This Is The Way

For the first time in two weeks, the rain stopped and Bruce didn’t feel chilled down to his bones as he waited in the night.  His bike was parked under the shelter of a faded and ripped awning as he listened to police scanners in one ear and the rush of nearby cars in the other.

He figured the only way to forget about Selina was to work until he didn’t have the energy to think about her.  One week had passed since he broke that drunk’s wrist in the metro station and Selina looked closely at him for the first time since she left Gotham.  She hadn’t recognized him, though.  Bruce still wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.  Knowing she was back in Gotham somehow made it worse.

He wasn’t sure if it was a good thing that she hadn't come around to see him.  Not him, exactly.  The Batman.  Was it possible that she was avoiding him?  Maybe his choice to stay behind in Gotham hurt her, abandoned her.  It was never his intention, of course.

It wasn’t personal or against her– he just had a responsibility to the city as the Bat.

Bruce was trying not to sulk and he changed the frequency on his scanner, switching channels in an attempt to find something that would keep him busy for the next half hour.  Maybe a murder, maybe a bank robbery.  Maybe… a burglary.  

Bruce switched off his scanner with a frustrated grunt and swung his leg over the bike, switching the ignition.  The engine growled to life beneath him and Bruce double checked the time on his phone.  Too early to go back home and the signal was still lit in the sky overhead.  He had work to do still– no time to sit and think about Selina.

Just because it wasn’t raining didn’t mean that the lowest levels of Gotham weren’t still soggy and dark.  Evergreen puddles sat stagnant beneath the subway rail lines, shimmering with oil from the road.  As Bruce rode through the musty streets, he saw shadowy figures shy away from the beacon of his headlight.  Street lights flickered and each weak flash showed graffiti, piles of garbage shoved into narrow alleyways that housed rats the size of ferrets, and muck-faced dropheads.

Bruce never could confidently meet their eyes when they turned his way.  Not because they were empty and glossy when they were high, but because part of him carried the shame of failure.  Mayor Rèal’s voice echoed in his head, the prodding reminder of how little he really did to help the city.  To him, he always thought he was doing enough.  Punch a few thieves and solve some crimes, but he could do more.  He should have been doing more and he ran away from his family legacy.  

The Renewal Fund that fell straight into the mobs’ pockets.  

Bruce Wayne had been living up to his promise to help the new mayor.  He saw passion and determination in her that Mayor Mitchell couldn’t ever project in the past.  Bruce tried to stay out of politics as much as he could, only half-listening whenever Alfred tried to explain current events to him over breakfast.

But he knew that he wanted to help Mayor Rèal and help the city as a whole.  Selina said that Gotham would never change and Bruce wasn’t afraid to prove her wrong.  He had been catching up with donations to make up for lost time and, while new programs had been put into the works: better outfitted shelters, supply donations, unemployment support, it didn’t really seem like things had changed.

Maybe Gotham’s people were just stubborn.  It was easy to lean into crime when the benefits were so immediate.  Not even the Batman was a strong enough deterrent on even the worst nights.

So the dropheads stared and Bruce felt like he was still failing the city.

Commissioner Gordon called around two in the morning. 

A heavy mist was coming into the streets from the ocean when Batman slipped soundlessly through an open window and directly into a crime scene.  

Grit crunched beneath his boots, announcing his arrival.  Everyone but Jim Gordon jumped a foot in the air the moment they noticed him.  One moment nothing, then the next, the room was occupied by a big, black mass of leather and kevlar.

It kept them on their toes.  Bruce would almost expect the other cops to get used to his presence after over two years.

Unlike most of the recent crime scenes, there wasn’t a body.  Gordon didn’t exactly explain what had happened, just that it seemed like a job Batman might want to be involved in.  Bruce truly didn’t have anything better to do.

His gaze scanned the room carefully, being sure to take in as many clues as he could.  The dark of the room was sporadically interrupted by bright camera flashes.  If he didn’t see it then, he always had the chance to go back and look later.  Bruce took a step deeper into the room and paused when something cracked beneath his boot.  

Gordon carefully approached his side, hand on his hip with a sigh as Bruce glanced at the broken glass on the floor.  He, thankfully, didn’t need to verbally prompt Gordon to explain before the Commissioner was already on it.

“Head of the banking district was robbed,” he said curtly and Bruce looked to the open safe embedded into the wall.  It was cleaned out with a few discarded, wrinkled up pieces of paper on the floor.  “In the safe was a pouch of diamonds– easily worth fifty grand– along with five stacks and some other personal valuables.  Forensics hasn’t found any fingerprints or evidence of the robber.”

“Burglar,” Bruce murmured, then turned to meet Gordon’s flat expression.  He didn’t elaborate any further and crossed the room to the very windowsill he snuck through.  If the window was wide enough for him to fit, anyone smaller wouldn’t have any trouble.  He brushed his gloved fingertips over the white paint on the sill, pausing when he found a deep scratch in the wood and paint.  He certainly hadn’t left it there.  Something sharp, likely.

The scene photographer followed his tracks and snapped a bright-lit picture of the gash through the paint.

Remaining in the room was a desk, two chairs, and a bookshelf wall.  For an office, it didn’t feel claustrophobic.  The desk was broken into with a damaged lock, but everything inside was put back neatly.  Whoever went through the room had enough time to be careful and thorough and they had an impressive attention to detail.  

Jon Stevens, owner of the desk, reported that nothing was taken, apart from a flash drive and a diamond necklace that was stashed in the back of the drawer.  The broken glass belonged to a framed newspaper clipping that was knocked off the desk.  Gotham Bank Keeps City Afloat.

Bruce decided he had seen enough and turned back to Gordon, who was scrawling some notes in his field pad.

“Any ideas?” Jim asked and tapped the end of the pen against his jaw thoughtfully.  “In a city like this, it’s easy to understand why someone would steal valuables from the head of the banks… It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.”

“I only know one person who’s smart enough to leave as little trace as possible… but,” Bruce paused and looked at the frame’s broken glass on the floor, “they wouldn’t have any motivation here.”  

If his assumption was correct and Selina had something to do with it, Bruce couldn’t think of why.  Maybe her funds ran short in Bludhaven and she ran back to Gotham to fill her pockets again, but the shattered frame felt... personal.  She had other methods of dealing with people when it was personal.

He thought back to Kenzie with the beaten in and scratched face.

Maybe Bruce was just looking for an excuse to think about her some more.  

He looked at Gordon skeptically.  Batman was only involved in police work when there were serial killers or mob activity.  Nothing like a burglary with no witnesses.  Burglars were never caught and Bruce considered them a ‘victimless’ crime.  

“I’m guessing you’re seeing a pattern,” he said and Gordon nodded.

“Third time in a month.  High profile figures in the financial district were targeted.  Enormous sums of wealth all gone without any obvious signs.  This scene is the first we’ve seen any kind of slip up with the framed article.  We wouldn’t have gotten you involved if it hadn’t been the same person each time.”

“What makes you think this is the same person?” Bruce tested curiously.  He hadn’t seen the other crime scenes, but it sounded like they were immaculate with very little evidence to work off of.  

Then Gordon passed Bruce his phone with two pictures lined up side-by-side.  Something that looked like an imprint of a shoe in two different carpets with a measuring tape lined up beside it.  The footprints were small with a prominent heel and they were nearly identical in the photos.  

“Same exact footprint in the carpet here,” he said and gestured to a spot on the floor that was taped off with a lamp glaring down at the imprint.  

The smudge of mud on the hardwood made the narrow heel easier to see.  He made sure to look at it a few moments longer so he could analyze it later.  Bruce stood straight and a few cops he didn’t recognize scrambled out of his path when he went to address Gordon again.  The flash of a camera flickered in the corner of his vision.

“Any idea where they may go next?” Bruce asked patiently, frustrated when the Commissioner shrugged.

“My guess is: whoever has a lot of money, is in the public eye, and who hasn’t been hit already.”

Bruce’s stomach sank.  Bruce Wayne sounded like the perfect target.  First the Riddler, now a burglar.  He considered waiting up at night for the inevitable and meeting this person face-to-face.  “Doesn’t exactly narrow things down,” Bruce grunted just as Gordon checked the time on his watch.

“Not really, no.  I’ll keep an eye out and contact you next time,” he said.

Bruce decided he had enough evidence to look over once he got home, then slipped back out the window like a shadow.

Returning to his bike was always a careful routine.  Bruce hid his bag and made quick work of shoving his suit off and into the backpack before he ran two blocks to where he parked his bike.  Putting so much distance between his checkpoints made it harder in case any eyes followed him.  It wasn’t like he was going to ride home in the bat suit and attract all kinds of attention.  So, once in a while, he needed to hurriedly get changed in the back of a dark alley.

Even when Alfred came to tell him he was spending too long at his desk, Bruce couldn’t tear his eyes away from the faint, red outline of the footprint on his monitor.  A newspaper was set down beside his hand, finally diverting his attention.  Bruce picked out the main headline in bold text.

Serial Burglar or Gotham’s Robin Hood?

Journalists must think they’re very clever with statements like those.

“I’m going to guess this is related to the paper?” Alfred hummed as he leaned closer to the monitor and adjusted his glasses.  Bruce printed a physical copy of the footprint and passed it to his guardian.

“You’d think a regular burglar would target the bank itself,” Bruce murmured.  It was becoming more and more difficult to see past his first bias.  The instinct that he already knew who was the cause of it.  He could remember the first night he met Selina clearly.

She was always careful and meticulous.  If he hadn’t followed her to the late Mayor’s office that night, no one would have ever known she took Annika’s passport.  And she could only ever be found when she wanted to be.

Bruce wondered why he hasn’t seen her since she returned to Gotham.  A spotless handkerchief thrust in front of him.  Right, he forgot he wasn’t alone.  

“You’re bleeding,” Alfred reminded him as Bruce took the cloth offered and pressed it to his bottom lip.  “Come up for some breakfast.  You may be better off returning to this later.”  Alfred swiped up the newspaper and the copy of the shoeprint before the sound of his footsteps faded into the creak of the elevator door.

Maybe breakfast wasn’t such a horrible idea.

Usually, Alfred would have to tempt Bruce to mealtimes with a table spread with newspapers and printed evidence.  Something he could pour his true interest into while he aimlessly nibbled at his food.  

That morning wasn’t entirely different.  When Bruce arrived after his shower, the dining table had a stack of three different newspapers and a breakfast spread that Bruce might pick at over the next hour.  

Alfred didn’t lift his head when Bruce walked in, but he did address his presence with a nudge of a mug in his direction.  Bruce accepted the mug gratefully and took a cautious sip as he took a seat across the table.

He was thankful that Alfred liked to get involved in the investigation side of the Batman business.  He always liked things like crosswords and puzzles.  “This is a woman’s shoe,” Alfred finally broke the silence and reached to pass the page to Bruce.  “I’m sure you could get more specific with the size, but the heel is high.”

“I told the commissioner that I may know who it is…” Bruce hummed past the rim of his coffee cup.  “But… I’m trying not to jump to any conclusions.”

“Best not, but share with the class,” Alfred responded.

It took Bruce a moment to compose his thoughts, still doubting.  He figured it was because he didn’t want it to be true.  If Selina was the cause and the police had their eyes on her, Bruce didn’t want to be involved.  He didn’t want to be on the other side if it was against her.  “Selina Kyle,” he said softly and pushed the mug away.

“Your friend from the club?”

Another long pause, a sinking feeling in Bruce’s chest at the word friend.  Something like that.  “She’s a thief.  A very cautious one at that.  The crime scene last night was practically untouched except for that shoe print.  A flash drive was missing from the desk.”

Alfred frowned across the table at the page and stirred his tea.  The clinking of the spoon around the ceramic echoed noisily against the walls.  “Maybe best not to assume too much… You do have very little evidence.  And didn’t you say she left the city after the Riddler incident?”

“She’s back.”

A pause.  “You’ve seen her since?”

Bruce shook his head, then shrugged.  “Yes, but no.  I was in a club and saw her.  And… at the subway station after – She doesn’t know me, though.”

“I… suppose that does complicate things,” Alfred sighed and scratched his jaw.  He pointed his spoon across the table at the dish of raspberries in front of Bruce.  “Eat that.”

“I might be her next target,” Bruce blurted out, but it didn’t deter Alfred’s spoon from the berries.  He picked one up and popped it past his lips.  His mind was too busy thinking about the case to care about food.

While he chewed, Alfred took a contemplative sip of his tea.  “So what will you do?  Wait up for her to crawl through your window?  Doesn’t seem like the best idea to me.  I’d be suspicious of the Batman hanging around Bruce Wayne’s estate for no reason.”

It did sound like an awful plan.  Maybe Bruce could just let her come in and steal from him.  He didn’t care.  He’d let her walk all over him if she liked...

He reached for another berry in an attempt to chase away the intrusive thought.

What kind of idiot hid a bag of diamonds in their own office anyway?  The kind that was begging to be robbed.  What was it Selina said she would go after?  Hedge fund CEO fuckers.  Sounded awfully like Bruce Wayne.

“I might need to rethink that plan,” Bruce mumbled and pulled his plate closer.

Bruce didn’t wait for nightfall or even the shield of rain before he ventured back out to the streets again.  

Hidden beneath a black ball cap and a thick jacket, he felt almost as secure as when he wore the leather and kevlar at night.  The sun was actually out and warming the city in early summer.  It was an awkward time when the weather couldn’t seem to decide between pouring rain or clear, blue skies.

The ball cap felt appropriate and not horribly out of place as Bruce walked down the sidewalk, stepping around piles of trash and hungover people trying to get back home.  

He gravitated back to the night club’s neighborhood.  Bruce didn’t know where Selina was living now that she was back in Gotham, but he was sure he could find that out if he tried.

He stepped into a bodega to escape the sun and snagged a newspaper with the same title as the one Alfred had that morning.  There was a grainy photo of the central Gotham Bank below the title.  The words Robin Hood glared back at Bruce.  

Selina might actually like the title.  Stealing from the rich was exactly what she wanted, but Bruce never thought she wanted to be well-known.  Not like the Riddler or everyone else the Bat threw into Arkham.

“Buddy, you either gotta buy it or put it down,” the man behind the sales counter snapped at Bruce.  “Can’t just read it for free.  That’s what the damn internet’s for.”