Part Three: Porridge (New and Improved), by Renaissance Makoto; Commentary by Rose etta
Title: Porridge (New and Improved)
Author: Renaissance Makoto ( harmless_one)
Fandom: DC Universe
Pairing: Kal-El/Bruce Wayne(s)
Rating: R
Commentator: rose_etta
~***~
Kal threw himself into the experiments. Bruce let him. There was a reluctance about his assistance that Kal couldn't place.
Clearly, the clue bus and Superman still can't find each other.
This one was such a success that Kal invited Diana, extended the olive branch. He realized it was a mistake within five minutes of her visit. Her first visit in over 20 years.
38 looked at Diana and kept on looking. "Charmed," he said and bent over her hand. The kiss was long and sensual and moved further up her arm before he pulled away. Diana flushed a deep pink.
"Well, yes. Thank you…"
"Call me 'Bruce'," he said. His eyes were actually smoldering. The computer made a rude noise, but both Diana and 38 ignored it.
"Bruce. Oh. Yes…" she said breathlessly and she still hadn't let go of his hand. "I am Diana."
"A lovely name for a woman of your beauty. I've been studying ballroom dancing," 38 said. "I don't suppose you'd like to join me some night? I'd make it worth your while."
Diana ducked her head, moved closer as if compelled. "Well, I cannot see any reason to say 'no'…"
Kal shared a look with the computer. The hologram ran his finger across his neck with a bloodthirsty expression and Kal blinked once, slowly.
~***~
39 stormed into the room. "Oh, God are you really wearing that?" he asked and waved a hand up and down indicating Kal's uniform.
"It's soooo out of style. The S? What does it mean? What are you trying to say? Where's the style?"
Hands on his hips, he stalked up to Kal who wore the expression of a deer in headlights. "Ummm. I always wear this?"
"Trust me, honey: I've noticed! Haven't you ever wanted to wear a pair of jeans? A flattering pair of khakis? Capes are soooo last century! And what is this curl? You're really quite handsome but you're ruining the effect! If you want to show off that ass, lose the cape. At least you're wearing black again. It's better than the blue!"
He brushed a piece of lint off Kal's shoulder, muttering to himself in his high-pitched whine about hiring a tailor.
Kal looked away, frantically searching for something. Finally, he sighed in relief. Bruce had faded into sight, leaning against a doorframe with his arms crossed. The scars were there and Kal was staring at them; the thick one that ran from his thumb to his elbow. The one from Darkseid.
He remembered that fight, thrilled that there was someone else who did too, even if it was just his own memory dumped into a database.
"Bruce…?"
The hologram shook his head and then smiled a sharp, knowing smile.
39 was still talking, but Kal had stopped listening, decided he never wanted to listen again.
~***~
40 looked up from where he slumped over his soggy cereal. "I hate this place," he said. "You're lousy company. And what do I have to live for? I read my files. My parents are dead. All my partners are dead. You never even let me leave the Fortress.
"And what kind of name is that? 'Fortress' sounds kind of militaristic. I mean, you're just trying to make me act more like that computer and you spend all your time with him, anyway. He sasses me. Do you know what it feels like to be sassed by a computer that looks just like you?"
He waved his spoon emphatically. "It sucks."
He took a bite and milk slid down his stubbled chin. "And that Jason guy? He's a sociopath. Do you know what that means? One day, you're gonna wake up with one of his fancy knives in your back and you're gonna think, 'Boy, should have listened to Bruce'. This guy's freakin' crazy. Stabbed me in the back and everything.'"
40 took a long, sloppy gulp of juice. "Hey, why aren't you saying anything?"
Kal sat forward and was wearing an expression feral enough to make 40 sit back.
"Uhh, Kal?"
"Eat your breakfast," Kal bit off finally. Reflected in the glass of the cabinet, Bruce watched him with hard eyes that belonged behind a cowl. Their eyes caught and Kal nodded in understanding.
~***~
41 looked at Kal with handsome seriousness, crossed his arms over his broad chest and said, "Okay, don't take this the wrong way, but is that Jason guy single?"
He waggled his eyebrows, which was the deciding factor.
~***~
The Fortress was quiet without an experiment in process. Bruce seemed bored. Sometimes he paced. At others, he lounged in his big chair and looked daggers at Kal.
"I don't suppose you could hang around a bit more or just whip me up a Jimmy Olsen type to talk to? Your computer could use a Best Pal. I'm just batting ideas around, here. Hrn." He paused with mock thoughtfulness, his left eyebrow disappearing behind a shining lock of hair. "'Bat-ting'. That's good. I'll have to save that to my memory banks. Oh, wait! I've got an idea! Maybe one of those Robins. I like the file on Dick Grayson. He sounds like he was a party guy. Think you could throw together an Original Robin for me?"
"Shut up, Bruce."
"Okay. Fine. No Dick. Guess he'd be competition for my affection? Well I'm not picky. Umm…lessee. Alfred? Nah, too stodgy. Robin 2 would kind of freak Jason out, huh? And what a shame 'cause that kid had spunk. Naughty Robin, and all that, right?"
"You're not funny when you try to be Brucie."
"I'm adorable," Bruce said. He stood, adjusted his cravat, and swirled brandy in a snifter. "It would be nice to talk to Tim again. He was always so serious. I could cheer him up. 'Don't worry about your inferiority complex! You did a fine job as Batman and nobody compared you to the original and found you lacking. Honest!' Think he'd buy utter garbage like that?"
"Bruce, I'm warning you…"
Bruce took a long sip and licked his lips. He made it almost obscene. "Question: why are you talking to me if I bother you so much?"
Kal laughed but it only sounded defeated. "Who else am I going to talk to?"
Eyes narrowed, Bruce answered, "Very flattering. But you have a point. All your friends are dead or afraid of you. And as for the experiments, you've killed them all, haven't you? Well, the taco incident wasn't your fault, but the others you've ixnayed."
"You don't understand. They weren't-"
"They weren't me," the computer said and it was the voice. It made Kal gasp and stand up and back away. The computer had never used it before and it sent shivers all along his nerve endings, heat pooling in his belly.
"Ba-"
"Shut up, Clark." The hologram flickered black and slit eyes of flat white gazed at him coldly from the dark. The voice was gravel and asphalt and the smog of Gotham City. "Look at you. Punch drunk on the idea that you can have both."
"I can. If I could just-" Kal tried weakly, but he was moving towards the hologram as if in a trance, one hand extended. "You're so beautiful like this."
Batman's voice was unforgiving. "You'll never succeed," he said. "The experiments will never be enough. Because you want to touch me so much you can taste it."
"Yes," Kal muttered and then shook his head. "No! You're…you're a means to an end…I want him back."
"And what makes you think he'll want you?" the voice whispered. All the lights in the Fortress crashed into darkness and Kal stumbled forward, arms wrapping around the emptiness where Batman had been. He went down on his knees and had no energy to get back up again.
'Told you, the computer was a monster,' the Author says…
~***~
Zatanna found him that way. It registered in the back of her mind that the Fortress was in a shambles, that the souvenirs from the Cave had been broken and left where they fell, but she had more pressing concerns.
There was always heartbreak in seeing Superman defeated, in seeing him sprawled and unconscious. She approached cautiously from the teleportation tube and crouched down beside the hunched figure in black.
"Clark," she said and shook him a little. "What have you done to yourself?"
She pushed her limp hair behind one ear and looked around. "Computer? Oops," she whispered and tried again. "Bruce?"
"Yesssss, Zatanna?"
"Um. What happened? He's not moving."
"I'm afraid he's had a rough night. Some guys just can't hold their liquor."
Zatanna bit her lip and looked again at her friend's slack face. Still so handsome and strong, but with deep grooves around his mouth that looked foreign. "You sound strange, Bruce. What's wrong with your voice?"
He barked a laugh but it ended in a growl. "You try being the A.I.-version of a man with as many personalities as Bruce Wayne. Every day's an adventure! I'm stuck in Playboy mode right now. All I want is to talk to the ladies and play golf. And you've really let yourself go, haven't you, dear?"
She sighed and shook her head. "Bruce, can you summon Kelex? I need him to move Clark."
In an instant, Bruce was standing beside her. He was indeed dressed like a playboy from the 21st century, but there was something about his eyes that ruined the effect.
"Kelex?" he asked. "I'm afraid I disabled him. He wasn't doing anybody any good. And aren't you a *magician*? Can't you just… say something backwards and make a bed pop up or something? Am I the only one who thinks around here?" The last was said with a thick Jersey accent, like something from an old mobster movie.
It was with a troubled expression that Zatanna magicked Kal to his own quarters. The words came haltingly, as if she was no longer used to saying them at all. With her own strength, she arranged him into what she hoped was a comfortable position and was breathless with the exertion once he looked restful. She propped herself against the head of his large bed and pulled him into her arms. He was trembling and sweat poured down his face.
"Batman," he muttered. "I'm sorry."
"Shh," she said. "It's okay. Everything's okay now. I've come to help. The world is a mess, Clark. The world needs Superman, like he used to be. We never stopped needing you. If… if he's what it will take to get you back, we'll go get him, okay? We'll bring him back. Shhh…"
Well, thank gawd - I was twisting myself up something horrible, for Kal-El's sake. Go, Zatanna!
This was, she realized, the longest she had ever spent in the Fortress. It was probably her bad luck that dictated it had to be for such terrible reasons. She rocked him like a mother and whispered soothing words she wasn't sure he could hear.
Halfway through the night, Kal stirred in her arms. Her right one had passed 'numb' half an hour ago and had moved onto to 'questionably attached'. Sometimes she looked down just to be certain it was still there. She didn't mind, really, that Clark was heavy and hot like a sun in human shape. She didn't mind that he smelled ever so slightly of ozone.
He blinked up at her owlishly.
"Hiya, stranger," she said. It was a sad attempt at brevity and Kal wasn't biting. His eyes seemed to look right into her, so very blue (different from Bruce's) and clear and open.
"What happened to you?" Kal asked softly. "Why did you stop using your magic?"
Zatanna's dismissive wave at the question barely hid the hurt in her eyes. "Well! Well, it didn't save them, did it? The heroes, I mean. It certainly didn't save him. He was the best of us and we never noticed until he was gone."
"He's not gone," Kal said. "He's still..." and here he stopped and just looked confused. "I was dreaming."
Her fingers were long and cool and thin through his hair. "Anything good?"
"I saw Batman. Bruce, not Tim. He was wearing a black armband for me. Do you remember?"
She nodded once but kept her lips pressed together tightly, knowing that he wanted to talk.
"I never wore one for him. I never mourned him. I just…"
She leaned over, pressed a dry kiss to his forehead. "He never mourned you. He never believed you were gone. Bruce, of all of us, knew you'd come back." She laughed and the sound was sultry and it made him see her in his mind the way she had once been. "And you did. Bruce was very rarely wrong."
Kal nodded once as if that was what he'd needed to hear. He buried his big body against hers, like a child. His cheek rubbed against her arm once, twice, and then the soft sound of his breathing filled the Fortress again. She continued to stroke his hair, uncertain if that was what had comforted him or if it had been her words, empty but nice-sounding nonetheless.
She looked up to the bland crystal ceiling of his chambers and let out a sigh.
"Damn you," she said and wondered who she was talking about.
~***~
It took some work to wiggle herself out from under him. It took even more for the blood to return to her limbs. When she could feel her fingers again, she wandered. Kal's parents were just as imposing and strong as they had ever been, but the wires at their feet were disturbing. She wondered for a moment if Kal could hear the steady thud-thud, thud-thud that sounded from underneath the console, muffled but still so intrusive.
The computer didn’t materialize to bother her and she guessed that he was lost in his data-streams, off being Batman right now, strong and silent in a cyber-world.
And still upset with her?
She scolded herself for thinking of the computer in terms of the man, but he was the closest thing they had, wasn't he?
A sharp corner took Zatanna through to what looked remarkably like a hospital.
She gasped.
She was aware that Bruce had been a handsome young man. Before the mission and the scars, he had been like a movie star. But at the age this man was-perhaps 25, perhaps younger-he had already been marked, had already broken bones and lost teeth. The man floating in the greenish fluid in the corner of the room was Bruce as she had never really known him. It was difficult to imagine the Bruce she remembered ever being so still and lifeless. Tubes protruded from his arms and legs and seemed to go deep for bandages wound up and up around his limbs, holding them in place. She'd lost the ability to blush about nudity long ago (several bodies ago, three of them male), but this was so voyeuristic that she wished something covered his sex.
With his eyes closed, he looked asleep.
Or dead. "My god," she said. Zatanna had never seen one of them before, what Diana called 'the experiments', always said derisively.
She approached the apparatus as a little girl stumbling on a cottage in the woods, with unbridled curiosity and fear spurring her on. A neat printed label at the bottom left of the tube identified this as Number 42.
Something made her press her fingertips against the surface. It was cold to the touch and she hissed in surprise and pulled her hand back. Eerie didn't even begin to describe what seeing this Bruce-who-never-was floating before her eyes. Her fingerprints faded quickly. And it was all making more sense now, what Kal planned to do.
And he'd said that the Allies were very powerful, that they felt obligated to him.
That they owned him a favor.
Looking at this Sleeping Beauty behind glass, she finally understood that this was, all at once, an example of the greatest and most terrifying thing about Superman:
He never did things by halves and he didn't give up, even if he maybe should. She remembered watching him fight Doomsday, amazed that anyone could be so relentless in the face of odds like that. Superman was hope. Even at his worst, he could guide the world into the future.
He'd given the world the body of Bruce Wayne-of Batman-once more.
She took a deep breath and decided that the least she could do was give the world his mind as well.
The floor was cool, but not nearly as cold as the chamber that held the experiment. She took a seat, wrapped her arms around her raised knees and just watched.
~***~
From what she understood, Kal had spent the morning removing 42 from the tube.
There was a lot of noise-wet slushing sounds and metallic clanging and a long painful sounding groan. Zatanna decided not to go in and see what it took to bring a lifeless clone to life.
And this one, she knew, had to remain…
Well, he couldn't be allowed to develop his own personality, could he? Kal had made that very clear. He was to remain what he had been when she first laid eyes on him in the tube.
Tabula rasa.
After that, there was very little left to do. Another day, another blink of the eye in a life extended far beyond the norm. She thought about the wrongness of spells that couldn't be undone, wondered who she'd be next lifetime and if Clark and Jason would still be there.
If Batman would be there.
And then it was time.
"Where are you going, Zatanna?" Bruce asked. The voice was that strange mix of dark and vapid. It was so close-and so very far away-from what she wanted to hear. Zatanna took a step back from the projection. "I'm just…" And here she was at a loss and how long had it been since she last performed.
"That is I'm…you know…" She thought about the Fortress' defenses, how willing Bruce was to use them.
She sighed and gave up. She kept it with her for sentimental reasons. That's what the peace-loving club owner in her mind told her. The League member in her mind told her that she kept it just for situations like this.
Zatanna aimed the wand at the computer and spoke, "kaerb a ekat."
There was sudden silence that was alarming. Had the computer really made so much noise? The rhythmic thumping was overwhelming in its absence, so subdued had it been before. Now the space pulsed with eerie stillness. "Bruce?" she whispered. Only after there was no reply did she turn to her companion who had stirred the air with his arrival.
"Just got here, did you, Johnny-come-lately?" she asked. "And you…have it?"
"I have it," he said. He held up his hand and the room turned molten and heavy with light. It mesmerized her, this Orb, so much so that it took her a minute to speak again.
"Well, while you were out playing negotiator, I had to deal with your watchdog. He's not very friendly, is he?"
"Who, Bruce?" Kal asked. He looked tired and the black of his costume made him look paler than ever. "Was he ever friendly?"
Her smile was sweet and almost pretty. "No. No, he never was." She gave a long side-eye to Kal. "Shall we go and get him back? The real one, I mean."
"Yes," Kal said with a heaviness that suggested he'd wanted to say it for a very long time. He held up his hand and the Orb glinted gold.
~***~
The Orb flashed and Zatanna gasped. Her arms around his neck were frail and sharp-boned, but she held tight. He pulled her closer.
Then there was the sensation of falling up, of crashing through a wall of light both brittle and soft into a cool pool of soundless dark. He fought a rippling tide, tried to move forward and thought he was screaming, but that too was absorbed into the abyss.
This is some wonderful prose, describing this alien event for us.
There was drag like planetary gravity on his body and it pierced to the bone until he imagined his skeleton marching forward stoically while a thin stretch of skin and broad swath of muscle fought to catch up. Swimming through jelly, drowning in it, struggling to the surface, deprived of air, of even a center to balance on...
Zatanna made a startled noise and almost slipped from his grasp. He scrambled to catch her, realized he was facing the wrong way and righted himself. They had arrived and he held her like she was a lifeline to everything that made sense. Together they hovered there, looking down on a world long gone.
The smell was familiar before anything else. It was the burnt and bloodied smell of a battlefield. He landed and set her down gently.
"No," Zatanna whispered and he could feel her shaking her head, denying what she saw. He understood her feeling; he never wanted to see this gruesome scene again. In his long life, he had never known an age to end peacefully. This one had been no different.
The heroes had gone in a blaze. They had burned brightest at their last.
The Orb in his hand pulsed like it was alive. And Kal understood that it was telling him that he was in control. Complete control.
Down below, Batman was lunging. In another five seconds, Superman would appear, too late to do anything but see the results of his own foolishness.
"Do it now!" he cried to Zantanna. She frowned and hesitated, but soon her wand was aimed at Batman.
Nothing moved faster than Superman, so he watched the energy flare out and move as if watching a film in slow motion, one frame per second. Batman's forward momentum never faltered.
He had complete control and the understanding that it didn't have to be like this.
The Orb wasn't hot but he felt it should have been as it glowed molten gold. Instead, there was a reassuring coolness. He squeezed.
"No," he said and time stopped.
To his left, The Green Lantern crouched and stayed that way. In fact, all across the battlefield, his companions failed to complete their cries of pain or triumph. Fists never connected, falls never ended. Halfway around the world, Lois never took another breath after her deep exhale as she turned over in bed. The sunlight was stale and there was no breeze.
He circled Zatanna once, her plain face frozen as she finished the command. The spell she had cast looked so solid that Kal wanted to touch it, to feel the thing that would bring Bruce back to him.
Bruce-
He looked down and almost wanted to laugh. Batman looked like the cover of some over-the-top comic with his muscles straining and his body wedged in mid-air. Neither of his feet were on the ground and his torso was twisted with the stretch of his arm forward. He was reaching to stop the chaos, only five seconds away from stopping the explosion. Three away from getting caught in it.
He looked like Kansas and Metropolis and even the startling beauty of Gotham and he looked like warm towels just off the line and clandestine meetings in dark alleys and the sunset over Egypt and the way a thousand mosque bells sound at dawn when they ring with hope and a home-cooked meal like the kind he hadn't had in so very long and like Lois' sleepy-eyed smiles first thing in the morning after a night of making love…
Batman looked like all the things he had forgotten he needed-the sunrise just as the light hit the Daily Planet building, the sky at dusk with a black cape flickering before it and-
And it was all about to end.
Kal took a breath, tried to calm down.
Because part of the deal was-
Well, yes. Part of the deal was that he couldn't take him back with him, couldn't change the past. But he wanted to. How easy would it be just to grab him, activate the Orb and go?
He shut his eyes and squeezed them tight. The plan was flawed for so many reasons and none of them were new ideas. The prevailing reason was this:
One day, no matter how he prevented his death today, Bruce Wayne would still die. Just as 37 had died, the original would too. At most, by stealing him away, he was only buying Clark Kent another decade or two with the man. Batman would continue to fight a war he couldn't win and would be killed when the Joker got lucky or when a bank robber had a once in a lifetime shot and didn't hesitate to take it. Or, in the best case scenario, Bruce would just grow old like Tim and limp about his stately manor with a cane.
But he'd still die.
The Orb in his hand glowed bright, too bright, for an instant.
Time didn't start again, but Batman did. He landed at last, skidded and kicked up dust in his wake. The stillness of the device in front of him stayed his hand when he would have tried to disarm it right away.
The shock of it all, of seeing him move again, alive, made the Orb slip from Kal's fingers and Batman turned quickly, defensive. The mask hid whatever reaction there was.
"Superman," he began. "I told you to go to the Watchtower."
Kal winced. Batman was angry with him for disobeying. He had no idea how right he was to feel that way. After Superman stood motionless, gawking, for over ten seconds did Batman begin to question what his eyes were seeing, the differences, the inconsistencies with Superman himself and the terrible wrongness of the still world around him.
He tilted his head up, trying to spy the plane where it should have circled overhead. There is a plane, Kal thought, but it's as unresponsive as everything else now.
Everything but us.
"Computer, code six, full scan," Batman said and when that failed, he reached for his belt.
"Don't," Kal said hoarsely and took a step forward. "Doesn't work," he added to clarify. "Kryptonite, I mean. You…" and there he had to stop because it hadn't been Batman who had helped him overcome that particular weakness. It had been Bruce, using Batman's research, long after the original was dead (not dead, here, alive, looking at him). "No effect," he said after a moment's confusion.
Batman seemed to be gauging the validity of that. He crouched. By the time he was ready to pull the ring, it was too late.
Kal was already there, grabbing his shoulders, breathing in the smell of him, of battle-worn leather and Kevlar and of the powder it took to get the gauntlets on. The Kryptonite ring was in Batman's hand when his back hit the wall; a lesser mortal would have dropped it. Nothing about Bruce had ever been lesser.
Kal felt the familiar sting of exposure, but it never worsened. It stayed a mild pain while his eyes drank in Bruce Wayne under the cowl.
He knew the man's left pinky was broken, that his ankle was sprained, and that he couldn't feel a large section of his jaw. That the length of his spine was covered in minute stitching and that he had eight teeth that weren't real. Sweat plastered his hair to his head under that heavy cowl and he smelled like he'd forgotten what a shower even looked like.
He was beautiful.
He slid his fingers down Batman's arms, caught him around the wrists. The tendons there jerked and lifted to the surface like canyons as he struggled. "Who are you?" Batman growled.
"Who do you think?" Kal asked and then kissed him.
And Kal's mind couldn't get a grip on this, something several hundred years in the making. There were sensations, but it was like a million perfumes flooding the air at once, too many scents and variations to detect just one. What was making him harder than he'd ever been in his life was the fact that there was no resistance as there should have been. Batman was letting this happen when he could have said or done dozens of things to end the kiss. And his body was so solid and his armor so cool against Kal who always felt hot like sunlight through glass.
Their heartbeats thudded together and Kal pressed closer, angled his head to stab his tongue in and thrust it in and out, claiming Batman's mouth hard. The kiss was wet and breathy, more than a little noisy. Batman was going to have bruises around his wrists and at his hip to where Kal dropped his hand and squeezed.
Knowing that Batman was kissing him back caused Kal to temporarily lose control of his voice. He moaned low and long, broke the kiss to give Batman time to breathe, and then went right back, deeper, just a little nastier. He needed this, was too desperate to make it about anything other than gratification. Part of him thought of letting Batman's wrists go, just to see what he would do with his hands free. The rest of him wasn't thinking about what Batman wanted, only what Kal wanted.
Which was Batman, restrained and accessible to kisses, touches, hard grinds of cock to cock. Kal pushed his thigh in higher and tighter, wasn't gentle when he rocked it back and forth. He knew he had to be just a little rough to get through the Kevlar, to make it count.
Batman made a noise that was as close to a whimper as Kal had ever heard the man make. He pulled back, saw the question on his flushed face and decided to answer it before Batman stifled the urge to ask.
"Because. Just because," he said softly, struggling for air. "Because I've wanted to do that for centuries."
Batman's eyes were sharp and knowing behind the cowl. He pushed against Kal's chest and Kal let him, stepped back and released his wrists.
"I don't live through today," Batman said. The fact that it wasn't a question made Kal's heart skip a beat.
"Don't think about today," Kal answered back. His feet left the ground, and his cape flared out. "Think about the future." He'd lost him so many times that he could trick himself into thinking this was easy. Easier because he knew it was the solution.
Kal leaned down, clutched the Orb in one strong hand. "Come on, Bruce," he said. "Finish what you started." Then he pointed, like the third ghost eerily at the tombstone. Batman followed his finger to the device he had yet to reach. Without hesitation, he went charging for it again. He never considered he could lose, even when he knew he was about to.
Kal turned away, refused to watch this twice as again the Orb thrilled to life. Kal calculated the duration of seconds. Zatanna's spell hit Batman in the first.
Batman's fingers-just a body, a shell caught in a kinetic rush-brushed the surface of the machine on the second.
Superman screamed on the third.
Batman would never scream again after the fourth as a beam from high above caught him, decimated his body. Never smirk or growl or kiss.
The weapons of the Watchtower should have been disarmed. Superman should have-
All hell broke loose on the fifth. Kal decided to leave before the lawless moments when he forgot his upbringing in favor of feeling those at fault fall before his fists.
"My god," Zatanna sobbed. He caught her up and she turned her face into his neck. The air was cold against her skin as they went higher and higher.
"Did it work?" When she didn’t answer right away, he shook her a little. "Did it work?"
"Yes. Yes," she cried back. I have him here." In her hand was a globe of tendrils twisting together, some of them black and the others white. They shone dully.
"You! You killed him!" Superman bellowed from below and then there was the sickening sound of bones slamming into soft tissue. "How dare you!"
Zatanna raised her head, made to see around him.
"Don't."
"Bruce-"
"Not anymore. We don't have to stay and watch this. Hold tight, Zee," he whispered. The world fell away turned thin and tunneled out and it was like the trip there only in reverse and faster and somehow more disorienting. Their progress slowed abruptly.
"Kal!" Zatanna screamed and he looked down. The mass of white and black that she had taken from Bruce was under attack.
What looked like inky hands with distorted fingers reached from the nowhere all around them, stretched forward through time and dragged at the essence. She tugged at it, felt it slipping through her fingers.
Kal's punches were ineffective. "They're trying to pull it back to where it belongs!"
Zatanna's eyes sparked with energy. "I don't think so." For a curious moment, she was stronger than anything, stronger than him. She broke away and hovered.
"Zee!"
This was a spell with no backwards words. It emanated from her body's core and traveled up and out. She folded in on herself and then flared out, power shooting out with her. The darkness screeched and then receded.
Then she slumped. Her last motion was to throw her hand forward, trying to reach for Kal who was speeding to her, his own hand extended. Their fingers brushed and then…
Something crashed.
Light seeped out of the world and then flooded back.
Zatanna wrapped her body around the essence, looked up drowsily to see Superman screaming at her but no sound made it through the gossamer veils of radiance. Then he was as small as a freckle, smaller, not there at all and she felt wind rushing up and past her. She knew she was falling, had no idea to where. She flailed and it only made this worse, the force wrenching her downwards. Panic set in and it was worse than anything because she could recall a time when panic was the last thing she would do. Once, she had been the greatest magician in the world.
A member of the Justice League.
A legend.
With the last of her strength she reached for her wand.
Then she thought of a structure of pure light, surrounded by ice. She thought of the man inside it, lifeless on a table.
She thought of home.
She whispered a spell and, later, even if asked, she couldn't tell you what it had been.
Zatanna made a soft, girlish "Oof" as she landed, tumbled, and came to a skidding stop right before the hulk that was the computer called Bruce. A fearful glance at the computer showed her that it was still under her spell. Nothing beeped or clicked in the Fortress.
The essence remained under her arm. She retrieved it carefully and even stroked it lightly. It was light as air, warm like the surface of a pool in summer. She held it before her face, stood and looked to the room where she knew he was asleep, waiting to become something more.
She stepped lightly and with purpose, knowing what she had to do.
Once it was done, ever so softly she whispered another spell, and faded away like sand on the wind.
"I have him here." In her hand was a globe of tendrils twisting together, some of them black and the others white. They shone dully." -> Just a glorious image, worthy of the man.
~***~
Kal didn't know where he was, couldn't tell left from right. He knew he was lying in a crater of his own making and that steam streamed off his skin.
"Superman? Qu'est-ce que tu fais ici?" a scruffy man with a beard asked as he stepped closer. He carried a fishing pole in one hand, a pipe in the other and had deep groves around his eyes. The old man peeked down into the crater and smiled at the man he still considered a hero. Even in black like a villain, he was an impressive figure, larger than life.
Kal shook his head to try to knock the world back into focus and felt hot all over. There were spots of color before his eyes, gold and green.
Gold.
He scrambled in alarm, looked with his superior vision and his x-ray vision everywhere.
The Orb was gone. And he felt hotter than before. The Frenchman was looking at him curiously, asking if he could help.
Kal stood, leapt from the crater to stand before the old man who merely tilted his head back to take in the sight of him.
Kal focused on the Fortress, heard Bruce kick on, his sensors sweep and his defenses activate.
"No," he hissed and then took off, cracking the ground at the old man's feet in the force of his liftoff. His cape was like a banner in the wind, as red as the red in his country's flag. Like the colors of victory and sacrifice. Pipe clenched between his teeth, he took a step back when the breeze hit him square in his chest. Then he laughed. He was an old man and nothing really surprised him anymore. He remembered when they used to say that Superman was faster than a speeding bullet. With his old eyes he had seen what an understatement that was.
He didn't remember them saying that the hero glowed gold, but perhaps his memory was faulty. He threw his pole of his shoulder and went home to tell his wife his story. She would believe him because she loved him. This he knew for certain.
~***~
Kal was off somewhere. Again. It was a terrible feeling for Bruce, but he didn't have a name he was comfortable with applying to the emotion.
And his sensors were sluggish. They told him all at once that Kal was indeed on Earth (in five different places, no less), and nowhere on the planet at all.
What Bruce was certain of, deep in his processor, was that Kal had taken the latest experiment out of the fridge and disappeared.
And the Fortress was quiet, in its own way-the most prominent sound being the straining inhale, exhale coming from the table. He wondered how he was supposed to take care of Kal if he kept flitting off to places unknown.
But Bruce's days were never so very different. Even when an experiment was up and running, things were constant. All he had was the endless progression of minutes. All he had to do was wait for Kal to realize that this new one-and the one after that, repeating-would never be good enough. No matter how much they looked like him or sounded like him, they never were.
And that was the problem with surrounding yourself with legends, he supposed. They were irreplaceable. Had any Robin ever been as good as the original? Bruce had decided 'no' long ago. The same went for Batman.
The closest thing Kal had, Bruce knew, was himself, a computer. And ancient now by any standard, he was set in his ways. He didn't like change. Kal and Krypto and even Jason Todd were the only creatures he welcomed. They were safe.
Number 42, however, was not. He monitored the brain activities of this experiment carefully and knew-absolutely knew-that something was different. There were pathways that shouldn't have existed in someone who hadn't spoken. Worse, there were pathways hinting that Number 42 spoke considerably more than just one language.
Overwhelming evidence that 42 dreamed nightmares in terrible, excruciating detail. They sent his heart rate racing and his eyelids fluttering.
Worse, Bruce felt like…time was incorrect. It was a simple discrepancy of ten seconds and he'd reset all his clocks to show the error and had run a full diagnostic, but…
The most he could tell was that the battery on his motherboard was in need of replacing or possibly his reserve power cells. Yes, those were all logical explanations.
And none of them sat right with him. And 42 was different. Unlike even 30; nothing like 37. If brain activity was any indication, 42 was an honest impossibility, something akin to bumblebees in full flight.
Still, he remained unresponsive, which was some solace. Experiments had been kept vegetative after retrieval since the early days in order to detect physical impairments and to acclimatize them to the laboratory conditions in a controlled manner. Then it would take days and-in one extreme case, weeks-before they would first react to noise, light, and touch.
So on that first quiet day when the body on the table stirred and sat up, Bruce was on edge.
He watched as the experiment stumbled down-and full mobility without guidance?-hissed at the cold floor against its bare feet. The bandages around its wrists trailed across the ground. It was a cautious turn, squinting at the brightness of the Fortress, that brought its slow movements to a halt. Bruce watched something like understanding dawn on the experiment's features.
The experiment looked down at its arms, turned them this way and that and frowned deeply. Wiggled its thumb and found that even more distressing. When it touched its jaw and then poked at it, it glared.
Its entire body stiffened, like prey aware of a predator nearby. Its eyes scanned first all along the walls, followed the wires coiled here and there, and then slid up to the ceiling where the projectors were installed.
And then the expression went beyond understanding: it was keen knowledge that bloomed and then was shuttered away behind blandness. With these schooled features, the experiment made its way to the primary controls. Bruce remained unseen and silent as files were accessed. The initial files were basic: date, location, current presidents and events. After that, the experiment's movements became more assured and the searches became very specific.
Alfred Pennyworth. Wayne Manor. Timothy Drake. Richard Grayson. Barbara Gordon. Harvey Dent. Gotham.
All these names were entered with ease and speed. The results were devoured in tense minutes. Then the search became technical. His archives, which had been security locked, spilled data in streams as if Bruce himself had thrown open a door. And it was interesting and curious enough that Bruce decided to keep watching. He was the most advanced computer in the world: when he wanted to put an end to this, he would.
Next, his config files were plowed through and then downright hacked. Encrypted and protected files bled their secrets; his core program and processing bank were batted around like a child's toys. His defense system, his satellites prodded, poked. Bruce formed the equivalent of a digital frown because, well, anyone having a look a these files would get the idea that he was somehow unfriendly. Maybe a little paranoid. Possessive and overprotective of Superman.
Certainly dangerous.
And it was all going so quickly. Too quickly, and maybe he should…
No. He would remain calm. This thing was no match for him.
But by the time the experiment began scratching at the surface of his very personality, Bruce decided he had finally had enough and tried to lock down. Tried and failed; he found himself caged. It was like being inside a glass box just his size. Only the most basic of functions were left to him. He was quarantined inside his own coding.
And like a spark, humor bubbled up in Bruce's circuitry.
Things were beginning to make a twisted, sci-fi sense to him. Ten seconds was quite a long time for someone to do quite a lot of damage provided that someone was a skilled magician working in cahoots with the strongest man alive.
He piled up into visibility, starting at his feet, lights stacking up like yarn on a loom until he was whole. He shot out his cuffs and dusted his shoulders off. With the posture of Alexander surveying his kingdom, he looked at the experiment that was becoming more and more like a man. Like himself.
"I don't like surprises," Bruce said. "But I'm willing to forgive Kal if this is his idea of a joke."
The experiment didn't answer. Its fingers moved faster and an additional layer of shielding encased Bruce, closing off his backdoors. He struggled once, found it looked unbecoming and sighed.
"Okay, so you play rough. Actually, you cheat. That you, Manhunter, old buddy? I've got a flamethrower around here somewhere."
When the schematics on his intelligence chip flashed on the centermost screen, and a diagnostic began, he had to admit that this guy was good. Too good.
He sighed.
"Oh, I see. It's you. Really you. My predecessor. Or should I say father? Either way, welcome to the future. Is it as bleak as you always imagined? And what did Kal do to achieve this particular miracle?" There was an increase in the organized data onscreen, a symphony of streaming numbers and color. "Ahhh," the computer said after a moment's processing. "The Allies. I knew he was keeping something from me. And now I do have to scramble to repair his mistake. That's you if you were wondering."
The experiment didn't even bother to cut a glare at the hologram that hovered nearby, and then too close, watching over his shoulder as he worked. His unnaturally handsome face sneered and it showed in his voice.
"I can see how you think. You're doing what I would do: silently gauging the situation, taking stock of all the variables. Clever. But moot."
Records opened, showed what some might consider cruelty on his part, but he had just been acting in Kal's best interest and in his own best interest.
Bruce tried to look unflustered, but maybe he felt it. Just a little. "You," he began with disdain. "Emotionally unavailable; certainly physically unavailable. You, as is, can never be enough. Given a choice, who do you think he'd pick? Any mission I might have takes second place to keeping Kal happy. You never gave him anything; your secrets and your mission always came first. So as you can see, I'm you without all the drawbacks, which is exactly what Kal needs. I'm smart, I'm capable, I'm witty and just a little dangerous. And I know him better than you. In time, we'll find a way to wire me into some body. I'll persuade him, and then the whole experiment will end."
When there was still no response, the computer continued. "I think the way you think. I know everything that you know and more. I'm new and improved."
42 looked up and his eyes seemed to say, "Yeah, but I know a trick you don't know."
Apparently, the trick was that light projections, no matter how advanced, were still incapable of unplugging a cord.
~***~
He returned to the Fortress at such speed that the ground splintered when he landed. He didn't stop running. And always there was the thudding-
Thud, thud, thud-
Until, abruptly, it sped and then slowed. Around the corners he flew until he rounded the last.
Nude and soft like a newborn, Number 42 stood before the sparking chrome shell of the computer. The massive screens were a chaos of numbers and images. A face, distorted by the errors onscreen, stared out at them fading as the light dimmed.
There was a large panel on the floor, dented and cracked with a fist-sized hole through its center. The bolts that had held it in place were still connected to the main console and bits of the panel were left beneath them, jagged and shattered. A few pieces of debris rolled on the floor, sad and misplaced. Inside the cavern once covered by the panel there was a strange, organic mess, dripping and oozing onto the floor of the Fortress. The color of oil mixed with blood, it stank in an acrid way, sizzled like acid as it crept.
In 42's hand was something that still shuddered, thudded and convulsed. In its death throws, it looked like a giant heart hemorrhaging more of the liquid onto the floor. The experiment's fingers were painted with it and it stained the bandages that wound around his forearms.
With a final squeeze, the last of the fluids gushed out in a rush of steaming color and gore.
A wholly-fitting end: "Records opened, showed what some might consider cruelty on his part, but he had just been acting in Kal's best interest and in his own best interest." Did he help the prior experiments toward failure? The notion is tantalizingly evil and adds satisfaction to the monster-computer's demise.
The last, fading expression Bruce made was tragic, lost, and betrayed. It froze on the screen, shrunk to a pinpoint of white light. Disappeared. And then there was silence. Only in its absence did Kal realize that the whirring of the computer had always been there, constant and groaning. Worse than just a whirring, there had been an ominous, organic noise, of something growing and thriving.
Alright, already! Yes, I'm scared shitless of this hideous abortion of a creation.
Without it, the room felt more open, less claustrophobic.
The final experiment turned to face him, moving as if underwater. He let the tangle of red and black fall from his hand. It hit with a wet squish.
"Clark," Bruce said with nothing like humor in his voice. His vocal chords weren't ready for the exercise, had never been used before, and he swallowed hard before beginning again. "I leave you alone for a few centuries and look what happens."
And then Bruce was quiet, the gravel of his voice just a memory while Kal thought and looked and thought some more.
What he thought was this: Idiosyncrasies were never so permanent. Kal knew this because people changed. Certainly he was proof of that. As was Jason Todd with his blind stumbling through an endless life with no purpose and no goal.
And this knowledge informed him that Bruce was an anomaly, the only thing exactly as he had always been long after his time. And maybe that made him a mistake.
Kal thought lots of things.
He thought about how minutes only mattered long after they passed and you wished you could relive them. And time was never so malleable to him as now. He understood where the Orb was now, saw his fingers as they really looked, gold and energized. He could turn it off, press the power down, down until even the glow dampened. Or he could let it blaze. Every little thing could be manipulated, if not changed. If only, if only-
If only he had an angle or a plan or someone to plan for him since his mind was just a jumble of bad memories and regrets now. Bruce had always planned for him. Batman had planned for him before that.
He thought how strange it was that some emotions burned up like moon rocks entering the atmosphere too fast while others endured, stubborn like volcanoes and ultimately as useless.
Fantabulous metaphores!
He wondered where this thing between he and Bruce fell.
Overwhelmingly, his thoughts were of his computer, not even sparking to show a fight, just lying cold and dead. In comparison to how long he had known it, his friendship with the real Bruce Wayne seemed like a blink of an eye. The computer wasn't beyond repair, that he knew. And he was old even if he didn't look it and far too familiar with the taste of temptation.
And he thought of Tim, hunched over in his chair with a blanket over his lap and his scowl firmly in place. He'd always just accepted it, never questioned or condemned like Diana. Once, he had asked Tim, "Don't you ever wonder why I'm doing this? Don't you want to know the reason?"
"Way I figure is this," the old man had rasped. "The world needs Superman. And Batman needs a Robin, so what do you think Superman needs?"
And here Bruce was, alive once again. Strong enough to fight. Strong enough to fight himself and win. Bruce's eyes (perfectly blue) and his mouth (just perfect) worked in tandem (perfectly) to look superior.
And he was staring at Kal expectantly only…
Only he'd called him "Clark." The sound of it had chipped away years, had made him want to plunge down under his skin and rip that quiet, generous man upwards, back to the surface where everybody could see that he was. That he'd never gone away, only gotten a little lost.
Oh, what happiness now, for Kal-El!
He was Superman still, yes, which meant that somewhere he was still Clark Kent, the man Lois had loved. The man Batman had confided in.
Still.
Kal's eyes strayed to the chamber. He took a deep breath and settled into the idea of never using it again. Wrapped it around himself like a blanket, like coming back to a warm place you'd forgotten you always needed.
And it didn't take any effort, as much or as little as it had taken Bruce Wayne to destroy several lifetimes of work. Easy, then, to open his mouth and speak with honesty.
And so it was Clark Kent who said, "Welcome home, Bruce," and meant it.
The End
- > Oh, I'm all a-flutter again, over the beauty of this love-poem between the men. And, Mr. Wayne is invoked so thoroughly by how the computer-simulated Bruce is not like the original, echoed by how all the various "Number"s missed the mark.
What an imaginative creation of unique distress for our hero, and what an exhilarating resolution!
- R