In the Batcave,
Bruce Wayne sat in front of three open files on the main screen, each one thinner than he wanted it to be.
Clark Kent. Diana Prince. Daniel Haken.
Any one of them operating without restraint could do more damage than every criminal Gotham had ever produced combined. That was not an exaggeration. That was the math.
He started with Clark.
Kryptonian. Raised on a Kansas farm since childhood, identity confirmed as Clark Kent, journalist, Daily Planet.
The upbringing showed in everything he did. Moral framework consistent, protective instincts strong, genuine attachment to human life. The problem wasn't his character.
The problem was his power ceiling had no confirmed limit and conventional weapons were decoration to him.
Diana Prince.
Central figure in the German campaign of 1917, confirmed through cross-referenced military records and the photograph he had pulled from Daniel's file weeks ago.
She had been alive for at least a century, possibly longer, operating quietly in the decades between then and now without drawing significant attention. No major incidents on record. Whatever she was doing with the intervening century she had been careful about it.
Then Daniel.
Bruce looked at the file and acknowledged it was barely a file at all.
World War One.
Same photograph. Same face—not a day older. Powers ranging from superhuman strength to weapons formed from what looked like pure dark energy, along with the ability to drag objects into some kind of dark dimension and regeneration that healed major injuries within seconds.
Then there was whatever the hell he had done in Metropolis, when Bruce had watched space and reality bend around him with his own eyes.
Power ceiling. Unknown. Upper limit. Unknown. Allegiance. Unclear.
What Bruce did know was that since Metropolis, Daniel hadn't done anything that qualified as a threat. He had moved into a mansion outside the city with his family and spent most of his time in the surrounding area.
According to every surveillance asset Bruce had quietly aimed in that direction, Daniel's main activity could only be described as aggressively pursuing women in the vicinity.
That last part didn't make him less dangerous.
It just made him harder to classify.
Bruce looked at all three files for a long moment.
He needed contingencies. For all of them.
***
In Daniel's home, he stood near the stairs in the hall, looking at his family with tears in his eyes.
Ronnie stood beside him eating pizza, watching his boss with the expression of someone trying to decide if this was concerning.
"Boss why are you crying?" Ronnie said.
"The love and affection they have for me," Daniel said, voice thick with emotion.
Art stood on the other side of Ronnie and looked at his boss, then at the women on the sofa, then back at his boss. Did he lose his mind entirely. Had he heard nothing of the actual conversation happening in that room.
"So he didn't say anything about us when you met him," Elizabeth was saying, looking at Sylvia.
"Nothing," Sylvia said. "Not a single word. I feel like a complete fool. He definitely deceived me."
"You are not alone," Elizabeth said with the calm authority of someone chairing a meeting. "We all had the same experience. He says everything except the part where he is already involved with several other women. Otherwise how does he keep doing this."
"How did you all even like this guy?" Tamara said, looking around at the group.
"Don't you like him?" Diana asked.
Tamara thought about it. "No. It is more that I wanted to eat him and then I was captured and somehow this happened instead."
A brief silence followed that answer.
"We can agree on one thing," Evelyn said. "This man is a scumbag."
General agreement around the sofa.
Daniel smiled wider, tears still in his eyes.
"See their love," he said softly.
Ronnie and Art looked at each other.
"If you have anything to say don't," Daniel said without looking at them. "I can see exactly what you are both thinking."
Neither of them spoke.
"In a relationship you have to sometimes turn a blind eye," Daniel continued, still watching the women on the sofa with complete serenity.
"Otherwise how can you smile. To be true to something you care about you have to let go of your shame entirely."
Ronnie looked at Art.
Art looked at Ronnie.
Their boss had not just abandoned shame. He had left shame behind so long ago that shame had stopped sending letters.
He had crossed into territory that was beyond shameless and had found a kind of peace there that most men never reached.
In the human world they had been told about a concept called the male lead. The protagonist. The man at the center of everything.
Looking at Daniel standing in the hall crying at women calling him a scumbag and calling it love, both of them arrived at the same conclusion simultaneously.
This was him.
This was exactly what that looked like.
"And you two," Daniel said, turning to Ronnie and Art without changing his expression. "Stop wandering into any major city if you have plans to explore."
Both of them straightened slightly.
"These cities are full of vigilantes and villains and if you walk into the middle of that you become collateral damage," Daniel said.
"I know you can't die since you are my servants but you will absolutely feel pain and I have seen both of you cry over considerably less than what happens in Gotham on a Tuesday night."
Ronnie opened his mouth.
"Rural areas only," Daniel said. "Fields. Small towns. Countryside. Go enjoy nature. Go find a farm. Go watch some cows. Whatever you want as long as it does not involve a city with a vigilante in it."
"Yes boss," Ronnie said.
"What about Central City?" Art said.
Daniel looked at him.
"Especially not Central City," Daniel said.
*****
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