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Kitty marvels up at the void on the other side of the window, painted in glittering rivers of gold. The mass of wealth gathering around the MacGuffinite magnet expands exponentially by the second, and Kitty can’t help but float closer to the barrier between her and the greatest heist she has ever pulled in her entire life.
The greatest heist in history.
Everything she’s worked for, everything she’s fought through, everything has led up to this; she clawed her way, tooth and nail, to get here. She’ll be remembered, no, she’ll be revered. No criminal could ever accomplish something as great as this.
The Phantom Bandit, stealing all the world’s gold.
She presses her paw to the golden silhouette in the near distance, the dull feeling of the freezing glass on her glove seeping through to send a chill up her spine. It might even grow to the size of a new moon. That thought leaves a wide, wild grin on her face, fangs and all. She can’t even fit her creation in the palm of her hand. Kitty tilts back, reaching her arm out to see it, and feels a laugh bubble up in her throat. She throws her head back, cackling riotously, righteously, victoriously.
She’s done it.
She pulled it off and she was here, basking in the glow of it shimmering through the control room. No one can stop her. She feels– hell, she is invinc—
“Kitty.” A tense, level voice bites out from behind her. Her laughter dies out with no hurry, sighing derisively.
“Madame Governor.” She spins in the air, leveraging herself with the control chair, to see Diane in the airlock frame. Kitty hisses through her teeth, “Oh, right, not anymore.”
Diane blinks hard, glaring up at Kitty as she shakes her head, still reeling from the muddling effects of the tranquilizer dart they’d stuck her with. “You have to stop this.”
“And ruin my fun?” Kitty barks out a laugh, pushing back and throwing her arms out. “We’ve only just begun, sweetheart. The old you I knew would’ve loved this.”
Diane grips the edge of the airlock, “I’m not the Crimson Paw anymore. No matter what you want to believe.”
“Oh, I stopped believing in you a long time ago.” Kitty fires back, and she takes satisfaction in watching Diane’s face grimace in pain. “But, hey, that’s not what the public believes. They’ll only ever see that side of you now.”
Diane says nothing to that, only pushes upward to float slowly toward the ceiling. Kitty smirks and turns around, waiting for her old partner to strike. She knows her too well by now, she’s sure. “Soon enough, they won’t even remember you. This is the power move to top all power moves. They’ll think of the most untouchable thief and see me.”
Kitty hears a scoff, close—too close—and her head barely swivels to see Diane flying through the air before Kitty’s skull whips to the side, Diane’s kick sending her flying. Surprised and dazed as she is, Kitty recovers quick, pivoting in midair and latching onto the paneling with a rekindled fury blazing behind her eyes.
“How’s that for untouchable?” Diane quips with a heaved breath as she pushes off the chair, flipping head over heels to the opposite wall. “Unfortunately,” She rolls her neck, ears flicking, preparing to lunge, “I can’t let you do this. This ends now, Kitty.”
Kitty snarls, “We’ll see about that!”
Diane launches herself like a missile straight toward Kitty, legs extended for a swift kick. The snow leopard throws herself out of the way with inches to spare. The fox braces feet first into the wall, her head snapping to see the controls clutched in Kitty’s paw. Kitty barely has time to react before Diane is latching onto her, legs secured around her waist. She reaches for the controls, wrestling with Kitty as they tumble through the zero gravity, slamming her elbow into her cheek as she tries to tear it from her hands. Diane’s claws graze her arm, ripping gashes in her suit and into her fur. Kitty clenches her teeth, letting out a frustrated groan and digs her claws into Diane’s thighs, prying her off and heaving her into a support beam as the former governor yelps in pain.
Kitty wipes blood off her face, feeling the throb of a new bruise. She smirks, letting out a small laugh, “I was worried you’d gone soft, Di.” She doesn’t mean to let the old nickname slip, but it comes out, teasing masking the pain she’s been trying to tamp down ever since she saw Diane on the gangway. “I’m honestly a bit disappointed though. You’ve gotten slower.”
Diane huffs, leaning forward as she clutches her side, grasping the dented support beam for stability. “Don’t worry. I’m just getting warmed up.”
Kitty rolls her shoulder, taking a sick thrill from the throbbing in her arm and face, “I’m not worried.” She throws the control panel toward the window, watching as Diane’s eyes widen and track its arc through the air. “I just wanted a fair fight.”
Diane’s gaze flicks from the controls then back to Kitty, a hardened resolve behind her eyes. In the blink of an eye, the fox lunges for the controls, and Kitty is not a second behind her. The snow leopard intercepts her, sending the two of them flying through the air. Kitty tries to slam Diane into the paneling, but the fox slips through her grip and uses Kitty’s momentum to get to the controls. She leaps from one box of cargo to another to propel herself closer.
Kitty spies a wire, ripped free from the damaged support beam, looping loosely around Diane’s leg. She grabs hold of it and pulls it taut. The wire cinches around Diane’s ankle, tight enough to cut, and she cries out as she’s dragged back suddenly. Kitty grabs her collar and throws her into a security net covering part of the paneled wall. Diane’s head cracks against the metal, her ears ringing. Kitty pins her down, arm pressing into her neck. She latches her feet into the security net, caging the fox in.
Diane coughs, throat bobbing against Kitty’s forearm. “I never knew you to fight fair.” She bites out hoarsely, her paws grabbing at the muscle holding her down, but not trying to pry her off. Only holding her.
“Who do you think I learned that from?” Kitty says, an inch from Diane’s muzzle. Then, before she can reconsider, her mouth forms the question, “Why did you give that up, huh?” She wants it to come out like another teasing taunt. She barely makes it. There’s too much that got dredged up now that she’s seeing her old partner face-to-face for the first time in years. She bares her teeth a little bit more just to hide it. “You threw away everything we’d worked for, and for– for what? To turn your life around? We had it good, living like queens, a new thrill in every heist, bigger and better every day.” She presses harder, hissing in Diane’s face and relishing in her strangled gasp. “You left me behind, and all I got for it was a concrete prison cell. Thanks for that, by the way.”
Diane’s brow furrows, her confusion clear, then raises, pain stealing through her. She struggles to speak, “I know– it’s my fault. I’m sorry—”
Kitty laughs, loud and disbelieving, “You’re sorry? Why the hell are you sorry?”
“I never wanted that to happen to you, Kitty.” Diane desperately hopes that her words sound genuine, that they reach her. “I wanted us to go good together. Prove to them that we were more than—”
“What do we have to prove to them?” Kitty snaps, her paw next to Diane’s head rending the metal paneling. “All that we will ever be to them are thieves and criminals. Irredeemable. Hell, you taught me that too!” Kitty captures Diane’s gaze, the guilt in the fox’s eyes making Kitty’s pain flare brighter. “You saved me. You taught me that I needed to live my life on my own terms. I’m doing exactly that. We were never that different, you just can’t see it.”
“I’m not like you.” Diane says, sorrow filling her voice. “No matter how much you want me to be.” Then, she levels Kitty with a look so full of hope that it makes the cat sick to her stomach. “But you can still stop this. There’s still time. You can still be a good—”
Kitty grabs Diane’s jaw, snapping her mouth shut, aiming to bruise, to hurt. Make her feel an inkling of the pain that Kitty has endured for so many years, all because of her. “Don’t.” Her voice is icy, poison as it stabs at her. “Don’t you dare give me that speech.”
A whine from Diane’s forcibly shut muzzle makes Kitty’s grip loosen a fraction unconsciously. Kitty sighs, squeezing her eyes shut for a second, before leveling Diane with a collected gaze. “Y’know, I really thought we had something.” She lets go of her snout, leaving Diane to wince and pant. Her free paw goes, claws extended, to slice at the security netting. “You trained me. Taught me how to steal, to misdirect, to distract.” She forces Diane’s arm down to her side and, in one deft hand, she ties her tightly to the netting unkindly. The fox realizes what she’s trying to do and finally starts struggling, but Kitty brings her lower paw up to pin her arm down and finish the job.
“As much as I might despise it, you made me who I am.” She does the same thing to the other arm, and then to Diane’s waist, tugging at the restraints to make sure she doesn’t move. Diane pulls at them, but they hold fast. “I got this whole idea from you, after all.”
Diane’s face falls, and she stops struggling in shock, “What?” Despair floods her veins.
“You don’t remember?” Kitty smiles almost fondly, maybe the first genuine one she’s had in a while. She floats back just enough to take it all in, “That one summer night, perched atop a skyscraper. You asked me, ‘If you could steal anything in the world, what would it be?’ You laughed at my answer, called me boring, so then I asked you what you’d steal.”
Diane shakes her head, whispering, “No.”
Kitty grins cooly, pushing past the agony of remembering what was. “You told me gold. All the gold in the world.” She laughs, recalling how the pure, careless ambition in Diane’s voice back then had sparked something in her. Something close to wonder, closer to adoration. She wouldn’t dare say it was something else. Something that made her heart race and lean closer, into her magnetic air.
In a way, Diane was stealing her too. She just didn’t even realize it.
She had looked out at the city, beyond the horizon, taking in all of the twinkling, glittering windows and streetlights. That younger Kitty had imagined every light like a bit of gold, and when she couldn’t distinguish where the lights of the city ended and the starry sky began, she realized something. That, maybe, it all meant so much more because Kitty had Diane to show her that the world was bigger than she could ever imagine.
That she could have the world in her paw. Every single glinting light, every star in the night sky, could be hers. Could be theirs. They’d steal the whole world together.
And a few months later, it all came crashing down. Kitty’s world shattered, swept everything out from under her feet, and she ran as far as she could from the epicenter of that disaster. She stole and sabotaged and plundered, and every time Kitty would see a flash of orange fur on a campaign poster, she’d drag her claws right through her image and her lungs would burn with the effort.
“I don’t think anyone else has ever hurt me as bad as you did that day.” Kitty says, slow and more truthful than she wants to be. But she wants Diane to hurt. She already posted the video, ruined the “good” life she painstakingly built by revealing her past, so what’s more salt in the wound?
Diane’s face screws up, almost like she might cry, and she hangs her head, letting out a ragged sigh. “I never stopped caring about you.” She’s quiet, resigned.
Kitty’s fists clench. She wants to hit something, break something. “You left anyway.”
“I grew up, Kitty.” Diane’s voice breaks as she looks up at her, strains to get closer, and Kitty hates, hates, hates how her breath hitches in return, “We wanted different things. We changed. There are so many things I wish I could have done differently. But you were the one who ran back then.”
Kitty growls, eyes narrowing, “Don’t you dare—”
“You have a choice.” There’s that stupid note of hope again, made worse by the pleading in Diane’s gaze. Kitty’s claws dig into her palm, drawing blood. “You don’t have to run now, Kat.”
She can’t disguise the flinch that runs through her, how her eyes widen at the name.
She remembers the first time that Diane called her that, at their old home base as she’d held the punching bag. Kitty nearly missed the bag on the next swing.
How she’d tease her when they’d spar, call out to her while she swung a bag of loot her way, and extend a hand to swing her out the window, escaping into the night. It was a name that she couldn’t stand hearing after Diane was gone.
It just wasn’t the same, and she couldn’t take that.
Kitty snarls, fury bleeding back in and pulsing through her, drowning out the ache in her heart. She turns, pushing off of the scattered cargo debris to grab the controls again.
Diane yells after her, tugging at the netting. “Kat, wait, listen to—!”
“Shut up!” Kitty cries, voice raw with emotion. “I’ve done enough waiting and listening. It’s time for you to see what I’ll be forever remembered for.”
Kitty wrenches the dial into the red, turning the magnet on high. The entire station shudders violently, and a few warnings sound from the control panel. The lights flicker out, then blink back on, red with the reserve power. The room glints in gold as the mass outside the window grows even larger.
“Kitty, please, you have to stop!” Diane begs, staring up at her. Kitty finally, finally sees fear. “Your friends—”
The snow leopard cackles in abandon, turning to the window, bathed in gold, “They were only a means to an end.” Her grin borders on giddy, “Soon, I’ll have the entire world in the palm of my hand, and nothing, none of them, no one on that stupid planet, not even you, will stand in my way.” With her final words, she smashes the controls against the chair, breaking the panel in half and sending pieces of it flying.
“No!” Diane screams, horror in her voice, “What have you done!?”
“What you were always too afraid to do, Di.” Kitty shakes her head, still staring out the window. “I’m pulling off the greatest heist in history. I’m doing more than stealing, I’m taking. No more hiding in the shadows. They’ll all know who—!”
Kitty cuts off with a hiss, a prick in her neck surprising her. She pulls a dart out of her neck, and is barely able to mutter a “What?” before a swooping feeling washes over her. No, no, no, no.
Her gaze travels to Diane, who had freed one of her hands, outstretched toward Kitty, and is looking at her with a sadness, a pity, that strikes her despite the fog settling over her thoughts.
Kitty grips the chair, blinking hard. “You clever fox.” She says with as much contempt as she can muster, glowering down at Diane. The fox frees herself and pushes toward Kitty through the zero gravity. When she floats close enough, Kitty tries to push back, away, but her hand slips and she doesn’t get far.
She prepares for another fight, unsheathing her claws and battling the heaviness of her eyelids, the weight stacking up on her limbs.
But, instead, Diane wraps her arms around Kitty tightly, embracing her and resting her head on Kitty’s shoulder. Her paw smooths down her arm, finding Kitty’s wrist. Kitty doesn’t get to process the action, too soft in comparison to everything that she’s done and said, before Diane whispers something in her ear.
“I forgive you, Kat.”
Kitty’s eyes widen, and even as her heart slows, her breath hitches. She can’t just—
The entire station shakes suddenly, creaking and rending deafening, an explosion’s shockwave. Kitty, in her final fleeting moments of consciousness, sees the mass of wealth shatter apart, gold sent hurtling through space and back to Earth. There’s a pull on her body that feels like they might be falling back to Earth too, and the fiery colors painting the hull affirm that thought.
She doesn’t even have it in her to do or say anything. There’s the distinct, gut-wrenching sting of defeat, then the final embers of that furious fire struggling to stay lit, before she only feels numb. Like in the back of her mind, she always knew this was going to happen. She’d overlook something, miss something crucial, and her entire life would collapse for the second time.
She wants to be angry, to wrap her hands around Diane and squeeze. But not to kill, not anymore. To hold. She hasn’t had Diane this close to her in years, and she just wants to hold her back.
Every single warning on the control panel begins screaming at them, flashing red and yellow and every enraged color. It’s all dulling to Kitty’s ears. She’s clawing at the surface and she can’t reach it. She’s slipping farther and farther away.
Diane, who had pulled back to look out the cockpit in shock and relief, looks down at the panel in despair. She turns back to Kitty, and hugs her even tighter.
“I still care about you. I always have.” A shaky breath tickles the shell of Kitty’s ear. “I’m so sorry. For everything.”
Kitty can’t lift her arms to hug her back. For the first time in years, she desperately wants to.
There’s a burst of voices, and Diane pulls back, and lets go, and Kitty is unmoored. She’s back to being that lost kid again. Her paw twitches to bring Diane back to her, and in her mind, Diane turns away, disappearing down the alley instead of lowering her mask and gesturing for that lost kid to follow. Kitty’s vision fades to black, and Diane, the real and the fake, fades away too.
She doesn’t hear the “I love you.” that Diane whispers, full of hundreds, thousands of things still left unsaid.
When Kitty wakes in the banged-up wreckage of an escape pod, she only sees Doom and Pigtail, both refusing to look at her, as they’re being led away in cuffs. She’s hauled up too, arms restrained, and pulled past the burning remains of another escape pod. She stares at it for as long as she can, unsure what she’s expecting to happen. Nothing happens. No one rises from it. It only crackles and creaks in the scorching sun.
When she asks about Diane, the authorities say nothing. She’s not stupid though. She connects the dots, looks at the burning wreck one more time before the transport door shuts, and can’t find it in her to feel anything.
She had already reckoned with herself that the person she loved the most had abandoned her a long time ago. Maybe Diane, in her final words, wanted her to believe that she was right by her side. But Kitty knows that people say a lot of desperate things when their lives are coming apart.
She would know.
Even so. She hates how she can’t scrub Diane’s words from her mind the entire ride to prison. She can’t brush off the phantom touch of her embrace as they fell to Earth.
It’s only when the door to her prison cell slams shut and mechanically locks that she cracks. She stumbles forward, knees cracking on the cold floor, dry heaving and sobbing, digging her claws into the concrete and leaving gashes in her wake.
Because now Diane is really, actually gone. She’s dead. She isn’t just attending a press conference or a fancy gala or working late at her office. She isn’t just living a different life. She’s dead.
There’s too much that she didn’t get to say. To do. And a little part of her, years younger and starry-eyed, hopes that maybe she still impressed her.
Because even though they were on opposing sides, even with everything they’d done to each other, Kitty had looked into Diane’s defiant eyes as they’d punched and kicked and clawed and hoped that she was proud of her.
Kitty’s sob breaks into a laugh, sad and stuck in her throat.
God. Maybe she hadn’t changed at all.