Chapter Text
Selina didn’t know what to do with this. ‘This’, of course, being the baby boy that was resting in her arms right now. She and Batman had some rooftop fun, but she never thought that it would result in This.
Selina couldn’t be a mother. She’d be terrible at it. A crazy kleptomaniacal cat lady would never be able to give a young boy a normal childhood, no matter what. And she doubted that Batman would be able to properly care for him, given his clear trauma. It takes a lot of trauma for someone to dress up as a bat and punch criminals.
The woman in the bed next to her must have noticed her panic, snapping her out of her overthinking and terror.
“Are you alright?” the other woman asked, bringing Selina back to the real world.
“I- no, no I’m not alright. I can’t keep him, but I can’t just get rid of him” came Selina’s response, almost like someone else was saying it for her.
The other woman slowly got up and moved to Selina, and slowly, gently, wrapped her arms around her. Selina would have refused it any other time, but she was still dazed, and this woman’s embrace, somehow, made sense in her mind.
____________________________________________________________________________
It turned out that the other woman, Mary Grayson, had just had a miscarriage. She and her husband, John, had been looking forward, so hopefully, to the birth of their child.
How cruel life was, to give Selina a son she would never be able to raise while still taking away a child from this couple who so lovingly wanted one.
Fate was cruel, but that fate also gave Selina an Idea.
When the circus that Mary and John were part of left town, Selina watched from afar as her son, Richard, now Mary and John’s, left town with them.
____________________________________________________________________________
As the years went by, Selina always visited Haley’s circus when it came to town. She worried, each time, that Batman would find out about Richard. It wasn’t likely that Batman would break up a happy family for the crime of raising the son he hadn’t known he had, but “mentally stable” isn’t a phrase that could be reasonably applied to someone who dressed up as a bat to punch criminals.
It turned out that she didn’t have to worry about Batman tearing the family apart. Not when the Zucco family was a bigger threat. Selina’s heart broke. She had given her son away, but now he had just lost everything at just 9 years old. Surging through the crowd, trying to find words that could possibly comfort the son she could no longer claim, Selina only stopped when she saw Bruce Wayne, of all people, comforting the just-orphaned boy.
Seeing the two there, with Bruce holding his arm around Dick, she was struck by the similarities of the two. Black hair, blue eyes, pale skin, the shape of the jaw. Most powerfully, both had seen their parents killed in front of them at a young age. Selina’s eyes took in the similarities, the way Bruce was hunched protectively around Dick, and something in the back of her brain clicked. There was no way… was Bruce Wayne? It couldn’t be possible.
But that didn’t matter. Richard, the boy that she had held in her arms, was being cared for. That was what mattered.
Until a young boy that looked almost Exactly like Dick Grayson began following Batman across the rooftops of Gotham. Selina had half a mind to give Batman a Talk about it, but Robin’s laugh told her that it would be alright.
____________________________________________________________________________
And it stayed alright for a few years, before Batman landed behind her with a swoosh and a thud, clearly intent on making sure she knew he was here.
“You knew” came that gravelly, powerful voice. Selina straightened up, instantly ready to bolt.
“Knew what, Batsy?” she purred, knowing that there was no lie but that maybe she could stall until some crime called him away and she wouldn’t have to confront the ugly truth.
“Wayne’s ward. You knew that he wasn’t the Grayson’s son”
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about” whispered Selina, fully aware that running would make everything worse, but unable to simply say that she had abandoned her son.
“Are you sure that you want to go with the story that you didn’t know about Our son?” growled Batman, stepping forward from the shadows in a way that made him seem larger than ever.
“He was never mine, I gave him to the Graysons the day he was born. I couldn’t be his mother. You know me”
Something in Batman softened at that.
“You were afraid that you would fail him”
“I’m still failing him”
“Would you like to meet him?”