"I resent that question, Miss Vale," Bruce Wayne snaps. He squints out across the seething crowd of reporters. The sun is painfully bright for this early in the morning, washing the grounds of Wayne Manor in thin, grey light. Facing the sea of flashbulbs, he looks odd and out of place in his grey Armani suit, standing on a makeshift pedestal before an embarrassing array of network microphones. The massive wrought-iron gates of the manor loom behind him, an imposing show of defensive force. He only hopes it was the right choice to meet them here, instead of at the front door or in his office. Should this end badly, he supposes he can always claim security risk as an excuse.

"Selina Kyle is an old friend," he continues.

"How old can she be," Viki Vale puts in acidly, one pale pink pump crunching against the gravel drive in irritation. "She looked a little young for you."

Bruce leans back on his heels, hiding his flush. In reality, he only has three years on Selina, but it's true, he does look much older. Still, Viki's comment does not sit well with him. Given what she knows – the private information he once shared with her when they were both much younger and more foolish – her newfound interest in Selina Kyle could spell trouble. Inquiries into Selina's past – and present, for that matter – could be very dangerous for both Catwoman and Batman. For the entire Bat family.

Bruce clears his throat.

"Revealing a woman's age to the press could get my eyes clawed out," he says, staring at her pointedly. "Right, Viki?"

Several reporters chuckle. Viki bristles. Bruce continues, addressing the rest of the crowd in a more mediating tone,

"Selina Kyle is an old, dear friend. She has told me that she wishes to remain out of the papers. She does not want reporters banging down her front door. I ask that you all respect her wishes and grant her the privacy she has requested."

"So you have been in contact with her," a male reporter asks immediately, watching Bruce with intent blue eyes.

"Does this mean you know where she is," another shouts from behind the first.

"Is it true that you two had a past relationship?" A third demands, thrusting his microphone at Bruce's face.

"That was ten years ago," Bruce replies with a palm-down gesture, attempting to calm the raucous crowd. "It's ancient history."

"Is it true she left you for cheating on her with the entire Russian Ballet?"

"No," Bruce snaps. He had forgotten about that rumor.

"Is it true she caught you sleeping with an Austrian princess?"

"No."

"Is it true—?"

"Is it true that you were, in fact, planning to propose to her, before she left Gotham ten years ago?" Viki Vale's voice, ringing out with a conviction that comes only with the knowledge of intimate fact, cuts through the crowd like a scythe.

Bruce freezes. A dozen pairs of eyes shift slowly from Viki to stare at himself. One or two, likely aware of Ms. Vale's own affair, widely-publicized at the time, with the infamous, then twenty-something Bruce Wayne, glance between them, back and forth. There is a long, ominous pause.

"This is off-topic," Bruce retorts at last. "Selina Kyle is not here. We are not in a relationship. Now, if you'll excuse me…" He begins to turn away amidst cries of "But where is she" and "Why did she slap you," but the next words stop them all cold.

"Is it true that you're still in love with her?"

Absolute silence.

Bruce pivots slowly to stare at Viki Vale. Her voice is even, coldly apathetic. But her eyes are burning with accusation.

Bruce remembers, in that instant, the night long ago when he told one aspiring young reporter, in confidence, how the woman he had last loved had broken his heart when she left him. She hadn't been able to handle his… lifestyle. He was too focused on his work.

Viki liked pale pink even then, Bruce recalls, as evidenced by the long satin gown he vividly remembers her wearing. It clashed with her red, shoulder-length hair, but in such a soft, harmless way that he had almost mistaken Viki herself for harmless.

Almost.

Perhaps that edge of danger had clouded his judgement - reminded him, somehow, of another dangerous woman whose attention he had by then come to crave; though that woman tended to wear purple. His emotions were all caught up that night, rearing in a way he had not experienced since childhood. Love and anger, hurt and rage, guilt, shame, conviction, all boiled beneath his skin, pushing him to action, pushing him to do something to make them stop. Perhaps that was why he told Viki so much of the truth. He suspects it of being why he kissed her. She looked, Bruce learned, just as lovely out of that dress as in it.

He would realize the next day, after she was gone, that she had rifled through his drawers. The Bulgari engagement catalogue, months old yet still in its wrapping, had the scent of her perfume on it. The small, unframed photograph of Selina, which had rested atop the catalogue since January, was missing.

There has been little between the two of them for many years now, other than a passing, professional tension and a general sense of unease. But the fact remains – Viki Vale knows the whole truth of his early relationship with Selina, at least insofar as their public personas were concerned. She is probably the only person on the planet, aside from the mind-reading Zatanna, who does.

And she is threatening to use that knowledge against him, in plain language, in front of their entire city.

"Isn't it true, Mister Wayne," she continues, "that you lied to every other woman when you claimed you loved them? Even as you dated half of Gotham, one by one and two by two." She takes a step forward, staring up at him, her voice growing low and resigned. "It was always Selina Kyle."

It is not a question.

"This meeting is over," Bruce barks, not loudly, turning on his heel and jumping from the stage. "Don't forget your damned microphones."

Back inside the house, everything is dark and very quiet. Alfred is in the west wing today, dusting furniture which nobody uses, and polishing floors on which no one ever steps foot. There was a time when Bruce took great pride in the intricacies of his house, its grand scale and history, generations in the making. The weight of its beams and great oak doors felt sacred as a cathedral to him then, a monument to his martyrdom. After the earthquake destroyed the original building, he had it rebuilt from the ground up, exactly as it had been the day his parents had died more than twenty years before. It had felt satisfying at the time, or something similar. Selina would have called it masochistic.

As he has grown older, he has begun to see her point.

All of that dense, old familiarity seems to have soaked oppressively into the very seams of the house, its carpets, its wallpapers, and deep into the knots in the perfect, polished wood. It's a parody of the home he once had here, and the older he gets, the harder he finds it to carry that same torch of outrage for the sins of the past. Whatever ghosts may have lingered here once are now long gone, having abandoned him to his hollow imitation.

Even martyrs grow tired.

Bruce finds Selina in the Blue Room, a small antechamber to the main parlor about the size of a broom closet. In fact, it might have been a broom closet at some point, he muses. His parents had had some small renovations done in their first year of marriage. His mother, especially, had been a solitary person. Perhaps she had wanted a cozier spot to sip her tea.

Selina has dragged his leather armchair into the small space, cramming it up against the massive old television set in the corner. She sits in it cross-legged, a steaming mug of coffee warming her hands. The lights are off, but one large window is only halfway shuttered, casting its grey light in lattices upon the floor and across her face. Bruce's own voice comes out of the ancient speakers, followed by reporter after reporter making comments and taking notes. He comes to stand beside her, watching uneasily.

"They're going pretty hog-wild out there, huh," Selina murmurs.

"Yes," Bruce replies, shifting his weight. "For now. But in five hours, the news about the Joker's escape will be on every channel. They'll have much bigger problems to report on then." Selina does not immediately reply.

"You're sure," she asks at length.

"It's the obvious conclusion."

"I know…" she says, sounding unconvinced. "But I can't stop thinking about what Holly said." She turns to him, her eyebrows knitting. "Remember the very beginning, when we were first together and in the press?" He nods grudgingly.

"Of course. We couldn't walk down the street without being ambushed." Selina nods.

"Exactly. But we were hardly the biggest news in those days. The Holiday Killer was on the loose that whole year, holding the city in suspense. Hell, Joker even made an appearance at Christmastime and wreaked havoc. Yet what made front-page news not two days later? Not the Joker. Or Holiday, for that matter."

Bruce looks perturbed.

"'Gotham's Young and Beautiful Put Your Christmas Dinner to Shame at the Ritz-Carlton,'" he quotes through tight lips. Selina has no doubt it's word-for-word.

"Holiday was page two. They'd run his story the day before," she recalls.

"I remember that." He does not sound pleased. Selina observes his face carefully, his eyes trained downward, staring at the carpet in thought. If he keeps this up, he'll be on the track to spiraling depression by breakfast. The man needs a shrink. They both do.

"Y'know," she says eventually, attempting to lighten the mood, "I actually saved that big, fat, front-page picture of us they ran with that story. Even had it in a drawer for a while."

Bruce's lips turn up at the corners.

"Really," he enquires, his head tilting to look at her curiously.

"Mhm." She sips her coffee, remaining conspicuously silent. Intrigued, he presses the issue.

"Where is it now?"

Selina's brow quirks in surprise, but then her expression and her voice cool.

"The city dump, I suppose. I left it in the apartment when I skipped town that next year. In the drawer."

"Oh," Bruce says, averting his gaze. "I see."

Ah. Yes.

Valentine's Day.

"I hadn't forgotten," he admits quietly. She doesn't respond.

He remembers how easy it had been, then, to take her for granted. It seems ridiculous now, the idea that their relationship had once ended because of something as mundane as his having stood her up on too many dates. But there it is.

"Why didn't you take it with you?" he asks.

Her voice is oddly soft when she replies,

"I didn't need the picture."

Bruce thinks about that for a long moment. Then he clears his throat.

"Do you know if Damian is awake?"

"I haven't seen him," Selina says, playing along. "But he's probably avoiding me, so I doubt I would know. What time does the kid usually get up?" Bruce snorts affectionately.

"He's either been awake for hours already, or he'll be dead to the word until noon."

"Ah," she chuckles. "I see." Then, a little absently, "So. Propose, huh?"

Bruce startles.

"Viki…"

"Dated you afterward, yes. I know."

"No. I – well, yes. But that is not what I was going to say."

"I know, Love," she says blandly. "That's why I said it."

Bruce shoots her a look, which she ignores. Then he sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. It's too late. No going back from this rabbit hole.

He begins the story slowly, with the slightly shamefaced air of a man reexamining old wounds.

"Viki was always jealous. You and I had been together in the press for nearly two years. Everybody in Gotham knew about us. They had certain expectations for our future. As a result, many people became… possessive of our relationship. Apparently, those readers were not pleased when Viki replaced you in the papers."

Selina has the decency to look skeptical.

"Really."

"Yes." Bruce opens his hand in a gesture of helpless honesty. "She felt threatened. By you. By how she… Suspected… That I still felt about you."

"Poor girl knew she was a rebound."

"That's not fair, Selina."

"No," she agrees. "It isn't."

Bruce opens his mouth to speak, then closes it again, taking her meaning.

"I did try to make it work," he maintains.

"But the Big Bad Bat got in the way, did he?"

"That is the official story, yes."

"There's an unofficial story?"

"I…" He blinks, willing the truth to his lips. "Yes. And she knew it." Selina is very still beside him. Bruce takes a deep breath, watching the ceiling. "I thought, for a time, that I loved her."

Selina nods silently, inhaling. Closing her eyes, she turns her lovely face away as though searching for the strength to see.

"…And Viki?" She asks.

He smiles sadly, shaking his head. "I don't believe she was ever convinced."

"Poor girl."

After a moment, Bruce slides into a sitting position on the floor, legs crossed. Yielding.

"I told her once," he says, reaching over to take Selina's hand. "In confidence. About you… Us."

Selina nods, and he continues, letting the words pour out like water.

"I did not tell her I had been planning to propose. She figured that out on her own. Though 'planning' might not be the right word. I wasn't even sure how serious I was. I never had a set date. A big part of me knew that I might never be able to do it, simply because the Batman would always be in the way. But," he glances at her then and begins toying gently with her fingertips. "The mask didn't necessarily seem so… Permanent, back then. In the beginning."

Selina sets her coffee down and puts a hand to her mouth, curling her knees into her chest.

Shit. What the hell kind of trip would that have been, Bruce Wayne proposing to her? Ten years ago she was a volatile agent, a rising star already halfway to implosion. Would she have jumped at the chance to marry the handsome billionaire? Given up her life as a catburglar, settled down, and popped out a few miniature Waynes?

She might have balked and run.

The only thing of which Selina is certain is that she had loved him, even then. More than she had previously thought herself capable of. She hadn't planned it, hadn't meant for it to happen. But she fell anyway.

"You didn't tell her that last part, I hope," she remarks after a moment.

"About the Mission? No." He shakes his head. "But she knew I was holding out. I had only been seeing her a few weeks at that point, but the Holiday copycat killer had started up by then, and I was trying to keep Viki from ending up on the hit list. I knew she was looking for a story, and I wanted to give her one that would keep her far away from the Batman. And… I confess, I was trying to get her on my side. I thought I needed an ally in the press. Playing the sympathetic romantic seemed the best way to do that, at the time.

"Still, I told her too much. She seemed to understand... I wanted her to understand." His words turn derisive. "I made that mistake more than once back then."

Selina snorts indelicately.

"And let me guess. She jumped at the chance to 'comfort' the brokenhearted billionaire."

Bruce hesitates.

"Well… Yes. But I thought, then, that she was only in it for the story. I didn't expect anything like love. But then months went by. I was surprised when I realized I had fallen into the old routine with someone new. I took that familiarity for love. I thought she did too."

"And now?"

Bruce's answering smirk is apologetic.

"I suspect she saw through me," he says. "So did Silver. So did Thalia, and she nearly killed you over it."

"I noticed," Selina growls.

"Even still," he continues. "I can't help but marvel. How they knew – or suspected. They all said it, at one point or another. 'There's someone else. Something you're not telling me.' Sometimes they would ask me if I loved them. I would say yes. And I believed it." He runs a finger along her palm. "But they never did. Or they realized later. Once or twice, I was accused of being in love with someone else."

"Other than dark vengeance, you mean?"

He shrugs. "They certainly did. I thought, for so long, that it was just the Mission. That it was vengeance, or justice, or the law getting in the way. And those things were significant blocks. But there was always something – someone – else. And I should have known."

There is a long silence then. Bruce continues to toy with her long, delicate fingers until she stops him by lacing them together with his, kissing his knuckles. Bruce has to calm the urge to run his hands through her hair. He waits, and eventually Selina speaks.

"What do you mean, you 'used to' think Viki was only in it for the headline?"

"Well…" he answers simply, one eyebrow arching at the truth. "She never did run the story."

The news continues on the screen, quiet and unobtrusive. Wordlessly, Selina offers him a sip of her coffee. She drinks it black, something he has always found strangely endearing. They have similarities, the two of them. Even ordinary ones.

Bruce passes the cup back to her. Selina swirls the liquid in a circle thoughtfully. He squeezes her hand once, an unfamiliar feeling of contentment settling in around them. Selina leans forward in Bruce's chair, inviting him into her space. With a rare smile, he obliges, rolling onto his knees and taking her face in his hands. She kisses him, her lips tasting of the buzz of caffeine and finely tempered emotion. She smells like his shampoo, the faintly masculine scent lending her curves an unfamiliar, androgynous sort of sensuality. He is purely amazed by Selina Kyle. There is never a shortage of new ways to find her beautiful.

Selina slips her tongue along his upper lip and he shudders, throwing his arms around her midsection to crush her closer. She moves forward into his lap, hooking a leg around his hip. A tiny sound escapes her, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. Bruce gives a raspy chuckle, burying his nose in her neck. She kisses the top of his head then rocks forward abruptly, tipping Bruce backward onto the floor. With an "oomph!" she lands atop him, sporting an unmistakable Cheshire grin. He surprises himself by laughing out loud. Her eyes soften then, revealing a roil of unspoken questions.

"Bruce-?"

"Bruce!" The parlor door slams open, hitting the sideboard with a sound like a gunshot.

Selina launches into the air, landing in a lethal offensive position beside Bruce. Upright even before herself, he stands before the intruder, shielding her from view, his body rigid and singing with tension. So much for that happy moment.

"Dick!" Bruce exclaims, staring at his eldest son in alarm. "What is it? What's happened?"

Dick, clad in civilian garb, stands in the doorway, unmoving. His expression is strange. When he throws a guarded look at Selina, her eyes narrow.

"What's going on, Grayson," she demands. "What happened?" He shakes his head, distracted.

"Wrong question. It's what's going to happen," he replies. "I've got news."

"I assumed. Care to share?"

"I think I found the American Beauty Killer."

Selina steps in front of Bruce, ignoring the way his arms flex, as though threatening to force their protection on her. He knows better.

"Who is it?" All of the openness, the companionable silence of the moment before is gone. Duty calls.

Dick's gaze shifts uncertainly between her and his adoptive father.

"You won't like it."

"Tell me who it is, Dick." He looks down at her steadily. Selina does not like the pitying look in his eyes, kind and sad.

"It's Maggie Kyle," he says finally. "I'm sorry, Selina. It's your sister."