Death was silent.
Then came sunlight.
Not warmth — power.
Bruce Kent opened his eyes to a sky that was wrong. The color was familiar, but the feeling wasn't. The sun burned deeper than it should have, sinking into muscle, bone, and something far more fundamental.
He inhaled.
The air shattered in his lungs.
His heart thundered like a war drum.
He sat up too fast.
The ground cracked.
"…That's not normal," he said.
His voice was calm. Controlled. Batman's voice.
He looked down at his hands — gloved. Black and white. Thick with power. Veins glowing faintly beneath skin that shouldn't exist.
His chest bore a symbol that made his mind stall.
Not the S.
Not the Bat.
Both.
Memory slammed into him all at once — not childhood, not parents, but knowledge. DC timelines. Marvel timelines. Deaths that hadn't happened yet.
New York.
A man in a cave.
A hammer in the desert.
Aliens falling from the sky.
Bruce Kent stood slowly, fists tightening as green lightning cracked against his skin.
"I'm not in my universe," he said.
His eyes lifted.
His vision pierced clouds, buildings, continents.
And somewhere far away, a bald man in a flying fortress felt a chill crawl down his spine.
"…Good," Bruce said. "That means I can do this right."
Green lightning wasn't random.
Bruce felt it before he understood it — not pain, not energy, but intent. The crackling emerald arcs around his arms weren't attacking him. They were responding.
His right hand twitched.
Something solid formed around his finger.
A ring.
Smooth. Featureless. Green.
Bruce froze.
"No," he said quietly.
The ring pulsed once, like a heartbeat answering another.
You have the ability to overcome great fear. Welcome to the Green Lantern Corps.
The voice wasn't sound. It was certainty.
Bruce exhaled slowly, forcing his racing thoughts into order.
DC rules. Lantern rules.
Willpower constructs. No magic. Emotional spectrum. Oa. Guardians. Sector assignments.
But—
"I'm not in DC," he muttered.
The ring didn't disagree.
Bruce clenched his fist.
The air in front of him bent, light folding into shape — a simple wall, translucent green. It felt effortless. Not imagination, but decision made manifest.
Batman's mind catalogued it instantly.
Lantern energy responds faster than Kryptonian reflexes
No incantations → safe from magical backlash
Constructs bypass conventional physics
Dangerous.
Useful.
He dismissed the construct with a thought. The green energy faded, leaving faint sparks drifting into nothing.
His eyes narrowed.
"If you're here," he said to the ring, "then either the Corps exists in this universe… or I broke reality badly enough to bring you with me."
Neither option was comforting.
Bruce lifted into the air slowly, carefully, testing limits. Flight felt natural — solar energy humming under his skin — but the ring reinforced it, smoothing turbulence, correcting micro-errors before his body even registered them.
Redundant systems.
He liked that.
He rose above the cloud layer and looked down.
New York City.
2003 New York.
He recognized the skyline instantly — missing pieces that shouldn't exist yet. No Stark Tower. No Avengers Compound. SHIELD facilities hidden, but present.
He focused.
Super-hearing filtered the city into layers — traffic, conversations, heartbeats. He refined it, isolating anomalies.
Encrypted transmissions.
Subsonic frequencies.
A flying fortress masked by holograms.
"Helicarrier," Bruce said.
So SHIELD was active.
Good.
That meant HYDRA was too.
His jaw tightened.
Five years.
Five years before Tony Stark would be kidnapped.
Before Banner would run.
Before Thor would fall.
Before New York burned.
Bruce's eyes glowed faint red — then dimmed.
"No capes. No speeches," he said to himself.
"Not yet."
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