Epilogue

[moonshadows]

“Tell me that’s Ms. Wayne.” Lois shook her head briefly. “I-I mean Ms. Kyle.”

Clark looked up, saw who she was talking about, and said in an undertone, “I think you were right the first time.”

“Huh. You think they moved that fast?” She sounded skeptical, but not surprised.

“No, but I think it’s an inevitability.”

Bruce was his usual public self, cheerful and easygoing and just slightly oblivious. Two steps behind him and one to the right, Selina stalked like an urban panther in pencil-skirted power suit. In prison, in a jumpsuit and handcuffs, she’d managed elegance and aloof dignity. In the wake of Bruce Wayne, she radiated predatory confidence and silently challenged every observer to try something, anything, so she could unsheathe her claws. Perhaps another person would seem to be on an invisible leash, trailing behind Bruce the way she was, but if there was a leash there then Clark would bet his cape she was the one holding it.

“Lois!” Bruce beamed at her. “You look lovely, as always.”

Because he was watching, Clark saw Selina’s mouth tighten slightly. It wasn’t enough to tell him which emotion she was holding back. Then her eyes slid to his, and she examined him as though he were an unusually large mouse and she were deciding whether or not to pounce.

“…apologize for the incomplete tour,” Bruce was saying. “Please, won’t you and Clark join me tonight?” His voice dropped down almost into the realm of insinuation. “Let me show you my helicopter pad.”

Lois choked back a laugh and muttered, “That’s what she said.”

Selina’s expression turned icy. Clark braced himself and said, “We’d love to, Bruce. Are you kidnapping us immediately, or do we have time to warn Perry?”

“I learned from my mistake last week,” he laughed. “Let’s say…seven? I’m having diner delivered from that Italian place Lois recommended.”

“And breakfast?” Lois asked, teasing, ignoring the other woman completely.

“There’s that bakery,” he offered. “Unless Chef Clark graces the kitchen again.”

In other words, the invitation was open to stay overnight. “I don’t mind cooking. Seven, then.” Carefully, he offered Selina a small smile. “I look forward to meeting you, Ms. Kyle.”

It was worth it to see her eyes widen. She knew what he’d done – she either recognized or had been told about him, and he’d just let her know that he knew it, too. Slowly, her icy expression thawed into an equally small smile that vanished into another predatory look as Lois smacked Bruce’s arm lightly.

“Bruce! You weren’t going to introduce us?”

Was that feigned discomfort, or the real thing? “Uh…Clark Kent, Lois Lane, my assistant: Selina Kyle.”

“Charmed,” she said in a tone of voice that meant go away.

Lois wasn’t going to go away. “Ms. Kyle, how did you manage to procure such a prestigious position mere days after your release on probation?” She was keeping it professional, at least, and Selina seemed familiar with that arena.

“He asked and I accepted. If you intend to ask why, you’ll have to ask him.”

“I like her style,” he said with a shrug before she could do just that. “You should know, Lois, that I like a woman who’s not afraid of danger – but there’s more to Ms. Kyle than that.” He lavished a warm smile on her that Clark was fairly certain wasn’t faked, and her expression warmed slightly in return. “She’s passionate about her goals, and pursues them zealously. I had to talk her into accepting the date she bought, and then we didn’t actually make it to lunch! Wound up in a business meeting instead and had to reschedule. I’m not the easiest person to keep up with-”

“Isn’t that the truth,” Lois muttered.

“-but she’s proven that she can do it, and that’s the kind of person I want working for Wayne Enterprises. If anyone objects to her record, well…” He shrugged, and she smiled tightly. “Then I guess they’ll have to deal with looking foolish, because she risked her life to save Gotham.”

Lois looked a little startled by the edge not-quite-hidden under his usual charm, but Clark wasn’t surprised at all. Maybe it was because he was used to dealing with Batman, or maybe because he’d seen firsthand how much Bruce cared about Selina. Either way, he smiled again at the wary woman. “Bruce is lucky to have you. Working for him,” he added, quick enough that anyone else would take his hesitation for stumbling over words the way Clark Kent sometimes did.

Jade-green eyes weighed his words the way they had when he’d asked if she would share Batman’s heart. “Thank you,” she said finally, and he didn’t just imagine that some of the tension between them eased.

“So,” Bruce asked, cheerfully oblivious, “we’ll see you at seven?”

Lois answered for both of them. “Absolutely.”

 

“I’m trying to keep calm, for Bruce’s sake,” Lois said as he drove them to the apartment building, “but Selina just does not like me.”

“You’re competition,” Clark said mildly. “She knows we both are. When Superman talked to her in prison, she said she’d be willing to share but that she might not want to be around the others she was sharing with for a while.”

Lois snorted. “Does she not know how madly Bruce is in love with her?”

“I’m sure she does, but she doesn’t know how madly in love – or not – Bruce is with us.”

She stared out the window for a block and a half. “I guess you’re right. Still, it might be a little…tense…until we get that straightened out.”

As they rode the elevator, overnight bags in hand, he was thinking the same thing. He scanned through the walls, following Lois, and was mildly surprised to see Selina in the second bedroom while Bruce was arranging something in the dining room.

“We’re here,” Lois announced over the penthouse greeting them by name.

Selina emerged first, wearing comfortable slacks and a blouse, and she looked Clark right in the eyes. Fearlessly, the way she’d done in handcuffs. “Superman, I presume?”

Warily, he nodded.

“Thank you,” she said in a warmer tone than he’d imagined she would use so soon. “Bruce is lucky to have someone he can trust as much as he trusts you, and I doubt he’d have told me his secret without your support.”

This was unexpected. Welcome, but unexpected. Clark dropped his bag, picked up his jaw, and only used a little bit of super-speed to cross the distance and hug her. “He really, really loves you,” he murmured into her ear; Bruce was entering earshot.

Her reply was a low, throaty purr. “I know.”

Lois stepped up as they parted. “Hi,” she said firmly, offering Selina a hand. “I think we got off on the wrong foot earlier.”

The other woman smiled, a smugly feline expression. “No, we got off on exactly the right foot.” Then, to Lois’s surprise, she took the proffered hand and shook it warmly. “Selina Kyle, Executive Assistant, isn’t interested in making friends. She’s the cold, ruthless foil to Bruce Wayne, Rich Playboy. But you know that what Bruce is like in private is nothing like his public persona, and he thought this little deception would be much less of a betrayal than that discovery.”

It only took Lois a moment to recover and offer Selina a smile of her own. “The real betrayal was seeing how much he can eat and not gain weight.”

Bruce grinned good-naturedly at the look of mock accusation Lois leveled at him. “I have a very strenuous schedule.”

“I almost regret giving that up,” Selina sighed. “But I still have the freedom to go out at night, Bruce has promised that I’ll still get to play with the Bat on occasion, and keeping my distance by being a good kitty means his secret stays safe. Really, all I’m missing out on is a bit of excitement.”

Bruce slipped closer and slid one arm possessively around her waist. “I’ll give you excitement,” he growled in Batman’s voice, head lowered to nuzzle at her hair.

She shivered in delight, eyes darting between Clark and Lois. “Mmm, in front of our guests?”

He laughed as Clark felt his ears heat up. “If that’s really how you want our first time to go, we can discuss it after dinner – which is ready, on the table, and getting cold.”

“Batman gets grumpy when he hasn’t been fed,” Clark teased as Selina disentangled herself.

“That’s a lie and you know it,” came the growled reply. “Batman is always grumpy.”

He had to laugh at that.

“That’s a lie,” countered Selina, hands on her hips. Then her stern posture softened and she cupped Bruce’s cheek with one hand. “You were quite considerate with me the second time we met.”

Bruce’s usual expression cracked and something vulnerable bled out. “You were falling to your death. And,” he added with a small smile, “you’d just kissed me.”

Lois clapped her hands together. “Well! That sounds like quite a story, one I’d love to hear both sides of – but over dinner. If I’m not going to be able to publish it, I want to at least enjoy some excellent lasagna with it.”

Naturally, the dinner table was set with fine china, real silver, and enough good Italian food to feed a dozen. It was a change from the more casual meals he was almost used to with Bruce, but so was Selina’s presence. Places had been set in the center of the table, serving dishes spread out to both sides. It wasn’t a surprise that Clark ended up sitting across from Bruce, with Lois to his right and Selina to Bruce’s left.

“So,” Lois said, reaching for a breadstick, “how’d you two meet?”

Bruce helped himself to baked rigatoni laden with sausage. “Oh, I’d been tracking Gotham’s new cat burglar for weeks. It was tricky – no fingerprints, no hair, no footprints, no pattern. All I had to go on was the method of entry: a hole no more than eight inches in diameter cut through a windowpane. Finally, I staked out a likely suspect and got lucky.”

“He stepped out of a shadow while I was making my escape.” Selina took up the narration, heaping chicken alfredo onto her plate.  “I offered him a compliment, he declined it, and I threw myself off the roof to lose him.”

Clark snorted. “That didn’t work.”

“No,” she laughed, “it didn’t. We had a delightful little chase-”

“Which I won,” Bruce interjected.

“-which he won, yes. I ran again, and he let me go after saving my cat.”

He and Lois listened, respectively picking at and absently eating the food they’d served themselves, as Bruce and Selina took turns explaining the whirlwind of dramatic irony that was the half-week between their first meeting and Selina’s arrest. It was worth the loss of informality to see them bantering lightly with each other, he thought.

“Hey,” Lois exclaimed as the story reached its end. She pointed to Selina’s plate with half a breadstick. “You’re eating almost as much as Bruce. That’s not fair; where are you putting it?”

Selina looked amused. “You think it’s easy, staying fit enough to keep up with Batman? I may not go out at night the way he does, but I may very well move into Wayne Manor just to take advantage of his gym.” She gazed thoughtfully into her glass for a second before draining it. “And the Batcave’s obstacle course.”

“And watching Batman use the gym or run through the obstacle course?” Bruce teased.

“Raw steak to a tiger,” she teased back, leaning in for a quick kiss.

He complied. “Good thing you’re not making me choose,” he said in Batman’s voice.

“I already did,” she murmured. “You chose the law.”

“Selina…”

“Shh. You’ve got me now.”

“I feel like I need a scorecard to keep up,” Lois said in an undertone as the other two embraced. “And I think I’m the slightest bit jealous.”

Clark couldn’t argue with that. “It’s been a week and they’ve already established conversational shortcuts. At least they’re talking?”

“Yeah. So,” she continued, louder, “I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you don’t have any hard feelings about spending two months in prison.”

Selina looked distinctly smug. “He’s told me about your…video encouragement sessions, so I know you know exactly what I mean when I say the hard feelings are all the best kind.”

Politely, Lois hid her laughter behind a snowy linen napkin, but nothing could hide the congratulatory glee in her eyes. Clark and Bruce exchanged slightly-embarrassed shrugs. “I like you,” she said when the fit of laughing passed. “I think we’re going to get along just fine.”

“As long as we can be coldly civil and slightly hostile in public,” Selina countered. “I’m a cat; I need a challenge. It used to be stealing jewels, but that’s not an option anymore so now I’m going to steal Bruce Wayne away from every single woman he’s ever so much as smiled at, and it would be suspicious if we were seen actually getting along.” She paused, eyeing Clark contemplatively. “I think I should ignore you whenever possible, once you start having your fictional affair with Bruce.”

“No problems here,” Lois said while Clark nodded. “Publically, I’m more interested in the story than in having a good time, and privately, I’m more interested in helping a friend than I am in getting a story – which ought to tell you just how much I care about him.”

“And him?” Selina asked with a nod at Clark.

This time, he wasn’t alone in blushing.

“I’m just going to say I have the same hard feelings,” she answered dryly.

“I was going to ask if there were an hard feelings about not showing you the other half of the penthouse,” Bruce said mildly, the hint of a smirk playing around the corners of his mouth, “but now I’m afraid of the answer. If you and Clark are done eating, would you like to see it now?”

Lois’s gaze swept across the table, taking in the sad remnants of what had been a very lavish dinner. “Yeah. I think we’re done.”

With anyone else, Clark would have ambushed them at the door for a hug. Such things were never wise with Batman, however, so he merely caught the other man’s eyes instead and walked deliberately up. Bruce’s embrace was tight without being desperate; very reassuring. “Thank you for dinner,” he said quietly. “Even though I don’t need to eat, I do enjoy it and it was delicious.”

Lois took his place almost before he’d stepped back. “I do need to eat, and it was delicious,” she said while Bruce laughed and hugged her. She dropped back to walk with Selina as their host led the way into the master bedroom. “Hard feelings,” she murmured, knowing Clark would hear her and Bruce probably would, too. “He’s all yours, of course, but if you’re ever interested in sharing more than a table with us…”

“I’ll let you know,” the other woman said firmly. “Give me a chance to settle in first, and I’ll consider it.”

“No rush.” The reporter shot Selina a sidelong glance laden with wry amusement. “Clark and I won’t be doing much until Bruce perfects that kryptonite cock ring, anyway.” The incredulous look she got at that made her laugh. “Faster than a speeding bullet, stronger than a locomotive. Left a hole in my bedroom wall. Downside to being involved with Superman.”

Selina gave her a small smile. “I’m not sure if that’s better, or worse, than the downside to being involved with Batman. Being involved with Bruce Wayne has its perks, though,” she added with thoughtful contentment.

Lois made absent noises of appreciation for the helicopter pad they were being shown, her attention clearly not on it. “How long do you think it will be before you’ve stolen him away from everyone and we can be friendly in public?”

Coolly, eyes narrowed in pleasure like a cat, Selina smiled. “That depends on how long it takes the ladies of Gotham to recognize their defeat. You’re the only one from Metropolis, though, so maybe next month he can be seen doting on me over dinner and Clark can be unceremoniously locked out of the penthouse for the night-”

“-and beg to sleep on Lois’s couch?”

Both women started as the man so named joined the conversation. Lois recovered first. “Good idea, Smallville. And then after you spend the night alone with Bruce, you can deign to talk to me over lunch where you inform me that you won and I lost-”

“-while I take Clark out to lunch and make a show of apologizing to my other lover,” Bruce added, slipping one arm around Selina’s waist. “Clark, I need you to come by next week for those velocity and impact measurements.”

Stoically, not looking anywhere but Bruce’s eyes, Clark said, “I’m looking forward to it.”

Lois leaned over and murmured in Selina’s ear. “So am I.”

Although he didn’t turn his head, it was clear Clark had overheard them because his ears were getting pink. Despite that, his voice was still steady when he said, “You’re welcome to watch, Selina.”

She glanced at Bruce, and his expression of mingled hope and restrained fear decided her. I’m the bigger cat. I said I’d share. Slowly, she smiled. “Now I’m looking forward to it, too.”

The relief and joy on Bruce’s face was all the reward she needed. They would get along; they would work things out. Everything would be okay.