FIC: A Bottle of Sunlight
Title: A Bottle of Sunlight
Pairing/Characters: Clark/Bruce, Alfred Pennyworth, Dick Grayson, Lex Luthor, Leo Quintum, Solaris
Rating: PG
Warnings: None needed
Continuity: All-Star Superman, with massive spoilers for the whole story, plus my own pet theory about Leo Quintum put into fic.
Word Count: 8000Summary: A ruse by Lex Luthor exposes Superman to a fatal overdose of solar radiation. As Superman struggles to achieve closure in as many aspects of his life as possible, Batman must come to terms with his relationship with the Man of Steel.
Notes: For the World's Finest Gift Exchange, Prompt F46, a retelling of All Star Superman with a Clark/Bruce instead of Clark/Lois angle. The story should be coherent even if you haven't read the comic. Some bits of dialogue (most notably the riddle of the Sphynx, Superman's answer, and Luthor's last lines) are left as they were in the original.
Bruce Wayne yanked the heavy bedroom drapes shut, cutting out the brilliant morning sun.
“Aw,” said Dick Grayson, halting his series of somersaults on the bed long enough to pout.
“It’s bad enough this ridiculous Quintum requires we meet in person so early,” Bruce said, scowling at his reflection in the mirror as he tied his tie. “Having to put up with that much sunlight is just adding insult to injury.”
“I can’t believe you get to go to the moon,” Dick sighed. “I wish I could go too.”
Bruce ruffled his dark hair. “Maybe next time, champ.”
Alfred handed him his cufflinks. “Mr. Quintum is said to be something of a genius in a variety of scientific fields.”
Bruce frowned as he fastened the cufflinks. “Leo Quintum is an arrogant, foppish megalomaniac. He is also,” he admitted grudgingly, “One of the most brilliant people in the world.”
“It sounds like you have a great deal in common,” Alfred noted blandly as Bruce checked his tie in the mirror again.
“Hrh,” said Bruce.
: : :
“I’m afraid Mr. Quintum is not back yet, Mr. Wayne.” The woman who greeted him as he stepped off the teleport pad had green skin and hair, bright against the pure white of her jumpsuit. “I am Agatha. If you’ll come with me...”
Bruce followed her through glassy hallways flooded with stark lunar sunlight. “Where is he?”
“He’s on the Ray Bradbury, trying to capture solar matter,” Agatha explained.
“Sounds thrilling," chirped Bruce, trying to sound as if this were new information to him.
“Oh, it is.” They entered a room full of computer screens, most of which blazed with raw light. On one of them, Bruce could see four people in a spaceship cockpit.
Something was wrong.
“The shields are giving way,” one of the people in the cockpit announced. “Complete engine failure.”
Bruce glanced at Agatha, who was gazing serenely at the screen. “That...can’t be good, right?”
“There is little we can do from here, Mr. Wayne,” Agatha said. “Things will happen as they will.”
Leo Quintum was issuing orders to his crew. “Leo’s not ready to die just yet,” he said, his voice steady.
“Ah. But I am,” announced one of the figures in the cockpit, turning from the console to face the camera. “That’s right, I just remembered,” His voice dropped, becoming gravelly and inhuman. “I’m actually a genetically engineered bomb.” He raised his hands, bloating like a tick, and light started to spew from him. “I bring you death: courtesy of Lex Luthor!”
“Critical systems failure,” Agatha noted impassively. “Detonation in thirty seconds.”
“Not if I can help it,” said a familiar voice.
Half of the computer screens lit up with primary colors: red, yellow, blue sprang into focus to become the well-known S-shield. Superman’s calm face was reduplicated over and over, and Bruce felt his breath catch annoyingly at the sight. Curse the man, there was no reason to be so...disgustingly majestic.
“You cannot stop me!” bleated the swelling human bomb. “My purpose in life is to destroy! To destroy all of you in Luthor’s name!”
On the screens, Superman grappled the figure, shoving it into the airlock. “Blow the hatch, Quintum!” he yelled.
The camera followed Superman and the bulging figure as they fell toward the sun, into the incandescent light.
There was a silent blue-white flash and the screens all dimmed simultaneously, overloaded.
“Is he--” Bruce said, letting the sentence trail off. Of course he wasn’t. The man was Superman, and even a massive explosion in the sun’s corona wouldn’t daunt him. Right?
They waited, silence sifting over the room like static. The screens were blank.
Right?
Then with a crackle, a red cape filled the screen.
Bruce’s chest hurt and he realized he had been holding his breath. He let it out in a rush, exasperated at himself.
Leo Quintum’s voice came through the static. “He’s extended his own bio-electric field to shield us from the explosion and tow us out.” Was there a touch of awe to that cool, scientific voice?
“I didn’t know he could do that,” Bruce said, frowning. He would have to ask Clark about that later.
Agatha glanced at the monitors. “I’m sorry that we’ve kept you waiting, Mr. Wayne. Mr. Quintum should be back in approximately twenty minutes.” She seemed entirely unimpressed at her boss’s near-death and miraculous escape.
It was twenty-seven minutes until the doors opened and Leo Quintum strode in, Superman at his side. Quintum was wearing his customary rainbow coat, iridescent colors chasing each other across it like a soap bubble. “Mr. Wayne!” Quintum exclaimed, stepping forward with one hand extended, the other clutching his walking stick. “It’s such a pleasure to finally meet you in person.”
“The pleasure is all mine, I’m sure,” Bruce said, shaking his hand. Leo Quintum had lush red-gold hair that curled around his ears, although his eye color was impossible to guess behind his orange-tinted glasses. His chin had an arrogant jut, but there were laugh lines around his mouth and eyes. Pictures and television appearances had failed to prepare Bruce for the sheer force of the man’s personality; he seemed to fill the room, drawing eyes away from even the brightly-dressed figure by his side.
“Mr. Wayne,” Superman said politely.
“Oh, have you two met?” Quintum said.
“Once or twice,” Bruce said. “Gosh, that was an amazing save, Superman. I’m lucky I got to witness it.”
Quintum frowned. “I’ve never seen you extend your personal field like that before.”
Superman smiled. “I never have. I didn’t know I could do it,” and Bruce felt slightly better about his own ignorance.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to have Agatha run some tests on you,” Quintum went on. “To make sure you haven’t suffered any ill-effects from the explosion.”
“I feel fine,” Superman protested. “But if it would make you feel better...”
Agatha stepped forward. “This way, please, sir.”
“Good to see you again, Mr. Wayne,” Superman said over his shoulder as she led him away.
“Now, Mr. Wayne,” said Leo Quintum, turning back to him. “Are you ready to discuss the possibility of Wayne Corp and P.R.O.J.E.C.T. working together?”
Bruce turned his most charming smile on the man, gratified to see him blink behind the tinted glasses. “We’re especially interested in your nanonauts and their applications to medical science.”
Quintum clapped him on the shoulder. “Mr. Wayne, with you and I working together, I believe with all my heart that there’s nothing we can’t achieve.”
: : :
“What do you mean, she didn’t believe you?” Batman handed a crystal to a Superman robot. “Hold this, please,” he said to it, slightly annoyed at his unconscious use of “please.” They seemed like individuals, but they were just robots, after all.
“I mean she didn’t believe me,” Superman repeated.
“You told her, ‘I, Clark Kent, am Superman?’”
Superman sighed. “I even showed her the costume under my work clothes. She decided I was impersonating Clark to tease her.”
“That would be quite the prank.” Batman tapped the crystal with a tiny silver hammer and watched the effects of the sound on the Kryptonian circuitry he was holding.
“I suppose no worse than the ‘prank’ of pretending to be her co-worker for three years.”
“You’re not ‘pretending’ to be her co-worker. You’re a real reporter, really named Clark Kent.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Hnn.” Batman adjusted a few wires, frowning. “So she wouldn’t even come?”
Clark’s voice was dejected. “I’d planned a birthday meal for her and everything.”
“Well, her loss,” Batman said. “My gain. I get to borrow some of your tech for testing Quintum’s new materials this way.”
“So you’ll be working with him?”
Batman turned from his work to look at Superman. “Do you trust him?”
Superman nodded. “I do.”
“Then yes, I’ll be working with him. He and his P.R.O.J.E.C.T. are doing amazing things.”
“Did he talk to you about his Krypton code project?”
Batman frowned. “No.”
“He’s trying to find a way to clone, well, me. Pure Kryptonian genetic material breaks down, it doesn’t work. Quintum figures if he combines it with human DNA he might be able to...well, extend the Kryptonian line.”
Batman put down the crystal. “That sounds suspicious to me.”
“He has my approval on the project,” Superman noted. “Of course he’ll also get the approval of any human DNA donor if we manage to crack the process.”
“It’s just...that’s a lot of power for one man, don’t you think?”
“Bruce.” Superman met his eyes squarely. “I trust Leo Quintum completely. I hope you’ll remember that when...when you’re working with him.”
A sleek silver robot with the s-shield on its chest came into the room. “You wished to be reminded when the sun-eater seemed hungry, sir.”
“Ah yes.” Superman brightened. “Would you like to meet the little guy?”
The “little guy” turned out to be a two-story writhing mass of inky-black, vaguely gelatinous tentacles.. “Hey there,” Superman called down to it affectionately. “Miss me?” He turned to a glowing anvil next to the pit and hefted a large hammer. “He’s almost big enough to be turned loose soon.” He hoisted the hammer over his head and slammed it down on the anvil; beneath it a tiny pinprick of light bloomed. Superman took the miniscule sun and tossed it to the creature, which engulfed it in darkness, snuffing it out. “Isn’t he a beauty?”
Batman felt a shudder run down his spine as he watched the oozing bulk heaving below him. “Nnnh,” he said.
“I’ll kind of hate to see him go,” sighed Superman. He paused, drumming his fingers on the anvil almost nervously, watching the inky blackness squirm and coil below. “So,” he said.
“Yes?”
“There’s something I’d like to give you.”
: : :
“To be honest, I was going to give this to Lois,” Superman said, taking a simple gray box out of a cabinet in the lab and unlatching it. “But she...well. So I decided it made sense to give it to you.” Light--pure, golden, undiluted--leaked from the box as he opened it to remove a small glass vial. The light came from the vial, a rich sunlight glow. Superman unstoppered the bottle and a heady scent like dandelions and fresh-cut grass filled the room. He held it out toward Batman. “If you drink this you’ll have my powers for twenty-four hours.”
Bruce took the vial from him and put the stopper back on. “I don’t need this,” he said.
“I know,” Superman said. “It’s not something I thought you’d need. I just thought that for one day, it might be...I don’t know, fun.” Batman barked a laugh, and Superman smiled. “I know, Batman doesn’t have fun.”
“I have plenty of fun,” Batman informed him. “I just don’t need super-powers to do it.”
“Then take it in case of emergency,” Superman said, holding it out again. “Just in case something shows up that needs that level of power to deal with.”
“I’ll always have you around to mop up those,” Batman said.
He’d been aiming for a teasing tone, but he must have fallen short, because Superman’s smile slipped away for a moment. Then he reached out and took Batman’s gloved hand in his own and wrapped it around the vial. Golden light glimmered between their fingers.
“Keep it as a personal favor to me, then.”
This was clearly one of those issues with Clark, and Batman knew when to give up gracefully. “Very well,” he said, slipping the vial into his belt.
Superman cocked his head suddenly, listening to something only he could hear. “Sorry, Batman. It seems Metropolis is under attack by Krull, son of the Dino-Czar of the Subterranosauri.”
“Yes, of course it is.” Batman managed to keep a straight face. And people said Gotham was weird...
“You’re welcome to stay here at the Fortress. The robots will--”
“--I’ll come with you. You might need help.”
“I appreciate it. But are you sure you won’t drink that super-serum?” Superman asked as they headed for the door.
“Believe it or not, I have been known to help even without super-powers,” Bruce pointed out.
“Oh, I know. I just thought you might like to go there under your own power. Considering how you gripe when I fly you anywhere.”
Batman felt his righteous indignation fizzle somewhat. “I’m not going to use that potion just so you don’t have to play super-taxi,” he said. Rather than waste time arguing about travel arrangements--something they’d done many times in the past--he reached out to undo Superman’s cape himself. Superman flinched back, surprised, and Bruce growled, “Do you want to save Metropolis from Krill the Conquerer--”
“--Krull, son of the Dino-Czar,” Superman corrected.
“--or stand here bickering?”
Superman blinked, then undid his cape and put it around Batman’s shoulders with an odd gentleness. Bruce pulled the cape over his head to shield himself from the air friction and felt Superman pick him up in a bride carry. Bruce used to insist on other, less...intimate carrying positions, but this eventually had won out as the most efficient.
As they lifted into the air, Bruce thought he heard Superman murmur, “But I like the bickering.”
: : :
As Superman slowed down, Batman pulled the cape from his head so he could see Metropolis below them. “Whoa,” said Superman, dodging to the right. A giant pink dinosaur went whizzing past them, going straight up. Batman could hear his bellow--”GGGGGGAAAAUUURrrrhhhh!”--doppler off into the distance.
“Looks like someone’s already dealt with Krull,” Batman noted.
“Yes,” said Superman sourly. “How nice of someone.”
“Hail, Superman!” came a cheerful cry from below. They alighted to see a broad-shouldered man eyeing Batman, still in Superman’s arms. He had olive skin, long curly hair that fell in glossy ringlets down his back, and a stance that seemed almost a parody of heroism: chest thrown out, shoulders back. “And what have we here?”
Bruce disentangled himself with alacrity, whisking off the cape and handing it back to Superman. “Samson,” Superman said with distaste. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Well, I was just visiting Ancient Egypt and I thought of you, old friend.”
Superman’s eyebrows drew together. “I am most certainly not your ‘old friend.’” He glanced up. “And you’ve put Krull into orbit.”
“Come now! Have we not shared mighty adventures together? But,” Samson added, producing a blinding smile for Batman, “You have never seen fit to share the company of this shadowy stranger. And I can understand why!” As Bruce stared in disbelief, Samson’s smile turned frankly flirtatious. “Such grace, such dignity, poised on the knife-edge of danger. Exquisite.”
Batman raised his eyebrows at Superman, who shrugged, looking annoyed. “I’ll be right back,” he said, shooting up in the sky.
“Ho, Samson,” another booming voice rang out as a strapping blond stranger strode up to them. “You may have conquered Krull, but I have defeated his entire army! I believe I win this round!”
Superman landed lightly beside Batman, putting a limp and wheezing Krull on the ground. “Atlas. My day is complete.”
Atlas elbowed Samson aside to beam at Batman. “Samson and I have been travelling the ages of history to best each other in feats of strength and cunning. We’re...um...tied at the moment,” he added with a glare toward his companion. “Tell me, dark one, is not defeating an entire army more impressive than beating a single being?”
Batman turned his back on them. “Superman, who are these alpha clowns?”
Superman heaved a sigh. “Samson and Atlas, time travellers and adventurers. Samson and Atlas, meet Batman.”
The two jostled each other to bow deeply. “The pleasure is all mine,” Samson intoned.
“I am enchanted to make your acquaintance,” Atlas added pointedly.
”Rao,” Superman muttered.
Samson and Atlas looked at Superman, then shared a meaningful glance. “Do you think--?” said Atlas.
Samson nodded. “Oh, I do. I do. He’s perfect for it.” With a flourish, he produced a sparkling diadem of black diamonds that glowed with an inner light. “For you,” he said, placing it on Batman’s head, snug between the cowl’s ears. “The Quantum Crown of the Ultrasphynx. We...uh...borrowed it from him way back in the 80th century BC.”
“Borrowed?” said Batman, eyes narrowing.
“Yes, well.” A sudden ice-cold light flooded the street and Samson swallowed hard, backing away slowly from Batman. “See, he didn’t take it so well, and--”
Something seized Bruce by the throat and time seemed to crawl to a stop. It stopped, and yet it kept moving, impossibly. A voice so low it rattled the pavement spoke:
“Return what was stolen from me. And pay the price.” Bruce looked into a pair of pitiless black eyes that seemed to be filled with nebulae, glaring from a face framed by an ornate Egyptian headpiece. “His life is mine.”
“Batman!” cried Clark from somewhere nearby.
“Halt.” The Ultrasphynx’s voice was flat, remorseless. Filled with riddles and truths. “This man exists now in a state of quantum uncertainty. Neither alive nor dead. Answer correctly and he lives. Answer incorrectly and he dies.”
It was very strange, Bruce thought, being alive and dead at the same time. The universe unspooled around him, a cascading torrent of information. He saw it all. From somewhere near by, he could hear Superman and Samson speaking, but the words had no meaning.
“You stole that necklace. You brought it here and tricked us--”
“--He’s been hounding us through the aeons since we lifted that little trinket, Superman, you’re the only one who can beat him!”
Truths swirled around Bruce like a fog, brushing against his skin, tasting of vinegar and violets.
Key among those truths was that he really, really didn’t want to die with a diamond tiara crammed on his head.
Superman’s voice: “What is your question, Sphynx?”
The Sphynx’s low growl made the air shiver. “What happens when the irresistible force meets the immovable object?”
A long silence. Bruce turned his head and managed to open his eyes to see Superman’s face, taut with worry. Poised between life and death, Batman looked at Superman.
Clark met Bruce’s eyes.
Then he smiled.
“How about this?” Superman’s voice was confident again, resonant. “They surrender.”
“Answer: Acceptable.” Was that a flicker of a smile in the UltraSphynx’s voice? The grip on Batman’s throat eased and he dropped to the ground. The truths that had surrounded him eddied and ebbed away. He grasped for them--he had seen something, something important, in Clark’s eyes, a truth he needed to keep--but as the UltraSphynx receded, so did those answers.
Superman put an arm under Batman’s shoulders and helped him stand up.
“Well,” said Samson, “It’s a shame we lost that Quantum Crown.”
“It did look magnificent on Batman, though,” added Atlas.
“Oh, it did. Stunning.”
They looked at Batman and Superman’s faces.
“Batman doesn’t have any powers, does he?” Atlas whispered sotto voce behind a hand to Samson. “He can’t...you know...actually harm us, right?”
“Of course not,” Samson said heartily. “And a being of such towering intellect and moral rectitude certainly would find it in his heart to forgive our little, um, prank. I’m sure.”
Batman reached into his utility belt and came up with a pair of scissors.
Samson’s eyes widened. “Well, I believe I shall take my leave of you, then,” he stammered, pulling his long hair back nervously as Batman advanced on him. “As always, Superman, it’s been a pleasure.”
“Oh no, the pleasure is all mine,” Superman said, watching Samson sprint toward his time machine. He cracked his knuckles. “Atlas, I believe it’s time for you to go as well.”
Atlas had gone somewhat pasty-faced. “Yes. Yes, I wouldn’t want to overstay my welcome.” He managed a last courtly bow to Batman and hurried toward the time machine as well.
Batman tucked the scissors away. “What was that about surrendering?”
“Oh.” Superman looked uncomfortable. “It was just a hunch. Just something that crossed my mind.”
“No surrendering,” Batman said sternly. “Superman doesn’t surrender.”
Clark’s smile was sweet and touched with sadness. “Sometimes it can’t be helped,” he said softly. Then he went on before Bruce could say anything, “By the way, you did look rather fetching in that tiara.”
Bruce snorted. “Just for that, I’m making you taxi me back to Gotham.”
: : :
Batman was working at the Fortress again when a different set of time travelers arrived.
He’d come back a few days after the UltraSphynx debacle to continue his experiments on the nanotechnology Quintum and Wayne Enterprises were working with. “These nanonauts,” he explained, peering through a microscope, “if we can get them the right equipment there’s a chance they can undo the neurofibrillary tangles that cause Alzheimer’s.”
“That would be great,” Superman said.
Bruce looked up from the microscope. “You’ve been subdued lately,” he said. Clark looked surprised. “Something’s bothering you.”
“I’ve been...thinking about my father lately,” Clark said.
“Hrm.” Bruce nodded.
"I wasn't with him when he died."
"Of course not," Bruce said with certainty. "Or he wouldn't have died."
A small smile that faded quickly. "It was so sudden. I never got to say goodbye." Clark was staring through the door at the statue of Jor-El and Lara, glimmering in the strange light of the Fortress. "I hate to think of him, all alone in the field with his heart failing. Wondering where his son was."
Bruce frowned. It wasn't like Superman to talk like that. "Clark--"
And then a shimmering gate of rainbow light sprang open in the doorway and two figures stepped through.
One was normal enough--a tall, dark-haired man with clean-cut features, wearing a futuristic variation on the Superman costume. The other, however, was about two feet tall, floating cross-legged in the air, wearing a rakish purple bowler--and a tiny red and blue spandex suit with a cape.
"You two!" Clark said as Batman dropped into crouch.
"You know them?" Bruce asked.
"We've met," Clark said.
The tall man bowed gracefully. "As you say, Kal. My name is Thomas Kent, the Superman of the 853rd century."
The impish man lifted his bowler. "And I am Bryzyzs Wlzynplkz, the Superman of the 5th Dimension. We are members of the Superman Squad--"
"--And they claim to all be my descendants." Superman's arms were crossed. "We met when I was a young man. When my father died. They came to Smallville to help with the harvest, they said. In reality, they were there to fight--"
"--The Chronovore," said Bryzyzs, waving his hand. An image of a ravening force, all devouring maws and catching claws at impossible angles, flickered in front of him for a moment. "We are on our way to your past now."
"But there was a third one of you," Clark said. "His head was all wrapped in bandages. Where is he?"
Thomas Kent held out his hand. On the palm rested a roll of bandages.
Clark staggered as if he'd been hit, and Bruce found himself by his side, hand on his shoulder, glaring at the two intruders. "I get to...see him again? One last time?" Clark's said, his voice thick.
The future Supermen both nodded. Thomas said, "Superman Prime, leader of the Supermen Squad, says we need your help against the Chronovore. He says it's all right to take you back to that time."
Clark reached out and put his hand on Bruce's, still resting on his shoulder; Bruce could feel the tremor in it. "Do you think I should--"
"--Go," Bruce said.
The Superman of the 853rd century watched Batman gravely as Clark wrapped his head in bandages. "We will be back in a moment, to your eyes. Will you--" He paused, seemed to be searching for words. "--be here when he gets back? Be here for him?"
"I'll be here for him," Batman said, and the other Superman nodded.
They walked through the rainbow gate together, and it closed behind them in a blur of light. Bruce stood, frowning at the spot where they had disappeared.
Before he even had a chance to become worried, though, it flashed back into existence and Clark stepped out alone. His face was uncovered now and his eyes were filled with both sorrow and peace. "I was there," he said hoarsely. "I was able to speak to him. To hold him when he fell. I think--I think he knew who I was."
He turned sharply away from Bruce at the last sentence, his shoulders hunching as if he was hugging something tightly to himself. Bruce hesitated a moment, then put an arm around him.
Clark made a small, broken noise and leaned into the embrace. "I'm so glad," he said. "So glad he wasn't alone."
There was a bitter taste in Bruce's mouth, like violets and vinegar, the taste of a truth seen and half-remembered in Clark's eyes. He knew the truth then, he would realize later. He just didn't want to admit it.
: : :
"Ah, Mr. Wayne." Leo Quintum was looking at a holographic projection of some kind of warped space, his hands clasped behind his back. Around him, the command center of P.R.O.J.E.C.T. bustled. "I'm sorry to postpone our meeting about the funding, but I'm afraid I've been distracted by other things. The Bizarro world is sinking into the Underverse, and I'm afraid Superman is trapped in its gravity well."
Bruce cocked his head like a spaniel hearing a high-pitched noise. "In English?"
Quintum smiled slightly and adjusted the iridescent lenses covering his eyes. "Superman went to the Bizarro world to stop them, but he might not be able to get back."
Bruce smiled. "He'll make it back. He always does, right?"
Quintum looked at him for a moment, thoughtfully. "Mr. Wayne, I have something to tell you--in the strictest of confidences, of course. I don't think he would want you to know, but since some of our combined plans involve him..."
"Is 'he' Superman?" Bruce put a curious look on his face. He didn't feel curious, though. He felt instead as though something large and vast was moving toward him, looming up like the Bizarro world had, warping and distorting the fabric of reality around it. He felt his hand twitch, an involuntary muscle spasm, and fought a sudden, inexplicable urge to turn his back on Quintum and leave the room. "What's the problem?"
"It's Superman. Luthor's attack on my ship was a ruse to expose Superman to more solar radiation than his body could process. I'm afraid his cellular structure is breaking down. He's being consumed from the inside out as his own powers increase exponentially, and there's nothing at all we can do.
"Superman is dying, Mr. Wayne."
Bruce nodded slowly. He didn't feel any surprise, no shock at all. He had known it already, really. It explained a great deal about the way Clark had been acting recently. Quintum was watching him narrowly, and Bruce realized he was still nodding, had been nodding for quite some time. That wasn't the right reaction for playboy Brucie, he thought distantly. No, Brucie would react with shock and horror, not this strange empty iciness. Brucie's eyes might even brim with tears, just the right amount of sorrow.
Bruce drew down his mouth into a mask of grief. "My God, no! That's--that's impossible! Not Superman!" He forced fear, dismay, grief into his voice. It was surprisingly difficult. The emotions skidded over a blank black space in his mind, finding no purchase.
"I'm afraid it's true."
"What will we do without him?" He worked a break into his voice, feeling a faint pride at how authentically it trembled. "Oh--God," he said as though his heart was broken, reaching up to wipe at his eyes. As though his heart was broken. His fingers came away wet. Such verisimilitude, he thought. Beat that, mild-mannered reporter.
But then somehow his face was wet too, and that was overdoing it, really. Actual tears were unnecessary for the role, but there they were, distressingly.
As though his heart were broken.
Bruce Wayne covered his face with his hands.
"Luthor," he said, and the voice was all wrong now, it was raw with rage and hatred and the need for vengeance, it was not the right voice at all. He turned his back on Quintum, struggling to find some equilibrium again, some facade that would get him through the black vertigo threatening to engulf him.
"I understand," said Quintum from behind him after a while. "Believe me." His voice was subdued, without its usual flamboyance. "But Superman's mortality isn't even the worst of our problems."
Bruce had recovered from his inexplicable identity breakdown enough to turn and meet his eyes. "What do you mean?"
Quintum went to one of the monitors. "This is an extrapolation of the data we're receiving from the heart of the sun." He touched the screen. An image sprang to life on it: a blazing eye surrounded by a corona of flickering blue radiation like plasmatic malice.
Whatever it was, it looked hungry.
Quintum clasped his hands behind his back again, gazing at it. "I hope Superman gets back very soon. It looks like we're going to need him."
: : :
"You should get some sleep."
Superman shook his head. "Sorry, Batman. Too much to do. Maybe...maybe later."
Batman suppressed a growl. Ever since Superman had gotten back from Bizarro world, he'd been driven, spending every moment working on different things with a feverish intensity. Bruce hadn't asked him about Quintum's revelations. He hadn't needed to. Superman's desperate struggle to get as much done as possible spoke more loudly than any words to the truth of the scientist's statement.
Superman is dying.
Clark frowned, his eyes preoccupied. "Quintum is working on the Kandor Martian resettlement program, that's under control. And Van-Zee and the Superman Squad are using his nanotech--with your innovations," he added, smiling at Batman, "--to make progress on the cancer cures I've hypothesized. Oh, and I let the baby sun-eater go," he said with a wistful smile. "The little guy gave me hug before he left."
Bruce's stomach turned at the idea of those ropy black tentacles folding around Superman's form like a living void. "And the thing in the sun?"
Clark's face was haggard, and Bruce felt a pang go through him. "Solaris is in the heart of the sun. Even with my powers augmented as they've been recently, I can't survive there, much less fight something like that. We have to wait until he makes his move."
"Then we wait," Batman said, bending back to his instruments.
"You need to go home, get some rest," Superman said behind him. "You've been here helping me for..." His voice trailed off. "Rao, for twenty hours straight? You need sleep."
"I'll sleep when you do," Batman said, adjusting the microscope. "I came here to help you, and I'll do what it takes." Superman was silent, but Batman could tell he was watching him. He didn't look up. "I'm not leaving you when you need the help," Bruce said brusquely.
"I--" Clark's voice broke for just a second. He took a long breath. "Thank you," he said softly. He went back to work, tending the box that he claimed held a tiny new universe. After a while, he began to hum quietly to himself, a tune that sounded vaguely familiar, but Bruce couldn't place it. He was going to snap at Superman to stop it, but the song wasn't horribly distracting. In fact, it blended nicely into the rhythm of his work, carrying him along with it, so Bruce kept working. He hardly noticed when the humming shifted into actual singing, gentle words just barely in hearing range, something about sunlight and warmth and safety and love. A web of music, soft as eiderdown, wrapping him in radiance...
...Until he woke up in his own bed in Wayne Manor, still in costume, feeling refreshed and well-rested and deeply annoyed.
He sat up and saw the little scrap of paper on the pillow next to him: Thank you for everything. Clark. Bruce reached out and touched it, feeling uneasy.
"Master Bruce," Alfred announced, bustling into the room. He pulled open the curtains and Bruce winced as eerie blue-tinged light poured across the bed. "I believe your nemesis in the sun is making his move. Also, there's a call coming in from the Fortress."
Robin was waiting at the computer moments later, hopping up and down. "Is it Superman, Bruce? Is it? What's happening?"
Batman opened the channel, but no image appeared. The screen stayed black, but a slightly metallic voice came through the speaker: "Batman. This is Superman Robot 7. Our master is preparing to leave to fight Solaris, the Tyrant Sun. You said once you would help him. We do not believe he will survive this fight."
The transmission ended.
Bruce stared at the dark screen. Robin grabbed his arm. "Superman needs help, Bruce! But--but what can we do? He's fighting a sun. We're just--" He stared down at his own small, strong hands. "We're just humans."
Bruce felt his jaw set. Whirling, he went to a cabinet, took a small vial out of it.
Golden light leaked through his fingers, bathing the cave in the glow of a summer's day.
Ignoring Robin's gasp, Batman unstoppered the vial and drank its contents in one gulp.
A rush of sound, of light, of strength. The cave seemed to spin around him. He could hear Robin's hammering heart, hear the soft purring of all of Gotham, stretching like a cat. The world unfolded in a thousand different directions at once, a vast Chinese box of interlocking input, a mandala of exhilaration.
No time to waste. He nodded once at Robin, reassuring, and was running for the exit.
He took to the air.
Through a layer of clouds he rocketed--each droplet of water suspended before his eyes for an instant like gems--and upward until the air thinned then vanished. The coruscating lattice of sound that was Earth died away into an utter and profound silence.
He soared on.
He caught up with Superman at the edges of the sun's corona, now sickly and livid. Clark whirled, his expression distressed. Bruce merely shook his head before Clark could argue and darted deeper into the corona, feeling the pulses of magnetism along his body like a caress. Even invulnerable, he could feel its heat--he spared a moment to be grateful that his powers apparently had a protective aura for his clothing as well, or he'd be fighting Solaris entirely naked.
As they approached the surface of the sun, entering its strange atmosphere, Bruce could start to hear again: a steady roar of a giant furnace. And below that, laughter like static, hungry and hollow.
Solaris, the Tyrant Sun.
"This is my fight, Bruce!" Clark's voice reached him this time. "Go home, protect the Earth--"
"--I won't leave you!" Bruce snarled as his cape snapped and furled around them, a tiny shadow in a field of impossible light. "Quintum told me what Luthor did to you. I won't let you face this alone!" The roiling sunlight around them, shot through with gangrenous blues and greens. Clark's eyes, pained and pure. "Not alone. Not while I live."
Clark's mouth worked for a second. He reached out to clasp Batman's shoulders. "My friend," he said. He shook his head as if in wonder. "Bruce."
Below them, the sun spewed a massive plume of plasma which lashed them both with incandescent fury, and Solaris came at them from the sun, all spikes and malice and a harsh, dark voice that pounded them like waves of pain:
"POISON YOUR SUN DRINK ITS LIFE KILL YOU ALL"
Later, when Bruce tried to remember the fight that followed, he could only piece together fragments: the infinite howl of the solar winds, the heat and pressure as they plunged deeper into the sun, pain raking along his side, digging into his ribs, forcing a cry of pain from him as he pummelled the great eye.
Superman's cape was a flutter of scarlet in a blur of virulent light. Batman fought to his side, matched his blows against the foe.
They were losing.
Superman was gasping fragmented words of defiance; Bruce could see him summoning up reserves of strength, burning like a candle burns wax, fresh power eating him from the inside. He could see now his cells, humming with oversaturation, the solar brilliance all around them only adding to the speed of Superman's death.
And then there was another presence near them.
"No!" Superman's voice was anguished. "Go back!"
Solaris suddenly flinched away, all its vicious spines cringing, and Bruce could see what had made it retreat.
Superman's pet sun-eater had arrived.
It moved toward Solaris, extending tendrils of darkness, and Bruce caught his breath in amazement. With the power still thrumming in his veins, the sun-eater appeared as a dappled ebony rainbow, an aura of luminous glory surrounding it beyond any mortal vision. It was beautiful and deadly, and Bruce struggled with awe that was close to pain. This is how he sees the darkness: whole and complete and triumphant.
Then the sun-eater engulfed the Tyrant Sun, and the concussion knocked Batman head over heels for a moment, tumbling. When his vision cleared, only Solaris remained, groaning and guttering, while wisps of darkness fluttered down into the heart of the sun.
"You killed it!" Superman's voice was hoarse with fury and tears. "You killed it!" He launched himself again at Solaris, a corona of power blazing from him, hurling it out of the sun and toward Earth.
Still dizzy and stunned, pain from his wounds starting to shriek along his nerve endings, it was all Batman could do to hold on to Solaris as Superman's wave of rage pushed them all toward Earth. He wrenched at one of the wounded sun's oozing spikes, feeling a tiny glow of satisfaction as it broke off, trailing plasma in its wake.
Solaris was howling as they entered the Earth's atmosphere, a long static-filled cry of pain and fear. Batman's hands were slipping, torn from his foe by the force of their descent, and when Solaris shuddered and flailed he lost his grip and was ripped away from them.
Superman's fading sobs echoed in his ears all the way down.
: : :
He hit the Earth and felt the shock wave shatter the ground near him. He lay for a while, stunned, his too-keen senses whirling. There was a hissing sound filling the air; once he collected himself and sat up he could see a huge circle of melted snow extending around him. The ground under him was still steaming.
Well. Still invulnerable. Lucky for him.
He focused on Clark's heartbeat and abruptly felt its beat as if directly on his eardrums: a rattling pulse of power gone haywire. He could hear the energy consuming Superman, pushing his heart. And he could hear Lex Luthor's voice as well: "What is this, hide and seek? I don't need to be able to see through lead--I can liquify it with a hard stare!"
Luthor's voice was filled with exaltation, power. Power Bruce knew well. The super-serum. He's stolen it. He has Superman's powers. Batman struggled to stand, his knees buckling twice before he could make it to his feet.
"If I die, you die first!" Luthor's bellow was filled with rage and triumph. Bruce could hear shattering glass, hear the sound of fist hitting bone. The sound of Clark's laboring heart.
Dizzy and dazed, he lifted into the sky and headed for Metropolis.
Blood scattered the snow below him.
He entered the skies of Metropolis like his namesake, weaving drunkenly through the sky to land with a crash between Luthor and Superman's crumpled body. He rose into a crouch, fists raised, as Lex gave him a supercilious smile, his hands behind his back. "Apparently super-powers are all the rage," he observed. "You're looking rather spectacular, Dark Knight. but then, everything does when seen in super-vision, doesn't it?"
"Don't touch him."
Behind him, Superman said, low but clear: "Wait."
Frowning, Batman paused.
Luthor went on, his eyes scanning the air between them: "I mean, everything is so simple. Einstein talked about a unified field theory, but he had never seen the world like...like this..." His gaze wavered, grew distant. "I mean, I can see, it all. All at once. The connections...like silver light. No, that doesn't even come close to describing it. So vast. So..." He shook his head. "This is how he sees us. All the time. Every day." His eyes were wide now, filling with tears of wonder. Green eyes full of sorrow and joy.
Bruce recognized them.
"It's just us," Lex murmured, as if to himself. "It's all just us, in here, together. And we're all we've got." He stood, hands lifted as if to touch whatever he was seeing, ignoring Batman entirely.
There was a hand on Bruce's shoulder. "I used a gravity gun to accelerate his powers," Superman said. "He's experiencing them all at once. Burning out." He stepped forward, cocking a fist. There were strange traceries of light along his skin, a net of gold: Bruce realized suddenly that it was the blood in his veins, transmuting into light and power. "It's over, Lex," Superman said, leveling him with one punch.
He turned from the sprawled figure on the ground to look at Batman. "The sun is still dying," he said. "Solaris has poisoned it." The sunlight had an eerie blue tinge to it. Only the light inside Superman's skin, the radiance in his eyes, was still right and natural and true. "Only I can save it in time."
"No," said Batman.
Clark looked at his hands, at the glow running through his skin. "Ironic. Luthor's sunlight overdose has made it possible for me to save the world." Impossibly, he smiled at Batman. At Bruce. "I can power the sun until it's repaired," he said. The smile slipped away. "It might be...a long time."
"No," said Bruce.
"Don't worry," said Clark. He touched Batman's face with fingers of light. "I know I won't be alone. Not really."
Bruce grabbed his shoulders as if to hold him back, to hold him down, to keep him here by his side forever. From there it seemed the most inevitable thing in the world to kiss him.
Clark tasted of sunlight and time, tears and joy.
And then he was gone, rocketing upward in a trail of glory. Batman watched his passage, feeling his borrowed senses overloading, the strength leaving him, the invulnerability fleeing. He followed Superman's flight until his sight narrowed to nothing but that speck of brilliance in the star-filled sky, everything closing down, fading, until darkness swallowed Bruce up whole and he fell to Earth.
: : :
Leo Quintum turned from his vials and readouts to find Batman standing behind him. His eyes showed no surprise as the Dark Knight took him by the collar and shook him like a rat. "Batman," he said cooly, as if his teeth weren't rattling.
Batman reached out and ripped the colored glasses from his face to reveal familiar green eyes. "You," he said, letting him drop to the floor.
"Me," agreed Quintum.
"How?"
Quintum shrugged. "I hardly remember, honestly. It was so long ago. It involved cloning and time travel. Most impressive things do." He picked up his glasses from the floor, put them back on his face. "I had unfinished business that I could only complete with a second go-around."
"He trusted you."
An arrogant jerk of the chin. "And well he should. I've spent most of my life attempting to undo previous errors of calculation, to his benefit."
"Remorse? From you?"
Quintum's eyes narrowed. "Don't be sentimental. I merely...came to see that my scope had been too narrow. That I could be more than that." Some indefinable emotion flickered across his face. "Regrets are for failures." He put out a hand toward Batman, let it fall. "I understand," he said. "You were close."
"You understand nothing."
"Bruce," said Quintum, almost gently. As Batman stared, he went on: "Superman cracked the Kryptonian code, at the end, you know. The secret of his DNA. It will let us clone him by combining his with the human of his choice."
"Congratulations," said Batman. "Now you've got everything you wanted. Control of his dynasty, even, if Lois lets you--"
He stopped dead as Quintum picked up two vials filled with luminous matter from his workbench. One had the familiar Superman shield on it.
The other had a small black symbol. Also familiar.
"Damn you," Bruce said after a while. He wasn't sure which of them he meant.
"This is his legacy to you, and to the world," Quintum said. "You can refuse, of course. It's entirely up to you. He entrusted his legacy to us, and I've done what he asked me to do." He put the vials back on the bench, very carefully. "I swear I will not do anything further without your explicit permission," he said.
I trust Leo Quintum. I hope you'll remember that, Superman's voice said in his mind.
Bruce shook his head, not trusting his voice.
"Take some time to think about it," Quintum said. "Meanwhile, I have a more pressing project I need to focus on." Batman made an interrogative grunt. "Isn't it obvious?" Quintum's smile was arrogant and sweet. "You and I are going to fix the sun, of course."
: : :
Bruce woke up slowly. His body ached from a hundred sprains, a thousand cuts. He lay with his eyes closed, feeling golden warmth against his eyelids.
"Oh dear, sir," said Alfred's concerned voice. "Forgive me, I forgot--" Bruce opened his eyes to see Alfred going toward the heavy drapes, open to the morning sun.
"Wait," said Bruce, and Alfred paused with his hands full of cloth. "You can leave them open. It's okay."
"Very well, sir," said Alfred. He paused at the door. "It's a beautiful day, if I may say so."
Sunlight was falling in a bright, rich square across Bruce's chest. He could feel its warmth like a weight against his heart, streaming from the sun to his room, across all the empty spaces in between. He held up his hand, letting radiance limn his fingers, turning them from mortal to glory for a moment.
"It is," he murmured into the light's benison. "It's a beautiful day."
Pairing/Characters: Clark/Bruce, Alfred Pennyworth, Dick Grayson, Lex Luthor, Leo Quintum, Solaris
Rating: PG
Warnings: None needed
Continuity: All-Star Superman, with massive spoilers for the whole story, plus my own pet theory about Leo Quintum put into fic.
Word Count: 8000Summary: A ruse by Lex Luthor exposes Superman to a fatal overdose of solar radiation. As Superman struggles to achieve closure in as many aspects of his life as possible, Batman must come to terms with his relationship with the Man of Steel.
Notes: For the World's Finest Gift Exchange, Prompt F46, a retelling of All Star Superman with a Clark/Bruce instead of Clark/Lois angle. The story should be coherent even if you haven't read the comic. Some bits of dialogue (most notably the riddle of the Sphynx, Superman's answer, and Luthor's last lines) are left as they were in the original.
Bruce Wayne yanked the heavy bedroom drapes shut, cutting out the brilliant morning sun.
“Aw,” said Dick Grayson, halting his series of somersaults on the bed long enough to pout.
“It’s bad enough this ridiculous Quintum requires we meet in person so early,” Bruce said, scowling at his reflection in the mirror as he tied his tie. “Having to put up with that much sunlight is just adding insult to injury.”
“I can’t believe you get to go to the moon,” Dick sighed. “I wish I could go too.”
Bruce ruffled his dark hair. “Maybe next time, champ.”
Alfred handed him his cufflinks. “Mr. Quintum is said to be something of a genius in a variety of scientific fields.”
Bruce frowned as he fastened the cufflinks. “Leo Quintum is an arrogant, foppish megalomaniac. He is also,” he admitted grudgingly, “One of the most brilliant people in the world.”
“It sounds like you have a great deal in common,” Alfred noted blandly as Bruce checked his tie in the mirror again.
“Hrh,” said Bruce.
: : :
“I’m afraid Mr. Quintum is not back yet, Mr. Wayne.” The woman who greeted him as he stepped off the teleport pad had green skin and hair, bright against the pure white of her jumpsuit. “I am Agatha. If you’ll come with me...”
Bruce followed her through glassy hallways flooded with stark lunar sunlight. “Where is he?”
“He’s on the Ray Bradbury, trying to capture solar matter,” Agatha explained.
“Sounds thrilling," chirped Bruce, trying to sound as if this were new information to him.
“Oh, it is.” They entered a room full of computer screens, most of which blazed with raw light. On one of them, Bruce could see four people in a spaceship cockpit.
Something was wrong.
“The shields are giving way,” one of the people in the cockpit announced. “Complete engine failure.”
Bruce glanced at Agatha, who was gazing serenely at the screen. “That...can’t be good, right?”
“There is little we can do from here, Mr. Wayne,” Agatha said. “Things will happen as they will.”
Leo Quintum was issuing orders to his crew. “Leo’s not ready to die just yet,” he said, his voice steady.
“Ah. But I am,” announced one of the figures in the cockpit, turning from the console to face the camera. “That’s right, I just remembered,” His voice dropped, becoming gravelly and inhuman. “I’m actually a genetically engineered bomb.” He raised his hands, bloating like a tick, and light started to spew from him. “I bring you death: courtesy of Lex Luthor!”
“Critical systems failure,” Agatha noted impassively. “Detonation in thirty seconds.”
“Not if I can help it,” said a familiar voice.
Half of the computer screens lit up with primary colors: red, yellow, blue sprang into focus to become the well-known S-shield. Superman’s calm face was reduplicated over and over, and Bruce felt his breath catch annoyingly at the sight. Curse the man, there was no reason to be so...disgustingly majestic.
“You cannot stop me!” bleated the swelling human bomb. “My purpose in life is to destroy! To destroy all of you in Luthor’s name!”
On the screens, Superman grappled the figure, shoving it into the airlock. “Blow the hatch, Quintum!” he yelled.
The camera followed Superman and the bulging figure as they fell toward the sun, into the incandescent light.
There was a silent blue-white flash and the screens all dimmed simultaneously, overloaded.
“Is he--” Bruce said, letting the sentence trail off. Of course he wasn’t. The man was Superman, and even a massive explosion in the sun’s corona wouldn’t daunt him. Right?
They waited, silence sifting over the room like static. The screens were blank.
Right?
Then with a crackle, a red cape filled the screen.
Bruce’s chest hurt and he realized he had been holding his breath. He let it out in a rush, exasperated at himself.
Leo Quintum’s voice came through the static. “He’s extended his own bio-electric field to shield us from the explosion and tow us out.” Was there a touch of awe to that cool, scientific voice?
“I didn’t know he could do that,” Bruce said, frowning. He would have to ask Clark about that later.
Agatha glanced at the monitors. “I’m sorry that we’ve kept you waiting, Mr. Wayne. Mr. Quintum should be back in approximately twenty minutes.” She seemed entirely unimpressed at her boss’s near-death and miraculous escape.
It was twenty-seven minutes until the doors opened and Leo Quintum strode in, Superman at his side. Quintum was wearing his customary rainbow coat, iridescent colors chasing each other across it like a soap bubble. “Mr. Wayne!” Quintum exclaimed, stepping forward with one hand extended, the other clutching his walking stick. “It’s such a pleasure to finally meet you in person.”
“The pleasure is all mine, I’m sure,” Bruce said, shaking his hand. Leo Quintum had lush red-gold hair that curled around his ears, although his eye color was impossible to guess behind his orange-tinted glasses. His chin had an arrogant jut, but there were laugh lines around his mouth and eyes. Pictures and television appearances had failed to prepare Bruce for the sheer force of the man’s personality; he seemed to fill the room, drawing eyes away from even the brightly-dressed figure by his side.
“Mr. Wayne,” Superman said politely.
“Oh, have you two met?” Quintum said.
“Once or twice,” Bruce said. “Gosh, that was an amazing save, Superman. I’m lucky I got to witness it.”
Quintum frowned. “I’ve never seen you extend your personal field like that before.”
Superman smiled. “I never have. I didn’t know I could do it,” and Bruce felt slightly better about his own ignorance.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to have Agatha run some tests on you,” Quintum went on. “To make sure you haven’t suffered any ill-effects from the explosion.”
“I feel fine,” Superman protested. “But if it would make you feel better...”
Agatha stepped forward. “This way, please, sir.”
“Good to see you again, Mr. Wayne,” Superman said over his shoulder as she led him away.
“Now, Mr. Wayne,” said Leo Quintum, turning back to him. “Are you ready to discuss the possibility of Wayne Corp and P.R.O.J.E.C.T. working together?”
Bruce turned his most charming smile on the man, gratified to see him blink behind the tinted glasses. “We’re especially interested in your nanonauts and their applications to medical science.”
Quintum clapped him on the shoulder. “Mr. Wayne, with you and I working together, I believe with all my heart that there’s nothing we can’t achieve.”
: : :
“What do you mean, she didn’t believe you?” Batman handed a crystal to a Superman robot. “Hold this, please,” he said to it, slightly annoyed at his unconscious use of “please.” They seemed like individuals, but they were just robots, after all.
“I mean she didn’t believe me,” Superman repeated.
“You told her, ‘I, Clark Kent, am Superman?’”
Superman sighed. “I even showed her the costume under my work clothes. She decided I was impersonating Clark to tease her.”
“That would be quite the prank.” Batman tapped the crystal with a tiny silver hammer and watched the effects of the sound on the Kryptonian circuitry he was holding.
“I suppose no worse than the ‘prank’ of pretending to be her co-worker for three years.”
“You’re not ‘pretending’ to be her co-worker. You’re a real reporter, really named Clark Kent.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Hnn.” Batman adjusted a few wires, frowning. “So she wouldn’t even come?”
Clark’s voice was dejected. “I’d planned a birthday meal for her and everything.”
“Well, her loss,” Batman said. “My gain. I get to borrow some of your tech for testing Quintum’s new materials this way.”
“So you’ll be working with him?”
Batman turned from his work to look at Superman. “Do you trust him?”
Superman nodded. “I do.”
“Then yes, I’ll be working with him. He and his P.R.O.J.E.C.T. are doing amazing things.”
“Did he talk to you about his Krypton code project?”
Batman frowned. “No.”
“He’s trying to find a way to clone, well, me. Pure Kryptonian genetic material breaks down, it doesn’t work. Quintum figures if he combines it with human DNA he might be able to...well, extend the Kryptonian line.”
Batman put down the crystal. “That sounds suspicious to me.”
“He has my approval on the project,” Superman noted. “Of course he’ll also get the approval of any human DNA donor if we manage to crack the process.”
“It’s just...that’s a lot of power for one man, don’t you think?”
“Bruce.” Superman met his eyes squarely. “I trust Leo Quintum completely. I hope you’ll remember that when...when you’re working with him.”
A sleek silver robot with the s-shield on its chest came into the room. “You wished to be reminded when the sun-eater seemed hungry, sir.”
“Ah yes.” Superman brightened. “Would you like to meet the little guy?”
The “little guy” turned out to be a two-story writhing mass of inky-black, vaguely gelatinous tentacles.. “Hey there,” Superman called down to it affectionately. “Miss me?” He turned to a glowing anvil next to the pit and hefted a large hammer. “He’s almost big enough to be turned loose soon.” He hoisted the hammer over his head and slammed it down on the anvil; beneath it a tiny pinprick of light bloomed. Superman took the miniscule sun and tossed it to the creature, which engulfed it in darkness, snuffing it out. “Isn’t he a beauty?”
Batman felt a shudder run down his spine as he watched the oozing bulk heaving below him. “Nnnh,” he said.
“I’ll kind of hate to see him go,” sighed Superman. He paused, drumming his fingers on the anvil almost nervously, watching the inky blackness squirm and coil below. “So,” he said.
“Yes?”
“There’s something I’d like to give you.”
: : :
“To be honest, I was going to give this to Lois,” Superman said, taking a simple gray box out of a cabinet in the lab and unlatching it. “But she...well. So I decided it made sense to give it to you.” Light--pure, golden, undiluted--leaked from the box as he opened it to remove a small glass vial. The light came from the vial, a rich sunlight glow. Superman unstoppered the bottle and a heady scent like dandelions and fresh-cut grass filled the room. He held it out toward Batman. “If you drink this you’ll have my powers for twenty-four hours.”
Bruce took the vial from him and put the stopper back on. “I don’t need this,” he said.
“I know,” Superman said. “It’s not something I thought you’d need. I just thought that for one day, it might be...I don’t know, fun.” Batman barked a laugh, and Superman smiled. “I know, Batman doesn’t have fun.”
“I have plenty of fun,” Batman informed him. “I just don’t need super-powers to do it.”
“Then take it in case of emergency,” Superman said, holding it out again. “Just in case something shows up that needs that level of power to deal with.”
“I’ll always have you around to mop up those,” Batman said.
He’d been aiming for a teasing tone, but he must have fallen short, because Superman’s smile slipped away for a moment. Then he reached out and took Batman’s gloved hand in his own and wrapped it around the vial. Golden light glimmered between their fingers.
“Keep it as a personal favor to me, then.”
This was clearly one of those issues with Clark, and Batman knew when to give up gracefully. “Very well,” he said, slipping the vial into his belt.
Superman cocked his head suddenly, listening to something only he could hear. “Sorry, Batman. It seems Metropolis is under attack by Krull, son of the Dino-Czar of the Subterranosauri.”
“Yes, of course it is.” Batman managed to keep a straight face. And people said Gotham was weird...
“You’re welcome to stay here at the Fortress. The robots will--”
“--I’ll come with you. You might need help.”
“I appreciate it. But are you sure you won’t drink that super-serum?” Superman asked as they headed for the door.
“Believe it or not, I have been known to help even without super-powers,” Bruce pointed out.
“Oh, I know. I just thought you might like to go there under your own power. Considering how you gripe when I fly you anywhere.”
Batman felt his righteous indignation fizzle somewhat. “I’m not going to use that potion just so you don’t have to play super-taxi,” he said. Rather than waste time arguing about travel arrangements--something they’d done many times in the past--he reached out to undo Superman’s cape himself. Superman flinched back, surprised, and Bruce growled, “Do you want to save Metropolis from Krill the Conquerer--”
“--Krull, son of the Dino-Czar,” Superman corrected.
“--or stand here bickering?”
Superman blinked, then undid his cape and put it around Batman’s shoulders with an odd gentleness. Bruce pulled the cape over his head to shield himself from the air friction and felt Superman pick him up in a bride carry. Bruce used to insist on other, less...intimate carrying positions, but this eventually had won out as the most efficient.
As they lifted into the air, Bruce thought he heard Superman murmur, “But I like the bickering.”
: : :
As Superman slowed down, Batman pulled the cape from his head so he could see Metropolis below them. “Whoa,” said Superman, dodging to the right. A giant pink dinosaur went whizzing past them, going straight up. Batman could hear his bellow--”GGGGGGAAAAUUURrrrhhhh!”--doppler off into the distance.
“Looks like someone’s already dealt with Krull,” Batman noted.
“Yes,” said Superman sourly. “How nice of someone.”
“Hail, Superman!” came a cheerful cry from below. They alighted to see a broad-shouldered man eyeing Batman, still in Superman’s arms. He had olive skin, long curly hair that fell in glossy ringlets down his back, and a stance that seemed almost a parody of heroism: chest thrown out, shoulders back. “And what have we here?”
Bruce disentangled himself with alacrity, whisking off the cape and handing it back to Superman. “Samson,” Superman said with distaste. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Well, I was just visiting Ancient Egypt and I thought of you, old friend.”
Superman’s eyebrows drew together. “I am most certainly not your ‘old friend.’” He glanced up. “And you’ve put Krull into orbit.”
“Come now! Have we not shared mighty adventures together? But,” Samson added, producing a blinding smile for Batman, “You have never seen fit to share the company of this shadowy stranger. And I can understand why!” As Bruce stared in disbelief, Samson’s smile turned frankly flirtatious. “Such grace, such dignity, poised on the knife-edge of danger. Exquisite.”
Batman raised his eyebrows at Superman, who shrugged, looking annoyed. “I’ll be right back,” he said, shooting up in the sky.
“Ho, Samson,” another booming voice rang out as a strapping blond stranger strode up to them. “You may have conquered Krull, but I have defeated his entire army! I believe I win this round!”
Superman landed lightly beside Batman, putting a limp and wheezing Krull on the ground. “Atlas. My day is complete.”
Atlas elbowed Samson aside to beam at Batman. “Samson and I have been travelling the ages of history to best each other in feats of strength and cunning. We’re...um...tied at the moment,” he added with a glare toward his companion. “Tell me, dark one, is not defeating an entire army more impressive than beating a single being?”
Batman turned his back on them. “Superman, who are these alpha clowns?”
Superman heaved a sigh. “Samson and Atlas, time travellers and adventurers. Samson and Atlas, meet Batman.”
The two jostled each other to bow deeply. “The pleasure is all mine,” Samson intoned.
“I am enchanted to make your acquaintance,” Atlas added pointedly.
”Rao,” Superman muttered.
Samson and Atlas looked at Superman, then shared a meaningful glance. “Do you think--?” said Atlas.
Samson nodded. “Oh, I do. I do. He’s perfect for it.” With a flourish, he produced a sparkling diadem of black diamonds that glowed with an inner light. “For you,” he said, placing it on Batman’s head, snug between the cowl’s ears. “The Quantum Crown of the Ultrasphynx. We...uh...borrowed it from him way back in the 80th century BC.”
“Borrowed?” said Batman, eyes narrowing.
“Yes, well.” A sudden ice-cold light flooded the street and Samson swallowed hard, backing away slowly from Batman. “See, he didn’t take it so well, and--”
Something seized Bruce by the throat and time seemed to crawl to a stop. It stopped, and yet it kept moving, impossibly. A voice so low it rattled the pavement spoke:
“Return what was stolen from me. And pay the price.” Bruce looked into a pair of pitiless black eyes that seemed to be filled with nebulae, glaring from a face framed by an ornate Egyptian headpiece. “His life is mine.”
“Batman!” cried Clark from somewhere nearby.
“Halt.” The Ultrasphynx’s voice was flat, remorseless. Filled with riddles and truths. “This man exists now in a state of quantum uncertainty. Neither alive nor dead. Answer correctly and he lives. Answer incorrectly and he dies.”
It was very strange, Bruce thought, being alive and dead at the same time. The universe unspooled around him, a cascading torrent of information. He saw it all. From somewhere near by, he could hear Superman and Samson speaking, but the words had no meaning.
“You stole that necklace. You brought it here and tricked us--”
“--He’s been hounding us through the aeons since we lifted that little trinket, Superman, you’re the only one who can beat him!”
Truths swirled around Bruce like a fog, brushing against his skin, tasting of vinegar and violets.
Key among those truths was that he really, really didn’t want to die with a diamond tiara crammed on his head.
Superman’s voice: “What is your question, Sphynx?”
The Sphynx’s low growl made the air shiver. “What happens when the irresistible force meets the immovable object?”
A long silence. Bruce turned his head and managed to open his eyes to see Superman’s face, taut with worry. Poised between life and death, Batman looked at Superman.
Clark met Bruce’s eyes.
Then he smiled.
“How about this?” Superman’s voice was confident again, resonant. “They surrender.”
“Answer: Acceptable.” Was that a flicker of a smile in the UltraSphynx’s voice? The grip on Batman’s throat eased and he dropped to the ground. The truths that had surrounded him eddied and ebbed away. He grasped for them--he had seen something, something important, in Clark’s eyes, a truth he needed to keep--but as the UltraSphynx receded, so did those answers.
Superman put an arm under Batman’s shoulders and helped him stand up.
“Well,” said Samson, “It’s a shame we lost that Quantum Crown.”
“It did look magnificent on Batman, though,” added Atlas.
“Oh, it did. Stunning.”
They looked at Batman and Superman’s faces.
“Batman doesn’t have any powers, does he?” Atlas whispered sotto voce behind a hand to Samson. “He can’t...you know...actually harm us, right?”
“Of course not,” Samson said heartily. “And a being of such towering intellect and moral rectitude certainly would find it in his heart to forgive our little, um, prank. I’m sure.”
Batman reached into his utility belt and came up with a pair of scissors.
Samson’s eyes widened. “Well, I believe I shall take my leave of you, then,” he stammered, pulling his long hair back nervously as Batman advanced on him. “As always, Superman, it’s been a pleasure.”
“Oh no, the pleasure is all mine,” Superman said, watching Samson sprint toward his time machine. He cracked his knuckles. “Atlas, I believe it’s time for you to go as well.”
Atlas had gone somewhat pasty-faced. “Yes. Yes, I wouldn’t want to overstay my welcome.” He managed a last courtly bow to Batman and hurried toward the time machine as well.
Batman tucked the scissors away. “What was that about surrendering?”
“Oh.” Superman looked uncomfortable. “It was just a hunch. Just something that crossed my mind.”
“No surrendering,” Batman said sternly. “Superman doesn’t surrender.”
Clark’s smile was sweet and touched with sadness. “Sometimes it can’t be helped,” he said softly. Then he went on before Bruce could say anything, “By the way, you did look rather fetching in that tiara.”
Bruce snorted. “Just for that, I’m making you taxi me back to Gotham.”
: : :
Batman was working at the Fortress again when a different set of time travelers arrived.
He’d come back a few days after the UltraSphynx debacle to continue his experiments on the nanotechnology Quintum and Wayne Enterprises were working with. “These nanonauts,” he explained, peering through a microscope, “if we can get them the right equipment there’s a chance they can undo the neurofibrillary tangles that cause Alzheimer’s.”
“That would be great,” Superman said.
Bruce looked up from the microscope. “You’ve been subdued lately,” he said. Clark looked surprised. “Something’s bothering you.”
“I’ve been...thinking about my father lately,” Clark said.
“Hrm.” Bruce nodded.
"I wasn't with him when he died."
"Of course not," Bruce said with certainty. "Or he wouldn't have died."
A small smile that faded quickly. "It was so sudden. I never got to say goodbye." Clark was staring through the door at the statue of Jor-El and Lara, glimmering in the strange light of the Fortress. "I hate to think of him, all alone in the field with his heart failing. Wondering where his son was."
Bruce frowned. It wasn't like Superman to talk like that. "Clark--"
And then a shimmering gate of rainbow light sprang open in the doorway and two figures stepped through.
One was normal enough--a tall, dark-haired man with clean-cut features, wearing a futuristic variation on the Superman costume. The other, however, was about two feet tall, floating cross-legged in the air, wearing a rakish purple bowler--and a tiny red and blue spandex suit with a cape.
"You two!" Clark said as Batman dropped into crouch.
"You know them?" Bruce asked.
"We've met," Clark said.
The tall man bowed gracefully. "As you say, Kal. My name is Thomas Kent, the Superman of the 853rd century."
The impish man lifted his bowler. "And I am Bryzyzs Wlzynplkz, the Superman of the 5th Dimension. We are members of the Superman Squad--"
"--And they claim to all be my descendants." Superman's arms were crossed. "We met when I was a young man. When my father died. They came to Smallville to help with the harvest, they said. In reality, they were there to fight--"
"--The Chronovore," said Bryzyzs, waving his hand. An image of a ravening force, all devouring maws and catching claws at impossible angles, flickered in front of him for a moment. "We are on our way to your past now."
"But there was a third one of you," Clark said. "His head was all wrapped in bandages. Where is he?"
Thomas Kent held out his hand. On the palm rested a roll of bandages.
Clark staggered as if he'd been hit, and Bruce found himself by his side, hand on his shoulder, glaring at the two intruders. "I get to...see him again? One last time?" Clark's said, his voice thick.
The future Supermen both nodded. Thomas said, "Superman Prime, leader of the Supermen Squad, says we need your help against the Chronovore. He says it's all right to take you back to that time."
Clark reached out and put his hand on Bruce's, still resting on his shoulder; Bruce could feel the tremor in it. "Do you think I should--"
"--Go," Bruce said.
The Superman of the 853rd century watched Batman gravely as Clark wrapped his head in bandages. "We will be back in a moment, to your eyes. Will you--" He paused, seemed to be searching for words. "--be here when he gets back? Be here for him?"
"I'll be here for him," Batman said, and the other Superman nodded.
They walked through the rainbow gate together, and it closed behind them in a blur of light. Bruce stood, frowning at the spot where they had disappeared.
Before he even had a chance to become worried, though, it flashed back into existence and Clark stepped out alone. His face was uncovered now and his eyes were filled with both sorrow and peace. "I was there," he said hoarsely. "I was able to speak to him. To hold him when he fell. I think--I think he knew who I was."
He turned sharply away from Bruce at the last sentence, his shoulders hunching as if he was hugging something tightly to himself. Bruce hesitated a moment, then put an arm around him.
Clark made a small, broken noise and leaned into the embrace. "I'm so glad," he said. "So glad he wasn't alone."
There was a bitter taste in Bruce's mouth, like violets and vinegar, the taste of a truth seen and half-remembered in Clark's eyes. He knew the truth then, he would realize later. He just didn't want to admit it.
: : :
"Ah, Mr. Wayne." Leo Quintum was looking at a holographic projection of some kind of warped space, his hands clasped behind his back. Around him, the command center of P.R.O.J.E.C.T. bustled. "I'm sorry to postpone our meeting about the funding, but I'm afraid I've been distracted by other things. The Bizarro world is sinking into the Underverse, and I'm afraid Superman is trapped in its gravity well."
Bruce cocked his head like a spaniel hearing a high-pitched noise. "In English?"
Quintum smiled slightly and adjusted the iridescent lenses covering his eyes. "Superman went to the Bizarro world to stop them, but he might not be able to get back."
Bruce smiled. "He'll make it back. He always does, right?"
Quintum looked at him for a moment, thoughtfully. "Mr. Wayne, I have something to tell you--in the strictest of confidences, of course. I don't think he would want you to know, but since some of our combined plans involve him..."
"Is 'he' Superman?" Bruce put a curious look on his face. He didn't feel curious, though. He felt instead as though something large and vast was moving toward him, looming up like the Bizarro world had, warping and distorting the fabric of reality around it. He felt his hand twitch, an involuntary muscle spasm, and fought a sudden, inexplicable urge to turn his back on Quintum and leave the room. "What's the problem?"
"It's Superman. Luthor's attack on my ship was a ruse to expose Superman to more solar radiation than his body could process. I'm afraid his cellular structure is breaking down. He's being consumed from the inside out as his own powers increase exponentially, and there's nothing at all we can do.
"Superman is dying, Mr. Wayne."
Bruce nodded slowly. He didn't feel any surprise, no shock at all. He had known it already, really. It explained a great deal about the way Clark had been acting recently. Quintum was watching him narrowly, and Bruce realized he was still nodding, had been nodding for quite some time. That wasn't the right reaction for playboy Brucie, he thought distantly. No, Brucie would react with shock and horror, not this strange empty iciness. Brucie's eyes might even brim with tears, just the right amount of sorrow.
Bruce drew down his mouth into a mask of grief. "My God, no! That's--that's impossible! Not Superman!" He forced fear, dismay, grief into his voice. It was surprisingly difficult. The emotions skidded over a blank black space in his mind, finding no purchase.
"I'm afraid it's true."
"What will we do without him?" He worked a break into his voice, feeling a faint pride at how authentically it trembled. "Oh--God," he said as though his heart was broken, reaching up to wipe at his eyes. As though his heart was broken. His fingers came away wet. Such verisimilitude, he thought. Beat that, mild-mannered reporter.
But then somehow his face was wet too, and that was overdoing it, really. Actual tears were unnecessary for the role, but there they were, distressingly.
As though his heart were broken.
Bruce Wayne covered his face with his hands.
"Luthor," he said, and the voice was all wrong now, it was raw with rage and hatred and the need for vengeance, it was not the right voice at all. He turned his back on Quintum, struggling to find some equilibrium again, some facade that would get him through the black vertigo threatening to engulf him.
"I understand," said Quintum from behind him after a while. "Believe me." His voice was subdued, without its usual flamboyance. "But Superman's mortality isn't even the worst of our problems."
Bruce had recovered from his inexplicable identity breakdown enough to turn and meet his eyes. "What do you mean?"
Quintum went to one of the monitors. "This is an extrapolation of the data we're receiving from the heart of the sun." He touched the screen. An image sprang to life on it: a blazing eye surrounded by a corona of flickering blue radiation like plasmatic malice.
Whatever it was, it looked hungry.
Quintum clasped his hands behind his back again, gazing at it. "I hope Superman gets back very soon. It looks like we're going to need him."
: : :
"You should get some sleep."
Superman shook his head. "Sorry, Batman. Too much to do. Maybe...maybe later."
Batman suppressed a growl. Ever since Superman had gotten back from Bizarro world, he'd been driven, spending every moment working on different things with a feverish intensity. Bruce hadn't asked him about Quintum's revelations. He hadn't needed to. Superman's desperate struggle to get as much done as possible spoke more loudly than any words to the truth of the scientist's statement.
Superman is dying.
Clark frowned, his eyes preoccupied. "Quintum is working on the Kandor Martian resettlement program, that's under control. And Van-Zee and the Superman Squad are using his nanotech--with your innovations," he added, smiling at Batman, "--to make progress on the cancer cures I've hypothesized. Oh, and I let the baby sun-eater go," he said with a wistful smile. "The little guy gave me hug before he left."
Bruce's stomach turned at the idea of those ropy black tentacles folding around Superman's form like a living void. "And the thing in the sun?"
Clark's face was haggard, and Bruce felt a pang go through him. "Solaris is in the heart of the sun. Even with my powers augmented as they've been recently, I can't survive there, much less fight something like that. We have to wait until he makes his move."
"Then we wait," Batman said, bending back to his instruments.
"You need to go home, get some rest," Superman said behind him. "You've been here helping me for..." His voice trailed off. "Rao, for twenty hours straight? You need sleep."
"I'll sleep when you do," Batman said, adjusting the microscope. "I came here to help you, and I'll do what it takes." Superman was silent, but Batman could tell he was watching him. He didn't look up. "I'm not leaving you when you need the help," Bruce said brusquely.
"I--" Clark's voice broke for just a second. He took a long breath. "Thank you," he said softly. He went back to work, tending the box that he claimed held a tiny new universe. After a while, he began to hum quietly to himself, a tune that sounded vaguely familiar, but Bruce couldn't place it. He was going to snap at Superman to stop it, but the song wasn't horribly distracting. In fact, it blended nicely into the rhythm of his work, carrying him along with it, so Bruce kept working. He hardly noticed when the humming shifted into actual singing, gentle words just barely in hearing range, something about sunlight and warmth and safety and love. A web of music, soft as eiderdown, wrapping him in radiance...
...Until he woke up in his own bed in Wayne Manor, still in costume, feeling refreshed and well-rested and deeply annoyed.
He sat up and saw the little scrap of paper on the pillow next to him: Thank you for everything. Clark. Bruce reached out and touched it, feeling uneasy.
"Master Bruce," Alfred announced, bustling into the room. He pulled open the curtains and Bruce winced as eerie blue-tinged light poured across the bed. "I believe your nemesis in the sun is making his move. Also, there's a call coming in from the Fortress."
Robin was waiting at the computer moments later, hopping up and down. "Is it Superman, Bruce? Is it? What's happening?"
Batman opened the channel, but no image appeared. The screen stayed black, but a slightly metallic voice came through the speaker: "Batman. This is Superman Robot 7. Our master is preparing to leave to fight Solaris, the Tyrant Sun. You said once you would help him. We do not believe he will survive this fight."
The transmission ended.
Bruce stared at the dark screen. Robin grabbed his arm. "Superman needs help, Bruce! But--but what can we do? He's fighting a sun. We're just--" He stared down at his own small, strong hands. "We're just humans."
Bruce felt his jaw set. Whirling, he went to a cabinet, took a small vial out of it.
Golden light leaked through his fingers, bathing the cave in the glow of a summer's day.
Ignoring Robin's gasp, Batman unstoppered the vial and drank its contents in one gulp.
A rush of sound, of light, of strength. The cave seemed to spin around him. He could hear Robin's hammering heart, hear the soft purring of all of Gotham, stretching like a cat. The world unfolded in a thousand different directions at once, a vast Chinese box of interlocking input, a mandala of exhilaration.
No time to waste. He nodded once at Robin, reassuring, and was running for the exit.
He took to the air.
Through a layer of clouds he rocketed--each droplet of water suspended before his eyes for an instant like gems--and upward until the air thinned then vanished. The coruscating lattice of sound that was Earth died away into an utter and profound silence.
He soared on.
He caught up with Superman at the edges of the sun's corona, now sickly and livid. Clark whirled, his expression distressed. Bruce merely shook his head before Clark could argue and darted deeper into the corona, feeling the pulses of magnetism along his body like a caress. Even invulnerable, he could feel its heat--he spared a moment to be grateful that his powers apparently had a protective aura for his clothing as well, or he'd be fighting Solaris entirely naked.
As they approached the surface of the sun, entering its strange atmosphere, Bruce could start to hear again: a steady roar of a giant furnace. And below that, laughter like static, hungry and hollow.
Solaris, the Tyrant Sun.
"This is my fight, Bruce!" Clark's voice reached him this time. "Go home, protect the Earth--"
"--I won't leave you!" Bruce snarled as his cape snapped and furled around them, a tiny shadow in a field of impossible light. "Quintum told me what Luthor did to you. I won't let you face this alone!" The roiling sunlight around them, shot through with gangrenous blues and greens. Clark's eyes, pained and pure. "Not alone. Not while I live."
Clark's mouth worked for a second. He reached out to clasp Batman's shoulders. "My friend," he said. He shook his head as if in wonder. "Bruce."
Below them, the sun spewed a massive plume of plasma which lashed them both with incandescent fury, and Solaris came at them from the sun, all spikes and malice and a harsh, dark voice that pounded them like waves of pain:
"POISON YOUR SUN DRINK ITS LIFE KILL YOU ALL"
Later, when Bruce tried to remember the fight that followed, he could only piece together fragments: the infinite howl of the solar winds, the heat and pressure as they plunged deeper into the sun, pain raking along his side, digging into his ribs, forcing a cry of pain from him as he pummelled the great eye.
Superman's cape was a flutter of scarlet in a blur of virulent light. Batman fought to his side, matched his blows against the foe.
They were losing.
Superman was gasping fragmented words of defiance; Bruce could see him summoning up reserves of strength, burning like a candle burns wax, fresh power eating him from the inside. He could see now his cells, humming with oversaturation, the solar brilliance all around them only adding to the speed of Superman's death.
And then there was another presence near them.
"No!" Superman's voice was anguished. "Go back!"
Solaris suddenly flinched away, all its vicious spines cringing, and Bruce could see what had made it retreat.
Superman's pet sun-eater had arrived.
It moved toward Solaris, extending tendrils of darkness, and Bruce caught his breath in amazement. With the power still thrumming in his veins, the sun-eater appeared as a dappled ebony rainbow, an aura of luminous glory surrounding it beyond any mortal vision. It was beautiful and deadly, and Bruce struggled with awe that was close to pain. This is how he sees the darkness: whole and complete and triumphant.
Then the sun-eater engulfed the Tyrant Sun, and the concussion knocked Batman head over heels for a moment, tumbling. When his vision cleared, only Solaris remained, groaning and guttering, while wisps of darkness fluttered down into the heart of the sun.
"You killed it!" Superman's voice was hoarse with fury and tears. "You killed it!" He launched himself again at Solaris, a corona of power blazing from him, hurling it out of the sun and toward Earth.
Still dizzy and stunned, pain from his wounds starting to shriek along his nerve endings, it was all Batman could do to hold on to Solaris as Superman's wave of rage pushed them all toward Earth. He wrenched at one of the wounded sun's oozing spikes, feeling a tiny glow of satisfaction as it broke off, trailing plasma in its wake.
Solaris was howling as they entered the Earth's atmosphere, a long static-filled cry of pain and fear. Batman's hands were slipping, torn from his foe by the force of their descent, and when Solaris shuddered and flailed he lost his grip and was ripped away from them.
Superman's fading sobs echoed in his ears all the way down.
: : :
He hit the Earth and felt the shock wave shatter the ground near him. He lay for a while, stunned, his too-keen senses whirling. There was a hissing sound filling the air; once he collected himself and sat up he could see a huge circle of melted snow extending around him. The ground under him was still steaming.
Well. Still invulnerable. Lucky for him.
He focused on Clark's heartbeat and abruptly felt its beat as if directly on his eardrums: a rattling pulse of power gone haywire. He could hear the energy consuming Superman, pushing his heart. And he could hear Lex Luthor's voice as well: "What is this, hide and seek? I don't need to be able to see through lead--I can liquify it with a hard stare!"
Luthor's voice was filled with exaltation, power. Power Bruce knew well. The super-serum. He's stolen it. He has Superman's powers. Batman struggled to stand, his knees buckling twice before he could make it to his feet.
"If I die, you die first!" Luthor's bellow was filled with rage and triumph. Bruce could hear shattering glass, hear the sound of fist hitting bone. The sound of Clark's laboring heart.
Dizzy and dazed, he lifted into the sky and headed for Metropolis.
Blood scattered the snow below him.
He entered the skies of Metropolis like his namesake, weaving drunkenly through the sky to land with a crash between Luthor and Superman's crumpled body. He rose into a crouch, fists raised, as Lex gave him a supercilious smile, his hands behind his back. "Apparently super-powers are all the rage," he observed. "You're looking rather spectacular, Dark Knight. but then, everything does when seen in super-vision, doesn't it?"
"Don't touch him."
Behind him, Superman said, low but clear: "Wait."
Frowning, Batman paused.
Luthor went on, his eyes scanning the air between them: "I mean, everything is so simple. Einstein talked about a unified field theory, but he had never seen the world like...like this..." His gaze wavered, grew distant. "I mean, I can see, it all. All at once. The connections...like silver light. No, that doesn't even come close to describing it. So vast. So..." He shook his head. "This is how he sees us. All the time. Every day." His eyes were wide now, filling with tears of wonder. Green eyes full of sorrow and joy.
Bruce recognized them.
"It's just us," Lex murmured, as if to himself. "It's all just us, in here, together. And we're all we've got." He stood, hands lifted as if to touch whatever he was seeing, ignoring Batman entirely.
There was a hand on Bruce's shoulder. "I used a gravity gun to accelerate his powers," Superman said. "He's experiencing them all at once. Burning out." He stepped forward, cocking a fist. There were strange traceries of light along his skin, a net of gold: Bruce realized suddenly that it was the blood in his veins, transmuting into light and power. "It's over, Lex," Superman said, leveling him with one punch.
He turned from the sprawled figure on the ground to look at Batman. "The sun is still dying," he said. "Solaris has poisoned it." The sunlight had an eerie blue tinge to it. Only the light inside Superman's skin, the radiance in his eyes, was still right and natural and true. "Only I can save it in time."
"No," said Batman.
Clark looked at his hands, at the glow running through his skin. "Ironic. Luthor's sunlight overdose has made it possible for me to save the world." Impossibly, he smiled at Batman. At Bruce. "I can power the sun until it's repaired," he said. The smile slipped away. "It might be...a long time."
"No," said Bruce.
"Don't worry," said Clark. He touched Batman's face with fingers of light. "I know I won't be alone. Not really."
Bruce grabbed his shoulders as if to hold him back, to hold him down, to keep him here by his side forever. From there it seemed the most inevitable thing in the world to kiss him.
Clark tasted of sunlight and time, tears and joy.
And then he was gone, rocketing upward in a trail of glory. Batman watched his passage, feeling his borrowed senses overloading, the strength leaving him, the invulnerability fleeing. He followed Superman's flight until his sight narrowed to nothing but that speck of brilliance in the star-filled sky, everything closing down, fading, until darkness swallowed Bruce up whole and he fell to Earth.
: : :
Leo Quintum turned from his vials and readouts to find Batman standing behind him. His eyes showed no surprise as the Dark Knight took him by the collar and shook him like a rat. "Batman," he said cooly, as if his teeth weren't rattling.
Batman reached out and ripped the colored glasses from his face to reveal familiar green eyes. "You," he said, letting him drop to the floor.
"Me," agreed Quintum.
"How?"
Quintum shrugged. "I hardly remember, honestly. It was so long ago. It involved cloning and time travel. Most impressive things do." He picked up his glasses from the floor, put them back on his face. "I had unfinished business that I could only complete with a second go-around."
"He trusted you."
An arrogant jerk of the chin. "And well he should. I've spent most of my life attempting to undo previous errors of calculation, to his benefit."
"Remorse? From you?"
Quintum's eyes narrowed. "Don't be sentimental. I merely...came to see that my scope had been too narrow. That I could be more than that." Some indefinable emotion flickered across his face. "Regrets are for failures." He put out a hand toward Batman, let it fall. "I understand," he said. "You were close."
"You understand nothing."
"Bruce," said Quintum, almost gently. As Batman stared, he went on: "Superman cracked the Kryptonian code, at the end, you know. The secret of his DNA. It will let us clone him by combining his with the human of his choice."
"Congratulations," said Batman. "Now you've got everything you wanted. Control of his dynasty, even, if Lois lets you--"
He stopped dead as Quintum picked up two vials filled with luminous matter from his workbench. One had the familiar Superman shield on it.
The other had a small black symbol. Also familiar.
"Damn you," Bruce said after a while. He wasn't sure which of them he meant.
"This is his legacy to you, and to the world," Quintum said. "You can refuse, of course. It's entirely up to you. He entrusted his legacy to us, and I've done what he asked me to do." He put the vials back on the bench, very carefully. "I swear I will not do anything further without your explicit permission," he said.
I trust Leo Quintum. I hope you'll remember that, Superman's voice said in his mind.
Bruce shook his head, not trusting his voice.
"Take some time to think about it," Quintum said. "Meanwhile, I have a more pressing project I need to focus on." Batman made an interrogative grunt. "Isn't it obvious?" Quintum's smile was arrogant and sweet. "You and I are going to fix the sun, of course."
: : :
Bruce woke up slowly. His body ached from a hundred sprains, a thousand cuts. He lay with his eyes closed, feeling golden warmth against his eyelids.
"Oh dear, sir," said Alfred's concerned voice. "Forgive me, I forgot--" Bruce opened his eyes to see Alfred going toward the heavy drapes, open to the morning sun.
"Wait," said Bruce, and Alfred paused with his hands full of cloth. "You can leave them open. It's okay."
"Very well, sir," said Alfred. He paused at the door. "It's a beautiful day, if I may say so."
Sunlight was falling in a bright, rich square across Bruce's chest. He could feel its warmth like a weight against his heart, streaming from the sun to his room, across all the empty spaces in between. He held up his hand, letting radiance limn his fingers, turning them from mortal to glory for a moment.
"It is," he murmured into the light's benison. "It's a beautiful day."