Disclaimer: Unfortunately, nothing is mine except Valencia Carter and this silly little fairy tale.
GOTHAM'S CINDERELLA
Chapter 1: The Return
"No one returns to this city unless they have a very good reason to."
Once upon a time, Valencia Carter left Gotham City, sure she would never return. Now, as she drives through the streets she had been prepared to forget forever, she realizes there is nothing certain within these dark city limits. Certainly not taxes—if the city had the power to collect taxes, it would have used it to salvage its increasingly bankrupt economy or pay for police officers who actually knew the meaning of justice—
"Miss Carter, we're here."
The driver's voice jolts her out of her reverie. She looks out the window of the company car and sees a brand new mansion built in a very old style: Wayne Manor, burned down and rebuilt by a billionaire heir come back to life from the dead. No, nothing was certain in this city—not taxes, and certainly not death.
Despite the driver's theatrical glance at his watch, she opens the door and steps out of the car, pulling the collar of her beige trench coat against the wind that perpetually blows around the grounds of the highest property in the Palisades. She walks toward the closed gates and tests them, but they stubbornly remain locked. She sighs and rests her head against the cool metal.
Everything is new, even the iron grille she is leaning against. She gives Bruce Wayne credit for making the effort to preserve some illusion of history instead of simply building a modern monstrosity on top of the wreckage, but she wonders if inside it could possibly feel like the same home she remembers.
The driver rolls down his window and clears his throat pointedly with a curt "A-hem." As she turns, she sees a Bentley in the distance coming down the drive. With one last look at the house, she slips back into the car.
The driver swings the vehicle in the direction of Gotham. And even though they're going fast enough to make the gravel fly, she swears she catches the eye of the elderly man driving the Bentley as the two cars' paths cross.
Although my lover lives in a place that I can't live,
I kind of find I like a life this lonely.
It rips and pierces me in places I can't see.
I love the rip of nerves, the rip that wakes me.
So I'm dissatisfied, I love dissatisfied.
I love to feel there's always more that I need.
So come on home, so come on home,
So come on home, home.
Bruce Wayne's private jet hardly touches down on the runway before the door flies open and a young woman in a too tight, too short business suit storms down the steps and marches punishingly across the tarmac in four-inch heels. She walks past the butler standing beside a parked Bentley without a glance. More slowly and more wearily, the owner of the multi-billion dollar corporation known worldwide as Wayne Enterprises steps off the plane in an Armani suit, immaculate despite a 10-hour flight.
"That's the third secretary you've been through in the last two months," Alfred Pennyworth comments as he opens the door for his young master.
"And not in the way the tabloids say," Bruce says, sliding across the back leather seat.
"What was it this time, sir?" Alfred asks as he takes his place behind the wheel and starts the car.
"Oh, the usual, Alfred—asking too many questions, trying to sleep with the boss."
"If more men were as secretly moral as you, sir—"
"There would be more masked vigilantes running around Gotham."
"Speaking of which…"
"More imposters?"
"You know what happens when the bat's away, sir," Alfred says, handing him a stack of newspapers from the last week.
Bruce rubs the bridge of his nose as he flips through pages of fake sightings and crime reports attributed to his alter ego. "Well, the rats won't have another chance to play for a while," he says. "The deal went through relatively easy. We had a bit of trouble when the transactions raised some red flags with intelligence, but it was nothing additional transactions couldn't take care of." Bruce frowns as Alfred turns onto the road leading to the Palisades instead of the one toward the city center. "I thought I had the hospital benefit to go to tonight at Gotham Memorial?"
"Yes, sir, but I thought you'd like to go home to freshen up a bit first."
"Isn't home…?"
Alfred allows himself a small smile as Bruce's voice trails off at the first glimpse of the newly finished Wayne Manor, just visible in the distance as they crest a hill. For the first time, the worry lines disappear from Bruce's forehead.
"You didn't tell me it was finished."
"I wanted it to be a surprise, Master Bruce. Though I will admit it's a very incomplete one. I only had time to move some necessities in. There's no furniture to speak of, and I hope you don't mind the smell of fresh paint —"
"Thank you, Alfred," Bruce says sincerely. He pauses, then asks casually, "And the improvements to the southeast corner?"
Alfred does not answer immediately, his concentration on the road as they pass another car going in the opposite direction. Bruce frowns as Alfred continues to watch the car in the rearview mirror long after they pass.
"Alfred?" Bruce glances back, but the car is already out of sight. "Someone you know?
"For a minute, I thought so." The butler smiles, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes. "The cave is fully operational, sir. Mr. Fox is there right now putting the finishing touches on the technological system."
Despite his impatience to see the cave, Bruce takes his time as he walks through the empty manor. The architects had been given very specific instructions to preserve the look of the original mansion. It isn't identical, with more outdated amenities replaced by modern features, but it still looks like the manor built in a 16th-century Gothic style by Bruce's eccentric great-great-great-grandfather, founder of the Wayne legacy.
Bruce pauses halfway up the marble staircase and looks down at the empty entrance hall, trying to get some sense of the home his parents had lived in.
"Your parents never quite liked the furniture in this house," Alfred says, confirming Bruce's suspicion that the older man has the ability to read his thoughts. "I have some catalogs for you to look through when you get the chance."
Bruce grimaces at the thought of dealing with interior designers and shopping at furniture galleries. "But we don't have to entertain here for a while yet, do we, Alfred?"
"There's only been photographers hounding the gates for the last three months. Gotham wants to see its prince happily situated in his castle. Three national magazines are currently bidding for a photo spread."
"How much are we holding out for?"
"When they reach six zeroes, we'll starting taking calls. Your new toys weren't exactly inexpensive."
They've reached the master bedroom. The only piece of furniture in the room is a massive floor-to-ceiling, fully stocked bookcase. Alfred steps right up to the shelves, Bruce only half a step behind.
"I didn't know I liked to read so much," Bruce muses, eyes glancing over the titles on the spines. His eyebrow quirks at one book, rather thicker than the rest. "I never did read that book."
"Yes, I suspected as much," Alfred says, sliding The Fountainhead toward the edge of the shelf. "This is your copy from high school, but someone else with much neater handwriting made notes in the margin for you. If you ever find yourself bored one night, you might look into the significance behind these titles."
He also half pulls out The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Count of Monte Cristo. The case swings open, leading to an industrial lift. As Bruce steps in after Alfred and the case swings shut noiselessly behind them, his thoughts are still on the yellowed, dog-eared editions on the shelf.
"It was probably Rachel." Alfred stiffens slightly as he pulls the lift's lever. "It's all right," Bruce says reassuringly, as they descend into darkness. The corners of his mouth twitch upward. "She's the one who wrote my book reports, after all."
The lights are almost blinding as the lift stops and they step into the cave. Though the walls are still jagged rock and water still falls overhead in some areas, the dryer parts of cave have more of a permanent and comfortable feel to them than before.
"I just received Miss Ferrier's resignation letter," Lucius Fox announces as he looks up from a computer screen. "Do you care to explain this one, Mr. Wayne?"
"Oh, you know, the usual. Do you care to explain what you've done to my cave?" Bruce asks, frowning at the glass wall that sections off the cave and the shining black granite floor that has replaced the uneven rock he remembers.
"The glass wall is retractable, but necessary for temperature control," Fox says as he stands. "Wouldn't want Batman catching pneumonia now, would we?"
"Or myself," Alfred mutters.
"And it keeps your friends out," Fox continues, nodding to the bats fluttering on the cave walls. He points next to a sectioned off room to the side. "You also have a fully stocked medical clinic, which should enable you to do anything from treating paper cuts to performing minor surgery, just in case those Chihuahuas get more aggressive, Mr. Wayne."
He pulls open the doors of a titanium cabinet, revealing the newest rendition of the suit. "This version is much like the last one, still Kevlar plates and titanium-dipped fiber tri-weave, but we reinforced the weakest spots on the chest, where you're most likely to get shot or stabbed. Also, the cape is now detachable with a press of this button on the shoulder, should you run into trouble and the material proves more of a hindrance than a help."
He next moves to the row of computers arranged in a broad semicircle in the middle of the place. "I made some minor adjustments to the communication system. These computers should be able to seamlessly send data to the suit." He takes a remote control and turns on a row of televisions mounted above the computers. "Thanks to the generous donation by Wayne Enterprises of surveillance cameras throughout the city, we now have access to every street corner in Gotham. We've also stockpiled footage that can be inserted in the feed, should you need to move through the city undetected."
"This is all very nice and completely up to my expectations, but I know you're hiding one new toy from me, Mr. Fox," Bruce says.
Fox smiles. "I thought you'd never ask, Mr. Wayne."
He flips a switch mounted directly on the rock wall, and a panel protracts overhead, cutting off the flow of water and revealing the Tumbler's successor, parked on an island of rock some twenty feet away. He presses another button, and the glass wall starts to retract, allowing Bruce to have an uninhibited view of the vehicle.
"It's built as sturdily as the Tumbler but more streamlined and compact to make it more friendly to Gotham City streets." Fox hands Bruce the keys. "Try not to blow this one up, Mr. Wayne, or it might take another six months to get a new one."
"Pity, I'd gotten quite good at pretending to steal my own Lamborghini." He shakes Fox's hand. "Thank you for everything, Lucius. Now, I believe you're also going to bore yourself to death at the Gotham Memorial benefit tonight?"
"I am."
"Why don't you drive in with me?" Bruce suggests. "I think I may have a new project for R&D to work on."
"You'll find everything you need in the closet in your bedroom, Master Bruce," Alfred says. "I'll keep Mr. Fox entertained while you get ready."
"Make it a double," Bruce says with a smile, as he steps into the lift and pulls the grille closed. "This is a Megara Ashland-planned affair, after all."
"Well, Lucius, will it be the usual?" Alfred asks, walking toward a cabinet once Bruce had ascended.
"Actually, it's the unusual I'm interested in," the other man replies cryptically. "Can you think of any reason why Valencia Carter would be back in town?"
"So it was her," Alfred says, more to himself than to Fox.
"I was hoping you could tell me."
Fox punches a few keys on the nearest computer's keyboard. The screen comes to life, showing surveillance footage of the front gate being rewound. He stops it shortly after a car drives up and a young woman gets out to look at the house. Fox freezes the video and enhances the image of the woman as she peers through the gates.
"That's undoubtedly her," Alfred confirms, sharp blue eyes latching onto the still slightly grainy image on the screen.
"I wasn't sure," Fox admits. "It's been six years, hasn't it?"
Alfred nods thoughtfully. "I haven't a clue why she would be here now."
"I'll look into it," Fox says. "No one returns to this city unless they have a very good reason to."
You're where you want to be, I'm where I want to be.
Come on we're chasing everything we've ever wanted.
I replace you easily, replace pathetically.
I flirt with every flighty thing that falls my way.
But how I needed you, when I needed you.
Let's not forget we are so strong, so bloody strong.
Come on home, so come on home,
So come on home, home.
In the early hours of the morning, business is finally concluded. The same driver who had taken Valencia to Wayne Manor that afternoon receives his last orders of the day to see Miss Carter safely to her new apartment.
They drive through downtown Gotham, and she catches glimpses of cheap girls in expensive dresses, hanging onto the arms of designer suits, stumbling out of exclusive clubs and five-star restaurants, stepping into limos and sports cars, traipsing into $30,000 per night hotels where the front desk knows them by name because they either own the building or live in the penthouse.
The driver unceremoniously drops her off at her apartment on the edge of the Narrows, and it's almost painful, the disparity between what she has just driven through and what she sees now across the river: poverty to the point of desperation within blocks of a dreamy and depraved sort of decadence.
Gotham was never a gentle city, but as much as she wants to hate it, she can't. It's the city of her childhood, the city she'd escaped, the city that still draws her in no matter how much she resists. She can't think of any other word to describe it except beautiful—a terrifying, breathtaking, soul-sucking sort of beautiful. It's a city of extremes with no room for in-betweens, a city that could only break and never make, a city that knows of no happily ever afters, but it's still the city she calls home.
Blue light falls upon your perfect skin,
Falls and you draw back again,
Falls, and this is how I fell.
And I cannot forget this, I cannot forget this.
Come on home, so come on home,
But don't forget to leave
—"Come on Home" by Franz Ferdinand
A/N: Please review!