PERMISSION TO ARCHIVE: Please ask.
CATEGORY: Vignette, no plot here!
SUMMARY: "You can't appreciate home till you've left it"
CONTINUITY: Takes place during the episode "The Once and Future Thing: Weird Western Tales"
DISCLAIMER: These characters belong to DC Comics. I just fantasize and worry about them.
NOTES: I wasn't going to write about Cowboy Bruce, but he insisted. I'm still not sure why he chose this moment to want me to write about him...
The saloon was dirty, smelly, and rife with barely-leashed tension--it made Batman homesick for the seedier parts of Gotham.
He resisted the urge to tip the hat even lower across his forehead, because every time he did, either Wonder Woman or Green Lantern laughed at him. And that was even more annoying than the...exposed feeling.
It was all well and good for the other two to wander around being heroes with their faces exposed to the world, but he was Batman. Neither of them had the faintest clue how hard he worked to keep his two lives separate, how much effort it required to keep the civilians in his life safe.
They didn't understand why Batman needed to be alone.
And while his conscious mind knew there was no need to hide his face so far in the past, it still made him want to squirm--face bare to the world, sitting next to two of the most famous members of the cape and tights crowd. He felt like he had a target painted on his back. In neon letters. Saying 'Kick me.'"
Batman wanted to be in the Cave with Robin making bad jokes. Or flying through the skies while Nightwing tried to provoke him to anger. Or even back on the Watchtower with Lantern putting him on the spot. Anywhere but stuck in the past, with their only hope of getting home finding one idiot time traveler.
Not true, a traitorous portion of his mind argued: There were far worse fates than being stuck in the past with Diana, where they weren't Batman and Wonder Woman, charter members of the Justice League. Where--
Batman told Bruce to shut up, and absentmindedly took a drink of his beer. It was just as vile as he'd predicted and it took effort not to spit it out.
They needed to find their missing time traveler and get out of this place. They needed to stop wasting their time in saloons watching card games. They needed to do something, rather than just sit here hoping a clue would drop in their laps.
In the spirit of 'Know thyself,' Batman had to admit (but only in the privacy of his mind) that he was uncomfortable with so many openly displayed guns. They were everywhere, making his palms itch and the hair on his neck stand up. He should be rounding them up and dumping them in a handy river, not waiting for somebody to get shot.
And right on schedule, that poker game was going downhill fast. Batman tensed, preparing for action if necessary, cursing at being on the opposite side of the table from any gunplay that was about to occur. What were the chances that Lantern and Diana could restrain themselves from using their powers?
In the depths of his mind, Batman growled in the manner that made hardened criminals shake in their boots. He just wanted to go home, damn it. Was that too much to ask?
--end--
Final author's note: The title is from the O. Henry story "The Fourth of Salvador": "You can't appreciate home till you've left it, money till it's spent, your wife till she's joined a woman's club, nor Old Glory till you see it hanging on a broomstick on the shanty of a consul in a foreign town."