Thanks for all the support guys, it means a lot. :)

Chapter 5

There was a split second of surprised silence, then Diana asked the obvious question.

"Why a CB radio?"

Lois shifted her bag, ready to go already. She was almost certain she was right. She met Bruce's quizzical look and elaborated.

"Before Clark became known to the world he used to wander from job to job. He always ended up helping someone and moving on to avoid discovery, and he wasn't afraid to hitch hike."

The meaningful look she gave him was unnecessary in the end, as both Bruce and Diana made the connection easily. Lois was already thinking of ways to find a CB radio. Time was of the utmost importance, since it was possible for the trucker to move out of range the further they drove. It was already a gamble that one had picked him up. Lois looked at her watch.

"It's late and all the stores will probably be closed, especially ones that sell this kind of thing. Maybe if I went to the nearest truck stop—"

Bruce seemed to make a sudden decision and began walking back to the cars. "Follow me."

Exchanging looks, the women followed him closely back to the cars. Once they started driving Bruce led the way and Diana followed with Lois. Lois fingered her bag handles in agitation. She hated sitting still when she was ready to follow a lead. "Where do you think we're going?"

Diana turned a corner, still following Bruce. "I don't know. Hopefully to a radio."

They drove in silence, through Metropolis and into Gotham. Lois fidgeted and waited impatiently while Diana became more and more intrigued. Finally as the cars entered a dirt road and drove past high fields of weeds, a burnt-out and broken down manor on one side and a small family cemetery complete with a small mausoleum on the other, Diana gave Lois a look of amazement.

"We're going to his home. Maybe he trusts you more than you think."

Lois gave her a blank look of shock and began looking out the window with more intensity, taking in the surroundings. She had never been invited near Bruce's home. He always came to her.

They slowly pulled up to a small but elegant house set on the lake, made up of large windows and clean lines. Bruce pulled into the garage while Diana parked in front, and Bruce met them on the short concrete walk. He entered the code into a pad next to the front door and held it open for the women. Diana was here often but said nothing as Lois moved slowly inside, just gave Bruce an impressed look as she passed him that he did his best to ignore. He closed the door and was about the lead Lois further in when Alfred materialized, giving the trio a dumbfounded look even though he had caught their arrival on the security camera feed.

Bruce was not wasting any time on formalities. "Alfred, we have company," his tone was brisk as he motioned to Lois which way to proceed.

Alfred had managed to cover his shock with an appropriate poker face by now. "I surmised as much, Master Wayne." Still, he traded looks with Diana as they followed. Diana was trying to keep a large grin from spreading across her face.

However, the further down the hallway they progressed, the less either could hide their slack-jawed amazement. Bruce brought Lois right to the hidden elevator that led to his secret operation center under the house. He gave both Alfred and Diana a quelling look before he put his palm to the wall to activate an invisible sensor and waited as the seemingly innocuous granite slid back to reveal a small private elevator. Bruce had only designed it for two people at a time so he and Lois went first, Diana followed with Alfred.

Lois was fully aware of how unprecedented this was, judging by the looks on everyone's faces around her. She could feel the familiar burning desire to write an expose about this but knew she never would. Life with Clark had taught her there are some secrets that needed to be kept. The public deserved the truth, but sometimes keeping the fine details back was essential and even beneficial both to the public and the one trying to do good.

Even so, as Bruce led her deeper into the labyrinth of glass and stairs, she couldn't help trying to take in every detail as she went. It was fascinating. Clark wore his suit under his clothes much of the time so he could be ready to help at a moment's notice. Everything he needed to be Superman was inside of him, simply a part of who he was. Even their apartment was clean of anything that directly indicated Clark's superhero alter ego, except the suit when he wasn't wearing it. He was Clark Kent. Until he removed that identity and became Superman. And of course, they were one and the same to her.

But Bruce seemed to be built of many layers, all shifting and turning to be revealed at the correct time. Lois had often tried to reconcile the Bruce Wayne the public knew and the voice-altered Batman into the same man. It was a difficult feat. One had little or nothing in common with the other, and she often wondered if there was a third man hiding somewhere that was the real Bruce Wayne. Maybe she was seeing pieces of him right now.

The group walked further into the lair, Lois noting Batman's car on a lower level and the waterfall that cut through the middle of the entire structure. Her curiosity was piqued as they passed stairs that went down a level, a quick surreptitious look giving her a glimpse of what looked like a glass case with a suit in it and a hand print on the wall behind it. She could easily glean the years of vigilante activity that had passed already.

Bruce was heading away from those stairs, so Lois followed him into what was clearly the central nervous system of the cave that boasted many computer monitors and tech gadgets. Bruce moved to a low console that had broken down pieces of a bat suit on it and pushed them to one side. He pulled out a chair and indicated Lois should sit. She did. Bruce then went to the back of the room to some shelves with all kinds of items on them and rummaged through a few. He returned in short order with a CB radio. He placed it on the table in front of her and stepped back. Lois gave him a grateful look, amazed.

Alfred nodded. "Ah yes, we used that when you were working to break up the ring of gun runners bringing weapons into the city." He turned to Diana. "They were moving them secretly in trucks that delivered bakery items to a particular chain of grocery stores. It was a good idea, until the Bat got wind of it."

Bruce moved to his own computer console. "They just changed their carriers after that. Had to start tracking them down all over again."

"True," Alfred conceded. He surveyed the room. Lois was plugging the radio into the nearby power strip and starting to find frequencies. Diana was at her station bringing up anything that could help her track trucking routes through Kansas, and Bruce was already attempting to hack the Department of Transportation.

Alfred looked back at Lois, amazed that Bruce would allow her access. It was a hopeful sign, yet unnerving at the same time. Bruce's safety relied on keeping his Bat activities a well-kept secret. Expanding the circle of people who knew always brought risk. However, Lois Lane had kept Superman's secret for two years and showed no sign of stopping. Diana had proved her worth thus far.

Bruce could do far worse. Alfred wondered if in time he would see Clark Kent in this room as well.

Never had he imagined, as he listened with sinking heart to the fight that he was sure would claim Bruce's soul once and for all, that Bruce would ever again have people he felt he could trust with his secrets besides Alfred himself. The future was full of speculation and uncertainty, but Alfred still preferred this to the piercing dread he had felt last year as he helplessly watched Bruce retreat further and further into his paranoia and fears.

"What can I do to help?"

Bruce glanced back. "I'm going to need my suit soon. Is it ready to go?"

Alfred gave him a look. "Of course it is. But I'll check everything again to make sure." He turned to go and then turned back. "And perhaps some extra transmitters?"

Bruce gave Alfred a rare look of gratitude, mouth turning up in the tiniest of smiles. "That would be great."

He walked away from the truck stop, in the direction of the sign a few miles away he could see when he focused just right.

Gotham City: 8 Miles

Gotham. It was familiar. It had triggered definitive memories when nothing else had. It was where he needed to go for answers, or at least a good starting place. He walked in the dark, not hitch hiking this time, moving with determination. He wasn't sure what waited for him there. Judging by the memory of a black-suited threat, it might not be good. But he wasn't going to back away from a chance to find out who he was. His body was thrumming with tension and the anxious desire for action. Hot, pulsing pain was niggling at the base of his neck, spreading up to the back of his skull. He ignored it and adjusted his glasses, breathing heavily as he trudged. He let his senses tune in and out, picking up scraps of traffic sounds or random animal noises along the deserted highway and beyond.

His name wasn't Hank. That much he knew. He could hear and see far away, and he could crunch a tile wall into pieces. He was walking fast but felt like he could go faster, higher even. He had a name and a purpose and he felt like he had searched for them before. He wondered at the leap he'd felt in his stomach when he'd first seen the red head at the truck stop restaurant before he'd realized something was wrong and she wasn't someone he knew. He could feel it now, amid the panic and tension and dread built up inside. The need to find a safe place of belonging. With someone. He kept his senses alert, hoping to hear a sound he didn't even know. He moved closer and closer to Gotham City.

And all the while, he wondered.

Did he bleed?

Diana and Bruce stood in one corner of the computer room and quietly discussed when would be the right time to tell Lois to call it quits for the night. As it was, she was currently resting her head on an outstretched arm draped over the console, still speaking intermittently into the hand-held communication piece.

"This is Superwoman, over."

Bruce studied her from afar. "She looks exhausted," he murmured.

Diana didn't argue that point. "But the more time that passes, the less chance we have of finding anyone who might have seen him." Bruce inclined his head to show that he understood that point, but she could see he was still considering an approach to Lois. "Maybe you should just let her go until she decides to be done." Bruce gave little indication that he'd heard that. Diana was starting to feel like she was talking to a brick wall. Lois and Bruce were more alike than they would ever admit, because Diana knew very well that if anyone told Lois she should quit to get some rest she'd give them the same reaction.

Lois had been at it for hours. She had made up her own CB handle and reached out with conversation starters to anyone in range, asking about their day, mentioning a fabricated close call and asking if others had had one recently. She casually brought up the topic of hitch hikers and asked if anyone else was brave enough to pick one up. She asked who had been through Kansas in the past few days. She had talked with so many drivers they had long since lost count. She was wearing down, partly because it was so late and partly because she was getting nothing back that indicated anyone had seen Clark.

But Bruce knew it was going to be a fight to get her to quit. And honestly he didn't want to quit either. He was pondering asking Alfred to bring in something to use as a mattress for Lois when she suddenly sat up straight. Bruce stiffened, listening closely to what she was hearing over the radio.

"This is Masked Bandit. Your day sounds pretty crazy but you would not believe the day I've just had. I'm lucky to be alive, over."

"Why do you say that, were you in a wreck, over?" Lois' voice was one of forced calm, trying not to be too hopeful or sound too eager.

"Well kind of, but not in my rig," Masked Bandit laughed. "My friend and I were eating at a truck stop and almost got run over by some high idiots who thought the gas station was a fun park. I thought Hank and I were dead for sure when their car spun out of control and came right at us, over."

"That sounds scary. So it missed you, over?" Lois was frowning, trying to piece together the scene with Masked Bandit's limited description. Bruce and Diana drifted closer.

"I guess it did. Hank moved right in front of me. I thought they'd be peeling him and me off that car for the next week, but not a scratch on us, over."

Lois looked up, meeting Bruce's eyes. "Who's Hank, over?"

"Hitch hiker I picked up early in the day, wanderer I guess. Nice guy, even if he's a bit odd, over."

The air in the room was thick with palpable tension as Lois visibly gathered the nerve to ask the next question. Bruce and Diana both moved a step closer still, crowding around the console.

"So Hank is okay too? Is he there with you, over?"

"Nah he's gone. He just up and left after all that, but I got to stay behind and fill out a police report as a witness, put me way behind. I was going to drive a few more hours and get some sleep but now I gotta make up for lost time after all that. I'll be driving all night. Just got on the road now, actually. Hope Hank is okay wherever he is, over."

"What truck stop were you at, over?" Lois' voice was trembling. Bruce moved to his computer as he waited for the answer to come.

"The Weary Traveler outside of Gotham, over."

Three pairs of eyes met in shock. Lois dropped the CB mouthpiece and quickly picked it back up. "He left you at the truck stop outside of Gotham City, over?"

"Yep. Nice guy, seemed a little strange though. Kept staring at the words, acting real jumpy. I figured he might have some kind of mental problem or maybe he's on the run from the police. He did leave real fast after that crash. But he was harmless, over."

Lois fought to calm her rapid breathing and affected as much of a casual conversation tone as she could manage, which was an impressive amount. Bruce inwardly complimented her abilities.

"You know, I went through Kansas today too and I think I might have passed him. What was he wearing, over?"

Masked Bandit laughed over the radio. "Clean cut, nice shirt, suit jacket. A little dirty. He could be a model if he could keep it together, over."

"Blue jacket, glasses, over?" Lois waited in suspense.

"Yeah, that's him! Nice guy, over."

Lois rapidly assessed the facts in her head. Everything fit. It had to be him. Except— "Did he tell you his name was Hank, what about his last name, over?"

"He never told me his name. I just called him Hank. It was either that or Henry. And yes, I know it was dangerous I didn't even know his name. I have pretty good instincts about people, don't give me the wife lecture, over." There was a moment of silence and then he continued, obviously not done with his point. "I mean where would we be if people stopped believing man was good? After everything we've seen the past couple of years? I don't want to be in this world if it's dog eat dog. He stepped between me and a car and risked his own life. I think my instincts were good, over."

Lois smiled softly. "Yes, I think they were good. Drive safe Masked Bandit, Superwoman over and out."

"Go save the world, Superwoman. Masked Bandit over and out."

Lois replaced the hand held and turned off the CB. Bruce spoke from his computer, already bringing up information. "Highway patrol log reports a gas pump in flames after two high motorists driving a Buick collided with it two hours ago. No injuries at the scene, one close call. A trucker and an unidentified party who disappeared before the police arrived. Police don't seem concerned enough to track him down."

"That has to be Clark." Lois sounded certain. Bruce nodded, bringing up police reports and scanning them quickly.

"The two motorists swear the car bounced off that guy, but they are high so the police aren't buying it." Bruce scanned a second report. "Truck driver says his buddy was acting weird. Zoned out staring at a tanker truck." Police photos blipped onto the screen, one after another. A ruined Buick with crunched front end and a door off the driver's side. A burning gas pump. And a tanker with the words Gotham City Gas on the side.

Lois came to her feet. "He has to be coming home."

But Bruce stared at the words, remembering the night his car had bounced off Superman's leg and crashed into a gas pump. "Something's not right about this."

"What do you mean?" Diana was having similar thoughts but wanted to know Bruce's take on it.

Bruce stood, still looking at the images on the screen. "Masked Bandit said he was going to drive a few more hours, and it sounded like he thought he'd be doing it with his new friend. If Clark was coming home why didn't he get off in Gotham? He goes eight miles past Gotham to a truck stop and then turns back? Why wouldn't he head straight for Metropolis? Why didn't he ever tell his name to the driver? And he still never went to the farm to see Martha." Bruce glanced at both women. Diana was nodding in agreement. Lois crossed her arms, which meant she acknowledged his point but was still unhappy about it.

Bruce's conclusion came out reluctantly. "It seems like there's something wrong with him. He's not acting like he should."

Lois breathed in a choppy breath, clenching her teeth. "Whatever is wrong with him, we'll figure it out. But we need to find him first."

"I agree," Bruce's tone was conciliatory, and he looked at Diana to make sure she was of the same mind. He looked back to Lois, his tone softening automatically. "Why don't you go home and make sure he hasn't been there? Now that we think he's heading to Gotham I can focus my search here. This is good news. If he's in my city, I'll find him."

Lois hesitated, and everyone knew she was deliberating. But she still hadn't been home since she landed, and the desire to see if Clark was there was too strong. "You'll keep me informed?"

Diana stepped in front of Bruce. "We will keep you informed." Bruce gave her a small perturbed look but let it slide. Considering he had trusted Lois with his secret base of operations, he didn't think there should be any question of how much he intended to keep Lois in the loop.

Lois gave a small nod, and Diana offered to drive her home. Bruce brought up his facial recognition program and all of his access points into security cameras throughout Gotham.

Only when the women were gone did he let the stress show on his face, his jaw hardening, his eyes focused on the screen while he considered possibilities. Clark was acting off, and it worried him. He pushed away mental images of a vengeful god pulling off his mask, murdering his cohorts without a pause. That was a dream. It didn't mean that would be the future.

But it was hard to remember that when his goal for the last eight months had been finding metahumans to meet the future he knew was coming, and with that same dream someone had already tried to warn him of it. If he didn't discount it as a feverish dream born of paranoia. The voice echoed in his mind.

"You were right! You were right about him! Fear him!"

The niggling fear that Clark Kent had resurrected as someone other than the man he'd truly known so briefly was something he couldn't ignore.

Alfred materialized at his elbow, already clued in to his unrest.

"Problem, Master Wayne?" He hadn't seen that look on Bruce's face in a long time.

Bruce stared at the screen, reluctant to voice his worry. Alfred waited patiently and was eventually rewarded.

"What if, in coming back to life, he's been altered or changed? What if he's not the same man he was?"

Alfred gazed at him, unable to deny it but very wary of this train of thought. "I don't know. But I would caution you to remember what happened last time you thought he was a threat." Bruce gave a curt nod. Alfred's eyes flicked nervously to the security camera screens, checking on the room with the Robin suit in its glass case. The vault door was still closed. Alfred focused on Bruce again. "Don't doom yourself to repeat history over and over again, that's how you got there in the first place."

Bruce glanced at him and then away. "I'm not looking for it to happen. But a lot of things have happened I never wanted."

"I know." Alfred gazed at him sadly. Bruce made no reply. Alfred hovered, still worried. "The suit is in perfect condition. I have transmitters standing by."

Bruce was loading Clark Kent's obituary picture into the facial recognition program. He stared at Clark's face, complete with glasses and a smile.

"Thank you, Alfred."

Hope to have the next chapter up sometime early next week! :)

The Justice League news is breaking and it's really exciting, and I'd like to take this moment to say that this was just a nice Clark-centered story about his return and not my projection of what I think is going to happen.

I had a debate with myself when I started plotting this story and I deliberated over which version to go with. I am pretty sure the Justice League film will be way more complicated regarding Clark's return, and I pondered doing a Darkseid takeover of Clark with Lois as the key. But I never feel comfortable writing for something like this if I have very little knowledge of it, I don't even write for new characters before I've seen them and have a chance to get a idea of how they speak, move, and act etc. I haven't read the comics regarding Darksied and his minions so I felt too uneducated to take it on and really do it justice. Plus I am positive Justice League is going to blow my mind when it comes to this (Chris Terrio knows his stuff!) and whatever I tried to do would be hilarious compared to what we do get, lol.

So I happily made my peace with doing a nice character-driven story about Clark's resurrection and eventual reunion, and I admit I'm very happy with it. It also allowed me to go with some nifty symbolic/tone ideas that echo the movies so that felt good.

I have a few chapters to go and I'm excited about them. I hope you're enjoying this story as a nice mental exercise to prepare you for the eventual awesomeness of Justice League next year. :)