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Selina hated Mr. Freeze. The pretentious prick had pinned Bruce to the wall of the dingy ally behind Freeze’s lab with a sheet of ice encasing Bruce from neck to toe. Freeze had fled just as Selina arrived, quipping something about “not today, Batman.”
Seline skidded on the slippery ground to Bruce’s side. He met her panicked gaze with blue eyes that nearly matched the blue tinge of his lips.
Selina hissed. “Fancy meeting you here,” she joked, trying to lighten the mood.
Bruce let out a huff that might have been a laugh, or a pained groan. Selina pulled out her lockpick set and started jamming the sharp pins into the ice around Bruce’s shoulders, trying to free him. She could hear his teeth chattering next to her ear. How long had Freeze left Bruce encased in ice before he left? Selina needed to work fast.
Her tiny tools were not doing the job. What she really needed was a flamethrower. “Where’s Firefly when you need him?”
Bruce made a hum in the back of his throat. Selina checked on him again. It was hard to tell through the cowl, but she could feel the shallowness of the breaths puffing against her neck as she worked.
At last, she hit the ice just right and the whole sheet of it shattered. Bruce toppled to his knees. He pitched forward, and would have gone face first into the grimy asphalt if Seline hadn’t caught his shoulders.
A shock went through her whole body at how cold he was. Like hugging an iceberg. He stayed limp in her arms. Not shivering. Not moving.
“Hey.” He was too heavy for her to keep holding him like this. She laid him down on his back. His eyes had slipped shut, hiding those baby blues from her. “Hey,” she patted his cheek. The pale skin had a corpse-like pallor.
He didn’t open his eyes. But he hummed again.
“Okay, fine. My place is closer,” she said. He didn’t acknowledge her. A stab of fear went through her core. She knew the lack of shivering was bad. She needed to warm him up, now.
Bruce
Bruce blinked at the soft yellow light coming from the bedside table. He was in bed. When had he gone to bed? He tried to move, and he found he had no clothes on. That was unexpected. The bed dipped, and the covers lifted. So many blankets. It was too many, really. He was warm all over. The person who’d joined him in bed laid down right on top of him, forcing a grunt as an elbow found his ribs. With them lying on him, he could feel the soft planes of a female body. She was also nearly naked. Okay, he knew this. He didn’t remember climbing into bed with a woman, but he knew what to do. Whether he wanted to right now or not, this was familiar. It was nothing he hadn’t done before. He craned his neck and captured her lips in a kiss. Her mouth was so hot. Burning like fire. She opened up for him, and he teased his tongue inside. She tasted like cinnamon hearts, spicy and familiar. She pulled away. That was alright. He didn’t really feel up to fooling around anyways. He was so tired.
Selina
She got Bruce into bed with every blanket she owned on top of him. She’d had to strip him out of his suit. Bits of frost and ice had clung to him and melted on the way home, turning him into a puddle of icy water. Unlatching all the hooks and catches was much less fun than the first time he’d shown her all the hidden zippers. With him down to his underwear, she could see the blue tint of his pale skin. She needed to warm him up fast. He wasn’t tracking what was going on. She kept catching him staring over her shoulder with his eyes half shut. He acted like he was sleepwalking, moving however she directed him with gentle touches. It scared her.
In order to warm him up faster, she made a decision. She knew a little about survival from some reality show she’d watched last winter. The best way to warm someone up was to share body heat. She settled Bruce in bed with strict instructions to stay awake. She stripped out of her catsuit leaving her only in her bra and underwear, and slid under the covers. His ribs on the left were purple with bruises from some fight, so she tucked herself in on the right. To maximize contact, she draped herself completely over his chest. One of her elbows knocked against his bruised ribs. He grunted, the first sound he’d made since entering her apartment.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
His arms came up reflexively and wrapped around her waist. She shivered. Goosebumps erupted across her skin everywhere they touched- legs tangled, belly to belly, with her chin tucked into his collar. He was pure winter under her. She shivered, but he didn’t. He was still too cold.
The hands at her waist tightened. She shifted, looking at his face. He leaned up and kissed her.
Selina’s mouth dropped open over his in shock. His tongue flicked out and met hers. He tasted like mint- cold and fresh. She yanked her head back.
“Seriously, Bruce?” Hot anger flashed through her. Was this some kind of play to get into her pants? She was worried sick about him, and he was… he wasn’t even looking at her.
He gazed blearily over her shoulder with his eyes at half mast. His mouth turned in a confused frown.
“Okay,” Selina settled herself back down. “Okay, we’ll talk about that later.”
She rested her cheek against his collar, just above his heart. It beat sluggishly. She took his hands from her waist and brought them up to tuck them between her own hands. She started rubbing his fingers, trying to get some life back in his stiff digits. The scars and scabs on his knuckles caught against her palms.
Selina drifted into sleep at some point. She hadn’t meant to. Hadn’t even thought that possible, with the amount of worry bottled up in her chest. She woke when Bruce’s whole body shuddered under her. It felt like an earthquake.
Selina leaned up over him, careful not to dislodge the blankets draped over their bodies. Bruce’s eyes were squeezed shut, like a child hiding from the dark. His face contorted, and he shivered again, a fully body rocking. He looked like he was having a nightmare.
“Bruce,” Selina whispered, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead. His skin was burning hot. Selina yanked her hand away. She studied him closer. He had more colour than before, especially the twin blotches of red on his cheeks.
“Great,” Selina muttered. “Vengeance has a fever. Just wonderful.”
It was better than hypothermia, but she worried about his body sling-shotting from one extreme to the other. She considered for a moment, and then slipped out of bed. She left the blankets in place.
Bruce
Bruce woke himself up shivering. He was burning hot. Sweat puddled like pools of lava in his clavicle and behind his knees. It was gross. He rolled, or tried to. The sheer mountain of blankets piled on him made it difficult. They twisted around his limbs, trapping him. He flailed, and suddenly, he was falling. He hit the floor hard on his bad side. His ribs screamed in pain. Bruce gasped.
The bedroom door swung open.
“You’re awake.” Selina stood there in her underwear. It reminded him of the first time he’d seen her, when he’d followed her home and watched her through her window.
She held a glass of water. Bruce suddenly felt like his mouth transformed into the Sahara desert. She padded over, her bare feet silent on the hardwood floor.
Bruce remembered he was sitting on the floor with half the blankets tangled around his legs. He tried to stand up, but his muscles felt like jelly. Selina reached past him, setting the glass down on the bedside table. Then she helped him up onto the edge of the bed. He drank the water greedily. Selina placed her cool hand against his forehead. He leaned into the touch, too exhausted to hide how good it felt.
Selina hummed. “You’re still feverish.”
She climbed over him into the bed. Bruce wrinkled his nose at the sweaty sheets. Selina patted his vacated pillow. “C’mon Vengeance. You need to sleep.”
“I should go,” he said. He had no idea what time it was, or even how long he’d been there. He’d been tracking down Mr. Freeze. He needed to get back to the cave, figure out his next move.
“Stay,” Selina said. That simple ask made his whole body weak. He sank back into the exhaustion and let his brain turn away from the case. He laid himself down beside her, his head next to hers on the pillow. Breathing the same breaths together.
Selina reached out and brushed his hair back from his face. It was soothing, something his mother had done. “Stay with me.”
There wasn’t really any harm in staying put until he had the strength to go back out there. Bruce surrendered, and stayed with Selina.