Four

"Mr. Wayne?" His assistant's voice came through the intercom, pulling him away from the paperwork he'd been trying to go over for the last hour with little success.

"Mr. Wayne?"the voice came again.

"Yes Robert?"

"Mr. White is on the line for you with an urgent matter."

Bruce sighed and raked a hand through his hair. "Put him through." He flipped the folder closed and waited for the line to connect.

"Perry, what can I do for you today?"

"You can tell me what's happened to Kent to start with. And then you can tell me what the hell went wrong with Superman."

"This isn't a secure line."

"Then make it one."

He sighed inwardly and scrubbed a hand across his chin. "Free your afternoon. I'll be there in an hour." Bruce disconnected the call and buzzed his assistant. "Robert, clear my afternoon and arrange a chopper. I need to be in Metropolis in under and hour." Picking up his cell phone, he sent a brief message to Lex that read, Will be late. Nosy reporter.

o o o o o

Bruce left a wet, dreary day in Gotham to find the rain had already come and gone from Metropolis and the sun was doing its best to peak out from behind the clouds. After a quick phone call and a brief wait, Perry White was climbing into the waiting limo parked outside the Daily Planet, and Bruce was giving his chauffer instructions to just drive.

"What's going on, Wayne. Clark's disappeared off the face of the earth, and no amount of made up excuses from Lois and Chloe has covered that fact. Oddly enough he disappeared right around the same time Superman abandoned ship."

"This is all off the record, Perry. I need your word on that."

"You have it. Kent is like one of my own. You don't betray family."

Bruce took a moment to evaluate Perry's words before asking, "What do you know?"

"We're safe here?" Bruce nodded. "I know Clark is Superman."

"What has led you to that conclusion, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Morgan Edge told me just before he died."

Bruce kept his eyes trained on the smoky glass partition separating them from the front of the vehicle. "That would mean you've known for approximately -"

"Fifteen years, Mr. Wayne. And I've never breathed a word to anyone. Kent isn't even aware that I know. Tell me what happened."

Bruce took a moment before answering, nodding once to himself before drawing in a shallow breath and speaking. "We've been able to trace the originating event back to the invasion seventeen weeks ago. His behaviour has been slowly changing since then, virtually unnoticed by anyone at first until he started to aggressively act out."

"No one knows what those things were yet, do they?"

"No. There are certain things known about them, but what they are and where they came from is still uncertain. Clark was weakened by the red sun energy they emitted, and that gave them the opportunity to implant something inside of him. An entity. A weapon."

"Weapon," Perry repeated. "What kind of weapon?"

"It's taken him over. I can't guess at what it would have come to in the end, but it was using Clark's abilities to its advantage."

"Clark fought it."

"Yes. What could have been mindless violence was instead focused on those Clark would normally have dealt with using the confines of the law. Clark delivered justice while the entity influenced his actions with its natural destructive behaviour."

"Where is he now?"

"Safe."

"The League has denied knowing where he is for the last six weeks. They've been lying to the public?"

"They have not. The League has no knowledge of Clark's whereabouts."

"But you do."

"Yes."

"Can you cure him?"

"I'm trying. The entity is adapting, and in trying to contain it Clark's life may be lost."

Perry glanced down at his hands. "I'm sorry."

"Do you have any further questions?"

"If you can get it – the entity – out of him, how will you contain it?"

"I don't know yet."

"You said it's adapting."

"The entity is intelligent within its brutality and Clark is suffering for it."

"Could the League help?"

"The League would kill him."

"You know that for a fact?"

Bruce turned cold eyes to meet Perry's for the first time since he had entered the vehicle. "Yes."

Perry nodded. "Can I do anything?"

You can save him in name, tell the world what really happened, restore their faith in the things he stands for. "No."

"The Planet won't run another negative word about him. That much I can do."

"Don't make a promise you might have to break, Perry."

"I don't break my word, Mr. Wayne."

"Can I drop you back at the paper?"

Perry glanced out the window, recognizing the area they were in. "I think I'll walk. I could use the fresh air."

The car pulled over and Perry opened the door before the approaching driver could reach it. He paused before shutting it behind him and leaned his head back in. "Thank you, Mr. Wayne."

"Good-bye Perry." The door shut with a click and Bruce let his head fall back against the seat as the vehicle started to move again.

o o o o o

"What happened to being late?"

"Perry wasn't as troublesome as I thought he would be."

Lex looked up from the monitor. "Perry White? I would have put money on Chloe or Lois digging where they aren't welcome."

"Give them time." He dropped down into the chair next to Lex and glanced at the screen where Clark lay still in medicated sleep. "Perry wanted to know what happened to Clark. To Superman." Bruce relayed their conversation.

Lex listened in silence, his expression growing darker as he leaned back in his chair and pressed a loosely clenched fist over his mouth. He waited until Bruce finished before dropping his hand and shifting forward. "You trusted him."

"He's kept Clark's secret for over a decade."

"He claims to have kept Clark's secret. For all we know tomorrow's headline will scream his identity."

"You forget who owns the Daily Planet, Lex. And I'm not sure how much it matters anymore. The latest data shows that Clark's body is growing weaker every day. It is just a matter of time before his heart gives out or his body starts to shut down. Look at him, Lex!" Bruce gestures angrily at the monitor. "We're losing him!"

As if on cue, Clark's eyes opened and his head turned to face the camera, a smug smile creeping across his lips. Bruce had to look away.

"Bruce."

"I promised him. I promised him and now I'm going to fail."

"We won't fail."

"We already have."

"The defeatist attitude doesn't suit you, Batman." Bruce glared at Lex and left the room. He appeared soon after on the monitor, taking a seat in the chair at Clark's side and letting his head rest in his hands.

Lex shut the screens off and retreated to the kitchen in search of coffee and a solid wall to take out his frustration on.

o o o o o

"Bruce?" Tim moved in front of the older man and snapped his fingers. "Hey, anybody home in there?"

"Hmm?" Bruce glanced over at him with empty eyes before a shake of his head cleared his thoughts. "Sorry. Where were we?"

"You called an emergency meeting. What about?" Diana was looking at him with a carefully schooled expression that belied her concern.

Bruce nodded curtly and jumped right in to the subject at hand. "I'm retiring. Effective as soon as this meeting is over." His announcement was met with stunned silence broken finally by Oliver.

"Why?"

He considered holding back, but the strain of the last several weeks was catching up with him and he couldn't care enough to maintain the stoic image for another second. "I can't do this anymore."

"Do what anymore?" Bart asked.

"Play the super hero. I couldn't even save the one person that matters to me most in this world. What kind of hero does that make me?"

It was Tim who spoke up this time, voice softened by past hurts of his own. "You can't blame yourself for Clark turning bad."

That statement brought Bruce's eyes snapping towards Tim. "Clark didn't 'turn bad' Tim."

"Then how do you explain the sudden 180 in his personality? He was killing people. The guy who stood for truth, justice and the American way turned into a murderer, Bruce, and that is not your fault. It's not anyone's fault."

"You wouldn't understand." He made to walk away but Tim's hand on his arm stopped him.

"Try us," Oliver said.

"Let it go."

"No," came from several people at the table and followed by Tim's frustrated, "You can't quit!"

"I think you'll find I already have."

"This is not the only answer," J'Onn offered.

Bruce ignored them as he disconnected his communicator and tossed it on the table. Oliver followed him from the room, stopping just outside and closing the door behind him.

"You know where he is, don't you?"

Bruce turned to face him. "He's gone, Oliver. Please just let it be."

"I can't do that, not in good conscience. You know what happened. Why are you hiding him?"

Bruce strode forward and reached to grasp Oliver's shoulders, pulling him in close to hiss in his ear. "Because not one of you would hesitate to kill him, that's why. He's as good as dead anyway; drop it, Oliver. You don't want to be on my bad side right now."

Oliver stared after him as he made his way out of the Watchtower for the last time.