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When she had been a little girl living in an orphanage, Selina had often dreamed of her soulmate. He would come save her from there and take her to his nice and kindhearted parents who would allow her to stay with them forever.
At fifteen, she had stopped wishing for a potential savior and ran away with her meagre belongings.
It was the start of a new life. She started associating with street kids, learnt how to pick locks and pockets properly. She slept in an abandoned cellar with the self-proclaimed Lone Wolves. She shared a mattress and a blanket with another girl and kept a knife in her pillowcase.
The place had been cold, the company not very agreeable but no one in their small group had ever frozen to death and they were altogether crafty enough for Selina not to have to worry much about getting food for most meals. She would develop a certain hatred for canned food following this period of her life.
After the orphanage, Selina had stopped dreaming about being rescued.
As an adult, she considered soulmates to be something childish, some kind of myth to keep children entertained.
She remembered asking her mother what her soulwords meant when she was five.
“You're growing up so fast. Soon enough you'll be able to read the words on your own. They're quite nice. Are you ready to hear them ?”
“What are they, Mami ?”
“They say : ‘Everything's okay, kitten ?’ ”
“But I'm not a kitten.”
Her mother had laughed and petted her hair.
“I know, bebé. I know. You'll understand later. Your soulmate seems to be a sweet person. It looks like you're very lucky.”
Selina was quite sure her love for cats had preceded this discussion. However she had no doubt it had exacerbated it.
The first time Ed had used the nickname for her, she had to pause. They had been flirting mindlessly as they were wont to do. Nothing of consequence.
“And what do you want, kitten ?”
Selina had frozen in place. It was about six months after she had ended things with Bruce. Ed and her had been experimenting with the quite rewarding concept of sex friends, no strings attached for a few weeks.
It all became a lot more complicated if Ed happened to be her soulmate.
“What do I –” she eventually said, lost in thought.
Ed. She felt the familiar surge of affection for her lover that still got her by surprise sometimes. Suddenly the whole idea of soulmates didn’t seem so dire. Maybe… Maybe she could fall in love with Ed. It looked like something she could do. Or maybe, if she was honest with herself, she was already a little bit there.
Maybe those evenings they kept spending together had driven them closer, maybe they had changed the status quo between them. Ed was funny and kind and beautiful. He didn’t try to change her at every turn or to save her from herself the way others had. He just knew that she didn’t need saving, that she’d saved herself when she had run away and not looked back.
He knew she was whole in her own way and not the mere total of broken pieces.
He was there for her. He had been there when she argued with Harley about the Joker and she needed comfort.
“Hey, I was just asking about your pizza's toppings,” Ed reminded her, phone in hand. “Do you -”
He was standing there, looking slightly concerned, and Selina could not stand it. So she had risen from her seat and kissed the frown away.
“What was that for ?” he smiled as she eventually pulled away for breath.
Selina had blushed but had not backed away. She knew what she wanted. She wanted Ed. And by God, she was going to have him.
“Bed,” she had ordered, pulling him by the front of his shirt. “Food later.”
They had only gotten food hours later.
“Everything’s okay, kitten ? You seem lost in thought,” Ed had asked her, kissing her shoulder, as she grabbed a part of the salmon pizza in its greasy cardboard box.
“Mami would have loved you,” she said.
She had never thought Rosario would have seen her relationship with Bruce as a positive thing but she could see her approving of what she had started with Ed.
“I think my mother would have liked you a lot,” Selina repeated, her head leaning on Ed’s shoulder.
“You always make it sound like she was a phenomenal woman. I wish I had a mother half as good.”
Selina grinned. She knew little Eddie’s childhood hadn’t been a walk in the park.
“Sorry,” she said, kissing the hand she had been holding.
“It doesn’t matter anymore. We’ve got each other now.”
“We do,” Selina nodded.
She didn’t believe in promises but she was willing to make an exception for this one.