

This is stupid. She's being stupid, and she hates the way her chest feels tight. She's not falling, she's not in danger, and Fives isn't putting her there. Selina rolls her eyes up, mostly at herself, at her reaction, in frustration.]

I'll meet you at the Enclosure. Hope you like cities.

[She'll remember once she gets there that she can't program Gotham until he lets her in.]

[He watches, he waits, and tries to make sense of the reactions he sees within the context of what he's learned of mongrels on the barge, since there's so little correlation between how he and his brothers react and how... everyone else seems to. He's fairly certain she's afraid of something, but not sure what or why, or if it has anything to do with him in particular or not.

He does know she's what everyone else around here would probably consider still a child, and wishes he had Jedao to ask for advice in how to deal with her. He doesn't, though, so he steels himself to try not to make a mess of things.]

On my way. [Mostly because not acknowledging would feel strange.]

******************

He'd been far enough away she beats him there, and when he arrives it's with a kitten riding on his shoulder. He'd considered leaving Tits behind, but she likes the Enclosure and he refuses to treat Selina as if she might be a danger to a kitten... whether Tits might be distracting is something that hasn't really occurred to him.

"Where would you like to go?" he asks as he approaches the door.

She doesn't brighten when she sees the cat on his shoulder, but it does pull her out of her slouch against the Enclosure door.

"Didn't peg you for a cat guy."

Selina doesn't head right for him - well, more accurately, for the cat - but she does push off the door so that he can open it, looking from him to his pet.

"Gotham." At least she can have some home turf, right? And maybe him having the cat is a ploy - she's told enough people her nickname, it could get around - but despite her misgivings about him being a clone, she doubts it. She doesn't move too far away, so when he goes to open the door, she can reach up and give Tits her fingers to sniff. She's always been good with cats, and they've always liked her.

Fives glances aside to where Tits is perched in her preferred place on his shoulder, and wishes he had his pauldrons for her to ride on instead of digging her tiny little claws into his flesh through his sweater whenever she feels the need for a bit more stability. "She adopted me, in a flood we had with sentient talking cats a while back," he explains, and reaches up to skritch her ears, which elicits a purr. He still hasn't ruled out that she's a very young sentient who just hasn't mastered speech yet, or an older one that doesn't feel inclined to communicate more directly.

"Gotham?" It doesn't mean anything to him, but he shrugs. "Enclosure, please provide us with the city of Gotham, from Selina's time and world." Because Force knows how many versions of the place might be floating around the multi-verse. As he reaches to push the door open he feels Tits shift her weight and glances aside just in time to see her spring from his shoulder to Selina's.

"Huh. She's not usually that social." He's clearly not bothered, but he is a little bemused. He's fairly sure she only pays attention to Jedao because Jedao doesn't really want her to, and otherwise she ignores most people other than for brief finger sniffing or leg-rubbing investigations.

When he specifies her Gotham, Selina feels her stomach twist uncomfortably again - Pietro mentioned how many random versions there were of his world, and Stephanie is from some kinda Gotham where Gordon has a kid in her twenties, and ugh, God.

That's gonna give her a headache if she thinks too hard about it.

Instead, she pays attention to Tits when she jumps down to her shoulder. It doesn't surprise her, really: there have always been cats in and out of her flats. They always seem to find her, no matter where she winds up. Probably because she's never shy about stealing a little something to feed them, but it's not the first time she's had a cat on her shoulder, and she's pretty sure it won't be the last.

She reaches up to scratch Tits' chin, and shrugs her free shoulder.

"Cats like me. Don't know about sentient talking ones..." She trails off, turning her head to eye Tits. "She doesn't talk, does she?"

"Not so far." He gives the distinct impression that it's not something he's ruling out as a possibility.

Selina just arches her eyebrows at him. If he hadn't started with where the cat came from, she'd probably be more doubtful. As it is...

"Ooookay," she says, looking at Tits again. "Whenever you're ready, I guess. She got a name?"

He shrugs at her reaction. "You don't have non-human sentients on your Earth, then?" Because it seems like some few of them might, considering things Iris has said, but apparently not many of them.

"Her name is Tits." He doesn't hesitate, he sees nothing wrong with the name, and he pushes the door open as he's talking, onto the city she'd asked for. It's completely unfamiliar to him.

"Uh, no." She's slowly getting that that isn't a given thing, elsewhere, but her tone of voice still says he might be nuts for asking. Some times are hard to break.

The name, at least, breaks that tension; Selina laughs. "What, seriously? Why?" She peers up at Fives, dropping her hand to let Tits settle on her shoulder. She doesn't mind the claws, much.

"Strange." Because to him it is, he's never lived in or even conceived of a universe that wasn't full of non-human sentients. Neither of his training sergeants on Kamino were human, and of course the Kaminoans themselves had dominated much of his life. And then Commander Tano.

"Jedao named her that." He shrugs. "He was carrying her around in the front of some kind of garment traditionally meant for females, in the space meant to hold the breasts during the flood she appeared in." Still clearly not bothered.

"A bra."

Selina snorts again, but this time she looks up at him strangely as she pushes past him, into the Enclosure. She recognizes the block it puts them on: not far from the Narrows. She starts walking purposefully down the sidewalk, swinging a left down an alley.

"That's kinda weird."

"A bra," he repeats, fairly clearly filing the information away. "Why is it weird?" he asks as he follows after her, now looking curiously and attentively around them as they walk.

There are people on the streets, but they all feel stiff and manufactured to Selina's eye: going about their days with none of the flair of life. There aren't even any bums sleeping under cardboard in the alley, and that's just downright weird.

Stopping next to a dumpster, she cranes her head up, then pulls Tits off her shoulder. She's gentle but firm, and hands the kitten out to Fives.

"Seriously? Why is it weird?" She's not sure how to answer that, so she just sighs. "Hold her for a sec."

Once her hands are free, she closes the dumpster lid and pulls herself on top, using its height to jump and grab the bottom rung of the fire escape's ladder. She uses her weight to pull it down, and perches there, looking at Fives.

"Can you climb with her?"

"Yes, why is it weird?" he repeats. Sorry Selina, you're dealing with a man who's had brothers named Droidbait and Waxer and Boil and Close-Shave, Tits wouldn't raise an eyebrow.

He takes Tits back without complaint and watches Selina climb, assessing her agility and strength automatically. "'Course," he answers and slings her back into his shoulder, where she'll either hold on if she wants to go along for the ride or jump down and go exploring on her own. Apparently following Selina is interesting enough for her to cling obligingly to his shoulder as he clambers nimbly up behind her, with significantly more grace and agility than you'd expect from a man as bulky as he is. "Where are we going?"

She can't watch his progress easily without being obvious, but every time she reaches a landing she catches sight of how quick he moves. It is impressive, and not what she would have expected.

At least it's easy enough to explain when she's not looking at him. "It's weird cause you don't just talk about peoples' tits, and you definitely don't go naming your cat after them. Where'd Jedao get a bra from, anyway?"

She doesn't answer his other question: for half a second, she considers telling him she's bringing him to the roof so she can push him off, but it's a sour joke even in her head. She just likes to be up high - to look down at Gotham. The city always looks less gross, from high up.

"Well, we're not talking about anyone's tits, are we?" He clearly thinks it's a perfectly reasonable answer... of course, he's probably got upwards of a hundred brothers who named themselves for the Mandalorian word for testicles, so his opinion is skewed and possibly irrelevant.

"The bra came with the outfit?" He shrugs as he's crossing one of the fire escape landings. "The talking cat's gave people... magical powers of some kind, and when you used them you transformed. People were calling it a magical girl thing? Jedao took the deal, it came with a very pretty dress with a bra in it. It fit Tits perfectly when he was looking after her once I went evil." All delivered very matter of fact as he continues to climb up behind her.

Selina pauses in her climb to look at him over her shoulder, because 90% of what he just said makes no sense. "Yeah, gonna need you to explain the going evil part."

And if she picks up her pace to put some distance between them, well, she's not about to comment on it.

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