AN: I'm so very sorry I haven't been posting as frequent, or as long with each post as I noticed, as much as Id like.
To put it simply, work has been a pain with me working near full time hours.
But I have been debating on throwing my card into the 'Young Justice' and 'A Song of Ice and Fire' fanficiton pools.
Thoughts? Yes? No? Ideas for OCs? Drop a comment of a message and I'll happily take it all under consideration, but I have the protagonist (at least for the Young Justice fanfic) in mind!
Stay tuned, my readers!
- The Fallen Sun
Batman slowly got back into the swing of things with his crime fighting. The quietness away from the League actually helped clear his thoughts, both good and bad. He just focused on each crime, how to solve it, where to strike. He had yet to hear a whisper of the Joker amongst the criminal underbelly which worried him, but he couldn't focus on that right now. His thoughts went to the criminal he was facing.
The dark blue armor and the partially frosted over helmet gave him away as Mr. Freeze, but something didn't settle well in Batman's gut. He appeared different somehow. The sub-zero gun fired another icy blast and on a reflexive roll he went behind cover, he noted the ice was darker then the usual cryogenic beam. The cold made his breath come out in thin plumes of white but he had faced him before. His suit was lined enough o keep his muscles from going numb and useless. He threw a batarang and knocked the gun out of his hand and quickly closed in, leading with a right cross.
The villain leaned into the blow, letting his shoulder absorb the impact as his elbow swung out. The unexpected counter struck Batman hard across the mouth. He'd call it sloppy, but he was busy spitting out a bit of blood. His lip was split open and so was his cheek. Batman brought up his arms again, more wary now as he took slow steps around his opponent who turned the helmed head but made no other sign of movement.
"You're not Mr. Freeze." He said after a moment.
"That is… correct."
The tone was not what he was expecting. If this villain had the same incident then Mr. Freeze then it would have been hollow, robotic almost. This new villain sounded cold, dead as if the world around him didn't matter anymore. His domed gaze kept staring at him for a moment before he turned his form, gesturing to the truck.
"Get the device out of here," he hissed coolly, "meet back at the rendezvous."
Batman turned his head to see a group of men wearing dark blue masks over their faces carrying a few barrels leaking chilled air onto the back of a reinforced van. He broke away, but he was stopped by a firm grip on his cape. He was yanked back and thrown hard back towards the alley. He rolled in the air, catching himself on his shoulder and going into a kneeling position. He threw two more batarangs that stuck into the armor's arm. No sign of pain could be heard. He simply plucked them clean from the armor and crushed them in his grip.
"This world does no revolve around you and your League, Batman. We have our own agendas to keep. You can try and stop us, but there will always be a villain that got away. Who is to say I am not the worst criminal here?"
"What are you getting at?"
"That there will be a day you will fail, and when that day comes I will be laughing over your frozen corpse."
He felt a chilled pain take his leg as ice encased the limb right up to his thigh. The new villain controlled his cryogenic gun remotely? Even Mr. Freeze couldn't do such a thing.
"Ah, and as always your self centered mind betrays you… too absorbed in your thoughts to realize all the possibilities?"
He reached back to throw another batarang but two more icy blasts froze him in place. He could only watch the new villain reach down, grab the gun and turn it on to the max setting. He was certain there was an ice filled smile under the glass dome. He pointed the gun at him and the dome tilted slightly to the side, almost in a sign of sympathy.
"Too easy, Bat-"
All of the sudden he was thrown onto the far side of the streets, crashing into a parked moving truck and scattering boxes about. The villain groaned and Batman stared hard at the red cape with the blue spandex beneath it. The dark hair was a bit longer, but cut short to reveal the narrowed dangerous eyes of Superman before he looked back at him.
"Are you alright?"
"Been better."
"I'll get you out of here in a-"
"Behind you!"
Superman turned and allowed his heat vision to battle the ray of frost that emitted from the gun. He barely showed any strain as the heat vision quickly overpowered the gun and knocked the aim aside. It gave him the brief moment of respite to lift the freezing Batman up onto an adjacent roof and with blurred hands remove the ice. Bruce shook the water from his cape and narrowed his eyes on him.
"Why are you here?"
"You haven't been around, Batman. The League needs you, you gave us that tower, if you weren't interested why would you not cut the funding?"
"Where are you Batman? Where's your red caped friend? I am not done with you yet!"
"Later." Batman assured his comrade.
Batman shot a grapple across the roof and swung down, slamming both feet into the back of the domed head. The villain fell onto his front and turned onto his back before being greeted with the descending fist of Superman, crunching the glass of the dome. The pair went into the fray, as if no time passed at all between them. Batman aimed his batarangs at the joints of the armor to weaken it and with a few tugs and solid, metal breaking punches Superman crippled the villain where he promptly crushed the dome and pulled it away.
The man was bald, with a pointed, frost tinged beard. He cursed and spat incoherently as he was exposed to the air. Batman leaned down and swung a hard right across his jaw, silencing the rambling. The GCPD arrived soon after. Witnesses were questioned, but the 'World's Finest' as he heard themselves called, where already in the Batcave. Batman flipped back his cowl and rubbed a gloved hand over his tired features.
"Now you were saying?"
Clark folded his arms over his chest as he stared down at him with those bright blue eyes. Bruce frowned, staring back with his own hardened gaze.
"The League wants you back, Bruce. We all miss you up there. Hawkgirl hasn't been the same, but she and John seem to be getting along nicely."
He sighed, mostly in frustration. Dating within the team was a terrible idea. He stared at the Batcomputer. Even as their moments played through his head he still found himself wondering why they even went through with it in the first place. Maybe they were both lonely, a long distraction. He couldn't justify it as that though, that would be unfair to her. Her and John though, that proved a direction where they could both be happy. He couldn't exactly fly the Javelin everywhere with her. He leaned back in his chair.
"I'm tired, Clark."
Superman smirked as his hand rested on Bruce's shoulder. "We're all tired, but we need to take breaks when we can. That's why we made the League in the first place, right? To help ease the burden as we protect the world?"
Batman nodded. "In part, also to show us that Superman isn't alone in protecting Metropolis. You're the Man of Steel, but… What did Flash say? You can't be in two places at once?"
"Very true…"
"How's he been anyway?"
Clark perked a brow at that. "If I didn't know better I'd say you were worried about him."
"He's one of the youngest on the League and we're both founders. We should be concerned for how he develops."
He subconsciously brought up old footage of his own surveillance equipment in Central City. He brought up more videos streaming the active projects by the League. He watched Wonder Woman bring down an armored car, Green Lantern and Shayera fighting off a terrorist cell in Metropolis and as always J'onn was in the Tower, acting as their monitor.
"We've done a lot in our short time together haven't we?" Clark commented.
Batman couldn't help but smile. "Yes, seems we have… yet still more to do, old friend."
"More late hours, not that you'll complain too much."
"I never do." Bruce said, flipping on his cowl again.