Kate Kane's New, Nude Life

The phone rang. Kate went to pick it up.

As far as homes of the rich and famous went, her place looked understated. There were no excessive luxuries, no silk sheets, no priceless bits of art hung on the wall. That was a side-effect of spending years in survival training, Kate had always reasoned. All the cliche comforts ended up just being more uncomfortable.

But as low-key as her place looked, Kate Kane was still the CEO of Wayne Enterprises (until her cousin, Bruce, made it back from wherever he was), and still...

"Hello. Is this Batwoman?"

Kate froze. She looked at her phone for a second, making sure she was on her casual one. She didn't exactly had out her private number, let alone do so in the suit. Only a handful of people would be ringing her, and she knew all their voices; also, no one would be ringing and calling her that.

"Pretty sure you've got the wrong number," Kate said.

"I don't think so," the man on the other end said. "Bigshot hero like you, you've got to have heard of metas, right? Is telepathy really that much of a stretch?"

Kate paused. Shit.

"Passed by the suit one time by dumb luck," he said. "I didn't believe what I saw in that head, I have to tell you. Bruce Wayne was Batman? Bruce Wayne, the guy who can't walk into a party without getting shitfaced and vanishing in under an hour? Okay, maybe that should have been a clue that he had a double life, but it wasn't an easy one to swallow."

Okay, so he wasn't bluffing. Being a telepath would explain that much. Even if he wasn't, he had more information than anyone should.

"What is this about?" she said.

"See, that's the other thing," he said. "I know your secret identity, your number, the basics I got in your head. I know a lot of people's secrets. I also know that if I you to, I don't know, steal the Declaration of Independence then at some point you're going to figure it's easier to just leak out your secret identity and deal with the consequences, than deal with me."

"Do you want money?" she said.

"Again, I know a lot of secrets," he said. "I get money from plenty of people. I just figure, knowing who Batwoman is - and I'm not an idiot, I've got all the cliches, scheduled emails for if I ever mysteriously go missing, this is not my first time - that level of hold means I get to ask for something special."

Whatever it was, she could deal with it, Kate told herself. She could go to Luke, figure out some way to track this guy down, remove the hold he had, and...

He answered her.

_That evening_Kate took a deep breath. She'd done press conferences before, that was nothing new. This one was a little bit weird, but the fact there were people, the fact there were cameras, that was nothing that would make her nervous. No, that wasn't having any effect on her at all.

She looked in the mirror, grimaced, then put on a professional face as she walked outside. The press conference was held on a Gotham street, just by the entrance to Wayne Tower. She walked forwards, looking dead ahead, and letting her blush warm her from the cool Gotham morning. Then, when she couldn't justify walking any further, Kate turned and came face to face with the press, the flashing lights of cameras and waving microphones and the cacophony of questions, wearing not even the slightest scrap.

"I just have a few words," Kate said, putting on a brave face.

"You want me to what?" Kate said. "Go nude," the stranger said, over the phone. "Pretty simple concept. You call a press conference, and announce your intentions to forgo any sort of clothing for the foreseeable future. No jacket, no shirt, no pants, no skirt, no bra, no panties. I don't want to see so much as a stray sock. I told you, I'm sorted for cash, but I'm always down for a bit of fun."

"And if I tell you to go screw yourself and would rather you tell the world I'm Batwoman?" Kate said. Her face was hot.

"Oh, don't be like that," he said. "Laws pretty much don't exist for you billionaires anyway, right? You're not going to get any meaningful consequences, legally speaking. Though I guess maybe you're just worried that it might be that little bit embarrassing for the whole world to see your tits?"

Kate didn't dignify that with an answer.

"Oh," the blackmailer said. "I probably should have said, when I peeked into your head? That includes account details. Log-ins, passwords, a_ lot _of old photos, couple of videos. You and that Julia person must have been close, huh? Plus Sophie, plus..."

"Okay, I get it!" Kate interrupted.

"The world's going to be seeing every bit of you whichever way this goes, is all," he said. "Honestly, some of the stuff you get up to in those clips, it'd probably be less revealing than you holding that press conference. So if the whole world is going to be getting to see Kate Kane in the buff if you refuse, thanks to some saucy old texts, the question isn't how shy you feel, it's if you want the world to know you're Batwoman."

Old photos. She knew the exact ones he was talking about too; she'd never been ashamed of her body, at least when it came to girlfriends. Total strangers was a whole other issue.

She showed everything. She was going to show everything, one way or another.

"So?" he said. "Which option do you pick?"

Kate hesitated. Keep being Batwoman, and keep that a secret, at the cost of...

"What do you want me to say?" Kate said, voice quieter.

"From today, going forwards, I'm officially giving up on clothes," Kate said. "For good. I don't see why the female body should be something to be ashamed of. Yes, I have these - so does half the population, and the other half's probably looked them up on google."She cupped her boobs, pushing them up, and letting them drop.

Her legs were on the verge of shaking, her face was burning, and only the limits of her self-control was keeping her face from going beet-red and her voice from shaking in utter mortification.

"And yes, I have a pussy, you know what it looks like, so I don't see any point in hiding it," Kate said.

She was standing without anything in the way. Her hands were by her sides, with nothing blocking the sheer amount of flesh she had on display. Kate Kane, Batwoman, bare to the flashing cameras and outside air.

This would probably be pixelated when it ended up on the news, not that that would change the content of her words. And even if by some miracle the uncensored version didn't leak, there was still the rest of...

"So tomorrow, I'll be naked," Kate said. "And the day after that, and the day after that. I'm taking a stand against archaic ideas of modesty and shame, and looking damn good doing it - and besides, I got all these tattoos for a reason, I might as well show them off. That is all."

Kate turned around, only then letting herself blush, walking quickly away from the cameras.

They weren't her words. The telepath had given her the broad strokes of what to say, and one or two turns of phrase he'd liked, and she'd repeated it. And for so long as he had the material he did...

Well, if she'd refused, just as much of her would have been revealed. Though she'd have found that embarrassing too. This was her best choice.

Kate went into Wayne Tower, walking past a shocked security guard, and headed straight for the elevator up to her office, passing a dozen strangers with open mouths and wide eyes. The first day of the rest of her life.