Bruce Wainright has (onerule) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-10-17 00:17:00 |
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Entry tags: | batman, catwoman, door: dc comics |
Who: Bruce and Selina
What: First aid.
Where: Some apartment in Gotham.
When: Backdated to post-prison break. (1/2)
Warnings/Rating: Noone.
It was intentional, getting shot off the edge of Arkham's annoyingly tall little wall. Really, the kitty cat was fairly sure could make it without taking the bullet, but the failures that resulted in three dead inmates just before her own little bid for freedom, that made her rethink things. Oh, if it hadn't been for Blondie, she would have just risked it. After all, she'd been carrying a deathwish on her shoulder for more years than she could remember. But she wasn't completely selfish, and plan B might require some stitches, but it was safer. More painful, but safer. She made sure that she presented her right shoulder when she flipped over the lip of the wall, and she made sure that she chose a spot with plenty of little guards out front to break her fall. It had been a breeze, if a painful one.
The trip the medical unit was a barrel of laughs, because TYGER guards were about as pleasant to deal with as Hal Jordan. Once inside, she weighed her options, and she decided there wasn't time to worry about a bullet just then. If Eddie was making as much noise inside as she thought he was, well, this entire little prison city was going to be on lockdown soon, and that would make things much, much harder for the kitty cat. So, a tourniquet later, and she was using the whip Eddie had scrounged up for her. She took a gun off a guard, and she managed to borrow a very special set of keys, one that led out to the employee parking area. Oh, and she found a nurse that was so obliging about lending the kitty cat her scrubs. From there, it was all about borrowing a pretty red car, and the kitty cat had been stealing wheels since she was just a kitten.
And maybe it was the blood loss and the twisted ankle that she couldn't put any weight on, but Selina had been planning to go back to her penthouse in Wayne Towers. She didn't think they'd clear it out so quickly, not when she'd rented it using a fake identity, but it just wasn't the kitty cat's night. Her card for the parking garage beeped in denial, and she knew precisely what that meant. A quick look from the block over showed that the blinds in her old unit were wide open and, even from the distance, she could tell the penthouse was empty. And then, maybe, the kitty cat panicked a little.
Starting from scratch didn't scare her, not as a rule. But starting from scratch with a bum ankle, a bullet lodged in her shoulder, and a federal warrant? That only compounded her already bad mood. And there was no way she was crossing over and letting Blondie deal with this, because there would be no end to the antihero's whining.
And, once Bruce contacted her, telling him became an option. But the kitty cat had her pride, and she refused to admit she needed help, especially after all her reassurances that she was just fine on her own.
She ditched the red, shiny car, and she picked up something old and rusted, less likely to draw attention in the seedier parts of Gotham. She headed west of the Diamond District, to Chinatown, where she knew an old shopkeeper that owed her a very big favor. It was a risk, but she was losing blood too quickly to find somewhere further out.
The efficiency above the laundromat was one of five that were exactly the same - old and run down, with the barest furnishings and a rusted fire escape. Selina promised the shopkeeper five times what it was worth for the month, and she reminded him of his little debt, and then she dragged herself up stairs. She wouldn't stay past the evening, despite the hefty promise. Honor among thieves? That was a fallacy, and the kitty cat knew it.
"Well, aren't you a blast from the past?" she asked the empty efficiency, because this might be a different Gotham, but this place was just like she remembered it. But she didn't have time for reminiscence. She hobbled into the kitchen, the fluorescent light overhead buzzing as she turned it on, and she ran the water and set it to boil in the tin pot someone had left behind in the cabinet. With a herculean effort, she lifted herself onto the counter, sitting so that she could take the weight off her ankle, and she worked at peeling the yellow fabric of the nursing scrubs away from the bullet wound.
Even now, after nearly two years, Bruce would have been genuinely surprised if Selina had relented and told him where she was. He was certain she could be, quite literally, bleeding to death and still insist that she was ‘fine’ and ‘didn’t need his help’. Her stubbornness, so much like his own, was the reason why he ignored her demands that she leave him be; he too was reluctant to ask for help, and often minimized his own injuries when they occurred. While he was worried about Jason he had the utmost faith in the rest of his family to ensure his safety, and in this case, there was little he could do that they couldn’t. Getting him (and Harley) out and somewhere safe, somewhere with medical attention, was the priority and as he would never send someone he didn’t trust, well, that was that. Nigma, too, was a concern, but there was nothing he could do for him at that very moment and should, for some reason, he not be transferred, he would deal with that problem when and if it came to be.
It did occur to him, albeit distantly, that he could have sent someone after Selina much in the same way, but he refused to entertain that idea for very long. She was different in a way he couldn’t explain, a way he often refused to acknowledge, and his mind was made up; he would find her himself. With her comm smashed (a foolish move on her part, he thought) there was no way to track her electronically, which meant hands-on detective work was in order. He began at Arkham itself, where Selina had made her escape. Information was easy to come by when he could hack nearly any system in existence and from there he discovered the make and plate number of the car allegedly stolen by the fugitive (he bristled at her being referred to as such, a sharp anger along his spine) and followed its path. He hadn’t expected the vehicle to lead directly to her, and so when he discovered it had been abandoned it wasn’t a surprise, nor was he particularly disappointed. Acting on the presumption that she was indeed injured he determined that she likely wouldn’t have gone far, in lieu of her penthouse no longer being hers, and he had an idea or two of where to look.
Eventually, he narrowed down his options until one remained. People often revealed more through their reactions than they did through words, and Bruce knew how to read even the tiniest tells, subtle shifts in expression which offered information in less time than it would take to extract it verbally. He used the fire escape, rusted as it was, distributing his weight in a way that kept the metal from creaking or groaning under the pressure. The window was child’s play, and his cape barely stirred the air as he came in over the sill and his boots touched the ground. From that point onward he didn’t bother to keep his footsteps soundless, primarily because he moved swiftly enough that he reached the kitchen before she would have been able to do much of anything. He paused and regarded her for a few moments atop the counter, gaze unblinking, before he approached. “Let me see.”
She sensed him when his feet hit the escape, because her senses kept her alive, and because she was about as vigilant as a person could be and still be just a person. Too, she'd spent an entire lifetime looking over her shoulder for the Bat's shadow; she knew what it felt like when he was watching her. She might have been able to get out of the apartment or, at the very least, to make his life a little difficult, but she didn't even try. Getting up on the counter had been hard enough, and she wasn't going to waste extra energy on stubborness. After all, even she knew when to call it quits.
By the time he approached, she'd managed to kick her shoes off, and the water on the stove was starting to simmer. She had a paper bag in her hand, one that the man downstairs had given her, and she held it out to him as he approached. "If you came all the way here, how about you take off those gauntlets and make yourself useful?" she asked, not immediately giving him what he wanted. Instead, she looked him over, up and down, in all that endless black. "Whatever happened to you being incognito tonight?"
In the bag, there was a needle, thread, and a pair of tweezers, along with a box of matches for sterilizing - or, well, for as much sterilizing as could be managed with the oft-used items. "I take it you can sew a straight line?" she asked, her eyes slightly glazed with pain from the bullet, but her smile was lush enough to indicate she wasn't going to die anytime soon. And she hadn't been kidding. Getting shot had been part of the plan. And if she'd been going for a graze? Well, he didn't need to know that she'd misjudged just a little.
The water on the stove bubbled, and she grabbed the dried out old rag from the sink and dropped it in the boiling water. She scooped it out a second later, and she pressed the wet rag to the spreading bloodstain on her shoulder with a hiss. The world threatened to go black, and her knuckles went white, and she tossed the bloodstained rag aside a second later. Fingers shaking and skin pain-pale, she tested the fabric to see if it was unstuck from the wound, and she pressed against the fabric to see if she could feel how deeply the bullet was lodged. "Cut it, hero" she finally conceded of the shirt, teeth gritted, assuming he had a pair of scissors somewhere on him. Hell, he probably had better needle and thread, too. Just then, she'd settle for not needing to raise her arm.
Bruce gave her a look which said he’d intended to do as much, since he hadn’t come to tell her I told her so or stand by uselessly while she stitched herself up. As for his prior intentions of remaining incognito he merely raised one shoulder in what might have been a shrug, or perhaps it was a dismissal. “I changed my mind,” he said simply, before reaching for the bag and frowning at what was inside. It was borderline acceptable, the needle and thread, and he thought of Alfred back at the Manor, of how many times he’d stitched him up when he’d been willing to do the bare minimum and leave it at that. He would have preferred that she was there with, at the very least, an actual first aid kit, but he decided that they could make do until he convinced her to go with him-- which he intended to do, even if he had to stubbornly remain here until she agreed. Better that she remain on this side until she healed; not fully, but to the point where Luke wouldn’t throw a fit if Wren was left to deal with the brunt of the injury. He withdrew the matches but set the rest aside, because while he hadn’t managed to carry a full first aid kit with him he had had the presence of mind to bring a few key items with him in a larger version of his utility belt strapped around his waist, not having known what condition he might find her in. Admittedly, a bullet to the shoulder wasn’t as bad as it could have been. He’d survived gunshot wounds before and knew she could do the same.
“Fortunately for you, I can,” he said, of being able to sew in a straight line, and set about removing his gauntlets and gloves while she used the boiled water and rag to separate the fabric from her wound. Beneath he wore gloves of a thinner, more flexible material, as good as being bare-handed with a layer in between skin and what he’d be handling. He glanced up sharply when she hissed, brow furrowing in concern as her skin paled and her fingers shook. He watched her a moment, prepared to move if she lost consciousness, but she remained upright and he exhaled quietly, something felt rather than heard. He unclipped his belt and laid it out on the table, first pushing back his cowl for better visibility, and then turning towards her with a small pair of scissors that would cut through the fabric easily. “Don’t move,” he ordered, albeit unnecessarily. Starting from the neckline he cut in a wide arc, around the bloodstain, and gingerly peeled the fabric back.
"Changing her mind is a woman's prerogative," she insisted, handing the bag over without any argument. "Or, so the adage goes. And don't frown. It'll get the job done," she added, because she was absolutely sure he'd been stitched up more often than she had, and maybe with worse needles and worse spools of thread; she didn't know enough about his butler to know that Alfred did more to open doors. After all, she'd never made it as far as Wayne Manor in her Gotham. She'd never made it as far as Bruce Wayne in her Gotham. That thought made her think of Eddie, and of her recent conversation with Eddie, and her gaze slid to the now-open window for a few seconds as she cleared the unwanted thoughts away. After all, she knew precisely why he was was there, standing in the dirty loft above the laundromat. "It'll leave a teensy scar, and the ankle will keep Blondie off her feet for a few weeks, and the antihero will end up thanking me in the end," she said. It didn't matter if it was true or not, because it sounded good, and she'd have to find a way to make the Suicide Squad threat seem unimportant too, though she hadn't quite figured that out yet. They all couldn't be as lucky as Eddie or Ollie, could they?
"Lucky kitty cat," she purred at his assurance that he could sew a straight line, the response a little too long in coming. But she hit her stride easily, now that she'd found it, and she watched him remove the gauntlets with a kind of interest that was all Cat. "Oh, you'll push the cowl back for me too? It's my lucky night," she teased, any sign of a pained hiss gone, and all lush smile and trouble in her eyes. Her fingers strayed to the belt he laid out, and she tugged things out as he told her not to move, compartment by compartment, intentionally annoying. Her uninjured foot teased along the back of his knee, over unforgiving kevlar, and she eventually brought that leg higher and higher, until her bare foot was on the counter, and until her knee was against his chest. "Aren't we feeling commanding tonight?" she asked, when he ordered her not to move, but she stayed still while he cut the bloodsoaked fabric away from her shoulder. Beneath the skin was stained red, but the bullet wound was clean, with the edge of the bullet visible just an inch or so in, embedded in muscle.
There was no response to her insistence that women had laid claim to the right to change their mind, and when she told him not to frown the exact opposite occurred; the furrow in his brow deepened, and Bruce paused in his task to look at her, clearly unimpressed with the bare minimum and refusing to acknowledge that, in Alfred’s absence, the same had been good enough for him. He failed to realize that she believed his presence was due to Luke’s concern for Wren, since he would have come even if their Vegas sides had been little more than strangers to one another. As Luke tried not to let Gotham influence their lives in the desert, he too did his best not to let Las Vegas bleed over into their world. “I’m not particularly concerned with Luke and Wren at the moment,” he said shortly, worry for her and Jason (and even Nigma and Harley, to an extent) wearing his patience thin and making it difficult to care about a boy, his wife, and an entirely different world when he had enough to deal with here and now.
Only Selina could tease and cajole with a bullet in her shoulder and a very uncertain future ahead of her, he mused. But then again, she wouldn’t have been her otherwise. He made a noncommittal sort of sound at the prospect of it being her lucky night, and despite his better judgment his attention wavered when she began investigating the contents of his belt. To say he was possessive would be an understatement, and he stifled a sigh as she rifled through his belongings. “Is that necessary?” It was more of a rhetorical question, since he doubted that it was any more necessary than her foot teasing over his kevlar and her knee ending up against his chest. As for him being commanding, well, he felt as though he’d lost control of the prison break and given how things had played out it left a bad taste in his mouth, bitter, and an unshakeable sensation of skin crawling along his spine; he liked when things went according to plan and hated loss of control. “No more or less than usual,” was what he said instead of delving into any of that, however.
Once the fabric was removed, he inspected the wound and was pleased, albeit minimally, to find that the bullet hadn’t gone deep enough to make extraction overly complicated. Bruce was single-minded when there was a task at hand, and in this he was efficient; a small vial of antiseptic in his belt was applied to the area as a precaution, and he bypassed her paper bag entirely in favor of his own (much less questionable) tools. “This will hurt,” he warned her, despite suspecting she was already well aware of that; he had no anesthesia to numb the pain, for this and what came after. “Try to remain as still as possible.” Fortunately, he had a steady hand and performed well under pressure.
It was a slow, careful process, and it took a couple of attempts before the tweezers took hold and he began to ease the bullet out. The fingers of his free hand pressed into her skin as he pulled, and his sigh of relief never left his lips once the bullet was free and he set it aside. Wasting no time, he reached for the rag she’d used previously, folded it in half, and applied pressure to the wound. “Are you alright?”
"I thought we were being more careful, more concerned these days," she suggested, though it didn't sound like she was being very serious about it. If she had taken extra precautions because of Blondie's state, well, she wasn't about to go announcing it. And, truthfully, she'd survived Gotham for a very, very long time; she didn't see why anyone needed to caution her about staying alive now. Okay, so the Suicide Squad might make things difficult, but she intended to give them a very good run for their money. And, she supposed, she might be convinced to keep risks at a minimum for the next few months, if it was necessary as a condition to still cross. But all that took a backseat to his short, terse little response, which let her know that he was worried. "Jaybird?" she asked, not thinking he'd care very much about Harley. She was having a hard time remembering that the little rogues in this Gotham were squeaky clean; her Harley wasn't. "Eddie's fine," she added, the admission just slightly bitter on the tongue, in case he hadn't spoken to the man in green yet.
His non-vocal displeasure of her investigation of his utility belt made her shoulder ache just a little less, because aggravating him was always a good time; it had been since she'd been just a kitten. "You don't want me to learn your secrets, Bat?" she purred, though she knew the question was rhetorical; she simply didn't care that it was rhetorical. She leaned against the leg that was between them, and she would have caused much more trouble if the motion hadn't reminded her about her pesky shoulder. And she knew he had things he wasn't telling her, because he always had things he wasn't telling her. The challenge was how to get them out of him. Because this Bat didn't respond to the same tactics hers did. Well, sometimes he did, but she was pretty sure pushing him wasn't going to work just then, not when she was bleeding all over the counter. "Why don't you tell me what's really on your mind?" she asked. "In exchange, I'll tell you all the reasons Edward thinks you aren't interested in me," she suggested.
Tactic one; if it didn't work, she'd try another.
As for pulling that little bullet out, she knew that was going to hurt. She gave him a look that was all knowing green. "I know it's going to hurt, Bruce. It's one of my main reasons for avoiding bullets. Well, that and the fact that it'll leave a scar," she said, going for teasing and coming up just shy. "It's why I chose the whip," she went on, because chatting was distracting, and she could be a very chatty kitty cat when she wanted to be. "If anyone takes the whip from me, they won't be able to use it like I can. A gun? If you're overpowered, you're in a lot of troub-"
A hiss kept her from finishing her sentence, and she didn't say anything else as he worked the bullet out. Grit teeth, and she turned her head and looked away until she felt the bullet come loose. When her fingers closed along his upper arm and squeezed, fingertips pressing against the cool kevlar there, she didn't notice. The cloth against skin made her groan, but she lifted her hand and took over the application of pressure with stubborn, if somewhat shaky fingers - proof that she was fine. "Never better," she managed, flippant, before she turned her green gaze to catch his darker one. "Quick is better than neat," she said of the stitches; the only indication of weakness she was inclined to give just then. Well, save for those gripping fingers, which she shook free with intentional nonchalance.
“We are,” he responded. The boy could be extremely stubborn when he put his mind to it, and the last thing Bruce wanted was for him to snap, pack up his family, and leave. He might come back with someone else but that wasn’t guaranteed and he wasn’t particularly inclined to risk it. That, and he did understand Luke’s concerns, especially with a baby on the way. “I’m simply saying that right this second, I’m more concerned about you.” He wasn’t fool enough to think that the problem of the Suicide Squad would just disappear, and he’d meant it when he said that they would have to go through him to get to her. The JLA was wearing his patience dangerously thin and his conversation with Oliver Queen certainly hadn’t repaired the already frayed ties between them. Bad enough that they’d recruited Selina to betray him, albeit in a different world, but recruiting Jason had crossed a line that could not be redrawn. It didn’t matter that he was a murderer; he was his family, and he took that particular move very personally. “Jason is alive,” he said, his response delayed as he pulled himself from his thoughts and returned to the present. “He was shot during the escape, however. He said it was his leg. Dick’s gone to take him somewhere safe, and ensure Harley gets to Ivy.” At least, that was where he assumed that was where she intended to go. As for Nigma, he hadn’t spoken to him yet, and he nodded when she said he was fine. He would check in with him later, but within Arkham he was safer than those left to fend for themselves as fugitives out here.
He gave her another look when she mentioned his secrets. “I wouldn’t keep secrets of importance in my belt,” he said dryly. “Too easily accessible.” As for what was on his mind, that wasn’t something he was inclined to share, and he didn’t like that he was so easy to read when he was accustomed to being the opposite. He began to shake his head, but then she mentioned Nigma and his opinions and that had him scowling all over again. “Edward thinks a great deal,” he said through gritted teeth, doing a poor job of hiding his annoyance. Yes, he’d come to respect the man far more than he’d ever expected to, but that hardly meant that he took his word as law and he knew that he liked to get in the middle of things and meddle more often than he should.
Her chattiness was only half-listened to, since most of his attention was on the task at hand and he knew it was more for herself, a distraction, and he wasn’t about to interrupt. Bruce watched her as he waited for her response, pulling his hand back when she took over the application of pressure without a flicker of hesitation. He knew for a fact she’d certainly been better, but she seemed well enough for him to continue without having to wait. “I’ll do it as quickly as I can, Selina, but I’m also going to do it right.” With a proper hospital out of the question he’d have to make this stick, for her sake and for Wren’s. He pretended he hadn’t noticed the tightness of her fingers on his arm and gently moved her wrist away, exposing the wound, which he cleaned again before he disinfected the needle to avoid infection. Then, after looping the suture around the tip of the needle and secured it, and he took a breath as he pierced her skin and pulled the needle through. He was, unsurprisingly, calm as he worked, fingers steady and sure. “Would it help if I talked?” Everyone knew he wasn’t the chattiest of people, but him rambling nonsensically might be enough of a deviation from the norm to serve as a distraction for her.
Oh, the kitty cat was worried about Blondie leaving Las Vegas, but her worry was a tangible thing. She could still taste her Gotham on her tongue, and it was too close in the rearview for her to shake it off, no matter how much Eddie wanted her to. Eddie wanted her to just settle back into this safe, pretty little life, but she knew how hard it was to come back from that kind of thing. She'd believed herself safe here once, and having that rug pulled out from under had almost killed the kitty cat once, in more ways than one. She wasn't about to just trust that this was forever. She knew better than anyone just how quickly it could end. "If we're not careful and concerned, you could end up back in your Gotham, Bat. No little birds to make things messy. No cats to get in the way." It was all an unthinking purr, a questionmark wrapped around the statement like a kitten's tail. He'd told her, once, that he wouldn't go back. But now he actually had the chance, didn't he? That was different than a hypothetical.
A bullet to the leg didn't sound too terrible, and she was (admittedly) glad that Jason hadn't strangled Harley on their way out of Wonder City. After all, Harley loved her Joe in every world except this one, and that had to be hard for Jaybird to stomach. But she trusted Bruce to be telling her the truth, at least when it came to this. And she knew, with absolute certainty, that Bruce wouldn't be here if Jason was seriously hurt. The kitty cat knew precisely where she ranked among Bruce's priorities, even if she didn't necessarily like it. It was easier to concentrate on his assurance that he didn't keep secrets in his best, and the smile she gave him was all feline, all woman. "Are you saying it's easy to get to your belt, Mr. Wayne?" she asked, green eyes bright and fingers dancing along the utility belt at her side. As for Eddie, she'd intended to regale him with Eddie's new, more lucid theories about why she and this Bat didn't work, but she thought better of it. "You should talk to him, now that they have him all nicely contained and he's not orchestrating the violent antics of prison gangs anymore," she said, finally, after a very long pause. "His opinions are-" here, she paused, "interesting." But it didn't sound as if she thought they were interesting at all, and she realized she should just be quiet, before she went and made of a fool of herself.
It was easier to just wave off his concern about the stitches. "I'm not afraid of a tiny needle, Bat," she assured him. And she wasn't, really. She just didn't like it. When the needle pierced his skin, she didn't even hiss. Instead, she focused on a point just over his shoulder, and her own voice was steadier than it had been when those tweezers had dug the bullet from her shoulder. "Now, what kitty cat would say no to that offer?" she asked of him talking. It sounded like someone had just given her directions to an uncrackable safe filled with diamonds. She just wanted the Bat's - this Bat's - secrets, surely. She didn't need distracting, not this Cat.
Once, in the beginning, Bruce had wanted nothing more than to return to his Gotham. It was familiarity, and it was the promise of an end, something beyond the endless fight against crime that never abated, of freedom to be not Batman or billionaire but just Bruce Wayne, the man, someone who had only made infrequent appearances since he was eight years old. It was a city capable of being saved, of standing on its own and flourishing without him. Perhaps his Gotham was still all those things but now it was also loneliness, waiting like gaping jaws to swallow him down into empty darkness. It was only Alfred as his companion, and it was the eventuality of a Cat which would never be his, not even if he returned, and it was years of being hated and hunted and losing the one thing he never thought he’d have again: family.
He’d lost his family once, on a cold, dark night in an alley. He couldn’t experience that kind of loss a second time.
“If we’re not careful and concerned, we could ruin their lives,” he said after a pause, too sharply, like the edge of a blade. The harshness in his tone was audible even to him and he frowned afterward, not having intended for the words to come out as such. “I would lose more than I would gain if I returned to my Gotham now,” he added, quieter, less severe.
She was right; had Jason been grievously injured, he wouldn’t be here. Bruce would have sent Dick or someone else in his place and gone to the Wonder City tunnels himself. It wasn’t that he didn’t care for her, but he couldn’t be in two places at once and when presented with such a choice, well, he had to choose, and a dying Jason would have taken precedence. But he wasn’t dying, and he trusted Dick to bring him somewhere safe as much as he trusted Alfred to fix him up in the absence of proper medical care. He raised his eyebrows when she teased about his belt being easy to get into, something like amusement cutting through the granite somberness of his expression. “No, not easy. I do my best to never make anything easy. But secrets don’t belong in a utility belt.” He waited, in case Selina decided to regale him with Edward Nigma’s current opinions, but she didn’t. Which, incidentally, only piqued his curiosity further. “I intend to get in touch with him,” he said, and gave her a sidelong glance at the use of the word interesting. “I see. Do you agree or disagree with these interesting opinions of his?” Her opinion might give him more insight than actual specifics about what they were.
Her reaction was calmer than he’d been expecting, and he wondered if talking was even necessary at all. Silence didn’t bother him, but if it was a choice between her teasing and, inevitably, him becoming distracted, and him keeping up a stream of words while he worked, the latter was preferable. “A kitty cat who doesn’t find me particularly interesting, perhaps,” he said, deadpan. His fingers never faltered, threading the needle in and pulling the suture tight before repeating the process, developing a sort of rhythm as he did so. “I spoke to Oliver Queen,” he began, after a few moments of silence. “He suggested that his former team’s loyalties were easy to purchase.” Another pause. “I don’t like him.”
She wasn't surprised at his comment about ruining Blondie and the antihero's lives. That was just what she expected him to say, and she really didn't expect him to say anything else, even having anticipated his sharp, unforgiving tone. Therefore, he caught her off-guard with his confession, and her mask of indifference slipped. She turned her head quickly, scanning his face with her dark green eyes, his frown leaving her even more surprised. Generally speaking, to get anything out of her Bat, she had to engage in activities that left her with bruises for days to come; it was easy to forget that this Bat was more forthcoming. And the kitty cat, for once, didn't know what to say. Sure, he'd admitted to something similar, but that had been casual, and nothing like this admission, which she knew better than to mock. "This Gotham would lose more than it gained too," she said of him disappearing. Oh, once upon a time, she'd wanted the Bat she'd known. Or, even, the Bat Eddie had known. A general that would treat all the little birds and bats like they didn't matter, because that's what she was familiar with. But those days had gone long before she'd ended up back in her Gotham, and the intervening years had done nothing to change her mind.
"Where do secrets belong, Bruce?" she purred, grateful for the opportunity to slip back into something more lighthearted, especially while that needle was piercing her skin. And Eddie, Eddie was an easy topic these days, since his impending pardon had her fur standing on end. "He and Stephanie are going on a vacation to another door," she told him, her tone not at all warm. And she liked Edward. She would probably do anything she had to in order to defend him, but the kitty cat's fur had still been rubbed the wrong way. "Do you know what I don't understand?" she asked, ignoring his question about her agreement (or disagreement) for the moment. "I don't understand why Edward is the victim here. Stephanie says she's angry about what happened to him. Nothing happened to him," she said, and she hadn't really intended to rehash that, but her conversation with Stephanie had brought it all back to the surface. "He didn't get shot at. He doesn't have to hide from the federal government. No, he signed a sweet deal, and he'll get to walk down Main Street in broad daylight, while the rest of us hide. And he? Killed people just for fun, because he wanted answers to secrets and riddles. At least Jaybird had the pit as an excuse, and Harley had Joe." She stopped short of mentioning her own crimes, which paled in comparison. As for agreeing or disagreeing with Eddie's theories? She just humphed. It wasn't very catlike.
But his quip about not finding him interesting was just too close to Eddie's version of events, and it made her bristle. "What, has Eddie gotten to you with his incorrect assumptions?" she asked, fingers leaving the utility belt behind in favor of his chin, which she traced with nails and whip-calloused fingertips. "You're the one with the priorities, Bruce," she said, leaving it there, fingers dropping away as he mentioned Oliver; a much safer subject, in her feline opinion. "Ollie wasn't even supposed to be part of the team. Stevie didn't think his loyalties were worth purchasing," she said, her voice still holding some of the anger from moments earlier. "Ollie isn't likeable, but he might be right. He went back, for the right price. If they made the same offer to Jaybird again, I'm not sure he wouldn't take it. We didn't even need to make Harley an offer; she just wanted to play. As for Eddie, he doesn't need their offer now, but if he falls off the wagon again." She shrugged. Ever since she'd seen Eddie at that warehouse, going after Freeze's wife, she just wasn't so sure. "As for me, I'm not valuable anymore. The only thing that made the kitty cat valuable, was you," she reminded him, one long-tipped nail against the kevlar-covered center of his chest.
Not meeting her gaze afterward was intentional. Buried deep within himself was the fear of not being missed should he disappear, though it had grown less pervasive with time. Bruce wasn’t sure what he expected; silence, perhaps, or lighthearted teasing that would lessen the importance of his confession. Her honesty was, thus, surprising, but not unwelcome. He looked up without thinking, eyes locked and a long moment of silence hanging between them. Whatever he saw must have confirmed that the sentiment was genuine, because for a moment his expression began to soften into something else, something unguarded, before he caught himself, cleared his throat, and moved on.
“Here.” He pulled the needle through again, the sutures beginning to close the wound, and pressed two fingers to his temple with a wry smile before resuming the process. When it came to her and Nigma, he’d always thought they were close. They understood one another. He wondered, sometimes, how Stephanie felt about it, if she minded. Considering that the relationship between them was very clearly platonic, he doubted it. Even the best of them carried their own insecurities but he didn’t think Stephanie saw Selina as a threat. That was partly why her recent attitude towards Nigma had puzzled him, at least initially. “So I’ve heard,” he said. “Her Vegas person told Luke, and suggested I do the same.” The prospect amused him. Luke, to give him his due, knew better than to recommend it. He didn’t bother telling her no, he didn’t know what she didn’t understand, correctly assuming that she would tell him regardless of whether he responded or said nothing at all. It was easy to listen, to let her words was over him as the needle pierced skin and bit by bit the wound was closed and his concerns about blood loss and infection lessened. So long as she was careful, she’d heal just fine. “I don’t think Stephanie sees it that way,” he began slowly, attempting to be objective. “She’s angry that he was thrown in prison and they have to be apart until he’s released. No, he wasn’t shot at and he won’t be forced to hide from the government, but she’s not focused on those things right now. She’s worried about him. Love is often irrational that way,” he added, as though he understood anything about love and rationality. “Everything you said is true. Other than Queen, Nigma will come out of this better off than the rest of you. But Stephanie is… biased.”
Her response to his question about Nigma’s opinions made his lips twitch, but his amusement vanished when she bristled. “No,” he said, puzzled. “I told you, I haven’t spoken to him yet.” He knew he had a terrible sense of humor but one of his jokes had never been this poorly received before. As for having priorities, he thought that was a given, and the way she said it only puzzled him further. “Did Nigma say something about my priorities?” Bruce wouldn’t put it past him. He hadn’t agreed with Oliver, that their loyalties were purchased, and his feelings hadn’t changed. “Queen believes in the cause. Their offers are blackmail in disguise,” he said, and there was heat in the words, like the start of anger. “True loyalty can’t be purchased. Queen fails to understand that.” Nothing that could be bought and sold like an inanimate object was real, and he was firm in that particular belief. He didn’t respond to her remark about what her value was based on, not right away. He finished closing the wound first, inspecting his work with a critical eye and deciding that he was satisfied before setting his tools aside and meeting her gaze. “Valuable to them,” he told her. “Personally, I wouldn’t place a great deal of importance on their opinion.” A pause. “What would it take for the Suicide Squad to leave you alone, Selina?”