Disclaimer: The Justice League and all related characters and elements are trademarks of DC Comics Inc., a subsidiary of the Warner Bros. Global Brands and Experiences division of Warner Bros. I own nothing except the plot, though not the source material. Enjoy your first superhero fanfiction from me!

Chapter 1: A Hero's Work

2004 A.D.

METROPOLIS
FEBRUARY 7, 19:38 EST

The night was falling fast in Metropolis as Superman followed the sound of a police radio to the north side of town. Intergang was up to no good again after a month of relative inactivity, and the Man of Steel was going to make sure that Intergang would be off the evening news for another month or more if he could swing it. After a few seconds, Superman finally arrived at a run-down warehouse which was now surrounded by the police and the Special Crimes Unit and used his X-ray vision to see what the trouble was.

What Superman saw made his eyes widen with revulsion. A few of Intergang's lowlife members were there at the moment, clad in bulletproof armor and armed with highly advanced laser weaponry, and they were standing in a ring around a number of children aged six to eleven years. Bruno Mannheim was there, and Superman saw him scoff as SCU chief Maggie Sawyer called through her megaphone, "Attention, Intergang! We are giving you no more than one second to release your hostages and step into the open before we will respond with force!"

"Actually, you and your tin-pot wannabe cops are gonna back off and go home, or the kiddies are coming out looking like jigsaw puzzles!" Mannheim sneered. Then he turned to his goons and said, "Rub 'em out if those chumps try anything."

The other gangsters nodded, but before they knew what was happening, the back wall was blasted into a thousand pieces by brute force, and there stood Superman with a scowl on his face that could rival Batman's.

The gangsters backed away from the very irked Man of Steel when Mannheim said, "What are you waiting for, peabrains?! Blast him already!"

One of the more sensible gangsters answered fearfully, "Are you crazy, boss? You know these things ain't gonna work on Superman!"

"SHOOT HIM!" Mannheim hollered.

Now more afraid of their employer, the gangsters fired their laser cannons, but the beams only glanced harmlessly off Superman's chest. Superman then flew at the villains and knocked two of them off their feet and into some crates of smuggled armaments. Next, he seized one gangster by the collar and tossed him across the room like a ragdoll and pushed another against the wall. When two others tried to attack him, Superman merely blew them away with his super-breath.

While Superman created this diversion, Chief Sawyer and the police helped the captive children escape through the smashed wall. However, Mannheim noticed a little brunette girl in a yellow T-shirt and jeans was last in the line and a nasty idea came to his head. He took a blaster from the floor, then grabbed the girl in a headlock and tightened his grip though she struggled hard.

The girl was almost in tears and she cried, "Let me go! Please!"

"I'm gonna feel better after this," Mannheim smirked as he primed the blaster, when suddenly two beams of pure heat melted it down to the grip and Mannheim released the girl with a yelp as he clutched his burnt hand. In an instant, he felt himself whisked off by his collar and slammed against the side wall, feeling his arms and back go numb and then flare into pain. When his eyes became clear again, Mannheim nearly started whimpering like a hurt dog when he saw the face in front of him.

Superman was glaring at Mannheim so fiercely that it would have curdled milk, but he restrained himself from doing anything that he would regret later. However, he did have something that he had been wanting to say for a long while, and he hoped it would stick.

"I knew you were cold-blooded, Mannheim," Superman growled. "I didn't think you were barbaric."

Mannheim felt the sweat pour down his face and gulped, "What are you gonna do to me?"

"The sensible thing, as always," Superman replied. And with those words, he tossed Mannheim out of the warehouse into the waiting hands of the police and watched as the gangster and his goons were roughly shoved into the backs of the police cars. Then he turned to the girl who Mannheim had very nearly hurt and smiled at her, which had the remarkable effect of calming her, then took her in his arms like a father carrying his child to bed.

The parents of the abducted children had all arrived and were embracing their sons and daughters with all the love they had. However, there was one woman who was in tears as she spoke with Chief Sawyer, and Superman knew that she was the mother of the girl he had just saved from Mannheim personally. He floated over to them and set the girl on her feet, and he smiled when her mother cried her name for joy.

"Penny!"

"Mommy!"

Superman's smile grew wide as Penny ran to her mother, who hugged her and covered her with kisses. Then he got a surprise when Penny threw her arms around him and said softly, "Thank you, Superman."

"Glad to be of help, Penny," he replied. "It's why I'm here."

The other boys and girls all got to thank Superman for saving their lives and their mothers and fathers shook his hand. The SCU officers all admitted that if they had acted on their own, it is possible that there would have been casualties. He really is a guardian angel in a sense, they thought as they thanked him.

Superman gave them all a smile and said, "Thank you all for your attention, but I'm only here to support law enforcement. Ordinary men and women who risk their lives to keep others safe, they're the real heroes. I want to wish you all the very best, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve Metropolis. Good night to you all."

Then he took to the air once more, and as the Man of Steel flew back toward downtown Metropolis, he heard the SCU officers, the rescued children, and their parents all cheering for him. But his smile was not because of their thanks, but because he had done what was right and innocent lives had been saved. That was all Superman wanted.


GOTHAM CITY
FEBRUARY 7, 19:39 EST

"Acid. Why is it always acid?"

One could say that Robin was tired of the same brand of traps used to catch him and his mentor. After nearly three weeks of hardly any crime in sight, Batman and the Boy Wonder had gone after the Joker and Two-Face and after a week of madcap pursuit, they were now caught in another of Joker's death traps: chained to a factory drum at Ace Chemicals headed toward a vat of formic acid, which he had read was one of the most corrosive acids in the world. Moreover, Two-Face had the bright idea to stow Batman and Robin's utility belts inside the drum so they would lose them first and be unable to escape either way.

Batman only smirked in his thoughts. If this was the best trap Joker and Two-Face could come with for this heist, they were running out of ideas. He tapped his left thumb to his forefinger, which allowed a mini-blowtorch to extend from his glove, and began heating the chain. In just two seconds, he was free, and Robin followed thanks to a razor-edged finger file from his glove. Then the Dynamic Duo got their utility belts and escaped with the aid of their Bat-cables.

Once out of the chemical plant, Batman and Robin pursued the escaped felons. It looked as though they would be going in circles, but it turned out that Batman had planted Bat-tracers on the undersides of their vehicles so Joker and Two-Face would be detectable. In about three minutes, they found that the two villains were inside one of the warehouses where smuggled contraband was often stowed by gangsters. Now Robin didn't understand what this emergency was about, so he had to ask.

"So what were Joker and Two-Face after in Ace Chemicals?" Robin inquired.

"Gotham PD reports that they were stealing only two chemical elements from the labs: nitrogen and chlorine," Batman explained in his serious, deep-toned voice. "And judging from the wires and the casing that they stole from GothCorp, I'd say that they're working on a chemical explosive of some sort."

Robin put two and two together, and then a look of dawning comprehension flooded his face. A nitrogen trichloride bomb! We can't let them succeed no matter the risk!

Batman noticed Robin's stunned expression and nodded, then said, "Let's move." And the two superheroes broke into a run.

Meanwhile, the Joker, Harley Quinn, and Two-Face had just completed the bomb and were making plans to conduct the next phase of their operation, blissfully unaware that Batman and Robin had entered through a roof exit and were now crouching on a beam in the shadows, completely hidden.

"Why don't we just use our new plaything to demand a ton of money from the mayor?" Joker suggested. "We simply plant it under Gotham's streets, then ask the mayor for the biggest charity walk to us, and if we don't get the loot- KABLOOIE!"

"That's typical coming from you, Joker," rasped Two-Face. "I'd rather blow the walls of Arkham and give Batman a real challenge trying to round our chums up. It would be an easier job compared to an extortion scheme. Of course, we could flip for it."

"Fine with me, Mr. D," Harley quipped, always eager to say something as long as it had a punchline.

Two-Face took out his two-headed coin and said, "Good heads, we go with your plan. Bad heads, we go with mine. What do you say?"

Before Joker could say a word, several smoke bombs apparently fell from the ceiling and clouded the area. While his and Two-Face's goons were coughing and sputtering, Batman and Robin leapt into the smoke and disarmed the explosive, then grabbed several henchmen from behind and strung them up with Bat-nets. Then without warning, Batman grabbed Harley Quinn and restrained her with a Bat-straitjacket.

"We've got company!" shouted Two-Face, and he immediately drew his dual guns. Joker whipped out his spear gun, and soon the warehouse walls were being filled with punctures and the air resounded with the booming rattle of firearms. Then in an instant, Batman and Robin somersaulted out from the smoke and began taking down the rest of the gangsters. They punched and kicked with intense accuracy, dodged their opponent's attacks and disarmed them with shocking swiftness, and were leaping, twisting, and flipping with astonishing ease. In less than two minutes, only the Joker and Two-Face were left standing, and both were looking into the chilling eyes of Gotham's two defenders.

"No fair! You two should have been barbecued by now!" Joker ranted.

"You think you know all about me, Joker. But there's a lot more I can keep hidden from anyone. Even you," Batman said icily.

Joker and Two-Face appeared to be preparing for a standoff when they ran for the exit. Joker made it out the door, but Two-Face nearly jumped out of his suit when Robin appeared in front of him, hanging upside down from the doorway.

All Robin said was "Boo" and then he let fly a rain of punches and a few kicks, eventually causing Two-Face to double over. Then he bound the two-sided gangster with weighted cables to prevent him from escaping.

Meanwhile, the Joker had gotten out of the warehouse and was about to make his getaway when a fist came seemingly out of the darkness and socked him with a right to the jaw. Batman came into the open with the shadows appearing to melt off him, and he said, "It's over, Joker. You're looking at another year in Arkham added to your sentence."

Joker dizzily wagged his head for a moment, then groaned, "Good grief!"*

In a few minutes, the Gotham Police Department arrived, and the Joker and Two-Face were loaded into a black van headed back to Arkham Asylum while their goons were piled into another van to Stonegate Penitentiary. Batman and Robin received a hearty thanks from Commissioner Gordon and the other officers, who had been trying to catch the two villains since their escape the week before.

"I can't deny, Batman, your service to Gotham City is a boon to our people," the Commissioner told Batman. "With the exponential drop in our crime rate, it's shocking to think of how high it was eight years ago when you first appeared."

"Stopping crime is only part of my trade, Commissioner," Batman explained. "Criminals here are so bold that they often think they can even steal bread off the tables of every house if they try. I make them fear me to set the seal upon the illegality of their actions. That way, they know that I am bound and determined to break crime and make sure it stays that way."

"And you do a masterful job of it," Gordon affirmed. Then he turned to Robin and added, "As do you, Boy Wonder."

Robin saluted, earning a salute from Commissioner Gordon and a rare smile from Batman. Then the police went on their way to deliver the escaped convicts to prison while Batman and Robin took the Batmobile home to the Batcave and above it, Wayne Manor, where Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson could hopefully retire for the evening.


MILKY WAY
FEBRUARY 8, 00:39 UTC

Unknown to anyone on Earth, in the vast expanse of outer space, a meteor the size of a large house raced through the cosmic ocean, above countless planets, past whole solar systems, and through asteroid fields on a direct line for Earth. Within a few days, it broke through the Oort Cloud and entered our home solar system, avoiding the asteroid belt, and continuing toward Earth unhindered but not unnoticed.


CAPE CANAVERAL
FEBRUARY 8, 7:20 EST

The astronomers at the Kennedy Space Center were continually observing the heavens when a group of scientists on monitor duty jolted in their seats when an alert came of the approaching meteor. One man took a look at the viewscreen and nearly spilled his coffee at the readings. He yelled, "Get the boss over here! Now!"

Two other scientists ran to do so and returned in a matter of seconds with the lead specialist in meteors and asteroids. The man asked, "What's the situation?"

"We've got a meteor incoming," one woman scientist said. "A big one."

The meteor specialist looked at the monitor and his eyes widened as the enormous space rock sped headlong toward the atmosphere, eventually piercing it and continuing its descent until it abruptly stopped, apparently landing on Earth but nowhere near any populated areas. At the specialist's direction, the other scientists scanned for any sign of the fallen meteor. Then one scientist said, "Sir, that meteor appears to have landed on an uninhabited island somewhere in the North Atlantic."

The specialist observed the screen and said, "Contact the joint chiefs. Have them send a crew to the island to investigate that rock. If it poses a hazard of any sort, the public needs to know."

In a few hours, a team of analysts and hazardous materials specialists were supplied and outfitted, and soon they were on a helicopter headed toward the island where the meteor had fallen. They were all expecting little more than a proverbial field day trying to figure out what made that space rock tick with no idea that it concealed a more dangerous threat.


A/N: In keeping with Joker's habit of using various quotes at random intervals, he quotes Charlie Brown when he is bested by Batman in this chapter. I own nothing of the indicia.