Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of this work of fiction, and am making no profit through writing this.
A/N: Foul language. Written for Iphys for Yuletide.
Warning: Tag to "Rise of the Villains: The Son of Gotham" episode 9 of season 2; aired November 23rd, 2015
***All of the dialogue in this is taken from this episode.***
Selina doesn't know why she keeps coming back. It's not like Bruce is someone she fancies. He's just a boy, and a dumb, rich one at that.
While he's not exactly spoiled, he is privileged, and living a life that she'll never be able to live unless she steals it. She's stolen bits and pieces from Bruce. Not anything that, if he really stops to think about it before reacting, he'll miss.
She's taken little trinkets that she knows are valuable, but not beyond that of money. She'd never take something that Bruce truly cared about, something that reminds him of his parents. She knows that kind of pain herself. Will never stop looking for her mother, doesn't expect Bruce to ever stop trying to avenge his parents' death.
Seeing Bruce's eyes grow wide, and then darken when she dons a dress is a little intimidating. She's not that kind of girl, and he's not the kind of boy for the kind of girl that she is.
She feels uncomfortable in a dress, no matter what anyone says about how good she looks in one. She finds them confining and difficult to work in. They encumber her movements, make it next to impossible to climb and tumble; to steal and then get out of a place in record time.
That's probably what bothers her most about the bitch who's started hanging out with Bruce - she does fit into Bruce's world, even though she's not worth the time of day should Bruce deign to give it to her. The girl is rotten, and Bruce is way too naive and trusting to call a spade a spade.
That's why she returns to the mansion, with proof that the girl's a world class two-faced bitch, even after the brushoff that Bruce gave her when she'd tried to tell him that the girl was no good.
Selina knows she doesn't fit into Bruce's world, but she still considers him a friend, and knows that if she doesn't intervene, Bruce will get hurt, and even though he's a big dork, she doesn't want him to be in anymore pain than he already is. Also, it doesn't hurt to have a rich friend owe her his dignity, maybe his life. One day, she'll come calling on Bruce, cash in on all of these favors that she's racking up, and Bruce won't be able to say no to her. Until then, though, she'll continue to be his friend, and help him when he needs help, even when he doesn't realize that he needs it. Like now.
Selina watches Bruce and the bitch from the safety of the upper branches of a tree, wonders what it is that he whispers to her, reminds him of the job, because, from where she's perched, he seems to have forgotten all about it. It's not that she's jealous, because she doesn't like Bruce that way; it just boils her blood to see Bruce show even an ounce of kindness to that little blonde witch, knowing that she's playing him, that she's got ulterior motives in befriending Bruce.
Not that Selina's own motives are purer than the driven snow or anything, but she genuinely likes Bruce, even if he can be a pain in the ass sometimes, and a ridiculous doofus most of the time. He's too kind and good for blondie, probably too kind and good for her, too, but she'd not going to let that keep her from being his friend.
He needs her too much. He's likely to get killed if he's left on his own, even with that uppity butler of his following him around and protecting him.
Selina almost laughs at the look that crosses blondie's face when Tom gets the name of the man who killed Bruce's parents from her - he hadn't even had to cut off any fingers, or mar her pretty little face.
Bruce has grown a lot since the first time Selina saw him. The way he handles the little trollop, and doesn't buy into her 'woe is me' act makes Selina smile, and her heart swells with pride, because she knows that it's her influence on him that has hardened him just that little bit, enabled him to look beyond the tears and the sob story that the girl weaves, to the truth that lies beneath the surface.
The girl is a tool. Plain and simple. Which is why she'll never be good enough for Bruce.
Bruce isn't anyone's tool. Neither is Selina.
Selina can't keep the smile from her face, even though she doesn't want to admit that she smiles more often around Bruce than she does anyone else.
"Thank you, Selina. I couldn't have done this without you," Bruce admits after they've returned to his home. It's dark, and free of his helicopter butler, which makes Selina think that something's wrong, but she shrugs off her feelings of unease.
Bruce's got a bruise on his cheek from when Tom slapped him a little too hard. He hadn't been afraid of the physical pain, hadn't shied away or refused to play along with what went down. Selina has to admit that she's impressed.
"I was just glad to see the two-faced bitch get served," she says, shrugging. The girl had called her gutter trash, and Selina may be a lot of things, but she's not that. She's not anyone's trash, and she didn't grow up in gutters.
"What are you going to do now?" she asks, because now that he's got the name of his parents' killer, she has a feeling that she'll have to keep an even better eye on Bruce than she's been doing. To keep him out of trouble.
"You gonna tell the cops, or look for this Malone guy yourself?" She has to know his play if she's going to help him.
Part of her wants Bruce to tell her that he's going after the man himself. She's itching for a new adventure, something exciting and dangerous. Another part of her wants Bruce to leave it to the cops to handle (though she doesn't trust the cops as far as she can throw them) because she's afraid of what it will do to him. Revenge always changes a person.
"Honestly I haven't thought that far ahead," he says.
Selina supposes that she understands. Bruce isn't one to act spontaneously. He likes to think things through and work out all of the angles. It's one of the aspects of his character that she admires. Whatever he decides to do, she'll be behind him one hundred percent. He's got to know that. At least he should by now.
She doesn't know what compels her to ask, because Bruce is just a friend, and it's really none of her business what he'd said to the bitch, but curiosity gets the better of her, and the question pops out of her mouth before she can take it back. He'll probably see it as jealousy rather than what it is - curiosity, a desire to protect him from himself.
"So, when you whispered to her, b...before she went to her uncle..."
It shouldn't be so hard to get this out, but she's stammering, and she can't really look Bruce in the eye, because she knows that he's reading more into this than he should be, because he's just a boy after all, and boys are always reading too much into everything.
"What did you say?" she asks.
The answering smile that Bruce gives her is coy, and boyish, and Selina wishes she could take the question back, but it's out there, and, just like she thought, he's misinterpreting it.
"You want to know what I said." He doesn't state the words as a question.
He's not asking if she wants to know, he's telling her, and it's a little uncanny how confident he is at this moment, because Selina suddenly feels exposed, and vulnerable. She hates feeling like this, covers it up by giving Bruce an out.
"Hey, if you don't want to tell me, then I can leave." She turns toward her exit - the large bay windows, but Bruce's words stop her.
"I told her that I've never met anyone like her," he says, walking steadily, confidently toward her with every word that he speaks. "I told her I trusted her with my life, and that I felt tied to her in a way that I...couldn't explain, but wouldn't change...ever."
She's a little taken aback. She hadn't thought that Bruce was that good at deception. Surely he hadn't really felt that way about the wench.
But then he says, "The best liars always tell the truth," throwing her own words back at her.
"That was true?" she has to ask, has to know the truth, even if she doesn't think she'll like it.
Bruce nods. "Yes."
Selina can't believe it. It's like a stab to the heart, and Selina's not sure what it is that she feels, just that it's painful and it feels like her chest's constricting, and she can't breathe, because no way could Bruce feel that way about that two-faced blonde bitch. She doesn't deserve to have anyone feel that way about her, let alone Bruce.
"Just not about her," Bruce says, voice whisper soft with the confession.
Selina feels like she's been sucker punched. She'd been prepared to attempt to understand Bruce's feelings for the other girl, to be his friend, even if he was being supremely stupid, but she has no idea how to react to this, because it sounds an awful lot like maybe he'd meant those words for her. She can feel herself blushing, but brushes off the sudden spark of jealousy that the thought of Bruce saying those words to that bitch - words meant for her - cause.
She's not in love with Bruce, so why should she care what he'd said to some blonde bimbo when he was working an angle? Even if he'd just admitted that they were words that were true about her, and not the other girl. He'd just used what was at his disposal to play the part like Selina had told him to, and there was nothing wrong with that. Selina knows that she'd have done the same. She should be proud of Bruce, not feel like her chest's been ripped open, and her heart exposed.
She has no idea what to say to that, so she says what comes naturally, "Um...um...I'm gonna steal one of your cars to take to the city, cool?"
She has to get out of there, before Bruce does something stupid, like kiss her. Or before she does something stupid, like let him. She doesn't want to ruin what they already have for each other - a nice, working friendship.
"Sure," he says, and he lets her walk away.
She pauses when she's halfway out of the window, because as much as she wants to leave it at this, with that elephant standing prominently in the room, she can't.
"It's good you're changing," she says, needing Bruce to understand that she's not throwing his heartfelt words back at him, or rejecting the enormity of what they mean to him. They mean a lot to her, too, she's just not sure exactly what it is that they mean. Not yet, anyway. She has to think them over, let them sink in, and then maybe she can parse through them, and find out if Bruce wants something more than she's willing to give him, and if their friendship can survive that.
"Just," she pauses, wanting her next words to sink in, for him to understand what she's getting at, and not to brush them off as trite, "don't change too much."
She leaves then, not wanting to watch Bruce's reaction to her words. She'll be back, because friends always come back, and there's no doubt in her mind that Bruce will need her to rescue him again sometime, and she'll be there.
She knows that, if their roles were to be reversed, he'd be there for her. It's what friends do, have each others' backs, no matter what schmoopy, romance-driven things they might say to each other in the heat of the moment.