A Kryptonian's Fixation

Breaking Bones

Batman had decided to skip being Bruce Wayne for the day. He needed to look into a few things. Random robberies of warehouses to be more specific. Each warehouse seemed to have been randomly selected, the first few had been construction warehouses with the only things missing were concrete, drills and wood. After that, the targeted warehouses began holding things like chemicals, construction grade explosives, scrape metal, and the latest robbery coming from a military warehouse.

"What are all these needed for?"

Batman could only glare at the list of seemingly random stolen goods. It didn't make sense. If someone was trying to build a bomb, they would've had the supplies already. If it was a chemical bomb, same thing. If it was anything more specific, he couldn't think of what was needed. Not with all the stolen items. They were far too random.

"Maybe they're not part of the same group?"

With renewed vigor, the Dark Knight began to separate each robbery into three categories based on escalation of stolen goods. Seeing it as three separate cases, he was quickly able to find the needs and possible criminals for each one. Except for the category with the toxic chemicals and stolen military items.

Humming, he downloaded all this on a hard drive. For the first two categories, he was sure Gordan would be able to arrest the small-time criminals. They seemed more disgruntled than anything else.

But he still wasn't sure on what the last group of criminals would need with all that... Bombs? Toxic gas? Mind control? Honestly, it's Gotham, it could be a number of things he hadn't even thought of yet.

Once done with secretly dropping the hard drive off, he returned home in time for Alfred and Dick to come rushing in. As much as Bruce wanted to get back to work, he should spend some time with his ward. Make sure he's doing well in school and that the training routine that the two of them were still figuring out. Yeah, what's one more day? Maybe a break away from the screen would help him anyway.

~

The day started normal for Clark. He got up early, trained at the Fortress of Solitude, flew back and got ready for work. He greeted plenty of the workers as he entered the building and to his desk.

It was there he spent the better part of some hours editing and looking over his notes and stories. He was close to finishing several of them and helping a few of his colleagues with their own editing as he usually did. It at least made it harder for them to just fire him even if he did miss a few days.

Around lunch, he heard a siren going off. He was on break, so he had time to deal with it. It was a simple robbery that he was able to talk down that had ended up souring his mood with new information on Luthor.

Apparently, Luthor had pushed out several local shops and stores, leaving plenty of people without jobs. Some of those people had turned to robbery or else they risk homelessness for them and their families.

This annoyed him, his face twisting into a scowl as he flew back to work. He couldn't believe that Luthor would just do this! So openly too!

"Clark? You're scowling..." Lois made her way over to him, looking him over.

He sighed heavily, rubbing his face a little.

"Luthor." He mumbled to her.

Her face fell, eyes narrowing.

"I'll get the scoop." She murmured, making him smile a little.

With that, the rest of the day was the usual mess. It was easy for Lois to convince Mr. White to allow her to look for the scoop with Lex Luthor, citing how there has been more robberies with said robbers mainly being disgruntled people displaced by him. Mr. White does love drama, anything to get an extra buck. Seeing as that would take most of her time, especially if she wanted to make it as thorough as possible to trap the bald man, Clark helped clear most of her schedule.

As the day grew to a close, he heard another silent alarm. This one sounded far away, closer to the city warehouses. He hummed, narrowing his eyes at the screen in front of him.

"Get going. Mr. White looks ready to kick you out himself." Lois gave her friend a smile, but it was strained. It was clear that she knew he had heard an alarm.

'She's scarily good at reading me. She better not read Bruce or Batman like that.'

It wasn't long before he was at the edge of the city, far closer to the more dangerous warehouses. The silent alarm was coming from one of Lex's old warehouses. One of the warehouses that Superman just knew no police would arrive in time. Even Luthor's own private army would take a long while.

As much as the bald human was growing to be a nuisance, the Kryptonian still had an obligation to try and protect whatever was in there. Least the police and/or Luthor's guards appear quicker, it would be safer for them to apprehend the robbers.

That was when everything began to go wrong.

There were many things that felt wrong in that moment. He wasn't sure what felt more wrong; the way he enjoyed it or how sudden his rage and relief that came from it.

The criminal at his feet held their bleeding arm, completely crushed under his grasp. Their eyes were wide in shock and surprise. He was the only one awake, the others too injured and in pain to do so. It was rare for him to lose control like this, and it scared the criminal.

"Freeze!" A regular cop shouted before flinching away at the rather cold glare of the Man of Steel.

The glare quickly softened as he walked away from the downed robbers.

"They're metahumans, please be careful with them." He warned before flying off.

The two cops looked at the battered metas and winced. They couldn't decide whether he meant that they were dangerous or that they could end up doing more damage to them... They really didn't like the last thought.

Hey! So, I was having difficult deciding on how this chapter should go, so sorry if this feels more like two chapters in one or just rushed. I hope you still enjoyed it though!

                                  ~SR