Her Dark Knight

Chapter 8: Why we Fall

Rebecca slowly regained consciousness; blinking her eyes blearily, she tried to remember where she was as her eyes adjusted to the dark cave she'd woken up in. IT was no easy task however, for her head was pounding as though someone was continuously hammering at it.

She flinched when something moved in the darkness above, the small screeches and soft sound of flapping wings telling her what the creature had to be even though she couldn't see it.

"Not more bats." Rebecca whimpered, before she jumped as a gloved hand brushed against hers.

"They won't hurt you."

Rebecca's eyes snapped over to the man standing by her head, his dark eyes behind his mask full of relief and glittering with a hint of amusement as he stared down at her.

"It's not funny." Rebecca muttered as she glanced around the cave, now noticing the Batmobile parked in the middle while several large computers and other equipment she didn't even try to identify lined the edges of the cave.

"Where are we?" Rebecca asked, and Batman replied shortly in his disguised voice, "Somewhere safe."

Rebecca glanced at him, and he could see her hesitating – he could see it in her eyes that she was debating asking him. Bruce steeled himself, waiting with a hammering heart as the tension continued to spike with every passing second.

"Did you catch Crane?" Rebecca asked at last, instead, and Bruce deflated.

Though, he supposed he understood her hesitance; if he knew her (which he was sure he did) she was probably waiting to ask him as Bruce - when she could see his entire face and gather the truth from his expression.

"Gordon has Crane." Batman informed Rebecca slowly.

She nodded, murmuring absently, "Good. At least he didn't get away after I fell for his stupid trap."

Rebecca placed her head in her hand, leaning on her knee.

"I feel terrible enough without feeling responsible if he'd escaped because I missed the textbook cues. He was so obvious, looking back now - if I had been that stupid in the police academy, I would have failed for sure."

"It can happen to everyone." Bruce reassured, and Rebecca snorted, "Thank you. But it's no excuse for failing as badly as I did back there."

"Why do we fall?" Bruce returned, seeing an opening and taking it quickly before he could lose his nerve.

The reaction he got was instantaneous.

Rebecca's head snapped back towards him, her blue eyes wide with shock as she asked, "What?"

Bruce took a deep breath, before repeating, this time in his regular voice, "Why do we fall?"

Rebecca stared at him as she sat up slowly, keeping her eyes locked on his.

"So we can learn to pick ourselves up." She whispered, her voice carrying easily in the deathly silent cave.

Bruce nodded, lowering his eyes slightly as he found it awkward now to meet Rebecca's piercing gaze.

Rebecca stared at him, slowly letting it sink in. Bruce really was Batman. And he had come forward with the truth before she'd even needed to question him. He was showing a sign of his trust in her. He-

"Oh." Rebecca groaned, dropping her face into her hands.

"Becky?" Bruce asked, confused, and she accused, "Alfred told you I'd guessed your secret, didn't he?"

Bruce paused for a moment, startled by her sudden question, before looking sheepish even behind the mask as he admitted, "He did, yes."

"Nothing gets passed him." Rebecca muttered. "And it explains why you're coming clean now, after being a complete jerk the other day."