The Dark Knight Rises (11 page)

Bruce felt as if his own mask was slipping. Miranda Tate was clearly a woman to be reckoned with. He would have to be on guard around her.

“Have a good evening, Mr. Wayne,” she said as she turned to leave.

He watched her walk away, almost forgetting about Selina Kyle for a moment. Then he recalled what had brought him here, and hurried down the stairs as quickly as his bad leg would allow. To his relief, Selina was still waltzing in the arms of her grayhaired companion, whom Bruce recognized as Horace Gladstone, a rich old twit if ever there was one.

As they spun, she pretended to laugh at his jokes.

“Mind if I cut in?”

Annoyed, Gladstone turned. Bruce thrust his cane into the other man’s hand and took Selina by the waist. Without missing a beat, he swept her away from the fuming old gent.

She glared at him as they danced.

“You don’t seem very happy to see me,” he observed.

She glided gracefully atop her high heels, letting him lead.

“You were supposed to be a shut-in.”

“Felt like some fresh air.”

She eyed him curiously, more irked than alarmed.

“Why didn’t you call the police?”

“I have a…powerful friend who deals with this kind of thing.” He admired the tufted ears sprouting from her sleek brown hair. “Brazen costume for a cat burglar.”

“So?” she challenged him. “Who are you supposed to be?”

“Bruce Wayne, eccentric billionaire.” He glanced back at Gladstone. “What about your date?”

“His wife’s in Ibiza, but she left her diamonds behind.” Selina smirked. “Worried they might get stolen.”

I should have known,
he thought.
Why else would a woman like Selina waste time with a pompous old boor like him?

“It’s pronounced ‘I-beetha,’” he said, correcting her. “You wouldn’t want these nice people realizing you’re
a crook, not a social climber.”

She bristled at the suggestion. Her eyes flashed angrily.

“You think I care what anyone in this room thinks of me?” He caught a hint of Gotham’s East End in her voice, although she had obviously worked hard to eradicate her accent. He admired her skill and intelligence, if not her fondness for appropriating other people’s property.

“I doubt you care what anyone in
any
room thinks of you,” he countered.

“Don’t condescend, Mr. Wayne,” she replied. “You don’t know a thing about me.”

“Well, Selina Kyle, I know you came here from your walk-up in Old Town. Modest place for a master jewel thief. Which means either you’re saving for retirement—or you’re in deep with the wrong people.”

It was the only plausible explanation for why such a high-end burglar—who had already scored big several times over—was slumming in Old Town. She had to be trying to stay off someone’s radar, even if this gala—and Mrs. Gladstone’s jewels—had lured her out of hiding.

She frowned at that.

“You don’t get to judge me because you were born in the master bedroom of Wayne Manor.”

“Actually, it was the Regency Room.”

“I started off doing what I had to do,” she said unapologetically. Then a hint of regret entered her
voice. “But once you’ve done what you had to, they’ll never let you do what you want to.”

“Start fresh?” he guessed.

She laughed bitterly.

“There’s no fresh start in today’s world. Any twelve-year-old with a cell phone could find out what you did. Everything we do is collated and quantified. Everything sticks. We are the sum of our mistakes.”

“Or our achievements,” he argued.

“The mistakes stick better. Trust me.”

Bruce knew all about mistakes…and regrets. He eyed the pearls around her neck.

“You think that justifies stealing?”

“I take what I need from those who have more than enough,” she said, a tad defensively. “I don’t stand on the shoulders of people with less.”

“Robin Hood?” He couldn’t quite imagine her in forest green. Black suited her better.

“I’d do more to help someone than most of the people in this room,” she insisted. “Including you.”

“Maybe you’re assuming too much,” he said.

“Or maybe you’re being unrealistic about what’s really in your pants other than a fat wallet.”

“Ouch.”

Still gliding in his arms, she glanced around at the ostentatious display of wealth and extravagance.

“You think all this can last?” She shook her head dubiously. “There’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches,
because when it hits you’re all going to wonder how you ever thought you could live so large…and leave so little for the rest of us.”

“Sounds like you’re looking forward to it,” he said.

“I’m adaptable,” she promised.

But maybe not for much longer,
Bruce thought. He recalled the damning accumulation of tips and clues filling her files. The net was closing in on her, even if she didn’t want to admit it. Small wonder she yearned for a fresh start.

“Those pearls look better on you than they did in my safe.” He rolled her into his shoulder and reached up to unclasp the necklace. “But I still can’t let you keep them.”

The pearls slid off her neck into his other hand. She glared at him again, then surprised him by lunging forward and kissing him hard. Breathless, he let her slip away into the crowd. By the time he recovered from the kiss, she already had a decent head start on him. He tried to limp after her, but his bad knee slowed him down.

Within moments, she had vanished from sight.

What was that all about?
he thought.
Not that I’m complaining.

Exiting the dance floor, he retrieved his cane from Gladstone.

“You scared her off,” the old man complained.

“Not likely,” Bruce said. “But if I were you, I’d keep an eye on your wife’s diamonds.”

Tucking the pearls safely into his pocket, he headed for the exit. The taste of her kiss lingered on his lips.

Maybe Alfred is right,
he thought.
Perhaps I do need to get out more.

The fall air outside was bracing after the sweltering heat of the party. He approached the valet to reclaim his car. He patted his pockets. “I seem to have misplaced my ticket.”

It wasn’t an act. He really had lost his ticket somehow.

The valet looked puzzled.

“Your wife said you were taking a cab home, sir.”

“My wife?”

The Lamborghini zoomed away from the museum. Behind the wheel, Selina grinned and gunned the engine.

Alfred picked him up in the Rolls-Royce an hour later. Bruce climbed into the back of the car.

“Just you, sir?” the butler asked dryly.

Bruce gave him a withering look. He wasn’t used to being outsmarted.

“Don’t worry, Master Bruce,” Alfred assured him, clearly enjoying the situation. “Takes a little time to get back into the swing of things.”

Bruce ignored the butler’s teasing. He was in no mood to exchange banter right now. Instead he took out his phone and hit a number on speed dial.

Lucius Fox answered on the second ring.

“This is Fox.”

“Remember those unusual requests I used to make?”

“I knew it,” Fox said. Bruce could easily imagine the other man’s amused expression.
Am I really that predictable?

Up front, Alfred’s smile faded. Bruce glimpsed the butler’s careworn face in the rear-view mirror. Alfred looked distinctly troubled now, like he knew what was coming next, and wasn’t at all happy about it.

Bruce couldn’t blame him, but he had made up his mind.

It was time to come out of retirement.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The experimental carbon-fiber brace arrived at Wayne Manor the very next morning. Bruce tried it out in the cave, away from the prying eyes of everyone except Alfred and the bats roosting overheard. He had gotten only a few hours of sleep since the masquerade, but wasn’t about to take time out for a nap. He had slept enough these last eight years.

He clamped the brace onto his right leg and pressed a blinking button on its side. The pivoted orthotic toned up at once, tightening around the joint. A thin layer of padding cushioned the brace. Bruce stood up and worked the knee, attempting deep bends and stretches. It took some effort, but the brace moved with him smoothly, without chafing or riding up and down his leg.

So far so good,
he thought.

Alfred put down a thermos of hot coffee.

“You’ve got the wrong leg, sir.”

Bruce shook his head.

“You start with the good limb,” he explained, “so the brace learns your optimum muscle patterns.” He sat down on a slate cube and swapped the brace to his bad left knee. He rose cautiously, putting his weight on it, and grunted in satisfaction as the reinforced leg appeared to support him. He bent slowly, then rose again, more confidently this time. He threw a kick at the empty air.

A rare smile lifted his lips. He was liking this.

“Now we tighten it up.”

He pressed harder on the button, clicking it again. The brace contracted against his leg, the unyielding carbon fibers digging into his flesh. Grimacing, he gritted his teeth against the increased pressure.

Alfred looked on with concern.

“Is it terribly painful, sir?”

“You’re welcome to try it, Alfred.”

“Happy watching, thank you, sir.”

Bruce let out a howl as the brace clicked home. He took a moment to get used to the discomfort before rising to his feet again. Despite the pain, the leg felt more solid than it had in years. Than it had since the night Batman fell.

“Not bad,” he said.

A stack of bricks waited a few feet away. Bruce spun and delivered a furious roundhouse kick to the
bricks, which went flying across the cave. Overhead, startled bats screeched in alarm. They flapped wildly among the stalactites.

“Not bad at all.”

Alfred appeared somewhat less enthusiastic about the success of their experiment. Picking up a brick, he turned it over slowly in his hands. A pensive look came over his face.

“Master Bruce, if you’re truly considering going back out there, you need to hear some worrisome rumors about this Bane individual.”

Bruce gave Alfred his full attention.

“I’m all ears.”

“There is a prison,” Alfred began grimly, “in a more ancient part of the world. A pit where men are thrown to suffer and die. But sometimes a man rises from that darkness. Sometimes the pit sends something back.”

Bruce nodded, understanding.

“Bane.”

“Born and raised in a hell on earth,” Alfred said. Bruce’s brow furrowed.

“Born in a prison?”

“No one knows why,” Alfred reported. “Or how he escaped. But they know who trained him once he did.” Alfred took a deep breath before speaking the name. “Rā’s al Ghūl. Your old mentor.”

Bruce stared back at him in dismay. Rā’s al Ghūl, who had also gone by the alias “Henri Ducard,” had been the ruthless leader of the League of Shadows, an
ancient order of assassins and crusaders dedicated to waging war on crime and corruption—by any means necessary. Rā’s had trained Bruce to carry on in his footsteps, and had been largely responsible for shaping the orphaned billionaire into the Dark Knight he had become.

But when Rā’s had turned his sights on Gotham City, convinced that the embattled city was beyond saving, Batman had been forced to fight back against the League—with fatal results. Rā’s had died, incinerated in a fiery monorail crash. Batman hadn’t killed him, but he hadn’t tried to save him either.

“Rā’s plucked Bane from a dark corner of the Earth,” Alfred continued, “and trained him in the blackest disciplines of combat, deception, and endurance. Just as he did with you.”

Bruce was stunned by the news. He had thought Bane merely a vicious mercenary, but the truth was far worse.

“Bane was a member of the League of Shadows.”

“Until he was excommunicated,” Alfred said. “And a man considered too extreme for Rā’s al Ghūl is not to be trifled with.”

But Bruce refused to be intimidated.

“I didn’t know I was known for ‘trifling’ with criminals.”

“That was then,” Alfred said gravely. “And you can put the cowl back on, but it won’t make you what you were.”

“Which was?”

“Someone whose anger at death made him value all life,” the servant replied. “Even his own.”

My own life doesn’t matter,
Bruce thought. Then he spoke. “If this Bane is all the things you say he is, then this city needs me.”

“Yes,” Alfred seemed to agree. “Gotham needs Bruce Wayne. Your resources, your knowledge. Not your body—not your life. That time has passed.”

“I tried helping as Bruce Wayne,” the billionaire protested. “And I failed.”

Just ask Miranda Tate,
he thought. But Alfred did not give in.

“You
can
fail as Bruce Wayne,” he said. “As Batman, you can’t afford to.”

“Is that what you’re afraid of?” Bruce asked indignantly. “That if I go back out there, I’ll fail?”

“No,” Alfred said. “I’m afraid you
want
to.”

I can’t listen to this
, Bruce thought. Gordon was depending on him. Gotham was depending on him.
I have to go back out there.