She's Sunshine, She's Grace, She'll Punch You in the Face

Chapter 80: Infatuation

Selina landed in between the two large men and the homeless man with graceful, catlike precision. "Hello, boys. We planning on selling organs on the black market?"

Ladybird saw Robin land beside her while she stayed further up on a fire escape to watch the homeless man make a break for it.

The more angry of the two men grunted in annoyance while the other just smiled widely at the leather clad woman. "Catwoman! Looking good, babe."

"I am not your babe." She unhooked her whip and let it snap beside her.

"Oh, come on. I don't mean anything by it." The two men stepped closer to them. "What are you doing hanging around this Robin kid anyways?"

"Oh, I'm just taking this kitten under my wing for a bit." Selina crouched down to get ready for an attack.

"Oracle." Ladybird whispered from her perch on top of the fire escape. "We are going to need police on our location. Two men with knives."

"On it." Oracle could be heard over the comms. "Take them down and be safe."

"Dan." The large man with the rough voice spoke up. "We let Pauly get away."

"Oh, forget about Pauly. Can't you see we got a bigger score right in front of us?"

Robin scoffed. "You actually think you stand a chance?"

"Maybe not with these." Dan waved his knife around.

Before the man even had the opportunity to fully point the gun he grabbed out of his pants at Robin, Ladybird used her yoyo to wrap around the guns barrel and yank it out of his hand. Dan finally had the audacity to look angry as he caught sight of Ladybird.

"So, you had a little Ladybird hiding up in her nest, did you? Very clever." He looked back over to Robin. "I'm still gunna beat your ass, kid."

Ladybird hopped down as they all began to fight. It was lighting fast how quick Selina used her whip to wrap around rough voiced man's wrist to pull it close so she could kick the knife away and it almost surprised Catwoman herself when Ladybird landed a clean punch to the side of his head on her way down.

He dropped like a sack of potatoes so the two women turned their attention to the man, Dan, who was fighting Robin, just in time to see Robin slam the mans face against the brick wall of the alley and he too, dropped fast.

"Well he was quite the chatter box, wasn't he?" Selina bent down to pick up the knife she kicked out of the man's hand.

"Let me see that." Robin pointed to Dans gun that was still in Ladybird's hand.

"Oh, yeah." She handed it over.

Robin took the clip out of the gun and unchambered it. He examined the gun in the fires' light for a moment before sighing. "Serial number is scratched out. Untraceable."

"That's how it usually goes." Selina leaned against the wall next to the fire. "Oracle, what's the ETA on the cops?"

"About two minutes. Should be hearing sirens soon. Also, a heads up. The commissioner will be one of the ones meeting you there. He didn't tell me what he wanted other than that he wanted to talk to Ladybird."

"This is news to me." Batman spoke up over the comms. "Does he know I'm not there?"

"Yes, he's aware. He said, and I quote 'I know he will be listening anyways'." Oracle giggled.

"Well he's not wrong." Nightwing said through the comms. "We all will be listening."

"I hear the sirens." Robin interrupted. "We'll soon hear what he wants."

About a minute later, three police cruisers stop at the end of the alley they are in.

Jim is the first one to enter the alley and the moment he catches sight of Ladybird, he waves her over as he calls out to the rest of the men. "Go book the men and take statements from the other two. I need to talk to Ladybird."

Ladybird makes her way to Jim and stops a few feet away from him. "Hello, commissioner. You needed to speak to me?"

"I do." He looks over to the officers now cuffing the two passed out men. "Come have a walk with me. I don't need my men hearing this just yet."

"Okay." She looks over to Robin for a second before following Jim out of the alley.

"As you may or may not know, Arkham allows inmates to send out letters to inmates family and friends."

"Okay?" Ladybird seemed a bit confused but let him continue.

"All of these letters are screened and examined before they are sent out of course. No need to worry about anything like that." Jim stopped at a crosswalk and looked down at the bluenette. "Well the Joker sent one to the GCPD. Most of the time it addressed to me or my officers and usually says something like 'Killing you will be so much fun' and have some horrible joke written along with it but this one wasn't anything like that. He addressed it to 'My dearest Ladybird'."

"He sent me a letter?!" Ladybird looked at Jim with wide eyes.

"Yes. And we even watched the video of him down in max security writing this letter to you. We even compared it to the other letters he sent and the hand writing matches completely."

"What did this letter say?" Ladybird stood up straighter and kept her face neutral like Batman.

"I brought it with me." He pulled out an envelope out of his coat pocket. "I think its best if you just read it. Don't worry about giving it back. We have a copy at GCPD and I figured Batman would want to have a look at the original."

Ladybird just nodded as she took the envelope. The sending address showed the GCPD just like Jim said along with the return address being Arkham. Pulling the letter out, she unfolded it to see it was written in what looked to be green crayon.

My dearest Ladybird,
I woke up about an hour ago and this quack of a doctor keeps telling me to rest. ME? REST? Doesn't he know there ain't no rest for the wicked? He keeps telling me "You have a concussion and a hairline fracture in you jaw". I KNOW! I may be crazy but I'm not an idiot. I haven't forgotten what you did to my beautiful face. And my, my girlie, do you have a mean punch. It's up there with Batsie. Quite impressive if I do say so myself. All that strength plus a fun-loving and sarcastic sense of humor? That's a perfect package in my book. And I'll be honest, you're easy on the eyes. Three for three on the checklist. Now the last thing to do is to break you and make you mine. Shouldn't be too hard. The young and pretty ones are the easiest to break. Just ask my ex. I got bored of her though and its time for something new. So I'll make you a promise. I will MAKE you my something new. It's just a matter of time.
Sincerely, Joker
P.S. Smile. It suits you. HA! HA! HA!