fille_fatale | ( IC CONTACT )

She can see the tension creep into his shoulders, even if he keeps it from his face. Her smile just turns a little wry. "Relax, B. Just putting pieces together." Finding faces, names she recognized - it was a part of getting a lay of the land, here. A very, very weird part, but an important one. She's not looking to stand in anyone's shadow again - not Falcone, not Fish, not Penguin. And look at her luck: two of them aren't even players in the game, anymore.

Saying you would be too obvious, so of course she doesn't. But she doesn't have to: the look she gives him is fond and teasing, like she knows exactly what he wants her to say, and that's why she won't.

"Nostalgia." Her mouth quirks into a smirk. "And some well priced real estate."

The answer doesn't please him. No, it saddens him. She's come back to do what she does best. Steal. He's going to watch her walk down those same roads, make the same mistakes, piss off the wrong people. Will they chase each other on rooftops after burglaries? Will they fall into the same patterns of flirtation? Will they ever be on the same side?

He leans back in his chair, crossing one leg over the other. "I own a lot of real estate in Gotham," he points out. Is she going to rob him too?

"I bet you do." Her eyes are bright, excited even, and it's not just because she's back in town, or finally seeing him. She's always liked doing something unexpected. "I was thinking of buying a bar."

Fish had her place, and then Penguin made it his - she used to think it was a lot of work for not a lot of reason, when she was a kid. Now, Selina sees it for what it can be: a home base, a place to sift information in and out.

A place to carve as her own, to belong.

"Know any good agents who work the Narrows?"

She might as well have just grown a second head. "A bar," he repeats, completely thrown.

He does recover though. Quickly. Because his rational brain chastises him. She can own a bar. Hell, she'd probably be really good at it. She's intelligent, has the street smarts, and doesn't take crap from anyone. It might be an excellent fit. He still has trouble seeing it in his mind, even after he talks himself through it. "I have agents on staff who routinely review the market," he informs her. "I could get one of them to help out."

The brightness in her eyes turns to an outright smile at the way he looks at her. That was just the reaction she was hoping far.

She almost rolls it back, tells him she can find something on her own if he doesn't think it's a good idea - but he walks himself through it and gives her just the offer she was hoping for. A connection, not a favor. Networking is practically how the criminal world survives: she doesn't mind it so much when the blue bloods do it.

She doesn't even mind it so much from him.

"Just what I wanted to hear. You can even have the first round, when it opens." That will be a delicate balance, she thinks: Selina doesn't want him getting too deep into that world. It's more protective than she'd like to think, but she tells herself it's because he couldn't survive it. There's still so much she has to learn about this Gotham.

"Scotch. Neat," he offers, trying his hardest to be enthusiastic about her excitement.

It still doesn't sit well. Bars are perfect fronts for all sorts of criminal activity. He has to wonder if she's heading toward the same life, only entering from a different angle. Especially if she's talking about finding a location in the Narrows.

She can see his struggle, and it makes her smile fade around the edges. Don't ask, she tells herself. You don't want to know.

But that's always how things were, with Bruce. She told herself she didn't care, that he wasn't worth the trouble, and then somehow found herself in over her head.

"You don't like the idea." She doesn't ask: she thinks she can read him well enough, now.

"No I don't," he replies honestly, because he promised himself he would be upfront with her. "But it doesn't matter what I think. It's completely your choice and you should do whatever you think is best for yourself."

He won't tell her what to do.

Well, it's his turn to surprise her. Selina's eyebrows climb slowly, the tension in her shoulders - tension that was building, preparing for some kind of ultimatum - bleeding away.

"Yeah," she agrees, and it feels like she's really seeing him for the first time. "It is." Selina tilts her head to the side, only a little surprised to find her half-smile still in place.

"You've changed, you know that?"

"Then I have you completely fooled," he teases.

"No," she decides. "I know you." Maybe not the way she did, before - but in so many ways, even without the shared past, he's still Bruce.

"You've got my story now: traveling. Catch me up on what you've been doing."

He considers what's transpired over the time she's been out of his life. She'd come and gone just as his downward spiral began in earnest. His lack of hope, his turn toward the cruel, his plotting against the greatest 'enemy' he's ever known. They almost drove even Alfred away. What he's been doing since all falls into a recognizable theme.

"Rebuilding." Himself, his relationships, his properties.

"Does that mean you're living in the manor again?" The prospect certainly pleases her, and though she tries to keep it from her face, some of it slips through. She's still got fond memories of his home. Some not so fond ones, too, but she tries not to think of them.

"No, it still has a few more months of work ahead of it. It's coming along though. I'm pleased with the progress."

Whether he moves back in is still up for debate.

"Just no, not 'not yet?'" Yeah, she thinks she knows him. "What do you hate so much about that place?" It made plenty of creepy noises at night, sure. But it's still hard to imagine him living anywhere else.

"I don't hate it."

It's a part of him. During the years it stood in ruin, it was an outwardly reflection of his life. When he wasn't taking his anger out on the criminal element, he was taking it out on the walls and the floor, destroying it further when he thought no one was watching. Why rebuild a home for a man who has no future, for a family long since gone?

"Then what's keeping you away?" She realizes, after it's out, that this is probably too heavy a conversation for their first time back together in five years. "I mean that lake house of yours is good and all, but it's not--"

She cuts herself off. Is it weird if she says home? It's not her home.

He fills in the blank. "Home?"

Her strong attachment to the manor doesn't go unrecognized. She has her own memories there and just like parts of this Gotham, it must seem like familiar ground. A connection. In his continued effort to be honest, he replies, "I'm afraid it won't be the same."

It makes perfect sense. Nothing is exactly the same when you rebuild. Still, the prospect of seeing it wholly different is more disappointing than she thought it would be.

"Yeah," she says, doing her best to shake it off. "I know. I mean, it's obvious."

She leans back in her chair, letting out a breath. It's not her home. It makes her antsy, anyway, so there's no point in being bothered by it. "So what made you start? Rebuilding."

He's gone to great lengths to make it as similar to the original as possible. It won't be wholly different, just new. But he'll know it's new, a substitute for the grand old lady that shaped him. When it's finally finished, he'll take her on a tour. Hopefully it won't disappoint.

There's so much he could tell her in reply that he doesn't. It means giving up too many details about a life she knows nothing about. He sticks strictly to his public life when answering, his expression both sad and serious. "A lot of good people were killed in Metropolis. Wayne Financial was destroyed. It took a long time to get through that."

"I read about that." The truth is, Metropolis - for all that they could manage decent pizza - had freaked her out from the start. Learning that aliens were an actual thing had left her the most off balance she'd felt in the past five years, ever, maybe, and it had made her miss her Gotham more than it had any right to. Just seeing the clean up from whatever fight Superman had gotten into in the city had been enough to send her packing pretty quickly.

She hadn't spent a lot of time thinking how it might affect him, but then, she hadn't paid much attention to the businesses that had been taken down. The white collar world never had much of her concern.

Bruce earned a lot more of it than she was ever comfortable admitting.

Nothing she could say would help here, she knows it: it would sound empty, or unnecessary, and those aren't really things Selina cares for. When they were kids, there were a few times, when bad things would happen, that she would just hug him. It had been easier than finding the right words.

She's not a kid anymore, and he's not the boy in her memories. She doesn't hug him. She does reach out to settle her hand on his, fingers curling around his in a quick grasp.

He appreciates her gesture more than any platitude she could have offered. Squeezing her fingers gently with his thumb, he doesn't try to flip his hand in her grasp or withdraw.

The owner descends on them a second later, bringing the first round of plates. The elderly gentleman smiles, bobs his head, and says a few more words to Bruce in Manderin. Bruce in turn is first in agreement, then slightly taken aback. Lastly dismayed.

The timing is good, and the food comes before she feels like she has to let go. The food itself smells great, though she will, in true Gothamite fashion, act as if it's just good enough.

Selina doesn't waste time serving herself, but she pauses when she sees the reactions playing across Bruce's face.

"What?" Her eyes dart between the two men. "What's wrong?"

Bruce addresses the owner one more time, saying something Selina will undoubtedly recognize. A simple thank you and then they're alone again as he retreats. "He said you have a beautiful smile," he confesses. "He also thinks you're my daughter."

She doesn't bother trying to cover her smile when she catches the old man's meaning. She does, at least, hold back the last.

"He should get his eyes checked," she says, keeping her voice light. "We don't look anything alike." A pause, and then Selina shrugs: his eyesight was good enough to pay her a compliment.

None of that stops the smile. "You are looking gray around the edges, though."

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