Author's note: It's good that I have Lou beta reading this, because I know that at least one person is reading it.
I hope there are more people coming, because I'm really enjoying to write this, you've no idea!
Thank you the person who favorite/followed, I appreciate it :D
1. A CHAPTER OF DISTRACTIONS
On the day of Selina's fifteenth birthday, Barbara made sure to take the girls for a girls' day out. They watched a funny action movie that Ivy supposedly hadn't been old enough to watch, bought shoes and ate ice cream.
The coolest thing about Barbara, Selina had thought that afternoon, was that she never tried to mom them. They would've had run in a heartbeat if she had, for Ivy's memories of her mother were too fresh and Selina still liked to pretend she was a free street kid.
But on the day of her fifteenth birthday Barbara made sure to take the girls for a girls' day out because there was something else waiting to happen at home.
It was past 5pm when they opened the door, but the hall and living room were different. Jim was there, as well as Bullock, Alfred, Leslie and Bruce. Selina wasn't sure if Babs and Lee were back in terms, but it seemed that they made the effort just for her. They had put balloons in different shades of purple all around the space, had cupcakes wit cats on it and a red velvet that begged to be eaten with fifteen candles on it.
She was teased about how Bruce had put it all together, asked to make a wish and blew out the candles with little trouble. She gave the first slice, surprising even herself, to Ivy. The girl didn't eat it because it had milk, but the symbolism of the gesture was nice.
(in fact, Bruce hadn't forget that Ivy was vegan and as soon as she passed along to him that first slice, he pointed a section of vegan cupcakes that she could eat)
After every single thing that Selina and Ivy had gone through up until then, that was the first time that Selina somehow said "we are in this together" and Ivy somehow agreed.
That was also the same day that Selina and Bruce sort of became public. After everyone ate cake and there was finger food in every corner of the house, he held her hand and led her to the balcony. The view was pretty from up there, it was her favorite part of the apartment. He rambled for a few minutes about how and why he chose the balloons and the cake, let go pieces of information that made her sure that he knew her, although he didn't get her all the time and for once she found it adorable instead of annoying or nosy.
She had spent the previous months too invested on Barbara and rebuilding that sort of home with Ivy that it took her some time to go back to Bruce's life after the Ball. It seemed that he was always busy with something too (and lately "something" meant "pretty rich girls") and so was she, so to make time wasn't easy.
But it seemed that he liked to have her in his life and he didn't want them to be so apart. He wanted them to stay friends and she should've said that he was delusional, but she couldn't.
"Yeah, sure." She had said and made him smile.
"Cool." He replied and she smiled too. Before she processed it, he was one step closer. Those months apart were enough for him to grow up a good foot and she was kind of sorry she missed it. "One more thing." He said and then he kissed her – fast, so she couldn't protest.
Everyone saw it through the glass door and walls.
A couple of weeks later, Jim asked Barbara to marry him and she said yes. They made a deal with the girls and it was decided that Ivy would go back to school and Selina would start to help at the gallery. No one complained.
Selina stirred and rolled in bed on the fifth morning in a roll that she woke up in the Manor. If there was one thing she was good at, it was to run from her problems, and Bruce was her favorite distraction. He also was the reason she woke up too early that Wednesday.
"Cat?" he hushed, shaking her carefully and she hummed in answer, not daring to open her eyes. He awoke her when he got up, but she still could have an extra hour. "Selina, Jim is here."
She made a face.
"How's that my business?" she asked, her voice hoarse with sleep.
"He's asking for you." Bruce told her and she took a deep breath, finally opening her eyes.
There was a time when Jim Gordon would drag her back home after he found out that she had spent the night on Bruce's bed, but she thought that he had gotten over it already. Alfred didn't share his concern, but Jim would always retort with "it's because it's not your daughter who can get pregnant" which was a bit of an exaggeration, but also very cute.
That thought sent a knot in her stomach and she forced herself to get up to think of something else. She threw in some band tee of Bruce's and a pair of boxers, didn't even care about her hair and went downstairs bare feet; she still had a lot of time to get ready to work, all she needed was in her car.
As soon as she entered in the kitchen, where the smell of bread and coffee came from and were Jim was having a tense chat with Bruce and Alfred, she went straight to the mugs.
"Coffee…" she chanted, extending her mug to Alfred to fill it. Jim tried to talk to her, but she shushed him and didn't let him direct to her until half of the liquid was in her system. "So? What is it?" she asked way more alert.
"You have a home, you know?" Jim told her and she knew he was angry, but didn't he understand how hard it was to go back to the room you shared with your disappeared sister? She didn't think so.
"Yeah, it comes in the format of a red 88 T-Bird." She calmly replied and sipped her coffee without breaking eye contact. Jim's work made him so angry all the time that she feared that he might have a stroke any moment, but it was also very hard not to provoke him, he had the best reactions.
That time, he locked his jaw and said through his teeth.
"Selina."
"Look, if you're worried about Babs, I go see her every day! Today I'll go after work, but I'm going, she does not miss me."
Stressed, Jim Gordon rubbed his face, trying to shoo his tension. When he spoke again, he was much calmer.
"Yeah, but she misses Ivy." He said and Selina put her mug down the counter, all her bravado gone. Not many people were able to make her drop her act and fifty percent of them were in that room.
"Do you have any news?" Selina asked, her voice somber, and Jim shook his head. Five days were a lot of days to be missing. She could bet the police had their eyes turned to the docs for at least forty-eight hours already. She knew why Jim was there, he was desperately hoping that she had had some news, any news, but she was as clueless as him. "No one reached to me yet, neither."
It was better to deliver it like this, once and for all and Jim lowered his head. Ivy's disappearance made it to the journals and news, her face was all around the city, but it'd die soon; they knew no pretty girl survives for long in this city, no matter how smart they are.
Her thoughts diverged to Fish Mooney at that moment. While under her wing, Fish shared some pretty tense stories about how she survived Gotham day after day and learned her way to the top step by step over and over. Selina couldn't afford to think that Ivy would just die on them like that, it was not at all how the girl worked. V was strong, resilient, forward thinker and she could handle anything. She was going to survive this – whatever it was that was going on with her. And she wouldn't allow anyone to think otherwise.
"Selly, just…" Jim started again, breaking her line of thought. "Go home, okay? What are you even doing here anyway?"
At that, the girl smiled, her attitude rebuilt in two seconds.
"Things that involve lots of acrobatics and lots of tongue." She replied, making sure not to blush and Bruce snorted in his coffee. She had almost forgotten he and Alfred were there.
Jim turned to Bruce very serious.
"Do you think this is funny?" the cop asked using his cop voice. Too bad it didn't work on them.
"Absolutely not." Bruce answered.
"This is very serious, are you two being careful?"
"Oh, my God, Jim, shut up!" Selina snapped, now blushing. She couldn't decide if she was more annoyed or glad to see him dad her. "Don't you have to work or something?"
He had and he went. So did she.
[...]
The only problem was that they weren't being careful.
Well, they used to be all about condoms, but then Selina got on the pill and the condoms were saved for his other affairs. And Selina was good with her pills, she was so proud to be able to take care of everyone else AND herself.
But that oddly hot month of April was filled with surprises. Before Ivy even became a "situation", Selina had to run with Barbara to the hospital at least three times; she managed to make four big sells and one important buy, hired an inter for the summer, modified all the security system with the help of Lucius Fox and her friend Macky who also was a former street kid and helped finish the decoration of the baby's room.
When she went home on Sunday to have dinner with Babs and Jim, Barbara asked Selina to get a new stash of pill for her on Monday, for she was running out. The following day, She woke up early and did as she was asked. When she got home, Barbara said
"Thank you, Selly. Did you get your pills too? Month is ending."
Barbara knew her cycle because she was the one who took Selina to the doctor in the first place, but the girl had to have a few seconds of loading before she understood what the other meant.
"Hm…" she started unsure. "Yea, I did." And then she mumbled a "shit." When Babs wasn't looking.
Next thing she did was dig the depths of her purse to find the little box. And now it set in the top drawer of her office table at the gallery, just beside the globe she got the previous week. There was an ache growing behind Selina's eyes, so she excused herself to be in the office and was developing a new hobby of staring at nothing, have her eyes dragged to the open drawer, wonder at its contents and stare at nothing again, all in full cycle.
Out of those twenty-one pills that she had to take daily, fourteen still were in the box. Fourteen. And the monthly clock was ticking down to three. Selina had no idea how she could totally forget about taking them that way. Sure that a lot of things happened, but a lot of things had happened for a long time, that shouldn't be an excuse.
She sighed for the tenth time, closing her eyes to try to focus. She couldn't think about it now. She shouldn't even need to go back to the pills at this point, she'd have her period any moment now anyway. Also, she had to work and she had Ivy.
Determined to get shit done, Selina threw the little box in the trash can and took the globe to put it with the other stuff, but she found herself analyzing it again. It was Metropolis' Daily Planet miniature, a city by the west that could get colder than Gotham in winter months. Superman's city.
To be honest, she found Superman kind of silly and messy. She was a bigger fan of his cousin Supergirl, who did her thing not so far from there. But the globe was of the Daily Planet, from Metropolis, the same place where most of her gifts came from.
Distracted, Selina shook the globe, making it snow over the dramatic symbol of the journal and she turned it upside down to closely look at its base again. She had learned to look for details a long time ago, so that particular one wasn't even hard to spot. A fish carved under the base, it wasn't even discreet, just the outline of its format like the neon of her former club.
"Is that really you, Fish?" Selina whispered to the miniature, wondering if it could all be a long joke. Maria Mercedes Fish Mooney was supposed to be dead for three winters already, but no cop of fisherman found her body. Maybe she was dissolving in the ocean, but maybe, just maybe, she was alive.
She once said that Selina was her favorite girl. She said it more than once and the teen believed that she gave her status to know firsthand that the boss was around, alive and well, not to get led through a bunch of vague clues that led nowhere, so you could imagine how she felt about those gifts.
Selina closed the top drawer and opened the last one, the one that needed a key. Inside it there was a safe, a combination safe where she kept all the gifts that could somehow be connected to Fish Mooney. The other ones were in the same safe she had at Penguin's where she kept money and jewels. That globe belonged to the office safe.
When she bended down to open combination, she saw the little box where the globe came in and it gave her an idea. Although it didn't have a sender address, it had the date of the postage from Central City, so she could guess when that gift was bought.
Central City also was west of Gotham, on the way to Metropolis, not very far from Starling. The package was dated of two weeks before and it was the Daily Planet building, so Selina opened an internet browser on her computer and checked the Daily Planet's webpage from the day the package was sent to a few days back. If there was something she knew about those gifts, it was that they were fresh breadcrumbles. Selina had a long list of interesting curiosities linked to each gift she got.
The quick dig she did didn't bring many interesting curiosities, however. There were news about the Superman (always) and news about Lex Luthor, news about criminals and crimes fought; the only article that caught her attention a little deeper was one about women empowerment. It talked about the vigilante women on the streets – alien or not – and how it stimulated the bosses all around not to be afraid of their status in command. It mentioned Supergirl, both White and Black Canary, a young lady who was being called Wonder Woman down south that couldn't be much older than Selina herself and there was also someone on the west coast being called The Question that the media believed was a woman too, for many reasons. Those people were being compared to many powerful women, like Kate Kane, a friend of Barbara's and Luthor's counselor who no one knew who was, but rumor has it that she'd make Condoleezza Rice run for her money.
Before Selina could read any further, she was interrupted by a knock on the door that was open as soon as she told the person to come in. She was expecting to see Marla or Rachel, the intern, but who was in front of her when she looked up was a very blonde, very pale and very distressed Harleen Quinzel.
Ivy could be many things – crazy ass bitch, nerd as fuck econazi, poison silver-tongue (God, how Selina missed her!), but no one could deny that she knew how to choose her lovers. Harleen was a beauty and it was true that Selina didn't try much to get to know her, but from what she saw, they were good to each other, they made each other happy. She even thought that V would find them an apartment as soon as she turned sixteen (was it just a month earlier?), but it didn't happen so fast.
It was clear by the red in the blonde's eyes and the heaviness that she carried that Harleen was more than worried about Ivy. Selina could swear that she was skinnier, which couldn't be good. She needed to keep her mind straight because it was the end of the semester and Ivy wouldn't want her to screw up or lose her internship.
At that, Selina shook her head. She couldn't let herself think as if V was gone. She wasn't gone. She was coming back.
"Hi Harleen, sit down." She offered and the other girl did as she was told.
"Metropolis?" she said, her voice small, pointing at the globe that still was on Selina's desk. "Cool city."
"Never been there." She admitted and Harleen raised an eyebrow. "A friend brought it to me." She explained and the other nodded. Unable to make small talk, Selina cut right to watch mattered. "Did you get any news?"
Harleen shook her head no and took a few deep breaths. She was so balanced, Selina wondered why.
"It's my fault." There it was. "If I hadn't told Pam to meet me, she wouldn't be gone."
Selina shook her head disagreeing.
"That's not how it works, Harleen." She tried, but the girl was convinced.
"I must have done something really, really stupid for her to leave me like that." She continued as if Selina hadn't said anything. "Why did I think it was okay to ask her to do things?"
She was so frustrated, Selina could almost touch it. But it also bothered Selina, because it wasn't about Harleen what was going on with V, she wasn't the only one to blame. All the time, the younger girl wondered if she hadn't confronted Ivy about the drugs and just offered a ride… perhaps Ivy would be safe and sound by now.
They had history, she and Ivy, and it was very annoying to have this other person who hardly knew her feeling entitled. It was a thing to miss her, and a completely different thing to have this other girl thinking she was the only person who was suffering.
"She didn't leave you." Selina cut Harleen, knowing that her tone was a bit too sharp. She tried to soften it before she spoke again. "She left me and our mom right when our little sister is about to be born. Do you have any idea how V and I were waiting to see her? Ever since Babs told us she was pregnant! We took care of each other when we only had each other and we took care of Babs when she thought no one else cared about her. She has family. You think she'd simply leave just because her girlfriend is, I don't know, kinky or something? She left us, Harleen. And that doesn't sound right."
Right, that wasn't soft. But Harleen had to snap out of her misery if she wanted to find out what had happened to Ivy. Because Selina was certain that something had happened, no one could take that certainty from her. The Ivy she knew wouldn't just leave everyone she loved behind. She just wouldn't. Something was going on.
Instead of saying that to Harleen, Selina said something else, something that scared her how profoundly she meant it.
"I still don't know what is it that's keeping V from contacting us, but I know that I'll do everything in my power to find her and bring her home."
It worked. Harleen seemed calmer after those words and a little bit of color went back to her skin.
"You promise?" the blonde asked and the teen nodded.
"I promise."
It seemed to satisfy Harleen's heavy heart and she stood up to leave, apologizing for interrupting Selina's work. Before she left, though, the younger girl called her again.
"If you remember anything else…" she said, looking into Harleen eyes. She had so much energy in them, like she could skin you, it was amazing. "or if you see something – anything – weird… please, report to Jim or to me, will you?"
By the door, Harleen nodded.
"I will."
[...]
Every day waking up knowing that Ivy wasn't around tasted weird in Selina's mouth. Every day scratched in the calendar was another day fewer of chances of finding Ivy well and breathing and it scared Selina to the bone from the moment she opened her eyes, Bruce's arms around her, to going to work and having to focus to sell something pretty, smile to clients, to the moment she went home to have dinner with Babs and Jim, as if life was supposed to go back to normal already when her guts told her it was too soon.
On the eightieth day, a Saturday, she had to work and off she went in her red T-Bird that she loved so much, eyes as heavy as her heart, because the sleep slipped away from her and she was downtown when her phone buzzed with a call from Jim. Selina quickly parked in the first spot she found and called back, eager to know if he had any news, but his tone was different when he picked up.
"Selly, I need you in the hospital right now. Barbara is having contractions." He said, not even bothering to say hello first and Selina's heart beat faster.
"Do you think this is it?" she asked, something very similar to excitement appearing in her voice for the first time in a week.
"I don't know." Jim answered and she could swear he was so nervous it was loud. "Maybe."
"I'm on my way!" she told him, already turning the key to start the car again, but then she stopped short. "Wait, I'm supposed to open the gallery today. I can't make it a thing to leave them hanging every Saturday."
There was a silence there, after she said it, where both of them wondered at what made her skip work the previous week and how this distance in time counted down an invisible clock to everything that went wrong that they couldn't fix and they both thought about Ivy and the little baby and how it felt a tad wrong for her to be born without her middle sister here to see her. Jim spoke first.
"You also can't leave Barbara right now, so go to the gallery, open it, do your instructions thing and tell everyone you're staying with Babs at the hospital for as much as you can. It's a family emergency."
Selina smiled, nodded knowing that he couldn't see it and hung up. The coolest thing about Jim was that he broke all the rules, from the moment he accepted her word when she said she had seen the Waynes' killer to the current day. He went against every demand she and Ivy had made and he totally dad them, even though Ivy's memories of her father were still fresh and Selina still liked to pretend she was a free street kid. He paved the path that Barbara started to make and made the girls accept easier to have a mom again. On his own way, he led them under Barbara's wing willingly and that care, that love that both adults shared with them was something they didn't know before, didn't believe before, something that strengthened them and something they didn't want to lose.
So Selina went to the gallery feeling a new joy in her chest, told everyone that maybe Babs would deliver that day, told them to do their job and that she would be away for a few hours, just in case a new baby girl decided to arrive.
She spent most of the morning texting Jim to know what was going on, waiting in the lob and playing Sudoku on her phone, trying to distract her mind. If she had thought straight, she would've brought a few more articles from the Daily Planet to read. Babies take a long time to come to the world and she could use the reading, internet worked like shit in that area of Gotham.
She was for so long with her head down, that she didn't even notice when someone stopped by her side, just when an open box of donuts appeared in front of her nose that she looked up and saw Bruce smiling at her.
"I'm guessing you didn't have lunch yet." He said, sitting by her side and she put her phone down, her mouth slightly open.
"What time is it?"
"Short past noon." He answered as she took the box in her hands, choosing a donut covered with chocolate.
"How did find me?" Selina asked, her mouth full and Bruce handed her a bottle of water that she gladly accepted.
"Jim told Alfred, who told me, I called the gallery and they told me you were here. Do you have any idea what's going on in there?"
Selina sighed and shook her head and Bruce chose a donut for himself waiting for her to explain.
"Stress, apparently." She informed. "They are making a bunch of exams and calculating if they should take the baby out or wait for the week that is left in the oven."
Bruce nodded, all comprehensive.
"What do you prefer?" he asked and she sighed. There was only one valuable answer to that.
"I want my family together." She replied.
They ate in silence for a few, letting the tension of the void Ivy caused ease a little bit. After a few minutes, Bruce leaned closer to her, bumping his shoulder in hers and Selina smiled a little, leaning in to him too. They looked at each other and it was a moment that begged for a kiss, but instead, Bruce frowned and spoke again.
"I've been meaning to tell you something that's been in my mind for a few days, but all this happened and I couldn't find the right time-"
"What is it, B?" she cut him, knowing that he could ramble for way too long if she let him and he took a deep breath.
"I think… I'll leave town for some time." He told her and she raised an eyebrow. "I'll probably leave the country, really. And I don't know for how long."
Selina looked at him and waited, but after a while it was clear that he wanted her to say something.
"Why?" she asked, her voice surprisingly calm.
"I think I'm not having enough, I guess." He said and she wondered what else he could want, she wondered if she wasn't enough already, but was quick to push that thought away. It clearly wasn't about them and she wasn't one to make it be. "I need to know how the world works and Gotham is not the right role model."
It was a reasonable answer, she had to admit. Although Selina loved that city, she also felt like it limited her in some way. She herself was waiting for her chance to leave, knowing that she would be back someday.
"I'm not going today, nor tomorrow. I'm just telling you that someday I'll go."
Selina nodded.
"And you are going alone." She said, not a question.
"Feels right that way, yes." Bruce pondered. "What are you thinking?"
Oh, Selina was thinking in many things at the same time. She was thinking that there probably was another reason behind his decision, but she wasn't sure if she wanted to dig deeper. She was thinking that she wouldn't have any reason to stay at the Manor once he was gone and that she had her own room that was half filled with Ivy's things. She was thinking that her little sister would arrive anytime soon and that Jim was right, Babs needed her at home. She was thinking that she had a home and Bruce wasn't it.
She was thinking that maybe it was good that Bruce was leaving. Maybe, if he left soon enough, she would never have to tell him about how her cycle was out of time for a couple of days and she hadn't bleed yet. Like never.
Finally, Jim came down the hall and she ran to him as soon as she saw him. She was almost an adult, but he still could hug her like she was a child and his voice calmed her in a way that would make her unease a few years back.
"What's the pitch?" she asked when she hugged him and he ran his hand through her hair, something that she enjoyed, but rarely let him do.
"Not today, kiddo." Jim answered and she let go of him pouting, a gesture that made him laugh a bit. They walked together back to the chairs, where Bruce was waiting with a half empty box of donuts and two half empty bottles of water. "She's not dilated enough and there's no risk of the water breaking so soon, so she's going home after she's medicated."
"Medicated for what?" Selina asked.
"Pressure." Jim told her. They were always on the verge of the dread of facing another break down, like it was lurking behind their backs ready to attack in the first opportunity, but a lot of opportunities came and went already and Barbara was hanging on. "We'll leave in an hour at most." He continued and looked at Selina, his older daughter. That little stray cat made room in his life the moment she crossed his path and he really hoped she would never leave, same way he hoped Ivy hadn't just left them. Not after everything. "Are you coming with us?"
Selina looked at Bruce, who hadn't said a word, probably still waiting for her answer and then she looked at Jim with a small smile, the smile she reserved for moments of companionship and sincerity. Not many people were able to make her give them that smile and seventy-five percent of them were in that hospital.
"Yeah." She said. "I was going to tell Bruce this right about now. I'm going home."
