Truth & Justice II #11

[Spider-Man Beyond]

The Multiverse Presents

Truth & Justice II #11

Written by JC Roberts (Calamityjamie)

Edited by Daniel Dyer (Spider-Man Beyond)

Multiverse logo created by Tony Peterson (Starfall)

[Spider-Man Beyond]

On Easter Sunday, Synner, a supervillian with a demented perspective on religion – and an unfortunately large following – led an attack against the Justice League that injured the Flash and Meera and almost destroyed the Watchtower. Synner believed super-heroes were working against God’s plan by forestalling Armageddon and he wasn’t having it. In addition to numbers, he had a stockpile of highly sophisticated long-range missiles. Three of them literally had the Justice League’s name on them; one actually breached the space station. With a single exception, the rest were directed at the Middle East. The final missile, oddly, had been earmarked for Stonehenge.

Although he had given them a tense few hours, the League dispatched Synner during the course of a long night and were then immediately forced to tend to the Watchtower. Midori restored primary life support within the half hour, but expressed concern that the station’s stabilizers were compromised. She sent Gren to pick up some larger components from a metals manufacturer that contracted with the League. Superwoman and Batman took the Jav to pick up a list of smaller materials that were still heavy enough to require a carrier with super-strength, at least while they were under the grip of Earth’s gravity.

“I need to talk to you about that,” the Flash said, after Arsenal dropped into the infirmary to catch him up. He squirmed against the restraints that kept him from floating out of the medi-couch. They were still several hours from restoring artificial gravity and Martha had not wanted him to jostle his sprained knee.

“About what?” Roy asked.

“Why did Batman go with Superwoman?” Wally asked. “What’s he gonna help her carry?”

Roy shrugged. “He’ll keep an eye on the inventory. I don’t want to have to waste time sending her back down to exchange a part.”

“Martha can read,” Wally countered. “She doesn’t need supervision.”

“She does, actually,” said Roy wickedly. “She can’t see through things like her old man.”

“Not while I’m injured,” moaned Wally, rubbing his knee as if his friend’s pun had hurt it. His eyes flicked suspiciously back to Roy, sensing a peculiar evasiveness in his responses.

“You remember when all they did was fight?” he asked, keeping his voice low. He glanced across the infirmary, where Meera fidgeted in the confines of her medi-couch.

“The good old days,” said Roy. “A long time ago.”

“Less than a year ago,” said Wally. He squinted at one of the Velcro straps holding the splint around his knee. It was misaligned by a few millimeters. The sight of the bristly underside irritated him and he adjusted it before Roy could reach out to stop him.

“You’re not supposed to touch that,” Roy said mildly.

“You know how you sent a bunch of us up here to get some rest?” Wally asked. The battle against Synner had lasted longer than expected; Arsenal ended up having them fight in shifts.

As Roy nodded, Wally continued. “I grabbed something to eat before lying down for a while. Martha and Batman were sitting on a couch in the lounge, talking.”

“Dear God,” said Roy in mock horror. “Talking.”

“Listen,” said Wally impatiently. “I got up an hour later – I got hungry –”

“Another shock,” said Roy.

“—and they were still talking,” Wally said. He looked at Roy expectantly.

“Well, I’m gonna break that up,” Arsenal said. “I can’t have members of this team talking to each other.”

Wally shot another glance at Meera, who was now entertaining herself by floating around the far side of the infirmary, and whispered, “Since when does Batman talk to anybody for an hour?”

When his friend didn’t respond, Wally added, “I think there’s something going on between them.”

Roy rubbed his forehead for a moment, and then looked up at Wally. “You’re a little behind the times, pal.”

Wally pushed his mask back from his face. “They’re sleeping together?”

“My last report suggests Bruce is still fighting temptation,” Roy said sardonically. “He thinks it would be wrong.”

“What do you think?” asked Wally, looking worried.

“I think they belong together,” Roy said. “But I don’t know what’s gonna happen when Clark finds out.”

“And everyone’s noticed this but me,” Wally said.

“I’m positive Gren hasn’t,” Roy said. “But otherwise…” He offered Wally a helpless shrug.

“Meera,” Wally called across the room. She drifted over, careful not to bump the brace around her wrist.

“Have you sensed anything between Bats and Superwoman?” he asked.

“Hasn't everyone?” she replied.

Wally scowled at a smirking Roy, then asked, “Do you think it’s going to be a problem?”

“It doesn’t matter," Meera said. "Someone’s cut the breaks on that train.”

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Gren dropped Wally at his front door the next afternoon, but declined to come in, not wishing to be there when Linda saw her husband in a knee brace. Wally let himself in quietly, hoping to sneak into bed before Linda noticed he was home. When he turned around after locking the door, however, she was standing there, regarding his injured leg with distress.

“Shhh,” he said conspiratorially. “I’m fine. It’s a scam so I can spend more time with you.”

Wally expected the exasperated look, but was surprised when it was quickly replaced by an enigmatic smile.

“Well, you’re needed here, for sure,” she said. “Come with me.” She wrapped his arm around her shoulder so she could help him down the hallway. A few feet from Parker’s bedroom, she put her finger to her lips.

“Look,” she mouthed, as they peeked through the frame of their younger son’s door. Parker tossed a battered baseball into the air, zoomed around the room about thirty times, then caught the falling ball with an enraptured grin. Loose homework papers and scribbled video game cheats fluttered to the floor.

“Well, damn,” said Wally, his eyes glistening. “That’s a hat trick.”

“You think one of them would take after me,” Linda said. But as Parker rocketed around his bedroom again, happily oblivious to the presence of his misty-eyed parents, she leaned her shoulder against her husband’s arm and brought the back of his hand to her lips.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

As soon as he saw that the Metropolis police had ringed the would-be terrorists, Superman melted the tips of their automatic rifles with his heat vision and booted their bomb into space. This left Gren to seize the four men and two women with an emerald lariat and drag them cursing into the back of a police van. Then he followed Superman into orbit, where the older man surprised him by playfully kicking the bomb toward him as if it were a soccer ball.

Gren conjured an oversized hockey stick and they volleyed the bomb back and forth until it exploded between them. Then they burst into silent laughter and headed back down to Earth.

“That was cool,” Gren said, as he joined Superman atop of the Daily Planet’s mammoth globe. “Fast work. Community involvement. A sports theme.”

Superman chuckled. “Small change compared to what the League’s been dealing with lately.”

“I got no quarrel with quick and easy,” Gren said. He rotated a sore elbow and watched the sun drop slowly into Metropolis Bay.

“I hope you don’t mind me saying this,” Superman said tentatively, “but you’ve grown up a lot in the past year.”

Gren kept his eyes on the waterfront and struggled to conceal his pleasure. Others had noticed the changes in him and said as much, but in one sense, the Green Lantern was no different than most of the rest of the world: Superman was his hero. A word of praise from him canceled out a handful of disparaging comments made over the years by Gren’s embittered father. Unfortunately, the insults had come hand over fist for most of Gren’s life.

“Want to get a beer?” he asked, trying to sound casual.

Superman smiled apologetically. “Sorry. Never developed a taste for it.”

Gren thought this a great tragedy. “Buy you a burger?”

The look of temptation on the Man of Steel’s face was almost comical. “I can’t,” he said virtuously. Gren suppressed a snort.

“I’ve got to go,” Superman added. “My son just got back from a few days in Gotham City and I haven't seen him.”

“Sure,” said Gren. He knew his disappointment didn’t show; he was used to hiding it. But Superman surprised him by adding, “Come to dinner on Sunday.”

“Sounds good,” said Gren. He repeated the time and address Superman gave him and managed to hold back his grin until he was halfway to Catskill.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Superman landed in the Kents’ rooftop garden and zipped into his bedroom for a golf shirt and a pair of jeans. He listened for a second to what sounded like some impassioned typing in the home office he and his wife shared and wondered if he should disturb her. A peek through the door revealed Lois sitting at her desk, banging furiously at her keyboard in what seemed more like a rampage than a burst of inspiration.

“Clay home?” Clark inquired, debating whether he should ask her what was wrong.

“Why don’t you go and see?” Lois responded in a curt voice. She did not take her eyes from the screen.

He ambled uneasily toward his son’s bedroom. Clay rarely provoked this sort of reaction from Lois. He had always been an easy child. Even his teenaged years were relatively serene. Clark could not imagine what he could have done to upset her.

Clay was unpacking his things from a small suitcase he’d laid on his twin bed. His methodical movements from baggage to dresser drew Clark’s attention first to his son’s active hands. As his eyes traveled higher, Clark saw the source of his wife’s distress and felt his own chest fill with a kind of nostalgic sadness. Sometime during his trip to Gotham City, Clay had shaved off his dreadlocks. Clark was looking at a bald stranger.

“Hi, Dad,” said Clay, walking over to hug him. Spotting the forlorn look on Clark’s face, he protested, “It looks good.”

“It does,” Clark admitted. “It’s just – you’re a man.”

“I have been for years, Dad,” Clay said patiently. “It’s about time I looked like one.”

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Despite her displeasure over the disappearance of Clay’s ’locks, his mother had ordered dinner from his favorite Thai restaurant. While Lois stabbed at her broccoli, Clark and Clay traded mischievous glances across the tension-charged air until they finally burst into skittish laughter.

Lois looked up coldly. “I supposed next you’ll be looking for your own apartment.”

“With the cost of rent in Metropolis?” Clay asked. “Not unless I get a raise, boss.”

“Never,” Lois said resolutely. Her husband and son exchanged covert grins.

“Tell us about Martha,” Clark said, hoping news of their daughter might mollify his wife. It had been Lois who suggested Clay spend a few days in Gotham, ostensibly to do a little brother-sister bonding, but also, Clark suspected, to gather information on Martha’s personal life that couldn’t be gleaned during the course of a telephone conversation. Martha, Lois had claimed recently, was “leaving things out”.

“She’s fine,” said Clay, dumping half a carton of a spicy tofu-vegetable medley onto his rice. The dish had attracted his attention years ago because of its moniker: Evil Jungle Princess, which has subsequently become Clay’s nickname for his sister. “Work’s fine. Lian’s really fine” – he ducked devilishly under the force of his mother’s glare – “and Martha’s out hunting bad guys every night.”

“Not every night?” asked Clark. “She’s getting some sleep?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Clay said, waving reassuringly. “She’s, you know, super.”

Lois, looking considerably calmer, put down her chopsticks. “And she’s over the break-up? And there’s food in her refrigerator?”

Clay nodded as he reached for the pitcher of ice water. “No mention at all of Councilman Gorgeous and, well, the fridge isn’t exactly full, but Bruce took us out most nights and –”

He stopped in mid-sentence. Both of his parents were staring at him.

“Bruce who?” Lois asked carefully. There was an ominous tinge to her voice.

“How many Bruces do you know in Gotham City?” asked Clay. “What?” he added, as his parents eyed each other warily.

After an awkward pause, Clark explained, “We weren’t aware that they had a lot of contact. They didn’t get along so well when Martha first got to Gotham.”

“They… seemed to get along,” said Clay blandly.

Lois began to color alarmingly, but a slow grin pulled at Clark’s mouth.

“That's great,” he said.

Lois spun toward her husband. “You think it's great?”

“Yeah,” said Clark, a little surprised. “I asked him to keep an eye on her a while back, when she first came to Gotham City. I'm glad they finally got over their differences enough for him to check in occasionally.”

“Leave the room,” Lois told Clay.

He started to protest, but as his eyes fell upon his mother’s face, Clay closed his mouth, drew a crumpled napkin across his lips and hastened to his bedroom.

“What was that about?” asked Clark in a low voice. “He wasn’t finished his dinner.”

“I’ll heat it up later,” Lois said, glowering.

“You think Bruce is up to something,” Clark said, “because he took the kids to dinner.”

“The only question is what,” she said. “And God help him if it’s what I’m thinking.”

There was no dodging it: He was about to hear what Lois was thinking whether he wanted to or not. Evidently, Clay’s haircut had bent her farther out of shape than Clark had imagined.

“Go ahead,” he said wearily.

“The way he looked at Martha,” she said. “In the Fortress. And then she breaks up with her boyfriend. And now he’s taking her out to dinner.”

“With her brother.” Clark’s look of slow comprehension turned to immediate disbelief. “No,” he said, as if he was talking to a mad child.

“It all fits,” said Lois, whose anger was mounting in proportion to her conviction.

“In Bizarro World,” said Clark. He was starting to wonder if his wife might belong there.

“Our daughter's best friends in Gotham City are a nymphomaniac, a 93-year-old man and a dissociative mass murderer,” Lois said. “But you don't think it's possible that she's sleeping with a dysfunctional middle-aged vigilante?”

Clark made a pained face. “Don’t call Lian a nymphomaniac.”

“Clark,” said Lois warningly.

“You’re jumping to wild conclusions,” Clark said. “Based on… nothing.” He took a deep breath and added firmly. “Bruce wouldn’t do that to me.”

“He’s not doing it to you, Clark,” Lois pointed out with an indelicacy that made her husband cringe.

“He’s not doing… anything… to anyone,” said Clark. “They don’t even like each other,” he added, aware that in light of Clay’s account of his vacation, this statement sounded both desperate and misinformed.

“I didn’t say anything about him liking her,” Lois said contemptuously.

Clark shut his eyes and slumped against the back of his chair. After a few silent moments, he cautiously opened a single eye, but his wife was still glaring at him.

“When your son gets out here, ask him what he thinks and listen to see if his heart jumps,” Lois said. “Because he’s hiding something.”

“I’m not going to do that,” said Clark, appalled.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “Because you’re going to wake up tomorrow and realize how crazy this is. Please, Lois,” he added, “don’t… do anything. Bruce… this was a big gesture from him, taking out the kids – and to thank him by suggesting we can’t trust him with our daughter…”

As Lois seemed unmoved by the prospect of offending Bruce Wayne, Clark sought a more amenable tack. “Besides,” he said, “Martha’s nearly thirty. She can take care of herself.”

“When she wants to,” said Lois grimly, and Clark wished that he, too, could be sent to his room.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Sean Fray’s preliminary hearing went off flawlessly on a spectacularly bright Friday in April, almost a year from the day he unleashed his murderous metallic marauders on the guardians of Arkham Asylum. The next morning, Bruce Wayne took a long overdue trip to visit the man he considered the closest thing he would ever have to a son. He brought Martha Kent with him.

Bruce had encouraged Alfred to join them. He knew Martha would take as much pleasure as he did in watching the glow in the old man’s withered face as Dick Grayson and Koriand'r’s golden children orbited giddily around him. Alfred had seen wondrous things in the course of his impressive lifetime. The sight of airborne youngsters should not have surprised him, but he never seemed to get over his amazement that Dick’s children could fly.

Although prolonged trips were increasingly hard on Alfred, he never passed up the chance to see Dick and Kory. This time, however, despite having not visited the Graysons’ suburban Bludhaven home in several months, the elderly butler announced that he would not be going.

“Martha wants you to come, too,” Bruce had said as Alfred ran a dishcloth over the kitchen island countertop in a serene circle.

“And I would very much like to accompany you both,” the elderly butler replied. “But there is simply too much for me to attend to here.”

Bruce, aware that any visit to Bludhaven might be Alfred’s last, found himself becoming frustrated. “What is it you have to attend to that can’t wait until tomorrow?”

The old man looked up from his dusting. “Do you now fear being alone with Dr. Kent?” he asked. “Are you afraid your prodigious self-control has begun to slip?”

“No,” growled Bruce. He was annoyed to see Alfred smirking in the reflection of the toaster.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Martha slid into the jag with a friendly smile and a bottle of wine she had bought for the Graysons despite Bruce’s assurance that she didn’t have to bring anything. She carried something else, too. A plastic container covered with aluminum foil that she set on the floor while she reached for her seatbelt.

“No Alfred?” Martha looked around the small car as though she might find him in an overlooked crevice.

“He has ‘things to attend to’,” said Bruce.

“Oh,” said Martha. She placed the container on her lap while Bruce aimed the car toward the nearest interstate ramp. It was a stunning day, even warmer and brighter than the previous one. A few minutes into the trip, Martha asked if he would open the sunroof.

Bruce pushed a button and the rectangular hatch receded into the roof. “We should have taken the motorcycle.” Martha’s enthusiastic agreement made him consider turning back to switch vehicles, but they couldn’t talk as easily on a motorcycle.

As it turned out, there was a lot to catch up on. Fray’s hearing had gone so seamlessly that there was little to discuss, but Martha had other news.

“Persky’s resigning,” she said. “He announced it right after we got back from the hearing. He apparently wants to get out while he’s still in possession of all of his body parts.” There had been a little disembowelment episode at the asylum during the previous week. Persky was not the only employee to quit over it, but at least he was giving notice.

Bruce frowned. He did not consider Persky an ideal administrator, but he was fairly competent, somewhat open-minded and intolerant of the corruption that had seemed inherent in the directorship until his arrival. “Who will they get to replace him?”

Martha sighed. “That’s what we’re worried about. It took the board forever to hire Persky. We don’t know how long it’s going to take to find someone like him.” Bruce shot her a jaded glance and she asked mournfully, “They’re not going to find someone like him?”

“Nope,” said Bruce.

“We’re going have to schedule extra meditation sessions?” Martha asked.

“Yep,” he said, wondering if a pleasantly threatening call from their largest donor might set the board of directors on the path toward finding an appropriate replacement for Persky. He nodded toward the back of the car. “Alfred found some new kind of tea.”

Martha withdrew a thermos from the back seat. “Alfred is awesome. And I brought cookies,” she said, withdrawing one from the container on her lap and handing it to him.

“I don’t eat while I drive,” Bruce said.

Martha did not retract her hand. “How often do you think I bake?”

He took the cookie. She had gone crazy with the chocolate chips, but it wasn’t bad.

“What set you on a baking binge?” he asked.

“Well, Lian started it,” she said sheepishly. “It kind of ties into some juicier news.”

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Martha’s pleasure over the smoothness of the hearing had been muted somewhat by Perksy’s announcement and then eradicated by a horrible argument she had over the phone with Lois that Martha hoped Bruce would never hear about. She had left work earlier than usual – which was still later than most of the rest of the staff – and come home with the intention of changing quickly and heading out for a couple of high-altitude laps around the world. She needed to decompress.

The scent of baking cookies had reached her as she extended her key toward the deadbolt. Martha stepped back to check the number on the apartment door. Of all of her friends, only Alfred baked and Martha did not expect to find him in her kitchen unannounced.

“Is this for a guy?” she had asked Lian, who stood nervously in the kitchen, wearing an upside-down oven mitt. A man's stomach was not Lian's usual path to his heart. Her hair was pulled back and she was dressed as though she was going to paint the apartment. Baking, in Lian’s mind, was a dirty job.

“Some of it’s for you,” she said with suspicious brightness. When Martha continued to look at her, she added, “Come on, grab a spoon.”

As they had ladled uneven clumps of cookie dough onto sheets of aluminum foil, Martha recounted the events of the trial – excerpts of which Lian had seen on the news – and Perksy’s disappointing announcement. She longed to talk to her roommate about the fight with Lois, but there was too much Lian did not know.

Lian confessed to a less eventful day, adding casually, “Oh, I bumped into Josh today.”

Martha had not believed it was possible to feel more tense. A wad of cookie dough meant for the sheet of foil went right into her mouth. “How is he?”

“OK. You know – he still misses you.” Lian opened the oven to check on the first batch of cookies. “He really is a nice guy.”

Martha put down her spoon. “How many times did you bump into him, Lian? Would you say ‘repeatedly’?”

“You don't mind, do you?” asked Lian, looking truly alarmed. “I mean, you broke up with him.”

Martha had drawn her lips between her teeth and strained for a tactful way to phrase her concerns. She had not felt jealous, but rather, protective toward Josh.

"Just – please don't hurt him," she said.

“Don't worry - I'm the rebound girl,” Lian had said cheerfully. She added, “I'm good at being the rebound girl.”

Martha looked at her sadly. “Li, that’s not such a great thing.”

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Bruce listened to Martha’s account of the baking session with distaste. “You’re going to have to explain that friendship to me someday,” he said. “I find it difficult to understand.”

“I know you don’t like her,” Martha said. “What she did to Tim was awful. But as a friend, she’s…” She groped for the right words. “She’s always been there for me. When Dave –”

Bruce’s eyes moved surreptitiously toward the passenger seat. Martha rarely spoke about her dead fiancé. But she seemed to falter, adding only, “I couldn't have gotten through that without Lian.”

Bruce said carefully, “I don't know if you remember. I dropped by your parents’ condo a few days after the funeral – you know, to pay my respects…”

She smiled apologetically. “I don't really remember a lot about that time,” she said.

He fixed his eyes on the road. “No, I wouldn’t expect you to.”

When they drew close to the string of shore towns that lay between Gotham City and Bludhaven, Bruce took them off the interstate and rolled down all the windows so they could enjoy the smells and sounds of the beach in springtime. Martha remarked that it was ironic that such an idyllic stretch of land buffered two of the most crime-infested cities in the nation.

“Yeah,” said Bruce, reaching for his third cookie. “Next time I look for a job around here.”

Martha smiled and they spent most of the rest of the drive enjoying each other’s company in peaceful silence. It wasn’t until Bruce eased toward the off-ramp for Hideaway, a tiny suburb about ten miles north of Bludhaven, that Martha spoke again.

“I hope they’ll like me,” she said nervously.

“You’ve met Dick,” he said. It had been almost a year ago. Dick had rushed to the manor as soon as he heard how badly Bruce had been injured by Fray.

“I was just your doctor then,” Martha said. She didn’t attempt to define what they were now.

Bruce phoned Kory to let them know they were only a few minutes away; she and Dick were standing in the driveway when the jag pulled into it. Dick waited patiently while his wife hurled herself at Bruce, who allowed himself to be hugged vigorously for a several minutes before clearing his throat.

“This is Martha Kent,” he said, after exchanging a handshake and a considerably shorter embrace with Dick. Kory immediately rushed to hug Martha, who had been standing uncertainly by the passenger door.

“We’re so glad to meet you,” Kory gushed.

Martha looked at Bruce with alarm.

Dick laughed. “She’s that glad to meet everybody, Martha,” he said. “So please, relax.”

Kory shepherded Martha into the house, but as Bruce moved to follow, Dick grabbed his arm.

“Why did you bring your doctor?” he asked. “Are you all right?”

Bruce was a little caught off guard; he thought Dick would probably be a little more up to date about his relationship with Martha. Roy Harper had been one of Dick’s best friends since their years with the Teen Titans and Bruce knew they still spoke to each other at least once a week. Roy was apparently a man who kept his confidences.

“No,” he said. “I mean, I'm fine. She's – we're friends.”

Dick continued to examine him. “I thought you meant Gordon,” he said. “When you said you were bringing someone.”

Bruce wasn't sure what he was supposed to say. Martha obviously wasn't Gordon.

“What kind of friend is she?” Dick persisted.

“The friend kind,” Bruce said.

Dick broke into a grin. “Alfred's told me all about her.”

Exasperated, Bruce said, “Then you’ve gotten the fantasy version.”

Dick motioned him toward the house. “Come in and grab a drink,” he said. “Then you can tell me your version and I’ll decide which one is the fantasy.”

Hideaway was everything Bludhaven was not: bucolic, quiet, safe. Dick threw a few chicken breasts and several huge portobello mushrooms onto the barbecue while two of his four children flung themselves at Bruce. Dick’s oldest son, John – or Tamand’r as he now insisted on being called – nodded sullenly at him and omitted the “Uncle” he once put in front of Bruce’s name.

“You should feel honored he got off his ass to say hello,” Dick muttered as John sauntered back into the house. “I hope the rest of the kids aren’t going to be this miserable when they’re seventeen.”

They watched as John stopped to nod at Martha, who seemed to garner a few extra seconds of his attention as she walked out to the yard. Kory followed, carrying the youngest Grayson, an infant girl.

“Hug Uncle Bruce,” Kory instructed the baby, dumping her into Bruce’s arms. Martha watched with impressed surprise as Bruce, almost smiling, deftly maneuvered the child in front of him so he could get a better look at her. The baby, Ryand'r, had Kory’s eyes, Kory’s hair and Kory’s skin.

“Looks like you,” Bruce said to Dick, who joked that they had a Tamaranian mailman.

Kory looked puzzled. “I don’t think we do.”

As the children played on the array of colorful forts and jungle gyms their parents had built for them, the adults wandered across the large yard, admiring some of the tulips that had just come up. Suddenly, Kory grabbed her husband’s arm and pointed. A spring butterfly fluttered among the flowers.

“Isn’t it pretty?” she cried, captivated by the colorful creature.

“No,” said Bruce and Martha simultaneously.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

It was the only bump in a smooth afternoon. Kory enthusiastically ushered Martha around the house in what became a long and overly detailed tour, then dragged her into the kitchen. Martha could cook if she had instructions in front of her, but Kory’s recipes were housed in her head. Martha could merely watch and hand ingredients while Kory shifted from pot to pot while offering a blissful account of her life with Dick, starting from the day she learned English by kissing him when she first met the Teen Titans.

“I wish I could learn a language that way,” said Martha. “I’ve been trying to learn Spanish for two years.”

Kory looked up from the salad she was making. “Well, you’re very busy. What is it like to be a psychiatrist at Arkham? And the Justice League doctor? And how did you meet Bruce?”

Martha managed to stretch her answers to the first two questions out long enough to avoid the third. The follow-up questions would have been bound to be awkward.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Bruce absently hoisted serving platter as he watched Dick’s squealing girls play a game of aerial tag around a volleyball net.

“I have to ask you something,” he said as Dick transferred a second round of barbecue to the large plate.

“Go ahead,” the younger man, scraping at a stubborn scrap of chicken that seemed welded to the grill. Bruce waited until Dick turned to him, now looking a little concerned.

Somewhat hesitantly, Bruce asked, “How do you feel, now, about...” He stopped for a moment, re-organized his thoughts and then tried again. “Was it wrong for me to have gotten you started as Robin so young? Do you feel like... like you were a child soldier or something?”

Dick put down his metal spatula. “No. It was what I needed. If you hadn’t given me Robin, I don’t know what I would have become. It wouldn’t have been good,” he added.

Bruce’s eyes drifted back to the girls. “But you won’t let your kids do it. Not until they’re adults.”

Dick turned back to the grill. “Part of why John is furious at me all the time. They haven’t seen their parents murdered before their eyes,” he explained. “Makes a difference.” He took the platter from Bruce and studied him. “Why are you asking me this now?”

“No reason,” said Bruce, remembering Martha sobbing in her sleep in his arboretum. He took a slug from a bottle of tepid spring water and asked, “So how’s Bludhaven? Still nice and quiet?”

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

The day dissolved too rapidly into evening. Martha helped the girls and a surly Tamand’r clear the dinner table and ended up in the kitchen with Kory, washing the few plates that didn’t fit in the dishwasher.

“It’s Dick’s turn to do the dishes,” Kory said, “but I wanted him to have a few extra minutes with Bruce. How long have you two been lovers?” she asked offhandedly.

Martha nearly dropped the dish she was drying. “We’re not.”

Kory’s saucer-sized eyes became dinner plates. “You… are.”

Martha shook her head. “No,” she said quietly.

“But I can feel these things,” protested Kory.

Martha shook her head again.

“Is this one of those situations where everyone except the couple involved thinks they should be together?” asked Kory, quoting directly from a lecture her husband had given her several years before.

“Everyone except Bruce,” Martha said.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

The men had just returned from loading up the jag with leftovers when Koriand'r bustled indignantly through the kitchen door and smacked Bruce on the arm.

”And yet I brought her here,” said Bruce, rubbing the place where she had struck him.

“You take that woman upstairs and make love to her right now,” Kory ordered.

Dick laughed. “But no pressure. Leave him alone, Kory.”

“I don't understand,” she groused at Bruce. “What's wrong with you?”

“I'm a damn fool,” he answered. “According to Gordon. Alfred has a more colorful diagnosis.”

The goodbyes took half an hour as they involved a Koriand’r restored to her usual ebullient spirits, two little girls who did not want Uncle Bruce to leave and a reluctant Tamand’r who had to be dragged up from the basement. In the middle of the chaos, Dick pulled Bruce aside.

“Look,” he said, “I don't think Kory is wrong. But if you do,” Dick looked out to where Martha stood by the jag, “you need to cut this girl loose. Because this friendship thing – that's the fantasy.”

Before Bruce could protest, Dick added, “She's going to find someone else and it's going to kill you, or she's going to wait around for you and miss the chance for something more. I know you want to do the right thing,” said Dick, “but this isn't it.”

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Bruce was often quiet when they were together, but there was grimness to him as they drove home that unnerved Martha. He had seemed fine at dinnertime and he had not appeared upset when they’d said goodbye to Dick and Kory. Martha began to wonder if she had inadvertently said something in her farewells to the Graysons that angered him. She spent half an hour going over every word until she was sure each one had been innocuous. He was still brooding when Martha emerged from this inventory and paranoiacally recalled the argument she’d had with her mother. Bruce couldn’t have found out about that, she thought. He would have said something by now. And he probably wouldn’t have taken her to Hideaway in the first place.

Her mind drifted irresistibly to the quarrel, sparked when Martha received a worried phone call from her brother. Clay, like Kory, had been quite sure his sister was sleeping with the billionaire. This did not seem to bother him; he liked Bruce a lot. Clay’s call concerned something connected more to his own association with Bruce and only as an afterthought did he mention that their mother was on the warpath because she believed their father’s friend had seduced Martha.

The call had filled Martha with dread: One of Bruce’s greatest concerns was that a romantic involvement with him might damage Martha’s relationship with her family. She did not believe this to be true, but a few harsh words from Lois would seem like confirmation to him. That was bad enough, but what if he decided even their friendship was too divisive to continue?

Martha had decided the best way to deal with her mother was a pre-emptive strike, but five minutes on hold listening to Daily Planet news briefs had worn away some of her momentum.

“Is there something you wanted to know about my friendship with Bruce Wayne?” she demanded after Lois finally answered the phone. “Because: Ask.”

The offense she had hoped to convey sprung from her mouth as mere annoyance, a shift that ultimately worked in her favor. Her original approach would have overplayed her hand.

“Dad asked us to stop fighting,” Martha continued, before her mother could answer. “So we did. Would you like us to start again?”

Lois replied calmly, “No. But I find it hard to believe a request from your father would move Bruce to change his behavior.”

“That’s because it didn’t,” Martha said. “He did it in response to my sincere request for a truce.”

Lois countered, “My understanding was that he was starting the arguments. Why did you have to be the one to ask him to stop?”

“Because I’m a grown-up, Mom,” Martha said irritably. “And I thought that ending the arguing was more important than pointing fingers.”

Lois said nothing for several long seconds. Martha felt her level of anxiety rise along with the silence on the other side of the phone.

In a voice that carried absolutely no conviction, Lois finally said, “All right,” but by that point Martha had worked herself into a panic and she did not fully understand that her mother was agreeing to drop the subject.

“And the haircut wasn’t Bruce’s fault,” she babbled. “He didn’t know Clay’s ‘locks were tied to your apron strings.”

She heard Lois sputter on the other side of the line and knew she had gone too far. Apparently Lois hadn’t realized Clay’s haircut was the impulsive result of accompanying Bruce to a barber shop when Martha was at work. Realizing she had just made things worse, Martha had blurted that one of her patients had just escaped from his cell and slammed down the phone.

She felt the jag swerve around an SUV and shook off the troubling memory. Bruce did not know about the phone call, she told herself. Something else was bothering him.

She stared at him until she was sure he noticed; he was intentionally ignoring her. Not knowing what else to do, Martha took a steadying breath, trying not to make it look too obvious, and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said in a muted voice that meant “everything”. And like Josh standing by his apartment elevator, Martha knew what was going to happen at the end of the ride.

—

Continued on page 2