He thought about going back to his room, listening to Gordon's advice and trying to get some sleep for once. Instead his feet carried him to the study. He had almost died, without ever getting to the bottom of his parents' murder. Now with Galavan gone and his parents' murderer's name in his head, he needed to be working on his investigation more than ever. He needed to focus. He needed…..

A small click echoed on the far side of the room and any thought of his files vanished from his head. The sound should have scared him or at least given him some level of concern, especially after what had happened. Instead he felt a wave of relief washed over him.

"You can come in you know." He tried to make his voice sound as even as possible. His back was still turned to her, but he heard the slight creak as the window opened further. He turned around to find her perched on one of the smaller window ledges. "It would have been faster if you had just ridden here with us here."

Selina shrugged, jumping down. "Had somethings I needed to take care of first." Her gaze briefly flashed to his investigation board behind him before she plopped down on the nearby couch. "Besides not like you'd be sleeping or anything."

"You left before I had the chance to thank you." Cautiously, he took a step towards her as if worried any sudden movement may scare her away. "Alfred told me you were the one who got everyone into the building."

Without looking at him, she picked up one of the metal paperweights from the table, lazily tossing it back and forth between her hands. "Don't thank me. Gordon was the one who tracked me down."

Bruce's eyebrows shot up. "Gordon came to you?"

"Yep pulled the whole cop routine on me." She let the trinket fall forgotten once more against the coffee table. "Figured it was in my best interest to get you out. If you died he might have never stopped bugging me. Didn't want that."

Shrugging, she propped her feet up on the coffee table and raised her hands behind her head, making herself comfortable. She would have looked the picture of nonchalance had the movement of her arms not brought her shirt up to reveal a sliver of the skin of her stomach. Her black shirt had camouflaged the blood stain well, but against her skin the smear of red above her jeans was unmistakable.

Bruce's eyes widened. "Selina you're bleeding."

She looked down, her eyes following his. Instantly, her relaxed demeanor disappeared and her body tensed, revealing the same alerted state he was sure she was always in.

"It's nothing." Hastily she pulled her shirt down. "One of Galavan's psycho monks just nicked me," she said waving him off but he was already by her side, crouching down to get a better look.

She thought about stopping him but there was something about the determined look in his eyes that had her pausing. Instead, she let him slowly peel her shirt up.

It was worse than he expected. A cut stretched from the center of her stomach to the upper corner of her side, just below her ribs. It was red and irritated. A few sloppy stiches followed the length of it in what he assumed had been her first attempt at stitching it up. He felt her flinch as his hand gently pressed against the tender skin surrounding the cut.

"So when you said you had something to take care of," he said, his fingers tracing the path of the cut, "you were referring to the giant gash on the side of your stomach."

She gave him a tight smirk. "I also had to feed my cats."

He shook his head not even bothering to try and argue with her further and focused his attention back on her wound. His fingers ghosted over a particularly irritated looking stitch.

"You really have no idea how to do stiches do you?"

She glared at him. "Haven't needed to do them in a while. Unlike some people, I don't usually get mixed up with insane religious cults. I'm out of practice."

He ignored her pointed statement, instead focusing on the first part. "In a while," he repeated.

"Wasn't always fast enough kid."

She had tried to brush it off, but the implication behind her words still hit him like a ton of bricks. Rationally, he knew that Selina was only as quick and clever as she was from years of experience living alone on the streets, and that she had to have started somewhere. He just never really stopped to consider how much her still being alive right now may have just been due to dumb luck when she was younger. It was an unsettling thought.

Without another word, he stood up and made his was towards the desk. Since he had started looking into his parent's murders, Alfred had taken to keeping a first aid kit in the study. In the beginning, Bruce had assumed he'd only done it as a pointed reminder of the danger that was involved in investigating his parent's deaths, but recently it had begun to serve a practical use.

Opening the desk drawer, he fished out rubbing alcohol, a cloth, and a stitching kit from the stash. His hand hovered over the bottle of oxycodone before snatching it as well. He figured Selina wasn't the type to take painkillers given the way they dulled your reflexes but he grabbed them anyway. Maybe if he was lucky he could convince her to take at least half a pill.

He made his way back over to her and sat down on the coffee table facing her. He shook two pills onto his hand and held them out to her.

"Painkillers" He answered in response to her questioning look.

He braced himself, mentally preparing for the inevitable argument, but it never came. After a brief moment of hesitation, she wordlessly took the pills from him and swallowed them. Bruce cringed. Apparently, the cut had been more painful than she had been letting on.

Taking the wash cloth, Bruce set to work gently dabbing at the blood around her cut. As the blood began to wash away he was able to get a better look at her cut. It was deeper than he had originally thought, hardly the scratch that she had played it off as.

He debated calling for Alfred but ultimately decided against it. Despite their brief truce, back at Galavan's, Bruce wasn't dense enough to believe that Selina wouldn't run at the first sign of his butler. She didn't trust easily. But she trusted him. Cared about him even if he was to believe Gordon.

He swallowed hard before grabbing the needle and setting to work redoing her stitches.

"So what part was the truth," he finally asked after a minute or two of working in silence.

"Hm." She hummed, her focus already busy switching between the sharp pierce of the needle against her skin and the warmth of his hand pressing against her waist.

"Gordon already told me you were the one who came to him." He felt her tense but his hands continued their work without wavering. "So if the best liars always tell the truth then what part was the truth," he asked, finally chancing a glance at her.

She looked surprise. Whether her reaction was at the fact that he knew she was lying or that he had called her out on it he wasn't sure. Regardless she was quick to school her features into a careful mask of indifference.

She shrugged. "Sometimes a lie is just a lie kid. Don't overthink it."

"Why do it then? Why risk your life to save me?"

"I don't know." Her voice had a defensive edge to it that Bruce smiled at. "Why does it matter?"

"Just curious."

Carefully he finished off the last stitch, but his fingers remained, lingering against the skin of her stomach. He had been too distracted before, his concern over her injuries occupying his full attention, but now, with the last stitch done, he was suddenly painfully aware of their position. One of his hands was resting against her waist from when he had been working on her stiches while the other had somehow found its way to her knee. The rough fabric of her jeans was a sharp contrast to the soft skin of her waist. The pads of his fingers brushed lightly back and forth against her skin.

Her eyes narrowed. "Don't go getting sappy on me kid. It's not like I care or anything."

"I know." He tried going for casual, but he couldn't hide the smile in his voice.

Her face heated up. "I don't."

He hummed in response.

Cautiously, he let his palm on her waist flattened against her skin, suppressing a smile when he felt her shudder beneath his touch. When he finally managed to drag his eyes up back to hers he found her staring at him with something he couldn't quite place.

Her fingers twitched at her side.
Then she was moving, her lips pressing against his in a desperate sort of way. It was different than before.

The first time she had kissed him it had been chaste, a quick peck to sate her curiosity and that sparked his. This time, the second her lips touched his they molded against him, unwilling to let go as quickly as before. Before he could register what was happening her hand was grabbing his shirt and with one sharp tug he was falling forward. His body collided with hers as the two of them toppled back to the couch.

Immediately, he tried to shift some of his weight off, keep himself from crushing her, but she merely opened her legs wider, her knees bent against his hips, to make room for him. His face heated up at their positions, but before he could overthink it she was kissing him again.

Her lips were slow and lazy against him as she kissed, likely a side effect from the painkillers, but her hands were firm in his hair, keeping him locked in place against her. He relaxed into her.

He'd always known Selina was strong, but now, as she laid beneath him, he was surprised to find how soft and pliant she was. With one arm still supporting his weight, he brought his other hand down lightly gripping her waist. Beneath him Selina arched up, her shirt sliding up just enough for his fingers to brush against her skin.

He froze about to pull back when he heard the slightest gasp fall from her lips. He swallowed hard. Following his instincts, he took a chance, letting his hand slide further up under the hem of her shirt until his palm was flat against her stomach. She sighed pressing herself further into his touch.

Spurred on by her reaction, he slid his hand slid further up against her side, his fingers barely brushing her ribs, when he felt her hand push against his shoulder. He pulled back, worried briefly that he had gone too far, but she was quick to follow him as he sat up. His hands gripped her waist. He leaned back, awkwardly maneuvering them in the narrow confines of the couch until she was sitting on top of his lap, her legs bracketing his. He fell back against the couch.

Grinning up at her, he let his eyes take her in. Her hair was wilder that usually, sticking up in places where his hands had wandered. Further down her face was flushed, the tinting her cheeks matching the red of her lips. He smirked. She really did look properly kissed.

She didn't give him much of a chance to look though. With a quick eye roll she leaned back down but instead of going for his lips like he had expected, he was surprised when he felt her lips against the skin of his neck.

He tensed.

Cautiously her lips moved, brushing against his pulse point before traveling down lower to the slope of his neck. Then her mouth opened and all he felt was warmth. As she continued her assault on his neck gradually her lips began to press down harder, her actions surer. Her teeth nipped at his skin.

It would leave a mark.

Alfred would notice.

Her tongue pressed against his neck.

He didn't care.

She was meticulous as she mapped out every inch of exposed skin of his neck with her lips as he laid beneath her, not daring to move. Not that she had put him in much of a position to react anyway.

It was different. With Selina and him they'd always reacted to each other, part of their back and forth. She'd push him and wait for his next move. But now with her knees bracketing his legs and her hands pinning down his, he couldn't move, couldn't react. This wasn't their game this was just Selina, showing him with her action something that she couldn't with words, something he had never considered before.

He may have almost lost her tonight but she had almost lost him too.

Without giving her much warning he broke his hand free from her, tangling it back into her wild curls. Giving a slight tug he dragged her lips away from his neck, only to surge forward and capture her lips in a kiss again. Her surprised gasp was a sound he would lock away in head forever. Using the hand he still had tangled in her hair, he kept her close trying to pour everything into the kiss, proving to her that he was there, he was alright.

She smiled against his lips.

She knew. She always seemed to know.

It wasn't until the need for oxygen became necessary that he reluctantly broke their kiss and even then he couldn't resist placing a few last chaste kisses as he pulled back. His forehead came to rest against hers, both of them panting heavily. His nose dipped down to brush against cheek.

"Bruce," He placed a kiss on her cheek and she laughed, a real genuine laugh. God he wanted to hear it again. His lips traveled lower. "B," her hands moved around to his chest.

He hummed more interested in the line of her collarbone.

"We can't stay here forever," she insisted. Her eyes softened as the pads of her fingertips brushed his cheek, just below the dark circles under his eyes. "You need to sleep."

"I'm good right here," he replied easily, even as it protested against its position.

She rolled her eyes, trying to sit up, but his arm tightened around her.
"Bruce," she warned lightly, before pushing against his chest. This time he reluctantly let her go.
His eyes stayed shut as she shifted off him but he felt the loss of her warmth instantly. With a sigh, he propped himself up off the couch, preparing for her to slip away into the night yet again. He supposed it was an unfortunate side effect to falling for a girl like Cat. She was never one to stick around for too long.

When his eyes finally opened, he was surprise to find her hand stretched out for him.

She quirked an eyebrow at him. "You coming?""

Without hesitating he took her hand, eager to follow her wherever she would lead him, a willing pawn. He'd happily chase her to the darkest edges of Gotham. Still he hadn't been expecting it when she dragged him through the halls straight to his bedroom.
He froze as she made her way into the room.

She turned around to find him still lingering at the door's threshold. She raised her eyebrow at him, a challenge.

"What? You scared or something? She said, her tone teasing, but there was something off as she stood waiting for his answer. Her arms were wrapped around herself in a protective stance, her eyes never staying on him long. His heart sank. She was doubting herself.

He was making her doubt herself.
Cautiously he walked over to her and gently pried her hands from around her stomach. His thumb brushed against her palm before he placed a kiss against her cheek. When he leaned back he was grinning broadly. "Never."

She rolled her eyes, but he caught the slight upturn in her lips as she turned back to the bed. Slipping under the sheets, she scooted over towards the center of to make room for him. He didn't need any other prompting. The second he had gotten comfortable she rolled over pressing herself to his side, her head resting against his chest.
After only a second's hesitation, he placed a hand around her waist.

It was nice. Between the warmth of her body against his and the calming brush of her fingers on his chest he felt his eyes grow heavy. He could have fallen asleep easily. Could have had it not been for…

"I told Silver I loved her," he blurted out, interrupting the silence that had fallen over them. He felt her tense underneath his arm but he kept going, his grip tightening around her to keep her close. "Her uncle was going to kill her for giving me the name of my parent's killer unless she got me to fall in love with her again. I thought I was going to die. I didn't…I didn't want to be responsible for her death too."

A moment of silence passed.

"Why tell me" she finally asked attempting to sound harsh but the question came out sincere. She was drugged and tired and honestly too curious to bother.

His hand came up to brush through her hair. "It's like I told you before." He could feel his heart pounding against his chest. "The best liars always tell the truth.

She buried her face further into the crook of his neck, but he felt her lips quirk upward with a smile. "And that was the truth," she asked mimicking her words from before.

Instead of answering, he brushed a kiss against her temple.

"B."

"Yeah."

She paused. "I didn't want it."

"Hmm" His fingers continue to run through her hair.

"For you to die. I didn't want that." She clarified, a quiet confession.

His fingers stilled, the weight of her words hitting him. It wasn't much but coming from Selina…

His hand tightened on her waist, hugging her closely to his chest. Concentrating on his breathing he let himself focus on the weight of her body against his, the way her breath ghost against his neck, the brush of her hair as it tickled against his chin, and for the first time all night it finally felt like he'd gotten her back.

Also please review …. It's been a shitty week and hearing from you guys always brightens my day.