DC Universe
There was no applause here, nor any sighs. There was only a silence as heavy as lead. Outside the massive curved viewport lay the boundless Universe, starlit, quiet, and beautiful.
But this tranquility felt fragile and surreal compared to the bloody Universe built on hatred, madness, and twisted "justice" that had just been shown on the screen.
Wonder Woman was the first to speak, her voice carrying the compassion and confusion of an ancient deity.
"A kingdom founded on pain and maintained through fear... in the end, it consumed its king and its prince. What a... hollow tragedy."
"Ha... ha! Hahaha! Hahahahaha! Hahahahahaha!"
A sharp, manic, and completely inappropriate burst of laughter shattered the somber atmosphere like breaking glass.
Like a malfunctioning clockwork doll, the Joker suddenly sprang from his seat. Dressed in his iconic purple suit, the smile beneath his pale face paint stretched to his ears, appearing exceptionally distorted from overexcitement.
He danced around the central holographic projection table, his steps bizarre and erratic.
"Tragedy? Failure? No, no, no! My dear lady, your aesthetic is far too limited!"
He stopped abruptly, gave an exaggerated bow, and then turned toward the silent bat totem in the shadows.
"What you're seeing is a black comedy of the purest, highest order! A daddy who wanted to be 'Batman' tried his hardest, only to end up raising a perfect 'me'! Hahaha! It's practically art! A masterpiece of fate!"
He skipped over to Batman's chair and leaned in, his crazed eyes glinting with a green light in the shadows. His voice dropped, filled with malicious, private mockery:
"Does this remind you of your lovely Robins, Batsy? Seeing such a blind, 'loyal' good son, willing to be buried alongside his father's madness."
"Do you suddenly feel that those little birds of yours who ran away or even turned against you are actually... quite cute? Does it make you feel like you didn't do well enough, that you failed to turn them into such perfect 'works of art'?"
These words were like a poisoned steel needle, precisely piercing the softest, most painful corner of the Dark Knight's heart.
"Enough, Joker."
A warm and firm voice stopped him.
Superman slowly stood up. He didn't look at the Joker; instead, he turned toward the massive viewport, gazing down at the Planet radiating a soft blue light—his home, Earth.
In his deep blue eyes, there was no divine majesty at this moment, only a profound, almost overflowing gratitude.
"I have never been more grateful for my adoptive parents, and for landing on Earth—a Planet that, while flawed, is still beautiful—rather than a World of sin like Nostramo."
His voice was low and full of emotion, as if confiding in the entire Universe. His thoughts drifted back to a small town in Kansas, smelling the fresh scent of haystacks in the Kent family barn.
He remembered Martha's warm embrace and Jonathan's calloused hands that were always full of encouragement.
It was a home that taught him to control his power, and more importantly, taught him how to love and be loved.
"In that hell,"
He turned back, looking at the now-dark screen with deep pity in his eyes.
"Konrad Curze became a monster in his despair, and then he used everything he knew—fear, violence, and pain—to turn his son into a monster as well. They... they never had a choice from the beginning. Their environment shaped them, just as the Kansas sunshine shaped me."
"Choice is always there."
A low, gravelly voice, seemingly condensed from the cold night air of Gotham City, rang out.
Batman remained seated in the shadows, motionless. The Joker's provocation hadn't drawn a hint of anger, nor had Superman's sentimentality moved him.
He was like a statue carved from obsidian, sealing all emotion beneath his mask and heavy armor.
But he spoke, as if only to himself.
"If my Robins had followed me blindly like Sevatar, then the fact that they've gone their separate ways because of their own sense of justice isn't a bad thing."
A series of figures flashed uncontrollably through his mind.
Dick, his first son, who broke free from his wings to find his own identity and became Nightwing, soaring in another sky.
Jason, his greatest failure, the one he pulled back from the brink of Death only for him to become the Red Hood and oppose him with a heart full of rage; his very existence was the most painful challenge to his 'no-kill rule.'
Tim, the smartest child, an independent thinker who chose to become Robin and then chose to become Red Robin after finding his own path.
And Damian... his own flesh and blood, a child raised as a weapon by the League of Assassins, a soul he was trying his hardest to pull back from the path of 'Sevatar.'
Hidden beneath his mask, the corner of his mouth might have twitched into a cruel consolation that no one could perceive.
"This proves that I didn't create another version of myself, nor did I create an absolute 'obeyer.' They all found their own paths... that is good."
This was the harshest yet most sincere affirmation he, as a father named Bruce Wayne, could give himself. He hadn't raised perfect soldiers, but he might have preserved their souls.
Diana sighed softly, her gaze shifting from Batman to the screen, filled with the scrutiny of a warrior and the sensitivity of a woman.
"In my homeland, in Amazon culture, a 'father' is a guide, a mentor who imparts wisdom and skill, not an owner of the soul."
"Konrad Curze tried to mold Sevatar into an extension of his own will, a perfect weapon. But he forgot that weapons have no thoughts, and a son with thoughts of his own will eventually strike back. The root of this tragedy is the poison called 'control'."
"That logic is too complicated, Princess," Flash, Barry Allen, scratched his head. His usually energetic face was now filled with pure confusion and horror.
"What I see... is just a completely broken family. A father and son who never learned how to talk properly, so they could only scream at each other through violence."
"One thought he could foresee everything, only to turn himself into the most terrifying monster from his own prophecy. The other... god, in the end, he just wanted everyone to suffer as much as he did. It's crazy, and... so pathetic."
Barry's perspective perhaps represented the feelings of all the "normal people" present.
The observation room fell into silence once more. Everyone was using their own worldview to digest this grand tragedy of father and son, justice and madness, from another Universe.
Finally, Batman slowly stood up, his heavy cape sliding down silently behind him. Without looking at anyone, he walked straight toward the exit.
"I'm going on patrol."
His voice remained steady, but everyone in Watchtower could hear the turbulence hidden beneath the calm.
He wasn't going to patrol Gotham; he was going to patrol his own heart, to reinforce the dam built of principles and will that was constantly being eroded by emotions and memories.
The Joker watched his departing back and let out a low, satisfied hum, as if providing the accompaniment for the curtain call of this magnificent play.
Superman turned his gaze back to the blue Planet below.
He saw brightly lit cities and quiet, peaceful countryside. He knew there was evil, injustice, and pain there, but he knew even more that there was hope, love, and countless kind people like the Kents.
It was these things that made him Superman, and not Kal-El—a lonely and angry god from another Universe.
Marvel Universe
Tony was the first to break the silence. He stood up from the sofa and walked straight to the bar, pouring himself a large glass of whiskey. The clinking of ice against the expensive custom glass sounded crisp and exceptionally jarring in the dead silence.
"God," he took a large gulp, his back to the others, his voice carrying a technocrat's indifference and a hint of exhaustion only those closest to him could detect. "A classic, hopeless, top-down systemic collapse.
The father is a toxic operating system running on bugged code, and the son... is the lead programmer who, in order to keep the system running, kept patching and clearing trash until he eventually became a virus himself."
His metaphor was cold and precise, as if he were analyzing a server crash rather than the destruction of a father and son.
Steve Rogers clenched his fists, his brow furrowed; he couldn't agree with Tony's cold mechanical metaphor. He stood up, his robust frame casting a long shadow across the room.
"That's not a system, Tony, those are people. It's a Commander and his soldier."
His voice was firm and heavy, carrying the persistence and sense of responsibility toward brotherhood unique to an old soldier.
"Konrad Curze was first and foremost a general; his primary duty was to lead and protect his soldiers. But what did he do?"
"He turned his own pain and madness into the Legion's creed, and he used his own nightmares to torture his sons. He failed the trust of every single one of them. This isn't a programming error; it's the most fundamental betrayal."
Tony turned around, leaning against the bar, and tapped the rim of his glass nonchalantly. His tone carried a hint of self-deprecation, but his eyes were sharp as he looked at Steve:
"Yes, yes, soldiers. I get your bit. But you can't deny that the root of all this is a complete, rotten-to-the-core family drama. Honestly, Cap, compared to this guy, my little 'daddy issues' could practically win a Model Family of the Year award."
He paused, took another gulp of liquor, and returned his gaze to the dark screen, as if he could see through it into that mad Universe.
"Howard at least... at least he wanted to create something. And that Konrad Curze, he enjoyed dismantling everything, including his own son. He forged Sevatar into a perfect weapon, and then hated it because the weapon was too sharp. That logic... is just insane."
Steve paced the room, as if considering strategy in a pre-war command center.
He looked at Tony with a rare, uncompromising seriousness in his eyes.
"Sevatar's final roar wasn't a programmer's complaint about bugged code. It was a good soldier's final interrogation of a general who had completely failed him," Steve's voice was filled with empathetic sorrow.
"What that roar was really asking was: 'I bled for you, I endured all the darkness for you, I became the monster you needed. What right do you have to give up? How can you go mad while I'm still fighting for you?'"
He stopped walking, his gaze seemingly piercing through Tony's layer of cynical armor.
"As for his final order," Steve's eyes became incredibly sorrowful.
"That wasn't some 'formatting' or 'clearing viruses.' It was the most terrible, yet most logical choice a soldier who had lost his general, his faith, and even the object of his revenge could make."
"If the war no longer has a target, then let the war itself become the target. He turned his Legion from an army into a never-ending disaster of war. This is the most serious crime a leader can commit."
"You may both be right," a booming voice intervened in the debate.
Thor had stood by the window at some point. He wasn't looking at the screen but was gazing at the boundless sea of stars beyond Earth, his eyes reflecting an Asgardian sense of tragedy.
"But you only see the wars and families of mortals. What I see is the eternal curse of 'father and son' that often plays out even in the divine realm."
He turned around, Mjolnir in his hand, as if weighing the gravity of his words.
"A father's madness is the most cruel poison to a son. Because it forces the son to make only two choices: either follow him into the abyss or draw a sword to strike him down."
"In either of these choices, there is no victory to be found. Konrad Curze gave Sevatar a sword but never taught him how to hold it; in the end, that sword struck everyone, including himself."
Thor's gaze swept over Steve and Tony, carrying a hint of pity for their argument.
"Sevatar's final choice was not for victory, nor for duty. He gave up on salvation and gave up on destruction."
"He chose to become an unhealing scar on his father's glorious history, a monument of resentment built from the bones of an entire Legion. I once saw my brother, driven mad by lies and jealousy, do something similar. This kind of pure malice is more destructive than any war."
Thor's words left the room in silence once more. Systems, duty, family... these mortal terms seemed somewhat thin in the face of a divine tragedy.
Tony swirled the last of the amber liquid in his glass and downed it. His eyes, which usually sparkled with intelligence and mockery, were now filled with a rare, deep tranquility.
Steve looked out the window at the peaceful scene composed of countless lights, his shoulders appearing incredibly heavy.
"And our duty," he said softly, as if to himself and to everyone else, "is to ensure that such madness never happens here."