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Bruce Wayne had never hid from his own darkness. He’d never pretended to be anything other than what he was; a man whose soul had been shattered by tragedy. At least, where Bruce was concerned. Brucie Wayne, on the other hand, was a different matter. He continued to use the persona created for him when Ra’s Al Ghul had invaded his home one night, threatening to turn every guest into nothing short of burnt toast.
Brucie had a reputation about Gotham, as a playboy, a drunkard, with nothing better to do with his time than party. Bruce had decided to use that persona to cover up the real man; the man who hid beneath an armoured chest plate and cowl, terrorising the local criminal fraternities with an image that would strike fear into even the average human heart. Batman.
It wasn’t to say that people didn’t see through the disguise. There had been a young woman about eighteen months ago. She had chosen to disappear, leaving behind those she loved, in order to protect them from something she believed was coming. Something darker than even Batman himself.
Chloe Sullivan, although she wasn’t calling herself that, had turned up at the Gotham Police charity ball. The blonde had told people she was there to cover the event for a freelance article she was writing for the Gotham Tribune, but as soon as she’d met Commissioner Jim Gordon, she was asking him questions about the city’s flawed hero. She clearly didn’t believe that Batman was responsible for the death of Harvey Dent; or rather that the Dark Knight had killed him. The commissioner had tried to steer her away from the subject, but as skilled as the man was at deflection, the young would-be reporter was better.
Bruce had observed the conversation, smirking into his champagne glass, his brain working full speed to try and figure the girl out. She had noticed him watching and raised her own glass in a salute, an answering smirk on her face.
Bruce had returned home to Wayne Manor, prepared to dig up as much on the young woman as he could. The trouble was, he couldn’t. Not all of it. She had skilfully wiped all electronic traces of herself from the past several years. She couldn’t completely wipe her own identity.
He learned she had been the editor of a small town high school newspaper called the Torch. Her articles had been well-written, if a little hyperbolic, particularly with her forays into the realms of science fiction theories of meteorites giving people extraordinary abilities. Bruce was surprised to learn an old classmate had become a resident of the town of Smallville, until he’d disappeared.
Bruce had gone to school with the likes of Lex Luthor, Oliver Queen and his cronies, although he’d been two years ahead of them. He had had little to do with them; Queen, of course, had had a reputation as a bully and a braggart. Bruce hadn’t liked the boy at all. Lex, on the other hand, had been a constant victim of bullying, until one particular afternoon when it had all gone to hell. No one touched Luthor after he’d almost beaten a friend into unconsciousness. They all thought that if Luthor could do that to a friend, imagine what he would do to his enemies.
Lex had returned to Metropolis a year ago, but for some reason, he had no memory of his life. Not that that had stopped him, Bruce mused. He’d taken the former Luthorcorp and begun to rebuild it as LexCorp. It was Wayne Enterprises biggest business rival, for legitimate business at least.
That led him back to thoughts of Chloe. He’d slowly begun to connect the dots between Chloe and a small band of superheroes from around the world which had begun to gather in Metropolis a year ago. They’d been fighting a war against a tide of censure from a government which saw them as vigilantes. Bruce was no hypocrite, but that was essentially what they were. The police were heroes, given a mandate by the local authorities to fight against crime. The superheroes had no such mandate. They supposedly did it out of the goodness of their hearts, but no one knew what their real motivation was.
Chloe had combed all of Gotham looking to meet Batman and, his curiosity piqued, Bruce had allowed the meeting. She had told him of the league of superheroes; of her desire for him to join. He had told her in no uncertain terms that he worked alone and begun to turn away.
“Do you think you’re better than them, Bruce?” she asked.
Startled, he’d frozen in place, not daring to turn around and look at her lest she realise she’d gotten beneath his armour.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” he said finally.
“Liar!” she accused. “I’ve done my homework. For one thing, Batman appeared not long after Bruce Wayne returned to Gotham. About the same time Bruce began to get the reputation as a drunk and a no-good party boy. Ever read Poe, Batman?”
“No!” he said shortly.
“You should,” she said, launching into an explanation of the short story The Purloined Letter. Bruce knew the story only too well.
Chloe went on to tell him that she had seen through the disguise of Brucie Wayne to the Batman underneath. She then proceeded to give him an indepth analysis of all of Batman’s toys and why only a man as rich as Bruce would be able to afford such technology. In the face of such evidence, he knew he could not deny it.
Chloe smirked at him. “You’re not the first, Bruce, and you certainly won’t be the last. I’ve had a bit of practice at this.”
“As editor of the Smallville Torch, and a former Daily Planet reporter, I’m in no doubt.”
“I see you’ve been doing your homework as well,” she’d told him when he’d taken her back to the Batcave to confront her with the evidence of her own deceptions.
“I wouldn’t be Batman if I didn’t,” he’d told her.
They’d talked for hours. Days, even. Chloe had tried to persuade him to join the league, but he wanted no part of it.
“I work alone, Chloe.”
“They need someone like you. Don’t turn your back on them. They’re fighting a war out there, Bruce. Something big is coming. Something dark.”
“I’m not much good to them.”
“Why? Because you’re the thing in the dark that criminals fear? I know all about your motivations, Bruce. Your darkness.”
“Don’t presume to know me, Chloe! You know nothing at all!” he snarled.
She poked her tongue out a little, her top teeth biting down.
“Oh, I get it. You’d rather be alone in your self-pity. So you lost your parents to murder. We’ve all lost something, Bruce. Every one of us. So don’t think we don’t understand!”
“You don’t understand anything,” he told her. “I don’t want to be a part of this because I don’t trust them! Any of them! Even your friend the Blur.”
Her eyes widened as she looked at him.
“Yes, I know everything! Like you said, Chloe, I’ve done my homework. I know about Clark Kent. I also know about three months in Metropolis when he was younger. Is it any wonder I don’t trust him. Anyone who is capable of that much destruction is someone I could never trust my life to!”
Chloe had left not long after that, seeming resigned to never being able to convince him to join the fight. He should have known better, he thought as he walked into the Gotham Hilton to attend a charity dinner.
Chloe must have seen his reflection in the glass double doors that guarded the entrance to the ballroom as she turned from where she had been talking with Oliver Queen, a glass in hand. Bruce noted she was drinking orange juice, not champagne, a hand resting lightly on her stomach which showed an obvious bulge. He took note of the wedding band and the one carat princess-cut diamond on the narrow white gold band nestled close to the wedding band.
Oliver Queen smiled and held out his hand.
“Bruce! It’s been a long time. You know my wife, Chloe.”
“Mrs Queen,” he said, quickly adopting the Brucie persona and grinning at her as he shook Oliver’s hand. “I see you two have been busy,” he added, glancing down at her stomach.
Oliver put an arm around his wife. “Yep. Only four months to go and we can’t wait, right honey?”
Chloe beamed at her husband, even as her gaze searched Bruce’s face for some clue as to what he was thinking.
All through the dinner, he found himself watching the couple, who seemed to be very close, although not so obvious with the public displays of affection. Bruce had learned enough from Ra’s Al Ghul to know body language and the Queens’ body language spoke volumes. They had both been through some struggles but had come out the other side stronger for it.
He wasn’t surprised when he received a visit from them the next day. Alfred announced them in a stiff tone. Bruce had been injured the night before while out on patrol and Alfred had admonished him sternly over it. His foster father and butler had been telling him for months he was a fool to take on Gotham’s criminal elite alone and perhaps he should call in some assistance from the Justice League.
“Mr and Mrs Queen. Sir,” Alfred added in what was unmistakably a snarky tone.
“Thank you, Alfred, that’ll be all,” he said coolly, watching as the couple entered the room.
Chloe glanced from one to the other as Alfred paused in the doorway and smiled at her, then sent a cool glance back toward Bruce.
“Wow! What did you do?”
Bruce declined to answer. “What are you doing here?”
“We came to talk to you. About joining the Justice League,” Oliver said.
“I told Chloe last time I wasn’t interested.”
“Just hear us out. Look, Bruce, I know we weren’t exactly friends at Excelsior but I ... the League needs someone with your skills.”
“Which skills are those, Oliver? Let’s talk about skills. Let’s talk about what skills it takes to beat up defenceless boys.”
Oliver frowned at him. “What?”
“Oh, let’s not play games, Oliver. I made my feelings on the matter quite clear eighteen months ago on why I am not interested in joining your League. As far as I am concerned, you are all just children playing games.”
“Look, I really don’t ...”
“You may have fooled the world, Oliver, into thinking that Green Arrow is a hero ...”
“He is,” Chloe interjected, but Bruce ignored it.
“...but I still think Green Arrow is nothing but the same bully who used to victimise young boys at Excelsior. Don’t think I didn’t know about the torment you put Lex Luthor through.”
“That was a long time ago, and I have made my peace about that.”
“I haven’t! You may think two years on a deserted island turned you into a man, Oliver, but it doesn’t fundamentally change who you are. You can put on a mask and a costume but you are still essentially the same bully boy you always were.”
“And what are you, Bruce, except a man who hides behind a cowl and armour, refusing to let anyone in? The fact is, all you’re interested in is getting revenge for your parents. That makes you no better than I.”
“At least I don’t pretend to hide behind a veneer of respectability,” Bruce pointed out.
“No, you just hide behind the mask of an empty-headed buffoon,” Chloe told him. “I told you before, we’ve all lost something. We all have our issues. I cringe now when I think of the times I put my friends in danger because I dug too deep.”
Oliver looked at his wife and she smiled gently.
“Bruce, you can stand there and judge us, but can you really say that you haven’t had the same thoughts and feelings as the rest of us? Haven’t you wanted to kill the man who shot your parents with your bare hands?”
“It’s not the point. Chloe, do you even know the things this man has done? He’s a murderer.”
“Look, I admit I did some things as a kid that I am not proud of. And yes, before you say it, if I hadn’t tormented Lex he might not have turned on Duncan. I know you saw it. I remember you there that day.”
“Then you clearly remember your friends Alden and Jeffrey laughing about it afterwards.”
An expression of pain crossed Oliver’s face.
“That was wrong. I know that. Believe me, I was not happy that they did that. Nor did I think their deaths were justified, no matter how they came about.”
“What about Lex Luthor? Did he deserve to be blown up in that truck?”
“Look, we all made mistakes. Even Clark,” Chloe said. “You can’t keep holding them over our heads.”
“I don’t know why you continue to defend them,” Bruce told her. “But then you’re clearly biased.”
“You hypocrite!” she said. “How dare you stand there and judge us all unworthy when all you see is words on a screen. You can’t tell who we are by words or images!”
“I know enough,” he said. “I know what you’ve done. What you’ve all done. Hell, the only person who doesn’t seem to hide behind anything is Lois Lane, but everyone knows she’s Superman’s girl.”
“You’re still judging Clark and Oliver on the mistakes they’ve made, rather than actually know them, know what they’ve become. The reason we make mistakes is so we can learn from them.”
“Yet how many times have they crossed the line?” Bruce asked.
“I suppose you think you’ve never crossed that line?” Oliver accused. “Not even once?”
“I never killed anyone and I was never responsible for killing anyone.”
“Clark has never deliberately killed anyone. Yes, some people died, but they were accidents!”
“It still doesn’t justify what he has done. What gets me is how he can forgive, time and time again.”
“Forgive whom?”
“You for one,” Bruce told Oliver.
“Clark was taught to see the best in people,” Chloe pointed out. “Just because you’re a cynic, doesn’t mean people ... humanity is capable of great things. That’s what Clark believes. You can call that naive but there is nothing wrong with it.”
“Okay, look, maybe you’re right, especially about what I did to Lex, but a lot of that was fuelled by anger and hatred. I blamed Lex for a lot of things that went wrong in my life. I know that was wrong.”
“I still don’t trust you. Any of you.”
“Then let us earn that trust, Bruce. You have to give us time.”
“We can help each other,” Chloe said softly. “You need help here, Bruce. You can’t keep doing this alone. Just give them a chance to prove that they’re not just little boys and their toys, okay? We’re not asking you to be a full-fledged member of the League. We know you’re not ready for that yet.”
Bruce was still not completely convinced. Neither Clark nor Oliver had been called to account for the things they had done. Clark had robbed a bank and ATMs on a one-man crime spree when he’d been sixteen years old. Oliver had murdered a man. They’d both crossed lines and Bruce believed there was just no coming back from that.
Alfred returned after seeing the couple out, looking steadily at his ward.
“Spit it out, Alfred,” Bruce said.
“Master Bruce, far be it from me to criticise, but what gives you the right to sit in judgment? You may not have killed anyone but you almost did, or did you forget the day you took a gun to court to murder the man who killed your parents?”
“It’s not the same, Alfred.”
“No? Perhaps not, but the intent is still the same. I never wanted this for you, Bruce, but you chose it anyway. I sometimes wonder what your father and mother would have thought of the man you’ve become. I highly doubt they would approve.”
“What’s your point, Alfred? Do you think I’m wrong in turning them away?”
“I think when a man chooses a life of extreme isolation he is in danger of becoming the very thing he despises. You need them, Bruce, as much as they need you. You just won’t let yourself see it.” He paused. “Do you remember what I said the day you fell into the well?”
Bruce remembered everything about that day.
“Why do we fall, Master Bruce?” Alfred said softly. “So we might learn to pick ourselves up.”
Perhaps, Bruce thought, the old man had a point. If you live in darkness, he thought, sometimes it just swallows you whole. He’d fought the darkness outside for so long he’d forgotten about the darkness within.
He sat back and stared thoughtfully out at the darkening sky. Metropolis often talked about Superman as their guiding light. Perhaps it was time he too stepped into the light.