Superman led them into the farm garage and pulled the door shut behind them.
Daniel dropped a set of files on the workbench. "Now that that problem is out of the window let's discuss how we dispose of our enemies."
"Dispose," Clark said, the word landing wrong imdiately. "You're talking about killing them."
"Did you forget the part where I ntioned they want to wipe out every human being on this planet?" Daniel said, looking at him with the patience of soone explaining sothing to a person who already knew the answer.
"That's what you said," Clark replied, and there was sothing careful in his voice now, sothing that hadn't been there during the conversation outside.
"But I don't know whether that's true or not. They're my people. I didn't even know other Kryptonians were alive until yesterday. The right move is to talk to them first, not plan their execution in a garage in Kansas."
He ant it. Every word. He had spent his entire life being the only one, carrying the weight of a dead planet on his own, and the idea of burning that last connection before he even understood it went against everything in him.
Daniel looked at him for a mont and said nothing.
Bruce stood to the side saying nothing either, though for different reasons.
In his view human law was built for human problems and Kryptonians threatening extinction didn't qualify as a human problem. Disposing of a direct existential threat wasn't sothing that required a courtroom. It required a decision and the will to follow through on it.
If Daniel had heard that thought he would have looked at Bruce with genuine amusent and said sothing about Batman being remarkably two faced for soone who had a rule about it.
"How sure are you that you can convince them," Bruce said, looking at Clark directly.
"They threatened violence if you weren't handed over in three days. Do you really think people who open negotiations like that are the reasonable type."
Unlike Clark he wasn't thinking about connection or history. He was thinking about what happens if the attempt fails.
An invasion from beings who were effectively superhuman with no counter prepared and no ti left to build one.
"Why are you even interested in this Mr. Wayne," Lois said, looking at Bruce with the particular sharpness she used when a story wasn't adding up.
A billionaire from Gotham sitting in a Kansas farm garage discussing alien invasions wasn't a profile that made obvious sense.
She was fairly sure a man with his portfolio had people for problems like this. "I wouldn't exactly expect a billionaire to have strong opinions about planetary defense."
"So in Ms. Lois opinion billionaires aren't human and shouldn't worry about Earth," Bruce said, looking at her with a completely flat expression.
Lois opened her mouth.
Then closed it.
Clark's head turned toward the roof.
Sothing moving at high speed, closing fast, aid directly at them.
"Sothing's coming," Clark said, standing up.
The roof caved in a second later and sothing ca through it with enough force to shake the entire garage. Clark moved imdiately, putting himself between the impact and Lois. Bruce was already gone from where he had been standing.
Smoke filled the space.
A female voice ca through it, calm in the particular way that was worse than angry.
"Did you have no concept of saying goodbye?"
Daniel went very still.
He knew that voice.
"Diana?..." he started.
The smoke cleared.
Diana Prince stood in the middle of the garage in modern clothes, the Lasso of Truth coiled in her hand, looking at Daniel with a smile that had absolutely nothing warm in it.
Daniel took a step back.
A century. He had been gone for nearly a century after leaving quite an impression on her.
"I can explain," Daniel said, taking another step back. "There is very good logic behind my disappearance. Very solid reasoning. You'll find it completely reasonable once I—"
"I'm listening," Diana said.
Daniel bolted.
The Lasso shot across the garage and wrapped around his waist and Diana pulled, snapping him back like a decision being corrected.
Daniel hit the ground face first and Diana crouched beside him, grabbed his ear and pulled.
"You know I was devastated," Diana said, her voice carrying the particular controlled fury of soone who had rehearsed this mont across several decades.
"When you just disappeared after I killed Ares you left alone in the human world. After everything."
She pulled the ear slightly harder.
"So tell . Did you leave to go ss with other won. Because during my ti in this human world I have learned many things and the primary one is that n are scum."
Daniel made a pained sound.
"And n who are good with words," Diana continued, "are definitely the worst kind of scum. So which one are you."
"I am not scum," Daniel said from the floor, with as much dignity as a man being held by his ear could manage. "If anything I am the most loving person in the universe. My heart is so big it can accommodate many won."
Lois looked at that sentence for a mont.
"Don't say I'm a scumbag," Daniel said, pointing at her without turning his head. "You don't know ."
Lois closed her mouth.
"And Diana," Daniel said, his voice shifting into sothing more careful. "I genuinely didn't an to leave. It was an accident."
Diana looked down at him. The Lasso of Truth was still wrapped around his waist, golden and patient.
He wasn't lying.
Her grip on his ear loosened. Slightly.
*****
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