Chapter Text
Bruce awoke only when there was light slanting across his eyes in a bright glare. The light streaming through the garish flowery drapes told him about the late hour, but it was the alarm clock at the side that properly informed him it was well passed eleven. He had vaguely tried getting up earlier in his retirement, a feigned and failed attempt at adjusting to normalcy, but the more he tried to break old habits, the more he found it harder to maintain the idea that you could teach an old dog new tricks, but only if he didn't keep beating his head against useless ones. He had to pick his battles, and adjusting to a life without Gotham City had taken up most of his energy.
Selina was already up, the side of her bed cool and vacant when he blindly tracked a hand across the bed sheets. The stiff joints and aching knees made themselves known shortly, forcing him out of bed within minutes. Of course, he forced himself through the grueling task of two dozen sets of push-ups and another hundred sit-ups. Selina often remarked it was her favorite form of entertainment in the morning – aside from those that she actively participated in when they woke up in bed together – but he must have caught her after she had slipped out to explore the town. Not that there was much to explore in a place called Smallville.
He showered and changed into casual clothes that would best befit a man in these parts. He wore clothes that Selina had picked out—a beat up leather jacket, soft blue shirt and worn denim jeans. The everyday working man. If it weren’t for the ten thousand dollar knee brace that he affixed underneath it, the look would be sincere.
Downstairs, Noah’s Bed and Breakfast was mostly empty aside from the single patron sitting at the corner table reading the local newspaper. Selina was dressed against form, in simple jeans and white tank top that he couldn’t have pictured on her in their old life. Another attempt to blend in with the environment, and he had to admit, this one he liked. When he seated himself opposite of her, she didn’t lift her eyes from the folds of the newspaper.
“The local harvest this year looks to be good,” Selina informed, wryly. “I’m surprised the front page story doesn’t include a story about a cat up a tree.”
“This is a small place, Selina.”
“Judging by recent events, it shouldn’t have small news,” she countered.
He held back a frown, stealing toast from her plate and smearing across a thin spread of butter. It was true enough. When Zod and his ilk had torn the place apart, it had left the townfolk with plenty to talk about. Except no one was talking. A full day, they’d been here. A full day, they’d tried to engage the locals in conversation that would illuminate more of the backstory. They’d gotten nothing out of the endeavor. He suspected it was a combination of being a closed-knit, tight-lipped community and an added government edict to remain quiet on the front of national security. Either way, it was like trying to tap a dry well.
But the leads had been easy enough to follow, if you knew where to look. The fact that Zod had landed here during his bid for global dominancy had been overlooked by many to be pure chance, but Bruce – or Batman, take your pick – knew better. If you were looking for global destruction and reign, you didn’t make a pit stop into the heart of nowheres-ville, Kansas.
When he dug deeper into the history of the town, he’d found a few interesting incidents. The man the world now knew as Superman was still a new global sensation, not even four months old, but when Bruce had stuck his nose into the stories, he’d found more than a few incidents that spanned back decades. A bus crash, in particular. There were a few more instances of heroics here and there, centered about a local guy named Clark Kent. Chance would also have a person believe that this same farmboy had coincidently became Lois Lane’s new colleague at the Daily Planet, the same woman who knew of and followed Superman’s exploits with unerring accuracy. Giving the facts that he’d gleamed from Lane’s articles about Superman, both before and after he’d even acquired the moniker, Bruce was able to piece together enough. He was a skillful detective in most ventures, but this enigma hadn’t been that hard to unravel, surprisingly.
He’d scoped Clark Kent out from a distance in Metropolis, trailing him for three days. It hadn’t yielded anything useful, aside from a few strange and sudden disappearances and a host of growing questions. Like just how nobody seemed to notice the striking similarity of Clark Kent and the most popular man in the world.
Bruce suspected a division of the government already knew. If he had figured it out, and Lois Lane had figured it out, he wasn’t about to rule out the possibility that S.H.I.E.L.D. had managed to put two and two together. It wasn’t his place to reach out to them, yet. This detour into the heart of the Midwest was strictly a thing to satiate his curiosity. He had no interest, officially, in pursuing this with the same agenda as the Avengers. Or, at least, so he told himself. Selina hadn’t proved as convinced.
“What do you think people do around here for fun?” Selina asked, staring out the window. “Cow tipping?”
He flashed a smile. She was a city girl, and Bruce – aside from a few third world country prisons and an escapade up through Tibet – was bred, born and raised in the city himself.
It was surprising to realize that this man the world had deemed Superman could hail from such humble beginnings, then. Surprising, but then in a strange way, heartening too. The stories he’d heard about this godlike man, his abilities and his lack of limitations, was a thing that Bruce didn’t underappreciate or undervalue. That type of power in the wrong hands could do irreversible damage. The recovering ruins of eastside Metropolis was proof enough of that. But was a farmboy the right man to have such power?
Bruce honestly thought there was no right man for that type of power. He was hoping against hope to be proven wrong.
By mid-afternoon, he’d taken his rented sedan through the back roads leading up to the Kent farm. They passed through Main Street first, which still looked half-gutted with abandoned buildings and broken signs to stores that were no longer open. It was still in better shape than Bruce had been expecting, considering the town had only recently received enough governmental subsidiary funding to begin reconstruction, but perhaps the only piece of lively intel they’d managed to pick up from the locals told them something interesting. Spurts of mysterious reconstruction seemed to be happening overnight. For instance, the local Sullivan Truck and Tractor Repair shop and the caved-in roof of the IHOP had been rebuilt somewhere between last Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. The resident owners had just awoken to the mysterious reconstruction in the morning, with no clue as to who had done the task or how it could have possibly been done in such a short span of time.
Bruce suspected he knew well enough.
The GPS on his phone eventually threw up a white flag of surrender halfway to the Kent farm, perpetually instructing him to make a legal U-turn at the earliest possible convenience. Selina shut the thing off in a huff.
“What do you plan on saying to Martha Kent when we get there?” Selina asked, not unwisely. “Hello, is your son is that same fellow from TV that can catch a bullet with his teeth and has a fetish for spandex?”
“Something like that,” Bruce remarked. “Maybe I’ll leave off the fashion criticism.”
“Probably best from a man that used to dress up like a bat,” Selina allotted, graciously.
“And it’s not business,” Bruce added, after a beat of silence. “This isn’t business for me.”
Selina rolled her eyes. “Right. This is just idle curiosity that has us in the backwaters of our lovely nation. Don’t lie to me, Bruce. Ever since Istanbul and that meeting with Natasha Romanoff, your brain has been percolating this ridiculous idea of a team of superheroes.”
“I turned the Avenger’s Initiative down, and I don’t regret that.”
“And yet,” Selina pushed, tiredly, with a wave of her hand, “here we are.”
“I just have to check this guy out. I can’t explain it. I just…” he trailed off, a bit frustrated at his own inability to put into words why this was so important. It just was. Selina had been keen enough on the idea of watching vigil over Gotham City from a far enough distance, especially from greedy hands of Lex Luthor, but he doubted her charity would spread to something that covered the unfettered territory of all of Earth.
“What are you hoping for?” Selina asked, curiously. “That he’ll turn out to be for real, or that he won’t?”
Bruce didn’t have an answer for that.
When they arrived at the Kent residence, it was to find it empty and void. The farmland extended for a few hundred acres in every direction, but he failed to see anyone working the field. They both got out of the car to briefly stretch their legs, and while Selina was listlessly waiting beside the car, hip leaning against the dust-covered film that coated their rental, Bruce walked the perimeter of the house and even up to the shed in the backyard.
The padlock on the shed was brand new.
He bent before it, debating with himself for a moment before he gave up the ruse of disinterest and tried his hand at picking the lock. It wasn’t more than a few seconds before he heard a breath of annoyance expelled from behind.
“This is a waste of my skills,” Selina remarked, and had the padlock open in less than two seconds flat with a simple hairpin. “What do you hope to find?” she asked, as they walked in. “An alien spacecraft? I highly doubt they would have left that lying around with hay and horse manure.”
Bruce didn’t respond because someone else suddenly spoke up. “Can I help you?”
Bruce turned around to find Clark Kent standing at the open door of his shed. He was dressed in the same style that Bruce had tried to copy – washed jeans and simple tee – but on Clark it looked ten times more genuine. He was covered in earth and carrying a shovel in one hand, and his pale red cap was hooded awkwardly over a pair of thick-rimmed spectacles.
“This is private property,” Clark told them. “I can have the Sherriff over here in no time if you don’t leave immediately.”
“Relax, stranger,” Selina said, shamelessly. “We come in peace.” She walked right up to him, gazing in a manner that told everyone in the room she was inspecting Clark Kent like he was a slab of meat. “Not a total loss, that’s for sure. But I thought you’d be taller.”
Clark didn’t so much as frown as he did squint at her behind his glasses. “Excuse me, miss?”
“Well mannered, I’ll give him that,” Selina noted. She turned to Bruce. “I’ll give you a few minutes to hash this out, but remember, we have plans for the weekend. Let’s try to make it out of here by nightfall?”
She exited through the open door without another word, leaving both men standing there in a beat of awkward silence.
“Who are you?” Clark asked, and moved to drop the shovel at the sidewall.
Bruce strode around the shed a little, saying in an offhand manner, “You should think about beefing up security around your mom’s place. Anyone can wander in.”
“Pointed tip. I’m only going to ask this once politely. Leave.”
“You’ve actually asked that twice,” Bruce replied. “Both times very politely, considering the breaking and entering. Most people wouldn’t be so polite.”
“I’m not most people.”
“That’s my hope.”
The line between Clark’s eyebrows got deeper, but the body language told Bruce he wasn’t particularly threatened by Bruce’s presence. He was a man of assured confidence. Bruce assessed him as he usually did, trained to strategize weak points on a potential opponent within the first few seconds of introduction. But it was hard to find a weak point on Clark. Even if Bruce didn’t have strong evidence that he could take down a freight train.
Bruce figured the direct approach was really the best way to go about this. “I know who you are.”
Clark, to his credit, didn’t give anything away with micro-expressions. “And who would that be?”
“A man with a very large secret about who he is. A man that hides using theatricality and deception. Trust me, I know how that feels.”
“Look, it’s obvious you’re here under some misconceptions. My name is Clark Kent, and I’m just doing some farming on my family’s property. As you can imagine, my day is a little busy, so if you don’t mind—”
“Funny morning chore, considering you’re a full time reporter working out of Metropolis. But didn’t your byline yesterday say you were on assignment with Miss Lane in Kandahar this week?”
Clark paused, crossing his arms defensively. “I was. I took a flight out late last night.”
“No jetlag?” Bruce offered, in a deadpan sort of tone. “Guess you must be used to it, what with the frequent flier miles you’ve racked up.”
The insinuation made Clark stiffen a bit. “I don’t like playing games. Who are you?”
“A… colleague, someone you can trust, but that’s a judgment we’re going to have to make after a longer discussion. Right now, I just came here to introduce myself. Don’t worry. Flat denials aren’t going to get you anywhere, but your secret is safe with me. I appreciate anonymity, you’ll find.”
The silence stretched for a beat too long. Clark glanced away, to the open door where Selina could be seen once again resting against the rental car as if she didn’t have a care in the world. It looked like Clark didn’t have a clue what to make of them, but he wasn’t responding immediately with aggression either. That boded well.
Bruce stepped forward, handing him a simple card with a phone number on it. “My name,” he said, “is Bruce. I’m from Gotham City. You’re a reporter. Figure out my story, my full story. When you do, call me.”
Clark looked incredulous. “Is this a test of some sort?”
“Yes,” Bruce said, bluntly, and then walked away to join Selina outside.
“Well, that was productive,” Selina told him, flipping down the visor to shield her from the glaring sunlight as they raced down the Smallville dirt roads. “Tell me, do you practice being that cryptic in front of a mirror, or is it a genetic thing? Why couldn’t you be blunt for once? You have a cape, I have a cape. Let’s be best friends forever.”
“It’s more complicated than that,” Bruce answered, leveling her with a sobering look. “I already know who he is, but if he’s the type of man that I’m hoping he’ll be, the type of symbol that the world needs right now, then he needs to be more than just brawns. He needs to be able to assess, to strategize, to think. If he figures out who I am, it’s a mark of more than just superpowers.”
“You and your symbols,” Selina commented, idly. She hunkered down in the passenger seat, attempting to get comfortable during the long drive. “Wake me when we get to the airfield. I want to pilot this time.”
“What? Don’t fully feel at ease with me in the pilot seat?”
“You watch a guy fly off to his death once, and it’s once too many.”
Bruce gave a short laugh, but she already had her eyes closed, a peaceful look on her face as she attempted to get some rest. The look suited her. A peaceful life had it’s advantages, and he would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy his downtime – but he wasn’t bred for a peaceful life, and neither was Selina. If he’d learned anything in the year and a half since leaving Gotham City, it was that the world was descending further into anarchy, not spiraling away from it. The aftermath of Metropolis’s destruction, and even that of New York, he’d been hit with the hard revelation that they were not alone in the universe.
He’d dealt with evil men before, the type that believed in a cause and the type that believed in ungoverned anarchy. But now the world was outsourcing on evil, and this new brand was coming from worlds he could never imagine. It left him with the distinct impression that as much as he would love to fade away into the sunset, retire to some remote island with Selina, it wasn’t a matter of choice.
After all, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil was that good men do nothing.
That following weekend, they were in New York attending the Stark Expo held every year in Flushing Meadows Park.
It was by far the leading global convention in technology and advanced engineering since the early 1930s, but over the years it had bloated from its modest world fair beginnings into a spectacle of extravagance and entertainment that lost points, in Bruce’s opinion, for all its flare. He didn’t really expect much else from Tony Stark, a man who in his heyday was the true inspiration behind Bruce Wayne’s playboy persona. Still, it was an expo that brought the leading minds of the world together, and if the rumors were true, Tony Stark was premiering his clean energy technology; Bruce, understandably, had a vested interest in seeing how that turned out.
On the first night, it was primarily about getting a layout of the gargantuan stadium that had been rebuilt in recent years ever since a Russian madman had demolished it. In true fashion, Tony Stark had built it bigger and better than the original. Twice as big, three times as extravagant, and boasting more press and exhibitions than any other four conventions combined. The place was crowded from wall to wall with thousands of guests, so it was easy to get lost in the crowd.
Mostly, they were here to see a few panels, two in particular. Tony Stark’s panel, and that of LexCorp. Bruce had spent more than a few months trying to assess the new clandestine project Luthor had dubbed “Black Arc,” and Selina had even broken into his office on one occasion to steal plans, but mostly it was shrouded in mystery. Rumor had it that it was tied to Gotham City reconstruction, but gossip and market speculation meant very little to Bruce. In his old days, he could have donned on the batsuit and maybe even tried his hand at corporate espionage to get the information, but he had a hunch that Lex was going to premiere something during the Expo. It was the perfect setting for grandstanding. He knew from experience; Wayne Enterprises had used the expo more than once over the years to reveal some of its most breakthrough developments, and they’d always benefitted from inflated stock prices for the next six weeks. It was a tried-and-true practice for fortune 500 R&D companies these days.
It was all a bit much. But then, it wasn’t as bad as before either.
Pepper Potts had announced earlier in the year that all proceeds from the Expo, every last dime, would go towards charities that would help rebuild the eastern seaboard of the United States. Between the criminal occupation of Gotham City and the alien invasions of both Metropolis and New York, the entire east coast was in a state of recovering devastation. It was one of those moments, Iron Man antics aside, where Bruce actually thought Tony Stark had rightly earned the admiration of the masses, rather than just purchasing it with flash and charm.
“Don’t look now,” Selina said in a tease, nodding her head at the next exhibition.
Bruce kept his gaze averted. They passed by the Wayne Enterprises stall in the main hall without incident, though Bruce was curious to see if there was anything familiar in the showcase. On the verge of bankruptcy and led by a gutted board, Wayne Enterprises had seen better days. Still, his spirit gave a small dip when he failed to see Lucius Fox anywhere. Not that he should have expected otherwise.
Bruce was dressed casually again, this time with an added beard and salt-and-pepper hair. It wasn’t much, but he hoped it’d do. Besides, if glasses could fool the world when it came to Clark Kent, then a beard would hopefully suffice when it came to a dead man.
Selina wasn’t a fan of the beard, however. “That’s the first thing to go when we leave here.”
“What? It doesn’t remind you of the first time we met?”
“The first time we met, I was robbing you blind and you landed on your ass. You consider that good times?”
“It had it’s own charm,” he offered, amused.
She rolled her eyes, muttering something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like men, then cut through another crowded aisle to find a booth with modified black leather gloves that provided heightened sensitivity to the digits, perfect for safe-cracking.
“No,” Bruce admonished, with a feigned glare.
“But—” Selina began, before he pulled her away from the booth. He wasn’t suffering any delusions, however. By nightfall, she was guaranteed to be in possession of the gloves, and probably a few more high-tech gadgets as well. “You’re no fun, these days,” she teased him.
He leaned in to whisper in her ear, “How about we head back to the hotel and I remind you all the ways you’re wrong?”
She smirked at him. “Promises, promises.”
Given this was an event thrown by Tony Stark, Bruce knew to be on the look out for the Avengers. Their identities weren’t public knowledge, but ever since last year when he’d gotten wind of a tail and discovered Natasha Romanoff had been following them around the world, all at the behest of S.H.I.E.L.D., he’d made it his business to uncover as much information about the organization as possible. Bruce even suspected that the knowledge of secret identities might go both ways; Black Widow knew about him, of course. But it wouldn’t be surprising if Tony Stark and all the other Avengers had learned of the true identity of Batman, as well. It made things more complicated, to be here, at Stark Expo. Like a neon sign hanging over his head. Complicated, but it was a calculated risk.
Who else knew? The members of Avengers – probably. The leading agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – maybe. The subset of scientists and military personnel all at the top of their disciplines - unlikely. If he knew anything about clandestine agencies, it was that they kept their secrets well or they didn’t keep anything for long. And Bruce had to admit that S.H.I.E.L.D. was an impressive group. But it was too rooted in governmental bureaucracy for Bruce to ever feel comfortable with it. He didn’t trust the American government to be doling out world order. A group responsible for that needed to be apart from things like legislative oversight and Senate hearings. Otherwise, government corruptibility would infiltrate a system already prone to too much innate vulnerability. It was bad enough that the fate of the world rested on the shoulders of godlike men and their fragile godlike egos. Bruce had learned that lesson far too well.
However, as diligent as he was, it was Selina that spotted Bruce Banner in the crowd rather than him.
“I’ll handle this,” Selina assured. “I’ll find out what he knows about you, about us.”
“I’m not sure it’s wise,” Bruce said.
“What?” Selina said, smiling. “Don’t think I can handle myself around a man with repressed rage issues?”
She slipped off his arm to part through the crowd. He watched her go, admiring the view and – knowing from experience – almost had reason to pity Banner. Still, he’d seen footage of the Hulk. It wasn’t unreasonable to be concerned.
It was a shock, then, to turn around and find himself suddenly caught in the crosshairs of a woman with a press badge. “Hi,” Lois Lane said, with a look that was half a glare and half a predatory smile. “Jetting across the world and spying on billionaires, that’s not exactly how one stays below the radar, but I think outing yourself to a mild-mannered reporter in his backyard is just getting sloppy, Mister…” she glanced down, reading the fictitious name attached to his ID lanyard, “Malone. Or should I say, Mr. Wayne?”
Clark appeared behind her a second later, looking sheepish.
“Miss Lane,” Bruce began, thrown and trying to cover well for it. “Maybe we should take this conversation someplace quieter?”
Bruce lead them outside to a secluded enough place, far from the press area and exhibition halls, and it wasn’t more than a second more before he found himself confronted by a petit woman that had toppled more than one drug cartel and corrupt South American dictator with her words.
“I was expecting a phone call,” Bruce said, pointedly.
Lois Lane was a full foot shorter than either man present, and under normal circumstances, less intimidating. These weren’t those circumstances. “I’ll make this quick. I’m only going to say this once because Clark is too nice to say it himself. You do anything to jeopardize certain identities, remember that we can return the favor.”
“Lois,” Clark said, in a tired tone. “We talked about this.”
“Right, right,” she said. “I’m not supposed to threaten the man that has a history of dressing up like a rodent and pummeling bad guys in his downtime. But I just wanted to make that one thing clear. I’m a reporter, and I’m very, very good at what I do. If you’re with S.H.I.E.L.D. or outside of it, I don’t care. My answer remains the same. Stay out of our way or the world will know exactly who and what you are.”
With that, she left, disappearing back inside to the crowds.
“Well,” Bruce said, impressed.
“Yeah, Lois can be…” Clark began, and searched for appropriate words for a very long moment, before settling on, “intense, at times.”
“I take it you did some investigating into who I am? Or did Miss Lane figure it out?”
“I had you clocked within twenty-four hours as Batman,” Clark informed. “It didn’t take long to put your name and face to a picture, and then your picture to a story that made sense. Or, as much sense as it can make.”
“Out of curiosity, what was your first clue, aside from what I told you?”
Clark paused, disquieted and eyes hooded under a strangely sympathetic gaze. “I could tell your body was in bad shape. No cartilage, plenty of deep scar tissue and a history of broken bones. The thing on your back must have been painful. It’s a body of a… man with a troubled past. ”
Bruce was unused to being dissected like that by mere sight alone. Turnabout was fair play, he supposed, and it wasn’t like he hadn’t sprung similar judgment on Clark just the other day.
“Well, congratulations,” Bruce offered. “You’re one of a handful of people in the world that knows that secret. You could destroy my entire life, if you wanted.”
(Clark really couldn’t, because Bruce had a backup plan should the need arise, but he didn’t want Clark to know that.)
Clark looked troubled. “Why would I want to destroy your life?”
“Mutually assured destruction. It’s one method by which you know you can trust me.”
“That’s how you establish trust?” Clark replied, incredulous.
“Yes.”
“I could think of easier ways. Like trying to be friendly, for starters.”
“Would that have worked?” Bruce asked, almost as incredulous.
“I trusted Lois Lane with my secret because she asked me to, not because I had dirt on her.”
Bruce paused, unsure at first at how to respond to such guileless confidence. “I’m not her.”
Clark laughed. “Trust me, I’ve noticed.”
The walk to the curb gave Bruce some time to reflect. Already, he could tell he functioned differently from Clark. He wasn’t even sure what type of alliance he wanted out of this. Not that this ranked even close to the top of his impetuous alliances list, inaugurated by his affiliation with the League of Shadows and Ra’s Al Ghul, and middled out around the time he slept with Miranda Tate. In fact, it probably spoke too much that the cap on the list included his most trusted ally, a reformed cat burglar that had once sold him out to his enemy.
But this was better than trying to get comfortable around a shadowy government agency like S.H.I.E.L.D. This was more basic, elemental. The foundation of something big, he was sure, but he wasn’t sure what yet.
Clark broke the silence. “I’ve only read about what you did for Gotham City, but… I just wanted to say it was a noble endeavor, what you tried to do. What you ultimately did. You should be proud.”
“I’m proud of the city and it’s people. I always have been.”
“But I still don’t understand why you sought me out.”
He pivoted to face Clark. “Because there’s only so many people in the world that know what it’s like to be in your position. I never had the fate of the world resting on my shoulders, only my city, and it was enough to…” he gave a painful smile, “to break my back. The only reason I’m here is because I had friends. I had people that I could trust. No man can do this alone. I don’t care how powerful you are.”
“And yet you turned down the Avengers Initiative when they approached you?” Clark said.
Bruce was caught off guard for the second time in so many minutes. “How do you know about that?”
“I had a conversation once, with Captain America. He mentioned that Batman wasn’t interested in joining.”
“I’m not interested in the government ordering me to do their bidding.”
“But are you sure that’s what the Avengers are about?” Clark asked. “Think about it. We’re at Stark Expo, a prime opportunity for you to get to know certain other… capable men and women. You should keep an open mind.”
“You’re talking about Tony Stark?”
Clark offered a smile. “Among others, yes.”
tbc…