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Four months later…
The city was burning.
It was high summer in Gotham, one of the hottest on record. For the 6 million residents of the city and its outlying areas, every waking moment was spent in search of some cool, dark sanctuary. The rich relocated from sweltering grand ballrooms to private homes with swimming pools and central air. The other ninety percent of the city spent the hot days in the streets, attending impromptu block parties slumped in lawn chairs, watching as their children played in the spray of vandalized fire hydrants. People flocked to the movies and climate-controlled shopping malls during the day. At night, they slept on fire escapes and rooftops. Gotham was a tinderbox, summer heat was the match, and everyone seemed to be waiting for the fire to strike. Life was on the chopping block during that high heat in August.
It was midday and Slam Bradley had made the unfortunate decision to finish up the paperwork on a case he’d just broken. He’d spent the morning typing up a report for the GCPD, plugging away at the old Bedford manual with the missing lower-case ‘j’, stopping occasionally to eye the broken air conditioner with contempt. The office was noisy: three fans buzzed, stirring hot air around the room. On his desk a small black-and-white TV beamed in a Mexican soap opera. He couldn’t follow the plot but the Spanish melodrama seemed at home in the sweaty heat of the small room.
Holly was lying on the broken old couch shoved against the wall, making a necklace out of silver paperclips. Slam had been thinking of fixing up the place, getting some better furniture, maybe one of those computers. Holly shouldn’t have to sit on a couch with no springs and mysterious brown stains on the pillows. His old fedora deserved better than to be hung on the dilapidated coat rack. Slam thought he might get more business if he upgraded. Then again, mooks were always busting into his office, tossing the place, breaking his furniture and getting blood on his suits. Slam figured, why bother to fix up the place if it was only going to get destroyed again?
“Want some ice cream?” Holly asked for the third time, rising. Even her bright-pink hair seemed to have wilted in the heat.
Slam shook his head. “You go on. My treat,” he said, flicking a quarter at her. Holly shook her head. Ice cream hadn’t cost a quarter in Gotham for nearly thirty years. She slumped back down on the couch.
“How much longer?”
The slow, steady clack of keys on the Bedford stopped and Slam looked up at her. “I told you, I’ll be at this till sundown at least. Why are you hanging around, anyway?”
“Because Karon isn’t off until six and I don’t want to wait around in an empty apartment,” Holly replied, adding another paperclip to the long chain. “It’s sad but true: you’re the most entertaining alternative I’ve got.”
Slam leaned back in his chair, wanting to strip off the white, short-sleeved button-up shirt and walk around in his boxers and undershirt. He’d already removed his suit coat, tie and hat and it still felt as though he were being slowly cooked alive in the tiny office with the westward facing windows.
“You know what I miss?” he asked Holly.
She nodded. “Selina.”
Slam nodded in agreement. “Yep. No fun being part of the sideshow when the main attraction leaves town.”
Someone knocked on the glass-paneled office door and Holly and Slam both rose excitedly. Holly opened the door to admit Leslie Thompkins and they sank back down dejectedly into their former seats.
“Hi Leslie,” Slam greeted half-heartedly, settling back behind the typewriter. Dr. Thompkins nodded at both of them, marveling at the heat in the small room. Immediately she removed her gloves and hat. “What brings you to our neck of the woods?”
“My office is three blocks from here,” she reminded him. “It wasn’t exactly an ordeal to get here. Hello, dear. How are you?” she asked Holly, who shrugged, intent on completing the paperclip chain.
“Mind if I open the window?” Leslie asked Slam, crossing the room. She tugged on the bottom of the window a few times, straining a little.
“It’s painted shut,” Slam explained. “Security precaution. Can’t trust that someone won’t try and break in unexpectedly one night.”
“I doubt house paint would stop that particular someone,” Leslie said dryly, flopping down next to Holly on the couch. The ever-composed, reserved woman was perspiring slightly, her graying hair frizzing in the heat.
The endless babble of Spanish from the black-and-white set fizzled and Slam changed the channel to one with better reception. A newscast came on, the shapely weathergirl clad in an eye-catching bikini as she explained that the heat wave would continue well into September. Slam and Holly both groaned.
The weather report over, a blond newscaster in an expensive-looking silk blouse began a rundown on summer crime statistics. “The GCPD has released a statement claiming that crime rates in the city have fallen nearly fifty percent from this time last summer. The impact of the crime reduction has been particularly apparent in the East End. Street crime, acts of petty vandalism and assault have plummeted, making this the safest year in Gotham since before the great 'Quake. In other news-”
Slam snapped the television set off, shaking his head. “Funny how they never mention why crime rates have dropped. I guess the term ‘psycho vigilante’ doesn’t play well in the test markets.”
They were silent for a moment. Holly looked at Leslie.
“What happened?” she asked simply. Leslie looked at the carpet, a god-awful green shag job that Slam had fully intended to replace before someone respectable like Dr. Thompkins laid eyes on it.
“He shut us out,” Leslie told them quietly. “You must have known that when Selina left-”
“He’d go crazy?” Slam filled in. “Selina has that effect on men. But this…he’s going after the people in this neighborhood like God’s own fury, Leslie. I know they aren’t good guys, strictly speaking, but…”
“But they’re your people,” Leslie finished. “Drug dealers. Pimps. Prostitutes.”
“My friends,” Holly added. “Selina’s too. He took out the really bad bosses months ago. Why does he keep hitting the little people in the East End?”
Leslie shrugged, leaning back. “I don’t know. Bruce closed the manor and dismissed his valet. Robin, Batgirl and Nightwing are forbidden to access the cave or contact him. Bruce Wayne hasn’t been to work in two months.”
“Has he done this before?” Slam asked her. Leslie nodded.
“Two years ago, when Bruce was charged with murder. He escaped from custody and then decided the Bruce Wayne part of his life was a liability. Batman took over. He fired his young partners and began to work alone. It was…it was a dark period.”
“Well,” Slam said, rising, “I guess he’ll snap out of this, huh? He figured things out before.”
“This is different, Slam. He’s determined to be alone.”
Slam shook his head. “Creesus, I had my doubts about his sanity before, but-” He looked up at Leslie. “So this will continue until…when? Gotham turns over a new leaf? That ain’t likely.”
“He’s punishing himself,” Leslie told them. “He lost something that was important to him.”
“Well, she was never really his to begin with, was she?” Slam replied. “And you all just put up with him when he acts this way? The man is a spoiled child. First he treats Selina like crap, then he uses her to get close to that telepathic kid…he do things like that a lot, or just to the people he loves?”
Leslie looked to Holly for support. The young girl watched her coolly. Leslie reminded herself that she hadn’t come to argue with these people she considered friends. “Do you know where she is, Slam?”
“Why? Think he’ll even care?”
“Of course he will!” Leslie exclaimed, rising. “He's never stopped looking for her. He’s shut everyone else out but Selina still matters to him.”
“Only because he wants to find Lucy,” Slam countered. “You know, I think he’s the worst person I ever met. And you want me to help him find Selina?”
Leslie sighed, sinking back down. “We’re running out of options, Slam. Either he finds her or he destroys himself and takes Gotham with him. I’ve seen what happens when he closes himself off like this, and Selina has always been the one woman who is able to reach him.”
“You tried this before,” Holly said quietly. Slam and Leslie turned to her. “I remember. Two years ago, when Batman was hitting the city hard. Selina told me you’d contacted her and asked her to find Batman for you. You thought she could find him when no one else could.”
“Well?” Slam prompted. “Did she find him?”
Leslie nodded. Slam frowned, shaking his head.
“Look, I could care less about him. The guy treats people like they’re pieces on a chess board. I never thought much of him as a hero and I think even less of him as a man. Selina deserves better and I’m glad she made it out.”
“Think of Gotham, Slam. Think of what he means to this city. He’s a symbol of hope,” Leslie said quietly.
“I think you’re living in a different neighborhood, Doc. In the East End, he’s nothing but a boogie-man,” Slam replied. “He doesn’t deserve her, and after what he tried to do to that little girl…”
“He did it for the greater good, Slam. Lucy helped him to stop a killer. I won’t-” Leslie paused. “I won’t defend him to you. God knows you’re right. But he’s saved Gotham from destruction more than once. He’s fought and bled and given everything to protecting this city. He’s even saved the entire planet a few times.”
“Yeah, yeah, he’s a big hero. I get it,” Slam assured her. “What I don’t get is why you’re so willing to forgive him when he makes the wrong decision. You all rally around him and talk about what a great man he is, but Bruce Wayne is just a scared little boy. I only care about Selina, and she doesn’t need a guy like that in her life. She’s been through enough.”
Leslie closed her eyes. “I know you love her, Slam, but-”
“Of course I love her,” Slam said quickly. “And when she ran with the kid, I wanted to go with her. She never asked, but I think she wanted me to come along. I couldn’t go, Leslie,” Slam told her, his voice hoarse. “Gotham is my city too. And I’ll do whatever it takes to protect it from that self-righteous head case.”
“Then help him to find her,” Leslie requested. “She’s the key, Slam. She always has been.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we can’t decide anything for Selina,” Holly interrupted. “She left because she was scared. It’s why she always leaves. I think she wanted to protect Lucy but she was protecting herself, too. People get too close and she bolts. You’ve seen her do it,” Holly said, looking at Slam pointedly. “If he’s a head-case, well, so is she. So maybe they deserve each other.”
“For the greater good?” Slam asked, smiling faintly at Leslie.
“Something like that.”
****************************
Slam decided the best way to approach Batman was to take the direct route. He went into the Bowery at the appropriate hour, found one of the pawn shops that doubled as a weapons wholesaler to the East End dealers and smashed every window in the joint.
Then he lit a Duke and sat down to wait.
He’d only finished about half the cigarette when a part of the night grabbed at him. Slam had to give the Bat points for making a dramatic entrance: he’d taken out Slam’s knees and growled “What do you think you’re doing?” before Slam had time to fire off something pithy and cutting.
“Hello to you too,” Slam replied pleasantly, picking himself up off the street and dusting off his hat. Somehow he’d managed to keep hold of the Louisville Slugger but his hands kept trembling anyway.
If Batman was surprised to see Slam, he didn’t let on. “What are you doing here?” he snarled again, not even glancing at the smashed-in windows of the pawnshop.
“Beeping you.”
They stared at each other for a moment. Slam could have kept up the silent treatment all night, but unlike some people he had to be up early in the morning. Breakfast with Holly so he could tell her all about this crazy adventure with a Gotham mask. The kid worried sometimes.
“I want to talk,” Slam told him.
Batman hesitated a moment. Slam guessed he was either considering the offer or entertaining the idea of dangling Slam off a building again. Slam had never credited the Bat with much of an imagination.
“Fine,” Batman agreed. “But not here. The rooftop of the Park Row Clinic. Ten minutes.”
Slam nodded.
Nine minutes and fifty-nine seconds later, Slam Bradley emerged onto the roof of Leslie’s clinic, puffing a little after the long climb up the stairs. He was getting too old for this crap.
“Do you have a message from Selina?” Batman asked from the shadows lining the rooftop. Slam shook his head, waiting a beat until he found his breath. Then he lit a fresh cigarette.
“Nope,” he said simply. “I haven’t seen her since your butler dropped the kid off at my office, four months ago.”
“I know.”
Slam exhaled smoke through his nose, craning his neck to look up at the stars. “Of course you do. You probably even know the letters she’s been sending were fake. Misdirection. She doesn’t want to be found.”
“Is she-” Batman hesitated. “Is she all right?”
Slam shrugged. “You know Selina. She’s always all right.”
“Then why-”
“I thought I’d give you a chance,” Slam told him, not looking at the dark thing looming in the shadows. “I’m going to ask you a couple of questions, and if I like what you have to say, I’ll tell you how to find her. If not…well, then you go back to your miserable existence with the knowledge that you blew your one shot at being with her. Believe me, it’s not an easy way to live.”
“Why?” Batman asked again, more softly this time. So he did have manners.
Slam watched the sky. Some of the industrial smog choking the atmosphere had cleared and he could make out some of the constellations above. Polaris was just setting and Cassiopeia was on the horizon. It was a beautiful night, warm and still. Selina would have liked it up here but she’d have said it was too hot. He would have told her that’s what you get for dressing up in black leather at the height of summer.
“I miss her,” Slam said quietly, puffing thoughtfully on the Duke. “She was fun, y’know? And she always made me feel like I was the only guy in the room. Except when you showed up, of course. Even then, I didn’t mind sharing the spotlight because I knew she’d be coming home to me. She may have loved you, but I was her friend. You have many friends?”
Batman didn’t reply.
Slam frowned. “Didn’t think so. Only yourself to blame, I guess. And that’s what I’ve been trying to wrap my head around this last year - why you? What the hell does Selina see in you? She doesn’t take crap from anyone and you dole it out in spades. I thought it might be the masks, some kind of weird sexual thing. But that didn’t fit either. I know Selina and deep down she’s a pretty conservative girl.”
The smog cleared a little more and Slam spotted Orion over the RKM Bridge. At least he thought it was Orion. He’d been a student of many things during in his life but astronomy wasn’t exactly one of them. “She tell you I burned her file for her the first time we met?”
In the shadows behind him, Batman shifted. Slam was glad to see he wasn’t boring him. “There was a lot of material in there. All her arrest records, mug shots, newspaper clippings…everything that Selina Kyle ever was or ever could be was in that file. And I torched it to save her. I saved something else, too.”
Slam opened his trench coat (he had an image to preserve, summer heat be damned) and removed a tattered and yellowed piece of newsprint from the inner breast pocket. He looked at the graying photo at the top of a short story from the society pages of the Gotham Gazette. “Bruce Wayne and date” the caption read. Wayne was sitting in a cozy little booth at some long-closed four star restaurant, his blandly handsome face frozen in a shy, surprised smile. The ‘date’ was Selina, sitting closer to him than was necessary even in the small booth. Wayne had his arm wrapped around her.
“I was married once, a long time ago,” Slam said quietly. “Turned out I wasn’t much of a husband. I’ve got a kid out there, a son. They moved back to Gotham a while ago, bought a house in Sommerset. I haven’t gone to see them. I’m scared of what they might say.”
He forced himself to stop, and when he spoke again, Slam’s voice had gentled somewhat. There were things the troubled shadow sharing the rooftop with him needed to understand, things that Slam himself had learned long ago.
“Funny, isn’t it, how some days we have so much and then it’s gone?” Slam asked, looking up at the stars in their heavens. “I think sometimes that if we could just forget how happy we used to be…maybe life could be bearable. But we always remember the way things were. And how, if just one little thing were different, maybe everything could be that way again.”
He turned and extended his hand, offering the faded picture to Batman. “I look at that picture and I see a man who wants so badly for things to be different that it tears him apart inside.”
Batman took the picture from Slam, staring at the newsprint intently. He was quiet for a long time. “What did you want to ask me?”
Slam took a deep breath. “Can it be different?”
The picture wavered slightly. “I think so, sometimes.”
“And then you remember who you are, right?”
Batman nodded. Slam lit his last cigarette. The two men fell silent and Slam listened as Batman folded the old newsprint and tucked it away in the folds of his costume. It was probably the only picture the guy had of him and Selina together, Slam realized.
“Did you know she was pregnant?”
The question was soft and still on the hot night air. Slam could tell the Bat had forgotten how to breathe for a second.
“I wasn’t going to tell you,” Slam continued. “She swore that butler of yours to secrecy, but she never thought I’d go to you on my own.”
“She’s…she’s pregnant?”
“Yeah,” Slam said simply, puffing on the Duke. “At least she was four months ago. She wasn’t sure what to do about the situation, and I certainly didn’t blame her for the indecision.”
Batman didn’t acknowledge the softly-worded statement. Slam refused to get upset about it. His jaw still ached sometimes from the last time he and the Bat had had a disagreement.
“Can you clean up the mess you’ve made out of your life?” Slam asked him, laying it out on the table. It was up to the Batman now. “You love her enough to be a different kind of man?”
Batman was looking out at his city and Slam waited, growing impatient with the lengthening silence. He stamped out his cigarette and stood.
“That wasn’t supposed to be a trick question,” Slam said. He was stopped by the strange tone in Batman’s voice.
“I’ll do whatever it takes to get her back in my life, Bradley.”
“Because of the baby?”
“Because I love her.”
****************************
“This thing have a CD player?”
Bruce barely glanced at Dick, keeping his eyes on the darkening road. They’d left Gotham nearly four hours ago, pushing the aging Corvette hard. Bruce was privately worried about the fuel line, but this had been the only car to take on this journey.
“Next stop, we have to find a payphone. I’ll need to call the station and tell them I’m taking yet another sick day. You realize I’m going to have absolutely no vacation time for the next thirty years?”
“So quit.”
Dick glanced at Bruce, then looked out the window. “Yeah…right. Look, where are we going, anyway? I don’t see you for months, then you show up in the ’Haven this afternoon and announce that we’re hitting the road. Normally I wouldn’t push for more of an explanation, but why take this rustbucket out? Why not the Batmobile?”
“This isn’t that kind of mission, Dick,” Bruce explained softly, switching the highbeams on.
Dick leaned back into the worn leather seats of the Corvette. “Ah, so this is a personal thing. You finally get a lead on Selina?”
Bruce nodded.
Dick frowned. “I’m not sure I want to be part of this. Something about tearing Lucy out of Selina’s arms and forcing them both back to Gotham doesn’t sit well with me.”
The clutch started to grind, and Bruce shifted into a higher gear. “I’m not going to force anyone to do anything, Dick.”
“Since when?”
Bruce shot Dick The Look, and this time it seemed to have the desired effect. Dick quieted, then sighed in surrender.
“I’m sorry. But it’s been a rough year, for all of us. I keep wondering how many more times you’re going to shut us out of your life. I’m sorry what happened with Selina. Really. I thought things would be different. And maybe if Lucy hadn’t shown up, you two could have been happy. But Bruce, can’t…can’t things just go back to the way they were before you and Selina…?”
Bruce shifted into forth, the car’s engine switching from a quiet roar to a high-pitched growl as the speedometer crept above 90mph. “She’s pregnant, Dick.”
Dick Grayson blinked. “Jesus.”
A pair of headlights moved towards them on the highway, the high-beams left on by a driver either careless or inconsiderate. Both men squinted in the blinding light. “Are you angry?” Dick asked. Bruce tightened his hands on the wheel.
“I don’t know what to think, Dick.”
“So that’s where we’re going? To figure it out? Because if this is about condemning Selina for-”
“She believed she was doing the right thing,” Bruce cut him off. “She always understood the boundaries between right and wrong better than I. To cross the line as Catwoman, she always had to be able to find it. Her ideas of good and evil are more firmly fixed than my own, Dick.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means she was right to run,” Bruce said simply.
“So you agree that you were wrong about using the kid?”
Bruce nodded slowly. Dick exhaled. “Then why did you want to adopt her?”
It was a long time before Bruce answered him. “So Selina would stay.”
Dick closed his eyes. He suddenly wanted a stiff drink, even though he’d never tried anything stronger than champaign. “You wanted Lucy because…because it meant Selina wouldn’t leave you?”
“She loves the child, Dick,” Bruce said simply. “And Lucy would have been an invaluable asset. I could have-”
“You could have had them both,” Dick finished. Bruce nodded. Dick lowered his head, folding his arms. His mind was racing. He wanted to scream at Bruce, chide him for his manipulation and disregard for the feelings of others. Some part of Dick marveled at the sheer inability of the man to engage in a normal human relationship without using Batman’s mission as a buffer. And the larger part of him, the part of Dick Grayson that loved Bruce Wayne as a father, felt simply, incredibly sad.
“Did you ever tell her that you love her?” Dick asked. Bruce shook his head, his expression lost to the shadowy darkness of the lost highway.
“She wouldn’t have believed me, Dick. Or it wouldn’t have been enough.”
“So you dragged Lucy into it?” Dick asked, pulling a hand through his hair in agitation. “That’s pretty messed-up, Bruce, even for you.” He was silent for a moment, staring out the passenger window. “I thought you were going to stop doing things like this. Be Bruce Wayne more often. Stop taking in kids because…” Dick stalled again. He finally felt ready to ask Bruce why he’d taken in an orphaned gypsy boy all those years ago. But the words wouldn’t come. He knew he was afraid of the answer.
“You weren’t supposed to be here,” Bruce said suddenly, as if reading Dick’s thoughts. Dick shrugged off the pain, hoping he’d misunderstood. Bruce continued slowly. “Neither was Selina. And they-” he paused. “My parents should have lived.”
“What?” Dick asked, perplexed.
“Jessica Bradshaw called it an aberration. A tear in the timeline. Something occurred that shouldn’t have. Carmine Falcone was supposed to die on my father’s operating table thirty years ago. Instead, he survived. Selina was conceived and the violence that The Roman’s mob brought to this city, the evil that took my parents’ lives, and killed your mother and father, should never have been. None of us were supposed to know each other, Dick. How can I explain-” he paused, his voice rough, on the verge of breaking. “How can I believe that what I have now was bought with the pain of what I went through then?”
“Well, that’s life, Bruce,” Dick said slowly. “I know you’d give anything to have them back, but…you must have realized before that we’re all here because they’re not.”
Bruce watched the road, not reacting to Dick’s words. “I should have died with them. And for so long…I wanted to. I never really understood why I lived when they didn’t.”
“And did Jessica explain it to you?”
Bruce shook his head. “She offered to help me find the person who murdered them.”
Dick’s eyes widened. “And you turned her down?”
Bruce nodded. “She wanted me to agree that the people who’d hurt those children deserved to die. My principles would have been the price of tracking down the man who killed my parents.”
“You could have lied.”
“She would have known,” Bruce said tiredly. “And she showed me what I’d lost. What might have been. My life without you or Tim or Barbara, or Selina. And Dick…it was a wonderful life.”
Dick lowered his head, feeling the sting of tears in his eyes.
“I want to feel that way again,” Bruce said softly. “Happy. That’s really what she showed me. Happiness. I didn’t hurt anyone there, in that alternate future. I wasn’t responsible for Jason or what happened to you, or Barbara-”
“You weren’t responsible for that anyway!” Dick told him. “You think we blame you for that?”
“I blame myself,” Bruce replied. “And I wonder how many more lives I’ll destroy because of the first two that I couldn’t save. I can’t seem to stop hurting people.”
Dick shook his head. “You were just a kid, Bruce. Your parents…that wasn’t your fault. And Jason’s death, Barbara’s injury, when Two-Face put me in the hospital…that wasn’t your fault either.”
Bruce glanced at him, his eyes full of bitterness and self-recrimination. “I simply stood by and let it happen, which is worse. Inaction is the worst crime of all. Think of all the children in the Court of Miracles that could have been saved if someone, a social worker, a teacher, had stepped in and put an end to the cycle of abuse.”
“Jessica Bradshaw tried for action,” Dick reminded him. “And look how that turned out.”
“She tried to revenge them,” Bruce corrected.
“Potato, patahto,” Dick muttered. “The point is…she was wrong. She murdered people, Bruce. And I know that is an absolute wrong, moral relativism aside. You can’t possibly admire what she did.”
“No,” Bruce said firmly. “But I wish I had done more for them.”
“You’ve already done a lot, for this city and…and for me.” Dick assured him softly. “You know what my life would have been like if you hadn’t taken me in?”
“Better, I should think,” Bruce said gruffly, shifting again. Dick shook his head.
“I wouldn’t have chosen you as a father,” Dick told him honestly. “But we can’t always choose the people we love.” He took a deep breath, digging deep for the strength to make the words flow. “And Bruce, for what it’s worth…if the lives we’re living now are only an aberration, some flaw in Jessica Bradshaw’s vision, well…I still wouldn’t want things to be different. We are who we are because of the past. But we love the people we do because of the future. Because it’s something to hope for and work towards. I…I was always proud to be your son, even when it was nearly impossible to love you.”
The July moon broke through the clouds, high and full, illuminating the road ahead.
Bruce lifted his hand off the stick shift and found Dick’s, squeezing briefly. “It’s important that you know-” Bruce hesitated, “I should have adopted you formally years ago. You were always my son, Dick. From the start, you were in my life because I wanted you. Most biological children can’t say the same.”
Dick closed his eyes, smiling a little in the dark car. He breathed deeply around his father for what felt like the first time in years.
“So, where’re we headed?”
“Kansas.”
*****************
The Corvette died about fifty miles outside Wichita, a few hours before dawn. He’d pushed the aging car hard over the flat Kansas landscape, showing the clutch no mercy. Bruce wasn’t sure if it was the engine or the fuel line that went first, but the car came to a sputtering halt on a long, dark stretch of road and defied further mechanical explanation.
“You sure you can’t fix it?” Dick asked again. Bruce shook his head, slamming the hood down.
“I don’t have the parts.”
“I’ve seen you make a spark plug out of a twist-tie,” Dick reminded him, grinning in the darkness. Bruce shrugged.
“Well, we better start walking,” Dick suggested. “It’s a long way to Smallville from here.”
“You go on ahead,” Bruce suggested. “I know a shortcut to the farm.”
“Want to go it alone, huh?” Dick asked him.
“I think it’s better that way.”
“Yeah, I know how you feel about team efforts,” Dick said simply, removing his jacket from the car. “Just…don’t screw it up with her, okay? Say what you need to say, cut her a check if that’s what she wants, and try not to-”
“What?” Bruce asked, looking Dick in the eye.
“Just try not to be yourself, okay?”
Bruce frowned. “You’ll make it before sunup if you hurry.”
Dick saluted, turned, and began to follow the telephone poles off down the highway. Bruce headed in the opposite direction, leaving the Corvette sitting on the side of the highway to be baked in the hot sun of the flatlands. He hoped someone else would find it and treat it better than he had.
Bruce started to walk.
He’d been to Kansas a few times before, usually with Clark along to point out the highlights (which were few) and the intricacies of the crops in the fields (which Bruce found dull). Clark could discuss plant rotation and pest control and annual rainfall until Bruce was forced to cut him off. He’d always secretly envied Clark's passion for the land, however. Bruce had never felt that for a place, not even Gotham. The closest feeling he had for the city which had cost him so much would be guarded hope, he supposed. He could identify with Clark’s passion for the springtime renewal of the Kansas farmlands, although Gotham’s spring had been long in coming.
Bruce had known for a long time now that spring never would arrive.
He kept walking, his feet sinking into the roadside dust. Bruce slung his suit jacket over his arm and removed his tie, rolling it into a ball and stuffing it in the pocket of his pants, liking the feel of the fresh, cool air on his arms. The long, flat horizon stretched before him, pink with the first promise of dawn. He wasn’t tired, although he couldn’t quite remember the last time he’d slept or eaten. A week, maybe? With Alfred gone, it was hard to keep track of those niggling details. In fact, the last four months seemed to have taken place in a vacuum. He kept hoping they had happened to someone else.
He’d lost it. Bruce forced himself to admit it with the brutal honesty he always expected from himself. Every decision he’d made in the last year had been disastrous. His deduction methods had been sloppy, he’d utterly failed in regards to Huntress, Jessica Bradshaw, the Prophet...and Selina.
There were so many things he would never forgive himself for. Jason. His parents. But what he’d done to Selina, that look in her eye when she’d discovered what he’d done to Lucy... Even now, nearly a half year later, surrounded by the peaceful tranquility of Kansas corn fields, it still felt like a dream. There were so many compromises he’d made to become what he was. The people he loved were all too often sacrificed to his chosen life, along with his own self-respect. Bruce had never believed he was a good man, but he had never felt that truth so sharply until that last dinner with Selina. Heroes didn’t hurt people the way he’d hurt her, the way he’d hurt Lucy. The way he’d been hurting Dick and the rest of the family for years.
Bruce came to a stop on the shoulder of the road, knowing he was stalling. Trying to find his way back into that dark hole of depression he’d crawled into four months ago. He wouldn’t allow himself the easy way out. This had to be done.
Another ten miles of empty farmland, and finally he found the little dirt lane. Bruce was surprised, as he always was, to find it waiting for him, eternal and unchanged. All of Kansas had that quality, that sense of home which felt so alien to an orphaned boy. Bruce scanned the surrounding fields slowly with the eye of a predator. This was not his country.
The lane wandered along a split-rail fence shaded by old-growth oaks. He hopped the fence, heading for the back forty of the property. An enormous elm tree rose before him, an old tire swaying from a thick cord tied high in the elm. Bruce paused, testing his own resolve. All he had to do was hop back over the fence, find the highway and make it back to Smallville. He and Dick could catch the next Greyhound back to Gotham. He could be home by dark and out on patrol.
And he wouldn’t have to look into her eyes.
Bruce sighed, forcing himself onward through the fields. He didn’t have the courage to run.
He entered the cornfield, the tall, green plants pressing in around him, sealing him off from the world. He could only see faint, dark sky above, the fading stars found only at the end of summer twinkling softly. A dog was barking wildly, and there was a sudden rustle in the corn around him. Something big was coming, something fast. The land knew it.
Bruce waited, growing impatient after a few moments. “I know you’re there,” he said into the green depths of the cornfield. “Don’t play games with me, Clark. You’ll lose.”
Still nothing. Bruce shrugged and continued on. He emerged from the field, casting a hesitant glance around the farmyard. Nothing. The Kent household was probably still asleep, given the hour. He looked at the house, toying with the idea of waking the occupants, but the thought of startling a pair of middle-aged farmers didn’t appeal to him at the moment. He stepped up onto the big wraparound porch, circling to the back of the house.
Two dogs approached him. A boarder collie with black-and-white markings barked once in friendly greeting, sniffing Bruce’s hand and licking his fingers. The other, a mutt of mixed heritage, growled softly. They remembered him.
Bruce took a seat on the long, heavy swing-bench set into the porch. The collie climbed up beside him, settling her head in his lap. The mutt watched in disapproval, sharp, intelligent eyes locked onto his mate in censure as Bruce stroked the dog’s head. Both of the dogs’ ears perked up and they jumped off the porch, taking off at a mad pace into the cornfield in response to some high-pitched whistle Bruce couldn’t hear. He waited, absorbing the strangeness of the quiet farm.
“You should have told me she was here,” Bruce said softly.
A moment later, Clark Kent settled onto the bench next to Bruce, his weight setting the swing into motion. “It wasn’t my choice,” Clark replied, staring out into the same middle distance as Bruce. “She likes it here. Says it’s a good place to heal.”
Bruce didn’t reply. He listened to the distant call of a bird, cataloging the ways in which the quiet of pre-dawn Kansas was so different from Gotham at the same hour. “Did she tell you anything?”
Clark shook his head. “Not a word. But I’ve known you long enough to guess what happened. It was about the little girl, right?”
Bruce sighed, lowering his head. Clark stood, coming to stand before him. He folded his arms, leaning against the railing.
“Did I ever tell you what Diana asked me about you, the first time we all worked together?”
Bruce shook his head.
Clark frowned, turning his eyes west towards Metropolis. Bruce wondered if he was detecting some disaster brewing in the city protected by the world’s most powerful man.
“She asked me why I allowed you to continue to operate. She despised your methods and said you were no better than the criminals you had spent your life pursuing.”
“Diana was always rather perceptive,” Bruce muttered. “And what did you tell her?”
“That you didn’t have our powers. All you had was your training and intellect. And conviction, of course. I told Diana that I wasn’t sure I would be so willing to risk myself if I were only an ordinary man.”
“So that’s why you never tried to bring me down? An inferiority complex? I’m disappointed, Kent.”
Clark shrugged off Bruce’s harsh words. “I just wanted to remind you why you’re a hero, Bruce. It’s why I trust you to do the right thing. Talk to her, Bruce. Whatever’s happened between you two, just be the hero I know you can be.”
The two men on the porch fell silent, listening to the living things in the darkness around them.
When Bruce spoke, he did so in a tone of voice Clark had never heard before. He’d seen Bruce injured in battle so badly that the man’s body had convulsed uncontrollably in pain. And in such a state of bleak despair that Clark doubted anything could pull him out of it. But Bruce had never sounded vulnerable before. And as day began on this warm spring morning deep in the heart of Kansas, he did.
“Will she forgive me?”
Clark furrowed his brow, shrugging helplessly. “I…I don’t know, Bruce. She’s a cat.”
*******************
“Mornin’, Ma,” Clark greeted the older woman making coffee in the kitchen. Martha Kent was a slight, dark-eyed woman whose black hair was streaked with strands of silver which glistened in the low, dim light of the pre-dawn kitchen. She turned and grinned at her son, love for him erasing the last vestiges of sleep from her face.
“You’re up early,” she pointed out, bussing him on the cheek.
Clark shrugged. “So are you.”
Martha smiled, turning her attention back to the ancient coffee maker on the counter. “Your father has to go into town early this morning. I got up to see him off and-” her explanation faded as she finally noticed Bruce, lingering in the doorway to her kitchen. Martha raised an eyebrow but said nothing, pouring some coffee for the two men.
“Morning, Mr. Wayne,” she said, her tone still friendly but lacking the special warmth she’d reserved for her son. “Still take it black, no sugar?”
“Thank you,” Bruce told her, accepting a mug emblazoned with Clark’s baby handprint and ‘World’s Best Dad’. Bruce tried not to think Martha had consciously chosen that particular cup for his coffee.
Clark settled in behind the scarred kitchen table, pushing out a chair for Bruce with his foot. Martha bustled around the kitchen in her housecoat, preparing more coffee and cracking a few eggs into a frying pan. Soon the kitchen was filled with the homey smells of breakfast, a scent-memory Bruce had all but forgotten. His mother had made him breakfast every morning before school, rising early to beat Alfred to the task, asking him questions about school or homework as she prepared eggs and toast. It was strange: he only remembered that particular part of his childhood here, at the Kent farm.
Bruce watched Martha and Clark closely as they chatted pleasantly. Martha was careful to make no mention of Clark’s activities as Superman. She behaved as she always did around Bruce, warm, attentive but a little wary. He frightened her, this woman who had raised the greatest hero of all time.
Jonathan Kent came down the stairs, a tall, lean man with the patient face of a born farmer. He was tucking in his shirt and whistling, but the tune faltered a little when he caught sight of Bruce seated at the kitchen table.
“Clark!” Jonathan smiled, shaking his son’s hand. He snatched a piece of toast when Martha’s back was turned, winking broadly at Clark and Bruce. “You fly in just now?”
“I’ve been here a while,” Clark told his father, leaning back in his chair and folding arms powerful enough to bend titanium steel across his chest. “You remember Bruce?”
Jonathan stuffed the rest of the toast into his mouth, gulping down some of his coffee before shaking Bruce’s hand. “Mr. Wayne,” he said, his grip firm. “Staying long?”
Bruce shook his head. “Just long enough to-” He glanced at Clark. “Long enough to say goodbye.”
The Kents exchanged a significant glance with one another, sharing one of those silent moments of communication that managed to say more than any verbal conversation Bruce had ever had with any of his adopted children.
The clothes dryer in the little laundry room off the front porch buzzed, and Martha excused herself. Jonathan leaned up against the counter, swirling the black liquid in his mug awkwardly.
“Mr. Wayne, it may not be my place to say, but-”
Bruce offered no encouragement but Jonathan continued, making it clear where Clark got his courage from.
“But where I come from, a man gets a girl in trouble, he takes responsibility for the situation.”
“Dad-” Clark warned, but Bruce waved him off. His own father would probably be telling him the same thing.
“I intend to offer her anything she wants,” Bruce told them both. “She certainly won’t have to hide from me any longer.”
Jonathan nodded. He gulped down the rest of his coffee, setting the mug in the sink. “Well, I’m glad to hear you say that, Mr. Wayne.”
Bruce nodded, rising as Martha reentered the kitchen. She handed Jonathan a flannel shirt still warm from the dryer. Bruce watched the quiet display of domestic intimacy for a moment, averting his eyes when he realized he was staring. Dreams, he told himself.
“I want to thank you both,” he told them quietly. “For taking care of Selina and Lucy.”
“You’re welcome, Mr. Wayne,” Martha said quickly. Jonathan nodded, turning to leave for town.
“Mr. Kent, if you run into a young man named Dick, would you mind giving him a ride?” Bruce requested. “We had some car trouble on the interstate.”
“Jag giving you grief?” Clark asked. Bruce shook his head.
“I don’t drive the Jag anymore,” he replied softly, rising. “Mrs. Kent, would you mind if I used the bathroom before I-”
He fell silent at the sound of water gurgling through the pipes in one of the upstairs bathrooms. Everyone tensed in the small kitchen, listening to the footsteps above. A few moments later, Selina Kyle appeared on the landing.
He’d been steeling himself against the possible consequences of seeing Selina again. Anger, grief, fear and betrayal...it all fell away at the sight of her as she moved fluidly down the stairs, dressed casually in jeans and a green sweater set, impossibly sophisticated and sensual at four a.m. in middle America. And she was exquisite, he noted in that instant before she registered his presence and her eyes darkened. She was growing her hair longer; it brushed her shoulders now, and soon it might again cascade down her back in a mass of thick black curls, soft and warm in the way it wrapped itself around his fingers.
He’d touched it once like that, on one of their rooftop encounters years ago. Selina - Catwoman - had gotten close, fusing her body against his, rubbing against him as her tongue explored his mouth. She had been trying to distract him long enough to escape the security net on the rooftop of the Gotham Diamond Exchange and he’d pulled her head back roughly by the hair, growling at her in warning. He couldn’t bear the feel of her then, so warm and raw, so sexual. He’d redesigned his gloves after that, making them less sensitive to both heat and tactile pressure. It hadn’t helped.
His eyes drifted to her midsection now, as he searched for verification of Bradley’s story. She wasn’t showing, at least not yet. Bruce returned his gaze to her face. Selina was staring at him, her eyes green and watchful.
The smell of frying eggs had woken her and she’d made it to the bathroom just in time. It had become a bit of a ritual: up with the sun, dry-heaving over the toilet…it took her back to the bad old days of wild parties and too much cheap beer. The only difference now was, instead of an East End tough or a client waiting for her back in bed, a five-year-old telepath was curled into a corner of the bed in Clark’s old room, slumbering in uneasy sleep. It was still early. Lucy wouldn’t be up for at least another few hours, and Selina had planned to use the time to get her stomach under control. She made it halfway down the stairs before that sixth sense kicked in, the one that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up, the one that had carried her through so many botched jobs and death-defying escapes. It could mean only one thing. The Bat was close.
Seeing him for the first time in four months wasn’t easy. She hadn’t expected it to be, of course, but she found that she was unprepared for the rush of anger, shame, adrenaline and relief that washed over her at the sight of him. Her still-queasy stomach did a somersault at the sight of the tall, handsome, impossibly arrogant man standing in Martha Kent’s kitchen. He’d found her.
They stared at each other for a long time like the strangers they had never been. Bruce remained rooted on the spot, afraid that if he moved she might vanish from his life again. It was Clark who finally broke the spell.
“What some eggs?” he offered Selina.
She turned green and ran for the bathroom.
****************
Fifteen minutes later, having regained some of her former composure and recovered somewhat from the shock of Bruce’s reappearance in her life, Selina sat at the kitchen table, sipping a warm cup of peppermint tea and avoiding his gaze.
“So…” she tried awkwardly, wondering why sarcasm always deserts you when you need it most.
“Kansas,” he said softly. She looked up, smiling a little in relief.
“Kansas,” she agreed, shaking her head a little. “Lucy loves it here, of course. I tried explaining that we’re a hundred miles from Neman Marcus and the nearest diamond wholesaler, but a new litter of kittens in the barn seems to have negated those points. And the visions don’t trouble her here, at least not as much. Even the nightmares are better. She’s gained at least ten pounds on Martha’s cooking and…and I’m babbling, aren’t I?”
He nodded. Selina bit her lip, lowering her chin. “What do you want me to say, Bruce?”
I love you, he thought desperately. Or, I hate you. At this point, he was willing to accept either. Anything but the exhausted resignation in her eyes.
“Tell me about the baby,” he suggested softly.
Selina brought her head up sharply, staring at him, her eyes narrowed. “Did Clark tell you? Or Alfred?”
“I haven’t seen Alfred since that night,” he told her, sudden understanding making him frown. So Alfred had known. “Slam told me.”
She set her teacup down. “Why did he tell you? Was it voluntary, or-”
Bruce winced a little at the accusation but accepted it as his due. She had no reason to think better of him. “He came to me, Selina.”
“And why did you come here?”
“Let’s take a walk,” he suggested, trying to buy time. This wasn’t going well. He couldn’t even seem to apologize to her properly. Her eyes darted away from his face as she decided. Finally Selina rose, leading him out through the screen door and onto the porch. They headed down the long, curved driveway, walking for a few moments in silence, breathing deeply in the chilly air.
“Why did you come here?” she asked him again. Bruce stopped and looked at her, noting in the pale gray light of dawn how she had blossomed in this place, healed both by the peace of the land and the security of Clark’s protection. He wondered if the fact that she carried his child had anything to do with his sudden, devastating hunger for her, the pressing need to hold her again.
He gritted his teeth, telling himself that he could bear this, bear the thought of losing her. He had to.
Bruce reached into the pocket of his jacket, retrieving a small, carefully-wrapped package.
“I wanted to give you this,” he told her. “And if you’ll indulge me, I won’t…” he broke off, forcing the words. “I won’t look for you again. You can leave this place, stop running. You’ll never have to see me again. I’ll arrange for money. A house. Anything you need.”
She accepted the parcel gingerly, watching him, unsure what to think. Selina unwrapped the little package gingerly, tearing the brown paper gently to reveal an old black-and-white photograph set in a delicate silver frame. She recognized the picture at once. It had been taken on a hot August afternoon, in front of the building she had grown up in. Selina and Magdalena Kyle smiled for the camera in their white bridal dresses of Confirmation. Immediately after her mother had taken the picture, Selina had slid down the banister and torn a hole in her dress. Her mother had laughed, the sound warm and sweet in the afternoon sun. After the church service, they’d all gone for ice cream. Maggie had fallen asleep in the car on the way home. It had been a good day.
She choked back tears, her eyes welling with moisture. Bruce watched her and she inhaled deeply. “Sorry, ever since…” she waved at her belly, “I can’t seem to get a handle on my emotions. Thanks,” she told him sincerely, looking again at the picture. “I thought it was destroyed when the Huntress attacked me.”
She felt something else in the wrapping and turned the paper upside down, allowing a strand of brown rosary beads to slide into her palm. She examined the beads in the bright light, glancing at him in question.
“It was Jessica Bradshaw’s,” Bruce explained. “I have no use for it.”
Selina looked at the rosaries again, her mind drifting back to mass on Saturday nights, huddled in the pew beside her mother, trying to make Maggie giggle. Taking communion and feeling the wafer dissolve, wondering how the body of Christ could be so tasteless and insubstantial.
“I haven’t believed in that stuff in years, Bruce,” she told him. “Not since my mother killed herself.” She tried to hand the rosary back to him but Bruce wouldn’t accept it.
“It meant something to you once, didn’t it?” he asked her.
“It meant more to Maggie.”
“Give it to her then,” Bruce suggested. “I’m sure someday she’ll remember how to pray.”
Selina looked at him, narrowing her eyes. “What’s going to happen, Bruce?”
He squinted in the bright light. Bruce kept his expression shuttered, afraid that if he looked at her, if he allowed himself to remember, he’d never be able be able to leave this place.
“I’m going to Europe,” he told her.
“And Gotham?”
Bruce shook his head. “I made a mess of things while you were gone. I pushed too hard,” he told her, putting it mildly. “The city needs time to recover.”
“I see,” she said simply.
He raised his head, looking at her. “Goodbye, Selina.” They were the only words he could allow. And the final truth. “You’ll never know how sorry I am.”
“Bruce,” she said, and at the soft, sensual sound of his name on her lips, he felt his vision glaze with the tears he was determined to control. He swore he would not let her see him cry. He felt her touch on his arm and jerked away, the knowledge that he couldn’t bear her touch making his tone cut deep.
“Don’t,” he ordered sharply. Immediately her hand fell away. He turned to leave, content to let her last memory of him be one of hostility and anger. It was all he had ever offered her.
He had nearly made it out of the little dirt lane before her voice stopped him.
“And if our child has your eyes,” she asked softly, “should I bring him to you when he’s four or five and explain why his father didn’t want him?”
“Doesn’t want him?” Bruce repeated unbelieving, her words slicing through him. “God, Selina, how can you say that?”
She closed the distance between them. “Because you’re walking away from us both. What should I tell your child?”
“That his father forfeited any right to know him because he didn’t know how to love,” Bruce replied. “And that he’s better off not knowing me.”
“You really believe that, don’t you?” Selina asked him. “And you think Clarkhas an inferiority complex?”
“Isn’t that what you believed about Lucy? That I was a danger to her?”
“I panicked,” she said softly. “I panicked and I ran. That’s what I do. I should teach a class on how to leave people.”
He was quiet, and she sighed. “I wanted to…to appologize for the way I left Gotham that night. I know how hard that must have been for you.”
Bruce shook his head. “I brought it on myself. I should know not to play brinkmanship with you. You’re better at it than I am.”
“Now that,” she said, “is a very scary thought. I just didn’t want to believe that you’d use a child like that. Or that you would use me to-”
“I didn’t use you,” he denied. “I was using Lucy.”
She fell quiet.
Bruce sighed, ashamed of himself. “I thought you’d stay for her,” he told Selina.
“Stay for Lucy?” she repeated softly. “I just- It wasn’t about her abilities or your quest for a new Batkid?”
He shook his head.
“Christ, Bruce, I…I don’t know what to say to that.”
“You accused me of child abuse four months ago. I think that’s a fitting way to put it.”
She blinked, looking up at the gradually-lightening sky and the fading stars. She’d watched them with Lucy at night sometimes, explaining about constellations and planets and the wide universe. And she’d wondered if he was watching the same stars, wondering about her.
“I wasn’t wrong,” she whispered. “But we’ve all done things we aren’t proud of.” Selina let out a shaky breath, touching her belly. “Maybe we can find redemption only by moving on.”
He was quiet, digesting her words, afraid to breathe.
“Bruce,” she said softly, “please don’t go.”
He turned slowly, needing to see if what was in her face matched what had been in her voice, and found her watching him, her eyes wide and dark. He closed his eyes, unable to believe that he was again being offered the paradise he’d lost. He moved closer to her, ignoring the faint trembling that ran through his body.
“I…are you sure?”
She touched his face. “We have a lot to forgive each other for,” she whispered, holding his eyes with her own. “But I think sometimes we’re meant for each other. No one else would put up with us.”
Bruce swallowed hard. She waited, and for the first time, Bruce knew exactly what to say to her.
“I love you, Selina,” he said softly, the first time he’d told her that. And he couldn’t remember saying it to another soul in his life, save perhaps his parents. He watched the emotions move through green eyes framed by thick tangles of black hair. She blinked away tears.
“I love you too,” Selina said. “I always have. It just took me a long time to accept it.”
He kissed her then, with all the sad, desperate longing of their separation and his own deep loneliness. She responded in kind.
After only a moment he stepped back, his rough, skillful hands molding around the slight protrusion of her belly. He watched his own fingers smooth over the small mound that held his child and finally Bruce raised his gaze to hers. She smiled into his eyes, the rims of cobalt blue dilated in wonder.
Selina reached up to touch the side of his face and he saw that she was crying again.
“What is it?” he whispered. She shook her head.
“I just…I don’t believe in happy endings,” she told him. “If that’s what this is.”
Bruce frowned, the sides of his mouth pulled down in concentration. “I think it’s more of a beginning,” he told her.
And the sun rose over Kansas, chasing the night away.
THE END