fic: Chinese Boxes 1/11

[01cheers]

Title: Chinese Boxes 
Author: 01cheers 
Pairing: Bruce Wayne/Selina Kyle aka Batman/Catwoman (TDKR) 
Words: ca 75,000 
Rating: PG… mostly

A/N: another fic cross-post from ffnet, this one follows  Catching Up, the shorter fic I posted earlier, but is more of an action flick sort of tale. Forgive my swamping f-list pages; this sucker is pretty big. I’ll try to keep subsequent posts as short above the cut as I can.
This one picks up at the exact point where Catching Up ends, but I like keeping that one as a complete self-contained story. I mentally apologise to the country of China for making my bad guys Chinese... it was sort of inevitable with what plot facts from Catching Up I had to go on as my starting point. 



1. Intro

They sit in the middle of the road, she in the shark-like Sesto, he facing her on the Harley, a subtler menace but a more manoeuvrable one. She kills the engine; he inches closer. She takes her hand off the wheel and rests her arms on it, leaning forward, glaring at him. He pulls off the helmet, shakes his hair loose, and returns her gaze, a male version of the Mona Lisa. The tableau continues for a few seconds; she can’t get past him and he is definitely not about to change that. Finally, she pulls out the key and dangles it at him. Truce.

He drives the remaining five feet up to the window.

“Wanted to get some fresh air?”

When was it that she said these words; about thirty hours ago? How many lifetimes is that?

“Admit it, you have a thing for powerful bikes.”

“And you have a thing for black Lamborghinis.”

“You sure you don’t want to leave your bike here and join me?”

He gives up, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter under the black suede bomber jacket. “Stop it, my belly is hurting. You look good,” he adds, nodding at her outfit.

“I knew you’d like it.” She doesn’t even know how she managed to seemingly remember his every quip from yesterday to say back to him. Then again, so did he. “What’s the plan?”

“The plan, until you started this excursion, was to find a place to eat. And now we have two problems.”

“Namely?” she cocks an eyebrow at him.

“First, we are in two vehicles, which is... inconvenient. Second, you are overdressed for the occasion.”

“I thought you said you liked my outfit,” she quips, her expression that of a petulant teen.

“I like it too much.”

“Ah,” she answers with a sage nod. “So that means you’ll want me to change before we make a spectacle.”

“Would you rather change after?”

“On second thoughts... I don’t suppose you’ve brought any money?”

“Afraid not. I was... otherwise preoccupied.”

“Fine then, I am going back to the hotel for my purse and I’ll meet you back at the villa...”

“How about we go back to the villa and I pick up a wallet and...”

“I am not impressed by your millionaire attitude.”

“I know you’re not. That’s why I am suggesting it.”

She smiles in spite of herself. “Fine. On one condition.”

“Namely?”

“Just for this once, we aren’t racing. My reaction time is still messed up from last night.”

“Don’t worry, so is mine.”

“And we swap. I want to try out this bike.”

“That’s two conditions.”

“I can drop the first one.”

“OK, I accept the two.” He takes the keys from her, hands her the helmet and takes off the suede jacket to give her. “Don’t even think of stealing this one.”

“No worries. I’ve got one of my own. As soon as I get my suitcase.”

She makes it back up the winding road at a relatively sedate 50 mph... which would be fine if he hadn’t been driving all the way right in front of her. In reverse.

***

The girls at the downtown boutique are used to bored Swiss housewives and under-dressed, middle-aged American tourists poking morosely at the size zero racks, not daring to ask how much larger the sizes go. It is hard to tell what piques their interest more, the sight of Bruce limping regally onto the scene wearing his suede bomber again, or of her strolling in wearing men’s satin pyjamas, or the way the two of them shamelessly flirt as she tries on a few dresses.

She picks one, a simple cornflower blue shift, and holds it up to him against her body, poking out of the fitting booth.

“What do you think?”

“Nice.”

“Wait, I’ll try it on and show you how I look in it.”

“I can already see you look better out of it.”

She notices that he is actually looking at the mirror behind her reflecting her stark naked back, and rolls her eyes. “Buying a dress for me doesn’t mean you can get all depraved on me.”

“OK, tomorrow we come back downtown and you can buy something for me. And you can be as depraved as you may wish,” he says after she has disappeared behind the curtain.

“Sounds good. I think I know what I’d like you to get.”

“I’m curious.”

“Something... really...” She pretends to muse on the subject. “...tight.”

“On second thoughts,” he reflects when she gets out to face him again, “I’ll probably stick to doing my own shopping. It does look good,” he adds, this time actually looking at the dress.

“Great.” She shuts the curtain and throws the blue shift at him from behind it. “You go and pay for it, rich boy, so we can get out of here.”

***

“So,” he starts with what sounds like practised nonchalance, “what was the real reason you took off this afternoon?”

They are sitting at another monochrome locale; this one is actually pristine white, a lakeside restaurant halfway up the western shore of Lake Como. It turns out that the one hour’s drive away part can be safely cut by 50%, at least at the rate he drives.

She pretends to look at the surroundings; there is, in fact, plenty to admire. “Any guesses?”

“Obviously, something I did. No, something I said,” he corrects himself, noticing the flicker on her face. “I just can’t figure out what exactly it was.”

“Top three?” she says in a distant voice, making big eyes at him. She decides to drop the business partner thing; it’s too tempting, upon reflection.

He chuckles in what looks like relief. “That was for Theo’s benefit. He is really suspicious of sales talk and bullshit in general. If I’d said the best, he’d have thought I was exaggerating. This way I knew he’d believe me.”

“OK, my bad,” she concedes, covering his hand with hers. “Do I take it that I’ll meet this bullshit-hating sidekick of yours at some point?”

“It’s an open question who the sidekick is,” Bruce counters with a smirk. “He’s been in the company for eight plus years, and was with the Interpol before then. The guy’s pretty good, even if I say it having hired him myself by phone interview. Of course you’ll meet him.”

“Does he have anything against thieves?” she cocks her head at him.

He shakes his head. “Not former ones,” he replies with a mock-meaningful look. “Items of clothing don’t count.”

***

They are on their way back to Lugano when she puts a hand on his arm. “You know something...”

“What?” he shoots her a wary glance before looking back at the road; a sensible precaution at 100 mph.

“I was wondering if we could find someplace nearby to go see a movie. Make it into a classic date, you know.”

She can practically see his shoulders relaxing. “Everything in Lugano closes at 9 pm, that’s Switzerland for you. Try the town of Como, there should be a cinema in there.” She looks it up on her phone; sure enough, there is. He takes the nearest exit to double back and return to Italy. “You realise, of course, that it’s going to be in Italian?”

She stretches in her seat. “Who cares... besides, I want to start studying it.”

“You want to get as close to having sex in a public place as we possibly can,” he replies, not fooled.

“That, too.”

“Pervert.”

“Says the man who wore a bat costume every night - “

“Hey, I didn’t wear it to - “ he slams his hands on the wheel and has to slow down because he is laughing too hard. “OK, stop with the innuendo before I crash into something.”

“All right, all right.” She finally stops laughing herself. “Did you hear that they’re going to make a Batman movie now? The Dark Hero or something?”

The reference no longer puts him on edge, but it is still remarkable how he goes from amused to subdued in the space of two seconds. “I hope it isn’t utter crap. And that whatever back story they have for the Batman it has nothing to do with the truth.”

“You wouldn’t want to see it?”

He seems to ponder it. “Don’t know. I might, but then again, I’ve left it all in the past and I left the city in good hands.” She wants to ask him who he means but figures that it can wait. “I don’t know if I want to live it all over. There’s always been too much... pain... as far back as I can remember. I don’t think I want to go back to that.”

She is both sorry and glad that she asked. “You don’t have to.” She reaches over and strokes his cheek. “And even if you wanted to, I won’t let you. It’s too nice over here,” she adds in a purposely lighter tone. “I could get used to this.”

“So could I.”

It sounds like he means it. She hopes he does.

2. Theodore Reimann and the art of bullshit

“Stop worrying.” She could swear he wasn’t looking at her, watching the road. She has suggested they take the longer route to Wainwright Security offices, following the twists of the Carona road into town and then up into the hills to the northwest rather than take the lift down to the highway.

She could also swear she looks glacially calm. “Who’s worried? I am perfectly relaxed.”

“Is that why you’re making fists?”

She looks down at her hands holding the bag strap in a death grip. So much for keeping up appearances.

“Easy for you to say. I’ve never had a job interview in my life. Or a boss.”

“Guess what, neither have I.” He ignores her dirty look. “And anyway, you’re hired already. Theo may be the general manager, but I do own the company.”

“I want to be a good hire on my own merit,” she argues.

“Is this how you beg for compliments?”

She is tempted to reply with an obscenity, but just sighs instead, a picture of long-suffering patience. “Can you at least tell me a bit about this guy? Ex-Interpol, tolerates former thieves, hates sales talk and bullshit, what else?”

“Late forties, married with two small kids, half German-speaking Swiss, half Italian,” he continues. “His parents must have been an odd couple.”

Yeah, like a former billionaire and a jewel thief.

“What are you smirking at?” Her expression is obviously not lost on him.

“I know other odd ones.”

He has the grace to smile before continuing. “I hired him a few months after I bought Integrated Alarms, hoping that he’d shake things up and drum up business, and he’s done a stellar job. He hates making sales cold calls, but has enough contacts among fellow Interpol alumni who became private contractors. Those alone were enough to give us a respectable eight-figure bottom line the year after he joined, plus he reorganised the company into a structure that actually makes sense, plus as I said, Lucius and I anonymously furnished him with a supply line for the relevant Wayne technology. And he can put queries to Interpol databases through his colleagues who are still there, which is always a useful option, and he knows his stuff and is always curious about new inventions; and he loves tweaking the specs on equipment to make it perform better - he doesn’t have the background to do it himself, but knows enough to ask Research for the right things.” He picks up on her amused expression. “What’s so funny?”

“Listening to you talk like a businessman,” she confesses.

“Well, I was one, at least one third of my time when I wasn’t fooling around or... doing other things.”

“How much does he know about all that?”

“Next to nothing. I’ve built up a credible history for Brandon Wainwright and as far as I know he hasn’t seen through it yet.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That I am a trust fund brat, grew up in a rich family, dropped out of Princeton, then travelled the world, did all sorts of crazy things, dabbled in the stock market, held a managerial position for a while, enjoy martial arts and destroying fast vehicles.” He shoots her a sideways glance. “Nothing but the truth,” he concludes, innocently.

“But not the whole truth,” she observes sarcastically. The memory of being on the receiving end of such treatment is too fresh in her mind; only three days ago this brute of a man told her exactly what had been happening to him, only to turn it on its head three hours later by supplying some previously-omitted additional information.

“No,” he concedes.

“Ever thought of telling him the rest? I mean, if he is ex-Interpol, he’ll figure it out sooner or later no matter what official records you’ve got in your current name, don’t you think?”

Bruce does not reply immediately. From what she’s seen so far, this does not so much mean that he has not thought about the question but rather that he has thought about it a lot and is still struggling with the answer.

“He probably will, but I’m not going to make it happen sooner. I also want to stand on my own merit with him, even if it’s under a fake name, and not be judged based on how many billions I have inherited or given away.”

For once, she thinks, he is not being fair on himself because of the money.

“Giving it away is a merit in itself.”

“Maybe,” he agrees, still sounding uncertain. “But I’d rather not advertise my dead identity to him. Besides,” he continues in the sort of deadpan tone that means he is not entirely, or not at all serious, “if he puts two and two together and makes a connection between the demise of Bruce Wayne and the disappearance of a notorious Gotham vigilante, I’ll really never hear the end of it. The guy makes teasing me into a sport. It’s the Italian in him.”

“I like him already.”

He keeps up the poker face. “Maybe I should retract that job offer. If the two of you team up on me- “

“You retract the offer, I tell him.”

“You tell him, I’ll tell him that you were one of the top twenty, not three. And I’ll swear upon it.”

“And you think he’ll believe you after finding out what a liar you are?”

“He already thinks I am a liar,” Bruce admits, serious now and clearly annoyed. “You have no idea how many times in the past two months I’ve heard don’t bullshit me Mr Wainwright about things I’ve done. And the worst thing is, almost every time I was telling him the truth, but couldn’t prove it without telling him who I was.”

“So for now you keep up the pretence,” she concludes.

“It isn’t that much of a pretence,” he counters. “There’s plenty of what I am in it.”

“Fair enough,” she concedes. Maybe it’s best if he really does not drag the old demons too close to the surface. “Now what should I tell him about myself?”

“The truth,” he offers, unhelpfully.

“That I showed up and tied you up in your own bed and had my- “ If Bruce can be unhelpful, so can she.

He does not answer at once, too busy biting the inside of his cheeks to look serious. “No, not that part.”

“Then what?”

“The professional part,” he manages.

“As in, stealing.”

“Yes.”

“And not a word about tying you-“

“No.”

“He’ll figure that out, too,” she observes sensibly, referring, of course, to the relationship in general rather than the particular episode. The way they still can’t keep their eyes or hands off each other, they’d advertise it in no time.

“Of course he will. I just want to lead him on a bit,” he admits. “Have my revenge for all the unfair don’t bullshit me that I’ve had to listen to.”

“And you want me to play along.”

“If you don’t mind.” There is just the tiniest hint of mischief in his face.

She mirrors his look as best she can. “I kind of wonder, though, if playing games with my future boss is a great way to get on his good side when I want him to like me.”

He takes his eyes off the road to face her. “A guy you want to like you has no chance. You had no such intentions with me, and look at me.”

She wasn’t begging for this particular compliment, and it is a pretty underhand one as compliments go, but she likes it just fine.

***

“Theodore Reimann, known as Theo to family, friends and a few others who can get away with it,” her future boss finishes, looking pointedly at Bruce. “You have the right by extension, Miss Caille.”

“Céline,” she answers as they shake hands.

The man is not what she expected. Perhaps she was expecting a sort of cross between Poirot and the Mario brothers, dark-haired and moustachioed, perhaps she reckoned he’d be portly and relatively short. Theo is almost the same height as Bruce and, if anything, a slimmer build, with somewhat narrower shoulders, short rapidly greying hair and shrewd grey eyes. Always curious, Bruce said; she can see it in his face, and she can see both the business potential and the mischief potential in it.

The three of them walk over to his airy corner office and sit around a coffee table, and she feels the tension seep away. “Mr Wainwright has said very intriguing things about you, Céline,” Theo ventures. “I’d love to know more.” They are speaking English, mostly for her benefit. Bruce told her that between the two of them, by now, they speak in a mixture of English and Italian, but while he has managed to go from near-beginner to fluent in the space of six weeks, her Italian is still best described as embryonic.

She was expecting some degree of scrutiny, but she finds that when it comes in the guise of open curiosity like this, it does not put her on the defensive. “I can give you a short version; feel free to ask about anything you’d like to know more about.” She hopes she won’t need to dodge too many of those questions. “Canadian citizen, twenty-nine, lived most of my life in Gotham stealing jewellery and the like. Never got caught.”

“Not true,” Bruce corrects, helpfully.

“Never got caught by anyone other than Mr Wainwright,” she continues, flashing him a withering look.

“And never had any convictions, presumably?” Theo asks.

“That’s a somewhat different question. I’ve had a conviction, but not for theft.”

Across the table from her, Bruce looks up sharply.

“What for?” Theo asks, either oblivious to his boss’s reaction or ignoring it... or playing into it.

“Kidnapping. I had an - acquaintance - who happened to be a Senator and who took a dim view of our... travel arrangements on one occasion.” She is pointedly not looking at Bruce.

“That’s quite a serious charge,” Theo muses. At least he does not sound judgmental saying it. “How did you manage to avoid prison on it?”

“I didn’t. I was in Blackgate Penitentiary in Gotham for a month until a riot broke the prisoners out.” She sees Bruce sit up and stare at her. She forgot that this part is news to him.

Theo looks somewhere between stern and impressed. “With that sort of record, it will be difficult to get you clearance to request queries from Interpol databases if you need to,” he concludes pensively.

“I wasn’t there as Céline Caille,” she reassures him.

Theo is obviously more of a pragmatist than a judge of morality, as he looks relieved. “Are you sure there is no way to collate the name you used with your current one?”

“None at all,” she replies confidently.

“Sure?” Theo asks again.

“Absolutely,” Bruce answers before she does, having recovered from the Blackgate news. “She’s done her homework on that.” Apparently, he is not willing to spread the CleanSlate knowledge.

“With, I have to admit, Mr Wainwright’s help,” she observes, not quite looking at him.

“I’ll run a check just in case, to make sure that they don’t arrest you out of the blue,” Theo insists. “But I hope you are both right.”

“I know I’m right,” Bruce mutters smugly.

“The fact that I have found nothing on you, Brandon,” Theo says all-too-innocently, “doesn’t mean there isn’t any.”

“Doesn’t mean there is any,” Bruce shoots back, unfazed. Selina tries not to laugh.

“And yet you say Céline is your business partner,” Theo responds with a mock-accusing look.

“Actually, my career in theft was far less spectacular than hers, and was over likely before hers had begun. And there is no record of it under anything resembling my name.” Theo seems to let it slip, but Selina makes a mental note to ask him later; this is too good to pass up. “I was more of an…unwilling admirer… of her work,” Bruce draws it out, his gaze playing over her face.

“As in, a mark,” Theo corrects him.

“Precisely. She very cleverly relieved me of a few bi-“ Selina can practically feel him bite his lip at the blunder. “bits of property,” he continues so smoothly that Theo apparently does not notice. “And a string of pearls.”

This does get the man’s attention. “A string of pearls?” he repeats, looking at Selina’s neck.

She offers him her most dazzling smile instead of an answer. It works, for now.

“What sort of safe did he keep them in?” Theo asks, changing tack.

“Diebold XT6800,” she says with just a touch of false modesty.

“Impressive,” Theo says simply. “How long did it take you?”

“Eight and a half minutes.” No modesty this time.

“And presumably, your... proficiency... with other safe models is in line with this,” Theo ventures. He does sound impressed.

“Most others take less. It depends on how much scoping and prep I am able to do, how much prior access to the site I can get, what sensors there are, I can work faster if there aren’t any but usually-“

“That’s precisely what I’ve been telling Brandon,” Theo is too inspired by the concept to worry about interrupting her. “We get the technical specs on the equipment we buy from suppliers, for the most part we don’t manufacture, except for specific hi-tech components, but what we buy is all lab tested separately under controlled conditions, or else we’ll buy something and tweak it ourselves to improve it so that the resulting specs differ from OEM-declared ones, but again, all Research can do is lab test it. We have hackers by the dozen and circuit board technicians and camera mechanics, but not people who can field test the alarm systems half as well as an actual, well, burglar or - “ he flicks a quick glance at her - “a former burglar. Plus there’s the whole issue of integration; if we’re lucky we’ll be asked to install new systems, but then there is a matter of selecting components that work together best, and very often clients will have something cobbled together that doesn’t quite work together, and they ask us to do something to make it better because they won’t want to rip it all out and install something from scratch. And we need someone who has defeated these systems to tell us what the weak points are and how exactly they are bypassed, what the loopholes are where the sensitivity can be lowered versus the specs without the alarm picking it up, how the response trigger time can be minimised to always be less than the minimum time needed to disable the alarm. We have the researchers who are working on this, but what we need is testing and advice from a... practitioner.”

The more she hears about it, the more like a challenge - and hence the more tempting - it seems. She can have the thrill of a caper every day; without the loot, granted, but also without the threat of a sentence.

“I’d definitely be interested.”

“Good. Now if you don’t mind, I’d start by assigning you as a consultant to the Integration team.” Seeing no sign of opposition from her, he goes on: “I don’t know how much Brandon has told you about company structure -“

Selina directs a look of manifest bewilderment at Bruce.

“Let me tell you quickly; I’ll show you a chart later,” Theo continues. For the most part, it’s product divisions. Cameras, day and night, motion sensors, pressure sensors, heat sensors, RFID trackers, GPS trackers, and safes, though we only resell them, we don’t make any. Then there’s Research, which works across product lines. Their proprietary technology is mostly defence-related, which Brandon knows more about than I do” - Selina notices that Bruce does look pleased at the admission - “they mostly work on drones of various sizes, from what are basically small unmanned planes to spy cameras and microphones and sampling drones the size of a fly, we are a big contractor to the French and UK military for those, plus they also do the custom modifications and testing. And finally there is Integration that for obvious reasons also works across product lines, which I think would be the best place for you. And then there’s Sales and various admin functions,” he adds, almost dismissively. “Brandon and I do the high-level sales pitches, we sort of flip a coin and the loser has to do it, but the very basic accounts, like contracts for simple RFID tags, are taken care of by the sales team.”

“Actually,” Selina ventures, “seeing how both of you love making sales pitches,” she casts an amused eye at both her companions, “once I’ve been here long enough to know the products and the market, I could help you and Bruce out with some of those.” She does her best not to smirk at their visible relief - and does not notice her own slip, which Theo promptly picks up on.

“Ah, there we are again.” He is seemingly addressing the ceiling above the table. “So which is it, Bruce or Brandon?”

“You call me Bruce, I’ll call you Florian,” Bruce deadpans. “You see, Theo is not too fond of his middle name.”

“I think it’s a great name,” Selina says, no longer afraid to pick on Theo, “I think it’s a deal.”

“Che stronzo,” Theo mutters, just above his breath, pointedly looking at the window.

“I heard that, Mr Reimann,” Bruce retorts, pointedly not looking at him either. “Don’t pick it up, it’s pretty... archaic... Italian,” he comments to Selina, doing his best to keep a straight face.

“Do you speak any Italian, Céline?” Theo asks, happy to change the subject.

“Not yet. I’m learning. Well, to tell you the truth I’ve just started, but I’ve already bought the textbooks and downloaded the audio files and am going through those.” Well, at least in the time that your boss is not distracting me, she thinks, almost surprised that they seem to have pulled off the pretence of not being passionate lovers so far. “I am fluent in French, and Italian is similar enough to make it easier to learn.”

“Excellent.” Theo looks like he is about to slap her on the shoulder, then thinks better of it. “Most of our people speak English, but with Italian and French you’ll speak half the Swiss languages already. I am not suggesting that you try learning Romansch, but I have a nephew who lives near St Moritz, just over an hour’s drive from here, who would be happy to teach you German...”

She can’t quite figure out if Theo means it seriously, or as the presumed romantic prospect that such introductions usually convey, or if he had figured everything out all along and was only looking for the best moment to cast the hook. But after the death glare that Bruce turns on him at this suggestion, there can be no doubt that he is no longer fooled, if he ever was.

***

“How did it go?” Selina asks him on the way from the office. They are once again going to Italy, Lake Maggiore this time, for dinner.

Bruce shakes his head. “He’s in love with you.” Seeing her incredulous look, he adds, “Don’t worry, he is devoted to his wife and a family guy through and through.”

“I shouldn’t be the one to worry,” she counters. “In that case, the feeling’s mutual,” she adds, lightly.

“So long as it’s him and not his stupid nephew,” Bruce says, seemingly to himself, “I have nothing to worry about.”

“I’m curious about the nephew,” she insists.

“Twenty-five-year-old thrill-seeker, the first thing he did was challenge me to a motorbike race. With a Honda,” he adds, condescendingly.

“Dare I ask who won?”

“You do.”

“Of course,” she taunts.

“Dare I ask why you never mentioned you were in Blackgate?”

She has to take a moment to gather her thoughts at this change of subject. Talk about throwing curveballs.

“There wasn’t exactly time to compare notes,” she retorts. “First you were busy getting killed, and now we’ve been busy... not getting killed. And it wasn’t exactly the highlight of my life or career,” she finishes dryly, noticing that he has been watching her face the whole time with an expression that looks suspiciously like concern. “But it wasn’t really hell on earth, either. I’ve managed just fine.” she adds, and sees his face soften a bit. “Which reminds me... what was that about your less-than-spectacular career in theft?”

He turns his attention back to the road, but chuckles at the memory of whatever it was. “You’ll love it. When I was travelling in Asia - Shanghai actually - I ran out of money and couldn’t find any odd jobs for days, so I stole a crate of OEM circuit boards from a container at the port thinking I could quickly fence them. Guess what, I got caught as soon as I tried to sell the first batch and ended up in prison right at the border with beautiful Outer Mongolia,” he smirks.

“Amateur,” she teases. “Though I can’t believe that the plaintiff pressed serious charges over a single crate if it was recovered.”

“They didn’t. The Chinese government did it for them, without their knowledge, even.”

“Who were they?”

He takes a second to arrange his face into a serious expression. “Wayne Enterprises.”

Once she has wiped away the tears of laughter, she remembers something else he said earlier that she had mentally bookmarked as a future question. “Is it true that you dropped out of Princeton?”

He takes two seconds to answer, staring straight ahead. “Yep.”

“A typical billionaire CV,” she quips - too soon before she notices how suddenly quiet he is. “I’m sorry,” she adds quickly, turning to him to put a hand on his shoulder, not sure what to make of it. It seems really strange that almost twenty years later, a generally very successful businessman and a legendary crime fighter should be concerned about his academic record, or angry at her for teasing him for it.

When at last he answers her, there is no anger in his voice, but he almost sounds as if he were in a trance. She’d prefer it if he were angry at her. “After my sophomore year I came back to Gotham and to the manor, knowing that there’d be a hearing for...the man... who’d murdered my parents. I’d bought a gun and I was going to go into the courtroom and shoot him. I didn’t care if they put me in prison for it, I just wanted him dead. But just when I was working up the nerve, someone else did it. They robbed me of my revenge and they - saved me, really. I didn’t see it at the time, I was too angry. And I couldn’t go back to university. Before I’d thought I’d be going to prison, and after that I saw no point in it. I just left Gotham and went overseas to try and make sense of life, and it took me seven years to make it back.”

Like a modern-day Buddha, she thinks, but instead of enlightenment on that journey, he only found darkness.

“I’m glad you didn’t kill him. Not that he didn’t deserve to die.”

“So am I. It made me think about what mattered more than revenge.”

“What?”

“Doing what I could to stop good people from getting hurt. Especially from getting hurt because of me.”

She does not answer, just keeps her hand on his arm until they arrive, wondering if the ghosts of the past will ever really go away.

***

3. Inner Mongolia

She wouldn’t have thought that regular employment could ever be fun, but she’s been having a fantastic time for the past two weeks. Once her mostly-male colleagues got over, or pretended to get over the facts that the new alarm systems consultant was an accomplished ex-cat burglar, a very attractive female, and very definitely unavailable being the thinly veiled girlfriend of the company owner, things started settling into a pattern of daily challenges in the office, daily Italian practice (both Bruce and Theo were impressed with how seriously she took that resolution), and daily adventures, in bed and out, with Bruce. She could definitely get used to this.

And she wouldn’t have thought that one of the first things company owners discussed with new employees were said employees’ detailed views of vacation spots and long weekend getaways they wanted to visit in the immediate future. It helps, of course, when said company owner is sitting in a hot tub on the terrace of his villa trying to pull you in with him.

“Stop it.” She looks stern, but does not move away. “You’ll ruin my pyjamas.”

“They’re yours now?” Bruce’s reply is all mock indignation.

She pretends to consider the sky overhead. “You start living with a thief, you find that a few things change hands. Besides, you yourself said that items of clothing don’t count.”

This earns her a plunge in the tub, pyjamas and all. She does not mind one bit.

***

They’ve put together a list of destinations to go to in the coming year, though it is still a work in progress; she has not really travelled much beyond North America and now, Hong Kong and the Italian-Swiss border. As Selina Kyle, she often had reasons to want to avoid airport ID checks, depending on how dodgy her ID du jour happened to be.

Now as Canadian Céline with a passport beyond reproach, she is looking forward to seeing Venice in a month’s time in mid-June when the days are longest, Kyoto and Hanoi in early July before the rains start in earnest, Machu Picchu in springtime November, Sydney in summertime January and Rio for the Carnival… with another half-dozen options and a few tropical islands bounced back and forth in between. And, of course, Italy all over, considering that they are sitting right on the border.

His first destination in Italy is, somewhat conventionally, Florence. “I promised Alfred I’d be there in early June, before the tourists arrive,” he reminds her, apparently thinking that he needs to justify the choice, when they are out of the tub and sitting on the terrace. “He knows I’m alive and well, and we deal with each other indirectly, but he had this particular wish that I really owe it to him to fulfil, and he picked the place. And I want to see him, even if we don’t talk.”

“Why wouldn’t you talk?”

“He said he didn’t want us to. I kind of hope that someday later we do. But for now, I suppose he wanted us to... let go of each other, of the history.”

More the history than each other, Selina thinks, and she can’t blame Alfred for wanting that.

“Then we can go to Venice for a week after that, and go to Liguria for long weekends in July and August when we aren’t travelling.”

“What’s in Liguria?” Not that she wouldn’t want to go, but she is curious to see what he sees in it.

“Some pleasant little towns on the coast,” he replies, a bit too vaguely for her liking. “Plus there’s this Italian client of ours, Cassini, who has been inviting me to go kite surfing with him.”

That, she thinks, is the more likely draw.

“Do you have a lot of thrill-seeker clients?” she inquires innocently.

“A few,” he replies, coyly. “Though it’s more the clients’ kids in their late twenties and early thirties, the clients themselves tend to be too old for that. Cassini’s an exception, he is about my age. And they’re mostly into mountain sports here in Switzerland, skiing and climbing and paragliding and the like.”

“And you’re busy making friends with them.”

“Something like that.”

Not that she could begrudge him that. “Is Theo going kite surfing with you two?”

“He probably would, late forties and all,” Bruce concedes. “But his wife would never forgive him if he went off on holiday and left her to deal with the kids. I hope you’d join us,” he adds, in a rather obviously hopeful tone.

“I’ll think about it,” she makes it sound a lot less certain than she is. “Maybe you could also ask Theo if his nephew would be interested?” She tries to present it as a perfectly innocuous suggestion. That, not surprisingly, is met with a vaguely murderous stare for an answer.

“Anywhere else you want to go?” he asks a few seconds later, trying to change the subject; she is willing to let him. “I don’t really need to be here for anything important between now and late June, and your hacker colleagues can survive a few days without ogling you. We could take a week off somewhere between now and Florence and see something else.”

She is trying to come up with a more or less interesting idea when she remembers their mountaintop date of mixed messages and hidden agendas of two weeks ago, and decides that she still wants to see his expression when she suggests it. “You know, the first time we had dinner at San Salvatore, when you started praising Outer Mongolia, I actually wanted to ask you if we could go there.”

His expression, as it turns out, is one of faint regret. “Why didn’t you?”

Because I thought you’d make some glib excuse and leave me looking silly. “I didn’t know if I could trust your judgement back then, when you said it wasn’t that bad.”

“And now you do,” he suggests, a bit too smugly for her taste, but she’ll let it slip.

“I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

“When do you want to go? I have to go back to the clinic tomorrow but we can leave the day after.”

She still doesn’t really care if she sees Outer Mongolia, but seeing the excitement in his eyes, she is happy she asked.

***

No such luck, as they soon find out: a quick check of visa formalities shows that the modern-day state of Mongolia that lies, more or less, within the ancient Outer Mongolia borders, grants visa-free entry to Americans and a couple of dozen other nations... but neither Swiss nor Canadians. Selina is a bit disappointed, Bruce calls them fucking bureaucrats, and she is about to suggest that they go to Jordan instead when Bruce gives her that half joking, half challenging look and says, “But if you have a valid Chinese visa, we can go to Inner Mongolia instead. As in, northern China. If you want to.”

She does have a Chinese visa, thanks to a couple of days spent in Shanghai as a short getaway from visa-free Hong Kong, and she does want to, if only because it is hard not to be tempted when he is looking at her like that; and the next half day is spent in planning and phone calls to put together the logistics for what is now looking like a ten-day round trip from Lugano.

“We can charter a two-seater, or better still, a four-seater,” he suggests, “that way we won’t depend on commercial flights and big airports and won’t have to drive around on the shitty roads there.”

“Who will fly it?” she asks, only half joking; she is well aware of his proficiency with aircraft, but for anything officially chartered, the pilot needs to have a license specific to the type of craft being flown.

The question, perhaps not surprisingly, is met with a long disdainful stare.

“So much for joining the mile high club while the pilot’s busy at the controls,” she quips.

“It’s overrated,” he says matter-of-factly; she files away the knowledge for future teasing but does not retaliate immediately.

“Are you really sure you want to charter and fly a plane four thousand miles to China and back and while we’re there?”

“I wouldn’t do that. We’d spend a week just getting there,” he corrects her. “We’ll fly commercial to Beijing and charter it there. Anyway,” he adds, looking uncharacteristically sheepish, “if we were talking about flying from here, I wouldn’t need to charter one.”

“Don’t tell me you -“

“I have a four-seater Cessna Skyhawk here, just for short trips in Europe. I don’t fly it that much; I haven’t really had time to, and now flying has become a major pain, with the detectors. I have to carry around a pile of X-rays and show it to the idiots at security to explain why I set off every single scanner. Besides,” he adds, seeing her saddened expression, “I prefer the Sesto. But sometimes it’s still fun to take the plane.”

Boys and toys, indeed. If he can’t have the Bat, he’ll settle for a Skyhawk. “Is there any means of transport you do not own?”

“A train,” he readily replies. “Not directly, anyway. Also, to the best of my knowledge, I don’t have a space shuttle.”

“Which means that you do have a boat somewhere,” she concludes.

“Guilty as charged,” he smirks at her. “A Falcon off the Ligurian coast.”

So that’s the other big reason, other than kite-surfing, that he wants to go there for weekends.

“What, the boat you had an orgy with the Russian Ballet on?”

“No, it’s a different one. That one was a sailing yacht, this one’s a motor yacht. I sold the other one a couple of years ago and got this one. And it’s technically Alfred’s now. And it wasn’t really an orgy,” he adds, as an all-too-casual afterthought.

Well, that’s something else to needle him with later. “Admit it, you wanted a faster boat.”

He grins at her accusation. “Faster, and smaller. The other one was too big, really. I wanted something I could handle without a crew if I wanted to.”

“How small?” She suspects that it is a very relative term.

“115 feet,” comes another deliberately-casual reply.

“That’s tiny,” she comments, sarcastically.

“You should see the boats the Russians have,” he counters.

“What, the ballerinas?”

“No, their boyfriends. I swear one of them has a boat four times as long. You are welcome to make all the appropriate remarks about overcompensating.”

She wants to say that 115 feet isn’t particularly short either, but lets him get away with it.

***

continued in part 2