Purple, Prompt # 16.


Warnings: A little sexual, but that goes with the territory.

1920s Bruce and Selina. Sort of a sequel to "Spade" which is chapter 4. I hope Lady Mirth enjoys this. Hahah.


The dress doesn't hide her curves. The bead work is exquisite, he can see that even from across the smoke filled room as he makes his way to where she's so comfortably lounged across the fainting couch. The room is filled with admirers. Flowers and make-up and boas and hats litter the tables.

Bruce is glad he didn't bring flowers. She might have just torn them to pieces and thrown the shredded mess on the ground.

The closer he gets the more obvious it is that the dress doesn't even try to hide her curves. And maybe Bruce should be grateful for that. He's grown tired of girls binding their chests to look like they're fifteen. He likes the way he can see the curve of her breasts and the slight flare of her hips.

It's purple, the dress that is, well, purple is the only name he can think of at the moment. It's a more reddish purple. Maybe she'd call it maroon. Maybe red-violet. He doesn't really care. He just knows that he needs to get her alone. He needs to see her again.

The men are all talking and laughing; she is blowing smoke rings and looking entirely too bored.

"Sel," Bruce greets her, moving past the angry man guarding the door. Most of the time when soldiers return theydo it in uniform, but his got burned a long time ago. He's just in one of his best suits.

"Why, Brucie," she begins seductively. Her elbow is against the end of couch, and her chin is resting in the palm of her hand, while her other hand holds the cigarette. "I thought you went and got yourself killed by the Krauts." The cigarette continues its slow burn. There's a malicious glint and her eyes.

If he was a lesser man she'd have broken him years ago- long before the time in Paris that dressed in all white, save for the cross on her uniform, she had pulled the bullet out of his shoulder and called him an idiot. Longer even than when she'd begged him not to go (or as close to begging she had ever gotten- she had just said 'Bruce.' and he'd shaken his head and enlisted), or even before that when she refused to marry him, but kissed him anyway.

If he was a lesser man she'd have broken him by now.

But he's not, so he smiles.

"It is lovely to see you too, Sweetheart."

"Out." Selina barks.

"No." Bruce growls, removing the fedora and setting it on a table near a green feather boa. A man grabs his arm and Bruce gives him a look that makes the other man let go without a word.

"Not you." She says with a dramatic sigh and waves the men out with her free hand. The cigarette's smoke paints small pictures in the air.

"You heard me, out." They leave and Bruce stands alone in the center of the room.

"What do you want?"

"I don't know why I deluded myself by thinking you'd want to see me." Despite what he says, he removes his jacket, tosses it on the back of a chair, walks over to her and sits on the couch.

She doesn't say anything, just watches him with her sharp green eyes.

He reaches out a hand and touches the back of her neck.

"You cut your hair." he says. Yes, she has. She did it six years ago. It isn't a page boy cut, but rather cut more similarly to the style of a man. It is layered and the longest piece ends around her jawline.

"I've done a lot of things." she replies, and tries not to shudder when his fingers begin to play with the soft hair against her skin.

He kisses her. She drops her cigarette on the ground. He crushes it under his foot.

If she were a lesser woman he would have broken her years ago- long before the time in Paris that dressed in all white, save for the cross on her uniform, she had pulled the bullet out of his shoulder and called him an idiot. Longer even than when she'd begged him not to go (or as close to begging she had ever gotten- she had just said 'Bruce.' and he'd shaken his head and enlisted), or even before that when she had told him no, but kissed him anyway.

"Looks like you finally got the vote while I was gone." he says, like it's no big deal that he's just waltzed back in here when they had him declared dead four years ago.

"Mhm. I got a lot of stuff while you were gone." Bruce lets the jealousy and anger subside before he speaks.

Selina has never been his. Not all the way.

"Let me guess, if you had been here you would have been one of the NWP members chaining herself to the White House gates?"

"Of course. Have you met any of the women from NAWSA? They're the dowdiest women you've ever seen and they wear such sensible shoes." As if to make a point, she slides her bare foot across his leg and raises an eyebrow.

He wants her so badly it hurts. He lets his hand slide up her leg over her sheer stockings.

"Get your hands off of me, Wayne." But, she doesn't stop him. Instead she challenges him to continue, especially when she parts her legs just a fraction more so he can start working off the garter on her right thigh.

"Of course. I'm sorry, Selina. I'll stop." He doesn't. She doesn't want him to, but she won't admit that out loud right now. She can hold out a bit longer.

She is his. And she has been, for a long time.

He has been hers for even longer.

"When did you get back?" Selina asks, and acts like he hasn't just rolled down her stocking and slipped off the garter.

"This morning. My boat got in around six." he replies, and acts like he isn't sliding down her other one as well.

"You missed more than the vote. Gotham here has itself a new hero."

"Really?" Bruce sounds less than interested. He tosses the small flask that had been held in place by the garter on her left leg.

"Mhm. Beating up lots of criminals. You know: rapists, murderers, thieves, and bad cops. The occasional bootlegger that has a body count to his name."

His hands slide up her bare legs and she represses the shudder, but can do nothing about the quickening of her heartbeat.

"I missed you."

"You were gone a long time, Bruce. Things have changed."

There's a new smuggler in town, too. An elusive young thing called 'Catwoman' who hasn't had to shoot anyone or dirty any cops in the process. There are whispers she's a thief too. Steals any pretty thing that catches her green eyes.

"Like what?" What he is really saying is: 'Nothing ever changes with you and me.'

"Like… like what if I'm seeing someone? What if I'm getting married?" What she is really saying is: 'You're right, but I can stall.'

"Stop being ridiculous. You are not getting married." he retorts easily, and lets one of his hands trace down the side of her face. She's wearing a headband that's the same purple-ish color of her dress. It has beading and feathers; it makes her eyes seem even greener. And those same beautiful eyes grow a little vindictive when she replies with, "Says who?"

"You wouldn't marry me, so you're not going to marry anyone else." The way he keeps staring at her is intense. It's like he is trying to memorize ever inch of her face.

"I could, you know. I could marry someone else. Lots of men have asked."

"And you've said no to all of them." He replies, kissing her again. He pulls back, smirks, says, "Me included," then kisses her again.

She pushes him off. She can't stand it. She won't be able to hold off for much longer, she wants him so bad it hurts.

"Seven years is a long time Bruce, I want answers."

Bruce doesn't look at all fazed that she had shoved him off, but in all fairness she is now balling up his shirt in her hands.

"I was traveling. Learning things. Trying to figure out what that stupid war was all about."

"I thought you were dead, Bruce. I moved on."

"…No you didn't." is his solemn reply.

And he's right. She didn't. She knew one day he'd waltz in here like nothing had happened and kiss her like they did back in France when his shoulder was still bleeding, and like after she said 'no' years before that.

The second statement is even more laughable… Neither of them could ever move on.

She kisses him this time, lets everything she has been feeling pour into it: anger, resentment, longing, joy, excitement, ..and maybe even… no. Not the L-word. Not with them. He'll be the one to break. He'll say it first.

She pulls him down, unbuttons his shirt, and lets him help her slide out of her dress. She gets up and walks nude to the door and locks it.

When she returns to the couch, she pushes him down and gets on top. He was the one who disappeared for seven years after the war was over. He was the one who hadn't bothered to contact her or even Alfred(Though Selina and he had hardly parted on the best of terms).

He was the one that left for so long.

Things would be on her terms for now, because she couldn't let him know how much she missed him.

If they were lesser beings, they would have broken each other years ago. But they... They are the stuff of legends.

And they will never break.