Thanks for all the support guys. :)

Chapter 4

Dinner should have been relaxed and enjoyable for Hank. Paul was friendly and cheerfully shouldered the burden of keeping the conversation going, which allowed Hank to order a fairly inexpensive meal and eat it with good company.

But as usual, he was finding that it wasn't that simple.

Even if he wasn't internally wondering how best to find a job and make sure he paid Paul back for his kindness, there was also the matter of what his real name was and where he really belonged. In addition he was discovering he could alternately block the extra senses that allowed him to take in so much, but he could also focus and sharpen them to hear the conversation the cooks were having in the kitchen and the waitress in the back complaining about her sore feet. He didn't know his own name, but Hank was still pretty sure that wasn't normal.

However, even those problems took a backseat once Hank became aware of the low level anxiety that was seeping into every pore. Something was eating at him, and he wasn't sure what it was. The waitress looked like no one he knew, and yet the long dark ponytail down her back gave him pause. The man sitting at the bar on a stool with his back to them had almost shoulder length waves of light brown hair. He kept staring at it without meaning to, his brow furrowed in thought. The older couple at the other end of the restaurant looked like any other, but it made him sad to look at them. And the woman who entered with short curly red hair was wrong somehow but he wasn't sure why. He frowned into his chicken fried steak and vegetables, hyper aware that the green light from the neon sign spilled into the room and colored the front part of the restaurant despite the dim glowing lights over each booth. The color bothered him on an irrational level, leaving him uncomfortable and on edge.

"—but then we figured out it was a raccoon, dang thing had crawled in when we weren't looking and made itself at home on my bunk!" Paul chortled as he picked up another fry. "That's when I decided my CB handle should be Masked Bandit," Paul laughed again before noting that Hank hadn't laughed with him. "Hank, you still feeling weird?"

Hank shook his head. "I'm okay," he mumbled as he moved to stand up and excused himself to the restroom.

Once there he removed his glasses, ran some cold water in the sink and used his cupped hands to splash some on his face. His muscles felt tensed and ready for action. He closed his eyes and hung his head over the sink, feeling the droplets run down his face. It felt disturbingly familiar, like rain drops.

He opened his eyes and looked at the mirror, but he wasn't prepared for the reflection that looked back at him.

A bat armored in metal, with glowing eyes.

He yelled in surprise and lurched backwards, fists raised in defense, slamming into the tiled wall behind him so hard he immediately felt it crunch under his back. He had to blink several times, exhale and shake his head again to clear it before he could look at the mirror again. This time it was just his own face, white with shock, droplets of water still clinging, eyes wide and haunted. But he still didn't recognize himself under the shock pallor.

He lowered his fists, taking himself in. He took a cautious step forward and any broken tiles that had been held up by his body immediately dropped and clinked to the floor, a steady shattering sound that heightened his anxiety as he turned to look. He stared at the depression in the wall, aghast. He was torn between concern at the damage he'd done and the reflection in the mirror he was still coming back to stare at. He sized himself up, taking in the circles around his eyes and the high cheekbones, the dark hair on his forehead beginning to curl after becoming damp. His eyes caught the ruined wall behind him again so he turned to take it in. That didn't seem normal either.

He put himself back together as best he could, put his glasses back on and hurried out before anyone else could come in. Once at the table he quickly finished his food while Paul paid and followed him out the front door, still on edge and anxious. It felt like there was something coming for him.

Paul stretched outside the front door and leisurely began strolling in the direction of his rig. Hank fell into step beside him. Paul was just asking him if he felt up to more hours of driving when the sound of a roaring engine and squealing tires interrupted them.

Hank looked up in alarm. An old rattling Buick raced into the parking lot, fishtailing wildly. Even sixty feet away when Hank focused he could see the driver and passenger laughing and hooting. They were drunk or high, and very out of control. The driver was in the process of attempting an uncoordinated high speed cookie, and even as Hank and Paul watched the car veered into a nearby gas pump. Luckily it was unoccupied, but the gas pump burst into flames as the car went completely out of control. It spun toward them, threatening to flip at any moment.

Hank didn't even hesitate. He stepped in front of Paul and took the hit, arms braced out to ward off the impact. The car should have mowed him down, but once his outstretched palms caught it the vehicle glanced off them and careened away, coming to a stop some twenty feet away.

Paul had instinctively turned away and covered his face with his arms, and now he hesitantly lowered them as he tried to figure out how they were still alive. All he could figure was that the car had missed them somehow, even though he had thought surely they were dead. He hadn't missed that Hank had stepped in from of him though. He turned to check on his new friend.

Hank was already approaching the car where it was sitting in the parking lot, lit by the flames of the gas pump ablaze behind it. He opened the driver's side door and it came off in his hand. The driver stared at him blearily.

"S' this the fun park?"

Hank looked him up and down, searching for internal injury or broken bones. He was remarkably undamaged. His companion gave a weak wave from the other side of the car, and Hank scanned him too. He located a cut above his eyebrow but he seemed fine as well.

A small crowd was starting to spill out of the restaurant, asking questions and exclaiming in high excitable voices. Hank leaned the door back against the car as a large tanker pulled into the lot. It came to a stop at an angle to Hank, and the driver quickly jumped out of his cab. He hurried over to Paul and the assembled onlookers to ask questions and offer help. Someone was already inside calling 911.

But Hank barely noticed. He was spellbound by the words on the side of the newly arrived tanker.

The blaze from the flames lit the night, bathing the truck stop in flickering light. Hank stared at the gas tanker, emblazoned with the words Gotham City Gas. His breathing came more harsh and fast with every passing second, and he could picture a different car in his mind than the one he was standing next to. Black and low-slung, radically different from the one he was looking at right now. He was walking toward it, determined.

His gaze went back to the tanker. He unwittingly mouthed the words again. "Gotham City Gas." It was familiar. A figure in black rose from the shadows, fearlessly standing to face him but his own clothes were all wrong. There should be something billowing behind him. There should be something on his chest. The memory danced in the flames around him, immersing him.

"Tell me. Do you bleed?"

His head whipped so fast to the approaching crowd behind him several people flinched. He stared at them, eyes intense. "What?"

Paul had left the crowd and moved closer, his eyes running up and down Hank looking for injury. "I asked if you were bleeding." The other just stared at him, still deep inside his own mind. "Hank?"

Hank looked at him, then back to the blazing pump. His glasses were rendered opaque by the flames. He suddenly looked otherworldly to Paul. When he spoke again it was slow and wondering, but also certain. "That's not my name." He looked off into the distance as if he could see something no one else could.

"I know, I just—" Paul stopped speaking when he realized that Hank, or whoever he was, wasn't listening anymore. He had looked back at the tanker again.

Then he just walked away.

"Hank? Hank!"

Hank walked swiftly into the shadows and disappeared into the darkness.

Diana was waiting in her car at the air strip when Lois' flight landed. It was dark already, but Lois immediately got in the car and asked for an update. Diana's mouth pursed as she pulled onto the road and head to Metropolis.

"Nothing," she sounded as frustrated as Lois felt. "We can't find anything on him. No sign of him anywhere."

Lois sat back in her seat and tried not to let it get to her. But it was very worrisome that Clark hadn't made contact with anyone yet. It had been approximately twelve hours since Martha had called her. Plenty of time for Clark to find one of them. To see his mother. To come back to their apartment. To show someone he was alive. She stared out the widow at the darkness, lost in thought.

The last time he had been in the wind like this was after the Capitol bombing. He had left without a trace, disappearing to who knows where as he grappled with the reality of being both super and just a man. And still, he had come back and saved her when Lex threw her from the top of his building. He had always been there to catch her.

Lois caught sight of her reflection on the black window and realized how distraught she looked. She cleared her expression and glanced at Diana, who was giving all her attention to driving and letting Lois have a moment to herself. Lois cleared her throat and went for a lighter feeling.

"I'm surprised Bruce didn't insist on picking me up."

Diana's mouth turned up. "He offered. I beat him to it."

Lois shook her head, unsurprised. "He doesn't trust me at all, does he?"

Diana gave her a quick glance. "It's not that he doesn't trust you."

"That's what he said. What is it, then?" Lois looked right at Diana.

Diana deliberated. "He...worries about you."

Lois looked offended. "What? Why?"

Diana gave her a look of understanding. "He's Bruce. He can't help it."

That wasn't very illuminating. Lois turned away, irritated. "He thinks because Clark is—was gone he needs to watch over me? I got out of plenty of scrapes before I ever met Clark. He doesn't need to babysit me."

Diana sighed. "No, he doesn't. But he worries about the future. A lot. You could be a part of that. And Martha...well. He just needs to watch over because he feels responsible."

Lois frowned. "He didn't kill Clark."

"No he didn't. But he has to feel guilty about something."

Lois opened her mouth to counter that when she realized they had passed the street leading to her building and were headed downtown. "Where are we going?"

Diana navigated another corner and stopped in front of a wide open space flanked by tall buildings. She turned off her car and motioned with her head. Lois could see a tall dark figure standing in the middle. Diana shrugged. "It was the last place he could think to look." She got out and waited for Lois to join her.

Lois looked at Heroes Park and sighed in frustration. It was possible that Bruce just wanted some sort of meeting place, since she had never gone to his home or base of operations even though she knew it existed, and he never came to her apartment unless it was under cover of night and he was in his Batman suit. But meeting here wouldn't have been her chosen location. She understood that lack of any real results had left them all desperately looking into any familiar place hoping to discover what they'd lost. It was what anyone did after misplacing an item. But this place was a dead end for sure. Lois opened her door and grumbled as she moved out of the car.

"He wouldn't come here."

Lois and Diana walked past the long reflecting pools to join Bruce near the shield plaque in the middle. He was looking at it, hands in his overcoat, frowning face a clear indicator that he was still trying to come up with a new angle to locate Clark. Lois and Diana stepped up on ether side of him and looked at it too, waiting.

Finally Bruce spoke. "I've come at this from every angle I can think of. Nothing. It's like he just disappeared. I can't find him."

Lois could tell it weighed heavily on him. It was clear the longer they went without a trace of Clark the more bleak the situation looked, just like with any missing person. But it made no sense. Why wouldn't he come back to her?

She fingered the ring still on her finger. "We'll find him." She had to. She'd done it before. She could do it again.

Diana was looking around. "Did you really think he'd be here?"

It was obvious Bruce had no idea. He shrugged. "It was worth a shot."

"He wouldn't come here." The words popped out before Lois could stop them.

Bruce glanced at her, face serious but thoughtful. "Why not?"

Lois pushed her hands deeper into the pockets of her coat and hunched her shoulders, but it was Diana who looked at her face and gave the answer.

"People died here." Diana's face was sad as she surveyed the old battlefield.

Bruce looked around as well, taking in the surrounding buildings and empty space that many more used to occupy. He hadn't given much thought to how Superman would feel about the monument created in his honor. At the time it was created he had bitterly assumed Superman would enjoy it. A monument to a supposed god, a creature to be worshiped by humanity. It had disgusted him.

But now, after everything they'd been through and everything he had seen, after watching Superman give his life to ensure Doomsday died too, he was still realizing they were more alike than he would ever have considered after the Battle of Metropolis brought down Wayne Financial. He, Bruce, would never want a statue honoring him. He wanted results. A better city. Less crime. People helped, criminals punished. And he never would glory in the fact that he was worshiped in a place where so many had died because of what he was.

And neither would Clark Kent.

He stared at the plaque with its giant S even as he regretted his past actions anew. He wondered if Clark had nightmares about the battle. It had never occurred to him to wonder before. He had never known who Superman truly was until it was too late and it felt like he still didn't.

"Then where?" He tried to keep his void of emotion, but knew that some hopelessness had worked its way out.

Lois stared at the shield too, enjoying the roughly added words in white paint. After the harsh winter, the paint had chipped and flaked away leaving the words indistinct and harder to read. As soon as the first signs of spring approached someone had refreshed them with new paint. The goodwill in Metropolis hadn't faded yet, and Lois hoped it never would. It was Clark's legacy. His true monument. A small smile curved her lips as she remembered her visit here eight months ago. "Wherever it is, I'm sure he's doing good—"

Her voice broke into a muffled gasp as the pieces came together. How she'd tracked him down the first time through his constant desire to help people. The car she'd noted speeding down the road a ways down from the field Clark had landed in. The stories he'd told her about hitchhiking, moving job to job...

If he didn't or couldn't fly, he might have hitchhiked. It didn't explain why he hadn't come home but it would be something he wouldn't be afraid to do. If he was picked up by someone driving a car it would be almost impossible to track down. But if he'd been picked up by a trucker...

She looked at Diana and Bruce, both of whom were staring at her waiting.

"I need a CB radio. Right now."

Hope to have the next chapter early next week. Thanks for reading! :)