The Chase
"Stay," he whispers into her hair. It smells like perfume and drying sweat. He kisses the back of her neck and tastes the warm skin under his tongue.
"No." She pushes him off and starts to straighten her dress. He watches her reflection in the mirror as she reapplies her makeup. He reclaims articles of clothing that have been strewn across the guest bedroom of whatever blueblood is hosting this party.
The first thing he notices about her is the fact she is ignoring him. Bruce can understand that. He gets that some girls like to tease; he can comprehend that some girls like to play hard to get. But, what he can't fathom is the fact she is not even trying to ignore him.
She isn't coyly looking over her shoulder and raising an eyebrow, she isn't making a point of not looking at him; she looks over at him when it is expected ( like when he yells something wildly inappropriate or when a woman throws her drink in his face ) and then she looks away when all the action is done.
Batman makes a point of knowing all the names of the socialites that run in Bruce Wayne's circle, just in case one of them takes too much offense to his off-color jokes. He can't recognize her, which means she either doesn't have money or she isn't a Gotham native.
Something about the way she slinks off in that purple dress tells him he is wrong on both fronts.
He finds her outside a few minutes later, standing under the overcast night sky. The only lights visible are airplanes and satellites as they drift past. She stares out at the skyline of the city, a cigarette burning softly between the index and middle fingers of her right hand.
She does not acknowledge him when he joins her. Leaning his elbows and back against the wrought-iron railing he pretends to finish off his drink. They are quiet for sometime looking in front of them; he: back into the party, she: out at the city.
"You know," he says, somewhere between Bruce and Brucie, "smoking is bad for your health."
"So is burning down your house."
When she finally looks over at him, her green eyes grow wide with feigned innocence.
"What?" she asks, a smile on her dark red lips, "Too soon?" Her laughter is predatorily fierce, full of sharp nails and dangerous edges.
He wants to hear more.
"Not at all. Slightly surprised, really. No one else has had the stones to do that to my face."
"Well, I'm not everyone else." She finishes the cigarette and flicks it halfway across the balcony to land in an ash tray.
"Clearly," he grabs on to her wrist and encircles the bones with his thumb and forefinger. "Tell me your name."
She slides out of his grip easily and gives him a look that would cut down most men.
Bruce Wayne is not most men.
"You'll have to catch me first," she says over her shoulder as she returns to the party
He chases after: him in dress shoes, her in heels. She smirks past brightly colored patrons; they move across the dance floor weaving through a sea of couture dresses and priceless jewelry. He catches her, slides his arms around her waist and lets her lead as they begin to dance.
"Tell me your name."
"Selina," she laughs, "Selina Kyle."
He thinks her laughter is more beautiful than the string quartet.
He remembers his mother babysitting a friend's kitten when he was younger. He spent a week chasing after it through dust filled rooms, under furniture and past suits of armor. On the last day he gave up, and the small thing came up, nuzzled his leg, and jumped into his lap.
"You should come with me," he says after the fifth or sixth song.
"Where? Back to your place? Back to your bed, Mr. Wayne?" her voice grows low, and he can hear a hiss underneath her words.
"It's Bruce," he stumbles, tripping over his words for the first time since he has been twelve, "Just Bruce."
He regains his composure and manages to think of something other than her spread out naked on his silk sheets.
"I never said my place, Miss Kyle."
"Oh, then. Where is it you had in mind?" He flashes her a disarming grin, which makes her slow her pace; he begins to lead their waltz.
"The cupcakery place on Westchester and Elm always has fresh batches at two in the morning…"
She grins at him, and her smile makes him want to misbehave.
As they head down east on Westchester they come to Gotham Bay, and walk down the pier. The Ferris wheel, immobile for years, glints at them in the early morning light.
"How many of those have you eaten?"
Bruce looks innocently down at the near empty box.
"A few."
"They actually kicked us out. I didn't think Bruce Wayne got kicked out of places unless he was drunk and near matches."
"It's almost four," he replies defensively, "they probably wanted to go back to sleep."
In the distance, a teenager dressed in red and green flips off of a building, and a girl, dressed in black, with red hair swings behind him. They both pretend not to notice.
"Keep telling yourself that, Bruce."
He can't keep himself from laughing. He grabs the last cupcake, tosses the now empty cardboard box in the nearest trash can, and hands her the dessert. Her fingers linger on his longer than necessary.
They both stop walking.
"I want popcorn," he states, as he leans a hand on the old railing surrounding the pier; the wood is decomposing in the seasalt air.
"Are you always this preoccupied with food?" She asks, taking a bite of her chocolate and strawberry cupcake.
"Not always. I used to come here when I was younger. With my parents." He doesn't let the sadness weigh him down. He pushes that away for another time. A time when he isn't staring out at the dark expanse of the ocean, watching the fog roll in, with a beautiful woman by his side. "I came a few times after, but it never felt right."
"I used to come here a lot as a kid too." She doesn't know what else to say, so she doesn't bother. She just looks out at the sea with him.
"I should buy it," he says suddenly.
She laughs and he laughs with her.
"You have to be kidding."
"No. I think it's a good idea. I'll fix it up. Lots of people had good memories here. It's sad to watch it rust away."
"Did you always want to be an entrepreneurial business man?"
"Nope."
"Nope?"
"When I was four I wanted to be a firetruck."
"A firetruck?" She is laughing again, of course, but this time it's different. It is softer now: sweeter. "Not a firefighter?"
"I had a perfectly reasonable explanation."
"Oh really?" she asks, licking off strawberry frosting from the curve of her hand between her thumb and indexfinger.
Bruce mind wanders until he remembers she is waiting for the rest of his anecdote. He forgets to respond. Instead he slides a hand behind the back of her neck and pulls her into a kiss.
She tastes like frosting and distractions.
Twenty three years earlier, a sullen dark-haired little boy shares his popcorn and cotton candy with a hungry looking green-eyed girl on that same pier.
"Let me guess, 'This isn't something you do every day?'" She is sitting on her couch, and Bruce is standing a few feet away with his hands in his pocket.
"Would you believe me if I told you it wasn't?"
"Surprisingly, yes."
Selina gestures for him to sit near her, and he does so. He kisses her again; she begins to unbutton his shirt and he helps her slide out of her dress.
"But, I know there is something you aren't telling me."
She nips at his collar bone and runs a finger over a fresh scar on his abdomen.
Bruce does not know what to say, so he says nothing.
"It's alright," she continues, "you're not the only one."
They make love for the first time that night; Bruce traces his hand over a scar near her left breast, under her clavicle, that looks suspiciously like a bullet wound.
He falls asleep with an arm around her waist. He doesn't wake up until four in the afternoon when the persistent buzzing off his phone jostles him out of rest.
He answers it with a mumbled, "Hello?" It's Richard.
"Where have you been, young man?" the teenager chastises; Bruce can practically hear his grin. "You've been gone all night! I should call CPS on you. What were you thinking? Leaving a minor alone all night. You should be ashamed of yourself."
"Shut up." Bruce groans, "You'll be eighteen in a few months. Besides Alfred was home."
"Sixteen weeks and counting, Pops. Don't you forget it!"
"Never call me that again."
Dick Grayson laughs on the other end of the phone.
"You're so grumpy, B. Where have you been all night? Alfred's been worried sick, and I know you're probably working on something. I want in."
He looks over at the mostly nude woman next to him and rests his free hand on her lower back.
"I've been otherwise engaged. I'll call you later. I have some business to attend to." Switching his phone to off, he tosses it on the floor with their discarded clothing.
"I know you're not sleeping," he comments as he traces her spine with his finger tips.
"It was a catnap." Turning her body, she leans up and kisses him.
A month later there is a string of burglaries that begin to pop up all across Ridge Hills. No sign of forced entry. Top of the line security systems in all the homes. The Wayne Manor seems to be the only place spared; even Carmine Falcone has been hit.
Around the fourth hit the thief begins getting playful.
In an office Batman stands staring at a business card that has BM + CW encircled in a heart written with purple pen.
It's no more than a game to this guy. Batman slides the card into a pouch on his utility belt to take back to the cave to test for evidence.
He doesn't have any leads yet. The ink is expensive, but nothing rare enough to be traced.
Bruce doesn't forget about Dick's eighteenth birthday. The tabloids write about it being the party of the decade and Teen Vogue dedicates an entire two page spread to all the presents Bruce gives him.
Privately, Bruce gives Dick his real present. A new suit. The teenager is ecstatic, gushes about it for ten minutes straight and then asks to drive the Batmobile.
Bruce certainly doesn't forget about the party, but between dinner and dessert Bruce and Selina's seats are suspiciously empty.
Two weeks later he gets the first peak of the burglar standing outside a warehouse in East Gotham. He swoops in quietly, but the thief notices.
Standing in leather with a whip in hand, there is the person he has been tracking. CW: Catwoman. Caucasian female: between five five and five eight, healthy weight, anywhere between- 130 through 150, eye color: obscured by what appears to be infrared goggles... He begins to form his profile to enter into the system on the computer in the batcave. She smirks at him and gives him a mocking salute before she runs.
He chases after, across rooftops and pavement. This continues for almost an hour, until she jumps off a building, tucks into a roll and disappears from his site.
He is, arguably, a bit too rough on the attempted rapist he gives a concussion and broken arm to as he sweeps through the city looking for any trace of her.
Exhausted, he comes back to the bat cave. After finding nothing new after another hour of searching through every internet database known to man, he calls Selina.
He sleeps better when she is there.
She is surprisingly quiet as they make their way up the staircases and through the abandoned rooms filled with Wayne family heirlooms. It is almost like she is used to sneaking around. Bruce doesn't think much of it when he lays her down on his bed and begins to undress her.
He kisses the scar above her heart, then lays his ear against her chest to hear it beat.
He grabs her by the elbow while she's sneaking out of bed at nine in the morning. Clothing is scattered around the room.
Just his luck to find someone as nocturnal as him, willing to come over at five in the morning and not ask about where he has been all night.
"Don't," he mumbles into his pillow. "Alfred'll make you pancakes if you stay. Chocolate chip even..."
She laughs quietly and settles back in bed with him. He says something into the pillow that almost sounds like 'I love you' but Selina is fairly sure he's sleep talking and doesn't pay it any mind.
Richard Grayson told him that the first time he came to the manor that he thought the house would swallow him whole. Bruce replied with a nod and a "Yes." He didn't need to say anything more. The two looked at each other and they both knew.
It is an empty and cold place, filled with ghosts and skeletons that no young boy should have to face alone.
But, when her laughter rings and echoes through the rooms, somehow it doesn't seem so unforgiving anymore.
Gala events aren't nearly as boring anymore when he has her by his side. She leans in and whispers into his ear jokes that would make a sailor blush. They hold hands under the table and generally act like the teenagers they didn't get to be. Things like texting jokes to each other under the table and sneaking off during the middle of ceremonies to explore houses and fool around in empty coatrooms.
He catches her in the middle of stealing files from an office building that's a thinly disguised front for Carmine Falcone's operation.
She kicks him hard enough that he stumbles into a metal filing cabinet. He throws her through the tenth story window; the glass sparkles underneath the full moon.
They chase each other across the skyline of Gotham until the sun rises.
It's another event, some charity for victims the most recent natural disaster. Babs and Dick have the city under control tonight and then all he has to think about is her.
And later that night, when she is wearing his faded Princeton shirt and a pair of black leggings her long black hair tumbling down her shoulders in tangled curls, the only thing he can think and the only thing he can say is: "I, I… Selina- I-" She hushes him with a kiss.
"I know, Bruce. Me too."
She smiles up at him, unguarded. Her returns one, almost embarrassed by his own sincerity.
That night they make love. She blushes at one point, and covers her eyes with the palm of her hands until he gently coaxes them away. They both feel it. Like this is the only time they have ever been like this with themselves, with anyone.
He doesn't need to ask her to stay in the morning. She's the one who brings in the breakfast and paper Alfred has laid out by the door. After he has skimmed through the business section and international news, she cuddles up on his chest and they share the comics together.
He sees her again, perched on a gargoyle with jewels in her claws.
"Come and catch me," she says, and he pounces after her. They run until dawn, him always just a step behind.
Selina wakes him up around two. He looks around and blinks his eyes until the world comes into focus and he realizes he fell asleep on the leather couch in his office.
"Long night?" she asks.
"Couldn't sleep," he responds, "can't sleep well when you're not over anymore." She sets a salad on his desk and a cupcake next to it.
"And signing papers all day is just so exhausting."
"Mm. I'd like to see you try." He stands up, cracks his back, pops his shoulders, and yawns. When he sits in his chair in front of his desk, she sits in his lap and he kisses her neck, her chin, her mouth.
"A trained monkey could do your job, Bruce." She pulls an expensive looking fountain pen out of her purse and signs his name and initials the document that has been laying there for the last three days. He grabs the pen from her.
"Sel! I can't sign that contract in..." he pauses for a long time and studies the flair of the B, the curve of the c, and the flourish of the W , "...purple."
She asks if he is still on for that charity event tonight. He nods, numbly and doesn't eat the lunch she brought him. Suddenly, he doesn't feel so hungry anymore.
They get into a fight less than ten minutes after they arrive. Bruce seems to get drunker and drunker by the minute, though Selina swears she didn't see him take a sip of anything.
"Bruce," she warns, "You're making a scene."
"You would say that." He slurs, pushing her away from him. She stares in shock.
"Bruce? What the hell do you think you're doing?" Her voice is low and dangerous, full of claws and sharp edges.
"You know what? Fuck off, Sel. I'm tired of your bullshit."
The people around them stare and begin to whisper.
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me. Fuck off. I'm done. It's over." He slides his arm around the waist of a girl all too willing to let him, and wanders off.
Selina stands for a few moments in stunned silence before walking out of the room, chin held proudly up.
Five minutes later Alfred comes up behind Bruce to find him actually sipping a scotch.
"I doubt you needed to be so harsh or so public." The older man reprimands, taking the unfinished drink away from him. His anger is subtle, but after thirty-something years in his company Bruce can sense it.
"I can't let her think we can get back together. I had to, Alfred. She's a distraction."
"Miss Kyle deserves to be viewed as more than just a distraction, Master Wayne."
"She's behind them," he says quietly, Alfred nods but does not look the least bit shocked.
"You understand, don't you?" Bruce continues, "I had to. I had to."
Alfred doesn't say anything to him. His silence is worse than screaming.
The robberies get worse the following six weeks. More aggressive. More reckless. A guard gets his collar bone broken and the Gotham Museum of Art finds original paintings left in its left atrium that were reported stolen back during World War Two.
They run in to each other around town in ways that would be almost comical if it didn't feel like his heart would explode each time he sees her. She looks at him like she wishes he would just throw himself into Gotham Bay, and a part of him feels like obliging her.
Each time he almost says something. Each time he closes his mouth, because he's not an idiot and he made a promise years ago. She is a distraction.
Batman is off his game. A simple mugger almost gets the better of him, but the bullet just grazes his shoulder and Alfred stitches him up in the damp batcave and says nothing.
He is two steps behind her and he keeps falling further behind.
Dick approaches him one afternoon, opens his mouth like he is about to say something, but closes it shakes his head and walks away.
Almost two months later when he has his arm around the waist of some social climber who will sell a fake story to the tabloids he runs in to her at a party. She's wearing a green dress that matches her eyes. He almost forgets about the girl on his arm and reaches his hand out and places it on her neck.
"You cut your hair," he brushes his fingers down her exposed shoulders. It takes a second, but Selina pulls away from him and narrows her eyes.
"Don't," is all she says before walking away.
The silence in the room is deafening.
"You know what really sucks?" she asks conversationally, like they aren't two grownups in costumes standing on a rooftop after midnight on a night that isn't Halloween, "When you think you've moved on, think you've got the bastard out of your head, but then you see him again and it's like your twelve again or something and don't know how to talk and it feels like if your heart beat any faster it'd burst."
He approaches her slowly as she sits perched on the back of a gargoyle, but she doesn't make a move to run.
"So then you're standing there like an idiot trying to make sense of how the hell he's looking at you like that and touching you like that when he has some bitch on his arm and…. well fuck him. Fuck him right? Because you moved on and you're not going tofall for his lines anymore and.. But you can't quite get that logical part of you to work fast enough to catch up to that emotional part that's still like 'Did that seriously happen?'"
He has stopped moving forward.
"What I'm saying, my little winged friend is that I'm done playing. This game isn't fun right now."
She pulls up the goggles and reveals her green eyes. She hasn't been crying, but she looks tired.
"I'll be out of your hair for a while, if you've got any under that cowl. You've been working so hard trying to get me. It's been what, almost a year and a half now? I thought you should know. Didn't want to leave you high and dry as they say. Think of it as a professional courtesy."
She begins to take slow steps backward until she is standing on the ledge; Batman still does not move.
"Headed to greener pastures, for a spell. Metropolis or Star City. We can play when I get back, I promise."
She flips off the building and he jumped after her. They move through alleyways and up and down rusting fire escapes.
He's got to keep moving. He's got to chase her, catch her. He can't let her go.
He grabs her roughly by the shoulders and slams her against a brick wall.
"I told you," she says, eyes still tired and a voice like she's talking to a dumb child, "Games over. Done playing." She lifts up her leg to kick him.
He gives in and kisses her. He feels her curves under the leather of her uniform, and he can sense her gloved fingers searching his suit for any exposed skin.
He can only pray that she does not recognize him, but by the way her green eyes have lit up and she purrs, "Don't worry. I won't tell," it becomes pretty clear she does.
"Are you okay with-" her question trails off into the dark of Gotham's night.
Batman doesn't respond because the jury is still out on that one, but he needs he so desperately he can't think straight.
That night Batman follows Catwoman back into her high rise apartment.
The next day, Bruce Wayne leaves Selina Kyle's place, well past noon, and gets caught by some opportunistic citizens with cellphone cameras. The story is up fifteen minutes later and Richard Grayson calls him at work to congratulate him.
Bruce tells him he's grounded for a week and doesn't have computer privileges. This, of course, accomplishes absolutely nothing.
Luckily for Bruce, Dick is at the age where he understands exactly what is going on. Unluckily, Dick is at the age where he understands exactly what is going on with them.
Bruce is so sick of jokes about him keeping catnip and condoms in his utility belt.
There are days when it is too nasty outside even for the cops and criminals. On those days he shows up on her doorstep looking lost and alone. She helps him out of his soaked clothing and leads him to her shower. He always places the palm of his hand against her chest bone, runs his fingers over her scar, and reminds himself she is alive.
They make love like the world around them is falling apart.
One day at work, he realizes he is reading everything he can find- legally and illegally- on Selina Kyle.
Parents unknown. She almost died as toddler from a gunshot wound. The injury, they believe, was sustained from a gun that had been linked to multiple mob hits. She spent her childhood in the Narrows; in and out of foster homes until she fell off the radar completely when she was seventeen. She showed up fifteen years later as a socialite with an affinity for wild cats.
Catwoman is the outlier. She traipses color all over his black and white world.
He stops her when he can from thieving, but whether he manages it completely or not, he usually ends up back in her bed. He has no delusions he'll be able to tame her into some soccer mom or turn her into a member of the Bat-family. He chases her all over Gotham, pausing only to stop more pressing crimes.
One day, he finds her hacking into the police records looking at Carmine Falcone's murder.
They fight. Again. Babs is over visiting with Dick, both teenagers are kind enough to pretend not to see what is happening.
He considers telling her there is DNA in the database. They could do a test. She could know for sure. She can know if Carmine Falcone is the man who gave her the bullet-scar near her clavicle, and her green eyes.
But, he doesn't. He isn't sure why.
He feels her slipping away from him. Even with their masks off, there are still secrets between them. The distance is growing and the harder he holds on the harder she pulls away.
"Stay," he whispers into her hair. It smells like perfume and drying sweat. He kisses the back of her neck and tastes the warm skin under his tongue.
"No." She pushes him off and starts to straighten her dress. He watches her reflection in the mirror as she reapplies her makeup. He reclaims articles of clothing that have been strewn across the guest bedroom of whatever blueblood is hosting this party.
He can't redo his bowtie, so he leaves it undone.
She opens the door, perfectly put together, and leaves the room. He follows after, disheveled and unbalanced.
And he says it one more time, "Stay." because it's as close to 'Please.' and 'Don't go.' and 'I love you.' as he'll ever let himself get.
He's got to keep moving. Chase her, catch her. He can't let her go.
He grabs her wrist and pulls her back to him. The party guests look on in stunned silence.
"Stay," he says and it sounds like a command to everyone else. But, she can hear the desperation behind the word.
"No." Her eyes meet his for only a second. That is all he needs to hear to know it's useless, so he lets go.
The crowd around him stares. Bruce is trying to decide between breaking something or screaming at her. When she doesn't look back, his decision is made; he punches a hole in the wall. Dry wall and flakes of plaster coat his skin when he withdraws his hand. He ignores the blood.
He finds her again, on the rooftop. His hand would ache if he could focus on anything other than the suffocating sensation in his chest.
"Don't," she hisses.
He does.
He's got to keep moving. Chase her, catch her. Can't let her go.
He follows her all across Gotham, through abandoned buildings and skeletons of future skyscrapers.
As the sun begins to make its ascent, he loses her near the pier.
He finds a note on the decaying railing. A simple white business card with the word Don't. in purple.
He stops two robberies on his way back to the manor, his fist still aching.
Alfred doesn't say anything at first. He has known Bruce all of the sullen man's life; he knows if Bruce wants to say something he will. He knows the man will come to him when he is ready. But, as the hours turn to days and the days to weeks, and the weeks into a month, Alfred decides to nudge the boy along. He does so in his usual dry British manner.
"It appears as if Gotham's feline population has been dramatically reduced."
"I don't want to talk about it, Alfred."
"Very well, Sir," he says, and waits. When he is polishing a glass case with a chipped tea cup and saucer in it for the sixth time Bruce finally speaks.
"She needed to."
"I see, Sir," Alfred says, not seeing at all.
"I understand," Bruce says, though on some level he doesn't. He moves robotically to save the file and opens up another one. "She needed to go somewhere I couldn't follow."
"And why is that, Sir?"
"I can't. Gotham needs me."
There is a long pause while Alfred polishes another container that doesn't need polishing.
"That's all well and good, Master Wayne, but, have you stopped to think of what you need?"
Not even for a second does Bruce stop to think perhaps Dick and Babs had been waiting for his call.
No one recognizes the blue-eyed man with determination set in the hard lines around his mouth and the growth of a new beard across his jaw. In his subdued gray shirts and fading jeans he looks like any other American that's wandered into the bar.
He slides a picture onto the counter of a beautiful girl with laughing green eyes.
"Seen her?" He asks in Arabic, which surprises the bartender.
"Yes. Many days ago." He replies, "Said she was going to Lisboa."
The man nods and leaves a large tip.
He takes the ferry to Gibraltar, and then a train into Portugal.
Got to Chase her, catch her. Can't let her go.
Over tapas in Madrid, days later, he hears about a jewel heist in Luxembourg. The quantity of what was stolen is not the issue, but the security system had been state of the art. The guards didn't know about the theft until the next morning.
All that was left was a note with the word Don't. written in purple.
Keep moving.
He gets there two days later and hears there has been something similar in Munich.
Chase her.
He grabs the quickest flight only to hear there has been something in Austria.
Catch her.
Every time, he is two steps behind. And he's falling further.
Can't let her go.
It's hard to track a cat that isn't looking to be caught.
In his subpar Italian he moves across the country, trying to find her.
On the train from Florence to Naples, he realizes what she's looking for and jumps off at the station in Rome.
He calls Dick to ask him how it's going, and the former Flying Grayson gushes about how well he and Babs have been handling Gotham.
"Dick?" He asks over the phone in hushed English.
"Yeah, Bruce?"
"I need some information on Louisa Falcone…"
The widow Falcone stares at him. She was a Gotham transplant, and had not fared well in the dark city. But, here, back in Rome she looks healthy again. Her neck, wrists, and ears are covered in expensive jewelry and her blond hair glints in the sun.
"I already told her, that crazy girl, she is not my daughter." Bruce can see none of Selina in her harsh face.
"Do you know where she is?" he pleads in his poor Italian.
"She left," she responds in English, "Went south of here. Probably to the Piazza Navona. To see the Fountain, like all you Americans." She glares at him and her blue eyes squint in the sunlight.
"I know you," she adds, tilting her head to get a better look.
Bruce shakes his head and leaves without thanking her.
He walks by ruins that were once coated in marble. He treks past the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps, and when he reaches another of what seems like endless obelisks, he rests at the foot of the statue.
The game seems to be coming to an end.
He rests his face in his hands. He hasn't cried since he was eight, but there is an unfamiliar burning sensation behind his eyes and a tightness in his throat that academically he is able to register. It's been three months.
He's got to keep moving. He's got to chase her, catch her. He can't let her go.
He gets up and keeps walking.
And there, on the marble floor outside the Pantheon he finds her and pulls her towards him in to a kiss.
He doesn't get on his knee; he just holds her close and feels her heart beat against his skin. "Stay," he mumbles into the fabric of her sweater, "Please."
Instead of doing their normal functions, her heart and lungs shiver.
"For me." She nods subtly, so subtly he wouldn't notice if he didn't feel it. He fumbles for the ringbox in his pocket and it spills on the ground.
He gets down on his knees now, to gather the box. Batman notices the crowd gathering around them, and Bruce Wayne tells him to shut the hell up, because this is only ever going to happen once and he wants to be there for it.
On one knee now, he opens the box and shows her the ring inside. He doesn't say anything. And neither does she. There is no need.
They kiss; the people around them clap.
It will show up in the tabloids later that day. The citizens of Gotham will read that Bruce Wayne has proposed to his girlfriend in Rome.
They will read about the tumultuous relationship, how over the last three and a half years they have broken up and gotten back together over and over again. They will read about how they have fought, struggled, and cried. How they have shown up to galas bruised and unspeaking, only to leave hand in hand.
They will read how Bruce Wayne allegedly broke four knuckles in his right hand the last time she left him, nearly five months ago.
But, the people in Rome don't see that. They don't see a hero and villain. They don't see two troubled billionaires. They don't see a starving little girl and a broken little boy.
They just see two people desperately and inescapably in love.
And later, when she is back in Gotham, she will stand in front of Carmine Falcone's grave with flowers in hand. Bruce will sit in the car, a respectable distance away, and think of what is to come.