[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/M3SfSt4.png[/img][/center]

[color=RoyalBlue][b]"'Do your worst?'"[/b][/color] I ask, hearing myself give an incredulous chuckle.  [color=RoyalBlue][b]"I haven't even started [i]trying[/i], pal."[/b][/color]

Before he can throw his projectiles at me, I rush him again, grabbing him by the wrist.  He can punch and kick all he wants, but he's not going to get anywhere.

[color=RoyalBlue][b]"You're one to talk about power and oppression,"[/b][/color] I glare, applying just enough pressure for him to feel the bones in his forearm scrape against each other.  [color=RoyalBlue][b]"I use my powers directly, yeah, but that's because that's what I have to work with to make a difference in the world.  You, though?  Look at the equipment you've got.  How much does that suit of yours cost, or the weapons and gadgets you're packing?  How many families could you have fed with that money instead?  How many jobs could you have created, how many desperate people you could have taken off the streets and out of the cross-hairs of criminals, if you weren't so focused on pouring a fortune into bashing in faces and filling up the trauma ward?"[/b][/color]

When I first started hearing stories about the Bat-Man, I got conflicting reports.  He was an actual bat-creature, a vampire who could fly and disappear and drink people's blood.  He was a shadow, a mystical warrior who could cloud men's minds.  He was a lunatic, a back-page story for the crank file who was going to get himself shot.  But he's not some supernatural menace, and he's not just a sick man in a cape.  He's clearly got very deep pockets-- or at least, he works for someone who does.  He's using high-end military equipment, spending God knows how much, to wage a personal war on this city.

[i][sub][color=Violet]"....S....Su....."[/color][/sub][/i]

[color=RoyalBlue][b]"I've met plenty of people like you,"[/b][/color] I say, returning his own contempt in kind, [color=RoyalBlue][b]"Angry, violent men who project the darkness in their own hearts onto the world around them, telling anyone who can hear them that things are so bad, that the people around them are so weak and helpless, that the [i]only[/i] way to change things is with fists and fire.  Terrorists.  Mass shooters.  Political radicals.  People in love with the idea of righteous violence, the notion that they live in hell and can only survive by becoming the devil."[/b][/color]

With a twist of his arm, I flip him onto his back.  Thankfully, he doesn't resist, or I may have pulled the arm out of the socket completely.

[i][sub][color=Violet]"....-perman.....st....stop....."[/color][/sub][/i]

[color=RoyalBlue][b]"Thing is,"[/b][/color] I say as I circle over him, [color=RoyalBlue][b]"statistically, most terrorists these days don't emerge from bombed-out hovels, but come from wealthy families.  Your average shooter doesn't come from some hell-hole in the backwoods or the inner city, but from a pleasant home in the suburbs.  And your average violent political radical is usually a student at an ivy-league college with a cushy job waiting for them when they graduate.  They're not the righteous dark heroes they make themselves out to be.  They're just spoiled, rich [i]brats[/i] hiding behind a cause as an excuse to hurt people."[/b][/color]

[i][sub][color=Violet]"....Superman!  Superman, you've got to stop this, this isn't you!"[/color][/sub][/i]

Batman tries to get up, but I pin him down to the ground, and rear back a fist.

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/9B7NEMz.png[/img][/center]

[color=RoyalBlue][b]"You wanted me to do my worst?"[/b][/color] I snarl.  [color=RoyalBlue][b]"Here it comes."[/b][/color]

[color=Violet]"[sub]Supe--oh, God dammit,[/sub] [i]CLARK!  STOP!!!"[/i][/color]

I freeze in place.  The voice is like a splash of cold water across the face.  Or like a searchlight on a foggy night, as it cuts right through the red haze that had been clouding my thoughts.  All that anger, that rage that was driving me forward, evaporates.

[color=RoyalBlue][b]"Lois?"[/b][/color]

She's about ten paces away from us, one hand putting pressure on her forehead to try and stop the bleeding.  Still, she's conscious, and on her feet.  For a moment, a wave of relief washes over me.....until I look her in the eyes.

I've seen her angry plenty of times.  But behind that is something I've never seen in her, something that might as well drive a stake through my heart.  She's [i]afraid[/i].

[color=Violet]"He was [i]helping[/i] us, Clark,"[/color] she says.  [color=Violet]"What the hell are [i]you[/i] doing?"[/color]

All the righteous anger I'd been using to keep pushing myself forward gives away.  I scramble away from the man I was about to beat into the dirt, trying to get away from myself just as much as I'm trying to get way from him.  Looking around me, the cloudy red haze gone completely, I finally see what's going on, what I'm doing.

And all I can feel is shame.

[i]She's afraid of me.[/i]

[color=RoyalBlue][b]"I....I wasn't...."[/b][/color] I start to sputter.  [color=RoyalBlue][b]"Livewire, she......my mind, it's not.....I'm not......oh, God......I'm sorry....."[/b][/color]

Earlier today, I'd been talking with her about the potential run-in with the Batman.  I'd been the one willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, to think maybe there was more to him than what the media had made him out to be.  Now here I am, proclaiming judgments and ready to cave his skull in.

Maybe Lois was right.  'Sometimes a wild animal is just a wild animal.'  But maybe Batman isn't the animal here.

[color=Violet]"Easy there, Big Guy,"[/color] she says, taking a few tentative steps closer to me.  [color=Violet]"It's gonna be all right.  Maybe you weren't yourself for a moment there.  But you are [i]now[/i], right?  You're gonna get a hold of yourself, and you're gonna make this right.....right?"[/color]

[color=RoyalBlue]".....right...."[/color] I mutter.

[color=Violet]"And [i]you,[/i]"[/color] she says, turning to the prone form of Batman, [color=Violet]"First and foremost.....thanks.  Dr. Irons and I would be dead if it weren't for you.  Secondly, I'm guessing you've got a bunker or a headquarters or somewhere that we can take Dr. Irons where the Toyman can't reach him.  And thirdly, while we're there, I'm also going to assume you don't go to a public hospital to patch yourself up, and I'll be honest, unless there are two of you all of a sudden, I'm a little worried I might have a concussion.  Think it'd be possible for you and my man to stop hosing down the street with testosterone long enough for us to take five?"[/color]