Bruce was met with a sight that had him lost for words when he stepped out into the Italian sunshine the following morning. A good nights rest in a luxuriously comfortable bed had left him feeling refreshed and calm, and waking up to the sound of ocean waves lapping against the shore from miles down the rock they were atop of was something he felt like he could get used to.

It wasn't the cloudless blue sky or the blinding golden rays that stole Bruce's breath, nor was it how beautiful the mountains and cliffs looked in daylight compared to evening darkness. It was how Carla emerged from the infinity pool on the edge of the garden, hair slicked back from the water and droplets running from her body that was barely covered in a black swimsuit that sat highly above her hips and curved low by her chest.

He stared from behind his sunglasses, walking slowly down the stone path towards the pool as she climbed the ladder and dragged a sun lounger into the path of the light, a blue beach towel already stretched out across it.

"Is the water not freezing?" Bruce asked.

The weather was forgiving and felt even warmer in the direct sunlight, but it was still relatively early and the sun was only just curving around to meet the water.

"Yes," Carla said as she lay down on the lounger with her eyes closed, "How did you sleep?"

Across the garden, Giulia gave him a bright smile a friendly wave as she took a quick break from tending to the flower beds. Bruce flashed a small wave of his hand and nodded before she returned to work, leaving him to nudge Carla's legs to the side and sit down on the end of the lounger.

"Good, you?"

"Good," she glared at him before closing her eyes again and laying her head back, "Are you hungry?"

"Are you offering to make me breakfast?" He said with a lifted tone.

Giulia had offered to make a lavish breakfast spread that morning but Carla had been quick to tell her to not worry. Bruce was more than used to having Alfred and whoever else run around for him at home, and the last thing she wanted was for her Aunt to end up doing the same thing, being convinced that he was more than capable himself.

It definitely wasn't a matter of capability, she knew that much, but there was something amusing about watching Bruce navigate a kitchen anyway.

"No, I'm offering to show you where you can make me breakfast."

He scoffed, "Of course, I should've known better."

Carla insisted on managing the coffee that morning while Bruce prepared avocado on toast, leaving a spare plate for Giulia to enjoy after she'd finished her gardening. They sat out on the patio again to eat their breakfast, Carla scrolling through some files on her laptop in the shade while Bruce flicked through emails on his phone, neither of them bothering to engage in conversation that early on in the day.

Once finished, Carla sighed and closed her laptop, drumming her fingers on the arms of the iron chair before kissing her teeth.

"I suppose I should give you a tour then."

Bruce almost laughed as he put his phone down, "Don't strain yourself with all that enthusiasm."

She said nothing and gathered the plates and cups and took them back into the kitchen, Bruce following on her heels, "I'd love one."

"Alright," she said, looking him up and down with a nod, "Give me five minutes to get ready."

Carla quickly blowdried the ends of her hair and pulled on a pair of black linen trousers, appearing back downstairs with an expensive beach bag on her shoulder and car keys in her hand within exactly five minutes.

Bruce was already dressed in navy swim shorts and a white polo, black aviators covering his eyes and his wallet and phone shoved into his pockets. His hair was still damp from a shower he'd taken first thing that morning, but it was nothing the sun wouldn't dry quickly enough.

They said goodbye to Giulia, Carla muttering something to her in Italian that Bruce didn't understand, before disappearing through the front gates and arriving at a double garage.

The doors lifted and revealed a red vintage Ferrari F8 sitting in pristine condition, black leather seats and polished rims making Bruce's eyes widen in slight shock, not expecting someone as delicate as Giulia to own such a classic machine.

"Your aunt drives this?" Bruce asked as he climbed into the passenger seat.

Carla nodded and started the engine, pulling on a pair of black cat eye sunglasses as the car crawled out of the garage onto the road, "Alfred drives around in a Rolls Royce, I don't know why you sound so shocked."

"Touché."

The mountain and sea breeze blew through Carla's dark hair as they descended, taking main roads as well as side roads so she could point out every little piece of her childhood to Bruce. They stopped at her old school and her favourite park, a beautiful fountain in an old square and rows of stunning colourful houses before they reached the foot of the cliff.

The Ferrari raced through countryside with vineyards on either side of the road before ending up on coastal roads with the ocean just a breath away from the tyres. The place was beautiful, that much was true, but there was something about watching Carla drive with one hand on the wheel and the other holding her hair out of her face that made it all the more exciting to Bruce.

After two hours of driving around, Carla suggested they stop off for a drink at a cove she knew on the east side. She parked the car on a narrow street and locked the doors, Bruce following her as they walked down uneven pathways until they eventually reached the seafront.

White sand stretched between two towering cliff edges and a handful of people were laying on towels, some even braving the water and splashing one another, playing catch with plastic footballs and lifting each other up onto their shoulders before crashing down into the waves.

They took up residence on a table in the corner of a family-run trattoria that served hot coffee and homemade gelato, Carla finally tying up her hair after the wind had dragged it to hell and back on their journey.

"It's beautiful here," Bruce said, "Why on Earth would you give it up to come back to Gotham?"

Carla stayed quiet while a waitress served them two espressos, thanking her with a nod and letting Bruce slide ten euros beneath an ash tray with the receipt.

"Believe it or not, there's not that many psychiatric institutions around here," she sipped her coffee.

Bruce shrugged, "Still, why Gotham?"

She breathed in heavily and looked out at the sea, "I never planned on it being forever. I still don't."

He felt an inkling that he wasn't going to get much more of an answer than that and so, settled for what scraps he'd been given and polished off his drink.

"Your accent, it's stronger here than it is back home."

Carla smiled small as she walked alongside Bruce towards the beach, pulling out two towels and handing one to him, "This is my home, that's why."

They lay their towels out on the sand and tucked the corners down, Bruce following Carla's lead and discarding his shirt once she stepped out of her trousers and got comfortable in just her swimsuit beneath the hot sun.

A comfortable silence descended between them again and for forty minutes, neither of them said a word to the other as they baked in the sunshine and listened to the ocean lapping against the shore, light Italian conversations whispering through the air and laughter from children playing in the sand.

By the time those forty minutes had passed, Bruce had grown tired of seeing Carla laid on her stomach facing away from him and so, very loudly, hauled himself up onto his feet and stretched.

"You're blocking the sun," Carla mumbled and looked up when a shadow cast over her, a coolness searing her skin.

He grinned and held out his hand, "You can't just lie there looking pretty all day, come on."

There was a slight smile twinkling in her eyes at the compliment, but her sunglasses hid the delight with ease. Carla took Bruce's hand and was effortlessly swept up, being led towards the shoreline by Bruce's fingers around her palm.

They waded into the cold water with shallow breaths hitching in their throats, Carla stopping once the water reached her knees while Bruce seemed determined to act like the temperature wasn't seizing up his limbs when it most definitely should've been.

"Aren't you coming?" He said after dunking beneath the water, shaking the droplets from the ends of his hair with a shake of his head.

"I'm fine here," Carla said, swirling her fingertips around in the water.

She looked beautiful stood in the ocean, a picturesque colourful village sitting between the mountains behind her and the sun making her olive skin shimmer in the heat. Her hair was tied up in a pony tail still and her swimsuit was high cut at her hips, curving with her waist while two thin straps crossed over her shoulders.

"There's kids further out than you, come on," he shouted.

Carla's lips remained straight, "I said I'm fine."

Bruce nodded slowly with a grin, a finger pointed in her direction, "You're afraid of the ocean, aren't you? I thought you weren't afraid of anything?"

"I'm not," she said with gritted teeth, "I just...like it here."

Mischief glimmered in Bruce's sun drowned eyes and he waded back towards her, sliding his hands around her waist and pulling her into the water with him, pushing back on his feet and carrying them both further out into the sea.

She clung to him desperately and it almost made Bruce laugh. Carla's arms were around his neck while she resisted the urge to secure her legs around him too, hating the fact that she could no longer reach the bottom with her toes.

"This is awful," she muttered, noticeably taking much slower, deeper breaths than she was before.

"I'm literally still standing, you're fine. Nothing bad is going to happen to you."

"How do you know?" Carla retorted, pulling herself closer to him, "It's rare but there's sharks in these waters sometimes and-"

"Would you quit whining? Did you forget that I told you I like to play the hero for obnoxiously attractive girls?"

Carla rolled her eyes and huffed. Bruce had never seen her panic before, and although she still seemed perfectly calm to anybody watching from a distance, this was by far the most flustered he'd ever seen her.

He could feel her kicking her legs to tread water despite his feet still being firmly planted on the ground, and so dropped swift hands to her thighs and lifted them to his waist, pulling her legs around his torso and holding her against him tightly.

"You're fine," he said firmly, using one hand to pull off her sunglasses and sit them through her hair.

Her eyes were filled with irritation but not the kind that was genuine, the kind that was sprinkled with tease and even some enjoyment to the torment that he'd bestowed upon her. Bruce knew her well enough to tell the difference by that point and although she was still far from splitting a smile, the curve of her eyes was good enough for him.

"I'm not fine, Bruce."

"Want me to make it better?"

"Yes, take me back to-"

He kissed her with a grin on his lips and held back laughter in his chest, silencing her with ease and letting his smile grow as he felt her kiss him back, her hands spreading across the back of his neck and shoulders as her legs tightened around his waist.

Carla had been waiting for Bruce to kiss her again. Not in the sense of being unable to live without him, but in the sense of craving his touch to the point of frustration tackling her mind at inconvenient hours and toying with her memories that she had no control over herself.

It came as a relief, and although only three days had passed since she'd last kissed him, it had felt like a lot longer had passed between then and now. Her hands were hot on his shoulders and her lips gentle, pulling back to take a teasing breath before he kissed her again anyway, not wanting to deal with being apart from the taste of her for any longer.

His hands trailed up across her thighs and to her ass, keeping her strongly in his grip while she pushed against him with her tongue slipping between his lips, confidence growing when she heard him moan beneath his breath.

"You kiss me like you want to kill me," he laughed quietly, kissing at her neck before looking into her eyes with a smirk.

She let herself smile then, "Maybe I do."

"You wouldn't be the first," he shrugged.

Carla's eyes narrowed and she splashed water across his eyes before sliding out of his grip and swimming back to the shore. Bruce followed slowly behind her, laughing to himself at her short fuse yet admiring the way she strode out of the water like it held no temperance to her at all, cutting through it like air until she was completely beneath the sun again, soaked from the shoulders down and looking like the most desirable thing in the world.

"I have plans to go to dinner tonight with a couple of people," she said, spritzing oil across her chest and legs while Bruce lay back on his elbows.

"That's fine, I have some work to catch up on anyway."

Carla threw the bottle back into her beach bag and stared at him from behind her sunglasses. His body was glittering from the water and the sun and his hair messy like it had been on the night they'd first met, soaked through to the bone yet devilishly handsome like nothing else could ever be.

"I was going to ask you if you wanted to join us, actually."

"Are you sure?" He looked up at her with a questioning brow, "I wouldn't want to gate crash your evening."

"If I wasn't sure, I wouldn't have asked."

Carla lay back down on the towel with her arms above her head, fingers playfully interlinked and her legs crossed at the ankles. Bruce took no shame in staring at her body beside him, pulling off his sunglasses to see her properly and smiling as he did so. She noticed, of course, though didn't say a word.

"I thought you didn't do friends?" He said, repeating something they'd both once said.

Carla looked up at him, her dark eyes peaking over the tops of her sunglasses, "There are exceptions to every rule, Bruce."

an;;
hello!! I've noticed I've had an influx of new readers recently so just wanted to say thank you so much for all the kind comments and for taking the time to read this book, I'm truly so grateful!! I hope you're enjoying so far, plenty of updates to come <3