Truth & Justice II #7

[Spider-Man Beyond]

The Multiverse Presents

Truth & Justice II #7

Written by JC Roberts (Calamityjamie)

Edited by Daniel Dyer (Spider-Man Beyond)

Multiverse logo created by Tony Peterson (Starfall)

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Martha had been admiring the ornate artificial sixteen-foot Christmas tree when Bruce slipped quietly behind her from a passageway in back of the living room fireplace. Several seconds passed before she realized he was standing there. She nearly tripped backwards into the tree as she spun around, clutching an oddly-shaped, awkwardly-wrapped gift.

“Sorry,” he said, reaching back to make sure the passageway was secure. His eyes swept quickly from Martha’s face to the room around them. His gaze was angled slightly upwards and he seemed to be checking for something. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” Martha replied, almost, but not quite meeting his eyes. “How’d the rest of your night go?” Superwoman had crossed paths with Batman twice on their individual patrols of Gotham City.

He shrugged. “Two more desperate fathers tried to break into that toy store up on Seigel and Main.” Martha looked at him questioningly and Bruce added curtly, “I gave them hell and let them go.”

She smiled. “You’re good.”

“I’m glad you think so,” said Bruce wryly. He stuck his hands in his pockets and stepped closer to her. “Because I have a favor –” Alfred walked into the room with a tray full of hot tea and scones and Bruce shook his head at Martha, signaling a temporary end to the conversation.

Martha could tell right away that Alfred was annoyed at Bruce, who offered the old man a bland Christmas greeting and an even blander smile.

“What are you up to?” asked Martha. She stuck the present she was holding under the tree and joined Bruce on the living room couch. Alfred had set the tray on the coffee table and shuffled out of the room.

“Nothing,” said Bruce as Martha slid from the couch onto the floor in front of the coffee table and patted a patch of rug next to her. He rolled his eyes and settled next to her. “Why are we sitting on the floor?”

“It’s more fun,” Martha replied. “Why is Alfred mad at you?”

He reached for a blueberry scone and studied it as though he’d never seen one before. “What time do you have to work tonight?”

“Four.” She decided not to push him. He clearly did not want to discuss whatever was bothering Alfred. She glanced at Bruce’s face, again taking care not to look directly into his eyes. “The favor?”

He looked hastily at the living room doorway and scooted a little closer to her, oblivious to the effect the few extra inches of nearness had on her. She felt lightheaded and a little panicked.

“This is no big deal, so feel free to say no,” he said, speaking in an undertone she supposed was meant to keep the conversation between the two of them, should Alfred happen to return to the room. “And you might want to run it by Greenberg before you give me an answer.”

Martha felt her self-consciousness shifting into curiosity. Bruce continued, “The East Gotham Country Club has this dinner every year. I have to go. It’s a charity thing and they raise more money if I agree to be there.”

Obviously, Bruce went on, he needed to get out of the banquet and onto the streets as soon as possible. Jim Gordon had halfheartedly offered to go with him and fake a heart attack, “But now he’s taking off on some golfing excursion and can’t make it. And I thought, you know, with your Arkham pager…”

“…If it went off, we’d have to rush out of there,” Martha finished. “When is it?”

Bruce twirled the scone nervously between his thumb and forefinger. “I can’t overstate how incredibly boring this event is, or how obnoxious most of the people are.”

“OK,” said Martha. “When is it?”

“And no matter what you wear or how you act, the women are probably going to tear you apart,” he added. “There’s no fun involved in this at all.”

“Bruce?” asked Martha. “When is it?”

He snapped the scone in half. “The Saturday after New Year’s.”

“And what time would you want to leave?” she asked.

Bruce thought for a moment. “Eight?”

Martha nodded. “OK.”

“OK, you’ll go?” asked Bruce. “Shouldn’t you check with –”

“It shouldn’t be a problem,” said Martha, ignoring a rush of guilt. “Especially if we’re out by eight. I can hook up with Josh later.”

He handed her half of his scone. “If I can return the favor…”

“You can,” said Martha quickly. “Tell Alfred –”

“I did,” Bruce interrupted.

“You did?” she asked.

He leaned back against the couch and stared into the Christmas tree. “I told him how much he means to me,” he said sheepishly.

She risked a look directly into his eyes and glimpsed a rare glimmer of amusement. “Was he in the same room when you did this?”

Bruce placed his half of the scone back onto the serving tray. “Yeah. He didn’t take it very well.”

She beamed. “That’s all I wanted for Christmas.”

Bruce ran a hand over his face. “Well, I got you something else. But it’s going to be a bit delayed. There were some… transportation issues.”

Alfred walked back into the room carrying a large, immaculately wrapped and ribboned box. “I know you must leave us soon,” he said as Martha returned her piece of scone to the plate. “And I thought perhaps you’d like to open your gift.”

She ripped excitedly into the present, giggling as Bruce remarked that he was glad she wasn’t one of those people who meticulously removed the wrapping paper as if preserving it were more important than discovering what lay beneath. The gift itself evoked a delighted gasp: Alfred had sent away to England for a rose-pattered fine bone china tea set he declared would exponentially improve the taste of the tea she had been preparing with a stainless steel kettle purchased from Target. Martha hugged and kissed the old man so enthusiastically that he impulsively said, “It’s from both of us.”

“No it’s not,” said Bruce, unconsciously taking a step back. “I told you my present was better than yours.”

Alfred expressed pleasure with Martha’s gift, the complete works of British author C.S. Forster on audio, including all eleven original Horatio Hornblower novels and the African Queen. But when Bruce started to unwrap the asymmetrical, surprisingly heavy package she handed him, Martha blurted, “Don’t open it while I’m here.”

Bruce untangled his hands from the wrapping paper and shot her a mystified look. Alfred, however, seemed unsurprised and a little smug.

“I have to go anyway,” Martha said hurriedly, planting the world’s fastest kiss on Bruce’s cheek and swiftly repeating the gesture with Alfred. She wished them both a Merry Christmas and disappeared through the mansion’s service entrance, bound for Metropolis and a holiday breakfast with her family.

“You can open it now,” said Alfred dryly. Bruce’s hands were still frozen over the present as he tried to puzzle out Martha’s strange outburst and abrupt departure.

“It’s a sentimental gift,” Alfred explained. “She was embarrassed to have you open it in front of her.”

“How do you know that?” asked Bruce. He tugged at a piece of wrinkled tape and watched a small piece of wrapping paper rip away from the gift.

“Let me think, sir. Could it possibly be from her hasty retreat?”

“Women are weird,” muttered Bruce, ripping at the paper. His eyes fell on an exposed part of the package and he experienced the same jolt in his chest that he had had on the rooftop of the Masonic Temple, when Martha said she understood that Batman had to go after Fray himself.

“I’ll be in my room,” he said.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

There were two gifts in the package and Bruce could see where Martha had had trouble wrapping them. One was a novel, a fiction trade paperback called China Boy. He appreciated the gesture – he knew Martha came from a family of readers and she probably considered a book the best sort of present – but Bruce did not have time for pleasure reading. He sat on his bed, allowing his eyes to roam over the summary on the back cover only to gain time to steel himself before taking a closer look at the second gift, the one he’d seen as soon as he’d torn open the wrapping paper.

It was a football-sized chunk of meteor that Martha, on a sticky note stuck to the rock, had estimated at about 50,000 years old. She had mounted it on a round wooden base. Using her super-strength and what must have been an extremely hard carving implement, she had fashioned a double picture frame into the face of the meteor. Inside each frame sat a restored photograph, the first one of a very young Bruce at the beach, burying his laughing father up to his neck in the sand as his mother snuck behind her husband with a plastic pail full of ocean water. The second, more formal, photo was barely a few years older. In it, Alfred and a nine-year-old Bruce looked solemnly into the camera, with only the boy’s slight lean into Alfred’s side – and the butler’s steadying hand on young Bruce’s shoulder – suggesting the depth of feeling between them.

Bruce stared at the photos until his eyes felt dry and swollen, and then carefully placed the frame on his night table. He lay down on his bed and folded both arms over his eyes and fought the urge to call Martha, or better yet, to find her and thank her in person. Talking to her right now was a bad idea and seeing her would have been a disaster.

He should not have asked her to the charity dinner, even if it was only for a few hours, and as a legitimate means of escaping early from an event he truly dreaded. Until this mid-life crisis thing, or whatever it was, went away, he was going to have to distance himself from her. He hoped it wouldn’t be for long. Bruce had become attached to their conversations and he did not want to lose Martha’s friendship, but as skilled as he was at concealing his feelings, he felt that at this rate they would soon be obvious to her.

He crossed his arms behind his head and stared at the ceiling. He had initially thought the worst consequence of such a revelation would be unendurable embarrassment, but something about her recent demeanor suggested that a graver outcome was possible. It was probably a pathetic delusion, he knew, but Bruce had started to believe that the growing pull he felt towards Martha might be at least somewhat reciprocated. He struggled to beat down this unlikely and wholly disturbing possibility. It would make things even worse.

And Alfred wasn’t helping at all. Despite what Bruce had believed to have been a promise from the butler to end his meddling, Bruce had found himself clearing a virtual minefield of mistletoe from the living room early that morning when he returned from patrol. That was why Alfred had been angry with him: The old man had spent Christmas Eve hanging the poisonous plants, apparently believing Bruce would not have time to remove them before Martha arrived to exchange presents. Beyond the excruciating image of Martha finding him standing under a roomful of mistletoe, the vision of Alfred shakily climbing the upper steps of a 10-foot ladder made Bruce feel more than a little sick.

Christmas Eve patrols were always long and taxing, but Bruce was too troubled and keyed up to sleep. He idly picked up the novel Martha had given him, and with almost no expectations, skimmed the first few lines. He was surprised to find himself almost immediately absorbed in the story of an orphaned seven-year-old Chinese-American boy whose poor vision and garbled English made him a walking punching bag in the San Francisco slum where he lived. Bruce was not sure how he could find such deep connections between his own boyhood and a child whose cultural, social and economic realities were so different than his own, but the bond between orphaned boys – even when one was fictional and the other fully grown – appeared to transcend such things. He did not put the book down until he finished it three hours later. When Alfred awakened him for dinner and scolded him for falling asleep with his shoes on the bedspread, the novel was still lying on his chest.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

So what if half of his fraternity ended up stuck at TKE House during Christmas break? It still sucked to be here, Vince Elliot thought sullenly as he flopped onto a couch and gulped down his second plastic 20-ounce cup of beer. The keg helped, but not as much as most of his frat brothers hoped it would. None of the house mothers had been willing to stick around to make Christmas dinner – their contracts didn’t include cooking during the holidays – and no one in the house was interested in putting together a meal for twenty restless students, most of them forced to stay at Gotham University to fulfill the demands of internships or part-time jobs.

Vince himself had blown off an invitation from his family to join them on a ten-day riverboat ride down the Danube. He was a bad test taker and his first set of dental boards would be coming up in a few months. He had to use this spare time to study. Anyway, who wanted to go to fuckin’ Eastern Europe in the winter?

Not that he had done much studying during the two weeks since the fall semester ended. But he would. Starting tomorrow, he’d load up on Starbucks and really charge through the books.

Footsteps thumped down the scratched and faded hardwood steps leading to the house and Vince found himself joined by two more jovial – and considerably drunker – frat brothers.

“Yo, dude,” said one of them, as both young men huddled around the keg, filling red plastic cups full with Budweiser. “You still up for tonight?”

He really wasn’t. It wasn’t that Vince hadn’t used the nitrous oxide canisters for his own personal enjoyment before, but he didn’t savor the idea of leading a dozen rowdy brothers into the dental school for a laughing gas party. If they were caught, he’d lose his job at the clinic and probably get thrown out of school. No one kept track of how much nitrous was used on a given day, but the office managers were sure to notice if a couple of tanks were empty. It was just an all-around bad idea. On the other hand, Vince thought, he really needed a laugh.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Most of the plastic containers of food were still warm when Bruce rummaged quietly through the refrigerator in the darkened kitchen. He tucked a few of them – asparagus with hollandaise sauce, succotash, sweet potato casserole – under his arm and inspected a small plastic tub shakily labeled “cornbread dressing”.

The lights blinked on. Bruce straightened and looked resignedly at Alfred, who was standing at the kitchen door with the same smug look he’d worn early that morning during Martha’s plea that Bruce not open his present in front of her.

“The dressing has a chicken broth base. She won’t be able to eat it,” the butler said.

Bruce shoved the stuffing back into the refrigerator. “I thought I’d grab a snack before…” He foundered as Alfred drilled him with a penetrating stare that reminded Bruce of the time he was thirteen and the old man had caught him trying to hack into an adult Internet site.

“There’s a shopping bag sitting on the lower left shelf. Would you mind bringing it out?” Alfred asked. The bag was filled with small containers of food that the old man had put together as a care package for Martha, who would be working at Arkham until midnight. Bruce set the bag on the kitchen table with a thud and dropped into the chair beside it. He gazed wretchedly at a stained tile in the middle of the ceramic floor.

“This is your fault,” he said wearily.

"I'm quite happy to hear that," the butler replied.

"Well, don't be," said Bruce. "Nothing's going to happen." He rested his forehead against the palm of his hand for a moment, then shoved himself to his feet and started to walk out of the kitchen, leaving the package of food. “Send a car over to drop this off,” he said.

“You’re not going,” Alfred said.

Bruce shook his head.

“Then I’ll take it myself,” Alfred announced. “That had been my original intention.”

Bruce took his hand off of the door and spun sternly toward the elderly butler. “You are not going to Arkham Asylum.”

The old man fixed Bruce with a quick, dismissive look. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll just be getting my coat.”

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

“How utterly inconvenient,” said the Joker, surveying the pile of grinning bodies.

“The timing is poor,” agreed Brainiac, toeing a limp, sallow hand away from the base of one of the dozens of complex computerized contrivances he had assembled throughout the dental lab-turned-lair. “However, this intrusion is not without its instructive elements.”

The Joker watched almost vacantly as his men carried each corpse to an examination room, where it was laid out on a dental chair and adorned with a little blue bib. He noticed with faint distaste that most of them smelled of beer. “Steep tuition. I hope the lesson is worth it.”

The Coluan stepped back slightly as two henchmen silently carried Vince Elliot passed him, careful not to allow the dead young dental student’s swinging hand to touch the green, metallic body that currently hosted his transcendent mind.

“A simple lesson,” said Brainiac. “Our plans are laid and our resources in place. Further delay will only bring additional complications – most of them considerably more threatening than a gaggle of inebriated children.”

“I so wanted this to be a New Year’s surprise,” said the Joker, as Rat Face and Pepper Bennett duck-taped one of the skinnier intruders into a chair at the receptionist’s desk. “Coordinated with all of those lovely fireworks and noisemakers.”

“I understand the desirability for such a distraction, but delay at this point would be imprudent,” replied Brainiac. “As for your more ‘artistic’ aspirations – our offensive will not be without its theatrics.”

The Joker nodded. A man had to be flexible.

“Let’s do it, then,” he said, watching Bennett curse as the inadequately secured corpse slipped clumsily onto the linoleum floor. As Brainiac stepped away to secure his myriad contraptions for their ultimate journey, the mad clown murmured, “Bye-bye, Batman.” The corners of his mouth rose toward his ears. “And your little friends, too.”

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

As he gripped the heavy picnic basket and walked slowly down the empty corridors of Arkham Asylum, Bruce tried to hold onto his resentment at Alfred for forcing this Christmas delivery upon him. He couldn’t manage it, though. The guards at the gate of the infamous fortress of insanity would have ordered the old man away before he had stepped out of the limousine. Alfred was an expert at bullying Bruce, but the guardians of Arkham had no sentimental attachment to the elderly butler that he could manipulate to his advantage. Unauthorized visitors – even harmless old men bearing picnic baskets – were barred during usual working hours, let alone dark holiday evenings, when staffing was sparse and the inmates exceptionally twitchy.

It was a different story when the visitor was Bruce Wayne. Arkham was funded through a complex formula of state, federal and local moneys that always fell short of the institution’s needs. One of Wayne Industry’s nonprofit ventures funded nearly the entire deficit and Bruce was known to oversee the endowment personally. He could walk into Arkham whenever he wanted.

The guards wouldn’t have accepted a package from a delivery service, either, Bruce reflected as he rounded the second-floor corner that led to Martha Kent’s office. An exploding sandwich was not a remote or laughable concept at Arkham. Bruce knew he was probably the only person who could have successfully delivered Martha’s dinner – this was ostensibly the reason he had eventually agreed to do it.

He had been to her office before, but his previous visits had been made through an office window and in different attire. Their exchanges had been brief and businesslike. When he was wearing the suit, there was no time for pleasantries. Martha had been raised to understand this and she never tried to prolong the encounters.

Bruce’s fist hovered over the heavy wooden door for a moment as he rehearsed his “This-is-from-Alfred-I’ve-got-to-go” speech and forced himself not to think of the possibilities of being alone with Martha in her isolated office. His knock seemed to echo too loudly through the empty hallway.

When Martha pulled the door open a few seconds later, she had a dinner roll in her hand and she was chewing enthusiastically. Her eyes widened at the sight of Bruce, her friendly, yet puzzled expression questioning his presence in the corridor outside her office.

“Um, Alfred…” he held out the basket “…was afraid you were going to go without Christmas dinner…” Hand it to her, he thought, and leave.

Martha held up a finger, swallowed and finally said, “That was really nice.” She nodded for him to come in. When he hesitated, she opened the door a little wider and Bruce saw, to his relief and disappointment, that she wasn’t alone.

“Mr. Wayne.” Harvey Dent put down a forkful of mashed yams and brushed his hand against the hip of his coveralls. “Please tell me there’s a turkey in there. Or a ham.”

“Sorry,” said Bruce, shaking Harvey’s proffered hand and segueing quickly into his charming socialite persona. “I wasn’t expecting Dr. Kent to be entertaining… carnivorous company.”

Martha’s eyes flicked from Bruce to Harvey. “I guess you guys don’t need an introduction?”

“It’s been a few years,” said Harvey, “but I still remember Mr. Wayne. It doesn’t hurt that he apparently has a rapidly aging portrait in his attic.” Bruce smiled and set the picnic basket on a desk that was already cluttered with half-filled Tupperware containers, but Martha frowned at Harvey, obviously thrown by the reference.

“He doesn’t look a day over 40,” Harvey explained. He shook his head at her continued confusion and added, “Oscar Wilde. The Portrait of Dorian Gray. See, there are these things called books…”

“I read books,” Martha protested.

“I liked the one you gave me,” said Bruce impulsively.

She turned to him with a surprised, pleased expression that made him doubly glad he hadn’t shelved the novel without opening it. “You already read it?”

“Yeah.” He noticed that Harvey was watching him shrewdly. Not for the first time, he questioned Martha’s wisdom in becoming so chummy with a man who – despite his past as a valiant prosecutor and his present as a seemingly docile inmate – had spent decades delighting in murdering as many people as he could. “I’ve got to get going.”

She stepped into the corridor with him, allowing the door to close most of the way behind them. “Thanks for coming by. And for the care package.”

Bruce shook his head. “I should have known that your folks would have sent something over.”

Martha crossed her arms over her chest and grinned down at the floor. “I’ve got a pretty big appetite. And so does Harvey, God knows.”

As softly as possible, he said, “Be careful about…” His eyes flicked toward the thick door. She nodded seriously and he felt satisfied that she wasn’t being reckless, at least about Harvey.

“So –” Bruce slipped his hands into his pockets and took a step backward. “Merry Christmas.”

Martha smiled with what seemed to be uncharacteristic shyness and reached for the handle of her office door.

“Wait,” he said. She stopped and looked up at him, her eyes seeming to miss his by no more than a millimeter. “Your present. I --” He felt his throat constrict and could only manage, “Thanks.”

Something in his tone made her look up again and their eyes snapped together like magnets. Bruce did not remember stepping toward her, but there was suddenly very little space between them.

“Dr. Kent?”

Bruce whirled around, hands still in his pockets, and saw Devon Persky standing about midway down the hallway, briefcase in hand and a baffled expression on his face. “Mr. Wayne?” the Director asked.

Bruce noticed the alarmed look in Martha’s eyes. She was not supposed to be hosting a Christmas dinner for Harvey Dent. Easing quickly into the guise of billionaire philanthropist, Bruce strode over to shake Persky’s hand.

“Figured this would be a nice, quiet time to take a look around, check out my investment,” Bruce said with less tact than he would ordinarily employ. “Surprised to see the boss here, today. Impressed,” he added, “but surprised.”

Persky smiled modestly and said, “Don’t be too impressed. I just stopped by to wish my staff a happy holiday and make sure they weren’t getting into the eggnog.” He nodded past Bruce and Martha feebly mirrored his smile. “You’ve met Dr. Kent?”

During the rare weak moments when he allowed himself to replay the conversation in his head, Bruce would cringe at his reply and wonder why he hadn’t simply explained that he knew Martha through her connection with the Justice League. It was no secret that Wayne Industries, along with several other private and public organizations, funded the League.

What he heard himself say, though lips that felt like they belonged to someone else, was “I’m a friend of her father’s.”

He could hear Martha shift slightly behind him. He could not look at her. When Persky invited him to his office in a voice that practically broadcast the Director’s hope that Bruce would decline, he accepted quickly, and with gratitude.

Persky wished Martha a Merry Christmas while Bruce stared at the floor. Then he followed the Director down the empty hallway and wondered if he would still feel her eyes on his back when they turned the corner.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Daylight beat Batman home the following morning. He pulled into the cave knowing that the long-awaited game was on. The indignant girlfriend of a member of Gotham University’s Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity had followed her beau to an illicit party at the School of Dental Medicine’s teaching clinic and stumbled onto a Smilex massacre. The girl had still been screaming – albeit hoarsely – when Batman arrived twenty minutes later, summoned by a dismal Lakeeta Reardon.

“Here we go then,” Reardon had said, nodding when Batman replied, “At least the waiting’s over.”

That wasn’t true in every sense: Batman had collected about three dozen forensic samples from the scene. Each specimen had to be analyzed immediately. The sun might be up, he thought, as he stepped out of the car, but the night was far from over.

There was a slight shifting of shadows to his right and he knew instantly that the cave had been breached. The intruder was taller and sturdier than Alfred. Batman used reflective surfaces around the cave to identify the trespasser and instinctively wished his stronghold had been besieged by the Joker. Or Fray. Or even Harvey.

It was Superman and he did not look happy.

“We have to talk,” he said.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Martha ditched the red VW in the usual place, gave the wooded area a cursory sweep and reached toward the hologram generator clipped to her right front belt loop. It was a ritual she’d repeated without incident hundreds of times since moving to Gotham City.

When she depressed the button this time, her car exploded.

As shards of metal and glass rained down upon her, Martha gaped at the car in openmouthed disbelief. The red Beetle had been a graduation gift from her parents, and during the year she was in France, Clark and Clay had spent hours customizing it. She loved her car; it could not be gone. This had to be a nightmare or a joke…

The steering wheel bounced off of her head and rolled onto the ground, rousing her from her shock. She glanced down at herself and realized she still presented as Martha Kent instead of Superwoman. As reluctant as she was to attempt to activate the device again, she felt short of choices. Meera had summoned her half an hour ago for an emergency meeting at the upstate New York Headquarters and Martha had not been able to get away until her relief showed up.

She pushed down on the tiny button and clenched her teeth, but this time the hologram ballooned around her without an accompanying explosion. She was going to have to investigate the blast – and mourn her car – later. She hit the skies with an urgent force and headed northward.

Just as she was about to cross into the airspace above Midvale, Superwoman heard a curious whirring that didn’t sound like a plane or helicopter – and suddenly found herself accosted by a gigantic flying metallic skull.

As she regarded the bizarre green-gray craft – which was slightly bigger than Superwoman and set in a forbidding scowl – an opaque memory she couldn’t quite access waggled in the back of her mind. She should know what this thing was; someone had told her about it a long time ago. Gren would know off the top of his head. He was the one who studied up on this stuff, she thought. But before she could ask Meera to set up a relay, the flying skull shot toward her with unexpected speed and spewed a torrent of thick emerald liquid through orifices concealed by its angry mouth and sunken eyes.

The triple spray hit Superwoman with the intensity of three high pressure fire hoses, but not before she noticed the color of the liquid. Solid Kryptonite did her very little damage, but she had nearly died of anaphylactic shock the previous year when she was accidentally exposed to the meteorite in gas form. If this was liquid Kryptonite – and as her skin began to sear, she was sure that it was – there was no telling what it would do to her.

She managed to squeeze her eyes and mouth shut before the thick jets of poisonous liquid hit her, but the fluid drenched her hair and clothes and scalded the membranes in her nose. Blind and blistered, she pulled herself out of the direct path of the spray and spun in a frenetic pirouette, flinging off as much of the substance off as she could. Desperate to avoid permanent injury to her eyes, Superwoman, still spinning, continued to climb blind. Suddenly the darkness was pierced by a torrent of pain that forced her to open her eyes.

The skull had flung dozens of Kryptonite-tipped daggers into her wounded torso. Their handles exploded upon impact and in her compromised state, the pain was devastating. Searching frantically for an escape route, Superwoman spotted what looked, from her altitude, like a long blue snake. She twisted into an airborne high dive and hurtled into the Midvale-Sunnydale River.

During the endless seconds it took her to break through the turbulent, foamy surface of the river, she waited for the next, maybe final jolt of pain, but she’d somehow managed to outfly the menacing craft. Superwoman landed on the rocky floor of the river, relieved to be safe, and wondered if the hellish airship would still be there when she ran out of breath.

She didn’t have to wait. The waters were so rough and so murky that she didn’t notice until it was almost upon her that the giant skull had followed her into the water. Again she saw flashes of green from the craft’s cruel face and as the river’s powerful currents carried three widening streams of Kryptonite toward her, Superwoman realized with horror that she was too depleted to fly.

She could still run, though. She clambered onto the riverbank and spotted an array of electrical transformers she hoped would confuse the spaceship’s tracking circuitry long enough for her to regain her strength. As she leaned back against the metal skin of a central transformer, her right hand brushed the hologram projector and her eyes flew open.

The first time she had activated the device today, her car had blown up; a few minutes after her second attempt to cloak herself, the skull ship had attacked her. Was it tracking her through the activated projector? It was a long shot, but Superwoman couldn’t think of another answer. She thumbed off the gadget and waited, panting, for the bizarre ship to continue its pursuit. She saw a beam of bright winter sunlight on the far side of the array and made her way cautiously towards it. As she felt the strength rush back into her aching body, she heard something rising out of the river and slammed up against the nearest transformer.

Ghoul-like, the skull-shaped craft turned on its axis in a slow circle, then tilted its face toward the sky. It seemed to be scanning for something – and failing to find it. After a few unbearably endless minutes, the skull rose into the clouds and disappeared.

Martha didn’t dare reactivate the hologram, which meant she’d have to fly above the clouds, too, in order to avoid detection. Shaking in pain and dread, she bolted into the sky, praying she wouldn’t run into the flying skull again.

As soon as she made it past Metropolis, she had the presence of mind to contact Meera and briefly let her know why she’d been delayed. A detailed explanation could wait until she reached headquarters. This she did in minutes, and without incident. As Martha staggered to the conference room, she heard the Flash ask, “…to kill her? Is she sure it wasn’t just some random...” As Martha walked through the door, his eyes and his mouth expanded almost comically.

As her teammates gawked at her blistered face, shredded clothing and damp, disheveled hair, Martha slumped against the cool metal frame of the conference room door and said, “I’m pretty sure this was a legitimate attempt to kill me.”

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Once it was clear that Martha was safe and not irreparably injured, Superman and Batman quickly averted their eyes. Roy and Wally reluctantly followed, as did Meera, but Lian and Midori stared at Martha’s rapidly healing burns and cuts with fascination. Gren did not even pretend to look away or that his interest was medically inspired.

“Indecent exposure,” he explained, handing Martha his jacket. “But I won’t arrest you.” He continued to watch her with a mixture of amusement and admiration until she’d pulled the zipper almost to her collarbone.

“It’s safe to look at me, now,” said Martha, annoyed that the focus had moved so quickly from the attempt on her life to the inadequate durability of her sports bra. “So – this meeting – does it have anything to do with someone trying to drown me in liquid Kryptonite and then bombard me with exploding darts?”

Superman looked up. “Liquid Kryptonite? From where?”

Martha nodded enthusiastically, certain someone would know something about the strange craft that attacked her. “It was this huge skull thing – a spaceship or hovercraft – and it had these metallic tentacles hanging down the sides, like an octopus almost, though I didn’t see any suction cups and I don’t think there were eight of them.”

Flash blanched beneath his red mask and Arsenal turned grimly toward Superman. Grendel cursed fiercely through clenched teeth.

“What?” Martha asked.

Batman had also turned to Superman. “You called it right,” he said.

Superman explained to his daughter, “A couple dozen college kids were killed in Gotham City last night. Smilex gas.”

“The Joker,” said Martha. “Damn. But he can’t – he doesn’t have the technology – and why would he go after me?”

“I was at the scene a few minutes after Batman and I noticed a signature trace of doxillium near some of the computers,” Superman said. “You don’t find it on Earth – it’s got some unpleasant long-term effects on anyone with an organic body. It’s used to ramp up certain kinds of technology – makes a nano-processor look liken an abacus.”

“So where would Joker get that?” Martha asked.

“From his new partner,” said Midori, who hadn’t spoken since Martha had walked through the door. Her voice was icy and so unfamiliar that Roy twisted around to stare at her. “Brainiac.”

“Brainiac? Didn’t he disappear twenty years ago?” asked Lian as Martha raced through her memory for every detail she could recall from her father’s stories about the evil Coluan scientist.

Superman nodded. “Mortally wounded, we thought, in the final battle for Warw –”

“He knows who we are,” blurted Martha. “Our secret identities.” Her teammates turned to look at her, but Martha’s eyes were fixed on Batman’s.

“And now, so does Joker,” she said.

Batman opened his mouth, but before he could respond, Martha snapped at her father, “Get Mom and Clay.” She barreled out of the conference room, shouting over her shoulder at Flash and Meera, “Go get your families!”

Superman’s chair was empty before Arsenal could turn to Wally. “Go,” Roy said, adding to Gren, “Help Meera find Emma. Wait,” he added as Gren pulled the dark-haired telepath onto a long green racing sled. “Where the hell did Martha go?”

Meera stood there for a moment, brow furrowed, then said, “Getting… Alfred?” She looked at Batman. “Your –?”

“Yes,” said Batman. “You’d better go.”

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Martha pulled Gren’s jacket hood-like around her head until she broke past the first layer of clouds. It was hard to fix on anything but Alfred’s safety right now, and to wonder desperately if her father had found Lois and Clay. She didn’t dare activate the hologram and it was tough to see through the thick soup of clouds, so she was forced to dip occasionally into the bright winter sky in order to keep her course. This cut off precious seconds from her flight back to Gotham City. She prayed she was not too late, and also that she was not overreacting. Maybe Joker didn’t know. Was Brainiac the confiding type? The attack on her could have been an isolated act of revenge on her father.

Wayne Manor looked secure from the outside, but lacking Superman’s X-ray vision, Martha had no idea what she’d find inside. Alfred could be anywhere in the mansion. She hoped he was in the cave. She didn’t think anyone could find the secret passageways. Bruce still made her jump when he popped out from one of them.

She decided to check the less secure areas first and found Alfred dusting around the stone lip of the extinguished living room fireplace. Without stopping to alert him, she scooped the old man into her arms, dustpan and all, and hurtled out of the room less than a second before the enormous Christmas tree exploded.

The wake of the blast, which sent fake evergreen branches tearing through walls like bristly emerald torpedoes, threw the fleeing pair closer to the kitchen, where Martha planned to escape through the service entrance. With Alfred in her arms, she allowed herself the luxury of a deep breath and smelled the sickly sweet odor of Smilex behind them. She glanced at Alfred, noticed with great relief that he was doing anything but smiling and, putting a hand out to protect him from flying glass, burst through the nearest plate glass window.

After ensuring that the elderly butler, though shaken, was unharmed, Martha tugged Gren’s jacket back up around her head and climbed as high as she felt would be safe for her fragile passenger. “Meera,” she shouted, “can you tell Batman I’ve got Alfred?”

>>Right away.<< The voice in Martha’s head sounded distracted.

“You have Emma?”

>>Not yet. But I’m in contact with her. Any trouble at Wayne Manor?<<

Martha hesitated. “It’s gonna need some remodeling. Meera, is my family OK?”

>>I’ll get back to you.<<

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Superman found Lois Lane in her office, but their son was less easily located. Clay was in central Pennsylvania, surveying the site of the first coal mine cave-in in a decade. Superman had saved the miners, but outrage over the incident was heating up the politically charged state legislature. A cadre of reporters, including Clay, was being lowered into the secured front entrance to the mine when Superman landed at the site. The earth around it apparently had traces of lead – he could not see his son. A mine supervisor had to order the press guide to send up the lift full of reporters before they had finished exploring the scene and Clay was among the grumblers until the lift hit sunlight and he saw Superman standing there with his mother.

“I’ve got them,” said Superman in response to Meera’s inquiry. “They’re OK.”

>>Superwoman suggests you bring them to your Fortress. That’s where she’s taking Alfred.<<

Superman frowned. “We may need to find another place for Alfred. If he finds Clark Kent’s family in Superman’s secret sanctum, he’s going to put two and two together.”

After a small pause, Meera reported, >>Martha says Alfred knows who you are.<<

Superman stopped dead in mid-air. Lois and Clay each gripped at a muscular blue arm.

“How?” he asked tightly.

There was a longer pause. >>I’m just relaying the message.<<

“All right,” said Superman, readjusting his course. He’d speak to his daughter later.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

It was almost two hours before the League had reassembled. By then, Alfred and the Kents were settling into Superman’s Andean fortress, with the promise that clothes and other supplies would be coming soon. Linda Park, Parker West and Emma Jai had been moved to the Watchtower; Blitz and Wally’s cousin Bart Allen had agreed to take turns keeping an eye on them. Although they were safe enough for the time being, Arsenal feared the Watchtower’s security might eventually be compromised by Brainiac’s mother ship.

“So the thing that attacked me was just a pod?” asked Martha. “Great.”

She nodded to Midori, who silently slid the reprogrammed hologram projector across the polished table and mouthed, “Should be safe now.”

“Well no one’s seen a larger ship this time, but he’s always had one in the past,” said Arsenal, switching on the conference room’s wall-length, three-dimensional interactive presentation system. This innovation of Midori’s had replaced a more traditional white board set-up more than a year ago. Roy waved a half-glove at the screen and keyed a few words into his computer. Images of Brainiac and the Joker popped side-by-side onto the large display. As the team listened attentively, a polished mechanical voice droned a cheerful summary of the atrocities committed by each of the villains, as well as a rundown on their capabilities and tendencies.

“That’s what we’ve got,” said Arsenal as he ended the program with a flick of his hand. “Now what do we need to know?”

“Just tell me where they are,” said Gren. “I really don’t need to know about their hopes and dreams.”

“It would be nice to know what kind of weapons they have,” Batman said caustically. “The Joker’s are sometimes designed to harm civilians in order to provide a distraction.”

“All right, weapons then,” Gren allowed. He tilted his head toward Martha, whose face had grown darker as the computer dispassionately catalogued of each of the Joker’s murderous acts. She did not look up.

“What do they want?” asked Meera. “Knowing that may help us find them.”

“They want us dead,” said Midori in the same frigid voice she’d used earlier in the day. Everyone gazed uneasily at her; Roy looked particularly disturbed. “So they can turn most people into their slaves and murder everyone else.”

She looked at her teammates with dull, hooded eyes. “This man was our Hitler,” she said. “He started on Colu, but his cycle of murder and domination became too wide for a single planet. And when he started killing off-world, he became our disgrace.”

Her grim eyes moved toward a wobbling object on the opposite end of the gleaming table. Martha was aimlessly twirling the hologram projector as though it was an oddly-shaped toy top. The young doctor looked up briefly, noticed the attention, then dropped her eyes again while simultaneously flattening a hand over the small square device, stilling it.

“I won’t let him escape this time, to murder more people and to shame my world,” Midori told her mesmerized teammates. “When we find Brainiac – he’s mine.”

It seemed like hours before Martha Kent broke the astonished silence.

“I’m with you there,” she said in an equally determined voice. “Because I’m going to kill the Joker.”

Continued...