"Everything, er, alright, Master Bruce?" Alfred asked from the doorway.
Bruce had started reapplying his eye makeup for the fourth time. He glanced at Alfred in the mirror's reflection, and mumbled something about it looking stupid. Alfred didn't probe further, instead remarking casually on the lateness of the hour.
"Shit. I'm late." Sighing defeatedly, Bruce put his mask on and walked over to his motorbike.
"DON'T wait up," he called out, pulling on a bulky raincoat over his costume. "Seriously."
***
Selina was waiting impatiently by her own motorcycle, down a dark alley somewhere between Crime Street and Murder Road. "Are you always late, or did my feminine wiles just disarm you so much you lost all sense of direction?"
"The latter. And I'm not that late."
"I have had to send three men to the hospital since I parked."
"You picked the location. Next time pick one that's not so heavily frequented by dropheads."
They paused in their conversation to absolutely obliterate a blitzed-out dealer who had stumbled up and asked if they were in the market for an eight ball.
Selina smiled. "What would be the fun in that?"
***
For the past few weeks, Batman and Catwoman had been meeting like this, teaming up to fight crime in every corner of the city. It was she who had approached him, coming back to Gotham as abruptly as she had left. A few days in, when he asked her why she'd returned, she shrugged. "I didn't count on other places feeling so boring, I guess."
She didn't say:
Or so lonely
, but they both heard it anyway.
This night was no different than the rest. They kicked asses, took names, and did some detective work to find the big guns. But at 4AM, the time when they had generally parted ways and made plans for the next time, Batman instead grunted, "Are you free?
"Free?
Now
?"
It was hard for her to tell, but he seemed vaguely embarrassed.
"I - do you have to go straight home?"
"I'd like to see my bed at some point, yeah. I'm tired."
"Of course. Then I'll see you - "
She loudly cut him off. "Unless you've got a bed I could see. C'mon, Bat. I even set that up for you!"