Re: Manor: Bruce & Selina
"He did love Stephanie." What Damian had done to her was inexcusable, and perhaps it drove home the truth that the boy was more far gone than they'd all believed. Bruce frowned. "Was it inevitable, then? Was it always going to end this way, from the moment Damian came back?" Difficult as it was to understand, it was even harder to accept that there was nothing any of them could have done. That there was no way to stop it. He'd always hated feeling helpless.
The cold didn't bother him. Years and years ago, he'd trained in below freezing temperatures, ice and snow, but he didn't mention any of that. He very nearly managed a smile when she said she would stay; it wasn't quite there, but it was close. "Alright." He leaned in to the kiss she pressed to his jaw, and he brushed his fingers over hers before nodding when she told him to go change.
He managed to nudge the puppy off his feet, but ended up bringing him with him into the bathroom to change. Warm socks, and virtually the same shirt, black pajama pants, and by the time he came back out the puppy had already nosed his way back into the space between his neck and shoulder.
"I'm going to name him Thomas," he said,; for a man who dressed up like a giant Bat, he wasn't always the most creative person. Naming pets after his dead parents might not have been healthy (maybe that was why Alfred had never gotten him a puppy) but he wanted something meaningful, and what was more meaningful than that?