Day 1- Midnight
The anger surprises her. It's a cold, living thing. The dull, ever-present rage, humming just beneath the surface, never letting her forget, was replaced by something visceral, almost tangible. As if she could reach out, grab it, and use it to strike him down.
It's what she wants to do. Hit him, hurt him. Like his death has been doing to her for the last few months.
Her hand flinches, wanting to reach for her phone to see the time, the date. She's embarrassed to realize she knows neither at the moment. Since that last kiss, the explosion that knocked the wind out of her even from so far a distance for reasons that had nothing to do with the powerful blast, she has been acutely aware of every day, every hour that has passed. Now it all seems to have blurred into nothing.
Simply because...because he's there. Bruce fucking Wayne is standing right there. Alive. In her hotel room. Near the doorway leading out to the balcony.
Selina never expected this moment. Never allowed herself to contemplate it for even a second. It was all but impossible. Only, it wasn't, obviously. He's here and she's pissed.
"Wayne," she drawls, surprised and grateful her voice is steady when she speaks.
His face is shadowed and she can't read his expression when he replies with too casual a "Ms. Kyle."
She closes the door and drops her things on the bed.
"You're supposed to be dead," she says without ceremony. Out of the corner of her eye she sees the tensing of his shoulders, the tightening of a fist. Good, she thinks vindictively, he's not as collected as he appears.
"I am." His reply comes quickly and she raises an eyebrow. "Dead," he emphasizes. "Officially, anyway."
He doesn't owe her a thing, she has to remind herself. It was war, a desperate time. It called for desperate measures. Anything could have happened. Many things did. Still, he doesn't owe her a thing.
The anger simmers.
He's not dead.
A strange mix of relief, regret, and elation fills her. Without that dull rage she's grown accustomed to coursing through her, she suddenly feels tired. Selina doesn't know what to do with her arms. They feel heavy at her sides. Useless.
As if he can see her indecision, Bruce takes a step further into the room. Then, another. Leaving the shadows behind, he moves towards her where she can see his face entirely now. Clear and open. He looks the same. He looks different.
He's not dead.
Something blooms deep inside her as looks into his eyes for the first time since... Selina can't help curse her thoughts. So much has occurred and she's dwelling on sentiment. It's stupid, foolish, costly.
She knows she has to be very careful or she'll give herself away. And that's something she cannot afford to do.
Bruce speaks as the same time she asks what he's doing there.
The stony façade crumbles. "I'm taking you up on your offer."
"Come with me..."
As he flew that bomb over the ocean, it was the taste of her on his lips and her words replaying in his mind that he held on to, grasped desperately to anchor him.
"Unless..." His adam's apple bobs up and down as he swallows. "It was a limited time offer?"
He's giving her an out. She can walk away. She can tell him to leave and he will. It's completely up to her.
Selina knows what her answer will be before she can reply. She's known it all along. And when she opens her mouth to tell him, it's only because her phone comes to life that she doesn't say the words.
The alarm is going off. It's midnight. Time to get ready - she had a date with the Lourve. That hardly matters now.
Reaching for the phone tossed on the bed she turns off the alarm.
12:00 it reads.
It's midnight, she thinks with a small smile. A new day is beginning.
Perfect time for a fresh start.