THE RIDDLE OF THE CAT

Disclaimer: *pulls receipts from purse* I own nothing!

The crack of a whip broke the moonlit silence of Gotham City's museum district. It was followed by a grunt, a shriek, and the crunch of a broken nose. Catwoman was on the prowl.

Selina Kyle finished off the would-be mugger with a roundhouse kick to the side of the head. Looking down at the now unconscious man, she grinned, as, with a big twist of irony, she dug through his pockets and fished out his wallet. "Meow." She purred. With that, she stuffed several dollar denominations into the pouch at her side, and scaled the roof of the Gotham Museum of Art. The museum was featuring a large exhibit of Egyptian cat ushabtis, which piqued her interest in cats, art, and thievery.

She used the nails on her gloves to cut a hole in the glass rooftop dome, and then used the tiny suction cups on her fingertips to pull the cut oval out and drop it on the roof. Adjusting her goggles, she jumped onto the ceiling high gargoyles that littered Gotham's buildings inside and out.

"The curator knows me too well." She thought, as she scanned the room for new security features. Truly every trip to the Gotham Museum district was becoming a bigger challenge. Oh well. The more worth the prize at the end for the trouble. She noticed that not only were there laser sensor grids, but the case itself featured an alarm, set off by touch.

She descended gracefully from the stone relic by way of her whip, and began to cartwheel, flip and slide her way across the room, while keeping an ear out for guards. Upon reaching the case, she managed to pry open the box on the case alarm, and was working on disabling the alarm without setting it off, when she heard an entirely unexpected noise.

A large KABOOM shook the museum. Selina whirled around, listening for voices, either from the source of the noise or the guards. Fairly confident that the noise had come from right outside the museum, and that the guards were now otherwise occupied, she gave up on the alarm and simply smashed the glass case to tiny shards. She grabbed the ushabtis like it was a three minute shopping spree and nimbly angled for the roof.

Once outside, she peeped down at the museum entrance. In place of the large statue of the three graces that had always stood outside, was a huge marble question mark. It was so large, in fact, that Selina couldn't think how it had gotten there short of an air drop from a plane. "I brought it up from the sewer." Spoke a voice from behind her, as if to answer the question she hadn't spoken aloud. She whipped around to see Edward Nygma standing behind her. His hands were in his pockets, his trademark cane lay on the ground beside him, and the look on his face was a comical mix of his trademark arrogance and something else…sheepishness, maybe? Selina had a mini mental flashback to that time in Rome, waking up from a seemingly bad dream to a real life nightmare with his lips on hers...

"I brought it up from the sewer." He repeated. "I blew up the old statue, and hoisted the new one up from under the street." His cheeks were slightly red now, as she continued staring at him, dumbfounded. He kept going, nervously "I wanted to leave a lasting impression on Gotham, since I have the um, greatest m-mind in the, uh, the city." He mumbled the last bit "They should keep something of all their greatest citizens in and around these museums. You, for instance." He turned to go. "I'll leave you to your business. Just thought a fellow rogue would like to hear the explanation of how I did it." With that, he loped away on long legs, picking up his cane on his way to the opposite end of the museum. She watched him go with wide, chartreuse eyes.