Disclaimer: See part one
Note: This was going to be a one-shot but then I thought, why?
Chapter 2: No you're not
"I'm sorry they took all your money, Mr. Wayne!" It's her way of taking back a tiny shred of control after he barged into her home uninvited and … well, she recognizes the irony in that complaint.
"No, you're not." He springs back like a child to the doorframe to catch the last word and it hits her that this is a third face to Bruce Wayne she's seen in as many meetings. The realization kills the comeback forming on her tongue. Two-faced, people call her, the cat burglar who lives all nine lives inside of one. If two-faced is an insult then what's a girl to call Bruce Wayne?
Someone with a shot at keeping up.
"Asshole," Jen says from the doorway to the bathroom. And then, "He likes you."
Instead of citing all evidence to the contrary, Selina replies, "Everybody likes me." It's true, they do, right up until they don't.
It's starting to rain and she watches Bruce Wayne stare at the ancient, faded remains of the city bus map that adorns her street corner. His hair's too long out of it's neat slick and it drips onto his shoulders. There's something so young about him just now, like all that money was a weight he was waiting to shake off. She hates for that too.
He's soaked through in minutes, the fine white fabric of his collared shirt gone nearly transparent, clinging to the strong lines of the body she first saw swathed in a bathrobe and shuffling behind a cane.
"You're staring," Jen says and Selina can hear the smirk in her voice. She knows how Jen thinks, knows her friend is always hoping for a fairytale but she'll take a good scandal any day.
"You should have seen the guy when we first met," Selina says in way of explanation. "He looked more like a corpse."
Jen's still smirking but then she stops, her face folding into its rare, genuine shape. "Damn, Selina."
"What?"
"I mean the guy disappears for like ten years and people are talking about facial scars and a hunchback and all that shit and then you show up and suddenly he's all back from the dead and looking like sex. I don't know, baby girl … sounds like your fault. You're kind of responsible for him."
"I took something her cared about," Selina replies, turning back to the window. "Take the one thing a person bothers to put in a safe out of a house full of expensive shit and you're going to get some attention."
Jen backs off with the philosophizing and just smacks her lips at Wayne, now lounging with his back against the bus stop sign. Selina wonders if he feels their eyes on him. The force of his gaze was something of sticking point for her since that first meeting when she stood to find him staring hard at her down the sight of a bow. For an absurd moment she wondered what it meant when the ghosts started seeing you.
The dance floor had been different. Gone was that look in his eyes like a raw nerve, like long-dormant senses were awake for the first time in years and focused on nothing but her. In a suit and tie he'd been elegance incarnate, pinning her with eyes so open she knew he was hiding more than she could ever guess. He'd been armored in good manners and good will, even as he slipped the pearls from her neck as if the theft hadn't troubled him at all, as if…. Maybe Jen had a point. Whether he knew it or not, Bruce Wayne was trying pretty damn hard to act like he took nothing she did personally.
She wonders what it would be like to run into this new Bruce, this prince of beggars, at a high society event. She can picture it now, how he catches her at yet another charity gala, something insane and exclusive. He's broke but welcome with open arms because the invitation was already written in his blood.
She's after a mark with a mild fetish for the sight of an exquisite spinal column known in certain circles and her gown is cut daringly low in the back to accommodate. All night she's felt the eyes on her skin and the whispers that follow, feels the hovering charge of a dozen hands tempted to skim the line of her back. Then there's a hand warmly, gently, boldly crossing the line that's tantalized Gotham's aristocracy for the better part of a night.
His hand doesn't linger but rises to her shoulder, leaving a span of skin across her lower back that seems to notice suddenly that it's naked. There's no shock on her face when she turns to see Bruce Wayne, only when she sees that he's almost grinning, delighted to see her, delighted to catch her at her game.
It's Elton John or some shit providing the music because, yes, it's that exclusive. "Dance with me." And, god, she'd laugh in his face but there's this note in his voice she can't pretend to miss. He's not talking foxtrot, he's talking tango.
"I hate this song," she says.
"No you don't ," he replies, pulling her close, closer than she wants to be to him. Or anyone.
He knows it, she can see it in his smile, feel it in his step across the dance floor, The last time they danced he was all justice and dignity and she answered by stealing his car. This time he's not holding back, he's caught her and he's gloating the way he wouldn't allow himself to do that last time. This is revenge. Broke and bankrupt, he's lighter, rising up through the cracked surface of the billionaire recluse, the half-mad wunderkind who had never been more than a lost cause.
"I'm sorry they took all your money, Mr. Wayne," she says.
His grin nearly cracks her composure. He laughs shortly at the familiar joke. "How sorry?" Heat rises in her blood at the way he doesn't even try to sound innocent.
"Here's a hint," she says, pulling him close, leaning till her lips skim his Adam's apple. "If you're going to try for emotional blackmail make sure you try it on someone who cares."
He kisses her then, raises her chin with the barest of touches. He doesn't steal a kiss the way she had; she has time to see it coming, just not enough time to convince herself to turn away.
"It feels a little like you care."
She lingers too long against his lips for any statement of denial to ring true. "What do you want, Mr. Wayne?"
He looks like he's about to kiss her again but she's got a palm against his chest and they've stopped in the middle on the dance floor. And, fuck, she hates to make a scene. Unless it's one she planned.
He wraps a hand around her wrist like a conspiracy, like instead of enemies they might just be sparing partners. "I'm poor now," he says. "I could use a place to sleep tonight."
The laugh she chooses is polished and haughty and delivered right in his face because this has to be a game. "You want to stay at my place? You still have a mansion."
"I like your place," his hands around her waist are very warm with long fingers lingering lower than good manners dictate.
"I'll make you sleep on the floor." She puts a lifetime of sass into the curve of an eyebrow but in the soft party light he looks like an angel and standing this close he smells like sin. She breathes him in and finds herself being kissed.
"No you won't."
People are probably looking now because that's Bruce Wayne's life; he shows up and people pay attention. It's not the kind of position she wants to be in, barring the GCPD, this is the last crowd she wants remembering her face.
Her heart's beating too fast and he's probably ruined her chances of buttering up her mark and she's finding it unaccountably difficult to lie. What she does is suck his tongue into her mouth, kiss him like he's never been kissed by a cool, rich, Gotham girl. It was that or say, "Probably not," and she's not quite that far gone.
He's not some hard-smitten mark who smiles at her stupidly and can't believe his luck. He breaks the kiss, looking down at her from the advantage of height. "Get your coat." It's not a command just an inevitability.
"Selina." Jen shoves gently at her shoulder. "Selina."
"What?" She asks, annoyed and too warm despite the early autumn chill.
"Welcome back."
"What?"
"I called your name like five times. I was starting to think you had a seizure."
Selina turns a skeptical look to her friend. "I'm standing."
Jen snorts, "Barely. Did you go weak in the knees for a minute there or was that me?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You don't think it got a little hot in here? You know, with poor Bruce Wayne down there all soaking wet and…."
"Jen?"
"Yes?"
"Shut up." Selina takes a last look at her erstwhile victim and current tormenter. His clothes and hair are plastered to every plane and angle of his body. He looks like a half-drown cat. One with very nice shoulders. "And call a taxi for that poor sucker."
To be concluded …