The official explanation for her miraculous return was rooted in a grain of truth: After a bitter argument with her husband the night before, Mardi had gone directly to the airport first thing in the morning and taken a flight to the Bahamas, without even telling him. There she had spent two blissfully ignorant weeks lying on the beach and drinking exotic cocktails, giving him some time to stew before coming home. She hadn't bothered with the news so she couldn't have known her car was stolen from the airport parking lot by some joyriders and dumped in the river when they were through with it. She was mortified to return home and discover she was believed to be dead. She apologized for the misunderstanding and hoped she hadn't caused too much trouble with her childish behavior.
It was a story full of holes, but who was going to make the effort to disprove it? Considering how few people even knew she existed it was easily dismissed and forgotten.
The week following was full of tension and anxiety as she wondered what Powers' next move would be, waiting for some sign of his intentions. It arrived ten days after the press release in the form of a card, heavy ivory stock with the letters 'DP' embossed on the front. Inside there were two handwritten sentences:
It is with overwhelming relief that I learned of your
safe return home.
Wishing you a long and healthy life,
Derek Powers.
Mardi read and reread the note a dozen times, turning the card over and even searching the envelope itself for some other clue, but there was nothing else. She took the card to Bruce who stared at it darkly before it disappeared into his clenched fist.
"What does it mean? Do you think…?" she asked in a timid, small voice that was almost unrecognizable to her.
"It's as much of a concession as you're going to get from him," he replied, glaring at her bitterly for a second before turning away. Watching his back she thought he might as well have been wearing the cape and mask, because it certainly wasn't Bruce Wayne who stalked out of the room.
From then on life settled into a steady, if not idyllic, routine. He spent his days and early evenings upstairs, pretending everything was normal for Isabella's sake, while his nights belonged solely to the cause. They spoke rarely and never touched.
The longest conversation they had involved Isabella's education. He sat her down and told her that he had decided their daughter would be entering the public school system, specifically Hamilton Hill High School. He was prepared for her arguments and countered them before she could even speak. Yes, she was younger than the incoming class, but she was more than ready academically. The school offered an accelerated program and a recent donation insured it was equipped with state-of-the-art assistive devices (Mardi hadn't even bothered to waste her breath asking where the donation had come from). As an added bonus, Terry attended classes there and could keep an eye on her. Then he paused briefly before launching into the final argument, the nail in the coffin so to speak. It was time she stopped being so over-protective. She had to stop trying to shelter Isabella from the world. She had to understand the girl was more than strong enough to handle herself, and this was what she wanted to do.
In the end it was clear he was not seeking her permission, he was simply telling her how it was going to be. She conceded defeat despite her better judgment and abject humiliation simply to get out of the room, to get out from under his eyes.
That night in bed, alone as she had been every night since coming home, she cried into her pillow for the first time, trying to pinpoint the exact moment her marriage had ended. She'd forced him to surrender and how could he ever forgive her for that? At one time she would have fought to win him back, but all the fight had been drained out of her, not that it would do any good anyway. Maybe, just maybe, she'd have a chance with Bruce, but against the cold stranger, the one she'd glimpsed briefly over the years and who had now taken up permanent residence, against him she had no chance. He was unrelenting, unyielding, unbeatable. He was a black hole that sucked the life out of her.
Lying in bed, tears drying on her cheeks, in occurred to her just how much she hated him. She hated Batman with every fiber of her being.
It was a rainy early spring day and though the days were steadily growing longer it was still almost dark by the time Mardi walked through the front door. She was fatigued down into her bones, mentally exhausted, and hadn't felt so good in months. After spending the past six weeks knocking about the old manor house making an effort to smile for her daughter when all she felt like doing was crying dawn till dusk, all the while pretending every non-look she received from her husband didn't cut her like a razor, she'd made the first executive decision since quitting her job and did what every rich society wife did to keep busy – she got involved in charity work.
Specifically she went down to the Wayne Foundation headquarters, introduced herself, shook hands with the current director, and asked to be shown to her office. The man looked dumbfounded for all of fifteen seconds, then closed his mouth, put his hand on her elbow, and showed her to a large, corner suite, surreptitiously removing his nameplate as he walked by the door.
She'd been at it a week, reviewing files, making suggestions, and just this morning set up a fund to clean up the Gotham river, the stench still fresh in her mind. She felt strong again being productive, and for ten hours a day never once felt like shedding a tear. But as she returned home, to the heart of the beast, her purgatory, the depression slowly settled back in. Several lamps cast a soft glow in the foyer making it look warm and inviting. She removed her coat and hung it up on the rack, setting her umbrella into its base. She rubbed her upper arms for warmth, and closed her eyes, taking a moment to recall the past. He was there, dressed sharply, face still relatively unlined, looking at her with that slight smile, his eyes burning with passion for her. She could almost feel his arms around her, firm and powerful, and his lips press against her neck, hitting just the right spot. Without realizing she moaned as the grief settled around her heart. Her eyes blinked open and it was the present again and it was still over.
A small voice in her mind questioned why she even remained, living the lie that was slowly driving her mad. Why not leave, pack her bags and go, whether just to a downtown Gotham hotel or to the other side of the globe. Why stay where she wasn't wanted. The simple answer was Isabella, that she stayed for her daughter, not wanting to leave her with a broken home, but the deeper answer was that she now lacked the courage to leave, because if she left it would be completely over and sometimes just pretending was better than nothing.
Walking forward she glanced up the stairs. Isabella must be up in her room doing her homework. She'd go up in a minute to say hello, but first she moved towards the kitchen. Passing the study she happened to look in and notice that the clock was standing aside, allowing access to the cave below. The anger hit all the much harder in her depressed state, heat flushing her cheeks as her heart pounded frantically. It was implicitly understood there was not to be any traffic through this entrance since it would be too easy for Isabella to come across it. And here he'd simply left it standing open.
Setting her shoulders and preparing for battle, she stormed down the stairs. In the passageway she heard voices drift up, low and indistinct. When she immerged into the cavern she saw Bruce's back as he stood next to a worktable. It looked like there was another person standing in front of him. She watched him take a tool from the table, assuming he was performing some maintenance on Terry's suit, and called out, "Hello?"
Bruce turned around at the sound of her voice and watched her as she walked towards him. He stepped aside and she got her first look at the other person, seeing that it wasn't Terry at all. She blinked her eyes trying to get them to focus properly, because that person looked an awful lot like…
"Isabella?" she asked. Her daughter stood there wearing a helmet that looked like it came out of a bad sci-fi movie. The girl lifted her hand in greeting. "What are you doing down here? What is she doing down here?" she turned to look at her husband, panic growing in her chest like a wild animal.
"Mardi please stay calm," he said to her.
"Stay calm? Stay calm? What is she doing down here? She's not supposed to be down here! And what is that getup you're wearing?" she yelled at Isabella.
"Mom, you don't have to shout. I can hear you just fine," she replied.
"I will shout if I want to…what did you say?" she sputtered, thunderstruck.
"I said, I can hear you just fine."
"I don't understand, how is this possible?" She looked from one to the other.
"Technology we discovered in Shriek's lab," Bruce replied calmly. "It recreates sound waves into electronic pulses and sends them directly into the auditory center of the brain, like an artificial ear."
"Who-Wha..?" She was having trouble comprehending his words.
"Dr. Shrieve?" Isabella filled in. "He's the guy that tried to kill Dad last month. Remember?"
Mardi remembered very clearly his brief stay in the hospital. She'd told Isabella he'd simply fallen. Terry had provided her with the actual details, though she really didn't care to hear the truth. "Yes, I remember, but how do you know about it?" she inquired suspiciously.
"Don't worry Mom. I found out about Terry being Batman my first week of school. There was an emergency and I was sort of following him so I saw him with the suit." With a smile she placed her hands on her hips and struck a pose. "I'm going to be a crime fighter like Dad and Terry."
Her whole body went cold as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped over her head. "Over my dead body!" she screamed, sending scores of bats fluttering about in distress.
Isabella blinked and stepped back in response to the verbal onslaught. Bruce placed a hand on her shoulder. "Give your mother and me a moment alone please?" he said quietly to her. She nodded and moved around the table off into the depths of the cave.
Mardi rounded on him, her previous chill turned into a burning fire. "Don't you dare! Don't you fucking dare you arrogant bastard! I swear to God that if you do this, if you turn her into one of your clones, I swear I'll…I'll…"
"You'll do what?" he quietly goaded her to finish.
"Kill you," she snarled, ears ringing with the sounds of her own words, but she knew she meant it. She stood trembling waiting for his rebuke, his anger, even his condemnation, but she would not back down, not let him bully her this time.
So she was surprised to see his face soften, almost sympathetically, as he said, "There is nothing more important in the world to me, do you really think I would place her in danger?"
It was her husband's voice, the one she hadn't heard in so long, as much as the words themselves that stunned her. "Well I don't know Bruce," she replied warily, "after all, you are insane."
He didn't seem to take offence at the slight any more than he had her bold threat. "I'm sorry she found out, but there is no undoing it now. I'm letting her down here to test the equipment while I'm trying to refine it into something she can wear full time. That's all."
"But she said…"
"She's twelve. Last week she told me she wanted to be a veterinarian. The week before that she wanted to be a Rockette."
Mardi brought her hand up and rubbed her face tiredly. "I'm sorry. I guess I should have known better…" The words trailed off as she looked over his shoulder. "No danger, huh? What would you call that?" she asked pointing behind him.
He turned and looked. "She must have gotten into the supply closet," he replied as if it was perfectly normal to see his twelve-year-old daughter twenty feet in the air, suspended by one of his jump lines.
"That's all you can say? She could break her neck!"
"Isabella!" he called out. "Get down from there before your mother has an aneurysm." Dangling in the air, she inverted herself so that she was hanging upside down facing them, grinning, her hair spilling out from under the helmet like a dark waterfall.
"So this is where everybody's at." Mardi and Bruce turned to see Terry come down the stone steps and walk towards them. Noticing Isabella's aerial routine he said, "Training the newest little vigilante are we?"
"No!" they replied in unison.
Terry shrugged. "Good, because I work alone."
At that moment Isabella released her grip on the line, completed two mid-air somersaults, and stuck a perfect landing. "I'm dead," Mardi moaned. "That's the only answer. I've died and this is my own private hell." Feeling as if she were trapped in her worst nightmare she headed up the stairs. "If my daughter is still in one piece in an hour, please send her upstairs to help with supper."
