The Wendigo and The Lionheart (A Gotham TV: Bruce/Selina fan fiction)

Young Blood 2

Selina

The long dark hall outside the study was chilly enough to cause goosebumps beneath the soft sweater Selina wore, but she ignored the sensation as she faced the large double doors. It was one of the two sets that opened up beside the fireplace and she knew that there was only a one in three chance that the current occupant would likely being facing her approach. Judging from the golden light that crept along her toe line, the room was decently lit likely killing the person's night vision and darkness, always her greatest ally, had cloaked her in shadows. But that didn't stop her ducking her head from eye level as she turned the doorknob.

The well-oiled hinges made no sound as she slowly eased the ancient wooden door open. Despite the hour, the fireplace was burning high its bright flames tinting everything in the study with a palette of golds and browns. Including the young man seated not so regally in the center of his couch.

He was hunched forward his thin navy robe left unbelted and pushed to either side of his dark pajama clad knees as he studied something spread open on the coffee table. Even bent, his shorter hair stayed perfectly in place. The haircut, that she had pointed out he needed, still left him looking as if he had traveled from a different century, but her favorite stubborn lock no longer fell across his brow robbing her of the opportunity to push it back into place.

Pushing down her disappointment she followed the thin black cords that dangled from his ears to the small black box they were connected to and the neat stack of oversized leather books beneath it. Curiosity pricked her senses as she recognized the thick spines and gold-lettering.

She could not quite remember when he would have had the time to go back and get the illusive photo-albums, but then again, she and Bruce didn't spend every waking moment together either. If they had, being two creatures so accustomed to their own forms of isolation, they would have eventually driven each other insane, and the overcrowded tabletop was probably a good example of that.

Neither she nor Bruce were exactly in the habit of cleaning up after themselves and the remains of their evening were littered across the coffee table. Two books he had chosen and her deck of cards still lay forgotten and unused beside the board game that had ended with Bruce turning ten shades of red and almost forfeiting.

In hindsight, she still stuck with her decision to play her last two letter tiles. It hadn't been her fault that Bruce had refused to bend the rules and allow her to use the alternate spelling to sucks, or that as she had so flippantly tried to explain to him, that the rules stated that she had to get rid of those S and X tiles somehow.

In the end, Bruce had soldiered on and proved he didn't talk like a dictionary for nothing. He had squarely crushed her, but the color that had spread from the curve of his cheeks to the dip in his throat had been a victory of her own making. It wasn't something she was particularly proud of but she could admit it to herself, getting Bruce flustered, watching his eyes widen and his cheeks color, was one of the few things that gave her true enjoyment.

Now, studying the stoic face bent over pages filled with motionless memories, there wasn't even the tiniest hint of a blush.

She wasn't surprised, Bruce brooding wasn't exactly a rare occurrence, but she struggled to understand what could possibly be among those pages that would have put a crease in his brow.

True she had never met his parents, had never had any more than a glimpse of what Wayne family life had been like, but she was positive that there been warmth there. There had to have been. Because it had been laughter, genuine laughter, his laughter that had stopped her climb up a rain soaked fire-escape, had made her pause and watch a family of three.