a Justice League Unlimited story
by Merlin Missy
Copyright 2006
PG-13
DC and Warner Bros. own the toys. I just play with them. Written for Flasher in the "Revenge of the DCAU Ficathon." Spoilers up through "Destroyer" and RotJ. With thanks to xffan2000 for the beta!
Summary: When an old enemy returns, Bruce and Clark have to set aside their problems to deal with him.
They set the last box down gingerly. Everything was marked "Fragile."
"Are you sure that's everything?" asked Stoffer, rubbing his back.
Kline marked the last line on his checklist. He'd been drawing a government paycheck for twelve years, ten more than Stoffer, and even if the kid was bright and eager and was probably going to be promoted out of this end of Special Services in another month, he needed to learn some damn patience. "I'm sure," Kline said finally.
"Great! So what's this stuff for, anyway?"
Kline glanced at the top of the sheet. The words had been struck out with black marker, but he could make out letters that looked like: "CAO S."
"You've got me. Another scrapped project. Your tax money at work, pal."
Stoffer snorted and closed the door, letting Kline punch in the code.
The boxes sat.
The world changed, as the world tended to do. The movers and shakers married and had children and divorced and did not marry at all and had no children and died valiantly and there were rumors, always rumors. The Near Apocalypse of '06 was forgotten in the wake of the Near Apocalypse of '09.
Membership in the League flexed up and then down and up again.
Still the boxes sat.
The door opened.
"What's this stuff?" asked Thomason.
"Some old project. Stop asking questions," said Stoffer, who had not been keen enough after all, and worse, had been cursed with the gift of saying what he thought when he should have kept his mouth shut. He consulted his own clipboard. "We're looking for box 1938-J."
"Got it." Thomason matched up the code on the box to the one on Stoffer's paperwork. "What d'you think they'll use this thing for, anyway?"
"Who knows? Could be a ray gun, could be the cure for cancer. You know how it goes. Somebody loses funding and no one remembers what they were working on." He figured maybe somebody was looking in back records and said, "Hey, this looks cool." That happened when they got new people in charge. Otherwise, this stuff just sat.
"You wanna see what it is?"
"No. They see the tape broken, that's your head and mine."
Thomason deflated. Then he looked around. "Okay. Fine. We bring them a box with the tape broken, they'll be pissed. But if we look in one of the other boxes, who's going to know it was us?"
Stoffer thought about this. There weren't cameras, not in here. If he happened to open the box that did hold the cure for cancer, then he'd practically be doing the world a service, wouldn't he?
Also, he was bored. And Thomason was bored, and Davis, who'd gotten the supervisor job that should've been Stoffer's anyway, had been a bitch all day.
"Okay. We pick just one, and then we go."
Thomason grinned.
The first box didn't count because it turned out just to be paperwork, lab notebooks with printouts taped inside. The second box held the contents of somebody's desk, likely a few somebodies from the duplicate staplers.
The third box held a ray gun. Well, it looked like a ray gun. As they stared at it, wondering what on Earth it could be for, Stoffer got a bad feeling in the back of his head, like they really should have stopped with the office supplies. "Let's put this back."
"Okay." Thomason had the same look; not fear, just worry.
As they both made to grab the thing, one of them touched a button. A weird light shot out, and as they watched, terrified of how much trouble they were about to get in, a giant grey monster formed in front of them.
Neither man had ever heard of Project Cadmus, had no idea what Project Doomsday was (although Stoffer had seen the fight on the news, he didn't remember it now), and had no reason to know what a Phantom Zone projector was.
But if there was to be a bright side, it was that neither lived long enough to get in trouble for opening the box.
Bruce woke from a shallow dream to Alfred's words: "Master Bruce, please wake up."
"What time is it?" He shook off the sleep as well as he could; his night had lasted until seven am.
"Just before ten, sir. There's something you need to see on the news." Alfred turned on the television without further prompting.
The Doomsday creature was rampaging through downtown Washington. Even as Bruce watched, Clark flew onto the screen and began pummeling it. In the background, other members of the League appeared in white beams of transporter-light: Captain Atom, the Flash, the new Lantern. Big-hitters all.
"Keep an eye on it," he told Alfred. He lay back down and rolled over.
"Sir?"
"This isn't my fight."
"Yes, sir. Sir?"
"What now?"
"You have a meeting in an hour with the Board."
Bruce sighed into his pillow.
Flash swore. He'd seen the creature on the monitor right before they'd beamed in, but he'd forgotten that little swell of fear in his stomach until he watched Doomsday swat Captain Atom away like a bug. The monster had defeated the Justice Lords once upon a time, and the only reason Superman hadn't died fighting him later was because he had a volcano handy. Last time Wally checked, there weren't any volcanos in downtown DC, though as Doomsday broke through one of GL's bubbles he began to wonder if they ought to transport one there for the purpose.
Transport.
"Flash to Watchtower. Can you get a lock on this guy and do a site-to-site transport into the nearest active volcano?"
"Watchtower to Flash. No. Site-to-site is down again and we are not beaming him to one of the Towers."
Superman punched the creature, knocking it back and not ducking in time as it smacked one enormous hand against his face. Flash zipped between them, running faster and faster around Doomsday, trying to take away his air.
"You consigned me to Hell," said the monster, plucking him up deftly with both hands and grabbing his legs. Wally bit back his scream as he felt bones in both legs break, and bit back another as the creature threw him to the ground. GL scooped him up and pulled him out of the way as Captain Atom let loose with a nuclear blast on the guy.
"How bad is it?" GL asked him, scanning Wally's legs with his ring.
"I'll be okay." No use looking like a crybaby in front of the new kid. Still, he winced in pain as he tried to move, and his fingers itched to ask for an emergency beamout.
Lights flashed around him, and for a second, Wally thought he'd been beamed up anyway. Then more of his coworkers appeared. Beatriz and Tora stood right beside him. He quirked a smile at them both.
"Hey."
Tora ignored him, but Bea gave him a quick smile before focusing on Doomsday. They'd finally broken up for the very last time, wow, it would be a year ago next month. A whole year would have passed since he'd admitted his feelings for Linda were stronger than any he'd ever felt before. Weird. But Beatriz was still his friend, still someone he liked and trusted. Hers had been the shoulder he'd cried on when they'd lost John, and hers was the ear he still talked to when he said he wasn't sure he would be able to work with this Rayner guy.
Now he watched her with her partner, taking positions opposite Doomsday as Superman pummeled him. Superman backed off just as Tora blasted him with Arctic cold until Doomsday was frozen solid, then Bea blasted him with green fire, trying to find a crack somewhere in his solid frame.
Nothing.
And Amazo was on a deep space mission. Wally swore again. He poked his communicator.
"Flash to Watchtower. In case this hasn't been mentioned before, this is Omega-level."
"Negative," said J'onn. "We have faced Doomsday before. Superman has beaten him twice without assistance."
Clark's voice cut in, "I had help last time, and before that, it wasn't me." He was across the way from Wally, and was breathing hard over the comm, resting for a moment as GL smacked Doomsday with a big, green fish.
"Nevertheless," said J'onn.
"Call Batman in," said Superman.
"Um," Wally said. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"
J'onn added, "He has requested not to be involved in League affairs unless it is absolutely necessary." That was an amazingly diplomatic revision of history, Wally thought, since Bruce's actual quote had been quite detailed, including a special section for the horse Clark rode in on.
"I'm sure," said Superman. "Hurry!" He took off from where he'd landed and slammed full-body into Doomsday.
"Fantastic," said Wally, more to himself than anyone else.
tbc