World's Finest Writer's Corner Truth & Justice: The Third Year (Batman/Justice League Future AU) Rated T+

[JC Roberts]

Title: Truth and Justice – The Third Year
Characters: Bruce Wayne/Batman, Martha Kent/Superwoman, Alfred Pennyworth, Quiver/Lian Harper, Arsenal/Roy Harper, Wally West/Flash, Clark Kent/Superman, Lois Lane, Linda Park, Clay Kent, Green Lantern Grendel Gardner, Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, Koriand'r, original Justice League characters, some old bad guys and some new ones.
Rating: T+, primarily for violence and language, sexual situations
Pairings (in order of significance): Bruce Wayne/Dr. Martha Kent, Roy Harper/Midori, Clark Kent/Lois Lane, Wally West/Linda Park. Bruce Wayne/Roy Harper friendship.
Summary: A new World’s Finest team sees the crime rate in Gotham plummet. Personal crises, amped-up supervillains and a vengeful madman threaten the Justice League. And Batman finally allows himself to be happy. There's also a wedding. Future AU. Batman heavy. Action/Adventure, Drama, Angst, Romance, Humor.
Disclaimer: I don't own any character trademarked by DC Comics or characters in this story that are derived from or inspired by them.

Brilliantly beta-read by arg914. Special thanks to technical advisor The Five Foot Ninja.

Chapter One​

“And you save me in the nick of time”
~ “I’m Feeling You,” Carlos Santana/Michelle Branch​

The siren cut off in mid-keen as the ambulance skidded sideways against the curb of GothamGeneralHospital’s emergency room entrance and the back doors exploded open. The driver, a lanky Latino woman in her late 20s, jumped out of the cab and rushed to help the paramedic ease the gurney onto the concrete sidewalk. They were met halfway across the ER floor by a worn young resident as they rolled the patient urgently toward an empty bed.

“Booze and barbs,” said the paramedic, as the doctor aimed a penlight at the unconscious man’s pupils.

Shaking his head, the resident popped the sterile wrapper from a naso-gastric tube and started easing it down his patient’s nose. He did not wonder why the man had tried to kill himself. There were only a handful of reasons and he’d heard them all.

“Any idea what he took?” the resident asked, glancing down at the large, lifeless middle-aged man.

“Pentobarbital,” replied the driver. “Looks like he helped himself to leftovers from some surgery his butler had a while back.”

The resident gave her a quizzical look as he fastened a bag of saline and a vacuum pump to the nasal tube. “Butler? Who is this guy?”

“Bruce Wayne,” said the driver.

“You’re kidding.”

The paramedic shrugged. “Even billionaires get the blues.”




It was not Lois Lane’s job to scan the wire services for news; an assistant city editor had been assigned that responsibility. This did not stop Lois from spending most mornings obsessively refreshing her link to the Associated Press newswire. If she had a fault as managing editor of the Daily Planet, it was her inability to delegate. She was aware that this tendency to over-manage irritated some of the city desk staff, and she usually tried to restrain herself, but Lois had backslid considerably since returning to work the week before. The reaction to her intrusiveness had been less defensive than usual; everyone understood that she was trying to cope with the loss of her daughter.

She had probably gone overboard the previous day, sharpening all of her secretary’s pencils while she was at lunch, but when Nadia returned to her desk a few minutes early, she had merely looked at Lois through sympathetic hazel eyes and waited for her boss to mumble an excuse and hurry back to her office.

Today she was on a mission: Clark and their son, Clay, had finally returned to work. Lois wanted them to have a good first day back, as much as they could have a good anything at this point, and she was combing the wire service for stories that they would find engaging, without being too demanding. She had eliminated a few stories that were intriguing, but involved a death, and had sent Clay out not long ago to interview the latest rap star to become infatuated with the struggle for social justice. Lois had confused the rapper for a rocker Clay liked; he had apathetically explained the difference and gone off to do the interview. Now she was looking for an assignment for Clark, with less success: She couldn’t find a single story among the latest batch that didn’t somehow involve death or superheroes.

“So the boys are back today.” Nadia stood by Lois’ door, a steaming mug in her hand. Nadia had been at the Planet longer than Lois; she had been Perry White’s secretary. Lois had made it clear that she did not expect her to fetch coffee, but Nadia was old school. She considered it part of her job.

Lois looked up from her computer. “How are they doing out there?”

Nadia handed slid a coaster toward Lois and carefully lowered the cup of black coffee. “Clay was hanging with some of the guys before you sent him out. But Clark…. He’s just sitting at his desk, pretending to read the paper. He doesn’t look like he wants anyone to talk to him.”

Lois nodded. “It’s been… hard.”

“I know,” said Nadia. She had lost her husband of 41 years a few months earlier. “Becca asked if you’d be willing to move the budget meeting to 10:30.”

Lois’s eyes slide to the clock on the bottom corner of her computer. It was a few minutes before nine. “Sure. Anything else?”

Nadia shook her head. “Want me to close the door?”

“Please,” Lois said. She waited until she was alone to press both palms against her eyes. Then she returned her attention to her computer. The screen had refreshed itself while she’d been talking; three new bulletins sat at the top of the queue: Midvale Mayor Marches for School Funding; Metros’ Quarterback Faces Shoulder Surgery, Gotham Billionaire Attempts Suicide.

Lois seized her mouse and clicked frantically on the third item. As soon as the window opened, her eyes found the billionaire’s name. It was only a two-sentence blurb, but Lois did not bother to read it. She scrambled to the door and flung it open, shouting across the crowded newsroom for her husband.




Clark tugged his tie up against the bottom of his collar as he hurried down the fire stairs from the roof of Gotham General’s towering parking garage. He had just gotten off the phone with Lois, who had reported being stonewalled by the hospital’s patient information desk. Operators had been fielding inquiries all morning from callers nosing for details about Bruce Wayne’s apparent attempt to kill himself. She had not been able to find out what floor he was on, or even how he was doing.

The flight had not exerted Clark, but as he walked into the hospital lobby, his heart was galloping. He looked past the admissions desk, then up at the ceiling, searching through the hospital’s cinderblock walls for a sign of Alfred. On his third sweep of the hospital, Clark saw Dick Grayson and Tim Drake standing alone in a sixth floor waiting room. Dick looked sad and worried; Tim furious. Clark shut his eyes for a moment, blocking out hundreds of other voices to focus on their conversation.

“… should have known better than to get involved with anyone that close to Lian,” Tim was saying bitterly. “What the hell did she do to him?”

Clark opened hardened eyes as Dick’s fading voice protested, “It wasn’t like that….”

As the elevator doors closed behind him, Clark leaned back against the padded elevator wall, tilting his face toward the ceiling. Just days before Martha’s death at the hands of Parallax, Lois had come to the conclusion, with almost no evidence, that Bruce had somehow maneuvered their daughter into bed. Clark had not believed it, had in fact considered the idea preposterous. But reports of Bruce’s quiet melt-down at Martha’s funeral – and now this… overdose – forced Clark to admit there had probably been more going on between the two of them than he had wanted to believe. Tim seemed to think so. He and Dick obviously knew more than Clark about his daughter’s relationship with their mentor.

He did not understand how it had happened; the last time he had seen Martha and Bruce together, they had been arguing so vehemently that Clark felt he had to step in for the good of the team. He had asked them to stop fighting. Numbness spread across his chest. He should have left them alone. This was probably his fault.

The door slid open with a ding, and Clark walked leadenly down the hallway toward the waiting room. A hospital security guard stood beside the door. He stepped forward as Clark approached.

“You have a badge?” he asked, staring pointedly at Clark’s empty lapels. Before he could answer, a tired voice behind him said, “It’s OK. He’s family.”

Clark had rocketed to Gotham General truly fearing for his colleague’s life, but being characterized as a member of Bruce’s family suddenly offended him. He forced his lips together against a bitter denial and turned to a washed-out looking Roy Harper, who had apparently just walked off another elevator. Roy gave him a one-armed hug that Clark did not return.

“It had to be an accident,” Roy told him. “He wouldn’t….” He broke off and stared at the floor, then looked back at Clark, who had still not uttered a word.

“I hate to ask you,” Roy said awkwardly. “But now that you’re here, I kind of need your help.”




The pain came first, dragging him into an unwilling consciousness. His nose and throat were burning; his stomach raw. Everything hurt – his screaming head, his constricting chest. And he was in a hospital. He could smell it: the Lysol and the latex.

“He’s waking up. Mr. Wayne?”

“My…,” Bruce whispered through cracked lips. “My doctor….”

“I’ll get him.”

No, he thought as he felt the nurse leave the room. His doctor was a woman. He tried to open his eyes, but the glare of sun coming through the hospital window stung and he kept them closed. A second nurse in the room apparently noticed his discomfort. He could hear the blinds closing and he tried again to open his eyes.

“Arkham… Asylum,” he managed. “My doctor....”

The nurse standing next to him was very quiet for a moment. “Your doctor here is Dr. Marcos. He’s on his way.”

And Bruce remembered: Martha had been his doctor and she was dead. Suddenly the physical pain wasn’t enough, he needed more; he needed it to hurt so much that he couldn’t think, so badly that it would eclipse the anguish that was spreading through him with more force than mere bodily injury could ever bring.

There was whispering at the door, and footsteps, then the scrape of metal against tile and a heavier presence by his bed.

“Mr. Wayne?”

Bruce opened his eyes. A squat, balding man sat next to him, an open chart in his hand.

“I’m Dr. Marcos,” the man said. “Do you know why you’re here?”

Bruce rolled his head toward him. “I… ah… fell.” His eyes moved to a bandage wrapped around his left forearm. “I… there was broken glass?”

Dr. Marcos’ impassive eyes darted from the chart to Bruce. “What kind of glass?”

He tried to remember. He had been so tired. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“And so you…”

“I had something to drink.” He had downed an entire bottle of brandy. Bruce blinked. “And I took something else. Melatonin.” Alfred had been taking the herbal supplement as a sleep aid. Martha’s death had been devastating to the old man; he had loved her dearly. No one at Wayne Manor had been sleeping well since Parallax had taken her from them. Bruce had not expected the melatonin pills to work for him, but he had been desperate enough to sneak into Alfred’s bathroom and swallow a handful of them.

“Melatonin.” The doctor’s voice sounded skeptical.

Bruce frowned at the man’s tone. “I think I took too much.”

Marcos skimmed the chart again, then closed it. “Mr. Wayne. We found six partially digested Pentobarbital capsules in your stomach.”

“Pento…” The name sounded familiar. Bruce could not remember why.

“Barbiturates,” said Marcos, examining him openly now. “Which in combination with alcohol generally equals death.” He added gently. “You’ve had a loss recently.”

Bruce strained against a fog of confusion and pain to put these seemingly disparate statements together. It took him nearly a minute to understand what the doctor was getting at.

Alarmed, he said, “I didn’t try to kill myself.”

Marcos’ expression did not change. “A lot of people find it difficult –”

“I did not try to kill myself,” Bruce repeated, more adamantly. He stared at the doctor in disbelief. Is that what everyone would think?

In a soft voice Bruce found patronizing, Marcos asked, “Tell me about Martha.”

Bruce squeezed his eyelids together. “Get out of here,” he whispered fiercely.

The doctor sat there for a few moments, then Bruce heard the legs of the chair drag across the floor again and the sound of rubber soles moving away from him.

He thought about the orange Rite Aid bottle with the torn label and realized now what he had not in his drunken state: Melatonin did not come in pharmacy vials. Alfred had needed something stronger to cope with Martha’s death and he hadn’t wanted Bruce to worry about him. Bruce understood. He had been hiding his drinking from Alfred for the same reason. He wondered where the old man was now; he must be frantic.

Bruce had spent almost two years fighting his feelings for Martha Kent, but Alfred had been determined to bring them together from the moment she walked into his kitchen. He believed her Bruce’s last chance to find love and he did not care that she was half Bruce’s age or Clark’s daughter. When Alfred learned that Martha was Superwoman, he had considered it confirmation that his instincts were correct: She would understand Bruce and his life’s work more than anyone else possibly could: They walked the same path.

Alfred had been right, Bruce thought. And he had been a fool. He had fled from the one woman who might truly be called the love of his life and his change of heart had come too late. In truth, death would have been a welcome respite from the loss and regret that overwhelmed him. But not by his own hand. He would never to that to Alfred, or to Dick or Tim. And he could not do that to Martha, who would have been horrified to see how badly Bruce was reacting to her death.

He needed to talk to Alfred right away; he had to make sure the old man was all right. Bruce flexed his fingers toward the button that would bring the nurse, but his arm felt so heavy that he could not move it, and the sleep that had eluded him for nearly three weeks engulfed him.




He knew it was a dream, but when he saw her, suspended in light and fog, he pushed irresistibly toward her.

“Bruce,” Martha asked, her voice an ache in his chest. “Why wouldn’t you let us be together?”

He could not seem to reach her. She did not move, but no matter how many forward steps he took, she seemed just as far away.

“I was afraid that I was too old for you,” he said. “That being with me would destroy your relationship with your family… and I was afraid… I would mess it up.”

Martha’s dark brown eyes merged with his. “You were just afraid,” she said, and disappeared.




She ran her hand through her tangled brown hair, shaking out a shower of dirt and sand, brushing stray grains away from her face. It was a futile gesture – the relentless winds wove hundreds of new granules into her curls and clothes with every gust, and they were endless.

For as long has she had been here, there had been no night, just an eternal murky day. It might have been months, and it was certainly weeks, since the explosion of light and pain had brought her here; she had expected to be rescued long ago. It was only her sitting practice, the hours of meditation, that had steadied her mind over the long wait.

She was hungry, now, a feeling she had been ignoring, as the one source of nutrition on this world was an olive-colored cactus-like tree whose fruit was bitter and spongy. Aversion, she thought, as she slogged across the sand, doesn’t do a thing to make it taste any better.

She tugged a chunk of flesh from the plant and brought it to her mouth, feeling, rather than hearing the presence behind her.

“Kind of short for Superman’s daughter, aren’t you?” asked Parallax, stepping over to the tree and tearing free a piece of fruit.

Martha Kent tilted her head toward him and offered him an open smile. “You’ve come crawling back, I see,” she said.

It was only the second time she’d seen him since they’d arrived at this place. The first time, Martha had expected him to kill her, but he had merely mocked her as she sat in meditation and then flown away. She had not been able to follow him. Unlike Parallax, Martha could not breathe beyond the planet’s atmosphere and the perennial clouds of dust and sand had blocked a sun that, from what she could tell, was at least yellow. She was at nowhere near full strength. She had quickly determined that if a means of escape existed, it was not in her power to find it.

This had not concerned Martha at first; she was sure her Justice League teammates would save her. Her father would never give up on finding her, nor would Lian or the man she hoped would soon be her lover. They must be struggling, frustrated by their inability to reach her. Wherever she was, it was nowhere near Earth. Martha had tirelessly tried to contact Meera Buhpathi, the team’s telepath, with no success. She had hoped that Midori, her brilliant teammate from Colu, might have been able to trace the path of particles from the explosion, but even if she had, they might be having trouble reaching her. Parallax had disabled their shuttle.

But that still left Gren, Martha thought, as she winced through a mouthful of the unpleasantly pungent fruit. A Green Lantern didn’t need a spaceship to get around.

Parallax studied her grimace, looked at the chunk of plant in his own hand and concentrated until it had changed form, morphing into what appeared to be a dark green chicken leg. Martha smirked.

“It doesn’t make it taste any better,” Parallax informed her. He took a bite and added, “So it turns out, Dr. Kent, that this planet is the jewel of this particular universe.”

Martha frowned. “Universe? Or do you mean galaxy?”

Parallax shrugged. “I can usually get around the galaxies in our universe,” he said. “What’s the matter?” he added as her face grew tense. “Am I extinguishing your dreams of a blissful reunion with Dad and your friends?”

The hours of meditation had been useful: Martha felt the panic before it consumed her and breathed it away.

“They’ll find me,” she said.

“They’ve most likely had your funeral by now,” Parallax countered. “That explosion you made probably looked pretty fatal.”

Martha squinted at him through a veil of sand. “I made? Whose bomb was it?”

“That wasn’t a bomb, Dr. Kent,” Parallax said irritably. “You made it explode by slamming it into me.”

Martha averted her stunned face and wrapped her arms around her thin shoulders. “What was it?”

“I’m not quite ready to reveal my nefarious plans,” Parallax said sardonically. “In the movies, that’s always where the villain goes wrong.”

She looked up at him. “Are you a villain? I thought you envisioned yourself as some kind of savior.”

Parallax gave her a wise smile. “You work at Arkham, don’t you? Criminal psychiatrist?”

Martha nodded.

“I’m not a criminal,” Parallax said. And with a glance upwards, he hurtled away. Martha walked slowly back to the spot where she’d been sitting. It took a long time for her to calm her mind; Parallax had given her too much to think about.




It was dark when Bruce opened his eyes again; only a muted emergency light illuminated the room from a rectangular ceiling panel. A soft hum emanated from the ventilation system and he could hear the muffled voices of tired nurses outside his closed door. His eyes dropped to the back of his right hand; he hadn’t noticed the IV before. He wondered what they were giving him. Whatever it was had seemed to make his headache fade. His nose and throat still hurt, though, from the tube he supposed they’d used to pump his stomach. He turned his head to see if there was water by his bedside.

His eyes moved immediately past the night table; he was not alone. Clark sat in a dark, battered visitor’s chair, his forehead cradled against a large palm, his glasses dangling from his fingertips. Bruce hadn’t seen him since the funeral. Even in the dark, he could see the hollow rings around Clark’s eyes and the streak of gray in his stubble that had not been there before. The death of his daughter had aged Superman as time could not.

He was resting, but not asleep. Bruce continued to study him until Clark sensed that he was being watched and looked up. His eyes reflected a spectrum of pain – mostly grief, but also bewilderment and the kind of hurt that comes from having been unexpectedly betrayed.

“You didn’t have to come here,” Bruce said. “You have enough to…” His eyes fell to the blanket that was bunched up around his waist. “I wasn’t trying to kill myself.”

“I know,” Clark said quietly.

“How do you know?” Bruce asked. He was sure Marcos had described him as suicidal.

“You’re still alive,” Clark said. He twirled his glasses between a thumb and forefinger.

Bruce nodded, but he was not relieved. Clark had come here for answers. He deserved them. But Bruce did not feel capable of giving them yet.

“Was this because of Martha?” Clark asked tentatively.

Bruce rolled his head away.

A tremor in his voice, Clark asked, “Were you lovers?”

After a moment, Bruce said, “No.” He was no longer sure this was true, but Clark needed the simpler answer.

It took them both a while to recover from the question. In the silence, the whirr of the ventilation system seemed abnormally loud.

“But you were in love with her,” Clark said finally.

Bruce didn’t answer. After a few moments, Clark stood up.

“Get some rest,” he said. “I’ll let everyone know you’re awake.”

As he reached the door, Bruce whispered, “I told her… I wasn’t.” Clark stopped. “Right before we got the call… about Parallax.”

Clark turned to look at him and his features were as impassive as Batman’s had ever been.

“I’m sure she could tell,” he said, “That you were lying.”



Next Chapter: Paths to peace and the road to Hell.

 

[JC Roberts]

Chapter Two (1/2)

Dick pushed past the irate nurse and strode down the corridor, glancing into darkened rooms in search of Bruce. He head Tim’s voice behind him, attempting to mollify the woman with promises of a quick visit, “Just to see if he’s OK,” but her response suggested she was heading straight for hospital security.

ClarkKent’s disappearance from the waiting room and brief, stony return to announce that Bruce was awake had scared Dick. Twice during the long afternoon, his cell phone and Clark’s had chirped simultaneously and Dick knew that Martha’s father had programmed his phone to download the same news bulletins he had. By mid-afternoon, all of them were suggesting a link between Bruce Wayne’s suicide attempt and the recent death of the Justice League’s doctor, who had been seen with Bruce at the Police and Firefighter’s Ball on the night she was murdered and at another social event several months earlier. Dick had chanced a few surreptitious looks at Clark after reading the bulletins: the first round had seemed to leave him devastated; after the second, grimness had set into his usually placid features.

Dick did not know how Clark had managed to get past the cadre of nurses who were monitoring Bruce’s room, but he was sure Bruce was in no condition for a confrontation with a vengeful father. Clark had always seemed like a mild kind of guy, but Dick knew how he’d feel if he learned one of his daughters was involved with an older man with Bruce’s reputation. When he finally found him, Dick was relieved to find Bruce staring vacantly at a wall, apparently unharmed.

Bruce looked up at him, then stared at the foot of the bed. “Sorry,” he said quietly.

“Don’t be stupid,” Dick responded, as Tim rounded into the room. Dick thought himself the one who should apologize. He had helped Bruce into a limousine after Martha’s funeral and returned to his dual life as a private investigator in Bludhaven and Nightwing. When he had called the manor several times over the following weeks, Alfred had described Bruce’s state of deep depression and exhaustion, but Bruce would not come to the phone. Dick had assumed Martha’s death was something he needed to cope with on his own; it had been a bad miscalculation.

“How do you feel?” asked Tim, leaning forward in the chair Clark had sat in not long earlier. But Bruce’s eyes had moved to the door.

“Alfred?” he asked, shooting a concerned look at Dick.

“He’s at home,” said Dick. He tried not to look at Tim, but Bruce was not an easy man to fool.

“What’s wrong?” he asked immediately. There was an edge of fear in his voice.

“He’s all right,” said Tim hastily. “He’s had a pretty rough day.”

Bruce nodded and Dick watched him add another layer of guilt to what already seemed like a mountain.

“So… um… Clark was here,” Dick said hesitantly. “He got past the nurses.”

Bruce’s eyes moved back to his feet. “He’s a good reporter,” he said softly. Dick glanced at Tim, who shook his head. Another subject best left for a different time.

After a brittle moment, Bruce asked, “How did the doctor…. How did he know about Martha?”

“****,” whispered Tim angrily as he and Dick exchanged a meaningful look.

“Not from any of us,” Dick said.

“Then how?” asked Bruce, in a tone that demanded a quick, direct answer.

“Page Five,” said Tim in disgust. Bruce gave him a hard look, then swung his feet over the edge of the bed so quickly that Dick felt himself lunging forward as if to catch him.

“Get me out of here,” Bruce ordered, peeling away the tape that held his IV.

Uncertainly, Dick said, “I don’t know if that’s –”

Bruce slid the IV cannula from the back of his hand. “I’m not being treated by someone who gets his patient information from a gossip column.” He tried to stand, but his legs buckled. Dick grabbed him and helped him back onto the narrow hospital bed, but he could feel Bruce’s determined resistance and knew there was no point in arguing with him.

Tim had come to the same conclusion. “I’ll go back to the house and get your clothes,” he said wearily.




Bruce frowned when Dick pulled the car over half a mile before they reached the entrance to Wayne Manor and called Roy Harper on his cell phone. Tim, leaning forward from the back seat, explained that Roy was at the mansion; he had been taking care of Alfred.

As Dick put a hand over his free ear so he could concentrate on the phone conversation, Tim added, “You might as well know. There was kind of a mess this morning.”

“Besides the one I made?” Bruce asked tiredly.

“Well, yeah.” Tim seemed sorry to have had to bring the matter up. “There was a little problem with the police.”

Bruce twisted around in the bucket seat.

“It’s just that Alfred told them that the whole thing was his fault because he had told you the bottle of pills on his sink was melatonin,” Tim said. “His motives for doing that were…. temporarily in question.”

“Oh my God,” whispered Bruce. He thought he might have to go back to the hospital. His chest was on fire.

Dick did a double take at the two of them and hung up on Roy.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he asked Tim. “Don’t tell him that now.”

“He needs to know,” Tim said soberly. “Before he sees Alfred.”

Dick sighed and looked at Bruce reassuringly. “Look, it’s OK. It took a while for Arsenal and Superman to get the police to drop the investigation, but it’s done.”

“Superman,” Bruce repeated numbly.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so upset,” Dick said. “You were still out when they finally wrapped things up. I wouldn’t be surprised if he drops by tomorrow.”

Bruce closed his eyes and slumped against the seat. “Take me home,” he whispered.

“OK. But we’re going to have to go in a back entrance,” Dick said. “The paparazzi we dodged at the hospital discovered that you checked out against medical advice. Roy says they’re already camped out in front of the house.”




The mansion was quiet when Dick helped Bruce in through a door he hadn’t used in months; it opened into a small enclosed sun porch in the east wing, where Martha had spent three days in meditation with the Dalai Lama. Alfred had tidied up the room, but two meditation cushions remained against the back wall. Bruce and Martha had continued to use them after Pat returned to Tibet, following up most of their Sunday training sessions with an hour on the cushions.

Bruce avoided looking at the plump, rounded pillows as Tim stepped into the room and locked the door. It took the three men longer than it might have to wind their way to the living room; Bruce moved unsteadily and twice had to stop to regain his balance. He knew he had probably left the hospital days earlier than he should have, but he did not want to look at that doctor again, and he needed to see for himself that Alfred was OK.

Roy was waiting for them in the living room.

“I finally got him to get some sleep,” said Roy, as Bruce looked anxiously around the living room for the old man. “He was worried to death about you.”

“But he’s all right?” Bruce asked, as Dick helped him ease into a recliner. Roy nodded.

“Thank you,” Bruce said, his eyes conveying what the two inadequate words could not.

Roy shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.” He hesitated. “I’ll – maybe we’ll talk more later.” Bruce nodded. Whatever Roy had to say about Clark’s involvement in getting the police to drop the investigation would have to wait until they were alone. Bruce wasn’t sure he was ready to hear about it anyway.

A shuffling sound came from the staircase. All four men watched Alfred’s slippered feet move shakily down the steps.

Roy ran a hand through his hair. “I’ll, um – I’ll be at Lian’s,” he said, ignoring how his daughter’s name made Tim bristle. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

Dick clasped Roy’s hand and the men exchanged a quick embrace. Tim thanked Roy a little more stiffly, but followed when Dick glanced at Bruce, then indicated with a jerk of his head that Tim should accompany him as he walked Roy to the door.

Bruce had half-raised himself from the recliner when Alfred’s pale blue eyes fell upon him. He had never looked so old, Bruce thought, nor so tired, not even after Martha’s funeral.

“They’ve released you?” Alfred asked, the doubt in his voice offsetting his hopeful expression.

“Well not exactly,” Bruce mumbled as his eyes moved to Alfred’s bandaged fingers. “You’re hurt.”

With a dismissive gesture that only seemed to magnify the thickness of the bandages, Alfred said, “A small cut.” Bruce remembered him making a similar pronouncement about the blood clot that had almost killed him.

The old butler took a wobbly step toward Bruce, his creased face awash with remorse.

“If you can possibly forgive me –” he began.

“I stole your drugs,” Bruce said. “You’re not the one who needs to ask for forgiveness.”

Alfred’s eyes began to shimmer. “I should have noticed that you were drinking.”

Bruce moved forward on unsteady legs. “I should have realized I wasn’t the only person in this house who was in pain.”

The fragility in the air between them seemed to solidify, strengthen. Then Bruce, whose gaze had dropped to the floor, looked up at the man who had been his father since he was eight years old.

“Look,” he said. “You don’t want me to have to tell you how I feel about you again, do you?”

Alfred stepped back. “Please, no,” he said. And then a tiny smile trembled at the corners of his pale lips. Bruce felt the muscles in his own mouth lifting and was pretty sure it was a reflection.




Parallax returned sooner than Martha expected: one murky day might have passed; she wasn’t sure. She had come to the troubling conclusion in that time that no rescue was imminent. She was going to have to get home by herself. She had no idea how to do this, but there were a few cardinal principles her father had taught her early on, and they had cropped up again in Bruce’s training sessions: Keep your eye on you enemy and make yourself strong.

As a little girl, she had learned a third survival skill from her mother: When you get lost in a shopping mall, stay where you are. Martha had remained near the site where she and Parallax tumbled painfully into the desolate world; she was sure whatever door had closed behind them would open here. She suspected Parallax believed this as well. The increasing frequency of his appearances did not seem to stem from a craving for human companionship.

“So what kind of father is Superman?” he asked idly, as Martha shrugged off the tiny piles of sand that accumulated on her shoulders whenever she sat for long periods. “Was he a doting daddy or was he never quite satisfied, with you having only half his powers and all?”

Clark would have been proud of her if she had been a street sweeper, but Martha found the question interesting enough to entertain it.

“There’s nothing wrong with expecting the best from the people you love,” she said, hoping the touch of defensiveness sounded genuine. She thought she might have pulled it off; the weeks of meditation had given Martha a possession of herself that she had not known before.

Parallax appeared unimpressed. “Yeah. That’s why ‘overcompensates’ appears in boldface in the file the Guardians have on you.”

“The Guardians have a fileon me?” She didn’t think she liked that.

“Don’t flatter yourself. It’s just a couple paragraphs,” said Parallax. “They’ve got one on your whole crew, and just about every other ‘superhero’ on Earth.

“Since I’d been away for a while,” he added. “I wanted to see who was most likely to give me the most trouble when I dropped by on my little errand. The Justice League still tops the list.”

Martha pushed back the tangle of gritty hair from her face and said skeptically, “I find it hard to believe the Guardians would let you anywhere near them.”

The bitterness in Parallax’s voice was unmistakable. “I don’t have to be near Oa to access what the Guardians have, Dr. Kent. And there’s not much they can do about it.”

She drew a circle in the sandy ground with a bare toe.. Roy had given the team a brief history lesson on Parallax as they raced to the battle at Barringer Crater, but Martha hadn’t needed one. When she was growing up, her family visited the memorial gardens planted in honor of the former Green Lantern every year. Clark had made sure his children knew the complete legacy of Hal Jordan, not just its tragic finish.

“My father said the old Guardians treated you like ****,” she said.

Parallax raised an eyebrow.

“Well, he didn’t say ‘shit,’” said Martha. “He doesn’t curse. He said they were ‘uncompromising.’”

“That sounds a little more like him,” said Parallax, sweeping past her to stare at something she couldn’t see.

Martha squinted in Parallax’s direction, trying to make out whatever seemed to be holding his attention, but as far as she could tell, there was nothing but sand and wind, and maybe a rare glint of sun.

“Mr. Jordan,” she said after a while. He turned to her, a curious expression moving across his face. “I want to go home.”

He shook his head. “Not going to be worth it.”




Crime did not cease, nor did natural disasters abate simply because members of the Justice League were blindsided by grief and the apathy that often follows personal tragedy. While the team managed to hold back the handful of inevitable threats to humanity in the weeks that followed Martha’s funeral, its responses were disjointed and spiritless. Arsenal knew the lack of heart and focus would eventually lead to another death, either within the League or among the civilian population and in mid-May he asked Meera to call a meeting on the Watchtower.

Superman arrived early at Roy’s request. As much as he dreaded bringing it up, there was a sensitive matter to be discussed and it could no longer be put off. As Roy haltingly threw out the suggestion, Superman stared blindly through the conference room porthole, blinking hard several times and finally nodding jerkily in agreement.

“You don’t have to stay for the meeting,” Roy told him afterwards.

“Yes, I do,” Superman said gruffly. “We’ve got to get ourselves together. That means we’ve all got to be here.”

Arsenal nodded, relieved. Superman’s presence would do more to help their teammates move on than anything Roy could possibly say.

Midori had not been able to salvage the Javelin-11. She was supervising the construction of a new shuttle; it was a few weeks away from being ready. Gren had meanwhile offered to transport his teammates to the Watchtower. A few minutes before the meeting was scheduled to start, an airlock hissed near the rear of the station and Lian shambled into the conference room. She gave Superman a long, silent hug and slipped into her usual seat. Soon everyone had taken his or her place at the table. Only two chairs remained vacant. Everybody tried not to look at them.

Arsenal leaned forward in his seat at the head of the table. “Thank you for coming,” he said, his voice subdued. “We have a lot of things to talk about. First –”

“Wait a minute,” Grendel said, glowering at Batman’s empty chair. “We’re not all here.”

“We are for now,” said Arsenal without elaborating.

Anger flared in Gren’s hazel eyes. Meera glanced at him, then looked away.

“First, I’d like to thank Wonder Woman, who has very graciously agreed to fill in for a while, until we –” Roy took a deep breath as Diana smiled sadly at him. “We’re going to have to do some recruiting at some point. I know none of us are quite up for it yet.”

No one argued with him. Superman, sitting a few chairs away from Wonder Woman, cleared his throat and quietly thanked the former Themysciran princess, who reached across the table and squeezed his hand.

Arsenal asked Midori to update the group on the shuttle. The Javelin-12 would be twice as fast as its previous incarnation and have new features adapted from Coluan and other extra-terrestrial spacecraft models, she said. They included a propulsion system derived purely from solar energy and the technology to make limited deep-space voyages.

Roy kept his actual pep talk brief: Martha would have wanted the League to move on, to honor her memory by carrying on its enduring mission with determination and resilience. Lian and Gren were putting together a memorial they hoped to hold at Barringer Crater within the next month. Meanwhile, the team couldn’t afford to allow its grief to compromise the lives of those they had sworn to protect.

“Arsenal’s right,” said Superman, his eyes riveted to the tabletop. “We have a job to do. And… um… my wife and I thank all of you for everything you’ve done for us and all of the kind thoughts you’ve expressed, but the best tribute you could offer Martha is to remember that she always fought her heart out and that she’d want you to do the same.”

Lian shielded her eyes with a hand and struggled to suppress a sniff. The rest of her teammates bowed their heads as if someone had suggested a moment of silence.

“We’ve got to keep fighting,” Roy agreed softly. “And I need to bring up another issue that’s somewhat related to that.” His eyes met briefly with Midori’s imploring ones and he gave her a crooked smile.

“I think that it might be time,” he said, “to consider the possibility of new leadership.”

“No,” said the Flash instantly, as his shaken teammates goggled at Roy.

“What are you talking about?” asked Lian. She looked as though her father had struck her. “We need you.”

“More than ever,” added Meera.

Roy shook his head. “The record doesn’t reflect that,” he said stoically. He held up a hand as Lian continued to protest. “A new leader will bring a new outlook, and I think we need that right now.” His eyes slid to Gren, who had been studying Roy expressionlessly.

“Wrong,” said Gren flatly as he absently twisted his ring. “We need consistency. Stability. In other words, you, Arse.”

Remembering the young Green Lantern’s brash attempt to depose him two years earlier, Roy said warmly, “I was thinking it might be your time, Gren.” He looked around the room. “If everyone agrees. I think they will.”

Gren shook his head. “I’m not available.”

Leaning forward, Wonder Woman said, “Roy, I agreed to come back to a team led by you. I don’t think it’s fair to change the terms now.”

Midori added, “I want you to stay leader, too. Because giving it up will make you very sad.”

“Well, there you go, Arse,” said Gren snidely, as Wally snickered and Roy’s face turned the color of a pomegranate. “Can’t have you sad and all.”

Superman rose. “Sounds like a unanimous vote to me,” he said to Roy. “I’m going to …” he nodded toward the door.

“OK,” said Arsenal meaningfully. Once Superman was gone, he added, “One more thing.”

He exhaled apprehensively. “The world knows our team doctor was killed during the fight with Parallax. People are beginning to notice Superwoman hasn’t been seen in a while either. We can’t let anybody make the connection. Lois and Clay’s safety, and probably Clark’s sanity, depend on Superman’s identity remaining a secret.”

He reached into a compartment on his belt and pulled out a hologram projector identical to the one Martha had always worn. “I need volunteers… to be Superwoman.”

Long seconds passed before anyone could speak. Finally, Wally asked, “How does her family feel about that?”

“I talked to Clark before the meeting,” said Roy. “He agrees it’s necessary.”

Silence fell over the meeting room, then Gren glared defensively at his teammates.

“Don’t laugh,” he said, and put up his hand. Nobody did.




Martha gave the rubbery cactus-like branch a squeeze and held her breath against the stench as clear, thick goo oozed into her open hand. She smeared the plant’s putrid sap – which smelled something like a cross between gasoline and rotten oranges – onto the planes of her cheeks and forehead as if it was war paint. In a sense that’s what it was: Martha was preparing herself for a battle. She just didn’t know when it would occur, or where, or even what form it would take.

As she became more convinced that Parallax planned to return to Earth to finish what he had started – and she still didn’t know what that was – she had become more reluctant to leave the spot she considered the entry point to the universe in which she was trapped. Parallax might return at any time and somehow escape through the trans-universal rift, abandoning her on this punishing desert world. As much as that prospect frightened her, Martha’s primary worry was now for the Earth and her unsuspecting teammates, who might die trying to defend it.

But the second tenant of her plan – make yourself strong – required her presence up in the thin layer of atmosphere above the planet’s grueling sand-filed winds, where she could absorb the sunlight she needed to maintain her powers. On the planet’s better days, a diffuse sunlight pushed its way through the constant gritty mist, but over the past week, the days had seemed to be getting darker. If this part of the planet was rotating into a sort of winter, her already waning strength would plummet. She needed to act while she could still fly high enough to absorb a little more sunlight. The sap from the plant, as revolting as it felt and smelled magnified the intensity of the rays, much like baby oil did for the skin of an ordinary sunbather.

Martha angled herself toward the blurry golden star and flung out her sap-coated arms and legs. There was very little left of the mint-green dress she had worn to the Police and Firefighter’s Ball, and while she was not cold, she did feel vulnerable. As she hung spread-eagled in the bright, cold sky, she imagined herself soaking in power like a solar sponge and tried not to worry about Parallax.

She could feel the star’s power surging through her and hoped the limited time she spent in its glow would be enough. Martha did not think she could afford to sacrifice much more meditation time. The practice was no longer merely a device to keep her focused and calm. The tranquility that had settled through her seemed to intrigue Parallax. Their brief exchanges had become real conversations. He probably didn’t think he was giving much away, but Martha had a lot of experience finding answers in other people’s questions. It was a technique she used at Arkham with considerable success.

She did agree with Parallax that he was not, at heart, a criminal. While Martha’s talent as a psychiatrist came from being able to see the men inside the asylum’s monsters, she reserved her sympathy for few of them and only Harvey merited her deepest sympathy. She saw more parallels between the former Two-Face and the man who once called himself Hal Jordan than either of them would have liked. Heartbreaking circumstances, she believed, had made these two extraordinarily good men go bad. Roy had not been wrong to think that Martha might feel sorry for Parallax.

But she had no less compassion for herself and the family and friends she left behind. There was a degree of manipulation in Martha’s interactions with Parallax that she suspected went both ways. While he seemed to accept her genuine sympathy for him and respond to it, she had no doubt he planned to desert her once he managed to break through the barrier. As she righted herself and headed back down to what she considered her base camp, Martha recalled with concern that he seemed increasingly cavalier about revealing his intentions. He must be making headway in his efforts to return to Earth.

She remembered his bitter response to her description of the memorial that had been created in his honor after he had been thought to have sacrificed himself in an effort to restart the sun.

“I’d wishedI’d died,” he said. “After that little episode, I was nothing but protoplasm and pain – and somehow a mind – for years that seemed like eons. It wasn’t so long ago that I managed to restore myself to my original form, and believe me, it didn’t tickle.

“If it had been worth it…” he started, then shook his head. “But it wasn’t. The people of Earth thought I’d died for them, but it wasn’t worth more than a few days of half-mast flags and some officially sanctioned expressions of regret. As far as those entitled bastards are concerned, superheroes exist to protect them, and if we die doing it – well, then we get a garden in our honor.”

“What did you want?” Martha had asked. “A religion?”

“I hoped they might get better,” Parallax replied. “Even a little. But it’s worse now than when I left. There are three dozens wars going on right now on your little planet, Dr. Kent. People are still abusing their children, shooting each other over parking spaces and pissing all over their natural resources. Dysfunction is virtually wired into the human genome.”

The doctor and the idealist in Martha resisted arguing with Parallax. “And you think it’s time for a reboot?”

He had not responded immediately, but, finally, apparently thinking he had nothing to lose, Parallax had answered, “That’s right.”

In an odd way, Martha had felt relieved. The apparatus Parallax had constructed out of solid light had been a threat to humanity. She had not detonated a harmless device and sent them both here for nothing.

Martha always tried to wipe the sap from her face and limbs before re-entering the lower atmosphere, but she never completely succeeded and by the time she landed, she imagined she looked like the female Clayface Bruce had once described to her.

She was brushing futilely at her gritty shoulders when she saw that Parallax had returned. He was probing thoughtfully at a spot about five feet off of the ground, where she’d supposed they’d fallen into this barren world. Martha had seen him do this before; it had seemed a futile exercise. This time, though, when he pushed against the patch of air, a fist-sized burst of light appeared around Parallax’s hand. Martha felt as if her lungs were suddenly filled with ice.

As quietly as she landed, he had managed to hear her. He turned and surveyed her sandy form with grim amusement.

“I know your dress is falling apart,” he said. “But the sand’s not much of a fashion statement.”

Martha stepped forward. “Why not Coast City?” she blurted.

The pupils of Parallax’s brown eyes turned green.

“Why Barringer Crater?” Martha continued, struggling against a rising surge of fear.
Mentioning the beloved city he had failed to protect might provoke Parallax into killing her. He could do it effortlessly enough and then there’d be no one to stop him when he forced his way back through the rift. But it looked to Martha as if he had managed to open the portal between this universe and Earth and she was desperate to distract him. She could not allow him to break through without her.

“Well, Dr. Kent,” Parallax whispered. “They’re rebuilding Coast City, you know. They just laid the foundation for a shopping mall. I wouldn’t want to mess that up.”

And that was it, Martha realized. Whatever else he said about the descent of humanity, Hal Jordan had come home to avenge the perceived desecration of Coast City.

“Laying the foundation… over a mass grave,” she said.

“That’s right,” said Parallax, his eyes boring into hers.

Despite herself, Martha felt pity replacing her fear.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said. “It was never your fault.”

Parallax seemed unmoved.

“No,” he said. “The fault lies in Barringer Crater.”

 

[JC Roberts]

Chapter Two (2/2)

Bruce had just pounded through his seventh mile when Lian walked through the door of the mansion’s small state-of-the-art gym and stood uncertainly in front of his treadmill.

“Hi,” she said nervously, as he slapped the stop button and the belt rolled to a halt. He stared at her, panting, and pushed a lock of sweat-drenched hair from his eyes.

“I’ve never seen you sweat before,” she offered, when Bruce failed to return her greeting. He didn’t answer. He hadn’t seen Lian since the funeral, almost a month ago, although Roy had visited him several times. The sight of Martha’s best friend sent an unexpected ache through Bruce, a stronger one than he might have anticipated had it occurred to him to think about Lian at all.

She wore jeans and a pink t-shirt – conservative attire for her – and her auburn hair was tied back in a ponytail. Bruce reached for a small towel he’d draped over the rail of the treadmill and wiped his face, waiting for Lian to say whatever she’d come to say.

“Why are you up here instead of down there?” she asked, nodding toward the Batcave.

“I’m not ready for down there,” Bruce said.

She offered him a half-hearted smile. “Maybe soon.”

His eyes flicked toward the worn black treadmill belt, then back to her, clearly waiting for her to explain what she was doing in his gym.

“OK, I won’t take long,” she said. “I’m just –” She sighed. “I had to make a list of people I’ve kind of harmed and, you know, offer to make amends to them and, well, you’re on my list, so – here I am.”

Slowly, he said, “I don’t remember you being an alcoholic.”

Lian gave him a mirthless smile. “I’m sure you know what kind of addict I am.”

“I didn’t know they had 12-step programs for that,” Bruce said.

“They have 12-step programs for everything,” replied Lian, adding quickly. “I’m sorry I came on to you when I was married to Tim.”

During their brief and disastrous marriage, Lian had cheated on Tim with regularity and very little discretion. Her clumsy attempt to seduce Bruce during that time had landed her dumped on her derriere on the front drive of Wayne Manor. Not all of Tim’s friends had been quite so loyal.

Bruce supposed the apology had been hard for her, but he couldn’t keep the coldness from his voice. “The person you should be apologizing to is Tim.”

“I know,” she replied. “And I have. Sort of. He wouldn’t talk to me. So I sent him an apology video. But I don’t think he watched it. So I sent him a text message. Which I hope he read.”

He nodded, which unfortunately Lian mistook as encouragement to continue the conversation.

“So – celibacy,” she said. “I kind of hate it.”

Bruce considered telling her she’d get used to it, when he found himself staring at the Cyrillic lettering on the front of her t-shirt.

“Of course, I might feel like less of a sex object if you’d stop gawking at my chest,” Lian said petulantly.

“I got her that shirt a few months ago,” Bruce said dimly. “When I went to Moscow on business.”

Stricken, Lian folded her arms across the front of her blouse as if hiding the design would make it seem less like Martha’s.

“I’m so sorry,” she said despondently. “I didn’t –”

“It’s OK,” he said, looking away.

Lian’s voice trembled. “Lois told me to take any of Martha’s clothes that I wanted and to give the rest to Goodwill,” she said. “Most of her stuff was too small for me, but this –”

“They only had mediums,” Bruce remembered. The vendor in Saint Petersburg Square had apologized, but promised that the lady would like the shirt anyway.

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

“When was Lois in town?” Bruce asked.

“Last week,” Lian replied. “She – didn’t come here?”

“No,” said Bruce.

He could not blame Lois for avoiding him, but he was in her debt and he was not quite sure how to thank her. The morning after Bruce came home from the hospital she had called Alfred and asked the old man if there were paparazzi lurking outside of the mansion. Alfred replied that there were three of them and in a clipped voice Lois told him to hang on; she was putting him on hold. They never learned who she called, but five minutes later, the trio of tabloid photographers had vanished. Lois had not wanted to speak with Bruce personally, but after asking Alfred a few pointed questions, she did ask him to pass along a message.

“Ms. Lane says you are to stop torturing yourself,” the elderly butler informed him.

Lois’s compassion – and Clark’s for that matter – in the face of what Bruce knew to be their considerable hurt and anger towards him had been hard for him to fathom. Less than two weeks after burying Martha, they had suffered though the nightmare of seeing their dead daughter’s name entangled with Bruce’s in gossip columns speculating on the nature of his ‘suicide attempt.’

As for the paparazzi, Lois could not have known the tabloid press was stalking Wayne Manor unless they were staking out the Kents’ condominium and possibly the Daily Planet as well. How they could show him any kindness after what he’d inadvertently put them through was beyond Bruce, and yet Clark had spend hours stopping the police investigation against Alfred, and Lois, in addition to whatever high-powered phone calls she had made to call off the dirt diggers, had made it clear she believed that Bruce had been punished enough.

It should probably not have surprised him. Martha’s kindheartedness had not sprung from a vacuum. Bruce had always known her parents were good people; he had often considered Clark to be too good. The Kents’ ability to see past their own pain and resentment caused Bruce to realize, far too late, that as much as it might have upset them, her parents would not have disowned Martha for being involved with him.

“I’d better get going,” Lian said uncomfortably, and Bruce realized he had left her in alone in his gym while he meandered through his own troubled thoughts.

“Thanks for dropping by,” he said automatically.

Knowing he didn’t mean it, Lian gave him a jaundiced look and let herself out.




Emma led Gren to the lush backyard of the suburban Montreal home she shared with Meera and asked if she could bring him a glass of water.

“Unless you have a beer,” Gren joked, knowing that she didn’t.

He found Meera meditating in a chaise lounge on the back porch. She opened her eyes and smiled at him.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

She nodded. “I’m feeling a little more under control,” she said. She hesitated. “Mind if I try something?”

Gren sat in a chair across from her. “Go ahead.”

“It may be painful,” Meera warned. “I’m going to take away all of your sadness. But then I’m going to put it back.”

“You have to put it back?” Gren asked uneasily.

“I can’t go around taking away everyone’s pain,” Meera said regretfully.

“But I’m your friend,” Gren said.

She smiled sadly. “That’s why I have to return it to you. The suffering you’ve endured is part of what makes you who you are.”

“I wouldn’t mind being someone else,” Gren countered.

Meera reached for his hand. “I would miss my friend.”




Arkham’s new director, Lawrence Adrienne, was as mindful as his predecessor that Bruce Wayne’s money went a long way toward closing the gap left by a dearth of government funding. Still, he was annoyed to see that the billionaire apparently had the run of his institution and was using it to visit one of the asylum’s most notorious inmates. Adrienne threatened to fire the psychiatrist and the guard who allowed Wayne an unsupervised meeting with Harvey Dent and he meant it, even though they were already a doctor short, with Dev Persky’s Justice League pet now worm food somewhere in Arizona.

When Wayne arrived unannounced to see Two-Face a second time, Adrienne personally escorted him to a small room used by staff to interview the asylum’s more volatile inmates. Of course Bruce could see Harvey if he really felt it was necessary, the director said affably. But for Bruce’s own safety, Adrienne wanted a thick shield of Plexiglas between them.

Wayne had responded with a wan grin. “Not sure I’ve mentioned Arkham in my will?”

That had precisely been Adrienne’s concern. But he said, “I would just hate to see someone who’s been so generous come to any harm on my watch.”




“He’s such a dick,” muttered Harvey darkly, as he and Bruce watched Adrienne leave the small room.

Bruce silently agreed. He leaned toward the glass. “How are you doing?”

Harvey traced the scars on his left hand with an index finger. “I think you miss someone more if they were the only person you really talked to.”

“I know what you mean,” Bruce said. He was not sure his visits were strictly for Harvey’s sake.

“Are you angry?” Harvey asked cautiously.

Bruce considered this. “I think that’s one of the stages of grief.” Alfred had left an article about loss on the kitchen table, but Bruce had not finished reading it.

“I meant at her,” Harvey said.

Puzzled, Bruce asked, “At Martha?”

“She promised she would be more careful,” Harvey said and Bruce could hear a slight edge in his voice. “What kind of superheroes drag a civilian doctor into a battle with the most dangerous man in the universe?”

Bruce did not know how to answer him.

“So… you’re not angry?” Harvey asked.

Bruce shrugged. “I’m angry at myself,” he answered. “For a lot of reasons. But I’m trying to learn how to forgive myself.”

“That sounds very Martha,” said Harvey gently. When Bruce didn’t respond, he added, “Her mother came to visit me last week. She was very kind.”

It seemed like Lois had been everywhere in Gotham City except Wayne Manor. Bruce cleared his throat.

“Do you need anything?” he asked Harvey.

The inmate smiled bitterly. “I’m not allowed to have anything.”

Bruce stood up and leaned against the back of the scarred wooden chair Adrienne had provided him. “OK if I stop by again?”

The rancor left Harvey’s smile. “As long as it doesn’t interfere with my busy social schedule.”




Despite Roy’s entreaty that she take it easier, Midori went nights without sleep to make sure the Javelin-12 would be ready for the memorial service at Barringer Crater. Although they had toyed with the idea of holding the service on Memorial Day, Lian and Gren ultimately decided that they would have to put it off until June 1 in order to avoid clashing with a Boy Scout jamboree that had been scheduled for the crater for more than a year.

Arsenal asked everyone to gather at the upstate New York headquarters so they could ride out to Barringer together. Shortly before they were scheduled to take off, Superman sent a message through Meera about having to answer a last-minute call for help and said that he would meet them at the crater. Roy only half-believed Clark’s story about the distress call. He suspected that the Man of Steel might want to make the trip alone.

Most of the team arrived early enough to express awe at the new shuttle’s sleek beauty. Midori was enthusiastically explaining that the new design would reduce wind resistance to almost nothing when she looked past the teammates crowded around her and her face grew solemn.

“You have room for one more?” Batman asked.

Startled faces turned toward him. The Flash exchanged glances with Wonder Woman, who aimed a tentative smile at her old friend.

As Midori explained that the shuttle could actually hold a dozen passengers, Lian rushed toward Batman, clearly intending to hug him.

He stepped back. “I still don’t do that.”

Roy gave him a brief grin.

“We’re glad you’re here,” he said, unaware that Gren, standing behind him, was sending Batman a different message. He didn’t say anything, but the unguarded anger stretching across the Green Lantern’s face made it clear that Arsenal’s assertion was not unanimous.

“Well, let’s go,” said Lian. “I don’t want to be late.”




Martha hoped the power she’d managed to store would be enough; she could no longer afford to leave her desolate campsite. As long as she was awake and alone, she sat in meditation, trying to match her stores of physical power with emotional and spiritual strength.

Parallax was now spending hours at the spot where he had managed to produce the small rift between the universes. He had been able to re-create the breach, but he could not seem to enlarge it. He didn’t express his frustration, but Martha could feel it radiating from him. This made questioning him riskier, but she hoped it might also leave him less cautious. She did not feel, at this point, that she had much choice.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, with a calmness born of countless hours of meditation.

“It’s more like what I’m going to undo,” Parallax replied, without taking his eyes from the fist-sized rift. He stepped forward and managed to shove his entire arm through the fissure.

But he could go no further. He withdrew from the breech and gave Martha a calculating look.

“You try it,” he said.

Martha shook her head. She had attempted to locate the rift in Parallax’s absence. It seemed that his powers, the same ones he had once used to manipulate time, were the key to the small universal door.

Impatiently, Parallax seized her hand and shoved it with his own through the opening. A burst of warmth lit through Martha as she felt what she was sure was the heat of her own sun. Along with the quick caress of sunlight came a sudden understanding. She snatched back her hand and stepped away.

She glanced at Parallax, who was contemplating her ominously. He had told her that he had once been a test pilot; Martha wondered if he had ever taken a physics class. When it came down to it, the solution was almost ridiculously easy. There was only one problem and it seemed insurmountable.

If she went back. Parallax would have to go with her. There was no escaping that – she did not believe either of them could make it through the trans-universal rift without the other. They had gone through the breach together when Parallax had attempted to break away from the explosion and Martha had clung tenaciously to his shoulders. According to the physical principle of equal exchange, they would have to return the same way: together.

Martha felt the tranquility born of weeks of meditation give way to overwhelming sadness. She could not go back. Parallax could not be allowed to return to Earth and in order to keep him here, she would have to stay as well. For the first time since she’d first picked herself up from the ground of the hellish wasteland, Martha fought the urge to cry. She thought of her friends and family and her mind rested on the man she had started to believe might become both to her. She would never see Bruce again and they had left so much unresolved. Sand clung immediately to the twin paths of tears that ran down her cheeks.

“What’s wrong with you?” Parallax asked impatiently. When she didn’t answer, he turned back to the rift and shut his eyes. A fragile aura of green light enveloped him and he again pushed against the invisible spot in the air.

This time he managed to get a shoulder through, as well as an arm. Martha realized her theory about equal exchange did not apply to a being like Parallax. There was something about his powers that defied the laws of physics. Eventually, he would be able to get through the rift alone, while her only possibility of escape lay in managing to pass through with him.

So either the both of them returned to Earth together, or Parallax went back alone, with no initial line of defense to interfere with his plan to avenge the ghosts of Coast City. Although she felt some relief that she might still be able to go home, Martha saw that the time for strategizing had run out.

The glow around Parallax was deepening now. He looked from the invisible rift to Martha and offered her the faintest smirk.

“See you,” he said, and turned back toward the breach, pushing against it until his entire left side had disappeared.

And that fast, her time was up. In much the same way she had driven the explosive green device against Parallax so many weeks before, Martha hurtled herself at him now. As her body smashed into his, he started to struggle, to throw her off before the momentum of her blow forced them both from the bleak wasteland to a burst of blue sky. He managed to wrestle away from her, but as she slammed into a ground made not from sand, but brown earth, Martha knew that he had been too late: She was lying in the dusty mouth of Barringer Crater.

“I'm sorry you did that,” said Parallax calmly. She raised her head to see him hovering above her. “Now you're going to die with everyone else.”

Martha pushed herself up onto her hands, then rolled away as she dodged a blast of green light.

“Meera,” she said urgently, as she scrambled to her feet. “Do you hear me?”

 

[JC Roberts]

Chapter Three (1/2)

The Javelin-12 was hurtling over west Texas when Meera gasped loudly enough for Arsenal and Wonder Woman to interrupt their subdued conversation and look at her curiously. Before either of them could ask if she was all right, the telepath’s face grew almost frenzied and she started clawing her way out of her seat restraints.

“Get back in your seat!” Gren yelled as Meera nearly toppled onto Wonder Woman, who was sitting directly across from her. Diana grabbed the younger woman by her elbows and tried to settle her back in her seat, but Meera began struggling as she blurted a series of disjointed words that no one in the cabin could follow.

“You’re.... How can you…?” she babbled. “How… oh, I’m so sorry….”

“Meera, what’s wrong?” asked Roy, wondering if the sorrow and stress of the last six weeks had overwhelmed yet another member of his team.

“They’re back in the crater,” she gasped, “They’re not… they’re back.”

“Who?” he asked, as Batman, who had been sitting alone in the rear of the shuttle, stared at Meera with a look of stunned comprehension.

“Martha…. Parallax,” Meera sobbed.

Gren tore off his own restraints and shot to his feet. “I thought they were ****in’ dead!”

Meera’s face grew distant for a moment, as if she was listening to someone miles away, and then her eyes became sharp and lucid.

“She will be,” she said. “If we don’t hurry.”




Despite his threat and the fact that his intentions appeared to include mass murder, Martha didn’t think Parallax seemed eager to kill her. The emerald projectile he’d fired at her when they landed was narrow and ill-timed; the second blast of solid light hit her just as she became airborne. It was strong enough to knock Martha shoulder-first into the ground, but lacked the force she might have expected from a man who once overpowered her father.

She did not delude herself into thinking his halfhearted resistance meant she could stop him alone. Meera had responded to her distress call in seconds – to Martha’s surprise, the League seemed to be headed toward the crater – but the telepath could not seem to focus on the looming danger inherent in Parallax’s return to Earth, a reality that, at present, overshadowed Martha’s own homecoming.

We can talk about how alive I am later, Martha told her impatiently. Listen to me.

She had prepared for this moment; she’d had weeks to work out what had to be done. It did not matter that what had seemed like a workable strategy when she conceived it in the middle of an endless and unforgiving sandstorm now seemed whimsical and more than a little flaky. Conventional tactics had failed to finish Parallax. There was little to lose in taking a less straightforward approach.

Martha relayed her plan to Meera as Parallax absently bombarded her with a barrage of tiny green comets. He was plainly scanning the crater, looking, Martha assumed, for the fault he’d alluded to when they were trapped together on the hostile desert world.

She swooped after him, adrenaline mixing with a surge of vitality borne from the union of her body with pure Terran sunlight. Parallax spun toward her from halfway across the crater, hitting Martha with an explosion of energy that sent her careening into the crater wall a mile and a half away. As she pried herself from the depression her body had made when it slammed into the stone, she noted grimly that Parallax had stopped holding back.




“We have to get to the crater now,” Meera told Gren breathlessly, as her disbelieving teammates stared at her. “And on the way, you have to call the Green Lantern Corps.”

Gren gave her a dazed nod, grabbed her by the elbow and dragged her toward the airlock. Wonder Woman was waiting for them. She palmed a button next to the hatch.

“I’m going with you,” she said as it hissed open.

Meera asked Roy, “Should I call Superman?”

“No,” said Wonder Woman adamantly, as Arsenal shook his head.

“Not until we’re sure it’s really her,” he said.

Meera nodded. “When you get to there, do everything you can to distract Parallax. Martha has a plan.”




Parallax was on the other side of the crater by the time Martha had pitched herself into the air again. Her left elbow ached where it had slammed into the rock wall and a jolt of pain shot through her neck as she tracked his movements. During the time it had taken her to right herself, he seemed to have found what he was looking for: he was headed for a spot in the northwest crater wall.

He was preoccupied enough not to notice the three airborne forms as they hovered over the chasm for a moment, and then darted furtively toward Martha. It was not until she could actually see their faces – suffused with joy despite the urgency of the situation – that Parallax spun around and hit Wonder Woman with a blast that sent her sailing into the two-story observatory and souvenir shop that had been erected a decade before.

Martha soared toward Gren and Meera, who had plummeted a dozen feet to dodge Parallax’s salvo of jade missiles. As he angled his body so he was holding Meera behind him, Gren answered with a hail of exploding green light that lit up the three-mile basin.

“I’ll take Meera,” Martha shouted, reaching for the telepath. “Distract Parallax. Knock him off course and keep him busy.”

Gren blinked at her in astonishment.

“Gren,” Martha begged, as she wrapped an arm around Meera’s waist and felt her teammate’s nails dig into her lower back. “Please.”

He snapped out of his stupor and headed after Parallax, stopping, suddenly, to spin back toward Martha. She was about to urge him forward, when he reached into the breast pocket of his uniform and flung something at her. Martha caught it with her free hand: Her hologram projector.

Wonder Woman, meanwhile, had extracted herself from the ruins of the observatory and was barreling toward Parallax, a look of outrage distorting her ordinarily placid face. She quickly outpaced Gren and, stretching both arms in front of her, plowed fists first into Parallax, knocking him mere feet from where he’d been hovering in the sky, but still managing to disorient him.

Still in mid-air, Martha seized Meera by both arms.

“You ready for this?” she asked.

Meera looked terrified. “I don’t think I… he’s too strong.”

Martha’s brown eyes locked onto Meera’s. “You’re stronger.”

Meera reached out to the friend she had thought lost forever. “We are,” she said, touching Martha’s cheek.

Nodding, Martha flicked on the hologram. Gren and Wonder Woman, she saw, had ensnared Parallax in a brutal battle that had done him very little harm, but had already bloodied his resolute attackers. They would die, and quickly, Superwoman knew, if this flaky plan of hers didn’t work.




Batman shouldered Arsenal out of his way and gripped the bulkhead above the cockpit windshield. He shut out Roy’s demands that he return to his seat and stared straight through the glass. The crater was now in sight, but they were still too far away to see anything, at least with the naked eye. Without looking away from her instrumentation, Midori keyed in a few numbers on a panel near her right hand and the enormous monitor she’d build into the shuttle wall zoomed into the enormous basin.

“There she is,” whispered Quiver, smearing away tears with the back of one hand while grasping the top of her bow in the other. Batman stepped back to examine the screen as Midori programmed in a course correction that nearly sent him flying across the small craft.

Roy grabbed Batman where his cape met his collar and thrust him into the couch Wonder Woman had abandoned. “Strap. In,” he said through gritted teeth. Riveted by the caped blonde flyer on the screen, Batman complied without any real awareness of what he was doing.

“I see them,” Midori called out, and Arsenal, now the only one standing, leaned over her shoulder to peer through the cockpit.

“Come up behind Parallax,” he said, belting himself into the chair behind her as Midori swung the shuttle around the north side of the basin.

Midori looked back at him from the pilot's seat. “What are we going to do?” Roy put a hand on her shoulder.

“I hate to tell you,” he said.




Parallax flung a lightning bolt shaped blast of energy into Wonder Woman’s chest and twisted toward Gren in time to slip out of the grasp of the young Lantern’s enormous green hand.

“You’re Guy’s son?” Parallax taunted him. “You’ve got twice the balls.”

Gren flicked his eyes toward Wonder Woman, who lay on the crater floor, sucking down wracking mouthfuls of air. He glared at Parallax. Gren had a catalog of grudges against his father, but he had no doubt Guy would have fought ferociously against his former comrade. Guy would also have mouthed off to Parallax throughout the battle, draining away the focus he needed to defeat such a powerful opponent. Gren wouldn’t make that mistake. He glanced past Parallax into the sun and spotted a growing silver glimmer. He shifted his gaze a few degrees to the left and saw Superwoman and Meera coming up out of the distance.

Gren raised his ringed fist toward Parallax as though he was aiming a gun and summoned all of his willpower for a final strike. But just as he was about to let loose with everything he had, an emerald explosion sent him painfully into darkness.




Superwoman watched helplessly as Gren plunged towards the floor of the crater. She did not know if he could survive the fall; his ring did him no good if he was unconscious. A true warrior would have let him fall. To break into Parallax’s line of vision and save her friend would risk the mission – and the world. But Superwoman had never considered herself a soldier. She thought of Gren’s radiant face when he saw her alive and, tightening her grip around Meera’s waist, she rocketed toward his tumbling form.

I’m trying to distract Parallax, Meera told her, as Superwoman strained to reach their teammate. He was meters from the ground. A blast of green light whizzed past them. Meera squeezed her eyes together and suddenly the canyon was quiet.

Superwoman seized Gren by the ankle and eased him to the crater floor. Parallax no longer seemed to see them, but this respite gave her no relief: In the seconds it had taken her to save her friend, the renegade Green Lantern had reproduced the pulsing green spherical mechanism Martha had sacrificed so much to destroy.

“What’s he going to do with that thing?” Martha shouted to Meera as the telepath shuddered and Parallax turned back to them, livid now.

His mind…I’ve never felt anything like it. Martha, he’s too strong. I can’t… Meera tensed. Oh my God.

Martha inhaled deeply and reached deeply inside herself for the peace of mind she’d cultivated during her weeks on the desert planet. “That’s OK,” she said calmly. “You’re not going to fight him.”

Suddenly she realized it no longer mattered what Parallax was planning to do with the emerald machine. She could not afford to think about it now; it would not alter her plan. Clutching Meera, she hurtled toward Parallax, weaving around angry volleys of solid light in a last effort to end the madness that had started years before she was born, when Hal Jordan lost himself in the smoking ruins of Coast City.

“Enough!” Parallax shouted and as an emerald halo enveloped him, Martha could see that he truly intended for his next strike to end her life. It might have killed her and Meera, too, had the telepath not managed one last effort to distract him, just as Wonder Woman hit him from one side and the Javelin-12 plowed into him from behind.

Despite his vast power, the combined attacks managed to stagger Parallax. He was not hurt badly, but he was shaken enough to momentarily drop his defenses. As disoriented as he was, he still seemed angry.

In the bare seconds that his defenses were down, Martha sidled up to Parallax, shifting so Meera was nearly touching him.

You can do it, Martha assured her. He wants you to.

Meera laid her soft brown hand against Parallax’s temple and though he tried to jerk away, he did not seem to be able to move.

“Mr. Jordan,” Meera whispered as his eyes became distant. “I’m going to take your pain away.”

This news did not seem to please Parallax; his face contorted in furious resistance and his pupils shimmered green. But as Meera gently touched her other hand to his chest, the angry light faded from his eyes and it again seemed like he was fixed on something very far away.

He had a lot of pain; it had become virtually all he was over the past decades: Hurt and guilt and anger. As it drained away, Martha watched his body slump and realized that she was now supporting him.

With no free hand to reach out, she leaned forward until her forehead was touching Meera’s temple. “Give him this,” she whispered, and closed her eyes.

Meera pulled away with a startled, reluctant look. Then she gave her friend a grave nod and infused the serenity Martha had accumulated from endless hours of meditation into the tortured soul of Hal Jordan.

“What the ****?” Suddenly Gren, bloody and disheveled, was hovering beside them. Martha looked down and saw that Wonder Woman had rescued the damaged shuttle and was helping her teammates disembark.

“It’s OK,” she said steadily as Jordan’s eyelids fluttered spasmodically and his chin collapsed onto his chest. She nodded toward the ground and Gren followed her to the crater floor. As they touched down upon the brown earth, The Corps’ leader, Kurdoon and eleven other Green Lanterns landed around them in a shower of green and black.

“This is not an arrest,” Superwoman told Kurdoon firmly as Jordon sank to his knees and buried his face in his hands. “It’s a rescue mission.”

“You’ve taken his power?” the gelatinous triped asked in an unnervingly high voice.

Superwoman shook her head. “I’m not sure anyone could do that without killing him,” she said. “It’s a part of who he is. But I don’t think he’s Parallax anymore. And I know he needs your help.”

Kurdoon’s head twitched uncertainly on a short, bulbous neck. Superwoman thought it might be his version of a nod. With a flick of a long purplish limb, he conjured what looked like an ornate sleigh. Two of the Lanterns nervously helped an unsteady Jordan onto it.

“I hope you’re correct,” Kurdoon told Superwoman.

Martha flicked off her hologram. “You tell the Guardians that they’d better treat him right this time,” she said, and stepped toward the emerald sleigh.

Jordan was conscious, but too weak to lift his head from the seat’s cushioned green headrest. His exhausted face was filled with gratitude and remorse.

“Everything I’ve done,” he said. “I can’t make up for it.”

“Get better first. And then worry about that,” Martha told him.

Kurdoon’s head shuddered again and the contingent of Lanterns lifted off.

“And she saves us again,” said Martha, turning to smile at Meera.

Suddenly, it was if Martha was once more under attack; Meera lunged at her, hugging her and sobbing. Gren seized both women and swung them around in the air. He gave Martha a hard, quick kiss that she barely seemed to register as she gazed past him, searching for Batman as her teammates raced toward them from the battered shuttle.

“You’re alive!” Lian screamed, seizing Martha as Roy pulled Meera to one side. “Oh, my God, Martha, look at your hair!”

Laughing, Martha said, “I’ve definitely made it back to the right universe. How long have I been gone?”

“Six weeks,” said the Flash. Tears curved around the line of his jaw.

“A long six weeks,” said Roy, planting a kiss on Martha’s cheek, then deciding this wasn’t enough, hugging her so hard her feet left the ground. As he set her down, the implications of her long absence struck her and, with a troubled face, she started craning her head around her exultant teammates. She was sure she had seen Batman running toward her with the others but he seemed to have disappeared.

“Meera’s called your dad,” Roy told her. “He’s seconds away.”

“We have a lot to catch you up on,” said Lian, vainly attempting to brush some of the sand out of Martha’s hair.

“Roy and I are having sex now,” Midori added helpfully, apparently believing this was one of the things Martha needed to know in order to fully re-adjust to her life on Earth.

“Well, um, that's a good thing, I guess,” said Martha, trying not to laugh.

“It is a good thing,” Midori informed her. “His skill is immeasurable.” Roy covered his reddening face with a hand.

“And guess who’s not having sex?” Lian asked brightly.

“It’s a world gone mad,” said Martha. Her smile vanished and she took Lian’s arm. “Where’s –“

And then, in a burst of blue and red, she was enveloped in her father’s powerful arms. He was crying even before he reached her.

“Dad,” whispered Martha as Superman sobbed into her shoulder. She laid a hand on his heaving back. “Dad, I’m so sorry to have put you through…”

He lifted his head and took her face in his hands, his tears running trickling into his rapturous smile. “I thought I’d never see you again,” he said brokenly. “We missed you… Martha… we missed you so much.”

Then she was crying, too. “Are Mom and Clay OK?”

“Why don’t you go home and see?” Martha looked up at Roy, whose eyes were also glittering. He and the others had stepped back to allow father and daughter their reunion.

Superman took Martha’s arm. “Let’s go home,” he said. He turned to Meera. “Can you get in touch with my wife?” Meera, smiling blissfully, nodded.

Martha took a final, puzzled sweep past her friends and around the crater, then looked up at her father.

“OK,” she said. Clark was still holding her arm when they lifted off together. He didn’t let go until they had reached Metropolis.

 

[JC Roberts]

Chapter Three (2/2)

As his thrilled colleagues chattered happily about the return of their beloved teammate, Roy squinted at the crumpled nose of the smoldering shuttle. Midori moved next to him.

“I don’t think I can save it,” she said mournfully.

Roy gave her hand a squeeze. “That’s OK,” he said. “Thirteen’s my lucky number.” He frowned at the Jav again, then said, “Tell everyone to stay here.”

He found Batman leaning against the far side of the smoking shuttle.

"What the hell?” Roy asked.

Against the blackness of his mask, Batman’s bloodless face seemed almost white.

“Is it really... is it her?” he asked, his eyes trained on the crater wall just above the patch of woods where he’d spent tortured days searching for Martha.

So that was it. Roy moved next to Batman and rested his back against the Jav’s still-warm fuselage.

“Meera's sure it is,” he said.

“Meera was sure she was dead,” Batman said bitterly.

“Thank God she isn't,” Roy said, adding, “Clark took her home.”

Batman shut his eyes and let his head drop back against the ruined craft.




The scent of pizza wafting through the bathroom door made Martha’s heart hammer. Six weeks of eating nothing but the acrid fruit of those horrible trees had her ravenous. She rubbed her hand against her wet scalp and noticed with dissatisfaction that despite a scalding twenty-minute shower and four shampoos, there was still sand in her hair. She’d have to wash it again – but after dinner.

“You’ve lost so much weight,” Lois said, hugging Martha as she stepped across the bathroom threshold. Clay, who had been lurking in the hallway alongside his mother, wrapped an arm around his sister from behind and pulled her against his chest.

“Well, I’m wearing your clothes,” Martha pointed out, reaching back to tickle Clay. Lois was right. She was only a few inches shorter than her mother, but Martha was drowning in the sweatpants and t-shirt she had borrowed from her. “But believe me, I’ll be eating one of those pizzas all by myself.”

“Well, hurry up, then.” Clark called happily from the other end of the hallway. “They’re getting cold.”

As her family started to settle around the dining room table, Martha touched her chair and stepped back. “I just have to make this phone call,” she said uneasily. It was the fourth call she’d attempted since Clark had brought her back to the apartment. He and Lois exchanged a disturbed look.

Martha could not understand it; even if no one was home at Wayne Manor – and in two years, Alfred had not once failed to pick up the phone – she was sure they had an answering machine. But again, the phone rang endlessly. Dread began to creep along Martha’s throat. Had something happened to Alfred?

“We’re going to have to tell her,” murmured Lois. Clark nodded.

“Tell her what?” Clay asked, coating the top of a slice of pizza with crushed red peppers.
Martha looked up sharply as she set down the phone.

“Tell me what?” she asked. Clark glanced at the dinner table, then reluctantly motioned for her to join him in the darkening rooftop garden.




“What’s going on?” Clay asked as Martha followed her father out into the garden. Lois squeezed his shoulder and murmured, “I’ll tell you later.”

On the other side of the sliding glass door that separated the living room from the garden, Clark, looking as uncomfortable as she had ever seen him, started to tell their daughter about Bruce’s overdose. Lois knew he would present it as an accident; she personally disagreed with this interpretation. She no longer believed Bruce had seduced Martha as an expression of contempt for her father. Rather, Lois thought that the aging vigilante had somehow developed a mid-life infatuation with her vivacious daughter and that Martha’s death, after a lifetime of violent losses, had been the one he couldn’t take. Clark would not listen to this argument and Lois was not sorry he was presenting Martha with the gentler version. Martha’s feelings for Bruce Wayne were now quite obvious and the account of his near death, no matter how sanitized, would go down badly. Lois didn’t expect to see her daughter standing on their rooftop much longer.

As Lois watched through the glass, Martha’s fingers flew to her mouth and her eyes spilled over with horrified tears. She immediately attempted to fling herself into the sky, but Clark grabbed her wrist and pulled her back, speaking even more quickly now, the urgency of his words mirrored in his earnest face.

Before Lois could make her way into the garden to comfort her daughter and to join Clark’s entreaty that she stay with them in Metropolis, Martha shook her head and stepped away from her father, bolting from the rooftop even as Clark continued urge her to reconsider.

Lois slid back the door and stepped into the garden. “You let her go.”

“What else could I do?” Clark asked. “Overpower her and force her to stay? She’ll – she’ll be back soon.”

“No, she won’t,” said Lois. “You know what’s going to happen, Clark.”

He shook his head, and she knew he was clinging to something Roy had told him a few days after the overdose. “Bruce said he believed a relationship with Martha would be wrong.”

“Maybe he doesn't anymore,” Lois said, wondering if she still did.

Clark took off his glasses and stared into a horizon towards Gotham City.

“Then why isn’t he answering the phone?” he asked.




Alfred was stirring a pot full of homemade tomato sauce when Bruce pushed into the kitchen so forcefully that the swinging door slammed into the wall behind it. Alfred took a look at the younger man’s ghostlike face and asked, “What has happened?”

“She’s alive,” Bruce said, his voice quaking.

The wooden ladle Alfred had been holding sank to the bottom of the large pot. “How can this be?” Tears glittered in his wonderstruck eyes.

Bruce shook his head. “She’s going to come here.” He looked anxiously at the old man. “And I can’t –” He held up his hand as Alfred took a few confused steps toward him.

“Please… tell her,” He struggled for the right words. “Tell her… this is the happiest day of my life… that she’s alive… but I can’t see her right now.”

The old man stared. “But, surely –”

“Please, Alfred,” Bruce said desperately, and although the elderly butler did not understand the younger man’s plea, he could sense the depths of his agitation.

“Very well,” he said, still trying to process the glorious news and Bruce’s mystifying reaction to it.

Bruce nodded gratefully and disappeared from the kitchen.




Martha had already called three times by the time Bruce burst into his kitchen and urged Alfred to keep her away, but the elderly butler had been outside picking tomatoes from the small vegetable patch he kept just outside of the kitchen. There was an answering machine in Bruce’s office, but Alfred had not activated it in years. He did not like the wretched devices, believing them to be impersonal and indecorous.

When the phone rang minutes after Bruce left the kitchen, Alfred knew it was Martha, and as hungry as the old man was to hear her voice, he was not sure whether he should answer. Bruce’s response to Martha’s miraculous survival had perplexed Alfred at first, but now he was beginning to at least somewhat understand it. He had rarely seen Bruce so emotional. It was almost a reverse of his reaction to Martha’s ‘death,’ when he had closed himself off so completely that had nearly ended up dying.

Alfred had a second motive for not answering the phone: He wanted terribly to see Martha and he knew Bruce was right in his prediction that she would come to Wayne Manor. Fifteen minutes after the bell on the phone went silent, the woman Alfred feared he would never see again stumbled frantically through the kitchen’s service door. He had barely registered her wet, windblown hair and oversized clothes before she threw herself, sobbing, into his arms.

His straitlaced upbringing had always prevented Alfred from being entirely comfortable with Martha’s casual hugs, though he eventually managed to accept them without tensing up. This time his embrace was wholehearted and strong.

“We thought that we had lost you,” he whispered into her hair as his arms tightened around her.

His use of the word ‘we,’ caused Martha to remember the other man who lived at Wayne Manor. She pulled away and asked, “Is he here?”

Alfred hesitated. “Martha –”

“Is he all right?” she asked immediately. “Where is he?”

Placing a firm hand on each of Martha’s shoulders, Alfred delivered Bruce’s message, adding as gently as he could, “But he can’t see you, Martha. Not now.”

“Why?” Hurt and fear spilled over from her wet, wide eyes and the old man felt himself close to breaking his promise.

He tried to explain. “When he thought you had died… you can’t imagine what he’s been through....”

“That’s why I have to see him,” Martha pleaded. “I have to know that he’s all right.”

Alfred ran a withered hand along her cheek. “He will be. But you must give him time.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, her voice trembling. But she allowed Alfred to lead her to the kitchen table and pour her a cup of blue tea. And although he could see how terribly she wanted to, she did not ask to see Bruce again.

As soon as Martha flew back to Metropolis, Alfred touched a keypad next to the kitchen door and waited for a security monitor to slide out of a hidden wall panel. He studied it for a moment, saw a red dot moving in Bruce’s bedroom and headed up to the second floor.





Bruce was throwing a handful of socks into a suitcase when Alfred entered the room without knocking.

“She was here?” he asked, without looking up.

Alfred’s eyes flicked to the suitcase. “She just left,” he said. “In tears.”

Bruce struggled to keep his face impassive; it was one of the rare times that he failed. He walked across the bedroom, opened a drawer and cradled a few pairs of jeans in his free arm. The old butler watched without asking Bruce what he was doing

“Have your feelings for her changed?” Alfred asked.

Bruce pushed the drawer closed. “No,” he said. His feelings were the one thing that hadn’t changed.

“Then why are you doing this?” Alfred asked.

“I don’t know.” This was only partially true and from the look Alfred was giving him, Bruce could see that the old man knew it, too.

“She still loves you,” Alfred said.

Bruce walked back to the bed and threw the jeans into his suitcase. He had not wanted Martha to love him until she had told him that she did. Now he desired nothing else. But what would be left of her feelings for him when she found out what he had... what he had done to himself, how the ensuing scandal had affected her family?

And…. He had given up on her. He had said that he wouldn’t, when he allowed Roy to drag him out of the woods for her funeral, but he had not searched for her again; had never considered the possibility she was somewhere else – in another universe or another time. He had abandoned Martha, and started to rebuild his life without her. How could she see that as anything but a betrayal?

“Where are you going?” Alfred asked.

“Tim’s going to check in occasionally, make sure you’re OK,” Bruce said, closing the suitcase.

“I do not need anyone to take care of me,” Alfred said indignantly.

Bruce gave him a short smile. “But I do.”

“Then I want it to be Dr. Kent,” Alfred said, his frustration overcoming his attempt to understand the younger man’s feelings.

Bruce zipped the suitcase and set it on the hardwood floor. “Call her,” he said. “Once I’ve gone.”




Martha did not return to Metropolis immediately. She stopped first at her apartment, but Lian was not home and Martha no longer had a key. She headed next to the League’s upstate New York Headquarters. She hovered curiously over the damaged Javelin – it looked different than the one her father had grabbed in mid-air six weeks earlier – then slipped into the fortress-like building. Lian, Gren, Meera and Roy and Midori were in the kitchen. They had also ordered pizza. There were only three boxes, Martha noticed. Wally must have gone home.

They didn’t see her at first. She stood quietly in the doorway, savoring the sight of them, as she tried to erase the look of distress that she knew was layered across her face.

“– don’t know what’s wrong with him,” Lian was saying as she shook some garlic onto a slice of tomato pie.

“Maybe he’s off trying to kill himself again,” Gren said bitterly. Then he saw Martha, standing white-faced in the kitchen doorway, and he jumped to his feet, hastily swatting pizza crumbs from his jacket.

Lian hit her like a projectile, forgetting, in her excitement, that she had a slice of tomato pie in her hand.

“Sorry,” the redhead said as Martha brushed sauce from her mother’s t-shirt.

“It’s all right,” said Martha shakily. She looked at Gren. “It was an accident.”

He studied the floor. “Glad you’re home.”

“We all are,” Meera added, leading Martha to the table. “Have you eaten yet?”

“Not really,” Martha said. The pizza they’d ordered came from one of Martha’s favorite restaurants, a tiny pizzeria in Hudson not far from Midori’s apartment. Tonight it felt like she was chewing cardboard. She answered as many questions as she could about where she had been and what it had been like there – Lian said she could still see a few grains of sand in Martha’s hair – then listened as her teammates told her what had happened while she had been gone, presumed to be dead.

She was pleased to hear that Midori was moving in with Roy and that Lian was approaching her third week in recovery, but little else of the news was pleasant. Their account of her funeral nearly made her lose the slice of pizza she had barely managed to finish. By unspoken consensus – or maybe Meera had cautioned them telepathically – no one mentioned what had happened with Bruce, but it was clear that everyone had been affected by what they had believed to be her death.

“It’s all my fault,” said Meera, and her voice was thick with regret. “When you – disappeared – there was this blinding pain, and then nothing. When I’ve felt those things before, the person was always dead.”

“We should have kept searching,” said Roy heavily. “We should have given it more than a day.”

“I gave it almost three,” Lian pointed out. “But in my heart,” she confessed to Martha, “I believed you were – you know.”

Martha pushed her plate to the side. “What were you supposed to do?” she asked. “Even if you’d known I was alive, you couldn’t have gotten to me. I think it’s ridiculous for you to blame yourselves.”

“I might have been able to track the path of particles from the explosion,” Midori remorsefully. “Maybe –”

“You could not have found me,” said Martha firmly. They were quiet for a while, then Roy leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

“Have you heard from Kurdoon?” she asked.

Gren nodded. “They’ve got Jordan back at Oa. They’re going to try to help him.”

“They should have done that decades ago,” said Martha darkly.

“Maybe Lantern Corps needs its own shrink,” Roy said. “They can’t have ours.” Martha offered him a weak smile, then turned to Meera.

“When we were fighting Parallax, I asked you what he was planning to do with that device he had,” she said. “He told me it wasn’t a bomb.”

Meera shuddered. “It was so creepy. He can manipulate time?” She looked around the room for confirmation.

“At one point he could,” said Gren, who considered studying the League’s history a part of his training. “He tried to turn it back once and re-shuffle the universe.”

“Well, this was sort of the same thing,” said Meera. “He planned to de-evolve humanity and start all over again. With himself as sort of – a wrathful God who would make sure people behaved themselves.

“Lots of positive reinforcement for people who did the right thing,” she added. “Unimaginable consequences for those who crossed whatever lines he drew.”

“Sounds like my dad,” said Gren wryly. “Except for the positive reinforcement.”

Parallax’s mechanism would have triggered de-evolutionary process, Meera explained. The meteor that had formed Barringer crater had aggravated an earthquake fault that lay just below the edge of the basin. By planting the machine on top of the fault line, he could send its effects through the Earth’s tectonic plates, almost like a line of dominoes.

After a silent moment, Martha said, “I want to go to the California legislature and protest the rebuilding of Coast City.”

“We’ll all go,” Roy said. “But you know, most of us did that years ago, during the hearings, and no one listened.”

Martha nodded. “I want to do it anyway.” She slipped from her chair. “I should head back.”

“To Gotham?” Lian asked eagerly.

“No,” Martha said hoarsely, and everyone pretended not notice the hurt that broke across her tired features. “I didn’t see my parents for very long. I guess I’d better go back to Metropolis.”

“Come home tomorrow?” Lian asked.

Martha nodded. “I… I guess I lost my key.”

Lian promised to have another made.

Martha was near the building’s rear entrance, fumbling with her hologram projector, when she heard Roy’s voice behind her.

“One of us never gave up on you,” he said.

She could not turn around. If she looked at him, she would start to cry again.

“When Lian was a little girl,” Roy said, “I was in love with this woman. Donna Troy.”

Martha nodded. “I remember Lian talking about her.”

“When Donna was killed, Lian would spend hours sitting out in the garden, waiting for her to come back,” he continued. “Why wouldn’t she? She was four years old and half the people we’d buried had somehow managed to come traipsing back relatively undamaged. Death’s supposed to be permanent, but somehow, with us, it isn’t always.

“Then sometimes they come back all screwed up,” said Roy. “Or it seems to be them, but it isn’t. You know the first thing Bruce asked me when he saw that you were alive?”

“What?” Martha, her voice breaking.

“ ‘Is it really her?’ ” Roy said.

Martha half-stifled a sob as her hand flew up to cover her eyes.

“It’s going to be all right,” Roy said. “Give him time.”

“Everyone keeps saying that,” Martha whispered.

Roy drew her hand away from her face and clasped it in his own. “Everyone’s right.”




It was almost eleven o’clock when Martha touched down on the rooftop garden. Her mother was usually in bed by then, and her father out patrolling, but both of them were waiting for her.

“Are you OK?” Clark asked. For the first time, Martha noticed a streak of gray in the stubble that peppered his cheeks.

“Yeah,” Martha said, not looking at him.

“Do you want to talk?” Lois asked. Martha shook her head.

“I stopped by headquarters,” she said. “Or I would have been home earlier. Sorry about –
you know – before.”

She stared into the thick glass coffee table and saw the reflection of her parents trading worried glances.

“We’re just so glad you’re home,” Clark said and Lois wondered through her tears when they would all stop crying.

Clay came out a few moments later and offered his sister his bedroom; Martha’s own room had been converted years before into a second office that the trio of reporters in her family shared. But as she listened with increasing sleepiness to the impromptu brainstorming session her family started to explain her return from presumed death, Martha felt herself fading away. As she cuddled against the fuzzy softness of her parents’ living room sofa, she only vaguely realized that Clark had tucked a blanket around her.




Next Chapter: Aftershocks.

 

[JC Roberts]

Chapter Four (1/2)

Even the best reporters shy away from writing about people they care about. In addition to ever-present concerns about objectivity, there’s a performance anxiety of sorts: It always seems harder to find the words that will truly do a loved one justice. Neither Clark nor Clay felt comfortable reporting on Martha’s return from presumed death; Lois did not share their uneasiness, nor did she feel even remotely self-conscious about running the story under a banner headline.

In an exclusive Daily Planet interview that was later carried on front pages of newspapers worldwide, Martha described her experiences on the brutal desert planet, a place, Lois reported, to which the young doctor had been consigned by the supervillian Parallax. Specific details of the kidnapping – and Martha’s subsequent rescue by the Justice League – could not be released in the name of planetary security, but the team’s leader, Arsenal, assured the public that Parallax had been defeated and was unlikely to threaten the Earth again.

Martha, who now felt as proprietary toward Hal Jordan as she did Harvey Dent, objected to the words “defeated” and “threaten,” both of which had been chosen by Lois during an imaginary interview with Roy. Clark sided with his wife, pointing out that there was no guarantee that the ‘therapy’ Martha and Meera had foisted on Hal would last and that Parallax’s previous attempt to redeem himself had plainly resulted in a major backslide.

When Roy, in a quick phone call, approved the words Lois had put in his mouth, Martha gave up. Explaining her failure to be dead was quickly becoming her least troubling problem.

She had no clothes. Her medical books were gone. Besides the new apartment key Lian had presented to her with great jubilation, Martha now owned only a collection of stuffed superhero dolls – with the Green Lantern figure curiously missing – the oversized t-shirt from Moscow and her much-maligned Micro-Cooper hybrid.

That the car remained in her possession was an accident. Lois had left Lian in charge of disposing of Martha’s belongings. When the second charity organization she contacted politely refused to accept the Micro-Cooper as a donation, Lian drove the garish two-cylinder automobile to the Narrows, unlocked all of the doors and left it with the key in the ignition. No one touched it. On his first night back as Batman, Bruce saw the car parked alone on a street four blocks from Crime Alley and had it towed to Wayne Manor.

He had apparently been working on the car; most of its guts were on the cement floor of the mansion’s garage. Martha was driving a rental with as much character, she complained to Lian, “as a Triscuit.”

Considerably worse than the loss of her possessions was an unexpected plunge in her standing as a staff psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum.

Lawrence Adrienne had not wanted to allow Martha to resume her fellowship. He disliked superheroes, believing their flamboyant existence escalated criminal activity rather than prevented it. He was even less fond of their hangers on and he considered Martha one of the latter. The fact that Martha’s contract permitted her unpaid time off to act as some sort of glorified field medic for a bunch of costumed grandstanders was offensive to the new director. He had forwarded the contract to the asylum’s legal experts in the hopes that they could find a way for him to break it without repercussions.

It was only the fear of bad publicity and a breach-of-contract lawsuit that eventually prompted Adrienne to allow Martha to return to work. He made it clear that he did so reluctantly and from her first hour back, it seemed as though he was intent on making her job difficult, if not impossible, to do adequately.

This was a nightmare to Martha, who was barely satisfied with doing her job well, let alone passably. Her patients, who had been understandably transferred to other psychiatrists during her disappearance, were not returned to her care. During Persky’s tenure, Martha had been assigned some of the asylum’s toughest cases – she thrived under the challenge. Now she was responsible for Arkham’s most colorless residents – a few meta-villains who were not technically insane, but could not be contained elsewhere, and some old-timers, made docile by age or drugs.

The one exception to her consignment – literally, as well as metaphorically – to the asylum basement was Harvey. Adrienne allowed Martha to continue to treat him; he was too much trouble to assign to anyone else.

Even this, however, was a crushing disappointment. Harvey was so angry at Martha for having put herself in danger that he showed not an iota of gladness at seeing her alive. He would follow her sullenly to her small windowless office and glare at her for an hour, until she finally gave up and returned him to his cell. When Adrienne found out about these unauthorized excursions, he placed a written reprimand in Martha’s personnel file. Future sessions with Harvey, he said brusquely, were to occur in a secured interview booth.

As difficult as her life had become in the days since her return to Earth, nothing tormented Martha as much as the vision of Bruce lying near death on the floor outside of Alfred’s bedroom, driven by grief and exhaustion into mistakenly consuming a near-fatal overdose of brandy and barbiturates. Martha needed desperately to know that he was OK; this concern eclipsed even her near-consuming fear that his brush with death, coupled with the ensuing public humiliation, had convinced him to re-think the desirability of having anything to do with her.

More than anything else while she was away, Martha had envisioned herself coming home to him. But Bruce would not see her, he had left town in order to keep her away. Alfred and Roy had advised Martha to give Bruce time, but it had been a week and he was still gone.

“You must not doubt his feelings for you,” Alfred had said as she stared desolately at a pile of untouched strawberry pancakes a few days after she returned to Gotham City. But she could not help it. As terribly as she had missed Bruce during her exile, she missed him even more now.

Arkham had finally become the hell for her that it had always been for others, but Martha now spent most of her time there. Adrienne made it clear that he expected her to make up the six weeks she had lost as soon as possible; she wouldn’t see a weekend until sometime the following year.

She was just removing the lab coat she was now required to wear – despite her protestation that the garment served as a barrier between herself and her patients – when her cell phone chimed. Martha checked the caller ID immediately, hoping that it might be Bruce, or at least Alfred with news of him. It was Gren.

“Hey,” she said wearily.

“I’m outside your window,” he informed her.

If Adrienne saw Gren hovering around out there, he’d probably write her up for unauthorized visitation by a superhero, or something equally as obnoxious. Martha was too demoralized to care.

“It’s not my window anymore,” she said, explaining. She was gratified by the cascade of obscenities Gren showered upon her new boss.

“Get some dinner with me,” he said. “And we’ll figure out a way to stick him in a cell with Freaky Freddy.”

As disheartened as she was, this image made Martha laugh. Fred Shaeffer liked to murder people and shave off all of their body hair. Gren, who had sported a long blonde ponytail for most of his adult life, found the shearing fetish particularly creepy.

“So things are starting out a little tough,” he said, half an hour later, as he bit into a drooping slice of pizza. “Your boss is an *******. And your stuff is gone. But at least you’re not breathing sand and scarfing down cactus balls.”

She nodded and hoped he wouldn’t mention Bruce. He didn’t.

They were halfway through the pizza when something occurred to Martha.

“Gren,” she asked. “Did you ask Lian if she wanted to come with us?”

He looked a little uncomfortable, but before he could answer, their heads twitched in unison and Meera’s voice brought an end to what had almost been a relaxing dinner.

Gren half-rose so he could get to his wallet. “Damn,” he said. “Double trouble.”





Halfway through the 24-hour plane flight, Bruce picked up an old Gotham Gazette a previous passenger had tucked into the seat pocket in front of him and absently began reading. He had avoided newspapers during the weeks he’d spent recovering from the overdose, but when he started patrolling again, he had resumed his habit of studying the Gazette with his waking cup of coffee.

His eyes drifted past a banner headline exposing some sort of insurance fraud in the reconstruction of the Wal-Mart, to an article below the fold of the front page. It was the paper’s semi-annual report on the crime rate in Gotham. From September to April, the incidence of violent crime in the city had dropped a stunning twenty percent. Bruce re-read the statistic with surprise and recognition: The decline had started about the time Batman and Superwoman stopped squabbling and started working together.

Lakeeta Reardon, who was quoted liberally in the article, seemed to have reached a similar conclusion. Although she was quick to credit her own hardworking officers, she pointed to anecdotal reports of what seemed to be a new World’s Finest team – Batman and Superwoman – and some additional support by the crimefighter Quiver – as having had a profound effect on the city’s felony rate.

Bruce rested the paper on his lap and leaned back against his headrest. In the back of his mind, he suddenly realized, he had felt almost selfish spending so much time with Martha, even when they were patrolling. Working with her had been enjoyable and therefore, he had imagined, somehow less effective. But they had done some good together.

And with this understanding came another insight: Martha had not rushed to his home on the night of her return because she felt outraged or abandoned. She did not pity him. She had wrenched herself from an ecstatic family reunion because…. Bruce straightened slowly in his seat as the truth of it hit him.

A cool hand touched his shoulder. “Is there anything I can do for you, sir?” a young flight attendant asked, a smile fixed upon her weary face.

“You couldn’t turn the plane around, could you?” he asked.

But he wasn’t ready. When the plane landed in Lhasa, he walked immediately to the ticket counter to purchase ticket back to Gotham and he couldn’t manage to push out the words. After struggling with himself, Bruce walked across the small airport, found his suitcase and stepped out into a rainstorm in search of a cab.



About fifty feet lay between the end of the road and the sheltered entrance to the block-long monastery. By the time Bruce had pushed through the heavy wooden door, he was drenched. The monk who greeted him rushed over with alarm, quickly producing a coarse blanket to drape over the dripping visitor’s shoulders. He smiled when Bruce gave his name, declared that he had been expected and led him through a maze of stone hallways until they reached a small room at the top of the second floor.

The monk tapped on the door, placed his hands together and bowed deeply to the man who opened it.

“Thank you,” said Jangbu Sangye in Tibetan. He looked past the monk, eyes twinkling, and added in English, “Hello, Bruce.”

“Hi, Pat,” Bruce replied, and followed the Fifteenth Dalai Lama into his modest quarters.




By the time Martha and Gren rushed out of Sartelli’s Pizzeria, Bruce had already spent days in deep mediation – and deeper conversations with Pat – but Martha still had no idea where he was. She was grateful for Meera’s call, even though it meant no sleep on a Friday night when she was scheduled to work early on Saturday.

Her assignment was somewhat disappointing, though she understood why Arsenal selected her to accompany Wonder Woman, Lian and the Flash’s daughter, Blitz to Peru, where the aftermath of a small meteor crash had seemed to send much of the population of a small town into a murderous rage. Insanity was, after all, her specialty, Martha reminded herself, as Gren joined the remainder of the team to help the Teen Titans battle some sort of exotic extraterrestrial menace.

But it had been a frustrating mission. While Blitz and Quiver rescued the brutalized, shell-shocked victims from their attackers – who were in many cases family members and friends – Superwoman and Wonder Woman quarantined their gibbering, glaze-eyed offenders, none of whom could as much as remember their own names.

The rescue and round-up hadn’t taken long, but Martha had spent hours trying to determine the cause of the outbreak of violent madness without any success. A few of the unaffected townspeople suggested that something about the meteor crash might have triggered the insanity; Martha thought this unlikely, but collected samples from the cooling rock and the site around it, hoping perhaps Midori could find something that might lead to a cure, or at least an explanation, for the mass madness.

Eventually, Martha could think of nothing else to do and after providing the authorities with all the information she had, accompanied her teammates home.




Pat settled on a faded green cushion, his robed knees a few inches from Bruce’s denim-covered ones.

“So,” he said. “You’re all packed.”

Bruce nodded. “Time for me to go home.”

“Are you sure?” asked Pat. “You have not been here for very long.”

Bruce considered this. “She was gone for six weeks,” he said. “And the time I’ve spent away has seemed just as long.”

“Are you still afraid?” Pat asked. “Do you still have doubts?”

Bruce considered this. “I’m afraid of some things,” he said. “But I don’t have any more doubts.”

Pat smiled. “A fine answer. What worries you?”

Bruce shook his head. “The usual. That I’ll screw it up.”

“And what else?” asked Pat, looking at Bruce intently.

“Mainly that,” said Bruce, but when the Dalai Lama raised an eyebrow, he added. “As long as it’s really her, I think I’m good with the other stuff.”

Pat continued to look at him.

“What?” Bruce asked with considerably less exasperation than he might have had he not spent a week in day-long meditation.

“You have said that you feel safe with her,” said Pat. “But you have also expressed fears that you might ‘lose it,’ when you see her again.”

Bruce nodded nervously.

“I have known you for more than thirty years,” Pat said. “And if you will forgive me for saying so, ‘losing it’ has always seemed to be something that has frightened you.”

When Bruce’s eyes moved to the mat below them, Pat continued, “Having met Martha, I am confident that whatever it is that you’re afraid of losing, she would help you find it.”

Despite himself, Bruce smiled.

“Yeah,” he said softly.

“There’s just one other matter,” Pat said. Bruce shot an uncomfortable look at his watch.

“Any more soul-baring,” he said, “And I’m going to miss my plane.”

“Your plane will wait,” Pat answered, adding, “The way you have described this relationship, with all of its complications – it is not something you can enter into without making a true commitment. You are turning pale, Bruce.”

“I’m not,” said Bruce, who had started to lose color at the word “commitment.”

Pat studied him inquiringly. “I do not doubt your devotion to this woman. Why does a word cause you so much discomfort?”

“What if I commit myself,” Bruce asked, “And then I can’t make her happy?”

“I have seen you make her happy,” Pat replied, still puzzled.

“There’s one way I haven’t tried to make her happy yet,” Bruce said wryly. She was half his age. And she was Superwoman.

Pat brightened with understanding. “Patience, communication,” he counseled.

Bruce sought his watch again and started to rise from his knees. “That plane –”

Pat cupped his wrist with a gentle hand, prodding Bruce reluctantly back on his cushion.

“The more of yourself you put into this relationship, the more you risk getting hurt,” he said.

“Yeah,” Bruce admitted.

“And the more you risk becoming happy,” added the Dalai Lama. “Which scares you more?”




Martha skipped patrol the next evening to catch up on work. She wasn’t home when Quiver returned to the apartment sometime after four in the morning, shaking out her hair and craving a shower and her soft bed. Lian had just pulled an oversized t-shirt over her head when she heard the front door slam.

“Diana’s known me all my life,” Martha told Lian bitterly as she threw herself on their increasingly threadbare teal couch. “And now she’s acting all weird around me.”

Lian accurately considered herself an astute observer of such interactions, but she had not noticed this. “When did you see her last?” she asked, thinking she might be missing something.

“Yesterday, in Peru,” Martha responded. “You saw how she was.”

Failing to recall a single sign of discomfort on Wonder Woman’s part, Lian said, “She seemed all right to me.”

“She isn’t,” Martha said, her face darkening. “She blames me for what happened to Bruce. And so does your ex-husband.”

Frowning, Lian asked, “When did you see Timmy?”

“A few days ago, when I went to visit Alfred,” Martha said. “He walked into the kitchen when we were having breakfast and acted as if I wasn’t even in the room.”

“Well,” said Lian reasonably. “You are guilty of being my best friend.” She could not see either Tim or Diana blaming Martha for something that happened when she was marooned in another universe.

It was almost dawn. “You might want to get some sleep,” Lian added gently. “You have to go work this morning, don’t you?”

“If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine,” Martha snarled and now Lian knew something was wrong, not with Wonder Woman or Tim, but with her roommate.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “I mean – a ton of stuff, I know – but what’s getting you so upset right now?”

Martha looked up at her, her eyes glossy and hard. “I shouldn’t have come home,” she said. “At least when I was sucking down sand, I could pretend there were people who cared about me.”

She swung around abruptly and stormed into the bathroom, slamming the door so hard behind her that she tore out the doorknob. Lian shivered as she watched the small brass globe disappear into the bathroom.

She waited until she heard the blast of the shower and then reached for the phone.

“Hey, Emma,” she whispered into the receiver. “Is Meera there?”




Martha spent an hour and a half in the shower, long after the hot water had given way to cold. She did not come out until Lian knocked timidly at the door and reported the time; Martha had less than half an hour to get ready for work.

When she stepped out of the bathroom wearing a damp towel, her anger seemed to have evaporated, but Lian quickly lost any sense of relief from her roommate’s change in mood.

“What happened to the doorknob?” she asked Lian.

“You don’t remember?” Lian asked uneasily.

“No,” said Martha, who did not seem disturbed by the memory loss – or anything else. She stared vacantly at Lian’s right shoulder until the redhead hesitantly asked if she might not want to get dressed.

Once Martha had meandered into her bedroom, Lian looked at the clock. Meera was on her way to the airport. She had agreed to fly to Gotham City as soon as Lian reported the personality change in their ordinarily even-tempered teammate. Meera was a psychologist who specialized in post-traumatic stress disorder and she agreed with Lian that Martha might be showing signs of the illness.

Gren was still in space, doing clean-up with a few of the Titans, so Meera would have to travel the old-fashioned way. Fortunately, most airlines allowed members of the Justice League to fly free. Meera would land in Gotham City an hour or two before Martha came home from work. As her roommate wandered back out of her bedroom, Lian hoped that would be soon enough.

Martha was dressed, but she had not put on make-up and her wet hair clung, uncombed, around her face. She walked over to her briefcase, tilted her head at it curiously, then hefted it experimentally, as if she was choosing a new bowling ball.

“Maybe you shouldn’t go to work today?” Lian suggested meekly.

Martha’s eyes flared with such anger that Lian felt thankful her roommate didn’t have her father’s heat vision.

“Right,” she said. “So that son-of-a-***** can fire me.” And as Lian opened her mouth without knowing exactly what was going to come out, Martha disappeared.

Lian saw immediately that Martha had used the door: It was lying on the floor of the apartment and was now in need of a new bottom hinge. As she propped it back up against the frame, Lian wondered if there could be a more dangerous place for her best friend to be than in an asylum for the criminally insane.




Alfred ran a dish rag mechanically around a sole dinner plate, rinsed it until his fingertips started to pucker and placed it into the drainer. He thought twice about picking more tomatoes – they were bursting from their vines, but his refrigerator was now filled with marinara sauce, vegetarian chili, salad and salsa. He forgotten how much Bruce, with his exercise-induced high metabolism, could eat in a day, or how little he himself needed to get by.

Nor had he remembered how much his own work depended upon Bruce being there, on being Batman. Most of Alfred’s chores had nothing to do with dusting. He now found himself with hours of time on his hands.

When the phone rang, he assumed it would be Dick or Kory. He had spoken to Tim earlier and expected to see Martha when she finished work. But when Alfred heard the voice on the other end of the receiver, the nagging tightness in his chest melted away.

“What are we having for dinner?” Bruce asked, as if he had stepped out of the house only a few hours earlier.

“Where are you?” the old man demanded.

“I just left my lawyer's,” Bruce said. That meant he was on Howard Street, about fifteen minutes away.

“Where are you going now?” Alfred asked.

“I'm coming home to take a shower.”

“And then?” Alfred asked hopefully.

“And then I'm going out again,” said Bruce.

Alfred felt his cheeks rise into the rims of his glasses in a smile so wide it almost hurt. It was far too early for Bruce to mean he was going out as Batman. As soon as he set the receiver back onto its cradle, the elderly butler hurried to the master bathroom to exchange the towels he had laid out just a day earlier with fresher ones. Then he went out to the garden to pick some flowers.

 

[JC Roberts]

Chapter Four (2/2)

“I shouldn’t have let her go to work,” Lian told Meera as they drove away from the airport. It had been a rough flight and Meera, having been spoiled by the unique transportation services provided by Gren and the Javelin, had not enjoyed it.

“It doesn’t sound like you could have stopped her,” Meera said. “What happened when you called Arkham this afternoon?”

“She didn’t sound good,” Lian said. “She kind of fluctuated between confused and angry and scared.”

Meera said thoughtfully, “Martha used those words to describe the assailants in her report on the incident in Peru.”

Lian rammed her foot onto the brake pedal, sending both of them flying toward the windshield. Meera winced where the seatbelt cut into her shoulder.

“She also used the words ‘murderous rage,’ in that report,” Lian said.




By the time Martha made it to her basement office that morning, she had realized that she was feeling a little “off.” Driving to work, she had missed the exit to Arkham, which nearly caused her to be late clocking in. She then headed up to her old office, forgetting it was now occupied by a sophomoric first-year fellow named Jesse Trelles.

Trelles had no trouble reminding Martha that she no longer belonged on the second floor; he did suggest that she was welcome to visit her old office anytime she felt like bringing him a cup of coffee. He was lucky Martha’s fury had melted into confusion again. Many of Arkham’s doctors had been attacked by inmates; Trelles barely missed being the first to have been gravely injured by another fellow.

She somehow managed to get through the day, aided, in part, by Adrienne’s involvement in a series of meetings. The director’s preoccupation with budget and policy kept him from noticing that Martha skipped several patient sessions and forgot to return Harvey to his cell after another silent meeting in the secured interview room. She managed to find her way home, but by then she was raving.




Bruce was sitting on the edge of his bed, pulling on his socks between sips of coffee, when Meera’s voice burst unceremoniously into his head.

Bruce.

“Yeah,” he said, frowning as he reached for a shoe. In seven years, Meera had never called him by his first name when contacting him telepathically.

We need you at Martha’s apartment right now.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, quickly getting to his feet.

I’ll tell you once you’re on your way. Please hurry.




As soon as Martha flung down the still-detached apartment door, Meera had sensed what was wrong with her.

She’s not alone, she told Lian. There’s something in there with her.

“In where?” whispered Lian as Martha walked over to the refrigerator door and ripped it from its hinges.

“Martha,” said Meera gently, as her teammate stared curiously at the refrigerator door in her hand. “Can you come here, sweetie?”

Martha’s eyes widened in dread and she backed against the kitchen sink. Before Meera could stop her, Lian took a quick step toward her roommate, one hand outstretched, and Martha threw the steel door at her.

It’s in her brain, Meera answered as Lian picked herself up off the floor. Some sort of a… non-corporeal alien presence... like a psychic tapeworm.

Eww, Lian responded, as she cautiously backed into the living room. Something’s taken over her brain?

It must not have total control over her, or she would have hit you with that door, Meera told her. She wouldn’t have given you time to duck.

What are we going to do? asked Lian as Martha started edging around the kitchen like a trapped animal.

“You told everyone I was dead,” she shouted at Meera. “You’re here to kill me.”

Aching, Meera said, “Oh, no, honey. I want to help –” She gave up as Martha tore a drawer full of silverware away from the counter. Knives, forks and chopsticks went flying around the room as Martha swung the drawer by its handle as if it were an oddly-shaped sword.

I think I can get rid of it, Meera told Lian, as both women dropped to the ground. But I have to get near her. And she’s got to hold still.

Lian’s eyes slid above the weight bench, to a shelf where a slim silver bracelet lay next to a pair of lifting gloves. If we could get the bracelet on her, she suggested. But she won’t let us close enough.

As if to prove this, Martha scrambled into her bedroom. Another door flew off its hinges.

“I’ve called Bruce,” Meera told Lian as they rose cautiously to their feet.

“He’s out of town,” Lian said resentfully. She craned her head around the room so she could see into the hallway. The bedroom door lay in splinters, but there was no sign of Martha.

“He just got back,” Meera said. “He’s almost here.” She hoped Bruce’s presence might soothe Martha.

Lian was clutching the silver bracelet when Bruce stepped through the empty door frame a few minutes later. He stared at the fallen door, then looked around the living room.

“Where is she?” he asked.

“In her bedroom,” whispered Meera. “If you can get the bracelet on her.…”

Bruce nodded and took the bangle from Lian.

“Martha,” Meera said cautiously, as the three of them slipped into her bedroom. “Bruce is here. He’s –”

“No!” said Martha wildly. “I don’t want him to see me like this.”

It was the first time since she had walked into the apartment that Martha seemed to realize something was wrong with herself, and in the moment of hesitation this understanding brought, Bruce dove across the room and snapped the bracelet around her wrist.

Martha resisted instantly, but it was too late. With the bracelet in place, Bruce was much stronger than she was, even in her deranged state. He wrapped both arms around her from behind and as she struggled against him futilely, he looked questioningly at Meera.

“Sit her on the bed,” the telepath instructed. Bruce settled onto the mattress and pulled himself up against the headboard, dragging a thrashing Martha with him. As Lian watched fearfully by the door, Meera sat on the edge of the bed and touched Martha’s temple.

It did not seem as though Meera was much of doing anything, other than staring at the top of her friend’s head, but after a few minutes, Martha stopped struggling, and shortly after that, her head fell back against Bruce’s chest and she closed her eyes.

Tentatively, Lian stepped forward. “Is she unconscious?”

Meera lifted herself from the edge of the bed. “She’s asleep.”

Bruce steadied Martha’s head as it lolled against his shoulder and asked softly, “It’s gone?”

“Yes,” said Meera, watching him brush Martha’s bangs out of her eyes. She looked at Lian. “We’ve got to get to Peru.

“Keep holding her, Bruce,” she added. “She may experience a few aftershocks.”

“OK,” he said, without taking his eyes from Martha’s tranquil face.

Lian followed Meera into the living room.

“Aftershocks?” she asked skeptically.

Meera smiled. “Isn’t his birthday coming up?”




Bruce opened his eyes in time to watch Martha’s hand slide from his shoulder to the snooze button on the bleating alarm clock. Without removing her face from his chest, she swatted blindly at the circular knob until the clock was silent, then returned her warm palm to a spot just below his collarbone.

He had spent the night savoring this chance to hold Martha after not seeing or touching her for almost two months and was faintly surprised to see that it was morning. He rarely fell asleep without meaning to, but the hours had seemed to slip away. It was probably the jet lag, he thought, as Martha wriggled sleepily against him, then lifted her head, puzzled to be sprawled upon such an oddly-shaped mattress. Bruce watched as she blinked herself awake. The memory of the past night was slowly returning to her; he could see it in troubled confusion that was spreading across her weary face.

Her gaze grew solemn as it met his.

“Hi,” she whispered.

“Hi,” he answered gravely and as their eyes held irresistibly together, he reached up to pull her mouth to his.

But, abruptly, Martha was moving away from him. As she pulled herself into a sitting position, Bruce recognized the uncertainty and the embarrassment on her face, though he was not sure what had put them there.

“I’ve got to go to work,” Martha murmured. She slipped from the bed and took a few wobbly steps across the room.

Bruce swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “You’re in no shape to go to Arkham today.”

Martha stared at the fractured remains of her bedroom door. “I’ll get fired,” she said faintly.

“Then I’ll drive you,” he said and to his relief, she nodded gratefully, before she disappeared into the bathroom.




It was a brilliant June morning. Physically, Martha was almost fully recovered from her bout with the psychic parasite by the time she walked through the gates of Arkham. She was still mortified, however, that the first three times Bruce had seen her since her return to Earth, she had been either a disheveled, sandy mess with six weeks’ distance from a shower, an unkempt maniac or a bedraggled medusa with morning breath. Martha hoped his view of her as she stepped out of his car – clean, hair styled, make-up applied – had at least somewhat offset his memory of these previous occasions.

A call from Lian shortly after Martha’s first patient session cheered her up a bit: Quiver was still in Peru, assisting Meera as she methodically extracted formless parasitic entities from dozens of Peruvian townspeople. Most of them had been infected when they had come to investigate the fallen meteorite. Meera was pretty sure Martha had picked up the tapeworm when taking cultures at the site. It explained why no one else on the original team had been possessed. Martha blushed at Lian’s teasing remark that she was surprised to find her roommate out of bed. She muttered something about being out cold until her alarm clock went off. She was not sure Lian believed her.

A few minutes before lunchtime, Bruce called to ask how she was feeling and to tell her he’d sent someone to the apartment to fix all of the doors she’d broken. He reminded her that he was coming to pick her up at exactly five o’clock. Something in his voice sent a surge of exhilaration through Martha: Everything was going to be all right between them.

She alternated between nervousness and giddiness for most of the rest of the afternoon. When it came time for her session with Harvey at the end of the day, Martha felt bold enough to play hardball with him.

“I need to apologize to you,” she said, as Harvey glowered at the transparent shield between them. “I haven’t been fair to you. I didn’t want to lose you as a patient, but I’ve clearly become ineffective as your therapist. You know every doctor on staff. Just tell me which one of them you’d rather see and I’ll transfer your records this afternoon.”

Flabbergasted, Harvey spoke his first words to Martha in more than a week. “What?”

Score, Martha thought, relieved that another part of her life was finally falling back into place. “You deserve better care than I can give you.”

“No, I don’t.” shouted Harvey. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

When he saw the smile she could not hold back, he added fiercely. “I need to talk to you.” He nodded, indicating the small room around them. “But not here.”

Sessions in the booths were always videotaped and the notebook Martha used to record patient interactions was a legal document. She fished a convenience store receipt out of her lab coat pocket, scribbled a quick note and pushed it toward the window. Harvey skimmed it quickly and nodded again.

“You’re leaving on time today?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Martha said, smiling.

“Good,” said Harvey. “You looked like a nightmare yesterday. I hope you go right to bed.”




Bruce was leaning against the door of the jag when Martha stepped through the wrought iron asylum gates and into the parking lot. She stood by the fence for a moment, then took a deep breath and walked over to him.

“Hi,” he said, and she noticed his damp hair and fresh clothes. “Um…. Do you want to get some dinner?”

“Sure,” Martha said. But she did not attempt to get into the car. She could only stand there, staring up into his dark blue eyes and when Bruce finally moved, it was to lean in to kiss her.

She felt his hand close around hers and his breath on her lips and his fingers lightly tracing a line along her jaw. When he had kissed her before, in the Batcave and in her apartment hallway, it had happened so abruptly and with such desperation that Martha could respond only out of pure instinctive desire. This kiss was different: hungry and deep, but deliberate. It was a choice for more than just surrender during a momentary loss of control. Martha thrust her hands into Bruce’s soft, short hair and pulled his mouth harder against hers, forgetting where they were until a loud, ugly honking sound caused them both to jerk back and the parking lot came unpleasantly back into focus.

It was Jesse Trelles, the jerk who had stolen her office, leaning on his horn as he made a scolding gesture at Martha through the window of his air conditioned Lexus Economa. As soon as he saw that he had gotten his message across, he peeled gleefully out of the parking lot.

“Most obnoxious guy on staff,” Martha mumbled, as Bruce glared after the Lexus.

“So,” he said nervously as they settled in the car a few moments later. “Bistro Cilantro?”

Martha was silent for a moment, then she slanted her head so that their eyes met again. She said hesitantly, “I could – Dinner could wait a few hours, if you… if you wanted.”

Bruce opened his mouth, closed it again, and nodded. Then he backed the car out of the parking lot and pointed it toward Wayne Manor.




Alfred had just gotten around to making Bruce’s bed when a thump in the hallway outside the bedroom almost made him drop a pillowcase. He stepped through the mahogany trim door frame to investigate and froze in astonishment, the pillowcase comically stretched out between both of his hands.

Martha, floating about a foot off the ground, had pushed Bruce up against the corridor wall and was kissing him fervently. She giggled as Bruce did something to her blouse that made several buttons rain onto the hardwood floor; she then started to unbuckle his black Armani belt. When Bruce noticed his gawking butler, his hand closed over both of Martha’s. He nudged her and she drifted back to the floor struggling to suppress another giggle.

Bruce looked at Alfred and nodded at the pillowcase. “Could you do that later?”

Alfred blinked once, then practically flew down the long hallway.

“He’s seriously got to consider the Senior Olympics,” he heard Martha say before Bruce dragged her into his bedroom.




Bruce locked the door without letting go of Martha. As soon as his free hand left the knob, he was kissing her again, moving eagerly against her until she felt the back of her legs pressing against the mattress. Without breaking the kiss, he sat down on the bed and pulled her on top of him. His hands moved from her hips to her blouse and there was a ripping sound as the few remaining buttons went flying.

“I’m not gonna end up with any clothes left,” Martha whispered as Bruce rolled on top of her.

“Then you're just going to have to stay,” he murmured, tracing the swell of her breast with his lips before slowly working his way lower. Martha tangled one hand in his hair, while the other massaged his back and shoulders and she wondered through a haze of pleasure when Bruce had managed to lose his shirt. She did not know how something could feel so exquisitely, intensely real and yet seem like a dream. She had wanted Bruce for so long, and through so much, that she had nearly lost hope that they would ever be together. Now he was making love to her with his mouth and his hands and his heart and Martha could feel him, so aroused. Knowing it was because of her made her dizzy.

Somehow, he must have acquired super-speed, because the rest of her clothes were suddenly gone and she was sobbing with delight, gripping his shoulder with one hand and the bed sheet with the other, straining against him until everything disappeared but a single point of matchless pleasure and she could barely hear her own rapturous cries.

As Martha began to regain her breath and her senses, Bruce leaned his head against her hipbone, before placing a kiss against the inside of her trembling thigh and another one on her belly button. The sweet friction, as he slid up the length of her body, almost undid her again.

He kissed her forehead and her mouth and then his lips were at her ear.

“I love you,” he whispered. And, finally, in a stunning coupling of emotion and pleasure, they were together. Martha followed his strong slow rhythm, only vaguely conscious of her enthusiastic moans.

“Oh, Bruce,” she gasped. “I love you so much.”

He needed to hear it, but her timing could have been better. He had not been with a woman in more than a decade and this heartfelt declaration pushed him immediately past the fragile threshold of control he had been clinging to. It was a measure of the trust Bruce had in Martha and the confidence she gave him that when he lowered his forehead to hers, still panting, he was more amused at himself than embarrassed.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, knowing she didn’t care.

Martha touched his face. “I like turning you on that much.” His cheek curved into a slight smile and he pressed a breathless kiss against her mouth.

But without warning, the body that had fallen against Martha’s in slack contentment grew unexpectedly tense. She drew back her fingers, where they had been playing at his cheek and was surprised to find that they were wet.

“Baby?” she asked, looking up at him with concern as Bruce’s breath began shallow and ragged.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” he whispered, burrowing his face against her neck.

“It’s OK,” Martha whispered, holding him and stroking his shoulders as they began to shake. “I’m here.”




The alarm on Martha’s cell phone chirped cruelly from its perch on Bruce’s nightstand. She reached for it quickly, hoping to disable it before it woke him, but she had no sooner thumbed a button on the side of the phone when Bruce, in a single motion, rolled on top of her and deftly pushed the small device out of her hand.

“Call in sick,” he murmured as the phone clattered back onto the night table.

Martha considered reminding him that she was still making up for the days she had called in dead, but it was a while before she was able to form coherent words, and by then she had thought the better of it.

“I’ve gotta go,” she said apologetically to the top of his head as Bruce slumped contentedly against her chest. “And I’m going to have fly. We just used up all of my driving time.”

“Come home for lunch,” he urged, not fully recognizing the implications of his choice of words.

She smiled. “Didn’t you say something yesterday about dinner at Bistro Cilantro?”

He sighed and dragged himself up onto his elbows to kiss her. “OK. Pick you up at five. Tell Adrienne I’ll kill him if he gives you a hard time today.” Martha’s account of the new director’s treatment of her had infuriated Bruce.

Extracting herself reluctantly between her lover and the bed, Martha smiled and said warmly, “The hell with him.” As she picked up her ruined blouse, she added, “Can I borrow a shirt so I don’t have to fly back to my apartment naked?”

“Take any one you want,” Bruce said sleepily, enjoying the image of her flying naked. She beamed and picked up the shirt he had discarded near the bottom of the bed. He had the feeling he was never going to get it back.

He had thought he would fall immediately to sleep after Martha kissed him goodbye and slipped out of his bedroom window. They’d slept very little during the night, making love, but also talking: catching up the weeks they’d spent apart and discussing how they might handle the complications that lay ahead. But he found himself surprisingly awake and very hungry. The pair of pajama trousers Alfred had laid out while making Bruce’s bed the previous afternoon had ended up halfway across the floor; he pulled them on and wandered into the kitchen.

Alfred was there, slicing a banana into a bowl of steaming oatmeal.

“Morning,” Bruce told him, staring sheepishly at a spot on the top of the kitchen island. He felt the butler glance at him, then turn to the refrigerator to find some milk.

“Good morning, sir,” said Alfred, as if it were any other day. But in the reflection in the highly polished surface of the stainless steel refrigerator, Bruce saw that the old man was smiling.


Next Chapter: Two faces

 

[JC Roberts]

Chapter Five





The Flash dodged a shower of thorns and dive-rolled behind a mammoth rhododendron.

“Knock off the Captain Kirk moves, Dad,” said Blitz, who had joined him in an instant from the other side of the arboretum. She watched him rub his shoulder. “You can run faster than you can roll.”

Wally shot a glance around the enormous plant, spotted the eerie army of giant sunflowers rumbling toward them on thick, filthy roots, and said, “Ah, but that looked much cooler.”

Blitz struggled not to roll her eyes. “So, what’s the deal with plant woman?”

“I don’t know,” said Wally, who had been enjoying a rare lunch with his daughter Iris before they saw a report of the bizarre attack on a sports bar television. “I haven’t seen anything like this since Woodrue tried to take over the world.”

“Who?” said Iris in the same tone Wally had once used when his grandfather claimed to have routinely walked to school in five miles of snow.

“Never mind,” said Wally as a vine thick with purple morning glories shot across the green toward a gift shop full of cowering tourists. “Make hay while the sunflowers – uh, get the sunflowers.”

Blitz blew past him and barreled into the row of floral martinets as they marched mechanically toward the rhododendron. Her father, meanwhile, intercepted the snakelike vine and twisted it back toward his daughter. In less than a second, the sunflower army was bound and petal-free. Blitz stepped away from the wilting bundle, but before she could suggest a plan of attack, a salvo of acorns pelted toward them, as fast as bullets.

“She loves us not,” shouted the Flash, as the woman-shaped collection of earth, worms and flora stepped out from behind a collection of evergreens. Both Wests had easily dodged the acorns and were barreling toward the floronic woman.

“Ow,” yelled Blitz as an unanticipated volley of high-velocity thorns pelted her in the face. She pushed forward, slamming into her attacker before the tourists pressed against the gift shop window could blink. “Ugh,” she added, wincing in disgust, as she found herself sitting in a pile of what appeared to be the muddy, insect-ridden remains of the plant creature. She flung a glop of mud from her fingertips. “It can’t be this easy.”

“It isn’t,” said Flash, looking pointedly behind her. Iris, still sitting, turned around and groaned. The plant woman had reconstituted herself from fresh earthly ingredients and was now proceeding toward the wild Wests, as Roy called them, accompanied by a trio of bristling Douglas firs.

“I’m glad we have an artificial Christmas tree,” said Iris darkly. She started toward the oncoming evergreens, when her father grabbed her arm.

“Forget about the firs unless they go after somebody,” he said. “We finish Gardenia Girl and her shrub army crumbles.”

“How do we do that, if she can pop up with a fresh body every time we hit her?” asked Iris. “Even if we vibrate her into dust, she’ll just grab herself a new coat of mud.”

Wally grinned. “I’m so old and wise,” he said. A few whispered instructions later, he disappeared.

Blitz counted skeptically to three, then shot toward the female-shaped plant entity, at the last minute diving, not for her mossy body, but at the ground beneath her. It took less than a second of barehanded digging for Iris to carve a ditch beneath her floral foe; for a fraction of that time, the creature’s feet would no longer contact the earth. Iris, who had twisted around so that she was facing upward, ready to fight, watched as her father pulled an oversized black plastic trash bag down around the plant woman, closing it around her straining toes fractions of a second before they touched back upon the earth.

The Flash righted the trash bag. Its contents squirmed for a few minutes, and then dropped into a heap at the bottom of the sack.

“Got a little twisty thing?” he asked his daughter, who was trying to pick the mud out of her fingernails. Iris blew a lock of dusty hair out of her eyes and failed to stifle a laugh.

“Have you had time to think about my suggestion,” Wally asked, as they sped together toward Central City. “About the League?”

“I guess so,” said Iris. They bounded over a series of small mountains, enjoying the cool breeze that accompanied the higher altitude. “Everyone seems nice, but they’ve all been working together so long – it’s like they know each other’s moves. I felt kinda… awkward.”

Wally took her by the elbow and they both stopped. “It won’t take you long to get into the rhythm. Midori’s been with us just two years – and Superwoman came back around the same time. And they’ll – everyone will work with you. You know Roy will make sure you feel like a part of the team.”

Iris hesitated. “Does he have to train me?”

“He’s grueling, but good,” Wally reassured her. He resumed their run and Iris followed. “Think about it. It’s just be half-time, the way Superman and his daughter work it.”

“Oh, I’ve seen how they work it,” Iris said, as they raced across Lake Superior. “Apparently their idea of half is Superwoman showing up twice as much.”

“Well, Superman’s got lots more on his plate than the rest of us,” Wally said as they broke across the Missouri border as if it were a finish line. “I would never do that to you,” he added impishly.

This time, Iris didn’t hold back the eye roll.




Superman guided the destroyer-sized container of rice to the brittle golden brown earth and grinned at the crowd of cheering refugees. It wasn’t a wholehearted smile. While he considered it a privilege to help provide the people of the arid nation with food, he could not help feeling frustrated: He had been making the same delivery to the same country for three decades. The nation’s periodic drought problem was not insurmountable, he had complained earlier to Lois. Its legacy of corruption and inefficiency was another story.

A long shadow fell over the mass of beaming faces and the crowd began to shuffle back. Although he wasn’t really in the way, Superman stepped instinctively to the side as Gren Gardner used a cone of solid light to lower another container to the ground, also to the sound of grateful cheers. The Green Lantern nodded sternly in response to the applause, but Superman could tell that the younger man relished the gleams of relief and joy in the eyes of the hungry families surrounding them.

“It’s more boring than fighting,” Gren confided to Superman as they headed home. “But it’s a break from getting all banged up.” He rotated his neck, which was stiff from an injury he sustained in space a few days earlier. “I’m gettin’ old.”

Superman suppressed the urge to laugh. Gren was two months younger than Martha.

“Will we see you Sunday?” Superman asked, as they hovered over the Sierra Nevadas. Gren had somehow become a regular in the months since Superman had first invited him to Sunday dinner. Clark had made the mistake of wondering aloud to his wife if this might not be out of some sort of late-developing interest in Martha.

“He’s wasting his time,” Lois said bleakly. Clark knew his wife was less impressed than he was with what he considered Gren’s considerable maturation, but he suspected her statement might be related to something else altogether and chose not to question it.

Gren nodded and headed off into space. Minutes later, Superman squeezed through an open window in a storage room his wife had declared off-limits to Planet staff and changed into a pair of slacks and a polo shirt. He walked into Lois’s office just in time to accompany her to lunch.




A new café had opened up a block north of the Planet; Lois had wanted to try it for a month. It featured a small outdoor patio decorated with a mosaic of colored recycled glass fragments and a menu that combined exceptionally healthy entrees with deserts so decadent that they more than offset the nutritional value of main offerings.

“I gave Martha a call this morning,” Lois said as she plowed through a salad topped with braised peaches and mangos.

Clark set down his fork. “How is she?”

“Ecstatically happy,” said Lois in a voice that suggested she did not share her daughter's ecstasy. “For reasons she chose not to share.” She watched her husband mentally regroup, trying to find some reason for Martha to be happy other than the one he could not face.

“The new boss letting up on her?” Clark asked hopefully.

“No,” Lois said. "He's still trying to make her life a living hell."

Clark frowned. “She might have to get a lawyer.”

“Clark,” said Lois patiently.

“Was she able to get some new clothes with the credit card we sent her?” Clark asked. “That would have cheered her up.”

“That would have cheered Lian up,” Lois said. “You know Martha hates that sort of shopping.”

Clark’s face assumed a thoughtful, distant look that Lois recognized with some alarm to mean he was listening for a possible emergency to respond to in an attempt to escape from the conversation. She resolved immediately to back off. As frustrated as she was at her husband’s determination to evade reality, Lois had not seen him for a day and a half and had no wish to drive him away.

“Harvey’s started talking to her again,” she offered.

The look of relief that broke across Clark’s face made Lois feel ashamed. She was trying to push him into acknowledging a truth he wasn’t ready to accept. His distress at the thought of an affair between his daughter and Bruce Wayne cut even deeper than she had feared.

Maybe it would end quickly, Lois thought, and they would not have to deal with it at all. Bruce wasn’t known for his long-term relationships.

“Well, that’s got to be a big triumph,” Clark said. “Martha was really upset when he shut down on her.”

“Yeah,” said Lois kindly. “She feels really good about that. Do you want this last peach? I don’t know what they cooked it in, but it’s fantastic.”




Even with the sound protectors clamped painfully around his ears, the relentless roar of the aircraft plant was loud enough to make Roy cringe. He wove around a large man testing a hefty-looking blowtorch and strode into the farthest hangar, where a dozen mechanics and at least one engineer were working on the newest Javelin.

Roy grinned as he spotted a small figure whose upper body seemed to have been swallowed up by the nose of the shuttle. He was mightily tempted to grab one of Midori’s coverall-clad legs as they dangled a few feet over a heavy hydraulic lift, but he had tried this once before and had almost been hit by a wrench. Midori’s fighting reflexes had kicked in about a year after she joined the League and her instinct was to swing first and identify bodies later.

Instead, Roy scaled the lift with a grace few men half his age could have managed and stood patiently by Midori until she sensed his presence and withdrew from the panel where she’d been working. When she saw that it was Roy, she pushed back her protective goggles and hugged him.

There was no point in talking inside the hanger. Midori touched a button on the lift and it brought them to the floor, then they walked together into the blinding sunlight.

“So – when do we fly?” he asked, after they broke apart from a hearty kiss. Midori had been working on the Javelin-13 since they’d had its prematurely decommissioned predecessor towed from the crater. Roy hadn’t seen her in days.

As usual, she took his question more seriously than he meant it. “Not for weeks,” she said. “Or even longer, if our workers keep taking vacations.”

“Well,” said Roy reasonably. “It’s summertime.”

Midori looked at him questioningly.

“People go on vacation,” he explained. “They want to spend time with their families.”

She considered this for a moment and countered, “But this is important.”

“Families are important,” Roy said, adding, “Neglected boyfriends are important, too.”

“My crew seems to be comprised largely of heterosexual males,” Midori assured him. “So that’s not a problem.”

Roy tried not to laugh. “It is,” he said soberly. As she pondered this, a grin snuck across his face and Midori, finally comprehending, looked at him with concern.

“What can I do to make you feel not neglected?” she asked urgently. “Do you need a hug? Conversation? Compliments? Sex?”

“Yes, please,” said Roy, taking her by the hand and leading her to the blue Pontiac he had rented. “But right now I’ll settle for a little lunchtime togetherness.”

As they sat on the hood of the car and ate the sandwiches Roy had picked up at a nearby Subway, Midori asked Roy if the workers weren’t caring for their families best by putting off their vacations in order to help complete the shuttle.

“We protect everyone’s family,” she pointed out.

“This is true,” Roy said, handing her a banana.

“I tried to explain that to Sheppard,” Midori said. “But he insisted on going to the hospital to watch his wife have a baby.”

“Where are that man’s priorities?” Roy asked, shaking his head.

“I don’t know,” said Midori, who seemed relieved to have found some solidarity in this matter.

“Actually, I think we can give Sheppard a break. In terms of life events, having a baby trumps just about everything else,” said Roy, who had no idea how much he would regret this statement in the months to come. “I’ve always wished I’d been there when Lian was born.”

“Well, that’s different,” said Midori. “Lian’s mother was a violent criminal. If you had been there when she was born, you could have gotten her away from Cheshire much sooner.”

This was a bit of a touchy subject. Roy gathered the sandwich wrappers and banana peels into a single paper bag and tossed it into a trash receptacle halfway across the parking lot.

“You have a talent with trajectories,” Midori said admiringly.

Roy helped her off the hood of the car and took her face in his hands.

“That’s not all I have a talent for,” he said.




As devoted as she was to her work, Martha found it nearly impossible to focus on her patients. As they cursed her, threatened her and, in one case, foolishly attempted to spit at her through a Plexiglas divider, she retreated blissfully into her memories of the previous night, reliving Bruce’s touch and his words and the peaceful expression on his face as he slept. The sex had been deliriously good – Martha gleefully recalled coaxing a cry of surprised pleasure from her less-than-vocal lover when she did something to him she was pretty sure none of his previous girlfriends had been able to do – but she had felt just as much joy in simply knowing she made him happy.

She was amused and very touched to see that Bruce had walked off the plane from Tibet with what could only be called a battle plan. Martha’s role in the first part of this campaign was simple, but essential.

“If I do anything wrong, you have to tell me right away,” he had informed her as she snuggled deliciously against his brawny body. “And I know it’s not romantic, but I’d appreciate you telling me what do right, at least until I get the hang of it.”

“What you did tonight was right,” Martha said playfully.

Bruce had tightened his arms around her and explained that he meant for her to remind him about the things that seemed to be more important to women than they were to men, or at least to him: “Anniversaries, Valentine’s Day… that stuff. And also, what I’m supposed to do when you’re upset. Pat says you don’t want me to fix your problems,” he had added dubiously. “I’m just supposed to listen.”

“Pat knows a lot about women for a celibate monk,” Martha said. But then, she added, so did Bruce’s other advisor, Alfred, the 93-year-old lifelong bachelor.

“Yeah, I know. I’m getting advice from the experts,” Bruce had said wryly.

Martha dropped a few patient files in a drawer and looked at the clock on her computer monitor. It was 3:30 PM. She had some paperwork to do, and then she needed to engineer an unmonitored session with Harvey. That would be less difficult to arrange than she had feared. Nothing Adrienne could have done today – short of firing her – could have upset Martha, but he had in fact spent the day at the state capital, imploring the legislature not to cut Arkham’s funding in the face of a severe budget deficit. His absence from the asylum magnified her overall sense of happiness. Unlike Persky, who had tried to balance his administrative duties with an actual psychiatric practice, Adrienne did not see patients, which meant his chances of being out due to an on-the-job injury were less likely. Martha was not sure when she would again feel this free at Arkham. She had not worn her lab coat all day.

As she refined the drug schedule of an old inmate named Karl Hellfern so he would feel less compelled to use his fingernails to mutilate himself, she reviewed her plan to meet with Harvey. There was a rarely used security office near his cell. One of the occupants of Harvey’s high-security wing liked to scream nursery rhymes over and over again in an eerie falsetto that spooked most of the guards. Most of them operated out of a less unsettling station in the adjacent wing. Dinnertime at the asylum wasn’t until 6 PM – without taking her eyes from her paperwork, Martha reached into her right-hand desk drawer and pocketed a chocolate-flavored nutrition bar – so chances were good that they wouldn’t be discovered. It was unlikely, at any rate, that a guard would have reported her for flaunting Adrienne’s orders: Most of them liked Martha and hated their boss.

Martha gathered her things together so she could leave quickly once she returned from her session with Harvey. She reminded herself that it had taken more than a week for him to start talking to her again and that she owed him her full attention. She would see Bruce in little more than an hour; she could manage to avoid daydreaming about him for that long.

She dropped Hellfern’s file off at the pharmacy, then headed to Harvey’s wing, stopping to discreetly pop the lock on the guard’s office with a quick twist of the doorknob. She was disappointed to see that Harvey seemed as disgruntled with her as ever.

“Why are you so happy?” he asked sullenly, as she led him to a chair inside the darkened office. “Wayne finally get into your pants?”

Martha hoped her blush had faded before she switched on the weak desk lamp sitting on the guard’s desk. Why, yes, she felt like retorting. As a matter of fact, Wayne did finally get into my pants. She and Bruce had agreed their relationship would not be a secret, but they did want to keep it private, at least while they grew into it. Martha found herself exceptionally protective of their most intimate time together. She had already disappointed Lian, who, upon finding Bruce’s shirt strewn on Martha’s bed, had called her earlier, hungry for details. Harvey was farther down on her list of confidants.

“I’d rather find out why you’re not so happy,” Martha countered. “I mean, enough to spend my first week back not talking to me.” She slipped the nutrition bar across the desk. “Something to offset your sumptuous dinner.”

He surprised her by glaring at the bar as if it offended him, then turning blazing eyes on her. For a horrible moment, Martha thought he had decided to clam up on her again. Then, more horribly, he did speak.

“Which one of them are you?” he demanded.

“Which one of what?” Martha asked. She hoped mightily that Harvey’s “them” didn’t start with a capital T. They had worked so hard over the past years to reduce his level of paranoia.

Harvey leaned forward. “You know what I mean,” he said, his voice more menacing than she had ever heard it.

With a puzzled frown, Martha stood up and stepped around the desk. To her surprise, he shot to his feet, his scarred features now bearing down on hers.

“I have two faces,” he whispered furiously. “You can see them. Where do you hide your other one?”

Understanding and panic rose together in Martha. She wet her lips and started to deny again that she knew what he was talking about.

“The Justice League,” Harvey persisted. “You’re not just their doctor.”

As Martha stared stupidly at him, he added, “You’re not Bats or the big blonde. Or Quiver,” he added, allowing his eyes to linger briefly on her modest chest. “No offense.”

Shaking her head, Martha said, “Harvey, I’m not…”

“Don’t lie to me,” Harvey interrupted, adding quickly, “I’m not going to tell anyone.”

Martha walked slowly back around the desk and dropped into the chair, taking the time to collect herself. “Then who am I? Arsenal?”

Harvey’s intent eyes did not waiver from her face. She was a bad liar and they both knew it. He was going to wait her out.

“It should be easy enough to figure out,” Martha said finally. “Which one of them was gone for as long as I was?” Wonder Woman and – to Martha’s delight – Gren had spent the last few weeks of her disappearance masquerading as Superwoman.

She could see the frustration in his eyes as he considered this. “None of them, from what I could tell,” he said. “But there are ways they could have disguised –”

Martha sighed. “Harvey, my parents know Superman. They’ve known him forever. That’s how I got the job with the League.

She added, “Our relationship – yours and mine – is based on trust.” She looked at him. “Isn’t it, Harvey?”

He nodded reluctantly.

“Well,” said Martha. “Other people have to trust me, too.”

Harvey sank back into his chair and Martha saw with regret that both sides of his face were drooping.

“I just thought I could help,” he muttered.

He spent twenty-three hours a day in an ultra-secure solitary cell. Martha tried to think of a response that didn’t include asking him how he thought he could help a world-faring group of superheroes.

“I know it won’t stop me from burning in hell,” Harvey said. “But it might make me feel better in the meantime.”

“You're not going to burn in hell,” said Martha gently. “You've done your time there already.”

Harvey regarded her with pained eyes. “It didn’t feel like hell after you got here. And then you were gone, and the fires stoked right up again.”

Martha reached across the desk for his hand. “I’m sorry.”

Harvey regarded her unblemished hand where it lay over his larger, scarred one, then pulled away and reached for the nutrition bar. “It doesn’t matter. You’ll be gone again soon anyway.”

“I’m not going to let Adrienne fire me,” Martha said firmly.

Harvey ripped open the wrapper and stared at the top of the chocolate-covered bar. “So? You stay another year. Then your fellowship’s over.” He looked up at her. “Then you leave Gotham City.”




Martha had Bruce pull over as soon as they drove off of the asylum parking lot and gave him a worried account of the conversation with Harvey.

“It doesn’t sound like you convinced him,” said Bruce.

“I don’t think I did,” said Martha. “But he has nothing to hold onto, except for his stubborn conviction and my bad acting.”

He sat back in the jag’s soft leather seat and said thoughtfully, “I believe he’s telling the truth about keeping things quiet. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.” He studied Martha with a faint smile. “You know he’s crazy about you.”

“I know he’s crazy,” Martha said, reddening.

Bruce unfastened his seatbelt and leaned over to kiss her. She yielded to the pleasure of his warm mouth and strong hands and by the time he broke the kiss, her anxiety about Harvey had nearly vanished.

“If I call Bistro Cilantro now,” he said, touching his forehead to hers. “They could have our dinner ready by the time we got there. We could… take it back with us.”

Martha laughed. “I see a pattern here. You ask me to dinner, but we never actually go out.”

“I do want to take you out tonight,” Bruce assured her. “But first I want to take you home.”




Batman’s perfectly timed flying sidekick sent the burglar sailing into a pile of used tires at the precise moment that the caped crimefighter’s elbow snapped into the temple of the lawbreaker’s accomplice.

Now that is the way to impress your girlfriend, thought Superwoman, who was standing on a roof above them, an unconscious criminal dangling in each fist. She watched the second man crumple to the ground, then glided down to join Batman.

“This is just the kind of date a girl dreams about,” she said, after making sure they were the only conscious occupants of the alley. “You’re so romantic.”

“Incurably,” Batman deadpanned, as he grabbed one of the burglars she had captured and secured him to a lamppost.

“And a gentleman,” Superwoman observed. “Cuffing my guys first.”

He straightened for a moment and looked inquiringly at her. She smiled and nodded, trying to convey as much warmth as she could through the haze of the hologram. This was OK. This was their lives.

Their dinners from Bistro Cilantro had been cold by the time they’d gotten to them; she and Bruce had thrown on enough clothes to spare Alfred embarrassment and gone into the kitchen to heat up their meals. As they sat at the table, waiting for the microwave to chime, Bruce had shown Martha a carefully folded newspaper article, one that credited Gotham’s drastically falling crime-rate in part to the combined efforts of Batman and Superwoman. She was as pleased as he had been, and just as surprised. Their team-ups had always been spontaneous. Now Bruce wanted to maximize their effectiveness by developing a series of strategies that would put them together intentionally most nights.

Superwoman smiled at the memory of his anxious face as he proposed the more deliberate partnership.

“I know it’s not the most romantic… but you’re the only one I’d….”

Martha had cut him off with a kiss. Bruce’s life was about Batman’s mission. For him to invite her to share it with him was as much of an intimacy as asking her to share his bed. She knew he had worked alone since Tim had graduated from college and moved to Philadelphia. The alliance he was suggesting was Bruce’s strange equivalent of asking her to wear his varsity jacket.

Martha had no problem with him planning out their patrols; her own nightly excursions had always lacked focus. Superwoman would simply fly above high-crime areas until she caught someone breaking the law. Bruce called her brand of crimefighting “fishing.” His methods were more scientific and significantly more effective.

Nor did she see a conflict with her own life’s work, which belonged to Martha, not to Superwoman. She hoped to use her psychiatric research to forward a social agenda she believed would contribute to a healthier society. Bruce was one of the few people who did not laugh off her ideas as overly idealistic.

“What’s this?” she had asked, as she noticed a rotating empty day on the hastily drawn schedule he’d jotted down on the back of one of Alfred’s paper doilies.

Bruce shrugged. “We need some nights together off-duty.”

Martha had thrown herself onto his lap, knocking them both onto the floor and their dinners ended up getting cold again.



Next Chapter: Unfinished business

 

[JC Roberts]

Chapter Six (1/2)

Headquarters was so quiet when Gren touched down on the flight deck and wandered in through the back entrance that for an impossible moment he thought it might be empty. Someone was always on the monitor and since the shuttle was down and she wasn’t home when he called, he’d assumed Meera had gotten a ride to upstate New York. Gren knew the telepath was on duty – he’d written the month’s schedule – and he figured he’d hang out with her for a while.

As he irritably popped his injured neck, Gren saw that Meera was, as expected, sitting attentively at the monitor, but that she already had company. Lian was slouched at a console a few yards away. The redhead’s hair was pulled back in what had become its usual ponytail, she was wearing a pair of glasses Gren had never seen before and – another first – she was scowling into an open book.

“Now you’re an intellectual?” he asked, offering Meera a sideways wave as he strode over to inspect the thick hardback. His forehead crinkled when he saw the title: Combat Planning for Single-Unit Military and Paramilitary Operations.

“I’m taking a course,” Lian explained, as Gren searched the book for a hidden glamour magazine. As his eyebrows climbed, she added indignantly, “I have to do something with all of this extra energy.”

“Great,” Gren said, relieved at Lian’s implication that her sobriety or celibacy, or whatever it was, was still in effect. “That’s a good book. I read an earlier edition when I was in college. Where are you taking the course?” he asked.

Lian looked at him through the glasses. Gren noted with amusement that the lenses were made of clear glass. “West Point.”

Gren stared at her.

“Well,” Lian admitted, “I’m auditing the class, I’m not actually enrolled.”

“At West Point,” Gren said. “As in the United StatesMilitaryAcademy.”

“Well, you know, I just figured,” said Lian, as if attending West Point was nothing special, “I might as well learn from the experts. The general was really nice about it when I asked him.”

“Does he know you’re in recovery?” Gren asked skeptically.

Lian laughed. “Can’t break my vow of anonymity.”

Gren grinned and pulled out the chair next to hers. As he crossed his legs over the top of an uncluttered section of countertop, he called over to Meera, “Martha fly you here? I phoned to see if you needed a ride, but Emma said you were gone.”

“Grabbed a ride at the military base in St. Hubert,” Meera replied. “And met up with Lian after her class.”

“Martha’s kind of busy these days,” Lian added wickedly.

“I know,” Gren said soberly. “I’d like to kill that son-of-a-***** boss of hers.”

Lian giggled. “Work’s not the only thing keeping her busy.”

“Shut up, Lian,” Meera said, turning back to the monitor.

“What?” Gren asked. Meera didn’t answer. He looked back to Lian. “What?”

“She’s doing a lot of undercover work,” Lian said, her cheeks twitching upward as Gren’s bemusement visibly deepened. He caught Meera shaking her head slightly out of the corner of his eye.

“Undercover work,” he repeated, beginning to get angry. “You’re so ****in’ funny.”

Meera spun her chair back around. “Gren…,” she said gently.

“What’s wrong with her?” Gren said furiously. He had not wanted to believe the gossip-column crap he’d read after Bruce had downed his barbiturate cocktail, even when it became obvious from Gren’s conversations with Lian that at least some of it was true. “He’s – he’s freakin’ twice her age… and….”

“He doesn’t look it,” Lian said admiringly. “He’s in such amazing shape –”

Gren pushed himself up out of the chair so violently that it rolled into the middle of the room. “We were all hurting when we thought she was dead,” he said bitterly. “Just because not all of us tried to kill ourselves….”

“Bruce did not try to kill himself,” Lian said heatedly. “It was an accid –”

“I think Gren knows that,” Meera said. “I think he has another concern.”

Lian looked at Gren expectantly, as he sulkily grabbed his chair and rolled it back under the console.

“He’s disrespecting her father,” he muttered.

“This has nothing to do with Clark,” Lian said.

Gren glared pointedly at her. “Well, maybe it should.”

Lian’s retort was lost in the grinding blare of the station’s foghorn-like alarm system. She rushed to the monitor, grimacing at the noise. Meera, her eyes locked on the screen, idly reached over to deactivate the alarm.

“Breakout at SuperMax,” she reported. “Just one guy – a Robert Simmons?” She touched the screen over Simmons’ name, triggering an automatic identity search by the League’s computer.

“Robert Simmons,” Gren repeated thoughtfully. He started as a mug shot loaded onto the monitor. “Lightning Guy Bob?”

Simmons was a minor player with the ability to generate lightning-shaped bolts of energy. He had caught Gren by surprise almost two years before, injuring him before Arsenal downed the rookie meta-villain with one of his custom-made arrows. The rematch, a year later, had gone badly for Bob. Gren had offhandedly finished him by bouncing him headfirst into the cold Montana ground.

Gren waved Lian back to her seat. “I can handle this one, ladies.” He blew out a mouthful of air, annoyed at the prospect of such an uninspiring distraction.

“I’m going with you,” said Lian. “I need a study break.”

Meera sniggered. Gren gathered that Lian hadn’t been studying for very long.

“Oh, be quiet,” said Lian. “Where are we going?”

“Billings, Montana, right downtown,” Meera replied. “North Broadway near 27th Street.” She frowned at the screen and looked back at her teammates. “He seems to be making quite a mess.”

Meera had apparently developed a talent for understatement, Gren thought, as he soared with Quiver over the small, modern city. Bob, it seemed, had come up with a few new talents himself. The first time they had seen him, he’d been dressed like an extra in a cheap biker movie. The prison coveralls he’d worn during their second encounter had done little to change that impression, but even from a distance, they could see that he’d recently assumed a new look.

His mousy brown hair was now a glittering yellow, shot through with fine pulsing streaks of electric blue and standing on end. It seemed almost alive, like a cluster of raging golden worms. He did not seem to be wearing anything but it was hard to tell: His body was enveloped in a cocoon of what appeared to be pure sunlight. It hurt to look at him. Gren’s eyes flicked instinctively to the villain’s feet: Bob no longer needed to straddle an electrical cloud to fly.

“Uh-oh,” said Quiver, who was flying alongside Gren, propelled by a small, solid-light jetpack.

“He’s still nothin’,” said Gren, reassuring neither Quiver nor himself. He was fuming. Last December, Arsenal had asked the administrators at SuperMax to allow the League to investigate the possibility of prisoner experimentation at the facility. A handful of inmates, including Bob, had escaped shortly before Christmas, aided with what appeared to be greatly enhanced powers. SuperMax had been built to replace the old Belle Reve Penitentiary. It had been designed to hold meta-villains: The escape had raised some big questions.

The warden had refused Arsenal’s request, insisting that the prison “could take care of its own” and promising to launch an internal investigation. His ass, Gren vowed, was the second one he would kick, just as soon as he took down Bob.

Their former nebbish of a nemesis had acquired enhanced powers to compliment his new look. Downtown Billings was in chaos: Bob had apparently drained away the city’s electrical supply. Streetlights, air conditioners and neon signs were out. More disturbing to Gren was the sight of abandoned cars choking the intersection where Meera had pinpointed the attack. That suggested Bob had developed the ability to generate an electro-magnetic pulse.

He had also made the dubious graduation from felonious pest to murderer: There were bodies in the street Gren suspected would never move again. Quiver, cursing beside him, had come to the same conclusion.

“Careful,” he told her as he dropped her on the roof of an immense pick-up truck. She nodded and reached for an arrow. Gren had barely lifted away from her when Bob spotted them.

“Give it up, Bob,” Gren shouted, certain his standard warning would be as futile as it usually was. “It’s too hot to fight.”

“I like it hot,” Bob thundered. Even his voice seemed to have an electrical tinge to it. “And my name – is – Livewire!”

“That name’s taken,” Quiver said, sounding shocked at the scope of the villain’s ignorance.

“By a woman,” added Gren, turning sideways to avoid a sizzling stream of electricity.

“Electro!” hollered Bob, apparently falling back on his second choice for a criminal code-name.

“That sounds familiar, too,” Quiver said. She dove onto the street as Bob launched twin bolts of lightning at the pick-up truck, reducing it to a ruin of melting metal and plastic. Gren could smell the stench of burning leather seats as he moved higher into the air.

He flung a gradually enlarging ball of emerald light at the villain, planning to envelop Bob as soon as it got near him. But the electrically enhanced felon pointed at the sphere with an overdone flourish and the current he sent into the ball did something that had never happened to one of Gren’s constructs before. It shimmered a bright green-gold and dissipated like a scattering cloud.

Without a second’s hesitation, Gren sent his trademark mammoth hand after Bob, while Quiver fired an extinguisher arrow at him. Bob allowed the hand to envelop him as he sent yet another current to intercept the arrow, causing toxic fire-suppressing chemicals to rain over the red-headed archer. Then Bob grinned up at Gren and made the emerald fist disappear the way he had the globe of green light.

“Meera,” Gren said grimly, hoping the telepath was tuning in to his signal. He gasped in pain as an electric projectile tore into his left shoulder. To his relief, she answered quickly. The Green Lantern transmitted a series of instructions and asked her a single question. Then he turned back to Lightning Bolt Bob, who had just sent a wavelike wall of electricity down Broadway, where it was quickly gaining on Quiver.




“Don’t even think,” Linda said through her teeth as she and Wally walked uneasily toward the Principal’s Office. “Of being the fun dad. If you don’t come down hard on Parker now, this will just be the beginning.”

“We don’t even know the whole story,” Wally protested. Linda swung around and stood on her toes so they were practically nose-to-nose. “We know enough,” she said.

The principal, a heavyset middle-aged African-American man shook hands with Wally and Linda and invited them into his office. Parker was sitting there, staring at the floor with a mixture of defiance and fear. A nervous young woman, presumably his teacher, sat beside him. Linda shot Parker a dirty look as she took a seat with her husband on the other side of the office. The principal urged everyone to pull their chairs closer to his desk. Everyone but Parker complied.

“Parker,” Linda said, with ice in her voice. Without taking his eyes from the floor, Parker scooted his chair forward a few inches.

“I’m truly sorry to have to inconvenience you,” said the Principal, and it was obvious he was mostly addressing Wally. “It’s close to the end of the school year and I did consider letting this go, but –”

“I’m glad you didn’t, Mr. Griscomb,” Linda said quickly. Wally’s eyes darted at the name plate sitting at the front of the large oak desk. He guessed he should probably have known the name of his son’s principal before mid-June.

The woman sitting next to Parker cleared her throat. “It’s just that it was a final exam,” she said meekly. “And, I have to be honest. There have been a few other – incidents – in past weeks.”

“No there haven’t,” Parker muttered darkly. Linda shot him what their son Barry had once coined “the look of death” and he immediately returned his eyes to the tops of his scruffy, unlaced sneakers.

“Cheating,” she said furiously. “One of my children.”

Wally put his hand over Linda’s where she clenched the armrest of her chair. “Let’s let Mr. –” He glanced again at the name plate. “Griscomb tell us what happened.”

The principal looked uncomfortable. “Well. As you know, all of your children have attended this school and there have never been any problems before concerning their – exceptionalities.” Wally found himself taking offense at the word. It sounded like his kids were members of what, in his less mature, more insensitive days, he would have referred to as “the basket-weaving class.”

Parker mumbled something, the only audible part of which was “… what you know.…”

Ignoring him, Griscomb went on, “However, yesterday, during his English final, it looks like Parker may have approached Ms. Caulley’s desk at – er – super-speed and copied down part of an answer to an essay question.”

Wally’s chest tightened. He looked at Parker questioningly.

“I didn’t,” Parker said fiercely. Wally felt himself relax. His son’s response was too passionate, he believed, to be a lie.

No one else in the room seemed to be terribly moved, however. At the principal’s nod, Ms. Caulley, her voice still trembling, said, “I would like to believe that – but – you see, my boyfriend –” Her face turned a bright pink. “His name is Eddie and the question on the final was about a story the children read earlier in the year, A Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe. In my notes, just as a joke to myself, I referred to the author as Eddie Poekins. And that’s the name Parker used in his essay.”

Wally looked over at his son, who was now smearing a tear away from his cheek. “Park,” he said, his voice heavy with disappointment. He looked at Linda, who was gripping her chair in a mix of humiliation and anger. “We’ll take care of this,” he said.

Griscomb looked relieved. “Parker will receive a zero on the test, of course,” he said. “But we could allow him to take a re-test –”

Flash.

“Oh, no,” Wally said, covering his face with his hands.

“Dad,” Parker said desperately. “I swear I won’t do it again.”

Wally let his head fall briefly back against the chair, and then he sighed and stood up. “It’s just that I’ve got to go.” He cringed inwardly as Linda grew rigid. “I’m sorry,” he said, without looking at his wife. “Whatever you guys decide, I’m fully behind it.”

As he shot toward Billings, listening to Meera describe Robert Simmons’ attack on the city and their teammates, Wally tried to push away his feelings of disappointment in Parker and his frustration at having been interrupted at such an important time. He knew Linda would understand, once she’d cooled off, but he had managed to avoid allowing his Justice League obligations to interfere with his family life for months now. He knew Iris had her doubts about the half-time arrangement he’d been pushing, but he wished his adult daughter would overcome her reservations enough to give the League a try. She could have taken this call instead of him.

The Flash made it to Billings in a handful of minutes. By then, Meera had established a relay between him and Quiver. Lian guided Wally toward the edge of town, where she and Gren had managed to lure the villain Wally had once dubbed Lightning Guy. He didn’t like the way Quiver described the fugitive’s make-over.




Gren had not been able to block the tsunami of electric energy Bob had sent after Quiver, but he had managed to scoop her up before it hit her. Bob wasn’t facile enough with his enhanced power to compensate for the direction change, but he regrouped quickly enough to hurl a few sizzling projectiles at the fleeing crimefighters.

A smart criminal would have taken the opportunity to escape, but – give or take a handful of mad geniuses – “smart criminal” was an oxymoron. Bob bore a grudge against the Green Lantern for having dispatched him so quickly and contemptuously the previous year – and he had a score to settle against Quiver’s father for having sent him to SuperMax in the first place. He rocketed impulsively after them, without stopping to recognize that superheroes usually didn’t run away.




Whew, thought the Flash as he caught sight of the new and improved Lighting Guy. He ran parallel to his flying teammate – who was still carrying Quiver – as they led their revenge-hungry adversary across the city limit. The Green Lantern dipped low for a second and Quiver dropped gracefully to the ground. Wally was running so fast he had to loop back around to join her.

“Listen,” she said, and told him the plan. Wally nodded and sped after Gren, who was dodging a barrage of energy bolts as he wove across the sky. The Green Lantern summoned a huge, razor-like disk – a humongous throwing star – but he was so winded and wounded that he misaimed, wildly missing his pursuer and instead shearing off the top of a water tower.

The miss appeared to take all of the fight out of Gren, who hovered over the tower, panting as he clutched at his burned shoulder. Bob, smelling blood, went in for the kill.

In his single-minded quest to destroy the man who humiliated him, Bob failed to see the blur of the Flash running up the side of the water tower, nor did he spot the Scarlet Speedster zooming around the mouth of the tower where Gren had ripped it open. He did notice the Green Lantern’s expression curiously change from agony to amused contempt, but Bob had little time to contemplate this change in demeanor. He was being sucked suddenly downward, and when he looked beneath him, his face filled with horror.

The Flash hurtled even faster around the rim of the tank, strengthening the force of the vortex he was creating. He took some satisfaction in Lightning Guy’s panicked thrashing as he drew closer to the water, but Wally had seen the bodies crumpled in the streets of Billings and the gruesome burn on his teammate’s shoulder. He could think of a dozen jokes to accompany the sizzle Simmons made when he plunged into the million-gallon tank, but he spoke not a single one aloud.

“Back to plain old Bob,” said Gren a few moments later, as he fished the naked, mousy-haired convict from the tank, scooping him up in an oversized green net that reminded Wally of the ones he had used to remove dead goldfish from his children’s aquarium.

“Good idea to lead him to the tank,” the Flash told Gren, as Quiver checked the felon for a pulse and resentfully announced that he still had one.

“It was Lian’s idea,” Gren said. “Celibacy has turned her into a military genius.”




It was just a small riot, but as Arkham continued to lose guards, they had become more frequent. The asylum was chronically short-staffed. Since Lawrence Adrienne had assumed the directorship, three security officers had resigned, citing in exit interviews their belief that changes in administration policy had made their jobs more dangerous. The director had these comments expunged, wrote off his former employees as malcontents and replaced them with a single rookie who, despite earnest efforts, lasted three days before quitting in terror after a confrontation with a prisoner named Michael Hartrampf left the newbie with a broken jaw and sixteen stitches in his partially detached ear.

Adrienne had been forced to call the Gotham police to assist with this last riot. It had not ballooned so far out of control that Martha felt the need to contact Batman, though she did surreptitiously use her own powers to nullify a few of the more savage escapees. She did this quickly enough for her actions to be invisible. In less than three hours, the asylum was more or less quiet again.

The director called a quick meeting of staff – both psychiatric and security – once he’d thanked an irritated Lakeeta Reardon for the use of her officers. Martha noted that her colleagues, several of whom pressed ice packs against bruised body parts, seemed to expect nothing more than she did from this meeting, which had become a routine post-calamity ritual at Adrienne’s Arkham.

Anticipating another repetitive pep talk, Martha had brought a few patient files along with her to the meeting. She was not the only doctor to have done this. No one could afford to waste time listening to Adrienne’s insubstantial sermons with the sort of patient load that was bearing down on each of them. It was Martha’s absorbed scribbling into a patient file, however, that caught Adrienne’s eye.

“Am I wasting your time, Dr. Kent?” he asked brusquely.

Martha closed the file and straightened in her chair. “Sorry, sir.”

Adrienne prattled on for another fifteen minutes, during which Martha tried to appear intensely interested in his prosaic ramblings. Finally, he asked if anyone had anything to say. No one was foolish enough to respond to this question; by this time, everyone knew it was rhetorical. As the meeting broke up and people started to move toward the door, Adrienne’s voice sounded again over the clatter.

“Dr. Kent. I need to see you in my office.”

Several of her colleagues glanced sympathetically toward Martha as she nervously followed Adrienne out of the room. He did not so much as look back to see if she was behind him until they walked past his secretary and into his office, where he nodded at her to close the door.

“I’m sorry about the meeting,” Martha said as she obeyed a second nod, this time directing her to the chair in front of Adrienne’s desk. “I’m just kind of backed up –”

Adrienne held up a hand. “I have more important concerns to discuss with you, Dr. Kent.” He picked up a file folder and Martha could see a pink disciplinary slip beneath it. She stiffened. Adrienne had written her up a week ago, for meeting with Harvey in her basement office. This would be her second official warning.

“I think we’ve had a discussion about professional conduct before,” he said.

So he’d found out about her clandestine session with Harvey. Martha wondered if there had been a hidden camera in the room. She was sure no one had seen them.

As she struggled to think of an acceptable reason for defying Adrienne’s orders, the director said, “Melinda Biggs, in the woman’s wing.”

“Yes, sir?” asked Martha. Her relief at not having been caught with Harvey was overshadowed by her confusion at this reference to one of her less remarkable patients.

“She’s in here for what?” Adrienne asked, an ominous question considering that Martha could see Biggs’ file lying on his desk.

“Setting fire to a preschool. And a nursing home. And a fire station,” Martha said. “Something like fifteen years ago.” Batman, along with city firefighters had rescued all of Biggs’ intended victims. It was Lakeeta Reardon, at the time an arson detective, who had put the cuffs on Biggs.

“And what is the theme of the song, Sunny Came Home?”

“Oh,” said Martha uncomfortably. “It’s about a pyromaniac.”

“And singing Sunny Came Home with a pyromaniac is therapeutic how?” Adrienne asked in a tone better suited to a district attorney than a psychiatrist.

Martha took a deep breath. “I study my patients very carefully. Melinda’s got a weird sense of humor,” she said. “I was trying to make a connection with her. And it worked. She’s talked more to me –”

Adrienne cut her off. “You’re supposed to be treating these patients, not bonding with them.” He handed her the pink slip. “Your second reprimand for unprofessional behavior.”

Martha stared in disbelief at the surface of Adrienne’s desk. Another sheet of pink paper lay beneath the first one.

The director shook the first slip at her until she numbly took it, then picked up the second form and squinted at her. “This one comes a little late,” he said, and Martha could hear the undertone of triumph in his voice. “I was testifying before the state yesterday and then we had the riot today. But I have to tell you, Dr. Kent. I never thought I’d have to issue a reprimand to a professional for anything like this.”

Three pink slips meant an automatic hearing for her dismissal. Martha struggled to keep her voice steady as she asked hoarsely, “For what?”

“The Arkham parking lot is still hospital property,” he said, and despite her panic, Martha could see that he was suppressing a leer. “It’s not the place for you to be making out with your boyfriend.”

“What? What are you talking about?” That ****ing Trellis. He must have told Adrienne about the kiss he had witnessed in the parking lot. And exaggerated. A lot. “If Jesse Trellis –”

“Keep your voice down,” Adrienne snapped. “Your behavior is no one’s responsibility but your own. And that of the young man in question, but he doesn’t work here.”

Martha realized immediately that the director had no idea whom she’d been kissing. Arkham could not survive without the deficit funding provided by the Wayne Foundation. All she would have to do was say, “Fine. I’ll tell Bruce he can’t kiss me in the parking lot anymore.” It wouldn’t take Adrienne long to figure out who “Bruce” was and for those pink slips to be wadded up in the bottom of his recycling bin.

But Martha would not do this; it felt too much like using Bruce. The idea of throwing his name around to solve one of her problems was unthinkable to her. She would come up with a way to fight this on her own.

“Dr. Adrienne.” Martha leaned forward and strained to keep her voice steady. “I have worked extremely hard, all of my life, to get to where I am today. I have never intentionally behaved unprofessionally, nor has my dedication to my job or my work ethic ever been questioned before. I’m not sure what I have to do to –”

Adrienne cut her off. “What you have to do now,” he said. “Is get out of my office. There will be a formal hearing for your dismissal next week. Until then, I’m sure someone as dedicated and hardworking as yourself will want to get your files in order in the event that someone else has to take them over.”

Martha found herself unable to move. She stared unbelievingly at Adrienne until the director walked around his desk. He dropped the second reprimand on her lap and repeated softly, “Get out of here, Dr. Kent.”




Roy grudgingly untangled himself from Midori and groped around the hotel room floor for his trousers, extracting his cell phone seconds before the call from his daughter was routed to his voice mail.

“Hi,” he said groggily, as Midori sleepily slipped her arms back around him.

“It’s dinnertime,” Lian said. “Why are you sleeping?”

“I’m not sleeping,” Roy said. “I’m doing productive things that are greatly contributing the world’s security.” Midori looked at him curiously, decided he was joking and snuggled back against him with a smile.

“Right,” said Lian, and told her father about the encounter with Lightning Guy Bob.

Roy cursed, causing Midori to scrutinize him again. “We’re investigating SuperMax ourselves whether the warden likes it or not. I want you and Wally on it.”

There was a slight hesitation on the other end of the line. “OK.”

“Anything else going on?” Roy asked.

“Not really,” Lian said. “Other than the fact that I no longer seem to have a roommate.”

Roy chuckled. “As long as she doesn’t get him so mellow he doesn’t want to hit people.”

“He’ll never be that mellow,” Lian said, adding, “I’ve got a meeting to go to.”

“I love you,” Roy said warmly. He flipped his phone closed and turned to Midori.

“Would you like room service?” He lowered his voice suggestively. “Or would you rather I serviced you in this room?”

Midori understood this joke; Roy had told it several times before.

“Both,” she said, seeing no reason to choose. Roy would be heading back to Colorado tomorrow while Midori continued to supervise the construction of the Javelin-13. She intended to exploit her second option while it was still available to her.

He reached onto his nightstand for the hotel menu. “Greedy,” he said. “You’re lucky I like to spoil you.”

 

[JC Roberts]

Chapter Six (2/2)

Martha managed to make it through the rest of the day with a stoic smile. She didn’t allow herself the luxury of tears until she was home, standing under a scalding shower. Termination from a fellowship – especially at a place like Arkham, where they were desperate for doctors and never released them – would follow her like a shadow for the rest of her career. Her credibility would be ruined; the authenticity of her research questioned.

And she had never been fired before. Her personnel files had always been thick with outstanding reviews and commendations. Her professional success had occasionally made co-workers dislike her, but never her bosses. She did not understand why Adrienne hated her. She had not left work on Justice League business once since returning to the asylum.

Martha had been looking forward to another evening with Bruce; now she considered canceling. She knew better than to think she could hide anything from him and it was too early in their relationship, she decided, to dump something this heavy on him. She leaned her head against the opaque shower door and sighed. Bruce had had come back from last night’s patrol with a head full of ideas. He had said something about spending the afternoon outlining some new strategies so she could look them over before tonight’s operation. His face didn’t show it, but Martha could tell he had been excited. She couldn’t disappoint him.

She would be a good actress this time, Martha resolved as she stepped into a new pair of jeans. Adrienne might have ruined her day, but she wouldn’t let him ruin Bruce’s night.




It took Bruce an instant to realize something was wrong with Martha and thirty seconds to get her to tell him what it was. She did keep the contents of the second pink slip from him, but only by telling Bruce she did not want to talk about it.

“You’ll just get upset,” she said, snuffling into his shirt.

He was already beyond upset. He had met men like Adrienne before: self-righteously mean and abusive when they got a little power. Bruce hand-picked the top executives at his own companies. They had standing orders to fire managers who tormented their subordinates.

As he sat on his couch and held Martha, Bruce forced away scenarios in which Batman hung Adrienne from the top of Arkham’s highest tower and locked him into a cell with the inmate whose cannibalistic tendencies had chased away the previous director. His job, Bruce reminded himself, was to listen to Martha’s problem, not fix it. To his surprise, this simple thing really did seem to make her feel better; he could sense it in the slight sagging of her shoulders as leaned against his chest.

In a gesture that Martha later confessed meant more to her than anything else he did to comfort her that night, Bruce asked if she wanted to skip their patrol; they could stay in if she wanted.

“No,” she said, wiping her eyes. “I want to hit bad people tonight.”




Linda had not seen what Parker had done to deserve re-taking his English final. In addition to cheating, he had lied repeatedly to protect himself. She thanked the principal for his generosity and told the English teacher to give her son a zero.

“But I’ll fail English,” Parker had protested, fresh tears tumbling down his cheeks. “I’ll have to go to summer school.”

“Then you’ll go to summer school,” his mother replied.

Apparently hoping Wally would intervene, Parker had recounted the conversation to his father as they stood on their porch that evening, watching the sun fall behind a cluster of maple trees. His version omitted the transparent sorrow on Linda’s face as she consigned her son to a joyless summer, instead painting her as a cold disciplinarian whose unreasonable stance had shocked the principal and Parker’s English teacher.

He wouldn’t have fooled Wally even if he hadn’t called the school later that day to apologize for leaving the meeting. Mr. Griscomb asked him to relay his thanks to Linda, adding that it was rare these days for a parent to insist that her child face the full consequences of his actions. Her stance was particularly important for a young man like Parker, whose life would almost certainly involve making more than the average number of moral choices.

Wally was gently defending Linda’s decision to their son when she pushed open the sliding glass door and handed her husband his cell phone.

It was Lian. Wally instinctively walked into the middle of the yard so that Parker would neither hear the conversation nor notice his father’s discomfort.

“Arsenal wants us to look into what’s going on at SuperMax,” Lian told him.

“Who’s ‘us’?” Wally asked cautiously.

“You and me,” Lian said. He could tell from her voice that she was expecting him to try to worm out of the assignment and she wasn’t wrong. He held the phone silently against his ear, searching for an excuse to avoid working alone with the young woman who had once spent months determined to seduce him.

“Wally,” said Lian, and he was surprised to hear pain in her voice. “It’ll be OK. I’m – I’m not like that anymore.”

He hoped he could believe her. Four weeks of recovery wasn’t exactly a record. Wally was no longer tempted by his teammate, but he wasn’t one to walk willingly into such an awkward situation.

“All right,” he said finally. “I’ll give you a call tomorrow so we can set a time to meet up with the warden.”

He flipped closed the phone and walked back toward Parker, who had new woes to share about A Cask of Amontillado. “No one understood it,” he said. “It had Latin in it and stuff.”

“Life’s hard,” Wally told him. “And a lot of it is tough to understand. But cheating only makes it worse.”

Parker looked disgusted at him for stringing together the chain of clichés, but Wally could see relief in the back of his son’s chestnut eyes. Linda had been right; Parker hadn’t needed the fun dad. Feeling a little more like a grown-up than usual, Wally gave his son’s shoulders an encouraging squeeze and was gratified when Parker didn’t shrug him off.




Lawrence Adrienne didn’t believe himself a vain man, or a manipulative one, but he did pride himself on being able to handle people. He could work the heavy-hitter as well as the little guy, Adrienne thought as he reached across his desk to shake hands with Bruce Wayne.

The billionaire had wandered into the director’s office half an hour earlier, just as the Adrienne was preparing to go out to lunch. Apparently Wayne had heard something on the radio about the director’s testimony before the state senate’s budgetary committee. He looked a bit run down – Adrienne guessed he was hung over – but was affable and easily steered toward the subject of funding. The socialite’s attention seemed to wander during the course of the conversation, his eyes falling on the many plaques and diplomas Adrienne had mounted on his office walls. It was a good thing the guy had inherited his money, the director thought. He doubted Wayne had the focus to make a dime on his own.

Adrienne could not remember his successor, Dev Persky, being able to squeeze an extra penny out of the billionaire, but it had not taken much today to convince him to make up for any deficit caused by a cut in state funding. It was all a matter of how you handled people, Adrienne thought, congratulating himself as Wayne thanked him for the meeting. You needed to maintain your own sense of authority; you needed to let them know who was in charge.

“So you’ll give me a call when the budget report comes in?” Wayne asked. “I’ll need to get a crew working on the supplement. You know,” he shrugged carelessly. “Accountants.”

“Of course,” said Adrienne, completely unaware of the condescension in his voice that had become almost a default tone. “And thanks again, Mr. Wayne.”

Wayne waved off his thanks and headed toward the door, where he suddenly stopped and turned back, as if he’d forgotten something.

“You don't mind if I take my girlfriend to lunch, do you?” he asked offhandedly.

The director shot him an inquiring look. “Your girlfriend?”

“She's on your staff,” Bruce told him. “Martha Kent.”

Adrienne froze. “She... um... I mean, of course. She's never mentioned that you...,” he faltered.

“That's funny,” said Bruce, and his eyes, suddenly hard and ice-cold, seemed to belong to someone else. “She's mentioned the hell out of you.”




Martha had signed into Arkham that morning determined to get through the day as if it were any other. She saw patients, updated files and did whatever she could to avoid Adrienne. Not unusually, she became so absorbed in her work that she forgot about lunch. When a long shadow crossed her desk a few minutes after noon, she glanced up from her computer screen and found herself happily surprised.

“What are you doing here?” she asked Bruce.

“I'm taking you to lunch,” he said. “Then I'm helping you move back into your old office.”

As Martha stared at him incredulously, he added. “I fixed your problem. Sorry.”

What she did to him then could have definitely earned her another pink slip.




It had been a satisfying patrol, thought Batman as he stepped out of the car and pushed back his mask. There had been a nice pace to the night – not too busy, not too slow – with a lot of room for trying out a few new tactics as well as honing some old standbys. Superwoman had been a bit more exuberant than she’d needed to be – lashing a carjacker to the pinnacle of a Ferris wheel that had been erected for the city’s upcoming Independence Day carnival – but her ebullience had been a pleasing change from her desolate demeanor of the night before, when Bruce had spent hours worrying about how Martha would react if he did more than just listen to her problems.

He looked up as she flew into the cave, switching off the hologram as she landed next to him.

“Hey,” she said, kissing his sweaty cheek. “A good night.”

“It was,” he said. “Let’s take a shower and we’ll debrief over breakfast.”

But suddenly, Martha was no longer standing next to him. Bruce heard her clear her throat and looked back to see her sitting on the hood of the Batmobile.

“Not quite yet,” she said. He frowned at her curiously.

“We have some unfinished business with this car,” Martha said, her mischievous eyes belying the seriousness of her tone.

Bruce knew what she meant right away. Months ago, they had almost…. And now she wanted to….

“Alfred’s usually down here around now,” he started, taking a few intrigued steps toward her. “He might –”

Martha shook her head. “No,” she said. “I believe he’s sleeping in today.”

Bruce shook his head, grinning as he quickly closed the gap between them.

“You’re a bad girl,” he murmured, taking her face in his hands.

“Practically a supervillian,” Martha whispered as his mouth came down on hers.



Next Chapter: Bad Science

 

[JC Roberts]

Chapter Seven


… their dead eyes… fixed, bloodshot, staring… soon, soon, not going anywhere, he was still here, not going away, not until they were cold and broken, all of them, his triumph the final memory haunting their dead eyes.

He was still here.




“I hope it’s not the government,” said Wally as he thumbed back the wrapper from his second barbecued buffalo cheeseburger. “I hate it when it’s the government.”

Lian eyed his sauce-stained fingers with distaste and picked at her salad. “It would be nice to factor out Cadmus.” A crouton toppled onto the faded blue tablecloth from her overstuffed bowl. “I know how Superman feels about them, but I think they play too much.”

It had been nearly three weeks since Arsenal had assigned them to investigate the break-outs at SuperMax, but they were just getting to it. A mammoth earthquake in Kyoto, an extraterrestrial invasion attempt, two unrelated efforts to take over the world and a resistant warden had conspired to delay the inquiry. It had taken Lian’s threat of a court order to eliminate the final stumbling block: The warden, exhausted from repeated attempts to explain Lightning Guy Bob’s murderous flight from a prison that was supposed to be escape-proof, did not think his career could weather the bad publicity that might arise from a high-profile legal battle with the Justice League.

While he could not explain the disturbing changes in some of his prisoners, the warden had a point in insisting that the opportunity for experimentation on inmates simply didn’t exist, admitted Wally. Prisoners lived in solitary confinement. A pneumatic delivery system made escape during mealtimes impossible. Despite the vigorous protests of prison reform activists, there was no yard time. Affording super-powered convicts the right to exercise was generally held to be a bad idea. None of inmates needed to be any stronger than they already were.

“We’ll get a better picture once we’re inside,” Lian said, examining the fallen crouton between her thumb and forefinger before popping it into her mouth. She pulled out a sheaf of papers and donned her new glasses. “There were six original escapees last December: Butri Chatichai – the telekinetic who almost killed –”

Wally waved her into silence. Chatichai had almost killed Superwoman. That information was better left unspoken, even in a near-deserted barbecue shack.

Lian winced apologetically and continued, “So – Chatichai, and also Plasmus, Pillan, Cheetah, Chemo and Bob, who was still Lighting Guy 1.0 at the time and not the murderous upgrade we fought in Billings.”

“But not all of them seemed altered, even back then,” Wally said thoughtfully. He squinted across the Montana highway through the barbecue joint’s dusty plate glass window and wondered if Lian’s bespectacled, unadorned look was an attempt to reassure him of her wholesome intent.

“No,” Lian said. “Just Pillan and Chatichai.”

“Not the old guys,” Wally said. Lian gave him a sharp, startled look.

“Yeah,” she said eagerly. She rifled through the stack of papers until she found a spreadsheet with several rows highlighted in bright pink. “Bob is 26.” She scanned the sheet quickly. “The other two are under 35.”

He shrugged. “Could be a coincidence.” He looked at his watch. “We should probably change into our dancing clothes. Don’t want to keep the warden waiting.”

The warden was unimpressed with their punctuality. He resented the intrusion of the two costumed outsiders; in his view, their presence alone made him look bad. He made a weak attempt to limit the scope of their investigation, an endeavor that ended when Quiver handed him one of Lois Lane’s business cards.

“My roommate’s mother,” Lian said matter-of-factly. The warden hastily poked at his intercom and asked the corrections officer who appeared moments later to take them wherever they wanted.




Batman’s black gloved fingers moved methodically over the monitor, touching a pictured quadrant, allowing the image to balloon onto the screen, then moving on to another with a regularity that was almost rhythmic. Arsenal had been standing behind him for almost a full minute, watching with amused admiration as his colleague systematically surveyed the hundreds of satellite images from Eastern Europe and then, without so much as a pause to acknowledge the geographical shift, moved on to Asia.

He did not bother to greet Roy, who took no offense. A social relationship with Bruce Wayne did not translate into an exchange of pleasantries with an on-duty Batman.

“Have you seen her?” Roy asked, unable to keep the adolescent reverence out of his voice.

“No,” Batman said, without taking his eyes from the screen. He magnified a live photo of what looked to Roy like Southern India, then touched the monitor again.

“Well, come see her now,” Roy said.

Batman gave a final glance at the screen and turned in his chair to face his teammate.

“Monitor duty.” He turned back toward the screen.

“It’ll take a second. What, you wouldn’t leave for a minute to go to the bathroom?”

“No,” Batman said, frowning at a province in northwest India that included a distant glimpse of the Taj Mahal.

As Arsenal frolicked through a bold assortment of flippant replies, he heard shuffling outside of the control room and stuck his head into the hallway. “Hey, Gren. Come here for a second.”

The Green Lantern slouched through the door. “Yeah.”

“Watch the monitor for a minute, will you?” Roy asked. “C’mon,” he added to Batman, who rose without removing his eyes from the screen.

Gren made an exasperated noise, but took a few steps toward the monitor. Batman nodded his thanks and followed Arsenal out of the control room.

“What’s wrong with Gardner?” he asked, as they walked toward the rear of building.

Roy shook his head. “Ah, don’t worry about it.” He stopped a few feet in front of the automatic doors, grinned enthusiastically at Batman and motioned him forward. They stepped into the sticky late-July air and gazed out at the flight deck.

“Beautiful, isn’t she?” Arsenal asked as the two men looked down at the newly arrived Javelin-13. The shuttle, lustrous in the afternoon sun, lay low against the flight deck, sleek, streamlined, and strikingly powerful. Midori had outdone herself.

“Yes,” said Batman. His face remained expressionless, but he shifted slightly and Roy could tell his taciturn teammate was impressed.

“Midori says she’s got an even better vision for the 14,” Roy said. “But I was thinking it might not be bad to go into production now on a back-up for this baby.” The questioning look he aimed at Batman was intended more for his billionaire alter-ego. Wayne Enterprises was known as a key financial supporter of the League and Bruce contributed additional monies through an untraceable matrix of ghost organizations.

“Sure,” Batman said. He stared appreciatively at the shuttle as Roy rattled off an impressive list of its capabilities. Midori poked her head out from a hatch on the shuttle’s belly and waved.

“Some guy’s girlfriends bake them cookies,” Roy said proudly.

“You’ve traded up,” Batman said.

Roy gave him a cautious glance. “I think you and I have both gotten pretty lucky.”

Batman was silent for a moment. “Yeah,” he said, his voice the barest bit lighter. He shifted again. “I’ve got to get back to the monitor.”

“Gren,” Arsenal asked a few minutes later, as they left Batman in the control room and headed toward the gym. “Ever take a bathroom break when you’re on monitor duty?”

“Sure,” Gren said, as if this were obvious. “I just take a handheld with me.”

“Into the bathroom?” Roy asked, scowling in distaste.

The Green Lantern shrugged. “I only need one hand in there.”

Roy made a note to disinfect and lock the drawer full of handheld monitors and to ask Midori to install a flatscreen onto the bathroom wall. “I’ll be right back. If I’m gonna work out with you, I’ve got to get some latex gloves.”

Gren laughed. “Squeamish.”




As the Flash and Quiver worked their way through SuperMax, questioning largely cooperative staff and predictably resistant prisoners, they began to see the warden’s point.
No one seemed to have noticed anything unusual during the time preceding either breakout episode, nor had anybody observed any changes in the abilities of the meta-villain population.

“But we probably wouldn’t,” a corrections officer named Mason told them. He had been assigned to escort the duo of superheroes and appeared eager to help. “We don’t give them a chance to use their powers, so it would have been hard to tell if they were getting stronger.”

“So what kind of investigation did you guys do?” Quiver asked irritably. “Did the medical staff do tests or –”

Mason looked embarrassed. “I don’t know. I wasn’t a part of it.”

Before Lian’s contemptuous expression translated into biting words for an innocent man, the Flash said quickly, “I’ll bet if you had been, things would have gone better.”

Quiver caught herself and smiled at Mason, who looked instantly grateful for her change in mood. “So, we’re absolutely sure that the only thing that goes into those cells is food?”

The guard nodded. “And we can track how many times the meal slots are opened,” he said. “They’re monitored by a computer.”

“And everyone gets the same food?” Wally asked, politely resisting the urge to describe out how easily computer data could be changed.

Mason nodded. “Except a couple of the prisoners who have special dietary needs. Like they have diabetes or some kind of religious restrictions.”

Quiver dug a roster of prisoners out from the pile of papers she’d been carrying and handed it to Mason. “Would that include anyone on this list?”




Tuksin Techapongvorachai, whose nom de crime was DevilDog, had a better reason than most prisoners to resent the intrusion into his involuntarily cloistered life by members of the Justice League. Until his defeat at the hands of Superwoman almost two years earlier, the super-powered Thai had been making a literal killing as a million-dollar assassin. He hadn’t seen natural sunlight since the bright December day when he, his telekinetic girlfriend Chatichai and Bob Simmons had been tossed into SuperMax after a failed attempt to murder a team of scientists. Both Chatichai and Bob had since been transformed into something more than they had previously been. DevilDog, a flyer who was as strong as Superwoman and almost as fast, had not participated in either escape attempt, something he would surely have done, had he been capable.

Despite the unpleasantness of their last encounter, DevilDog seemed pleased to see them. After 19 months of solitary confinement, Wally figured, the inmate would probably have been glad to see anybody.

“Hey, where’s my blondie?” DevilDog asked, grinning at them through a two-way television monitor that was built into the door of his cell. His lust for Superwoman – in her voluptuous holographic form – was common knowledge among her teammates. It didn’t endear him to Martha, whose relationship with her Amazonian doppelganger was somewhat ambivalent.

“She sends her love,” Quiver said. “And asks that you answer a few questions.”

DevilDog shrugged. “Sure. I got nothing better to do.”

“You stronger than when you got here?” Wally asked.

The assassin gave him a startled look and held out his arms, revealing a torso that was considerably paler and thinner than it had been the last time they had seen him. “I don’t think I could throw a truck more than block,” he said disgustedly.

“Well, that’s a tragedy,” Quiver muttered to the Flash, who smiled and said, “Your girlfriend can’t say the same,”

DevilDog grinned again. “Yeah, I hear about that from the guards. She try to break me out, huh? But she can’t beat blondie neither.”

“What do you think happened to her?” Quiver asked. “And your buddy, Bob?”

Shrugging, DevilDog said, “Don’t know. Wish it would happen to me.”

A squeaking noise behind them caused the Flash and Quiver to spin around quickly. A guard was sliding lunch trays through the pneumatic meal slots.

The Flash took the guard’s arm before he could slide the tray into DevilDog’s cell. Lian frowned over the tepid slab of tofu and asked, “What are those pills?”

“Vitamins,” the guard said. At Quiver’s nod, he opened a small door in the cell wall, slid the tray into a notch, sealed the door and pushed a button. There was a hissing noise and the meal disappeared.

They watched DevilDog reach disdainfully for the tray, which had reappeared on his side of the door.

“You know how good I used to eat?” he asked.

“Guess there’s not a lot of vegetarian options in prison,” Quiver said.

“Nah.” DevilDog, glaring at a soft, round vitamin capsule as it rolled across the tray.

Quiver looked at the Flash. “Anything else?” she whispered.

He shook his head. “Be seeing you, Tuksin,” he said.

“You tell Superwoman I’m thinking of her,” DevilDog said.

“No message for your girlfriend?” Wally asked. “The one who got recaptured trying to spring you?”

DevilDog shrugged. “It not like I’m engaged to her.”




After an inspection of the kitchen and its staff – “You grilled the cook,” Wally teased Lian – Mason led them to the pharmacy, where a cordial, middle-aged woman readily opened her records and inventory for their inspection.

“You dispense the vitamins?” Quiver asked her, running her manicured fingernail across an old-fashioned paper ledger.

“I get them together every morning,” the woman said. “So the kitchen assistants can hand them out during the noontime meal.”

The Flash looked up from the pharmacy computer, where he was reading over a spreadsheet. “Everyone gets the same thing?”

She nodded. “Pretty much.”

“Well, the older prisoners,” Mason said slowly. “Their pills look different.” Quiver and the Flash exchanged a glance.

“The pharmacist smiled. “Same ingredients. They get a 40-plus formula.”

Wally straightened from where he had been bent over the keyboard. “You mind if we take a few samples with us? Ms. –?”

“Yorkin,” she said. “Terianne. Just tell me what you want. I’ll get it together for you.”




“Maybe it’s something in the lighting?” Lian asked, as the pneumatic doors hissed and they stepped out into the sunlight. “Some kind of rays coming from the bulbs?”

Wally held up a finger, disappeared for no more than a second, and returned, holding a light bulb and wearing his street clothes. Lian had changed in the prison bathroom; Wally wanted to revisit the barbecue joint without attracting too many stares.

“It looks like an ordinary bulb,” he said, inspecting it. “But you never know.”

“I think it’s the food, though,” Lian said, as they continued walking toward the mammoth gates. “What else goes into their bodies? It can’t be anything in the air, or the effect would be uncontrolled. And the food would explain why DevilDog wasn’t affected.”

Wally shrugged. “The person who’s doing this may not want him to be affected. He’s a loose cannon. Maybe the others are more suggestible. Anyway,” he added, “You saw how little cooking is actually done in there. Most of the food comes right off the truck and into the freezer, where it sits until it’s time for the microwave.” He watched Lian rummage in her briefcase for her clear-lens glasses. Suddenly, her eyes widened she grabbed Wally’s arm.

“It’s the vitamins,” she said excitedly.

“How can you –”

“All of the older prisoners get tablets,” she said. “But the younger ones – two of the four pills they get are softgels.”

“So?” asked Wally. “Tuksin gets the softgels, but he –”

“Doesn’t take them,” Lian said. “They’ve got gelatin in them – that’s a meat byproduct. A real vegetarian wouldn’t touch them.”

“How do you know?” Wally asked, impressed.

“My roommate,” Lian said simply. “She once gave me a lecture on my vitamin supply.”

Wally gave Lian a long, fond look. “Why are you wearing those glasses?” he asked.

“Oh.” Lian blushed. “I thought they would make me look smarter – and that people might take me more seriously.”

“You don’t need them,” Wally said. He reached over and gently wiggled the glasses from the bridge of her nose. “You’re smart as hell. And people better take you seriously.”

Lian’s uncertain smile was met by Wally’s reassuring one, and without a word, everything became right between them. The tension born of a haunting mistake in judgment melted into the bright Montana afternoon.

“I have my Uncle Wally back?” Lian asked, trying not to cry.

He would have said yes and might even have hugged her, but the explosion that threw them both against the gates of the prison cut short their deeply needed reconciliation.

“Uh-oh,” Lian said, looking upward as she threw up an arm to shield herself from the shower of concrete and asphalt that rained onto them from the penitentiary roof.

Wally rubbed his head and pulled himself into a sitting position as his eyes sought the source of the explosion. Six super-powered bodies had just lifted into the sky.




Next Chapter: An old grudge, a brutal battle… and a baby

 

[JC Roberts]

Chapter Eight (1/3)

Sweat plastered Roy’s hair against his dripping forehead as he danced inside the fading yellow ring in the center of the gymnastics mat. He dodged Gren’s backfist easily enough, but had to block a right hook to his ribs before answering with a lightly delivered knee to his teammate’s thigh.

He would not pant, Roy told himself as he determinedly reigned in his burning lungs. Not in front of Gren. There would be no old man jokes from the Green Lantern today.

Chewing on his mouthpiece, Gren shuffled back slightly, nodded to Roy in acknowledgement of the blow, and shifted from side to side in what was not quite a bounce, his trained eyes searching for an opening. Roy was gratified to see sweat rolling into the stubble around his lanky teammate’s jaw.

He watched in approval as Gren’s eyes narrowed, a give-away – to Roy at least – that the younger man was timing him, waiting for the slightest change in the way Roy shifted his weight as he bounced buoyantly on his toes. Gren would strike at the tiniest change in balance, a trick he had learned years ago – from Roy – not long after hooking up with the League. Now he used it against his teacher with regularity.

Roy obliged, intentionally allowing his rear foot to linger on the mat a second more than he should have, breaking his rhythm and enticing Gren to lunge forward with another backfist. The Lantern’s fist hit air; Roy had dropped to the mat and was arcing his left leg around in a powerful broom sweep. Gren barely managed to save himself, hopping over Roy’s onrushing shin, while countering with an axe kick to his teammate’s chest.

They never learned whether the strike would have landed; the monitor’s grating alarm jerked them apart like an angry referee and then Batman’s terse voice was booming over the intercom.

“Mass breakout at SuperMax. Get to the shuttle.” He did not have to add “now.” His teammates knew they were already late.




So much for another buffalo cheeseburger, thought Wally, shielding his eyes against the blinding light and falling debris. The supercharged escapees had taken refuge in the glare of the swollen summer sun; Wally could barely see them. Black spots started to form behind his eyes, forcing him to look away. He blinked hard to clear his vision and saw that Lian was all right and halfway to her feet.

“I’ve called Meera,” she said, sweeping debris from her hair with an open hand. “But I didn’t bring anything with me.” By “anything,” she meant her quiver of arrows and other weapons. Wally had changed back into his Flash suit before she finished her sentence and was following the cluster of supervillains with his eyes. Three of them were flyers – the others were catching rides.

Lian used a word the Flash more commonly heard from Gren. “One of them’s Chatichai. What the hell’s she doing?” she added.

The Flash made an exasperated sound. The telekinetic super-criminal was headed back into SuperMax.

“My God,” Lian said in disbelief. “Tuksin can’t be that wonderful.”

The Flash bolted through the prison, arriving at DevilDog’s cell long seconds before Chatichai, but a glare from the telekinetic Thai sent the speedster soaring into a wall. His skull hit the reinforced cinderblock with a crack and before Wally could clear his head, she had ripped open the cell door with a glance and was leading her lover down the chaos-filled penitentiary hallways. By the time the Flash had rejoined Lian, the couple was airborne and their cronies had disappeared.

“They went west,” she said, as they watched DevilDog wrap an arm around Chatichai’s waist in order to hasten their escape. A chunk of concrete the telekinetic had been riding crashed to the ground just outside the gate.

“I’ll follow them,” the Flash said. “Find the pharmacist. She wasn’t there when I ran past her station. And…” He shook his head. “Her name…. I think I’ve heard it before.”

Lian nodded and spun back toward the prison as the Flash barreled after the flying fugitives. None of them were as fast as he was; inside a minute, he had them in sight. He just hoped they weren’t heading where he thought they were heading.





Arsenal’s tunic stuck to his sweaty torso as he pulled the clingy material down over his ribs and looked around the airborne shuttle. Midori sat in the pilot’s seat, her face pale mint with worry. She had hoped to run another week’s worth of tests before declaring the new Javelin operational. Roy knew better. The only real tests took place in battle.

He watched Batman speak quietly into his left wrist as he tracked the newly-formed gang of meta-villains on the shuttle’s monitor. Gren had rocketed ahead of them and was close to joining the Flash. Meera, who had been counseling a patient in her Montreal office, was preparing to operate at long range. She had done this before; it was not an optimal situation, but there was no time to pick her up.

Superman’s on his way, Meera told Roy. But the prisoners at Arkham are rioting again. Martha can’t get away.

OK, Roy responded, relieved they would be joined by at least one of “the Supers.” See if you can tap into our bad guys’ warped little minds. It wouldn’t hurt to find out what they’re up to. He leaned forward to ask Midori for an update on their arrival time.

“Superwoman can’t make it,” Batman announced.

“Why not?” Roy asked innocently. “There wouldn’t be – I don’t know – a riot going on at Arkham, would there?”

Arsenal noted with interest that the Dark Knight didn’t seem disappointed at the prospect of missing a rematch between Superwoman and Chatichai. He wasn’t alone. Roy was glad the senior “Super” had joined them today.

Batman squinted at the monitor and leaned forward, frowning. He touched a toolbar and a map materialized in the upper right corner of the screen.

“What?” Roy asked sharply, as Batman pushed a breath through tightened lips.

“They’re headed for Yellowstone,” he said.

“The national park?” Roy let his head fall against the bulkhead and briefly squeezed his eyes together. “There must be hundreds of tourists there.”

“They may end up getting to see more than a geyser,” Batman said grimly.

“Old Faithful,” mused Roy as the shuttle hurtled over North Dakota. “That’s us, too, isn’t it?”




As he followed the band of escaped meta-villains across the Wyoming border, the Flash hoped beyond his experience and common sense that the fugitives would bypass the national park, or at least fly harmlessly over it. But Pillan, who had been leading the pack, had virtually skidded to a mid-air halt over Yellowstone Lake, apparently drawn to the dozens of potential hostages picnicking along its banks.

“Oh, God,” Wally groaned as the super-powered escapees hovered above the sparkling lake, apparently making plans. He communicated the bad news to Meera, along with his location, and then did a double-take as two of the fugitives moved a dozen yards away from the pack.

It was DevilDog and his telekinetic girlfriend, who was now gliding on a broken section of broken park bench. They appeared to be arguing. Even at a distance, Tuksin’s emphatic “Let’s get out of here” gesture was obvious. Chatichai, however, seemed insistent that they hold their ground.

Abruptly, DevilDog jerked back in alarm and abruptly broke off the quarrel. Wally watched as the assassin stared into the distance beyond his girlfriend’s shoulder.

At Superman.

DevilDog seized his Chatichai’s arm and tried to drag her away, but she threw him off. Tuksin gave her a last, reluctant glance and sped away. So much, thought the Flash, for true love.

He had been keeping a low profile, vibrating his body at a velocity that made him nearly invisible. But Superman was a presence that could be felt almost before he was seen. It might have been this presence – or maybe just an urge to admire the vivid blue sky, that caused one of the picnickers to look up. He caught sight of the Man of Steel, noticed the cluster of flyers in prison garb and drew the obvious conclusion. His hysterical shrieks were soon joined by those of the park’s other guests, who grabbed their loved ones and started to flee.

The mass attempt to escape the site of what was clearly to be the field of an imminent battle was apparently counter to the bad guys’ plans, which Meera had described as a hastily conceived and somewhat random attempt to acquire hostages. With a sweep of his hand, Pillan brought a score of elephant-sized twisters up from the park’s well-manicured grasslands, roping in picnickers who had not gathered up their families quickly enough. A few isolated tourists escaped the whirlwind corral by diving frantically into the lake, but most of them were trapped.




As he broke through the clouds and rocketed toward the park, Superman’s first instinct was to go after DevilDog. But he could not risk leaving the Flash to fight a half-dozen super-powered criminals, not when they couldn’t be sure when back-up was coming. The Man of Steel moved into place as he watched his crimson-clad teammate zig-zag through the loose wall of twisters, evacuating ensnared families as quickly as he could. It was going to be an ugly fight. Superman could tell that from the quick run-down Meera had given them on the escapees, none of whom could be remotely described as rational.

Besides Pillan and Chatichai, neither of whom Superman had fought before, there was Fireball, a fire starter whose real name was Tandie Flint. Meera reported some disturbing changes in Flint’s appearance and abilities since her incarceration – including the newly discovered power of flight. Ladybug, who could communicate with and control insects, had also seemed to acquire a new look and it was nowhere near as adorable as her tiny namesake. Nothing else about her was cute, Superman noted: Meg Felix-Smith had once murdered three children when she sent a swarm of killer bees onto a playground in Texas

Folding Phil Feldman was the least violent member of the remaining sextet. His ability to flatten to the thickness of a sheet of paper – and when necessary fold himself in half in order to slide under a door – contributed to his success as a successful cat burglar. The last of the group, Whip, was a martial artist with super-strength and a methodically murderous mindset.

Whip was a recent nemesis of Wonder Woman. Superman wished Diana hadn’t bowed out of the League as soon as Martha was able to resume her duties. He would have liked having his old friend around for this one.

Superman. The Green Lantern is nearly there. He asks if you want him to come in from the west so you can box them in.

“No,” Superman said, his eyes trained on the six hovering fugitives. “Have him swing around and join me. I want to push them out, not trap them. There are too many tourists here.”

But the villains evidenced no interest in being driven away. They were rapidly dropping into the circle of cyclones, toward a clearing near the sparkling lake.

After ordering Meera to warn the Flash to stay clear, Superman inhaled, pursed his lips and blew a fine, yet powerful stream of air in a perfect arc, systematically hitting each twister with the pinpoint accuracy needed to blow it away without accidentally running down any bystanders. The circle of cyclones broke apart and he moved in on the attackers. They had managed to touch ground in the middle of the screaming chaos and seemed to be on the look-out for hostages.

The group of villains broke apart, stationing themselves around the picnic area like a basketball team working a zoned defense. Superman was more of a one-to-one player. He soared after Pillan, shrugging off the series of lightning bolts the self-styled Chilean god hurtled at him without bothering to dodge them.

Sensing himself no match for Superman, Pillan threw a jagged steam of lightning at an overhang of rock, apparently hoping the Man of Steel would have to deflect the crumbling rubble before it crushed one of the fleeing tourists. Superman merely turned his head slightly, released another puff of air, and sent the debris back over the top of the cliff. This effort took seconds; unfortunately, that was all Chatichai needed to gather her wits, and when she started bombarding Superman with flying objects, she chose the one thing that he could neither punch away nor evade: Tourists. A dozen bodies, most of them belonging to children, went hurtling toward the Man of Steel and the lake that lay just beyond him.

By now Gren had joined them. He was locked in battle with Pillan, trading twister for green twister as Superman and the Flash began desperately seizing the flailing human projectiles.

“We’ve got to take her out,” Wally shouted at him. “This is nowhere near her worst.”

Scooping a sobbing youngster in his arms, Superman spun around and fired a reluctant ribbon of heat at the telekinetic, hitting her in the shoulder and triggering an immediate stop to the barrage of human projectiles. She grabbed at the wound, cursing, then stepped onto a picnic blanket, which she used to lift herself into the air as though it was a flying carpet.

Chatichai rose too high, too fast, her eyes locked on Superman instead of the sky around her. She was almost decapitated by the Javelin-13.




“Damn, we missed,” Roy said, although the near-collision had been unplanned. He, Midori and Batman watched the telekinetic duck as she plummeted a few meters before stabilizing herself. “That would have been one down.”

He wouldn’t have minded watching Chatichai take a self-inflicted hit to the back of the head, Batman thought as the Jav swooped gracefully toward a cliff above the lake. She had nearly killed Martha – and had temporarily blinded her – with a similarly placed blow with a wrecking ball and a dump truck.

He wasn’t the only one with Superwoman on his mind.

“Blonde girl!” Chatichai demanded loudly, searching for her nemesis as Arsenal’s team stormed out of the shuttle and into combat positions. She glared at the Javelin, furious that Superwoman was not among its passengers, and the small craft started to shudder. Midori’s face contorted in horror at the prospect of losing another shuttle on its maiden voyage and she started blasting haphazardly at the telekinetic with a laser pistol.

But before Chatichai had fully committed to her task, she found herself encased in an enormous emerald globe.

“You women hold onto your grudges, don’t you?” Gren taunted as he broke away from Pillan. He smirked as she pounded furiously against the walls of the gigantic orb. “How ‘bout you take on Blond Boy instead? We never did get to finish that dance in Minneapolis.”

As Gren drew the captive telekinetic closer, Batman pushed a button on his belt and leaped off the cliff, hoping the capture of Chatichai was going to be as simple as Gren seemed to be making it. The glider wings built into the caped crusader’s fighting suit opened soundlessly and he swooped across the picnic area, searching out the villain known as Ladybug.

The gaunt, pale, ebony-haired fugitive had sicced a cloudlike swarm of buzzing gnats – tens of thousands of them – on a terrified family who crouched cowering by the edge of Yellowstone Lake. They had not attempted to flee into the water, Batman saw, because one of them was in a wheelchair.

Batman flicked a trio of smoke capsules at her feet, mindful that a stronger substance might endanger the frightened family. The pellets did the trick: Ladybug lost control of the gnats and spun eagerly toward the Dark Knight.

“You don’t look like much of a ladybug to me,” he said, advancing on her.

“The name’s Black Sabbath,” she said. “I’ve been born again.”

It was not the usual prison conversion, but Batman quickly picked up on the Biblical theme as hundreds of enormous frogs rose plague-like from the lake, looking bizarrely menacing as they bounded toward him.




As the Flash stepped in to take up the fight with Pillan, Arsenal and Midori jumped into the fray, taking on Fireball and Folding Phil respectively. That left Whip for Superman, who figured he’d take out the martial artist quickly enough and then give Wally a hand.

There had been no reason to expect much of a challenge from the Wyoming local, whose real name was Lars Joelson. Whip had bloodied Wonder Woman’s lip once, with a blitz of razor-fast sidekicks, but Superman was stronger, faster and considerably less vulnerable.

But Superman had not been in on the previous battles involving SuperMax inmates. He was about to learn what his teammates already knew: Some prisoners were finding incarceration there a rejuvenating experience. As the Man of Steel turned toward him, Whip threw a left hook to his jaw. Superman let the blow land, assuming the fight would end when the fugitive broke his own hand on the indestructible mandible. But the felon showed no signs of pain as he followed with an uppercut. The same could not be said for Superman. Both blows had hurt.

 

[JC Roberts]

Chapter Eight (2/3)

Lian cursed as she dodged a cadre of armed guards trooping noisily past her toward the prison’s highest security wing. She raced for the control room, hoping to cut off whoever had deactivated the force field Midori had designed for the prison after the first mass breakout. As powerful as they had become, not one of the escapees could have broken through the field: Midori had tested it on Superman.

The field was dropped only for the briefest periods during shift changes. Lian had originally assumed Lighting Guy Bob had escaped during one of these intervals. Now she was betting he’d been given an all-day pass by whoever had been playing mad scientist with a bunch of killer meta-humans.

As she wove around a pair of nurses who were dragging an injured guard toward the prison clinic, Lian vowed to never leave home again without her weapons. She hoped mightily that the pharmacist hadn’t been taking her own vitamins.




Midori toed a control on her rocked boots and jetted after Folding Phil, who, like his cohorts, had undergone some alarming changes. The man who could once only slip under doors could now stretch himself like an endless wad of silly Putty. He was putting his new abilities to the test by wrapping himself, anaconda-like, around a screaming woman whose tiny daughter stood yards away, wailing for her mommy. The woman cried out for her daughter to run, even as the flexible fugitive coiled himself more tightly around her, choking the breathe – and the sound – out of her.

Feldman was the only one among the fugitives who had not yet committed murder. It did not seem to be a distinction he valued. His captive’s face was now purpling and Midori saw with horror that Phil’s fluid torso was shifting, stretching. The arm wrapped around the woman’s throat was becoming as flat and hard as the blade of a sword.

Midori had a belt full of weapons design to immobilize a polymorph, but when she saw Phil’s knifelike arm driving into his victim’s throat, the Coluan did something that she had never done before. She acted on instinct, swooping behind a startled Phil and blasting him in the back with the flames from her rocket boots. Phil roared in pain and rage, dropping the woman, who snatched up her daughter and ran.

Cursing, Phil spun toward his attacker. He looked up in the direction where the assault had come from, saw nothing, then dropped his eyes and smiled. Midori’s boots were not meant to be used as flamethrowers. The momentum caused by the force of the jet boots against the criminal’s body had caused her to lose her balance and slam hard into the ground. Her lungs felt as though they had been filled with hot cement. Through the haze of pain, Midori could see Folding Phil move furiously toward her. She reached shakily toward her waist for a weapon – but her belt was gone.




Arsenal had repelled down the embankment, his latest arrow launcher – an ultra high-tech six-month anniversary present from Midori – pre-loaded with a concoction designed to extinguish a firestarter. He would have found Fireball easily enough, even if she hadn’t been busily igniting the park’s bushes and trees. Tandie Flint had been a chubby blonde woman when they’d zipped her into an aluminized suit and dragged her into SuperMax. Now she was lean, orange-haired – and as blue as the flames in a gas stove.

“Hey there, hottie,” Roy called as he aimed the launcher at the middle of her back.

The pyrokinetic spun toward him, ready for a fight. A cocky smile threatened to split her face as she hurled a barrage of baseball-sized fireballs at Roy as if she were a human pitching machine.

The flaming projectiles made focusing the launcher slightly more difficult, but Roy’s decades of experience compensated for the deadly distraction. He fired off a succession of arrows machine-gun style; they drove tips-first into the ground encircling Fireball. Tiny, curved blades burst from the nock of the arrows and began to spin blindingly fast as powerful micro-vacuums sounded from within the shafts’ narrow hollows, sucking away the oxygen Fireball needed to produce flame. Arsenal quickly followed up with a classic fire extinguisher arrow and topped it all off by encasing the pyrokinetic in a tear-proof, aluminum sac.

Impossibly, the fireproof encasement burst into flames. Arsenal wasn’t sure how the physics of that worked and he wasn’t planning to ask for an explanation. The aluminized bag melted off the smirking firestarter before he could reach for another arrow. Without tearing her glittering eyes from his, Fireball squatted down to pick up a stone by her feet and gave it a squeeze. Steam and liquefied rock oozed between her fingers.

“Your little toys may have worked against Fireball,” she said. “But you may find Inferno a little too hot to handle. And as Arsenal scrambled for cover, she rose into the air, showering him with a handful of molten projectiles.




As fast as Whip had become, Superman was faster and now he was annoyed – at himself. Underestimating an opponent was pure arrogance, Superman thought as he sidestepped Whip’s trademark kick and wrapped a hand around the villain’s airborne ankle. A slight flick of his wrist sent Whip flying, much in the style of his favorite weapon, first outward, then even more quickly back, where he smashed head-first into the Man of Steel’s massive chest.

Superman hurriedly eased the unconscious fugitive to the ground, bound him in one of Midori’s force fields and shot forward into a small tornado Pillan had set against the Flash. He shouldered the twister toward Inferno, who was literally exchanging fire with Arsenal. The tornado sucked the fiery felon into its powerful funnel, then Superman sent it and its passenger into the lake.




“Thanks,” Arsenal shouted, but Superman was already rocketing toward Pillan. Arsenal’s eyes swept through the park, noting that the solid light bubble Gren had wrapped around Chatichai had not stopped her from flinging boulders, benches and other objects at him. Batman was wading through a sea of frogs and – were those locusts coming up in the distance?

Arsenal was on his way to help Batman when his gaze fell upon Midori. She was scrambling vainly for her weapons belt as Folding Phil ballooned around her like a billowing sail. Roy’s boots ground into the park’s well-manicured lawn as he changed course, charging toward his lover as he unslung his favorite bow and reached over his shoulder for an arrow.




The weapon Midori had planned to use on Phil – a tetanus ray – would have locked his muscles in place for hours. But the belt that sheathed it was now lying fifteen feet away.
Feldman noticed her desperate glance toward the belt and elongated a fettuccine-like arm in order to seize it.

“This what you’re looking for?” he asked, shaking the belt at her. “You gonna hurt me with one of these gizmos?”

Midori scrambled backward on her elbows as Phil advanced upon her, now close to encasing her in a body that continued to flatten and expand. The weapons she’d strapped across her back were trapped painfully between her back and the ground. She lifted her rocket boots toward Phil’s midsection, hoping to blast him again, but they had been damaged in the fall and merely sputtered like a cigarette lighter on its last drops of butane.

“A superhero ain’t bad for a first kill,” Phil said, as Midori watched the sunlight disappear. “I’ll wrap you up like a nice little gift.”




Arsenal fired a salvo of arrows at Feldman as the felon’s billowing body constricted around Midori. The first projectile pierced Phil’s fluid flesh, but as he felt himself being attacked, the fugitive instinctively hardened his back to the consistency of steel and the rest of the arrows bounced harmlessly off of him. Roy had just reached back for his last resort – a flamethrower rifle – when he saw Feldman’s distorted body jerk spasmodically and collapse onto Midori like a deflated parachute. She was already wriggling her way out from beneath the rumpled felon when Arsenal raced forward to help her.

Roy pulled her to her feet. “You all right?” he asked.

A bit dazed, Midori nodded, then rummaged under the rumpled Phil, extracting a handful of circuitry attached to the inside sole of one of her rocket boots. Roy looked down and noticed her right foot was bare.

“Quick and easy Taser,” Midori explained, as if she was saying, “Quick and easy biscuits.”

Roy laughed and shook his head. “Every time I think you couldn’t possibly surprise me again….”

Midori’s cheeks turned emerald, but before she could fashion a characteristically modest response, an explosion, quickly followed by a chorus of screams, made them look west, where Old Faithful had just turned into something new.




A frog, when startled, will emit an unsettling shriek as it hops to safety. Batman had spent enough time in the world’s jungles to be aware of this and not be unnerved by it. But the thousands of frogs Black Sabbath had sent to attack him did not seem the slightest bit afraid; their screams were filled with rage.

Batman touched a button on his belt, activating an ultra-high frequency tone that was defaulted to drive away dogs. This did nothing to the frogs. He rotated the button, adjusting it to various frequencies, hoping one would create enough discomfort in the rabid amphibians to cause them to flee. As he brushed away a leopard frog that had pounced at his forehead, Batman looked up past the lake and caught sight of the gargantuan cloud of locusts humming ominously toward him. There had not been locusts in this region for millennia. Somehow, Black Sabbath had summoned them from hundreds of miles away – and they had closed the gap with unnatural speed and savagery.

He gave the high-frequency button a final twist. He had always been reluctant to harm animals, but he was going to have to activate the fighting suit’s electrical field before the locusts got to him. Fortunately, the last setting hit the mark. The frogs’ shrieks shifted from fury to fear and the army of amphibians hopped hastily back toward the lake.

Black Sabbath turned to him, laughing as the locusts crossed toward them over the surface of the lake, which was now rollicking with the force frogs leaping for cover. But the fugitive had made the mistake of turning all of her attention to Batman, allowing herself to be entertained as he was fending off her amphibian plague. The bystanders she had been terrorizing had fled. Batman held his breath and flung a handful of gas capsules at her; they exploded on the ground, releasing a disorienting chemical that sent the escaped meta-villain swaying. He had hoped that in her confusion, Black Sabbath would lose control of the locusts; what happened was even better: The thick-bodied insects seemed to sense who had telepathically torn them from their natural habitats and the livid creatures went for blood. They slammed into their exploiter as one, consuming her in a murderous humming cloud.

Batman felt less inclined than he had a few seconds earlier to harm the insects, but locusts in this part of the country would constitute agricultural disaster. He switched on the suit’s electrical field and tried to ignore the non-stop sizzling sound as he waded into the swarm of bugs to retrieve the now-catatonic Black Sabbath. As soon as he had her clear, he pulled what amounted to an insecticide bomb from his belt and hurtled it into the middle of the swarm. A few of the locusts escaped. Batman hoped they were headed home.

He was cocooning Black Sabbath in a force field when he heard the blast. Old Faithful was erupting, but the hot liquid that spewed from its steaming maw wasn’t water. It was lava.




As soon as he saw Superman coming, Pillan had scattered a dozen twisters throughout the park, taking care to place them directly in the path of evacuating tourists. Even if he had known ahead of time that the whirlwinds were a distraction for something infinitely more cataclysmic, Superman would have had no choice but to head after them; knocking out Pillan wouldn’t have stopped the twisters once they’d gained momentum. Superman dispersed them quickly and was soon rocketing back into the sky to finish the would-be weather god.

The explosion, loud as a grenade, caused Superman’s gaze to drop down towards the park and what he saw made his heart seize with fear.

“Oh my God,” he whispered.




Meera had been coordinating communications between her teammates as best she could from more than a thousand miles away when she was simultaneously bombarded with near-frantic messages from Midori, Batman and Superman.

… the super volcano under the park…

… Pillan’s activated the magma chamber…

… destroy the continent… worldwide devastation…

Meera was no geologist, but it didn’t take her long to untangle the message: Old Faithful was fueled by one of the Earth’s most powerful volcanoes. A forty-mile wide chamber of magma lay beneath Yellowstone. Pillan, even more powerful now than the last time they had fought him, had somehow triggered an eruption through Old Faithful – and, Superman was reporting urgently – some of the park’s smaller geysers. If the pressure continued to build, an eruption of catastrophic proportions would wipe out much of North America and the ensuing volcanic winter could push humanity to the brink of extinction.

Can’t you use your super-breath? Meera asked Superman. And freeze it?

I don’t think you understand the magnitude of this magma chamber, Superman responded, adding uncertainly, I can try.

Try, Meera pleaded. I’ll pray for you.

Let the others know what’s going on, Superman answered. Then I’ll take those prayers.




Gren was still struggling against Chatichai, who was bombarding him from all sides with every boulder, park bench, statue and tree she could rip away from the park. He had transferred the globe of solid light from the telekinetic to himself and was forcing the sphere incrementally toward her. As he listened to Meera’s report on the super volcano, Gren chanced a glance through the hailstorm of debris in time to see Superman feinting down toward Old Faithful before hurtling up toward Pillan.

Chatichai could cause a lot of damage, but it looked like Pillan might be close to destroying the world. Sucking in a steadying breath, Gren willed the emerald orb that had been protecting him into an enormous curved skateboard ramp and deflected Chatichai’s non-stop barrage of projectiles directly at Pillan.

It didn’t matter that most of the debris missed: A boulder and a sizable chunk of tree slammed into Pillan’s side as Superman hit him from below. The weather-manipulating meta-villain was not invulnerable. Gren thought it was damn decent of Superman to drag the unconscious bastard back with him as he sped toward the now-rumbling earth. It was the last thought Gren would have a while. He turned to resume his fight against Chatichai and was knocked cold by a large wooden sign that said “Welcome to Yellowstone.”




Using his super-breath to cool the surging magma seemed like a long shot to Superman, but he could see no other way to reduce the pressure in the colossal chamber before a deadly eruption ejected gallons of lava into the air. Superman headed first to Old Faithful. If the geyser was spewing lava, it meant a fissure had been formed between its base and the super volcano four miles below. It was likely the largest channel between the Earth’s surface and the magma chamber and therefore the best place for him to attempt entry.

As he tossed Pillan aside and drew in a breath so deep it hurt, Superman watched his teammates evacuating the few tourists who had been unable to escape earlier. Then he plunged into the mouth of the geyser and headed into the immense pool of magma.




The Flash was in the middle of evacuating an elderly woman from the park at a velocity he hoped would not harm her when a fresh round of screams filled the air.

Now what? Wally’s eyes followed the line of pointing fingers and he nearly dropped the old lady in his effort to catch Gren before he hit the ground. A touch to the Green Lantern’s throat assured the Flash that his teammate was still alive. With Gren slung over one shoulder and the woman wrapped securely in his arms, Wally headed toward an emergency tent that would provide not a shred of protection if Superman was unable to stop the super volcano from erupting.




The quaking had almost stopped as Batman scouted the now-abandoned park for survivors. He hoped that meant Superman had managed to prevent an eruption; he had seen Clark burst from the mouth of Old Faithful several times, to suck down more air before disappearing back into the geyser. Superman, Meera reported, had been tunneling through miles of magma, cooling as much of it as he could as he drove through the chamber.

The wail of pure horror pierced the air just as Batman was heading back to the evacuation area. It came from behind a thick cluster of trees that did not quite obscure a twister left over from one of Pillan’s earlier attacks. The Dark Knight raced around the foliage to a rock-studded clearing, where a young woman lay on the ground, her leg twisted at an odd angle. She sat directly in the whirlwind’s path, but she was not crying out for herself: A baby carriage stood between the woman and the twister. Batman could see the flash of a tiny set of toes as the whirlwind headed inexorably closer. The woman dragged herself desperately toward the carriage, but the twister was seconds from sucking her child into its deadly funnel.

Batman lunged at the infant, snatching him from the carriage just as the twister tipped it over. It had been a miraculously long leap and Batman landed awkwardly, losing his footing for the second he had needed to avoid the ravenous whirlwind. He barely managed to jerk his cape around the baby, shielding it, as the twister enveloped them both. He heard the mother’s tortured shriek, then a deafening rush of air, as he hunched around the baby, trying to protect it from the relentless spray of rocks, wind and dirt. Stones pummeled him with the force of bullets as the twister carried them along for what was probably a few seconds, but seemed like an eternity. Batman clutched the baby tighter as he started blacking out, hoping that his unconscious body might continue to protect the infant until the whirlwind had run its course.

He was lucid enough – though barely – to see the big, blue-sleeved hand as it wrapped around his bicep and hauled him from the twister’s insistent grasp. And then he was tearing his cape from around the baby and Superman, still holding him steady, was saying, “He’s alive.”

The baby had apparently been enjoying the ride; he responded to the sudden lack of motion with a howl of great displeasure. Superman, despite looking as beat as Batman had ever seen him, started to laugh.

He knew his teammate had already done so, but Batman checked the infant for injuries. Minute scratches crisscrossed his fat little legs, but otherwise, he seemed fine.

“Thanks,” Batman said, with considerably more heart than he ordinarily did. Superman released his arm and stepped back, his features suddenly inscrutable. Batman started to ask about the volcano when a flicker of a shadow had them both looking skywards.

“Chatichai’s escaping,” Batman said. The telekinetic Thai, having seen the last of her cronies fall to the Justice League, had apparently reconsidered her lover’s decision to run.

Superman’s face darkened. “The hell she is,” he said, and launched himself into the sky.




Once Superman disappeared after Chatichai, Batman looked down at the squalling baby, then at the park around him. They were nowhere near the place where they’d been swept up by the twister. The infant’s mother was still injured and undoubtedly frantic now as well. He dashed back to the evacuation site, shoved the child into a maternal-looking woman’s arms, and then headed back to find the baby’s mother.

She was gone. As he looked for signs of struggle or violence, Batman recognized the Flash’s heel print near the place where he had last seen the woman. Satisfied that she was safe, he headed back to make sure mother and child had been reunited.




By the time Superman had set out after Chatichai, he had had it with the telekinetic and her twisted gang. After her original encounter with Pillan in Chile, Martha had told her father of the weather manipulator’s desire to destroy civilization in order to refashion it to his own tastes; today he had nearly managed it, though whether the mega-eruption he had almost triggered would have left anyone to rule over was in considerable doubt. It had been years since Superman had been forced to exert himself in the way he had in order to stabilize the super-volcano. He was exhausted and irritable and he wanted the fight over. It was probably a good thing that he didn’t know Chatichai had nearly killed his daughter. He was already feeling inclined to be less gentle than usual.

He circled around the Thai telekinetic, cutting her off as she sped along the currents on a picnic blanket that now resembled a large, filthy dishtowel.

Superman knew almost no Thai. “Give it up,” he said forbiddingly, first in English, then French, and finally Mandarin. She didn’t understand his words, but Superman’s intent was clear. Chatichai glared at him defiantly and hit him with a commercial airliner.




The Flash had taken the infant’s mother to a local emergency room. At Batman’s request, the hospital was sending an ambulance to retrieve her son. The matronly woman he had asked to watch over the baby eyed the cluster of the filthy, disheveled superheroes and approached the one who seemed the cleanest and least intimidating.

“I have to go,” the woman said. She attempted to hand the baby to Midori. “I hope you don’t have any trouble getting this little guy back to his mom.”

Midori’s yellow eyes widened and she took an involuntary step back. “Oh… oh, no. I… I might hurt it.”

“You’ve never held a baby before?” the woman asked, amazed.

Midori shook her head.

“Come here,” the woman told her kindly. When Midori failed to do so, instead assuming a look of genuine terror, the woman stepped forward and gently transferred the boy into the Coluan’s arms,

“That’s right,” the woman said. “Just use your elbow to support his head… there you go.”

The baby settled against Midori’s chest, sighed, pursed his tiny lips and fell instantly to sleep. “See?” the woman said reassuringly. “He likes you.”

Midori inspected the baby for signs that it liked her. Finding none, she looked up to ask the woman how she had drawn this conclusion and found herself standing alone.




“I’m really sick of that *****,” Arsenal muttered to Batman as they watched Superman struggle to right the jet without injuring its occupants. Chatichai, determined to keep her pursuer occupied, uprooted a large pine tree and hurtled it toward the center of the plane. The Man of Steel pushed the craft upward, dodging the tree, which he caught one-handed as he gently eased the jetliner to the ground.

Arsenal elbowed Batman. “That’s our boy,” he said.

And my girl, Batman thought, watching in disbelief as a blur of blue hit Chatichai from behind.




As reluctant as he was to leave the plane without checking to see if anyone needed medical care, Superman was convinced that a greater number of lives would be at stake if he didn’t put an end to Chatichai right away. He soared determinedly back into the sky, where his anger melted suddenly into an astonished grin.

Superwoman was hovering over the park, holding an unconscious Chatichai by the collar of her prison coveralls.

"Catch!" she shouted to her father. She tossed the limp fugitive to him in an easy underhand.

"Everyone OK?" she called.

Superman gave her a thumbs-up.

"Good. Gotta go!" Superwoman did a quick aerial flip eastward and disappeared.




Superman landed by the edge of the near-empty evacuation site to a round of cheers.
As he bound the unconscious Chatichai with a force field and added her to the pile of prisoners, Roy grinned at him and said something about “the family that plays together.”

“Where’s Gren?” Superman asked tersely.

A drained voice behind him said, “Right here” and the Green Lantern winced as he touched down near his teammates.

Roy asked sharply, “You get permission to leave the hospital?”

Gren shrugged. Midori, who had been staring in fascination at the baby in her arms, spoke without seeming to realize she was interrupting.

“Try holding this baby," she suggested earnestly to Roy. "It's… it’s interesting."

Superman masked a grin by pretending to scratch his forehead. Wally didn't bother to hide his glee as he bumped his shoulder against Roy’s.

"You're dead," he whispered. Roy, his face a carroty orange, ignored him.

"I've held babies," he assured Midori. "You go ahead."

Batman walked over to Superman and motioned him aside. Roy watched them out of the corner of his eye. It was impossible to hear them, but he could tell whatever Batman had to say was making Superman uncomfortable. The Man of Steel mumbled something while staring at the ground, bid his other teammates goodbye and shot into the clouds. The Dark Knight’s face remained impassive.

“Let’s get out of here,” Roy said, as he watched an ambulance driver take the baby from a reluctant Midori. “I’m tired as hell.” He looked from the pile of prisoners to Gren and asked, “You up to hauling these guys back to prison?”

“I’m heading over there, too,” the Flash said as Gren nodded. “If we’re lucky, Lian’s gotten hold of whoever did this to these prisoners. I want to be there for the big reveal.”

 

[JC Roberts]

Chapter Eight (3/3)

For a middle-aged woman who wasn’t in particularly great shape, Terianne Yorkin had managed to put up an impressive fight when Lian cornered her near one of the sealed off prison exits. In deactivating the force field, Yorkin apparently thought she was disabling the automatic locks on the emergency doors; she hadn’t planned her own escape nearly as well as she had her plot to release her super-powered lab rats.

“Why would you do this?” Lian asked angrily. She and the warden stared at Yorkin through the two-way monitor built into the door of a high-security cell.

Yorkin smiled bitterly. “You don’t approve of experimentation on prisoners?” she asked.

“No, Terianne,” said the Flash, whose sudden appearance at Lian’s side made the warden jump. “And you’re the last person I’d expect to approve of it either.”

Lian looked questioningly at him.

“Told you her name sounded familiar,” the Flash said. “I looked her up on the shuttle’s monitor before heading over here. No record on a Terianne Yorkin. But we have a Clive Yorkin in the database and he had a daughter.”

“He couldn’t touch me,” Yorkin whispered, her eyes burning with angry tears. “After what they did to him.”

“Clive was a lifer who agreed to take place in a prison experiment a couple decades ago,” Wally explained. “It didn’t go very well. The idea was to get rid of his murderous impulses. Instead, he was turned into a psychopath with a death touch.

“My Uncle Barry fought him,” he added. “Yorkin went on trial for killing my aunt, but he was acquitted.”

“My father wasn’t a killer,” Terianne sobbed. “Until you people made him one.”

The Flash and Lian exchanged a skeptical look. Clive Yorkin hadn’t been in prison for jaywalking.

“There are other ways to advocate for prison reform,” Wally told Terianne. “Your little payback scheme nearly ended the world.”

“My world was ended when I was six years old,” she responded. She knuckled away her tears and glared definitely at them.

Wally sighed. “Let’s get out of here,” he said to Lian. “I want to run by that barbecue shack before it closes.”




Adrienne’s usual post-riot pep talk was close to its long-winded conclusion when Martha slipped through the conference room door. The director froze in mid-sentence when he saw her, nearly gagging over a contempt he could no longer publicly express. Since Martha had been revealed to him as the girlfriend of the asylum’s most generous benefactor, Adrienne had given her a wide berth, but the effort not to berate her for skipping a mandatory meeting left him momentarily mute.

"Sorry I'm late," Martha told him. “I was knocked kind of unconscious for a while.”

Adrienne’s purple face turned white.

“Who…?” he asked, as someone in the room murmured, “Wish I’d thought of that.”

Martha shrugged. “Don’t know. One of the inmates.”

The director hastily dismissed the staff and rushed over to Martha, his indignation melting into panic. He was already on the brink of dismissal for these unavoidable riots. An irate phone call from Bruce Wayne to the board of governors would surely push him over the edge.

“Maybe you should head over to the clinic,” he said nervously.

Martha considered this suggestion. “No,” she said offhandedly. “I checked myself in the mirror and my eyes weren’t dilated or anything.”

Adrienne struggled not to hyperventilate as Martha blinked and gave a head an abrupt shake, as though trying to clear it.

“Although… I do feel kind of woozy.” She looked up at him quizzically. “You think maybe I should call Bruce and ask him to pick me up?”

“That would be a good idea,” the director said hoarsely. “We don’t.…” Sweat broke out across his forehead. “….We don’t want anything happening to our star fellow.”




They had forgotten, they had forgotten him and he would let them forget for now, though he was here, still here, not going away, not ever, let them forget for now, they would see, soon see, he would drain their blood away and as they left their bodies behind, they would see that he was still here.




Martha had played the “Bruce card,” with great reluctance, but she wanted to see for herself that he was all right and she needed Adrienne’s permission to leave work early.
She phoned headquarters as soon as she stepped into the parking lot, but Roy told her that Batman was already heading home. She beat the Batwing into the cave by minutes.

Reassured by Arsenal that her lover was unharmed, Martha began to revel in her hit-and-run conquest of Butri Chatichai. It was Bruce’s victory as much as hers, she believed, the product of the training he’d initiated after her first disastrous encounter with the telekinetic. Martha had barreled over to Yellowstone as soon as the riot was over, eager to test her new skills against the telekinetic. She was glad the encounter hadn’t taken long. She couldn’t have explained a prolonged absence from work.

Martha’s exuberance faded as she watched Batman climb down from the plane. He was battered, exhausted and filthy. When he saw her, he pushed back his mask and offered her a brief, tired smile; the deep purple welt on his cheek made Martha feel a little sick.

Without a word, she guided him to the shower, helped him undress and joined him under the hot spray. Bruce started to speak, but Martha touched tender fingers to his torn lips and urged him wordlessly to lean against the cool tile wall.

“Relax,” she said. “Just rest.”

He nodded, watching with weary eyes as she floated up to shampoo his hair, gently pushing away the rivulets of muddy water as they trickled down his face. She glided back onto the shower floor, rubbed a bar of soap between her hands and began stroking the dirt and sweat from his chest and shoulders.

“Alfred usually just hands me a washcloth,” he murmured.

“Would you like me to call him?” Martha asked, as she rubbed her soapy hands along his hard stomach.

“No thank you,” Bruce said. “I’ll suffer through this.”

She lifted herself from the floor to kiss him, her eyes sparkling, then continued cleansing his body with healing hands. He groaned in disappointment when she finally turned off the shower, burying his face in her breasts when she floated up to towel off his head.

Martha laughed. “Baby, I think that had better wait.”

“I’m just looking for a soft place to rest my head,” Bruce assured her.

Martha leaned him back against the shower wall, wrapped a small towel around herself and stepped out to find him a pair of pajama bottoms.

“Oh, hi, Alfred,” she said cheerfully, as she nearly collided with the elderly butler. “I’m just taking care of our boy, here.”

“Very good, Miss Martha,” Alfred replied in a strangled voice. He spun toward the elevator in an impressive pirouette and hastened away.

“My butler still alive?” Bruce asked her, as she handed him the pajama trousers and wiggled into one of his overlarge t-shirts. “Or did the sight of you in that washcloth give him a massive coronary?”

“I’m sure he’s seen worse,” Martha said, taking his hand and leading him out of the shower.

“But not better,” Bruce said.




As Martha dabbed antibiotic ointment on the cuts and scrapes that peppered Bruce’s body, he lay on his bed, wearily describing his part in the battle for Yellowstone. She could tell from his fluttering eyelids and clumsy speech that he was close to falling asleep, but also that something was bothering him.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “You got attacked by frogs and saved a baby. How can you beat that?”

He looked at the ceiling for a few long seconds before answering.

“I owe you an apology,” he said finally.

Martha capped the tube of antibiotic. “Why?”

“When you told me you couldn’t get there because of the riot, I was glad,” Bruce said. “I didn’t want to see you fight Chatichai again.”

Martha asked quietly, “You didn’t think I could handle her?”

“I was pretty sure you could,” Bruce said. “Especially with all the training we’ve been putting in. But….” He tapered off.

“When you called me from the shuttle, were you planning on asking me to stay home?” Martha asked.

Bruce gave her a startled glance. “Of course not,” he said.

“So you were just worried about me,” Martha said.

He nodded. “I should have had more faith in you.”

Martha sat cross-legged on the bed and ran a finger back and forth across his hand.

“When you went after Fray, I begged Alfred to let me follow you,” she said. Bruce looked up at her, surprised.

“I had plenty of faith in you,” Martha added. “I was still scared to death.”

He considered this. “So it’s OK….”

“For us to worry about each other?” Martha asked. “Comes with the whole love thing, I’m afraid.”

He smiled and gave her wrist a little tug. “C’mere.”

She snuggled blissfully against his side, taking care not to jostle him.

“We have to watch it, though,” Bruce said a few moments later as he tightened an arm around her. “Can’t let our feelings interfere with what we do.”

Martha nodded. “It’s the same thing with Roy and Midori.” She smiled. “And Roy and Lian. And me and my father.”

“Your father,” Bruce said slowly. “I asked him to come over for dinner sometime next week – him and your mother. I think it’s time we talked to them.”

Martha pushed herself up on an elbow. “What did he say?”

“He blew me off,” Bruce said. “Said they had a lot of things going on.”

“I don’t think he’s ready to deal with it, yet,” said Martha, adding, “My mom would fly over here under her own power if we asked her to dinner.”

“I don’t want to go over Clark’s head,” Bruce said. Realizing immediately how this sounded, he added, “I mean.…”

She laughed. “I know what you mean.”

“You know, you’d be the perfect woman,” said Bruce as Martha settled back into his arms. “Except for your questionable choice in men.”

“My choice in men is excellent,” Martha told him. “Now go to sleep.”




Harvey lay on his cot, his hands crossed behind his head. He listened to the guards as they conducted yet another post-riot roll call. None of the inmates in his wing had been involved. Insurrection was a little difficult to pull off when you were in solitary confinement.

One of the guards had told him that Martha had been knocked unconscious; he wondered if it was true. She hated Adrienne’s meetings enough to fake it and the director was no longer giving her a hard time. Something had changed in that relationship, enough for Martha to reclaim her second-story office, her old patients and her rule-flaunting methods. She would not say what had happened, though Harvey could guess.

“Dent.”

If she had gotten injured, that might explain it: Why she hadn’t come to see him today. The guard had said she’d left early. Harvey hoped she was OK, and that she’d be back by tomorrow.

“Dent.” The guard calling roll tapped impatiently on his door.

“Still here,” Harvey said.




Next Chapter: Roy gets a startling phone call, Jim Gordon gives Bruce some good advice, Wally gives Roy some.... advice.

 

[JC Roberts]

Chapter Nine

A startled towhee leapt from the stone birdbath in a burst of feathers as Roy rounded into his backyard. He leaned against the doorframe, panting but pleased, as he punched in the security code and the door clicked open. He’d burned another three seconds off his 10-mile run. Not bad, he thought smugly, for an old guy.

Midori, who had gone out earlier – probably to avoid joining him on the run – was still not home. Roy stuck a glass under the cold water dispenser on the door of his refrigerator, drained it in three gulps, then headed to the shower and cranked up the hot water. He had one leg through the opaque glass shower door when he heard the phone ring. Without bothering to grab a towel, he padded into the bedroom to answer it, frowning when the young man on the other end of the line asked nervously for Midori.

“She’s not here,” Roy said suspiciously. Midori didn’t get a lot of phone calls. “Can I give her a message?”

“Oh – um, it’s just Brad Jenkins from Deer Valley General.” The local hospital. The muscles in Roy’s shoulders tensed instantly.

“Is she all right?” he asked.

“Oh – oh, yes. It’s nothing like that,” Brad Jenkins told him. “It’s just that she forgot to sign the release.”

“The release?” Roy began to panic. He was sure Midori would have told him if she needed to have some kind of surgery.

“For the hospital newsletter,” Jenkins explained. “She’s been spending so much time in our nursery, we thought we’d ask her to take a picture.”

Roy sat on the edge of the bed and threw a corner of the blanket over his lap.

“In the nursery,” he repeated.

“Well, yes,” Jenkins said. “She’s been enjoying holding the babies.”

For a long moment, Roy just sat there, chewing on his lips. Then he asked, “How long has this been going on?”

Jenkins hesitated, apparently aware that the conversation had spiraled considerably beyond a simple request for a signature. “Maybe you should… talk to her.”

“I’ll do that,” Roy said bleakly. He thumbed the disconnect button on the receiver and tossed it onto Midori’s pillow, then plodded back into the bathroom. Beads of hot water pelted him, but he could not shower away a mounting sense of dread. It had been more than a month since Batman had saved the baby at Yellowstone, but Midori still mentioned him at least once a day.

Roy twisted off the shower dial, wrapped a towel around his waist and walked, still dripping, into a small room in the back of the house that Midori had turned into an office. After wiping his hands carefully on the towel, he dropped onto the desk chair and flipped open her laptop, which immediately clicked and whirred to life. Roy positioned the cursor over the drop-down box beside the search engine and felt his stomach plunge along with the list of recent searches, nearly all of which had the words ‘baby’ or ‘babies’ in them.

Midori’s most recent query had been brain development in babies. The preceding searches seemed more ominous: raising a baby when both parents have dangerous jobs, ideal conditions for raising a baby, best age to have a baby, baby names, epidurals, how badly does it hurt to have a baby?, diapering babies, how does breastfeeding work?, baby nourishment, best techniques for holding babies and Midori’s original entry, how can you tell if a baby likes you?

A drop of water from Roy’s wet hair splashed onto the keyboard. He leaned back against the vinyl chair, pushed his bangs out of his eyes and released the breath he hadn’t noticed he was holding. As soon as Midori came home, they were going to have to talk.

When she came in through the back a half an hour later with an armful of groceries, Roy was pacing in the kitchen in a pair of clean jeans and nothing else.

“Aren’t you cold?” she asked, eying his bare chest and feet as he took the mesh shopping bag from her hand and transferred milk and vegetables into the refrigerator. “The air conditioning is on very high.”

He shook his head. “Sit down.”

She perched gingerly on a stool by the breakfast bar and looked at him inquiringly.

Roy wet his lips. “Why are you going to the hospital to hold babies?”

“Oh.” Midori smiled. “I’m doing research.”

“Research,” Roy repeated. He dropped heavily into a kitchen chair.

Midori nodded enthusiastically. “I’m trying to decide if I want to have one.”

Despite the fact that he knew exactly what she had been doing, Roy nearly choked on his own breath when she said the words. Midori looked at him with concern.

He finally managed to ask, “Were you planning on doing this by yourself?”

Midori brightened, apparently under the impression that Roy had been feeling left out. “Oh, no,” she assured him. “It’s going to be your baby, too.”

During the time it took him to find his voice, Roy reminded himself that Midori had only been on Earth a little over two years. It would have been impossible for her to have mastered the complex dynamics of male-female relationships in so short a time.

“This is the kind of thing you really need to discuss early in the game,” he explained. “Both people have to want it.”

Nodding eagerly, Midori said, “Yes. And now I think I want it, too.”

Roy blinked hard and squinted at Midori’s unguarded face. He said numbly, “You think – you think I want to have a baby?”

“Well, you hinted,” Midori said. “At the aircraft plant.”

His confusion at this point was so obvious that even Midori could see it. “You said having a baby trumps everything,” she explained. “And that you wished you were there when Lian was born.”

Recognizing that he needed to bring this misunderstanding to a quick and unequivocal end, Roy said bluntly, “I don’t want to have a baby.” At Midori’s distressed look, he took her hand added, “With our lifestyle, we couldn’t take care of a goldfish, let alone a child. We’re never home. Our lives are in constant danger. It just wouldn’t work.”

“Well, maybe it could,” said Midori in a small voice. “I’m still doing research.”

Roy pulled her onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her. “My life with you is perfect exactly the way it is. I don’t want to make any changes.”

Midori absently caressed his back, but Roy could tell from her distant look that while he might have shut the door on the subject, it wasn’t locked and it wouldn’t take a strong wind to blow it wide open.




Gotham’s restaurants and bars had gone smoke free decades earlier, but the owner of Stogy Joe’s had apparently misplaced the notice. Yellowish coffee mugs had been strategically placed at the bar where lead crystal ashtrays once sat and ceiling fans stirred the smoky air in defiance of physical principles that suggested actual ventilation was required to clear away fumes. It was a cops’ restaurant, small, claustrophobic and so dark that when Jim Gordon stepped inside, the long rectangle of light that poured through the door was almost blinding.

“You didn’t drive that… glow-in-the-dark thing here?” Gordon asked Bruce as he rose from a table near the front of the restaurant and the two men shook hands.

“I just got it back together,” Bruce said sheepishly as they settled into a set of scarred wooden chairs. He had parked the Micro Cooper to the side of the tavern in the hopes that Gordon would miss it. “After lunch, I’m going to run over to AutoZone for a steering wheel cover and turn the keys over to Martha when she gets off work.”

A pair of yellowing plastic menus lay across the middle of the table. Gordon picked one up and asked, “This a surprise?”

“Sort of,” Bruce admitted. “She knows I’ve been working on it, but I never mentioned how close I was to finishing.”

“You’ve got two dozen cars,” Gordon said. “I can’t believe you’re going to let your girlfriend drive a Micro Cooper.”

Bruce shrugged. “She loves that car,” he said. “Anyway, it’s not exactly a Micro Cooper anymore.”

Gordon raised an eyebrow.

“It’s more like a Porsche in Micro-Cooper’s clothing,” Bruce explained. Not a single bolt from the original power train remained under the car’s day-glo green fuselage. The Micro-Cooper still looked like a toy – at least to Bruce – but its new top-of-the-line German-engineered custom-made engine would assure Martha a smooth, dependable ride.

“She’s going to thank you for that,” Gordon said, grinning lewdly.

Bruce shook his head. “She thinks I gave the car an unusually thorough tune-up. Let’s keep it that way.”

Gordon’s furrowed his forehead. “I won’t tell her,” he said. “But why?”

“She’s uncomfortable with me spending a lot of money on her,” Bruce said. The new tires alone had cost twice what Martha had paid for the car.

“Her idea of ‘a lot of money,’ is probably pocket change to you,” Gordon said.

“Yes,” Bruce said a little sullenly. He wished Martha would loosen up a bit about the money thing. He knew she was concerned about not being able to reciprocate, but he resented having to second guess himself every time he saw something he thought she would like.

“Doesn’t want to feel like a kept woman, huh?” Gordon asked.

Bruce sat back against the heavy wooden chair. “I never thought of that,” he said slowly.

“Be glad,” Gordon advised him. “You know she doesn’t want you for your money.”

The idea of Martha being after his fortune was almost laughable. Her idea of an extravagant date was Bistro Cilantro and a movie.

“Never an issue,” Bruce said, frowning as he skimmed the menu.

“Not to you,” Gordon said quietly. Bruce looked up from the list of entrees.

“One of your boys has expressed concern,” Gordon said.

Bruce put down the menu.

“He was just looking out for you,” Gordon said quickly.

“Since Dick loves her,” Bruce said through his teeth. “I’m guessing it was Tim.”

Gordon held up a hand. “He just wanted to know if I thought she was OK,” he said. “I told him I thought she was a hell of a lot more than OK.”

“When?” Bruce asked brusquely.

“Please don’t make a big deal of this,” Gordon said.

“When?” Bruce repeated.

“He called me about a month back,” Gordon said. “You bring her to Philly for some kind of Labor Day thing?”

It had been a combination Labor Day barbecue and early birthday party for Tim and Kia’s two-year-old daughter. Tim had invited him to bring Martha, apparently to ascertain the nature of her interest in Bruce. He did not know how she could have failed this test; she had played with the birthday girl, read a story to Tim’s son and Dick’s daughters and managed to get John Tamand’r, the Graysons’ surly teen-aged son, to join an impromptu volleyball game. She’d also spent at least half an hour chatting amiably with Kia.

Tim’s mistrust probably had more to do with Martha’s lifelong friendship with Lian than any doubts he might have about Bruce’s judgment when it came to women, but Bruce didn’t like the idea of Tim going behind his back to check her out. And the idea that anyone he cared about would question the motives of somebody as transparently good-hearted as Martha made Bruce feel as hurt as it did angry.

“Bruce,” Gordon said forcefully, and Bruce realized he’d been staring blindly at the stained plastic menu. “At the end of the conversation, Tim said that since Dick was as adamant as I was that Martha was good news, he guessed she deserved a chance. Meg, on the other hand,” he added, as a young waitress sidled up to the table, “Is interested only in my money.”

Meg grinned and stuck a fist on her hip. “I live for tips,” she said. “Hey, Jimmy.”

The old cop flirted with her cheerfully as he ordered a well-done steak and a baked potato. When Bruce asked if he could get the Mandarin salad without the chicken, he was sure he heard Gordon mutter, “whipped,” but when he looked up, his friend was staring innocently at the waitress’s shapely jean-clad legs.

“Be happy people care about you,” Gordon told him when Meg sauntered into the kitchen. “My point was to make you understand why Martha probably feels the way she does about you spending money on her, not to start trouble between you and Tim. He’s not the only person in the world who thinks like that.”

After a dark silence, Bruce asked, “Do you think anyone’s said anything to her?”

“It’s usually the kind of thing people talk about behind your back,” Gordon said, shrugging.

Bruce set his jaws together and picked up a half-filled pepper shaker. He tilted the small glass container absently to the left and watched a few gray-black grains fall onto the tabletop. Gordon watched him glower at the shaker and made a desperate attempt to salvage what they both had expected to be a pleasant lunch.

“So how excited is she going to be when she sees that car?” he asked.

Bruce allowed himself a slight smile. “Excited.”

“How long have you been together now?” Gordon asked.

“More than four months,” Bruce said.

Gordon nodded, impressed. “A record for you.”

“Two weeks was a record for me,” Bruce said. “If you factor out the felons.”

Gordon laughed, then asked seriously, “She living with you?”

Bruce shook his head. He had, in fact, urged Martha to move more of her things into the manor, but she had made some kind of analogy between relationships and weightlifting and tearing something if you took things too fast, but getting strong if you increased the intensity at a slow, steady pace. It was a technicality anyway. They were together nearly every night.

“You going to marry her?” Gordon asked and was suddenly reminded of why Batman could drive a man to his knees with just a look.

“How ‘bout those Goliaths?” Bruce asked coldly.

“Sorry,” Gordon said. “None of my business. I guess you’ve got to wait until you see where she ends up anyway.”

Bruce gave him a quizzical look.

“Isn’t this her last year at the Academy of the Insane?” the old cop asked. “It’ll be time for her to start sending out résumés soon. Or is she going to apply for a staff position at Arkham?”

“No,” Bruce said dully. “That’s not what she wants.” There were only a few institutions in the world that sponsored the kind of research Martha hoped to pursue.

“Is what she wants here in Gotham?” Gordon asked meaningfully. He leaned back mechanically as Meg slide his plate across the table and warned him that it was hot.

“Yours isn’t,” the waitress added cheerfully, as she placed the salad in front of Bruce. He picked up his fork and pushed robotically at a miniature orange. His appetite had vanished. He wondered how soon he could ask to have the salad boxed without Gordon noticing his disquiet.

Bruce was not completely unaware that after her fellowship with Arkham was over, Martha hoped to finally pursue a long-planned career researching the workings of the criminal mind, and that only one facility in Gotham offered anything like what she was looking for. They had talked about her aspirations more than once during the year they had become friends – the year they had somehow managed to stumble into love without realizing or wanting it. But Martha had not mentioned a need to apply for jobs this soon. Bruce had thought they’d have almost another year before they’d have to worry about it.

“This is a great steak,” Gordon said, chewing enthusiastically. He looked up at Bruce with a wicked grin. “Want a piece?”

“No,” Bruce said. Gordon studied him, still chewing.

“You’d better do something,” the old cop said. “My niece and her husband spent a year apart when he couldn’t get an engineering job where they lived and she couldn’t leave her law firm.

“What happened?” Bruce asked hollowly.

“Well, she did eventually marry the guy who got her pregnant,” Gordon said. “But the kid was two by the time the divorce on her first marriage came through.”

Bruce threw a handful of bills on the table. “I love having lunch with you, Jim,” he said as he waved over the waitress. “It’s always so uplifting.”




Wally let himself into Roy’s western Colorado ranch home and looked around the empty living room.

“Hello?” he called. He felt uneasy finding the house so quiet. There had been an odd lilt to Roy’s voice when he asked Wally to come over. Wally had been sure at the time that something personal was bothering his friend. He had said as much to Linda before kissing her on the neck and heading out to Deer Valley, taking a leisurely few minutes to cross the thousand-odd miles between his home and Roy’s.

Seconds passed and Wally found his discomfort increasing. His eyes swept the living room a second time, now looking for signs of disruption or forced entry. In the decades Roy had lived here, no one had attempted to bother him, but there was no such thing as real security when you spent your life fighting supervillains.

Wally was taking a wary step toward the kitchen, when he heard a door open near the back of the house and the approach of light footsteps.

“Hi, Wally,” Midori said in bright surprise. She removed a pair of wireless ear buds, set them on the mantel and accepted his hug. “Roy didn’t tell me you were coming. Do you want some food?”

“Uh, maybe later,” Wally said. The word “food” caused his stomach to tighten agreeably. “Roy around?”

“I think he’s doing some work outside.” Midori leaned past him to peer out the sliding glass doors. “He’s right back there.” She frowned curiously. “Kicking pinecones.”

Even from a distance, Wally could see from Roy’s hunched shoulders and his stiff-legged whacks at the pinecones that he was upset. He turned to Midori, who seemed unaware of her lover’s mood.

“I’m going to go talk to him,” he said. “Why don’t you go back to whatever –?”

“I’m doing research,” she told him.

That was as surprising as Wally being hungry. He smiled at her. “Your computer is crying out for you,” he said. “Don’t leave it lonely.”

Midori visibly swallowed the impulse to explain that computers did not get lonely. She opened the sliding glass door and called out to Roy that Wally was visiting. Then she squeezed the speedster’s hand and ambled back to her office.

Wally was at his friend’s side before he could blink. Roy offered him a stiff grin.

“You want a beer?” he asked.

All of Roy’s beer was non-alcoholic. “No, thanks,” Wally said. “What’s up?”

Roy stared back into the desert. “She wants to have a baby.”

Wally started to laugh. “I knew it,” he said. “Time to put those immeasurable skills to work.”

“It’s not funny,” Roy said with unexpected ferocity. He turned anxiously to Wally. “She wants to get married, wait exactly a year and then start working on a baby. Because she’s done a lot of research and that’s the scenario that provides a child with the greatest amount of stability.”

“Sounds like she’s really planned it out,” Wally said, trying not to smile at Midori’s naïve attempt to map out her life.

“She went out and bought a stack of ovulation kits,” Roy said desperately. “She’s going to track her cycle down to the minute, so when the time comes, she’ll know exactly when we need to –” He lifted his fingers to form quotation marks in the air. “– attempt a conception.”

Unwilling laughter burst through Wally’s clenched teeth and tears started streaming from his eyes. He was glad he had turned down the beer. It would have been dribbling out of his nose about now.

“S-sorry,” he gasped as Roy glared at him. “I’m not –” Wally straightened up and attempted to look soberly at his friend. “No baby.”

“No way,” Roy said firmly.

“You’d better tell her,” Wally said.

“I’ve been telling her for a month,” Roy said. “She doesn’t hear me.”

“That’s not good,” Wally admitted.

“No,” Roy said, in a voice that was unexpectedly quiet. “Everything was going so great.” He shook his head. “I thought maybe this time…” His voice thickened and trailed off.

“It’s not entirely unreasonable for a woman Midori’s age to want a family,” Wally said tentatively. “I mean, it’s pretty much the norm, isn’t it?”

“Not where she comes from,” Roy said, in a tone that suggested that Midori had welshed on some kind of unspoken deal. “On Colu, they make their kids in labs and get professional parents to raise them in dormitories. Midori has no reason to want this.”

“But she left Colu,” Wally said. “Because that kind of life wasn’t for her.”

“She didn’t have babies in mind when she came here,” Roy said.

“She didn’t have you in mind when she came here,” Wally countered. “But she adapted.”

Roy’s eyes narrowed resentfully. “You’re supposed to be on my side,” he said.

“I actually am,” said Wally. “I don’t want to see you alone again.”

A coyote howled from the desert beyond the backyard and Wally’s eyes shifted toward the sound, glad for the excuse to look away from Roy’s pained face.

“Maybe get her a dog,” Wally mumbled. “Let her see how hard it is to take care of a puppy and maybe she’ll think twice about a baby.” He chanced a sidelong glance at Roy and was relieved to see his friend had regained most of his composure.

Roy snorted. “A dog.”

“Get one that sheds,” Wally advised as the idea grew on him. “A big, hairy, noisy one that chews your furniture and pees all over your hardwood floors.”

“Great idea,” Roy said sarcastically. “We’ll name him Wally.”




Screams on the grounds of Arkham Asylum were rarely good news, even in the parking lot. Martha’s shriek of delight at the sight of her beloved Micro Cooper sent a handful of her coworkers diving behind cars for cover.

“Quiet,” Bruce told her as she hurtled into his arms, oblivious to the aggrieved stares of staff members who were now brushing bits of gravel from their knees. “I don’t want people noticing me too close to this thing.”

“I love you so much,” Martha gushed, pressing a series of kisses against his mouth and cheeks. “And I love my car.” Her forehead crinkled and she pulled back to study him. “What’s wrong?”

Bruce handed her the keys. “I’m anticipating the ride home in the passenger seat.”

She looked worried. “What is it?”

Ordinarily, Bruce did not see a downside in Martha’s ability to see through him, but he had hoped to enjoy her reaction to getting her car back for a while before they moved on to more serious matters. “We’ll talk about it at the restaurant.”

“OK,” she said nervously. Bruce was surprised to see her hand shake as she fumbled with the keys.

He reached for her wrist. “It’s not that big a deal,” he said quickly. She looked up at him and he amended. ‘It is. But it’s not….” He sighed and gestured at the Micro Cooper. “Get in the car.”

One of the last things he had fixed on the car was the jammed passenger seat, but even adjusted to its greatest distance from the dashboard, Bruce had to bend his knees to fit into the small compartment. Martha had already shut her door and was looking at him anxiously when he turned to her.

“You’re not going to break up with me?” she asked in almost a whisper.

He was completely taken aback and apparently it showed; Martha’s face relaxed even before he managed to sputter a denial.

“No,” he said. “Why would you even –”

“People break up in restaurants,” she said, blinking away relieved tears. “And I can tell that you’re really stressed out and that it’s because of me and – and you’re handing me back my car….” She shook her head. “I’ve been so happy these past months, it’s almost scary. I guess I was afraid…. I don’t know,” she finished lamely.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been happier,” Bruce said. He took a deep breath. “Which is why I need to know what you’re going to do about next year.”

“Next year?” Martha repeated. Relief and understanding flooded her dark eyes. “Because I have to start applying now for any job I’d want to start next fall….”

Bruce nodded. “So… where are you applying?”

She ran her fingertip along the new steering wheel cover, inhaled deeply and said, “I’ve put together a package for Gotham U.” Bruce remembered her remarking several times that the university’s medical center had a “nice little unit on sociopathology.”

“And where else?” Bruce asked.

Martha shook her head. “I’m putting in my app to GU in early. Let’s see what they have to say before I waste a lot of postage applying anywhere else.”

“You’ll miss the other deadlines,” Bruce said, suddenly feeling selfish. Martha hoped her research would eventually put an end to some forms of violent criminal behavior; the long, hard years she had spent in medical school and residency, the Sorbonne and Arkham had all been designed to bring her to the point where she could devote herself to this effort.

“I have a window,” Martha said unconvincingly. “If I miss it, I can always try for a staff position at Arkham. Or –” She tried to conceal a grimace. “– the psych ward at Gotham General.”

Bruce felt his stomach knotting up. “That’s not what you want.”

“It won’t come to that,” Martha assured him. “I’m a good candidate for the spot at Gotham U.”

As true as this was, Bruce knew she was taking an enormous chance. “But what if –” He found himself silenced by the warmth of her hand covering his.

Her dark eyes searched his blue ones. “Do you want me to stay in Gotham City?”

Without hesitation, Bruce said, “Yes.”

“Then I’m not going to leave,” Martha said.

He was going to make it work for her, Bruce thought, as Martha started the ignition, happily remarked upon the quiet hum that had replaced the grinding sound of the old engine, and backed the car out of the parking lot. He shifted legs that were rapidly falling asleep. Gotham University would be lucky to have her, but if that prospect somehow fell through, he would be ready with a back-up plan. Martha’s mission was just as important as his own and Bruce was going to make sure that staying with him did not mean that she would have to leave it behind.



Next Chapter: The Flying Grayson

 

[JC Roberts]

Chapter Ten

He knew it was nothing personal, but Superman always felt slightly offended by the number of children – teen-agers, mostly – who ended up going out as Doomsday on Halloween. The Kryptonian monster was nothing more than a Boogeyman to most of them: Parents of the youngest trick-or-treaters were in diapers when the murderous creature had “killed” the Man of Steel. Superman’s demise had turned out to be temporary, but the sight of the pasty rubber mask, with its stringy cotton hair and frozen expression of demented rage, never failed to remind him of the anguish his “death” had caused Lois and his parents.

Halloween night was a mandatory patrol for most costumed crimefighters. Incidents were rare, but children were to be protected, even when the risk was low. It would take only one madman, one ruthless sociopath – or even a self-righteous teen who thought being bullied gave him a license to lash out at the world – to snuff out a dozen tiny lives in an instant – and to send their loved ones on an infinite trek through living hell.

It was an evening Superman took seriously, but it was also one he relished. The streets of Metropolis were alive with children shuffling around in oversized nylon costumes. Trends changed every year, but superheroes were always in fashion. Wally seemed to be the favorite this year. There had been dozens of replica Flashes seeking treats tonight – Clark recalled Linda once saying that she couldn’t trust Wally to give out candy because half of it would mysteriously disappear – and a decent number of little men and women of steel. Superman couldn’t fly a block without glimpsing youngsters in baggy blue suits and red capes skipping ahead of their doting parents. He always got a kick out of the cheaply-made blonde wigs that invariably slid from the heads of small girls masquerading as his daughter. The occasional sight of a rubber Martian Manhunter mask made his heart tighten in sad nostalgia.

The night had gone well until a few hours past sunset, when he’d noticed a pudgy little Superwoman toddling beside a small, solemn Batman. The girl had eagerly opened her bag of candy and urged her black-clad companion to examine her treasures. Superman had felt himself very close to vomiting.

He wound through a tight cluster of high rise apartments and watched the last of the trick-or-treaters disappear into their homes. A few days earlier, Bruce had called him at work to ask if he could take the Kents to dinner; he would be in Metropolis later in the week. Clark’s automatic reply that he and Lois already had plans for that night might have sounded more authentic if he’d given Bruce the chance to say what evening he had in mind.

He wasn’t a fool; he knew what the invitation was about. Clark would not allow anyone to steamroll him into having a conversation he did not want to have, about a situation he found too painful and humiliating to think about. He was not going to legitimize this aberrant… relationship… by acknowledging it. It would be over soon; he was surprised that it hadn’t ended already. Clark was not sure what it was that had caused his daughter to abandon her ordinarily good judgment when it came to men, but he was sure whatever it was that attracted her to Bruce Wayne could not long survive his usual self-destructive impulses when it came to women.

She would be leaving Gotham next summer anyway. The fellowship was almost over. Her aspirations would bring her next to Metropolis or to McGill University in Montreal or maybe back to the Sorbonne. Superman winced as he remembered his daughter’s unfortunate dalliance with her Parisian professor. The thought of Philippe made him reconsider his belief that Martha’s recent taste in men was particularly sound.

If Dave had not been killed…. Superman dove low over Metropolis Bay and mournfully remembered the affable young cop who had become like a second son to him. Martha would have been married nearly eight years by now. This… thing… in Gotham City wouldn’t be happening.

When the sound of gunshots broke across the breezy night, he was almost relieved by the distraction. Superman’s eyes flicked instantly to a warehouse about a mile down the bay, where a pair of police officers huddled behind a sea wall were exchanging shots with a group of masked outlaws as they attempted to flee in a wooden dingy. Superman was hoisting the small boat over his shoulders before the cops were able to reload. He wondered if the lawbreakers had stolen their latex Joker masks, or had just picked them up at a dollar store. They weren’t worth what they used to be.

It turned out to be a busy night. North of Midvale, a teen-aged boy amped up on sugar, beer and arrogance attempted for force himself on his date. Superman wasn’t gentle about handing him over to the local cops; he had a sore point about this sort of thing. He urged the girl to press charges – and seek counseling – before a fire in a nightclub in Providence, Rhode Island pulled him reluctantly away. He had hoped to speak to the young woman’s parents.

There was a break in the action just as fingers of sunlight reached lazily into the gray morning. Superman allowed Clark Kent the luxury of showering quickly and slipping naked into bed with his sleeping wife.

“Mmmm,” Lois mumbled as Clark enfolded her in oversized arms. She reached back and ran a hand through his slightly damp hair and smiled without opening her eyes. “Do you want a trick or a treat, little boy?”

“Surprise me,” he murmured, pushing a silky strand of hair aside and kissing the back of her neck. After more than thirty years together, she still could.

They woke together a few hours later, still entwined, to the sound of Clay banging around in the kitchen. Lois pushed Clark groggily onto his back and slid on top of him, determined to make the most of this rare time together. The telephone rang.

“Answer it, Clay,” she shouted, when their son allowed the phone to ring a second time. Clark laughed. The ringer bleated again.

“He’s got his headphones on,” Clark told her, after glancing through a couple of walls. Lois made an exasperated face, checked the caller ID and reached for the receiver.

“Hi, Martha,” she said, and then, “Oh. That’s great.” Lois covered the mouthpiece and looked down at her husband. “She traded shifts with one of the other shrinks –” There was a burst of protest from the other side of the receiver. Lois rolled her eyes. “Sorry, Martha,” she said, before turning back to Clark. “She traded with one of the other psychiatrists so she could make it to dinner tonight.”

Clark smiled. Martha had skipped the last few Sunday dinners in her ongoing effort to catch up on the hours she had missed last spring, when she had been trapped on the desert planet with Parallax. “Tell her Gren will be here,” he said.

Martha apparently heard him. “She knows Gren will be here,” Lois said. “She says she’s coming anyway.” She listened again, then added delightedly, “She and Lian just got back from breakfast in Rincon Beach. She’s bringing flan for dessert.”

She suggested their daughter come over a bit earlier; they hadn’t seen her in a while.

“Ask her if she’s started putting out applications for next year,” Clark said.

Lois did so, frowned, and asked, “One?

“All right,” she said finally. “We’ll see you around five.”

“She can’t come earlier?” Cark asked as Lois set down the receiver.

“No,” Lois said. “She has ‘some things to do.’ ”

“Oh,” Clark said in a dim voice. “And she’s only applied to one research center?”

“Gotham University,” Lois said grimly. Her eyes moved across his pensive face. “Dead and buried?”

Clark’s questioning eyes flicked up toward hers.

“The mood.”

“Sorry,” he said, as she shifted back onto the bed and pulled the quilt up around his shoulders.

“Martha’s going to be OK,” she promised, putting her arms around him. Clark didn’t answer. Lois was usually right when it came to their daughter. He just hoped that “OK” meant “away from Gotham City.” Soon.




Wally set Linda down on Roy’s porch and did a quick change while they waited for Parker, who had insisted on running the distance alongside his father. The teen had fallen behind as they veered around Colorado Springs, but he had insisted that his parents go on; he would catch up.

A few minutes passed. Linda gave her husband a concerned look.

“Maybe –” Wally started. Linda’s cell phone rang. It was Parker.

Where are you?” she asked. She handed the phone to Wally. “He thought he’d take a shortcut. He has no idea where he is.”

Wally repeated his wife’s question. Parker seemed to be somewhere west of Pueblo.

“You’re not too far away,” he said. “Take Route 160, then head right when you hit that cattle ranch with the huge cowboy boot –” Parker exploded onto the porch, chest heaving.

“Just needed – Route 160 –” he panted. Looking up at his parents, he asked, “Is Lian here?”

“Don’t you dare act like a walking hormone-mobile if she is,” Linda warned as Wally pushed open the front door. Parker glowered and followed his parents into the house.

Midori was sitting in the middle of the living room, engaged in deep conversation with a melon-sized ball of golden fluff. She beamed when she saw the Wests, then spoke excitedly to her furry companion.

“Look, RJ,” she said, in the kind of animated voice one might use when speaking to a small child. “Uncle Wally and Aunt Linda are here! And Cousin Parker!”

Wally braced himself to be leapt upon. When Roy liberated the puppy from the SPCA three weeks earlier, he had described him to Wally in a phone call as a “wild, shedding, chewing drool factory.” He hadn’t said much about the dog since then, but Wally had warned his family to expect a less serene brunch than they usually enjoyed at Roy’s place.

The puppy did not budge. He simply looked over his shoulder at the guests, unfurled a long yellow tail, wagged it furiously and looked inquiringly at Midori.

“Go say ‘hi’ to them,” she urged.

RJ scrambled to his feet and Wally steeled himself again. But the puppy headed toward the Wests at a calm trot and sat placidly at Linda’s feet. Wally noticed with discomfort that the living room was spotless.

“Cool!” Parker said. He dropped onto the floor beside RJ, who immediately rolled onto his back so his new friend could rub his belly.

“He’s adorable,” said Linda, squatting gingerly beside her son. “What kind of dog is he?”

“He’s three kinds of dog,” Midori said proudly. “Labrador Retriever, German Shepherd and Golden Retriever.”

“Big shedding dogs,” Wally said. He inspected the rug and couches and found not a single stray dog hair.

Midori rose from the floor just as Roy stepped through the sliding glass doors with some firewood. He greeted Linda and Parker with perfunctory pleasantness, but cast a dark look at Wally.

“Gonna need another armload,” Roy said, tossing the logs into the fireplace. “Come help me.”

“Take RJ,” Midori called as they walked back into the yard. “He needs to excrete urine. Go with Daddy,” she added to the puppy.

“RJ come,” Roy said listlessly. The dog scrambled happily after him.

“I thought you were going to name him Wally,” Wally said nervously, as Roy led him grimly to the woodpile.

“No,” Roy said, and looked directly into Wally’s face, as if daring him to laugh. “His name is Roy, Jr. I feel fortunate I got Midori to shorten it to RJ.”

He looked down at the dog, who had remained devotedly at his heel during the brief conversation.

“RJ,” he said. “Sit.” The dog sat and looked up at Roy expectantly.

“Lie down.” RJ obeyed.

“Fetch me a stick, please,” Roy said tonelessly. RJ raced to the nearest piece of kindling and carried joyfully back to Roy, who tucked it under an arm and glared accusingly at Wally.

“You may now excrete urine,” Roy told the dog, who trotted to the farthest corner of the yard to do so.

Flabbergasted, Wally said, “You told me he was a wild, shedding maniac.”

“He was,” Roy said. “Until Midori got a hold of him.”

“But how –?”

“She. Did. Research,” Roy said through his teeth. He thrust a pile of firewood into Wally’s arms and added, “She came up with a special formula to stop the shedding. Some animal company wants to buy it.”

“You’ll be rich,” Wally said, hoping the thought of additional wealth might mollify his troubled friend.

Roy looked at Wally as though he hadn’t heard him. “Dick says I should get Midori to baby-sit Ryand’r. He says that’ll put her off babies forever.”

Dick and Kory’s one-year-old had just started to fly. Lately, Dick had been peppered in oddly-placed bruises that had nothing to do with to his work as Nightwing.

“You going to take him up on it?” Wally asked, as RJ came bounding back to them.

“As soon as possible,” Roy replied. He studied Wally with considerably more warmth. “How many bags of candy did you eat last night?”

“Me?” Wally asked innocently.

“It’s just that I threw the M&Ms we had left over into the pancake batter,” Roy explained. “I don’t want you to go into a diabetic coma.”

“I wouldn’t worry,” Wally said as they walked back toward the house. “RJ could probably resuscitate me.”




Martha regretted the opulent breakfast she’d shared with Lian in Puerto Rico nearly as soon as she stepped onto the padded mat in the Batcave’s expansive gym. Bruce had warned her not to eat too much – he’d thought the jaunt ill-advised anyway. She was stretching herself too thin, between her arduous hours at Arkham, her work with the League and their nightly patrols. He felt she should have spent the morning sleeping, specifically in his bed with him. But Martha had been feeling guilty about spending so much time apart from her roommate, especially during Lian’s crucial first year of recovery. When the redhead had joked recently about subletting Martha’s room, there had been an unmistakable undertone of longing in her voice that Martha refused to ignore. She had vowed to spend more time with Lian, who had never allowed anything – even the countless streams of faceless men who had coursed briefly through her life – to interfere with their friendship.

An overlarge breakfast mere hours before a Sunday workout session with Bruce might have not been the best way to express this friendship, Martha thought, as she gazed nauseously up at the Batcave’s rocky ceiling. Maybe next time they would go to a movie.

“Get up,” Bruce said tonelessly.

He was driven and humorless during their workouts, determined to achieve an impossible perfection, rarely impatient, but just as infrequently satisfied. As they had gotten closer, Martha’s initial irritation at his demeanor had given way to an affectionate amusement she was careful not to show. Bruce had not completely recovered from what he had believed for six weeks to be her death. He was training Martha with the intent of keeping her alive.

She knew she was no Robin: With her bracelet suppressing her superpowers, she was an above-average fighter, with endless determination, decent instincts, unremarkable strength and adequate reflexes. During their first few work-outs, she could barely stay on her feet before she’d been swept, kicked, punched, thrown or pinned. She had gotten a lot better, which meant Bruce was pushing her harder.

In spite of her mutinous stomach, Martha did reasonably well during their stick-fighting drills and even better when they were sparring. Then she made the mistake of showing pleasure in her progress by smiling and Bruce had swept her to the mat.

“Your opponent’s just killed you,” he whispered into her ear as he pinned her wrists against the yielding floor. “OK, he’s killed you again. Get up before he kills you a third time.” Martha writhed under him, struggling for an opening with characteristic tenacity, but Bruce had trapped her limbs with his much larger body. She was completely immobile and he was intentionally aggravating her feeling of helplessness by upping her personal body count every few seconds. She became frustrated and bit him on the shoulder.

He rolled off of her quickly and for a terrible second she thought she had hurt him. Then she saw the aroused look in his eyes and started to giggle.

“Don’t expect all of your opponents to react like this,” he said sternly, as she reversed their positions, straddling him and pushing his wrists playfully against the mat.

“I didn’t hurt you?” she asked seriously.

“You’re wearing a rubber mouthpiece,” Bruce pointed out. She expected him to insist that they resume training, but instead he looked thoughtful for a second and offered, “Guardian.”

With a sigh of mock exasperation, Martha leaned against the knees Bruce had drawn up against her back. A few weeks earlier, he had cautiously suggested that her crimefighting name might carry too large a burden, reflecting as it did the capabilities of Martha’s more powerful father. She needed a moniker suited to her own unique talents, not just a feminized version of Superman.

“That name makes people expect too much of you,” Bruce had said. “And it makes you push yourself too hard.”

“No one pushes themselves harder than you,” Martha protested.

“I stay within my limitations,” Bruce had countered. “And if I move past them, it’s calculated and with ample safeguards. You just go crashing into bombs.”

He had taken pains to emphasize that he was not advocating – as Roy had once characterized it – a rejection of her father and everything he stood for. The last thing Bruce wanted now was further tension between himself and Clark.

The disclaimer had been unnecessary; Martha understood where Bruce’s heart had been in suggesting the change. But she couldn’t seriously consider giving up her name.

This hadn’t stopped him from throwing potential aliases at her whenever he thought of one. Martha had already dismissed Paladin and Star Woman. Guardian was a little better, but she was sure she had heard it before.

“Isn’t there a Guardian already?” she asked.

“Not anymore,” he said, as he watched her hands disappear under his t-shirt. With a quick twist of his hips, he toppled her onto the mat next to him. “Time to meditate.”

“You’d rather sit on a pillow than make wild love to me on the floor of your gym?” asked Martha, feigning hurt.

Bruce rolled next to her and pried the bracelet from her wrist. “Last time we did that, you fell asleep on your cushion.”

She considered this. “I could drink some coff–”

The rest of the word was lost in his mouth. He was pinning her again, but this time she felt neither helpless nor frustrated.




“I think that was very spiritual,” Martha said afterwards. Bruce hooked a leg around hers and pulled her close.

“Mm-hmm,” he mumbled into her shoulder.

She glanced back at him and asked, “When did you first realize you were attracted to me?”

“We should go upstairs,” he said without moving. “Alfred could walk in here at any moment.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d tried to dodge the question. “Bruce…”

“When do you think?” he asked.

“When you woke me out of my nightmare?” Martha asked, as he started running his fingertips along her arm. “In the arboretum?”

“That’s a good guess,” Bruce said. “But not even close.”

She considered a few possibilities. “When –”

“You only get one guess,” he said, leaning around to kiss her temple. Martha turned into him so that they were nose to nose.

“Why won’t you tell me?” she asked.

“I’ll tell you,” he said. He sat up and reached across the mat for her t-shirt. “Just not in this decade.” He handed her the shirt and looked around for the remains of his own. In her ardor, Martha had torn it nearly in half. Alfred had been acquiring a lot of dust-rags that way.

“You’re just making me more curious,” Martha said.

Bruce smiled faintly. “I like to keep an air of mystery about me.”

She laughed. “Right. Because other than that, there’s no mystery to you at all.”




A crash of alarming volume and duration caused Dick to rush from the front door before he had fully opened it, prompting Roy and Midori to exchange a baffled look as they stepped warily into the foyer. Roy had just started to crane his head into the living room, where he was pretty sure the sound had come from, when he found himself nearly knocked off his feet by one of Dick’s older daughters.

“Hi, Mary,” he said as the little girl clung ferociously to his waist. In an effort to spare his internal organs, he hoisted her into his arms. “You remember Aunt Midori, don’t you?”

With a joyous nod, Mary transferred herself to Midori, who, Roy noted with grim satisfaction, darkened to the shade of a pine needle in reaction to the child’s overzealous hug. He truly regretted the torment he and Dick were about to put Midori through, but Roy could see what she could not: It would not be long before she was going to have to choose between him and her desire to have a child. Roy was desperate to be her choice and he was running out of arguments.

Dick limped back into the room, an impish-eyed Ryand’r tucked under one arm. His third daughter, Valiand’r, danced happily by his side as he ran a hand through his rumpled hair and apologized for not properly greeting his guests.

“Thanks for doing this, Midori,” he said, as he led them into the living room. Roy noted with equal parts guilt and glee that the room was in shambles and two large bay windows had been hastily boarded up. “I really need a break.”

Midori replied eagerly that she would baby-sit for him anytime. Dick fixed her with a jaded stare and pointed to the long list of emergency phone numbers he had affixed to the refrigerator with a magnet.

“Where’s Kory?” Midori asked, as a squirming Ryand’r burst out from under Dick’s arm and soared straight at Roy’s head. The leader of the Justice League missed by seconds being decapitated by a flying baby

Dick looked uneasy. “Oh… she’s on a mission with the Outsiders. We don’t have to mention this to her. It’s sort of like a surprise,” he added unconvincingly, at Midori’s perplexed look.

“Should we get going?” Roy asked, ducking as Ryand’r did a quick loop through the den and hurtled back toward him, apparently drawn to his red hair like a tiny bull.

Dick nodded and shouted into the basement for his son, John, who now insisted on being called Tamand’r, his Tamaranian middle name. The teen-ager emerged scowling onto the top of the cellar steps. From the sounds exploding out of the basement, Roy guessed he had been engrossed in one of his many videogames.

“I expect you to step in the second the baby becomes too much for Midori to handle,” Dick told his son sternly. They turned together toward Midori, whose attempt to gather up a momentarily stationary Ryand’r had left her rubbing a swollen nose.

“That should be about two minutes,” Tamand’r groused. “Why do you have to leave? I just got this game.”

Dick stepped close to his son and said in a fierce whisper, “You’ll help Midori. And you’ll call me if there’s an emergency.”

“What’s an emergency?” Tamand’r asked sullenly.

“Injuries,” Dick said. He stepped back and turned to Roy. “Let’s go.”




“Maybe this is a bad idea,” Roy said nervously, as Dick backed his Toyota Americana out of the driveway.

Dick shook his head. “Midori’ll be OK. John’s a good kid. He’ll help her out.”

“She should have brought her rocket boots,” Roy said, as his friend swung the car towards a nearby sports bar.

Dick laughed. “That might have helped.”

As they wound their way around the suburban roads, now strewn with crumpled brown leaves, Roy watched his friend become gradually more relaxed.

“You never had this kind of trouble with your other kids,” he said, as Dick pulled into a parking spot near a neon bedecked tavern called The End Zone.

“They started flying at a much later age. They could take instruction – and respond to threats,” Dick said, adding laconically, “Ryand’r’s a prodigy.”

“Ah, the mixed blessing of the gifted child,” Roy said loftily. Dick shot him a tired smile.

They found a dark, quiet place near the corner of the bar. Their server, a heavy-set middle-aged blond man with a soul patch and a pierced chin, thrust a bowl of tortillas at Dick and noted that he hadn’t seen him around for a while.

“The baby’s teething,” Dick said. “She’s kinda hard for the wife to handle by herself.”

He ordered a Yuengling Light Lager. Roy asked for a bottle of water.

“No, wait,” he said. “I’ll have a Coke.”

“Living the wild life,” Dick teased. He reached for the frosty glass of beer. “You’re dead set against this father thing?”

“No way can we both keep working for the League and raise a baby,” Roy said. “And that’s part of who we are as a couple.” He shook his head. “And I know you do it, Dick, but I’m too old to start changing diapers again. And I was a crappy father,” he added. “Look at everything Lian’s had to go through to finally get herself together.”

There was a wet thud as Dick set his glass down. “You were an inspiration to me as a father,” he said passionately. “You were younger than John, and yet you did everything you could to make sure Lian was safe and secure and loved. And she is together now.

“If she heard what you just said about yourself, she’d slap your head off,” Dick added, pretending not to watch as Roy blinked hard and took a long drink of soda.

They sat together for a while, the silence between them interrupted only by occasional sipping sounds and the tinkle of ice. Finally, Dick said, “The chicken nachos here are –”

They saw the tavern door sailing into the mirror behind the bar before they registered the deafening explosion that sent it there. As glass went flying and patrons started screaming, six armed men stepped into the hole they’d blasted into the wall. One of them held a bazooka.

Roy and Dick dropped behind the bar and exchanged a look of disbelief.

“I can’t go out for a drink,” Dick said in a frustrated whisper. He sighed. “You don’t have your fighting suit?”

“Under my clothes,” Roy said. He reached into the pocket of his jeans for his mask. “But I left my toys in the rental car.”

“I’ve got stuff in the trunk,” Dick said. “I’ll slip out the fire exit and bring us both back something to play with.” He was gone before Roy had the first button of his shirt undone.

As deep-throated threats and sobs mingled on the floor of the tavern, Arsenal crawled behind the bar, checked the pulse of the unconscious blond bartender and scouted around for potential weapons. He knew it was vain to feel validated at a time like this, but he couldn’t help it: The hand-to-hand, powers-free training he had always insisted upon was designed for just this sort of scenario.

He grabbed a round tray from the fallen server and popped up from behind the bar just long enough to hurl it, Frisbee-like, into the temple of the closest invader. The man went crashing onto a pool table. Arsenal ducked back behind the bar, grabbed a trio of whiskey bottles and leapt over the counter, throwing them, in mid-air, at the robber holding the bazooka and two of his comrades. Only one of them went down, but by the time the remaining two had recovered, Roy had landed on the billiards table. He grabbed a pool cue just as Nightwing swung in through the tavern’s plate glass window.

Arsenal took out a third bandit when his head jerked instinctively toward the sound of Nightwing’s noisy entrance; only the guy with the bazooka and two of his cohorts were standing now. The resistance Arsenal had offered had distracted them from their weapons. Now all three men pointed their guns at Roy’s chest.

Th-wap! With a snap of his wrist, Nightwing, who had still not touched ground, released three poly-carbon escrima sticks; two of them made crunching sounds as they drove into the skulls of the bazooka bearer and one of his Uzi-carrying companions. Arsenal ducked as the last outlaw standing opened fire. Nightwing, still airborne, finished him almost offhandedly with a thrusting heel kick to the jaw.

“Where’s the weapon you promised me?” Roy asked with mock petulance as they met in the middle of the tavern floor. Nightwing reached into the back of his belt and handed him a small titanium crossbow.

“The pool cue seemed to do the trick for you,” he said, looking around as disheveled diners started crawling out from under their heavy wooden tables. “Anybody hurt?” As if on cue, sirens began to howl in the distance.

“Bartender’s out, but his pulse was strong and his pupils are OK,” Roy said. “He probably got hit by the very edge of the door. Or he fainted,” he added, shrugging.

As they headed over to check on the unconscious server, Nightwing commented, “You know, this was still a walk in the park compared with an evening with Ryand’r.”

Arsenal stopped dead. “We’d better go back.”

A quartet of police officers, weapons drawn, stormed through the wide, asymmetrical hole that had replaced the tavern door. They gazed around the room at the unconscious felons and battle-shocked patrons and slowly lowered their guns.

“We can’t,” Nightwing said. “We’ll to have to go back to the station with these guys and give our statements. Don’t worry,” he added. “John hasn’t called me yet. That means no one’s been injured or they’re all unconscious.”

Roy knew he was kidding; John was almost as strong as Kory and she had nowhere near as much trouble with Ryand’r as Dick did. Still, as he led paramedics to the downed bartender, Roy hoped that Midori was neither harmed nor overly disheartened by her inability to handle a Tamaranian baby. He hadn’t wanted her to see stars, just the light.




It was close to three in the morning when Dick turned the Americana back into his driveway. The house was mostly dark; one light shone from the basement window, another from Mary’s second-story bedroom. Roy braced himself as Dick pushed open the door and guardedly flicked on the foyer lights. The house was eerily quiet. Dick hurried into the living room and hit the light switch there. His eyes swept across the room and his face assumed a mystified look. Roy stepped forward and saw that the room, which had been a disaster area when he and Dick had left for the tavern, seemed almost as neat as it had during Ryand’r’s pre-flight days.

“I hope this doesn’t mean Kory’s home,” murmured Dick. “She’ll kill me if she finds out we left Midori alone with the baby.”

A creak from behind sent them both whirling toward the basement. Tamand’r, his saucer-sized eyes bleary, peered at them from the top step.

“Did you guys leave yet?” he asked.

Dick said flatly, “You didn’t leave Midori up here by herself.”

“She didn’t ask for any help,” Tamand’r protested.

“Is mom home?” Dick demanded.

“No,” said Tamand’r, as if his father was senile. “Mom’s fighting aliens with the Outsiders.”

Dick shot Roy a look of pure dread, then ran for the stairs, taking them two at a time in his haste to find what was left of Midori. Roy vaulted after him, nearly knocking him over when Dick stopped in the doorway of Mary’s bedroom, then twisted around, stupefied, to gape at Roy. They turned together to stare at the small bed.

Mary and Valiand’r were curled blissfully around Midori, who dozed serenely on an array of fluffy pink pillows. Ryand’r slumbered contentedly against her chest.

“What do you prefer?” Dick asked after a long while. “Daddy or Papa?”




Next Chapter: The holiday before Christmas

 

[JC Roberts]

Chapter Eleven (1/2)


…becoming colder now… the ground frozen and desiccated … harder to dig the graves, their graves…. Some of them could not feel it… the bitter air, the vengeful winds… they pretended… wore their lies: cumbersome garments they did not need… he would let them for now… let them keep pretending…

When he was done, they would all feel the cold.




Richard Adrienne stared at his intercom, raised his eyes briefly to his closed office door, then returned his gaze to the phone.

“Dr. Kent,” he repeated softly.

“Yes, Doctor,” his secretary. “She wants to know if you’re free.”

Adrienne looked next at the small, replica antique clock on his desk. He had been ten minutes from escaping the asylum for a four-day Thanksgiving holiday few of his subordinates would enjoy. The prospect of an encounter with Martha Kent made him immediately feel less thankful: Beyond the inoffensive, even respectful countenance she was always careful to wear in his presence, he could see the unspoken taunt reflected in her onyx eyes: My boyfriend kicked your ass.

The director had done what he could to minimize these meetings – he had re-vamped the holiday roster so that she was no longer working, as he had originally mandated, every one of the winter holidays. She was now off for most of them – and, in response to a last-minute vacation request – the week between Christmas and New Year’s as well. Adrienne did not know what else she could want from him, especially at ten minutes to five on the day before Thanksgiving.

“I’ve got a few minutes,” he said resignedly into the intercom. A moment later, Martha opened the door and tapped deferentially on the side of the doorframe. Adrienne by then was on his feet, making a big production of loading up his briefcase; he barely paused in these efforts to offer her a curt nod that was his permission for her to approach his desk.

“Hi, Dr. Adrienne,” Martha said tentatively. “I won’t take up too much of your time.”

He made a show of glancing at her face without making contact with her eyes and said evenly, “What can I do for you, Dr. Kent?”

“Well, it’s about next year.”

Adrienne froze, his fist clutching the bottom of a thick manila folder. Please, no, he thought. If she asked to be considered for a staff position, he would start typing up his own résumé that evening.

“Next year?” He managed a neutral tone, but barely.

“Yes, sir. I was…. I’ve been thinking about Harvey.”

“Harvey,” Adrienne repeated. He sat his briefcase on his leather chair and gave her his full attention.

“I’d like to keep treating him,” Martha explained. “I was wondering if there was a way… some kind of arrangement we could make… so I could stay on board as his doctor.”

Carefully, Adrienne restated Martha’s request, “You want to continue treating Two-Face. As a consultant. On a – a part-time basis?”

Martha made a hopeful face. “Is that possible?”

Adrienne picked up his briefcase and set it onto the top of his desk. “I don’t know.” He continued stuffing the stiff leather bag with files. “I’ll have to look into it.”

“I’d really appreciate it,” Martha said. She seemed a little disappointed he hadn’t supplied an instant “yes,” something Adrienne was neither authorized – nor eager – to do.

“I take it this means you expect to find work in Gotham City,” he said, zipping up the overfilled briefcase with some difficulty.

“I hope to,” Martha said. “Thanks for taking the time to talk to me, Dr. Adrienne. I hope you have a great Thanksgiving.” She started backing out of the office.

“Wait a minute,” Adrienne said. Martha stopped and looked up at him. “Put your request in writing.”

She flashed him a grateful smile. “I’ll do that this weekend. Thanks.”

He reached into the bottom drawer of his desk as soon as the door closed behind her. His predecessor, Devon Persky, had left a large bottle of Tums there. Adrienne had once considered the antacids a symbol of Persky’s weakness, but the bottle was close to empty now; the director had to dig a thick finger into its circular mouth to root out a pair of tablets. The idea of having Martha Kent around even part-time made his stomach roil, but he wasn’t going to be the one to run afoul of her overprotective sugar daddy. Maybe he would misplace the request, Adrienne thought, as he reached for his overcoat. Or maybe she wouldn’t manage to find a job in Gotham City after all.



As the heavy door unsealed with a slight hiss, Martha saw Harvey give a slight jerk. He seemed to be jumpier lately, which troubled her; on top of that, she had thought she’d heard him muttering himself.

“Were you… talking to someone?” she asked, failing to make it sound like a casual question. So what if he was? Martha chided herself. He spent 90 percent of his life alone in a small cell.

“I was just cursing you out,” Harvey said. “You’re late.”

She nodded. “I’m sorry. Had to go talk to Adrienne. Make it up to you, though.”

Her eyes glinted; his narrowed. She was going to get a lecture, Martha thought mischievously, as she escorted Harvey to her office. He would scold her before he enjoyed the fruits of her little… infringement.

He walked almost immediately to her window. It was only during their sessions that he could see outside. He stared at a cluster of young trees; their branches whipped in the wind as it stripped away the few remaining leaves from their battered limbs.

Still watching him, Martha squatted by her chair and touched a button. The loud plastic click – and the whirr that followed – caused Harvey to whirl toward her. She grinned. He was wearing the precise look of disapproval and anticipation she had come to expect.

“You’re going to blow every circuit in the building,” he protested as she straightened up beside the small microwave oven.

“Probably not,” Martha said cheerfully. Most of Arkham’s ancient electrical system had been replaced after Sean Fray used his technopathic powers to break out the Joker a year and a half earlier. The asylum’s decrepit technology hadn’t been able to survive the strain.

Harvey stared down through the small window at the revolving turntable.

“I’ll be away tomorrow,” Martha explained, pulling a napkin and some plastic ware out of her filing cabinet. “So I thought we’d do Thanksgiving a little early.”

His eyes moved back to her face, a blend of doubt and gratitude and he moved toward the other side of her desk, where she’d set out the utensils and a makeshift placemat of manila file folders.

“I thought you didn’t eat meat. Or buy it,” said Harvey, sniffing the air suspiciously. There was a ding and then Martha was popping the door open and plopping a thick cardboard plate of steamy stuffed turkey, yams and mixed vegetables onto the desk.

Had it been anyone else, Martha would have tried to pass the dish off as turkey, but honesty in the extreme was still the anchor of her bond with Harvey. He had made a lot of gains in years she had treated him, but she was not willing to chance losing his trust over a tiny fib to get him to try a new food.

“It takes exactly like it,” she said. “But it’s vegetable based.”

“It tastes exactly like it,” Harvey repeated cynically, stabbing with his fork at a slab of what looked and smelled like the real thing. “How would you know? Have you ever had real turkey?”

“My mom says it does,” Martha said.

“Mothers lie,” Harvey announced, causing the psychiatrist in Martha to perk up. He chewed a forkful of pseudo-turkey cautiously before pronouncing, “It’s OK.”

Martha smiled and slid a cold iced tea across the desk. He plowed halfway through the meal, absorbed in the vivid tastes and textures that prison food did not provide, before commenting, “I think our relationship is based on food.”

“Go on,” Martha said. Harvey raised his eyebrows at her, the brow on the unblemished side of his face lifting slightly higher than its scarred twin.

“This is hardly a psychological breakthrough,” he said. “The first time we met, you brought me a pizza. You’ve been plying me with food ever since.”

A blast of wind pummeled the window. Harvey looked past Martha at the branches flailing just beyond the thick, mesh-enforced rectangle of glass.

“I remember this being the ugliest time of year,” he said. “The little corpses of late-summer flowers toppled over in gardens. Everything green turned dull brown.”

Troubled by his description of dead flowers as “little corpses,” Martha said, “Weather-wise, it’s not my favorite time of year.”

“The ground’s so hard and dry,” Harvey said, his eyes distant. “I had a pet once, a guinea pig, who died around this time. I was a little kid.” He blew a soft, derisive laugh between scarred lips. “I wanted to bury him, have a real funeral, but I couldn’t get a shovel into the ground. Couldn’t dig his grave.”

He glanced over at Martha. “This is also not a breakthrough,” he said. “I’m just remembering the weather.”

“What did you do?” Martha asked.

Harvey sat for a moment, remembering. “My mom suggested we build one of those Celtic graves – you know, where the body’s covered with a pile of rocks?”

“I think it’s called a cairn,” Martha said.

“Whatever it’s called,” Harvey said, “I remember standing there, shivering in the cold, while my mom delivered this eulogy for my guinea pig. She meant well, but it was too long. When she finished, I ran inside and she made me a mug of hot chocolate and I asked for a dog next time.”

“You get one?” Martha asked. He shook his head and looked down at his empty plate.

She felt a surge of pity for Harvey the boy and fought the impulse to tell the damaged man he had become about her hopes to stay on at Arkham as his doctor. She had no idea how likely it was that the board would approve her request and she didn’t want to set him up for disappointment. Maybe she would know by Christmas; it would be the only gift Martha could offer him, other than another illicit meal.

“My friend just got a dog,” Martha said. “Her boyfriend thinks it will stop her from wanting a baby.”

Harvey snorted. “If he thinks that, he probably shouldn’t reproduce.”

She asked him how he was sleeping, if he was still as jumpy as he’d reported being lately and how he felt his meds were working. Martha had wanted to taper off on a few of them; she thought they were behind his restlessness, but Harvey resisted any efforts to reduce the drug regime he believed was keeping him sane. It was twenty after six – long after their session had been scheduled to end – before she rose to take him back to his cell. As she reached for his plate, Harvey laid a scarred hand over hers.

“I don’t the right to have anything to be thankful for,” he said, his eyes fixed on the top of her desk. “But I do. And I am.”

Martha turned her hand so that her fingers clasped his. “You’re not the only one who’s –”

“Who’s going to bribe me with food when you’re gone?” Harvey interrupted. He hated these sentimental moments, even when he started them.

“They’re not bribes,” said Martha, a little stung.

“I know,” Harvey said. He tossed the plate into her wastebasket. “A bribe would have included pumpkin pie.”

As she left him in his cell and walked back to her office to get her things, Martha methodically sorted her own guilt and sentimentality from the substance of the session. Harvey was overly dependent on the brief time they spent together each day; she had known that for a long time. It was not a healthy situation, but she saw no way to encourage him to develop other outlets – ones that might bring more balance to his life – when he was locked in a high-security cell.

Martha had tried the previous spring to get Devon Persky to agree to move Harvey to a less restricted cellblock. It had been a dozen years since he had committed an act of violence, she had argued. And he hadn’t attempted a break-out since she’d talked him down from the watchtower at Gotham University on her second day at Arkham.

Persky had balked; he found the idea of allowing a mass murderer of Harvey’s infamy into the asylum’s general population unthinkable. If he escaped and killed again… the publicity…. Martha had planned to wait a few months and then ask Persky to reconsider, but before she’d had the chance, she had disappeared, presumed murdered by Parallax, and Harvey had tried to escape to attend her funeral.

There was no point in appealing to Adrienne, a man who still referred to Harvey as Two-Face, she thought, as she reached into her pocket for her vibrating cell phone. She would have to think of something else.

“Hey, Alfred,” she said. “I was just on my way out.” She smiled. “Cranberry sauce? Sure. Anything else I can get for you?”




The wind bucked stubbornly against the window of the darkened bedroom, as if driven to break through the sturdy glass. Lulled by the sound even as it stirred him, Bruce hunched under the thick blanket, groggily realized his bed was not as warm as it had been, and rolled toward the side of the bed he had ceded to Martha.

She was not there; he realized this even as he looped a lazy arm where she had lain and contacted the edge of the bed instead. Clarity seeped into his sleep-clouded consciousness and he remembered her wriggling out from his loose embrace and telling him she was going to help Alfred. The old man had insisted on putting together a Thanksgiving dinner that would feed an army, despite the fact that it would consist only of himself and Bruce. Alfred had ignored protests from both Bruce and Martha that this was unnecessary; the previous year he had been recovering from surgery and was for the first time in fifty-odd years unable to provide Bruce with a home-cooked holiday meal. Apparently this had haunted the elderly butler to the point of wild overcompensation.

Bruce’s eyes found the nightstand clock and he lurched up in the bed. It was nearly three in the afternoon. He dragged his hands over his face and fumbled in the dark for his pajama trousers. Martha would be leaving in half an hour to drop Lian off at Roy’s before joining her own family for Thanksgiving. He had hoped to spend more time with her. They would not see each other again until Friday night.

On his way to the kitchen, he noticed that the dining room table had been set for two. Martha had done it; Alfred folded the napkins differently and she couldn’t tell the difference between a salad fork and a dinner one. As soon as she left, Bruce knew, Alfred would rush to rectify these unbearable errors.

At least Martha had been allowed to set the table, Bruce thought, as he pushed through the kitchen door. Alfred still refused to let him help out, though whether from an ingrained sense of station, or distrust in Bruce’s ability to place a soup spoon, he was not sure.

“…believe people would miss Thanksgiving with their families to camp out for Black Friday?” Martha was asking the old man, as she sprinkled grated lemon peel on the whipped cream topping of a blueberry lemon pie.

“I take it they’re spending the holiday in a jail cell instead?” Alfred asked.

“Just the guy who threw his rival for the number one spot in line through a plate glass window,” Bruce said. Batman had seen to the man’s imprisonment while Superwoman rushed his bloodied victim, a slight woman in her thirties, to Gotham General.

Martha stepped around the kitchen island and threw her arms around his neck; she smelled of lemons and sweet basil.

“You should have woke me,” he said, as she floated down to the floor and leaned her head against the lattice of ropy scars crisscrossing his chest.

“You were tired,” Martha said. She led him to a kitchen chair and settled onto on his lap.

“I’ll miss you.” She looked up at Alfred, who, having failed to suppress a smile at this display of intimacy, turned his face toward the refrigerator. “Both of you.”

She added wistfully, “Maybe next year, we can all have dinner together.”

The Kent and Wayne households sharing Thanksgiving dinner. Bruce wondered if that would ever happen.

“You shall be with us in spirit,” Alfred said. He shuffled away from the refrigerator, an enormous golden pie, brimming with cherries, clutched between his withered hands.

“I hoped you might find this little offering not totally inappropriate for your mother’s table,” he said to Martha, who was regarding the pie with something like lust. “You may, of course, wish to say that you baked it yourself.”

“Yes, because she would so believe that,” said Martha, rising from Bruce’s lap to give Alfred a hug. “Of course I’ll tell her it’s from you.

“You’re one of the things in my life I’m most thankful for,” she added. “Just that you’re still with us after last year….” She cut herself off as the horror of being the subject of this emotional outburst surged across Alfred’s mortified face.

Bruce worked his lips against a smile and rose to rescue the embarrassed butler. He slung an arm around Martha’s neck and pressed a kiss to her temple.

“I’m going to get dressed,” he said. Come with me, he added silently, slanting an unspoken invitation into her eyes.

Martha looked tempted, but said to Alfred, “Do you need any more help down here?”

“None at all,” he assured her.

“I’m going to help Bruce pick out a shirt for tonight,” she told him, managing neither the straight face the lie required, nor her efforts to repress a blush.

“Very good,” Alfred answered gravely. He tottered toward the kitchen island for a roll of aluminum foil.




She was almost an hour late leaving. Martha made apologetic phone calls to Lian and her parents and promised that she was on her way. She told her mother that she was bringing homemade cherry pie. This did not seem to diminish Lois’ annoyance.

“But wait ‘til she tastes it,” she said to Bruce as they trudged into the manor’s vast backyard. It was nearly dark now. The cold bit at his fingers and ears as he handed Martha a paper shopping bag containing the pie and several other dishes Alfred had put together while they were upstairs.

“If they ask you about us, call me,” Bruce said. He didn't want her facing that conversation alone.

Martha nodded, then shook her head. “They won’t,” she said.

He watched the wind whip her hair about her unguarded, slightly melancholy face and stepped in to kiss her. Her cheek was warm against his hand, and her mouth lit his numb, chapped lips and then she was stepping back, seeking clearance, as she automatically scouted the empty estate.

“Martha,” Bruce said as she glanced upward in quick preparation for her launch into the sky. Her eyes fell back to his. “You know what I'm thankful for.”

She smiled and the traces of sadness scattered in the late November wind. He thought he might have been kissed at super-speed: There was a soft heat against his mouth and she was gone.




“I’m starving,” called out Lian as she burst through the door of her childhood home. Roy looked up from the open kitchen, unsmiling, as Martha trailed her friend inside.

“Sorry,” she said contritely to Roy.

He shrugged. “It’s all right. Wally’s crew is late. No one knows where Barry is.”

“Glad I’m not the only wayward superhero child,” Martha said. She looked down the hallway toward the back of the house. “Where’s the dog?”

“RJ,” Roy said in a neutral voice. There was a tinkle of metal tags as the dog padded into the living room.

Martha dropped to her knees to rub the dog’s ears. “He’s so cute!” she cooed.

“He’s so huge,” Lian said. “What happened to him?” In three weeks, the dog had tripled in size.

“He ate,” Roy said listlessly.

The women exchanged a worried look. Martha strode into the kitchen to give Roy a hug.

“You’re probably on her side,” he muttered into her shoulder.

“I’m not,” Martha said. “I’m on the side of everyone being happy. Where is ‘her’ anyway?” she added.

“In the shower,” Roy said. “She’ll be out in a few minutes. Am I being a jerk?” he asked.

Martha gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I hope not.” She added reluctantly, “I’m sorry – I can’t wait. I’m really late for my parents’. Please tell Midori I wish her a happy Thanksgiving.”

She headed towards Metropolis feeling anxious and a little depressed. Roy and Midori’s relationship had seemed perfect to her once; now it looked like it was falling apart. Martha had not seen Roy so miserable since the dissolution of his second marriage.

And she missed Bruce and Alfred. The holidays meant little to Bruce, other than the unique way they impacted on his nightly patrols, but to Martha they were an opportunity to bask in the nearness of her loved ones. Last year, she had brought Josh to her family’s Thanksgiving table and the Kents had welcomed him. She and Bruce had been together longer now and she loved him as she had never loved anyone, but there had been no chance of her parents extending him a similar invitation. Martha understood their reasons for disapproving of their relationship, but she was convinced that if they saw how good he was to her, how good they were together, that they might be willing to give it a chance. She found her father’s bizarre pretense that the relationship did not exist unnerving. She had never known him to refuse to talk about anything before.

Lois was a different story, Martha reflected, as she carefully adjusted Alfred’s care package so the dogged winds over Pittsburgh would do it no harm. Evidently, her mother had been enlisted to join in Clark’s silence, but the effort of it was driving her crazy. Formerly innocuous motherly questions, like “How are you?” or “What’s new?” were now filled with pregnant expectation. Lois had twice attempted to send Clay to Gotham City on a thinly veiled reconnaissance mission, but Martha’s brother had cheerfully announced that his policy in the event of such a visit would be “what happens in Gotham stays in Gotham” and she had given up. Clay had, in fact, been to see his sister, under the guise of taking a trip to Boston, and had stayed at Wayne Manor.

It was Clay who spotted Martha as she glided onto the Kents’ rooftop garden and slipped through the sliding glass door that led into the living room.

“The pie’s here!” he shouted. He snatched the bag from Martha and unloaded its contents onto the set table. “Oh, God, it looks good. Did Alfred make it?” Martha nodded uneasily as her parents emerged from the kitchen.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” she told them hurriedly, as Clay pulled out a plastic container, ripped off the lid and declared, “Banana pudding!”

“That’s all right,” Clark said, giving his daughter a one-armed hug. “I just got back myself.”

Before Martha could ask where Superman’s duties had taken her father on Thanksgiving evening, Clay whimpered, “Sweet potato casserole.”

Lois scrutinized Martha and said “You look like you just got out of bed.”

Martha ran a self-conscious hand through her hair. “Flying a couple thousand miles in a windstorm will do that to you,” she said as she tugged her powder-blue hoodie down around the waistband of her jeans and avoided her mother’s sharp eyes.

“Who cares what she looks like?” Clay said as he gazed lovingly at Alfred’s handiwork. “Look at this pie. Let’s eat so I can have some.”

 

[JC Roberts]

Chapter Eleven (2/2)


By the time the Kents sat down to dinner, Bruce and Alfred were halfway through theirs. Bruce had seen as soon as he had returned from the yard that the elderly butler was tired; the day’s preparations, even with Martha’s help, had taken a lot out of him. While he knew better than to ask Alfred to let him do the serving, Bruce did talk the old man into moving the place settings into the kitchen. Alfred readily agreed; it gave him the opportunity to seamlessly undo Martha’s transgressions with his cutlery.

“If I may say so,” Alfred said as he sipped contentedly at a small glass of after-dinner sherry. “It seems to me that we have more to be thankful for than we have in years.”

They were both alive, thought Bruce as he gazed across the table at this oldest companion. So was Martha. The crime rate in Gotham continued to fall: Alfred’s behind-the-scenes contributions to this effort were far from insignificant. Bruce doubted the old man was referring to any of these things.

“You must be pretty happy,” Bruce said. “Having achieved your goal of bringing Martha and me together.”

The elderly butler blinked rheumy eyes at him and asked, “Achieved my goal?”

“Well, yeah,” Bruce said. He reached for a glass of water and frowned quizzically at Alfred.

The old man allowed his gaze to sweep the area around their chairs. “I see no children running around this table,” he said evenly.

Bruce set down the glass with a bang, nearly choking on a mouthful of water. Alfred, who had apparently expected this disclosure to startle the younger man, looked surprised when Bruce then gave a short laugh.

“I told her,” he said. “I told her that was part of your master plan.”

“You've discussed this?” Alfred asked.

“With what's going on with Roy and Midori, how could we not?” Bruce asked.

“And you've decided?” the old man asked, with poorly disguised eagerness.

“Not to get a big hairy dog,” Bruce said.

Alfred glowered at him with narrowed, reproachful eyes.

“I want to talk to you about something else,” Bruce said abruptly. He drummed tense fingers against the side of his water glass.

“When you told Dick about Martha,” he asked. "Did you tell Tim?”

The butler hesitated. “Not immediately,” he said. “There was the complication of Miss Martha's friendship with Miss Harper. I was concerned that Master Tim would be reluctant to accept her.”

Bruce nodded. “So the first time Tim heard about Martha was....”

“When you were in the hospital.” Near death from what the media had described as a suicide attempt triggered by his grief over a presumably murdered Martha.

Sighing, Bruce said, “I guess that explains it.”

Alfred peered questioningly at him.

“He’s been checking up on her,” Bruce said.

He had assumed the old man would be as offended as he was, but Alfred merely asked, “And this surprises you?”

“Of course it does,” Bruce said. “This is Martha we’re talking about.”

“Did you not investigate Miss Kia when Master Tim announced their engagement?” Alfred asked.

Bruce sat back in his chair. “That was different. He had just come out of a nightmare relationship with Lian,” he said. “I wanted to make sure he was using the right head this time.”

Alfred raised a skeptical eyebrow and stated dryly, “And your taste in women has been exemplary up until now.”

He had a point. “It's gotten better,” Bruce offered.

“Much better,” Alfred agreed.




The Wests, having given up on their undependable older son, arrived at Roy’s shortly after Midori emerged from the shower to offer Lian a dull hello. As they ate, Roy, Linda and Parker argued amicably about football, with Wally occasionally interjecting a comment that elicited a charitable pat on the hand from his wife and a groan of embarrassment from Parker. Midori, sitting quietly next to Roy, kept sad yellow eyes to her plate, looking up only once, to thank Lian for complimenting her impressive achievements with RJ.

Iris didn’t know Midori well, but she could not recall her being so withdrawn. She leaned toward Lian and whispered, “What’s wrong?”

Lian moved so that she and Iris were shoulder to shoulder. “Later,” she mouthed.

Iris nodded. She had spent the last few Thanksgivings with her boyfriend Doug’s family. Doug had turned out to be a sleazy opportunist – Iris had caught him feeding information about her family to a tabloid – and they had broken up. She was now becoming pleasantly reacquainted with Lian, who had once been like an older cousin to her.

Barry showed up halfway through what had eased into a marginally comfortable evening. He leaned over his sister to grab the last drumstick and chomped away at it, still standing, while he explained that he was squeezing them all in between an earlier dinner with his current girlfriend and a later one with his “buds.”

Iris gave him a disgusted look. He smiled back at her and zipped into Parker’s seat the moment the teen-ager got up to get a dinner roll from the other side of the table.

“Hey!” Parker protested, as Barry took his coveted place next to Lian.

“So how are you, Lian?” Barry asked. He propped a chin on his fist and gazed at her suggestively.

“Celibate,” she replied cheerfully.

Barry hastily returned the chair to his outraged brother.

“I think it’s nice that you’re waiting for the right person,” the smitten youngest West assured Lian. Iris clamped her jaws together in an effort not to snicker.

Roy and Wally had just gotten up to clear the table for dessert, when Midori suddenly looked across the table at Linda and blurted, “Are you sorry you had any of your babies?”

Wally’s hand shot under the Mikasa serving tray as it dropped from Roy’s hands. The room was enveloped in stifling silence.

Linda’s eyes shifted from Midori’s pleading face to Roy’s crimson one, then moved to catalog each of her children. Her gaze rested longest on Barry, who cocked a jaunty eyebrow at her.

Finally, Linda turned back to the half-eaten dinner roll that she had unwittingly torn in half. “No,” she said, sparing herself an extended interrogation by shoving a large piece of biscuit into her mouth. Midori aimed a look at Roy that seemed to suggest that this settled everything.

Iris felt the bump of Lian’s shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.”

Nodding, she reached for Lian’s wrist. A moment later, their chairs were empty.




Once they’d settled around the table, Martha felt herself start to relax. As Clark passed her the same brand of imitation turkey she’d shared with Harvey, she realized that the room felt a little larger than usual and immediately realized why.

“Where’s my other little brother?” she asked.

“Gren has monitor duty,” Clark replied, adding, “I don’t think he likes it when you call him that.”

You don’t like it when I call him that, Martha thought. She reached for the sweet potato casserole and listened absently as her mother brought the talk back to the usual subject.

“Did Clay tell you he’s up for two Underwood awards?” Lois asked. Martha thought hard and concluded that this particular journalism prize came in the form of a statuette shaped like a typewriter. There were a dozen of them in her parents’ study.

Martha turned to her brother. “Yay!” she said pleasantly.

“Like you care,” Clay said, intentionally elbowing her as he reached for the stuffing. “Like you even take the rubber band off your newspapers.”

“I do,” Martha protested. “Care, I mean.”

The next half hour was spent analyzing the articles in much the way Martha had seen autopsies performed in medical school. She spent most of the time wondering how she was going to fix things for Harvey, and whether Batman was out on patrol yet.

At some point, the focus of the conversation must have changed. Martha was scraping at her plate when she realized everyone at the table was looking at her.

“Huh?” she asked.

Lois, who was clearly repeating herself, asked, “Where else have you applied for next year?”

Martha had hoped this subject would not come up. She lobbed a wad of banana pudding onto her plate and spoke to a soggy vanilla wafer. “I told you. Gotham University.”

For seconds, the only sound in the room was Clay’s fork, as it drove through a large piece of Alfred’s cherry pie and banged enthusiastically against his china plate.

“What if you don’t get accepted there?” asked Clark, struggling to keep the edge out of his voice.

Martha shrugged. “I may apply elsewhere,” she said, largely for her parents’ benefit. “I just haven’t gotten around to it.”

“You’d better get around to it soon,” Lois said. “You’re running out of time, aren’t you?”

She had already run out of time to apply to the Sorbonne. The deadlines for McGill and Met U were approaching quickly. As Martha fumbled for a graceful way to change the subject, she caught Clay helping himself to another oversized piece of pie.

“Hey,” she said, grabbing his wrist and redirecting the slice onto her own plate. “That’s not just for you.”

More to divert the conversation than to generate a real discussion, she added, “So what do you think my fighting name would be if it wasn’t Superwoman?”

Lois set down her fork. “You’re thinking of changing your name?”

“No,” Martha said quickly. “I was just –”

“To what?” asked Lois, unable to restrain herself. “Rob–”

Clark interjected, “I think that’s a great idea.”

Three astonished faces swung toward him.

“Dad,” said Martha, shaking her head. “I’m not –”

“I don’t see anything wrong with Superwoman,” Lois said resolutely. She had named the mysterious flying man who eventually became her husband when he first appeared in Metropolis. By association, this put her hand in the creation of her daughter’s moniker.

“I think you should consider it,” Clark said, latching onto the idea while ignoring its obvious source. He leaned forward and added, “Pave your own way, just like you did by becoming a doctor.”

Clay pumped his fist into the air. “Step out of that shadow, girl!” He froze in the face of his mother’s incensed stare and slowly lowered his hand.

“I’m not going to change my name,” Martha repeated. She looked accusingly at her father. “And it’s not going to get me killed.”

She had nailed him; Clark, who was not much better at hiding the truth than Martha, took the container of sweet potato casserole he had been steadfastly ignoring and piled the remainder onto his plate.

“Just keep an open mind,” he said, poking at the lumpy orange mound with his fork.

With a pointed look she managed to aim at both of her parents simultaneously, Martha said, “That’s good advice.”

It was ironic, she thought, as a volatile silence gave way to Clay’s announcement that he wanted to change his name, possibly to Scoop Writewell, that her father and her lover were unknowingly united in at least one belief: As her brother had so glibly put it, Superman’s shadow was not the safest place to stand.




A near-full moon and a brilliant field of stars illuminated the beach of the small Mexican fishing village; the rest of the small town was swathed in peaceful darkness. As she and Lian wove carefully through a sprinkling of rocks that separated the sand from its earthen neighbor, Iris thought she could hear the tinkle of music in the not too far off distance.

“This is so much better,” Lian moaned as a succession of waves crashed against the shrinking shoreline. She pulled off her shoes and socks and tilted her face toward the buttery moon.

“It was getting kind of tense over at your dad’s place,” Iris admitted. She bent to pick up a smooth shell, noticed a crack along its edge and pitched it into the tide.

“I hope they don’t break up,” Lian said. “Midori’s the best thing that’s ever happened to my father.”

Iris glanced at her as they moved along the shoreline. “You think they might?”

“I don’t know,” Lian said. “I wouldn’t mind having a little brother or sister, but a baby’s something both people have to want. And I can understand why my father doesn’t.”

They trudged companionably along the coastline for a while, catching up on the years Iris had spent at college and then in St. Louis with Doug. She mentioned that she was thinking of moving back to Central City.

“How about the League?” Lian asked. “Think you might join?”

“Maybe,” said Iris. “Think I’d fit in?”

“Of course you would,” Lian said, frowning at the sound of an abrupt crunching noise that seemed to be coming from the ocean. “You’re a legacy like –.”

Shouts exploded through the tranquil salt air and suddenly the beach was neither empty nor silent. Men burst out of a small cantina Iris had barely noticed and scrambled up the shoreline.

“What do you think the chances are that we’re going to end up having a peaceful evening?” Iris asked warily as frantic villagers pushed passed them.

“Just about zero,” Lian said. She grabbed a nearby man by the arm and asked. “What’s going on?”

The man fumbled desperately for the English words. “The ship grande – for fishing – it falling.”

“It’s sinking?” Lian asked. She looked urgently at Iris and saw that her companion had already costumed up.

“Hang on tight,” Blitz advised as Lian threw an arm around her shoulder and they sped toward the imperiled ship. “Walking on water is only a miracle when you don’t fall on your butt.”

They returned to Deer Valley two hours later, drenched and reeking of fish.

“Eew,” said Parker, looking up from where he sat on the floor, playing with RJ. “What do you smell like?”

Iris rolled her eyes. “Don’t ask,” she said. She glanced over at the couch, where her father sat tensely beside their subdued hosts.

Linda had leapt up to seize her coat the moment the younger women walked through the door. She studied the dripping duo for a moment, then strode over to pull a strand of seaweed from Lian’s hair.

Turning to her husband, Linda asked, “Do we want to know?”

“I don’t think we do,” replied Wally. “Try to keep downwind of us on the way home, OK, Iris?”




He had not meant to start his patrol so early, but once Alfred lay down for what he insisted would be “a brief nap,” Bruce had not known what else to do with himself. He’d managed to convince the elderly butler to leave the dishes for later only by agreeing not to touch them himself. He reneged on the promise the moment he heard Alfred’s bedroom door close, knowing it meant the old man would probably never leave him alone with a dirty dish again.

Martha was not the only one thankful that Alfred was still with them. As he scraped the remnants of cherry pie from his plate earlier that evening, Bruce had looked across the table at the elderly butler’s pallid, exhausted face and felt a familiar current of dread run through him. Alfred would soon be 94 years old. Martha had accompanied him to his last doctor’s appointment and reported that he was in perfect health – for his age. But even with his meticulous diet and regimen of early morning walks and tai chi, how long could the old man be expected to last? As Bruce latched the door on the loaded dishwasher, he wondered if he had done the wrong thing. By refusing to let Alfred do his job, was he depriving the old man of the very thing that kept him going?

A less familiar, but equally strong feeling overtook him as he shut the kitchen light and made his way down to the Batcave. Martha was the only one he could talk to about this; the urge to phone her was nearly irresistible. Bruce stopped halfway down the narrow stairs and checked his watch: It was six-thirty. A call from him now would disrupt her dinner, upset Clark and piss off Lois. He’d have to wait.

He scribbled a note asking Alfred to run a series of scans on the array of computers, knowing the task would make him feel useful without taxing him too much. Then Bruce shrugged into a fighting suit and pointed the Batmobile toward the Narrows, where holiday meals often ended in drunken brawls, domestic violence and gunshots.

It was not the first time he’d gone out alone since he and Martha had decided to work together. They often patrolled different sectors of the city, meeting every few hours to adjust their tactics according the events of the night. But tonight was different, emptier, and Bruce realized that what he had told her earlier, that the holidays did not mean much to him, was no longer true.

“You ain’t so tough,” spat a hulking meth-fueled mugger an hour later, as Batman slammed him into an alley wall and twisted plastic cuffs around his beefy wrists.

The Dark Knight couldn’t help but agree. Batman missed his girlfriend and worried over an elderly parent. He wasn’t so tough, he thought, as he jerked up on the cuffs hard enough to make his prisoner gasp.

But he could put on a good act.



Next Chapter: All she wants for Christmas

 

[SilentBat18]

one word: exquisite! enough said i am loving this and i hope you update soon!!

 

[JC Roberts]

Thanks so much! Your kind words mean a lot to me. I'm trying to update every other day (the story is finished, so I'm just trying to pace it out so the length isn't too imposing). I'm really glad you're enjoying the story!

one word: exquisite! enough said i am loving this and i hope you update soon!!