Bruce nervously pushed his shoulders back and adjusted his tie before knocking on Selina's door, a massive bouquet of crimson roses clutched in his giant paw.
He heard her muffled shout, but couldn't make out the words. Then he heard a crash from within, and another shout. Immediately his instincts kicked in, and he tried the handle. Finding it locked, he crouched and barreled through the door, shoulder first.
He found Selina in nothing but a black strapless bra and a matching thong. She was crouched down picking up broken pieces of a vase on the floor. Her eyes widened when she saw Bruce, then narrowed at the front door broken in half on the floor. He immediately realized his error. His face turned nearly as crimson as the flowers he sheepishly held out to her.
"I'm...sorry. I thought…"
"Couldn't you hear me telling you to hold on a minute?!"
"No… I... " He stuttered, transfixed by the vision of her nearly nude body. He had fantasized about seeing her like this for years, and the sight of it rendered him utterly speechless.
She smirked and stood up with the pieces of porcelain in her hands, walked across the room and disposed of the vase. She sauntered over to the sofa and slowly bent down to pick up a robe, giving Bruce full view of her exposed rear. She slipped it on and turned around to face him.
"As I was saying before you busted in," she said, letting her eyes travel from Bruce's face (which had gone from red to deathly white) down to the massive tent in his pants, "I'll be just a moment. Let me put on my gown. In the meantime, can you please figure out how to fix my door? I can't exactly leave it in this condition."
When she disappeared into her bedroom, Bruce gasped for air. He didn't realize he'd stopped breathing. He quickly adjusted himself and fumbled for his cell phone.
"Alfred. Can you come up? I need you to help me with something."
Selina reappeared wearing a form-fitting evening gown. It was green velvet, with a low sweetheart neckline and an elegant trumpet skirt. Her ears, neck, and wrist glittered with diamonds. He let out a low appreciative whistle as she did a little turn for him.
"Selina. You are the most beautiful woman in Gotham."
She smiled sweetly at him, taking the bouquet from his hands. "Thank you, Bruce. Let me put these in water. Is Alfred on his way?"
As if on cue, a dignified voice responded. "Good evening, Ms. Kyle." Alfred peered down at the broken door and gave Bruce a wry look and a raised eyebrow. "It appears Master Wayne was a bit too eager tonight?"
Selina laughed softly and patted Bruce's cheek. "I don't blame him."
Alfred chuckled. "Neither do I. If I may, Ms. Kyle, you are a vision." He tossed the car keys to Bruce. "The Rolls is double parked out front. I'll see you later." He turned to Selina. "Ms. Kyle, rest assured, your front door will be in fine working order upon your return."
As Bruce and Selina left, she cupped Alfred's face and gave him a peck on the lips. "Thank you, dear Alfred. What would we do without you?"
As she glided out, Bruce and Alfred exchanged a dazed look.
"Pardon me, sir," Alfredy said in a choked whisper, "but If you don't sort out how to marry that woman, I'll do it myself."
Bruce clenched his teeth and muttered, "I'm working on it."
. . .
Bruce stepped out of the car in front of a hundred flashing lights, walked around, opened the door and offered his hand to Selina, gently helping her out. As she ascended on Bruce's arm the rapidity of camera flashes exploded. "Let's get this over with," he whispered quietly while steering her towards the entrance of the museum. The paparazzi were shouting at them.
"Selina! Selina! You look hot!"
"Selina, baby, over here! Over here!"
"How does it feel to be out of the slammer, Selina!?"
"When are you going to put a rock on it, Bruce?!"
Security guards held back the teeming press as they quickly made their way down the red carpet. Once inside, Selina wrested herself from Bruce, a cloud over her face. "I need a drink," she said, and went straight for the bar. Once she left his side, a swarm of socialites descended upon him.
"Brucie! Long time no see."
"Why haven't you returned my phone calls, Bruce? You promised to show me your golf course in Scotland, remember?"
Bruce pulled on his collar. "Well I -"
"You left the ALS benefit without saying goodbye. You owe me a dance!"
"I can't believe you brought Selina, Bruce. Remember what happened last time? She was arrested for theft!"
Bruce did a half pirouette to get out of the swarm and, walking backwards, he put his hands up and said, "Sorry ladies, I must get back to my date." He nearly backed into a waiter carrying a tray full of champagne flutes. Picking one up, he scanned the room for Selina. She wasn't at the bar. She was nowhere to be found.
God damn it. Not again, he thought.
. . .
After awhile, he found her on the third floor, sipping champagne and gazing at Raphael's Calumny of Apelles. He breathed a sigh of relief. They stood in silence for awhile, looking at the 500 year old scene before them.
She said quietly, "You've never asked me why I steal, Bruce."
She turned towards him. He was surprised to see tears glittering in her emerald eyes. His heart ached at the sight of it. In all the years he's known her, he's never seen her cry.
She put a hand on his chest. "I know you've been frustrated that I keep things platonic between us. And I know I can be a merciless tease. But Bruce... " her voice cracked as she looked up at him. "You're the only friend I have that doesn't judge me." She closed her eyes. "I know we're here for a good cause, but for some reason, those jackals are hard to face tonight."
Bruce put his hand on her face. "Selina, we don't have to stay."
She sharply inhaled and looked up at him. She put her hand over his and searched his eyes.
"Why, Bruce?"
"Why what?"
"Why haven't you ever asked me about it? Aren't you curious?"
Bruce blinked. I've asked you a million times, Selina…
He didn't realize until that moment that he only ever asked when there was a mask on his face. But it's not like she ever gave him a straight answer.
"I figured if you wanted to tell me, you would."
She turned to look back at the painting. "I grew up poor and alone, Bruce." Her voice was soft. "My mother was a heroin addict and I had a younger sister who was smaller than me. Helpless. The first person I ever stole from was my mother's dealer. I took $800. He never found out. That money fed us for two months."
Bruce supportively squeezed her hand.
"My mother OD'd not long after that. I had a choice to make: either I let the state separate us and put us in foster homes, or I do what I need to do to keep us together. There was no way I'd let them take her from me. I was underage and undocumented. What could I do? I got better and better at it. But I had to work at night. My sister wasn't in school. She ran with street urchins, got mixed up in the wrong crowd. I couldn't stop her. She was so much like mom…"
Selina turned towards Bruce, her cheeks wet with tears. He gently wiped her face.
"After she died, I was alone. I hated the world. I hated that I had to steal to survive. I wanted to thrive, Bruce. I wanted to live a life full of beauty, of glamour, of excitement. The kind of life I caught glimpses of in the mansions I broke into, in the pages of Vanity Fair." She clenched her fists. "And I didn't want to rely on anyone else to have it. If there's one thing I learned about survival, it's that I couldn't trust anyone. So many of the people I stole from were vile," she spat. "Making money off of exploiting the earth, or ripping people off." She looked up at him. "It was the hypocrisy of it all. I felt a sense of justice when I stole."
Bruce felt torn in a million different directions. He had never believed that theft could ever be justified, yet Selena's words fractured his resolve. She had never spoken of her past before. It broke his heart. There was too much that he wanted to say, so he said nothing. He pulled her into an embrace, and she melted into him.
"Even though you act like you're one of them, I know you're not," she whispered.
They stared into each other's eyes. Selina had finally done it. She let the walls fall. Her vulnerability was on display. She may have tried to give her body to Batman, but she was showing her heart to Bruce.
A war waged within him. Tell her, he heard a voice inside him shout. Tell her everything!
Instead he said, "Marry me."
He immediately regretted it. She pulled away from him. "Really, Bruce? Again? Right now? Have you been listening to anything I just said?!"
Suddenly he felt like he was in a recurring nightmare he couldn't escape. No matter what he did, he always made the same doomed choice. As though hearing someone else speak, he said in a strangled voice, "Just be with me. I can take care of you. You never have to want for anything else ever again."
She coldly replied, "I'll never belong to you, Bruce. I'll never belong to anyone." She turned her back to him, looking once again at the painting. "I thought you were my friend. I thought you finally understood. But…" her voice trailed off. As she walked out, she said, "Please, don't follow me."
Bruce obeyed. Taking a gulp of champagne, he glared at King Midas, his ears held by Ignorance and Suspicion. "You fool," he growled. "You spineless fool."
. . .
He was slightly tipsy by the time he left the benefit. He'd given much more than he had intended to, by several million. He let Tiffany Vanderbilt feel his crotch under the table after he told her he'd whisk her away to his resort in the Cayman Islands in his very best impression of an oblivious wealthy playboy.
The way his voice sounded when he said it grated on his own ears. Can't they hear how phony I sound? I'm mocking them. I'm mocking myself.
When he stumbled into Wayne Manor, he immediately knew something was off. It was too dark. He heard a distant, faint popping noise. He slipped out of his shoes and silently crept up the stairs, pausing occasionally to listen for where the sound was coming from.
It was his bedroom.
The door was ajar. Hiding behind the frame, he peered through the crack.
There she was. Finally in his bedroom, as he'd fantasized and dreamed about countless times.
But instead of making love to him, as she did in dreams, she was trying to bust open the lock on the safe that held his mother's jewels.
"Catwoman," he said. In his real voice, just as she was able to pop the lock.
She whipped around, a knowing smile on her face. It quickly disappeared when she saw Bruce. "Oh, it's you."
She went back to the safe, studied it for a moment, and pulled out a diamond ring. His mother's engagement ring. She held it up between her two claws. It caught the moonlight shining through the window and cast a gentle fractal halo of silver light around the room.
"Since you want to marry me so badly, Bruce, I figured, why the hell not?"
"Selina. Don't do this. Please."
She scoffed. "Weren't you going to give it to me anyways, playboy? Oh wait. No. That offer came with conditions." She slipped the ring on her finger and held it up to examine it. "First, I'd have to fuck you." She started counting on her fingers. "Then I'd have to give you an heir, and of course, a spare. Then I'd have to pretend to ignore all your affairs, then we'd come to hate each other, then we'd have a messy divorce, and I'd come away from it the wealthiest little thief that ever lived. But!" she gasped. "I'd be so lucky, wouldn't I!" She circled the room and held up her hands in mock appreciation. "To think of it, from the cunt of a smack whore to the life of American royalty!" She sneered. "I can see the headlines now. I should be so grateful."
He stood there and said nothing. He never felt so small in his life.
"Pathetic," she muttered. The ring still on her finger, she pushed open his window and leapt out.
Looking at the open safe, he knew. It's time.
He made his way to the Batcave.
. . .
When he opened the door to her balcony, Isis greeted him with a lazy yawn and nuzzled his ankles. Selina was asleep in her underwear, his mother's ring still glittering on her hand.
"Selina."
Her eyes fluttered open, and she smiled warmly when she saw his eyes glowing in the darkness.
"Did Brucie light up the Bat signal? Have you come to lock me up?" She lifted her wrists as though waiting for handcuffs and stretched seductively on the bed.
"No. The ring is yours."
She tilted her head and leaned up on an elbow. "Is that so?"
"Yes," he said. "No conditions."
They stared at each other.
He stepped closed to the bed. "Whatever I have is yours."
"Bruce…?" she whispered.
She sat up on her knees in front of him on the bed. She reached up and felt his face, traced his mouth with her finger. She quietly gasped.
"Show me," she said.
He took off the mask. She stared at him with wide, disbelieving eyes. She was immediately struck by the depth of pain in his face. It was excruciating. It was raw. And it was beautiful in its vulnerability. It was Bruce as she's never seen him before. And all at once it flashed into her mind. His parents' death at the hands of a thief on the street. His mysterious disappearance as a young man. The world thought him dead. His return roughly coincided with the arrival of Batman. His patient, steadfast friendship, so at odds with his public persona as a playboy. Their faces melded into one, and she marvelled at how she hadn't realized it before.
"You did ask me." She said breathlessly. "So many times. Begged. Pleaded."
"You never gave me a straight answer."
"Neither did you. Until…"
"Tonight," they said in unison.
He pulled her to him and crushed his mouth on hers with a violence that surprised them both. She eagerly welcomed his tongue as she always did when Batman kissed her. It was the first time she did so for Bruce.
Both of them. The same man. It enthralled and delighted her. This is the missing piece of the puzzle.
He pulled off the pieces of his suit and she helped him along. She gasped when she saw the scars all over his body. She tenderly kissed and licked each one, while he stroked her hair and softly called her Kitten.
He straddled her, clad in nothing but moonlight. She finally saw Bruce as he really was, and her heart swelled with a wonder and joy that had laid dormant inside of her. Strong, terrible, ravaged and tender. It wasn't that he wanted her to belong to him. It's that he already belonged to her. She saw it all. Him chasing her on rooftops in the dead of night. Bruce, always there to bail her out with a rose and a dinner invitation. They belonged together. Their pain, their suffering, their strength were like twin flames. Yin and yang. Masculine and feminine.
She reached behind her back and unclasped her bra, tossing it aside.
"Oh my God," he said softly.
She smiled. "You could have had this anytime you wanted and you know it. Why didn't you take me up on it?"
He gently caressed her breasts in awe, marvelling at their perfect suppleness, at the delicate pale pink of her nipples. "I am a man divided."
"I'm starting to see that."
She lifted her hips and pulled down her thong, revealing a small patch of dark hair. He pulled back, sliding his rough hands down the length of her legs, and took all of her in.
"Do you like what you see?" she asked coyly.
He grunted. She leaned forward and slowly pulled down his shorts. His massive erection sprang out. Her eyes went wide. "It's been awhile since I've done this, Bats. You're going to have to ease into me if you don't want to recreate the night I lost my virginity."
This sent him into a frenzy. He dove head first into her pussy, wildly tongue kissing her sex as though he was dying of thirst and she was a fresh water spring. Soon he settled into a consistent rhythm, lapping at the tight nub of her clit in time with the bucking of her hips, her hands at turns grabbing and caressing his thick, dark hair. He pushed two fingers inside of her, slowly fucking her. He could feel her orgasm start to build. As soon as she was soaking and shaking, he brought his mouth up to hers and kissed her deeply, letting her taste herself. She moaned as he kissed down her neck, running his tongue down and around the sweetness of her nipples. She bucked harder and more insistently on his fingers.
"Please," she begged. "Please." She was softly stroking the length of his dick with her fingers. "Please."
He positioned himself at her wet entrance. He held her thighs steady so he had full control. She was panting, her mouth open, her tongue slightly sticking out. He leaned down and touched his tongue to hers, looking directly into her half-lidded eyes as he slowly entered her. Her eyes grew wider and wider as he plunged inch by inch. When he finally filled her up, her eyes rolled in the back of her head. They moaned in unison. He held position, letting her adjust to his size, savoring this long awaited unity.
With extraordinary restraint, he slowly built up to the steady rhythm he had established while giving her head. He felt her internal muscles tighten. Her breathing grew more erratic. He slowed the pace of his strokes, reached down, and gently caressed her slippery clit as he sat back and fucked her, Selina writhing and moaning beneath him.. He could feel it coming. Suddenly, she seized up and screamed. A fountain squirted out of her in bursts, soaking his torso. He smiled with surprised delight, continuing his ministrations until she shuddered with completion.
She trembled in his arms, their naked bodies glistening in the moonlight. Gazing into each others eyes, they felt a warm glow. They kissed, falling into one another, their lips and hands and legs intertwined, pressing and pushing in the ancient, erotic dance. The invisible barrier they held up between each other for years, despite mutual desire, finally fell away. They were as one. Time slowed.
Selina moaned and shuttered under Bruce, and he felt her pussy tighten on him. This one was deeper inside her, each wave of pleasure longer and less urgent than her first orgasm. He clenched his body as tightly as possible to prevent himself from coming, but as her pussy squeezed his dick, he bit her shoulder and felt a small release.
"Selina," he choked. "Kitten. Should I get a condom?"
She looked up into his eyes and wrapped her legs tight around his waist. "No, daddy. I want you. All of you."
And with incredible stealth, she flipped him on his back. She sat behind his erect dick, holding it gently in her hands, gently riding his balls, letting him breathe a bit, and taking stock of the vision before her.
It wasn't Bruce staring back at her with hunger, love, lust, and sheer adoration. Nor was it Batman, masked man of mystery and the fixation of her sexual fantasies for the better part of a decade. It was the rock solid man who lived between those two masks. The grimacing Prince of Gotham hidden behind a black mask, and the savage detective hidden behind a practiced smile.
He was smiling at her now. A gentle tug at the corners of his mouth, dark eyes sparkling, cheeks flushed.
The light in the room had become gray in the pre-dawn. She arched herself up and poised herself above him, her eyes narrowing in excitement as she slid herself down. He gripped her waist as she rode him hard, his teeth clenching with effort.
"I've wanted this for so long," she cooed, running her hands up and down his chest. "I would pretend to fuck you in this bed, just like this, so many times. So many times."
He imagined her, just exactly as it happened: after one of their rooftop encounters.
After awhile, they took on a familiar pattern. She would steal an obscenely expensive piece of jewelry with full knowledge that Batman would catch her. She would taunt him, he would chase her. Oftentimes the chase lasted for hours. There would be a series of "fights", that was really just a very intense kind of acrobatic foreplay with some light s&m. He would always get so angry after she clawed him - but visibly aroused as well. Then she'd kiss him, and he'd kiss her back. His gloved hands would desperately feel his way around the outside of her catsuit as though he was trying to memorize her precise shape, until he pushed her away and disappeared into the night. Or sometimes she would push him away. Then there was that one time where he bent her over his knee and spanked her…
There were cyclical lulls in the spikes of crime in Gotham. They both knew that on calm nights, they would put on their suits with full intention of finding one another just to do it all over again.
Upon returning to the Batcave after these encounters, he had a home routine as well: jerking it in the shower while reliving the previous three hours. But Selina would come home, stick a pillow between her legs and ride it, squeezing her eyes tight and imagining Batman between her legs.
"I guess it was bound to come to this." He said. "I can't wait to get you into my shower." He bit his bottom lip in anticipation.
She smiled as she, too, imagined herself getting fucked in his shower, and her pussy exploded in bliss.
"Third time's the charm," he said. He pulled her down to kiss him, grabbing her hips and thrusting upwards. They moaned and came in unison, the room suddenly filling with the reddish orange of dawn. Wrapped in the bright rays of morning sun, they felt weightless, their sweaty bodies suspended in a warm liquid happiness neither had ever experienced. They felt reborn in a different world: a world of comfort, of kindness, of love, of joy.
"Is this real?" he asked, his voice choked with emotion.
"Yes," she said, brimming with awe and conviction. "And I will, Bruce. I will marry you."
He laughed lightly. Boyishly. He took her left hand and gently kissed it, the ring sparkling brightly in the sunshine. "Mrs. Wayne?" he murmured against her skin, his eyes filled with wonder.
"Yes, darling. Yes."
. . .
They had a private civil service. The presiding Judge was a trusted family friend, and Alfred served as sole witness. They both wore black. Selina wore a pillbox hat with netting that shrouded her beautiful face, and carried a bouquet of white lilies.
Isis was in attendance seemingly on her own, which greatly amused Alfred and disturbed the Judge. The pre-written vows shocked both the Judge and the Butler, while the Judge quietly confirmed his nagging suspicion about the secret identity of Wayne. Amongst the vows were:
"To always come when I call. To fight and to build together in justice. To love each other fully understanding the risks we have agreed to undertake." And finally: "To stop the fight at the other's request."
Upon hearing this, Alfred's jaw dropped. He immediately hoped for children. Perhaps then I'll know some peace in my old age! He thought.
. . .
They spent two full months reacquainting themselves as husband and wife, away from Gotham in a little villa on the Amalfi Coast. It was surreal for them both, leaving the masks and rooftops behind, spending their days walking amongst lemon trees, making small batches of limoncello. They would hike down to their private beach, stick a bottle in a tide pool, and swim for hours in the turquoise water, occasionally revisiting the shore to sip the cool limoncello. For the first time in their lives, their days were filled with sunshine and laughter, their nights with gentle lovemaking and deep, sound sleep.
They talked. They planned. They plotted. They learned how to cook.
By the end of the second month in Italy, she knew she was with child. When she told him, he simply put his hand over her abdomen and said, "Of course," and kissed her. Of course, she thought. Of course.