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Chapter Text

Bruce eased the sleek matte finish of the Bentley to a halt beneath the flickering streetlamp, shadows folding over the curves as if reluctant to surrender their privilege. Three years they'd lived in this house. Three years of polite waves without conversation, of garage doors closing before neighbors could approach, of landscaping services that ensured they never needed to discuss lawn care over fence lines.

Tonight, that carefully maintained distance was ending.

Clark's eyes lingered on the trimmed hedges surrounding their house—their house, though most of Blissful Meadows probably still thought of them as "those new people who keep to themselves." The clipped perfection masked a tension neither dared articulate aloud. This was their frontline now, and they'd just volunteered to walk into enemy territory unarmed.

"We could still back out," Clark said quietly. "Claim food poisoning. Work emergency. Alien invasion."

Bruce killed the engine. "We've been hiding for three years. That's long enough."

"Hiding is such a loaded word."

"What would you call it?"

Clark didn't answer, because they both knew the truth. Hiding was exactly what they'd been doing—from their pasts, from their identities, from the inevitable moment when Superman and Batman would have to become Clark and Bruce, just two men who made potato salad and worried about HOA regulations.

The silence of Blissful Meadows wrapped around them like a shroud—too still to be natural, too rehearsed to be comforting. The streetlights cast waterlogged pools of light onto the pavement, washing the world in a false serenity. This quiet was the precursor to a much louder, less forgiving orchestra: disorderly lawn care debates, turf wars over mailbox designs, whispered judgments delivered with devilish precision and pastel-painted smiles.

Inside, a single light flickered from the kitchen, the only discordant note in an otherwise staged domesticity.

--

Three Years Earlier – Wayne Manor, Gotham

Bruce's hands wouldn't stop shaking.

He gripped the edge of the Batcave's medical table, knuckles bone-white against stainless steel, watching the tremor ripple from wrist to fingertips like aftershocks following an earthquake. Forty-eight hours without sleep. A ruptured spleen courtesy of Bane's enthusiasm. Three cracked ribs from the previous Tuesday's Joker incident. And somewhere beneath the physical damage, something more fundamental had fractured—the certainty that he could keep doing this forever.

Alfred's footsteps echoed precise and deliberate on the stone stairs. "Master Bruce. Master Clark called. Again."

"Tell him I'm fine."

"I've exhausted the credible variations of that lie." Alfred's reflection appeared in the polished steel of the surgical tray—impeccable posture, unreadable expression, eyes that had witnessed too many nights like this across too many years. "Perhaps it's time for the truth."

The truth. Bruce tested the word internally, found it wanting. The truth was that Gotham had been devouring him in increments for twenty years, bite by bite, night by night, until he'd become more scar tissue than man. The truth was that he'd started seeing enemies in every shadow, started planning contingencies for contingencies, started forgetting what it felt like to simply breathe without calculating threat assessments.

"He deserves better," Bruce said finally, voice scraped raw.

"Then give him better." Alfred moved to the medical cabinet with economical grace, withdrawing the suture kit Bruce would inevitably need. "Give yourself better. This city will consume you entirely if you allow it. It nearly has already."

Bruce's comm unit crackled—Gordon's frequency, another crisis bleeding into Gotham's perpetual night. His hand moved toward it automatically, years of conditioning overriding conscious thought.

Alfred's hand closed over his wrist. Gentle. Immovable.

"No."

The single syllable hung between them, freighted with decades of partnership and unspoken understanding. Bruce met Alfred's gaze and saw something he'd never quite witnessed before: fear. Not for Gotham. For him.

"Master Bruce. You are not invincible. You are not infinite. And you are, despite considerable evidence to the contrary, still human." Alfred's grip tightened fractionally. "Master Clark loves you. He has watched you destroy yourself for this city night after night, and he has never asked you to choose. But perhaps it's time you chose anyway."

The Same Night – Metropolis

Clark stood at his apartment window, counting heartbeats across the city. Two hundred forty-three cardiac arrests in progress. Seventeen domestic violence incidents escalating toward lethal force. Forty-nine children crying themselves to sleep in homes where love had curdled into something toxic.

He could hear them all. Could save none of them without abandoning the others. Could save all of them without ever stopping, without ever resting, without ever being anything except Superman until the name consumed the man entirely.

His phone buzzed. Martha Kent, calling for the third time that week.

"Hi, Mom."

"Don't 'hi Mom' me in that tone, Clark Joseph Kent." Her voice carried the particular sharpness of maternal concern honed across decades of worrying about an invulnerable son who kept finding new ways to break. "When's the last time you slept?"

"I don't need—"

"When's the last time you ate something that wasn't swallowed between rescues? When's the last time you had a conversation with Bruce that wasn't coordinating crisis response? When's the last time you felt like Clark instead of just Superman wearing Clark's face?"

The questions landed like precision strikes, each one exposing vulnerabilities he'd been carefully ignoring. Clark's reflection stared back from the darkened window—cape, symbol, the weight of impossible expectations.

"I can't just stop, Mom. People need—"

"People will always need, sweetheart. That's the nature of need—it's infinite and you're not." Martha's voice softened, sadness replacing sharpness. "Your father and I didn't raise you to be Superman. We raised you to be Clark. To be kind and good and human in all the ways that matter. But somewhere along the way, you forgot the difference."

Across the city, someone screamed. Clark's hearing zeroed in automatically—mugging, three blocks west, victim cornered, assailant armed. He could be there in four seconds. Could intervene, could save, could return to this conversation having prevented one more tragedy in an endless procession of preventable tragedies.

"Go," Martha said quietly, having learned to interpret his silences. "Save whoever needs saving tonight. But Clark? Think about what I said. Think about whether saving everyone means losing yourself completely. Think about whether Bruce is worth saving too—starting with saving him from this life you've both chosen."

The call disconnected. Clark stood frozen, torn between the scream still echoing in his enhanced hearing and his mother's words still resonating in his chest.

Then he moved. Four seconds to intervention, four seconds of flight, four seconds where he was pure function without reflection.

But afterwards, standing on a rooftop watching sunrise bleed across Metropolis's skyline, he finally let himself think. About Bruce's increasing recklessness. About his own mounting exhaustion. About the twenty years they'd spent saving the world while forgetting to save themselves.

About whether there might be another way.

One Week Later – Kent Farm, Smallville

Bruce sat at Martha Kent's kitchen table, feeling absurdly out of place. The pastoral setting clashed violently with every instinct he'd honed in Gotham's shadows—too much sunlight, too much open space, too much genuine warmth radiating from the woman who'd poured him coffee and proceeded to dissect his life with surgical precision disguised as gentle conversation.

"You're killing him," Martha said simply, no accusation in her tone, just observation.

"Clark's invulnerable."

"His body is. His heart isn't." She settled across from him, hands wrapped around her own mug, eyes the same blue as her son's but carrying an earthbound wisdom Clark had never quite managed. "And neither is yours, despite what you've convinced yourself."

Bruce opened his mouth to deflect, to defend, to deploy one of the dozen practiced responses he used to maintain emotional distance. Martha's raised eyebrow stopped him cold.

"I know who you are, Bruce Wayne. Not just Batman—though Lord knows that's burden enough for any man. I know you're brilliant and broken and convinced that suffering is the price of doing good. I know you think rest is weakness and vulnerability is failure." She took a sip of coffee, gaze never wavering. "I also know you love my son enough to destroy yourself saving strangers, but not enough to save yourself for him."

The words hit harder than Bane's fists, precision-targeted at truths Bruce had been avoiding.

"What do you want me to do? Retire? Abandon Gotham to the—"

"I want you to live, Bruce. Actually live, not just survive between crises. I want you to remember that heroism isn't measured solely in lives saved and threats neutralized. Sometimes the bravest thing is choosing to be happy." Martha's expression softened. "Clark needs you. Not Batman, not the world's greatest detective—you. The man underneath all that armor. But that man is disappearing, one brutal night at a time."

Bruce stared into his coffee, seeing his reflection distorted in dark liquid. When had he last looked in a mirror and recognized the person staring back? When had Bruce Wayne become simply the mask he wore between Batman shifts?

"I don't know how to stop."

"Then learn." Martha reached across the table, covering his scarred hand with her calloused one—farmer's hands, mother's hands, gentle despite decades of hard work. "Learn together. You and Clark, figuring out what comes after saving the world. Whether it's a farmhouse in Kansas or a brownstone in Metropolis or..." She smiled slightly. "A ridiculously overpriced house in some sterile suburb somewhere. What matters is choosing each other. Choosing life."

Outside, Clark was chopping wood with human-speed precision, giving them privacy while staying close enough to hear if needed. Bruce watched him through the window—flannel shirt, jeans, genuine smile as he waved at a passing neighbor. Clark without Superman's weight, just for a moment.

"I'm afraid," Bruce admitted, the confession scraped raw from somewhere deep. "Afraid that without the mission, there's nothing left. That I'm just the sum of my traumas and tactics."

"Then it's time to find out if you're wrong." Martha squeezed his hand once, then released it. "And Bruce? I think you'll be surprised by what you discover when you finally give yourself permission to try."

---

Morning arrived with the weight of inevitability. As Bruce's fingers found the spine of the HOA's Rules & Penalties—delivered to their mailbox monthly for three years, mostly unread—his gaze sharpened, a scalpel finely honed. 

The list grew like some literary ode to pettiness: $250 fines for "improper shade of exterior paint," another $500 for "garden ornaments exceeding community-approved size," and an eye-watering $1500 levied for "improper pet discipline"—a euphemism punctuated by a footnote about nocturnal noises and the necessity of maintaining harmony.

"Did you know," Bruce said, not looking up, "that we've been in violation of Section 3.7, subsection C for approximately thirty-seven months?"

Clark's hands stilled over the steaming vegetables. "Which one is that?"

"Failure to participate in mandatory neighborhood social functions. There's a grace period of six months, after which fines accrue monthly." Bruce's mouth twitched. "We owe them approximately fifteen thousand dollars."

"They're going to make us pay a fine for not going to parties?" Clark's voice climbed half an octave.

"Probably not. But they could." Bruce set down the handbook. "Which is why we're going to this one. And every one after, until we've established ourselves as boring, friendly neighbors who just happened to be hermits for three years due to... intensive remote work projects."

Clark's voice, when it slipped out, held a quiver that pierced the kitchen calm. "The social's tomorrow. I haven't even figured out what to wear. And everyone's going to ask why we've been ghosts for three years. What do we even say?"

Bruce didn't bother to fake reassurance. "The truth. We needed time to adjust, we're private people, we're ready to engage now. They want to like us, Clark. We're a mystery they've been speculating about for three years. Now we give them just enough truth to satisfy curiosity without revealing anything that matters."

"Do they want to like me?" The question hung between them, raw and unadorned. "I've heard them, Bruce. For three years, I've heard every whispered conversation, every speculation, every—" He stopped, jaw tightening. "Mrs. Henderson thinks we're in witness protection. The Parkers think we're criminals. Someone started a rumor that we're running a drug operation out of the basement."

Bruce's response came slow, deliberate. "And tomorrow, you'll prove them all wrong just by being yourself. They'll love you."

"You don't know that."

"I do." Bruce's eyes pierced Clark's, unblinking. "You don't choose the way they receive you. You only decide how you show up. Be unapologetically yourself, or you don't bother. But Clark—" He stepped closer. "You've spent three years listening to them through walls, cataloging their secrets because you couldn't help it. Tomorrow, you meet them as people, not data points. That's going to be harder than you think."

Clark placed the nearly finished salad in a crystal bowl, the colors catching the light like fragments of broken promise. “What if they don’t like us?” His voice lowered, nearly drowned by the hum of suburban quiet. Somewhere in the development, a lawn mower blared faintly before coughing itself to silence.

Bruce moved closer, voice firm, grounding, “They’ll like us. If not, they’ll have to get over it.”

Clark’s gaze found Bruce’s, searching the unyielding steadiness beneath the polished surface. "But what if they don't?"

Bruce’s answer cut sharper, honest as a blade. “Then fuck them. You’ll still be better at this than eighty percent of their social committees.”

They shared a silence brimming with unspoken truths, each word a ripple across the still waters of their new life.

Clark's smile warmed the kitchen and Bruce's heart. 

Mission accomplished.

Tomorrow, the social.

Tomorrow, a thousand disparate worlds packed into manicured lawns and pristine patios—Clark’s salad against the backdrop of whispered rivalries, Bruce’s armor of calm against the tides of thinly veiled hostility.

And tomorrow, the quiet madness of Blissful Meadows would have its first taste of them.

---

The house revealed itself in stages, each room a carefully curated contradiction to the lives they'd lived.

Bruce moved through the ground floor with tactical assessment bleeding through domestic observation. The living room's vast windows offered clear sightlines to three neighboring properties—defensively problematic, socially advantageous. The hardwood floors would telegraph footsteps, eliminating stealth but providing acoustic warning. The crown molding was purely decorative, structurally useless, offensively expensive.

"It's so... beige," Clark observed from the doorway, arms crossed. "Everything. The walls, the carpet, the furniture the previous owners left. It's like they were allergic to color."

"Affluent suburban camouflage." Bruce ran his fingers along the mantle, checking for dust the cleaning service should have eliminated. "Blend in through aggressive inoffensiveness."

The kitchen gleamed with appliances designed for people who employed private chefs. Six-burner gas range that had likely never been used. Wine refrigerator stocked with bottles worth more than most people's monthly rent. Granite countertops polished to mirror shine, reflecting their distorted faces back at them.

Clark opened the refrigerator—empty except for a welcoming basket someone had left. Artisanal cheeses, craft beer, a note in perfect cursive: Welcome to the neighborhood! - The Whitmores.

"Surveillance disguised as hospitality," Bruce noted. "They're already gathering intelligence."

"Or they're just being nice."

"Those aren't mutually exclusive in environments like this." Bruce examined the note without touching it. "Margaret Whitmore. President of the HOA. Three calls to the title company during our closing, six emails to our realtor asking questions that bordered on harassment. She'll be our primary antagonist."

Clark set the basket down with more force than necessary. "Can we maybe try assuming good faith before we profile our neighbors as hostiles?"

"I can assume good faith and maintain tactical awareness simultaneously." Bruce moved to the sliding glass doors leading to the backyard. "It's called pattern recognition, Clark. I'm good at it."

The backyard stopped them both.

Seventy feet of flat, boring, regulation-compliant lawn stretched toward a privacy fence that was neither private nor particularly fenced—just decorative pickets defining property lines without actually obscuring anything. But beyond the manicured emptiness, in the far corner where afternoon light would pool golden and warm, Bruce saw possibility.

"There," he said quietly, something shifting in his voice from tactical to genuine. "That's where the garden goes."

Clark followed his gaze, seeing what Bruce envisioned: raised beds, climbing structures for heirloom tomatoes, the ordered chaos of vegetables growing according to need rather than aesthetic. And somewhere in the configuration, a space for Bruce's secret project—the dark tulips he'd been cultivating for three years, varieties that refused to bloom in predictable colors, that demanded specific soil composition and careful neglect.

"The HOA will hate it," Clark observed.

"I'm counting on it." Bruce's smile was sharp as broken glass. "Let them try to regulate beauty they don't understand."

Upstairs, the bedrooms revealed themselves in stages of suburban excess. The master suite occupied the entire east wing—en-suite bathroom larger than Bruce's first apartment, walk-in closet that could comfortably house a family of four, balcony overlooking the neighborhood's carefully orchestrated sameness.

Clark opened the closet door, then stopped. "Bruce. Did you already have everything moved here?"

The space was empty except for two items carefully centered on the built-in shelving: Batman's cowl, wrapped in protective cloth, and a small lockbox containing Clark's glasses and a selection of reporter's notebooks from his Metropolis years.

"Alfred shipped them yesterday," Bruce said from the doorway. "He thought we might need reminders."

"Of what we left behind?"

"Of what we chose to leave behind." Bruce entered the closet, standing beside Clark in the too-large space. "Of who we were, so we remember who we're trying to become."

Clark lifted the cowl gently, feeling its familiar weight. How many nights had he watched Bruce don this armor, transforming from man to myth? How many mornings had he helped Bruce remove it, cataloging new bruises and carefully not commenting on the accumulating damage?

"Do you miss it?" Clark asked quietly.

"Every night." Bruce's honesty was unguarded, rare. "But I miss you more. Miss us. Miss the version of our relationship that isn't constantly interrupted by crisis and catastrophe."

"We could go back. Any time we want."

"I know." Bruce took the cowl, returning it to its wrapping with careful precision. "But we're not going to. Not yet. Maybe not ever. We're going to try this—suburban retirement, domestic normalcy, whatever the hell this experiment becomes. We're going to plant gardens and attend block parties and pretend our biggest concern is HOA regulations."

"And if we fail?"

"Then we fail spectacularly. Together." Bruce closed the lockbox, sealing their past behind combination locks. "But we try first. We owe ourselves that much."

They stood together in the oversized closet, two men who'd saved the world more times than anyone knew, surrounded by emptiness waiting to be filled with something resembling normal life. Outside, the neighborhood's evening routine hummed with manufactured contentment—sprinklers activating on timers, garage doors closing on command, lives lived according to schedule and regulation.

But in this space, in this moment, Bruce and Clark were simply themselves. Not heroes, not symbols, just two people choosing each other over everything else they could have been.

The house settled around them with creaks and sighs, learning the weight of new occupants. Learning that beneath its beige perfection, something more complicated had taken root.

---

First Night - 11:47 PM

Bruce couldn't sleep.

He lay in their too-large bed in their too-quiet house, listening to the neighborhood's nocturnal symphony. Sprinkler systems activating precisely at midnight. A dog barking three houses east—German Shepherd, probably eight years old based on vocal depth, responding to something its owner couldn't hear. The Millers' bedroom light still on, voices raised in argument muffled by expensive insulation but audible if he focused.

Beside him, Clark breathed with perfect rhythm, chest rising and falling in the steady pattern of someone who'd learned to fake sleep convincingly. His heartbeat betrayed him—too fast, too irregular, the cardiovascular signature of someone's mind racing while their body played at rest.

"You're not sleeping either," Bruce observed.

"Nope." Clark's eyes opened, reflecting starlight from the window they'd left uncurtained. "Too quiet. Too loud. Both simultaneously."

Bruce understood. Gotham's nights carried a particular acoustic texture—sirens, gunfire, the bass rumble of corruption echoing through concrete canyons. Metropolis hummed with different frequency—higher pitched, more frantic, the sound of humanity compressed into vertical space. But Blissful Meadows offered neither. Just the manufactured peace of sprinklers and barking dogs and couples fighting behind walls designed to muffle everything except the illusion of perfection.

"We made a mistake," Clark said quietly.

Bruce's chest tightened. "You want to leave?"

"What? No." Clark turned to face him, confusion evident even in darkness. "I meant unpacking the kitchen boxes before the bedroom ones. I can't find my contact solution and I've been wearing these lenses for sixteen hours."

The relief was sharp enough to hurt. Bruce laughed, surprising himself. "Your priority system needs work."

"Says the man who spent three hours installing motion sensors in the garden before assembling the bed frame." Clark's smile was audible. "We're sleeping on a mattress on the floor, Bruce. In a house we paid cash for. Surrounded by boxes containing evidence of our double lives that we should probably burn but keep for reasons neither of us can articulate."

"Sentiment," Bruce said. "We keep them out of sentiment."

"You. Sentimental. About cowls and capes and batarangs."

"About the life we lived. Past tense." Bruce shifted onto his side, mirroring Clark's position. "Those boxes are archaeological evidence that we existed before this. That we mattered in ways this neighborhood will never understand or appreciate."

Clark's hand found Bruce's in the darkness, fingers interlacing with practiced ease. "We still matter. Just differently."

"Do we?" The question escaped before Bruce could stop it. "What's the value equation of Batman and Superman bowing out? How many die because we chose suburban retirement over continued vigilance?"

"The same number who'd die anyway, because we're not omnipotent and we're barely functional." Clark's grip tightened. "The League continues. Dick has Gotham. Jon has Metropolis. The world doesn't end because we decided to stop bleeding ourselves dry."

"Logically, yes."

"But emotionally, you feel like a deserter."

Bruce didn't answer. Didn't need to.

They lay in silence, hands clasped, listening to their neighborhood sleep its scheduled sleep. Somewhere in the darkness, boxes waited to be unpacked—costumes and equipment and the physical evidence of heroism they'd chosen to pause rather than abandon entirely.

"First thing tomorrow," Clark said eventually, "we unpack the kitchen properly. I'll make you actual coffee instead of the gas station sludge you've been tolerating. Then we'll tackle the bedroom. Then maybe, possibly, we'll attend this social without having panic attacks about whether our secret identities are secure."

"Ambitious timeline."

"I'm Superman. Ambition is kind of my brand." Clark pulled Bruce closer, eliminating the careful distance they'd maintained. "We're going to be okay here, Bruce. Maybe not immediately, maybe not easily, but eventually. We survived Darkseid. We can survive an HOA."

"Different skill sets required."

"Then we'll learn new skills." Clark's breath was warm against Bruce's shoulder. "Together. Like we do everything else that terrifies us."

Bruce wanted to argue, to catalog the hundred ways this could fail, to maintain his careful pessimism as armor against disappointment. But exhaustion was finally catching him, pulling him under, and Clark's heartbeat had steadied into genuine rest rather than performance.

Tomorrow they'd face their new neighbors. Tomorrow they'd navigate social waters more treacherous than any combat zone. Tomorrow they'd begin the work of building a life that wasn't defined solely by crisis.

But tonight, in this too-quiet house on this too-perfect street, they were simply Bruce and Clark. Two men choosing rest over vigilance, peace over war, each other over everything else.

Bruce's eyes finally closed. The neighborhood hummed its mechanical lullaby. And for the first time in longer than he could remember, Bruce Wayne slept without nightmares.

---

Margaret Whitmore's backyard had been transformed into something between garden party and military operation—string lights crisscrossing overhead in geometric precision, buffet tables arranged with mathematical exactitude, neighbors clustered in carefully calculated social configurations.

Clark's senses cataloged everything before they'd crossed the threshold.

Forty-three distinct heartbeats, each one broadcasting its owner's emotional state with cardiovascular precision. Margaret's racing at amphetamine-fueled tempo—meth singing in her bloodstream, pupils dilated, cortisol levels spiked. Lana Miller's labored and irregular, the cancer audible in the way her cells consumed oxygen desperately, inefficiently. Mark Miller's elevated with anxiety, his phone vibrating in his pocket with the frequency of incoming blackmail, each buzz making his blood pressure spike.

The Aguelis couple stood near the beverage table—Julian's heartbeat steady, cold, controlled in the way of predators and abusers. Marianne's fluttering with barely suppressed terror, her breathing shallow, hand unconsciously touching her side where bruises hid beneath carefully chosen clothing.

Seventeen lies told in the first ninety seconds: "We're doing great," "The kids are thriving," "Work's never been better," each one contradicted by the liar's physiology.

The chemical signatures were worse. Margaret's meth mixing with expensive perfume, creating an acrid undertone beneath floral notes. Lana's medication—chemotherapy residue and pain management, her body a pharmaceutical battlefield. Franklin Tao's alcohol content already elevated despite the party just starting, metabolized liquor bleeding through his pores. David Lang's prescription painkillers, the opiate signature suggesting addiction rather than medical necessity.

Clark's vision automatically shifted to x-ray spectrum—checking for weapons (three concealed handguns, all legally carried but revealing about their owners' paranoia), medical devices (Lana's port, visible beneath her blouse), structural vulnerabilities in the Whitmore house (load-bearing wall compromised by water damage, foundation settling unevenly).

"Breathe." Bruce's voice was barely audible, his hand settling on Clark's lower back with grounding pressure. "You're doing it again."

Clark forced his senses to narrow, to focus on just this moment rather than the overwhelming cascade of information. But the effort was exhausting—like trying to hear one conversation in a stadium full of screaming.

"How many?" Bruce asked quietly, reading Clark's tension.

"Forty-three heartbeats. At least twelve people in active crisis. Margaret's dosage is increasing—her pupils are more dilated than last time I saw her. Lana has weeks, not months. Marianne's injuries are fresh, less than seventy-two hours old."

"Can you function?"

"I have to."

Bruce's hand pressed firmer against his back. "No. Can you function without destroying yourself trying to save all of them simultaneously?"

Clark wanted to say yes. Wanted to believe he could navigate this social event like a normal person, making small talk and eating canapés without being constantly aware of suffering happening in real-time around him. But honesty between them had always been non-negotiable.

"I don't know."

"Then we'll find out together." Bruce's voice carried the calm certainty that had anchored Clark through countless crises. "You don't have to save them tonight. You just have to survive the party without revealing you're Superman. Everything else can wait."

A woman approached—Mabel Harrison, owner of the two black Labs currently romping at the yard's edge. Her heartbeat was steady, controlled, but Clark caught the chemical signature of prescription anxiety medication, perfectly managed rather than abused. Someone who'd learned to function despite legitimate mental health struggles.

"You must be the new neighbors," Mabel said, her smile genuine beneath the social pleasantry. "I'm Mabel Harrison. Those are my badly behaved children." She gestured toward Butter and Honey, who'd abandoned their wrestling to investigate new arrivals.

Clark crouched to greet the dogs, grateful for the uncomplicated joy radiating from them. Dogs didn't lie, didn't hide pain behind perfect facades, didn't require the exhausting work of social navigation. They just loved or didn't, accepted or rejected, with pure honesty.

"Beautiful Labs," Clark said, genuine warmth flooding his voice. Animals were easy. Animals didn't judge.

"They're honest," Mabel corrected, and something in her tone made Clark look up sharply. Her eyes were knowing, assessing, seeing more than he'd intended to reveal. "Unlike most of the people here. But you already know that, don't you?"

Bruce stepped closer, subtle threat in his posture. "What makes you say that?"

"Because you're both watching everyone else instead of looking at each other. Because your partner—" she nodded at Clark, "—looks like he's in pain from sensory overload despite this being a relatively quiet gathering. Because you—" she turned to Bruce, "—have cataloged every exit and assessed every potential threat within thirty seconds of arrival."

She paused, her smile turning knowing. "You're either extremely paranoid, extremely perceptive, or extremely not what you're pretending to be. My money's on all three."

Clark's heart rate spiked. Bruce's hand on his back became warning rather than comfort.

Mabel laughed, the sound genuine and oddly reassuring. "Relax. I don't care what you're hiding. Everyone here is hiding something. At least you two seem to be hiding something interesting." She turned toward the party, then paused. "Fair warning—Margaret will try to corner you within twenty minutes. She sees threats everywhere and you're definitely registering as threats. Be prepared."

She walked away, her Labs bounding after her, leaving Clark and Bruce standing in the periphery of the social gathering.

"Well," Bruce said quietly. "That's concerning."

"She knows."

"She suspects. There's a difference." Bruce's tactical mind was already working, calculating exposure risk and mitigation strategies. "But she's right about Margaret. We need to be ready."

Clark straightened, forcing his senses to narrow further, focusing on just Bruce's heartbeat as an anchor point. Forty-three people, twelve crises, countless lies—all of it background noise to the one truth that mattered: they were in this together.

"Ready?" Bruce asked.

Clark thought about Kansas, about Martha's lessons in kindness, about the farm boy who'd learned to help neighbors without making them feel small. He centered himself in that version of Clark Kent—genuine, caring, human in all the ways that mattered.

"Ready."

They entered the party properly, salad and wine in hand, civilian identities firmly in place. Around them, Blissful Meadows' residents performed their versions of perfection, each one hiding struggles and secrets beneath practiced smiles.

And Clark, despite the overwhelming sensory input, despite knowing too much about everyone's suffering, managed to smile back.

Margaret Whitmore approached, her smile sharp as a scalpel, eyes finally settling on the bowl Clark carried—a riot of russet, purple, and golden hues gleaming beneath the lamplight. Her gaze held the assessment of someone finally examining a puzzle piece that had been missing for three years.

"And what's in this?" she asked, fingers brushing a stray leaf with the light curiosity of a cat finally cornering its prey. "I don't believe we've had the pleasure of a proper introduction, despite you living seven houses down for what, three years now?"

The pointed emphasis wasn't lost on Clark. He met her gaze evenly, holding the bowl like an offering—part peace treaty, part proof of existence. "A mix of yams and sweet potatoes—something to brighten the usual spread." His smile was subtle but confident. "And yes, about three years. We've been terribly rude, I'm afraid. Work kept us isolated."

"What kind of work requires three years of isolation?" Margaret's eyes flicked briefly to Bruce, then back to Clark, taking measure.

Clark's smile held steady, but inside, a flicker of wariness ignited. He maintained his smile as a familiar acrid scent wafted from her pores—the chemical signature he'd been cataloging since they moved in, finally confirmed at close range. Three years of hearing her heartbeat spike at 3 AM, of hearing the whispered arguments with Chad, of pretending not to know what everyone in this neighborhood was hiding.

Margaret's gaze amplified the enormity of the stakes—every glance here was a line drawn in finely spun sand, each word a strategic thrust. Three years of speculation about the mysterious hermits was culminating in this moment.

"Consulting work," Bruce interjected smoothly, materializing at Clark's elbow with the liquid grace that had taken three years to soften into something resembling suburban normalcy. "The kind that requires confidentiality agreements and irregular hours. We apologize for being so scarce."

"Well," Margaret's smile tightened, "you're here now. That's what matters. Though I have to say, the neighborhood has been absolutely buzzing with curiosity about you two. The mystery men of Blissful Meadows."

"I'd say that's overstating it," Clark demurred.

"Oh, you'd be surprised what people notice. Or don't notice." Margaret's tone held a challenge, subtle, deliberate. "Three years without a single appearance at a block party, a bake sale, a neighborhood watch meeting. People talk."

Bruce stepped closer, voice a low anchor. "Then I suppose we should give them something more interesting to talk about than our absence. We're here to add some color to the neighborhood, one leaf at a time. Better late than never."

A flicker of amusement danced briefly across Margaret’s eyes—an almost imperceptible softening that vibrated through the tension.

---

Two Hours Before the Social

Clark stood before their bedroom mirror in his third outfit, anxiety coiling in his chest like a living thing. The blue button-down felt too formal. The casual polo seemed too eager. The henley screamed "trying too hard to look effortless."

"You're catastrophizing," Bruce observed from the bed, already dressed in dark slacks and a charcoal sweater that probably cost more than most people's monthly car payments. He made it look effortless—the casual wealth that came from never having to think about cost, only presentation.

"I'm strategizing." Clark yanked off the henley, reaching for option four: a simple gray button-down that split the difference between approachable and polished. "There's a difference."

"You've changed clothes six times. That's not strategy, that's panic."

Clark turned to face him, frustration bleeding through carefully maintained calm. "You don't understand what this is like for me. You were born into Gotham's elite. You've been code-switching between billionaire playboy and dark knight your entire adult life. This is just another performance for you."

Bruce's expression shifted—not offended, but considering. He rose from the bed with predatory grace, moving to stand behind Clark in the mirror. Their reflections stared back: study in contrasts, perfectly matched.

"You think I don't code-switch?" Bruce's voice was quiet, dangerous in its honesty. "Every version of me is performance, Clark. Bruce Wayne the philanthropist, Batman the legend, the man underneath who's mostly scar tissue and trauma responses. I choose which mask fits the situation."

"Exactly. You choose." Clark's hands gripped the dresser edge. "I've spent my entire life trying to be human enough to fit in, Kryptonian enough to help, Clark Kent the reporter, Superman the symbol. I thought retiring from the cape meant retiring from the performance. But now we're here and I'm—" He stopped, jaw clenching.

"Terrified they'll see through you," Bruce finished. "That they'll recognize you're different in ways you can't hide. That being yourself will be too alien, too other, too much."

Clark met Bruce's eyes in the mirror. "Yes."

"Then be strategic about it." Bruce's hands settled on Clark's shoulders, grounding pressure. "What did you learn in Smallville? What did Martha teach you about navigating spaces where you're the outsider?"

Clark exhaled slowly, accessing memories decades old. "Be genuinely curious. Ask questions. Let people talk about themselves—everyone's favorite subject. Smile like you mean it. Offer help without making it feel like charity."

"Kansas farm boy charm," Bruce said. "Not Superman's impossible perfection, not Clark Kent the reporter's careful neutrality. Just the kid who grew up fixing tractors and helping neighbors, who learned kindness from good people."

"That's still a performance."

"Everything's a performance when you're conscious of it." Bruce turned Clark to face him directly. "But here's the thing—that version of you? The Smallville kid who genuinely likes people and wants to help? That's the most authentic version you've got. Lean into it. Not because it's strategy, but because it's true."

Clark studied Bruce's face, reading the careful vulnerability there. "What about you? Which Bruce are you bringing tonight?"

"The one who loves you enough to endure suburban small talk without poisoning the punch." Bruce's smile was sharp, self-aware. "The one who's learning to care about neighbors' problems without immediately cataloging them as case files. The one who's trying to be human in ways that don't involve bleeding on Gotham's streets."

"That's a hell of a performance."

"It's a hell of a reach." Bruce's hands moved to Clark's collar, adjusting it with the same precision he'd applied to countless bat-suit repairs. "But we're both reaching for something better than what we were. That's not performance—that's evolution."

Clark let Bruce fuss with his collar, finding comfort in the familiar ritual of preparation. How many times had they done this in reverse—Clark helping Bruce into armor, checking seals and connections, sending him into Gotham's night with quiet prayer that he'd return intact?

"The gray shirt," Bruce said finally, stepping back to assess. "Approachable but competent. Pairs well with your eyes without being obvious about it. Sleeves rolled to show you're willing to work but not desperate to prove anything."

Clark rolled his sleeves as instructed, studying the result. Bruce was right—of course he was right. Batman's tactical assessment applied to civilian clothing, calculating social impact with the same precision he'd calculate crime scene variables.

"Thank you," Clark said quietly.

"For what?"

"For seeing me. For knowing which version of me I need to be, even when I don't."

Bruce's expression softened fractionally, the wall lowering just enough to reveal genuine affection beneath strategic calculation. "That's what partners do. We see each other clearly, help each other become whatever the moment requires."

A timer chimed from downstairs—Clark's salad needing final assembly, their window of preparation closing. The social waited, neighbors gathered, judgment prepared.

Clark took a breath, centering himself in the version of Clark Kent that felt most true: the Kansas farm boy who'd learned kindness from Jonathan and Martha, who believed in people's essential goodness even when evidence suggested otherwise, who wanted to help not from obligation but from genuine care.

"Ready?" Bruce asked.

"No. But I'm going anyway."

"That's called courage." Bruce's hand found Clark's, squeezing once. "And for what it's worth, you look perfect. Not Superman perfect—human perfect. The kind of perfect that makes people want to know you better."

They descended the stairs together, hands clasped until they reached the kitchen where the salad waited. Clark assembled the final components with practiced precision while Bruce transferred wine bottles to a carrier—both of them performing their respective domestic rituals like prayers against the unknown.

"Bruce?" Clark said as they prepared to leave.

"Yes?"

"If this goes badly—if I say something too alien or you profile someone too obviously or we just catastrophically fail at suburban normalcy—"

"We'll fail together." Bruce's smile was genuine, rare in its unguarded warmth. "And then we'll come home, dissect what went wrong with obsessive detail, and plan our counterattack. Same as always."

"Same as always," Clark echoed, finding comfort in the familiar pattern.

They gathered their contributions—salad, wine, carefully constructed civilian identities—and stepped into the cooling evening. Blissful Meadows hummed with anticipation, neighbors converging on Margaret Whitmore's backyard, judgment waiting.

But walking beside Bruce, Clark felt something shift. Not confidence exactly, but determination. They'd faced down alien invasions and criminal masterminds. They could survive one suburban social.

Probably.

---

Clark’s thoughts pivoted to the others—the one's he's already heard, pretended for three years not to be an unwelcome peeper into their lives—Millers’ whispered theories, the Aguelis’ measured glances, the quiet disinterest of Elsie and Rebecca, watching as if from behind an invisible veil. Their daughter, Amara, lingered shadows away—a silent witness to a game of acceptance they hadn’t yet been invited to play.

The party hummed with polite laughter, sotto voce alliances, and the currency of shared secrets. The night was a tapestry of controlled flame and paper-thin masks.

Bruce’s gaze caught Clark’s for a moment, a silent acknowledgment—a tacit pact to navigate this labyrinth with their own brand of candid grace.

Margaret Whitmore, immaculate in a pastel ensemble calibrated to the exact hue of freshly picked hydrangeas, measured Bruce and Clark with an expert’s eye. Her smile was diplomatic sugar masking a steel-edged scrutiny.

“Please,” she said with practiced charm, “let me introduce you to some of our most esteemed neighbors.”

She turned deliberately, leading the way.

Margaret's introduction protocol was surgical in its efficiency, each neighbor presented like evidence in a case for conformity.

"David Lang," she announced, steering them toward a man in his late forties whose casual khakis and polo shirt couldn't quite disguise the tremor in his hands. "David's our neighborhood watch coordinator."

David's handshake was too firm, compensating for something. Clark's senses caught the opiate signature immediately—OxyContin, the dosage higher than any legitimate prescription would justify. The addiction was recent, maybe eighteen months, triggered by something David was using chemicals to forget.

"Good to meet you," David said, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. "Always good to have new blood in the neighborhood. Keeps things interesting."

"Interesting is one word for it," Bruce replied, his tone perfectly neutral while his eyes cataloged details: the slight glassiness in David's pupils, the way he favored his left side (old back injury, probably the origin of the prescription that became addiction), the wedding ring worn smooth from anxious twisting.

"David used to be in private security," Margaret offered, the information delivered like ammunition. "Before his accident."

The word 'accident' landed with weight, and David's jaw tightened fractionally. Clark heard his heartbeat spike—not an accident then, something else. Something David had told Margaret about in confidence that she now deployed as social currency.

They moved on before Clark could pursue the thought.

"Susan and Peter Parker," Margaret continued, gesturing toward a couple who radiated carefully cultivated success. Susan wore pearls that probably cost more than most people's cars. Peter's suit was tailored precisely, his haircut expensive, his smile practiced into weapon-grade charm.

"Parker Consulting," Peter announced before anyone asked, handing Bruce a business card with practiced ease. "Strategic communications and crisis management. If you ever need help navigating the local political landscape, we're your people."

"We try to be community leaders," Susan added, her voice carrying the particular sweetness of someone who'd weaponized politeness. "Setting examples, maintaining standards. It's so important in neighborhoods like this."

Clark caught the subtext immediately—'neighborhoods like this' meant white, wealthy, carefully controlled. He and Bruce were acceptable because they presented as wealthy and therefore civilized, but Susan's gaze held calculation: measuring, assessing, determining their usefulness to her social climbing aspirations.

"Your daughter must keep you busy," Clark offered, remembering the intelligence from Bruce's pre-party research.

Susan's smile froze fractionally. "Emily's at boarding school. Exeter. She's thriving there."

The lie was audible in Susan's elevated heart rate, in the way Peter's hand found the small of her back with warning pressure. Emily wasn't thriving—Emily was in damage control, hidden away after some scandal involving SAT fraud and a tutoring operation that had imploded spectacularly.

"I'm sure she is," Bruce said smoothly, offering Susan the social exit she needed.

Margaret pulled them onward with the efficiency of a general deploying troops.

"Chad Whitmore, my husband." She presented the man like an accessory, beautiful and functional and ultimately disposable.

Chad's handshake was genuine, his smile apologetic. "Don't let Margaret's enthusiasm overwhelm you. She takes her HOA presidency very seriously."

"Someone has to maintain standards," Margaret interjected, her voice sharp beneath the sweetness.

But Clark was watching Chad—the way exhaustion lived in his posture, the chemical signature of stress hormones suggesting chronic anxiety, the offshore account numbers visible on his phone when it briefly illuminated with an incoming notification. Chad Whitmore was planning his escape, building a financial exit strategy while his wife descended into addiction and control.

"We appreciate organized communities," Bruce said, the diplomat emerging from beneath the detective. "Clear rules, transparent governance."

Margaret's pupils dilated slightly—whether from meth or paranoia or both, Clark couldn't determine. "Oh, we're very transparent. Every decision documented, every regulation justified."

The lie was so blatant that Bruce's expression shifted fractionally, amusement mixing with anticipation. Margaret Whitmore ran the HOA like a personal fiefdom, and they both knew it. The question was how long before she overplayed her hand.

"I look forward to reviewing the documentation," Bruce said, his smile sharp as broken glass.

Margaret's answering smile was equally dangerous. "I'll have everything sent over. We believe in accountability here."

As they moved through the party, being introduced to neighbor after neighbor, Clark began to understand the ecosystem Margaret had cultivated. Fear disguised as respect. Control masquerading as organization. Secrets used as currency, vulnerability weaponized, conformity enforced through social exile rather than official sanction.

Julian and Marianne Aguelis were presented as the "perfect family"—Julian's hand possessive on Marianne's elbow, her smile brittle as glass, their teenage children carefully trained in performing normalcy.

Franklin and Mei Tao were "pillars of the community"—Franklin's jovial exterior masking the alcohol metabolizing through his system, Mei's desperate eyes searching for escape routes that didn't exist.

Elsie and Rebecca were introduced with barely disguised disdain—"our diverse family"—Margaret's tone making clear this diversity was tolerated rather than celebrated. Their daughter Amara stood apart, watching the pinwheel spin with the focused intensity of someone who found patterns more comprehensible than people.

Each introduction added another layer to the neighborhood's reality: a community built on carefully maintained facades, where appearance mattered more than truth, where Margaret's authority derived from knowing everyone's secrets and being willing to deploy them.

Clark felt the weight of it settling onto his shoulders—the knowledge that they'd moved from saving the world on cosmic scales to navigating the intimate violence of suburban warfare.

Bruce's hand found his again, brief pressure communicating solidarity. They'd survived alien invasions. They could survive this.

Probably.

Clark's POV - Deeper Into the Night

Clark's thoughts pivoted to the others—the ones he'd already heard for three years, pretending not to be an unwelcome witness to their lives. The Millers' whispered theories about the reclusive neighbors, testing whether Clark and Bruce were gay or just roommates or something else entirely. The Aguelis' measured glances during their rare driveway encounters, Julian's assessment calculating whether two men living alone posed some threat to his carefully ordered worldview.

The quiet disinterest of Elsie and Rebecca, watching as if from behind an invisible veil—except their disinterest felt different. Like recognition. Like they'd seen men hiding before and understood the impulse.

Their daughter, Amara, lingered shadows away—a silent witness to a game of acceptance Clark and Bruce hadn't been invited to play for three years, despite living in the neighborhood all that time.

Three years of being the ghost house. The mystery. The speculation.

Tonight, they became real.

The party progressed like a stage play where everyone knew their lines but no one believed them. Clark moved through conversations, his senses cataloging every microexpression, every chemical shift, every lie wrapped in courtesy.

Mabel Harrison—48, self-made cosmetics empire, and the owner of two sleek black Labrador Retrievers currently romping at the yard's edge—materialized with a glass of wine and a predatory smile. Her success was worn like armor: diamond studs, silk blouse, the kind of confidence that came from building something from nothing.

The dogs bounded toward Clark, their dark coats gleaming under the lamplight, tails wagging, and he crouched to greet them, feeling their uncomplicated joy—a relief from the human complexity surrounding him.

"Oh, what a beautiful salad!" Mabel's gaze was appraising, hungry for social currency. Her eyes held the sharpness of someone who'd negotiated boardrooms and emerged victorious. "You must tell me your secret."

Clark smiled, keeping his stance open but guarded. "It's a mix of yams and sweet potatoes. Colorful, isn't it?"

"Oh, it's more than that." Mabel's eyes glinted with genuine interest mixed with calculation. "People like color around here. It means life, vibrancy. God knows we could use more of it." She gestured to her Labs, now wrestling playfully near the hydrangeas. "Butter and Honey keep me sane. Animals don't play the games people do."

Her pulse was steady, confident—but Clark caught the faint chemical signature of prescription anxiety medication, the slight tension in her jaw that spoke of sleepless nights spent managing an empire while navigating this insular social landscape.

"They're beautiful dogs," Clark offered, genuinely meaning it.

"They're honest," Mabel corrected, her smile turning knowing. "Unlike most of the people here." She took a sip of wine, her gaze sweeping the crowd with the practiced assessment of a woman who'd clawed her way to the top and knew exactly what people were capable of. "But you already know that, don't you?"

Clark met her eyes, recognizing a fellow observer—someone who read the room with ruthless clarity.

—

Lana Miller drifted closer, drawn by the conversation. "I heard Margaret mention you worked in... was it journalism?"

Clark caught the slight uptick in her heart rate, the way her hand unconsciously touched her side again. The cancer was there, silent and relentless, but Lana wore her smile like battle armor. "Reporting, yes. Though I'm taking a break."

"Must be nice," Lana said, her voice wistful. "To have the freedom to step away."

The subtext was clear—Lana felt trapped, chained by illness and obligation and the perfect facade she maintained for Mark, for her children, for the neighborhood that would devour any sign of weakness.

Mark appeared at her elbow, his phone clutched like a lifeline. Clark's enhanced hearing caught the text notification—another message, another demand. The mistress was getting bolder, the blackmail escalating. Mark's cortisol levels spiked, his jaw clenching.

"We should mingle," he said tightly, guiding Lana away with the gentle force of desperation.

Mabel watched them go, her expression knowing. "Poor Lana," she said quietly, for Clark's ears only. "She's too proud to ask for help. And Mark..." She trailed off, shaking her head. "Some storms you can see coming from miles away."

"You seem to see a lot," Clark observed carefully.

Mabel's smile was sharp. "I've been here five years. Long enough to know where the bodies are buried—metaphorically speaking." She lowered her voice further. "Margaret runs the HOA like her personal fiefdom, but when things get truly messy, people come to me. Quietly. Off the record."

Clark's interest sharpened. "Why you?"

"Because I have money, no husband to answer to, and a reputation for solving problems." Her gaze was direct, challenging. "I've helped Elsie and Rebecca navigate three different 'code violations' that were really just thinly veiled homophobia. Got David Lang out of a gambling debt that would've cost him his house. Even helped Julian Aguelis when his nonprofit accounting started looking suspicious."

She took another sip of wine, her eyes never leaving Clark's. "This neighborhood operates on two levels—the official HOA rules and fines, and the unofficial network of favors and secrets. Margaret controls the first. I manage the second."

Before Clark could respond, a commotion drew their attention. Amara had wandered to the garden's edge, where the pinwheel still spun in lazy circles. Several neighborhood children—older, louder—had clustered nearby, their voices rising in that particular pitch that spelled trouble.

Clark moved without thinking, Mabel's dogs trotting alongside him as if sensing the shift in energy. As he crossed the lawn, something in Amara's posture triggered a memory he'd spent decades trying to suppress.

Smallville Elementary, third grade. Clark Kent standing alone at recess while other children played tag, their movements and laughter overwhelming his enhanced senses. The teacher asking if he was okay, her heartbeat revealing pity mixed with confusion. His inability to explain that the playground was too loud, too bright, too much—that he processed every sound, every color, every texture with equal intensity and couldn't filter any of it out.

His mother finding him afterwards in their barn, hiding in the loft where the hay muffled sound and the dimness eased his vision. "You're not broken, sweetheart," Martha had said, stroking his hair with infinite patience. "You just see the world more clearly than other people. That's a gift, even when it hurts."

Amara saw the world with different clarity—mathematical, precise, unfiltered by the social conventions that made most people's perceptions fuzzy and approximate. Not broken. Not wrong. Just different in ways the world wasn't built to accommodate.

He reached her just as one of the boys stepped closer, clearly intending to provoke a reaction. The child's cruelty was learned behavior, mimicking patterns he'd absorbed from adults who disguised their discomfort with difference as concern for "normalcy."

"Amara," Clark said gently, crouching to her level. "I was hoping you could show me how this works." He gestured to the pinwheel.

Her eyes met his—a flicker of gratitude buried beneath careful neutrality. The other children hesitated, confronted with an adult's presence and unsure how to proceed. One girl, maybe ten years old, looked almost relieved at the interruption, as if she'd been following the pack against her own instinct.

"It catches the wind," Amara said quietly, her voice precise and deliberate, each word chosen with care. "The colors blur together when it spins fast enough."

"Like mixing paint," Clark offered, settling cross-legged on the grass beside her. Butter and Honey immediately flopped down, their warm presence a buffer against the world's harsh edges.

"Not exactly." Amara's eyes lit with the particular intensity of someone granted permission to explain something she understood deeply. "The pinwheel creates the illusion of color blending through angular velocity. At sufficient rotational speed, persistence of vision causes the brain to average the wavelengths. Red and blue become purple, but they never actually mix—it's perceptual synthesis, not physical combination."

Clark felt his chest tighten with recognition. She was teaching him about physics, yes, but also about her own experience—how the world perceived blending where she saw distinct, separate elements moving too fast for others to distinguish.

"So the individual colors are still there," he said carefully, "just moving too fast to track separately?"

"Exactly." Amara's gaze sharpened, assessing whether he truly understood or was simply humoring her. "Most people think they blur together, become one thing. But that's imprecise. Each photon maintains its wavelength. The red light doesn't become less red. The blue light doesn't become less blue. It's the observer who changes, not the observed."

The metaphor landed like a physical blow—beautiful and devastating. The world wasn't different. People just processed it differently. Amara saw the individual photons, the discrete wavelengths, the mathematical precision. Most people saw purple and moved on, never questioning whether the purple was real or perceived.

"That's actually beautiful," Clark said, genuine wonder threading through his voice. "The world stays true to itself. We're the ones who make it fuzzy."

Amara met his eyes directly then, rare for her, searching his face with startling intensity. "Yes. Most people don't understand that. They think I'm the one who sees wrong. But I see exactly what's there. They see what their brains tell them is easier."

"I know," Clark said quietly, holding her gaze. "I see things other people don't too. It's lonely sometimes."

"Very lonely." Her voice dropped, vulnerable in a way that suggested she rarely allowed herself to be. "The stars don't judge, though. They just burn their wavelengths honestly."

"No," Clark agreed softly, looking up at the darkening sky where the first stars were beginning to emerge. "They don't."

The other children had dispersed during their conversation, sensing the moment had passed and uncertain how to navigate an adult who treated Amara as an equal rather than a problem to be managed or pitied. The girl who'd seemed reluctant to join the harassment cast one last look back—curious, maybe a little envious of the easy conversation Amara was having with this strange new neighbor.

Elsie appeared then, her approach cautious but grateful. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, quickly suppressed. "Thank you," she said to Clark, the words heavy with meaning beyond simple courtesy.

"She's remarkable," Clark said, and meant it with every fiber of his being. "That explanation of color theory and angular velocity—I genuinely learned something."

Amara's small smile suggested she knew he wasn't patronizing her, that he'd actually understood both the physics and the metaphor beneath it.

Elsie's hand trembled slightly as she touched her daughter's shoulder. "The neighborhood doesn't always see it that way."

"Their loss," Clark said simply, the words carrying weight of absolute conviction. He'd spent his life being seen as other, as too much or not enough, as something to be managed rather than understood. He recognized that particular exhaustion in Elsie's eyes—the toll of constantly advocating for your child's right to simply exist without modification.

Rebecca joined them, sliding her arm around Elsie's waist with practiced ease. "We saw what happened. What those kids were doing." Her voice carried quiet steel beneath the gratitude. "Thank you for seeing her. Really seeing her, not just looking past her or through her."

"Always," Clark said, and felt the word settle into something like a promise.

---

Bruce's POV

From his vantage point near the beverage table, Bruce watched the intricate dance of suburban politics unfold. Every conversation was a negotiation, every smile a weapon or shield.

Margaret Whitmore held court near the center of the yard, her energy crackling like live wire. The meth kept her sharp, but Bruce recognized the brittleness beneath—she was burning through her reserves, running on fumes and chemical enhancement. How long before the facade cracked completely?

Peter Maxton worked the crowd with politician's ease, his jokes landing with practiced timing. But Bruce caught the way Greta shadowed him, her purse clutched tight—the notebook inside containing god-knows-what leverage and ammunition. They were planning something, building toward some power play not yet revealed.

Franklin Tao's laughter echoed too loud across the yard, drawing uncomfortable glances from neighbors who'd learned to recognize the signs. Bruce's attention sharpened, cataloging the progression he'd been tracking for the past hour.

First drink, 7:15 PM: Social. Acceptable. Franklin nursing a beer while chatting with Peter Maxton about market fluctuations, his gestures still controlled, his smile genuine if slightly forced.

Third drink, 8:00 PM: Slurring. Mei's worried glances increasing in frequency as Franklin's volume rose, his stories becoming more animated, his personal space boundaries dissolving as he leaned too close to conversational partners who edged away with polite discomfort.

Fifth drink, 8:30 PM: Aggressive joviality masking desperation. Franklin cornering David Lang near the beverage table, talking too fast about cryptocurrency investments and opportunities that sounded increasingly manic, the bipolar episode brewing beneath alcohol like storm systems converging.

Sixth drink, 8:45 PM: The mask cracking.

"—and I'm telling you, David, the blockchain revolution is going to make us all rich if we're smart enough to see it coming—" Franklin swayed slightly, catching himself on the table with more force than necessary. Wine bottles rattled. Conversations nearby paused, then resumed with studied casualness.

Mei appeared at her husband's elbow, her smile bright and brittle as glass. "Franklin, honey, maybe we should—"

"I'm fine, Mei." The edge in his voice made her flinch. "Just having a conversation. Adult conversation. You know, the kind where people actually listen instead of—" He stopped, some fragment of awareness penetrating the chemical haze. "Sorry. I'm sorry. I just need to—I should take this call."

His phone hadn't rung. Bruce had been monitoring. The excuse was transparent, the lie obvious to anyone paying attention. Franklin lurched toward the driveway, his coordination compromised, his trajectory uncertain.

Mei's face revealed everything: exhaustion, humiliation, the crushing weight of managing a crisis everyone saw but no one acknowledged. Other women offered sympathetic looks but no help, their compassion stopping short of actual intervention. Margaret watched with predatory interest, cataloging weakness for future deployment.

"He's had a long week," Mei said to no one in particular, her voice steady despite the tremor in her hands. "Work stress. The pressure of the new account. He'll be fine."

The lies came easily, polished by years of repetition. But her eyes told different truth—she knew exactly where Franklin was going, knew he wasn't taking a call, knew he'd be sitting in their car three blocks down drinking from the bottle he kept hidden under the driver's seat.

She had a choice: follow him and create a public scene, or maintain the facade and deal with the aftermath privately. The neighborhood's unspoken rules demanded the latter. Mei chose public dignity, the cost of which would be paid later in arguments and apologies and the slow erosion of her will to continue this performance.

Clark stood fifteen feet away, his enhanced hearing tracking Franklin's stumbling path to his vehicle. Bruce watched Clark's fists clench and unclench, the physical manifestation of Superman's restraint—hearing a man's breakdown in real-time and being unable to intervene without exposing himself.

Franklin reached his car, collapsed into the driver's seat, and began to sob. The sounds were ugly, raw, the kind of crying that came from somewhere deep and broken. Between gasps, he pulled the bottle from its hiding place—whiskey, half empty, now being emptied further as Franklin tried to drown whatever demons he couldn't name, couldn't face, couldn't silence except through chemical annihilation.

Back at the party, Mei stood alone in the cluster of guests, performing normalcy while her husband disintegrated three blocks away. No one approached to offer genuine help. No one suggested calling a crisis line or an intervention specialist. The neighborhood had learned that perfect facades were more valuable than messy reality, that maintaining appearances mattered more than addressing the suffering those appearances concealed.

Mabel materialized beside Mei with practiced casualness, handing her a fresh glass of wine Mei wouldn't drink. "He's in the silver sedan," Mabel said quietly. "Third row, driver's side. He won't want you to follow."

Mei's composure cracked fractionally. "How did you—"

"Because I've watched this pattern before. With other families, other spirals." Mabel's voice carried the weariness of someone who'd been the neighborhood's unofficial crisis manager too long. "You can't save him tonight, Mei. You can only survive it."

"I don't know how much longer I can do this." The confession emerged in a whisper, vulnerability Mei couldn't quite suppress.

"Then we'll figure out what comes after surviving. But not tonight. Tonight you just breathe and get through it." Mabel's hand settled briefly on Mei's shoulder—solidarity rather than pity. "And when you're ready—when you decide you can't do this anymore—you call me. Day or night. I'll help."

Mei nodded, tears threatening but not falling, the performance holding by sheer force of will. Across the yard, Margaret's attention had already moved on, filing Mei's crisis away for future use but not intervening. The HOA president didn't deal in actual help, only in leverage.

Bruce added another entry to the mental case file he was building: Franklin Tao, bipolar and alcoholic, spiraling toward catastrophic breakdown. Mei Tao, trapped by cultural expectations and shame and love she couldn't quite kill despite everything. Intervention needed soon, resources required, the kind of help that would have to come from outside the neighborhood's toxic ecosystem.

Mabel had just added herself to the list of potential allies. Bruce filed that information away as well, calculating how to approach her without revealing too much, how to offer assistance without appearing to take over her carefully constructed support network.

Clark appeared at his side, tension radiating from every line of his body. "He's planning to drive home like that. Blood alcohol content above .15, motor control compromised. He'll kill himself or someone else."

"I know." Bruce pulled out his phone, typing rapidly. "Already called it in. Anonymous tip to local police about suspected DUI, license plate and location. They'll intercept before he gets the keys in the ignition."

"You were monitoring him the whole time."

"I monitor everyone the whole time. It's called pattern recognition." Bruce pocketed his phone. "Franklin gets picked up for DUI, Mei has justification for intervention, and maybe—maybe—this becomes the crisis that forces him into actual treatment instead of just more promises to quit."

Clark's expression was complicated—gratitude mixed with frustration at the necessity, relief mixed with guilt at the violation of Franklin's privacy. "Sometimes I hate how much like Batman you still are, even here."

"Would you rather I let him drive drunk?"

"No. I just wish the choices weren't always between bad and worse."

"Welcome to suburban heroism," Bruce said quietly. "Where every intervention has consequences, every solution creates new problems, and the best we can manage is minimizing damage while preparing for the next crisis."

They stood together watching Franklin's car, waiting for the police cruiser Bruce knew was already en route. When it had come and gone, they looked at each other, and returned to the party.

Around them, the party continued its performance of normalcy, guests laughing and drinking and pretending they didn't see the fractures spreading through their carefully constructed community.

The party's noise level rose as alcohol loosened inhibitions and lowered voices into confessional territory. Clark excused himself from Elsie and Rebecca, scanning the crowd for Bruce while his enhanced hearing automatically cataloged conversations happening across the yard.

He found the Aguelis family instead—or rather, Julian found him.

"Clark Kent, right?" Julian's voice boomed with practiced joviality, the kind of aggressive friendliness that demanded reciprocation. His hand extended, grip firm enough to border on challenging. "Julian Aguelis. This is my wife, Marianne."

Marianne's smile was porcelain-perfect and just as fragile. "Lovely to meet you." Her handshake was gentle, brief, her hand withdrawing the moment politeness allowed.

Clark's x-ray vision activated involuntarily, a reflex triggered by the wrongness radiating from Marianne's carefully controlled posture. Beneath her lavender blouse: bruises. Fresh ones, less than forty-eight hours old, concentrated on her upper arms where Julian's grip had compressed soft tissue against bone. Older bruises in various stages of healing created a timeline of violence—yellowing marks on her ribs, a greenish shadow along her collarbone, the fading evidence of systematic abuse.

"Beautiful party," Clark managed, forcing his attention back to Julian's face while his mind cataloged injuries and his hands clenched with the effort of not reacting.

"Margaret knows how to throw them." Julian's hand settled on Marianne's elbow—casual to observers, controlling to anyone watching closely. His fingers pressed against the bruises Clark had just seen, making Marianne's breath catch almost imperceptibly. "My wife here was just saying we should host the next one. Weren't you, darling?"

"I—yes. If you think it's a good idea." Marianne's voice carried the particular cadence of someone who'd learned to agree with whatever narrative was being constructed.

"Of course it's a good idea. You're brilliant at entertaining when you put effort in." Julian's smile never wavered, but his grip tightened fractionally. "Though she can be scattered—brilliant with children but can't remember a simple grocery list. I send her for milk, she comes back with everything except milk!"

The nearby guests laughed politely. Clark's enhanced hearing caught the variations in their responses—some genuine amusement, some performative courtesy, a few uncomfortable acknowledgments of dynamics they'd rather not examine.

"I'm terrible at lists," Marianne said, the script clearly familiar. "Julian's much better at organization."

"Someone has to be, or we'd starve!" Julian squeezed her elbow harder, the pressure making Marianne's knees lock to stay upright. "Right, darling?"

"Right." The word emerged slightly breathless, her heartbeat spiking to 130 beats per minute, shallow breathing indicating pain she was desperately concealing.

Clark's vision hazed red at the edges. Across the yard, Bruce's head turned sharply—he'd caught the change in Clark's posture, the tension radiating from him.

"He's hurting her," Clark said, his voice barely audible even to normal hearing. "Right now. In front of everyone. And they're all pretending not to notice."

Bruce materialized at his elbow with silent precision, his hand finding the small of Clark's back with grounding pressure. "I know," he murmured. "But if we intervene without her consent, without her asking for help, we make it worse. We take away her agency along with her safety."

"So we just watch?" The words tasted like ash.

"We watch, we document, and we prepare." Bruce's voice carried Batman's cold calculation beneath civilian inflection. "We make sure when she's ready to leave—and she will be, because women like Marianne eventually reach breaking points—she has somewhere safe to go and resources to stay gone."

A neighbor approached with fresh drinks, and Julian's hand released Marianne's elbow to accept a glass. She swayed slightly, blood flow returning to compressed tissue, pain registering as relief. Her free hand moved unconsciously to rub the bruises, then stopped as she caught herself, training overriding instinct.

Clark watched her face—the micro-calculations happening in real-time, the survival mathematics of an abuse victim determining whether to excuse herself to the bathroom, stay and endure, or risk contradicting Julian in public. She chose endurance, settling into stillness beside her husband like a prisoner accepting shackles.

"Marianne," Julian said, his voice dropping just enough that most guests wouldn't hear but Clark caught every syllable. "Stop fidgeting. People are watching."

"Sorry." The automatic apology, the shrinking of her frame, the trained response to implied threat.

Clark's hands trembled with restraint. He could end this in seconds—pull Julian aside, use just enough pressure to make the threat clear, make the abuse stop through intimidation or force. But Bruce was right: that would be Superman solving the problem, not saving the person. Marianne needed agency, not rescue. She needed a path out she'd chosen, not one forced upon her.

"There you are," Mabel said, appearing with the timing of someone who'd been monitoring situations and intervening strategically. She carried a bottle of wine and wore an expression of bright helpfulness. "Julian, I've been meaning to ask about your nonprofit's annual report. The board structure you described sounds fascinating."

She'd given Julian something to pontificate about—his ego and expertise—and he took the bait immediately, turning away from Marianne to engage with Mabel's questions. In that moment of distraction, Mabel's other hand touched Marianne's arm gently, just above the bruises.

"Would you help me bring out more appetizers?" Mabel asked, her voice casual but her eyes communicating volumes. "I made far too much and can't carry it all."

Marianne's relief was visible only to someone watching closely—the slight loosening of her shoulders, the deeper breath, the gratitude that flashed across her face before the mask reasserted itself. "Of course."

They disappeared toward the house, leaving Julian holding court about governance structures and fiscal responsibility, completely unaware he'd been outmaneuvered. Or perhaps aware but unable to protest without revealing the control he preferred to maintain invisibly.

Bruce's hand remained steady on Clark's back. "She's done this before," he observed quietly. "Mabel. She's had practice extracting women from dangerous conversations."

"The shadow network," Clark said, understanding crystallizing. "This is what she meant. Not just financial help or legal advice—active intervention in real-time."

"A different kind of heroism." Bruce's voice carried something like respect. "Smaller scale, no less important. Maybe more difficult because it requires patience we've never mastered."

Clark watched Mabel through the kitchen window, watching her create space for Marianne to breathe, to exist for five minutes without Julian's grip on her autonomy. The exhaustion in Mabel's posture suggested she'd been doing this for years—being the safe harbor, the strategic distraction, the woman with resources and willingness to deploy them for neighbors who couldn't save themselves.

"We need to help her," Clark said. "Not just Marianne—Mabel. She's carrying too much alone."

"Agreed." Bruce's detective's mind was already working. "But carefully. Mabel's built her network through trust and discretion. If we come in like the cavalry, we destroy what she's created."

"Then we learn her methods. We become part of her network instead of running parallel to it."

"Since when do you advocate for patience and strategy over immediate intervention?"

Clark's smile was bitter. "Since I watched a man publicly brutalize his wife while a dozen people pretended not to notice. Since I realized that sometimes the most powerful thing I can do is nothing except prepare for the moment when action becomes possible."

It was the hardest lesson heroism had ever taught him—that not every crisis could be resolved with speed and strength, that some rescues required waiting for the victim to be ready for saving.

---

Inside their house—finally, blessedly inside and away from watching eyes—Clark collapsed onto the couch with a groan that was half relief, half delayed panic.

"We did it," he said to the ceiling. "Three years of hiding, one night of exposure. I think I'd rather fight Darkseid again."

Bruce settled beside him, closer than propriety would allow in public, their knees touching. "You were perfect. The salad was a hit. Amara liked you. Mabel has already decided we're allies. Margaret is suspicious but hasn't figured out what to be suspicious of yet."

"She will." Clark turned his head to meet Bruce's eyes. "They all will. I heard everything tonight, Bruce. Every secret, every lie, every hidden pain. Lana's cancer. Mark's affair. Julian's violence. Marianne's terror. Franklin's breakdown waiting to happen. Mei's trapped desperation."

"I know."

"We can't save them all."

"I know that too." Bruce's hand found Clark's. "But we can't hide anymore either. That was the point of tonight. Three years was long enough."

Clark was quiet for a moment, processing the weight of integration after isolation. "Do you think they bought it? The boring consultants who just needed time to adjust?"

"Some did. Some didn't. Margaret definitely didn't." Bruce's smile was slight but genuine. "But that's tomorrow's problem. Tonight, we survived our coming out party—and I don't just mean the gay thing."

Clark laughed, surprised by the sound. "No, the being-human thing is definitely harder."

"Always has been." Bruce squeezed his hand once. "For both of us."

Outside, Blissful Meadows settled into its nightly rhythm—secrets tucked away behind locked doors, perfect facades restored for another day. But in seven houses, the topic of conversation was undoubtedly the same: the mystery men who'd finally emerged, bringing color and questions in equal measure.

Clark listened to the whispers carrying on the night air—speculation, curiosity, some approval, some suspicion—and felt the weight of those three years of isolation finally lifting.

They were part of the neighborhood now.

For better or worse.