Author's Note: I NEED HELP HERE! Like I've said in the past few chapters, I have way too many ideas to decide between right now, and I'd like some help with narrowing them down. Please? Any volunteers? I'm pretty sure that I can manage to fill you in on them without giving away too much of the story. Keep in mind that this is a very ambitious project; ideally, this story will have between fifty and sixty chapters. Yikes. I'd probably give you a paragraph at most on each possible scenario, so there will still be some surprises. What I really need help with right now is choosing a primary enemy. I've already got a vague idea, which I've hinted at already, but nothing is really set in stone yet. And about the new guy... One last hint; it's Ironman. Yeah.

Ironman crashed down to Earth, landing on one knee with a loud metallic thud, leaving a huge crater in his wake. He stared at the monster for a minute before turning to Batman.

"What the hell is that thing?" He asked in a deep, robotic voice.

"I have no idea. Stay on guard."

"Right."

Ironman proceeded to activate his jets, and launch himself at the beast, fists extended. The monster grabbed him by his head and threw him aside effortlessly. It turned it's attention to Batman. He readied himself for battle, and not a second to soon; the monster leapt at him, claws ready to slice at him. Batman expertly launched himself into a combat roll, just barely dodging the attack. The beast roared, and pulled it's claws out of the pavement.

Ironman shook his head, and set his sights on the monster again. He raised his hand so his palm faced the beast, and fired an energy blast. However, the monster was prepared; it raised a hand, and caught the blast in it's palm, using it's iron-hard scales to deflect it to the ground.

Ironman flew over to Batman, and helped him to his feet.

"You're the brilliant detective... Got any brilliant ideas?" The sarcasm sounded strange when mixed with the robotic voice.

Batman carefully assessed the situation. He now knew that the strange monster was invulnerable due to it's scaly armored plating, and that it was very good at guarding it's weak points.

"Just one. Think fast. " Without further warning, Batman leapt directly onto the creature's face, wrapping his knees around it's snout, and using his arms to secure his hold on the monster's head. It raised it's arms to try to pull him off, but he held tenaciously. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WAITING FOR?" He shouted at Ironman, who was staring in awed disbelief. Ironman snapped back to reality, raising his arm to fire again. He unleashed some of the wide array of missiles hidden in his suit.

The monster was unable to see the blows coming, and took most of them directly in the chest and stomach area, where it lacked protection. It roared in pain as it fell backwards. Batman jumped off it's face, and Ironman took the opportunity to leap onto the beast, driving a fist directly through its stomach, killing it instantly.

Ironman opened his mask to reveal his true face, that of Tony Stark, billionare playboy and ex-weapons manufacturer. He pulled his arm out of the monster's stomach with a nauseating squelching noise. "Gross..." He whined, before turning back to batman, still shaking monster guts off of his hand. "That was some plan."

"It worked."

Tony's eyes narrowed. "There's something familiar about you... Say something."

Batman remained silent.

"I know you..." His eyes widened for a moment. "BRUCE?"

Batman couldn't hide his look of shock. 'It is really not my day...' He thought.

Tony laughed triumphantly. "It is you. I can't fucking believe this..." He doubled over. "Of all people... You! Oh my god..." He finally managed to get his laughter under control. "So... Yeah. That's a bit of a shock."

"How did you know."

"How could you forget? You put a business deal with me on hold, saying you were planning to go to Paris. Sounded like fun, so I decided to make a trip myself. Glad that I did too... Bruce Wayne... Who would've thought."

Batman berated himself for being so careless.

Tony continued. "Hey, what's the big deal? You could have just told me. Might've made things a bit easier."

"Forgive me if I didn't want my most important secret in the hands of the man who couldn't even keep his own identity a secret for ten minutes."

Tony shrugged as much as his Ironman suit allowed him. "It didn't seem necessary."

"Of course. You always have to be a spectacle, don't you, Tony?"

"You know... We're two of the only superheroes in the world without any superpowers."

"What's your point?"

"I think that it'd be a terrible shame to let this opportunity go to waste."

"You're kidding right? We can't fight here. There's no point."

"Fine. You're a chicken. That's cool."

"Shut up, Tony."

"BGAWK! BGAWK!"

Batman shook his head, refusing to get sucked into Tony's games.

"Come on, nobody's around. It'll be fun."

Batman realized that Tony wouldn't let him leave without a fight. He sighed and lowered himself into a fighting stance, realizing that he would have no choice but to put his business partner in his place.

"Now that's more like it." Tony closed his mask, and jumped towards Batman, who quickly ducked backwards. As Ironman passed over him, he took the chance to get a closer look at the armor. From the looks of it, it would be incredibly difficult to pierce, removing any possibility of hand-to-hand combat. Batman realized that he would have to depend on his arsenal of long-range weaponry. Bruce saw the suits major weakness, and smiled to himself.

As soon as Ironman had hurtled over him, Batman jumped to his feet again. Ironman came to a sliding halt, using both feet and one head to slow himself. He used his free hand to launch a weak energy blast at Batman. The Dark Knight easily sidestepped the blast, and pulled out his grapple gun. He aimed directly at Ironman, and fired. He knew that he didn't have enough weight to pull Ironman to him, so he'd have to settle for the alternative. He activated it, causing himself to fly towards Ironman.

In mid flight, he pulled his taser from his belt. As soon as he came in range, he drove the taser into the center of Ironman's chest, causing a small short in the arc reactor that powered the suit.

Ironman twitched for a moment, before falling backwards to the ground. The mask opened once again. Tony sputtered a little bit. "Okay, not bad..." He wheezed. "I'm gonna rest for a minute..." He promptly passed out.

Bruce sighed. "Some people never change..." He went to retrieve his glider. He decided Stark would be fine on his own for a while, but he wanted a closer look at the strange beast that had nearly destroyed Paris. He dropped a tow cable, which latched around the monster. The glider seemed to groan as he lifted it; it hadn't been designed to carry so much weight, but he calculated that he would be able to carry it for a short distance. He checked the time briefly. Superman was scheduled to arrive in half an hour. Batman realized that he'd made great time, and took off.

Once he'd exited the area of the communications jam, he placed a call to the Watchtower. J'onn responded.

"I'm glad to hear that you are well."

"Tell Superman to follow my coordinates. I need to talk to him about this."

"I shall contact him immediately."

Diana waited outside the cottage. She knew that Bruce probably shouldn't be back for a while, but she was still a bit worried. Her concerns were relieved when she saw a small speck on the horizon. Batman landed several yards in front of her. She took a glance at the payload he was carrying, and placed her head in her hands, rubbing her temples.

"Oh, Bruce..."

Author's note: I hope that will tide over you action lovers for a while. Things were getting sappy, and while sap has it's place, it should never dominate a story about superheroes. So... I decided that a two for the price of one fight scene was in order. I guess that there really wasn't much reason for the showdown between Batman and Ironman, but it made for an interesting fight, and it gave me the chance to write a bit more dialogue for Tony Stark. Which reminds me; as far as Ironman is concerned, I'm going to have to these events somewhere between the first Ironman movie and the second because... I didn't see Ironman 2 (:O). I really meant to, but I forgot. So I'm waiting for the DVD release. Yes, I'm appropriately ashamed of myself as a superhero movie fanatic. But I thought that Batman an Ironman would be an interesting showdown; they're both in very similar circumstance, but have radically different personalities. Just some food for thought... Yeah... I think that's about it. Yeah... I'll update as soon as possible. Or not. I'll try to motivate myself (I think that I've been doing a decent job with that so far). So we'll see what the future has in store.