A Rose By Any Other Name
Part II
They have arrived.
Let them come. I look forward to the contest. The strongest metahumans in the world versus the Bat.
One way or another, this will be my final stand.
***
That pounding would be Superman assaulting the manor. Let him tear the place down; I don't care. I haven't set foot into the mansion for nearly a year. The Bruce Wayne persona has long been obsolete.
But Superman's attack is not the main one; I have coached them in tactics for too long for that. This is merely a diversion. Another team, probably Jon and Shayera, will be coming up from below. And J'onn will be scouting me.
Indeed, my sensors tell me something is in the air. I speak into the darkness.
"Come down, J'onn. Don't insult me."
The air coalesces into the green form of the Martian. J'onn floats to the ground and nods at me.
"I am sorry, Batman," he says. Out of all the Lords, J'onn probably empathizes with me the most. And I with him.
"I'm sorry, too," I reply, truly meaning it.
And then I burn him.
Or more correctly, I blast him with nanites that cling to his body and set off a chemical reaction that ignites his skin. Leftovers from the Protocols.
I have been projecting thoughts of defeat and surrender to conceal my true intentions from the telepath, and my offensive catches him off guard. He screams, an awful sound, as he burns.
I kick him, hard enough to daze, then shove his burning form into a specially prepared containment chamber. It is constantly fed with oxygen. He loses cohesion of his body, forming into strange, twisted, shapes as the fire continues.
"I'm sorry," I say again to the screaming mass. He will not die, but while the fire lasts he will not be a threat.
I return to my seat and wait for my next opponent.
***
It turns out to be Superman. Fitting that the two of us finally meet, alone, on the field of battle, with nothing but our respective strengths. And weaknesses.
His eyes are daggers as he glares at me. He notices J'onn and snarls.
"Traitor," he accuses.
"To our mockery of a League," I agree.
He doesn't like that answer. "We did what we had to do."
"And I do what I have to."
He nods grudgingly, an equal giving respect to an equal. "So do I." His voice grows distant. "Batman. You are guilty of treason. The punishment is death." The words we have spoken to so many others in the past two years.
He crouches and prepares to spring. It will take him less than an eyeblink to crush my head.
"Clark," I say before he leaps. He stops—I have not called him that in almost a year. I owe him this much. "You know who I am. You know what I am."
He looks at me, puzzled.
My hand is at my belt. "You know what I do."
His eyes narrow and he races toward me, too fast for me to react and press down on the button I'm fingering. But I started pressing before he had even begun moving. Even so, his hands are already wrapped around my throat, choking the life out of me.
Then the lights go on.
Four Kryptonite lamps I have jury-rigged together in the past hour cast their emerald glow on us. Clark gasps; his iron grip immediately weakens. He strains to finish crushing my windpipe, and almost succeeds. But he finally staggers back, the poisonous green ore draining his strength.
I choke and cough when I try to speak. Something is definitely broken.
But I am alive.
And now I open another compartment in my belt and pull out a tiny green ring, slip it onto my finger. Clark's eyes widen as I approach him.
***
I wish I could say I fought and defeated all of them, that the human triumphed over the group of metas out for his blood. It would make for a good story.
But the Justice Lords are not a storybook enemy. Once set in their ways, there is not a force on Earth that could stop them. Certainly not a Bat whose head, they decided, would look better separated from his shoulders.
As it was, I came very close. Shayera and Jon arrive right after Superman falls. I neutralize Hawkgirl with intricate traps of grappling tasers and electrified nets.
Jon is harder; I have no direct counter to the cosmic power of his ring. He chases me throughout the cave, his constructs sniffing me out no matter where I hide. A green boulder crushes my arm; a sword drives into my leg. I dig deep into my assortment of gadgets and toys to hold him off, but he is winning.
So I attack him indirectly. He loves Shayera; they have probably been sleeping together. In the past, I would have known such things as part of my dossiers on my teammates. Now, I don't care enough to bother.
"Listen to me," I shout during a pause in our fighting. I point to where Shayera is wrapped in a metallic coil, and hold up a beeping remote. "I press this, explosives in the coil go off and she dies. You can save her and get out of here, or you can finish me."
He does love her; the moment of hesitation costs him. I have positioned us so the Batplane is right behind him, ordnance ready, and my fingers are already at work.
I press the remote, which does nothing but emit a loud bang and a harmless cloud of smoke from Shayera's trap. But it looks like she is hurt. Jon's shields drop as he rushes to her aid.
The Batplane fires its missiles and the canisters of chemicals find their target. The first volley stuns him; the next renders him unconscious.
I try to catch my breath. The fighting has taken its toll. My suit is ragged; blood flows from a dozen wounds. I feel lightheaded. But I have won—
And then something hits me from behind.
My head snaps back as I fall. I catch a glimpse of short black hair and a red bodysuit. Diana.
Stupid, I tell myself as the world goes black.
Never trust anyone.
***
I awaken groggily. I can't move. Everything hurts.
I find myself chained to a set of restraints usually reserved for metahuman prisoners. Not that they are needed; my whole body feels broken. I could no more escape than I could lift a building over my head.
The Lords—most of who can lift buildings over their heads—are gathered around a table in the Batcave, facing me as if they were a judging panel. Or more correctly, a firing squad. All of them are alive and well; none of my countermeasures were lethal.
Too bad, I think in a moment of bitterness.
Diana is seated at the left edge of the table. She doesn't look at me. Superman is in the middle. He looks furious.
"Batman," he says once they realize I am awake. "I'll make this simple. You are guilty of the crimes of treason, malfeasance, deadly assault, and attempted murder."
I stare at him without flinching. "We were wrong," I say. I look at Diana; she will not return my gaze. "What we did was wrong."
Superman doesn't respond to my remark. "The penalty for your crimes is death." His normally blue orbs begin to glow red.
I close my eyes and wait to die.
***
A few moments later, I realize I am still alive.
I open my eyes and see Diana in front of me, her bracers deflecting Superman's heat vision into the ground. The rays are bubbling stone.
"Diana!" Superman is on his feet, along with the rest of the Lords. "What are you doing?!"
"Enough, Kal," she says. "I will not watch him die, too."
"He is a traitor!"
"We were wrong," she tells him. Her voice is trembling. "I was wrong. All those people we killed…Hera…"
"If you help a traitor, then you share his fate."
She stares at him, then looks back at me. She must see something in my eyes, for her voice grows strong. "So Hera help me, I do."
Superman blurs. His fist smashes into Diana before she can react; the impact of her body craters the ground. But she's on her feet in an eyeblink, and the two strongest metas on Earth go at it. The cave shakes with their blows.
J'onn phases into the floor and tries to separate them, to little avail.
Shayera and Stewart alternate between staring at me and watching the contest of strength in awe.
"We were wrong," I tell them.
"We did what we had to do!" Stewart roars, his ring blazing.
The ceiling is beginning to crumble from the force of Superman and Diana's blows. I ignore the dust that drifts onto my face. "The ends do not justify the means. Not those means. Not ever."
Superman pounds Diana into the ground. His fists are jackhammers as he crushes her head into the rock. She snaps her head back, butts him in the stomach, then follows with a series of punches and kicks that fling him into the wall. The cave shakes.
Stewart growls. "You knew the rules. You broke them." A green rifle forms in his hands.
"I did what I had to do. What was right!"
I struggle uselessly at my bonds as he hefts the rifle. "You betrayed us!"
"We can not kill people to justify our course!"
"You do not betray your unit!" The rifle is aimed at my face.
"We were wrong!" I shout.
He pulls the trigger.
Bullets spit out of the muzzle, but suddenly disappear. Stewart gives a strangled cry, his constructs disappearing as he loses concentration.
Shayera stands behind him, mace crackling.
"I'm sorry, my love," she whispers, as he slumps to the ground. She glares at me.
I nod. "Thank you."
"I'm not doing it for you," she says angrily. She stalks off toward the two still-battling forms, mace at the ready. The next words are flung over her shoulder.
"I'm doing it because you were right."
***
It took all four of us to finally stop Clark. J'onn and Diana to hold him down while Shayera blasted him with her mace and I prepared the Kryptonite restraints. It turns out they were not necessary. Somehow, J'onn got through to him, touched his mind and found where the boy scout from Smallville still existed.
He broke down. They all wept that day.
I stood in the shadows and said nothing.
***
I sit in the Batcave, alone once again.
Dick called me last week. He is doing well; he and Barbara have gotten married. He wanted to know how I would feel about them visiting. I told him to do whatever he likes. He said he might drop in sometime.
I should call him back.
Or I should tidy up the Cave. It is still an enormous mess from our battle weeks ago. Trays and computers upturned, shattered glass and steel, slabs of broken stone everywhere. Blood, too, from our more vicious fights.
I should do something. Anything. But all I do is sit here and brood.
We were wrong.
I killed…
I don't remember how many I've killed. My hands are bloodied forever.
"Forgive me," I whisper. I don't know who I'm talking to. Alfred? My parents? Dick and Barbara?
My former teammates?
The Lords have disbanded. Superman insisted on standing trial for what he termed his "crime against humanity". Not a jury in the world would convict him, but he insisted. He was found innocent, of course, but he has retreated from public view. I hope he does not become like me; there is too much good in him to give in to darkness. He has Lois, who still loves him despite the way he treated her. Perhaps she will be his guide back to life.
My beard itches. I should shave.
Shayera and Jon parted ways. He could not get over her betrayal in striking him over me. She returned to her home planet of Thanagar. I believe he is currently mustering up the courage to pursue her. I should talk to him.
I should do many things. I haven't done any of them.
J'onn disappeared somewhere in the wilderness. He said he needed time to think over everything that had happened, but that he would return. I miss him, sometimes. The alien was one of the few that could truly understand me. I should look for him.
So many things to do. No desire to do anything at all.
Diana…
She has disappeared. I am afraid that she returned to Themyscira to stand trial for her crimes against the Amazons. They will probably execute her; Amazons do not take kindly to the murder of their sisters. I should go rescue her.
I just sit here.
It has been weeks since the battle of the Lords. I have not bathed or eaten since then. I don't remember sleeping, but I must have dozed off at some point or another.
A beeping catches my attention. Someone is trying to use the transporter. Normally a glance at the monitors would tell me who it is, but those were shattered during the brawl. I could walk over to the transporter to check. But I don't care enough to.
Whoever it is, steps into the Cave. His tread is soft, almost inaudible. He walks toward my chair, hovers behind me. There is a faint scent of—
I turn my head to see Diana.
***
We stare at each other for an eternity. Her hair is still short and she is wearing civilian clothes, neat and crisp. Her nose wrinkles. I must smell terrible.
"Hello, Bruce," she finally says.
"What do you want?"
"You need a bath."
I stare at her. The faint smile on her face wavers and disappears.
"Bruce, I came here to…" she trails off.
We never spoke much before. We never needed to; we worked together well, both on the battlefield and in the bedroom. We understood each other; there was never a need to talk.
But now there is.
I open my mouth. The words are hard to form; my brain is rusty and unused to speaking.
"I'm glad to see you," I say.
The smile on her face is brilliant.
***
We talk for a long time.
Sometime during our conversation she has taken my hand. I don't pull away. I tell myself it is because to do so would take too much effort.
She sits next to me now, though I can see her nostrils flaring occasionally when she catches a whiff of my stench. In between those whiffs she tries desperately to hold her breath. It's almost funny.
Finally, she breaks out laughing. I raise an eyebrow at her.
"Bruce," she says, still giggling. "You need a bath." She stands and tugs at my arm. "Come," she orders.
I allow her to lead me out of the Cave and into the Manor. The place is cold and lifeless. It smells musty and damp; mold is growing on the walls.
Alfred would have a fit.
She turns on all the lights, opens all the windows. She leads me to the master bedroom, where she draws a bath for me.
She waits outside while I scrub weeks' worth of sweat and grime off my body. The water is grayish-brown when I am done.
I stand at the mirror and stare at the gaunt, bearded face that looks back at me. I reach for a razor and begin shaving. This routine action is surprisingly comforting. I cut myself a few times, but nothing serious. When I finally emerge from the bathroom, I look somewhat human again.
Her eyes widen when she sees me. "Hera," she breathes. She come to me and wraps her arms around my body. My own hands move tentatively to hold her.
Her head is pressed against my shoulder. "I missed you, Bruce."
I find my voice. "I…missed you, too."
She steps back, pokes a finger into my ribs. "When's the last time you ate?"
It takes me a moment to remember. "Two weeks ago."
I'm not sure how to categorize the expression that briefly crosses her face. Anger? Surprise? Despair?
"Bruce…"
I stare at her beautiful face, full of love and concern. Something inside me breaks. A sob wracks my body.
Her face is wet, too.
Before, the only way we had to release emotions was through physical means, in the battlefield or the bedroom. Fighting or fucking. All that we could do.
Now there's another way. Words and tears spill out, a flood that cannot be dammed or stopped.
We cry against each other for a long time.
That night, we don't fuck.
We make love.
End