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Selina should have just left like she was planning. But the image of Annika’s dead eyes staring up at her wouldn’t leave, no matter how hard she tried to think of something else. She knew she wouldn’t be sleeping tonight, even if she did leave.
She needed a distraction and she needed information, both of which she knew she could find through Batman. Given the trail of carnage he and Oswald were leaving in their wake, it wasn’t as if it was that hard to follow him.
She worried that he or the cop would notice her trailing them, but they seemed preoccupied enough with Oswald that she remained undetected, and when they headed toward the old orphanage, she took a different route to meet them there.
And if she stayed a moment longer to enjoy the way Oswald futilely yelled and waddled after them, then that was her business.
As she crept through the decrepit halls, carefully slipping past the other occupants, she heard voices from up ahead, though it didn’t sound like either of the men she’d followed. She was surprised to be met with the sight of Thomas Wayne when she peeked into the room, but she was even more surprised by how tense Batman had become.
From what she’d seen of the vigilante so far, he appeared difficult to faze, but something about the video playing had his guard up. She was tempted to watch the video instead of just listening, but she couldn’t take her eyes off of the dark clothed man.
She kept her gaze trained on him, so she saw the second he turned away, the cop not even noticing his departure, his own focus still fixated on the projected video. At first, she thought he’d seen her and she ducked into the shadows of the hall, but he passed her by completely. He moved almost silently, but was about as close to a run as possible without sacrificing his stealth.
His lack of attention was what truly peaked her interest. Back at the mayor’s house, he’d been the one to notice the cop approaching them, even in the midst of their tangle. He didn’t strike her as someone who let things slip past him, so the fact that he had missed her entirely stood out.
He’d figured something out.
She ran after him, exiting the building to see him running toward his car. Her bike was too far away, hidden from sight, and she was afraid that in his rushed state, she’d lose him, so she sprinted after him instead, praying that the other doors would be unlocked as well. She opened the passenger door just as he shut his and slid into the seat.
“Get out,” he snarled, something jagged in his voice.
“You know something,” she countered, gripping the seat tight in case he tried to throw her out. She wasn’t sure it would do much to help should he put his mind to it, but better to try.
“Get. Out,” he repeated, still not looking at her as he turned on the engine.
“No.”
He turned suddenly, the movement sharp and she flinched back just a little, tensing up.
Her brow furrowed just as quickly though. His clenched jaw was nothing too shocking, but his eyes were… wild wasn’t quite the way to put it. But there was an intensity to his gaze that caught her off guard. It wasn’t the look of a man who’d solved a piece of the puzzle. Something in her stomach curled uncomfortably and she began to think she’d made a mistake.
If she didn’t know any better, she would say that he almost looked afraid.
Those eyes swept over her face frantically. She didn’t know what he was looking for, but he seemed to find it. Just as quickly as he’d looked at her, he turned forward again, threw the car into gear, and tore off down the road fast enough that she felt herself slam back into the seat. She quickly put the seatbelt on. She’d seen him drive with enough skill that she didn’t particularly fear him getting them into an accident, but she also didn’t want to be thrown around every time he turned onto another street.
He took them back into the city, and she snuck a glance over at him. He seemed to be hesitating with something, his own gaze flicking over to her and his fingers tightening their grip on the steering wheel periodically. The deeper they got into the city however, the more agitated he got.
She was seconds away from trying to question him (to break the silence if nothing else) when he huffed out a sharp breath and reached toward the dashboard and pressed one of the buttons on the touch screen.
“Call Alfred,” he said in a tight voice, hand returning to its death grip on the wheel.
The phone rang through the speakers.
And it rang.
And rang.
“I’m afraid I can’t come to the ph-” a male voice replied before Batman ended the call abruptly, a frustrated growl deep in his throat as he pressed another button.
“Call-” he hesitated for the briefest moment, his eyes flicking over to her once more. “Call Wayne Manor,” he finished, and Selina’s eyes widened before narrowing in suspicion.
The video she’d caught the two men watching had been about Thomas and Martha Wayne, but that didn’t explain where they were going now, or why Batman apparently had the phone number for Wayne Manor programmed into his equipment.
As she glanced around the car once more, she was struck with the thought that all the stuff Batman used, from the suit to the car to the espionage shit he’d given her for the club, would cost quite the pretty penny. From what she’d heard, Bruce Wayne wasn’t one to walk down the street or make appearances. Could it be possible that he was somehow hiding from the public eye in order to work with Batman? Was he bankrolling him maybe?
The line kept ringing as Selina considered the situation in a new light. It was sent to voicemail once again, and the voice barely got two words out before Batman was once again smashing the button to disconnect.
“Call Wayne Manor,” Batman repeated, and she could hear the way his voice was starting to slip. It was still forceful, still firm, but it was fraying at the edges. And the longer the line rang, the more agitated he was becoming.
Just as she thought the call would be sent to voicemail once more, the line clicked.
“Hello?” a woman’s voice answered quietly.
Batman tensed in his seat. “Dory,” he answered quickly, and it didn’t escape Selina’s notice that, not only did Batman seem to be very familiar with what she assumed was Wayne’s household staff, but that his voice had shifted. Gone was the hint of an act that she could tell he put on when he was in the suit. In its place was something that sounded a little softer, a little younger and more natural, even considering the nerves that were still present.
She wondered if she was hearing his actual tone, and what it meant if she was.
“Where’s Alfred,” he continued, “why isn’t he answering?” He didn’t wait for a response before plowing on, and the fear that she’d caught glimpses of became more present in a way that she could tell was just as much an act as the tone she was used to from him, but the act was a very thin one that was only a slight exaggeration of his true feelings. “I need to speak to him, it’s urgent, I think something bad is about to happen.”
There was a split second of silence from the other end of the line before the woman spoke again. “I’m afraid… it already has.”
Selina had assumed that the other woman’s initial soft voice was one born from age and the late hour. But the more she heard, the more she realized she recognized that tone.
Dory was in shock.
In the silence that followed her statement, Selina could just barely catch the faint sound of sirens in the distance.
“An hour ago…” she continued. “I’ve been trying to reach you…”
Batman turned them roughly onto a street, not quite skidding to a stop, and there, in the distance, she could see bright flames and dark smoke billowing into the night sky from the side of a building.
She looked back to the other man, saw the way his mouth had parted slightly, his wide eyes locked, not on the road, but the smoke.
She caught the way his breathing skipped a beat before picking up at a quicker pace.
“Dory, where’s Richard,” he demanded, words shaking and gaze fixed heavenward.
This, Selina realized. This was his real voice. And this was what his fear truly sounded like.
The other woman didn’t answer fast enough.
“Dory!” he repeated urgently. “Where is he!”
“I- I’m so sorry Mr. Wayne.” Dory’s voice broke, and Selina could tell that, even through the shock, the older woman had started crying. “Alfred had already put him to bed before-” her voice cut off painfully and a sniffle could be heard, but Selina couldn’t take her eyes off of Batman. His already pale skin seemed to have lost what little blood it had since the call began.
Mr. Wayne, she’d said.
“I overheard the firemen,” Dory continued shakily. “The explosion blocked off the hall to the bedrooms. They’re trying to get through, but-” another sniffle cut off her words, but she’d said enough.
“What about Alfred?” Batman- … Wayne, choked out, his hands shaking even as the rest of him resembled a statue.
Another sniff. “They’re taking him to the hospital. It… He wasn’t in a good shape, Mr. Wayne,” she explained quietly. “I’m so sorry-” her gentle words were cut off by Wayne.
“Call me if you find out anything else,” he said sharply before hanging up. His shaking hands once more tightened their grip and they shot down the street, the suddenness of the acceleration causing Selina to slam her head against the window. She cried out softly at the unexpected pain but Wayne appeared not to hear her. He spun them through the streets, taking corners roughly and grazing the walls of buildings more than once.
Selina pushed herself back up, turning to him. “Stop!” she yelled at him. If he didn’t calm down, she knew one of these turns would be her last and she was not dying tonight. “You’re in no state to drive right now, just stop for a goddamn minute!”
His jaw only tightened more, not looking at her, and his lack of care and control frightened her more.
She grabbed onto the seat and braced herself against the dashboard. “You’re gonna get us both killed!” she screamed. “You won’t be able to help anyone if you’re dead, stop the fucking car!”
He swerved them into an alleyway hard enough that Selina once again found herself pressed against the door, and their abrupt stop made the seat belt lock, cutting into her chest as she was flung into it again.
She had half a mind to yell at him some more for his carelessness, the stress from the drive still keeping her on edge, but as she looked at him, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.
His hands hadn’t left the wheel, making her fear that he’d take off again at any moment, but his head was bowed and she could hear his ragged breathing. He’d been tense the entire ride, but he seemed to have fully imploded in on himself, shaking with the restraint to stay still.
“FUCK!” he exploded, slamming his hand against the wheel and startling her backwards. He shoved himself into the seat, his hands shooting up toward his head and she was concerned for a moment about what the hell he was doing before his mask came off and he flung the helmet piece at the windshield.
She flinched back again, the object flying past her into the back of the car with the force of the rebound. The clattering covered the sound of his words, but she could see his lips moving as he pulled his long hair into a tight grip.
Her first impression of the man in front of her was that he could be considered handsome if he wasn’t in the middle of a crisis. She knew that his hair, had it not been wild and sweaty from being contained, would suit his face nicely. His eyes were screwed shut in the midst of the dark makeup that ran across his sockets and his sharp jawline, more pronounced without the mask framing it, quivered with the movement of his lips.
Her second impression was that before her wasn’t a curse upon the scourge of Gotham, or whatever the hell the press had been saying about him the past few years. This wasn’t a mythical night terror that appeared out of the shadows and struck fear into the hearts of petty criminals. The Batman was just a man. A man who knew fear and pain and suffering, and was clearly experiencing all three right before her eyes.
“No no no no no no no please, please,” she could finally make out as he mumbled desperately to himself in between sharp breaths. His agitation seemed to have crested into full out panic, even if his panic was understated by normal standards.
“Hey…” she tried softly, not sure what to do with the situation in front of her.
He either didn’t hear her or ignored her, curling in on himself even tighter.
“Hey!” she shouted harshly, and the raised voice seemed to pull him out of wherever he’d gone in his mind enough that he straightened again, twisting his body to glare at her as his hands dropped. The glare quickly fell when he caught sight of her though, as if he’d forgotten who exactly was beside him.
The stoney expression he fell into did nothing to hide his feelings, however.
The pain was still written across his every feature.
“Talk me through it, hun,” she demanded steadily. She was so damn curious, but she also hoped that verbalizing his thought process would help him focus enough not to slip again.
His jaw clenched and she could see him pulling away from her, so she hurriedly spoke, keeping her voice level. “What more can you tell me here that I can’t figure out on my own with the information I already have Mr. Wayne?” she pointed out, looking directly into his bloodshot eyes. “Talk to me.”
He stared her down for a long moment. She would have missed his shaky inhale had she not had every fiber of her being focused on him.
“Did you catch the video that was playing?” he asked, and at her silent nod, he continued. “Riddler’s been targeting corrupt city officials involved in the Maroni bust, which apparently includes m-” He stuttered for a moment, mouth not quite getting the words out. “My father,” he continued solemnly, eyes no longer meeting hers. “But since he’s… not around anymore, his target shifted to Bruce Wayne. To me.”
“‘The sins of the father…’” she softly quoted, recalling the words she’d seen written on the wall behind them in the orphanage that used to belong to the Wayne family. She’d looked away from it immediately, the words hitting a little too close to home.
She wondered now if perhaps Wayne had felt the same in that moment.
“Are visited upon the son-” Wayne finished for her, but his voice caught on the last word and he swallowed harshly, his head tilting down and features pinching together painfully.
So Riddler was pissed at the Waynes for not upholding their promise to help Gotham and, unable to exact his anger on them, had decided that their kid was a suitable proxy. If their kid hadn’t turned out to be the man in front of her, he’d almost certainly be dead right now. No wonder he’d flown out of there like a bat out of hell the second he’d figured it out, but it seemed he’d been too late with his realization. Alfred, whoever he was to Wayne, had unintentionally taken the bullet for him.
Or rather, the bomb.
But there was still one thing she couldn’t fully figure out.
“Who’s Richard?” she asked hesitantly. That was the one piece that didn’t make sense. There was no way Wayne would be driven this far into panic at the loss of a pet, and she’d almost be tempted to guess that Richard was a lover based on Wayne’s devastated reaction (and she certainly wouldn’t blame Wayne for wanting to stay out of the limelight if that were the case), but the other woman had said that Richard had been put to bed by Alfred. Did household staff put their employer’s lovers to bed when he disappeared for the night?
Wayne’s head fell even more and a shudder passed through him. Selina had the terrifying thought that he’d just suppressed a sob, not knowing how to connect that with the man she’d come to know as Batman.
“He’s my-” he tried, voice breaking again and he curled even further into himself in a repeat of his earlier stance. “He’s my ward,” he whispered, eyes squeezing shut.
Selina faintly recalled hearing something about Bruce Wayne taking in a young boy, freshly orphaned, a few months back. She remembered hoping to a God she didn’t believe in that, for the boy’s sake, Wayne was nothing like some of the men she saw at the club; the ones that had an eye for a younger prize and fewer qualms about how they got what they wanted.
A dawning sense of horror and distant grief gripped her body. It seemed her frail hopes had been heard, but as usual, she’d been hoping for protection from the wrong thing.
Thomas Wayne wasn’t here for the Riddler to punish, so he’d gone for Bruce instead.
But Bruce hadn’t been there either.
The sins of the father are visited upon the son.
Selina choked on her next inhale, swallowing around the lump in her throat. “Is it flame retardant?” she asked unsteadily, swallowing again to strengthen her voice.
Wayne’s head peaked up, brows furrowed at the sudden switch.
“Your suit,” she clarified in a stronger tone, “is it flame retardant?”
His eyes stared into hers. “Somewhat,” he answered.
She nodded. “I’ll find us another way in then. We’ll get around the blocked entrance and we’ll get your kid out.” If he’s even still alive, she didn’t say. “Switch me spots,” she added, already unbuckling her seat belt. “I’ll drive the rest of the way, I don’t trust you to not crash us.”
He wasn’t quite as stable as he’d always been around her, but he still straightened up, reaching out to grab her hand in protest, and she was already prepared to remind him that they didn’t have time for this, but as he opened his mouth to argue that he was perfectly capable, a harsh knock on the driver’s window interrupted them.
Selina jumped, Wayne’s grip on her wrist tightening painfully as he flipped around, hand moving to his belt. Her heart pounded in her chest as she quickly calmed her breath and she was furious with herself for not keeping track of the world around her. It was a rookie mistake and one she should have been long past making. The fastest way to get murdered was the let your attention lapse in a dark fucking alley.
As she stared out the window around Wayne’s body, she couldn’t see anyone standing there, but that did the opposite of comfort her.
She could tell that it set Wayne on edge too but he did belatedly drop his grip on her, to reach around and grab his mask out of the back. She rubbed at the skin through the suit briefly, shaking it out as her eyes scanned the area. There were no windows inlaid on the brick walls surrounding them, and consequently no fire escapes, so at least she wouldn’t have to worry about being jumped from above, but she still leaned back fully against the seat, moving away from the window.
There.
From her new vantage point, she could make out a tuft of dark hair hiding behind the grouping of garbage cans and the stacked boxes that surrounded them. She silently tapped Wayne’s shoulder and leaned against him, pointing over his shoulder at the figure.
His head followed her arm, mask held in front of his face but not quite on yet.
As he caught sight of where she was pointing, they both saw a pair of eyes peek out carefully toward the vehicle.
She could feel Wayne stiffen beneath her and before she could do anything else, he had his door open and was out of the car.
“Wait!” she hissed, falling forward onto his seat with the sudden loss of his presence to hold her up. The way he had parked the car in the alley meant that it covered the area the trash was in from the alley mouth, and she could see that further down the road the alley was a dead end, but that didn’t mean that there weren’t more people waiting, and he’d caught her off guard.
She cursed him out quietly, plastering herself down against the seats, hoping that she could catch any additional visitors by surprise if she hid like this, but it was less than ideal.
It did mean she had a front row view to the scene in front of her, though.
Wayne hadn’t put his mask on. A quick glance to the side proved that he’d let it fall to the floor of the car in his rush. She expected to hear the sound of bodily contact, that maybe he had opted for the element of surprise and the darkness to cover his identity while he went for a quick knockout, but instead she was greeted with a hushed call of “Dick!” a shaky tone present in the faint syllable.
“Bruce!” came the responding muffled cry, and she was shocked for a moment at how high pitched the voice was, but her adrenaline quickly spiked when the figure suddenly burst forward from their hiding spot, barreling straight toward Wayne. She had to bite her tongue to stop from yelling out a warning, but confusion quickly overtook her when she saw that the figure was actually quite small.
It doubled when Wayne simply dropped to one knee, bracing himself as he held his arms open.
The figure (a young boy, she could briefly make out based on his stature and voice) flew straight into his embrace and Wayne’s arms immediately enveloped him, his chin dropping on top of the boy’s head and burying him in his neck and chest. The man’s cape fell forward around his shoulders just enough to cover the boy’s body almost entirely so that all she could see was that same dark hair peeking out just over Wayne’s shoulder.
She hesitantly pushed herself up a little to try and make out more of what was happening, but all she could see was Wayne gently rocking the boy side to side and the slight bump where the boy’s fists encircled the man’s waist and rested high on his back underneath the material.
“Dickie,” she heard him whisper into the boy’s hair, relief evident. One of his gloved hands came up against the back of the boy’s head to hold him closer. “What are you doing out here?” he asked brokenly.
And it clicked for Selina.
Dick. Richard. Wayne wasn’t calling their almost assailant a dick, like she’d briefly considered in her confusion, he was calling out his name.
His ward’s name.
The ward she knew they’d both thought to be dead or dying barely a minute ago.
Wayne tried to pull back and look at his ward’s face, but the boy clung to him, and now that his hands had lowered more to the boy’s waist to steady him, she could see that the poor kid was shaking.
“Dick,” he called softly, looking down at him. “Look at me, kiddo, c’mon.”
Dick slowly pulled away and Selina saw his big eyes filling with tears as he looked up at his guardian.
Wayne quickly took off one of his gloves and wiped away a stray tear with his thumb just as it fell. The same hand then cupped the younger face and gently pulled their foreheads together.
“It’s okay,” Wayne said, “you’re okay.”
It struck Selina that this was the most steady she’d heard him sound the entire night.
He slowly pulled away again, though he didn’t go far. “Dickie,” he tried again, “what are you doing here, why weren’t you i- in bed?” He briefly stuttered his words, and Selina was hit again with the image of a small body tucked away underneath a bed or in a closet, desperately hiding from the smoke and flames.
Dick swallowed, sniffing back more tears. “I wanted to help,” he responded weakly. Selina could barely catch the words with how faint his voice was. “I heard explosions in the distance and I couldn’t sleep, but I couldn’t get to the entrance to the Cave inside the house, so I- I snuck out, and I was trying to find the other way in, but there was another explosion upstairs, and I- I-” the boy’s voice had picked up in both speed and intensity as he talked, until he was stumbling over his words and breathing too fast to continue, the tears welling up again. Wayne hushed him slowly, pulling the kid back against his body
Selina couldn’t exactly blame the kid for running. Going off on your own in the heart of Gotham in the middle of the night was a dumb decision, but when your options were that or staying at the scene of an explosion that could have been meant for you when you didn’t know if the attacker was still present, you had to pick which was the lesser of two evils.
Considering the kid didn’t seem to have a scratch on him that she’d seen, she supposed that he’d chosen well enough.
After a few moments of Wayne mumbling reassurances in his ear, the kid pulled back again on his own, sniffling and roughly wiping his nose with the back of his hand. Wayne wiped away another set of tear tracks that had made a path down Dick’s cheek and the kid leaned into the touch.
“Are you okay?” Wayne asked in a calm, low voice.
The kid nodded, looking a little miserable as he faced the ground, but as she’d thought, he seemed to be physically fine. “I scraped my knee a while ago when I tripped, but it doesn’t really hurt anymore,” he admitted glumly, but before Wayne could say anything, Dick looked back up at him. “Is- Is everyone else okay? What happened?”
Selina caught the way Wayne’s shoulders tensed again. “The Riddler sent a package for Bruce Wayne,” he explained slowly. “But I think… I think Alfred was the one who opened it.” Selina could see the way Wayne’s gloved hand twitched where it was resting on the boy’s shoulder, but it didn’t fall into the crushing grip she’d seen earlier, and the hand on Dick’s cheek stayed completely still. She found herself relieved that, despite the man’s sometimes violent tendencies and ability to cause a hell of a lot of damage, he was back in control enough to not hurt his child.
She’d have had to take the kid away if he hadn’t, and she really didn’t have the time to find him a good place right now.
“Alfred…?” the boy breathed, fear present in his features.
Wayne stayed quiet for a moment. “Mrs. Bellont said that he’s being taken to the hospital. I don’t think anyone else was hurt, though.”
Dick’s eyes were so damn wide and wet that Selina thought she could see the faint light from the street glistening in them like stars. She had to look away for a moment.
“We have to go,” he insisted in a rush, voice breaking. “He needs us!”
“We will,” Wayne hurried to assure him, carefully gripping Dick’s arm as if he might run off. “We will, just not yet. I need to change first and.” There was the briefest pause. “Take care of a few things,” he finished. His head turned toward her slightly and she caught the way he looked at her out of the corner of his eye.
Dick seemed to catch the movement as well, looking past his guardian for the first time to make eye contact with her. He let out a small gasp and shuffled behind Wayne, eyes barely peeking out over his shoulder and staying locked with hers as he grabbed part of Wayne’s cape in his hand.
“It’s okay,” Wayne soothed quietly. “She’s a friend.” He too was staring her down and as she shifted her gaze from Dick to him, she couldn’t help but wonder if the words were for the kid or her.
His neutral tone made it difficult to tell whether the words were ones of acceptance, of trust, or if they were a warning to her. Run your mouth, put my kid in danger, and I’ll make you regret it. For your sake, you’d better be a friend.
Either way, she knew she’d never say anything. For them, and for her. She didn’t want to have a pissed off Bat who absolutely had the power and resources to track her down on her ass for the rest of her life, but she also sort of liked the guy. He wasn’t all that bad to hang around.
Plus, she’d never do that to the kid. Contrary to what the Riddler thought, no kid should have to pay for their parent’s actions, especially not when they were still an actual kid. If she dropped the Batman’s identity, the first target on every scumbag’s list would be the guy’s child.
Dick probably didn’t pick up the silent second conversation she was pretty sure she and Wayne had just had and took the assurance at face value. He calmed down a bit, but he still didn’t come back out from behind Wayne. “Oh… okay,” he said instead. “Hi,” he offered shyly.
Selina smiled at him softly. “Hi.”
While the kid was distracted, Wayne stood up, picking the boy up on the way. Dick startled a little, but quickly fastened his legs around the man’s waist and his arms around his shoulders. Wayne walked the short distance back to the car, eyes roving over the interior as Selina pushed herself back up.
She quickly caught the problem as she glanced at the nonexistent backseat.
“I can hold him,” she offered. “C’mere honey,” she directed to Dick.
He had been watching her over his shoulder but tensed up at her words, holding Wayne in a death grip and burying his face against the side of his neck. He clearly didn’t want to leave his guardian’s hold, which Selina couldn’t bring herself to feel offended by considering the night he’d had.
“Oookay, I’ll drive then,” she countered, turning to grab the door handle.
“No,” Wayne’s hard voice cut in. He climbed into the driver’s seat carefully, cupping Dick’s head to make sure he wouldn’t hit it against the frame as he settled. “This car has a lot of modifications and I’m not having this be your test run to get acclimatized to them.”
You’re not driving my tricked out car with my kid in the front seat, was what he wasn’t saying. Which… fair enough, she guessed, but was it really that much better for him to drive with Dick in his lap? What if the kid wiggled and kicked them into the wrong gear or something?
“Dick,” he called, and the kid lifted his head up again. “You have to stay still, alright?” Dick nodded seriously, laying back down against the armor, though Selina couldn't imagine that it was comfortable for him.
Wayne apparently had the same thought, and pulled his cape out from under him, balling it up at the top against his shoulder. He had Dick scoot back a bit and put the material on top of his shoulder for him to rest against, the remaining portion of the cape falling over his chestplate to dull the hard edges. Dick then moved back into his previous position, facing away from her.
“I’ll drop you off first,” Wayne said to her as he pulled the seat belt over both of them.
“What do you mean?” she asked, frowning.
He turned his head slightly. “At the orphanage. I assume you left your bike there?”
Selina blinked. “Yeah,” she answered. She’d been so caught up in everything with Wayne and all the discoveries she’d made about him that she had been ready to go with them to the hospital. She was still curious as to who exactly Alfred was.
She just… she didn’t want to go home quite yet. She knew she wouldn’t sleep until she passed out tonight and that even when she did, it wouldn’t be restful. She might as well do something with herself, keep following the distractions until enough time had passed that she could follow some new leads from Oswald’s group. She wasn’t sure they’d even found their boss yet so she’d find nothing there tonight.
But at that moment, Dick yawned wide, struggling to hide it, and she realized how late it must be for him.
The twitch of a smile appeared on Wayne’s lips at Dick’s subsequent grumbling and further burrowing into his side, and Selina knew that she couldn’t stay. Dick needed Wayne’s attention and he wouldn’t be able to give it to him fully if she was there.
“Let’s go then,” she said, buckling herself in.
Wayne backed them out of the alley and turned them around, away from his home.
She thought she caught him glancing at the smoke in the rearview mirror before they turned off of that street.
She had been a little nervous after the last bout of his driving that she’d been subjected to, but as they wove through the city, she was sure she’d never she’d never witnessed better driving in her life. This was the smoothest car ride she’d ever had and she could see the skill with which Wayne handled himself. As she looked over at him, and the little human shaped koala bear that had attached itself to the man, she figured she shouldn’t have been so surprised after all, though that in itself was something she still was struggling to wrap her head around.
The Batman didn’t exactly scream father material, but Selina had been wrong before.
They drove along for a few minutes before Wayne nudged his chin down against the side of the kid’s head, drawing his sleepy attention. “Dick,” he asked after an acknowledging grunt, “why were you hiding?”
“Hm?” Dick replied, shifting his head to look up his guardian.
“In the alley,” Wayne clarified, glancing down at him briefly. “Why were you hiding after you knocked on the window?”
“I didn’t want you to hit me with your door if you thought I was a bad guy and opened it hard,” Dick drowsily answered, his words slurring together the tiniest amount, and Selina had to choke down a laugh into a small cough as she turned to look out the window and collect herself. The words and the tone in which they were said were so at odds and unexpected that she couldn’t help it.
When she risked a glance back, she saw Wayne’s lips pursed together, though whether that was out of concern or an attempt not to laugh as well, she couldn’t tell. Dick, on the other hand, had a slightly lethargic shit-eating grin on his face, and she knew that he’d said it the way he did on purpose.
She kind of liked this kid. He was clearly smart, resourceful, caring, and just enough of a little shit to keep things interesting.
She found herself feeling glad that Dick was fine, both for his sake and for Wayne’s. She hated seeing children get caught in the middle of things they had nothing to do with, but she also couldn’t imagine how the guilt would’ve crushed Batman if he felt he’d been responsible for the death of this child. Selina already felt like she couldn’t breathe every time she thought about her mother, and she couldn’t even bring herself to think about Annika right now, but as bad as those were for her, she knew her mother would’ve hurt so much worse if it had been Selina who had been killed.
Selina shifted in her seat, glancing out the window once more at the passing city, and when she turned back, she found that Dick had turned his head over to stare at her through half-lidded eyes. He blinked after being caught, but didn’t look away. Selina gently smiled at him, and his lips tilted up a bit in response, but not long after, his eyes fell closed. Soon enough, his limbs loosened and his breathing evened out.
She didn’t try to start a conversation with Wayne, letting him focus on the road and instead keeping an eye on the kid to make sure he didn’t slip down too far and put them in danger.
Wayne was driving much slower on the way back to the orphanage, but she recognized that they were getting close. She didn’t know if she’d ever get this chance again.
“Hey,” she started softly, drawing his attention but making sure not to wake Dick. “Who’s Alfred?”
Wayne kept his eyes on the road, swallowing, and Selina thought she might not get an answer after all.
“He’s my butler,” he answered a minute later. His voice was back to the more neutral tone she associated with the Batman she’d worked with, the warmth and expression he’d used with Dick locked away again. She thought that perhaps his voice was the slightest bit softer now, but that was probably just so he didn’t wake up the kid.
“He’s the one who took care of me after my parents were killed,” he continued. “He’s been helping me with Dick, too.”
“Sounds like a decent guy,” she said, watching him closely. He didn’t respond, but his face crumpled a bit, as if he felt conflicted. She doubted the guy was abusive, didn’t think the Batman would knowingly allow him around a kid if he’d been abused by the man himself, but Selina recalled what she’d heard about the Waynes at the orphanage earlier that night and wondered how close the butler had to have been to be trusted with their child. She wondered whether or not he knew about what they’d done before their passing.
From the looks of it, Wayne might be wondering something along the same lines.
Or maybe it was just the guilt he felt for landing the man who raised him in the hospital because of something that had been meant for him.
She knew she wouldn’t get an answer if she asked that question, though.
When they finally pulled up to the decrepit building, she saw that the cop had obviously left already. She was almost sorry she had missed his full reaction when he realized his partner had ditched him.
Wayne parked the car and Selina unbuckled herself. Wayne stayed in the same position but looked down and the child still cuddled into him.
“Are you going to leave him there?” she whispered.
Wayne glanced up at her before returning his gaze to Dick. “No…” he responded after a minute. “It’s safer if he’s in the other seat.”
Selina had been prepared to help shield Dick if, for some reason, they got in an accident, and had been prepared to get him out of the line of fire if that accident wasn’t actually an accident, but she figured that with her gone, an actual seat and seatbelt would be the better option.
“Let me help,” she offered.
Wayne held her eyes for a moment. She raised her eyebrow. “Unless you wanted to wake him up?”
He looked away again, carefully unbuckling himself, so Selina took that as a go and quietly got out of the car. She kneeled back on the seat, reaching in to lift the kid up, but Wayne held up his hand. She froze as he reached up to where the cape connected to his suit, fiddling with it until a slight click sounded, before turning to do the same on his other shoulder. He turned back and nodded at her, and as she helped gently shift him into the other seat, the cape came with, clutched in his loose grip.
She held Dick gently up against the seat as Wayne positioned the cape so that it laid across the boy like a blanket and handed him the seatbelt once he’d finished. She backed out of the car once he was secure, hand on the roof and leaning down to watch Wayne lean back into his own seat. The still running engine made the car purr quietly under her touch.
They stared at each other for a long moment before she smirked, putting all of her bravado into the act. “You’ll see me soon enough, baby.” She hesitated before adding, “Take care of the actual baby in the meantime.”
Wayne’s gaze dropped to Dick and she took the moment to gently shut the door and walk away.
She didn’t look back, but as she heard the car pull off once she’d reached the treeline where she’d stashed her bike and money (which, thankfully, hadn’t been touched by the people in the house), a whispered, “Good luck,” left her lips. She hoped Wayne’s butler would pull through. It seemed like the two of them had conversations waiting to happen and based on how afraid Dick had looked earlier, she couldn’t imagine the kid would be alright if he lost him.
But she’d indulged herself enough; it was time for her to leave them to their own path, whatever it would be.
No more distractions.
Selina had one night to mourn; one night to pull herself together. After tonight, she had work to do and she wouldn’t stop until it was finished.
Enough innocent people had been hurt for whatever the fuck was happening here.
She was going to get vengeance for Annika if it was the last thing she did. And hopefully, along the way, she’d make sure that Dick wouldn’t have to become any more acquainted with the type of pain she carried with her than he already was.