Gotham,Wayne Manor,2.15PM
Bruce grunted as he pushed his bodyweight up and down on his right arm. A small face towel was draped over his shoulders to catch the sweat dripping from his head and on his torso. He shifted his weight onto his left arm and performed 20 repetitions,then shifted back to his right arm, using just the fingers for support.
He repeated the motion with his left arm, then stood up, wiping his face and had just completed what he considered his light evening training session of 30 minutes shadow boxing,30 minutes jumping rope,100 pullups,100 situps and 100 pushups,all performed while wearing a 50lb weight vest.
Across the room on the massive computer monitor news images flashed across the screen in silence. He stood up and walked over to the monitor, pushing the mute button so the sound could play.
"...was a brief skirmish downtown, but it seems like Superman is finally starting to heed those complaints about collateral damage whenever these meta's have their little showdowns. See, right there"-the presenter zoomed in on the image of Superman flying out of Metropolis. A few hundred feet away from him was a dark blur that seemed to be moving in on the city very fast-"he left the city. Now sure, there was some damage, but it was mostly a tree, some craters in the ground. That is much better than his past exploits isn't it?"
"I think you're missing the point here, Susan. Whether he took the fight out of town or not, the fact is, the very existence of these so called 'superheroes', it encourages the formation of 'supervillains' to challenge them. In fact I'd go so far as to say superheroes are directly responsible for the existence of supervillains."
"And once upon a time, I would have agreed with you Rob. But now I'm thinking, as long as he protects humanity from these threats in a way that helps more than it hurts, is he really all that bad?"
"Well,we can acknowledge that, but consider that this...whatever it was that attacked Metropolis, that kind of stuff never happened before he showed up. All of these things happening lately all around the world. Weird things,things no one can explain. Take the latest eerie thing thats hit us these past few years. These freak events of nature, like the unexplained storms,dissapearance of ships and cargo, at all the major industrial ports. Closer home, were hearing things that are weird even for Gotham. Rumors of entire squads of police being slaughtered,psychos running around mutilating people,man-eating crocodiles in the sewers,cyborg assassins.. the list is endless. All of that started happening around the time Batman came on the scene-"
"Surely you don't believe in The Batman, do you Rob?" the hostess asked with a deprecating tone.
"I do. That might not make sense to you Susan, you have a nice job, you live in a nice part of town. The Gotham you live in is not the Gotham I live in. I live a few blocks from Crime Alley, the name probably means nothing to you-"
"Crime Alley, where Thomas and Martha Wayne were murdered. Even I know what that means Rob." she replied with a toneless laugh.
"Yes. Anyway, I can assure you that the crime in the area reduced drastically over the past 5 years, which is around the time we started hearing these rumors of vampires,demons and all sorts of weird crap about kidnappings. Talk to people on the street, the ones who live in the urban areas, I guarantee they'll have a Bat story or two for you. Now you know and I know we don't have the most..er..competent police force in the state. What do you think is more likely, Batman is real or the GCPD suddenly pulled their heads out of their asses?"
"Well, when you put it that way.. So you admit that this Batman, that all these superheroes, they help us?"
"Yes. I've never denied that fact. Metahumans are just like us at the end of the day, except they have a slight genetic anomaly. There will be good and bad metahumans just as there are good and bad people, so it makes sense that there would be superheroes and supervillains. The problem here is we suffer as a result of their actions. They aren't governed by our laws. All of these metahumans who try to use their abilities to help mankind, they may have good intentions, but they need to be...regulated somehow. There needs to be some sort of system in place. Some form of accountability. Superman won't always be able to take the fight out of the city, what happens if he knocks down say, Lex Luthors big new shiny factory? Or God forbid, some children's home somewhere?"
Bruce pressed the mute button again.
Lex.
He hadn't forgotten about him. His intel would be coming in today, but he already had a pretty good idea what the Artificial Intelligence chips stolen from his company were used for. What didn't make sense was the endgame. Sure, Lex obviously disliked Superman and he did lose money every time one of his trucks blew up in a battle or a building of his got shot full of holes. It wasn't much money to a billionaire like Lex,so there had to be more to it. Or maybe it was as simple as Lex being an egomaniac who couldn't stand to see something he built tarnished in any way. Sometimes the easiest answer is the right one.
He could go after him in court. WayneTech sues Lexcorp for corporate espionage, among other things. He had more than enough money to bankroll it and get the best lawyers in the world to destroy Lex in court.
No.
With Lex it would come down to shady connections and underhanded deals,and Bruce knew he couldn't bring himself to use such methods, even for a good cause. Lex would worm his way out of trouble and he would learn nothing more of his plans.
He would have to go after him as Batman. That posed various problems. For starters, he didn't know Luthor's movements, and while he could use his satellites and surveillance equipment to monitor him, it would take too long to establish a routine and time was a precious commodity at this point. Second,it would require time away from Gotham, perhaps an extended period. This could easily be explained by Bruce Wayne, but Batman missing on the streets of Gotham even for a few nights is highly suspect, not to mention profitable for criminals. Third,he didn't like Metropolis. Too sparkly,too colorful, like a cheap christmas decoration.
What could he do? Reach out to Superman? He dismissed the notion almost as quickly as he thought it up. Superman would have no way of knowing who was coming after him, unless he was a highly skilled detective, which Bruce doubted. He would likely assume it was the military as always,though they hadn't come after him in quite a while. And if he found the WayneTech AI chip and put together the Wayne Enterprises US Military government contracts that would probably reinforce the notion that it was the army.
He could convince him that Lex Luthor is after him.
How? Assuming Superman would be level headed, reasonable and willing to talk. But Bruce couldn't afford to assume. What would stop Superman from punching him in the face on sight? He would probably assume he was a threat once he saw him. And that raised another question, how would he even contact Superman?
Assuming Superman was telling the truth in his newspaper interviews, he had grown up on Earth. A person with such ability living among humans would have to have learned to hide his 'otherness', to camouflage himself in the masses. Bruce paused his train of thought. Too many things based off of assumption. But I have no choice. Damned if I do, damned if I don't.
He would have to find Superman, in his alternate identity, the one that he used to masquerade as a human. Hopefully then he wouldn't get his head punched off, and they could talk. Hopefully. Back to the subject of finding kind of task was just about impossible.
Impossible If you aren't Bruce Wayne that is.
I have billions of dollars worth of military surveillance and communications equipment,and I'm a pretty damn good hacker if I do say so myself. How hard can it be? He thought.
Metropolis,9.15PM.
Perry White locked the door of his office, frowning as he noticed the trio sitting around their workspace. The usual suspects, he thought. Lois was a very, very ambitious reporter. Like most ambitious people who are really good at what they do, she was anally obsessive about getting the job done. Oftentimes Clark and Jimmy had to put up with a lot of late nights when Lois was on a hot streak.
"Hey, you three. Get the hell out of here. Its Friday night."
"Wow chief. I thought you'd appreciate us burning the midnight oil." Lois remarked.
"Don't call me chief. I hate that. It's Friday night for God's sake. You're young. Go to a disco. Or whatever you kids get up to these days." Perry turned on his heel and left without waiting for a reply.
"Well." said Clark.
"Did he say Disco?"Lois queried.
"Y'know the way he speaks sometimes, it's like he's from another time."said Jimmy.
"Although, he does have a point. I've been working you guys to the bone"-Clark and Jimmy offered feeble protests-"so I guess I'll let you guys go for the weekend." The two men were visibly relieved. Lois grinned wickedly. "Use it wisely. Come Monday, we got more intel to collect so that means more field work, and I'd like to get the first 3 articles in the series fleshed out so that means another late night. See you then."With that she picked up her handbag and started to walk out of the office. That was Lois. Always ready to go at a moments notice.
"Lois, please tell me you're joking. Lois. Lois!" He turned to Clark. "She was joking right?"
"I hope so." Clark feigned a yawn.
"No, don't do that to me man. It's the first night we've had free in like 6 months."
"Jimmy, we've been working on this story for 3 days now."
"Whatever! The passage of time feels much slower when you don't get to unwind every once in awhile. I haven't had sex since September"-
"I didn't need to know that Jimmy."
But Jimmy rambled on-"and I really feel like tonight's gonna be the night, y'know? I'm feeling lucky. You know, when you just got that.. that feeling?"
Clark rubbed his face and sighed. Jimmy was definitely craving a night out. He knew he would have to go along. Jimmy had a kind of irritating vibe that strangely got him into a lot of fights with a lot of very scary people whenever he was in such a mood. He would probably be home past midnight.
Clark stood up and put on his coat."All right. But you're buying. I have a reporters salary."
Jimmy packed his camera into his bag."Oh'cause us newspaper photographers are rolling in the green right?"
"You've been wearing some very snazzy loafers lately Jimmy. And the shirts? Where are you getting all that money from? Did a rich uncle die and leave you everything?"
Jimmy blushed and said nothing.
"Woah, Jimmy, you've been holding out on me?"
"It's uh.. It's just a thing I do on the side, a.. uh.. photography thing.."
"What kind of photography thing?"
Jimmy blushed again. "Look.. uh.. I'll tell you later, ok?"
"Ok. Where are we going?"
"I don't know. Azteca?"
Clark laughed outright. "I'm not standing in line for 3 hours so I can get into a club that plays music I don't like and charges 3 times the usual rate for a drink. Besides, we're not in college anymore. I can't party all night and be functional the next day like I used to."
"Yeah, you got a point. Getting older sucks huh?" Jimmy's eyes got a distant faraway look.
"Yeah." Clark said. "Anyway, let's get going?"
"Sure. Just let me lock up here. Left it open once, Perry almost had a heart attack."
Several hours later, 3.22AM
Clark walked down the street outside his house, looking around. It was late, or early depending on how one looked at it. As predicted, the night with Jimmy had been quite eventful. After 2 near fights with 2 different groups of men who looked like they came off the set of Sons of Anarchy, Clark and Jimmy made their way to another bar a few blocks away, where Jimmy revealed his 'photography thing'. Apparently he took photos of animals dressed in childrens clothes, then photoshopped them according to the owners needs. It was a strange job but the client was a rich old lady and Jimmy badly needed the money. Two women at the bar who overheard Jimmy's tale thought it was cute and came over to their table. By the end of the night the two women and Jimmy were quite drunk, and it fell on Clark to get them home(as usual).
He had barely made it back alone, one of the women had been interested in Clark, making passes at him all night that he politely declined. In the cab, he was forced to physically restrain her when she got violent,then he listened in awkward silence as she wept and talked about her ex who she claimed had given her chlamydia. She had sobered up a little when they got to her home, giving Clark her number and kissing him quickly before going into her apartment with an embarassed air.
Clark threw the number in the dumpster before he got back in the cab.
The streets were deserted. All the lights in the buildings were off, save for the streetlights outside. It was safe.
He floated up to his window and pushed it open, floating into his house.
He knew something was off right away. The air current had changed ever so slightly, it didn't feel the way it was supposed to. Something was causing an obstruction somewhere in the room. Feigning ignorance, he walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge, opening a bottle of beer and drinking deeply from it. Clark wasn't stupid. As soon as he was old enough to understand how the world worked, he had known that one day, someway somehow his identity would be uncovered, and someone, probably the military, would come after him. He had known this day would come eventually, but now that it was here he found he didn't know how to react. His only consolation was that Jonathan and Martha wouldn't be here to see this.
As he drank from the bottle, he focused his senses. He could hear a heartbeat. It was slow, incredibly slow, and steady. Clark was sure he had never heard a slower heartbeat in his life. He focused on the breathing next. It was also unusually slow. Very deep and even, like the person was deep asleep. It was a man, Clark was certain. He couldn't explain it, it was something about the strangers presence he could sense. He could smell something too. It was very faint. The slightest whiff of cologne or aftershave, and not the cheap kind.
"I know you're here. Show yourself." Clark said to the empty room.
He had hardly finished saying the words before a caped figure emerged from the darkest corner of the room. Clark scrutinized the could see the outline of the man in the faint light. The horns on his head, the dark cape that hung from his shoulders. The black insignia on his chest. The scallops on the gloves. The white slits that were his eyes.
Clark had been expecting a slick government agent type. Perhaps a Jason Bourne/Ethan Hunt kind of guy at most. A man in a horned black rubber suit hadn't even been on the list. Clark would have laughed if it wasn't for the severity of the situation.
"Clark Kent, we need to talk." The man said in a gruff voice.
A/N: Hope everyone is having a good year so far. Was hoping for a few more reviews, but I see I've been added to the BMWW ship community(which is great), so thank you. As always read and review.