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Her fist hits the ivory tile as a guttural sob echoes through the room. The golden sconces frame the decadent mirrors, bathing the bathroom in a sunshiny glow. It’s so anti-Gotham that Selina almost forgets that’s where she is. Soft translucent curtains and a gold rimmed toilet remind her that, yes, she is in fact hiding in a Wayne Manor bathroom because who else would have a gold rimmed toilet than the one and only Brucie Wayne.
But that’s not the point…Selina does her best to slip back into her usual cat-like grace. Deep breath that swells the belly and a shoulder shimmy that makes it down to the toes. She can do this.
She stares at the two little blue lines.
There's a pinch in her nose, and her eyes begin to water.
It’s been months. And she didn’t realize she was late. She tries her best to offset the blame. It’s not hard. It’s Gotham: stress, malnutrition, genetics. Her cycle has never been consistent. Her stomach drops.
Four months might’ve been pushing it.
She’s been drinking and stealing, and picking fights for the last four months. What if her baby’s not ok? She’s going to have a baby. Bruce’s baby.
Shit.
Tears fall on the countertop. She’s Catwoman, she can’t have a baby.
“Miss Kyle?”
Selina jumps knocking bottles of expensive oils and perfumes to the floor as she turns to face the door. She presses against the cabinets as she calmly slides into the plush cream colored rug.
“Yes, Alfred?” she calls, playing he can’t hear the shake in her strength.
“Miss Kyle, are you alright?”
No, she thinks. But she can’t say that.
Shit. She didn’t answer. She goes to speak, but her breath shakes, and the tears come back. She sniffles and shakes. And Alfred opens the door.
Alfred. With his tired, gentle eyes, hair thinning at the top and peppered with grey. He’s the sweetest man Selina has ever known and the best shot with a rifle, too. He looks at the broken bottles on the floor.
The tears flow like they’re carving rivers in her cheeks, and she pulls in another shaky breath.
“Miss Kyle,” Alfred says like he’s speaking to a scared kitten. He takes a step towards her. He stops, looking down at a strange bit of plastic lying in the middle of the floor.
It’s the test. Selina had knocked it off the sink when she was startled. At least now she doesn’t have to say it.
Alfred stares at it a moment. It’s upside down, but it’s clear he knows what it is. Then he picks it up in what feels like slow motion with how calmly he does it. As if any sudden movements will send Selina sprinting. He knows her too well.
She watches his face for any little twitch of muscle that could tell her how he feels. Studying his aging face for any hint of a reaction. He’s tricky, though. As he turns it over with his fingers, there’s nothing but trained passiveness. Does he not care? But then she sees it: the slight glistening of his eyes and the softness coming back to the muscles of his mouth.
He blinks before meeting her green eyes, and there’s not a smidge of accusation when he asks, “Do you want to have a baby, Miss Kyle?”
Sobs wretch their way through her torso, and with every ounce of trauma and horrors of life she’s endured, Selina utters the only answer she could ever give to such a question, “It’s Gotham.”
Gotham: in which the everyday citizens are brutally met with terror after terror, let alone those involved in its nightlife. There is hardly ever enough sun to break through the toxic haze, and gangs and psychopaths make up the population. While one, Selina Kyle, steals jewels from corporate sociopaths for the fun of it.
She’s not fit to be a mother. Not with all her trauma and klepto tendencies, among other things. But she’s at least 9 weeks pregnant if not 12. The world is so evil, and a baby is too precious a thing to bring into it. Let alone in Gotham. Like a little warm light in a world bathed in darkness and grime.
But a baby. Selina can’t help but smile at the thought of a sweet, giggly ball of joy. Something good in a world that doesn’t deserve it.
Is it wrong to want one? Wrong to think that maybe you can love them enough to keep the heaviness of life from destroying them just a bit longer than what you had? Give them a better shot at life? To have someone she can love as they are and not as what the world wants to make them? Selina can’t promise they won’t turn out as fucked up as she is; but her and Bruce is one wicked combination that might have a shot. She’d have to raise them herself, though. Gotham has enough orphans as is.
Oh she must look insane to Alfred with the way she’s been laughing and crying through her thoughts. She sniffs back the watery snot and wipes her nose with her dark cotton sleeve.
Selina turns to look at the butler standing just inside the doorway. She has to say it or she can’t consider herself ready for it. “Yes. I want a baby.” The tears threaten to come back but she just laughs at herself, “Oh for fucks sake, I’m 31 not 13 now’s as good a time as any” she finishes, whipping more invisible tears off her cheeks.
That pulls a smile from the butler, “Okay,” he says, and the ‘how do you want to proceed’ is left unspoken.
“I can’t tell Bruce.” Selina starts, and Alfred doesn’t even twitch in protest before she starts to rattle off at a mile a minute.
“You know him. And you know why we can’t. He already doesn’t like me breaking the law, and a baby would make him irrational in that department. I mean, look at how he is with Richard. And the boy is 15 now. He’d turn me into the sparkly trophy wife he’s always tried to get me to be, and he’d use the baby to do it. You know he would. He loves me but I can’t play the part, Alfred. He loves me , Selina Kyle: Catwoman. You know he does. And I love Bruce Wayne, The Batman. And I’d do it. I’d marry Bruce Wayne in a heartbeat. But that’s not who I’d be marrying. No! I’d have to marry Brucie! Stupid, Rich, Charming, Playboy, Brucie. And he’s a fun plaything, don’t get me wrong, he’s just too rich…I should rob him.”
Selina slowly fills her lungs with all the ways she could rob Brucie Wayne, the playboy billionaire. And for a second, that’s all the joy she needs in life.
But then reality hits, and she fills the silence, and Alfred lets her. “We’re not even together.” She says. She’s not sure if Alfred knows that. Or if Bruce tells him anything about the two of them but Selina wants to tell someone. And no one understands the Bruce Wayne/Batman/Brucie conundrum better than her, Alfred, and Dick. If only because they are the only ones to have met all three. Some days she thinks the three of them understand the three identity dynamic more than Bruce Wayne himself.
Selina looks up from where she sits on the bathroom sink rug to look at Alfred, who just stands there listening, the positive pregnancy test in his hand. She looks away, skirting around the fear of vulnerability by noting the wall stenciling in her head as she continues,
“We’re not together. You know how it’s been with us, we flirt once or twice and then I spend the night. It’s not like when we were kids. I’m not sure if Richard has realized that his—well—that Bruce’s ‘friend’ Selina, who stays for breakfast most days, is Catwoman. But I know Dick is Robin. At least I think he is.
“I mean Brucie starts showing up to events with a bite-sized mini-me right around the same time Batman gets a Robin? Yeah okay…point is, I’m a glorified hookup—one he keeps trying to date when she’s clearly got commitment issues—and now she’s pregnant with his baby…hmm, fancy that” she finishes, feet tucked in and a hand on her chin.
“Is that how you see yourself?” Alfred says, still standing where he started. Only Selina has moved while animatedly ranting.
“As Bruce’s–” fuckbuddy seems too crude a word to use in front of Alfred. “Yeah—because he leaves. Or I leave! Or he stays and tries to change me.” But isn’t that what the baby will do too? “He leaves, but he should. I mean if he didn't leave Gotham when he did, setting our relationship back a few years, I would've been knocked up a decade sooner. And to change?
“He’s frustratingly right sometimes—and I do want to change…It’s just…relationships go both ways. You change each other. And although I don’t mind evolving and having a little fun with it, Bruce has got to work on his ability to compromise for us to be a legitimate couple. I just refuse to be his house Cat." She can’t help but think of all the things Bruce refuses to negotiate on in his daily life, and the frustration tightens in her chest. He’s much more compliant in bed.
“So you don’t tell master Bruce,” Alfred starts
“ We don’t tell Bruce,” Selina corrects
“Okay. We don’t tell Bruce.”
“Right”
“How will you explain…” Alfred trails off and she knows he’s referencing the pregnancy.
“I’ll disappear for a few months, it’s not like he hasn’t done the same. And I’ll leave hints that I’m around so no one comes looking.”
“And after the baby comes?”
“Same thing? I haven’t really thought that far. I only just found out.”
Alfred gives a soft smile, “Right…well, there is a nursery here. It’s out of the way, and I don’t think master Bruce has any current plan to repurpose it. You would be more than welcome to use it during nights you wish to…” He trails off, and Selina recognizes the rare occurrence of his uncertainty for what it is. He’s trying so hard to be supportive.
She feels her eyes glisten, “Alfred, I know you don’t like me out burglarizing Gotham any more than Bruce does.”
He sighs a heavy dad sigh, “Well, as long as you know that, I hope you also know that you and your child will always be welcome here as long as I have any say about it.”
Selina rushes over, avoiding the spilled oil, and hugs him around the belly, burying her head in his shoulder. He embraces her and gently strokes the soft black curls on her head.
“Some days,” he says, “I forget you both aren't little kids anymore.” The confession rings in the air, shimmering the way the marbled tiles of the floor do.
Selina huffs a laugh, “Well, with Richard around, I feel like the worst teen mom on the planet. I swear I’ll be the reason that kid has mommy issues, and he had real parents before all this,” she says, gesturing to the gold bathroom.
Alfred hums an affirmation with a hint of humor. The three of them, including Bruce, must have all come to the same conclusion. Bruce and Selina are the worst teen parents/pseudo-siblings to ever stumble into the poor boy’s life. But they’re trying.
“I might as well keep her,” at least the baby feels like a ‘her’ she thinks, “I mean it’s a wonder I haven’t gotten pregnant until now. And when am I ever gonna have another kid? I doubt I’ll ever have a relationship stable enough for that.”
“You’ll make a wonderful mother.” He assures her.
She pulls back enough to look at him, “Will I? My own mother killed herself because she didn’t want me.” Now, that wasn’t exactly the truth but that’s how it felt most days.
He pets her head again, sighing, but he doesn’t try to correct her, “You won’t be alone, we’ll be here to help you. Even if it's just me until you tell Bruce, Miss Selina. I’ll be here.”
She nuzzles her way back against his shoulder. She’s never had a good example of what a dad should be, but she imagines Alfred is about as close to one as she’s gotten. She takes a deep breath. The ‘thank you’ remains unsaid but she manages an “I’m ok now” before pulling away and taking the test from Alfred and softly tucking it into her pants pocket.
“I’ll clean this mess later,” he assures her, referencing the bottles she knocked on the floor. “How about I make you some tea or warm milk…it’s a bit late for coffee.”
Selina hums in agreement. Alfred is right, coffee in Gotham is more of a 9 pm activity than an 11:40 pm one. Hell, she was only here at the manor to argue with Bruce before he went out on patrol. The pregnancy test was just the thing she forgot to do this morning. It’s been a long day, she could use some warm milk.
~
The two of them make their way through the wood-paneled upstairs corridor, and Selina hears a window slam shut further down the hall. She hesitates to continue on but Alfred seems unbothered. There are a few more thuds in the neighboring room. And to her, it sounds as if someone is doing cartwheels and backbends while taking off a body suit. A sound Selina knows all too well, and given the current occupants of this house is a fair assumption to make.
The kid is swearing, in what Selina guesses is Romani, as he stumbles into the hall, chucking a bundled-up wad of red and green fabric at the opposite wall. The fifteen-year-old is dripping wet and in nothing but a dark colored Speedo. He looks at the two of them for a moment before sighing. He trudges over to—what must be the Robin suit—and picks it up before walking back into the room he came out of.
He emerges a moment later wearing a dark T-shirt and a pair of shorts with a laptop under his arm. He shuts the door and pouts as he leans against it.
“Back so soon? I wasn’t expecting you to return home for another few hours, master Dick” Alfred muses, easing their way out of the silence they’d built up.
“I have a paper due tomorrow, and B found out. I was planning on doing it before school tomorrow but he’s still pretending to be my dad–or something–and sent me home from–” he glances at Selina, “the gala…early.” Dick finishes before attempting to shake some of the wetness from his hair.
There’s no gala. Selina knows there is no gala. She would be crashing said gala if there was one. He’d been on patrol. Batman found out about his homework and sent him home to finish it. She smiles, it’s a classic Bruce Thomas ‘I work alone and spoil fun’ Wayne move.
“What are you doing here?” He asks Selina, but it's Alfred who answers.
“I work here.”
“No shit.”
“Richard! Language!” Selina snaps at him.
Dick turns and makes direct eye contact with her as he says it again: this time, in Romani. The brat. Honestly, he and Bruce could be twins. She has half a mind to whip the kid, now that she can’t answer his question without him gaining some satisfaction from outwitting her.
“Miss Kyle was just collecting something she left here the other night. We are heading to the kitchen for a warm drink if you’d care to join.” Alfred says, interrupting the sass battle that Selina was somehow losing.
Dick flicks his bangs out of his face. He pouts a Brucie Wayne pretty boy pout and sucks on his front tooth in contemplation. He then huffs and rolls his eyes before turning down the hall towards the kitchen.
~
Selina takes a seat on the wooden countertop as Alfred goes to steam some milk and Richard plops himself down at the table before beginning to work on his assignment. The kitchen has always been one of Selina’s favorite spaces in the house. Mostly because it comes with Alfred’s cooking. That alone is quite possibly the only thing that could turn her into a Wayne Manor house cat. She trails her hand along the smooth light colored wood counters. They glow in the golden stove light. Alfred didn’t turn on any other light when they came in so it’s just the stove and the cold moonlight pouring through the window.
Alfred hands her a vanilla white chocolate steamer and she holds it in her hand a moment while Alfred goes to make the boy something.
“What if I just left a box on the doorstep labeled ‘FREE Kitten’, do you think Bruce would understand and take it in?” Selina muses. It’s a vague enough statement so Dick will just think she’s getting Bruce a cat. She probably won’t take that route anyway and for a moment the only response is Dick’s continued typing and Alfred’s small noncommittal hum.
“Well, Bruce does like his strays,” Dick mumbles after a second.
“Richard!” She says, setting her cup firmly on the counter.
“I was talking about myself, Selina .”
“Hot chocolate?” Alfred interrupts.
Dick purses his mouth and lowers his head, “yes.” He grumbles in a way that is so Bruce you can tell how much time the two of them spend together.
The thought fills Selina with the same kinda warmth that taking a sip of her drink does, and she smiles a little. She ponders tonight's events over in her head, and her heart drops when she realizes that her sweet little Richard has been more hostile than usual.
“Dick?” she starts softly, “is there something going on with you?” besides the usual teenage hormones.
“Nothing is going on,” He snaps back, angrily typing on his keyboard. “My parents just named me Dick for a reason.”
She doesn’t press any further, taking a page from Alfred’s interrogation tactics. They worked on her earlier, so she takes another drink of her milk and lets it comfort and smooth all the raw emotional edges she feels.
The three of them stayed that way for the next forty minutes or so. Dick typing away at his assignment, Selina sipping on her cooling milk, and Alfred tidying up and making grocery lists while drinking some tea he made for himself.
Selina has also been contemplating baby names for the last ten minutes. So far she has decided that the name should mean ‘light’ or something along those lines, it needs to be classy but strong enough to withstand the surname Wayne, but not too heavy that it sounds weird next to Kyle, and end with an ‘A’ for a girl or ‘N’ for a boy.
Dick slams his laptop shut and Alfred goes to wash everyone's cups.
“I write my reports in less than fifteen minutes! I don’t know why he thinks I need more than fifty to write a full essay. Can't he see that I can make my own damn rules?”
“He’s just looking out for you, Dick.” Selina offers full well knowing how the Bat can be.
“Well, I’m looking out for him too!” He shouts back. His eyes widen, and he looks shocked by his own outburst. But Selina understands it, that manic ‘I care about you’ regarding the self-sacrificing Bruce Wayne. Richard schools his next response into something more warranted for his cover and not the life-or-death Selina knows it is. “He makes it near impossible to make sure he doesn’t…embarrass himself when he does things like send me home early”
‘Embarrass?’ She smiles. What a way to say ‘nearly getting himself killed'. But in a way, that would be embarrassing for The Batman. “He does have a way of embarrassing himself,” she says, but she doesn’t want to think about that. She’s seen him bloody and bruised enough to conjure a realistic picture of what that would look like. She can feel her stomach turn with the imagery.
Blue quizzical eyes stare at her from across the moonlit kitchen. Two puzzle pieces that go together but don’t quite connect in the way you originally thought dance behind the boy’s eyes. Selina can see the way he jams them together before throwing them back on the table to be revisited later. Slowly a smile forms, it then widens into the happy grin Dick normally wears.
“Did you know he fell off the boat the night we met you,” Dick says brightly and his face softening until it looks more like the excitable squishy faced child she met three or four years ago.
“You mean the night you met me,” she corrects, “I’ve known Bruce since he was your age,” and then some. She laughs. And the room begins to twinkle like the sound of crystal glasses.
They go back and forth like that for a while, swapping stories of all the silly things they’ve witnessed Brucie Wayne do at parties. At some point they delve into other times they've seen the Bat make a fool of himself and Selina can almost tell the difference between them but Dick does a better job at using party esc scenarios in his recollections. He’s probably told some of these stories to the kids at school, but Selina enjoys them regardless while doing her own set of mental gymnastics to tell hers.
Alfred has just finished recalling one of his Brucie Wayne stories when Selina looks at the wrought iron clock mounted on the wall. It’s almost 3 am. She should probably try and leave the manor before Bruce gets back from patrol.
“Alright,” she says after they all quiet down from the last round of laughter, “I should get home.” Selina slips off the counter and walks over to Dick who has moved from his chair to the top of the table. She lifts his bangs and kisses him on his forehead. “And it’s past your bedtime, Richard.”
“No it’s not,” he protests, and Selina smiles at how silly it is to tell Robin it’s past his bedtime.
“It’s a school night.” she insists and Dick groans before sliding off the table, gathering his things.
After saying her goodnight to Alfred, she heads for the door. “Will you be ok, Dick? Or do you need me to tuck you in?” she says and is met with silence.
She turns and there he is, the sweet little boy she told Bruce to let join them at the Opera one night. No parents, and wondering if it’s ok to ask for silly little comforts. Like being tucked in by the closest thing you have to a mom now. So there’s her boy, fifteen years old, standing in the dark kitchen, shaking with stillness, wondering if she meant it or was only joking. Her eyes begin to water. Of course she meant it.
“Well, come on then,” she says, tilting her head for him to follow and doing her best not to burst into tears. The pressure builds in her throat. How did she not realize she was pregnant until now? These kids are making her cry.
Alfred doesn’t say a word.
~
Neither one of them makes a sound as they tread back to the upstairs hall.
Selina opens the door to Dick’s room. He follows in after her and she doesn’t comment on the many Robin gadgets scattered across the floor. She just steps around them and pulls back the comforter for Dick to climb in.
He sets his computer on the desk and shimmies himself into bed.
He looks like a sad puppy. And Selina has to pretend she doesn’t see the tear roll down his cheek as she pulls the blankets up to tuck him in. Not that she’s much better. She takes a moment to tenderly wipe his tears before moving his bangs to kiss his forehead like she did in the kitchen.
“Goodnight, Richard.” She says fondly before turning to leave.
She’s almost shut the door when she hears the watery reply; “Goodnight, Selina.” And she cries for what feels like the thousandth time tonight.
~
She takes a moment to let her heart break on the other side of the door after it’s shut. She hopes he can’t hear her cry her way to the hardwood floor. He has nobody but Bruce and Alfred, and in a way neither does she.
How can she do it?
How can she bring a baby into a world like this? Where having your birth parents murdered in front of you is a common occurrence for those lucky enough to have good ones. Salina is no longer naïve enough to think that isn’t a very real possibility. Whether or not they’ll be killed sooner or later because of or regardless of her and the Bat’s nightly habits remains to be seen.
She wipes her tears and pushes herself up to stand. Everyone dies. Or leaves. You cry about it when you have to, but that doesn’t have to be now.
“You’re still here?” a rough baritone calls down the hall.
“Of course I am, I leave when I want to,” Selina replies, turning to look at the man of the hour.
Bruce Wayne treads down the hallway towards her. His footing is solid and smooth, and there is no visible limp in his stride. With no visible injuries and wearing slightly rumpled dress clothes, Selina questions if Dick truly wasn’t lying about the gala. But his hair is wet and his clothes appear dry, so that means he has showered instead of having been out in the night’s rain in those clothes. Showered in the Batcave, most likely. Wherever the hell that is nowadays.
“How’s Dick doing?” He asks in his low rumble. Very Batman, and Selina has to resist the urge to throttle him.
“He has the same issues with you that I do.” She glares.
“Not all of them,” Bruce says as he leans into her space, cadging her in slightly, his eyes are trained on her lips and a breath away when he whispers, “So how about it, Cat? Are you still mad at me?” and she can feel the electricity start to draw her in closer.
Yes, she’s still angry. She’s always angry. But no, she’s not mad.
She still pushes his face away on principle, turning away from him.
He grabs her wrist and pushes her fully against the wood-paneled wall. She can feel his muscled body fit itself against hers, caging her in completely, and she leans into it. Thirties is a good look on him and an even better feeling on her, for sure. She doesn’t have to wonder what got her pregnant. But she can’t entertain that.
“Not tonight, Bat,” she says, and she almost hates herself for it, but the guilt gnawing at her ribs for deciding not to tell him about the baby has taken all the fun out of this game of theirs.
He takes a deep breath, “Well, Selina, since you’re here, you might as well stay,” he says and kisses her sweetly, like a warm summer’s day. The kind you don’t see in Gotham.
She lets herself enjoy it a moment, to take comfort in his warm body, every gorgeously infuriatingly familiar inch. She sighs into him, hoping the night’s events slide into oblivion, but unfortunately, she’s always been a black cat in the way of luck. He mouths at her neck, and the emotional hollowness that she’s been fighting all night comes back. She doesn’t want this. She just wants the comfort of warm milk and a gentle tuck into bed.
She lets out a sob and pushes him away. He lets her.
Curling in on herself, the sobs start to come harder, “I’m sorry, Bruce,” she manages to say before sobbing herself quietly into a panic attack. She doesn’t want to wake up Dick with her lack of composure. She feels so empty, and she doesn’t have anything left to fight it. Just enough to quiet it.
Bruce moves his hand slowly to the nape of her neck as he tenderly murmurs her name. Attempting to comfort her but only managing to support her weight as she crumples to the ground and crawls into his lap. He guides her into him and holds her there, gently using his other hand to comb through her short curls until she stops crying.
“I didn’t mean for sex, Selina,” he says
She pulls back enough to look at him. The intensity of his dark brows contrasts the searching of his soft blue eyes. And she can’t help but hope their child is half as kind as him and not as selfish as her.
He leans in and kisses her cheek, “I just meant stay.”
It’s the gravel in his voice that brings her back to herself like a road home. “Okay,” she says. The words are barely audible, but Bruce has always been a quiet man.
He doesn’t waste time asking if she’s sure. He just stands and lifts her over his shoulder one-armed. His hand digs into the thick muscle of her thigh, and she curls towards him, shifting her weight so it’s closer to his center of balance. He lifted Selina like it was nothing, but she’s not a light girl, so she helps him as best she can. Once settled, he carries her down the hall to his bedroom.
He sets her down on the bed and walks into the closet.
Selina sighs, missing the feel of his marbled body beneath her and his shirt within her grasp but she doesn’t do anything about it; she’s too tired to talk anyway. Too tired to move. Her chest aches, and all she can manage is rolling onto her side and shutting her eyes. She hears Bruce come back in the bedroom and throw something soft on the bed next to her but she doesn’t move. And she’s not going to.
It’s silent a moment.
Then Bruce slowly inhales through his nose and lets out a tired sigh. His hands are on her next, gently undoing her belt buckle and sliding off her pants. She hears the piece of plastic hit the floor as it slips from her pocket when Bruce tosses them to the floor.
It’s fine, she’ll get it later.
His rough hands are under her shirt now, unclasping her bra and sliding both it and her shirt off together. She doesn’t fight him. He has to roll and lift her a few times to get her into one of his T-shirts, but he does.
Selina opens her eyes to see him fiddling with the bedspread. He left the light on in the closet, if it could even be called that with how big it is, so he could see what he was doing. She doesn’t need the light to leisurely watch the plushness of his deltoids and how they bleed into his bare pectorals, or how his biceps flex with every loving movement of his. His silhouette looks clear as rain for her in the dark. She’d love to get her claws on him, but she’s too tired to do more than watch him work. She trails her gaze down his abdomen and smiles when, below his happy little trail of hair, a black pair of pajama pants littered with tiny dark grey bat symbols hang low on his hips. It’s just so Brucie/Bruce/Batman that the laugh slips out of her.
His eyebrow furrows slightly, and his eyes question her outburst.
She waves him off and he doesn’t ask her to move when he pulls back the covers. He just moves her, rolling her onto her side as she laughs at him again. Once he's got it open far enough he scoops under her and slides her upwards and tucks her in. Bruce then makes his way to the closet. He flicks off the light and pads over to the other side of the bed and crawls in. She watches as he shuffles a bit to sink himself further into the bed and shut his eyes.
He’s too far away, and he should have his hands on her, she thinks to herself. So Selina moves. She slides her way across the silk sheets and turns away from Bruce. She scoots backwards the last few inches until she can feel her shoulder blade press into the firm plush of his shoulder. Much better, she thinks, shutting her eyes to sleep.
Somewhere behind her Bruce sighs and turns to loosely drape an arm around her middle. He presses his nose against her neck and sighs again before placing a small kiss. He dips slightly below the covers and places another one between her shoulder blades, settling in for the night.
“Goodnight, Selina,” Bruce murmurs against her skin.
She hums an approval and drifts to sleep.
~
Epilogue:
“Alfred,” Bruce says, searching around his workstation for a misplaced file he’d printed out to look over at dinner. “Have you seen my–”
“Yes, master Bruce.” Alfred says, moving to look for the file, “–If you would hold this for a moment.”
And that’s how Bruce Wayne ended up holding a grabby-handed, dark curly-haired, blue-green-eyed, four-month-old infant. In full cowl, sitting in the Batcave. The little one coos some incoherent vowels and reaches to touch his mask.
“Alfred,” he says gruffly.
“Yes, master Bruce,” Alfred replies, unaffected.
Bruce clears his throat, “Who is this?”
“That would be Miss Helena, Sir. She’s the daughter of a friend of mine. Her mother asked, and I agreed, to watch her while her parents work the night shift.”
He gives a low grunt in acknowledgement, thinking back to a positive pregnancy test that he found under his bed some odd months ago, the one he now keeps in his bedroom Batsafe.
Night shift, huh?
Bruce pulls the baby closer to his chest, and she puts her little fingers straight into his mouth. He tries to purse his lips, but the corners of his mouth tilt upwards. He brushes back a shiny black curl and the baby smiles at him, just like her mother. One thing remains the same, the Cat loves her Bat. and it’s best not to ask any questions about the kitten.