"Why?"
Batman didn't understand.
"What's different between you and Diana?"
"That's… a bit complicated."
Joey already had a near-certain guess as to why his powers hadn't returned yet.
"You and Diana each only have one fate. I might have two."
In this distorted reality, his fate as a war correspondent and his fate as a Kryptonian had been split apart.
The part of Joey that existed as a war reporter had already been restored—but the other half of his existence as Kal-El was still imprisoned somewhere beneath Metropolis in this twisted reality.
They needed to go to Metropolis and recover the other half of Joey's existence.
"Before we leave, treat your wounds first."
Batman glanced at the metal fragments still embedded in Joey's chest. Some of the wounds were still bleeding. Without treatment, they probably wouldn't be going anywhere.
Fortunately, Wayne Manor happened to have one of the finest doctors in America—if not the world—present tonight:
Thomas Wayne.
"This is far more than a few superficial injuries, son."
Thomas Wayne gently removed the metal fragments from Joey's body one by one. Then he looked at Joey seriously and adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses.
"If injuries were ranked from one to four, the time you got hit by that missile before would've been a five. Surviving that was pure luck."
"And this? This is at least a three. You should thank the thick muscle and fat around your chest, otherwise you probably wouldn't even have made it here standing on your own."
"I don't know what these things are, but you need to be careful. Escaping death once in a while doesn't mean you'll succeed every time."
The calm, caring demeanor of this older Thomas felt strangely unfamiliar to Joey, who was more accustomed to dealing with the old bat's grizzled version.
"Thank you, Dr. Thomas."
Earlier, Batman had briefly explained everything Joey and Diana had missed during their… bedroom adventure.
First, the sudden appearance of a male Joker crashing the party. After Batman nearly beat him to death, the fleeing guests finally thought to call the police.
That also confirmed some of Joey's suspicions: people burdened with two fates really could be split into two separate existences. At the very least, Joker and Martha had also been divided apart.
Along with the police came Martha Wayne—the CEO of Wayne Enterprises—who had abruptly canceled her meeting and rushed home in panic.
While the police secured the scene and Thomas focused on treating Joey's injuries, Bruce finally found an opportunity to approach his mother, who had been subtly avoiding him ever since entering the manor.
"We need to talk! You were the one wearing the Helmet. How do we undo all of this?!"
Martha looked at Bruce, her eyes filled with endless sorrow and pain.
"Bruce…"
In the memories Bruce had recently inherited, Martha was a true powerhouse of a woman.
While her husband Thomas devoted himself entirely to medicine and had no interest in managing the massive Wayne family empire, Martha had single-handedly carried the burden of running Wayne Enterprises.
A woman like that—so authoritative and capable—had nevertheless doted on her son Bruce Wayne to an extreme degree.
But now, all of that illusion had shattered. Martha had regained her original memories, though without the Joker's madness and twisted logic.
Faced with Bruce's questioning, Martha could no longer suppress the grief and regret inside her. She threw her arms around him and broke down crying.
"I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry! For everything I did to Selina and Alfred!"
Bruce gently patted his mother's back.
Nearby, Selina and Alfred exchanged curious looks, but this was something they could never be allowed to know.
"Tell me,"
As if forcing himself to make an impossible decision, Bruce continued pressing the emotionally shattered Martha:
"How do we restore everything back to the way it was?"
"Why would you want to restore it?"
Martha looked up at her son in confusion.
"Isn't this world already perfect enough? Look at yourself, my son—look at how happy you are here. No one died. There's no Batman. No endless stream of monsters or criminals…"
"No. You're wrong. Batman has always existed."
Batman looked toward Harvey Dent, who was being loaded onto a stretcher by paramedics in the distance. Half his face had been horribly disfigured by the acid Joker sprayed on him earlier.
And in that ruined half-face, Batman could already see the familiar madness and instability he knew all too well.
"Monsters will never stop appearing. There's no such thing as a perfect world—especially not in this universe."
"You really intend to restore everything?"
Martha stared at her son, unable to understand his resolve.
"At the moment of the explosion, I did everything I could to surround you with every beautiful thing this world could offer. Why can't you just stop… and accept it?"
"This world really is beautiful to me. So beautiful that I never would've dared imagine it."
Batman looked across every familiar face in the hall.
A warm and gentle Thomas. Martha, who loved him unconditionally. Faithful old Alfred. A Catwoman utterly devoted to him. And the endless years of luxury and indulgence that filled the memories this world had given him…
"But I refuse."
None of this was Batman.
This universe was rotting away, and he couldn't allow himself to drown in a dreamlike, distorted reality.
Superman had seen the madness of the universe on a cosmic scale.
Batman had seen the exact same madness through the lens of Gotham City.
Both the old world and this current one felt as though they existed solely to torment every hero within them. Every turn of fate pushed reality further toward disaster.
And if he and Superman didn't shoulder that burden, then sooner or later everything would collapse into something far worse.
"You chose to face the colder, harsher reality."
Martha saw that her son's mind was made up.
She loved Bruce unconditionally. Even if restoring the original world meant she herself would once again become a murderer, she was still willing to undo everything for his sake.
"No matter what happens after the world is restored, I just want you to know this..."
"I love you, my son."
The method for restoring the world itself was actually simple.
Martha merely needed to wear the Helmet of Fate once more as the final operator of its power.
And now, the Helmet's fragments just so happened to be embedded in Joey's body.
Everything seemed as though it was finally about to be resolved.
"If I were you, I wouldn't be so optimistic."
Joey had already removed the metal fragments from his body. Wrapped in medical bandages across his chest and face, he now genuinely resembled a bandaged patient straight out of a horror film.
The fragments in his hand began glowing, rearranging and assembling themselves into the outline of a helmet.
Or rather—
Half of one.
The good news: Joey did indeed have the Helmet fragments.
The bad news: only half of them.
So where was the other half?
Joey pulled out his phone and handed it over. It contained breaking footage sent to him by one of this world's news informants while he had been removing the fragments.
"Take a look at this."
Bruce looked down at the screen.
All he saw was a city in ruins, burning beneath towering walls of fire.
Then, in the distance, two crimson beams flashed across the skyline—cleanly slicing a skyscraper in half.
The upper section of the tower, along with the massive metallic globe logo atop it, collapsed into the inferno below.
Batman recognized the building instantly.
After years of dealing with Superman, the sight was unmistakable.
It was the Daily Planet, in Metropolis.