Folks said his family were all dead

[isitablurred]

Who: The Man of Steel isitablurred  and The Caped Crusader kingofrooks 
When: Friday 17th June
Where: A safehouse in Sector 10
Summary: Bruce is determined to see himself punished for what happened with the Joker. When Clark is reticent to indulge him, Bruce takes things into his own hands.
Warnings: Violence, blood, Kryptonite, Bruce Wayne's self-loathing, more violence. No

Comments

[kingofrooks]

Preparation didn't take as much time as he thought it would. Bruce was probably the world's foremost expert on Kryptonite - he had every single variety in his hands and down in the Cave at least once, and he had studied their chemical compositions and how to manipulate them well enough. He had never given himself excuses when he had done so, only solid reasons - after all, Clark was easily manipulated by Kryptonite, and it was only prudent to know what effects a certain rock would have on the most powerful man on Earth

[isitablurred]

Late. Yes, but he was always late, except where he was always just on time. But this was Clark Kent, not Superman. And now he was lost, confused, somewhere stuck between the two because Bruce was.

Something very, very strange was happening.

If he'd thought about it twice, he'd be more careful than he was. Bruce knew him, knew him like nobody on this island did, knew him with an intensity of focus and the mental clarity of someone who had spent thousands of their waking hours going back and forth over data, catalogueing Superman, studying his weaknesses for a day when those weaknesses would be necessary, like Lex--when he would try to use them to save the world from Clark. Bruce was careful and he was suspicious, and he would always see the worst in people before he began to acknowledge their goodness, that was how he survived

[kingofrooks]

It was telling how much a single pronoun could say about a person's mental state, wasn't it? The suit under 'his' clothes. Clark Kent as a separate person from Superman when there was never such a delineation - that was entirely Bruce's territory, the compartmentalization of his life. And he was talking to Superman right now, because he had no use for Clark Kent. No use for the farmboy or the reporter; no use for their kindness

[isitablurred]

The problem with Clark was that no matter how bad things got, no matter what betrayal had come before, he would always be too trusting. The fact that he would stand still when he could move away before Bruce could blink and didn't was only a demonstration of that. There was confusion, yes, but trust. This was a man that had his back on the battlefield, a man he'd left blue Kryptonite with because he'd been confident it would be safe. A man whose stash of green he hadn't destroyed because one day, he told himself in quiet, dark confidence, it might be necessary for him to have it.

So he stood still, and he let Bruce slip the chain about his throat, and he didn't stop him.

Clark never recognised the thrall of red Kryptonite; that was a part of why it worked so well, because he would always be so angry that it had been used on him at all that he would simply rip it off. He frowned at Bruce, moved his hand to the crystal and turned it, studying it critically. He had no reason to believe that there was red Kryptonite here in Siren's Port

[kingofrooks]

The last words hit into him like a suckerpunch, knocked the wind out of his lungs and he only continued to breathe out of sheer stubbornness. For a long moment, Bruce could only look at Clark- stare at him with wide eyes, lips parted and this was yet another betrayal- no, not a betrayal, for Bruce had believed something he should not have in the first place. He was a fool to even-

I will always save you.

Don't. He deserves it.The ironic choked him further, because he had spent so long telling Clark to not interfere with him, to not save him- that the confirmation that he heard- that Superman thought that he deserved his punishment, that he didn't deserve to be saved- it crushed him still. The thought that this man- this man whom he had trusted enough to show him who he was- to show him the link between Bruce Wayne and Batman and even the tiniest glimpse of the man beneath- this man who had seen more of him than anyone else on this island- would judge him to be not worth saving was

[isitablurred]

Clark didn't need Bruce's condemnation to feel horrible about those thoughts. But they had come out of his head, whether under the power of red Kryptonite or not. He had thought them, and they were the same thoughts, the same ones, that had burned through his head on occasion when Lex had been on his mind. When Doomsday had died. When Zod's towers had crumbled. He thought, if he had his hand around Lex's throat, would he be able to stop himself? Would he crush him and kill him the way that Bruce had almost killed Joker

[kingofrooks]

There was a sharp inward breath at that. Bruce's hands immediately clenched into fists even though he was midway through trying to pick up the medical supplies to clean his wounds again- and for a moment, his hands just trembled there in the air, his shoulders bleeding sluggishly, red dyeing bandages on his chest red from the tension, the knots that wound themselves into the muscles. For a moment, he closed his eyes and shoved the anger away.

After what he said, Clark now tried to offer empathy? To say that he deserved it- that he understood Bruce's need to be punished? After he had said that he had thought Bruce to deserve all that he had got? That he deserved the punishment

[isitablurred]

No. No he didn't. He didn't get to turn this all on Clark. Don't blame yourself he'd said, and now he was making it sting, digging his fingers in and ripping Clark apart, for the human weakness behind the red Kryptonite. The part of him that he always, always resisted, always conquered.

"You ripped away my free will, and now you're trying to make all of this my choice. My decision to hurt you. Mine. Isn't it fair that I try and defend myself against that? Look at you. Shouldn't what you've been through be enough proof of the efforts I go to to be better than that, or should I be perfect by default?

"You told me once that I'm more human than you. Well this is human weakness, and it's a human weakness I fight all the time. You took away all the control I've built, over years, the efforts I go to protect other people from me. And now I'm not even allowed to apologise in case it might be facetious?

"How dare you punish me for this? Dealt a righteous punishment--how can you even look at me and say that, Bruce, knowing who I am, what I