Family Lines
by Esther Pryne
I don't own Batman, Superman, Lois or any other DC Comics character though the Lord knows I wish that I did
Katsuro Amadeus. That is my name. I tell myself that a hundred times a day. If I didn't it would slip away from me into the dark, like so many little pieces of myself. I don't know what I look like, or how old I am, or where I come from, or my mother's name. I only know three things; my name, that I wish I was dead, and that I am very very beautiful. So many times I've begged my masters to kill me. So many times, and they never do.
Someone come into this dark place. His figure is silhouetted by light from whatever is beyond, the door. It burns my eyes, that light, when I have seen nothing brighter than a small flashlight in days... weeks... maybe months, so I close my eyes against it. I hear his slow deliberate footsteps, and I realize that this is not someone I know. Not that that is unusual. I ask myself why I make note of these things. They don't matter. Nothing does.
The stranger kneels beside me and breaks the shackles that hold me against the wall, in this position, with his bare hands. That registers as something strange, but then I ask myself, What is normal? What is strange? Then I realize that this--this rescuing is strange. I am worth less than a nice suit of clothes. No one would ever rescue me. When the man picks me up in his arms and asks my name I do not respond. I am sure that this is a dream, like the ones I used to have long ago, that someone, anyone would take me away. I wonder why they have come back.
After awhile the man who is rescuing me tilts my chin up and looks me in the eye. There is something different about him, something missing from his face that I have always seen, especially in my masters, and something else replacing it that I cannot remember seeing before. I don't know what to call it. His eyes are bright and blue, like the sky that I now realize we are flying in, and this curl that hangs over his forehead. I try to find fear, but there is none. What could anyone do to me that hadn't already been done? I offer no resistance; I don't have it in me. I haven't for awhile. I let the darkness, born of a lifetime of pain and exhaustion, overwhelm me.
When I open my eyes I am laying on my side, naked (usual) but covered with a blanket (not usual), in a room made of ice. The man that broke my chains is standing over me.
"What is your name, son?"
It takes me awhile to answer; it's been so long since I really thought about anything, muchles spoke. When I can finally move my mouth I say,
"My name is Katsuro Amadeus."
It is a wonder that the man can understand me; my voice is so hoarse and distorted. It hurts to speak.
"How old are you, Katsuro?"
I don't know and I don't answer. I am tired again. Tired of living, tired of being.
"Katsuro? Do you know the men that were holding you?"
I stare at a point past his waist, which is all I can see without looking up.
"Katsuro."
I stare at that point until it begins to dissolve, dissolve into the place I go, the place I hide when my masters leave me in the dark for too long. I stare at that point until I can't see or hear or smell or taste or feel anything at all. My name. It's been so long since anyone has spoken my name.
Bruce sat at his desk dressed in his usual black Armani suit and blue shirt; the jacket of the suit thrown across a chaise lounge beside the entrance to the office. Here he looked like the busy middle aged multimillionaire at work.
"Mr. Wayne? Clark Kent is here to see you. He doesn't have an appointment." Bruce looked up from his computer, knowing that his head administrative assistant could see that he was playing Spider Solitaire, rather than preparing for his meeting in forty-five minutes.
"It's okay Moira, send him in. I could use a little bit of distraction." Acting like a brainless irresponsible womanizer grated on Bruce's nerves but it was apart of his job as a crime fighter.
"Hello, Bruce, how's it going?" Clark said, leaning against the doorway to "Brucie's" inner sanctum where he could call old girlfriends and practice his golf swing in peace. "Come in, Clark come in. What brings you to Gotham?"
Clark sat down in the chair in front of Bruce's desk, and said, "Actually Bruce I was in town and I wanted to invite you over for dinner. Lois noticed that it's been awhile, and Dana has been missing her favorite 'uncle'. How does next Monday sound?"
Bruce looked through his appointment book.
"I don't get out of meetings until six thirty-"
"We'll hold dinner until then. It's important."
At the interruption, Bruce looked up sharply and studied his friend's face.
Then he nodded and said, "I'll be there"
Bruce walked up to the Kent's townhouse with a bottle of the best non-alcoholic wine and flowers for Lois. His knock was answered by a thirteen year old Dana Kent
"Hi, Uncle Bruce!" Did you bring anything I can drink?" she asked, eyeing the bottle in his hand.
Bruce smiled and ruffled Dana's hair. "You know I always do."
Dana was one of the few people that could wring a smile out of the real Bruce Wayne.
"Come on in, dinner's ready," Lois called.
The dinner went well, and Dana kept the conversation light with stories of her seventh grade class, until it was time for her to go upstairs and do her homework. The moment she left however, Bruce turned into Batman, and though he was sans costume, cape, and cowl, he was just as intimidating.
"What did you ask me over for, Kent?" Bruce asked in his usual and much more familiar "bat gravel" as Lois called it. Clark moved the trio to the living room and poured coffee all around.
"You know of the relief efforts in Thailand since the tsunami, and that I go to help every so often. I was there ten days ago, and one of the last things I did before I left was help the local police bust a drug and child slavery ring. Bruce, I have rarely seen anything so disgusting in my life. Men and a few women were holed up in a hotel building and there was a bit of gunfire but the police finally got them out. The children, Bruce, the children, they were so blank, so... Bruce those men, they destroyed the children. I don't understand how people can treat each other like this."
At Clark's admission, the room was silent, and he needed a moment to collect himself. "I went into the building because there was one person left and the whole thing was rigged with explosives. The one left was boy, a young man really. He-he was chained in the basement to the wall with shackles, actual iron shackles." Lois took Clark's hand and he squeezed it back, assuring her that he would be alright.
"I released him and carried him out. He wasn't unconscious at the time, but he wasn't really there either. I looked at the boys face and-suffice to say that I was shocked. I knew that I had seen it before, that brow, that nose and when he opened his eyes-it was just for a second- I was shocked, but I knew that I was not mistaken."
"Instead- instead of turning him over to the orphanage that the other children were sent to," at this Clark sighed again, "I brought him to the Fortress and ran a few tests. Bruce, I don't know how to say this, but the boy--his name is Katsuro--he's your son."