The Kent farm was quiet when they returned.
Martha had hot chocolate waiting on the stove, the way she always did when Clark came home late. Jonathan sat at the kitchen table with a newspaper he wasn't reading, his eyes lifting the moment the door opened. Clark walked in first, Aaron behind him, both of them carrying the cold of the Arctic in their clothes and the weight of something heavier in their silence.
"Ma. Pa."
Martha took one look at her son's face and knew. A mother's instinct. She didn't ask questions. She just poured the chocolate and set the mugs on the table and waited.
Jonathan was less patient. "Where were you two?"
"North," Clark said. He sat down. Wrapped his hands around the mug. Stared into the steam. "We found something. A ship. From Krypton."
The word hung in the kitchen like a bell that had stopped ringing. Krypton. Jonathan had spent fifteen years dreading that word, and now here it was, spoken by his son in the same kitchen where he'd taught him to read and write and hide what he was.
"What kind of ship?" Jonathan asked, his voice steady in a way that took effort.
"A scout ship. It was buried in the Arctic. There were people trying to take it. We got there first." Clark paused. He didn't mention Jor-El. He didn't mention the hologram, the Codex, the Fortress now buried under Antarctic ice. Whether he was protecting his parents from the weight of it or protecting himself from having to explain it, even Clark wasn't sure. "It's safe now. Hidden."
Martha put her hand on Clark's shoulder. "You're home now. That's what matters."
Clark nodded. But his eyes were somewhere else entirely.
The two boys left the Kent farm just before dawn. The sky was gray and cold over Smallville, the kind of cold that settled into your bones and stayed there.
Aaron walked home alone, his footsteps crunching on the frozen dirt road, his breath misting in the air.
When he reached the Gill estate, the lights were already on. His mother was in the greenhouse, her plant spirit glowing faint blue among the rows of experimental crops. His father was in the pond, swimming slow laps, the whale calf drifting beside him like a ghost.
" Aaron, look at the time? " "
" Dad, actually we found the alien ship in antartica "
" Are you joking " but Aryan looked at Aaron , then stopped
" What? Did you really go to antartica, it would take month from here "
" How did you go there !! "
He was narrating what really happened there, suddenly The phone rang at seven in the morning.
Aaron picked it up in the kitchen, still wearing his cold clothes, still tasting the Arctic on his lips.
"Is this the Gill residence?"
The voice was British. Formal. Older. But there was a crack in it, a fracture that no amount of training could hide.
"Yes."
"I am speaking from Wayne Manor. My name is Alfred Pennyworth. I am the Wayne family butler." A pause. A breath. When the voice came back, it was steady again, but only just. "Master Bruce's parents were shot last night. By robbers. In the city. They did not survive."
Aaron said nothing. The words landed like stones dropped into still water.
"Master Bruce is... he has shut himself in his room. He has not spoken. He has not eaten. I know this is a difficult request, and I would not make it if I had any other option, but Master Bruce needs a friend. He has spoken of you often. Please. Can you come to Wayne Manor for a visit?"
Aaron looked out the window. The Kansas fields stretched empty and gold under the gray sky. Somewhere out there, Clark was probably sitting at his own kitchen table, trying to explain the unexplainable to parents who had spent fifteen years hiding him from the world. And now Bruce, a thousand miles away, was sitting alone in a dark room with the knowledge that the people who loved him most were gone forever.
"Yes," Aaron said. "I will come."
"Thank you, Master Aaron. I will make the arrangements."
The line went dead.
Aaron stood in the kitchen for a long moment. Then he went to find his parents.
Ashley took the news the way she took all hard things: with a straight back and a steady voice. "We'll go with you. Bruce is your friend. Friends show up."
Aryan was already reaching for his coat. "I'll call the airport. We can be in Gotham by tonight."..
....
....
....
Across the Atlantic, in a secure headquarters that didn't officially exist, Amanda Waller was not having a good morning.
She stood at the head of a long steel table, her hands flat on the cold metal, her eyes sweeping across the faces of the people she had hired and trusted and paid enormous sums of money to. Commander Rick sat to her left, his jaw tight. Bronze Tiger stood near the door, silent as always, his arms crossed over his chest.
"The ship," Waller said, her voice low and controlled in a way that was far more terrifying than shouting, "is gone."
No one spoke.
"A Kryptonian scout vessel. Dormant. Intact. Worth more than the GDP of several small nations. And it vanished. From under your surveillance. From under your security. From under your command." Her eyes settled on Rick. "Who is responsible?"
Rick didn't flinch. "We're still analyzing the footage, ma'am."
"Then analyze faster."
Bronze Tiger stepped forward. "We captured two shapes on one of the external cameras. Shadows. Moving across the deck. Unauthorized. They appeared and disappeared in a dead zone behind the crane. By the time the ship lifted, they were gone."
"Two shadows," Waller repeated. Her voice was flat. Deadly. "Two shadows infiltrated my operation, activated an alien vessel that's been dormant for five thousand years, flew it into space, and then made it invisible. Two shadows."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Find them. I don't care what it costs. I don't care how long it takes. Find me those two shadows at all cost."
Bronze Tiger nodded once. He had been a killer, a mercenary, a man who had done things that would make hardened soldiers sick. But Amanda Waller was something else entirely. She was the kind of person who didn't need powers to be dangerous. She just needed a goal.
And now her goal was Aaron and Clark, even if she didn't know their names yet.
The flight to Gotham was four hours. Aaron spent it staring out the window, watching the flat squares of farmland give way to the gray sprawl of the East Coast. His mother sat beside him, reading. His father was across the aisle, reviewing pharmaceutical reports. Normal things. Ordinary things. The world outside the window was still turning.
But somewhere in Gotham, Bruce Wayne was sitting in a dark room, and the world had stopped turning for him.
Aaron had seen death before. He had caused it. He had felt it. In his past life, he had watched his clan fall, his masters die, his own body pierced by arrows on a battlefield that stretched to the horizon. He knew what it meant to lose everything.
The plane touched down in Gotham as the sun was setting.
The city rose up around them, all steel and shadow, a place that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. A black car was waiting at the private terminal. Alfred had arranged everything.
The car took them through streets that grew darker and narrower until they reached the gates of Wayne Manor.
The mansion loomed at the end of a long drive, its windows dark except for a single light on the second floor. Bruce's room.
Alfred met them at the door. He was older than Aaron expected, his hair thin and gray, his face lined with years of service and, tonight, with grief. But his posture was perfect. His voice was steady. He was holding himself together because someone had to.
"Master Aaron. Thank you for coming."
"How is he?"
Alfred hesitated. The pause said more than any words could. "He is alive. For now, that is all I can say."
Aaron looked up at the single lit window.
"I'll go up."
The stairs were long and dark. The hallway smelled of old wood and polish and silence. Aaron stopped outside the door. He didn't knock. He just opened it.
Bruce was sitting on the floor with his back against the bed, still wearing the clothes from the night before. There was blood on his collar. Not his own. His eyes were open but not seeing. His hands were limp in his lap.
Aaron closed the door. Sat down on the floor across from him.
For a long time, neither of them spoke.
Then Aaron said, "I'm here."
And Bruce, who had not cried all night, who had not spoken a single word since the gunshots echoed through that alley, let out a sound that was barely human. A sob that had been waiting for someone safe enough to hear it.
Aaron didn't move. He just stayed. Sometimes that was all you could do.
Downstairs, Ashley and Aryan sat with Alfred in the great hall. The portraits of Thomas and Martha Wayne looked down at them from the walls. Smiling. Alive. Forever frozen in a moment that would never come again.
"How long will you stay?" Alfred asked.
"As long as he needs," Ashley said.