Joel taps his empty glass on the bar once. Not impatient. Just thinking.
"Alright," he says, voice lower now. "I gotta ask.""What the hell's the deal with the capes?"
The bartender raises an eyebrow.
"Capes?"
"Yeah. You know. Supes.
The guys flyin' around with heat vision and morality problems.
I seen more explosions in one city block last week than I saw in twenty years of infected territory."
He leans forward now, elbows on the counter, shoulders hunched like he's guarding the question.
"Avengers. Justice League. Guardians of whatever-the-hell.
They real?"
The bartender doesn't flinch.
"Define real."
"I mean—they exist. They breathe. They got fanclubs.
I saw Captain America fight a kaiju two weeks ago.
Thing ended when some girl in pink with a hammer showed up and just… vaporized it.
People cheered. I puked."
Kratos remains silent, sipping slowly from his glass.
Joel eyes him.
"You ever fought a guy in tights?"
"Yes."
"You win?"
Kratos stares flatly.
"I am here. He is not."
Joel chuckles. Low, tired, but real.
"Fair enough."
"But seriously—how the hell is this normal now?
I spent twenty years fightin' mushrooms with faces, and now some blue alien drops into town every other Thursday talkin' about planetary justice."
The bartender finishes polishing a glass and sets it down.
"The Collapse didn't just blend geography.It folded stories.
Myths. Fictions. Realities.
Now they all bleed into each other.
So yeah. Capes exist.
So do dragons.
So do the kinds of men who should've stayed in books."
Joel stares at him.
"That some metaphysical shit right there."
"You asked."
"Yeah, well… I regret it."
He turns again, waving vaguely toward the street.
"I saw Superman last week. Just floatin' there.Eyes glowin' red. Not doin' anything. Just watchin'.
People walked past him like he was a stop sign."
Kratos finally speaks again.
"They worship power.Then resent it.Then fear it.
It is the same in every world."
Joel considers that.
"You don't think they help?"
"Sometimes.
Until they don't."
The bartender pours another drink for Joel—neat, strong, familiar.
"Most of them mean well," he says. "But this world wasn't built for all of them.
It changed to fit them.
And in the process… forgot what it used to be."
Joel leans back on the stool.
"And what was that?"
The bartender's voice softens, almost wistful.
"A place where people fought to live.Not to win."
Joel doesn't speak for a moment.
Then:
"So what happens now?
We just keep waitin'? Hopin' the world don't fold in on itself again?"
"You're here, aren't you?" the bartender asks.
Joel raises his glass in a mock toast.
"Yeah.
And I ain't even got a damn cape."
"Doesn't mean you're not a hero."
Joel laughs at that. Loud. Real.
"Hell no. I ain't a hero.
Just a tired old man with too much memory and not enough bullets."
He turns to Kratos again.
"What about you, huh?You ever meet any of these… Avengers?"
Kratos answers dry.
"I met one.
He called himself a god."
"Let me guess. Thor?"
"A different one."
"Was he… y'know… worthy?"
Kratos just stares.
"He wasn't breathing when I left."
"Maybe"
Joel whistles.
"Damn.
You're just a one-man apocalypse, huh?"
"Only when needed."
They both drink in silence for a few seconds.
The jukebox clicks again, switching tracks.
Some slow southern guitar hums through the speakers.
Joel stares into his glass.
"You know… before all this...I used to fix guitars."
Kratos doesn't reply.
"Used to be real good at it.
Strings. Wood. Tuning pegs.
Somethin' about makin' broken things sing again.
Never thought I'd miss it so much."
Kratos tilts his glass toward Joel.
"You could start again."
Joel smiles, small.
"Might be the first good idea I've heard since I got here."
The bartender leans on the counter, watching them.
"That's why this place exists," he says.
"To remember who you were…so you can decide who you'll be next."
Joel sets his glass down and nods slowly.
"Then pour me one more.
I ain't done rememberin' yet."
After some while-
The bar had settled into its own rhythm again.
Laughter rolled low from one of the booths, where a woman in a tattered cloak was telling three bounty hunters how she once dated a Lich King. Joel and Kratos sat like statues near the bar's corner, both nursing their drinks in that old way — like conversation was just another weapon, and they were taking turns pulling the trigger.
The bartender wiped down a glass that hadn't been used yet. Not because it was dirty, but because he liked the sound of it.
Then it happened.
The light shifted.
Not flickered. Not dimmed.
Shifted — like the very idea of brightness had walked in and asked for a table.
DING.
The door swung open, and every head in the room turned.
Two silhouettes stood in the doorway, framed by the glowing red skyline of the city beyond.
One was draped in black, cape brushing the ground, his outline sharp, calculated, cold.The other was broader, brighter — blue suit, red cape, the S on his chest glowing like defiance made flesh.
Batman and Superman stepped inside.
They didn't speak.
Didn't need to.
The bar felt it — in the spine, in the walls, in the silent hush that dropped over the room like a judge's gavel.
Joel raised an eyebrow.
"Well, shit."
Kratos didn't move. Just kept sipping.
One of the clones walked past, offering breadsticks to a mercenary in a helmet. No one took them.
Superman scanned the room once, eyes glowing faintly. X-ray. Thermal. Other things the bartender didn't bother naming.
Batman was already analyzing the layout. Counting exits. Mapping threats.
They stopped ten feet from the bar.
"We need to talk," Superman said, voice steady, carrying through the room like a sermon.
The bartender didn't look up from the lemon he was slicing.
"Then talk."
Batman stepped forward.
"This place is harboring threats. Known criminals.
I saw two former members of the Suicide Squad drinking with a demon.
There's a warlord from the Negative Multiverse playing cards with a Jedi.
You call this neutral ground?"
"No," the bartender replied, finally looking up. "I call it a bar."
Superman narrowed his eyes.
"A bar that suppresses conflict. That… adjusts timelines. That reads minds."
"Technically, I just listen better than most."
Batman's voice went colder.
"You're hiding something."
Joel leaned in toward Kratos, whispering just loud enough:
"So, uh… are these the good guys or the tax guys?"
Kratos replied without turning:
"Depends who's paying."
Superman frowned. He looked directly at Kratos.
"You. We've seen reports. You were registered as a myth in your own realm. Now you're here. Sitting beside—"
"Don't finish that sentence," Joel cut in. "Or I might feel flattered."
Superman turned to the bartender again.
"Places like this… they don't just appear.
You're bending natural law. Creating a safe haven for potential threats.
People could get hurt."
The bartender leaned on the bar now, one hand flat against the polished wood.
"No one gets hurt in here.That's Rule One."
Batman stepped closer, cloak trailing like a storm.
"And what if someone breaks it?"
The bartender didn't blink.
"Then I remind them why they shouldn't."
Superman opened his mouth—
CRACK.
Kratos set his empty glass down a little too hard.
"If either of you wish to try your hand, do it.
But know that I have already buried gods.
And I did not need rules to stop them."
The bar stayed silent.
Batman stared at him — calculating.Superman watched him — weighing the words.
Joel sighed and tapped his glass.
"Can someone tell 'em this ain't a cape convention?
I came in here to drink and forget the mushroom apocalypse, not sit in a multiversal courtroom."
The bartender finally smiled. Barely.
"Gentlemen," he said, addressing the capes, "you're free to stay. Drink. Rest.But if you're here to question why people deserve peace, you'll need to stand in a long line."
Batman stared.
Then, surprisingly, he said nothing.
Superman's posture relaxed. Just a little.
"...Fine," he said finally. "We'll observe."
"That's what most people do when they come in here."
A stool slid out on its own. A glass was already poured. The clones returned to work, resuming their gentle hum of motion.
Superman sat.
Batman remained standing, arms folded, eyes never stopping.
Kratos didn't move again.
Joel tilted his glass toward the Man of Steel.
"You ever lose a whole world?"
"More than one," Superman said quietly.
"Then sit down, drink up, and pretend for five minutes we ain't all walkin' corpses with backstories."
The jukebox clicked.
A blues riff rolled in.
And the Last Round breathed again.