#mxneyandlxck

Selina’s pretty fucking sure that her counter read more than nine hours last night. She squints at the ticking clock that’s seemingly embedded just beneath her skin, rubbing idly at it. She hadn’t worried about whatever time it had showed last night when she’d popped her sleeping pills down with a glass of orange juice (she was out of coffee). It had been a large number, as it always had been, a number she didn’t have to worry about. It reads nine hours now.

Excited. Is that what she’s supposed to feel? Joy bubbling up in her stomach, or whatever poets and writers call excitement? The blue-black numbers on Selina’s wrist continue their constant change - something Selina’s not really paid attention to before. They’ve read a large number all her life, and the numbers are just that; a countdown to an event Selina will confront when it happens. She’s never been much of one to prepare anyways.

09:08:43 / 09:08:42 / 09:08:41.

Nine hours, eight minutes. Less than half a day, and she’ll be meeting her ‘soulmate’. A scoff leaves Selina’s lips. The clock on her mantle reads seven in the morning, watery gray light washing the printed skin on her wrist a melancholic tint. She has nine hours to relish the last fleeting moments of freedom before she gets to know who she’s been born to meet. She watches as the numbers tick down to nine hours, seven minutes. Somewhere in Selina’s mind, she wonders what would happen if she stayed in her apartment and waited the time out. Would her soulmate turn out to be a man ringing the doorbell to the wrong place? A pizza delivery boy?

Selina hates the idea that her life was predestined for her. That she has no way to change her supposed fate with whatever man or woman had been deemed her match. Selina doesn’t like feeling out of control. And yet the world she lives in is a world where no one knows when they’ll meet that ‘lucky’ person who is destined to be their other half. It’s stupid. Selina can’t imagine being tied down - not now, not ever. And yet by law she has to. She leans back in her chair, then gets up to stretch. Might as well hit up the rooftops. She needs distracting in the form of stealing, and who knows - if she meets her soulmate somewhere up in the rafters of a house - yeah. Let’s not think about that. Do now, talk later.

She’s walking across the street from her apartment building to get coffee when the counter starts… tingling. It surprises her, and she sits down before peeling back her sleeve to check the number. Shit! Why hadn’t she ever paid attention when people talked about the counter? It had jumped again, and now read only two hours, forty minutes. Jesus. Was it supposed to leap like that? Selina doesn’t think so. She can only wonder who else in this vast city is looking down at their own counter and wondering at how the time has passed.

She continues on her way and spends the next half hour keeping an eye on every person that met her gaze, conscious of the tingling that emanated from her wrist. Was that a clown…? Selina checks the counter every twenty minutes - noting painfully how time is slipping away from under her fingertips. She’s distracted as she makes her way to the mouth of an alley intent on heading across town —- and then there’s the flash of white and red again. A clown? Selina’s features twist into a frown, and she berates herself for only bringing a small knife. This is Gotham - her city. Also home to several people who want her dead.

Fuck - it’s a clown. A clown henchman with a gun. She’s done nothing to anger the Joker recently, has she? Not enough to have him send a goon after her. This was probably Jay’s idea of a sick joke, damn him.

Selina manages to twist as the clown shoots, banging her hip on the brick wall of the building beside her, fingers still pinching the handle of her blade. Not fast enough. And then she’s staggering against the wall with a sharp pain in her belly. Fucking Joker. Maiming her this way would put her out of commission for weeks. Shit. Her counter doesn’t speed up as her pulse does, but the time has considerably shortened. If this fucking clown is her soulmate, Selina might just die on the spot than go through with that. But when she looks up again, the clown’s gone, and a mild wave of relief washes over her.

Oddly enough, Selina wonders what happens if one half of a pair dies. Does the other feel loss? Even if they haven’t met their soulmate? Do they die alone? Not the time for her to think of such things, but it still is the first thought that floats to the surface of her mind - besides the instinctual reminders to get help.

She knows she only has a small amount of time to get to the hospital. She’s treated bullet wounds both on herself and on others before, but this shot had caught her at an awkward angle from when she’d tried to evade it. She staunches the blood with one hand as she stumbles out to the main street. She hears screams, and cars skidding. And then she trips and slams her head on the pavement, and all goes dark. Stupid, rookie mistake…

Selina wakes up in the ER of Gotham Municipal, senses sluggish, eyesight a bit blurry. It’s risky for her to be here - with her criminal record and all. Does she really have a choice? She’s already here. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see the vague silhouette of a doctor. Selina blinks wearily, then glances down at her counter, heart catching in her throat.

00:00:10 / 00:00:09 / 00:00:08.

The doctor makes a move to turn. Selina restrains the urge to leap out of the bed and just make a run for it, wound or no. She can’t be the soulmate of a doctor. She’s a thief, a criminal, someone a straight-laced doctor could never be with. And if he’s an old, wrinkly pompous doctor, Selina’s so fucked. But he’s not.