fille_fatale | ( IC CONTACT )

"Always has, always will," is his quick reply. But it's clear he also loves Gotham, otherwise he would have left a long time ago and taken his business with him. Gotham is home. It's in his blood.

"It's been more than a few years. Where've you been spending your time?"

"Oh, you know. Here and there." Vagueness has been her bread and butter since she was a kid. Plenty of cops in Gotham were too damn tired to put up with it, and more inclined to get distracted for a minute so she could disappear.

"Saw your name in the papers, a few times. Must be good to be in control of your company." She knows Bruce was investigating his, back home - but this is home now. There's no point thinking about him.

He could press her for a more complete answer but he already knows the basic details. Keeping himself from watching her journey too closely has been a difficult task, the inherent instinct to protect her still very much alive and well. So he lets the comment slide, accepting it as enough for now.

A short walk away is a modern Benz gullwing. No vintage automobiles for them today. "Don't believe everything you read. I never lost control."

She doesn't wonder about the differences - he's not the Bruce she watched obsess over the fine details of his board of directors. Instead, she makes a quiet noise in the back of her throat, acknowledging noncommittally.

"Yeah, you don't seem the type."

When she spots the car, Selina shakes her head as she whistles. "At least you still have a sense of style." When they reach it she stops, pulling her arm from his so she can face him, leaning against the Benz. "Where you headed?"

It's her way of making herself clear: just because she's back doesn't mean things will go back to the way they were.

He would never presume. Especially after the way in which they parted. But if he were just seeing her again for the first time in many years, he would be struck by the changes that have taken place. She's grown into a confident young woman. Gone is the teenager just scraping by. He can't say he expected anything less. "Back to the office. Can I drop you someplace?"

He still has her shoes.

Sometimes you have to leave home to grow up. Sometimes you have to get trapped in an alternate universe. Maybe it was a little of column A, a little of column B for Selina. A smirk quirks the corner of her mouth; she seems satisfied with his answer.

That doesn't stop her from leaning forward to pluck the bag from him.

"You could. Or you could blow off the office, and I'll let you buy me lunch."

Her smirk is familiar and disarming so the bag slips out of his possession with ease. He was half hoping she would forget about the footwear, giving him an excuse in the future to return them.

"That's very generous of you," he teases, reaching into his pocket to click a button. The doors of the gullwing begin to swing upward and open. "Chinese?"

There's still a chance: depending on lunch, Selina half intends to leave them in his car. She's gotten better at that, in general - at not feeling like she has to cling to what little she has, at adjusting on the fly and not being angry with everyone around her when she's really just angry at herself.

Okay. She's still working on that last part.

When the car doors begin to open, Selina just laughs. She doesn't say wow, seriously, doesn't roll her eyes at him. She just gives him a look, and lets that say it all.

"Chinese. Chicago can't make decent lo mein to save their lives."

Boys grow up but they still enjoy their toys. Her laughter and look make him smile. It isn't the well practiced pretend smile he gave the clerk. It's an honest smile that touches his eyes.

He slides in behind the wheel but takes a second to text his secretary about his change in plans before pulling out into traffic. It's less than a five minute drive to a hole in the wall mom and pop restaurant. They've missed the lunch crowd by an hour so the place is practically empty. The owner greets them at the door, speaking enthusiastically in Mandarin. Bruce replies in the same language before he shows them to the table in the back. The menu has no English translations.

Ah. There's the real Bruce. Seeing his smile makes hers soften, just a little, just around the edges. It suddenly feels easier - like she was telling herself what is, is, but now she believes it.

The ride is too short, and she decides that, if not today, at some point she is going to drive this car down a straightaway at much too high a speed. It'll be worth having to cry her way out of a ticket.

The conversation that follows just gets a raised eyebrow from Selina, and she only glances at the menu before snorting at Bruce. "Gee, why didn't I think to teach myself Chinese?" She knows a handful of words and phrases - enough to follow the gist of their conversation, if not the details - just from growing up in about as diverse and area as Gotham gets, but she's not about to tell him that, yet.

It has an insane top speed. She'll enjoy every second of it.

"I know it doesn't look like much but the food is good." He was about to say 'authentic' but that's not really why he comes. The food is good and the owners treat him well, leaving him alone when he wants to be alone. He's never brought a date or business here. He picks up his chair and walks it around the table. Placing it beside her, he takes a seat at her shoulder. Then he proceeds to walk her through the menu systematically. "Or," he finishes, "just ask them for anything. The cook likes a challenge."

"You don't have to explain a hole in the wall to me, Bruce." She practically grew up around them, after all - stealing from some, patronizing others. When he joins her on her side of the table she watches him, eyes sharp and unblinking. There are a lot of reasons people call her Cat.

She lets him go through the menu, though she's only half paying attention: the food doesn't really matter to her. Being back in Gotham matters. And maybe hanging out with Bruce Wayne again matters, but only a little. She won't let herself admit to much else.

"I like being challenging." That seals it: screw the menu. Bring on the dim sum.

The scrutiny doesn't seem to bother him, although he's acutely aware of it. His actions are strictly gentlemanly, close but not invasive.

He had a feeling she'd say that and he can actually find the statement amusing now. Five years does a lot for sharpening a man's perspective. Once they've ordered, he scoots back and cocks his chair so he can sit face to face again with her, the table at his elbow. "What else doesn't Chicago do well?"

There are plenty of people she wouldn't have allowed to get as close as this, but Bruce Wayne - just about any Bruce Wayne, it seems - is rarely one of those people.

"Pizza." The answer comes immediately, with raised eyebrows. Chicago should not be allowed to make pizza at all. She cocks her head to the side, shrugging one shoulder. "But Metropolis managed that okay. You didn't tell me I had aliens to look out for."

"Didn't realize I needed to." There might be one person who lives in a cliff monastery in some remote corner of the world who doesn't know about Superman. His good deeds, death, and resurrection were splashed all over network television, newspapers, and social media. Her comment does drive home a particular point. A lot has happened in the world since they last saw each other.

"Chicago. Metropolis. Sounds like you traveled a lot." He has a hard time imagining Selina calling anyplace but Gotham home.

She lets it go rather than pointing out that for all the freaky shit back home, aliens weren't among them; five years has been enough to make it clear that this is home, now, and everything from before has been relegated to memory.

It hasn't been so bad: she already had to do it with her mother.

Leaning forward, one elbow on the table, chin propped in her hand, she gives him a lopsided smile. "Never made it to Miami. Thought I'd see if there were any Falcones down there." It had been a passing thought at best, and she'd made it to Baltimore before bailing on the plan. Selina's loyalties had never been tied to the don - hell, she'd helped Fish try to kill him.

She's past hitching her cart to whatever rising criminal star comes up on Gotham.

"Gotham's got something nowhere else does, though."

He's far too taken with that lopsided smile right up until she drops the "F" bomb. In this case, Falcone. He tenses but tries not to let the surprise creep into his expression. The last remaining Falcone family members have been dead for years but their lives were a blight on Gotham. Not one of them turned out well. Everyone and everything they touched went to hell. He's glad she never followed up on that plan.

"Oh? What's that?" He'd like for her to say 'you' but he's not getting his hopes up.

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.

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