The rain fell in a soft, steady rhythm against the skylight of the penthouse, a gray backdrop to the warmth inside. Selina watched you from across the room, a silhouette against the city lights of Gotham. You were cleaning the last of the gear from the night’s work, a simple retrieval that had felt more like a dance than a job. The silence between you was comfortable, filled with the unspoken language of partners who knew each other’s every breath.

But tonight, her mind was elsewhere. It had been a week since they’d helped that fierce, brilliant young woman—Helena—step back through the vibrational barrier to her own world. A week since she’d looked into a face that was a perfect, impossible blend of his jawline and her eyes. Their daughter. A concept from another Earth, yet made devastatingly real.

“You’re quiet,” you said, not turning around, your voice that low rumble that always settled something deep in her chest.

“I’m thinking,” she replied, curling her legs beneath her on the plush sofa. She traced the rim of her empty wine glass. “About Helena.”

You finally turned, placing the last batarang in its case. Your expression was guarded, the way it got when emotions you couldn’t punch or outsmart were involved. “She’s safe. We made sure of it.”

“I know,” Selina said, and she did. That wasn’t the point. The point was the hollow echo in the penthouse after she’d left. The point was the phantom feeling of a child’s hand in hers, a hand that had never truly been hers to hold. “It’s not about her safety. It’s about… the idea of her.”

You walked over, the leather of your suit creaking softly, and sat on the arm of the sofa beside her. You didn’t touch her, but your presence was a tangible weight. She could feel you listening, really listening, in a way few people ever did.

“For so long, my legacy was what I could steal, what I could leave behind in a safe, or the scars I could avoid,” she began, her gaze fixed on the rain-streaked glass. “Family was a complicated word. A source of pain, more often than not. It was something that happened to other people. To normal people.”

She looked up at you then, meeting your eyes in the dim light. “We met a girl who was our daughter. We saw a version of us that built a life, a home… a family. And they created that. A hero. Someone brave and good and stubborn.” A faint, wistful smile touched her lips. “She got her stubbornness from you, obviously.”

You remained silent, but your eyes softened, urging her to continue.

“And now she’s gone back to her world, to her parents… and this place feels too big. This life feels…” She searched for the word, one that didn’t come easily to Catwoman. “Incomplete.”

She reached out then, her fingers brushing against the back of your gloved hand. “I’ve spent my life taking things. But seeing her… it made me want to build something. Something that’s just ours. Not from another Earth, not a ‘what if.’ Ours.”

She took a slow breath, the most vulnerable heist of her life. “I look at you, and I don’t just see my vigilante lover in the rain. I see the father of a daughter who already exists somewhere. And I want… I want us to have our own Helena.”

The words hung in the air, a confession more terrifying than any confrontation with Bane or Joker. It was a surrender to a hope she’d never dared to name, a future far more perilous than any midnight rooftop chase. She was asking the Bat to consider a crib, asking the Cat to stay in one place long enough to nurture a life.

She watched your face, waiting for the retreat, the logical argument, the fear. She was prepared for all of it. But the silence stretched, filled only by the gentle tap of the rain, holding the possibility of a new beginning.