Super powered

Nine

Gotham

A trauma in childhood has long been believed to have consequences that reach far beyond the momentary pain. Some believe they continue to affect the person throughout their life. Imagine the affect of watching your parents gunned down before your eyes. Imagine the helplessness, the guilt, and the shock of having your whole world ripped away from you in an instant. Bruce Wayne doesn't have to imagine these things.

It could be said the real Bruce Wayne died in that alley too and the Batman was born. Since that night, he has always kept everyone at arm's length, never letting anyone get too close. At least that's what he's tried. Some have always slipped through. Selina. The villain Hush, his childhood friend Tommy Elliot, carved her heart out to hurt Bruce. He'd let his guard down and someone else was hurt. He lost his focus on the mission and someone else got hurt.

Someone else got hurt because of him.

That was a lapse he wouldn't allow to happen again. Bruce shut down that part of his life and locked it away, not wanting to deal with it. It seemed like a good plan at the time. A funny thing happens with even a great mind like Bruce's. The more you repress something and don't deal with it, the more your mind finds other ways to bring it to the surface.

It was the wee hours of the morning and Bruce Wayne sat in front of his computer deep in the Batcave. His cowl was down and on the screen in front of him was two pictures, Superman and Power Girl. It seems with each passing day he grew more worried about their liaison. Every time he looked at them together more reasons sprang up in his mind about why it bothered him. What was most troubling was he hadn't seen it. Why hadn't he seen it?

His physical gifts were impressive, but what made the Batman the formidable hero he was had little to do with them. It was his mental prowess, his ability to outthink everyone and every situation. He was always five, ten steps ahead of everyone. He had already run every possibility before the battle began. These abilities didn't stop with just the villains, but took in every possibility, including his teammates. He knew each of their weaknesses; their vulnerabilities and what would defeat them. If he ever had a second thought about this, Darkseid's brainwashing of Superman ended it.

Everyone was a possible threat to Earth, to the mission.

The one enigma in all that careful planning and cold calculations was Superman, the very one that started him on this line of thinking. Clark Kent. Bruce knew him as well, if not better, than just about anyone. He could confidently predict almost every action Superman would make. Batman knew that if Superman were ever turned again, he would be ready.

Yet for all this knowledge and strategy, Bruce hadn't fully figure Clark out. For the most part, Clark Kent was exactly what he appeared to be, just a good, honest farm boy, a Boy Scout. It's probably what endured him to people so easily. Bruce knew that was only the surface, the mask Clark put on. He was really a much more complex man than that. He'd seen first hand with Darkseid that stronger passions boiled just below the surface with Clark. As much as the world and their fellow heroes embraced him, Clark was an outsider.

His was the classic story of the immigrant. He was a stranger in a new land. He'd done an amazing job assimilating, yet he would always be an outsider. Bruce understood this probably better than most, for the irony was that Bruce was an insider, perhaps the ultimate insider. His family went back generations, he was born into wealth and privilege, even his very name, Wayne, spoke of power and influence.

Clark was an alien, a foreigner, yet he'd learned to blend in to his new land. What could be more mainstream and familiar than mild mannered Clark Kent? He'd adopted the ways of his new home, their customs and culture. Even the symbol on his chest most mistook for an S as in Superman. He was by far an immigrant success story of spectacular proportions.