Chapter Text
“I’m sorry ma’am, you’re going to have to come with me,” said the Texan TSA officer as his colleague cuffed her.
“You’ve obviously learnt from last time,” she muttered as the cuffs snapped on her wrists. Selina was tempted to resist, but she was just tired. Tired of running. The occupation, Bruce’s death and the realisation that the Clean Slate was not entirely fool proof had left her mentally and physically exhausted.
“Just procedure ma’am.”
“Yeah, and you’ve made me miss my flight.”
“I’m sure we can clear this up so you can make the next one if you cooperate and come with us.”
“Of course officer,” she rolled her eyes as she was led off the Terminal concourse and into a service corridor.
“Did you check in any luggage Miss,” he looked at her passport in her hands, “Kyle?”
“No, just the bag your colleague has here.”
“Anything in the bag we should know about?”
“I’m carrying a lot of jewellery. I deal in the stuff. It’s all mine,” she replied, batting her eye lashes.
“Where are you from Miss Kyle?”
“Gotham.”
“They’ve had it tough these last few months.”
“Tell me about it,” she grimaced.
“If you’ll just wait here, somebody will see to you in a moment,” the officer left her with her bag in a cold interview room. She took a look to get her bearings. The cuffs were starting to cut into her wrists. There was a single camera in the top corner of the room, its red light blinking at her. She turned away from it and moved to scratch her ear with her cuffed hands. In reality, she took a bobby pin out of her hair and hid it in her fist. She then went to sit at the interview table to wait.
The door opened minutes later and a young man entered carrying a thin folder. “I’m Derek Poulson, TSA,” the man said by way of greeting.
“Selina Kyle,” she replied. “I’d shake your hand but,” she held up her cuffed wrists with a wry smile.
“Ah. Yeah well about that; Miss Kyle, your name is on the no-fly list. Do you know what that means?”
“You won’t let me leave the country.”
“I’m afraid so. I don’t know why you are on the list, I don’t care why you are on the list but I can’t clear you to fly until you clear various background and security checks.”
“You won’t find anything,” she muttered.
“I’m sorry, what was that.”
“Nothing,” she smiled.
“What I can tell you is that a woman fitting your name and description is one of the last escaped prisoners from Blackgate Penitentiary in Gotham City. She escaped during the Occupation.”
“And is now sat in front of you,” she muttered. “I think I better find a lawyer.”
“So you are Selina Kyle who escaped from Blackgate?”
“I think I’d better find a lawyer.”
“I can get somebody to you within the hour.”
“All due respect, I’d feel safer choosing my own lawyer. You got a phone directory?” she enquired.
After what seemed like hours later Selina was left brooding in a small cell. They’d taken her bags and she was still handcuffed – or at least she was still hand cuffed every time somebody entered the room. When she was alone she quickly picked the locks on the cuffs. It wasn’t difficult and if anything it became good practice.
On the one hand she was in a cell at the airport but on the bright side they hadn’t searched her or shackled her legs or given her an orange jumpsuit. They had treated her cordially and even let her use the bathroom when she asked.
In the office on the floor above, Paulson was having a very unusual phone conversation with a superior on the other end of the line.
“The Commissioner wants her back in Gotham.”
“Why?”
“No idea, that’s what all they told me.”
“How are we sending her back?”
“Gotham PD are arranging it. The Commissioner’s office said that they’re having somebody send a plane.”
“Who is this woman?”
“No idea. We’ve got nothing on her but the fact she was in Blackgate before the Occupation.”
“So what do I do?”
“Make her as comfortable as possible. As far as we are concerned, this is a logistics headache our Gotham colleagues can deal with. They’ll call you when the jet is in the air.”
“OK, sir. What if she doesn’t want to go back to Gotham?”
“Arrest her. That’s all Paulson. Goodbye,” his boss hung up the phone.
He then got another call from somebody called Lucius Fox from Wayne Enterprises confirming that they had sent a jet to collect Miss Kyle, her car and her belongings.
Paulson went downstairs to update his detainee on developments.
“Commissioner Gordon of the GCPD wants you back in his city, they’ve chartered a Wayne Enterprises jet to come and collect you.” Paulson explained.
Selina was taken aback. “Wayne Enterprises? You sure?”
“A guy called Lucius Fox called to confirm?”
“Did he now?” Selina smiled.
“Yes ma’am. My orders are to make you as comfortable as possible.”
“So you aren’t arresting me?”
“No ma’am. Only if you refuse to get on the plane.”
“I’ll get on the plane, you won’t have to arrest me,” she smiled sweetly.
“Pardon me ma’am but you don’t seem to be at all worried by this? I thought you would be panicking or something?”
“I trust Lucius Fox,” she shrugged. Both Fox and Gordon were aware of her contribution to Bane’s downfall. “Besides, I’m surprised you haven’t shackled me up in a jumpsuit yet. Oh, don’t worry about the cuffs, they were just too easy to get off!” she held up the unlocked restraints. “But seeing as I’m not under arrest, I don’t need them do I?”
“No ma’am. Did you bring a car?”
“Way to change the subject. Yes, I brought a car. Why?”
“Mr Fox said we were to take it and put it on the jet along with you and the rest of your luggage.”
“Must be a large jet. Where’s my handbag?”
“My office. If we go upstairs you can get some coffee or something and get ready for your flight.”
“Of course. Lead the way good sir!” she said with a mocking tilt of the head.
“Yes ma’am.” Selina Kyle quite liked being called ‘ma’am’. It made her feel respected.
“So my car is in the long stay lot. Do you want me to get it or do you want to get one of your minions to do it?”
“My minions,” Paulson chuckled, “I wouldn’t call them that. I can get them to retrieve it for you.”
“Good, it means I can freshen up.”
“What’s the licence plate?”
“That’s a small problem, they fell off on the drive down from Gotham.” She shrugged as Paulson raised his eyebrow. “You won’t be able to miss the car though. Black Mustang, ‘66.”
“My Dad had a 1969,” Paulson whistled appreciatively.
“I wouldn’t quite call it ‘my baby’ but I spent a lot of time restoring her. If I find a scratch in the paint work, I’ll be sending you the bill for it.”
“Understood. I’ll have somebody drive it airside for you,” he replied as she chucked him the keys before disappearing into the ladies.
Behind closed doors, the happy, cheery, confident façade of Selina Kyle, broke. She locked herself in a cubicle before sinking to the floor attempting to hold her emotions together. She didn’t know what to think. Wayne Enterprises was sending a jet? Fox had called to confirm – she hadn’t seen Fox since Bruce’s funeral.
She wasn’t being given a jumpsuit before they locked her in cell and threw away the key. She wasn’t having to out run a mob boss. She wasn’t even being arrested. Selina Kyle had never ever been in such a situation before. It was almost a kind situation. She wouldn’t be able to escape Gotham entirely but there were worse ways to return. She could settle her affairs properly, then leave for good. She would just have to try and keep a low profile.
Part of her was asking the question why she was being sent ‘home’ on a Wayne Enterprises jet. They didn’t owe her anything. Why not have her fly back commercial under the watch of an Air Marshal? Or why have her fly back at all? Her gut told her that she hadn’t been told everything there was to know about Lucius Fox’s involvement in this scheme.
After several minutes of contemplative silence, she left the cubicle for the sinks, sloshed some cold water on her face and dried off before reapplying her lipstick and mascara. She looked at herself in the mirror. The confident if not icy façade had returned. With a nod to herself, she left the bathroom to find some food.
A few hours later, Lucius Fox, CEO of Wayne Enterprises was sat in the Wayne Enterprises Boeing 777 on approach into Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Airport. More specifically, he was landing the plane. Fox was a man of many talents although just this once he did think he was going over the top in his choice of transport for the evening. The 777 was built for trans-Atlantic non-stop flights, not ferrying ‘reformed’ criminals between US cities.
The only reason he was flying the 777 tonight was because it was the first aircraft he could roll out of the Wayne hanger at Gotham International – everything else was either decaying from years of neglect or being serviced after mechanical failure. The Airport was outside the City of Gotham that had been cut off by Bane’s militia but the company’s smaller Gulfstream jets were heavily used in the days after his defeat and their engines had become thoroughly worn out.
The 777 was practically brand new. Wayne Enterprises had ordered it on a whim before the start of the Clean Energy project, the idea being that it would help facilitate their overseas trade – fellow tycoons are impressed when their guests arrive in private jets. The more impressive the jet, the more influence the guest would have. Or at least that was the theory.
The jet had only flown half a dozen times in the last few years. At least for a $350 million plane it was quiet, comfortable, energy efficient and quick. The jet had a range of nearly ten thousand kilometres, a top speed of Mach 0.95 and a maximum service ceiling of some forty three thousand feet.
Its size was both a benefit and a weakness in such an aircraft. On the bright side, the plane’s size allowed Fox to retrofit many modifications from Applied Sciences. This 777 now had missile evasion systems, a reduced radar signature, autonomous navigation, electromagnetic pulse deflection devices and air to air refuelling capability. The amount of technology on board possibly exceeded that of Air Force One. Not that Fox cared much about the competition. Most of the gear was installed as a proof of concept; proof that such things could be done and done discreetly. It was either that or because Fox was bored. Tinkering with the jet satiated the technical side of his mind when he wasn’t working on the latest project for the Batman. The absence of Batman once the Joker had been defeated and Bruce Wayne had sunk into his hermitage in Wayne Manor left him with almost 8 years of free time to tinker with the jet.
From the outside, apart from the huge Wayne “W” on the tail and the black stripe along the fuselage, the 777 was like any other. The defensive systems installed by Fox were discreet. The interior design he had left to a New York firm. They had taken the cold, bare cabin and transformed it into a company headquarters with attached penthouse in the air. It was similar to the President’s Flying White House but Fox didn’t have enough ego to do a Donald Trump and christen the jet ‘Wayne Force One’. After Bruce’s demise, he had however, been tempted to name the jet ‘The Bat’ or ‘Vespertillo’ in honour of Gotham’s fallen hero. Bruce would have probably spun in his grave if he had known - if he had had a grave that is.
Fox felt infinitely guilty for Bruce’s death. It had occurred because he had been too hasty in handing him the keys to the unfinished Bat. Too trusting that the reclusive billionaire would put his tormented mind to fixing the autopilot function. Too blind to realise that he had helped to create a persona that would kill a man he considered to be akin to a nephew or even a son in all but blood.
The Batman had killed Bruce Wayne. It was for the greater good. Had Batman and therefore Bruce not been annihilated in the blast, there would have been hundreds of thousands of casualties. A whole city would have been razed to the ground. Blocks reduced to matchsticks. Asphalt reduced to ashes. A population would have been wiped from the face of the earth. Bruce had prevented this, but had paid the ultimate price.
Weeks had past and the clean-up in Gotham post-Occupation was still on going. The city was regaining its mojo but conditions had worsened. Field hospitals had been set up but they were understaffed. Gas and electricity supplies had been reinstalled but the cost was beyond most Gothamites as the local economy had mutated beyond recognition under Bane.
Gotham was the one place in the United States of America where the dollar had become worthless. People wanted food, a home and a fresh start. As the food was free, the food had become currency and people bartered their rations. This non-traditional currency had quickly become a headache for commerce. How and why should they pay their workers when services were paid for with food instead of dollars and workers wanted to be paid with food rather than bank notes? Some large companies had started to implement plans to move out of Gotham, to quit the city that was just about finding its feet.
Fox couldn’t let that happen without a fight. The City of Gotham was the Wayne family legacy. The monorail, the social projects, the civic infrastructure was all designed or funded in some part by the Wayne’s inexhaustible coffers. Granted, in recent years, the money had dried up – for a higher cause; a global clean energy project. But the legacy remained. The City was also Batman’s memorial. His last act had been to save it. Fox wanted to ensure that Batman’s saving grace for a city that had been beset by organised crime, poverty, inequality and disorder was not merely an eleventh hour reprieve. A brief stay of execution.
Whilst Gotham may have not at that moment favoured the dollar, the rest of the nation did. The dollar greased the wheels of commerce. Without it, commerce could not function. Who knew that a cotton-linen sheet with a portrait of a dead president printed upon it could cause both so much damage and rebuild so much?
Thankfully, investigators quickly reversed the effects of fraudulent trading through the Wayne accounts. The numbers were not all firmly in the black but the personal reserves of Fox and the other surviving executives were being brought to bear. Fox also kept to hand his access to the private Wayne accounts via Alfred Pennyworth before he had left for a “holiday of indefinite length”. The rich never go broke. Fox had access to a sizeable eight-figure sum in various accounts held across the world from Luxembourg to the Cayman Islands.
Fox could have given in a fancy or clever or ambitious title like PHOENIX or REGENESIS or LAZARUS but he kept it simple: Project Rebuild. Whilst financially, the company was growing from strength to strength, this growth was not reflected in the community it existed within. The poor had got poorer. The wealthy had either left or become proportionally wealthier and the middle classes remained middle class with fewer means. Unemployment across the city was up. As was infant mortality. As was homelessness. As was crime. Project Rebuild needed a leader, a figurehead. A person who understood the average Gothamite. A person who was the people. Bane’s sham philosophy of rule by the people themselves was unsustainable. But leadership by the people, for the people, of the people was, Fox felt, the way to reinvigorate a population that had been battered by crisis after crisis. Gotham looked after its own. Now was the time to reflect that in terms of leadership.
So Fox was flying the Wayne jet to Atlanta to retrieve the person he considered to be the perfect candidate. They’d possibly have to work on her administration skills and perhaps tweak her public image and there was no guarantee that she would accept… It was a miracle that they had managed to find her again after the blast. Life gradually got back to “normal” – or whatever ‘normal’ is after overthrowing an anarchist militia and avoiding nuclear holocaust by a whisker – and she vanished off the face of the Earth.
He didn’t even know her name at the time. He only managed to establish it before she disappeared. It had taken him a facial recognition program and a little ‘hacking’ into the GCPD police database. It was Wayne-tech that established the database so as usual, Fox used the backdoor. In half an hour on the same day as the blast, he actually managed to put a name to the masked face.
Selina Kyle.
The Cat.
The woman who had been born into the most appalling of homes.
The woman who lost everything.
The woman who escaped Women’s Correctional at 16.
The woman who created her own niche for high value, low profile burglary.
The woman who stole the late Mrs Wayne’s pearls.
The woman who kissed Bruce Wayne the night he decided to return to the Gotham social scene.
The woman who attempted to flee after the disappearance of Bruce Wayne.
The woman who suffered the indignity of being the one female prisoner in Blackgate.
The woman who took a neighbourhood under her wing.
The woman who reopened the Midtown Tunnel.
The woman who killed Bane.
The woman who saved Batman.
The woman who kissed Batman before took his final journey.
The woman who vanished from every accessible database days after the blast.
The woman who remained on a TSA no-fly list on an air-gapped computer.
The woman who booked a First Class seat on a United Airlines flight out of Atlanta.
The woman who automatically would receive a lengthy prison sentence in any court in the country.
The woman who saved Gotham.
The woman who, Fox hoped, could save it once again.
Gotham needed a fresh start. Gotham needed inspiration. Gotham needed a chance.
Fox had never come across another woman quite like Selina Kyle had managed not only seize every chance life offered her but managed to make her own chances. She was intelligent. She was a breath of fresh air. She wasn’t government. She wasn’t corporate. She was respected by many but beholden to none. Gotham was truly in her debt. Fox was going to try and repay it, by giving her the keys to the kingdom.
Selina Kyle was no angel. Angels don’t have a large volume of criminal history, a violent past or a fondness for dressing in black. Selina Kyle was adaptable though. She might not be an angel but she could become an archangel. Not all of them were entirely virtuous. Besides, the people of Gotham needed a protector, a watchful guardian. The Dark Knight was gone. A Dark Princess, the Dark Knight’s Dark Lady, would have to do.
Next Time:
“Mr Fox.”
“Miss Kyle.”
“Well?”
“This meeting, required the personal touch Miss Kyle. I’d like to make an offer you won’t refuse.”
“Won’t or can’t?”