Author's Note: The 365 Project is an experimental project to write and post at least one short every day for the next year, not including my semi-regular bi-weekly updates. This is The 365 Project, 2 March.

Superman TAS AU with Justice League references. 'To the victor goes the spoils', they say.

Disclaimer: "Superman: The Animated Series" is the property of Warner Brothers Entertainment and DC Comics and is used for entertainment purposes without permission or intent to profit.

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"Grave Difference"
By J.T. Magnus, 'Turbo'

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"And now, the hostess of the GravesCorp Gala Fundraiser for Families of Fallen Soldiers, GravesCorp CEO Ms. Mercedes Graves and her escort, Kal-El of Krypton," some innane twit announced on the television in the prison block's common room.

In a corner of the room with his arms crossed over his chest, Alexander 'Lex' Luthor glowered at the television and the couple displayed on the screen as his former-bodyguard stepped up to a podium to thank everyone at the Gala for attending and for their donations, saying that there were few causes more worthy than looking after those that protected and their families. Lex knew, even if no one else did, that it was meant as a subtle jab at him and it infuriated him almost as much as the sheer sight of the person he had trusted with his company only to be betrayed by standing there on stage beside his worst enemy, dressed in matching Kryptonian clothing. He hated the sight of her in that robe smiling and working the crowd as though it were her birthright. She was nothing before he found her, just another thug on the street. If it hadn't be for him, she'd be dead or in jail now, not in control of a multi-billion dollar company - his multi-billion dollar company, no matter what she called it now.

'How dare she abandon me here for the alien,' Lex fumed mentally, already beginning plans for his revenge on them both as soon as he was freed.

-o0o-

In Metropolis, Mercy stepped back away from the podium at the end of her speech to boisterous applause, not the least of which came from the man escorting her.

'Good speech,' Kal-El mouthed.

"Your turn," Mercy retorted in a sub voce tone that she knew he could hear.

Instead of responding, Kal-El schooled his face as he stepped up to the vacant podium and began to give a speech about moving past suspicion and distrust to work together. Something that both he and Mercy had become more familiar with over the months since Lex had been put back in jail. After she refused to turn 'LexCorp' back over to Lex she took the steps of changing the company's name to GravesCorp and liquidating most of Lex's 'special projects' aimed at causing problems for Superman, going so far as to go to the Kryptonian for help in convincing some of the scientists and researchers who argued that they only took orders from Lex Luthor to stop their work.

And with all that time spent around Mercy, it came as no surprise to anyone but Superman - who always tried to look for the good in people - that Lois began to grow suspicious of the time that he was with the red-head and began to make accusations about it all being part of one of Lex's plots and how she didn't think he would be so stupid as to be falling for it. Any other time, perhaps, he might have allowed Lois' suspicion and jealousy to bounce off of him, but even with Kryptonian biology and solar radiation fueling his body, he could still reach a point of being emotionally tired. Tired of being caught in the middle between a woman and a reporter that shared the same body - with the reporter usually winning out - and it being less a triangle, or even quadrangle with his own secret identity taken into account, than feeling like a nut in the cracker or a piece of paper between the blades of a pair of scissors. Tired of being Superman for the rescues and the stories and good old farm-boy Clark Kent for Lois to lord things over. Tired of having to listen to her father's rants about how Superman was an alien menace who should be captured and dissected in the interests of national security whenever General Lane came to visit his daughter and that same daughter never standing up for the man who repeatedly saved her life. Tired of being taken for granted. So he pulled away, Superman began spending more time with the Justice League, Clark Kent took a foreign correspondent position in Atlantis - thanks to Arthur, who covered for him by claiming that it was time Atlantis became more involved in the outside world and that Clark Kent's reputation for honest and fair journalism made him the Atlantean monarch's choice for the first, and so far only, surface world news reporter allowed to report from the underwater kingdom - and Kal-El had found himself spending even more time with Mercy Graves, someone who knew as well as - maybe even better than - he did what it was like to feel used and finally break free.

Out of the shadows of Lois and Lex, their relationship began to grow until it reached the point it was at; where it wasn't uncommon to see Kal-El - not Superman - making public appearances and either escorting or being accompanied by Mercy. Unlike others who focused simply on the fact that he wasn't human, Mercy accepted it, going so far as to reveal that he wasn't the only one with a unique heritage; until Wonder Woman had appeared, she had always thought the stories she had grown up with about her great-grandmother being an Amazon were just stories. She had then made a remark that as long as he didn't expect her to start spouting off about Hera and Minerva, she wouldn't expect him to act like some Kryptonians he'd never known; it had gotten a laugh out of them both. It had been her idea, though, for them to appear at the Gala wearing Kryptonian clothes rather than his costume and a dress for her, with the simple argument that it would be a visual example of former opponents working together, something that could only help reinforce the message he was trying to send.

Coming to the end of his speech, Kal-El put a hand on the crest displayed on his chest, "When I first became publicly known, newspapers named me 'Superman' because of the shape of my family's crest."

"Personally, I've never really liked the name, but what can you do?" Kal-El shrugged, "When Lois Lane gets an idea in her head, it's hard to change it."

A few laughs spread through the attendees, especially those that knew Lois better than others, at the truth of that statement.

"By a trick of biology, I've ended up with skin that can stop bullets," he went on, "That doesn't make me a superman - the real supermen are the ones who don't have that and still go out there to put their lives on the line for us; the soldiers and first responders, they're the real heroes and they're the ones we're here to honor tonight. Not just the fallen and their families, but the ones that are out there right now, waiting for the call to duty. There's nothing else I can say except... 'Thank you'."

This time, it was Mercy who led the applause as he stepped back from the podium.