fille_fatale | ( IC CONTACT )

"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."

He can take the good natured ribbing. The gray doesn't bother him as much as it used to. "My father started going gray in his late 20s. I consider myself lucky I made it to at least 40."

"No idea what he had to go gray over." She murmurs it, momentarily distracted; at least forty, he said. He's probably more than twice her age, now, and she can still remember when she was taller than him. It's strange, like deja vu is strange, only the weird part is that she hasn't been here before.

The moment passes, and the smirk comes back full force.

"I should probably just be glad you haven't gone full on silver fox on me."

Looking back, he knows he wasn't the easiest child. Disappearing for hours on end without telling anyone where he was going was fairly routine. He must have driven them crazy with worry. "Don't wonder off, dear," his mother often told him, maintaining her composure. He's drawn out of the self-reflective moment by her smirk.

"Give it time."

"I'm not really the patient kind."

She doubts there's a Selina Kyle out there, in any universe, who is. "It kind of suits you, anyway." She reaches up, fingers brushing the gray along his temple. "Makes you look--" she purses her lips, looking for the right word, and shakes her head.

"Never mind. Distinguished makes you sound dull."

He stills beneath her fingertips, ignoring the flutter in his stomach and the tightness at his chest.

It's a word he's heard used before. He supposes there are worse things to be called. "I'd settle for 'handsome'."

"Bet you would." She gives him the kind of smile that says she agrees, but she's not going to say it.

She's also trying to rewrite him in her head, to put the cute kid she remembers out of mind and put the handsome man in his place. They're not the same person, she knows that; she's not sure if she's convincing her head or her heart of that fact.

Leaning back again, Selina tends to her food before cocking her head at him. "So what kind of crazy has Gotham been up to, lately?" She's learned a few things. They're hard to believe.

That telltale smile of hers is better than a verbal confirmation.

"What kind of crazy are you interested in? Social? Business? Politics? I could talk your ear off for hours. Gotham's never been short on wild stories."

"You're telling me." She says it wryly: the Narrows were here home for a long time. Wild stories is pretty much everything she remembers.

"I was thinking more--" She doesn't let herself say criminal, and quirks her mouth to the side. "Metropolis had Superman, right?" And her tone says that she still thinks that's a special kind of bullshit. "I heard talk about some guy who dresses up in a cape, here."

Talking about himself in third person when it comes to his nightly persona has become second nature. His response is as smooth as silk. "Batman? He's old news."

Selina snorts, shaking her head. "Yeah, well not to me." The capes were definitely kept to a minimum in her memory. "What's the deal, then? Is he in with the cops?"

"I don't think so. But there's a signal they use that sits on top of Police Headquarters to get his attention. I hear nobody has access to it but Jim. It's been taken down a couple times but it always goes back up. It seems to cycle with the mayoral opinion."

Jim. She's almost taken aback.

"Jim Gordon? What makes him so special?" She wouldn't be surprised to find he made his way back into the PD, but it's a big city, and a lot to learn."

"The same." At least in name. The man she knew likely bears little resemblance to Bruce's long time friend.

"He's Police Commissioner. Although I don't know for how much longer. He's thinking about retiring."

The image drags a laugh out of her. Gordon was a young man the night the Waynes were murdered, and that...well, it does feel like a short lifetime ago. But the idea of Gordon retiring?

“Wow. Never thought this city would be clean enough for him to be a—“ she waves her hand, not entirely sure of the rankings and titles in the police department. “A captain, let alone the commissioner. And he made it long enough to retire?”

She whistles, shaking her head. “I’m kind of impressed.”

From what he gathers, Jim Gordon was a stand up kind of guy in her Gotham as well. It pleases him to hear it. He hopes it's a universal constant. "He was instrumental in cleaning up the department. He's got to be in his... seventies? Good man."

The declaration is similar in tone to his comments on Donald Sanders all those years ago, sincere and wholehearted.

Everyone has their demons, especially in Gotham. Selina knows a little of Gordon's - she just didn't care that much, unless he was trying to get her into the system. Fortunately for him, though he tried harder than just about every cop she's ever dealt with, he was also a lot more willing to listen to a streetwise kid who claimed to see a few murders.

She recognizes his tone of voice. "You two are still friends?" It's not a surprise, really - but the idea is kind of...nice. He's not the kind to hold onto friendships easily.

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