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The battle was over. The last bits of debris fell from the ceiling, the dust settled, and the eerie silence returned to the trophy room of the Fortress of Solitude. Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, and Diana Prince stood over the paralyzed form of Mongul the Elder, drooling onto the floor as the Black Mercy plant on his chest filled his head with visions of untold carnage and atrocity.
“What do you think he sees?” Diana pondered aloud.
“Whatever it is,” Bruce mused, “it’s too good for him.”
Clark still looked like a reanimated corpse. They had never seen his face so pale. Come to think of it, they had never seen him pale at all. Upon registering their shocked expressions, he straightened his posture and tried to find his usual reassuring voice. “Thanks for the help back there,” he spoke in earnest, underplaying the situation’s severity as always.
“Are you alright?” came Bruce’s reply, cold but with a touch of concern.
“Huh? Yeah, no, I’m ok. Just… shaken, I guess you’d say.” He sighed hoisted Mongul’s stiff body onto his shoulder. “I’m gonna take him to the Watchtower real quick, be back in a couple minutes. You’re more than welcome to stick around, maybe we can salvage something out of today, yeah?” He flashed the smile that had comforted the world in times of war and crises, then flew through the hole in the ceiling to make his exit.
“Did you hear what he was saying?” Diana asked, still reeling from her own brush with the Black Mercy. “When he was fighting, I mean.”
Bruce gave a small nod. “Whatever the plant showed him, it was no power fantasy. He sounded like he was… grieving. Like he lost a family member.”
“What makes you say family, specifically?”
He turned to look at her, and she saw a brief glint of sadness beneath his trademark scowl. “I’ve never seen him enraged like that, but I know where it comes from.”
Five minutes later, Clark was back, and the three were sitting at his grand table. As he looked around at his beautiful crystal palace, the Superman was unable to ignore just how… empty the place felt. Compared to his humble farmhouse with Loana and Van, this grand marvel of engineering and technology felt like a tomb in the ice. The presence of his friends alleviated the feeling a bit, but they would soon leave. Besides, they didn’t seem to be doing much better than he did.
“Clark…” Diana coaxed gently, “Do you want to talk about it?”
“I had a son,” he blurted. He hadn’t expected to say anything at all, but once he started, he was unable to stop. “I had a wife and a dog on… on Krypton. I had a whole life as a simple farmer on my home planet. It was so… so real.” His eyes fell to the crushed Krypton rose on the table as he continued, “I have memories going back years. Even now, I can close my eyes and perfectly see a beautiful day out with my parents that never happened. Like a dream you have when you sleep too much and you expect to wake up as an old man.”
“How did you break through it?” Bruce leaned forward, resting his chin on his fist. As concerned as he was, he couldn’t help for feel a morbid fascination towards the Black Mercy.
“I heard your voice, Bruce. And even before that, I couldn’t help but feel like something was off, I guess. Seismic activity no one could see but me, my father acting strange when I talked to him… I don’t know. Does it matter? I had to look my son in the eyes, this… beautiful, wonderful child I had loved for eight years, and tell him I didn’t think he was real. I had to watch my planet die a second time.” His teeth were beginning to grind, faint hints of tears forming in his eyes.
Diana placed a hand on her invulnerable friend’s fist. “Oh, Kal…” she whispered. “I can only imagine what that’s like… no wonder you were so furious, I’ve never seen you like that.”
He gave a small shrug. “It’s because I’ve never been so angry. It felt like… like discovering someone desecrated your mother’s grave, only a thousand times worse.” A twisted grimace stole across his face, then vanished. His posture changed, and suddenly Kal-El was Superman again. “But that’s enough about that. Bruce, are you ok? I saw it latch onto you before I went after Mongul. What did you see, if you don’t mind my asking?”
Very clearly caught off-guard, Bruce sat in silence for a moment before answering. “Interesting plant, isn’t it?” he began. “Feeding off of serotonin and trapping its victim in a blissful fantasy, it’s almost poetic. Even more fascinating is how vivid the fantasies are. I was looking all around when it had me; it was all so real, not a speck of blurring or warping like a dream or hallucination. I could feel the night air against my face, the faint humidity from the afternoon’s rainfall, the uneven pavement under my feet. I can’t even begin to imagine the chemical cocktail it would take to—”
“Bruce,” Diana interrupted. “We’re wondering if you’re okay.”
He turned his eyes from them. “I saw my parents,” he muttered. “Alive, happy, thriving. About what you’d expect, I suppose.”
Clark and Diana exchanged glances. It was pretty much what they had expected, but he wasn’t telling them everything. Then again, that was also to be expected.
“What I can’t figure out,” Bruce deflected, “is how Diana broke free. It got her after she ripped it off me. But she managed to pull it off without any help whatsoever. Barely had her for thirty seconds. Why is that?”
Diana hoped against hope that Bruce didn’t notice her blush. He did. “I, uh… I can’t say,” she said as coolly as she could manage. “Maybe I’m resistant. Maybe… maybe what it showed me was just too impossible to believe. I don’t remember much, I just remember feeling like I’d been shown something like… like 1+1=3. It just didn’t make sense, and I rejected it.”
Bruce furrowed his brow, but said nothing more. Clark finally stood up. “I appreciate you both coming here,” he said. “And, to say I appreciate the help would be a massive understatement. But… I think I’d like some time alone, you know? I have a lot to process. Drinks and merriment feel a bit… inappropriate right now.”
Diana stood up as well, and made her way over to him. She embraced him with all of her strength. He reciprocated as politely as he could. “Please,” she pleaded with a half-smile. “Please don’t hesitate to reach out, okay? Don’t go all Man of Steel on us and go through this alone. Otherwise, I’m coming back with Lois to straighten you out, ya hear me?”
He let out a soft laugh at the very thought. “Alright, I promise it won’t come to that. Thank you.”
Bruce approached with the awkward shuffling of a child on his way to the principal’s office. He raised a hand, hesitated, pulled it back a bit, then seemed to find the resolve to keep pushing forward until his hand finally found Clark’s shoulder. He looked his friend in the eye, nodded solemnly, and said, “For whatever it’s worth… happy birthday, Kal-El.”
To anyone else, the gesture would have seemed half-hearted. To the Kryptonian, it was the most genuine display of friendship the vigilante had ever offered: calling him by his true name. “Thank you, Bruce,” he smiled.
The Invisible Jet settled into autopilot above the clouds. Bruce had removed his cowl the instant they’d taken off, and the warrior princess could tell something was bothering him. More than usual, anyway.
“Hey, crimefighter,” she began, “any chance of you telling me what’s going on in that big brain of yours?”
He looked at her, opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it, shrugging the question off.
Figured as much, she thought, and turned away with a sigh. Before she could make her way to the cargo hold, however, a firm hand touched her arm.
“Diana,” he spoke as he turned to her. Before she could react, his hand was in hers, wrapped in the end of the Lasso of Truth hanging from her hip.
“Bruce, what are you—”
“I didn’t just see my parents alive. I didn’t just see a life where we were happy. I saw that night. In Crime Alley. Joe Chill came out of the shadows. Pointed the gun. Demanded my mother’s necklace of pearls. And my father sprang forward. Disarmed him. And then he beat the life out of him for… I don’t know how long.” His face remained stoic and unflinching as he continued. “It just kept going, and going, and going, and I loved every second of it. It was a rush. Pure dopamine. That’s what scares me. That’s what’s got me thinking myself into a hole. I don’t know what that says about me, or how far gone I am that my heart’s desire was endless violence, but I want to believe I’m better than that. I want to believe I can be more than a violent thug with billions. I want to believe that I can deserve happiness, that I can deserve—”
He suddenly snatched his hand away before he could say more. Without thinking, she caressed his cheek. He was breathing heavily, a bewildered look on his face.
“Um… how do you feel?” she broke the silence.
“Better. I think,” he replied. “Huh. No wonder people pay money to do that.” And then he was back to his usual self. He went back to the cockpit, checked the instruments and meters, and observed the clouds parting for them.
Diana returned to her own seat, leaning back to hopefully get a light nap on the journey. Besides, there was something she wanted to see again…
She walked through the door of their condo and he was there. He was wearing his cornflower blue button-up, the top two buttons undone. Three pots were on the stove, each containing a different savory masterpiece as the roast came together in the oven.
“Hello, dear!” he greeted her with that smile that must’ve wrapped whole rooms of women around his finger in another life. “Hope you don’t mind, Alfred’s visiting tonight. He just got back in the States, and I owe him a dinner.”
“No, of course not!” she laughed as she walked over to give him a kiss on the cheek. “Just so long as you two don’t start exchanging war stories at the table again, alright?”
He shrugged like he had no idea what she meant, then went back to whistling a Sinatra tune as he brought the back burner down to a simmer.
“Oh, by the way!” she said as she headed back to their bedroom. “J’onn asked me to extend to you an invite to the Watchtower. Apparently, the new hardware of the central computer isn’t getting along with the tower’s network, or something.”
“Yeah, that’s because they keep forgetting to optimize the thing,” he called after her, “They just start shoving round pegs in square holes and then they wonder why it’s all clogged up! When’s he want me to look at it?”
She walked inside their closet before shouting back, “Some time next week, whenever you’re ava—”
She stopped short. Tears welled in her eyes as she saw the glass display case at the back of the closet. He had finally done it. it was finally put away. What had once contained his cowl, cape, and costume he hadn’t worn in eight months on a crash test dummy now contained a mannequin, perfectly preserving her Amazonian wedding garb.