Many fics have been created concerning the Justice Lords. The idea of fascist superheroes seem to take hold of our imagination and inspire works.

But as I have looked over these stories, I have found people are too willing to make the Justice Lords evil. They make them out to be like the Joker or Lex Luthor, when they are anything but. They are heroes that lost their way, that used a more extreme way, and who paid the price. Are they evil? That is in the mind of the viewer. But for me, they are not truly evil…only misguided.

It was time to make a new Justice League Fic.

Just as 'The Greatest Story Finally Told" created what in my mind really happened after "The Greatest Story Never Told" and before "Dark Heart", "The Son Becomes the Father" looks at what I see as one of the possible conclusions to "A Better World".

This is story made of six short stories, each focusing on a Lord. We will see new identities forged, old personas fall…and redemption that can only come from death. It will not always be happy, but in the end, each of them will find what they need.

The Father becomes the Son, The Son becomes the Father.

The Man Who Rises

It had been 4 months. 4 months since he had chosen chaos over order. Disarray over control. Crime over peace.

Honor over fascism.

"They'd love it here…mom and dad…they would be so proud of you."

Those words still left him waking in the night, screaming. He hadn't had a true nightmare, the kind that make you wake up shivering even though you were sweating, sheets clinging to you and the night just a bit to dark. For a man that had become the night, such things were left to children.

And still, it had been 4 months since the nightmares began.

He had thought he had found the way to get rid of them after the first 3 days. He had seen the world he created and decided he could no longer be a symbol of it. He had burnt the Batsuit, destroyed the computer, poured gasoline on the batmoblie and watched it go up in flames. Never again would Batman oppress the innocent.

Then the crime started.

Citizens, like children kept inside for far too long, broke out onto the streets with the news that the League was gone. Chaos reigned, the streets of Gotham, made clean and safe at last, reverted into slums in a matter of hours. The police, use to doing as Superman demanded, were left wandering and dazed.

Yes, new heroes had come. It hadn't taken long for those in exile to appear, to begin work on cleaning up the world. In Metropolis, Superman was replaced by the mysterious Power Girl. Whispers in Central City told of a new Flash. Detroit was watched by a new Green Lantern, another John to posses the ring. In a shocking twist, two nobodies, Supernova and a new Blue Beetle, rose up and worked with the governments of the world to stem the tide of panic and destruction. A new group, the International League of Justice was formed with them as leaders, designed only to police…never to be in control.

In Gotham, the legend of the Bat was replaced by new heroes: Huntress and The Question now roomed the streets, dealing justice and protection the citizens. Yes, Gotham would not return to the grand state it had been 5 months ago, but it was better. Citizens cheered their new heroes.

The old ones were talked of like a passing memory. "Remember those Justice Lords? Thank God their gone."

Is that all he had become? A boogie man that only received cheers when he was gone? All he had done, all he had sacrificed…he had driven away friends, family…Dick, Barbara and Time had disappeared under assumed names, so well hidden he had never been able to find them. Never to let them know what he knew now.

Alfred…God, Alfred. He had been the first to talk against what Bruce had began, to try and reason with him. One day he'd had enough and, when Superman had come to see about the restructuring of Gotham's prison system, had pulled out the chunk of Kryptonite Bruce carried.

He could still hear the cry of pain Alfred had issued when the batarang had cleaved his hand from his wrist, sending it tumbling into the darkness. Could still see as the old man stared at him before taking the leap.

He had done all this to avenge his parents…and failed. And now, in a world that didn't need a Batman…he simply didn't know what to do.

&&&

(4 and a half weeks after the events of "A Better World")

The wind whipped about him, forcing him to pull the trench coat around him tighter. It was not a good night for being out, but he had been through much worse. Maybe it was the lack of a skintight costume that caused him to have the shivers.

'Maybe its because you spent 2 years locked in that cave and let the rest of them do the dirty work' Bruce thought.

He wasn't stupid enough to go out as Bruce Wayne at this time of night and in this place. No…he was stupid or suicidal. Instead, he sported the only other identity he still had; Matches Malone, petty thief. No one jeered at Matches, because no one noticed him. Just another grubby face in a sea of millions.

The problem with being a superhero for some long was that you got use to the hours. After living years on little sleep gotten only when he could, Bruce Wayne had discovered he simply couldn't lay down at 10 o'clock and get some shuteye. He would stare up, the words echoing in his head.

"They'd love it here…mom and dad…they would be so proud of you."

So, he'd taken up a new type of patrol, that as Matches, looking around for a bite to eat or a hooker to bed. Yes, he had found he craved interaction with anyone now. Forced to remove the face of Batman, he had found the quiet of the mansion nearly breath stealing. It was these little walks, the few hours he spent with some nameless body, that kept him sane.

BANG

Bruce turned, watching as a man ran out of an alley, a purse in one hand, a gun in another. He darted down the street, and Bruce, abandoned instincts flaring back to live, turned to go after him.

"Help!"

He paused, the cry for aid echoing. He licked his lips. The man was getting away, he needed to hurry. He could hurt more people, kill more people. That was the problem with the world, no one was willing to stop a petty thief until they killed some kids pare…

"Help!"

The little voice rang out again, and Bruce turned back. His mind screamed at him to ignore the call, let the police handle it. His body itched to return to what he knew, the only thing he knew.

But his heart was what made him turn back.

&&&

It was a bad dream…it had to be…there was no way his life was this cruel, as to make him witness this again.

A young boy, crouched next to his mother and father, sobbing and begging for help. The parents lay still on the group, blood oozing from the bullet wounds that marred their flesh.

"Please…"

Bruce shook his head, startled. He had been lost in thought, focused on the terrible sight, the dark reminder of his own descent.

He took a breath, stealing his nerves. "The man who did this, I'll…"

"My mom…I think she's still breath…please…"

Bruce looked down, shocked as he noticed the slight rise and fall from the mother's chest. Reaching out towards the father, daring not to hope, Bruce felt his mind go numb at the sensation of the pulse, weak but there.

There were alive…there was still time.

"Please…don't let them die." The boy whispered through his sobs.

Bruce turned to him, offering him a kind smile. Matches was gone, though only in spirit, not in form. In his place wasn't Bruce Wayne, playboy billionaire. Nor was it Batman, the Dark Knight.

It was Bruce Wayne, the man who had bandaged more wounds then he could remember.

"Begin ripping this up." He said, throwing off his coat. "We need to stop the bleeding…" He snatched some of the scraps from the boy, then pointed to the end of the alley. "Keep crying for help, I'll stay with them…trust me, I will do everything I can to keep them safe."

The young boy nodded, scrambling to his feet and dashing out, crying out for anyone to come. Bruce ignored the sounds, focused only on the chest wounds. He dared not look at either of them as he shifted from body to body, in fear that the faces would change to ones he knew all to well…ones whom he shared features with.

He worked hard, always checking their pulses and making sure they were breathing fine. The blood coated his hands, but he didn't care as he probed one wound, nearly crying out when he found the bullet shallow to the surface in the woman, pulling it free and focusing on the man.

Bruce didn't know when the paramedics came, all he knew was one moment he was pressing down on the father's chest, the next he was yanked away, trained staff taking over while one of the paramedics pulled him towards the ambulance. He answered their questions as best he could, nodding in the right places and shaking no when he had too. Soon, the boy and his parents were loaded into the ambulance, ready to go to the hospital.

"Sir?" A police officer said.

"Yea?" Bruce asked, still in a daze.

The policeman gave him a knowing smile. "You did good…they'll survive, thanks to you. Would have bled out by the time we got here. You're a hero."

Hero? He was a hero? Without the mask, without the cape…he was a hero?

&&&

Sitting in the darkened sitting room, Bruce Wayne was lost in thought. He had let a criminal go, let him get away with his ill gotten gain, to go out and terrorize the world another day.

He'd also saved the lives of two people. Been thanked by the police and paramedics, hailed a hero…and insured that at least one child would never lose their parents to some punk with a gun.

The light from the half full moon shone down, illuminating parts of the room. Bruce looked around at everything, eyes seeing everything and nothing…until they came to rest of a portrait of his mother and father.

"Thomas Wayne…loving husband, father, friend…doctor." That was what Alfred had said at the funeral. "There was never a man he would suffer, as long as he had the power to have any say. He gave himself to aiding his fellow man when they were at his weakness. But we should shed no more tears, and mourn he whose time has come. No, let us rejoice for what he gave…and that his legacy may live on in his precious son."

In that moment, Bruce Wayne smiled. Not a mocking smile, not a fake one…not even one out of love or interest or friendship. No, a smile born out of pure and simple happiness.

He had found the way to avenge his parents…and find his redemption.

&&&

It should have taken him 8 years. Even with his previous college credits, those that still carried over even after the years he had gone, even with the well placed cash to move him through the system, it should have taken him 8 years.

Gotham University had never met Bruce Wayne when he set his mind on something.

He graduated with a bachelor's in a year and a half. 40 credit hours, unthinkable for any other student, were child's play for him. He had worked harder on far more strenuous projects. And those deadlines meant so much more then the fictional one he had set up for himself.

Graduate school had taken 2 years, and a few million dollars to convince them to let him work at his own pace. The professors, at first believing he was insane or merely a bored rich man, quickly came to see him as a dedicated student, and gave whatever aid they could give to the man on his mission.

Almost 4 years after he had given up being Batman, Bruce Wayne took on another identity: Doctor Bruce Wayne.

The school had begged him to stay, to come on as a teacher. Told him they had never seen a student so passionate, they could only imagine what he was like as a professor. The same had been said by the hospitals, desperate to fill their coffers by promoting their hospital as the one where BRUCE WAYNE practiced.

He'd turned them all down.

"I have a better place to work in mind."

&&&

"I need a new bag of morphine for Mrs. Smith."

"Right away Dr. Wayne."

"Selina, I asked you to call me Bruce."

"Right away Dr. Bruce."

Rolling his eyes at the former villainous-turned-hero-turned-medical nurse, Bruce moved away from the intercom and over to the large bed. What once had been a guest room in Wayne Manor was now what almost every room in the Manor had become: A hospital room.

It had taken $10,000,000 to bring his family mansion up to code, and several months of labor. But when it was done, the Thomas and Martha Wayne Free Hospital had finally been opened to the public. Offering help directly to the poorest of Gotham's families, here Bruce was able to treat those people that truly needed help. In the beginning, it had been rough. He had been by himself, juggling hundreds of patients, with no nurses, few supplies, and little on the job training.

But he had made it work, somehow he had. And in the end, things had turned around. New doctors, sharing his same goal to help those in need, joined with him. The rich of Gotham began to give him money, which he used to improve the hospital every day. 6 months ago Selina Kyle had appeared on his doorstep, a nurses diploma in hand.

"Its always you and me Bruce…you'd best get use to it."

Now, he ran a staff of 30, managing 200 patients a week. The work was tiring, backbreaking, and emotionally charged. But every time he managed to bring a child back from the brink of death, every time he could save the life of an innocent person down on hard times, he knew it was worth it.

"Bruce…" Selina said through the intercom. "Come down stairs…you need to see this."

Giving Mrs. Smith a friendly pat on the shoulder (Yes, Bruce Wayne had learned of friendship, of human kindness. Those few who knew of his double life were still shocked by his transformation from cold hearted crime fighter to caring doctor) before heading down stairs, wondering what Selina could want…

"Hi Bruce."

Bruce Wayne froze, dropping the file he held.

"We were wondering…" Dick Grayson said, arm wrapped around his wife Barbara, Tim standing next to them. "if you had any openings for nurses?"

He had once been a boy, a boy that fell, and had kept falling. Then he'd been the man that fell, then the bat. Now he was the man once more, rising up, and bringing that boy out of the shadows.

Bruce Wayne finally spoke. "You know I can't say no to stupid kids that are going to help even if I don't want them too." Walking towards them, he shook hands with his lost family, before showing them to their rooms, still preserved from when they had left.

Somewhere, beyond the stars, Martha, Thomas and Alfred smiled.

Author's Note: Yes, the next fic after this one will be The International League of Justice, telling of how the 7 new heroes mentioned here appeared, and how they create the team that will regain the public's trust.