I do not own, Clark Kent, Lucius Fox, Alfred Pennyworth, Fredrick, or Bruce Wayne/Batman. I did create Sam, Evie, and Jude!

Please read and enjoy! ?

"Bruce! How long has it been?!"

"Eleven years, Aunt Evie."

She shook her head. "No wonder you look so different. But you had an answer. You always had an answer growing up, Dear. It was kind of annoying, but cute too. Sammy never has an answer for me."

"Alfred says you both get along fine."

"Oh, we do. I talk enough for the both of us. And he likes dogs. I love dogs. And I don't fear for me or my dogs with him outside or downstairs prowling around with that big gun of his."

Bruce didn't flinch, but his face got whiter and more drawn. Evie noticed and paused in her outpouring. "Darn. I forgot he hates even the mention of guns!"

"You want some cookies, Bruce? Alfred and that girl over at Leslie's made them."

Bruce finally opened his eyes. He smiled at her. Evie smiled back.

. . .

Once they were in the air, Lucius went fishing for information. "When did you say you met Bruce again?"

Clark smiled. "When we were both young."

Jude's hard voice came from behind them again. "What was Amanda Waller's favorite like then?"

Clark tilted his head back over his seat's headrest. "Actually, you remind me a lot of him in those days."

Jude's eyes went wide. The other boys snickered.

. . .

Evie looked at Bruce across the table. Her elbow was on the table and her chin in her hand as he ate his cookies. "How old are you now, Bruce?"

"Twenty-three …"

Evie tsked. "You look older."

"I have for a long time now."

"No … you used to be cute. You had old eyes, but they were in the face of a tiny, little guy."

"I got taller."

"Um-hmmm … And broader. Not as tall as Sammy, but as tall as your daddy, and a bit broader than both."

Bruce paused. His hand froze as he lifted a cookie from a plate. He stared at her. She gave a small smile. "No, you don't look a "lot" like him, I'm afraid. You look more like Patrick, I think. Your grandfather. Same shape of the face and hair color. Your dad's hair was brown. And Martie's eyes … You have her eyes …" Sorta …

Actually, the eyes of Martha (or Martie as she had preferred to call her over the other woman's objections) had always sparkled like little stars in her face except when she was angry. Then they snapped like sabers in the sunlight. Bruce's eyes looked cool to Evie, like mist maybe, or the sea in certain moods.

She sighed. "We both did a lot of travelin Bruce, the past decade or so. Why didn't we ever run into each other?"

Bruce looked away. "We didn't have reason to go to the same places."

"And you didn't want to see me."

Bruce's eyes moved to glance sideways at her while he kept his face turned away. Evie sighed. "I know … I avoided my family too, during my first marriage. I felt ashamed and didn't want help. Who was beating you?"

Bruce's eyes grew stormy. Evie smiled. She found she liked angry Bruce more than the pretender she feared he'd be by now like she used to be. "Not Alfie …" she continued. "It had to be guilt."

He wrapped his hands around his glass of milk and bent his head. His face went even whiter. Evie kept her sigh to herself. "Bruce, I may not be certified at this like my sister, but I got eyes, and some experience. I'm the woman who got my god-nephew kidnapped by my dead-husband's crazy son if you recall. I found the people I hurt, who still loved me, preferred to see me happy no matter what I'd done, including you. So why can't you give that to the rest of us and yourself?"

"I can't …" He answered softly, opening his eyes and staring ahead.

Evie tilted her head and continued to stare at him. "Brucie, have you not had anything else in all your travels? Not made any more friends? Fallen in love?"

He flinched. She froze. He seemed to thaw out with a sigh and stared straight ahead of him as he replied. "A few friends … some good ones, but … It seems like I keep running into tragedies. Sometimes, I fear I'm the one making them."

Evie's face fell. "Darling … have you ever thought maybe you make them less tragic? That's what you did for me."

Bruce took in a deep breath. "I try. But sometimes I think I have to watch for the bad all the time. It's lying just below the surface, slipping along unnoticed by anyone else, waiting. When it comes up, it drags something, or someone, down with it. I have to watch, or it will be someone else who pays. Sometimes it still is. It's happened so often, sometimes … I can't believe 'I'm' still alive."

"Bruce … you're only twenty-three."

"Most throughout history have died younger. I knew a few who did."

"Bruce …"

He turned a hard look at her. She found herself freezing beneath it. Bruce had had quite a glare for since he was a boy, she remembered, a cute one. When had it become this? It was harder, colder, scarier.

Yet, his first words were kind. "I'm glad you had your second-love-life turn out better than your first, Aunt Evie, but that's not for me. I refuse to share this with anyone." His gaze softened. His voice followed. "Now, do I have your permission to go out with you to visit your dogs a while?"

Her voice came out a little choked. "Of course …"

. . .

Fredrick came downstairs in the night for a snack and found someone already enjoying one. Madge was halfway through the dozen cookies Alfred had left behind. Fredrick's eyes grew wide at the sight of the crumbs. "You're acting like you have a job interview with a mean, demanding boss. It's Evie. She likes you. She acts harder to please than she is. Alfred won't let you take the job until his reputation as your instructor is safe. Lucius won't let you interview until with her until he's certain you'll shine. What gives?"

Madge sighed. Then she covered up a small belch, before looking up with a red face. "It's just … What if none of those things happen? What if I try and find out I'm only good at …" She let that thought trail off.

Fredrick tilted his head as he looked at her. Then he pulled out a chair and sat down with the glass of milk he'd poured out during his speech ending in a question and Madge's reply to it. He took a cookie and dunked it into his glass. "I once feared I wasn't good at anything but shooting people."

Madge sat up straight and blinked. He continued. "Then I figured out I was good at security. I used to be a little blighter on the streets paying my way through life with other people's things. So, I know what goes on in the minds of those you don't want near your silver."

Madge blinked again. He chuckled at her as he bit into his cookie. "What, you thought we were all squeaky clean around here? We might be a bit shiny now, but it took a while."

She stared at him as she asked, "How'd you get shiny?"

He shrugged and for once his smile fell away. "I met Alfie during the war. We'd both lied about our ages. He was fifteen. I was sixteen. We both said we were eighteen. I bragged about it within six months, the ling my way in part. I didn't know until he took me home after the war and his family blabbed."

Fredrick laughed. Then he shrugged. "I didn't like my old neighborhood being bombed. The place had been pretty rough on me, but hey, it was home. In the army, I found out my talent for darts was due to beyond average eyesight and my calm nerves under pressure. The latter probably had somethin to do with all that bold-faced lying I did when ugly mugs asked me if I took their wallets. It came in handy when the team and I became thieves, liars, and killers for our country behind enemy lines too."

"Wait, wait, wait, wait!" Madge waved a hand with cookie crumbs on it at the older man. "Hold the phone! You were a spy?"

"Sure Alfie and I were spies!"

"Alfie!" Her voice squeaked. Fredrick smirked at her in silence. She stared back at him with her mouth open in a zero shape. "I've been learning housekeeping from a trained assassin!"

"Tut-tut. What better way to kill enemies than serve their champagne? Or drive as their chauffeur."

Madge blinked at him. "How did that last one work?"

"Oh, he drove them past me with the car window down, or left them temporarily in the car when it had a bomb under it."

"He put bombs under cars?"

"Course not, our explosive expert did that. Alfie worked explicitly with poisons and knives."

Madge blanched. Fredrick chuckled a bit under his breath, but when he spoke next some of the mirth in his voice seemed replaced with bitterness. "We had a sniper, (me) a poisoner, a strangler, an arsonist, and a bomb-maker. Five."

Madge blinked. "How many are there left now?"

"Three … We lost two in the field, but they were replaced. Alfred actually took over for our first man who died. Sammy took over for another. Our arsonist though, he drank himself to death after retirement."

Madge grimaced. Fredrick raised an eyebrow at her. "At least he was subtle about it, our bomb maker hung himself a decade or so after the team split up."

Madge swallowed and looked green. Fredrick looked down into his teacup. "That's why Alfie doesn't drink and found me find jobs for a while. I couldn't quite do that first one, but I hired Sammy on for a while, first as a fellow security expert and then as a bouncer. I own a pub now, three actually."

"I thought you were in security?"

"Career change, miss. I've done it three times now. Four if you count quitting pick-pocketing for soldiering early in my life."

"And Sammy?"

"He's now to Evie what Alfred is to the Waynes. Alfred helped both of us after he found a place for himself you see. He guided me into security once he figured I was having a hard time leaving the life behind. I did a few jobs in England, then later some for Wayne Industries, Enterprises, and Tech, along with a few buildings they owned without having their names plastered over them. Doing those jobs opened bigger ones for me elsewhere. Finally, I decided to save a pub in the old neighborhood from being knocked down with my honestly earned gains. Then I ended up running it. I finally decided I liked running it. Later I saved and opened two more."

Madge was staring at him again. He looked up at her with a soft smile of his own. "It's hard miss, and not all find their way out, I know. But I think, after all my years alive I've learned a thing or two. I've learned to tell those who get knocked down only ta pop up again from those who just lay there. Lay off that poor dozen cookies and go to bed. You'll make it. I can tell."

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God Bless

ScribeofHeroes