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“How long have you been a two-faced slut?” The words roll off her tongue easily. They feel like victory.
“Selina!” Bruce’s voice is sharp and it surprises her, but she is undeterred. Without the slightest pause, she cocks her head in perfect relaxed arrogance and continues on with her attack.
“Seriously, what are you after? It’s the money, right? It’s certainly not his wacky sense of humor,” she says with a lazy gesture towards Bruce.
Selina ignores his curling fists. She knows him best. He’ll forgive her. He’ll understand—she’s sure of it. Selina smiles in triumph as the Girl’s eyes turn wet with tears, squeezing out a quick apology before darting from the room.
She remembers in pained satisfaction the guiltiness of his expression as he’d introduced her: Silver St. Cloud. A suitably deceptive name, but its frothiness didn’t completely conceal the hiding coolness of steel. He clearly hadn’t intended for them to meet, judging by the way he had awkwardly glanced between them, but he hadn’t locked his balcony doors either—not that a flimsy window lock would have kept Selina out.
Bruce is still, skin stretched taut and white over his knuckles. “What did you just do?” It’s an accusation, and she forces herself not to recoil in bewildered hurt.
“I know you’re not the best judge of, like, you know, people, but that girl is bad news. I just did you a favor,” she insists. She can still smell the Girl’s faint perfume, still feel her breath on her skin as she whispered pretty threats into Selina’s ears in the emptiness of the study. She knew girls like Silver. Girls like Silver wore barbs and taunts like they were prized jewelry, like they were white lines of pearls around their throats. Selina’s not nice either, but at least she’s honest.
Before Silver’s innocent veneer had melted off her face, Selina had felt uneasy, vaguely nauseated, underdressed in her boots. Now she is bolstered by confidence—Bruce will listen. She knows he will.
She waits for him to back down, for his posture to relax in understanding, but instead he steps closer to her, his jaw clenched tight. He missed her, he had said weeks ago. She waits for him to crumble so she can see it on his face.
“I want you to leave.”
She hisses in surprise and stares at him, shocked. He’s never looked at her that way before, like he wants to start locking his balcony doors and drawing the curtains. Like she’s an enemy.
She has a flash of memory to another day, another Bruce, telling her with an easy, open smile that she was good, but she wasn’t nice. Selina doesn’t sneer, but it’s a close thing. He wants to make her the villain? Fine. But she is right. She is right and he is wrong and why won’t he trust her? Suddenly she can’t get out of the room fast enough.
“Maybe you’re right.”
When she turns back, he is still standing there stiffly, face utterly closed to her beyond an obvious worry-crease lining his forehead and the glass of his teary eyes. This is the Girl’s fault, not hers, but Selina still can’t completely crush the rising concern in her chest.
“Maybe I’m not the best judge of people,” he says in a tremulous voice laced with steel, “because all this time I thought you were my friend, but clearly you have no idea what that means.”
She doesn’t quite reel back, but it’s a near thing. It’s disguised by her quick stride to the door, and the rough way she pulls her hood down as she scales the balcony. She leaves the door open, curtains blowing in the wind.
Screw the orphan. As if she hadn’t sheltered him from the streets, saved him from assassins, showed him what Gotham really was. Given him his first kiss, even.
The kid was an idiot. All those billions of dollars in his bank account and all those boxing lessons and he couldn’t identify a snake if he tried. What was the use of all his stupid training if he was still as naïve as he was that day in the alley?
It’s late afternoon by the time she reaches her perch back in the city, nestled in with the pigeons as the lights begin to brighten up the sky. Usually Bridgit would be here too, sneaking out of the apartment with some excuse to appease her brothers. Her absence is palpable, but Selina can’t cry again today. She feels limp, dry, like there isn’t another tear left.
Bruce probably went after the Girl. Told the butler to drive him in one of his fancy cars all the way to Silver’s apartment. It’s for the best, she decides; now she’s free of all of it, of everything. She won’t do any more of Penguin’s dirty work, and she’s done with cops.
“You’ll get yourself killed,” Selina had said to Bridgit.
“Silver’s bad news,” she had said to Bruce.
There’s no one left to ignore her advice.
“Look after number one,” Selina had also said, jabbing a finger into the air. “That’s you.” For the slightest of moments, she can see the plume of fire from Bridgit’s flame thrower, and it’s as if her friend is standing right in front of her, the flame close but not close enough to burn. A pigeon flaps its bedraggled wings behind her, and there’s a symphony of car horns and voices drifting up from the street. If she closes her eyes, everything’s almost as it was. But it’s not.
Selina doesn’t know where the Girl lives, but it wouldn’t take much to find out. Silver is a rather odd name, and any one of the sleek Wayne cars would be easy to spot on the roads. There’s something not quite right about it all, something out of place.
She doesn’t care much for justice—the law doesn’t feed you, doesn’t give you shelter. At least, not in her experience it doesn’t. But she’d be lying if she said her revenge wouldn’t be satisfying; it makes her coldly pleased to consider the sight of Silver’s shocked face, devoid of any arrogant expression. In the end, Cat would get the canary.
Silver thought she was gutter trash? Bruce thought her a villain? Fine. She’d show them. All she’s doing, after all, she deliberates as she drops down a fire escape, is looking out for number one. Why not clear her name, right? She ignores the whisper in her mind reminding her that she’s been happy to let people assume the worst of Selina Kyle before.
Her fists are tightly curled as she steps onto the street, prepared to smack the smirk off Silver’s face. But it’s Bruce she sees in her mind’s eye, his steady posture and shy smile. The Girl would destroy him; soon he would start drawing his curtains, closing the doors. Selina wants them open.
“Look after number one,” she had said. She hadn’t failed herself before, but now everything is different. She hadn’t been able to save the boy before, but now she can. With a deep breath of city air, and an imagined flash of open window and cool breeze and safety, Selina breaks into a run.