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seriousficTitle: Duality
Fandom: Nolanverse Batman, Superman Returns
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 5,195
Characters/Pairings: Bruce Wayne, Barbara Gordon, Harvey Dent, Jim Gordon
Previous Part: Chapter 14
Next Part: Chapter 16
Summary: The Battle of Gotham Park.
5:00 PM
At the top of Mount Everest, the air was so thin that man couldn’t breathe without oxygen tanks. They were fragile. Superman had been there numerous times, it and so many mountains like it, to rescue stranded climbers or dig through the aftermath of an avalanche. But he rarely got the chance to just sit atop the peak and listen.
This was not one of those occasions.
Clark had been jumping from mountaintop to mountaintop, straining his ears to detect Lex’s heartbeat. It was a sucker’s game. Only minutes would pass before he detected the two little words that were both the core of his being and the walls of his existence. He hated them. He lived for them.
“Help, Superman!”
No luck. As Superman flew to the rescue, he considered the possibilities. The simplest explanation was that Lex’s heart had simply stopped beating. It was possible. Humans were so fragile. They could die getting out of a bathtub, crossing the street… of a heart attack…
No! Lex couldn’t be dead. Not before…
“Superman, help!”
He sighed and poured on the speed, careful not to kick up shockwaves in his haste. Whatever Luthor had planned, he’d stop it. And maybe this time it would get through that thick, hairless skull of his…
5:50 PM - Sunset
Not a moment to spare.
That’s how close it had been. Bruce had spent the day in something like prayer, if he believed in anything, preparing for the ordeal to come. The Joker had something planned and megalomaniacs tended to escalate in leaps and bounds. Whatever was coming for Earle, it would be big.
He suited up early, not even waiting for the sun to descend below the horizon to begin. Alfred watched him, obligingly stuffing the old clothes into a hamper. Batman emerged from the costume vault, slowly cracking the kinks of Bruce Wayne’s repression from his neck.
“Is it any use asking what marvelous shade of bruise you’ll be returning with tonight, sir, so that I might plan your wardrobe accordingly?”
Bruce took his cowl off. “Plan something that can be accessorized with a plaster cast.” He walked past the Tumbler to the black Lincoln Continental he used for undercover work. Looking at it, one would never guess that the shell was reinforced and the interior packed with weaponry. Alfred fetched him the keys. “I’ve had my men hitting the streets for information all day. Minus the time to summarize their findings, that’s six hours to find out what the Joker has planned for Earle and stop it.”
“Whatever he has planned, I doubt it could happen to a nicer fellow.”
Batman glared at the butler.
“Merely suggesting that this Joker might have some sort of vigilante agenda as well.”
“No. You didn’t get as close to him as I did. He doesn’t care about anything, even himself.”
Alfred nodded. “He just wants to watch the world burn.”
“Exactly.” Batman stepped into the Lincoln. “Don’t wait up.”
“Master Wayne, I worry sometimes…”
“It’ll have to wait. And don’t worry. I can handle him. The rational mind always trumps insanity.”
He took off with a squeal of tires, down into the roadway that was patched into Gotham’s sewer systems. There, he’d emerge somewhere in the city, ready to go about his work. Alfred sighed and shuffled about his work. He’d do the laundry, lay out the medical kits for Master Wayne’s return, and keep the ghastly Bluetooth device that had been issued to him tuned to the Batman’s channel. Aside from that, all he could do was wait.
With a flush of unexpected rage, Alfred scattered a collection of cowls from the master’s workbench and crushed them underfoot like eggshells. Defective ones that Master Wayne had been experimenting with, stenciling on, trying to make them even more fearsome. That cracked most satisfyingly.
Alfred took a deep breath, both satisfied and ashamed. Still, at least now he had something to clean. He went to get a broom and dustpan.
How to tell Bruce that sometimes he worried “the Batman” would gladly see the world burn, so long as he could pick which parts of it went up first?
6:10 PM
Harvey Dent had never actually seen the Batsignal light up. Oh, sure, he’d seen it a moment after the fact, the bright-yet-darkness lit up against a cloud, but he’d never seen the actual moment of illumination. Gordon pulled the switch. It was both like a regular spotlight, and not at all like a regular spotlight. A spear of light shot out, hit the heavens. It was faintly translucent in the dying light of the sun, like a ghost of its usual presence. Harvey had to shield his eyes from the intense light.
“How long do we have to wait?”
“Not long, I imagine,” Gordon said as he lit his pipe.
“How do we know he’s not out of town or something?”
“Because he’s always here. When we need him.”
“And do we need him? Really?”
Gordon took a long drag on his pipe, the embers flaring brightly, their reflections in his square-framed glasses leaving his eyes a mystery. “Yes.”
“I wish I had your confidence.”
“No. You don’t.”
The spotlight blared on, with a kind of hum that Gordon seemed to find comforting. Harvey just thought it was annoying. He tugged up the collar of his coat, wishing he’d taken Gilda’s advice and worn a cap. Even in a hospital bed, she was looking out for him. At the thought of her, he pulled a flask from his coat pocket and took a pull from it. Gordon snorted.
“What? I need to cool my nerves.”
“Just be sure they’re not too cool.”
Harvey wiped his nose with the back of his hand. If he stood out here much longer, he’d be catching cold. “I think you’re drink too if you had a more realistic assessment of the man. He’s not a pet or a genie. He’s a very disturbed individual. What if the voices in his head decide tonight’s the night to get rid of a DA?”
“As scary as it may seem, Batman seems like the sanest man I know at times.”
“You’re right. That is scary.”
“Bruce boozes away his potential, locked up in that manor of his.” Harvey started to protest before Gordon pointed at him. “You think you can save Gotham by the book, but when it comes to Gotham there isn’t even a book, and me… me, I volunteered for this job. What does that tell you? In a place like this, maybe dressing up like a bat is the smart thing.”
“Should I recommend you a tailor who specializes in tights?”
“Me? No. Too old. Besides, Sarah would never let me hear the end of it. I work late enough as it is.”
Harvey was getting more anxious, despite how he tried not to show it. The Batman only went after bad guys and he wasn’t a bad guy. Just… weak. Sometimes. Not even that often. The man he’d shot deserved to die. And Batman was no specter to look inside a man’s heart and see its color. He wouldn’t know how much Harvey had enjoyed it. Justice, instant and incontestable. No legal loopholes, no hung juries, just… what? No, that wasn’t him thinking that, that was some random snippet of a bad TV drama whispering in his ear, running through his head, the real world didn’t work like that.
“If he keeps us waiting much longer, he’ll come here to find an ass-kicking waiting for him.”
“He might need one at that,” Gordon laughed. “But who’s gonna give it to him? You?”
“Army training, you know. Never really goes away. If he were here, right now… Lennox Lewis left, Oscar De La Hoya right… the Bat goes down for the…”
“Boo,” said Batman.
Gordon tried very hard not to laugh at the face Harvey made. It wasn’t easy.
“If this is about the Joker, I’m already on it.” Batman spoke with no further preliminaries, ignoring Dent pulling his wits back together as he plunged into business.
“Then maybe you’d appreciate some help,” Gordon said. He held out a folder, which the Batman took but did not look at. “The weapons the Joker’s men were using were state of the art. Ballistics show that the ammo was top-notch as well. The men were also experienced. Used to be heavy hitters in the Falcone family, back before Carmine went whacko. This Joker has resources.”
“Or he has a sponsor. Those guns and men would run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. And professional mercenaries don’t do pro bono work. An insane rampage would be the perfect cover for a murder. Find who benefits from Earle’s death, we could just find the man behind the man.”
“What about Earle?” Harvey piped up. “Gordon’s got him in protective custody, but they’re not…”
“Like me?” Batman made a sound deep in his throat. “I’ll be there to protect Earle tonight. But finding the Joker before he makes his move would be our best strategy. That’s the angle I’ll pursue. You concentrate on keeping Earle safe. It’s important to remember that no matter how far-removed from societal norms the Joker is, in the end he’s just a man.”
“So were you,” Gordon said.
“Are,” Batman said. “I’ll be in touch.”
And without even looking, he stepped backward off the rooftop and disappeared into the night.
“Does he do that a lot?” Harvey asked.
“Usually he waits until I’m looking in the wrong direction.”
“What is he, eight?”
“Sometimes I think he’s closer to eight hundred. Come on, I’ll buy you a coffee. Your hands are shaking.”
“Oh?” Harvey stuffed them in his pockets. “Yeah, you go on ahead. I think I’ll stay out here a while. It really is a beautiful night, you know.”
Gordon shut off the Batsignal. “Suit yourself. But don’t stay out here too long. Can’t do Gotham any good frozen.”
Harvey stared at the night sky. A hunter’s moon had risen early, like God had flipped a great silver coin and left it stuck in the darkness. What was it his father had always said? God flipped the moon to decide whether to make the world and it landed dark side up… so He did. Something like that. Cynical, he would’ve said. But then, not twenty-four hours ago he’d been assaulted by a psychotic clown and the Three Stooges. Maybe Batman was right. The world only made sense when you made it make sense.
He pulled Bruce’s coin from his pocket. His jacket pocket, not his pants pocket. In his pants pocket, it would be just another coin. But the silver dollar was special, somehow. He danced it over his knuckles like a knife, accidentally fumbling it on his pinky. Damn thing never had worked right since his father broke it. The coin landed on the parapet, heads up. Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Harvey had heard a story in college. About how Roosevelt had known that Pearl Harbor would be bombed, and let it happen so that he’d have an excuse to enter America into the world. To have the strength, the conviction, the ruthlessness to do such a thing… If that were true, did it make him a hero or a monster? Or both? Suddenly the night seemed a little colder.
Harvey snatched up the coin and went back inside. Caught the elevator down. There was no one else in it, which suited him just fine. He felt like being alone. He rubbed his hands together, pleased with the warm friction. Then the elevator jerked to a stop.
Harvey reached for the emergency phone.
“Don’t,” came a familiar voice. It was above him.
The lights dimmed.
Harvey looked up. The access panel into the elevator shaft had opened and he had an impression… no more than an impression… of eyes and a mouth set in something that would’ve been a scowl if it weren’t so carefully neutral.
“We need to talk,” Batman said.
“I don’t think we have much to say to each other. Your anonymity means you answer only to yourself. And I can’t trust someone like that. It’s fascist. It’s wrong.”
“It’s what’s necessary.”
“So you’re a necessary evil.”
The hovering lips seemed to grin wolfishly. “Perhaps. I don’t think of myself that way.”
“I’m glad I’m amusing you.”
“Put your personal feelings aside. Think about the greater good. We’d make more of an impact on Gotham if we worked together instead of at cross-purposes. We have the same goal, DA Dent, we just go about it differently. Two sides of the same coin.”
Harvey thought it over. Despite the tiny voice in his head that was telling him that the man he was speaking to was making a mockery of justice, of his convictions, of Gotham, it made sense. Too much sense, really.
“Do you know how many of the criminals you capture go free because of insufficient evidence?”
“Yes,” Batman said gravely.
“Good. Because here’s how it’s going to work. Before you drop through a skylight on some mob boss, you call me and tell me what you have on him. If it’s enough, then bring him in.”
“And if not?”
“Then you can either wait until we have enough to go on or you can bust in there and get your rocks off. So what interests me is whether you’re doing this just for the… fun of it, or if you really want to see a change?”
The Batman considered it. Harvey at first thought he had pressed too far, asked Batman to give up too much of his precious independence. Harvey had known men like that during the war, loose cannons who hated to be reliant on anyone else… but after a moment, Batman nodded.
“Let me make one thing clear,” Harvey pressed. “Just because we want to bring the Joker… we can’t break the rules. They’ll bend, but if we break them, we’re no better than him. Promise me we’ll stay pure.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Batman stood. “I’ll be in touch.”
Harvey reached into his pocket for a business card. “Wait, take my phone number…”
“I already have it.”
The elevator rumbled back into motion, jolting Harvey, and when he looked back up the access panel was being replaced.
“Good luck,” Harvey said as the lights flickered back on.
6:20 PM
John Corben was a humanist. He didn’t believe in supreme beings, whether they wore blue tights or not, but he did believe in humanity’s potential. And especially his own. It was easy to believe in. As a child, he’d been so much craftier than his parents and teachers, able to get away with anything so long as he applied himself. He’d gotten straight As in school and stolen anything he could get his hands on. He owed more to cheating than to intellect, but that was an education as well.
He’d graduated from college a solid B student (not wanting to draw too much attention to himself). From there he’d gone into the military, the jumping-on point for politics or a high rank or maybe just a juicy job in the private sector. He’d grasped the game immediately, played it expertly, rose to the rank of colonel. That was when he’d met Lex Luthor.
Apparently, Corben had made mistakes in his raise to power. And Luthor had proof. Extensive proof. All the way back to the sick notes he’d forged his mother’s signature on.
Despite the blackmail, Corben had to admire Luthor. He was a smooth operator. Lost everything, then got right back on the horse. Luthor didn’t want money, he wanted nukes. Instructions on how to reprogram them, the routes they’d take when they were shipped. For that information, he wouldn’t just keep Corben’s secret, he’d cut him in on the profits. That was the kind of boss Corben could appreciate. Even when the plan went south (fucking Superman), Corben stayed loyal. The brass didn’t have enough to execute him, but his career in the military was over. When Lex offered him a place in his gang, Corben resigned his commission on the spot.
Since then, Lex had risen far and Corben had been with him every step of the way. Eventually, Lex had entrusted him with the position of head of security at Lexcorp. In Lex’s private army, Corben was the general. The thuggery remained the same, though. Lex hired them out for odd jobs, “walking around money” as Lex called it, but usually it was to advance Lex’s plans in some small way.
This one was about Gotham. Today’s employer (not boss, Luthor was the boss) was William Earle. He’d been CEO of Wayne Enterprises before being ousted by the Wayne brat himself. Earle had landed on his feet, though. Since Batman had begun his crusade, crime and corruption in Gotham had been uprooted. Corben doubted it was as widespread as the Bat’s supports made it out to be, but people felt safer. Investors felt safer. So Earle brought land like East End and the Narrows dirt-cheap, gentrified it, and sold it before the sheen wore off.
The only problem was the current residents. Intimidation was cheaper than buy-outs, and backroom doors were cheaper still. So today’s assignment in Gotham Park would be good and legal, thanks to hizzoner the Mayor. Nice change of pace.
“You sure you want to go through with this, Mr. Earle? What with the clown and all…”
“The police will take care of that freak, and if they don’t, the Batman’s welcome to him,” Earle said with Zen calm. He must’ve had the lowest blood pressure of any executive in the Fortune 500. “We go ahead as planned.”
Corben nodded. They were meeting in Earle’s office, a cheerily-lit place with a spectacular view of the city. It was an okay change-of-pace from the usual back of the barroom or secluded nightspot, but Corben preferred the ambiance of those places. At least they felt lived in. This office was as antiseptic as an operating room.
A secretary brought Earle some coffee, and even she seemed sterile, as sexless and emotionless as a robot. Earle sipped his coffee, complaining of the taste the moment it’d gone down his throat, while Corben watched with his hands on his knees. He didn’t know why a Gotham real estate scam tickled the boss’s fancy so much, especially with this guy, but he knew how to follow orders. Anyone still in Gotham Park at nine o’clock would wish they had left for a safer environment… like a war zone.
7:00 PM
One of the benefits of having a photographic memory and a cop father was that he was liable to spill about whatever homemade weapons he’d come across in the line of duty. And Barbara was liable to remember. She got a number of the simpler weapons started, knowing there would be no time to test them. Chemistry projects of every sort bubbled on her stove. Some of them she stored in vials, others in syringes.
Her high-heeled boots she replaced with hiking boots. Everything else stayed.
“I’m going to Dinah’s house to study, Mom!” Barbara shouted down the stairs, her costume and new arsenal in her backpack. “Don’t wait up.”
9:00 PM
I must look like a flasher, Barbara thought. She was wearing a trenchcoat over her costume and had a fedora pulled low to conceal her mask. Luckily, her compatriots weren’t the height of fashion either. The Parkers’ clothes were threadbare at best while the Wonder Boys wore outlandish urban combat gear. They might’ve been intimidating, if the situation was a game of paintball. But compared to the real deal, Team Luthor in gleaming black armor with taser-tipped shockstaffs and clear plastic riot shields at the ready, they just looked like kids playing dress-up.
Course, who am I to talk?
One of the stormtroopers climbed atop a tank-like armored car and raised his helmet’s black visor. He had a narrow face, with a blond crewcut and dull gray eyes. Barbara didn’t trust the way his lips curled with superiority. He raised a megaphone to his razor-slit of a mouth.
“This is John Corben of Team Luthor Security. We have been authorized by law to clear this property of all unauthorized personnel. If you do not disperse, we will use force to compel you.”
He lowered the megaphone and waited. The crowd didn’t budge. Another moment passed. Then a tomato crashed against his face. Barbara whirled to see a dark-haired kid, a few years younger than her, stuffing his hands into his pockets.
Corben made a mostly futile attempt to wipe his face off with a leather-gloved hand. Then he lowered his visor. “Depopulate the park.”
The stormtroopers came forward, their shields a rigid line like an ancient Spartan phalanx. An elderly bum, tattered army jacket pulled shut against the cold, took a knee-wobbling step against the tide. “This is our h—“
The nearest stormtrooper rattled his skull with a swing of the nightstick. Now rocks and bottles were thrown into the invaders’ ranks, all bouncing off or shattering against their shields.
Barbara grabbed a flask and a vial from her ammo belt. She popped the cork out of the vial and poured its contents into the flask. It was already hissing when she rolled it past the soldiers’ jackboots. She backed up a safe distance. One one-thousand, two one-thousand…
The flask shattered with a loud pop, spewing out clouds of noxious gas. A chunk of the Team Luthor line faltered; hacking, sputtering, sometimes vomiting. Life lesson: Don’t forcibly relocate people on a full stomach. Team Luthor’s line was holding, but weakened.
Batgirl shucked off her coat and whipped off her hat, feeling like a beautiful butterfly emerging from its cocoon (to steal some poor preteen’s internet poetry). “Everyone, follow me!” she shouted despite her suddenly dry throat.
She ran headlong in the middle of the faltering line, ramming a shield with her shoulder. The soldier she’d hit jabbed at her with his taser-speared shockstaff, but she was too close to be touched. As she strained to push him back, two men dashed in alongside her. Their added effort overwhelmed the soldier, broke through the line. The other protestors streamed in behind her.
Team Luthor lost all cohesion as their orderly rout turned into a barroom brawl. Batgirl scooped up a shockstaff and went to work. She put the stormtroopers down with bo-staff martial arts moves, using their clunky armor against them, and kept them down with shocks to the unprotected area between the armor and the helmet.
A soldier swung a nightstick at her; she ducked up it and jammed the shockstaff up into his chin. Lightning flashed behind his visor. Another stormtrooper tied to ward her off with his shield until she kicked it up and swept his legs out from under him. Talk about your teenage rebellion.
She felt a presence at her back and spun, shockstaff extended for a home run, only to hear it thwack solidly against another staff. She looked up past the block to see Corben’s maleficent expression behind his tinted visor. He spun his shockstaff in a circle, throwing hers up and clear, before moving in for the kill.
Batgirl threw herself backwards, landed on her back, saw the cackling taser drill into the air above her. With a kick, she batted it aside. Spun to her feet, helping herself along by caning the butt of her shockstaff against the ground. Corben met her with a stiff forearm against her collarbone. She rocked back on her heels, took a step backward, then swung over the top. Corben caught it with his staff, held bridge-like between two hands, and kicked at her. She deflected it with a quick kick of her own, stubbing her toe on his thick shin guard.
A wonder boy and a stormtrooper, locked in a grapple, sailed between her and Corben. Like a veil had been lifted, Batgirl saw and heard the violence all around her. From the ground, she couldn’t really tell who was winning. There were stormtroopers who had fallen and were being kicked around by two or three protestors, and there were protestors who were seizuring where they’d been shocked, rattling like premature corpses. The combatants traded clumsy, flailing blows and eventually one would fall, to cover his head and pull his legs in over his stomach in the hopes that his enemy would move on to another fight. Batgirl saw a dozen little wars she could intercede in, but Corben reminded her of his presence with an attack. She parried it.
She was really too excited for doubt. She swung back for a hearty body blow, which he took without flinching. Then he trapped her staff behind his arm and body. Barbara suddenly had plenty of time for doubt.
Corben drove the shockstaff’s tip between her breasts. Her spine arched, distorted by the electricity shooting up and down it. Her fingers death-gripped her staff so hard she thought she might crack it, then went loose as melted ice cream. Batgirl fell, wishing she were dead.
Corben twisted her shockstaff into his grip and then held both on her. “I hate capes,” he sneered. “Always thinking you’re better than regular people.”
I am regular people Barbara thought, before Corben’s two shockstaffs made thought impossible. Around them, the riot was breaking up. The armored cars’ pressure cannons were scattering the protestors like leaves. The stormtroopers waded in, shockstaffs flaring with the sharp noise and faint light of electrical discharge. Their victims foamed at the mouth, twitched like bugs under insect repellent. Corben knelt down, his knee across Batgirl’s throat.
Mockingly tender, he ran a finger over her left horn. “Let’s see that pretty face, red.” He was just tugging on her mask when a dark-jacketed little ball of fury landed on his shoulders, an arm clasping around his neck.
”Jason Todd, motherfucker!”
Jason was hanging from Corben’s neck, wiry legs scraping at Corben’s sides. Corben dropped one of the shockstaffs and reached behind his back to grab Jason by an arm and fling him bodily to the ground.
“Oof!” came the sound Jason made as all the air fled his lungs. He tried to get up but a kick to his ribs flipped him over onto his back. He rolled against Batgirl, gagging. Corben held the shockstaff close enough to his face for Jason to feel tingling.
“I wonder if you could make it as a circuit-breaker for Batgirl here.”
“That’s Batwoman, asshole,” Barbara gritted out. Corben stomped on her stomach. Then he smiled as he staked the shockstaff toward Jason’s face.
It stopped, enclosed in a large fist. Jason could see the tip’s electric-blue glow through the man’s bare knuckles. His wide eyes followed the hand to its wrist, then up a blue-clad arm rippling with muscle to a shoulder from which a blood-red cape flapped.
Superman wagged the forefinger of his other hand at Corben. Then he shoved the shockstaff backward into Corben’s gut.
***
As the man doubled over, Kal-El took stock of the situation at superspeed. He’d arrived so fast, few had even noticed him. He’d have to change that.
A patch of stubborn resistance had formed with its back to a statue of Civil War colonel Timothy Wayne. An armored car was aiming its pressure cannon at them. Superman peeked inside with his X-ray vision. The gunner was pulling the trigger. Superman was leaping into action even before a burst of solidified air had left its turret.
The pulse hit his chest and crashed to a stop like a spitball against Kevlar. My turn, Superman thought. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs to capacity. The armored car’s crew watched his chest swell. Then they scattered out of the vehicle. Superman waited until the last of them had cleared, then blew. The armored car was picked up by his superbreath and carried like it was nothing more than a plastic bag. He let it roll to a stop just before the treeline.
Team Luthor realized Superman was in their midst. They backed up, forming a Superman-centered clearing among the army of stormtroopers and their downed, moaning enemies.
Corben, still holding his stomach, pushed past the surrounding men. “You’ve got no right to interfere, Superman. This is legal.”
Superman looked at a woman lying in a puddle of her own blood. A quick X-ray revealed no lasting damage… physical, at least. “If that’s the law, then the law is going to change.”
“And since when does an alien get to make the law?”
“Since now.”
Corben and ten other stormtroopers stabbed their shockstaffs into Superman’s board chest. He winced a little as they shorted out, detonating in showers of sparks. The stormtroopers dropped their smoking weapons. Superman shrugged slightly, as if to say well, what’d you expect?
“Hey, you in the armored cars!” Superman shouted with earth-rumbling force. “Get out of your vehicles now!”
The crews didn’t have to be told twice. Superman studiously ignored the stormtroopers wailing on him with nightsticks and X-rayed the armored cars, finding their gas tanks. Then he hit them with concentrated beams of heatvision. The armored cars exploded one by one, eaten from the inside out by flames, their armor plating not quite holding inside spilled entrails of dark smoke.
Corben was still feverishly cracking his nightstick against Superman when it snapped. That caught the Kryptonian’s attention. He picked Corben up by the throat and set him down in the nearby fountain, up to his shins in water. Then he exhaled his arctic breath on the water. It froze solid.
“Stay in there and cool down a while,” Superman told him. “Tell Luthor if he doesn’t leave the Park alone, he can expect more write-offs like this one. And tell him that I’m looking for him.” He turned his attention to the rest of the stormtroopers, shuffling around like kids called upon to stay after school. “As for you, if you don’t want to stay and help, I’d suggest you leave.”
Astonishingly, a few did stay and help with rudimentary first aid. It brought a smile to Superman’s face, before the ramifications of his actions had hit home. Shoulders slumped, he sucked it what little remained of the gas. He’d never disobeyed the law. Not like this. But then, things had never been so bad. If someone like Luthor could amass so much power, maybe it was time for a change. More like Krypton, as Kara suggested. Yet Krypton had become stagnant, vulnerable to the chaos that had eventually destroyed it.
He had no answers, Superman realized, watching the anarchy gradually resolve itself. Police sirens in the distance said that Gordon and his men were on their way. They could be trusted, according to Bruce.
Behind him, Corben jerked and screamed. The young boy he’d been threatening was returning the favor with a shockstaff. The girl in the bat-costume was gone. Superman gently took the shockstaff from the boy, Jason something or other from his battle cry earlier.
“Isn’t it a school night?"
Fandom: Nolanverse Batman, Superman Returns
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 5,195
Characters/Pairings: Bruce Wayne, Barbara Gordon, Harvey Dent, Jim Gordon
Previous Part: Chapter 14
Next Part: Chapter 16
Summary: The Battle of Gotham Park.
5:00 PM
At the top of Mount Everest, the air was so thin that man couldn’t breathe without oxygen tanks. They were fragile. Superman had been there numerous times, it and so many mountains like it, to rescue stranded climbers or dig through the aftermath of an avalanche. But he rarely got the chance to just sit atop the peak and listen.
This was not one of those occasions.
Clark had been jumping from mountaintop to mountaintop, straining his ears to detect Lex’s heartbeat. It was a sucker’s game. Only minutes would pass before he detected the two little words that were both the core of his being and the walls of his existence. He hated them. He lived for them.
“Help, Superman!”
No luck. As Superman flew to the rescue, he considered the possibilities. The simplest explanation was that Lex’s heart had simply stopped beating. It was possible. Humans were so fragile. They could die getting out of a bathtub, crossing the street… of a heart attack…
No! Lex couldn’t be dead. Not before…
“Superman, help!”
He sighed and poured on the speed, careful not to kick up shockwaves in his haste. Whatever Luthor had planned, he’d stop it. And maybe this time it would get through that thick, hairless skull of his…
5:50 PM - Sunset
Not a moment to spare.
That’s how close it had been. Bruce had spent the day in something like prayer, if he believed in anything, preparing for the ordeal to come. The Joker had something planned and megalomaniacs tended to escalate in leaps and bounds. Whatever was coming for Earle, it would be big.
He suited up early, not even waiting for the sun to descend below the horizon to begin. Alfred watched him, obligingly stuffing the old clothes into a hamper. Batman emerged from the costume vault, slowly cracking the kinks of Bruce Wayne’s repression from his neck.
“Is it any use asking what marvelous shade of bruise you’ll be returning with tonight, sir, so that I might plan your wardrobe accordingly?”
Bruce took his cowl off. “Plan something that can be accessorized with a plaster cast.” He walked past the Tumbler to the black Lincoln Continental he used for undercover work. Looking at it, one would never guess that the shell was reinforced and the interior packed with weaponry. Alfred fetched him the keys. “I’ve had my men hitting the streets for information all day. Minus the time to summarize their findings, that’s six hours to find out what the Joker has planned for Earle and stop it.”
“Whatever he has planned, I doubt it could happen to a nicer fellow.”
Batman glared at the butler.
“Merely suggesting that this Joker might have some sort of vigilante agenda as well.”
“No. You didn’t get as close to him as I did. He doesn’t care about anything, even himself.”
Alfred nodded. “He just wants to watch the world burn.”
“Exactly.” Batman stepped into the Lincoln. “Don’t wait up.”
“Master Wayne, I worry sometimes…”
“It’ll have to wait. And don’t worry. I can handle him. The rational mind always trumps insanity.”
He took off with a squeal of tires, down into the roadway that was patched into Gotham’s sewer systems. There, he’d emerge somewhere in the city, ready to go about his work. Alfred sighed and shuffled about his work. He’d do the laundry, lay out the medical kits for Master Wayne’s return, and keep the ghastly Bluetooth device that had been issued to him tuned to the Batman’s channel. Aside from that, all he could do was wait.
With a flush of unexpected rage, Alfred scattered a collection of cowls from the master’s workbench and crushed them underfoot like eggshells. Defective ones that Master Wayne had been experimenting with, stenciling on, trying to make them even more fearsome. That cracked most satisfyingly.
Alfred took a deep breath, both satisfied and ashamed. Still, at least now he had something to clean. He went to get a broom and dustpan.
How to tell Bruce that sometimes he worried “the Batman” would gladly see the world burn, so long as he could pick which parts of it went up first?
6:10 PM
Harvey Dent had never actually seen the Batsignal light up. Oh, sure, he’d seen it a moment after the fact, the bright-yet-darkness lit up against a cloud, but he’d never seen the actual moment of illumination. Gordon pulled the switch. It was both like a regular spotlight, and not at all like a regular spotlight. A spear of light shot out, hit the heavens. It was faintly translucent in the dying light of the sun, like a ghost of its usual presence. Harvey had to shield his eyes from the intense light.
“How long do we have to wait?”
“Not long, I imagine,” Gordon said as he lit his pipe.
“How do we know he’s not out of town or something?”
“Because he’s always here. When we need him.”
“And do we need him? Really?”
Gordon took a long drag on his pipe, the embers flaring brightly, their reflections in his square-framed glasses leaving his eyes a mystery. “Yes.”
“I wish I had your confidence.”
“No. You don’t.”
The spotlight blared on, with a kind of hum that Gordon seemed to find comforting. Harvey just thought it was annoying. He tugged up the collar of his coat, wishing he’d taken Gilda’s advice and worn a cap. Even in a hospital bed, she was looking out for him. At the thought of her, he pulled a flask from his coat pocket and took a pull from it. Gordon snorted.
“What? I need to cool my nerves.”
“Just be sure they’re not too cool.”
Harvey wiped his nose with the back of his hand. If he stood out here much longer, he’d be catching cold. “I think you’re drink too if you had a more realistic assessment of the man. He’s not a pet or a genie. He’s a very disturbed individual. What if the voices in his head decide tonight’s the night to get rid of a DA?”
“As scary as it may seem, Batman seems like the sanest man I know at times.”
“You’re right. That is scary.”
“Bruce boozes away his potential, locked up in that manor of his.” Harvey started to protest before Gordon pointed at him. “You think you can save Gotham by the book, but when it comes to Gotham there isn’t even a book, and me… me, I volunteered for this job. What does that tell you? In a place like this, maybe dressing up like a bat is the smart thing.”
“Should I recommend you a tailor who specializes in tights?”
“Me? No. Too old. Besides, Sarah would never let me hear the end of it. I work late enough as it is.”
Harvey was getting more anxious, despite how he tried not to show it. The Batman only went after bad guys and he wasn’t a bad guy. Just… weak. Sometimes. Not even that often. The man he’d shot deserved to die. And Batman was no specter to look inside a man’s heart and see its color. He wouldn’t know how much Harvey had enjoyed it. Justice, instant and incontestable. No legal loopholes, no hung juries, just… what? No, that wasn’t him thinking that, that was some random snippet of a bad TV drama whispering in his ear, running through his head, the real world didn’t work like that.
“If he keeps us waiting much longer, he’ll come here to find an ass-kicking waiting for him.”
“He might need one at that,” Gordon laughed. “But who’s gonna give it to him? You?”
“Army training, you know. Never really goes away. If he were here, right now… Lennox Lewis left, Oscar De La Hoya right… the Bat goes down for the…”
“Boo,” said Batman.
Gordon tried very hard not to laugh at the face Harvey made. It wasn’t easy.
“If this is about the Joker, I’m already on it.” Batman spoke with no further preliminaries, ignoring Dent pulling his wits back together as he plunged into business.
“Then maybe you’d appreciate some help,” Gordon said. He held out a folder, which the Batman took but did not look at. “The weapons the Joker’s men were using were state of the art. Ballistics show that the ammo was top-notch as well. The men were also experienced. Used to be heavy hitters in the Falcone family, back before Carmine went whacko. This Joker has resources.”
“Or he has a sponsor. Those guns and men would run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. And professional mercenaries don’t do pro bono work. An insane rampage would be the perfect cover for a murder. Find who benefits from Earle’s death, we could just find the man behind the man.”
“What about Earle?” Harvey piped up. “Gordon’s got him in protective custody, but they’re not…”
“Like me?” Batman made a sound deep in his throat. “I’ll be there to protect Earle tonight. But finding the Joker before he makes his move would be our best strategy. That’s the angle I’ll pursue. You concentrate on keeping Earle safe. It’s important to remember that no matter how far-removed from societal norms the Joker is, in the end he’s just a man.”
“So were you,” Gordon said.
“Are,” Batman said. “I’ll be in touch.”
And without even looking, he stepped backward off the rooftop and disappeared into the night.
“Does he do that a lot?” Harvey asked.
“Usually he waits until I’m looking in the wrong direction.”
“What is he, eight?”
“Sometimes I think he’s closer to eight hundred. Come on, I’ll buy you a coffee. Your hands are shaking.”
“Oh?” Harvey stuffed them in his pockets. “Yeah, you go on ahead. I think I’ll stay out here a while. It really is a beautiful night, you know.”
Gordon shut off the Batsignal. “Suit yourself. But don’t stay out here too long. Can’t do Gotham any good frozen.”
Harvey stared at the night sky. A hunter’s moon had risen early, like God had flipped a great silver coin and left it stuck in the darkness. What was it his father had always said? God flipped the moon to decide whether to make the world and it landed dark side up… so He did. Something like that. Cynical, he would’ve said. But then, not twenty-four hours ago he’d been assaulted by a psychotic clown and the Three Stooges. Maybe Batman was right. The world only made sense when you made it make sense.
He pulled Bruce’s coin from his pocket. His jacket pocket, not his pants pocket. In his pants pocket, it would be just another coin. But the silver dollar was special, somehow. He danced it over his knuckles like a knife, accidentally fumbling it on his pinky. Damn thing never had worked right since his father broke it. The coin landed on the parapet, heads up. Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Harvey had heard a story in college. About how Roosevelt had known that Pearl Harbor would be bombed, and let it happen so that he’d have an excuse to enter America into the world. To have the strength, the conviction, the ruthlessness to do such a thing… If that were true, did it make him a hero or a monster? Or both? Suddenly the night seemed a little colder.
Harvey snatched up the coin and went back inside. Caught the elevator down. There was no one else in it, which suited him just fine. He felt like being alone. He rubbed his hands together, pleased with the warm friction. Then the elevator jerked to a stop.
Harvey reached for the emergency phone.
“Don’t,” came a familiar voice. It was above him.
The lights dimmed.
Harvey looked up. The access panel into the elevator shaft had opened and he had an impression… no more than an impression… of eyes and a mouth set in something that would’ve been a scowl if it weren’t so carefully neutral.
“We need to talk,” Batman said.
“I don’t think we have much to say to each other. Your anonymity means you answer only to yourself. And I can’t trust someone like that. It’s fascist. It’s wrong.”
“It’s what’s necessary.”
“So you’re a necessary evil.”
The hovering lips seemed to grin wolfishly. “Perhaps. I don’t think of myself that way.”
“I’m glad I’m amusing you.”
“Put your personal feelings aside. Think about the greater good. We’d make more of an impact on Gotham if we worked together instead of at cross-purposes. We have the same goal, DA Dent, we just go about it differently. Two sides of the same coin.”
Harvey thought it over. Despite the tiny voice in his head that was telling him that the man he was speaking to was making a mockery of justice, of his convictions, of Gotham, it made sense. Too much sense, really.
“Do you know how many of the criminals you capture go free because of insufficient evidence?”
“Yes,” Batman said gravely.
“Good. Because here’s how it’s going to work. Before you drop through a skylight on some mob boss, you call me and tell me what you have on him. If it’s enough, then bring him in.”
“And if not?”
“Then you can either wait until we have enough to go on or you can bust in there and get your rocks off. So what interests me is whether you’re doing this just for the… fun of it, or if you really want to see a change?”
The Batman considered it. Harvey at first thought he had pressed too far, asked Batman to give up too much of his precious independence. Harvey had known men like that during the war, loose cannons who hated to be reliant on anyone else… but after a moment, Batman nodded.
“Let me make one thing clear,” Harvey pressed. “Just because we want to bring the Joker… we can’t break the rules. They’ll bend, but if we break them, we’re no better than him. Promise me we’ll stay pure.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Batman stood. “I’ll be in touch.”
Harvey reached into his pocket for a business card. “Wait, take my phone number…”
“I already have it.”
The elevator rumbled back into motion, jolting Harvey, and when he looked back up the access panel was being replaced.
“Good luck,” Harvey said as the lights flickered back on.
6:20 PM
John Corben was a humanist. He didn’t believe in supreme beings, whether they wore blue tights or not, but he did believe in humanity’s potential. And especially his own. It was easy to believe in. As a child, he’d been so much craftier than his parents and teachers, able to get away with anything so long as he applied himself. He’d gotten straight As in school and stolen anything he could get his hands on. He owed more to cheating than to intellect, but that was an education as well.
He’d graduated from college a solid B student (not wanting to draw too much attention to himself). From there he’d gone into the military, the jumping-on point for politics or a high rank or maybe just a juicy job in the private sector. He’d grasped the game immediately, played it expertly, rose to the rank of colonel. That was when he’d met Lex Luthor.
Apparently, Corben had made mistakes in his raise to power. And Luthor had proof. Extensive proof. All the way back to the sick notes he’d forged his mother’s signature on.
Despite the blackmail, Corben had to admire Luthor. He was a smooth operator. Lost everything, then got right back on the horse. Luthor didn’t want money, he wanted nukes. Instructions on how to reprogram them, the routes they’d take when they were shipped. For that information, he wouldn’t just keep Corben’s secret, he’d cut him in on the profits. That was the kind of boss Corben could appreciate. Even when the plan went south (fucking Superman), Corben stayed loyal. The brass didn’t have enough to execute him, but his career in the military was over. When Lex offered him a place in his gang, Corben resigned his commission on the spot.
Since then, Lex had risen far and Corben had been with him every step of the way. Eventually, Lex had entrusted him with the position of head of security at Lexcorp. In Lex’s private army, Corben was the general. The thuggery remained the same, though. Lex hired them out for odd jobs, “walking around money” as Lex called it, but usually it was to advance Lex’s plans in some small way.
This one was about Gotham. Today’s employer (not boss, Luthor was the boss) was William Earle. He’d been CEO of Wayne Enterprises before being ousted by the Wayne brat himself. Earle had landed on his feet, though. Since Batman had begun his crusade, crime and corruption in Gotham had been uprooted. Corben doubted it was as widespread as the Bat’s supports made it out to be, but people felt safer. Investors felt safer. So Earle brought land like East End and the Narrows dirt-cheap, gentrified it, and sold it before the sheen wore off.
The only problem was the current residents. Intimidation was cheaper than buy-outs, and backroom doors were cheaper still. So today’s assignment in Gotham Park would be good and legal, thanks to hizzoner the Mayor. Nice change of pace.
“You sure you want to go through with this, Mr. Earle? What with the clown and all…”
“The police will take care of that freak, and if they don’t, the Batman’s welcome to him,” Earle said with Zen calm. He must’ve had the lowest blood pressure of any executive in the Fortune 500. “We go ahead as planned.”
Corben nodded. They were meeting in Earle’s office, a cheerily-lit place with a spectacular view of the city. It was an okay change-of-pace from the usual back of the barroom or secluded nightspot, but Corben preferred the ambiance of those places. At least they felt lived in. This office was as antiseptic as an operating room.
A secretary brought Earle some coffee, and even she seemed sterile, as sexless and emotionless as a robot. Earle sipped his coffee, complaining of the taste the moment it’d gone down his throat, while Corben watched with his hands on his knees. He didn’t know why a Gotham real estate scam tickled the boss’s fancy so much, especially with this guy, but he knew how to follow orders. Anyone still in Gotham Park at nine o’clock would wish they had left for a safer environment… like a war zone.
7:00 PM
One of the benefits of having a photographic memory and a cop father was that he was liable to spill about whatever homemade weapons he’d come across in the line of duty. And Barbara was liable to remember. She got a number of the simpler weapons started, knowing there would be no time to test them. Chemistry projects of every sort bubbled on her stove. Some of them she stored in vials, others in syringes.
Her high-heeled boots she replaced with hiking boots. Everything else stayed.
“I’m going to Dinah’s house to study, Mom!” Barbara shouted down the stairs, her costume and new arsenal in her backpack. “Don’t wait up.”
9:00 PM
I must look like a flasher, Barbara thought. She was wearing a trenchcoat over her costume and had a fedora pulled low to conceal her mask. Luckily, her compatriots weren’t the height of fashion either. The Parkers’ clothes were threadbare at best while the Wonder Boys wore outlandish urban combat gear. They might’ve been intimidating, if the situation was a game of paintball. But compared to the real deal, Team Luthor in gleaming black armor with taser-tipped shockstaffs and clear plastic riot shields at the ready, they just looked like kids playing dress-up.
Course, who am I to talk?
One of the stormtroopers climbed atop a tank-like armored car and raised his helmet’s black visor. He had a narrow face, with a blond crewcut and dull gray eyes. Barbara didn’t trust the way his lips curled with superiority. He raised a megaphone to his razor-slit of a mouth.
“This is John Corben of Team Luthor Security. We have been authorized by law to clear this property of all unauthorized personnel. If you do not disperse, we will use force to compel you.”
He lowered the megaphone and waited. The crowd didn’t budge. Another moment passed. Then a tomato crashed against his face. Barbara whirled to see a dark-haired kid, a few years younger than her, stuffing his hands into his pockets.
Corben made a mostly futile attempt to wipe his face off with a leather-gloved hand. Then he lowered his visor. “Depopulate the park.”
The stormtroopers came forward, their shields a rigid line like an ancient Spartan phalanx. An elderly bum, tattered army jacket pulled shut against the cold, took a knee-wobbling step against the tide. “This is our h—“
The nearest stormtrooper rattled his skull with a swing of the nightstick. Now rocks and bottles were thrown into the invaders’ ranks, all bouncing off or shattering against their shields.
Barbara grabbed a flask and a vial from her ammo belt. She popped the cork out of the vial and poured its contents into the flask. It was already hissing when she rolled it past the soldiers’ jackboots. She backed up a safe distance. One one-thousand, two one-thousand…
The flask shattered with a loud pop, spewing out clouds of noxious gas. A chunk of the Team Luthor line faltered; hacking, sputtering, sometimes vomiting. Life lesson: Don’t forcibly relocate people on a full stomach. Team Luthor’s line was holding, but weakened.
Batgirl shucked off her coat and whipped off her hat, feeling like a beautiful butterfly emerging from its cocoon (to steal some poor preteen’s internet poetry). “Everyone, follow me!” she shouted despite her suddenly dry throat.
She ran headlong in the middle of the faltering line, ramming a shield with her shoulder. The soldier she’d hit jabbed at her with his taser-speared shockstaff, but she was too close to be touched. As she strained to push him back, two men dashed in alongside her. Their added effort overwhelmed the soldier, broke through the line. The other protestors streamed in behind her.
Team Luthor lost all cohesion as their orderly rout turned into a barroom brawl. Batgirl scooped up a shockstaff and went to work. She put the stormtroopers down with bo-staff martial arts moves, using their clunky armor against them, and kept them down with shocks to the unprotected area between the armor and the helmet.
A soldier swung a nightstick at her; she ducked up it and jammed the shockstaff up into his chin. Lightning flashed behind his visor. Another stormtrooper tied to ward her off with his shield until she kicked it up and swept his legs out from under him. Talk about your teenage rebellion.
She felt a presence at her back and spun, shockstaff extended for a home run, only to hear it thwack solidly against another staff. She looked up past the block to see Corben’s maleficent expression behind his tinted visor. He spun his shockstaff in a circle, throwing hers up and clear, before moving in for the kill.
Batgirl threw herself backwards, landed on her back, saw the cackling taser drill into the air above her. With a kick, she batted it aside. Spun to her feet, helping herself along by caning the butt of her shockstaff against the ground. Corben met her with a stiff forearm against her collarbone. She rocked back on her heels, took a step backward, then swung over the top. Corben caught it with his staff, held bridge-like between two hands, and kicked at her. She deflected it with a quick kick of her own, stubbing her toe on his thick shin guard.
A wonder boy and a stormtrooper, locked in a grapple, sailed between her and Corben. Like a veil had been lifted, Batgirl saw and heard the violence all around her. From the ground, she couldn’t really tell who was winning. There were stormtroopers who had fallen and were being kicked around by two or three protestors, and there were protestors who were seizuring where they’d been shocked, rattling like premature corpses. The combatants traded clumsy, flailing blows and eventually one would fall, to cover his head and pull his legs in over his stomach in the hopes that his enemy would move on to another fight. Batgirl saw a dozen little wars she could intercede in, but Corben reminded her of his presence with an attack. She parried it.
She was really too excited for doubt. She swung back for a hearty body blow, which he took without flinching. Then he trapped her staff behind his arm and body. Barbara suddenly had plenty of time for doubt.
Corben drove the shockstaff’s tip between her breasts. Her spine arched, distorted by the electricity shooting up and down it. Her fingers death-gripped her staff so hard she thought she might crack it, then went loose as melted ice cream. Batgirl fell, wishing she were dead.
Corben twisted her shockstaff into his grip and then held both on her. “I hate capes,” he sneered. “Always thinking you’re better than regular people.”
I am regular people Barbara thought, before Corben’s two shockstaffs made thought impossible. Around them, the riot was breaking up. The armored cars’ pressure cannons were scattering the protestors like leaves. The stormtroopers waded in, shockstaffs flaring with the sharp noise and faint light of electrical discharge. Their victims foamed at the mouth, twitched like bugs under insect repellent. Corben knelt down, his knee across Batgirl’s throat.
Mockingly tender, he ran a finger over her left horn. “Let’s see that pretty face, red.” He was just tugging on her mask when a dark-jacketed little ball of fury landed on his shoulders, an arm clasping around his neck.
”Jason Todd, motherfucker!”
Jason was hanging from Corben’s neck, wiry legs scraping at Corben’s sides. Corben dropped one of the shockstaffs and reached behind his back to grab Jason by an arm and fling him bodily to the ground.
“Oof!” came the sound Jason made as all the air fled his lungs. He tried to get up but a kick to his ribs flipped him over onto his back. He rolled against Batgirl, gagging. Corben held the shockstaff close enough to his face for Jason to feel tingling.
“I wonder if you could make it as a circuit-breaker for Batgirl here.”
“That’s Batwoman, asshole,” Barbara gritted out. Corben stomped on her stomach. Then he smiled as he staked the shockstaff toward Jason’s face.
It stopped, enclosed in a large fist. Jason could see the tip’s electric-blue glow through the man’s bare knuckles. His wide eyes followed the hand to its wrist, then up a blue-clad arm rippling with muscle to a shoulder from which a blood-red cape flapped.
Superman wagged the forefinger of his other hand at Corben. Then he shoved the shockstaff backward into Corben’s gut.
***
As the man doubled over, Kal-El took stock of the situation at superspeed. He’d arrived so fast, few had even noticed him. He’d have to change that.
A patch of stubborn resistance had formed with its back to a statue of Civil War colonel Timothy Wayne. An armored car was aiming its pressure cannon at them. Superman peeked inside with his X-ray vision. The gunner was pulling the trigger. Superman was leaping into action even before a burst of solidified air had left its turret.
The pulse hit his chest and crashed to a stop like a spitball against Kevlar. My turn, Superman thought. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs to capacity. The armored car’s crew watched his chest swell. Then they scattered out of the vehicle. Superman waited until the last of them had cleared, then blew. The armored car was picked up by his superbreath and carried like it was nothing more than a plastic bag. He let it roll to a stop just before the treeline.
Team Luthor realized Superman was in their midst. They backed up, forming a Superman-centered clearing among the army of stormtroopers and their downed, moaning enemies.
Corben, still holding his stomach, pushed past the surrounding men. “You’ve got no right to interfere, Superman. This is legal.”
Superman looked at a woman lying in a puddle of her own blood. A quick X-ray revealed no lasting damage… physical, at least. “If that’s the law, then the law is going to change.”
“And since when does an alien get to make the law?”
“Since now.”
Corben and ten other stormtroopers stabbed their shockstaffs into Superman’s board chest. He winced a little as they shorted out, detonating in showers of sparks. The stormtroopers dropped their smoking weapons. Superman shrugged slightly, as if to say well, what’d you expect?
“Hey, you in the armored cars!” Superman shouted with earth-rumbling force. “Get out of your vehicles now!”
The crews didn’t have to be told twice. Superman studiously ignored the stormtroopers wailing on him with nightsticks and X-rayed the armored cars, finding their gas tanks. Then he hit them with concentrated beams of heatvision. The armored cars exploded one by one, eaten from the inside out by flames, their armor plating not quite holding inside spilled entrails of dark smoke.
Corben was still feverishly cracking his nightstick against Superman when it snapped. That caught the Kryptonian’s attention. He picked Corben up by the throat and set him down in the nearby fountain, up to his shins in water. Then he exhaled his arctic breath on the water. It froze solid.
“Stay in there and cool down a while,” Superman told him. “Tell Luthor if he doesn’t leave the Park alone, he can expect more write-offs like this one. And tell him that I’m looking for him.” He turned his attention to the rest of the stormtroopers, shuffling around like kids called upon to stay after school. “As for you, if you don’t want to stay and help, I’d suggest you leave.”
Astonishingly, a few did stay and help with rudimentary first aid. It brought a smile to Superman’s face, before the ramifications of his actions had hit home. Shoulders slumped, he sucked it what little remained of the gas. He’d never disobeyed the law. Not like this. But then, things had never been so bad. If someone like Luthor could amass so much power, maybe it was time for a change. More like Krypton, as Kara suggested. Yet Krypton had become stagnant, vulnerable to the chaos that had eventually destroyed it.
He had no answers, Superman realized, watching the anarchy gradually resolve itself. Police sirens in the distance said that Gordon and his men were on their way. They could be trusted, according to Bruce.
Behind him, Corben jerked and screamed. The young boy he’d been threatening was returning the favor with a shockstaff. The girl in the bat-costume was gone. Superman gently took the shockstaff from the boy, Jason something or other from his battle cry earlier.
“Isn’t it a school night?"
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Date: 2008-10-19 10:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-17 09:23 pm (UTC)