I own nothing.
----
Bobby pulled over to the side of the road about fifteen minutes' walk outside of the Metropolis city limits. How was he supposed to do this? How was he supposed to stop the Olsen kid from killing Superman?
It hadn't been that hard to guess Superman's other identity. He didn't try that hard to disguise himself, really. A pair of glasses? Really? But it seemed to work, for someone who had never really paid attention to the Question.
Bobby had, when he was younger and the man with no face was new on the scene. At first, he'd seemed to have supernatural methods for knowing the things he knew. Eventually, he'd met the Question face to non-face, and asked him how he did it. "I ask the right questions," he'd said. "And I remember the answers."
So Bobby tried it.
It took a while to get the hang of asking the right questions to the right people. He still didn't know how to remember all the answers if he didn't write them down, and he sometimes missed connections, even if he had every scrap of information available - he'd always been more of a fighter than a thinker. But he knew enough. He knew enough to beat down the gangs who'd wanted to take over when Superman had been dead. He knew enough to distrust Luthor whenever he... did anything. He knew enough to stay out of the news so that he wouldn't get a supervillain attached to him. He knew enough to cut the aglets off of any shoelaces that came into his possession.
He didn't know enough about how to stop a superhero's best friend from killing said superhero. Did the kid want to kill him? Was he under somebody else's control? Had he gone crazy?
It all seemed too much all of a sudden. If he succeeded, he'd be in the papers, and everything he'd done to secure his anonymity since he'd left the military after Vietnam would be for nothing. If he failed, it would be worse. If he failed, it would be war. He took out Gen's letter again. 'Dear Bobby,' she had written.
'Well, it looks like I got caught. If Bruce Wayne died, I got caught by the wrong people, but nobody will know for a day or two. There's still a chance to stop the war from happening, though, or a chance for it to start. I bought a car - don't ask how. Drive to Metropolis and stop Jimmy Olsen from stabbing Clark Kent with a Kryptonite knife tomorrow morning. They both work for the Daily Planet. I'll try to meet you there if the good guys have me. If not,' she wrote, but crossed it out. 'I lied about not knowing why I trusted you. You helped lead the street-people's resistance. Hopefully, you won't need to again.'
How was he supposed to lead street people in a resistance? A resistance against who? And how could street people help anything? Most of them were junkies of one kind or another, and the rest were runaways, or crazy. Certainly no army.
He could not afford to fail. He turned on the car and headed into the city while the sun rose above the horizon, painting the sky red.
----
J'onn sat with his head in his hands, barely noticing the others in the room. "It can't be."
"It can," said Gen. "And for me it was."
"What did you see?" said John, concerned, looking between Gen and J'onn.
"Death," J'onn said, utterly shell-shocked. "In her future, everyone was dead."
"Not everyone," Gen assured him, and herself. "They never targeted ordinary citizens - just us. And they didn't kill all of us - just most." She pointed around the room at the various heroes. Green Lantern. "Under Tala's control, Shayera Hol smashed your ring, and then your skull. She was then torn apart by an enraged mob, feather by feather." Flash. "Another mob cut your legs off and left you to die. Oddly enough it was Captain Boomerang who found you and brought you to us. You survived, but you were on suicide watch in Atlantis." Wonder Woman. "They killed you when you refused to return to Themyscira, and then they dragged your body behind a car - called it poetic on the news." Question. "You died of cancer, in prison. You had Zatanna erase all pertinent information from your mind before you turned yourself in. The courts ruled that you could spend your last days with Mamma. I don't think she outlived you by much." Martian Manhunter. "You hid for a decade before they killed you. You saw how."
"Fire," he whispered, almost without meaning to.
Gen looked at the two empty chairs where Superman and Batman had sat - would sit again. "The list goes on and on, but I can't - I won't let it happen again. I won't."
----
"Morning, Lois," Clark Kent said, putting a cup of coffee down beside her. "You're in early."
"Yeah," she said. "But for nothing. Jimmy was supposed to meet me to take a few photos for an article of mine, but he never showed."
"That's not like him," Clark said. "He's usually so dependable."
"I asked him to show up at five."
"That explains it, then."
"Very funny, Smallville." Lois smiled anyway. "So what's your excuse for the early start?"
"Just being a bit of a farm boy, I guess," he said. "You know, the sun's up, so I should be, too."
"I never understood you Kansas folk," Lois said.
"Hey," Clark said, noticing someone at the entrance to the stairwell. "Is he supposed to be here?"
Lois narrowed her eyes. "I don't think so. Hey," she called out. "Soup kitchen's down the street!"
"I know," the man said. He didn't move.
"I don't think you understand," Clark said, walking over to him. "You can't be here."
"I have to be."
The elevator dinged and a young man with red hair stepped out. "Jimmy," Lois said. "Help Clark get this guy out of here. Then you've got some explaining to do."
Jimmy looked up. His eyes were pure white.
"Thank God," Bobby said, before tackling him.
----
"Are we all intending to stay and watch this?"
"Are you joking, brother? We wouldn't miss this for the world."
"Well, I find no pleasure in it. The alien is the last of his race now that his cousin has disappeared - I still think we should obtain the corpse for study."
"We can find some DNA if you want to clone it."
"Perhaps."
"I don't like this. I still feel as though something is going to go very wrong."