Bruce had no idea how long they stood there, with her head nestled under his, but he didn't push her away. Selina had never, not once, seemed breakable to him, but suddenly he was terrified that if he let go of her, she'd shatter. Eventually, she stepped away from him, hugging her arms around her chest like she was trying to hold herself together.
"Jesus," she said, refusing to look at him. "I'm sorry. I'm a mess."
"It's okay," Bruce said, wanting to hold her again, but he was afraid that she'd run away if he tried. "I'm glad you came. I was worried when you…" Bruce trailed off, suddenly embarrassed. He was worried that she hadn't called. He'd been doing research on the reaper shooting since she left, and had reached out to the GCPD. So far no one claimed responsibility, but word had it that Falcone was furious. And there were whispers that Maroni had been involved with the bombing on White Hill, too. None of the Blakes were home, thank God, but still, it didn't make sense. Why would Maroni take out Falcone's thieves and a member of Gotham elite? Whatever the reason, Bruce had been worrying himself sick, not that he wanted to come out and tell her that. "What happened?" Finally Selina looked at him, her eyes even more startlingly green and swimming with tears. "Shit, I'm sorry, that was stupid." Bruce could have kicked himself. They had a deal, and he was breaking it by asking too many questions.
"No," she said softly, her voice half-strangled. "It's okay." She took a shuddering breath. "My friend died. It wasn't violent or anything…he got sick. And he – we – can't exactly go to hospitals. So he just died. He was twenty-eight, and now he's gone." Bruce didn't know what to say. What could he say, in the light of something like that?
"Can you tell me his name?"
"Manuel. Everybody called him Manny…everyone except for Oliver." She paused, and a ghost of a smile crossed her face. "Oliver was his boyfriend, and you have them to thank for me getting into your party." Bruce started. He'd all but forgotten about that in light of everything that had happened. How could he forget?
"Damn, they must be good."
"The best," Selina said fondly. "And now Ollie is all alone."
"Well he's got you, doesn't he?" Bruce tried, anything to get the look of despair off of her face.
"You'd think that." Shit. Bruce didn't know what he'd said, but somehow he had made it worse. How the hell had he managed to make it worse? "I didn't even know he was sick until the day he died. And I wouldn't have known, if I hadn't gone over because I needed something." Her voice sounded strangled and Bruce didn't know what to say, too worried about making her even more upset. She mumbled something under her breath, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands. "I need to change. Jeeves has still got a stash of the stuff he bought for me, right?" Bruce didn't know, but she was already moving. Bruce didn't follow. He had a pretty good idea where she would go.
"I started without you," Selina said when Bruce finally made it into the garage. The holoscreen had already been activated and she'd flipped open the hood of a Porsche next to the Ferrari, no doubt to scavenge for parts. "Sorry."
"You should eat something," Bruce said, tossing her a Hershey bar he'd nabbed from the kitchen. Eighteen years and Alfred still thought that Bruce didn't know where he kept the sweets. If the old man had one weakness, it was sugar. Selina caught it without looking. "I think I like your real clothes better." That wasn't to say that she hadn't looked absolutely gorgeous in the green dress, she had. He'd forgotten how to breathe when Alfred had shown her into the office. But the fingerless gloves, old-school jackets, and messy, pulled-back hair seemed more…Selina.
"Well I'm not much of a getaway artist in a dress," Selina replied, stowing the chocolate in her back pocket. "And the shoes are a bitch. Give me a wrench and combat boots over a dress and heels any day." Her words were short and clipped and she never looked at him once. She was grieving. Bruce knew what that was like; when his parents had died, he'd refused to look anyone in the eye for weeks. His parents had been taken from him in an act of violence, and Selina no doubt had plenty of experience with that. But this…she said that he hadn't been able to get the medication he'd needed, and that's why he'd died. Bruce couldn't imagine it, being so afraid to go to a hospital that dying of something preventable was the better alternative. Not for the first time, he marveled about how little he knew about Selina's world. Ever since she'd crashed into his life Bruce had seen Gotham differently, but somehow he'd still pictured all criminals like Selina. Smart and capable, surviving no matter how the odds stacked against them. For all of his research on the criminal underbelly of the city and the families that ran them, he'd never thought of the side effects of living off of the grid. People like Selina's friend could just go missing, just up and die one day, and only a handful of people would notice that they were even gone. That was the world that she lived in, not the strange, glamorized version he'd managed to conjure in his mind. Because despite everything he'd seen, Bruce still had no idea how she'd managed to live this long on her own, living the way she did.
One thing he did know was that he wouldn't survive a day out there.
"Do me a favor," Selina said after nearly an hour of working on the car in silence. Bruce didn't mind, but he was relieved that she'd started speaking again. "Plug this into your hard drive."
"What is it?" Bruce asked, catching the thumb drive she tossed his way.
"It's a bug for your security system. It'll keep me off of any video footage, in case something happens and the police subpoena it or someone hacks in."
"Did you write this?"
"No. I'm a thief, not a hacker. But if something goes wrong, you don't want evidence of a criminal in your house." Bruce hated it when she did that. Called herself a criminal, trying to prove how different they were. He knew. God, he knew. But every time, she still insisted on throwing up that wall, making sure that he understood that he had no place in her world. And now this.
"You don't have to do that. No one's looking for you here, you're safe." I'm not ashamed of you, Bruce wanted to say, but he knew that she wouldn't respond well.
"You're not," Selina said, leaning into the engine so her words were muffled. "Whatever it is that's going on here, whatever this is, you're in more danger than I am. This isn't for me."
"I don't want it." He didn't want to erase her existence, not even from something as meaningless as video footage.
"I don't care." Selina said, standing upright and glaring at him. "Manny made the bug for me, because he's the one who got me in here before. He was dying, Wayne, and he was still looking out for me. He knew that you were important to me – " Selina bit her lip like she always did when she though she'd said too much and closed her eyes for a moment before speaking again. "He was my family. And one of his last acts on this earth was to make this to keep me safe. To keep us safe. So I don't care if you want it or not, plug the damn thing into your hard drive."
"Fine," Bruce said, pocketing the drive. "Your friend knew that you were coming here?"
"He got me into the gala," Selina explained. "And he let me into your system when I was trying to keep an assassin from killing you. Manny…he looked out for me."
"How long did you know him?" Bruce asked softly, not wanting to lapse into uncomfortable silence again.
"My whole life," Selina said, frowning. "Manny's the one who pulled us…pulled me out from under the bridge. He set me up with a place to live and a way to make a living. I introduced him to Oliver. We took care of each other. And now he's gone." Bruce noticed the stumbled, heard the lie, but he didn't push it. He was more concerned with what she'd said about living under a bridge. Bruce knew that there were homeless camps there, but they were insanely dangerous. For the hundredth time, Bruce marveled at her ability to survive.
"Can you tell me what he was like?" Bruce asked, hesitating when he saw suspicion flash over her features. "I know it hurts, but talking about him will help." Bruce swallowed. "Believe me."
"I do believe you," she mumbled. "He was…" A real smile turned her lips up in the corners. "He was mean. He was one mean son of a bitch." Bruce stared. He hadn't been expecting that, but Selina's was still smiling. "For the first year I knew him, all he did was swear at me in Spanish and tell me to piss off. He was always yelling at me because I was always in trouble, and I think I only ever saw him smile maybe a dozen times in all the years I knew him." She paused. "But we were family. If I needed anything, I never had to ask."
"Like with the virus." Bruce interjected.
"Like with the virus," Selina agreed. "He took care of me. But then I got good. I got so good that…certain people noticed me. And so did the police. I decided that I could live on my own. I decided that I didn't need him anymore. The only time we saw one-another was when I needed a favor. Which is what I doing the day he died. He saved my life, and I was so goddamn selfish that I didn't even know he was dying." Selina paced, spinning the wrench in her hand like it was a baton. Bruce was struck by the image of her defending herself with it, backed against the wall with only a makeshift weapon to keep her safe. "Jesus what is wrong with me?" She turned to him, pointing at him with the wrench. "What's wrong with you?"
"What?" Bruce asked, blindsided by the question.
"I'm a mess. I'm a fucking disaster, and this is my life. Violence and dead friends and being so scared all the time that I feel like I'm having a heart attack every minute of every day. And somehow you haven't called the cops, or committed me. I know my damage. What the hell is yours?"
"I guess…" Bruce said, faltering. "I'm a mess too." Bruce had always known that, but he'd never said it aloud before. "My parents, getting involved with the police so I could try and find my parents' killer…For Christ's sake, I was crazy enough to practically stalk the girl who broke into my house and almost slashed my throat."
"I was never going to kill you," Selina said, pulling her hair out of the ponytail and twirling it between her empty fingers.
"You could've fooled me." Bruce said, smiling ruefully. "But that's my point. Ever since my parents – ever since they died, I've been fatalistic." That's what the therapist he'd been ordered to go to in the months after the murder had said. 'Fatalistic, with self-destructive tendencies and no regard for his own safety.' "You want to talk about crazy? When there was an honest-to-God assassin in my house trying to kill me, the first thing I felt was excitement because I got to see you again. Then I proceeded to run towards the guy trying to kill me because that's where you were. If anyone should be committed it's – " Bruce's words were cut short when the wrench clattered to the floor and then Selina's lips crashing against his. Bruce responded without hesitation, one hand cupping her face, the other traveling to Selina's waist. She wound her fingers through his hair, making a small, surprised noise when he bit her bottom lip. Still kissing her, Bruce put both hands around her waist – it was practically small enough to allow his fingers to touch – and Selina wrapped her legs around him, her mouth travelling to his neck. Now it was Bruce's turn to moan, maneuvering the two of them so that her back was against the wall.
They kissed until neither could breathe, until Selina was gasping against his mouth and he was gasping against hers.
"Don't run," Bruce said finally.
"What?" Selina asked breathlessly, her eyes somehow even greener. Maybe it was oxygen deprivation, Bruce thought absently, more preoccupied with the slight pout of her lower lip.
"You," he said, kissing the dimple that pleated her right cheek, "have a very bad habit of running away from me whenever something like this happens."
"I'm not running," Selina said, her voice ringing and clear, and Bruce's heart stuttered in his chest. "Besides, we've already established that you're the crazy one here," she said with a tiny smirk that lit up her whole face. She was teasing him. Of course she was. Selina never did what he expected, she never had. Bruce kissed her forehead once and carefully set her down, marveling at how tiny she really was.
"So what was that?" Bruce asked.
"Are you asking if it was good for me?" Selina said, teasing again. "Because you might be getting a little ahead of yourself."
"That is not what I was asking," Bruce said, feeling heat creeping up his neck that had nothing to do with kissing. "How does this qualify? Real or not real?"
"I don't care," Selina said after a moment. "But one of my oldest friends in the world died a few days ago, and I came here. I came to the mansion where I was held captive by someone who I should really, really hate."
"You wound me," Bruce said, but his words were light. He knew she was kidding.
"Shut up, I'm making a point. I don't know what it is about you Wayne…but I don't care if this is real or not, I want it." Bruce nodded, a warm feeling spreading through ...whatever this was, he wanted it too.
Short but very important! Also I know I said I was trying to post on Friday's but it was Friday when I was working earlier and I haven't gone to bed so it's still Friday to me. Hope you all enjoyed and I'd love to hear what you think