Disclaimer: None of these characters are mine. Most belong to DC 
Comics/Time Warner. The twins and Spud belong to Smitty. No profit is 
realized from this story - it's just for fun.


The Changing Table 
by Chicago


"Oh-kay. Well, maybe it was a stupid question, but still-" 
 
"Sanctimonious-" 
 
"Aquaman!" Martian Manhuner chided. "And Lantern, I'm sure Batman 
meant no disrespect." 
 
To J'onn's right, Batman inclined his head slightly in a nod. 
 
Superman sighed. "Look, this meeting isn't getting us anywhere but 
annoyed. It's clear we don't have enough data even to determine if these 
drones are even a threat at all. J'onn, if you'll cover the monitor, I say we 
all go back home, get some sleep, see what else we can find out, and 
reassemble here in 12 hours." 
 
"Sounds good to me," the Flash agreed, although he, like the others, was 
turning hesitantly to where Batman sat. To his immense relief, the Dark 
Knight nodded. Wally was gone before Superman could dismiss them. 
 
Wally's departure triggered a general exodus, each hero anxious to be 
away from the Watchtower and the past 16 hours of fruitless data 
collection and frayed nerves. Even Clark scarcely hesitated as his team 
scrambled. 
 
Most of his team. 
 
As the rush of air from 6 hasty departures settled back into calmness, J'onn 
J'onzz reach a gentle hand to the shoulder of the Batman. 
 
*Bruce,* he projected softly. 
 
Batman came awake suddenly, although an outward observer would not 
have noticed a change beneath the cowl. J'onn waited as he felt his long-
time teammate mentally place himself, gathering his wits. "Meeting 
adjourned?" Bruce asked finally. 
 
A tiny smile quirked one corner of J'onn's mouth. "None too soon. There 
is such a thing as too much togetherness." 
 
Batman nodded once, a decided motion enough like his soporific head 
bobs in the meeting to almost forgive his teammates' willingness to read 
them as assent. "In light of the circumstances, not a bad idea." He stood. 
"If you don't need me for the monitor, I should -" 
 
"Bruce, Gotham is fine." 
 
Batman turned a hard glare at J'onn. "There's always something -" 
 
"You have three of your people on watch," the Martian reminded him, 
uncharacteristically interrupting him, "but you have two new babies at 
home." 
 
Batman stood stiffly for a long moment, staring at J'onn's imperturbable 
face. Then he reached for his cowl, suddenly pushing it back to rub at tired 
eyes. He let himself lean back against the edge of the table with a sigh. 
"Yeah," he said softly. 
 
"Not much sleep, even for you," J'onn remarked sympathetically. 
 
Bruce shook his head. "Dinah gets the worst of it. I take the feedings after 
patrol and do what I can, but-" 
 
"Quit the JLA." 
 
Bruce stopped mid-motion, turning incredulously to his friend. "What?" 
 
J'onn only sat, his face wearing the smallest of enigmatic smiles. 
 
"J'onn, I have a responsibility to the JLA. When I came back - after that 
whole expulsion thing - I came back to stay. I'm not going to abandon 
this." 
 
Still J'onn remained silent. 
 
Bruce scrubbed at his face wearily. "We need a tactician - a detective. You 
even said..." He trailed off in uncharacteristic uncertainty, his eyes 
focusing back on J'onn. "You could do it," he accused. 
 
J'onn nodded slightly. 
 
"You've been doing the detective thing - in a human guise - longer than... 
And tactics..." Bruce sat heavily. "The JLA never needed me?" he asked, 
his exhaustion causing his deepest masks to slip. 
 
J'onn shook his head. "That's not true," he said softly. "We have needed 
you - your humanity, the fact that all you have - it comes from the strength 
of will and your *need* to do this. The rest of us, the power we hold - if 
we struggle for anything, it's to stay connected, to remember that there is a 
greater good and that we should serve it." 
 
Now J'onn stood, his cape swinging around him almost protectively. 
"Each of us - our choices were how to use power we already had. *You* 
had to choose to give yourself power in order to reach a goal." He glanced 
at Bruce. "That's something the JLA needs - the knowledge that our 
toughest mind is sheltered in the most vulnerable body, even if that 
knowledge isn't conscious for all of us. 
 
"But yes, you're right. I *could* be the resident detective." 
 
He paused, letting that idea sit for a moment. Bruce's gaze fell unfocused 
in the middle distance. 
 
"You're trying to make sense of why," J'onn guessed accurately, reading 
his friend's face. "Could you see the rest of this team - see *yourself* - 
accepting the idea that you are here to remind us all of how fragile a thing 
it is to be human? You are not one to accept the idea of being fragile, 
Bruce." 
 
Bruce's eyes snapped to J'onn's face, anger flaring in them. "I'm not -" 
 
The expression in J'onn's eyes silenced him, and he watched warily as 
J'onn sat in the seat next to him, leaning forward intently. The Martian 
reached out, grasping Bruce's bicep, unerringly finding a bone deep bruise. 
"You can't tell me this doesn't hurt," he said pointedly, his eyes locked on 
Bruce's. 
 
He relaxed his hold. "You can't tell me that catching two hours of sleep in 
brief catnaps at the office is enough. And you're not 25 anymore Bruce." 
 
"J'onn-" 
 
"Stop. Listen to me for a minute, Bruce." 
 
Bruce grew still, his eyes fixed on J'onn. 
 
"You know the circumstances of my coming here." 
 
Bruce nodded. 
 
"In - that other life - before here - I served a Martian brand of justice. It 
was my sacred duty, a trust. Even M'yri'ah, she understood. She supported 
my unwillingness to condemn a man out of hand, to find the whole truth 
before acting." 
 
Now J'onn's gaze was distant. "It cost her her life. It cost my whole 
people. But it cost *her* - and our daughter." 
 
"J'onn-" Bruce tried again, this time wanting to stop this painful memory. 
 
"Do you know how easy it would have been to die with them? Just to open 
my mind for an instant, to *be* there for them? Such a simple thing for a 
Martian - as natural as breathing. And I steeled myself.  I needed to be 
strong to serve a higher calling, I told myself. 
 
"I watched them die. 
 
"Sometimes I think it was the worst decision of my life." 
 
"J'onn, you -" 
 
"I've watched you, Bruce." J'onn let out a harsh, humorless laugh - an 
unnatural sound from the reserved Martian. "You are sometimes too much 
like me. You learned to shut yourself off from people - and it doesn't make 
it any easier to watch them die, does it?" 
 
Bruce stared into J'onn's eyes, feeling a choking grief rising in him. He 
fought it down determinedly, challenging J'onn's probing gaze with a hard 
stare. After a moment, J'onn shook his head sadly. 
 
"I know how hard it hurt when you lost Jason. Your grief screamed out at 
me in every corner of the world, until I thought I would have to bury 
myself in the sands of the Sahara or step in myself to soothe you to escape 
your pain. You have no idea how grateful I am for your Tim. 
 
"And then you almost lost Tim. And almost lost Gotham. And lost 
Gordon." 
 
J'onn fell respectfully silent for a moment, and for the first time Bruce 
consciously realized that unlike the rest of the JLA, J'onn had *known* - 
did know - the tangled world and relationships of Bruce Wayne. Knew the 
*Bruce* part of his life as well as the Batman part.  He'd always found 
time to step in once in a while, to check in in the way that - friends - did. 
Friend. He rolled that idea around in his mind for a moment. 
 
"Yes," J'onn answered. "Friends." Another faint smile shadowed his face 
for a moment, almost wistful. 
 
"When I learned about you and Dinah-" the smile broadened, and Batman 
remembered *that* memo-worthy episode "-I was so - relieved. You 
began to come back from the precipice a bit. But then Dick was hurt last 
August, and I thought we were going to lose you forever." 
 
"He's okay," Batman said roughly, as much to reassure himself as to settle 
this confessed fear. 
 
"I know. And he's surrounded himself with family, let himself learn to do 
*enough* instead of trying to shoulder the world." J'onn shot Bruce a 
significant look. 
 
Bruce opened his mouth to speak - then changed his mind. 
 
"I would never tell you to give up Batman, or to abandon your mission. It 
is too much who you are. But - I'm never going to have another family. 
The child I lost is the only child I'll ever have. My people are all dead and 
gone. Sitting extra shifts at the monitor costs me nothing and helps ease 
the ache a little. 
 
"But I'll tell you this. If I had the chance you have, to start again, to see my 
babies' first steps and early smiles and have them know me as their daddy 
- you can bet I'd tell the JLA where they could shove their damned 
Watchtower." 
 
J'onn rose gracefully in the silence which followed this pronouncement. 
He rested his hand on Bruce's shoulder for just a moment, then he left the 
conference room. 
 
************************************************** 
 
Twelve hours later: 
 
"It was the weirdest thing. They were there, doing whatever, and then they 
just - disintegrated," Kyle explained, his expression faintly baffled. 
 
"The same thing happened on Paradise Island," Diana reported, glancing 
around the table to see Aquaman and Superman nodding. 
 
"There was one attempted transmission," Martian Manhunter added. "We 
intercepted it, but so far, our computers haven't been able to decode it." 
 
"What time?" Batman growled. 
 
"11:26 AM - Greenwich," J'onn answered. 
 
Batman nodded significantly. "Shortly before the self-destruct." 
 
Wally blinked. "Central City is - man, I hate these time zone things." 
 
Across the table, Plasticman made his face into a clock, helpfully spinning 
his hands from 11:26 back the 7 hours to 5:26. 
 
"Oh. Yeah, they were disintegrating about 5:30 around me, too." 
 
"This bears watching," Batman decreed. 
 
"Agreed. But in the meantime -" 
 
"We watch," Batman pointed out succinctly, his expression quelling any 
argument. 
 
Superman sighed. "Right. Plasticman, you've got monitor. Thank you all 
for reporting back." 
 
The meeting broke up, the various team members drifting out toward the 
communications center and the transporter room. Superman paused to give 
Batman a speculative glance, but at a glare from the Dark Knight, he 
shrugged and left the room. 
 
"Did he peek?" Batman asked, once the room was clear. 
 
J'onn J'onzz chuckled. "No. He'll figure it out eventually, but I think just at 
the moment, he doesn't want to know." 
 
Batman breathed out a heavy sigh of relief. "Man, it's one thing to pull this 
off when you're just trying to scare a bunch of criminals, but I think my 
stomach was about to tie itself in knots." 
 
"I won't tell if you won't," J'onn reassured him. "Bruce catch some sleep?" 
 
Batman nodded. "Yeah. Dick and Babs took the twins for the day. I don't 
know what you said to him, but it's about time someone said it." 
 
J'onn smiled. "Maybe it's just that he was finally ready to hear it. Are you 
up for coffee? I know a great diner." 
 
Beneath the cowl of the Batman, Tim Drake smiled. Maybe this JLA gig 
wouldn't be such a bad thing, after all. 
 
-end-