(It is August 1st, and I have this strong urge to publish a new story. I have decided to start a series of oneshots revolving around Bruce and Selina. This is a 100%, totally new concept... These oneshots will take place during the middle of Season 2, when Bruce and Selina were living together. I felt that the show could have stretched out their living together for a few more episodes, if not the rest of the season.

I have many chapters planned out [maybe fifteen total?], but if I run out of ideas, then I will start taking requests. Just, please do not swamp me with requests. It's a lot more fun to get compliments instead of orders, and I understand that a lot of you would want to see your idea turned into a story but...

For those of you that have read Soothing an Angry Enigma, you are caught up in the terminology I have created. If you lose track of how many terms might show up, tell me and I will insert an interlude that will explain and lay out all of the terms.

Without further ado, let's get right into this series!)

Disclaimer: I do not own GOTHAM or any of its characters. But I do wish upon a star...

Cooking Catastrophe

Selina stormed into the apartment, ready to tear out the throat of any person that talked to her. Her heist had been "successful"; she had only stolen one item of jewelry out of the fifty she had originally wanted.

She had been planning it for weeks, ever since her magazines had first announced the massive fundraiser. Bruce could testify; more than once he had slipped on the blueprints to the vaults, the magazines specifying what kinds of jewelry would be there, and the scripts as to how Selina was going to steal the items that littered their apartment's floor. A rich family she couldn't care less about was auctioning off magnificent pieces of antique jewelry, along with petitioning their fellow Rich Rats for more money. The money was supposed to go to a "charity" that would help clean up the streets of Gotham by providing better homes for those "less fortunate."

Selina would never tell Bruce, who had protested at the idea of her stealing from a charity project, that the Street Rats of Gotham would never see a penny of that money. Bruce himself was probably the only Rich Rat in Gotham that was actually helping the rotten city with his fortune. The other Rich Rats only used their fundraisers as a show they could put on while the money itself would go to buying a mansion in another country. The last thing Selina wanted to do was destroy that little spark of hope Bruce always held in his eyes, the I-can-make-everything-better-by-being-a-nice-person spark.

There were fifty pieces she had wanted to steal from the fundraiser. Thirty of them held massive jewels that would sell for millions on the High Black Market, and twenty of them were personal choices of Selina. Necklaces with gold lining, cradling emeralds, diamonds, sapphires, rubies. Rings studded with the same kind of gemstones, wrapping around one's finger with a design that had no other relatives. Bracelets that flowed off one's wrist and indicated power to every person in the room. Truly, it was a girl thief's dream come true.

Getting to the fundraiser had been easy. Hiding in a car on the ride there, climbing the scaffolding to the vault were the jewelry was kept away from any Rich Rat thief, breaking into said vault; the plan she had made went without a hitch. Until she got into the vault, that is.

A scrawny teenage boy, most likely one of the relatives of the Rich Rats holding the event, had stumbled into the vault with a drunk girl locked in his arms. They had crashed right into Selina, who had literally just got into the vault a minute before them. The girl had let out a scream that would have woken Bruce's parents, and Selina had grabbed the necklace she already had her gloved fingers on. She pocketed the piece and beat it out of the vault before security had a chance to corner her. Blind luck had helped her from then on (she hadn't planned for anyone to catch her in the middle of stealing); she took every shortcut she could remember from her maps and made it outside, where she had hotwired one of the cars, drove away, and crashed it just outside of Gotham (she didn't know how to drive, but when one is being chased by fat men with rifles, one must improvise). She made it out of the car and into Gotham before the men giving chase could catch her. She ran around the city for an extra hour, losing all of the men and specifically taking false routes in order to provide her a safeguard for the location of her hideout. She had never been this mad before, and she had a feeling-

Bruce looked up from the book he was reading and gave her a thousand-watt smile. "So, did the heist go well?"

Considering she had a jacket cut up by the bullets she had dodged, an empty pouch on her hip that was supposed to hold all of the items she had planned to steal, and a murderous look on her face that would have made Penguin impressed… yeah, a person could say the heist had been successful.

Bruce still wasn't that good at reading people.

"Say another word and I'll hang you upside down from the balcony," Selina growled, ready for a bubble bath and a nice long catnap.

Bruce stood up from the couch, confused. "I don't understand," he stated plainly.

Selina stalked past the worn couch Bruce was sitting on and went straight into her room and locked the door. A second later, she heard pounding on her door. "Selina, if the heist did not go well, I am sorry. Do you want to talk about?"

Yeah, talk to the brick wall that thought that showing negative emotions meant he was as weak as a cooked noodle.

"Bruce! It didn't go well, and I just want to be left alone right now! Could you take a hint for once in your life?!"

She heard steps away from the door. Heavier and quicker than normal. It meant that she had made him mad too. Good, anyone else want to mess with the furious feline?

She stripped off her heist clothes and filled the bathtub up with hot water and her favorite bubble bath syrup. In a few minutes, mountains of bubbles filled the tub to where Selina couldn't see the water. She slid into the tub and in a moment, she felt all tension leave her body.

If she had been able to steal all fifty items and sell the thirty items in the High Black Market as planned, she would have been able to massively upgrade her apartment. She could have bought a much better place, a whole new wardrobe, and still have enough to pay for ten kids college educations. Even the bath she was taking now would make a big dent in her savings, and she desperately needed a boost in her savings. But the only thing she had managed to steal a small necklace with a two emeralds and a sapphire. It could buy the upgrades needed for her hideout right now, like better security equipment, and also buy food for her and for Bruce for the next few months or so, but the rest she would need give to her Street Rat friends in order for them to survive. God knew Ivy wasn't doing too well.

She scowled at the water for no reason. Her ears picked up thumping sounds; Bruce's running footsteps (she knew from experience, he could run fast when he really was scared of her) and the slam of the door. Guess he was going out to get something. Probably milk chocolate to throw at her if he was smart enough, he had learned from experience not to get to close to her when Selina was mad at him.

After washing the night's hectic adventure off of her, she got out of the tub and put on her most comfortable pajamas. Selina grabbed the necklace out of the pocket of her jacket and put it in her personal safe. Before she went to bed for the night, she unlocked her room door and went to the kitchen.

A few stray cats rubbed up against her leg, while a few stayed back, not knowing what to expect. Selina grabbed a few pet bowls and filled all of them with cheap packets of tuna she had bought at the grocery store. They were actually pretty tasty for the price they were advertised, and she made sure to stock up on them whenever she went to the store.

Selina smiled as she watched the cats eat their meals. She remembered Bruce's reaction the first night he had moved in with her. He had run around with a broom sweeping and poking at the cats, yelling that she had an infestation and that he had half a mind to call an exterminator. It was even funnier when she had explained to him that these were her other non-permanent "residents."

She loved the confused look he always gave her. That cute one where he frowned and scrunched up his eyebrows while still trying to maintain an upper-crust aura.

Speaking of Bruce, he always left a note taped to the fridge before going anywhere without him telling her. She walked over to the fridge and lo and behold, a Post-It note stuck to the handle.

Selina, am going out to the store to get something to help you feel better. Did not take from Stash, am using my emergency funds. Will be back in an hour. -Bruce

Selina rolled her eyes. He was sweet and nice, she hoped he could keep that attitude for the majority of his life, before Gotham City choked sweet and nice out of him. It was really good that he didn't take out of the stockpile of cash that she and him lived on (dubbed "the Stash" for short), but it was even cuter that he took his emergency debit card with him. He could buy them a penthouse to share and a pet shop, but doing so would alert his butler of what he was spending his money on, and Bruce was terrified about incurring his butler's wrath.

She took one last look at her cats and went off to bed. She wasn't hungry at all; disappointment did a very good job at filling one's stomach after a failed heist.

As she slipped under the covers of a few stolen blankets, she wondered what Bruce was getting. Probably some of those chocolate bars she ate when she needed a pick-me-up. She moved around on the mattress, trying to get into the position she always slept in. As Selina closed her eyes, she expected to wake up to a ruffle-haired Bruce with the biggest smile on his face as he handed her a dozen bars of her guilty pleasure.

Selina had to hand it to Bruce, he could always take her expectations of him and twist them into something else. That was about the nicest thing she could think of when the beeping of her fire alarm woke her up at 6:45 in the morning.

She snapped her eyes open and crawled out of bed. She sat on the edge of her mattress for a second before she heard a startled yelp. She shuffled out of her room and was immediately woken up by the sight she saw.

Bruce was wearing a cheesy apron that would have made Alfred sick, and he was messing with a fire hydrant. There were a few pans on the stove, and one had two foot flames shooting out of it. Bruce had a panicked look on his face, knowing that if he didn't fix this quick Selina would put him next his parents.

Selina ran over to Bruce, grabbed the fire extinguisher out of his white-knuckled hands, and blasted the flaming pan. In a second, the fire was out, and the fire alarm stopped beeping soon after.

Selina looked at Bruce, and immediately regretted it. He had a shocked expression on his face, and a little bit of that kicked-puppy look. She tried not to laugh at how dorky he looked with the apron and the expression on his face.

He straightened and put on his upper-crust attitude in an attempt to save the situation. "Good morning Selina. I trust you slept well?"

She looked over at the counter and stove and any anger she held vanished. Pancake batter, plastic wrappings, and unnecessary cooking implements littered the countertop, and there were a few wrappings on the floor. The flaming pan had held something that vaguely resembled bacon, and the other two pans held ruined pancake batter and eggs that had a few pieces of their shells in the whisked goop. The sink was full of cooking utensils Bruce had already used, and they were all sitting in a soapy mess of water.

Selina turned back towards Bruce, who fidgeted despite the upper-crust attitude on his face. He looked ready to bolt if he needed to.

She smiled. "Bruce," she asked softly, "Did you plan on making me breakfast?"

He gave an imperious sniff. "Of course Selina. I grabbed all the supplies that I needed from the store last night, along with a few other things as a back-up plan, and mapped out when to make it. I started forty-five minutes ago, putting the first batch of pancakes on-"

Selina looked over to the full trash bin and saw charred, black circles on top of the regular garbage. Looks like he didn't make the best first batch. There was also black-looking eggs and something else that she couldn't identify…

"- and then I would take the feast into your room and serve you breakfast in bed at exactly 7:30 in the morning," Bruce finished, looking quite proud of himself.

She turned off all the power to the stove, grabbed his hand, led him into the living room and sat him down on the couch that was his bed. He went back to looking confused and Selina forced down a giggle.

"Bruce," she started, thinking about how she wanted to phrase her words. "It was really sweet of you to try and make breakfast- "Bruce beamed at her words "- but I think you should leave the cooking to me."

Bruce's face fell. He turned back toward the kitchen and nodded. "It didn't seem so hard when I started."

Selina stared at him. "Did you read the instructions, or did you base it off of how you thought your butler made it?"

Bruce didn't say a word.

Selina sighed. "Bruce, I wasn't truly mad at you, or at anyone last night. I was mad at myself for not planning on failure. I was caught unprepared and if I hadn't improvised, I would be talking to Gordon right now."

Bruce tilted his head to his right. "How were you caught unprepared?"

Selina closed her eyes and tried not to blush. "This Rich Rat and his drunk girlfriend stumbled into the vault and into me. The girl screamed and alerted security before I could pocket more than a necklace."

Bruce shrugged. "It still should sell for a lot. It's nothing to worry about, Selina."

Selina opened her eyes and scowled at Bruce. Sometimes she wished he wasn't so clueless. "Bruce, the necklace will probably sell for a few hundred thousand dollars. The grand total of what I was planning on stealing was 20 to 40 million dollars."

Bruce blinked, a blank expression on his face. Selina then realized that the grand total was probably how much his spit was worth per drop, a molecule in the bucket when it came to the Wayne fortune. He could throw away that amount of money and his butler wouldn't notice.

Bruce then shrugged. "So, I could always take out in case of an emergency…"

Selina sighed, but smiled. Bruce wouldn't be able to understand due to his lifestyle, but it wasn't his fault for being born into a superrich family.

"Yeah, I guess so," she said, not wanting to argue with the nice but clueless boy that almost burned her apartment down trying to make her breakfast in bed.

Bruce beamed, then panicked as the fire alarm started beeping again. He jumped up with a swear that Selina was sure he had picked up from living on the streets and ran into the kitchen. He continued to swear, and Selina heard a clang. He came back into the room with beet-red palms and an angry expression on his face.

"Well, I spent all that money on food, but the majority of it is all ruined. I even burnt all the cookies!" He plopped himself back onto the couch and blew into his slightly burned hands.

Selina blinked at him. "Bruce, you planned on giving me cookies for breakfast?!"

Bruce rolled his eyes, but then gave her a confused look again. "Alfred always makes the best cookies whenever I'm depressed. I thought it would work on you."

She smiled. "Thanks Bruce, but those chocolate bars I always buy work better on me than cookies…"

He shuffled around and pulled out a plastic bag, apparently not hearing her previous statement. "I have one last resort just in case. The clerk gave me a funny look, but it was probably because I was buying so much."

Selina grinned. Maybe he had bought those chocolate bars after all…

He smiled as he handed her the bag. Bruce beamed when she saw what it was, then paled at her furious expression. He bolted out of his seat and shot toward the main door.

He made it to the door just as a Midol bottle (five hundred pills per bottle) sailed through the air and nailed him on the back of the head.

I don't know how often I will update this (I write a lot of long, heavily edited GOTHAM fics for those that don't know), but I will try to update this on a semi-regular basis.

For those that are waiting for an update on Soothing an Angry Enigma, I haven't been working on it that much because I have been trying to shorten the list of stories (you can see them on my bio, which I update every few days or so). I won't give up on it, but I do want to finish a few things before I publish the next chapter. I also discovered FictionPress, so...

In essence, I am and will just drown in words.