Here's another chapter of The Chaotic Nature of Life. I hope you enjoy it.

Oh, and while there's been a largely positive response to this (thanks for that by the way!) I had a reviewer criticise me for things that will be explained later in the story. This always happens in stories, but I would ask that you be patient because I won't give answers about such things without a very good reason before it's explained in the story itself. I believe this is the case with most authors, in fact. And, yes, I'm purposefully vague on occasion.

And I own nothing of either universe.

As Kara's eyes widened and her head snapped around at superspeed to find the source of the voice, Batman demonstrated his own abilities by twisting towards the sound and, with the same movement, snapping his arm out and launching a batarang at the intruder in question.

"Jeez," The person said, and Kara watched him sway to the side and avoid the attack as the batarang passed an inch from his face. "That's not very nice."

The man, Harry, Kara quickly deduced, held his hands up in a sign of peace. Batman's eyes stayed narrow, and Harry grinned.

"Oh, right. You've probably seen what I can do unarmed, right? Sorry 'bout that, Mr. Wayne." While Kara's eyes widened noticeably at the use of this title, and her cousin's minutely, Batman did not look surprised. He did, however, ask.

"How did you discover my secret identity?"

"Oh, please," Harry shook his head. "It's not exactly difficult. To be Batman, you'd obviously have to be rich. The gadgets you use must cost a pretty penny. I googled rich guys in the world, and you were right up there on the list. Of all of them, you were one of a dozen young enough to be suitable. Of those rich enough to be the Batman, you were one of few built enough for the job. I think there were five including you that I decided would be strong enough.

"Then, I researched all of you, looking for times you could have learned all that ninja stuff. That took the list down to two. You live in Gotham, Oliver Queen lives in Starling city. I put my money on you, and came to check out your grounds. The lack of workers here helped support it being you runnin' around dressed like a bat, and then I found this place. And, again, I will say that it's gloomy as hell."

Batman didn't say a thing.

"I suppose you could have been funding someone else, but that wasn't very likely. You want to put a stop to needless crime if you can, after… well, I don't need to tell you that. You lived it. But you wouldn't trust that duty to someone else when you could do it yourself, so... all in all, it was a safe bet." Harry turned a smirk on Superman. "Should I guess yours now?"

"What?" Superman looked genuinely shocked at the idea that Harry might know his identity. "How could you possibly know mine?" Kara, too, was baffled. Their glasses were kryptonian tech designed to prevent people from making the connection.

"Eh. You had to be close to Lois Lane, and all I knew about her was that she worked at the Daily Planet. I checked who was vacant on that day, and Clark Kent was on the list. Of those on the list, he was the one who most frequently worked with she and Jimmy Olsen. That and you being a very big guy made it pretty easy to connect the dots."

Superman blinked.

"I don't know yours, though." Harry turned to look at Kara, and the girl got her first good look at the young man. He looked to be a few years older than her, excluding her time in stasis. First, she noticed his brilliant emerald eyes, deep enough to get lost in and, after a handful of moments lost in them, forced herself to look elsewhere. He had messy black hair that hung slightly in a fringe to brush the top of his eyes. His nose looked like it had been broken before, but it had healed rather well. If it was crooked, even her super-sharp eyes could barely catch it. His face was slightly gaunt, she noted, as though he had not eaten as much as he needed in his childhood. But it just made his cheekbones more prominent. Her eyes lingered slightly on his blood red lips before tracing his jawline. Then, she looked at his torso and found herself disappointed to find his lean muscles covered by a brown leather jacket. Similarly, his lower body was hidden by loose black jeans and he wore combat boots on his feet.

All in all, it made Kara redden as she looked up and found Harry's emerald eyes watching her with a glint of amusement.

Superman recovered from his shock. "Ah. Yes, thank you for the help you gave my cousin," He said, a little awkwardly. "And, for that matter, Lois."

"No problem." Harry said, turning back to face the larger man. "It was easy to help Supergirl, and it seemed more to be Lois who gave me a hand. No idea what the bird-folk would have done with me, but I don't expect it'd have been anything good. She woke me up, and seemed ready to take them all alone just 'cause they were acting aggressively towards me."

"Still," Superman reasoned. "Lois would have been in trouble if you weren't there, and K-Supergirl may well have died."

"Okay. I'll accept your thanks if you get your friend there to stop glaring at me." The messy haired man nodded at Batman, who was far from happy that the stranger was here. "It's not like I told anyone. Hell, I've pointed out a flaw in your security. You do have mystics on this world, right?" Batman didn't respond, but Kara nodded the affirmative as Harry continued. "Well, one of them could get in without much difficulty." Batman's eyes narrowed again, but Kara was fairly certain that, this time, it was in thoughtful pondering.

"That is… true." Batman slowly nodded.

"I'd offer to shore it up for ya, but I don't think you'll trust me." Harry reasoned. Bruce didn't respond, so Harry continued. "Say," His eyes flicked to Superman. "Who would you say is the biggest threat to innocents on this planet?"

"I… huh?" Clark made a noise of confusion at the sudden change in topic.

"Y'know, who would be the most likely to commit genocide? Or mass murder, I'm not picky."

"I don't… I'm not sure why you're asking."

Harry sighed, putting on an exasperated tone, and turned his head to look at Kara. "How about you, Kylie? Who would you say is the biggest bad guy, or girl, around?"

"Kylie?" Kara frowned, as that confused her. "That's not my name."

"Crud. Your cousin slipped up. Must begin with a K, so I'll get it eventually." He said. "But you didn't answer my question."

Kara looked involuntarily to her cousin, and was shocked at what she found. Clark, too, was now glaring at Harry suspiciously. Though she didn't understand why they were suspicious Kara shook her head, refusing to answer.

"Crap. You think I'm trying to get in cahoots with him, don't you?" He sighed again. "I'm trying to help people. I'd be happy enough just going around stopping bank heists and giving out medical attention where possible, but that's a stupid attitude for someone like me to have. At least, when on a world like this."

"'A world like this'?" Bruce spoke again. "How many worlds have you been to?" He asked with a slight frown yet again.

"Pff…" Harry blew out a breath. "More than I can be bothered to count. A hundred? Five? Something like that…" Then, his eyes brightened. "Oh, I have it written somewhere… where is it, where are you hiding you little bugger…" He patted each of the pockets of his jacket, and pulled out a folded piece of paper. "Every bloody time, I forget about these things." His eyes scanned the page, and Superman spoke.

"I'm sorry, but that sheet's blank."

"Nah. Not blank, but it wouldn't do for the info to get around. Scare the masses." Harry said absentmindedly. He nodded to himself. "Still simple enough." He muttered to himself. "Let's see… ah, there we go. She doesn't like it when I lose count." He smiled at his own words. "Including this one, I've been to four hundred and three. This isn't the worst, but there seems to be a lot of… supervillains."

Kara was shocked at the number.

"That's quite a few." Her cousin said. "Apologies, but aren't you a little young to have done so much?"

"Nope." Harry said in return, his tone one of merriment.

"I see…" Clearly, he didn't, but her cousin wanted to move on. "Well, assuming you're telling the truth, why are you here?"

"I… got made redundant." Harry said, and all three of the others present saw there was more to it as the man frowned for the first time since introducing himself. "Got told this would be the best universe to settle down in."

"Universe?" Batman objected. "You've been to four hundred and three universes?"

"Maybe... I never really thought about it until recently, but it would make sense for that to be the case." Harry shrugged his shoulders. "But that's really not important. I figured you would be the best people to ask about threats, but if you aren't going to answer I don't have any reason to linger. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone about your names. Got no reason to. Have fun doing whatever it is you were doing before I showed up." Harry raised a hand and patted himself on the head. He shimmered, and then seemingly vanished from existence.

The blonde Kryptonian froze for a moment, and her super-mind whirled into existence. She didn't want this person to disappear, and vaguely understood his intent now. And, so, she spoke up.

"Hey, w-wait!" Kara demanded. A few seconds later, Harry reappeared a few metres from where he had been and looked at her curiously. "You said you wanted to help, right?"

"Yep."

"Well… I mean, it isn't up to me, but the League helps people more than anyone else does. Maybe you could convince them to let you join?" She half-asked, half suggested.

"Right… well, I'm not all that much of a team player. Might be best for me to work on my own."

"I doubt you're less of a team player than Batman." Superman offered, with a small smile. Bruce made no effort to refute the statement.

"Good point." Harry smirked in response. "I'll give it some thought. I'll meet you back here tomorrow around the same time?" He offered. Superman nodded.

Batman did not look so agreeable, and opened his mouth to speak as Harry turned on the spot and vanished in a muffled pop.

Bruce turned on Clark as the other vanished, and proceeded to berate him for using his cave without asking. At the same time, Kara thought about the man who had just vanished.

-()()-

Harry apparated into the empty alley that he had been staying in, and scratched his nose. Then, he flicked his wrist and a small trunk leapt out of his Dragonhide jacket's pocket. It landed on the floor, and grew to full size a second later. Harry flicked it, and the lid popped open.

He hopped inside, and the lid closed behind him as Harry landed softly on the red-carpeted floor of his library-area. Ignoring the bookshelves that held more shrunk trunks full of books he'd collected over the years, Harry sat in a black padded swivel-chair at his desk, and took a scroll from the inside pocket of his jacket.

"About time I read the hints. Pretty damn proud of myself that I figured out Batman and Superman's secret identities without it though. Either I'm getting back up to full speed or this world has some incredibly dumb humans." It was a reasonable length of time for Harry to be revamped. Not the fastest or the slowest. Once, he'd been working at half-speed for the better part of a month. Another time, it had taken him less than an hour to get to this point. Death had given him a complicated explanation to do with the… something-waves of the worlds he visited, though now he thought her wording would probably point to Universes being the case. The frequencies at which they operated meant jumping between them was variably hard on him. Or, at least, that's what Harry understood it as. Honestly, he didn't care all that much so long as it didn't bite him in the ass. "No more procrastinating Harry, no matter how irritating they are."

He broke the seal, and set to work.

On the paper, there were lots of scribbled symbols and what most people would interpret as hieroglyphics. Harry frowned down at the badly-conveyed information, and rubbed his forehead. "I'm getting a migraine already.

"Well, that lot must be the Justice League." Harry thought that a reasonable assumption after a few minutes examining the images. In a grouping, there were seven symbols. A bat, the Superman-S, a tiara, a hawk, a lightning bolt, a green circle that could be seen as a ring, and a red X.

"That's… the illuminati triangle-eye thingy? So… rich guys?" Harry shrugged mentally. He looked at the image directly next to it.

"The US flag. Well, I'm in America so that's probably going to be relevant."

"A clown and a harlequin. I've already encountered the Joker, so that's fair enough."

"Two letter Ls. Lex Luthor, I suppose. Is that to keep an eye on him, or to kill the bastard?" He couldn't help but wonder. "Well, I'll see how things pan out I guess. And then he's repeated again with a bunch of others around him. The GG is prominent. No clue who that could be.

"Two letter Ms. I don't fucking know who that would be." He muttered. By this point, Harry had been sat for an hour. Many of the symbols had meant nothing to him. Many of them, in fact, meant nothing to anybody. Death was pushing the limits of what was allowed by giving him this much, and making it explicit would be a bad idea so she included false trails to follow. Not that Harry had any idea what would happen if she told him outright. Maybe he'd be killed, because he didn't know how Death could be punished herself.

"And a face made out of rock? Seriously?" Harry was frustrated, and this seemed extremely unhelpful. "I feel like I would have found out about a dude made of rock in my time on the internet. But I didn't. And I know this one's genuine, too, because it's somehow linked to Superman." There was a small line from the rock-head to the S. Had Harry not pushed it out of his head, he would have asked the man about it. Unfortunately, he blew out a breath as he stood from the desk.

"To hell with this," Harry muttered eventually, growing sick of the exercise. "My time can be better spent elsewhere. Taking a nap, for example."

He went to do just that.

-()()-

When Harry woke an indeterminate time later, he very much felt refreshed and slowly stood. It honestly just felt good not to have to rush to wake; in any of the warzones he'd visited in the past lie-ins weren't a luxury one could afford.

Harry rubbed his eyes as he threw the ruby-red quilt off himself and placed his feet on the floor. He thought about his situation, and felt sick at the notion of looking over Death's notes again. They were rarely helpful enough to justify putting himself through the boredom that… bored him, and if he had the rest of his life on this planet, Harry was sure it could wait.

That being said, he was not the type of person to sit around doing nothing. Or, at least, not anymore. In his first life, Harry had been stupidly lazy. If one could afford to sit around comfortably, then there was no reason not to, but when a person was being hunted by a Dark WIzards, it couldn't be said that they could afford to do anything but train to survive. Harry was a combatant, now, and so he felt the need to train.

He had felt that same need, in fact, since he got here. The only thing that had stopped him was the fact that he knew his magic would be volatile before now. It would have been silly of him to train with it, or test it as he intended to do now, without waiting for it to level off. Last time he'd done that Harry had punched a hole in his trunk. It was not fun repairing that, nor had it been fun looking for temporary accommodations in a swamp-world.

Harry made his way to a third room of his trunk, and tapped his middle finger's nail against it, and then the second knuckle of his index finger followed by the knuckles of both his ring and pinky while pushing magic into them. The door swung open, and Harry stepped inside while whistling a tune to himself that he could not recall, for the life of him, the origin of.

He ignored the wall full of weapons, and made his way to the large open space in the centre of the room. It was the size of a decent hall, and Harry was quite certain that he would be fine in the area as he thought on the decision he would be needing to make at some point soon.

Speaking of…

"Tempus." He said, with his hand extended in front of him with the palm facing up. "Didn't need it, Harry." He then muttered annoyedly, but shrugged as the feeling faded and read the numbers. 3:00AM. Shit. That was an awkward time to have woken. He'd be tired again by the time he had to meet Superman, and would be grouchy. Unless, of course, he was to exhaust himself now and get another eight-or-so hours.

"Well," Harry rolled his shoulders. "What better way to get a handle on my sturdiness, and exhaust myself at the same time, than to wrestle a big ol' beast?" He cracked his knuckles, and waved his right hand at the open space before him. "I believe a Nemean Lion will do the job." This time, he did not speak any incantation as he channeled the magic through his right hand.

A golden glow of light appeared, and from that light emerged a brilliantly golden big cat. It looked around for a moment, and found its summoner. It gave a challenging roar, and bound forwards to meet a stone-faced Harry in combat.

It flung him across the room, and Harry's lips twitched into a smile. He re-entered the fray with banisher-imbued fists raised.

-()()-

Harry had woken again tender. His magic had already begun to heal him by that point, a benefit of it permeating every inch of his being, but it hadn't achieved any more than repairing the broken and shattered bones he had received during the fight. His bruises and sprains had needed some salves and potions to heal in time for this meeting, and so Harry had taken a bath in the stuff.

Harry wasn't sure how to explain away getting the injuries in that way without embarrassing himself. So he would not make the attempt. As Harry reentered the training room to vanish the bed he had conjured and collapsed into at five in the morning, he conjured a knife. Then, he flicked his wrist, and it flew through the air. Next, he flicked his wrist again and a target appeared in the air in the knife's path. The blade sunk into the bullseye with a thud, and both fell to the floor.

"Booyah." He smiled to himself and continued on. The twin-bed was easy to be rid of, and Harry scratched his chest. "Hm. Clothes'll be necessary. Where did I put the wardrobe this time? Urgh… I don't have time to find them, so I guess conjured is my only option."

Boxer-briefs, jeans, socks, a white t-shirt and black trainers appeared on the floor in front of him, and Harry dressed quickly. He had overslept. Not enough to be late, but enough that someone who couldn't apparate would be in serious risk of tardiness.

Harry moved through red-papered hallways with quick steps, and found his dining area. He opened the room devoted to alcohol, and pulled out a bottle or red wine. One he understood to be worth a pretty penny in the world he'd been given it. Foul stuff, in his opinion, but Bruce Wayne would probably make use of it, or find someone who could.

Since he was going to be a guest in his house, Harry may as well give the guy a thank-you present.

-()()-

Bruce Wayne was not happy.

Around the scowling Bat, were the other members of the Justice League. Or, at least, the official members; the founders, as he understood they were to be called. There were dozens of heroes who had agreed to join, and nearly as many whom they had not yet heard from.

To his immediate left, sat Diana. And she was unique in that Bruce was not truly bothered by her presence. He would rather they be somewhere other than his sanctum santorium, but if someone outside the Bat-family was to be here, he would choose Diana without question.

The others, though… they were causing a ruckus. Or, at least, some of them were. One of them was. John and J'onn were, as always, calm-faced. They were not the type to act out, especially not in the Batcave, and so Batman's objections to their presence were mostly on principle at this point. They knew where he resided, but having them here so soon after revealing his secret identity could encourage an open door policy. Superman was overly comfortable with Bruce's residence already, and so it was even more of an issue with him.

But the one who was truly getting on the billionaire's nerves was the Flash. Wally was… entertaining himself by rushing through Batman's rogues gallery, and he had already knocked Freeze's gun off its display. It was almost inevitable, in Bruce's mind, that the speedster do some serious damage to the cave; likely by activating one of the more dangerous items that he found interesting.

"Flash!" Batman barked at the immature man. The speedster skidded to a stop, and looked at the caped crusader. Batman pointed to the seat Wally had vacated with a silent order.

"Fine." Flash muttered. "I thought you said he'd be here by now?" He complained.

None of the others responded, and the Flash zoomed over to his seat and fell back into it with a huff. Then, a yelp that attracted the attention of the other Leaguers.

"What is it?" John Stewart asked, bringing his right hand to hover over the table.

"My chair!" Wally exclaimed, and gestured wildly with his head to the armrests. "It's got me!" And it had. The high-quality plastic and the metal beneath had wrapped around Flash's wrists, and were keeping him pinned to it. "What the hell?!"

"Someone really ought to get him checked for ADHD." A new voice, for most of those present said from behind Bruce. He turned in his chair, not letting it show that he was indeed surprised, and found Harry stood awkwardly, with a bottle in his hand. "Here." The man shoved the wine into Bruce's hand, and stepped away.

"Hey! What's the big idea?!" Wally demanded, allowing Bruce to look at the bottle in his hand, and blink his surprise. "Are you doing this?!"

"The chair?" The new arrival asked. "Yeah, that's me."

"Why?!"

"The red blur zipping around was giving me a headache," Harry said in way of an explanation. "The colour's too eye-catching. I would've gone with something a bit less conspicuous, personally."

"Huh?" Flash frowned. "Hey, don't insult my costume!"

"Wasn't an insult." Harry said. "Just a comment. I assume that you've got a reason for it, just like big-blue has for the tights." He nodded to Superman. "I just can't see the reason. Not for you two, at least."

"And who's do you see the reason for?" Clark wondered. Bruce hoped that wasn't his attempt to glean information from their visitor. If it was, he would have to give him some pointers at a later date.

"Batman's," Harry said, and then his eyes moved over the others. Bruce noted that they barely lingered on Diana, as most men's eyes did. "And… Green Lanterns." He nodded at the African-American man's outfit. "Batman, other than going for a battish-look, can blend into the urban environment of Gotham, and the shadows. Mr Stewart's is a uniform."

"What is wrong with mine?" Diana's tone was borderline demanding. Bruce guessed her pride was somewhat insulted.

"Nothing at all," Harry's eyes moved onto hers, and Bruce was fairly certain that he was the only one who saw the determination to keep them there in the emerald orbs. "But it leaves quite a bit of flesh uncovered. I suppose that could be intended to distract your opponents, but it also increases your vulnerability slightly… although, I don't know how armoured the rest of your outfits are so maybe I'm wrong in that." He said to the rest of them, with another shrug. Bruce caught something there, and decided to make some attempt to narrow down the man's identity. He had failed to identify anything about the man before he saved Lois Lane, and that bothered the World's greatest detective.

"Where in England did you grow up?" He asked.

"Hm? Near London. Why do you ask?" Harry inquired.

"I'm curious about your accent. Or lack thereof."

"Oh." Harry smirked to himself, zoning out for a moment, and then explained the expression. "Yeah, accents tend to fade no matter what happens. I still have it, because I quite like the reminder of where I came from, but I had to adapt in more than a few worlds. You wouldn't believe how many evil geniuses have English accents." The wizard shook his head. "People assumed I was evil because of it!"

"I see." Bruce mostly understood, but he had established that Harry did not hail from this world, at least according to the man himself. The only other potential explanation would be insanity and, so, Batman would make inquiries on the subject with Arkham and the like.

"Harry?" Diana spoke up.

"Wonder Woman?"

"Superman said you may be interested in joining us. Is that the case?" The black haired woman asked. Then, she waited.

Harry stood still, and adopted a thoughtful expression as the Leaguers expressed interest in his answer.

-()()-

Harry waited for the super-powered beings to grow impatient happily. He was uncomfortable in this situation, and would gladly let them share in his discomfort.

Harry didn't know enough about the people around him to say for sure what his chances would have been had this been some kind of trap, but he was willing to bet that he's faced worse odds in the past and survived. Well… maybe survived was the wrong word, but he had won in the end. The Chosen of Death understood that the Leaguers did not use lethal force, and that would be a big advantage for him even if he did not understand the mentality in regards to at least one of the members. Perhaps, though, the image was just that which was given to the public; that would make far more sense than an ex-marine and a warrior princess suddenly turning to pacifism.

Harry kept himself restrained, and ignored his instincts as he had done throughout this conversation. Even if it was logical, it wouldn't do to hit first in this situation. Not until he saw some evidence that they meant him harm, anyway.

This was the first time since Death had dropped him on this planet that Harry felt threatened. Especially after the Thanagarian's sword failed to break his skin. Thugs and hired guns didn't qualify as threats, certainly. Nor did crazy clown-ladies. The biggest threat to his well-being had been the first enemies Harry had met with, and without their weapons what good were the bird-soldiers?

This lot, though… they could be trouble. Fun, certainly, but trouble. Maybe it would be best if he not antagonise them.

"I might be." Harry nodded slowly. Truth be told, he had decided on this course of action while blowing off some steam the night before; Death was right in saying his instinct was to help people, and Harry couldn't figure out exactly how to do that on his own. There were some people on Earth who would be worth putting down before they could start any real trouble, Lex Luthor and the Joker being two names atop that list, but this Earth had gone through several alien invasions in the past couple of years. That suggested strongly that the real threats would come from the stars. The Leaguers were more suited to that than he was.

"But I don't understand why you would just open the doors to your spacestation to me." Harry continued. "The se-six of you know each other by this point. You don't know me." He reasoned. The Green Lantern frowned slightly at Harry correcting himself from saying seven.

"You would not be alone in joining us," Superman answered for the team. "We are too small a force to protect the Earth properly, and have decided to expand. There will hopefully be around fifty members joining us, so that we can improve in this regard."

"Oh." Well that helped alleviate Harry's slight paranoia. "That's sensible. What does joining consist of?"

It was Batman who answered this time. "You will be given a communicator that J'onn will use to contact you when you have an assignment. And you will have a room on the Watchtower, should you choose to stay there after missions or when you are not needed in your personal life."

"'Personal life'?" Harry repeated, in an amused tone. He found it funny that the SUperheroes needed to take a break to go out on the town. "Oh, you mean your secret identities?"

"Yes." Batman said.

"Wait. Do you not intend to have a secret identity?" Superman asked, catching the wording.

"Nope. Not a chance." Harry shook his head.

"Why not?"

"Because that'd mean having to have a costume. I'm not wearing lycra or a cape. Sorry." Not even a cloak, because Harry thought the notion silly. Combats were far more sensible, in his mind.

"But what about your loved ones?" Superman frowned.

"What loved ones?" Harry laughed without humour. "I haven't had loved ones in nearly a century, big-blue. No family, no friends."

"No family?" Wonder Woman's voice was sympathetic, not that she had much of a secret identity either, and Harry resisted the temptation to correct that.

"No." He said simply. "Never really had a family to begin with. Orphan raised by bastards." He poked himself in the chest with his thumb. "So when do I get to see my new digs?" He asked.

"That's not…" Superman was confused by this. He firmly believed that heroes needed secret identities; especially those who were human. "What about if you find friends? What about if you fall in love?"

Harry smirked, and shook his head at the naivety of the Man of Steel. "Unlikely, but if it'll make you feel better…" Harry's body tingled as he directed his magic to purpose. It was very amusing, as he watched the Leaguers' faces as his began to change. As Harry's body changed shape, he was suddenly looking up at the seated Leaguers. "I have it covered." It was the voice of a six year old girl that spoke now, and Harry giggled at the looks on their faces.

"Sh-Shapeshifter?" J'onn J'onzz looked like he'd seen a ghost, and Harry's female brow dipped as he wondered why.

"My people called it a Metamorphmagus," Harry's now high pitched voice responded. "But pretty much, yeah."