In case you haven't read, this is a sequel to Bruce and Cat: Dollmaker's Island, but you really don't have to read it in that order. This is the third instalment of the series; you can check out the first two on my profile page. If you have read it, there is no time jump from the end of Dollmaker's Island. This starts directly after Bruce and Selina leave the house.
Because of how famous Bruce Wayne had become in recent days, the two couldn't go anywhere fancy for their date. Even in the streets Selina was used to, though, Bruce stuck out like a sore thumb. He was way cleaner and more baby-faced than the rest of the street kids, and how uncomfortable he was made him obviously from the rich side of town. He tried to seem comfortable, but his lack of speaking and his weird interactions with other people made it obvious.
"Some constructive criticism for you, kid," Selina said, sipping the last few drops of the soda in her hands, "You are really bad at this." She had told Bruce his clothes were too formal for her turf and made him wear a hoodie and sweatpants, so Bruce made her wear a dress shirt to balance it out. It felt weird on her since she was so used to wearing two or three layers, but Bruce wasn't doing much better. Gotham was going through its version of winter, where the snow froze upon touching the ground, forming a light, icy sheet of frost.
"I'm not that bad at it." Bruce laughed, trying to defend himself.
"You asked the guy at the French fry stand for the bill."
"Well for our next date, we're going to an expensive restaurant on the mansion district. I'd love to see you make off with a few of their forks."
Selina laughed. "Did I not tell you? Most cliché love story ever."
The two were interrupted by a girl, probably another street kid, stepping up to them and asking, "You're Bruce Wayne, aren't you?"
The girl was their age, maybe one year younger than Selina. She was wearing a black jacket and fabric pants, with multiple leather belts around her waist. That would usually mean she was from the streets, but her skin was white as paper, and her hair was neatly curled down her neck.
Bruce looked questioningly at her. "Yes. I didn't think anyone from this side of town knew who I was."
"Oh, I'm not. I was told to wait here while Detective Gordon went to do something at the precinct."
Selina nodded. "You're a street kid?"
"Well my dad is dead, so I guess I am."
"I'm so sorry." Bruce whispered.
The girl shook her head. "Don't be. The old man was the devil. Anyway, are you two dating?"
Bruce stuttered like he normally did whenever someone asked him, and Selina had to chime in. "Yes, we are."
The girl turned to Bruce and grinned, fixing the front of her hair a bit and cracking her wrist. "He's cute. Can he fight? He looks like he can fight."
Bruce was going to answer, but Selina simply nodded and dragged him away by the arm like she did. She wasn't getting a good feeling from the girl. Bruce looked back at her, and she grinned, waving to him.
Selina pulled his arm until he got the idea and started to walk with her, confused. He didn't ask though, and the two made their way back to Wayne manor. It wasn't a long walk. They were in the alley around the corner from the mansion, where a few street kids hung out and come people put up food stands to take advantage of them. Usually no one could afford anything, so that was probably why Bruce stuck out so much.
It was a walk up an alley and through a street that got the two to the doorway at Wayne manor, where it was another length through a gate and across a garden to the front door. Selina started a tradition where she would climb up to the window in Bruce's bedroom and open the front door for him, so he had to watch her be more athletic than him until he started climbing with her.
Selina nudged Bruce with her elbow, smirking, and started climbing up the tree near the bedroom window.
"See, Bruce? Most fifteen year old guys in Gotham can do this." she yelled down to him.
Bruce said something defensive, but Selina didn't hear. She was too focused on climbing. She made her way up to a notch in the tree that marked the place she always jumped from, and leapt to grab the edge of Bruce's windowsill and using her legs to ease herself into the wall. Bruce watched as Selina heaved herself up and disappeared into the window, and waited for her to open the door.
Selina made her way down the stairs and into the living room when she saw Jim Gordon talking to Alfred on the couch, sitting with a man she had never met. He wore a suit and looked old, so she assumed he was from the rich side of town.
"Hey." she said, her voice hushed by the harsh looks from Jim and Alfred. "What's up?"
"Selina," Jim stood up from the couch. "Where's Bruce?"
"He's outside; I was just about to let him in. Why, what's wrong?"
The adults didn't say anything, and Selina took it as her cue to open the door for Bruce. Bruce skipped in, laughing, which only seemed to lower Jim and Alfred's spirits. He turned to the two adults, stifling his laughter and asking, "Hello, Detective Gordon. What brings you by?"
Jim took a deep breath and put on a grim tone, killing Bruce's smile, and started. "Bruce, sit down."
Questioningly, Bruce sat down on the couch next to Alfred, and Selina leaned against the armrest in front of Jim.
"We've found the man who killed your parents." Jim sighed. "He walked into the GCPD this morning and handed himself in. I thought you'd want to know before the Gazette gets a hold of this."
Bruce froze. He didn't know what to do or say, so he just froze. He didn't know whether to be overjoyed or furious or heartbroken or all of them at once, so he simply froze in his place, as if he had turned into stone. He knew what was happening, but he had so many nightmares about the moment, he could've dismissed it for a dream. Jim saw the look on his face, and leaned back onto a chair.
"Now, the reason I'm telling you this is because we have him in police custody. I thought you would want to meet him, but I can understand if you're not-"
"No." Bruce meant to be calm, but he yelled his response, quieting the entire room. He didn't mean to, but at the same time, he did. It seemed as if all the pressures of his parents had compressed themselves into the smallest form possible, and now they were exploding. And Bruce had to handle it all. He was the only one that did. "No," he said again, this time quieter. "I want to talk to him."
He brought his fist up and punched the couch beneath him, and went up to his room. He didn't look at anyone in the room, just looking down and climbing the stairs up to his room. The others stayed silent until they heard the slamming of Bruce's bedroom door and a small muffled scream.
The other man Selina didn't know took off his thick, metal glasses. "My name is Professor Richard Optico. I'm a trauma counsellor for the GCPD. I was one of Detective Gordon's consultants on the case, his last before Mr. Wilson confessed to killing Thomas and Martha Wayne."
Alfred seemed to jar awake from a daze. "It's a pleasure, Mr. Optico."
The professor nodded. "In cases like this, I've found it best to separate a victim from the case as much as possible. I'm not suggesting we don't let Mr. Wayne see the man who victimized him, but prolonged exposure to such a traumatic familiarity may send him back months in recovery. Talking him out of it would be a worthwhile commission, but perhaps someone close to him."
"I'll do it." Selina said, grabbing the attention of the room. "I'm the closest to him. You all know it."
"Of course, Ms. Kyle."
"Why did he come clean, though?" she asked. "Why confess? You said it might've been a hired assassin or a trained killer. Why would someone like that just confess to a crime they've spent all this time trying to keep under wraps?"
Jim looked at Optico, and he shrugged. "It's hard to say. Of course, there is a chance it isn't him. It could be a delusional, or a homeless man trying to gain the protection of prison. You and Bruce are the only two witnesses alive to the murder of the Waynes. We were hoping one of you could match a silhouette or find some redeeming feature to prove it was him."
Selina nodded, and started up the stairs to Bruce's room when Jim stopped her midway.
Jim nodded and turned back to Alfred, but talked like he was addressing both of them. "Look, I know I couldn't have picked a worse time to spring this on you, and I completely understand if you don't want any part of it. Do you remember the Ogre?"
"The Don Juan killer?" Selina asked. "You shot him through the skull."
"Yes, and we have a girl that claims to be his daughter. She's about the same age as you and Bruce, and she was sent to Gotham because her mother abandoned her. She won't be able to live on the streets long, and no one will take the daughter of the Ogre. You're the only people I know to have taken in a child, perhaps you could take another until I find her a home?"
Alfred looked over at Selina, then back at Jim. "What's her name?"
"We don't have an ID on her, but she says her name is Talia Lennon."
Alfred sighed. "Well, if there's no ID, I think it would be risky to let her stay here. It could be a homeless girl seeking shelter or-"
"She can stay." Selina said. "I know the streets. If she's telling the truth, a city girl won't last a day. Let's just hope you find orphanages faster than you find killers."
Selina ran up the stairs and turned the knob of the bedroom door, peering through the crack, seeing Bruce in his room. The nightstand was knocked over onto the floor, and books were scattered all over the carpet. The shattered remains of a vase were lying on the floor, and Bruce was standing in the center of the room, punching the bedpost. Screaming as loud as he could and punching as hard as his body would let him, he threw a right hook at the wooden bedpost and turned, plunging his fist into the wall.
Selina had never seen him like that before. It almost seemed like a different person, but the look in his eyes was exactly the same as the boy whose parents she witnessed murdered in an alley. She ran towards him, grabbing his forearms as he tried to struggle free. His knuckles were bruised and bleeding, and Selina held them down in front of him, forcing him to look up at her. Bruce stared into Selina's shiny green eyes as if they were smothering a fire in him, and his scowl melted away as his lip started to quiver and a renegade tear escaped his eye. Soon, Bruce's innocent brown eyes began glimmering with tears and his legs gave, Selina helping him kneel on the floor, truly exploding.
Neither of them said a word. Bruce just let himself fall apart in Selina's arms. Selina held Bruce's trembling body in her arms and held him together while he crumbled like a skyscraper. Neither of them had to say anything as the two leaned on each other and Selina let Bruce fall to pieces. She would pick him up.
"I want to kill him." Bruce finally choked out. It was nothing more than a whisper, strangled with the pain and tears and quivering as much as he was. Selina felt his heartbeat shake with his voice and his breath become unsteady gasps. Selina didn't move a muscle, taking Bruce into her and holding him. "But there's nothing I can do. Nothing I can do to him will take away as much as he's taken away from me."
"I can't let you see him." Selina sighed, bringing her arms closer to her side to bring his face up to hers. "I can't let you do this to yourself."
He wasn't angry at her. He didn't know what he was angry at, but he was furious enough to hurt someone for damn sure. "No, I'm going to see him. I'm going to find out why he did it, and then I'm going to watch him rot into bones in a prison cell."
"That won't make you feel better." Selina brought his eyes back to hers. "You have to think about yourself. You have to make yourself better, and be a better man than he is. I know you are."
"I know." Bruce gasped. "But he's going to pay. He's going to pay for what he's taken from me."
Selina held him back close to her, and Bruce leaned on her. They stayed that way for ages, time seeming to freeze, and Bruce finally standing up and turning his back. Selina watched him walk away from her and fixate on the window in front of him, and she turned to go back out the front door. The window seemed inappropriate at the point.
She felt the cold air brush past her face and ran until she found a place where she could climb. She climbed up the side of a building until she reached the top, gazing out over the height of Gotham city, and then started running. She ran over the top of the building and leapt to its neighbour house, dashing over the rooftops. It gave her clarity. The adrenaline forced her to think. It made her focus on things and see them more clearly. For Selina Kyle, it was heaven.
Bruce had just started downstairs when Jim and Professor Optico left the mansion, the sound of the door closing jarring him awake. Alfred didn't hear him, and was surprised when he talked from halfway up the stairs, his voice strangled and weak.
"When can we go?"
Alfred stuttered, not knowing what to say. "Yes, Master Bruce. Detective Gordon said to stop by the precinct any time within the next forty-eight hours. Are you quite sure you want to?"
Bruce nodded. "Yes. Will you please get a suit ready?"
"Of course. Though a suit isn't the type of clothing you normally wear to a police investigation."
"I have to show him exactly who I am, and what I have. If he's coming clean, I should too."
Starting the climb back up the stairs, Bruce slumped on his bed and buried his face in his hands to think. A while ago, he always played a game in his head, asking himself, what would he say to the man who murdered his parents? He played it every minute of every day, and now he actually had a chance to do it. The game got a lot harder. He could ask questions for days, non-stop. But the first question he was going to ask was why. That was decided. Everything else would come from that. That would be enough.
Bruce heard Alfred's footsteps up the stairs, and kept his head down as Alfred peered through the door. "Master Bruce, your suit is ready. Do you want to go now?"
Bruce nodded in his hands. "Yes. Thank you, Alfred."
"Would you like me to fetch Miss Kyle?"
"No. I started this alone, and I'm going to finish it that way."
With that said, Bruce followed Alfred down the stairs and outside to the car, where the cold air made him shiver. Alfred opened the door for him, and he lifted himself into the car, a shiny black limousine with silver outlining. He slumped back in the seats and waited for Alfred to start it, and then they were off.
The police precinct wasn't far from Wayne manor. They drove there almost too quickly, as the frozen snow had made all of Gotham seem monotonous, all the building covered in rime and frozen into unrecognizable cubes and rectangular prisms. The precinct was bigger than most of the buildings it neighboured, and the GCPD signs made it stand out.
Alfred opened the door for Bruce, parking in the front and attracting the attention of a few cops. Bruce got out and stood, stiff and dignified, beside Alfred. Together, they walked through the doors and found themselves in the middle of a bustle of cops. All of them looked rushed and tired.
Jim noticed the two, coming down the steps from his desk to meet them. "Bruce, Alfred. Here for a purpose, I presume?"
"Yes." Bruce said, getting ever nervous as the meeting came closer.
Jim nodded. "Come right this way."
He led them through the bedlam and up a flight of stairs into a hall. There were fewer people, and when Jim closed the door, the noise disappeared. The three kept heading straight down the hall until they reached an interrogation room, a small office with one window and no furniture, leave a table and some chairs to sit on. It was divided into two parts, a wall of glass between them that could be lifted. A door led to one of them, and in the other one was a man.
It was what Bruce was scared of the most. It was what he spent hours thinking would kill him, and it did. He was screaming, and his body almost gave, leaning in closer to see the imposter through the window.
It wasn't him. It couldn't be. Bruce only saw a clouded silhouette the night his parents were killed, the murderer veiled in a black mask and the surrounding smog. Even then, with that shady memory burned into his memory like a branding iron, he knew the man in front of him did not kill his parents. This man was much too tall, at least six feet and built to the point that his muscle would've easily shown through the loose, black clothes. His chest was too wide, and he wore an eye patch over one eye, where Bruce's parent's killer had both eyes.
"Is it him?" Jim asked, trying to hold Bruce up. Without him, he might have thrown up. "Do you think this could be the man that killed your parents?"
Bruce lied. He had to, or else they might not have let him talk to the man. He wanted to. "I think so. May I talk to him alone?"
"The booth is soundproofed, but there will be cops out here in case he tries to make a move."
Jim opened the door for him, and closed it behind him. He lightly pushed Alfred back into the main precinct, and Bruce sat down in a chair. There was a phone on the wall so he could hear the man on the other side of the glass, and he picked it up.
"Who are you?" Bruce asked.
The man grinned, showing his missing teeth and hissing into the phone. "I'm the man that killed your parents."
Bruce shook his head. "You're not. Stop pretending."
The man sighed, still smiling sadistically. "Fine, but when I was a kid, my parents told me a little imagination was good for me. My name is Slade Wilson."
Bruce was trembling. "Why did you lie to the police?"
"I won't tell you that." said Slade. "But I'll let you think about it. Isn't it uncanny how a bunch of new citizens have arrived in Gotham, all needing to get close to you and Jim Gordon? Don't tell me you haven't noticed."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Have you ever heard of Ra's al Ghul?"
Bruce had heard the name once. His father had mentioned it to him before bed one night, but the context was a blur. He must have been too young or tired to pay attention. "I can't say I have."
Slade stood up and started pacing, the phone in his hand. "Well, he's in Gotham. He's looking for something, and when he gets it, he's going to raze Gotham from the ground up. All he needs to do is finish looking. And that something is very valuable. There will be other people who want it, but only Ra's al Ghul will destroy the city once he gets it. And what he wants is related to you, and Detective Jim Gordon."
"And you're Ra's al Ghul?"
"Now if I told you who Ra's al Ghul was, your job would be too easy."
Bruce sighed, thinking. "Why are you telling me this?"
"I am one of those people that wants what Ra's al Ghul is looking for, and I am indifferent to whether this city blows up. It's already full of crime and poverty, blowing it up might be good for the world. I just need it intact and the object secure until I can break out and get it."
Bruce hung the phone back up onto the wall. He saw Slade grinning on the other side of the glass and frowned at him, starting to leave. Slade hit the glass, making it thud, and Bruce picked the phone back up. Slade hissed his final words into the mouthpiece, "Oh, and Bruce? Don't trust anyone. They could be the one to destroy Gotham."
Bruce opened the door and left back to the main precinct to look for Alfred. He was sitting with Jim at his desk, sharing a few idle comments. He stood up when he saw Bruce, putting his hands behind his back. "Shall we go, Master Bruce?"
Jim stopped him. "Would you like to talk, Bruce? What did he say to you?"
Bruce decided to lie again. He could be putting Jim in danger if he told him too soon. "Not much. Nothing informative."
Alfred shrugged. "Well, it's been a long day, Master Bruce. I suggest we go back to Wayne manor and get some rest."
Getting in the car and exchanging a few comments during the drive, the two made it back to the manor. Bruce was the chatty one this time. He didn't want to give the impression he was worried, but he was a terrible liar. Alfred didn't want to say much, worried about Bruce.
The second Bruce got up, he headed back up to his bedroom, expecting to see Selina in the window, but she wasn't there. The girl from before that he met on the street on his date was in his bedroom rummaging through his belongings and drawers.
"Hey." he yelled quietly, trying to be polite. "That's personal."
The girl smiled. "Look, it's Bruce Wayne. Call me Talia."
"What are you doing here?"
Talia got closer until her hands were on his shoulders and her body was just grazing his. "I don't know if you know, but I live here now. Your butler can tell you more if you're having trouble sleeping at night."
Bruce didn't say anything.
"So how are you?"
"Do you know where Selina is?"
Talia tilted her head, pretending to think. "Who, the scruffy girl in the black leather?"
"Yes."
"She's gone. She left out the window, not saying a word."
Bruce shook Talia off of himself, and then grabbed a coat to go look for Selina. He had to talk to someone, and she was the only one who he wanted to talk to. Besides, she deserved to know. She was the only other witness to the murders of his parents.
Who is Ra's al Ghul? I want all of you to put your theories in reviews and PM so I can congratulate you on being right when I reveal it in the final chapter! One of the scenes in this was inspired by a scene from the comic Injustice Year One (Volume One) and what I think was one of the best BatCat moments ever written. Amazing comic, definitely go read it.
