re: Bard's Poor Attempt at a Combined Marvel/DC Universe (an ongoing project)

“Bruce!?! BRUCE???”

That voice… it wasn’t his mother’s but it felt familiar and almost as important to him.

“Oh, Bruce… it’s Betty, please wake up for me.” The voice pulled him from the darkness, the world began to brighten.

“Betty,” he asked groggily as he opened his eyes.

She was hugging him now, and crying. It reminded him of… what? He felt like he should know, like it was something just outside the grasp of his understanding. So close yet… what was he thinking about again?

“I didn’t think you would ever wake up,” she was saying as she kissed his cheek repeatedly.

His memory started rushing back to him. The man in the desert, the jeep, the bomb, the woman… He gently pushed her back from him. “I thought we had something going, Betty.”

Betty looked like she had been slapped, shock, confusion and fresh pain warring for control of her expression.

“Who was he, Betty? The man in the desert.”

Betty stared at him dumbfounded for a moment, the previous emotions fighting for supremacy making way for… relief?
“That man in the desert was Hal Jordan, he was a pilot at the base. He worked under my father for years, going all the way back to when we still lived on Edwards.”

Bruce didn’t want to ask the next questions, but the unfamiliar vein of jealousy he was feeling was growing and wouldn’t be denied. “How did you two meet?”

Betty looked confused but answered anyway. “I’ve known Hal for years. Dad took him under his wing years ago and when he got the promotion to Groom Lake, he made sure he brought Hal and a few others with him. Hal was the one to suggest we move to Indian Springs when dad started having problems with that Waller woman at Edwards. He really liked the area and dad respected his opinion so he up and moved here while I was off at college. Why are you asking about him?”

Bruce looked away, he was struggling to keep his rage in check. “Just before the bomb went off, I saw you. You were there, with him.”

Betty’s jaw moved a couple of times and she blinked, but she made no sound. Finally, she managed to squeak out an incredulous, “What??” Bruce’s anger was building, it was like nothing he had ever experienced before. His pulse was racing, his breathing was starting to become labored, he felt like he could possibly explode if this went on too long. He had always been able to push down his negative emotions before but something about this time was different. He was losing control and it scared him.

“Bruce?” Betty had noticed the stress this was causing him. “Bruce! That wasn’t me out there-“

Bruce’s anger abated slightly, he wanted to believe her. “But I saw you,” he whispered while still looking away from her.

“Oh, Bruce… that wasn’t me, that was a woman named Carol Ferris. Hal ran into her at the Oasis that night then took her out to the desert to look at the stars.”

He looked at her now, hope warring with jealousy.

She took his hand. “Bruce, there hasn’t been anyone else I’ve been interested in since you and your pickle,” that had become a running joke between the two of them, “I’ve been here with you almost every day since the accident.”

He warred within himself briefly. He wanted, no he needed, to believe her yet the anger being fueled by this new and unreasoning jealousy was so strong. It was almost tangible, like it was trying to take on a life of its own. She took his hand and kissed it and it was like the rage simply turned off. The relief he felt from those negative emotions leaving him almost drained him. He barely heard Betty when she continued.

“Bruce… there’s more.” She paused, then continued, “You’ve been in a coma for a year.”

That took a moment to register. “A… year?” He wasn’t sure what muscle atrophy felt like, but he didn’t feel like he was suffering from any muscular issue. “Wait…” something finally occurred to him, “you’ve been speaking about that pilot and the woman in the past tense…” He left the question unasked, afraid of the answer.

Betty smiled as she breathed a sigh of relief. “They’re fine, both of them. They both made it over the edge of the protective berm before the bomb went off. It seems Hal’s time to re-up was coming soon and he was on the fence on whether he wanted to stay in the Air Force or look for a new challenge. Carol the VP of her father’s aircraft company was looking for a test pilot for some new plane designs they have been working on, they’re hoping the new designs will lead to a bigger DoD contract. She was wondering if she could tempt him away from the Air Force by offering him a job when you showed up. After what happened with the gamma bomb, dad and Hal decided it would be best for Hal to take his Honorable Discharge then take Carol up on her job offer. They’ve been a couple ever since.”

Bruce quietly let go of a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. He had done it, he had saved them and Betty hadn’t left him for someone else. With those concerns out of the way, another came to him. “What happened to me? Am I okay?”

Betty’s smile warmed. “You’ve been in a coma for a year but other than that no doctor has been able to find anything wrong with you. They said you were hit with a lot of gamma radiation but it didn’t do any damage to you and not even your clothes were radioactive when they brought you in.”