Selina Kyle did not make mistakes.
She curated risks.
There's a difference.
Gotham that night was humid and restless. The skyline blinked like a tired casino, neon bruises against the sky. Selina had just lifted a private collection from a Falcone lieutenant who thought velvet gloves made him cultured. She was in a mood. Half victory. Half boredom.
Then she ran into him.
Slade Wilson was not subtle. He wasn't trying to be. He stood in the shadows of a rooftop like he owned the city's darker half. Tactical gear. Mask half-on. That unnerving stillness of a predator who doesn't need to chase.
They weren't enemies.
They weren't allies.
They were professionals.
He had been in Gotham on contract. She had been in Gotham because Gotham was hers in ways no one admitted out loud.
Words were exchanged. Barbs, mostly. Slade admired precision. Selina admired confidence she could claw at.
It wasn't romantic.
It wasn't tender.
It was two apex predators acknowledging each other's sharp edges and deciding, just for one night, not to use them.
By morning, he was gone.
By three weeks later, Selina was staring at a positive test in a marble bathroom overlooking Gotham Harbor.
She didn't panic.
She sat down.
She thought of Bruce.
Bruce Wayne had always been the almost. The tension that never quite became a future. She cared for him, in her way. But Bruce was married to the mission. Always would be.
Slade, on the other hand, was chaos in human form.
Not father material.
Not even close.
She could disappear. She could pretend it never happened. She had the resources.
Instead, she placed a hand on her stomach and whispered, "Well… this is inconvenient."
And that was that.
She would not abandon her child.
Even if the father was the most dangerous mercenary on the planet.