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Chapter 14 - Dick Makes a Discovery

Dick stood at the door to Bruce�s bedroom, watching Alfred pack a bag for Bruce. The owner of the suitcase was in the Batcave below with Leslie, packing a different sort of bag.

�I�m afraid I do not entirely understand the need for such unseemly haste,� Alfred was saying. Dick tried to focus. His attention had been wandering.

�There have been some�developments,� Dick tried to explain. �About Selina. Bruce is going to New York for some answers.�

�And what revelations, pray tell, does Master Bruce believe will be found in New York?�

Dick swallowed. �It�s about the past. There�s a boxer there, Ted Grant,�

�Heavyweight champion of the world at one point, I believe,� Alfred put in. �And a man not entirely unfamiliar with a mask and a pair of tights.�

�Wildcat. He knows something about Selina, something Bruce needs to confirm.�

Alfred folded the legs of a pair of pants into crisp 90° angles and placed the pants carefully into the suitcase. �Why does he not simply ask Ms. Kyle herself?�

�Look, I don�t really understand most of this,� Dick dodged, moving into the room to help Alfred pack some suits for Bruce. �This is about the murder of a Gotham cop and Bruce seems to think that Ted will be able to explain something about who killed him.�

�Is Ms. Kyle a suspect?� Alfred asked softly, pausing at the window to look at the north creek.

Dick shrugged. �Hey, I just work here, okay? But all signs point to �yes�. Bruce just found out that Selina is Carmine Falcone�s daughter.�

�The Roman?� Alfred repeated, a little flummoxed but hiding it well. He returned to the bedside to close the suitcase.

�Apparently,� Dick replied. �It�s got something to do with the Holiday murders, because whatever info Bruce has on it he�s keeping locked away in his files. Do you remember anything from that period?�

Alfred straightened, zipping up Bruce�s overnight bag. �Those were troubled times. Master Bruce had lost an important ally when Harvey Dent became Two-Face. There was a serial murderer eliminating all of the mafia dons of Gotham. Batman�s mission was in danger shortly after it had begun, and he was terribly alone in those days. I suppose Miss Kyle��

�He knew Selina then?�

The butler shot Dick a derisive look. �Of course he did. She had appeared in Gotham in her Catwoman guise shortly after he began his tenure as Batman. They spared a few times, always in a place connected with the Roman. He questioned why Catwoman would always strike at a Falcone target, but the murders began and such questions became�unimportant.�

�Did he know Catwoman was really Selina Kyle?� Dick asked. Alfred shook his head.

�Not until�not until later on. He was seeing Miss Kyle quite frequently then. She dined here at least twice a week. They were quite�close.�

Dick nodded. He�d known Bruce had dated Selina years ago, but he�d assumed she was just another float going by in a long parade. Alfred seemed to be suggesting that Bruce had been on more intimate terms with her. �So what happened?�

�She disappeared. Master Bruce learned later that she had gone to Italy for undisclosed reasons, and when she returned, Catwoman stepped up her attacks on the Roman�s holdings. She went so far as to disfigure Carmine Falcone and his daughter Sofia. I believe Master Bruce thought for a time that she was responsible for the Holiday murders. Later, a rash of similar deaths occurred among the Gotham police who had been excused from duty after Master Bruce�s efforts during his first year in costume. I think those deaths weighed heaviest on him. Coupled with Selina�s desertion, it was a bleak period.�

�Her desertion?�

�Master Dick,� Alfred warned, his tone that of a stern father, �I do not like to speculate on Master Bruce�s romantic endeavors. But he believed it was possible to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, by taking on Catwoman as a partner and Selina Kyle as a lover. Both could adopt well to his world. But she betrayed him and confirmed her status as a career criminal. He was destroyed by it.�

�When did all of this happen?� Dick asked, something twitching on the web of his mind.

�Just before you came to live with us, Master Dick,� Alfred said quietly. �He assumed guardianship of you just after the last of the copycat Holiday murders.�

�After she left him.�

At Alfred�s slow nod, Dick�s heart twisted inside. He had spent so much of his childhood wondering why an isolated, emotionally aloof and reserved man like Bruce would take on a young partner and ward. He had never made any effort to be any kind of a father to Dick. Bruce had spent the majority of his time with Dick training him to be a better crime fighter or maintaining strict expectations of Dick in school. The thought that Bruce had taken in Dick to assuage his own loneliness was oddly comforting.

�Why didn�t he ever tell me?� Dick whispered.

�I suppose he is not aware of his own motivations,� Alfred replied, turning away again to tidy up the room. �Is it so shocking that such a human desire motivated him? It is Master Bruce�s burden to seek love by the use of the wrong methods. He gained a son by losing a love, and he lost a son by gaining a partner. In his heart, he did as he thought best.�

�Small consolation,� Dick replied, still reeling from Alfred�s revelation. �I thought he took me in because he felt sorry for me, or because he thought I�d be useful to him. I never thought it was because he actually needed someone��

Alfred had finished packing for Bruce. He stood by the doorway, the suitcase in his hands. �He should have told you.�

They left the room together.

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His rage was tangible, filling the vast caverns beneath his ancestral home with black fury. Leslie Thompkins kept witness as Bruce paced and prowled like a wild animal, stalking from one task to the next.

�Where will you go?� Leslie asked softly, her warm, soothing tone lost to his anger.

�New York City,� he barked, throwing a utility belt down on a worktable and mechanically restocking it.

�Are you sure Wildcat will be able to answer your questions? Or that he�ll even want to? The state you�re in��

�I�m fine,� Bruce snapped, slamming a collection of gas pellets into the belt too forcibly. One of the pellets hissed and Bruce threw it across the cave where it became lost in shadows, dispensing an invisible nerve agent. In the morning, some of the bats who inhabited the cave would awake with severe headaches.

�Clearly you�re fine,� Leslie said sardonically. �And ordinarily, I would let you leave for New York and threaten a fellow crime-fighter for information he may or may not have. I might also let you take to the streets and exorcise your demons on an unsuspecting criminal.� She paused and furrowed her brow. �I�ve let it happen often enough,� Leslie acknowledged. �But I consider Selina to be a dear friend. I don�t want to see her hurt.�

�You think I�d hurt her?� Bruce asked, still hunched over the utility belt. Leslie knew he was avoiding her gaze.

�I think you are capable of anything if so aroused. Your ability to deal with complex emotional problems is severely limited, Bruce. And when confronted with such obstacles, you respond with physical violence.�

�You sound like a psychiatrist.�

�I am a psychiatrist,� she reminded him. �And so are you, albeit uncertified. You know there are more rational, mature responses to what you�re feeling, Bruce. What bothers me� What has always bothered me,� she amended, �is why you feel you must respond to pain with pain.�

Bruce sighed wearily and for a moment, the tension drained from his body, his shoulders slumping. �Do you even understand what this is about?�

Leslie shook her head, coming to stand next to him. �You�ve discovered something from long ago. An important piece of an old puzzle. It involves Selina and the life she�s given up. I can�t imagine why her past would matter to you at all, if you really love her.�

He kept silent. Her tactic had worked: he had been forced to let go of the worst of the anger and focus on the more troubling aspect of the revelations about Selina.

�She�s the illegitimate daughter of Carmine Falcone,� Bruce explained. �And she never told me.�

�Does she know herself?� Leslie asked pointedly. �And what does it mater? Selina is no mafia kingpin and she has never taken a life. She is not her father�s daughter.�

�But she lied,� Bruce said, his voice a hushed, dead whisper.

Leslie dipped her head in thought. �And I suppose you have always been honest with her?�

�More so than with anyone else,� he said, closing his eyes as he remembered their talk in the car that day, idle conversations on the rooftops as they patrolled together. And in bed, watching as dawn broke over the city. Facing the day together. When he was with Selina, the past seemed far away. Some of the pain and fear he had lived with for the past thirty years faded until there was only her warm acceptance. She was home to him, and the though that what they shared might be a lie, that she wasn�t what she seemed, was unbearable.

�You aren�t really bothered about this Falcone business, are you?� Leslie asked. �It�s something else.�

Bruce considered her statement. His head bowed and he breathed deeply, seeking the truth. His life was a carefully ordered series of lies. It was impossible to be Batman otherwise. Over the past year he had realized the unfairness of such a life, both for Bruce Wayne and his small family who were margininalized for the sake of an illusion. In the wake of that realization Bruce had vowed to be more honest with himself and others. Easier said than done.

�There were pictures,� he said hoarsely. �Of Selina and�and other people.�

Leslie inclined her head. �You knew what she was, Bruce. The things she did for survival.�

�This was something else. There was a picture of her and Peter Bradshaw, Jessica�s father.� He awaited her reaction. Leslie only blinked.

�And?�

Bruce turned away again, rage increasing his heartbeat. �And? AND? This entire situation has felt wrong from the beginning. A girl dies on a Gotham train wearing Jessica�s necklace. It turns out she�s George Flannery�s daughter. Flannery approaches Dick with blackmail photos of Peter Bradshaw, and someone murders him. Selina�s prints were found at the scene. She is at the heart of all of this, and I can�t determine how or why. Coupled with the truth about her parentage and the fact that she�s been lying from the beginning��

�Bruce, calm down,� Leslie instructed. �I thought a detective could divorce himself from emotion and-�

At that, Bruce swept his arm across the workbench, sending glass beakers and a few utility belts scattering across the cave. The loud crash and sound of breaking glass echoed throughout the cavern. He leaned on the bench, chest heaving. �I don�t-� he tried, then cleared his throat. After another moment of silence, he was able to continue. �I didn�t expect it to hurt so much.�

Leslie was shocked. This wasn�t about the Mission, or Selina�s parentage and her role in the Holiday murders. This was about the impact Selina�s history had on him as a man and nothing he had ever faced as Batman or Bruce Wayne had prepared him for it.

�I don�t know what to say to her now. How to touch her without wondering if she�s thinking of the others��

�What were the pictures, Bruce?�

�I think they were designed for blackmail,� he said, regaining some composure. �Bondage, mostly, but like I have rarely seen before. They span several years and are�diverse in their tastes, I suppose. I thought I�d seen the worst-�

He broke off, his great voice catching in his throat. �She was so young, Leslie. Younger than I was when-� He faltered again and took a deep, shuddering breath.

Leslie stepped closer, touching his shoulder. �What are you more angry about? That she kept this from you - all of this- or that your own experiences can�t equal hers?�

Bruce shook his head, his back still towards her. �There are some things I can�t fight, Leslie,� he admitted quietly. �In order to live with myself, I have to view things in a certain light. And I�ve never�� he broke off, hesitating. �I�ve never known what to think of her. How to reconcile what she is with what she could have been.�

Leslie was silent after he had spoken. Bruce turned to face her, his eyes troubled, searching. �What would they have thought of her?�

She dropped her eyes, seeing before her the shattered child she�d held in an alleyway so long ago. Leslie thought of Thomas and Martha Wayne, their hopes and fears for their son. The expectations that had never come to fruition. She considered her reply carefully before speaking.

�They would have admired her courage. Her tenacity in the face of such a brutal life,� Leslie said honestly. �Your mother especially would have adored her. Martha had great respect for those who attempt to atone for the past. But Bruce,� she hesitated, �they wouldn�t have chosen this life for you. And a woman like Selina��

He turned away, placing the last fully stocked utility belt into a suitcase with a tightly-concealed false bottom along with his costume, cape and cowl. He lifted the heavy bag as though it were weightless. Bruce locked the costume vault and made for the stairway leading up and out of the cave.

Leslie called after him, knowing it might be another decade before he was so honest with her again. �What about Selina?�

�It will keep,� he said, disappearing up the staircase. Leslie was left alone in the dim light of the cave. Overhead, the soft beat of leathery wings was a muffled sound in the still, cold air.

�I hope so,� she whispered in the gathering dark.