Batman and Superman had taken a corner booth — far enough from the bar to observe, close enough that the bartender could still overhear everything if he wanted to.
They didn't order drinks.
But two untouched glasses sat between them anyway.
Batman tapped through files on a screen only he could see. Superman sat rigid, eyes tracking the oddities flowing in and out of the bar — a man with golden wings, a woman made of smoke, three mercs arguing about who shot who on Level 33.
"You felt it too," Superman said, his voice quieter now. "Earlier this week. The shift."
Batman nodded once.
"Another boundary cracked. I traced residual spikes across multiple timelines.One from Vought's Earth.Another from Viltrum's fractured reality."
"Homelander and Omni-Man," Clark muttered, almost like a curse.
"The Seven are destabilizing everything," Bruce replied. "Power without conscience. Intent without control.
You know how dangerous that gets in a world that's already holding itself together with duct tape and denial."
Clark's eyes flicked toward a man across the room nervously sipping from a drink that floated midair.
"I still don't understand how they got here."
"The Collapse didn't just fuse universes. It stirred the pot. Every shattered ideology, every unresolved paradox... all of it landed here."
"The Avengers, at least… they try. They want to help."
"They're naïve," Bruce said bluntly. "Powerful, yes. Coordinated. But they lack context.They still think this world can be explained with science and a good PR team."
Clark grimaced. He didn't disagree.
"But the Seven?"
"Vought built them for optics. For war.
They never learned how to stop."
"What about Omni-Man?"
"He remembers too much. That's what makes him dangerous.He knows what he's capable of. And he's still waiting for someone to match it."
Superman looked over at Kratos for a moment, then Joel.
"I think he's already here," he said softly.
"Then let's hope they never meet," Bruce replied.
DING.
The door slammed open with dramatic flair, the kind that screamed "I need attention and I brought snacks."
Enter: Deadpool.
Red suit, black mask, twin katanas on his back, and a duffel bag that may or may not have held chimichangas or human remains — hard to say.
He froze at the entrance, head tilting like a confused raccoon.
"...The hell is this?"
He stepped inside. Looked around. Spotted Joel.
"Hey! Old man with trauma face!" waves enthusiastically "Big fan of your grumpy apocalypse dad energy. Love the flannel."
Joel blinked once.
"The hell is that thing?"
Kratos didn't answer.
Deadpool turned to the bartender, dramatic gasp behind the mask.
"Oh my god, a hot anime bartender OC! Did I walk into a fanfic? Are we doing that again? I swear I'm not emotionally stable enough for this."
The bartender blinked once.
Deadpool leaned over the counter like a nosy tourist.
"Question. Big one. How come I've never seen this place?I mean, I've done crossover events, coffee shop AUs, therapy sessions with Thanos, and one very illegal road trip with Spider-Ham.
But this?"
"The Last Round?"
"The Bartender of Broken Timelines?"
"THE MULTIVERSAL LOBBY BAR WITH A NO-FIGHTING RULE?"
"I missed this?"
The bartender just handed him a menu.
Deadpool opened it.
"Wow. No prices. Bold. Mysterious. Maybe evil. I respect that."
He glanced over and finally noticed the corner table.
Batman. Superman.
His eyes widened behind the mask.
"Ohhhhhh my god.""Oh my god.""It's the boy scout and the bat dad!"
He fake-swooned.
"Wait—are we doing civil war or therapy hour?"
Superman gave him a long, measured look.
"Wade."
"Clarkie! Looking juiced as ever!And Bruce, buddy, you sleep at all lately? Still doing that 'I'm vengeance' voice in the mirror?"
Batman said nothing. Which, honestly, was still the loudest response in the room.
Deadpool spun, pointed a finger at Joel.
"Okay so that's Joel Miller. Total badass. Probably has three knives on him right now.And that"—points to Kratos—"is Big Bearded Trauma Hulk. Been a fan since God of War III. Loved the whole 'daddy regrets murder' arc. Ten outta ten."
Kratos finally looked at him. Just once.
Deadpool took a polite step back.
"...Noted. No fanboying. Moving on."
He turned to the bartender.
"You ever get visited by a Watcher? TVA? Doctor Strange cosplay group?"
The bartender just placed a glass in front of him.
Deadpool sat down.
"Y'know what? Fine. I don't trust this place at all.Which is why I'm gonna sit right here, drink something that glows, and wait for the next plot twist."
The jukebox clicked.
Some jazz started.
Superman sighed.
Batman muttered something about tracking quantum signatures.
Joel whispered to Kratos.
"I miss the infected."
Kratos nodded.
"They screamed less."
The table wasn't made for gods, soldiers, and psychopaths.
But somehow, it held.
Superman and Batman sat side by side, drinks still untouched. Joel leaned back with a second glass of whiskey. Kratos sat like a mountain — unmoving, unbothered. Deadpool pulled up a chair backwards and leaned over it like a high school burnout trying to look cool in front of the new kids.
They didn't plan it.
It just… happened.Like gravity, or war.
The bartender didn't interrupt.
He just flicked his hand once and another clone silently set down a new tray of drinks and disappeared into the crowd.
Deadpool whistled.
"Well, this is awkward. I feel like we're about to form the most toxic boy band of all time."
Joel spoke first.
"We're already toxic. Ain't no band. Just five idiots who survived."
Kratos gave a slow nod.
"Survival is no badge of honor."
Superman tilted his head slightly.
"Sometimes, it's the only thing that matters."
Batman said nothing. He simply observed.
Then finally, he spoke.
"That's the problem. Everyone's surviving. No one's building."
Deadpool rolled his eyes behind the mask.
"Oh here we go. Cue the cape talk. Lemme guess—'hope', 'justice', 'reform', yadda yadda."
"You're not wrong," Clark replied calmly. "But the world's been turned inside out. People need something solid to believe in again."
Joel leaned forward now.
"Believe in what? Flags? Corporations? Gods?"
Kratos' gaze darkened.
"Gods fall. Mortals suffer. That has always been the order."
"Politics used to mean arguments over taxes and roads," Joel continued. "Now it's who gets access to the surviving clean zones, who controls food routes, and who decides which people count as people."
Superman clenched his jaw.
"We're trying to fix it. One block at a time. One city. One region."
Batman added, coldly:
"But every time we fix something, another 'meta' appears with the power to wipe it all out in an afternoon."
Deadpool threw a peanut into his mask, missed, and kept talking anyway.
"Y'all keep trying to treat this like politics when the real issue is narrative collapse, baby!
We ain't in a world anymore.
We're in a crossover event on a caffeine bender.
And every time someone tries to start a government, a portal opens and dumps a Nazi Iron Man into the middle of it."
Joel sighed, then gave a tired smirk.
"He's not wrong. Five years back, I saw three factions try to build a city on the edge of what used to be Ukraine. They had power, farms, tech.
Then some dude named Black Noir showed up and killed them all in their sleep. No reason. No warning."
Superman's voice dropped low.
"That wasn't our world's Noir."
"Don't care whose he was," Joel replied. "He ended twenty thousand people like flickin' a switch."
Batman leaned forward now, voice dry.
"That's the pattern. Power rises. Power collapses. Repeat.
The problem is we're surrounded by people who were never meant to live in the same timeline."
Kratos spoke, voice low.
"Then the question becomes: Who decides what timeline is the correct one?"
Silence.
Then Deadpool clapped once.
"Ooh! Ooh! Pick me, pick me! I say we let reality TV producers run it. They've already made peace with moral decay!"
Nobody laughed.
Deadpool looked around.
"Tough crowd."
Joel knocked back the rest of his drink and muttered:
"Government don't mean nothin' if people still starve and die scared."
Superman nodded slowly.
"That's why we're here. That's why we try.But truth is… there's no more Earths left to compare to.
We don't even know what 'normal' means anymore."
"There is no normal," Batman added. "Only control. Or chaos."
"Then who's controlling it now?" Joel asked. "You? The League? Avengers?"
Superman didn't answer right away.
Kratos looked up.
"No one is in control."
The table grew quiet again. Tension thick as the wood grain under their hands.
Then Deadpool finally broke it, tossing a peanut straight up and catching it through his mask.
"Y'know what I say?"
"Let the bar run the world."
Joel chuckled.
"It's the only place I've seen where people talk without shootin' each other after five minutes."
Batman glanced toward the bartender.
"...He already is."
Kratos nodded.
"Let him."
They all looked over.
The bartender — calm, silver-haired, coat pristine — was just serving drinks like none of this mattered.
But he knew. Of course he knew.
He always knew.
The jukebox hummed again. Jazz shifted to slow country.
And the five of them sat there, not as saviors or sinners.
Just men.
Trying to make sense of a world that no longer bothered making sense at all.