Shadow of the Bat
A Smallville X-Over
Summary: Chloe hates rich, stuck-up party boys almost as much as she hates those who use that face to hide something.
1.
Clark found her in her basement, going over printouts of financial statements she'd stolen from Oliver.
He knocked on the door lightly, catching her attention. Her eyes flipped up to him just a hair too fast, too frantically, and she hoped desperately he didn't notice she was as jumpy as a rabbit.
"Hey, Chloe," he said gently, descending the stairs slowly. His eyes scanned the room, stopping briefly on every empty coffee cup. On the pot of coffee brewing now. On the piles of paper everywhere. "In the middle of a project?"
Was this an intervention? It was hard to tell with Clark. He was also so gentle about trying to pry her away from her obsessions. "Yeah… you could say that. I'm just… just tracking down some irregularities in Oliver's book-keeping that don't look like they have a whole lot to do with… with the stuff I do for him."
He nodded. "Oliver said that you went back to Gotham with him, introduced him to your big bat friend," he said. His voice was a touch rough now, almost angry.
Her eyes narrowed. Intervening because she was working too hard was one thing. (and she didn't want to think really hard about why she had buried herself in a pile of not-terribly-urgent work and wasn't about to stop) Coming here about the Bat… that was serious. "Yes, I did."
"Because you trust the Batman, he said." Clark was terribly careful not to say it in a way that sounded like an accusation, but it was precisely that carefulness that clued her in. Of course Clark didn't approve. How could he?
"He could be a powerful ally, Clark," she said, cutting right to the chase.
Clark sighed. "A dangerous ally."
"Do we have any other kind?" she snapped, put off by his attitude.
"We have a problem in Metropolis," he said, crossing his arms. "Luthercorp made some kind of supersoldier, using some of the meteor rock, and part of … well, something else. We brought in Bart, but this guy… somehow he was able to anticipate Bart, and get in front of him. He took him down so quick… I was able to fight him to a standstill, moving as fast as I could, but he's fast, and he's strong."
She looked away. "You want to bring in the Bat because you have somebody too strong for you to punch into submission? It won't work."
"No… of course not." Clark looked mildly offended. "Oliver found a weapon I might be able to use… something Luthercorp's been working on. But when we went looking for it, it had already been stolen… apparently by the Batman."
"What kind of weapon, and where was it stolen from?" she asked automatically.
"It's a modified laser. Supposedly it can break the armor on this thing, give us a shot at it. It needs a power source, but Oliver thinks we can channel my heat-vision into it, use me as the power source. It's a long shot, but… well, we haven't been able to stop the thing any other way."
She sighed, putting down the papers. "I'll make some calls. No promises."
Clark looked away, suddenly uncomfortable. When he looked back, she could have sworn there was a hint of anger in those eyes. "Am I missing something, Chloe? The man's a killer. Is that the kind of person you hang with now?"
"He's not a killer, Clark," she said quietly. "He's a hero. That's the sort of person I've always hung with."
Clark shook his head, seeing only the black and white facts of it. "Right," he said, stomping away up her stairs.
She pulled out her cell phone, waiting until she was sure Clark had been given enough time to get far enough away he'd have to work hard to use his super-hearing to listen in. She could never be entirely safe from him eavesdropping; she knew that with a certainty. At the same time, she had to trust him on this.
She dialed the butler's number, not Bruce's. No point in making this obvious. "Hi, this is Chloe Sullivan… it's official business. Can you tell him to contact me ASAP? It's about the thing tearing up Metropolis. Tell him to check the news if he needs more."
2.
He didn't arrive in the Bat-suit, or in his Batmobile. He didn't arrive with a flourishing cape.
No, that would have been too subtle.
He pulled up into Smallville in a Lamborghini. He drove right up to where she was standing, waiting, and spun the car around, an ostentatious one-eighty that put the door right in front of her.
Putting her hand on the cool metal was like peering into the eyes of God. She felt naked, all her layers of armor stripped away. Could he see into her soul?
When she opened the door he wasn't wearing his plastic mask. His face was serious and real, sober, somber. Terrifying.
"Hey," he said. "Nice dress."
She smoothed her hands down her hips, trying to keep from blurting anything out nervously. "Thanks."
She got in carefully, trying not to look as gawkish and small-town as she felt.
He pulled out, squealing the tires briefly. "So, did you get those tickets to the charity event thing where we can rendezvous with your guy?"
She nodded. "Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, out of costume. Out in the open."
"If I snuck into Metropolis as Batman, the news would be all over it," he replied. "Besides, like you said earlier, if they see the device they'll know pretty quick that Wayne Enterprises has been all over it. Made the stupid thing work. Installed parts with our logo on the side, even. I could try to obscure it, but if they aren't idiots, they'll put it together. And that puts the finger on me. Better we play it straight, right up front. I already know who your friends are… it seems a bit… well, it starts crossing lines if I don't reciprocate. My official cover is that I'm here for this charity event, taking a pretty girl to a swank Metropolis party."
3.
Walking into the biggest ballroom in Metropolis with Bruce Wayne was probably going to put Chloe on the front page of a lot of papers. She tried walking behind him, but he caught her elbow, pulling her along.
"I appreciate that you don't want to be front-page, but if I show up without at least one pretty girl, people start suspecting there's more to me than girls," he murmured quietly.
Oliver swept over to join them, smiling broadly as if he didn't have a terribly low opinion. "Bruce Wayne and Chloe Sullivan," he said. "There's a duo I was sure I'd never see in this life."
Not his most subtle jab ever. Chloe smiled. "Bruce, I assume you've met Oliver?"
"We did hang at a few of the same haunts together, back in the day," suggested Bruce with a smile. If you weren't listening too closely you might think that he just meant they had hit some bars together. If you were, you'd know he meant rooftops.
Oliver nodded. "Could I steal your date for a minute?" he asked, putting a hand on Chloe's arm.
Bruce smiled, and for just a fraction of a second, Chloe could see a real smile there, not just a plastic one. Real emotion. Amusement. "Oh, of course," he said, turning and signaling a waiter.
Oliver dragged Chloe towards the dance floor. "I thought you said you were bringing Batman to us," he muttered under his breath.
She grinned nervously. "Surprise?"
He stopped dead, his eyes flaring wide. "Chloe, no! I mean, I know I'm a—no! I know that I give off the—no! You're not kidding, are you?"
It was an interesting verbal meltdown. She kept moving forward. "We better go find someplace we can be alone," she muttered.
4.
He took her to an office, where he paced. "This is worse than I could have imagined. I mean, yeah, we've got stuff in common, him and me; but he was one of those guys who just, he just imploded. I met him once or twice when he was a teenager. I mean, you want to talk about lost… he was completely lost. Adrift. He had no useful skills… he wasn't that smart…"
"Do you have a past with this guy?" she asked, trying to keep her voice as cool and uninvolved as possible.
"No," he said. "That would be easier. This guy is so screwed up that he makes guys like me and Lex Luthor look like balanced individuals. He's got issues. And the idea that somebody who blames street criminals for his parents death has been going out and savaging thugs in the night… that is not healthy."
"How is it different from what you do?" she asked sweetly.
"I work towards social justice, towards a better world," he said flatly. "Not just some revenge."
Chloe sighed. "You've taken down one bad company. You've taken out low-level evil. Have you seen the statistics for Gotham? Have you seen what it used to be—what it is now?"
He chuckled. "What it is now? People are more terrified than ever. This Joker rampage… when I saw him on the news, I seriously considered grabbing Clark and heading over there. Of course, that was right in the middle of the whole thing with that alien… Look, get the ray gun from this guy. We won't be working with Batman."
Chloe wondered just how dense Oliver could be. She glanced at the window, where she could see the faintest of silhouettes. "You heard him; he doesn't want to work with you," she said flatly.
Oliver gave a start. "No way," he said, as the window swung open. "I have security systems. Great security systems!"
"Oh, they're good," replied Bruce. "But if you're going to lurk on rooftops and play around in green tights you might just want to find some way to override security systems."
"That sounds like something that would be dangerous in the wrong hands," said Oliver, folding his arms over his chest.
Bruce smiled, a plastic smile. "The wrong hands? You're playing at hero, but you have no idea what that takes. You want to be seen, to be admired, to be glorified. But if you do that, then others will rise up and try to do the same thing—and will they equipped as you are? Will they be aware that you wear a vest that will probably stop a bullet? Will they have grapple-guns that can get them out of danger in a hurry? Will they be able to afford night-vision goggles and a police-band scanner? Will they have a command center above the city, with somebody looking out for them? You'll inspire them, and they'll get themselves killed. You'll teach them an ordinary man can do all that… I don't inspire them to imitate me, not any more."
Oliver laughed. "Great speech. So you think beating up thugs will protect your city? Look at the top, man! Look at the top! Your mayor is hip-deep in all the corruption—why else would the police be so corrupt? Your city is burning itself away from the inside! The inside, man!
"Nobody's safe from the Bat," said Bruce darkly. "Tell me about your personal army."
Oliver squared his shoulders. "We save the world."
Bruce didn't laugh. He didn't have to. His oppressive silence hung in the air for a minute.
Chloe cleared her throat. "You have the device?" she asked, keeping her voice level. Hoping that if she acted normal and sane they would follow her lead.
Bruce shrugged, inclining his head towards Oliver. "I have a concern about this, you know. A large one."
Oliver gritted his teeth. "Is that a 'I won't give you what you need to save thousands or even tens of thousands of people from death'? Is that what you said?"
Bruce tilted his head slightly. "So, the creature you've come in contact with… this supersoldier augmented with alien radiation and anchored in genetic manipulation—how much do you know about it?"
"I know that nothing I've tried can break through its skin!" snarled Oliver. "Look, let's just be honest, here. I don't like you. You don't like me. But this thing… have you seen the videos? Chloe had the videos. It killed a lot of people. When it surfaces next it might just kill more. I have the team; I have the people to stop something like this. Whatever you have is not enough. Do you understand that?"
Bruce smiled again, but this time it was hard. It wasn't the man, just the bat. "First I need you to show me the lab this thing was built in."
5.
Chloe wasn't invited on their midnight excursion. Instead she found herself hiding out in one of Oliver's buildings running communications. Tonight she had a direct line to Bruce as well as one to Oliver.
She wished she could have been there. Oliver tended to rely on running and jumping to get from place to place. Bruce had brought at least one light-weight glider and some kind of motorcycle, and she knew that his entire gear had somehow fit in two tiny suitcases.
They were just going through the destroyed remains of a Luthercorp lab, not actually assaulting anything, but she couldn't help feeling anxious. Before she'd known who he was, it hadn't been so terrifying to her to think of the Batman in action. But she'd seen him without the armor, and knew that he was a man.
He could die out there.
Tonight. Any night. He wasn't invulnerable. He wasn't immortal. He was just a man.
"Watchtower, we're approaching it. Are the satellites showing any activity in there?" asked Oliver.
"Negative, Green Arrow."
They weren't pulling any other League members in. Oliver didn't want too many of them meeting Bruce, not until he was sure of him. It limited their liability if Bruce turned on them, limited his ability to harm the League.
"We're inside," reported Oliver.
She watched them, small blips of heat on her screens. Moving across an abandoned lab.
"Not much to see here," said Oliver. "I mean, unless you happen to be a dedicated scientist as well as a vigilante."
"Doors were broken in from the outside," replied Bruce. "Somebody was shot, right there. Probably in the back. Do we have any security footage from this event?"
"No. What are you implying?"
"Nothing. Yet. Just adding the facts together."
Oliver hadn't really believed her when she told him that Bruce was smart. He hadn't been listening. But Chloe hadn't said it idly. He was too fast, too quick. Impossible to pin down.
"What are you talking about?" demanded Oliver. "There's no blood."
"Clean spot. Blood's been wiped up with bleach, but it's too clean, too much bleach. They contaminated the crime scene, cleaned up after somebody. Somebody strong enough to break through a military grade door, somebody after their supersoldier. Somebody who pulled it out intact, carefully extracted it. Watchtower, have any other Luthercorp holdings been hit like this?"
Chloe quickly accessed a list of insurance claims. "Uh, two warehouses in Metropolis, one of their Ohio structures, and some overseas holdings have been leveled in the last few weeks."
"Were they looking for this supersoldier, or something else?" asked Bruce rhetorically. "Here, get some samples of the wall where the fluid from the tank splashed on it… I want to run some tests."
"These are a lot of hoops to jump through for a laser," growled Oliver.
Bruce's comm unit went dead. On the satellite his heat signature blinked out.
"Uh, Green Arrow, where's the Bat?" asked Chloe nervously.
"He's right behind… uh, Watchtower, do you still have satellites…?"
"Yeah. He just dropped off them."
"There… there! I can hear his glider. Can he shield his heat signature?"
Chloe sent a command up to the satellite, waiting patiently for it to hear it. "Possibly. But not for long, not if I can… there!"
The satellite expanded its focus, showing her more than just the expected heat of humans. She could see a plainly muffled heat signature as it passed quickly off the screen, heading west.
"He's off comm." Oliver sounded disappointed, maybe even a little angry.
"Did he see something important?" asked Chloe, leaning forward.
"I didn't. I doubt he did. I'm heading back. Call the Big Blue Boyscout Blur up, have him meet you at your location. Just in case. I've got backup standing by to join me. I'll head for the city. Anything on the news so far about the supersoldier?"
Chloe closed her eyes. "No, nothing."
This didn't make any sense. Why had Bruce run like that? Had he seen something he didn't like? Did he get something he was looking for?
Her cell phone rang.
She muted the communications link, opening the phone. "Yes?" she said.
"Listen to me." Bruce's voice was firm and modulated, as if he was choosing his words carefully. It sounded like he was speaking through gritted teeth.
"Bruce, why did you…? Okay, I'm listening."
"Good. Your friend was lying. There were three tanks, and when I asked him to get the fluid, he turned to the one furthest from him, the one the monster had been in."
"How do you know…?"
"I could see the footprints leading up to it."
"What if he saw those?"
"Doubtful. He didn't notice any of the other footprints. Not the ones leading right up to the fellow that had been shot and dragged away. He knew which tank had the creature in it… Chloe, he was lying to me! Lying!" He sounded frustrated.
"I can ask him why, Bruce."
"I've already figured that out. I was afraid of this. He has a vendetta against these people… from the look on his face when you were pulling up those records of attacks, I'd guess he was behind at least some of them. This time he found something he didn't expect, something bigger than what he wanted. But he killed a person here, and I'm done working with him."
"What about the creature—the laser?" she asked desperately.
"You should have asked for a demonstration of the laser before," he said sadly. "I'm afraid that I completely disabled it and destroyed the technology already. Some things are too dangerous… I had no intention of ever handing it over to your friend. I'm sorry, and I wish things weren't this way… I'm going to go deal with the supersoldier. He should be showing up on the news any minute now. His attacks are following a fixed cycle. I'm going to anticipate, to be in the place he's going to be."
"Bruce!" she hissed out, surprised he had found time to dig this up while planning an assault with Oliver. Or had that always been to keep Oliver busy while he dug through things?
"I can't work with people I can't trust," said Bruce flatly.
"You'll never be able to trust anybody, Bruce!" she said, her voice rising.
He didn't reply for a moment. "I know," he said finally. "It's not something I'm happy about, but it's the way it has to be, Chloe.
Then he hung up on her.
6.
For a minute she just stared at the phone. Oliver wanted her to call Clark, to pull him to her side, to protect her. Oliver assumed that Bruce was turning on them, that this was about dividing and conquering.
He never did think much about the big picture.
Chloe was uniquely positioned to know just what was for the best here, just what needed to happen. She was probably the only one here who knew what was really going on, here and now. She could see what Bruce was doing. She could see where this was going.
So she called Clark.
"Clark, it's Chloe; don't talk, just listen. The Bat has found a pattern, and he's going to go face the creature by himself. No laser. He has a plan, and he doesn't want backup, but I think he's going to get himself killed. Clark, you've got to go help him!"
7.
Bruce landed the glider on the roof of one of the taller buildings in Metropolis, collapsing it into a brief-case-sized bundle in a few seconds. The spent rocket he snapped into two pieces, making sure that none of the highly proprietary fuel was left to be analyzed.
The heads-up gear he quickly took apart, stowing it in his belt. His ridiculously over-stuffed belt. He was going to have to start preparing different belts ahead of time, stuffed with specialized toolkits. He already had too much gear to fit, and choosing it out based on mission parameters was taking too long.
He was wearing the full battle rig he'd designed for fighting the Trio in Gotham; maximum hitting power and maximum maneuverability. It wasn't going to do the trick here, but it was his best chance.
He also had the modified laser. He took it out and began assembling it, checking to see that the delicate mirrors and plates were still in place.
A laser meant to cut through rock; an enemy with some kind of energy armor field. This felt too much like a set-up, too much like he only had half the picture. And these 'allies' Chloe had found—her friends—were in this up to their ears. They were lying to each other, and they were lying to him.
So he charged the weapon, and checked his watch. Any minute now, somewhere in the city, something would go down.
So he turned the radio, blinking firmly. "Alfred, do you have anything?"
Alfred was set up in a black van in the middle of Metropolis, with all the electronics money could buy. Teaching him to use the computers could be a hassle—Alfred hated anything with a keyboard with a burning passion—but if anything was going on, he'd know about it.
"Not yet, sir," replied Alfred, his voice clipped. "You should know that she did call for reinforcements, and the big fellow is with her now. They're arguing."
Bruce smiled. "Good. If he's sidelined, we can do this right. Let me know the minute the monsters shows himself."