It's finally here! This is a sequel to Bruce and Cat: the Court of Owls, but in case any of you haven't read it, another version of this chapter will be published that will be easier to understand. This version is the extended version and has a lot of tie-ins that won't make any sense if you haven't read the first one.
"You won't kill Selina Kyle."
"And why is that?"
"Because you need me."
Finally, Bruce had another nightmare to replace the one where his parents died. The exact look in Selina's eyes bounced around his head like a cannonball, shining with tears and screaming his name as the world around him blurred.
He jolted upright in the dark of the night, panting and sweating. The pain shot up from his stomach, making him double over. His hand met the scar on his abdomen, the shape only reminding him of the Court of Owls. Bruce closed his eyes, and suddenly his mind transitioned to Selina. She told him she had to leave the city to get away from the mayhem, and that she would be back when everything was better. She told him that four months ago.
He couldn't stop thinking about her every day. Every single day for those four months, every idea Bruce had was a hind thought to Selina. What if the Court of Owls had found her, or what if she was hurt or dead? She could be halfway across the world, or across the street back in Gotham. What could she be doing, and was she even missing him?"
Alfred burst into the room, asking what was wrong. For a while, he had ignored Bruce's nightly screaming. He had nightmares about his parents so often, Alfred learned not to make a deal of it in case Bruce didn't want to talk. Then the Talons had kidnapped him in the middle of the night, and Alfred suddenly had to burst into the room again when he heard screaming.
"Was it the nightmares again, Master Bruce?" he asked, his voice interchangeable between a tender compassionate query, and a scold.
Bruce shook his head. "I'm fine Alfred. Go back to bed."
Alfred stepped into the bedroom. "Well, Master Bruce, I'm afraid I cannot do that. It just happens to be seven in the morning and the whole community is going doolally over your birthday gala. If I were you, I would at least a tad more obliged for what everyone's doing for you."
"I never asked for a gala, Alfred."
"I'm perfectly aware of that, but the entire city is throwing one for you, and there's a difference between being stoic and just being bloody rude."
Alfred was about to leave when he turned back and his voice became tender. "The nightmare; it wasn't about your mum and dad, was it?"
Bruce looked up and shook his head. "No, it wasn't."
Alfred knew what he meant. He turned his back and left the room, Bruce noticing him turning on the lights in the hallways. Bruce was never like the other kids he had met. He didn't like company or parties. He would much rather spend his fifteenth birthday in the mansion with Alfred, maybe something quiet. His parents had thrown birthday balls for him, but they were only precursors for a warm dinner in front of a fireplace. Then, his dad would've brought out a cake he had baked and sing to him while Bruce blew out the candles and hugged his parents.
How could he forget? This was going to be the first birthday without his parents.
Bruce looked out his window, longing for Selina to appear and tap on the window with a smile. The ochre sun was beginning to come up over the horizon, marking the beginning of his day. Bruce heaved himself out of bed and headed straight to the bathroom to shower and brush his teeth. Changing into a vest and pair of dress-pants, Bruce met Alfred downstairs looking through some papers.
"Master Bruce," Alfred yelled to him coming down the stairs, "I've received a phone call from a Wayne Enterprises representative. They want you to attend a meeting. Maybe it would be healthy for you to grab some air, or if you're not feeling up to it, I can use your wound as an excuse."
"What meeting?" Bruce asked, down the stairs.
"They didn't say, except it concerns Arkham Asylum."
Bruce sat down at the table Alfred was at. "Alright. Is there breakfast?"
"I'm afraid we don't have much in the cooler. I can make you a sandwich; we have the meat and greens and all that lot."
"Thank you, Alfred."
Alfred left for the kitchen, and Bruce picked up the files Alfred was reading. All of it concerned his birthday. There were guest lists and food checklists and layers of preparations and special guests. A week ago, when Bruce was informed there was going to be a party, he accepted on the condition Selina Kyle would be allowed in no matter what. That was solely based on the hope she would be back in time for his birthday. Now it didn't look like she would be.
When breakfast was over and Bruce had gotten dressed, Alfred pulled up one of the family cars and drove Bruce to Wayne enterprises for the meeting. Out of the window, Bruce could see Gotham city recovering from the Owls attack. The city was healing nicely. With the help of a few outside cities, the buildings were being rebuilt and the citizens were slowly renewing their lives. Out of the chaos, Gotham was actually becoming something better.
Alfred led Bruce in through the automated doors of Wayne Enterprises and through the marble-white halls and offices of the company of tomorrow. The offices were all bustling with people running back and forth in black suits, looking like they were trying to find something. Bruce was led up to a conference room on the top floor through the elevator, and a worker opened the door for them with a smile.
Inside, a woman sat at the end of the conference table with two people in suits behind her. She wore a blue suit and tied her short black hair behind her head in a bun. She looked maybe thirty, but stern and unmoving. She motioned for Bruce to sit down.
Bruce pulled out a chair at the opposite side of the table from her and Alfred stood behind him. Bruce crossed his arms on the table and said, "Hello."
"Hello, Mr. Wayne." said the woman. "My name is Amanda Waller. Your parents were good friends of mine."
"You knew my parents?" Bruce asked.
Waller nodded. "Before they died, I was set to open up a new deal with them concerning the Martha Wayne wing in Arkham Asylum. Now that the chaos is set and done, I would like to reopen it with you."
One of the men standing behind Waller held up a folder, then walked over to Bruce and set it on the table for him. Bruce opened the folder and saw two mugshots with information written beneath them. They were from Arkham Asylum and being held in the Martha Wayne wing.
"Those are Arkham inmates." Waller said. "Feng Yu Huan set four apartments on fire within six weeks in Gotham and is now residing uncomfortably in Arkham Asylum. Landis Bolton was dubbed the Exterminator due to his affinity for insects and use of poison gas for his crimes. I want to move them both to a new facility better suited to hold them."
"I don't understand." Bruce furrowed his eyebrows, closing the folder. "Prison transfers happen all the time. Why did you need the consent of Wayne enterprises?"
"Once Huan and Bolton are moved to the new prison, they will be drafted in a new program I'm creating where their unique talents will be used for good."
"Huan sets things on fire and Bolton kills with poison gas. What good can their talents be used for?"
Waller frowned, as if annoyed. "Oh there are plenty of things, but the program is mostly precautionary."
"So why do you need me to sign? Wouldn't an official representative of Wayne Enterprises be more authentic?"
"Like I said, I was good friends with your parents. Before what I didn't know was going to be our last meeting ended, they told me that you were a hundred and ten percent the person they trusted if they couldn't be reached. The official representative of Wayne enterprises will of course be the one to sign, but I still need a witness signature. Asking anyone else would be a disgrace to the grave of a noble family."
Bruce read over the mugshot files. Both of them had committed major crimes and both of them were serious criminals.
"How do you plan on keeping them in line? Huan and Bolton can't possibly be agreeing to this."
"Indeed." Waller sat up in her chair. "Rest assured, Mr. Wayne. Wayne Enterprises has given us the resources to have guns on them at all times and make sure they don't cause any more death."
Bruce nodded. Waller didn't look like she was going to say more than that. Having two dangerous criminals out of Gotham city never hurt, and to force them to do good would be the best possible end for them. But something about Amanda Waller was saying there was something else behind the plan. It seemed too perfect.
Alfred noticed him hesitating and whispered to him. "It's already signed. If you don't sign it, someone else will. This is all screwed around; all Waller really needs is the posterity."
Bruce turned back to Waller. One of her people walked over and handed him the contract and a pen, and pointed to where he was supposed to sign. Everything else was already filled in. Bruce already knew what to do. He grabbed the pen and filled in the name.
Bruce Wayne.
Waller nodded. "Thank you, Mr. Wayne. I think this will be our last meeting."
Bruce stood and Alfred followed him out of the room and into the elevator back to the car. Alfred got to the driver's seat and Bruce sat behind him. With a whir, the car started and the ride back to Wayne manor began.
Bruce was quiet for the drive back, his mind still on Selina and Waller's deal. Waller was so unfeeling and butch. Bruce knew from experience that she had to be hiding something, but he didn't know what. He barely knew what Waller was going to do to the inmates she was taking or what was going to happen to them.
Then there was Selina, once again in the back of his mind. Somehow, Bruce had managed to associate a prison transfer with her. He had okayed a transfer for human beings he didn't even know to some other prison he knew nothing about and permitted who knows what to happen to them. He told himself he was just being melodramatic, but it was impossible for him to do anything and not associate it with Selina.
Perhaps he was just being melodramatic. It wasn't an option for him anymore.
The car pulled up next to Wayne manor. Alfred told Bruce to go inside while he did something with the car. It came to the point where he couldn't bear it anymore and headed straight up to his bedroom to collapse on the bed with his heart in his stomach like a broken egg.
How the hell was he supposed to attend a birthday party in his honor? It was the most gratuitous thing that had ever happened to him, and it was the first public thing to happen after he had damned half the city to death by the claws of the Talons. And Selina was gone, and he let her go with a billionth of the emotion he would feel in the months to come.
He should have held her longer. He should have grabbed her waist and pulled her close and he should have kept her in his arms as long as she could before she had to go. Instead he held her gloved hand with a passing glance and watched her back as she disappeared below his peripheral and climbed into the night. That's all she would remember of him, and that's all he had of her. He didn't even know he cared that much about her. Even when he was stabbing himself in the stomach, he thought it was because of his parents, not because he cared about her. But now everything was clear.
Bruce lay there and stared at his window, tearing down the curtain so he would be able to see Selina from a block away if she was coming. He watched Alfred bring a hot lunch to his room and sit it down on the tabletop next to his bed, and he watched as the steam subsided and the temperature of the meal dropped, him still staring out of the window. He watched Alfred come back in with dinner on a tray and turn back seeing his ice-cold lunch still there. He knew better than to get Bruce to eat something.
Bruce stared out the window, his back now sweating from the heat of the bed and sheets, his entire body wrenching for movement.
"Selina," he spoke to the air, but he spoke gently and passionately, as if Selina could hear him. "Where are you?" Selina could be in a sewer right below him, or in Midway like she had mentioned, or dead, stealing jewels from his mom and dad. That was the worst of it. As he watched the sun reach its peak, then begin its nightly descent, and finally disappear behind the smog and towers of Gotham city.
Tap, tap. The sound came from the windowsill just as Bruce's vision began to blur and glaze, unable to move. It was what Bruce was waiting for all day, and he barely knew what to say. He didn't know what to think or do, until Alfred's voice reverberated from the ground floor and shook him awake.
"Bruce!" Alfred yelled, and the glass of the window burst open. A man stepped through, dressed in black and wearing what was maybe a leather mask made to look like a patchwork human face. Bruce could tell Alfred was having his own fight downstairs most likely with another man.
Alfred had taught him how to fight. So did Selina. Once, he managed to pin her to the ground and she refused to tell him if she was going easy or not. Bruce did know some moves though, and no one was coming to his rescue now.
The man got closer to him, and Bruce got out of bed into the fighting stance Alfred taught him. As an arm reached out to grab him, Bruce took a swing and missed, the man being too far away. He got closer though, and Bruce's second attempt met his stomach.
The man lurched back, the air knocked out of him, when Bruce reeled from the hit. He had punched harder than he ever had, and the pain surged with his pulse in his arm. He had to recover fast. A kick to the leg made the man wince, but didn't do much else.
Bruce got back into his fight stance and got ready for the man to get back up. Bruce's next jab missed, and as his fist flew through the air, the man grabbed his forearm and pulled, sending Bruce tumbling to the floor on his side.
On the ground, Bruce tried to wrap his leg around the man's and trip him, but he was too heavy. All it made him do was stumble a bit out of stance, and Bruce got the time to get back up. His fists up, the man had enough. A blow to the side of the head made Bruce's vision blur and another to the side made him yell in pain. The recovering stab wound didn't help.
Suddenly, the bedroom door swung open so fast Bruce thought it would come off its hinges, and outside stood another man, tall and lean, armed with a flamethrower and gas tank on his back. A black mask covered his face, but Bruce recognized the black suit and red cape. A news story about Montoya and Allen putting away a psychopath named the Firebird played in his head, and the file Amanda Waller had shown him about Feng Yu Huan jogged his memory.
Before he had a chance to panic, Firebird shot his weapon and a stream of white-hot fire shot from the flamethrower at the man in the mask, forcing him to lunge backwards with his right side on fire. He must have known he was outmatched, because he took a double take and jumped out the window, not making a sound.
Firebird took off his mask, revealing a man maybe in his forties with a white scar running across his forehead. He looked at Bruce.
"Nice work, kid." he said. "We sure took care of him."
Bruce looked at him, confused. "What do you mean? Who was that?"
"I don't know, but he works for someone called the Dollmaker. My comrades downstairs are just finishing with his friend."
"Comrades?"
Firebird laughed, deactivating his flamethrower. "My name is Firebird, professional lunatic. I'm supposed to be protecting you, and I was in because I got to set a guy on fire."
Bruce stepped away from him, towards the door. "You're a killer."
"Hey, don't get me wrong. I like setting things on fire way more than most people. If we were meeting randomly on a street corner somewhere, your butler would be sweeping you up in an ashtray right now. But, sometimes you've got to do things you don't want to."
Bruce recognized Landis Bolton, the Exterminator, running up the stairs and meeting Firebird. He grabbed his shoulder and whispered, "Huan, we're secure. He's downstairs with Puppeteer right now."
Firebird nodded, and then turned to Bruce. "You got balls, kid. Come on."
Not knowing what to think, Bruce followed the two criminals down the stairs and into his living room, the two chatting in front of him the whole time. Alfred was downstairs monitoring an unconscious man in a leather mask, assisted by another person. Bruce assumed she was a criminal, but he hadn't seen her before.
"Hey, his friend got away." Firebird said. "I couldn't have done it without this kid; we really showed him who's in charge." He spoke with a sarcastic tone, as if he was trying to make a child feel proud.
The Puppeteer wore a costume that looked like ten different outfits had been torn apart and stitched back together into one. Pieces of buttons and fabrics and leathers hung from the jacket, and the top part of her face was covered in a mask. The bottom looked scarred. Bruce couldn't tell her age, but she looked about thirty.
"He could have told us something, next time get some words out of the son of a bitch." She chided, arms crossed.
"Hard to make them talk when their lips have been burnt off." Firebird held up his weapon proudly, but the others seemed exasperated.
Bruce spoke up, gaining the attention of the room. "I don't understand, what is this?"
Firebird sighed. "Is this not the kid that signed for this? I'm almost sure I saw Wayne on our waivers."
Bruce didn't say anything, so Firebird continued.
"This morning, Amanda Waller came down to our cells in Arkham and asked us to join this thingy. She called it Task Force X, but she just wanted bad guys to do her dirty work for her. Protecting you was our first assignment."
Of course it was. Bruce didn't feel like asking what was keeping the criminals in line. He didn't think he would get a valid answer from any of them. Instead, he asked what the men in the leather masks were in his house for.
"That's what this guy is going to tell us." the Puppeteer said, nudging the man on the ground with her foot. She gave the other two a gesture, and the three of them left, probably to take the man to interrogation or prison.
Bruce was left staring at Alfred. "What do you think they wanted?"
"I don't know." Alfred whispered, in case the criminals could still hear them. "Best not to think about it too much I suppose. There are a lot of chaps on the street that need money."
Bruce nodded.
"Although," continued Alfred, "We really must get that bloody window fixed. Is it true, what that fire bloke said? You fought a grown man?"
"Yes. I couldn't beat him though."
"Well that's all fair and good. Even getting off without a scratch is an accomplishment. Maybe get some rest, Master Bruce?"
Bruce began to head back up to his room. Maybe he did think too much, but he couldn't leave it alone. Firebird mentioned the Dollmaker, so he must want something from Wayne manor to send goons in. Or was it him? And if it was him, could they have known about Selina?"
Where the Court of Owls was a psychologically dark storyline, this will be much more physically dark and is going to start pushing at the T-rating. Just a fair warning, but if you watch Gotham, I think you can handle this. Next up, Bruce's birthday party and Selina's return.