'The Return' (Superman/Batman, R)
Title: The Return
Author: Ignited
Pairing: Superman/Batman
Rating: R
Word Count: 3,161
Disclaimer: The characters belong to DC Comics. No infringement is intended, no profit is made.
Summary: Clark comes back to life. Bruce deals with the repercussions.
Notes: Originally written for the 2006 worlds_finest awards, concerning 'New Year's Eve' and a 'first time'. Inspired by and including some dialogue from Superman: The Man of Steel #37 which is (I think) the first time Bruce and Clark meet face to face after Clark comes back to life. Spoilers for KnightSaga and JLA #0, as well as general death of Superman stuff. Slightly revised & edited from the original fic.
--
In the distance, bells chime; it is January 1st, a new year that Batman might not live to see.
He can count on one hand the places where it hurts. Were he able, he could recite the various medical terminologies for what muscles are strained, what nerves are pinched, what bones need to be set and mended. The back is strong enough -- not enough, not like Bane and arching high, high above the city when his vision swam and went black -- and it will enable him to move, very gingerly, down the hall. Small steps, he thinks, but they are not so much steps as they are dragging limbs, broken and bloodied, streaks of dark, smears dark, down the walls and across the floor. A sweeping shape, diagonal, as the shoulder moves down against the wall for support, three whole seconds before he collapses on the floor.
The mind's going dark; he knows he will soon be unconscious from the loss of blood, thoughts stray and his body shuts down.
(One more time.)
"Watchtower."
No response. This has not changed from five minutes previous.
He times himself, adjusts the number for outside and internal factors -- will they arrive, will his body betray him, the probability of the doors closing within the timed limit after breaking the lock code, can he move fast enough -- and Bruce understands. Thirty-five seconds and he will either rise or collapse. It's a good number.
It's a good number, he repeats, and waits.
--
They say that it is the end of it, and to all ignorant eyes it is, book closed shut, sun sparkles, hazes into orange and then a blanket of stars, correct, calculated, day in day out. There is never any rain nor grey skies and (he) always look forward to flowers, many of them, growing lush or scraggly, from meadows and buildings. They grow. It’s inevitable.
And just as sure, it doesn’t end, because this is fantasy, all of it, and soon the lover leaves (or dies, we’ve reached that point in time) and the loved ones, the loved ones they have long since left (they die by gunfire, by crowbar, that is certain). He remains alone. This is also inevitable.
It isn’t overcast. It continues.
--
There’s a light that fizzes, sparks above, light bulb going dim, moves softly in the breeze as the chain below it swings. Another moment, just sounds of street life and wind whistling through the open window before a beam of red light shoots up, dull and glowing on the glass surface until there’s a hissing noise. The bulb stops sparking; it’s dead.
Clark closes an eye and rolls a little on the bed, adjusting himself and his pillow. He pushes it a little, taking care not to send feathers flying, before he flops right on top again, face first.
There are lips brushing his right shoulder, low on the bed, and there are fingers that reach up across his skin and a grip that’s hard -- to anyone else -- and comforting, reaching over to grip the opposite shoulder. And there’s him, most of all, who pulls himself closer and spoons Clark, wraps an arm around, protective.
--
“I guess a broken back can’t dampen a Batman’s resourcefulness.”
“My injuries weren’t nearly as serious as yours.”
“It’s been quite a year for both of us.”
--
Pressing, pushing, he’s at work, fumbling too, letting leather and Kevlar remove all sensory perception - there go the gloves, finally, sweat and rain making them hard to remove. Not hard. Can’t concentrate. Can’t, as he is here, Clark, breathing against the cowl, hair long - it’s long, that’s new - and in his eyes. Clark’s got a hand on Bruce’s jaw, neck, tells him to keep the cowl on and Bruce would like to, very slowly, eviscerate him for the command.
“Not here,” Bruce manages to say, and hates how he can’t pull away and speak properly, how he grips Clark’s cape and his shoulders, his neck, his hair, any little touch to try and grip onto what’s impossible. Ghost. People don’t come back from the dead. Clark isn’t of this world, yes, but it doesn’t make any sense. It isn’t logical. No scientific fact, no strange mutation, treatment, therapy - hell, there’s clones now, aren’t there? - that says a human body can be brought back to life after it dies.
He isn’t human; he’s an alien. Forgets. He forgets. Rare, that.
But now, Clark nods, pulls back and his cheek brushes against Bruce’s own, lips too. “Tonight?”
Bruce gives him an address as he tears himself away, bends down to pick up the gloves and pull them back on. He straightens his posture afterwards, slow, cape closes ‘round his shoulders. “Tonight, Superman.”
--
“He’s not gone. He’s not… He’ll be back.”
--
“Wait. Let me,” is all he says; they are turning on the bed so Bruce is on top, straddling, sweat, bed sheets twist. Bruce runs fingers down Clark’s belly, slow and precise. Bump, bump, right over soft ridges, muscle, Clark shifts uncomfortably, a phantom pain.
“Here?” Bruce asks, barely touches Clark’s left bicep. A slight nod and Bruce leans down to kiss the spot, straightens as his fingers move again. He’ll ask “here?” over and over, and Clark will give a response with lidded eyes, before he tires and turns his head away.
“Uppercut,” says Bruce, knuckles brush Clark’s chin, linger as though feeling exposed bone scrape flesh. “Looked like hell.”
“It was.”
Clark, when he turns again, faces Bruce, has his hair in his eyes. It’s not a boyish thing - bangs against the rim of black frames, finger pushing glasses up on his nose - this, his hair, it’s long, tendrils in the way so he pushes them aside gently, rests his weight on an elbow, looking down at Bruce.
“What happened to your hair?” Bruce asks, though his voice comes out gruffer than intended, than he wants. He clears his throat, opens his eyes more than a crack.
“I don’t know,” Clark answers, half-hearted shrug. “I guess being dead didn’t give me time to cut it.”
Bruce raises an eyebrow, glances at the clock on the night stand. Three thirty. “How… do you…” Two finger, snip snip gesture.
Clark shakes his head, and he smiles, saying, “Family secret.”
“…That’s a terrible excuse,” Bruce responds, groans into the pillow as Clark cuffs him lightly on the shoulder. “It’s different.”
“You called me a hippie. Well, the other you. The alternate timeline version I met. Nineteen seventies, I think.”
“I’m not surprised that ‘I’ did.”
“I didn’t say anything when you added the yellow to your suit.”
“It’s a calculated distraction-”
“It’s a bat signal.”
“Hippie.”
Three thirty one. Bruce throws an arm around Clark’s neck and pulls him down, fast, bites his lip and kisses him, hard, because it won’t hurt and because he won’t hurt, not today, not right now.
--
“Who is it?”
Batman turns his head, lowering binoculars. He finds it disconcerting, the way Superman has a tendency to float a foot or so off the ground, arms folded, hovering nearby. Does that a lot. Doesn’t stand on rooftops. Floats.
“What?”
“You haven’t spoken for the past thirteen minutes. Either you’re playing up the loner angle or someone’s troubling you.”
“No one’s…” A sigh. “It’s nothing of your concern.”
“Try me.”
“You’re supposed to be dead. I watched you die. I saw it happen. The newscast. Diana and I watched the replay, over and over, and you fell, you died. I don’t understand how you’re alive. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Red boots reach the ground, firm, but Clark’s arms hang limp at his sides; he opens his mouth to speak but doesn’t, and he’s concerned now, hell-
“I wasn’t exactly dead,” Clark begins to say, tone uncertain, “…Just mostly dead?”
Bruce finds his head jerking in Clark’s direction, pointing an accusing finger. “This isn’t a joke, Clark. This is serious.”
“What do you want me to say?” Clark asks, hands spread out. “It’s not like I have a guide book.”
“But you can’t just-” Bruce stops. He sighs and rubs his forehead, cowl sticky with sweat. “I’m... I’m not used to this. It’s nothing short of a miracle, if I believed in those.”
Clark’s floating off the edge of the roof now; he’s got his arms folded in front of his chest once more and his hair blows in the breeze, east. Reddish haze and hue cast by the sun, it falls on Clark’s skin, costume darker.
“I do.”
--
< The house of El >
It’s a language Bruce has rarely heard, holograms buzz, fade, read-outs and threats from beings long since dead or terribly alive, ghosts and future enemies that arrive to fight or welcome Kal-El. The Fortress is alive today, with robots floating about, and Clark is giving them orders from time to time, but always, always smiling when he does. He asks if Bruce is cold (he isn’t) if he’s hungry (no), would he like to observe the data center (lead the way): things that aren’t important right now, and things he already knows.
Bruce has spent too long in this Fortress, in that chair, watching, slumped, as Diana cries and wraps her arms around his shoulders. There’s her cry, and there’s her scent; he finds them disconcerting.
“What did you say?” Bruce will inevitably ask after each instance; he can’t help the curiosity. Clark repeats the phrases in English patiently as he takes a seat near Bruce.
The House of El, and Jor-El, Kryptonopolis, phrases Bruce can’t even begin to understand, but he asks anyway. Passive, rapid keystrokes, narrowed eyes behind white lenses.
A robot spouts off another phrase as it floats to Clark and past, and Bruce nods his head in the robot’s direction.
< Hope >, Clark says, repeats slowly. “‘Hope’. That’s the most important.”
He doesn’t say why it’s important, but then again, it’s not like he needs to.
--
There is a time when Clark, after, breathes against Bruce’s back, licks and traces Kryptonese against healing scars and wounds. < Hope >, he says, < Hope >.
And what else? Bruce will hear himself ask, but it’s muffled, sweat, arm and pillow under his mouth.
Truth, Clark responds, slower, swirl against the lower part of the back, past another scar. < Truth >, he repeats, Kryptonian accent odd, strange. It’s another for a great repertoire of languages, but it’s nothing like this earth. He says, truth, again, and then follows with justice.
Here is where Bruce rolls his eyes with a smile - and knows what will come -
Sharp, crack, burst of red fire and pain that snakes along muscle, skin, sharpness. Bruce grimaces - pulled a muscle the other night, and he’s still healing - and finds Clark sitting up, quietly, staring down at the small of Bruce’s back. Eyes move, barely, up and down and he cants his head just so - there’s a curl of dark hair against his collar bone that Bruce takes note of, that he’ll touch later.
“Stop x-raying me,” says Bruce, stretches out limbs like a cat before he buries his face in the pillow. It’s the spine, specifically, that Clark looks at. Bane. Azrael. Dick. The wheelchair. Again, he thinks. “Again,” he says. “Don’t stop what you were doing before.”
Clark says nothing. He stretches out, again, and breathes a dead language against Bruce’s back.
--
He slumps, just then, in Lois’ arms.
Bruce watches the television and he feels his shoulders shake.
--
There are times when Bruce visits, when he snaps the hair elastic and Clark is only flustered response; there goes the broom closet, in disarray, suits pulled here and there, hair slick, hair long, askew and Clark’s glasses are missing, Clark’s cape is sticking out of his collar and Clark’s dick is being pumped by Bruce’s hand.
Minute, two minutes longer and the shelves nearly topple on top of them.
The fact that the steel bends and twists around Clark’s back, paint cans and chemical ones bounce off harmlessly; the fact that he is smiling makes Bruce think hope, and he thinks home.
--
< This way >, Clark says, points. It’s a few months more and the Justice League is started up again; fine print in WayneTech papers, bills, payments, enables the Watchtower to be constructed, allegiances and potential threats to be analyzed. There, there are the immature ones, Wally, Kyle, behind them there are Diana, Arthur, J’onn, and Clark.
Clark, who holds a two-ton steel door open with one hand, high above his head, speaks effortlessly as Bruce examines a bunch of wires hanging from the computer panels.
It comes naturally to Clark, talking, but he hasn’t talked about death for ages, hasn’t spoken using that - Kryptonese, sounds like - for ages.
“What?”
“This way,” Clark repeats, indicating a wall ten feet in the adjacent corridor. “X-rayed it. Hidden hallway.”
“I knew that,” Bruce snaps (he did; shoddy craftsmanship to conceal the edges), and adds, “You haven’t spoken like that in weeks.”
Bruce steps through the doorway, Clark letting the door close abruptly shut behind them.
“We haven’t slept together in weeks.”
“I’ve been busy,” Bruce responds, standing aside. One gesture and the door is melted slag, red haze in Clark’s eyes. “This way.”
Another corridor, more slag.
--
The first time is filled with frustration, sweat, fury. It isn’t so much as learning as it is doing, Bruce thinks, thinks his thoughts are a blur because Clark’s on top of him and his legs are over Clark’s shoulders, Clark’s hair is loose. (He decides he doesn’t mind this hair; not when the body arches and he sees the column of his throat, slick, his chest, above him. He would ask questions, about feeling, taste, touch, but he doesn’t mind this hair, so that’s enough).
< Yes >, Clark says. “Yes.”
Bruce swallows, air dry, before repeating after him, < Yes >.
Clark flashes a grin, amused, but doesn’t give his reasons.
When they are done, Clark tells Bruce that he has an accent.
“It’s your first time,” Clark gives by means of explanation.
Bruce would point out that Clark shouldn’t be able to tell, but he can inherently; it’s in the blood, buried beneath human appearances.
“Kal-El,” Bruce will say, < One more time >.
He does, to elicit laughter, and will, to elicit something else, deeper. Something-
The comlink goes off, Clark up and standing in a second, one hand on a hip. Heroic posture, bare backside. “J’onn?”
Bruce doesn’t wait, already rolling off the bed. “I’ll get my belt.”
--
The body.
He has not seen the body.
He’s in the doorway though, to the mausoleum. The area is bare, rough stone, save for the tomb, the coffin in the center, s-shield emblazoned on the surface.
Batman did not attend the funeral. At least, he was not seen publicly.
But he never saw the body.
If there is a body, there is proof of death.
Sweat in his gloves.
(The replay, blood runs down cheekbones, discolored skin and purpled bruise.)
He chooses (yes, choice, stay with that decision, remember it all) not to look.
--
More slag, another corridor off a little ways, where they meet in a side room and kiss, slip hands underneath uniforms and speak a language only two people on Earth can understand.
--
The second choice, collapse, seems good enough.
Batman cannot move. Arms, fingers, weakly. Barely. One leg's pinned under debris (the whole compound shakes; Wally and Kyle set off their detonators). Not that it matters. He can't feel his legs anyway. Mouth isn't working -- no, it's closed. Bloody.
Bruce coughs up blood, a horrible gurgle before he says, very low, "Clark. You alive?"
It's stupid. It's a stupid question, like saying "are you asleep?" (Clark asks, cape pulled down over his shoulders, partially obscuring the 'S') but this whole situation is stupid. Grown men running around in tights and underwear.
Grown men in castle-like hallways, on missions to fight super villains, to blow up hide-outs, to trip and stumble forward to the nearest exit though the body will scream and rail and protest against being treated so, and the others are fighting for their lives dozens, hundreds of meters away. Sound carries, and he asks again, ignores the showers of debris here and there as the hideout crumbles around him and the ceiling decides to pour more debris on his less than dignified crawl towards the exit.
Bells chime, the bed will be cold and it’s New Year’s. Hours since Clark answered the comlink (bare, soft glow on bare skin from street light and window), since they began their typical mission, life and death. Again.
"Bruce."
Can't see him. The voice is weak.
"I need to get you to a hospital," Clark says, though his voice sounds strange.
"Don't -- go save the world," Bruce tells him, half-hearted smile before he flinches when the rubble is displaced. Clark's there. Bending over him, moving debris and rocks. His eyes glow red steadily, wisps of steam at the corners. Bruce, in a haze, wonders how he's able to see when he does that, and how the red fills until it overwhelms the iris, the white, steam an inversion of tears.
"Your chest."
Bruce doesn't know how he talked (how he breathes), only that he did, and he's pointing a finger.
Clark's chest is bloody, red glint of blood and rock, glistening. Pieces crumble in wounds covered by tattered material. Clark doesn't hold his stomach. He moves to Bruce, rakes his gaze over his body, x-raying him.
"Come on. I'm getting you to safety."
"The battle--"
"You're hurt. You can only do so much." He doesn't say you're only human, which reminds Bruce of the fact that despite outside, skin and bone, Clark isn't human. He's an alien and not at all caring that his insides might be showing.
"Don't you--"
"Shut up, Bruce. They've got it."
It’s antagonism at its finest (carries him, arm over shoulder, few feet and the ceiling falls down; he squirms and feels like dead weight when flown through corridors) but it works.
It doesn’t make any sense.
But it works.
--
There is hope, there aren’t miracles - he won’t stoop to that - there’s rebirth. It doesn’t make any sense, it isn’t logical but Clark’s around, and that’s enough.
There is the between time, after death, after rebirth, between missions when they find themselves speaking a dead language, bodies languidly stretched out between dark sheets, and that’s enough.
There is something else, deeper, in the blood, and that he will put a name to one day. It’s in Clark’s face, his smile - he can’t put a name on it, but Clark knows, and he knows, and that’s more than enough.
END
Author: Ignited
Pairing: Superman/Batman
Rating: R
Word Count: 3,161
Disclaimer: The characters belong to DC Comics. No infringement is intended, no profit is made.
Summary: Clark comes back to life. Bruce deals with the repercussions.
Notes: Originally written for the 2006 worlds_finest awards, concerning 'New Year's Eve' and a 'first time'. Inspired by and including some dialogue from Superman: The Man of Steel #37 which is (I think) the first time Bruce and Clark meet face to face after Clark comes back to life. Spoilers for KnightSaga and JLA #0, as well as general death of Superman stuff. Slightly revised & edited from the original fic.
--
In the distance, bells chime; it is January 1st, a new year that Batman might not live to see.
He can count on one hand the places where it hurts. Were he able, he could recite the various medical terminologies for what muscles are strained, what nerves are pinched, what bones need to be set and mended. The back is strong enough -- not enough, not like Bane and arching high, high above the city when his vision swam and went black -- and it will enable him to move, very gingerly, down the hall. Small steps, he thinks, but they are not so much steps as they are dragging limbs, broken and bloodied, streaks of dark, smears dark, down the walls and across the floor. A sweeping shape, diagonal, as the shoulder moves down against the wall for support, three whole seconds before he collapses on the floor.
The mind's going dark; he knows he will soon be unconscious from the loss of blood, thoughts stray and his body shuts down.
(One more time.)
"Watchtower."
No response. This has not changed from five minutes previous.
He times himself, adjusts the number for outside and internal factors -- will they arrive, will his body betray him, the probability of the doors closing within the timed limit after breaking the lock code, can he move fast enough -- and Bruce understands. Thirty-five seconds and he will either rise or collapse. It's a good number.
It's a good number, he repeats, and waits.
--
They say that it is the end of it, and to all ignorant eyes it is, book closed shut, sun sparkles, hazes into orange and then a blanket of stars, correct, calculated, day in day out. There is never any rain nor grey skies and (he) always look forward to flowers, many of them, growing lush or scraggly, from meadows and buildings. They grow. It’s inevitable.
And just as sure, it doesn’t end, because this is fantasy, all of it, and soon the lover leaves (or dies, we’ve reached that point in time) and the loved ones, the loved ones they have long since left (they die by gunfire, by crowbar, that is certain). He remains alone. This is also inevitable.
It isn’t overcast. It continues.
--
There’s a light that fizzes, sparks above, light bulb going dim, moves softly in the breeze as the chain below it swings. Another moment, just sounds of street life and wind whistling through the open window before a beam of red light shoots up, dull and glowing on the glass surface until there’s a hissing noise. The bulb stops sparking; it’s dead.
Clark closes an eye and rolls a little on the bed, adjusting himself and his pillow. He pushes it a little, taking care not to send feathers flying, before he flops right on top again, face first.
There are lips brushing his right shoulder, low on the bed, and there are fingers that reach up across his skin and a grip that’s hard -- to anyone else -- and comforting, reaching over to grip the opposite shoulder. And there’s him, most of all, who pulls himself closer and spoons Clark, wraps an arm around, protective.
--
“I guess a broken back can’t dampen a Batman’s resourcefulness.”
“My injuries weren’t nearly as serious as yours.”
“It’s been quite a year for both of us.”
--
Pressing, pushing, he’s at work, fumbling too, letting leather and Kevlar remove all sensory perception - there go the gloves, finally, sweat and rain making them hard to remove. Not hard. Can’t concentrate. Can’t, as he is here, Clark, breathing against the cowl, hair long - it’s long, that’s new - and in his eyes. Clark’s got a hand on Bruce’s jaw, neck, tells him to keep the cowl on and Bruce would like to, very slowly, eviscerate him for the command.
“Not here,” Bruce manages to say, and hates how he can’t pull away and speak properly, how he grips Clark’s cape and his shoulders, his neck, his hair, any little touch to try and grip onto what’s impossible. Ghost. People don’t come back from the dead. Clark isn’t of this world, yes, but it doesn’t make any sense. It isn’t logical. No scientific fact, no strange mutation, treatment, therapy - hell, there’s clones now, aren’t there? - that says a human body can be brought back to life after it dies.
He isn’t human; he’s an alien. Forgets. He forgets. Rare, that.
But now, Clark nods, pulls back and his cheek brushes against Bruce’s own, lips too. “Tonight?”
Bruce gives him an address as he tears himself away, bends down to pick up the gloves and pull them back on. He straightens his posture afterwards, slow, cape closes ‘round his shoulders. “Tonight, Superman.”
--
“He’s not gone. He’s not… He’ll be back.”
--
“Wait. Let me,” is all he says; they are turning on the bed so Bruce is on top, straddling, sweat, bed sheets twist. Bruce runs fingers down Clark’s belly, slow and precise. Bump, bump, right over soft ridges, muscle, Clark shifts uncomfortably, a phantom pain.
“Here?” Bruce asks, barely touches Clark’s left bicep. A slight nod and Bruce leans down to kiss the spot, straightens as his fingers move again. He’ll ask “here?” over and over, and Clark will give a response with lidded eyes, before he tires and turns his head away.
“Uppercut,” says Bruce, knuckles brush Clark’s chin, linger as though feeling exposed bone scrape flesh. “Looked like hell.”
“It was.”
Clark, when he turns again, faces Bruce, has his hair in his eyes. It’s not a boyish thing - bangs against the rim of black frames, finger pushing glasses up on his nose - this, his hair, it’s long, tendrils in the way so he pushes them aside gently, rests his weight on an elbow, looking down at Bruce.
“What happened to your hair?” Bruce asks, though his voice comes out gruffer than intended, than he wants. He clears his throat, opens his eyes more than a crack.
“I don’t know,” Clark answers, half-hearted shrug. “I guess being dead didn’t give me time to cut it.”
Bruce raises an eyebrow, glances at the clock on the night stand. Three thirty. “How… do you…” Two finger, snip snip gesture.
Clark shakes his head, and he smiles, saying, “Family secret.”
“…That’s a terrible excuse,” Bruce responds, groans into the pillow as Clark cuffs him lightly on the shoulder. “It’s different.”
“You called me a hippie. Well, the other you. The alternate timeline version I met. Nineteen seventies, I think.”
“I’m not surprised that ‘I’ did.”
“I didn’t say anything when you added the yellow to your suit.”
“It’s a calculated distraction-”
“It’s a bat signal.”
“Hippie.”
Three thirty one. Bruce throws an arm around Clark’s neck and pulls him down, fast, bites his lip and kisses him, hard, because it won’t hurt and because he won’t hurt, not today, not right now.
--
“Who is it?”
Batman turns his head, lowering binoculars. He finds it disconcerting, the way Superman has a tendency to float a foot or so off the ground, arms folded, hovering nearby. Does that a lot. Doesn’t stand on rooftops. Floats.
“What?”
“You haven’t spoken for the past thirteen minutes. Either you’re playing up the loner angle or someone’s troubling you.”
“No one’s…” A sigh. “It’s nothing of your concern.”
“Try me.”
“You’re supposed to be dead. I watched you die. I saw it happen. The newscast. Diana and I watched the replay, over and over, and you fell, you died. I don’t understand how you’re alive. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Red boots reach the ground, firm, but Clark’s arms hang limp at his sides; he opens his mouth to speak but doesn’t, and he’s concerned now, hell-
“I wasn’t exactly dead,” Clark begins to say, tone uncertain, “…Just mostly dead?”
Bruce finds his head jerking in Clark’s direction, pointing an accusing finger. “This isn’t a joke, Clark. This is serious.”
“What do you want me to say?” Clark asks, hands spread out. “It’s not like I have a guide book.”
“But you can’t just-” Bruce stops. He sighs and rubs his forehead, cowl sticky with sweat. “I’m... I’m not used to this. It’s nothing short of a miracle, if I believed in those.”
Clark’s floating off the edge of the roof now; he’s got his arms folded in front of his chest once more and his hair blows in the breeze, east. Reddish haze and hue cast by the sun, it falls on Clark’s skin, costume darker.
“I do.”
--
< The house of El >
It’s a language Bruce has rarely heard, holograms buzz, fade, read-outs and threats from beings long since dead or terribly alive, ghosts and future enemies that arrive to fight or welcome Kal-El. The Fortress is alive today, with robots floating about, and Clark is giving them orders from time to time, but always, always smiling when he does. He asks if Bruce is cold (he isn’t) if he’s hungry (no), would he like to observe the data center (lead the way): things that aren’t important right now, and things he already knows.
Bruce has spent too long in this Fortress, in that chair, watching, slumped, as Diana cries and wraps her arms around his shoulders. There’s her cry, and there’s her scent; he finds them disconcerting.
“What did you say?” Bruce will inevitably ask after each instance; he can’t help the curiosity. Clark repeats the phrases in English patiently as he takes a seat near Bruce.
The House of El, and Jor-El, Kryptonopolis, phrases Bruce can’t even begin to understand, but he asks anyway. Passive, rapid keystrokes, narrowed eyes behind white lenses.
A robot spouts off another phrase as it floats to Clark and past, and Bruce nods his head in the robot’s direction.
< Hope >, Clark says, repeats slowly. “‘Hope’. That’s the most important.”
He doesn’t say why it’s important, but then again, it’s not like he needs to.
--
There is a time when Clark, after, breathes against Bruce’s back, licks and traces Kryptonese against healing scars and wounds. < Hope >, he says, < Hope >.
And what else? Bruce will hear himself ask, but it’s muffled, sweat, arm and pillow under his mouth.
Truth, Clark responds, slower, swirl against the lower part of the back, past another scar. < Truth >, he repeats, Kryptonian accent odd, strange. It’s another for a great repertoire of languages, but it’s nothing like this earth. He says, truth, again, and then follows with justice.
Here is where Bruce rolls his eyes with a smile - and knows what will come -
Sharp, crack, burst of red fire and pain that snakes along muscle, skin, sharpness. Bruce grimaces - pulled a muscle the other night, and he’s still healing - and finds Clark sitting up, quietly, staring down at the small of Bruce’s back. Eyes move, barely, up and down and he cants his head just so - there’s a curl of dark hair against his collar bone that Bruce takes note of, that he’ll touch later.
“Stop x-raying me,” says Bruce, stretches out limbs like a cat before he buries his face in the pillow. It’s the spine, specifically, that Clark looks at. Bane. Azrael. Dick. The wheelchair. Again, he thinks. “Again,” he says. “Don’t stop what you were doing before.”
Clark says nothing. He stretches out, again, and breathes a dead language against Bruce’s back.
--
He slumps, just then, in Lois’ arms.
Bruce watches the television and he feels his shoulders shake.
--
There are times when Bruce visits, when he snaps the hair elastic and Clark is only flustered response; there goes the broom closet, in disarray, suits pulled here and there, hair slick, hair long, askew and Clark’s glasses are missing, Clark’s cape is sticking out of his collar and Clark’s dick is being pumped by Bruce’s hand.
Minute, two minutes longer and the shelves nearly topple on top of them.
The fact that the steel bends and twists around Clark’s back, paint cans and chemical ones bounce off harmlessly; the fact that he is smiling makes Bruce think hope, and he thinks home.
--
< This way >, Clark says, points. It’s a few months more and the Justice League is started up again; fine print in WayneTech papers, bills, payments, enables the Watchtower to be constructed, allegiances and potential threats to be analyzed. There, there are the immature ones, Wally, Kyle, behind them there are Diana, Arthur, J’onn, and Clark.
Clark, who holds a two-ton steel door open with one hand, high above his head, speaks effortlessly as Bruce examines a bunch of wires hanging from the computer panels.
It comes naturally to Clark, talking, but he hasn’t talked about death for ages, hasn’t spoken using that - Kryptonese, sounds like - for ages.
“What?”
“This way,” Clark repeats, indicating a wall ten feet in the adjacent corridor. “X-rayed it. Hidden hallway.”
“I knew that,” Bruce snaps (he did; shoddy craftsmanship to conceal the edges), and adds, “You haven’t spoken like that in weeks.”
Bruce steps through the doorway, Clark letting the door close abruptly shut behind them.
“We haven’t slept together in weeks.”
“I’ve been busy,” Bruce responds, standing aside. One gesture and the door is melted slag, red haze in Clark’s eyes. “This way.”
Another corridor, more slag.
--
The first time is filled with frustration, sweat, fury. It isn’t so much as learning as it is doing, Bruce thinks, thinks his thoughts are a blur because Clark’s on top of him and his legs are over Clark’s shoulders, Clark’s hair is loose. (He decides he doesn’t mind this hair; not when the body arches and he sees the column of his throat, slick, his chest, above him. He would ask questions, about feeling, taste, touch, but he doesn’t mind this hair, so that’s enough).
< Yes >, Clark says. “Yes.”
Bruce swallows, air dry, before repeating after him, < Yes >.
Clark flashes a grin, amused, but doesn’t give his reasons.
When they are done, Clark tells Bruce that he has an accent.
“It’s your first time,” Clark gives by means of explanation.
Bruce would point out that Clark shouldn’t be able to tell, but he can inherently; it’s in the blood, buried beneath human appearances.
“Kal-El,” Bruce will say, < One more time >.
He does, to elicit laughter, and will, to elicit something else, deeper. Something-
The comlink goes off, Clark up and standing in a second, one hand on a hip. Heroic posture, bare backside. “J’onn?”
Bruce doesn’t wait, already rolling off the bed. “I’ll get my belt.”
--
The body.
He has not seen the body.
He’s in the doorway though, to the mausoleum. The area is bare, rough stone, save for the tomb, the coffin in the center, s-shield emblazoned on the surface.
Batman did not attend the funeral. At least, he was not seen publicly.
But he never saw the body.
If there is a body, there is proof of death.
Sweat in his gloves.
(The replay, blood runs down cheekbones, discolored skin and purpled bruise.)
He chooses (yes, choice, stay with that decision, remember it all) not to look.
--
More slag, another corridor off a little ways, where they meet in a side room and kiss, slip hands underneath uniforms and speak a language only two people on Earth can understand.
--
The second choice, collapse, seems good enough.
Batman cannot move. Arms, fingers, weakly. Barely. One leg's pinned under debris (the whole compound shakes; Wally and Kyle set off their detonators). Not that it matters. He can't feel his legs anyway. Mouth isn't working -- no, it's closed. Bloody.
Bruce coughs up blood, a horrible gurgle before he says, very low, "Clark. You alive?"
It's stupid. It's a stupid question, like saying "are you asleep?" (Clark asks, cape pulled down over his shoulders, partially obscuring the 'S') but this whole situation is stupid. Grown men running around in tights and underwear.
Grown men in castle-like hallways, on missions to fight super villains, to blow up hide-outs, to trip and stumble forward to the nearest exit though the body will scream and rail and protest against being treated so, and the others are fighting for their lives dozens, hundreds of meters away. Sound carries, and he asks again, ignores the showers of debris here and there as the hideout crumbles around him and the ceiling decides to pour more debris on his less than dignified crawl towards the exit.
Bells chime, the bed will be cold and it’s New Year’s. Hours since Clark answered the comlink (bare, soft glow on bare skin from street light and window), since they began their typical mission, life and death. Again.
"Bruce."
Can't see him. The voice is weak.
"I need to get you to a hospital," Clark says, though his voice sounds strange.
"Don't -- go save the world," Bruce tells him, half-hearted smile before he flinches when the rubble is displaced. Clark's there. Bending over him, moving debris and rocks. His eyes glow red steadily, wisps of steam at the corners. Bruce, in a haze, wonders how he's able to see when he does that, and how the red fills until it overwhelms the iris, the white, steam an inversion of tears.
"Your chest."
Bruce doesn't know how he talked (how he breathes), only that he did, and he's pointing a finger.
Clark's chest is bloody, red glint of blood and rock, glistening. Pieces crumble in wounds covered by tattered material. Clark doesn't hold his stomach. He moves to Bruce, rakes his gaze over his body, x-raying him.
"Come on. I'm getting you to safety."
"The battle--"
"You're hurt. You can only do so much." He doesn't say you're only human, which reminds Bruce of the fact that despite outside, skin and bone, Clark isn't human. He's an alien and not at all caring that his insides might be showing.
"Don't you--"
"Shut up, Bruce. They've got it."
It’s antagonism at its finest (carries him, arm over shoulder, few feet and the ceiling falls down; he squirms and feels like dead weight when flown through corridors) but it works.
It doesn’t make any sense.
But it works.
--
There is hope, there aren’t miracles - he won’t stoop to that - there’s rebirth. It doesn’t make any sense, it isn’t logical but Clark’s around, and that’s enough.
There is the between time, after death, after rebirth, between missions when they find themselves speaking a dead language, bodies languidly stretched out between dark sheets, and that’s enough.
There is something else, deeper, in the blood, and that he will put a name to one day. It’s in Clark’s face, his smile - he can’t put a name on it, but Clark knows, and he knows, and that’s more than enough.
END