"I don't understand why you're upset with me," Superman said. He and Batman were having a "discussion" while the other five obliviously went on with the meeting.

"I am not upset with you."

"Yes, you are. Whenever you're mad you stop using contractions and start restating everything."

"Oh, so reading body language is one of your superpowers, now, too?" Batman couldn't resist. Maybe he could figure it out.

"This started after I saved that cat."

Batman glared.

"All I did was fly up and grab it," Superman said. "What could possibly be wrong with that?"

Batman's glare turned into the infamous Bat-Glare.

"Seriously. What did I do wrong?"

"Nothing," Batman said. "You did everything. Exactly. Perfect."

Superman sighed. "I guess I'll learn eventually, huh? Either that or you'll get over it."

Batman shook his head.

His, Flash's, and Clark's comlinks activated suddenly. "Flash, Batman, and Superman , report to the teleporter pad for transport to St. Louis, USA. Reports of city-wide fires."

They jumped out of their seats and headed to the lower level of the watchtower.

*****

Batman grabbed a little girl and pulled her from the closet where she had been hiding. The flaes rose up, white hot and blocking every path. He pulled his cape around them and burst through the searing heat to the door of the apartment.

The little girl cried silently.

He ran to the stairs and jumped them three at a time. Flash appeared next to him.

"Take her," Batman said, thrusting the girl into Clark's arms. "My suit is fire-retardant. All she's wearing is a cotton jumper."

"What about y--"

"I'll be fine. Go!" Flash vanished. Batman ran down another flight of stairs.

The third landing disintegrated beneath his feet. He pulled out a grappling hook and shot it toward a wooden beam above. The beam cracked in two. Batman hit the ground hard, landing on his ankle, which bent under him.

Hell was raining down around his face, but between the heat and the buzzing in his head, he couldn't move.

Something wet trickled down the side of his head. It pooled in a little puddle by his eye. Blood.

He was lying in a bed of ash on the bottom level of a building that was about to come down, and he couldn't bring himself to care very much. He didn't even mind that his ankle might be broken or that he was bleeding from the head.

Someone swooped down and carried him out of the inferno.

****

"You know he isn't invulnerable, Flash!" Superman shouted.

"He told me to get that girl out!"

Batman shook his head slightly to clear the fog and moved his foot a little. So the ankle wasn't broken, just sprained.

Lucky idiot. He gingerly got to his feet.

"Well he doesn't always know what's best for him!"

"You both can unknot your panties, I'm fine," Batman got his voice to a satisfyingly gravelly growl.

Superman gave him a Look. "No you're not. You screwed up that ankle, I can see the torn muscles. And you have a concussion. Sit back down."

Batman pressed the button on his belt that summoned the Bat-plane. It swooped down silently. "Alfred can patch me up, now that the fire's out. I have patrol in an hour."

"That's not wise, Bruce."

Batman shot a grappling hook upward and vanished into the bowels of his plane.

*******

TWO DAYS LATER

In a private conference room aboard the Watchtower.

"Are we all sure of this?" Diana asked, spreading the paper with six signatures on it out on the table.

The five others nodded.

"He's going to kill us," Flash said. "You realize that, right? Even if he knows it's for his own good."

"It's not like we're singling him out," Green Lantern said. "This helps insure the safety of all costumed heroes."

Shayera picked up the document and read through it again. "So we have it all listed out, right? No one can contest us on this?"

"No," J'onn said. "We do have the power to change JLA policies. It states so in the handbook."

"Enough is enough. He—none of them—can keep this up. Let's go show it to him," Superman said, with a tinge of foreboding in his voice.

*******

Batman, Clark was pleased to see, had his injured ankle propped up on another chair while he was working in the Batcave. It wasn't in a brace, but this was a step in the right direction.

"Alfred let us in," He said, trying to be calm. "We need to talk to you. It's important."

"I'm working. My city is probably more important than whatever it is you have."

"This is pretty important, Bruce."

Batman glanced over his shoulder and saw the other six founding members standing behind him. He put down the file he was working on. "It had better be."

Diana silently handed him a Justice League memo. He read through it, looking up every so often. After he was done, he put it gently down on the table.

The others waited.

"You're kidding," Bruce said. He watched their faces carefully. "No, you're not kidding, you're nuts. You're insane."

Superman swallowed. "Bruce…"

Batman gave them the coldest glare any of them had ever been on the receiving end of. "Get the hell out of my house."