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CHAPTER 7: A Proper Kidnapping
🕑 Added 2025-04-15 09:04:35 +0000 UTC"Sorry, Aunt Selina… I messed up," Max mumbled, standing there like a kid caught red-handed. "I didn't mean to blow up your safehouse. Honest mistake. But I'll make it right, I swear! I'll work, I'll hustle—I'll pay for it!"
Back in his human form, Max was doing his best impression of a good kid who definitely didn't just wreck an entire building.
Normally, Selina would've had him tied up in five seconds flat. But not today. Nope. Still high off that [Charm] effect, she was practically glowing with motherly warmth.
"It's alright, Maxie," she said, voice soft enough to melt steel. "As long as you're okay, the house doesn't matter. Come stay at my place tonight, alright?"
Red flag.Max's brain fired off every internal alarm at once.
Sweet Selina was the scariest version of Selina.
"Uhh—thanks but no thanks!" he blurted, stepping back like she had a bomb under her coat. "I'll find a motel or something. Plus, when that [Charm] wears off, you're totally gonna murder me, aren't you?"
Selina tilted her head with that "why would I strangle you?" look. "Why would I do that? C'mon, sugar. You're staying with me."
Before Max could say another word, she grabbed his hand and started pulling him through the streets.
After about an hour of back-alley shortcuts and zigzags through Gotham's worst neighborhoods, they ended up outside a shady backdoor tucked behind a bar with a flickering neon sign.
Max frowned. "This… this is a bar, Aunt Selina."
"I know. My place is in the complex behind it. Going through the main gate triggers the cameras. This way's quieter."
Nothing suspicious about that at all.
They slipped in through the back, out through the side, and into a long, narrow alley. It was pitch black. Max squinted — even the Omnitrix glow barely lit a few feet ahead.
"This is definitely how horror movies start," he muttered. "Should've brought a flashlight."
"We're close," Selina said, voice calm as ever. "No streetlights. No cams. Perfectly safe."
Which was exactly when everything went to hell.
Selina froze.
Her eyes locked on something in the distance — a group of shadows just barely visible at the mouth of the alley. One of them raised a hand. There was something shiny in it.
Gun.
Her pupils shrank. "Sh*t."
Max didn't need a second warning. The second Selina hit the ground in a combat roll, Max dove flat like a pro.
BANG!
Something got hit. Not them, but… still way too close.
Max's heart was pounding. "Oh, come on! What is this, Gotham's Worst Timing Olympics?!"
Selina was already back on her feet, whip in hand. One snap —CRACK!
The sound sliced through the night. One of the shadows cried out, and something metallic hit the ground.
Gun down. Nice shot.
But before she could follow up with a second strike —CLICK.
A heavy-duty spotlight lit up the alley like a stage show. Max and Selina both flinched, hands shielding their eyes, but the blast of white light still left them blinking and dazed.
"Woooow, look what I found," a smarmy voice said from behind the glare. "The Cat's out chasing little boys now? I thought only priests got that weird. Hahaha!"
Selina's teeth clenched. That voice. She knew it.
"Goddamn it, Cobblepot," she growled. "You dirty little penguin freak, I swear—touch a hair on my head and I'll rob you blind, bankrupt your black market, and ship your waddling ass to the South Pole!"
Sure enough, out stepped Oswald Cobblepot — aka The Penguin — in all his squat, snide glory.
"Easy, easy," he said, wiggling his fingers. "This isn't a hit. Just a friendly little grab. We'll talk soon."
He motioned with his hand. Behind him, a crew of thugs stepped up, each holding a gas canister.PSSHHHH!Before Max or Selina could move, knockout gas hit them both. Eyes rolled back, knees buckled.
"Take 'em," Penguin ordered.
Two goons each grabbed Max and Selina, tossed them like luggage into the back of a pickup truck, and threw a tarp over them like they were dirty laundry.
"Let's move. Head to the safehouse. The one in the old cannery."
The truck rumbled to life and peeled out into the night, blending into Gotham traffic like just another sketchy job.
Somewhere on the edge of town, in what looked like a run-down factory…
The place was dusty and abandoned on the outside — but inside, it was a whole different story. Steel walls. Clean floors. Full HVAC. Cozy enough to Airbnb, if you ignored the armed guards.
Max woke up groggy, disoriented, and feeling like he'd just been hit by a truck made of hangovers.
"Ugh… holy crap, what was that gas…?"
His head pounded. His stomach churned. Worse than tequila shots on an empty stomach. Way worse.
After a few long seconds, he realized he was locked in a storage closet — a literal janitor's closet. Mops. Brooms. Bucket and all.
"Really? A broom closet? You guys couldn't even pretend to be classy about this?"
He managed to shuffle over to a small barred window, peeking through — and what he saw made his stomach drop.
Selina. Bound to a chair in the next room. Shackled with heavy chains.
And across the table from her?
A short, pudgy creep gnawing on a raw fish like it was a turkey leg.
Yep. Penguin. Live and gross in HD.
Right across the table from Selina sat none other than Oswald Cobblepot — the Penguin himself.
Selina looked like she'd just come to, and judging by the twitch in her eye, the memory of what happened before passing out was coming back in real time.
Meanwhile, Max was still crammed in that supply closet. Sweaty. Cranky. And now spying through a barred window like the world's most annoyed raccoon.
"Dude," he muttered. "First time I get kidnapped, and it's with freakin' Penguin doing the honors? Gotham really is wild. And he's got the guts to nab Catwoman too? Has he forgotten Batman's her... I dunno, whatever-they-are?"
He kept quiet, listening in as the verbal fireworks began to spark on the other side of the warehouse.
"I just need you to check something out," Penguin said, his voice like gravel soaked in oil. "Simple recon. In and out."
Selina's laugh was not friendly.
"Oh please. That's how you ask for a favor now? Drug me and chain me up? What's next, stuffing a horse head in my bed?"
"C'mon now," Penguin chuckled, "don't knock it till it works. My 'low-level thug' methods got the legendary Catwoman tied to a chair. GCPD hasn't pulled that off in years."
Selina's jaw clenched. That hit a nerve.
The idea that a few two-bit street punks could one-up her — and brag about it? Nope. Not happening.
"Oh hell no," she snapped. "You slimy little bowling pin. You're gonna regret this."
What followed was an all-out Gotham-style roast battle.
Selina went in first — a full 60-second combo of razor-sharp insults and R-rated language. Max, still stuck in the closet, blinked.
"Holy crap," he whispered. "It's like hearing Catwoman drop a freestyle diss track. Girl's got bars."
Penguin wasn't about to let her have the last word. He leaned forward, dropped his fish (yes, fish), and fired back with his own rapid-fire curse-a-thon. Dude might be short, but his vocabulary was straight-up terrifying.
The two of them went at it for over an hour — like a roast battle hosted in Arkham. No punches, just premium trash talk.
Finally, when they were both too tired to insult each other anymore, one of Penguin's goons came over with two glasses of wine.
Penguin downed his like water, then waved toward Selina. "Give her one too. C'mon, we both know those cuffs don't do sh*t to hold you. Let's talk like civilized criminals."
CLINK.
The chains hit the ground.
Selina rubbed her wrists, grabbed the wine, and downed it like it was Gatorade. "Alright, Penguin. What's the job? I might say yes. Depending on how stupid it is."
"You've heard of this, I'm sure," Penguin said.
Then he started singing.
Not just any song. That creepy Gotham lullaby — the one whispered in back alleys and scribbled on asylum walls.
"Beware the Court of Owls, that watches all the time,
From shadowed halls and rooftops high, they see you every climb.
They lurk inside your very home, they perch beside your bed,
Don't ever say their name out loud, or they'll come for your head…"
Selina's eyes went wide. Cold sweat. Real fear.
"You've lost your damn mind," she said. "You're picking a fight with the Court of Owls?!"
Penguin slammed the table, wine splashing. "They picked a fight with me! I've been dealing with them for six months — fake deals, backstabbing me left and right! Then they attacked my Iceberg Lounge. Killed half my crew. Threatened me. And I'm supposed to just take it?!"
Selina stared at him like he'd grown a second nose.
"You idiot," she said flatly. "You can't fight them. Nobody fights them. You try, you die. And if you're planning to go down swinging, do it alone. I'm not getting dragged into your suicide mission."
