BATMAN: Fall Of The Dark Knight #Wattys2016

16: THE AFTERMATH PT. 3 (& GOODBYE JIM)

Bruce and Selina were married on the Wayne Manor estate. It was a rather low-key affair with only a select handful in attendance, including Lucius Fox and his family, James Gordon along with Dick and Barbara Grayson and their daughter Jane Marie. They didn't even announce it in the media for fear that the formal wedding of billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne to the notorious cat burglar Selina Kyle would become a media circus. Vicki Vale was in attendance at the wedding-under Selina Kyle's initial objections-on the condition that she not reveal the marriage until after the ceremony. Both Bruce and Selina reasoned that, since people would eventually find out about the marriage anyway (especially in this Internet age where it was harder than ever to keep anything secret), they figured they could at least try to control as best they could the information about their nuptials that got out. Of course, all hell broke loose when their wedding news was revealed on Vicki Vale's show The Scene, but at least there were no wedding crashers. They were hounded by the paparazzi when they went out together, which wasn't much, but they were used to dealing with them, so they went with it.

Shortly after the wedding, Bruce retired as CEO from Wayne Enterprises. Lucius Fox became the new CEO with Wayne's blessing. Selina, not one for sitting around the house doing the whole "dutiful" wife thing, became Gotham's top bounty hunter. She figured if she was no longer a criminal herself, she could use her criminal knowledge to capture other criminals. Not that there were as many criminals in Gotham as there used to be when Batman was around (which led some to surmise that maybe Batman had done more harm than good). Some of Batman's oldest foes decided to go legit. Oswald Cobblepot a.k.a. The Penguin opened up his own casino in Gotham called Penguin's Palace. When asked why he did this, he said, "The way I figured, I've been stealing people's money for years. Now I figured I'd steal their money legally!" Edward Nygma a.k.a. The Riddler became a game show host on his own quiz show called Riddle Me This! that became quite popular with Gothamites in spite of his criminal past. Pamela Isley a.k.a. Poison Ivy became a well-respected botanist. No one knew what happened to Harvey Dent a.k.a. Two-Face who disappeared from Gotham not long after his last stint in Arkham Asylum before Mayor Dick Grayson ordered its closure. Bruce had financed his former friend's extensive plastic surgery years ago with the hope that it might cure him of his psychosis and to rid himself of his Two-Face persona once and for all. (Plus Bruce had always blamed himself, at least in part, for his friend becoming Two-Face to begin with.) However, it wasn't long before Dent turned back to a life of crime as Two-Face. Some believed he had left Gotham for good when Mayor Grayson began cracking down on crime while others theorized he ran afoul of one of Gotham's crime bosses-who were all pretty much run out of town thanks to Mayor Grayson and Commissioner Bullock-who made him disappear. Even Bruce considered donning the Batsuit one last time to go in search of his former friend, but Selina talked him out of it, telling him he had done enough-more than enough-to help out Dent and that no matter what he did he would always go back to being Two-Face.

Bruce never heard from Harvey again.

James Gordon, meanwhile, had to move in with Dick and Barbara when his mind started slipping. He refused to at first, but then one day he wandered outside his house and he forgot where he was. When Barbara couldn't get in touch with him, she contacted Harvey Bullock in a fit of panic and asked him if he would search for him. Harvey found him wandering around aimlessly several blocks from his house. That's when he relented and moved in with his daughter and son-in-law. Within months, Gordon's health deteriorated. There were days he didn't recognize his own daughter and granddaughter. Jane was too young to understand what was happening to her beloved grandpa, and it broke Barbara's heart. Upon Dick's suggestion, Bruce visited Jim and was absolutely shocked by what he saw. Jim, someone he once looked upon as a mentor and even a sort of father figure, was a shell of his former self as he couldn't even remember who he was. So, a few nights later, Bruce donned the Batsuit he hadn't worn in years and snuck into Jim's bedroom window. Jim was asleep in a chair when he came in. He stood silently while gazing down at him. Then, suddenly, Jim opened his eyes and stared up at the caped figure standing next to him. After staring at him silently for a moment, his eyes grew wide in recognition.

"B-Batman?" he said rather weakly.

"Yes," Batman replied, nodding.

Gordon and Batman talked for the next few hours. They reminisced about cases they had worked on together years ago. Finally, Batman sensed another presence in the room and he looked over and saw Barbara and Dick standing in the doorway to Jim's bedroom, Barbara with tears in her eyes. Jim looked over at her as well and said something to her that he hadn't said to her in a while.

"Barbara!" he said, his eyes wide. "You can walk again!"

By now, she had walked up to him.

"Yes, Daddy," she said, tears streaming down her face as she bent over to hug her beloved father. "I can walk again."

Batman gave one final look at Gordon before he turned to walk out of the bedroom. He stepped up to Dick who was still standing in the bedroom doorway. At first, he thought his former partner would give him a lecture about wearing the Batsuit again given that Batman still had a warrant out for his arrest for the death of Harleen Quinzel a.k.a. Harley Quinn. But then he surprised him and said, "Thank you for doing this, Bruce. I know it really means a lot to Barbara."

Bruce thought of something appropriate to say, and, when the words refused to come to him, he simply nodded as he removed the cowl from his head. He walked up to the front door and removed the rest of the Batsuit. He had on regular clothes underneath. He opened the front door and walked out of the house. What he didn't know was that little Jane Grayson had been watching him while he took off his Batsuit the whole time.

James Gordon passed away the next day. At his funeral, Barbara thanked Bruce for bringing her father back to her one final time. Also at the funeral, Bruce couldn't help but notice Harvey Bullock giving him that same stern look he had given him both at Mayor Grayson's office and when the police were at Wayne Manor after he shot The Joker. Like before, he didn't really think anything of it until Bullock showed up unexpectedly at Wayne Manor one day.

"Commissioner," Bruce said, startled to see Harvey standing there in the doorway with a folder in his hand. "What can I do you for? If you're here to see Selina, I'm afraid she stepped out to run some errands."

"Actually, Mr. Wayne," Harvey began to say, "I'm here to see you."

"Me?" Bruce was genuinely surprised. He'd be the first one to admit both he and Batman hadn't had the friendliest of relationships with the man over the years like a lot of people who knew him, including-and especially-Selina. 

He nodded, "Yep." He handed him the folder he was holding. 

Bruce took the folder from him. "What's this?"

"There's this case we've been working on that we'd like your help with."

"Why me?"

Bullock looked right at him, giving him that very same stern look. "I think you know why, Mr. Wayne."

With that, Bruce realized that Harvey Bullock knew his secret. He could have feigned ignorance as he'd done before whenever someone acted like they knew his secret identity. But he decided not to do that with Bullock. Besides, he figured if he was there to arrest him he would have already done so. So he opened up the folder and perused its contents. 

"Would you like to come in so we can discuss this case you've been working on?"

Harvey nodded his head. "Yeah, I would."

With that first case, Bruce Wayne became a police informant for the Gotham PD. At first, Selina objected, thinking that Harvey had ulterior motives and was maybe trying to get him to finally admit to him that he was Batman. But she relented when he explained to her that Bullock already knew he was the Batman and this was his way to continue to help the Gotham PD nab criminals without donning the cap & cowl again, something he swore to himself-and her-he would never do.

And Bruce Wayne never became the Batman ever again.