The months passed by in a blur for Clark. He slipped easily into his new routine of working when he could and returning to Wayne Manor at night. He grew more comfortable and accustomed to the luxuries that surrounded him every day, though he never once took them for granted. He'd lived on the streets. He'd gone to bed hungry more times than he cared to admit, even to himself. He'd lived in fear of being robbed or assaulted. He'd become too familiar with what it was like to sleep on the ground. He'd grown to accept that, to most people, he was invisible, simply because they chose to turn a blind eye to the poor and suffering people in their midst.
Once a week, he got into the habit of preparing food and other essential items, and making runs into the city during the night. He would distribute everything to the homeless - sandwiches to ensure that they had nourishment, bottles of water to keep them hydrated, fresh socks - a simple luxury many of them had not seen in years - and warm blankets to protect them from the cold. He worked with Bruce too, as the man donated some of his time and wealth toward overhauling the city's shelters and soup kitchens so they could accommodate more people in need, and making them safer. It was a start, Clark thought, knowing it would take years - if ever - before some of the more severe problems could be eradicated. Still, it felt good, to be working on solutions, and giving back in what ways he could.
At home, he had the run of Wayne Manor, and Bruce's full support in whatever he chose to pursue. When he could, Bruce even accompanied Clark on his midnight runs into the heart of Gotham, but not always. On most nights, once the sun had set and full darkness had taken hold of the city, Clark didn't see Bruce. It was almost like the man became a ghost on those nights. Clark sometimes wondered what the man was up to, but he never asked, and tried to put the question out of his mind.
That was the one thing Bruce had asked of Clark - that Clark leave him be at night.
Clark was determined to honor his friend's wishes.
"I tend to pull late hours," Bruce had told him, that first night, when the ground rules had been established. "Unless you see me out and about - in the living room, swimming in the pool, grabbing a snack from the kitchen or the like - I ask that my privacy be respected."
"Oh, no problem," Clark had said. "No rest for the wealthy, huh?" he'd joked.
Bruce had chuckled. "Something like that. I just...tend to do some of my best work at night."
"Well, don't worry about me," Clark had assured him. "I won't be a problem."
"Alfred will see to anything you might need while I'm working," Bruce had continued. "Don't be shy to call on him if you need something."
"Oh, well...I'm pretty self sufficient," Clark had said hesitantly. He'd sighed. "To be honest, I'm not really all that comfortable, having someone...wait on me like that."
"Clark, let me tell you something about Alfred," Bruce had said in a quiet voice. "I've known him my entire life. I've seen him interact with others who have lived under this roof - people who were not blood relatives. Anyone who comes to live here, for no matter how long or short a time - they become family. And Alfred is always willing to go above and beyond for family. You are not a burden to him, if that's what you're worried about."
"I...if you say so," Clark had allowed.
"Trust me. Get to know him a bit and you'll see the same for yourself."
Clark hadn't had a response for that, so he'd merely nodded and taken a bite of the slice of Crème Brule that had been set down before him.
Now, almost a full year had passed since Clark had come to live at Wayne Manor. He was comfortable with his new life - something he hadn't been sure would ever happen, that first night. But now he was getting used to things. He no longer shied away from asking Alfred if he needed something. Of course, he still asked politely and thanked the man profusely when he required Alfred's assistance. He no longer felt ashamed to be living in such opulence - like he was just the object of Bruce's pity. Instead, he felt proud to know Bruce, and to have earned his friendship. He no longer felt like a useless waste of a person. Now, he felt like he had real worth - as a star student, as a regular benefactor to the city's homeless population, as an equal to Bruce as they worked to revamp the city's services to the poor.
He felt like a completely different man.
And then, one day, his world almost came crashing down.
Summer had come once again. Clark was a few weeks shy of his first anniversary as a resident of Wayne Manor. As usual, Bruce had vanished once the night had taken hold of the world. Clark was more than used to it. He had still never questioned it. It simply wasn't his place to pry. After all, everyone was entitled to privacy. And everyone's schedule was different. He remembered that Jonathan had done his best work in the late morning and early afternoon, and typically worked on his most difficult tasks then. Martha, on the other hand, had liked working on her own hobbies in the evenings, after dinner was eaten and the dishes were washed and put away. So what if Bruce preferred to work on the inventions that made his company so vast and wealthy in the middle of the night? It wasn't hurting anyone, so he could be content to let the man be.
It was a hot, muggy night, when even the air conditioning felt like it was barely making a difference. Of course, that didn't bother Clark, just as staying in a rickety, drafty cabin in the woods in the middle of winter hadn't phased him in any way. But Clark wasn't able to sleep anyway - whether it was due to the sticky weather or the fact that he was still euphoric over having been accepted as a late admission to a great college, right in Gotham, he wasn't sure. Oh, it wasn't his dream school, but as he'd worried, his spotty high school record had hurt him. But the way he figured it, he could always do a year or two at another school and, if he still wanted to attend another school after that, he could always attempt to transfer his credits to where he wanted to go.
Whatever the case was, after tossing and turning in his bed for over three hours, Clark abandoned it. He stripped out of his clothing and pulled on his swim trunks. Perhaps a late swim was what he needed, he mused. A slow grin spread over his features. He could just imagine the cool water against his skin, and the way a contentedness usually crept over him after a dip in the pool. He padded over to the bathroom and grabbed a towel, slinging it over one shoulder as he made his way through the dark and quiet Wayne Manor. Just the barest minimum of lights were on, which was more than adequate for Clark's superior night vision.
The lights around the pool were on when he went outside, as they usually were. He draped the towel over the back of a lounge chair and dove into the pool. The cool water was almost a shock to his body, simply because it was such a stark contrast to the muggy night air around him. He immediately began to swim laps, cutting through the water with his powerful arms. He never bothered to count his laps when he swam. He simply let his mind wander wherever it felt like going. Sometimes, that was all he needed in order to calm this thoughts enough to sleep or get focused enough to write something.
Writing.
He was still writing every night, just as he'd promised Grandma Tildy he would. He now had two and a half more journals filled with his writings. It felt good, to honor her request. It made him feel like he hadn't completely failed her by running away. He wondered sometimes, if he would ever find the courage to go back there, to thank her for all she'd done for him, and to let her know that he was well. He wondered if he could ever explain how his sudden departure from the halfway house hadn't been her fault, and if she would believe him.
He swam on, endless laps in the clean, cool water. Then, after maybe an hour or hour and a half, he slowed and stopped. He stayed in the water and draped his arms over the side of the pool, on the surrounding concrete. He let himself half float in the water as he leaned back and looked up at the stars. He felt inexplicably drawn to the night sky and the heavenly points of light that dotted it. He always had been, for as long as he could remember. Somehow, it had always seemed that all the answers to who he was and why he had such extraordinary powers were out there, somewhere, amongst the endless darkness of the universe.
"Mom. Dad," he whispered aloud, as he scanned the familiar constellations above him. "I miss you. I wish you were here, with me, to see everything I've managed to do. Maybe it isn't much, and I've taken a lot of wrong turns. But I'm on the right path now. I'm on track to go to college. like you always knew I would. I've got my eyes on my career. I'm living a life I never dreamed possible, here at Wayne Manor. I don't know if you set Bruce to cross paths with me, but...I'm thankful for that first, fateful conversation with him. Thanks to him, I've bettered my life. I've been able to help so many people. But...it's not enough. I want to help more people. I want to make you proud of the man I've become."
He fell silent then as his heart seized up with grief.
Five years.
It had been five years since he'd lost his parents. He hadn't even been given a chance to say goodbye to his mother. She'd died instantly in the crash that had sent his life into a tailspin. And as for his father - well, that hadn't been a proper goodbye either. Yes, he'd said the actual word "goodbye" to Jonathan Kent, but it had been the kind of "goodbye" that had meant "goodbye until tomorrow when I return to the hospital," rather than "goodbye forever." And, because of that, he'd never truly gotten closure from their deaths. Yes, he'd said his final farewells at their joint funeral, but it wasn't the same. He wished they could have heard him say that he loved them one final time.
His heart now heavy, Clark hoisted himself out of the pool. Distractedly, he toweled off enough so as to not leave a trail of wet droplets on the floor once he went back inside. He knew Alfred wouldn't mind the wet footprints, but he didn't want to make more work for the kind, elderly man, who'd become as much a friend as he was a member of the hired household staff. The hot, humid air around him felt more tolerable now against his skin, cool as it was from his swim. He sat in the lounge hair, not yet ready to head back inside for the night. For a little while, he lay back, his eyes closed, listening to the chorus of crickets that were chirping their unending songs.
But after a bit he grew weary of being outside. He draped his towel over both of his shoulders, like a cape, and slipped back inside the house. Back up to his room he went, heading straight for the shower to rinse the chlorine from his body. The laps he'd done had worked up an appetite, so once he was dressed, he went back downstairs. He grabbed a quick snack - just an ice cream sandwich, and was about to head back to his room to attempt to sleep when he heard voices. He stopped dead in his tracks, as though he was ashamed of being in the kitchen for a middle of the night snack. Something about the tone of voices sent the hairs on the back of his neck straight up. He stood still, trying not to listen, but failing.
"Give me a hand, would you, Alfred?"
"Of course, sir."
There was a hiss of pain.
"Sorry, sir. Let me take a look at your arm."
"All right."
There was a moment of silence, though Clark's sensitive hearing detected the sound of clothing shifting.
"Oh, sir! How in the world did you manage that?" Alfred asked, sounding aghast.
"One of them had a hunting knife," Bruce replied, his voice betraying a slight shrug.
A hunting knife? Clark mouthed to himself in shock.
Just what was Bruce doing at night that entailed him meeting up with people carrying hunting knives? People who, apparently, had used such items against him.
"But...the suit. It should have withstood a slash from a knife," Alfred replied, a frown in his voice. "That new armor is top of the line! Unless...do you think we need to take it back to the drawing board, Master Bruce?"
"No, I don't think so. We're not going to get much better protection in the suit right now than what we've already got. You're right about one thing though, it should have stood up to a slash from a knife," Bruce said in a thoughtful way. "But, you have to admit, it's taken a lot of damage lately. It's my own fault really. I should have used the spare tonight."
The suit?
"Well," Alfred said with a soft sigh. Clark decided to x-ray through the walls to see what was going on, even though every part of him was telling him it wasn't his business. "The good news is, this wound isn't too bad. I don't think I'll need to stitch it."
Clark saw Bruce sitting on the couch. A long, bloody gash ran down the length of his upper left arm. Alfred disappeared for a couple of moments and returned with a first aid kit. Clark watched as the butler carefully disinfected the wound and wrapped Bruce's arm in a layer of gauze. Then he bandaged it the whole thing tightly. He used several strips of medical tape to secure it all in place.
"If anyone asks, I slipped and cut myself while I was working out," Bruce told the man.
"Of course, sir. It has nothing to do whatsoever with running around Gotham city at all hours of the night." The tone was light, teasing, familiar.
Bruce chuckled. "Right. Just a normal occupational hazard for a billionaire."
"May I ask, Master Bruce? How? How did it happen? You're not usually one to be taken so...off guard."
Bruce shook his head. "There were just too many this time. I'm lucky that knife wound was all that I got. Crime seems to be getting worse in this city, not better, despite my best efforts."
"You're only one man," Alfred said, sympathetically. "But, despite the police's denunciation of Batman, the majority of the people support what you're doing. You've done a lot of good out there."
"A lot, but not enough." It didn't take a genius to know that Bruce was brooding.
Wait! Clark's brain screamed at him. Did Alfred just call Bruce the Batman?
He lost the thread of the conversation as his mind lurched and spun in a dizzying swirl of thoughts. Could it be really true? Was Bruce Wayne actually Batman? It would explain a lot, Clark had to admit. The late hours he claimed to pull. The reason why he'd given Clark the explicit request to be left alone at night - so that he wouldn't be discovered as completely missing from Wayne Manor, as Clark now understood it. The fact that Bruce had claimed that his "best work" was often accomplished when the world grew dark. He wasn't sitting in his own quarters inventing things! He was on there, on the city streets, fighting crime as a masked force for good.
"It's true," Clark whispered to himself, convinced.
He heard Bruce getting up off the couch now.
"Alfred? Do we have any of that chocolate mousse left?" he asked, his voice drifting closer. He sounded more tired than Clark had ever heard him sound before.
"Yes, sir. Shall I bring you a bowl?"
"No, no. I'll grab it myself. Thanks, Alfred."
"Will you be needing anything else this evening?"
"No, I'm heading to bed after the mousse. I'm not even going to attempt to fix the suit tonight. It can wait until tomorrow night."
"Very good, Master Bruce. If I'm not needed, I think I shall retire to my room as well."
"Night, Alfred."
"Goodnight, Master Bruce."
***
Clark zipped upstairs at super speed, using the back staircase. He didn't usually use the old "servants' passage," but he knew his way around like the back of his hand. He'd learned all the routes through the vast mansion within his first week of living there.
By going that way, he was able to avoid being seen by Bruce. And, even if their paths had crossed, it was unlikely Bruce would have even noticed him. Clark could now move so quickly he was not much more than a blur of color, if he moved at top speed. And that was what he now employed. He didn't stop until he was safely tucked away in his room, the door locked behind him. He stopped with his back against the solid wood of the door, his heart hammering in his chest so violently it was a wonder neither Bruce nor Alfred could hear it slamming against his ribcage.
"He's Batman," he whispered to himself.
Somehow, it felt more real saying it aloud, then just in the confines of his own brain.
He tuned in with his super hearing. He heard Bruce puttering about in the kitchen, then making his way to his bedroom. Not long after, soft snores could be heard. Clark severed the connection, then silently slipped back down to the main floor. He'd never been tempted to x-ray the house before - why would he have? - but now he carefully examined the place. There was a hollow space behind the grandfather clock, and a staircase leading down. Clark looked for the mechanism that would allow him to access the doorway beyond. It turned out to be as simple as a hidden switch on the very back of the right side, so expertly placed it was all but invisible to the naked eye.
He brushed a fingertip against the switch with a feather light touch, and the clock silently swung forward, allowing him entrance beyond. Gulping hard and trying to will his heart to beat more slowly, Clark descended the steps until he reached the bottom.
A thick steel door awaited him. It was locked, and a keypad was built into the wall to the right. Clark didn't dare touch the keypad. Bruce probably had the thing wired to an alarm if the wrong code was punched in, and Clark couldn't even begin to fathom what the code might be. He x-rayed through the door instead. Or, at least, he tried to. There must have been a layer of lead shielding. Clark frowned. He stretched out with his super hearing, but everything was quiet. Defeated for the moment, he retreated back up the stairs, then swiftly zipped back to his room.
He did not sleep for the rest of the night, as his mind worked to process what he'd learned.
Bruce Wayne - the kind, hardworking benefactor who'd plucked Clark from the streets at his lowest point - was Batman.
To Be Continued..
