Although Batman rightfully held the reputation of the World's Greatest Detective, it was actually Selina who finally discerned his identity. Bruce did not learn hers until she revealed it. But maybe he didn't want to know. Maybe he simply wanted to keep those rooftop encounters in the moment, the vivacious woman with an extravagant waterfall of dark hair in rich purple hugging her curves, green eyes sparkling as she never ever ever let him catch her but never quite got far away quickly enough to keep their meetings from happening.
Maybe.
What was undeniable was that one day, one evening, at another charity event, this one held by the Daughters of Gotham to benefit education initiatives in the inner city, a cause that Selina wholeheartedly supported, Selina noticed something.
It was a masquerade ball, each plate running three hundred dollars a piece, and everyone had a mask. Almost everyone. Bruce Wayne, the CEO of Wayne Tech, was sloppily drunk as he often was, swinging his mask by its ties over his index finger, his other arm wrapped around Minnie Du Pont, a woman twice his age, who was nonetheless giggling at his attentions. Selina did not often find herself in his company, his generally outlandish behavior and accompaniment of women who either couldn't or chose to pretend they couldn't string a coherent sentence together not a point of interest to her. Today, he had somehow made his way into a conversation she was having with Vincent Lau, a new board member at the Gotham Metropolitan Museum, who was as much an interesting a conversationalist as a great professional opportunity.
She suddenly couldn't recall what it was she said and couldn't recall why she had even noticed but Bruce had paused to listen, the beaming lopsided grip settling into the strangest expression - even, nearly no expression at all, except for the tiniest, asymmetrical tilt of his mouth.
Her eyes flitted from his mouth up his face and she could tell he noticed because he was once again laughing, making a joke she didn't quite catch but could tell was terrible by the tightening around Vincent's eyes though the man smiled politely. Minnie just continued to giggle.
It was nothing. It had to be nothing.
But she knew that tilt.
Three nights later, she saw that tilt - she thought she saw it - she couldn't be sure and didn't know if she wanted to be sure - but there was a rooftop, and there was a sack of gems, and there she was standing twenty feet away from the Dark Knight. She couldn't see his eyes, couldn't see his face, saw nothing but his mouth and a tiny asymmetrical tilt.
After that, she made it a point to watch Bruce Wayne, to attend events where she knew he'd be. She slid into groups where he held court, conversations inane and uninteresting, but she wasn't listening. She was watching. From up close. From across the room.
It took three months before she saw the tilt again.
That was when she asked him to dance. No, not asked him, maneuvered him into asking her, leaving him no choice but to ask, because what rich playboy could avoid asking Selina Kyle to the dance floor when her date for the night had to depart on an emergency (that she may or may not have manufactured), leaving her in that dress and those shoes and all by herself.
She didn't manage to get the tilt again while they danced and he held her alternatively much closer than the waltz demanded and much too far, with arms that didn't shake even a bit but corded muscles that flexed under the pristine black tuxedo. No, she didn't manage to get the tilt.
But she didn't have to.