Batman 3 - Batman Forever by Peter David Read Free Book Online Page A

of defiance. No one, but no one, was going to get away with embarrassing and humiliating Boss Maroni.
    “Hey! Dent! Cross-examine this!” he’d shouted, standing in the witness box. His hand had dipped into his pocket and he had yanked out a small vial. His throw had been smooth and flawless.
    If Harvey had just stepped back . . .
    . . . or ducked . . .
    . . . or anything, then the vial would have wound up as glass shards, its contents bubbling away viciously but harmlessly on the courtroom floor, it would have been a simple charge of “attempted assault” tacked onto the lengthy criminal indictments already facing him, and that would have been that.
    But he stood bolt still, surprised, a deer in the headlights, as the vial’s contents splashed all over the left side of his face.
    There were certain sounds that Bruce Wayne would always carry with him. Sounds like his parents’ screams, or the tinkling of his mother’s broken pearl necklace falling to the ground.
    The flapping of wings and the screech of bats, although somehow the memories of the circumstances themselves were somewhat blurred.
    The crack of Catwoman’s whip.
    A couple of other sounds . . . and now this. This hideous, unspeakable moment, and he would never forget the sound of the acid bubbling and burning and eating away at Harvey’s face. Harvey’s scream was almost secondary, as had been the panicked cries of other people in the courtroom. He’d heard screams before, and certainly enough sounds of a confused and shouting mob. But he’d never, before or since, heard the sound of flesh just being eaten away.
    That night he’d come to the hospital as Batman. It seemed to him that Harvey was beyond pain. Instead Harvey was looking up at him with his one good eye, and there was something in there . . . a look of hate and betrayal and anger . . .
    Batman knew that look all too well. It was the look on his face every night when he slid the mask down that covered his features.
    It was disturbing to see it turned back at him. Disturbing and something that boded ill for the future.
    “Nice protection,” was all Harvey said, and then turned away. He said nothing more.
    The next time Batman would see him would be weeks later, after Harvey’s devastating crime spree with his new nom de guerre of “Two-Face.” There was Batman, Dent’s former ally, now his pursuer and, eventually, captor. “We made it that much easier for you to operate in this town,” Two-Face had growled, “And now you leave us . . . double-crossed. We will not forget that. Not ever. Not ever.”
    Bruce Wayne was jostled from his thoughts by a slight dip in the helicopter’s angle. He looked out the right window and saw the glowing sign that topped the towering headquarters of Wayne Enterprises.
    “There’s home,” he murmured.
    “Home?” said the pilot. “With a mansion like you got, Mr. Wayne, you think of an office building as home?”
    “Actually, I guess not, Rudy,” said Wayne after a moment’s thought.
    “I’m not surprised. Actually, with all the houses you got across the world, and offices and stuff . . . guess it’s hard to imagine where you’d actually consider home.”
    An image fluttered across Bruce’s mind, of a dark cave and a black costume.
    “Very hard to imagine,” he agreed.
    “Isn’t it incredible!” Edward Nygma said for what seemed the three hundredth time that day, leaning out of his cubicle and addressing a passing co-worker. The co-worker, who’d been the recipient of this particular piece of enthusiasm a mere twenty times since 10:00 A.M. barely nodded before walking quickly past.
    “Bruce Wayne! Here!” continued Edward as if his co-worker was still around, hanging on his every word. He retreated back into his cubicle, which was a clutter of computer parts and scattered paper. And whatever space was left over was occupied by puzzles: Rubik’s cubes, assorted games, dozens of puzzle books published by an outfit who had a