I do not own Superman/Clark Kent, Pa Kent, Lucius Fox, Bruce Wayne/Batman, Alfred Pennyworth, Leslie Thomkins, Deadshot/Floyd Lawton, or Amanda Waller. I do own Madge, Luke, and Leslie's sister Evelyn Ainsely. :)

I don't do this for money, so, enjoy without cost. :)

Clark watched the family reunion. Luke's parents approached eyes streaming. His father had his arms out to embrace him. His mother's covered her mouth. Luke stood still stiff and uncertain. Clark felt swept back in time ...

. . .

"Clark! Clark!"

He turned his head to look over his shoulder. His pa's voice was getting higher, louder. It had been a while since he started calling. Clark knew he usually ran to him with 45 seconds no matter where he was when he called. Now …

Clark turned back to the figure in front of him, and stuffed his hands in his jean pockets. The clothes felt weird now. Everything else was the same except him. Pa would see it. Then he would have to explain. What if they didn't believe him, though ... what if … how ..?

A hand landed on his shoulder. He looked up into grey eyes. They stared steadily back. "I'd do anything to hear my dad call me like that again."

Clark swallowed. That wasn't "quite" true. Villains had tried to fool Bruce into believing his parents were alive or tempt him with the offer of giving them back to him. He had never been ready to sacrifice what the villain wanted in return. Still, Bruce's words gave him a kick in the seat of his pants. His friend gripped his shoulder and spoke again. "He should understand even better than me, and be even prouder of you too."

Clark looked up, straightened, and tried to say something in return. "Bruce … I … I ..."

Bruce gestured over Clark's shoulder with his chin. "Go to him. Get back to your old life." He looked back into Clark's face and shrugged. "You'll never be the same, but this world needs you too. And right now, you need it."

Clark nodded. His throat was too tight to say much more. It seemed a terrible goodbye, but it was all he had. He managed to just croak out. "Thanks Bruce."

The other teen lifted his chin in acknowledgement.

. . .

Clark's mind came back to the present moment. He swallowed in sympathy. Luke's situation was different.

He thought he could see the wear on the parents faces from thinking Luke dead or worse all these years. Arms went around the teen. He finally lifted his own and began to cry into their shoulders.

Clark gave a soft smile. Somehow, he thought Luke and his family might heal. He also felt a difference in himself from how he'd been in his own reunion after a long, sudden adventure. A frown came to his own face. He wondered if Bruce had healed as much as he seemed to or if he'd just pretended to ...

. . .

Bruce practiced a kata by himself since Alfred was out showing Madge what she should expect if she took his aunt's offer up. Technically Leslie was his official godmother, aunt-Evie had always assumed that made her official god aunt. Bruce smiled to himself at the memory of many birthdays, parties, and seeings-off at airports, docks, and trainstations.

She'd been the only one to see it too. It was a rather clandestine Christmas at her place and it had been a while so he'd not expected it to come up. But she grabbed him by the chin while he unwrapped a present and raised his head till he looked her in the eye. Her own were narrowed. "Bruce, I can see it in your face. You've seen something that awed and amazed you since I saw you last."

He'd felt his own eyes widen and looked to the side at where Lucius, Aunt Leslie, and Alfred looked on his own eyebrows raised. Then he looked back to Aunt Evie. "I've been a lot of places since I saw you last Aunt Evie."

She'd kept quiet and let him go, but as she leaned back against the arm-rest of the couch she'd smiled smugly at him. Bruce frowned slightly and mumbled to himself in the cave now. (Sigh) "What do you do against smug aunts ..." It shouldn't have been possible for her to have actually known, but that smile always made uncertainty creep up his spine."

He set his jaw and leapt into a certain move he dared not practice around Alfred. Since the butler was out it was the perfect time to try it again. His execution was rusty. He'd have to get that one smooth again before Alfred returned.

. . .

Madge blinked at the sight of "teach" on doc's doorstep again. It had been a while. She tilted her head at him. "Time for another lesson, Teach?"

Alfred nodded. "First I thought we'd tend to Miss Alice. Then I thought we'd take a field trip."

Madge smiled. "Another field trip?"

Alfred nodded. "To Mrs. Evelyn's house to see how you feel about handling it's upkeep."

Madge's head lifted a bit at the statement. "Okaaaay ..."

. . .

Lawton awoke to a nightmare. White walls forming a five, by eight, by nine-foot cell. The walls weren't even a bright shade of white. They were a strange dingy shade of white. The door was painted with the same color paint. The linoleum was just a slightly different shade of dingy white. So was the blanket and the sheets on the bed. Their iron posts were painted that same, stinkin shade as the door and the walls.

His stomach growled. Lawton scowled at the door trying to figure out how to open it without tools. He'd already tried kicking it down several times. He'd woken up here on the cot in the room he now sprawled across in hospital-like PJs the same shade of white as the bed-spread. How he got here he didn't know, but he was going to kill whoever was responsible.

The sliding door of a slot at the bottom of the door slid aside. A Styrofoam tray appeared through it. Lawton sat up and stared at it. Food … At the moment, he didn't care if it was poisoned. Maybe there was chocolate, or pesto, or maybe ...

He froze after standing up and looking down at the tray. Four slices of white bread … with white butter spread over them. A plastic bottle of white milk followed the tray through the slot before it slid shut again.

Lawton screamed.

. . .

Bruce had performed the move smoothly five times in a row before moving on to another he intended to master again, before returning to the other to assess if he had retained it. A beeping came from his computer. He turned to look.

A message was flashing on the screen. The heading indicated it wasn't from Lucius, Alfred, or anyone who should have that particular address. He still didn't panic even on the inside when he walked over and clicked on "open."

A sentence popped up onto the screen. "Thought you'd like to see." A video flashed up in a square on his screen. It was a video feed of a tall man with messy brown hair, wearing a light-weight dingy white shirt and pants slamming his fists into a dingy-white painted door in a dingy-white colored small cell over and over again.

Bruce smiled softly. He hated to prove Amanda Waller right, but he thought she'd found prey who deserved her. Technically, what she was putting the serial-sniper through was a very mild form of torture. Some wouldn't call it that, but for this man who embodied "variety is the spice of life," and extreme callousness toward the suffering and death he caused, Bruce could see the definition of bland his surroundings now were might well make him desperate to please.

Bruce's smile fell away. Welcome to Amanda Waller's world Deadshot. You just live in it now. Lucky for you.

. . .

Madge stepped out of the car and her jaw dropped. Her voice squeaked. "'This' is where she lives."

Alfred stepped out of his driver's seat shut the door smartly and straightened to his full height. "Indeed Miss, 'this' is Ainsley Manor."

Madge stared at the stone "castle" that was the only was she could think of it, feeling very, very small.

What did you think?

God Bless

ScribeofHeroes