Absolute Symbiote Chapter 6: Along Came A Bat.

Chapter 6: Along Came A Bat.

(General P.O.V)

Batman stepped through the doorway first.

He looked down at the body—then at what remained of the Joker’s head in Carnage’s tendril- the Symbiote having spit it out after that awful first bite.

“No,” he whispered.

Carnage held it a little higher, showing off the crooked teeth and frozen grin.

“What’s the matter?” Thomas asked. “You wanted him locked up so he could escape again? Kill more people? Blow up another school bus?”

Batman didn’t answer. His eyes never left the Joker’s corpse.

Thomas took a step forward. “You knew what he was. You knew he was going to keep doing it. You still didn’t stop him.”

Batman looked up.

“We don’t get to decide who dies.”

Thomas scoffed. “No. You just get to lock them up. Over and over again. Like some kind of ritual. You put them in cages knowing they’ll break out. And then more people die. That’s not justice. That’s performance.”

“You crossed a line,” Batman said. “That’s the difference between you and us.”

Thomas stared at him.

Then something shifted.

He stopped talking.

He looked into Batman’s eyes.

And what he saw wasn’t sorrow. It wasn’t outrage. It wasn’t even confusion.

It was certainty.

The same certainty he saw in Arkham’s worst inmates. The ones who never questioned what they did. The ones who truly believed in their madness.

Thomas stepped back.

“You’re insane,” he said quietly. “You just wear it better.”

Before Batman could reply, Carnage tensed.

"Incoming."

Miss Martian blurred through the wall like a missile, fists ready. She didn’t speak. She struck Thomas in the chest and sent him flying across the room into a steel table.

The impact bent the metal.

Thomas barely had time to recover before she phased through the floor and punched him again, this time lifting him off his feet.

“You hurt my uncle.” she said, her voice shaking with rage.

Carnage exploded out of Thomas’s side to block her third strike, red claws meeting green Martian fiste in midair.

Thomas threw out a wave of telekinesis, smashing through walls and sending equipment flying. Alarms screamed overhead. Arkham’s lockdown systems failed one by one.

Wonder Woman moved in next, catching Carnage with her lasso and yanking him off Thomas. But Carnage twisted his shape, slicing through the floor and forcing her to block as a shower of debris hit them both.

Thomas tried to phase, but Miss Martian mirrored him—tracking him thought-for-thought. She slammed into him again, matching every move he made. Her powers were more refined, more practiced.

He tried lifting a chunk of concrete and hurling it—she dodged without looking. He turned invisible—she found him with a pulse of psionic energy. She read his next thought before he formed it.

“Damn it,” Thomas muttered, stumbling backward.

She dropped him to the ground with a mental blast that rattled his skull.

He coughed, blood running from his nose. Carnage was already regenerating lost mass but couldn’t fully form. Wonder Woman was recovering fast.

He looked at Batman.

The man hadn’t moved.

He was just watching.

Because this wasn’t about fighting.

It was about judgment.

Thomas tried to escape again—phasing into the wall, shooting upward through a stairwell—but Miss Martian intercepted, grabbing him mid-phase and slamming him into the ceiling hard enough to crack it.

He hit the ground and didn’t get up right away.

Carnage was still trying to speak.

Thomas couldn’t hear him clearly anymore.

He reached out—tried to teleport, tried anything—

But the air was getting heavy. His powers were folding under pressure.

He wasn’t winning.

Not this time.

Not here.

"I'm taking you in." Batman delivered in a cold tone.

-0-

The Batwing flew through Gotham’s dark sky in silence.

Thomas sat in the rear compartment, bound tightly by golden rope—Wonder Woman’s lasso wound around his torso, arms pinned to his sides. It didn’t just hold his body. It held his mind. He couldn’t lie. Couldn’t twist. Couldn’t fully think beyond the moment.

Carnage was still. Pressed deep inside his body, unable to move. The lasso paralyzed him, too. Every time he tried to push outward, the rope glowed brighter and pulled tighter.

Miss Martian sat across from them, focused. Her eyes glowed faintly—she was in his head. Not rifling through it, but holding it in place. Like keeping a lid on boiling water.

Thomas couldn’t access his abilities. Not the strength. Not the phasing. Not the telepathy. Not even his telekinesis.

He wasn’t afraid.

He was tired. An exhaustion caused by an unfulfilling vengeance. The Joker was dead yes, but the aftermath was that his family remained dead and himself in custody.

This was his second chance and yet, it didn't feel so.

Batman sat in the cockpit. He hadn’t said a word since they left Arkham.

Thomas stared ahead and broke the silence.

“So what happened to due process?”

No one answered.

He tilted his head. “Come on. All that talk about right and wrong. About justice. Aren’t I supposed to be cuffed and handed off to the GCPD right about now?”

Wonder Woman looked back at him, calm but cold. “You’ll be handed to the authorities after you’ve undone what you did to J’onn.”

“I didn’t do that,” Thomas immediately defended. “That was Ruin.”

Miss Martian didn’t lift her gaze. “You carry his mental imprint. Both of you do.”

Thomas breathed through his nose. “That doesn’t mean we’re him.”

“You’re not,” she said. “But you’re not not him either.”

He didn’t have a response for that logic.

Not one that would matter.

So he leaned his head back against the wall of the Batwing and stared at the ceiling. Or tried.

"Damn rope, why's it so tight?"

His body ached. Not from damage—most of it had already healed. But the weight of stillness, of being held in place, felt worse than any wound.

Carnage stirred softly inside his skull.

("Hey, psst Tommy, listen.")

Thomas didn’t respond aloud.

Carnage pulsed again.

("Some of the inmate powers we absorbed? They've digested. I can start folding them in when you're ready. Not yet active. But they’re there.")

Thomas let a small smile creep across his lips.

Perfect.

("We Wait.")

Carnage stilled again, like a knife pulled slightly from its sheath.

Thomas turned to look at the three heroes.

They thought they had him boxed in.

That was fine.

Let them think that a little longer.

He took the opportunity to study the cabin.

Miss Martian was locked in concentration across from him, eyes closed, holding his mind under pressure. Wonder Woman sat between them, arms crossed, silent but watching. Batman flew the craft in silence.

Carnage stirred beneath Thomas’s skin.

("We can take them.")

Thomas rolled his eyes at the Symbiote's impatience and replied. ("No, we can’t. Not like this. Not now. We wait, remember?")

Carnage pulsed. ("Wait? I don't wanna wait!")

Thomas turned the thought over in his head. He needed a plan of action before Carnage started rioting, prompting the Lasso to tighten even more.

'Think Thomas, think.' He thought inwardly.

Then out of nowhere, he turned to Carnage and asked, ("Can you assimilate knowledge, not just powers?")

("Knowledge?")

("Like memories. Intellect. Understanding. Can you give me what the Riddler knew?")

Carnage hesitated. ("Yeah. I can. Don’t see why you’d want that though. You’ve already got my genius.")

("Now's not the time for jokes Carnage. Just do it.")

("Fine.") Grumbled the Symbiote.

There was a brief surge of static behind Thomas’s eyes. Not pain—just rearrangement. A reshuffling. Then clarity.

Ideas clicked.

Thomas smiled.

He opened his eyes, turned slowly toward Miss Martian, and said calmly, “Riddle me this.”

She blinked, wary.

“What’s green, born of Mars, and hides a genocide behind a brother’s betrayal?”

She stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

Thomas’s eyes narrowed. “You know the story, don’t you? The Holocaust of fire. The death. The fall of the Martian race. But Ruin’s memories go deeper. The psychic bomb that wiped your people? That wasn’t war.”

He leaned in, voice low.

“That was Ma'ale'faak. Your brother.”

She froze.

Thomas felt the grip in his mind tremble—just for a second.

“You’re lying,” she seethed.

“No,” Thomas replied. “You know I’m not. The Lasso wouldn’t let me lie even if I wanted to.”

Her breathing hitched. Her mental hold broke.

And in that instant—he was free.

Wonder Woman’s eyes widened, too late realizing. “Bruce—!”

Thomas moved first.

Before anyone else reacted, he slipped into their minds with almost practiced precision. The mental doors cracked. He pried them open and slammed down psychic locks.

Wonder Woman froze, mid-turn.

Batman stayed silent at the controls, eyes blank.

Miss Martian screamed and charged—but Thomas didn’t move.

He simply sent a thought.

"Hit her."

Wonder Woman obeyed.

A straight punch across Miss Martian’s jaw dropped her where she stood. She crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

Carnage uncoiled from Thomas’s shoulder. "Finally."

“Not yet,” Thomas muttered.

He pulled the Lasso of Truth free, letting it coil in his hands.

“Keep this for now,” he said quietly. “Handing it back might snap her out of it.”

After swallowing the glowing rope, Carnage moved closer to the downed heroes. "I could eat them. Quick. Clean.'

Thomas looked at him. “No. Not now. I need to check something first.”

He turned toward the cockpit.

Batman sat rigid, still piloting. Under Thomas’s complete control.

“She called you Bruce,” Thomas said, walking up behind him. “So formal. So personal.”

He reached out to the cowl—stopped—then pulled his hand back.

“Take off the mask.” Thomas ordered.

Batman’s hands moved. No hesitation.

The cowl came off.

And there he was.

Thomas stepped back.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered. “Bruce Wayne.”

The silence in the Batwing stretched.

Carnage laughed softly. "Jackpot."