Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to Marvel Studios, Disney, Warner Bros. Entertainment, and/or their otherwise respective owners.

Author's Notes: 'Sup, y'all! Welcome back! This chapter was really easy to write. Really fun, too. :)

Chapter title comes from Delight by Jamie Berry & Octavia Rose. Might not be the perfect mood-setter, but I think it goes along with the overall vibe of the fic too well to not use it.

Anyways, as always, I hope you enjoy. Until next chapter,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

~the black and gold 'verse~

~the little man who wasn't there~

~chapter 6: delight~

Like quite a few of the other notable crime lords in the city, Carmine Falcone lived in Coventry. He owned a penthouse which had a Neo-Gothic interior, and was large enough that it could host galas and other similar events quite easily. Bruce knew. He'd come to Falcone's parties a few times before he and Tony had gotten married, mostly to gather intel on the man, and another few times after that.

Despite the assassination attempt made on him by the Riddler, the crime lord was in good health. He had to use a cane now, but it was a change he'd taken on with style. He was rolling the cane in his hands when he caught sight of them walking into his penthouse, and his expression visibly brightened.

"Mr. Wayne, Dr. Stark," he said as he approached them. "What an honor it is to have you two here tonight. I wasn't sure if you would make it or not."

Tony smiled charismatically, allowing the alpha to briefly grasp his hand. Falcone didn't kiss it, since that was not part of the etiquette when it came to male omegas, but the gesture was still one of politeness...and respect. "We RSVP'ed, Carmine, didn't we?" he asked.

"Yes, you did. But, I wasn't sure if I should have believed it or not. The Stark-Waynes do not often attend my events." His eyes flicked over to Bruce meaningfully, he could tell as much even though Falcone was wearing his sunglasses.

His posture stiffened minutely as he suppressed the urge to growl – he wasn't a newly presented alpha, dammit, even having the urge was unbecoming of him. But where Tony was concerned...

"Well, we're busy, as you know. Five children are quite the handful," Tony laughed, causing Falcone to smile in agreement – or amusement, one of the two. "But, Harvey and Rachel are family friends. We wouldn't miss out on coming to support them."

Falcone nodded. "Well, I won't take up your time. There's plenty of other people here I should greet. If I don't speak with either of you again before the end of the night, Mr. Wayne, Dr. Stark, it was nice to see you." He walked off towards another couple Bruce recognized as the parents of a boy in Dick's year that went to St. Philomena's. Not one of his previous bullies, but he'd still kept his eye on him regardless. Just in case.

Tony grabbed him by the arm. "You could've been friendlier there," he muttered under his breath, but not a trace of his irritation showed on his face. "Or just, you know, friendly. You don't want Carmine to suspect something, do you?"

"Considering my previous interactions with him, it would be stranger if I was friendly with him," Bruce rebuked in the same level of voice. "As it is, I don't understand how you can be friendly with me."

"Two reasons: one, it's expected of me, because an antisocial omega would be the talk of all the gossip magazines, especially if it was me. And two, Carmine isn't that bad compared to the Board. He doesn't have anything on them. Oh, there's Harvey and Rachel." Tony started to lead him forwards. "Come on, we have to go over there."

"Bruce, Tony, glad you could make it!" Harvey greeted them, grinning from ear to ear. He was already holding a flute of champagne in his left hand. With his right, he shook Bruce's hand, and afterwards he was pulled into a side hug by Rachel.

"Glad to be here," he replied.

"That's a lie," Rachel teased as she pulled away. "You've never been that sociable, Bruce. But, it's good to see you. How are you?"

"I'm good."

She appraised him knowingly, as only one who had once been a constant presence in his life for years could. "That's Bruce-speak for you're not. What's going on? Is everything alright?"

"Nothing that we need to get into right now," he assured her. "I don't want to detract from the two of you."

Rachel smiled, glancing over at his husband. "Very chivalrous, isn't he?"

"Always," Tony returned. "But, you already knew that."

The theta and omega chatted for a couple minutes then, sharing what they'd each been up to, until it was time for the host to speak a few words, as what always happened as these kind of events. Falcone directed the room's attention to himself, as he was always good at doing. "I'd like to thank everyone for coming here tonight," he began. "Not for me, of course. We all know if this was for me, half of you wouldn't have showed up, and understandably so. I'm not exactly America's Top Winning Model." Laughter broke out, the canned kind that Bruce always hated. He knew how lacking of being genuine it was. "No, tonight, we are here for..."

His speech was fairly standard for what was expected. Bruce listened to him drone on, impatient for him to shut up so he could stop listening to his voice. Finally, when it was over, he bid them all off to enjoy the party – and to donate money to the fundraiser, if they hadn't done that already. He said all the money would go to a noble cause.

Bruce knew it wouldn't, Falcone had to have his percentage, but he wrote a check for another fifty grand anyways, depositing it where needed.

He played the part he needed to of Tony's doting husband and a Gothamite elite, slipping into the role like it was a second skin. He smiled, socialized, turned on his charm that made the elder beta and omega women swoon. There weren't any male omegas in attendance tonight besides Tony, and it showed. When they weren't interacting with Harvey, Rachel, and Falcone, they took an especial interest in him.

Finally, after around an hour, Tony had enough. He handed Bruce his flute of nonalcoholic rosé – both of them tried to avoid alcohol when they were at the parties of crime lords, as they knew how important it was to keep a keen and sharp mind when in their company and on their terms. "I'm going to go to the restroom. That okay?"

"Just be careful."

Tony rolled his eyes. "When am I not?"

His husband left him near the ceiling-to-floor length windows, and rather than going into the throngs of people to interact with them without him, he looked out at the city. Gotham was always beautiful from this kind of height at night. A large part of him, a large part, longed to be out there patrolling with Selina and Dinah, instead of being stuck in here. He knewthat Tony was right about them coming here tonight, because the balance between his two public personas was a delicate thing. Still...

"Admiring the view?"

He looked away from the window and at his current companion. "Rachel," he said. "Did you decide you needed a break?"

She scoffed. "Not all of us are like you, Bruce, and need to recharge every hour or so," she quipped. The light, or lack thereof from the windows, played against the smile she was giving him, making it almost come across as a smirk. But he knew it wasn't that. "No, I just came over to come and check on you, see how you were doing while Tony's in the bathroom."

He felt his eyes crinkle around the edges. "You like Tony, don't you?"

"Have I ever given you any impression that I don't? He's your husband, Bruce, of course I do. He brings out the best in you, and you do the same with him." She paused, swirling around the contents of her glass. "But something's bothering you. And I know, you said earlier that you didn't want to talk about it tonight," here, she spoke over him as he started to agree with the necessity of that claim, "and I also know that I haven't been here for you since college. But I am now. So, if you want to talk, I'll listen."

"You're one of the guests of honor tonight," he pointed out. "I shouldn't be taking up your time."

"Harvey can cover for me twenty minutes. He already is? See?"

He looked over to where she subtly gestured with a jerk of her head. Sure enough, Harvey was chatting with people. He didn't have to wear a mask to act like he was enjoying this night like Bruce did, he simply genuinely enjoyed it, even if the event was being held by one of the people he was aiming on going after eventually. Harvey was just a good person like that. One of the best.

Bruce didn't think it would take Tony twenty minutes to finish up in the bathroom, but...it was tempting to him, the thought of telling some of his problems to Rachel. The only secret he had ever kept from her was Batman. It was a chasm of a secret to keep, and a necessary one, but she was his oldest friend.

"I've...been having troubles with work," he finally decided to say. Keeping it simple, vague, was the only choice he had here.

She was immediately concerned. "Is Wayne Enterprises in trouble?"

"No, I have another job. One that the media doesn't know about. I...consult for a business." He did consult with the Gotham PD sometimes, so that wasn't exactly a lie. "One of the competitors of the business has been worrying me. I think – I know – they have been engaging in criminal activity."

"Have you told the police about it?" she questioned worryingly. "Or handed over the information you know to the Feds?"

He shook his head. "It's not something I could definitively prove in the eyes of the law. I might be a billionaire, but my word isn't always automatically trusted."

"Maybe you should bring it up with Harvey," she suggested. "Or both of us. I know we seem busy right now – and we are, but we'll always set aside time for you, Bruce."

"I've thought about it," he admitted, and he had. But he refused to put the two of them in any more danger than what they had already put themselves into. Not to mention, unless he visited them as Batman again, then he would have to come clean, and he wasn't going to do that. "But – "

Before he could finish his train of thought, he felt something buzz inside his suit's inner pocket – his phone. It was an audible noise, making Rachel look down. "Something going on at home?"

"Maybe," he said. He took out his phone and flipped it open. He saw the caller ID: Selina.

His eyebrows furrowed. He'd told her before he and Tony had left the Glass House that he wasn't going to be able to patrol tonight, which came with the implication that she was not to contact him unless it was truly necessary – an unspoken rule established by his husband, not him. So why was she contacting – ?

From outside the penthouse, despite its soundproofing, they all heard a sound, like popcorn: pop pop pop!

But it was too loud to be popcorn.

All of the occupants stepped back, gasps and a scream or two being heard as the doors to Carmine Falcone's home were flung open. In walked the Joker and several cronies, all of them holding shotguns.

"Good evening, everyone," the Joker greeted them exuberantly as he held a gun to one of the partygoer's heads. "Sorry for the delay. We're your entertainment for the night."

Bruce's mind instantly went into overdrive.

There were approximately one hundred people in attendance tonight. It didn't seem like that much, because of how large Falcone's penthouse was, but he knew the attendance had to be close to that amount. About ninety of those people were in the main room; Tony, he knew, was in the bathroom still, and he imagined some people were elsewhere, probably in the bedrooms doing God knew what or in the kitchen.

The kitchen.

He glanced over to where the entrance to it was. He knew, from previous visits to Falcone's penthouse, that the kitchen was the only entrance to Falcone's bedroom, giving the room a barrier between the parts of his apartment that the man made public and his undiluted privacy. He also expected that the room could function as a panic room, if need be. Falcone was too paranoid not to come up with something like that, even more so in the past several years since the Riddler.

Conveniently, Falcone was standing near the entrance to the kitchen, along with Harvey. Bruce's friend only had eyes for the Joker, but Falcone...was looking at him. Their eyes locked.

Bruce filed away what this probably meant for later. He didn't think Falcone knew that he was Batman, as that wasn't the kind of information any crime lord would keep to themselves without attempting blackmail or something like it, but he obviously suspected something. But again, that was a later dilemma.

Falcone knew what he needed to do. As the Joker shot his hostage in the back of the head with a BANG!, making multiple people scream and shout, Falcone grabbed Harvey by the shoulder. With a surprising amount of strength for a sixty-year-old who was disabled, he pulled Harvey back into the kitchen. Harvey tried to protest him, but his protests were lost in the panic as they disappeared into the kitchen.

Falcone didn't want Harvey to die, not yet. Not until he realized that he would be completely unable to get any use out of him. But even then, he probably wouldn't try to kill him until he didn't have a choice. That was how he worked.

Somehow, the Joker did not see this happen, nor did any of his cronies. Probably because Harvey and Falcone had been shielded by the clamor of people who were moving in a way that brought more attention to them.

Bruce positioned himself in front of Rachel, pushing her behind him with his arm. His eyes looked over to the hallway where he knew the bathroom Tony had gone to was. Please, he thought desperately. Please, stay in there. Don't come out. Please, please, please...

The Joker eyed the throng of people, stepping between them. He smiled, making his scars stretch and fold eerily, showing off his teeth as if he was a predator and they were his prey. "I only have one question," he said. "Where is Harvey Dent?"

There was silence.

Nobody answered him.

Dramatically, the Joker sighed. "I'll settle for his loved ones, if you won't give him up. Or maybe..." He pulled an elderly man to him with strength far greater than what Bruce had expected of him, putting the alpha in a hold and pointing a knife at his mouth. "I'll just settle for you." He laughed wildly. "Yes, I think you'll do. You remind me of my father, you know? And I hated my father."

He put the knife in the older man's mouth.

"Stop!"

No.

No.

Bruce wanted to close his eyes.

He wanted to pretend this wasn't happening.

But, he couldn't.

In the time he had looked away from that hallway, Tony had come into the room. His head was held high, his chin jutted out, like he wasn't risking his life needlessly. He walked past the other people, until he was standing right in front of the Joker.

God damn his husband. God damn him for doing this.

"Dr. Tony Stark," the Joker crooned. He let go of the elderly man, and reached out to trail his knife across Tony's cheek. "I wasn't expecting you to be here tonight. But if you're here, that means..." His eyes flicked over to Bruce, and he gave a feral grin. "Ah, yes, there he is! The two richest people in this entire city, such a happy couple. Now, don't come a step further, Mr. Wayne," he warned, because Bruce was doing just that, like an idiot. "Not unless you want your husband to end up like me and Katherine Aritza's omega son."

Tony was the perfect image of calm. Bruce had no idea how he was doing it, not when he was screaming on the inside. His mate was in danger, and he couldn't protect him. He wasn't Batman right now. And if he ran after him, the Joker would hurt him. He couldn't do anything at all right now.

He was completely helpless.

"That wouldn't be the worst thing in the world," Tony stated, unblinking.

The Joker laughed. "No?" He pressed his knife into Tony's cheek, drawing a drop of blood. "That's a bold claim of you to make. Do you even know how I got these scars?"

"I'm presuming you're going to tell me."

The Joker was undeterred by his bait. "I had a wife once, a pretty little thing like you," he began. And he was lying, but nobody in the room except for him, Bruce, and Tony were going to know that. "And she was always telling me how I worry too much, saying how I need to smile more. She gambled, too. Got in real deep with the sharks. And then one day the sharks came for her, saying how she needs to pay her debts. But we just didn't have the money. So they carved up her face, and of course we didn't have the money for the surgeries to fix up her face, either. She couldn't take it."

He pressed the blade deeper into Tony's cheek, drawing more blood. Tony didn't so much as flinch. "And all I wanted to see her do is smile again," the Joker continued, prattling on. "I tried to tell her I didn't care about her scars, but she didn't believe me. So one night I took a razor in my mouth and did this thing to myself...and you know what?" He laughed again. "She couldn't stand the sight of me! She left! But now, because of her, I see the funny side of things. Now, I'm always smiling."

"Good for you," Tony said.

Shut up, Bruce thought. For the love of God, Tony, shut up. Don't egg him on.

The Joker sneered. "Yes, good for me. But now, why don't you do something that's good for you? Why don't you tell me where Harvey Dent is?" He raised the knife from Tony's cheek. "Otherwise – "

Just as soon as it was gone, Tony reached out. He punched the Joker in the face.

In response, the Joker grabbed him by the wrist. "There's fight in you, isn't there?" he purred. "Then again, I suppose there has to be. You don't just become the first omega CEO while being a pushover. I like that."

"Then you're going to love me," a voice said from behind him.

Relief washed through Bruce's system, even though he knew it wasn't over yet.

It was Catwoman.

As the Joker turned, she socked him in the face with one hand and disarmed him with the other. Together, she and the Black Canary worked on taking out the rest of his thugs, disarming them, not even caring when they broke their bones. The Joker pulled out a knife from the side of his shoe and tried to stab it into Selina's ribcage. But she caught him before she could and flung him across the room with surprising ease. One of the few remaining henchmen of the Joker tried to attack her because of it, but she knocked him out cold.

Bruce ran forwards, uncaring of what could've happened to him. It took him exactly four seconds to reach Tony, intercepting the Joker's attempt to do the same. He pushed him behind him, meeting the Joker head on with a snarl.

"Don't even think about it," he warned.

"Think about what? Harming your husband?" the Joker rebuked. "Or, thinking about this?"

He aimed the shotgun now in his hands at the ceiling-to-floor windows, and fired it. Rachel gasped, stepping back as the glass began to rain down on her. The Joker ran after her, seizing her arm. In the matter of seconds, he had her dangling over the edge.

Selina darted after them. "Let her go."

The Joker chuckled. "Poor choice of words."

"Rachel!" Bruce shouted.

The Joker dropped her. He heard her scream as the Catwoman dove after her, and he – he knew Selina would catch her. She had to.

But, in the meantime, the Joker dove for the exit. Black Canary went after him, but with a spray of bullets at her feet, he had her momentarily stopping in her place. He ran out of the penthouse, presumably for the stairwell. Dinah went back to chasing him.

Somehow, Bruce had a feeling she wouldn't catch up to him.

He wanted to help her. He wanted to catch that bastard with his own two bare hands, and...not kill him, because Bruce didn't do that, but still make him pay for what he had done to his mate. He wanted to beat him black and blue. He wanted to make him regret ever laying his eyes on Tony. Fuck him being Bruce Wayne. Fuck him not revealing his identity.

But, his mate, the omither of his children, needed him more. He was hurt, regardless of how slight the injury was. So Bruce turned around rather than running away, and held his husband in his arms. "Tony," he said, staring at that wound on his cheek as much as he did his dark brown eyes, wide and slightly glazed over from the adrenaline. He watched the blood trail down his cheek, which only made his anger, his rage, worse, made him feel like he was wild and crazed, but he pushed those feelings aside, for now. Right now, he needed to make sure he was as alright as he could be. "Omega..."

"Seriously, Bruce, I'm fine."

Tony glared up at him from where he was sitting on the edge of the ambulance, adjusting his hold on the ice pack to his face. The cut to his face had already been bandaged; the EMTs said it wasn't going to require anything more than that, but they wanted the injury iced to make sure the bleeding remained stopped. They didn't want it to start up again.

Bruce's body was thrumming with his emotions. "You almost got yourself killed," he said. "Omega, I – I almost watched you die."

It was like Peter's birth all over again. He remembered making the walk back to the maternity unit after he'd confirmed Peter would be fine in the NICU. He remembered seeing the doctors talking to Maria, and the sobs she had made, and thinking Tony was dead. He'd been just as helpless then as he had felt in Falcone's penthouse; he hadn't been the one in control, nor the one who could've fixed the situation since he wasn't a doctor and had been too far away to overcome Fleck.

And now the man was gone. He was back out there, because Dinah hadn't been able to catch him, and he was still a threatto their family. He'd made this personal with Tony by holding him at knifepoint.

"He wasn't going to kill me," Tony responded. When a noise came up from Bruce's throat at the absurdity of that claim, the omega doubled down. "No, he wasn't, Bruce."

"How can you know that?"

"...I just knew," his husband evasively. "Trust me, I knew. Now, I'm fine. I have a cut to my face," here, he brought the icepack away to show it, "but nothing else is wrong with me. I mean, I'm a little shaken up, but so is everybody else here. But you know who could probably benefit from seeing you before the EMTs finally cart her off to the hospital, whether or not she likes it?"

He tensed. "I'm not leaving you, Tony."

"I'm not asking you to, I'm telling you to. If you don't, so help me God I will go over there myself. It's not like I actually need this ambulance anyways."

His chest rumbled. "You're not doing that."

"Then go," Tony said. "They're about ready to take her, it looks like."

Bruce turned around. Sure enough, Rachel, like Tony, was sitting at the edge of her ambulance, an aluminum blanket wrapped around her shoulders as one of the EMTs finished up bandaging the last of her scrapes. They weren't going to send her to the hospital for those, but they were going to do so for the mental trauma, as well as probably to make sure everything was alright. Her entire body was practically covered in bruises and cuts due to the glass which had fallen on her, and then her and Selina falling on top of a car. Harvey was right at her side, his expression visibly pained.

As if sensing his eyes on her, Rachel blinked her glassy eyes and looked up at him from the distance of twenty or so feet. He didn't even know how she could manage the smile that she wound up giving him.

Bruce growled. "We're still going to talk about this later," he told Tony, before he sauntered off towards his two friends.

Once he was close enough to them, he asked, "Are you alright?"

"I'll live," Rachel joked weakly. "They said everything is mostly superficial. I'll require some stitches, but I don't think there's anything that actually requires this bus."

"You don't know that," Harvey snapped at her. He groaned. "Jesus Christ, Rach, you got thrown out of a building from the seventy-first floor. You're lucky you're alive." His breathing shuddered. "And I should've been there. If Falcone hadn't shoved me into his bedroom – "

"You're the one he wanted," Bruce cut in. "You don't know what could've happened if he'd found you, but you'd probably be dead."

Harvey snorted. "Yeah, right."

Rachel frowned. "Harvey..."

Her husband quickly became chastised. "Sorry, sorry..." His attention was briefly diverted over to where Catwoman, Gordon, and the captain of the precinct that had first come on to the scene were, talking. "Where the hell is Batman tonight? Why isn't he there with them?"

Rachel sighed, making it sound like this wasn't the first time he had said that. "He's probably busy."

"Busy with what?"

"I don't know, do you want to ask Catwoman yourself?"

"I just might," he threatened.

Bruce couldn't help but think that would be an...interesting interaction, to say the least. It was a stupid thing to think.

"Is Tony okay?" Rachel abruptly asked him.

He didn't understand how the two of them could be worrying about each other right now. "He's fine," he assured her anyways. "Just the one cut. I think the EMTs are going to let him go home without taking him to the hospital."

"Lucky him."

"Rachel," Harvey hissed.

"I can say he's lucky to not have to go to the hospital while recognizing that I do, Harvey. They're not mutually exclusive things."

If the two of them were joking with each other, they were probably going to be alright. Bruce could go back to Tony and take him home, remind himself that he was alive and not severely harmed in private.

The EMT working on Rachel's bandages finished up. "Okay," she said. "We're ready to go. Mr. Wayne." She nodded at him.

It was the perfect exit for him. "I'll check in with you two tomorrow," he told them. "But only if you want."

"That sounds fine with me," Rachel agreed.

Harvey didn't say anything. He was looking elsewhere.

Her frown returned. "Harvey?"

He startled, but didn't look away. "Sorry, what?"

Bruce followed his line of sight. He was back to staring at Selina, Jim, the captain, and another officer that had walked up to them. Jim's posture went ramrod straight, while Catwoman stilled. She looked over at them, her expression unreadable.

Bruce's jaw locked. He clenched his teeth.

Something else had happened tonight, hadn't it?

Jim left their group to come over to them unsteadily, the captain not far behind him. His eyes were misted over. "Mr. Wayne," he threw at Bruce, the only acknowledgement of Bruce's presence that he gave. "Mr. Dent, are you going to the hospital with your wife?"

"I intend to."

"Good. We're going to be setting a detail on you. Under no circumstances are you to leave their line of sight, do you understand me? You too, Ms. Dawes. Neither of you are going back home tonight, we're putting you up in a hotel. Two officers will collect the things that you tell them to, once they do a sweep of your apartment and make sure that everything's safe."

Rachel's lips pursed. "Why? What's going on, Jim?"

Jim's eyes went back and forth between her, Harvey, and him. "We just received word that while this went on there were another two assassination attempts tonight. They were both successful," he said. "Judge Surrilo's – " that was the judge who had been the arraigning judge for the 576 people Harvey had indicted " – car blew up with her inside it and Commissioner Loeb was poisoned. He was pronounced dead at the scene by the paramedics."

Rachel's face slackened with shock. "What?"

"The longer you stay out here, the more danger you both are in. You need to get going," Jim plowed ahead. "We need to get you to relative safety. I'd say the same for you, Mr. Wayne, due to your husband's actions tonight, but – "

"We have our own security measures," he finished for him. Unless the Joker had somebody who could hack into firewalls built by a certifiable genius and somehow took out him and Rebecca without them realizing what was going on (impossible – the second the electricity would go out because of nefarious reasons, the alarms and emergency lights in the house would go off), there was no way he would be able to hurt his family when they were home.

"Wait," Rachel protested as the one EMT worked on pulling her up to sit her properly in the ambulance, Harvey helping her. "What – what about our cat?"

"We'll get your cat and bring it to you," Jim promised.

But Rachel shook her head. "N – no. If something happens to us, I don't want her to...Bruce. Can you – ?"

Bruce picked up on her meaning. "If the officers take Alfie to your office, Jim, I'll take care of her," he offered. It wasn't the greatest of ideas and was probably going to take Tony some convincing, because they'd agreed there shouldn't be any pets in the house until Peter was older, due to his asthma. That wasn't a risk they'd wanted to take. But, special times called for special measures. "Is that okay?"

"We can do that," Jim concurred.

Persuaded by their words, Rachel calmed down some. As another EMT came by to close the doors to the ambulance, Harvey said, "Thanks, Bruce."

Within thirty seconds, they were gone.

Jim was walking away, leaving Bruce no choice but to catch up to him. "Jim," he called out, grasping the beta man's shoulder in his hand, causing him to turn around. His visage was dark like a storm. "Jim, has he made any more demands? Besides wanting Harvey?"

"No, just the one: that Batman take off his mask and turn himself in," was the response. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go back to dealing with this mess. Take care of your husband, Mr. Wayne." He glanced over at Tony, who was observing them with a carefully blank expression. "Take him home first, then come back for the cat."

"I will."

He let Jim head back into the swarm of officers then, and didn't fail to notice how Selina was now nowhere in sight. As if on cue, his phone buzzed.

Selina: Back at your house with Di. Meet you there

Word Count: 5,307

Next Chapter Title: love is the drug