"You look like you're really concentrating there."

Bruce's attention snapped away from the weighty book he had been hunched over, spinning around in his chair to see who had spoken. His eyes found her.

She was perched in his window like a dark bird. No. A cat. Legs tensed beneath her, limbs cloaked in her usual black. A wily smirk glowed beneath her large green eyes and her almond hair was just visible under her hood.

He felt that tightness in his chest, the one reserved for boxing, and fights, and racing, and her.

"I was trying to, anyway," he said. He hoped she couldn't hear the nervousness in his voice or the way his heart pounded against his ribs. "What are you doing here?"

The confidence in her eyes faltered, but only for a second. Tall laced boots squeaked against the wooden frame. The young woman shifter her weight.

"I was just curious. I can leave, if you want."

"No!" he said, a little too earnestly, "Stay." He offered her a small smile as he stood.

At the same time, she lowered herself off the sill, and Bruce felt an inexplicable relief as her feet met the floor. Selina did too.

They stood in silence, eyes fliting from the walls to the other's face and back to the floor again.

The last time he saw her was 4 months ago. She always materialized like a burning apparition, and always disappeared just as quick. He knew she would show up again, though. Something always drew them back together, and it would feel like it did now: right.

Just standing on the same floor and breathing the same air. It was weird, but they were friends. She was his best friend.

"Your shirts torn," He tried to squash the concern in his voice, "What have you been doing?"

"You mean aside from climbing up the drain pipe? Nothing I can't handle."

She brushed the untamed hair out of her eyes and he noticed a thin red scar creeping across her cheek.

"You really need to be-"

"I can take care of myself, kid."

Bruce's brows knit together in frustration, but he knew better than to push her.

"You can hang around," he said, turning away from her, "but I have homework to do." Bruce sank back into his chair, returning to his French homework with as much concentration as which he had been accused.

Selina wandered around the room, peering at photographs, picking things up and putting them down somewhere else. His eyes flickered to where she climbed lightly onto his bed and kicked up her boots, leisurely balancing them on the backpack he left there. She plucked a book off his bedside table and began leafing through its pages without stopping to actually read any of them. He forced himself to refocus on giving directions to various public places: the park, the supermarket, the library. For a while, the scratch of his pen was the only sound.

"French, huh?"

Selina was suddenly standing just behind him, examining his work from over his left shoulder. Had removed her hood, and her light hair hung down around her face.

Bruce was very aware of how close she was standing, "Oui, mademoiselle"

Selina absentmindedly flipped the page he had been reading.

"Why do you even bother?"

"Being nice to you?" Bruce flipped the page back. "I ask myself that all the time actually."

"If you call 'entangling me in unnecessary trouble' nice, I'd rather you not. And No. I meant: why are you doing homework, going to school, any of it?"

Bruce smoothed the thick pages, thinking for a moment, "I decided it's what's best for me …with some mild encouragement from Alfred of course." He turned to look at her.

Selina was intently examining her fingernails, but her eyes jumped up to meet his.

"Why?" she dropped her hand, "It's not like you need to, you could learn French by yourself."

"It's a learning experience."

Selina raised her eyebrows.

"I mean, aside from the actual classes," he said, closing his eyes, as he struggled to explain "I'm learning about people. I'm getting to know what other people know."

Selina kicked her feet, considering his words. "That makes sense, I guess. Anyways, you couldn't get me to sit still for eight hours a day while some boring teacher drones on and on at me, not with a gun to my back."

"It's not that bad. I am actually learning a lot, stuff that I might have skipped over if I'd been studying independently. It's a good way to improve myself. I want to be better. …than I am."

She narrowed her eyes. "So… going to school makes you better than people like me?"

"No, that's not what I-"

"You don't need school to be smart or to know things. I have all the skills to lead the life I want to live, and I learned them on my own." Selina tried to smooth the hurt in her voice.

"I know that, but those aren't the skills I'm going to need when I take over Wayne enterprises. This school is the same school that my parents went to, the same school that a lot of men and women at their company went to."

"So?" Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest.

"That's important. I want the board to respect me, to see me as one of their equals."

Her green eyes were hard. "Equals? Huh, So I'm not equal to you?"

"No-" panic and frustration leaked into his words, "you wouldn't understand."

"Why? Because I don't have a butler or a trust fund or a degree from Buckingham palace?" Anger flashed in her eyes, "Calculus and grammar and French don't help you survive in the real world, Bruce.

You want to learn about people? Well, Gotham's a big city, and there's a whole lot of people in it, and a lot of them don't go to school, even less to a school like that. I know this city, what it's really like, better than you ever will. I don't need to waste my time in some stupid prep school with a bunch of spoiled rich brats." She was halfway out the window before Bruce grabbed the sleeve of her jacket, "Let me go!"

"No- I mean, I will- just stay," he said, anxiously. She tried to wrench her arm free. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean any of that how it sounded." She took a deep breath, anger still radiating from her stony cheeks. She searched his face. His thick eyebrows pressed together, and his mouth nervously ironed into a straight line. She found it in his brown eyes. That thing that held her there. Selina's natural instinct was always to flee, but something in him made her want to fight it, to stay, even if it was only for a few more minutes. She thought it might be trust.

"You're my friend. I would never think I'm better than you," he continued, sincerely. Selina jerked her arm free, glaring at him. He didn't try to grab it again, "Look, your right, there's a lot that school won't teach me. That's why I need you."

"Goodnight, Bruce." She lifted her other leg onto the window sill.

"Wait, there's something I wanted to show you." Selena twisted back to face him, eyes narrowed.

"Well, what is it?"

"My birthday present." The girl rolled her eyes, and shifted her body onto the drain pipe, maneuvering downward as if independent from gravity.

"I think you'd really like it," he called after her. She stopped her descent, and sighed.

"This better be good."

"Have you ever even been on one?" Selina's voice was doubtful, but he could hear the awe muddled in there.

"Of course. Have you?" Bruce responded, casting his eyes sideways at her. She didn't want to admit that she hadn't, but he took her silence as confirmation.

They stood side by side in the Wayne Manor garage, a shiny black motorcycle crouched in front of them like a dangerous animal. Bruce never let smugness or cockiness into his voice, but Selina could tell it was implied. They were whispering, in case Alfred was up late. He didn't particularly approve of late night excursions, or Selina for that matter. The moonlight highlighted the curves on each of the antique cars lined up in a row, and Selina thought that she wanted to hear one of them purr.

"How's your driving? I'm not climbing onto a death machine with some idiot kid who can't make turns."

"Well, I've been practicing for about a month and a half now. I think I'm pretty good."

"That's reassuring." Selina circled the bike, slowly. "You don't have a license, do you?"

"I will." Bruce spoke into the collar of his jacket.

She cocked her head over her shoulder, "So this is illegal?" Bruce stuffed his hands in the pockets of his navy sweater.

She flashed him a wide smile, a glint in her eyes.

"Well, I'm in."

They both winced at how loud the garage door groaned as it opened. Selina grinned as she felt the vehicle rumble to life underneath her. The onyx creature pulled them out onto dark road and through the stinging night air. She was done with whispering, her delirious shouts and the thundering hum of the engine echoing off the house and the hills.

Bruce was rigid and silent, his full concentration on adjusting to the added weight and keeping them alive. He couldn't help grinning along with her as she laughed, though he never took his eyes off the road. She never laughed like this. The sound was terrifying. Selina was terrified, but she loved it. She felt like they could fly faster than anything, faster than her tangled past or the tumultuous future. She wrapped her arms tighter around her friend, and pressed her cheek into his back, breathing in the oddly familiar smell of his jacket, and she knew.

Bruce did too. In the city, the bike flew past streetlamps, and offices, and alleys, and apartments, and they nearly touched the ground with every turn. Each time he felt her thin arms hug him tighter and he knew.

When they got back to the garage, Bruce climbed off the bike, adrenaline still in his veins. Selina lingered on the machine, taking her helmet off slowly. She set it on her lap, looking at her own reflection. Her cheeks were flushed and her hair somewhat flattened against her head. Bruce was still grinning, listening for Alfred, when she abruptly swung her leg over and shoved the helmet into his hands. Her expression was tight.

"You can't keep me here with stupid gifts." She strode to the door picking up pace as she went.

She paused, pulling her hood up, "Stay out of trouble," and disappeared.

Bruce stood alone in the garage for some minutes more, still holding the helmet he had bought for her, sure that he did not want to feel this again.