saga/title/fandom: 3X5 Index Cards chapter 3 (Justice League)

author: Dimitri Aidan

rating/genre: (Pg-13-ish) - comedy, romance

warnings: het, slash, language, murder

summary: It’s Clark’s fault: His ‘making sure they were in a healthy place’ line started it. In which Bruce is broody, Wally knows…stuff, and John wishes for sanity. Oh, and a therapist is killed… Sequel to Secret. (Batman/Green Lantern(JS)/Flash)

comments/disclaimers: I don’t own the Justice League and no actual therapists were hurt in the writing of this story. I blame this on…erhm, I mean dedicate this to Candylyn. …yeah. Dedicate. coughs. Superman/Lois Lane, Supergirl/J. Olsen, Arrow/Canary, Diana/Barbara Gordon, and this weird Flash/Bats/Lantern thing I haven’t quite worked out in my head yet. I’m making it up as I go along folks. Be afraid. So I like Flash/Lantern. And I like Flash/Batman. I figure this is because I think Flash belongs with someone dark, powerful, and broody. Because hyperness should always be tempered with brooding. …at least that’s my reasoning. Anyway, I was reading Candy’s story (which can be found on my favorites list because doesn’t like to let anyone post links.) and this plot bunny kind of bite me in the ass. T’is a sequel to ‘Secrets’. You don’t have to read it, unless you’re curious about how Flash and GL got together.

Alaska, baked or otherwise

Bruce

The phone rang entirely too early for Bruce’s liking. He rubbed at the bridge of his nose and got out of bed. The phone was sitting on his writing desk, which he very rarely actually wrote on or at and he glared at it for a moment, vowing that whoever was at the end would find themselves in Alaska.

He wasn’t used to getting much sleep and on the rare occasion that he managed it he would prefer to not be woken up until he was ready.

“Hello?”

“Bruce?” It was Clark. Clark was really not on his good side these days. “Were you asleep?”

“Maybe. It’s been so long since I really slept that I could be wrong.” He couldn’t keep the annoyance from his voice. He blamed the lack of sleep; he was usually better at disguising how much he wanted to shove Kryptonite down someone’s throat. “Why’re you calling?”

“I thought you’d be awake by now and I can‘t get a hold of Flash or Lantern.”

Bruce looked over at his clock. Eight-thirty. “Maybe they’re sleeping. Wally keeps hours that most people would consider normal.”

“Maybe. The three of you were the last ones to have a session with Doctor Samantha-”

“Two and a half weeks ago.”

“And now she’s gone missing.”

That got Bruce’s attention. Missing? That was impossible. He hadn’t even arranged for her to be taken care of yet, she couldn’t be missing. He couldn’t very well exact revenge if she was missing. This was…disappointing.

“You didn’t have anything to do with it did you?”

“I wish.”

He could almost see Clark’s forehead wrinkling with irritation. Everyone had little things they did to give away their emotions, even Clark. Even him. It was simply that Bruce had everyone convinced he didn’t have the little giveaways so no one bothered to learn them, whereas he learned every little quirk of those around him.

“I’m sure it wasn’t that bad-”

“I had planned to have her transferred to the Wayne Corp planet in Alaska as head of Employee Relations.”

“Alaska.”

“Yes.”

“You’re serious.”

"Very.”

Clark sighed. “You can’t just send everyone who annoys you across the country.”

Bruce disagreed. What was the point of being rich if he couldn’t thoroughly abuse that power? The Watchtower, the Batmobile, sending people to remote places of the world when they bothered him… It wasn’t like he’d killed anybody.

At least not to his knowledge. There was that one woman who’d vanished in Russia, but he couldn’t say for sure if she was alive or dead, so he couldn’t count her.

“Any ideas on what we should do?”

Let him go back to sleep before he flew into a homicidal rage? “About?”

“Dr. Sam. Wherever she is, her files are. The League could be in for some trouble if someone like Luthor or Joker gets them.”

“I thought Luther wasn’t a threat.”

“He’s a politician; of course he’s a threat.”

Times like that Bruce was almost positive an actual legitimate sense of humor lurked beneath the boy scout mold. Times like that Bruce had a hard time not liking Clark.

Clark was going to ruin his reputation.

“I’m not worried. I liberated Dr. Sam’s files two weeks ago, while she was on lunch break. I doubt anyone except for her could figure them out; I’ll give you that much credit. You picked a moron, but she was a careful one.” And people said he never complimented anyone.

And he was being honest. The system was color-coded on three levels (Note cards, paper clips, and the boxes they were all held in.) and no two members of the League had the same color combination. If he’d had more than twenty minutes he probably would have been able to work it out, but he figured if it took him longer than that with intimate knowledge of who he was looking into they didn’t have much to worry about.

“Samantha was not-”

“Master Bruce.” Alfred’s head appeared in a crack between the door and the wall. “I think it would be wise of you to turn on to the local news.”

Bruce didn’t want to but he did it anyway. He carefully tuned out Clark’s defense of his friend and listened to the reporter. A small picture of Dr. Sam, a wide smile plastered on her lips, was in the top right hand corner of the screen.

That was never good.

“Samantha Lane’s body was found at five-thirty this morning. The police seem to believe this was a murder during a robbery because of how ransacked her house was. However some are skeptical because the only thing that was disturbed were her patient files.”

“It’s too early to feel guilty.” Bruce turned off the TV obligingly.

Clark had gone silent to listen to the news report. (Bruce imagined he was pacing and gnawing on his lower lip nervously.) But now he spoke again.

“…Was that Wally?”

He glanced over his shoulder and indeed Wally was trying to get out of his bed. Bruce had found he could actually time Wally’s early morning progress.

Wally tumbled out of the bed and a long stream of curses filled the air. He looked at his clock. Ten seconds exactly. Another fifteen would be spent on the floor then

“Bruce.”

What did a person have to do to be left alone? “Wally, Clark wants to know if that was you?”

Wally muttered something that Bruce wasn’t going to repeat and couldn’t help but wonder where he learned it. Probably from John who seemed to be well versed in off-planet curses.

“That was a yes.” John translated in a tone that was more smarmy than helpful. He came walking out of Bruce’s bathroom already dressed for the day. What exactly that day consisted of Bruce had no idea since John was the only one who’d managed to still hide parts of his life.

It was both impressive and grating.

“No it wasn’t. I don‘t like Clark right now.” Wally stood up and rubbed his shoulder in irritation “Why are you already dressed? It’s Saturday. Do you realize that?” He pointed at both of them.

“It may have occurred to me.” John was visibly enjoying how annoyed the redhead was. Bruce had to admit that Wally had a certain attractive quality when he was flushed and upset.

“And John. Why are Wally and John over there?”

Bruce considered that carefully. John and Wally graced him with twin looks of wariness and Bruce couldn’t really blame them for being cautious. While his mind wasn’t half the sewer that theirs was he could be evil if it suited him. At least where Clark was concerned he could be.

“He’s thinking way too hard.” Wally whispered loudly. John nodded.

“When you ask why they’re over here, do you mean ‘why’ in a literal sense, or ‘why’ in a technical sense. Because I don’t think you really want to know.”

“Ew. So don’t want to be the subject of Clark’s threesome fantasies.” With that Wally slunk into the bathroom and shut the door firmly after him.

“I second that. I try not to agree with Wally too much, but that’d just be disgusting.” John leaned against his desk and Bruce found himself just slightly distracted. John was wearing a suit. As Wally had pointed out once John looked really good in a suit.

Bruce was going to have to buy John a lot of suits. He let his eyes roam the other man’s body while pointedly ignoring John’s smug smirk. Yes. Lots of suits.

“I think the logical part of my brain just quit.” Clark sounded worried.

“Tragic.” Bruce was very much not listening. He was doing some mental math. If he had an appointment at ten then he had to be in the car by nine-thirty to get there with some time to spare. If he had to be in the car at nine-thirty he needed fifteen minutes to get ready.

How long would it take to get John out of the suit?

“Bare with me for a minute here. I don’t…want to think about it.” Clark was silent for a moment. “Are you…and them… I’m going now.”

Bruce jerked slightly when the other line clicked off. He looked at the phone then shrugged and hung up before facing John again.

“I think Clark is traumatized.”

John’s eyes gleamed with mirth. “Good.”

Before Bruce could say anything else the bathroom door opened and Wally leaned against the doorframe, regarding the two of them silently. Bruce could almost see the wheels turning in the gutter that Wally tried to pass off as a mind.

Then Wally walked, as in at a normal pace, over to them and pulled the phone cord out of the wall. He grabbed the bottom of John’s jacket and Bruce’s arm and began to pull them towards the bathroom.

“Honestly. Why do I have to think of everything?”

John looked very tempted to say something. Then he frowned, almost as if he was considering it, before shrugging. Bruce assumed that he had decided it was better to not argue with Wally at this particular point in time.

Somewhere else a man sat back in his chair contently and considered his early morning martini, as well as the Mental Health Assessment he’d had his secretary pick up. He’d been worried when he’d seen the first copy of Dr. Samantha’s assessment of him but his lovely assistant had convinced her to change her mind. She was good at the sort of thing.

According to this he was perfectly sane.

And wasn’t Batman going to get a kick out of this?

With this assessment he could now run for mayor or Gotham. He wasn’t sure who exactly had gotten that law passed about elected officials needing to be mentally competent but he’d heard Bruce Wayne had put a lot of money into it’s backing.

He pushed the button on his intercom. “Harley, darling, do me a favor?”

“Yes Mr. J?”

“I need you to use your amazing charm to round up some signatures. I’m going to need some deep pockets to pull this off.”

“Right on it Mr. J!” She chirped.

“Fantastic. Oh, and Harley?”

He could hear her swallow nervously. “Yes?”

“No more dead bodies please. I need my base alive, understand?”

“Of course.” With that she clicked off.

He leaned back in his chair. After all, if Lex Luthor could become president, there was no reason he couldn’t become mayor.

God bless America and all of that.

The End. Though maybe I’ll be motivated to write a follow up. Something about Joker running for mayor appeals to the sadist in me.

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