Chapter 20 – Memory Lane
Months passed, until only two weeks remained before their December wedding. It was as though they'd blinked and the entirety of autumn passed. As snow began to transform the city's landscape, so too did Bruce and Selina's paradigms. Boxes began arriving at Wayne Manor, filled with items being siphoned from Selina's apartment.
Animal print throws started appearing on the backs of sofas. Dick had to sidestep crates full of shoes, handbags and scarves on his way out to school. And Bruce nearly sat on Selina's cat one night, camouflaged as she was in the corner of a black microsuede couch.
For two people who thrived on pressure and excitement, it all fell within their stress tolerance. Merging households while planning a wedding fit for a billionaire was all in a day's work. Thankfully, crime seemed to be taking a holiday for now, allowing Bruce ample time to focus on personal tasks.
This included rummaging through his walk-in closet, which had become an embarrassing storage unit over the years. Not even Alfred had been able (or really allowed) to keep it tamed. Piles of exotic souvenirs, designer clothes, and spare electronics created an ugly mountain range that Bruce was loathe to scale. He'd been putting it off until… well, he didn't really have an occasion in mind before.
But the occasion was certainly right now.
Sighing and muttering under his breath one evening, he burned the midnight oil sorting through it all. His motivation was at an all-time high - two days remained before their wedding. Two days before Selina would expect her own half of that closet.
Bruce paused to assess his progress, rubbing his eyes. Resting against the wall, pants and suits dangled above his head, and he let his gaze wander.
That's when he saw it.
From any other angle, he might have missed it. But there, set back in the recesses of the lower shelves, was a box. A small one, only a few inches high, covered in a dark brocade pattern.
Had he seen that box before? Did it look familiar? He wasn't sure, but as he reached for it, the hairs on the back of his neck slowly raised.
He stared at it for a long minute. Despite having no conscious memory of this box, he knew it. He knew what it contained.
Lifting the lid, every cell in his body was gratified by what he found: a simple, leather-bound notebook inscribed with Diary of Thomas Wayne.
What a thing to find two days before his wedding.
Exhaling, he continued to hold it, weighing it not just in his hands, but in his heart. Was this the right time? Could he handle the weight of these pages in addition to everything else right now? If his eyes beheld the contents, would they be able to look upon Selina at the altar with undivided attention? Surely she deserved a groom fully devoted and dedicated to her, at the very least on their wedding day.
Then again, would the distraction of unread pages plague him just as much? Would he be able to keep his mind off this discovery for two days?
The indecision was crippling. He could neither open the volume nor return it to the box.
Stalemates he was accustomed to as Batman, but never within his own house, much less with inanimate objects. He certainly couldn't let a five-ounce journal best him.
Just a sample, he thought suddenly. I'll open to it to a random page, read it, and that's it for tonight.
Just one entry. Just enough to satiate his curiosity, but not enough to drown him in a deluge of emotion. A reasonable solution if ever there was one.
Just one entry.
With trembling fingers, he cleaved the pages about two-thirds in and took a deep breath.
December 20, 1995
I tested the limits of my Hippocratic Oath last night. Never in all my years as a physician have I experienced such an evening – not even in the most harrowing hours of the ER. To be honest, I am not entirely certain how to settle my conscience after it all.
It was half past ten; Martha and I were about to retire to bed when we heard the loudest pounding on the front doors. There were agitated shouts and a woman screaming. Alfred peered through the privacy glass to see a group of five adults, two of them holding up a man who could barely stand. When Alfred told me he could see blood on the man's shirt, I had him open the door immediately.
It did not take long to assess the situation. Our guests were none other than mafia leader Vincent Falcone, his two sons, and his sons' wives. The younger Falcone son, Carmine, had sustained life-threatening bullet wounds to the abdomen. I did not ask how the wounds were sustained; knowing their family business, it isn't difficult to surmise.
Based on Carmine's critical condition, I urged them to take him to the hospital. Vincent refused, wanting to keep his son's casualties a secret. Rather than waste precious time arguing with a mobster, I laid Carmine on the dining room rug and set about removing the bullets, with Alfred admirably assisting.
All the commotion woke young Bruce, whom I saw peeking from the upstairs banister. I do hope he didn't see or hear too much – I hate to think of any nightmares it may cause for him. He hasn't mentioned the incident yet, and I dread bringing it up.
The dilemmas that I often face as a doctor, and as a parent, I would not wish upon my worst enemy.
Of all the entries Bruce could have stumbled upon, that was the one fate chose to hand him.
Luck was a fickle thing. First it bestowed his father's diary… then smacked him across the face with it.
Carmine Falcone. His father had saved Carmine Falcone's life that night. At age six, Bruce couldn't fully comprehend it, even had his father tried explaining it.
But he understood now. He understood all too well. Because of his father's benevolence, the Falcones' syndicate remained as powerful as ever, serving as the springboard for all crime throughout Gotham. Thanks to Thomas Wayne's ineffable charity, their legacy would last another generation, corrupt and evil to the core.
No wonder his father's soul was troubled after that night. Thomas Wayne likely agonized over his actions until his death two years later. Now his tortured conscience was Bruce's to carry.
Feeling numb, Bruce slid the journal back inside the box. At this hour, with this burden, there were only two people he felt he could call: Alfred (who had already gone to sleep) or Clark.
Bruce shook his head and pulled his phone out of his pocket. Another day, another wasted call to Clark Kent. But he had to try, just to say that he did.
"Hi Clark. It's Bruce," he paused, pushing back the anxious, irritated anger from his voice. "Really wish we could talk. Tonight especially. I found… my father's diary. I don't want to burden Selina with this right before our wedding. So, please, if you get this message… call me."
The call history for Clark Kent's number was just another smack in the face. Since October 15, over 50 of Bruce's calls had gone unanswered. Why not add another to the depressing pile?
Back in October, when news outlets started reporting on Superman's global absence, Bruce raised an eyebrow. After a week of similar reports, his eyebrows started to furrow. After a month, tension headaches began to set in. And by now, his entire neck was an aching conduit of stress.
Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. Superman had never vanished from the public eye for this long, ever. Was he even still alive? Bruce would have gladly accepted just a two-word text from the man, if nothing else. But this radio silence was utterly devastating.
Selina shared his consternation, though not quite to the same degree. Though the prospect of Superman's demise worried her to the extent it would anyone, she couldn't possibly understand the depths of Bruce's anxiety. For Bruce, it wasn't just the fear of losing protection, but losing the rarest of confidantes. Losing a brother hero, the likes of which didn't exist anywhere else on the planet.
What was odd was the lack of villains taking advantage of the situation. None had yet come forward as the mastermind behind Superman's downfall. If someone had indeed incapacitated the Man of Steel, where was the boasting? Surely this was something worth taking credit for?
Yet two months had passed, and still, silence all around.
They hadn't even received a wedding RSVP card from the Kents. And neither Clark nor Lois were ones to flout etiquette.
Bruce knew the later he stayed up, the more his mind would consume itself in this vortex of stress. It took almost a superhuman effort to lift himself off the closet floor, drag his feet to bed, and collapse on top of the sheets.