Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic steelknights 9/9

Clark stepped back and looked at the car again, and then found himself looking at
the platform they were standing on. "Can I ask why the lift?" He made a hand motion
that indicated the turntable's hydraulic lift.

"Maintenance," Bruce returned. Their eyes locked for a moment, one gaze
seeking more information. Bruce abruptly crossed behind the car and came around to
Clark's side, coming to the right front tire and squatting down. "Right now it's
positioned for maintenance and restocking," he explained as Clark moved closer to see.
"Set the wheels on the pillars, these spots right here," he said, slipping a hand down to
the tire's contact point on the turntable, "and clamps in there will lock the wheels in
place. Then the rest of the table drops, no turn, to give access underneath."

Clark nodded slowly, seeing the edge of a metal bar showing from underneath the
tire. "Wow. So you're the mechanic?" he asked as Bruce got to his feet.

"Mostly. Alfred helps, but there are some things I'd rather do myself. I certainly
trust Alfred, but I get a little compulsive about some of the equipment."

"Knowing it has to save lives," Clark said, nodding.

After a moment, Bruce looked at him curiously. "You don't . . . use anything, do
you?" he asked hesitantly.

"Tools? Equipment?" Clark shook his head. "I mean, I've grabbed something
handy now and again, if there's a need and I think I can make use of something." He
shrugged, still studying the car absently. Then, "Hey. Uh . . . where is the kryptonite?
If I can ask--"

Bruce was nodding. "It's actually down here," he said. He started onto the
walkway off of the turntable, but then stopped, turning back. "It's in the lab. There's a
room by the vaults. Did you--" He cut himself off. "Foolishly, I was going to ask if you
wanted it," he said mockingly to himself, studying his clasped hands.

"Lab?"

Bruce looked up. "Forensics. Small library. Small metal shop."

"I don't know why that should surprise me," Clark said, shaking his head, with a
slow laugh.

"I spend more time in there than I do out on the streets," Bruce said, almost
defensive, but Clark was holding up his hands.

"I don't begrudge you that, I just--" He shook his head, doing a slow turn, looking
out at the space he was in. "You've got everything in here!"

Bruce gave a one-shouldered shrug, looking uneasy. "There's nothing in here
that I don't need and use," he said, walking slowly back over to the car. "With all of the
cases I keep up with, and then making attempts to align some ongoing operations with
what the police do . . . It kind of made sense to become incorporated, so to speak." His
voice had gone distant again as he leaned over the base of the spoiler on the car. He
peered at it closely, then shook his head, stepping back. Fishing in a pocket, he retrieved
a case and pulled out his glasses. He put them on and leaned in again.

Still looking around at the cave, Clark found himself idly wondering what the
Gotham press would do if it got in here and attempted to put words to this. Then again,
I'm press, he thought. But this wasn't a story for someone to write. Reading the
Gotham Globe only scratched the surface. Actually seeing this cave and all the
equipment . . .

As he looked out at the cave, it occurred to him that with the exception of the
car's turntable and the main bank of computers, much of what he had been walking on
was suspension walkways. His gaze traced the pathways, and came to a stop by the
armory. When he had been over there the first time, he hadn't noticed another
suspension pathway that seemed to disappear around behind the armory, to the left.
Another area, he thought. He flicked a bright eyed look back at Bruce, but the other
man was still examining the base of the stabilizer on the car. Clark looked back to the
area by the armory. He turned and followed the pathway off of the turntable, joined a
main walkway, and crossed over to the armory. As he neared the armory, the path he
hadn't noticed before branched off to the left. He followed the path back into the
shadows, and a large opening appeared, some fifteen feet behind the armory. The path
ended abruptly at a metal railing. It disappeared down into the sizeable opening, a
mouth to another cave, possibly the actual floor of the cave.

He heard movement behind him, and glanced back. Bruce had followed him on
the walkway, and now he had reached up to grasp a metal lever on a panel that Clark
realized he had walked right past without noticing, near the armory. The lever was
pulled down and the panel opened, and Bruce reached in and flipped several switches.
Clark's attention was pulled ahead of him again as more sparse lighting started to flicker
on in the lower level ahead of him, then he looked back to Bruce. He was fully aware
that he was only barely holding back an amazed laugh. Bruce shrugged, pulling off his
glasses and replacing them in the small case. "You wanted to know why your kryptonite
is grounded for now."

Feeling very much like a child in exploration mode, Clark crossed to the railing. It
was a steep set of stairs, almost a ladder, and he had reached the bottom before it even
occurred to him that he could have covered the twenty-some foot drop his own way. He
had seen a large, dark, shrouded shape below, and now as he gained the floor of the
space, he had developed a good idea as to what it probably was.

He let go of the railing and walked over, gape-jawed, shaking his head. It was
about fifty feet long and jet black. Part of the mid-section was covered in a heavy black
plastic. He could see a part of a ladder from underneath the trailing edge of the plastic.
The sparse lighting in the lower level shone dully on the surface. He started to walk
around it, trying hard not to goggle, and it was then that he looked to his right. A vast
space opened up, an opening hundreds of feet long into the distance, probably one
hundred feet tall and at least that wide. He realized his breath was coming in gasps, and
it turned into astonished laughter.

"This is crazy!" He swung an arm at the whole expanse. "This is--"

"This is grounded," Bruce finished. He gained the lower level, slowly dusting his
hands on his thighs, looking almost sheepish. Clark turned to stare at him.

"This is--"

Bruce inclined his head. "The Wing. Or it will be after about another fifty hours
of work."

Feeling quite incoherent, Clark turned back to stare. It was facing him at three-
quarters right front. He walked around the nose, looking up at it head on, seeing the
wingspan. "This is crazy!" he repeated.

"I'll say it is," Bruce answered quietly, following him around the tip of the right
wing. He sighed, looking up at it. "This is the temperamental prima donna of the fleet,
right here. I'm always on the verge of getting rid of it."

Clark was shaking his head, mind still reeling. "Absolutely nuts!"

Bruce raised an eyebrow. "Some of us fly by more conventional means."

"I mean, this is--I mean, you've got a Stealth bomber in your garage!"

"Stealth bomber? You think this has Stealth technology?"

Clark turned back to him. "Doesn't it? The papers all said it was a modified--"

Bruce let out a quiet, self-satisfied, theatrical laugh. "You do me a favor--you
keep thinking that, alright?" As Clark stared at him, he came around the front of the
nose. "People got their first look at this right about the time the so-called Stealth
bomber was the idea of currency. They saw something fast, black, and strange looking,
and they made some convenient assumptions."

"Well, it sure fooled a lot of people!"

"What do I need Stealth technology for?" Bruce returned rhetorically. "I'm
certainly not going to correct an assumption like that. Many of the misconceptions work
to my advantage, but honestly, if I need to break out the noisemaker, they know there's
a party on the way. It had to be something small, maneuverable, something I could fly,
something I could maintain, something I could get," he emphasized.

"So what is it, then?"

"Hornet. F-18C, to be precise. Oh, I've modified it a bit, cosmetically, but it's a
Hornet."

Clark groaned, rubbing his face. "This is crazy!" he repeated again. "And you can
fly this?"

"I've got my pilot's license," Bruce returned drolly.

"Unreal!" Clark spread his arms, wandering off. "And a runway!"

"That was a year-and-a-half long project," Bruce allowed. "Hellish. But worth it,
in the end."

"How did you do this?"

Bruce was still slowly following him, and at that question he stopped, absently
rubbing his hands together. "A long time ago I saved the lives of two gentlemen who
were actually Navy retired," he began quietly. "They were grateful, pledged to do
something for me in return. At the time I thought nothing of it, but as I began to foresee
the need for something like this," and he inclined his head towards the large black craft
on his left, "I thought of them. I approached them on the subject, got a lot of advice
from them. They weren't pilots--they maintained the aircraft. They ended their careers
by teaching the men how to maintain these, repair them. It nearly was a Falcon, F-16,
but the Hornet I can land on a carrier deck if I have to. They do most of the work on
this. I can do some of the maintenance, but they do the bulk of the maintenance and
most of the repairs as well. Every month I take it out and throttle it up, blow it out,
partly for maintenance. These are built to be used, not to sit around. Also it's so that I
stay familiar with it. It's not spiked up with Sidewinders and cannons and such. I've got
the harpoon, but that's about it from the original armament. I've added a few things,
like the night scopes, tracer cannon, the nets, and I'd like to rig an inflatable life raft,
something I can drop, for my own use if I go down but mainly for others."

"How did you learn how to fly this? I mean, this is military! You don't have a
military record."

"Well, after the pilot's license I found every simulator I could talk my way into,
usually not in the United States. I did get one in the U.S., but it wasn't much. I talked
or bribed or tricked my way into riding in F-18Bs, which are basically the same craft,
but just configured for training. It's a two-seater, and the 18C is single serving. I was
flying similar craft every chance I got when I was knocking around the world, and after a
lot of those, I found the opportunity to fly a Hornet in the Spanish fleet." He finished
with a shrug. "One of the biggest challenges was facing Alfred on the subject. He still
won't come down here when I take it out."

"What's the plastic?"

"Last time I took it out was for real, and someone got off a lucky shot. I was able
to roll and take most of it in a less critical area, but there's some work left, at least fifty
hours of repairs before it's up again."

Clark nodded, looking up and down the length of it. "Mind if I take a look?"

"What, the--cockpit?"

"Yeah."

There was a pause. "Well, there's work in progress around the other side, and
that's where the ladder is--"

Clark heard him break off with a choke. A privately owned, cosmetically altered
F-18 Hornet flown by a civilian who had put a runway through a massive network of
caves on his property gave Clark permission to not care about being discreet about his
own abilities. Ignoring the ladder on the other side of the craft, he carefully gathered up
a length of the plastic shroud and folded it back, revealing the shield of the cockpit tilted
open. He needed to use something other than ordinary vision in order to see the cockpit
clearly, due to the dim light. He could see three of what looked like computer display
screens, dark at the moment. The rest was a dark jungle of controls, buttons, and
gauges. Little of it was actually labeled in any way he could recognize, nor did it look
particularly user-friendly. He had never paid much attention to military aircraft, and so
did not know very much of what he was looking at. One clearly labeled control did catch
his attention, though, and after one last look he carefully replaced the plastic shroud in
its original position and touched down on the concrete pad. "Okay, explain the red
control in there. I'm assuming it's non-functional." He stopped, seeing the other man
was walking slowly away down the runway. "Hey. Spin, crash, burn. What is it?" he
called again. Bruce turned back to him, pulling his hand away from his mouth.

"You know, you're lucky you can't hold that ability in your hand, because I'd
damn well rob it from you," he said, not without humor.

"It's called telekinesis, and it's nothing new--"

"Nothing new . . ." Bruce repeated, shaking his head. "You stare at my flight and
I stare at yours. Which one is more amazing?" he asked, gesturing in Clark's direction.

Clark spread his arms in the face of the other man's disbelief. "Xenobiology."

Bruce pointed to the Wing. "McDonnell Douglas. You know, don't take this
wrong but . . .you really don't know . . . "

Clark cocked his head to the side. "Don't know what?"

Subdued now, Bruce shook his head, not eager to continue, and he had eyes only
for the concrete runway as he slowly walked back. Finally he sighed and pulled his gaze
up to Clark. "I was going to say you don't know what it's like to be in the presence of an
alien, but you do know," he said quietly. "You're in the presence of one right now. I'm
not of your race. And you're not of mine."

Realizing what he was alluding to, Clark sobered. "True," he allowed after a
moment. "But also true, this is all I've ever known, this life, this world, these people," he
said with gentle frankness. "I grew up in Kansas, and the people who raised me . . . well,
I have no trouble thinking of them as my parents." He paused. "If Superman was all
there was to me, then I probably would feel lonely. As it is, I have family, a life with
everyone else, a career. Clark Kent is who I am." There was a slow nod from the other
man, the same thoughtful look Clark had seen earlier when he had mentioned his
parents. He was starting to realize that the death of this man's parents was probably a
large part of why he had split his life in half. Clark himself had made a relatively
intellectual decision to use his abilities to help others, whereas the darkness caused by a
violent family cataclysm had pushed this mind near to madness. The only release was
visiting that darkness on the same kinds of people who had caused its genesis. But that
was an abyss, the emotional depth of which he did not want to plumb tonight, or maybe
ever. "Back to my question," he added gamely, nodding towards the Wing. "I assume
you've never had to hit the panic button in there?"

Bruce gazed at him, unblinking, as the change of subject was absorbed. "What,
the--red? Oh. That thing." His thoughtful, searching gaze slid over the black form they
were almost underneath. "I guess I put it in there one of the times when Alfred . . .
made his opinion known to me," he said carefully. "He had tried to talk me into a
chopper, which in many ways would have been better. VTOL, somewhat more
conventional maintenance and repairs, no arrested landings, but I don't--"

"Arrested landings?"

Bruce gestured to the runway. "Tail hook. The short landing space. The Wing
can land on a carrier deck," he explained. "But some of the things I've done with the
Wing I couldn't have accomplished with a chopper, I think. The red control was . . . well,
an indestructible twenty-something flaunting an older, wiser man," he said, sounding
regretful. "There were a number of small, private aircraft made after World War II, and
a female acrobatic pilot had a red knob put in her cockpit that had the words 'spin, crash,
burn' on it. Alfred was sure that I would get myself killed doing this, so I registered my
opinion as well. Considering what things were like when this was coming together, we're
actually on much better terms on the subject. I did take his advice on some things, like
rigging a parachute with help from the mechanics. It's one of the modifications that the
Air set has, but I can technically use any set with this."

"Air set?"

"Oh. The sets of armor," Bruce said, nodding in the general direction of the upper
level. "There's four sets, Air, Earth, Fire, and Water. Fire and Water are somewhat
more specialized. Air and especially Earth are designed for general street work." He
seemed about to add something more, but then he stopped. His face went blank, and
Clark watched him carefully in the dim light of the tunnel.

"What is it?" he asked, but Bruce held up a hand, signaling for quiet. His unseeing
gaze traced the sides and ceiling of the large tunnel they were in, and he seemed attuned
to something beyond. Only then did Clark's senses focus in on something. It was subtle,
almost like a change of pressure, or air movement from somewhere in the cave.

"It's morning," Bruce said softly. On impulse, Clark listened carefully, kicking up
his hearing past the normal range, and it was then that he heard it. A high-pitched
chattering, clicks, a rush of air created by thousands of sets of wings. The swirl of white
noise went on for several heartbeats, surging, thinning, and surging again. They had
never frightened him before, but now Clark felt a strange shiver go down his spine. For
a moment he felt foolish for it, but then he saw Bruce Wayne's gaze on him. It was a flat
stare, looking right through him, intent, as the exodus from the network of caves
gradually became sparse and light. There was a slow blink, and then the stare moved off
of him, moving almost mechanically to the back wall of the tunnel. The conversation a
few moments ago about race came back to Clark, and for a moment he instinctively
understood it, though not necessarily in the way the other man intended. His self-
guided tour of the corporate offices came to mind, and he tried to see the man in front of
him as the president of that large, international corporation. He now found it
challenging.

"It is getting rather late." Clark blinked, his momentary thoughtful reverie
broken, and for a moment he wondered how much time had elapsed. He found himself
staring at Bruce, who now suddenly seemed perfectly ordinary again, or as ordinary as
he ever had. "It's past ten-thirty. With recent events, Miss Lane might like to know
you're alright." Bruce was walking towards the back of the tunnel, towards the ladder
they had come down.

Clark instinctively checked his watch, even though he had just been given the
time. "Oh. You're right. I guess I really should be heading back." He followed the
other man around the corner to the ladder. After a moment he realized he was absently
waiting while Bruce climbed the ladder. On review, this struck him as unnecessary. He
covered the twenty or so foot distance and arrived on the upper level, then waited
politely for Bruce to finish the ladder.

"I'll let you know when--" Bruce had looked down to his left, expecting to see
Clark waiting to use the ladder. Not seeing him, he froze for a moment.

Clark cleared his throat. Bruce pulled around with a flinch, still on the last steps
of the ladder, staring in bewilderment. His mouth moved, trying to form a question, but
no words came out. Then he realized what had happened and he shuddered. Finishing
the last steps of the ladder, he said, "Do me a favor. Don't ever come to Gotham. I'll
lose my grip."

Clark smiled. "I'll let you know. Actually, you'd know from the situation." He
paused a moment. "You do understand why I felt I needed to . . . find you?" he asked
hesitantly, the smile fading. "I mean, if you knew enough to get the kryptonite out of
range--"

"I do. I understand," Bruce answered. "You needed to know that I understand
the magnitude of the situation." He had reached the electrical feed and was turning off
the lights in the lower level when he turned back to Clark. "By the way, you never did
tell me how you found me. I assumed you looked under the mask . . .?"

Clark shook his head. "No. I couldn't. I was still missing some of my abilities at
the time. I'm actually a little surprised I was able to do what I did."

"So how did you find me?"

"Well . . . A little research. Actually a lot," he amended as he followed Bruce
across the walkways of the cave. "I found a library. I actually didn't set out at first to
find the man behind the mask. I was just curious, but then I realized you knew about
me. I put what I had seen of you together with what I had learned from the media.
When you cancelled the interview, that was kind of a final confirmation."

They had reached the main console area and Bruce turned, leaning against the
bulge of rock, nodding thoughtfully. Then he looked back to Clark. "Did Luthor know
who you are?"

Momentarily startled by the blunt question, Clark floundered. "I--well . . . not--I mean--he found out. He didn't know before, but he caught me."

"Why did he go get you as a hostage?"

"I came after Lois."

"So you came to him."

"Well . . ." Clark grimaced. "That part didn't exactly work out as planned," he
said, sounding doubtful. "Bad timing."

Bruce raised an eyebrow, looking puzzled. Then he added out loud, "If I can ask .
. ."
"Well, it wasn't one of my finer moments," Clark admitted reluctantly.
"Everything went fine until I absent-mindedly underestimated Luthor's ability to get his
hands on kryptonite."

"What happened?"

Clark sighed. "Well . . . when Lois was late getting back from her interview, I
called her cell phone and it just rang and rang, no answer. I waited a little bit, figuring
maybe it was just at an inconvenient time, and tried again. When I still didn't get an
answer, I got worried and went out to look for her. I knew where she had been that day,
so I knew the general area to look in, but her car wasn't really in a logical place--it was in
an alley that didn't seem to be in a path between the museum and our hotel room, so I
knew something was wrong."

"How did you find the car?"

"Listened for the cell phone. I had brought it along to use as a kind of homing
device."

He saw another reaction from Bruce, and wondered briefly if he should have so
casually referred to his abilities, but the other man recovered. "If you've got it, use it,"
Bruce said with a reluctant smile. "Alright, then what?"

"Then I just kind of reasoned it out, and got lucky. I went up to look at the layout
of that area of Gotham, and for some reason I focused on the river. I saw what looked
like a kind of run-down area on the southwest side, and decided it was as good a place as
any to start. When I saw a single van by what looked like an abandoned building, I got
curious "

"Hold on a second." Bruce held up a hand. "Who's doing all of this? I found Clark
Kent in that building."

"Oh." Clark frowned. "That was where I made my mistake. If I had known
Luthor was doing this, you would have found Superman. When I started looking for
Lois, I thought it might have been something simple like getting caught in traffic. As it
was, I didn't realize the full extent of what was going on, so I came in a little over-
confident."

"Overconfident? I wouldn't call that overconfident, I'd call it worried."

"I knew Lois was in there, because I heard her voice, but I didn't hear Luthor. I
didn't know he was involved until we surprised each other in a stairwell. I thought I
could quietly tweak things in the right direction. It was a bad decision, but at the time it
seemed safest. I didn't want Lois asking questions about why Superman suddenly
showed up in Gotham. She did tell me that Luthor had prepared for that possibility. He
actually told her that he got both Clark Kent and Superman."

"He didn't tell her--"

"No," Clark slipped in quickly. "He sees knowledge as power, and doesn't like to
share power." He shook his head. "I never thought I'd see the day when I had the urge
to thank him for something," he said distastefully.

"And apparently no one else saw Clark Kent's reaction to the kryptonite."

"Nope, Luthor himself torched me to the wall," Clark answered with lazy disgust,
lacing his fingers behind his head and wandering off a few paces. "Complete with a
special little box."

"I take it there's no love lost."

"Let's just say I'm happy you didn't come up on his Ouija board."

"I know I didn't," Bruce responded with offhand confidence. He turned to climb
the stairs by the console.

Clark stared after him. "That's rather cavalier of you," he said, taken aback.

Bruce snorted and smiled, looking at once arrogant and self-conscious. "He didn't
respond to the signal."

"You mean the . . .bat-sig--"

"Don't start with me, Kent," came the pleasant warning from the console. Bruce
leaned over a keyboard for a moment, typing. Then one of the monitors went dark and
he stepped back from the station, back up against the railing. "Car, off-line," he called
out. Across the cave, the hydraulics hissed, rotating and dropping the turntable from
view. He looked down at Clark from a half flight up. "He didn't recognize the signal," he
repeated frankly. "Gordon and I discussed strategy before I went in. We were pretty
sure that he was making a mistake, but we lit the lamp just to be sure. When he didn't
react, that . . . affected my strategy." He came down the stairs and started across one of
the bridges.

"How?" Clark asked, following him onto the bridge. "I mean, don't get me wrong,
thanks for scaring the hell out of him, but how would his knowledge of you change
things?"

At the question, Bruce slowed, studying the walkway as though looking for his
answer at his feet. "It allowed me to . . ." he trailed off thoughtfully. Then Clark saw a
sudden flash of white. It couldn't be called a grin; it seemed more like a hungry animal
baring its fangs. "I used some strategies that I can't normally use anymore on the
natives," the other man said. "Playing dead. Risky at the best of times. As it was,
someone emptied their piece into my abdomen. I didn't like that." Clark heard the
dark, clipped pitch of the voice, heard a kind of malicious animation, and wasn't certain
that it was Bruce Wayne talking. "I took out his men one at a time to play with his mind.
If he had known what was after him, he would have used the hostages as a shield."

Clark had come around to stare at him, but the object of his confusion didn't seem
to notice. Once again he flashed on the fact that this man was the head of a massive
conglomerate and more than once had been on the cover of GQ. The gap between the
public's view of this man and who he really was made Clark's mind reel. "So, ordinarily
you would have taken out Luthor first?"

"Not necessarily. It depends on what situation the hostages are in."

Clark stared at him. "You know, you're not at all who people think you are." He
blurted the words almost without thinking, and he didn't know what he expected to
start by saying them. The other man hadn't met his eyes through the exchange, but
when he looked up now, Clark wasn't sure who it was.

"Respectfully, Mr. Kent . . ."

For a moment, Clark didn't understand, but then he recalled their conversation of
the other day. "Alright, point taken," he returned, turning to follow the other man on
the walkway. "But speaking as the average citizen--" he only paused a second as the
other man glanced over his shoulder at that less than adequate description "--when the
DP first put in the request for the interview, I didn't expect it to be with someone who
would break up a hostage situation by Lex Luthor and revive me with CPR."

Once again the other man had stopped on the walkway. He crossed his arms with
a slight smile, staring ahead, took a breath--

"Alright! Alright," Clark broke in. "I get it. Walked into it again."

"I didn't expect to be pulling kryptonite off of Clark Kent," was the soft response
despite Clark's interjection. "Much less get pulled out of a grave by him." He turned to
look at Clark. "You say you owe me your life, but I think you'll recall you returned the
favor."

"It seems we both have experience at doing those sorts of things," he answered,
getting a wry smile at the understatement. Judging from the tone of voice, Clark noticed
there had been a gradual fade back to Bruce Wayne.

"Listen, about the kryptonite--" Bruce studied the walkway again for a moment.
"I'll save it for you. When the Wing is functional . . ." He trailed off, thinking, then shook
his head. "Well, I don't know if the Wing will be the solution . . .I'll come up with a few
ideas," he finally said. "I think we may have our choice of solutions."

"Does anyone else come down here?" Clark asked.

"A few," Bruce allowed. "There are a few who know about this place, but as far as
I've been able to determine, no one knows Superman was involved at the plant, let alone
that there's kryptonite here. They won't find it."

"You're sure?" Clark worried. "I don't want this to backfire for you."

"They won't find it," Bruce repeated, with a brief, reassuring smile. "I'm pretty
good at hiding things."

He turned and continue on the walkway. The same moment he paused was the
same moment Clark started laughing. Bruce gave up, raising his hands in a gesture of
futility as he continued down the walkway. Clark followed him after one last look over
his shoulder at the cave. He caught up with him by the alcove to the tunnel leading back
to the mansion.

"Hey," he said, stopping him and holding out his hand. "Thanks for showing me."

Bruce turned, almost surprised, and didn't take his hand at first. Once again
Clark had the definite feeling that his mind was being closely examined, and then he took
Clark's hand. "I never thought I would be thanking a reporter named Superman for
saving my life," he said, keeping him pinned on the same searching stare.

Clark smiled. "I might say something similar."

They had reached the small alcove from which they had emerged about an hour
ago. Bruce turned back to the cave to call out, "Main, off-line. Security enable." The
lights flicked off and there was a quiet hiss from somewhere. They started wordlessly
up the long tunnel.

* * *

Lois dropped her two bags into the back seat of the Bonneville and shut the door,
the sound echoing loudly through the parking ramp. "Oh, you have no idea how much I
want to sleep in my own bed again," she said, opening the driver's side door. "I'm good
and ready to leave Gotham."

Clark ducked his dark head into the other side and shut the door. "You know, all
you've done lately is complain," he began, with gentle timidity. She flicked him a quick
glance as she turned the ignition.

"Ooooh, I don't know. I just don't have a thing for hostage situations," she
answered, pulling out of their spot. After a moment, though, she added, "Yeah, I guess I
have been whining. You went through the same thing, and you're holding up."

"Okay, name one good thing that happened during the whole two weeks," Clark
said gamely.

She frowned for a moment, concentrating on exiting to the correct lane to get
them to the airport. "Oh . . . the stay at the Radisson was free. Oh! You know what? I
checked that out," she said, suddenly alert. "You know why we got to stay free? Guess
who owns that Radisson?"

Still playing dumb, Clark reviewed quickly. "Who?"

"It's your billionaire friend. Bruce Wayne."

"Really? Too bad I didn't know. I could have thanked him. Funny--he didn't
mention that when we were talking last night."

Lois snorted. "He probably didn't even know about it. The people who manage
his billions did it. How'd that go last night, anyway? What does he spend his money
on?"

Clark took a deep breath. What, indeed, did Bruce Wayne, president of a multi-
billion dollar parent company called Wayne Enterprises, spend his spare cash on? Oh, not much. A small, in-house steel shop, engineering, heavy-duty R and D, a wicked looking black mask, an F-18C Hornet, and a certain amount of physical training like swimming and biking for overall fitness and endurance, and rock climbing and free-fall for part of the skill end of things, and he's got darn good aim with a grappling hook and can think open-ended probability mechanics in a big fat hurry . . . Now it begins, Clark thought. "He throws a lot back into the company. And he's got a handful of really beautiful antique cars . . ." he finished dreamily.

"Huh. And--let me guess--he contributes just enough to charity and anti-crime
programs in Gotham."

Clark smiled and said nothing.