Chapter 7

"I boosted the premium stuff Otto," said Selina as she came through the door cracking open a can of salmon and mackerel fillets. She knew Otto would love a treat after suffering a whole week of dry biscuits, but she'd been much busier with the club than she'd been for a while, and couldn't spare the time to indulge her cat.

The black and white feline perked up at the scent that filled the room, and wished her a warm welcome.

"You're welcome!" sang Selina, putting the open can on the ground for Otto to enjoy.

"Hello Selina..." came a voice that startled her.

But she already recognized it without even turning to look. Her defenses came up. "What the hell are you doing here?" She was certain that day when she left him with Sonny that she wouldn't be seeing him again, and yet she was floored by his persistence.

"I wanted to see you," he said, as though nothing malicious had happened between them. "I missed you."

"Did you fall on your head? I told you to stay away," she replied in disbelief. There was something odd about him. They had left on such bad terms, she couldn't imagine how he wouldn't still be reacting to that.

"You did? I forgot."

Definitely something out of sorts... "Why're you acting so weird?"

"I'm -- I'm sorry, I didn't sleep well last night."

Selina couldn't get a feel of what was going through his head, though everything within her was telling her to run, "Uh huh... well I just came here to feed my cat. So if you're not gonna leave, I will."

But he blocked off her escape. "I promised myself I'd stay away," he continued, "That it would be safer that way but things have changed."

"What are you talking about?" She waited for a response as she watched him struggle within himself to explain. Her patience ran thin. "You know what? I don't care. Just don't be here when I get back." She slipped past him and hurried to the door.

"Selina wait!" he said, hurrying after her. "I'm not Bruce..."

Her eyes widened as her mind flashed back to Bruce's look-a-like who had her fooled for a while. He'd told her he'd plans to leave town, and real Bruce confirmed that he was gone a few days after. As much as she had sympathized with the clone, she was glad at the time that she'd only need to deal with one Bruce. She couldn't understand why he would come back. "Five... wasn't it?" she replied, walking back into the room. She wasn't comfortable with him sitting in her home, but she decided that she'd at least do the decent thing and hear him out.

He nodded. "I know I said I'd leave, and I was doing exactly that when a woman in a limousine pulled up and told me to get in. She told me that she could give me a home, a purpose, and an identity. She told me that I could be so much more, that I had great potential inside me. It sounded too good an opportunity to pass up."

"Wait let me get this straight..." Selina interjected. She was still wrapping her mind around the clone's return. "So this limo pulls up literally out of nowhere, and this creepy lady asks you to get in because 'you could be so much more', and you did?"

"I had nowhere else to go."

"So where have you been the last few months?"

"It's not important," he stood up and walked over to where she was seated. "What matters is you need to leave Gotham. Right away."

"Why?"

"Because the city has been judged, and something bad is going to happen."

He hovered over her in an authoritative manner, telling her what to do. She didn't want to say it but Five had more in common with real Bruce than he thought. That tone had never worked on her, nor would it ever. She chortled. "Judged, by who?"

He retreated, kept his words to himself. She realised then that he might have been overstepping his bounds in order to tell her what he did. "The people who took you?" An uncomfortable feeling crept up on her. The missing time, the woman in a limousine, Five's unannounced return... "Wait, your clothes, your hair... the walk you talk." He continued to keep his silence, as her mind began to put the past events together. That note that Bruce had claimed she'd left for him - she thought he had lied about it in order to meet up with her, but that never really sat right with her. It wasn't like him to do such a thing. She hadn't seen real Bruce since then, she wondered if anyone had, especially with fake Bruce parading around as him. "Where's Bruce?"

"Selina..." he finally broke his silence.

"What did you do to him?" The more she thought about it, the madder she got. Bruce might've been an ass, but he didn't deserve to have his life completely replaced by someone else. She wondered if he was still alive... if he'd died that day that she'd left him... No, she didn't want to think about that. 

"He's fine, he's not in Gotham. But nothing bad is going to happen to him."

Relief washed over her - at least she knew that Bruce was still alive. Alfred would probably kill to know this. "Then where is he?"

"It doesn't matter. You just have to trust me, you need to leave Gotham today."

That authoritative tone again. "Trust you?" She'd laugh if the situation wasn't so dire. Five had been responsible for Bruce's kidnapping, he practically came out and admitted it all, and he was still lecturing her about trust. "I don't even know you."

She started heading to the door when he body-blocked her again. "Where are you going?"

Selina was getting really tired of Five's domineering attitude. She'd once allowed him to kiss her because she'd seen an innocence in him. He didn't seem as innocent anymore - quite the opposite in fact. Even Bruce Wayne with all his hundred and one issues, would not dare to keep her from leaving. "To tell Alfred. Now let me go!"

"Selina, you can't tell anyone."

"Then why the hell did you tell me?"

Once more, she saw the conflict on his face. That woman in the limo had definitely done a number on him. She continued to glare angrily at him, till he finally spoke. "Because I care about you, and if there's one person I want to save, I'd want it to be you."

He was talking about his feelings for her while forcing her into a corner, as though one would make her forget the other. It was rich that he didn't seem to notice the irony. "That's the difference between you and Bruce Wayne, he would try and save everyone. You can pretend all you want, but you'll never be him." There was hurt in his eyes, and she reveled in it. At this point, she just wanted him out of her face. Whatever she'd felt for him before, it'd completely vaporized, and she wanted him to know that. "You're nothing, you're not even a real person! You don't matter at all."

"You're wrong about me," he replied, his voice dropping down one whole octave, and his gaze hardening against her. Just like that, the real Five stood in front of her. No pretenses and no put on voices. He stepped imposingly in front of her, and instinctively she took a step back. "I do matter. And I won't let you tell Alfred."

"Oh yeah? How're you gonna stop..."

With a powerful shove that Selina hadn't predicted, she found herself smashing through glass and flailing through their air all at once. Without even the time to react to her fall, she met the ground with a huge thud, knocking the breath clear out of her lungs. And as the world slowly went dark for her, she caught Five glaring down at her from that broken window. 

But nothing about him resembled Bruce any longer, all that was left was a cold-hearted killer. She wondered how she could've been so blind.