Trinity

The man of steel was not having a good morning.

First, Lois had made sure she left the apartment before he woke up. A pretty impressive feat considering he was the one with the super hearing.

Since coming back to Metropolis, one of the highlights of his life was waking next to Lois every morning. Even though he had an apartment of his own, Clark spent most of the time at Lois’. Before he had left Smallville, they had been living together and it had been easy to fall back into old patterns. Besides, his activities as Superman took up so much of his time that he was determined to spend as much time as he could manage with Lois. Plus, the benefit of being able to fly at super speed was the fact that no one saw him leaving or entering her apartment, maintaining the illusion that Lois Lane and Clark Kent were just professional colleagues.

Clark left her apartment, returning to his for a fresh change of clothes before setting out to the Daily Planet via a more conventional method of transport. Riding the train to work, Clark winced as he saw other commuters flipping through pages of the Inquisitor with pictures of Superman and Wonder Woman emblazoned all over he place. What bothered him most was the fact that there were a lot of these pictures. It seemed like almost every moment that he and Diana had spent time together had been caught on film somewhere.

With an inward groan, Clark banged his head lightly against the railing he was holding onto inside the train, realising what effect this intense media coverage was doing to Lois’ confidence about their relationship. Diana was very beautiful, of that there was no doubt. She was probably the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and there was sweetness to her, a naiveté that reminded him a lot of his own farm boy origins that made him naturally protective. Nor did it escape him that physically, they were very compatible.

However, she wasn’t Lois.

Five years at the Fortress, training and only one thought sustained him during that isolation; coming home to Lois. Once upon a time, he thought that Lana Lang was the only woman for him and how wrong he had been. It was Lois and it would always be Lois. Diana as enchanting as she might be could never hold the place in his heart as Lois did. He wished she would understand that. Of course he hadn’t done much to assure had he?

Bruce had tried to tell him of course, in that round about complete oblique way that only Bruce could. Of course, when it came to relationships, Bruce was never easy to read or fathom for that matter. No, that was unfair, Clark thought to himself. Chloe had never been as happy as she had been when she was with Bruce. Whatever it was that they had seen in each other, it was enough to burn a flame of passion and love that was as bright as any that Clark might have shared with Lois.

With a surge of grief, Clark mourned the sweet, young woman who was his best friend and confidante. She had been unfailing brave when confronting things that were so beyond her it was almost incomprehensible. Yet Chloe always rose to the occasion, always with more heart than any of them and with a start, Clark realise that maybe that’s why Diana touched him so.

She reminded him of Chloe.

When the doors to the train opened, depositing him a block or two away from the Daily Planet, Clark knew what to do and supposed that while this might be a bit grandiose, sometimes a grand gesture could do wonders instead of grovelling, although he wasn’t ruling that out.

Yet.
***********


Lois was transcribing her notes from her interview of Hippolyta the day before, trying to focus on work instead of how annoyed she was at herself at her reaction to Clark and Diana. She had been foolish, she knew that. What was she thinking? Hadn’t Clark proved time and time again that he loved her? Unfortunately, as it was the case with Lois whenever her emotions get the better of her, she leapt first and thought later. Seated at her desk with an expression on her face that told everyone to ‘go away’, Lois noted that even Jimmy had opted to maintain minimum safe distance.

She was still seething from Clark’s expeditions with Diana when she came to work that morning but that mood went from angry to exasperation with just a touch of mortification when Lois saw the headline on the front page of the newspaper this morning.

BRUCE WAYNE COURTING AN AMAZON PRINCESS?

And of course, there were pictures. There were always pictures, she thought ruefully as she read the article that placed Bruce in Diana’s company most of the evening. The captured images revealed Diana and Bruce slow dancing at some benefit in Gotham City. Bruce wore that usual mask of playboy charm that hid the very intense guy he really was while Diana seemed, well she seemed rather intrigued. Lois stared at the picture realising that she had locked Clark out of her bedroom when he had clearly left Diana to her own devices to come home to her.

Oh Lane, sometimes you could be such a girl.

Suddenly, there was a flurry of excitement emanating from the other side of the bullpen. Lois set aside what she was working on and left her desk to go investigate. People were hovering at one of the windows, having gone so far as to open it to see what was outside... Strong winds were rushing through the opening as they were on the almost on the top floor of the building. For a moment, Lois thought that someone had done something stupid, like throw themselves out or something. Papers were rustling on desks. Hairdos were becoming dishevelled and windswept.

“What’s going on?” She asked nobody in particular.

Jimmy appeared through the crowd covering the open window. “You’ve got a visitor.” He smirked, his expression so full of mischief that Lois wanted to smack him just on principle.

“What?” Lois stared blankly and noted that everyone seemed to step away when she spoke, gawking at her.

When they no longer blocked the open window, Lois realised why.

Clark…no Superman was out there.

He was hovering just outside the window, inches from the window sill. Jaw dropping, Lois stared in astonishment as she went to the window and looked through to figure out what the hell he was doing.

“What...are you doing?” She asked staring in astonishment at him, painfully aware of the eyes fixed on them. She could feel the gazes of her colleagues on her back, making her cheeks bloom with heat in self consciousness. .

Clark flashed her one of those PR perfect smiles, with his red cape swirling around him. There was a twinkle of school boy mischief in his eyes and Lois wondered what he was playing at.

“Well Miss Lane,” he spoke in that Captain America voice he used whenever he was playing the part of the great hero, “I’ve been somewhat busy of late but I wanted to drop by and give you something to remember me by.”

Lois’ eyes widened at his answer and threw a look over her shoulder. She was certain she could see some of her female colleagues swooning. Jesus.

“Wh…what?” She stammered, not used to being off balance like this.

“This,” he handed her a latte and a single red rose.

Oh he didn’t, Lois thought as her cheeks reddened even further if such a thing was possible. Caught between embarrassment and the fierce desire to kiss him silly, Lois forced herself to maintain her composure instead of appearing as utterly flattered and flummoxed as she felt. With a sedate voice, she met his gaze with an expression that said clearly, ‘you are so going to pay for this’ but actually responded with, “you shouldn’t have.”

“I just wanted to know that I’m thinking of you Miss Lane,” he winked as she took the tokens, holding the soft petals of the rose to her lips as she took in the scent of it in her lungs.

“It’s nice to know,” Lois started to regain her own balance. “I was wondering what I had to do to get your attention.”

“You’ll never have to do anything to have my attention, Miss Lane.” Clark smiled at her. “I’ll always be around for you.”

And with that, he turned around in mid air and with cape billowing behind him like a red cascade.

Lois watched in vanish from the sky, feeling like she was flying too when she turned around to see the newsroom floor staring at her.

“What?” Lois shrugged nonchalantly, the rose held against her jaw line as she looked back at them innocently. “Never seen a girl get flowers before?”


*************

“Get in here!” Clark heard Lois snap when he stepped off the elevator unto the newsroom floor a few minutes later.

She was waiting for him in the store room across the hallway from the elevator when Clark joined her, convinced that his little gesture had put things right between them. Of course, one could never be really certain where Lois was concerned. She had a habit of almost always catching him off guard and Clark resigned himself to the fact that this was no different. Bracing himself to be yelled at again once he stepped into the confines of the storage room, surrounded by old typewriters, boxes of forgotten ribbons and other dusty material, Clark found Lois staring at him.

“You are still in trouble.” She pointed out defiantly, lips curled into that engaging pout.

“I kno….”

He didn’t have a chance to finish because the next thing he knew Lois was shoving him against the wall and kissing him so passionately, he forgot everything else.

Sometimes being caught off guard felt pretty good.


***************


He could tell the instant they arrived.

On the roof of the cavern, the occupants that shared this place with him, stirred at the disturbance. Fluttering and screeching wildly in the darkness, their blindness adding to their panic, they sensed the approach with rising anxiety. Like them, Bruce too heard his guests long before sighting them. The warning given by the bats gave him time to slip the cowl over his face, having no desire for his identity to be revealed at this time.

The cave had under gone something of a transformation since Clark had last visited five years ago. Bruce had only started the construction work to turn the place into the Batman’s centre of operations. The craggy outcrops of jagged rock, some of the larger stalagmites and stalactites had been jack hammered away; giving him more space to house, the tools he needed to continue his work as Batman.

Within the cave, Bruce had everything he needed to maintain his vigil on the city of his birth. From a fully equipped workshop, where he constantly modified and improve the design of the suit he wore, to perfecting the non-lethal weapons in his arsenal. Within the dark chambers of this cavern was also one of the most sophisticated computer network systems in the northern hemisphere capable of making the techs at NORAD, NASA, Cal Tech and MIT sit up and take notice. With a Blue Gene/P prototype calculation machine hooked up to the latest generation connection machines and a Cray for good measure, there was virtually no firewall on the planet he could not penetrate.

Inside this place, Bruce Wayne could forget that the world expected him to be a vacuous specimen of the indolent rich and aristocratic elite. Here he could be himself. Someone who spent his entire life trying to honour the people he had loved and lost but ensuring that no one else suffer the same sorrow. Putting down his coffee cup onto the collection of papers he had on his computer console, to keep them from flying away, Bruce swung around as that familiar gust of wind unsettled anything that was light to be swept away.

“It’s about time you got here,” Bruce said to Clark as he saw Superman appear with Wonder Woman at his side. Behind the white eye-slits of his mask, Bruce took a moment to take in the sight of Diana. Whether in an evening gown or in that bathing suit of a costume she wore, she was equally stunning and Bruce had to remind himself that she and Clark were here on business.

“Nice to see you too,” Clark retorted, somewhat amused by this cold, abrasive act that Bruce was putting on for Diana’s benefit. If it wasn’t for the photograph he had viewed in the paper earlier today (the picture that incidentally helped to get him off the hook with Lois), Clark might have bought the act. Of course, trying to figure out Bruce and his motivations was almost as hard as trying to figure out which left curve Lois would throw at him next.

Diana looked around the place, feeling a chill that had nothing to do with the lack of sunlight. She could hear the bats in the roof and wondered why anyone would claim such a terrible place for their own. It reminded her of Doom’s Door on Themiscyra and supposed its isolation was exactly what someone who liked people so little would find comfortable.

“Princess,” Bruce greeted, noting her eyes moving around the cave with clear apprehension. “They’re perfectly safe.” He commented. “Unless you disturb them.”

“That will not be an issue,” she answered haughtily, finding him infuriating, even when he was trying to be polite. He did not do it well.

“You’ve done a lot of work here,” Clark commented, trying to break the tension somewhat. “Last time I was here, you hadn’t remodelled the place.” He joked.

“Well I’ve had plenty of time the last five years to fix things up,” Bruce retorted, trying to keep his voice neutral.

Clark stiffened, guessing that was another jab at him for his disappearing act. “Diana,” he looked at the girl who was hugging her arms close to her body as if she were cold. “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” she nodded, aware that her discomfiture was more spirit rather than flesh. This man made her uneasy, she did not know why. “I have brought a lithograph of the only image we possess of Harmonia’s talisman.” She said deciding to move to this discussion instead of delaying here with weaknesses that had no place in the resolve of an Amazon princess.

“It looks familiar to me,” Clark explained. “I can’t explain but I’m sure I’ve seen it before.” Indeed, since Diana showed him the lithograph, Clark had been trying to place why it was familiar. Although he was, certain he had never seen Harmonia’s talisman as Diana called it before; there was something in the picture that seemed familiar.

“If you have,” Diana replied, “it would make our search much easier, although I fear that if my presence has now been noted by the War God’s minions, they too will seek out the talisman.”

Bruce didn’t answer, allowing Diana and Clark to continue speculating. For his part, he turned his formidable intellect on the problem as he studied the picture, drawn in the style of Cretan and Mycenaean art of Ancient Greece so famously depicted on the ceramics of the time. He stared at it for a long moment, long enough for Clark and Diana to exchange glances at each other at the prolonged silence.

”Uh Batman,” Clark spoke up, wishing he could call Bruce by name. “Are you keeping us in suspense or you’re going to share what you’ve obviously figured out?”

Five years hadn’t changed Bruce’s flair for the dramatics, Clark thought. Before he died, he would love to see someone beat Bruce at his own game. Unfortunately, Clark knew that it wasn’t going to be him.

Bruce crooked a brow at the Kryptonian. “Your patience is just about the same I see,” he returned although there was a decided thaw in his voice that Clark would undoubtedly recognise.

“Have you found something?” She asked hopefully, wanting to believe that this man was one of Athena’s favoured.

Bruce tried to remain unaffected by her but that doe eyed look of hers could disintegrate a lesser man’s resolve. “I don’t know if it relates to your talisman as such but the marking of this object, bears a remarkable resemblance to an artefact that was recently stolen from the National Archaeological Museum of Athens about a week ago. It is one of two pieces that make up a set, called the Sacred Folly of Phayllus. According to legend, Phayllus raided the consecrated treasures of the Phocians to funds his war and gave this particular piece to his mistress. She was killed in a fire and the necklace was split into two. When it was recovered in the 1800s, one of the pieces stayed in Greece but the other has only recently surfaced at the British Museum.”

“A necklace!” Diana exclaimed and thought of the stories she had been told of Harmonia. “There is a story told that when Harmonia married Cadmus, she was given a gift of a necklace by Lord Hephaestus.”

“The talisman could have been a pendant,” Clark suggested. “We need to take a look at this thing.”

Bruce turned back to the keyboard of his computer and immediately began typing. The large monitor screen, the size of a big screen television set one might find at a sports bar or something began to flash a series of images before settling on the one that they were seeking out. The necklace stolen know as the Sacred Folly was an ornate strand of gold, in the shape of two serpents whose open mouths formed a clasp on one end and held two pieces of a pendant that locked together.

“Great Hera,” Diana exclaimed. “That is her talisman. It does not look exactly like the lithograph but the resemblance…”

“Well assuming that this is a piece of your talisman,” Bruce turned back to them both and began theorizing. “Your presence as the champion who stops this great disaster, has forced your enemies to make a pre-emptive strike by taking one part of it.”

“Yes,” Diana agreed, finding her admiration for this grim man increasing. “They are just as aware of the prophecy as the Amazons. They would know the significance of it.”

“So they took one part,” Clark continued. “Thinking that it might prevent her from being able to stop what’s coming. So if this one of two, then we need to get to the second one before they take that one as well.”

“I think we can do better than that,” Bruce said looking thoughtful. “We can…”

“We can lay in wait and follow them to the first piece when they come for it,” Diana declared before Bruce had a chance to finish, taking him by off guard with her deduction.

“Uh yes,” Bruce remarked, clearing his throat. Impressed and somewhat titillated that the enchanting Princess of Themiscyra might have wit to match her other attributes. “That’s about the size of it.”

Clark said nothing, enjoying immensely the rare occasion when someone had out manoeuvred Bruce Wayne for a change. Without an ounce of shame whatsoever, Clark found he was unable to resist commenting. “Now I can die happy.”