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Characters: Selina Kyle & Alfred Pennyworth
The sun was just about splitting the stones in the dry stream-bed as the woman came over the ridge and skidded desperately down the dusty side of the gully, her hair sweat-tangled over a shapely face and blood streaming from where a bullet had clipped her thigh. Panting hard, she barely even registered the rock before she was tumbling, rolling to a heavy stop and lying still, stunned, her rich skirts coming loose from the professional ties that revealed the trousers and tough boots that had allowed her escape so far. But she wasn't escaping no more, and the man who climbed over the ridge in pursuit just leered at the sight of her sprawled limbs.
Selina Kyle's luck had just run out.
As her follower made his way down the gully, an ugly grin on his face, she groaned, disoriented, eyes blinking desperately between the sun and the sweat, her chest burning with heat and exertion. Her leg throbbed mercilessly, and even before she heard the crunch of his boots next to her head, she knew she wasn't going to be running any farther.
“Hey, missy-missy. Lead me a damn merry chase, ain't ya?” He spit in the dust, an inch from her face, and Selina could feel her lips curling without thought. Squinting hard through the sun, up at the looming shadow of him, she sneered with every scrap of contempt she had left. It was no small amount. Selina was a woman with a lot of contempt inside her.
“Wouldn't ever have caught me, you hadn't cheated, cockroach!” she spat, panting. “Ugly man like you, never woulda touched me, without a damn bullet.” Maybe she was down, maybe she was dead, but Selina Kyle was prouder than to go out without getting the last word.
The crack as he slapped her resounded through the dusty gully, setting her head spinning, aching, so much that she nearly missed his weight settling over her, pushing her down into the dust, tearing at her leg. She gasped, nearly a moan, nearly a scream, and felt him grin without having to see it.
“Gonna touch ya now, missy-missy.” His hands fumbled eagerly at his belt as she panted, no energy to struggle, eyes closing against the sight. “Sure gonna touch you now.”
“But indeed you are not, sir!”
Selina started at the mild voice, thrashing her head desperately in search of the origin, while above her the assassin froze, hand going from buckle to gun in the twinkling of an eye. And faster than that, faster than any of that, in the next second, his head snapped violently to the side, and he stopped, motionless. Selina stared, eyes burning, uncomprehending, as the blood drip-dripped, slow as dying, from his temple, and he slid off her to crumple lifeless at her side.
Blinking, panic building as she realised what had happened, as she recognised a damn corpse lying next to her, she scrambled back, leg screaming in agony, trying to pull away from the body, head turning as she sought the gunman. And then, she caught it. A shadow, tall, dapper, silver hair shining beneath a dark hat, stepping from behind a rock, moving cautiously toward her. She scrambled back some more, until a stone caught her leg, and she moaned in sudden pain.
“Woah, now!” The gentleman was at her side in an instant, familiar blue eyes shining in sad censure, and an aged hand settled calmingly on her hip. “Easy now, Miss Kyle,” Alfred went on, smiling gently, the cultured tones instantly recognisable. “It's quite all right. Rest assured, I've no intent to harm you.”
She stopped at the sight of him, staring in awe as the gentleman she knew only as Wayne's manservant slipped a neat, powerful little gun back in it's hidden holster, and pulled a roll of muslin gauze from his pocket. “Mr Pennyworth?” she murmured, dazed. “You ... why are you ...”
“Hush now,” he murmured, gently, eyes already on the blood threading its way down her leg. “Don't worry about that, my dear. I never could stand to see a lady hurt.” And she had to smile at that, tipping her head back into the dust as gentle hands washed her leg with cool water from a canteen, and wrapped it with all the efficiency of a medic. Odd, that the touch was so much more intimate than the fumbling of the bastard, but gave her not a second of fear.
“I ain't no lady,” she croaked, near-laughing. “Ain't you heard that, Mr Pennyworth?”
“Well now, I can't say what I might have heard, Miss Kyle,” he answered, intent on his task. “I only go by what I see. And Alfred will do, my dear. Just Alfred, to my friends.”
She blinked at him, wondering if she might be delirious. “Am I a friend, Mr Pennyworth?” she asked, quiet-like, and he looked at her, sad and serious, and then a tiny smile slipped out between the creases of a face well lived-in.
“Well, my dear. Call me Alfred, and I shall say we are!” His voice was rich and bubbling, like the stream that was no longer there, and she coughed out a laugh despite herself.
“Alfred,” she purred, something of her old self coming back, a sultry whisper from a time when she hadn't been quite so afraid. “Selina Kyle. I'm at your disposal, good sir.”
“And I at yours,” he replied, tipping his hat like a gallant, silver hair a-glinting. And then a shadow crossed over him, and he looked at the body by the stream-bed. “And if I may say so, my dear, you sure do seem to need it.” He looked back, sad and a little reproachful. “I did warn you, last night. At the saloon. You shouldn't steal from rich men. The greatest of villains hide behind the most distinguished coats, in my experience.”
She smiled then, her own little sadness, her own little pride. “But only villains and rich men are worth stealing from, Alfred. And really, a woman must do as she must do.”
He sighed, patting her injured leg gently, like a whisper. “The world should be better than to make ladies into thieves,” he commented, softly, an old campaigner long since weary, and she smiled, and nodded at the holster beneath his arm.
“Or healing men into killers,” she added, just as softly. “I thought your master didn't like guns?” He blinked at her, seemingly honestly surprised, though she couldn't say at what. “Was I wrong?”
He shook his head. “No, my dear, you're quite right. Master Bruce does not, and he has good reason, and other means aplenty.” His gaze turned inward for a moment, and suddenly for the first time he looked truly old. “No. I have carried this long before Master Bruce was born, and though I have no love for it ... I learned it well, in a time when there seemed such great need, and ... I suppose old habits die hard, is all.”
Selina looked at him, all gentle and dapper and sad in the heat, and felt something grow in the hollow beneath her heart. A kinship, maybe, an empathy. And a sadness. She shook her head, her expression rueful and a little bitter. “Guess the world never changes as much as we hope it might,” she said, lying bleeding in the dust beneath his hand, and when he turned to look at her, there was a flash in old blue eyes, of pity and sadness and a kind of deep anger that warmed her, for some reason. It wasn't directed at her. More on the world that had hurt her, and no man yet had shown that kind of care. She ... liked it.
“No,” he acknowledged. “Perhaps not.” And then he smiled, that distant look back in his eyes, looking out at something bright that she couldn't see. “But living's in the hoping, is it not?” And she couldn't help but laugh, rich and rough and appreciative.
“Well, sir,” she conceded, once her breath was back, “I think you might be right.” And she let her expression change, become sultry, seductive, hopeful, knowing full well that against this man it wouldn't ever work. But Selina Kyle had her ways, and in a strange sense, she owed him the depth of them. “And while we're on the subject ... I don't suppose there's any point to hoping you'll let me be on my way, now? Once I've gotten my breath back and all?”
This time, his smile was sharper, livelier, and his eyes had already told her no before he ever opened his mouth. “Now, Miss Kyle!” he declared, as if shocked. “That just wouldn't do! Leaving a young lady like yourself, alone and injured out in the desert!” He shook his head, his eyes twinkling. “No, I think it would be a much better idea if you and I were to sit here a little while, until Master Bruce and the boys have finished with this fellows friends and called out Sheriff Gordon. Don't you?”
She glared at him, and shook her head with a smile. “I think there's not much point in arguing,” she muttered, and struggled to a seated position, accepting the hand he put behind her in support with as much grace as she could muster. “Though I do think we should find a more ... comfortable position, don't you? That fellow over there is going to smell before long.” She nodded at the body of her assailant, and Alfred nodded musingly.
“You're right, of course,” he nodded, and looked down at her with a faint smile. “The lady is always right, yes?” And before she could think to answer, or even register that the maneuver hurt, he had her scooped into his arms, and settled with her head on his shoulder. “Shall we, my dear Miss Kyle?” he beamed, puffing a little with strain, but somehow she didn't think he'd ever drop her. She bit her lip on a smile, and waved a hand imperiously.
“You must have been something when you were younger,” she noted wryly, and gestured to the horizon. “Carry on, good sir! Carry on!”
He grinned, blue eyes all a-twinkle and hair starting to twist with sweat, and just as he started to move, he stopped as if remembering something. Turning back the direction he had presumably come from in the first place, he strode across the dry stream, stepping over the body with a frown of distaste, and set her down as gently as possible on a comfy rock on the far side of the gully. And then, as she stared at him in confusion, he reached behind it with a wink, and pulled out a dusty parasol like one of those magicians she'd seen in Nevada. Laughing a little while she gaped, he lifted the thing and propped it over her, so that for the first time since her little escape into the desert heat, she was sitting in blessed shade. And then, for his finale, with another little wink, he slipped a hand into his pocket, and pulled out a canteen.
“My lady?” he inquired, proffering it gently, and she just ... laughed at him. As happily as anyone with a hole in her leg and the law on the way could possibly be, and to hell with whether she had a right to be or not. Accepting the offered drink with a grin, she nodded up at the parasol in disbelief.
“Thank you, good sir,” she laughed. “But pray tell ... where the hell did you get that?”
And he just smiled. “Well, Miss Kyle. Haven't you heard? A British gentleman always has his brolly to hand!”
.
