(352) "I wasn't that drunk."
(727) "You were calling my cat 'Simba' and holding him up in the air."

Dark, bloodshot eyes cracked open and immediately scrunched shut again with the assault of early morning light. Even that time he had the flu when he was six years old, Bruce Wayne could not remember ever feeling this sick in his entire young life. He forced himself out of his utterly wrecked bed and caught a look at himself in the mirror. Ugh, he thought instantly. Last night socked him in the chest like a sucker punch. He felt something horrible creeping up the back of his throat and before he could put much conscious thought into it, dashed to his bathroom. Seconds later, his digestive system made a sound attempt to turn itself inside out.

Hrgp! Rrrrrugh!

"Dude, are you remotely okay?" a female voice interrupted Bruce's feverish upchucking.

He had stopped questioning long ago how she kept getting in, but the heir to Wayne Enterprises did not feel at all relieved, for once, by his friend Selina's presence. His head felt like a cinderblock as he lifted it from nearly touching the commode and wiped his mouth on last night's shirtsleeve. Selina Kyle leaned casually on the door frame of the bathroom, one eyebrow almost disappearing into her hair. She wrinkled her nose as Bruce doubled over again.

"What is that anyway – mac and cheese?" she asked way more nonchalantly than Bruce felt she should.

The young Bruce Wayne stared morosely into the commode at everything he reckoned he'd eaten in the last 72 hours.

"Urgh," he gurgled at her. "Could be?"

The events of last night filtered back into his head like water dripping through a paper towel, causing his guts to flipflop even more. He ran over in his head the list of people to whom he now owed an apology, possibly in writing. Mr. Fox, definitely… Bruce shuddered at the thought of looking him in the face after shouting "ENGLISH, MOTHERFUCKER, DO YOU SPEAK IT!?" at him. Dr. Thompkins would probably just laugh off his drunken marriage proposal, possibly bring it up at his future wedding. That, he could live with, he decided. Detective Gordon… might well actually have a warrant out for his arrest at this point, he realized. And who even was that nut in the glasses talking to himself?

"Hell of a night last night, huh?" Selina remarked, again entirely too chill for Bruce's comfort.

He straightened up and reached for a roll of toilet paper. Another wet burp forced its way up and out but didn't bring anything with it. Bruce wiped his face on a large wad of toilet paper, embarrassed that his eyes streamed with tears from violent hurling. A few deep breaths and he was pretty sure nothing else was on its way up. Sniffling and determinedly refusing to acknowledge the awkwardness of the situation, he straightened up and attempted to act natural.

"Uh, yeah," he tried not to let his voice shudder as he replied. "That… That was fun!"

This time, both of Selina's eyebrows threatened to vanish into her curly bangs. She tilted her head to the side and cocked one hip out in her "badass" pose. Bruce turned on the spot, reached out to flush the commode without looking, then hid the vomit on his sleeve by tucking his arm behind his back. Selina looked unconvinced by his "too cool" act. Her head tilted to the other side as she looked him up and down. Bruce remained fully clothed from last night, but only missing one shoe, and his hair stuck in all directions.

"Do you even remember anything?" she demanded, squinting her eyes at him. "Have you ever been drunk before? I don't think I've ever seen anybody so wasted!"

Bruce's face wavered between gray and green in color and he visibly attempted not to sway where he stood. He ran his free hand through his hair, forcing it into more disarray than it had been rather than, in fact, fixing anything. When he withdrew that hand, he noticed several stark red scratches that appeared to have ceased bleeding within only a few hours. This puzzled him, but he stuck his hand in his pocket attempting to look calm.

"I was fine," he lied, not even a little bit convincingly. "I remember everything! We should do it again sometime!"

Selina rolled her eyes so hard Bruce swore he could hear it. She stepped forward into the bathroom and grabbed his hand out of his pocket, staring at the scratches in dismay. Bruce tried to tug his hand back but couldn't balance well enough without nearly falling on his backside. In fact, he nearly managed to pull Selina on top of him, but she kept her footing. Taking hold of a bit of his shoulder that didn't have some sort of ick on it, she guided him to sit down on the edge of his bath tub.

"Again?" she repeated incredulously. "Once wasn't enough? You were hammered!"

Bruce sniffed hard and stared at her defiantly.

"I wasn't that drunk!" he denied, wincing at his own raised voice.

The street girl gave him the most withering look he had seen, second only to Alfred.

"You were calling my cat 'Simba' and holding him up in the air," she told him flatly. "That's actually why I'm here – now I can't find him."

At that moment, Alfred appeared in the doorway, eyeing the situation in the bathroom and choosing "later" as the time to say anything about it. Presently, he had more immediate problems to deal with – eighteen pointy problems, to be exact. He held out his right leg to the two teenagers, steadying himself on the doorjamb. An exceptionally angry orange tabby clung tenaciously to his trousers, claws and teeth sinking into the flesh underneath. The cat glared at all three humans and growled menacingly. Selina looked exasperated as she stared from Bruce to Alfred and back again. Unfailingly calm and polite, the butler addressed the teenagers.

"Excuse me, Miss Kyle, but does this belong to you?"