Selina rolled her eyes as she realized she had forgotten her purse over at the exhibit where she had ditched Bruce and his butler Alfred. She cursed under her breath as she made her way back going into Catwoman mode, hopefully he wouldn't even notice she was there.
As she made her way back something caused her to pause in the shadows and observe the two. She was caught by surprised at the expression on Bruce's face, it didn't belong on the face of the playboy fop. Charming but not too bright, there was only so much of him she could take, with his constant leering and uncaring attitude, and when she consented to a date his eyes always wandered and he never had anything at all he was even remotely passionate about. His only expressions were one of a dim self-important playboy with his disgusting "Wayne" smile that for whatever reason caused girls to swoon.
But the Bruce she was observing looked nothing at all remotely like that, his expression was thoughtful and his eyes peered at the painting intensely. The same painting that just earlier he had been ignoring and dismissing as "nice" and "colorful."
"Are you ready to leave sir?" Alfred was standing at a respectable distance, "your special friend is certain to be up to her usual activities tonight."
Bruce smirked, "Are you pertaining to Selina dressing up in a leather cat-themed costume and coming back tonight to steal this painting?"
Selina froze, Bruce knew she was Catwoman? Why hadn't he said anything? How had he discovered?
Alfred remained unchanged, "You are planning on meeting her for you nightly rendezvous are you not? You did have me clean the suit."
Bruce's smirk grew, "I had you clean it because it was covered in my blood after my fight with Joker, and you make me sound like I'm getting ready for a date, she is a thief."
Alfred raised an eyebrow, "Yet you have constantly failed to capture her or inform the Commissioner of her identity. We are both aware any normal woman would never be able to keep up with you or stay in your interests, and you constantly surround yourself with some who aren't even up to that standard. On most accounts when you encounter a respectably intelligent woman you manage to cause her to hate you within a matter of weeks, yet you've known Miss Kyle for years now and have failed to do so."
Bruce sighed, "I'm aware, she already is starting to get to know too much of the real me, both of her identities are, I need to do something, I need to remain objective and ignore whatever feelings I may or may not have for her. Alfred you know with the life I live I can't let someone close to me, they might get hurt, looked what happened to Jason."
Alfred looked at the man sympathetically, "What happened to Master Jason was a terrible tragedy, but it was not your fault, you explicitly told him not to take on the Joker by himself, but he refused to listen to you."
Bruce clenched his hands, "The mistakes kids make aren't supposed to cost them their lives Alfred."