A New Life
a Justice League story
byMerlin Missy
Copyright 2004
PG
Note to all: these are relatively unrelated story
snippets. Post-Starcrossed, contains spoilers for that
and the JLU preview shown at the end of the Cartoon
Network broadcast. Characters? Situations? Yeah.
Not mine. DC / Warner's. Trust me.
Note to self: when you have writer's block on the long
story you're doing, write something else.
Dead. He was dead. Burned to a crisp during re-entry,
annihilated upon impact. Dead. Dead. Dead and gone.
Deceased. This is an ex-Bat.
Except for the part where he wasn't.
Bruce ... breathed. The air was cool in the Manor this
morning, and silent. In a few hours the sounds of
construction would echo through the halls as his home
was repaired, but for the moment even Alfred was
asleep, and Tim was in San Francisco this week, and the
house was still and he could breathe.
His lungs should have been scorched by superheated air
in the Watchtower; apparently he'd designed the
atmospheric system well enough to compensate even for
the horrifying conditions it underwent as the station
died. He had come through with no worse than the
effects of a bad sunburn, pain that was already fading
with the help of Alfred's private burn cream.
Bruce was mostly fine now, would be completely fine in
time. Only he was dead now.
When he'd shut the airlock, sending J'onn and Flash to
safety in the escape pod, he'd known what he was doing.
One part suicide, one part heroic sacrifice, he'd done
what he could to complete his job: protect his city,
his world, however he could. If this time that meant
not coming back, well, that was the same risk he ran
every night.
On the way down, he'd kept his mind focused. Guide the
Watchtower, keep it on course, reach the target. He
had no room for distractions, no time to consider Dick
as he'd first seen the boy filled with a familiar
strength and pain, to hope Alfred would be the one to
tell Jim and Barbara, to speculate on the good man Tim
was destined to grow to be, to feel the lingering
tingle on his lips from what could have been a
beginning.
No time.
And then the heat had surrounded him, filled him,
choked him, and he'd wished them all long happy lives,
and he'd died.
He should have died.
But Clark, stupid Clark who never saw what was in front
of him, stuck-up Clark who knew very well he was the
strongest, crazy Clark who refused to believe dead was
dead, Clark had come for him, had saved him like a
kitten from a tree, or like Lois when she'd once again
gone a little too far in pursuit of the truth. Clark
had snatched him away from his death, had given him
time again.
Bastard.
There was more affection in the thought than anger.
How could he be angry? Even if Clark had completely
abandoned his mission to come gallivanting to the
rescue, how could Bruce dare resent him? After all,
Clark had only acted the way he always did.
Clark loved him.
Not, his mind was quick to provide, in the way the
trashier tabloids suggested. According to some of
those publications, the League would barely have time
to sleep with all the activities they were supposedly
engaging in with one another. Bruce would have been
much more worried about those insinuations had he not
spent over a decade running around at night wearing
tights, usually in the company of similarly-clad young
men. One had to be supremely confident in one's own
sexuality to do so. He was. As for Clark, given his
upbringing, he'd probably never even considered the
matter, and if asked, he'd chuckle his patented Boy
Scout of the Universe chuckle, and fly off to save some
nuns or something.
No, Clark loved him because that's who Clark was, even
when he was trying to be someone else, something else.
He opened his heart, he let people inside. He'd taken
J'onn home for Christmas because J'onn had nowhere else
to be. He saved the world in big and small ways every
day because he loved the Earth and her people. And
that's why he took Hawkgirl's betrayal so personally,
because Clark could never understand why someone he
loved would hurt him.
Bruce expected people to hurt him, to hurt each other,
to lie, to cheat, to steal. Clark expected the best
from everyone, but Bruce anticipated the worst, and was
not often disappointed. And the thing was, the amazing
thing that drive Bruce crazy, was that Clark was not
often disappointed, either. He felt that people, deep
down, were good people, and it seemed that people who
had encountered him became better human beings; he gave
people an opportunity to be better, and they didn't
want to disappoint him.
Clark hadn't given up on Luthor; even now, after
everything, Clark still tried to reach him, to save him
from himself. Bruce just wanted to make sure Luthor
couldn't hurt anyone else. Here in the morning, the
first morning of his new life, Bruce wasn't sure which
of them was right.
It was possible Clark was going to end up turning Bruce
into a better person against his wishes, pull him out
of the shadows he knew too well. The thought chilled
him. He had seen a world Clark had recreated in his
own image, and over drinks not long ago, Lois had told
him about another such world she'd seen. There was too
much of the straight and narrow, sometimes. And the
only place where the sun shone every day was the
desert.
So maybe Bruce needed to stay who he was, what he was,
just to make sure they both stayed sane.
The sun rose.
He'd seen sunrises from rooftops, from orbit, from his
bed with a woman in his arms. Every time, it had meant
a new day in the battle, a new morning to end a night
spent fighting. Now he didn't know what it meant.
Maybe it could mean whatever he wanted. Maybe after
you were dead, you got to decide who you were next time
around.
It was morning, and people were making toast and coffee
and were getting ready for their jobs. He never could
truly leave his own job, he knew that, but if there was
room to breathe here in the dawn light, maybe there was
room for living, too. Maybe there was time.
He dialed the number, let it ring. He expected a
machine, wondered if he could make himself leave a
message.
"Hello?" He heard the groggy inflections of someone
who'd gotten to bed less than an hour before. Bruce
almost hung up.
"It's me," he said, in the voice he used when it really
was him. "Sorry to wake you."
"It's okay," said Dick. "What's up?"
"Did you hear?"
"Hear what?"
"Why we're here."
"We're replacements."
"Sixty people, for one opening?"
"You've seen the job market lately?"
"Funny."
Kara wandered quietly through the crowd, picking up
snatches of conversation. The League, well most of it,
was still behind closed doors. The rest of them,
hopefuls all, mulled around inside the Tower but
outside the room.
"You know what I heard?"
"I heard they sent her packing."
"I thought they said she's taking a leave of absence."
"You don't take a leave of absence from being a
superhero."
"I heard she went back to Thanagar."
"Uh uh. She was spotted in Midway City just last
week."
"Sure it was her?"
"Lot of girls with wings in your city?"
"I saw one in Dakota, once."
She knew some of the faces, some of the names. Most of
them knew her, grew quieter when they saw her, nodded,
started talking again.
"She's probably a shoe-in for the position," she heard
someone whisper when they thought she'd gone.
"I hear they're looking for ten new people."
"To replace one person?"
"I heard she tried to kill them."
"I thought she pretended to try to kill them, but was
on our side the whole time."
"I'll bet she said so later."
"Looks like they didn't believe her."
Kara bit her lip. Clark hadn't said much to her,
after. He'd given her the basics, but she was sure he
hadn't told her the full story. She didn't know if it
was for League security, or just because it hurt him
too much to think about right now.
"I heard that not all of the aliens left."
"What do you mean?"
"I heard Batman has one locked up in his Cave, and he
does experiments on it. In case they come back"
"He would."
"I bet the Martian is helping him."
She tried to crane her head up, resisted the urge to
fly. Flash was the only one out yet. That made sense.
He and Clark had the most people skills, and Clark was
seen as the leader. When Clark came out, things would
start. Flash could press the flesh, and get the feel
of the crowd, and nobody would think anything of it.
"When are they coming out?"
"What does it matter when? They'll come out, we'll get
tested."
"What do you think the tests are going to be like?"
"Oh, show off your powers, probably. Maybe a written."
She wondered if they knew they were being tested right
now.
"Batman gives me the creeps."
"I know. The Flash is pretty slimy, too."
"He seems nice."
"Maybe, but he can move so fast, he can grab you and
let go and you wouldn't know it at all."
"You think maybe they have her locked up? In there?"
"I'd believe Batman would. Not Superman, though."
"What's he doing on the team anyway?"
"Batman?"
"Yeah. He doesn't have any powers at all."
A respectful distance grew around the speaker. "You
ever go up against the Bat?"
"Well, no."
"Then shut up."
"You think they're looking for people with certain
powers?"
"They probably don't want overlap."
"Oh." Kara felt someone staring in her direction,
ignored it.
"I heard Nightwing already turned them down."
A snort. "Nightwing and Batman working together?
That'd be the day."
"I thought they used to be partners."
"Used to."
"Oh."
"You think they'll want more women? They just have the
one."
"Yeah, but that's Wonder Woman."
"So?"
"Would you want to be the only other woman around with
her on the team?"
"Why not?"
"Well, she's very pretty."
"Not that. Because. She comes from an island of all
women ... "
"You've heard about her, right?"
"I haven't heard anything."
"Let's just say she was probably really sad to see
Hawkgirl go."
"What are you saying?"
"Not what he thinks he's saying. I have it on good
authority that Green Lantern's going to miss Hawkgirl a
lot more."
"Really? What have you heard?"
"You think she's taking a nine month leave?"
"That's just ... wrong. I mean, no offense and all,
but it's just weird."
"You know what I heard?" Kara cut in, before anyone
else could speak.
"What?" There was an eagerness now. After all, wasn't
she Superman's junior partner? Didn't she work with
Batgirl sometimes? She was practically an insider.
Kara smiled, and leaned in conspiratorially. Her
audience gathered in around her.
"I heard," she said in a very quiet voice, "that
Superman has super-hearing, and that he hates gossips."
She turned around and joined Flash at the head of the
room, just as the door opened.
"Well that's something you don't see every day." Steve
turned the volume up on the tv.
"Buncha superheroes in their pajamas. What's new about
that?" Carl sipped his coffee.
"That they're all together." The reporter stood in
front of the new Watchtower. Behind him, heroes of all
sizes and shapes and colors stood lined up. Since the
little "Live" tag wasn't on the screen, and since it
would already be dark in Metropolis, Steve figured it
was a rebroadcast from earlier in the day. "Anyone
know if they said who they picked?"
Joe said, "I don't think they did."
"Maybe they'll take 'em all," said Carl.
"There's not gonna be room for them all," Steve said,
looking at the Watchtower again. The news story
changed to something about the President. He clicked
the tv off.
"They probably do shifts. Like us." Carl grinned.
"They've got a clock on the wall, everyone punches in.
If you're late, you get docked."
"I don't think they get paid," said Joe.
"That would suck. Save the world, still not get paid?"
"They gotta have day jobs," Steve said. "Under those
masks, they could be anybody." He looked around the
break room.
"You're right," said Joe. "And I have to confess. I'm
Superman." There were chuckles all around.
"I'm gonna call you that the rest of the night," said
Carl. "Come on, break's over."
Steve grabbed his coat and hat, gave the MCPD on his
badge a quick little polish. "You coming, Sarah?"
The new trainee kept staring into her coffee,
oblivious. Steve sighed inwardly. When she was on
duty she was fine, but given a moment to herself, Sarah
was a million miles away every time.
"Hall! Wake up!"
"Sorry. Just woolgathering." She hadn't bothered
taking off her coat, was ready as she got to her feet.
She instead put on a smile that didn't make it all the
way up to her eyes. "Time to do some good."
The End