Consequences

Selina comes back into the room, closing the door behind her. Bruce stands rigidly before her, as though waiting for orders.

"At ease, soldier," she says dryly. He relaxes his stance, but his expression remains tense and unreadable. "Don't worry," she adds lightly. "There's a coffee shop at the end of the block. I think I've still got one of your old shirts, if you want to take Matches Malone out for a stroll. Of course, I always did prefer Lefty What's-His-Face. Nice guy. Had a mean right hook, as I recall." He gives her a long-suffering look and Selina raises an eyebrow.

"Not talkin', eh?"

"What is there to say," he finally asks.

"Oh, I dunno. 'Good morning,' 'Good day,' 'Good God, what the hell are we going to do about all of this?'"

"I am… concerned," he says. She snorts.

"Ah, yes. I could tell by your expressionless gaze."

"My expression is inadequate?" he huffs.

"Well, I'd appreciate some sign of life. Let me know you're still breathing in there." He simply stares at her. "A kiss would be a nice touch." He does not take the hint.

"Hey," she says, her tone suddenly more serious. She places a hand on his cheek, looking into his eyes with concern. "Don't shut me out."

"I'm not," he denies.

"You are." He takes her hand gently from his face.

"This isn't the time for games," he says. "We need to be planning our next move, not ignoring the situation. No matter how desirable the distraction. This is important."

"I know it is. That's why I need you to be here, with me, not locked away inside yourself. Too many times, Bruce, I've stood in a room with you, and you weren't there. I won't start this if I'm going to be alone, even while sitting right next to you. When we face this, we have to face it together. I need that from you."

He watches her, weighing his response.

"This isn't a relationship if you can't trust me," he says quietly. "I need to know that you can."

"I do, Bruce, it's…" she sighs. "It's hard." His heart constricts.

"I know."

"And I know you're not the only one who's ever pulled a double-cross," she admits. "I guess the door swings both ways." He nods softly, regretfully.

"It always does."

For a moment, they are quiet, listening to the sounds of Holly bustling away in Selina's tiny kitchen. The smell of bacon begins to fill the apartment, and the two adults are suddenly, acutely aware that neither of them has eaten in nearly fourteen hours. They left the charity event before dinner was served.

"Put that topic on the list of discussions we need to have when we're not running on fumes," Selina suggests. Bruce nods.

"Good plan."

She regards him thoughtfully. He's trying, but even now, he's still so distant.

Breaking Bruce out of his moods has always been one of Selina's more challenging pass-times. Like breaking into the Vatican or the Taj Mahal, it requires a mixture of subtlety and skill. Of all the tricks of the trade, those are the two most useful, but Selina's personal favorites have always been blackmail and bribery. And while not usually effective against the Dark Knight, there are buttons to push, loopholes in his manifesto. Years of knowing the man has given Selina a distinct edge in exploiting these infinitesimal weaknesses, those things that make him human. That bring him back to himself. That bring him back to her.

And Selina Kyle does enjoy a challenge.

As-though casually, she lets her shoulders drop, resting her weight on one hip. Then she stretches, catlike, closing her eyes and arching her back, raising one arm languidly over her head.

Slowly, the dark silk robe yields to gravity and slips to the side, the knot at her waist coming loose. When she straightens again, it falls open entirely to reveal the full, naked curves of her body.

Having now captured Bruce's absolute attention, she saunters forward until she is nearly flush against him, their lips a hair's breath away. His breathing is shallower, his broad muscles flexed.

She cocks her head to one side, kissing the corner of his mouth softly. It twitches once, then finally turns up.

"You're cruel," he murmurs. She chuckles, low and sultry against his throat, her hands moving lower. He makes a strangled sound and steps slightly away from her.

"I like these pants," he says quietly, by way of explanation.

"Mm, so do I," Selina replies, her eyes dancing. "I'd like them even better, pooled around your feet."

"Selina-!"

"I'm teasing you," she laughs.

"I noticed," he grumbles, flushed. Her expression changes.

"Stay," she says, touching his chest with her fingertips. "With me. Mentally, I mean."

"Stay with me," he counters. "Physically. Preferably without the distractions, for now." She scoffs, but considers his words.

"You first," she says at last. He shakes his head in exasperation.

"You're so stubborn."

"You're surprised?"

"Not at all." She smiles briefly.

"So tell me. Will you stay?"

He takes a breath, feeling the importance of this question and its short answer. In one fell swoop, another of his walls comes crumbling down. She is drawing him out of his fortress, forcing him from solitude. She's done it before, but it somehow feels different this time. He cannot decide whether he is grateful, afraid, resentful, or some combination of the three.

In the end, it doesn't matter. It's what she needs from him now. He can only make the leap, and hope to god he isn't lying.

"I will," he says. Her body relaxes, the faint tension in her shoulders unnoticeable until its absence. She nods once. "And you," he asks. She brushes her thumb across his lips, her eyes amused.

"I will." He kisses her knuckles. She grins wickedly. "Although I'd still prefer those pants in shreds, on my floor."

"Reneging so soon?" He inquires sardonically.

"Merely a parting shot, my dear." She bows theatrically, and shrugs the robe entirely from her shoulders, letting it fall to the carpet as she moves toward the closet.

Bruce stares after her, standing very, very still. His face feels hot. So do several other places.

"I wish you wouldn't do that," he mutters, frustrated in more ways than one.

Selina shrugs flirtatiously, her expression saying it all.

It worked.

He recognizes her success by ignoring her, but can't seem to find his way back to that stony silence of before. He shakes his head bemusedly.

She really is the only one who can do that.

Selina opens her wardrobe, sorting haphazardly through its contents. She pulls out a plum-colored blouse and a black skirt, and lays them on the bed. Then she steps into the shower, the water warm on her tired skin. She wonders idly if Bruce might join her, but at the thought of Holly just down the hall, she banishes the idea. She washes quickly, finishes her morning routine, and exits the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her chest, another around her forehead, drying her hair. When she removes it, the short locks stick straight out at odd angles, like a mass of dark feathers. Bruce hides a smile at the sight of her, fascinated.

As she dresses, Selina realizes that this is the first time he has watched her change into anything but her catsuit. The implications are provocative.

Suddenly over-conscious of her audience, she pauses, watching his face in the mirror. He looks rather appreciative.

She smoothes her hair with her fingers, returning it to its normal sleek state, keeping her makeup light and simple. And all the time, she can feel his eyes on her. It is odd. Not unpleasant, exactly, but… odd.

"How do I look," she asks, turning to face him.

"Beautiful," he answers without hesitation.

"Thanks, lover," she grins. Then she steps to the window, throwing open the heavy curtains. In an instant, the room is awash in bright afternoon sunlight, the sudden change harsh on their eyes. They have both been trained to adjust to any situation within seconds, but starlight lenses and color filters tend to play a significant role in the practical application of that training.

Selina gazes down at the street below, crowded refuse and people. It's not the worst housing project in the East End, and she certainly keeps up her own building and living spaces, but the view is less than pleasant.

Bruce watches the dust motes glint and dance around her slender frame, circling closer and closer, but never touching her. Her damp hair is a gilded halo in the light, lingering droplets catching the rays and throwing them about like jewels. Her cheeks are soft and dusky with the glow, and when she turns to look at him, her eyes are fired emeralds. She takes his breath away.

"We have a problem," she drawls, shattering the moment.

"What is it," he asks apprehensively.

"Your car's been stolen," she says. He blinks.

"What?"

"Guess we really should have thought that one through better, huh?" She gestures him to the window, pointing to the sidewalk far below. "It's gone. The jag." She rubs the back of her neck. "Car like that, left alone at night in this neighborhood? We must have really been distracted. Sorry. Would it help if I said I'll buy you another one?" Bruce shakes his head.

"It's not stolen," he says.

"What, your bat-senses are telling you that it just took off on its own for a little joy ride?"

"No. It's back at the Manor." She looks at him, artificially aghast.

"What, first you gut the poor thing to put in your new, fancy wiring, and then you bastardize its memory by installing autopilot? It's an antique, Bruce, it deserves a little more respect than to become a life-sized, bat-themed Hotwheel."

"I did not install an auto-piloting system," he says a little petulantly. "Alfred came and got it."

"Oh." Selina blinks. "When?" He shifts uncomfortably.

"Sometime last night." A feeling of dread begins in the pit of Selina's stomach.

"And he knew to do this, how, exactly?" Bruce clears his throat.

"I assume that Nightwing told him."

"And Dick would know to call the old man, why?" Bruce tries and fails to lie to her. He considers several half-lies that might lend him some plausible deniability, but ultimately decides against it.

In the end, he settles for the truth, letting it all out on one breath, his careful stoicism cracking under her intense scrutiny.

"I was supposed to be on patrol last night, after the gala. When I didn't show up, and refused to answer any calls, Nightwing likely contacted Oracle, who would have then tracked the car here, and made conclusions about the situation – which I would normally dissuade her from doing without sufficient evidence, but…" He clears his throat again, risking a glance in Selina's direction. "In this case, she was demonstrably correct."

Selina looks about to say several colorful things, but instead holds up her index finger, demanding silence from him while she chooses her words.

"So then, they know," she says at last, her voice flat. He makes no move to confirm nor deny, simply stands there, awaiting the explosion. Selina rubs her eyes as though they hurt. "I'm beginning to wish you had put autopilot in the damn car."

"I installed a homing device," he offers.

"So I gathered." She looks at him straight then, and he can't help but be trapped by her stare. "You're telling me," she says. "That they know. All of them. Alfred, Dick, Barbara, probably Leslie too, by now – Oh god! Will the kids have heard?"

The corners of Bruce's mouth turn down. He hasn't thought about Tim or Cassandra. Or any of the other young heroes zooming in and out of the house these days. And he has no idea how Damien might react to something like this.

"They're old enough to deal with it," he says gruffly, trying to convince himself as much as Selina, who looks a little green.

"I know," she sighs. "I just never imagined myself as gossip for thirteen-year-olds. Not for this, anyway." Bruce coughs discreetly.

"You should probably have let go of that expectation the first time Robin went on patrol with me."

"That doesn't count," she maintains. "He was just an annoying, peppy sidekick back then, not someone I actually knew. He's a friend now, and the others… Bruce, for Christ's sake, I've babysat some of them! And now, they'll be telling jokes about…" She falls into a cushioned chair set against the wall.

"They would have found out anyway," he points out. "The whole city is investigating now. Which," he adds mildly, "is the real problem we should be attending to."

"Screw the city," Selina snaps. "Our kids are-." She cuts herself off suddenly, startled. There is a long beat, but neither of them addresses her slip. When Selina speaks again, they continue the conversation as though nothing happened.

"The kids are more important, and therefore more pressing."

"They would have found out," he repeats.

"Yes, eventually," she counters. "For now, it would have been gossip, just one more sordid story made up or embellished to sell papers. But instead, everyone – everyone who matters – knows that Batman and Catwoman are officially fucking." She flushes and looks away, angry. "Again."

"Is that what this is about," he asks, sitting on his haunches before her. Even with her in the chair, he comes up nearly to her shoulder. "Are you upset that we… did this? Made love? Again?" She lets out a breath.

"No, Bruce," she says earnestly. "I am not upset. I have no regrets about last night. It's just, I never had a reputation to keep up before, other than Femme Fatale, Feline, and Felon – and I was a damn good felon."

"Still are," he notes wryly. She smirks.

"Thank you. But I never cared about what anyone thought of me, as long as it got me what I wanted in the long run. I had Holly, and no one else. And then I didn't even have her anymore.

"For a long time, even you were just a pawn in a game I thought I was playing. An extremely attractive pawn, and one whom I would have missed, had you mysteriously disappeared one night – but that's the point. For however long I've loved you, from first sight, first scratch, or somewhere down the line, I've denied it to myself for at least half as long. It didn't matter what you thought because I didn't know you, and I didn't care. When that changed, it was like my whole life reordered itself to make room for this… this mythological thing called 'giving a shit.'

"I care about these kids, and Alfred, and Dick. And even Babs. It matters, what they think of me, now. I can't help it." She shakes her head indignantly. "God, that sounds pathetic."

"It's not pathetic," Bruce contends, rising to his knees and taking her face in his hands. "It's crucial. And something I've never been very good at."

"You're not so bad," Selina says. Then she smirks involuntarily. "Well, you've been getting better, lately. That counts for something, right?"

"I hope so," he murmurs, then ends the conversation with a kiss. She responds, slowly at first. He wraps his arms around her, mussing her clothes, and leans in, pressing her into the back of the chair. Selina breaks the kiss to trail her lips along his jaw, while he sucks lightly at her earlobe. The chair squeaks.

No, that was the door.

"Get a room," Holly drones, leaning against the door frame with a spatula in her hand.

"This is my room," Selina grumbles into the collar of Bruce's shirt. Holly shrugs, completely unabashed.

"Breakfast is ready. Hope you like pancakes. It's all Selina had left in the pantry."

Breakfast is a strangely domestic affair. They sit and eat while Holly talks about college life, what the weather is like upstate, and how she misses Slam and Selina. But not Gotham.

"It's a little hard to be back, honestly," she says uncertainly. "All these places, these streets, they hold so many memories. It was nice to forget."

Bruce thinks about that. If he'd moved away when he was eight, to another state, another country, would he be a happier person now? He hadn't because he'd thought that he could fix this city, save the people in it. He'd thought the memory of his parents that night would never fade, so he looked for ways to make it mean something more than senseless death. But all he's done is create more memories he can't escape, more alleys he hates to go down.

He can see that Selina is thinking along the same lines, though he knows her memories run with different context. She'd had no way to leave when her life fell apart, nowhere to go. She'd been five years old, her sister had been an infant, and by the time she could board a bus on her own, she was stranded and starving on the street. Yet she managed to survive, to reinvent herself. Through thievery and cunning, she bought herself a new life. She could have left right then, she had the money. But she stayed.

Because of him.

Catwoman had met Batman, had been presented with a challenge. These streets could no longer hold her. He had given her the rooftops.

If he'd left when he was eight, if he'd never cast a shadow for her to see, would either of them be here right now? Would they be happier?

Back in reality, Selina is chuckling.

"Thanks for coming to visit anyway, kid," she says. "Are you going to see Karon anytime soon?"

"This afternoon, yeah," Holly replies happily. "So I should probably get going, actually." She puts her plate in the sink, then reaches over to take Bruce's and Selina's. "You two have fun with your press conferences."

"What-?"

"Oh, there will be press conferences," Holly grins. "At least for Bruce. The vultures are gathering at his gates as we speak." Selina scoffs.

"Come on, Hol, it's not like the man's never kissed a woman for the cameras – hell, it's not even the first time the woman's been me."

"That's the point," she says. "He's been seen with every socialite on the East Coast at some point. But he's never cared about one them before – And the show you two put on last night is about as far from the usual Wayne circus bumbling as it is possible to get. It's on every channel – you're the scandal of the century in this town." Selina rests her chin on her fist.

"This town has seen its mayor, police commissioner, and half its police force either killed or charged with federal crimes, all within the last century. Hell, there's a full-fledged family of masked vigilantes active in the city every night, and the action between the Wayne bed sheets is the number one scandal?"

Privately, Bruce echoes her sentiment.

"But those things are upsetting," the teenager argues. "Or at the very least, depressing. Even you masked heroes just remind people that they live in a city that's so messed up, it needs five full-time, highly-trained, extralegal crime fighters just to keep it from eating itself alive.

"But something like this, it gives people hope."

"Batman gives people hope," Bruce disagrees softly.

"Yes, but it's a hope of being rescued from certain doom," Holly explains, gesturing with her hands. "This thing with Bruce Wayne, it's just fluff. It's easy. You ever wonder why we get stories about new exercise trends beside features on mass murder? People need that escape."

"And why would they find it in this," Bruce asks with some slight irritation. But either Holly can't hear it or doesn't care, because she barges right on ahead.

"For once, Gotham's first son is showing real feelings for someone other than himself. They're wondering if the prince may finally have found a princess. One who'll stick around for more than a few months. Maybe even for good."

"I was never really the 'princess' type, kid," Selina mutters. "And His Highness here has had his fair share of contestants for the Gazette's 'Who Wants to Marry a Billionaire' routine. This is nothing new."

"But it is more public," Bruce concedes reluctantly. "Even when the papers did hear about someone I was seeing exclusively… who, though they didn't know it, was, in fact, you more often than not… we were never open about it. No one ever knew the details."

"And now they're out for blood," Selina states.

"Exactly," Holly says.

"Great."

Bruce pats her knee awkwardly under the table.

"Sorry," he whispers.

"Shut up."

"Well, I'm off," Holly exclaims cheerfully. She walks to the front door and calls back over her shoulder, "Good luck!" Then it is closed, and they are alone. In the ensuing quiet, Selina and Bruce watch one another across the table. Finally, Selina takes a breath.

"Seriously," she says. "What are we going to do?"