Author's Note:

I'm a diehard fan of the DC Universe and all its related content, but as much as I like Smallville, I just want to smack some of the characters upside the head. So, I'm inserting Bruce Wayne/Batman to do the smacking for me. It's probably not great, but I hope you enjoy it anyway. Starting from Requiem, because it seems a plausible entry point for Bruce as well as the fact that the show was dumb enough to kill off Lex Luthor, and continuing as long as I think it needs to. Reviews are adored.

Disclaimer: This is based off of the TV show Smallville and all of its characters/content are copyrighted by Warner Brothers and DC Comics—this is all their stuff, I'm just putting it on paper and inserting a little something extra.

And a warning: these chapters can get rather lengthy.

This chapter starts at Requiem, the episode following Power. For a quick memory revival regarding all things Smallville, season eight, check out http: / en . wikipedia . org / wiki / Smallville _ (season_8) [no spaces], and other Wikipedia articles.

And all that stands between the souls release,
This temporary flesh and bone.
We know that it's over now.
I feel my faded mind begin to roam.

There's nothing I can say.
There's nothing we can do now.
There's nothing I can say.
There's nothing we can do now.
[Goodnight, Travel Well - The Killers]

Winslow Schott sat in his tiny apartment, surrounded by toys, with a large magnifying glass set up in front of his face as he delicately finished painting the tiny globe atop a miniature replica of the Daily Planet building. "The world moves so fast today," he said to no one in particular. "People forget how much better they had it as kids. When hours seemed like days, and a favorite toy could be a child's best friend."

He paused in his work as he readjusted his glasses and glanced at the doll propped up on a chair to his left. "Toys are powerful things, you know." Looking back to his work, he picked up the building to show to the seemingly dull doll. "They're vessels for the imagination endowed with life for the simple act of play." With a small click, the tiny globe began to circle atop the completed model. Winslow giggled with excitement.

It was what most of Gotham's citizens thought was a typical afternoon in the life of Bruce Wayne, playboy. A quick stop at a gallery opening, where he ignored the photographs on display but managed to get the phone number of the pretty receptionist. Lunch at a hip downtown bistro. A dash out to the country club, where he decided not to play golf but instead chased the female employees around with his clubs. A trip back to central Gotham, waving at passersby from the window of his steel gray Lamborghini Murcielago.

Bruce drove the Lamborghini into the basement garage of Wayne Tower, managed to knock over a Vespa scooter on the way to his parking slot, paid the Vespa's owner twice what it would cost to replace it, stashed the Lamborghini in the spot with his name on it, and rode the elevator to the top floor where his, Lucius Fox's, and several other favored board members' offices were.

"Mr. Wayne?"

Twenty-seven-year-old Bruce Wayne, who was now seated in his large office, didn't bother to lower the day's Gotham Gazette that he held in front of him as the heel of one of his Ferragamo shoes moved from its spot next to the opposite one, both of which had been propped up on his almost-always spotless desk, to hit the button atop the speakerphone on the corner of the glass table. "Yes, Tracy?" the young billionaire replied in his deep and bored voice.

"Mr. Fox would like to see you, sir."

Bruce's eyebrows furrowed slightly as his attention was finally drawn away from the paper. "Thank you, Tracy. You can let him in."

As soon as the elder man stepped into the large room, Bruce was already on his feet, his paper atop his desk, and closing the distance between them. "Mr. Fox, it's been a while."

"Yes, I believe it has, Mr. Wayne, which is unusual for you."

The younger man grinned slightly.

"I'm going to get right down to business with you, Bruce. There's a problem in Metropolis."

"Metropolis?" the acting playboy questioned as he glanced out one of the many large windows that lined most of his office as if he could see the glistening city from there. "What kind of problem exactly?"

"I assume you know of Lex Luthor's disappearance?" Lucius questioned, earning a dark look from Bruce's eyes as they remained on the window. Lex Luthor's disappearance was probably ten times bigger than Bruce's seven-year one. Lex was in charge of his company, disappearing to leave his assistant-of-sorts to run it for him. Not only that, but while it wasn't as unexpected for moody Bruce Wayne to vanish off the face of the earth, it was surprising to find power-hungry Lex Luthor gone from his bed. Bruce had unenthusiastically looked into matters when he had the time after his return from Asia, but decided that it wasn't worth as much attention as he had been giving it when there were other, more important things going on closer to home.

But Lucius didn't await for a response before continuing. "The new CEO seems to have some unsettling priorities. Our public relations department caught wind from Queen Industries that they're planning to merge with LuthorCorp."

That wasn't good. A merger like that would provide a little too much competition for Wayne Enterprises, who at the moment was the leading technology systems practically everywhere in the U.S., as well as several key locations in Europe and Asia, save for Metropolis and Star City.

But there was a good side, and it was the side Bruce was sure Oliver Queen was seeing. Even though Lex Luthor was M.I.A., he left Tess Mercer in charge for a reason. Bruce did trust the fellow billionaire, even though he was a real airhead from past experiences during school days, more than Lex and Tess, but even if it would be easier to disable a corrupt giant by infiltration, Bruce did not want thousands of his employees to lose their jobs and worsen Gotham's still existing depression. If he could help it, he wasn't going to be the cause of another Joe Chill, let alone hundreds.

Glancing back to his employee and friend, Bruce gave the elder man a sly smile. "Well if Oliver Queen can swoon Tess Mercer enough to make her practically giftwrap LuthorCorp for him, then perhaps Bruce Wayne can swoon her out of the idea."

The last board member, and as a younger woman the most commanding of them all, strode into the room, straight past the two portraits of the Luthors that hung neatly on the wall, to stand in front of her chair. "Mercer's taking too many risks."

"Lex took a gamble on her and it's paying off," an elder board member refuted. "Look at the success she's had at the Daily Planet."

"Lex didn't know she was funneling all of LuthorCorp's holdings into one highly experimental bioweapon. And now she's lost the prototype." The woman sat as she continued, "I move for a vote of no confidence."

"Yeah," said another male board member around the woman's age. "I second the motion."

"All those in favor of making a change?"

As hands began to rise, the doors to the large room swung open to reveal Oliver Queen, CEO of one of LuthorCorp's competitors, Queen Industries. "Aye. That is that I agree it's time for a change but not quite how you mean it."

The woman looked surprised as the young billionaire now stood across the table from her. "Oliver Queen, what are you doing in enemy camp?"

"I'm actually the one who called this meeting," he replied smoothly and with a small hint of amusement in his tone as he glanced around the room. "Tess sends her regrets, but she's on her way to Dubai overseeing some of our international interests."

"What do you mean 'our'?"

"With Tess's cooperation, I purchased controlling interests in LuthorCorp."

The board members glanced around at each other in disbelief as disapproving muttering filled the room.

The woman was the first to openly refute. "That barracuda went behind our backs and helped you with a hostile takeover—"

"Nuhuh…" Oliver interrupted as he held up his finger. "You know, I really don't think that the LuthorCorp board should be lecturing me on ethics, ma'am." On one of the few tables around the room, a Newton's Cradle started to operate, the outermost metal balls swinging back and forth in quiet harmony. "After all, you've been using the world as your own personal playground for far too long."

The woman stood, furious. "The world is much better off because of the Luthors—" While Oliver tried to stay focused on her, his attention was suddenly drawn to the strange anomaly of the Newton's Cradle that had been idle only moments before as his eyes narrowed in suspicion. "And no pampered playboy is going to destroy their legacy." Something wasn't right. The small metal balls were moving faster until at last they both hit the remaining stack at the same time, which suddenly caused the movement to stop.

Oliver's eyes widened. "Everybody down!"

The explosion ripped through the room just as Oliver ducked underneath the table.

Thanks to owning his own private jet, Bruce Wayne landed in Metropolis Airport before the sun set. While meeting with Tess Mercer would have to wait until morning, it was a good enough time as any to take a look around the unfamiliar city.

"Perhaps you should try to enjoy yourself tonight, Master Wayne," Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce's faithful butler, suggested from the driver's seat of the rental luxury car they now rode in through sparkling downtown Metropolis as the sky was already dark, leaving the city's lights left to illuminate the skyscrapers. "Without the weight of Gotham's worries to rest upon your shoulders, you might find you can still have a good time."

Bruce scoffed as his attention remained on the glistening lights outside of his window. But the nearly silent sound of the background radio caught his attention. "…explosion…LuthorCorp…killed…Queen…injured…"

"Alfred, can you turn that up?"

"Yes sir," was his reply and instantly the news anchor's voice filled the car.

"Officials are still unsure as to who is behind the explosion, but many are wondering why Oliver Queen, CEO of Queen Industries was in the room and managed to escape alive while it is reported that all of LuthorCorp's board of directors did not survive the blast."

A bomb had wiped out LuthorCorp's controlling board members? That was just what Bruce needed right now. But the reason for Oliver Queen's presence must have been to announce the merger. But then where was Tess Mercer? Her name wasn't added into the broadcast, and had she been injured or killed, it undoubtedly would have been, leaving LuthorCorp leaderless, save for Oliver Queen, of course.

But Oliver Queen plant a bomb, like many were suggesting? Ollie was a lot of things, but suicidal and killer he was not. While Bruce hadn't seen Star City's favorite billionaire since he was just a bully in Excelsior Academy, he had done his research on not only Gotham's residents when he returned from Asia, but on the wealthy and powerful who might prove a criminal threat down the road. Lex Luthor was still in that category after his brief investigation, but once Bruce stumbled across Oliver Queen's ventures both in and out of character for the airhead playboy, he was cleared of most suspicions; the Daily Planet's reports of the mysterious Green Arrow aided in that (although this new Red and Blue Blur was still a mystery to Bruce, one that he wasn't jumping to solve so long as the superhuman blur stayed in Metropolis and out of Gotham). Oliver's survival must have been pure luck. Or skill.

Well, the growing suspicions that were beginning to nag at Bruce insides were enough cause to want to investigate this. "Alfred, head for the hospital."

"Please tell me that the bed was already wobbly," a giggling Lana Lang said as she glanced to the now broken bed she and Clark Kent laid on top of on the second floor of the small farmhouse on the Kent farm in Smallville, Kansas.

"Lana, it's made of solid oak," Clark replied with a grin of his own.

Embarrassed, she covered her head with the sheet, and Clark followed suit to join her under the covers. The two grinned at each other.

"What do you say we find out how strong the floor is?

She laughed. "Where do you get all the energy?"

Clark just smiled before he changed the subject. "How would you like to see another sunset? We could start our night all over again." Lana's grin grew. "Head west, find a sandy beach."

"I love you being so romantic, Clark. But there is something that I would love even more than a trip to the tropics."

"Just ask and it's yours."

Using her new super speed that the biotech suit she now wore, she was out of bed and standing next to it, fully clothed, within a second. "I want to help you when you're out patrolling Metropolis."

Clark's grin faded. He loved Lana, and even though she was seemingly invincible now, he still didn't like the thought of putting her into any sort of harm's way. "Lana, I'm not so sure—"

"Clark," she interrupted as she sat on the bed next to him. When I stopped that bullet and saved Dr. Groll's life, it was the most amazing feeling I have ever had. I got to use my new powers the way I always planned to."

"Lana, even with your strength and speed, it's still dangerous out there."

She just smiled. "You've protected me for years. But this is who I am now. It's the life I want. And I want to share it with you."

After an understanding smile appeared on Clark's face, he used his own super speed to be standing dressed behind Lana as she stood to face him. "All I've ever wanted was someone to share my life with. To work with me, side by side, just like my mom and dad did. With my abilities I never thought that—"

"Clark, stop," Lana whispered, the pair only inches away from each other now. "I'm right here."

They both beamed lovingly at each other as Clark leaned in to kiss her.

A knocking interrupted them, and as the pair headed downstairs, Chloe Sullivan's voice sounded from the kitchen where she had just entered. "Clark? Lana? Hey, there was some sort of explosion at LuthorCorp. The news was saying it was a bomb."

"Oh my god," Lana muttered.

"Was anyone hurt?" Clark questioned.

"Apparently everyone on the board of directors was killed. Oliver was there—he's in the hospital."

They all glanced to each other with worried expressions.

A bruised and battered Oliver Queen awoke to the sound of an obnoxious beeping noise and to the sight of a small tube full of dripping liquid dangling next to his bed. He was in a hospital. As soon as he moved, he realized that he was there for good reason. With a groan and a wince, he stopped trying to move his body to sit up and instead glanced around the room.

A gust of wind suddenly blew the papers making up his charts backwards on their clipboard, announcing the arrival of Clark Kent and Lana Lang.

Well since the nearly invincible Superman and his girlfriend were here, he wasn't going to show anymore weakness than was already displayed. "If it isn't Metropolis's newest power couple," Ollie said with the small hint of a groan as he sat up in his hospital bed.

"How you doing Oliver?" Lana questioned first.

"I'm alright. Nothing a dry martini can't cure." He looked to Clark an expression that most would not expect to see on playboy Oliver Queen. "Were there any survivors?"

Clark shook his head. "No, you were the only one." Ollie looked down. If only he had noticed the bomb sooner, recognized it quicker, all those people would still be alive. "They said the table protected you from the blast. Oliver, do you have any idea who did this?"

After a short pause, the boy billionaire shook his head as he lied through his teeth. "Angry shareholder, maybe? I just bought a controlling stake in LuthorCorp." Lana and Clark glanced at each other. "I was meeting with the board to announce it."

"If you're trying to erase the Luthor from LuthorCorp, then there's one obvious choice for who was behind this attack," Lana stated plainly, earning an extra glance from Clark before he nodded in agreement, "Lex."

Oliver wasn't enthused about how fast they caught onto that little bit of information. "You know, if Lex was going to go after anyone, Lana, I would assume it would be you. You were the one that really got under his skin…or should I say into it. That biotech you commandeered, that was his lifeline, his last chance at recovery. That probably meant more to him than his entire company."

Lana looked at Ollie in disbelief while Clark continued, "Do you remember anything before the blast? Something that could help us figure out if Lex was behind this?"

Glancing between the two people that stood on either side of his bed, Ollie shook his head as he once more lied through his teeth. "No. No, I didn't see anything." This earned a distrustful look from Lana; she could tell he was hiding something. Hesitation and vague answers were not things that Oliver Queen answered with often.

Clark glanced to Lana before looking back to Ollie. "Don't worry, Oliver. I promise we're going to find out who did this."

Ollie nodded slightly as he glanced to Lana, strongly disliking the look she was still giving him, before looking back to Clark.

Bruce Wayne had been Batman for just over a year and what little experience he had taught him that it was sometimes best to play a little 'undercover'. After all, his undercover techniques in Gotham had successfully retrieved enough information on Harvey Dent to write a five hundred page autobiography. While it would not be entirely unexpected for Bruce Wayne to be in Metropolis at all, let alone when Queen Industries and LuthorCorp were attempting to merge, it would still be best to keep the news of his arrival in the glistening city as low as possible, especially since Oliver would have to prove himself in person instead of through news reports and database files. No one loved Lex, which meant everyone was a suspect; trusting anyone was not an option.

When an extremely underdressed Bruce Wayne arrived at the hospital, Oliver was still unconscious, leaving the other boy billionaire with too much time on his hands to insert a tiny microphone on the wall behind the door. Slipping back out of the room while keeping his baseball cap low over his face, he headed towards the end of the hall where a row of five or six chairs sat in place for a temporary waiting area-of-sorts. Taking a seat in the farthest one from Ollie's room, and the one right against the wall, Bruce Wayne, or now known as Thomas Quigley who was visiting his ill aunt in room 402 to anyone who asked, would wait.

But he didn't have to wait long. Within a minute of him sitting down into his currently slouched position, voices sounded in his ear through the small earpiece, which raised even further suspicion. Now, obviously, Oliver was awake, as he had spoken first, but he hadn't seen anyone enter the room between then and now, and now there were two other voices than Ollie's oh-so-charming one, one male and one female.

He didn't learn much from the brief conversation, but what he did might prove useful later. The woman's name was Lana and the man's was still unknown, though the righteous tone in his voice made Bruce slightly suspicious. No one was entirely for truth and justice, and Oliver wasn't known to have that loyal of friends; this character must have some other motive, but that would have to wait for later. And according to them, Lex was still alive, just as he had originally guessed. But he hadn't guessed that Lex would be as active as he apparently was. The oldest boy billionaire of the trio indirectly killing people? It wasn't entirely unlikely, but it was unexpected.

But the last piece of information intrigued Bruce the most. Oliver had mentioned a biosuit that was meant for Lex, but now this Lana was wearing it. From what he was quickly learning about Lex Luthor, that meant that that suit wasn't exactly normal, and it also might explain how she got into the room; but not how the other man did.

So far, he had more questions than answers. Hopefully sitting in here and listening in on Oliver's conversations would be better than trying to navigate Metropolis nearly blind and unaided, and without any leads.

As soon as the hardly recognizable board room was cleared of forensic scientists, Clark Kent and Lana Lang seemingly suddenly appeared standing in the middle of it. While pieces of the wall were strewn about them, pillars of cement interrupted the floor space while the few still working lights hung loose from their places in the ceiling as they flickered with barely surviving life.

"Oliver's luck to be alive," Clark said, duly noting the catastrophic destruction around them.

Lana moved through the debris towards one side of the room that was blacker than the rest of the walls. "It looks like bomb went off over here."

Clark began to move in a different direction, observing whatever he could. "There's pieces of the walls everywhere—" Suddenly he stopped with a gasp as a familiar pain ran through his body. Kryptonite.

She instantly noticed. "Clark, are you okay?" she unnecessarily questioned as she crossed the distance between them.

He took a few steps back as he stood up straight again, "It's kryptonite."

Glancing at what he was indicating, Lana easily tore open the metal box attached to the wall to reveal lots of electrical wires and a tiny, broken sphere with a small piece of kryptonite in it. Withdrawing the tiny object, she examined it. "It looks like this silver shard was a part of the bomb. But why would they use meteor rock?"

"It's not the first time kryptonite's been used to make a bomb more powerful."

With narrowed eyes, Lana carefully moved her fingers to pick up the kryptonite, but as soon as her finger touched the glowing green rock, it vanished in a spark. "Woah, what was that?"

"Whatever it was Lana, I don't feel the kryptonite anymore."

"Maybe it was treated with something that lost its charge when I moved the chip," she replied as she moved to hand the shard to him.

"Queen Industries," Clark said aloud when he recognized the tiny label on the chip.

"Clark, I think that Oliver knows more than he's saying."

"Lana, it's a big company, they make thousands of chips a year. Why would you think that Oliver would be responsible?"

"I don't, but doesn't it seem like he's covering something?"

"Why would he hide anything from me?"

"He's done it before, Clark. When I tracked Lex to Cuba, Oliver showed up. He was there to kill Lex."

Clark looked at Lana in disbelief. Oliver want to kill someone? It was uncharacteristic, even if Lex's father had killed his parents and even if the world was better off without him. "Why didn't you tell me about this?"

"I thought that I talked him down, but obviously he still has his own agenda." Clark frowned slightly as he strode to the other side of the dismantled room. "I think you should show him the chip and give him a chance to explain."

"No, we can't trust him anymore. He's so obsessed with killing Lex that he went behind my back, I don't want to pull him in any deeper. Whatever Oliver is hiding we'll figure it out on our own."

"Yes, the game has begun," the 'Toymaker' stated aloud as he set down his completed Daily Planet model in the middle of a miniature Metropolis. He glanced to the model LuthorCorp tower next door to the tiny Planet as his smile slightly faded. Even though things had gone perfectly in the model, leaving the top floor of the tiny building wrecked, things didn't go well in real life. "Although even the finest plan can't guarantee a flawless execution." Glancing to the still immobile doll propped up on a chair, he headed towards it before sitting in a chair across from it. "Apparently, Ms. Mercer wasn't in the room." His eyes shifted around the room, half in fear, half in angry disappointment, before he continued to the doll. "And Oliver Queen survived. "But don't you worry…"

"…I'll be sure to tie up any lose ends, Mr. Luthor," Winslow's image finished as his face was displayed on a large monitor in front of a man seated in a chair, a young, bald man with several tubes and pipes leading from his body to the monitors and machines that were around him. Lex Luthor nodded slightly in approval. "Meanwhile, we've already begun round two."

As Winslow moved away from the doll and back to his model of Metropolis, he picked up a small remote with a grin. "Time for our next move." As soon as he hit the button with his gloved thumb, the Daily Planet model erupted into flames, casting foreboding reflections on his glasses as the 'Toymaker' laughed.

"I thought you were supposed to enjoy the night, sir, not spend all of it cooped up in your hotel room on a computer," Alfred Pennyworth indistinctly complained as he entered the living room-of-sorts of the presidential suite of Metropolis's Four Seasons.

Bruce Wayne, who still wasn't entirely out of 'costume' from his surveillance at the hospital, had opted to sit cross-legged on the floor instead of one of the several pieces of comfortable furniture around him, which didn't surprise Alfred in the slightest as it had become a habit for his employer ever since he returned from his travels in Asia nearly two years before, with a laptop perched on his lap and his fingers furiously typing away. "Something came up," he muttered without stopping his work.

"Something as in the LuthorCorp bombing?"

"Yes. Lex Luthor is still alive and his whereabouts need to be known before he kills anyone else."

Alfred's brows rose in surprise. The last he heard of Lex Luthor was that the young billionaire was missing and dead. Although, many had said the same of young Bruce Wayne, but here he sat, more alive and well than ever…well, mostly. "And how to you propose to do this? Your hacking skills are adequate enough for the job, yes, but Bruce Wayne playing detective in Metropolis probably isn't the best way to keep a respectively low profile."

Bruce paused in his typing to glance to his oldest friend. "And that's why I need you to fly back to Gotham tonight and get my things."

"But, sir—"

"I know the consequences, Alfred. But my resolve is no different here than in Gotham. I won't allow murder if I can prevent it."

The next morning, Oliver Queen smirked at the pretty nurse standing next to his bed, looking over his charts. "Hm," she began as she glanced to the handsome billionaire with a nice smile of her own. "Your heart rate is a little higher than normal, Mr. Queen."

His eyebrows rose in amused interest as he leaned forward to glance at the machine next to his bedside that was monitoring all that important stuff. "Really? I'm sure the view has that effect on all of your patients."

She giggled as she put away her pen and set the charts back down. "Well, with the pain meds you're on, I'm afraid—" she reached over to pull open the blinds to reveal one of the many uneventful hallways of Metropolis General Hospital, "—this is the only view you're getting tonight. Rest." And with that final word, she disappeared out of the door, leaving Chloe Sullivan with a smug smile on her face as she shook her head, standing next to the open door.

"It looks like someone's making a speedy recovery."

"Yeah, not quick enough, trust me," Ollie replied as he sat up further in his bed.

"Well I'm guessing you didn't get me over here to spoon you chicken soup."

"No, uh, listen, I need you to pull an address off of Queen Industries database. It's an engineer that I fired six years ago. His name is Winslow Schott."

"And you think this ex-employee is behind the bomb?"

"I hired him right out of MIT; he developed explosives, anything from blowing out tunnels to breaking up kidney stones."

"That's pretty high praise for someone you handed a pink slip to," Chloe replied as she now stood leaning against the window next to Oliver's bed. "What happened?"

"High pressure job…he snapped. Started bringing toys to work. Whatever, right? Then he started hiding explosives inside the toys. And that's when I realized Winslow was thinking a little bit too far outside the box."

"Hm…" Chloe quietly replied as she looked down. But suddenly her eyes narrowed as she looked back to the man in bed. "Why are you telling me this when you have your very own personal bomb squad in Clark and Lana? Look," she began as she reached for her phone, "give me ten minutes with one of your satellites and I'll get them to go and get him."

"No, Chloe, wait, we can't tell Clark." She paused in her typing on her phone and glanced up to meet Ollie's eyes. He hesitated before continuing, "Winslow could've attacked me anytime in the past six years. He chose the night I took over LuthorCorp to do it. The Toyboy may have pulled the pin, but…but I think he's working for Lex."

"So you're not actually interested in tracking this Winslow guy down; you just want him to lead you to Lex." Oliver shifted uncomfortably. "And you want Clark to stay out of your way."

"Chloe you know Clark would never agree to what must be done to get rid of Lex forever."

She looked at him in disbelief, "You're talking about killing him—"

"I'm talking about ending his reign of terror that has been consuming us all lately."

Chloe just shook her head, not liking the sudden change in Oliver nor liking the idea of lying to Clark about killing Lex. "No, I can't lie to Clark," she replied as she turned for the door.

"You want to tell him the truth or you want to protect him?" Chloe hesitated as she glanced back to Ollie. Both of them knew that they both would do anything for Clark. "Lex tried to kill me. You know he's coming after Clark next. Chloe, he knows his secret. Could you honestly live with yourself if you let something happen to Clark?"

She tried to speak, to argue, to refute, to anything…but nothing came out. Instead she just obediently left, excuseless to keep herself from doing this, and as she strode down the hospital hall, she failed to notice the man lounging in one of the few chairs in the hall dressed in plain clothes and with a baseball cap hiding most of his face as if he was sleeping as well as the tiny earpiece he had in his ear.

Only twenty minutes later, Chloe Sullivan was seated onboard Oliver Queen's private jet, looking at the file of Winslow Schott as it downloaded onto her phone. But just as the download finished, leaving Winslow's face enlarged on the tiny device's screen, Clark Kent startled her. "Chloe." Super speed. "What are you doing here?"

A stunned Chloe dug for some sort of excuse that could come off naturally. One would think that she would be an expert by now in the art of making excuses with all the secrets she seems to keep all the time. After a short hesitation, she flashed a small smile. "You know Oliver. Even the blast of a bomb won't rattle his work ethic. He asked me to come in and pull some of the files from the LuthorCorp deal."

Clark nodded slightly, but he clearly wasn't buying it. "That's funny. Because I would think that Queen Industries could free up at least one employee to run his errands for him."

"Yeah, well I'm not exactly a Briggs security truck, but Oliver knows that he can trust me."

"I thought I could, too." Chloe's face soured. Low blow. But as Clark began to close the distance between them, she quickly closed out of Winslow's file while keeping her eyes locked on Clark's. "You're chasing down a lead on the bombing for him, aren't you?"

She once more hesitated, hating the fact that she was lying to Clark, of all people, keeping something from him. But it was for his own protection, and she was the secret keeper after all. Shaking her head, she stood to gather up her things. "Sorry Clark."

"Chloe, you don't understand. Lana told me about Oliver's vendetta against Lex. He knows that I would try to stop him, that's why he would lie, but I don't know why you would—"

"Because I don't want to lose you, Clark," Chloe replied as she spun around to face him. "Lex knows that the meteor rocks are poisonous to Kryptonians. He knows your weakness, he could kill you."

"That doesn't mean I'm supposed to kill him first, Chloe. No matter what Oliver may have said to you, Lex and I are not in a battle to the death—"

"Open your eyes, Clark! Lex declared war on you years ago. He's known your secrets for months—why have you not done anything yet?"

"I'm focused on the future. On using my abilities to help people. I don't want to live in the past."

"But that's exactly what you're doing. You think that Lex is still that same man that you saved on that bridge eight years ago? You're not recognizing the monster that he's become."

"So because that I'm not going to kill someone, I'm in denial? When you were taken over by Braniac you could have destroyed the world, Chloe. But I refused to kill you." Another low blow. Her eyes looked away from his as she internally debated. As much as she might be betraying Oliver, this was the right thing to do. Trusting Clark was always the right thing to do.

"Here," she said quietly as she handed him her phone, guilt of all kinds running through her. "It's Oliver's top suspect Winslow Schott. He used to work at STAR Labs. Oliver thinks he would lead us to Lex."

Clark smiled slightly, not exactly proud of what he had just done to get the information out of his best friend and the resulting emotions that were clear in her eyes. "Don't worry, I'll be careful."

As he left, Chloe looked after him as she slowly shook her head. He always said he would be careful, but he always managed to get himself into dangerous situations, and with Lex, any errors might cause him to get killed. But now it was out of her hands. Let Clark go and get himself killed, let Oliver think that she was untrustworthy. She finished gathering up her things.

The elevator doors slid open to reveal a large many carrying a box and a batch of balloons that hid his face from view. As he strode up to the front desk, the present nurse, the same nurse who was in charge of Oliver, glanced up with a smile and the ridiculous amount of balloons. "Can I help you?"

Moving the balloons to the side, Winslow Schott smiled back, "I certainly hope so. Could you direct me to Oliver Queen's room? I have a delivery for him."

Lana Lang sat in the Kents' kitchen, her elbows propped on the kitchen table as her hands held up the familiar necklace in front of her. A small, lingering smile was present both before and after Clark Kent arrived via super speed. As he stormed through the kitchen door calling her name, she glanced up at him, waiting for him to find her with his eyes. And when he did, she looked back down to the necklace as she set it neatly on the table, causing Clark to stop with a small smile of his own. "You found your necklace."

"After all the pain it caused you, I'm surprised you still have it."

Slipping Chloe's phone into his pocket, he approached. "How could I throw away something that means so much?" Reaching to take the necklace from her hands, he put it around her neck. "I still remember seeing you wear this in high school. I couldn't get within five feet of you without falling over."

She smiled slightly at the memory as he pulled her hair free of the necklace's chain. "And even after your ship removed the kryptonite, there always seemed to be something standing in our way."

"Yeah…" Clark added before he moved to kneel next to her as her fingers idly played with the necklace now around her neck. "But not anymore. We're together now, Lana. I'm not going to let anyone take that away from us."

"Clark, I talked to Dr. Groll about what happened with the kryptonite. It wasn't the chip. It was me."

Misunderstanding, Clark slightly smiled in slight amazement. "So besides strength and speed, you can also destroy kryptonite—"

"No," Lana refuted, her tone serious. "Dr. Groll says I absorbed it, but I'm worried, Clark." Finally he stopped smiling as his expression turned serious as well. "If Lex built this as a weapon, what if you were the target?"

Clark reached for her hand. "But Lex isn't wearing it Lana, you are. We're going to figure this out, but we need to stay focused on tracking down this bomber before it causes anymore damage."

"Did you find anything?"

"Yeah," Clark replied as he reached for Chloe's phone to hand to Lana. "You were right. Oliver was hiding something. He thinks the bomber was someone who used to work for him. I went to that address listed there, but he doesn't live there anymore."

Lana's eyes narrowed as she read through the file. "According to this, Mr. Schott is a pretty prolific inventor. He fought a lot of patents for STAR Labs." She glanced to Clark. "A guy like this wouldn't just stop registering his research just because Oliver let him go."

"So maybe the patent office has a current address for him."

Standing, Lana continued, "If this guy's working for Lex, then we're dealing with a lot more than just some Toymaker. If Lex put things in motion, he's planned three moves ahead. And now that he has nothing to lose, he's more dangerous than ever."

A dozing Oliver Queen moved to readjust his uncomfortable position in the uncomfortable hospital bed when his hand caught at his side. Instantly his brown eyes opened as he glanced to his hand to find it handcuffed to the bed. And so was the other one. What the? He tugged hard at them as panic flooded through him before he even bothered to look to the foot of his bed where Winslow Schott was standing, tinkering with the toy monkey he had in his hands. "What the hell?"

"How does it feel to not be in control for once?" Winslow questioned as he readjusted his glasses to continue working, not bothering to look at the struggling Queen.

"Untie me right now."

"That wouldn't be very much fun."

Oliver's eyes narrowed in realization as Winslow pulled back his jacket to reveal a pocket full of tools, in which he stashed the one he was previously using. Glancing around the room, he noticed the balloons as an idea formed. "Oh, I get it, I get it," he said as he nodded in apparent realization. "But the, uh, children's floor is two floors up, you know."

Winslow stopped in his last minute work, feeling insulted. "Excuse me?"

"The balloons, the monkey, the ridiculous costume you're wearing, you're obviously a clown, right? Aren't you a clown?" Ollie questioned with a grin.

The man standing fumed with anger as he turned to look at his previous employer. "I am Winslow Schott." Oliver's eyes narrowed in slight concentration as he pretended not to remember the name. "You called me one of STAR Labs greatest minds," he continued as he pointed a finger at the boy billionaire, "and then you fired me."

Oliver slowly nodded his head as if his memory finally caught up to him, "Winslow…Of course, yeah. I remember you now. Well it's good to see you're still playing with toys." He laughed as he shook his head. "Come on, man. How much for the ape?"

Winslow couldn't believe how simple minded Oliver Queen was. Moving to the side of the bed, he brought his face close to the billionaire's to emphasize his point. "I don't need your money anymore, Mr. Queen. I found someone new to work with. Someone who appreciates my genius." Winslow stood up straight as he spread his arms out, a large smile spreading on his large face, not realizing that Oliver had just swiped one of his tools from his jacket while he was leaning in close. "None other than Lex Luthor himself."

Oliver nodded slightly, "Well that's impressive. I thought he was dead."

The smile vanished from the Toymaker's face. "You are the one who's supposed to be dead." His anger suddenly exploded as he pointed towards the wall, "You should have died in that explosion just like everyone else!"

"You seem like you're getting angry, Winslow. Maybe you should take your toys and go home," Oliver stated firmly and dangerously, slightly throwing the Toymaker.

But he recovered quickly and his brows rose. "Actually…" he said as he moved back to the foot of the bed to hold up the toy monkey, giving Oliver a chance to work on unlocking one of the cuffs. "I made a toy just for you." As Winslow looked down at the toy that he held against his chest with slight glee, Oliver freed one of his hands. "After this little fellah clanks his symbols together fifty-three times…" His eyebrows suddenly rose as a grin spread across his large face and he whispered, "It'll be the last sound you ever hear."

Oliver, keeping up with the act to keep Winslow talking instead of blowing things up, continued, "Fifty-three, huh? Seems a little arbitrary, doesn't it?"

"I filed fifty-three patents working for you," he replied as he set the monkey back on the table at the foot of the bed. "Queen Industries made millions and I got nothing." Oliver's eyes narrowed as his jaw clenched. Time to act fast. Winslow looked back to the toy and activated it, causing the little symbols to clang together at a faster speed than Oliver wanted. Moving to lean over Oliver again, Winslow continued, "I bet you wish that you had appreciated my artistry just a little bit more now, don't you?"

Oliver suddenly wrapped his free arm around Winslow's neck and pulled him across the bed to face the other handcuff. Keeping him in a headlock, Oliver's eyes remained on the monkey as he continued to count the symbol claps. "Unlock the other cuff." When Winslow hesitated, Ollie's grip tightened. "Come on! Twenty-eight and counting; Bobo's not going to slow down anytime soon." Quickly Winslow unlocked the cuff and as soon as his hand was free, Oliver used it to grab Winslow's fingers as he freed his other arm from the headlock and threw the tool he still had in his hand at the toy monkey, which it its target, knocked the toy from the table, and disabled the bomb for now. Standing from the bed, Ollie forced the Toymaker to the ground as he held his fingers in a position that was beyond uncomfortable as Winslow whimpered in pain. "I swear I will break everyone of your artistic little fingers, now tell me…where can I find Lex?"

Something wasn't right. Bruce Wayne glanced down the hospital hall from underneath the battered baseball cap that hid most of his face from view for the fifth time in the past two minutes. Well, of course something wasn't right. Winslow Schott was paying Oliver a visit. But Bruce was positive that Ollie was the Green Arrow, meaning that some Toymaker was a walk in the park for him. It was like Sal Maroni against Batman. But it shouldn't take this long.

Bruce had spent the entire night doing as much research he could without the aid of his large and private server located beneath Wayne Manor, and without any physical evidence. But the repeated daytime primary research, which occurred after Alfred had returned from Gotham and after Bruce had stashed away his nocturnal belongings, that he had collected proved to be much more useful than yesterday's sole conversation he overheard.

The other man's name must be Clark and though Bruce was still slightly suspicious, the new woman, a cute little blonde named Chloe who carried herself like she knew everything (with the worse half of everything that seemed to also show its weight on her shoulders), and Oliver both thought highly enough of the boy scout to want to protect him from Lex Luthor's apparent 'reign of terror/killing spree'. But what about this secret the woman had mentioned, a secret that apparently both of them and Lex knew about this Clark? It would have to wait.

Glance number six was the key glance. Three doors down from where Bruce lazily sat, only Oliver Queen emerged from the room fully dressed in clothes that someone must have brought him at some point in time, and a toy monkey in his hand; the bomb they both were referencing to. Had he really taken that long to detain Winslow Schott? The brief time that the room had been silent through the earpiece that Bruce had in his ear was after Oliver got the information out of Schott. But this Green Arrow had a lot of work to do, especially since he strode straight past Bruce without a second glance.

It wasn't hard to dig up the story about Ollie's parents, along with the names of the pilots of the plane that crashed and their backgrounds: both previous LuthorCorp employees. So Bruce knew all too well what was going through Oliver's mind if he, too, knew the story. And by the looks of it, he did.

Standing from his chair, Bruce took a different route out of the hospital from Oliver. Since both billionaires knew where Lex Luthor was, Bruce had to get to him first before Oliver did something really stupid.

Good old fashioned eavesdropping sometimes was all that was needed.

Lana Lang and Clark Kent easily unlocked the door to Winslow's home and they both strode into the room, amazed at what they saw. Toys were everywhere, covering as much space as possible on the many shelves that filled the room. "This was the last address the patent office had for him," Clark stated as they wandered through the room. "Chloe mentioned this Winslow guy had a thing for toys."

"I'm guessing he still lives here," Lana replied before something caught her attention. A doll that was propped up on a chair turned its head towards her. Narrowing her eyes, she moved to pick it up and examine it. "Clark," she said as she turned to face him. "There's a wireless camera inside this doll."

Clark, who had turned away from examining the blueprints on the wall, closed the distance between them. "Someone's watching us."

"And I can guess who it is," she replied as she looked at the doll. "Lex likes to keep an eye on the people that work for him." Lana moved to dump the doll in a trashcan, headfirst, before she reached to examine one of the drives on the table above it.

Clark, however, moved to pull off a sheet that covered one of the tables to reveal a mini Metropolis. "Lana, look at this." As she approached the table, he continued. "It's Metropolis."

"Winslow must have played out the bombing here before the attack," Lana observed as she spotted the LuthorCorp building.

"If that's the case, then the Daily Planet is Lex's next target."

Oliver's nurse strode into his room carrying a tray with his pain killers and a glass of water on top of it as she politely knocked on the door. "Excuse me, Mr. Queen? It's time for your medicine." Slightly confused at the strange behavior, she set down the tray as she approached the bed that she thought Oliver Queen was still in with the sheet over his head. But as she pulled back the blanket, she gasped as she saw the balloon man from earlier in the bed instead, his eyes wide behind his glasses and tape over his mouth. "Oh my god!" She pulled the tape off his mouth. "Where's Mr. Queen?"

"I just delivered a balloon-a-gram and the guy attacked me," Winslow Schott lied in a convincingly innocent tone.

The nurse bought it as she looked appalled before moving to unlock the handcuffs. "Here, let me help you."

"Thank you. Thank you, so much."

"You," Chloe Sullivan said as she entered the room to find the nurse quickly unlocked the handcuff keeping Winslow attached to the bed. She was returning from her data retrieval to give the information to Oliver, but obviously something else came up. "You're Winslow Schott. No, don't untie him!"

But before the nurse could react, Winslow's free hand lifted as his thumb pressed a small remote, causing the balloons in the room to explode as sleeping gas filled the space. Both women gasped while the Toymaker reached for a rebreather, and once the females fell to the floor, Winslow slipped out of the room. "I win."

"I just picked up Chloe from the hospital. She's okay, but this Toyman guy got away." Clark Kent, who was on the phone, was standing in the Isis Foundation with Chloe Sullivan only a few feet away, trying to track the other end of the wireless camera signal that was in the now dismantled doll through her laptop. "Keep looking Lana."

As Clark hung up the phone and approached Chloe, she glanced up at him. "Call me crazy, Clark, but isn't there a bomb you should be finding?"

"Tracing that cameras signal may be the only way to find Lex, and Lana's already searching for the bomb at the Daily Planet. Have you had any luck?"

"The feed to the camera's been cut, but it was definitely broadcasting to a single receiver."

"You found Lex."

"Well, I managed to sneak past the latest gaggle of ghost routers and ping the original IP address that Winslow was sending to."

"Where is he?"

"Where sort of depends on when, Clark. Lex has been on the move this whole time," Chloe replied as she nodded her head towards the room full of computer monitors directly in front of her, all of which displayed a map of Metropolis with a red dot that was continuously moving.

"I thought Lex was immobilized," Clark replied as he moved to take a closer look at the screens.

"Lex may be immobilized, but his IP address is still leaping tall wireless towers in a single bound. Now," she continued as she stood to approach Clark with a phone in her hand. "I programmed the signal into one of Oliver's satellites and synched it to my PDA." After Clark's expression didn't change as he examined the small device, Chloe clarified, "I made you a Lex tracker. Now Oliver's satellite is about to pass out of range. You only have ten minutes before the signal is gone and Lex disappears again.

"Lana?" Clark Kent called out above the obnoxious fire alarm in the basement of the Daily Planet and instantly Lana Lang was at his side.

"Clark I've searched every room and I can't find the bomb anywhere."

"You said we're a team," Clark replied with a small smile. She had searched, now it was his turn. Focusing only on sound, he used his super hearing to pin point the noise of a ticking bomb. A ticking bomb that was located high above them. Glancing to Lana, he said, "It's on the roof."

In an instant the pair were on the Daily Planet roof facing a large bomb composed of two liquid chambers. But as Clark tried to walk towards it, he instantly grew weak and returned to stand next to Lana.

"With that much kryptonite, it could take out half the city."

"Clark Kent and Lana Lang," a voice suddenly sounded from the bomb itself, drawing the suspicious attention of both people standing on the rooftop. It was then that they noticed a small camera in the middle of the bomb, facing them.

"Welcome to your destiny," Lex Luthor said through both the breathing mask attached to his face and the microphone that transmitted to the Daily Planet rooftop as he watched the pair that had ruined his life. "You've destroyed me in every way, so now I'm going to take away what matters most to you."

"Lex," Lana quietly stated, announcing the fact that she knew it was Lex Luthor himself on the other end of that camera and microphone.

"Do you know what people remember about the greatest star-crossed romances? Not how the lovers met, but the way their relationship tragically ended." The pair glanced from each other to the bomb, their worried expressions clear on their faces. "The skin Lana's wearing was designed to absorb enough meteor rock energy that you'll never be able to go near her again." Once more they glanced at each other as now they felt the pain that was sure to come.

"You're a coward, Lex," Clark said, his anger clear over the video screen. "Come out, face us!"

"No, Clark. It's time for you to face your defining moment. You could walk away, sacrificing millions of innocent lives, or defuse the bomb, sacrificing your love…forever."

Clark's jaw clenched as he wanted to face Lex in person, but Lana stepped in front of him with tears in her eyes. "Clark."

He glanced down at her, his anger subsiding for a brief moment, but when he glanced back to the bomb, it instantly returned as he made his decision. As much as he loved Lana, and now that they could finally be happy together, he couldn't not save innocent lives. He wasn't going to be responsible for their deaths and if he could save them, he would. "You have to."

Their eyes stayed locked as her hand raised to touch his cheek, and they kissed one final time, much to the growing anxiety of a watching Lex Luthor. Once their lips parted, Lana's hands dared to stray from Clark's face as she backed away from him. Instinctively, Clark's hand reached for hers, but only held it for a moment before she pulled it from his reach and continued her stride towards the kryptonite bomb, leaving Clark to stay in place and only watch. As Lana rounded the bomb to stand on the platform behind it, holding her hands above the two large containers full of kryptonite, Clark looked on painfully and hopelessly as Lex watched gleefully. And after a painful sigh from Lana, she placed her hands on the containers and instantly the kryptonite started to stream into her suit, the power of it lifting her into the air. Clark could only watch, no matter how much he wanted to help her, to stop the obvious pain she was going through. But every time he took a step closer, it hurt, so he stayed painfully still. Finally the kryptonite was gone and Lana dropped to the ground to land in a crouched position. Instinctively, Clark was concerned and took a few steps forward to aid her, but instantly he felt the pain of the kryptonite. But it couldn't compare to the painful look in Lana's teary eyes as she gazed at him.

It was that look that reminded him and instantly his anger flooded him. "Lex." And in an instant Clark was gone, leaving Lana on the rooftop as she regained her breath.

As Alfred Pennyworth sped down the road, Bruce Wayne quickly changed from common street attire to his armored attire with more difficulty than normal in the backseat of the large luxury car. It was now a matter of beating Oliver to Lex and even though it went against everything in him to save the corrupt and evil billionaire, he was not about to let Oliver kill anyone, even if it was Lex Luthor, for all three of their sakes.

Alfred slowed, his eyes wide and nervous. Before now, he had always aided his young charge in his dangerous nocturnal adventures, ones that he didn't quite approve of, from the opposite end of a radio frequency while he was safe and discrete in the caverns below Wayne Manor. But this…this was something else entirely and the fact that they were in Metropolis and not Gotham only heightened matters.

Once the car slowed to a stop nearly two blocks away from Lex's location, as according to this Winslow Schott, Batman slipped out of the car and into the shadows of Metropolis, and quite honestly, it didn't feel right. This wasn't Gotham, it wasn't his city. But until the Green Arrow got his head straight and until this Red and Blue Blur actually decided to save everyone, Batman was going to have to do the job for them tonight. As Alfred sped off in the direction from which he came, the Dark Knight slipped through the shadows as only the fluttering of his cape could be heard. The block was abandoned, leaving the lone semi-truck to idly sit on the curb where Winslow said it would be.

Now here was the hard part as he knew that Oliver would show up any moment. Batman was a myth in Gotham, and he was just a scary story that people laughed at in Metropolis. No one could see him, not even Oliver. So this was going to be more difficult than originally anticipated.

That thought was enhanced when he unlocked the back trailer door to reveal Lex Luthor stuck in a chair with machines attached to him to keep him alive.

"Hey!"

The Bat whipped around to look at the angry, and then surprised face of the driver, or so Bruce assumed, instead of the surprised face, or rather just the surprised eyes, of Metropolis's famous billionaire. But once the driver actually got a good look at the Bat, he tried to run. Bad mistake. Two batarangs connected by a rope flew out to wrap around the man's legs, causing him to stumble to the ground only a few yards away. Turning back to the trailer officially caught Lex's recovered attention.

"You!" Ah, so even the great Lex Luthor had heard of Batman. But before Lex could protest or manage to say anything else that Bruce could imagine him saying, Batman released a small sleeping gas pellet in the bald billionaire's face. Before Batman moved to remove all the tubes and wires from the machines rather than Lex and carry him into the warehouse the semi was parked in front of, he hit a small button on his belt, which sent a signal straight to Alfred. A few of the many services that the butler could provide would be needed.

The street was quiet as the truck that held the demon loomed in front of Oliver Queen. His jaw was tight, his resolve was set, and he was determined to do what was necessary to end this once and for all.

With his hand gripping the toy monkey firmly, he strode towards the truck. Crawling underneath the trailer, he secured the toy bomb between one of the gas pipes and the metal container keeping Lex Luthor hidden from the world before activating it just as Winslow had. Just as he crawled back out from underneath the truck, he heard the sudden woosh of Clark's super speed in the quiet alleyway which cued that it was time to disappear.

Clark Kent's super speed brought him to stand in front of an idle truck, which according to the PDA in his hand was where Lex's IP address was. With his resolve set, he was determined to do this. "You'll never hurt anyone again."

But as soon as he took a step forward, Lana Lang was standing in front of him, which caused him to stumble backwards as the kryptonite seemed to radiate off of her. "I know how much it hurts right now, Clark. But if you go after Lex like this, you will kill him."

Clark's eyes narrowed as the rare and true anger revealed itself. "After what he's done to us, he needs to be stopped."

"I promise you I will help you to punish Lex. But if you kill him, you will lose so much more than just us being together." Clark just continued to stare. "Clark," Lana continued. "You'll lose yourself."

But just as Clark's anger was beginning to diminish, Lana's words beginning to take effect, the truck behind them exploded into flames. They both turned to look at it in utter shock as the both realized that they couldn't punish Lex, not now.

The fire from the explosion filled Oliver Queen's brown eyes as he stood only a block away, hidden by the shadows from the view of a very distracted Clark and Lana. And as he watched the flames, a smile didn't creep over his face and he didn't feel at all glad for what he had just done. But he had ridden the world of evil, hadn't he? A confused and unsatisfied Oliver Queen slipped further into the shadows as he began his long walk back to his penthouse.

The fire from the explosion filled all three men's eyes as they watched from the window of the dark warehouse only a few yards away from the exploding truck. Bruce Wayne was sure the glass in front of them would shatter, but it only groaned in protest to the sudden heat and remained in place, separating them from the flames.

Lex Luthor, who had been woken up due to the sound of the explosion, as the sleeping gas wasn't meant to last long, stared out the window as if it was some glamorous piece of art. Things had, indeed, turned out even better than expected.

Alfred Pennyworth, though startled by the explosion, easily ignored it as he attempted to continue his work of monitoring the older billionaire's vitals before he started to fail without the necessary machines to keep him alive, machines that were now nothing more than smoke and flames. But when he moved towards the man who was currently fixated on the window once more, his employer held out his armored arm to stop him. "He's awake," the Batman growled under his breath, and the butler obediently nodded.

It was now obvious that Oliver was no longer to be trusted any more than Lex was. Perhaps Metropolis did need his help as much as Gotham did right now.

Chloe Sullivan removed the newly printed black and white photograph from the printer to examine it. And as she did, she didn't know whether to rejoice or to feel ashamed. As she set down the satellite image of the now destroyed semi-truck that had previously held the infamous Lex Luthor, she glanced to the several monitors that were currently Metropolis General's video feed to try and get some sort of clue as to where Winslow might have gone after he left.

But something else caught her eye, and it wasn't Winslow Schott.

Narrowing her green eyes as she slowly approached the room of monitors, she watched as Oliver left his hospital room with something in his hand. Clicking the pause button, her eyes narrowed further as her dreading suspicions rose, and she zoomed in on the object. The toy monkey, the same toy monkey the police found remains of at the crime scene.

"Lex deserved to die, Chloe," a watching Oliver Queen suddenly said, startling the female blonde and causing her to spin around to face the boy billionaire.

"You certainly made sure he got what he deserved," she replied with a glance back to the monitors with the still zoomed-in picture of the bomb monkey. "They identified the remains as Lex's."

This news Oliver already knew, but there was another opinion that he preferred above the police's. "And what does Clark think?"

"That Winslow turned on Lex. Pieces of a toy bomb were found in the wreckage."

He still didn't quite know if he was pleased with this answer or not. Part of him was still screaming at himself, saying it was all wrong. In attempts to prevent his conscious from giving himself away to Chloe, he scooped up the day's Daily Planet to read the headline: Toy Bomber Still at Large. "Yeah, well that makes sense," he continued, trying to reason both with himself and Chloe at the same time. "Wouldn't be like Winslow to play a game he can't win."

She just stared at him in disbelief. "Are you seriously just going to let another man take the blame for something you did?"

Dropping the paper, he turned to face her as she closed the space between them. "Chloe, Winslow's already a killer. He blew up all those people at LuthorCorp, he was ready to take down the Daily Planet. One more death's not going to make a difference."

"Are you listening to yourself? Oliver, you've really crossed a line here—"

"Lex is dead. The world is safer because of it, Clark is safe again."

"This is murder."

"This is justice. Although Clark might not be able to accept that, you know what I did was right." She still couldn't believe it and he couldn't take her accusing look anymore, so he strode past her towards the room full of monitors. "Please don't stand there and look so innocent." Turning back around to face his friend, he decided to turn the tables to cover his back in case she gave into Clark's baby blue eyes and unbelievable persistence again. "You know, I did a little video viewing of my own. It seems a certain meteor freak named Sebastian Kane died at the hospital right after he was visited by somebody who looked an awful lot like you."

She couldn't believe it. What had happened to the Oliver Queen she knew? "That was Braniac, not me."

"Was it? Because it seemed like a pretty natural instinct to protect Clark. Now that Lex is gone, you can't tell me you're not relieved.

She looked away from him for a moment before glancing back to his intimidating brown eyes. "Every fiber of my conscious wants to say that that's not true, but—"

"Then you can't tell Clark what I did. Lex just ripped the man's heart out, Chloe. He's going to need his friends around him right now more than ever."

Clark Kent strode towards the now abandoned wreckage of what was now left of Lex's last location. His mind raced, as he looked over the scene. Now that his head was clear, now that it wasn't so controlled by rage, he could see that he really didn't want to see Lex dead. Sure, he hated him for all the things that he had done, but there was some good in him somewhere, he knew that. No one deserved death, not even Lex.

But now it was too late. Lex Luthor was dead.

Scooping up some of the ashes into his hand, he tried to handle the shock of everything, of Lex's death, of losing Lana for the last time, everything. With one deep exhale, he released the ashes as the breeze spread them back along the truck remains. Taking one last long glance at the chair that Lex must have sat in for who knows how long, a chair that now was only flimsy and burnt metal in the middle of the rest of the heap, he turned and walked away.

The portrait that had previously hung alongside the other Luthor now hung slanted along the wall, its glass shattered and half of the picture covered in black soot from the bomb. Lex Luthor's portrait, or anything else for that matter, had yet to be restored from the bombing that surprisingly happened only two days before.

Oliver Queen stood among the still uncleaned debris as he stared long and hard at Lex's half visible face as the now dead billionaire's blue eyes stared back at him. His conscious raged war, a war that he doubted would ever cease. It was wrong to kill, he knew that. But wasn't he avenging his parents, serving justice for not only them, but for everyone? Lex was dangerous, far more dangerous than even Clark was willing to admit. He had to be stopped and everyone knew that prison wouldn't hold him.

He had to be killed. Right?

Glancing down at the ring he now held in between his fingers, he tilted it slightly so that the green L could reveal itself, the green L that Lex had worn so proudly.

Chloe Sullivan sat next to her best friend with her hand gingerly on her back. They had been sitting on the sofa in the living room of the apartment above the Talon for a good twenty minutes without saying a word to each other. Instead Lana Lang just glanced around the apartment and occasionally to Chloe while Chloe's green eyes mainly stayed on Lana, with the occasional unsure glance to her lap. Finally their eyes met for longer than a couple of seconds and Chloe knew that Lana now wanted to be comforted. She couldn't take the pain alone anymore. All her time spent testing and training her body to endure physical pain didn't, couldn't, train her for this.

Chloe offered a comforting hug, but as much as she appreciated it, it wasn't as comforting as Clark's would have been.

Clark Kent ascended the wooden stairs to the second story of his barn, located on the Kent family farm, retreating to the only place he could possibly feel any comfort at all, if it was even possible at this point in time with his mind as numb as it was. But he stopped short when he saw Lana Lang standing on the landing waiting for him. But now he didn't hesitate in approaching her.

"Clark, wait, I don't want to hurt you," she protested as she recognized him moving closer, her hands raised for emphasis. She was wearing black, she was mourning.

But, for her, Clark stopped. "Lex already took care of that," he replied in a darker tone than would normally be expected from the mild mannered farmboy. She was at a loss for words. "Did you talk to Dr. Groll?" She nodded once as if afraid to answer. "Can he help us?"

After a moment, she barely shook her head. "No."

Both Clark's face and heart fell. There had to be an answer, a way to fix this. "I'm going to do everything I can to fix this, Lana," he said as he started to approach her again, which caused her to back up. "I will find a way for us to be together."

"Clark, he tried everything. He can't reverse the process." He was in disbelief, numb disbelief, as her eyes already started to water. "I love you. I always will. I know what I need to do with my life now. Life is…so precious, so beautiful. And to be able to protect that, that's an amazing gift. I know you feel the same way."

"What we have is beautiful."

"Clark, we made our choice on that roof. And I know we would do it again, because both of us are driven to do this, even if we can't do it again."

"Don't leave. Don't leave again, Lana. Even if we can't be together, I want you in my life."

"That's where you're stronger than me. To…to see you on the street everyday and not be able to touch you…" she replied quietly as she shook her head, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Stay."

"No," she whispered. Tightening his jaw, he stepped forward. "Clark, don't."

But he didn't listen. Breathing heavily, he continued up the last bit of stairs and strode closer to her even as she backed up as much as she could. He was in pain, she could see that clearly, but he wouldn't stop, he wouldn't listen. She was practically sobbing as she shook her head, "Clark." He got within two feet of her before he nearly fell over, but he kept his balance, his bright blue eyes focused only on her before continuing forward to put his hands on her shoulders. Instantly, her hands rose to rest on his arms, but she couldn't stop him when he pulled her close for a kiss. One final kiss. A final kiss that was already showing its weakening effects as the skin around his mouth began to grow pale and cracked as the kryptonite seemed to seep into his skin from her suit.

But suddenly he pulled back, unable to take anymore, though he desperately wanted to. Finally, he fell to the ground, leaving Lana sobbing as she half-heartedly tried to help him up. She had to go, now. It was already painful enough. Finally gathering the strength to walk away from Clark, who was still trying to get up off the floor, she said through tears, "Goodbye, Clark."

But she couldn't go entirely, not yet. Pausing on the stairs, she turned to face him once more as he paused in his struggles to glance at her. "That night at the cemetery, when I introduced you to my parents, you told me that I would never be alone. That my mom would always be watching over me. We're in each other's hearts, Clark. I will always be with you. No matter what. I love you."

Finally tears welled up in his eyes as he realized this was going to be the last time he saw her, and he couldn't do anything about it; he was too weak. As she turned to descend the stairs, he watched in numbing pain as she disappeared. It wasn't until after he had lost sight of her that he could finally bring himself to whisper it, "I love you." Returning to a sitting position, now he didn't try to get up; he didn't want to anymore.

Oliver Queen finally made it back to his penthouse, but his conscious still wasn't at peace yet. He would just have to learn to push it aside, to deal with it. He had to endure.

Stepping off the private lift and into the main room, in which the replaced half clock face that acted as doors as well as decoration loomed, he only took two steps before he noticed something that wasn't there when he last left. A small, white envelope was perched atop his neat desk and with narrowed eyes, he approached it only to scoop it up into his hands.

In elegant cursive, his name was on the front of the envelope, and once he opened the letter inside, he found only a small piece of paper with the same, neat penmanship spoiling a small part of the white.

'We need to talk.'

A slight frown crossed the boy billionaire's handsome face, his dull anxiety over what he had committed nearly an hour before acting as an unpleasant backdrop for anonymous notes. He flipped it back over again, searching for a name, a clue, anything, and finding nothing. There was nothing else in the envelope as well. Setting it back on the table he had found it on, the ominous message stared up at him as he stared back with an unsure expression. Tomorrow he would find a way to figure out who left the note, but right now he was just numb. And someone knew why he was numb.