Metropolis in the springtime was something that Claire Branigan couldn't help but appreciate. It was not a city of trees or of seasons or greenery - there were none of the usual signs of spring that one might expect. But the way the clouds parted and the sun shone, bouncing between monolithic steel buildings and glass-paned highrises, gave the city a brightness even in its darkness parts, let alone the gleaming uptown where a dark-windowed sedan passed through the streets towards Wayne Tower.
"I could get used to this chauffeur thing. Kinda nice," Barry chuckled, glancing over at the passenger seat at Claire, who stared around her home city as though she had never seen it before. "Get me a spiffy hat. Fun accent. I hear Uber pays well."
Claire laughed absentmindedly, still staring out the window. The whirlwind of the last few months seemed to finally be settling, and as the dust settled, it revealed a Metropolis that glinted and gleamed even more than before.
Bruce Wayne, Claire would concede, deserved credit at least this one time for being good to his word. After their meeting, he had promptly set Claire up in a temporary condo in Central City to let her finish preparing for her nurse practitioner exam - so she would have a fighting chance at starting over, he told her. And now that she had passed her exam and was fully licensed, it seemed like things were finally starting to return to some kind of normalcy.
"This is our stop," Barry said as he pulled up in the front lot of Wayne Towers. "I think everyone should be here waiting for you."
"I'm staying here?" Claire asked skeptically. "Isn't it a little... conspicuous?"
"Well, you're not in hiding or anything," Barry shrugged as they each got out of the car and walked into the front entrance. "You weren't expecting Mr. Wayne to have you living in the sewers, Ninja Turtle Style, were you?" Claire begrudgingly chuckled at the question and shrugged while she followed Barry into the building, through the main lobby, and into the elevator, only to have Barry pause as the doors closed and stare down at the panel of buttons before letting out a short string of mutters. He gave a groan as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. "Pick up, pick up." Claire quickly piece together the situation, and the corners of her lips curled upward as she held back a chuckle.
"You forgot what floor we're going to."
"I forgot what floor we're going to."
"Nice."
Claire finally let the laughter escape in a throaty guffaw, shaking her head as Barry managed to determine what floor he was supposed to be taking her too - the seventeenth - and got the elevator started up the shaft. There was still something so distinctly unreal about being back home, if this could even be considered home. Disembarking from the elevator and following Barry down the hall, Claire almost felt as though her limbs were not her own, carrying her down the hall to something she couldn't quite predict. He walked a few steps ahead of her and pulled a key out of his pocket, opening the door to reveal that Diana and Bruce were both already waiting inside of the bright, sunlit suite, already furnished as though Claire had moved in long ago. Granted, none of it was her stuff - it didn't occur to her that much of it was somewhere she hadn't the courage to set foot in just yet.
"I'm... I'm staying here?" Claire asked, taking a few hesitant steps inside and glancing around the living room, admittedly a little awestruck. "Mister Wayne, I really can't -"
"Bruce," he corrected with a shadow of a smirk. "I think we're there. And yes, you can."
Claire mirrored the expression with one side of her lips curling into a semi-smile and nodding, dropping her small duffel bag onto the ground with a dull thud. She took a few meandering steps across the room in silence while everyone looked on, gaging her reaction to her new home as though she were an injured bird who could fall out of the sky at any moment. Claire made her way to the sliding door and stepped out onto the small balcony, finding herself somewhat frozen by the view - first, because it was beautiful, and second, because it allowed her a particular view that couldn't have been anything but intentional. She felt her breath catch in her throat as she realized her balcony had a direct view of LexCorp Tower. She stared unblinkingly at the building for a few seconds, then back over her shoulder.
"We promised you would no longer feel like a prisoner," Diana spoke up, knowing that this kind of conversation was far from Bruce Wayne's strong point. "You're free to make whatever decision you please. You have the freedom to choose your own fate."
"Even if it's him," Bruce couldn't help but pipe in, knowing that it went without saying who he was referring to. Diana shot him a sharp look, but Claire responded with only a weak laugh, shaking her head.
"I don't know how to deal with all that right now," Claire admitted with a shrug of her shoulders. "I don't know if I'll ever know how to deal with it. But... thank you. This is too much, it really is."
"So I guess you're going to really flip out when they tell you that there's more."
"Barry," Bruce interrupted with a brief roll of his eyes, realizing that the younger man clearly had no concept of letting news marinate before springing more on someone. He waited only a moment before shrugging slightly and glancing back at Claire. "It's not so much news as it is keeping my word. Here," he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his phone, flicking casually to a photograph which he brandished in Claire's direction. She stepped back inside and took the phone from his hand hesitantly, seeing the outside of the newly-finished Metropolis Free Clinic in all of its sleek, modern glory. It took a moment for her eyes to fall on the plaque at the front of the building which bore her own name right next to that of Dr. Leslie Thompkins. Her eyes widened slightly and she looked up in disbelief.
"I told you a long time ago, I don't think I know anyone as qualified as you are to run the clinic. It's something that was important to my parents," Bruce said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a set of keys, which he held ouyt to her in exchange for his phone back. "And I'm trusting you with it. I'm not particularly good at extending olive branches, but I think this'll do."
"Olive branch," Claire chuckled, still stunned as she clenched the set of keys in her hand. "I think you're handing me the entire damn olive tree, Mister Wayne."
"Bruce."
"Whatever."
At this, a much less uneasy chuckle moved through the inhabitants of the room and it seemed a level of tension had been dissolved. Bruce tucked his phone away again and nodded. "We said you could start seeing patients on Monday, their files were transferred over and they're waiting for you whenever you're ready."
"You don't waste any time putting your friends to work, do you?" Claire asked wryly.
"He really doesn't," Barry piped in again with a lopsided grin. While Bruce mildly rolled his eyes, Diana was admittedly amused by the fact that the pair seemed to share a sense of comradery with one another - similar in age, same sense of humor. If anything, Diana had pointed out to Bruce multiple times, having someone more similar to herself in their midst would help keep Claire close to them.
"Would it be okay if I headed over there?" Claire asked, crossing her arms over herself and shifting her weight. "Gain my bearings a little, get ready for all of this? It's... a lot," she said honestly. "It's all good, but it's still a lot."
"Of course. Do you want a ride?" Bruce asked. "It's not far -"
"I can walk or take a cab or something. It's been a while since I've really had time to myself like this," Claire replied. There was a shared look between the others, and Claire had a fleeting sense of them doubting her - not distrusting her, but understandably unable to predict what she would do. However, with little spectacle, they agreed to bow out and check up on her another time after she'd had some time to get settled in her new surroundings. After they had gone, Claire changed into a clean set of clothes and paced around her new home for a few minutes before heading out the door again.
Walking down the streets of Metropolis on her own was far from new to her. This was where she had spent her entire life. This was still the same Metropolis, even if she no longer felt like the same Claire Branigan, and she took some level of comfort in that. Upon arriving at the front door of the brand new clinic and briefly tracing her fingertips over her name on the plaque for the first time, she stepped inside and felt herself exhale heavily.
It was real. She had been working towards this for so long - since her father had passed away - and now, she had finally gotten here. Even if she had arrived by means which still stung when she looked back on them, this was her dream. She slowly walked across the front lobby towards the front desk where, as promised, there was a stack of files belonging to her first batch of patients that she was going to see on Monday. All of the files belonged to mostly familiar faces - mostly children she had seen at the Gotham City clinic location what seemed like a lifetime ago.
The sight of the familiar faces brought a sense of urgency - these were the same kids who had come to trust her and Doctor Thompkins back in Gotham City. Now, she reminded herself as she opened the first file, she had to make sure she kept that trust. The first patient, she realized, had a laundry list of prescriptions for his severe asthma and recurring pneumonia that needed to be transferred over to a pharmacy in Metropolis. She picked up the phone and dialed the number.
"Hi, Claire Branigan, nurse practitioner at the Metropolis Wayne Memorial Clinic," she said, still feeling unfamiliar with the title slipping off of her tongue when she provided it to the pharmacist who answered the call. "I have a patient transferring to our network from the Gotham City office, and I just wanted to make sure that you were able to offer the generic medication at your pharmacy?"
"Of course," the pharmacist answered. "Name and date of birth?"
The call went on as many others did, and Claire provided all of the information the woman asked for just as she would any other time, preparing to have to negotiate on price to make sure the child received their medicine without costing an arm and a leg. However, Claire found herself surprised by the turn the conversation took instead.
"Unfortunately, we don't carry a generic form of that medication at our pharmacy," the pharmacist began.
"Is there any possibility of adjusting the price to be more comparable?" Claire asked. "I'd hate to transfer this family to a pharmacy farther from their home."
"Oh, absolutely," the pharmacist said brightly. "We don't carry a generic, but we do have the LexCorp formulation - it'll only cost about five dollars to fill the prescription."
"The... the LexCorp formulation, right," Claire said, recovering with a forced laugh to mask her disbelief. "That's great news. Thank you."
"Of course. Have a good one, Miss Branigan."
And as Claire went through the rest of the files to call the appropriate pharmacies, she found that almost every single pharmacy was still carrying the LexCorp formulations of medications - which could only mean that the pharmaceutical program she had started at LexCorp was still up and running, and that Lex hadn't dismantled it even in her absence. She found herself both relieved and unsettled, even on her way back to her suite at Wayne Towers, wondering what this meant and if it meant anything at all. Surely, she thought, it was just business. Surely it was just the most sound decision and best publicity possible for the company.
It was getting dark by the time she got back to the suite - back home - and she found herself wandering out to the balcony again to stare at the familiar shape of LexCorp Tower in the distance as thought it would give her some kind of answer. She leaned against the railing and stared blankly in the direction of the monolithic skyscraper until something caught her eye.
The light in the executive boardroom was on, and as Claire looked closer, she realized that there was a figure standing in the large bay window, staring out as well. It didn't take more than a second or two for Claire to realize, even without focusing on the figure themselves, that only one person would be lingering in the boardroom this late. She felt her breath hitch in her throat as it dawned on her that she and Lex were staring right at one another, distantly and wordlessly. She could see him easily now, and somehow she knew that he could most likely see her as well.
Awkwardly, Claire made the first move, raising her hand in a weak greeting before thinking better of it, turning around and going back inside.
All of this was something that could be figured out another day.
A/N
And finally, another update! Thank you again for everyone who got in touch with me and left me their feedback - as well as all of you who checked up on my real life goings-on! I'm happy to say that I gave birth to a healthy baby boy at the end of March, and I might post a photo or two on my Tumblr for anyone interested. My time for writing is obviously limited with a little one who needs me all the time, but I've been finding time here and there. Next chapter, we're going to see more actual interaction between Lex and Claire (finally!) and more shenanigans.
As always, thank you for all of your feedback and support! Writing this story is my biggest escape and most relaxing hobby right now, and I appreciate that I have all of you reading along and enjoying the ride with me. Until next time, cheers!