Chapter Text
There are no greater treasures than the highest human qualities such as compassion, courage and hope. Not even tragic accident or disaster can destroy such treasures of the heart.
-Daisaku Ikeda
Clark had been gathering information for close to a week now in the immediate aftermath of the Gotham seawall flooding. When he wasn’t doing this, he did his best to help with the response as a unofficial volunteer. He worried that it would raise some red flags if anyone were to notice that he worked more than a full day during the day and also volunteered almost all of his spare time when any normal person would be required to rest, but he couldn’t keep himself from using her unique abilities to place anonymous tips directing search and rescue resources. Still somewhat unwelcome even in his hometown of Metropolis as a relatively new vigilante, he was hesitant to provide any assistance in the open for fear of only serving to distract the already stretched-thin resources. He did has much as he could while remaining under the radar and used his enhanced durability to only take breaks when he felt the mental and emotional exhaustion would impact his ability to do his job. Then he would take short naps and eat some with his peers as they all recompressed from a tiring day of speaking to the community which experienced one of the worst humanitarian disaster on U.S. soil in immediate memory and certainly the deadliest manmade disaster since September 11th, 2001, despite the fact the official death toll would likely takes weeks and months still to determine, with hundreds still unaccounted for. The Family Reunification Center continued to receive hundreds of calls ever day.
It was during both Clark’s official and unofficial efforts that he continued to hear tale of The Batman and his unrelenting persistence in assisting in the response and recovery. The people of Gotham seemed to have newly minted him their unofficial mascot. Clark hadn’t ever spent any significant time in Gotham before this, but he had half-believed that the so-called ‘Caped Crusader’ was myth and he knew most outside of Gotham believed the same, if they had any inkling of his existence in the first place. It was the main reason that Clark has never investigated the other vigilante before now, despite first mentions of him appearing only about a year before his own vigilantism began. All real media coverage of the vigilante prior to the increased siting associated with the Riddler case had come from local Gotham sources and social media posts with poor quality videos and photos. Clark only knew as much as he did because he had already been considering vigilantism for himself when the first reported surfaced. Unfortunately, he hadn’t trusted the other vigilante even if he did exist, judging his methods of extreme violence and fear-mongering to be incompatible with his own plans. Despite this, and Gotham’s own past skepticism, the people were now rallying around him and holding tight to him as a symbol of hope. They were even becoming overly protective of him, hushing up around Clark and his co-workers. The locals always seemed to be able to quickly see something in Clark that identified him as an outsider. Whether it was his accent, his Daily Planet press credentials, or just something about the way he held himself, Clark couldn’t tell, but Gotham always seemed to be able to tell he wasn’t from the area, even when he wasn’t representing the paper. He would catch snippets of conversations about The Batman from those who encountered him, but more often than not, the locals would keep their opinions to themselves around those from outside the city. Clark prided himself on not using his abilities to compromise others’ privacy for the sake of his profession, both as a boundary for himself and politeness to those around him as well as a professional courtesy to his peers who couldn’t do the same in pursuit of leads. Therefore, most of the word that he had heard about The Batman came from National Guard members and those others responding from outside the immediate area under mutual aid agreements. These groups tended to share everything they learned about the man whenever given the chance, taking the opportunity to share stories about something other than tragedy all around them, gossiping about this novel mystery and exchanging the few details they are able to gain from the man who seems to appear from nowhere when needed and immediately disappear into the shadows when done. Despite being seen on camera in the last week more than all pervious sighting combined, no one seemed to really know anything about the vigilante.
All of this intrigued Clark. As a journalist, he felt like there was a good story here. As a fledgling vigilante, he wanted to learn more about The Batman and his presence within presence within his sister city now that he was more than just a fearful whisper from the shadows. He thought about finding his as Superman. He could probably find him within a day if he dedicated himself to it. Unfortunately, that tactic was likely to reveal the other man’s identity to him if caught at the wrong moment, which would be a disservice to the man who seemed to be spending every waking moment helping his community and would also set the wrong tone for any professional relationship Clark hoped to develop among his vigilante peer. He also didn’t know The Batman’s feelings about metahumans and feared that, just like any potential dramatic identity reveal, a sudden appearance of Superman may be perceived as a threat and may revolve into a confrontation that was not likely to endear him to The Batman or Gotham and would only distract everyone from the response and recovery efforts.
So, Clark decided he would just have to pursue The Batman as himself, at least for now. Maybe this could change in the future, once things had returned a little more towards a new normal. They received tasks for each day, but Perry had told them when they initially received the assignment to pursue anything of interest outside of that. The man could be gruff and was always strong-minded, but he did respect that no one understood the circumstances of an assignment like those immersed in it, especially for assignments outside of Metropolis and during crisis.
Clark would just have start with what he had and follow the trail as far as he could go.