Five miles off the Metropolis coast.
LexCorp's Oceanographic Laboratory AC-83.
Superman.
Falling.
The kryptonite missile did well. As well as Luthor wanted it to. But his samples—the Kryptonite he synthesized and tempted Bruce Wayne with—their shelf-life was up.
Stupid.
Luthor used to be so successful at his sciences. So useful.
What changed?
Why did his synthetic Kryptonite isotopes fail?
So you're falling, Superman. But not to your death. Not because of Lex Luthor's criminal genius. Because of an empirical blunder.
You think of Lois.
You know you'll survive this fall. That the only reason your body is paralysed is because Lex Luthor and his goddamn missile stunned you into the next century. That you'll probably slam into the ocean with a couple hundred miles of force behind you. And then you'll regain your sense of self.
It's all so familiar. You'd sigh if you could. Roll your eyes if you could.
Luthor's lost his flair.
Your body rolls over so our numb face stares at the ocean.
Coming up quickly to meet you.
It's all so familiar.
You wonder if you'll even flinch.
And you really wish you could move your arms.
Batman.
Searching.
He'd left Luthor's unconscious hulk propped up against a wall in the center lab. Gone outside to secure the perimeter. It was a fairly standard sweep. Perhaps even predictable. Predictable was bad. Predictable meant you could stop caring.
That just couldn't happen.
He rounded a corner and his eyes rolled around ceaselessly in their sockets. Searching for anything. Recording it all and logging it away in his file cabinet of a brain.
Three meters ahead his eyes came across the figure strolling towards him in a garish purple tuxedo. A human eyebrow under the cowl raised an eyebrow and slid slowly next to the wall, just out of range of one of the gantry-way sodium-filaments.
The Joker kept on his slow gait down the gantry. He looked around idly, like an inspector, or a bored child in the grocery store. Team Luthor standard issue plasma rifle angled on one shoulder—the DNA-verify kind with a thumbprint on the butt so no one but the certified user could fire the damn thing.
The eyebrow came up again.
He thinks he's clever. They both do.
Joker took to whistling 'Heart and Soul'. At the end of the first stanza, Batman cleared his throat. The obvious notice-me kind of throat clearing.
Joker stopped and his posture stiffened. He looked up, straight ahead.
Batman stepped out of the shadows.
"So," the white face said and the lips thinned into a grin. "I come all the way up the coast for a little vacation and you follow me. People will say we're in love." And he winked.
"I came here looking for you," Batman said and stepped under the glow of the sodium-filament so it bathed him in an orange halo. "You know how this ends."
"Sure," Joker said and gave a patronizing frown. "We get into fisty-cuffs and then you haul me all the way back home. Or I run away into the path of certain death, only to resurface in about five weeks, baffling all of you, to pull another hare-brained scheme from my is there a third route?"
"The easy way. The one way you won't go for."
Joker's eyes narrowed and one half of his mouth smiled. He let out a noise that was low-leveled and doubtful. Weighing his options, not caring which one he took really. All roads lead to Arkham and all that.
"Try me," he said after a moment.
"You throw the Team Luthor rifle overboard, relinquish the revolver sticking out of your vest pocket. And you come back to Gotham with me."
"I like my way better."
"I came here looking for you," Batman repeated. "I found greater besides. Right now, I have to go find Superman and put Luthor in jail."
Joker's face changed. "Luthor, eh?"
"Yes." Batman's chiseled frown stayed. "What did he do to you? What did you give him?"
"Nothing," Joker said, and threw up an empty-hand in the innocent offertory. "He was too busy rippin' off Loomis and, uh, whatshisface, the Molasses fellow at SteelWorks, yeah him. Too busy dealing with them to deal with me. I mean, he gave me a once over or two, which as you can see explains the blood stains on my Prom Night get-up here. But we weren't—" Joker's eyes lolled around for an instant "—in cahoots. Isn't that how it goes these days? All these morons gotta work together?"
Batman's eyes narrowed behind the Star-lite lenses.
"I believe you," he said. "Put down your guns and get back to Gotham where you belong."
Joker smiled. "Ah, you know me so well, I'm so thrilled!"
"Maybe so," Batman said and got in Joker's face. "This won't happen again. You get a head-start."
Joker cocked an eye.
"I don't have the time to deal with you. Take Luthor's helicopter and get out of this town. Tonight."
Then Batman turned. His cape swept out in a magisterial flourish behind him, and he was gone.
"I see how it is!" Joker yelled after the departing shadow. "Too good for me?! Next week, I'm gonna crap double for you!"
A tinny beeping in Batman's earpiece. He and touched one finger to the earpiece to activate the line.
"What?" he asked.
"I've taken care of Mercy," Robin said. "But Luthor's gone. I couldn't get to him in time. Like, teleported out of here. He ditched what was left of his armor, if that means anything."
"Damn it."
"What is it?" Robin asked.
Batman pulled open a compartment on his belt—a slim palmtop broadband interface, too small and too simple to be considered a computer. Programmed with slave commands to the jet, the car and the sub. He selected the slave command prompt for the jet—in waiting just off Miller Harbor.
"I've just sent the sub for you," Batman said and pocketed the broadband interface. "It'll be here in two minutes. Call Turpin, tell him to get the Major Crimes Unit out here for Mercy." A moment of hesitation. "And if you see a LexCorp helicopter taking off, put a tracer on it."
"Got it," the Boy Wonder said. "What are you gonna do?"
"I'm going after Luthor," Batman replied. By now, he'd found his way to an observation platform on the northwest corner of the rig. "Be ready for my signal. Batman out."
He tapped his ear twice after that, once to disconnect the line to Robin. Another to open a line to the JLA Watchtower on the Moon.
"J'onn, this is Batman at the LexCorp Research Platform off of Hell's Gate. I need an immediate transport to the Flatiron waterfront, priority level Alpha. Luthor has escaped."
"Understood," the cold and distant voice replied. "Committing now. Standby."
Blue rings of energy surrounded the Dark Knight, and disappeared as promptly.
He materialized next to a dumpster. He looked around for a moment and made his way out of the alley.
It was Chinatown. He was in Chinatown.
He looked around again. A terrified couple at the Wok bar across the way stared at him, and he returned the glare—as alien as anything. Like he was seeing people for the first time.
He made his way to the end of the street.
Swanderson. He was on Swanderson.
The LexCorp Tower was a block north. Even in the dead of the cloudy night, the building still blocked out the sky.
He stopped in the middle of the boulevard and waited. Closed his eyes.
If I were Lex Luthor…
A block north, he heard it. An engine revving to life a couple of alleys away. He saw the headlights first. Then the body lurched forward and spun out as it tore out fot eh alley.
A car too rich to be anything but Luthor's.
He ran for it.
The car was old. Packard by the looks of it. Boattail speedster, with the ornate hubcaps and the bodywork on the boot coming to a round v-shape and spare tire in the fender-mould near the front right tire. The Packard in its old age was having trouble getting to second gear.
His eyes narrowed under the Star-lite lenses. Jaw clenched. Legs burning.
The cabriolet top was down and he could see Luthor, or his head, shining in the reflection of the streetlamps. The driver was wearing a chaffeur's captain-hat. Probably Hope Taya, the lesser of two evils.
He pulled a grapple from his belt and shot, aiming for the boot-anchored spare tire. The grapple hit true, and gave Luthor away. The billionaire shot up and around, looking wild-eyed at the Batman being dragged along the street behind him.
He let out an exasperated sigh and yelled back at Hope, "Faster!"
When Luthor looked back, Batman was climbing up the rope, connected to the grapple. The Metropolis Mogul glanced at the spare and the grapple-hook sunk firmly into the tire. No way to lose the thing without stopping fully.
Screw it, he thought.
Luthor had been wearing what he called a utility suit underneath the armor: green jodhpurs and a purple waistcoat with a close fitting neck, not unlike a US Marine uniform, except Luthor's came to a point at his Adam's Apple and flourished out behind that into what Mercy had called a Dracula collar. The uniform and the accompanying gloves, which were green for aesthetic purposes alone, was a Nomex-Kevlar bi-weave, meant to withstand the wear and tear of fisticuffs.
He was glad to finally get the chance to test the thing.
So Luthor watched at Batman climbed his way improbably up the rope. When the Dark Knight got to the rear fender securely, his boots planted themselves there and he hugged the spare tire for a moment before looking up.
Luthor scowled and laid a right hook across the Dark Knight. The car lurched a bit and he yelled to Hope, "Keep driving!"
Batman held on to the spare's latticework hubcab, barely, and Luthor hauled him back up again. Another right hook. Batman slacked. Luthor brought him back close. Another right hook.
"And you thought you could beat me, Dark Knight? Who do you think you are?!" Another right hook.
Luthor shook out his hand and gave it a dirty look for the pain he felt limited by feeling.
Batman got in a lame judo chop on Luthor, striking a nerve line running up the side of his neck. The chop got Luthor to release his grip, and gave Batman a better footing. He got up further on the car's boot, one leg in a crouch on the folded cabriolet-cover, the other extended straight into the back seat for support. Luthor maneuvered himself similarly, and the blows started their exchange again.
There was no time for martial flair to Batman's moves. He couldn't bring the artfulness of Shiva to bear. He just had to be quick and brutal—Richard Dragon's province.
Problem was, Luthor was taking it. Batman landed some blows to Luthor's midsection—Luthor kept mainly to Batman's head, probably figuring blunt trauma would end things quickly. The billionaire bowled over for a moment and Batman relented.
Kept a loose hand on Luthor's shoulder.
Luthor made a gurgling sound and then coughed up blood on the backseat and the cabriolet-cover. Quickly he looked up and sucker-punched Batman.
The wind left the Dark Knight and he bent over backwards. His legs tightened over the rim of the rear door: the action was the only thing that kept him in the car. He stared at the road ahead upside-down, and Luthor hauled him back in the car a moment later.
Another round of blows, more head trauma. Batman was sure he'd broken at east three of Luthor's ribs by now.
Luthor had him pinned in the back seat, and barely the Dark Knight managed to free a leg and jam his heel straight into Luthor's forehead. The kick stunned him. Batman jammed his leg again, this time into Luthor's load-bearing knee.
Luthor cried out in anguish and fell back in the seat, to the driver's side clutching his blown knee. Batman propped himself up on the passenger's seat and leaned forward to throttle Luthor.
"You're under arrest."
Luthor's nose was leaking blood profusely and he had a dirt smear across his temple and forehead from one of Batman's boots striking him. He sucked snot, or maybe blood, through his sinuses and back down his throat. One of his eyes was red. Probably a burst vessel. When he spoke his jaw barely moved. Probably it was fractured, too. The Dark Knight couldn't tell.
"Really, Batman? Arrest me. See what happens."
Batman grabbed Luthor by the Dracula collar and pushed him back, jamming his spine right into the rear-door railing. Luthor winced.
"You're a criminal," Batman said. "I've put rapists and meth-dealers in wheelchairs, Lex, imagine what I can do to you."
Luthor spit blood on the Dark Knight.
The next move happened in a flash. Batman tightened his grip on Luthor and threw the Metropolis Mogul over his shoulder.
Luthor flew past the front seat. Through the front windscreen and on to the hood of the Packard. It distracted Hope enough that the car swerved and almost overturned. Luthor grasped vainly for purchase and found it barely by wrapping broken fingers around the front right wheel-well; his other hand grasped the hood ornament weakly. He looked behind him as much as he could.
Batman was standing, looking triumphant in the front seat, staring Luthor down.
Hope was still driving but cowering away from the Dark Knight.
Luthor drew a deep breath against aching and snapped ribs. And scowled again.
He right himself on the hood and jammed his knee into Batman's shin; the Dark Knight fell away into the backseat, and the passenger's front seat snapped under the weight.
Luthor flashed Hope a sideways-thumb, and she hooked a left at the next street.
Luthor ambled lazily to the cab and threw himself on a compromised Batman.
He pinned the Dark Knight down by crouching right on him, jamming his knees into Batman's shoulders and keeping them there.
Then the blows were animalistic.
Like a kid beating up his own bully.
Like a predator tearing into infinitely weaker prey.
Except Batman was no fool.
This was kid's play indeed.
The Dark Knight separated the immediacy of the situation from the purpose of it. In his mind, he lamented that Luthor was not made of stronger stuff.
Lamented that even the Joker wouldn't have lost it by now.
He waited till Luthor's animalistic blows came to an end—when Luthor would have to cease and take a breath.
Luthor did, not long after Batman's estimation that he would, and then the Metropolis Mogul spoke.
"This is what you came to my city for? A couple of half-baked detections, half-truths, and a fist fight to the death with Superman's greatest enemy?"
The car kept going.
Batman coughed up some blood and with one hand clutched a snapped rib or two. His head was pounding. "Actually," he said weakly. "Yes."
Then he brought his knee up into Luthor's crotch. Luthor cried out again and punched Batman, as if the two were a shared move. He stood when he was sure Batman was stunned enogh, his legs supporting him at half-capacity. He fumbled for the holster at his waist, flipped it open and aimed the gun, shaking all the while, at the Dark Knight's forehead.
"LEX!"
He looked up, to his right—a couple hundred feet behind the Packard, where he heard the voice coming from.
No. No no no no no.
NO!!
Luthor turned the gun on the figure tooling up at him and fired off three rounds.
Then Superman was upon him. And the world became slow-motion…
The Man of Steel wrenching the gun from Luthor's hands and crunching it into a popcorn hull in his own. Pulling Luthor out of the car by the collar of his stupid purple uniform and hauling him a hundred feet in the air. Spinning Luthor around to disorient him, enough to make Luthor vomit in every direction. Setting Luthor down, finally, in the middle of the street.
Dazed. Confused.
He regained his sense in what he felt was a remarkably brief amount of time. A couple yards ahead, the Packard was a trash-heap, stopped dead in the middle of the road. He didn't see Hope anywhere.
No Batman, either.
The Metropolis Mogul was a wreck. His uniform was in pieces; the pieces that still remained were covered in blood, either his own or Batman's. Blood streamed from his nose down his face and chin. The dirt mark on his forehead was surrounded by a thousand smaller gashes from Batman tossing him through the windscreen. He sat slack. It hurt to breath. Damn broken ribs.
The avenue was dead for blocks around and Luthor cursed that.
No one to see his mishandling at the Alien's hands.
He looked up. Sucked more snot and blood back down into his throat.
Superman standing over him, cape fluttering in the night breeze. Arms folded over the gilded diamond letter on his chest.
"Why, Lex?"
He gave a low chortle, coated in hate and his own blood and wiped his nose with the tattered remains of a glove covering his hand. "Why do you ask me stupid questions, Superman?"
"Why were your isotopes duds?"
Luthor sighed. "God damn it…"
"Lex."
"Oh you," Luthor said and rubbed his temples. "You…how fortunate that you survived."
"Not quite so fortunate actually," the Man of Steel said. "Tell me why your missile failed."
"You can't just get synthetic Kryptonite from nowhere, Man of Steel." Luthor hacked and coughed up another gob of blood. "It's a problem with the isotopes. We could never replicate the precise radioactive signature without some fraction of the original. Same problem I had with Bizarro all those years ago—we needed part of the host material. At a molecular level."
"Lex…"
Luthor sighed and a stream of blood came out at the corner of his mouth. "That goddamn missile failed," he said weakly, "because the Joker has no concept of a quality weapon. And because I didn't want to kill Lois Lane. There." Luthor rubbed the dirt and grime and blood from his face, only smearing it more, and sighed again. "Your greatest enemy sabotaged his own missile because he's still torchbearing the love of his life. Happy now, Superman?"
Superman's jaw slacked an imperceptible millimeter.
Despite everything…Superman knew the truth.
The only person that loved Lois more than Clark Kent did...was Lex Luthor.
"Now," the Metropolis mogul hacked again, "is there anything else, before I bleed out completely?"
Luthor and Superman both looked down the street. An ambulance was coming.
Superman looked back at Luthor, and hauled him to his feet.
The ambulance came to a stop a few yards away. The EMTs were already running over.
Superman looked Luthor straight in the eyes.
"Lex."
"What?" Luthor said laboriously.
"That was very difficult for you to admit. About Lois. Wasn't it?"
Luthor rolled his eyes and threw his arm around one of the EMT's shoulders as they helped him limp to the back of the ambulance. "Of course not," Luthor said.
The ambulance left.
The street was dead again.
Superman stood there for a long time, staring down the street.
He thought about Lois.
Then Batman was out of the shadows, at Superman's side With Robin.
"Clark?" Batman said in that characteristic bass of his.
Superman shook Luthor's admission away and turned to the Dark Knight. "Thank you." To Robin: "and thank you. For saving me."
"Hey no problem," the Boy Wonder said. "It's what I do."
"What we do," the Dark Knight corrected.
Superman had to smile at that. "And what about the Joker?"
"On his way back to Gotham, where he belongs," Batman said.
"You let him go, didn't you?" Superman asked and felt it was fair enough.
Batman waited a moment. "It was my call to make. And we had to save you, Clark. That was the mission."
A moment. "And I appreciate it. Batman."
And then they shook hands. As weirdly and mechanically as ever.
That night, Clark Kent returned home and found his wife, still awake, on the Davenport: doing battle with the Times crossword, and the TV muted on QVC. She rose and met him in a deep embrace. He kissed her once, longingly, and said, "I love you." Lois Lane smiled back, the smile that tempted the Prince of Troy, the smile of goddesses. And that was enough for Kal-el of Krypton.
Lex Luthor spent the night in Metropolis Presbyterian Hospital, staring out the window at his own building in the distance. Missing Lois.
The Joker dumped the LexCorp chopper on the bluff out front of Arkham Asylum, made off with some fishing rods from the Bass Pro Shops on Twentieth Street, and went to see if the guppies were biting in the Finger River.
Bruce Wayne and Tim Drake made it back to the Cave by 3 am, but stayed out for the rest of the night anyway.
As they descended onto a would-be date rape outside the Knights Stadium, Tim Drake had to smile. Not because these punks were about to get schooled. Not even because they were about to save this girl's life. But because Tim Drake wanted to smile. Ars gratia artis.
Because saving this girl's life and stopping these neanderthals was the right thing to do.
Because Luthor and the Joker would never understand that.
And because Tim Drake could.
The End...