When Bruce was in eighth grade, his literature class did a section on Greek mythology. Selina remembered the story of Ariadne, who defied her father to give Theseus the sword with which he slew the Minotaur, and the ball of string with which he escaped the labyrinth, only for him to abandon her after they eloped. And despite his cruelty, Theseus still got to be the hero of the story, because in those days, men could do whatever they wanted to women and still be heroes.
And she understood now why Leslie had given her Sense and Sensibility as her first Jane Austen novel all those years ago, rather than the much more famous story of Lizzy and Darcy. The story of Marianne Dashwood was a cautionary tale. Her impulsiveness and thoughtless romanticism had led her to dote hopelessly on an unworthy man, just as Ariadne did before her and just as Selina Kyle did after her.
But Selina was done being Ariadne. She was done being Marianne Dashwood. She had forgotten the lessons that her mom had taught her a lifetime ago. She had forgotten what she knew when she was ten years old, that she always had to wind up alone in the end. She had spent nine years falling hopelessly in love with Bruce Wayne, though she had never dared to say so aloud. She had allowed herself to hope that maybe they would always be there for each other the way they had been when his parents died, despite the knowledge that she always carried in the back of her mind. But, inevitably, she wound up alone again.
She was, however, a pragmatist first and foremost, so she refused to allow her anger at the Prince of Gotham to cause her to spurn the advantages that his family had given her. Alfred assured her she would always have her place at Wayne Manor when she needed or wanted it, and Selina knew that it would remain her best hideout when she needed to lay low.
And Leslie had always been an important resource. Selina and Leslie had conversations that Bruce knew nothing about, sometimes about decidedly feminine topics that he would balk at and some about other matters much more closely related to him. But Leslie kept Selina's secrets. She also, on a couple of occasions, patched up minor injuries that Selina didn't want her naïve and overreactive beau to know about.
So Alfred and Leslie remained critical parts of Selina's life even as Bruce Wayne disappeared from it, and even as she rejected their advice to journey down the path that continued association with Bruce might have placed her on: obtaining a bachelor's degree and, eventually, a respectable job at Wayne Enterprises. She had followed along with Bruce's education and even taken the ACT with him. She'd done slightly better than he did, although he claimed that he'd have done better if she hadn't been sitting in front of him. And she didn't completely hate the idea of college, knowing that she'd have more freedom to take only classes that she was actually interested in taking, at least mostly. But she didn't want to submit herself once more to the world of structure and rules. And now there would be the added discomfort of the memories of the boy who left.
But she did make upgrades to her life. She gave up on pouring drinks for handsy pigs and got a job as a waitress at an upscale restaurant in the Financial District, just up the street from where she first met the Waynes. Mr. Falcone's influence helped with that, via Carlo, although she doubted that the Mirror Man himself was aware of it.
She got tipped well, likely more because of her looks than because she was actually good at the job. She also developed a talent for memorizing the credit card information of those customers who came across as too lazy to check their credit card bills.
Soon, with just a little help from Leslie and none at all from the Wayne fortune, she had a small but cozy apartment in downtown Gotham. The place was pet-friendly, which was important, as she had come across yet another stray black cat who reminded her of Nightcat, and decided to take her in. She named this one Isis, after yet another mythological female who was more heroic than the male heroes she supported.
"I won't kick you out," she assured the cat as she held her in her lap. "You're a burden worth carrying."
Her own perch was a couch bought second-hand, with plum-colored upholstery that she would replace if she ever had the time and money to do so. In fact, an interior designer would likely run away screaming if she saw inside Selina's little place, but she wasn't in any position to throw funds at that problem anytime soon. Now that she was on her own two feet, as the saying went, she wouldn't accept any more financial help from Leslie or Alfred that she didn't absolutely need.
Within a year, she'd taken in two more strays: a little white kitten named Silk and a playful, speckled cat named Flitz. Leslie quipped that Selina was too young to become an old cat lady, but Selina was not at all ashamed. She liked cats, and there was never any chance that they would abandon her.
Leslie kept giving her books, now more often related to the college courses that Selina refused to subject herself to. Selina would skim through them and retain only the knowledge that she felt she needed to know. She was beginning to conclude that the most important part of her 'education' seemed to be what she had learned at Wayne Manor about communicating with rich people. Even though Bruce was hardly exemplary of the arrogant and selfish brats that made up most of his social echelon, their conversations had been good practice for the politeness and propriety that soon got her promoted to hostess at her day job and helped with her less sanctioned earnings by night.
She knew that most of the thievery wasn't necessary anymore. The day job might not be quite enough to cover rent and expenses, but a lucrative robbery could be more than enough to fill in the gaps for months at a time. Still, she knew that the selfish hoarders who cheated and manipulated the less fortunate deserved to see the tables turn. The Julie Madisons and Tommy Elliots of the world would never deserve their inheritances, and the fat old men in the boardroom of Wayne Enterprises who would stymy Bruce's efforts to help people needed to make up for their greed.
So she kept depriving them of whatever she could, and didn't keep any more of the loot for herself than she needed. Instead, the greediest of Gotham's elite unwittingly made generous contributions to orphanages, homeless shelters, and, of course, cat shelters.
And if she had any flares of conscience about it all, it was Alfred of all people who put such concerns to rest.
He asked for her help with moving furniture in some rooms of the manor that needed maintenance work done. She immediately agreed, even though she knew he was at least partially asking just to try to stir some nostalgia and maybe persuade her to occupy the house for a bit. She would always help Alfred when she could, in return for all of the care he had provided for her and Bruce.
But she wouldn't have agreed to stay at the manor for a little while if they hadn't come across an old journal. "Ah, so here's where those plans wound up, then," said Alfred, apparently recognizing the book.
"What plans?"
"Madam Wayne was making plans for the Wayne Foundation, an organization that would raise money for charities and other means of helping the less fortunate. If I recall correctly, her first idea was to provide support for foster homes, after the encounter with that awful lady from Child Protective Services who came to fetch you all those years ago."
Selina froze, staring at the journal.
Alfred held it out for her. "Here. I suspect that her ideas will interest you."
They did, of course. Selina spent the night at the manor, poring through the journal and all of the research that Martha Wayne had done in the last year of her life. Some of it was information that Selina already knew, about what things were really like in the older and darker neighborhoods of Gotham. And many of the solutions that Martha came up with were hopelessly fanciful and optimistic.
As she got further through the journal, Thomas Wayne's handwriting started popping up in places alongside Martha's. It seemed that he had warmed up to her ideas over the course of the year, although he often seemed to be simply pointing out where her impossible solutions were lacking in logic.
Selina paused when she came across a somewhat-outdated roster of the directors of Wayne Enterprises, with both Thomas and Martha's thoughts on how they might be persuaded to vote in favor of such charitable endeavors. Based on what Selina knew of the directors who were still at the company, the Waynes' conclusions were unduly optimistic.
Finally, she reached several blank pages at the back of the journal, and felt a wave of sadness wash over her. All of these ideas had never been fulfilled, because of a thug in an alley.
She flipped through the empty pages, mentally filling in her own thoughts that might have helped the Waynes to bring their ideas into reality. Had they lived, she might have helped them. Perhaps she even could have become Martha's right-hand woman in running the foundation. While she had always rejected the thought of getting a job at Wayne Enterprises because of the connections that she had never deserved in the first place, the Wayne Foundation seemed like an important-enough endeavor for her to set aside such scruples.
When she reached the very last page of the journal, however, she froze. There, in Thomas Wayne's handwriting, was the name Maria Kyle, with a question mark after it.
Never, not once, had Selina told them her mother's first name. So how had Thomas learned it?
She awoke without realizing that she had fallen asleep, and groaned at the discomfort of her clothes. The journal was still open to the last page, her mother's name staring at her in the handwriting of a man who never should have known it.
She looked towards the windows. There was enough light outside to signify that it was rather late in the morning, or perhaps even past noon. She had no idea how late she had stayed up going through the journal... and then staring at her mom's name.
Getting up and straightening her clothes, she took the journal and went in search of Alfred. She found him in the kitchen, watching some old western film on a television that hadn't been there last time she was here. He was leaning against the counter, his arms crossed. On the table was a neat place setting with a plate of scrambled eggs and a mug of coffee that looked just the right shade of dark brown for Selina's taste.
"Good morning, Miss Kyle," he said without looking at her.
"Good morning." She walked over to the plate and coffee. "You didn't have to do this."
"Yes I did... As much for my own comfort as for yours."
She gave him a small, sympathetic smile. While it didn't make complete sense in her mind that Alfred missed having a Wayne to serve, it was simply a part of who he was. And Selina knew that she wasn't the only one with a Bruce Wayne-shaped scar on her heart. She wasn't the only one left behind.
"Would you like anything else?"
"No, thank you, Alfred." She sat down and began eating, and his attention returned to the old western movie.
She watched idly. Old movies had never really held her attention, with their lack of color and dulled sound effects. But as she watched a cowboy use a whip to knock a gun from the hand of a bandit, she raised her eyebrows. "Now there's a useful skill."
"Indeed, Miss Kyle."
She continued watching even after she finished breakfast, not wanting to abandon Alfred so quickly and also putting off asking the question that she wanted to ask. But as the credits rolled, she returned her attention to the journal. "Alfred, I need to ask you something."
"Anything, Miss Kyle."
She opened the journal to the last page and pointed to her mother's name. "Do you know how Dr. Wayne learned my mother's name?"
He looked at the name in surprise. "No, Miss Kyle, I was unaware that he knew it."
"I never told it to him, nor to anyone here. And I can't think of anyone else whom he might have spoken to that would know."
Alfred looked perplexed. "I don't know, Miss Kyle. I have no idea how he might have known."
With his blessing, she borrowed the journal, and spent much of the following days flipping through it again and again, studying every name mentioned and wondering if or how anyone in here could have known who her mother was. The thought that Dr. Wayne might have learned what happened to her mother consumed her, and if it was true, she cursed his memory for not telling her before he died. Would he ever have told her?
Her nocturnal pursuits shifted to stalking everyone mentioned in the journal who was still around. She wanted to know everyone that they talked to, and everyone that those people talked to. But months passed, and she couldn't find any connection between any of these people and her mother.
Finally, she gave up. The obsession wasn't healthy. She had known for a long time that she would likely never uncover her mother's fate, and whatever Dr. Wayne knew or didn't know had gone to the grave with him. She told herself, out of respect for his memory, that he had never found out, and would never have kept such a secret from her.
Nevertheless, she stepped up her efforts to rob and harass the rich, the possibility of any of them knowing the secret that eluded her contributing to her resentment. She became more brazen, deceiving lustful men and inattentive women. She snuck into parties, sometimes finding a date who was invited and sometimes using her burgeoning burglary skills. She left her job at the restaurant and started working for a catering company, using the job as cover to scout out locations and marks.
It was while she was working an event at Gotham University—one that she had reluctantly deemed unlikely to produce any targets—that Freckles reappeared in her life. Selina carefully kept out of sight of the girl who would recognize her, watching her socialize with her classmates. The redhead still had that same haughty, rich-bitch personality, and Selina decided to mess with her.
On nights when she had nothing better to do, she took to visiting the university and examining her mark's new life. Her roommate was an older girl who was very rarely at the apartment, as she unofficially lived with her boyfriend. That worked to Selina's advantage, as she was easily able to sneak into the unused bedroom and eavesdrop. When Freckles made plans to attend a party, Selina made the same plans, surreptitiously distracting boys that the redhead set her sights on and using dark corners and occasional public displays of affection to keep Freckles from looking long enough to recognize her.
When the absentee roommate invited Freckles to a law school party, Selina was intrigued. After all, law students were future lawyers, and lawyers were perhaps the greediest cheaters out there. So Selina caught the attention of a just-handsome-enough law student who was also going to said party, and tantalized the overeager fool until he practically begged her to accompany him.
When she discovered that Freckles had brought none other than Tommy Elliot to the party with her, she paused. There were now two people here that could recognize her, rather than just one. So she kept her date's attention in the corner until the party's two undergraduate attendees had sufficiently intoxicated themselves, and then begged off to the bathroom. Sneaking into one of the bedrooms in the large apartment, she stole a black Gotham U hoodie that would sufficiently protect her from the usual attention that her curves attracted, and began making use of her pickpocketing skills.
Unfortunately, she happened to make eye-contact with the absentee roommate's boyfriend, not long after she had made him one of her unwitting victims and just after she had robbed one of his classmates. She stilled, wondering whether he was sober enough to notice what she was up to. When his eyes stayed on her, she knew the game was up, and made for the exit.
He caught up to her out in the hall. "I'm going to have to ask you to give that back."
She paused, realizing that he only thought she had pulled off the last of her thefts. That made it very easy to put him on his back foot, so she turned to him. "You seem more concerned about his wallet than you do about your own."
His eyes went comically wide, and he patted his pockets.
Grinning, she pulled out more of her haul and recalled which wallet was his. Opening it, she examined his ID. "Harvey Dent."
To his credit, he recovered from his surprise quickly. "That's my name. What's yours?"
"Samantha Kane." It wasn't her most thought-out alias, of course, but there was a certain thrill in it being just different enough.
"Pleased to meet you, Samantha. Can I have that back, please?"
There wasn't much cash in the wallet anyway, and his cards were useless if he knew they were gone. So she widened her grin and shrugged. "You don't carry much cash on you." She tossed the wallet back, and was disappointed to see that he was sober enough to catch it.
"Being in six figures of student loan debt doesn't exactly lend itself to being a spendthrift."
She scoffed. Was a future lawyer seriously trying to play the student debt card? "I'm sure your cushy law job will wipe out that debt in a year, two at most."
"Actually, I plan to work for the city, so it'll take a lot longer than that."
Nice try. Selina knew how well Mr. Falcone supplemented measly municipal paychecks when it suited him. "Well then your payoffs from Falcone will solve your problems."
"I'm not going to accept any payoffs."
Seriously? Selina made a show of looking amused. "Oh, so you're one of them."
"Who's them?"
"The naïve idealists. The ones who think they can close their eyes and ears to reality and walk straight enough to not crash into a building." The metaphor was perhaps not her best, but she was thinking quickly.
"I don't plan to ignore reality, I plan to change it."
"Emphasis on the naïve."
"You're one to talk. You're what, twenty? And you're stealing wallets at an afterparty."
She wasn't sure exactly how he meant that as trying to turn the tables on her, but she felt defensive anyway. "Maybe I just came to mess with Freckles, and the wallets are an added bonus."
"Freckles?" He paused, but figured out quickly enough whom she meant. "You mean Julie?"
She simply smirked.
"What, did she steal your high school sweetheart?"
That caught her off-guard in the most brutal of ways, as Bruce immediately sprang into her mind. She tensed. "She wishes."
Her reaction clearly surprised him, and he backtracked away from the question that had prompted it. "Look, either you go back in there and give everyone back their wallets, or I go to the police and give them a very accurate description of you and the fact that you know Julie. Perhaps she can give the police more information about you."
Now she had a problem. Mentioning Freckles had been a mistake for more than one reason. "You're drunk," she offered, even though she knew that he wasn't drunk enough.
"I'm not that drunk, and I'm over twenty-one, unlike you."
That was such an unnecessary jab. She pursed her lips, thinking hard, and decided to play to his previously-stated 'white knight' attitude. "Well, since you seem to be a bleeding heart, maybe you'll understand when I say that I only steal from those who won't miss the funds. Like a bunch of future lawyers who will undoubtedly take advantage of the system, as much as you'd like to think otherwise."
He scoffed at that. "So you're some kind of Robin Hood? And I suppose you give any money you don't need to an orphanage?"
As a matter of fact, she did give a decent amount of her loot to orphanages these days, but her pride prevented her from mentioning that, so she decided to mention a cat shelter instead. "But no, I'm terrible at archery," she added, just for the hell of it.
He rolled his eyes at that.
Keeping him on the backfoot, she kept talking. "But speaking of shooting things, what's the point, Harvey? It's basically a coinflip whether someone will be shot in the head in this city on any given day. Why put yourself in so much debt trying to save a city that can't be saved? Gotham will never change, no matter how much people like you sacrifice to try to force it."
"I refuse to accept that."
Again, she was reminded of Bruce, and his stubborn refusal to acknowledge the impossibility of his wishes. She sighed. "You remind me of someone. He..." She paused as her emotions surged. "He threw away everything to try and save Gotham. You seem like a nice guy, so I'd hate to see you do the same thing."
"I have to."
His answer disheartened her. She looked past him towards the party, where his girlfriend was probably wondering where he was. "Freckles' roommate... She's your girlfriend, right?"
"Yes."
She had to ask the question. "Would you abandon her for your mission?"
"No. Never."
Selina looked down, feeling both relief and resentment. "She's lucky." She didn't notice the tears in her own eyes until she felt one begin rolling down her cheek. Harvey clearly had no idea what to make of that, and simply stared at her. She decided that it was time to make her escape. "Good luck, Harvey Dent." And then she left.
She stayed away from Freckles after that.
The next time that she saw Harvey Dent, he didn't see her.
She had risen quickly through the ranks at the catering company, but an unfortunate result of that was that she wound up working at the Christmas Gala at Wayne Tower. As she arrived hours ahead of time to scope out the ballroom, she couldn't help looking at the big Christmas tree and remembering each time that Bruce had participated in the lighting.
The event was attended by all of the most powerful people in Gotham, which made Selina feel extremely exposed. There were some past marks here and a lot of potential future ones, and she was anxious to avoid recognition as much as possible. Mr. Falcone noticed her, of course, because he always noticed everything, but he simply gave her the slightest of nods and then turned away, which she appreciated.
Harvey entered with the former absentee roommate, Marie, who now had an elegant, diamond-studded ring on her finger. Selina looked at the ring enviously, knowing it was highly unlikely that any man would ever give her such an important accessory. She carefully kept out of Harvey's sight, knowing that he would recognize her immediately if he spotted her.
She was amused when she saw him figuratively trip over himself when he met an elegant woman with long, dark hair, with his fiancé standing right beside him. Selina couldn't see the mystery woman's face, but she imagined that she must be very beautiful to attract such blatant attention from a man right in front of the woman who would disapprove. Marie's face got darker and darker, even when Harvey took her hand midway through the conversation. Finally, the woman took her leave, and Selina knew that poor Harvey would likely be groveling for Marie's forgiveness later tonight.
She watched as the mystery woman went over to Mr. Falcone and spoke to him. Mr. Falcone put his hand on her arm, a paternal kindness on his face, and when the woman turned and glanced back towards Harvey, Selina immediately spotted the family resemblance. The same green eyes, the same mirror-like features...
A strange feeling niggled at Selina, but she pushed it away, going about her work. But when she made a brief escape to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, the feeling struck her full-force.
The same green eyes, the same...
Suddenly feeling nauseous, she snuck out and exited the building, gasping for fresh air.
It couldn't be.
She had always known him as the Mirror Man. She recalled why she first thought of it, back when she was nine years old, when she noticed that some parts of his face mirrored her own. She had never thought about why, could never have fathomed the possibility back then.
She knew that she hadn't inherited her eyes from her mother, but her mom was the only parent she had ever known. She had never had a dad, had never thought about anything more than the simple biological fact that she wouldn't exist but for a second parent.
But it couldn't be. Not him.
"Miss, are you okay?" She looked up. She had walked well away from Wayne Tower by now, without realizing it. A police officer stood in front of her, looking not much older than she was.
"I'm fine," she told him, and continued on.
"Do you need help?" he persisted.
"No." She didn't look back at him, and kept walking all the way to her apartment, ignoring the winter wind that blew right through her work clothes. When she got inside, she went into her own bathroom and stared at the mirror.
Isis appeared and sat in the doorway, purring gently at her.
"It can't be him, Isis," she muttered. "I'm just overthinking it."
But every encounter that she'd ever had with the Mirror Man played in her head over and over again. He had always been kind to her, gentle even, and across the rest of Gotham he was known as anything but gentle. She recalled that day at Wayne Manor when he advised her to stop worrying and do what made her happy. That was the sort of abstract advice that a parent would give, wasn't it?
No. No, Selina was just being stupid. It couldn't be. This was just subconscious envy of Falcone's real daughter at the gala and a fantasy of the most powerful man in Gotham being her father.
But then she thought of the journal. Her mother's name, in Thomas Wayne's handwriting. And she realized that she knew of one man Dr. Wayne had associated with who wasn't mentioned anywhere in the journal.
Had Dr. Wayne figured it out? Had he asked Mr. Falcone about her? Was that how he knew her mother's name?
And then a much darker thought slammed into her gut with so much force that she doubled over, and wound up sitting on the bathroom floor. Did Mr. Falcone know what happened to her mother? Did he have a hand in it? Had she gone to him, asking for child support or perhaps even for him to take Selina in? Had he gotten rid of her to keep the secret?
A rage filled her. He had been kind to her, but he had never acknowledged her. All she got at the gala tonight was a slight nod that no one else would notice. His other daughter got to attend as a guest, to wear that fancy dress and jewelry and talk to him and elicit that paternal fondness that had graced his face. She must have been Mrs. Falcone's daughter, of course, not a bastard like Selina.
She pressed her head back against the wall, trying to get a handle on her emotions. First things first, she had to find out the truth for sure.