belated b-day drabble
Title: Resume
Characters: Bruce/Selina
Rating: PG
Word Count: 723
Disclaimer: DC owns.
Warning: SPOILERS!
AN: For aravistarkheena’s birthday! Prompt: Bruce comes back
Returning to Gotham was always a strange experience. It was usually as though she had never gone anywhere. Everything had a tendency to stay just as she’d left it, or pretty close to it. Not this time, though.
Too many things were different, too much had changed. Catwoman stood atop the Gotham Bank building under a dark, stormy sky and checked off her list.
None of her friends were around anymore. Holly had moved away and was living with Harley, of all people. Slam had taken on a few cases that led him outside the city limits and away from his old haunts. Leslie had returned, but their once close relationship was strained with too many ‘I wanted to call but…’ on both sides. And, Bruce had yet to reappear after leaving his eldest son no choice but to fill in for him.
And speak of the devil… She had to narrow her eyes to see through the heavy down pour of rain, but she was sure it was Dick. He had a tendency to ‘accidently’ cross her path from time to time. She figured he was only checking up on her. It should have been the other way around, but he always beat her to it.
“Batman,” she mocked, mainly to keep up appearance, but if she was completely honest with herself, Dick had done good. She wouldn’t go so far as to say she was proud of him because it wasn’t her call to make, but she knew Bruce would have been, or, rather, would be when he returned. Still, she wasn’t in the mood to humor him tonight, “You need something, spill it.”
Batman simply stood there. He didn’t reply and he didn’t move. If she hadn’t seen him approaching, she would have thought him a statue. Rain rolled down his cape and puddled at his feet.
Arms crossed, she cocked her head to the side. Could be he was injured and like the original, to stubborn to ask for help. Her gaze travelled along the side of his body not hidden by the cape: right shoulder, chest, hip, leg, and back up. He wasn’t hurt, but there was something off about him. She couldn’t place her finger on what.
Impatience got the best of her and she turned to leave, “See ya around, kid.”
That’s when he spoke.
“Selina.”
A chill ran through her and then a burst of warmth from her chest followed radiating out to the rest of her body. She could not have possibly heard that voice. His voice. It was the rain. It had to be.
Slow and cautious, she turned. A grin was in place to keep any other emotion from registering on her face. She was quick to speak in order to keep the tears from forming.
“We’re on a first name basis now?” she asked and hoped he missed the slight quiver in her voice.
“I figured it would be easier this way,” he explained, “Out here.”
Her mind tried to come up with reasons why it shouldn’t be. Why after looking forward to his return, he couldn’t possibly be standing right in front of her now.
“Did I…presume too much?”
She caught the inflection in his tone and the tightening of his jaw.
“If you are anyone else besides who you‘re supposed to be under that mask…I swear I’m slicing something off. Something that you’ll really miss.”
One corner of his lips turned up.
“I assure you, I’m not.”
The voice could be faked, his posture might be imitated, but that self-assurance, that arrogance could not.
“Well, then it’s about damn time,” she laughed and closed the distance between them.
Without giving it much thought, she reached up to kiss him. His lips were wet and cold, but his hands were eager. She pressed kisses along his jaw, the side of his mouth, and everywhere his face was exposed.
The rain had yet to slow and she knew they should seek refuge, but she was hardly thinking straight. Later, she would let him know just how pissed off she’d been, both by his long absence and for choosing to show up without warning. But for the moment, she would allow herself to indulge in his return by letting him make it up to her for the next hour or so.