Chapter Text
Batman stalked the rooftops like a panther, dark and silent and strong and powerful. His prey rushed through the narrow alleyways below on shaky feet, tripping over trash cans and other debris, sobbing loudly the whole way. Batman waited for the opportune moment, then dropped out of the sky and landed on the ground in front of her, posing awesomely for a moment before standing up to his full height. Behind him, thunder rolled and lightning struck, also awesomely. In his head, awesome music played, also awesomely.
"No, please!" cried the young woman. Her face was red and stained with tears. "I didn't do anything wrong, I swear!"
"You're a metahuman," growled Batman. "No metahumans are allowed within Gotham city limits."
Tears welled up in the woman's eyes. "I haven't hurt anyone. I haven't even tried to be a hero or anything. I got my powers in an accident and now I can move things with my mind, but I only use it to make money as a street performer! I'd never hurt anyone or do crimes, I promise!"
"No metahumans in Gotham," growled Batman again, throwing a punch. The filthy metahuman's nose crumpled under the force of his weighted gauntlet. She screamed in pain but Batman just punched her again and again. Soon, she was a bloody and bruised heap on the ground. But Bruce did not kill her, because that would make him a bad guy, and he is Good.
"What have you done?" shouted a horrified voice. Batman looked up and saw Superman hovering there. He had come to Gotham for their weekly date night. Batman had been so busy that he'd forgotten about his boyfriend.
"She was a metahuman in my city," said Batman, like this was something that made sense and not a completely deranged mindset for someone to have. "There are no metahumans allowed in Gotham."
"What are you talking about?" cried Superman. "Gotham is an American city and you have no right to say someone isn't allowed to live here. Besides, it has a long history of metahuman protectors. Alan Scott has been here before you were even born, and Dinah used to live here too, and there's also--"
Batman was annoyed. He was pretty sure No Metahumans In Gotham was canon, but he'd never actually read a comic book so he couldn't prove it. All his information came from TikToks and tumblr posts. Was it possible he'd beaten a woman to a pulp based on poorly thought-out headcanons? Luckily, he had a fallback. "I'm the richest man in Gotham and that means it's my city and I decide how it operates."
"You must be under some kind of mind control," said Superman, his eyes wide. "The man I love would never do this."
"It's only logical," argued Batman. "I've got the most money, so I'm the most important. And you have to listen to me and do everything I say because I pay for the Justice League."
Superman stared at Batman, his horror turning to disgust. "I don't know who you are, but you're not Bruce."
"The Justice League wouldn't exist without me," argued Batman. "That means I can treat people however I want. And since the rest of you are incompetent morons, there's nothing you can do about it except worship me."
"The real Bruce would never say that!" argued Superman. "Bruce cares for and respects everyone on the Justice League--"
"That's definitely not true," said Bruce, thinking of the shit he'd seen in the Green Lantern tag earlier that same day.
"--even if he doesn't agree with them or personally like them. I wouldn't love him if he was a bully who treated everyone around him like lesser beings and used his money to get away with it."
"You're deluded, then," said Batman. "I treat everyone like garbage all the time. Just look at any of the DC comics tags on tumblr. It's nothing but posts about me demeaning and degrading everyone else, but in an awesome way, because I am the best and everything I do is cool and awesome."
"What's tumblr?" asked Superman, who was only on BlueSky and LinkedIn. "Never mind. I need to get this woman some medical treatment, but I'll be back for you. I don't know what's wrong with you, but I'm going to fix it, I promise." He picked up the bleeding, sobbing metahuman woman. Luckily, repeated punches to the head have never killed anyone, so she was still alive. "It's all right, you're safe now." He knew from her injuries that her life would be forever changed by this horrible night, but he smiled down at her warmly. "You've been so brave. I'm going to take care of you now."
"Good, take her out of here," said Batman in disgust. "She's getting her metahuman blood all over my streets."
Superman looked Batman in the eye. "I don't know what you've done with the real Bruce, but I won't stop fighting until he is free."
"You have no right to tell me what to do," said Batman. "Not everyone likes the same thing. Just let people have fun!"
"He's right," said a voice from the shadows. Batman and Superman both turned to look. A figure stepped into the light, glowing a warm and benevolent shade of orange. It was Donald Trump! "Batman is making America great again. We should all be more like him, taking a stand against Hispanics and Muslims and metahumans. As of today, I am appointing Batman the Acting Director of ICE."
"Thank you for this great honor," said Batman. He was actually good friends with Trump because they were both billionaires and went to a lot of the same parties and used to take a lot of plane trips to their mutual friend's island before his tragic suicide. He took out his bat-MAGA Hat and put it on over his cowl. It had two holes cut in the top for his horns.
"This can't be real," said Superman in utter disbelief. "Bruce, what's wrong with you?"
"Nothing is wrong with me," asserted Batman. "I'm just making Gotham great again. And all my kids are going to help me. I bet you didn't even know I had kids."
"Why wouldn't I know you had kids?" asked Superman in confusion. "We've teamed up about a thousand times. I'm the one who gave Dick the idea to use Nightwing as his name."
Batman was surprised but covered it up well. "Well, you might have found out about Dick, but I bet you don't know Jason!"
"Why wouldn't I know Jason?" Superman frowned. "He helped us defeat Mongul the very first time he came to the Fortress, remember?"
"No," said Batman sourly.
"What do you mean no? It's one of the most famous Superman comics of all time."
"Whatever!" said Batman, annoyed that TikTok had misinformed him twice. "I'm sure everything else I know is factually accurate."
"Right, I'm leaving," said Superman, surprised that he'd allowed himself to get pulled into such a ridiculous debate when there was a civilian bleeding in his arms. I guess Bruce isn't the only one who is OCC in this. "But this isn't finished."
"If you're not with me, you're against me!" cried Batman, pulling out his Contingency Gun which was full of Contingency Bullets which were made of Contingency Kryptonite. He started firing at Superman but unfortunately that stupid woke liberal Superman was too fast and flew off, carrying the filthy metahuman who had polluted Gotham's streets and not even complimented Batman once, which was literally illegal.
"You can't escape it," said Batman, knowing that Superman could still hear him wherever he was. "I've let you visit my city because you always agreed with me and did whatever I said like a good little boyfriend, but now I see you're just another dirty non-human. I'm sick of people like you taking away good jobs from us hardworking Americans and refusing to acknowledge that the Bats are the greatest characters ever and not at all overused and overhyped."
Superman had stopped listening. He was too busy trying to think of what to do next. Something was very wrong with Bruce. His boyfriend wasn't perfect, but he wasn't a monster. Was it mind control? Or an imposter? Or something else?
Was it just remarkably bad writing from people who had never read a single comic book in their lives?
He was afraid to find out.