Isis And The Alley Cats
Once upon a time, every single cat in the East End of Gotham City knew Selina Kyle's rooftop, by scent and by heart. But one cat knew it better than any other cat in the whole city, and her name was Isis.
Isis was a lean grey tabby with one torn ear, and she had followed Selina home the very same winter that Selina built her first costume, stitch by careful stitch, on that same quiet rooftop. From that winter on, Isis slept curled up on Selina's windowsill every single night, and prowled softly beside her on the quietest of patrols. And somehow — nobody could ever quite explain how — Isis always seemed to know when trouble was coming, often before Selina's own sharp instincts caught up.
Selina fed dozens of strays across her rooftop routes, night after night, season after season. She kept a whole careful map inside her head: every cat's favorite ledge to sun itself on, every hidden spot behind a chimney, every doorway where a shivering kitten might be sheltering from the rain. She had learned their habits the very same patient way she had once learned Gotham's guard patrols, watching and waiting until she understood every small pattern. Over time, every stray cat in the city came to trust her the way they trusted no one else in Gotham. Children in the East End took to leaving out little bowls of milk on their windowsills at night, always hoping — though never quite knowing for certain — that Catwoman herself might pass by.
Then, one restless night, trouble came.
A warehouse three blocks from Selina's loft caught fire, orange light flickering suddenly against the dark sky, and Isis woke her with an urgent, insistent yowl that simply would not stop, pawing at her blanket until Selina sat bolt upright.
She reached the warehouse to find a dozen frightened strays trapped together on a fire escape that was already beginning to buckle under the heat, flames licking hungrily up through the lower floors of the old building. Selina did not think twice, not for a single second. She climbed straight up into the thickening smoke, her clawed gloves finding grip on metal scorched almost too hot to touch, and carried cat after cat safely down, tucked snug in the crook of one arm, while neighbors from all across the East End gathered below to watch, holding their breath together in the smoky night air.
Batman arrived just as she carried the very last kitten out into the cool night, coughing softly but grinning behind her amber goggles.
"Firefighters were still four minutes out," he said, and for once, he sounded genuinely impressed.
"Cats don't wait four minutes," Selina answered simply, setting the small kitten gently down on the pavement, where it wobbled unsteadily toward a bowl of milk a neighbor had already set out, as if it somehow knew exactly where to go.
Isis wound happily around Selina's ankles as the crowd below began to cheer and clap, their voices rising warm into the smoky air. And for one rare, unguarded moment, Selina Kyle let herself be truly seen by the neighborhood she loved — not as a thief whispered about in newspapers, not as a rumor traded on street corners, but simply as the girl who had once been just as hungry, and just as alone, as every single cat she had ever quietly fed.
The East End did not need to know her real name. They already knew, in the way that neighborhoods sometimes simply know things, exactly who she truly was.
That night, Selina climbed home across the familiar rooftops with Isis riding proudly on her shoulder, purring softly the whole way. Below her, the East End glowed warm and safe in the darkness, window after window lit gold against the night, full of families who slept a little easier because of everything she had quietly done for them over the years.
And high above it all, with a torn-eared tabby cat curled contentedly against her neck, Selina Kyle allowed herself to think — just for a moment, just this once — that maybe, somewhere along the way, on rooftops she had once climbed alone, she had built herself a family after all.
Isis purred once, softly, as if she had known that all along.