Chapter Text
“It’s not possible,” Bruce growled at the screen. “These armed gangs in Atlanta, assaults in Berlin. Metropolis is unrecognisable. I can’t be in all these places at once.”
The television behind him announced breaking news. There had been a mass shooting at a school in Singapore. One of the safest cities in the world. Alfred met his gaze with a grimace.
If Superman was still alive, hundreds of those lives would be too. If only Superman was still alive. His face burned at the thought that he had wished for it. How had he imagined that killing Superman would save lives? That he would pick up the slack? He was no replacement for a man of steel.
There was someone who might be. A woman of steel. The beautiful antiques dealer who went by the name of Diana Prince. He had seen the power in her as she had struck Luthor’s monster with her sword. She had been thrown a hundred yards and barely suffered a scratch. He had only seen her like in Superman.
But she wasn’t a Kryptonian. They had spoken briefly after Superman’s death. Bruce had taken the body to Smallville at Lois’ request and Diana had come with them. On the drive Bruce had explained what the spear was and how he had made it with the intention of killing Superman himself. Diana had accepted his explanation without judgement.
“You didn’t reply to my email,” he had said.
She had looked puzzled for a moment and then replied, “Yes. Thank you for the files.”
“You didn’t answer my questions.”
She hadn’t looked at him but a wry smile had crept onto her face. “Have you heard of the Amazons?”
“Sounds familiar.”
“Look them up. But I can’t promise that everything you read is true.”
Bruce wondered if she’d have told him more if Lois hadn’t been sitting in the back. When they had arrived at the Kents’ house, she had carried the body inside and Lois had invited them both to the funeral. Bruce had intended to offer Diana a ride back to Metropolis or wherever else she wanted to go, but she had vanished.
He had researched the Amazons, of course. They were immortal women warriors from Greek mythology. That told him little more than he had already worked out. There were still so many missing answers. Why was she living as an antiques dealer in Paris? Where were the other Amazons? Why had she been photographed in her armour with a bunch of World War I soldiers when nobody had heard of her? What exactly had made her go into hiding? If he knew the last, he might be able to draw her out it.
He pictured her large dark eyes and the elegant curve of her neck. He considered himself exceptionally good at drawing women out. She would be a challenge to seduce – his greatest yet. Not only was she extraordinarily beautiful and powerful, but she was disenchanted with men and closed off. A challenge like that would certainly be a distraction from the bitter regret that was otherwise plaguing him.
But no, he needed her as an ally. Mixing personal relationships with work was a sure way to make a mess of a plan. He had to win her trust so that she would be ready to help as soon as the next alien threat surfaced. He also needed to know exactly who she was before he could trust her.
Bruce loaded the image of the 1918 Belgian photograph. There was no photographer’s name on the file or the image itself, but few people went around with a camera in twentieth century war-stricken Europe. He wrote an email to the director of the Martha Wayne Foundation, granting a large sum for students, historians and artists to go to France and Belgium to uncover forgotten First World War photographs. An exhibition would be held in Gotham for the most interesting and unique of them.
He sprang to his feet. “I’m going to Metropolis. Here’s hoping I can do a fraction of what he would have.”
There had been a knife attack in the daytime, but the attacker had been arrested and the police had cordoned off the road. The area was known for gang crime, so Batman patrolled the roofs in case anything else broke out.
Alfred spoke in his earpiece. “Strange activity going on behind the city museum. A number of people got out of a van. Looks like they’re waiting for something.”
A red cross flashed at the location on his GPS.
By the time he reached the museum, the men had already got into the premises. They hadn’t cut through the wire fence – someone had let them in. The side gate was open and a padlock and chain were lying on the floor. He launched a batrope to the top of the attic windows and sprung himself up. He smashed the window and crawled inside.
His night goggles showed their body heat on the other side of the floorboards. They were coming up to the attic. He went silently into the corridor and threw two batarangs into the stairwell. The yells and thuds gave him an estimate of two hits. He threw a smoke bomb and leapt into the stairwell.
His feet crashed into a stomach, pinning it to the ground and his fists met the next thief's face. He wrestled the man and locked his wrists into a cuff. One of the batarang victims emerged through the smoke, his nose smashed and bleeding and his arm outstretched. A sharp punch to the neck and he was on his back again.
Batman cuffed the rest of them and put on his goggles to check for any more. Someone was hovering at the bottom of the stairwell, but Batman didn’t think he was a criminal. He went down. It was an old man with dreadlocks and a huge collection of keys at his belt. He held up his hands.
“Please! I’m only the janitor.”
“Then you should call the police.”
“They must have been after the Superman memorabilia upstairs. They were preparing to set up a display in memory of him. We’ve got a landmine that he deactivated, a car door that he ripped out with one hand and even one of his capes! All that has shot up in value since his death...”
Batman stalked past the janitor. They didn’t have Superman’s cape.
A sign in the corridor caught his eye. American Soldiers on the Front: 1914–1918. The arrow led him to an exhibition room with a maze of glass display cases. He followed it round, only glancing at each piece for a spilt second. In the centre was a low table displaying newspaper cuttings.
One was in French: ‘THE WOMAN OF WONDER’. A black-haired warrior in plate armour flanked by four soldiers stared out at him. It was Diana’s photograph. The article described how the wonder woman had run head-first through gunfire in No Man’s Land, stormed the German trench and liberated the town of Veld. The plaque translating the article into English had a note at the bottom: ‘Metropolis City Museum is grateful to Alexander Luthor for the donation of this artefact.’ Batman took a photo of it.