#jaysabel

Jason didn’t show up for the actual ceremony. 

Selina and Bruce got to exchange love letters, after all. They didn’t need to be censured that much, anyway. When Selina and Bruce took a turn reading it out loud and made a pause or skipped a section, everyone who didn’t know thought it was about their night live rather night live, and found it cute. People in the know thought it was cute anyhow. It was damn cute alright.

The atmosphere shifted soon after the reception started. Bruce and Selina got their dance, and now was standing around, getting congratulations and well-wishes from family, friends, and people neither one of them knew. Bruce handled everything with his usual Brucie cheer. Selina got bored and stiff after five minutes of this. She almost regretted not bringing up the elopement. Of course, it would probably mean she would need to tell him about the upcoming visit to a doctor a lot sooner than she planned, which would be - tomorrow, she said herself. It wasn’t like she placed so much faith into the marriage as an institution she felt compelled to tell her husband every secret. She planned to keep a few, as Bruce was going to, undoubtedly. Yet. Yet.

But that was tomorrow. Tonight was for celebration. Even if, in her humble opinion, it would be much better if they just snuck out, or if she at least could take off the heels. Still didn’t feel right. Even worse than that. Like every additional hour in these fucking glass slippers make her feet grow a little wider, it felt like. She regretted spending thirty-three thousand dollars on them.

She regretted ever agreeing on this farce. She knew why it was important to make this big public thing out of it, Bruce Wayne the billionaire marrying an ex-con Selina Kyle. Just make them believe there’s nothing to see here, no siree, just a rich playboy getting himself tricked into a no-prenup by a professional gold-digger. People will get bored quickly if they don’t hide. Tomorrow, no one ever would remember anything about this evening.

If Bruce didn’t say or do something stupid, like punch his wayward son in the face in front of everyone. Selina shifted her gaze from a CEO of something or other and his young ‘protege’ to the stifling line of Bruce’s shoulders, who dropped his hand down from where it was resting on Selina’s back. She followed his line of sight.

Jason didn’t inherit Bruce’s sense of style, unlike all others. His hair was sleeked back with too much gel. The clothes he wore looked too much like the suit and red shirt he first appeared in the public eye. And, although Selina wasn’t so catty as to judge other women’s appearances, his girlfriend chose to wear a bright electric blue dress, and they clashed terribly. The dress was shorter than the average length of skirt among attendants but that, on its own, would be fine. But those bizarre long bell sleeves? It would have looked okay if they were shorter, or made of lace, Selina supposed.

Okay, so she was that catty, she allowed herself to admit. Selina was sure she was a perfectly nice girl, otherwise. She looked nice enough, blond, long-legged, empty-headed. Bruce allowed himself exactly one-second glance in her direction, when Jason and his plus one approached them, and then dismissed her outright.

Instead, he moved toward Jason, laughing as fake as Jason’s smile, and giving him one-handed hug, clapping him on the back with too much force.

“Haha,” Bruce said. “After you called security on me in at your casino, I wasn’t sure you would show up.”

Yeah, that little piece of information Bruce didn’t share. Not the fact he decided to meet with Jason, and certainly not how the meeting went. On the other hand, Selina did try to evade him, the last few days.

“Haha,” Jason said. “You wedding? I wouldn’t miss it if I was dead. Selina, you look the loveliest. Sorry, Is, but she is the bride, them's the rules, haha. Selina, Bruce, this is Isabel, my girlfriend.”

Bruce put his hand on Jason's shoulder and squeezed. “I thought Kory was your girlfriend, haha. Or that Artemis woman.”

“Haha, what a joker." Jason clapped Bruce on the chest. "Kory was Dick’s girlfriend, do try to keep us all straight, would you, though it is hard in your case, with how many kids you accumulated over the years, haha. And now she is with Roy. And Artemis, goddess, would she get a laugh out of that!”

“You do look very lovely, really,” Isabel said to Selina, keeping on smiling and trying to ignore Bruce in response.

“Thank you,” she said, try to add a genuine feeling to her smile. Neither she nor the woman was to blame for their men being a little fucked up about each other. “Your dress is one of the kind.”

“Thanks! I sew it special for this evening.”

Bruce turned his gaze to Isabel, then, making a step behind. He was still smiling. The look in his eyes was something he used to get when he had to shake hands with Sionis or Cobblepot, on parties not unlike this one, back in the day.

“How charming but, perhaps, I could offer Jason the name of my tailor? Your design, of course, is very useful, if a bit obvious, if you want to hide any... marks on your hands,” he said. “You shouldn’t have to go to all this trouble, though - it is not like such thing would be surprising, with company Jason keeps. Nobody would bat a lash.”

Jason’s smile slipped from fake to a “what the fuck” category. Isabel’s didn’t change.

“You are very kind! Jason, didn’t you say he was a, how did you put it, a raging asshole? Jason, you were being unfair.” Isabel put one hand on the small of his back and slapped him playfully on his chest with the other, and Jason caught it and took to his lips, kissing her fingers. Isabel turned back to Bruce. “But I love making designs myself, thank you, this dress suits my needs just fine.”

Bruce turned back to Jason, shoving his hands to his pockets. “Pretty, and with a hobby too! How did you meet her?”

“Remember that big fight where I ended up running away from home? And went to Ethiopia, of all places? She was the flight attendant.”

If remembering events before Jason’s death disturbed Bruce, he didn’t show. Except he did, Selina thought, because there he was turning against the poor girl again.

“Oh? And that would make her how old, again?”

This got Jason to drop the smile off his face entirely. Isabel took her hands off him. Jason hissed: “Two years older than me, thanks, not twenty-one.”

It was a strange thing to say. A reference to something. Was Talia that much older than Jason? She didn’t look like she was the same age as Bruce but that wasn’t saying much. Would Bruce even know about them? If he didn’t, should have Selina said something? No, she decided. It wasn’t Bruce’s business who Talia or Jason slept with.

“Hmm,” Bruce said. “So, a stewardess. And you know her for quite a long while, but that’s the first I’m hearing about.”

Jason looked at him in disbelief. Before he could open the mouth, though, Isabel stepped up.

“You know Jason was sixteen then, right? We met again, on a plane, a couple of years back. Didn’t even recognize each other at first. I was just charmed by his obliviousness to my attempt to flirt with him, so I slipped him my number.”

“Doesn’t sound like you, champ,” Bruce said. “Usually you know what you want and you just go for it. And if you don’t, then you don’t want that.”

Jason worked his jaw. Yet, he didn't make any retort, allowing Isabel to speak.

“Well, we went on one date, after that, which was nothing short of disastrous on so many levels,” Isabel said, smiling at Jason. He smiled right back. “Also, our schedules didn’t match up then. Both of our jobs kept us on the road.”

“You told her about your job, champ? Haha, it seems like even I don’t know what you get up to.”

There were limits to even Isabel reserves of patience. She seemed fed up with Bruce ignoring her. She turned to Selina, determining to finish the story. “But after he came back to Gotham, well. It seemed like fate.”

“I’m sure it did,” Bruce chuckled.

At this point, Selina was ready to throttle all three of them.

"I need a drink", she proclaimed.

She meant to go hit the bar but a waiter materialized from a thin air like he was staying somewhere listening in. He had a tray with four glasses full of violet shimmery liquor of some kind.

"Selina," Bruce said when she got the glass.

'Nice of him to finally notice me', she thought, knocking the liquor back, and knocking his hand away. Would be even nicer if Jason didn’t show up to bait Bruce, the night it was supposed to be about her, at all.

"Selina," Bruce said again, his voice even more strained. Jason shifted his stance. Bruce continued, "Alfred wouldn't approve any alcohol  except champagne to be distributed among guests, outside of bar area." Jason shifted again, attempting to grasp the waiter.

The waiter side-stepped though, only one glass splashing the liquid to the ground.

She answered Damian as honestly as she could muster.

Bruce’s opinion didn’t matter.

The only thing she had left to decide is if she wanted to tell him about the appointment. The wedding would be in a few days. She was expected at the clinic a week after that.

Bruce’s opinion didn’t matter. But he had an uncanny ability to know about everyone’s business. And, as Tim said, a tendency to make everything about him. So it was a good chance that he would treat it as his failure, that Selina didn’t think he would be a good father.

Also, she didn’t want to put to test Bruce’s belief in women’s body autonomy vs Batman’s feelings about the sanctity of all life.

She tried to shake these thoughts off. She had nine days to figure it out. It was better to focus on the present.

“What are you thinking about?” she murmured to Damian.

He stopped smiling a little after they shook their hands. God, she hoped she didn’t fuck things up with him. Maybe she should have allowed him to call her mom. With Talia, it wouldn’t be surprising if he wanted another one. Wasn’t that why all the kids took to Bruce so much? Not Dick, probably. He loved his parents. But Tim, yes, and Jason, obviously. That’s how they described - or, rather, alluded to, because never someone raised by Alfred Pennyworth would utter something so crass. Daddy issues.

Selina hoped as hell Damian would grow up without mommy issues. She feared his teenage years. Oh god, but what if Damian got a crush on her then?

“Todd,” Damian replied, and for a second, Selina felt relief. 

Maybe she wouldn’t need to worry about his crush on her. 

“I do not understand why someone so untrustworthy would be allowed to attend the event as important as it is.”

“I thought you found the snitch who sold your team out to Other? And it wasn’t Todd?”

“I did.” Damian said. 

Selina looked at him, prompting, so after a while he turned his head so he would face straight ahead, and continued. Selina couldn’t see his expression, now. But he was talking in that even, calm tone he used when topics he broached were too morbid or distasteful even for him. 

“I was not wrong to suspect Todd though. I was not. He is not loyal to anyone or anything. He was with my father. Then, he was with my mother, for a time. She took him in. Cared for him. Taught him. They were lovers, even. I think. The rumors said, before she managed to strangle them.”

“Rumors,” Selina thought to herself, “or the people who had loose tongues?”.

“I believe it. It was the most selfless thing I ever knew her do. And he still left.”

“If they were together, like that, kid, I wouldn’t say it was totally selfless from her side.” Selina said, half-regretting it as soon as it came out of her mouth because Damian, with all his complex relationships with Talia, did not need to hear this shit about his mother. 

Yet, what he needed to understand, that it wasn’t okay. 

“He was how old? Seventeen? And totally under her influence. I don’t think - Damian, okay, just. You know what the definition of consent is?”

Damian scoffed. 

“He was old enough to fight crime, old enough to kill, old enough to die. You, with your misplaced pity, you are doing him a disservice, robbing him off agency. He was capable of making his own choices. He wasn’t a child.”

It was hard to say, after Damian’s “old enough to fight” part of the speech, if he was defending his mother’s honor against accusation of statutory rape, or was he having entirely different conversation about another boy who grew up too fast and despised being treated as a kid, when it was convenient to people.It was hard to care for Selina. Because this issue was too important to her. And it seemed like Bruce never got around to have a talk with Damian. Not “your body is changing talk”, Damian was probably too smart and educated to need that, but a “yes means yes” talk. Did it mean she needed to do that, catch the ball where Bruce dropped it? Or would it be overstepping? Did she give a damn about overstepping, when the alternative would mean a boy growing up to be an adult with some really messed up views on sex and relationships and sexual abuse and the difference between all that? If she didn’t, how can she just change his mind with one conversation?

“People die at any age,” Selina said evenly. “At sixteen, at eleven, at six. In the cradle. It does not make you a grown-up. And people could kill at any age, too.”

Damian lowered his head. That was something she suspected about his life before he came to Gotham.

“Well,” Tim said, swallowing “same thing“ on a tip of his tongue, probably. He sighed. “Joker still goes around moaning he never got an invitation.”

And wasn’t that concerning. So far, Selina knew, Joker killed a bunch of Ra’s assassins, a few Riddler’s henchmen, almost sabotaged her bachelorette night.

“But hey, if Jason gets you something for the wedding - that’s right up his valley!”

Somehow, Selina didn’t think Bruce would be appreciative of dead Joker as a gift. even if she certainly would be. Besides, wasn’t that what Bruce was doing, away at night?

“No,” she and Cassandra both said. Selina gestured to her to go ahead - the girl was too quiet as it is, it was always nice to hear her speak.Cassandra nodded at her and continued, shaking her head at Tim. “He will leave it to Harley.”

“Barbara said that?” Tim scrunched up his nose. “Or he did? I mean…”

“I do not talk to him.” Cassandra said.

Tim looked like he wanted to argue with her about that, so Selina added.

“Besides, he already gave me a gift.”

She told them about that night, in the club. It would be ruined if not for him.  She wasn’t sure how did he even know about this club. She doubted Bruce even knew she used to go there. When everything was so shitty she just needed to get out of her head for a while. Drum and bass helped. Moving her body along the music helped. 

He looked familiar with the club, then. He seemed full with the same nostalgia she felt herself, getting there after almost thirty years since the last time.It would be less for him. Yet he looked there even more out of place than she was, with her girlfriends, all in designer dresses and heels.

“Wanna dance?” she asked, then. Not out of pity. She just felt that mix of being calm (or, not anxious) and excited, and she wanted to share it.

“Yeah,” he said, longing, watching people around them move. 

But he left.

Tim’s face read “that’s surprisingly decent of him”. 

Selina decided not to tell about the check Bruce wrote to him. And then she changed her mind - it was ridiculous. Bruce being passive aggressive at Jason with writing the Jason’s name at the check, which he couldn’t legally use. Jason coming back from dead in the eyes of law, just to spite him, and probably using the money he got to buy out the business of one of Bruce’s main villains. It was hilarious, wasn’t it?

But Cassandra looked upset. Tim, though, snorted.

“Bruce wishes it was about him. Jason probably has yet another crazy scheme, or maybe it’s Bizarro who does. They probably want to hostile-takeover all the legitimate fronts of Gotham crime bosses or something like that.” 

For a moment, his face turned thoughtful, as if he considered if it was worth to make Wayne Enterprises to look into it themselves. He shook his head and turned back to Selina. 

“Not everything we do is about Batman. It’s, frankly, a little insulting to imply this. Even about Jason, though yes, he had a worst case of it for a while. He got better though, some time after he got with Outlaws.”

Cassandra nodded. “Support system.”

“Yeah. Me, Dick, Cass, even the little demon? We all have our own teams. And before Roy and Kori, and later Artemis and Biz, and  others, he was too warped, wrapped around Bruce, because that’s all he knew. Of course he would cling to it. But now he doesn’t actually need Bruce anymore. He even got a girlfriend, now! He moved on, you know. But in Bruce’s mind, he didn’t. Bruce’d done it before, you know. Preserved Jason in a neat glass case - not the actual memories of him, but the idea, you know. Used to teach me, or Cass, even Steph, a lesson.”

Tim threw the fork on the table.

“Now, though, I don’t even know why he does this. But that’s just another version of Jason under a glass.”

“You’re very passionate about him,” Selina observed. She smiled knowingly.In her head, there were a lot of bells, ringing aloud “what the fuck? what the fuck?”, so she was glad she sounded light-hearted and amused.

Cassandra grinned too, and elbowed Tim. Tim groaned exasperatedly. 

“Cass, for the love of… I know you and Steph love to insinuate things, and you must feel validated with Selina on your side? But just because a man expresses a little empathy…”

“Doesn’t mean he has a crush on his brother?” Selina finished.

“Come on! It even sounds wrong! But more than that - he tried to kill me! More than once!”

Cassandra’s face was fake-innocent. “You say he is better.”

“Don’t throw my own words at me! I said it just so you would at least try to meet him, get to know him…” All playfulness went from Cassandra’s face or tone. 

“He is a killer still. Horrible things happen to people every day. You are not a killer. I am not a killer. Selina is not a killer. Bruce is not a killer.”

Tim rubbed his brow. 

“He was a killer, Cass.”

Cassandra carefully placed her fork beside her plate, carefully stood up and carefully closed the door behind her.Tim sighed and run his hand through his hair.

“Shit. I promised I’d lay off - wouldn’t pressure her into getting to know Jason. It’s just…” 

He looked at Selina, almost desperate to explain himself. 

“She doesn’t like him but she doesn’t know him. All she heard was from Bruce, and police and news reports, and that was enough to her to form an opinion. Which is - valid, with her background. But only if she’d dig deeper! I mean, isn’t it the reason why we don’t kill? Because, ultimately, everyone is capable of change? Not anyone is beyond redemption? Radical Forgiveness is a chicken soup for the soul? I don’t know!”

Selina said, mustering her own thoughts on the matter, “You forgive a person not based on a philosophy, or moral, or ethics, but because you want to forgive them.”

Bruce, it looked like, didn’t.

“But,” Selina added. “Nobody owes someone forgiveness.”

“I just want everyone to get along,” Tim said, miserable. “Sometimes it feels like it just me. It feels - sometimes, I think family is a lie. Like families don’t even exist. Just a bunch of people, together. By blood, or by circumstances.”

Marriage.

Selina rubbed the lower back. This conversation, hunched over a breakfast bar, was taking it tall in more ways than just being emotionally exhausting. 

“Family,” she said slowly, “is when you’re making a choice to stay together.”

“Are we?”

“Perhaps we should all be more pro-active about staying in touch,” Selina offered. “I will talk to Bruce - family dinners every Friday, how does that sound?”

“Dick won’t show up. And if Jason does - you’re going to regret it.”

“When we won’t invite him anymore. So family would be when you’re making a choice to stay together and not be a dick to others, how does that sound?”

Tim smiled weakly.

From his face, and a wrapped cut on his hand, it was obvious Alfred saw the news already, so it didn’t come as a surprise.

Alfred still asked Bruce, though. 

“My boy, are you sure it’s the right course of action?”. 

Bruce nodded, tersely, and it all was as though a life or death situation, not a guest list.

Selina couldn’t hold a laugh.

“Come on, Alfred!” She said. “You raised the boy. Are you saying you’re not confident in your manner-instilling skills?” 

“I love Jason as if he is my own,” Alfred said, not looking from Bruce. “But he was here with me only for a short while, and I wasn’t a best guardian for him, as things turned out. Besides, he had other influences in life, less healthy.”

“He will be fine.” Bruce said, frowning and meeting Alfred’s gaze. “Jason will, undoubtedly, make everything as difficult as possible, for everyone, including himself. But he knows where the line is. I doubt even at his most bitter he would want to cross it.” 

“While I am quite confident in you and your opinions usually,” Alfred said, “It is a rather special case with Jason. You could never quite predict him, could you?” 

“No,” Bruce said, and there was a hint of a smile, damn it. Selina was sure of it. “I could not.” 

Alfred sighed.“I better give him the invitation personally, next time I see him. Perhaps, it would sooth some feathers, at least.” 

“And when would it be?” Bruce frowned again. “Your Sunday dinners - are you doing it again?” 

“Indeed, we are. Master Jason is in Gotham again, after all.” 

Alfred looked at Bruce like he dared him to comment on it. Bruce didn’t.

Selina decided not to approach Alfred about Jason either. 

Not when Bruce could hear it, at least.

So she approached him early next morning, while Bruce was still sleeping off the patrol. Why he still bothered with them, Selina didn’t quite get; Gotham didn’t get calmer than that. All the villains - except, maybe, Joker - seemed to lie low. Nobody saw or heard from Black Mask in a while. Mr Freeze was in a total compliance of his parole terms. Ivy and Harley did they own thing, outside of city limits. They probably wouldn’t show up even at the wedding, which, Selina was slightly discomfited about. Even if making them tone down their… everythingness, to fly under radar of civilians, would be cruel, so it was for the best, all things considered. Penguin sold his business and ran away to Europe, probably, or perhaps Canada, nobody was too sure. Maybe Hood would know but it’s not like Selina would ask. 

Gotham, Batgirl and Spoiler handled things on street-level. Bizarro’s organized crime prevention algorithms, Selina heard from grapevine, did horrible, horrible things for business. A robot-suited vigilante whose identity Bruce didn’t know about, named Wingman, helped to put Bizarro’s schemes into action, if GCPD dropped the ball.

So there wasn’t much for Bruce to do. Yet there he was, and at home, at nights, he wasn’t.

He didn’t trust the quiet, Selina mused. Perhaps he was right to do so. He had more experience in that hero business than her, he would know.

Most importantly, it gave Selina an opportunity. So she used it.

Damian wasn’t there, Selina usually had the same sleeping habits as Bruce, yet she had a feeling she would find Alfred in the kitchen, and she wasn’t wrong.

“Smells delicious,” she said moderately-cheerful.It smelled, if she was frank, stomach-turning. 

Lately, her nose was more sensitive, probably because she didn’t hang out with chain smokers anymore. Selina almost tasted the burnt sugar in the air.

“You are too kind, Miss Kyle,” Alfred said dryly, throwing out the contents of the pan in the garbage bin. He almost murmured to himself, adding something or other to the batter in a bowl. “Making waffles, I do not know what I was thinking, honestly. I never got it right, not to his standards. Perhaps, today I will have to show up empty-handed.” 

“Show up where? Your Sunday dinners with Jason?”

Alfred looked back at her, then, more alert than he was previously, as only now he shed the heavy feeling of failure he wasn’t used to feel, and thus reveled in every time he did.

“Brunch,” he said after a slight pause, like he weighted if he could trust her with this tidbit of information. Selina didn’t know if she was supposed to be hurt about it. “This time. Today… our plans slightly changed, and we can’t meet at a diner, as was our habit before. So I thought perhaps whipping up his favorite brunch food would be nice.”

“So you’re coming over to him, right?” No way Jason Todd was invited to Manor, after all. “Don’t want to give him the invite in public?”

Selina didn’t understand, really, what the big deal about it was. Yet, she allowed that she wasn’t around for the worse of Red Hood’s post-resurrection rampage. Maybe all the tip-toeing and the drama was deserved.

Probably not.

“It was actually Master Jason’s idea and invitation,” Alfred said, turning away again and making himself busy with a teapot. 

Selina shrugged mentally and made herself a coffee.

Fuck, where did they buy these beans? The coffee tasted like acid.Her stomach growled. She tried to drown out the noise by asking Alfred another question. Also, she was curious, which - for cats, curiosity was something life-bringing, if you remember the second part of the famous proverb. 

“Any special occasion?” 

Alfred hesitated to answer again.

“Yes, actually.” He looked at the cup of tea he was holding between his hands as though it had all the answers. 

Selina was slightly jealous. Her cup contained nothing more than vile poison. Maybe a smudge of milk would rescue it? She tried it out. It didn’t.

“I do not know for sure,” Alfred continued, when Selina ceased to expect it.

It was as though - no, it was exactly that Alfred didn’t have anyone else to talk about it with. People who knew Jason Todd and Alfred both were few and far between. Those who would be willing to talk about him, to Alfred, Selina had a feeling, were even fewer. None, maybe, except her.

She didn’t know Jason Todd though, not exactly. When he was Robin, Bruce kept them separate. It made sense. At the time their relationships has gotten worse. At best, what they had was very charged hate-sex. Sometimes it felt like Bruce was trying to prove something to himself. Selina, at the time trying to prove to herself she didn’t like or needed him all that much, didn’t really try to figure it out all that hard.

“But I think he wants to acquaint me with someone.”

“His teammates?” 

“No, I met Miss Grace and Mister Bizarro already, and, of course, I knew Miss Anders and Mister Harper from the time they were first friends with Master Dick. No, I think, perhaps it’s a girl,” Alfred said, and added quietly. “Or, a boy. A man. A person.”

“Oh?” Selina smiled. “That’s cute. Did he do that before? Invited people home so you could meet them and give them a seal of approval?”

“No.”

Alfred drunk some tea, carefully.

“No, he did not. There was no one to… take home, or for me to - to meet.”

“Seriously?” 

Alright, so Selina just said to herself that she didn’t really knew Jason when he was a kid. But what she did glimpse of him - he seemed to have such boisterous personality. Maybe he was brash, or even rude. But so full of life. And, before he died, he was, how old again?

“He lived with you guys for three years, right? Until he was sixteen?”

Alfred didn’t reply, even something like “he had other concerns - being vigilante”, maybe because that never seemed to stop Dick. Or, “he preferred to focus on his studies”, which didn’t put a wrench on Tim’s social life, as far as Selina remembered what little she knew about it (though Tim didn’t finish high school, so). Or, “there weren’t that much people he had shared or similar life experience with” - perhaps Damian’s chances of that were even less and yet he had good, even great friends. He must have - otherwise where was he spending all his days and sometimes nights, weekends? Not even “his upbringing left him emotionally stunted and incapable of forming meaning relationships with his peers”, which would fit Cassandra to a point - the point where she overcame it far quicker than Selina herself had. And her father wasn’t even 40% of messed up David Cain was. 

“It sounds great,” Selina offered. “It’s great you and him still have such great relationships.”

“Hmm. I am afraid - we don’t, not really. He treats me with fondness. As though I am a relic from simpler times, even if when he actually lived here it was everything but simple. We did not get along at first, and I am ashamed to confess my own distrust of the situation, whether or not it was deserved, was as much at fault as his limited ability to trust adults.”

He chuckled, staring at the wall. His eyes were slightly shimming. 

“Did you know he was quite stubborn of allowing me to call him Master Jason? He would rant or call me “Mister Pennyworth” to rile me up right back. I don’t think he ever understood why I choose to address the family so. He still, I’m quite certain, doesn’t. He allowed it and continues to allow it because it gives him a certain level of detachment. I am a well-meaning, somewhat-competent butler, an old and lonely man, to be indulged. Never family.”

“That’s awful,” Selina said, unexpectedly for herself.

But she felt for Alfred right now, she really did.

“Never family,” Alfred repeated, and he returned back to Selina, meeting her eyes. “So I am, in his eyes, safe. You wouldn’t know but - Master Jason found his father, again. His biological one, presumed dead for even before Jason came to live with us. He consciously decided he was not going to - to build relationships with him. He refuses even to acknowledge a link between them. So, I wouldn’t call it awful. It is what it is. Perhaps, what I even deserve. After all, when it was required, I failed to protect him.”

“Alfred, stop. Even Bruce couldn’t - you wouldn’t want Bruce to blame himself for Jason’s death, would you?”

“It is not what I meant.”

Selina felt a creeping feeling of nausea. This fucking coffee.

“Excuse me for a moment,” she said, not quite running to the nearest bathroom. 

When she returned to the kitchen, it was already empty. Seemed like Alfred had enough sharing for the day. Or, as she suspected, for the next century.

“Why can’t you just pay people for doing it?” she wanted to ask. But he had. They had a wedding planner, and almost everything that needed to be coordinated, went through Alfred. Yet, they were still expected to have opinions. Final say. Participate in cake tastings. Stand still for dress fittings. Care.

She didn’t care. She had a feeling both her and Bruce would be much happier if they, say, eloped. Kidnapped a priest, or a judge, maybe. Got where they first met - on a roof, Gotham down below them, shining. Just they two. And someone to officiate it. And two witnesses, so that’s five. Alfred, of course, and break Holly out of prison wouldn’t be that hard, would it? It would be no less romantic, no less a powerful gesture than this thing they have to do.

More, even. They could exchange silly and sincere letters with all the unspoken words between them, do it instead of vows, because neither of them could actually promise to be there for another, not with their lives.She wanted to suggest it, on the way home.

She didn’t. 

This whole thing, stretched out in time, with all this pressure on her, on them - it helped, actually. It helped her that there was a plan and expectations and deadlines. Everything so organized. It meant she had to show up. She was a burglar first and foremost, and all burglaries required a plan, and that’s what she trained herself to do. She wouldn’t step outside of it without circumstances shifting.With eloping, there wasn’t such a safety net containing her, making her stick to the plan, because there wasn’t a plan.

And she could see that night, the night of bachelorette party, when, at the end of it, almost morning, when they all went home, Red Hood accosted her outside of the building.

It wasn’t hard to remember what he said to her. But it was terrifying.

“You are good for him,” he said. “You are good, period. But… Good people do dumb things for wrong causes, make wrong choices for dumb reasons, all the time.”

She remembered the feel of his gloves when he took her hands in his, his voice, “Don’t break his heart, please” - as though it would break him if she did. As though it would break Bruce.

And she replied to him, “Kid, I’m not good. I’m not bad either. I’m practical”, and rolled her eyes, and shoved him away.But after that meeting - she though, perhaps it is best not to give herself a chance to break Bruce’s heart.

So she tortured herself today, with the dress, and cakes, and table sittings, and new heels. It would be nice if Bruce got the hint, when she groaned tiredly and wiggled her toes, and started to massage her feet again.

He didn’t, so she had to open her eyes, and she saw him staring at the TV screen, his fists squeezed so tight she was glad he wasn’t holding her feet at the moment. There was a carefully blank expression on Bruce’s face, the kind where Selina, at the start of their relationships, would be hard pressed to say if it was mad or it hid a grin. She couldn’t quite figure it out now, surprisingly, so she turned her had to the screen where a news segment from E!Gotham was broadcasting.

“Honestly? The position came up out of blue and I saw an opportunity. Naturally, I asked myself… "

“That’s good,” Selina smirked, seeing Vicky Vale shoving her microphone under Jason’s nose. He looked good, with his hair longer, in a shirt with real sleeves. “Now you can finally send him an invite and not worry about how it would look to get your dead son to show up at the reception.”

Bruce said, “He is not my son,” and got up rather suddenly, turning the TV off, right after “What would Bruce Wayne do?”. So alright, it wasn’t a smirk after all. “He made it clear he does not consider us his family when he told me to write him a check, after I asked him to be around on the night of your bachelor party. That’s when he got the idea, I bet. I did it, and I wrote down Jason Peter Todd as recipient. He probably bought the club with this money.”

Selina sighed. “Yes, he’s stubborn and contrary, that’s totally not something he would learn from you. But how about not looking a gift horse in the mouth and using that rare chance to reconcile? I talked with him, you know. He cares about you.”

Bruce took a step forward, closed to the TV screen, now black and shiny, but not enough for Selina to decipher the expression on his face in the reflection. His stiff shoulders did not give away much.

“Believe me, he wants to go to our wedding as much as I want to invite him. Drop it.”

Men. Honestly.