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Barbara Ann Minerva hated attending Bruce Wayne's birthday parties.
It was always the biggest get-together (this year it was even on the largest of his private yachts, sailing merrily through the Caribbean) with the loudest and richest people, and for nearly a decade now Bruce himself had always been scrupulously absent.
There was something unseemly about it, a man throwing around so much money without being there to take part in the bacchanalia he was bankrolling. But then, she wasn't too surprised that he stayed away. Barbara could still vaguely remember the first time they'd met; the young orphan had been weird, but compared to cavalcade drunken buffoons who attended these parties, weird would be a welcome respite.
Gazing out at a passing cloud, Barbara tried to take a stroll down memory lane and recall exactly what Bruce had been like in greater detail. Ironically, the next word that came to mind to describe the party's missing guest of honor was "serious". Yes, that was it, paradoxical as it might sound, Bruce Wayne had been weirdly serious. Barbara had tired to get him to open up as best she could, see if there was any room for her own particular brand of "weirdness" in his life, but no matter how many stories of ancient monsters she'd recounted to the best of her (understandably limited given her age) ability, he'd never seem to get drawn into them the way that she was.
None the less, she was still always invited to his birthday parties, because the Cavendishes (a family name that Barbara Ann Minerva had eagerly shed in favor of her mother's the moment she was legally capable of doing so) and the Waynes occupied similar enough social circles, even if it was a comparison between nurse sharks and great whites in the grand scheme of things. Bruce was probably spending more money on a party that he refused to attend than Barbara did in an entire year.
Granted, Barbara tended to be miserly in the manner that was typically only found among the very rich and very poor. Now that her father had passed on and left her what remained of the family fortune (after his fumbling), Barbara had plans for that money, and she wasn't going to fritter it away on yachts, jets, or other ostentatious displays.
Like, say, arriving at a party by flying a plane over a yacht, then skydiving onto it.
That was the first thought that Barbara had when she noticed a small plane seemingly heading in the yacht's general direction.
As it came closer and she got a better look at the vehicle in question, Barbara promptly changed her mind. Bruce Wayne would never make his arrival in something which looked that old-fashioned, honestly, she was a little surprised it was still in the air...
It was at that unfortunate instant that the plane in question abruptly "chose" to start losing altitude, and it hadn't been especially high to begin with.
Barbara struggled not to start hyperventilating.
This is not my fault. I can't cause airplanes to drop out of the sky just by thinking about it!
"Guys, I think there's a plane about to crash!" She called out for whatever that was worth.
Her fellow guests would probably only hoot and holler, but the yacht's staff (the people being paid to make sure the ship returned to port with the same number of people on board as it had departed with) were so profoundly competent that Barbara was barely even consciously aware of their presence most of the time.
She did what she could, warned whoever she could warn, and when there was nothing else productive left to be done, she watched the plane's final moments out of a perverse sense of responsibility to whoever was on board. The only good news was that rather than plowing into the side of the yacht, it managed to "only" plunge headfirst into the ocean.
Barbara slowly started counting off seconds in her head, wondering when she should just accept the bitter truth that if the plane's occupants hadn't perished in the crash, they surely must have drowned by now. That was the creeping inevitability which seemed more certain with every passing moment… until well after she suspected such a thing to be possible, a pair of figures bobbed to the surface.
Yay, happy ending. A plane that small wouldn't have room for three people, right?
Barbara shuddered slightly and decided that since they seemed to be drawing closer to the yacht, she might as well talk to the mysterious survivors and hopefully confirm that no one had died in the accident.
Emergency ladders were lowered and leaning (carefully) over the side of the yacht, she saw that both of the survivors were steadily climbing upwards.
Barbara did some quick mental calculations about where that particular ladder they had grabbed hold of would probably lead… and she didn't especially like the answer.
A short while later, a raucous cheer that made her wince at its sheer volume confirmed that her estimation had turned out to be correct (as Barbara's typically did).
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"
The survivors had climbed right into the middle of a huge crowd of people celebrating Bruce Wayne's birthday, and since one of the two new arrivals seemed to be a man in his early twenties with black hair and blue eyes, the party's guests had evidently decided "it has to be him, right?"
Barbara personally doubted that, and her doubts only grew stronger when she reached the main party area and got a better look at the survivor in question.
He's more confused than afraid, which means he's either an idiot, still running on pure adrenaline, or something weirder is going on….
Not only was this new arrival's expression slightly uncanny (unlike the older of the two, who looked properly horrified by his recent near death experience), but it was hard to imagine Bruce Wayne, one of the richest men in the world, showing up to a party on his own yacht wearing a red floral pattern shirt that just screamed "stereotypical American tourist". That wasn't a "Bruce Wayne" kind of move; he'd take a page out of James Bond's book and opt for a fancy tuxedo, probably one made of some sort of special fabric that let it go from soaking wet to bone dry in a matter of seconds.
Or maybe it was impossible to say exactly what Bruce Wayne would do, since he had been keeping to himself for so long, and all people (including Barbara) had were guesses.
Almost instantly, all the nearby party guests tried to desperately fawn over the person they thought was Bruce Wayne, even as it sounded like he was awkwardly stuttering his way through one apology after another.
That poor guy is going to get eaten alive.
In particular, one brown-haired woman in a skimpy purple bikini (by comparison, Barbara had opted for a one-piece green and blue swimsuit) was attaching herself to him with tenacity a barnacle would envy. Barbara didn't know the woman's name, which suggested she was probably here as a guest of someone else rather than an heiress herself.
"I hate to interrupt, but I think Mr. Wayne and I have some catching up to do." Barbara declared as she approached the pair.
The crash survivor, who probably wasn't Bruce Wayne, seemed grateful for her intervention, though his female hanger-on was anything but.
"Back off, Barbie, I sawww him first!" She responded, the words simultaneously slurred and hissed.
"First of all, my name is Barbara. Second of all, why don't we ask his opinion on the matter?" Barbara countered.
Barbara Ann Minerva had no way of knowing what exactly the black-haired man saw when he looked into her blue eyes… but she was fairly certain it was at least something different from everyone else trying desperately to butter him up.
"Yes, I'd really love to go with Barbara right now!" The black-haired man tried to excuse himself.
Barbara had to fight back the urge to wince, since she'd called him "Mr. Wayne", the real Bruce Wayne would have referred to her in turn as "Ms. Minerva" or at worst "Ms. Cavendish" if he'd been out of things so long he hadn't heard about her changing names.
"Why do you always, always ruin, everybody's fun?" The drunk woman growled as she detached himself from "Bruce Wayne", but only so that she'd be free to try and actively menace Barbara instead.
"It's true, true what they said about you, you're not any fun." The drunk woman huffed while waving an empty champagne glass towards Barbara's in a vaguely threatening manner.
"No, I'm not fun, but I am sober, and given what that means about the difference in our reaction times, I'm way too fast for you to handle." Barbara dared the other guest to escalate the confrontation to genuine violence.
Just like with the man who wasn't Bruce Wayne, Barbara wasn't quite sure what the other woman saw as the two stared one another down. Whatever it was, it eventually made her silently skulk over to the nearest sofa, giving Barbara and the mysterious survivor a chance to head further aft and find themselves a little privacy.
"Listen, I'm not..." He began once they were out of earshot of the others.
"I promise I'll handle that next, but first, there were only two people on your plane, right?" Barbara cut him off.
"Yeah, just me and the pilot." He confirmed, and Barbara was finally able to break free from a sense of dread that had been clinging to her since she'd watched the crash.
"You were worried?" He added a moment later, as if now he found himself sorely tempted to apologize for how his own near-death experience had ended up worrying someone he'd only met after the fact.
"Anyone with half a heart would be. Which on this ship probably means: you, me, and the crew. Sorry for interrupting, but taking a wild guess, does what you were about to say go something like 'I'm not Bruce Wayne'?" She inquired politely.
"Yeah." He agreed readily, then took a moment to look around, and after confirming that they were alone, leaned in close.
"My name is Clark Kent." He whispered before pulling away.
"Honestly, anyone with half a brain would probably have been able to figure out that you're not Bruce Wayne; so, once again: you, me, and the crew. Also, I'm Barbara Ann Minerva." Barbara introduced herself as she noticed a nearby tray of full champagne glasses that had been left lying out in the open, and took two, passing one over to Clark.
"You'll want to hold onto that. It's the rich person's version of the Helm of Darkness. We look like we're just standing around talking, people get curious, but if they think we're drinking together, might as well be invisible." Barbara promised, even gently clinking her glass against Clark's once he accepted it.
"Neat trick, but I think it's gonna take a lot more than just a glass of champagne to get me through this mess. For some reason, everyone seems to think I'm Bruce Wayne!"
"The reason is that nobody's seen Bruce Wayne out in public since he turned twelve. You've got the right hair and eye color. Beyond that, it's not like anybody here even cares about what Bruce Wayne looks like, or who he is, to them he's just the world's biggest cash piñata that they're all lining up to take a whack at." Barbara reassured him.
"Nobody cares about him, not even you?" Clark sounded almost painfully disappointed by the discovery of how morally dubious his personal "savior" had turned out to be.
"Oh, especially not me. The only way I'm different is that while they're all here to prey on Bruce Wayne, I'm here to prey on them." Barbara clarified, seeing no reason to deceive her new acquaintance.
"You don't look like a predator to me." Clark protested.
Barbara couldn't help but roll her eyes at her conversation partner's naivety.
"That's just because I don't plan to unsheathe my claws anytime soon. That said, if you feel up to doing me a favor, I wouldn't mind if you pretended to be Bruce Wayne for a while. People thinking I was in his good graces would be very useful down the line."
"That sounds like a plan that's going to wind up landing both of us, or at the very least me, in prison," Clark noted warily.
"You underestimate how stupid people who grew up with large amounts of money can be. What it does to a person if they never get told 'no' growing up... These people would believe a parrot was Bruce Wayne if it had the right haircut." Barbara promised.
"Somebody told you 'no' though, didn't they?" Clark had enough compassion in his voice that it was almost as if he was holding himself personally accountable for the tragic nature of Barbara Ann Minerva's upbringing.
"My late father, very frequently," Barbara answered before taking a small sip of champagne just to wash the bitterness from her mouth.
"I'm sorry about that."
"Not sure why you're apologizing for something that wasn't your fault," Barbara responded bluntly.
"I guess there's a part of me that thinks I should be able to save, or at the very least, help everyone," Clark explained.
"You are adorable." Barbara practically purred the words so great was her amusement.
"Anyway, as I said, if you want to help me, you can give being Bruce Wayne a try, and if you're worried that someone will realize you're not him…." Barbara held out a hand to block off Clark Kent's nose and everything above it, to tally what she was seeing against the best her memories could offer.
"Yep, I was right. Your chin, Bruce Wayne's chin, most stunning likeness I've ever seen in my life." She reassured the party's uninvited guest/faux man of the hour.
"Great, so I just need to figure out an excuse to wear a mask that covers the other three-quarters of my face, and I'll be all set," Clark huffed.
"You're being too humble, that chin, I'm just eyeballing it, but it's gotta account for at least a third of your face." Barbara snickered.
Yes, it was a little mean; alas, sometimes Barbara Minerva couldn't stop herself from being rather catty.
"The problem is I don't know how to be Bruce Wayne, or anybody else for that matter. I don't know how to be anyone other than myself." Clark insisted.
"You can still be yourself even while being someone else. Hell, it might even be easier." Barbara tried to reassure Clark.
"How is that supposed to work?" He responded, his face contorted into a dubious frown.
"Well, since you brought them up, let's talk about masks. It's a common psychological phenomenon that people will, on average, feel more confident when wearing a mask. Typically, that's because there's less fear of any sort of social blowback. Which means ultimately people don't put on masks to hide who they are, but to freely reveal it to the world." Barbara explained.
"That's… neat. Why do you know it, though?"
"When I'm not helping airplane crash survivors pull off an especially easy version of 'The Prince and the Pauper,' I'm a college student who took a psychology course or two for a lark," Barbara answered with a shrug of her shoulders.
"Besides, think of all the fun that Bruce Wayne is missing by refusing to attend his own birthday party. Wouldn't it be better for him if there were somebody out there in the world who might one day tell him about how they experienced it for him? Somebody who could give him a happy story to share with his friends? Not these 'friends', obviously, but some friends who actually care about him?" Barbara tried to gently cajole Clark into going along with her scheme.
"What are the odds that I'm ever gonna meet Bruce Wayne?" Clark Kent scoffed.
"Can't be that much worse than the odds of your plane crash landing within swimming distance of his yacht..." Barbara countered.
Clark thought it over for a moment, looked down at his glass of champagne, and then gently clinked it against Barbara's.
XXX XXX XXX
"I'M BRUCE WAYYYNE!" Screamed Clark Kent at the top of his lungs, his voice loud enough that not even the roar of his jet ski could stop Barbara from hearing it back on board the yacht.
"I may have created a monster." Barbara Ann Minerva reflected, not sure if she should be proud or horrified by that particular realization.
XXX XXX XXX
A few hours later, Clark and Barbara were once again hanging out together in private as they watched the sun set, this time not even bothering with champagne glasses.
Clark had given her a fuller breakdown of who he was by this point: how he'd grown up on a farm in Kansas, and only been in that plane because he'd won a free trip to the Bahamas in a charity raffle.
And he still knew next to nothing about her.
"So, that day, you 'unsheathe your claws' how big a mess are you planning on making?" Clark inquired while leaning his hands on the ship's railing.
"Don't worry, I don't plan to hurt these people anywhere but their pocketbooks. Honest." Barbara vowed.
"Why do you even need to do that? Aren't you already rich?" Clark asked with what she now considered his trademark naivety.
"There's rich, and then there's rich. My father made a mess of things to the point that the amount he left me barely reaches eight figures."
"Barely eight figures?" Clark spluttered in obvious consternation.
"I know." Barbara deliberately disregarded the tone of her conversation partner's comment and continued all the same.
"As things stand, I'll probably have burnt through all of it before I turn thirty."
"So you've got plans for all that money and the next decade of your life?" Clark whistled in astonishment.
"You don't, the plans I mean?" Barbara knew that being rich had afforded her opportunities that the less well-to-do lacked, but was it really that hard to come up with an outline of what you were going to major in and how you wanted to start your career?
"I guess, I've got a few too many things going for me to know what I really want to do with myself." Clark clarified.
Barbara tilted her head to the side slightly in confusion.
"Well then, farm boy, why don't you tell me about these 'too many things', since clearly you need someone with my skills to help you plan out your life." Barbara teased him.
Clark jerked back, as if what Barbara had intended as a light joke at his expense had instead, for some inexplicable reason, ended up cutting him to the core.
"Uhh, there are sooo many different things that it'll take me a while to figure them all out. While I do that, how about you tell me how you plan to spend your entire inheritance first instead?" He halfheartedly tried to deflect.
Barbara decided to show him mercy; she wasn't especially familiar with animals, but Clark Kent put her in mind of what she'd heard other people say about golden retrievers: big, well-meaning, not especially bright.
"I want to be an archeologist."
Clark's first response was a warm smile.
"I can believe that, honestly, I feel like you already study those people." He responded before gesturing towards the ship's bow, where Bruce Wayne's other guests were still partying and partaking in various (hopefully legal) substances.
"That'd be a bit closer to anthropology; archeology tends to focus more on studying ancient artifacts rather than the individuals." Barbara couldn't help but point out.
"Wow, guess it's pretty obvious which one of us went to public school." Clark chuckled, his face briefly going red as the sunset.
"Anyway, I don't just want to be a normal archeologist either, I want to fund my own expeditions. But when you start adding up the costs of it all: needing to hire local guides, buying provisions, making proper agreements with governments, before you know it, even my inheritance might not be enough. That's fine, though, money is never going to make me happy, only the truth will." Barbara declared, while clenching her right hand for emphasis.
"You going hunting for aliens, little green men, that kind of thing?" Clark probed.
Barbara winced in advance, expecting that even Clark Kent wouldn't be able to resist getting in a few verbal jabs in once he learned what she was looking for… but given that he was pretending to be Bruce Wayne for her sake, he deserved an honest answer.
"Nah, aliens never really interested me. Besides, what would be the point of an archaeologist looking for them? If they exist, they're out there on other planets, not down here on Earth, right? I'm looking for Amazons."
"Amazons?" To Clark's credit, his tone held more interest than mockery.
"Yeah. When I was growing up, my tutor gave me a book on Greek Mythology for kids. Even back then, I could tell that there was something 'wrong' about it, like a puzzle with missing pieces. As I grew older, I learned about how the violence was bloodier, the actions less justified, and let's just say 'informed consent' wasn't exactly a high priority among gods or mortals. Except even after all that, to this day, I think there are still a few pieces missing. So since nobody else has been able to find them, I'll have to do it myself, or at the very least flush a ton of money down the drain confirming that the entire thing was nothing but a childish fantasy." Barbara laid out the whole shebang for her audience of one.
"Huh, I don't think I've met that many people, at least not people our age who have something they care about to the point that it's the only thing they can imagine doing with their lives," Clark spoke with a reverent awe that Barbara doubted her comments truly deserved.
"Well, for good or for ill, I always was the stubborn sort. I don't plan to let a lack of funding stop me either, which is where all Bruce Wayne's other guests come in. There are a surprising number of unwritten rules about being 'old money,' and one of them is that it's next to impossible to get kicked out if you're making at least a half-hearted effort to play nice. So long as I keep showing up to all these stupid parties, and at worst remain respectfully aloof, I'm still 'one of them'.
"Which means in a decade or so after I've burnt through my family's fortune, I can start begging and pleading for these people to give me a few 'minor contributions'. Since I'll have gone to the right parties, I'll still be 'old money', no matter how empty my bank account is, so they'll all chip in to support me," Barbara concluded.
"Well, I'm glad to see one of us has their future all planned out." Clark reflected.
"You've got to have at least some idea of one profession that you think might suit you." Barbara pressed.
Though, to be fair to the farm boy from Kansas, she wasn't especially sure how someone could properly monetize being so nice that the government might eventually be required to slap a label on your forehead reading "Warning: impossibly sweet, may cause tooth decay."
"Well, right now I'm studying to be a veterinarian." He reluctantly admitted.
Barbara took another moment to look Clark Kent up and down, then gave an approving nod.
"That makes sense. I can imagine you being happy doing it. I'd need to do more research to be sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that a lot of animals are better 'people' than most people.
"It's not even about how good some animals are or how bad some people are; everybody should have somebody to look out for them." Clark insisted.
That was when Barbara suddenly noticed it; she wasn't sure when it had started, but right now, at this very instant, with both of them leaning on the ship's railing...
Their hands were touching.
Barbara yanked her hand away as if she'd just brushed against a hot stove.
"Whoa, I know we don't exactly move in the same social circles, but I promise you I've had all my shots," Clark swore with a level of genuine self-deprecation that Barbara doubted anyone of the party's guests (herself included) could match.
"Sorry, I just, didn't want you to get the wrong idea." The brown-haired woman apologized.
"Wrong idea about what?" Clark inquired, his expression open and genuinely confused, utterly free of all manner of insinuation.
"I know that I look like I'm amazing and brilliant compared to everyone else invited to Bruce Wayne's birthday, and up against competition that pathetic I probably am, but that doesn't mean I'm perfect. Not even close. There's a lot of stuff about myself I don't like." Barbara admitted forlornly.
"Such as?" Clark's tone was more gentle than accusatory.
"If you hang around me long enough, you'll eventually see how immature I can be at times. Just to start with, despite how badly my dad wanted to beat it out of me… that's metaphorically speaking, to be clear, deep down in some ways I'm still waiting for a chance to meet my very own beautiful princess. Someone who sweeps me off my feet, fixes all my problems, and helps me be the best version of myself." Barbara sighed with a shake of her head.
"Don't you mean your handsome prince?" Clark asked in confusion.
Barbara gave the farm boy a look.
Whatever his other faults, Clark Kent was neither as stupid nor as sheltered as he appeared at first glance.
He didn't even insist on dragging out the matter with an awkward apology; he just remained quiet and gave Barbara a chance to continue.
"Princesses are for fairy tales though, so if anyone is gonna make me better, it's ultimately gonna have to be me. Which is a really depressing thought considering what I've given myself to work with." Barbara lamented.
"So, Amazons: brave, fierce, brilliant women who don't need men? You sound like you'd fit right in." Clark concluded, his tone unquestionably complimentary.
Barbara threw her head back and laughed until it hurt.
"That's, like, the biggest compliment I could ever imagine anyone ever giving me. Sadly, there's one other quality you forgot, noble. I'm not really Amazon material." She insisted, feeling herself break into what had to be the world's deepest blush.
"Well, that's one vote for, and one against. I guess when you find your Amazons, they'll get to cast the tie breaker?" Clark suggested hopefully.
"I'm trying to keep my expectations realistic. I don't expect to find real live Amazons, just enough proof of their civilization that we can say for certain that they existed, shift them from the fairytales to fact; same way for centuries, everyone used to think the city of Troy was a myth..."
"For whatever it's worth, I wouldn't give up hope just yet. Yeah, I haven't seen all that much of it, but even the little bit I have leaves me pretty sure the world is a stranger place than most people realize." Clark noted with another one of those warm, inviting smiles that he did so well.
"Well then, here's to strangeness!" Barbara cried out with half-mock, half-sincere joy, feeling only slightly awkward that she was trying to toast with a pair of empty hands.
XXX XXX XXX
Night found the two of them watching the stars. For better or worse, Barbara Ann Minerva's "interest in Amazons" was a well-established fact among the old money crowd, so no one would find anything suspicious about her and "Bruce Wayne" having brought separate blankets while stargazing together.
"Jeez, this is even better than back home." Clark smiled as he used one finger to trace the patterns of various constellations.
"It's the lack of light pollution. I've seen the stars from a dozen different countries, but they always look the best when you can find some way to get away from modern civilization. Not that I'd want to live in a shack in the woods, of course..." She clarified.
"You just want the best of both." Clark summarised.
"To have my cake and eat it too? Yeah, that's a pretty apt description." Barbara was woman enough to admit that while she might not be as vacuous as the other party guests, that didn't make her any less ambitious; in fact, Barbara Ann Minerva was probably the most ambitious person on board the yacht!
"No, having your cake and eating it too, that's something impossible. But 'having the best of both', there… there should be a way for a person to pull that off if they try hard enough. Like those cookies that are half vanilla and half chocolate?"
"It almost disturbs me how much sense that makes." Most likely due to how late it was (or possibly "how early it was", depending on how you wanted to look at it), Barbara genuinely giggled.
"I guess it's just some down-home Kansas farm boy wisdom." Clark's accent abruptly became so thick you would have needed a machete to carve through it.
"You're right, though. I wish I could spend time with people who were nice like you, except rich, best of both." Barbara sighed.
Clark looked away from her and focused his attention upwards once again.
"Still, a dozen different countries… I haven't even been to a dozen different states. Barely even a dozen different towns!" He was clearly rather caught off guard at how well-traveled Barbara was.
"Don't take it like a moral failing on your part; it's the money. Money that nobody on this yacht actually earned or deserved." Barbara tried to reassure him.
Clark abruptly rolled over and waited until Barbara was looking straight at him before he started speaking.
"I think you deserve it. You want to discover something new, or at the very least, rediscover something that we lost. That's beautiful, that's the kind of thing money should be for, helping people." Clark insisted.
You are just too nice.
"Also, thank you for suggesting we do this. I don't think I've ever seen the stars look so beautiful." Clark admitted.
"Yeah, they're beautiful, but they always make me feel small..." Barbara huffed in irritation as her focus slowly drifted from one sparkling star to another.
"I like it. I like feeling small. We're all just tiny creatures, little aliens, holding onto each other, out in the middle of nowhere. I think it's perfect." Clark reflected as he gazed up at the midnight sky.
Barbara found her attention once more being drawn to the perversely "open yet mysterious" Clark Kent.
What kind of person wants to live their life feeling small? Is that a non-upper-class thing or a Kansas thing? Some combination of both?
Before she could think of an appropriate question to ask for more details, Clark abruptly sat up straight and began to roar out a challenge to the tiny pinpricks of light above.
"Hey! Can you see me? I'm down here! You left me behind, but I'm okay, I'm happy!" He shouted at the top of his lungs.
"I hate to break it to you, 'Mr. Wayne', but nobody who says 'I'm happy' in that kind of voice actually means it." Barbara couldn't help but point out.
Clark blushed slightly and then looked away from Barbara, as if he was upset over the possibility of her seeing that even someone as upbeat as Clark Kent might have moments of genuine sadness.
"You know, I'd never even been in a plane before today? Or traveled over an ocean? I've only ever left Kansas once, flew all the way to California... all the way to the coast..." He began to ramble.
Damn it, do you have to be experiencing deep emotional trauma when I'm so tired that I can barely even think straight? If you've never been in a plane before today, how did you fly to California? In a helicopter? Is this one of those 'brothers and sisters I have none, but that man's father is my father's son. Who am I?' things?
"Wait, how exactly did you..." Barbara tried to protest.
"And you know what? I didn't even land. Just turned around and flew home. I got scared, well, I'm done being scared." He insisted, suddenly finding a level of conviction only matched by his affability.
Forget it, he's rolling.
Rather than try to untangle the exact logical meaning of Clark Kent's words, Barbara decided to focus on their emotional content instead.
"Being scared sucks. Being scared is how my dad wanted me to feel about him, and he suuuuucccckkkked." Barbara drew out the final word for unneeded emphasis.
"All my dad wants from me is to not be a jerk." Clark sounded almost ashamed of the fact that he'd grown up with a loving father, who, judging from his choice of word tense, was still alive.
Well, you should probably be talking this stuff out with him rather than me, but since I'm here and he's not, guess I'll have to do my best…
"What do you plan to do if you're not scared anymore?" Barbara hoped to ease Clark's train of thought back towards its original destination before the topic of her own paternal problems had been brought up.
"I don't want to stay in Smallville. I can't. I'm on this planet for a reason, and I've already wasted so much time. I want to see the stars from a dozen countries. I want to talk to people who make a difference. I want to see the big picture."
Whoa boy. Clark Kent, I still don't know exactly what your deal is, but you sound about five seconds away from breaking into a Disney Princess "I want" song. Which, to be clear, more power to you if that's what happens, just please don't expect me to turn it into a duet; I don't know enough words that rhyme with "Amazon".
"Hey, for a guy like you, I'm pretty sure the sky's the limit. If nothing else, I bet Bruce Wayne would love to hire you to attend ALL his social events." Barbara cheered her conversation partner on.
"Sorry, I'm being super-weird. I'm a super-weird alien." Clark chuckled slightly, evidently not realizing just how sincere Barbara's suggestion had been.
"It's okay, you can be a weird alien guy, and I'll be a weird Amazon girl. I'm sure that at least half a dozen sitcoms are coming out this year with worse premises." Barbara comforted Clark, still unsure of his exact source of distress, but she wasn't so cold-hearted as to remain silent in the face of his misery.
Clark reached out toward the bottle of Bruce Wayne's finest champagne that he'd brought with him, more as a lark than anything else, and took a quick sip. The stuff must have exceeded its own reputation because Barbara could see how it made his eyes bulge and face distort only seconds after his first swallow.
"I'm… gonna… bathroom." He announced awkwardly, stumbling his way upright.
"Sure. Just don't be surprised if I'm asleep by the time you get back." Barbara warned him.
As she heard Clark Kent's footsteps fading away, she began to wrap her blanket tightly around herself, awkwardly scrunching some parts of it together to form a pillow.
XXX XXX XXX
"A one-eyed guy did weird stuff..." Clark Kent muttered, briefly rousing Barbara from her slumber.
"Did you make sure not to tell him your real name?" Barbara responded; the words were generated more by instinct than conscious thought.
"I'm Broosh Wayne!" He slurred back eagerly.
"If Poseidon sinks this yacht, I'm blaming you." She groaned before falling back into the clutches of Hypnos.
XXX XXX XXX
When Bruce Wayne's yacht made its first stop in Grenada, Barbara was there to see Clark off… in a manner of speaking, at least.
A more literal description of the situation was that she finally deigned to show herself on the ship's railing after he'd already planted his feet firmly on the dock.
"Was worried I wouldn't get to see you again," Clark called up to her, sporting his biggest, widest smile.
"I was doing you a favor. I'm bad at saying 'good-bye' and worse when it's someone I genuinely like; I tend to get sorta clingy, it's embarrassing." Barbara insisted with a faint blush.
"Hey, I'm just happy to find out you cared." Clark countered with what Barbara was pretty sure was only feigned nonchalance.
"Glad to hear it, because it was either this, or you prying me off your leg."
"I mean, maybe I wouldn't have pried you off? You could come with me. That, or if not today, maybe stop by Smallville at some point later on? Eight figures could go a long way there, probably last your entire life. You might even meet a nice girl to settle down with." The man who, less than twenty-four hours ago, had been "Bruce Wayne" offered.
"I can't be your tiny creature, Clark. No matter what happens, I'm still a predator, and these rich idiots are my prey, rawr." Barbara went so far as to curl her hands into mock paws, as if her blunt fingernails were suddenly razor-sharp.
"Hey, my family's dog is a predator. The barn cats we look after when things get rough, and they can't take care of themselves, they're predators. Just because you're a predator doesn't mean you have to be alone, doesn't mean you can't have friends." Clark called up to her.
Barbara felt her eyes moisten slightly.
"You are entirely too good at this. Not enough to change my mind, but still..." She sniffed in irritation at just how persuasive Clark could be; maybe it wasn't just the hair, eye color, and idiocy of her fellow party guests that had let him convince so many people he was Bruce Wayne?
"So if you ever find your Amazons, what do you think you'll do next?" Clark wondered.
"Probably try to solve some other great mystery, like find out whatever happened to some kid from Smallville, who abruptly felt like being a veterinarian was beneath them." Barbara snickered.
"Well then, I'd better warn my parents so they don't get their hopes up in case a beautiful brunette archaeologist shows up at the farm looking for me." Clark reflected.
"I wouldn't count on it happening for at least a decade, Alien Guy," Barbara predicted.
"A decade? Guess I'll see you then, Amazon Girl." Clark promised before he turned and started heading for shore.
The End.
AN: The "Helm of Darkness" was an artifact from Greek Mythology that made the wearer invisible.
Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne having the same chin is canon as far as I'm concerned. For evidence, I present the DCAU episode Knight Time, where Clark pretends to be Batman, and nobody (not even Commissioner Gordon, who should be pretty familiar with what Bruce/Batman's chin is supposed to look like) talks about how his chin looks different all of a sudden.
Barbara's "Did you make sure not to tell him your real name" in response to Clark talking about "a one-eyed guy" is her referencing Polyphemus, the cyclops from the Odyssey, whose father is Poseidon. When Odysseus harms Polyphemus and tells the cyclops his real name, Poseidon starts messing with Odysseus in revenge. Thus, Barbara is hoping that Clark didn't make the same mistake as Odysseus, possibly leading to similar results...
In reality, just like American Alien Issue 3, Clark has just had a brief run-in with the one-eyed assassin Deathstroke, who was expecting to be going up against Bruce Wayne, an ordinary human, and promptly took one finger flick from Clark Kent, Kryptonian, sending him flying a considerable distance away from the yacht.
Hypnos is the Greek God of Sleep.
If you're interested in continuing the saga of this version of Barbara Minerva, you can find her next chronological adventure right here… https://archiveofourown.org/works/80549371, where she finally gets to meet an Amazon Princess!