You would have fought very bravely, and died very quickly. Who then, would avenge your brother?
Who: Superdad isitablurred and Batboy kingofrooks / rookminor
When: June 25th 2011
Where: The streets of Gotham I mean Siren's Port. Sector 9.
Summary: Bruce is determined to keep patrolling even though he is 8 years old. Clark finds him on the street. Eight year olds have no defense against bullets.
Warnings: Violence, swearing, superheroes making up, flashbacks to Bathistory. Oh ( Read more... )
When: June 25th 2011
Where: The streets of Gotham I mean Siren's Port. Sector 9.
Summary: Bruce is determined to keep patrolling even though he is 8 years old. Clark finds him on the street. Eight year olds have no defense against bullets.
Warnings: Violence, swearing, superheroes making up, flashbacks to Bathistory. Oh ( Read more... )
That was the pocket with the green kryptonite. It might not affect Clark at the distance he was keeping, but if he got closer then Bruce would take it out and keep him at a distance. It wasn't that he didn't trust him to have control his powers- it simply was that Bruce had stopped trusting him to not use them on him.
(The funny thing was- when he first met Clark, he was able to turn his back fully on him without a second thought, and that was when he had barely known anything about him. He just knew that he was Clark Kent, and he didn't have that signature crazed look in Ultraman's eyes- and if he was Clark Kent, he could be trusted.
Looking back, it was so incredibly ironic right now. That the more he interacted with this man, the more he knew about him- the less he trusted him. The complete opposite of the road he had travelled with the Clark he knew back home.
[And it was odd, how he had stopped thinking of that man as 'his Clark'.] )
And he knew that it was his own fault, the fact that Clark was staying away and his own lack of trust. It was him who put the red kryptonite on Clark's neck, to goad him into doing what he did- and it was him who foolishly trusted Clark when he asked him to trust him. When he said that Bruce could be saved. That he could always be.
Bullshit.
If Bruce could be, then he wouldn't be on the island at all. If he could be, then he wouldn't have taken that gun and shot Darkseid. If he could be, then he would've succeeded at least once when he tried to save his parents. If there was even a chance that there was someone out there who could drag him out of the abyss he had gotten mired into nowadays- then he wouldn't have been in it in the first place.
Dick used to be able to. Tim. Even Jason, when he was Robin. But Bruce had sunk deeper and deeper, closer and closer to crossing that one line from which there would be no return. None at all.
Clark was right to not trust him. But for Bruce to not trust Clark was- odd. It wasn't entirely Clark's fault and he knew it. He knew it. And if Clark was keeping away because of the kryptonite-
He wasn't willing to talk about it. With Edgeworth, he had only said four words: My parents. They died. It was the furthest he could go, the most he could give, and Clark knew that already. Bruce wasn't one for sharing his stories and tragedies, and he refused to be. His pain he kept locked inside- not because he didn't trust Clark enough, but simply that he had never said the words.
Words cheapened it. Made it cut and dry and simple when it never was. Words could never fully describe what happened and what he remembered. The sight, the smells, the sounds, the touch, the emotions- and even if he delineated each other and described them to full accuracy it would not be possible to explain what the full effect was. Not even to Clark. Especially not to him.
Bruce stood up, jumping down from the couch. He stepped forward and tugged off the belt, and silently threw it at Clark's feet. His aim wasn't impeccable, but it did the job- and none of the pockets opened. Then, he leaned back against the couch without speaking a word.
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Carefully Clark stepped forward, picking up the belt quietly. Bruce had been fingering the pockets, and Clark knew well enough which one had the Kryptonite in it--he'd memorised it by instinct. Quietly he lifted the belt up and sprung the catch.
For such a cheap-looking green glowy rock, it really did make him feel violently ill. Especially this close. Inside his veins, he knew, his blood was bubbling as though held over a hot flame. His face tinged with green, his hands clenching tight around the belt, around the pocket, grimacing, forcing his teeth sharply together. There was only white noise in his head, stomach twisting violently and he felt more than sick--as always, when he was exposed to Kryptonite, he felt like he was dying.
But he'd been exposed to it so often now that he'd found ways to push through, ways to continue to function even through the agony. Lana had absorbed Kryptonite into her Prometheus suit and Clark had battled through the pain of reaching her just to kiss her one last time. This was different--this wasn't nearly as bad as it had been that day.
He took several steps forward, even though he wobbled a little more with each, and when he reached Bruce he stopped, snapped the lid shut, and sank down to one knee to lay the belt down in front of him.
What did he have to be afraid of?
Clark looked back up, found Bruce's gaze, but he didn't rise back to his feet. He was, after all, ridiculously tall in comparison to Bruce right now, but there was something more to it than that; capitulation.
"The universe has a way of making us relive the worst moments of our life over and over again. You can't ever escape them. After his heart-attack, I held my dying father in my arms as we drove him to hospital. Years later I did the same for my birth father. He was only a clone but he looked like him, sounded like him, felt like him. He told me that he was proud of me, and then he died."
He lowered his head. It was painful, yes, but part of him felt it was necessary. Sharing these words with Bruce was similar to the act of throwing the belt across the room to him. It was trusting. More trusting than he was with anyone else. These were things he hadn't told anyone else in the League, things that only those with him at the time would have caught a glance of, let alone guess how much it hurt.
"I stood on Krypton and watched it crumble around me, watched it fall apart, knowing that there was nothing I could do. That if I made the choice to save them, I doomed the Earth. So I put my baby self into the spaceship, closed the lid and sent me away, knowing how lonely it would be, how much I'd miss a family that I never knew.
"How does anyone make that kind of decision? How does someone choose one planet's right to survive over another's?"
He looked up, not at all expectant. The correct answer was you don't.
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"You know as well as I do the trials that each of us have to go through. And we have to do it alone. There's nobody there to second guess you when the chips are down, nobody to tell you that your decision is the wrong one. If you step into a burning building and see two people in need of rescuing, and by rescuing one you fail the other, then saving a life doesn't matter--you still made a choice that as good as took another. The burden that we bear is unique, and if we weren't strong enough to bear it, it would cripple us."
Clark shifted back, dropped his other knee onto the floor so that he was essentially sitting on his feet, and mustered all of the determination he could into his eyes when they met Bruce's again.
"That's why this has to end. We're the only ones on this stupid island that really understand each other, and if we're going to destroy that trust when it's only just begun then we're idiots. We'll get ourselves killed, and we'll deserve it. I may not have your experience, and I may not be...quite the man you expected, but if you give up on me then you're not the man that I expected either."
It was much, much too much talking, but maybe he'd gotten his point across. Either way, they'd strayed from the subject of parents, brought the topic onto something firmer and more topical, and if Clark hadn't broached the subject now, he knew he would regret it for the rest of his stay. Possibly forever.
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So he didn't say a word, didn't move as Clark moved over. When he dropped the belt at Bruce's feet, Bruce took it up and immediately slung it around his shoulders again, leaning back- and he dropped his arms back to his side, leaving his posture to be a little more open than usual.
And when Clark spoke, he listened.
And he realized that- he was wrong. Wrong to think that Clark- this Clark- wouldn't understand how it felt to have a parent die in from of them and do nothing about it. To blame himself and focus so entirely upon that one scene, that one memory- and have it on eternal loop during his nightmares. Perhaps- perhaps Clark would understand what it meant.
Perhaps Bruce could trust him to understand his story, as badly as he would say it. Clark was always better - even though Bruce could tell that these words were new, that he had never told anyone about what happened- even though Bruce knew that the memories must be new and the wounds raw, Clark had been better able to vocalize his pain. To tell Bruce his story; to make him understand that- yes, we are still the same; yes, I know your pain.
But even when Clark shifted the topic to something more general, more about them instead of their stories- Bruce couldn't extricate himself from the thought of his parents. Of what happened. What Clark knew. Because Clark was talking about trust, and-
He trusted him with he was easier here, because a name was merely a name, and there was no recognition, no remembrance in Clark's eyes when he said 'Bruce Way', no memory of tragedy, no immediate knowledge. He trusted him with a name and a face because the name carried none of its baggage here. None of the countless words said into the air when someone picked up a newspaper after his parents' deaths.
His parents died in front of him. Oh, the poor boy.
The poor child, that is so horrible.
I feel so sorry for him.
A thousand and one sympathies and pities and no one in the world didn't know Bruce Wayne's story. They said that the murder of the Waynes was the start of Gotham's Dark Age. The era in which the police - unable to catch the assailant - slowly lost power and the mob took over. Bruce Wayne, orphan. Bruce Wayne, the poor boy. Whoever he told his name to in his world, they knew his story. They knew his family. They knew his weaknesses. They knew how to dig at him. They knew why.
Here, there was nothing. It was so much easier to trust him with a name and a face. To even the odds, except the odds had never been even in the first place.
Bruce closed his eyes.
"I can't forget the smell of his aftershave," he looked away. The Bruce Wayne he read about wasn't him; the story might be different, but it was the details that clung onto his memories like cobwebs. "Or the sounds. Gunshots. The release of a safety. Bodies hitting the ground."
No. He couldn't do it. Bruce shook his head- tried another tack. He started walking, turned his back and walked away. "I was given chances to save them- but if I do, then the world is doomed. The enemies I fight would crush the world beneath their fingers while I laid idyllic and happy with my parents bringing me up.
"I chose the world over them."
I know how that feels. He closed his eyes.
"I haven't given up on you."
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And then Bruce looked away. Looked away and spoke, and his words were heavy, as heavy as his heart probably felt.
These weren't facts, they were memories. The jarring moments that reached up out of the every day and hurt when he least expected it. The smell of aftershave, the sound of the safety on a gun, the snap of gunshots, falling bodies. They were visceral and powerful, and for Batman they were sounds and smells that he would fight every day. Everyday memories that would time and time again reach out and remind him of what he didn't have.
And no wonder. No wonder the universe would reach out and give him those chances, would think to tempt him that way, the way it had Clark. It was a pain that Clark knew was hard to live with.
What if I could save them?
And Bruce had had to make that decision too. He had had to overcome that pain and make the hard choice, because if he didn't millions - billions - of people could die.
His silence was understanding. He didn't need to offer Bruce pity, or words of thin hope. Silence was better. Silence said that he understood, because what could he possibly say that would make it better? That wouldn't cheapen it? The same had gone for his father. Even if talking about it to other people had helped, most of his healing had been done alone. In silence. The first times he'd been able to face it, speak about it, it had been like a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
Bruce was different. He'd been so young when he'd lost his parents. He would have had years with that weight his to bear alone. And being as rich as he was, there might have been counsellors, benefactors who wanted to somehow make it better, who pitied him. He would have heard it all before.
There was no doubt in Clark's mind that as a child Bruce would have been canny and resourceful--he would have to have been to become the man - not quite literally - standing in front of him today.
So he was silent, and merely stood up, stepped forward.
There was nothing to say. Not on that subject, at least.
"The night's not over yet."
An invitation.
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The thing was- there was always a part of Bruce that wondered if his parents would be proud of him. He had asked Alfred before, when he was younger and still vulnerable, not yet burying his pain into a festering pile of wounds from which he drew strength from with his teeth gritted. He asked Alfred with his eyes averted from the portrait of his parents in the library and his hands clenched, and Alfred had moved to him, placed his hands on Bruce's shoulders, and said:
You're saving lives, Master Bruce. Of course they would be.
But would they be? Bruce never knew; couldn't know. Whenever his parents lived, Batman never appearance. They never knew what he had become without their presence- and Bruce, in his darkest hours, thought that they would be ashamed. Ashamed at what he had put his family name through; ashamed at all the playacting, all the lies. Ashamed about the gypsy boy he had brought home; ashamed about the dirty street child; ashamed of the lower-income blond child with a bright smile and a criminal father; ashamed of the little girl who couldn't speak and whose parents were killers. In his darkest hours, he looked around himself and laughed bitterly, humourlessly, that he was everything that his parents - beautiful, upper-crust, pristine - would have hated.
(Hurt had tried to trash their images. Thomas Wayne as being a drunkard. Martha Kane as a drug addict. Trying to ruin their names, their reputations, even after they were dead, just to get at his son, to get at Batman. Then, Bruce cut off Bruce Wayne, became someone else, and won.)
He looked at Thomas Elliot and all that he wanted; the illusions and rosy glasses that he saw Bruce's life through. Carefree with endless funds. An endless flow of adventure and dangerous, gorgeous women and good alcohol. But Bruce knew that was distorted, because Bruce would wish his life on no one else. The clones Darkseid made of him killed themselves when they received his memories- he knew that perfectly well.
With a life like that, which parent would be proud?
Sometimes he had hope. When he looked at how far Gotham had grown; at the resilience of her people; at the fall of the mobs and the cleaning up of the police force- when he realized that behind Gordon's back there was a group of good men and women with clean hands and strong determinations- that was what he helped change. Inspire.
Sometimes he had hope. A wish to change. To do better. To do all that he made Batman for. Everything he had become in order to achieve the results that the city around him needed. There wasn't time for him to wonder if his parents would be proud; to mourn over the fact that they most likely wouldn't be.
He had a job to do- and at Clark's words, Bruce knew that he understood. That despite what he had said at the beginning of the night, he knew. That this was what Bruce had to do. That it was a necessity- not just stubbornness, not just pride.
Bruce took a breath. Tugged on his goggles and drew the cloth over his nose and mouth. And he walked- still too small, too young, next to Clark.
"Just this once." He exhaled that breath he took, and deliberately didn't look at Clark; didn't raise his voice. Clark knew who he was talking to.
"Let's go." It was- invitation, in return: fight with me.
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The air was like water, and Clark felt like somehow - maybe - he should be able to float in it, lift his head up and turn and glide through it. He's spoken, Bruce had listened, and now they were taking a new path, a different one. He could almost forget that Bruce was three foot high; could almost forget the feeling of stinging betrayal and the smell of burning flesh and the way that Bruce had spat get out as though he were disgusted that Clark existed.
Almost.
He stepped away, quite earthbound, went to the door and gently pulled it open, pausing to type in the alarm code that Carrie had given him for this particular safehouse. Then stepped out, knowing he didn't have to wait for Bruce.
"Just this once." Fight with me. It wasn't an invitation that many people would get, and it meant more than he could possibly say. An invitation to fight beside Batman, even a miniscule man of might, such as he was now, was still an invitation to fight beside Batman. Sure, it didn't make him a Robin, and that was probably for the best because Clark would give Bruce hell if he started treating him the way he treated Carrie--but it was an invitation to fight as an equal none the less.
It made him feel capable of being one, genuinely, rather than the false bravado he'd been applying to their previous...aquaintances.
Sharp ears picked up a disturbance to the south, but Clark waited, forming a question in his mind that he didn't quite want to speak out loud for fear of breaking the equilibrium. Right.
How are you going to keep up?
Bruce would kick him in the shin.
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And he was walking out, not even bothering to protest about Clark holding the door open for him. He had the height and the strength, and Bruce knew advantages when he saw them- and weaknesses, on his height. Of course, he had his skills, and like hell would he offer to keep him as an equal if it meant that he had to act as lower to him.
(Bruce had never acted lower than anyone. Not as himself. Certainly not to Clark - it might give him ideas.
Because- he had thought once, watching him, that Clark had the powers of a god, and he frequently came up against god-like figures and won. There were people in the world who saw him as a god- so it was truly lucky that he didn't, and there was no way Bruce was going to change that.)
He tipped his head up, raising his grapple gun to shoot. To the south - Clark was obvious enough with his distractions - and he was already flying off, tiny body flying through the air.
"Are you going to stay there?"
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It was nice. It felt like he had a purpose.
Clark ran to a stop at the end of an alleyway, pausing to watch. A young man had been cornered by several more, their red AGi uniforms distinct even in the darkness. Clearly they were menacing the teen for some reason or other, and he bore bruises on his face to indicate that they'd been physical with their attacks. His hands were raised high in self defense.
But that wasn't all.
In the midst of their 'business' they hadn't noticed the creatures drawn to them by the noise and the smell of fear, the monsters creeping out of their dark corners and down the edges of the buildings surrounding them. There was no way out of this dead-end.
Clark raised his voice: "Get away from there. You're all in grave danger."
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But then again, Clark would say that it was better to warn them, to give them a chance. Batman never gave second chances, never simply let someone run unless it was to leave him to their hive- but apparently Superman was too fond of his second chances no matter the world.
(Oh. Oh, he thought to himself- it was back. That odd mix of annoyance and almost-affection that characterised his own mental voice whenever he thought about this man. How strange, it was as if his mind decided to forgive him for the scars without his permission.
If that was so, then it would be the second time that he had forgiven someone named Clark Kent for what he would have never forgiven anyone else. Taking his memories. Marking him.
At least he learnt a lesson from this - he not longer mistook his Clark Kent for the one he knew back home. He was- different. Less pure. Less optimistic. Just as preachy, however.)
Bruce shook the thoughts out of his head and shot out the grapple gun again, moving forward and dropping down in front of the thugs. He dropped on one's head, kicking out at another, using his body and his momentum to his fullest advantage. His hand nearly punched out the throat of one, and then he somersaulted in the air, fell to the floor, and rolled to the side.
Clark's move.
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The one on the side of the building leapt down, clawed winglike arms outstretched for its target as it fell. Clark was there to catch it, arms closing the clawed hands in on themselves, holding the monster at bay only to blast it instantly with his heat vision. It took off the creature's head, killed it instantly, and Clark considered that that was at least merciful, even if he hated killing any of them.
A step back, he crossed his feet over and threw the monster deliberately into the next one, knocking both away down the alleyway.
A third monster - a human shaped one - was moving for Bruce. Clark caught it from behind, but only momentarily. It phased through his arms as though he were made of water, and then sprang at Bruce, teeth bared.
"Watch out."
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No matter. Bruce didn't even bother pulling the boy back and out of the way - his hand was already into his belt. A batarang first, into the throat of the monster- then he was running forward, using the wall to step against as he propelled himself up- and he kicked the monster in the face and shoved an explosive batarang between the eyes-
And then he was backflipping just as a shot of lighting crashed against it. The lightning made the explosive batarang go over early, and it blasted outwards, bright and sharp in the Darkness. Bruce had his eyes squeezed shut, biting down on a too-fat lip as he landed on the balls of his feet and stumbled a little.
Still not entirely used to this body yet. At least, not in combat situations.
The monsters were down. Bruce rubbed at his eyes - the sparks were slowly fading, but a little too slowly. The AGI men were standing up again, and now that the monsters were done... Bruce gritted his teeth, and moved into fighting position.
And he wondered what was taking Clark so long.
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If fire made it bigger--
The temperature in the alleyway dropped by ten degrees, but the monster got most of his frost breath, and with a firm stomp of one foot Clark shattered it and pulled his feet free. Right. AGi agents.
A flutter of movement and they were gone, blinked out of existence. In fact, Clark had just snapped them up and dropped them on the AGi tower doorstep, where they stood disshevelled and confused, looking around as though to try and work out what had just happened.
"Sorry I took so long."
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He tilted his head back, and rolled it to one side, then another. It was a completely adult gesture and it looked really odd on a child's body- and he was aware of it. But at the moment, with this condition being temporary and the goggles and the mask hiding his face and the mask also muffling his voice- he didn't exactly care.
And he was turning his eyes onto the boy- who was shivering a little. Oh, the kid was thin, all skin and bones- and for a moment Bruce was reminded, a little, of Jason. He narrowed his eyes.
Turned to Clark and just looked at him expectantly. The man was a walking, talking temperature regulator. So what about that heat vision of his?
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He learned that trick a while back.
Now, then...
Stepping forward, he moved toward the young man, reaching out to touch his shoulder.
"You're going to be fine now. Just try and keep off their radar for a while, okay?"
Funny. Was it just him or were AGi and SERO pushing their luck with this martial law thing now more than ever, using this oppurtunity to stretch their recruiting legs and mudsling politically? He hadn't any experience, really, compared to how it had been before, but surely it hadn't always been like this?
"Go home."
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AGi was definitely getting worse with their activities. The martial law prevented them from inciting a gang war that could've given them an edge over SERO, and now with the impending lawsuit... they were afraid and cornered, and cornered beasts were dangerous. All the more reason for Bruce to stay out in the night, no matter what kind of body he was in. As long as he could still fight.
That show of control from Clark didn't surprise him as much as it reassured him. Clark could do this- he could control himself, and without red kryptonite he wouldn't have done what he had. From what he had noticed, what red K did when it came to affecting Kryptonians from this world was to remove their inhibitions. Their morals.
And without something like that, he was pretty sure that Clark would never lose those when he wasn't drunk on red kryptonite radiation.
Bruce lidded his eyes, turned away and began to walk towards the mouth of the alley.
"Let's go."
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