158Chapter 2 Unexpected Encounter in Central City
One Week After Superman's supposed Death
Batman visited Central City in hopes of finding one of the meta-humans he learned about from the files he stole from Lex. From the roof top, he spotted a tall and husky brute of a guy wearing a ski mask and holding a gun at the head of a teen age girl and another man. "Give me your wallet," the brute demanded of a guy standing next to her. "Or blondie here gets it!"
Barry Allen also noticed this little incident from across the street. He was about to run and knock the gun out of the brute's hand too.
No way was Batman going to let these two die the same way his parents did. He swung down from the roof top. The girl jumped up and hi-kicked the gun out of his hand. Barry already darted across the street in record time. He was also aiming for the gun but managed to back out last second before he would have been kicked in the head. The guy with her picked up the gun and crushed it in his bare hands turning it into a ball. "I was coming over to help you guys, but obviously you don't need it." The guy, the girl and Barry all turned facing him. Batman's jaw dropped as he realized who the man was. "Clark!" Batman called out.
Clark glanced over at him. He suddenly tensed up as vivid images entered his head of Batman standing over him with a spear about to impale him. He looked to the young lady with him. "Run!" Clark quietly told her before dashing off himself. Barry's jaw dropped as he watched Clark run away. Barry previously believed nobody came close to matching his speed.
"We got to wait for…" the teenage girl rolled her eyes and stopped talking as she realized Clark was long gone.
Batman knew there was no way he could catch him on foot, but he was still surprised he didn't take to the skies. "Not the reaction I was hoping for. Did he forget he can fly?" Batman mumbled to himself.
Despite how quietly Batman said that, the teenage girl heard him perfectly. "Yeah, he pretty much forgot everything. Amnesia, I think they call it. He must have really been through something."
"You could say that." Batman was surprised she actually heard him.
The gun wasn't the brute's only weapon. He pulled out a knife and tried to sneak up on the teenage girl. "Do you have a death wish or are you just stupid?" The girl exclaimed as she reached behind her.
"What?" Batman wasn't sure who she was talking to.
She grabbed the brute by the shirt and flipped him around her body and to the ground taking full advantage of centrifugal force. She picked up the former gun that was now more like a ball. "See what happened to your gun? Funny thing, he could have just as easily done that to your skull. You might want to think about that before you try anything like that again!" She chucked the gun at him, hitting him in the leg. He let out a yelp.
"Ok! You definitely don't need my help!" Batman reiterated.
"A pretty girl you are, but you are definitely no damsel in distress. My name is Barry." He extended his hand intending to shake her hand.
"Nice to meet you Barry." She cautiously took his hand and shook it.
"And you are?" Barry questioned.
"Late for an appointment." She looked over Batman smiling. She raised a brow.
"Ok! I was actually asking your name." Barry then looked over at Batman too.
"Yeah, I knew that." She twirled her hair as she looked Batman up and down.
"Awesome meeting you both, but I think I am going to try and catch up to your friend and challenge him to a race," Barry told the teenage girl.
Batman laughed. "Yeah, good luck with that." His jaw dropped as he Barry moved so fast all he saw was a blur, then he disappeared completely in the distance. He realized that was the very meta-human he was looking for. "Looks like it is just me and …me," as he looked around and realized the teenage girl and the brute both appeared to be gone too.
In the middle of nowhere
Clark quickly put a significant distance between himself and the city. He thought he wasn't followed, but quickly learned he was wrong. "It is a pleasure to meet you. I thought I was the only one," Barry shook Clark's hand.
"Name is Kal," Clark told him.
"Kal? That is odd, I could have sworn Batman called you Clark." Barry wrinkled his brow.
"He has me mixed up with someone else, I think," Clark told Barry.
"What about that girl you were with?" Barry asked.
"Oh no, I left her with that… What did you call him? Batman?" Clark bowed his head down slightly.
"I wouldn't worry too much about her, she kicks ass." Barry gave Clark a slight pat on the back.
"That she does. I thought she would follow me!" Clark lifted his head up and again made eye contact.
"She probably couldn't. You are the fastest person I ever met. That is why I followed you. I was hoping I could challenge you to a race. I thought I was the fastest. Just want to see if that is still true."
"Ok, so this is about ego?" Clark tilted his head to side and looked at him.
"Maybe just a little." Barry grinned as he held his finger and his thumb a small distance from each other.
"Sure, why not? As long as it is away from Central City," Clark agreed. "I think that Batman wanted to kill me."
"Yikes! Yeah, if I thought Batman wanted to kill me, I would run too. He is one of the most dangerous men in the world. So, where would you like to go?" Barry asked.
Clark experienced another brief flash back. "Vegas! I remember something about hoping to go to Vegas."
"Las Vegas, Nevada," Barry told him. "Cool! You gamble?"
Clark thought for a moment. "I don't know," Clark questioned. "I have no idea. To tell you the truth I don't remember anything before last night."
"Oh, yeah right! The girl said something about you having amnesia." Barry nodded as he figured the directions to Las Vegas from his cell phone's GPS app and off they went.
Bruce met up with Diana back at Wayne Manor
"There I was in Central City trying to find the super-fast meta-human. Which I think I did. Problem is his main power is speed. I realized it was him only after he ran away. From the roof top, I saw a masked guy trying to rob two people. I went in to help only to realize the guy the idiot was trying to rob was Superman. He wasn't wearing the costume or anything, but I know it was him."
"How is that possible?" Diana asked a rhetorical question.
"I don't know," Bruce said.
"Did you invite him to join?" Diana asked.
"Didn't get a chance to say much of anything. As soon as he saw me, he ran away," Bruce admitted.
"Oh, I guess he remembered you then." Diana laughed. "Why didn't you follow him?"
"Oh, yeah, why didn't I think of that? You try following someone who moves at light speed!" Bruce rolled his eyes at her.
"You said he ran away, not flew away right? Are you absolutely sure it was Superman?" Diana asked.
"I was wondering that myself. I think he forgot he can fly. The young lady with him confirmed it. He has amnesia," Bruce told him.
"A young lady with him? Lois isn't going to like that," Diana looked Bruce in the eye.
"Hopefully that isn't what is going on between them. She couldn't have been more than about sixteen, seventeen, tops! Besides, if I didn't know better, I think she was totally checking me out!" Bruce raised his hands in the air.
"You think every girl is checking you out." Diana leaned in closer. "Sad part is most of the time you are right!"
"Yes, but most of them are only interested in my bank account." Bruce looked down at the floor with that sobering thought.
"Yeah and you are only interested in getting in their pants," Diana teased.
"Don't believe everything you read," Bruce rolled his eyes at her.
"How many relationships have you had that lasted more than two weeks?" Diana asked.
"Enough with the personal questions. How do we track down a guy who probably doesn't want to be found?" Bruce asked.
"Unless he gains his memory back, we are basically looking for a needle in a hay stack. He could literally go anywhere. We have no chance of finding him again," Diana painfully stated the obvious. "But once he does get his memory back the first people he will want to see are Mrs. Kent and.."
"Lois Lane," Diana and Bruce both said in unison.
"I say we split up. You go to one, I will go to the other," Diana suggested.
"I agree. I will go to Smallville and see Mrs. Kent." Bruce found this an easy choice.
Diana let out a slight laugh. "What?"
"Martha undoubtedly sees you as a hero," Diana said.
"Correction, she sees Batman as a hero. She thinks I was just a recent friend to her son. She doesn't know and she isn't going to," Bruce told her.
"My mistake. But more importantly, there is a possibility Lois partly blames you for what happened," Diana stated rather bluntly.
"Glad you understand," Bruce interrupted her as he knew exactly what she was going to say.
a/n
I could have sworn it was in the movie where Martha Kent and Bruce Wayne met around the time of Clark's funeral. I can see it a bit too clearly in my head.
Martha said something to him like 'I didn't know my son had such influential friends'
Bruce replied 'It is a recent friendship'
Yet it wasn't in either the original version, nor the extended version when I got the DVD. I must have read this in somebody's fan fic. If anybody knows where I got this from, please, send me a private message. This was the assumption I was going with in my story.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. Again, I would love to know what you thought. Any guesses as to who the blond is? Any guesses as to why Clark might be interested in going to Las Vegas?