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

The cold desert air woke Bruce up like a bucket of ice water in a hot shower. Where was he? What happened? He tried to focus, to think on the last thing he had done. He remembered walking up to the Big Belly Burger… and then… he focused… and… nothing. For Bruce, one moment he was happily walking through the parking lot behind the Big Belly Burger, the next he woke up on the side of a large hill looking over a city.

Was that Indian Springs? It was. He could even see his apartment building from this vantage. “How the hell…” It was then he noticed his clothes were shredded, he was barely wearing anything at all. He started shivering as he made his way down the mountainside, but by the time he arrived at his home he had worked up a sweat. The pocket containing his wallet and keys had miraculously remained intact, his phone was nowhere to be found. He was still trying to remember what had happened as he opened the door, only to have his thoughts disturbed by Betty rushing to hug him.

“BRUCE! Oh, my God!” After a long, intense hug, she pulled back and only then seemed to realize he was dressed in rags. “What happened to you? Where have you been?”

“I don’t know and I don’t know,” he said, “in that order.” He partially stunned at finding Betty here, but mostly he was stunned that she was so concerned instead of upset about being stood up. “Can I come in? It’s a bit cold out here.”

Betty half-led, half-dragged Bruce into his apartment as she continued to fuss over him. He grabbed the blanket off the back of his sofa then sat down, Betty snuggled up to him and gripped him tightly as she rested her head on his shoulder.

“Bruce, I was so scared! So much happened and I didn’t know where you were-“

Bruce looked over at her as she looked up at him. He now realized she had been crying. “Betty, what happened?”

“I was waiting for you when Hal walked in-“

“Hal Jordan?” Bruce felt a tiny, muted stirring of that now-familiar jealous rage. He turned his head as he rested it against the back of the sofa. These negative feelings had been growing for months but he realized now that this was the first time he had felt them since waking up on the mountainside. It was almost non-existent, like it was too tired for anything to matter. He closed his eyes as he thought on this. Betty laid her head back on his shoulder.

“Yeah, he showed up while I was waiting on you. We were catching up and he talked about how he has some secret new job and how it’s changed him. He wouldn’t say what it was but that it’s made him appreciate things more. He was telling me how he felt guilty about your coma and he wanted to apologize to you.”

Bruce perked up at that and looked down at Betty again. “Really?” He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting her to say about their meeting, but it certainly wasn’t that.

“Yeah, but then that monster showed up and you…”

“Wait. ‘Monster’? What monster?”

Now it was Betty’s turn to perk up as she looked at him again. Confusion warred with a tinge of disbelief on Betty’s face. “How could you not know about it? It was huge, and green, it crashed through the back wall of the Big Belly Burger like it was nothing. When I couldn’t find you I thought it had gotten you on your way over,…” she trailed off. “And then you show up here hours later with your clothes looking like you fought off a pack of wolves… Bruce, what happened to you?”

Bruce was still trying to process that Betty was literally talking about some sort of large, green monster destroying a building in Indian Springs. The only thing stopping him from making a Godzilla joke was that Betty was still visibly shaken by the ordeal.

“I… I don’t know. One minute I was walking through the lot behind the Big Belly Burger on my way to meet you, the next moment I was waking up on the side of the big hills just south of town with my clothes in shreds.”

“Nothing else?”

Bruce shook his head, “not a thing. I spent the entire walk back trying to remember… anything extra. So far, though… nothing.” They sat in silence for a moment, Bruce laid his head back on the sofa and Betty laid her head back on his shoulder.

“Hal had just gone to the bathroom when the thing came through the wall. Bruce, I was so scared. It came through the wall then started walking toward me, then that new Green Lantern guy showed up and hauled it away.”

“Green Lantern Guy?”

Betty patted Bruce on his chest in a loving manner. “You need to pay more attention to the news, love. Las Vegas has its own superhero now, they call him ‘Green Lantern’. Kind of like that guy from World War Two. He showed up, dragged the monster outside, they fought out there for a little bit, then… went somewhere else. Once I realized they were gone I ran outside to look for you but I couldn’t find you. I was scared and relieved at the same time. And then I thought about Hal, but he was gone too.”

“Gone?”

“I got a call from him an hour or so before you showed up. He said he had been hit in the head by one of the bricks from the wall when that thing came through. He said he wandered around in a daze for a while before he was able to ‘pull it together’, but was blocks away by then. When he got back to the restaurant, the police and fire department were there and not letting anyone in. He tried to call Carol but realized he dropped his phone somewhere along the way. He went back and forth over where he had been until he finally found it. He called her, then me. He’s a little banged up, but alive.”

Bruce blew out a breath. “Sounds like everyone had a big night.”

Betty playfully smacked his chest. “Not funny, I was really scared.”

“I know,” he hugged her tightly as he kissed the top of her head, “but it’s over now and everybody’s okay.”