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. (2/2)
Warnings/Rating: Noone.
She wasn't expecting the momentarily unguarded look, and she wasn't expecting that simple "here." It quieted her for a few minutes, until he said Stephanie's Las Vegas person had recommended he go on vacation through another door himself. The idea was, she thought, preposterous. She couldn't imagine him doing it and, if Luke tried to walk him through some door with witches and wizards, she was confident he'd walk himself right back out. "It isn't fair," she said quietly, after he explained the irrationality of love, and then she couldn't help but smile at the fact that he, of all people, had just tried to put that concept into perspective. "And she makes it sound like he's better than the rest of us," she added, some heat making its way back into the words, and completely distracting her from the sewing he was doing. It was an old sting, being considered less, one that led all the way back to her childhood in a Russian orphanage on Gotham's dirtier side. She didn't like it, and it was one of the reasons she really couldn't stand the rich socialites that attended all of Gotham's charity balls. They thought themselves superior, and that really rubbed the kitty cat's fur the wrong way. "You know, when I was here before, I trusted Eddie more than I trusted anyone. He always told me I couldn't, but I didn't believe him. Now he says we're on different sides of the fence. He's good, and I'm not." She laughed a little at that, and she glanced down at her shoulder. "As if shooting a hole in Mrs. Freeze containment unit makes me worse than he was when he set his goons on me, and when he was there to steal her in the first place." It was obviously still a sore point.
"He told me that very thing. That I thought you weren't interesting, and he said it like it was fact. I think Eddie says a lot of things like they're fact, just because he thinks they are," which should be - she thought - an answer to his question about priorities. Though, she had to admit that she thought Eddie had a point there. "I suspect the kitty cat is very, very low on the Bat's list of priorities," she just said, and she managed a feigned nonchalance, as if it didn't matter even the tiniest bit. She'd claw herself before she admitted to being lonely in this safer version of Gotham.
As for loyalties, Selina wasn't quite as trusting as he was. "Most people are loyal to themselves first, Bruce. Loyalty can't be purchased, but appealing to someone's loyalty to themselves, that can be. The JLA comes around and offers safety, most people bite. If you can't get them that way, threaten someone they love. Is it true loyalty? No, but it can be just as good, if you can keep your leverage." It was a hard truth, but it was a truth. "Queen wasn't blackmailed. He doesn't understand," she added, though he knew that. But it did make Ollie different than the rest of them. Ollie had a cause, however misguided it might be in this Gotham. And she had to admit that it hadn't been misguided in theirs, and Hal's behavior made her wonder if the day would come when it wasn't misguided here. None of it changed the fact that - even in her Gotham - she had clued the Bat into the JLA's agenda. But she didn't need to say that. She wasn't going to try to prove to him that she wasn't what Eddie said she was. If he couldn't figure it out himself, that was no fur off the kitty cat's back. The question about the Suicide Squad made her gaze lift from her shoulder, where it had settled as he tied off the thread. "I don't think the Suicide Squad leaves people alone, Bruce. I can stay ahead of them."
“No,” he agreed, because she wasn’t wrong. “It isn’t fair.” Not that Nigma deserved to be hunted as a criminal, but neither did Jason or Selina, and that was their future. Even with his intentions of protecting them as best he could it would be a long, hard road ahead to do so. Nigma, at least, had a way out. “Does she?” His tone was curious, not disbelieving; he wondered if Stephanie intended to imply as much or whether it was something she did without awareness. “Nigma may be reformed, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that he’s better than you. I wouldn’t put you on opposite sides of this metaphorical fence either.” Neither fit into such black and white categories as good and bad, but Nigma had certainly begun as more of a villain than Selina. Why he would even tell her that she was on the wrong side of the fence was something Bruce couldn’t quite comprehend; another question to add to the growing list for when he did get in touch with the riddled man.
Ah. Well, that aptly explained her reaction. “I was making an attempt at humor,” he said calmly. “He does seem to think he’s right more often than not.” But then she started talking about where she ranked on his priority list, and that, admittedly, stung. His expression became closed off and hard, his posture tensed, and he turned away to collect the gauze to cover the wound as the sutures fulfilled their purpose and healing occurred. “Is that what you suspect.” It was too flat to be a question, and sharp around the edges. “I suppose Edward told you that as well?” If that was what she believed then he supposed he knew where they stood. Cool and distant was safer, a familiar shroud to wrap himself in, and every time he forgot he was reminded of it in the worst way.
“I realize that most people are, first and foremost, loyal to themselves.” He still didn’t look at her, the bite of her assumption about how little he cared having wormed its way beneath his armor and into his skin. “But relying on leverage alone is dangerous. Trust never exists, because resentment builds and the moment that leverage breaks the opportunity for retribution arises. No one likes being in chains, literal or not.” Anyone who attempted as much on him would find out very, very quickly that he didn’t take kindly to being threatened, blackmailed, or anything of the sort. “I believe what Queen was attempting to imply, in order to get under my skin, was that I couldn’t trust any of you,” he explained, and his contempt for Oliver Queen was audible in the words. As though the Bat was susceptible to such childish manipulations. He paused, however, when she said that she could stay ahead of the Suicide Squad, bandages in hand and his expression, while no less open, lessening in its harshness. “You don’t have to do this alone, Selina.” He exhaled heavily, bordering on disgruntled. “Do you think I came here just to stitch you up and then disappear into the night?”
It appeased the kitty cat, when he agreed with her muttered statement about the unfairness of everything. His curiosity about Stephanie was met with dark green eyes and a nod. "Eddie said we were on opposite sides of that fence, Bat, not me." And Selina hated black and white; she didn't thrive in that space, and yet it seemed her closest friend was starting to live there, and she didn't know what to do about it. "How does the Bat feel about changing for people?" she asked, and perhaps it seemed like the question didn't connect back to anything. But it did - of course it did. "At what point does Eddie stop being Eddie altogether?"
And she hadn't expected his expression to close off like that. Truthfully, she didn't even know why. His priorities seemed clear, even without Edward pointing them out to her. "Bruce," she said, fingers sliding beneath his chin, fingernails gliding along the skin there, "you're a very, very busy Bat, and I'm not exactly around the way I was when I was a kitten," she said, sounding ashamed of her own childish need to wrap herself around his little family, as if it made her anything like them. And since she'd been back, well, spending time around them meant more time spent under false pretenses, thanks to the JLA. Not to mention that she was having trouble relating to little bats and birds that still thought she was oh, so young. "Eddie wants to know why I insist on remembering my old Gotham. He doesn't understand that seven years is a very long time, and changing isn't easy. He has no idea what it was like to end up back there, alone." She scoffed, drawing her hand back. "He says you don't want to chase. He thinks we're not like him and the little blonde bat, and so we're wrong. And you're not exactly interested. What is it? Old fondness for the kitten I was? Do you prefer women in basements these days?"
And she hated that cool and distant shroud. Back home, her Bat had loved that shroud, and she'd generally annoyed him, until he shook it off. Fists and rooftops and well-aimed falls of her whip. And always, always the tang of blood on the air. But her Bat had always looked at her like he was hungry, and he'd always looked at her like he hated her for making him hungry. This man just looked distant, and the kitty cat couldn't stand that. She waited until he took that pause, between his contempt of Queen and his statement about doing things alone. "You're wrong," she said, "about trust. So is Ollie, but why are any of us trustworthy, Bruce? What makes us trustworthy? We all know why we're untrustworthy. Reverse it," she said, no purr or tease in it, her gaze steady on him, despite the fact that he was still looking away.
His question, about whether or not she thought he'd come just to stitch her up, made her certainty hitch, and it was oh, so evident in the widening of her green eyes. Screw the bandages, and she slid down from the counter, keeping her weight off her bad ankle as she crowded him with her body. "Isn't that exactly what you intended to do, Mr. Wayne?" she purred.
Having spent the better part of a year surrounded by people who wanted nothing more than him to change to be what they wanted, Bruce failed to keep back a frown when she asked about his feelings on the matter. “I’m not a fan,” he said shortly, which was answer enough in his mind. “Do you think Nigma is changing for Stephanie, and losing himself in the process?” Yes, Eddie had changed, but he wouldn’t say it had been for the worse, or that he’d become entirely unrecognizable. But Selina had known him better, and for longer; perhaps he was starting to become unfamiliar to her. She was grey, after all, and while Nigma had once been a darker shade, closer to black, he’d been steadily moving in the opposite direction lately.
His shoulders tensed further when her fingers slid beneath his chin and he came very, very close to pulling away altogether. But that would have been childish, and it would have betrayed his cool, unaffected exterior. “You don’t have to explain,” he told her. “You’ve come to your own conclusions. I understand.” Like it didn’t matter at all, and by that point he’d begun to tire of what Edward Nigma thought and what Edward Nigma said. He couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to end up back in his Gotham for seven years, and then, once he’d finally re-accustomed himself to that environment, returning here to find that only a month or two had passed in his absence. Should it happen, he could adapt. He could return to his old life and his old ways. But being able to and wanting to didn’t necessarily go hand in hand, and coming back a second time wouldn’t be easy. “I think we’ve already established that Nigma isn’t always right and that there is actually a great deal he doesn’t know.” He would have said more but then he froze, again, and this time he did move away, only a step backwards, despite the fact that she’d already pulled her hand back. More distance, at least until she mentioned the basement and something in him broke. “That was once,” he snapped, turning to look at her. “Once, at a ridiculous party the hotel compelled us to attend, and if you’re implying that I’m still hung up on your younger self, the answer is no.” He surprised himself, admittedly, with his outburst, but he didn’t let any of that show. And he was in no mood to be told he was wrong, regardless of why, and he shook his head impatiently when she asked what made them trustworthy. “Trust is earned. Over time it becomes stronger, or weaker, depending on choices people make and their subsequent actions.” It wasn’t a full answer, not to her specific question, but he didn’t care.
Her slide off the counter was an effective distraction, if only because of her shoulder and ankle, but before he could begin a lecture on staying still she was crowding him and purring her question. “Selina,” he began, but something made him stop, made him reconsider. “No,” he said, after a moment. “That’s not all I intended to do.” Bruce let her crowd him, but he didn’t move back or attempt to put space between them. “I did intend to stitch you up, which I’ve done, and now it depends on whether you intend to be stubborn and insist on staying here, or if you’ll agree to come with me.”
She shrugged off his question about whether or not Eddie was losing himself. What did she know? All she knew for certain was that she was a very, very angry kitty cat since she'd been thrown into Arkham City, and she didn't like how it felt. Between the little bonfire with the talons, her unexpected stay in the meanest prison on earth, and her newfound Suicide Squad warrant status, she wasn't feeling very positive. The sting in her shoulder and throbbing ache in her ankle didn't help. And where had any of it gotten her? Nowhere. She was worse off than before, and the kitty cat hated losing. It was why, she reminded herself, she didn't do friends or love or family; they were all weaknesses. Except that was harder and harder to believe these days, and loneliness didn't help. "If I'm not light enough for Eddie, then where does that leave me, Bruce?" she finally asked, very, very honestly. "I'm not dark enough for the bad guys, either," she added unnecessarily, as his shoulders tensed when she slid her fingers beneath his chin.
And she knew he wanted to pull away; she could tell by the way he tensed and forced himself to stay still beneath her touch. She would have dragged her fingers away, but she could be stubborn, and she was starting to work herself into a mood. So, her fingers stayed. "I'm not in your head, Mr. Wayne," she explained to him, because he seemed offended, and she had no idea why. "If my conclusions are wrong, tell me." Then he moved away, and she thought he would leave her there. But, no, no, no, that snap was something she hadn't been expecting. Maybe she should have expected, seeing as she was pushing him, but it was only a tiny nudge, really. "No?" she asked, once he was done with that little outburst that he didn't want to acknowledge. "If you're not hung up on the kitten I was, then what are you hung up on?" she asked. "If you're really not partial to basements, that is. And no, we're trustworthy because we care," she corrected. "It's what makes caring so dangerous. Well, except for Harley. Harley joined the JLA because it was fun." She almost took it all back a second later, almost reminded him that Eddie said you could never trust a rogue. But she didn't.
She didn't actually expect him to let her crowd him anywhere. Even if he wanted to get far, far away from her, he was too proud to move just then. She smelled of prison dirt, bodies burned and blood, and the scrubs she wore were blood-filthy. Her hair was a pulled back mess, and there was nothing appealing about her just then; she knew that. She didn't care. "Why?" she purred, and the word might have been light with the obvious flirtation behind it, but her dark green eyes were entirely serious as she tipped her head back to look up at him. "Why do you want me to go with you?" she asked, and it was very, very obvious that his answer was very, very important.
“If we’re speaking in terms of black and white,” Bruce said, “Nigma doesn’t decide who belongs in what category, or somewhere in between. Have you asked him what he wants from you?” He didn’t necessarily agree with everything Selina did, or what she believed in, but he wouldn’t classify her as a villain. She would never be as extreme as him but some people simply didn’t deal in extremes, and for as long as he’d known her, out of everything he’d read, she’d always occupied the grey in-between. Eddie had been more black than white but now he was moving towards a lighter shade of grey, and he was admittedly surprised that he, of all people, chose to pass judgment on her. Usually that was his area of expertise.
Telling her sounded so simple, but it wasn’t. It never had been but before, at least, he’d felt as though they were making progress. Before he’d left to hunt down Ra’s they’d had something, or had begun to at any rate, and then he’d returned to find that she was seven years older and more jaded and he hadn’t been certain of anything since. “If I told you that your conclusions were wrong, would you believe me?” It was spoken as a challenge, with the assumption that she wouldn’t, and he wanted to see if she would deny it. As for what he was hung up on, he didn’t know how to explain that, really, he wasn’t hung up on anything, not in the sense that she meant. He’d known where he stood with her then, when she was younger, and he didn’t now. Every time he thought he might, something shook his certainty and set him back about ten steps. He shook his head in the absence of words, and he didn’t even bother dignifying her comment about being partial to basements with a response. Them being trustworthy because they cared, however, that made him pause, his gaze searching as it locked on hers.
But why, that was a question he could answer. He looked down at her, jaw tense, breathing hard through his nose as though there was actual physical effort involved in forcing the words up his throat and out. “Because,” he began, each word spoken with almost exaggerated deliberateness, “because, Selina, I care too.” He paused. “I never stopped.”
"I know what he wants from me," she said of Eddie. She'd always known, even if she hadn't understood it when she'd been just a kitten. "I'm a reminder of what he left behind. I'm a tie to bad things, so he doesn't have to let them all go. When I was young, he told me not to settle down, not to get together with the Bat, not to go clean." She shrugged a little, a hiss indicating that the motion had made her shoulder smart. As for believing him about her conclusions being wrong, something in her gaze said she wanted to, but his tone was all challenge, and the kitty cat couldn't resist a challenge, even if the kitten in her wanted to ask him if he meant it. "I might believe it, if you proved it to me," she purred, the hiss from the pain in her shoulder entirely absent, and her gaze direct and settled on his. Her gaze stayed there, stubbornly locked on his, until her throwaway little comment about caring. She hadn't actually expected him to pay that much attention to what she'd said, but his gaze said otherwise. And, for what it was worth, she had no idea where she stood with him, either. Well, no, she knew where Eddie had told her she stood, and she knew that he didn't chase the way she was accustomed to, and maybe she took that to be disinterest, at least a little. But the kitty cat wasn't the kind to sulk, not when there was a wall of hard kevlar in front of her, even if she was having a bad hair day. She pressed against him. "Assuming you know how to prove it to me," she challenged.
But the severity of his jaw as he looked down at her a moment later made her lose the purr and lush smile, and that careful deliberateness earned him a smile that was surprisingly soft. He always had been terrible at words, here, there. But he'd always been willing to try here; that set him apart. Her hands, bloodstained and calloused, slid along that hard kevlar, not stopping until her fingertips grazed the first bit of exposed skin above the neck of the suit. "Why didn't you just say so?" she asked - her version of a yes. "I'm not exactly dressed for Wayne Manor, or were you planning on stashing me wherever you stash your mistresses?" she teased.
He was beginning to realize that the relationship Eddie and Selina had was a complicated one. Different than his own with her, of course, but perhaps no less complicated. Her assertion that she did indeed know what he wanted from her earned a puzzled tilt of his head, but his expression became one of understanding as she spoke. “That isn’t fair to you,” he told her, though he suspected he was simply reiterating what she already knew. The hiss of pain that accompanied her shrug caused a flicker of concern, the start of a warning to not strain herself, but what he saw in her gaze made him stop. Nigma had told him time and time again to chase her, and it wasn’t that he didn’t want to, but he’d thought, perhaps incorrectly, that they’d progressed past that. Had, past tense, and maybe he’d failed to realize that after seven years she needed the reassurance. He certainly didn’t appreciate Eddie telling her that he wasn’t interested, though; not only was that not true, but Bruce couldn’t recall ever giving him permission to speak on his behalf. “If I proved it to you,” he repeated, and when she pressed against him he held his ground, just for a moment, before crowding her back against the counter, taking care to avoid putting pressure on her injured shoulder. “You think I don’t know how?” She might have been covered in blood, with the scent of prison still clinging to her skin and her hair a tangled mess, but he couldn’t have cared less.
The softness of her smile caught him off guard, but his reaction was a tangible thing, the tenseness in his jaw loosening and his shoulders lowering slowly. And when she agreed, in her own roundabout way, he smiled, pushing back a few errant strands of her already mussed hair. “Wayne Manor doesn’t have a dress code,” he said, amused. “But if you’re concerned about your appearance, I’ll sneak you in through a window as opposed to using the front door.”
Saying that her relationship with Eddie was complicated was an understatement. Eddie was absolutely sure she'd claw the Bat to pieces if he ever told her that he cared about her. And, maybe, the Cat Eddie had known would have done just that. But that Cat hadn't spent a year here, with this very different Bat. Seven years was a long time, but she still remembered. "Don't you ever want to hold onto the past, Bruce?" she asked, when he said it wasn't fair. She still wasn't sure how much of Eddie's transformation was because he wanted it, and how much was because Stephanie needed it. "Eddie said that when things went strange, Stephanie came back worried that his little rogue status would ruin her chances at a future," she explained. "I guess they had a little bit of time like us, and Stephanie didn't like it." But that topic was quickly discarded when he crowded her, and the counter pressed against her hips and made her catch herself with her good hand. She pressed back, though she knew she wasn't strong enough to make even a dent, not with all his bulk. Oh, she'd taken him on plenty of times in her Gotham, and she'd even won a few times, but not with anything like brute strength. And just then, the kitty cat didn't feel like running. "I haven't seen anything impressive yet, Mr. Wayne," she said, all purr and challenge as she met his gaze.
She didn't actually know what had caused his jaw to lose some of that tension, because she was unaware of how her own expression had softened. And she was still trying to figure it out when he pushed those strands of hopelessly tangled hair back. She didn't say anything for the span of a full minute, because she wasn't sure if she could recall the last time someone touched her without it being to fight or have sex. The confusion showed, and it made her look younger than her almost-thirty years. Her recovery was slower, less hurried and with less rushed determination to hide away her feelings behind the mask she constantly wore. "What will the neighbors say?" she asked, before stretching against him and kissing him without warning, all lush lips and the dull bite of teeth. There was none of the kitten's rushed mania to it, no finish line, and she let her body curve against all that hard kevlar, injured shoulder be damned, fingers curling around the nape of his neck.
Letting go of the past wasn’t his forte, not even close, and so he nodded. “More than I should,” he admitted, though it was hardly a secret. In a way he was almost afraid to not hold on, as though the past was some sort of security blanket, like his pretense of detached distance, and he would be vulnerable without it. He recalled Eddie saying something about Stephanie’s concerns after everything went topsy-turvy in Gotham and, had he retained the necessary focus, he would have argued that Stephanie’s concerns had nothing to do with either of them. But focus took a backseat to the way she pressed back against him, the contact felt even with a layer of kevlar between them, and while she would have been unable to move his weight even if she’d tried he doubted that was her intention. “Yet,” emphasized, eyebrows raised as his fingers (ungloved) brushed over her hip.
Her confusion, of all things, made him want to laugh. He managed to bite down on the inside of his lip to keep from doing so but his expression changed, warmed, encouraged by the way she didn’t immediately throw her walls back up to hide how she truly felt. “What neighbors?” There was amusement in the words and more, but then she kissed him and whatever would have come next was silenced the moment her lips pressed against his. He responded with long-repressed desire and a pleased sound muffled against her mouth, rough and bordering on a growl, as one arm went around her waist and his fingers tangled in her already tousled hair.
She glanced down when his fingers found her hip, a quirk of dark brow accompanying the downward gaze. If he was anyone else, she wouldn't have stayed there, bad ankle or no bad ankle. Being trapped by things she couldn't move, that wasn't normally the kitty cat's favorite thing. But if she knew one thing about this Bat, it was that he wasn't going to hurt her. This man wouldn't throw the punch to make himself feel better about how close he held her, and all that hard kevlar and broad strength became something safe, instead of something to escape from, at least for the moment. Like any cat, she spooked easy, but physical closeness never, ever made her startle. No, it was the words that came out of his mouth that had the power to do that, but he kept those at a minimum, and the kitty cat was perfectly content to stay there - for the moment.
Her eyes narrowed slightly when he bit back that laugh, as she tried to figure out just how he was mocking her. Seven years might have disappeared, but she did remember some things, and his expressions counted among that number. Not that they were important or anything. No, no, nothing like that at all. She liked that amusement in his voice, because it felt like victory, and the kitty cat did like winning things, especially if they were things other people didn't ever get to claw at. She didn't think many people even knew his voice could sound like that, and she would have commented on it, if kissing him hadn't been so much more interesting.
Her fingers pressed against the warm skin at the nape of his neck, and his growl earned him a husky little laugh against his lips, all feminine approval and a deepening of the kiss, demanding tongue and a hint of teeth against his lower lip. She nipped, claimed, and she took out her frustration about all that impenetrable kevlar on his jaw, which she took her teeth to a moment later, as her fingers dug into skin and dragged through the short ends of his hair.
Had he any expectation of her bolting, it wouldn’t have been out of fear. Her Bat was her Bat but he’d never given her reason to think that he would hurt her, at least not as far as he was aware, and if anything it might have been part of her game, a tease, rather than the claw and hiss of a cornered cat. Unmovable as he was, there were lines Bruce wouldn’t (and didn’t want to) cross.
The way her eyes narrowed only amused him further, but it was a playful sort of teasing, rare but not nonexistent, though few could claim to have seen that side of him. She was part of that elusive number, even if he wasn’t really focused on that particular detail just then. Stopping to think would only make things tangled and complicated, more so than they already were. The scent of blood and dirt quickly faded, and he even came close to forgetting about her injured shoulder, bandages abandoned on the counter, though he unconsciously kept his weight away from that side. He swallowed down that laugh, liking the way it sounded, meeting her demand with his own and fighting to take control of the kiss, to make it his own, at least until her mouth moved to his jaw. The feel of her teeth against his skin elicited a groan, heady pleasure, and he was finding it difficult to muster the motivation to coax her out of the apartment and back to the Manor. “Yours is easier to remove,” he told her, a teasing whisper as he turned his head and, as though to prove it, yanked at the scrubs she wore.
She could get used to that amused look on his face, a contrast to all that hard and unforgiving black. She could get used to that kiss, too, different from the ones that savored of rage back home. She remembered being young here, and she remembered being surprised to find all that hatred lacking the first time she kissed him all those years earlier. As for fighting to take control of the kiss, this Cat was much better at controlling the situation than she'd been in her impetuous youth. She grinned against his jaw when he moaned, victory in that low sound he made. And, if anything, she was expecting anger or impatience in his voice, not that teasing whisper as he turned his head and yanked at the filthy fabric she wore, causing more of the dingy yellow at her shoulder to tear. "You'll have to wrap me in your cloak if you tear any more of that," she told him, her mouth finding the underside of his jaw, and her teeth finding purchase before soothing the smarting away with a lick.
And it was a risk, her next words, but the kitty cat wasn't afraid of risks. Well, not physical ones, and she wasn't about to admit to herself that this game wasn't all physical, even if that was painfully obvious. "Don't I get a nice dinner first? And here I thought you billionaires knew how to treat the ladies, Mr. Wayne," she purred, lips brushing against his as she lifted her head and shifted against him, the inadvertent weight on her ankle making her hiss against the corner of his mouth.
"I haven't ruled that out," he said of wrapping her in his cloak, voice gone thick and his breaths heavier in his chest as she nipped at his skin and licked away the sting. His fingers tightened almost imperceptibly in her hair and he tipped his chin down, intending to reclaim her mouth, but her words made him pause. He laughed a few seconds later, a low sound, almost strange in its disuse, and it turned muffled when she brushed her lips against his and he unwound his fingers to catch her jaw and keep her still. But then she hissed and he pulled back enough to look at her, concern replacing the desire in his gaze. "Fine," he relented. "I can do a nice dinner." His expression turned deadpan, no lips twitching to give him away, though his eyes betrayed his feigned staidness. "Perhaps a shower wouldn't be remiss either."
She could come to love that rusty laugh, she thought. Or she could, if she was a sillier, younger kitten, she lied to herself. Either way, the fact that she liked it translated into a pleased murmur of a purr, genuine and not at all for show. Those strong fingers on her jaw made her consider fighting him, but then concern replaced desire, and she felt a lingering moment of regret in her body's betrayal. But he was right, even if she loathed it. She hadn't slept in days, and she wasn't up to the little game she wanted to play, not just then, when everything ached and she had days of ash and dirt layering her skin. When his lips twitched, she narrowed her green gaze. "Just for that, I want twelve courses, all of them disgustingly expensive," she told him. "But first, I'll take a bath in that big, sunken tub you don't appreciate properly," she said, acquiescing. "And I'd rather not see your little birds," she added, because the last thing she wanted was tiny feathered things gawking at how old she'd become on top of how dirty she looked.
She took a step back, intending to find her shoes, wherever they were. "I get your bedroom," she added, because being a bossy kitty cat made her feel more in control. "You can find somewhere else to sleep," she said, her expression all tease, even as she smarted at the pain of getting her foot in a shoe.
His feigned innocence was even poorer a facade than his humorless demeanor, and he shook his head, torn between amusement and exasperation. “Fine. Twelve disgustingly expensive courses and a bath in that big, sunken tub I don’t appreciate properly because showers are much more time efficient and accomplish the same goal.” He sobered slightly when she mentioned not wanting to see his birds; he could understand that, and admittedly, he’d rather not have to deal with that kind of situation. “Most of them don’t actually live in the Manor,” he said, “but I’ll make sure you don’t run into anyone.” He thought she was going to have to face them eventually, but it wasn’t his place to make that decision for her.
He raised his eyebrows when she claimed his bedroom, tugging the cowl back over his head and collecting his belt and supplies as she found her shoes. “We’ll see about that.”
She didn't tell him that she was grateful for his assurance that she wouldn't need to see the little birds, but she was grateful, and it showed as she looked up from slipping the second shoe on. And she wasn't very graceful as she closed the distance between them again, once he'd slipped the cowl back on and settled the utility belt in place. When she kissed him, it was lush lipped and with a smile, and she tugged on his lower lip as she stepped impossibly closer. "Well? What are you waiting for?" she asked. "Isn't this supposed to be the romantic dream? Getting whisked away by a superhero? It's how Superman gets all the ladies, or so they say," she teased, the playful skepticism blatant on her features; the kitty cat preferred to save herself, as a rule, but she was willing to give this salvation by caped crusader thing a try, just this once.
She brushed her thumb over his lips, and then she slid her good arm over his shoulder. "Well, don't keep a girl waiting, Mr. Wayne."
He kissed her back like it didn’t matter if she was graceful or not (which, incidentally, it didn’t) and almost laughed at the mention of romantic dreams and being whisked away by superheroes. That might have worked for Superman, but Batman wasn’t the rescue-the-damsel type and he was certain he was rarely cast in the role of dashing hero. “I wouldn’t know,” he told her, deadpan. “You’d have to ask Clark.”
Still, it was obvious that she wasn’t walking out of here on her own and he could play along, since he so rarely did, and she wouldn’t have to know if he did happen to enjoy it. “Never, Ms. Kyle.” He might not have had a lot of experience in sweeping women off their feet but that didn’t mean he couldn’t accomplish it, swift and sure and she was in his arms as he made his way to the fire escape beyond the window. “Luckily for you,” he added, “I drove.”