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Selina lowered herself from the windowsill onto the floor, the flat leather soles of her shoes only making the barest of whispers against the expensive wooden slats. Everyone thought that Catwoman was made for high heels and the staccato beats that accompanied them. It added to her power, her allure. But on some nights, like tonight, she preferred the softness of quieter shoes. Besides, she wasn’t Catwoman tonight, and while she might have been breaking in, it was only because the owner of this home allowed it. She was pretty sure he had some kind of biometric scanner set up that allowed her on to the grounds without injury. Selina knew she was good, but no one was good enough to actually break into Wayne Manor.
Without needing the lights, Selina made her way down the hall towards her destination.
“Ms. Kyle,” Alfred Pennyworth’s calm voice stopped her in her tracks. “I do hope you are aware you’re welcome at the front door, even if it is well past the hour of normal visitors.”
“Hey Alfred,” she smiled, having the decency to dip her head. “Is he home? I figured it might be late enough…” she trailed off, not sure how to continue. Selina didn’t actually know what she was doing here. It had been almost two weeks since she had seen Bruce, either in or out of the cowl, and she… well … she missed him. It was a difficult truth to admit to herself, but here she was, sneaking around the upstairs of his godforsaken mansion , talking to his butler , because she missed him.
Selina knew Bruce Wayne was so far out of her actual league that the man might as well have been on another realm of existence. She was a girl from The Narrows and while she was very good at looking the part of a Gotham City socialite, a small part of her would always be the little girl learning how to make ten dollars in groceries last a week and a half. Not that she would admit any of this out loud – or let it stop her from going after the things she wanted in life.
“Master Bruce is currently in his office,” Alfred informed her, a slight smile pulling at the corner of his lips. “But I am afraid he isn’t alone.”
Selina had started turning towards Bruce’s office, but she found herself suddenly frozen. Not alone? What the hell did that mean? They weren’t exclusive, Selina knew that, hell they weren’t even anything, not really, but –
“Ms. Kyle,” Alfred said, his hand suddenly pressed against her back as he guided her towards the wall. “Are you quite alright?” There was nothing but warmth in his voice.
“Fine. I’m fine,” Selina said, trying to keep her voice even. “I guess entertaining company’s a pretty good reason for him to have stayed in tonight, huh?”
The smile on Alfred’s face became more pronounced as Selina spoke, and she wondered for half a second if she had been wrong about the older Englishman. She had always assumed he’d liked her.
“Ms. Kyle – ”
“Selina is fine, Alfred.”
“Ms. Selina then,” Alfred amended as he pulled her from the wall and began escorting her towards Bruce’s office. “I believe you misunderstood me. Master Bruce is not entertaining a lady friend, but rather he’s with our new house guest.”
“House guest?” Selina questioned, still not enjoying how off balanced this whole thing made her feel.
“Young Master Richard recently lost his family,” Alfred said, his voice subdued. “And due to the lack of adequate foster care available in Gotham, special provisions were made to allow the young man to stay here with us for a time.”
Selina quirked her head to the side, trying to imagine Bruce interacting with a child. But if what Alfred had said was true, and she had no reason to believe it wasn’t, then the fact that she hadn’t seen Bruce in two weeks suddenly made some sense.
“Maybe I should go,” Selina whispered, suddenly doubting herself more than when she had thought Bruce might have had another woman with him.
Alfred stopped with her, the door to Bruce’s office ajar enough for a triangle of light to be spilling out into the hall less than a few yards in front of them.
“You’re certainly welcome to,” the older man said. “But I do believe seeing a familiar face might do Master Bruce some good right now.”
“What… what do you mean?”
Alfred turned towards her slowly, and even in the dim lighting Selina could clearly see the hope in the man’s brown eyes. “I believe Master Wayne is at a crossroad, and I have given all the advice and wisdom in my power at this point. Perhaps someone else might be able to help him.”
Selina studied the man, unsure of what he thought she could do, but she nodded all the same. Without a word, she strode forward towards the door. Though the space was little more than a hand’s width, she found herself entranced by the images before her, unable to cross the threshold.
Bruce was at his desk, dressed in a dark gray oxford, the sleeves rolled to his elbows and the top two buttons undone. It was as rumpled as Selina had ever seen him. And it was a testament to his focus on the piles of paper in front of him that he didn’t hear her approach. In the heavy black leather chair across the room, lay a boy so coiled in on himself that he fit on the single cushion of the seat. His dark hair was a mess, and even from the doorway, she could tell that he had been crying before sleep had taken him.
“You can come in,” Bruce called quietly, setting down the paper he’d been holding with a sigh. Selina smiled, the fact that he had noticed her approach making the strange of the moment a little more bearable.
“So who’s your friend?” she asked, her voice low as she moved to stand beside Bruce’s desk.
“His name is Dick Grayson and he’s nine years old.”
“Mmm,” Selina nodded, her eyes moving from Bruce to the child. “And where are his parents, Bruce?”
“They died,” he said, and Selina found she wasn’t surprised. “They were murdered in front of a crowd of people, and he’s going to have to testify at the trial of the man who killed them.”
A hundred emotions fluttered through Selina all at once. Her heart ached for the boy sleeping curled up in a chair afraid to take up space, for the child Bruce had been once. She wondered if this was what he had looked like when he’d lost his family. She was angry at a world that kept doing this to children, angry that a little boy would sit in a witness chair with too many eyes upon him to recount what had probably been the worst day of his life. Her story may have been different than his, but she knew all too well what that felt like, how the words, no matter how true they were, would fall from his mouth, shaking, begging to be believed.
“He isn’t a stray kitten, Bruce,” she snapped, surprised by her own bitterness.
“I know that,” Bruce replied, sounding exhausted.
“He’s going to need more than just a roof over his head.” Selina didn’t know where these words had come from, but she found she couldn’t stop them.
“I know.”
“You’re twenty-eight years old. And your life is...” she paused, all of a sudden realizing how close she was to crying. “…Complicated.”
“Complicated would be putting it mildly, I think.”
Selina hated how calm he sounded. She turned to face him, ready to tell him off, to demand that he return this little boy where he’d found him – someplace he could have a normal life, away from the hell that was Gotham City, but the look on his face as he watched the child sleeping ground her to a halt. That look told her he already knew everything she would have said, that he had likely been saying it to himself for the last few hours, if not the last few days. She moved towards him, her fingers resting on the desk near his own, offering them up in a truce, there for the taking.
“He’s so small,” she whispered, gazing back across the room. He must have been beyond tired to have been able to sleep through all of this.
“I know,” Bruce said, his hand sliding over the desk top to rest beside hers, their fingers brushing, but nothing more.
“What happens to him if he can’t stay here?”
“I don’t know,” Bruce admitted, pulling his eyes away from the boy to glance at the papers before him. “Short term, he’d be headed to Gotham City’s Youth Center.”
Selina did her best to repress a shudder. She knew all about the youth center – having spent a night or two there herself when she was a kid. In theory, the place had been created out of the good intentions of the elite. It was originally a homeless shelter for the children of Gotham where social workers could keep an eye on them, get them the help they needed, a back up plan when the foster care system couldn’t handle the number of unaccompanied minors and runaways that seemed to pop up in the city. But like so many programs in Gotham, good intentions hadn’t led to perfect endings. Somewhere in between an orphanage, a group home, and a pit stop on the way to Juvie, it had always been rough. The staff had been underpaid and under trained; survival of the fittest had reigned and those willing to do whatever it took to survive did. Last she’d heard it had gotten worse instead of better. She couldn’t imagine the small sleeping boy would do particularly well there.
“I know,” Bruce whispered, like he could see her memories. “I don’t think it’s a great place for him either. And I am working on fixing the center…” Of course he was. “It’s just taking more time than I had bargained for.”
“You have custody of him in the meantime?”
“Only barely.” Something between a grunt and a dark laugh escaped him. “Jim Gordon put in a good word for me. The boy is a material witness, and there seems to have been a breakdown in protocol on his way to the police station the first time around. And the District Attorney is a friend of mine. It isn’t really Harvey’s purview, but he’s pulled some strings as well.”
Selina could only imagine what it was like to be so rich and powerful you could call the district attorney a friend.
“So what’s your plan?” she asked. “Are you going to adopt him? Make him the heir to the Wayne family? Or your other legacies?” Selina wanted to be angry like she’d been before, picturing the boy running around Gotham, chasing after Bruce in a miniature Bat suit, but she suddenly lacked the energy. She tried with everything she had to picture Bruce giving up the cape and cowl, but she couldn’t see it. It was a part of him, as sure as she was made up of all of her own complicated pieces, mask and all.
“I don’t know,” Bruce admitted, pulling Selina out of her own head. “I don’t want to make him a Wayne. The boy lost his family, I can’t take his name from him too; it’s all he has left of them.”
Selina nodded, shifting her body until she was sitting perched on the arm of his chair, his hand finally coming up to rest against her thigh.
“And what does he want?” she ventured cautiously. “Have you asked him?”
“He’s angry, scared. He thinks he wants revenge.” She could hear the protectiveness in his voice, like even now after only knowing the tiny human for a few weeks at most, Bruce was ready to move heaven and hell both for Dick Grayson. Looking back at the sleeping boy, a piece of her could understand – and she hadn’t even spoken to him. She cleared her throat, suddenly uncomfortable.
“So you’ll do what you have to,” she said, leaning down to press a kiss against Bruce’s head. It was a level of intimacy they’d never ventured into before. Usually, their interactions were hard edges, bitten lips, and bruises that lasted for days. It was what she had come here for, after all. But this, feeling him lean into her, something almost like contentment rumbling through his chest… this was something different. And she didn’t know what to do with it. So she avoided it all together. “You should probably get him to bed. It can’t be good for him all curled up like that.”
Bruce nodded, pushing the chair back from his desk as he stood. “He came in here an hour ago. Said he couldn’t sleep. I just couldn’t send him back.” He moved to the boy, and as if he weighed nothing at all, lifted him from the chair. Instinctively, the boy’s head tucked itself into Bruce’s shoulder, and the man’s large hand came up protectively to Dick’s messy hair. And in that moment she could see it. Selina could see Bruce as a father, bandaging scraped knees, reading bedtime stories, going to parent teacher conferences, all the things a good parent should – the things she never had, and she wanted that life for Dick Grayson.
Without thinking, she followed them down the hall to a room she’d never been in before. It was big, like most rooms in the manor, the walls a light shade of blue. There wasn’t a lot in it, but Selina had a feeling that was going to change. She stayed by the door as Bruce tucked the boy back into bed.
“Bruce?” came the most tired little voice she had ever heard.
“I’m here, Dick.”
“You’re not going out to work again tonight, are you?”
“No, Dick. I’m home for the night.” He sat on the edge of the bed, his hands fisted against his leg as though unsure of what to do with them.
“And if I have another bad dream?” Dick’s voice shook like the nightmares were already hounding him and Selina had to resist the urge to run into the room, hug him, and never let go. The feeling terrified her.
“Then you know I’m right down the hall. And so is Alfred.” This seemed enough for the child and she watched as he pulled what looked like a stuffed elephant from beneath the covers, his eyes catching hers just before slipping shut with the barest of smiles.
She waited until Bruce closed the door behind him to place a kiss against his temple. “I should go,” she whispered.
“You don’t have to,” Bruce said. “I can introduce you in the morning.” The flashes of Bruce’s imagined future changed without Selina’s permission. Suddenly, she was there beside him and Dick, being all the things her mother never could have been for her – and it terrified her. She swallowed the feeling whole, plastering the sassiest smile she could to her face.
“I better not,” she quipped. “We wouldn’t want to wake the boy up with what I’d had planned.” To his credit Bruce managed to only look startled for a minute before he raised an eyebrow at her, granting her the out she was looking for, even if his eyes held disappointment. He surprised her by pulling her into his arms, his lips brushing against her ear.
“It was nice to see you, Selina,” he whispered, kissing her once before letting go. “Next time, use the front door.”
She smiled a little shyly as she pulled away, not sure what to do with this softer side of the caped crusader she was sure almost no one knew existed, but one she hoped the boy would grow to know. “I’ll consider it.”
“Until then,” he nodded, leaning against the wall just past Dick’s room, like a sentry, ready to scare away the darkest of dreams.
And if her heart ached as she made her way back to the window, the least she could do was keep that pain from Bruce, it was the right thing to do. After all the man did for this city, he deserved something worth hoping for.
Leaping back out into the early pre dawn light, Selina found herself smiling, her imagination working overtime on a million happy endings. Gotham City could be a cruel mistress, who took everything from a person; maybe this time she would give a little back.