Chapter Text
Clark's head clears as they move away from the chamber. The numb burn that had settled into his bones pours away, and his knuckles stop aching from the tight grip he has on the command key.
Bruce notices when he stops dragging his feet. He relaxes the arm he'd braced around Clark's back. It felt strange to have it there; Clark isn't accustomed to needing physical support. The only time he'd felt similar to this was when he'd gone with Zod, and foundered as the ship had established a Kryptonian atmosphere. Then, he'd not been in a position to be helped.
"Glad I don't have to carry you out of here. Bad for your rep," Bruce says.
"And your back."
"Hmph," Bruce says, but he seems relieved that Clark is clear-minded enough to rib him. "The crystals—their effect attenuates rapidly?"
They're in the last stretch of corridor before the airlock to outside. Clark rolls his shoulders back and takes a deep breath. A bead of sweat trickles between his shoulder blades, but he no longer feels like throwing up. Bruce's hand has insinuated itself beneath Clark's cape to rest in the small of his back. "Seems to," he says. "But I wasn't exposed for long."
The night is crisp and clear, sharp pin-pricks of stars in a cloudless sky. As they leave, Clark sketches a rough salute at the security guard, who returns it with all earnestness. Bruce ignores him and his smothered grin, and is ignored in return. The Bat looks surreal under the floodlights, like a nightmare dragged into broad daylight. Some things are more frightening when they operate in the dark.
The Earth clings to him more determinedly than usual, but he gains flight with a little effort. The residual influence of the mineral makes it feel as though he's swimming through molasses. He treads air a foot from the ground. "Luthor's tower, then."
Bruce grapples onto a rooftop. Clark leaps up to meet him there, and sticks the landing with assurance if not grace.
"That's where I'm going," Bruce says. "As for you—"
"Don't tell me you're trying to bench me for my own safety."
"I'm benching you because you're a liability." Bruce slides a device from his belt and pokes at it; Clark hears the distant tear of a jet engine. Of course. LexCorp Tower is on the other side of town, and the Bat is nothing if not expedient about things. "The last thing I need is you keeling over because Luthor waved a crystal at you."
"I have some feedback on your plan so far."
"It's not up for debate," Bruce says. "I don't want you under my feet. Literally or otherwise."
"But," Clark says. He wonders how much of this domineering unilateralism Bruce expects him to tolerate, because it's not a lot. "I'm not on board with taking a backseat, so unless you swiped some of the bad stuff back there, you can't stop me."
"I know," Bruce says, neutrally enough that Clark doesn't know how to read it. His back and shoulders are tensed. "But you're aware of the stakes. I had hoped you would take them seriously."
"Thing is, I thought the stakes were all of Metropolis, until you walked into a chamber full of an allegedly radioactive mineral without even flinching. It's not so high as that, is it? It's not the city. It's—it's only me."
Bruce doesn't answer immediately. He's watching the sky. "We saw Luthor's projection walk right in there unprotected," he says. "If it affects humans at all, it must be after prolonged exposure. It's vastly more effective on Kryptonians."
Which only barely addresses Clark's point. He's quickly learning the degree of semiotic analysis required in interpreting Bruce's words and actions. There's reading between the lines, there's understanding things that haven't been committed to paper at all, and then there's the things he says almost, but not quite, outright. Clark should not be Bruce's chief concern in this.
"But we don't know for sure," he says. "What Luthor's planning to do with it, there could be all kinds of unexpected results."
Bruce's mouth goes tight. "One result is eminently predictable."
They're interrupted from what is shaping up to be a frustratingly circular argument by a sleek aircraft gliding into view. It spirals around the rooftop, descending until it hovers at the lip of the building. If the iron-ball paint finish isn't a giveaway that it belongs to the Bat, its styling certainly is. A quick scan shows Clark that it's unmanned. Had Bruce flown it here remotely while they were bickering?
An unfamiliar voice from Bruce's earpiece answers his question. Your chariot awaits, it says in crisp RP. Disengaging drone mode.
Bruce doesn't acknowledge verbally, though he taps his earpiece.
Oh, like that, is it? You know I wouldn't ask you introduce him to me until after at least the third fracas. I've been burned by your commitment issues one time too many.
"Who's that?" Clark asks.
Bruce looks hunted. "Not now," he says, and leaps with confidence from the rooftop onto the aircraft's wing, and then vaults into the cockpit. This is a man who has fooled people into believing he can barely drink a martini without spilling it down himself.
Clark floats on an uprush of fondness and follows on the plane's tail.
*
Superman is a blip on the Batwing's MFD; he follows a short distance behind and below, weaving between Metropolis' skyscrapers instead of soaring over them. If he weren't on task, Bruce might consider pushing the Batwing's low-altitude maneuverability and leading Clark on a chase. Or, more likely, Clark would lead him.
The streets reel out below him in ribbons of light. From his perspective, LexCorp Tower dominates the skyline. He lands in its shadow.
According to the blueprints, the assemblage Luthor's engineered is on the roof. There are a number of pylons up there, their extremities blinking with aviation warning lights. Doesn't necessarily mean that's where the mineral will be, though he'd put reasonable money on all his operations being secured on the penthouse floors.
Clark lands next to him. Their shoulders touch. "I bet it's wall-to-wall chrome and white marble in there," he says.
"Polished concrete, probably," Bruce says absently. "I'll let you know."
"That's okay, I can see for myself."
"From here."
Rain blows in from the east, cracking against the Bat's armor and the rooftop; the more time he spends here the worse its weather seems to get. He can hear Clark sigh even over its relentless battering. "I could fly into the building and take out the whole top floor," he says.
"I'm sure your committee would have a lot to say about that."
"Probably."
"Clark, I've been operating outside of the law for twenty years. Concerns for your safety aside, you can't take liberties the way I do. Everyone knows the Bat is a bully, but you're held to more stringent ideals. An unprovoked attack on LexCorp isn't an option for you."
"You really know how to suck the fun out of everything," Clark says, but he's grinning. "Okay. You have a point."
"Of course I do," Bruce says. "So, his setup is on the top floor."
"Looks like it. A server bank kicking out a lot of heat, enough wiring that it's difficult to see anything clearly. A void—something encased in lead. Probably the mineral."
"You can't see through lead?"
"Uh," Clark says, which Bruce will take as a yes. "Anyway, hardly any personnel. A half dozen or so warm bodies."
"Good. Thank you. I'm going to scout it out," Bruce says. "Stay on comms." He sends out a line and Clark's affirmative comes into his ear a moment later, mid-glide.
*
Bruce grapples onto the side of the LexCorp Tower with minor difficulty. It's in keeping with Metropolis' modernized aesthetic, which means its all curves and smooth surfaces and the flying buttresses are few and far between. He may have sympathy for the city's plight but that doesn't mean he has to like the place. It's unlikely the windows are alarmed this high up. He latches his grapnel two floors down from the penthouse and fetches a pair of suction cups from his belt, adhering himself to the building while he slices two layers of glazing out of its aluminum frame. The rain dashes down around him and over the glass.
He slips inside what proves to be a conference room, and a quick scan with the cowl's optics pinpoints a security camera in the corridor outside. He taps his gauntlet and activates a scrambling signal to blind it.
"Ow," Clark says in his ear.
"Not even dogs can hear that," Bruce murmurs. He shakes the rain off his cape and takes a look down the corridor. Very little scope for hiding himself, ceiling aside. If Luthor's security is worth its salt, someone will be along soon to check why the camera feed turned to snow. "Nearby units?"
"One approaching your position, one holding steady on the other side of the building. Two people, I mean units, the next floor up, and two more in the penthouse, in a large room on the north side."
Bruce pushes the door wide open. He hears approaching footfalls that hasten as the guard notices the movement. A radio channel hisses open and he steps into the room taser-first; Bruce grabs his wrist and twists until he drops it, tears his radio from the shoulder of his body armor and turns him face-first into the wall with enough force to wind him, and from the sound of it, break his nose.
While the guard is gasping wetly, Bruce crushes the radio with his heel then sends it and the taser skittering along the floor with a kick. He zip-ties his hands behind his back, then he turns him and lets him gently slide down the wall.
"Oh, fuh," the guard says.
Bruce holds a finger up to his lips: shh. It's usually enough to make them worry about what he might do if they don't keep quiet. He binds the guy's ankles and leaves him to his predicament. He'll be more likely to caterpillar off if he's brave enough to go looking for help, rather than start shouting two minutes after Bruce leaves the room.
"That was restrained," Clark comments. Bruce ignores him.
There are two sets of elevators in an intersection between some glass-fronted office spaces; the Bat's silhouette looms dark in their reflective walls. Beyond that, there's a set of maintenance stairs. Bruce takes them two at a time, past another set of double doors and then into a warren of narrow service corridors.
"You're close," Clark says.
Bruce makes a noise that Clark will probably accept as an acknowledgement.
He ratchets off the grilled front of a maintenance tunnel. Luthor would hold little threat on a physical level, even armed—his suit is ballistics-resistant at mid-range and the cowl at point-blank—but Bruce is keenly aware that Luthor has Kryptonian weaponry and minimal self-restraint. He'd seen footage of the battle in Smallville, where the plasma discharge had sheared off chunks of shop fronts, through glass and brick and steel alike. He'll take any advantage he can get, and that includes ambushing him from an air duct.
It's been a while since he's commando-crawled in a tight space. He has been less than discreet for long enough that it's a trial. He grunts, altogether more conscious of the worn cartilage in his joints than he'd like.
"I'm pouring one out for your knees."
Bruce grins savagely at nothing.
Then, softly, Clark says, "You know, I'm not sure everything you do is totally appropriate, but I admire your determination. Your drive. Until the ship, and—and Zod, I didn't know how to direct myself. I had a lot of uncertainty."
Forced into a waiting pattern of alienation and anxiety, his talents and abilities suspended between the poles of constantly deferred hope on one end and ever-present fear on the other. Bruce grunts again. "Not the time," he says flatly, rather than bring up the coercive control Gotham and her restless ghosts exercise over him.
"I hate this, for future reference. Standing by and watching."
"Noted."
Finally, the server room. Another grill unbolted and caught, and stashed quietly back in the tunnel. Bruce lands light-footed between the racks and flattens his back against the wall to one side of the door. If he recalls the floorplan correctly, there's one more corridor, and then an open-plan space of unspecified purpose, most likely Luthor's office.
If Luthor is in there and catches him with the blast from a Kryptonian rifle, he'll evaporate like spit on a hot skillet.
"You're clear," Clark says. A hesitant breath. "Bruce—"
"Not now." Bruce thumbs a flashbang grenade from his belt and creeps into the corridor. He sees the doors to Luthor's office are propped wide open as he approaches. Having just used this trick himself, Bruce is both cautious and irritated. "Any other entrances to this room?"
"Nope. If you want me to make one for you, just say the word."
"I would prefer that you exercise a little more subtlety," Bruce mutters.
"Ironic," Luthor says, stepping into the corridor. He's aiming a handgun. "Coming from a man dressed like that. Are you going to skulk around out there all night, or are you going to come in?"
Bruce draws himself up and squares his shoulders. "Stay where you are and be quiet," he subvocalizes, and hopes that Clark won't argue with him for once. He hears an explosive, frustrated breath, but nothing more.
The weapon Luthor is pointing at him is distinctly non-Kryptonian. It's a Five-seven; while not as immediately deadly, with the right ammo it can pierce even the Bat's body armor. If Luthor were farther away, Bruce would risk attempting to disarm him, but at it stands he's liable to take a gut shot. He remains cautious and irritated, and adjusts his grip on the grenade.
"Put it down," Luthor says tolerantly, as though he's talking to a dog that's stolen a sneaker.
Bruce crouches slowly, both hands held where Luthor can see them, and places the canister on the floor. No great loss; he has more in his belt. There'll be a lower-risk opening soon. Luthor is distractible by nature, so he will be amenable for now.
"There we go, there we… go. Good decision, well done. Because you're not the one who's faster than a speeding bullet, now, are you?" This delivered with a singsong cadence and a wag of the gun barrel that makes Bruce clench his teeth.
"What's that got to do with anything."
"Oh, come now." Luthor flings one arm over Bruce's shoulders in companionable farce, and with the other, wedges the gun into his armpit. Bruce refuses to flinch. "You've been keeping some out-of-this-world company lately. Stellar enough to make even Bruce Wayne jealous, I'll warrant."
He lets Luthor guide them into the office space. It's predominantly chrome and polished concrete. Luthor's assistant is behind a white swoop of desk, lounging to the extent the Le Corbusier armchair will allow. There's a small box at her elbow.
"This is Mercy, my right hand. Any inkling of nonsense from you, and she's under strict instruction to let loose her dead man's switch. There'll be Kryptonite oozing into every crevice of the city before you can say 'mean and green'."
Mercy politely inclines her head and lifts her hand, in which she holds a device that could very well be a dead man's switch, or could be anything at all.
Luthor squeezes Bruce's shoulder. "My, you're carrying a lot of tension. Have you considered a spa day?"
Bruce fixes Luthor with a dark look, and he laughs. Luthor has frequently made a show of being slightly unhinged, but beyond the hummingbird demeanor there's nothing but calculation in his eyes. Bruce can't take the chance that he's not bluffing.
"You know, at first it was infuriating. Infuriating. I've been playing the long game. Do you know how difficult it is to agitate a little-known East African republic into civil uprising without anyone noticing what you're doing? Harder than it looks! All a waste of time, except for getting Ms. Lane out of the country and, thereby, her nose out of the Hanford side of things."
Luthor smiles expectantly, a cue for Bruce to press him for further details. Bruce waits him out. He knows a monologuer when he has to listen to one.
"Because!" Luthor says, after holding out for eleven excruciating seconds. "It turns out that I was up a blind alley on that one. Oh, quite the misdirect. Who would have though, you and him, he and you—so much animosity on your part, ripe for exploitation, a powder keg of hurt feelings and murderous intent just waiting for the big reveal to light the touchpaper... boom! But, alas, no. Exasperation. Wall to wall."
Luthor tugs the gun from Bruce's armpit and taps it against the bat symbol, then steps back and brings it to bear.
"But then, then I realized something. I didn't need Lane. I didn't even need to bother dear old Martha."
Bruce stares down the bore of the gun. Memory tears into him; he is frozen for critical seconds as the pearls rain down.
"Ugly, isn't it," Luthor remarks, tilting the gun to examine its matte polymer finish. "I don't like them either. I was planning on something a little more avant garde, but you brought the deadline up. I didn't get to grow so much as a flesh mat." He sighs with theatrical wistfulness.
Bruce can't find anything to connect his mother's name to what is happening here, so he forces down the tormenting guilt of his survival so that it can't sabotage him. It can come back and gnaw at him later. "Sorry to disappoint," he says.
"Mm, life happens. Well, sadly not, in this instance. But I digress. The point is, what I have here is a silver bullet." Luthor runs the gun barrel along the seam of the cowl. It makes the barest sound, but Bruce realizes—even if it weren't close to his earpiece, Clark would have heard it as clear as day.
Luthor angles the gun as though to slot it under Bruce's chin. Bruce tenses in anticipation; an attempt at a disarm here will likely result in the firearm being discharged. The grace period between grabbing Luthor's wrist and the gun being fired is slim, involves unknown variables like trigger sensitivity, Luthor's reflexes and reaction to sudden movement. The angle and proximity of the firearm even if these variables are favorable means the possibility of—
"You can relax," Luthor says. "It isn't meant for you.
The air bends under pressure and then breaks as an approaching projectile shatters the sound barrier. Bruce has enough time to swear under his breath before the ceiling bows and then caves in, and Superman plunges into the room in a shower of debris.
"You're just bait."
Luthor turns on his heel, takes aim, and fires.
*
The first bullet glides past Clark's head; he turns to watch it fly. It's a green-tipped round, its velocity rippling the air around it. He hears the casing bounce off the floor.
The second hits his shoulder. He's used to the sensation of a bullet impacting his skin, but he's less familiar with how it feels when it keeps going. The sudden pain freezes him, the force of it jolts him back.
In the second it takes to process this, the third bullet strikes him in square in the chest.
*
Bruce has handled a lot of guns: he can field strip most firearms in under thirty seconds. He disarms Luthor with prejudice, who falls onto his ass and then spiders away. The handgun's component parts clatter to the floor. A faint glow spreads across its polished surface, emanating from the magazine.
The mineral. The rounds are—
He looks up in time to see Clark go to his knees, a nonplussed frown on his face. Blood spreads in the gold field of his crest, delineating the curve of the S, until the surface tension breaks and it spills down his front. Not so long ago, this was what Bruce had wanted. Now, though, his panicked heart wedges itself in his throat as he watches the trickle of blood meander down Clark's chest. Language lacks words to express his offence, to truly condemn this kind of demolition of a person.
"A shard of a dead world," Luthor announces, where he's regaining his feet with the assistance of the desk. "It's a versatile mineral. Myriad fascinating properties. Mercy?"
Mercy holds her switch high, and then drops it. It bounces off the desk and shatters on the floor.
Clark's jaw tenses. Bruce doesn't hold his breath so much as bite down on it.
Nothing happens. Either the effect isn't instantaneous, or Luthor's machine—
"Oops," Luthor says. He puts his hands on his hips and blows a strand of hair out of his face. "Sadly, its molecular structure is complex beyond even my estimations. The array was never going to work. Nonsense, nonsense. So! I guess I have no choice but to turn myself in."
Bruce glances over at Clark. He's bleeding heavily, but not unconscious where a human being would be. Seems unaffected by hydrostatic shock. He's staring at Luthor and his eyes—they're dripping. Not with tears or blood; he must be trying to use his heat vision, but the mineral, the Kryptonite, has stunted his powers. The skin around his eyes smolders. Plasma runs down his cheeks in glowing rivulets and trickles onto the floor.
But Bruce can't allow his concern to cloud his judgment. Luthor first, and then Clark.
Luthor has lost patience with his remorseful act already. He picks up the box on the desk and tips out the contents. Green glowing crystals scatter across the floor. He crushes them underfoot into hundreds of fragments, and then makes a break for it. Mercy is already nowhere to be found.
*
Clark is suspended in a hazy state of shock. The floor under his fingers is hard and doesn't give when he presses against it in his attempts to regain his feet. Gravity refuses to relinquish its hold on him, dragging his head down and drawing his blood into a puddle on the floor.
It's difficult to breathe. It's difficult for his heart to beat. His arms give up on him and he slumps down onto his front.
He can hear Luthor talking. A desperate fury infuses him, but he still feels lightheaded, unable to focus. Luthor was going to execute Bruce, he reminds himself, hoping to condense his free-floating anger into some kind of action. His cheeks feel wet and hot.
Then the room lights up a nauseating green, and Clark snaps back into himself. Pain erupts through him like there's acid in his veins. It feels like he's aspirating fluid; his lungs bubble as he struggles to gasp in air. His body is raw where it contacts the slick surface of the floor, bright cold points in his shoulder and chest where his suit is torn.
Someone touches his face. Bruce. The soft leather of his gauntlet brushes Clark's wrist and his neck, and then his thumb presses Clark's mouth open. Checking his airway is clear, he thinks distantly. As though that's going to help when he's full of holes.
"Ow," he mumbles. His voice sounds cavernous to him, like he's deep underwater.
"Not funny," Bruce says, as though he's extracting the words from between his back teeth. He unholsters his grapnel, aims it at the window and shatters it. The glass comes down with a noise like afternoon hail, cubes of it pinging off the floor and scattering. "I told you to stay back. Christ—what did you expect to happen here?"
"Not... getting shot," Clark manages. Then, with more determination, "You not getting shot."
"Occupational hazard," Bruce says. Clark fills in the blanks: get used to it. Glass crunches underfoot. The Kryptonite has unsharpened Clark's senses thoroughly enough that he can't pick out the beat of Bruce's heart over his own erratic pulse. He hopes he's as calm as he sounds. Unfortunately, the mineral's effect is not comprehensive enough to take the edge off the sound of glass being scraped over concrete. Clark's skin crawls and shudders at its screeching as Bruce sweeps it out into the night air, the fragments of Kryptonite along with it.
His head feels somewhat clearer immediately—he can hear the battering rain, Bruce's fast breathing, the chop of a helicopter on the roof. "Luthor," he says.
"We can pick him up in our own time. He's not difficult to find." Bruce crouches by Clark, working a hand under him to turn him over. He cradles the back of Clark's skull as he does it, then lays him on his own bunched-up cape. "Alfred, I need the Batwing up on the penthouse floor of LexCorp Tower. North-side window is out."
My goodness, you said it out loud. It must be serious.
A roll of white gauze lands on Clark's chest. Bruce presses it over the entry wounds, then encourages Clark to hold it in place. He pulls off his gauntlet and touches the back of his hand to Clark's cheek and forehead. "Doesn't look like you're in shock," he says. "Neither were through-and-throughs. There's Kryptonite in your body. Not a lot, but you aren't healing."
"Yeah, noticed." Clark's bled through the gauze already; his fingers are sticky with it. Bruce layers more on top. If he breathes too deeply he can feel the rounds shift inside him, vicious darts of pain that make his head spin and his heart palpitate.
"How are you feeling."
Clark closes his eyes and thinks about that for a moment. "Perforated," he says.
An exasperated exhale. "Do the bullets need to come out right now, Clark."
"I probably… won't be dying imminently."
From the street below he can hear traffic noises, approaching sirens.
Bruce nods, and the muscles in his face relax slightly. "Then I'd rather do it someplace safer. Can you stand?"
"Might need a hand up." Clark sounds dreamy even to himself. "I think I lost some blood."
"Looks to be the case," Bruce says agreeably.
He pushes Clark into sitting upright, then laboriously gets him up onto his feet. Clark tries his best to help, but he has the impression that he's being more of a hindrance. The Bat's aircraft—the Batwing, apparently—hovers at the blown-out window. There are granules of Kryptonite among the glass, its toxic glow refracting through the broken shards. Clark feels it keenly when he stands on them. Bruce's arm tightens around his waist when his knees start to buckle, and then he's being lifted, hauled up over Bruce's shoulders and into a carry.
*
Bruce circles LexCorp tower and takes a moment to deploy the Batwing's tow cables. He snags the pylons mounted atop the building and accelerates, yanking them free. They swing below the craft, bent and tangled like coathangers; he sends them scudding into the harbor on his way over to Gotham.
Satisfying, but not particularly effective—the real danger is in the research Luthor has gathered. He glances over at Clark, face set in a determined, concentrated frown as he holds his bandages in place with one hand, and braces himself on the dash with the other. He's left sticky prints over most of the cockpit.
It's imperative for Bruce to return and clear the Kryptonite shards from the street. He will revisit the server banks with a leech and some heavy-duty magnets at the same time, because there's only one person who needs to know how to exert this much power over the Superman, and that is him.
*
Alfred has the operating table ready when he comes in to land. Clark has lapsed into semi-consciousness; his bleeding has slowed but not stopped. The inside of the cockpit reeks of it.
Bruce hefts him out of the passenger seat and onto a gurney, with Alfred's assistance.
"I suppose I should be grateful that your dates thus far haven't involved more than the expected amount of blood," Alfred says. "It was only a matter of time, I suppose."
"Oh," Clark says, in a moment of lucidity. "Hello. It's you. Are you Bruce's—" His brow furrows. Bruce holds his breath and waits to see how he'll complete this particular thought. "Friend."
"Allegedly," Alfred says, glancing Bruce's way. "I'm sure it'll be a pleasure to meet you once you're not leaking."
"Yeah," Clark says. "Sorry about, uh, about your floor."
"I like him already," Alfred says to Bruce.
"You would. On three."
They settle Clark onto the operating table. His cloak gets in the way. There seems to be a lot of it, and beautifully weighty. It slinks off whatever surface Bruce tries to pile it on, so in the end he just lets it hang off the side of the table.
He pushes the cowl back and draws the lights down to take a close look at Clark's damage. There's no respite from a society that pushes illusions of immortality to compensate for the mortality nobody can face, and Clark might be the ultimate poster boy for that, but even he can't endure everything. His blood is drying; it flakes under Bruce's fingertips.
He had taken the suit as some kind of kevlar-nanocarbon weave much like his own—an assumption he'd had neither the desire nor reason to examine until now—but of course, it's something as alien as Clark himself. It's shrunk away from the entry wounds like snow melts around a piece of grit. At least he won't have to figure out how to take the damn thing off. There are no zippers or fastenings as far as he can tell.
The bullets themselves are difficult to see. Clark's body has attempted to regenerate around them and only partially succeeded. He scrubs up, snaps on nitrile gloves and swabs the sites—Clark hisses—and Alfred hands him a scalpel and fine-point forceps.
He starts with the shoulder wound. The forceps don't have enough movement to grip the bullet beneath Clark's partially-healed skin, and he's still resilient enough that the scalpel blade breaks when Bruce attempts to make an incision.
"Well," Alfred says. "Quite a conundrum."
"Not really." Bruce moves around the table and leans over, close enough to brush his nose to Clark's. His spit is like paste in his mouth. "I'm sorry," he murmurs, briefly cupping his jaw. "I'll make this quick."
"What?" Clark croaks, and then visibly pales. His shoulders tense, and his back makes a perfect arch off the table.
"Steady—Alfred, hold him." All of the Kryptonite went off the side of the building, but he still has the sample from the scout ship. Bruce tips it on the instrument tray and flattens a hand over Clark's stomach until he stops thrashing, and starts taking deep unsteady breaths instead. Bruce is surprised at first, then fascinated, and a touch alarmed to find that his wounds have reopened. He can pluck the bullets out like he's playing a game of Operation.
They clatter into the emesis basin. Bruce tosses the Kryptonite shard in with them, and Alfred hastens the lot of it away to the armory vault.
Clark lets out one long, pained groan and smacks the table with the palm of his hand, leaving a dent, and then struggles upright. He's sweating, his face flushed and hair damp at the roots, curling against his forehead. His eyes squeeze shut, and Bruce watches, rapt and possibly offended, as his wounds knit, his skin smoothing into flawlessness.
He also swears, quite a lot. Bruce enjoys it with the knowledge that he's likely the only person to ever hear this particular combination of words come out of the Superman's mouth.
Clark pulls his suit away from his mended chest and pokes a finger through the hole. "Darn it," he says.
"I expected it to do that itself," Bruce says.
"It will. Once it recovers from the Kryptonite."
Pointed enough to put a few holes in Bruce. Trepidation twists its way to the surface. He helps Clark to his feet, and Clark lets him even though he doesn't need any help at all.
Bruce takes a breath.
"Later," Clark says. His face is drawn. He's depleted, sallow like a month without sun. Maybe he did need the assist after all. "I'm tired. Let's—let's do this later."
"Later," Bruce says. Hopefully later enough that he can gird himself for the inevitably arduous conversation. In the meantime, Clark is leaning heavily against him, so Bruce brings his arms around his shoulders, his hands gathering in his hair. Clark finds his mouth, nosing in for a slack kiss, sighing into it with equal parts exhaustion and contentment.
Bruce stops kissing him eventually, only to press his mouth against the pulse in his throat instead, to feel it beat sure and strong.
**
"—a constant awareness of your personal distress," Clark says. "Coping strategies for said distress: stunted emotional intelligence, emotional unavailability and, uh, dubiously-constructive tension-reducing behaviors. A lot of your intellectual weaponry is trained on your own self-image. You feel like every moment you're not doing something, you're letting someone down. But you can't do everything all the time. So."
"So?"
"So, come back to bed," Clark says. The sheets tangle around his knees. A knife of sunlight bisects his chest.
As if he hadn't just pulled Bruce apart like he'd been slow-cooked. Roasted, if you like. "Your concept of seduction leaves a lot to be desired, Kent." Bruce selects a tie and a clip. He's already wearing a vest, but when it comes to tedious brunch meetings, he aims to be as overdressed as his salad inevitably will be.
"I could throw you off a building, if you'd prefer."
"I would."
Clark laughs, and then falls silent. Bruce turns as he fastens his cuffs and finds he's propped on one elbow, watching him. It's been two days, and he's not returned home except for a change of clothes. His presence triggers profound questions that Bruce isn't certain he wants to know the answers to, but Alfred certainly does.
"It's in the vault," Bruce says. They've been putting this off, but if he's about to spend a couple hours being bored by executive chit-chat, he may as well give himself something substantial to pick apart while he pretends to be listening. "Lead box with your name on it."
The shard he'd salvaged from the ship, and the pieces he'd scoured from the street. He's left alone the rest of the crystals growing in the ship's embryonic chamber; the few he's managed to surreptitiously harvest have begun to reform already, which entirely defeats the purpose of removing them.
They'll have to be dealt with, though. Maybe he can poison the water somehow.
"Can't say you never get me anything." Clark swings his legs over the edge of the bed, bare feet flat on the tile. His hands clasp between his knees. "I don't like that you have it," he says, with an uncomfortable frankness which, Bruce is beginning to understand, is just how he is.
He pauses mid-four-in-hand. "I wouldn't like not having it," he says, and then immediately, as if on a compulsion, "Do you want it?"
"What?"
"Do you want it."
"I, no. No, thank you." Clark takes a deep breath. "I don't like that you have it, but that doesn't mean—No. I still think you should keep it."
*
"And literally overnight the militia just—vanished. Got into their jeeps and pulled out. Nobody knows why the fuck, so I'm three weeks in and my embedment just became a vacation."
"You're allowed a vacation now and then," Clark says, and holds the phone away from his ear at Lois's response. "Okay, but lis—listen. Lois. Lo."
"... And I swear to god, Clark, it's four hours until our flight out and if Jimmy tells me one more dumb thing like, 'Hey, Lois, did you know strap-on backward is no parts?' I won't be responsible— "
Clark sits forward on the couch. The sky reflects off Bruce's polished glass coffee table, a pale, crisp blue. Outside, the clouds cast their shadows over the lake in slow procession. "You still have a story: it was set up."
"What? What was—what?"
Bruce wanders in behind him while he talks, shirt sleeves rolled up. "The occupation, the agitators. Some auxiliary part of—god, I don't even know what his plan was. I'm still putting things together."
"Who? Spit it out, Clark."
"Luthor," Clark tells her. "We short-circuited some kind of elaborate revenge fantasy he had underway."
There's a sizeable pause, then Lois pares it down to the core of the issue and asks, "Who's we?"
Bruce rests his hands on Clark's shoulders and squeezes.
"Uh. Just this... guy I know," Clark says. He leans back and glances up at Bruce, eyebrows raised. Bruce holds up a bullet casing between finger and thumb.
"Uh huh. Okay, so it's the Batman and you're embarrassed for some reason, so you've probably got a thing for him. Tell me more about Luthor's scheming. You know nothing will stick, right? I like to speak truth to unchecked corporate power so I've thrown a lot at him over the years. He's Teflon-coated."
"He's in Belize," Bruce says.
"Oh, hey. I have to go. How about we get drinks and I fill you in when you get back," Clark says. "Safe journey, Lo."
"Belize sounds nice," Lois says. "I know that voice."
"... bye, Lois."
"I'm just saying, it's nice this time of year. Oh my god, is that—"
"Drinks, later. I'll tell you almost everything. Bye, Lois!"
"You know, it is nice this time of year," Bruce says. He heads to the cave entrance, slides back the hidden panel and thumbs the biometric lock.
"Not on a reporter's wage, it isn't." Clark locks his phone and pockets it, following on his heels. "What's that?"
"This," Bruce says, and juggles the casing from hand to hand, "is what Luthor used to shoot you." His voice echoes in the poured concrete stairwell.
Clark drifts down behind him. He can sense the path of the sun even twenty feet underground, but the cave sometimes feels like flying into an eclipse. He shivers. "Great. Maybe you should get it suspended in a resin block. Souvenir."
"It's also not made from any known Earth metal." He tosses it at Clark; he catches it one-handed and holds it in the cave's uplighting. It has a strange luster that reminds him of his ship.
"He… melted down the weapons?"
"One of them, at least. Safe to assume there are another two doing the rounds in his R&D labs. Maybe he wasn't confident that the Kryptonite would be enough."
"More fool him," Clark murmurs. He places the casing on one of Alfred's many workstations, among offcuts of wire and nubs of solder. Junk.
When he looks back around, Bruce has climbed up to the mezzanine and roused his computer, instating himself in his hideous ergonomic office chair. Clark follows him up and sits on the corner of his desk, where he splits his attention between Bruce's stern profile and the data flitting across his screens. In the aftermath they've gone from cautious touching to all the touching they could do, but just being near him like this is novelty enough to feel like an indulgence.
Clark pokes the thick muscle of Bruce's arm. "How was brunch?"
"The salad was overdressed, and the Planet acquisition fell through."
Bruce taps at his keyboard. Clark recognizes what he's working on—it's data he lifted from from the ship's research team. He's managed to 3D print a cable that fits the ship's approximation of a micro-usb slot, but so far the command key has been difficult about transferring its contents into his computer's systems. He's been spending a great deal of time on it, apparently confident to the extent that he's built a prototype cave-wide holographic projector in preparation.
He'd told Clark all this with a one-shouldered shrug, as if snatching Jor-El from the trailing ends of infinity is just something he's doing on a whim, and nothing more.
"Oh," Clark says, "well. Pity, I heard that Bruce Wayne always wanted to own a newspaper."
"It's a tragedy. One of White's old friends had a—let's say, an unexpected windfall, and tendered a better offer," Bruce says. He's doing a moderately good job of looking disappointed. "Guess we'll remain unaffiliated."
"Good. Now you have absolutely no grounds on which to boss me around."
"I'm taller than you and better at looming," Bruce says.
"If only that were a metric for success."
Bruce's mouth turns up at one corner; a veneer of polished executive over the grit to his core. "So, Mr. Kent. I never did get you that coffee."
"I think I might finally be able to make time for you, Mr. Wayne."
"Breakfast?"
"Don't push your luck."
"Dinner, then. Cochinita pibil on the rim of the Great Blue Hole. We should stay for a long weekend. You'd look incredible in the water there."
Clark's eyebrows climb. Self-care is generally not in Bruce's vocabulary. "And?"
"And for dessert, some subtle intimidation."
Honestly, it's enough to fill his heart. Clark's grin is unbounded. "All right," he says. "You talked me into it."
"Finally," Bruce says.
***