Gasps break the silence & darkness that had woven themselves around the space of Bruce's room. His bearings escaped him. Time…Space… All of this was vacant from his mind as he found himself suddenly standing in the middle of the darkness, trying to catch his breath.
He usually felt at home in darkness. It was his guise, his tool, his second skin. But in this panicked moment, he was unaware of the darkness as he was everything else. His usual precisely timed movements alluded him, and he threshed about erratically until he felt himself knock over what he hoped was a lamp. Grasping it quickly, he illuminated his surroundings as he settled himself back onto his bed. Looking around, he affirmed his location and tried to slow his excessive palpitations.
Another nightmare had forced Bruce awake. They had become increasingly vivid, and alarmingly frequent. Every night, every time he closed his eyes, he found himself drowning in an ocean of violence as it washed over scorched earth. Waves of monsters from the sky would lay waste to everything in site. The demonic swarm would give way to faces lost in Bruce's list of casualties. He was suddenly 8 years old again, helpless in an alley… He was a grown man, clutching the battered body of the youth he took in, trained, fought beside, and cared for as a son… He was an aged and hardened warrior, standing in a wrecked harbor, hearing the pained cries of a young lady over the form of her lost love, clinging to him in a final farewell. It was as if the collective horrors of the past 20 years had come to haunt him in his most vulnerable moments.
The sum total of the coming struggle, the insomnia-inducing visions, failure, regret… It hung on Bruce like an albatross. His world was now conflict… a conflict of certainty and ability. He had been so easily misled in misunderstanding and fighting Clark, all to distract him from Luthor's master stroke. This error in Bruce's clarity could have cost this world dearly, and in another way, it had. The time of diamond absolutes has passed, now there is only obscurity. The horizon was an unrecognizable milieu of alien demi-gods, immortal warriors, and otherworldly abominations. Bruce felt again as he did as a prostrate child face down in the gutter at this notion.
Bolting upright in frustration, Bruce found some clothes and started toward the door. The silence of his quarters was deafening and offered him no comfort any longer. Internal peace had been unknown to him since childhood, but now he felt his impregnable focus being betrayed in the midst of his most important undertaking to useless despair. Walking with purpose, he burst into the main sitting area of his glass house.
Alfred was seated at the table, hard pressed on whatever task he was working on using his laptop. Staring up from the screen, he cheekily acknowledged Bruce's presence "Ah, Master Wayne! I shall have to inform the coroner his services won't be required after all".
Dryly, Bruce replied to his surrogate father's ribbing "You aren't Lord of the manor quite yet."
He positioned himself across from Alfred. The butler, changing his tone to one of slight concern, fired back "When you told me a war was coming, I didn't think you meant it would be on yourself."
At this, Alfred eyed an empty decanter left carelessly out on a table in the adjoining space.
Cocking an eyebrow and manifesting a glib tone, Bruce replied "Have you ever considered that I'm testing my threshold for pain?"
Not missing a beat, Alfred retorted "Well, I just want to be sure you don't fully exhaust yourself before the actual fighting occurs."
And with this sentiment and a faded smile, Alfred pushed a full mug of extremely potent Turkish coffee in Bruce's direction.
"Here you are Master Wayne. You can't do battle without any ammunition".
Smirking, Bruce accepted the gesture from his life-long companion, and turned towards the window. Immediately, he took note of the position of the Sun. It was rapidly sinking lower, as night approached. Closing his eyes against the glare of the setting sun, Bruce silently contemplated the exchange he just shared with Alfred. His concern wasn't misplaced, as Bruce knew his internal struggle had taken an ascetic toll. His unshaven and exhausted state had to have done away with any semblance of stability Bruce might have hoped to cultivate. But, he found himself banishing such temporal things from his mind. He knew he was volatile, he knew he had become disharmonious where he had once been calm, but he knew he had to hold himself together in spite of all this. At least long enough to see that his nightmare didn't become this world's reality. At the thought of the resolute moment, he quickly turned on his heels and headed back into his room, to fulfill the promise he made to Clark to see that the world he died protecting would never fear for its own safety as long as Bruce had a breath in his body to fight for it, Even knowing he cannot win this fight alone.
Returning to his inner sanctum, Bruce turned on his TV to CNN as he opened his laptop and prepared to finalize the necessary information to begin seeking out his potential allies in the coming war. Bruce was still attempting to remain alert to any sign of the enemy's arrival, which is why he had to have a constant flow of information even while he was fully engulfed in his search. However, the news hadn't changed much since that night in Gotham Harbor. A plethora of stories of multiple origins all sounded like one fluid stream of consciousness as the headlines of the day read in a similar manner. A segment titled "A World without a Superman" was concluding, detailing a rise in terrorism and unrest. It seemed the world was intent to destroy itself before any celestial threat could assail it. The sooner he can get this team active, the better. Bruce looked up momentarily, resolving to focus more intently on his research.
A new segment began: "Hope Triumphs: Stories of Superman's heroics". Instantly, Bruce felt an icy cold sensation erupt within him. Person after person, story after story, all the words driving home the weight of what was lost in Doomsday's attack. Bruce tried hard to push forth, closing his eyes and steadying his hands, he breathed deep and intensely. The on-rush of guilt and shame was growing… He had made him bleed; he had made this man fear for his life, even if only momentarily. And without a single thought, Clark saved them all that day, and died for the very people that once cursed and harmed him. Bruce's face was contorted in a pained grimace. His teeth were bound up, and his concentration was destroyed. His ghosts now haunted him while he was awake.
Bruce opened his eyes to find a bottle in his hand. How long it had been there was a mystery to him as the seconds were now as hours in his own cell of contrition. He drank deep from it, if only to numb this pain within him for an instant. As he swallowed, he noticed an alert on his screen that linked to a news story pertaining to Capitol Hill and the restoration of what had been destroyed by Luthor in his bombing. Suddenly, Bruce's mind remembered it was his former employee Wallace Keefe that had been Luthor's triggerman in the attack. Bruce was again consumed with a feeling of failure at this recollection. He felt as though he could have done something more for the man to have kept him from his eventual fate, but instead he ended up another casualty… Just like Jason, just like Clark.
He drank deeply again.
It was in this moment that Bruce was pulled from his mental mire by the sound of a heavy door closing. Only one door in his home sounded like that.
Trying to loosen the hood of dismay around him, Bruce called out the butler's name to check on his progress in their shared mission of recruitment.
His voice broke; the libation had made his throat strident.
No answer.
He called again, slightly heated and a bit worried at the silence, verging on agitation with the tranquility; no answer. But the sounds of footsteps were near, two sets of them. Bruce was perplexed and alarmed at who else would be entering his home in such a way, as the cave was the best kept secret in the world and off limits to all but himself and his family.
Bruce stood and began toward the door, prepared to meet friend or interloper a like. However, what he found traveling in his direction could have floored him with a whisper. He was staring into the face of Wonder Woman herself.
"Diana?"
He hadn't seen her since the funeral. He had given her his contact information, but since that moment, she hadn't tried to reach out to him in any way. This was a blow Bruce would never admit to. He had hoped she above all else would join him in his attempts to prepare Earth for what was coming. But she was hesitant and distant from this task it seemed. Bruce had resolved to continue on regardless, but the strain was no doubt part of his recent crisis of self.
However, here and now, he was beset internally with a feeling of elation that he let slip in a manifest show of surprise. Finally, he thought hopefully, I have someone that can understand what is before this world; finally we can fight this threat!
