WFGE Fic: Lifeline
Title: Lifeline
Pairing: Clark/Bruce, Dick Grayson
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: G
Word Count 1400
Summary: Dick Grayson is in a San Francisco hospital bed and Bruce Wayne isn't taking it very well.
Notes: Written for the World's Finest Gift Exchange! Prompt F16, "Early in their careers, Clark and Bruce fell in love and raised Dick together as their son. When a teenaged Dick is seriously hurt during a Teen Titans mission, they maintain a vigil at his bedside, reminiscing about their lives together as a family."
"Mr. Kent, we need you to tell your husband that he's not helping matters with his behavior." The doctor's face face was calm but stern. "He is clearly a man who needs to be in control--" Even through his grief and worry, Clark had to suppress a smile: You have no idea, doctor! "--but Richard is getting the best care possible here. If you could please make him see that, it would make things easier for all of us and help with your son's recovery."
Clark sighed and started down the hall to the nurses' station. Even before he got there, he could hear Bruce's voice talking about the possibility of a subarachnoid or intraparenchymal hemorrhage, the signs of Cushing's Triad, and possible cause being acceleration-deceleration trauma and transverse forces. Clark winced--there was no attempt to hide behind his playboy nonchalance, nothing frivolous or vapid about him at all. He was a desperate man, and one that would do anything for his son.
Unfortunately, there was very little any of them could do right now. Robin had been fighting the Brotherhood of Evil with the Teen Titans when a well-placed blow from Monsieur Mallah had sent him crashing from the Golden Gate Bridge. Starfire had caught him before he hit the water, but he didn't regain consciousness. The fight over, Kid Flash had quickly dressed him in civilian clothes and got him into an ambulance, claiming he was an injured civilian.
Then they had thrown lots to see who had to call Batman.
Now Richard Grayson was lying in a hospital bed in the St. Francis Memorial Hospital, and Bruce Wayne was going out of his mind with worry.
He saw Clark coming around the corner and pounced. "Clark, I think we should move Dick to Gotham, don't you?"
Clark put a careful hand on his shoulder as the nurses he had been buttonholing backed away slowly. "The doctors have said that he shouldn't be moved. Let's go sit in his room a while and let them work."
"But--" Bruce seized his arm, "--I have resources. I can call in help. We can get someone to move him safely, I know we can."
"He's getting good care here, Bruce. You should go to his room and see him."
Bruce shook his head, gesturing to his laptop sitting forlorn on a waiting room chair. "I'm doing background checks of the staff, it's important to make sure none of them are security risks."
"You could do that in his room," Clark pointed out.
"I need to make sure the backup systems here are sound," Bruce said. His jaw was tight and his hands clenched; there were beads of sweat at his temples. "I should check the fire alarms, the sprinklers. So much could go wrong." He shook Clark's arm. "So much can go wrong," he repeated.
"I know," Clark said. "Bruce. I know." He put his arm around Bruce, feeling the tremor in the strong shoulders. "Just come to his room now. You haven't been there once, Bruce. Come see our son."
Bruce's feet scraped on the hospital floor; he was nearly staggering with exhaustion, resisting Clark's gently insistent pull. "I can't," Bruce whispered. "It's not right, not Dick. I can't sit there with him just lying there, motionless. Not Dick. I--" His voice broke. "I don't think I can bear it, Clark."
Carefully, gently, Clark steered him toward Dick's room, murmuring to him. "You can do this, Bruce. He needs you there. He needs you by his side."
"He won't even know I'm there," Bruce muttered. A thread of panic stuttered under his voice. "God, Clark, what if--"
"--Shhh. He'll know you're there," Clark said. "I'm sure he will. Okay. Here we are. We'll just go in and sit down together."
At the threshold of Dick's room, Bruce stopped and took a harsh, gulping breath. Then he lurched into the room as though leaping off a building--no, thought Clark, he had seen the man jump off skyscrapers with more aplomb.
Dick Grayson was lying in his hospital bed, his head bandaged and his face pale against the pillows. His eyes were closed. Bruce made his way to the chair by the bed, groping like a blind man, and sat down as though the tendons in his knees had been severed. "Oh God," he said, his voice a tiny sound among the steady beeping of the monitors.
Clark sat down on the other side of the bed, facing Bruce. "Give me your hands," he said, reaching across the bed. After a moment, Bruce scooted his chair forward until his knees almost touched the bed, and put his hands in Clark's. They were cold, and Clark raised them to his lips to warm them. For a long time they simply sat there together in silence, a lifeline for each other.
"Remember the first day you brought him home?" Clark said, and Bruce almost smiled.
"Our first fight as a couple."
Clark had insisted it would endanger the boy, bringing him into their lives. Bruce had set his jaw and refused to either back down or give a reason for his decision, so Dick's first memory of Clark was of his storming out of the Manor without even saying hello.
He had come back soon enough, sheepish at his rudeness and bringing a new baseball and glove for the boy. Watching them play catch together, seeing Bruce's eyes, he had finally realized the answer to why Bruce had taken him in, and he never protested again.
"I'm just lucky he forgave me for being such a jerk," Clark sighed.
Bruce squeezed his hands. "He's had a lot to forgive us both for, over the years."
It had been Dick's turn to be angry when he found the Batcave, and Batman and Superman working on the Batmobile in it. "I can't believe you kept me out of this!" he'd raged with all the righteous fury a nine-year-old boy can muster. "Don't you trust me?"
Clark could still remember Bruce's face, the cowl pulled down so Dick could see his eyes. "Of course I do, Dick. It's just--it's a dangerous life, and we didn't want--"
"--You didn't want me to find out that my fathers are Batman and Superman?"
My fathers, the first time he had used that word for either of them. The words had hung in the air like an oath and a promise.
What could they possibly do then but promise him he would be their partner in all their adventures?
Bruce's eyes darted to Dick's still face, then back to Clark's, as if he couldn't bear to keep his gaze there. "He's always been there for us."
"And now we're here for him," Clark said to the numb terror in his husband's eyes.
On their wedding day, ten-year-old Dick had been the ringbearer, springing down the aisle in his tuxedo tails, carrying the pillow with the two white gold rings side by side on it. He had stayed by Bruce's side through the ceremony, beaming to outshine the stained-glass windows. And when they had kissed as newlyweds for the first time, Dick's triumphant "Whoo hoo!" had led a round of laughter and applause.
Now their two hands were intertwined over the unmoving form of their son, the pale rings gleaming in the harsh fluorescent light.
"This is wrong," Bruce whispered, his eyes fixed on Clark's, dark with pain. "I've always been prepared for the moment when Dick has to walk into my hospital room, but this--" He blinked hard, and Clark saw him swallow. "It hurts too much. I don't know if I can bear it."
"Do you regret taking him in? Would you rather have lived without him?"
The grief in Bruce's eyes kindled. "Never."
As if the word were an incantation, Dick murmured something, turning his head restlessly. His hands moved across the sheets as if searching for something: weapons, a zip line. Without thinking, both men reached out to catch one of his hands in theirs, linking them in a circle.
Dick's eyes fluttered open, and he smiled.
Pairing: Clark/Bruce, Dick Grayson
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: G
Word Count 1400
Summary: Dick Grayson is in a San Francisco hospital bed and Bruce Wayne isn't taking it very well.
Notes: Written for the World's Finest Gift Exchange! Prompt F16, "Early in their careers, Clark and Bruce fell in love and raised Dick together as their son. When a teenaged Dick is seriously hurt during a Teen Titans mission, they maintain a vigil at his bedside, reminiscing about their lives together as a family."
"Mr. Kent, we need you to tell your husband that he's not helping matters with his behavior." The doctor's face face was calm but stern. "He is clearly a man who needs to be in control--" Even through his grief and worry, Clark had to suppress a smile: You have no idea, doctor! "--but Richard is getting the best care possible here. If you could please make him see that, it would make things easier for all of us and help with your son's recovery."
Clark sighed and started down the hall to the nurses' station. Even before he got there, he could hear Bruce's voice talking about the possibility of a subarachnoid or intraparenchymal hemorrhage, the signs of Cushing's Triad, and possible cause being acceleration-deceleration trauma and transverse forces. Clark winced--there was no attempt to hide behind his playboy nonchalance, nothing frivolous or vapid about him at all. He was a desperate man, and one that would do anything for his son.
Unfortunately, there was very little any of them could do right now. Robin had been fighting the Brotherhood of Evil with the Teen Titans when a well-placed blow from Monsieur Mallah had sent him crashing from the Golden Gate Bridge. Starfire had caught him before he hit the water, but he didn't regain consciousness. The fight over, Kid Flash had quickly dressed him in civilian clothes and got him into an ambulance, claiming he was an injured civilian.
Then they had thrown lots to see who had to call Batman.
Now Richard Grayson was lying in a hospital bed in the St. Francis Memorial Hospital, and Bruce Wayne was going out of his mind with worry.
He saw Clark coming around the corner and pounced. "Clark, I think we should move Dick to Gotham, don't you?"
Clark put a careful hand on his shoulder as the nurses he had been buttonholing backed away slowly. "The doctors have said that he shouldn't be moved. Let's go sit in his room a while and let them work."
"But--" Bruce seized his arm, "--I have resources. I can call in help. We can get someone to move him safely, I know we can."
"He's getting good care here, Bruce. You should go to his room and see him."
Bruce shook his head, gesturing to his laptop sitting forlorn on a waiting room chair. "I'm doing background checks of the staff, it's important to make sure none of them are security risks."
"You could do that in his room," Clark pointed out.
"I need to make sure the backup systems here are sound," Bruce said. His jaw was tight and his hands clenched; there were beads of sweat at his temples. "I should check the fire alarms, the sprinklers. So much could go wrong." He shook Clark's arm. "So much can go wrong," he repeated.
"I know," Clark said. "Bruce. I know." He put his arm around Bruce, feeling the tremor in the strong shoulders. "Just come to his room now. You haven't been there once, Bruce. Come see our son."
Bruce's feet scraped on the hospital floor; he was nearly staggering with exhaustion, resisting Clark's gently insistent pull. "I can't," Bruce whispered. "It's not right, not Dick. I can't sit there with him just lying there, motionless. Not Dick. I--" His voice broke. "I don't think I can bear it, Clark."
Carefully, gently, Clark steered him toward Dick's room, murmuring to him. "You can do this, Bruce. He needs you there. He needs you by his side."
"He won't even know I'm there," Bruce muttered. A thread of panic stuttered under his voice. "God, Clark, what if--"
"--Shhh. He'll know you're there," Clark said. "I'm sure he will. Okay. Here we are. We'll just go in and sit down together."
At the threshold of Dick's room, Bruce stopped and took a harsh, gulping breath. Then he lurched into the room as though leaping off a building--no, thought Clark, he had seen the man jump off skyscrapers with more aplomb.
Dick Grayson was lying in his hospital bed, his head bandaged and his face pale against the pillows. His eyes were closed. Bruce made his way to the chair by the bed, groping like a blind man, and sat down as though the tendons in his knees had been severed. "Oh God," he said, his voice a tiny sound among the steady beeping of the monitors.
Clark sat down on the other side of the bed, facing Bruce. "Give me your hands," he said, reaching across the bed. After a moment, Bruce scooted his chair forward until his knees almost touched the bed, and put his hands in Clark's. They were cold, and Clark raised them to his lips to warm them. For a long time they simply sat there together in silence, a lifeline for each other.
"Remember the first day you brought him home?" Clark said, and Bruce almost smiled.
"Our first fight as a couple."
Clark had insisted it would endanger the boy, bringing him into their lives. Bruce had set his jaw and refused to either back down or give a reason for his decision, so Dick's first memory of Clark was of his storming out of the Manor without even saying hello.
He had come back soon enough, sheepish at his rudeness and bringing a new baseball and glove for the boy. Watching them play catch together, seeing Bruce's eyes, he had finally realized the answer to why Bruce had taken him in, and he never protested again.
"I'm just lucky he forgave me for being such a jerk," Clark sighed.
Bruce squeezed his hands. "He's had a lot to forgive us both for, over the years."
It had been Dick's turn to be angry when he found the Batcave, and Batman and Superman working on the Batmobile in it. "I can't believe you kept me out of this!" he'd raged with all the righteous fury a nine-year-old boy can muster. "Don't you trust me?"
Clark could still remember Bruce's face, the cowl pulled down so Dick could see his eyes. "Of course I do, Dick. It's just--it's a dangerous life, and we didn't want--"
"--You didn't want me to find out that my fathers are Batman and Superman?"
My fathers, the first time he had used that word for either of them. The words had hung in the air like an oath and a promise.
What could they possibly do then but promise him he would be their partner in all their adventures?
Bruce's eyes darted to Dick's still face, then back to Clark's, as if he couldn't bear to keep his gaze there. "He's always been there for us."
"And now we're here for him," Clark said to the numb terror in his husband's eyes.
On their wedding day, ten-year-old Dick had been the ringbearer, springing down the aisle in his tuxedo tails, carrying the pillow with the two white gold rings side by side on it. He had stayed by Bruce's side through the ceremony, beaming to outshine the stained-glass windows. And when they had kissed as newlyweds for the first time, Dick's triumphant "Whoo hoo!" had led a round of laughter and applause.
Now their two hands were intertwined over the unmoving form of their son, the pale rings gleaming in the harsh fluorescent light.
"This is wrong," Bruce whispered, his eyes fixed on Clark's, dark with pain. "I've always been prepared for the moment when Dick has to walk into my hospital room, but this--" He blinked hard, and Clark saw him swallow. "It hurts too much. I don't know if I can bear it."
"Do you regret taking him in? Would you rather have lived without him?"
The grief in Bruce's eyes kindled. "Never."
As if the word were an incantation, Dick murmured something, turning his head restlessly. His hands moved across the sheets as if searching for something: weapons, a zip line. Without thinking, both men reached out to catch one of his hands in theirs, linking them in a circle.
Dick's eyes fluttered open, and he smiled.