He knew. Of course he knew, he was Batman, and Batman knew pretty much everything.

But you see, even though he was Batman, Bruce Wayne is only human, and as every other human does, he -rarely- makes mistakes too.

His mistake was that he was in denial. Not only WAS IT DENIAL of his own nightmares and thoughts of what could -and what did- happen, but also Lex Luthor's fears. However, here was a big difference between the two: Luthor had actually done something. He tried to stop Superman, he tried to warn the others several times but he would always be stopped, a few times even by Batman himself.

While he... he did nothing.

But it wasn't always like that. At the beginning, Bruce had contingency plans for everyone, including Batman and Superman themselves. He had a way to stop them both if the worst would happen.

But that was, of course, before they fell in love.

Even when Batman's will got weakened thanks to the emotions he started feeling for the Man of Steel, he still decided that any kind of relationship non-work related would not be of any good for anyone, and so he locked his feelings away. As he had always done.

On the other hand, the kryptonian was stronger and persistent like never before. He made it clear since the moment he realized his feeling for the Dark Knight, that they would be together. That they should. Eventually, Kal-El found out that the Bat was wearing a mask and that indeed, in reality, loved him back.

But he would listen to no reason; Bruce tried. That time at the Watchtower he really did try to explain to Clark the danger of such relationship, that they should just focus on their vigilante and hero job and move on. Instead the kryptonian allowed his love for Bruce to take over and took Bruce for the first time; kind of against his will, kinda silently relieved.

That one time was the beginning of the end. More specifically, the beginning of the end of the Batman.

He saw the possibility of it happening and wasn't able to avoid it. Falling in love with the last son of Krypton was his most terrible mistake, but not the last one, no.

Neither was the mistake the Dark Knight had planned it to be... but that he did not know.

"Please, Bruce, you must understand, I did this for you" the kryptonian had said when he murdered his children. "I did this because I love you".

And while it sounded horribly cruel, Bruce knew that was the truth. His most beloved ones had been taken from his world by a cold-blooded, stupidly-irrational and stubborn alien. When had he started to call him like that? Bruce thought Clark was the love of his life, the partner which whom he could finally be happy with... and then the worst happened.

But it was done, and nothing could change that. As Superman said himself, he was no human, no kyptonian, just Bruce Wayne's lover... and so, everything he had to do to redeem himself from his mistake, was kill Bruce Wayne.

His body was shaking once again. But it wasn't because of fear, shock, anger or excitement, but for all of them, at the same time. He had felt it before, Batman was sure, but this time the shaking would not leave him. He was extremely angry; he feared what he would have to -or already had- become; Bruce was partly still in shock because of what his lover had become, but mostly, Batman was excited for what was yet to come.

Heh, it was just his entire body shaking, he could live with that.

"Everyone fights you with Kryptonite".

His son once said to his loved one.

"I'd use magic".

There's something only a few people know... no, knew, when they were alive. Bruce had returned to Zatara's side more than willing to learn. To learn one thing and one thing only.

"I'd draw a circle on the ground, then a pointy star. Chat with some demon. Blah, blah, blah, my soul. Blah, blah, blah. Prest-o change-o, abracadabra, you're dead."

But killing the Man of Tomorrow couldn't be possible by the only means of Zatara's magic spell. He needed a demon, as his own son once pointed, and with the help of a surprisely overwhelmed Hellblazer, the deed was done.

So he stood, his body betraying him and not making it possible to remain still as he wasn't able to control it very well, not with his now habitual shaking along with some random and uncontrollable twitches on his face. The most notorious one being the random rise of the corners of his mouth, twisting his lips just enough to form some sort of smile.

Meanwhile, The Superman was bent in pain, knees to the ground and hands and nails scratching the air desperately trying to remove what was irremovable. In reality it was slowly killing him.

Kal-El looked at the man in front of him, terrorized like never before at the look of him. Once again, he saw how the love for him that once existed in Bruce's heart was completely gone, but this time, emptiness and coldness wasn't the only thing there. Kal-El saw joy. Desperate as he was, he tried to reach him with the power no one could ever hope to remove from Superman: love.

"Bruce, please, you're killing me. Stop this, and we'll work this out. Please, I love you."

The twitch on Batman's face sharpened, which lead to a better-shaped smile. Seconds later though, he forced it to disappear from his face and frowned.

He was losing the little control he still had left.

The Bat leaned towards the Man of Steel to take a closer look at his misery, and finally spoke.

"No... yes, and... again, no" he spoke slowly, as he were talking to a little, dumb child "No, Bruce is not here anymore; yes, I am killing you and again, no. You do not love me. You loved the man I used to be, if that could ever have been called love." The man allowed himself a little laugh "Heh, Superman, you're insane!"

The kryptonian was clinging to the profound love he felt for Bruce, but with that bizarre image of the Batman he had now, he started to feel more and more hopeless.

If not by love, then he would get out of this by force. Heat vision, strength, flight, even his solar flare... but it was pointless, he could not use any of his powers.

"You are defeated" said Batman, at the same time that Kal thought it. "You see, I..."

The Bat looked like he was having an internal fight with himself. Besides the shaking that had never subsided as if his temperature was at zero degrees, his face couldn't stay straight.

"You see, the real problem is that I loved you. I loved you the way I hadn't loved anyone ever in my entire life. I loved you to the point that I was terrified but careless at the same time. I was with you, why should I fear anything? I had a God at my side, what could go wrong?"

The Bat looked far into the horizon, with an unnatural and twisted smile on his face that was definitely not his.

"Everything went wrong. And I knew it, Kal. I knew it all since the very beginning yet still remained in denial. I was too blinded by our love and preferred to look the other way , while you... while you were becoming this".

The man casting the spell to kill him looked at him again with disgust clearly reflected in his eyes. Superman understood nothing, thinking someone else had taken over his beloved Bruce.

"I loved you with all Bruce Thomas Wayne ever had... I ignored every single instinct, every fiber on my body that was telling me not to, but I gave in... I fell irredeemably in love with you." He made a long pause in which his expression changed again, looking desperate and... in pain. "But then you became what I once feared the most. You stopped being the man I loved, you stopped being a human at all. You killed my sons so that I wouldn't have to worry about them getting killed. You killed dozens of people in my name, in the name of our love. And I knew then that I couldn't love you anymore, how was I supposed to do that? Clark wasn't there anymore. You're not Clark. You killed him when you murdered my sons... and so I had to kill Bruce."

Kal-El's heartbeat grew weaker by the minute; he was divided between in his dying self and trying to make sense out of what his lover was saying but he couldn't understand. A rush of emotions took over the former Superman, as he desperately tried to stay focused, to stay alive and reach up to his lover.

"You should know, Clark" the Batman spoke, finally sounding like himself again "You should know that if I ever made this decision, it would be for good".

Tears came down the kryptonian's eyes as he realized he was almost out of life, still not comprehending why would the love of his life would end up like this.

"Bruce..."

He tried to reach towards his lover who at first dodged him annoyed, but then a second later got on his knees and caught Clark's face with his hands.

"No, no" he urged "You must understand. You must understand why I am killing you. You see, I needed to fix you. I needed to redeem my mistake, I had to save the world from you, from us. It would be safer now, without us..."

"Bruce..." before his final breath, Clark whispered "I love you, Bruce"

Furious, the Bat held tight onto the corpse and then threw it to the ground, laughing and crying hysterically as his pain was finally over.

"I needed to save you from yourself , and I had to erase you from my world as I couldn't watch this twisted version of you... and didn't want you to see what I would also become."

Bruce's last sane thought vanished as the laughing Batman was born.