After being freed from the program by Batman, you tried to live a normal life as a teenager. However, when the Regime emerged, Batman called on you for help, and you agreed to join the Insurgency to repay your debt to him. With your assistance, the...
After everyone else had left the room, it was just Batman and Superman who remained. They both looked at each other, and then Superman asked, as he stared at Batman, "Why did you keep it?"
"Keep what?" Batman sneered in response to the question.
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"Hm... forgot that was there," Batman said in a sarcastic, nonchalant way, and before he was about to leave, Superman stopped him and asked, "I've been meaning to ask ever since he beat me, where did Taskmaster come from?"
Batman's face contorts in pain and he heaves a deep, heavy sigh before finally confessing. "It's probably best if you didn't know this, but since you're bound to find out eventually...He was an experiment for 20 years. And during those years, they performed brutal, inhumane experiments and training methods on him, all in the name of enhancing his skills so he could be their primary weapon against the League back then. When I caught wind of their organization, I went in to investigate and found him. Strapped to a bed, his body was covered in dried blood and his hands were shaking intensely. So I busted him out, I kept him under my care and surveillance as he began to live a normal life. Or that is, until, your Regime happened. He was hesitant in for as he didn't want to use his powers because he was too afraid and still traumatized by what he had gone through. Even then, he still accepted to help me topple your Regime. And after that, he went to university. He was supposed to graduate yesterday Clark, and I promised to be there to see him. But..." He stops and hesitates, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows hard before finally continuing in a broken
"You weren't... Right?" Superman finishes his sentence with a look of concern.
"Hmm... you know me better than anyone," Batman says to him.
Superman says with a smirk, "Of course, why wouldn't I? We've known each other since way before the Justice League was formed,"
"You're right, but there's something else you should know about him too," Batman tells him.
"What is it?" Superman asks
"He's one-quarter Kryptonian," said Batman to Superman, whose eyes slightly perked up at this new information about another possible Kryptonian alive. "But he only manifests a few of the abilities you would expect from someone with Kryptonian heritage."
"So that's why he was able to beat me and Kara in a fight," Superman says with a smirk, his chin resting lazily on his arm.
"What else? What about the other 75%?" Superman asks Batman, becoming more and more curious about Y/N's past with each passing second.
"I know it's hard to believe, but I was in the same boat when I discovered it after the tests. They showed that Y/N was not only a person of two species but four. The other one was human, but the remaining two stayed unspecified since we have no data regarding them," Batman explains to him, his face betraying the slightest hint of empathy.
"I wonder if the other two are related to his immense strength and skills, yet probably their source," Superman tells Batman, before adding under his breath, "I sure hope so."
"I'm surprised he has such good emotional control in situations and can focus so properly," Batman tells Superman as he remembers what happened when Metropolis was nuked.
"But when the time comes, and he turns into another one like me, would you be the one to put him down?" Superman asks Batman with an eyebrow raised and a solemn look in his eye.
After a few menacing seconds of staring him down and studying his every move, Batman finally answered in a low, gruff voice, "Yes, a shot on the head is what he requests..." Batman held his gaze for a few more seconds before turning on his heel and walking away, leaving a forlorn Superman alone with his thoughts. Superman was now fixated on the scratched table, feeling the grooves with his fingers as he thought about what his friend had just said.
