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thejusticelounge2014-07-19 04:17 pm
bossymarmalade) wrote in thejusticelounge2014-07-19 04:17 pm
just one night alone / this is not the end
Bruce doesn’t come to her in the suit. No, Batman’s presence in the days after the parade has not been as heavy as they had once been. It wasn’t to say that she had been abandoned, but whatever the dark knight had been occupying himself with in the shadow of nightfall had been too specific to make the rounds, too far gone underground, and it shows when he makes his way above it, climbs to the rooftops and across, to make his way to her Park Row apartment. He doesn’t knock, doesn’t tap the window, merely pushes it where he knows the hinge is broken, where Selina keeps it open for the cats.
Selina pets Isis, curled up on the couch across from the window. She’s not asleep, not quite— she hasn’t been able to sleep since the parade— but it takes her a moment to realize that the creature coming through her window isn’t a cat. She raises her head, eyes going wide in the darkness. “Bruce?” She’s not completely sure, but how many other people does she know that don’t use doors?
Bruce exhales, as a way of letting her know that it is him that she’s.. safe? He pauses, looking down at his suit, at the blood that slicks across the gloves and up the gauntlets. He isn’t in tatters, even if the kevlar and Nomex is, and he moves across the narrow space of her tiny flat, until he is standing in front of her, looking down at where she is curled up, from the top of her head, down to the shirt, leggings that she is wearing, and settling—strangely (or not strangely) enough on her bare feet. He doesn’t move, doesn’t budge from where he is, hands loose at his sides, looking, with no pun intended, like something the cat dragged in.
Selina watches him watching her, taking him in just as intently as he is. She moves Isis aside and sits up, watching him another moment before standing up. “Come here,” she says, her voice soft and hoarse. She reaches out for him, to guide him to sit on the couch.
Bruce sets his first foot out at the command, and the second follows, only a few seconds too late, and before he can stop the momentum is gaining and he is moving towards her, towards the spot she has cleared. But he doesn’t make it. Instead, the armored plates inside thudding heavily on the aged, warped baseboards underfoot, he drops to his knees in front of her, slowly. It’s not a controlled drop but he doesn’t sway either, and slowly lifts his hands to her knees, heavy gloved palms cradling the rounded caps. One of the cowl’s ears has been torn ragged, the edge of the opposite side ripped under his jaw, and so it wrinkles as he lowers his head, bows it under a weight that cannot be seen but felt, and presses his cheek to his fingers, just barely, barely, letting his skin feel the warmth of her, under his touch, as he breathes, raggedly.
Selina doesn’t move, at first, until he’s settled. Then, she slowly leans down and sets her hands on either side of his head. Her fingers work deftly, still remembering the clasps and folds of his cowl. She gently eases it down over his head, running her fingers through his hair, damp with sweat, stuck in odd clumps from being pressed under the cowl. “You’ve been going ever since then, haven’t you? Never rest. Can’t rest?”
Bruce remains silent, throughout all of this. He doesn’t flinch when her hands settle on the cowl, and in fact, there is a part of him that seems to still even further when her deft, slim fingers move like a breeze over the hidden eyelets and zippers—a thief’s touch, barely there—pulling the cowl down and off. Bruce doesn’t answer her question that soon becomes her questions, because she knows the answers. She always has. His hands move, allowing his jaw and cheek to come into full contact with her leg, now, his lashes lowering slightly over the darkness of his eyes, the developing bruise spreading along one socket.
Selina keeps running her fingers through his hair, smoothing it down and separating it. It’s the same kind of calming motions she does for her cats, soothing them after a fight or a scare. “Stay. I’ve still got things you can change into. This isn’t good for you.” She taps the suit, her nails tapping on the hard material beneath the fabric. “This isn’t good for you, not now. You know it, too.”
Bruce doesn’t fight her, doesn’t disagree, and without saying anything, rises up as he begins to undo the gauntlets, where they curve together and meet at his wrists, where they blend into the bicep guard, where that connects to the inside of his arm at the chest. The gauntlets—thick and sturdy—go first, the seals of where they meet long gone, and when they fall, hit the floor, they thud hollowly against the floor, the chest plate following shortly after. Bruce doesn’t still, his eyes lifting to Selina’s, and he pulls at the neck of the compression shirt he is wearing—this, too, is shredded in places: under his arm pit, between where the chest plate meets on his side—before that joins the rest of the growing darkness at his feet, dark humors being bled from him, pooling like shadows between them. His skin and arms are littered with scars, some that blend into the curves of muscle that flatten his belly and chest, some that do not: Shado’s mark, the star, is still bright pink and shiny, slick with gathered sweat at the dip of his sternum.
Selina reaches up, the softness of her fingertips resting against this newest scar, the most unfamiliar to her that stands out. She doesn’t tilt her fingers the way she might to claw at him, just traces the pads of her fingers along the outline of the scar. “When did this happen?” It reminds her a little too much of her own scars, the frighteningly precise lines over her heart.
Bruce’s voice is hoarse, almost completely gone, when he responds. “Three months ago,” he states, voice barely making it past his tongue and teeth to her ears. He doesn’t stop undressing, though, even when he speaks, getting the heavy armor off, and it is nearly palpable how the entirety of his body seems to lift from under the weight, all his skin slick with sweat, flushed. Bruised. Tattered.
Selina lets her hand drop and looks him over, watching the subtle lightening of his carriage. “Another nice one for your collection.” She glances back towards her bedroom. “Do you want a shower, or just a change?”
Bruce doesn’t answer her, and instead, moves towards her bathroom, the shedding of his clothing dropping as he goes, and the lack of propriety should be jarring, but instead it becomes so dutifully obvious how little Bruce is thinking as he walks, nude long before he gets to the bathroom, his heavy gait slow as he pads silently against the floor. Nothing in there has changed, everything is where it meant to be, and he shifts to claw foot tub, and steps into it, turning the tap to whatever temperature might come out, uncaring, as he leans against the front facing wall.
Selina watches him go, more out of concern that he might fall over before he makes it— that’s not like him, though, but she has to worry, after everything. Where before, she might have just shrugged and smirked to herself about the view, she remains still, her mouth trying to curve up out of habit and failing. She looks at the pieces of the suit scattered across the floor and considers picking them up. Not yet. She goes to her room, rooting through the back of her closet until she finds something in his size that’s not terribly musty. She laughs to herself; of course it’s his size, it’s his. She remembers taking it from him, although if he ever missed it, he never said. But maybe he didn’t miss it too much anyway. Selina grabs a robe and lays it and the clothes outside of the bathroom door, the heads back out to gather up his suit. She wonders absently how long it would take him to get a new one with the Cave gone.
Bruce takes too long in the shower, until the lukewarm water goes frigidly cold, and even then, he remains, locked in the same position. Arm extended against the tiles, water sluicing down the channels of his shoulder blades, spine, until the pipes begin to rattle a bit, wheezing with effort. He dries—barely— and dresses in the shirt, pants she’s left, but ignores the robe, hair still damp and curling around his neck when he walks out and towards her, feet spreading across the floor uniformly so his steps land silently, as he moves up to her, heart rate quickening, and tugs his arms around her, pulling her against his body, hands turning her at her thighs and hips, shoulders. Breasts. So she meets him, straight on. And he drags a hand up the delicate of her neck to meet his lips against hers, mouth parted, tasting the full swell of them with his tongue, even as he clutches the narrow of her waist, the slope of her back in one massive, roughened hand, holding her against him, heart-to-heart, cool little droplets pattering over the hardwood floor, her skin, his skin, their skin.
Bruce pulls back, a split second, to breathe: “Selina,” and he moans, softly, his brow furrowing in pain, and whether it’s for air or something else, it can’t be sure; but it doesn’t matter, because then, in a moment, he is kissing her again, tongue slicking against her lower lip, softly. Delicately.
Selina thinks it should bother her, a bit, the way he manhandles her into the kiss, but she can’t really complain. She knows his movements— knows this move— very well, after so long. She presses against him, one hand moving up to tangle her fingers in his wet hair— should that bother her? no, not right now— as her other hand clutches his shoulder. She’s glad, after the quick moment where she pants when he breaks away, that he kisses her again, because if he needs words right now, she doesn’t have them. Not yet. Her brain hasn’t quite caught up with everything that’s happened. Instead, it focuses on what is happening, because that’s familiar, and it’s grounding her in a way she hasn’t needed in a long time. She kisses him back, the tip of her tongue catching on his lips just slightly, meeting his tongue as she presses closer against him.
A low hard sound builds in the base of Bruce’s belly and slowly siphons out of his throat sounding too much like a growl to be anything else, and he moves his hands to link under the firm slope of her ass, lifting her up. Then, when the sinuous muscles of her thighs clench—to fight or accept, either way, it doesn’t matter— he moves to get her against the window sill, propping her ass up against the ledge as he parts his mouth, delving deeper into her own with his tongue, exploring the little crevices, the familiar places that he knows, better than he knows his own. His hand moves, lifts to grasp hers that is coiled around his shoulder, and he pulls it back, between them both, smoothing it out so her fingers, palm rest against his chest, trapped between their bodies where it is rapidly growing warm from contact.
Selina kisses him back with an almost feral intensity as her thighs twitch and press against him. She hasn’t locked her legs around him, but they’re there, her knees turned out to give him room, the roundness of her calves pressing against him. Through the shirt— also slightly wet, she probably should say something about it— she can feel his heartbeat, and slowly the tips of her fingers start pulsing, kneading his chest gently in time with each beat.
Bruce pulls back from the softness of her mouth to litter kisses along her jaw, pressing his nose into the crook of where it meets her neck. His hand moves, when she begins to knead—and that motion, it always stills him, always makes the tension drain from him; he wonders if she knows that—to trail across her chest, fingers dragging over the curve of a heavy, perfect breast. It makes his mouth water, and he brings his gaze up, to her eyes, silently asking permission of her for this, to feel it, to taste it, to savor the weight of it in his hand.
Selina looks down at him, her eyes bright, willing herself to keep her hips still and not end up rocking herself off the ledge, even if he does have a strong hold on her. Her mouth opens to speak, but no words come out. Instead, she licks her lips, noting the familiar and pleasant swell to them after his kisses, and nods, arching her back to lift her breasts to him.
Bruce takes a mile where she’s given an inch because she’s let him in, and it is all he needs to beg her for the rest: he moves his hands to her shirt, pulling it off, baring her skin to him, and Bruce groans softly at the sight of her, the bra she wears, and he doesn’t bother to undo it. He is ravenous, suddenly, always has been, his chapped, beaten mouth slipping against lace and silk before his teeth snag on the material, tear it to get to the soft peak underneath, and he wraps his lips around the silken, velvet skin of her areola, her nipple. He pants another soft sound, suckling softly as he rocks against her, his sex stiffening between her thighs, against the heat of her. Selina That’s all it takes. That’s all she needs him to do before she’s wrapping her legs fully around him and pulling herself closer, pressing his hardness against her. She moans, the hand in his hair insistent, pushing his head against her breast. Her hand leaves his chest for a moment, pulling down the other side of her bra until both breasts are exposed, clawing at the band until it unhooks and falls to her waist. She reaches for him again, pulling up his shirt until she can touch his skin, her nails leaving small indentations in his skin as it starts kneading again. She rocks her hips to meet his again and whines at the wetness she feels dripping from her and the frustration that he wasn’t inside her.
Bruce growls, a low rolling—and approving— noise when she removes her bra, gives him access to both of her breasts, and he lovingly nudges his nose against them, reacquainting himself with them, taking turns at working his lips against her nipples, suckling, even as all the while she works at his clothes. She makes fast work of it, getting him bare—she never did like it when it was uneven like this, with her exposed and him not; she liked it most when he was the one without anything on, and she held the reins of what was exposed—leaving him vulnerable to her fingers and skin and nails. And when he feels the rut of her hips against his, he moves the hand that had been latched around her waist to yank at the crotch of her leggings, tearing clean through the material with a rough, jerking turn of his wrist. He doesn’t bother touching her, slicking his fingers through the folds of her: he can smell how ready she is, and his nostrils flare as he pulls back, jaw clenching, and draws his eyes to hers, locking their gazes. Here is where he should slow, where he should seek out something from her, want something, give something to her, but Bruce has nothing left to impart, no shred or morsel that he could ever give that would be enough for her.. so he moves his fingers (the tips slick, now, with the wetness of her) and tugs down the too-loose band of his pants (he had never asked for them back when he knew she had kept them, of course he’d known) his cock spilling out, stiff and rigid, already leaking precome, and guides himself to her. Into her. A smooth, tight velvet embrace that makes his toes curl even as he bows his head to her, his shoulders rippling as he rests his cheek against her shoulder and grinds out, the noise wet: “..Selina.”
Selina smiles at him— a cat’s smile, a wicked smile— when he tears open her leggings— she’s got more, they’re not important now, nothing’s more important than right now— and exposes himself. The sight of him, the knowledge and the promise of what’s coming next makes her mouth water and makes her drip a little more onto his fingertips. When he looks at her, catching her eyes— mostly likely to ask where her condoms were from here— she parts her lips, ready to answer— side table, her purse by the doorway, probably a few under a couch cushion, she should clip some to the curtains, she used to…. Her words, whatever they might have been, are lost when he presses the head of his cock against her, into her, sliding in with an ease born of years of practice and familiarity. She gasped, arching up against him as he stretched her, filled her in that way she’d been missing for so long, even with her own means of enjoyment. Her hands moved to his back, clawing at it as she pulled him closer, resting her cheek against his. “Bruce…”
Bruce lifts her from the edge of the window, and off, and it’s all so easy now: he pushes her up against the wall, his hips rolling as he fucks his way deeper inside her, letting gravity suck her down onto him, before tiring there and angling her back against a dresser, the weight of his knees knocking the furniture against the wall with a hollow thunk as he uses a hand to push anything and everything off from under her, planting her ass against the surface as he arches his back and tilts his pelvis, rocking. Sweat is starting to bead again, across his brow, his chest, but it is fresh, bright. Clean. A feverish blush mottles his skin as he lifts his mouth to kiss her, claiming her mouth with his lips and tongue, his hands occupying themselves with her breasts, now: his thumbs catch on the pebbled nipples in tandem, before his hands drop, following the flare of her narrow waist to her hips. Leaning back, just enough, he sneaks a hand in between their bodies, where the flat of her pubic bone and his collide, pushing his fingers down and into her the sopping folds of her, finding where they join before skating back up, rough pads seeking out the pearl of her clit. He snarls, the noise bright and loud, and thrusts harder, making it so that when his middle finger slicks against the hardened nub, his cock splits her further apart, wider, even as he picks up the pace, timing the motion of his fingers to the beat of their fucking.
Selina holds on to him tightly as he moves her about, her grip not going anymore lax after he’d set her down again. She rakes her nails over his back, his arms, his sides, anyplace that she can reach. She nips back at him, hungry for his mouth as much as she was for the rest of him. She yowls as he pushes deeper, harder into her, her leg spasming unconsciously against his side as he presses against her clit. She pulls one of her hands up to the back of his head, scratching at his neck, his scalp, his face, and then back, every part of her trying to pull him closer. He thrusts particularly hard, his finger catching the nub of her clit, and she purrs and moans, the sound stilted and hiccuped by his thrusts.
Bruce growls at the sound she makes and repeats the exact motion of his hips and fingers, working them together, and when she clenches around him, he doesn’t stop and begins to outright fuck her, his own noises beginning to rise in pitch and frequency as the pleasure begins to build, deep in his belly, pooling hot behind the base of his spine. He brings his teeth down to her shoulder, biting down as he angles his hips, the hand between their bodies spreading her lips, and forces the friction of his body to take over where his fingers had been working: the rise of muscle and bone just above his cock press against her clit as he slams both hands down onto the swell of her hips, forcing her deeper onto him, impaling her as he begins to unravel at the seams. There is no spoken word, nothing after her name that graces his lips and tongue, but Bruce prefers it this way: the slick sounds of where they are joined between them, the way her breath gets tighter, the noise of the dresser as it slams against the wall with every undulating thrust of their bodies against each other.. it all joins, compounds, mounts atop each other, adding to the feeling of being buried in her, tight slick muscles milking his sex, so it’s little surprise when he feels his balls tighten, cock pulsing a moment before he comes, a rush of heat a precursor to his nails slicing into her hip, his teeth bruising her skin before he shouts something that could have been her name.
Selina hisses when he bites her shoulder, her nails scraping across his back in response— or retaliation, or both, she couldn’t tell. When he moves and spreads her, fucks her harder, she mewls, unable to control the quiver in her voice or the way her pitch rises with every thrust he pounds into her. She’s filled, and open, and vulnerable in a way she won’t allow, can’t allow anyone else to see. When his nails and his whole body dig into her, she moans loud, open-mouthed, because he’s never come inside her before, not like this, not without some sort of barrier between them, but this time it’s just the two of them, flesh to flesh, their fluids mixing together to slick her further, to make his motions easier as he still— still— pounds into her, his fingers back to aid what his cock had almost succeeded in doing alone in these last moments, sending her gasping, screaming, over the edge. Her breathing comes fast as she rocks against him still, pushing herself down and down until she comes again, her cry strangled as her orgasm hits her harder, making her muscles shudder around him. When Selina comes down— or starts to, at any rate— she clutches at him, no claws, just fingers reaching for support, for something solid to cling on to.
Bruce doesn’t fail her, not this time. His fingers soften, unlatching from her side, and he pushes the pads of his fingers down, over her trembling thighs. He’s not without his own weakness—she doesn’t leave him with a choice in the matter, when they tangle like this— but he can manage this, still: lifting her off the dresser, cradling her ass and thighs in his hands as he slips out of her with a wet little rivulet of come between them, and moves her legs around his waist so he can walk away from the destruction he’s wreaked on her living room, stopping short when they stand an equal distance from her couch, her bedroom. And so he looks down at her, the sadness and tension that had lined his face on his arrival gone, and a tender veneer of gratefulness painting the canvas of his face. His words are soft, with no hidden traps, lies, shadows for them to hide behind. “..I’ll leave when you need me to.”
Selina shivers as he carries her, the coolness of her apartment chilling her sweat-soaked skin, but she holds on, grateful for his support, as always. She adjusts herself in his hold, pulling her torso up straighter so she can hold him with only one hand. Her other hand slides up his cheek, making a small circle as it moves back, her fingers combing through his hair before her hand finally settles at the corner of his jaw. “Morning,” she says, her voice low and deep, but almost a whisper. “After I wake up. I’ll kick you out then.” She smirks, but it’s sleepy, too relaxed to be her usual expression, and she kisses the side of his mouth. “We shouldn’t wake up alone.”
Bruce doesn’t even bother nodding to agree: he moves without a second thought, taking them both back and towards the bedroom, pausing only when he reaches his hand out to rub his palm down between Isis’ ears where she is perched on the counter, fingers sliding through her fur from head to tail, before he brings his hand back to properly hold the woman in his arms. He doesn’t run into anything, walking blind in the darkness, kissing her mouth again when they reach the bed, as he lays her down across the mattress, hands linking around her wrists as he settles atop her, sinking without remorse into the familiarity of down, cotton, and Selina, once again.
[ENCRYPTED TEXT to Kate, Oliver] I’ve taken up residence at the Wayne Tower Penthouse and I’m there now.
[ENCRYPTED TEXT] We need to talk.
—-
He sets the phone down after sending the messages, now-free hand reaching for his coffee. Underneath him, Gotham sits, glittering in the breaking dawn, her face marred and bruised, smoke still rising in the distance, uglying her eyes.
She waits, Bruce knows, for night to come again and hide the bruises, to cover the wounds in darkness. She sits, still, breathing shallow, waiting for the call of shadows, for the angry cries to rise up, for the gutters to run clean again, washed of blood and rubble.
She waits, for him.
She always would.
And he would always, always answer.
He brings the coffee to his lips, but does not drink, and waits.
Kate doesn’t arrive by foot, though the front door, polished and tidy. It’s too early in the morning for that, and Manhunter’s been up since two-thirty anyway. Putting out metaphorical and literal fires.
But she knows the non-standard ways into Wayne Tower, or at least some of them.
"Bruce," she says, and the zeta can’t erase the tinge of smoke that clings to her hair yet. We need to talk is almost always bad, and almost always something she needs to deal with sooner rather than after a shower, according to the Kate Spencer rulebook.
Barely five minutes separate the arrival of one Spencer Queen from the other; Ollie, too, is wearing the grime and dust of their street jobs, every line of him set in the hypervigilant state that accompanies one of these high-profile, deep impact crises.
He doesn’t touch either of them yet, although he does cross the room to take Bruce’s coffee cup and drain half of it before handing it back. “So let’s get started, then,” Ollie says, sweeping back his hood, and in the middle of all the big upheavals there’s another small change: he’s cut his hair again, down short but for the sideburns.
He looks between them, and whatever warmth there may have been at their arrival—he had missed them, after all, before it all went to hell—is subdued, but not gone. There is no cold hostility, no anger, nothing but a flicker of contentment at the sight of them, whole and hale, and he glances over, approvingly, at Oliver’s hair.
But he doesn’t approach them, not before smoothing his hands along the edge of the desk and glancing at them both. He doesn’t kiss them, not yet, until he states, the tone of his voice smooth but not quiet, firm but not hard.
"I spent the night with Selina."
Kate obviously approves of the haircut, is about to say as much, perhaps throw out a quip, when Bruce puts the statement out there without preface.
Pure Bruce, really, and it’s almost normal and sweet, because of that, outside the content of the sentence. As such, the fact hits her, deflates a little of the Manhunter-work attitude lingering on her like the smoke. Her gaze flickers up to Bruce, brow furrows, a real visceral gash of pain in her expression, before it’s pushed back with the rational thought and deconstruction that follows. It’s almost visible, her pushing the hurt down under the bigger pain and fear that looms over her and all the rest of them now.
"I’m upset," she says because she’s not in the frame of mind for diplomacy, "but it doesn’t change the bigger picture for me right now. Unless there’s more to it?" This with a lifted brow, her dignity like a cape around her.
And Ollie goes the opposite direction, in terms of reaction. Once Bruce says it, and it’s out there (in exactly the sort of unvarnished declaration that Ollie himself favours, so he can’t fault the guy on that, anyhow), Ollie’s long nose rises, eyelids lowering so he’s regarding Bruce from half-open eyes. He picks up the coffee and drinks the rest of it, every movement contained and economical in a way that’s more Manhunter, more Batman, than Green Arrow tends to be.
But then again, Ollie’s a hunter. If he needs to, he knows how to wait and be still. And right now, in the face of that confession and the naked pain and worry in the tense set of Kate’s mouth that draws the scar on her lip into stark relief, he’s using it. “Makes sense,” he says, briefly, and makes a tight orbit around the desk, passing behind Bruce to end up on the other side of it. Ollie doesn’t embellish on /why/ he says that, his reasoning behind it, but there’s a stiffness to the hinges of his jaw that says he’s keeping his words under strict control.
In the face of both of these reactions, there is no scrap of relief that crosses over Bruce’s face—which could mean one of a thousand things, none of which crackles through to give them a hint of what is happening beyond the mask of his face. Ollie’s reaction.. No, nothing there, no fear or worry when the man crosses behind him in a slick, predatory crescent, but when Kate speaks, Bruce moves to her.
He doesn’t ask permission to take her hand, and curls his grip around her wrist, lifting it to he can kiss the tips of her fingers, softly, lips parting against them for a moment as he dampens her skin with his breath.
There is no true sign of the night in the sight or smell of him, not from where Kate stands, and there is no palpable artifice in the soft, tempered steel of his words. “There’s nothing more,” he states, and then shakes his head. “But I owe you both this,” he looks back at Ollie, meeting the hardness of his gaze with nothing but an open, wearied gaze before bringing his gaze back to Kate’s, stance solid, expression unmoved. “..because it is what you want.”
Kate looks at Ollie, seriously concerned about his body language, glad that he has chosen to avoid yelling, because she’s not sure if she can handle it right now, on top of everything else.
Her expression, her strength, cracks a little, at how Ollie drinks the coffee and how Bruce catches her hand. It threatens to give way, actually, but a moment again and it firms a bit.
"Yeah, I do want to know, though I don’t know what you want,” she says, voice cracking a little on that but steadying as she speaks more. “And I’m glad you told us. But I’m upset, and I don’t know if I’m in the right place to talk about it, neither are you, if Ollie is, maybe. I’m not ending us over this, and I’m not leaving, we have a hell of a lot of work to do.”
"Hang on," Ollie says, pointing a finger at Bruce. "You’re only telling us because it’s what /we/ want? Is that what you’re saying?" He steps closer to Bruce, an obvious challenge in the decisiveness of the motion, although the level of his voice doesn’t rise. "Because all things considered, buckaroo, there’s not too much about this situation that sounds like it involves what /we/—" he gestures to the air between Kate and himself, "—what /we/ want."
Tipping his head back with a lift of his upper lip, Ollie adds, “To tell the truth, I woulda been /less/ insulted if you didn’t try to drag that into this. Because you weren’t thinking about /us/ when you and Selina screwed, I know that much.”
Bruce doesn’t meet Oliver’s challenge, his gaze remaining on Kate, speaking to him without looking at him: “You want me to do what I need to, you want me to find a way to keep going—” He kisses her hand again, her wrist, reaching out to drag the tips of his fingers against the slope of her cheek, her jaw, the touch apologetic against the marking of pain etched into her skin.
Only when he’s smoothed his fingers against her hair, tucking it back and over her ear that he looks over at Ollie, his expression slack. “I didn’t seek her out for it,” he states, but there is a note of falseness there, even if he is telling the truth: the clearest picture is that Bruce doesn’t remember going there. The clarity of the night before only came in the morning, waking up to the smell of her sheets, thinking he was trapped in a dream.
Bruce blinks, noting the man’s stance, but does not move forward towards Ollie, nor back from Kate. He remains standing, watching the other man.
"Both of you are talking about this from too far a different angle, I think," says Kate, sotto voce, and while she doesn’t pull away from Bruce’s touch (craves it, actually, if she’s being honest with herself, but she will not ask for it, won’t demand anything from him right now), her body language is not entirely accepting of the apology, yet. She really, really needs a cup of coffee, too, and her voice is ragged, still soft.
"Like fuck if I’m going to make judgment calls on Problematic Decisions Made As Coping Mechanisms, because I’d be a massive hypocrite. But what I do know about those decisions is that they end up biting you in the ass in the end, regardless. You do what you have to do, Bruce, yes, we want those things—but no, you don’t get an entirely free pass. Don’t make it about us when it’s not."
She looks at Bruce, looks at Ollie, then back at Bruce. “Do you want our help.” It’s a Bruce-like question, almost non-question, because it’s not like they’re not going to do so, even if he says no.
Ollie turns his pointing finger on Kate, now, jabbing for emphasis. “Yes,” he says, loudly. “Yes, exactly that, Bruce. It’s not /about/ us, so don’t do that. None of us have any room to cast aspersions about bad choices and fucking who we shouldn’t, but goddammit, just own up to it instead of trying to turn this into a lesson on moral relativism!”
He makes a frustrated pace across the front length of the desk he’s been hovering next to this whole time, then back again, standing to the side of it and a little ways away from the other two. “I’m hurt too,” Ollie says, quietly after a moment, “but yeah, it makes sense. She’s Gotham, and that’s what you need most right now, to keep you going. Is Gotham. And Kate and me aren’t.” Ollie expels a harsh huff of air and scrubs his hands through his short hair. “So. Answer the question, Bruce.”
Selina pets Isis, curled up on the couch across from the window. She’s not asleep, not quite— she hasn’t been able to sleep since the parade— but it takes her a moment to realize that the creature coming through her window isn’t a cat. She raises her head, eyes going wide in the darkness. “Bruce?” She’s not completely sure, but how many other people does she know that don’t use doors?
Bruce exhales, as a way of letting her know that it is him that she’s.. safe? He pauses, looking down at his suit, at the blood that slicks across the gloves and up the gauntlets. He isn’t in tatters, even if the kevlar and Nomex is, and he moves across the narrow space of her tiny flat, until he is standing in front of her, looking down at where she is curled up, from the top of her head, down to the shirt, leggings that she is wearing, and settling—strangely (or not strangely) enough on her bare feet. He doesn’t move, doesn’t budge from where he is, hands loose at his sides, looking, with no pun intended, like something the cat dragged in.
Selina watches him watching her, taking him in just as intently as he is. She moves Isis aside and sits up, watching him another moment before standing up. “Come here,” she says, her voice soft and hoarse. She reaches out for him, to guide him to sit on the couch.
Bruce sets his first foot out at the command, and the second follows, only a few seconds too late, and before he can stop the momentum is gaining and he is moving towards her, towards the spot she has cleared. But he doesn’t make it. Instead, the armored plates inside thudding heavily on the aged, warped baseboards underfoot, he drops to his knees in front of her, slowly. It’s not a controlled drop but he doesn’t sway either, and slowly lifts his hands to her knees, heavy gloved palms cradling the rounded caps. One of the cowl’s ears has been torn ragged, the edge of the opposite side ripped under his jaw, and so it wrinkles as he lowers his head, bows it under a weight that cannot be seen but felt, and presses his cheek to his fingers, just barely, barely, letting his skin feel the warmth of her, under his touch, as he breathes, raggedly.
Selina doesn’t move, at first, until he’s settled. Then, she slowly leans down and sets her hands on either side of his head. Her fingers work deftly, still remembering the clasps and folds of his cowl. She gently eases it down over his head, running her fingers through his hair, damp with sweat, stuck in odd clumps from being pressed under the cowl. “You’ve been going ever since then, haven’t you? Never rest. Can’t rest?”
Bruce remains silent, throughout all of this. He doesn’t flinch when her hands settle on the cowl, and in fact, there is a part of him that seems to still even further when her deft, slim fingers move like a breeze over the hidden eyelets and zippers—a thief’s touch, barely there—pulling the cowl down and off. Bruce doesn’t answer her question that soon becomes her questions, because she knows the answers. She always has. His hands move, allowing his jaw and cheek to come into full contact with her leg, now, his lashes lowering slightly over the darkness of his eyes, the developing bruise spreading along one socket.
Selina keeps running her fingers through his hair, smoothing it down and separating it. It’s the same kind of calming motions she does for her cats, soothing them after a fight or a scare. “Stay. I’ve still got things you can change into. This isn’t good for you.” She taps the suit, her nails tapping on the hard material beneath the fabric. “This isn’t good for you, not now. You know it, too.”
Bruce doesn’t fight her, doesn’t disagree, and without saying anything, rises up as he begins to undo the gauntlets, where they curve together and meet at his wrists, where they blend into the bicep guard, where that connects to the inside of his arm at the chest. The gauntlets—thick and sturdy—go first, the seals of where they meet long gone, and when they fall, hit the floor, they thud hollowly against the floor, the chest plate following shortly after. Bruce doesn’t still, his eyes lifting to Selina’s, and he pulls at the neck of the compression shirt he is wearing—this, too, is shredded in places: under his arm pit, between where the chest plate meets on his side—before that joins the rest of the growing darkness at his feet, dark humors being bled from him, pooling like shadows between them. His skin and arms are littered with scars, some that blend into the curves of muscle that flatten his belly and chest, some that do not: Shado’s mark, the star, is still bright pink and shiny, slick with gathered sweat at the dip of his sternum.
Selina reaches up, the softness of her fingertips resting against this newest scar, the most unfamiliar to her that stands out. She doesn’t tilt her fingers the way she might to claw at him, just traces the pads of her fingers along the outline of the scar. “When did this happen?” It reminds her a little too much of her own scars, the frighteningly precise lines over her heart.
Bruce’s voice is hoarse, almost completely gone, when he responds. “Three months ago,” he states, voice barely making it past his tongue and teeth to her ears. He doesn’t stop undressing, though, even when he speaks, getting the heavy armor off, and it is nearly palpable how the entirety of his body seems to lift from under the weight, all his skin slick with sweat, flushed. Bruised. Tattered.
Selina lets her hand drop and looks him over, watching the subtle lightening of his carriage. “Another nice one for your collection.” She glances back towards her bedroom. “Do you want a shower, or just a change?”
Bruce doesn’t answer her, and instead, moves towards her bathroom, the shedding of his clothing dropping as he goes, and the lack of propriety should be jarring, but instead it becomes so dutifully obvious how little Bruce is thinking as he walks, nude long before he gets to the bathroom, his heavy gait slow as he pads silently against the floor. Nothing in there has changed, everything is where it meant to be, and he shifts to claw foot tub, and steps into it, turning the tap to whatever temperature might come out, uncaring, as he leans against the front facing wall.
Selina watches him go, more out of concern that he might fall over before he makes it— that’s not like him, though, but she has to worry, after everything. Where before, she might have just shrugged and smirked to herself about the view, she remains still, her mouth trying to curve up out of habit and failing. She looks at the pieces of the suit scattered across the floor and considers picking them up. Not yet. She goes to her room, rooting through the back of her closet until she finds something in his size that’s not terribly musty. She laughs to herself; of course it’s his size, it’s his. She remembers taking it from him, although if he ever missed it, he never said. But maybe he didn’t miss it too much anyway. Selina grabs a robe and lays it and the clothes outside of the bathroom door, the heads back out to gather up his suit. She wonders absently how long it would take him to get a new one with the Cave gone.
Bruce takes too long in the shower, until the lukewarm water goes frigidly cold, and even then, he remains, locked in the same position. Arm extended against the tiles, water sluicing down the channels of his shoulder blades, spine, until the pipes begin to rattle a bit, wheezing with effort. He dries—barely— and dresses in the shirt, pants she’s left, but ignores the robe, hair still damp and curling around his neck when he walks out and towards her, feet spreading across the floor uniformly so his steps land silently, as he moves up to her, heart rate quickening, and tugs his arms around her, pulling her against his body, hands turning her at her thighs and hips, shoulders. Breasts. So she meets him, straight on. And he drags a hand up the delicate of her neck to meet his lips against hers, mouth parted, tasting the full swell of them with his tongue, even as he clutches the narrow of her waist, the slope of her back in one massive, roughened hand, holding her against him, heart-to-heart, cool little droplets pattering over the hardwood floor, her skin, his skin, their skin.
Bruce pulls back, a split second, to breathe: “Selina,” and he moans, softly, his brow furrowing in pain, and whether it’s for air or something else, it can’t be sure; but it doesn’t matter, because then, in a moment, he is kissing her again, tongue slicking against her lower lip, softly. Delicately.
Selina thinks it should bother her, a bit, the way he manhandles her into the kiss, but she can’t really complain. She knows his movements— knows this move— very well, after so long. She presses against him, one hand moving up to tangle her fingers in his wet hair— should that bother her? no, not right now— as her other hand clutches his shoulder. She’s glad, after the quick moment where she pants when he breaks away, that he kisses her again, because if he needs words right now, she doesn’t have them. Not yet. Her brain hasn’t quite caught up with everything that’s happened. Instead, it focuses on what is happening, because that’s familiar, and it’s grounding her in a way she hasn’t needed in a long time. She kisses him back, the tip of her tongue catching on his lips just slightly, meeting his tongue as she presses closer against him.
A low hard sound builds in the base of Bruce’s belly and slowly siphons out of his throat sounding too much like a growl to be anything else, and he moves his hands to link under the firm slope of her ass, lifting her up. Then, when the sinuous muscles of her thighs clench—to fight or accept, either way, it doesn’t matter— he moves to get her against the window sill, propping her ass up against the ledge as he parts his mouth, delving deeper into her own with his tongue, exploring the little crevices, the familiar places that he knows, better than he knows his own. His hand moves, lifts to grasp hers that is coiled around his shoulder, and he pulls it back, between them both, smoothing it out so her fingers, palm rest against his chest, trapped between their bodies where it is rapidly growing warm from contact.
Selina kisses him back with an almost feral intensity as her thighs twitch and press against him. She hasn’t locked her legs around him, but they’re there, her knees turned out to give him room, the roundness of her calves pressing against him. Through the shirt— also slightly wet, she probably should say something about it— she can feel his heartbeat, and slowly the tips of her fingers start pulsing, kneading his chest gently in time with each beat.
Bruce pulls back from the softness of her mouth to litter kisses along her jaw, pressing his nose into the crook of where it meets her neck. His hand moves, when she begins to knead—and that motion, it always stills him, always makes the tension drain from him; he wonders if she knows that—to trail across her chest, fingers dragging over the curve of a heavy, perfect breast. It makes his mouth water, and he brings his gaze up, to her eyes, silently asking permission of her for this, to feel it, to taste it, to savor the weight of it in his hand.
Selina looks down at him, her eyes bright, willing herself to keep her hips still and not end up rocking herself off the ledge, even if he does have a strong hold on her. Her mouth opens to speak, but no words come out. Instead, she licks her lips, noting the familiar and pleasant swell to them after his kisses, and nods, arching her back to lift her breasts to him.
Bruce takes a mile where she’s given an inch because she’s let him in, and it is all he needs to beg her for the rest: he moves his hands to her shirt, pulling it off, baring her skin to him, and Bruce groans softly at the sight of her, the bra she wears, and he doesn’t bother to undo it. He is ravenous, suddenly, always has been, his chapped, beaten mouth slipping against lace and silk before his teeth snag on the material, tear it to get to the soft peak underneath, and he wraps his lips around the silken, velvet skin of her areola, her nipple. He pants another soft sound, suckling softly as he rocks against her, his sex stiffening between her thighs, against the heat of her. Selina That’s all it takes. That’s all she needs him to do before she’s wrapping her legs fully around him and pulling herself closer, pressing his hardness against her. She moans, the hand in his hair insistent, pushing his head against her breast. Her hand leaves his chest for a moment, pulling down the other side of her bra until both breasts are exposed, clawing at the band until it unhooks and falls to her waist. She reaches for him again, pulling up his shirt until she can touch his skin, her nails leaving small indentations in his skin as it starts kneading again. She rocks her hips to meet his again and whines at the wetness she feels dripping from her and the frustration that he wasn’t inside her.
Bruce growls, a low rolling—and approving— noise when she removes her bra, gives him access to both of her breasts, and he lovingly nudges his nose against them, reacquainting himself with them, taking turns at working his lips against her nipples, suckling, even as all the while she works at his clothes. She makes fast work of it, getting him bare—she never did like it when it was uneven like this, with her exposed and him not; she liked it most when he was the one without anything on, and she held the reins of what was exposed—leaving him vulnerable to her fingers and skin and nails. And when he feels the rut of her hips against his, he moves the hand that had been latched around her waist to yank at the crotch of her leggings, tearing clean through the material with a rough, jerking turn of his wrist. He doesn’t bother touching her, slicking his fingers through the folds of her: he can smell how ready she is, and his nostrils flare as he pulls back, jaw clenching, and draws his eyes to hers, locking their gazes. Here is where he should slow, where he should seek out something from her, want something, give something to her, but Bruce has nothing left to impart, no shred or morsel that he could ever give that would be enough for her.. so he moves his fingers (the tips slick, now, with the wetness of her) and tugs down the too-loose band of his pants (he had never asked for them back when he knew she had kept them, of course he’d known) his cock spilling out, stiff and rigid, already leaking precome, and guides himself to her. Into her. A smooth, tight velvet embrace that makes his toes curl even as he bows his head to her, his shoulders rippling as he rests his cheek against her shoulder and grinds out, the noise wet: “..Selina.”
Selina smiles at him— a cat’s smile, a wicked smile— when he tears open her leggings— she’s got more, they’re not important now, nothing’s more important than right now— and exposes himself. The sight of him, the knowledge and the promise of what’s coming next makes her mouth water and makes her drip a little more onto his fingertips. When he looks at her, catching her eyes— mostly likely to ask where her condoms were from here— she parts her lips, ready to answer— side table, her purse by the doorway, probably a few under a couch cushion, she should clip some to the curtains, she used to…. Her words, whatever they might have been, are lost when he presses the head of his cock against her, into her, sliding in with an ease born of years of practice and familiarity. She gasped, arching up against him as he stretched her, filled her in that way she’d been missing for so long, even with her own means of enjoyment. Her hands moved to his back, clawing at it as she pulled him closer, resting her cheek against his. “Bruce…”
Bruce lifts her from the edge of the window, and off, and it’s all so easy now: he pushes her up against the wall, his hips rolling as he fucks his way deeper inside her, letting gravity suck her down onto him, before tiring there and angling her back against a dresser, the weight of his knees knocking the furniture against the wall with a hollow thunk as he uses a hand to push anything and everything off from under her, planting her ass against the surface as he arches his back and tilts his pelvis, rocking. Sweat is starting to bead again, across his brow, his chest, but it is fresh, bright. Clean. A feverish blush mottles his skin as he lifts his mouth to kiss her, claiming her mouth with his lips and tongue, his hands occupying themselves with her breasts, now: his thumbs catch on the pebbled nipples in tandem, before his hands drop, following the flare of her narrow waist to her hips. Leaning back, just enough, he sneaks a hand in between their bodies, where the flat of her pubic bone and his collide, pushing his fingers down and into her the sopping folds of her, finding where they join before skating back up, rough pads seeking out the pearl of her clit. He snarls, the noise bright and loud, and thrusts harder, making it so that when his middle finger slicks against the hardened nub, his cock splits her further apart, wider, even as he picks up the pace, timing the motion of his fingers to the beat of their fucking.
Selina holds on to him tightly as he moves her about, her grip not going anymore lax after he’d set her down again. She rakes her nails over his back, his arms, his sides, anyplace that she can reach. She nips back at him, hungry for his mouth as much as she was for the rest of him. She yowls as he pushes deeper, harder into her, her leg spasming unconsciously against his side as he presses against her clit. She pulls one of her hands up to the back of his head, scratching at his neck, his scalp, his face, and then back, every part of her trying to pull him closer. He thrusts particularly hard, his finger catching the nub of her clit, and she purrs and moans, the sound stilted and hiccuped by his thrusts.
Bruce growls at the sound she makes and repeats the exact motion of his hips and fingers, working them together, and when she clenches around him, he doesn’t stop and begins to outright fuck her, his own noises beginning to rise in pitch and frequency as the pleasure begins to build, deep in his belly, pooling hot behind the base of his spine. He brings his teeth down to her shoulder, biting down as he angles his hips, the hand between their bodies spreading her lips, and forces the friction of his body to take over where his fingers had been working: the rise of muscle and bone just above his cock press against her clit as he slams both hands down onto the swell of her hips, forcing her deeper onto him, impaling her as he begins to unravel at the seams. There is no spoken word, nothing after her name that graces his lips and tongue, but Bruce prefers it this way: the slick sounds of where they are joined between them, the way her breath gets tighter, the noise of the dresser as it slams against the wall with every undulating thrust of their bodies against each other.. it all joins, compounds, mounts atop each other, adding to the feeling of being buried in her, tight slick muscles milking his sex, so it’s little surprise when he feels his balls tighten, cock pulsing a moment before he comes, a rush of heat a precursor to his nails slicing into her hip, his teeth bruising her skin before he shouts something that could have been her name.
Selina hisses when he bites her shoulder, her nails scraping across his back in response— or retaliation, or both, she couldn’t tell. When he moves and spreads her, fucks her harder, she mewls, unable to control the quiver in her voice or the way her pitch rises with every thrust he pounds into her. She’s filled, and open, and vulnerable in a way she won’t allow, can’t allow anyone else to see. When his nails and his whole body dig into her, she moans loud, open-mouthed, because he’s never come inside her before, not like this, not without some sort of barrier between them, but this time it’s just the two of them, flesh to flesh, their fluids mixing together to slick her further, to make his motions easier as he still— still— pounds into her, his fingers back to aid what his cock had almost succeeded in doing alone in these last moments, sending her gasping, screaming, over the edge. Her breathing comes fast as she rocks against him still, pushing herself down and down until she comes again, her cry strangled as her orgasm hits her harder, making her muscles shudder around him. When Selina comes down— or starts to, at any rate— she clutches at him, no claws, just fingers reaching for support, for something solid to cling on to.
Bruce doesn’t fail her, not this time. His fingers soften, unlatching from her side, and he pushes the pads of his fingers down, over her trembling thighs. He’s not without his own weakness—she doesn’t leave him with a choice in the matter, when they tangle like this— but he can manage this, still: lifting her off the dresser, cradling her ass and thighs in his hands as he slips out of her with a wet little rivulet of come between them, and moves her legs around his waist so he can walk away from the destruction he’s wreaked on her living room, stopping short when they stand an equal distance from her couch, her bedroom. And so he looks down at her, the sadness and tension that had lined his face on his arrival gone, and a tender veneer of gratefulness painting the canvas of his face. His words are soft, with no hidden traps, lies, shadows for them to hide behind. “..I’ll leave when you need me to.”
Selina shivers as he carries her, the coolness of her apartment chilling her sweat-soaked skin, but she holds on, grateful for his support, as always. She adjusts herself in his hold, pulling her torso up straighter so she can hold him with only one hand. Her other hand slides up his cheek, making a small circle as it moves back, her fingers combing through his hair before her hand finally settles at the corner of his jaw. “Morning,” she says, her voice low and deep, but almost a whisper. “After I wake up. I’ll kick you out then.” She smirks, but it’s sleepy, too relaxed to be her usual expression, and she kisses the side of his mouth. “We shouldn’t wake up alone.”
Bruce doesn’t even bother nodding to agree: he moves without a second thought, taking them both back and towards the bedroom, pausing only when he reaches his hand out to rub his palm down between Isis’ ears where she is perched on the counter, fingers sliding through her fur from head to tail, before he brings his hand back to properly hold the woman in his arms. He doesn’t run into anything, walking blind in the darkness, kissing her mouth again when they reach the bed, as he lays her down across the mattress, hands linking around her wrists as he settles atop her, sinking without remorse into the familiarity of down, cotton, and Selina, once again.
[ENCRYPTED TEXT to Kate, Oliver] I’ve taken up residence at the Wayne Tower Penthouse and I’m there now.
[ENCRYPTED TEXT] We need to talk.
—-
He sets the phone down after sending the messages, now-free hand reaching for his coffee. Underneath him, Gotham sits, glittering in the breaking dawn, her face marred and bruised, smoke still rising in the distance, uglying her eyes.
She waits, Bruce knows, for night to come again and hide the bruises, to cover the wounds in darkness. She sits, still, breathing shallow, waiting for the call of shadows, for the angry cries to rise up, for the gutters to run clean again, washed of blood and rubble.
She waits, for him.
She always would.
And he would always, always answer.
He brings the coffee to his lips, but does not drink, and waits.
Kate doesn’t arrive by foot, though the front door, polished and tidy. It’s too early in the morning for that, and Manhunter’s been up since two-thirty anyway. Putting out metaphorical and literal fires.
But she knows the non-standard ways into Wayne Tower, or at least some of them.
"Bruce," she says, and the zeta can’t erase the tinge of smoke that clings to her hair yet. We need to talk is almost always bad, and almost always something she needs to deal with sooner rather than after a shower, according to the Kate Spencer rulebook.
Barely five minutes separate the arrival of one Spencer Queen from the other; Ollie, too, is wearing the grime and dust of their street jobs, every line of him set in the hypervigilant state that accompanies one of these high-profile, deep impact crises.
He doesn’t touch either of them yet, although he does cross the room to take Bruce’s coffee cup and drain half of it before handing it back. “So let’s get started, then,” Ollie says, sweeping back his hood, and in the middle of all the big upheavals there’s another small change: he’s cut his hair again, down short but for the sideburns.
He looks between them, and whatever warmth there may have been at their arrival—he had missed them, after all, before it all went to hell—is subdued, but not gone. There is no cold hostility, no anger, nothing but a flicker of contentment at the sight of them, whole and hale, and he glances over, approvingly, at Oliver’s hair.
But he doesn’t approach them, not before smoothing his hands along the edge of the desk and glancing at them both. He doesn’t kiss them, not yet, until he states, the tone of his voice smooth but not quiet, firm but not hard.
"I spent the night with Selina."
Kate obviously approves of the haircut, is about to say as much, perhaps throw out a quip, when Bruce puts the statement out there without preface.
Pure Bruce, really, and it’s almost normal and sweet, because of that, outside the content of the sentence. As such, the fact hits her, deflates a little of the Manhunter-work attitude lingering on her like the smoke. Her gaze flickers up to Bruce, brow furrows, a real visceral gash of pain in her expression, before it’s pushed back with the rational thought and deconstruction that follows. It’s almost visible, her pushing the hurt down under the bigger pain and fear that looms over her and all the rest of them now.
"I’m upset," she says because she’s not in the frame of mind for diplomacy, "but it doesn’t change the bigger picture for me right now. Unless there’s more to it?" This with a lifted brow, her dignity like a cape around her.
And Ollie goes the opposite direction, in terms of reaction. Once Bruce says it, and it’s out there (in exactly the sort of unvarnished declaration that Ollie himself favours, so he can’t fault the guy on that, anyhow), Ollie’s long nose rises, eyelids lowering so he’s regarding Bruce from half-open eyes. He picks up the coffee and drinks the rest of it, every movement contained and economical in a way that’s more Manhunter, more Batman, than Green Arrow tends to be.
But then again, Ollie’s a hunter. If he needs to, he knows how to wait and be still. And right now, in the face of that confession and the naked pain and worry in the tense set of Kate’s mouth that draws the scar on her lip into stark relief, he’s using it. “Makes sense,” he says, briefly, and makes a tight orbit around the desk, passing behind Bruce to end up on the other side of it. Ollie doesn’t embellish on /why/ he says that, his reasoning behind it, but there’s a stiffness to the hinges of his jaw that says he’s keeping his words under strict control.
In the face of both of these reactions, there is no scrap of relief that crosses over Bruce’s face—which could mean one of a thousand things, none of which crackles through to give them a hint of what is happening beyond the mask of his face. Ollie’s reaction.. No, nothing there, no fear or worry when the man crosses behind him in a slick, predatory crescent, but when Kate speaks, Bruce moves to her.
He doesn’t ask permission to take her hand, and curls his grip around her wrist, lifting it to he can kiss the tips of her fingers, softly, lips parting against them for a moment as he dampens her skin with his breath.
There is no true sign of the night in the sight or smell of him, not from where Kate stands, and there is no palpable artifice in the soft, tempered steel of his words. “There’s nothing more,” he states, and then shakes his head. “But I owe you both this,” he looks back at Ollie, meeting the hardness of his gaze with nothing but an open, wearied gaze before bringing his gaze back to Kate’s, stance solid, expression unmoved. “..because it is what you want.”
Kate looks at Ollie, seriously concerned about his body language, glad that he has chosen to avoid yelling, because she’s not sure if she can handle it right now, on top of everything else.
Her expression, her strength, cracks a little, at how Ollie drinks the coffee and how Bruce catches her hand. It threatens to give way, actually, but a moment again and it firms a bit.
"Yeah, I do want to know, though I don’t know what you want,” she says, voice cracking a little on that but steadying as she speaks more. “And I’m glad you told us. But I’m upset, and I don’t know if I’m in the right place to talk about it, neither are you, if Ollie is, maybe. I’m not ending us over this, and I’m not leaving, we have a hell of a lot of work to do.”
"Hang on," Ollie says, pointing a finger at Bruce. "You’re only telling us because it’s what /we/ want? Is that what you’re saying?" He steps closer to Bruce, an obvious challenge in the decisiveness of the motion, although the level of his voice doesn’t rise. "Because all things considered, buckaroo, there’s not too much about this situation that sounds like it involves what /we/—" he gestures to the air between Kate and himself, "—what /we/ want."
Tipping his head back with a lift of his upper lip, Ollie adds, “To tell the truth, I woulda been /less/ insulted if you didn’t try to drag that into this. Because you weren’t thinking about /us/ when you and Selina screwed, I know that much.”
Bruce doesn’t meet Oliver’s challenge, his gaze remaining on Kate, speaking to him without looking at him: “You want me to do what I need to, you want me to find a way to keep going—” He kisses her hand again, her wrist, reaching out to drag the tips of his fingers against the slope of her cheek, her jaw, the touch apologetic against the marking of pain etched into her skin.
Only when he’s smoothed his fingers against her hair, tucking it back and over her ear that he looks over at Ollie, his expression slack. “I didn’t seek her out for it,” he states, but there is a note of falseness there, even if he is telling the truth: the clearest picture is that Bruce doesn’t remember going there. The clarity of the night before only came in the morning, waking up to the smell of her sheets, thinking he was trapped in a dream.
Bruce blinks, noting the man’s stance, but does not move forward towards Ollie, nor back from Kate. He remains standing, watching the other man.
"Both of you are talking about this from too far a different angle, I think," says Kate, sotto voce, and while she doesn’t pull away from Bruce’s touch (craves it, actually, if she’s being honest with herself, but she will not ask for it, won’t demand anything from him right now), her body language is not entirely accepting of the apology, yet. She really, really needs a cup of coffee, too, and her voice is ragged, still soft.
"Like fuck if I’m going to make judgment calls on Problematic Decisions Made As Coping Mechanisms, because I’d be a massive hypocrite. But what I do know about those decisions is that they end up biting you in the ass in the end, regardless. You do what you have to do, Bruce, yes, we want those things—but no, you don’t get an entirely free pass. Don’t make it about us when it’s not."
She looks at Bruce, looks at Ollie, then back at Bruce. “Do you want our help.” It’s a Bruce-like question, almost non-question, because it’s not like they’re not going to do so, even if he says no.
Ollie turns his pointing finger on Kate, now, jabbing for emphasis. “Yes,” he says, loudly. “Yes, exactly that, Bruce. It’s not /about/ us, so don’t do that. None of us have any room to cast aspersions about bad choices and fucking who we shouldn’t, but goddammit, just own up to it instead of trying to turn this into a lesson on moral relativism!”
He makes a frustrated pace across the front length of the desk he’s been hovering next to this whole time, then back again, standing to the side of it and a little ways away from the other two. “I’m hurt too,” Ollie says, quietly after a moment, “but yeah, it makes sense. She’s Gotham, and that’s what you need most right now, to keep you going. Is Gotham. And Kate and me aren’t.” Ollie expels a harsh huff of air and scrubs his hands through his short hair. “So. Answer the question, Bruce.”