She sighs, her gaze locked on her swollen and lightly bleeding knuckles as if glued there.
"There was a plan," she explains. "It was stolen."
No excuses, she can hear Bruce say. That was also part of the deal.
"I stole it," she corrects herself. "I wanted to do something big, to prove that I could." To prove that she could do something right, that she could be useful. To prove that she was worth something. If anyone else were telling the story she would call it context, but to her it's just another excuse.
Her voice is quiet but steady, as if she's telling this story from very far away. She feels far away.
"I was missing details. I..." How does she explain this bit? Does Rue know about gangs? Being vague is only so useful when trying to explain how a 17 year-old girl brings a city to its knees.
"I called all of Gotham's criminal leaders together. They were supposed to talk. But when nobody showed up to explain things, well... they got nervous. They started shooting. Hardly any of them made it out alive."
That was the first moment the mirror had shown her. That terrible, violent moment when the quiet alley had errupted into an explosion of sound that made her ears ring even through the glass. The silence that followed after Catwoman left was even worse.
"Things only escalated from there. With their leaders dead, the gangs went crazy. Some wanted revenge, some wanted to claim new territory... Well. You saw how bad it got. I found out later that the guy that didn't show up was the person I'd stolen the plans from."
She's silent for a moment. Her hand hasn't so much as twitched while Rue worked on it. How much more is there to explain? Does it matter? They saw what happened to Orpheus. They don't need to know about Black Mask, or Africa, or all the times since then that she's wondered if she should have bothered coming back.
no subject
"There was a plan," she explains. "It was stolen."
No excuses, she can hear Bruce say. That was also part of the deal.
"I stole it," she corrects herself. "I wanted to do something big, to prove that I could." To prove that she could do something right, that she could be useful. To prove that she was worth something. If anyone else were telling the story she would call it context, but to her it's just another excuse.
Her voice is quiet but steady, as if she's telling this story from very far away. She feels far away.
"I was missing details. I..." How does she explain this bit? Does Rue know about gangs? Being vague is only so useful when trying to explain how a 17 year-old girl brings a city to its knees.
"I called all of Gotham's criminal leaders together. They were supposed to talk. But when nobody showed up to explain things, well... they got nervous. They started shooting. Hardly any of them made it out alive."
That was the first moment the mirror had shown her. That terrible, violent moment when the quiet alley had errupted into an explosion of sound that made her ears ring even through the glass. The silence that followed after Catwoman left was even worse.
"Things only escalated from there. With their leaders dead, the gangs went crazy. Some wanted revenge, some wanted to claim new territory... Well. You saw how bad it got. I found out later that the guy that didn't show up was the person I'd stolen the plans from."
She's silent for a moment. Her hand hasn't so much as twitched while Rue worked on it. How much more is there to explain? Does it matter? They saw what happened to Orpheus. They don't need to know about Black Mask, or Africa, or all the times since then that she's wondered if she should have bothered coming back.