In the dark of the night Barbara was having a nightmare. She tossed and turned and cried out in her sleep, unable to keep her voice supressed as she revisited the night that man… The Joker… Took her family away.
Waking suddenly a desperate 'Dad!' escaped her mouth and she clapped her hands over her mouth in shock.
the clock on her bedside table, it told her that it was three in the morning, but she could see a light on in the hall. Inquisitive to see what it was, she slid out of bed and tiptoed to the doorway.
She followed the light down the grand staircase, past the dining room, past the study, into the library. There in the darkness, Bruce was standing by the piano. He pressed down on a few keys. The disjointed melody nothing special. There was a pause, silence. Then a noise like a piston moving and a door began to swing open.
She stared in abject shock as the bookcase behind the piano pushed forward and slid to the side, revealing a concealed doorway. Bruce checked over his shoulder, forcing her to duck for cover behind the wall, before entering the doorway.
Quick but light on her feet, Barbara scurried after him and made it through the door with millimetres to spare. The door closing cut off the light from the library behind her, so she felt her way blindly down the narrow hallway she had ended up in. as she walked, her vision slowly got used to the dark and she followed what appeared to be a tunnel, which sloped steeply downward underneath Wayne Manor. As it levelled out, the tunnel opened up into an immense cave deep underground.
High above her a majestic waterfall crashed down the cave wall into a lake below and above the water, on a metal platform suspended from steel cables and girders dug deep into the walls of the cave. Stood Bruce Wayne. He was tapping away at a huge computer with a very familiar symbol carved into the metal casing and behind him down a long ramp sat … the Batmobile…
Hearing the noise her feet made on the metal grate below her, Bruce looked at her suddenly and she gulped. He looked angry, but at the same time he knew that his secret was out and he stopped impatiently typing
Barbara took a tiny step forward and felt her voice rising up in her throat, threatening to escape, bubbling over but being suppressed with everything she had.
'I had hoped to keep this secret a little while longer' muttered Bruce darkly 'But you're too clever for that I suppose'
She glared at him and gestured around her at all of the things hanging from metal racks, and the vehicles spread out below in spaces marked out with fluorescent paint
'Yes' was all Bruce could say 'I… I'm Batman'