Washington D.C.

The reasonably-sized hotel room has an unobstructed view of the Washington Memorial. The door to the balcony is slightly open and, as the sounds of the city below drift in, a breeze plays with several small piles of bulldog-clipped papers on the desk. Two small satchels, along with an open laptop, sit on the bed and a carry-on suitcase is by the dresser. Lois steps away from the coffee machine and takes in the aroma of the freshly brewed cup. A rustle of fabric catches her attention and she looks towards the balcony door, smiles, and makes her way over to it.

'I tried to reach out to him,' says Superman, as Lois slides the door open further, his hands resting on the balcony railing. His head turns slightly as he passes his gaze over the city's skyline.

Frowning a little, Lois leans against the doorframe and takes a sip from her drink, before she asks, 'To whom?'

Superman doesn't look at her when he answers: 'The Batman.'

Surprised and curious, Lois pushes herself off the doorframe as Superman turns to face her, 'Clark, why would-'

'He's a good man, Lois.' He leans back against the railing. 'He wishes to be. He only...'

'What? Lacks a light to show him the way?'

'Maybe.'

Lois shakes her head and smiles. Bemused and pursing his lips to stop his own smile, Clark flicks his head upwards a little, questioning, as Lois steps forward.

'Isn't that what this is becoming?' she asks, touching the sigil of the House of El on Superman's chest. 'A beacon? Hope? Just be yourself, Clark, and if Batman is meant to, maybe when he stops with the burning and branding-'

'That's just it,' he says, placing his hand over hers and shaking his head a little. 'I don't think it's him.'

Lois frowns, confused, 'But you said-'

'I know.' He lets go of her hand and paces the small balcony area. 'Gotham forensics found metal ions in the burn injuries that match the alloy his batarangs are made of, others that match parts of his car. I've seen them with my own eyes. Compared them. There are some differences but they seemed superficial. They're alloys that don't seem to exist on record, or at least don't seem to have been used anywhere other than by him, and just raise more questions.

'I've gone over the police interviews of the victims and the eye-witnesses, and spoken to some of them myself, and I don't think it's him.'

'A few weeks ago you said he seemed angry. You showed me your casefiles and said there was some sort of escalation compared to how he used to be. That-'

'He knows who I am,' says Clark, gently.

Lois gasps. 'Oh my God.' Her eyes dart around, nervously, and she looks towards the door and into the safety of the room.

Clark smiles and steps over to her, saying: 'It's okay, Lo. I wanted him to know.'

Lois' eyes flit from side to side, examining Clark's face, trying to understand, and then they widen with realisation: 'Wait, you know who Batman is?'

Clark nods.

'How?'

He shrugs and smiles. 'I've known since I was nineteen.'

She looks impressed and mouths 'nineteen?' and Clark smiles a little wider and nods again.

'Have you told your Mom? About him knowing?'

'Not yet.' Lois sets her cup down on the balcony table and rests her arms on the chair, leaning against it, her fingers thrumming against its edge. Gently, Superman prises her away from the chair and turns her towards him, banding his knees a little as he tries to get her to look at him. 'It was the right thing to do, Lois, and I've wanted him to know for years.'

'But why, Clark? Why would you do something like that?'

He looks down and away, ashamed. 'To…to apologise.'

Although surprised by his answer, Lois immediately asks: 'Apologise? For?'

Clark doesn't say anything for a few seconds but glances around the area again before he gestures towards the door and they walk into the hotel room.

Closing the door and drawing the curtains, Clark says, his voice deep and sombre, 'It was my fault that they died.'

'Who?' There's a hint of frustration in her voice, brought about by the almost-non-answers Clark is giving her, and Lois tugs on her blouse and breathes out slowly.

Walking to the desk, he says, 'When Zod tried to break free he crashed into the Wayne Financial building-'

'None of that was your fault.'

Shaking his head, his shoulders sagging, he continues, 'It was. I should have taken him on to the ship. I left him behind because-'

'You wanted to check if the others were ready. That the rest of the plan was in place. We talked about this.'

'I still could have…no, I still should have taken him with me. Instead, he broke free and fell into the building, killing-'

'Clark…'

'Batman's family.'

'What?' Shocked, Lois leans forward a little, her brow furrowed and her head turned slightly, as if trying to hear something again.

'His son.' Clark looks at her, the sadness apparent on his face.

'Batman has kids?!'

'Had. His son, his daughter-in-law, and their unborn child.'

'Clark, that wasn't your fault.'

'It is, Lo. It was, and I can never put it right.'

They're quiet for a moment and then Lois says, 'If you think he blames you for what happened-'

'I do.'

'Then that doesn't explain why you would let him find out who you are-'

'When he came out of retirement I kind of…I don't know…hoped, I guess. With the refugees from Metropolis, Gotham needed someone like him more than it had done since the night Commissioner Gordon was murdered. When they started shining his signal again I couldn't help but smile. I knew he wouldn't have made it known that he was back if he didn't believe he was ready, and the idea of working with him, it just sounds right: Superman and Batman.'

'And, what? Are you two supposed to be the World's Finest or something?'

'I think we can be.'

Shaking her head Lois paces in front of the bed and Clark watches her and waits. Clark detaches his cape and drapes it over the desk chair. He looks bigger without it, almost warrior-like. She looks at him, frustrated, and Clark shrugs.

'Like I said, I've known who he is for a long time. I know what he's been through and I know he's been out there doing whatever he could to make the world a safer place.'

'Clark, he-'

'He saved my life. Years ago. He saved me and he doesn't even know it.'

'How?' Clark speed-changes into some casual clothes and sits on the edge of the bed, gesturing for Lois to sit next to him.

'After my father died, I was lost. People in Smallville…my being different was something a few of them knew and accepted and never talked about. Pete, Lana, Kenny, some of the older folk-'

'Because of the bus, I know, it was one of the threads that finally lead me to you.'

'They couldn't…sometimes I couldn't…'

'Couldn't what, Clark?'

'Understand how I couldn't make the children let go.'

She takes his hands in hers. 'You were worried about hurting them.'

'I know, but I could have tried more, perhaps.'

'But how does Batman come into this?'

Clark takes a breath, stands up and, as he paces the room, says: 'After the funeral I got more and more restless. Ma and I talked. A lot. She helped me with my guilt, but she understood that I couldn't be there. Couldn't stay there. She didn't want me to go, but she knew I had to. I didn't want to leave her alone, but I knew she wouldn't be.'

'Small town and all that.'

Clark smiles. 'And all that.

'I wasn't as strong or as fast then, and I think…no, I know I got arrogant. I started travelling – mainly in the Midwest but away from home. I helped where I could. In secret. I had heard about Batman and Robin, the myths and stories and hyperbole, but I didn't know what to think of them. A part of me…I started to think that maybe, if he was what some said he was, then maybe I wouldn't be so alone and so different. That maybe he was like me. I made my way to Gotham and saw him in action. I figured out who he really was and what drove him, and I tried to introduce myself to him a couple of times.' He chuckles and shakes his head. 'Even kept a batarang as a souvenir. But I knew Pa had been right: the world wasn't ready.'

'Okay, but-'

'I ended up in Central City for a little while, took on some work at a steelworks. There was an explosion…a blast furnace erupted, sending down molten metal. I got the workers out of the way but…I was disoriented. I thought I heard someone in trouble so I headed back in as they were diverting the flow, and the metal poured onto me.' Clark smiles a little and shakes his head as he shrugs off the memory.

'A week later, I was in Keystone.'

'Central City I knew, but Keystone?'

'I wasn't that bad at keeping a cover, Lois, and not everyone is you.'

She smiles and bites her lip. 'Okay, so, Keystone.'

'I'd just applied for a job with a manufacturer of construction vehicles and went to call Ma from a payphone, when everything began to shake around me. The glass shattered, the phone exploded, my teeth began chattering and my nose started bleeding.

'The noise…I could barely stand, and then something pummelled me. Next thing I knew, I was in some kind of glass box, bathed in red light. All around me were other…cages and platforms. Most of them were empty, there were only four that had someone or something in them, including mine. Others were tucked away in other parts of the facility.

'It was a place called Project Cadmus.'

'"Cadmus"? I've never heard of it.'

'Apparently, it was named after the first Greek hero, but it was basically an internationally sanctioned prison and science lab. My powers were weaker somehow but I could see the others who were held there…and the cadavers.'

'Oh, Clark.'

'There were no scientists or, well, there didn't seem to be anyone actually manning the place. Everything was automated or watched over by different kinds of robots. I was in some kind of bodysuit. Black and blue. None of us really knew how long we had been in there. Some of us tried to escape. All of us failed.

'It's where I met Arthur and actually did start to believe that I wasn't the only one like me, after all.'

'Arthur?'

'You'll meet him some day, I'm sure.'

'Hmm, it's starting to sound like you've got some kind of boys' club that you haven't told me about.'

Clark shrugs. 'Never know, it could happen.'

'Then, one day – Arthur and I figured it was a couple of weeks after I had arrived – the grid went out and the red light stopped and my strength, my hearing, my sight, all of it, surged in me a little, returning, and they were there: Batman and Robin.'

'How?'

'He's a detective, Lois. It's what he does.'

'Go on.'

'Doors opened, and there was some kind of silent alarm. The robots morphed and sparked and tried herding us. Arthur and I lashed out and we almost turned it into a competition. Armed men arrived with strange weapons. No bullets. I knew then that whatever Cadmus was it wanted us alive, I just didn't know what for.

'Have you ever seen Batman and Robin in action?'

'Only in that video.'

'The death of Robin.'

'Batman's son,' says Lois, uncertainly. Questioning.

Clark doesn't say anything for a second or so and then says, 'His second. Different to the first. Angrier.'

'And in Cadmus?'

'In Cadmus it was the first Robin.' He looks up at the ceiling and to the sky beyond and says, 'There are so many things I wanted to say to him but never could.'

'Such as?'

'How much I admired his grace. I'm serious, Lois,' he says, smiling at Lois' smile. 'The way he moved, it was like a dance and he was everywhere.

'Batman, for all his mystery and distraction, was far more direct. Watching them take on the security forces made their differences so apparent.

'Somehow they hacked into some sort of PA system embedded in the robots. There was an announcement on loop – Robin telling us to make our way to an exit where they had a plane waiting.'

'The Batplane's real, too?'

'Oh, he's had a few over the years.

'I ignored the instructions. A part of me was still somewhere in the facility-'

'A part of you?'

'The Command Key. I could hear it, somehow. When I found it I was… stunned.

'The images were crude, like… like old VHS recordings where the tracking was off. Scrolling and fading. I'm not sure what they were showing exactly – history and stories, facts and figures – but I saw Robin standing in the middle of the room, reaching for the Command Key. I dashed forward and took it before he could. The images and sounds vanished and he looked at me, dazed, and, I realised years later that it was because of the tears in my suit… that, with what he had seen, that was why he said what he did.'

'What did he say?'

Clark smiles at the memory of Robin looking at him and whispering, with a smile: 'Nightwing'.

In the Rockies

Deep in the facility, a massive new data storage room is being finalised and linked to a closed network. The screens in the new room, like the ones in the others at this level, display news broadcasts from across the world. One screen, however, flits between news from Argentina and schematics of a metallic human skeleton. The small robots roaming the corridors pause as they receive new instructions. In a lab a few dozen feet above, Lex looks over various holo-screens showing the blond-haired man becoming a dark-haired one, and his skeleton of a body becoming layered with muscle. He's looking over months of footage sped up to a matter of minutes.

'Lex?' says a slightly robotic voice.

'Yes, OB-AP?'

'Analysis of the Kryptonian decedent is complete.'

'Fantastic. What can you tell me?'

'This Kryptonian is from before the Great Collapse. The genetic markers and musculature make him to be a native-born rather than from the colonies.'

'So he's like Superman?'

'Not quite.'

'Why?'

'Comparing against samples recovered from the Grand Canyon, he lacks elements found in designates Kal-El and Zod.'

'What do they entail?'

'Unknown at present.'

'And?'

'Genetic integrity has been compromised by-'

'That was to be expected. And the nutrient bath?'

'Has been successful. Major cellular regeneration was promoted and actioned and, as anticipated-'

'Timeline?'

'Seven weeks until irreversible degradation.'

'And the external restructuring?'

'Completed as requested.'

'Excellent, excellent. Which leads us to the inevitable: termination?'

'Unknown. His Kryptonian physiology will continue to attempt to heal but the process will lead to mutations.'

'Speculation?'

'Unable to speculate. This is knowledge I have never been exposed to. Never assimilated.'

'We learn something new every day.'

'We do, Lex. Thanks to you.'

'The implant?'

'Is active and synced to you.'

Lex touches his wrist and three small lights forming an upside-down triangle blink on his forehead. The door to the chamber opens and Lex steps in and walks over to the large tube containing the body. The yellow-green liquid is now thick and cloudy. He swipes his hand in the air and there is a hiss and the body lowers slightly as the liquid drains away. Thin cables wrap around his arms and legs and its now-dark hair clings to his forehead. The glass wall of the tube slides down and the cables move forward and bring the body out and stop just before Lex. He reaches out and lifts the head, turning it from side to side.

'Very good work,' he says.

'Thank you, Lex.'

The scar on the body's face looks raw and Lex frowns a little and then shakes his head a little. He steps back and, smiling, raises his hands and closes his eyes. The cables unwind and retract and the body hovers in mid-air.

His eyes open and 'Superman' smiles.

A wall of screens in the Batcave are full of images and footage of Diana. Some are from the Shugel Foundation, other are from traffic and ATM cameras. On one screen is a front page article from the Gateway City Herald: 'World's End Missing Pilot Returns'. On smaller screens are classified material on Steve Trevor with lots of redacted pages

'And how is the investigation into Ms Prince coming along?' Alfred asks as he places a small tray of food next to Bruce. He picks up a plate of sandwiches and offers it to him. Bruce presses a couple of buttons and then takes a sandwich.

'So far, it's only creating questions. The backdoors Barbara created are still in place, but so much has changed these past five years.'

'To be expected, though, surely?'

'Doesn't make it any less frustrating, though,' he growls.

'I miss her, too.'

'I know.' Bruce gets up and Alfred follows him as he walks over to another console. 'Now, the alloys…'

Alfred swipes a screen and a holo-dossier opens, displaying handwritten notes, video files and other data. 'One of the first alloys Professor Winton proposed to your father was one that would both absorb impact and, in doing so, enable electricity to be generated. I remember your mother asking if it would help hospitals and schools in warzones. I remember the hope they both had.'

'But it never happened because..?'

Alfred 'pulls' at a folder and swipes in the air. 'According to the archived minutes, the board said it was too expensive to produce and plain unsellable, other than to government-backed militaries.'

'And our military?'

'Wasn't interested.'

'Why?'

Alfred swipes the air again and opens some video files. The footage of impact tests shows small walls, jeeps and planes survive a range of explosions and shells.

'Although it absorbed impact from all manner of things, the alloy was fragile when used as armour for vehicles.'

The footage then shows parts of the walls deformed.

'The plating construction was an issue?'

'Quite?'

'How many hits?'

'It seems seven Hi-Ex squash heads was the limit.'

Bruce looks over at another wall of screens, this one showing footage and readings from the Battle of Smallville. He frowns at the impact figures from Superman's punches. 'And then?'

'Then it would dent and crack and fall apart.' He swipes again and shows a simulation.

'Okay, so we have impact absorbers, energy convertors-'

'Blades.'

'Go on.'

Channel 52 – Sports News

'After months of delays the second exhibition match between Gotham and Metropolis has finally been confirmed to take place in Metropolis Stadium in three weeks. Also confirmed to play is Victor Stone.'

ARGUS facility – outskirts of Washington D.C.

Diana looks out the tinted windows and over at the cluster of aircraft in the hanger below. She watches the engineers conduct their maintenance checks and her mind wanders to stables back on Themyscira and the long hours she had spent in helping clean them. The wall behind her is a bank of screens, and the one to her right has various consoles. The long table in the middle of the room is littered with laptops and what look to be various speakers.

'The higher-ups took a lot of convincing before they would let me give this to you,' says Steve as he walks into the room. He holds up the scythe, wrapped in plastic.

'Back to me, considering it was me who retrieved it,' says Diana, turning to him and holding out her hand, 'and that I gave it to you for your people to analyse in the first place.' She removes the plastic and holds the blade up to the light. She squints and then flicks it with her finger, generating a ringing sound and making the windows rattle.'

Steve shakes his head and rubs his ears. 'I know, that's what I said-'

'But they think it a ruse of some sorts.'

'They don't trust easily-'

'Hmm.. perhaps if they weren't so wont to betray, they would find it easier to trust.'

'We're not on an island of women where everyone knows everyone, Diana.'

'Everyone has their secrets, Steve, but that's not something that should come in the way of trust.'

'Do you trust me, though?'

'I do.'

Surprised at her quick answer it takes a few seconds for Steve to realise she has actually given one. 'Good. And I trust you. Sometimes that's all that matters.'

Diana smiles and turns her attention back to the scythe. 'Sometimes.' She recites the words of the Oracle and Steve quickly writes them on a board:

Darkness is coming, and with it Light
The Scythe cuts through and all comes apart
The Alphas will rise as the Omega descends but together or all will fall
The False God will show his colours and the sun will shine
Men of Metal thirst
A Great Eye will open and the Sea-King will call
The Hand. The Great Hand. Crushing all.

'The Oracle's prophecies, her vision, can never be recorded. Her words can be, but what she shows those in attendance-'

'Well, if you maybe had a camcorder handy…'

'The technology from this world, Man's World, doesn't work on Thymescira.'

'Don't remind me. I'm just glad none of my friends saw you carrying the plane out so I could start the engines.'

'I didn't think you were so insecure.'

'I'm not!'

'We had considered…correcting your engines, but Io and Phillipus believed-'

'They were right.' Diana places the scythe on the table and looks at Steve. 'They were right,' he says again and then gestures at the words on the board.

'You said this was Kronos' scythe, some mythic Titan, but, I mean, it's small. Weren't the Titans huge? The guy swallowed his kids, didn't he? Whole?'

'They could be whatever they wanted to be, and, yes, he did. A long time ago. But Kronos and the others like him… Steve, there's a reason why Shugel made sure the pieces were arranged as they were. There were items from dozens of pantheons covering millennia, and with all those gods of time focused on this, this has to be what the Oracle was referring to.'

'Yeah, but Alphas and False Gods and a big hand?'

'You only know of the words, not what was seen. Maybe…' She holds up the Scythe in her right hand and wraps the lasso around it, binding them together. 'Show me what is to come.' The lasso shines a bright gold but the Scythe stays dull.

'Nothing,' she whispers. 'And you won't show me what you showed him. What's so special about him?'

'What did you say?'

'The Superman wears a cape and many in Man's World see him as some kind of god. The Batman thrives in the shadows, and you told me about the rumours of the man from the sea. With so many-'

'That one is just conjecture, based on what ARGUS was able to piece together after Project Cadmus was compromised.'

'Compromised?'

'Project Cadmus was something unknown until-'

''Compromised' would imply it was sanctioned.'

'Initially, yes. Back during the Cold War. A lot of things were sanctioned back then. A lot of things were attempted, for the safety of the world.'

'A lot of things were attempted a hundred years ago, Steve, and I put a stop to them.'

'This wasn't like that, Diana. We were in the right.'

'What did the Project entail?'

'We can talk about that later-'

'Steve.'

Steve grits his teeth and looks towards the door. Diana steps forward and Steve relents: 'It was a… facility where the government placed certain people with abilities.'

'Holding people captive and experimenting on them?'

'That was a different time. Things have changed now.'

'Of course they have, otherwise I wouldn't be here with you.'

'Exactly.'

'I would be in a cage somewhere.'

'Diana-'

'Where do your people 'conjecture' the man from the sea to be?'

'It…there were rumours after the Metropolis Incident,' he swipes a hand over one of the speakers on the table and large holographic globe hovers over the table. He points and the highlighted points across the Indian Ocean and down towards South Africa. 'Scattered sightings here and here and here. Rescues and huge sea creatures holding warships and cruisers together.'

'And recently?'

'I don't know.'

'Fine. What else happened in Cadmus?'

'Why so much interest in it? It's been shut down for years.'

'The name. It can't be a coincidence.'

'I think there's someone else you need to meet with. Someone who's been asking similar questions.'

'Whom?'

'Senator Finch.'