“I’ll take that under advisement, doctor.”

The physician left to attend to his rounds, leaving his patient alone in the exam room.

Finally, Bruce thought. He quickly dressed and pulled a wool ski mask over his head. Moving rapidly, before anyone remembered to check on him, he hobbled over to the window and climbed onto the sill. Twisting the head of his cane, he drew out a length of unbreakable monofilament wire and clipped it to his belt, then wedged the cane securely behind the window frame. The glass pane slid open easily. A crisp autumn wind blew into the room. Bruce leaned out to inspect the view.

The exam room was on one of the topmost floors of the hospital, facing a dark alley. Litter blew across the floor of the alley, hundreds of feet below. A metal dumpster was filled with non-biological waste. Bruce had specifically requested this room—for privacy’s sake, he had claimed. It wouldn’t do, after all, for Bruce Wayne’s medical issues to be splashed all over the tabloids.

As cover stories went, it had the ring of plausibility.

He didn’t linger on the sill. Although he hadn’t attempted a stunt like this in years, he threw himself out the window into the night. Gravity seized him and he plunged toward the alley below, the wire unspooling behind him. The night wind whipped past his face.

One, two…He counted off the floors as he plummeted past them, accelerating at nine-point-eight meters per second squared. He waited until just the right moment to trigger the braking mechanism. Three!

He came to a halt directly outside a private room on the eleventh floor. Dim lights penetrated the curtains as he stealthily raised the window and slipped inside the room. Trained in the arts of the ninja, he made not a sound as he crossed toward the haggard figure in the bed. His heart sank at the sight.

Bruce had first met Jim Gordon on the worst night of his life. As a young police officer, freshly transferred from Chicago, Gordon had attempted to comfort an eight-year-old child mere hours after the boy’s parents had been murdered by a mugger in what would someday be known as Crime Alley. Although traumatized by the murders, which had taken place right before his eyes, Bruce had never forgotten the young officer’s kindness. One of the few honest cops in a town that liked being dirty, Gordon had proven a valuable ally in Batman’s war against crime.

Over the years, the Dark Knight had come to depend on Gordon’s integrity and courage.

Now Gordon lay helpless in a hospital bed, hooked up to machines. Blinking medical equipment monitored his vital signs, which were alarmingly weak. An oxygen mask was affixed to his face. An IV fed fluids into his arm. Gordon’s face was ashen. His skin looked clammy. Bruce felt a long-buried anger building in his chest.

Gordon was his friend.

Whoever did this to him needed to pay.

Bane.

A low growl escaped Bruce’s lips, rousing Gordon, whose eyes fluttered open. For a moment, Bruce feared that the commissioner might panic at the sight of a masked man standing at the foot of his bed, yet somehow the injured man seemed to recognize him. Gordon tried to speak, but the oxygen mask muffled his words. Wincing in pain, he tugged the mask away from his mouth.