Gotham, 11.15PM
Bruce had almost given up trying to find Superman.
There was little promise to begin with. Try as he might, he couldn't form anything concrete over these past few hours. Information on Superman was scant, mostly in the form of newspaper interviews with the Daily Planet. Bruce was loath to trust that information, mainly because it was provided by Superman himself, and he had to assume the alien was lying.

He knew that Superman had surfaced in Metropolis around late 2010, and thanks to the interview Bruce knew that Superman was in his early twenties at the time. But that didn't mean much. It still didn't answer much about his secret identity. Bruce rubbed his chin thoughtfully, feeling the stubble on his jaw. He made a mental note to shave before going on patrol. Batman with 5 o'clock shadow just wouldn't do.

He leaned back in his chair.
Ok, think Bruce, think. The interview stated that Superman came to Earth as a baby when his home world was destroyed, then he was raised by humans. If he's in his early twenties, and assuming he developed at the same rate as humans at the very least, he probably came to earth circa 1990. The military would have the vessel that brought Superman to Earth, unless baby Superman flew all the way here, which was ridiculous even for him. But as far as Bruce knew(and he knew a lot) the military didn't have anything like that in their possession.

Which meant nothing was ever recovered from the crash site. That shouldn't have been possible, not in this day and age. You can't just dissapear anymore, this was something Bruce knew too well because of his government contracts. Big brother was always watching. Watching everyone, everywhere, everytime. There was just no way a UFO, however small, penetrated Earth's atmosphere without detection.

Bruce began searching the records in his files. Waynetech hadn't cut a deal with the military until well into 2003, so he wouldn't be able to find anything in his own database. He hacked into the NSA database, hoping to find some information. He pored through the records for hours. FBI,CIA, no one had anything on him, if they did, they had it buried deep. Very, very, very deep. Though he picked up a lot of very valuable information in those hours, almost none of it was related to Superman.

After a short break(during which he performed katas for an hour)he returned to the task, his mind refreshed by the change in activity. It was so obvious now. He should be looking in space for evidence of Superman's entry, not on Earth. He hacked the NASA database,going through the files marked confidential. He scrolled through them for an hour, nothing of interest. Then he came across something. It was encyrpted. He could let the program he set up create an algorithm to deal with it. Or he could cook up something special and hack through it himself. He cracked his knuckles and started hammering at the keys.

3 Hours later...
At long last, he had gotten through. It was a fiendishly difficult code to crack,the encyrption changing and becoming more complicated with each hour.

With an air of satisfaction, he opened the document. The document showed readings from the NASA instruments in outer space. The satellites stationed just outside the atmosphere had some very telling information. There were anomalies in some of the readings from the satellites in 1990.

It fits the date. Not much, but it's all I got. The file was heavily encrypted. No one puts that much security around something unless its of immense value, he thought to himself.

He went deeper into the file, searching for any more information.

The satellites were stationed directly above Houston. He smiled at the irony of the situation. So whatever caused the anomalies landed somewhere in Texas. That gave rise to another thought. He backtracked and found one of the NSA files he had read, a report tabled by the CIA. They had recieved information that a UFO may have landed in the state of Texas, but the information(which Bruce suspected came from someone at NASA,but had in fact come from a sherriff who didn't know what to make of it when he saw a flaming metallic comet flying through the night sky)had been inconclusive about the exact location the UFO had landed-technology being much less advanced and accurate at the time. The report stated that nothing of interest had been found, save for a crater and a small object(unidentified)that had been recovered inside the crater. Bruce checked the location. Smallville. Then he referenced that with anything that shared that name within Texas.

There were few results, which was a very good sign. He settled on Smallville, a small farming town on the outskirts of Kansas. As he read about the town and looked at images of the area, he realized how it all fit in perfectly, as bizarre as it all sounded. Alien falls from the sky, lands in small rural town. Raised by good rural folk, alien becomes superhero.

It made sense in other ways too. Close knit,small town folk of the sort found in Smallville were less likely to talk to strangers, especially strangers from the big city, with dark suits and earpieces who were too rude to take off their sunglasses when speaking to someone,strangers driving sleek black unmarked cars.
In a town like Smallville, no one would notice a little spaceship crashing in a farm somewhere, provided the owner of the farm cleared it up afterwards.
In a town like Smallville, everybody keeps to themselves, and nobody asks too many questions.
Everyone knows everyone and trust once earned is bound for life. It was the American Heartland ideal.
And it was the perfect place for an alien that looks like everyone else to grow up.

Bruce got down to the town records next, only bothering with the hospital records so he could rule them out. He didn't know if Supermans powers were there from birth but he assumed someone who shrugged off anti-tank missiles and mustard gas with ease as an adult probably didn't get the sniffles as a child. Even if he did get sick,an alien baby, though it looked human on the outside, was bound to have differences in its physiology. Differences that would become all too clear when it was examined by people whose business it was to know the human body intricately. He had visions of inoculation needles bending when they were pushed into his skin,a nurses fingers crushed in an iron grip or strange organs showing up in X-ray scans. His adoptive parents would have known better(evidently they did).

So assuming Superman did everything a normal human does, he probably went to school, then college, then what? He has a day job?
That would be ridiculous, for a man with such abilities to waste his time as a civilian when he could be doing so much more. Smallville being a small town made everything so much easier. There was only one school in the town, and it was nothing at all to hack the school records for enrolment sometime in the late 90's. He started with 1996, going forward from there. It was incredibly boring, reading the profiles of students in an effort to trace Superman,and there were hundreds of thousands of students, even if he found him, at this rate he would be done in months. He had to get this done by tonight. Somehow. He decided to check the athletics records for high school and college. A man who can lift a tank and fly faster than a Lear jet would have been a beast on the football field,or any sport really, in his younger years. But more than that, he would have been really good, and he would have been forced to stop, or he would expose himself.

He came across a couple of students over the years who dropped out of athletics for various reasons. There was one in 2001, a Victor Ramirez who dropped out of wrestling after he shattered his collarbone. He dismissed that. Another in 2003, Sean Holmes who was a talented swimmer but later got expelled for selling weed to football players, so Bruce dismissed that too. There were two others, a Clark Kent in 2004 who was doing very well in the football team but dropped out due to 'personal reasons' and a Micheal Phillips who played basketball and moved away from Smallville abruptly. He kept these two names in his mind as he intensified his search.

He found no more interesting information on Michael Phillips, he was by all means an average student and a great pointguard. Quite popular in high school, voted most likely to become a professional athlete. Basically no different from any other jock in high school.

Clark Kent was more interesting. He was a stellar student in middle school and he played various sports quite well, yet the teachers comments state that he was somewhat awkward with other students and that he was bullied. In high school the bullying stopped,the grades dropped and he joined the football team. The three were obviously related, but Bruce thought it felt a little contrived, perhaps because he too knew what it was like to lead a double life.

Clark Kent dropped out of the football team after a killer season, much to the dismay of the coach and players as well as the school. During that season he set the highest records for the most runs, tackles and interceptions, and he won the MVP award 3 times. In his years at school he was also the editor for the school newspaper,and a hall monitor.

Bruce opened a file photo of Clark Kent in his kit, huddled around other players. Clark is small, barely filling out his kit, looking comical with his tiny head between the massive shoulder pads. It's not what he's expecting. He expected...well more.

He continued his research nonetheless. Clark Kent graduated from University of Metropolis in 2008, having studied Journalism and Philosophy. He followed the trail until it came to an article on the Daily Planet. It was a piece on Superman. Bruce read the article, then leaned back in his seat. He opened a photo of Clark Kent, a recent one. He wanted to kick himself in the face. A journalist who worked at the Daily Planet,lived in Metropolis and came from the same state and town that a UFO(which was never recovered)crashed.

The journalist who he met at the party in Gotham.

Well, I found him. Now what?

"How goes the work Master Wayne?"

"Terrible."

"Nonsense. Each time I hear you say that, and each time you prevail. Alfred glanced at the screen." I see you've found your mark."

"I have, but that doesn't solve everything. I still have to figure out what to do with this information."

Alfred was quiet for some time, then he said,"What do you feel?"

"Feel?" He replied as though it was a foreign concept.

"Well, what does your gut tell you?"

"My gut? I'm a detective Alfred. I can't rely on things like that when I'm running an investigation. Animal cunning is no match for trained,strategic intellect."

"I've often heard it said that there is method to everything, even madness. In any case, I should think a good detective would hone his gut instinct." Alfred said knowingly.

Bruce ground his teeth. "All right Alfred, and how would one hone their 'gut instinct' if they wanted to be a 'good detective'?"

"Well sir,one would exercise it whenever possible. Isn't that what you do when you train? You keep doing something until you're good at it."

"It seems obvious now that you say it." Bruce said after some thought.

"Hindsight is 20/20."

"Ok Sensei, I get it."

"You're welcome." Alfred replied with mock sass. He cleared the untouched plate of low fat apple pie and the cold cup of coffee, thinking sadly how his food always went untouched whenever Bruce was working hard on a case, which was often.

As he walked to the elevator, Bruce called out.

"Alfred."

"Yes, Master Bruce?"

"Thank you."

"Not at all sir. That was all you, you just needed the push." Alfred said with a smile.

Bruce pushed a button on the console of the computer. The floor beside him whirred and his car was raised up and out of a chamber underground. He pushed another button, then got up and walked over to the mantle where his costume was raised out of a capsule in the ground. At first he was startled, but then he saw the yellow tab of paper stuck on the chestplate. Consider this thanks for solving our little problem. Made some modifications. The scallops on the gauntlets are particularly interesting. Lucius. The costume was darker,almost entirely black. The bat insignia looked heavier and larger,the tips of the wings extending across his chest.

It must be fate, he thought as he eyed the new costume.

He donned the costume, the leggings and boots first, then gloves, then the cape and cowl. He flexed and stretched. The suit was lighter, but it felt stronger, more durable. He checked his gauntlets and noticed a tiny little flap with a button underneath. He pushed it and the scallops were fired into the wall. Three more scallops slid in to replace them on the gauntlets.

Bruce walked over to the car, running his finger along its edge. He paused when he got to the door. Metropolis was a long way away. The car was fast, it would cover the distance with ease, but this was a stealth mission. A massive black armor plated vehicle roaring through the streets of Metropolis wasn't stealthy.

He walked past the car, to something covered under a tarp. Grasping the rough canvas, Bruce couldn't help but feel he was doing something significant. Something huge. Like he was standing on the cusp of a great age, something that was going to change the world, hell,maybe even the universe. This must have been what the first men on the moon felt. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he just... felt like he was stepping into the great unknown, and he wasn't entirely sure what that meant for him, or the world for that matter.

Get a grip. Probably what everyone thinks when they make a big step in their life, he thought.

But as he pulled the tarp away, he couldn't shake the feeling of uneasiness he felt in the pit of his stomach.

A/N: Can't wait for DoJ. It seems like 'regular' fans think the previews give away too much or else don't understand the plot at all. A friend of mine (who is a casual fan) said she didn't realize that the armored suit Batman has been wearing in all the trailers enabled him to fight Superman toe to toe until she watched the final official trailer, but we fanboys and girls are totally geeking out. It finally looks like were going to see Batman and Bruce Wayne operate the same way he does in animated films/series, video games and comic books. I'd have liked to see some more Wonder Woman in the final trailer but I guess I'll just have to wait until the film is out. Also Deadpool is absolutely killing it here in Kenya, everyone loves it. It's a good time to be a comic book fan.
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