I don't own nor did I create Bruce Wayne/Batman, Lucius Fox, Clark Kent/Superman, or Amanda Waller.

Bruce watched the boys. James was playing soccer, or rather international "football." The two teams were made up both of those who stayed for schooling and then returned to their homes and those for whom this compound was home. James' smile was big and white against his dark skin. Bruce gave a slight smile himself.

In the shade of a tree, Luke lay reading a textbook. His mother sat nearby sewing not letting him completely out of her sight yet. Amos was not there. Having learned his siblings had gone back to living and farming their parents' land, after a brief stint in a refugee camp where they had gotten some guidance from groups there interested in justice following the ends of wars, Amos had gone to join his siblings. His strength, training, and education at the hands of Waller was already helping them make more of their shared land.

Jude sat off to the side watching James. A view of Luke was still available out of the corner of his eye. He glanced at Bruce.

There was less accusation and bitterness in his stare than before, but a panic, a question of "if this was real," and could he trust it, screamed out of his eyes instead. Bruce met the gaze and held it for half a minute. Jude looked away first. His expression held less panic than before, not exactly trust, but no promise to dart away right then.

"So …" As the warm voice spoke beside him, Bruce didn't flinch away neither did he look towards it. Blue eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses, however, turned to watch him. "What do you think?"

"What do you? You're writing the article."

Clark looked back to the scene of the boys playing football in a field marked out with white dust, the open area behind it with a few trees, a boy, and his mother, the garden behind them that still had traces of Amos' work, and the other teenager with his heart racing also watching it all. Metropolis' Ace reporter pushed his glasses up. "I think things are far from perfect, but the improvements definitely give one hope. That's what I'm going to write in my article."

"You write well, Clark."

"Thanks Bruce, I'm glad you're reading."

Bruce gave a slightly sarcastic smile. "I read every major world newspaper. There's a reason it's called 'The Daily Planet.'"

Clark glanced at his with sudden suspicion. "Riiiight … You … didn't have anything to do with my getting that job, did you?"

"No, Clark, you got that on your own."

Clark looked back at the scene they'd been studying and gave a "Whew" of relief.

Bruce's sarcastic grin grew wider. "I thought you liked my 'having your back' again?"

Now, the Last Son of Krypton had a slight note of bitterness in his own tone. "Not 'that' much. A guy likes doing a little on his own." Bruce bowed his head and gave a chuckle. Clark glanced over his shoulder. "I think Lucius is ready to go."

Bruce glanced in the same direction. Sure enough, his CEO stood behind them dressed in pressed, clean traveling clothes that had likely just left his suitcase. Instead of panic or accusation, though, the lines of Lucius' face were in a soft grin matching the warmth in his chocolate brown eyes. Bruce nodded. "Let's go."

As the two men walked side by side though, Bruce was tackled and engulfed in a hug by a woman in bright clothes. "Safe trip, Mr. Wayne!"

He hugged her back. "Safety, fruitful seasons, and God's blessing abide with you always, Grace."

. . .

Three men, two in their early twenties, and one (well Lucius wouldn't tell) walked across the tarmac to Bruce's private jet. They all paused and frowned. A woman stood in their way to the cockpit. Technically two large humans in suits standing a little behind and on either side of her did as well. She seemed to pop out of the scene more though, in her purple dress jacket and skirt against their dark suits.

Bruce's frown grew darker. He spoke to both men with him without taking his eyes off the woman. "You both go to the hanger. I'll deal with this."

Out of the corner of his eye, Bruce saw the "reporter" going into an understated fight stance of turning his body and tightening his hands into fists at his sides. Clark's keen, blue eyes focused on the guards on either side of the woman for a moment. "You sure Bruce?"

Bruce nearly rolled his eyes. "I'm sure, Clark. Get out of here. This is no place for mild-mannered reporters from Metropolis or businessmen."

Lucius gave his boss a side-ways glance, but then turned himself, slowly, and made his way to the hanger at a saunter. Clark bowed his head slightly in a nod before heading for the hanger too, but his eyes stayed on the intruders. Bruce strode over to Amanda. He stopped a foot in front of her, crossed his arms, and met her gaze with a glare. Both her guards tensed, but though he noticed, Bruce let the bite in his tone be heard by them anyway. "What do you want?"

Amanda's own face was relaxed, but her eyes gleamed as they glanced toward the hanger. "Clark Kent of Metropolis. Why did he come 'here' on 'your' private jet, Mr. Wayne?"

"I like his writing style. What do you want?"

She looked back to him gleam still in her eyes. A coo entered her voice. "The boys seem to be doing well."

"They are."

She tilted her head. Her gaze and voice grew sharper. "They must still be in the honeymoon period. What do you plan to do once you're back in Gotham?"

"Pick up where I left off."

Amanda looked back to him with a raised eyebrow. "Things took a dip for the worse the one night you weren't there. And that was sloppy, Bruce. No double in place for you while there's evidence you were out of the country?"

"I wasn't recorded being 'in' the country at the same time as Batman's been at work there."

"Still, it could be seen as part of a pattern, later, if anyone went looking for one. And things heading back the way they were before, in just one night, show you aren't making a permanent change."

"I always believed it would take time."

"It could take less time …"

"No!" He took a small step nearer to her, teeth on edge, eyes boring down into her face. Her guards drew out their weapons, but he didn't glance at them. She looked up without flinching. Her own face and form, though, hardened beneath his stare. He lowered his voice to a whisper. "I know you're secrets too."

Her eyes widened.

. . .

A ten-year-old with her dark curls in pig-tails tapped her bat on first base. Then she raised it and wound up into an impressive stance. She smirked at the pitcher.

He looked back with no smile of his own. His movements were slow and deliberate as he wound up and threw. She watched the ball with her dark eyes. Not a muscle twitched as she waited. Finally, she swung further back and propelled the bat forward at just the right moment. The crack produced resounded in the air.

Amanda dropped her bat and shot to first base. Her green tennis shoes rounded it, and then did the same at second. The outfielders scrambled far to her right to stop her progress.

Then … She froze and stared out through the chicken wire fence. All the kids, white, Asian, Mexican, and a few like her froze to do the same. Behind their backs stretched a seeming futuristic paradise. Their parents lived next to each other and worked or attended social events together as would be rare in the outside world. But they were all, together, separated from that world by dozens of miles of desert the same desert all the little ball players stared out at now.

They couldn't even see the base most of their fathers, and some of their mothers, worked at, which was responsible for the existence of their little island of a peaceful neighborhood complete with grade school and a nondenominational church. The road, like a lifeline between that base and their town, had a line of trucks driving toward them on it. It was hours before the current shift at the base should have ended.

The game forgotten, the kids moved silently toward the gate the trucks would come through, hoping they'd wouldn't be noticed by the adults already standing near it. The trucks came through. One stopped after two others drove on by. This third truck parked right in front of the infirmary.

Amanda watched with a straight face as the back opened. Two male nurses in white carried a stretcher out. Her body froze. Her eyes widened. She recognized the uniform laid out on the stretcher and the dark wrists and neck protruding from it, but not the blank gaze and open, still mouth at its head. She didn't recognize the voice speaking out of her own mouth either. "Pa-pa …"

. . .

Waller glared back at Bruce. "We aren't that different Wayne."

He sighed as he gazed back down at her. Some of the fire faded from his expression and voice, but it only left them with a hardness. "No. We're not, and that's what scares me."

. . .

If Lucius Fox had been in doubt Clark and Bruce were somehow friends, such doubts were laid to rest by the look of concern the reporter gave his boss after the plane took off. Bruce rubbed his chin and bored a hole in the front of the plane with his stare. He gave no sign he noticed Clark's at all. The latter was abnormal for Mr. Wayne.

Lucius had seen Bruce notice and react to someone giving him what he thought an undue amount of attention whether it was a stranger or him, Alfred, or Leslie. Bruce usually returned such attention with suspicion followed by confrontation or evasion. Such an extreme lack of reaction to Clark Kent's attention had to be the result of practice. Finally, as Lucius kept the plane in the air and on course, he heard Clark ask his fellow passenger a question. "What's eating at you, Bruce?"

"I gave Waller a killer."

Clark raised his eyebrows just slightly. Raising and furrowing eyebrows at the same time is difficult. "Was it 'just?'"

"Yes." Bruce's voice was cold and tense, and Clark kept staring at him his posture and expression anything but. Bruce sighed, bowed his head, and closed his eyes. "In every other way, it was wrong."

Clark kept waiting. Lucius was now doing the same though only his ears were focused on the conversation. His gaze was still on the sky out the front windows. It took almost three minutes of silence for his employer to continue. The other younger man's patience astounded him.

Bruce's next words were murmured. "She faked his death. Now everyone alive he hurt will believe a lie."

Clark tucked his chin in. He gave Bruce a look of mild reproof. Bruce didn't return it as he leaned back in his seat and stuffed his hands in his dress-pants' pockets. "But that's not the worst of it."

Clark's eyebrows truly flew up now. Lucius felt his muscles tense. Telling a reporter this, had his boss lost his sanity?

"I may not murder myself, but I knew exactly what she'd have him do. I handed him over to her knowing he'd become an assassin for our government."

Clark's voice sounded astonished. "She's going to have him 'kill?'"

Bruce rose from his seat and began to stride up and down the aisle. Clark's concerned gaze followed him. The reporter's own body had tensed. Lucius wondered exactly whose side Clark Kent would take the public's right to know or his friend's ability to keep his secrets? Bruce stopped and put his forehead into his hand. His voice had an undertone of a growl as it came out. "I 'knew' once he was in her grasp, she'd never let him out. I couldn't be sure about anyone else. He's infamous! Enough others might have wanted to break or bargain or 'reasonable doubt' him free to do their dirty work he could have … At least I know what 'her' dirty work is."

Lucius interrupted. "Not to mention his ability to tell what he knew about you …"

Bruce raised and shook his head. "He knew nothing about me! That wasn't the point. The point was whether or not he'd be set free to kill again."

Clark's own voice was hard and slightly chill as he replied. "And now he 'will' kill again."

Bruce let his head fall back. His eyes closed. He didn't answer. Clark stared another moment at him with a more sad than accusing face. Then he rose to his own feet and walked over to him crossing his arms. He came to stand next to his friend turned so their shoulders almost touched and leaned back. His facial expression and voice became mild and soft. "Why did you do it, Bruce?"

Bruce lowered his head and let his gaze land on the floor. "The boys … Not just their freedom. I didn't want them to become killers. I'd hoped she hadn't gotten to that point in their training, yet. I think she hadn't. I wanted to keep my promises to them. 'He' was already a killer. And I thought, with his aim and ability, she might become more of a lazar than a bomb with her targets. Less death left in her wake."

Clark sighed and looked away. "You always did go for the most certain, 'worse' solution over the less certain better ones."

Bruce raised his gaze to the man of steel. "Are you going to turn me in, or cut me off?"

Clark raised his eyebrows at the other man. "I think you'll torture yourself enough and find out the results of your own actions. Then you'll do something about it even smarter than I would. But I'll keep an eye on it all as well just in case. After all, this concerns my country." He gave Bruce's shoulder a nudge with his own. "We'll figure it out together. We have for a while. Waller's not exactly the ideal of Truth, Justice, and the American way I hope becomes the norm. It's my battle too."

"The norm? Mankind isn't built that way, Clark. Lies, injustice, and tyranny flow in our veins. We can't sustain their opposites everywhere in every time for everyone only for those nearest us if that."

Clark looked up at the plane's ceiling, smiled, and then shrugged. "You never know." He looked back down at Bruce and smiled wider. "We end up doing something right."

The caped crusader glanced at Clark sideways and then gave a slight smile. Lucius shook his head in the cockpit. He wondered what parallel universe he'd accidentally flown their plane into.

. . .

Deadshot stared down the scope. He hated his new life, but not quite as badly as he'd expected. The lady had told him the truth. Right before and after a job things were mostly the same, nice hotels to stay in and restaurants to eat in located in big cities with sometimes visits to a tourist attraction or two thrown in. Between these "work trips" he stayed in a cell. When he was let out of it, he got heart-flutters and instructions, a lot of instructions. If he didn't follow them pain. Otherwise, not much difference in his life really.

He watched the crowd for the face from the picture. Man, she had looked cranky, uptight, and had nearly spat in his face as she'd instructed him about this job. The old guy in the photo had looked so mild and feeble. What could he have done to make her so mad?

The face came into view wearing a derby hat above a stiff white color looking at the world around him through wire-rimmed spectacles. All such questions left Deadshot's mind. Only the pain if he failed and what to do next remained. He aimed and fired.

A moment before he felt the kickback from the gun, the face turned to look at him and the gaze of the target's eyes met his. That had never happened before. The moment he felt the kickback in his shoulder, the face, with its startled expression, disappeared. No gush of blood. No fall backward of the form. Just a vanishing act like none he'd ever seen.

Floyd's mouth dropped open. His hands went lax. The gun slipped in them. He could hear Waller screaming through his ear-piece. He winced in expectation for what was to come, but he couldn't understand. He'd tried to escape before, break rules before, and been punished, but this … He didn't deserve … How? How? How? He'd done nothing wrong here! Everything went right til that! What ..?

Oddly enough, though she was mad, the one who seemed least surprised was Waller. After about a minute, her calm voice told him to come back in, and he wasn't zapped. But even as he sighed in relief and packed up his stuff, he wondered … How? What was he mixed up in?

. . .

In an alleyway, a girl in a jogger's outfit, tank top, and mini shorts with a walk-man tucked into them, her shaved and sculpted legs bracing her and back pressed to the brick wall, panted and sweated and stared up at the sky with pleading eyes. Close. That had been too close!

The bullet … just managed to stop it … could have hit someone else! Felt no emotion, just concentrated thought before … Sniper … so far … How? Waller … had to be … found out … had to flee … Where to next? … Couldn't go back to apartment … had to …

A dog, a large dog, crept up, stopped, and stared at the unusual alleyway visitor. She looked back at him. Her eyes focused on his form. Her head tilted to the side. Then she squatted down before him. Her eyes focused on his. Her fingertips pressed into the tarmac surface the hound stood on.

Suddenly, her whole form changed, melted, reformed, re-hardened and two dogs stood staring at each other in the alley, for a moment. One turned with a yowl and fled giving sharp, panicked howls. The other scratched itself, glanced around and then took off running thinking thoughts unusual for a dog.

Gotham! Gotta reach Gotham! Waller's getting better! If she catches me next time, kills me next time! Gotta make something right first!

What do you think now?

God Bless

ScribeofHeroes