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It was one of those days.
The days where there was nothing in Gotham worth stealing, and nothing in her apartment to do, and when she’d decided that a rooftop run might lift her spirits, it had suddenly started pouring and wet leather was miserable to run home in, and then she’d had to dry her suit and it still might have been ruined.
And when she finally changed into her sweatpants and a baggy tee that hung off her like a tent, all of her cats had been sleeping, and she couldn’t just wake them up and force them to snuggle with her just because she’d had a crappy day. More than that, she thought as she twisted her fingers in the fabric of her shirt….the shirt she’d stolen from Bruce....she wasn’t even sure it would be enough.
That was what sent her to Wayne Manor at four in the morning. The rain had stopped enough that she would probably not get soaked again on her bike, but even if it did, so what? She would just steal more clothes from Bruce. He had enough.
Even though it wasn’t raining, the roads were still wet and it was misty, so she was still damp by the time she stopped in front of the gate. She didn’t even bother scaling the fence or trying to sneak past his security system. She punched in the security passcode Bruce had given her in hopes that someday she’d be stumped by his security system and have to come in the normal way.
The gates opened slowly. Too slowly, every second feeling like an hour until there was enough room for her to zoom through the opening.
She killed the engine just outside the door, not bothering with the garage. She fumbled with numb fingers through her keyring until she got that cat-patterned key that she’d copied from one of his a year or so ago and used it to open the front door.
She didn’t bother locking it again. That was too much effort, and no one was going to attack in the next few hours.
Bruce’s room was a long trudge up the stupid grand staircase and down the hall to the family wing. Luckily, the master bedroom was the first door in that corridor, or she might have just given up and curled up in a guest bedroom instead.
As it was, she opened the door and dragged herself over the threshold.
There he was, the great big lump of oaf and blankets, lying with his back to her on the edge of an unnecessarily large bed. She yawned widely and stepped toward him, but then her shirt swished, brushing uncomfortably wet against her stomach.
She sighed and restrained a groan. The shirt, standing up, barely touched her skin except on her shoulders and part of her back because of how large it was, but when she was lying down, it was going to be cold and she’d never be able to get back to sleep.
She slogged over to Bruce’s dresser, pulling off her shirt as she went. She nearly just dropped it on the floor, but then she remembered that that would mean that Alfred would have to clean it up, so she sighed and dropped it in the hamper.
She was too lazy, too tired, too dead on her feet to go all the way over to the dresser after that. There was another tee shirt sitting on top of the laundry in the hamper, so she picked it up and pulled it on over her head without even bothering to check for stains. It didn’t seem to dirty, at a passing glance down, and…
Selina pulled the shirt up to her nose and sighed, contentment seeping through her at last and stilling that gray storm that had been roiling inside her all night. The shirt smelled like Bruce, not just like her apartment, or like Alfred’s laundry detergent like a clean shirt would have.
She yawned and walked over to the bed on light feet so as not to disturb him too much and make it hard for him to go back to sleep.
It wasn’t until she was standing right over him that she realized that they had company—or that she was company.
The second son, the skittish little alley cat Bruce had picked up nearly a year before, was nestled against his father’s chest, looking peaceful and happy in a way she’d never seen from him before. It was…soft.
Selina smiled down at him and reached forward to brush a stray curl off his freckly forehead.
“Sweet little bird,” she whispered.
Having a child to take care of was good for Bruce, too. He hadn’t even stirred when she’d entered the room or touched his son, or even at the sound of her voice. It was so different from the way he always jumped awake normally when she slipped into his bedroom. She’d never made it to the bed before he woke up.
She lay a hand on Bruce’s hair and pet him softly, like he was a hurt stray she’d taken in. He was, in a way. A cat who rarely showed how he truly felt for fear of showing weakness, who liked to push things he didn’t like off tall surfaces, who would fight against impossible odds to defend his territory….a mama cat who couldn’t resist picking up the scared little kitten he’d come across.
“Grimalkin,” she teased.
He twitched at her touch and turned slightly in her direction with fluttering eyes. Another sign of how relaxed his baby made him.
His eyes blinked open and stared at her blearily for a moment before widening comically. “Selina!”
He looked panicked. It was cute, so she kissed his nose. Then moving was too hard, so she stayed there, draped bonelessly over his shoulder.
Bruce pulled one arm up from where it was cradling Jason against him and lifted her off him, but she leaned into the hand so he couldn’t pull it away without having her drop onto him again.
“Selina,” he said urgently. “Now’s really not the time!”
Selina tried to find the words she was looking for to explain why she was sneaking into his house in the middle of the night. It wasn’t…she wasn’t any more interested than he was at the moment, but she didn’t know how to say that.
“’m tired,” she said at last, leaning harder against the hand holding her up.
Bruce hesitated. His face was patches of light and darkness, only a sliver of moonlight drifting in through a crack in the curtains showing the subtle way his brows drew together as he studied her face. After a moment, he brushed his fingers down the shoulder seam of the tee shirt—not what she usually wore when she slipped into her room at night—and then down the length of the shirt to her sweatpants.
Selina fought the urge to sag forward and just make him hold her, make the numb hurt go away, but he needed a minute. He wasn’t going to make her leave, she was sure, so she could give him that minute even if it hurt her.
“Are you…” Bruce trailed off as he looked up at her face.
Selina opened her mouth to say that no, she wasn’t really okay at that moment, but she had to snap her jaw and eyes shut before she started crying.
The shadows on his face shifted into something softer and he rolled onto his back and lay his arm flat on the bed in a wordless invitation. Selina sniffled and pulled back the blankets, but she smiled and pressed a small kiss onto his forehead before she lay down next to him and pillowed her head against his shoulder.
Bruce pulled up his arm and hugged her tighter, pressing her face just slightly into his shirt. Selina’s lips twitched up into a smile, held close enough that he’d be able to feel her smile through the fabric.
Selina exhaled in deep relief and raised a hand to splay it over his chest. Bruce was warm and alive in a way her lonely apartment was not. He was strong in a way that she was not—she could compensate, she did, for her lack of height and brute strength, but somedays, it was nice to not have to. Bruce was as slow and predictable as the rise and swell of his chest under her hand as his breathing leveled out. He was a good man, an ass about it sometimes, but good. He would always protect her when she couldn’t muster the strength to bother.
“I love you,” she whispered, and she meant it more than she ever really had before.
“That’s gross,” Jason muttered sleepily, his head popping up in her field of view. The shadows on his face drew up, like he was squinting at her. “B, who’s the chick?”
Selina snorted and smiled again. “You’re the chick, Jaybird. I’m a cat.”
Jason shot up, but Selina just yawned and closed her eyes. She could feel how he was staring at her, but he was…twelve? Thirteen? A baby. Babies didn’t always understand grownup things.
“Bruce, why is Catwoman in—” Jason’s voice broke on a note of horror. “OH MY GOD, COULD YOU HAVE WARNED ME THAT YOU WERE PLANNING ON—UGH, I’M GETTING OUT OF HERE!”
Selina tried to laugh, but she yawned instead and absently grabbed Jason’s wrist. There was a sharp inhale and a tug, on the verge of panicked, and she dropped it.
“Not—” Selina’s head dipped in exhaustion and she nearly blacked out. “….snuggles. Just snuggling. Shh…”
Bruce’s hand shifted up to her hair and gently started to card through it, catching at tangles and gently untangling them with his fingers. Oh, she wasn’t going to make it much longer if he kept doing that.
“Selina had a bad day, Jaylad, so she doesn’t want to be alone. Just like you had a nightmare,” Bruce told his son, which made her sound very emotionally needy and childish….but she kind of was. It was fine; she was dating a man who clearly loved kids.
“I didn’t have a nightmare,” Jason said defensively. Selina was pretty sure she found that cute, but her brain was shutting down all non-vital functioning, and it was getting hard to tell.
Bruce didn’t respond audibly, but she was sure that Jason was getting the Bat Eyebrow™ that she was sure he’d stolen from Alfred. Jason didn’t say anything more, but there was a shift of blankets and the mattress shook slightly as he lay back down. Selina’s head slid slightly as his other arm wrapped back around Jason.
“Fine,” Jason snapped. “But if you two start—”
“We won’t,” Bruce said, sounding a bit sick at the idea.
Selina snorted in tired amusement—definitely cute—before relaxing and trying to shut her mind off, but….there was one more thing missing.
Selina felt across Bruce’s chest until she came to where Jason’s hand was pressed against his father’s side. She felt Jason tense, but she stole his hand into hers anyway, lacing their fingers together with a smile. She didn’t tighten, she didn’t restrain, just pulled his hand up so that it rested between them on Bruce’s chest.
She didn’t know Jason very well, but…what was Bruce’s was just Selina’s that hadn’t been stolen yet.
“Goodnight,” she mumbled to her kitten and her tomcat.
“G-g’night?” Jason whispered, his fingers twitching in hers.
“Goodnight, Selina.”