Summary:Bruce and Selina discuss their daughter. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
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It has been another rough night. The streets and rooftops of Staten Island are never safe and always need safeguarding, regardless of what others might sometimes tell him. The last week or so has been harder then most. It's been a slow build-up of darker nights, with more brutal and demanding fights. The desperate and dangerous always seem to get moreso as the year edges towards the freezing Winter.
Tonight involved two stolen cars, one attempted kidnapping and a large brawl in a vacant lot regarding the possible return of another of Batman's masked enemies. Which one? Who knows. There are so, so many. Batman limps into the living room with a small grunt, reaching up to slowly unfasten the holdings on his cowl safely. He pulls it up and off, revealing his tired, handsome face. He's sporting a fairly fresh blackeye. Still wearing the rest of the costume, he sinks down onto the old couch with a small, pained sound. He reaches up to brush his fingers over his face and back through his dark hair as he lets out a small sigh. His mind wanders, briefly, and his brow furrows. It's his contemplating face. Specifically, it is his 'contemplating something broody' face.
Selina Kyle's no stranger to the… temperement of this city's night life either. Especially considering the time she spent essentially in charge of this crazy operation; despite her concerns when Bruce went back into action she was relieve to give it up. But regardless it somehow… doesn't quite *seem* to affect her the same way it affects others. Selina's always had a peculiar talent for just letting things roll off of her back. In her youth she had a frustrating tendancy to treat everyone and everything like a game. She hasn't… *completely* let that go. Maybe it's served her well.
Maybe she just as a couple more masks than you do.
Regardless, she arrives home some time after you do, peering about the cave before she even shuts off her Batcycle. The butler tells her where you are before she even asks.
"I keep telling you-" her voice suddenly comes from the far side of the room as she saunters into sight, still in costume as she pulls her goggles and cowl off of her head with one swipe of her hand, leaving her dark hair tussled, "-not to pick fights with wheat threshers, and look what happened." She faux-admonishes with a bit of a smirk, crossing her arms and cocking her hips slightly as she stops at the opposite end of the couch.
He doesn't glance up immediatly, instead staring into the unused fireplace. When the snow begins to fall it will be regularly lit, as it is every year. Tonight it remains dark, however. After a brief moment be brings fingertips to his eye as if noticing the wound for the first time, and he grunts softly. He turns his bright, piercing blue eyes to you.
"And it the thresher in question was mugging a woman?" He brushes his fingers back through his dark, dark hair and sighs softly, leaning back. While you have always had a tendency to treat things as a game, for good or ill, Bruce has always had the opposite issue. He takes every single thing so damn seriously. This has saved lives, to be fair. It has also made him the man he is today…also, for good or ill.
"Baseball bat. Should have seen it coming, but one of the men had a knife on the girl. Anyways, I'm alive, and so are they." His voice is deep and pleasant, even when it is strained with tiredness and weight.
He turns his gaze back to you, dipping over you curiously, and admiringly. "Busy night?"
Selina's green eyes flutter briefly as her irreverence is met with grim realities - as is so often the case - her smile stretching a bit thin as if the clash was making it hard not to laugh. "Then I guess you show it what-for." She replies breezily. Though that smile fades a little as he describes the specifics of his ordeal, sounding a bit more tired than she was previously letting on as she replies, sincerely, "That's good."
When asked about herself she sighs dramatically and falls to the sofa on one knee. "Nothing quite as exciting. A lot of leg work…" She begins to crawl slowly towards Bruce. "A lot of old contacts to keep up on…" she bites the fingertip of one glove and pulls it off, quickly removing the other glove with her freed up hand before putting them both on Bruce's thigh. "… Got punched in the side with some brass knuckles; that was fun…" She reaches out and cups Bruce's cheek, turning his head towards her and drawing near with a pronounced "Mmmmmm-mwa" as she kisses him beside his bruised eye and purrs, breezily, "You should have seen the other guy~" before she sinks down , draping across his lap, and rather callously grasping the side of his cape to pull it over her lower body like a blanket.
"Hmmmm…" She sighs softly through closed lips, closing her eyes as she adds, softly, "Buuuuut that's not why you're brooding at an empty fireplace, is it…?"
His bright blue eyes stay on her as she moves closer. Her takes in each and every one of her purposeful movements as if he were judging a dance. It is hard to determine whether he would be giving her a high or low score until her kiss on the side of his head brings a small break in his dour demeanor: A small, lopsided smile. The man looks down at her, resting a hand on her stomach as she lounges across his lap and uses his cape in this familiar way.
When she asks that question, though, the smile briefly falters and then fades. Bruce pulls his eyes away and focuses to the side. "I've been trying to think of how to talk Helena out of this insane idea. Joining SHIELD? With all of our secrets?" He shakes his head a bit, the man letting out a small sigh. His fingertips subconciously brush across her costume on her stomach, the man too distracted to notice.
Selina heaves another, heavier, less happy sigh, her hand going to the back of Bruce's and riding it back and forth. "… I know." She says softly. She draws her legs up a bit and opens her eyes narrowly to look up at Bruce. "… I don't like it any more than you do. Promise." She says, despite her overtly taking Helena's side when she first brought the matter up. "… But she's sure she's thought it through… and she's more stubborn than both of us…" She says with an oddly proud hint of a smile. She turns her head to the side and reaches up with her free hand, giving his bicep a gently squeeze as she turns her eyes upward to look at him again. "… I'd be more concerned about figuring out how not to push her away."
She doesn't *want* to invoke Dick Grayson? But she's sort of invoking Dick Grayson.
Bruce sighs softly and eventually brings his gaze back down to her. He watches her as they talk. He turns his hand around to let their fingers touch and he nods. "I'd say she got the stubborness from you but…you're right. She got it from both of us and then some." He shakes his head a bit. "I just don't understand why or…what to do. I'm used to understanding what to do."
The man frowns softly down at the beauty. "This…isn't like that. This isn't like that, is it?" His tone isn't quite as assured as he would like it to be. She's the only person who can bring down his shields with such practiced ease.
Selina squeezes Bruce's hand and gives him a smile that's somewhere between wry and sympathetic, replying, "It's… a lot like that, babe." She says gently. And lord knows she had her protests back *then*, but back then *both* boys were being thick headed about it. Worked out in the *end* but… it wasn't a painless process. "Just riskier for us, that's all."
Selina takes a deep breath and sits up, leaning her body into Bruce's chest and her cheek against his shoulder, shuffling a bit so her butt is parked in his lap as she looks up at him and pets the back of his hand with her free hand. "… But we crammed two whole demented humans worth of knowledge into her… and all of the kids besides. And she's more interested in the course than joining Shield itself…" Her smile veers a little more towards the wry side of things, "… and frankly, if we were that paranoid about Shield we probably shouldn't have cozied up to Captain America and the Black Widow~" She lets that sink in with a bit of a smirk before kissing Bruce's chin.
He loops a strong arm around her waist and nods a bit. Bruce takes in her words quietly for the moment, as he leans back and lets her settle into his lap. He moves his hand up and he brushes his fingers back through her hair, both comforting and almost petting as they talk.
"She is smart. Too smart, sometimes," he says with a small smirk. He shrugs one of his shoulders, then. "I don't know, still. And Captain America and Black Widow are two members of SHIELD. They aren't the people in charge…" He trails off, shaking his head, as if trying to decide. His fingertips brush back through her hair as he looks to her face. "Perhaps I should…wait? See what happens?" He turns his head after Selina kisses his chin, letting his lips lightly brush hers. "You really think we should just let her go?," he asks. It isn't a stern tone. He's trying to coax out his fiance's reasoning.
Selina takes a very deep, very slow breath, closing her eyes and holding that breath for a very long moment before she opens them again with a helpless little smile and says, cheerfully, "Nope!" She gives a softly, vaguely desperate little laugh and says, "I want her to stay home. I want her to stay away from global espionage. I want to keep her in a comfortable little box and advance science by giving some OTHER poor shmucks orders to do the dangerous stuff." She says, gradually looking down as she speaks. "… I really want her to be safe."
This is about as sincere as Selina gets, and it doesn't happen a lot. Usually when the kids are concerned, or when a matter's too serious to play it off. And in her quietest moments alone with you. It's not… 'the real' Selina as you might call it. Just a more raw Selina. Her normal confidence is much closer to the 'real' her than this, and you can see it gradually reassembling itself as she looks up at you again. "… And it'd kill her just as sure as it'd kill me." She sighs. "… Call it a Kyle thing, or a Cat thing, I guess. We've just… gotta be where we want to be. You know?"
Bruce listens intently to her words as his fingers trace down from her hair and down her back. He nods a bit, furrowing his brow as he glances aside. He's quite for a long moment, his hand resting at the lower curve of her back. "Okay." He says it soft enough at first that she might actually miss him say it.
He turns back, then, looking into her eyes. "Okay. I'm not going to smile and congratulate her but…I know I can't stop her. She has too much of you in her. I am going to be watching, though. If it seems like it is working against her or threatening us…I will find a way to stop it." His tone is stern. Factual. He will, as far as he is concerned.
Selina is half sure she's blown it on this one. Rule 1 is never get real when you're trying to get someone agree to something extremely silly. This was some amateur hour work on her part, from her perspective.
So it catches her a little off guard when Bruce actually says yes, her green eyes giving a very deliberate blink as she looks up at him. "… Yeah?" She prompts with a tiny little smirk, rocking him back and forth a little and planting her cheek against his shoulder with an increasingly fond little smile as he speaks.
"Look at you~" She purrs softly, "I thought I'd have to get the whip out before we got this far." She says, unwilling to let her fiance take himself TOO seriously even as he essentially threatens to go to war with a global defense force… which is a little concerning, but honestly not too far outside the norm for them.
She can't honestly tell him it'll be fine, or not to worry because… well there's no guarantee it will be, and he damn well SHOULD. But any pressure she can take off of her daughter - and any doubt, unease or angst she can shake off of her paramour - is a victory in her books. She shifts in his lap, putting her hands on his shoulders and moving so that she's straddling him and facing towards him, and nudges his nose with hers. "Hey. Guess what?"
He sucks in a small breath when she straddles him, his mind briefly wandering and the man ending up chuckling. His hands linger on her lower back as he turns to fully face her. He must be tired or something, because Bruce never lets her win that easily. He leans back a bit, both of them still in their costumes, and he looks up into her eyes.
"What?"
Selina grins a little and kisses Bruce softly on the lips before answering:
"Caught you."