A Friend's Duty
Its only been a few hours; he wanted to make sure Lois was home, first. The Man of Steel rockets through the sky, face inscrutable as he tries to figure out an approach for this. Who all's going to be there? Will he have to tell them one at a time? Will they blame him? Should they?
"Stop it." Clark tells himself, ashamed of the selfish fear. He's Superman, for God's sakes. It doesn't make the approach to Wayne manor(the back way, naturally.) any easier, however, on this miserable winter's day. Superman can't help but remember the first time he'd heard Batman rail against Gotham's infamous snowfall, about how a little slush on his cape almost killed him, about how...wait.
Eyes narrowing, Superman eases left, picking up speed as he peers through sin-stained warehouse after sin-stained warehouse. Temperature fluctuation...there. Lead plating, but that doesn't mean much these days, but only one Gotham criminal is going to be working with that kind of ferrokinetic discharge tonight of all nights.
Crashing through the roof, Superman's hunch is confirmed! The armored outline of Mister Freeze stands, slowly working over some strange device while masked and hooded goons carry armloads of cheap industrial diamonds. Well, they were, right up until the maniac in blue pajamas kicked the roof in. "I hope you're giving them overtime for working this close to the holiday, Freeze."
The man...or what once was a man...makes motions that would be shock and horror on being capable of expressing its emotions to any real extent. On Freeze, they're memories, patterns etched into his walking corpse body. "You...!"
There's a crack of wind, then, as Superman gets all up in Freeze's grill, smashing the ice cannon the criminal habitually carries like it were an old beer can. "This is a bad time." Superman says, not raising his voice but somehow expressing the sort of fury that makes six or seven armed men take pause. "So how about you just...stop. Huh?"
---
One concussion later, the Man of Steel is back in the air. Okay, so Mister Freeze's annual mad scheme to create an eternal winter had been foiled, there...there was no real excuse to keep putting this off. Man up, Clark snaps at himself, and the red and blue blur shimmers in the Gotham dusk.
There is a knock, at the back door of stately Wayne manor. "...Alfred...?"
"Stop it." Clark tells himself, ashamed of the selfish fear. He's Superman, for God's sakes. It doesn't make the approach to Wayne manor(the back way, naturally.) any easier, however, on this miserable winter's day. Superman can't help but remember the first time he'd heard Batman rail against Gotham's infamous snowfall, about how a little slush on his cape almost killed him, about how...wait.
Eyes narrowing, Superman eases left, picking up speed as he peers through sin-stained warehouse after sin-stained warehouse. Temperature fluctuation...there. Lead plating, but that doesn't mean much these days, but only one Gotham criminal is going to be working with that kind of ferrokinetic discharge tonight of all nights.
Crashing through the roof, Superman's hunch is confirmed! The armored outline of Mister Freeze stands, slowly working over some strange device while masked and hooded goons carry armloads of cheap industrial diamonds. Well, they were, right up until the maniac in blue pajamas kicked the roof in. "I hope you're giving them overtime for working this close to the holiday, Freeze."
The man...or what once was a man...makes motions that would be shock and horror on being capable of expressing its emotions to any real extent. On Freeze, they're memories, patterns etched into his walking corpse body. "You...!"
There's a crack of wind, then, as Superman gets all up in Freeze's grill, smashing the ice cannon the criminal habitually carries like it were an old beer can. "This is a bad time." Superman says, not raising his voice but somehow expressing the sort of fury that makes six or seven armed men take pause. "So how about you just...stop. Huh?"
---
One concussion later, the Man of Steel is back in the air. Okay, so Mister Freeze's annual mad scheme to create an eternal winter had been foiled, there...there was no real excuse to keep putting this off. Man up, Clark snaps at himself, and the red and blue blur shimmers in the Gotham dusk.
There is a knock, at the back door of stately Wayne manor. "...Alfred...?"