The Watchers

Thor

Prologue

Gotham,

Wayne Manor

It was a rare night in Gotham when the Dark Knight didn't have to patrol the city, continuing his seemingly never-ending war on the darkness that threatened to consume his beloved home. In fact, he was only now recovering from an almost constant month-long vigil with Dick and Alfred's support in response to the Joker's latest threat of city-wide carnage. It had ended as it always did: a few new scars, more money donated -anonymously of course- to Gotham's redevelopment fund and…

'New names, new faces to remind me why I can't stop,' Bruce thought grimly, fists clenched tightly around the handles of the box he was carrying. He remembered every moment of that horrible night; every bomb he had failed to find, every face twisted in a mocking rictus of laughter, every punch that had connected with the Joker's lean, wiry body… most glaringly, he remembered that moment when he'd finally pinned the Joker to a wall and had come closer than ever to simply ending him.

He hadn't, though: as tempting as it was to give in and simply beat the madman to death, or stuff an explosive pellet down his throat or -'Or kill him in any one of the hundred thousand ways I've imagined,' - Bruce understood the dangers of surrendering to the darker impulses within. He knew himself; knew the demons he fought to restrain and exactly how far he could allow them to influence his actions. He understood how they fueled his rage, how they pushed him to go beyond every limit he had to accomplish his goals… and he understood how easy it would be for him to trample on his every moral value if he allowed those demons even the tiniest justification.*

So he had left the Joker a comatose heap of battered flesh for Gordon to pick up, saving his morals… but damning himself to more silent agony.

He dropped the box with perhaps more force than he had intended if the thudding sound from the antique table meant anything. He wasn't particularly bothered by that, though, since -unlike the first three boxes he had carried out of attic- this one contained his own stuff.

'I wonder what Dinah would say to that,' The thought was colored with faint amusement. 'She'd probably go on about how my careless treatment of my old school reports compared to my reverential treatment of Dad and Mom's* leftover wedding invites points to repressed feelings of inadequacy…

'Of course, it's not like she'd be all that far from the truth, either.'

Most that knew him -if they were telepathic- would have been shocked by the stark honesty in that thought: the public personas he had built as the Dark Knight and Gotham's billionaire playboy were anchored on a deep-seated need for privacy, a towering belief that he had little to no flaws and a grudging reluctance to admit that others were right.

However, as with any good mask, those character traits were intentionally exaggerated: while he truly enjoyed his privacy -and not just because of his cowled secret- he was not above opening up to those he trusted. It took time, of course, and not many were patient enough to keep digging, but he had those who knew some of his secrets.

As for the towering self-belief and unwillingness to admit that others were right… just more exaggerations. He did believe in himself and his capabilities but he wasn't stupid enough to believe that he could do no wrong: he'd literally had that kind of stupidity beaten out of him when he was younger by some of the masters he had studied under. 'The difference between a good warrior and a truly great one is that one of the two understands their weakness as intimately as their strengths,' He mused while rifling through the box he'd dumped on the table. Old drawings, report cards and other knickknacks passed beneath his fingers as he moved through the box's contents, searching for anything that might have held some value to his parents. Finding nothing particularly interesting in there, he was getting ready to chuck the box out when the door to the room clicked.

"Alfred told me I'd find you up here," Oliver remarked as he walked in, decked out in full formal, billionaire-playboy getup. "You planning a yard-sale anytime soon?"

"Nothing so drastic," Bruce replied with a faint smile as he dropped the box yet again and turned to his friend. "You, on the other hand, look like you've got a hot date."

"Just got out of a couple of meetings," The blond man replied. "R&D heads had some stuff to show off, a short stakeholder pow-wow and then a one-on-one with the COO to consider our short term aims. Small stuff."

"Yeah, really small stuff," Bruce replied with a roll of his eyes. "I'm guessing Dinah sent you to drag me over to the Cave?"

"I'm actually here for something else," Oliver replied as he flounced onto a couch. "I won't be around for today's watching."

Unbidden, Bruce's eyebrow began a slow, questioning, climb. "You dragged Diana in for this, nearly got Clark and Barry and came this close to convincing Arthur that it wouldn't be a waste of his royally busy time-"*

"Emiko called."*

For a few moments, the room was utterly silent. Then, Bruce sighed explosively.

"You do remember that she tried to kill you, right?"

"She'd been lied to all her life and thought Thea and I were the reasons she was never accepted into our family." Oliver shrugged. "It's been a bumpy road but we're learning to trust each other."

"I'm happy that things seem to be working out for you but…" Bruce dropped into a seat opposite the Archer. "You're about to drop everything and run just because she called."

"Are you telling me you wouldn't do the same thing?" Oliver asked bluntly.

Bruce had no response to that; he certainly couldn't claim the moral high ground when he had done far more for Talia -not that anyone other than Alfred knew about that.*

Still… "If you needed permission for this, you'd be with Dinah, not me."

"Perceptive as always." Oliver sat up and stared intently at the Dark Knight. "I need to know if I'm doing the right thing here."

Bruce sat back, thoughts flashing through his mind. After a moment, he sat up as well. "You've spoken to Dinah and while she's supportive of you, you think she might be a bit sentimental about things since she's developed a connection with Emiko. You sure as hell can't be objective about it because you're trying to make up for your father's mistakes and you've begun to see her more and more like you do Thea."

"So I've come to the most brutally objective person I know to help me determine if I'm being a sentimental idiot or not."

"You're always a sentimental idiot," Bruce shot back flatly. "You're just good at hiding it."

"Aren't you the jokester today." Oliver fired back just as blandly. "Seriously Bruce: I'm about to fly a couple thousand miles to Japan to -presumably- help my half-sister bust up one of the Yakuza's undoubtedly many drug-trafficking rings. I'll probably be on radio-silence for more than twelve hours and we both know even five-minutes is a lifetime in our line of work. I don't want to believe that she's lying but if she is…"

"There's too much here for you," Bruce said quietly.

Oliver nodded and, filled with pensive energy, he rose up and began to pace. "Things with Dinah are looking really solid now and I can actually see a future for us; William and I are figuring things out; Artemis and I are in a really good place and Ro- Red Arrow has hit on a lead in the search for Roy -the real Roy, I mean. If I go and get myself killed because I trusted the wrong person…" The Archer paused for a moment before shaking his head and resuming his restive pacing.

"Well, I can tell you that wearing a patch into my rug won't help you out with this," Bruce stated after a few minutes of quiet deliberation. Leaning his elbows on his knees, he returned Oliver's glare with a cool stare of his own until the blond man stopped moving. "I'm not going to tell you what to do-"

"Well thank you for nothing-"

"-because you already know what you will do and you're looking for someone to blame." That cut the impending rant off instantly. " I told you not to go and she ends up telling the truth about needing your help, you'll blame me for holding you back. If I say 'go' and it turns out to be a trap, you'll blame me for telling you to go.

"Put simply: no matter what I say, you'll leave here to help Adachi out."

Oliver froze for a few seconds, looking like the metaphorical deer in the headlights, before sagging. "Damn it… I can't get one past you can I?"

"Not if you stick to these lazy attempts." Point made, Bruce sat back and picked his phone. A few minutes of quick typing went by followed by the chime of Oliver's phone. "I've sent something that should help you out. If you need any help, follow the instructions. Just don't go too far underground. The satellite sensors can only track you to a point."

As he perused the contents of the folder, Oliver scoffed in relief. "Trust the Dark Knight to have a third option."

"It's not a perfect solution," Bruce cautioned, ignoring the backhanded compliment. "If you have any one you can reach out to-"

"I'll be sure to have some boots on the ground if I can," Oliver replied, brushing past the caution to slip his phone back into his pocket. When he looked up again, though, his eyes were bright with appreciation. "I'm guessing you want me out of your spooky-ass lair."

"You invited yourself into my lair," Bruce shot back as he stood up to clasp his friend's outstretched hand. "Pretty sure you can find your way out."

"Yeah, yeah." With the conversation at an end, Oliver turned to leave only to pause when he heard Bruce's voice again.

"Don't spend yourself trying to fix all his mistakes. Whoever our fathers were, whatever they did… we are our own people."

"Ah… if only I'd been born to a Thomas Wayne," Oliver sighed tiredly. "Or maybe a Howard Stark, now that I think about it."

Walking up to the door, the inheritor of Queen Consolidated glanced down at the stylized W embossed on the old-fashioned doorknob. "Trust me, Bruce… it's a lot easier said when you're not the one saddled with the sins…"

TW: THOR 1

*- Though the popular fan-knowledge is that Bruce has never considered killing the Joker, there have been at least three instances to my knowledge that showed The Dark Knight seriously contemplating how to get away with murder. His extremely rigid morals hold him back from ever giving in to that desire (in mainstream canon, anyway) but the desire is there.

*- Personal fanon: Bruce calls his parents 'mom and dad' in private but 'mother and father' in more formal settings.

*- Bruce was being a tad sarcastic here. He knows Arthur is very busy with Atlantean matters but then again, surely he can take a few hours off to chill with the rest of the League can't he?

*- This is Emiko Adachi-Queen, half sister to Oliver and Thea. While I took the idea from Arrow, I did delve into the comics a bit to see what she's been up to and adapted her to this fic. She's not likely to show up -ever- but she played the role I needed her to so *shrugs.*

*- If it isn't very obvious, Bruce in this fic has been intimate with Talia al-Ghul. Will Damian show up? Probably not.

Alright! We're all set to get into movie #4 in the MCU: THOR!

I had a lot to deal with in terms of my job, personal life and other stuff that kept this on the back burner for a while. My initial idea for this was a more lighthearted intro to Thor but things happened and I threw out the old draft. I then decided to show how Bruce's been doing after the past few movies and coupled that with Oliver's cameo to round this prologue out.

It's been slow going (I thought I'd have had this ready by the end of February) but I think I'm in the right place mentally and emotionally to get this going.

At the moment, the only JL members set for this movie are Wonder Woman, Batman and Black Canary. Mr War and I are split over the inclusion of Aquaman into this one so I'm throwing it open: let me know in the comments if you want the King of Atlantis to show up in this fic.

As usual, this prologue will be uploaded to the last movie in the series [Iron Man 2] as a pseudo-teaser before being uploaded together with the main fic [TW:Thor] when the first chapter's ready.

I'm thankful as always to Katana of the Blade for the movie script and to Mr War for his everlasting patience with me.

Thank you all for your patience as well; know that I deeply appreciate your reviews, favorites and follows.

The Ethereal Lord

Next Chapter: Fallen God [TW:Thor, Chapter 1]