The Way Back #1

Bruce reached for the cord and pulled the vertical blinds closed. Perhaps, without the moonlight shining in, he would finally be able to sleep. He closed his eyes again. When he opened them, the digital clock told him that a mere four minutes had passed since the last time he'd checked the display.

This was ridiculous. He was going home tomorrow. There was no reason to be apprehensive. It wasn't as though he was venturing into the unknown. It wasn't even as though he'd never been alone at the manor. Besides the occasional vacation, there had been more than one time when Alfred had resigned his post and gone his own way. This was the first time, though, that Bruce knew that his oldest friend wasn't coming back. Or, he reflected, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he would never leave again. They'd buried him on the grounds.

He closed his eyes again. The last four days had been… good. There was no better way to describe them. He'd been staying with Dick and Barbara since the hearing. It was still hard for him to accept that this was real, that he was truly out. He wasn't going back to the hospital, nor to Arkham. That was behind him now. And yet… there were moments when the last two years felt as though they had been a dream.

Of course, Bruce knew better. It had all happened. Alfred and Jason were dead. He'd been arrested, unmasked, and bound over to Arkham. His old life was gone for good. In some ways, this was a relief. Although it had been necessary as a cover, he'd never really enjoyed playing the vapid socialite. Now, he no longer had to. He didn't need excuses to get out of board meetings, either. His company had moved on without him.

He sat up in bed angrily. Was this what it came down to, now? He was not, absolutely not, going to lie here and give in to defeatism. He didn't think that Dick would be back from patrol yet, but Barbara had to be up. And if there was one person on whom he could count to kick him off the pity pot…

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. His bare feet sank into the pile carpet. He found his slippers with little difficulty and crossed to the door. Instead of the brass knob, however, his hand closed on Turkish cotton. He grimaced. Time was when he wouldn't have needed the reminder, but bathrobes weren't standard issue at Arkham.

He slid into the robe and stepped out into the hallway, shielding his eyes against the stronger illumination.

Barbara was carrying on a conversation with Wonder Girl. "Kid Devil did what?" She gasped. She sobered quickly. "Alright. Leave it with me. I'll pull what I have on Neron. Eddie's underage. Maybe that's a loophole. Oracle out." She closed the channel. "Missing the fine print I get," she muttered, "but how does anyone ignore a clause in twenty-four-point Arial Bold?"

She started punching buttons on her console. "Hi, Bruce," she said without turning around. "Gimme a sec." She sighed. "Come on, Kyle… answer the page." She took a deep breath and let it out. "I hope he isn't off-planet," she added, finally rolling her chair away from her systems.

"Sorry about that," she smiled wearily. "You know, when I was a teenager, my biggest problems were an overprotective father and the police academy's minimum height requirement. Today…" She let her voice trail off as she indicated a nearby swivel chair. "Have a seat."

Bruce complied.

"What's up? I though you'd be asleep by now."

"So did I," Bruce admitted.

"Oh." She thought for a moment. "Make yourself comfortable. I'm just finishing up a few things before Dick gets back." She hesitated. "Did you just want some company? Or…" She glanced at him. If he hadn't been gripping the chair arms so tightly, she might have thought that he was relaxed. "Are you," she paused, "okay with tomorrow?"

The Bruce of two years ago might have either taken offense at the question or changed the subject. The man who sat before her now closed his eyes. "I suppose I was being somewhat obvious," he admitted. He settled back into the chair. "I should be fine," he said lightly.

Barbara wasn't fooled. "But you aren't."

He didn't need to confirm it. "It's… home," he said. "I shouldn't be this apprehensive about returning."

"After Joker," Barbara said quietly, "after I started to come to terms with the… ramifications of what he'd done, I thought I had it all together. Until they told me I was almost ready to leave the hospital. Then, I had a panic attack." She grimaced. "They had to sedate me and keep me a couple of days longer for observation." She lifted her hand and carefully, making sure that Bruce could see what she was doing, placed it gently over his.

Bruce tensed for an instant. Then he brought his other hand over, covering hers.

"It was hard," Barbara continued. "Because everything was so familiar that it was easy to forget what had changed. And then, when I remembered, it was like a slap in the face. I'd be watching one of my favorite shows on TV, and I'd be laughing at all the punch lines. Then they'd cut to commercial and I'd decide to go walk into the kitchen and fix myself a sandwich… and realize I couldn't. Or I'd read about some show at the planetarium and think about driving up there—this was before I got my custom van." She sighed. "When I was in the hospital, I never had a chance to forget that things had changed. And once I got out, half the time people treated me like I was made of glass, and half the time they treated me like they expected me to just pick up where I was before I opened the front door." She grimaced. "I know they meant well."

Her hand was sweating, and it wasn't just because it was warm, sandwiched, as it was, between both of Bruce's. She didn't usually think back on that period of her life. The shooting itself, yes. She had mentally replayed the fifteen seconds from the time she'd heard the knock on the door to the instant that she'd heard the gunshot and felt herself flying—or falling—backwards, full-force, into the coffee table, hundreds of times. And she remembered later, taking the computer classes, learning escrima, and making her first fumbling advances toward rejoining the hero community. But her time in the hospital, and later, those weeks she'd spent huddled in her room, mourning her loss and dreading the idea of going outside and facing other people's pitying looks… Well, she was mostly past that now. Thankfully.

Her discomfort didn't go unnoticed. Bruce squeezed her hand once, then released it. "You rarely speak about those days," he said.
Barbara looked away. "There's usually not much to mention." She forced herself to shrug. "It was rough. It got better. In time."
Bruce nodded. "I should have been there more than I was," he said awkwardly.

"The one time you showed up after that first night," she winced, "I probably made you wish you'd stayed away. Look. It's water under the bridge." A small smile flitted across her face. "Besides, you probably would have just loomed there trying to find the right words, and I probably would have thrown something at you." She took a deep breath. "There were no right words. Not then. And you've never been big on words, anyway." She smiled. "Besides, I know you stopped by my window more than a few nights, while you were on patrol. I was just faking sleep because I didn't feel like talking."

She almost laughed at his expression.

After a moment, he smiled faintly and rose to his feet with a yawn. "I'm going back to bed," he said. He hesitated. "Thanks."

"Anytime."

He was almost out the door when she called after him.

"Bruce? If you… if…" she took a breath. "You know I can help out with more than just the… costumed business, if you needed to ask me something. Or… or tell me something."

He turned to face her once more. "I know that, Barbara. Good night."
She watched him leave, her expression unreadable. Then, she opened a new connection. She was pleasantly surprised when a deep voice acknowledged her communication. "Jason Blood."

"Jason, this is Oracle. I need your advice on how to break a contract with the devil…"

Selina Kyle cuddled her fifteen-month-old daughter close. She could do this. She had to. The problem was that what she felt she had to do varied with each passing moment. It had all seemed so easy when Bruce was in Arkham. She had helped Nightwing watch over Gotham, and passed whatever intel came her way over to Oracle.

When Bruce had finally been granted weekend passes from the asylum, she had been there to welcome him, and to introduce him to her daughter—who might well be his.

You never thought about the other possible father while Bruce was 'away'.

No, she'd wanted to forget about that night, two years back, when Bruce was lying in a hospital bed under round-the-clock police surveillance, and she'd been lonely and angry and miserable and bloody well not thinking clearly. She'd had a bit to drink—not so much that she hadn't known what she was doing, though it would have been nice to have had the excuse—but enough that she hadn't cared about the possible ramifications. No birth control method was failsafe, after all. She hadn't known the man's name, only that he'd had black hair, blue eyes, and rugged features. She'd been drunk enough to pretend that he was someone much more significant to her—someone she'd been with less than a week earlier.

When the test results had come in, her second thought had been that she was carrying Bruce's child. (Her first thought had been, 'but I was always careful! How…') How hadn't mattered. She might not have planned on having a child, but she had definitely wanted this one. And she'd wanted to believe that the child was Bruce's, but she'd never checked. And now…

Now that he's out, Helena is one more way that someone with a score to settle can hurt him. It won't matter whether she's biologically his—if she's in his life, she's in danger.

So, Selina reflected, was she, but she was a grown woman and capable of choosing which risks she would take. To willingly expose Helena to that kind of danger, though, was another story.

And you're only figuring this out now? Why did you come back into his life last year? Didn't you know that this would be an issue? Now he knows about her, and you've certainly given him every reason to think that you'll stand by him…

And she wanted to stand by him. But she needed her baby to be safe.

Nobody's safe. You learned that early enough. Wealth isn't a protection. Poverty isn't a protection. Intelligence, stupidity, action, passivity… nobody is safe. All you can do is minimize the risks and take your chances.

Unfortunately, minimizing the risks at this moment meant only one thing.

Her hand shook as she braced Helena against her shoulder with one hand and pushed the Sandicast ocelot bookends apart with the other. She twirled the combination lock on the wall-safe that the bookends had concealed. From within, she extracted a small address book. Oracle could do this properly, Selina knew, but there was no way that she could ask her. She couldn't go to Calculator either. Noah wasn't talking, but some way, somehow, Oracle had found something to hold over him. If Barbara asked him a few pointed questions, he might reveal all. Penguin would help, but the Bats had him under surveillance. Not that Cobblepot realized it, of course—Oracle was subtle. Still, if Cobblepot sneezed in the afternoon, she wouldn't be at all surprised if Nightwing would leave a thermos of chicken soup behind later that evening, after he'd finished interrogating the man. If she went to the Iceberg, the Bats would know. And they'd try to talk her out of it. Maybe, she should let them.

She sat down heavily in the armchair. Helena started squirming. Selina lowered her gently to the carpet. Helena toddled off a few steps and gleefully knocked over a small tower of blocks. A moment later, she was tugging on Selina's pant-leg, and trying to climb back up.

Selina scooped her up with a smile and a kiss. She sobered. She didn't know what to do, but she knew she needed time to think—without feeling pressured for a decision. After a moment, she picked up the phone and punched in a number.

"It's me," she said quietly. "I need to disappear for a little while…"