The Ties That Bind Us

CHAPTER 5: Amendments

Selina stomped furiously into her room, bottle in hand, kicking off some shoes out of her way. Bringing the bottle to her lips, she walked over to the balcony and sat down on the floor, resting her back against the wall. Angry tears poured down her face as she continued to down more and more wine down her throat as if it was water. The night was bright and clear, the moonlight illuminating all around.

She hated crying. And even more, she hated herself for crying. It almost never happened, but when it did, they were angry tears—she'd almost never cry out of sadness or sorrow. She laughed darkly thinking how pathetic she must've been looking.

A few minutes later she saw Bruce passing by in the outdoor area downstairs, picking up the slippers she'd left by the sun lounger, and the sight infuriated her. She picked up the then empty glass bottle and threw it far away, making it crash loudly on the wooden walk that led to the beach; when he looked up to see her, startled, she stood up from the floor and eyed him harshly, her vision still a bit watery and blurred, then walked back to her bedroom and collapsed on the bed.

She felt humiliated and like screaming and swearing every curse word known to men, hexing the universe or whatever higher power she didn't believe in; but she swallowed her rage, leaving it to burn even harder inside her. She would like to believe she was just being dramatic or theatrical, but her chest pained in a way she just couldn't explain.

The water she so desperately needed to abrade her thirst had been flaunted in front her and then taken away as quickly as it had emerged. She could understand why Bruce would want to stall her, but she couldn't grasp exactly what kind of game he was playing. Why couldn't he just take what he wanted—like she was so clearly offering—and then let her go? Why did he have to toy with her to get his wishes and why did she even care that he did? She had played men plenty of times before to know that they enjoyed the hunt and got off on the chase, something she'd often use to her advantage, making them run around in circles tirelessly long enough for her to get what she wanted and escape before they could catch her; but she also knew they didn't usually reject a willing prey.

Was that all she had become? Was that what he had turned her into? A pathetic little prey handed over on a silver platter? Maybe. She wouldn't and couldn't afford to let herself go there, but she knew deep inside she wanted him badly, probably more than he ever wanted her. She had initiated both of their first kisses, as Bruce and as Batman, though initially with Bruce she just thought it was part of her game, even and despite her very real desire to do so.

It wasn't usual for her to actually want and enjoy those parts of her schemes, but Bruce had managed to make it into her very few exceptions. Before she even knew he was Batman he'd gotten under her skin, and when she realized she had delivered him straight into Bane's arms in that pit, for a second there, her world collapsed. She knew in that moment that her destruction power was more devastatingly damaging than she'd ever realized. The only two men she played and craved simultaneously were actually the same, and she ruined both the minute she entered their lives. She admired Batman way before she ever admired Bruce, and even more so after.

She had nothing to lose admitting to those things, but her self-preservation instincts were too strong for her own good.

That night she slept dreamlessly for the first time in weeks. The amount of wine she had consumed probably helped with that, because when she woke up the morning after she was still in her clothes from the night before, and with a staggering and blinding headache. She moved slowly as to not provoke her body further into hating her even more. She rubbed her eyelids hardly shut, seeing stars, wishing the world could just stop spinning for a second so she could reset time and not drink that much.

She didn't even let her thoughts wander about in what had happened the night before, figuring if she thought her hangover was bad, her moral hangover must be ten times worse. She stood up at a snail's pace and walked to the bathroom, undressing herself and turning on the shower. The cold water washed over her uncovering all her truths and sins she didn't want to acknowledge in sobriety. So she stayed under the water stream longer than she needed to, not feeling particularly excited to get out and face the reality that awaited her not far away from there, in the room next door.