Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The cab took its turn pulling up in front of the wrought iron gates and depositing its cargo at the base of the long gravel driveway. Lois darted out immediately, barely even waiting for the cab to fully stop. Clark, behind her, sighed heavily and handed some folded bills to the sneering cabbie, before folding himself out the door behind her. The cabbie, like Lois, didn’t wait for him to fully clear it either before pulling away in a disgruntled spray of gravel. If Clark wasn’t as fast as he was, there’d have been a rear door flapping in the wind behind it. Somehow, he doubted the man would have cared.

He didn’t take it personally, either. Nearly a year living in Metropolis now, and he was pretty much used to it. And if Metropolite cabbies were fast and snarly, they had absolutely nothing on Gotham ones.

Pretty much nobody had anything on Gotham these days. Just in general.

Lois was already long gone, off at a snappy stride through the throng heading up the drive into Wayne Manor. Clark really should be following her. That was the whole point of this exercise, shadowing one of the Planet’s most up-and-coming reporters, learning the ropes now that he was a full-time reporter and not just an intern anymore. But in the couple of months he’d been working with her, Clark had realised that she was more than capable of minding herself for the first little while, and it was better to go at his own pace for the front half of an investigation, and then catch up to Lois once she started getting herself in trouble later on. That way he’d have something to build on when he had to write groundwork later, while Lois busted out the main idea.

It didn’t bother him, not really. Yeah, he was supposed to be making his own name, getting some words in edgewise, but he had time enough for that. These easterners were always in so much of a rush, trying to get things made and done now. Clark grew up on a farm. He knew how to take his time and see things done right instead.

Besides. Lois was … a lot of fun to watch working. Kind of terrifying, yes, but … a lot of fun.

So Clark let her storm on ahead, her slick, snappy aura disappearing up the drive and into the Manor, while he ambled along behind and took the time to get … more of a feel for the place. Both practically and dynamically. It wasn’t every day, after all, when Metropolite reporters, or reporters in general, got anywhere close to Gotham these days.

Not that they were in Gotham. Oh sure, the suburbs, but not the city itself. Quarantine had been down for six months now, but apparently that didn’t actually mean a whole hell of a lot. Outsiders still didn’t really get access to the city itself. Whatever was going on down there, the government and the city itself still had it locked down pretty hard. Not physically, not anymore, two of the bridges were back up and they’d started clearing some of the mines, but let’s just say that casual access to Gotham island wasn’t really a thing so far. And that didn’t look like it was going to be changing any time soon, either.

But up here in the hills. Away from the quarantine zone and all the million rumours about it. In these nice rolling suburbs, where the earthquake had hit, but they’d had three years of time and aid to mostly repair the damages. Up here. Wayne Manor was … an interesting sight.

Because it hadn’t been repaired. Not fully. Not in the two and a half years of the quarantine, and not even in the six months since, despite its owner finally returning to it. There was scaffolding erected at various points around the property. There was an ugly taped off area around an alarmingly-leaning gothic tower on one side of the Manor itself. The driveway and the bushes surrounding it had been seen to, neatened and trimmed, but the majority of the gardens were nothing even his Ma, as practical as she was, would have allowed to be seen in this sort of state. As the setting for a society event, for a society event of this magnitude, it was definitely interesting.

If the quarantine zone had a million rumours surrounding it, Bruce Wayne had another cool million all by his lonesome. For linked reasons. Gotham’s lost son, the child of tragedy who’d gone globe-trotting to find himself, and returned just in time to be trapped for two years in the quarantine zone from hell. To say the press were salivating over him was putting it mildly. Even the Planet, and even after only a year Clark liked to pride himself on the quality of the paper, how truthful and tasteful it was, not like some of the papers out there, would give quite a lot for an exclusive with Wayne.

Which was, naturally, why they were here. Him and Lois, though mostly Lois. When the news started to circulate that Bruce Wayne, barely six months out of hell, was hosting a charity auction at his home, to aid in the reconstruction efforts in the quarantine zone, every goddamn press outfit on the east coast had started clamouring for an invite. When the Planet managed to bag two spots (because, Clark couldn’t help but think, it was as straight-talking and classy as it was), the competition for who was going had been fierce. Lois and Michael from foreign affairs had almost wound up in fisticuffs on the press room floor, auras fully up and ready to go. Not that it took much for Lois to be fully up and ready to go, but still.

It wasn’t a surprise that Lois won. Despite what some people might say, Gotham was not actually a foreign country, and while Michael had a strong argument that he was the Planet’s war correspondent and Gotham was functionally still a warzone, or at the very least an active disaster area, Wayne Manor was not an on-the-ground setting, as such, and Lois had more society clout and experience to pull it off. Sending a known war correspondent to a charity auction might have sent … not entirely the best message. The Daily Planet was classier than that. And so Lois, rightfully, won.

The fact that Clark had then been promptly slated to go with her, despite only being a full reporter for less than four months, had been a harder pill to swallow. He’d been briefly worried that Michael was going to straight up stab him with a stapler in the bullpen and out him as an alien there on the spot. But what Perry said went, and, well, here he was.

In front of Wayne Manor. Which … was still a disaster zone. Even after three years. And interestingly was not trying to hide it in the slightest.

Wayne could have set his auction somewhere else. He had any number of rich neighbours Clark was sure would have been delighted, in that rich, shitty, Luthoresque sort of way, to lend a ballroom to their poor unfortunate lost son. To keep up appearances, if absolutely nothing else. Clark had grown up realising just how much appearances mattered to people like that. But Wayne hadn’t done that. He’d set his auction here, mangled gardens and half-toppled tower be damned. And that was … definitely a statement on his part. A statement on what, Clark wouldn’t be fully sure until he met the man, but definitely a statement.

See? This was why you took your time. This was why you got your context and your first impressions and your groundwork first. You rush straight for the interview, you might miss a couple of things.

Which was not to say that Lois missed things. She was a damned good reporter. She was a fantastic reporter. She went straight for the jugular and safety be damned, and it was both incredible and absolutely terrifying to watch. But Clark did think, just a little bit, that she could be a bit … east coast alpha about things sometimes. Just a smidge.

He caught up with her in the ballroom. It was a bit harder to navigate in here than out on the driveway. Not because Wayne Manor, the interior of it, the carefully roped off public areas of it, was in any way cluttered or structurally unsound. Just because parts of the Manor were still under repair didn’t mean Wayne was actually putting any of his guests at risk. But it was a lot more crowded in here. And a lot more ... busy.

The hardest thing Clark had found about moving to Metropolis was how … loud everybody was. Not just in terms of sound and voices. He meant in terms of auras too. Back home in Smallville everybody kept themselves neat. Not repressed, not the way Lois meant it, but just tucked in a bit. To be polite, to not go around hanging their auras all up in their neighbours’ faces, waving their most personal and intimate natures for the world to see. Clark, given his unique circumstances, had always found that both helpful and friendly growing up. Kryptonians, fortunately, did have auras, but they read a little … oddly, compared to most. It had been nice to have an excuse to keep his mostly tucked in, so he wasn’t weird, he was just polite. But easterners … easterners just hung out all over the place. Even Lois. Their auras were just … right there. All the time.

Now, don’t get him wrong. Clark didn’t mean they were actually flaring or displaying the entire time, although they did that a lot more than he was used to too. But cityfolk just seemed to be a lot more … open with their auras. Which was just weird. They were all crammed in on top of each other from a standing start, you’d think that would make them more polite, more inclined to keep themselves to themselves. But no. Everybody … made their space with their auras, maybe. Staked their claim on every inch of pavement they could get. Made themselves there, so people would know to go around them.

It'd been a hard thing to get used to. Clark hadn’t thought he was all that ‘provincial’, all that country boy repressed like Lois liked to call it, but apparently he was, just a little bit. He wasn’t offended, he didn’t mind how they did things, but he was just …

He did find it just a little bit rude. Sorry.

And it turned out that loosened-aura thing was not just a street level phenomenon. Even up here, among ‘polite society’, they were still … let’s call it ‘ostentatious’. They weren’t displaying. They were very pointedly not displaying. But everyone from the society matrons to the rich young heirs drifting around were definitely letting it be known what they were, be it alpha or omega, in a very restrained but also quite pointed sort of way. Auras wafted around like subtle but strong perfumes. Tastefully applied, but definitely very there.

Lois was a slightly discordant note, in the middle of it. Much more brassy, more defiant, more direct. A punchy Metropolite aura, slick and alpha and ready to rumble. Lois might have been born out in the sticks, just like him (well, close enough, if what he actually remembered was doing the counting), but she’d adapted to city life with a vengeance. As Metropolite as anyone, and more than most, these days, and her aura said it loud and proud.

A surge of fondness swamped Clark, in spite of himself. Despite his upbringing, despite what Ma might think, he could admit to himself that he was growing fond of a bit of directness. At least when it came from … certain people.

His own aura blended back into the surroundings much better. He hoped, anyway. He’d damn well practised enough, with the help of his parents and his … his father’s ship. Birth father. He’d come into his aura late, and it had been … not good. Kryptonian auras were different. Not in size, or anything, but they just …

They read wrong. Not alpha or omega, nothing Earth normal, but weird bits of both, and weird notes that were sort of neither. Clark had spent a lot of time missing school when he was sixteen, when his aura finally came in. He could hide a lot, keep his powers mostly under wraps, but people would have noticed that. Auras were important. People would definitely have noticed his, no matter how polite and tight he kept it.

This had been an anticipated problem, though. The ship had been prepared for it. Clark’s aura did have things that read as Earth alpha and Earth omega. As both, which had been … an interesting thing to learn about himself. He sometimes wondered how he would have seemed to other Kryptonians, what his aura would have meant on his home planet. But here, the omega was the dominant note. A large part of his aura could, at a push, pass as Earth omega. So the ship had trained him. To sort of … selectively flare it? Bring certain bits to the fore. So that it would read as Earth omega, if a slightly off-kilter one. Enough to mostly pass muster.

And for Superman … he could flare it the other way. Invert the selection. Just to keep a bit of separation between himself and his new alter ego. Superman took the alpha-ish bits of his aura, and most of the … more alien bits as well. Those were … smaller, though. The omega parts were the bulk of his aura. So Superman’s aura tended to be a bit … thin. And intense.

And one of the worst things in the world was that Lois … apparently liked that. Narrow, intense, alpha-ish auras. Much more, apparently, than she liked farm-grown omega ones.

Clark wasn’t going to lie. That had stung, more than a little bit. Not that he was sweet on Lois, or anything, not that he’d wanted her to look at him, him him, more than the bits of himself he put flying up there to let him help people with all he could do, but …

But he kind of had. Wanted her to look at him. He had. She was bold and brassy and slick and confident and funny, and she was an amazing reporter, and he’d learned more in the past four months than he’d learned in literal years beforehand, and … and he’d wanted.

But. Like his Ma said, despite the slight hypocrisy of it, honesty was important, especially when it came to that sort of thing. And someday he’d find someone who liked the important parts of him.

Even if he had really wanted it to be her. Had, he said. Like he didn’t still.

But, anyway. Not the point. Keep your mind on the story, Kent.

Wasn’t like the story, in this case, wasn’t worth it.

He left Lois to move through the middle of the throng, a shark through a glitzy school of fish, and made his own way to the edges again. Both for comfort, a little bit more space and air, and to keep doing his thing. Observing from the edges. The alien among us. He shouldn’t find that amusing, and sometimes really didn’t, but every so often the humour of it did catch him. Even raw necessity could have humour to it sometimes. Time to find a nice corner, maybe a houseplant to hide behind, and take advantage of some of his other attributes.

Clark knew it annoyed people in the bullpen sometimes. Annoyed Lois a lot. That he could just … hang around, not even bother talking to people, and somehow find information anyhow. The laziest reporter on the planet, and somehow he still managed to turn results. By cheating, sure, but honestly? What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them, and Clark had to take advantage of his nature sometimes, or what was even the point? So. Let’s just prop up a houseplant for a minute, and open up an ear.

The ballroom was beautifully appointed, at least as far as Clark’s midwestern sensibilities could ascertain. Maybe for easterners it was horrible gauche, but judging by the tittering, speculative conversations around the room, he didn’t think so. Wayne had made some effort, at least in here.

Which, again, went interestingly with the defiant lack of care outside. Wayne hadn’t been focused on the Manor, hadn’t been all that concerned with pulling his ancestral home back together. Now, granted, he’d only been back for six months, but whatever he’d been doing, his house in and of itself clearly hadn’t been a priority for him. Until now. Until this moment, this event. He’d made an effort here. In this room, for this auction.

This auction to raise money for the city.

It was a lot to read into a building, Clark knew. Theorising ahead of the facts, exactly the sort of thing Perry strongly discouraged. You’re a reporter, not an inventor, Kent! Stick to what’s happening, not what you think it means! But there were things to be taken from the context of things. There were … things that could maybe be inferred.

Wayne had been on the island when the quarantine fell. A young, rich alpha, one who’d surely had the money to get himself airlifted out, as more than a few of his peers had in the four months before the quarantine was declared, had still been on the island when they closed it off. And despite being a young, rich alpha, with what one would imagine was no preparation for being trapped in a war zone for two years, he’d made it all the way to the quarantine’s end. And when he’d come back, gotten out, gotten free, he’d made … very little effort, at least very little visible effort, to re-integrate with his peers. He hadn’t reconstructed his house. Hadn’t made friendly enough with his neighbours to borrow a ballroom. But he had, six months on, fixed enough of it to make a decent effort at an auction, to raise money for the hell he’d just escaped from instead.

While selling, according to the auction inventory, some not inconsiderable parts of his ancestral estate to manage it. Oh, nothing that would break him. Wayne was old money, Gotham old money, and Wayne Enterprises hadn’t been killed by the earthquake or the loss of their central headquarters either. Financially speaking it would take a lot more than selling some old vases and paintings to break Wayne. But it was … the principle of the thing. Clark was Smallville raised. He knew what it meant to sell personal things, family things, instead of properties or yachts or everything else Wayne could have chosen to trade in.

And other people knew it too. The speculation was rampant in here. And more, Clark was interested to note, among the Gothamites than the press. Or, well. The rich Gothamites, he should say. The suburban elite. Wayne’s peers. They seemed to have even less idea what Wayne was doing lately than even Metropolis did. Than even Smallville did. But whatever it was, it was, without a doubt, scandalous. Wayne was selling pieces of his home. His history. To make money for … what? That was the question. What had happened down there, on the island below the hills, to be worth selling Wayne’s own heritage?

And there was … a certain tone, to some of the speculations. One that, Clark had to admit, he’d heard among the press, as well. Not the Planet. The other sort of press.

Young, rich, white alpha, stranded on an island hell where, to hear the more lurid tabloids talk about it, only the worst sorts of criminals had survived and taken over and made into … God alone knew. Some sort of cannibalistic, sex-crazed hellscape where auras ran rampant and people had devolved to only the most primitive parts of themselves. There’d been … Clark knew there had been some sketchy reports, not from the island itself, but from interviews with aid workers and some federal agents, that suggested something about the way Gotham had adapted, dynamically speaking, to the quarantine. Rumours, almost, more than reports, but there’d been something there, leaks even through the three years of governmentally enforced silence. And whatever it was, whatever sort of society had developed that was so strange and wrong that the government was still trying to cover it up, Bruce Wayne had survived it. And, six months on, had not only not distanced himself from it, but appeared to be willing to sell large parts of his identity outside of it to try and help it further.

Let’s just say, this room wasn’t the first time Clark was hearing speculation on blackmail or brainwashing or some weird twisted sexual Stockholm syndrome. It didn’t help that Wayne had rarely been seen in public since. That wasn’t surprising, even if there was nothing sinister behind it, Wayne was only six months back off the island after two years of pain and trauma and being trapped somewhere where he couldn’t maintain a public presence even if he wanted to. Trauma and just plain having fallen out of the habit could both explain it. But it looked sinister, for sure. And did absolutely nothing to dent speculation either.

Clark remembered his mother talking about it, back at the start of the quarantine. He’d still been in college then, just finishing up, and he’d been talking to her on the phone. Somebody’d run a special on Wayne. Gotham’s lost son. The line of tragedy from the murder of his parents when he was eight to the realisation, a few months into the quarantine, that Wayne had been on the island when it dropped. That he was still on the island. Provided, of course, that he’d survived. Ma had been horrified for him. Clark could still remember her soft ‘that poor boy’ down the phone.

He'd … thought about going there. To Gotham. He’d been starting to test out Superman by then. Not the way he had back at home, in Smallville, the secret way he’d been doing things, but as an identity. A public thing. He’d thought about flying down there. About helping. Maybe, just for Ma’s sake, finding Wayne. At least seeing if he was alive.

But there’d been so much surveillance around Gotham. Government surveillance. All those rumours about the reasons for the quarantine, the bomb scare or the bioweapon or whatever it was. And Clark … Superman was too new. He didn’t know how the government would react to him yet. And, sure, he could take a missile to the face, or he could probably take a missile to the face, he hadn’t exactly tested that yet, but Gotham …

He'd kind of thought they had enough problems? Between the earthquake and the quarantine and everything else?

Or maybe it had just been selfishness. Cowardice. Personal fear. He hadn’t … He hadn’t wanted to be found out. Gotham was so tightly surveilled, access to it so tightly controlled. He’d been … afraid that too many of the wrong people would see him, if he tried to intervene. Superman had been very new. He was still very new. Clark was still testing the waters in Metropolis. It had felt like too big a risk. Letting all of himself hang out at once. He’d spent his life trying not to be found out. And Gotham … Gotham would have been such a big risk.

And now here was Wayne, alive despite it all, and willing to sell bits of himself to help out the city that had done nothing but hurt him.

It was kind of cruel, and definitely selfish, but Clark was almost hoping he’d turn out to be a dick when he showed up. That the story hinted at by Wayne Manor and this ballroom and six months of silence would turn out to be exactly as much speculation ahead of the fact as Perry had warned about, and Wayne himself would be a nice, comfortable rich asshole who’d survived by prudent cowardice and not the sort of selflessness and courage the timing and placement of this auction suggested. His Ma would say it was twice the cowardice to wish that, that a person being an asshole didn’t change anybody’s responsibility to help them or anybody’s cowardice for not helping them, but it would …

It would make it ever-so-slightly easier to stomach. If Wayne was as much an asshole as … well, most of the occupants of this ballroom.

Clark didn’t really think so, though. Speculation ahead of the facts, sure. There were any number of ways a man could survive hell. Including, it had to be said, by becoming one of the demons. So Wayne could be an asshole, could be significantly worse than an asshole. But Wayne Manor wasn’t giving Clark those vibes. And honestly? Ma had raised him to have more faith than that. He wasn’t going to write Wayne off because of Clark’s own cowardice. If Ma and Pa had proved anything to him over the years, it was that all the power and strength in the world didn’t make someone a good person, and ordinary people could be as much or more heroic than any alien with the power to crush missiles in his fist. Wishing for an asshole was just to salve Clark’s own conscience, and he’d been raised to know that meanness like that would be rewarded as it deserved. And all the better for that.

So Clark … wasn’t surprised. When Wayne finally made his appearance, when he finally arrived, fashionably late, to his own event. He wasn’t surprised in the slightest when Wayne was nothing like the speculation, or Clark’s own meanness, would have had anyone expect.

No. His surprise and shock, along with everyone else’s, was saved up for the Gotham criminal, the island monster, that followed on Wayne’s heels.

Chapter Text

When Wayne stepped into the room, a surprisingly unobtrusive presence, Clark’s first thought was: oh no. Ma was right.

It took a second to figure out why he’d thought it. Because Wayne … didn’t look too much like a ‘poor boy’. And Clark didn’t mean that in the financial sense, no more than his mother would have meant it in the financial sense. Sure, Wayne’s suit probably cost twenty times what Clark’s did, but money had nothing to do with how rich or poor a man was, not where it counted.

He didn’t look much like a poor boy in other ways either. With all the talk about the quarantine and hell and trauma, Clark had been expecting … Well. Someone more gaunt? Unhealthy looking. Yes, it had been six months, but Wayne hadn’t been seen. A lot of people had been expecting more … visible marks of his experiences. Those rumours had gotten quite lurid too. Scars, wounds, mating bites. Not that those were a thing, not outside of trashy romance novels, or at least Clark didn’t think those were a thing (they weren’t, at least not biologically, the ship had confirmed that, but a couple of centuries’ worth of literature had to come from somewhere), but nobody was confining rumours about Gotham or Wayne to just things that were actually a thing. A traumatic mating to some monstrous criminal who’d kept him as a pet for two years was on the milder end. Or, no, but the mating mark was the milder part of it, anyway.

But there was none of that. Wayne looked … not good, exactly, and certainly not fat, but trim and healthy enough. No visible scars, at least none without Clark cheating, no visible sickness. No pallor or limp or lurid mark peeking over his collar.

He didn’t look young, either, and that actually was interesting. Because Wayne would be just … twenty-three, now? Nearly of an age with Clark. And Clark wasn’t calling himself young either, but …

There was an aura, now, around Wayne. Not a literal one, not something that could actually be sensed, but he didn’t read as a man of twenty-three. There was …

Something. A weight to him. Despite the relative smallness and neatness of his actual aura.

And that. That was why Clark had thought what he had. Why he’d heard his Ma’s voice again, that poor boy. And, too, why it had taken a second to understand why.

Because Wayne’s aura was nice and neat and tucked in. Alpha, sure, just tangibly, but nowhere near as extended as even the rest of the Gothamites in the room. Wayne had walked into the room, the most important and anticipated figure there, more than enough reason to spread out and command the entire space, and he … hadn’t. He’d been polite. He was nice and neat and tucked in. Fit to go to a church picnic back in Smallville.

That shouldn’t have read to Clark as weird. He’d been raised in Smallville. Wayne should have registered to him as just unusually polite. But Clark had been in Metropolis for a year now. He knew how easterners carried their auras. And if Metropolites had theirs out and about and right there, then Gothamites had them even more so. Even the cabbie on the way up had been very much there. On purpose, Clark had thought. Defiantly, deliberately. A snub to the out-of-towners. Wayne should have been more of the same. Like Lois, bright and alpha and defiantly Metropolite. Wayne should have been loudly Gothamite. This whole event, the way he'd chosen to carry it out, said he should have been just as defiantly out and loud.

And he wasn’t. He painfully wasn’t. Because … Because that wasn’t a native neatness. That wasn’t a high society subtle ostentation. The aura should have been there, and it wasn’t. It was shrunken, small, wrapped close and tight around the man. Not the way Clark or Ma would wrap it tight, but … People’s auras could shrink sometimes. Collapse in on themselves. And none of the reasons for it were good ones. Even if he was only holding it close, he was still Gothamite. He shouldn’t want to. But he was, and the reasons for that weren’t any better either.

So Clark thought. Entirely instinctively, his Ma’s voice echoing in his head. He thought, that poor boy.

He felt faintly foolish for it, a second later. Wayne’s eyes skimmed the room, that subtle age, that subtle weight to the look. He carried himself upright and easy. Not relaxed, but not visibly nervous either. He moved into the room, started greeting people, with a kind of quiet dignity. He looked fit enough. He looked calm, and healthy, and capable. Nothing Clark should be feeling instinctive pity over. But the murmurs were already spreading, rippling out around Wayne, and Clark knew he wasn’t alone in it. Not that that made him feel any better either.

There was … a lot of condescension in this room. A lot. To the point that, if this had been Smallville, Pa would be trying to gently steer Ma out the doors around now, to keep someone from being told exactly what she thought of them. Or to keep someone from getting their nose punched in, depending on the severity of the offence.

Some people in here would have definitely been getting their noses punched in. Clark’s ears burned, and he had to look away from Wayne to duck his face into the houseplant for a moment. God, the people here were worse than the tabloids. Were those the kinds of things people thought it was okay to say? Wayne wasn’t deaf. He might not have Clark’s ears, because pretty much no one had Clark’s ears, but they weren’t exactly being quiet either. Just because a man was tucking his aura in didn’t mean you had to talk about it like that!

Maybe in Gotham that was … Maybe that fine here. They were … louder and more direct than people from Smallville or even Metropolis would be. But somehow, Clark doubted it. Lois would have started punching people long since, and that cabbie from earlier too.

Wayne wasn’t. Punching people. Even though Clark was pretty damn sure he’d heard at least some of that. His smile was maybe a bit tight, when Clark looked back at him, his greetings maybe a little more stilted. But he stayed loose, stayed easy. Stayed polite. And Clark might be the strongest person in this room, physically speaking, but there was a herculean feat if he’d ever seen one.

Fortunately, for Wayne and possibly for several people he was fighting the urge to punch to the floor, a dignified chime echoed out through the room. The call to start finding seats. The auction itself was due to start soon.

Actually, that might have been Wayne’s intent. If he had … some idea of the people here. The things they apparently thought were okay to speculate about basically to a man’s face. Maybe he’d showed up fashionably late for a reason.

In which case, after that display, Clark most definitely couldn’t blame him.

He ducked back out from behind his houseplant and started making his way over to Lois. Press had assigned seating for this one. He wasn’t sure if anyone else had. Did rich people prefer having a reserved seat, or having the right to sit anywhere they pleased? But people drifted happily enough towards various tables, so it looked like it was sorted well enough. Wayne headed towards the small stage area instead. There were seats up there for himself, the auctioneer, and a woman named Leslie Thompkins who would be speaking on behalf of the city. She was a doctor, apparently, and someone else who’d been stuck on the island throughout the quarantine. Clark saw Wayne’s shoulders soften slightly as he came abreast of her, and a smaller, more genuine smile cross his face. So. At least the man did have one real ally in here.

If they couldn’t catch Wayne afterwards for an interview, it might definitely be worth trying to approach her. Not even just for Wayne. Anyone who knew what had been happening down on the island for the past three years was well worth an interview all by their lonesome. She could probably expect to be mobbed later.

Lois appeared at his elbow, snagging his arm and dragging him towards their table. They were, unfortunately, sharing with two reporters from the Gotham Gazette, which apparently wasn’t quite defunct despite not publishing anything outside the island for three years, and one from the Bristol Circular. Given everything Clark had heard earlier, Clark was not interested in anyone who worked for that particular rag. Gotham suburban society was something he was less and less interested in learning about by the second.

Judging by the extremely polite sneering, the feeling was mutual. Lois’ aura spiked slightly. Clark trapped her arm against his side. No punching. At least not until after the auction.

Even if, in this particular case, he’d be happy to hold her coat.

That polite chime rang out again. Clark couldn’t actually tell where it was coming from, not unless he wanted to put effort into tracing the electronics of the speakers. The sound in here was really, really good. Wayne had not stinted in the slightest.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Wayne started warmly. “Old friends. I’d like to thank you for com—”

Clark caught it just before it happened, a clacking noise, the sound of heavy footsteps along the corridor outside. He’d already straightened, his head turning towards the door, a split second before it was swung open and cut Wayne off. Not loudly. The door itself was too well-oiled for that, and while it had been fairly forcefully opened, nobody had been trying to punch it off its hinges or anything. Just … clear the way. Expeditiously. So that the man standing behind it could stride on in.

The door didn’t need to be loud. The man’s aura took care of that just fine.

Gotham, Clark thought faintly. Island Gotham. Extremely island Gotham. The man was an omega, but he wasn’t standing like one, and his aura wasn’t lying like one. It was spiky. Thick, and vulgar, and spiky. He let it flare out across half the room. A thick, cloying, aggressive sweetness, burnt sugar and gunpowder. Clark saw more than one society figure at the back tables literally turn up their nose and face away. Others were frozen. One or two were half-standing. The man in the doorway smiled darkly. A narrow, vicious smirk.

He was … Once you focused down out of his aura, he wasn’t that big, Clark realised. The four men around him were, ‘brick outhouses’ was probably an appropriate metaphor, or possibly ‘refrigerators’, but the omega at the centre of the arrangement was small enough. A short, sallow-looking man, leaning heavily on a cane, his evening wear old fashioned and pristine and vaguely … Clark wanted to say ‘mocking’? But he didn’t quite know why. It was meant for a slightly larger man, but that might not mean it wasn’t actually his. His skin had that faint sag that meant he would ideally be carrying more weight than he was currently. He looked …

Well. Like an island mobster at a society event. Bodyguards and all.

Clark finished standing. He hadn’t entirely noticed he was one of the ones coming to his feet, but apparently so. Lois was already beside him, one hand in her purse, reaching for god alone knew what. Mace? Probably. Several people around the room had come to standing. There wasn’t any security, not in here. Clark wondered why he hadn’t noticed that before. Wayne hadn’t …

And on the heels of the thought. The realisation. Wayne cleared his throat into the microphone. There was … a hint of an alpha flare from the stage. Just a faint ripple. And Wayne spoke, quietly and calmly.

“Mr Cobblepot,” he said, standing out and to one side of the podium, still close enough that he’d be picked up. “I hadn’t expected you this evening.”

There was a weird note to that, Clark thought. Turning his head to look at the man. His body language was odd. Not angry. Not afraid, either. But something. Something tight. Frustrated? His heart rate had spiked, once, rapidly, when the door swung open. Now it had settled again into something smothered and controlled. After that slight flare, he’d wrapped his aura so tight around his body that it was barely noticeable.

Like he … didn’t want this man to be able to touch it, maybe. Like the flare had been instinctive, and then fear or experience or something had had him yanking it back in. Away from the other, aggressive aura in the room.

Several other auras flared. A lot of the younger alphas in the room. Lois was fully up, her lips pulled back from her teeth in a slick, dangerous smile. Clark’s aura and … several other things tried to flutter to attention when he noticed that, and he did some quick yanking himself. Not the time. Not now. Hostility swirled around the room. And Wayne, apparently recognising it, started moving. Started coming down off the stage towards the door. Clark was sure he wasn’t the only one instantly trying to block his way. To keep Wayne back behind him, away from the threat at the door.

But Wayne wasn’t the only one moving. Or the only one recognising the hostility either. The mobster, Cobblepot, smirked faintly and made a flicking gesture with one hand, directing his goons to spread out just slightly. To become a threatening wall of mass in a faint U-shape, as if to surround and scoop up the significantly larger crowd. It should have been ridiculous. It wasn’t. Clark was trying to figure out how much he could get away with without sparking too many questions. If he looked big and brawny enough to believably cold-cock one of these brutes before anything got too dangerous.

And then Wayne was there. He’d made it out through the crowd without Clark even noticing. One second he’d been back by the stage, and the next he was abruptly in the widening space between the tables and the door. And he wasn’t running, either. He didn’t look hasty or panicked or even unsure. He just strode calmly forward and held out …

Held out one hand. Standing just enough back to be perfectly polite. Offering his hand to the mobster.

Who, after a very long second, took it. Shook Wayne’s hand. Audibly squeezing. Clark could hear it from here. Of course, he was cheating. But from the roiling stir in her aura, he knew Lois had heard too.

Wayne didn’t so much as flinch. He smiled, instead. Careful and plastic. “Forgive the welcome,” he said, light and easy. “As I said, I hadn’t been expecting you. And I don’t think anyone else was either.”

Cobblepot sneered at him. “No?” he drawled. “Whyever not? This is a charity auction. After three years, Wayne, don’t you know me for a charitable man?”

There was emphasis in it. Implication. The slightest hint of a leer. Behind him, Clark heard the reporter from the Bristol Circular practically squeak with delight. He could almost hear the plop of stories falling into people’s laps. The susurrus of satisfied speculation. Wayne’s back stiffened. His hand spasmed slightly around Cobblepot’s.

But his answer was … direct. Almost quiet. And lacking any tinge of anger at all.

“I wouldn’t have said ‘charitable’,” he said softly. “Responsible, perhaps. At least I thought so.”

The mobster’s aura flickered. Strangely. Something Clark would almost have said was … not shame, exactly, but maybe some faint hint of remorse? Remorse. On … whatever this man was. An island monster? He let Wayne’s hand go, and smirked darkly regardless.

“Responsible, is it?” he mused. “Well then. Hardly the point, Wayne. I’ve heard you’re selling some things. Pieces of history, artefacts of old Gotham. And I thought to myself, it would be such a shame if the city, your city, didn’t get a few … mementos, shall we say?” He smiled and spread his hands. “I’ve been rebuilding the old Iceberg Lounge. I wouldn’t mind a few things to remember your family by. It is, after all, in such a very good cause.”

Family. Another implication. A different implication. For God’s sake, Clark thought distantly, feeling faintly punched in the gut. Mementos of Wayne’s family, for the city that had murdered them. And he’d thought the society matrons had been bad. He’d thought they’d been shameless.

Wayne stood stock still. His back was to the room. He’d gone all the way forward, closed the distance to the door, in order to keep the mobster from getting through to his guests. So he was far enough out that nobody behind him could see his face anymore. His aura didn’t quiver. He’d locked it down tight. His body didn’t move. And whatever the mobster in front of him saw in his face, it only won a smug, pointed little smile from him.

Lois growled, low, in her throat. Clark echoed her absently. And Wayne stirred, and deliberately softened every muscle in his body. Stepped aside, just slightly, and gestured the mobster further in.

“You’re welcome to bid,” he said quietly, voice as artificially warm and plastic as his smile. “I’ll have to ask your gentlemen to wait outside. Bidders only, and press. But since you’ve come all this way … If it’s so important to you, by all means. Come and bid.”

Clark felt the affront ripple around the room, the shock and horror and offended sensibilities. He wished, he deeply wished, that he could believe it was on Wayne’s behalf. That he could think it was horror that Wayne had felt pressured to allow this. But he knew, could hear, that so much more of it was just that a creature like that had been welcomed, however artificially, among them. Goodness, was Wayne not an alpha? Mobster or no mobster, could he not muster the character to put the vulgar little thing in its place?

This was a good story. This was a hot story. But Clark was going to have to request to stay away from stories involving Gotham’s elite in future. He was wishing for his Pa right now. His fingernails were biting into his palms, and he was wishing his Pa was here to gently escort him out to the truck before he punched people.

Not the mobsters. Well, all right. Not just the mobsters.

Cobblepot noted the muttering. The sneers and contempt and disgust. Hard to miss it, honestly. He sneered brightly at Wayne, and flared his aura deliberately and with malice aforethought. About as vulgarly as could be.

“Thank you,” he said, clapping Wayne on the shoulder with pointed familiarity. “Don’t mind if I do. The boys will wait outside. You’ll have your man organise a table for me, of course? My reservation seems to have been overlooked.”

Clark hooked his arm through Lois’, trapped her hastily against him. Wayne had made his choice, was trying to avoid violence. Clark would grant him at least that much. And Wayne … caught the gesture. In the midst of holding Cobblepot’s gaze, waving a hand for someone to bring a table. He glanced up, briefly, and caught Clark’s eye. Caught Lois’, fuming and violent beside him. Some expression, too faint to make out, flickered across his face. Surprise, maybe, or something else. But the corner of his lip curled slightly, a faint touch of a more genuine warmth, and he inclined his head the tiniest fraction towards them.

Cobblepot, following his gaze, skimmed his eyes much more blatantly and much more speculatively across them. Clark kept Lois’ arm pressed firmly under his, and found a plastic smile of his own to offer the mobster. Cobblepot grinned, bright and vicious, and turned back to Wayne.

“Never mind, actually. I don’t mind sitting at the press tables. Why don’t you get back to it, hmm? That hospital and those relief stations won’t pay for themselves.”

“Cobblepot,” Wayne gritted. Instantly stressed. Lois smiled sharply and elbowed Clark into releasing her.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, so slick and punchy and Metropolite alpha it hurt. The woman Clark had seen go toe-to-toe with far too many armed people even in just four months already. “It’ll be perfectly all right, Mr Wayne. I’m sure we’ll all be delighted to welcome Mr … Cobblepot, was it? To our table.”

Clark squashed the urge to pick her up, physically and literally, and plop her down behind him. Wayne locked his arms, looking like he was strongly considering attempting to do the same. Three other reporters, behind them, made panicked noises. And Cobblepot, meanwhile, met Lois’ smile and aura beat for beat, and ambled over to their table.

“Excellent,” he purred, while someone ran up with a spare seat, his aura still flared enough to blanket half the room. “Do let me know if you spot anything you like, Ms, ah …?”

“Lois Lane.” She held out her hand with knowing, dangerous unconcern. “Daily Planet.”

“Ms Lane,” Cobblepot echoed, with heavy and delighted implication, and shook it much more politely than he had Wayne’s. “A pleasure, my dear. I haven’t spoken with mainland reporters in years.”

“Oh, I’m sure the pleasure will be all mine,” she shot back, and Clark gave brief but serious thought to finding a window and jumping out of it. Or finding one and throwing Lois out of it. Could she not … At least not with people who could kill her? At least not because they could kill her, and that pissed her off enough to start sniping them for it?

Clark glanced back up, and Wayne’s eyes were closed and spasming as well. So at least it wasn’t just him.

And it was … nice, he thought. That Wayne allowed himself more reaction to Lois flirting with danger than he did to … everything Cobblepot just said. Everything the man had just implied. About three years, and Wayne himself, and Wayne’s family. But it was easier, Clark supposed, to let yourself be offended on someone else’s behalf than your own. If you wanted to avoid punching someone through a floor, and possibly getting everyone killed in the process.

Wayne took a deep breath. Opened his eyes one more time to … not glare, exactly, but certainly hold Cobblepot’s stare and implication for a moment. And then, slowly and stiltedly, he turned around and made his way back to the stage. Mutters followed him. Expressions. Clark hastily snapped his gaze to the ceiling, and did his best to channel Pa. But Wayne made it, and after a moment fetched back up to the podium to start … to start the proceedings.

To start selling bits of his ancestral estate to fund, according to Leslie Thompkins, the reconstruction of Gotham City Hospital, as well as any number of medical and relief centres around the still-struggling city to tide them over until infrastructure was fully reconstructed.

Her expression tightened, at various points. She skirted carefully around certain points, like the existence of federal medical and relief centres to tide them over, or what had happened to the infrastructure they’d manage to cobble together during the quarantine. Her smile slipped, here or there, and something shaking and furious hovered at the back of her aura. But she stayed warm, she stayed polite. She thanked Wayne, genuinely, for his efforts. She … smiled at him. Proud and firm and honest, while he blinked and ducked his head away from her. Cobblepot made a noise, not quite a scoff, beside Lois, and Clark reached over and trapped Lois’ punching arm on autopilot. And then Leslie Thompkins stood aside, and gestured for the auctioneer to take the stage and let everyone get on with it.

And what followed, from that point, was possibly the most excruciating two hours of Clark’s life. He was counting coming into his aura in that. He would take that all over again, take it for twice as long and twice as difficult, before he’d ever repeat those two hours over again.

The pieces weren’t personal. Not truly personal. Some paintings, some furnishings, the odd bit of something bigger like a classic car or two. Expensive, sure, valuable, probably personally picked out by various ancestors, but nothing that felt too voyeuristic. Wayne stayed stoic all the way through. As easy and casual as a man at a Sunday picnic in Smallville. But everyone else …

Luthor had already made a bad introduction to rich people for Clark. A spectacularly bad introduction. He hadn’t thought anyone could match it. But right now, Clark thought, he would cheerfully follow Cobblepot back to Gotham island and take tea with mobsters before he willingly spent more than five minutes among Gotham’s elite again.

And Cobblepot wasn’t being polite. Cobblepot was being as vulgar and rude and … and horrible as it was possible to be. Loudly bidding on various pieces, commenting on which Wayne might have owned them, considering where he’d put them in his Lounge, whatever it was. But at least Cobblepot was doing that deliberately. At least he was, clearly, trying to be cold and cruel and mean. Going out of his way for it. Taunting Wayne deliberately.

The things other people said, without any apparent comprehension of how incredibly tone deaf, and condescending, and ignorant, and stupidly vicious they were—

Cobblepot didn’t win a single item. Not one. Every single person with money in this room made sure of it. And that would be lovely if they were doing it for Wayne, if they’d been protecting one of their own, keeping something he’d done for charity from being used to taunt his family’s memory, but they decidedly were not. No. No, because this was about reputation. Clark could hear every mutter going around the room. This was about pride. This was about the fact that Cobblepot had come in here with his vulgar, islander aura, his omega aura, loud and proud and in everyone’s faces. That he’d dared come up here. This was about making sure that not a single one of their things wound up in the possession of a creature like that.

Wayne himself was, at this point, little more than a bone being displayed over by a pack of affronted dogs. God. Had Clark ever thought these people were polite?

Ma would have to be dragged out of here by the Sheriff, never mind Pa. Pa would have to be dragged out of here. And most of the people in here carted out on stretchers. And if Lois didn’t trap his punching arm in about two seconds, Clark would be very, very honoured to follow his parents’ examples.

Common decency, he was rapidly learning, was not that common a trait in rich person circles. At least not in Gotham.

But it ended, eventually. The auction. There were only so many pieces on the docket. Eventually, finally, it drew to a close. The amount of money raised was … a lot. If Clark was honest, it was an almost disgusting amount, but given the state of the island after the quarantine, he was sure it would wind up being barely a drop in the bucket. He had some idea, from various disaster reports, just how much money would barely so much as dent the amount of damages left to fester for three full years. So, a good thing. An entirely necessary amount to raise. Just. A truly horrific amount to spend on what amounted to a fit of offended pique.

He was never going to be able to go to society events again. Never going to be able to look a rich person in the eye again. Not without punching them. Even Luthor was better than this.

As the gavel went down on the final item, quite a few people turned to sneer pointedly in Cobblepot’s direction. Several auras flared smugly. Clark bit his lip and gently sat on his hands. At least one person, on one of the closer tables, double-took, and shied slightly from whatever expression was on his face. Clark had no idea. Couldn’t tell. Lois, beside him, actually did press quellingly on his shoulders.

Cobblepot, by contrast, didn’t so much as blink. Clark had been … He hadn’t been focusing, entirely, on Cobblepot’s aura for most of the auction. Too caught up trying to keep his own from slipping out of its careful omega configuration and into a much more full, alpha-ish, alien one. He’d been trying to keep his cool, with all those comments in his ears. So he hadn’t …

He hadn’t been looking at the volatile mobster sitting at their table. Next to Lois. The mobster who was the focus of every sneering comment and heavy-handed bid in the room, all aimed to deliberately puncture and flatten his pride.

Clark looked over. Expecting … He had no idea. Violence. That thick, spiky aura to be roiling with rage. And there was … some anger. There was. A tired, bitter fury, banked at the heart of his aura. But Cobblepot didn’t look livid. He didn’t look freshly angry. If anything, he looked contemptuous.

And smugly, bitterly pleased.

“Well then,” he said softly. Quietly, as he hadn’t said a single other thing so far tonight. No drama, for once. No show. “I’d better be heading out, I think. Given I’ve nothing to collect, I’m sure no one will mind if I bow out early.” He looked over at them. Clark and Lois, none of the other reporters at their table. He smiled, darkly, and lifted Lois’ hand to brush a faint, sallow kiss over her knuckles. “Thank you for the delightful company, Ms Lane. And your charming companion there, too. It was the highlight of an evening.”

Clark stared at him mutely. Numbly, as the mobster climbed with casual confidence to his feet, leaning heavily on the cane he’d propped behind his chair. On the stage, Wayne straightened abruptly. Narrowed his eyes down at them.

“Don’t shoot anyone,” Lois said suddenly. Almost blurted it. Look up at the mobster beside her, her aura still flared, still spiky, but also almost … almost covering Cobblepot. Shielding him. She didn’t like him. Clark knew her. She still didn’t like him, would dearly love to punch him in the face. But this entire event hadn’t sat right with her either. Her aura spiked up and swirled in front of the man beside her. “I wouldn’t actually blame you, right now, but don’t shoot anyone. This doesn’t need to end any worse than it already is.”

Cobblepot blinked faintly. Side-eyed her and her aura skeptically. Then he smiled, just a little.

“Not to worry, my dear. Wayne’s man would have called the Commissioner as soon as I arrived. Him and his boys will be outside, taking mine to tea. You needn’t fear for anyone’s safety. Besides. Wayne’s an old friend. I wouldn’t insult his hospitality.”

And there was a weight to it. To ‘old friend’ and ‘hospitality’. Such a strange weight.

Three years. Two under quarantine. Wayne had been trapped on that island, and Cobblepot was the perfect picture of the kind of monster he’d been trapped with. And yet here Cobblepot stood. Insulting the man. Threatening him. Implying things. Dragging his name through the mud and spitting on the memory of his family. And yet … Welcomed, all the same. Invited in. And quietly, firmly, stating that he would not spit on Wayne’s hospitality. That he wouldn’t shoot anyone against Wayne’s wishes.

“Excuse me,” Wayne murmured on the stage. Clark caught it. Had been keyed for it, just a little bit. The sound of Wayne’s voice, in the aftermath of all this. He heard Wayne stand. Saw Cobblepot raise his eyes, just slightly, and nod to him on the stage. Watched, heard, them both as they moved towards the door, Wayne hurrying to catch the mobster as he left.

Old friends. Of some sort. Wanting a word before anyone had to go.

He felt Lois stand in tandem with him. Perfectly in tune, operating entirely by the same instinct. He turned to look at her. Caught her eyes, the slick, alpha smile, the joyful, hunting spark through her aura. God, she was beautiful. He felt himself grinning dizzily at her.

“I’m just going to head to—”

“I think I might need the—”

“Powder room?” he asked, in perfect time with her own: “Little reporter’s room?” She beamed at him.

“Exactly that,” she agreed. “All right, Kent. Every reporter for themselves?”

She was going to try to follow Wayne. Sneak next door to whatever room he cornered Cobblepot in (or vice versa?). She probably was going to get caught. But Wayne had been decent so far, and Cobblepot had, effectively, given his word on no shooting. So she’d probably be fine. Probably. And Clark had advantages. He could use the actual bathroom, and still hear every word between the two.

So, all right. Every reporter for themselves.

“Ladies first,” he said, and smiled into her alpha grin. “In case you could use a head start, Ms Lane?”

Her eyebrow bounced up and her grin turned wicked. “Bite me,” she said, enunciating perfectly, and darted towards the still-swinging door. Wayne had been trying not to visibly rush, and Cobblepot had a cane. She had time to catch them still. So did Clark.

And in a minute, when he got his aura to sit back down, he’d do exactly that.

Honestly, he thought, looking around the ballroom. Better a bathroom than this pile of shit. Better a sewage line. A silage tank. Maybe he could find some time to sneak back home for a while this weekend, fly out. Find a pile of honest manure to bury his nose in. Once he told Pa why, he was sure his dad could find him a good one. Clear the stink of …

Rich, monied horseshit. Out of his nose. The back of his throat.

Clark would have to talk to Perry when he got back. He was too junior. Four months on the job. He couldn’t ask for special treatment. But God, if Clark never had to talk to rich Gothamites again, he’d die happy.

And, well. That way nobody would get punched to the floor.

Right. Time to find a bathroom, and figure out just what ‘old friend’ meant, from a mob boss to a rich alpha, when it came to Gotham island.

Chapter Text

Clark swept out his hearing a touch from the ballroom, trying to get a quick lay of the ground as the doors swung closed behind Lois. The ballroom was in its own section (wing? were they called wings?) of the house, down a long connecting corridor from the main entrance hall, with a few offshoots along the way. Lois, he could hear, had turned in place a little bit outside the doors, playing ‘lost’, giving Wayne time to get slightly ahead. Wayne, and Cobblepot ahead of him, were making quick time down the corridor. Apparently, cane or no cane, Gotham mobsters could move when they wanted to.

Clark let them get all the way around the first bend, and Lois get her start after them, before he moseyed casually over to the ballroom doors himself. He wasn’t in a hurry himself. Sometimes it was nice to have advantages.

There was probably a dedicated bathroom in this section, given the volume of guests the ballroom could be expected to hold. There was a bit of Clark that boggled slightly at the thought, at the need, to have public bathrooms in your house, but in this case it would be practical. And … yes. Down there, neatly and usefully signposted. Playing lost might not go so well for Lois, then. But, well. It often didn’t. It wasn’t like she was usually trying in earnest. Clark lived in terror of the day when she ran up against someone less than willing to go with the polite fiction.

It was, to be fair to it, quite a nice public bathroom, when Clark cracked open the door and scanned around. A little bit … old world wood and marble for his tastes, but, you know. Nice enough. He found himself a good corner stall and put the lid down to sit. The door went all the way to the floor, because this was a nice bathroom, but verisimilitude often did help.

Outside, Cobblepot and Wayne had made the front hall, with Lois skulking along behind them. There were … a lot of people in the front hall. Clark twitched upright, tilting his head a bit. It didn’t help, but sometimes he couldn’t quite help the habit. Who …

“Mr Cobblepot,” a frosty British voice sounded. The … butler? Clark thought? The older omega gentleman who’d welcomed everyone in. And then, rather warmer: “Master Bruce.”

“Alfred,” Wayne acknowledged, slowing down and catching up with Cobblepot, who’d stopped in the hall. “Jim. Sorry. Commissioner Gordon. Is there a problem?”

“Indeed,” Cobblepot drawled beside him. “Is there a problem, gentlemen?”

They were standing side by side, Clark thought. His mental positioning was usually good just from hearing. Wayne had slowed to a stop beside Cobblepot. Which was … interesting. Lois, still in the corridor behind them, was doing her best to be very quiet.

“… I don’t know why you’re all looking at me,” said a new voice. Very tiredly. The owner of it was near the door, slightly in front of the large cluster of heartbeats around the entrance. “You called me, remember? You tell me if there’s a problem or not.”

There was a rumble behind him. A large body moving slightly. Just shifting their weight, gently enough.

“No problems, boss,” said a very large man, judging by chest capacity. One … One of Cobblepot’s? Probably. “Just having a smoke with the Commissioner. Since we’re all up here together, figured we’d share while we waited to see if anyone got shot.”

Clark blinked a little to himself. Well. All right then?

So. Wayne’s man had called the Commissioner. Who had arrived and … not quite taken Cobblepot’s boys to tea, exactly, but … not too far from it?

Cobblepot snorted. “No one’s going to get shot,” he grouched, letting himself lean a little more on his cane, the tip sliding slightly before he caught it. Wayne shifted slightly towards him. “Like any of those piles of shit would know which end of a gun to point.”

“Yes,” said the Commissioner, with weary amusement. “Because that’s who we were worried about shooting people.”

Cobblepot piled his weight onto his cane pointedly. “Haven’t shot you yet, have I? Plenty of provocation over the years.”

“Well, actually,” the Commissioner started, before the butler interrupted coldly.

“Forgive me, sir. I called the Commissioner up. Given that I have spent the past three years in necessary proximity to those ‘piles of shit’, as the gentleman calls them, I do have some understanding of their … uniquely provoking nature. Given your surprise company, it seemed a sensible precaution.”

A little silence rang out. Clark wondered if everyone else was blinking like he was. That was …

Wayne made a noise, small and startled, like he was trying to muster himself to talk. Lois, thankfully, had managed to muffle hers. Cobblepot was the one who found his voice, though. The mobster barked out a rough laugh.

“Well. Your man has opinions, Wayne. Was there a blessing in that, Pennyworth?”

“Certainly not,” the butler said, with perfect decorum. “The situation is far too fragile for anyone to be getting trigger happy. Which, happily, everyone seems to have kept in mind …? Excellent. Then there is, Mr Cobblepot, no problem at all. My apologies, Commissioner, for disturbing you.”

The Commissioner coughed. Said bemusedly: “No trouble. No trouble at all. I’m only trying to hold a city together. It’s fine.”

“Oh, shut up,” Cobblepot shot back. “You’re hardly the only one, Gordon. What do you think I’m here for, amusement? The good of my health?”

“I had been hoping to ask you that,” Wayne finally managed to comment. Shaking himself out of a slight stupor. “In, ah. Not in the entrance hall. If I … If I could borrow you for another few minutes, Oswald? While Alfred …”

“Sees to your other guests, Master Wayne?” came the pointed rejoinder.

Clark muffled his own snicker, pressing his palm down across his mouth. Oh. Oh, his Ma would probably like this Alfred. He had a suspicion. They’d probably get on great.

But Wayne sobered, slightly. Rather than accepting the joke. His tone shifted, a softer, more genuine remorse in it.

“If you don’t mind,” he said softly. “I’m sorry to leave you with them again. I don’t mean to … to hide behind you. To leave you to my duties in my stead.”

Another silence. This one softer. Clark heard the older man’s breath catch, just slightly. Just half a breath. He straightened, a faint rustle of pristine clothes.

“… The last time was hardly your doing, sir,” he said. Only slightly hoarse. “And there would be no finer duty in this world, than to be your sword and shield.”

Oh. Oh. Clark felt his ears heat, his chest ache slightly. That was … That was something he shouldn’t have eavesdropped on. Never mind that Wayne had said it in public, in a room full of people. Clark shouldn’t have eavesdropped on it. That … That wasn’t for ears like his.

Or Lois’ either. He wondered how she felt about it. He heard no motion from her. No trip of her heartbeat. But shame wasn’t really something that tripped up a heart.

No one else quite had a response to it either. Clark could hear … several mobsters? And police. Shuffling in faint embarrassment in the hall. He might have expected … maybe some mockery. Some cruelty. They were mobsters. But, no. Maybe he only expected it because of the room he’d just left. The collection of hard-bitten islanders in the front hall let the moment hang gently, without interruption.

For a moment. A moment. Cobblepot cleared his throat and tapped his cane on the floor.

“Right,” he said roughly. “Enough of that. Wayne, come on, let’s have your alpha snit in private. Pennyworth. If you happen to need any guns, my boys are at your disposal until we leave. I’m sure you can figure out how to ice someone in a pile like this without the Feds figuring it out.”

“Please don’t,” the Commissioner asked. “I understand the urge, but that damned new man of theirs, Mayers, is crawling all over everything right now. He would love a chance to get one of us for something. I’m hanging on to this job by a fingernail. If he tries to get any of you shipped off the island, it’ll have to be war to stop him, and we’re not going to win.”

His voice creaked. Clark couldn’t feel the auras, not at this distance, but he knew the sound. That same tired, bitter fury from Cobblepot, from Dr Thompkins. Strangled rage.

What on … What did war mean? Clark stared blankly at the back of the stall door.

“… They didn’t take Ivy,” Wayne said, after a moment. Softly. “If it comes down to it … we can defend our own. We can’t win a war, but …”

Cobblepot made a noise. Less a snort and more an aborted spit. “They didn’t take Ivy,” he growled, “because Bruce Wayne climbed on her hospital bed and shielded her with his body. Which was, don’t get me wrong, a very fine gesture, but I doubt it’s going to work too many times. Especially if there’s a premeditated murder involved, not … battlefield confusion, or whatever they were calling it. The first wave of the assault was one thing. Civilisation’s come back now. Much as I hate to agree with Jimboy over here, he’s right. Business rules.”

The Commissioner made a noise of pain. Which Clark was going to echo, in a second, though he doubted for the same reasons. The man sounded the faintly hysterical sort of exhausted.

“Don’t agree with me,” he said. “I mean, yes, do agree with me, don’t shoot anyone, but don’t you agree with me. I didn’t need ‘agreeing with the mob’ added to my day.”

Cobblepot shifted. Leaned forward. Clark, dazedly, could picture the sneer. The pugnacious spike of the aura. Before anything further happened, though, Alfred neatly retook the room.

“No one will be shooting anyone,” he said, commanded, quellingly. “Not in my house. Now I think we’d all better stop discussing possible murders in the front hall. Commissioner, if you’d like to follow Masters Bruce and Cobblepot to the study, you’re more than welcome. The rest of you, those who are staying, kindly follow me down to the kitchen? I’ll organise the finger food, sir, that should distract your guests for at least some time. And, perhaps, allow me to extract Dr Thompkins? Seeing as so far, she’s the only one who hasn’t promised not to murder anyone.”

There was silence. There was, actually, the faint sound of shuffling feet, as several very large people shifted around like a gaggle of kids trying a chastened ‘aw shucks’. It was like listening to Ma steering a gang of high schoolers around the entrance to the market. Which would be fine, except this was a gang of … criminals? Police? Gothamites. A gang of Gothamites, who could talk about ‘wars’ in perfect earnest. Who shielded … shielded each other with their bodies. And talked about defending their own.

Maybe Michael should have been the one to come. Apparently, there might be more need for a war correspondent in Gotham than they’d thought.

Well, no. They had thought it. Everyone thought it. But this wasn’t …

That was an abstract. Nearly a joke. Gotham was the sort of hell you sent war correspondents to. Wayne had been trapped on an island of monsters. It had been … not quite a joke, maybe, but the sort of lurid sensationalism that didn’t …

That didn’t let you picture people. Real people. Hurting people. Tired, exhausted, angry people. Trying to defend their own.

“… I think I’ll pass, unless anyone needs me,” the Commissioner sighed. “I’m trying to get ahead of Mayers and his ‘departmental rearranging’. If no one’s getting shot in the immediate future, I might take a rain check and have someone fill me in later?”

“Of course,” said Wayne, nearly in tandem with Cobblepot’s: “Oh, I’m sure someone will.” The Commissioner paused a beat, and then snorted at the pair of them.

“Want anyone to stay behind, sir?” a female voice asked, with that particularly pugnacious Gotham drawl. “Keep an eye on things?”

“I think Alfred has it in hand, Montoya,” he drawled back, tired and amused. “If I have to suffer personnel files and three years’ worth of belated reports, so do you.”

“Or,” she said, lightly enough. “Or, we could blow the bridges up again, and go back to no paperwork. How about that?”

There was … rather a long pause at that. A long thoughtful pause. As far too many people apparently gave that genuine consideration.

“We can’t put the genie back in the bottle,” Wayne said finally. With … weary resignation, Clark thought. Tired bitterness. “It took us two years to get functional the first time, and that was when they were willing to let us. With the amount of damage they’ve done … If they lock us in again, there’s no guarantee we’ll be able to get enough in to start again. Not the way they’ve left us right now.”

Another silence. This one … darker.

Cobblepot growled disgustedly. “Yes, yes. Thank you for saying that out loud, Wayne. A lovely cherry on top of my evening of depression. Gordon, go away and do your business while we do ours, will you? And take your half of this lot with you.”

“Oh, I’m leaving,” the Commissioner said. “I’ve already left, in fact. You all have fun.”

“And on that note,” said another voice, a female voice, soft and low, and Lois’ heartrate skyrocketed in Clark’s ear: “Why don’t you come with me, my dear?”

Clark lurched. Almost toppled off the toilet seat, and knocked the paper holder off the wall with a clang. Shi—Damn. He fumbled with both hands to catch it. Listening, heart pounding, as Lois spun, pinned, in her little corridor nook, to face …

“Dr Thompkins,” she hissed, her heart pounding like a jackrabbit in her chest. Clark, the toilet roll instinctively pulled to his own, let out an abrupt breath. Oh. Okay. That was … Well. Probably not immediately fatal? Maybe? Hopefully? The doctor had … seemed nice. Angry, but nice.

Which, granted, seemed to be a theme with Gotham islanders, and apparently did not guarantee a lack of murders. But Lois’ heartrate was calming back down, and the woman beside her’s had never sped at all.

“You should be careful sneaking up on Gothamites, my dear,” she said, the sly smile audible in it. “Most of us are fine, but some of us can have … excitable reactions.”

Clark couldn’t exactly hear Lois’ fulminating glare, but he didn’t have to. Sense memory more than filled in the blanks.

“So can Metropolites,” was what she bit out, in answer. Tight and clipped. Dr Thompkins laughed.

“Apparently so,” she murmured, but warmly. Amused, not mocking.

Beyond them, in the front hall, Clark heard people moving off. And … that had probably been audible. Lois’ rear and startle, the hissed but not exactly inconspicuous conversation. Thompkins’ laugh. But no one so much as faltered.

Which said … things. About how maybe Lois hadn’t left it long enough before following them.

About how much they were willing to say even in front of her.

Hopefully not because they were planning to kill her.

But … no. No. Dr Thompkins took a small step back. Her voice was soft. Gentle, enough that Lois was probably bristling a little bit. Inoffensive.

“As I said, my dear,” she said quietly. “Why don’t you come with me. I’m sure after that you’ve several questions. How about we see how many I can answer, hmm?”

Lois straightened. Clark could picture her sceptical squint. “Can answer, or will?” Because that was Lois. Straight in with the awkward questions. Direct for the jugular, every time. Apparently, around here, it went down well. Dr Thompkins didn’t take offense, anyway.

“Either or,” she said, audibly smiling. And audibly tired. “It isn’t really a question of what we’ll answer, dear. It’s a question of what you’ll be allowed to publish afterwards. And before you bristle at me, keep in mind that our river was mined. Live military hardware. All the grit and gumption in the world won’t do you or anyone else any good at the bottom of a river.”

Clark went still. Still holding his toilet roll. And let that … wash over him. The implication.

Because … Because it had been building, hadn’t it. The entire time. Before. Because he hadn’t come here as Superman. He’d been too scared to come as Superman. Because Gotham was a hellhole, yes, but … But something else was going on. There was the joke, the kind of city that needed a war correspondent to report on it, and then there was the fact. All those rumours to explain it, bioweapons, labs, to gloss it over. That the city had been quarantined. A … A gloss in itself. They’d been caged. Penned in, on threat of death.

He'd come here, and the house hadn’t been fixed. The damage hadn’t been wiped away, glossed over. Because Wayne had … declared an allegiance. Let it stand, silently, for him.

Or. Perhaps not so silently.

“… Won’t it be more dangerous for you, then?” Lois asked. Steadily. Nervelessly. The woman who’d never met a threat she hadn’t instinctively stepped into. Towards. A thousand times braver than any … any bulletproof hero. “You live here. If you answer questions, and they know about it, won’t you be in more danger than I am?”

Dr Thompkins didn’t answer that. Not immediately. She moved slightly, a faint rustle of clothes. Clark … he’d only caught the barest hint of her aura, earlier. Omega, again, he thought. Less overt than Cobblepot’s, closer to Wayne’s in size. But he wondered … if he were close enough to feel it, now, if it would be flaring, just a little bit. Like Cobblepot’s.

Omega. But Gotham omega.

“They’ve already shot me,” she said, with all of Wayne’s wounded dignity. “They’ve shot my patients. They’ve mined my river. They’ve left me and fourteen thousand people, fifteen hundred of them children, to die in a hole. They’ve broken my care systems. They turn half our people away at their damned doors.” She paused, and took a hard breath. “Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying we don’t want to be smart about this. I’m not saying we won’t try to survive, to keep as many of those fourteen thousand as remain alive. But if it comes to it? If war is all we have? Then they can line me up for the firing squad, my dear, and hang my battered carcass from city hall, if that’s how they want this to go.”

A statement written in iron. As hard and adamant as Gotham’s broken shore. For some reason, Clark thought of his Pa. No … No direct correlation. No real reason. He just … He could picture it. If it came to the same place. He could picture his Pa.

You do what you like. This is my damn land. This is my home.

He took a hard breath himself. Pulled it in and held it for a count of ten.

While Lois … stepped forward. And put, he thought, a hand on Dr Leslie Thompkins’ arm.

“Let’s go somewhere quiet,” she said. Less punchy, now, less slick. No less Metropolite, though. Diamond bright and ready to tango. “Let’s have a sit down, and see how much we’re going to be allowed to say.”

A beat, and then Dr Thompkins smiled again. “I had a good feeling about you,” she said. Bitter and warm. “You and your partner, wherever he’s vanished to. You were going to back Bruce. Protect him, if you had to.”

Lois … snorted, softly. “I’m getting the impression he needs less protecting than we thought,” she said wryly. Dr Thompkins made a noise. Half a laugh, and half a sob.

“Oh no, dear,” she said softly. “No. A thousand times more.”

And Clark … Clark pulled back, a little. Pulled away from them. Lois … Lois had it in hand. Or Dr Thompkins did, or both. They had … They had that in hand. So Clark pulled back, and swept the Manor with his hearing one more time. Looking for … Looking for Bruce Wayne.

To see how much protection the man might need.

“… Leslie asked you to come, I take it,” the man was saying. Exhaustedly. Somewhere upstairs, in the … the less intact portions of the house. The ones where he was less likely to be disturbed. Clark was starting to get a sense that Gothamites felt safer, or at least more at home, when surrounded by the visibly broken.

Cobblepot harrumphed. That was the word, Clark thought. The just-about-aborted spit.

“It’s her baby,” he growled, lowering himself onto some bit of furniture with a groan. “And I agree. With the fuck up they’ve made of our supply chain, we need medicine and treatment facilities fast. And given that it’s mostly my people, our end of the street, that the Feds aren’t letting into theirs, I was more than happy to help out. Getting the chance to come up here and fleece some parasites wasn’t exactly an argument against it.”

“… I suppose not.”

An odd silence, and then Cobblepot snorted hard.

“Oh, relax, Wayne. You’re not one of them. I’ve seen your spleen. You’re a real islander, I promise.”

A different silence. More … bemused. Or amused. With islanders, it was sometimes hard to tell.

“Well. If that’s what it takes?”

“Hah!” Cobblepot sneered. “’Course it is. Name one person left on the island whose innards we haven’t seen. And Waylon doesn’t count. Waylon can tank a mine.”

“… No. He really can’t.”

Cobblepot paused. “What is wrong with you tonight?” he asked bluntly. “Beyond the usuals, I mean. I thought it was some sort of alpha snit, don’t like surprises or whatever, but you’re downright maudlin at the minute. What’s wrong?” And then, colder, sharper: “Do you know something I don’t?”

A long pause. And then Wayne sat down too. Just across from him.

“I doubt it,” he said softly. “You know most of what I know. Apparently more, sometimes.” It could have been sharp, bitter. Angry. But there was tired humour in it instead. “No, I. Leslie jumped the gun. I can see why. She’s been listening to the same things I have, the past few weeks. I know why she did it. This might be too much, though. It’s a lot to trust on one reporter. One mainland reporter. I had hoped to start … a little smaller.”

There was a pause, then a creak of broken leather. Cobblepot turned in his seat to face him. To, Clark thought, just from the evening’s experience, stare Wayne down.

“The reporter was planned, then?” he asked sharply. “I wondered why you didn’t react. She doesn’t do bad for subtle, but if she’s planning on following any more criminals around, she should work on that. The aura’s just a hair too tangible.”

Wayne chuckled. “She’s not bad,” he said. “Four years ago she would have fooled you fine. Our standards are just … skewed, I think.”

Cobblepot scoffed. “Oh, says the ninja.”

“Exactly,” Wayne said. Lightly. “But, yes. Part of the aim of this event was to bring in …”

A long pause. A long pause. And then. Smaller. Quieter. Harder.

“They’re using it,” he said, with distant care. “The press. The rumours. They’re using me, specifically. My … history. Story. ‘Gotham’s lost son’. Alfred … Alfred showed me. I’ve been getting air time, while we were trapped. The lost prince. Scion of tragedy. Whatever could be happening to me down there, on that island of animals.”

“Ah,” Cobblepot said. Leaning back again, thick and disgusted. “Those ones. Yes. Read some of them. Interesting speculation.”

“I thought you might have,” Wayne agreed. “Given the tone of the implication earlier.”

Cobblepot stilled slightly. “… Ah,” he said. “Is that it? I know you’re an alpha, Wayne, but I wouldn’t have thought that’d be enough to get your pants in a twist. Your ego’s never been that fragile before.”

“… They’re using it,” Wayne repeated. Something … else, in his tone. That anger. Gotham anger. The silent, shaking rage. “That’s how they’re doing it. The outside world. There’s the rumours, yes, about the lab, the bioweapon, the one that never existed. They’re putting a pretty face on the ‘quarantine’. But people don’t care about politics. You don’t have to make people think your violence was mistaken. You just have to make them think that the target deserved it.”

Cobblepot stilled again. And then leaned backwards. Or sagged, maybe. All the way into his seat.

“Ah,” he said, with bitter humour. “Yes. The island of animals.”

Wayne laughed mirthlessly. “And they have a figure,” he agreed. Went on. “A character. The wounded son. The child of tragedy. Surrounded by salacious rumour. The poor innocent, who must have survived something dreadful. As if I’m the only one.”

“Rich. White. Young,” Cobblepot listed. “Alpha. A man of quality. I see it.”

“And there’s the narrative,” Wayne said. “The orphan on the island of monsters. All they need is one figure, to pull the story one way, and let everyone else be lumped into the surrounding category. Monsters. Criminals. Animals. Fourteen thousand people. Fourteen thousand. And all you need is one face and some implication to make them monsters. Make it … just fine. Necessary. To leave them all to die.”

“… Some of us are monsters,” Cobblepot said, after a moment. Placidly, almost. Contemplatively. “Or criminals, at least. Some of us are. Quite proudly.”

“And so what?” Wayne growled. Low, intense. That shaking Gotham rage. “Is that supposed to make it right? Without you and Ivy, we would have starved. And whether you’re useful or not, whether you’re criminal or not, is that a reason to leave you to die? We fed Arkham. We had nothing, and we fed Arkham. Because even the worst of us, the most evil, don’t deserve to—”

He cut off. Slammed a lid on it. Clark could hear the hammer of his heart. The rage. And, beneath it …

Grief, maybe. Horror. Something.

Clark swallowed too. In his toilet. He swallowed around the lump in his throat, and set his slightly mangled roll of toilet paper on the floor.

“They want an excuse,” Wayne continued, when he’d mastered himself. Swallowed it down. “A way to make people look the other way. A story to tell them, about how Gotham is an island full of monsters, and people like me, people like Leslie, are the battered exceptions that prove the rule. The … The pretty orphans. There, they can say, was their mistake. Not letting us get out. But everyone else, well. There’s a predisposition in Gotham, isn’t there. It didn’t take much to let it out.”

“… So what was the plan tonight?” Cobblepot asked. Thoughtful, still. “Invite some foreign press in, mainlander press, and let them … what? See two battered orphans?”

Wayne made some motion. Skin over skin. Scrubbed his face with his palms.

“Well, firstly we needed the money,” he admitted. A little wryly. “It isn’t just your people. They’ve fucked the entire system over. We had distribution balanced. Not good, we all know that, but we had it balanced. But their relief stations are positioned … They’re for the outsiders. The aid workers. And they’ve got to keep them safe from islanders. Monsters. Leslie … She’s livid. She isn’t wrong to be. We need the money. If we’re to go around them, we need to fund it. But it was a chance to bring the press in. I’ve been … It took me too long to see. I’ve been focused on resources. It took me too long to see it.”

Cobblepot’s voice lilted. Cold amusement. “Well,” he said. “You are an alpha. Reputation isn’t generally something you have to think about as much.” And then, when Wayne’s silence grew too weighted, shamed, the mobster conceded, just slightly. “Though none of us did either. I’ve spent years actively building the reputation they want to assign me. I suppose it didn’t occur to me to consider it … spread citywide, as it were. Not with alarm, anyway.”

“… I can’t deny the temptation to go a little Richard the Third,” Wayne agreed. A wry, soft admittance. “If they want Gotham to be a hell, there is considerable temptation to grant the wish. But we won’t survive that. And after two years of fighting to get every bone and scrap into the city, I’m not going to let us starve now, when the gates are wide open. But that means, unfortunately, that reputation is something we have to consider.”

“Hm,” Cobblepot hummed. “But the problem there is, they’ve had three years of a head start.”

Wayne sighed. “They have three years of a head start,” he agreed. “I wanted to gauge the field. See who might say what, if given some hints. See who wanted to focus on me, and who might listen to Leslie. Ease them into it, maybe. I don’t actually want anyone to get shot, and that may well be a risk. But Leslie …”

“Wanted a more immediate test of mettle,” Cobblepot finished. And approvingly. Richly, darkly approving. “Not going to lie, Wayne, I think I’m with her on this. I can see the problems. I might have played too hard into the image. But in the first place, we need money. And in the second place … We’re going to baby outsiders through this, are we? Shepherd some mainlanders around, pretending to be softer than we are? They’ve already locked us in. They’re already done everything short of carpet bombing the island to see to it that we don’t survive. Let them deal with what they’ve wrought, then. If a reporter can’t handle me, they can’t handle anything else, either. We are monsters now. Down to the fourteen year old with a knife who was willing to shank you for four cans of soup. They are going to see that. The best you’re going to get is to make them see us as human too. If you can feed a kid while holding your fucking guts in where she stabbed you, they can man up and do the same. And in the likely event that they can’t … there’s no point begging for what we won’t get. I’ll die a monster first, and I promise you I’m not alone.”

“A monster is not the same as a child with a knife who thinks her siblings will starve to death if she doesn’t use it,” Wayne said. Almost whispered. Very soft, and very sure.

“To you,” Cobblepot said. “To those people downstairs, though?”

“I have to hope,” Wayne said. Slowly. “That there are more truths in this world than those defined by people like that.”

A pause. A thin, strained silence. And then Cobblepot … chuckled.

“Normally, I would say ‘good luck’ with blind optimism like that,” he said, abruptly wry and jovial once again. “But three years of relentless blind optimism on, I find I’m not going to rule it out. We’ll see how Ms Lane does, then. We’ll see what comes of yours and Leslie’s gambit. If mainlanders can see Gothamites as anything but monsters. I’ll look forward to it.”

Wayne’s tone warmed. Firmed. “As will I,” he agreed. Ever so slightly wry. And then: “If they don’t, though. I don’t know if it needs to be said, but just in case. If we must be monsters, Oswald … then we’ll be monsters together. I don’t have any interest in playing the innocent, the tragic son. Leslie either. If we’re asked what happened these last few years, we will tell them.”

“They’ll block you,” Cobblepot pointed out. Gently. “Go around you. Same as they’re doing with Gordon. Push too far, they’ll drag you through the mud, until you’re dirty enough that no one will notice the blood when they kill you. You could maybe use the other one. Get some goods under the table. Play the pretty lie, and scam them all the better.”

Wayne paused thoughtfully. Acknowledged it. And then he heaved himself carefully to his feet, and moved to stand beside where Cobblepot sat.

“After three years, I find I’ve come to hate the idle pleasures of these years,” he said softly. “I don’t think the reward outweighs the cost. Better King Richard III than St. Peter. At least in this case.”

“… If I’m reading your extremely convoluted mixed metaphor correctly, does that make Gotham the saviour in this instance?”

Wayne laughed. Soft and low. “Well, she has come back from the dead,” he said. “And I won’t deny her once, let alone three times. You had it right the first time. Better … Better a monster.”

Cobblepot barked a returning laugh. “Says the plaster fucking saint,” he said, but he reached up. Wayne pulled him easily to his feet. “Monsters, then. And you know, I might be inclined to bet on Ms Lane. She has spark. That other one too, the boy. You never know. Maybe blind optimism will win the day.” A thoughtful pause. “At the very least, it hasn’t lost it just yet.”

“Yes. And if optimism fails, monsters will keep us fed. Until they line us up and shoot us all in the head.”

“… And on that sterling note. You know, I think you need to come back to the city, Wayne. The air out here is doing nothing good for your temperament.”

Which was … hardly surprising, Clark thought. Letting his hearing fall back, climbing back into his own head. His skin prickled faintly, a phantom sensation. He’d been focused so hard, he’d lost all sense of himself, his own surroundings. There was noise in a stall further down, an aura brushing his senses. Some auction attendee relieving themselves. He hadn’t noticed. He’d been in another world entirely.

In Gotham, maybe. Not in person, but … at least a little bit in spirit. It was contagious. Bitter and angry and contagious.

And far cleaner feeling, despite the blood and filth, than anything you’d find in the suburbs.

He made one final sweep for Lois. Just to find her, her heartbeat, and reassure himself it still existed. That she was here, she was fine. She was as cool and punchy and Metropolite as always. Asking hard questions, rolling with hard answers. Treading where so many, angels and heroes and otherwise, feared to tread.

Exactly the sort of reporter, the sort of person, that people could trust. To see the lies. To tell the truth. And to do it no matter the threat or cost.

He’d known her less than a year, worked with her barely four months. But yes. Clark would very much bet on Ms Lane too.

But she wasn’t alone here. And she wasn’t going to be alone. Not anymore.

Clark … was a reporter too.

He stood up carefully. Picked up the forgotten roll of toilet paper, on its broken arm, and placed it gently on top of the cistern. Wincing, slightly. He hadn’t broken something so carelessly since he’d been a kid, clumsy with his own strength. He’d have to find Alfred later, the butler, and apologise. It was his house, and Ma would be horrified at anything less. If you made a mess, you fixed it, or at the very least you apologised for it. So Clark would do just that.

Fix things. And apologise.

He hadn’t come as Superman. He’d been too much a coward to come as Superman. He’d left people to die for his own cowardice. Real people. Tired, battered, angry people. Who weren’t any less real for being tired and battered and angry. That was his mistake, and he’d apologise for it.

Superman had been too much of a coward to help. But this was, it seemed, as much a war of stories as a war of people. And that, Clark Kent could do.

And someone might be very surprised, when they tried to shoot him for it.