Fic: Till Sunbeams Find You
Title: Till Sunbeams Find You
Characters/Pairings: Clark/Bruce
Rating: PG-13
Continuity: DCAU
Summary: Reporter Clark Kent is plagued by a dream that's he's Superman--but that's impossible.
Word count: 4500
Clark jerked awake, his heart pounding a vicious trip hammer against his ribs, his strangled cry still echoing in his ears. He stared wildly around him; his room in Smallville. How did he get here? The last thing he knew he'd been fighting Lex Luthor, who had been in Gotham for some reason. He and Batman had tracked him down to a warehouse, and Superman had been closing in on Lex--when everything had gone black.
And now here he was in Smallville. Confused, his heart still racing, Clark got out of bed. He must have come here after confronting Luthor? He reached for his glasses on the bedstand, but his hand brushed over empty space. He pulled on a t-shirt and jeans and went downstairs, following the scent of coffee.
In the kitchen Martha Kent was making pancakes. She smiled as Clark entered. "Good morning, sunshine."
Clark smiled back and gestured vaguely at his face, coming to stand by the oven. "I can't find my glasses. Have you seen them?"
Martha laughed. "Glasses?"
"I must have left them with my other clothes or something when I came here."
Martha shook her head, looking slightly confused. "You don't need glasses, Clark."
Clark laughed. "Well, no, of course not. But it's better to wear them while I'm in civilian clothes."
A sharp line appeared between Martha's eyebrows. "What are you talking about?"
Clark looked more closely at his mother. "Ma, are you okay?"
"Of course I'm okay, it's you I'm worried about." She flipped over some pancakes and put them on the table with a jug of syrup. "You've been working too hard lately, Clark. I'm glad you decided to come home for the weekend and take a break--they work you too hard at that newspaper."
"The newspaper is the least of my stresses, Ma." When she still looked blank, he made a whooshing motion with his hands. "You know, the flying part is a lot harder."
Martha turned off the heat under the griddle and put a hand on Clark's forehead. "Honey, are you all right? You're not talking sense. You told me you were having some weird dreams..."
Clark shrugged off his mother's hand with a nervous laugh. "C'mon, Ma." He was worried now. Had someone tampered with his mother's memory? Hoping to jog her mind without alarming her too much, he lifted his feet slightly off the--
Lifted his feet--
Lifted--
He couldn't fly.
He stared down at the floor in disbelief, panic clutching his throat. Now that he was paying attention, he realized he couldn't hear anything outside the kitchen. He focused his eyes--and nothing happened. "Ma, what happened? What's going on? Why are my powers gone? Is it gold Kryptonite? Magic?"
Martha had gone from looking confused to deeply alarmed. "Clark, what in heaven's name are you talking about?"
"You know, the powers! The flying? The heat vision?"
"You mean...like Superman?"
Clark stared. "Yeah. Pretty much...exactly like Superman, yes."
Martha reached out and touched his arm with a hand that was trembling slightly. "Clark, dear...please sit down. You're...you're not well." When Clark just stared wildly at her, she quavered, "You're not Superman. You're just Clark. My son."
Clark backed away slowly, then whirled and ran out to the barn.
The barn was filled with farm machinery, tools, old magazines, dirt. Nothing else. It was just an ordinary barn.
He walked back to the house, feeling confusion and fear and a strange, gnawing doubt. Martha had turned the television on in his absence, and as he re-entered the kitchen, the familiar face of Lois Lane filled the screen. "--this is Lois Lane, live from Metropolis, where Superman has just stopped the Toyman once again." The camera swiveled as Lane said, "Superman, once again the city owes you a debt we can never repay."
Superman's smiling face filled the screen above his bright insignia. He was bold and strong and handsome.
Beyond his dark hair and blue eyes, he looked almost nothing like Clark Kent.
The interview was short. Superman lifted into the sky, his red cape flowing behind him.
Clark watched him go.
His knees gave way and he went down hard on the kitchen floor; Martha jumped to cradle his head, her voice worried. "Clark, Clark. You said you'd been having strange dreams. You've been working so hard. Are you sure you're okay?"
"It was so real. I was Superman, I was fighting Lex Luthor, with Batman at my side. It was...so real." But now, in the bright light of day, with Superman in the skies of Metropolis, he wasn't so sure. It seemed so distant, so fantastical, the feel of the wind in his hair...
Martha was rocking him gently. "It's natural, Clark. It's completely natural to wish you had the power to change things in a big way, a dramatic way. But Clark..." She pulled back to cup his face in her hands, gazing at him tenderly, "...You do make a difference, dear. You make a difference every day in your writing and your work. You just don't see it as clearly as someone strong and powerful like Superman gets to see it." She laughed softly. "And I'm not the only person who sees it, you know. I knew that boyfriend of yours was a keeper when you told me that he said you were the real hero of Metropolis."
"Boy--boyfriend?"
"Oh, I know you hate when I use that term. 'Partner,' then. Anyway, Bruce was right--you're a hero to all of us, and that's all that matters."
The air in the kitchen was suddenly close, pressing in on Clark, burning his lungs with possibilities. "Ma. I know this is going to sound really strange, but please. Please humor me. Could you tell me--tell me how Bruce and I met?"
He staggered to his feet as his mother peered at him, trying to mask her concern a little. "Well, it was about three years ago. You told me that you were at a charity dinner, and you ran into him--literally, you didn't see him." She smiled a little. "Maybe you do need glasses, you can be such a klutz sometimes. Anyway, you knocked him over, spilled champagne all over him. You apologized and the two of you got to talking." She eased Clark into one of the kitchen chairs, her eyes far away, marshalling her memories. "You said that it was just a sort of immediate attraction. 'I've never felt more comfortable with anyone in my life,' you said." Martha batted him playfully. "Such a thing to say to your mother, I'm so insulted."
Clark laughed a little weakly. Why couldn't he remember that? He knew Bruce Wayne, of course he did, and he remembered long conversations, the easy, free flow of them--why couldn't he remember that one? They must have talked about their jobs, and Smallville, and Gotham society--Bruce was never very reverent about the upper crust. He could imagine how Bruce must have laughed, how he must have leaned close in sudden confidence, like he trusted Clark without understanding why. Yes. Clark could see that. It made sense.
"...until midnight, and at midnight, you said he just abruptly leaned in and kissed you." Martha laughed a little. "How you blushed when you told me that! He kissed you and then he pretty much turned and ran away, like Cinderella at the ball." Martha patted his hand gently. "You were heartbroken, of course. And then a week later, you got a letter from him, saying how you were all he could think of, how he felt like such a fool but he wanted to be with you more than anything in the world. And you've been together ever since!" She stood up went toward the living room. "I still have the pictures People published when you went public. Oh, you two looked so good in them."
Clark put his head in his hands as his mother disappeared into the other room. He couldn't remember that first kiss. He could see the shape of Bruce's mouth in his mind's eye, could imagine the rush of desire that he would feel when Bruce licked his lips slightly, talking to him. Imagining it, seeing that curved and handsome mouth in his mind's eye, he felt that giddy rush of need again. Yes, that's how it must have felt. And then Bruce must have leaned forward and kissed him--it would have been a searching, aggressive kiss, sure of itself, tasting of champagne and sex. Of course it had.
"I...I think so," he said. He would have pulled Bruce close to him, locked onto him as if they had been lovers for years, as if Clark had been dreaming of the moment all his life, rehearsing it in his mind. Yes. Surely it had been like that.
Martha returned to the kitchen with a large photo album. Flipping it open, she pointed to a glossy picture on thin magazine paper: Clark and Bruce Wayne in matching tuxedos, laughing, their arms around each other. The soft-focus lighting made them look like models. Martha flipped the page while he was still staring. "I prefer the regular pictures, though."
Clark and Bruce sitting under a Christmas tree, Bruce shaking a present with a dubious frown on his handsome face. Bruce in a flannel shirt that was clearly Clark's, blinking muzzily over a cup of coffee in the Kent kitchen. A frozen moment with a snowball about to hit a laughing Clark in the face, Bruce smirking as he threw.
Clark flipped through the pictures in a daze, looking at the laughing faces of his parents, Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce. Bruce with Thomas and Martha Wayne at some function. Bruce's beautiful face, smiling at him, familiar and dear. Of course. Of course he loved Bruce Wayne. He had since the moment he had first seen him.
Clark held on to that truth and tried not to think about why something so fundamental felt like a revelation.
: : :
The train ride back to Metropolis passed in a dreamlike blur. Clark went through the motions, his mind fixed elsewhere. As the train moved east, he took out his wallet and extracted from it the letter he had found there. Folded in thirds, the creamy white paper had the Wayne crest embossed on it.
Clark held it lightly. He didn't need to open it and read it. Surely he knew it by heart. It would be a passionate declaration, the kind that Bruce made so rarely but meant with all his heart when he did. It would be eloquent and longing and wry all at once.
Clark held the paper close to his face, catching the faintest whiff of spicy cologne even after all this time. A strange elation was burning in him. For some reason--stress, worry, whatever--he wasn't very clear on the details, but he felt like a great weight had been lifted from his mind. He wasn't Superman. He wasn't the lonely, last survivor of a shattered planet, doomed to a life of endless responsibility. He was Clark Kent. He had parents that loved him, a job that fulfilled him.
He had Bruce Wayne.
It was natural, even romantic, to cast himself and Bruce as Batman and Superman in his dreams, to imagine themselves fighting opponents back-to-back, true comrades battling evil together. But they weren't Batman and Superman. They were just Bruce and Clark, two humans struggling to get by.
And that was enough.
It was more than enough. It was wonderful.
He daydreamed about Bruce all the way back to Metropolis, imagining...remembering...the taste of his skin, the sound of his laugh when they were in bed together. The way those slate-blue eyes lit up when he spotted Clark. How those strong hands would feel--how they had felt--on his body. By the time the train pulled into the station, he was pretty sure he had the details fixed in his mind. He was also achingly aroused and eager to see Bruce--his lover, his lover--again.
He made it back to the Planet in a daze of lust and happiness. He was free, free from the crushing weight of the world that he had dreamed of, free to love and to relax and enjoy his life. His perfect life. As he strode toward the Planet, he saw Superman zip overhead, a blur of blue and red on his way to save another life. Clark waved cheekily at the already-vanished form and headed in to work.
"Smallville!" Lois Lane hailed him as he stepped out of the elevator. "Feeling better? Have a good mini-vacation?"
Clark took off his fedora and jacket, hanging them on the coat rack. "I feel great, Lois," he said. He took a huge breath, grinning. "Life is good."
She chucked him under the chin. "Glad to hear it. You've been gloomy lately."
Clark sat down at his desk and Lois perched nearby. "I had the strangest dream that Bruce was Batman. Why would I dream that?"
Lois threw back her head and laughed. "Well, the Dark Knight is a sexy bastard. But you've always seemed pretty satisfied with Bruce." As Clark shuffled his feet, she went on, "Maybe you're feeling some...fear of commitment? So you've cast him as a scary figure in your dreams?"
As Clark pondered that theory, the elevator doors opened and Bruce Wayne stepped into the Planet. His eyes scanned the office until the came to rest on Clark. When they did, he smiled--a glorious smile, filled with relief and happiness and something close to joy, and Clark knew Lois's theory was ridiculous.
He could never be afraid of commitment to Bruce.
His lover hastened to his side as Lois stepped away, smirking; Clark put out his hands and Bruce caught them up. "Bruce! What are you doing down here in Metropolis?"
Bruce was staring at him as if astonished at the sight of him. "I just...I just wanted to come down and see you today. Right away. I needed to see you."
The office noises were buzzing around them, but it all seemed a thousand miles away, like the only real people in the whole room were the two of them, their hands locked together, unable to look away from each other. Clark looked at Bruce's mouth and felt giddy with lust. "I needed to see you too. I'm so glad you're here. So glad," he repeated stupidly, numb with desire.
Bruce smiled again, bright and carefree. "Let me take you out to dinner. I feel like celebrating."
"The paperwork--"
"It can wait. I can't."
They almost ran for the elevator together, dodging their responsibilities, laughing and free.
They walked through the streets of Metropolis hand in hand. Clark's consciousness seemed oddly narrowed, focused on that touch of flesh on flesh, warm and exquisite and tormentingly good. They'd go to Clark's apartment after dinner and and they would finally--no, they would have sex like they had hundreds of times before. Hundreds of times. It would be perfect, like this day. Like this world.
They were seated at the Stardust, the menus placed before them. Louis Armstrong was playing softly in the background, one of Clark's favorite songs:
Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you
Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you
But in your dreams whatever they be
Dream a little dream of me...
Bruce wouldn't let go of his hands, gazing across the table at him like he was drunk with happiness. "I still can't believe it, how lucky I am," he murmured. "I'm so damn lucky."
Clark laughed and raised Bruce's hands to his lips; Bruce closed his eyes and inhaled sharply at the touch, as if he had never felt Clark's mouth on him, like it was all new. "My dearest Bruce," Clark said easily, lightly. "I'm the lucky one."
Reluctantly releasing Bruce's hands, he opened his menu and looked at it.
There was a long pause while he stared at the menu. Then he re-folded it carefully and stood. "Restroom. Be right back," he muttered. Face hidden behind his own menu, Bruce grunted.
His knees were weak and wobbling by the time he reached the bathroom. Clark looked at the instructions on the hand dryer, staring at them.
Like the menu, they were gibberish. Symbols without meaning. Without meaning.
He whirled and gripped the sink, glaring at the little hand-lettered sign on the mirror. Nonsense symbols, in no language. Just like the menu.
Because it wasn't real.
Because it was a dream.
He hadn't noticed before. He hadn't wanted to notice.
He staggered into one of the stalls, letting the door bang behind him, fumbling for his wallet. He drew out the love letter with the Wayne seal on it, catching that hint of cologne again. He closed his eyes, holding it.
Then he pulled it open.
Scrawls in black ink. Loops and lines, unreadable. Meaningless.
Clark stared at it, his eyes burning. The random whorls of ink blurred, then smudged as a drop of water fell on them. Clark bunched up the paper in one fist and bowed his head. He was an adult, and a hero, and heroes shouldn't cry when they found out love and happiness were illusions.
But it was only a dream, so it didn't matter.
It didn't matter.
: : :
Much later, he walked back toward the table where Bruce's phantasm was waiting, looking pale and worried. Clark knew he should probably just keep walking, walk past him and the false hope he gave. And yet, oddly, he owed it to even the fantasy of Bruce to be honest, even if this dream-image couldn't possibly understand him.
So he sat down and stared at him, so beautiful, so unreachable. Impossibly, Louis Armstrong was still singing, his voice hoarse as though with tears:
Stars fading but I linger on, dear
Still craving your kiss...
Clark opened his mouth to explain to Bruce that he wasn't real, none of this was real, and that--
"Clark." Bruce's voice was rough and tormented. "I doubt you can understand this, I know you'll think I'm crazy, but I couldn't--I couldn't bear to just leave without saying goodbye." He reached out and took Clark's hands in his, very gently. "The menu. None of this is real. I have to get out of this world and back to the real one. Someone's trapped me here, given me..." His eyes lingered on Clark, "...given me everything I've ever wanted. I wish it were real. But oh, Clark. My--my Clark." His voice broke slightly. "I can't stay here in this dream with you. No matter how perfect it is. No matter how much I love you."
He paused, taking a deep breath, and Clark found his voice somehow. "Bruce. We were fighting Luthor together. He's trapped us here together." Bruce's eyes went sharp and wary. "We're in my idea of a perfect world," Clark went on. "This isn't your dream. You're in my dream."
"No," said Bruce flatly, still staring at Clark. "This is my dream."
Clark suddenly realized he was holding hands with Bruce Wayne--with Batman--as if they were lovers. But he couldn't seem to let go, couldn't seem to process the layers of meaning in Bruce's words. The world wavered around them, then solidified again. A shape swooped by the window, and the restaurant erupted in babbling gossip: It was him it really was--here in Metropolis what--the Dark Knight--
Bruce stood up abruptly, dragging Clark upward with him. "Him," he snarled. "I'll never be free of him." He started for the door, still clasping Clark's hand as if he never intended to let it go. "He'll never let me rest, never let me be free--"
As they burst onto the street, Bruce staring wildly after the black shape, there was a burst of wind and a red and blue blur went by. Clark stared after Superman, feeling the weight of the world sinking back onto his shoulders, crushing him. Fury and bleak despair seared his veins. "We have to--have to--"
"--Yes. Somewhere high. Somewhere we can make them come--"
"--to us." The street was gone and they were on top of the Daily Planet, hand in hand. The golden globe loomed above them, the weight of the world.
Bruce lurched to the edge of the building; somehow there were no fences, no guard rails. The drop to the street was sheer. "You bastard," Bruce cried, his voice breaking, "Give me my life back!" His voice was thick and he dragged a sleeve across his eyes roughly. "I won't hide in a dream, no matter how much--how much--"
He sagged, going to his knees, and Clark instinctively put his arms around him, holding him up. Clark glared up into the sky. "Come and face us!" The wind whipped his words back into his face and made his eyes water. "Cowards!"
They came.
From the sunlight, the alien in his glory. From the shadows, the demon in his power. They came and they gazed remorselessly at the two men huddled on the roof, armed with nothing but their own wills.
"It's not real," muttered Bruce into the sudden stillness, the charged silence. "It's all a lie. None of it is real."
"I'm real," whispered Clark. He tightened his grip around Bruce. "It's not all a lie."
Bruce stared at him.
"Mr. Wayne. Mr. Kent." Superman's voice was kindly and unrelenting. "I'm afraid the two of you are...confused."
"You should go home." A voice like steel on stone, only slightly touched with humanity, from the shadows.
"You should go home and get some rest. Relax a little. Enjoy your time together." The alien was floating closer. Bruce stood up suddenly, wrenching Clark along with him, scrambling away from the slowly approaching heroes. The great golden sphere was between the two figures, and Clark and Bruce crawled on top of it.
"Please, Mr. Wayne," Superman said gently, his voice sending shudders of irrational fear down Clark's spine, "Don't do anything rash. I'd hate to see you get hurt."
The city sprawled out beneath them, pitilessly far away. Superman's eyes were banked coals, vaguely ominous. Batman was a shadow in a cloak, menace glinting from the darkness.
"Need to wake up," Bruce panted. "We need to wake up. You understand?" His grip tightened on Clark's hand.
Clark nodded.
Then they were falling backwards, the city spiraling around them as they threw themselves off the globe.
Bruce's hand was warm in his and Clark held on all the way down, waiting for the impact.
: : :
He heard cursing: a familiar bass voice and a less-familiar, weedy tenor. Luthor. And Jervis Tetch, of course. The Mad Hatter.
"Stabilize it, you fool!"
"I can't, they--"
Superman wrenched himself forward and felt cables tearing, heard wires snapping. The Mad Hatter's voice rose upward into a squeal of alarm as Superman shattered the machine he was bound in and ripped off the helmet covering his eyes.
Superman looked over to see Tetch already collared by Batman, who was shaking him viciously. Luthor was at the door when Superman grabbed him by the shoulders.
"Well," said Luthor wryly, "It seemed worth a...shot..." His smile fell away at whatever he saw in Superman's eyes.
"We programmed it to give you anything you wanted!" the Mad Hatter was shrieking in Batman's grip. "Why would you leave a world where you had everything you ever wanted? You could be happy!"
"Happy?" Batman's voice was close to a roar. Tetch's shoulders hit the wall again with a hollow thump. "How dare you--how dare you--!"
Lex's eyes were on Batman. "You both walked away from your perfect worlds," he said to Superman, almost conversationally. "But then, I shudder to think what your limited mind would have built as a 'perfect world.' Probably something sterile and predictable, the world goosestepping smartly for its Kryptonian master. Did you give up the alluring sensation of your boot on my neck to come back here? How self-sacrificing of you."
The warmth of Bruce's hand in his. The smile on Bruce's face. "It doesn't matter what I dreamed. It can't be perfect if it's not real," Superman said, hearing the bleakness in his voice, unable to will it away. "And nothing can make a dream real." Before anyone in the room could respond, he added, "Back to Stryker's Island for you, Luthor."
Lex shrugged as if the tone of Superman's voice was all the reward he needed.
: : :
Superman was sitting on the globe on top of the Daily Planet. He supposed it was cliche and predictable, but he wasn't sure where else to go right now. He'd been sitting there for three hours. Three hours and twenty-four minutes, to be precise. The lights of Metropolis were coming on in the dusk, staining the skyline with light.
Finally he stood up and prepared to take off. As he did, there was a fluttering motion and Batman landed on the globe next to him, heavy boots thudding.
"I don't suppose you were heading to Gotham," Batman noted.
"I wasn't planning on it."
"Didn't think so." There was a long silence in which Superman sat back down slowly and Batman hunkered down next to him. "That's why I came here."
The sounds of the city were very far away.
"I didn't believe it was real at first. I fought it. But when I went to Leslie, she convinced me." Bruce said slowly, "And...it was like all the lights in the world coming on at once. I was free. Free to live my life, free of responsibility, free to be happy."
Superman didn't look over at the dark shape on the globe next to him.
"Nothing can ever make that part of the dream real, Kal. We've made our choices and created our lives. But..." He hesitated. "But some things...could be real. Some things are real." Batman fumbled with his utility belt, his movements oddly awkward. A rustling sound. Batman held out a folded piece of paper. Clark took it and opened it. Closed it again. Took a deep breath and opened it one more time.
The words were still there, written on the paper in a bold and familiar hand: This is real.
He looked from the paper to Bruce's face. The cowl hid his eyes, but nothing could quite obscure the hope on his face, in his stance. Clark could read that too. "This is real," Bruce whispered. "If you want it to be." He touched Clark's mouth lightly with fingers that were shaking very slightly. "You do," he said, wonder tinging his voice. "You do."
As his arms went around Clark and their lips met, the scrap of paper went fluttering from the roof, across the city, unheeded.
This is real.
-----------
Note: Based on the Batman: the Animated Series episode "Perchance to Dream," slashed up with Clark added.
Characters/Pairings: Clark/Bruce
Rating: PG-13
Continuity: DCAU
Summary: Reporter Clark Kent is plagued by a dream that's he's Superman--but that's impossible.
Word count: 4500
Clark jerked awake, his heart pounding a vicious trip hammer against his ribs, his strangled cry still echoing in his ears. He stared wildly around him; his room in Smallville. How did he get here? The last thing he knew he'd been fighting Lex Luthor, who had been in Gotham for some reason. He and Batman had tracked him down to a warehouse, and Superman had been closing in on Lex--when everything had gone black.
And now here he was in Smallville. Confused, his heart still racing, Clark got out of bed. He must have come here after confronting Luthor? He reached for his glasses on the bedstand, but his hand brushed over empty space. He pulled on a t-shirt and jeans and went downstairs, following the scent of coffee.
In the kitchen Martha Kent was making pancakes. She smiled as Clark entered. "Good morning, sunshine."
Clark smiled back and gestured vaguely at his face, coming to stand by the oven. "I can't find my glasses. Have you seen them?"
Martha laughed. "Glasses?"
"I must have left them with my other clothes or something when I came here."
Martha shook her head, looking slightly confused. "You don't need glasses, Clark."
Clark laughed. "Well, no, of course not. But it's better to wear them while I'm in civilian clothes."
A sharp line appeared between Martha's eyebrows. "What are you talking about?"
Clark looked more closely at his mother. "Ma, are you okay?"
"Of course I'm okay, it's you I'm worried about." She flipped over some pancakes and put them on the table with a jug of syrup. "You've been working too hard lately, Clark. I'm glad you decided to come home for the weekend and take a break--they work you too hard at that newspaper."
"The newspaper is the least of my stresses, Ma." When she still looked blank, he made a whooshing motion with his hands. "You know, the flying part is a lot harder."
Martha turned off the heat under the griddle and put a hand on Clark's forehead. "Honey, are you all right? You're not talking sense. You told me you were having some weird dreams..."
Clark shrugged off his mother's hand with a nervous laugh. "C'mon, Ma." He was worried now. Had someone tampered with his mother's memory? Hoping to jog her mind without alarming her too much, he lifted his feet slightly off the--
Lifted his feet--
Lifted--
He couldn't fly.
He stared down at the floor in disbelief, panic clutching his throat. Now that he was paying attention, he realized he couldn't hear anything outside the kitchen. He focused his eyes--and nothing happened. "Ma, what happened? What's going on? Why are my powers gone? Is it gold Kryptonite? Magic?"
Martha had gone from looking confused to deeply alarmed. "Clark, what in heaven's name are you talking about?"
"You know, the powers! The flying? The heat vision?"
"You mean...like Superman?"
Clark stared. "Yeah. Pretty much...exactly like Superman, yes."
Martha reached out and touched his arm with a hand that was trembling slightly. "Clark, dear...please sit down. You're...you're not well." When Clark just stared wildly at her, she quavered, "You're not Superman. You're just Clark. My son."
Clark backed away slowly, then whirled and ran out to the barn.
The barn was filled with farm machinery, tools, old magazines, dirt. Nothing else. It was just an ordinary barn.
He walked back to the house, feeling confusion and fear and a strange, gnawing doubt. Martha had turned the television on in his absence, and as he re-entered the kitchen, the familiar face of Lois Lane filled the screen. "--this is Lois Lane, live from Metropolis, where Superman has just stopped the Toyman once again." The camera swiveled as Lane said, "Superman, once again the city owes you a debt we can never repay."
Superman's smiling face filled the screen above his bright insignia. He was bold and strong and handsome.
Beyond his dark hair and blue eyes, he looked almost nothing like Clark Kent.
The interview was short. Superman lifted into the sky, his red cape flowing behind him.
Clark watched him go.
His knees gave way and he went down hard on the kitchen floor; Martha jumped to cradle his head, her voice worried. "Clark, Clark. You said you'd been having strange dreams. You've been working so hard. Are you sure you're okay?"
"It was so real. I was Superman, I was fighting Lex Luthor, with Batman at my side. It was...so real." But now, in the bright light of day, with Superman in the skies of Metropolis, he wasn't so sure. It seemed so distant, so fantastical, the feel of the wind in his hair...
Martha was rocking him gently. "It's natural, Clark. It's completely natural to wish you had the power to change things in a big way, a dramatic way. But Clark..." She pulled back to cup his face in her hands, gazing at him tenderly, "...You do make a difference, dear. You make a difference every day in your writing and your work. You just don't see it as clearly as someone strong and powerful like Superman gets to see it." She laughed softly. "And I'm not the only person who sees it, you know. I knew that boyfriend of yours was a keeper when you told me that he said you were the real hero of Metropolis."
"Boy--boyfriend?"
"Oh, I know you hate when I use that term. 'Partner,' then. Anyway, Bruce was right--you're a hero to all of us, and that's all that matters."
The air in the kitchen was suddenly close, pressing in on Clark, burning his lungs with possibilities. "Ma. I know this is going to sound really strange, but please. Please humor me. Could you tell me--tell me how Bruce and I met?"
He staggered to his feet as his mother peered at him, trying to mask her concern a little. "Well, it was about three years ago. You told me that you were at a charity dinner, and you ran into him--literally, you didn't see him." She smiled a little. "Maybe you do need glasses, you can be such a klutz sometimes. Anyway, you knocked him over, spilled champagne all over him. You apologized and the two of you got to talking." She eased Clark into one of the kitchen chairs, her eyes far away, marshalling her memories. "You said that it was just a sort of immediate attraction. 'I've never felt more comfortable with anyone in my life,' you said." Martha batted him playfully. "Such a thing to say to your mother, I'm so insulted."
Clark laughed a little weakly. Why couldn't he remember that? He knew Bruce Wayne, of course he did, and he remembered long conversations, the easy, free flow of them--why couldn't he remember that one? They must have talked about their jobs, and Smallville, and Gotham society--Bruce was never very reverent about the upper crust. He could imagine how Bruce must have laughed, how he must have leaned close in sudden confidence, like he trusted Clark without understanding why. Yes. Clark could see that. It made sense.
"...until midnight, and at midnight, you said he just abruptly leaned in and kissed you." Martha laughed a little. "How you blushed when you told me that! He kissed you and then he pretty much turned and ran away, like Cinderella at the ball." Martha patted his hand gently. "You were heartbroken, of course. And then a week later, you got a letter from him, saying how you were all he could think of, how he felt like such a fool but he wanted to be with you more than anything in the world. And you've been together ever since!" She stood up went toward the living room. "I still have the pictures People published when you went public. Oh, you two looked so good in them."
Clark put his head in his hands as his mother disappeared into the other room. He couldn't remember that first kiss. He could see the shape of Bruce's mouth in his mind's eye, could imagine the rush of desire that he would feel when Bruce licked his lips slightly, talking to him. Imagining it, seeing that curved and handsome mouth in his mind's eye, he felt that giddy rush of need again. Yes, that's how it must have felt. And then Bruce must have leaned forward and kissed him--it would have been a searching, aggressive kiss, sure of itself, tasting of champagne and sex. Of course it had.
"I...I think so," he said. He would have pulled Bruce close to him, locked onto him as if they had been lovers for years, as if Clark had been dreaming of the moment all his life, rehearsing it in his mind. Yes. Surely it had been like that.
Martha returned to the kitchen with a large photo album. Flipping it open, she pointed to a glossy picture on thin magazine paper: Clark and Bruce Wayne in matching tuxedos, laughing, their arms around each other. The soft-focus lighting made them look like models. Martha flipped the page while he was still staring. "I prefer the regular pictures, though."
Clark and Bruce sitting under a Christmas tree, Bruce shaking a present with a dubious frown on his handsome face. Bruce in a flannel shirt that was clearly Clark's, blinking muzzily over a cup of coffee in the Kent kitchen. A frozen moment with a snowball about to hit a laughing Clark in the face, Bruce smirking as he threw.
Clark flipped through the pictures in a daze, looking at the laughing faces of his parents, Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce. Bruce with Thomas and Martha Wayne at some function. Bruce's beautiful face, smiling at him, familiar and dear. Of course. Of course he loved Bruce Wayne. He had since the moment he had first seen him.
Clark held on to that truth and tried not to think about why something so fundamental felt like a revelation.
: : :
The train ride back to Metropolis passed in a dreamlike blur. Clark went through the motions, his mind fixed elsewhere. As the train moved east, he took out his wallet and extracted from it the letter he had found there. Folded in thirds, the creamy white paper had the Wayne crest embossed on it.
Clark held it lightly. He didn't need to open it and read it. Surely he knew it by heart. It would be a passionate declaration, the kind that Bruce made so rarely but meant with all his heart when he did. It would be eloquent and longing and wry all at once.
Clark held the paper close to his face, catching the faintest whiff of spicy cologne even after all this time. A strange elation was burning in him. For some reason--stress, worry, whatever--he wasn't very clear on the details, but he felt like a great weight had been lifted from his mind. He wasn't Superman. He wasn't the lonely, last survivor of a shattered planet, doomed to a life of endless responsibility. He was Clark Kent. He had parents that loved him, a job that fulfilled him.
He had Bruce Wayne.
It was natural, even romantic, to cast himself and Bruce as Batman and Superman in his dreams, to imagine themselves fighting opponents back-to-back, true comrades battling evil together. But they weren't Batman and Superman. They were just Bruce and Clark, two humans struggling to get by.
And that was enough.
It was more than enough. It was wonderful.
He daydreamed about Bruce all the way back to Metropolis, imagining...remembering...the taste of his skin, the sound of his laugh when they were in bed together. The way those slate-blue eyes lit up when he spotted Clark. How those strong hands would feel--how they had felt--on his body. By the time the train pulled into the station, he was pretty sure he had the details fixed in his mind. He was also achingly aroused and eager to see Bruce--his lover, his lover--again.
He made it back to the Planet in a daze of lust and happiness. He was free, free from the crushing weight of the world that he had dreamed of, free to love and to relax and enjoy his life. His perfect life. As he strode toward the Planet, he saw Superman zip overhead, a blur of blue and red on his way to save another life. Clark waved cheekily at the already-vanished form and headed in to work.
"Smallville!" Lois Lane hailed him as he stepped out of the elevator. "Feeling better? Have a good mini-vacation?"
Clark took off his fedora and jacket, hanging them on the coat rack. "I feel great, Lois," he said. He took a huge breath, grinning. "Life is good."
She chucked him under the chin. "Glad to hear it. You've been gloomy lately."
Clark sat down at his desk and Lois perched nearby. "I had the strangest dream that Bruce was Batman. Why would I dream that?"
Lois threw back her head and laughed. "Well, the Dark Knight is a sexy bastard. But you've always seemed pretty satisfied with Bruce." As Clark shuffled his feet, she went on, "Maybe you're feeling some...fear of commitment? So you've cast him as a scary figure in your dreams?"
As Clark pondered that theory, the elevator doors opened and Bruce Wayne stepped into the Planet. His eyes scanned the office until the came to rest on Clark. When they did, he smiled--a glorious smile, filled with relief and happiness and something close to joy, and Clark knew Lois's theory was ridiculous.
He could never be afraid of commitment to Bruce.
His lover hastened to his side as Lois stepped away, smirking; Clark put out his hands and Bruce caught them up. "Bruce! What are you doing down here in Metropolis?"
Bruce was staring at him as if astonished at the sight of him. "I just...I just wanted to come down and see you today. Right away. I needed to see you."
The office noises were buzzing around them, but it all seemed a thousand miles away, like the only real people in the whole room were the two of them, their hands locked together, unable to look away from each other. Clark looked at Bruce's mouth and felt giddy with lust. "I needed to see you too. I'm so glad you're here. So glad," he repeated stupidly, numb with desire.
Bruce smiled again, bright and carefree. "Let me take you out to dinner. I feel like celebrating."
"The paperwork--"
"It can wait. I can't."
They almost ran for the elevator together, dodging their responsibilities, laughing and free.
They walked through the streets of Metropolis hand in hand. Clark's consciousness seemed oddly narrowed, focused on that touch of flesh on flesh, warm and exquisite and tormentingly good. They'd go to Clark's apartment after dinner and and they would finally--no, they would have sex like they had hundreds of times before. Hundreds of times. It would be perfect, like this day. Like this world.
They were seated at the Stardust, the menus placed before them. Louis Armstrong was playing softly in the background, one of Clark's favorite songs:
Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you
Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you
But in your dreams whatever they be
Dream a little dream of me...
Bruce wouldn't let go of his hands, gazing across the table at him like he was drunk with happiness. "I still can't believe it, how lucky I am," he murmured. "I'm so damn lucky."
Clark laughed and raised Bruce's hands to his lips; Bruce closed his eyes and inhaled sharply at the touch, as if he had never felt Clark's mouth on him, like it was all new. "My dearest Bruce," Clark said easily, lightly. "I'm the lucky one."
Reluctantly releasing Bruce's hands, he opened his menu and looked at it.
There was a long pause while he stared at the menu. Then he re-folded it carefully and stood. "Restroom. Be right back," he muttered. Face hidden behind his own menu, Bruce grunted.
His knees were weak and wobbling by the time he reached the bathroom. Clark looked at the instructions on the hand dryer, staring at them.
Like the menu, they were gibberish. Symbols without meaning. Without meaning.
He whirled and gripped the sink, glaring at the little hand-lettered sign on the mirror. Nonsense symbols, in no language. Just like the menu.
Because it wasn't real.
Because it was a dream.
He hadn't noticed before. He hadn't wanted to notice.
He staggered into one of the stalls, letting the door bang behind him, fumbling for his wallet. He drew out the love letter with the Wayne seal on it, catching that hint of cologne again. He closed his eyes, holding it.
Then he pulled it open.
Scrawls in black ink. Loops and lines, unreadable. Meaningless.
Clark stared at it, his eyes burning. The random whorls of ink blurred, then smudged as a drop of water fell on them. Clark bunched up the paper in one fist and bowed his head. He was an adult, and a hero, and heroes shouldn't cry when they found out love and happiness were illusions.
But it was only a dream, so it didn't matter.
It didn't matter.
: : :
Much later, he walked back toward the table where Bruce's phantasm was waiting, looking pale and worried. Clark knew he should probably just keep walking, walk past him and the false hope he gave. And yet, oddly, he owed it to even the fantasy of Bruce to be honest, even if this dream-image couldn't possibly understand him.
So he sat down and stared at him, so beautiful, so unreachable. Impossibly, Louis Armstrong was still singing, his voice hoarse as though with tears:
Stars fading but I linger on, dear
Still craving your kiss...
Clark opened his mouth to explain to Bruce that he wasn't real, none of this was real, and that--
"Clark." Bruce's voice was rough and tormented. "I doubt you can understand this, I know you'll think I'm crazy, but I couldn't--I couldn't bear to just leave without saying goodbye." He reached out and took Clark's hands in his, very gently. "The menu. None of this is real. I have to get out of this world and back to the real one. Someone's trapped me here, given me..." His eyes lingered on Clark, "...given me everything I've ever wanted. I wish it were real. But oh, Clark. My--my Clark." His voice broke slightly. "I can't stay here in this dream with you. No matter how perfect it is. No matter how much I love you."
He paused, taking a deep breath, and Clark found his voice somehow. "Bruce. We were fighting Luthor together. He's trapped us here together." Bruce's eyes went sharp and wary. "We're in my idea of a perfect world," Clark went on. "This isn't your dream. You're in my dream."
"No," said Bruce flatly, still staring at Clark. "This is my dream."
Clark suddenly realized he was holding hands with Bruce Wayne--with Batman--as if they were lovers. But he couldn't seem to let go, couldn't seem to process the layers of meaning in Bruce's words. The world wavered around them, then solidified again. A shape swooped by the window, and the restaurant erupted in babbling gossip: It was him it really was--here in Metropolis what--the Dark Knight--
Bruce stood up abruptly, dragging Clark upward with him. "Him," he snarled. "I'll never be free of him." He started for the door, still clasping Clark's hand as if he never intended to let it go. "He'll never let me rest, never let me be free--"
As they burst onto the street, Bruce staring wildly after the black shape, there was a burst of wind and a red and blue blur went by. Clark stared after Superman, feeling the weight of the world sinking back onto his shoulders, crushing him. Fury and bleak despair seared his veins. "We have to--have to--"
"--Yes. Somewhere high. Somewhere we can make them come--"
"--to us." The street was gone and they were on top of the Daily Planet, hand in hand. The golden globe loomed above them, the weight of the world.
Bruce lurched to the edge of the building; somehow there were no fences, no guard rails. The drop to the street was sheer. "You bastard," Bruce cried, his voice breaking, "Give me my life back!" His voice was thick and he dragged a sleeve across his eyes roughly. "I won't hide in a dream, no matter how much--how much--"
He sagged, going to his knees, and Clark instinctively put his arms around him, holding him up. Clark glared up into the sky. "Come and face us!" The wind whipped his words back into his face and made his eyes water. "Cowards!"
They came.
From the sunlight, the alien in his glory. From the shadows, the demon in his power. They came and they gazed remorselessly at the two men huddled on the roof, armed with nothing but their own wills.
"It's not real," muttered Bruce into the sudden stillness, the charged silence. "It's all a lie. None of it is real."
"I'm real," whispered Clark. He tightened his grip around Bruce. "It's not all a lie."
Bruce stared at him.
"Mr. Wayne. Mr. Kent." Superman's voice was kindly and unrelenting. "I'm afraid the two of you are...confused."
"You should go home." A voice like steel on stone, only slightly touched with humanity, from the shadows.
"You should go home and get some rest. Relax a little. Enjoy your time together." The alien was floating closer. Bruce stood up suddenly, wrenching Clark along with him, scrambling away from the slowly approaching heroes. The great golden sphere was between the two figures, and Clark and Bruce crawled on top of it.
"Please, Mr. Wayne," Superman said gently, his voice sending shudders of irrational fear down Clark's spine, "Don't do anything rash. I'd hate to see you get hurt."
The city sprawled out beneath them, pitilessly far away. Superman's eyes were banked coals, vaguely ominous. Batman was a shadow in a cloak, menace glinting from the darkness.
"Need to wake up," Bruce panted. "We need to wake up. You understand?" His grip tightened on Clark's hand.
Clark nodded.
Then they were falling backwards, the city spiraling around them as they threw themselves off the globe.
Bruce's hand was warm in his and Clark held on all the way down, waiting for the impact.
: : :
He heard cursing: a familiar bass voice and a less-familiar, weedy tenor. Luthor. And Jervis Tetch, of course. The Mad Hatter.
"Stabilize it, you fool!"
"I can't, they--"
Superman wrenched himself forward and felt cables tearing, heard wires snapping. The Mad Hatter's voice rose upward into a squeal of alarm as Superman shattered the machine he was bound in and ripped off the helmet covering his eyes.
Superman looked over to see Tetch already collared by Batman, who was shaking him viciously. Luthor was at the door when Superman grabbed him by the shoulders.
"Well," said Luthor wryly, "It seemed worth a...shot..." His smile fell away at whatever he saw in Superman's eyes.
"We programmed it to give you anything you wanted!" the Mad Hatter was shrieking in Batman's grip. "Why would you leave a world where you had everything you ever wanted? You could be happy!"
"Happy?" Batman's voice was close to a roar. Tetch's shoulders hit the wall again with a hollow thump. "How dare you--how dare you--!"
Lex's eyes were on Batman. "You both walked away from your perfect worlds," he said to Superman, almost conversationally. "But then, I shudder to think what your limited mind would have built as a 'perfect world.' Probably something sterile and predictable, the world goosestepping smartly for its Kryptonian master. Did you give up the alluring sensation of your boot on my neck to come back here? How self-sacrificing of you."
The warmth of Bruce's hand in his. The smile on Bruce's face. "It doesn't matter what I dreamed. It can't be perfect if it's not real," Superman said, hearing the bleakness in his voice, unable to will it away. "And nothing can make a dream real." Before anyone in the room could respond, he added, "Back to Stryker's Island for you, Luthor."
Lex shrugged as if the tone of Superman's voice was all the reward he needed.
: : :
Superman was sitting on the globe on top of the Daily Planet. He supposed it was cliche and predictable, but he wasn't sure where else to go right now. He'd been sitting there for three hours. Three hours and twenty-four minutes, to be precise. The lights of Metropolis were coming on in the dusk, staining the skyline with light.
Finally he stood up and prepared to take off. As he did, there was a fluttering motion and Batman landed on the globe next to him, heavy boots thudding.
"I don't suppose you were heading to Gotham," Batman noted.
"I wasn't planning on it."
"Didn't think so." There was a long silence in which Superman sat back down slowly and Batman hunkered down next to him. "That's why I came here."
The sounds of the city were very far away.
"I didn't believe it was real at first. I fought it. But when I went to Leslie, she convinced me." Bruce said slowly, "And...it was like all the lights in the world coming on at once. I was free. Free to live my life, free of responsibility, free to be happy."
Superman didn't look over at the dark shape on the globe next to him.
"Nothing can ever make that part of the dream real, Kal. We've made our choices and created our lives. But..." He hesitated. "But some things...could be real. Some things are real." Batman fumbled with his utility belt, his movements oddly awkward. A rustling sound. Batman held out a folded piece of paper. Clark took it and opened it. Closed it again. Took a deep breath and opened it one more time.
The words were still there, written on the paper in a bold and familiar hand: This is real.
He looked from the paper to Bruce's face. The cowl hid his eyes, but nothing could quite obscure the hope on his face, in his stance. Clark could read that too. "This is real," Bruce whispered. "If you want it to be." He touched Clark's mouth lightly with fingers that were shaking very slightly. "You do," he said, wonder tinging his voice. "You do."
As his arms went around Clark and their lips met, the scrap of paper went fluttering from the roof, across the city, unheeded.
This is real.
-----------
Note: Based on the Batman: the Animated Series episode "Perchance to Dream," slashed up with Clark added.