A/N: There is a chance that this is not the betaed chapter. But I'm sure DaisyJane will let me know if that's the case, and accept my apologies...I cannot track down the betaed version on my hard drive lol.

Thank you for the reviews everyone!

Or would it be a waste?

Even if I knew my place,

Should I leave it there?

Should I give up?

Or should I just keep chasing pavements?

Even if it leads nowhere.

I build myself up,

And fly around in circles,

Waiting as my heart drops,

And my back begins to tingle,

Finally, could this be,

It or,

Should I give up?

Or should I just keep chasing pavements?

Chasing Pavements—Adele

Chapter Fourteen

The first place she went was back to that park. Once there, she contacted Tom. "Tommy, I need you to try and get a hold of Kal."

"Why?" he asked, tone a little bit irritated. Apparently she'd interrupted him doing something. Or someone. "Can't you just do it your–"

"No. There's a chance he may have disappeared. The League can't find him, and I'm heading to his last known location now. Call his apartment, go there if you have to."

"Lexie, don't you think you're –"

"Not in the slightest, Thomas, now help me."

"Alright, alright. I'll let you know what I find."

What Alexa found was absolutely nothing. She went to the exact coordinates the Metrotower had given her, and there was no trace of anything—not even the machine that had been producing the monsters. No scraps of metal, no wiring, not a trace of it. Just trees and flowers and everything one would expect to find in a park. Alexa modified her mask's vision and scanned it for anything at all. After more than an hour of careful searching, she finally found something. It was tiny, plastic and metal. And embossed with a J and L. Kal's com-link. She swallowed hard and prayed, before touching her own.

"Tom. Tell me you found him."

"I didn't. He wasn't answering the phone and I've just reached his apartment. No sign of him."

"I just found his com-link. It's damaged."

There was a pause. "What d'you want to do?"

"Contact the League. Tell them he's officially missing now. And assemble the council. We need a plan of action."

She continued sweeping the area for anything and everything she might have missed, any kind of evidence. She found only one thing—a ragged piece of cloth. She zoomed in on the structure of the material: high-density mesh, fire retardant and definitely belonging to Superman's suit. The edges were ragged, torn. So there had been a struggle. So someone had taken him. Alexa's fist curled around the material. Whoever they were, they'd pay. As Nemesis was her witness, she promised that. There was nothing else here, so she prepared to leave.

"I promise we'll find you, Kal. I promise I'll find you." She put a hand to her com-link. "Metrotower, engage transport."

Five minutes later, all the council members were assembled, and all of them looking equally concerned. J'onn spoke to Alexa. "You have reason to believe Superman is missing?"

"Yes. No one has seen or heard from him in over twenty four hours; I was the last person to see him, when he went to dismantle a machine that was projecting holographic monsters, attacking Metropolis."

Warhawk nodded. "We saw that, but just because he's been gone for a day doesn't necessarily mean anything. He was gone for months at a time before you convinced him to re-join the League, sometimes years at a time."

"I understand that," she said, "but since then, he's never missed a log, never switched his com-link off, I've just been down to Metropolis Park, and I found these." She put the com-link and material on the table. "They're both damaged, and there is no sign of the machine whatsoever."

"You think it was a trap?"

"I don't know, but I do think the state of both is indicative of a struggle."

Tom pulled out evidence bags and put both items in them. "I'll analyse them for anything significant back at the cave."

Ever the woman of action, Barda leaned forwards. "Right, we need to eliminate the places he could be. Has anyone checked the Fortress? Batwoman, where was the last place he might have been going?"

"The Atlantic. He was heading for sunlight."

"Okay, we'll check both."

Warhawk made a disparaging noise. "Entire aircraft disappear in the Atlantic Ocean—what are the chances of finding one man?"

"Rex, thank you for volunteering," Barda said.

"J'onn, is there any way you might be able to sense or hear him?" Alexa asked. "Any way you could isolate Kal from the rest of the thoughts you hear?"

"I can certainly try."

"Thank you."

"I'll have a look for boom-tube signatures," Barda said, "get in touch with High Father. Might be a long shot, but …"

Darkseid. That raised a whole new list of terrifying possibilities, but for now Alexa chose to ignore them. "I'll check the Fortress. We'll rendezvous here in two hours with whatever we have."

"Agreed."

They each went their separate ways, Alexa flying to the Arctic in the invisible jet and then using the underwater entrance to access it. She was on her guard, unsure of the defences that might be in place. There seemed to be nothing but very thick walls and an equally thick door barring her progress. Beside the door was a facial recognition scanner. Knowing it wouldn't work, she pulled her mask off anyway and stepped forwards.

The machine beeped, scanned her face and then, remarkably, said, "Batwoman, recognised. Welcome."

"Goddesses bless you, Kal," she murmured, going further inside.

The sheer vastness of it took her breath away. Themyscira's temples and palaces were huge, and grandeur was everywhere there. Somehow, knowing Kal, she hadn't expected anything like this. The ceiling towered three hundred feet above her; directly in front, and almost reaching up to that was an enormous statue of two people, balancing a world on their outstretched fingertips. A man and a woman—his parents? Coming off the main hall here were several other passageways. Without hope of answer, Alexa stood still for a moment.

"Kal? Kal, are you here?"

Once the echoes had died, she started down the first passageway. It led to what she assumed was the Fortress' living quarters. It was pretty Spartan. A bed/couch thing that looked incredibly uncomfortable (but then she didn't know how often Kal needed to sleep), a computer (presumably for monitoring Earth), a few potted plants (none of which looked terrestrial), and a shelf full of photographs. Alexa looked at them in turn. Each one filled in a little piece of the things she didn't know about Kal. The first was of a smiling couple, arms around each other, with what looked like a farm in the background. Jonathan and Martha Kent. Then a graduation photo—Hera, he looked so young—and a prom picture too. On his arm was a girl with red hair. She was very pretty. It made Alexa feel a bit better about her chances; there had once been a woman he'd loved who wasn't Lois Lane then. There were a few photos of people in the League; her parents, the original GL, the Flash. Even one of Kal with a white dog.

But one thing could not be ignored about the pictures: more than half of them were Kal pictured with, or sometimes her alone, Lois. Alexa picked up their wedding photograph, immediately knowing two things. First, she did not have a hope of looking that happy in her wedding photos. Second, Kal had not been looking at Lois with a rose-tinted memory. She really was that beautiful. They really did look like the perfect couple. Making sure her fingers hadn't smudged the glass, Alexa put it carefully back on the shelf. She quashed the slight ache in her chest. She had a job to do.

She went back out into the main hall and down another passage. It was a long, wide, well-lit tunnel with glass walls. Behind the glass were creatures Alexa had only ever seen in her dreams—or her nightmares. Most only watched her pass with blank curiosity, but some held out their hands plaintively, or snarled and growled. There was still no sign of Kal. The next passage held a similar menagerie, only of flora this time. That didn't stop some of them looking at her hungrily. She stayed there for the entirety of her two hours, looking for any sign of Kal. She even went inside the zoo and risked her limbs if not her life, but there was no trace of him. She also found what looked like food, so she distributed that and watered the plants before she left.

She felt strange—twitchy, panicked, but full of a nervous energy. The worry had settled into her bones now, was a cold lead weight in the pit of her stomach. She didn't worry that he was dead. She knew, somehow, that he wasn't … just like she would know if he was.

She went back up to the Metrotower to find everyone else hadn't had much success either. The Atlantic Ocean, as Warkhawk had rightly pointed out, was almost a dead end to begin with. According to Barda's information, no boom tube had opened on Earth in the last two months that hadn't been authorised, and from what High Father said, Apokolips was just as inactive as it had been for decades.

"I've been working on isolating Kal's thought-patterns," J'onn told them, "filtering out what is not him."

"Anything?"

"Perhaps something. I have almost been able to do it, several times, but each time something else intervenes and I lose him. If it is him."

"Keep trying. Tom?"

"Couple of things." He held up the bag with the com-link in it. "There are scratches on this that were made by something sharp and narrow, spaced closely together and very fine."

"Claws?"

"I wouldn't have said so. More like barbs, or thorns."

"Alright. And the material?"

"Nothing special about it really. A few flakes of skin, but that's Kal's, no blood, a few pollen spores, but you found it in a park, so that's not really surprising."

Alexa searched around for the next plan. "Is GL still on Oa?"

"Yeah. She isn't scheduled back for three days."

"I'll contact her and brief her on the situation. See if she can put the word out."

"I think it's unlikely he's been taken off-planet," Barda said.

"So do I. But it's a possibility, however remote."

"Alright."

Twenty minutes later, she was on a secure holo-channel with her sister-in-law, in her private quarters. "Hey, Mira."

"What's going on, Alexa? I'm guessing something's up, or you wouldn't have needed to speak to me so urgently."

Alexa nodded. "Superman's disappeared. Signs are he was forcibly abducted."

"Forcibly? How many people in the universe could do that?"

"Exactly. We've found no trace of him anywhere. It's unlikely, but he may have been taken from Earth. Not by a boom tube, Barda's already checked, but while you're there …"

"See if there's another way?"

"Yeah. And put the word out that he's missing—discretely. I really don't think we need the whole universe knowing we no longer have a Superman, but equally, someone out there might have some information."

"Alright, I'll see what I can find out. Anything else you need?"

"That's it."

"Okay. Lantern out."

Mira returned, as scheduled, three days later with no news. Alexa had spent those three days existing on coffee and doing nothing but search for Kal. There were avenues to pursue: the devices that projected the original monsters; the pollen Tom had found; any private collections of kryptonite anywhere in the world; searching every damn drop of the Atlantic Ocean if they had to—alright, so maybe that last one was impractical, but goddammit, he had to be somewhere, didn't he?

The silver transmitter/receiver was made in Eastern Europe somewhere, but it was the programming which interested Alexa. She ran it through the computer and accessed the code. It wasn't like any computer code she'd ever seen before. Ordinarily, she could read code as easily as she could English, but while some of this looked similar, it was structured strangely. Trying to extract any sense from it was giving her a headache. Either that or the lack of sleep was giving her a headache. She covered her eyes briefly and attempted to make the pain go away.

"Computer, run diagnostics and try to find a comparative sample."

Less than twenty seconds later, the computer beeped, having found such a sample. It coded for a different programme but it was the same style. "Identify sample origin."

"Example origin: Solevar, Gorilla City."

Gorilla City? The Gorillas had attacked Metropolis, taken Kal? Alexa shook her head. Even to her sleep-deprived mind, it seemed ridiculous. But it did lead to a possibility she hadn't thought of yet: Gorilla Grodd. Who was dead. She let out a groan of frustration and pounded her fists into her temples.

"Come on, Alexa! Think, think, think …" She started pacing, talking to herself. "Okay, so the code is Grodd's … but Grodd is dead so it can't be him—unless he's not dead. But Dad is sure he is, according to the records. Good enough for me. And the firewalls were ancient … There was no sign of quantum mechanics or organic algorithms. So chances are someone else is using it!" she finished, smiling.

The satisfaction of working that out faded though, when she realised that it didn't help in finding Kal at all. She knew who hadn't taken him, but had no idea who had. The list of people, civilisations or creatures with grudges against Superman was not a short one. Eliminating suspects one by one would take forever. Kal had already been gone seventy-two hours. It was all Alexa could do at the moment to stop her investigator's brain listing all the odds.

"Okay, computer's a bust … pollen. Let's look up the pollen."

She was alone in the cave—Tom was on patrol in Gotham while other League members were taking care of Metropolis. The press had gotten a hold of the story today, so everyone in the world knew Kal was missing now. Something else she had to hold against the papers. She was all for freedom of speech, but when it came with such irresponsibility …

Tom had already chemically analysed the pollen, but hadn't had chance to run it through the database. Forensically speaking, pollen tended to be a useful tool; if the plant it came from grew in specific locations, or was a particularly rare breed. This one, as it turned out, was both picky and rare. So rare, in fact, that it didn't have a name, and her father had found it only once, in the old Arkham Asylum. But that was increasingly helpful from her point of view: there was only one place to check.

She pulled her mask over her face and refilled the pouches of her belt, and was just about to go when the noise of a hover engine could be heard. A second later, the batmobile swooped into the cave, and Thomas hopped out once he had parked the vehicle.

"All okay?" she asked.

"Fine. You look like you're going out."

She nodded. "Arkham. Old Asylum. Back soon."

Tom caught her arm. "Lexie, you haven't slept in three days. "

"Your point?"

"Your judgement's off, your brain isn't functioning properly, you need a shower and you need some food before you can even begin to be up for going out anywhere."

"Tom, he's been gone seventy-two hours—at this point every minute could count, and I don't intend to waste any of them! I'm fine!"

"He's been gone longer than three days before, Alexa; the whole world thought he was dead once, remember? There was a funeral, a monument erected in his memory –"

"Yeah, and Dad refused to give up on him!" she snapped back. "So neither will I!"

"All I'm saying is he's come through stuff like this before and been fine at the end of it, so how do you know this isn't one of those times?"

"How do you know it is? I'm not willing to risk his life on chance, Tom! At the moment, Kal is alive, and I'm going to do everything I can to keep him that way, and find him that way! I don't have time to waste on sleeping!"

She pushed past her brother and took to the air. Arkham Asylum—the old one—really was Gotham's underbelly, buried underneath layers of modern offices and roads. It was a haven for the homeless for the most part now, the occasional rambling lunatic who had nowhere else to go. The criminally insane ended up in the new Arkham now—altogether fewer of them, and far less dangerous than the inmates had once been.

When Alexa landed, it was completely deserted, no noise apart from the buildings quietly falling apart, the rust slowly eating away into metal. She pulled her computer out. On it, she had loaded her father's map of Arkham as it was—a guided path straight to where the pollen had been found the first time—in Poison Ivy's quarters, or cell, really. She was about halfway there, walking since she didn't want to miss anything, when a New God descended through a hole in the ceiling on an energy disc.

Alexa put her hands on her hips. "Let me guess: my brother sent you."

"No, he just mentioned he was concerned for you," Barda replied. "I volunteered to come find you."

"Well, you found me."

"Yep. And now I'm going to come with you. Why are we here in this pit, by the way? I've seen nicer places on Apokolips."

Alexa ground her teeth in frustration. "We're here because I think there might a be lead about Kal. The pollen Tom found on his clothing was really rare, only ever been found in one place. Here."

Barda nodded, and the two women continued into the gloom. "Try not to be too hard on Tom. He's worried about you."

"I'm not the one who's missing. If he wants to worry about anyone, it should be Kal."

"We're all worried about Kal. But we're still finding time to eat and sleep in between looking for him," Barda pointed out.

"Then I'm very happy for you. I can't. Even if I tried I couldn't."

"Alexa, you're not acting like yourself. You're being irrational. Illogical."

"Well how could you be if it were Scott who'd gone missing?" Alexa retorted, without thinking.

"Pretty devastated," Barda admitted. "But Kal doesn't mean to you what Scott means to me…" she paused and looked sharply at her friend. "Or does he?"

"I –" Finding she had no words, Alexa clamped her mouth shut and turned away.

Barda's jaw dropped. "He does?"

"I just want to find him, Barda," Alexa said quietly, her cheeks flaming now.

Unfortunately, that wasn't going to cut it with Barda. She took Alexa's shoulders and physically turned Alexa to face her. "Lexie, are you in love with him?"

A/N: Review please