"Is he all right?"

Superman tilts his head slightly to one side. "He's fine. He's still asleep."

Lois feels little relief. The five years spent fretting over a medically fragile child have only served to prep her for more years of fretting over a superhuman one. "I don't want him to wake up without us there."

"If he does wake up – well. I can fly pretty fast," he says, smiling at her. Then he turns to look over the Metropolis skyline and a more serious expression crosses his face. "Here comes our visitor."

"Good," she declares. For one thing, her recently traumatized son is all the way across town, alone, and she wants to be there with him. For another, it's ridiculously cold and windy up here on the Daily Planet roof, and it's nearly two in the morning as well.

Dark, cold, scary. She shivers and tries not to show it.

Superman steps back and shifts position, moving to block her from any danger as a sweep of black shadow lands on the rooftop.

Lois is having none of that. She comes out from behind him and says, "So just what are you doing here in Metropolis, 'Batman'? Looking for better press?"

Batman looks at her for a long moment, then rasps out, "I'm here to reach an understanding."

Talk about dark, cold, and scary: All of Bruce Wayne's considerable charm is gone. She's taken aback by the transformation despite herself.

Superman is essentially Clark – the real Clark, not the fumbling self-caricature – only amplified a thousandfold. Bruce Wayne to Batman, on the other hand, is a total personality transplant. And not for the better, either.

"About what?" she challenges, refusing to be cowed.

"Everything." Batman puts his attention on Superman, ignoring Lois. "My identity is a secret."

"Agreed," Superman says. "As long as you don't share mine."

"Agreed. Don't come into Gotham."

Superman nods. "I said that I wouldn't, and I still mean that. To be honest, it doesn't need my presence now anyway. You've done a remarkable job."

Batman waits a beat, then goes on in the same curt tone, as if Superman hadn't just complimented his work. "I work by myself."

"I don't usually need help," Superman says, sounding just a bit irritated now.

Lois doesn't blame him. She's highly irritated. She's been shunted to the sidelines, and she's never been a big fan of sitting on the sidelines, especially when people are being rude right to her face.

"Gotham City is my priority. Not anywhere else."

"Don't worry, I won't expect you to join the jet set." Superman crosses his arms over his chest – exasperated at last, but still, of course, endeavoring to be polite. "Now, please understand this. I'm not willing to compromise Jason's safety-"

Batman says flatly, "That's why you left him alone tonight."

Superman tenses, frowns, and opens his mouth.

"So you do have a superpower," Lois cuts in, not at all bothering to hide her anger at Batman. "Being a jackass."

Both men look at her, surprised that their macho pissing contest has been interrupted before it can even begin.

Superman, she knows at a sideways glance, is not really that surprised.

"You can't bully Superman," she says to their visitor. "And, for the record, a borderline psychotic dressed up like a bat is the least frightening thing in my life right now."

"Lois -" Superman starts, sounding concerned.

"It's okay - I'm just trying to reach an understanding." She puts her hands on her hips and returns her full attention to Batman. "Maybe I agreed to leave my son and come stand on a freezing rooftop in the middle of the night because I wanted to say 'thank you' to the man who saved his life. Maybe I wanted to ask for a favor on my son's behalf. Maybe I'm changing my mind because that man is too busy trying to intimidate the people he should be working with, because he thinks being a billionaire jackass in a cape makes him superior. You're not, thank you. And if you ever imply again that what happened to Jason was our fault, I will make you very, very sorry."

Batman looks at Superman, who raises his eyebrows and gives a little shrug – saying, without actually saying, Go ahead, try your best.

Dark, cold, and scary as their visitor may be, it's a foregone conclusion that Lois will win.

Batman's smart. He figures that out after a moment and says: "A favor."

Asking a question or apologizing is beyond his abilities, it seems.

Still, Lois smiles. "Just a small one. Nothing a big scary guy like yourself can't handle."