Fic: Lost Years | DCU | Clark/Bruce | PG-13 | 2/18
Title: Lost Years - Part 2
Fandom: DCU
Pairing: Clark/Bruce
Rating: NC-17 (overall); PG-13 (this section)
Word Count: 1,867 (this section)
Prompt: For the World's Finest Gift Exchange, #F46: Batman and Superman are stranded on a lonely planet and are lost for years before returning home. What happens? Universe is writer's choice.
Summary: (this section) After becoming stranded on an uninhabited world, Clark and Bruce begin work to try to get home. Things don't go as planned.
Disclaimer: DC and WB own it all. I own nothing. Darnit.
Author's Note: Sorry this took me so long. Darned RL. But at least the bunnies and the muses are speaking to me again!
Index Post
Lost Years - Part 2
The next day is a flurry of activity, starting with the ever important task of Clark finding a suitably-sized piece of slate and chunks of real chalk for he and Bruce to begin laying out plans for a pressurized space suit and their possible escape vehicle. They work on the details in shifts, Clark alternately taking off to scout for materials and Bruce working out the particulars of how they'll go about refining what they need and assembling it.
By noon, however, they've both realized that a pressurized suit will not be at all possible given the available raw materials and the tight - if arbitrary - time table. In order for Clark to retain flexibility, they'll need to construct the suit, or at least its joints, of some sort of nylon/polymer fiber, but that means oil refining, chemical manipulation, materials hybridization. Much too complex in the given time. Polymer-based materials of any kind are out.
Instead, they opt for a pressurized helmet made of metal and glass - easy enough for Clark to separate certain metals from their parent rock and to melt sand into glass with his heat vision - with flexible metal tubing connecting the helmet to a tank of compressed air. Copper, silver, and gold make for the easiest metals to deal with, since they need little alteration to make ready for use, and by the early evening, the pair have a fairly good approximation of a helmet.
“This must look absolutely ridiculous,” Clark chuckles behind the glass faceplate as he adjusts the cannibalized skintight material of Bruce's cowl on his neck. The attachment to the actual helmet is awkward, accomplished with a small amount of epoxy Bruce luckily had stashed in his belt, but it looks to the Bat to be holding so far.
“Har har,” he smirks back, double checking the fitting of the copper tube to the gold and silver air tank. Welded with heat vision, it had been surprisingly easy to fill, using only Clark's own lung capacity and his lips attached to the valve to compress the air into it. No need for oxygen/nitrogen mixing, just the ready-to-breathe alien atmosphere and a slow - if not precisely incremental - release valve, combined with an in-helmet carbon dioxide disposal system. Breathe in through the nose, and out through the mouth into an outgoing tube to release the waste. Simple. Effective. Almost... elegant, Bruce thinks.
“How's that? Getting air?” he asks as he adjusts the release valve on the tank, the oddly shaped behemoth attached to Clark's back with leather straps.
The Kryptonian nods, looking uncomfortable in the unwieldy helmet as he begins to breathe out through the tube. Slowly in and out with a circular rhythm, Clark's brow furrowed.
The sight is unexpectedly unnerving to Bruce, and he has to work to repress a shiver and keep his own breathing even. “Good. You detect any leaks?”
After a lengthy pause, Clark shakes his head slightly. No leaks. At least, as far as he can hear.
“All right. You should go for a test run to make sure it works out there.”
Another nod in agreement.
“I'll expect you back in five minutes, then. No more.”
With a last nod and fingertip salute against the glass faceplate, Clark lifts off and soars up into the sky.
Bruce hopes his companion doesn't hear the shuddering sigh he lets out at the sight of his rapidly retreating form. This has to work.
* * * * *
Clark tries not to look at the planet receding beneath him as he breaks out of the atmosphere; he's not sure he can stand the look he knows is covering Bruce's face. The look of hope and fear, all twisted up together. It's not an expression he likes on his friend. He's used to seeing grim determination backed by certainty there, the knowledge that whatever endeavor they're undertaking will work, exactly as planned. Used to the unflinching Bat God calling the shots with no room for question. This... anxiety that he's seen in Bruce over the last two days... it just doesn't fit. It's not Bruce. And it's scaring him.
Please let this work, he thinks again as he finally leaves the last vestiges of the thinning air behind him. Please.
Slowly, he comes to a stop, closing his eyes, breathing.
In and out. In and out.
Please. For Bruce.
* * * * *
Landing softly on the pebbled ground after exactly five minutes, Clark reaches around to close the release valve on the tank as Bruce comes to help him strip off the helmet.
“Well?” the Bat presses when Clark says nothing, the Kryptonian's face unreadable. He's sure his partner can hear his racing heart in the deafening silence between them.
Slowly, a tiny, mischievous smirk grows over Clark's face, and the corners of his eyes crinkle with amusement.
Bruce huffs, “Oh, you bastard,” covering his sigh of relief as his entire body tingles with a wash of endorphins, fear releasing its grip on him.
“I can go up any time,” the taller man grins. “It works perfectly.”
Scrubbing a hand through his slightly greasy hair, the Bat nods, still letting the panicked anxiety slip away from him. No point in hiding it now... “Okay. Let's get something to eat, and then you'll go,” he says almost shakily, not even bothering to force command into his tone.
Clark lays his hand on Bruce's shoulder and squeezes gently, his smile softening. “Breathe, Bruce. We should be home before you know it.”
* * * * *
He can't believe how chapped his lips have gotten over the last hour. Dried to almost cracking over the mouthpiece of the carbon dioxide tube. It's all he can do to work up a little saliva to keep them from dessicating completely. Yuck.
And he still hasn't found the edge of the nullification field. Fifty AU's out from the planet, and still nothing on his communicator, nothing on the homing beacon for the teleporter.
Frustrated, Clark pushes further out, passing the far edges of the small solar system and on into even more empty space. From here, the little world is a tiny blue speck, so much like Earth, orbiting its sun. He imagines Bruce must be pacing like an expectant father, much like Clark had found him that first afternoon, and the thought brings a tiny smile to his otherwise immobilized and painful lips.
He flies that much faster, unaware of the debris field lying, dark, in his path.
* * * * *
It must be nearing midnight when Bruce gets the feeling that something is happening. Standing to move away from the fire, he lifts his face to the sky, scanning for movement among the stars.
Nothing. Dammit. I'm acting like a kid waiting for Santa Claus. Get a grip, he grumbles to himself.
But then there is movement, a tiny fleck growing among the stars of what could be an interestingly-shaped constellation. Blue becomes red against the black of the sky as whatever it is plummets toward the ground. “Come on...” he mutters, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. “You'd better be...”
The red speck gets even larger and brighter, atmosphere burning around Clark's approaching form. In the span of a deep breath, the Kryptonian seems to fall out of the sky, landing hard enough to send tremors through the ground and throw up the pebbled sand of the beach. Bruce instinctively shields his face from the debris, and makes his way to Clark at once. “Tell me you got the signal off,” he demands, but his companion's hand shoots out to stop him from coming closer.
Bruce can feel the heat of reentry radiating off of him. Damn.
Gasping for breath, Clark practically tears the helmet off of himself, the rubber of the cowl stretching and partially melted in places. The tank looks like it's been beaten with a hammer, the copper tubes twisted.
“Christ, Clark... What the hell happened!?” Bruce gapes, his gut trying to leap out through his throat.
The Kryptonian shakes his head, hair limp with sweat hanging almost over his eyes as he tries to catch his breath. “I must have gotten... almost there...” he pants. “Debris field... dodged it, but... micro meteors... hit the tank... punctured... couldn't save... the air...”
Bruce can see the wild fear in his eyes, sapphire flickering with fire and ice and pure panic, and with no more thought to the heat, he springs forward to take the remains of the helmet and the tank from him, helping him to shrug the latter off of his shoulders and ignoring the slight searing of his fingers. “Calm down,” he commands, something greater than fear driving him. “Sit. Catch your breath. Then tell me what happened.”
With a weak nod, Clark obeys, slumping down onto one of the fallen logs next to the fire. For a few moments he just sits there, staring at the fire, his breathing slowing to a normal rate. Then, “I was nearly a hundred AU's out, Bruce. A hundred AU's! That's a damn long way. Should have had plenty of air, though, but...” He shakes his head again, squeezing his eyes shut momentarily. “I should have seen them. I flew head-on into the debris field, dodged what I could see... But it was so damn dark out there, and... they just... slammed into the tank as I passed, and then... there was nothing I could do to contain the leaks. Nothing.”
Sitting next to him, Bruce lays a hand on Clark's back, growing more angry and bitter. He has no words of comfort as his hope dwindles again, its flame dying.
“And the worst part is...” Clark goes on, “I think... I might have heard static on the communicator... or something. I tried so hard to get it to work, to send a message, but...” He presses a fist into an eye and groans, leaning sideways against Bruce. “I... I have absolutely no idea if it even got out. None.”
Beside him, all Bruce wants to do is pull Clark closer, his own rage and frustration and... helplessness making him crazy. Instead, he smooths Clark's hair back from his forehead, just letting his companion rest against him for the time being. “Shhh...” he tries to soothe. “You tried. You tried. Now, we go to plan B.”
* * * * *
The third night on the too-quiet world is much the same as the second, if not that much worse, with the feeling of failure surrounding and shrouding them like a heavy fog of disappointment, disillusionment. They're wholly uncomfortable, still cramped for space in the little hut, sharp elbows in ribs and feet kicking shins and calves brutally. But after a while Bruce unknowingly curls into Clark's side when the Kryptonian offers his own body heat to stave off the cold, having already determined that they're heading into the autumn on this particular part of the planet. The nights are bound to get colder as their forced exile stretches on, so with this knowledge, he pulls Bruce tighter to him as they sleep beneath the not-quite-deer skin and his broad, red cape, Bruce's black silk beneath them.
In the dark night, hope and home seem very far away.
* * * * *
Fandom: DCU
Pairing: Clark/Bruce
Rating: NC-17 (overall); PG-13 (this section)
Word Count: 1,867 (this section)
Prompt: For the World's Finest Gift Exchange, #F46: Batman and Superman are stranded on a lonely planet and are lost for years before returning home. What happens? Universe is writer's choice.
Summary: (this section) After becoming stranded on an uninhabited world, Clark and Bruce begin work to try to get home. Things don't go as planned.
Disclaimer: DC and WB own it all. I own nothing. Darnit.
Author's Note: Sorry this took me so long. Darned RL. But at least the bunnies and the muses are speaking to me again!
Index Post
Lost Years - Part 2
The next day is a flurry of activity, starting with the ever important task of Clark finding a suitably-sized piece of slate and chunks of real chalk for he and Bruce to begin laying out plans for a pressurized space suit and their possible escape vehicle. They work on the details in shifts, Clark alternately taking off to scout for materials and Bruce working out the particulars of how they'll go about refining what they need and assembling it.
By noon, however, they've both realized that a pressurized suit will not be at all possible given the available raw materials and the tight - if arbitrary - time table. In order for Clark to retain flexibility, they'll need to construct the suit, or at least its joints, of some sort of nylon/polymer fiber, but that means oil refining, chemical manipulation, materials hybridization. Much too complex in the given time. Polymer-based materials of any kind are out.
Instead, they opt for a pressurized helmet made of metal and glass - easy enough for Clark to separate certain metals from their parent rock and to melt sand into glass with his heat vision - with flexible metal tubing connecting the helmet to a tank of compressed air. Copper, silver, and gold make for the easiest metals to deal with, since they need little alteration to make ready for use, and by the early evening, the pair have a fairly good approximation of a helmet.
“This must look absolutely ridiculous,” Clark chuckles behind the glass faceplate as he adjusts the cannibalized skintight material of Bruce's cowl on his neck. The attachment to the actual helmet is awkward, accomplished with a small amount of epoxy Bruce luckily had stashed in his belt, but it looks to the Bat to be holding so far.
“Har har,” he smirks back, double checking the fitting of the copper tube to the gold and silver air tank. Welded with heat vision, it had been surprisingly easy to fill, using only Clark's own lung capacity and his lips attached to the valve to compress the air into it. No need for oxygen/nitrogen mixing, just the ready-to-breathe alien atmosphere and a slow - if not precisely incremental - release valve, combined with an in-helmet carbon dioxide disposal system. Breathe in through the nose, and out through the mouth into an outgoing tube to release the waste. Simple. Effective. Almost... elegant, Bruce thinks.
“How's that? Getting air?” he asks as he adjusts the release valve on the tank, the oddly shaped behemoth attached to Clark's back with leather straps.
The Kryptonian nods, looking uncomfortable in the unwieldy helmet as he begins to breathe out through the tube. Slowly in and out with a circular rhythm, Clark's brow furrowed.
The sight is unexpectedly unnerving to Bruce, and he has to work to repress a shiver and keep his own breathing even. “Good. You detect any leaks?”
After a lengthy pause, Clark shakes his head slightly. No leaks. At least, as far as he can hear.
“All right. You should go for a test run to make sure it works out there.”
Another nod in agreement.
“I'll expect you back in five minutes, then. No more.”
With a last nod and fingertip salute against the glass faceplate, Clark lifts off and soars up into the sky.
Bruce hopes his companion doesn't hear the shuddering sigh he lets out at the sight of his rapidly retreating form. This has to work.
* * * * *
Clark tries not to look at the planet receding beneath him as he breaks out of the atmosphere; he's not sure he can stand the look he knows is covering Bruce's face. The look of hope and fear, all twisted up together. It's not an expression he likes on his friend. He's used to seeing grim determination backed by certainty there, the knowledge that whatever endeavor they're undertaking will work, exactly as planned. Used to the unflinching Bat God calling the shots with no room for question. This... anxiety that he's seen in Bruce over the last two days... it just doesn't fit. It's not Bruce. And it's scaring him.
Please let this work, he thinks again as he finally leaves the last vestiges of the thinning air behind him. Please.
Slowly, he comes to a stop, closing his eyes, breathing.
In and out. In and out.
Please. For Bruce.
* * * * *
Landing softly on the pebbled ground after exactly five minutes, Clark reaches around to close the release valve on the tank as Bruce comes to help him strip off the helmet.
“Well?” the Bat presses when Clark says nothing, the Kryptonian's face unreadable. He's sure his partner can hear his racing heart in the deafening silence between them.
Slowly, a tiny, mischievous smirk grows over Clark's face, and the corners of his eyes crinkle with amusement.
Bruce huffs, “Oh, you bastard,” covering his sigh of relief as his entire body tingles with a wash of endorphins, fear releasing its grip on him.
“I can go up any time,” the taller man grins. “It works perfectly.”
Scrubbing a hand through his slightly greasy hair, the Bat nods, still letting the panicked anxiety slip away from him. No point in hiding it now... “Okay. Let's get something to eat, and then you'll go,” he says almost shakily, not even bothering to force command into his tone.
Clark lays his hand on Bruce's shoulder and squeezes gently, his smile softening. “Breathe, Bruce. We should be home before you know it.”
* * * * *
He can't believe how chapped his lips have gotten over the last hour. Dried to almost cracking over the mouthpiece of the carbon dioxide tube. It's all he can do to work up a little saliva to keep them from dessicating completely. Yuck.
And he still hasn't found the edge of the nullification field. Fifty AU's out from the planet, and still nothing on his communicator, nothing on the homing beacon for the teleporter.
Frustrated, Clark pushes further out, passing the far edges of the small solar system and on into even more empty space. From here, the little world is a tiny blue speck, so much like Earth, orbiting its sun. He imagines Bruce must be pacing like an expectant father, much like Clark had found him that first afternoon, and the thought brings a tiny smile to his otherwise immobilized and painful lips.
He flies that much faster, unaware of the debris field lying, dark, in his path.
* * * * *
It must be nearing midnight when Bruce gets the feeling that something is happening. Standing to move away from the fire, he lifts his face to the sky, scanning for movement among the stars.
Nothing. Dammit. I'm acting like a kid waiting for Santa Claus. Get a grip, he grumbles to himself.
But then there is movement, a tiny fleck growing among the stars of what could be an interestingly-shaped constellation. Blue becomes red against the black of the sky as whatever it is plummets toward the ground. “Come on...” he mutters, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. “You'd better be...”
The red speck gets even larger and brighter, atmosphere burning around Clark's approaching form. In the span of a deep breath, the Kryptonian seems to fall out of the sky, landing hard enough to send tremors through the ground and throw up the pebbled sand of the beach. Bruce instinctively shields his face from the debris, and makes his way to Clark at once. “Tell me you got the signal off,” he demands, but his companion's hand shoots out to stop him from coming closer.
Bruce can feel the heat of reentry radiating off of him. Damn.
Gasping for breath, Clark practically tears the helmet off of himself, the rubber of the cowl stretching and partially melted in places. The tank looks like it's been beaten with a hammer, the copper tubes twisted.
“Christ, Clark... What the hell happened!?” Bruce gapes, his gut trying to leap out through his throat.
The Kryptonian shakes his head, hair limp with sweat hanging almost over his eyes as he tries to catch his breath. “I must have gotten... almost there...” he pants. “Debris field... dodged it, but... micro meteors... hit the tank... punctured... couldn't save... the air...”
Bruce can see the wild fear in his eyes, sapphire flickering with fire and ice and pure panic, and with no more thought to the heat, he springs forward to take the remains of the helmet and the tank from him, helping him to shrug the latter off of his shoulders and ignoring the slight searing of his fingers. “Calm down,” he commands, something greater than fear driving him. “Sit. Catch your breath. Then tell me what happened.”
With a weak nod, Clark obeys, slumping down onto one of the fallen logs next to the fire. For a few moments he just sits there, staring at the fire, his breathing slowing to a normal rate. Then, “I was nearly a hundred AU's out, Bruce. A hundred AU's! That's a damn long way. Should have had plenty of air, though, but...” He shakes his head again, squeezing his eyes shut momentarily. “I should have seen them. I flew head-on into the debris field, dodged what I could see... But it was so damn dark out there, and... they just... slammed into the tank as I passed, and then... there was nothing I could do to contain the leaks. Nothing.”
Sitting next to him, Bruce lays a hand on Clark's back, growing more angry and bitter. He has no words of comfort as his hope dwindles again, its flame dying.
“And the worst part is...” Clark goes on, “I think... I might have heard static on the communicator... or something. I tried so hard to get it to work, to send a message, but...” He presses a fist into an eye and groans, leaning sideways against Bruce. “I... I have absolutely no idea if it even got out. None.”
Beside him, all Bruce wants to do is pull Clark closer, his own rage and frustration and... helplessness making him crazy. Instead, he smooths Clark's hair back from his forehead, just letting his companion rest against him for the time being. “Shhh...” he tries to soothe. “You tried. You tried. Now, we go to plan B.”
* * * * *
The third night on the too-quiet world is much the same as the second, if not that much worse, with the feeling of failure surrounding and shrouding them like a heavy fog of disappointment, disillusionment. They're wholly uncomfortable, still cramped for space in the little hut, sharp elbows in ribs and feet kicking shins and calves brutally. But after a while Bruce unknowingly curls into Clark's side when the Kryptonian offers his own body heat to stave off the cold, having already determined that they're heading into the autumn on this particular part of the planet. The nights are bound to get colder as their forced exile stretches on, so with this knowledge, he pulls Bruce tighter to him as they sleep beneath the not-quite-deer skin and his broad, red cape, Bruce's black silk beneath them.
In the dark night, hope and home seem very far away.
* * * * *