Batman Begins/Dark Knight When You Lie Next To Me

**AN**: This short little one-shot was inspired by some _very_ lovely BatCat and Bruce Wayne gifs and photo sets on tumblr, and is dedicated to their creators: post/35885498740/for-landscaper01 and post/35870457956/what-really-should-have-happened-at-the-wayne

Thank you, ladies, for giving me the inspiration to crank this out!

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To allow someone to sleep next to you is the absolute most critical point of letting one's guard down.

Or rather, to allow someone to be in your presence _while_ you sleep is an action that speaks of the highest form of trust.

The man that Bruce Wayne had known himself to be – untrusting, unsure, guarded, self-contained, emotions always boxed with a lid on tight – abandoned him that first night.

Not that very first night that he had shared a bed with Selina Kyle. On that first night, sure, he had all but given his heart away.

But he had never allowed _any_ woman to sleep next to him in _his_ bed.

The bed he'd grown up in. With its headboard pattern of rich, earthy browns, and its circular design always reminding him of a sun rising somewhere over a vast desert.

He'd thought of that bed, on those long nights down in the pit. Not necessarily of its warmth and its comfort, but of that sun.

_Sometimes, a man rises from the darkness_.

When all of his belongings had been sold off and Wayne Manor had been turned into a home for youth so desperately in need of a roof of their heads, Bruce was sure that he'd never see that bed again.

And now here he was, some thousands of miles away across the globe, waking up in _his _bed and staring into dark, coffee-colored eyes that held the promise of his entire future. Her hair trailed across the cream-colored pillowcase she rested her cheek on, messy ringlets falling gracefully across her neck and bare shoulders. A deep breath escaped her lips as she fully awoke, and he watched her lips form a quiet, compressed yawn before she blinked and allowed a warm, fond expression to reach her eyes.

The bed was a piece of furniture that he had an emotional attachment to.

The woman _in _the bed was his emotional savior.

It was really that simple.

As foreign as this all still was to him – having an equal partner, being slaves to each other, being unwilling to separate – every time light reflects against her irises, he feels himself slain by the depth he sees there. He's sucked in. Every. Single. Time.

"I still can't believe you had this bed shipped halfway around the world," she mumbles, sleep-hazed, and she decides that contentment makes him look youthful. Carefree. She's been learning from him, since they escaped Gotham, how to leave her past behind her.

It hasn't always been easy. Her fear of attachment and even greater fear of abandonment dealt crushing blows to her soul every now and then. But all he has to do anymore, it seems, is so much as look at her – in that way that only _he _can, like he wants to crawl underneath her skin and wrap her up from the inside out, protecting her from everything other bad thing the world could possibly throw at them –and she gives herself over to him.

He's looking at her like that _now_, except a little film of haze still covers his gaze as he fully awakens, and stray wisps of hair fall across his left eye as he turns his head toward her and reaches a hand out. His fingertips graze her arm, leaving warmth in their wake.

"This bed is the safest place I've had…until you," he reveals quietly, and her soul aches.

_I don't have the luxury of friends_.

This had been true. The bed had given him a sanctuary from the world, the place where he would curl up when he needed a respite from the madness around him. His father used to sit on the edge of the mattress and regale a young Bruce with stories of medicine and healing. His mother would find a place between the two largest pillows at night, pull her son into her lap, and lull him to sleep with readings from his favorite books. Later, this bed became the place where Alfred would chastise him for sleeping in so late. He knows it isn't the same piece of furniture from his youth – the original bed having been lost in the fire at Wayne Manor years back – but he and Alfred had gone to painstakingly great lengths to find an exact replica, and he let himself believe that this is good enough.

_Bats are nocturnal. That may be – but even for billionaire playboys, 3 o'clock is pushing it._

His lips curl up slightly at the memory, and he can easily see himself and Selina finding plenty of reasons to stay in this bed until the afternoon hours.

"Well, then…I'm honored to be part of your safe place," she replies as her gaze wanders, and she's thinking both about how this bed actually matches their other Italian décor, and about how they were actually talking.

Talking.

It was something either had rarely done before the other came along, especially in an intimate setting. Talking was usually generally stilted, awkward mumbling that served as both a pointless and unnecessary bullet point on the way to sex. It was a way to get someone _into_ the bedroom, not something you did once you were inside those four walls and the deed was on its way to being done, or already over. But nothing about Bruce and Selina's relationship felt like a bullet point. Nor did words ever feel unnecessary.

She knew, from times she had spent with her head lying across his heaving, sweaty chest, that he actually did have a particular fondness for science and engineering, that he wasn't much for music, and that black really _isn't_ his favorite color. About her, he had learned that she could waste hours poring over old books, that she did enjoy cooking if she put her mind to it, and that she had actually used singing as a way to escape from the pains of her wasted youth on the streets of Gotham.

His hands are wandering now and the sheets seem to almost whisper at them as he moves toward her, snaking his arms around her waist. She is used to being swathed in sheets that smell just like him and having her head cradled by a pillow that smells just like him, and so now seems as good a time as any to make this bed his again. To make it _theirs_.

"Selina."

He says her name like a lost man finding religion, and despite the fact that she's heard him say her name many times, it's the first time she's heard it said like _that_. Like she was the light he was seeing after being stuck in the deepest dark.

It's been months since they escaped to Italy – nearly seven months, to be exact – and she wonders how he can still be enamored with her after all this time. For those first few weeks, it was more of a hindrance than a blessing…to have someone who wanted to envelop her in his arms, who wanted to keep her close to him with every breath. She had been unwilling to trust her instincts for the first time, sure that he would be just like every other man she had ever been with. They would treat her as if she were merely _adequate_ for the time being, then they'd pay no attention at all when she went clearing rooftops for one night and returned to find them gone.

Not that she'd ever wanted any of them to stick around. But it may have been enough to sway her self-doubts if she'd thought that even just _one of_ them was curious about who she was underneath skin-tight leather and the cold, hard gaze she'd adopted for the streets. She remembers the way that Bruce looked at her when he pulled his mother's string of pearls from her slender neck at the masquerade. Even then, he'd had the decency to look at her with concern etched across his handsome features. She'd had the good sense to separate pity from concern, and Bruce Wayne had been the first man to look at her as if he cared what happened to her beyond that dance floor.

Her toes curl as she arcs and slides against his abdomen, and she smirks a little when she feels his hips return the favor with an instinctual rocking motion that doesn't get him anywhere near his prize. Her fingers find the back of his neck and then she dips her head to lovingly bite first his left nipple, then his right, until she is reaching to push up underneath his arms and guiding him to stretch back against the headboard. There is both fire and bemusement in his eyes when her hands trail up his arms to close around his wrists, holding him still while she easily manipulates her body over his and flattens herself against him.

She settles as he forces himself to breathe, except he can't when she's looking right into his eyes and piercing his soul. He is not used to this. She is not used to this. This blinding desire to be as physically close as possible, until the sheer rawness of the _want_ threatens to consume them both. It has taken them both a long time to trust. Intimacy – opening up to reveal personal feelings and secrets, letting someone else inside – is no easy feat for either of them. And she knew that he had ultimately tested her last night, carrying her to _this_ bed and not making love to her.

Last night, he had wanted her companionship. Her heart. Today, in return, she wants his body.

She is resting her forehead against his until her head dips and she begins licking her way around his neck, enjoying the salty taste on her tongue as she finds his jaw line and does the same. Her nails are now digging lightly into his wrists, but he doesn't complain when the pleasure begins to balance out the pain. Now she is hovering by his ear, breathing, whispering something about how maybe he should consider moving the valuable headboard away from the wall sooner rather than later, so it never gets damaged during one of their escapades.

She could have been whispering random words from the dictionary, for all he cared. All he knows is that her hot breath against his ear lobe sends shivers across all of his flesh and his erection pulsing painfully hard against the soft curves of her stomach, and if she doesn't make a move soon then he's going to have to find a way to fill her up himself.

Then he forgets his words when she kisses him, _finally_ bringing her hands down to sweetly cradle his face while she sweeps him into bliss, and the fact that she is pouring all of her emotion into this intimate gesture somehow makes it even…better. His mind blindly grasps for any other words to describe it, but he can't think. He's moaning into her mouth now, and she into his, and then she's twisting up against him in perfect symmetry of skin-to-skin contact. He can feel rib cage to rib cage, pelvic bone to pelvic bone, perfectly aligned. Then the slick warmth between her legs touches him as she spreads her knees to either side of his hips, and he knows this is over.

She strokes against him as she settles herself, and he struggles to keep his hands still as he feels wetness slipping against him even before he's where he needs to be. Strange sounds clog the back of his throat as she reaches between them and closes her fingers around the length of him, and then thankfully she's tired of playing games, because she simply guides him into her and then throws her head back as pleasure hums through her body.

He could watch her like this all the time. Passionate. Unguarded. Her mind focused on one goal.

His hands finally find a home low on her hips, and tension strums every muscle in his body as he waits for her to move. After a long moment, she curls forward again and opens her eyes, silently daring him to keep up with her as she starts to grind on him in a slow counter-clockwise pattern. He thrusts up to meet her when she hits six o'clock, then loses himself in the slow burn when he feels her clenching around him at twelve o'clock. The pace is measured, lazy, and he lets her continue her ministrations for several long minutes until he can no longer suppress the urge to worship her from head to toe.

His hands begin their ascent to move slowly up her back, feeling the slippery sheen of sweat that has begun to settle on both of them, and then he's gathering her to him as she stalls the motion of her hips and allows him to wrap his arms around her. In one swift motion, she's flat on her back and he's pinning her with knees on either side of her body, stroking and licking and teasing and touching her everywhere, his hands blazing a trail of fire as she runs her fingers through his dampening hair. Her breaths are coming in short, labored gasps that she can't muster the effort to control, and her hands curl into the mattress, her fingernails ripping the sheets as he refills her with a quick, deep thrust that sends her eyes opening wide and her jaw dropping with a scream that dies at the back of her throat.

His body acts as it devours every electrical charge in the air between them, and as he starts to move with purpose, he kisses her again, runs his palm along her cheek, then pulls back to look her right in the eyes as they both begin to unravel.

"Selina…I love what I know of you. And I trust what I don't yet know," he whispers hoarsely, and her lashes sweep down over her eyes as she trembles violently beneath him. It is enough of a subtle shift in her that he's able to catch it before she lands in a deep well of self-doubt, and he guides her jaw back to him and kisses away the soft cries escaping from her lips as he empties himself inside of her.

His arms wrap around her shoulders tightly and he finishes his thought with a hot breath against her mouth.

"Stay with me forever."

Everything goes silent and her heart skips a beat as her shaking subsides and she registers his meaning. Her head is on his shoulder, her eyes silently counting the moles on his bicep, and she knows if she looks at him now, she will see the truth there: that he knows her at her best, knows her at her worst, and knows her during all of the days in between.

Bruce Wayne would never use the words "Will you marry me?" with Selina Kyle, because neither is sure that they are the marrying kind, and neither has needed a ring to prove what they are to each other. They are examples that out of tragedy, a greater good can arise. They are silent guardians who would come forth from the shadows to strike down anyone who would attempt to harm the other. They are strong, yet fragile human beings…fiercely independent, their black-and-white worlds melding together to form the perfect shade of gray that colors them the same, both in their masks and out.

He gently lowers them both to the sanctuary of the mattress, pulling the comforter back around them, careful to cocoon her on his side rather than resting his full weight against her. And he rubs her back, letting her gather herself as her scent saturates his senses. She has not yet met his gaze, and instead finds herself softly stroking his torso, marveling at every bump and dip and scar of his abdomen. His heart pulses strongly underneath her fingers, and she feels her own flutter as she suddenly realizes that he seems relaxed, calm, and…at peace.

She cannot bring herself to find an answer for him, and he both senses this and is strangely ok with it. He finds, anymore, that she doesn't have to say a word, and yet he knows exactly what kind of landscape exists in the thoughts between them.

Curling against him under the warmth of the covers, she finally presses her lips lightly to his neck and then rests her head on his chest, just below his pulse point. Daylight has crept through the windows and the clock across the room registers its presence with every _tick_. They do not know what time it is, and they do not want to look. They aren't ready for this _morning after_ to be over yet.

And so they stay. In his bed. Her bed. _Their _bed. Where he'd found what he'd been looking for. He found it in her stare, and in her heart, and in her reactions to his touch.

He found it, and he won't ever forget it.

In this old bed, Bruce Wayne felt…new.

* * *

**One more AN**: Just a little background on the piece of furniture that was used as Bruce Wayne's bed throughout The Dark Knight trilogy: it really IS an Italian piece, designed by Carlo Bugatti. Google his work; his designs are fantastic, and many of the bedroom sets will remind you of Bruce's bedroom décor. This just makes me wonder if Christopher Nolan didn't have Italy on the brain (or thoughts on Bruce's ending) the entire time he was making the trilogy…


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