Archive of Our Own

It was snowing in Gotham.

One more year had come and gone, and the autumn months rapidly shifted into a freezing winter. The chill had wrapped it’s claws around the city, giving its own gift to Gotham’s residents. A snowstorm on it’s way, just in time for Christmas.

That was a problem for tomorrow, tonight Bruce had to solve a theft.

“They say it’s a season of giving.” Gordon sighed and rubbed his face. He looked tired. Someone like him should be home on a night like this. He had a family to get back too.

“No physical evidence?” Bruce shifted his weight, sweeping his gaze over the crime scene, which was overrun by technicians.

“They’re not finished but, so far all they’ve got nothing but what’s looking like a cat hair.” Gordon turned to look at Bruce as he spoke, meeting Bruce’s gaze.

Ah. Bruce had been wondering why he'd been called all the way out here for a thief. He didn't mind the distraction, but someone robbing a thumb drive, even from a prominent citizen of Gotham, was a bit below his area of interest. At that point he'd rather be in the streets stopping petty robbery. Either way; when Gordon called he came. Gordon always had his reasons.

“You’ve got it handled?”

“Yes.”

“Thought so. Stay warm out there.”

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Bruce was freezing.

The suit, while padded and warm enough for the autumn months, evidently could not keep the winter cold out, and the chills wormed it’s way into his skin, even despite how much energy he wasted running across rooftops in an attempt to keep warm.

He needed to distract himself.

Selina. Catwoman.

Selina came back—

Bruce had no leads. He’d checked women’s shelters and new hires in clubs, diners, anything. He had nothing, not even a description that was similar to Selina's. He’d even checked the camera feed from her old apartment, but the only activity there was cats coming and going for a meal and the warmth of the heaters he’d installed in the apartment.

Heating, a warm soft bed… my isn’t that a great idea. Bruce’s inner Alfred impersonation chided him. Perhaps you’ll even sleep a few hours before Dick wakes you.

Bruce pushed it away, pacing the rooftop of an old apartment complex. He needed a lead. Something to actually go off of. For all he knew she could be already gone. Long gone.

Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing, the owner of the safe she had broken into had reported nothing of worth missing, just “private and sensitive documents.” Bruce could imagine several things that could be referring too that Selina would have good enough reason to steal.

Oz.

The Penguin has snatched up control of the city after the flooding, and now with no other competitors he could be safely relied on to know everything happening in the crime spheres of Gotham.

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Ozwald Cobb’s home was surprisingly easy to break into. Minimal guards, which wasn’t unusual for this time of night. What was unusual however, was the disabled security systems. It wasn’t like Cobb. Not after everything that had happened while Bruce away away.

Which meant someone else was here.

Bruce moved through the building with caution, the boss was away; at least according to the chatter of the security guards. That explained the eerie quiet of the house, but did not explain why someone had disabled the security.

Bruce wanted answers.

There was not a soul in sight when Bruce checked the master and the dinning, but there was something in the office. Bruce could see a figure though the crack in the door.

The figure’s back was turned from him, so he took the opportunity to push the door open slightly, making an effort to make his approach completely silent. Bruce slipped through the door, then he realized who it was.

Selina.

Bruce realized this just in time for Selina herself to realize that someone was behind her. She snatched something from the safe with just enough time to throw a glance over her shoulder before leaping out the window, her whip trailing out of the room last like the tail-tip of a cat streaming behind her.

Bruce darts cross the room, following her out onto the rooftops of the building and setting out on a quick chase. "Selina!" he calls after her as she sprints across the roof. She leaps and scrambles up onto a higher part of the roof and looks back, her eyes covered by thick red goggles, curved in the corners. Feline.

She darts away again. Bruce follows her path, up onto the higher part of the roof and lead across it.

"You stole something tonight-"

She's still ways ahead of him. She jumps down and lands with a grunt, taking time once more to give him a long glance over her shoulder. She has a smirk dancing on her face. "You're going to have to be more specific then that, " she calls after him, before returning to a run and leaping from the roof of Oz's penthouse to the next building over.

Bruce growls as he drops down from the rooftop after her and chases her over the rooftops.

He loses her quickly, amongst the complex path she cuts through the rooftops of downtown Gotham. He is reminded, as he estimates her path through the city, how well she knows Gotham, too. The glimpses of her he sees through the chase are the only confirmation of his own correct path, but despite that he still feels out of depth the further he is led into the city.

How far does this go Bruce? Before you accept the loss?

He doesn't need to answer the question because he finds Selina. Cutting through the rooftops of a busier part of town, he finds her on a parallel rooftop from where he had been expecting her. Not exactly right… but close.

See. He thinks, foolishly, to her. I'm learning.

Selina looks surprised to see him, twisting quickly to run.

"Wait!" Bruce calls, close behind her. Much closer then he had been anytime in the last twenty minutes, at least.

Selina seems to make a decision, because she stops dead in her tracks and spins around to face him. She eyes him warily, her posture stiff and stance defensive. She's ready to run again.

"Been slumming lately Vengeance?" she hisses at him.

Bruce scowls. "You stole something tonight," he says. "I want to know why."

Behind the red goggles, Selina narrows her eyes. Her hand goes to the bag on her side, protective. "Like I said baby, you're going to have to be more specific then that."

"Robert Norm."

Her expression shifts. Surprise. Disgust. "Protecting your own now?"

Bruce frowns. "I just want to know why. I have a theory about what you took. Am I… right?"

Her expression shifts again, like she can't quite pin him down. "That depends on what your theory is," she responds carefully.

"Sensitive documents. Something he wasn't supposed to have?"

Selina frowns, but this time the expression is sad. "The girls didn't even know he was recording. Something he wasn't supposed to have is a understatement."

"Why take it then? Why not leave it for the police to find?"

Selina shifts, her body language softening. "And trust they would do something with it? Just to drag the girls into court? For nothing? No. It's better to destroy it. Norm wasn't stupid enough to make copies. I can make it disappear. Then they can really move on."

"What are you using to wipe the drive?"

His words seem to catch Selina off guard, and her expression shifts again with a quickness that reminds Bruce of someone tripping but saving themselves before they fall flat on their face. "I… was planning on just physically destroying it."

"Without preforming data sanitization?"

"I- yeah?"

She doesn't know what that means. Bruce realizes in an insistent. "If you just destroy it, if the hard drive is partially intact, it's possible someone would still be able to recover some information from it. If you want to make sure there are no traces of the data exist you should—"

She's staring at him with an expression of slowly morphing surprise. Not surprise of her helping her. More the detail of the niche information Bruce was now unloading onto her.

"Data sanitize?" she finishes for him.

"Yeah."

"How do I do that?"

Bruce offers a hand. "I can do it for you."

"Not a chance."

Bruce opened his mouth, closed it. Then after a moment. "What else am I doing to do with it?"

Selina doesn't respond, but he can see it in her face, the hesitation at the implication she was almost making. Her gaze flickers over his face like she's trying to decide if she really thinks that of him.

"You don't trust me?" he asks almost betrayed by the implication she didn't. Despite the fact they barely knew each other. She had left. He had stayed. He hadn't had the chance to earn her trust fully.

"Should I?"

Bruce didn't have an answer to that.

"Do you remember your old apartment— above the abandoned theatre?"

Selina nods. "Yes."

"Meet me their tomorrow night. One A.M. I'll bring my computer."

She looks like she wants to say something, but hesitates. By the time she opens her mouth to speak, Bruce is already gone. He tried to rationalize it, but it doesn't feel as comfortable as the space he tries to keep between him and Gordon. It feels like he's trying to chase away the image of her from his mind.

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Bruce gets to the apartment early, banking on the fact he hadn't seen her staying there the last time he had gone to check on the safe-house. He's saved by the possibility of an awkward early meeting by a cold, empty apartment.

The heaters must have broken again. He'll have to look them over again.

He sets up his computer on the dinning room table, clipping the pieces of his on the go set-up together and booting it up to ensure everything is ready before Selina arrives. He's pulled from the focus of his work by the noise of tapping on the glass from the bedroom. He pushes the door open to see Selina crouched on the fire escape, gesturing for him to open the window. The first thing she does when he closes the window after him and pull off her cowl and goggles.

She swipes her gaze over the room. Gives him a look, then brushes past him into the main room of the apartment, with the comfortable ease of someone intimately familiar with a space.

"Did you bring the drive?" Bruce asks, following her in.

"Of course," she answered.

Bruce offered out his hand again, pausing at her shoulder in his path into the apartment. He tries, and fails, not to take close note of her. She looks… good. Healthy. Bludhaven, it seemed, had treated her well. Even her hair had grown out a little, curling into little ringlets that tucked themselves around her ears and fell loose over her forehead.

Selina placed the drive into his open palm. He closed his hand around it and brushed past her, moving to his computer set-up and plugging it in. The apartment is silent as he works, focused on booting up the computer and setting the program to rewrite the content of the drive.

Selina lingers close to him, drawing to his side as he works. He can feel her observing him over his shoulder. The program starts running, a progress bar popping up onto his screen. The loading animation plays several times before it displays the number: 1% complete.

Selina sighs, "This is going to take forever isn't it?"

Bruce looks over at her, then back at the screen, focusing the entirety of his attention on the slowly moving number. "Yeah."

It runs like this for another few minutes before another line pops up: estimated time until completion, 2hr 37m.

"Jesus," she curses, wandering further into the apartment and beginning to pace the room.

"You don't have to stay," Bruce says to her, a shadow of movement behind him.

"No— I do. I told the girls I'd make sure it's done."

Bruce hums in response.

Selina sighs behind him, and Bruce can hear her flop down onto the couch. "You must to great at cocktail parties," she comments.

Bruce looks over her shoulder at her, but doesn't have anything to say in response to that. He was awful at cocktail parties. Usually he just lingered near Lucius awkwardly until he was told to go mingle alone. Those conversations where excruciating. Bruce focuses back on the computer, using the other monitor he brought to open up case files to work on while he waits.

"Case in point," Selina mutters behind him.

"I have work to do."

"They don't care you know, that you care so much. They couldn't care less."

"We all make our own choices," Bruce says, trying to keep his voice even and face unaffected, like he was still focused on his work. "Good or bad."

That hits a nerve, somehow.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you left Selina. You don't get to rail on me for choosing to stay."

The silence drags on after that. Bruce chooses to focus on his breathing. Slows it down to near mediation, brings it back up gradually.

He's thrown off when just as he can focus on the work again Selina speaks.

"You're right," she says quietly, and her voice sounds far away. Like she isn't looking at his direction she speaks like she had been before. "I'm sorry."

Bruce hums softly instead of saying anything, the tension prickles in the room and he glances at the other monitor again. The estimated time remaining is now at 1h 57m. He hadn't realized that much time had passed already.

He can hear Selina sigh again behind him, presumably following his gaze.

"How did you meet them?" he asks. "The.. girls you're helping."

"I knew them before… at the club."

Bruce looks over at her. Her gaze is fluttering around the room. She looks sad.

"I'm sorry," Bruce says. "I should have picked another safe house. Didn't mean to drag up… bad memories."

Selina smiles a little at that, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "It's okay baby."

The nickname warms his insides in the rapidly cooling apartment. Bruce becomes aware of his surroundings again. It's begun to snow. Thick, soft flakes that cling to the windows and come down in a flurry outside the glass. In two hours the streets will be covered. They'll both had a hard time getting home.

Bruce stares at it fall. It reminds him of his parents. He used to play dreidel with his mother on nights like these, waiting for his father to return from work.

"Why did you come back?" He asks, without pulling his gaze from the window and Gotham outside, getting coated in a thick coat of white.

"I had to." Selina says quietly.

Bruce looks at her. He studies her face for a moment, as if magically he would be able to read something further out of it. Puzzle something from her that he had never been able to pull out before.

"The girls?"

Selina lifts her head and meets his gaze. "I guess… but— not just that. No were else felt right. I mean— I was serious when I said there's nothing for me here. But nowhere else felt right. Maybe Gotham is all I deserve. It's stained me. Forced me into someone I can't undo."

"I don't believe that." Bruce says.

Selina laughs at that, it's a soft sound, and she looked at him with a glint of… something in her eyes. "What do you believe?"

"You're not stained," Bruce says. "Everyone can change."

It's her turn to study his face now. She tilt's her head like a cat trying to puzzle something out. "You believe in free will? That anyone can become who they choose to be?"

"Of course," Bruce responds. "I mean if they can't, what does that make me?"

She smiles a bit at that.

Bruce pauses. Recently, the need to find the perfect words has snuck up on him in moments like these. The pressing importance of getting it right on his shoulders. But he's never been good with his words, and the want to know what to say doesn't help him.

"I mean I've-" Bruce presses his mouth together, the words feeling— sounding —wrong. He breaks the eye contact, looking over his computer set up. Searching for something to do, to say.

1h 24m.

The snow has begun settling in the cracks of the window, and on the roofs of the building across from them and street below, only undercut by the markings of the infrequent midnight traffic. The room is silent and cold and he takes a slow breath, trying to release the pressure he was placing on himself.

"If I can change for the worse," he says finally. "Surely that means I can change for the better?" He looks at her again after that, catching her just as her gaze flickers away from him and a frown etches itself onto her face.

Bruce feels that pressure again, like he has to convince her. Make her believe. See the potential she carries. How much even her small touches to his life have already affected him. "I wanted the world to be simple. I tried to make it simple. It's not, and it can't be. I can make my choices know with that understanding." He pauses. Just for a breath. "You helped me see the shades of grey. I can't—," he hesitates. "I won't be perfect. But I can be better."

"You're an idealist." Selina huffs. "Who would have thought?"

"No," Bruce disagrees. "Just an optimist."

She's looking at him with that something again. "How'd that happen?"

Bruce frowns. "I don't know. My parents I guess."

Selina opens her mouth, like she wants to ask more, but Bruce gives her a look. He can't say more. Has probably already said too much. There's this prickling feeling up his spine. That one wall he had tried to hold on too. Don't reveal too much. Don't get too close to anyone.

And yet Selina seemed to dodge his defenses so easily. Slip in. Get so close without him noticing. Like all those months ago on the skyscraper— suddenly she had been kissing him, and all Bruce could do was let her in and try to grasp the moment before it inevitably slipped through his fingers.

They sit in silence for a while. It is only broken when Selina speaks.

"Under an hour," she murmurs.

Bruce twists around, and she's correct. The number switching from 58m to 57m as he looks at it.

Selina lets out a small huff. "I'm sure you'll be glad to get back to work." She pinches her brow. "I should have just given you the drive. I don't know what I was—"

"No." Bruce cuts in and she stares at him like he's grown a second head. "I get it. It's sensitive. You wanted to be sure."

"I could've been sure without babysitting you."

Bruce thinks on that for a few moments. "No, not really." And Selina tilts her head at that. "We don't know each other. I would have done that same. Given the contents."

Selina's posture relaxes. "Paranoid," she says. "I guess we are alike."

Bruce can feel the edge of his mouth tick up. "I guess." He responds, feeling mind-numbingly soft for her.

"What?" Selina asks.

Bruce jolts a little, his face going blank and eyes widening a little. "Hm?"

"You where—" her expression softens and she looks away, looking around the apartment again like it was the first time she'd been in it. "Nevermind," she says softly.

Bruce frowns to himself, but says nothing more, looking over at his computer again and remembering the case files he had open. He scrolls through them, taking in the information again. Trying to take in the entirety of the case. Put the pieces together in a different order until something caught his (mind's) eye.

It's hard. He can feel Selina's gaze boring into him.

"What?" he asks, not shifting from his position.

"You're different like this." Selina says thoughtfully.

Bruce looks over at her, like the thousandth time this evening. "It's been a long year."

Selina laughs softly, shifting from her position on the couch. "You've 'changed'?"

Bruce hesitates, thinking back over the events of the year, starting after the horrors of the flood and the 'long halloween'. "I hope so," he settles on.

"It is true you have a kid with you now? Little kid in body-armor?"

Bruce huffs. It had only been a few weeks since he'd allowed Dick to patrol with him, and he had only gone on a handful of patrols, but he was already getting questions about him. Robin, Dick called himself. Bruce thought it was fitting, nothing really was able to keep that boy tethered to the found. "Robin?"

"It is true?" She gasps. "Geez. I hope you know what you're doing."

Bruce stays silent at that. He doesn't know what he's doing much these days. It's really sure he ever did.

Selina's voice shifts when she speaks again. Softer- gentler. "Is he your son?"

Bruce stops at that. He wonders if Selina can tell. The way that questions makes him freeze in place, like a deer stuck in the allure of the bright lights— hesitation only leading to further pain. The answer is no, at least in the sense Selina probably means. He wonders if that would change anything for her. If he had a son, one of his own flesh and blood. Would that idea bother her? Some other woman he cared enough about… trusted enough to give her that part of him?

Probably not.

No, there was no one else. And Dick wasn't his. Not really. Bruce wasn't ready. Wasn't prepared. Wasn't equipped. He still felt like he was waiting for the courts to step in. Let him know something had gone terribly wrong. Dick wasn't supposed to be with him. It didn't matter how long he poured over the paperwork. Obsessed over the courses. Getting everything right. Dick couldn't be his son. Bruce was the wrong type of person to have that responsibility. He'd never touched anything without taking it apart and breaking it at least once.

"I— I don't know. Not really, no."

Selina is silent after that. Maybe she's just confused, but Bruce entertains the idea that she understands, somehow.

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They don't talk much after that. Just a few words here and there before the drive is finished being wiped.

When the program is finished Bruce pulls the drive out of his computer and hands it back to Selina.

She holds is gingerly in her hands, before turning it over a few times, her expression of was one of quiet disgust. "Thank you," She says after a moment.

Bruce nods. He reached into his belt and pulled out a sticky bomb. He offers it to her with gentle fingers. "Here. To destroy it for good."

Selina eyes it warily, then gives him a glance.

"Press the button in the middle. It'll go off five seconds after you arm it," Bruce says. "Don't do it near anywhere important. Or fragile."

Selina huffs out a laugh. "Yeah…"

Bruce offers it to her again, and she takes it gingerly.

She doesn't say much leaving. Bruce can't help but wonder if he'll see her again as he picks his way into the subways to return to the terminal.

He hopes he does.

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Bruce does find her again, it turns out.

Or, a better way of saying it would be she finds him.

He turns at a sound behind him, from where he's taking a breather, observing the coming and goings of one of Oz's new nightclubs.

He's not exactly looking for anything, but it feels more productive then just sitting on the edge of some other roof and trying to catch his breath in the frozen winter air.

"Hey," she greets, a billow of fog emitting from her mouth when she speaks.

Bruce nods in greeting. "Did you get them out? The girls?"

Selina looks surprised. "Yeah… They left early yesterday. They're in New York state now. With enough money to get settled."

Bruce doesn't ask where the money came from. The careful look Selina gives him as she says it is enough.

"That's good," he murmurs.

"Yeah, it is." Selina agrees easily.

They stand together for a few moments as Bruce tries to build up the courage to ask.

"Are you staying?" he says finally, without daring to look at her.

Selina shifts, her gaze strong enough to him to turn to look at her. He wonders how much she can read off of him with that.

"I think I might… there's— there are people I can help here, I think. People only I can help." Her gaze flickers away from him as she speaks, but when she's finished its rested on his face again. "Would you have asked me too if I wasn't going to?"

Bruce hesitates. "I don't know," he replies as honestly as he can manage. "Would it have mattered?"

She stares at him and it takes a matter. "No," she replies, "I would have regretted it more though."

Bruce can feel himself leaning toward her, and it feels like relief. As if he was finally giving in to her gravitational pull. "I would have wanted to."

Selina smiles, and she reaches up to trace her fingers on the side of his head, drifting to the edge of his cowl. Her thumb makes contact with his cheek, and she swipes it over his skin. Bruce feels like he can't breath.

"I would have wanted you to," she admits finally.

Bruce is pulled closer by that. Doesn't know what to do. What to say. His gaze flickers over every part of her face. Her half-lidded eyes rich and brown. The soft arch of her brows. The curl of her hair visible under her cowl. Her lips.

He should kiss her. He wonders if he could get away with it, if he did.

He almost had before. Had wanted to.

Would she let him? Now that she was staying?

Should he ask?

"Selina…" he mumbles, not really sure what he's even saying.

"MmmHm?" She hums softly, tilting her head in that feline way again, like if she would just get a good look at him she'd be able to figure him out. She probably could, if she tried hard enough.

"I-" Bruce swallows his words and gives in to the instinct.

Bruce thinks she might smile against his mouth when he does, but he's too distracted by the way she slings her arm around his neck and pulls herself up closer to him with, using his armour as leverage. He grabs her elbow to steady her but can't find it in himself to figure out what else to do.

Selina pulls back to breathe and just smiles at him, like he'd finally thought to do something she'd been waiting for him to put together.

Bruce takes a moment, panting into her mouth before speaking again. "Sorry," he breathes.

Selina just laughs at that, pulling on him again to lean forward and press her mouth against his again. Bruce lets her in, lets her lead. She pulls away more quickly this time.

Maybe the kiss is just her way of saying it's okay.

They detangle after that. Selina releases her grip on his armour and pulls herself arm from his neck. She sinks down to being flat-footed on the roof again.

"I should go," she says. "It's late."

That part feels a bit pointed. Or with would have, if Bruce had caught it.

She begins her retreat from the roof. Bruce scrambles to pull his mind together.

"Selina—" he calls after her.

She turns around, a hint of an expectant expression on her face.

"If you ever need anything…"

Selina smiles, and gestures around. Then points to the sky. "I know how to find you."

Bruce glances over his shoulder, following the line of her arm. The bat signal cuts through the clouds. "Right." He turns back to her, as she nears the end of the roof. "Take care of yourself."

Selina gives him a grin, before launching herself across the gap to the next building over, and disappearing into the mess fo building vents and a thick layer of Gotham snow.