I do not own Alfred Pennyworth, Lucius Fox, Amanda Waller, Bruce Wayne/Batman, or Martian Manuhunter/J'onn J'onzz. DC does. So, please enjoy for free.

"Keep standing in our way, and I'll call a strike on our current position."

Lucius' eyebrows rose. He gripped the steering wheel. Alfred's reply sounded calm, even dry and sardonic to his fast beating heart. "Truly?"

Lucius strained to hear every syllable of Waller's answer in her own bedrock intonation. "To get this Martian locked down ... permanently ... I'd kill him, you, myself, and everyone here. This whole section of road and the mountainside you just popped out of will be rubble in seconds ... You won't save the Martian either way."

Lucius' mouth dropped open slightly at Alfred's next words and action. "I believe you." Alfred stepped further away and closed the door between them.

Lucius had just begun calculating if the speed and durability of the batmobile could protect them. Could he win an argument with the ex-MI6 agent on this attempt at self-sacrifice. Trying to physically get him back in the car against his will was laughable even with the lessons on self-defense Bruce had recently given him. While thinking all this, Lucius had leaned over to flip a switch.

Microphones outside the car put Alfred's hard clipped words through the car's speaker system. "It'd still be a kinder send-off to all of us than I imagine you'll give my green guest, when he's yours ..."

"What about Bruce?"

Lucius froze stiff in the driver's seat. Alfred seemed to speak his thoughts. "What about him?"

"I can call a strike on him too."

Lucius swallowed, shut his eyes, and bowed his head. Oh no … Oh no, no, no, no, no …

"I thought you rather valued Master Bruce ..." Old Alfie was trying …

"Not as much as I want the Martian neutralized."

Lucius shut his eyes and breathed in through his teeth. Then he froze feeling like he was listening even with his spring-tight muscles. Thus, he heard Alfred's sigh as well as Waller's following command. "Move!"

As Alfred opened the door, Lucius' tight shoulders relaxed, but his guts twisted. As Alfred closed it, Lucius flung open his own and called out, "Excuse me! Ma'am?"

Waller turned. He heard Alfred's door and voice behind him. "Fox!"

Lucius watched every small movement in the woman's face as she stared at him. She raised an eyebrow. Intrigue. Good, an opening. He stepped toward her and placed a hand over his heart. "May I offer my services?"

Alfred's reaction sounded spat through his teeth behind Lucius' back. Desperation. "Fox!"

Waller took a step toward the scientist her once narrowed eyes widening. Desire to study him more closely. Her voice was low and flat. Not much to read into there. "Why would you want to render your services to me?"

He put on his warmest, most congenial smile the one he used applying for jobs before Thomas Wayne, the one he'd closed deals for Wayne Industries with, wrangled investors and employees with while the doctor who hired him to run his company cured babies' coughs or stitched dying men back together. Now not only Thomas and Martha's son, but another soul somewhere back there in one of those trucks he'd wager, needed him.

He held his hands up and out in part fake surprise, but also real plea, "You're kidding, studying a Martian, an extraterrestrial, something I and many other scientists like me thought we could only daydream about? Why would I want to give that up?"

He put a little more charm into his smile. "Even with Mr. Wayne's great generosity, I bet you have resources I haven't gotten my hands on before to continue studying a humanoid body that is not human, not made for earth, yet almost perfectly adapted to it. I'm sure there's more to learn, perhaps even secrets that can be profited from?"

"You wouldn't get into any scientific journals or newspapers by working for me, Mr. Fox."

Lucius smiled wider and shrugged. "A true scientist loves the acquirement of knowledge for its own sake."

Alfred spoke up behind him again with a growl. "Fox."

He didn't let himself flinch or even show any reaction to his friend's assertion as he bent over looking up beseechingly into Waller's stone face and probing eyes. Waller's flat tone didn't set his spirit back an inch not after all the turn downs' he'd received in his youth. "We have our own scientists. They helped us catch him."

"But do they have the intimate experience with 'this' test subject that I already do?"

Waller gave a cold slow grin. "No, they do not."

"Couldn't I even direct them then?"

"No. You would not."

"I … would … not? There's hope?"

He leaned further over and smiled just a little wider. Waller pursed her lips and straightened her back, raising her head higher. Her tone held neither enthusiasm nor encouragement. "You could prove useful, under careful watch."

She turned and walked away. Lucius breathed out and followed first her and then the hand-wave and pointing gestures of the younger blond Agent Bern. He did let himself bite his bottom lip at Alfred's next words. They were not loud, but still, somehow, audible just before the re-ignition of the engines in the line of cars before and beside him drowned them out. "Lucius, he wouldn't want this …"

As the "s" sound was indeed drowned out by the roars of the cars and trucks including the one he was waved into, Lucius wondered if Alfred meant Bruce or J'onn J'onzz.

What do you think now?

God bless

ScribeofHeroes