Disclaimer: See part 1
Chapter 3: Metaphorical Storms
Selina follows him on instinct. By now she's learned every scrap of information about Bruce Wayne is worth uncovering. Because even when he looks like a used up madman in a bathrobe he might, at any second, change shape right there under your grasp; change into something that waltzes and smiles and sidles up to bite you in the ass.
She doesn't really expect him to hop in a cab to Batman's secret lair or anything so utterly stupid and convenient. But her gut says she's not done with him yet. Or he's not done with her. Which means the same thing. If there are other motivations feeding her gut—unease over his casual manner, his devil-may-care recklessness—well, the point of instinct is fight or flight. She'll sort the rest out later.
Besides, it's not as if following him is exactly a difficult task. And it's not exactly following since she has every intention of beating him to his destination.
Selina interrupts the call Jen is making to the cab company, asking for a particular driver, one who will cheerfully text his next fare's destination for a very reasonable kick back and take the scenic route for no additional charge. Granted, it's not like there are many places Bruce Wayne is likely to go. She and Jen are already halfway to the Palisades when Lu texts the address to Wayne Manor. They have a good head start on the taxi but Jen picks up speed anyway, lamenting the darkening sky and the dubious wiper blades on the Honda she'd picked up on 34th.
"Shit, I wouldn't even picked up this POS if someone hadn't left the cover off the damn cigarette lighter. Like, hello, please break into my car because clearly I've hidden my GPS in the glove box."
Selina laughs at Jen's mock distress. "And now here you are left with a moral dilemma: click 'home' and return the car safely there, teaching its careless owner a lesson or click 'home' and liberate a few items while the owner is obviously not at home and teach him an even better lesson."
"Exactly," Jen says emphatically. "You should have kept the Lamborghini."
Selina grins at the memory of the vulgarly gorgeous car she'd taken out of sheer competitiveness. It had glided like silk over the broad streets of Midtown, floated like a decadent bubble of luxury all the way across King St where its purr was abruptly grounded by the crunch and scrape of a low carriage contacting broken asphalt. There the high-gloss sheen made her a target to a hundred other thieves and she guided the pilfered vehicle as quickly as possible to a harbor side chop shop, dumping it into capable hands that would see its tracking system promptly lobotomized and have it outbound on a cargo ship by morning.
From the passenger seat, Selina sighs dramatically for Jen's benefit. "You know how tough it is to park a car like that in Gotham? I mean, yeah, you're basically asking really nicely for it to be stolen."
Jen's grin is mischievous even in profile. "Oh, he asked nicely? Don't you usually hold out for begging?"
"You know those rich boys, impeccable manners."
"Except for that time he took your pearls." Hurry or no, Jen takes no close calls with traffic lights since there may or may not currently be a warrant out for her arrest, she's been dodging a court summons for a while now. "And like 20 minutes ago when he practically broke into our home."
"Bastard," Selina agrees good-naturedly, inspecting her fingernails.
Rain is still threatening as they approach the manor. With acre upon acre of sculpted lawn there's no ideal approach and this time a catering van is not handy for Selina's purposes. Jen drops her near an outlying building and Selina makes her way toward the east wing of the house on foot, counting on the fact that the first version of Bruce she met seemed like a guy too paranoid to let anyone else monitor his security cameras. And, like the unfortunate owner of Jen's stolen Honda, she knows for a fact he's not home right now.
She's tucked herself into a grotto of immaculate landscaping when the first rain drops fall. Thunder in the distance warns the storm isn't far off. It also muffles the sound of an approaching town car.
Miranda Tate comes with the storm.
()
Bruce can feel the hard edge under his newfound lightness of being. As he pounds on his own front door it waits sharply, like teeth felt behind the lips of a savage kiss. It's the seam of hastily laid plans unraveling, the brass knuckle on the fist this goddamn city has been raising since his father first extended a compassionate hand. Once, Alfred begged him daily to stop fighting for a city locked in a cage match with itself. Then, after Rachel, Alfred begged him to fight for anything at all, to choose legacy over vengeance, life over exile.
But he'd chosen to live once, chosen Rachel over Harvey, Bruce over Batman, and he lost everything. He'd made the choice that mattered most and had the choice taken from him. So he stopped choosing.
The height and weight of his family home looms overhead, rebuilt with precise angles, with thick doors and strong locks. Bruce stares up at the house, locked tight as a mausoleum. "They're letting me keep the house," he'd told Selina Kyle. But all he needs is the cave.
Then there's a hand on his shoulder; there's a pair of eyes, dark blue under hair black with rain, blinking away water like tears. Miranda Tate, the only other living thing braving the storm and the wreckage of his legacy. He's not quite glad to see her. Even soaking wet, her smile is a light that casts deep shadows on his plans. Ugly things, but necessary.
She asks about house keys, laughs, leads him on a run through the rain. Her heels sink into the softening lawn and she shrieks with panicked delight, half-toppling into his arms, the crown of her head coming to rest against his chest. Then she's off again, racing for a window.
He chases after, already knowing. It's not fair that he thinks of Rachel, that he's attached a kind heart and a strong will and a sprint across the Wayne estate to one woman. It's not fair that the ache in his heart and the heat in his blood feel like echoes of how his life could have been.
She's half-dragging him inside—there's something, a door or window, his mind's decades away—and he very nearly puts an end to it. But his thoughts are slow to catch up, chasing the meandering paths of memory. She's holding a photo, asking about Alfred, naming all the places that hurt, kissing him like balm.
He very nearly stops her. Very nearly. He doesn't deserve her. She deserves him even less.
Bruce wants to save a city. Miranda wants to save the world. She wants to save the people, the trees, the lakes and rivers. Lucius and Alfred and everyone who's ever strung together the names Bruce Wayne and Miranda Tate in a sentence want something smaller and grimmer; they want Miranda to save him.
He very nearly stops her. But she's holding that torn photograph like she doesn't need to ask to know its his own broken pieces.
He very nearly stops her but her soft smile gets in his eyes like sunlight and he's kept to the dark for such a long time.
"Shhh," she says, fingertips light across his jaw line. "We're just waiting out the rain."
()
Miranda Tate comes with the storm.
Hah, Selina thinks silently because God she hates storm metaphors but a decent orgasm pun shouldn't be passed up. That storm speech she had given Bruce Wayne was the most goddamn melodramatic moment of her life. But it was in the script, it was the way Bane talked and men listened. She'd seen it work, heard him inspire a small army into madness. Bruce Wayne seemed to have plenty of madness but he could use a little inspiration.
Well, Miranda Tate was seeing to that.
Man lives like a fucking fairytale, Selina thinks. Shuts himself up like a beast in a castle until a bleeding heart with a pretty face breaks the spell.
She might be sitting under the ledge of an open window in a thunderstorm listening to two rich kids fuck or make love or whatever Bruce Wayne does with naked and willing women but she'd started out with slightly purer motivations. She'd seen Miranda send away a perfectly good town car, watched her duck behind a shrubbery only to sneak up on the erstwhile Prince of Gotham at an opportune moment, like it was all a happy accident. There was the breathless sprint across the lawn, the feisty attempts to pry open doors, the wide, wet doe eyes blinking back rain.
Then there was the hasty climb through a window and soft questions. Selina could only make out every third word or so of the hushed conversation but she recognized the warm tones that said trust me, trust me, trust me.
It didn't end there, naturally. Selina had no problem admitting Miranda Tate was good. Selina herself knew how to spin trust from the curl of her eyelashes, lust from the pitch of her voice. That Miranda Tate was good at Selina's own game did not necessarily bode well for Bruce Wayne.
Well, that depended on one's definition of well.
That Miranda wanted Bruce's trust was clear enough. Why, Selina didn't know. What she did know was, if trust was a key, sex was a lock pick.
Miranda took her sweet time rising to climax but Bruce Wayne was patient and persistent and probably really goddamn stubborn. Just shy of an hour later—and by then Selina had gotten both bored and hot enough under the collar to take a few peeks through the rain-streaked window -Selina heard moans deepening from the regular delicate sighs she'd grown accustomed to. The woman's voice dissolved into pleading tones, rolling out a string of filth made lovely in French. Selina swore she heard Bruce Wayne laugh.
Slow to warm up, Miranda Tate might be but Selina had to grant that the pay off was rather spectacular; gasping, razor-pitched cries that had the blood pounding in Selina's ears. She probably shook, Selina thought, probably twisted his fingers into his hair and pulled. For his part, Bruce kept her there for what seemed like an eternity, soprano moans rising again each time relief began to enter the cries. Selina crouched in the gentle rain, back pressed to stone, tempted to look but not quite trusting herself to look away before Bruce caught her at it. He'd be the sort to look up, to watch a woman's face while she came.
In the end, the French litany turned to a request, a plea for him to enter her or let her come down. Selina, sympathetic, hoped the rich boy spoke some French, for Tate's sake. Selina herself had spent most of a trip to the Maldives in the frighteningly ecstatic purgatory of serial orgasms. When the vacation ended, she'd even thought about keeping one of the guy's Van Gogh's for herself to remember the guy by.
If the ragged relief in Miranda's voice was anything to go by, Bruce Wayne's French or his instincts were good enough. "Ten minutes," Selina noted with a perverse pride. "Careful Wayne, she almost lost consciousness there."
She leaves before Bruce starts speaking in tongues. She's as thoroughly soaked as they had been before they stripped off in the warm, dry mansion and she's the only one of the three who is going to leave the encounter thoroughly unsatisfied. There's nothing else to learn here and as arousing as it is to picture Bruce's arrogant eyes go wide at her overhearing him and his stuck up girlfriend screwing away the pain…. Selina's woman enough to admit she'd rather not find out second hand what it's like to make Bruce Wayne come undone.