The Other Epilogue
It was dark outside, and there was rain lightly tapping against the window; apparently the wind was blowing to the west, if only slightly. Bruce was in his bed and it felt like he had skipped a few days at the gym, but no matter. He supposed he had not exercised at all while in the body of Spider-Man, so perhaps he deserved to not feel like he was at the top of his game. Even then, he was exhausted and he figured that the reason he was not in costume was because he had an appearance as the Wayne heir coming up. It seemed unlikely that Parker would have risked his public image, even if his sense of responsibility led him to fight injustice in costume.
Though he wanted to get hands on as soon as possible, he knew that for the last few days there had been nothing that he could do but hope that his city had been in good hands, and he figured that it could wait a few more hours if it had waited so long already. He slept, and surprised himself with a lack of nightmares, at least that he remembered when he woke up.
Getting out of bed, he found breakfast at the foot, prepared by Alfred as always. I missed him. I forgot who he was, and I still missed him. Eating quietly, he had a radio transmission from Barbara welcoming him back to the world. Parker must have told her and the others. Getting dressed quickly, he was happy to find everything waiting for him, and it was even better that his entire wardrobe was not localized to a backpack he had to take with him. He made his way down the stairs where he found Tim in a tuxedo.
“There you are. I thought I was going to have to run this whole charity gala myself,” he said.
“You would have had Alfred.” The way Doctor Strange had explained it, they would switch as soon as they were ready. He cast the spell to weaken the boundary between the worlds, and apparently there was magic happening on the other side as well. “I’m here now.”
“That almost sounds like you’re being sensitive to my stress levels. I didn’t grow up rich, you know. I only started doing this whole soiree thing-”
“If this is the worst part about being adopted by the Waynes, then I would say that we all did a good enough job. How did Parker handle the family business?”
“He went in an interesting direction with it,” Tim said as they went outside to the car, where Alfred was waiting for them. “When he decided people were going to figure out he wasn’t you, he acted like you chose him like a substitute teacher.”
Silently, he supposed it was serviceable, though he would have preferred if no one believed that anything was out of the ordinary. Circumstances must have forbidden him from remaining silent. As soon as he opened his mouth it would have been clear that he was someone else.
They drove to the charity gala in relative silence; they were holding it at the main hall of the orphanage, so it was in town, far from the base of operations. He really wanted to see if James Gordon would be there, though he had no intention of revealing his identity. Perhaps he only wished to confirm that the dangerous city in which they lived had not at last claimed an old friend of his.
Zatanna looked stunning, and he let her know with a request of the first dance. He doubted anyone would tell she was the magician who sometimes put on shows downtown; if the evening gown she wore bared her shoulders, it set everyone’s expectations.
“I never thought you would be one for blue lipstick,” he said, taking her hand as the first song started.
“I never thought I would see a ring on your finger,” she countered, almost prompting him to check. “I don’t intend to tell anyone who you really are, and if you like, I can keep the information hidden without any particular effort. Even a sorcerer on the caliber of Doctor Strange would have trouble getting it out of my head.”
“I don’t like magic,” he said.
“No?” She hardly looked surprised. “Does it cause problems for you and then make you rely on others to solve them?”
“I don’t understand it.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I didn’t understand it when I started learning.” She smiled. ”What would you say to a partnership, then? I could see you making wonderful use of invisibility.” Bruce had not known whether magic was passed down through genetics or learned, but it seemed likely that it was only a joking offer in the first place.
“Invisibility?” he asked, returning the favor. ”Why not predict the stock market?”
“Well, I should think that anyone could predict the value of assets if he or she could manipulate them.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” he said, offering a rare smile. “I’m sure dependent compound interest sounds like a magic spell to you.”
“Perhaps I know more than you realize,” she said. “Should you be giving a speech at this particular gala?”
“It can wait until the first round of drinking and dancing is over. I missed this in the other world. It was solitary, masquerading as someone else whenever I spoke to someone.”
“Oh? Well, there’s someone here who wants to thank you. He’s promised me it’s his last visit to Gotham.”
Bruce inferred that Parker must have neglected to mention that he was a temp to someone, perhaps because he needed the name recognition. If that was the case, he could hardly be blamed. At the same time, he could only wonder who it was. After a sip of champagne, there was a well-built man with a mop of red hair who seemed to have been away from the party scene for some time. I never thought I would have to pretend to be anyone else in this context.
“Hi, I’m Guy Gardner,” he said extending a hand. The Green Lantern ring was rather obvious. “I know you’re all dressed up now, but you can connect with me at any time. I just really wanted to thank you in case I didn’t get a chance.”
“That’s probably for the best; we wouldn’t want anyone here to get any unusual ideas about me.”
They probably only had a few words to exchange, but there were countless listening ears around them. The lantern had just made a sound judgement that anything he said might be too much; he had no way of knowing what would be valuable to whom. Most likely, since Zatanna had introduced him, she had told him who he was, which was the opposite of what he had wanted her to do with the information. As much as he had hoped Parker would not cause problems for him, he supposed there was really only so much he could expect; he had made his own mistakes here and there.
When the speeches were out of the way, he went to find the magician again, but she was simply not there. He supposed she had ways of showing herself out without anyone noticing. Perhaps I should take her up on her offer to teach me how magic works. Walking to the advance base as soon as he was free and not being followed, he found things as he left them and changed into a Batsuit that he had left there. Most likely, the damage could be minimized as long as the lantern was not on Earth very often and had little to do with him, little interest in his secrets. It stood to reason that it would be as simple as impressing upon him that he would prefer to keep his two identities separate. Clark knew who he was and so far, that had never become an issue.
“You’re wearing a different costume,” the new arrival said. He had activated his ring, which made it look like he was wearing a uniform, though really they basically never changed clothes.
“So are you.”
“No, I meant like, as opposed to- never mind. The Corps doesn’t know that I’m here right now. I don’t think the Justice League does either.”
“I appreciate your discretion. I admit I was surprised that anyone with a green ring would come to visit me out of costume. You know my name, then?”
“Oh, Zatanna basically warped me in there and pointed me out to you. I really wouldn’t have known anything about you if it weren’t for the ring.”
“Your ring?”
“No, the blue ring you asked me to return to the Blue Lanterns. It was aware of your name.”
He had enough information to extrapolate two things. One, power rings knew the names of the people who used them, and secondly, he had been seen wearing one in the last few days, assuming the timing was at least mostly constant between the two worlds. It did not particularly surprise him, when he thought about it, that Parker had been able to use a ring that ran on hope; he seemed to have no short supply of that.
“I see. Did things go well with them?” He was careful to ask a question that he would not be expected to know.
“Yeah, generally. They’re still dealing with some internal problems, but they pledged to help us in really sticking it to the reds. Atrocitus is in hot water, though I haven’t been dealing with the talking part myself. They really just send me whenever they’ve got something to hit.”
It reminded him of something Clark said once, and it seemed hard to believe he would shamelessly recycle the self-deprecating humor, so most likely it was just a common sentiment. Most likely, they had nothing to do with each other. That was a matter more important than driving in the point about secret identities.
“Does your work take you to Earth often?”
“No, I spend most of it on other planets. I deal with other lanterns sometimes, but most of the time, it's random aliens. I don’t really mind. I like the adventure.”
Nothing was said for a moment. Bruce wondered how exactly to impress on the lantern that it was important to keep a secret identity, but there was something else to get out, it seemed.
“I also want to say that I learned something. It’s not really an apology; I don’t' think this is my fault, but I think I understand you now. I used to think that every disagreement about some shared problem was going to take the form of the greens trying to help someone, and the local authorities getting in the way. I tried to see it from their perspective, sometimes, but it was annoying because they never had the same perspective. I started to get why there were a lot of lanterns who called you guys ‘the local crimefighting club’, even though that really got on Hal’s nerves.”
“So, you see it differently?”
“I didn’t think the people who stuck to one planet could ever help us, the organization that has single members patrolling entire sectors, in some cases. I definitely didn’t think much of some guy who stuck to one city. I didn’t expect much of anything out of you.”
He tried, for the sake of the argument presented, to see it from their perspective. It must have been annoying to be told off by someone with no special abilities, no approval from any organization, and no apparent experience with the rest of the universe. It was easy for anyone from the outside looking in to assume that someone who stuck to one city was only that capable. There were those who believed that the weak had an obligation to appeal to the strong, since it was only by their cooperation that there could be any mutually beneficial arrangements. It was certainly not as if it never happened. And yet, there were those who would simply not go quietly no matter what.
“I’m glad I could be of help,” he said. “I notice you didn’t admit that the greens were getting in the way.”
“Well, we weren’t, unless you count getting in the way of you stealing a power battery.” He knew better than to ask about that. “I guess, though, that we were insisting on finding evidence of Larfleeze being in the sector rather than asking any of you to help.”
“We were busy with our own planet,” he said. “Perhaps it’s all we can handle because of the problems that it gives us,” he said, choosing words carefully.
“We’re just happy Earth doesn’t create problems; it’s a lot better than other planets.”
“Have you decided to do anything differently?” he said after a moment. The two of them had met on a rooftop in Gotham, but he doubted anyone could see them at the moment. Even then, though, he still wanted his guest to be on his way before anyone saw him.
“Well, I can’t speak for the whole Corps, but I can tell you that I’ll do everything I can to make sure we work with the local authorities and see them as potential allies rather than obstructions.” He looked up to the stars as if he saw something telling him to return there. “Also, I won’t tell anyone your name. See you later, Peter.”
He flew off and missed by about ten seconds the rare smile on the face of Batman. He reached out to Gordon over the radio to get an idea about movements in the criminal underworld, not sure how else to respond to not having seen him at the gala to which he was sure he had been invited. The police commissioner responded and told him of a few leads to investigate that the department had effectively deprioritized due to a lack of resources. He concluded the conversation by welcoming him back and thanking him for the forethought in the unexpected move of getting a temp.
“Where’s he going, anyway? Back into a deep hole for training against endless waves of ninja assassins?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said. “I’m sure that if we need him again, something can be arranged.”
He thought of possible recourses against threats from the other dimension. Though he would ultimately have to trust the heroes over there to handle the problems, if something like what had just happened, turned out worse. There was an infinite amount of ways that the swap could have ruined either world, if not both. It was entirely possible that one body could simply be incompatible with whatever was being moved between them. Someone like the Joker could destroy entire economic systems, and that was only depending on how he was feeling.
He was tempted to get Zatanna to just shut down the border between the worlds. Whatever his own world could generate, it could fight. At least it would understand things like the Speed Force and prepare countermeasures for those who might misuse it. Was there an equivalent in the other world? Could he have even found out in the time that he had over there?
Batman sighed as he stood alone on a rooftop while trying to concentrate on what Gordon had told him. He had joined the Justice League, obligating himself to solve global problems, ultimately because he believed that he had to protect Gotham from the outside. It really had nothing to do with the rest of the world; it was just that as long as there was a group of dyed-in-the-wool heroes working to beat up some giant monster in Laos, it was the least he could do to inform them of its greatest weakness before it got to his part of the world. Initially, that was how Diana had approached it as well; everything she did was to protect Themyscira. What changed? How had the League changed them since joining?
When he settled on a target for his investigation, he figured that if not Parker, someone in his universe was probably thinking the same thing that he was. The other world represented an infinite amount of possibilities, both good and bad, but all unknown. At the moment it seemed most sensible to simply get to know more about it, even if that carried the risk of people on either side misusing the information. They had already had one unintentional trip through the void between, and it stood to reason he had not heard the last of them. Perhaps all he could really do was to get ahead of the curve.
Crouching on the roof of a warehouse on the pier, he listened to the guards talking beneath as he contemplated what might have been the most complicated decision of his life. Would the other world expect help if they had problems that they were not able to solve by themselves? Would that even work? Were there ways to travel between the worlds other than by the way that they had used? Would it matter?
“The shipment’s not here yet,” someone was saying.
“Should it be?” Batman took the chance to follow the voices, finding them walking around to the back of the warehouse.
“That’s what I heard. We were supposed to get a whole thing of that serum that we’re not supposed to know about.”
“I don’t get it. Why are we not supposed to know about it?”
“The information could fall into the wrong hands,” he said from directly above them.
“Yeah, what he said-” The very moment the gangster turned to see him, he had a hand on his gun, but he was not fast enough. Batman had already dropped to the space right behind them and thrust their heads together, knocking them both out. It was a trick that really only worked when two enemies were in just the right position, but in that case it was effective. He stole a data card from around one of the gangsters’ necks. After a short look around, there were no ships in the harbor on their way to any of the docks.
If the deal isn’t happening tonight, there’s nothing more for me to do here right now. I don’t know what kind of serum they want, but there’s no way it’s legal. The best way for me to get to the bottom of this, to see which target I should really hit, is to look into this data. Going back to the advance base, he was glad that Parker had not exposed it, if he had used it at all, because it really was useful not to have to go all the way back to the cave for everything.
Plugging in the data card as soon as he arrived, results were exactly as he had hoped, and exactly as he had feared. Perhaps it was more correct to say that he got an answer like he was hoping, but the answer was something he had been dreading. Venom. In short, it was addictive, dangerous, and it made the user absurdly strong for short periods of time. He supposed it could be described as a serum, or someone could have put it like that to describe what it was; from what he was seeing even the person who put together the data on the card had no idea what it was.
What he was reading described a substance that improved strength, speed, agility, reflexes, balance, endurance, durability, and flexibility. Even without reading on, he knew that Venom, and Titan, a modified variant, did not even do half that; the benefits that the drugs he knew engendered were not nearly so balanced. The data also seemed to suggest the changes were permanent. They could just be lying to make the offer more attractive. Where are the test data? Are there any? Would it have any reason to be here?
He called Alfred and told him about the shipment. There were other things he could be doing at the moment, and he had only picked the one task to have some time to think while moving in on it, but he was past that; he was completely committed to the current case. Alfred seemed to think he was right about it none of it being understood- neither in purpose nor in process.
“This research would effectively make irrelevant all the experiments that were ever performed on Deathstroke, one Slade Wilson.”
“I remember.” They had clashed multiple times.
“It is not simply a performance enhancing drug- this serum, if that is even the correct term, essentially rewrites a single strand of DNA and replicates it throughout- to be honest, Master Bruce, perhaps it truly is time for you to look into Biology, though I suppose we could get Dr. Isely to analyze the compound.”
“We don’t have the compound. All we have on it is what I’ve picked up from the grunts working at the pier. The shipment was delayed, or something happened that made them change their minds.”
“Could it be that-”
“It could, but we don’t have any evidence.”
Even the idea that there was some chance that someone knew that they had crossed dimensions was concerning. Someone as magically significant as Doctor Strange or Zatanna might be able to detect it, and apparently it had been Iron Man who saw signs of a dimensional rift and asked Spider-Man to look into it in the first place. Really, there is effectively no limit to the amount of parties that could have observed travel between dimensions. What could have happened while the border was especially weak? Even worse, has someone other than Zalmoxis been using the other world in some way?
What he could be certain was not possible was that there was simply another imitator. If they were seeing what he thought they were seeing, then there were physical objects being moved between the worlds, unless people were moving memories and then just synthesizing the chemicals on the other side. Why come here, though? Could they not sell the serum on Parker’s side? Do they have some other objective?
At the very least, one of his major questions was answered, but it was a question from earlier. There was no way that it was ideal for the two worlds to remain separate forever and have no interaction, because he was almost certain that they needed the help of someone from the other side. To even know where to direct the question, he had to get in contact with someone he knew. Was there time? Could he ask Zatanna for help, when he had no idea what she meant to do with his secrets?
“Master Bruce.” It was Alfred’s voice over the communicator again. “Shall I contact our allies?”
“They should at least know about this, yes. They’re not the only ones, though.”
Just when it seemed like things had been tied up with a bow, it turned out that there was another dimension spanning-mystery on his hands, and Gotham was once more in danger. Even starting to investigate the nature of the problem was easier said than done. He had no idea how the situation of the two worlds would unfold, either with the current case or going forward. As concerning as it was, however, it was also exciting.
“Well, well, well,” he muttered to himself after disconnecting. “Maybe this time I’ll get to meet Captain America.”