Clark looked at the screen in confusion. They were all files on the league, way more informative than the ones Chloe had on them at watchtower. But they weren't at the same time. Sure the information was extensive and for anyone to have that level of knowledge on one person never mind the league was disconcerting to Clark. But the information was wrong. He had never heard of a Diana being on their team, nor had he known about a Green Lantern. The information he did have on the league members were wrong also. He knew that Dinah wasn't married to Ollie and that Bart wasn't born in the 31st century. Were they? Clark started to doubt himself, after all he was scouring through the files of the only person in this universe that knew what was happening. But then he checked his own file. Nothing was different to what Clark knew about his life. He checked Oliver's and the information was the same. Clark had an uneasy feeling and checked the time stamps. They were recent, Bruce had been down here recently and changed the information on his and Ollie's files. He grew curious as to what had been there before but didn't know how to retrieve the previous files. He could always take it to Chloe.
Clark started to email himself the files before he remembered that it was the hard drive they were stored on not the files and looked below for any way to remove it from the damaged computer.
Footsteps sounded behind him as someone descended into the cave. He braced himself for a fight but when he turned all he saw was Alfred.
"I see you've found it then" he muttered casting a disdainful look over the wrecked cave.
"I'm sorry," Although what he was apologising for he was uncertain of. Nevertheless the old butler nodded his forgiveness and stopped his stroll through the carnage.
"I suppose Master Bruce told you to come down here," Clark nodded shifting his feet around guiltily "The ravings of a mad man,"he picked up and fiddled with a bat boomerang "You must understand that when I found out about this place I had to destroy it. He was killing himself every night by going out, deluding himself that what he was doing was right."
"You must have hated it when I turned up," he joked but was met with silence. When he glanced up he was met with a glare that chilled him. He doubted he would ever live to see another look so full of cold hate again in his life.
"You have no idea. But I let you stay with him because he wad so agreeable when he was allowed to see you. He would have went through with his treatment without quarrel so long as he was allowed to go to watchtower."
"Wait a minute, how many times did you let him go to Metropolis," he didn't need an answer the butler's tone of voice when he was speaking was more than enough "Have you known all this time where Bruce escaped to. Worse have you been using me as a negotiation tactic?" He felt like pulling his hair, the idea that Alfred had been allowing Bruce to go to watchtower all these months and then acting the innocent when he returned Bruce to his door. It was unfamiliar, wrong. What else was he using against Bruce.
"Does it really matter? He's away now and where he belongs. The doctors will take good care of him there so there's no need to worry. Now if you could just-" He gestured to the exit but made no advances towards him.
Clark stood still, rooted to the spot from the being that had taken over Bruce's guardian. He mad a decision and in a move faster than the human eye could follow, uprooted the hard drive from the computers regardless to how many wires and things he had broken and stored it outside for later collection. When he returned he followed at a normal pace the way the butler pointed.
Alfred made sure that Clark got out of the manor and escorted him to the front door. Bruce was right there was no way anyone was trustworthy, not until he had answers to what was going on.
"You know, you never did tell me why he has to go to Arkham a lot," Alfred frowned as if confused that it wasn't the first thing he had told him.
"Well, as you know Master Bruce's parents were killed when he was young. The therapy he goes through is both to help him function in everyday society and to stop him from relapsing into his fitful state of mind."
"So he goes there to get over what some maniac did to him. It seems kind of unfair." He muttered that last to himself. He never truly thought about the victims after he saved them. After all they would live another day. To think that for some they would have to accept some extreme help to function daily because of a incident out of their control was upsetting to him.
"You must understand Clark, Bruce did this to himself," He shot the butler a surprised look.
"How on earth is that Bruce's fault?"
"Well he was the one who shot them. Now if you'll excuse me I have some cleaning to do," And promptly shut Clark out of the manor.
Bruce couldn't- wouldn't have done something like that. Clark had seen murderers and when he looked at Bruce he knew that he wasn't among them. Was he? Regardless of that thought, Clark pushed it aside and made his way back to Metropolis.
Oliver was on a stakeout having caught wind of an impending shipment of arms that were to be auctioned to a local casino. He barely glanced up when Clark appeared beside him, only spared a 'hello' before returning his attention to the scene below him. Clark hated to pull Oliver away from doing some actual good in the world but right now his need was greater than Metropolis'.
"I need to break Bruce out of Arkham," He announced.
"Figured it was something like that," Oliver sighed and turned away from the empty street below him "So how do I fit into this. I am kind of busy you know," He gestured to the alley.
"I know but if we don't break him out then we won't be able to solve what he hell is going on," He argued frustrated.
"Wow, I didn't say I wouldn't," he calmed "but do we have to do it tonight? Can't it wait until tomorrow."
"I don't think so. I can't really explain it but I don't think the doctors are there to help their patients. When I went in it was more like they were keeping them complacent than actually trying to figure out what was wrong with them. I don't want to leave Bruce in there longer than he has to be."
Oliver stood and slung his bow across his chest "Fine," he sighed "Let's go break your boyfriend out of the madhouse." He held out his arms for Clark to pick him up.
"You know about that huh?" Clark asked embarrassed.
"Bruce told me when he came around," He answered and held on as Clark sped off.
Arkham was even more foreboding in the dark and Clark saw Oliver shiver a little when he glanced at it. He said nothing so Clark continued to speed his way inside and to the monitor room. If there was one thing he had learnt when becoming a superhero it was to erase his presence when breaking in or out of anywhere. So the most logical thing to do would be to erase the speeding red, blue, green blur from the security tapes and put the rest of them on a timed loop whilst they were there.
Strangely there was no one in the small room. Oliver joked about a coffee break but Clark felt uneasy, surely it couldn't be that easy to break in here. He went over to the wide bank of monitors all displaying guards and patients safely tucked away in their night time duties. But something caught his eye.
"Strange," He muttered.
"What is?"
"I don't remember passing that guard on the way here," he pointed to the man on the screen who stood rigid in his position.
"Well I can't vouch for him. I don't see as fast as you do," Oliver called.
Clark chose to ignore it, after all they were moving rather fast, surely even he could have missed a guard. He checked the patients again on the search for where they were holding Bruce and found him situated in the middle of a man tossing a coin repeatedly in the air and Jack the creepy comedian.
"Oh no," they both said "What?" They questioned each other. Clark gestured for Oliver to go first.
"Okay, don't be alarmed but I think someone may have broken in ahead of us. The security feeds are already looping which is good because it means we weren't detected but bad because well, someone broke in." He explained awkwardly.
"I know, the patients cells are on a loop to," Clark agreed.
"Maybe you should just use your hearing to find Bruce and we can get out of here," Oliver suggested quickly. The situation was obviously unnerving him. Clark nodded and concentrated. The hallways were quiet and so were the cells making his heart begin to beat faster. Where was he? He began to feel the stirrings of panic when he heard what he would late think of as the best sound in the world. Bruce's heartbeat was going strong and steady not far from where they were. He listened harder.
"We need to go."
"Something wrong?" Oliver's face grew even more distraught when Clark explained that the inmates had all gathered in the gardens, unsupervised and unrestrained. "Wonderful," he muttered and let Clark speed him off to the growing banging noises.
He set Oliver down when they got inside of the greenhouse. It seemed that like the inmates the plants had become unrestrained also and had grown to sizes that Clark didn't even know was possible. It was a sea of knotting snarling green that stretched up into the ceilings and burrowed itself into the floors. They set off carefully among them not wanting to tip off the inmates to their uninvited guests.
Oliver could no doubt here the noise now and cringed every time a bang was heard echoing through the halls. They turned left and had to skirt across the narrowest path at the edges to get to the other side. The plants had seen fit to do away with most of the floor leaving a gaping hole filled with vines and one very lovely lady that Clark remembered seeing earlier. She didn't bother them as they crossed only held her hands against her ears to block out the chants and screams from the room at the end. Occasionally she would stroke the plants as if their wellbeing would soothe the insanity she was hearing.
"Are you sure," Oliver asked clutching Clarks outstretched hand. He was afraid of going in and Clark couldn't blame him, there was something just not right about these people.
"We need him."
"But why? I mean sure you love him but why don't we just come back when they've all calmed down. Come on Clark, is he really that important."
"Oliver," Clark sighed, he really wasn't feeling like having this conversation right now. "Look for weeks now I've been noticing things. Strange things. People have been mentioning names and places, things that I feel I should know about but I don't. But when I ask them about it they brush it off. You've done it Ollie, and I honestly can't live like this anymore. I need answers and so far the only person to have them is Bruce. I don't know how or why but he knows what is going on, so we need to get him out of there and sort it out. Okay?" He panted, his hype being slowly sucked away with the growing look of confusion on Oliver's face. "You don't believe me," He sighed and went to push the door open.
"I do," he muttered. "Let's get Bruce out."
He moved in close behind Clark as he slowly pushed the door open. The screams were reaching a heightened level as the excitement of the inmates increased. The scene that both of them walked in on explained why there was little resistance to their attempted escape plan.
It seemed that there had been a rebellion in the time that Clark had been away. Somehow the patients, all of them had broken free from the medicated coma's and turned on the doctors. Dragging them to the gardens to tie them up along the walls. It looked like a makeshift judicial court. Someone had brought chairs in for a doctor to sit in that was directly next to the podium that Jack resided in. The rest of the inmates were sitting cross legged on the floor, some of them crouched or kneeling waiting for another chance to cheer at the doctors expense. The man with the coin who still flipped it as he walked egged on the inmates screaming his case against the doctors and calling on a bald man who would occasionally lash out unexpectedly on the nearest person to keep the patients away from the living doctors. As for the dead ones or condemned, the patients were more than happily to mutilate them.
"Oh God," he heard Oliver whimper behind him. It snapped his attention back to why they were there.
He made sure that Oliver was safely behind him and in the end told him to get on his back so he wouldn't lose him whilst he scoured the room for Bruce. The room was full of screaming and moving bodies that it was hard to distinguish one from the other in the crowd. But eventually Clark found him next to a man who was questioning him with riddles. Bruce seemed content in the little bubble him and the riddle man had made and was enjoying the banter that was flowing between them. It seemed the other felt the same as he didn't rise to the carnal mayhem that the others revelled in when another doctor was thrown into the crowd.
Clark sped over to him. "Are you okay?" He questioned grasping Bruce's face in his hands. He x-rayed him thoroughly and found nothing more than a little scrape on one of his knuckles to be wrong with him.
"Fine. I'm fine. Hi Ollie." Oliver waved back.
"Come on let's get you out of here," Bruce said goodbye to Edward (riddle man) and stood up. He made no move towards Clark though so he reached out to take him. But Bruce held his arm out.
A skinny man was seated in the chair, Doctor Crane. The attorney was spitting abuse at him, calling him an imposter. He went into stories about how he had been experimenting on his patients, keeping them subdued so that they wouldn't embrace what they truly were.
"Bruce," Clark called trying to get his attention.
Another man ascended the makeshift ruling space, unlike the others he had taken to wearing a mask. It was merely a potato sack over his head with the eyes cut out so he could see.
"This thing has been deceiving you," He went on and Clark vaguely recalled having heard that voice before. "Believing that it could take my identity and lock me away." ("Holy shit, is that-? Oliver asked) It thought it could instil fear in me so great that I wouldn't attempt to call it on its bluff. But I know fear and very soon so shall you," He would have physically attacked the doctor if it wasn't for the fact he had gotten into the bald man's range. He narrowly missed getting his guts spilled and retreated back towards the attorney.
"Bruce," Clark tried again more urgently and this time he responded. He wrapped his arms around Clarks neck and let him hoist him up before he sped them all out of there.
Clark brought them all back to the farm. Setting Oliver down at the counter in the kitchen and setting Bruce on the table in the middle so he could get a better look at him in the light. He and Oliver were both still in shock as to what they saw and he almost didn't believe it. But he tried to get it out of his head for the moment and focus on their little victory of having gotten Bruce out.
"Are you sure you're okay," he asked running his hands over anywhere he could.
Bruce only smirked in response and pulled Clark into a kiss "Fine, they wouldn't have hurt me anyway. It wasn't part of our deal."
"Deal?" Oliver asked drawing them out of the little space they had made.
"I organised the rebellion in exchange for them not harming anyone who came in with a giant 'S' on their chest," he lazily drew his hand up Clarks chest fingering the 'El' crest.
"So that was all your idea?" Oliver asked in shock.
"If it's any consolation they weren't exactly people."
Clark got that uneasy feeling again, could he trust Bruce. Something to that effect of what they just witnessed would have taken weeks of planning. Just how long had Bruce been waiting to be sent to Arkham?
"You're upset with me?" He asked confused.
"A little," Clark mumbled before shaking off his doubt. If anything he should be applauding what Bruce did. He proved to Clark that everything he was witnessing was wrong. There was another Jonathon Crane in the world, the real one, and an imposter had taken his place and shut him away. But for what end? To keep the inmates in place obviously. But what was so special about them. What was so special about Bruce? "We need to find someplace to talk," he reasoned.
"What's wrong with here?" Oliver asked confused.
Bruce was the one that answered. "Chloe has been here and so has Alfred. I hate to be the one to break this to you but I don't remember there ever being a Chloe Sullivan. There's a good chance she's one of them."
"But I've been sleeping with her!"
"Yeah," he sighed in pity.
Oliver grumbled for a bit before asking again "It still doesn't explain what's so wrong with the farmhouse."
"If they've been here then they've probably put some kind of monitoring equipment up. They usually put them place's I've been. I know there's some at the manor and definitely in the cave so those two places are out."
"What about watchtower?" Clark asked
"I've been there. Think of somewhere that they couldn't have put anything up even if they wanted to. Or at least somewhere I haven't been before so we'll have some privacy before they arrive."
There was a heavy silence whilst Oliver and Clark thought of places that could possibly house them for a while. "Jor-El," Clark announced after a while "There's no way anyone could put something up in there, believe me Chloe's tried."
"If they're monitoring us doesn't that mean they can just listen and follow. Making it a complete waste of time us even speaking where we're going to go," Oliver asked
"Yes in a way," Bruce answered "But you're forgetting that it's a fortress. I doubt even they have the capability to break into a Kryptonian safe house."
Whilst Bruce and Oliver negotiated the actual safety of Clarks' Kryptonian safe house he went to go retrieve the key from the barn. He had to admit it was nice that the two were getting along so well for some reason he felt like the easy banter was what they needed from each other and wondered if they were like this before. He returned to find that they had settled the argument in favour of Bruce's side and Clark told them to get on him so he could run them to the cave.
"Don't even think about asking for a threesome Ollie," Bruce called from his position at Clarks front "I don't like to share." Clark could actually feel the mocking look Oliver sent Bruce from Clarks back and ran off before he could retort to Bruce's jest.
For once the fortress didn't try and kill the humans that Clark had brought in with him and he wondered if that had anything to do with his kind request last time he was here. Oliver immediately hopped down complaining about how he should have brought a coat so he set him off in the direction of what Clark thought was a bedroom last time he was here. Clark was left with Bruce in his arms who was quickly squirming to get out of his grip. Something stopped him from letting Bruce down though. A funny feeling of foreboding. It wasn't negative exactly, just a feeling of trepidation.
"Clark?" Bruce called and gestured to the firm grip he had on him.
"Right, sorry," he set Bruce down and watched as he happily sped over to the crystals in the corner. "What are you doing?" He asked after a while of waiting for Oliver to return.
"Looking through your computer. I'm seeing if the information here is the same as I remember," Bruce explained and played with another crystal. Clark didn't see how he could understand what was being shown to him. It was all a mix of Kryptonian symbols and sparse words in English.
"You've been here before then?"
"Not exactly." Which indicated the end of that conversation. They were going to talk everything out when Oliver returned.
Clark decided to clear something up which had been nagging at him while they waited. "Did you really kill your parents?" He asked quietly. Bruce turned from where he was playing with the computer and sent a disbelieving look at Clark.
"What do you think,"
It wasn't a question but Clark felt like he needed to answer "I don't think you did, but it's hard to change your beliefs so suddenly you know. After all I thought this morning that you were insane. It's hard to go from thinking there's something wrong with a person to it being a whole conspiracy. I guess I just needed to hear you say it wasn't true- I don't know," he rambled.
"There's not exactly nothing wrong," he admitted after a pause "I am still kind of traumatised from what happened and I guess it has affected how I see things. But I didn't kill them, I couldn't. I never want to sully myself with something that 'he' did because then it would make me no different. You understand right?"
"I do," He answered honestly. Bruce came over and sat next to him on the crystal chair that had emerged when he went towards the computer.
"Good, I couldn't stand it if you were mad at me over something so stupid as a misunderstanding," and he pecked him on the lips.
Oliver came back in to a comfortable silence that had descended over them. "Right then, if you don't mind I would like some answers," he announced and made himself comfortable in between Clark and Bruce. They both turned expectantly to Bruce who paused before beginning.
"I don't know all of it. Most of it is just guess work. About a year ago I heard about a red, blue blur on the streets of Metropolis and somehow I just had this revelation. Everything came running back to me like seeing you," he pointed at Clark "was a trigger in my mind. I remembered about Watchtower and the league and my cave underneath the manor. Not everything from my past life but enough. But that's also when I noticed that Alfred wasn't acting like I remembered him too. He was cold and seemed to care more about watching me than serving me, that's when I began to suspect that Alfred wasn't Alfred. But that was also when he decided that I needed to have more trips to Arkham. I don't know if it was because he had something that could erase my memories or if they just wanted another pair of eyes on me.
"Either way I knew I needed to get down to the cave somehow. I knew that it would reaffirm my memories about what happened so I snuck down there while Alfred was making his nightly rounds in the east corridors. Everything was trashed and there was equipment everywhere but I didn't really care at the time because I was so happy that I wasn't crazy. The third time I went down there I discovered the monitors in the cave, I managed to avert them but I knew that whoever was watching knew I was down there so I had to take advantage of this. I went down on days where Alfred was sure not to find me and managed to do it successfully. While I was down I tried to fi the computer but only salvaged some of it. That didn't really bother me but what did was the carvings on the wall."
"Dick, Jason, Tim, Damian, Stephanie, Cassandra and Barbra," Clark recalled.
"Right, my children's names. There was no way that Alfred had done it which left me. This wasn't the first time I had remembered them and that scared me so I began to bargain with Alfred that if he let me go see you then I would willingly go see Doctor Crane. It took a while to track you down but I did and you know what happened after that," he concluded
"So every time you saw Clark you remembered all of your past life?" Oliver asked uncertainly.
"No," Bruce countered "If I had then I would have been waiting a long time until I remembered it. I think I put the trigger in there the last time I remembered but I don't know why, that part of my life is gone. The thing is some of the other inmates knew about the other lives as well. I don't know how but they did, that was why it was so easy to convince them to take over Arkham."
"It still doesn't answer who's behind this," Clark commented thoughtfully.
"Or why they did this in the first place," Oliver continued.
"I would have thought that one was obvious. We were a league of hero's, practically Gods standing in the way of people who wanted to destroy or manipulate the planet to their own ends. The why doesn't really come into this."
"So what do we do now?" Oliver asked
"We need to interrogate one of them, find out who they're working for," Clark answered and remembered about the computer hard drive he had left outside of the cave, hopefully it was still there. "But before that I need to go and get something. While I'm gone you need to contact the rest of the league and get them to come here without Chloe. I can probably pick up Arthur and Victor so have Bart run Dinah here. Make sure they meet up at the same place and tell me about it," he was mostly asking Bruce to do this since he knew how to work the computers.
When he received a stern nod from both of them he headed off on foot back to Gotham. Thankfully the hard drive was where he had left it and Clark ran back to the fortress passing it off to Bruce with a little apology for its state before getting Arthur and Victors location from Oliver and heading back out again. They were confused as to why they had been called but came nonetheless to the fortress when Clark asked them to.
Bart and Dinah were there when he got back and Oliver led them all further into the crystal palace when he said there was a room further down that would be more comfortable for them to talk in. It looked like some kind of dining area and sure enough when Clark looked in what seemed like a fridge there was some food for everyone.
"Okay either Jor-El needs to eat or someone's been doing your shopping," Oliver quipped
"It's the Al's," Bruce explained having known more about the fortress than any of them presently "They knew that Clark liked to eat and went out to get some for him. The fortress is here to cater to your every whim, no doubt its setting up guest rooms as we speak."
"I don't think I'm very comfortable sleeping in a place where Clarks dead father can wake me up at any time," he bantered back.
"Don't worry he wont hurt us. He knows we're here to help. He should only attack of call on us if Clark so wishes," Bruce reassured.
Clark proceeded to make something for everyone while they were there and listened while Bruce and Oliver filled them in on what they knew. The reactions were priceless he had to admit. Especially Dinah's defiant "There is no way I'm married to you." Bart took it rather well as his past was already shady to him, the idea that someone had taken it away seemed to help him somewhat. Or it could have been the food that he kept shovelling into his mouth as soon as Clark set a plate down.
"So tomorrow we're hoping to sort everything out which is why we need you here. The league is always stronger together," Bruce ended.
Clark was proud to say that everyone was on board his idea when he had finished.
"We should probably get some rest," Oliver suggested looking at his watch. Sure enough it was three in the morning and everyone was yawning. "Come on. We can play who can find a bedroom first," he called sauntering out with the rest of the league hot on his trail. No one wanted to spend hours looking for a spare room in this place.
"Come on Clark I'm tired," Bruce yawned and tugged on his arm slumping against him as he followed Clark on the hunt for the bedrooms.
"Shouldn't you know where they are? After all you know more about this place than I do," he joked picking Bruce up bridal style. He received a subdued glare for that, too tired to make it full on evil.
Eventually his glare turned into a smirk and he started giving off directions telling Clark to hurry before Oliver finds it. The room Bruce led them too was by far the biggest one he had even seen (not including Bruce's mini palace in Wayne manor) the crystals having made up a bed that could fit seven grown men and piled with quilts and cushions stitched with the 'El' crest on.
"So what exactly are these Als?"
"Kind of like robots, they change the fortress to suit your needs so they made up rooms into bedrooms when you announced to us that you were inviting others to stay the night," He hopped down from Clarks arms and stripped off his bloody white uniform as he walked to the bed.
"So this is a guest room?"
"No, this is your room. Always has and will be here. They've been preparing it for a long time, most likely hoping you would stay here whilst you trained. I'm really surprised you haven't been here," he crawled onto the pile of quilts sending Clark a 'why are you over there' look before journeying on towards the pillows.
"Like I said, I don't know this place as well as you," he gladly joined Bruce in the bed taking all but his boxers off on the way.
"Don't worry, you will in time."
Clark fingered the hand stitched 'Els' and felt bad for a minute. His birth parents had thought of everything to make life on earth comfortable. He was sure that if he hadn't been found by the Kent's he would have revelled in the idea of living here. But then he would have been more reserved in joining a team made up of humans, powerful though they were. He never would have met Bruce, or would he."
"You know me so well," Clark muttered gently tracing Bruce's jaw. One pale eye opened wearily.
"Of course I do we're friends," he replied.
"Just friends?" Clark teased and ran his thumb over Bruce's lip. He didn't reply and Clark grew worried. "Bruce, what are we to each other?"
He pulled himself up onto his arm "You're probably the closest person to me in the world," he said seriously.
"But what are we to each other?"
Bruce seemed to grow frustrated with the question "You're Clark to me and I'm Bruce to you, do we really need to make something out of it?"
"What aren't you telling me?" Clark interrogated with a sinking feeling. Sure Bruce was more than happy to announce they were dating and to fool around with him on the farm but what about before. Clark had always assumed that they were together but what if they weren't.
"Nothing."
"Then why aren't you answering the question. I would have thought after everything you would be truthful to me. Though I see now that everything at the farm, the past month was just a manipula-" he silenced him with a kiss.
"You're Clark, my Clark that's all that matters. Nothing before, nothing after we do this will change that. So does it really matter?" He searched Clarks eyes, the intensity of his gaze making Clark nothing but truthful.
"No," Bruce's lips were still soft under his as he pulled him back in for another kiss. He had hoped for it to lead further but Bruce soon broke their session with a yawn and soon Clark found that instead of sensuous hands running up his chest he had those hands manipulating him into a comfortable position for Bruce to lie on. "You're impossible," he muttered as Bruce stretched out over Clarks chest, he pressed a kiss to his temple nevertheless and ran his hands over his back while Bruce drifted off. Soon enough he found himself following him.
It was noon when the league assembled themselves back into the dining area and entertained themselves with watching Clark fend off Bruce from his food. Since he had entered the kitchen Bruce had burnt two lots of bacon and Clark still didn't understand how he set bread of all things on fire. The billionaire still insisted on helping though so Clark had to repeatedly pick him up and put him in the chair at the table.
"What's that delicious smell?" Bart asked zooming towards the cooking breakfast.
"Paws off, you'll get it soon." Clark swatted earning a snort from Bruce.
Once they had all eaten they went about preparing themselves for the impending interrogation. Bruce had reluctantly told them their target last night and asked if he could stay behind at the fortress while they secured the information. Oliver made sure that he had all of his arrows with him and promised Bruce that they would bring him some stuff from his cave if he wrote it down. He agreed and wrote down/ drew the items that he wanted.
"Are you sure you want to stay behind?" Clark asked before they set off.
"Yeah, I'm going to upload the files from the hard drive into the fortress computer. I think that it might help us discover more about what we're dealing with."
"Stay safe," he pecked him "And if Jor-El gives you any problems reboot him."
Clark had given the key to Bruce for safe keeping and took Victor and Arthur promising Oliver that he would come back for him before he set off with Bart and Dinah. He dropped them off then went back and retrieved a pouting vigilante.
"Wow, Bruce lives here?" Bart asked in awe.
"Yep, now come on I want to get this done," Clark waved them in through the gates and up the porch steps.
The door was open as soon as they got near and the elderly butler was standing there. "Master Clark, to what do I owe the pleasure?"
"I'm sorry," was the only thing Clark could think to say. He looked confused for a moment before Bart barrelled him in the chest and dragged him outside. He stole some rope from somewhere before tying up Alfred who was trying to get up.
"What is the meaning of this?" he exclaimed pulling at his bonds. Oliver drew an arrow.
"Now I don't want to hurt you so you're going to have to answer all our questions the first time. Okay?"
"Not okay. I let you into my home and this is how you repay me. I should have called the police the second you came to my door," he ranted but the innocent act wasn't going to work.
"Who are you working for?" And so the interrogation began.
Alfred was tough, he didn't reveal anything for half an hour just sat there and shouted abuse at them. But in the end he broke. He told it slyly and in a way that if Clark wasn't listening for it he wouldn't have understood. He told how he was looking after Bruce and to anyone listening it would sound like it was his job but Clark heard the implied meaning. He was there to spy and report back to someone. Keep Bruce out of trouble so he was to make sure he wouldn't go outside and interact with anything that could bring his memory back. He said about having to check in with the Doctor every now and then to see how Bruce's progress was and check how he interacted with the patients. He never intended for the patients to be as clever as Bruce and conceal the full extent of their knowledge or even for them to rebel against everything that they had put in place. Alfred was tough.
"He didn't give a name per se but he did mention an Alias," Clark explained when they got back to the fortress.
"Who?" Bruce asked combing through the recently salvaged files.
"Owlman. Ring any bells?"