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Chapter Text

LUTHOR ASSASSINATED

President Ross Sworn In

By Lois Lane-Kent

Washington, DC.

The nation is still reeling from the shocking death of President Luthor, taking place only days after his inauguration. During a minor press junket event covering Luthor’s transition into the White House, eyewitnesses (including myself) and video footage captured an explosion of golden needles from what was previously thought to be a perfectly harmless American flag lapel pin over the President’s heart. These needles rapidly expanded in size and pierced President Luthor at no less than 144 points through his torso at varying angles, reportedly ‘shredding’ his heart and lungs, and shattering and severing his spine. President Luthor remarkably stayed conscious as he was rushed to the White House Medical Unit.

For 7 hours following the initial discharge of the weaponized lapel pin, an unconscious Luthor was kept in a state of artificial circulation and respiration as surgeons rushed to attempt to replace his organs, until it was found that microscopic golden needles were, for lack of a better word, rapidly metastasizing through his body from the initial impalement points. Paramedics described their attempts at organ and tissue replacement as, “Quickly attacked and countered.” At 9:41 PM, EST, EEG signals fell silent and President Luthor underwent critical failure of his LexTech artificial respiration and circulation units, and was declared dead. Several hours after the initial news spread through social media, Themysciran diplomats stepped forward and identified the material in the lapel pin as “God Killer Metal,” which may explain the pin’s ability to counteract Luthor’s multiple LexTech cybercellular enhancements, according to the earliest autopsy reports. The Themysciran Embassy is being fully compliant with President Ross’s newly formed Commission on the Assassination of President Luthor (referred to by insiders as ‘the Waller Commission’), as investigations continue. The Justice League has not yet issued an official statement on the

Continued in ‘Luthor,’ page A7.

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Lois Lane

@PlanetLo

All right I hate using this platform for anything other than prommoting my or my husband’s articles but I’m sick of the pseculation and the sick jokes. So here.

No, I’m not popping bottles over President Luthor’s death, so stop saying it: A thread.

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Yes, when Luthor won the election, I said it set a disturbing precedent that with anough money, anyone could more or less rewrite their entire narative and push a prosperity gospel to people turned desperate and spiteful in a world that was changing faster than they could deal with. I stand by those words.

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At no point did I ever think Luthor was the right choice for America in any capacity, but I also knew pouting and trying to make #NotMyPresident trend wouldn’t actually do anything, wouldn’t convince the voters who Luthor bought, or bought in to Luthor’s promises.

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I realized I had to see Luthor’s election as a reflection of much deeper, more large-scale problems in American culture, as well as a testement to Luthor’s own intelligence and capabilities.

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Also I was *breastfeeding* the night the final votes were being talllied—do you have any idea how hard it is to NOT DRINK when you’re watching a sociopath buy your country? Sorry, I’m getting sidetracked.

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But no, for all my criticisms of Luthor as both businessman and politician, I am not celebrating his death. For one, it’s in such exceedingly poor taste it would make my mother spin in her grave and also having a Pulitzer *probably* means I should hold myself to a higher standard of conduct than is encoaraged by this social media platform.

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For two, regardless of your politics or your personal experience with the man, the violent death of a president is almost always traumatizing on a national level—perhaps this death even more so, because Luthor seemed untouchable WELL before he started running for the presidency. If the most powerful with the most resources among us isn’t safe, what does that say about the rest of us?

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And thirdly, President Luthor dying suddenly and violently means he won’t actually face accountability for all the harm he’s done over the years. Despite all my articles on our broken justice system that Luthor has repeatedly outmanuvered, I have to hold out some hope that there are people in our institutions that are willing to do the right thing.

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My friend and coleague, James Olsen, once told me that Luthor told him that he didn’t want to kill his enemies, because he would rather see the look on their face as they realized they were completely and utterly defeated, and as much as that pains me to admit it, that’s a sentiment I can relate to.

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But now Luthor is dead. And we’ll never know what that looks like. All we can do is try to keep a cap on speculation and misinformation as more facts about his assassination emerge. I won’t stop anyone else from popping their respective bottles, god knows plenty of people have a right to, but you’re also distinctley less inclined to celebrate a death when you see it happen.

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Hug your loved ones, take a breath. I don’t know what’s going to happen next. /end thread.

Lois massaged her temples and leaned back in her chair away from her laptop. She knew she should probably be sleeping right now. Better to get a few winks in while Jon was down in case he got fussy later, but at the same time she couldn’t sleep. She grimaced at her laptop and the long rant she had typed out on her Blabbler feed, her cursor still hovering over the ‘post’ button.

“You might want to… wait a little bit before you post that,” a steady, deep, and warm voice spoke up behind her and she glanced over her shoulder to see Clark standing there in his slightly rumpled Kansas clothes, plaid flannel with the sleeves pushed up, white tee, and jeans.

“I know. I won’t,” she said, shifting in her swivel chair with a bit of mindless coyness, “As soon as I typed the word ‘breastfeeding’ I knew everything’s still too raw.”

“Also the typos,” Clark tried to inject a little lightness into his voice but it quickly fell flat.

“And the typos,” Lois muttered, slumping in her chair and wearily rubbing a finger over her eyebrow.

A beat of silence passed between them before she pushed up from her swivel chair so fast it clacked against her desk and she wrapped her arms around him. As soon as she hugged him, that betrayed where he had really been—she breathed in the distinct smoky-ozone smell of atmospheric re-entry. He slumped into her, sinking into the relief of feeling her body against his after three weeks apart. He really hadn’t meant to spend as much time on New Genesis as he had, it was just supposed to be a short ambassadorial trip, but then the Forever People were arguing with Highfather about bringing in some Daxamite political exiles who were attacked by an Apokoliptian patrol in their flight there, and Metron wanted to trace the linguistic and cultural division between Kryptonians and Daxamites and it became this whole thing, and thankfully Orion and Mister Miracle were able to defuse the situation, sort of, but then there was some kind of Lantern blockade on boom tubes so he was only able to beam two thirds of the way back home and now here he was.

“When did you first hear?” Lois looked up at him, and she already knew the answer by how tired he looked.

“Picked it up from the satellites as I was passing Mars,” said Clark, smoothing a hand over her hair before pressing his face into it, slowly breathing in her scent.

“…you need to catch him,” said Lois. Her voice was distant.

“I know,” said Clark.

“As in now,” Lois looked up at him sharply. He could feel from the tension of her in his arms that she had been stoically muscling through the shock and upheaval of everything, holding back her own reactions to a volatile and rapidly destabilizing world. “There’s… there’s already all this speculation. How convenient it was that you were off-planet. How the League has all this power, all these resources at its disposal but it still… ”

“I’m sure,” Clark’s voice was distant, “But no one knows I’m back on earth yet—”

“Except J’onn. And Kara. And probably Bruce.”

“Definitely Bruce,” Clark looked already exhausted by that impending conversation, “But… I thought I should touch base with you. You saw it happen. Are you okay?”

“There was a panic, I got bumped around a little bit by the crowd, but I’m fine. Secretary Pierce got things under control before anyone got hurt,” said Lois.

“Good,” Clark said, solemnly. Another pause passed between them.

“I’m—I’m not going to ask if you knew, or if you somehow— I know you’d never allow—you’d…” a short breathy sound that was between a chuckle and a gasp rippled out of her. There was that tension again, the fact that she was torn between the years they had known and loved each other, her desire to be a home to him, and the fact that she couldn’t ignore what she didn’t know about the situation, her own drive for truth.

Clark ran a thumb along her jawline, supporting her chin before kissing her forehead. “You can ask. And I can tell you no,” his eyes met hers, “I can tell you I’ve definitely thought about it though,” his lips thinned, “When you were pregnant with Jon I… I would stay up just staring at the ceiling, thinking about how we were bringing another person into the world, someone that he would inevitably target. I would think ‘I have to stop him before he hurts us, before he hurts anyone else. I have to make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone again.’ But… then I'd think about what that would make me, as a father.  I couldn’t be the person who punishes someone for what they might do. That wasn’t the world I wanted to make for Jon.”

Lois exhaled and buried her face in his chest. “God, there you are. Smallville, I can’t tell you how much I  needed to hear that.”

Clark smiled a little and stroked a hand down her back. “And I thought I’d just be stuck carrying that forever. I hate how much easier it is to talk about it now that he’s… actually gone,” he murmured as Lois tilted her head, now pressing her temple against his chest to listen to his heartbeat, “I still can’t believe he’s actually gone…”

“I wouldn’t put it past him to fake his own death,” Lois gave a short huff out of her nostrils, but that ripple passed over her face again, “But Clark—I saw it, I saw him—I know his face. Jimmy’s snapped a million pictures of him over the years. I’ve seen enough monster and supervillain rampages to know the sound of flesh and bone when it— That wasn’t a body double or a robot or—” She clasped her hand over her own mouth and squeezed her eyes shut. You couldn’t call this grief—not with all the years of Luthor’s jabs and manipulations and outright attacks, not with the constant paranoia that you were walking into one of his machinations just by trying to do the right thing—but it was as if a column had suddenly been torn away from the world.

“You need to rest,” said Clark.

Lois’s hand flailed away from her mouth with her lips still pursed. “I know—I know,” she said, before pushing her fingers through her hair, “I just—I really did need to see you again. I really did need to—to hear you say that. I knew, but I still…”

Clark put his hands on the outside of her arms, running his thumbs over his shoulders. “Honestly, I’d be worried if you didn’t ask,” Clark smiled.

“So the question now is, can the rest of the League say the same?” Her gaze had finally steadied.

“We’re going to have to find out,” Clark half-sighed, “But—before we do—can I—?” Clark glanced down the hall toward Jon’s nursery.

“It takes me forever to put him down when you’re not here, you know,” Lois’s mouth hitched to one side.

“That’s because you don’t have the infrasonic hum,” Clark said with a bit of smug flippancy as he headed down the hall, “I won’t wake him up, promise.”

Lois rolled her eyes but smiled as she trailed after him to Jon’s room. She watched as he very quietly, very carefully opened the door to the nursery. His feet hovered barely half an inch off the carpet as he floated over and looked into Jon’s crib. Lois leaned on the doorframe, watching them both. At eight months, Jon was a noticeable little lump at this point, his dark hair starting to reach that point where they would have to ask themselves the harrowing question whether to clip his beautiful baby curls or accept their fate as man bun baby parents (“Or a mullet, we know he can probably pull off a mullet,” Lois had joked).

Clark had tried to be snarky as part of putting on a brave face, but in the dim peachy glow of Jon’s nightlight, she could see the distance in Clark’s eyes, the set of his jaw. In a way, Jon was just as much of a North Star to Clark as his namesake—no longer simply guided by the wisdom and kindness of his adoptive father, now every moral dilemma was tempered by the question of what his choices would make him as a father, what kind of world they would make for his son. She wondered what was running through Clark’s head now—Luthor had done so much to build himself up into Superman’s greatest enemy, the ultimate symbol of human ingenuity and drive against sheer alien power, but Clark had never wanted an enemy, he had only ever wanted to help. All the same though, he was pulled into fight after fight, and through all that, they had shaped each other. She wanted to feel like it was a relief that Luthor was gone, but she couldn’t deny he left a gap, and she hated the idea of those who were willing to fill that gap. Lex Luthor was a corpse on ice in the basement of Walter Reed Medical Center, and just as he had fought tooth and nail to be in life, he was still the biggest damn problem facing them in death.

“…he got bigger, huh?” Clark’s voice was soft and Lois’s thoughts snapped back to the present moment. Clark was staring down into that crib still. She could practically feel that desperate need to hold his son after nearly three weeks in space radiating off of him, but he didn’t want to wake him.

“Yep, he’s a good eater,” she said just as mindlessly, “Midwestern boy.”

There was a short huff out of Clark’s nostrils and he smiled, but little by little, that smile faded.

“I need to go,” he said, glancing down.

At the look of ache on his face, a wave of words welled up inside Lois: Wait. Stay. Rest. Hold me. Hold our son. Wake up with us. You shouldn’t have to instantly throw yourself into the jaws of this mess.

But she knew they didn’t have that option. Not right. now.

“We’ll be okay,” said Lois.

Clark pulled himself away from the crib with a steadying breath and Lois slipped her arm in his as they both walked back out to their apartment’s living room. He was rubbing the back of his neck as his Kryptonian uniform phased back on in a sheen of blue light as he turned to face her.

“Oh—and, um… I know this is a really weird time to bring this up, but Scott and Barda are thinking we should do dinner sometime,” he added, “Would you be… up for that?”

Lois snorted a little as the mental image of Clark just… humming his way back home through space, thinking about what they would cook and Scott and his veggie trays, only to be hit by the first satellite signals of “PRESIDENT LUTHOR FUCKING DEAD FROM ANCIENT GREEK MAGIC GOLD NEEDLE CHEST-SPLOSION. WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU, SUPERMAN.”

“…they’re gonna be boom-tubing into a complete shitshow,” said Lois.

“So that’s a… yes…?” Clark ventured as he opened the sliding glass door out onto their balcony.

“Yeah, Smallville,” Lois took his shoulders and pulled him down slightly to him on the cheek, “We need stuff like that to stay sane in all this.”

“Mm,” Clark just grunted in response but kept himself at that same level, his eyes meeting hers. There was another moment of mutual acknowledgement of ‘It really really sucks that I just got home and now immediately have to go because the world is in the process of lighting itself on fire’ and Lois kissed him again, more fully on the mouth this time, leaning into it. He could feel the tension, the anguish in her arms, and wrapped his own arms around her, pulling himself back up to his full height and lifting her off of her feet in the process. Words could not describe how dearly he wanted to sink into a mattress in that moment, his body conformed around hers, Jonathan’s soft breaths overlapping between Clark’s super-hearing and the baby-monitor and the whole world falling away to dreamless sleep. Then her lips broke from his for a breath and she pressed her head against the side of his neck, her own lean, strong arms squeezing him.

“Come back to us,” the words hung between prayer and promise and spell as she whispered them.

“Always,” his own voice was just as soft as she released him from her grip.

Lois slumped against the balcony’s guardrail, watching as Superman shrank to nothing more than a blue dot with a fluttering bit of red off of it in the distance. From the interior of their apartment there was a soft whimper, then Jonathan started crying.

Lois smiled wearily and then huffed. “Oh, I get it, buddy,” she said, stretching as she moved to walk back inside, before feeling a whoosh of air at her back. She slumped and then looked over her shoulder.

Clark was hovering about a foot away from the balcony, fidgeting with his hands slightly. “Let me do the hum?” he said, with a reflexive urgency. Damn super-hearing.

“Clark, the assassin,” Lois stressed, but then winced as Jon wailed harder.

“It’ll only take two minutes! Five, tops!” pleaded Clark, “Lois, please, I need to smell him.”

“Oh my god—fine,” said Lois, and Clark whooshed past her back into the apartment, where Jon’s crying was abruptly cut off into a hiccup and then cooing. She walked back into the apartment herself. “But you know, you’re going to be kicking yourself if Machin… teleports to another dimension or something in the next two minutes.”

“He’s not going to do that,” said Clark as she reached the nursery again. He was holding Jon, whose coos were already sleepily winding down as Clark gently patted his back and swayed, hovering off of the carpet. She couldn’t hear Clark’s infrasonic hum, but she could feel it as a sort of warmth in her ribs that cut off when he spoke. Damn if it wasn’t effective, though. It wasn’t long until a tiny yawn fell out of Jon and his formerly tear-strained eyes turned to dark lines of thick dark eyelashes as he closed them and nuzzled into Clark's shoulder.

“What makes you so sure of that?” asked Lois.

Clark kissed Jon’s head and breathed in the scent of his hair before gently setting him back down in the crib. “Because he wants to see what happens in this one.”

Chapter Text

Video Description: A figure cloaked in a dark red hooded jacket takes a seat in front of the camera, their face obscured by a gold mask of a youthful human face with high cheekbones and a narrow nose, similar to the Botticelli standard of beauty. The figure removes the mask and pulls back their hood, revealing a young man of roughly 16-21 years of age. Clear skin, hazel eyes, features not too different from that of their mask. Their hair is reddish blonde and wavy, in a grown-out mullet-like cut.

Video transcript: “Hi. I’m Lonnie. So I guess I should start out by saying, I don’t believe violence is a sustainable tool. It’s not. It’s a reflection of our ugliest, most base instincts. But it is the current language of the state, so I apologize for bringing my voice to the conversation. I, and I alone, am responsible for the death of President Luthor. Any parties I interacted with in pursuit of my goals had no knowledge of my intentions. I acquired God-Killer metal through my own channels, without the knowledge or permission of the Amazons. This was not to make any grand statement—obviously, I do not believe Luthor is a god—it was merely because God-Killer metal had the physical properties I required to complete my task.”

Video description: He bends and picks up a water bottle, takes a sip, sets it back down, then readjusts himself in his seat. He settles a long narrow gold rod across his lap, and continues to speak.

Video transcript: “President Luthor was not only a violent oligarch who had no problem leveraging the worst of humanity’s prejudices to serve his own interests, but he was also a very small, and personally vindictive man. As it stands, the US is in a position where it is actively extracting both natural resources and resources of physical labor from all over the world in order to maintain its wealth, and reinforcing this position through violence. I am saying this as someone who does not believe in borders: Luthor’s was a hand we could not afford to have at the wheel—both for us as a country, and with regards to the United States on the world stage. I also came to the conclusion that given his history with the Justice League, we were heading down a road that would lead to massive loss of human life and the ultimate tyranny of either the US government, independent corporate interests, or the Justice League. Obviously I also did not kill Luthor with the intention of bringing down the US government as a whole—I know that will take continuous mass collective action over a significantly longer time scale, and I know for all their dependence on this crumbling institution, there are good people within the government. I actually believe the probably-now-President Ross to be a good person, albeit easily manipulated, and I have no intention of inflicting further harm against him or his cabinet. Again, violence is not a sustainable tool.  I still believe my act was one of harm reduction, though I fully understand the potential chaotic and likely violent ramifications of it.”

Video description: He pauses, lowers his eyes from the camera and rolls his fingers on the grip of his rod before facing the camera again.

Video transcript: “While it is my hope to empower all people across the world to take power back into their own hands, I realize I cannot do that without showing them what they are capable of. Lex Luthor previously seemed as much of a fact of the world as gravity, as sunlight, but I am here to tell you your leaders are accountable, and they are mortal. All of you have power, and you can choose to take it back at any time. To any heads of state that may be watching, I hope you understand that the power you currently hold is by the whim of those who put you there, so it is in your best interest to act in theirs. And I hope that when they rightfully choose to reclaim their power from you, they show you mercy.”

—-

Superman flew to Gotham at a solid pace, not so fast to be picked up on US government metahuman tracking radars, but still pretty fast. He wasn’t going to break the sound barrier—the situation was already tense and he didn’t need to make it worse by scaring people all over the east coast with sonic booms. It was cold, and he was always colder than he was tired. He tried to remember the sensation of Lois and Jon’s warmth against him to try and motivate himself to get this over with, but that backfired because that just kind of depressed him. He turned his attention to the ocean of sound of his super-hearing.

All the country over, and in a solid number of places abroad, people were watching Lonnie Machin’s (confession? Manifesto?) video. Social media workers and governments were desperately trying to scrub it from the net, trying to make sure the only context it was being viewed in was in being presented by the proper news outlets, couching it in a context of ‘Do not do what this guy says. Killing the President is bad and wrong, actually.’ Lonnie had said something to that effect with ‘Violence isn’t a sustainable tool’ but the last bit about holding leaders accountable was more than a little concerning. But the scrubbing attempts were only driving the spread, only prompting people through both rebellion and curiosity. What’s so dangerous about the video? Why don’t they want us to see it? Who doesn’t want us to see it? Tearing his attention away from the buzz of super-hearing, Superman tucked a League communicator in his ear, clicking it to the Bat-Channel.

“Hey, I’m on my way.” He tried to sound as straightforward as possible about it, but inside he was bracing himself.

“Sure you don’t want to swing by Martha’s first?” Batman’s voice was flat in his ear. Okay, the situation was bad, Batman didn’t usually grumble about the time Superman spent in his civilian identity—especially after Jon was born—unless things were a lot worse than he was willing to indicate.

“I was considering it,” Superman shrugged a little as he flew, “She was watching Jon when it happened.”

“Mm,” Batman just grunted on the other end, “I’m sorry. I’m tired.”

An apology and an admission of tiredness. From Batman. Okay, wow, things were dire.

“No, it’s fine, I get it,” said Clark, “I’m still trying to wrap my head around it, honestly.”

“Robin and Oracle are looking into the possibilities that this is part of a longer gambit from Luthor.”

“I don’t hear his heartbeat,” said Superman.

“I would imagine not. Oracle got me a feed of the autopsy—and… I saw the body for myself.”

“Batman, the last thing we need right now is to be seen undermining or interfering with the investigation.”

“I only had a short window of time, the state funeral is in 48 hours. It was a clean op. My team understood the stakes and executed their roles perfectly. I didn’t need that much time, anyway. I just had to make sure Luthor wasn’t using resources he had access to as President to make a larger play against the Justice League.”

“Why would the US government fake a presidential assassination?”

“It wouldn’t have to be the whole government, just the right players. But… ” Clark heard Batman seethe a breath through his teeth, “No. It was really Luthor down there. The genetic signature, the burn marks, indents, and spinal jacks from his battle suit, the LexTech cellular enhancements refusing to break down alongside his tissues. It’s him. He’s dead.”

Clark swallowed. Between Lois’s eyes and gut, and Bruce’s detective work, the reality of the situation was sinking in, cold and prickling. But at the same time, he still hadn’t seen Lex’s body, so his mind and all of his experience with Lex was lashing against it. No, he would have found a way to worm out of it. There has to be something more to this. Some contingency or play. “And we have to bring the killer in,” said Superman.

“You have to bring the killer in. Luthor was your enemy”

“I always thought of Luthor as, like… all our enemy,” Clark deflected.

“That’s not what Luthor would say.”

“Well maybe I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of saying he’s, personally, my enemy.”

“Sounds like you put thought into what would bother him most.”

“I don’t need to think about it. He’s obsessed with me and I’ve got better things to do with my energy.”

“Was.”

“Was obsessed. Sorry.” Clark rolled his eyes a little. Conversations with Bruce were always 50% deciphering grunts and significant omissions, and 50% of these weird back-and-forths where Bruce couldn’t figure out if he wanted to have a productive conversation or if he wanted to hammer home that he was the smartest person in the room. Clark had to admit he kind of missed it when he was on New Genesis.

“He was pretty good at gaslighting you, though,” Bruce mentioned offhandedly.

“Another reason why I don’t like devoting too much thought to him,” said Superman, “But—look, don’t you think it would be better for the League as a whole if it was a team bringing Machin in?”

“We’re still investigating the League for any possible collusion on this.”

“Well, yeah but there’s gotta be some folks we’ve already ruled out.” The first name that flew to Clark’s mind was ‘Plastic Man’ but then he immediately figured that if you wanted to tell the US government that you were very much taking the assassination of a US President seriously, Eel O’Brian wasn’t the first person you trotted out.

“No one we can get to you in time. I’ve got my hands full helping J’onn maintain League logistics while running an internal inquiry and dealing with an international corporate espionage spree now that LexCorp stock is tanking. Victor’s currently under inquiry so we can get him back into logistics as soon as possible. Diana’s looking into the God Killer metal that was used in the assassination. Amazon business. Barry’s doing actual civilian CSI work, which means the other Speedsters are filling in for him. And the only Lantern we currently have planet-side is Gardner.”

“Has anyone in the Legion made contact?” Clark’s brow crinkled and he hated the phrasing of his next question, “Do we know if this was… supposed to happen?”

“No word.”

The grim, sickly lights of Gotham started dotting the landscape below Superman. He could hear the distant wail of sirens and the pop of gunshots.

“Any sightings of Lonnie from the GCPD?”

“He’s been leading them on a wild goose chase with holograms. The entire city’s on lockdown—all flights out of Archie Goodwin are grounded. GCPD is cooperating with the National Guard to establish a perimeter.”

Clark huffed a breath. “Any advice? You’ve dealt with this guy more than me.”

“Robin’s dealt with this kid more than me. But he’s… emotionally compromised.”

“The assassin, or Robin?”

“…yes,” said Batman, with the equal parts hesitance and flatness that said, ‘There is no way in hell we have time to unpack what is going on between Tim and Anarky.’

“And you still have him investigating…?” Clark’s brow crinkled, “I know we’re spread thin as it is, but you’re the one always saying ‘assumptions kill’ and if we get bad intel on this—”

“He needs a distraction—a focus. Oracle can keep an eye on him, Spoiler’s tailing him, too.”

Which leaves Batgirl, Batwoman, and the Birds of Prey picking up your Gotham patrols and Alfred picking up slack for Oracle… Superman concluded, silently. If the situation wasn’t so grim, he would have smirked at the memory of every time Batman gruffly told the league ‘I work alone.’ An all-woman Gotham protection squad though… if Lois knew and wasn’t currently trapped in the 24-hour news vortex of Luthor assassination coverage, she’d probably strap Jon into his baby backpack and race out for an interview with Huntress.

“Well, you know your team,” Superman said, with the resignation that indicated their usual ‘Staying out of Gotham Business’ vs ‘Actually Recognizing when something is indeed a job for Superman’ game of chicken. Or maybe it was less of a game of chicken and more one of those situations where you come up to someone on a sidewalk and you both try and step out of the other’s way only to repeatedly move in the same direction. Gotham was… Gotham. The number of times that city could be completely on fire or smothered under a fog of Joker gas (or Scarecrow gas, or Poison Ivy gas, or Man-Bat gas—god there were a lot of gases), or swarming with zombies only for Bruce to look at Clark dead in the eye and say, “I have the situation completely under control, actually,” was too many times to count. And then the city would be fine, somehow, and Clark was stuck standing there with one more premature gray hair, wondering if super-ulcers were a thing he could get.

“Ten bucks says excessive lead in all of your buildings is why Gotham is the way it is,” said Superman, flying over the city.

“The Wayne Foundation’s Historical Building Restoration committee is working on that,” said Batman, “And I’d say it’s probably the Lazarus pit leaching into the water. Any eyes on him yet?”

“Not yet, but I was able to isolate the sound of his breathing from the video he put out. It shouldn’t take too long,” Bruce’s last words snagged him, “You have someone… monitoring the pit, right?”

“So you’re going from not really believing Lex is gone, to already thinking of ways he could come back.”

“I’m just covering our bases. He always had a lot of contingencies.”

There was a beat of hesitation on the other end. “Hood’s keeping an eye on things.”

“Oh, so you and Jason are talking again!” Clark said automatically and then immediately regretted it.

Bruce was dead silent on the other end. Clark hated that you could somehow feel the bat-stare over audio. Okay, touchy subject, still. Noted. He flew in silence for a few minutes, now forcing all of his attention to honing in on Lonnie’s breathing. But Lonnie wasn’t just breathing. Lonnie was humming.

“I, uh, I got a bead on him. I’m pulling in, now.”

“Good,” said Bruce, flatly.

—-

Lonnie pushed his hair back, his faded gold mask resting next to him as his legs dangled out over the edge of the roof, harness and body armor creaking sightly as he leaned back to exhale. It was a cold night in Gotham, the streets below splotched with dirty late-January snow. He watched as the cloud of his breath expanded out into the night, but then abruptly whiffed out of existence. At the same time, his hair and the collar of this jacket briefly rippled in a breeze that was going the wrong direction and a smile alighted on his lips.

“Don’t you make a point of not coming to his stomping rounds?”

Superman hovered off of the roof behind him, jaw set and blue eyes steady and cold.

“We both understand that there are exceptional cases,” said Superman.

“Mm,” Lonnie smiled, “Hey—so who has more concussions, the Bat or Arrow? You’d know, right?”

“Why did you do it, Lonnie?”

“Definitely the Bat, that’s a stupid question, now that I think about it,” Lonnie fidgeted with his hair, “Almost as stupid as ‘Why did you do it, Lonnie?’ I literally made a whole video saying why I did it.”

Lonnie glanced over his shoulder and his smile faded as he looked at Superman’s face—going from alien and authoritative to sympathetic and paternal. Patient. Annoying.

“You can cut the holograms out,” said Superman, “You’re just wasting everyone’s time and resources with them.”

“The holograms are there, and you’re here, because I don’t trust the cops to not shoot on sight,” he snorted a little and felt at his shoulder with his opposite hand, “Ask me how I know.”

Clark didn’t need to ask, one blink of X-ray vision showed a ragged starburst scar of an exit wound at the back of that shoulder. It was pretty well-healed—had to be four or five years old. God, he must have been, what, 13?

“Her name is Officer Nancy Yip, and she’s still on payroll,” said Lonnie.

“I’m sorry that happened to you, but I think you can understand that other people can get hurt if it’s only holograms that are getting shot at,” said Superman, “And I know you don’t want that.”

Lonnie gave a petulant grunt and shoved his sleeve up his arm, revealing what looked like several heavily modified smart watches. He tapped their screens down his forearm, then fished a phone out of his pocket. Clark watched as a toothy smiley face with spider legs streaming off of it on either side cackled and did a little dance on the phone screen. Lonnie entered in a code with his thumb, and the smiley spider icon stopped dancing, and had a small animation where it went ‘Awww…’ its smile turned to a frown, and it curled up and went to sleep.

The sound of sirens around the city lessened slightly. Super-hearing could pick up police crackles of ‘I’ve lost visual!'

“I’m not going to run,” Lonnie shrugged, still dangling his legs over the edge.

“Good,” said Superman, “Because these buildings are really old, and I’d rather not—”

Lonnie pushed off over the edge of the building, dropping himself toward the streets below.

“Hey!” Superman swept after him. Lonnie only made it about 15 feet down before Superman caught him, bridal style.

“…okay, I understand why Lois Lane does this all the time, now,” said Lonnie.

“She doesn’t do it all the time,” Superman said immediately, flying back up to the roof. She only did it when she wasn’t in danger once. Okay, twice. But the other times she was jumping away from an explosion or gunfire or the building was already collapsing or she had been chucked off by Bruno Mannheim. ‘That’s me, Lois ‘Chuckable’ Lane,’ she had said while typing up the Mannheim article, prompting a very distressed, ‘No!’ from Clark from across the bullpen. Wow, he was really bad at hiding his feelings and his secret identity back then.

“Sorry, just had to try it once and you were here, so…” Lonnie trailed off, “You’re really warm.”

Superman unceremoniously dumped him back on the roof before flatly saying, “Don’t do that again.”

“So what now?” Lonnie stood up and straightened his hoodie slightly, “Do I get the whole speech on ‘Truth, Justice, and the American Way,’ or do you just dump me in Guantanamo?”

“Look, I’m not going to get into the philosophical reeds with you because I feel like the need for a soapbox is what’s motivating at least 40% of your actions,” said Superman.

“How dare you, I want to save humanity just as badly as you do!” Anarky’s hands balled into fists.

“Right, but if I say, ‘Oh, you claim to want to bring autonomy back to the individual, but by assassinating Luthor you’re compromising the democratic process and by extension people’s means of expressing their choice. And then that would give you an opening to launch into a long rant how, between SuperPACs, voter suppression, advertising and misinformation, and the electoral college, at this point American democracy is little more than set dressing for oligarchy. And then I’d have to get into talking about smaller, more local government participation and collective action, and you would emphasize the more immediate global urgency and mass-scale harm being done, and also why must individuality be repeatedly deferred and sacrificed to improve conditions for all, isn’t that how we got here in the first place? And on and on and back and forth and all the while the President of the United States is still dead.”

“You’ve had plenty of time to think about this.”

That was nothing. You should see Lois and Ronnie when they’re both over-caffeinated, thought Clark, but all he said was, “Am I wrong?”

Lonnie made a ‘Well…’ gesture.

“And I don’t think either of us has the time or energy for that kind of discussion,” said Superman, “But I guess in that sense, you’re right. You have plenty of reason why.”

“Would you believe it’s not as political as it could be, though? I think the question is less, ‘Why did I do it,’ and more ‘Why me?’” He pocketed his hands in his hoodie “And I think you know the answer to that as well. It had to be me because it couldn’t be you or any other member of the Justice League. It had to be a radical, someone whose methods and beliefs by default left them with no association with the League or the Legion of Doom.”

“But you had accomplices,” said Superman.

“Mm, not really. ‘Accomplices’ implies they would have known the endgame is the death of the president. I have people who do help me in my day-to-day operations within Gotham, I have my own intelligence network of sorts, but as far as any of them were concerned, I was always working towards my original long-term goals. For this… well, it was a demanding task, but I didn’t have to work too far outside of my methodology. You’ve read my file. I co-opt. I take advantage of pre-existing structures.”

“…like anthrax through the postal service.”

“Wow, loving the leap there.”

“You killed the President.”

Lonnie’s mouth quirked at the fact that Superman sounded more exasperated than actually righteously angry there.

“And… how many times has he tried to kill you?”

“That doesn’t matter, here,” said Clark.

“No, because this is damage control,” Lonnie nodded.

“And I’m not the only one,” said Clark, “Regardless of how massive a statement it is, these institutions were built to withstand blows like this. There’s the presidential line of succession. There’s news outlets working over time to discredit all attempts to grow your movement. Talking about how you’re a minor, how you take advantage of unhoused people—”

Lonnie flushed, “I don’t take advantage of them! I give them a chance when the world would rather pretend they don’t exist!”

“How you did surgery on your own brain—” Superman continued.

Lonnie seemed to catch and compose himself at this. “I know,” he said, his voice was blank.

There was a pause and Clark studied him for a few seconds. “…There was only this,” he said, that paternal softness slipping back into his voice, “You could have spent your whole life fighting for your own cause, fighting to see all the old structures brought down, but you saw this as the most immediate means to save the most people.”

“Did the video not express that clearly enough?” Lonnie’s brow crinkled.

“You understand the effects, though, don’t you? Lex didn’t like competition. Now that he’s gone, there’s going to be a vacuum, and a lot of people are going to get hurt as everyone who envied Lex vies to fill the hole he left.”

“A transitional state, and one that’s arguably more stable because much of these would-be Luthor successors will end up canceling each other out.”

“You don’t know that,” said Superman.

“You’re right, I don’t,” Lonnie admitted, “Honestly I’m amazed you’re still talking to me, so… shows what I know.”

“I’m still bringing you in,” said Superman.

“…and I bet it just kills you, doesn’t it?” Lonnie gave him a sly smile.

Superman gave a short huff out of his nostrils. “You know, Lex said stuff like that, too. All the time.”

“Oh, boo,” said Lonnie.

“Yeah I know, cheap shot, ‘political horseshoe is a fallacy’ and all that,” said Clark, taking the back of Lonnie’s hoodie, “Anyway.”

Chapter Text

It was late evening in the Themysciran Embassy when Cassie and Donna were finally able to drag Diana away from her desk. Press briefings. Reviews of changes to the US cabinet now that Ross was assuming Luthor’s presidency. Outfit fittings for the state funeral. Exhausting video-calls acting as intermediary while Secretary of State Brayden and Artemis of Bana-Mighdall came very close to settling their disputes via ritual combat. Even with Alana and Rachel taking the brunt of the paperwork load, and Peter running interference with the press, everything felt like trying to desperately patch up a collapsing dam as more and more spouts of water pierced through. Donna and Cassie had both done what they could to cover both Diana’s public and charity appearances, and any local and magical threats that might rear their heads in this time, but it only took two seconds of watching the crowd visibly deflate when either of them showed up to know that ‘Wonder Girl’ wasn’t ‘Wonder Woman.’ Much of their public appearances had been pushed back or canceled anyway, not wanting to create a platform for accusation or debate while everything was still up in the air from the assassination.

“So, the United States can have millions of firearms actively being used abroad by terrorists and cartels and foreign governments acting against their own citizens, but one Olympian weapon finds its way into US citizen hands and suddenly there are accusations of ‘Amazon collusion’ and ‘Amazon espionage,’” Diana was pacing back and forth in the embassy kitchen.

“When it’s a mythical weapon being used to kill the President of the United States…” Donna floated the words out, but she knew Diana had already come to that conclusion. This was the Amazonian equivalent of a WMD, and it had done just that: changed the course of history, irrevocably changed the world of man.

“It is exhausting,”  Diana pressed her fingers through her hair, “90% of the time, we are… ‘distant’ and ‘antiquated’ or ‘hedonistic’ and even—” she didn’t hide her repulsion at the last two words, “Quaint and exotic. Oh—oh! So easy to dismiss when we’re trying to stop rising sea levels and deforestation! But we are so dangerous and savage and alien when they need a bogeyman!”

“Bogeywoman,” Cassie’s cheek was squished against her palm as she sat at the breakfast bar.

“Olympus is not bound by the same arbitrary borders of nations—and Themyscira only respects those borders as necessary to diplomacy!” exclaimed Diana, before pressing her hand over her face, “No one quote me on that. Please.”

“You’re exhausted,” said Donna.

“I’m fine,” said Diana.

“You’re the only member of the League who doesn’t afford themselves a private civilian identity,” said Donna, and Cassie quickly glanced off and sipped her water, immediately recognizing the fuse Donna had lit on a powder keg.

Diana’s dark eyebrows raised sharply. “I stand for both the accountability of the League and the cultural representation of Themyscira,” she said, crisply.

“I know, but right now you’re being torn between doing damage control as an ambassador and actually hunting this guy down with the League.”

“J’onn and Batman and I agreed—it has to be Kal-El,” said Diana.

“…you guys still want the chocolate mousses?” Ferdinand craned his neck up from the stove.

“Yes,” Cassie, Donna, and Diana all said at the same time and Ferdinand’s bull ear twitched as he placed three chocolate mousses sprinkled with crushed pistachios and finely chopped dried cherries along the breakfast bar.

“I’m still trying to figure out what in Hades ‘my own channels’ looks like,” muttered Donna, plucking up her mint sprig garnish and twirling it between thumb and forefingers. .

“Well, if he’s successfully summoned a demon and teleported himself to Apokolips…” Cassie offered.

Donna stared at Cassie. “There’s no way.”

“‘swhat Tim told me,” said Cassie, sticking a spoonful of chocolate mousse in her mouth.

“I mean, his League file says he’s always had a knack for co-opting other rogues’ resources and technology,” Donna trailed off and started digging in to her own. Ferdinand’s chocolate mousse was legendary—Diana once credited it with successfully de-escalating and closing negotiations in a Kahndaqi border dispute in one meeting at the embassy. Please solve our problems, chocolate mousse, Donna thought grimly, as she took a bite, her eyes flicking to Diana, who was staring out the window, arms folded.

“…please eat,” said Donna, trying to read the back of Diana’s head.

There was a slight ripple through Diana’s spine as she straightened herself up with a breath, then took her seat alongside Donna and Cassie. She took a bite of her own chocolate mousse, her expression unchanged. She felt Donna and Cassie’s eyes on her and she glanced over at them.

“You know you can… talk to us about it, right?” said Donna.

“Of course,” Diana’s face took on the same gentleness it would take on when she was telling little girls they could grow up to be anything. Donna’s lips thinned. That was Diana for you—made of clay, and keeping the outside pretty and kiln-hardened. Sure, she could show anger on Themyscira’s behalf… but talking about her feelings? Why don’t you just try untying the Gordian knot while you’re at it?

“Like, what we mean is, you don’t have to put on the Ambassador face with us,” said Cassie, “We’re stuck in the Patriarch’s world same as you. We miss home, same as you. We think home is really remote and hard for the rest of the world to relate to and probably a little too at the mercy of the Cosmic Kardashians—”

“Cassie,” Donna said in flat warning.

“Hera punted us like a football, we’re not allowed to be a little bitter about that?” Cassie snapped.

“Gods, Cass,” said Donna before turning to Diana and saying, “Look, you’re not just dealing with the death of a US President, you’re dealing with the death of someone who’s tried to kill or otherwise ruin the lives of you and your friends more times than any of us can count. You have to look… gracious and grieved when this guy has only ever been an asshole to any of us.”

“He had a remarkable grasp of hospitality, actually,” said Diana.

“Yeah but he’s like, really annoyingly smug about it,” said Cassie.

“Was,” Diana took a bite of her own mousse.

“Was,” Cassie caught herself.

“There are many things I grieve, sisters,” Diana said in a measured tone and both Cassie and Donna wanted to drag their hands down their faces because we know when you’re doing the ambassador voice, godsdammit, but Diana continued. “I grieve that Lex Luthor will never face justice on the terms of law of his country. I grieve for the young man who, if his video is anything to go by, was so full of hopelessness towards the effectiveness of law that he committed this act, knowing full well it would render his life forfeit. I grieve that my friend, Kal-El, will face eternal suspicion and wariness for this incident when we know for a fact that he was only off-planet to help further broker peace and security for earth and her allies. And—” she gave them both a pointed sidelong glance, “I do grieve that for the sake of Themyscira and my friends, that I must mourn a monster as a king and hero. And it pains me to see the Patriarch’s distrust of our home in full force. But I also understand. There are rituals to be respected. I have faced Briareos Hekatoncheires as champion of Athena. I can handle an…” she gestured at Donna, “‘Asshole’ being dead.”

“Madame Ambassador?” Rachel Keast was in the doorway.

“Do not quote me on that,” Diana looked sharply to Donna and Cassie.

“We weren’t going to quote you on that—” Donna started.

“Why would we quote you on that—” Cassie’s voice overlapped with Donna’s.

“I didn’t hear anything,” Rachel put her hands up, “But there’s a representative from Central Intelligence, Madame Ambassador. They’re saying there’s a… highly discreet matter that requires your attention.”

Diana aggressively downed the rest of her chocolate mousse in a matter of seconds and pushed the dessert bowl forward grimly with a steady “Thank you, Ferdinand,” as she stood up. She gave a glance back to Donna and Cassie. “Should anything arise, I trust you both to act in my stead.”

“You got a little…” Donna motioned to the corner of her mouth and Diana wiped a bit of chocolate away.

“Thank you,” said Diana, following after Rachel, “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Cassie gave a small salute as Diana headed out of the kitchen, and Ferdinand quietly took her dish and set it in the sink. The three of them all stood in silence in the embassy kitchen as they listened to the soft rumble of a car leaving from the Embassy’s front.

“Do you think—” Cassie started.

“She wasn’t giving you a cue to tail her,” said Ferdinand and Cassie huffed.

“But it’s sketchy!” said Cassie.

“It’s delicate,” said Donna.

“But what if they’ve already made up their minds about Amazons and it’s some kind of awful trap?!” protested Cassie.

“If it comes down to Wonder Woman versus the CIA,” the minotaur chef ran a soapy sponge over Diana’s dessert dish before putting it in the dishwasher, “Bet on Wonder Woman.”

——

Diana had hastily wrapped herself in a black suit jacket and pencil skirt, wearing her circlet as a necklace and tying her hair up. Her arms were folded as she watched the streetlights pass by the window.

“Do you have a name?” Her eyes flicked to her strawberry blonde CIA liaison-turned-driver.

“Cole Cash.”

“And what do you do?”

“Currently? I’m driving you.”

She arched an eyebrow. “The US government is not in the habit of putting normal Americans in my vicinity.”

“…still bitter about McCarthy, huh?”

“Which one?” Diana smiled and Cole snickered a little.

“I’m here because I’m… adaptable. And sturdy.” He grimaced, taking one hand off the wheel to fidget with his suit jacket collar.

Not adapted to wearing suits, though, thought Diana, before saying, “Sturdy.”

“Probably not as sturdy as your usual coworkers.”

“Probably not.”

“What about this? ‘I have experience with millennia-old women with swords.’”

“…if that was meant to win me over in any capacity, it has failed spectacularly.”

“Princess, I think we can agree that it’ll probably be a few centuries before the US government wins your trust back.”

“I truly admire the optimism that there will be a United States by the time I am willing to trust it again,” said Diana, before pausing, “Don’t—”

“Not gonna quote you on that,” said Cole, pulling onto an on-ramp.

Diana frowned out the window for a minute or so. “Are you taking me to that one helipad outside of Queens?”

“Where I’m taking you is classified—”

“How much of a factor is time in this ‘discreet matter?’” asked Diana.

Cole grimaced, then pulled over. After a few, very visibly frustrated seconds, he said, “We’re going to Walter Reed.”

“Oh,” Diana scoffed, stepping out of the car, rounding the hood and opening Cole’s door, offering him an arm, “Is that all?”

——

She flew them both to Walter Reed. Cole did a very good job of trying to look as serious and nonchalant and unimpressed about it as possible. It reminded her of Bruce—adorable, really.

Cole flagged them both through the tedious-but-reasonable number of security checkpoints it took to get to the President’s body.. Diana knew it was the President’s body as soon as Cole had said ‘Walter Reed,’ but she had not expected the sight that greeted her as they both entered the hospital’s chilly morgue, Secret Service agents flanking them on either side. She had read Lois Lane’s article, she had watched Jimmy Olsen’s video, she had watched Lonnie Machin’s video, she knew Bruce had probably snuck in to confirm that it was, indeed, Luthor’s dead body, otherwise he would have started ringing several silent Bat-Alarm bells that there was some kind of grand conspiracy moving against the League. She knew all this, and she could still feel a hesitation in herself, that beat of ‘Ah’ that you only get when you’re in the room with a dead body. And then she felt her whole body responding to the sight in front of her, a rapid flood of the physical reaction to ‘Something is very, very wrong.’

“Brimo—” Diana swore as she covered her mouth, “How long has it been like this?”

Lex Luthor’s naked dead body was laid out on a steel table, beneath a mountain of gold needles of varying width and height. The mass of spiky gold had expanded well beyond his initial lapel-heart point of entry, growing straight up, now perfectly perpendicular to the steel table he was on, regardless of the angle of muscle and bone beneath it. It grew on Lex like a coral colony now, and looking upon it, Diana felt a faint nausea, a faint vertigo mostly in her ears. She wished she could say it was merely the emotional and mental disturbance of such a sight, maybe the scent of death, but the Amazons had trained her too well in her own sensory awareness to dismiss it as such.

“It started growing about 6 hours after the initial autopsy,” said Cole, about a foot behind her. He had one hand on the sidearm at his hip. She half-hoped it was for her, half hoped he had the expectation that this sight would trigger her, somehow, but no, in this moment, the lasso of truth glowing at her hip, she could only feel both of their uncertainty and disturbance compounding.

“This is not the God Killer,” said Diana.

“But Themyscira said it was the God Killer earlier—”

“My sisters and I believed it was the God Killer because the God Killer is able to transform itself based on the will of its user. That, as we understood it, was how it counteracted Luthor’s various cybernetic enhancements—because it would be acting through Machin’s will and knowledge of Luthor’s enhancements. If Luthor is dead, it should not still be transforming.”

“…okay, worst fears confirmed, then,” said Cole, “Can you tell us what it is?”

“Not currently,” said Diana.

“Wow. Worse fears confirmed,” said Cole.

“Who have you brought in here to look at this before me?” asked Diana, “Are there any working theories? Has anyone conducted any tests for… radiation? Sonic resonance? Attempted to take a sample?” Diana felt as if she was floundering a bit. She wasn’t a scientist, but she had worked side by side with a good number of them through the years and read a decent share of academic papers in the course of both her hero and ambassadorial work.
“Look, there’s running an autopsy, and then there’s turning the President’s corpse into a science fair,” said Cole.

“If I may make a suggestion?”

“You are welcome to make a suggestion.”

“Bring in Hawkwoman, Doctor Fate, and Supergirl—possibly Professor Hamilton,” said Diana, before pausing, “And Ray Palmer. I might be able to arrange for some Themysciran scientists as well, ”

“I—okay, can they stop… whatever’s happening, here?” said Cole, “Preferably before the state funeral? Like I don’t like the idea of getting more people involved in this, but honestly, I’m under a lot of pressure right now to make sure the president’s body is in a state to ‘lie in state’ and it is very much not in that state right now.”

“I do not know if they can stop what is happening,” said Diana, “But they are likely to have a better understanding of it than I do.”

Cole sighed and rubbed his forehead. “…I was really, really hoping to keep cape involvement in this to a minimum.”

“Regardless of the League’s history with Luthor, I can tell you that this,” she gestured at Luthor’s body, “Is a disturbing development to any of us. I understand trust is thin between the League and the US government right now, but surely we can work through that by collaborating?”

“I guess it’s a lot easier for the League to trust the government now that Luthor’s dead, huh?” Cole pocketed his hands.

Diana’s brow furrowed.

“…okay, cheap shot,” Cole admitted, “But look, because the League is currently under suspicion, I don’t think I can pull the strings to bring anyone you just mentioned in here. I was only given the clearance to bring you in here to confirm whether or not this was something God Killer metal could do, and now we know it’s not. Hell, I agree that the Cold War cloak and dagger shit the capes and the feds have going on is more likely to end up biting everyone in the ass than keeping anyone safe, but now that we know that you don’t know, it’s going to be pulled out of my hands, so—”

There was a thin, creaking sound and both Diana and Cole turned and looked as a new needle, about the width of an index finger, pushed itself up from Luthor’s torso, with the steady shaking growth of the image of a sprouting plant sped up. They both stared at it in silence for a few seconds.

“I don’t think the president’s body will be able to lie in state, Mr. Cash,” said Diana.

“Fuck,” said Cole.

——

Diana walked out of Walter Reed, leaving Cole with the body, and stepping out onto the lawn, the frosty grass crackling under her boots. She let her hair down to keep the night’s chill off of the back of her neck, quietly fingering the circlet she was wearing as a necklace, before fishing into the pocket of her jacket and pulling out her League communicator.

“Opheôplokamos—Can nothing ever be simple?” She muttered as she stuck the communicator in her ear before pushing off from the ground, taking off into the night air. Okay, granted, the President being killed by a God Killer wasn’t a ‘simple’ problem, but it was a problem where at least they had a stronger idea of what they were dealing with, where the biggest variable factors were people, and she could handle people. She didn’t know what she was dealing with right now as she clicked the communicator to the bat-channel.

“Diana,” Bruce’s voice sounded on the other end.

“When were you going to tell us the metal in Luthor’s chest was still growing?” Diana demanded as she flew.

“The metal in Luthor’s chest is growing?”

“Bruce.”

Batman huffed on the other end. “I thought, given the state of the inquiry into the League, that it would be better to wait and to observe how the US Government reacted to it first.”

“And you felt you could not even trust Kal-El or I with this knowledge,” Diana pushed her hair back behind her ear.

“It’s more of a combination of plausible deniability, and faith in the fact that either of you could quickly react if the situation suddenly… escalated,” said Batman.

“…do you think the situation is going to escalate?”

“Too early to say, right now,” said Batman. She could tell when he was multitasking on the other end.

“I take it you took a sample,” said Diana.

Batman was silent on the other end.

“Bruce,” Diana said again.

“Only a very, very small one.”

“…so the metal can be damaged,” Diana mused.

“It took 8 minutes of the Bat laser-cutter’s highest setting at a molecular level to shave off a needle the width of a splinter. And it grew back immediately after.”

“Is the sample you took growing?”

“Point zero-three millimeters in 12 hours, but I don’t have a clear rate of growth. I don’t know if it’s reacting to stimuli.”

“And Kal-El doesn’t know?”

“I don’t have enough data on the sample to give us anything to act on yet. I thought it best if he just focused on bringing in Machin, for now. He should be dropping him off at the Pentagon in the next few minutes,” Batman paused, “It is a bit of a relief that things aren’t so far gone that Intelligence was still willing to reach out to you.”

“It’s called mutual trust,” said Diana, before pausing, “Actually, if you have any files on the Batcomputer on a ‘Cole Cash’ or anyone who’s ever gone by that alias, could you—?”

“Already on it,” she could hear Batman typing on the other end, “I’ll cross-reference with Oracle and we can send you a more complete dossier.” There was a beat of about three seconds before Batman said, “Yeah no, don’t trust a single thing out of this guy’s mouth.”

“I know when people are lying,” said Diana

“And everything in this file says he knows how to not lie while still keeping things from you,” said Batman.

“Sounds like someone I know,” Diana smiled.

“…Hilarious,” said Batman, “Look, get back to your Embassy, get some rest, touch base with your team, you know how much discretion to use with them more than I do. I’ll get back to you and Superman when I have a better idea of what we’re dealing with.”

“You heard my suggestions for people to look at the sample back in the morgue, right?” asked Diana.

More silence on Batman’s end.

“I know if you already saw the body, then you definitely bugged the place before you left,” said Diana.

“…I’ll take it under advisement,” said Batman, “I hadn’t considered Hawkwoman. Thanagarian metallurgy could be a solid lead.”

“Is that a compliment or are you half-talking to yourself again?” asked Diana.

“Mmh,” Batman grunted.

“When was the last time you slept?” asked Diana.

“I’ll get back to you later.”

“Bruce.”

He clicked out of the channel and Diana rolled her eyes. “Men,” she muttered as she flew.

Back at the Themysciran embassy, Donna felt an almost unexplainable urge to facepalm.

Chapter Text

Bauhaus. Of course Lex’s penthouse had to be fucking Bauhaus.

it’s about space, Mercy, you want to be able to command the space whether it’s large or small. That’s what Lex told her at the time.

Of course he had to have a fucking conversation pit.

Mercy was crumpled on her side, in the pit, glaring into space. Why had she been crying? It wasn’t over Lex, obviously. She used to have a whole extended joke about everything she would do when she miraculously found herself free of Lex and also he didn’t kill her because she knew too much. She’d go to the Côte d’Azur with an absurdly expensive avant-garde swimsuit that would give her ridiculous tan lines. She would eat prawns that still had the heads on and drink Aperol spritzes. She would visit museums and revel in the blessed silence of not having a bald pedant having to turn every painting into a lecture about being the smartest man in the room. She would hook up with an Algerian Formula 1 racer, let them fall madly in love with her, and ghost them after 2 weeks. But no. She was here, she was now in charge of a multi-billion dollar corporation, and the rug had been yanked out from underneath her. Lex was dead but at the same time she would never be free of him. But she did like Lex, at least in the capacity that, for all the pain in the ass he had been, Lex had opened up a whole new world to her and she wouldn’t be the person she was now without him. She liked the power. She liked being the right hand, the fist, the hammer, the dragon. She liked feeling fear saturate the room when she stepped off of an elevator. Was that dependent on Lex? Lex, who she had to drag out of his lab and out of his fits of insomniac obsession over an underwear-clad alien so he could at least pretend to remember the damn empire they had built?

This wasn’t mourning, she realized. Well it was, but it wasn’t mourning a man. She was mourning the fact that she had now been denied a future where she could break free of Lex on her own, a future that she could prove to herself that she was more than what he had made her. So who the hell was she, in the wake of that? And of course Lex had the gall to die as President, which would cast a shadow over every decision she made as head of LexCorp. So much for re-branding…

You’re better than this, too, she thought, pushing herself up from the cushions of the… couch? Pit?  Okay, Merce. This is pathetic. So here’s what you’re going to do: You’re going to give yourself tonight to be a sad pile of crap and ugly sob over all the short-term shit, and a decent amount of the long term shit, then when you wake up, you’re going to have your shit together and you’re going to get to work. This is what you do—crisis is opportunity. Now, more than ever before, you can take control of the narrative—

She flinched at the sound of a door creaking open and in one smooth, movement, pressed a button between the cushions of the conversation pit couch, and drew a kryptonite sidearm of Lex’s design from a compartment that opened beneath the pit’s coffee table. She swung around in her seat, fixing her sights on a tall figure clad in gray and black, with a half-orange-half-black helmet completely obscuring his face.

“…I have a spare key,” said Deathstroke. His hands-up gesture seemed more mocking than an actual signal of ‘I mean no harm.’ His clothes were noticeably more relaxed than his usual body armor, but still tactical, still ready for conflict.

“No you don’t,” said Mercy.

“Fine. I have Miss Tessmacher’s security bypasses. Now where is he?”

Mercy blinked. “Come again?”

“Luthor. Where is he?”

Mercy’s mouth quirked to one side. “…on ice in Walter Reed.”

“Look, this is all very cute, but I’m being serious, here. I’m heading up several of Luthor’s little side projects which are significantly more complicated now that he’s decided to go Scooby Doo villain on us all, so I’m here to tell him that if he’s going to pull shit like this, I need a 25% increase on my resources budget.”

Mercy stared at Deathstroke a moment before lowering the sidearm. “God, I really wish I had something to throw at your head right now,” she said.

“…have you been crying?” Slade’s hands lowered slightly.

“Don’t you have a minor to gaslight?” said Mercy, irritated.

“Did—did you make yourself cry? Or did Luthor think that would make things more convincing, because it’s really more off-putting than anything—”

“Lex is dead, Slade,” said Mercy, “There isn’t a play or a ploy or a false flag or a gambit or—or—a fucking shenanigan. Some goddamn magic Greek metal exploded his chest and he purged his bowels and It was ugly and miserable and way more drawn out than it should have been.”

A long silence passed in that dark apartment. She could feel Slade taking in every sensory detail about her, factoring it in with everything he knew about the situation.

“Huh,” Slade put one hand on his hip, “You know, I thought it was unusually sloppy for him.”

“Sloppy?” said Mercy.

“I’ve wielded God Killer metal before, and I know the Amazons love making themselves the arbiters of any magical bullshit in our world, or at least they feel responsible for any magical bullshit, so of course they would come forward when something like that manages to outpace technology—but… God Killer can take on some pretty useful shapes, but being able to behave like a living thing in itself is another thing entirely.”

Mercy’s eyes narrowed, “What are you talking about?”

“Then again, I don’t know Machin well enough to know if he found a way to modify it or something, but I mean, the way I figured it, the only thing that could make that kind of show against Luthor’s tech was… more LexTech. Hence—this is Lex faking his death.”

“It’s not,” said Mercy, flatly.

“Yeah, no, that’s starting to sink in,” said Deathstroke. He clicked his tongue. “Welp. Seeing as there’s a change in management, I think I can renegotiate my contract.”

“LexCorp is already paying you more than you could possibly know what to do with,” Mercy paused, “Unless you found a really good custody lawyer.”

“Wow. Classy. I want a 40% increase.”

“No.”

“25%.”

“No.”

“20%.”

“No.”

“8%?”

“It’s not happening Wilson.”

Deathstroke paused. “…can I have one of his watches?”

“Seriously?”

“It’s not like he’s going to use them. Art of Swedish Death Cleaning and all that…”

Mercy rubbed her forehead and sighed, “Fine.”

“Nice,” Deathstroke walked down the hall to Lex’s master bedroom. Mercy sat sullenly in the conversation pit until about 3 minutes later when Slade called, “Hey, any of these got Kryptonite?”

“No,” Mercy half-yelled to be heard.

“Bullshit. He had the ring.”

“He stopped wearing the ring after he had a scare with a lump in his balls,” Mercy pushed up out of the conversation pit and walked into the kitchen.

“Wait, seriously?”

“He made me feel for it,” Mercy called back, grabbing hummus out of the fridge.

“Wow. He didn’t pay you enough.” Slade walked back from down the hall, looking between two watches.

“Yeah, no, and we went to the doctor and everything,” Mercy went on, grabbing pita chips out of Lex’s pantry, “And they checked him out and it was benign, but they were like, ‘Hey just to be on the safe side, maybe you shouldn’t be constantly exposing yourself to an irradiated space rock—” She glanced up at Slade, “I said one watch.”

“I know but it’s one of those, ‘Do I want the nicer one, or do I want the one I’ll wear more’ situations,” said Slade.

“The Audemars Piguet,” said Mercy, biting a pita chip, “More your style.”

Slade looked between the watches, gave an ‘I guess’ shrug and fastened the watch on, before glancing at it a second and going. “Wow. Shit. You’re right.”

“I know.”

“Luthor really didn’t pay you enough,” Slade crossed over to the kitchen counter and set the other watch on it.

“I know,” Mercy paused, chewing, “…so, you were operating off of the assumption that Lex wasn’t really dead.”

“It’s a fair assumption.”

“But it’s also fair to assume that most of the rest of the Legion isn’t in an insane power-grab right now because… they assume Lex is still alive, too.”

“Probably the only reason why everything’s not currently on fire,” said Deathstroke.

“Mm,” Mercy just grunted thoughtfully in response.

“Hey so, what’s the status on the Kryptonite armory?” asked Deathstroke.

“Shut up, I’m thinking,” said Mercy.

Deathsroke shrugged, pressed a catch at the back of his helmet, which released pressurized air in a hiss before he pulled the helmet off. He itched at his eyepatch briefly before grabbing a pita chip, dipping it, and crunching into it.

“My money’s on Grodd to make the first move,” said Slade, “Savage is more than happy to hang back and watch everyone kill each other because he’s got more time than any of us.”

“Cale’s probably going to keep things topside but she’ll definitely try and elbow LexCorp out of pharmaceuticals,” Mercy murmured in agreement.

“Gotham Rogues are always too obsessed with each other and their own local turf to be much of a factor,” Deathstroke opened the fridge, “Are there any baby carrots?”

“Check the crisper. What about Flash’s rogues?”

Deathstroke closed the fridge, now holding a bag of baby carrots. “Aside from Grodd, I’d say Snart’s the most competent. If they were going to try making a move, they’re more likely than others to team up because they know individually none of them commands enough respect to try and move in on Luthor’s authority,” he crunched into a carrot, “But, they’re just as much of liabilities as assets to each other as a team. Snart might be amenable to an alliance, isolate him from the group and the rest of the Flash rogues will be a non-entity. I think we want to keep up the assumption that Lex is alive as long as possible while we can, though. Until we can consolidate—”

“You’re starting to say ‘We’ a lot,” said Mercy.

“Yeah. We. You’re not Luthor and I’m not Luthor, but also I would like to continue to get Luthor money, and it’s going to be considerably harder to do that if there’s a coup,” Deathstroke dipped a baby carrot in some hummus, “And sure, maybe you might want to make LexCorp legit—”

“Not really,” Mercy admitted.

“But that’s not really an option right now. Lex died with too many fingers in too many pies.”

“Mm,” he was right, but Mercy just took a bite of hummus and pita chip to avoid actually agreeing.

“Also I like you more than Savage or Grodd,” Deathstroke shrugged.

Mercy audibly scoffed.

“Okay ‘like’ is probably a strong word, but if anyone’s going to have the keys to the kingdom, I’d prefer it to be someone practical.”

“Or you’d prefer it to be someone obvious so that you can continue to claim to just be a sword-for-hire while controlling things from the shadows,” said Mercy, arching an eyebrow.

“…it can be two things,” said Deathstroke, he studied her expression a few seconds before saying, “Got any bell peppers?”

—-

“It’s freezing down here, are you just going to carry me like this the whole time?” Lonnie’s armpits were starting to hurt from how his hoodie was digging into them. He was yelling over the wind, but mostly to be able to hear himself.

“That was the plan,” said Superman, continuing to carry him by the back of his hoodie.

“Geneva convention demands humane treatment of prisoners. Exposing me to cold is endangering my health and could fall under the category of inhumane treatment by omission.”

“You’re dressed for Gotham winter. You can handle a little cold,” said Clark flatly.

“Unless I die of pneumonia. Look at me. I’m skinny.”

Clark glared down at Lonnie for a few seconds before huffing and pulling Lonnie up into a bridal carry.

Lonnie blinked. “Wow you… actually did that,” before blankly adding, “T-thanks.”

“Geneva convention,” said Superman flatly.

They flew in silence for a few minutes.

“…so what was the plan?” asked Lonnie.

“I don’t understand what you mean,” said Superman, flying.

“You and Luthor. Were you thinking you’d just… ride the next four years out? What if he launched some anti-Meta or anti-alien or anti-League campaign? Were you both at the point where you were just kind of… avoiding each other or…?”

Clark snorted. “I think it was just one of those things. He goes out to be President and—hey, if that’s to get my attention, good job, mission accomplished, but then… it turns on him. All that attention isn’t on his terms so he’s forced to sideline a lot of his projects if he’s to maintain any public face. I guess it wasn’t so much about not having a plan, so much as hoping he cared more about his own legacy than destroying me. I guess we’ll never know now, though.”

“And you?”

“Well, I’m…me. I… had a lot going on in the past year and a half.”

“A lot as in what?”

“Diplomacy on Planet Nunya,” Clark said mindlessly.

“Planet—” Lonnie stammered, “Were you seriously trying to set me up with a ‘Nunya business’ joke?”

“It’s a classic,” Clark shrugged.

“It’s a dad joke—” Lonnie started before noting the automatic tensing of Clark’s jaw. “Wait…”

Clark fixed his gaze ahead and did his best to ignore Lonnie’s burning stare.

“‘I’ve had a lot going on in the past year and a half,’” Lonnie echoed.

“How about we talk about something more relevant? Like the whole, ‘You murdered the president’ thing?”

“Not a lot to talk about there, you may have a no-kill rule, but the feds certainly don’t. I have a pretty good idea of where I’m going.”

“…Not necessarily,” Superman mused, “I mean, you did do surgery on your own brain. A lawyer might be able to build a defense case out of that.” Or maybe Waller will want you as an asset and you’ll be stuck being her weapon forever or else a bomb will explode in your neck, he thought a bit more darkly. He really didn’t like that idea, but for all her ultimate goals of protection of the United States, it certainly wasn’t outside what Waller was willing to do. They’d probably have to fake Lonnie’s death anyway, or maybe they wouldn’t have to—like Clark had said, the self-surgery angle could be a decent defense case for simultaneous insanity and high competence, plus Lonnie had holograms, they could easily make it appear like he was spending the rest of his life in a jail cell—wow, okay, he was going into full-Batman conspiracy mode, now. But you know, when you’ve been spied on, kidnapped, had your DNA stolen after death and used to make an entirely new person to basically co-opt your image, and had your friends, family, and coworkers spied on, blackmailed, and otherwise harassed by the US government, you kind of stopped feeling crazy for speculating about that kind of stuff. It wouldn’t be the weirdest or the most exploitative thing Cadmus had done.

“You want a trial because you want a chance to show that the system works and can be merciful,” said Lonnie which… was oddly reassuring to Clark because yes, that was what Superman wanted in spite of… everything.

“Would that be so terrible? That the system could work?” asked Clark.

“…the same system that elected Luthor,” Lonnie’s arms were folded, “It’s going to disappoint you.”

“Maybe,” said Clark, glancing forward, before bringing his finger to his ear and switching to Captain Atom’s channel on the League communicator. “Captain Atom? I’m entering Arlington airspace with Machin. We’ll be arriving shortly. I was thinking you might want to escort me?”

He flinched as Amanda Waller’s voice came over Captain Atom’s channel. “That won’t be necessary, Superman, just bring him in.”

“Waller,” Superman kept his voice steady, “Where’s Captain Atom?”

“Captain Nathaniel Adam has submitted himself for inquiry. I must say that you and your peers have demonstrated… unprecedented compliance in this investigation.”

“We want to get to the bottom of this and stabilize the situation just as much as you do,” said Superman, continuing to fly.

“Oh, well, don’t sound too broken up,” said Waller, probably a bit more amused than a Secretary of Metahuman affairs should sound when their president has just died.

“Do I have your word that Machin and I can safely approach the Pentagon?” asked Superman.

“We’ll be taking our usual precautions,” said Waller, as two drones pulled up alongside Superman. Superman’s eyes flicked between the drones, then down at Lonnie. Lonnie’s hazel eyes were boring into him, burning.

“I need to know that Machin will undergo due process of law,” Superman spoke into the communicator, “That he’ll have a trial and an attorney.”

“You have mine and President Ross’s word,” said Waller, “He’ll want a word with you, after this.”

“I’ll be there shortly,” said Superman, before clicking out of the channel. He paused for a moment, then abruptly took the communicator out of his ear and tossed it off into the night. He could find it later, he couldn’t risk Waller backdoor-ing it somehow. If she had heard the previous conversation…

I’ve had a lot going on the past year and a half.

He shut his eyes. He couldn’t worry about that now. He gave a quick X-Ray glance at the drones on either side of them, making sure they were solely combat drones and not equipped with audio surveillance.

“Lonnie,” his voice was low, “Is there anything you can tell me that you can’t trust the federal government with?”

“Why would I trust the guy who’s bringing me to the federal government?” said Lonnie.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” said Superman, “If this is part of something bigger, but you can’t talk about it—”

“I meant every word I said in that video,” said Lonnie, “It’s honestly hilarious how both the government and the League want this to be part of some grand conspiracy so bad. You want to blame the feds, and the feds want to blame you. Neither of you can stand the idea that one person who’s sick of all the tug-of-war and the theater of it all can actually do something to make a difference. Because that means there will be others after me.”

Lonnie kept up that fierce light in his eyes as he looked at Superman, and his heartbeat in Superman’s super-hearing was almost as loud as the roar of the wind.

“…okay,” said Clark, and Lonnie’s brow crinkled at the the quiet acceptance in his face.

Don’t you dare feel sorry for me.

Superman shifted in the air and started his descent.

Clark had flown his share of criminals to police stations in the course of his work as Superman, and had always had mixed feelings on the whole thing. On the one hand, he wasn’t about to just leave random incapacitated and otherwise defeated supervillains just lying around, and no, despite the name, he obviously didn’t like the concept of the Justice League being its own judicial force. Of course the Green Lantern Corps had its own Sciencells but they also tended to defer to the governments of the respective planets of their criminals in terms of actual sentencing—and he had the Phantom Zone projector back in the Fortress of Solitude, but that was only ever supposed to be a last resort. He wanted to chalk it up to the general upheaval and distrust of the whole situation, but as he touched down in front of the Pentagon and was greeted by Waller, who was accompanied by nearly two dozen soldiers, he felt a little sick. He lowered Lonnie to the ground and Lonnie was instantly seized and handcuffed by two of the soldiers. Lonnie made no move of protest, and was shoved past Waller into the building, a hazel eye meeting Clark’s before disappearing behind a wall of body armor and then closing doors..

“Thank you for bringing him in, Superman,” Waller stepped forward.

“Whatever we can do to help,” said Superman, before pausing, “I’d… like to take this moment to offer my condolences, on behalf of the Justice League. We’re still conducting our own inquiries, and we’ll make a more public statement soon, but we’re dealing with the shock, as well. I know Luthor held you in high regard.”

Waller gave a short huff out of her nostrils. “Noted,” she said, not shifting her stance at all, “Now if you’re quite done with all that, I believe the surviving President wants a word with you.”

“…Madame Secretary,” said Superman, before taking off again.

——

It was later still when Superman was walked through the White House by the Secret Service. The Oval Office was dimly lit, Clark remembered Jimmy’s video leading up to the assassination, Miss Tessmacher, the then-White House Hostess,  explaining how, while Luthor’s tastes lent themselves to Bauhaus in his Metropolis penthouse, when it came to the White House, he wanted to show the American people a little warmth and elegance. This was achieved by bringing in the Second Lady’s (Now First Lady’s) own aunt, Nell Potter “The Sister Parish of Smallville.” To that credit, despite its dimness, the Oval Office looked good.  Crimson curtains and an ivory and gold rug bearing the presidential seal. There was an antique banker’s lamp on the President’s desk—that green glow had Lex written all over it. Pete was standing behind the desk, staring out the window.

“You can leave us,” President Ross glanced over his shoulder at the Secret Service agents on either side of Superman.

“Are—are you sure, Mr. President?” said one of the agents.

“Really loving the confidence that you could stop him if he wanted to try anything,” Pete smiled.

Both agents hesitated for a second.

“Go on,” said Pete, with a small chin motion.

Both agents exited the office and Pete pivoted only slightly to hit a button on the banker’s lamp. The light of the lamp bloomed slightly, then made a soft ‘Vwoom’ sound. “Should give us some privacy,” said Pete, before turning his attention back out the window. “I’m glad you could find the time to make it, Superman,” Pete didn’t look at him, “I’d like to thank you again for bringing in Lex’s killer.”

“We’re still investigating,” said Superman, “But… it’s one less factor in the wind. I just want to stress the Justice League’s desire to comply with the US government as much as it reasonably can during this time. We’re still preparing a more formal statement, one that can put the public at ease, especially given the nature of Luthor’s history with the League, but obviously we wholeheartedly condemn this act of violence.”

“Obviously,” President Ross repeated, “And I hope the League understands, in the interest of preserving stability, I intend to keep as much of President Luthor’s cabinet as I can. And I realize some choices have been more controversial with the League than others.”

You can’t control Lane and Waller the way Luthor could, a voice like a flinch rose up in the back of Clark’s mind, but he tamped it down.

“I understand,” said Superman, “I think the League can agree that stability is the top priority right now. If there’s anything else we can do to help…”

“Waller reports that the death of the President is likely to cause significant upheaval in the metahuman world, I imagine you’ll have your hands full with that,” said the President.

“We’re managing,” said Superman, trying not to think about Batman’s long rant about how they were simultaneously shorthanded and pretty much fighting with one hand tied behind their back with their inquiry.

“Well, if anyone can…” President Ross pocketed his hands. It occurred to Clark that Pete had barely looked at him almost this entire time. It was a far cry from Pete’s senatorial career, where their brushes would often have Pete eagerly shaking his hand and clapping his shoulder, grinning for the cameras. Superman had never been able to endorse him, Superman was an alien and it was the general League policy to keep electoral politics at a distance (and god, he did NOT want to think about the gray areas of Green Arrow showing up at trade union organizer events). But hey, a small-town mayor making it to the senate while taking on a corrupt agro-industrial corporation did kind of fall under the Superman banner of ‘general hope for humanity.’ And now here they were, and that sick feeling in Clark’s stomach was still there, too.

“I’m sorry we’re in this mess. I had hoped to one day address you as Mr. President under very different circumstances, President Ross,” said Superman after a long beat, glancing down.

“I’m sure there’s a lot of ways we wish things had gone differently,” Pete turned away from the window to face him, “Clark.”

Clark couldn’t hide his own reaction—it was less of a flinch and more of a ripple—but he quickly attempted to compose himself, evening out his own expression. At the same time it was almost like a transformation—an odd ease slipping into his posture rather than the usual shoulders-back-chest-thrust-out bearing he had as Superman, his feet still an inch off the floor.

“How long have you…?” The question trailed out of him.

“Lana told me back when Luthor nominated me as his running mate,” Pete poured himself a finger of whiskey out of a crystal decanter.

“Lana…” Clark repeated his eyes crinkling and that sick feeling in his stomach from when he handed Lonnie off intensifying.

“She was trying to convince me not to do it,” Pete looked into his glass, “Don’t hold it against her. She kept your secret as long as she did because she loves you, but in that moment, she was doing what she thought would protect you.”

“Pete…” Clark didn’t know where to start. I know your secret identity. I also know my wife has always loved you. I was your best friend. You lied to my face for years. You broke my wife’s heart. I chose to be the running mate of a man that had attempted to destroy you multiple times.

“And I accepted Luthor’s nomination because, in that moment, I thought it could also be my way to protect you,” Pete snorted a little before sipping his drink.

“You wanted to protect me?”

“Don’t get me wrong, Clark, I’m not happy that you kept what you are from me all those years, but I get it. I’m not happy about it, but I get it.”

“I was just trying to keep you safe, too—” Clark started but Pete put up a ‘Don’t bother,’ hand.

“And I’d never spill your secret because, well, that would only hurt you and Lois, and on top of that the world needs Superman too much for that to be compromised by any kind of personal pettiness,” Pete went on. His mouth drew to an anguished line then, as well, “And it would hurt Lana, too. I could never…” he trailed off, then set his glass down before leaning against his desk, folding his arms across himself. “In that moment, I figured, if it wasn’t me, Luthor would pick someone else, someone who would be happy to go along with whatever Lex wanted for all the perks and power. I didn’t harbor any delusions about being able to outplay Lex, but I figured I could at least keep an eye on him.”

“I had no idea,” Clark’s voice was soft.

“Of course not, I’m Pete, you’ve never had to worry about me,” said Pete, “Or maybe you just blocked both me and Lana out from super-hearing because we all knew I was always the second choice and no one wants to hear two people lie to themselves and internally collapse in slow motion over a period of years.”

“That’s not what I—” Clark caught himself. It hadn’t necessarily been a conscious choice, but he had mostly blocked Lana and Pete out from his super-hearing, save for obvious cries for help, but that was mostly with the intention of letting Lana move on and… okay, maybe he wanted to move on, too, take himself out of the equation for both her and Pete.

“It’s not even that I’m mad that people kept all these things from me—it’s the assumption that I’m not aware that something’s being kept from me, or what’s being said about me. All those months of being the lucky small town rube of a senator that Luthor could use to court the rural vote…” he shook his head, not even looking at Superman, “And now Luthor is gone, and there’s a viral video of his assassin saying I’m ‘Easily manipulatable.’ I’m holding the most powerful office in the United States government, and I’m still a joke.”

“Pete…” Clark could only say his name again.

“…god, I could have sworn I had a better way of going about this,” muttered Pete, “I wanted to tell you for months and we could… actually work something out. Maybe talk about contingencies if Lex started using the office against you and the League, or at least get some closure or something, but instead we’re both here because Lex is dead and…”

“No, it’s fine—” Clark started, “I mean, obviously, a lot of things aren’t fine, but… Pete, I don’t think you’re a joke. I never did. And I never meant for… I really just wanted you and Lana to be happy.”

“I know,” Pete leaned against his desk and huffed softly. “In a weird way, it’s a relief that some things are beyond even Superman’s power.”

Clark frowned. “I’m sorry.” He wasn’t really sure what he was apologizing for. His secret? Lana? The fact that Lex had died when he was hundreds of thousands of miles away and now here they were, standing in the wreckage of past and present?

Pete just waved that ‘Don’t bother,’ hand again. “All right, well… that’s all a mess. But…it’s out there. The President before me didn’t know who you really are, but I do. I want to continue to believe that ultimately you’re a force for good for humanity, and I like to think I’m better equipped to believe it than most, but I also have a responsibility to the American people. Just as much as they cheer you on as protectors, they want to know they’re safe from you and the League. Hence, keeping Waller and Lane on. Are we clear on that?”

“Y-yeah,” Clark blinked, caught more than a bit off-guard. He had caught glimpses of Pete’s shrewdness and frustration when they were both teens, but it was another thing entirely to see it as this polished edge of him, carefully honed behind a veneer of affability and harmlessness.

“Any other thoughts?” Pete picked up his glass again.

“How are… you feeling?” Clark asked, “About Lex, I mean.”

“Ah,” Pete sipped his drink, “Well… still rattled. Definitely didn’t expect to find myself here, but when Lana was trying to convince me not to take the nomination, I realized he hadn’t just hurt you, he had hurt her as well, trying to get to you. She tried to downplay it, but…”

“I—I never meant for that to happen,” said Clark.

“Clark, Lana and I are living proof you can’t control other people’s actions or your effect on them. Believe me, I know.” He gave a short huff out of his nostrils. “I’m going to be honest, the mutterings about you being off-planet started when Luthor was still on life support. I almost laughed when someone first brought the idea up. I had to stop myself from saying ‘I wish’ on reflex.”

Clark’s brow crinkled.

“Because I knew who Superman really was. And I knew if you hadn’t destroyed Lex for all the harm he’d ever done to you and everyone you loved years ago, you weren’t going to do it now.”

“Geez, Pete…” Clark said under his breath.

“Look, one of us is an alien who can shoot lasers out of his eyes, the other is a human politician. Between the two of us, I think the bigger burden of mercy is on you. Again, I don’t like it, but I get it. And just because I wish it, doesn’t mean I’d ever act on it.” He gestured vaguely around the Oval Office with his glass, “You know.” He took a long steadying breath, then finished his whiskey before squeezing his eyes shut and setting his jaw. He opened his eyes again and met Clark’s gaze. “But I also hope you understand that, while I don’t think it’s ever going to come to it, the fact that I know your secret is one more thing I can use if it means protecting the American people.”

The back of Clark’s neck burned. “…I understand,” he said after a beat.

“All right then,” said Pete, pushing off from the desk and stepping toward him and extending a hand, “Baseline established.”

Clark took his hand and shook it. “Baseline established.”

“Glad we understand each other, then. That will be all for now, thank you for taking the time to meet with me, Superman,” said Pete, pocketing his hands.

“Mr. President,” said Clark, turning around.

Superman passed out of the doors of the Oval Office, only to pause to see Lana down the hall. She was slumped forward, elbows resting on her knees in a chair, with two secret servicemen accompanying her. Her eyes met his and her head lifted slightly, her mouth opening as he approached, but as he drew closer, she seemed to think better on it, and just gave him a curt nod. “Superman,” she said. Her voice was a little thick.

“Madam First Lady,” was all Clark said in turn as he continued on his way.

She didn’t stop him.

——

It was still dark out when Clark came home to Metropolis, but dim gray was starting to creep at the horizon. Lois felt him as little more than the soft sound of a draft in the room, and the careful, sinking pressure of a body in the mattress next to her. She always thought that was funny—the uncanniness of Clark trying to use flight to make coming to bed as seamless as possible, and that act only backfiring because it was weight and pressure behaving in a way that couldn’t possibly be human.

“Mmh,” she shifted a little, letting herself slide back into Clark’s divot on the mattress, “You made it.”

“Mm-hm,” Clark just draped an arm over her and pulled her close against him

“Everything go all right?” Her own voice was raspy with sleep.

“Mm,” she just felt him press his face against the back of her head.

“You okay?” Her eyes bleared open.

He kissed the back of her ear. Summoning the very height of his super-intellect, alien mental stamina, and hard-nosed and eloquent reporter experience, Clark mumbled, “Sleep now. Talk sad morning. Love you.”

“Mmkay,” Lois wiggled against him to get a bit more comfortable, “Love you too, Small—” she realized his breath had already gone steady and rhythmic. She smiled a little, then sank back into sleep.

Less than two hours later, their alarm went off, Jon started his morning babbles and chirps (it turned out rising with the sun was just as much a Kryptonian thing as a farm boy thing), and Clark gave an anguished moan into Lois’s shoulder.

Chapter Text

Alfred hummed along with Schubert's "The Trout" over some speakers as he sliced scallions in Wayne Manor kitchen. The kettle whistled and he easily swept over to it, taking it off the gas and pouring a little bit into a porcelain teapot, swirling around and warming it before pouring it out into the sink, then fitting it with a tea strainer full of genmaicha. He waited three minutes, letting the water settle a bit from boiling state (you don't just pour it over like molten lead!), before filling the teapot and wafting some of the rising steam towards himself with satisfaction, taking a minute just to enjoy the toasty herbaceous aroma.

A kitchen timer dinged and he continued humming as he lowered the heat on the stove and pulled a bag of eggs soaking in tea and herbs and soy sauce from the fridge. His humming switched to semi-scatting as the German lyrics cut in, peeling the cracked shells off of the eggs,  slicing them in half, then half-singing with semi-remembered lyrics as he pivoted to pull out some fine china bowls and started ladling in rice porridge from the stove. Thursdays were Cass’s days for picking breakfast, she had written her request on the chart accordingly, and while the gardens of the grounds were still too cold for Alfred to do much other than ground-cover, pruning, and mulching, in the greenhouse it was all Alfred could do to hack the spring onions back with a machete. Yes, the president was dead. Yes, Master Bruce was running on a combination of micro-sleeps, caffeine, and dubious herbal blends he had learned from his time in the League of Assassins. Yes, Gotham’s Rogues were all tripping over each other to try and take advantage of the paranoia of the situation, but saving the world started with breakfast, and breakfast was smelling good.

Alfred was quietly singing to himself, now. ”Und ich mit regem Blute sah--"

There was a growling whimper at his foot and Alfred paused, placing two filled bowls on trays on the counter, before glancing down. A white dog with a black splotch over one eye, slightly larger than a Jack Russell was sitting on its haunches, looking wide-eyed and expectant but also a bit solemn. 

"...I'm sorry, I don't believe I recall letting you onto the premises," said Alfred crisply, stooping over the dog. The dog met his gaze before issuing a short, high, 'Baff!' 

Alfred's eyes narrowed at a dark red collar around the dog's neck, with a single circular gold tag. The dog didn't seem to be displaying any signs of aggression. Indeed, he was sitting quite politely (albeit inconveniently in a kitchen space) as if he had most definitely been invited to Wayne Manor, thank you very much. Alfred lowered himself to one knee and took the dog's tag between his fingers, his eyebrows raising to see an anarchy 'A' symbol had been scratched out, seemingly with a knife or key, on one side of the tag. 

“Can’t say I like that,” Alfred muttered to himself under his breath, before turning over the tag to reveal, in all-caps, serifed letters, the word 'YAP.' 

"Yap," read Alfred.

'Baff!' the dog barked again, as if in confirmation, then its ears perked up.

Alfred had a sense of Wayne Manor almost as if it was an extension of his own body, and he lifted his head, listening as well. With a side-eye to the dog, he drew himself back up to his full height and resumed fixing breakfast. He pulled the tea strainer out of the pot and his expression remained perfectly unchanged as he heard socks pounding on carpet in the upstairs east wing, quiet swearing as they sprinted down another corridor before doubling back, then hammering down the grand staircase, briefly sliding on hardwood before gaining traction on another Persian carpet, then hammering down the hall until the wood turned to tile, and then….

Tim Drake slid in his socks and caught himself on the kitchen doorway, in his monogrammed pajamas, wild-eyed and panting. “Alfred—look, I can explain—”

“Good morning, Master Tim,” said Alfred, delicately sprinkling scallions over the bowls of congee he had arranged, “I take it this is your guest?” He stepped to the side and gestured at the dog.

“…Yap,” said Tim, and the dog perked up and trotted over to him, nosing around his knees, “Steph and I found him at Lonnie’s place. Lonnie had all these… automatic feeders and security stuff, but he was confused—he was lonely—I—I couldn’t just leave him—”

“You know, Wayne Manor had the distinct honor of hosting President Garfield in 1881,” said Alfred, arranging tea eggs just so on the congee.

“Garf—? But he was president for only a few months, before he was…” Tim trailed off.

“Assassinated, yes,” Alfred was drizzling sesame oil over the congee bowls now, “Those ‘Haunted Gotham’ tours love saying we cursed him.”

Tim wondered if Alfred ever noticed that he seemed to use ‘We’ as if speaking both for himself and the house.

“I must say, though, things tend to come full circle in old houses like this. We host the President, then nearly 150 years later, we host the… dog of the president’s assassin.”

Tim’s mouth opened, his lips pulling back from his teeth wordlessly. There was a natural impulse in him to deny the fact that Lonnie killed Luthor outright. How many times had he watched the video of the needle explosion itself? Slowing it down frame-by-frame until the burst of blood and gold lost all visual meaning? How many times had he re-watched Lonnie’s confession video, looking for any kind of clue, any kind of signal that pointed to a false narrative, a bigger picture? Lonnie had taken significant efforts to make himself into his own sort of symbol, like Bruce had, would he really sacrifice all that to kill Luthor? And yet… the pragmatism was there, the methodology was still murky but it felt like Lonnie, and Lonnie had the advantage of not being someone Luthor would really consider as a threat on his side. Tim wasn’t sure if Lonnie actually had successfully derailed what would have been an inevitable conflict between the League and the government, or if he had just thrown a molotov and turned all of their problems into different problems.

Alfred could read, three, maybe four hours of sleep on Tim’s face, tops. Probably ordered to bed by Bruce and even then, he would only leave the cave if they had some intel that indicated it would be several hours before Lonnie’s interrogation. It was safe to assume that Oracle had hacked them something close to a live feed into the Pentagon for the sake of keeping an eye on Lonnie and making sure Waller didn’t pull anything, which… wasn’t exactly promising on the ‘decreasing tension between government and superheroes’ front.

“I’ll take care of Yap, Alfred,” Tim insisted, “Until I can figure this out.”

“And I assume you will be the one picking little white dog hairs out of the smoking room rug?” Alfred arched an eyebrow, “On top of all of your other responsibilities?”

Tim’s mouth drew into a long thin line. “I’m going to figure this out, Alfred.”

“Here,” Alfred put a breakfast tray into Tim’s hands before picking up one of his own, “Walk with me.”

The bowl of congee rattled on Tim’s tray as he adjusted to comfortably keep it balanced, one of the tea egg halves starting to sink into the porridge.

“Posture, Master Tim,” said Alfred, already walking out of the kitchen with his own tray.

Tim huffed and straightened his shoulders before briskly following after Alfred.

Yap pranced at their heels as they walked out of the kitchen and ascended Wayne Manor’s staircase.

“You achieved your position in this family through sheer force of detective and deductive reasoning,” said Alfred as they walked, “Yes, you have your ‘gut’ feelings and your ‘hunches,’ but ultimately what determines your cases is what you are able to piece together from clear physical evidence.”

Tim’s brow furrowed, he already knew where this lecture was going.

“Okay, but, I feel like my time working with the YJ team has basically made me a lot more aware of the scale on which crazy stuff can operate on,” said Tim.

“And no one is discrediting that,” said Alfred.

“So I’m not crazy in not accepting it, right?!” Tim blurted out, “I mean—I’m not saying I don’t accept it—I—” he glanced at one of the tea egg halves, sinking further into the congee now for his shitty level of balance, “It’s Luthor. Lonnie wouldn’t—couldn’t—” he caught himself before saying ‘Shouldn’t,’ “Lonnie operates on a completely different level from Luthor.”

“Do you believe, given his history, that Mr. Machin’s ideology is all bark and no bite?” asked Alfred.

‘Baff!’ Yap barked, as if for emphasis.

“I mean—no, obviously—we’ve fought enough to know that but—” the tea egg half was little more than a brown-rimmed half moon, no visible yolk, sunken almost completely into the congee, “Look, there’s still a lot we don’t know, okay?!”

“Of course,” said Alfred, “But if I may be so bold, I believe your goals with the case at hand are less about investigating how Mr. Machin killed the president, and more about saving Mr. Machin. Is that correct?”

Tim stopped walking, the congee in his bowl sloshing a little up the rim with the abruptness of his action. Pretty much everyone—Bruce, Steph, Oracle, even Dick, who was on the other side of the country—had been saying, ‘Tim, you’re emotionally compromised,’ ‘Tim, you’re emotionally compromised,’ over and over again in varying ways, but none of them had been that direct about it.

Tim’s face burned. “I mean… how do we know someone isn’t just… using Lonnie?”

“Even if that were the case, I feel Mr. Machin was still quite clear in his intentions in that video,”  said Alfred, as they continued down the hall, “While I realize I am likely not the first person to suggest this, I think it would be wise if you.. stepped back from the uniform for a few days.”

“Did Bruce put you up to this?” Tim asked darkly.

“No, but this is the first I’ve seen you out of uniform or out of the cave in nearly 36 hours, Master Tim. And while Luthor’s death is in itself a crisis for Master Bruce and his peers, it is expected for Wayne Enterprises to offer stability in this time as well. In the light of day. With that in mind, Master Bruce and I believe that you should accompany him and Mr. Fox to the state funeral.”

“Bruce is going to the state funeral,” Tim repeated, unconvinced.

“LexCorp and Wayne Enterprises have their own history,” said Alfred, “It is an occasion that calls for Master Bruce’s presence, and one would hope, at least one of his wards. It’s about stability.”

Before Tim could answer, almost demonstratively, Alfred stabilized his tray in one hand and knocked on Cass’s door with the other. Cass opened the door startlingly quickly.

“Good morning, Miss Cain,” Alfred presented the tray to her, “Thursday is your day, as you remember. I hope the garlic chili crisp is up to your standards.”

Cass gave him one of her rare smiles, tight-lipped but beaming, and took the tray from him, then caught Tim in the periphery of her vision. There were a lot of times when Cass’s expression was unreadable, and this was one of them. It wasn’t like she had an enormous amount of emotional investment in the hierarchy Luthor established in the world of the rogues. She, after all, was from a seething and volatile corner of that world, one that was just as easily half-surfaced in actual government-backed global conflicts and wars and the power vacuums those left behind in their wake. Just as well, she was more than familiar with killing and death as an ideology—not her ideology, thankfully, but she too, had watched Lonnie’s confession video with very little reaction except maybe a vague pity towards Tim, who was definitely struggling more to contain his reaction. She had definitely been quiet on the comms, as well, but then there was a whole lot of talking from everyone else. Tim wasn’t sure if the tension from the whole situation had sent her into another one of her nonverbal stints, or if she was making the conscious choice to hang back from the conversation because A. She didn’t feel she knew enough about Lex Luthor and League Drama to contribute and/or B. She was silently cataloguing everyone’s voice pitches and body language to create her own internal dataset to work with as shit continued to hit the fan. There was also the constant option of C. People their age probably shouldn’t be up until dawn punching people and getting punched.

“Wait, you guys have like, a breakfast chart? They never did that when I was Robin—” Another voice spoke up from further inside Cass’s room and Cass perked up, reddening and shooting a dark look back into her room.

“Miss Brown—I do hope you understand you’re welcome to your own room here at any time,” said Alfred.

“Yeah but the house is big and spooky—and Cass gets nightmares,” said Steph, swinging by the door. They too, were wearing Wayne Manor’s monogrammed pajamas, only with Steph just wearing an oversized, un-monogrammed top half, likely nicked from one of the linen closets, while Cass opted for an equally baggy bottom half, just wearing one of her black tank tops on top (Tim honestly wondered how many of those tank tops she had).

“Master Tim?” Alfred glanced over at Tim and Tim stepped forward with the tray.

“Uh… here,” he held it out to her.

“Thanks,” said Steph, offering a sympathetic smile and taking the tray from him.

‘Baff!’ Yap barked again, recognizing Steph from earlier.

Steph glanced down, “Oh—so, when you said you’d take care of him, you actually meant…"

“It’s temporary,” said Tim, “I just felt, since he means so much to Lonnie, that it’s better if he’s a factor we’re actively keeping track of than just… dumped on someone else.”

“…right…” Steph’s brow crinkled, and her eyes flicked between Alfred and Tim and she cleared her throat. “Well… Cass and I gotta, um, go over patrol notes. Thanks for the congee, Alfred!”

In other words, ‘I’m picking ups the vibes and I am not sticking around for whatever you’re talking about,’ thought Tim.

“A pleasure, Miss Brown,” said Alfred, “Is there anything else I can get for either of you?”

Cass gave a short look at Steph, whose eyes flicked to Tim, and then she shook her head.

“Uh—we’re good!” Steph confirmed.

“Good morning, then,” said Alfred, walking away.

Tim moved to follow him, but heard a knock on wood behind him. He looked over his shoulder. Cass was leaning out of her door, having apparently set her breakfast tray aside. As soon as he met her eyes, she mouthed, ‘Take care’ and made a small fist, close to herself. ‘Keep it together.’ He gave her a single nod in reply before hurrying after Alfred. Yap whined at Cass as she attempted to close the door, until Tim whistled and Yap eagerly bounded after him.

“So… funeral, then?” said Tim, “That’s it?”

“Well, I think it would also be prudent if you make an appearance at Wayne Tower this afternoon while we’re onboarding some new interns,” said Alfred, “Then there’s that basketball tournament at WayneFutures Community Center in the Bowery…”

“They’re going to be interrogating Lonnie,” said Tim.

“Indeed, and knowing Mister Machin, that could take some time. He has an opportunity to… what’s he always saying… ‘Throw his body into the machine’ or something like that.”

Tim grimaced at this.

“You know as well as I that we are keeping a close eye on the situation,” said Alfred, “But we also have to maintain a public face. This is what we need you for most right now, Master Tim.”

Tim’s eyes narrowed. “Has Bruce come out of the cave since the Walter Reed infiltration?”

“One battle at a time, Master Tim,” sighed Alfred.

———

Kon flew over the coastline of Massachusetts, effortlessly carrying a heavily damaged kayak and its rider over his head.

"This is so embarrassing," the kayaker was using one arm to secure their paddle across thier lap while pressing their face into their other hand.

"Hey, that's undertow, for ya," said Kon, “And global warming, probably.”

"I know, but it’s so stupid! I swear I’m actually really good at this. Superman has better things to do with his time than--" they caught themselves, "Boy. Superboy. Sorry."

"...Kon is fine," said Kon, a little too late.

"Oh that's right, because you don't like—Or do you like—? I mean there was that whole time where everyone only ever called you ‘the kid’ but—“ They facepalmed even harder, "Oh god. You can just... go ahead and chuck me into the Sargasso, now."

"If I do that, then Aquaman will yell at me," said Kon, forcing a smile.

"Really?" they perked up, "You talk to him? What's he like? Could you get his autograph?”

Kon just did his best to not look dead-behind-the-eyes as possible. He was kind of used to it at this point. One minute you’re poured fresh out of the goo tube and everyone’s clapping you on the back and also yelling at you because you’re the new Superman! (Oh and don’t worry about the last one it’s not like he got bludgeoned to death by a creature that had too many bones on the outside or anything). Also, fuck you, why aren’t you more like the old Superman? Oh, but not like that, that’s not good for marketing. Then the next minute you’re duking it out for your own name with like, four other guys. Then the next minute, the old bludgeoned-to-death Superman shows up because you all have to team up on one of the previous four guys you were duking it out with because he turned out to be a deranged cybernetic psychopath and he nuked the west coast. And you win—you kind of get your ass handed to you in the process, but you win. And it’s great. And then bludgeoned-to-death Superman just.. stays. And everyone is so glad he’s back. So where does that leave you?

“Oh—god, sorry—I didn’t mean to—” the kayaker spoke up again, and Kon shook his head, trying to snap himself out if it.

“It’s fine,” he said. Just focus on the task, Kon, remember the whole, ‘No act of good is too small’ brand—oh my god what is wrong with you? Are you seriously calling it a brand?

“You can um—you can set me down near that pier?” The Kayaker pointed and Kon banked in his flight and descended.

The kayaker mercifully did not drag out the interaction any longer by asking for a selfie with him, though also the question of ‘Would they have asked Aquaman for a selfie?’ stung in his mind as he flew away from the pier and trailed down the coast.

They definitely would have asked the real Superman for a selfie.

Kon pressed a hand through his hair as he flew. He was over this. He had been over this for years, but in the midst of the arduousness of covering for Superman when he was off-planet, these were thoughts that flared up like blisters on a long hike. Kara at least had all that emotional investment in maintaining and preserving Kryptonian culture and technology to keep her busy, but Kon had pretty mixed feelings on the whole identity of ‘final bearers of Krypton’s legacy’ thing considering that Kryptonians historically hated clones—the Eradicator had made that much clear. (And where was the damn logic in that? Kryptonians gave birth through those creepy octopus nest-looking birthing matrixes! How different was that from cloning?). Even if Kal and Kara told him he would always be welcome in the Fortress, sometimes he swore he could feel the bottled city of Kandor glaring at him. A freak by design created as Superman’s replacement, rendered redundant by Superman’s return, set apart from Superman’s culture and legacy by the very nature of his being.

No, you’re over this, you’re over this, you’re over this, he thought forcing himself to build up more and more speed, dropping to only a few feet over the ocean’s surface and building up more speed until the wind of his wake was kicking up twin trails of frothing white seawater behind him, But also, you know why you’re thinking about this now.

CRACK-BOOM.

Kon broke the sound barrier then, before snarling out a hard breath, and hurtling himself upward. He went up and up and up and up, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to consciously pull back his tactile telekinesis from his body so that he might pretend to get a buzz from the thinning oxygen, then he remembered atmospheric exit would wreck his latest leather jacket (he had only had this one for a week) and he slowed. Inertia alone threw him up for about a third of a kilometer, then he let himself drop. Back first.

Because you’re not just Superman’s clone.

The wind was roaring past him, his arms dangling in front of him as he hurtled toward the earth.  He felt the oxygen re-thicken around him, could start to smell the salt of the sea.

Huh. I should probably catch myself, soon, he thought distantly, Or else the impact might—

FWOOOOOOMPH.

Kon slammed back-first into a beach and kicked up a mushroom cloud of sand.

“Ack—pffft—shit!” He swore as the sand upthrown from his own impact poured back down on him, shielding his face with his forearms and squeezing his eyes shut as the grains scratched at the lenses of his sunglasses. After about a minute, when the sand had mostly settled, he lowered his arms and let them flop down to his side. “Way to go, drama queen,” he said to himself.

But then super-hearing picked up a familiar tiptipttiptiptip, half drowned out by thrumming vwooooooom.

“Don’t skid on the sand, don’t skid on the sa—” Kon started before swearing and covering himself with his arms again as another wave of sand was kicked onto him as Bart Allen skidded to a halt next to him.

“Kon! Are you okay? You’re back on the east coast! I saw your mushroom! Wow! Look at your crater!” Bart exclaimed, before looking around, “What hit you? Where is he? I didn’t get any pings from the League,” Bart interlaced his fingers and stretched, shaking his legs out before jogging in place a little, “But don’t worry. You just sit tight right there. I’ll teach ‘em some manners.”

“Bart—it’s fine,” said Kon, forcing himself to sit upright and brushing sand off of himself, “Nothing hit me. I just kind of… zoned out, is all.”

“Zoned out,” repeated Bart, still jogging in place.

“Yeah.”

“Zoned out falling toward the earth at terminal velocity from thousands of feet up and creating a big sand explosion and crater,” Bart’s little jogs slowed.

“Yeah."

“Hmm…” Impulse tilted his head. He dropped to a squat next to Kon and squinted at him. “…so there’s no baddie?” he asked.

“No,” said Kon, “But—”

“Hold that thought!” said Bart, springing into a sprint and kicking more sand onto Kon as he took off in a red and ivory blur.

Kon frowned and pulled his sunglasses off, flicking out sand grains from the corners of his eyes and eyebrows, then swatting more sand off of himself, only to have more sand kicked onto him when Bart skidded to a halt next to him three minutes later, now holding two white paper bags.

“Breakfast!” declared Bart, holding the bags up.

“I’m… not really hungry,” said Kon.

“You suuuure?” Bart tantalizingly waved a bag in Kon’s face, while taking on a sing-song tone, “Not even for fresh-baked ube donuts from Dalisay’s Bakery in Metropolis…? Your faaaaaavoriiiiite?”

Kon set his jaw and took the bag from Bart with a smile and a slight eye roll. “Thanks,” he managed, flicking sand off of his hand before grabbing a donut out of the bag.

“It’s been a minute,” said Bart, plopping down to a cross-legged position next to him and pulling a donut out of his own bag, “I mean it’s cool that you’re covering for Big Blue and all, and like, I don’t mind covering for Grandpa Barry, but I miss you and Cassie and Tim.”

“Mm,” Kon just sullenly chewed on his donut.

Bart gauged this response for a few seconds. Kon could swear he could hear Bart’s brain whirring like a laptop fan sometimes.

“Hey, so…” Bart miraculously slowed down his speech, “Have you, like… talked to anyone about it?”

Kon visibly stiffened.

Bart put his hands up, half-eaten donut in one hand, “Hey—no pressure, I get it. Literally centuries of daddy issues and mommy issues and grandpa issues and uncle issues, and descendant issues yet to come, here. Real möbius strip of issues, honestly. But I’m guessing between Supes temp work and everything spinning off the rails, there probably hasn’t been time for it.”

“He wasn’t my dad,” Kon’s voice was low and tense. No more than he was Superman’s nemesis, the thought burned at the back of his head. Lex loved wearing those titles, loved wielding those titles like a weapon, and It took so much energy on both Kal and his own parts to not let that define them.

“I know,” said Bart, quietly, “I mean, you know I didn’t mean—” He cut himself off. Kon couldn’t meet his eyes, but he felt Bart’s gaze—quiet, nonjudgmental, so conscientious for a goofball who so frequently dove in over his head, or whose mouth outpaced his brain and his heart.

Kon bit the inside of his lip. He hated this—hated this envy he had toward genuine compassion. He should be that good. He should be that kind. He shouldn’t be caught up in his own shit like this. Was it the Luthor in him? Was it Cadmus’s skin-crawling alliance with multiple media outlets and that influence on him? And now he knew Bart was reading his distress because he could hear Bart shifting himself in the sand until he bumped a shoulder against him.

“It’s… it’s okay,” said Bart, “Like I said, no pressure. It’s just… we haven’t had the team in a while, you haven’t had the team in a while, and… y’know, I worry about you guys. I know everyone thinks I’m a scatterbrain, but like—-” he wiggled his fingers next to his head, “That doesn’t mean you guys aren’t up here, you know?” 

Kon’s ears were burning.

“And it’s weird,” Bart seemed to gear-shift, this wasn’t quite his default of ‘doesn’t know when to shut up,’ but he seemed to be following more on his own tangent of thought, “Like I get why everyone’s in… this weird static panic mode but it still doesn’t feel real. I mean we’ve seen people die before—which is messed up—but watching that video… hit different.”

“Bart…” Kon started. There was a weird protective reflex in Kon, a part of him that wanted to say, ‘You shouldn’t be looking that video up,’ but Bart was right—they had seen people die before.

“Hey, Speed Force perception means I’ve got kind of a built-in frame-by-frame thing going on, I figured I should watch it in case I caught anything.”

“Did you?”

“No, I saw pretty much the same thing as everyone else. Just…” Bart splayed his fingers out at the level of his chest, “Kraka-SCHLARK.” He mimicked the sickening noise from the video. God, Kon wished it had just been ‘bang’ or something. “Sorry, we’re eating,” Bart said offhandedly.

“It’s whatever,” said Kon. He just huffed a breath and took another bite of donut. “I think I want to be relieved,” he said after a minute or so of chewing, “I mean, even if everything’s a mess right now, I don’t feel him, like… looming over me.”

Bart’s lips pressed thin. “Buuuuut?” He leaned over a bit to get a better look at Kon’s face.

“He’s…” Kon’s voice went thick, “He’s not here any more. And—and I’m scared that, because he’s not here anymore, that I won’t know if I’m… being like him.”

“You’re not like him,” said Bart. He wasn’t saying the words as mindless reassurance, Kon could feel that. He knew Bart was speaking purely from all of their time together, but for all his fucked up experience of the timeline, Bart didn’t know that for sure. He couldn’t know that for sure.

“I want to believe that, like, really bad,” said Kon, finally turning to look at Bart.

Bart swung an arm over Kon’s shoulders. “Well like, okay I don’t know the guy really well, but wasn’t like, 50% of his thing, being like ‘Bwahaha, you’re acting all according to my plan?’”

“…yeah…”

“Yeah that’s catfishing.”

“Gaslighting.”

“Are you sure? I thought it was catfishing, because, like, you stick your arm in the hole, and then the catfish bites it, and you drag them out of the hole. Wham! Gotcha! Catfished!”

“That’s noodling,” said Kon.

“Okay now I think you’re just messing with me,” said Bart.

“No, I get around. I’ve seen it done. And I think in that sense you just mean ‘baiting.’ Which… he also did.”

“Okay so where do the gaslights come in?”

“Gaslighting is basically when someone makes you think you’re going crazy, like you can’t trust yourself or your choices or even your own senses,” said Kon, “Which… Lex definitely did.”

“So I’m right,” said Bart, nodding.

“I—” Kon’s brow crinkled and he pinched the bridge of his nose, before chuckling a little, “I mean, I guess?”

Bart moved to say something, but then the earpiece on the side of his cowl buzzed.

“Trouble?” said Kon as Bart shoved the remainder of his donut in his mouth and touched a finger to the earpiece.

“Bart?” Cassie’s voice came over the other end.

“Caffiiie!” Bart exclaimed with his mouth full of donut before swallowing hard and saying, “You’re not gonna believe who I’m with!”

“Is it Kon?”

“…okay, yes, you are going to believe who I’m with.”

“Look, that’s great and I’d love to catch up, but you guys should get back to the Happy Harbour headquarters and turn on the TV.”

“I thought you said I needed to cut down on screentime,” said Bart, stuffing the last of his donut into his mouth.

“Bart, the League is finally releasing a statement on the assassination,” said Cassie.

“Ohhhh,” said Bart, “We’ll get on that.”

“Tell Red I said ‘Hi,’” said Cassie, before clicking out of the channel.

Bart glanced at Kon and sprang to his feet. “Race you there?”

Kon smiled.

Chapter Text

J’onn probably had a bigger soft spot for the Hall of Justice than most of the League. While it was originally built as its own sort of metahuman embassy, as opposed to the distant and intimidating Watchtower satellite, most of the time, it really was more or less a glorified museum-slash-office building in terms of actual use by the League. But that was important, too: it kept accountability for the League to various world governments, allowed for collaboration and consolidation for the League’s surprising amount of pencil pushers and legal teams, and gave the League a public face where different members could share their stories and their beliefs. It was also a memorial to those they had lost in their various battles over the years. In all those regards, it was literally grounding. Ironically, it wasn’t too far from Walter Reed, but J’onn tried not to be too distracted by that fact.

The League press hall hadn’t actually seen a lot of use since Booster Gold abused his privileges a few years back (He learned his lesson! Really!). A lot of the time, when it came to certain disasters, most League members were able to give their own accounts to the respective local media. League-wide announcements were rare, and for good reason: the League wanted to set an example, but it didn’t want to dictate and dogmatize, and it drew its strength from the fact that they were all such a varied bunch with their own beliefs and practices, so it wouldn’t do to be constantly making blanket statements about itself, except, obviously, when it came to addressing misconduct of its members (Booster…). J’onn leafed through the statement again, then glanced down at the suit he had shapeshifted onto himself. He was sitting in a chair in a little waiting corridor just outside of the press conference room.  A few feet away from him, Olivia Ortega was shaking out her shoulders, making ‘bbbrrrrr’ noises with her lips and enunciating, “Caesar’s seizure’s by the seashore. She sells sea shells by the sea shore. A proper copper coffee pot. Betty Botter bought some butter.”

“Hm,” J’onn set the papers in his lap.

“Any last minute edits?” King Faraday was leaning against the wall next to him, sipping coffee.

“None I can think of,” said J’onn.

“Good, because there’s no time to put them through a committee for approval,” said Faraday.

“I still fear I am not the best choice for this announcement,” said J’onn, steadily.

“So… we’re having this conversation again,” said Faraday.

“If the goal is to put the public’s mind at ease—” J’onn started.

“Seniority: Check. Experience on multiple strike teams both domestic and international: Check. A cool head: Check. Cape: Check,” Faraday gave a glance to J’onn’s shape-shifted suit, “Metaphorically speaking.”

“You know that is not what I mean,” said J’onn.

Faraday’s mouth hitched and he itched at the single black streak in his combed-back white hair.

“Look, you’re just reading the statement, then Olivia’s going to be handling the actual questions from the press.”

“Mm.”

“Also, for the love of god, do not read the crowd’s mind. Just—do yourself a favor and block it out. If you’re feeling the telepathy creeping in, just imagine me making this face,” Faraday pointed to himself making a very stern face.

“I do appreciate how concerned for my wellbeing you’ve become,” J’onn smiled slightly.

“‘Concerned for your wellbeing’ nothing. My job is keeping capes and feds from getting into a fight and killing us all, and to do that, we need this press conference. We can’t have you buckling over with another one of your ‘I just remembered humanity is terrible’ psychic migraines,” Faraday paused, “But—also, obviously, you’re going to do fine. You’re great. You’ve got a nice voice.”

“Mm,” J’onn just gave a little nod, that smile still there.

Faraday looked like he wanted to backpedal from that for a few seconds, before shrugging it off. “Knock ‘em dead, spaceman,” he said, tapping J’onn’s shoulder before straightening his tie and walking out into the press conference room.

J’onn listened to Faraday’s introduction, slightly muffled through the door, before drawing himself to his feet. He straightened his tie, more of a mannerism he had learned from Faraday than something he had to do to correct his own appearance, and walked through the door, into the lights. Faraday stepped way from the podium, allowing J’onn to take his place. The Martian recognized Ronnie Troupe from the Daily Planet in the front row, he liked Ronnie, but his mind picked up on the mental presence that was far, far older than everyone in the mass of journalists seated before him. J’onn’s eyes drifted toward the back of the room where Diana stood, a steady column of a woman, arms folded. She motioned at him with her chin slightly with a small smile. Always the protector—at least half the press would be too obsessed with trying to nail her down for a comment after this conference to badger him for it. He shuffled his papers on the podium.

“Good morning,” he said, “My name is J’onn J’onnz, perhaps more colloquially known as the Martian Manhunter, and in the interest of maintaining an open and cooperative relationship with both the US government and the global public, I am here to report on recent League activity as it pertains to the recent assassination of President Lex Luthor. At approximately 12:40 AM last night, Superman made atmospheric re-entry from a diplomatic trip to New Genesis, and was briefed by fellow League members on the President’s assassination. With the League’s approval, Superman then took it upon himself to apprehend the leading suspect in the assassination, Lonnie Machin. At 1:46 AM, Superman submitted Mr. Machin to the custody of the Secretary of Metahuman Affairs, Amanda Waller. We hope in this act to demonstrate not only our willingness to cooperate with the US government maintaining the safety and assurance of the American people, but also to wholeheartedly condemn this assassination as undermining the institution of democracy.” J’onn hesitated, gave a glance to Diana at the back, who maintained a steady, acquiescing eye contact, then he glanced at Faraday, who gave him a slight, ‘Go on,’ nod. J’onn cleared his throat and continued reading the report, “As this was occurring, Ambassador Diana of Themyscira was contacted by a member of the Waller Commission to examine the body of Lex Luthor, and by her estimation, we find that the Themysciran delegation’s previous assessment that Lex Luthor had been killed by God-Killer metal was incorrect.”

And here it was, the ripple the murmurs, the cresting psychic wave. Keep moving forward. Don’t get caught up in it.

“We make this statement with the goal of maintaining peace and accountability between the United States and Themyscira, as well as in the hopes of extending the League’s considerable scientific resources in service to the investigation. As of this hour, we have completed inquiries on several high-priority League members so that they might lend their efforts. Victor Stone, Ray Palmer, and Shiera Hol have all successfully cleared their respective inquiries and stand ready and willing to assist in this investigation. We would also like to take this moment to formally extend our condolences to the friends and family of Lex Luthor, and to the people of the United States in this time. While many of our members have stood at odds with the President on many issues, we understand that Luthor ultimately acted from a boundless belief in human ingenuity and potential. The world has lost a great intellect and we share in this grief. Thank you. I will now open the floor to Miss Ortega to take your questions.”

An explosion of overlapping questions burst forth from the crowd as J’onn walked offstage and Olivia took the podium.

“Mr. J’onnz, what was observed about the President’s body that made the Themysciran delegation retract its previous statement?!”

“Mr. Manhunter! Are you saying the League has no idea what actually killed the President?!”

“Mr. Faraday, was the League actually given clearance by the Waller Commission to release this information!?”

“Mr. Manhunter, shouldn’t the League be more transparent with Superman’s whereabouts so that the American government can compensate accordingly?”

“Mr. J’onnz, how can we be sure that the League isn’t favoring a Themysciran narrative over American forensic science?!”

“Mx. J’onnz, am I detecting urgency in understanding the nature of the weapon that killed the President?”

“At least they aren’t asking who does your hair,” Diana was waiting for him in the corridor behind the stage.

“I believe that would require actually having hair, my friend.” J’onn said in greeting as she wrapped her arms around him.

“Don’t worry,” Diana gave him a little squeeze, “Once Ortega wraps things up, I’ll hover out in the lobby to grab their attention.”

“They are not wrong,” said J’onn, “It is a risky move, to make this statement before the Commission has completed its report.”

“A statement from us was long overdue,” said Diana, “While I doubt Secretary Waller is pleased, this can at least put more distance between the League, my sisters, and the assassination so that we can investigate a bit more freely. If we make it clear that we want to understand the situation just as much as the Commission…” Diana trailed off slightly and both of them listened to Olivia’s muffled voice addressing journalists’ questions in the other room.

Is it more or less reassuring how little we know? J’onn wondered.

“What’s the word from Batman?” asked J’onn.

“We’re getting him to budge,” Diana smiled.

“Batman,” said J’onn flatly.

“I’m very convincing,” said Diana with a bit of smugness, “And he’s running out of leads in that cave and he knows it,” she added, more flatly.

“I should hope we have better luck,” said J’onn.

“We will,” said Diana, a hand on his shoulder, “I have faith in us.”

——

MANHUNT OVER, QUESTIONS REMAIN

Superman Submits Presidential Assassin Lonnie Machin to Federal Custody as Justice League Releases Formal Statement

By Ronnie Troupe and Lois Lane-Kent

There was much speculation in regard to the whereabouts of Superman at the time of President Luthor’s assassination. While conspiracy theories abounded, popular social media accounts dedicated to tracking superheroes were observing Superman’s absence from supervillain attacks and other incidents as early as 16 days before the assassination. In one viral video 10 days before the assassination, former Cadmus experiment and current Titan Kon-El, also known as Superboy, commented, “Look, we don’t like saying when Supes is off-planet because then every asshole with a ray gun and a pair of purple tights takes that as license to go nuts like there isn’t an entire league lined up to stop them in Superman’s place. It just puts more people in danger while creating more work for us. And like, we have plenty of heroes that are technically ‘on-planet,’ but aren’t really ‘here,’ because they’re like… thrown back in time or shrunken really small or something. We get into shit, is what I’m saying. Wait—-are you filming?”

This once again hints at the many gray areas of how much information the Justice League is obligated to release to world governments and to the general public with regard to the whereabouts of their operating heroes, as well as the heroes’ themselves rights to safety and privacy. A question that is often answered on a case-by-case basis, as League Liaison King Faraday has explained in the wake of many incidents over the years. At 10 AM, EST, Faraday, along with the Martian Manhunter and League Press Secretary Olivia Ortega, finally held a press with an official League statement. This conference confirmed that, around 2 AM this morning, Superman apprehended Lonnie Machin and remanded him to the custody of Secretary of Metahuman affairs, Amanda Waller, at the Pentagon. Ortega also confirmed that Superman has indeed been off-planet for the past three weeks, on a diplomatic mission to the planet New Genesis. |

“I feel like I’m getting too caught up in the timeline,” muttered Lois, frowning at the shared draft on her monitor, “Sixteen days, ten days… it’s clunky.” Noon sunlight was streaming through the windows of her corner office, her Sword of Truth award catching the light and sending a scattering of rainbows on the walls. Jon, king of parallel play, was quietly babbling to himself using his ‘shapes in holes’ toy in his playpen in the corner.

“Well, how important is the whole, ‘Where was Superman’ angle?” asked Clark, stooping over her shoulder, “Shouldn’t you just let Ronnie jump right into the League press conference?”

“The speculation and misinformation is only going to get worse if we don’t have context,” said Lois.

“I mean if you want to cut down on speculation, maybe don’t lead with ‘Questions remain?’”

“It’s called a hook, Smallville,” Lois grinned, “Plus, if we actually know what questions we should be asking…”

“You’re not steering the reader, Lane,” a voice spoke from her office doorway and both Lois and Clark glanced up, “You’re just telling the story.”

“I know that,” said Lois, glancing back at her monitor and scrolling up half a paragraph, “And it’s Lane-Kent, chief.”

“It’s not ‘Chief.’ And I’m not spending time adding on an extra syllable just to make a name you’ll both respond to,” said Perry, walking into Lois’s office before motioning to Clark with his coffee mug, “Good to have you back by the way, Kent.”

“Thank you sir,” said Clark, “And it’s Lane-Kent.”

“I just said—” Perry started and then cut himself off as Jon started reaching up chubby grabby hands at him from his playpen and making ‘Eh! Eh! Eh!’ noises. “Oh for—” Perry set his mug down on Lois’s desk and picked up Jon, “Alright, get over here, you little—Good god, he’s sturdy. What are you feeding him?”

“He likes sweet potato,” said Lois.

“Mm,” Perry tucked Jon under one arm like he was holding a basketball and looked back at Clark, “So I take it you’re back from the… what did you call it again?”

“Book-slash-paternity leave,” said Clark, “And… obviously the scope of the book has… definitely changed, given recent events.”

Clark hated this cover story (read: lie) more than most. Was there a book? Yes. Super-memory plus long-stints flying through space plus super-speed typing or dictating to Kelex meant there was a solid amount of book. But was he with his son all that time? No.

Sure, Jon loved Kansas and Grandma, and the Kent farm was isolated enough for them to keep solid tabs on the gradual development of his powers (nothing to speak of yet, aside from a certain Kryptonian robustness), but Clark still felt an enormous responsibility towards Jon, not just as a father, but as another alien. Kon was… definitely more complicated, as far as relations went, but Jon was someone he and Lois had willingly brought into the world, someone they had the power and responsibility to actively shape the mind and heart of. Could he do that and still be Superman? Would Jon be free to be his own person, or would his half-Kryptonian physiology decide his fate for him? Clark’s eyes fell on the red sun-irradiated titanium isotope bracelet around Jon’s little wrist, cleverly disguised as a medical allergy bracelet. It was a gift from Kara, something she had whipped up herself in the Fortress of Solitude’s lab, “Because we don’t actually know how Terran DNA will affect the development of his powers.” They tried to keep it off as much as possible so that Jon would get a grasp of mind-body awareness even as his powers developed and, obviously so they could track his powers’ development, but Clark had to admit, it was reassuring to know it was there when it came to regular people handling Jon.

“Your Vice Presidential biography just became a Presidential biography.” said Perry, picking his coffee mug back up with his free hand, as Jon cooed and kicked his feet under his arm.

“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” said Clark, his ears burning, “I mean, the tone-shift alone—I was thinking I’d split it into two separate works, take a harder direction with Pete’s biography, then put the softer stuff to that essay collection I’ve been meaning to get to.”

“You hear that, Jon? Daddy’s gonna pay for your college fund with old people money!” Lois said in a sing-song voice.

“Okay, it’s not just old people that like my essays!” Clark said on reflex.

Lois gave him that, ‘Just keep telling yourself that, Smallville,’ smile.

“Well, both will have to wait while we’re in this mess,” said Perry.

“I figured as such,” said Clark, leaning against Lois’s desk.

“It’s not a good look,” Perry went on, “Batman’s rogue, killing Superman’s nemesis, using Wonder Woman’s weapon.”

“Except Anarky was never simply a ‘rogue,’ Superman never wanted a nemesis, and the League just released a statement saying the weapon wasn’t the God-killer,” said Lois.

“You know the public can’t keep track of half the crap the Justice League is dealing with from one week to the next!” exclaimed Perry, “First there was all that… OMAC nonsense, or it’s whatever the hell that ‘Unity’ thing was down in Kansas, or Gotham’s just pumped out another hallucinogen—and don’t get me started on the shirtless blonde kid with the furries!”

“Kamandi went back to his own time,” Lois offered, before saying, more quietly to herself, “I hope he’s okay…”

“Oh for—The point of a newspaper—!” Perry started, and then apparently defeated himself mid-sentence, “…is to inform.” Jon cooed under his arm at this. “We want our readers to feel empowered by being informed, but we also have to consider our position as shapers of that narrative—and how much shaping the narrative actually puts us in the story.”

Clark’s ears were burning slightly, and he gave a glance back at Lois.

“Lane, do you know how many angry letters I’ve been having the mail room throw out since the assassination? Letters accusing you of encouraging it with your inflammatory reporting?”

Lois noted the instant shift in Clark’s posture, the ‘What are they saying about my wife?’ shoulders.

“I didn’t encourage anything. It’s not inflammatory if it’s true,” an incredulous chuckle shook Lois’s voice, “Lex’s campaign just reinvented the Gospel of Wealth for the tech bro crowd, won over an environmentalist crowd so desperate for alternative energy policies that they wouldn’t realize how much control of the national power grid they’d be handing over to Lexcorp, and he duped the rest with anti-metahuman and League fearmongering. That was the truth then, and it’s the truth now.”

“You don’t think I don’t know that?” Perry set his coffee mug down and handed Jon off to Clark, “Look, unless the League or the Waller commission can actually concretely tell us what the hell that metal was, this article is just going to muddy the waters further.”

Lois paused in her typing. “So… do you still want the article or—?”

“Of course I still want the damn article! But we also have to face facts that you two were holding Lex’s feet to the coals for years. With him dead, the Planet’s in the story, now.”

“Beh,” said Jon as if to punctuate Perry’s point.

“…you want us covering the state funeral,” said Lois, leaning back in her chair.

“Ronnie’s gonna have no shortage of work around DC just covering the Waller Commission’s investigation, and probably Waller’s reaction to the League dropping this in everyone’s laps,” said Perry, “I’m not asking you to eulogize, but this is a chance for the Planet to show a human face and—well… ‘bury the hatchet’ is probably too strong a word but—you know, funerals. They put things in perspective: Lex was mortal, and you two are human.”

That’s us… thought Clark, letting Jon grab hold of his finger, Human, human, human.

Lois exhaled, puffing her cheeks slightly in the action. She gave a glance to Clark. “What do you think, Smallville?”

Clark’s jaw flexed a little as he readjusted Jon in his arms, “I… think it’s a good chance for some closure,” his own voice sounded distant, then he furrowed his brow before blinking a few, fluttering times and huffing a breath. “Sorry—just, Lex was… always doing something new. It’s still surreal, the thought of having an actual final word.” He looked back at Lois, and there was that gentle patience in her eyes, but it was combined with a determined line of her mouth. You’ve got this. Keep it together.

“That’s why it has to be you two,” said Perry, definitely picking up on Clark’s pensiveness, even if he didn’t have the full context for its source. He huffed a little,

“All right, Chief. We’ll get on it,” said Lois, “I guess this means you’re volunteering for babysitting?”

Jon chirped and reached grabby hands toward Perry.

“…I’m sure you two will figure something out,” said Perry.

——

In a sparsely furnished office in the pentagon, J’onn’s press conference was playing on a large monitor.

“The world has lost a great intellect and we share in this grief. Thank you. I will now open the floor to—” Amanda Waller clicked the monitor off and grimaced before shooting an icy glare over to Cole. The Grifter was sitting like a delinquent, straddling his chair backwards, forearms resting on the chair’s back.

“Your orders were to figure out why those needles were still growing on Luthor’s corpse, and you brought in pretty much the one person guaranteed to obliterate what little leverage we have,” said Waller.

“Well, there was nothing in the orders about ‘leverage,’” said Cole, chewing on a hangnail on his thumb, “The orders were to find out what the gold needle stuff is. Like you said.”

“And we’re no closer to knowing than before!” snapped Waller.

“We know it’s not God-Killer,” Cole smiled, found his smile was only met by that withering Waller stare, and stopped smiling. “I don’t know what you want me to tell you. I exhausted my own corridors of freaks for leads, so I turned to the one cape most likely to play by your rules—” Cole caught himself, “Okay, fine, maybe not your rules, but she’s an ambassador—”

“Representing two different groups of interest in this damn investigation!” exclaimed Waller, “And now the League just told the American public we don’t know what the hell is embedded in Luthor’s corpse.”

“While saying they also don’t know what the hell is embedded in Luthor’s corpse!”

“And you believe them?” Waller arched an eyebrow.

“Look, when I brought her to Walter Reed, the Princess looked spooked,” said Cole, “And, you know, call me crazy, but when Wonder Woman looks worried and starts listing off scientists you need to bring in, that probably means that we’re looking at a bigger issue than a Fed and League dick-measuring contest.”

“If there is a bigger issue,” said Waller, “We need to be ahead on it.”

“Again with the dick-measuring…” muttered Cole under his breath.

“What was that?” Waller said sharply.

Cole caught himself and was suddenly caught with a tense knot in his stomach as Waller turned the full force of her ice-cold fury and crushing gravitas on him.

“It’s. Not. Dick-Measuring, Mr. Cash,” she was more than a head shorter than him, but Cole Cash gulped under her glare. “The Department of Metahuman Affairs was created because somewhere in the midst of all the telepathy and laser vision and large-scale alien invasions, we still have a representative democracy to maintain. Part of that means maintaining the fact that we are the be-all end-all of the narrative. We are the arbiters of truth. These are not the same stakes you had gunning down god-knows-who in Black ops missions with Team 7!” She seemed to settle slightly and her eyes narrowed. “You may have been able to talk your way into this position, Grifter, but don’t assume your circumstances can’t change.” She paused, “And don’t assume the circumstances can’t change for your former teammates, either.”

“…one of these days you’re gonna have to come up with a better way of dealing with people than jamming bombs in their necks,” said Cole, grimly.

“You—” Waller started when the office door burst open to reveal a chubby, bearded, harried-looking assistant.

“Madame Secretary!” he buckled over, panting, “Situation… at Walter Reed.”

“Maybe this message could have been delivered by someone who does cardio, Economos?” said Waller, unimpressed.

“Woman… attacking—very fast… multiple officer casualties… requesting metahuman backup,” he was still huffing and puffing before jutting his head up, “We think she’s after the President’s body!”

Cole’s face went sober, “Get me a strike team and a handful of semi-automatics. If it’s just a speedster, I can—”

“No, I want you here interrogating Machin,” said Waller, before looking at Economos, “Is Captain Adam’s inquiry complete?”

“I mean,” Economos huffed, pulling himself back up to a standing postion, “He’s been mostly cleared for active duty again, there may be a couple forms still being processed and archived but with emergency clearance—”

“Get him to Walter Reed, now!” barked Waller.

Chapter Text

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——

Video Description: Iris West, a thirty-something woman with medium-to-light brown skin and dark auburn hair is bracing herself at the open door of a helicopter. Walter Reed Medical center is partially visible through the open helicopter doors. She is wearing a blue bulletproof vest with the word ‘PRESS’ displayed prominently on the chest. She is shouting to be heard over the helicopter rotors.

Video Transcript: “ If you’re just joining us now, this is Iris West with WGBS News. I’ve received an eyewitness tip of an attack on Walter Reed Medical Center, where President Luthor’s body is currently housed. So far, reports have indicated a single attacking figure, but there seem to already be multiple fatalities! Viewer discretion is advised—we are currently live at the scene.”

Video Description: The camera pans down and zooms in to see the grounds surrounding Walter Reed Medical Center. Several bodies of security officers in full tactical gear, it is unclear from this distance if they are dead or unconscious, are scattered on the ground. An apparent defensive line of reinforced cement One security officer can be seen dragging another injured officer to apparent safety before they are both waylaid by a pink and blue blur. Shouting and the pops of gunfire are heard.

Iris West (V.O): The assailant has not yet identified herself, but we’ve observed the movement of reinforcements, so it’s likely the Department of Metahuman Affairs will be responding with—

Video Description: Iris cuts herself off as a distant whoosh with thrumming undertones is heard. A silver male humanoid form suddenly whips past the helicopter, his body semi-blurred by heat waves and an aura of pinkish-yellowish radiation. Iris has to further brace her handhold as the helicopter rocks slightly in the wake of his speed. The camera zooms in on the silver figure.

Iris West (V.O): Yes! Captain Atom is on the scene! Captain Nathaniel Adam has not been seen since the assassination, it’s not clear whether his inquiry with the Department of Metahuman Affairs has been completed or expedited, but his immediate presence here sends a clear message to the Justice League: This is government business.

——

At the Young Justice headquarters in Happy Harbor, Bart was slumped forward, one knee bouncing up and down rapidly and chewing his thumbnail on the couch as Iris talked on the TV screen. Red Tornado was fixing quesadillas in the kitchen while Traya was quietly working on some of her AP homework at the kitchen table.

“Yes! Captain Atom is on the scene!” Iris exclaimed and Bart winced a little in his seat as Iris’s helicopter rocked.

“…he’s not fast enough,” said Bart.

“What?” Kon looked up from the Blabbler feed his phone.

“I can tell. Frame by frame,” Bart’s voice was hollow, “She doesn’t move like Me or Grandpa Barry or Wally or Jay. She’s not like us. Something’s wrong.”

“Young Justice operations have been suspended until more League Inquiries have been completed,” Red Tornado stated plainly.

“My grandma’s there and Captain Atom’s not fast enough,” Bart emphasized, adjusting his shoes.

“Look, Bart—” Kon started but flinched as Impulse, true to his name, took off in another spark-laden red and ivory blur.

——

Captain Atom flew towards Walter Reed, already hearing the distant pop of gunfire. He brought a finger to his ear.
“Madame Secretary? How do you wanna do this? Eliminate the threat, or capture her for questioning?”

“The latter is preferable,” Waller spoke over his comm, “But if getting to the President’s body is her goal, then you have my permission to take whatever measures necessary to keep that body from seeing the light of day or any news cameras.”

There were already several news choppers buzzing at what they probably thought was a safe distance. Captain Atom grimaced as he began his descent. The signs of destruction and death were already apparent, at least six men definitely dead, with much of the remaining defensive forces either scrambling to drag the wounded to safety, or try and maintain their perimeter in front of the building.

The first thing he noticed about the woman, was that it kind of hurt to look at her, which already unsettled him. It was like when you could tell something had been photoshopped in because the lighting was wrong and the resolution of object and background didn’t quite match. She wasn’t human, clearly, her skin was a pale blue, and her eyes wet and all-black. Her hair was cropped short, but more of a Caesar than a pixie, with two pinkie-thick braided rat tails trailing out from behind one pointed ear. Aside from the coloration and the pointed ears, there was something about her proportioning that reinforced her uncanniness. Her arms were just a little too long, as were her fingers, which ended in half-inch-long pointed claws. Her legs had a bend to them that was almost digitigrade but not quite. She was dressed in an all-black outfit of countless criss-crossing straps, with small silver pauldrons at the the shoulders, and two large slits cut down the outside of her legs, almost as if to accommodate their muscularity. Her face had a unique slope between the forehead and the bridge of the nose that was both animalistic and aristocratic. She was holding a limp national guardsman aloft by the neck, with a repulsed expression on her face before her attention shifted to Captain Atom. He tried not to let the alienness and familiarity of her appearance shake him as he hovered down in front of her.

“Ma’am,” he said as he descended, “I’m Captain Nathaniel Adam of the US Air Force, and I am ordering you to stand down and submit to my custody for questioning.”

“Captain,” she bit the word between her teeth as if it was a coin she was making sure wasn’t counterfeit, before casting off the national guardsman she was holding up by the throat, “You claim to have any authority in a matter well beyond your world?”

“Stand down,” said Captain Atom, letting energy radiate off of his fists, “Or be taken down.”

“Aberration,” the blue woman snarled, “I have seen you across many worlds. Tyrant. Traitor. Burden. Fool.” She looked around, contemptuously, before meeting his eyes again, “In this world, you are little more than a dog.”

“Well, I can assure you, ma’am, you don’t want this dog to bite,” Captain Atom extended a hand, radiative energy swirling around it. One of the pluses of falling in line with the US government was that the feds were at least able to provide him with an atmosphere of scientists that could help him hone his powers to the point of developing a self-containing energy blast that didn’t risk harming surrounding civilians with radiation. That was the whole double-edged sword of being named Captain Atom—he was named after the limitless potential of the atom itself on a quantum level, but most people associated ‘atom’ with 3 Mile Island or Chernobyl.

The blue skinned woman just let out a low laugh that may have also been panting from the exertion of her previous kills. Or maybe he was being overly-optimistic. She surged forward in a leap and he assessed, yes, that had been overly optimistic. Before he could fix the sights of his energy blast on her, she somersaulted in mid-air and dealt a two-footed kick to his chest, knocking him back. His energy blast flew out of his hand on reflex, grazing a high corner of the building and sending down a shower of smoked cement dust. By the time he recovered enough from the initial shock of that blow and instinctively looked to assess the damage of his misfired energy blast, Captain Atom heard a soft schff, before WHAM, she drove a hard knee to his ribs from the side, moving with impossible momentum from a completely different direction. Captain Atom had dealt with his share of speedy villains of the week, and had even gone against multiple virtual training simulations against speedsters that he could tell Waller had gleaned from Flash family battle data, but he immediately recognized this was not the same kind of speed. It was stilted, it was jarring, and there was a dark violence to it that went beyond the cheekiness of any ‘Flash Fact’-paired punch he had ever been dealt.

Wham.

Thwack.

Wham.

Wham.

She crisscrossed blow after blow to him with those same impossible angles of momentum. Captain Atom knew his ability to take hits wasn’t the same as Superman’s invulnerability. Unlike Superman, he couldn’t afford to just tank every blow and worry about how much damage they were actually doing to him later—every strike was distributed across his metallic skin as kinetic energy, then absorbed into the thrumming well of Quantum Field energy within him. In fight after fight he liked to think he could absorb seemingly infinite amounts, but that wasn’t true. Absorb too much and his connection to the Quantum Field would destabilize, sending him hurtling through time, in what direction he had no idea. As the blue skinned woman hurtled toward him again, it was all he could do to release a shockwave of concussive radiation off of himself to knock her back. A catlike snarl jolted out of her on impact and she bounced across the lawn in front of Walter Reed before digging her claws into the mostly-dead grass to catch herself. She drew herself to her feet, those too-long arms swaying slightly.

“You prove more entertaining than the rest of the battle-fodder, but you know not that which you withhold from us, dog,” she said, her eyes narrowing, “Surrender to me the ultraeschar, and I will leave your plane in peace.”

“The ult-what now?” said Captain Atom.

“Ultraeschar!” the blue woman exclaimed, “The fibrocystic form ultramenstruum takes on upon the traumatic contact of a physical plane!”

Captain Atom stared at her a few seconds before saying, “…what?”

“I don’t have time for this,” the blue woman snarled, before charging him again, only to be intercepted by a red and white blur.

“Augh!” She tumbled across the ground and recovered once more, crouched on the ground.

Impulse slid to a stop in front of Captain Atom, not even looking at him, those yellow goggles fixed on the blue-skinned woman.

“Kid, I’ve got enough problems without babysitting,” said Captain Atom, firing off energy blasts at the woman who dodged out of the way.

“Really? Because it looked like Lady Sonic here was putting the hurt on you,” said Impulse, zipping forward to meet the blue-skinned woman and dipping just out of reach of a swipe of her claws.

“Now wait—!” Captain Atom called out in warning as both blue-black-pink and red-ivory blurs zipped around him dizzyingly. He frustratedly swung his extended arms around, energy blasts ready to fire off on both fists, but unwilling to accidentally hit Impulse.

“Now the dog has a whelp,” the blue-skinned woman snarled as she struck out to claw Bart again.

“So, what do we call you?” asked Bart as he zipped behind her and she tried to hit him with a roundhouse kick, “Cotton Candy?”  He clipped her with a super-speed fly-by strike to the ribs. “Vaporwave Spock?” He tore up the earth with a sliding kick that she only barely managed to pivot out of the way of. “Wildberry Crunch?” He actually managed to clip her across the jaw, prompting a furious sound out of her.

It wasn’t clear if she managed to match Bart’s speed or predict his movements, but she clotheslined him hard enough to send him feet-over-head but still hurtling forward before painfully tumbling across the asphalt.

“I am Viza’Aziv,” she said, drawing herself up to her full height, “Last and greatest of the Forerunners, and you are out of your depth, little—GRAH!”

She was struck hard from the side by an energy blast from Captain Atom.

“Try fighting someone your own age!” Captain Atom called before suddenly getting a flying kick to the jaw. Right… if she could keep up with Impulse, then it would definitely only take half a heartbeat for her to close the distance between herself and Captain Atom. He suddenly felt a hard spike in his mind, a flash of visions—a figure in black and gold armor, fields of destruction where cities once lay, and red, red, red.

Do you see what you are capable of? Do you see what a failure you are in this world? Forerunner’s voice screeched through his mind like nails on a chalkboard, and just as he forced his consciousness back to his immediate senses, back to the current situation, he got an open-handed strike across his face, her claws managing to score three thick marks in his metallic skin. Between the psychic assault and the strike, he stumbled back, only for her to once again flank him from the side. But then, in another blur of red and ivory and a crackling of sparks, Bart caught her wrist before she could slash those claws across Captain Atom’s back. He met those inky black eyes, “How about picking on someone your own speed?”

Visa grinned before suddenly hauling Bart off his feet and hurling him hard into the side one of the emergency vehicles.

A shriek of pain that betrayed Bart’s youth blurted out of him on impact as the metal buckled underneath him and the glass on the windows shattered and rained down on him. He dropped down from the side of the truck, shuddering in pain and whimpering. There was already a crack running through one of the lenses of his goggles. Viza’Aziv’s attention was fixed on Impulse. Still dazed from the psychic assault, Captain Atom flailed out a hand to grab her, but she surged toward the rival speedster.

“Okay… strong… fast and strong…” Bart was saying, his voice creaky with pain as he pushed himself up to his hands and knees and spat out blood before suddenly being seized by his hair and yanked up off his feet again.

“My kin were trained in combat since they could walk as well, little one,” said the Forerunner, holding him by the hair as his legs flailed weakly, “A pity your forebears’ training is… insufficient.”

Bart spat blood in her eyes.
“Wretched—!” she started before getting hit in the back with an energy blast before getting an uppercut to the jaw from Captain Atom. She dropped Bart like a pile of bricks before Captain Atom hit her with a point-blank energy blast to the torso that sent her slumping to the ground.

“You all right, kid?” Captain Atom kept a hand pointed at the blue-skinned woman while offering the other to Bart to help him up.

“Flashes patch up fast,” Bart’s voice was thick as he wiped blood from his mouth and pulled himself to his feet. Smoke was rising off of the Forerunner’s apparently unscathed body as she slowly drew herself up.

“You need to get out of here,” said Captain Atom, stepping in front of Impulse, “I can’t hit her with a harder blast if I’m worried about hitting you.”

“You can’t hit her without me running interference, period!” Bart argued.

The Forerunner’s head jerked up and she snarled, she moved to lunge at them but then—

A loop of golden light arced around her and drew taut in the blink of an eye, binding her arms to her sides and stopping her short.

“I believe you have been told multiple times to stand down,” Diana’s arms were visibly shaking with the strength it took to keep the Forerunner bound. She touched down onto the ground and instantly was forced to dig her heels in to keep her grip as Viza’Aziv thrashed furiously in the grip of the Lasso of Truth.

“Princess,” Captain Atom looked at Wonder Woman grimly.

“Captain,” Diana kept a furrowed brow as Martian Manhunter hovered down next to her.

“I didn’t ask for backup,” said Captain Atom.

“We were,” Wonder Woman grunted and drew the lasso even tighter around the Forerunner as she thrashed, “In the neighborhood.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that she needs to go into US custod—” Captain Atom started, but Bart suddenly cried out and clasped his hands to the sides of his head. In his head was a rush of timelines, countless worlds where he had died. Withering away to speed-force augmented aging. Brutally murdered by rogues as an example to the rest of his family, as a warning to his friends. An alien virus causing him to be eaten alive by his own super-speed metabolism. Countless worlds where he had never been born. Futures crumbling away.

Failure. Idiot. Mistake. Aberration. You can never go home. Across a thousand timelines you are doomed and doomed and doomed and doomed.

“Impulse!” Diana started before crying out herself. She was jerked forward by the lasso, briefly, but squeezed her eyes shut.

“Diana!?” J’onn called out to her, but she could barely hear him against the roar of words and images in her own head.

I have seen you across countless worlds as well, Goddess-turned-Princess…What are you but clay? To be molded and shaped by those around you? Little more than the sword at your hip. A weapon of the gods… And yet you cannot protect them. But that matters little. I have seen your story in worlds hundreds of years from now. The more time passes, the less they will mean to you.

“ENOUGH!” roared Diana before yanking the lasso hard with one arm and releasing her grip by one hand, just for a moment, to whack the Forerunner hard across the back of her head with one of her bracelets of submission. The shock from the blow allowed Diana to regain her grip on the lasso. Bart had dropped to his knees, now, still clasping the sides of his head.

“She is lashing out psychically,” said J’onn, hovering over to Bart’s side. “Her defenses are formidable but—” He put a hand on Bart’s shoulder. He furrowed his Martian brow slightly and Viza’s head suddenly jutted back in a painful grunt as Bart went through a full-body flinch, blinking several times, his breath shuddering. Bart hugged himself. Diana caught her own breath, still gripping the lasso.

“My apologies, Impulse,” J’onn spoke gently to him, “I…could not disrupt her directly. I had to use your mind to push her back.”

“Mmnh…” Bart just made a wincing sound and rubbed his arms.

“She is psychically contained for now,” said the Martian Manhunter, “But… it is strange. Her mind has known… immeasurable loss and it has seen so many worlds that it would drive any other mind to madness. Yet there is a familiarity I have not known since my days on Mars…”

“So it was real?” Bart’s voice was quiet, “What she showed me…?”

Captain Atom stiffened where he stood.

Do you see what you are capable of?

Tyrant. Traitor.

The figure in the black and gold armor flashed through his mind again, but this time he knew it was unbidden from his own memories. He shook his head. “We can’t worry about that now,” he said, “I’m taking her in to Waller for questioning.”

“Are you even equipped to—?” Wonder Woman started but then startled as Forerunner started glowing, encased in a dark red aura.

“Wait—!” Forerunner was pleading, but she didn’t seem to be talking to any of them, “I can still do this! I’m so close! The Ultraeschar! We cannot leave it! Don’t—!” But then the lasso slackened and dropped to the ground as Viza’Aziv, last and greatest of the Forerunners, disappeared in a bloom of red vapor, which hung in the air before dissipating like watercolor being washed out.

Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter stared at the golden loop on the ground.

“Ultraeschar…” Wonder Woman repeated the word to herself, before her gaze trailed over to Walter Reed. It was whatever was growing on Luthor’s body—it had to be. Well, now they had a name for it, but still no idea what it actually did… aside from kill the President.

“Well, Justice League, you’ve saved the day again, and all it took was scaring away a vital suspect in the president’s assassination and undermining the Department of Metahuman Affairs,” Captain Atom scoffed.

“Captain Adam, please,” it was almost unnerving how quickly Diana could shunt herself back into ‘Ambassador mode,’ “There is clearly more going on here than either the League or the Government understands. If we collaborate—”

“I’ve had quite enough collaboration for one day, Princess,” he said before pointing a finger at Bart, “You need to control your operatives, better!”

“It’s—it’s not their fault!” Impulse protested, “I went in without orders! I came because I thought—I—” he was cut off as all sound was drowned out by the rotors of a news helicopter as the WGBS chopper lowered itself from the sky. Grandma— He kept the words back in his throat but he tensed where he stood. Wonder Woman put a hand on his shoulder, “We can take it from here. It’s fine,” she said gently. Impulse gave an awkward glance back to Captain Atom.

“…Captain,” he said awkwardly, with a tiny salute before zipping off toward the news helicopter.

“Funny how he’s a good listener all of a sudden,” Captain Atom spoke after him, grimly.

“We will speak to him after this, but he was acting to save the lives of civilians, he made a judgment call that you needed help—”

“If I need help, I’ll count on sanctioned officers of the law,” said Captain Atom

“Several of which are already dead!” Diana snapped.

“The priority was capturing the attacker! They understood the risks!”

“I am curious as to how you would have contained Miss Aziv, Captain,” Martian Manhunter mused drily, “Seeing as you are likely as clueless as to where she has gone as we are.”

“See, I’m not so sure you are that clueless,” said Captain Atom. “Convenient that she shows up right after the little press conference to take the heat off of Themyscira. Convenient that having the kid here forces me to pull my punches. Convenient that only you, Manhunter, can stop her psychic attacks, if they are her psychic attacks, that is.”

J’onn’s green skin blanched at the thinly veiled accusation. “I would never…” he started slowly.

“If the League wanted to take the President’s body by force—!” Diana started and then caught herself, hating the end of that sentence. You wouldn’t be able to stop us. That wasn’t who they were. That wasn’t who they wanted to be. Kal-El would be trying to defuse the situation if he were here, and Bruce wouldn’t even be bothering with trying to prove himself against Captain Atom’s words if he were here, and here she was, letting her anger and her defensiveness towards J’onn and her sisters get the better of her. She set her jaw and let out a short, frustrated exhale through her nostrils. Like Ferdinand, she thought with a bit of affection.

“I understand that at this point, there are too many unknowns, and too much bad blood between Luthor and the League, for the Department of Metahuman affairs to extend the benefit of the doubt to us,” she spoke carefully, “But we want to help,” she held up the lasso of truth, wrapped around her knuckles demonstratively, “And we are willing to do it on your terms. If it means saving more lives.”

Captain Atom gave both her and J’onn a hard, steady look. “I don’t doubt that,” he said, “I don’t doubt that the Justice League wants to do good. What I do worry about is what that good looks like, and how you plan on getting it done. Especially when there’s one member of your core team who has no problem moving everyone else around like chess pieces whether they know it or not.”

Both Diana and J’onn immediately knew he was talking about Batman, but neither took the bait to defend him, which would only confirm Captain Atom’s line of reasoning.

“And yet you have no problem being Waller’s chess piece,” J’onn remarked.

“J’onn,” Diana said in warning, before saying, “Do you need our help for cleanup? Debriefing?”

“What we need right now is to re-assess security,” said Captain Atom, folding his arms, “If you’re needed for questioning… we’ll be in touch.”

Diana gave a glance to the medics and other emergency responders picking up the bodies of the Forerunner’s previous kills. These were men willing to die to protect their country, but what did it mean if their deaths were almost a statement of autonomy from the League on behalf of the US government? No—she couldn’t think like that. These men woke up this morning willing to defend this medical center and the president’s body from reasonable, practical, well-within-human-imagination threats… but it was President Luthor’s body—what threat to it could be reasonable?

“If I may—One more thing,” J’onn spoke up before looking at Captain Atom, “I understand you were fighting Miss Aziv for some time before our arrival. Did she attack psychically then, as well?”

“Y-yeah,” Captain Atom’s words were halting, “But it was just me—not the kid.”

“Did you see anything?” asked J’onn, “Anything that might be a clue as to what this… Ultraeschar might be? Or why she would want it?”

Tyrant. Traitor.

“Nothing,” Captain Atom’s voice was a thick flinch, “It was… basically just microphone feedback. Sensory assault. I didn’t see anything.”

The Demigoddess of Truth and the psychic martian exchanged an equally disbelieving side-eye.

“If there’s anything we can do…” Diana said slowly, as both she and J’onn lifted off of the ground.

“You’ve done quite enough,” said Captain Atom.

Diana pursed her lips and both she and J’onn flew off.

——

Across the lawn, Bart skidded to a halt on his heels as Iris leapt down from her helicopter as it was touching down and stumbled toward him.

“Bart—oh my god—” Iris hugged Bart tight before breaking out of the hug to check him over, “What were you thinking?!”

“I was thinking Grandpa Barry’s busy and Wally’s still under inquiry and Jay’s stuck picking up the slack for both of them and you were out here and there was a freaky blue lady who killed like 8 guys and helicopter crashes are really messed up and—”

“Okay—okay—that’s very sweet, but I’m a reporter,” Iris set her hands on Bart’s shoulders, “I understand the risks when I go into a situation like this.”

“I understand them, too!” Bart piped up, “That’s why I came!”

Iris’s eyes got crinkled and wet and she blinked a few times to compose herself. “You shouldn’t have to—” she started before stroking a hand over Bart’s hair before hugging him again. Bart felt her breath shudder in the embrace, but she pulled back again. Her brow crinkled at the scratches all over his uniform and the crack running through one of his goggle lenses.

“How are you feeling?” She asked, “Look, I’ve seen Barry through enough glycogen crashes and hyponatremia to know you need to rest after running around and taking hits like that.”

“Psssh,” Bart flopped a hand, “I’m fiiiiine. I could probably go for like… a burrito or somethi—”

He collapsed where he stood.

“Bart!” Iris blurted out before slapping a hand over her own mouth.

Chapter Text

Lonnie was meditating in his cell. Obviously as the President’s assassin, he wasn’t exactly expecting the Ritz, but he also knew isolation as an intimidation tactic when he saw it—or felt it. The first few hours were spent fading in an out of a fitful sleep, then pondering (if the feds would actually hold up their word to Superman and their supposed standard of due process) what litigation would actually look like. He wasn’t sure if he was entertaining actual plans or fantasies. Did he want a lawyer? Czolgosz refused a lawyer, but Lonnie hardly wanted Czolgosz as a precedent for his own actions. Czolgosz never had to worry about President McKinley zooming around in Kryptonite-fueled power armor.

I want a lawyer. Harvey Dent, he had rehearsed the lines in his head as half a joke. There was no way that would happen—though musing on the potential spectacle of it was almost enough to distract Lonnie from the chilling silence of his current accommodations. Lonnie didn’t want to align himself with Gotham rogues any more than he had to, but Dent was a former DA, and his insights as a rogue, as someone who at some point or another would have dealings with Lex, might actually make him a better defense for Lonnie than most. Or would he have to recuse himself? Lonnie snorted. Maybe Czolgosz refused a lawyer because he knew it would just be overcomplicating the inevitable.

It was also worth wondering how much the narrative would actually turn against Luthor now that he was gone. How much was it in Lexcorp’s interest to maintain the same story it had pushed during Luthor’s campaign? Lonnie wasn’t expecting an immediate collapse, but he did have a hope that with Lex gone, there would be whistleblowers from within the organization and exploited people from without to wear away at the corporation from its base and from there the wolves of capitalism would do their job and LexCorp’s competitors would tear it apart. Lex Luthor had an art for subtle, silent, and devastating retribution—without his hand at the wheel… maybe more people would shake the foundations and the exploiters would grab what money they could and run. Not exactly the collapse of exploitative capitalism he always dreamed of, but watching rats jump off of a sinking ship had its own satisfaction. He let his mind slip into darkness again.

By the third window of wakefulness between fraught dreams he couldn’t remember, Lonnie’s mind went to Robin. Lonnie didn’t regret killing Lex—if time was turned back, he would make the same choice. It had to be him—he was the outlier—too radical and political for the capes, too idealistic and altruistic for the rogues and yet…

Robin should have known that.

Robin should have counteracted him. Outmaneuvered him.

He was supposed to hurtle himself over the edge and Robin was supposed to grab him by the back of his cloak and yank him back. That was how they worked.

Lonnie pressed the back of his hand to his forehead. Or maybe that was it—for the sake of his ideals he had broken out of that dance of so-called heroes and villains, monsters of the week and a suffocating status quo, and in doing so, he had broken out of his own dance with Robin. Embarrassing. Anarky was supposed to be above that—the cause came above all.

And he had done it, hadn’t he?

He had sacrificed his vision for the world to save as many lives as immediately as possible. His own ideals had put him into a cycle of his own plots and machinations repeatedly being foiled by Batman and Robin, and he had chosen to break that cycle in a way the heroes never could.

Was this regret or dread?

The next time he pulled himself out of sleep, he decided to try and gain a better gauge on his own thoughts. One would think that the deliberate fusing of the left and right hemispheres of his brain, his amalgamation of the conscious and unconscious would more or less render meditation redundant, but he found his combination of TM and Nishkama Karma to be a valuable tool in reconciling thoughts that previously had to sublimate each other in his psyche. He let the thoughts pass without judgment, fixed his focus on his mantra.

The hardest victory is over self. The hardest victory is over self. The hardest—

Lonnie’s meditation was disrupted by the sound of the energy field of his cell shutting down. A strawberry blonde, stubbly, noticeably-more-rumpled-than-your-average-Fed man was standing just outside, two soldiers that were noticeably more armored than his previous security had been on either side of him.

“Machin? Cole Cash. Waller Commission. You’re with me.”

“I’m not saying anything without a lawyer,” said Lonnie, maintaining his upright and cross-legged position. Might as well gunk up the works with their own rules as much as he could while he was here.

“Or an audience,” Cole returned and Lonnie’s face burned, the memory of Superman’s words fizzing up inside.

I feel like the need for a soapbox is what’s motivating at least 40% of your actions.

Did none of them see what was happening? Did none of them get it? Did none of them know how much Lonnie threw away to put himself in this position?! Were all of them so willing to dismiss him as a teenager who would go so far as to kill the president for fucking attention?!

For all his previous meditation, Lonnie could feel his own breath go short with rage, but he caught himself as he noticed several more armored troops hustle past behind Cole. Cole’s face was level, but Lonnie could read when someone was pointedly trying to make something seem like nothing. Governments did it all the time, after all. And Lonnie wasn’t going to find out more from within a cell. He drew himself up to his feet.

“Fine,” he said, “I stated my intentions quite clearly in my video, and I’m perfectly capable of representing myself.”

The look Cole gave him was both exhausted and unsettlingly familiar. Despite their very similar hair colors, Lonnie didn’t like the idea of a fed seeing himself in him—but then adults were always projecting themselves onto youth. Lonnie stepped out of his cell, one of Cole’s goons put some handcuffs on him, and they walked down several hallways, with various security guards and harried assistants bustling past them.

“Busy,” observed Lonnie.

“Mm,” Cole grunted.

“…don’t tell me Waller’s declaring martial law already?” Lonnie arched an eyebrow.

“Funny,” said Cole, before opening a door to a bare room with a single table, two chairs, and what was obviously one-way glass.

“How many of these rooms does the Pentagon have?” asked Lonnie.

“Sit,” said Cole, pushing him in. A soldier pulled out Lonnie’s seat for him, and Lonnie sat down. Cole took his own seat across the table and itched at his stubble.

“So,” Cole flopped back in his own chair, “Here’s the thing. I’ve already fucked up. The narrative is already well out of the hands of the US government, no one knows what’s going on, and apparently there’s a pink-haired super-speed ninja smurfette attacking Walter Reed right now, who we believe is after the President’s corpse. Do you know who she is or why she would want that?”

“What?” Lonnie’s brow crinkled.

“Okay that’s the reaction I’m looking for,” said Cole, sitting up in his own seat, “Do you know what you killed the President with?”

“The God-Killer?” Lonnie tilted his head.

“…you think it’s the God Killer.”

“Why wouldn’t it be the God Killer? If you can’t out-tech Luthor, it stands to reason that you out-magic him,” Lonnie shrugged. His mouth bunched up along with his brow, “It’s not the God-Killer, is it?”

“Signs are pointing to ‘no,’ at this point,” said Cole, “Which is why it’s imperative that you tell us where the hell you got it.”

Lonnie’s mouth hitched. “How do we know it’s not the God Killer, now?’

“I’m the one asking the questions, here.”

“What’s happened?”

“Where did you get it, Lonnie?”

“Did it hurt more people?!” Lonnie leaned forward in his seat with a furious urgency.

“It’s… complicated right now,” said Cole, “What I can tell you is that there was a being out there that was willing to kill for it, and the Amazons have also determined it’s not the God-Killer.”

“Don’t you think it would be more in their interest for it to not be the God-Killer?”

“If they had figured that out from the start, they wouldn’t have stepped forward to begin with. I mean one of their most sacred and beloved artifacts is literally rope that forces you to tell the truth. Seems to me like they just jumped on a grenade to try and keep everything from immediately catching on fire, and now they’re stuck backpedaling as they realize the grenade is not a grenade and that things are catching on fire anyway. You don’t look more honest by backpedaling, so they’re only further putting themselves at a disadvantage.”

Lonnie couldn’t help but notice an odd shake to what should have been Cole’s grim estimation of the Amazon’s actions up until this point. Cole had a script, Lonnie could tell that much—something that could easily turn the average person around and point them where Cole wanted  them to go—but Anarky was not in the habit of being lead to the conclusions other people wanted. No, as he said all this, Cole seemed almost…sad? He was someone who had clearly functioned his whole life on the philosophy that, if you do good for the sake of doing good, expecting nothing in return, ultimately that’s going to bite you in the ass. But now, the idea that the Amazons were willing to take blame for this mess, willing to take up their already wearisome reputation of foreign and strange and dangerous if it meant keeping stability for everyone else, something about that that was making Cole more invested in the Amazons’ wellbeing than he had definitely set out to be. Maybe it was Cole’s own exhaustion as only ever being treated as what people had perceived him to be, but Lonnie couldn’t be sure. There wasn’t enough data.

“You’re speculating on information I can maybe extrapolate 15% of,” said Lonnie, flatly, “So you’re saying the Amazons have put out a statement.”

“Technically the League, but seeing as one of its founding members is Themyscira’s Ambassador…”

Something shifted in Lonnie’s eyes. “You met Wonder Woman,” he concluded.

Cole blinked. “I believe I asked you ‘where the hell did you get the weird metal you thought was God-Killer?’”

“You try and put on this big jaded cynical persona, but you met Wonder Woman and she got under your skin and now it’s actively making you question who to tell what, even when you’ve been an expert liar your whole life,” said Lonnie.

“She didn’t get under my skin,” Cole tried to chuckle incredulously.

Lonnie just kept his gaze fixed forward. “Truth for a truth?”

“…okay, yeah. Sure. She’s… amazing. She’s made of something completely different. I want her to step on me. I want her to hold me like an infant and tell me everything is going to be okay. I’m like 80% sure I would die for her. It’s not just the lasso or the light in her eyes, it’s the fact that when you’re with her you get this… ancient, fucking Greek sense of hurtling toward something inevitable and you don’t know what the hell it is, so you want to be able to say you did everything you could to stop it or help it or make it easier or better. You want to have one of those epithets, like Much-Enduring Cole Cash, man of many resources. She picked me up and flew me to Walter Reed literally just to save about an hour and I had to pretend I wasn’t…fucking… swooning the whole time. She doesn’t actually know this, but she saved my life once. Like, my brother died that day and everything I knew about myself and my place in the world changed, but that was just Tuesday for her. So in other words, I had a normal reaction to interacting with Wonder Woman for the better part of an hour. Anyway, the President’s corpse is currently growing gold needles like one of those kiddy ‘grow your own crystals’ kits and no one knows why, and we’re dealing with some blue chick showing up and killing five people trying to steal the President’s gold pincushion corpse, so I need you to tell me where the fuck you got whatever the fuck you put in that lapel pin.”

“…Hell,” said Lonnie, clearly struggling to process whatever all of that just was.

“I know—I know. That was a lot, but I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night—not that I’m that good of a sleeper most nights but—“

“No, Hell. I got it from Hell."

“Come again?” Said Cole.

“Hell,” said Lonnie, “Like, the literal spiritual realm Hell.”

“…Hell that’s going to completely obliterate the concept of separation of church and state if this becomes common knowledge…?” Cole ventured.

“Not really. It’s honestly more… fluid than that. More individual-based,” said Lonnie.

“Elaborate,” said Cole.

Lonnie felt he more or less owed Cole after that… whole thing about Wonder Woman, and also now that the situation was destabilizing in a way he hadn’t anticipated, so he elaborated.

“I mean, I’m not Homo Magi, but like everyone says—I co-opt. There’s this belief that it takes years of magical or transdimensional metahuman discipline to reach Hell, but it doesn’t. Not if you know whose research to work from and if you have the right tools. Literally the most dangerous thing about magic is that, it’s a sort of transdimensional corner-cutting. I summoned a demon to bait Etrigan, once. And also as hired muscle. I was a lot less polished then, but then I learned that I could pierce the veil. If you augment the occult shit with existing scientific knowledge….” Lonnie demonstratively interlaced his fingers in front of himself, “Basically I built a projector for an electromagnetic field of a very specific frequency, imbued this field with radiative energies from several artifacts I acquired (again, co-opting), and I put myself under controlled sedation in this field. To put it in layman’s terms, it was a sort of a technologically-assisted astral projection.”

“Great. Great. Love where this is going,” Cole was pressing a hand over his face.

“Hell is… in my experience, a space that actively shifts itself depending on the perception of the person entering it, “Lonnie went on, “There is a certain level of shared reality—‘hell is other people’ and all that, but essentially I struck out into this space in search of a means to kill Luthor,” Lonnie’s jaw set, “I don’t think anyone will ever truly understand, and I don’t expect them to. I did what I believed would save people.”

“Please tell me you didn’t make a deal with the devil to kill Luthor,” Cole sighed, exhausted.

“No,” said Lonnie, “The space I found myself in…it looked kind of like a fancy lounge or a dance hall. I mean the devil was there, but he didn’t even look at me. He just was kind of… tucked into a corner and playing piano.”

“Playing piano,” Cole repeated.

“You know the song, ‘Anything Goes?’”

“Okay—I’m—I’m not going to—who did you get the metal from?”

“She was an Empousa. Or at least… she claimed to be. She seemed like the kind of being to be trading in forbidden ancient Olympian artifacts. She asked me why I would come to such a terrible place, and I said I sought to kill a mortal who had armored himself against all threats. And then she said, ‘A King?’ and I figured with how much power Luthor had, elected or not, he might as well be, so I said, ‘Yes.’ And she gave me a little gold needle, and a word to speak when I wanted to activate it. I woke myself up out of the projection, by then all of my field projectors were on fire for a completely unknown reason, effectively destroying the artifacts I had used and preventing me from going back, but I still had the needle in my hand. After putting the fires out and cleaning up a bit, I carefully 3D printed a lapel pin to house the needle, and equipped the lapel pin with a microtransmitter that would signal me when it was pinned onto a lapel. Honestly the hardest part was smuggling the new lapel pin into the President’s wardrobe, but even then, that was a simple matter of hacking myself into one of those ‘Young Leaders of Tomorrow’ tour groups and slipping away at the right time—tracking the movements of secret servicemen to avoid most of them, using my Moneyspider hacking program to create false alarms to draw them away from where I was headed.” Lonnie huffed a little, “I’m actually pretty sure I wouldn’t have been able to do it if Luthor was in LexCorp tower rather than the White House. I killed the President while on a bullet train back to Gotham from DC.”

“Did you intend for Luthor to die on camera?” asked Cole.

Lonnie looked a little sober at this. “Yes,” he said, “In case it failed. I hacked a live feed into Jimmy Olsen’s news drone to figure out my own timing. People needed to see there was still a way to strike against him. Normal people. Not the League, or the Legion.”

“…you built an electromagnetic field to project yourself into hell, I’m pretty sure that’s not what normal people do,” said Cole, leaning back into his chair at last.

“I thought… “ Lonnie mused, glancing off, “I intended the worst of the consequences of using such an object to be limited to me. Furies pursuing me for the treason of killing a king. But if it isn’t God-Killer metal…” he hesitated, “What now?”

“Well, it’s going to be on the rest of us to clean up whatever mess this is,” Cole shrugged, “At the end of the day, you still killed the President, and you’ve been very clear in stating that was a deliberate choice. You used means already…semi-familiar to yourself to acquire your weapon, but now that weapon isn’t what we thought it was, well…” Cole shrugged.

“Truth for truth aside, you’re only telling me all this because there’s no way out for me, isn’t there?” Lonnie wasn’t looking at him.

“Well, traveling to hell or not, I’m pretty sure you had a strong idea of what doing this would mean for you at the start, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Lonnie pushed some of his hair back, still not meeting Cole’s eyes, “Yeah…”

“You said Hell is… subjective, right?” Cole folded his arms across himself, “Why would hell look like a nightclub for you and not… fire and brimstone and lava-filled torture pits?”

“At the time I thought it was because I was entering of my own free will,” said Lonnie, “And in doing so interpreted it on my terms. A more egotistical part of me thought… maybe it’s because Lucifer was an angel who rebelled, himself.”

“…and that’s not concerning to you?”

“I always felt that… that rebellion didn’t destroy the world. It made it into something new.”

——

It was overcast in Gotham, as usual.

Lucius Fox refilled his glass from the pitcher of lemon and cucumber water at the center of the Wayne Enterprises boardroom table. He closed his eyes and sipped his water, letting the deluge of the other board members’ rapid-fire conversation and nitpickings wash over him.

“Luthor’s not even in the ground yet and Cale Pharmaceuticals is snapping up virtually every potential biotech campus it can grab.”

“Let it. That’s months of money and development that could leave it dead in the water as long as it takes for all this Post-Luthor instability to blow over.”

“But she’s even making a claim for the old Ace Chemicals factory—are we really going to give her a foothold in Gotham?”

“I would love to see Veronica Cale try and turn that ruin into anything other than a cesspit of OSHA violations and class action suits for mesothelioma.”

“Still, we can’t just let Cale push us around with real estate like this.”
“What if we liquidated KordTech? Redistributed its assets to our own R&D departments—”

“It’s not worth risking Kord brand loyalty.”

“We’re not going to let this company be held hostage by a bunch of gaming nerds on Blabbler!”

“Do we have projections for how much further LexCorp is going to free fall?”

“Didn’t Mr. Wayne express interest in buying up the chemical plant?”

“It’s a lemon.”

“It’s a nightmare.”

“It’s a liability.”

“It could be affordable oceanfront property.”

“I say again: Mesothelioma.”

“Lucius?” Regina Zellerbach’s voice cut through the buzz and Lucius glanced up from the slowly melting ice cubes in his glass.

Lucius cleared his throat. “I can tell you that Bruce Wayne wouldn’t liquidate KordTech any sooner than he would liquidate the Daily Planet wing of Wayne Media. It’s not just sentiment, it’s about maintaining market accessibility, and, concordantly, brand loyalty,” he paused, “We’ll see what we can do about acquiring the Ace Chemicals property. If we can safely demolish it, we might be able to turn it into an ongoing ecological restoration project for the tax write-offs.”

“I’ll get Poison Ivy right on it,” another board member scoffed.

“That’s an excellent idea, Dobson,” Lucius offered him a warm smile, purposefully taking the joke at face value, “Let’s get legal looking back into that probation project for Arkham inmates. But on a more serious note, I am going to want that report from R&D on our bioremediation projects. Maybe Ace could be the pilot…”

“Our shareholders aren’t going to like another bleeding-heart money sink like Chapel House,” Dobson said, a little miffed.

“Not having a decrepit chemical factory leaching into our bay is its own investment, Dobs,” Lucius sipped his water again. He was trying not to look at the empty chair right next to him. Tim Drake had excused himself to go to the bathroom some 15 minutes ago. Somehow Lucius doubted that Bruce Wayne’s ward had a case of indigestion. He wasn’t sure how much help the kid would be in the boardroom at this point, though. Lucius could tell he was agitated and distracted pretty much as soon as he had entered the building. Lucius generally made it a point not to look too closely into what Batman or Robin did under their masks for the sake of plausible deniability, and he knew of Anarky, but in the few hours of Luthor’s struggling on life support as those gold needles metastasized in him, Tim had maintained a dazzling, almost chilling calm—calling with Lucius to cover bases and batten down the hatches for the inevitable market shakeup that this assassination attempt would cause. Tim had put it upon himself to secure Wayne Enterprises’ stability in those hours, and wasn’t visibly shaken until the Anarky confession video dropped.

“Has Mr. Wayne given any word on acquiring LexCorp holdings?” William Earle spoke up before giving a pointed glance to the empty chair next to Lucius, “Or his ward, for that matter?”

Lucius felt a prickle across the back of his shoulders. “…Mercy Graves hasn’t given any indication that she wants to divest or downsize LexCorp,” he spoke carefully.

“The way its stock is falling now, it’s not like she’ll have much of a choice, soon,” Earle spoke drily, “We should be ready for when she does.”

“…I’ll bring it up with Mr. Wayne,” Lucius said coolly, “For now, this meeting is adjourned,” he drew himself up from his seat and straightened his jacket, "I want surveyors at Ace Chemicals, a report on our bioremediation research, and… let’s have legal looking into that probation program. Right now, our only job is to stay the course, maintain as much of an appearance of stability as possible, and, hopefully, actual stability will follow.”

“Your optimism continues to be remarkable, Lucius,” was all Earle said as he passed toward the exit of the boardroom with another glance at Tim’s empty seat.

“It’s a muscle, have to keep it strong,” said Lucius with a smile.

The smile dropped away as soon as Earle left the room. Lucius smoothed a finger over his eyebrow and straightened his suit jacket before briskly walking out of the boardroom, himself. It was a short elevator ride and a quick security ID scan up to the executive penthouse. While the Daily Planet Globe was an unmistakeable feature of the Metropolis Skyline, perhaps the most iconic article of Gotham’s skyline (aside from its clocktower and Pioneer Bridge) was Wayne Tower’s sea glass teal penthouse crown, whose ridge-and-furrow roof formed an iconic ‘W.’ The interior of the ‘W’ was, well, actually a little damp and chilly, but that didn’t stop supermodels and socialites and whoever Billionaire Playboy Bruce Wayne was accessorizing with that week from taking selfies in front of its breathtaking and exclusive view of the city. Lucius didn’t even give that view a second thought as he stepped out of the elevator and immediately pivoted to the bathroom right next to it. He knocked on the door.

“There’s only so much you can blame on the Chez Vous chef’s menu, Mr. Drake,” said Lucius.

There was the sound of a toilet flushing, though that was definitely more of a mindless reflex than anything Tim thought was convincing. The door opened and Tim stepped out, head stooped over his smartphone with earbuds in both ears. His eyes flicked up to Lucius before being magnetically drawn back down to the phone screen. Lucius glanced off, knowing whatever he was watching right now, it wasn’t something he wanted to incriminate himself by getting involved.

“…It seems Oracle’s still enabling you,” he said, visibly averting his eyes from Tim’s phone screen.

“It’s not really ‘enabling,’ it’s more damage control on her end. She knows I’d be a bigger disruption trying to find my own way in,” Tim didn’t bring his eyes up from his phone screen.

“Tim,” Lucius spoke with a startling gentleness that forced Tim to jerk his head up and pull an earbud out.

“If you’re going to talk about emotional compromise—” Tim started.

“I’m not going to assume I know what you’re going through right now,” said Lucius, “For legal purposes, let’s say this entire conversation is about hormones. Or college. All I really want to know is if you remember the stakes. If you remember how many people are counting on you. And I realize the position you’re in right now is not something that anyone can ever have ethically put a teenager. And I realize, that, compared to that other world you inhabit, this one may seem… not as real. Not as real as the broken skin on your knuckles, not as real as the puzzles you solve. But it is real, Tim. And it needs you. Because you don’t have that other world if you don’t keep this world intact. ” Lucius straightened his own tie, “Regina and I will be downstairs. The meeting outlined several possible projects for the company that we’ll want your input on.”

“…Right,” said Tim, distantly.

Tim’s mouth hitched. Lucius was right, Alfred was right, everyone was right, and he hated it. He chose to be Robin, but that was well before Robin was this dependent on Tim Drake holding things down for both Tim Drake and Bruce Wayne. The League needed Batman now, and Batman was struggling with the fact that shifting things over to the League meant relinquishing his own control, and all the while everyone was expecting Tim to suddenly start pretending that Lonnie wasn’t his problem? Anarky was Robin’s rogue, so he had to—

He had to…

Lonnie’s voice pinged in Tim’s earbud.

“I always felt that… that rebellion didn’t destroy the world. It made it into something new.”

There were some days where Tim cursed whatever day that fate steered Lonnie away from community theater and slapped a copy of The Conquest of Bread into his hands, but instead Tim just got that sharp pang that, no, this wasn’t about him, because of course it wasn’t about him. Anarky had never defined himself as a ‘rogue’ so why would—

Tim squeezed his eyes shut and flicked back to the listing of different Pentagon feeds that Oracle had hacked. His earbuds filled with a muddle of conversations. Other kids his age had doomscrolling, he had this, only this was a lot more dangerous because there was a lot more Robin could do compared to your average doomscroller, and Robin obviously had a lot more access to a lot more information that could prompt him to do something very, very stupid.

Pull out, common sense and literally everything everyone had been telling him for the past few days told him, You need to pull out. You need to do what Lucius said and make sure this world doesn’t fly off the handle so the rest of the League can—

“We can’t afford to have another attack like today,” Waller’s voice abruptly sounded in his ears, “There are too many variables involved in housing the President’s body at Walter Reed. I want things clean, I want things quiet, and I want us to figure out what the hell this gold material is.”

“But—”

“And I don’t want to have to deal with Secretary Lane or Director Trevor every step of the way, do you understand me, Economos?”

“But—Madame Secretary,” a breathless voice answered her, “Walter Reed is a national institution. It’s a name the people recognize. If we move the President’s body, it’s going to raise a lot more questions.”

“As far as the American people are concerned, the President’s body will be present at the state funeral, I already have Doctor Mantel working on a substitute.”

“A decoy corpse!?”

“If it means maintaining the dignity of the office of the President, yes, a decoy corpse. We can’t exactly get a suit on the President’s body in its current state, can we?”

“Er—no…”

“And I want a physical on Machin. Can we get Doctor Chandok here before the trial?”

This made the back of Tim’s neck prickle.

“Madame Secretary, you can’t possibly be considering Machin as an asset.”

“He’s already been radicalized. If he can be radicalized, he can be broken.”

“I barely even heard of the guy even with all the freaks we take on, and even I can tell he’d detonate his collar in a heartbeat before working for Task Force X.”

“The kid keeps talking about saving lives, remaking the world. I want to know if he’s actually serious.”

Tim pressed his mouth thin and finally, finally took his earbuds out. For some reason, all the exhaustion and the soreness of all his sprinting and climbing and scuffles as Robin hit his body as a physical wave. He suddenly became very aware of every bruise on his body, the tightness in his legs and hips, the column of exhaustion in his spine. He slumped down onto the penthouse couch, rubbing his hand over his mouth before pushing it through his hair.

Hold things down, here. It’s the League’s problem. Hold things down here, it’s the League’s problem, he thought furiously to himself.

But he knew that wasn’t going to stop him. That mantra certainly wasn’t stopping what his mind was already putting together.

Chapter Text

“What about Natasha?” Superman was flying up through the atmosphere.

“Busy covering for John at Steelworks,” Lois was miles below him, but he was still honed in on her voice through super-hearing. He could also hear her mindlessly pacing around her office with her phone, Jon babbling in the background.

“Lucy?” Clark ventured.

“Airline’s got her working overtime with everyone flying to DC for the funeral.”

Clark rubbed his eyebrows and inhaled deeply through his nostrils before saying, “Okay, long shot but… Jimmy?”

“Hasn’t responded to any of my texts, so I don’t think we should really be asking for babysitting right now.”

“I’ve been meaning to check on him—”

“Bibbo’s keeping an eye on him. Poor kid’s still in rough shape.”

“I would have thought he would have sprung back from this faster than any of us,” murmured Clark.

“He’s worked his ass off to be one of the Planet’s brightest, and now the rest of his career is basically going to be said in the same breath as ‘Zapruder.’ I’d need some mental health days, too,” Lois sounded a bit resigned, “Look, there’s no way Perry doesn’t know, so I really don’t think it’s a big deal calling up Martha, again—”

“Well, there’s Perry knowing, and then there’s the rest of the Planet noticing a pattern,” said Clark.

“I think we should bring Jon,” Lois said with an abrupt firmness.

“To a state funeral?”

“Perry said it’s all about showing we’re human, right? What’s more human than, ‘We couldn’t find a sitter at the last second?’”

“I get that, but I also don’t want us to be seen as using Jon as a prop. Is this about what Joe Kline was saying on that video? Because you are a great mother, Lois—”

“I don’t have anything to prove to that asshole.”

“That is… what I am also saying,” said Clark.

Lois huffed. “Okay, yes, it did get under my skin a bit, even though it’s stupid, and antiquated, and sexist—”

Clark exhaled softly through his nose with some amusement. He did have half a mind to show up to Joe Kline as Superman and go ‘No, please, Joe, describe to me exactly how you think a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist should live her life when she has a kid, I’ll wait,’ and cue the full glowing red eyes, but he knew that was probably a lot of whatever-the-Kryptonian-equivalent-of-testosterone-was talking, so he tamped that urge down. “No, you’re right,” he said, “I think Jon’s presence would be… kind of its own olive branch, in a way.”

“You still sound hesitant,” said Lois.

“I don’t really want to lock down any decision before this meeting,” said Clark.

Lois’s voice lowered, “Just how bad are things, League-side?”

“That’s what I’m hoping find out in person.”

“Any exclusive statements from Superman?”

Clark smiled to himself again, “I’m afraid not, Mrs. Lane-Kent.”

“Boooo.”

“Hey, you already got the assassination. You gotta to give your husband a chance to catch up.”

“That’s because you were in…!” Lois caught herself, “K-Kansas!” The word came out of her a bit staggered. Clark knew she had nearly exclaimed ‘SPACE!’ at full signature Lois Lane volume. Poor Lois, always ready with a snappy comeback for Superman, and having to recalibrate for addressing Clark Kent in case anyone at the Planet overheard. Jon chirped and let out a “whaa—oo!” In the background, clearly picking up on his mother’s agitation, prompting another snort from Clark before he noticed the air thinning.

“I’m exiting the atmosphere now,” he said, “Talk more tonight?”

“Sure thing. You be nice to the other kids,” Lois reminded him.

“I’m nice,” said Superman with a grin.

“I know,” he could hear the smile in Lois’s voice as well, before her voice dropped. He could start to hear her cell-signal cutting out, but super-hearing filled in the rest of the gaps, “Just negotiating around all this stress and confusion is tough enough, I can’t imagine doing it with all those egos and spandex.”

“I love you—” Clark tried to jam the phrase in before her signal cut out completely,

“I love you too—” he only barely managed to hear it from her side before realizing he was hearing it from a cell satellite as he flew into the cold reaches of earth’s orbit. Space wasn’t silent for him—he could hear astronauts tinkering around and murmuring to each other in the International Space Station, and to be honest, he was still at a loss at how he heard that interior roar of stars when where weren’t any air particles for that noise to travel through—he imagined it must be like how the human brain just kind of… makes up the color magenta, some kind of sensory input that his brain probably just shrugged with and went, “Hearing? Hearing.”

Admittedly he had gotten more than his fair share of space in traveling home from New Genesis, but he did appreciate the experience of feeling infinitesimally small in the vast blackness. The world of cardboard was spinning below, but here was distance and emptiness and solitude and, well, space. Still, he didn’t let himself dawdle too long, flying forward in the vacuum enough to observe his surroundings, puzzle slightly over the earth’s debris field of space junk and if he should clean that up, but still keep a persistent clip as the Watchtower satellite came into view. He gave a wave and a flyby to the main observation deck, but tried to seem more measured than chipper as he made his way to the lowermost airlock. He knew his presence was often reassuring to other superheroes and a soft smile could go a long way, but he didn’t want to come off as overly cheerful in the wake of Luthor’s death. That was another thing he wasn’t exactly looking forward to in interacting with the League at large: he knew he was looking forward to a lot of people he barely knew trying to get their own gauge on the situation, which—he understood. He respected that, even. A lot of heroes were headstrong and rational enough to not be dependent on assumptions and gossip and would want to figure things out for themselves. The main issue was, Clark himself was still actively figuring out his own feelings on the situation, and he didn’t really feel inclined to try and figure that out (in real time) with people who didn’t already know his secret identity. That little thought made him miss his wife already, even though he had just been talking to her less than 15 minutes ago. His Kryptonian suit phased a helmet on and he exhaled to give himself some air particles to speak through.

“Superman reporting in to Watchtower, I’m at airlock—” he hesitated as he watched a gold and nacreous-white sphere of a ship pull towards the javelin hangar bay several hundred feet up on the other side of the Watchtower, he caught himself, “I’m at Airlock Theta.”

“Good to hear your voice, Supes,” Victor Stone’s voice sounded with an uncanny clearness in his own earpiece as the airlock doors opened, “Don’t forget to wipe your feet.”

The helmet phased off of Superman’s head as he entered the airlock. He tried not to worry himself too much as the doors sealed behind him and the chamber re-pressurized. He knew a P.R.O.J.E.C.T ship when he saw it, but he was at least vaguely aware that Diana had been calling for additional scientific help in identifying the material that killed Luthor, and as far as scientific help went, Leo Quintum was definitely up there.

It’s fine, Clark, it’s the League. They know what they’re doing, he thought to himself as the interior doors opened and he stepped through to a startlingly empty hallway.

“Huh,” he said to himself, glancing down both ends of the hallway.

He shrugged and started walking towards one of the lifts when he heard a faint banging and muttering overhead. He glanced upward and squinted a little as he listened to the muttering from what seemed to be inside one of the overhead vents.

“Snapper, I got locked out of my email. Snaaap-per, did you change the Wi-Fi password? Snaaappper, we’re going to space. Snapper, it turns out running a space station takes an insane amount of staffing and labor which means you have to train these morons. Snapper, the space-station’s haunted and I’m locked out of my email again. Snapper, a robot alien bug latched itself into the server room. Sssnapper, Amy didn’t fill out her timecard again. Snapperrr, the president got assassinated which means we have to furlough two thirds of the crew that you trained which means you have to go into the FUCKING VENTS to fix that FUCKING CAPACITOR even though you haven’t done this shit since you were FUCKING NINETEEN—”

“Uh—do you need help?” Superman called up to the vents.

“Ohhh—oh nooowwww the capes want to help!” There was more clanging and muttered under-breath swearing as it became clear there was a full human body attempting to maneuver around in that horribly cramped space, “Listen, buddy,” a booted foot kicked out a grate and Superman caught the grate before it could clang on the ground and gently set it aside, “I’ll have you know I’ve been here forever. I’m in good with Martian Manhunter, and all I have to do is say the word and he’ll have you running around thinking you’re an 8-year-old pageant queen from North Carolina named—” he stuck his head out, upside-down from the grate-hole he had just kicked out and made instant eye-contact with Superman, “—R-Rebecca…” the last word awkwardly stumbled out of him, “…one of these days I’m gonna stop doing this shit to myself.”

Snapper was on the cusp of thirty and already there were flecks of gray in his brown hair. He was wearing the purple and black jumpsuit uniform typical of Watchtower staff and engineers, though he kept his zipped open to show off whatever garish bootleg superhero merchandise T-shirt he was wearing that day. Today, it was Atom Smasher. Superman was starting to wonder if he was actually finding these bootlegs or screen-printing them himself. He had a multimeter probe in each hand.

“…tough week?” Superman offered.

“Yeah—ow—fuck, give me a sec—” Snapper had jammed one of the multimeter probes between his teeth and was attempting to clamber out of the vent, now.

“Do you need—?” Superman started then flinched forward and caught Snapper as he tumbled out of the vent, “Careful!”

“I’m fine—I’m fine—I—wow, you’re, like, really warm, you know that?” said Snapper as Superman lowered him to a standing position.

“So I’m told,” said Superman, “You said Watchtower staffing is furloughed?”

“Oh you heard that, huh?” Snapper scratched behind his ear with one of the multimeter probes.

“Super-hearing,” Clark shrugged, though he guessed anyone with normal hearing would have heard that as well.

“It’s a security thing,” Snapper clicked both multimeter probes onto its main body, attached it to an already heavily-laden tool belt, then put his hands on his hips and rolled his shoulders with multiple pops and cracks. Clark didn’t want to think of how long he had been cramped up in those vents, “We don’t want to surrender our entire payroll to the Waller Commission, but we don’t have the time or resources to actually have an inquiry on all of the Watchtower’s staffing—and if we did basically lay out all of our hiring records to the feds, we could end up with a third of our guys deported, or arrested on some probation violation nonsense, or they’re disabled and we’re paying them too much and that’s violating federal disability—” Snapper rubbed his eyebrow with a finger, “It’s a cool thing—I mean it’s a really cool thing that the Justice League is willing to work with people that are absolutely screwed by modern hiring standards, but it is also one of those things that was primed from the start to bite us in the ass.”

Superman’s shoulders sank.

“Aaaaand you had no idea of this,” Snapper observed.

“…Leadership isn’t management,” Superman said, a little helplessly. He had also quietly accepted Bruce’s way of dealing with things, which was, “Throw money at it until it is no longer a problem while presumably Oracle works out the actual details.” The Watchtower’s staff would be supported in this time, certainly, he knew Bruce and Oliver would make sure of that, but there was still the disruption to everyone’s lives, the fact that the Watchtower gave people purpose and a space to socialize, to feel like they were really helping make the world a better place. He’d need to talk to Bruce and Oliver on what secondary education opportunities the Watchtower might offer, at least. There should be alternatives, especially since the Watchtower itself could be a target for supervillains and maybe the family members of their staff might not like the idea of one of their loved ones getting sucked out an airlock or caught in a freeze ray, or infected by a—

“Hey, aren’t you supposed to be meeting with the Mad Scientist in the Technicolor Dreamcoat?” Snapper’s voice cut through Superman’s mulling.

“Eh?” Superman blinked to attention.

“That other ship that just docked here,” Snapper tilted his head before lowering his voice, “Hey—I know you can’t say anything officially right now, but if you’re bringing the P.R.O.J.E.C.T into this, are we looking at something, like… really bad with the whole ‘not-God-Killer’ stuff?”

“We’re—” Clark cleared his throat before offering in his most reassuring Superman voice, “We’re just covering our bases, Mr. Carr.”

Snapper’s expression told him the fact that he was visibly trying to be reassuring was in fact doing the opposite of reassurance. That was the thing with Watchtower staffers: they all saw too much behind the curtains to be satisfied with the same script the League gave the general public.

“Uh-huh,” returned Snapper, “Well I’ll leave you to cover those bases, then.” He paused and glanced back up at the grate hole he had come out of, “Hey, actually can you—?” He gestured up at the grate hole.

“You’re sure you don’t need help?” Superman asked, easily picking him up by the waist and lifting him up to the vent again.

“You want to help me? Tell Aquaman to get his goddamn dual-factor authentication online,” said Snapper, climbing back up into the vent, “I’ve been asking him for four months!”

“I’ll… see what I can do,” Superman said as he heard Snapper clamber away through the vents.

——

“All right, Professor Quintum, the chamber is pressurized, Miss Spears will be issuing your pass and escorting you to the labs,” Victor Stone was at the Tower’s primary command console, monitoring the various interior and exterior security feeds. Victor slumped back into his seat and massaged the point between the skin of his forehead and the metal plate above his cybernetic eye.

“You sure you don’t want to be down in the labs?” Mr. Terrific stepped up alongside him, several T-Spheres revolving around him like miniature planets.

“I could say the same to you.” Victor shrugged.

“Cross-referencing my own technological resources and scans with what Batman’s already observed, I’ve hit the end of my rope, I was hoping your wetware may have found a way to connect Motherbox’s dots.”

“I hate it when you say ‘Wetware,’” muttered Victor before saying at a more normal volume, “No, like I said, it’s like a mix between encountering a unique isotope and raw data that I don’t have the software to… mesh back into whatever the hell would make it readable.”

“So… probably still magic, then,” Mr. Terrific mused.

“Probably,” said Cyborg.

“…so we’re bringing Quintum in because…” Mr. Terrific trailed off.

“Because the last thing anyone in the League wants this to be, is something only magic users can handle,” said Victor.

“Well… you’ve worked pretty up close and personal with a magic user,” Mr. Terrific mused, “Is that really such a worst-case scenario?”

“Well, my old teammate would say that all magic comes with a price,” said Victor.

“That’s not so far off from science, from what’s measurable and observable. Conservation of energy and all that.”

“Except there’s a completely different intercepting logic involved,” said Victor, “It’s… personal, and therefore, can be devastating in completely unpredictable ways.”

“…and also, Superman can get his ass kicked by magic,” Mr. Terrific added.

“Oh, yeah, I mean, yeah, that’s the more obvious and immediate reason, yeah,” said Victor.

——

“Professor Quintum, I can’t say enough how much of an honor it is to work with you,” Tanya Spears’ afro puffs were bobbing as she walked alongside Leo Quintum and Agatha down one of the Watchtower corridors, wearing a lab coat over her black, white, and yellow jumpsuit, “Your research paper on the Underverse’s density-altering effects on Element 119 isotopes generated by the lunar particle accelerator? Inspired! And so accessible! But I did have several questions as to how you stabilize the gravitational siphons—ooh! And the siphons’ effect on the underverse! Oh! And I meant to ask—”

“Miss Spears, please know I hold your work in high regard as well,” Leo Quintum said, his own shifting, multicolored coat flaring out behind him, “However, I must say this call was on very short notice, and I have several very delicate experiments running back on P.R.O.J.E.C.T’s lunar headquarters that, if neglected too long, may prove an even greater problem than that which I have been called here, for.”

Tanya gulped before bringing up her own tablet, “Well—what we’ve been able to assess so far is this: Wonder Woman has confirmed that the material that killed President Luthor is not God-Killer metal, due to the fact that it seems to be continually growing even after President Luthor’s death. Unless it is being directly wielded by Machin, God-Killer metal should more or less be inert at this time.”

“I see…” Quintum mused.

“Not long after that, a being calling herself, ‘Viza Aziv,’ or ‘The Forerunner,’ attacked Walter Reed hospital. Her goal was apparently acquiring the President’s body, and what she called, ‘Ultraeschar.’”

“Ultraeschar…” Quintum echoed with unusual emphasis.

“And Oracle’s latest feed from the Pentagon had supplied us with a statement from Machin, saying that he got the material from—” Tanya paused, re-reading the sentence with her mouth hitched, “What he believed to be an empousa from hell.”

For all its spandex, Justice League had no shortage of scientists, and all were having similar, tooth-pulling reactions to Lonnie’s statement on the Pentagon feed.

“And I believe you’re bringing me in because you desperately don’t want that to be the actual case.”

“The Justice League has fought more than its fair share of supernatural threats,” Tanya conceded as they reached the lab doors, “I think what we really want here is to figure out…” she gestured a little helplessly with her free hand, “Where and how we can grab this thing. If we can. I mean—of course we can, because if Machin grabbed it, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t right?”

Quintum and Agatha exchanged a brief side-eye at this.

“Not to use it, to understand it!” Tanya quickly added.

“The thing that, aside from a name, you have no idea what it is or what its properties are,” said Quintum.

“Yeah,” said Tanya, already regretting this whole briefing before hitting a panel and ushering them both into the lab.

Indeed, the lab was already crowded with multiple heroes and some of their scientist associates all standing around Batman’s sample of the mysterious substance that had killed Luthor. Through sheer force of presence and the air of deference from other heroes, the eye was immediately drawn to Batman, who was looming over the sample, black gloves braced against the lab table. With the combination of his height, (rendered even more intimidating with the bat ears of his cowl, of course), and the sloping shadow of his cape, there was that first immediate flash of intimidation, but on further study, just as apparent was his exhaustion, which was its own kind of intimidating. Behind him, Hawkgirl was pacing, arms folded, Nth metal wings readjusting themselves restlessly, and off to the side, Kimiyo Hoshi was leaning against a lab counter and frowning over her own tablet, with Will Magnus looking over her shoulder, though both their eyes flicked up as Power Girl, Professor Quintum and Agatha entered the room. On a wall-mounted teleconferencing screen, Alanna Strange had muted herself and was silently and smilingly lecturing her toddler daughter who was giggling and bouncing in her lap, while a picture-in-picture stream on the same screen featured Sardath apparently struggling with his own camera. Sticking out like a sore thumb amid the scientists was Zatanna, but even she had a slight flicker of fragile, skeptical hope flash in her eyes as Quintum entered. On the lab table, what had started out as a single needle had now metastasized into about a half-fist sized lump of gold spikes. There was a very tiny cough and Ray Palmer, slowly growing from the size of a grain of rice, stepped out from amid the gold needles, growing first to action figure size, then resuming his full height as he lightly stepped off the table.

“Hello, my friends,” Quintum primly clasped his hands behind his back, “I must admit, I was expecting—”

The door on the other side of the lab opened and Superman entered about as awkwardly as Earth’s greatest protector and symbol of hope could. He immediately perked up at the sight of Professor Quintum and cleared his throat, “Professor, thank you for coming.”

There was a palpable shift in the air at the fact that both Batman and Superman were in the room, now, but Superman’s eyes fell first on the spiky gold lump on the table, and then flicked to Batman. Clark tried to tamp down all the super-senses that were currently screaming at him to subdue Bruce and force him to nap, shower, and eat something. Coffee-triggered iron deficiency, 36 hours worth of sweat, and heart rate indicating significant sleep deprivation to the point where no amount of meditation, NSDR, and micro-sleeps could hide it. Batman gave him only a brief glance over his shoulder before resuming his continued glare at the lump of gold needles. Clark kept his own face sober, let Batman fall back on the sheer intimidation of his presence. Best for both of them to maintain what the rest of the League saw in them and not to give the fire of doubt and suspicion any more oxygen than it already had. Professor Quintum’s combined presence with Superman gave that fuel, as well. P.R.O.J.E.C.T was remote to the point of being suspect itself, but Superman had come to collaborate with them more and more, and his own falling out with Professor Hamilton, and Professor Hamilton’s current position as one of Waller’s pet scientists was no secret.

“You have helped us many times, Superman,” said Professor Quintum as Agatha fiddled with some device next to him and began walking around the table, apparently scanning their sample, “I hope I can return the favor in some capacity. Still, to be called upon when your League has so many capable scientists of its own is… daunting. I suppose it is appropriate to ask—have we learned anything new since I was called upon?”

“Nothing beyond what Miss Spears has already reported to you,” said the Atom, moving slightly out of Agatha’s way as she continued to circle the table and scan, “I just walked a mini safari on the spikeball, and there doesn’t seem to be any observable stimuli that makes it grow. It’s growing, though. Not consistently. “

“There is a… resonance,” Kimiyo Hoshi remarked, glancing up from her own tablet, “I’ve been recording the electromagnetic anomalies emanating from it, but much like the rate of growth, it’s too inconsistent to be able to draw any tentative conclusions from,” she gave a resigned flap of her tablet, “Give me a few more weeks of observing it,” she said, with an eyebrow arch that said, ‘Believe me, I already know how unhelpful this is.’

“Father and I could say the same thing about Zeta particle scans,” Alanna strange unmuted herself, “Usually, we can use Zeta particles to track this material to any point of origin in the universe, but the radiation on this material basically reads as ‘everywhere and nowhere.’”

“And we shouldn’t zay-beam it because ’s pointy,” Aleea piped up from Alanna’s lap before Alanna muted herself again.

“There’s… feedback with Nth metal,” Hawkgirl admitted, “They… destabilize each other.”

“That is very promising,” remarked Quintum.

“Not really. You don’t want something that starts to make metal that helped form the firmament of the universe go on the fritz.”

“No, I would imagine not,” Quintum mused, before perking up and saying, “Agatha—if you could project Presentation B?”

Agatha stepped away from the lab table and gave a dutiful nod, before setting the odd instrument she had been using to scan the metal sample on the ground, then touching her thumbs to her middle fingertips, then her index fingertips. Suddenly the instrument projected a three-dimensional holographic projection of the earth.

“Now, I don’t doubt everyone in this room has a concept of alternate earths and timelines beyond our own,” said Leo Quintum as the projection suddenly shifted into multiple smaller earths, “What is still an emerging science is, let’s say the hierarchy of these alternate earths. My own work with P.R.O.J.E.C.T focused on an earth in what we have called ‘The Underverse,” home to an alternate earth more colloquially known as ‘Bizarro World.’”

At the mention of ‘Bizarro,’ all eyes in the room immediately shifted to Superman who mostly just embarrassedly adjusted his shoulders, before attention shifted back to the projection, which now displayed a cube-shaped world underneath the multiple spherical earths.

“However, the existence of the Underverse has suggested to me a certain… topography of these multiple timelines and dimensions,” Leo Quintum went on, before saying, “Agatha?”

Agatha touched her thumb to her ring finger this time, and color bled into the white-blue projection, several earths showing up at dark red.

“The more unstable a variant earth,” Quintum went on, “The closer its dimensional proximity to the hyper-dense, hyper-gravitated plane of the Underverse. Much as our own galaxy circles a black hole as a point of immeasurable gravity and density, much as dying and destabilizing solar systems collide as they are pulled into black holes, so these worlds are sunken into a sort of… inter-dimensional graveyard of oblivion.”

“…a cheery thought,” Zatanna remarked.

“Bizarro World proves as a vital point of observation for the deaths of these words because its paradoxical, oppositional nature leaves it remarkably immune to the deteriorative effects of the Underverse.”

“This is all very fascinating, but how does it factor into the weapon that killed Luthor?” Kimiyo Hoshi itched under her headpiece.

“Are we dealing with something from Hell, or not?” Zatanna pushed.

Quintum gave Zatanna a wan smile, “I believe you brought Agatha and I in to attempt to give a quantitative answer to something you already sense but, cannot translate into something actionable without exhausting all other alternatives.”

“…come again?” Hawkgirl folded her arms.

“I do not doubt this material came from hell,” Quintum clarified, “But I do not believe it originated in hell. And while I am not a detective,” he gave a glance toward Batman at this, “I can say that, given the properties of this material, it has been brought here because something wanted it brought here. It had to have been in the interest of some entity beyond this world that this material is before us, now,” Quintum gave a vague wave at the dark red earths in Agatha’s projection, “And as the mapmakers of old once said… ‘Here there be dragons.’”

“…this is still conjecture,” Batman spoke up at last.

“Perhaps, but I think we all know your League has a better means of immediately tracking down the source of this material than I do, Detective,” said Quintum.

Batman visibly bristled at being called ‘Detective’ by anyone other than Ra’s Al-Ghul, but Quintum’s gaze had already trailed back to Zatanna, who was grimacing as well. “I truly wish I had some whimsical and fantastical bit of gadgetry to expedite your investigation, but I’m afraid the only way out is through.”

“Through…?” Hawkgirl spoke up, wincingly.

“Through Hell,” Zatanna answered flatly.

The air in the room finally collapsed into hollow dread. Shoulders sank, murmurs passed between scientists, and eyes flicked to Superman, who could only give an apologetic ‘I’m sure we’ll figure something out,’ look.

“We’ve—” Superman had to draw himself back up to that height that inspired confidence, “We’ve dealt with threats from all corners of the universe and beyond. I know it’s scary not knowing what something is, but we do have the means to find out,” he gave a glance to Zatanna, “Right?”

But Zatanna looked at Batman. “I hope so,” she said.

The sinking dread was suddenly drawn taut with a line of tension as Superman looked over at Batman, who didn’t meet his eyes and instead was frowning at Agatha’s multiple hologram projections.

“I assume there’s a commissary on this station?” Quintum spoke up, cutting the tension, “I require coconut water. I can feel my potassium levels dropping.”

“Th-the commissary’s this way!” Tanya Spears blurted out, further dissolving the tension, “Also did you have time to look at my research paper on nano-particle accelerators? I can just give you the cliff notes.”

——

It was less than an hour before Quintum was on his way back to the P.R.O.J.E.C.T Lunar base (with Tanya Spears in tow—but hey, with all the doom and gloom going around, the kid might as well get her dream internship). The various other scientists had either departed to return to their own projects and laboratories, or were taking the time to compare notes with colleagues they didn’t usually have the chance to collaborate with in person—perks of the Watchtower, of course. Batman had slipped off in usual Batman fashion, but it wasn’t hard for Clark to find him on the topmost observation deck.

“…closest thing to a roof, I guess?” Clark quipped as he stepped out of the lift.

Bruce didn’t respond, staring down at the earth below.

“When was the last time you ate?” Superman asked.

“I learned how to slow down my metabolism as one of the preparatory practices for the Thogal ritual,” said Batman.

“Oh my god,” said Superman, glancing off, already exasperated.

“Dick’s protective of his team,” said Batman, “I can’t ask him to put his family at risk like this.”

“Or is it just the fact that you haven’t talked to Dick in months and don’t want your first communication with him to be asking him a favor?” Clark folded his arms.

“…he’d do it for you. He’d do anything for you in a heartbeat.”

“Bruce…” Clark said gently.

“…his team would do anything for him, too,” the words trailed out of Bruce hesitantly, “He… he could build trust better than I ever could. If something went wrong—”

“Dick’s team doesn't have to do this alone,” said Clark, “And despite how much those kids try to strike out on their own, they’ll never not be affiliated with us, so the least we can do is back them up when there’s a job only one of them can do.”

“Mm,” Bruce grunted.

“…and Dick can say no,” Clark added, “He knows his team’s limits better than us, so if that’s the case… well, we’ll figure something out.”

There was a whoosh of lift doors behind Superman and he glanced over his shoulder to see Cyborg stepping out of the lift.

“I know my team’s limits too,” said Cyborg, “Just for the record.”

Chapter Text

Video Description : The camera hovers several inches above the heads of the crowd of journalists as they are guided through a White House hallway to the East Room.

Jimmy Olsen, offscreen: Are you getting this, Scoops?

[Sound of Scoops chirping affirmatively]

Lois Lane-Kent, offscreen: Ten bucks says he’s announcing a full bulldozing of the White House so he can turn it into some kind of modernist glass and concrete monstrosity.

Jimmy Olsen, offscreen: Lois…

Lois Lane-Kent, partially visible in-frame: All right, all right, sorry. I’m calm. I’m balanced and rational. I can do this—god, my skin is crawling—

Vicki Vale, offscreen: You didn’t have to be here, you know.

Lois Lane-Kent: I do, actually. I’ve been covering Lex’s impact on my city for years, so yes, I have to be here.

Vicki Vale: And can we be sure you’re not going to make yourself part of the story?

Lois Lane: I think that will depend on Mr. President.

Joe Kline, offscreen: Don’t you have a baby to take care of?

Jimmy Olsen: Oh boy—

Lois Lane-Kent: WOW.

Vicki Vale: Joe, shut the fuck up.

Video Description: Eve Tessmacher steps into view, wearing a green pantsuit and peridot earrings.

Eve Tessmacher: If I may have a little decorum, ladies and gentlemen of the press—the President is ready to receive you. Right this way?

Video Description: The doors open to the White House east room, a ballroom featuring two large chandeliers. The curtains have recently been changed from gold to green, rows of seating have been placed in front of a small low stage and podium. There is shuffling and scraping of chairs as reporters take their seats.

Lois Lane-Kent: …thanks.

Vicki Vale: Don’t worry about it—Does that thing have to hover like that?

Jimmy Olsen: His name is Scoops.

Vicki Vale: Does Scoops have to hover like that?

Jimmy Olsen: That’s… kind of how he works.

Vicki Vale: Mm.

Lex Luthor: (Offscreen) It’s fine—Eve, it’s fine. The mic is—Stop yanking, I’ve got—it’s fine—whatever. I’m going.

Video Description: President Lex Luthor hustles into the ballroom from another door apparently attempting to chuckle off whatever fussing was going on in the offscreen hallway. He looks… great. Looks like he’s getting a lot more sleep than your average US President. Lois leans over to Jimmy Olsen, whispers something that Scoops’s microphone can’t pick up. Some claim they can make out the word ‘talks’ or ‘botox’ but Lois Lane-Kent says she doesn’t remember what she said to Jimmy at that point. Secretary of Education Jefferson Pierce walks in in a more measured manner, taking his place on the stage several feet behind president Luthor along with several Secret Service agents.

Jimmy Olsen (partially inaudible): —don’t know, Lois.

Lex Luthor: Thank you all for coming here today on such short notice. I understand the skepticism of many in attendance. Why call this press conference here when I have a perfectly wonderful Press Secretary in the inimitable Miss Grant? Well, suffice it to say, that she is definitely going to have her work cut out for her in the next few weeks as we roll out these executive orders. I also wanted to personally put the American people, meta and non-meta, at ease, and I wanted to stand behind my campaign promises. We want a democracy that can protect itself against meta and extraterrestrial threats, and I think I can speak for all of us when I say we will most certainly need the former to in order to stand up to the latter.

Lois Lane-Kent: Tch .

Lex Luthor: We can all agree that the social stigmas against metas are what drive many of them to crime, and the existence of these superpowered threats creates a veritable scientific arms race in the criminal underworld to keep up. Many scientists, myself included, fell into this rat race due to a lack of federal and state-level support. After all, why struggle begging for grants and publishing-or-perishing in academia when you can make so much more money faster by building a better Freeze Ray? I learned in prison that this system wasn’t sustainable, for anyone, and I founded the Tomorrow Party on the basis that the problems we have to solve aren’t a matter of progressive or conservative, but a matter of survival. I also recognize that the US government has a lot of work to do with regards to building up accountability with meta-human service members. That is why today, I’m signing a new executive order to form a new military branch. Meta-humans will finally find a means to serve and protect their country, as well as help people worldwide and maintain our interests abroad with a wide array of educational and career opportunities. Today I announce the formation of a new branch of our military, the Meta-Force.

Video Description: The press instantly explode into a flurry of questions. Chairs screech as several burst up from their seats. Below the initial shouts of questions are a sea of murmurs of journalists conferring with each other, refining their own questions or trying to run back through what the president has just said. Some of the Secret Service agents behind the President put fingers to their ears, likely receiving input from offscreen agents monitoring the crowd from the back of the room.

Eve Tessmacher: (attempting to calm the crowd) Ladies and gentlemen, if you could please—

Vicki Vale: (shouting above the crowd) Mr. President, how does this supposed military branch differ from the clandestine meta-human operations already carried out by Amanda Waller in your Meta-Human Affairs department?

Joe Kline: Mr. President, does this Meta-Force stand in opposition or replacement of the Justice League or do this administration intend on collaboration?

Iris West: (Offscreen, also shouting) Mr. President, we still don’t have a WORKING DEFINITION of Meta-human given the wildly differing origins of superpowers! It took millions in government resources to just use Captain Atom as an asset! How do you expect to do this with, I’m assuming, a much higher number of meta-humans?

Lois Lane-Kent: Mr. President, there are many extraterrestrials living peacefully on earth, many of them refugees, actively collaborating with Meta-heroes. Why pit them against each other?

Lex Luthor: (good-natured chuckle) You see, I could not, in good conscience, throw Miss Grant into this. The major difference between the Meta-Force and the US Government’s previous… clandestine forays into Meta-human-based defense is this will be operating with a lot more accountability. On top of that, to answer your question, Miss West, the Research and Development division of this branch will serve to both expand our knowledge of meta-humans and their origins, and to make this knowledge more accessible, thus empowering our citizens, meta and non-meta, to—

Video Description and note: In compliance with the Waller Commission’s investigation, Jimmy Olsen has allowed for ‘The Scoops footage’ to be slowed down to frame by frame. Frames 7134 through 7141 are still under significant discussion and scrutiny. At regular speed, gold needles spontaneously burst out of the President’s torso at radiating angles. At frame 7134 there is the first visible emergence of ‘gold needles’ and at frame 7141 they seemingly reach their full length. The crowd of journalists, previously an almost incomprehensible seething mass of overlapping questions, briefly unifies in a shocked, surging, rippling sound of “OH—“  amassing from gasps, moans and cries of horror and surprise. Secret service agents surge forward. Luthor staggers from his podium, briefly looks directly into the lens of Scoops’s camera.

Lex Luthor: Eh— (short wet cough)

Vicki Vale: Oh fuck.

Iris West: (Overlapping with Vale) Jesus—

Lois Lane-Kent: (whimper that seems to end in a gagging sound)

Jimmy Olsen: (incomprehensible due to overlapping audio with several other journalists)—Scoops…?

Video Description: Blood spills out of the president’s mouth and down his chin as he breaks his line of sight away from the camera and collapses, being clumsily caught by several Secret Service agents trying to negotiate around the massive needles jutting out of him and trying not to harm themselves. Scoops’ video footage is visibly swaying as it tries to compensate for the now seething mass of panicking journalists below.

Lois Lane-Kent: Jimmy—shit—! Stay—!

Jimmy Olsen: Lois?! Lois—!?

Secret Service Agent: Medic! We need medical to the ballroom now!

Jefferson Pierce: Ladies and Gentlemen, please stay calm! Stay—

(Electrical energy convulses off of Secretary Pierce and the footage cuts out)

—-

“Kid… Kid?” Bibbo’s voice was half-drowned out by the ringing in Jimmy’s ears.

“Mmmnhuh?” Jimmy dragged his head off Ace of Clubs’ bar.

“Look, I tried to send ‘er off, I did, but she keeps pushin’, and t’be honest as trashy as her little radio show—”

“Podcast,” a nasal, feminine voice cut over Bibbo’s.

“‘strashy as her pondcast sounds, I think she’ll give ya a fair shake.”

“Whuzzz?” Jimmy’s face felt greasy.

“She’s not Galaxy Communications, she’s said that like bajillion times,” Bibbo continued.

“Hi—Mister Olsen? Mister Olsen, can you look at me?” That nasal voice again. Jimmy’s eyes bleared open and he pushed himself up from the bar.

“Hi, Mister Olsen,” A girl who looked to be in her late teens, maybe early 20’s, wearing oversized ripped jeans and an absurdly tiny t-shirt that had the hashtag #landlorddown stretched taut across her breasts was standing a lot closer to him than he had previously anticipated. She was holding up a smartphone and an even tinier microphone, “Roxy Leech. Huge fan.”

“Guh…” Jimmy’s shoulders sank.

“Look, girly, I told you he probably wasn’t up to it—” Bibbo started.

“Jimmy Olsen,” Roxy pushed, “Your work as cub reporter at the Daily Planet has inspired thousands of young people to seek out the real stories for themselves. It was your camera that captured President Luthor’s assassination with the most clarity.”

“..Ssscoops was designed around capturing usable footage of Superman,” Jimmy pushed himself away from the bar and tried to get some reasonable distance between himself and Roxy.

“And it really is amazing footage,” Roxy was apparently agreeing with a point Jimmy wasn’t sure he made, “However, at my podcast, RoxyTalks, we realize stories are nothing without the people behind them. I want to talk to you. You and the Daily Planet power couple of Lois and Clark Lane-Kent have spent years covering Luthor’s expanding empire within Metropolis, his forays into super-villainy, and his presidential campaign. Your photography elevated the Lane-Kents’ stories from iconic to historic. How do you feel about the aspect of—WHAT THE FUCK!?”

Roxy’s careful podcast voice shattered into a shriek as Jimmy abruptly puked on her very nice, new, white sneakers. It was mostly liquid. 10% bile and 90% Soder-Cola. He hadn’t been able to really eat for the past few days. Jimmy blinked several times and pushed a hand through his hair as Roxy moaned and swore and gingerly stepped out of the puddle of vomit and swore some more as she noticed the parts of it that had splashed up onto her jeans on impact. A bright dizzy consciousness seemed to break through the haze in Jimmy’s head. How long had he been here, at the Ace of Clubs? There was the assassination, and then Perry sent him home because he had been completely out of it, he had tried to push to stay, but even Clark and Lois sided with Perry on the matter, it was only meant to be a few sick days, and then all of a sudden it was like the world was racing past him. And at first he hadn’t even worried. He was so sure that in a day or three that the wizard would pull back the curtain, that Luthor would emerge, alive and insane, maybe in that big purple and green battle suit, and duke it out with Superman alongside some LexCorp robots and Team Luthor goons. That would break Jimmy out of his spell. That would set the world to right. But it never happened. And he was floating, and it was hitting him that for so long it had been him and Clark and Lois chasing after the story. Luthor was a constant of that world. Sure, he had been Clark’s Best Man at his wedding, and sure he had been helping run all sorts odd errands and picking up the journalistic slack at the Planet for the Lane-Kents up to and after Jon’s birth, but Luthor was still a fixture of that universe and suddenly that fixture was gone. And Clark and Lois were married with a baby and he was still… Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen. The world had always been changing, but had he changed at all with it? And then there was just Bibbo finally dragging him out of his apartment and the sunlight hurt and he was here at the Ace of Clubs and now he had thrown up on Roxy Leech’s sneakers.

Jimmy snapped back to the present. Bibbo was currently getting chewed out by Roxy and feebly handing her paper towels for her sneakers and insisting that, no, Jimmy wasn’t drunk, he never touched the stuff and still insisted on sparkling apple juice rather than champagne at all of them fancy events he got invited to as photographer. And Luthor was still dead. And there was an entire world barreling forward into the unknown and who the hell was taking pictures for Lois and Clark’s articles?!

“Sorry, I… I need to go,” Jimmy said blankly.

“Are you fucking kidding me!? You don’t just get to throw up on my shoes and—!”

“I—” Jimmy was still blinking, “Look, you obviously have very good journalistic instincts, but I’m not the story.”

“This is going to define the rest of your journalistic career! How is that not its own story?!” Roxy exclaimed.

“O—okay, listen,” Jimmy fished a slightly curved and rumpled business card out his back pants pocket and handed it to Roxy, “Maybe I can give you an interview in a couple of days to make up for the shoes. But right now I’ve got a bunch of things to catch up on.”

“Or I can just podcast about how you threw up on my shoes,” Roxy said flatly.

“I’ve done less with Lex Luthor spitting right in my face,” said Jimmy with a shrug and a smile before a brief wave of hollowness hit him again. Oh that’s right… He straightened himself up. “Again, I’m sorry,” he said to Roxy, “But I need to go.”

“You need a shower,” said Bibbo.

“I need a shower and then I need to go,” Jimmy agreed.

——

In Gotham, exhaustion had left Jason’s shoulders stiff and settled an ache deep in his spine that had seemed to have always been there since emerging from the Lazarus pit. Or maybe being in close proximity to Gotham’s Lazarus Pit made the ache worse. He found the situation grimly amusing—No, Superman and Batman would never kill Lex Luthor, but it was kind of funny that they would devote resources to making sure Lex stayed dead. He saw the other resource waiting at a dimly lit intersection of Gotham’s sewers. Well, ‘Sewers’ was oversimplifying it, and ‘Undercity’ underestimated just how much of it was sewers. Like Jason, Gotham was a living and dead thing, sometime back in the early 19th century, the city expanded rapidly, but these expansions sank into soft east coast marshes and they just… built on top of them. And somewhere in this dank and grim warren of waste and ruins, there was a Lazarus pit, because of fucking course there was.

Cass was perched a few yards ahead of him, Wayne Money had cut off and redirected water flow to this area of Gotham’s underground to keep the Lazarus pit from leaching into the water supply more than it already had, but there was still a stagnant little trickle running through the middle of the corridor, you could still hear faint drips from damp weather and wastewater up above.

“Changing of the guard,” Jason affected a deep British accent.

Cass, as was her way, said nothing. Didn’t even seem to react to him beyond the obvious physical sensation of being watched by her as he walked past. Jason paused about a step and a half past her.

“Did B ever actually say how long we’re going to be doing this?” He glanced over his shoulder at Cass.

Cass gave a noncommittal motion of her head.

“He knows I actually have my own shit to work on, right?”

Cass gave a noncommittal shrug of one shoulder, this time, though there was also the slightest motion of her chin indicating an eye-roll as well.

“Typical,” Jason muttered

He exhaled and continued on his way to the nearest manhole exit. He pushed up out of the sewers and into the Gotham night. He was signaled  his sports bike’s autopilot to come pick him up, and wondered how much sewer and Lazarus stink had sank into his jacket as he slowly walked and waited. He also gave some mild thought to giving the bike a proper name. R-Cycle was out of the question, obviously, and Hood-cycle was…ugh. And maybe he really shouldn’t name it—he tried all of branding nonsense a while back and was pretty embarrassed about it now. It was almost as embarrassing as dying. But then actually giving it a name might prove convenient shorthand… He was gradually realizing this train of thought was almost entirely a product of his own tiredness, when something pinged on his helmet’s HUD. A proximity warning on his safe house in Sheldon Park had been tripped, then promptly shut off. The Cycle-that-he-would-come-up-with-a-better-name-for-later pulled up alongside Jason with a loyal rumble and he swung a leg over it. Dawn was clawing between the buildings at the waterfront but this night wasn’t over yet. With a few revs he took off for Sheldon Park.

——

Tim didn’t flinch or put the spare helmet down when Jason opened the door to the safe house. He had a lot of nerve to be here in full Robin garb, even more nerve to be ransacking the place. Okay, maybe not ransacking—None of the guns were touched (of course Tim would care just as much about branding as the Bat) but there was a small, snugly packed go-bag of tactical gear next to Tim’s feet. Tim had apparently been studying the spare Red Hood helmet, looked on the verge of going ‘Alas poor Yorick’ with it.

“Before you—” Tim started, stuffing the helmet into the bag.

“No,” Jason said flatly.

“You’re not even—” Tim started again, zipping the bag.

“Out.”

“Look, I just—” Tim attempted a third time.

“Now.”

Tim sighed and pulled his telescopic bo staff off of his belt and extended it to singlestick length, assuming a fencer’s position to decrease his surface area. Close quarters meant this would get messy and ugly, but Tim was counting on that. He was counting on the fact that Jason had far, far fewer resources than Bruce and would be a lot more hesitant about smashing up his own place. Tim was counting on the fact that Jason would be exhausted after a long stint of guarding the Lazarus Pit from potential Lex Luthor resurrectors and trying to cram in his own crimefighting (or crime-coordinating) schedule around that. Tim was counting on the fact that despite all of his rage and grief at Bruce and his successors as Robin, that at his core Jason wouldn’t actually want to inflict significant injury on him. Even the singlestick-based stance was meant to evoke a mental image of Alfred rather than Bruce, and, Tim hoped, maybe a fraction of a second of more hesitation out Jason. All of this would mean that, to an extent Jason might attempt to reason with him to avoid an actual full-out fight, which also wasn’t Jason’s strong suit.

“I know what this looks like,” said Tim,

“You’re stealing my shit because you’re going to go and do something stupid,” said Jason.

“I—okay, yeah,” said Tim, maintaining his stance.

“Yeah, that’s not happening,” Jason grabbed a crowbar out of an umbrella stand next to the door and tested its weight between his hands. Tim almost hadn’t noticed it at all, before. This entire safe house was a whole spectrum of the most basic, brutal implements liberated from various Gotham Rogue henchmen, mass-market but expensive arms likely smuggled in by crime families like the Maronis, and cutting edge state-of-the-art gear either stolen or reverse-engineered from Wayne Industries and KordTech. Given how much Jason fussed over that bike of his, or how often he was cracking into various smuggled shipments, Tim had almost not considered the crowbar at all until Jason was thumping its cool metal against his sturdily gloved palm.

Jason Todd will literally beat another Robin with a crowbar before going to therapy, the words flashed through Tim’s mind, but he held his shortened staff ready.

“I’m guessing you’re doing this because you don’t want it to be traced back to Batman,” said Jason.

Oh, okay, we’re still talking. It’s mostly for intimidation, thought Tim, before saying, “It won’t be traced back to you, either.”

They both knew that wasn’t true, especially if Batman got involved, but Tim also wasn’t in a position to explain what he was planning to do. Jason’s math on this whole situation was considerably simpler than Tim’s but then it didn’t need to be more complex: Jason had surmised that Tim was here without Batman’s order or permission, which was true, and that he was going to use whatever he grabbed here to do another, likely even stupider thing, also without Batman’s order or permission, which was also true, and while Jason didn’t have the specifics of what Tim planned to do, he knew Tim didn’t disregard Bruce lightly, which meant he was probably planning something big that could screw everything up for a lot of people.

“Still can’t let you do it, man,” even with his red helmet obscuring his features, Jason looked genuinely frustrated at the fact that right now he was probably doing what Batman would want him to do, which was, ‘Don’t let Tim steal your shit to do something stupid.’

“Yeah…” Tim looked disheartened as well, before lunging forward with a swipe of his singlestick rod. It was true, both exhaustion and an unwillingness to trash his own place limited Jason’s movements, but Jason was also able to more immediately weaponize his surroundings because he knew this space better than Tim. Tim wondered how many physical confrontations in this little space Jason had anticipated as he fought, but he quickly had to direct all thoughts to the fight itself. Jason easily switched from a two-handed grip on the crowbar to defend, to a one-handed grip on the crowbar to attack. And there was the matter that, exhausted or not, Jason was definitely the heavier hitter between the two of them. Robins tended to be light on their feet, brightly colored to distract and draw fire from multiple targets while not actually taking hits themselves, allowing Batman to swoop in and barrel through like a brutal, black and gray brawling tidal wave. In his years of building up Red Hood, it was clear Jason Todd had gotten very used to fighting on his own. He had bulked up, too, and was taller than Tim, with longer reach. In dodging a swipe from the crowbar, Tim got a fist to the ribs so hard the side of his vision went red and white briefly. That bulk had slowed Jason, though, as well. Tim could leap back, put some distance between them, extend the bo staff to its full length. Jab, jab, parry—get the staff caught in the hook of the crowbar, get the end of the staff grabbed as Jason again closed distance between them, pivoting as he did so to slam an elbow across Tim’s face. More stars, but Jason was trying to knock Tim out as quickly as possible. He didn’t have the energy to make this a fight of attrition. Tim did. But even then this was still a gamble. Sure, Jason wouldn’t want to deal a permanent injury, but there was no doubt that he was still very capable of dealing damage that would put Tim’s plans out of commission anyway. Get the distance back. Tim squeezed his eyes shut and knocked some flash bombs loose from his utility belt. Jason’s helmet already had reduced peripheral vision, so by the time he glanced down—

KSHAW—Blinding white light rendered most of their surroundings sillhouettes and suggestions.

Jason staggered back, trying to blink his vision back and at least having a strong enough memory of his own Robin training to bring up his forearm to block a kick from Tim, which Tim nimbly rebounded from. Jason immediately triangulated Tim’s position from the sound of his landing and struck out for Tim again, only to grunt as his foot clipped one of his storage lockers and he stumbled slightly, vision still probably spotty from the flash bomb.

Don’t bother trying to stun him. Take advantage of the limited sensory input, grab your supplies, and run.

Tim seized the bag but then the crowbar hooked around his calf and yanked, rendering him even more off-balance than he was with the bag’s momentum. Tim caught himself on his bo-staff before going down completely and pushed off with it to regain some of his stance, before letting it slide rapidly forward through his grip to jab Jason right in the face of his red helmet with a light, infuriating donk. Jason grunted, more from the indignity of the strike than pain from it. Tim tightened his grip on the staff and clipped Jason on the side of the helmet before going for a hard jab at Jason’s shoulder to try and limit his movement further, but Jason caught the staff, yanked it toward himself, and dropped his crowbar to strike Tim across the face with the back of his fist. Another stunning shot, another attempt at discombobulation, trying to end the fight as quickly as possible. Tim had to let go of the staff before Jason could get a real hold on him and slip away from his grip. Jason blocked a strike from Tim as he threw the staff behind himself.

“You know what your goddamn problem is?” Jason staggered back to a ready position, “You and Batman both—“ he swung for Tim and Tim ducked and slid down between Jason’s legs, slowed and made clumsier by the bag, and not having the time to risk striking at Jason’s back. His staff—he had to get his staff again.

“You’re always so caught up with being the smartest assholes in the room,” Jason pivoted to face him, but Tim finally reached his staff again, and was moving to rise with it at the ready. Jason braced one hand on one of his storage lockers and swung his whole body around like on a pommel horse. This was shockingly acrobatic, and Tim had another flash of, ‘Ah yes, he really was a Robin,’ before barely bringing up his staff in a blocking position to mitigate what was coming. Jason’s kick sent him flying across the apartment and crashing into the wall, the duffel on his back absorbing most of the impact. Tim could feel the bruises forming. No, he couldn’t have this, he couldn’t be slowed down for what he had to do.

“Telling everyone to control their feelings,” Jason hopped over another storage locker to close the distance between them, “It never even occurs to you guys when you’re already off the deep end.”

That was it, then. Jason wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t about to get any pleasure from being right. Tim fingered something on his utility belt, something he had snagged from Lonnie’s place. He had hoped he wouldn’t have to use it, it was too obvious, revealed too much of his intentions, but Tim had also already made a critical miscalculation with regards to how easy it would be to get this duffel bag out of the safe house: he had underestimated Jason’s knowledge of the limits of his own body, and his ability to stay on his feet out of sheer spite.

“Now put the goddamn bag down and go back to the manor,” Jason loomed over him. Tim’s staff rattled against the ground as he gripped it, and that small bit of sound bought the half-second of Jason’s attention before Tim sprung up and jammed what looked like a stubby metal epipen into the side of Jason’s helmet. It wouldn’t fully penetrate the helmet, but it didn’t have to. The helmet itself was the target. Still, the move alarmed Jason to the point where he pulled away from Tim and fumbled for the little cylinder now sticking out of the upper side of his helmet.

“What the hell did you—GRAAAHHH!” Jason’s hands clasped over where his ears were on the helmet as the device overtook his helmet’s radio transmitters and HUD to flood his head with screeching, painful feedback and scrambled, disorienting vision. Lonnie’s invention, taking the sonic and strobing crowd control techniques used by riot cops and shrinking them down to an individual assault. In theory, if one jammed this device into a mobile police communications hub, they could painfully immobilize entire squads. It did have that Lonnie streak of both not wanting to hurt bystanders, but having no problem with turning cops’ techniques against them. Unfortunately, this would have to do for Jason alone. “You cheating little—!” Flailing, Jason successfully grabbed the device and snapped it off, but that didn’t end the noise flooding his ears and the strobing visual onslaught that sent him staggering. Jason’s only option was to take the helmet itself off. It was only a few seconds. Tim hadn’t dealt enough damage to Jason to ensure he wouldn’t chase after him, or send the others after him.

As Jason was scrambling to get his helmet off to end the sensory assault, Tim raced out the safe house’s door and into fading night. He prayed Jason’s ego was bruised enough that he would pursue him himself for a few precious minutes rather than calling in the cavalry, that would make it easier to confuse his trail, buy more time. Cass was down in the sewers. Steph and the Birds of Prey were probably focusing their efforts on Gotham’s more intense areas or Rogue hangouts, having to compensate for Batman’s absence. Tim had fudged some technical difficulties and ditched his bat communicator well before coming here, but still, if Oracle so much as got a bead on him, this could already be over. He sprinted before drawing his grappling gun and shooting and swinging up onto a fire escape, cursing how the extra weight of the bag slowed him. He had gotten what he needed, but now he had so little time.