Disclaimer: Batman does not belong to me. I make no profit from this. Batman created by Bob Kane.
"Selina, would you stop jumping around?"
As Bruce Wayne watched Selina Kyle doing flips and twirls on the mat, he wondered why exactly he was friends with the woman.
"Oh, lighten up, Bruce. You mean to tell me you've never just went wild when little Dickie wasn't around? You've never had any fun?"
Bruce exhaled.
"Unlike you, Selina, I did this for a living. I wasn't afforded the luxury of fun."
"Oh, that explains everything."
He narrowed his eyes. She giggled.
Selina was also a gymnast. She demonstrated particular aptitude in floor routines and vaulting. In spite of this, she had only competed in one Olympics, and a handful of national tournaments.
When he asked her why she never went further, she replied, "Because I didn't want to."
Selina Kyle was an unusual kind of athlete. One with incredible skill, but a lack of overwhelming desire to show off this skill.
She didn't have the ambition and obsessive drive to become the best of the best. She was confident in her ability, comfortable in her standing, and competent when competing.
For these reasons, many people in their profession shunned Selina, believing that she had wasted her talent.
At least I'm not wasting my life. She had told him this shortly before he had injured his back. It was the week before a competition in Santa Prisca and she had just decided to give him a long speech about why she made the choices that she had. Selina was not the kind of person who felt the need to explain herself to others, but she'd seen a change in him during that time. There was a disturbing compulsion that drove him to push himself far beyond human limits. She thought she could help him, make him realize that there is no great honor in pushing oneself to destruction.
He didn't listen.
That was the only time in their friendship that Selina had ever asked anything of Bruce.
They didn't speak to other for two years after that. Bruce had stayed away from everyone except Talia. He didn't really come back to the world until he began training Dick.
Selina likes to hope that Bruce has gained a better understanding of life. That he realizes there is more to his identity than his accomplishments. But she doesn't ask, and he doesn't tell, so they spend their time ignoring important issues, and semi-jokingly scolding each other for character flaws in empty gyms.
