Poor Little Rich Boys Revision

by waterchaser

Ironman and Batman team up to hunt down a doppleganger of Tony's suit.

"POOR LITTLE RICH BOYS" by John Wayne Waterchaser

Prologue

The inky, deceptively tranquil skyline of Gotham keeps hidden many, many things. One of them, a television shop at the first floor of one of hundreds of tall, sharply pointed towers, turrets, and minarets, displayed its largest prize. Across the street, in an office building twice as high, a dark figure watched the window of the store, which displayed a large plasma screen television. The screen was broadcasting a syndicated news program.

A boy stood in front of the window of that store, the reflection of his face in the glass revealed a knot of grief and disbelief. Atop the higher of the two grim, stygian buildings, a dark cowl pulled the night around the figure of the watcher like a great cloak. As he observed the boy's pained face reflected in the glass-pane like a window to the past or an old movie, the figure recalled something his father had said to him once, one of many, many things he'd never forgotten, about the nature of justice. The memory evoked a stern, patient voice, saying, Justice is rarely welcome in one's own house.

On the screen, a large, balding man with an elegantly trimmed goatee and a young woman with reddish blonde wires of hair twisted up behind her head in a tight bun discussed the nation's hottest news.

"As our viewers are no doubt aware," says the man, "this morning billionaire inventor Tony Stark, aka the Invincible Iron Man, has been implicated in dozens of murders across the globe, and indicted by a grand jury. Now tell me, Tina, why would Stark do this? He's a hero to millions; the man has saved untold numbers of lives."

"Well, Brandon," says Tina, "you have to remember that Tony Stark is a man under a lot of pressure, holding up those iron shoulders and that anti-tank armored helmet of his like some kind of mechanical Atlas, and beneath that helm is a very large brain, also a burden in many ways. As anyone who has studied abnormal psychology, or knows Stark personally, can tell you, he exhibits the kind of eccentric, arrogant behavior that often accompanies genius. Several prominent psychologists have suggested that he may be suffering the kind of nervous breakdown suffered by men like Ted Kaczynski, who after years in the pressure cooker, saw his brilliance transformed into a psychotic break."

"So you're saying he's a serial killer?" says Brandon, his bulk pushing against the desk, his hungry eyes bulging out with rapt interest.

"Brandon," says the beautiful correspondent, "if he's guilty, he most certainly is serial killer. These attacks on black market brokers and international criminals, they were carefully targeted, meticulously plotted out, and ruthlessly executed, replete with military precision and power that only a man like Tony Stark could accomplish, and let's face it, who's like Tony Stark?"

"Well I say it's about time. Interpol has proved ineffective in dealing with these kinds of criminals, the kind that fund our most entrenched mafias, deadliest cartels and narcotic-smuggling insurgents."

The Dark Knight continued to watch as the boy, crestfallen from the inside out, turned from the television, the words dissolving into mumbo-jumbo, and he walked away, hanging his head.

His father, when he'd pressed him on the matter, had said, that the "deliberate taking of life, even the life of an evil man, in the name of Justice, only serves to show that even a righteous man is capable of falling."

To the Guardian of Gotham it seems once again his father was right about a great many things.

Chapter One

The Year before Yesterday

December 2

Adam De la Guerre, lonely, millionaire, inventor, admired no one more than Tony Stark, not even his own parents; the crack of breaking capsules in his ears resounded still, that of his mother swallowing the pills after his father's death in an accident involving one of the family reactors in the south of France, a memory he'd never shaken.

As he surveyed his empire from Gotham, his fledgling North American base of operations, his data windows streamed scrolling banners of French and English script, video feeds from Paris and Istanbul, wide-lens photos of the Toronto and New York skylines; stock indexes, meteorological forecasts, and news reports; faces, from urban and sophisticated to beaten, or rough, or plain or full of awe. He monitored not just his buildings, but of all of Gotham, and in particular, Wayne Enterprises, the main tower decorated with dark greens and gold lights for the coming holiday. But none of these concerned him now: he wondered only what Anthony Stark was going to do next.

In the past year, Adam's life had moved at breakneck speed, from finalizing his designs on the winter holiday of last year to moving his location to Gotham to set up his new fusion facility in February. He'd hired Kerry Kadmon to keep up with his rapid expansion, hoping to attract an investor like Wayne Enterprises, but he opening it up to everyone because he thought it was a legitimate deal. His zeal was not contagious.

Adam thought back to his grand opening, the empty parking lot devoid of cars carrying investors who might be interested in touring the plant. He remembered his secretary interrupting his reverie to say: "Mr. De la Guerre, the gentleman from Wayne Enterprises, Mr. Fox, regretfully wishes to inform you he will have to reschedule."

"Why wouldn't they at least try to see?" he thought, the after sense of swallowed bitters and salt tears pooling in the back of his mouth. He had been wholly unsuccessful in getting the city on board. The electric co-ops and the utility companies saw him as a threat, and so the city officials did as they were told. Adam was above bribing them. But he struggled to fend off claims that his plant was a danger, a nuisance, and a potential disaster waiting to happen. While scared any tentative investors, he continued to pay for air time to promote his company and his ideal vision of Gotham, but someone had gotten to the local networks, and even impeded his grass roots advertising initiative, charging him more than the price of a Super Bowl commercial spot for prime time. After a few months, raids on his equipment by the local mafia, who had tried to extort him, led him to hire a security specialist before he hemorrhaged any more money.

Yesterday, he met for the first time one of his greatest professional rivals, one of his all-time personal heroes, and one of his utmost disappointments. Today, Adam was watching footage of Tony Stark's house, listening to the reports talk about the pending lawsuits and government indictments for espionage, weapons trafficking, and murder. Crowds of detractors and supporters surged around the smoldering site. At least he wasn't the only one with problems.

Chapter 2

The Starkest Madness is Divinest Sense

December 1

Yesterday, Tony sat at his desk, holding his gold and platinum armored helm, watching a video of something that operated exactly like his invention, except it enacted unspeakable horrors, actions bordering on the psychotic, and while Tony was no fan of the victims, he had no taste for the bloodlust of the psychotic vigilante operating the mechanical doppelganger of his own technology.

It was worse than bad. He had struggled since its conception to keep the Iron Man exoskeleton and its underpinning technology out of the wrong hands, upgrading and refining it whenever possible to stay ahead of imitators and advance in reverse engineering. Whoever was in the suit, or operating it remotely, used it now maliciously, to his horror and guilt, taking lives with a vengeance. From what Tony could see, this new threat possessed something at least on par with his own technology. In the videos, the responsible party obviously took great relish in dismantling, piece by bloody piece, the militant groups which were its victims, displaying incremental upgrades in weaponry in each attack. Someone was playing a game with them, with a caliber they eventually realized they could not out class.

Tony felt sick. He had, albeit inadvertently, brought about this violence. But it wasn't the physical game the menace played with the scum that bothered Tony, it was the obvious challenge to Tony to stop it, and he couldn't.

He now sat alone, analyzing the attacks again from start to finish for the tenth time tonight. There seemed no real reason; no political movements of significance would take such a haphazard strategy. How many times had he looked at this and tried to figure out the pieces behind it?

He pulled a hologram map of the globe, letting Jarvis highlight each attack in chronological order, and then his tired mind drifted laterally over to Rhodie and their last phone call. The call had been short: he was shoring up a battalion under fire from nearly 200 hundred enemy troops as the cavalcade of hummers and fifty caliber squads tried desperately to keep up cover fire. Up to his servos in blood, trying to stop a bloodbath caused by lack of equitable wealth, health care, and education mixed with tribal warfare, despotism, and desperados, it had been three weeks with no word from his friend except the regular updates from the War Machine diagnostics.

With Rhodes tied up in Afghanistan supplementing under supplied troops, Tony found himself forced to pursue the matter on his own, and before he'd made any headway, an anonymous victim of one of the attacks launched a huge lawsuit against him for damages done where one of the deadly raids he was being blamed for. He tried to be patient over the last few months, but videos of what looked like his technology kept showing up everywhere. It was possible somebody got War Machine specs and sold them on the open market, but he couldn't be sure of that. He had alibis for the attacks, but the lawyer, Erasmus Eaton, for the suit against him, had issued a public statement immediately after his lawyers submitted his alibis to the Bureau.

"Yes, Tony Stark has alibis," said the lawyer from a podium set up in front of the Lincoln Memorial, "but Tony Stark is a genius of the first order, replete with the eccentricities and pressures which burdened his father. He has on numerous occasions operated his technology remotely. Mr. Stark's alibis are invalid, bunk, and defunct by the very fact that he didn't need to be there to commit the crime in question over which my client is distraught, and to humiliated and hurt to stand with me today. But we will have justice-"

Tony turned it off. He knew what the man was trying to do. What he didn't know, and couldn't figure out, was why. And the how didn't seem to matter.

The only data that matched was the geography of the attacks: they lined up with known trading points for the black market, Indonesia, the Congo, Columbia, northern Mexico, Russian, Croatia, Yemen, Iraq, and Pakistan. Even if he wasn't found guilty, he'd succeeded in attracting the negative attention of several major international groups of criminals without meaning to do so at all.

He had looked into it, but his board had moved first, despite Pepper's attempts to prevent them, and issued a valid but unwelcome non-negotiable vacation. The board had also had his personal research contracts frozen while they redistributed the company contracts to personae gratae, people who were not Tony Clark.

"Jarvis, who has the applications and patents on file necessary to duplicate my arc reactor technology?" he asked suddenly.

"I have already compiled a list, sans logical impossibilities, sir," said the neural network he had started building back in his preteen days at M.I.T.

Two faces popped up on the screen. One Tony knew well, the other, not at all.

"Jarvis, notify Pepper I'll be taking a quick trip," said Tony.

The fox knows well with whom he plays tricks, he thought as he took off in the jet.

He landed without permission on the only private airstrip in Gotham, belonging to one Bruce Wayne. Empty, of course, Tony thought. He's probably in Tahiti with a gaggle of pretty little birds on a bed of freshly plucked goose down.

Somewhat jealous of the image of a philanthropist unencumbered by obsessive guilt, free to revel in the perks of elitist wealth, Tony got drunk at the bar in the lobby of the Wayne Enterprises hotel. He was waiting for the debut for a new power plant, and planning what he'd do when the presentation started, and then, unhappy with a few minor technicalities, decided to wing it. Either Bruce Wayne or Adam De la Guerre was trying to sabotage him: only they had the means.

Tony entered the partially filled room of suited investors engineers and representatives from Wayne Enterprises. An army of lawyers and engineers from De la Guerre's Atomics International stood in front of the crowd. Tony stood in the back near the guards, admiring their uniforms. He waited while the young man in a flawless gray suit and blue power tie delivered his spiel.

"As you can see, the fusion reaction is generated through my magnetic monopoles, the net energy loss so loss so low that the reactor creates a controllable feedback loop, condensing the hydrogen first into plasma, which is reintroduced to create metalized hydrogen, which is then compressed further through the monopoles to create the fusion reaction. From this point-"

Applause broke out from the back of the room. All eyes turn on Tony, who was clapping maniacally, spilling ice out of his glass.

"That is freaking brilliant, worthy of at least an Ignoble Prize!" Tony interrupted, "You've spent more money than God would have thought possible to create a way a way to melt yourself into oblivion. Bravo, good sir, bravo!"

"Ladies and Gentlemen, Tony Stark," said the cool eyed De la Guerre. The room went silent and all eyes fell upon the now infamous man in the back, with his slightly bloodshot eyes, fierce face, and neatly trimmed goatee.

"I beg your pardon?" said De la Guerre.

"What I'm saying, and I guess I was plebian enough in my delivery, is this little Molotov cocktail you've cooked up won't work. You've got no way to generate the kind of energy you need in the magnetic field coils to contain the pressure of the plasma you're using as an indirect energy, and even that isn't very efficient," he said.

"Mr. Stark, this is a private showing. If you would like to purview the specs, please have your office contact-

"What?" Tony asked aggressively. "Are scared you aren't prepared for this? Afraid I'll see something?"

"The boron carbide material will hold. If you check the-"

"Check this," he said, "When I get home, if I find you've pirated my schematics, I'll sue you until you need a gender change. There is no way you can produce this kind of energy without my arc reactor."

"Mr. Stark, I assure you that you are wrong about many things, and I, it appears, am wrong about only one: I thought you were an honorable, even admirable, man. You were the American inspiration to my own unfortunate fortune. But evidently, you deserve, justly, my pity; pure, unadulterated pathos. You're nothing but a drunk who folds under pressure and makes histrionic scenes." He turned to a nearby security guard. "Get this man out of my sight," said De la Guerre with highly polished English.

"Admire me?" Tony said rhetorically. "I could buy this company. Actually, I could build a better one and sell it to you in wrapped like a float in the Macy's Day Parade in a nice neat little compartment. You still admire me? Because you're still a fraud."

Adam simply turned his head to the side, at an awkward, predatory angle like a raptor. "You sir, are out of your mind."

"He's a fraud! People, he's not giving you volts, he's a just a wannbe Voltaire, a talker; don't waste your money unless you like being tied up in lawsuits,"

"It is you, Monsieur Stark, whom I imagine is tied up in lawsuits. You are, correct me if I am wrong, being indicted on charges of conspiracy, gross negligence, and terrorism?" said De la Guerre with a barely held together composure of calm.

"Which I'll prove you are responsible for," retorted Tony.

"Get this rusted out heap out of this meeting!" Adam said.

The room was quiet, no one moved.

"Did no one just hear me?" said Tony.

Kerry Kadmon, standing at the left of Adam, watched along with Lucius Fox. Kerry signaled with his hand, and three security guards moved from the door towards Tony.

"Nice outfits," said Tony. "You get those from a Charlie Chaplin set? I've got a couple of souvenirs that look just like that."

"Anthony Stark!" said Lucius Fox, clearly, but with a voice full calm, like the quiet before the storm.

"Excuse me?" said Tony. "You don't know me like- Oh, wait, I know you. You're Lucius Fox."

Tony turned to De la Guerre.

"Hey, Adam, if you're hiring this guy to fix your company, you don't need me after all. He'll figure out how you stole my designs."

"Kadmon!" hissed De la Guerre. Tony turned on Fox.

"Where, oh where, Fantastic Senior Fox is that beautiful male party animal who's president of Wayne Enterprises? Hasn't he been doing great since he put you on the board? You and me, we aren't like these clowns. Come work for me. Where is your boss anyway? In the Bahamas? No, wait, it's Tahiti, right?"

Bruce Wayne waltzed into the room, whistling a piece from Gershwin's Walk in the Clouds.

"Indonesia, actually. Just got back. I see you are in rare form, Mr. Stark. Did you come to insult me personally or just to embarrass me in front of my guests?" said Wayne.

"What are you doing here?" said Tony.

"Well, I scheduled this meeting, but I was running late because somebody parked their plane in my spot," replied Wayne gracefully, and then held up a slightly crumpled tin sign which had emblazoned on the front, "Reserved for Bruce Wayne". "I suppose you can fix this, without needing a loan?"

"Are you behind this?" asked Tony, his eyes narrowing into quizzical dagger-points.

"Behind what?" said Wayne his visage changing to curious intensity, so intense Tony almost mistook it for rage or at least, deep offense.

"Behind me being robbed, set up, and sued," snarled Tony, angry at the idea of the question. The idea that Wayne wouldn't be aware of Stark being indicted for terrorism, mass murder, and a flash drive full of other charges was not just ludicrous, but insulting, especially since Wayne's company had a reputation for shrewdness despite Wayne's own silver-lined solid gold lifestyle of debauchery and excess. The poor little rich boy was now hosting a presentation to purchase rights to the company and very owner who had stolen his designs. Tony was as sure of that as he was that his jet was still parked in Wayne's lot, right beside playboy's own, with a big fat bill on the front of the windshield. Wayne was nobody's fool, even if he played the fool. He had either intuitive sense for business or intuitive sense for people, or both. Given his social life, he figured it was both.

Wayne did not appear moved or upset by Tony's wrath, and Tony was still unsure of his complicity, or perhaps, duplicity. He didn't want to believe it, but it was impossible for a Stark to ignore the facts. His father had said never ignore the facts, and his facts had made him a legend, and Tony had never forgotten the lesson.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Tony. You need to sleep it off. Go home. Call me tomorrow. I'll call you an air-taxi, if you need it," said Wayne, his spare, modular features an unreadable mask of grace, decorum, and lithe leisure. "There might a boot on your plane or something ridiculous. Can't be too careful in Gotham."

"I'll call you right now. I'll call you a liar. All of you. This is a conspiracy!" said Tony. "It's felonious collusion. It's capitalism in need of a colposcopy!"

"Please show the loquacious Mr. Stark the very plainly adorned exit," said Mr. Wayne to Kerry Kadmon, "As your employer has repeatedly requested."

Kerry nodded at the nervous guards. Everyone knew Tony Stark was made of iron.

"Don't touch me!" warned Stark. "I have this thing about people—hey!"

One of the guards reached out, and Tony bent his arm back and snapped his finger, and the man howled in pain.

"I said don't. Are you all deaf? Don't you hear me? I'm going home. I'm taking my jet, and I'm flying it home. But don't worry: whenever I wake up tomorrow, I'm coming back."

He turned and threw the glass, smashing it against the display screen and the screen went black with a poof of smoke and a hiss.

"There, that's what going to happen to that cold fusion pipe dream. It will be a bust. You want cold fusion? Build a solar mass in space. Better yet, build anything in space, just build it far away from me and Earth so you don't blow us up or pull us apart with your chrematistic experiments."

He paused while their audacity reduced minds processed what he'd done and took the moment to turn on Bruce Wayne, who wore a mixture of amusement and attention Tony found surprising for the internationally renowned playboy of Gotham City. While Tony himself played as hard as he worked, he never mixed business with pleasure and he suspected Wayne didn't either. Wayne just seemed to prefer the pleasure to the business, while Tony was addicted to working and often only found respite or sheer rest in women or a glass. And part of his business was being the paragon Tony Stark of Stark Industries, the business man of the American Empire's technological arts, her economic arms, and her armory.

Tony suddenly smiled.

"Wayne, you can invoice me for the damages. I left my wallet at home. I don't really need it with my jet. By the way, nice airstrip, lots of room, golf-cart and mini-bar transport to the club. I left them a tip."

With that, Tony stormed out of the room, leaving a silent, befuddled crowd behind him. Adam De la Guerre looked like he could chew up iron and spit out nails, a response not unnoticed by Bruce Wayne.

Chapter 3

To Night and Tony

December 2, 3:00 am

Tony woke up that night to the alarm and the smell of smoke; he found Jarvis disabled, and, after taking the time to don his special night-gown, from the heavy, titanium and platinum emergency suitcase under the bed, he began to investigate.

In the lab, he found a group of armed men, and the black suit. Tony and the black suit exchanged fire immediately, the resulting explosion shaking the house. The high-intensity projectiles of the black suit ejected him through the distant wall and into a neighboring residence, and in the process, his entrance took out a door, a statue of Elvis, and landed him in a seated position on a couched after it rolled with him in it, twice, and then subsequently broke as the frame couldn't bear the weight. Glancing through the wake of the hole he'd just created, he saw the escaping ship accompanied by a small, visible after-burn that must have been the other, the black, ironman suit.

Glancing down at Elvis, he tried to right the statue, but the head fell off. "Ladies and gentleman, the King is dead."

Tony pursued the ship for hundreds of miles as it tried to lose him in the highest altitudes, but Tony had made modifications: the void of space was not a great concern neither was the rapid accumulation of ice, but something was following him now. It gave chase, and Tony was diverted off course for nearly twenty minutes, having to take an even higher altitude to get a trajectory that would meet the ship before it got to the Gotham airport, its route now obvious from a simple manipulation of the roots of its average trajectory. He found himself in the stratosphere, overlooking the darkling continent of North America and the twinkling of the stars.

"You have been targeted by a laser guidance program," his suit warned him.

"Fire counter measures," he said, as his suit released small counter charges, but the missiles were smarter, and faster, than he'd anticipated, and the first blast nearly knocked him offline.

He searched for his attacker in the night skies, winging mercurially through the mists of the continent's highest strata, but his own targeting system had been damaged. At length sending up a flare, he saw a black and gold suit in the sky, several hundred meters above him.

Tony went after him again, with a vengeance, but the other suit was faster, and they circled each other, exchanging fire at close range as they circled higher and higher. Tony's own suit was proving ineffective, bearing the brunt of at least more powerful assaults even as he tried to give as good as he got. Tony was blasted again and again, trying to hold off his assailant while keeping up with the ship, but finally, a powerful barrage of energy blasts sent him spiraling down. Grossly engaged in the firefight, Tony had paid little attention to where he was or where his trajectory would carry him until it was too late.

He smashed onto the bridge, slammed into a motorist, sending the red Escalade careening off him into another car in the oncoming lane, and as the cars crashed into a multi-car pileup, Tony managed to catch himself on the edge of the bridge.

Holding on by his own strength as his suit shut down, he fell, only to find himself landing in a heap in the back of the Batwing's open hatch, waiting beneath him.

Chapter Four

Fear and Loathing in the Bat Cave

December 3, 6:09 am

A splash of cold water jolted him from the dark oblivion of unconsciousness. Tony woke to find two large cables attached to his chest, an all too familiar scenario.

"I'm awake, I'm awake," he said, rubbing the grog from his eyes.

"Why did you attack a transport freighter of legitimate company?" growled a voice from the shadows.

"What were you doing there?" Tony replied sharply.

"Answering a call to stop the firefight that moved into Gotham airspace," the voice replied justly.

"That wasn't legitimate cargo," said Tony. "My suits were on that ship, suits stolen from me, right before they blew up my home."

The armored, darkling hand touched the console, pulling up a schematic of the ship and an overlay of x-rays.

"Your suits weren't on the vessel," said Batman.

"They had the specs. They've had them for a while," said Tony.

"I can't prove that," Batman said.

Stark tried to stand, but collapsed back into the chair. He sighed and thought laterally.

"You can't prove it?" he asked, and then changed the subject. "Not a bad set up here, you figured out which way to run the juice," he said, looking at the Dark Knight's handiwork. "Hey, I'll tell you what, you help me out, and I'll remodel this place for you, bring in some faster processors, some smarter software, get some fluorescent lighting-

"Is this a joke to you?" growled Batman, pulling up a screen with Stark's face on it. Beneath his face scrolled a banner reading, "Wanted for questioning by the F.B.I."

"No, it's not a joke," he said, "but I'm being set up. Besides, I can make a funnier face than that," said Tony.

"You're going to stay here. I'm going to do some recon. Do not leave this-"

"Of course I'm staying here. You've got me wired to your mainframe power line like a coppertop dog on a leash. Aren't you going to hear my side?"

"I'm listening," he said, a scowl crossing the cowled face, "but you've got a time limit."

"That wasn't me in my suit, it wasn't even my suit, and at least it wasn't my suit, although it looked a lot like it. Six months ago, someone hijacked or reverse engineered my specs for the Iron man technology. But I don't know why, and I don't know how, but since the theft, a doppelganger of my technology has been on the rampage. The specs for the suit mechanics they could have mimicked, maybe replicated with 3D printers if they were in Afghanistan with Rhodie, but they definitely stole an arc reactor. I can give you an exact date the locker was hacked and the portable reactor removed. We're talking about serious feats of engineering—I didn't build the iron man suit in a cave, you know."

"The why is sometimes more important than the how," said the Dark Knight.

"I didn't chase that suit and that ship here to discuss psychology with a man in a bat suit," Tony retorted. "And do you have a liquor cabinet hooked up to this thing or what? It feels like I've been blacked out for days,"

"You're here because you almost took out the biggest bridge in Gotham and endangered the lives of hundreds of people. I can't allow you to continue to endanger the lives of others, Tony. You're reckless."

"Me?" Tony continued, "I'm the biggest victim of all: I've been indicted, slapped with an exorbitant lawsuit, and threatened by no less than nine different cartels for something I had nothing to do with. I put every dime I had into my lab and it's gone, and what I'm getting from the company is paying my retainer and keeping me on staff. The board sent me on a vacation that was non-negotiable. What I want to know is why you're defending the guy that blew up my house? Do you know how cool that house was? Not mention the neighbors' giant marble Elvis, for which I'll be getting a Graceland sized bill, I'm sure."

"Stop it. You need to rest, and I need one too. I believe you. But you can't leave: you're a wanted man, and you're safer here than wandering into another stockholder's meeting."

"Yea, there's that. What am I supposed to do while this lethargic dinosaur you're running recharges me?

"Think about how you got here."

Batman was gone, and Tony swore under his breath.

Chapter 5

The Dark Detective

December 3, 6:32 pm

Taking the black Porsche, the Detective went to the pier overlooking the fusion tower. He parked the Porsche and after exiting the vehicle, rolled up the windows and sent the car to the next location. He walked to the pier and touched a button on his left arm. He waited, and saw the telltale swell as the submersible surfaced off the edge of the deserted pier.

He watched as the light glimmered on the black webbing of the main thruster wings surfaced. He leapt onto Fox's metamaterial, lighter, stronger, and more flexible than spider wire.

"Nice work, as always Lucius," he thought as he caught his footing and stepped easily over the fins to the main hatch, grabbing his cape corners as he slipped into the cockpit that opened when he stood on the sensor at the top.

As he slipped in, the computers engaged and he loaded up the navigation interfaces. The wings slowly backpedaled like flexible fins and turned her around, and then stroked out with the massive meta-fins Lucius had designed to power swimmers' suits acted like giant, glistening oars made of butterfly wings, propelling the ultra light weight abdomen of the lady across the white caps of the river. Suddenly, the wings snapped backwards and encased the vessels and meshed together around it, creating a massive, wide fine.

Plunging quickly through the current, he thought about Tony's story. He was an honorable man, but the Detective had to follow the evidence, to the ends of the earth, if he had to, and wouldn't mind doing it for Tony at all, even if he was a smartass. Never ignore the facts, his father had told him often enough.

He landed and scaled the cliff with the winch, and then soared over the fences into the yard on the cape from the lookout stand, so close he could he have caught the sentinel's cigarette falling from the top of the tower where he base jumped.

Scaling the heights of the reactor towers, he began photographing and digitally formatting it into a three-dimensional layout of the compound. Once he had rough map, he moved closer, and reviewed his data, updating the map, moving more and more quickly so that after the initial wait of an hour, he was now on top of the building, and a few minutes from entering unseen.

Once inside, he was able to verify a few key details to enhance the map into full utility. Everywhere, he spotted evidence of Tony's arc reactors, but De la Guerre had used them to power something he didn't recognize.

He used a modified fiber optic disk and sensors Lucius had run to his gloves to trace an outline of the plans, model the major features, and overlaid them on the plans his computer systems had found on his phone, both his and de la Guerre's plans. He tried to make them match up, something was wrong.

He waited longer, recording and analyzing the patterns of the movement he saw in the shift change at 9, and then grew impatient, resting his hands on his chin, laying prone with the lenses, propping up on his elbow in utter boredom.

Finally, he stood up. This was a waste of time. Tony had a real problem, he'd realized. He jumped down to the top of the reactor, and got a more thorough look. When he was satisfied his analysis was correct, he sent the submersible back to the inlet port docking bay and met the Porsche in the parking lot of De la Guerre's company.

Chapter 6

The Detective's Commissioner

December 3, 10:13 am

Gordon was doing push ups in front of desk, his shirt and jacket folded neatly on the mahogany rolling chair. He counted down to negative two, two past yesterday's count, and when he stood up and wiped the sweat from his eyes with a towel, he wasn't surprised to see a dark, hulking shadow on his window ledge.

"Last set or first?" said the voice of the cowl, black even now in the shadow of heavy winter clouds and the west side of the building. He made out the intricate symmetry of the armor and the yellow utilitarian line around his waist, but most of his entire cape seems to pull the light from the room with its awesome gravity.

"First and last," said Gordon. "I'm not made of iron like you."

"I disagree," said the darkling voice.

"Well thanks, what can I do for you?" said the Commissioner.

"What have you got Adam De la Guerre?" said the Bat.

"Not much," Gordon said, sitting at his desk and pulling up his computer. "Name doesn't sound familiar, so he's either a good boy or only recently gone bad,"

Gordon pulled up a file on the screen.

"Let's see, father was a French national, mother Canadian, triune citizenship, born in the states to Marianne and Charles Martel De la Guerre, father died on the site of a reactor being constructed in the south of France, mother took a whole bottle of sleeping pills a year later. His company continued to pay him father's salary and sent him to Eton, where he followed in his father's footsteps, got into MIT, and four years ago he took over the North American operations before moving the headquarters here to Gotham. Oh yea, this is the fusion reactor guy, is that thing online yet?

"Not officially. What have you got on the company itself, since it moved here?

"Well, wait, what's this?" Gordon paused and pushed his glasses up his roman, accipitrine nose back to the weary wrinkles of a thirty year old, despite the discrepancy of his real age. He read on silently, and then paused, looking down and touching his graying, frayed goatee.

"It appears the head of security filed several reports in the last year on stolen property: gangs stealing the copper and nickel right off his construction sites. Reports stopped a few months ago, and he claimed the property was returned." His head popped up.

"That just doesn't sound – he said, and then realized it. Gordon turned around. The detective was gone. "Right"

Chapter 7

Plans within plans

December 3, 1:00 PM

The dark knight heard laughter as he entered the onyx and gossamer cathedral that was his solace, his misery, and the nerve center of his obsession. But the laughter and the bright light he saw faintly near the mainframe belied a different view of life.

"Alfred, you sly son of a brit's britches," Tony said, holding a hand of cards at makeshift table of a spare panel for the Batmobile, black and aerodynamic, and a pile of nuts, hexes, screws, and transistors. The greater pile was on Alfred's side. "I thought Brits never lied, but you're quite a bluffer."

"On the contrary, Mister Stark, a true butler, who can only be British, never bluffs, he only says exactly what he means to say."

"Tony, we need to talk," interrupted the Dark Knight.

"Hey, pointy ears, how ya' doin? I got to tell you, I don't know who's a bigger thief, Adam De la Guerre or Alfred here. He's got no tells, he just smiles and says something clever, and then slips me the prestige."

"Mr. Stark, I believe Mr. Bruce has something up his sleeve which may be of genuine value," said Alfred.

"See? Brilliant. Now here's a guy who appreciates humor. Pepper can barely tell a knock-knock joke."

Alfred stood up.

"Al, I don't have any cash on me, but I tell you what, if you worked for me, I could write it into your bonus or write it off your taxes,"

Alfred smiled.

"Well, while that is generous sir, when you get as old as I am, you start to realize two things: change is expensive, and everything has a cost and a value."

"That's three things," said Stark.

"No sir, I beg your pardon but it isn't. You see, when you know the value of something, when you really know it, you know that is the true cost; the value determines the cost. And I can tell you plainly, sir, I have no use for mechanical baubles and metal rings much too small to wear. They are of no value to me, and so it costs me nothing to give them to you,"

Alfred turned to Batman. "Shall I give you some privacy, sir?"

"Actually, I need you deliver a message."

He handed Alfred a flash drive and the butler bowed incrementally and then stepped into the shadows.

"Tony, you have a problem."

"I have hundreds of them. It's a chronic condition."

Batman walked to the mainframe and looked down at the screen and then back to his chair.

His chair had three keyboards mounted on it, and several wires running from the database to the keyboards.

"What did you do?" said Batman.

"Oh, I couldn't figure out how to bypass your software, and I got bored trying so I created a manual interface."

"Where did you get those keyboards?" asked Batman.

"You know, you have one of these in every freaking vehicle in this place? I could have gotten one anywhere. You really need to let me redecorate. I could install a full fiber optic system, a couple of modified Crays, and an arc reactor, hell, I'll even make you a copy of Jarvis and pay for the fluorescent lighting and a counseling session, all for free."

"Don't push it, Tony," said the detective. "What were you doing in my mainframe?"

"Looking for data. I have another card I might be able to-" said Tony.

"I need you see this. My data may trump yours."

"So you do have jokes," said Tony, putting down his hand.

The main screen in front pulled the images from Batman's upload, and the basic outline of the fusion reactor and the main complex appeared.

"He's modified your reactors, installed them here, here, and here," said Batman, touching keys to illuminate each point. The problem is why. If he's ripping you off to imitate fusion power, he's not doing it right,"

Tony cocked his head, his hand flying reflexively to his beard, the other supporting the fraternal elbow.

"No, he's not. What's all this that he's got connected to it?"

"I don't know. I hoped you would."

"Well, these aren't the plans he had at the Wayne Enterprises expo," said Tony.

"What were you doing there?" said Batman with his dangerously soft voice.

"I was angry, I was sure I had been ripped off. And actually, his specs looked like mine, but that was a distraction. I need a three-dimensional graphic interface; I need my lab actually, and Jarvis, but instead, you can get me whatever graphics cards you have, a CAD program, a free standing monitor-

Batman reached out suddenly, holding a small, square, white object.

Tony took it and shook it out. It was a piece of paper, smooth and thick.

"You've got to be kidding me," Tony said.

Batman took the paper and spread it out on the manifold they'd used as a gambling plane.

"Seriously, we need to talk about an upgrade. Or at least let me call Lucius Fox. He'd let me use his labs."

"Don't be so sure of that," said Batman. He pulled a yellow cylinder off his belt and handed it to Tony.

"Is this what I think it is?" said Tony incredulously.

Batman said nothing.

"Don't smile. I know you're smiling under that damn demonic cowl. It doesn't hide it, it just makes it creepy."

Tony clicked the pen.

"Man, you are so old school," said Tony.

"You have no idea," said Batman. "Here, use these," he said, opening a compartment on the mainframe.

He handed Tony a pair of glasses.

"Um, some of us here aren't as blind as a bat."

"Don't push your luck, metal-head."

Tony sighed and sat down, placing the pen to the paper. When he picked it up, he saw that the tip had left a glowing blue dot on the paper, but a line of light connected the pen to the paper.

"What is this?" asked Tony.

"You're the engineering genius. You figure it out," said the Batman.

Tony shot him a wry glance and looked back at the paper. He raised the pen, extending his arm. The light followed it everywhere. He raised it straight up from the page, lowered his hand to about two inches off the paper, and then clicked the pen. Nothing happened. He moved his hand. The light was standing up like a thin pillar, a rod of light. He touched the pen to the open end of the line and clicked again. This time, when he moved his hand, the light was connected at the base to the tip of the first vertical line. He set it parallel to the plane and then clicked again, making a line about three inches.

Next, he clicked the pen, touched it to the paper, and held it down. The dot spread like an ink stain in a perfect circle, and when he clicked again, it stopped. Then he lifted his hand, and a bubble rose up out of the surface.

Clicking away madly, the bubble grew incrementally faster second per second, and then two quick clicks and a hold stopped it growing at all, but the pen was still connected. Next, he moved it around, creating needle tips and egg shapes, playing with the bubble of blue light, and then he double clicked, and the pen disconnected from the bubble, leaving at as a permanent feature of the page. It didn't take him long to work the finer moves, creating tubes and thicker columns and arches. He worked feverishly, neither speaking nor wiping the sweat from his face he drew ceaselessly with the pen. Twenty minutes later, Tony had reproduced the main fusion reactor from Batman's mainframe image.

"That was different," said Tony. "De la Guerre used my arc reactors like jumper cables to start a fission reaction. He built a unit to transmit enough energy to implode a thick beryllium sphere around a ball of metalized hydrogen to create his fusion reaction. But instead of letting the reaction go like in the fusion bomb, he's created magnetic monopoles to channel the energy, that has almost no net loss, back into the reaction, and at the same time, the arc reactors continue to feed the metallic hydrogen that the fission reactors are using to produce the energy for the fission process,"

"Why? What do you mean why? Why would a fox cross the road? The energy production builds up until he has a stable a fusion reaction, and when it's stable, he siphons off energy in the form plasma, and transfers it to magnetic tubes, which run like power lines through to his other plants. From there, the plasma is used to generate electricity from heating coils for electrical turbines. He uses these to spread the power to the city. It costs him nothing to run his facilities if he sell the electrical utilities created by his plant."

"Why involve you this way, though, Tony?" said Batman. "Why wouldn't he present his design to you?"

"I don't know, probably because he stole them before he came with his idea,"

"It doesn't matter Tony, he's created energy that will forever change the world. You've got to see that if he didn't do it, he's a good man, it means he was trying to help the world."

"So you're saying you believe me but you're on his side. You can't ride the fence on this one,"

Batman was silent.

"If not Adam De la Guerre, then who?" said Tony.

"I don't know who would want to hurt you?" said Batman.

"Gee, let's think, I've probably tanked-off at least many bad guys as you, and probably more nice guys."

"The fox knows well on whom he plays tricks," said Batman.

"That's funny, my father used to say that."

"Some things are funny until they're true," said Batman.
"Yeah, I guess you've had your share of jokes," said Tony. "Listen, I'll look-

Suddenly an alarm went off and the mainframe screen flashed, showing the bat symbol intermittently with a map, showing a warehouse near the Heights.

"That's near the heights, isn't it?"

"Yea,"

"That building is in the power grid for De la Guerre's damn plant."

"I checked on it. It went online when the others shut down, a night shift in the security office probably,"

"Yea, but I checked power usage, and he's using almost half his total daily energy budget in that warehouse at night. He's doing some heavy duty smith work."

"Stay here,"

"Not a chance in hell," said Tony evenly as Batman turned around. "Listen," Stark went on, "I'm going to help you find this fraudulent frog and put him where he belongs," said Tony.

"And where's that, Tony?"

"In jail, for crying out loud, you think I'm a murderer?"

"I've got to check on this. Don't leave. And don't dismantle anything either."

"Fine," said Tony, but the knight was gone into the darkness before he finished that single syllable. Tony made little ghost fingers after he left. "Ooohh! Bat alarms. And people say I'm crazy."

Chapter 8

December 3

The dark knight entered the crime scene from the roof; prying open the lock with small plasma arc saw. From there, he moved through the shadows of the red and intermittent blue flashing of the compound's security lights.

Please evacuate the compound calmly. Please stay to the left going out. Please evacuate the-

He picked up his pace, and finally, followed the halls of small, darkened offices illuminated only by flashing red exit signs; he found his way to the scene.

He came out on the balcony overlooking main warehouse. As he moved towards the edge, he noticed the fallen corpses; the bullet ripped silk suits, and the prevalence of large caliber hand guns.

This is a massacre, he thought.

He moved toward the edge.

"Tell me what you'll say?" he heard a distorted voice say.

"Tha-tha-tha-that you're the Ironman and you're going to destroy the scum of this city, and-and-

"That's enough," said the suit.

Batman was looking down on a suit nearly identical to Tony Stark's, except it was black with gold and silver trim, and the breastplate unit was larger.

The suit looked up directly at Batman.

"I've been waiting for you, dark avenger. You are the biggest hypocrite, the worst criminal of all, for you not only subvert the state, but pretend to support it to gain more leverage. You will die for your inquisitiveness."

He raised his palm and a blast of fiery white hot plasma, so hot it caught pockets of air afire in small coils of waves of shimmering red and gold, struck Batman in the chest. The detective was thrown down from the balcony as the support beam was destroyed and most of the wall behind it.

Batman rolled, and held up his cloak as a barrage of bullets smacked through the bullet proof metafiber into his body armor, throwing him off balance but not piercing flesh.

His attacker flew at him on high powered blasts from his boots, and the detective was caught in an iron embrace and together, he and his foe went flying out the window.

As he fell, Batman reached instinctively for the winch, and fired it adroitly, so that it caught the spire of a nearby building, sending him careening off to the left, and pulling the man threatening to crush him in mechanical along for the ride.

"This is going to be fun," thought the caped crusader as he approached a glass window of the building, taking his attacker with him. Cutting the cord early and kicking off at the iron suit, he dislodged himself seconds before the weight of the suit slammed into glass, and as soon he was free, he activated his cape, spreading the metafabric out like a winged pair of parachutes and slowing his descent.

He landed, rolled, and was on top of the suit before it could get up. Batman struck three concussive blows to the face plate, and stuck a device to the side of it, along with a second to the breastplate beneath the reactor unit.

The droid laughed even as Batman rolled off of him and slipped back into the shadows room.

When the devices went off, they delivered almost a powerful shock to the suit, so that the arcs of electricity burning and singing the air with ozone appeared like bright ribbons of light. The suit hissed and smoke came out of its joints. The body inside the suit seemed to shake and then fall. The light on the suit went dark, and he moved closer to investigate. The arcs shrunk, and then dissipated entirely as he drew near. He looked down on the armored face. He reached slowly to touch the button to lift the face plate. Suddenly, the suit lit up with energy.

"Ah, ah, ah, Batman, you never touch another man's mask," said the electronically distorted voice, and then the dark knight felt the blast from the suit's breastplate, and hit something so fast he had neither time to react nor was he awake for a long time afterwards.

Chapter 9

December 3

When Batman came to, the suit was picking itself up from the floor, and before the detective could reach him, he was gone. Batman sighed, and launched a drone. Then he thought about it.

A moment later he threw out two more. The first one was already offline. Batman head back for the warehouse and snooped around until he found something.

When the detective reached bike, his suit was buzzed, desperately trying to wake him to let him know Alfred was trying to contact him. He straddled the bike and raised his wrist to his dark red and scabbed cheek.

"I'm on my way," he said.

"Of course sir, just a momentary bit of panic, that was all,"

"Keep an eye on Tony,"

"That won't be a problem, sir. He's so colorful and all," said his constant companion. Batman smirked and got on the bike. It was then he realized he was being watched. A little boy, brown and big eyed, not more than nine, was standing on the street in the shadows. When he realized Batman saw him, he stepped into the light.

"You Batman?" said the boy.

"Yes," said the Bat.

"I'm Deshawn," said the boy.

"What you doing out here this late, Deshawn?" the Bat asked the boy.

"I don't know," the boy replied.

Batman looked down and saw tiny pairs of shoe prints in the mud between the curb and the street.

"You been eyeing my bike?" said Batman.

"Yea," said Deshawn.

"You wanna bike like this?" asked Batman.

"Yea," said the boy.

"Come here," said the Batman to the child.

The boy hesitated.

"Audaces fortuna iuvat!" said Batman, his voice low and menacing.

The boy moved, not because he understood what was said, but because he understood the way it was it said, and the Bat terrified him. Here was a man even the gangbangers feared, even the police never bothered anymore.

"Here," he said, giving the boy a small object, black and shaped like a bat.

"What is this?" said the boy, eyeing the device, "a weapon?"

"It's a flash drive. You store computer files on it."

"What you giving it to me for?" asked Deshawn, eyeing Batman with the cautious reserve of a street wit.

"You meet me back here in a week with your homework on here, same time, same channel, and I'll give you a hundred dollars," said Batman.

"I don't have a computer," the boy said quickly.

"What's your last name?" asked the Bat.

"Clement," said Deshawn.

"Deshawn Clement, you know where the library is?"

"Yea, downtown, on the metro, 8th and Franklin, smells like old people," said the boy.

"You go down there tomorrow after school and tell the old lady at the desk you want to pick up the library card for Deshawn Clement. Then you sign it, and you ask how to get on the computer and how to put your homework on the flash drive. They'll show you, old as they are."

The boy's lip quivered sheepishly.

The defender leaned in close.

"You are going to school tomorrow, aren't you Deshawn?"

Shawn was again silent, all the reply the Bat needed.

"Fine then," he said darkly, "give it back."

"No, I'll go, I'll go. I'll get all my homework," the boy protested.

"If you aren't here next week, I'm coming after my flash drive," said Batman. "You understand?"

The boy nodded fervently.

Batman revved up the bike.

"Wait!" said the boy.

Batman cut the engine back on the bike.

"What was that thing you said?" said Deshawn over the thrum of the powerful machine.

"It was Latin."

"What did it mean?"

"Fortune favors the bold. Are you the bold?"

"I ain't scared," replied the boy.

"You want to learn Latin?"

The boy shrugged. "Maybe."

"You bring me a book report on Trajan and Juvenal, and I'll throw in another fifty dollars."

Batman cranked up the bike and drove off, leaving the boy standing there, a great silly smile on his face.

Chapter 10

Explosive Confrontation

December 3

Alfred was upstairs when Batman returned, and he stopped in the kitchen where Alfred was slicing up vegetables for dinner.

"You going downtown in the morning?" said the dark knight.

"Yes Master Bruce, you know I do the shopping while you are busy so you can't interfere," said the butler, as he sliced up fruit onto a tray.

"I need you to go by the library and fill out an application for Deshawn Clement."

"What is this about?" he said, looking up abruptly from the shallots he was so diligently slicing.

"Call it a scholarship," said the Batman. "Tony still down there?"

"He's only about four fifths of the way recharged. And he's been keeping himself busy."

"That's what I'm afraid of. Have you heard from Lucius?"

"He's working on a detector. Said he'd notify me the moment he was finished."

"Keep me posted."

"Master Wayne," said Alfred as the dark knight turned to leave.

"Yes?"

"Try to have some sympathy for Mr. Stark. I know this might be hard to believe, but he's not so different you, eh? You've been demonized before, framed and outcast,"

"Try saying it like you care," he retorted.

"The point is, sir, you know what kind of pressure that puts on a soul, especially when you're trying so hard to do the right thing."

"You know I don't play favorites, Alfred," said Batman.

Alfred laughed gently. "No, sir, you don't play at all. Not in a long time, sadly. While an ally is valuable, a friend, a true friend, sir, is invaluable, like a golden book of which only one copy is ever made."

"I lost my parents, too. I didn't turn into a brat."

"No sir, but we all have our battles to fight. This is why we must be kinder than necessary."

"You read that in a book too?"

"No sir, your father told me that when I first came to work here."

Alfred sniffed audibly.

"Alfred, are you crying?"

"No sir, it's just these damn onions."

"Those are shallots."

"Same difference, sir," said the man.

Batman was silent, and left the kitchen without another word.

He couldn't figure this one out. But Alfred was right about one thing, everyone was fighting their own war. He found Tony downstairs, the paper piled high in floating, rotating blueprints of his specs, and on the mainframe, a grid of indexes of numbers.

"Hey pointy ears, have you analyzed the data on what De la Guerre's been buying lately? Mineral rich real estate, stocks in oil and solar energy companies, land in Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and Arizona, and strips all along the Midwest, no doubt for wind turbines, he's trying to corner the energy market in the US. I think he thinks he can use his fusion reactors to power alternative energy plants, creating even more-

"You've got bigger problems."

"What now?"

Batman held up his arm, now visible beneath the cloak. He carried a large steel box with a glowing grid on the front.

"What is that?" said Tony.

"You know what it is," said Batman.

"It's a box with numbers. It must be a bomb. What's your point? Is it armed? You're not that crazy, are you?"

Batman pointed at the mainframe with a small remote he took from his belt. On the screen a set of specs appeared.

Tony sighed.

"I knew they'd done it," Tony said.

Batman grabbed Tony by the sleeves of his and slammed him against the wall.

"You turned your arc reactors into bombs."

"Yes, but not to be used by maniacs and thieves."

"What could possess you create that kind of weapon?"

"I needed a way to power my small-scale particle accelerators. It turns out; a simple design modification turns it into a small, portable, and powerful punch in a backpack. I didn't think that I'd be creating a new breed of WMDs! What do you take me for?"

"Tony, they've used your design to make a small fusion bomb, the size of a backpack. By the time I'd gotten there, they'd already made three of them. I shut it down, but the bombs are still out there."

Tony slammed his hand into the wall.

"Damn it!" he said.

"Tony, listen," said Batman.

"Don't 'Tony' me, okay? You don't understand what it's like. Everyday it's something new. I have a company to keep intact, a reputation to uphold, a world to protect from itself, and in the meantime, they turn on me, and I have to protect them from myself as well."

"Sing me a song I don't know by heart," snarled Batman.

"You know, growing up, I wanted to be just like my dad. He had it all. But nothing I did was good enough. Now, I don't even know how he did it, I can't. He used to say, to whom much is given-

"-much is expected. I know. My father used to say the same thing. But you aren't your father. You can't compare yourself to him. You are neither more nor less than he was. You are something qualitatively different. I respect what you're trying to do, Tony. I wish more people had your vision. They don't though. And that's why all they can see is what you have. They don't see what you need is more than what you have, as a great writer might have said, one of the ironies of the human condition."

"But I'm not human, not to them. To them, I'm something else, a machine. Something to be dismantled, hacked, stripped, and when they've taken everything, my company, my technology, my ideas, my wealth, my humanity, I'm afraid there'll be nothing left to salvage."

"We are not what we have, nor what we think we are at the moment, but we are what we do, Tony. As long as we keep doing the right thing, then we are right. Don't keep doing this to yourself just prove something to your father."

"The Dark Knight is arguably a job as thankless as mine or a meter maid's or a public school teacher's. Why do you keep doing this?"

"Because I have something to prove to myself," said Batman.

"Cop out," quipped Tony.

"I like a balanced universe."

"And I like a balanced equation. I guess you aren't that different from me after all."

"Don't squeeze too much into it," retorted the Batman.

"Speaking of squeezing, I could strangle De la Guerre," said Tony.

"That man thinks the world of you, Tony. He's modeled his entire life you and your chronicles. Did you know he hired one of your human resources specialists to design his employee policies?"

"He's a copycat."

"We only imitate what we admire most."

"Why couldn't he admire my wit?"

"Why would he?" retorted Batman.

"Go get him. Try not to beat him up too badly."

Chapter 11

The Fox and the Flies

December 3, 9:00 PM

When the suit showed up, the dons were eating in the restaurant. A dozen of them were seated around a large corner table, with the don of dons at the head of the table flanked by his burly lieutenants in the booth, discussing in a thick Gotham dialect of Italian what to do about the Ironman, when he walked into the room, punching a waiter and sending him flying against the wall.

"You know, the problem with being a good citizen is that there are bad citizens. Like flies on the refuse, you feed, and then breed, infecting what's healthy with depraved, ravenous maggots. One cannot be a good citizen when the likes of you exist contemporaneously. The only good citizen is the one who gets rid of you. Je detest les mouches," he said provincial French.

"Tu va morter," snarled one of them, raising a pistol, evidently familiar with the cousin of Italian.

The men scattered, some of them reaching for guns, others running.

The black and gold Ironman raised his hands and fired. One by one, they fell, food, blood, wine red, and rum dark stained the walls. Only the waiter remained.

"What will you tell them?"

"That Ironman came,"

"And he saw, and he conquered. Say it!"

"Ironman came, he saw, he conquered!" shouted the man, his eyes shut tight.

"Good."

Chapter 12

December 3

When Batman got the signal from the drone, he was standing in the Bat Cave. He put the footage on the main screen.

Tony and the dark Knight watched in silence.

"Can you hear me now?"

"I'm going to get De la Guerre. He's got a party tonight. Once I've got the evidence, I'll have Alfred take you back immediately."

"Stay here? You're good at what you do, and I know you're committed, but you need to be committed if you think you can do this alone,"

"Stay here, Stark. Don't make me say it twice."

"Sure, Pops."

Chapter 13

Kerry loathed crime, but he found that profiteering off of criminals was morally acceptable, for he seen things in his days, men who would slice out a man's spine at the mere sliver of a glance or the shiver of a bad feeling. De la Guerre was not a criminal, but he was brilliant, and Kerry had taken to him.

One night, when Kerry had first been hired, they discussed business over dinner and drinks. Nearby, the last of Kerry's sober guards standing at the door, Adam spoke candidly.

"Listen Mr. Kadmon, I have the ability to generate a new form of energy, one that could potentially give us a second chance. We've royally screwed up our position on the mother throne, but I can't do it if these thugs keep robbing me blind. They steal the copper, they steal the nickel, they'd steel the boron and the carbon if they knew the cotton was valuable and the black goo was expensive highly concentrated boron solution. They've even tried to extort me into paying them a hundred grand a month just to quit stealing from me. They're animals, and they're going to devour me if I don't do something."

Kerry smiled, and his long nose and high, broad forehead and blond hair reminding Adam of Charlemagne in his gigantic greatness.

"You are too kind,"

"You haven't done anything yet,"

"No, I mean you are too kind in general. You are god, Adam De la Guerre, and these people, whether Gothamites or Parisians, they are dogs. To be led, to be trained, to be disciplined, to be punished. You sell yourself short, Monsieur De la Guerre: fortuna iuvate audaces,"

"My fortune has nothing to do with boldness: I would give anything to have my parents back, and trade all I own in exchange."

"But your father, Monsieur, he did not become rich because he was afraid to take risks. You cannot be afraid either."

"I'm not afraid."

The man smiled. "It is not about the fear that can be subsided by security, for any dog will trade freedom for security; it is about why they let us put collars on them. The death of great men is the lack of will to power. If you would be in charge, and to do what you think is right, you must be in charge, you must have the will to power. Laws are arbitrary, relative. They are about keeping the masses in check. The great men, they are not afraid of the law. They know once they have enough, they can change the law: they become the law."

"What are you suggesting?" said Adam.

"I'll get them to stop. And I may even be able to get some of the money back, if they haven't spent it. But I require my clients to foot the bill up front for expenses. I've had some bad experiences. Once I've succeeded, I'll take your costs out of my price. My price is two million, and each week, the price drops by ten percent until the job is done. However, you must invest in the supplies first. You are essentially gathering your own loans and bartering with me for a service, while I am going to end up paying you cash if I wait to long to complete the service. So, this way, we have distance, safety, and mutual accountability."

"What do you need?"

"These men in Gotham, they have been dealing with the Batman for a long time, and thought he is formidable, they adapt. These thugs have body armor and high powered rifles, assault weapons and years of experience. They need to be reminded that the Batman is weak; there are others they should fear more. Batman did not return your property. Batman did not scare them out of robbing you. Your security has proved inefficient. I require something more powerful."

"Like?" said Adam.

"Like this," he said, producing a small flash drive. De la Guerre slipped it into the table top upright and the files loaded on the table screen.

"How did you get this?" asked Adam as he perused the files, examining the details with a thirst that exceeds.

"Sometimes, the how is important than the how," said Kadmon with a smile.

Chapter 14

December 3

When Batman arrived that evening, Adam's party to celebrate the reactor coming online was in full swing, although it had secretly been online for months.

Kerry was there with him. A report came on the large screen of the ballroom that Tony Stark had been seen in Gotham, beating up criminals and even showed footage of his drunken appearance at the debut of Adam's fusion reactor. Batman watched from the shadows as Kerry and Adam slipped out of the room, and the Knight followed his quarry.

Kerry slipped into a bathroom, donned the suit he stashed in the janitor's closet, and went to the reactor, remembering the past.

Born in Lithuania to a Russian bomb designer who had a lab away from his home in Moscow, where his wife and children lived, less than a block from Kerry's mother's home, Kerry Kadmon had his roots. His mother was an American citizen, a college student, and Kerry's father had convinced her to drop out and let him pay the rent.

When Kerry was six, his father had kicked down the door to their apartment, stormed into the living room, and attacked his mother, screaming about her being a US spy. He beat her, shot her, and took Kerry with him while one of his aides stayed behind to clean up the mess.

From then on, Kerry went nowhere without his father, who was omnipresent and gushed continuously a steady spout of sincere menace and fatherly affection, a mix as homogenous as blood and water. But when Kerry repulsed his will and bucked back, his father became hard as rebar piping, and would wrap his fists in cold towels to hide the bruises as he beat Kerry senseless.

When Kerry celebrated his seventeenth birthday, his father had a heart attack at the table and fallen face first into the massive cake in front of all his friends and Kerry's guests.

One of his father's associates had taken him in, an arms dealer, and he had taught Kerry how to fence weapons, how to identify guns, ammo, support hardware, tools, fakes, wannabes, punks, and those of whom he should be wary. At twenty, he offered to pay for Kerry to attend to Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Kerry spent three years studying the hard sciences, but never took a degree, because he was recruited by the KGB and sent to the US.

Most of his compatriots had been busted, but Kerry had kept a low profile. They were busted handing off cash in envelopes and using Bluetooth in public cafes. But Kerry had joined the US Marines, taking advantage of his mother's US citizen ship to get into the military, and from there, he took up with a Special Forces group known as the Deltas.

After serving for six years and doing ten tours and dozens of emergency missions, he quit. He took a small payout for getting out of his pension early, and disappeared from public life.

That is until Adam De la Guerre had found his security company and researched it. Nothing of Kerry's past was in his company. His recorded when he walked away from the Delta force and the Army for good. But he hadn't left with nothing, and he'd used his knowledge to create a successful high-tech security firm, the Blackwater of top-secret and highly controversial research.

Chapter 15

December 3

At the top of the stairwell, Batman heard the slight beep in his ear indicating he had a message.

This is Lucius. I reconfigured a Geiger counter I had laying around. And found your bombs. One is Gotham Park, near the lake, the other I found beneath Wayne Enterprises. I've already taken care of that one. Gave me quite a scare. I've got the police searching the park right now. I'll be in touch. Thanks for the heads up.

Adam was oblivious to the presence of the Batman. The dark knight had taken the ninja practice of invisibility to the highest levels, a cultivation of flexibility, awareness, breathing, and foresight.

Batman watched him, knowing he could have simply thrown a Batarang or a delivered a harsh strike and dropped the man, but there was a line, a border like a flaming sword which crosses the great divide of which he was omniscient: that of murder. If he went there, if he crossed it one time, just once, he knew what would happen. He knew well what rough beast slouched towards Gotham on that path.

The darkness subsided in his breast, and he focused on his mission. He needed something concrete, something Gordon could use to link Adam to the bombs and to Tony. He needed a confession. And so the Bat saw his opportunity.

Adam was pulling up files on his computer, checking his security cameras and the output of the fusion reactor.

"Damn it," he said aloud. "That son of a-

"Do you think Tony Stark would approve of this?" said Batman, playing his first card.

Adam whirled around. He looked around, and then saw the faint outline of the cowl in the shadows.

"Who is that?" said Adam.

"Justice, karma, vengeance, take your pick."

He saw the Batman then, the night draped around him like form fitting mantle.

"You! What are you doing here?"

"Isn't this what you wanted? To be part of the solution?" said Batman, drawing nearer, using the shadows in the darkened room to mask his approach.

"What are you talking about?"

"You used Tony Stark. You needed a scapegoat to test your technology, and the Ironman technology was the perfect prototype. All you had to do was replicate it, easy enough with your three dimensional nano-printers. Then you added on to it, overlaying the arc reactors with fusion reactors. It wasn't enough to steal his designs, you had to frame him. You wanted to eliminate the competition, Wayne Enterprises included, so you decided to take them both out in one foul swoop. Tony was the perfect patsy, you understood him, you worshipped him, but you also wanted to see him fall."

"What are you talking about? I borrowed Stark's designs after I had my own. His were just more efficient. I was going to pay him, even give him stock, until he insulted me."

"You both lost your parents, you both have inherited a multi-billion dollar legacy, you both have an aptitude for math, science, and analytical reasoning. You both are terrified of not living up to your fathers' legacy. So you set him up,"

"No!" said Adam. "You've got it all wrong,"

"Then explain the bombs,"

"What bombs?" said Adam.

"You used Tony's specs to turn your fusion reactors into portable weapons of mass destruction. You planted a bomb in Gotham park and another beneath the headquarters of Wayne Enterprises so you could destroy them both and corner the weapons and energy markets in the country, and use Stark as You destroyed his house, so he'd have nowhere to hide from retribution, and would be MIA when the bombs went off, a perfect way to destroy the credibility left in his alibis as you forced him to go on the run."

"No, I would never do that. I love Tony Stark. He's the reason I went to MIT. I wrote a dissertation on his theory of robotics. Blow up Gotham? I've invested all of my fortune in this city; I want to make the new Alexandria, a city of shining light."

Batman was quiet.

"Kadmon," he said quietly.

"What?" said Adam.

"Yes, Kadmon," came the distorted voice.

There, in the midst of them, stood the black and gold Ironman suit. The face plate rose up slowly to reveal Kerry Kadmon.

"YOU!" shouted Adam. He ran at the suit, and tried to punch Kadmon in the face, but a dismissive wave of his hand activated the repulsor field powered by the fusion reactor in the suit. Adam was jetted backwards, crashing into his own system, causing the hologram of Gotham, dark and ominous in its industrial skyline to blink, alternating in between each frame a new Gotham, bright with marble and De la Guerre's fusion reactors. Paradise and Hell blinked intermittently on the screen in three dimensions.

Batman moved, but Kerry raised his hand, exposing a symmetrical repulsor in the other palm.

"Try it, pointy ears, and I'll break your face."

Adam stirred with a groan of pain.

"You, you were behind this. I knew it," said Adam.

"Yea, you knew. You wanted this, you poor little rich boy so you did nothing. A pure capitalist. Let the others do the dirty work. I told you great men have the will to power, but you didn't listen, even then. You are worse than capitalists. You are weak, a parasite."

"You'll never get away with this," said Batman.

"I already have," said Kadmon, turning to Batman. "Stark's name is mud. I know you found the bombs, but you didn't find the one in the reactor. I'm going to blow this city sky high, and walk away. I'll take this suit and the specs for the nano-printer, and start over in LA or Toronto or New York. In five years, I'll have twice the power of Stark Industries and Wayne Enterprises combined. The fox knows well on whom he plays tricks."

"Why are you doing this?" said Batman.

"Because you don't have the guts. None of you do, not Stark, not De la Guerre, and you, you I waited to come around, when I first heard of your exploits. But you never got it. I am going to be the most powerful man in the country when I'm done, and I won't need to break the law to do it like they do. Think of a city, Batman, with no crime. A city brighter than Alexandria marble in the light of the sun, brighter than all the wisdom of the Orient and the Occident, a city where everyone pays their taxes, is not afraid to leave the doors unlocked, where children can be free explore, free from the predations of the depraved, the machinations of the twisted mind."

"You think killing them is going to eliminate crime? I've heard those words before,"

"If I can scare them straight long enough, I can turn this city around. The fusion plants will create jobs and free energy for Gothamites,"

"At the cost of your own soul," said Batman.

"There are no great men who have not the will to power,"

"You're a murderer, you're no great man."

"How could you do this?" shouted De la Guerre. "You're supposed to be a professional,"

"He's a professional all right, a professional spy and killer," said Batman. "KGB?"

"Close, we don't call it that anymore. Join me Batman, both of you, and we can clean up not just Gotham, but many more as well."

"You sound like all the rest of the egomaniacs I've put down. You can't mask murder and fascism in utilitarian rhetoric."

"You are an educated man, Batman; you have ethics, ability, polish, and a style I admire. Why do you persist in this delusion that you any different? You're ethics are flawed because they limit you and your ability though. You've got your priorities mixed up. They don't deserve our protection; they are the bedsores of humanity. They kill for themselves; I kill for others. That is the only difference. And I am killing them, not innocents. Tomorrow is a day someone won't be robbed, beaten, tortured, and framed, extorted, humiliated, or killed, because of me. Anything less from a man is weakness."

"Tony Stark is innocent," said Batman.

"A regrettable breaking of eggs for a perfect omelet."

"And blowing up Wayne Enterprises?"

"An omelet takes more than one egg. Bruce Wayne is worse than De la Guerre: he is rich, powerful, and as shallow as a reflection in a pool, the illusion destroyed at the slightest disturbance. He has not seen the potential in Adam's dream, the wealth that the plant could produce, giving Gotham free energy and selling the excess for a handsome profit. Not even De la Guerre really knows the meaning of philanthropy. Those who have should do, or they deserve to go without."

"Every man fights his battles, Kadmon, even you. The difference between us is that some of us don't cave in to darkness, they don't envelope themselves in the evil, but rather they embrace the light. That is why I am here; now, standing between you and them, and that is why you are the weak."

"I'll show you weakness."

Batman laughed quietly, his guttural voice carrying a disturbing apathy.

"Let Adam go, and we'll see who the bagman is and who the Batman is," said the Dark Knight.

"Tempting as that is, I cannot consent. Adam will bequeath me his empire and his ideas and patents, but in order to do that, he must die."

He powered up the suit and fired, catching Batman in the chest. He was slammed against a pillar and fell. Kadmon snatched him up and slammed him against the pillar again.

"Let's see who's underneath this cowl," he said, reaching for Batman's mask.

"Where is the loo? Man, this place is… oh, I'm sorry am I interrupting?" said Tony Stark, striding into the room in a fine tuxedo with a high collar. He wore jet black gloves and shiny black shoes beneath the pants and matching black cummerbund.

Kadmon turned on Tony.

"What are you doing here?"

"Now come on, you know well with whom you play. Besides, you know I can't miss a good party,"

Tony moved, and struck the suit, and Batman and Adam heard the cracking of seals and the wrenching squeal of twisting metal.

"I will rip your face off!" snarled Kadmon, and Tony struck him again.

"You never-touch-another-man's-mask," said Tony, articulating each word with a blow, each blow bending and warping the metal further as if Tony's hands were made of iron, and Tony hit several places on the body armor repeatedly before Kerry could react.

When Kadmon regained his senses, he struck back with a vengeance, punching Tony in the chest and then kicking him backwards. Tony was somehow still standing, allow though he was breathing heavily.

"That all you got?" said Tony between breaths. "I thought you knew what you doing when stole that suit. You don't steal a Lamborghini if you can't drive stick."

"I can drive this," he said, and he fired several rounds of bullets into Tony's chest, and sent him sprawling backwards.

Batman sprung into action, throwing several small caps at Kadmon, which latched onto his suit's armored boot and began to blink and beep.

"Shit," he heard the suit say, and Kadmon opened fire on the caps, blasting them off seconds before they exploded, releasing bright pulse of light and electromagnetic energy as he fired on his own suit. In the shockwave of the blast, Adam's computer system went black and started up again.

"Smart. EMP, force me to damage my own suit or lose the whole thing," he said, and then he raised his arm. "But you should have killed me, and that was stupid of you."

His suit lit up. Batman was already moving. So was Adam, his fingers flying over his computer. Tony heard him curse aloud.

An explosion rocked the room. The wall imploded, and a rocket propelled grenade jetted through the room, smashed into Kadmon, and exploded. He disappeared beneath a pile of rubble as he struck the wall with the force of a human-sized metal-jacketed bullet.

In the hole in the wall outside, hovering sixty stories over Gotham, was the red and gold Ironman suit.

Kadmon rose from the rubble, and Batman watched as two beams of plasma, one golden and created by Tony's suit, the other brilliant white and blue created by the fusion powered suit Kadmon wore, collided with furious energy. Slowly, the fusion power gained ground. When the blue white light connected with Tony's suit, the explosion sent it tumbling down to the ground.

Kerry turned on Batman again.

Batman shot the winch at a piece of rock, sending the arc over a rafter of suitable thickness, and sinking it into a rock. He raised himself, missing fire from Kadmon, and when he reached the top of the arc, he stopped the line with a click, and swung out, his weight lifting the rock, and then his momentum carried him around in a circle.

His body arcing out, the winch and rope an extension of his will, he whipped like a black arrow, giving him some extra line, felt the slackness, and circled around behind the rock, catching it both feet and sending it flying towards Kadmon. The piece of concrete caught Kadmon in the chest. But it wasn't enough.

Kadmon rose again and fired at Batman, this time the high velocity rounds pierced his tried and worn armor, catching him the gut.

He fell and Kadmon came upon him, reaching for his mask.

"Now," he said, reaching for the cowl.

"You never touch another man's cowl," said a voice. "Red flag, unsportsmanlike behavior,"

Kadmon whirled around, only catch a fist that felt a like a steel gauntlet against his naked chin, breaking his jaw. "Set me up? Stole my suit? Ruined my reputation? You even tried to sue me, man. That is not cool."

Tony punched him again as Kerry stirred to strike back.

"Listen up!" shouted Tony, grabbing the helm by the back. "Don't pass out now. The fun is just getting started. You are going down. You hear me? Now, where are the rest of my suits? Where's the data you stole?"

Tony struck him again, and again, punctuating each utterance with a vicious blow. The man's mask bent and then popped open. Tony struck his nose, and blood gushed out. The rage knew no bounds.

"Talk to me! And don't tell me you've got an iron suit and a glass jaw. That's not a good combination-

He moved to strike him, but Batman shouted.

"Tony, no!"

Tony stopped abruptly. He didn't take his eyes off Kerry.

"This guy won't talk. He's Russian Special Forces, intelligent and KGB educated. He'll get a diplomatic immunity and walk."

"He's a US citizen," said Batman.

"He's also a Russian citizen. They gave the other ones back. They'll export his rat-sack butt so fast he won't have to consummate his wedding night in the joint."

"He's facing terrorism, murder, and theft of government property. All of De la Guerre's company has contracts with the Department of Defense. He won't fly away."

"Maybe he's right, Batman. Maybe what we're doing is going to blow up in our face. Maybe I should break the rest of him, just to make sure he doesn't do it again. After all, he tried to break me? Didn't you?"

Batman saw in Tony the fire of his will, the spark of his potent pride, which had powered his father to the top of the industrial-military complex, and allowed Tony to accomplish all he had in his still young lifetime. He doubted that Tony had ever shown this side of himself to anyone willingly, but now, he seemed consumed by himself, as if Stark himself was the mask and the suit of iron merely an extension of his psyche, armed with helm of fearlessness and the sword of ambition.

Kadmon could only shake his head. He couldn't speak to his suit; his jaw was so thoroughly shattered.

"Tony, let it go."

"Don't tell me to let it go," he shouted. "He almost killed me."

"Don't let this be the moment that a righteous man falls. You are better than that. We aren't what we are; we are only what we do."

Tony considered the man paralyzed before him. He stroked his chin, his thoughts racing. After a moment he spoke.

"You have a design flaw in your reactor. If you don't turn the power down right now, it's going to overload. I damaged the couplings and servos that keep the system cool. It's going to overheat as the exposed monopoles degrade and the efficiency drops, creating friction, heat, and electromagnetic distortion-

Kadmon reared his head back howled at the sky, unleashing a torrent of mumbled curses, before turning up the reactor and shooting out of the hole in the roof. He didn't get three hundred meters before his suit blew up.

Batman felt the heat on his skin.

He saw in the corner of his eye Adam sprinting for the door.

"His computer is shot, Tony. I'm going after him. He's headed for the reactor," said Batman over his shoulder as he disappeared down the corridor behind Adam, leaving Tony alone in the room.

"Thanks Tony! You're the greatest," he said to the empty room.

"Oh, no problem, Batman, anytime, and I'll go check on Alfred while chase the poor little rich boy," said Stark as he stood up and began walking, albeit with a strong limp, toward the door. He made his back down through the lobby, passed the astonished stares of onlookers.

.

Chapter 16

December 3

Bleeding profusely through one wound, he felt the pain in his gut and stopped to heal himself; he managed to get a rapid gain and used his momentary gains to spray a staunching hydrogel in the wounds which would stabilize the flow of blood and give the scabs the nutrients the plasma needed to form them. It still hurt, but the hydrogel solidified in areas where no platelets where present, sealing off his wounds and adding stability to muscles that managed his gait.

Breathing hard and tossing away the empty canister, he reached the elevator as Adam was closing it. Batman fired the winch, but it clattered uselessly as it struck the shrinking band of width left in the opening and clambered loudly and uselessly to the ground.

Undeterred, Batman removed a small device and approached the elevator door. Four small cubes with buttons on top were connected together. First, he pressed the stick to the elevator wall, and then clicked the button. A sharp spike bit through the elevator metal with ease, and then began to heat up, creating a plasma-like arc between the space of the spike and the interior of the puncture wound, heating it up. The spike, meticulously elaborated in one of Lucius's metamaterials at the knight's inspiration, did not heat nearly as quickly as the metal, and so the metal melted away.

He the slowly pulled the spike to the left and down, making an arc, then a hemisphere, stopping at the nadir and circling back to the zenith. Next, he blew up the charges, and then kicked in the door, removing the blocks from the wreckage afterwards.

He kept moving.

Chapter 17

December 3

Tony rushed outside and around the terraced entrance down to the street, where the suit laid, a group of onlookers beginning to gather.

Damn.

Stark made his as unobtrusively as he could around their backs and then rushed straight to the side of the prone suit. He touched the hidden switch and opened the face to reveal the graying, smiling face of Alfred.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes, save for a bit of bruising. But the suit's all jammed up, can't get it to even let me stand."

"Hold still," said Tony, rolling it over and examining the back. He popped loose a plate and made some adjustments.

"Lucius says they've located the bomb," said Alfred.

"Bomb?" someone shrieked. "What bomb?" said another one.

"Alfred, turn off the earpiece, it must be damaged too. You're shouting things that make no sense."

The crowd was already beginning to panic, demanding answers to questions Tony patently ignored.

"My apologies, sir. Is everything all right now?" said Alfred quietly.

"Unfortunately, there's another issue. It turns out a fusion bomb in a backpack is nowhere as dangerous as a fusion bomb the size of a fusion reactor itself. Turns out we were right: Kadmon did a little tinkering himself."

He stood up and helped Alfred to his feet.

"That ought to get you back safely. If it doesn't, take the damn thing, toss it in a dumpster, and call a cab. Oh, I borrowed this," he said, holding up the glove from the suit. "Just in case."

Alfred stood to his feet shakily. He turned to the crowd and raised a hand.

"Well, Mr. Stark, thank you for giving me a hand, your assistant was most appreciated. And to all you good folks of Gotham, have a pleasant evening and try not to worry too much."

"That was nice, that put them right at ease about the bomb thing."

"As I said, sorry."

"No worries,"

Tony looked at the crowd again, and then up at the top of the tower of the reactor.

"Hey, Brit britches, they're getting kind of tired of me coming in and out of the building, something about keeping the place cool and free of suspected criminals, you mind giving me a lift?"

"Where too, Mr. Stark?" said Alfred.

"Up there will do," he said, motioning toward the top of the plant reactor.

Alfred managed a decent take off with Tony's guidance, and Tony waved with the ironman glove at the astonished crowd below. Blue lights appeared on the corners of the streets as they took off.

Chapter 18

December 3

While Batman climbed up the elevator, Stark made his way down into the heart of the fusion facility, beating the door down to get into the place with the fist he'd borrowed from Alfred's suit.

As large as the newly rechristened Gotham Empire Stadium off the Harvey Dent expressway, the cathedral power plant glimmered with light even in the darkness. An open atrium overlooking the glowing fusion reactor, the ball burning as brightly as a miniature star, was surrounded by eight smaller reactors, using Tony's technology.

Massive pipes holding the monopole distribution lines carried energy from the arc reactors to the fusion core, adding energy to keep the reaction going at a stable volume and pressure. Not massive enough to rely on gravity to create the pressure needed to crush hydrogen into helium, the system used a feedback loop to keep adding mass in the form of metallicized hydrogen, using a novel process of Adam's, and plasma from the arc reactors.

If the energy fell to low, the magnetic fields may lose power, and the core would expand rapidly in a violent explosion, but even worse, if it went too high, the helium would fuse into carbon, and the reactor would be unable to continuing fueling a fusion reaction. The only safe way to turn it off without carefully reducing the feedback loop was to precisely overload the reaction in a way that would cause it to fuse into a core of carbon. This would destroy the core, rendering it a lump of super-compressed carbon as the fields and the reduced feedback loop neither created fusion nor stopped pressing on it, and would reduce to the not entirely useless, and not entirely worthless, form of carbon known as diamond.

He made his way carefully through the upper levels of the atrium, getting closer look at the reactor. The reactor was fed from the top, with smaller monopole pipes running to the plasma injection system. Attached to one of the injection compartments was a small, backpack sized box which could only be the fusion bomb. Tony couldn't get to it from where he was, not without his suit, and the towering globe of energy could not be scaled. The rotating circular rings that inducted the magnetic fields containing the core moved so fast they'd bash a man to bits before he reached the injection point.

The only way was to shut down the reactor incrementally, and then remove the bomb, before it ejected a smaller fusion core into the injection stream. This excess energy would no doubt overload the containment fields and create an uncontrollable spike which would trigger the equivalent of ten hydrogen bombs going off in the heart of Gotham, not a mile from the water. The whole city would be ruined.

Tony needed to get to the main control room, a view box built on the other side of the glass covered dome. He moved through the shadows, remembering the way Batman had slipped through the dark cavern of his repressed workshop, keeping his back to the wall.

He got to the door, and stopped. Something wasn't right. Kadmon had been a master tactician. He wouldn't have left such an easy opening. Stark heard someone coming.

It was Adam, shutting the door behind him and shooting the handle several times. He looked distraught, his face pale. Stark moved back into the shadows; he wanted to speak but thought better of it after looking at the way he'd handled door with the pistol. Tony didn't want to hurt him, not anymore. But De la Guerre may not feel the same way.

Adam walked carefully around the atrium platform around to the entrance to the main control room. He wasn't sure about Adam's intention, but he knew going in that room was a bad idea.

"Adam!" Tony cried out, but Adam turned and pointed the gun, firing a shot into the dark. One of the bullets bounced of Stark's jacket.

"Stop, it's me Tony," but Tony stayed hidden behind a post.

"You, what are you doing?"

"Don't go in that room, it's a trap," said Tony.

Adam fired another shot when Tony poked his head around the corner.

"This suit is bullet proof but you aren't. Stop shooting at me and listen,"

"Listen?" said Adam. He fired off another round. "You hear that? You know, I've known guys like you my whole life. Poor little rich boys with something to prove, arrogant, and I hated them because they were cruel. At Eton, they used to line my chest of drawers with raw seafood, take my towels, launch fruit at me, and why? Because I was better than them. I also had talent, and it made them feel inadequate. But I admired you, you seemed on the surface like that, but your work, your dedication, and our similar childhood, I thought one day, you and I could work together as equals. But when I took what you did and made it better, you acted just like them: you blamed me, attacked me, insulted me, and now you want me to listen? No, there is nothing to be said now, nothing to be heard: we are all alike."

"ADAM!" a bellowing roar resounded around them. Batman was in the building.

For a moment, Adam's face registered the fear the Batman's voice never ceased to inspire.

"Adam, listen, don't go in there. We'll find another to stop the bombs."

"So you can take the credit and make me look like a crackpot?" shouted Adam.

"This isn't about me and you, it's about saving lives, please, I'm begging you, don't go in there."

Adam laughed callously.

"The great Tony Stark, Ironman himself, begging. Isn't that a sight? Weakness becomes you. You rust with disuse. Kadmon was right. We are what we do,"

Adam fired a parting shot, and then ran to the door, flinging it open. Tony heard silence, and then more shots were fired, followed by the rattling rapid fire of machine guns, far louder and deadlier than Adam's pistol. And then there was quiet.

"Batman!" shouted Tony. "Stay where you are! Kadmon left us a surprise to guard his bomb. It's my missing suits."

One of the units walked out on its own.

Behind him, Tony heard the fainting rustle of fabric.

"What are they packing?" said the quiet, darkling voice.

"Jesus, you almost gave me a heart attack. And that's hard to do. I told you to stay there. Don't you listen?"

"I can listen better now. What are they packing?"

"Everything, motion, radar, face recognition, thermal imaging, CAD smartware, x-ray, to see through the walls, RPGs, an array of high-powered precision arc-powered lasers, a few circular saws, and of course, fifty caliber machine guns a la Stark Industries."

"Anything else?" said Batman in his raspy voice.

"Else? Yea, there's an else. There's the pulse blasts from the boots, the palms, and the chest, but watch out for modifications."

"They don't seem to hear us," said Batman thoughtfully.

"Yea, they aren't intelligent, just drones. Set off those sensors though, and they'll lock on you. I don't relish a fire fight inside of a fusion reactor. This could really, really hairy."

"Then we better be razor sharp."

"I don't like your sense of humor. It's too dark."

"Can we shut it down from inside the control room safely?"
"Yea, but we can't get in there," said Tony.

"I'll draw their fire."

"With a winch?" said Tony incredulously.

"I try to be prepared," said Batman.

"Freaking boy scout," retorted Tony.

He saw the dark knight reach behind him, producing a long black cylindrical bag. He unzipped it, removed several black objects, small, bulky, and Tony picked one up, looking at it carefully in the low light.
"Give me that," said Batman, snatching it from him. Tony was surprised at the quickness of his reflexes, the surety of his grip.

"Is that what I think it is?"

"EMP drones. Motion, thermal, radar, face-recognition, x-ray," said Batman, touching a place on the drone. The small objected popped open, revealing two small articulate wings of a light weight, silvery material, like a net or a webbing, connecting small black rods forming the frame of the wings. "You didn't think I was going after a high-tech weapons specialist with fist and helmet, did you?"

"You built it to take down De la Guerre? When?" asked Tony.

The Dark Knight said nothing.

"I asked you a question," said Tony menacingly.

"Actually, I thought I was going to end up going after you," said Batman calmly. "Like I said, remember how you got here?"

Tony was quiet. The fact that Batman had actually considered him a foe was enough to quiet him into genuflection.

One by one, Batman prepped no less than twenty drones. Then he removed a small handheld control.

"Here," he said, handing him the device when he was finished, "key in your operating and communication frequencies for the suit."

"This suit is just boron-carbide fiber. I borrowed one of your tuxes, actually. Funny, we're about the same size, except you fill this out more. And, I ruined your oven. If you cook a roast, it's going to taste like ashes and argon and it might blow up before the roast is cooked on the inside."

Batman took the control and touched a button. The bats began to whir and stir, Tony could hear the flapping of their artificial wings, as articulate and light as a bat's, but faster, and carrying a weapon deadly to electronic devices.

"I'm going now. When the coast is clear, go in there and shut this thing down."

"Wait, you're going to need this," and Tony took off the glove, the arc repulsor still glowing."

Batman took the glove, examined it, and then reached inside. It fit almost perfectly against his armor. Batmen flexed his hand, and saw the repulsor light up and then fade slightly.

"Careful, they'll sense that. Now, the tighter you squeeze, the more juice you pump in, the quicker you let go, the more narrow the beam, so clench fast and aim fast if it gets rough, but relax when you can, because you'll drain the unit. Watch out for feedback, too. You can't go toe to toe with their gloves, even if they weren't upgraded with Adam's fusion packs. If you need a shield,

"-slap the back of the glove, it will trigger the shift in the distribution pattern, and the energy spreads like an orb. I know how it works, I studied you, Tony. Just don't get killed. You don't have a boron carbide helmet. My tuxes don't' come with head gear,"

With that, Batman was gone, disappearing into the darkness that he had befriended so long ago.

Tony waited, and then suddenly, six suits flew out of the room, swarming the facility, two winging around the atrium decks, two going down, and two headed to the dome. True to his word, Batman drew them off. He stood at the top of the fusion reactor, on a narrow jut of steel, a phosphorescent flare gun in his hand, the green flare going off beneath the firmament of the dome.

The drones stopped, landed, and examined the dark knight closely before winging at him, a swift, foul swarm, and he leapt, out and down, hurtling toward the massive, rotating wings, when suddenly, his free hand shot out, another winch, and he let go of the first one, his direction changing instantly in mid-air, and the drones, still firing high caliber bullets, rapidly changed direction. But at this point, Batman had signaled the drones, and like a ravenous colony of bats, the drones swarmed in ever tightening gyres around their targets, some of them blown to bits by the high-tech targeting systems, others escaping, rerouting, latching on to deliver electromagnetic pulses that shut down the suits' circuits, tailored to the suits operational and communicative frequencies.

Batman saw the bomb. He saw the small numerals counting down the time as well.

Tony saw his opening and rushed into the room. He ducked again as a unit opened fire on him. Tony ran out of the room, but the unit moved out, taking up a position on the balcony of the atrium in front of the door and with plenty of space to see Tony. He ran, ducking left out of sight as a rocket propelled grenade zipped past him and hit the arc of the building wall, shattering the glass.

The entire dome started to crack and pieces began falling down, some of them hitting the rotating gyres of the fusion reactor's magnetic field generators and kinetic impact sent the glass flying like shrapnel. Tony cursed under his breath.

He pulled out the devices Batman had given him, pulling them over his boron carbide enhanced gloves. He heard the stomp as the ungraceful suit made its way towards him.

Tony almost regretted giving away the glove. But he didn't, because he didn't have time to regret anything, especially helping a friend. He looked around. Behind his head was a piece of ducting. Tony followed the line into the dark, and then reached up with the boron carbide gloves and grabbed the piping. He wrenched with all his might. It barely budged. He yanked again, and then again.

Tony knew a bit of Wing Chun, having taken it up several years ago after a malfunction that nearly cost him his life. He pulled one more time, this time breaking the pipe and finding the thick, high voltage power lines. He grabbed the end of the thick wire, Batman's gloves insulating him from the electricity.

An empty suit weighed two hundred pounds, even with the lighter weight metals drew nearer. Tony waited. As it drew closer, Tony held his breath. The silhouette appeared in the doorway of the maintenance hall he'd entered.

Tony leapt at the last moment, slamming into the suit. Using the extensions Batman gave him, one with a high voltage taser on the end and the other with a powerful electromagnet, Tony struck the suit, feeling the magnet stick fast even as the suit fired off two shots and clicked open a saw blade which threatened to cut into Tony's hand. He clamped down, introducing a flow of current that amplified the magnetic field.

With a twist of Tony's torso, he flung the offending suit into the exposed wire, slamming it into the chest of the suit. He watched with grim satisfaction as the suit fried in the overpowering surge of energy.

Tony cocked his head to one side, and then ran out of the room, cringing and cowering against the wall as shrapnel glass struck him in the face, cutting his jaw deeply.

He covered his face with his hands and continued running. In the room, he coughed, and knew he'd inhaled some glass dust, for there was the faint red tinge of blood coming out of his mouth and a burning in his throat. Batman was still on the top of the fusion core, huddled down under his cape as the dome continued to shatter and fracture further, threatening to collapse completely.

Tony went back into the control room. The system was still up. His fingers lost the bat gloves and went about their artistry, finding each part of the fusion reactor's corpus and laying hands on it, took control of Adam's intuitive system.

He started the cycle to shut down the core, slowing reducing the energy feedback loop.

"Batman, I'm shutting it down now,"

Outside the room, he could see the Guardian of Gotham perched atop the megaton bomb, trying to convert it into something productive. He would die before anyone else in Gotham did, even before Tony, relatively speaking.

"Hurry, the timer just dropped a minute. We've got two minutes now."

"We don't have two minutes. We've got to out of here in one, if that's the case."

Batman said nothing.

Tony watched as the Bat stood atop the perch over the spinning reactor core.

Batman removed his winch, his other hand glimmering brightly in Tony's red and gold glove, aiming down into the virulent mass of energy and kinetic arcs.

"Don't do it,"

"I have no choice,"

"We always have a choice,"

"Not if right is the only option,"

"You'll be killed," said Tony.

"It seems that way. Get out if you can."

"I'm not leaving you,"

"Then wish me luck,"

"Good luck," said Tony quietly, as he eased the reactor down one more notch.

Batman shot the winch down suddenly, catching the outer most edge of the rotating arcs and at the same time, hit the arc with a repulsor blast, slowing it down so suddenly that the outside field failed, and Batman swung down as the other rings took the slack out of the metafiber rope.

Just before he smashed into the second ring, he hit the next arc with another repulsor blast, using it to change his velocity again. The blast disrupted the second field as the first reestablished itself. He swooped down another thirty two meters per second per second, Batman repeated his action at the nadir of his fall, and passed through the third and final layer of the magnetic fields, into the heat of the core.

His winch had passed through the fields and landed in the core, and Tony knew even Fox's metamaterials wouldn't last long at that heat. Batman, on his last lunge, leapt for the box attached to the injection line. He used the repulsor glove to melt shut the injection line, shutting of the ion stream feeding the core. He could feel the skin on his flesh burning and cracking.

Hanging on to the injection stem with the iron glove, Batman found the last winch and carefully aimed, his winch bit finding purchase on the ledge above, and the spinning arcs snagged at the line, pulling it, and sending him flying. At the last second, he cut the winch line, and catapulted out of the magnetic rings, his entire form smoking, the small fusion bomb strapped to his waist. He caught himself on the tip with the flank hooks on his forearm, hanging there above the spinning circles of death, the glowing fusion core cooling from white hot to a low reddish yellow as the magnetic fields dampened the reaction.

Above him, he saw Tony's face. One his hands, covered in the electromagnetic batglove, were repulsing the final circle. The strain of pressure consumed Tony's face, contorting his goatee into a bat like shape. The other hand, exposed and naked, grasped Batman by the wrist firmly. Below him, the other arcs began to pick up speed, restoring the magnetic fields containing the core.

"When I said you were old school, I thought I was joking."

"I never joke. I always say exactly what I mean to."

"That's real funny," snarled Tony.

Epilogue

Safe on the platform, Tony turned to Batman, who now hunched over, catching his own breath.

"With Adam gone, what now?"

Batman was quiet.

"He's gone. What does it matter?"

"What about this place? His company? His technology? Does it all become evidence to be locked away in a shitty 5th avenue warehouse run by the National Guard?"

"Wayne Enterprises plans on funding the company for as long as necessary,"

"Necessary for what?" said Tony.

"For the reactor to find suitable parents to adopt it,"

"You mean buy it."

"No, I mean getting Gotham's public to fund it, buy it, and own it, with their tax going into a fund to pay for the energy the city consumes, while the excess energy goes out to the bio and wind farms, the ranches, the factories, the docks, and the rural areas. We'll build more plants out there, and sell the energy from them to neighboring counties and businesses in the area."

"You say 'we' like you speak for Gotham. Yet, you're going to do what Adam intended on doing,"

"Adam had a vision. Visions never die. To eliminate crime, you must eliminate poverty. To eliminate poverty, you need a liberal resource."

"Kadmon said something like that," retorted Tony.

"Why don't you invest? I could deliver the message. It would be discrete."

Tony stroked his beard.

"I'm not sure I should," said Tony.

"Why not?" said Batman.

"I'd want the fusion designs. Bigger isn't always better, but better is always better. Fusion is powerful, but I'm afraid I'd end up doing this all over again. Truthfully I just want to go home, but it's not there anymore. No father, no home, no respect. Part of me wants something to work on while I rebuild my sanctum sanctorum."

"You did your best to save Adam," said the detective. "Don't destroy yourself over something that wasn't yourself that wasn't your fault."

"You should talk. Isn't self-destruction your modus operandi?"

"I do what I can with what I have left. I can't ask anything more of you. But I am asking."

"Doesn't matter," said Tony, "I pushed him over the edge, without even realizing it. What if that's all I am, just a bigger, better, bully?"

"What if better is the operative word?"

"Don't play with me, Batboy. I'm trying to be serious,"

"I am serious, Tony. If bigger is more powerful, but not necessarily better, then better and bigger are qualitatively different.

"Explain," said Tony, examining his heart reactor

"You are a brilliant man, Tony, but what you do defines who you are. Just because you become more powerful doesn't mean you won't be better at what you do. It's a mutually exclusive concept."

"So if I adopt Adam's fusion technology, I have the potential to be a better man, because I have the potential to do more. I get it. It's a beautiful idea, but I won't do that. That would be a crutch. I don't need a crutch. Although, you're right about being better: I can be better."

"Who was in your suit?" said Batman.

"Which suit?" Tony asked.

Batman laughed. Tony shivered at the sound.

"The one that saved us," said Batman.

"Alfred."

Batman's silence and glaring eyes said it all.

"Don't be mad at him," said Tony suddenly, "he did it for you as much as he did it for Gotham, and he can still work for me and drive Pepper nuts anytime."

Batman lowered his head a little.

"You're whole face is black, buddy. Can't read your expression," Tony said quickly.

"Then it's a smile," said the Dark Knight.

Batman shook Tony's hand with the red and gold glove, burnt black around the tips from the energy of the fusion.

"That's some grip you got there," said Stark. "Ever consider teaming up?"

"You know what they say about two hands?" asked Batman as he turned to leave.

"That they're better than one?" called Tony.

"No, that the one right should never know what the left is doing."

Tony looked down and saw a small black sliver sticking out of the glove, a tracer.

"Very funny, Batman—Batman?" he said, but the Batman was gone.