Nine years from the present…
"Jesus, Bruce." Selina helped Batman from the Batmobile. Dry blood had stained his lips and the side of his face. The insignia had been torn. He couldn't even stand. He had to use Selina as a crutch to get to a chair.
"What the hell did you fight?" She quickly gathered gauze, alcohol, and medical tape from a drawer. "It looks like you'd been attacked by a herd of lions."
"I may as well have." Bruce pulled off his cowl and the top of his uniform.
After filling a basin with water, Selina set it beside Bruce. She wet the sponge, the same type of sponge she had used to cleanse his wounds dozens and dozens of times before.
"You're getting too old for this," she reprimanded and began cleaning the blood from his mouth. "You look like a human punching bag."
"And you're looking very pretty tonight. Who were you meeting?"
"Don't pull that playboy shit on me." Selina moved the sponge to the cuts on his chest. "I was hoping you wouldn't be exhausted when you got back. I'm beginning to understand it's only wishful thinking these days."
He didn't apologize. She didn't expect him to.
"How much more suffering must you endure before Gotham has quenched its thirst for Wayne blood?"
"Selina, of all people, I would expect you to understand."
"And I do." She dropped the sponge into the basin, spilling red water onto the table. Selina settled her hands on his shoulders, and he moved his to her hips.
"You refused to give up the East End, swore you'd protect it."
"Until Deathstroke almost killed me. You asked me to leave the life for the millionth time and move into your mansion, and I finally did."
Her fingers traced his jaw line, the wrinkles that had formed over the years, and the scars she and others had given him. His hair was harshly graying near his temples, and the rest of his black locks looked as if he had salt sprinkled through it.
Selina kissed him, remembering the hundreds of times he had refused to kiss her in return and the hundreds of moments he couldn't resist her taste. She wanted to cry.
"I gave it all up for you, Bruce," she told against this mouth. "My costume is hanging in this cave because I let you have it. You didn't want me to get hurt again. I complied because, well, because I love you."
Bruce stared at her with the same detached look he had probably given Dick and Barbara or former lovers when they had pleaded for change.
"Now, do this for me. I'm not one to beg, and you know that." She brushed hair from his forehead. "Say you love me. Hand the burden over to someone new, someone who has another forty years left in him." She faked a smile and added, "Or her."
He stared at Selina, and his look frightened her. Today, he seemed so much older, so much colder, than ever.
A tear rolled down her cheek. He couldn't love her like she loved him. His first and only love was his city, his damned city.
He wiped the tear from her face with his thumb.
"You'll need a knee replacement soon, your spine never completely recovered, and you can't sleep without pain medication. One of these days, you're going to give yourself a heart attack and some punk might get lucky." Selina took a step back, so she would slip from his fingers. "I spent nine years in this mausoleum." She slightly laughed. "I haven't got another year left in me. Nine is my limit."
Bruce would never ask Selina to stay. She knew she was fighting a losing battle.
"I'll stay at Maven's tonight and send someone for my things in the morning."