It had been blistering sunshine over the cursed city of Gotham the following day, though Carla hadn't seen a shred of it since she'd been stalking the long corridors of Arkham Asylum since seven-thirty that morning.

She'd not heard from Bruce after Harvey had dropped her off at home, not that she stayed awake to wait for his call, but her phone was empty of any notifications from him when morning rolled around.

Carla wasn't particularly bothered, at least she thought she wasn't. There was an irritating, tugging feeling jabbing at her mind and at her gut every so often throughout the day, though she'd not worked out what it was. Bruce hadn't crossed her mind as such, but the lack of him had, at least once or twice.

She didn't care that it seemed like he didn't care, but the thought sent her spiralling to pulling together a conclusion that if something had ever happened to her in Sicily, Francisco wouldn't have thought twice about going to check on her, whether they were dating or mortal enemies - their connection ran that deep.

Carla didn't need men to check on her and worry about her, she never had done, but Bruce had painted some kind of expectation for her back in Italy and, perhaps foolishly, she had started to think he might've cared about her.

Still, he wasn't the first man to let her down and she was convinced he wouldn't be the last, and so Carla carried on with her day like nothing had happened at all.

It was eight-thirty when the twins on the door of The Iceberg Lounge stepped aside to let her in from the cold, their greeting warm and smile genuine now enough time had passed for them to trust her.

The bar was as busy as ever for a Wednesday night and Carmine Falcone was sat at his usual table with four men surrounding him, though company that he quickly dismissed with a wave of his hand when his eyes fell on Carla walking in his direction.

He called over for the bartender to pour a glass of champagne as Carla sat down opposite him, the table now clear of any other men and their half-empty glasses of whiskey whatever else they needed to carry them through the midweek climb.

Carmine sat back with a complacent hint of a smile, "How was your vacation?"

She held a still expression, "I'm fine after last night, thank you for asking."

He scoffed and slid the bartender a twenty dollar note when he put down Carla's champagne, perfectly chilled in a thin-stemmed flute.

"I'll get onto that. But tell me, how was your vacation? I didn't know you and Mr Wayne were official?"

His tone was taunting her and she was already wildly irritated, sitting upright with her shoulders pushed back and head held high, taking a shamelessly long swig of the champagne that had looked too enticing to ignore.

"Ah," Carmine nodded with a grin, "Trouble in paradise, is it?"

"That's none of your business."

"Actually," he fixed the cufflinks on his shirt sleeves with raised brows before leaning on the table with clasped hands, "It is. Because if you no longer give a fuck about him, then my leverage doesn't have much weight, does it?"

Carla just stared at him. She'd been trying to get inside people's heads all day and was thankful that Carmine had never masked his intentions in riddles or unbreakable codes, although he might've been a little bit too similar to her in his forefront abruptness for her to be comfortable.

"Don't even think about lying to me, either. I can tell when people lie to me, you're no different."

She wasn't a fool, never being stupid enough to even consider lying to Carmine Falcone. Whether she liked it or not, she was in too deep with him to turn back.

"Three of your boys have hearings this week. I can't send them all to Arkham, do you want to pick your favourite or shall I?"

Carmine grinned and relaxed his shoulders, "I'm glad we're on the same page. Russo goes to Arkham, let the other two rot in County."

She swallowed thickly and drank more champagne, polishing off half of the glass before setting it back down on the table and wrapped her fingers around the handle of her purse.

"Is that all?"

He cleared his throat and tilted his head, elbows resting on the table, "Keep your distance from Harvey Dent."

"Harvey?" She furrowed her brows, "Why?"

"Didn't you hear? The Joker made an attempt to kill the mayor while you were on your little couples vacation. Rumour has it he's targeting public figures and our guess is that the District Attorney isn't much further down on his hit list. The last thing I need is for you to become collateral damage."

Carla almost laughed, "Like I'm not already?"

He rolled his eyes and clenched his jaw, eyes narrowed in a way that told her he was serious, "Watch your back, Doctor. That's all."

Carla didn't finish her champagne, saying nothing more before walking straight back past the twins into the mild evening air beneath the city lights.

She was exhausted, tired from the fiasco of an evening she'd had less than twenty four hours prior and drained from a long day at work, let alone having to trek across the city to meet with someone she had no interest in speaking to the best of times.

With a vision of picking up take out for herself from the Mexican restaurant a block away from her home and crawling into bed after a hot shower, Carla's steps became quicker towards her apartment building.

She was just under a mile away when her phone started to ring, instinctively answering it without glancing at the screen first.

"Doctor Fiori."

"It's me, how are you? Are you alright?"

Bruce's voice was smooth and deep, sending a shiver down her spine that she despised as soon as it chilled her skin.

"I'm fine."

"Are you home? I've just finished up at the office, I want to see you."

"No, I'm walking back from work."

"Walking? Why?"

Carla groaned inwardly at his audacity, "Because my car is in the shop after two tyres got slashed and the back window was shattered when it was parked outside the courthouse last night. Not for fun."

She could almost imagine the way Bruce would be wincing on the other end of the phone, jaw clenched and eyes squeezed shut at his quick ignorance. The long pause before he spoke again indicated that she'd been right.

"I'll wait in your lobby."

He didn't give Carla chance to object before ending the call, heading straight out of his office and in the direction of her apartment building.

Bruce felt guilty. He should've called Carla, he knew that, but he'd been hot on the Joker's heels as soon as he'd fled the courthouse the night before, chasing him across the city until the early hours of the morning. By the time he'd cleaned himself up at three-thirty and gotten into bed, he'd slept for three hours before having to get up again to make an early meeting in the office.

But of course, he couldn't tell her any of that.

Carla didn't look at Bruce when she walked into her lobby, not surprised to see him leaning on the front desk talking to Louis like they were best friends.

She heard his footsteps follow after her as she breezed past the two men towards the elevators, a hurried yet polite good evening being thrown towards Louis as she did so, not acknowledging Bruce.

He was about to speak when the elevator doors closed, only her phone rang and she answered it straight away, leaving him with his arms folded and fingers tapping against the sleeve of his suit, lips pursed.

She strolled out of the elevator and he followed, still not having looked into her eyes once. He would've started to question whether he had turned invisible had she not held the door open for a split second for him to grab, though not granting him the grace of her eye contact or her words, even as she ended her phone call.

Carla dumped her bag down on the kitchen island and slipped off her heels, hanging up her coat and leaving her in a black mini dress and sheer tights, a cashmere cardigan covering her arms and her hair straight down her back, eyes lined with kohl.

Bruce hadn't expected Carla to throw herself at him in elation and be beaming with happiness, but he hadn't expected her to be so cold, not after Sicily. He'd messed up, albeit in a way that he couldn't help, and saw her anger show itself when she grabbed a single wine glass from her cupboard and poured herself a healthy measure of Pinot Grigio without offering him any.

He ran a flat palm against his slicked back hair and sighed loudly, swallowing as he pushed aside his ego and looked at her from across the kitchen island.

"I'm sorry for not calling, for not coming to check if you were alright. It's not an excuse but work was-"

"You don't owe me anything, Bruce," she said firmly, her dark eyes meeting his own for the first time that day, empty and frozen, "You don't owe me an apology, you don't owe me your time, you don't owe me a single thing. You don't need to be here."

He let out a breath that was laced with a hesitant laugh of disbelief, "Carla, come on. I meant what I said back in Italy, I don't want you to look at me like..."

"Like what?"

"Like you are right now."

There was a thick silence that fell densely around them, neither of them moving a muscle. His hands were resting flat on the counter and Carla glanced at them, eyes tracing the veins running up beneath the sleeves of his black suit, the crisp collar of his shirt and the sleek tie hanging around his neck, his clean shaven skin and his lips, his lips, Carla could practically feel them roaming across her body and she flushed hot for a brief moment before returning to ice.

Bruce couldn't ever recall wishing to wake up with a woman beside him like he did with Carla since flying back to Gotham. He liked the way she softened for him, the way she let herself be touched and be handled, lose control with him. She'd shown a different part of herself to him and he'd not only seen it, but he'd understood it, and it frustrated him to think that she regretted all of it.

"What do you want?"

She stiffened and tilted up her head, brow raised as she waited for him to answer.

"Were you hurt?"

"I'm fine."

Bruce knew that wasn't a no.

"Show me."

He walked slowly around the island, eyes scanning her face for any signs of injury yet seeing nothing, her beautiful face unscathed and as perfectly haunting as it ever was.

"Bruce..." a roll of her eyes and shake of her head didn't deter him.

He took hold of one of her hands, brushing his thumb across the back of her palm and dragging his fingers up along her arm, feeling the softness of the cashmere and smelling the intoxicatingly familiar scent of her amber perfume, a recollection of her nails deep in his shoulder blades making him shiver beneath his skin.

"I said, show me."

Carla looked up at him, finding no hint of amusement or flirtation in his eyes like there usually was. She swallowed and yanked her hand out of his grasp, staying straight-faced while she shrugged off her cardigan and revealed the thin bandage wrapped around her upper arm.

Bruce held her arm, eyes narrowed as he tugged at the bandage and let it fall into his hand, discarding it on the counter. There was a thin cut that had severed her skin, but it looked like it was healing slowly and no fresh blood stained her olive tone.

"You'll be fine."

Carla scoffed and took a step back from him, "I am a Doctor, Bruce. Maybe not of the body, but I'm still a Doctor."

His attempts at salvaging whatever their relationship was were fading fast, falling right through his fingertips and turning into smoke as she walked away from him.

"Carla."

His voice deepened as he grabbed hold of her hand, holding her from taking another step away from him and instead, pulling her to turn back and face him.

She looked down at his hand again, fingers curved around her palm and warming her cold skin. His eyes were rounded and downturned slightly in a way that she didn't like. He looked upset, desperate almost, and she despised it because it made her feel the same way.

She thought back to Carmine and his threat and found herself pitted at the fact his leverage did still have weight. Whether Carla would admit she'd been upset somewhere inside of her at Bruce's lack of effort to check on her or not, she still felt her stomach turn at the thought of any harm coming to him.

He seemed so pure, too pure, and beautiful in a way that she wasn't, that she would never be. He was clean and good and right and she was the opposite, and yet he had made her feel closer to being those things then she ever had done before.

She pulled in a sharp breath when Bruce stepped closer to her, letting go of her hand and touching her face instead, both hands caressing her cheeks as he looked down at her with such warm eyes, not daring to break a smile before he kissed her.

Carla couldn't do anything but kiss him back, an ache within her turning to ash once his lips touched hers again, the softness of his hands and the taste on the end of his tongue burning her senses wild. Her hands grabbed at the lapels of his blazer and she curved against his body on her toes, a release pouring through her kiss into his soul that he felt, and once he did, he smiled.

"I'm sorry," he breathed, dragging his lips across her brow.

"You should be."

Her sternness was valid and he nodded at her hard words, an acknowledgement in her own way of her harmed feelings.

Bruce tilted her head up in his hands, one hand brushing hair from her face as he pressed a long kiss against her forehead, feeling a tension from his suit jacket as she held onto it with white knuckles.

"I've missed you, Carla." And he meant it.

He watched her eyes widen the tiniest amount at his words, shock perplexing her fixed face as she pushed her shoulders back slightly and swallowed thickly. To anybody else, they wouldn't have noticed a change in her at all, but Bruce did.

Carla didn't know what to say, and so she chose to say nothing at all, settling for pulling him down by the collar to kiss her once more instead.

Bruce knew that was her way of telling her that she'd missed him too.