love is the root of creation

by palmaceae

Two months after a vigilante dressed like a flying rabies vector heroically dies saving some city on the US eastern seaboard, a dead man with a beautiful face rings the bell at an apartment in Paris. [set post-TDKR; sequel to fear is the heart of love]

It goes like this: two months after a vigilante dressed like a flying rabies vector heroically dies saving some city on the US eastern seaboard, a dead man with a beautiful face rings the bell at an apartment in Paris.

Or how about: five months after a thief betrays a cripple she thought she knew, the not-so-distant past comes back to nuzzle her neck.

Or is it more like: six months after a man and a woman very much in love rut like animals on a rooftop, reality intrudes?

---

Selina opens the door after the second ring. She clearly hasn't bothered checking to see who her visitor is, given her bored tone of voice: "Oui?" She's typing on her phone, not bothering to look up. A great way to get her apartment broken into, but then again, she can take care of herself.

Bruce doesn't say anything - doesn't have anything to say. He's imagined this moment happening several different ways, but not like this. His adrenaline is pumping as fiercely as it did before he would go into battle.

It feels like an eternity before Selina takes her eyes off the phone. Bruce figures her first glance will be at his face, but he's mistaken - Selina looks at his feet. He sees her eyes stop on his cane.

Selina goes very still. Bruce listens to her breath, in and out, in and out. She still has her eyes fixed on his cane.

He realizes why she's fixated on the cane - it's nearly identical to one he'd used in Gotham.

She breathes deeper. He can hear her lungs working to take in more air, her blood cells strapping molecules to their backs and rafting down veins, the very transfer of carbon dioxide and oxygen in her alveoli.

And just like she did the first time she met him, the second time she meets him, she kicks the cane out of his hand and knocks him to the floor. And just like that first time, he is caught off guard. She's the only one since Ra's who has managed to do that - correction, she's the only one who throws him completely off balance when he's within twenty feet of her.

He tries to say her name, but she kicks him in the stomach and knocks the words out of his mouth. Luckily, she's barefoot, because with the amount of force she'd used, Bruce suspects he'd have ruptured organs if she'd been wearing sturdy shoes.

She steps back and tries to slam the door shut, but Bruce manages to wedge his cane into it to keep it from shutting.

His back aches, but he gets up as fast as he can, which isn't very fast at all. He feels old. His doctors hadn't wanted him to leave the hospital as early as he had, but he'd made up his mind.

When Selina realizes that his cane is very sturdy, and no, she's not going to smash it by repeatedly slamming the door, she opens the door instead. Bruce leans against the door, putting his full body weight on it to keep her from closing it again.

"I deserve that," he says.

She slaps him across the face, but due to his facial hair, it's lacking the full satisfying sound that accompanies such solid contact.

He rubs his face.

"I deserve that too. And next time, I'll shave so you can really have at it. But can we talk?"

She slaps him again. He catches her wrist this time. She tries to go after him with her other hand, but he grabs that one too.

"Auto. Pilot," she spits out between clenched teeth.

"Inside," he says.

He lets Selina pull her hands out of his grasp and she storms inside. He picks up his cane and follows.

He closes the door gently behind him and takes in Selina. She's barefoot and wearing black yoga pants and a navy Princeton hoodie - one of his hoodies. He wonders when she got around to swiping it. It's big on her, covering most of her hands and her backside. He likes the way it looks on her - he's never seen her in his clothes before, but now he wants to see her in more of them. She pulls on the hoodie strings; looks like a nervous habit she's picked up.

"Well?" she barks.

He sits on the couch. She remains standing.

"I didn't lie about the autopilot. I fixed it. But I'd never tried it out before. And I didn't know if I wanted it to work."

He waits for Selina to ask more questions, but all she does is shift her weight from one leg to the other and tug on the hoodie strings.

Eventually, she speaks up, but so quietly he can barely hear her.

"Where have you been?"

"In a Swiss hospital, getting surgery on my back."

"Why did you wait so long before letting me know you were alive?"

Bruce looks sheepish. "You're not the only insecure one around here."

She inhales deeply and exhales a long slow breath. "That's fair," she says. She closes her eyes. "If you never contacted me again, I would deserve that."

She opens her eyes and looks at her feet.

"What are you doing here?"

"You asked me to run away with you. Is the offer still available?"

He tries to sound casual about it.

"Bruce," she sighs.

He doesn't like the sound of that, so he gets up and covers her mouth with his before she can say another word. She tastes like regret and... a chocolate croissant? That's different.

Selina doesn't kiss him back, but she doesn't push him away either. He breaks the kiss and presses his forehead against hers.

"How many more times will you come back from the dead?"

"I'm done with that."

"I don't believe you," says Selina. She pulls away. He sits back down on the couch.

"I never knew you," she says.

"Yes, you did. I showed you as much as I dared." He musters up a smile. "You think breaking and entering is a normal date activity for me?"

She doesn't smile.

"You're Batman. Bruce Wayne is the mask you wear during the day." It hurts to hear that from yet another woman he loves.

"I can't be Batman anymore."

"Why not?"

"The pain is too much to bear." His voice cracks. "I'm only human."

"And what will you do with your do-gooder tendencies?"

"I'll create a new world for our children." He doesn't know where "our children" came from, but it feels right.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Bruce."

"Who is Bruce?"

"I'm not sure yet. But I do know that without you, I'm the guy who didn't want the autopilot to work."

"And who I am to Bruce?" asks Selina.

"You are the love of my life, Selina Kyle," he states. "You, not Gotham."

He looks at Selina, but she's turned her face away. He's about to look away too, but then he sees a drop of water on the hardwood floor that wasn't there before. So insignificant unto itself, but so powerful. Another drop falls next to the first one, and another.

"The first two times I died, I came back for Gotham. This time, I came back for you. You make me want to live, Selina."

"I don't deserve that," she states.

"Selina..."

"I fucked you over every single way possible, Bruce, and yet here you are. What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"It wasn't your fault. You were acting out of fear, ignorance, and survival, and it doesn't ever have to be that way again."

"I need you," he says.

---

The second time Bruce came back from the dead (but only the first time she's witnessed), she was helping a kid who'd stolen an apple.

"Pretty generous, for a thief," said a voice from the shadows, and like a dark avenging angel, Bruce Wayne emerged.

She froze.

"You came back. I thought they'd killed you."

"Not yet," said Bruce.

She couldn't help but be on the defensive. Bruce had every right to be furious with her.

"If you're expecting an apology -"

Bruce cut her off.

"It wouldn't suit you. I need your help."

"After what I did to you?" she asked incredulously.

"I admit I felt a little let down," he said dryly, "but I still think there's more to you."

"You've lost your money because of me, Bane nearly killed you, I broke your… I hurt you," she said. "How can you still trust me?"

His gaze was unwavering.

"Because I know you. And now, you know me."

Selina lowers her eyes - she couldn't take the intensity of his stare.

"Okay," she said. "What do you need?"

"You," he said.

---

"I need you, too," she whispers. She puts a hand over her eyes.

"Bruce, I..." Selina's voice falters.

"What?"

She shakes her head.

Bruce gets up and goes over to her. He puts an arm around her. At first she resists, but then she melts into him.

She buries her face in his shoulder, and Bruce can hear her shaky breaths.

"What is it?" he asks softly.

Selina pulls away, not meeting his eyes. She takes his hand and slides it under the hoodie onto her stomach. Her usually flat stomach, now gently curved.

To say he is shocked would be an understatement. His brain goes blank, and his mouth decides to do its own thing.

"Is it mine?"

---

The rational part of her brain argues that it's a reasonable question given that they've been apart for months. The much louder, emotional part of her brain cannot believe he just said that to her.

She slaps his hand away and steps back.

"No," she says coolly.

She takes pleasure in the look of shock on his face. He actually pales. He starts pacing the room like a caged animal.

She lets him suffer for a few minutes, but then she sees a hardness in his eyes that she's never seen before. She recalls that she doesn't actually know what he might do in a fit of jealous rage. Simple jealousy, she knows what that looks like. Complicated rage is another story.

---

Back when she was consulting at Wayne Enterprises, she'd been pissed off at Bruce for some reason or other. She started flirting with some assistant, a delicious young thing... His name was Jack or Brett or Sean, some strong one-syllable masculine name that rolled off the tongue (like Bruce), with the puffed-up confidence only found in the fountain of youth. She only had to touch his shoulder once, and Jack-Brett-Sean was under her spell.

She sat on his desk, which brought her cleavage to the level of his face. He didn't bother looking at her face after that, preferring to conduct his conversation with her breasts.

Jack-Brett-Sean put a hand on her thigh. She let him keep it there, and that was when Bruce took action; Selina had positioned them just so to ensure that Bruce could see them through the glass of his office door. She knew he was watching.

Bruce butt in oh-so-politely, apologizing for interrupting their conversation, and asked to see her in his office. He accompanied her there with his hand hovering over her lower back - she felt the heat radiating off of him even through her clothes.

Bruce closed the door and flicked the blinds closed.

He sat down in his ridiculously expensive chair. Selina remained standing.

"Care to explain what was going on out there?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Nothing."

She heard the sound of a belt buckle and zipper being undone. Bruce leaned back in his chair and she saw that he had taken his half-hard cock out and started stroking it.

"He just seemed like a sweet guy," she said.

"And you're nothing but a friendly person," he said.

"That's right."

"A very friendly person," he said, his arousal starting to become evident in his voice. "I see how friendly he was getting with your breasts."

His arousal turned her on. Selina walked around his desk and stood next to him.

"Is there a problem with my conduct, Mr. Wayne?"

He stood up and grabbed her by the back of neck and kissed her roughly. He sat down without breaking the kiss by keeping his hand on her neck, which forced her onto her knees to stay upright.

He broke the kiss and shoved her at his cock, his intent clear. She didn't want to admit it, but God, this was hot.

This whole thing, she realized later on, is Bruce's standard power play when it comes to sex. Bruce Wayne doesn't play with his own dick when he can have someone else do it, unless he's proving a point. He doesn't want his dick sucked unless he's exerting his dominance; he'd rather be fucking someone with it. The rich don't even get off like everyone else, she amusingly realized.

She took his erect cock into her mouth. Bruce moved his hand and put it on her hair, which had been in a bun. He yanked out the pen holding her hair up and dug his fingers into her hair.

She sucked on his dick for a few minutes, feeling it get bigger and harder. Bruce started thrusting into her mouth, and she wondered if he was going to come in her mouth when he shoved her away.

"Take off your clothes," said Bruce.

"No, thank you," said Selina, as if she was declining a second cup of coffee. She stood up.

Bruce leaned back.

"You have a meeting in," he consulted his wristwatch, "forty-three minutes. You can either take off your clothes and have a chance at looking presentable, or I'm going to rip them off of you. Your choice," he said casually.

Selina briefly considered the latter choice, but she didn't want to undermine her credibility at the meeting by showing up disheveled.

She took off her clothes. She was wearing a skirt suit; she liked wearing those in business settings. Usually, her male victims were so busy ogling her long legs that her next move caught them off guard.

"Keep your shoes on," he ordered. She smirked - he liked her in stilettos, he's told her, because it makes it easier to kiss her when she's closer to his height and it makes her legs look impossibly long. This time, she guessed when he shoved her against a wall, he wanted them on to make it easier to fuck her standing up.

Bruce took off his belt and slid it around her neck. She involuntarily whimpered and bucked against him. Bruce smirked.

"Good to know," he said, and let the belt fall to the floor.

She was more turned on that she realized; she was so wet that Bruce just slid right in. Bruce grabbed her hips and thrust.

"Yes, there is a problem with your conduct," he hissed. "I don't want to see other men touching you."

"What about women?" she asked archly.

His hands tightened on her hips.

"No one touches you unless I want them to. You're mine."

"Who says?"

Bruce changed the angle of his thrusts so his cock brushed against her clit. She gasped.

"Say it."

"Say what?" she retorted.

Bruce slid a hand down between their bodies and rubbed her clit. Oh, if he kept that up, she was going to come so hard…

"Say it," he demanded. He bit her shoulder hard enough to leave a mark.

Selina desperately didn't want him to stop, so she grudgingly gave in.

"I'm yours." As she said it though, she knew she wasn't doing it just to placate him - it was the simple truth. He continued stroking her clit.

Bruce put his mouth on the sensitive spot where her neck met her shoulder and sucked. Selina groaned.

"Just take me, Bruce, take all of me. I'm all yours."

"Come for me, Selina," he growled in her ear, his breath hot on her skin.

Her orgasm flooded her senses, and she barely felt it when Bruce buried his face in her neck and bit her again when he came seconds after her.

Later in her meeting, she felt the marks he left on her burn when the fabric of her shirt brushed against them. She touched her shoulder, felt the brands he left on her body. A part of her bristled at being claimed like this, but the more primal, visceral part of her reveled in it.

---

A part of her wants to see what happens if Bruce loses control at the thought of her carrying another man's child.

On the other hand, she's seen Batman blow a pretty solid door off its hinges with just one kick, and she wants to keep her security deposit intact, so she relents.

"It's Batman's," she says haughtily.

"Batman's?" Bruce says incredulously. His voice rises. "Batman's?" he yells, louder than she's ever heard him raise his voice before.

The words then seem to penetrate his thick skull. He drops onto the couch and covers his face with his hands.

"Selina, do not fuck around with me about this," he says, his voice muffled. His hands are shaking.

"Then don't ask such asinine questions, asshole."

He looks up from his hands. Selina realizes how much he looks like when she first met him. Longer hair, goatee, tired, drawn, pale, and heavily leaning on a cane.

"So…is this bad news?" she asks oh-so-very casually.

"Can I have a minute to process all this?" asks Bruce.

"No."

He leans back and stares at the ceiling.

"It's great news," he says wearily.

"Oh, yeah, sure sounds like it."

"I left the fucking hospital after back surgery, against medical advice, because I needed to see you so badly, after spending several months in a literal hell hole. Everything hurts like a motherfucker, and I just found out my girlfriend's pregnant, and you don't like the fucking tone of my voice?"

"Your girlfriend?" she asks indignantly.

She sees a possessive gleam in his eyes.

"I seem to recall someone admitting 'I'm Bruce Wayne's girlfriend' while getting fucked by Batman."

She wants to argue with him, but what's there to argue with? She broke his heart and fed him to the monsters, and he comes back from the dead declaring his love for her.

There is nothing she can deny him after Bane. The minute she realized Bruce Wayne was on her doorstep, she knew she would be spending the rest of her life by his side. She's his. They both know it. The only question is when will she stop fighting it.

"Yeah, well, look how that turned out." She gestures at her stomach. She's pretty sure that's when this happened.

She's never heard him curse that much. She mentally reviews what he said about pain.

"What painkillers are you on?"

"I'm not."

Her eyes widen in shock.

"Are you serious?"

"I don't like painkillers. They cloud my mind."

"So does pain," she snaps. "Did your doctors give you anything?"

He stubbornly stares at her.

She sits down next to him and starts frisking him. He has a pill bottle in his pocket. She checks the label.

She opens the bottle and shakes two pills out into her palm. She grabs a half-empty glass of flat seltzer sitting on the table and shoves it at him.

"Take them," she orders.

"No," he says.

"Take them, or I'll knock you out and shove them down your gullet."

Bruce takes the glass, but not the pills from her.

"You know I will, too," she says.

He takes the pills and downs them.

"Happy?"

"Oh yes, very happy," she says in the same tone of voice he used on her earlier.

They sit in silence for awhile, until Selina notices Bruce's eyelids fluttering. Those pills kicked in fast. She nudges him.

"Get up."

"Why? You kicking me out?"

"No, I'm moving you to the bed. Your back will thank me later."

"I'm not tired," mutters Bruce.

"I'm tired," she says.

Bruce mumbles something she can't make out and gets up. His cane is at her feet, but he can't seem to find it. He sways unsteadily on his feet, and she puts her arm around him and helps him to the bedroom.

"When was the last time you slept?"

"I dunno," he says.

They reach the bed, and she helps him lie down. She takes off his shoes and tosses them to the floor.

She sees Bruce fighting against the sleep overtaking him.

"Relax. I promise not to hit you while you're sleeping."

"Selina," he says. His eyes are closed.

"I'm right here."

"Selina, don't leave me. Please," he whispers.

"I won't," she says.

"Selina," he whispers, and his voice trails off. His face relaxes - the sleep has won.

Selina thinks about taking a nap beside him, but she's too wound up. Instead, she sits on the bed and draws her knees to her chest and hugs her legs and tries to make sense of the day.

---

Selina remembers when she found out she was pregnant. It had taken a few weeks to tie up loose ends in Gotham, and she'd arrived in Paris almost a month after Bruce had taken off with the bomb.

She'd always wanted to live in Paris, and with the Clean Slate and nothing to keep her in Gotham, she'd finally made it happen. She couldn't bear to stay in Gotham after everything that had happened.

She had sitting down, folding clothes and putting them away for the first time in her new apartment, when she felt the oddest sensation in her belly. Like someone was flicking her, but from the inside. It didn't hurt, but it didn't feel like gas or indigestion either. It stopped once she finished folding and started making food, but it came back after she ate.

Selina felt uneasy. She pulled out her phone and searched online, scrolling through results describing several possible causes. She stopped reading once she saw the word "pregnancy."

She couldn't be pregnant, could she? She lifted up her shirt and looked at her stomach in the mirror. It seemed flat enough, but maybe it was protruding a little, or was it just the lighting? She poked her stomach in a few spots and felt another flick.

Selina tried to think of symptoms of pregnancy. No period was one of them: she hadn't had one in awhile, but she was underweight and had been under a lot of stress, both of which could account for that. Nausea: she had a few bouts of nausea and vomiting a few months ago, but she had chalked that up to a virus. Sore breasts: sometimes her breasts were sore before she had her period, and maybe she'd been having one then. In conclusion: inconclusive.

She knew she wasn't pregnant, but there was only one way to be sure, so she grabbed her purse and went outside to a convenience store she'd noticed the other day. She bought a box of pregnancy tests, brought them home, drank a liter of water because she was really bad at peeing on demand, and waited until nature called. Then she waited some more. Funny how a few minutes felt like forever.

The stick said "positive."

Selina grabbed the second stick in the box and used that one too. It came up positive as well.

She was fucked.

She briefly panicked when she thought about who the father could be. John Blake had been the last guy she'd slept with since Bruce had... What if it was his?

But then she remembered how her missing periods, sore breasts, and nausea had started before she'd slept with Blake, and they'd used condoms, which meant it had to be Bruce. But she'd been on birth control when she'd been seeing Bruce. After she'd left him, she stopped bothering with the pills… and the next time she'd had unprotected sex had been with Batman on the roof.

She roughly calculated how long it had been since then. She was surprised to find it had only been around five months. So much had happened in those five months… it had felt so much longer than that.

There's another flick. It rattles her. She didn't know what to do, so she changed into running clothes and hit the pavement. She did her best thinking in motion.

Could she get an abortion? Possibly. She guessed it depended on where. If she couldn't get an abortion, there was always adoption. But did she want to get rid of it?

She didn't have a clear answer to that question. She thought about the things she had from Bruce: the Clean Slate USB drive, his ratty old Princeton hoodie, the pearls…and a baby.

No, it wasn't a baby, it was a parasite that probably didn't even look human yet.

She wasn't concerned about money; she had a decent nest egg stashed away, and she suspected that if she went back to Gotham and demanded a DNA test from Bruce's estate, she wouldn't have to think about money for the next eighteen years. Last she'd heard, the lawyers had been able to prove the trades that had bankrupted Bruce as fraud and restored his fortune.

After running herself ragged for two hours, she still had no idea what to do, so she went to bed. She still didn't know the next day, or the day after that, or the day after that day, so she did nothing.

The food in Paris was so good, especially after months of semi-starvation under Bane. She avoided thinking about her situation by eating things with lots of butter and cream and sugar. She avoided looking at her stomach and wore loose dresses and sweaters.

A month later, she still didn't know what to do. And then Bruce showed up.

---

Bruce floats through the detritus of his thoughts like a soap bubble delicately riding a breeze. He feels himself being pulled towards consciousness, but he doesn't want to wake up. What's so great about being awake? All there is waiting for him is pain, both physical and emotional. He doesn't know where he is.

Is he in the pit, shivering with fever, listening to Gotham's destruction through an old TV? Hanging from a rope as his back heals poorly? Doing push ups in an effort to ready himself for the climb?

Sometimes, his body hurt so badly that all he could do is retreat into himself, take his dick in hand, and jerk himself off, hoping that his spinal nerves weren't damaged enough to block an orgasm.

The rush of endorphins brought him some temporary relief from physical pain, but also a measure of emotional pain, as only thing that got him off was thinking about Selina, both as she had been (Selina in a tiny string bikini, Selina in nothing but his mother's pearls, Selina in her mask, catsuit, and six-inch killer heels) and as she had not been (Selina in a wedding gown, Selina wearing his discarded button-up shirt and nothing else, Selina in pajamas).

/

Or is he back in Gotham, alone in his king-size bed after Selina left him? Less physical pain, the scale tipping more towards pain of the heart. So many years spent in solitude and his sexual needs had mostly diminished, but Selina had awakened his libido. He would wake up, hard and hungry for her, and then remember there would be no foreplay at dinner, no games with the pearls, no passionate kisses when he tracked her down at the office and pushed her into a corner.

Miranda Tate noticed his distress and sought to help... alleviate it. He had wanted to retreat back into himself entirely, stop showing up at Wayne Enterprises, but he had made too many commitments in his Selina-induced happiness, one of which was the energy project. Miranda had made several discreet passes at him when he'd started showing his face at Wayne Enterprises again, but he'd tactfully brushed her off. With Selina now out of the picture, she became more aggressive in her approach.

Miranda was a beautiful, intelligent woman who shared his passion for making the world a better place. Alfred had even explicitly telegraphed his approval of Miranda and tried to set them up while he was seeing Selina. He hadn't been interested then, and he wasn't really interested now either.

But he'd come alive with Selina. He craved that spark and tried to tell himself it wasn't Selina herself that had done it, but merely the presence of a woman in his life, and so the next time Miranda casually put her hand on his thigh, he let her.

He let her take him to her bed, let her undress him, let her take him inside her, let her make him come. And it helped for a little. But soon enough, the hunger came roaring back, and it became achingly clear to him that Miranda was not enough.

/

Or is he submerged in frigid ocean water, his suit weighing him down as he struggles to free himself from his vehicle after the bomb detonated? His head was ringing with his friends' voices. They hadn't wanted him to go.

At least he couldn't feel Talia's stab wound anymore. He could barely feel anything below his shoulders. It was so cold.

He thought he wasn't afraid to die. He'd faced death so many times before. He wasn't afraid then. But he was now. He'd never been in a situation where he actually had time to think about it. But it was cold and wet and foggy, the water was rough and kept slapping him in the face and all he could do was wait. Maybe the beacon would work, maybe it wouldn't.

He should wake up to come back to this?

/

Whether he wants to or not, he enters the waking world. His senses perk up - he feels a soft bed underneath him, hears the distant sound of a piano, tastes the unpleasantness of waking up without brushing your teeth before you went to sleep… smells the shampoo Selina uses. He forces his eyes open and sees Selina lying next to him, wearing a loose white t-shirt and black panties, propped up on one hand watching him. It's dark except for one soft orange light glowing in the corner

"Is this real?" he whispers.

Selina leans over and gently kisses him. It feels like she's breathing life into him. He inhales deeply, trying to take in as much as he can.

She takes her mouth off of his eventually, and he's disappointed.

"I need that," he mutters.

Selina takes two fingers and pries open one of his half-closed eyes. He whines in protest and tries to bat her hand away while she looks into his eye. Too much light.

Selina chuckles and releases his eye. "Oh, you are so high," she says, patting him on the head.

"No, I feel great," Bruce states.

"I'm sure you do."

She lays back down and reprops herself back up on her arm. He reaches out and traces the contours of her face with his fingertips. He feels the moisture of her breath, the delicate peach fuzz on her cheeks, the softness of her eyelids.

He lets his hand wander further down. Her t-shirt is thin enough that he can feel and see the shape of her nipples through it. He runs his hand over a covered nipple, and Selina shivers. Intrigued, he does the same to her other nipple. He enjoys the sensation on his fingertips. He strokes them for awhile, listening to Selina make soft noises, before realizing it's the most natural thing in the world to roll over, scoot down a bit, and put his mouth on them. Selina starts making louder noises. He doesn't know what she's saying, but the sounds make him feel good.

He takes turns lightly licking and sucking each one through her shirt for awhile before he remembers that he can just take her shirt off. He can't quite remember how to do that though, so he pulls it up until it reveals her breasts. Her nipples are like smooth pink pebbles. He touches them, rolling them between his fingers in amazement. Suddenly, Selina's body stiffens and she throws her head back, making a new, loud noise. He watches her.

"Are you okay?" he asks.

'"I'm very good," she pants.

"Okay," says Bruce, and turns back to her nipples.

Selina gently pushes his hands off her breasts, so he continues exploring lower parts of her. He runs his hands over her stomach. There's something about it that's important, but he can't remember what.

He continues lower, and slides his hand over the crotch of her panties. It feels moist. He brings his hand back to his nose and sniffs it. It smells a little weird, but also really good. He dips his hand into her panties to explore further. It's wet and warm. He's so focused on investigating every soft crevice that he barely hears Selina talking to him.

"Bruce." Oh right, that's his name.

"Yes?"

He tears his eyes away from her panties to see she's unzipped his pants. She reaches in and withdraws his penis. It's hard and stiff. He doesn't remember when that happened.

"Do you know what to do with this?" she asks, holding it in one hand and stroking it with the other.

Bruce doesn't respond. What she's doing feels very good. If he remembers what to do, will she stop touching him?

"Um," he says to buy himself some time.

Selina laughs and lets go of his penis. She rearranges her top to cover her breasts and takes off her panties. Then she pushes Bruce onto his back, gets on top of him, and slides his penis inside her.

This feels even better than when she was touching him. It feels so good that he doesn't dare move a muscle. Selina bounces up and down on him, and the good feeling gets stronger and stronger, until he feels like he's going to burst, and then he does. Selina stays on top of him until he's finished, and then she gets off the bed. Bruce tries to pay attention to where she's going but his eyelids get so heavy…

He's completely passed out by the time she gets back from the bathroom.

---

Bruce wakes up again. This time, sunlight is steaming through the room and his back hurts. He looks down and sees that he's naked. Selina must have undressed him at some point. He looks to the right: there's a nightstand with his watch, car keys, cell, and wallet on it. He looks to the right: Selina is asleep, lying on her side facing him, her hand protectively curled around her small bump.

He remembers bits and pieces from last night and is happy Selina isn't awake to see him cringe. And she wanted to know why he didn't like taking painkillers. Not that it hadn't been great, but he prefers to remain conscious enough to be on guard. He was so out of it last night someone could have knocked him over with a feather.

He continues to lie there, collecting his thoughts, until it occurs to him that this is the first time Selina has ever spent the entire night with him. And he'd been too out of it to appreciate this amazing development. Man, he hates painkillers.

He tries to sit up, but his back screams in protest. He gasps in pain and lies back down. Selina must have really fucked his back up when she knocked him on his ass yesterday. He hopes this isn't going to add another surgery to the list.

He looks at Selina again, but her eyes are wide open and she's propped up on her elbow.

"I'd ask how you're doing, but I think I know," she observes.

"Doing just fine," he manages to say.

"Really?" says Selina.

He ignores her. "Can you get me my cane?"

Selina hops out of bed and goes to the other room, but she comes back holding a glass of water instead of his cane.

He's suddenly parched. She holds the water out, but it's just out of his reach lying down. He's going to have to sit up to get to it. Maybe he just got up the wrong way… he tries again and this time it hurts enough that he yelps.

Selina produces a straw and slips it into the glass, but instead of handing it to him, she puts another one of those damn painkillers in his hand.

"No," he says. "You saw what it did to me last night."

Selina raises an eyebrow.

"Do you remember how to use your dick now?"

"Shut up."

"Bruce, you're a lightweight. But since you can't bear being in the carefree and blissful state you were in last night, just take one. You should be fine."

Bruce shakes his head.

Selina studies him. "Bruce, no one knows we're here. No one's after us. There's no danger. And even if there was, I can take care of it."

"And what if you're wrong?"

"What would you do exactly, ask them to come back later when you sit up without screaming?"

"Adrenaline is one hell of a drug," he says.

Selina shrugs.

"Maybe the adrenaline will help you get out of bed on your own," she says, and puts the pill and glass on the nightstand.

She goes into the bathroom. Maybe the third time getting up will be the charm… nope.

"You just keep trying that, honey," hollers Selina.

Bruce grits his teeth and takes the pill.

Twenty minutes later, his body feels better - not great, but good enough that he can get out of bed. Thankfully, he still feels clear headed, and he grudgingly admits that Selina had been right about the dose.

He hears Selina turn on the shower. He doesn't want to get out of bed, but the opportunity to see her naked is very motivating.

The bathroom is deliciously hot and humid by the time he goes in. The shower looks just big enough to hold two, so he opens the door and climbs in.

"That's good," he sighs as the hot water hits his back.

"Did anyone invite you in here?" asks Selina, her back to him.

He puts his arms around her and hugs her, resting his chin on her shoulder.

"I guess you can make yourself useful," she says and gestures with her chin at her shampoo bottle.

He obliges, and soon Selina is moaning as he massages shampoo into her scalp.

"Okay, you're invited in here," she moans.

"Ms. Kyle! Do you always invite strange men off the street into your shower?"

"If they're this good with their hands, then yes."

He tilts her head back and rinses her hair out. He picks up her loofah, soaps it up, and starts washing her. When he's done, he slides his hands all over her slippery body under the guise of making sure he got every spot. He hears Selina's breathing change and sees her nipples tighten and the way she clenches her thighs together.

Selina steps back under the water and rinses off. She's so beautiful all wet like this.

"Anything else my hands can do for you?" he asks.

Selina licks her lips and takes him in from head to toe.

"Why don't you dry off and get comfortable, and I'll be there in a few minutes?" he suggests.

Selina nods and gets out of the shower.

Three minutes later, he's done and hurriedly drying himself off. Through the doorway, he sees Selina, wrapped in a towel, lying on the bed.

He wraps his towel around his waist and joins her.

"Hi," he says.

"Hi," she says back.

He opens her towel and runs his hands down her body. From the way she shudders, he thinks it's not going to take much to get her off. He puts his mouth right where her neck meets her shoulder and slides a hand between her legs. He feels her heartbeat at both points of connection.

He strokes her with the tips of two fingers.

"I have a dilemma," says Selina.

"Yeah?" he says in a low voice.

"The goatee is really doing it for me."

"That's a problem?"

"I also like you clean-shaven."

"Ah. And you haven't even seen me with a mustache or a full beard -" that elicits a gasp from her " - or stubble -" another gasp " - so you can't pick a favorite."

Selina nods urgently. Bruce continues to stroke her, slow and steady. She looks into his eyes as he continues talking in a low, calm voice.

"There's also the hair."

"Uh huh," mumbles Selina.

"I had really short hair in freshman year college. It was so short you couldn't run your fingers through it."

"What a waste," Selina groans.

"That's what all the girls said. I grew it out sophomore year. You know what that looks like. And when my hair gets longer, it gets a little curly. Oh, and I had shoulder-length hair for a few years."

Selina grabs his wrist.

"Don't stop."

"But back to the facial hair. I should think a big consideration for you would be how my face feels against your cunt when I'm eating you out."

That does it for her; she sinks her nails into his wrist and comes. He keeps stroking her as she rides the wave of her orgasm until she pushes his hand away.

They lie there for awhile, just basking in the closeness, until Bruce's stomach decides to make its presence known.

"When was the last time you ate?" she asks sharply. "And do not say 'I don't know.'"

That had been exactly what Bruce had been going to say, so he amends his answer.

"...Yesterday? Two days ago?"

She doesn't like that answer.

"What the hell does Batman even eat for breakfast?"

He tells her. She doesn't like that even more.

"I don't have any kale. What does Bruce Wayne eat for breakfast?"

"Hair of the dog. Mimosas were always the easiest to fake."

Her voice softens.

"What do you eat for breakfast?"

"Probably the same as Batman, but once in awhile... I wouldn't say no to pancakes. My dad would make them for me on Sundays."

She smiles. Finally an answer she likes.

"We're in France. How about crepes?"

"Only if they come with chocolate and bananas."

"I think I can arrange that," says Selina.

---

"I was reckless," says Bruce after they walk home from breakfast. He shakes his head. "You're the only woman I've ever slept with that I didn't use a condom with."

"What?"

"I was cautious. I didn't want to deal with paternity suits from women looking for a meal ticket."

"And me?"

"I didn't care. If you didn't get pregnant, great. If you did get pregnant, it was just speeding things up."

"Really?"

"Really, Selina. I don't think you understand how crazy I was about you."

"And what about now?" she asks.

He gathers her against him and kisses her long and hard.

"I told you," he said when they finally come up for air. "It's great news. How many months along are you?"

Selina shrugs. "Six, I guess."

"What do you mean, you guess? Have you been to a doctor?"

"No."

"When did you find out you were pregnant?"

"I don't know. A month ago?"

"How… How did you not know earlier?"

She starts to respond with sarcasm, but decides to go with the truth instead.

"I didn't want to know, so I ignored the signs."

"Why haven't you gone to a doctor yet?"

"I didn't know what to do with it."

"The baby?"

"Yes."

"And now?"

Selina lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding in. She feels lighter, like a burden has been lifted off her shoulders.

"Now, you're here."

"Now, I'm here?" questions Bruce.

"Now, you're here," she repeats with finality. And for the first time, she lets herself feel pregnant, feel that there's a baby in there and not some parasitic thing, feel this baby doing somersaults in her womb. It feels good.

She doesn't realize she's standing there with a hand on her belly and a dumb smile on her face until Bruce smiles back at her and puts his hand on top of hers.

"I love you," he says.

"I love you, too," she says, not having to think if it's the right time or what the potential ramifications are. She just says what she feels.

---

Bruce doesn't ask her to come with him to the obstetrician; he informs her that he's made her an appointment for the afternoon.

She's irritated by the presumption but still riding the I-love-you high, so she smothers the feeling and gets ready without protest. Instead of putting on a loose, flowing dress, she puts on jeans, a tight tank top that outlines her stomach, and an unbuttoned cardigan. She looks at herself in the mirror - the bump isn't that big, but it's definitely noticeable.

Bruce sneaks up from behind and puts his arms around her.

"You look amazing," he says, nuzzling her neck.

"That's just the drugs talking," she says.

"No, you do. You look happy."

She does. It's ridiculous how much her life has turned around in the span of thirty-six hours. Bruce is alive, they're having a baby, and for the first time, she feels secure in his love.

They step out of her apartment. Bruce motions across the street to his car.

"Really, Bruce?" she asks when she sees the car. "You have a problem."

Bruce opens the passenger door of the Lamborghini for her, and she gets in. He walks to the other side and slides into the driver's seat, grabs his sunglasses out of the glove compartment, and puts them on. He looks so fuckable that Selina wants to have her way with him right then and there.

"How hot does this car get you?" he asks.

She refuses to answer and give him the satisfaction, but he reaches out and brushes his fingers against her breasts, and she looks down and sees her stiff nipples through the fabric. She really needs to get a padded bra.

"That's what I thought," he says smugly. Selina smacks his hand and pulls her cardigan shut.

---

In the obstetrician's waiting room, Bruce holds her hand. It's sweet, until she realizes that he won't let go.

"Bruce," she hisses, trying to shake his hand off.

"Can't I hold the mother of my child's hand?"

Selina makes a face. "Not when you say it out loud."

"Okay, my fiancée?"

"Your fiancée?"

She's about to rip Bruce a new one - how dare he assume she'll marry him, it's the twenty-first century, she's no one chattel, and if he thinks she'll change her name - when they announce that they're ready for her.

She gets up, and Bruce, still clamped onto her hand, follows.

"No, you can stay here," she snaps.

Bruce ignores her and leads the way into the examination room, giving her no choice but to follow. Selina digs her nails into his thumb and tries to peel it off, but the man's grip is like steel.

Once she's seated on the examination table, he settles down in a nearby chair and finally releases her hand.

A nurse arrives to take Selina's vitals. She's young and pretty with short black hair, and she barely looks at Selina while she works, preferring to shoot flirtatious glances at and chit chat with Bruce. Bruce politely responds without any real interest behind his words.

She does enjoy listening to Bruce speaking French though. She's a decent speaker, but he's fluent with a damn good accent.

She's not really paying attention to the nurse's blatherings until she hears Bruce's name.

"Est-ce que quelqu'un vous a déjà dit que vous ressembliez à ce riche américain, [Has anyone ever told you that you look like that rich American,] Bruce Wayne?" cooes the nurse.

"Oui! [Yes!]" says Bruce, rolling his eyes. "Tout le temps. [All the time.]" He shakes his head. "Ma fiancée ne le voit pas. [My fiancée doesn't see it.]" He's enjoying this too much.

The nurse smirks and runs her fingers down Bruce's bicep. Selina has had enough. She grabs the nurse's hand and twists it behind her back.

"Ne touchez pas à mon fiancé. [Hands off my fiancé.]"

The nurse shrieks.

"Fiancé?" Bruce says as the nurse makes a run for it. Selina lets her go and ignores Bruce.

"Is there some pheromone that causes women to throw themselves at you?"

"Just Clive Christian No. 1," says Bruce, amused.

Fuck, he does smell good.

"I know." And fuck, she said that out loud.

The doctor finally arrives. What is it about French women? This one's a few decades older than the nurse but just as attractive. Selina decides to grab Bruce's hand in case of a cougar attack.

Thankfully, the doctor is a professional, and before Selina knows it, she has her shirt up, her pants unbuttoned, and goop on her stomach.

The doctor switches to English once she hears Selina's accent. Selina is grateful, because that means she can focus on the image on the screen instead of devoting brainpower to translating.

"There is the little head," the doctor points out, like they're on a cruise and she's highlighting the sights. "And the little hands, the legs… and the little girl."

---

Bruce and Selina walk out of the doctor's office in a daze. Instead of getting back into the car, Bruce pulls her towards a little park across the street. She lets him guide her over. For awhile, they sit quietly on a bench with both of their hands on her belly, and feel the breeze across their faces.

Eventually, Bruce speaks up.

"My daughter," he says in awe.

The "my" part startles Selina out of her daze.

"Your daughter? Your fiancée? You're awfully possessive and presumptuous," she snaps.

Bruce chuckles.

"Sorry about that. I got ahead of myself."

He slides off the bench and gets on one knee.

"Not exactly what I had in mind, but I did not see this one coming, so pretend we're at the French Riviera and I've just made love to you on the beach," he says. He takes a black velvet box out of his pocket.

Selina is thankful that the park is empty. She wants to tell him to get up, that he looks like an idiot, but the words get stuck in her throat when she sees the ring.

The diamond has to be at least eight carats - oval cut on a micro pavé setting. She's stolen enough jewels to know quality when she sees it. It's gloriously big and maybe a touch gaudy. Selina immediately loves it.

"When the hell did you have time to find a ring?" she says to buy herself time.

"I bought this months ago," says Bruce, looking pleased with himself. "I had this idea that if I proposed, you'd come back, but after giving it some thought, I realized it wasn't going to fix anything. Kept the ring, though. It's nice, isn't it?"

"Yes," admits Selina. Her ring finger itches - she wants to put this pretty thing on and see it sparkle. It must have cost a fortune. It hits her then that she'll never have to steal another jewel - Bruce will shower her with them.

"You want it?"

"That's your proposal?" sputters Selina.

"I used up my best lines making sure you didn't kick me out the other day."

"Do better!" she yelps.

"And here I was thinking I was the romantic one in this relationship."

He gets serious.

"Selina. I had no idea what I was getting into when I went after the pearls. All I knew was that for the first time in years, I felt alive. I never know what you're going to do next. I'm always caught off guard around you. You are so…" he searches for the right word. "...fun, Selina. So unexpected. So precious."

Fuck, he's going to make her cry if he keeps this up. She blames pregnancy hormones. She never used to be this soft.

"I love playing with you… I didn't even know I could play until you made me. No one else sees that part of me."

He laughs. Selina feels like her heart is going to burst.

"Stole my pearls, stole my car, stole my hoodie, stole my heart. I am desperately in love with you and I'm going to spend the rest of my life telling you that, and then maybe you'll believe me. My life is in your hands, and I trust you with it. Selina, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?"

Selina wants to say yes. But something else beats those words out of her mouth.

"You're not just doing this because of -" she says in a small voice, pointing at her belly.

"My daughter? No. It just sped things up. I knew where I wanted this to go by the first time I took you to bed. I basically told you as much."

"You also told me you wanted me in your bed screaming your name."

"Don't change the subject. You didn't answer my question."

"Why don't you take me back to the apartment and fuck me until I'm screaming an answer?"

"No ring until I get an answer."

She's tempted to hold out longer, but she really needs to touch that ring right now.

"Yes, Bruce, I'll marry you."

"You're not just doing this because of -" he points at the ring and smirks.

"Bruce Wayne, give me the goddamn ring or the next thing I'm stealing is your sanity."

"Too late, clearly it's already gone."

She holds out her hand and he slides the ring on. There's a smattering of applause from a distance, and Selina realizes that several people from the obstetrician's office have been watching from across the street.

Bruce rises with a slight grimace - he shouldn't have been on his knee in the first place, she realizes. He pulls Selina up.

"Let's give them something to really cheer about," he murmurs. He dips her and kisses her. The people across the street hoot and catcall, but Selina barely hears them, she's so focused on Bruce's scorching hot kiss.

Bruce pulls her back up and slowly lets her lips go. If Bruce's back was in good shape, she thinks he would have scooped her into his arms and carried her to the car.

Selina sees the black-haired nurse watching. She smirks and puts her ring-clad hand on Bruce's ass.

"I'm thinking a celebratory fucking is in order," she says.

Bruce covers his eyes with his hand.

"I am definitely the romantic in this relationship," he groans.

---

Bruce had asked the doctor if it was safe to have sex.

"It is good for the mother to, I forget how to say it, se faire plaisir [to be pleasured]," the doctor had said, and Selina squirmed in embarrassment. "And you will be tired after baby comes, so enjoy it now." She winked at Selina. "Such a handsome man. I am sure he has made you a beautiful baby."

Even Bruce had blushed at that one.

Bruce had taken the doctor's suggestion as more of a requirement, which is why Selina has been waking up every morning this week on the verge of an orgasm.

"The doctor said you need this," insists Bruce before he puts his head back between her thighs.

"That is not what she said," says Selina, but then Bruce nibbles on her clit and she pulls on his hair.

"You just want to feel useful," she accuses him, panting a little.

Bruce stops what's he's doing, lies back down next to her, and kisses her; his goatee is wet against her face and she tastes herself on his lips. Bruce pulls away slightly.

"Feel useful?" says Bruce, his breath hot on her lips. "I should stop then, as I don't want to waste my time if it's unnecessary."

He kisses her again and Selina drinks him in, until he breaks the kiss and gets out of bed.

"No," moans Selina.

"So you do need it?"

"God, yes. Bruce, don't leave me like this."

He leers at her and runs his hands down her thighs.

"What do you need?"

"You."

"Be more specific."

"Your cock, inside me."

He yanks her legs down until the lower half of her body is hanging off the bed. He shucks off his pajama pants, pulls her thighs apart, and pushes into her.

She sighs in satisfaction. So many years feeling of empty and hungry. Now, she feels so full - full of baby, full of cock, full of Bruce. He's commandeered her body and made it his.

A little voice in her head reminds her that she hadn't enjoyed feeling so full of baby last night that she'd thrown up dinner after eating a bit too much of the most delicious salmon she's ever had.

Shut up, she tells the voice, and then she comes, clenching tight around Bruce's hard cock. Sometimes, having an orgasm with an empty pussy just doesn't cut it.

"Can I come, or do you still need that?" he asks. He has such remarkable restraint.

Selina smirks and thrusts her pelvis against him.

"More," she orders.

"Yes, ma'am," he says and gets to work.

---

Before Bruce came back to her, she'd been…there was no other way to say it, horny as fuck. At first, she tried to take care of it herself, but a dildo and her fingers didn't satisfy her, especially when she was resolutely not thinking of her dead lover and the best sex of her life. She craved skin to skin, mouth to mouth.

She hit up a club popular with a nearby university on a Friday night and went hunting. She walked around the perimeter of the room, looking at the pretty young things enjoying themselves on the dance floor, when a boy caught her eye.

Tall, well-defined muscles that she could see through his tight white shirt, beautiful thick dark hair, sexy chiseled jaw… fuck, squint a little and he looks like a terribly young Bruce Wayne. She was not thinking about Bruce, so she turned her attention to his friend, a dark-skinned slim boy with the physique of a dancer, a short afro, and beard. Very much the opposite of his friend's looks. But something inside her recoiled at the idea - as if any man reminded her too much of Bruce.

So instead, fifteen minutes later, she had a girl named Élodie pinned against a wall in the back of the club and her tongue in Élodie's mouth. Élodie had straight brown hair streaked with bright blue, a tongue ring, high cheekbones, a short leather skirt and, as Selina quickly discovered when she reached under the skirt to grope her ass, no underwear. Élodie had one hand stroking Selina's breasts and the other between Selina's legs; Selina regretted wearing pants when she could have already had Élodie's bare hand on her flesh.

They stumbled out of the club still kissing; Élodie's apartment was thankfully right around the corner.

Élodie was just what Selina needed. She felt too fragile tonight to take on some random man who might or might not know how to satisfy a woman. Élodie understood when Selina said her breasts were sore and tenderly kissed her nipples instead. Selina needed soft, smooth cheeks against her thighs as Élodie carefully ate her out and delicately slid a finger inside of her to search for her g-spot. She needed to come with her mouth pressed against Élodie's as they agonizingly rubbed their pussies together.

She was able to forget about Bruce for a few hours, until she dragged herself home in the early morning and collapsed into bed. She was almost asleep when something fucking poked her in the bladder. She jerked awake and felt underneath her for anything sharp, but there was nothing there. No, it was coming from inside her.

She couldn't sleep after that. She stared at the ceiling as this thing inside her twisted and turned.

It was active enough after that morning that the fear Selina felt drove away any remnants of arousal left.

---

Bruce knows he's dreaming, but that doesn't change anything.

He's making love to Selina in his bed at Wayne Manor. Selina is on her back, with her smooth creamy legs wrapped around him as he thrusts into her. He buries his face in her shoulder...he's so close.

He feels his orgasm start to overtake him, and he pulls his head back to see Selina's face, but it's not Selina - it's Miranda. He jerks back in surprise, but Miranda's thighs are locked around him and he can't free himself, and he's coming deep inside Miranda, gasping in pleasure despite everything.

"No," he says, but the orgasm just goes on and on and on and he can't stop himself from thrusting into her.

Then, he feels something thrusting into him. He looks down, and there's a knife sticking out of his ribs. Miranda smiles at him and strokes his cheek.

"I won't forget about you," she says, and she finally unwraps her thighs from around him. She shoves him off her onto the bed, and the blood stains his white sheets. He rips the knife out and clutches his side, feeling his life seep out through his fingertips.

Miranda stands over him. She pries his hand off his wound and puts hers over it instead. She absorbs the blood into her body through her hand, and her stomach swells until she's as big as Selina.

Bruce wakes with a gasp. It's the middle of the night, but he can feel Selina's eyes on him.

"Bruce?"

He ignores the question in her voice and gets out of bed.

"Why aren't you sleeping?" he says, sharper than he intends.

Selina sits up and turns on the bedside lamp.

"Your daughter decided that now was the perfect time to work on her handstand."

Bruce stares at her belly. He feels sick, the dream still swirling around him.

Everything clicks into place then.

"Fuck!" Bruce yells, and then he punches the wall a few times because there's nothing else he can do.

"What the fuck?" snaps Selina, wrapping her arms around her belly like she's worried that it's Bruce's next target.

Bruce manages another few fucks and punches before he sinks to the floor amidst pieces of drywall. His knuckles are bleeding, and they hurt. He's gone soft.

"Miranda," he says. He bangs his head against the wall.

How did he not see it before now?

"I think she was pregnant," Bruce says heavily. "I think she was carrying my child."

"What? Talia al Ghul? Since when were you -"

"After you left. I wanted to feel something. Once I found out who she was, I didn't understand why she had been so… persistent in trying to sleep with me. Now, it makes sense."

"Because she wanted you to get her pregnant? Why?"

"Ra's said I was his best. Who better than that to seed the next generation? And once I was dead, she could claim my estate for the child."

He shakes his head.

"She'd get the pleasure of knowing I would be rolling in my grave as she took the Wayne name, heir, and fortune and used them to tear down everything I fought for."

"You said you always used condoms."

"I did. She never wanted to. Always trying to talk me out of it or rush ahead to try to get me to forget. And now that I think about it, I think she may have fucked with the condoms."

"And none of this struck you as odd at the time?" snaps Selina.

"I was not thinking clearly," he says between clenched teeth. "You may recall why."

Selina looks away.

"At some point, she stopped coming to me. And now, seeing you pregnant, the way you hold yourself, the way you touch your stomach… she was doing that too. Not a lot, but I saw it."

"And you put this all together just now?"

"Yes."

Selina gets out of bed, gingerly tiptoes through the chunks of drywall, and sits in Bruce's lap. Bruce puts his arms around her and buries his face in her breasts. Selina rubs his shoulder.

"It doesn't matter. She's dead. I saw that truck go up in flames with her body in it."

"It does matter," says Bruce.

"Why?"

"The child…" Bruce doesn't know how to put into words the grief he feels for a child he didn't know about and never wanted.

"Bruce, this was the best possible outcome for that kid, if there even was one. Psycho mother, dead father, crazy heavy legacy."

When she says it like that, Bruce does feel a little better. Stroking her belly and feeling his daughter kick makes him feel a lot better. But it's not the only thing bothering him.

"What else?" says Selina, like she's reading his goddamn mind.

"I feel… I don't know. I knew she betrayed me, but this feels different. Personal."

"Talia raped you," Selina states quietly.

"No," he says.

"You would have agreed to have sex with her had you known the condoms had been tampered with?"

"No…"

"She had sex with you without your consent, you just didn't know it at the time."

"No one raped me," insists Bruce. But he's shaken. Whatever it was, it felt like a violation, like his body had been used against him.

Selina is quiet for a long time. "Okay," she finally says. "Okay." She climbs out of his lap and sits next to him. She pats her legs, and Bruce curls up next to her and puts his head on her lap. And if he quietly cries for awhile, Selina doesn't say anything about the tears dripping down her legs, just continues caressing his hair.

They sit on the floor together like that until the new day arrives.

---

Bruce's tears bring up some unpleasant memories for Selina as well.

During Bane's reign, she'd run into John Blake every so often. She was still mad at him for arresting her, but there were only so many people that could be counted on as allies in this time and she knew he was one of them. He was also the only other person who knew Bruce was - is, she insisted, but deep down she didn't believe that he was alive.

She didn't like Blake. He was a bit too young and earnest for her taste. But she did respect him, and she decided that he was kind of cute. Not nearly as big and ripped as Bruce, and she was taller than him in heels, but he had a slim, quiet strength to him.

They teamed up to take out a local gang terrorizing a nearby neighborhood. She usually alternated between feeling grief, fear, and, on the good days, numb, so the adrenaline felt good.

Their mission a success, she invited him up to her apartment. He had a nasty cut next to his eye that needed attention, and she had the necessary supplies.

She finished the sutures and covered the wound with a bandage.

"There you go," she said.

Blake touched the bandage. She smacked his hand.

"Don't touch!"

She smoothed the gauze that he disturbed.

Blake closed his eyes and briefly leaned his face against her hand. He opened his eyes, and gazed at her. Her hand was still on his face.

Move your hand, ordered her brain from far away.

His face was so close to hers. His pupils were dilated, and she let herself sink into the black, and somehow her head tilted forward and Blake was kissing her like a drowning man who had just been thrown a life preserver. She found herself responding.

His lips were so soft. Softer than Bruce's. Blake slid his tongue into her mouth, and it tasted different. She was so hungry.

Not Bruce, screamed her higher-functioning self.

Don't care, retorted her primal instincts.

Her fingers in his hair (shorter than Bruce's), his hands on her body (softer than Bruce's, except for the gun calluses), the stubble on his cheeks (Bruce was meticulous about being clean shaven).

They made their way across her cramped studio apartment, their mouths clinging to each other (she'd never made love to Bruce in her apartment). As they tumbled into her bed, a thought occured to Selina. She briefly pulled her mouth off Blake's to dig around in her nightstand and find a condom. She tossed it on top of the nightstand. Blake nodded and pulled her mouth back to his.

She'd stopped using birth control after she'd left Bruce (she'd never used a condom with Bruce). There was no reason to keep it up. These condoms were from a few years back. She could not imagine anything worse than bringing a child into this hellhole (especially not Bruce's).

Their hands made quick work of their clothing. She pushed Blake down and got on top. She took his penis into her hand (nice enough looking, but Bruce's had been downright gorgeous) - he wasn't hard enough for her to put on a condom yet, so she pumped his shaft with her hand until he was stiff enough. She unrolled the condom onto him and impaled herself on his cock.

Blake groaned in relief and closed his eyes. He didn't try to touch her breasts, which she was grateful for - they had been a bit sore lately. He tried to thrust upwards, but she pushed his hips back onto the bed. He got the message and stayed still while she moved up and down on his cock. She closed her eyes as well and focused on the feeling of Blake's penis going in and out of her. She leaned forward for more leverage, and gripped Blake's muscular upper arm and for a second, it felt like she was holding Bruce's arm.

"Bruce," she whispered. The name escaped her lips before she realized that she had been speaking.

Blake went still beneath her.

There was something on her face. She rubbed her eye, and her hand came away wet.

She realized that she was crying.

She unmounted Blake. She lay on her stomach next to him, spread her legs, and buried her face in the pillow.

"Just fuck me, Blake," she ordered him, her voice muffled by the pillow. She wanted him to go away, but she also wanted him to stay. She was so hungry...

"Selina…" said Blake. His voice sounded kind, but she cut him off before he could get any further.

She lifted her head from the pillows. Her face was momentarily absent of those pesky tears.

"Fuck me," she yelled at him.

Blake hesitated for a few seconds before rolling over and settling himself between her legs and entering her again. He started thrusting into her.

"Harder," she hissed.

He complied, pounding into her for as long as he could keep it up, which was only a few minutes, before he came.

She didn't come, and she didn't care.

She was grateful that he didn't collapse against her back, choosing to roll over and lie next to her instead.

Suddenly, a wave of nausea overtook her and she barely made it to the bathroom in time. And as quickly as the nausea appeared, it disappeared. Grief, she supposed; it had been happening on and off ever since…

Thankfully, Blake didn't comment.

She put on her panties and grabbed Bruce's old hoodie that she took home one night from his place. He'd fallen asleep and she was about to leave, but she was cold so she rooted around in his closet until she found this old thing in a corner. It was soft and warm and smelled like Bruce. She didn't think he'd miss it, so she put it on and went home. He hadn't brought it up, so she'd kept it. She wishes she'd kept the pearls too. This was all she has of his.

She shrugged the hoodie on and sat down on the couch.

Blake collected his clothes and headed into the bathroom. He came out a few minutes later fully dressed.

"Um," he said. "About…" he made a hand motion.

"The sex," Selina supplied helpfully.

Blake gave her a dirty look.

"Yes, that. Um…"

She didn't want to subject herself to him stumbling through his thoughts on the matter, so she took over.

"Just two people coming off an adrenaline high, nothing more."

He looked relieved. God, he was so young. Was she ever that young?

She got up and opened the door for him.

"See you around, Blake."

As he stepped through her doorway, he stopped and looked at her. Really looked at her.

"Are you okay?" he asked her.

"Are any of us okay?"

He ignored her.

"Just… eat something, would you? You look like a fucking skeleton."

"Thanks, Mom," she snapped and slammed the door in his face.

---

Thirty-six hours before the bomb goes off, and Blake and Selina lay in her bed, listening to the gunshots and screams that permeate the early morning. Selina didn't like to remember that night - the paralyzing realization that no one was coming to save them and they would probably be ashes before the next sunset. The fear and dread of the past several months had finally hit hard, and she and Blake were holding each other, because neither of them had anyone else to cling to.

"What are you going to do with your last day?" asked Selina.

"The same thing I've been doing this whole time," said Blake.

"It's pointless."

"I'd rather die fighting."

"I'd rather die as a rich old woman who had a heart attack while fucking her twenty-year-old sidepiece."

Blake didn't appreciate her humor.

"You need to hold onto hope," he lectured her.

"What hope?" she spat at him.

Blake was silent for awhile.

"Maybe he's not dead."

He didn't bother specifying who; there was only one person he could be talking about.

"I saw Bane… break his back," she choked. Blake asked her several times about what she knows regarding Bruce's disappearance, but she hadn't wanted to discuss it - there was too much grief and shame for her to want to open that door to someone else. But with death on the horizon, she found that she wanted to talk.

"What happened?" whispered Blake, as if he was worried that speaking louder would scare her off.

"He came to me, asked me to take Batman to Bane. I let Bane know we were coming."

"You set him up," stated Blake.

"Yes," she said, the tears coming on suddenly. "I killed him. I didn't know." She tried to breathe, but it felt like she couldn't get in enough air.

"Oh my god, I didn't know," she gasped. She rolled away from Blake and turned her back to him as the sobs wracked through her. "I didn't know." Her stomach clenched and she clutched at it - she felt full and nauseous and like her intestines were trying to strangle themselves.

"What didn't you know? What Bane would do to him?"

"I didn't know… Bruce, Batman."

"When did you find out?" Blake asked.

"After it was too late."

"And if you had known?"

Selina cried and cried until the sun rose over the city's corpses.

If she quietly cries with Bruce's head in her lap, he doesn't say anything about the tears wetting his forehead, just continues holding onto her.

---

They spend the seventh month of Selina's pregnancy blissfully traipsing around Paris. But all good things must come to an end as this one does when Bruce contacts his doctors and asks them if they can do the additional surgery they had suggested to him and have him well on his way to recovery in time for the baby's arrival. They agree and set a date. But before they go to Switzerland, Bruce insists they visit Florence first.

"What's in Florence?"

"Unfinished business," is all Bruce will say.

The morning they're due to leave, Selina wakes up to find Bruce has shaved.

"Sorry," says Bruce, running his hand over his freshly-shaved cheeks. "I know you liked the goatee, but it was time."

She loved that goatee, yet she feels a surge of lust at the sight of his bare face, his soft cheeks, his lush lips. He looks so young.

"Bruce, I need se faire plaisir."

"Now?"

"Uh huh."

"We're going to miss the train."

"I can't get on a train in this state."

She sits down on the edge of the bed, pulls up her skirt, spreads her legs, and pushes aside her panties.

"Doctor's orders," she says. It's his fault, he created this monster and now he has to cater to it.

Bruce sighs. He grabs a pillow off the bed for his knees and settles down.

"This better tide you over until we get to Florence," he warns her before he puts his mouth where she needs it.

It's a nine-hour ride, and she's seven months pregnant, horny as fuck, has grown accustomed to riding his face whenever she feels like it, and his lips feel amazing against her pussy. Yeah right this is the last time before Florence.

"Definitely," she purrs.

"Don't mess up my hair," orders Bruce.

"Bruce, shut up, you're going to make us miss the train."

Bruce is laughing too hard to go down on her properly until she digs a stiletto into the small of his back and he gets down to business.

They don't miss the train, but only because she graciously allows Bruce to stop after two orgasms and the taxi honks for the fifth time.

---

They've spent three afternoons at the same café in Florence. It's cute, but Selina is over it after the second visit. When they're there, Bruce sits silently for an hour or two while she sips a decaf espresso and plays with her phone. Afterwards, he takes her for dinner, but refuses to discuss why they are there. She figures the café must hold some significance to him due to his parents, so she tries to be patient.

On the fourth afternoon, finally something happens. Bruce's eyes are fixed on something in the distance as usual, and then suddenly he's standing up. She turns her head to see Alfred approaching their table.

"Please tell me he knew you were alive," she says. Bruce gives her a little nod and she relaxes a bit - this significantly reduces the odds of them making a scene.

Alfred makes it to their table and locks eyes with Bruce.

"Alfred," says Bruce cautiously.

"Master Wayne," says Alfred. He sounds choked up - that is, until he notices Selina is there, and his face hardens a touch.

Selina drums her fingers against the table so Alfred can't miss her big-ass ring. No, she's not a petty bitch, why would anyone think that?

"I see congratulations are in order," Alfred says stiffly.

"Don't sound so dismayed, Alfred," says Bruce.

"I don't appreciate you putting words into my mouth, Master Wayne," sniffs Alfred.

Selina senses a fight brewing, and while she'd love to see Alfred get taken down a notch, that's not what Bruce needs right now, so she takes one for the team: She pushes her chair away from the table and gets up.

Alfred's eyes practically pop out of his head. There, that ought to get them back on the right track.

"I'm going to the ladies' room," says Selina, and she saunters off to watch from a distance. Looks like Alfred is crying, and now Bruce is crying too? And here comes the hugging. So much for that stiff British upper lip.

She figures ten minutes should be enough to get it out of their systems, and by the time she gets back, they're sitting down. Bruce's eyes are red and Alfred is dabbing at his with a handkerchief, but the waterworks are off.

Alfred looks at her hungrily as she she sits down, and she can guess what he wants. Bruce owes her big time.

"Yes, you can feel her," she sighs, and she takes Alfred's hand and presses it against the last known kick zone. The baby quickly obliges.

Alfred's hand is soft and cool. She holds his hand in place until the baby gets tired of that spot and goes to play kickball with her kidneys.

She lets go out his hand and he withdraws it.

"Thank you, Ms. Kyle," he says, but he won't meet her eyes.

---

Bruce takes them to dinner to catch up properly. After they order, Alfred asks about their immediate plans.

"We're flying to Switzerland in two days," says Bruce.

"Taking in the continent before the baby arrives?"

"I wish," says Bruce. "But no, I'm due for surgery. I'm trying to get that done before the baby arrives."

"Surgery, sir?" asks Alfred.

"On my back and my knees."

"Oh," says Alfred.

"I don't want to be in pain anymore," Bruce says softly.

Selina catches Alfred dabbing his eyes while the waiter serves the next course.

Later, when Bruce gets up to use the bathroom, Alfred pounces on her.

"Years, Ms. Kyle. Years I spent trying to get that man to do something about the pain. But he wouldn't. Wouldn't even take a bloody pill. And here you have him getting surgery done."

She wants to protest that she hasn't done anything at all; Bruce had made up his mind to do this even before he'd come to Paris.

"I know we haven't gotten off on the right foot," Alfred continues, "and I'm sorry about that. I've misjudged you, Ms. Kyle. Whatever you are doing, keep doing it."

"Okay," says Selina, not quite sure how to handle this sudden turn in conversation. "Call me Selina, would you?"

"Oh, no," says Alfred. "I think I'd rather start calling you Missus Wayne early."

He picks up her hands and kisses them.

"Thank you," he says. "Thank you for bringing Bruce back to me."

He releases her hands, and Selina awkwardly pats his arm.

When Bruce comes back to the table, Alfred turns to him.

"I will be accompanying you and the missus to Switzerland," he informs Bruce.

"Alfred, it's fine, really," says Bruce, but Alfred won't hear of it.

"You're going to need help while you recover from surgery, and if you don't mind me saying so, sir, your missus isn't at her peak capacity right now to take care of you. And once the baby comes, you'll need all the help you can get." Alfred's tone leaves no room for questions.

Bruce shrugs. "Fine," he says. "Cut your vacation short."

"I have had enough vacation to last a lifetime, Master Wayne."

"Missus?" asks Bruce as they've heading back to their hotel.

"I don't know, he suddenly decided he liked me while you were in the bathroom."

"Good call on his part," says Bruce dryly.

---

Right before the three of them head into the hospital, Bruce makes a request.

"Don't let them drug me up too hard," says Bruce.

"They'll drug you up as much as they see fit," says Selina, annoyed at his resistance to painkillers.

"What if I say something about Batman?" says Bruce.

Oh. She can appreciate that concern.

"I'll be at your side, Master Wayne," says Alfred. "If you start prattling on about Batman, I'll take care of it."

"By smothering him with a pillow?" suggests Selina.

"That's one way to deal with it," says Alfred.

"You don't have to plot my murder in front of me," says Bruce.

Selina flashes him a smirk and puts her arm through his.

"It's no fun doing it behind your back," she says. Bruce smiles, and she leads him into the building.

---

Seeing Bruce after surgery is awful. The doctors let her sit with him as he drifts back to consciousness after surgery. Once he's mostly awake, they ask her to leave the room so they can assess him, but she can still hear him scream.

By the time they let her back in, he's so doped up that he calls her Rachel and asks her to run away with him.

One of the nurses sees the look on her face and takes her aside.

"You cannot take to heart anything he says to you while he is drugged," says the nurse. "He is not himself."

"Rachel was his ex," Selina says heavily. "The one who got away," she says because she doesn't want to get into the details.

The nurse pats her on the shoulder. "I saw how he looks at you. I don't think you have anything to worry about."

When she goes back into the room, Bruce tries to tell her about aliens abducting him while he attended MIT. She feels better about the Rachel thing.

They keep him drugged to the gills and in a full body brace for a week. Alfred barely leaves his side. Selina would glue herself to his side as well, but Alfred takes to shoving her out and locking Bruce's hospital room door at night and insisting she go sleep in a real bed.

Alfred doesn't let anyone touch Bruce unless it's to do something he cannot do himself, which means he's changing bedpans and sponge bathing Bruce. Selina is impressed by both his devotion and stamina. Even if she wasn't eight months pregnant, she'd leave the bedpans for someone else to deal with.

By the time they start significantly reducing the amount of painkillers he's on, his beard has grown in. "You got your beard," says Bruce one day when he's mostly lucid.

Alfred has been doing what he can to keep Bruce looking decent, trimming his beard and shaving his neck and cheeks. She'd be falling over herself enjoying it if he didn't look so pale and ill underneath.

"Is this what it takes to get you to grow one? Tying you to a bed?" She strokes his cheek, and Bruce kisses her palm.

Selina can tell it'll be a magnificent beard once Bruce is recovered enough to care for himself.

"Promise me you'll keep it long enough for me to feel it on my cunt," she says in his ear.

Bruce groans. "Don't say stuff like that when I can't do anything about it."

"Oh, but I can," she says, and she snakes her hand under the blanket covering his lower body.

"Selina," he hisses warningly.

"What?" she says innocently, sliding her hand into his underpants.

"I haven't showered in weeks, someone might -" he stops talking once she wraps her hand around his cock.

"Where's your sense of adventure?"

"With that fucking catheter, probably." They took the catheter out a few days ago.

She pumps his shaft a few times and he moans softly.

"You want me to stop?"

"No…"

"The doctor said you need this."

"I'll bet that's not what he said."

"You never let that stop you." She tightens her grip. He bites his fist to try to keep quiet.

"Hurry up before Alfred comes back," he manages.

"I'll do what I want. Payback's a bitch, Wayne."

She never calls him just Wayne. The way his cock hardens, she can tell he likes it.

She pulls the blanket and his pants down to properly tend to him. It doesn't take much to push him over the edge given how he hasn't jerked off in weeks. He comes on his stomach, panting harder than he should given the amount of exertion.

She's just finished cleaning him up when Alfred comes back, opening the door without knocking and strolling back in.

"I brought you some newspapers if you're interested in catching up with the world," says Alfred, but Bruce shakes his head and closes his eyes. He's out cold within minutes.

Alfred looks at Bruce's flushed cheeks and the wadded-up towel under the bed, and puts two and two together.

"Oh," is all he says, and after that, he knocks and waits a good minute before he comes into the room.

---

Before she knows it, the baby's coming.

"Push," says the midwife.

"No," says Selina, a sudden wave of panic overtaking her.

"Why not?" says Bruce. He's sitting in a chair next to her bed - no more braces, no more immobilization, no more heavy painkillers. The doctors had promised that he'd be well on his way to being recovered before the baby came, and they'd kept their promise.

"I want her to stay in me. She's safe there. Once she comes out, someone can take her away from us."

"Welcome to being a parent," says the midwife. "It's scary."

"We've faced scarier things together," says Bruce, "and I think we did okay."

Selina remembers the look on Bane's face right before she blasted the fuck out of him. She can't help but smile even in the midst of the pain and fear.

"She's coming out whether you like it or not," says the midwife. "I suggest you help her along and push."

"And between the two of us teaching her? I think she'll be able to take care of herself."

"No vigilante training," she gasps after the next contraction.

"No pickpocketing instruction," Bruce shoots back.

The midwife looks confused as hell.

"If she's anything like us, she's probably dying to get out of there and stretch her legs properly."

That sounds accurate given all the uterine acrobatics.

"So hurry up," says Bruce, kissing her sweaty forehead. "You're delaying Helena's dramatic entrance."

It hadn't taken them long to settle on a name. Helena for Selina's mother, Martha for Bruce's. They'd argued about which name should go first, but Selina won that one easily by pointing out that Martha was a bit old-fashioned for a twenty-first century girl.

"Push," says the midwife.

"Selina Kyle, you can do this," says Bruce. He leans down and whispers in her ear. "You took on Batman and made him your bitch. You can do this."

Selina loves him so much.

"Yes," says Selina. "Yes, I can."

And she goes like this: two months after a vigilante dressed like a flying rabies vector heroically dies saving some city on the US eastern seaboard, a dead man with a beautiful face rings the bell at an apartment in Paris.

Or how about: five months after a thief betrays a cripple she thought she knew, the not-so-distant past comes back to nuzzle her neck.

Or is it more like: six months after a man and a woman very much in love rut like animals on a rooftop, reality intrudes?

---

Selina opens the door after the second ring. She clearly hasn't bothered checking to see who her visitor is, given her bored tone of voice: "Oui?" She's typing on her phone, not bothering to look up. A great way to get her apartment broken into, but then again, she can take care of herself.

Bruce doesn't say anything - doesn't have anything to say. He's imagined this moment happening several different ways, but not like this. His adrenaline is pumping as fiercely as it did before he would go into battle.

It feels like an eternity before Selina takes her eyes off the phone. Bruce figures her first glance will be at his face, but he's mistaken - Selina looks at his feet. He sees her eyes stop on his cane.

Selina goes very still. Bruce listens to her breath, in and out, in and out. She still has her eyes fixed on his cane.

He realizes why she's fixated on the cane - it's nearly identical to one he'd used in Gotham.

She breathes deeper. He can hear her lungs working to take in more air, her blood cells strapping molecules to their backs and rafting down veins, the very transfer of carbon dioxide and oxygen in her alveoli.

And just like she did the first time she met him, the second time she meets him, she kicks the cane out of his hand and knocks him to the floor. And just like that first time, he is caught off guard. She's the only one since Ra's who has managed to do that - correction, she's the only one who throws him completely off balance when he's within twenty feet of her.

He tries to say her name, but she kicks him in the stomach and knocks the words out of his mouth. Luckily, she's barefoot, because with the amount of force she'd used, Bruce suspects he'd have ruptured organs if she'd been wearing sturdy shoes.

She steps back and tries to slam the door shut, but Bruce manages to wedge his cane into it to keep it from shutting.

His back aches, but he gets up as fast as he can, which isn't very fast at all. He feels old. His doctors hadn't wanted him to leave the hospital as early as he had, but he'd made up his mind.

When Selina realizes that his cane is very sturdy, and no, she's not going to smash it by repeatedly slamming the door, she opens the door instead. Bruce leans against the door, putting his full body weight on it to keep her from closing it again.

"I deserve that," he says.

She slaps him across the face, but due to his facial hair, it's lacking the full satisfying sound that accompanies such solid contact.

He rubs his face.

"I deserve that too. And next time, I'll shave so you can really have at it. But can we talk?"

She slaps him again. He catches her wrist this time. She tries to go after him with her other hand, but he grabs that one too.

"Auto. Pilot," she spits out between clenched teeth.

"Inside," he says.

He lets Selina pull her hands out of his grasp and she storms inside. He picks up his cane and follows.

He closes the door gently behind him and takes in Selina. She's barefoot and wearing black yoga pants and a navy Princeton hoodie - one of his hoodies. He wonders when she got around to swiping it. It's big on her, covering most of her hands and her backside. He likes the way it looks on her - he's never seen her in his clothes before, but now he wants to see her in more of them. She pulls on the hoodie strings; looks like a nervous habit she's picked up.

"Well?" she barks.

He sits on the couch. She remains standing.

"I didn't lie about the autopilot. I fixed it. But I'd never tried it out before. And I didn't know if I wanted it to work."

He waits for Selina to ask more questions, but all she does is shift her weight from one leg to the other and tug on the hoodie strings.

Eventually, she speaks up, but so quietly he can barely hear her.

"Where have you been?"

"In a Swiss hospital, getting surgery on my back."

"Why did you wait so long before letting me know you were alive?"

Bruce looks sheepish. "You're not the only insecure one around here."

She inhales deeply and exhales a long slow breath. "That's fair," she says. She closes her eyes. "If you never contacted me again, I would deserve that."

She opens her eyes and looks at her feet.

"What are you doing here?"

"You asked me to run away with you. Is the offer still available?"

He tries to sound casual about it.

"Bruce," she sighs.

He doesn't like the sound of that, so he gets up and covers her mouth with his before she can say another word. She tastes like regret and... a chocolate croissant? That's different.

Selina doesn't kiss him back, but she doesn't push him away either. He breaks the kiss and presses his forehead against hers.

"How many more times will you come back from the dead?"

"I'm done with that."

"I don't believe you," says Selina. She pulls away. He sits back down on the couch.

"I never knew you," she says.

"Yes, you did. I showed you as much as I dared." He musters up a smile. "You think breaking and entering is a normal date activity for me?"

She doesn't smile.

"You're Batman. Bruce Wayne is the mask you wear during the day." It hurts to hear that from yet another woman he loves.

"I can't be Batman anymore."

"Why not?"

"The pain is too much to bear." His voice cracks. "I'm only human."

"And what will you do with your do-gooder tendencies?"

"I'll create a new world for our children." He doesn't know where "our children" came from, but it feels right.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Bruce."

"Who is Bruce?"

"I'm not sure yet. But I do know that without you, I'm the guy who didn't want the autopilot to work."

"And who I am to Bruce?" asks Selina.

"You are the love of my life, Selina Kyle," he states. "You, not Gotham."

He looks at Selina, but she's turned her face away. He's about to look away too, but then he sees a drop of water on the hardwood floor that wasn't there before. So insignificant unto itself, but so powerful. Another drop falls next to the first one, and another.

"The first two times I died, I came back for Gotham. This time, I came back for you. You make me want to live, Selina."

"I don't deserve that," she states.

"Selina..."

"I fucked you over every single way possible, Bruce, and yet here you are. What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"It wasn't your fault. You were acting out of fear, ignorance, and survival, and it doesn't ever have to be that way again."

"I need you," he says.

---

The second time Bruce came back from the dead (but only the first time she's witnessed), she was helping a kid who'd stolen an apple.

"Pretty generous, for a thief," said a voice from the shadows, and like a dark avenging angel, Bruce Wayne emerged.

She froze.

"You came back. I thought they'd killed you."

"Not yet," said Bruce.

She couldn't help but be on the defensive. Bruce had every right to be furious with her.

"If you're expecting an apology -"

Bruce cut her off.

"It wouldn't suit you. I need your help."

"After what I did to you?" she asked incredulously.

"I admit I felt a little let down," he said dryly, "but I still think there's more to you."

"You've lost your money because of me, Bane nearly killed you, I broke your… I hurt you," she said. "How can you still trust me?"

His gaze was unwavering.

"Because I know you. And now, you know me."

Selina lowers her eyes - she couldn't take the intensity of his stare.

"Okay," she said. "What do you need?"

"You," he said.

---

"I need you, too," she whispers. She puts a hand over her eyes.

"Bruce, I..." Selina's voice falters.

"What?"

She shakes her head.

Bruce gets up and goes over to her. He puts an arm around her. At first she resists, but then she melts into him.

She buries her face in his shoulder, and Bruce can hear her shaky breaths.

"What is it?" he asks softly.

Selina pulls away, not meeting his eyes. She takes his hand and slides it under the hoodie onto her stomach. Her usually flat stomach, now gently curved.

To say he is shocked would be an understatement. His brain goes blank, and his mouth decides to do its own thing.

"Is it mine?"

---

The rational part of her brain argues that it's a reasonable question given that they've been apart for months. The much louder, emotional part of her brain cannot believe he just said that to her.

She slaps his hand away and steps back.

"No," she says coolly.

She takes pleasure in the look of shock on his face. He actually pales. He starts pacing the room like a caged animal.

She lets him suffer for a few minutes, but then she sees a hardness in his eyes that she's never seen before. She recalls that she doesn't actually know what he might do in a fit of jealous rage. Simple jealousy, she knows what that looks like. Complicated rage is another story.

---

Back when she was consulting at Wayne Enterprises, she'd been pissed off at Bruce for some reason or other. She started flirting with some assistant, a delicious young thing... His name was Jack or Brett or Sean, some strong one-syllable masculine name that rolled off the tongue (like Bruce), with the puffed-up confidence only found in the fountain of youth. She only had to touch his shoulder once, and Jack-Brett-Sean was under her spell.

She sat on his desk, which brought her cleavage to the level of his face. He didn't bother looking at her face after that, preferring to conduct his conversation with her breasts.

Jack-Brett-Sean put a hand on her thigh. She let him keep it there, and that was when Bruce took action; Selina had positioned them just so to ensure that Bruce could see them through the glass of his office door. She knew he was watching.

Bruce butt in oh-so-politely, apologizing for interrupting their conversation, and asked to see her in his office. He accompanied her there with his hand hovering over her lower back - she felt the heat radiating off of him even through her clothes.

Bruce closed the door and flicked the blinds closed.

He sat down in his ridiculously expensive chair. Selina remained standing.

"Care to explain what was going on out there?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Nothing."

She heard the sound of a belt buckle and zipper being undone. Bruce leaned back in his chair and she saw that he had taken his half-hard cock out and started stroking it.

"He just seemed like a sweet guy," she said.

"And you're nothing but a friendly person," he said.

"That's right."

"A very friendly person," he said, his arousal starting to become evident in his voice. "I see how friendly he was getting with your breasts."

His arousal turned her on. Selina walked around his desk and stood next to him.

"Is there a problem with my conduct, Mr. Wayne?"

He stood up and grabbed her by the back of neck and kissed her roughly. He sat down without breaking the kiss by keeping his hand on her neck, which forced her onto her knees to stay upright.

He broke the kiss and shoved her at his cock, his intent clear. She didn't want to admit it, but God, this was hot.

This whole thing, she realized later on, is Bruce's standard power play when it comes to sex. Bruce Wayne doesn't play with his own dick when he can have someone else do it, unless he's proving a point. He doesn't want his dick sucked unless he's exerting his dominance; he'd rather be fucking someone with it. The rich don't even get off like everyone else, she amusingly realized.

She took his erect cock into her mouth. Bruce moved his hand and put it on her hair, which had been in a bun. He yanked out the pen holding her hair up and dug his fingers into her hair.

She sucked on his dick for a few minutes, feeling it get bigger and harder. Bruce started thrusting into her mouth, and she wondered if he was going to come in her mouth when he shoved her away.

"Take off your clothes," said Bruce.

"No, thank you," said Selina, as if she was declining a second cup of coffee. She stood up.

Bruce leaned back.

"You have a meeting in," he consulted his wristwatch, "forty-three minutes. You can either take off your clothes and have a chance at looking presentable, or I'm going to rip them off of you. Your choice," he said casually.

Selina briefly considered the latter choice, but she didn't want to undermine her credibility at the meeting by showing up disheveled.

She took off her clothes. She was wearing a skirt suit; she liked wearing those in business settings. Usually, her male victims were so busy ogling her long legs that her next move caught them off guard.

"Keep your shoes on," he ordered. She smirked - he liked her in stilettos, he's told her, because it makes it easier to kiss her when she's closer to his height and it makes her legs look impossibly long. This time, she guessed when he shoved her against a wall, he wanted them on to make it easier to fuck her standing up.

Bruce took off his belt and slid it around her neck. She involuntarily whimpered and bucked against him. Bruce smirked.

"Good to know," he said, and let the belt fall to the floor.

She was more turned on that she realized; she was so wet that Bruce just slid right in. Bruce grabbed her hips and thrust.

"Yes, there is a problem with your conduct," he hissed. "I don't want to see other men touching you."

"What about women?" she asked archly.

His hands tightened on her hips.

"No one touches you unless I want them to. You're mine."

"Who says?"

Bruce changed the angle of his thrusts so his cock brushed against her clit. She gasped.

"Say it."

"Say what?" she retorted.

Bruce slid a hand down between their bodies and rubbed her clit. Oh, if he kept that up, she was going to come so hard…

"Say it," he demanded. He bit her shoulder hard enough to leave a mark.

Selina desperately didn't want him to stop, so she grudgingly gave in.

"I'm yours." As she said it though, she knew she wasn't doing it just to placate him - it was the simple truth. He continued stroking her clit.

Bruce put his mouth on the sensitive spot where her neck met her shoulder and sucked. Selina groaned.

"Just take me, Bruce, take all of me. I'm all yours."

"Come for me, Selina," he growled in her ear, his breath hot on her skin.

Her orgasm flooded her senses, and she barely felt it when Bruce buried his face in her neck and bit her again when he came seconds after her.

Later in her meeting, she felt the marks he left on her burn when the fabric of her shirt brushed against them. She touched her shoulder, felt the brands he left on her body. A part of her bristled at being claimed like this, but the more primal, visceral part of her reveled in it.

---

A part of her wants to see what happens if Bruce loses control at the thought of her carrying another man's child.

On the other hand, she's seen Batman blow a pretty solid door off its hinges with just one kick, and she wants to keep her security deposit intact, so she relents.

"It's Batman's," she says haughtily.

"Batman's?" Bruce says incredulously. His voice rises. "Batman's?" he yells, louder than she's ever heard him raise his voice before.

The words then seem to penetrate his thick skull. He drops onto the couch and covers his face with his hands.

"Selina, do not fuck around with me about this," he says, his voice muffled. His hands are shaking.

"Then don't ask such asinine questions, asshole."

He looks up from his hands. Selina realizes how much he looks like when she first met him. Longer hair, goatee, tired, drawn, pale, and heavily leaning on a cane.

"So…is this bad news?" she asks oh-so-very casually.

"Can I have a minute to process all this?" asks Bruce.

"No."

He leans back and stares at the ceiling.

"It's great news," he says wearily.

"Oh, yeah, sure sounds like it."

"I left the fucking hospital after back surgery, against medical advice, because I needed to see you so badly, after spending several months in a literal hell hole. Everything hurts like a motherfucker, and I just found out my girlfriend's pregnant, and you don't like the fucking tone of my voice?"

"Your girlfriend ?" she asks indignantly.

She sees a possessive gleam in his eyes.

"I seem to recall someone admitting 'I'm Bruce Wayne's girlfriend' while getting fucked by Batman."

She wants to argue with him, but what's there to argue with? She broke his heart and fed him to the monsters, and he comes back from the dead declaring his love for her.

There is nothing she can deny him after Bane. The minute she realized Bruce Wayne was on her doorstep, she knew she would be spending the rest of her life by his side. She's his. They both know it. The only question is when will she stop fighting it.

"Yeah, well, look how that turned out." She gestures at her stomach. She's pretty sure that's when this happened.

She's never heard him curse that much. She mentally reviews what he said about pain.

"What painkillers are you on?"

"I'm not."

Her eyes widen in shock.

"Are you serious?"

"I don't like painkillers. They cloud my mind."

"So does pain," she snaps. "Did your doctors give you anything?"

He stubbornly stares at her.

She sits down next to him and starts frisking him. He has a pill bottle in his pocket. She checks the label.

She opens the bottle and shakes two pills out into her palm. She grabs a half-empty glass of flat seltzer sitting on the table and shoves it at him.

"Take them," she orders.

"No," he says.

"Take them, or I'll knock you out and shove them down your gullet."

Bruce takes the glass, but not the pills from her.

"You know I will, too," she says.

He takes the pills and downs them.

"Happy?"

"Oh yes, very happy," she says in the same tone of voice he used on her earlier.

They sit in silence for awhile, until Selina notices Bruce's eyelids fluttering. Those pills kicked in fast. She nudges him.

"Get up."

"Why? You kicking me out?"

"No, I'm moving you to the bed. Your back will thank me later."

"I'm not tired," mutters Bruce.

" I'm tired," she says.

Bruce mumbles something she can't make out and gets up. His cane is at her feet, but he can't seem to find it. He sways unsteadily on his feet, and she puts her arm around him and helps him to the bedroom.

"When was the last time you slept?"

"I dunno," he says.

They reach the bed, and she helps him lie down. She takes off his shoes and tosses them to the floor.

She sees Bruce fighting against the sleep overtaking him.

"Relax. I promise not to hit you while you're sleeping."

"Selina," he says. His eyes are closed.

"I'm right here."

"Selina, don't leave me. Please," he whispers.

"I won't," she says.

"Selina," he whispers, and his voice trails off. His face relaxes - the sleep has won.

Selina thinks about taking a nap beside him, but she's too wound up. Instead, she sits on the bed and draws her knees to her chest and hugs her legs and tries to make sense of the day.

---

Selina remembers when she found out she was pregnant. It had taken a few weeks to tie up loose ends in Gotham, and she'd arrived in Paris almost a month after Bruce had taken off with the bomb.

She'd always wanted to live in Paris, and with the Clean Slate and nothing to keep her in Gotham, she'd finally made it happen. She couldn't bear to stay in Gotham after everything that had happened.

She had sitting down, folding clothes and putting them away for the first time in her new apartment, when she felt the oddest sensation in her belly. Like someone was flicking her, but from the inside. It didn't hurt, but it didn't feel like gas or indigestion either. It stopped once she finished folding and started making food, but it came back after she ate.

Selina felt uneasy. She pulled out her phone and searched online, scrolling through results describing several possible causes. She stopped reading once she saw the word "pregnancy."

She couldn't be pregnant, could she? She lifted up her shirt and looked at her stomach in the mirror. It seemed flat enough, but maybe it was protruding a little, or was it just the lighting? She poked her stomach in a few spots and felt another flick.

Selina tried to think of symptoms of pregnancy. No period was one of them: she hadn't had one in awhile, but she was underweight and had been under a lot of stress, both of which could account for that. Nausea: she had a few bouts of nausea and vomiting a few months ago, but she had chalked that up to a virus. Sore breasts: sometimes her breasts were sore before she had her period, and maybe she'd been having one then. In conclusion: inconclusive.

She knew she wasn't pregnant, but there was only one way to be sure, so she grabbed her purse and went outside to a convenience store she'd noticed the other day. She bought a box of pregnancy tests, brought them home, drank a liter of water because she was really bad at peeing on demand, and waited until nature called. Then she waited some more. Funny how a few minutes felt like forever.

The stick said "positive."

Selina grabbed the second stick in the box and used that one too. It came up positive as well.

She was fucked.

She briefly panicked when she thought about who the father could be. John Blake had been the last guy she'd slept with since Bruce had... What if it was his?

But then she remembered how her missing periods, sore breasts, and nausea had started before she'd slept with Blake, and they'd used condoms, which meant it had to be Bruce. But she'd been on birth control when she'd been seeing Bruce. After she'd left him, she stopped bothering with the pills… and the next time she'd had unprotected sex had been with Batman on the roof.

She roughly calculated how long it had been since then. She was surprised to find it had only been around five months. So much had happened in those five months… it had felt so much longer than that.

There's another flick. It rattles her. She didn't know what to do, so she changed into running clothes and hit the pavement. She did her best thinking in motion.

Could she get an abortion? Possibly. She guessed it depended on where. If she couldn't get an abortion, there was always adoption. But did she want to get rid of it?

She didn't have a clear answer to that question. She thought about the things she had from Bruce: the Clean Slate USB drive, his ratty old Princeton hoodie, the pearls…and a baby.

No, it wasn't a baby, it was a parasite that probably didn't even look human yet.

She wasn't concerned about money; she had a decent nest egg stashed away, and she suspected that if she went back to Gotham and demanded a DNA test from Bruce's estate, she wouldn't have to think about money for the next eighteen years. Last she'd heard, the lawyers had been able to prove the trades that had bankrupted Bruce as fraud and restored his fortune.

After running herself ragged for two hours, she still had no idea what to do, so she went to bed. She still didn't know the next day, or the day after that, or the day after that day, so she did nothing.

The food in Paris was so good, especially after months of semi-starvation under Bane. She avoided thinking about her situation by eating things with lots of butter and cream and sugar. She avoided looking at her stomach and wore loose dresses and sweaters.

A month later, she still didn't know what to do. And then Bruce showed up.

---

Bruce floats through the detritus of his thoughts like a soap bubble delicately riding a breeze. He feels himself being pulled towards consciousness, but he doesn't want to wake up. What's so great about being awake? All there is waiting for him is pain, both physical and emotional. He doesn't know where he is.

Is he in the pit, shivering with fever, listening to Gotham's destruction through an old TV? Hanging from a rope as his back heals poorly? Doing push ups in an effort to ready himself for the climb?

Sometimes, his body hurt so badly that all he could do is retreat into himself, take his dick in hand, and jerk himself off, hoping that his spinal nerves weren't damaged enough to block an orgasm.

The rush of endorphins brought him some temporary relief from physical pain, but also a measure of emotional pain, as only thing that got him off was thinking about Selina, both as she had been (Selina in a tiny string bikini, Selina in nothing but his mother's pearls, Selina in her mask, catsuit, and six-inch killer heels) and as she had not been (Selina in a wedding gown, Selina wearing his discarded button-up shirt and nothing else, Selina in pajamas).

/

Or is he back in Gotham, alone in his king-size bed after Selina left him? Less physical pain, the scale tipping more towards pain of the heart. So many years spent in solitude and his sexual needs had mostly diminished, but Selina had awakened his libido. He would wake up, hard and hungry for her, and then remember there would be no foreplay at dinner, no games with the pearls, no passionate kisses when he tracked her down at the office and pushed her into a corner.

Miranda Tate noticed his distress and sought to help... alleviate it. He had wanted to retreat back into himself entirely, stop showing up at Wayne Enterprises, but he had made too many commitments in his Selina-induced happiness, one of which was the energy project. Miranda had made several discreet passes at him when he'd started showing his face at Wayne Enterprises again, but he'd tactfully brushed her off. With Selina now out of the picture, she became more aggressive in her approach.

Miranda was a beautiful, intelligent woman who shared his passion for making the world a better place. Alfred had even explicitly telegraphed his approval of Miranda and tried to set them up while he was seeing Selina. He hadn't been interested then, and he wasn't really interested now either.

But he'd come alive with Selina. He craved that spark and tried to tell himself it wasn't Selina herself that had done it, but merely the presence of a woman in his life, and so the next time Miranda casually put her hand on his thigh, he let her.

He let her take him to her bed, let her undress him, let her take him inside her, let her make him come. And it helped for a little. But soon enough, the hunger came roaring back, and it became achingly clear to him that Miranda was not enough.

/

Or is he submerged in frigid ocean water, his suit weighing him down as he struggles to free himself from his vehicle after the bomb detonated? His head was ringing with his friends' voices. They hadn't wanted him to go.

At least he couldn't feel Talia's stab wound anymore. He could barely feel anything below his shoulders. It was so cold.

He thought he wasn't afraid to die. He'd faced death so many times before. He wasn't afraid then. But he was now. He'd never been in a situation where he actually had time to think about it. But it was cold and wet and foggy, the water was rough and kept slapping him in the face and all he could do was wait. Maybe the beacon would work, maybe it wouldn't.

He should wake up to come back to this?

/

Whether he wants to or not, he enters the waking world. His senses perk up - he feels a soft bed underneath him, hears the distant sound of a piano, tastes the unpleasantness of waking up without brushing your teeth before you went to sleep… smells the shampoo Selina uses. He forces his eyes open and sees Selina lying next to him, wearing a loose white t-shirt and black panties, propped up on one hand watching him. It's dark except for one soft orange light glowing in the corner

"Is this real?" he whispers.

Selina leans over and gently kisses him. It feels like she's breathing life into him. He inhales deeply, trying to take in as much as he can.

She takes her mouth off of his eventually, and he's disappointed.

"I need that," he mutters.

Selina takes two fingers and pries open one of his half-closed eyes. He whines in protest and tries to bat her hand away while she looks into his eye. Too much light.

Selina chuckles and releases his eye. "Oh, you are so high," she says, patting him on the head.

"No, I feel great," Bruce states.

"I'm sure you do."

She lays back down and reprops herself back up on her arm. He reaches out and traces the contours of her face with his fingertips. He feels the moisture of her breath, the delicate peach fuzz on her cheeks, the softness of her eyelids.

He lets his hand wander further down. Her t-shirt is thin enough that he can feel and see the shape of her nipples through it. He runs his hand over a covered nipple, and Selina shivers. Intrigued, he does the same to her other nipple. He enjoys the sensation on his fingertips. He strokes them for awhile, listening to Selina make soft noises, before realizing it's the most natural thing in the world to roll over, scoot down a bit, and put his mouth on them. Selina starts making louder noises. He doesn't know what she's saying, but the sounds make him feel good.

He takes turns lightly licking and sucking each one through her shirt for awhile before he remembers that he can just take her shirt off. He can't quite remember how to do that though, so he pulls it up until it reveals her breasts. Her nipples are like smooth pink pebbles. He touches them, rolling them between his fingers in amazement. Suddenly, Selina's body stiffens and she throws her head back, making a new, loud noise. He watches her.

"Are you okay?" he asks.

'"I'm very good," she pants.

"Okay," says Bruce, and turns back to her nipples.

Selina gently pushes his hands off her breasts, so he continues exploring lower parts of her. He runs his hands over her stomach. There's something about it that's important, but he can't remember what.

He continues lower, and slides his hand over the crotch of her panties. It feels moist. He brings his hand back to his nose and sniffs it. It smells a little weird, but also really good. He dips his hand into her panties to explore further. It's wet and warm. He's so focused on investigating every soft crevice that he barely hears Selina talking to him.

"Bruce." Oh right, that's his name.

"Yes?"

He tears his eyes away from her panties to see she's unzipped his pants. She reaches in and withdraws his penis. It's hard and stiff. He doesn't remember when that happened.

"Do you know what to do with this?" she asks, holding it in one hand and stroking it with the other.

Bruce doesn't respond. What she's doing feels very good. If he remembers what to do, will she stop touching him?

"Um," he says to buy himself some time.

Selina laughs and lets go of his penis. She rearranges her top to cover her breasts and takes off her panties. Then she pushes Bruce onto his back, gets on top of him, and slides his penis inside her.

This feels even better than when she was touching him. It feels so good that he doesn't dare move a muscle. Selina bounces up and down on him, and the good feeling gets stronger and stronger, until he feels like he's going to burst, and then he does. Selina stays on top of him until he's finished, and then she gets off the bed. Bruce tries to pay attention to where she's going but his eyelids get so heavy…

He's completely passed out by the time she gets back from the bathroom.

---

Bruce wakes up again. This time, sunlight is steaming through the room and his back hurts. He looks down and sees that he's naked. Selina must have undressed him at some point. He looks to the right: there's a nightstand with his watch, car keys, cell, and wallet on it. He looks to the right: Selina is asleep, lying on her side facing him, her hand protectively curled around her small bump.

He remembers bits and pieces from last night and is happy Selina isn't awake to see him cringe. And she wanted to know why he didn't like taking painkillers. Not that it hadn't been great, but he prefers to remain conscious enough to be on guard. He was so out of it last night someone could have knocked him over with a feather.

He continues to lie there, collecting his thoughts, until it occurs to him that this is the first time Selina has ever spent the entire night with him. And he'd been too out of it to appreciate this amazing development. Man, he hates painkillers.

He tries to sit up, but his back screams in protest. He gasps in pain and lies back down. Selina must have really fucked his back up when she knocked him on his ass yesterday. He hopes this isn't going to add another surgery to the list.

He looks at Selina again, but her eyes are wide open and she's propped up on her elbow.

"I'd ask how you're doing, but I think I know," she observes.

"Doing just fine," he manages to say.

"Really?" says Selina.

He ignores her. "Can you get me my cane?"

Selina hops out of bed and goes to the other room, but she comes back holding a glass of water instead of his cane.

He's suddenly parched. She holds the water out, but it's just out of his reach lying down. He's going to have to sit up to get to it. Maybe he just got up the wrong way… he tries again and this time it hurts enough that he yelps.

Selina produces a straw and slips it into the glass, but instead of handing it to him, she puts another one of those damn painkillers in his hand.

"No," he says. "You saw what it did to me last night."

Selina raises an eyebrow.

"Do you remember how to use your dick now?"

"Shut up."

"Bruce, you're a lightweight. But since you can't bear being in the carefree and blissful state you were in last night, just take one. You should be fine."

Bruce shakes his head.

Selina studies him. "Bruce, no one knows we're here. No one's after us. There's no danger. And even if there was, I can take care of it."

"And what if you're wrong?"

"What would you do exactly, ask them to come back later when you sit up without screaming?"

"Adrenaline is one hell of a drug," he says.

Selina shrugs.

"Maybe the adrenaline will help you get out of bed on your own," she says, and puts the pill and glass on the nightstand.

She goes into the bathroom. Maybe the third time getting up will be the charm… nope.

"You just keep trying that, honey," hollers Selina.

Bruce grits his teeth and takes the pill.

Twenty minutes later, his body feels better - not great, but good enough that he can get out of bed. Thankfully, he still feels clear headed, and he grudgingly admits that Selina had been right about the dose.

He hears Selina turn on the shower. He doesn't want to get out of bed, but the opportunity to see her naked is very motivating.

The bathroom is deliciously hot and humid by the time he goes in. The shower looks just big enough to hold two, so he opens the door and climbs in.

"That's good," he sighs as the hot water hits his back.

"Did anyone invite you in here?" asks Selina, her back to him.

He puts his arms around her and hugs her, resting his chin on her shoulder.

"I guess you can make yourself useful," she says and gestures with her chin at her shampoo bottle.

He obliges, and soon Selina is moaning as he massages shampoo into her scalp.

"Okay, you're invited in here," she moans.

"Ms. Kyle! Do you always invite strange men off the street into your shower?"

"If they're this good with their hands, then yes."

He tilts her head back and rinses her hair out. He picks up her loofah, soaps it up, and starts washing her. When he's done, he slides his hands all over her slippery body under the guise of making sure he got every spot. He hears Selina's breathing change and sees her nipples tighten and the way she clenches her thighs together.

Selina steps back under the water and rinses off. She's so beautiful all wet like this.

"Anything else my hands can do for you?" he asks.

Selina licks her lips and takes him in from head to toe.

"Why don't you dry off and get comfortable, and I'll be there in a few minutes?" he suggests.

Selina nods and gets out of the shower.

Three minutes later, he's done and hurriedly drying himself off. Through the doorway, he sees Selina, wrapped in a towel, lying on the bed.

He wraps his towel around his waist and joins her.

"Hi," he says.

"Hi," she says back.

He opens her towel and runs his hands down her body. From the way she shudders, he thinks it's not going to take much to get her off. He puts his mouth right where her neck meets her shoulder and slides a hand between her legs. He feels her heartbeat at both points of connection.

He strokes her with the tips of two fingers.

"I have a dilemma," says Selina.

"Yeah?" he says in a low voice.

"The goatee is really doing it for me."

"That's a problem?"

"I also like you clean-shaven."

"Ah. And you haven't even seen me with a mustache or a full beard -" that elicits a gasp from her " - or stubble -" another gasp " - so you can't pick a favorite."

Selina nods urgently. Bruce continues to stroke her, slow and steady. She looks into his eyes as he continues talking in a low, calm voice.

"There's also the hair."

"Uh huh," mumbles Selina.

"I had really short hair in freshman year college. It was so short you couldn't run your fingers through it."

"What a waste," Selina groans.

"That's what all the girls said. I grew it out sophomore year. You know what that looks like. And when my hair gets longer, it gets a little curly. Oh, and I had shoulder-length hair for a few years."

Selina grabs his wrist.

"Don't stop."

"But back to the facial hair. I should think a big consideration for you would be how my face feels against your cunt when I'm eating you out."

That does it for her; she sinks her nails into his wrist and comes. He keeps stroking her as she rides the wave of her orgasm until she pushes his hand away.

They lie there for awhile, just basking in the closeness, until Bruce's stomach decides to make its presence known.

"When was the last time you ate?" she asks sharply. "And do not say 'I don't know.'"

That had been exactly what Bruce had been going to say, so he amends his answer.

"...Yesterday? Two days ago?"

She doesn't like that answer.

"What the hell does Batman even eat for breakfast?"

He tells her. She doesn't like that even more.

"I don't have any kale. What does Bruce Wayne eat for breakfast?"

"Hair of the dog. Mimosas were always the easiest to fake."

Her voice softens.

"What do you eat for breakfast?"

"Probably the same as Batman, but once in awhile... I wouldn't say no to pancakes. My dad would make them for me on Sundays."

She smiles. Finally an answer she likes.

"We're in France. How about crepes?"

"Only if they come with chocolate and bananas."

"I think I can arrange that," says Selina.

---

"I was reckless," says Bruce after they walk home from breakfast. He shakes his head. "You're the only woman I've ever slept with that I didn't use a condom with."

"What?"

"I was cautious. I didn't want to deal with paternity suits from women looking for a meal ticket."

"And me?"

"I didn't care. If you didn't get pregnant, great. If you did get pregnant, it was just speeding things up."

"Really?"

"Really, Selina. I don't think you understand how crazy I was about you."

"And what about now?" she asks.

He gathers her against him and kisses her long and hard.

"I told you," he said when they finally come up for air. "It's great news. How many months along are you?"

Selina shrugs. "Six, I guess."

"What do you mean, you guess? Have you been to a doctor?"

"No."

"When did you find out you were pregnant?"

"I don't know. A month ago?"

"How… How did you not know earlier?"

She starts to respond with sarcasm, but decides to go with the truth instead.

"I didn't want to know, so I ignored the signs."

"Why haven't you gone to a doctor yet?"

"I didn't know what to do with it."

"The baby?"

"Yes."

"And now?"

Selina lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding in. She feels lighter, like a burden has been lifted off her shoulders.

"Now, you're here."

"Now, I'm here?" questions Bruce.

"Now, you're here," she repeats with finality. And for the first time, she lets herself feel pregnant, feel that there's a baby in there and not some parasitic thing, feel this baby doing somersaults in her womb. It feels good.

She doesn't realize she's standing there with a hand on her belly and a dumb smile on her face until Bruce smiles back at her and puts his hand on top of hers.

"I love you," he says.

"I love you, too," she says, not having to think if it's the right time or what the potential ramifications are. She just says what she feels.

---

Bruce doesn't ask her to come with him to the obstetrician; he informs her that he's made her an appointment for the afternoon.

She's irritated by the presumption but still riding the I-love-you high, so she smothers the feeling and gets ready without protest. Instead of putting on a loose, flowing dress, she puts on jeans, a tight tank top that outlines her stomach, and an unbuttoned cardigan. She looks at herself in the mirror - the bump isn't that big, but it's definitely noticeable.

Bruce sneaks up from behind and puts his arms around her.

"You look amazing," he says, nuzzling her neck.

"That's just the drugs talking," she says.

"No, you do. You look happy."

She does. It's ridiculous how much her life has turned around in the span of thirty-six hours. Bruce is alive, they're having a baby, and for the first time, she feels secure in his love.

They step out of her apartment. Bruce motions across the street to his car.

"Really, Bruce?" she asks when she sees the car. "You have a problem."

Bruce opens the passenger door of the Lamborghini for her, and she gets in. He walks to the other side and slides into the driver's seat, grabs his sunglasses out of the glove compartment, and puts them on. He looks so fuckable that Selina wants to have her way with him right then and there.

"How hot does this car get you?" he asks.

She refuses to answer and give him the satisfaction, but he reaches out and brushes his fingers against her breasts, and she looks down and sees her stiff nipples through the fabric. She really needs to get a padded bra.

"That's what I thought," he says smugly. Selina smacks his hand and pulls her cardigan shut.

---

In the obstetrician's waiting room, Bruce holds her hand. It's sweet, until she realizes that he won't let go.

"Bruce," she hisses, trying to shake his hand off.

"Can't I hold the mother of my child's hand?"

Selina makes a face. "Not when you say it out loud."

"Okay, my fiancée?"

"Your fiancée ?"

She's about to rip Bruce a new one - how dare he assume she'll marry him, it's the twenty-first century, she's no one chattel, and if he thinks she'll change her name - when they announce that they're ready for her.

She gets up, and Bruce, still clamped onto her hand, follows.

"No, you can stay here," she snaps.

Bruce ignores her and leads the way into the examination room, giving her no choice but to follow. Selina digs her nails into his thumb and tries to peel it off, but the man's grip is like steel.

Once she's seated on the examination table, he settles down in a nearby chair and finally releases her hand.

A nurse arrives to take Selina's vitals. She's young and pretty with short black hair, and she barely looks at Selina while she works, preferring to shoot flirtatious glances at and chit chat with Bruce. Bruce politely responds without any real interest behind his words.

She does enjoy listening to Bruce speaking French though. She's a decent speaker, but he's fluent with a damn good accent.

She's not really paying attention to the nurse's blatherings until she hears Bruce's name.

"Est-ce que quelqu'un vous a déjà dit que vous ressembliez à ce riche américain, [Has anyone ever told you that you look like that rich American,] Bruce Wayne?" cooes the nurse.

"Oui! [Yes!]" says Bruce, rolling his eyes. "Tout le temps. [All the time.]" He shakes his head. "Ma fiancée ne le voit pas. [My fiancée doesn't see it.]" He's enjoying this too much.

The nurse smirks and runs her fingers down Bruce's bicep. Selina has had enough. She grabs the nurse's hand and twists it behind her back.

"Ne touchez pas à mon fiancé. [Hands off my fiancé.]"

The nurse shrieks.

"Fiancé?" Bruce says as the nurse makes a run for it. Selina lets her go and ignores Bruce.

"Is there some pheromone that causes women to throw themselves at you?"

"Just Clive Christian No. 1," says Bruce, amused.

Fuck, he does smell good.

"I know." And fuck, she said that out loud.

The doctor finally arrives. What is it about French women? This one's a few decades older than the nurse but just as attractive. Selina decides to grab Bruce's hand in case of a cougar attack.

Thankfully, the doctor is a professional, and before Selina knows it, she has her shirt up, her pants unbuttoned, and goop on her stomach.

The doctor switches to English once she hears Selina's accent. Selina is grateful, because that means she can focus on the image on the screen instead of devoting brainpower to translating.

"There is the little head," the doctor points out, like they're on a cruise and she's highlighting the sights. "And the little hands, the legs… and the little girl."

---

Bruce and Selina walk out of the doctor's office in a daze. Instead of getting back into the car, Bruce pulls her towards a little park across the street. She lets him guide her over. For awhile, they sit quietly on a bench with both of their hands on her belly, and feel the breeze across their faces.

Eventually, Bruce speaks up.

"My daughter," he says in awe.

The "my" part startles Selina out of her daze.

" Your daughter? Your fiancée? You're awfully possessive and presumptuous," she snaps.

Bruce chuckles.

"Sorry about that. I got ahead of myself."

He slides off the bench and gets on one knee.

"Not exactly what I had in mind, but I did not see this one coming, so pretend we're at the French Riviera and I've just made love to you on the beach," he says. He takes a black velvet box out of his pocket.

Selina is thankful that the park is empty. She wants to tell him to get up, that he looks like an idiot, but the words get stuck in her throat when she sees the ring.

The diamond has to be at least eight carats - oval cut on a micro pavé setting. She's stolen enough jewels to know quality when she sees it. It's gloriously big and maybe a touch gaudy. Selina immediately loves it.

"When the hell did you have time to find a ring?" she says to buy herself time.

"I bought this months ago," says Bruce, looking pleased with himself. "I had this idea that if I proposed, you'd come back, but after giving it some thought, I realized it wasn't going to fix anything. Kept the ring, though. It's nice, isn't it?"

"Yes," admits Selina. Her ring finger itches - she wants to put this pretty thing on and see it sparkle. It must have cost a fortune. It hits her then that she'll never have to steal another jewel - Bruce will shower her with them.

"You want it?"

"That's your proposal?" sputters Selina.

"I used up my best lines making sure you didn't kick me out the other day."

"Do better!" she yelps.

"And here I was thinking I was the romantic one in this relationship."

He gets serious.

"Selina. I had no idea what I was getting into when I went after the pearls. All I knew was that for the first time in years, I felt alive. I never know what you're going to do next. I'm always caught off guard around you. You are so…" he searches for the right word. "...fun, Selina. So unexpected. So precious."

Fuck, he's going to make her cry if he keeps this up. She blames pregnancy hormones. She never used to be this soft.

"I love playing with you… I didn't even know I could play until you made me. No one else sees that part of me."

He laughs. Selina feels like her heart is going to burst.

"Stole my pearls, stole my car, stole my hoodie, stole my heart. I am desperately in love with you and I'm going to spend the rest of my life telling you that, and then maybe you'll believe me. My life is in your hands, and I trust you with it. Selina, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?"

Selina wants to say yes. But something else beats those words out of her mouth.

"You're not just doing this because of -" she says in a small voice, pointing at her belly.

" My daughter? No. It just sped things up. I knew where I wanted this to go by the first time I took you to bed. I basically told you as much."

"You also told me you wanted me in your bed screaming your name."

"Don't change the subject. You didn't answer my question."

"Why don't you take me back to the apartment and fuck me until I'm screaming an answer?"

"No ring until I get an answer."

She's tempted to hold out longer, but she really needs to touch that ring right now.

"Yes, Bruce, I'll marry you."

"You're not just doing this because of -" he points at the ring and smirks.

"Bruce Wayne, give me the goddamn ring or the next thing I'm stealing is your sanity."

"Too late, clearly it's already gone."

She holds out her hand and he slides the ring on. There's a smattering of applause from a distance, and Selina realizes that several people from the obstetrician's office have been watching from across the street.

Bruce rises with a slight grimace - he shouldn't have been on his knee in the first place, she realizes. He pulls Selina up.

"Let's give them something to really cheer about," he murmurs. He dips her and kisses her. The people across the street hoot and catcall, but Selina barely hears them, she's so focused on Bruce's scorching hot kiss.

Bruce pulls her back up and slowly lets her lips go. If Bruce's back was in good shape, she thinks he would have scooped her into his arms and carried her to the car.

Selina sees the black-haired nurse watching. She smirks and puts her ring-clad hand on Bruce's ass.

"I'm thinking a celebratory fucking is in order," she says.

Bruce covers his eyes with his hand.

"I am definitely the romantic in this relationship," he groans.

---

Bruce had asked the doctor if it was safe to have sex.

"It is good for the mother to, I forget how to say it, se faire plaisir [to be pleasured]," the doctor had said, and Selina squirmed in embarrassment. "And you will be tired after baby comes, so enjoy it now." She winked at Selina. "Such a handsome man. I am sure he has made you a beautiful baby."

Even Bruce had blushed at that one.

Bruce had taken the doctor's suggestion as more of a requirement, which is why Selina has been waking up every morning this week on the verge of an orgasm.

"The doctor said you need this," insists Bruce before he puts his head back between her thighs.

"That is not what she said," says Selina, but then Bruce nibbles on her clit and she pulls on his hair.

"You just want to feel useful," she accuses him, panting a little.

Bruce stops what's he's doing, lies back down next to her, and kisses her; his goatee is wet against her face and she tastes herself on his lips. Bruce pulls away slightly.

" Feel useful?" says Bruce, his breath hot on her lips. "I should stop then, as I don't want to waste my time if it's unnecessary."

He kisses her again and Selina drinks him in, until he breaks the kiss and gets out of bed.

"No," moans Selina.

"So you do need it?"

"God, yes. Bruce, don't leave me like this."

He leers at her and runs his hands down her thighs.

"What do you need?"

"You."

"Be more specific."

"Your cock, inside me."

He yanks her legs down until the lower half of her body is hanging off the bed. He shucks off his pajama pants, pulls her thighs apart, and pushes into her.

She sighs in satisfaction. So many years feeling of empty and hungry. Now, she feels so full - full of baby, full of cock, full of Bruce. He's commandeered her body and made it his.

A little voice in her head reminds her that she hadn't enjoyed feeling so full of baby last night that she'd thrown up dinner after eating a bit too much of the most delicious salmon she's ever had.

Shut up, she tells the voice, and then she comes, clenching tight around Bruce's hard cock. Sometimes, having an orgasm with an empty pussy just doesn't cut it.

"Can I come, or do you still need that?" he asks. He has such remarkable restraint.

Selina smirks and thrusts her pelvis against him.

"More," she orders.

"Yes, ma'am," he says and gets to work.

---

Before Bruce came back to her, she'd been…there was no other way to say it, horny as fuck. At first, she tried to take care of it herself, but a dildo and her fingers didn't satisfy her, especially when she was resolutely not thinking of her dead lover and the best sex of her life. She craved skin to skin, mouth to mouth.

She hit up a club popular with a nearby university on a Friday night and went hunting. She walked around the perimeter of the room, looking at the pretty young things enjoying themselves on the dance floor, when a boy caught her eye.

Tall, well-defined muscles that she could see through his tight white shirt, beautiful thick dark hair, sexy chiseled jaw… fuck, squint a little and he looks like a terribly young Bruce Wayne. She was not thinking about Bruce, so she turned her attention to his friend, a dark-skinned slim boy with the physique of a dancer, a short afro, and beard. Very much the opposite of his friend's looks. But something inside her recoiled at the idea - as if any man reminded her too much of Bruce.

So instead, fifteen minutes later, she had a girl named Élodie pinned against a wall in the back of the club and her tongue in Élodie's mouth. Élodie had straight brown hair streaked with bright blue, a tongue ring, high cheekbones, a short leather skirt and, as Selina quickly discovered when she reached under the skirt to grope her ass, no underwear. Élodie had one hand stroking Selina's breasts and the other between Selina's legs; Selina regretted wearing pants when she could have already had Élodie's bare hand on her flesh.

They stumbled out of the club still kissing; Élodie's apartment was thankfully right around the corner.

Élodie was just what Selina needed. She felt too fragile tonight to take on some random man who might or might not know how to satisfy a woman. Élodie understood when Selina said her breasts were sore and tenderly kissed her nipples instead. Selina needed soft, smooth cheeks against her thighs as Élodie carefully ate her out and delicately slid a finger inside of her to search for her g-spot. She needed to come with her mouth pressed against Élodie's as they agonizingly rubbed their pussies together.

She was able to forget about Bruce for a few hours, until she dragged herself home in the early morning and collapsed into bed. She was almost asleep when something fucking poked her in the bladder. She jerked awake and felt underneath her for anything sharp, but there was nothing there. No, it was coming from inside her.

She couldn't sleep after that. She stared at the ceiling as this thing inside her twisted and turned.

It was active enough after that morning that the fear Selina felt drove away any remnants of arousal left.

---

Bruce knows he's dreaming, but that doesn't change anything.

He's making love to Selina in his bed at Wayne Manor. Selina is on her back, with her smooth creamy legs wrapped around him as he thrusts into her. He buries his face in her shoulder...he's so close.

He feels his orgasm start to overtake him, and he pulls his head back to see Selina's face, but it's not Selina - it's Miranda. He jerks back in surprise, but Miranda's thighs are locked around him and he can't free himself, and he's coming deep inside Miranda, gasping in pleasure despite everything.

"No," he says, but the orgasm just goes on and on and on and he can't stop himself from thrusting into her.

Then, he feels something thrusting into him. He looks down, and there's a knife sticking out of his ribs. Miranda smiles at him and strokes his cheek.

"I won't forget about you," she says, and she finally unwraps her thighs from around him. She shoves him off her onto the bed, and the blood stains his white sheets. He rips the knife out and clutches his side, feeling his life seep out through his fingertips.

Miranda stands over him. She pries his hand off his wound and puts hers over it instead. She absorbs the blood into her body through her hand, and her stomach swells until she's as big as Selina.

Bruce wakes with a gasp. It's the middle of the night, but he can feel Selina's eyes on him.

"Bruce?"

He ignores the question in her voice and gets out of bed.

"Why aren't you sleeping?" he says, sharper than he intends.

Selina sits up and turns on the bedside lamp.

" Your daughter decided that now was the perfect time to work on her handstand."

Bruce stares at her belly. He feels sick, the dream still swirling around him.

Everything clicks into place then.

"Fuck!" Bruce yells, and then he punches the wall a few times because there's nothing else he can do.

"What the fuck?" snaps Selina, wrapping her arms around her belly like she's worried that it's Bruce's next target.

Bruce manages another few fucks and punches before he sinks to the floor amidst pieces of drywall. His knuckles are bleeding, and they hurt. He's gone soft.

"Miranda," he says. He bangs his head against the wall.

How did he not see it before now?

"I think she was pregnant," Bruce says heavily. "I think she was carrying my child."

"What? Talia al Ghul? Since when were you -"

"After you left. I wanted to feel something. Once I found out who she was, I didn't understand why she had been so… persistent in trying to sleep with me. Now, it makes sense."

"Because she wanted you to get her pregnant? Why?"

"Ra's said I was his best. Who better than that to seed the next generation? And once I was dead, she could claim my estate for the child."

He shakes his head.

"She'd get the pleasure of knowing I would be rolling in my grave as she took the Wayne name, heir, and fortune and used them to tear down everything I fought for."

"You said you always used condoms."

"I did. She never wanted to. Always trying to talk me out of it or rush ahead to try to get me to forget. And now that I think about it, I think she may have fucked with the condoms."

"And none of this struck you as odd at the time?" snaps Selina.

"I was not thinking clearly," he says between clenched teeth. "You may recall why."

Selina looks away.

"At some point, she stopped coming to me. And now, seeing you pregnant, the way you hold yourself, the way you touch your stomach… she was doing that too. Not a lot, but I saw it."

"And you put this all together just now?"

"Yes."

Selina gets out of bed, gingerly tiptoes through the chunks of drywall, and sits in Bruce's lap. Bruce puts his arms around her and buries his face in her breasts. Selina rubs his shoulder.

"It doesn't matter. She's dead. I saw that truck go up in flames with her body in it."

"It does matter," says Bruce.

"Why?"

"The child…" Bruce doesn't know how to put into words the grief he feels for a child he didn't know about and never wanted.

"Bruce, this was the best possible outcome for that kid, if there even was one. Psycho mother, dead father, crazy heavy legacy."

When she says it like that, Bruce does feel a little better. Stroking her belly and feeling his daughter kick makes him feel a lot better. But it's not the only thing bothering him.

"What else?" says Selina, like she's reading his goddamn mind.

"I feel… I don't know. I knew she betrayed me, but this feels different. Personal."

"Talia raped you," Selina states quietly.

"No," he says.

"You would have agreed to have sex with her had you known the condoms had been tampered with?"

"No…"

"She had sex with you without your consent, you just didn't know it at the time."

"No one raped me," insists Bruce. But he's shaken. Whatever it was, it felt like a violation, like his body had been used against him.

Selina is quiet for a long time. "Okay," she finally says. "Okay." She climbs out of his lap and sits next to him. She pats her legs, and Bruce curls up next to her and puts his head on her lap. And if he quietly cries for awhile, Selina doesn't say anything about the tears dripping down her legs, just continues caressing his hair.

They sit on the floor together like that until the new day arrives.

---

Bruce's tears bring up some unpleasant memories for Selina as well.

During Bane's reign, she'd run into John Blake every so often. She was still mad at him for arresting her, but there were only so many people that could be counted on as allies in this time and she knew he was one of them. He was also the only other person who knew Bruce was - is, she insisted, but deep down she didn't believe that he was alive.

She didn't like Blake. He was a bit too young and earnest for her taste. But she did respect him, and she decided that he was kind of cute. Not nearly as big and ripped as Bruce, and she was taller than him in heels, but he had a slim, quiet strength to him.

They teamed up to take out a local gang terrorizing a nearby neighborhood. She usually alternated between feeling grief, fear, and, on the good days, numb, so the adrenaline felt good.

Their mission a success, she invited him up to her apartment. He had a nasty cut next to his eye that needed attention, and she had the necessary supplies.

She finished the sutures and covered the wound with a bandage.

"There you go," she said.

Blake touched the bandage. She smacked his hand.

"Don't touch!"

She smoothed the gauze that he disturbed.

Blake closed his eyes and briefly leaned his face against her hand. He opened his eyes, and gazed at her. Her hand was still on his face.

Move your hand , ordered her brain from far away.

His face was so close to hers. His pupils were dilated, and she let herself sink into the black, and somehow her head tilted forward and Blake was kissing her like a drowning man who had just been thrown a life preserver. She found herself responding.

His lips were so soft. Softer than Bruce's. Blake slid his tongue into her mouth, and it tasted different. She was so hungry.

Not Bruce , screamed her higher-functioning self.

Don't care , retorted her primal instincts.

Her fingers in his hair (shorter than Bruce's), his hands on her body (softer than Bruce's, except for the gun calluses), the stubble on his cheeks (Bruce was meticulous about being clean shaven).

They made their way across her cramped studio apartment, their mouths clinging to each other (she'd never made love to Bruce in her apartment). As they tumbled into her bed, a thought occured to Selina. She briefly pulled her mouth off Blake's to dig around in her nightstand and find a condom. She tossed it on top of the nightstand. Blake nodded and pulled her mouth back to his.

She'd stopped using birth control after she'd left Bruce (she'd never used a condom with Bruce). There was no reason to keep it up. These condoms were from a few years back. She could not imagine anything worse than bringing a child into this hellhole (especially not Bruce's).

Their hands made quick work of their clothing. She pushed Blake down and got on top. She took his penis into her hand (nice enough looking, but Bruce's had been downright gorgeous) - he wasn't hard enough for her to put on a condom yet, so she pumped his shaft with her hand until he was stiff enough. She unrolled the condom onto him and impaled herself on his cock.

Blake groaned in relief and closed his eyes. He didn't try to touch her breasts, which she was grateful for - they had been a bit sore lately. He tried to thrust upwards, but she pushed his hips back onto the bed. He got the message and stayed still while she moved up and down on his cock. She closed her eyes as well and focused on the feeling of Blake's penis going in and out of her. She leaned forward for more leverage, and gripped Blake's muscular upper arm and for a second, it felt like she was holding Bruce's arm.

"Bruce," she whispered. The name escaped her lips before she realized that she had been speaking.

Blake went still beneath her.

There was something on her face. She rubbed her eye, and her hand came away wet.

She realized that she was crying.

She unmounted Blake. She lay on her stomach next to him, spread her legs, and buried her face in the pillow.

"Just fuck me, Blake," she ordered him, her voice muffled by the pillow. She wanted him to go away, but she also wanted him to stay. She was so hungry...

"Selina…" said Blake. His voice sounded kind, but she cut him off before he could get any further.

She lifted her head from the pillows. Her face was momentarily absent of those pesky tears.

"Fuck me," she yelled at him.

Blake hesitated for a few seconds before rolling over and settling himself between her legs and entering her again. He started thrusting into her.

"Harder," she hissed.

He complied, pounding into her for as long as he could keep it up, which was only a few minutes, before he came.

She didn't come, and she didn't care.

She was grateful that he didn't collapse against her back, choosing to roll over and lie next to her instead.

Suddenly, a wave of nausea overtook her and she barely made it to the bathroom in time. And as quickly as the nausea appeared, it disappeared. Grief, she supposed; it had been happening on and off ever since…

Thankfully, Blake didn't comment.

She put on her panties and grabbed Bruce's old hoodie that she took home one night from his place. He'd fallen asleep and she was about to leave, but she was cold so she rooted around in his closet until she found this old thing in a corner. It was soft and warm and smelled like Bruce. She didn't think he'd miss it, so she put it on and went home. He hadn't brought it up, so she'd kept it. She wishes she'd kept the pearls too. This was all she has of his.

She shrugged the hoodie on and sat down on the couch.

Blake collected his clothes and headed into the bathroom. He came out a few minutes later fully dressed.

"Um," he said. "About…" he made a hand motion.

"The sex," Selina supplied helpfully.

Blake gave her a dirty look.

"Yes, that. Um…"

She didn't want to subject herself to him stumbling through his thoughts on the matter, so she took over.

"Just two people coming off an adrenaline high, nothing more."

He looked relieved. God, he was so young. Was she ever that young?

She got up and opened the door for him.

"See you around, Blake."

As he stepped through her doorway, he stopped and looked at her. Really looked at her.

"Are you okay?" he asked her.

"Are any of us okay ?"

He ignored her.

"Just… eat something, would you? You look like a fucking skeleton."

"Thanks, Mom," she snapped and slammed the door in his face.

---

Thirty-six hours before the bomb goes off, and Blake and Selina lay in her bed, listening to the gunshots and screams that permeate the early morning. Selina didn't like to remember that night - the paralyzing realization that no one was coming to save them and they would probably be ashes before the next sunset. The fear and dread of the past several months had finally hit hard, and she and Blake were holding each other, because neither of them had anyone else to cling to.

"What are you going to do with your last day?" asked Selina.

"The same thing I've been doing this whole time," said Blake.

"It's pointless."

"I'd rather die fighting."

"I'd rather die as a rich old woman who had a heart attack while fucking her twenty-year-old sidepiece."

Blake didn't appreciate her humor.

"You need to hold onto hope," he lectured her.

"What hope?" she spat at him.

Blake was silent for awhile.

"Maybe he's not dead."

He didn't bother specifying who; there was only one person he could be talking about.

"I saw Bane… break his back," she choked. Blake asked her several times about what she knows regarding Bruce's disappearance, but she hadn't wanted to discuss it - there was too much grief and shame for her to want to open that door to someone else. But with death on the horizon, she found that she wanted to talk.

"What happened?" whispered Blake, as if he was worried that speaking louder would scare her off.

"He came to me, asked me to take Batman to Bane. I let Bane know we were coming."

"You set him up," stated Blake.

"Yes," she said, the tears coming on suddenly. "I killed him. I didn't know." She tried to breathe, but it felt like she couldn't get in enough air.

"Oh my god, I didn't know," she gasped. She rolled away from Blake and turned her back to him as the sobs wracked through her. "I didn't know." Her stomach clenched and she clutched at it - she felt full and nauseous and like her intestines were trying to strangle themselves.

"What didn't you know? What Bane would do to him?"

"I didn't know… Bruce, Batman."

"When did you find out?" Blake asked.

"After it was too late."

"And if you had known?"

Selina cried and cried until the sun rose over the city's corpses.

If she quietly cries with Bruce's head in her lap, he doesn't say anything about the tears wetting his forehead, just continues holding onto her.

---

They spend the seventh month of Selina's pregnancy blissfully traipsing around Paris. But all good things must come to an end as this one does when Bruce contacts his doctors and asks them if they can do the additional surgery they had suggested to him and have him well on his way to recovery in time for the baby's arrival. They agree and set a date. But before they go to Switzerland, Bruce insists they visit Florence first.

"What's in Florence?"

"Unfinished business," is all Bruce will say.

The morning they're due to leave, Selina wakes up to find Bruce has shaved.

"Sorry," says Bruce, running his hand over his freshly-shaved cheeks. "I know you liked the goatee, but it was time."

She loved that goatee, yet she feels a surge of lust at the sight of his bare face, his soft cheeks, his lush lips. He looks so young.

"Bruce, I need se faire plaisir."

"Now?"

"Uh huh."

"We're going to miss the train."

"I can't get on a train in this state."

She sits down on the edge of the bed, pulls up her skirt, spreads her legs, and pushes aside her panties.

"Doctor's orders," she says. It's his fault, he created this monster and now he has to cater to it.

Bruce sighs. He grabs a pillow off the bed for his knees and settles down.

"This better tide you over until we get to Florence," he warns her before he puts his mouth where she needs it.

It's a nine-hour ride, and she's seven months pregnant, horny as fuck, has grown accustomed to riding his face whenever she feels like it, and his lips feel amazing against her pussy. Yeah right this is the last time before Florence.

"Definitely," she purrs.

"Don't mess up my hair," orders Bruce.

"Bruce, shut up, you're going to make us miss the train."

Bruce is laughing too hard to go down on her properly until she digs a stiletto into the small of his back and he gets down to business.

They don't miss the train, but only because she graciously allows Bruce to stop after two orgasms and the taxi honks for the fifth time.

---

They've spent three afternoons at the same café in Florence. It's cute, but Selina is over it after the second visit. When they're there, Bruce sits silently for an hour or two while she sips a decaf espresso and plays with her phone. Afterwards, he takes her for dinner, but refuses to discuss why they are there. She figures the café must hold some significance to him due to his parents, so she tries to be patient.

On the fourth afternoon, finally something happens. Bruce's eyes are fixed on something in the distance as usual, and then suddenly he's standing up. She turns her head to see Alfred approaching their table.

"Please tell me he knew you were alive," she says. Bruce gives her a little nod and she relaxes a bit - this significantly reduces the odds of them making a scene.

Alfred makes it to their table and locks eyes with Bruce.

"Alfred," says Bruce cautiously.

"Master Wayne," says Alfred. He sounds choked up - that is, until he notices Selina is there, and his face hardens a touch.

Selina drums her fingers against the table so Alfred can't miss her big-ass ring. No, she's not a petty bitch, why would anyone think that?

"I see congratulations are in order," Alfred says stiffly.

"Don't sound so dismayed, Alfred," says Bruce.

"I don't appreciate you putting words into my mouth, Master Wayne," sniffs Alfred.

Selina senses a fight brewing, and while she'd love to see Alfred get taken down a notch, that's not what Bruce needs right now, so she takes one for the team: She pushes her chair away from the table and gets up.

Alfred's eyes practically pop out of his head. There, that ought to get them back on the right track.

"I'm going to the ladies' room," says Selina, and she saunters off to watch from a distance. Looks like Alfred is crying, and now Bruce is crying too? And here comes the hugging. So much for that stiff British upper lip.

She figures ten minutes should be enough to get it out of their systems, and by the time she gets back, they're sitting down. Bruce's eyes are red and Alfred is dabbing at his with a handkerchief, but the waterworks are off.

Alfred looks at her hungrily as she she sits down, and she can guess what he wants. Bruce owes her big time.

"Yes, you can feel her," she sighs, and she takes Alfred's hand and presses it against the last known kick zone. The baby quickly obliges.

Alfred's hand is soft and cool. She holds his hand in place until the baby gets tired of that spot and goes to play kickball with her kidneys.

She lets go out his hand and he withdraws it.

"Thank you, Ms. Kyle," he says, but he won't meet her eyes.

---

Bruce takes them to dinner to catch up properly. After they order, Alfred asks about their immediate plans.

"We're flying to Switzerland in two days," says Bruce.

"Taking in the continent before the baby arrives?"

"I wish," says Bruce. "But no, I'm due for surgery. I'm trying to get that done before the baby arrives."

"Surgery, sir?" asks Alfred.

"On my back and my knees."

"Oh," says Alfred.

"I don't want to be in pain anymore," Bruce says softly.

Selina catches Alfred dabbing his eyes while the waiter serves the next course.

Later, when Bruce gets up to use the bathroom, Alfred pounces on her.

"Years, Ms. Kyle. Years I spent trying to get that man to do something about the pain. But he wouldn't. Wouldn't even take a bloody pill. And here you have him getting surgery done."

She wants to protest that she hasn't done anything at all; Bruce had made up his mind to do this even before he'd come to Paris.

"I know we haven't gotten off on the right foot," Alfred continues, "and I'm sorry about that. I've misjudged you, Ms. Kyle. Whatever you are doing, keep doing it."

"Okay," says Selina, not quite sure how to handle this sudden turn in conversation. "Call me Selina, would you?"

"Oh, no," says Alfred. "I think I'd rather start calling you Missus Wayne early."

He picks up her hands and kisses them.

"Thank you," he says. "Thank you for bringing Bruce back to me."

He releases her hands, and Selina awkwardly pats his arm.

When Bruce comes back to the table, Alfred turns to him.

"I will be accompanying you and the missus to Switzerland," he informs Bruce.

"Alfred, it's fine, really," says Bruce, but Alfred won't hear of it.

"You're going to need help while you recover from surgery, and if you don't mind me saying so, sir, your missus isn't at her peak capacity right now to take care of you. And once the baby comes, you'll need all the help you can get." Alfred's tone leaves no room for questions.

Bruce shrugs. "Fine," he says. "Cut your vacation short."

"I have had enough vacation to last a lifetime, Master Wayne."

"Missus?" asks Bruce as they've heading back to their hotel.

"I don't know, he suddenly decided he liked me while you were in the bathroom."

"Good call on his part," says Bruce dryly.

---

Right before the three of them head into the hospital, Bruce makes a request.

"Don't let them drug me up too hard," says Bruce.

"They'll drug you up as much as they see fit," says Selina, annoyed at his resistance to painkillers.

"What if I say something about Batman?" says Bruce.

Oh. She can appreciate that concern.

"I'll be at your side, Master Wayne," says Alfred. "If you start prattling on about Batman, I'll take care of it."

"By smothering him with a pillow?" suggests Selina.

"That's one way to deal with it," says Alfred.

"You don't have to plot my murder in front of me," says Bruce.

Selina flashes him a smirk and puts her arm through his.

"It's no fun doing it behind your back," she says. Bruce smiles, and she leads him into the building.

---

Seeing Bruce after surgery is awful. The doctors let her sit with him as he drifts back to consciousness after surgery. Once he's mostly awake, they ask her to leave the room so they can assess him, but she can still hear him scream.

By the time they let her back in, he's so doped up that he calls her Rachel and asks her to run away with him.

One of the nurses sees the look on her face and takes her aside.

"You cannot take to heart anything he says to you while he is drugged," says the nurse. "He is not himself."

"Rachel was his ex," Selina says heavily. "The one who got away," she says because she doesn't want to get into the details.

The nurse pats her on the shoulder. "I saw how he looks at you. I don't think you have anything to worry about."

When she goes back into the room, Bruce tries to tell her about aliens abducting him while he attended MIT. She feels better about the Rachel thing.

They keep him drugged to the gills and in a full body brace for a week. Alfred barely leaves his side. Selina would glue herself to his side as well, but Alfred takes to shoving her out and locking Bruce's hospital room door at night and insisting she go sleep in a real bed.

Alfred doesn't let anyone touch Bruce unless it's to do something he cannot do himself, which means he's changing bedpans and sponge bathing Bruce. Selina is impressed by both his devotion and stamina. Even if she wasn't eight months pregnant, she'd leave the bedpans for someone else to deal with.

By the time they start significantly reducing the amount of painkillers he's on, his beard has grown in. "You got your beard," says Bruce one day when he's mostly lucid.

Alfred has been doing what he can to keep Bruce looking decent, trimming his beard and shaving his neck and cheeks. She'd be falling over herself enjoying it if he didn't look so pale and ill underneath.

"Is this what it takes to get you to grow one? Tying you to a bed?" She strokes his cheek, and Bruce kisses her palm.

Selina can tell it'll be a magnificent beard once Bruce is recovered enough to care for himself.

"Promise me you'll keep it long enough for me to feel it on my cunt," she says in his ear.

Bruce groans. "Don't say stuff like that when I can't do anything about it."

"Oh, but I can," she says, and she snakes her hand under the blanket covering his lower body.

"Selina," he hisses warningly.

"What?" she says innocently, sliding her hand into his underpants.

"I haven't showered in weeks, someone might -" he stops talking once she wraps her hand around his cock.

"Where's your sense of adventure?"

"With that fucking catheter, probably." They took the catheter out a few days ago.

She pumps his shaft a few times and he moans softly.

"You want me to stop?"

"No…"

"The doctor said you need this."

"I'll bet that's not what he said."

"You never let that stop you." She tightens her grip. He bites his fist to try to keep quiet.

"Hurry up before Alfred comes back," he manages.

"I'll do what I want. Payback's a bitch, Wayne."

She never calls him just Wayne. The way his cock hardens, she can tell he likes it.

She pulls the blanket and his pants down to properly tend to him. It doesn't take much to push him over the edge given how he hasn't jerked off in weeks. He comes on his stomach, panting harder than he should given the amount of exertion.

She's just finished cleaning him up when Alfred comes back, opening the door without knocking and strolling back in.

"I brought you some newspapers if you're interested in catching up with the world," says Alfred, but Bruce shakes his head and closes his eyes. He's out cold within minutes.

Alfred looks at Bruce's flushed cheeks and the wadded-up towel under the bed, and puts two and two together.

"Oh," is all he says, and after that, he knocks and waits a good minute before he comes into the room.

---

Before she knows it, the baby's coming.

"Push," says the midwife.

"No," says Selina, a sudden wave of panic overtaking her.

"Why not?" says Bruce. He's sitting in a chair next to her bed - no more braces, no more immobilization, no more heavy painkillers. The doctors had promised that he'd be well on his way to being recovered before the baby came, and they'd kept their promise.

"I want her to stay in me. She's safe there. Once she comes out, someone can take her away from us."

"Welcome to being a parent," says the midwife. "It's scary."

"We've faced scarier things together," says Bruce, "and I think we did okay."

Selina remembers the look on Bane's face right before she blasted the fuck out of him. She can't help but smile even in the midst of the pain and fear.

"She's coming out whether you like it or not," says the midwife. "I suggest you help her along and push."

"And between the two of us teaching her? I think she'll be able to take care of herself."

"No vigilante training," she gasps after the next contraction.

"No pickpocketing instruction," Bruce shoots back.

The midwife looks confused as hell.

"If she's anything like us, she's probably dying to get out of there and stretch her legs properly."

That sounds accurate given all the uterine acrobatics.

"So hurry up," says Bruce, kissing her sweaty forehead. "You're delaying Helena's dramatic entrance."

It hadn't taken them long to settle on a name. Helena for Selina's mother, Martha for Bruce's. They'd argued about which name should go first, but Selina won that one easily by pointing out that Martha was a bit old-fashioned for a twenty-first century girl.

"Push," says the midwife.

"Selina Kyle, you can do this," says Bruce. He leans down and whispers in her ear. "You took on Batman and made him your bitch. You can do this."

Selina loves him so much.

"Yes," says Selina. "Yes, I can."

And she does.