Chapter 24
Title: Young Blood 2/3
Fandom: Gotham FOX
Pairing: Bruce/Selina
Rating: T/YA
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Selina
The long dark hall outside the study was chilly enough to cause goosebumps beneath the soft sweater Selina wore, but she ignored the sensation as she faced the large double doors. It was one of the two sets that opened up beside the fireplace and she knew that there was only a one in three chance that the current occupant would likely being facing her approach. Judging from the golden light that crept along her toe line, the room was decently lit likely killing the person's night vision and darkness, always her greatest ally, had cloaked her in shadows. But that didn't stop her ducking her head from eye level as she turned the doorknob.
The well-oiled hinges made no sound as she slowly eased the ancient wooden door open. Despite the hour, the fireplace was burning high its bright flames tinting everything in the study with a palette of golds and browns. Including the young man seated not so regally in the center of his couch.
He was hunched forward his thin navy robe left unbelted and pushed to either side of his dark pajama clad knees as he studied something spread open on the coffee table. Even bent, his shorter hair stayed perfectly in place. The haircut, that she had pointed out he needed, still left him looking as if he had traveled from a different century, but her favorite stubborn lock no longer fell across his brow robbing her of the opportunity to push it back into place.
Pushing down her disappointment she followed the thin black cords that dangled from his ears to the small black box they were connected to and the neat stack of oversized leather books beneath it. Curiosity pricked her senses as she recognized the thick spines and gold-lettering.
She could not quite remember when he would have had the time to go back and get the illusive photo-albums, but then again, she and Bruce didn't spend every waking moment together either. If they had, being two creatures so accustomed to their own forms of isolation, they would have eventually driven each other insane, and the overcrowded tabletop was probably a good example of that.
Neither she nor Bruce were exactly in the habit of cleaning up after themselves and the remains of their evening were littered across the coffee table. Two books he had chosen and her deck of cards still lay forgotten and unused beside the board game that had ended with Bruce turning ten shades of red and almost forfeiting.
In hindsight, she still stuck with her decision to play her last two letter tiles. It hadn't been her fault that Bruce had refused to bend the rules and allow her to use the alternate spelling to sucks, or that as she had so flippantly tried to explain to him, that the rules stated that she had to get rid of those S and X tiles somehow.
In the end, Bruce had soldiered on and proved he didn't talk like a dictionary for nothing. He had squarely crushed her, but the color that had spread from the curve of his cheeks to the dip in his throat had been a victory of her own making. It wasn't something she was particularly proud of but she could admit it to herself, getting Bruce flustered, watching his eyes widen and his cheeks color, was one of the few things that gave her true enjoyment.
Now, studying the stoic face bent over pages filled with motionless memories, there wasn't even the tiniest hint of a blush.
She wasn't surprised, Bruce brooding wasn't exactly a rare occurrence, but she struggled to understand what could possibly be among those pages that would have put a crease in his brow.
True she had never met his parents, had never had any more than a glimpse of what Wayne family life had been like, but she was positive that there been warmth there. There had to have been. Because it had been laughter, genuine laughter, his laughter that had stopped her climb up a rain soaked fire-escape, had made her pause and watch a family of three.
She had seen blueblood families before, strolling through the park with their overworked nannies or flitting from one exclusive party to the next. And they came in all different shapes and sizes, but there was always a fog of coldness surrounding them, a distinct lack of warmth in the interaction, an untouchable quality that only reminded her that she was and always would be better off on her own.
She knew Bruce couldn't have come from that kind of environment. The snapshot she had of his family in that alley, before all hell had broken loose, was filled with laughter and affection and an easy banter that had touched something inside her more than she liked.
And unlike other heirs and beneficiaries she had seen he had felt his loss deeply. Too deeply. That night was like a cut that had been stitched but hadn't healed and years later he still felt it.
The pain, the loss, the guilt, they were melded together inside him and he carried them like an albatross around his thin neck.
But that really wasn't her business. Everyone, even child-billionaires, deserved their privacy and if Bruce needed to lock himself away to sort through whatever it was that was keeping him up then that was on him.
And judging by the creases around his dark eyes, he needed to lock himself away.
Resigned to finishing her trip to the kitchen, Selina started to shut the door when she saw it. It wasn't a real smile, more like a distant relative or possibly an ancient ancestor of a smile, but the signs were there. The smallest tick of his doll lips as he gazed down at something.
Despite her personal belief that everyone deserved their privacy or at least the ability to keep their secrets, Selina had very few qualms about actually spying on people. Like busting a safe, it was just another aspect of her job that she just happened to be quite good at it.
In most line of work, secrets were just another form of currency and like everything else she dealt in the bigger, the darker, the rarer, the secret the more it was worth. She wasn't voyeuristic per say, she got little enjoyment from watching humans not at their best, but money was money, and so she watched and collected her information with something a little less than apathy.
But watching that small smile that brightened his face, made something inside her twist. It made her, a girl who had broken into more homes than she could count, for once feel like an intruder.
Letting out a breath, she was just stepping back, her tread no more than a whisper on the floor, when his head shot up, his dark eyes meeting her own. There were no signs of surprise on his face, no astonishment or embarrassment. He looked as if seeing her wandering around his home in the middle of the night was a perfectly normal occurrence, or at least one that he welcomed.
The idea that he had caught her or worse that he had always been aware of her presence provoked a minor feeling of annoyance inside her, but the absence of questions in his dark eyes soothed the bumps in her ruffled pride. She didn't like questions and appreciated his lack of, 'Can't sleeps?' or 'What's wrongs?'
No, the only sound in the room was the familiar pop and crackle of the fireplace, as she abandoned the threshold and the useless shadows it had provided. An apologetic smile tugged at her lips as Bruce gave her a welcoming glance and pulled one of the wires free from his ear.
Silent conversations were nothing new to them and she knew that this was as much of an invitation as she was likely to get.
Warmth and the comforting scent of burning pine enveloped her as she passed the mouth of the fireplace, her shadow looming over the room for a moment. Bruce moved as if he wanted to shut the book in front of him, his long fingers holding half the pages ajar but he let them fall open and abandoned his hunched position. Almost as if on instinct he slid over slightly giving her the cushion closer to the fire as she rounded the edge of the table.
She could feel his gaze on her as she approached and could hear the soft muffled sounds of what could only be music blaring through the small black earpiece he had left dangling. It hadn't been often, but she'd seen him wearing them before, when he was alone pouring over schoolwork or the times she had watched him trying to hone his technique with the punching bag, but she had never thought to ask him what it was or what he had needed it for.
"What're you listening to?" she asked, plopping down onto the overstuffed couch.
"Grieg," he answered, his tone as usual matter-of-fact as he gave her a sidelong glance.
Selina almost snorted at his reply but merely shook her head as she leaned into the backrest returning his perusal.
But Bruce only shrugged a shoulder at her reaction. "Here," he said, holding the small black piece out and urging her to take it.
Giving the earpiece a speculative glance, Selina only blinked before she took the tip he was offering. Rolling her eyes, she mimicked his gesture and slipped the small device into her ear. Whining trumpets and a heavy bass drum filled her ear and immediately Selina had the urge to pull it free, but resisted. If Bruce could listen to this crap, obnoxious instruments with no lyrics, at deafening volumes than so could she.
It wasn't half bad, a little over-the-top, but something she thought maybe she could grow to appreciate one day, but today was not that day. She gritted her teeth as the crescendo—a term Bruce had explained to her—nearly rattled her eardrum. Yanking the small earpiece from her ear, she worked her jaw noticeably.
"That's loud," she said, stretching her jaw to make her point as she handed him back his earpiece.
He chuckled softly. "It's from a play," he replied, turning it off and thoughtlessly tossing both earpieces onto the stack of photo-albums.
"Yeah," she said, "I can tell it was sounded very dramatic."
"It's actually a satire," he said, faintly smiling like someone who would laugh at their own joke. "It's like a comedy," he explained. "It's supposed to pose the question: What is the difference between man and monster?"
Selina couldn't contain her scoff, "Not much if you ask me."
Questioning eyes looked back at her, but she turned her head pulling the cuffs of her sweater over the chill still left in her fingers, "So, what's the answer?" she asked, drawing her knees up. "What's the difference between a man and a monster."
"According to Henrik Ibsen," he answered, "Man believes 'to thyself be true."
"And monsters," she asked, watching his profile. "What do they believe?"
"'Be true to yourself and to hell with the world,'" he answered, his voice unusually grim.
At his words, said so straightforward and with such finality, something cold and combative began swirling inside her.
"So," she drawled, "what you're saying is putting yourself first makes you a monster."
Bruce inhaled sharply, as if he was choosing his words as carefully as if he was defusing a bomb. "I don't think any conclusion is that easy. Too many factors and variables have to be taken into account before making such a broad strokes opinion."
That cold sensation that had begun stirring inside her turned absolutely icy. "Just answer the question, Bruce," she replied, her words as frozen as she felt.
"Generally, yes," he admitted. "Caring for others is what separates us from our primordial selves."
The mirthless laugh that bubbled up from her throat sounded foreign even to her own ears. "Well, that's pretty damn easy to say around the giant silver spoon sticking out of your mouth," she snapped, letting her feet fall to the floor.
"Selina, I wasn't- "
"Let me ask you a question Bruce," she interrupted, fully turning on her cushion to face him. "Do you think we want to grow up and be thieves and hookers and junkies and runners? Do you? You think that's what we want, what we aspire to be? Because we couldn't possibly wanna be anything else huh."
"Of course not," he said, the thin line between his brows more pronounced than she had ever seen it.
Selina didn't attempt to hold back the sneer that she knew distorted her face. Hell, if Bruce thought that thieving made her a monster, what would he think if ever found out what she had really done that night. He'd likely never speak to her again.
But that was a risk she was willing to take, because she wouldn't take back what she had done. She couldn't. She was only alive because of what she had been willing to do, only breathing because of a combination of luck and ruthlessness. And no one had the right to judge her for it. Not even Bruce Wayne.
Her heavy breath slid through her clenched teeth as she met his eye, "Fair warning B," she said, fighting the urge to poke him in the chest. "I have and I will do whatever it takes to survive and I'm not going to let you or anyone else make me feel like a monster for that," she declared, her chest suddenly heaving.
Dark eyes softened as the corners of his mouth turned down, "You're not a monster, Selina."
"Yeah, I know that," she bit out, but the trembling of her bottom lip nearly unmasked her.
This wasn't her, she didn't get her feelings hurt over something as dull as words. She didn't get her feelings hurt period. In the seventeen years, she had been on this Earth, she had been called a lot worse by people a lot more dangerous than Bruce Wayne, so why did her throat feel as if it was slowly squeezing shut.
"Do you?" he asked, and she nearly jumped as his calloused hand cupped the balled fist on her knee.
Despite everything that had happened between them, her first instinct was still to draw away from him and the irritation rolling around in her gut didn't make her choices any easier.
Letting out a breath, she unfurled her fist and let him twine his fingers through her own.
"You're right," he admitted, dragging his calloused thumb over her bare knuckle. "My parents, the money… It makes it entirely too simple for me to make snap judgments."
She opened her mouth, a comment on the tip of her tongue, but Bruce lightly squeezed her hand.
"Please let me finish," he pleaded.
In answer, she hesitantly pursed her lips, lifting her eyebrows to encourage him.
Sighing, he continued, "I can admit I'm ignorant when it comes to how ninety percent of the world lives, but you're wrong if you think I am too naïve to understand that there is a difference between survival and cruelty or hunger and greed. I'm not blind or immune to other people's suffering just because of my last name."
The knot in her throat loosened at his words and Selina exhaled a shaky breath, squeezing his hand in return.
"I'm not going to apologize for how I survive Bruce," she confessed, glancing down at their joined hands.
"I wasn't asking you to," he replied. "But I'm also not going to apologize for how I live either, or…" he paused, his fingers tightening against her own. "Believing that you're capable of a lot more than just surviving."
His voice was so honest, so serious, it began to unwind that ball of tension in her stomach. No, not unwinding it, whirling with it, snaking against it, making it something else altogether. Heat swept up her back and across her face. He had to know what he did to her when he said things like that, when he looked at her like that. Didn't he?
Maybe he didn't. Maybe he was completely oblivious to the words that came tumbling out his mouth. Words that had the tendency to cut just often as they healed. But whether they were harsh opinions or simple statements, they always had one thing in common. They were all honest.
Staring down at their entwined hands, she felt it again, that sudden and swift need to flee or do something very stupid, the same one she had felt that night in the solarium when she had grazed her fingertips along all his sharp angles or that afternoon inside his mother's closet when the world had seemed to fade away into nothing but him and her. But those were moments of foolishness and forgetfulness, because the world still existed and she needed to remember that it always came back.
Gulping against the sudden thoughts running through her mind, Selina ignored the bewilderment on his dark features as she disentangled her fingers. Clearing her throat and trying desperately to hide the heat that had crept into her cheeks, she quickly scanned the room.
"Anyway," she started, sitting forward and discreetly wiping the sweat that had formed in one palm as she gestured to the small tape player with the other. "I'm surprised you have something so normal, I would've bet you had one of those old timey record players."
"What?" he asked. His confusion at the abrupt change in subject pronounced in his perfectly groomed brows.
"A record player," she insisted. "You know, the kind with the big horn."
"A phonograph?" he asked, his dark eyes not moving from her face.
"I guess," she replied, letting her gaze roam around the room. "I just thought you'd have one. Your house is creepy like that."
Bruce looked back at her the slight amusement in his face fading as he understood her implication, "My house is not haunted Selina."
She lifted a single shoulder, not particularly interested in her side of their perpetual argument. "You sure about that B," she asked. "You don't get this much money without picking up a few ghosts."
"But I think you are right," he continued, leaning forward and matching her posture. "Not about the ghosts," he stated quickly. "But at some point, there must have been some form of sound system in place."
She lifted a brow in curiosity.
"When this was my father's study," he continued, encouraged by her interest. "When he needed time to think or make a big decision sometimes he would lock himself in here and listen to music.
"I just- I haven't found the source yet," he admitted, as if they mystery truly perplexed him.
"I didn't even know you were looking," she said, nonchalantly as she glanced down at the glossy pages of the opened album.
"I don't tell you everything," he said, his voice as close to suggestive as Selina had ever heard it.
"Oh, of course," she crooned. "How could I forget how mysterious you are," she said, sarcasm dripping from her words as she gave him a wry smile. "Speaking of…" she drawled, reaching out to grab the edge of the closest album. "What kind of blackmail material have you been hiding in these?"
Selina didn't know much about photography. The use of light and shadow, foreground and background meant nothing to her, but in the few album pages she had seen it had appeared Bruce's mother had really had a gift. Even if her portfolio had been filled with only one subject and that subject happened to be a dark-haired boy with an arrogant chin.
When Bruce had told her that his mother had been ruthless with her camera, he had not been exaggerating. Pages and pages were filled with pictures of him in every possible stage of his life.
There was a shot of him, grin shy one baby tooth, and his father bundled in puffy coats with fur line hoods as a giant mountain loomed behind them. Another of him sitting in his mother's lap her thin arms wrapped tightly around him as they gazed from a window seat at the skyline of some foreign city.
There were pictures of him playing in the sand on private beaches and at the wheel of a windswept boat, hiking between redwood trees and walking beside neon-lit skyscrapers. Summers, winters, weddings and birthdays and every holiday in between swept past in a blur of glossy color as she turned another page.
She had known Bruce had had money. She had known that he had had love. But she hadn't known that Bruce's life hadn't just been good it had been freaking amazing.
She had never given it much thought. Her childhood had been severed in a series of moments, like a serrated blade slowly slicing through a piece of thick twine, but his had been cut cleanly, like a stick of butter beneath a meat cleaver. Her memories were muddled and suspect and lost to time, but his were always here, bright and colorful evidence of a great life.
Maybe it was the late hour, the lulling warmth, the flood of happy family memories combined with sleep deprivation, but something pulled the next words from of her mouth, "Does it get any better?" she asked, before regretting the question immediately.
"Sorry, that was a stupid question," she said. "Of course, it doesn't."
Bruce looked up at her from the picture he was examining. "What do you mean?"
"Losing your parents," she started, feeling something rise in the back of her throat. "It didn't get any better for me and my ma took off a long freaking time ago."
"And your father," he asked, cautiously.
She snorted, "Your guess is as good as mine."
Bruce nodded his head in understanding, but it didn't stop the warmth that had begun blooming in her cheeks at the admission. Where she came from illegitimacy, absent parents, it wasn't uncommon, but she felt the odd need to explain it to him anyway.
"All my paperwork, even my birth certificate, just said 'father unknown,'" she said, trying to keep her voice level. "But I think my mom knew, she just…" she broke her thought on a sigh, the right words escaping her at the moment. "She probably had her reasons."
"Anyway," she breathed, turning a new page just to occupy her hands and her mind. "I can barely remember my Ma, so I can't imagine what it's like for you."
He shrugged. "Somedays are worse than others," he admitted, studying the page she had revealed. "And Alfred, he tries but… It's not the same.
Selina gave him another questioning look.
"It's hard to explain," he continued, "Because the worst times aren't even birthdays or holidays or anniversaries or anything like that. It's the times that I forget that their gone, like that odd moment before you wake up or when something good happens and my first thought is to go and tell them."
Selina nodded her head less in agreement than in understanding. "Wait," she said, putting her hand on the forearm he had braced on his thigh. "Good things, actually happen to you?" she asked, her voice both flippant and skeptical.
"Occasionally," he answered, matching her tone as his gaze drifted to the fingers she had lightly curled around his arm.
"Really," she asked. "Name one?"
"Meeting you," he answered.
Selina would have loved to scoff at such a line, but the earnestness in his voice was so genuine, she couldn't resist the urge to look away as she withdrew her hand. Unseeing, she focused on the photo-album still laying open on the coffee table. She could still fill his gaze, that gentle caress looking for some kind of reaction to his admission.
Damn it. When he said things like that, it roused to life those butterflies in her belly, their tiny wings fanning the heat in her face back to a roaring flame. But she couldn't react. She had no trained response, no planned come back to such caring, such honesty, such lo-
Her mind cutoff that avenue of thought. No, she couldn't think of Bruce like that. If he knew her, if he really knew her, there was no way in hell he would ever feel anything close to that.
No, he deserved better. He deserved a lot better than two dead parents, a certifiable butler for a guardian and some no name thief for a friend. He deserved the life he had been born into, maybe not the one filled with black ties and champagne flutes, but the one full of warm smiles and open affection. He deserved the life that had been caught on these pages.
Pushing down the sudden feelings of sadness that swept through her, Selina turned the page not even feeling the thick paper as she laid it flat.
Catching the gasp in her throat, feelings of self-pity fleeing her, everything inside Selina froze as she looked at the small four by six photograph that stared back up at her.
It lacked the candid atmosphere of all the other pictures. No, it was formal, so formal actually, that Selina was surprised that it hadn't been made into an oil painting and hung along with the rest of the ancient art that lined their halls. But it wasn't a Wayne ancestor staring back up at her from the photo, but a small boy. A small boy looking angrier than any toddler had the right to be.
Selina bit into her lip as she gazed down at the grumpy toddler. That was the Bruce Wayne she knew, the same scowl, the same knit in his brow, the same...
With the quickness and dexterity that only a true thief could possess, she quickly slipped the picture free from the page. "How, B?" she asked, holding the picture up for his inspection. "How?"
"How what?" he asked, glancing down at the picture she held between them.
"How do you have the exact same haircut?" she burst out, unable to hold her laughter at bay anymore.
Selina wrapped her free arm around her stomach as she glanced back down at the picture in her hand. Thick black brows and equally dark hair parted severely to the side looked absolutely ridiculous on the toddler-sized Bruce. What had his parents been thinking? On the other hand, what baby had that much hair?
Between what she knew could only be described as tear-inducing laughter, she managed to squeak out, "You look like a middle-aged bank-teller."
"That seems oddly specific," he answered and judging by the glare he was giving her, Bruce found nothing funny about her humorous observations.
"Just call 'em, like I see 'em, sport," she replied.
He only sighed in response to her goading, "That's enough, Selina," he said, moving for the photo and failing as she pulled it from his reach. "You've had your fun, now give it back," he said, grabbing for it.
Reflexively Selina moved the picture out of his reach, hiding it behind her back as she brought her chin up to meet the fierce glower he was sending in her direction.
"Oh B," she chuckled, planting her good foot onto the cushion and sliding up the backrest, "You know I can't make it that easy."
"Selina," he answered, his voice void of any humor.
"If you want it," she continued, not in the slightest bit intimidated by his warning. "Then you're going to have to come and get it," she finished, turning on the headrest and hopping to the floor.
Turning, she couldn't hide her smug grin as Bruce stared back at her, every line in his young face unamused by her challenge. It wasn't hard to read that he had no intention of lowering himself to play her games.
"Fine," he snapped, turning in his seat to face her, his eyes lowering to his white-knuckled hands on the headrest. "Keep it."
Stunned by the ease in his surrender, Selina stepped forward. Damn, how was she supposed to know he was going to get so upset over one stupid picture. Disappointment had almost settled in her gut, when she saw the slight twitch in his fingers. The small tell was the only warning she got, and she jumped away, her socks slipping against the floor, as Bruce lunged for her and caught nothing but air.
Ignoring her misstep and hoping Bruce had been too busy with his own embarrassment to have noticed, she waved the four-by-six out of his reach. "You're telegraphing," she mocked.
For one moment as she read the intent in his eyes, Selina thought that he might actually abandon all of his well-bred manners and follow her over.
"And you're being childish," he sneered, retreating to his feet.
She only smiled in return, the smile that never failed to have him narrowing his long-lashed eyes in her direction and he didn't disappoint.
For one moment, they just stared at each other, two players caught in a duel, eagerly waiting for their opponent to make their move. For all of the times that Selina had caught Bruce practicing she had never really sparred with him before. Yes, they had had the occasional awkward collision, an accidental tumble here or there, but she had never needed to read him. Not physically, at least.
"It's the middle of the night, Selina," he said, breaking through her observations as he took a couple of calculated steps backward, "I'm not going to chase you."
"Sure, you won't," she argued, watching him as she took her own calculated steps along the opposite length of the couch.
The fire was warm against her back as she continued to mirror Bruce's slow progress and slid herself between the armrest and the fire place. Bruce stood at his own end, his thin pink lips flattened in answer. But despite his impressive scowl, he couldn't quite strike the amusement from his eyes.
She wasn't sure who was imitating whom as she stopped and fully-faced Bruce the middle of the thick couch once again between them, "You gonna keep stalking me B, or you actually gonna do something."
He placed both of his long-fingered hands on the headrest. "By all appearances you have the hostage, so you have the upper hand," he said. "My only options are to negotiate or…" His voice trailed off.
"Or what?" she asked.
"Or attack," he answered, dryly.
At his words, Selina feinted left before turning on the ball of her foot and heading right and Bruce did not let her down as he took her bait rounding the end of the couch before he realized his mistake. Backlit by the fire, he wasn't breathing hard, but Selina could see the rise and fall of his chest, and the color that had come into his cheeks.
Even when he didn't want to, though she doubted the sincerity in his objection, when it came to a challenge, not matter how stupid, Bruce just couldn't help himself.
"You know, I think I've seen that same scowl before," she teased, holding the picture of him up for examination. "Yep, there it is."
She could only describe his answer as annoyed bordering on enraged. Laughing, she mounted her end of the couch, her toes digging into the armrest as she secured her balance.
From her new position, she could study her options and she was quickly aware that they were many. On this side of the study, there was plenty of open space and she knew she could easily elude him and expand her territory. She took a quick glance at the cluttered coffee table, she would have to avoid the board and the photo-albums, but she could be could be clear across the room before Bruce even knew what she was about-
"Who's telegraphing now?" Bruce asked, interrupting her plans.
Her eyes met his as he brought his chin up. It was such an arrogant gesture she had to refrain from retrieving the throw pillow at her feet and throwing it at his smug head.
Exaggerating an aborted lunge, Selina laughed as Bruce's shoulders dropped and he once again fell for her ploy.
"Still you, kid," she taunted.
Grey eyes narrowed on her as he took a cautious step back, his long legs coming up even with the opposite arm rest.
"Alfred's right," he declared, running a hand along the leather stitching of the head rest. "You are a cheeky little minx."
She had to resist throwing back her head as she snorted, "Is that all the old man's gotta say?"
"Not even close," he replied.
At the unfamiliar challenging note in his voice, Selina felt the side of her mouth tilt up, "I'm all ears."
As if answering her invitation, both of Bruce's hands came down to rest against the armrest. "Well, he doesn't think you're a particularly nice girl," he said, dryly.
"Yeah," she questioned, touching her chin in thought. "And if I remember correctly, neither do you," she accused, pointing a finger in his direction.
He shrugged a shoulder, ignoring her accusation as he recounted, "He believes you're prone to skullduggery."
"Skullduggery?" she asked, in mock disbelief. "Now, you're just making up words."
"He thinks your selfish," he continued, as if she hadn't said anything.
"That's fair," she answered, sucking on a canine.
"Amoral."
Rolling her eyes, she placed both hands on her hips, "You're breaking my heart."
"And that all you really need in life is a firm hand," he said matter-of-factly, his arms flexing beneath the sleeves of his robe as his knuckles went white against the armrest. "I believe his exact words were, 'all that bird needs is a strong man to take her over his knee- "
For one moment, Selina's ears were filled with a slight buzzing sound as if there was a hive of bees hidden somewhere in the room. Distantly she knew her eyes had grown wide and that the close-lipped smile that contorted her face probably looked on the crazy side of deranged, but she didn't quite care as a familiar anger boiled up and began to slide through her consciousness.
Darkness hovered at the edges of her vision as sheer anger forced her loose knees to straighten, "Screw that son of a bitch! I'd like to see his limey chauvinistic ass try- "
Selina had more words to her threat. She knew she did. But the brief appearance of Bruce's tactless smirk confused her, fleecing her of thought, as she felt the world beneath her shift.
It took her mind only half a moment to absorb and digest what had happened. Bruce had pushed his end of the couch.
She was vaguely aware of this fact as her arms reflexively swung out to balance herself. For a fraction of a second, she thought she was going to keep her feet, that her low center of gravity and her natural gift for balance could combat Bruce's cleverness, but neither bested the worst socks in the world.
She wasn't even allowed the feel of her toes slipping free, just the sudden weightlessness of flight and left with no other choices but to let gravity pull her face down onto the overstuffed couch.
Still stunned by Bruce's actions, the feel of a warm body crashing into her own drew a surprise squeal from between her lips. It quickly dissolved into an unexpected laugh at the feeling of long fingers grazing her ribcage as they searched beneath her for the treasure she had hidden between her palms.
Despite the lengthy body nearly wrapped around her Selina managed to wiggle onto her side, planting her foot against the back of the couch as she prepared to use Bruce's precarious position at the edge to knock him loose.
Unfortunately, as she kicked off, Bruce's grip only tightened around her waist and instead of his lanky frame falling to the ground as she had planned, they both rolled off the couch, barely missing the thick edge of the coffee table. She let out a soft sound of alarm as a surprisingly firm chest and stomach broke her fall.
Not willing to waste her advantage, Selina used the body beneath her to turn over, ignoring the audible grunt from her opponent. She wasn't about to give him the opportunity to pin her, which left her with only one option.
Before Selina could give her idea too much thought, she straddled him, using her weight against his chest and her knees to pin his elbows to the floor, leaving his grasping hands laying uselessly by her ankles.
She tried to breathe through her nose as she looked down at the boy beneath her. There was a dark pink tint to his pale cheeks and his usually perfect hair, knocked loose from their jostling, was in disarray. She had expected to see the tiniest traces of fear or possibly even regret in his dark eyes for the things he had said to her for the things he had done, but he just stared back up at her as if their position was nothing new.
Bruce had shocked her. He had actually shocked. Him. Bruce Wayne.
How much gall had he had to conjure up to say something so… Intentionally infuriating.
"Alfred really say that?" she asked, between breaths.
"No," he admitted, the smallest hint of a smile playing around his parted lips. "But he was the best candidate out of our mutual acquaintances" -he took a deep breath— "and most likely to both say something that brash and enrage you to the point of distraction."
Selina stared down at him a strange mixture of pride and annoyance welling up in her chest. "I have to admit," she said, her voice mildly impressed. "You're getting better at all of this."
"At all of what?" he asked, his arms wriggling beneath her knees.
Accepting his surrender, she leaned forward taking her weight off his restrained forearms as she gave him her own haughty look, "Learning to fight dirty."
"I think I'm getting the hang of it," he admitted, his fingers suddenly digging into the backs of her thighs.
A yelp, a genuine yelp, escaped Selina's lips at the unfamiliar thrill that ran along her spine at Bruce's unexpected forwardness, but like most things that night the sensation didn't last long.
She was already mid-roll before she realized what Bruce had done. Quickly, she tucked her chin to her chest and let instinct and gravity take over as she safely tumbled over Bruce's head and onto her back. Riding on instincts and reflexes, her feet had already planted themselves firmly onto the floor as she prepared to launch herself to her feet, when an unfamiliar weight landed on her midsection and Bruce's face dangled inches above her own.
Disbelief ran wild along her nerves.
Bruce had flipped with her, robbing her of that precious second she had needed to spring up and he knew it as the most arrogant smirk she had ever seen graced his face.
Some part of her knew she should feel uncomfortable, that having someone looming over should have been activating all of her cavewoman instincts to fight or flee, but Bruce had left all of his vulnerable places exposed, his eyes, his nose, his gut, even his groin. She knew Alfred had trained him too well for such an error to not be intentional. They both knew it would only take one hit to completely unman him and he had left himself open anyway.
"Honestly," she said, breathless. "I did not know you were capable of that."
"You underestimated me," he answered, equally breathless. "There are plenty of things I'm capable of."
"Yeah, like what?" she questioned, her mouth curving up. "Knowing which fork to use."
"For starters," he said, condescendingly pushing off his hands and leaning away from her.
Catching her breath and resisting the urge to roll her eyes at his tone, she held the picture up, grudgingly offering him the prisoner between her fingers. "All yours," she said.
Dark eyes narrowed and a crease formed between his brows as Bruce stared at the small photo, as if he had forgotten what it was they had been fighting over. Gently he took it from her hand, his robe swishing out around them like a cape as he threw it behind him, letting it flutter to the table without a thought. She almost glared at the cavalier treatment of her former hostage, but she knew as well as he did that this wasn't about the photo.
It never had been and the jutting of his chin, that infuriatingly aristocratic gesture as he looked back down at her only accentuated that fact.
'Keep it up B,' she thought, winding the billowing fabric of his robe around her wrist. Without warning, she tugged the fabric as hard as she could, but to her shock he didn't fall to the side. He fell forward, hands slapping the floor beside her head, as he caught himself. Eyes wide as he stared down at her.
She could feel the rabid rise of his chest, see almost every striation in his grey eyes, smell the cool mint on his breath and before she could listen to all of the reasons why it would be a very bad idea, Selina pulled him closer.
Lifting her head, she closed her eyes, her intentions very clear as she aimed for the corner of his lips.
And she met air. Eyes snapping open, she felt heat race up her neck as she watched Bruce jerk away from her as if she had tried to bite him. Something she was entirely contemplating at the moment.
He'd pulled away from her. He had actually pulled away from her.
Numb, her fingers lost their grip and fell lifelessly to her side as she let her head fall back to the floor. Fine, if he didn't want to kiss her that was fine. That was perfectly fine. She had offered to kiss him before and he had rejected her, very politely, but he had rejected her all the same. So, why did this feel so different.
Fire burned behind her eyes as she fought the urge to cover her face or worse run from the room. She couldn't let him know this bothered her, couldn't let him see her reaction.
How had she read the situation so wrong? She was good at reading people. She had to be, but lately….
Lately, she had been making all kinds of mistakes, making choices she had no business making, saying things that could only come back to bite her in the-
The rough feel of a calloused fingertip brushing a stray curl from her face stopped every thought drifting through Selina's mind.
A sudden wakefulness ghosted over her skin as she opened eyes she hadn't realized she'd closed, and met a hooded gaze as it followed the path of his fingers.
The fire beside them reflected off the curves in his black hair and its bright flames painted his skin in shades of dark gold and pink making the blacks of his eyes seem almost blown out.
She was aware of his breath as it moved between his barely parted lips and the slight tremor in his hand as he trailed a rough fingertip along the shell of her ear, the curve of her jaw, the point of her chin. The calloused pad of his thumb lingered at the corner of her mouth and her own breath caught in her throat as he placed his hand beside her head again.
Her pulse jumped inside her veins and she let her eyes drift closed as his warm breath gently caressed her cheek, her nose, her lips. Feeling slightly dizzy, she inhaled sharply, filling her lungs with pine and mint and Bruce. Bruce. He seemed to be everywhere and nowhere and some impatient creature deep inside her wanted to growl as he eluded her again.
Fingers blindly framing his face, she could almost feel the last threads of her self-restraint dissolving when she felt something stroke her nose and a pair of warm lips met her own.
The first was just a brush. Soft and experimental and everything she had always expected of Bruce. The second was longer, deeper, and the pressure of his firm lips meeting the coaxing of her own was everything she had always wanted from Bruce. The third, the third tasted like peppermints, made her toes curl, and was nothing she had ever thought Bruce capable of.
Thoughts of self-preservation tried valiantly to form in her mind, but nothing could take shape as his mouth slanted against her and she dragged her fingers through his impossibly soft hair. The world beyond them was quiet as the rush of blood in her ears muted everything but his sharp inhale as he kissed her again. Nothing else mattered but the faint shudder that ran the length of him and the gentle thump of his heartbeat echoing her own.
As his untried but perfect bottom lip naturally slipped between her teeth, she felt a dozen molten butterflies take flight in her belly-
"Master Bruce!"
At once, every winged ember inside her died, drowning in an ocean of ice water at the sound of shock and disapproval in the booming voice. Clenching her teeth at the mixture of frustration and humiliation that was suddenly sprouting inside her, both she and Bruce turned their heads to meet Alfred Pennyworth's familiar glower.
Author's Note: I have literally never been more nervous about posting a chapter. LIKE EVER. But in all fairness, I did warn that I'm not great at writing romance, but I hope you guys enjoyed it. As always, constructive criticism is always welcome.
Big thanks to claire-loves-music, hahaha sorry for all the slow-burn drama. ; )
batcat – Awww, thank you. : ) Yeah, this one's a bit longer so I hope you like it.
Guest 1/30 – hahaha, sorry about that. But yes, they are definitely a couple of little weirdos, I think it's one of the things that makes writing for them so much fun and I'm so happy you're enjoying their relationship. I'm not sure how romantic this chapter was, but it was certainly longer. I hope you liked it. :D
Lisa – Chapter 4 – Feb 1 – Thank you so much! I'm glad you like it.
Guest – Chapter 1 – Feb 5 - Thank you, I hope you continue to enjoy it.