fille_fatale | ( IC CONTACT )

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.

He pauses as well and looks up at her, then shrugs. "It was part of the flood." It had been a kriffing nightmare and he hates to remember it. Remember losing himself, Jedao barely able to bring him round and keep him from killing him, or trying to. "Some people who took the cats' deals... lost themselves. It was. It was bad."

"So sounds like just about every other thing that happens here."

At least he got a cat our of the deal. Selina pulls herself up onto the roof; a few buildings down, she can see the pigeon coop that Bridgit used to tend, the one she took over for a while back home. She doesn't want to look after fake birds, though, doesn't really want to bring a stranger there, either, so they're on top of this roof, which is mostly apartments atop a bodega. The view isn't the best - plenty of buildings rise higher - but it's still good. There's just something a little less...alive about the streets than she remembers.

Selina turns, backing away from the fire escape so she can watch him.

"So what are we talking about? How's this work?"

Fives pulls himself up after her, well aware of how careful she's being to keep distance between them... just as aware of how little chance she'd have against him if he decided to use his strength and speed and training against her. It makes him feel an almost overwhelming urge to point that out to her, to tell her how to actually keep herself same from potential danger rather than giving herself a false sense that she's done so.

That's not what he's here for now, though, and might not be something she'll want to hear from him ever, so instead he settles on the edge of the roof, his back to her and his legs dangling over into space. He can't think of a way to make himself seem less threatening to her than this.

"As far as I understand it, basically my job is to help you in whatever way I can, unless or until you're assigned to a new warden, temporarily or permanently." It's a far cry from what he'd expected he'd be doing when he'd first taken the Admiral's offer. "If there are... amenities you need or want, I can ask the Admiral for them on your behalf. Though he seems to have been a bit erratic about that lately. I can give you access to the Enclosure or the pub or the art and music room if you want it. Try and answer whatever questions you might have." He shrugs and turns his head to try and catch sight of her.

His efforts do the trick, almost too well; she wonders if he's trusting or stupid or just putting on a show, because shoving him off the roof would be easy, like this.

The thought makes her flinch, and she's glad his back is turned so he doesn't see the way she reaches for hers, rubbing at marks that aren't there.

"My pad's missing a bathroom, you could put one of those in."

She forces herself to drift closer, to prove to herself that she's not afraid. Hopping up onto the lip of the roof near him, she loos down and at least the height isn't getting to her.

He watches her sidelong, but pays just about as much attention to the view; he's used to splitting his attention between a lot more inputs than two.

"Sorry, if you mean a toilet and sink I can definitely ask him for those, but he won't give you a shower of your own. For some reason he seems to think there's some benefit in making the inmates share public facilities." He shrugs and turns to actually look at her more directly as she finally hops up onto the ledge not far away.

"I'd offer to let you use mine, I'm almost never in my barracks, but-" He tips his head a little, his expression wry. "As uncomfortable as you seem around me I can't see you taking me up on that. Besides, it's not very satisfying anyway, since it's a shipboard sonic fresher. I used to use the inmate showers a couple times a week before I had alternatives." He loves hot water, it had been one of the only luxuries of his childhood, spent on a water world--unlimited hot showers, or at least as unlimited as they could fit in in the time they were allotted away from training.

"Yeah, I'm good." She answers him dryly, unimpressed with the idea. She grew up slipping into the Y to shower, or local churches, before graduating to homes belonging to out of towners.

Selina considers telling him that she's not uncomfortable, but then she'd have to say she's wary, and she's not keen on that descriptor, either.

"What's a sonic fresher?"

"Figured." His smile is wry and unsurprised.

"It means there's no water involved, they're standard on starships where carrying enough water for hygiene purposes would take up too much capacity. They use sonic vibrations for cleaning and sanitizing instead."

It sounds efficient and smart, especially for a crew as big as he says. But Selina has never seen something as big as the starships he means, and the whole things sounds kinda terrible, in her extremely humble opinion.

"Well that sounds awful." She pulls a face at him for it. "I'll take the toilet, though." Facing out, Selina glances at him sidelong. He's a clone, and he's a warden. So he's not completely fucking crazy, hopefully. And the being evil thing was just...floods.

Selina's still new enough that that's hard to follow.

"So how come you don't have a regular inmate yet? You new too?"

"It's... efficient. And really the only way to handle hygiene for thousands of beings on a ship with limited cargo space that has to be maximized for military ordnance. Water's reserved for necessary consumption." Which is still a great deal, even accounting for shipboard water reclamation. "Hot running water is a lot better, but I'll definitely ask him for the toilet, and if there's anything else your cabin needs let me know and I can at least ask, though I can't guarantee his response."

He doesn't let himself react when she asks why he doesn't have an inmate of his own yet, doesn't let on that the fact he doesn't is his biggest fear. That he's terrified the Admiral has decided he doesn't actually want him here, that he'll be sent back without ever getting a chance to really even try to help his brothers.

"I've been here approximately sixteen standard months." He could tell her down to the day, but that seems... excessive. "And I assume that I don't have an inmate yet because the Admiral has not considered me the ideal match for anyone he's brought aboard so far."

Sixteen months. It's like everyone she's talked to has been here longer and longer. It weirds her out just about every time.

"Then why bring you on now at all? That doesn't make any sense."

That's exactly what he wonders and worries about at times. "I can't claim to have any idea how the Admiral's mind works, but there are some people who've suggested that sometimes... sometimes wardens need a little time, to do some learning and growing before they're ready for an inmate of their own. And so he brings them on early and gives them time to do that." He shrugs. "Like I said, though, that's... it's just guessing."

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