Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

i.

Talking is a tool, and tools can break.

Bruce has always been a quiet child, and making friends was harder when he was ‘that rich kid’. He always talked to his parents and Alfred at home, but there was nothing he could say after his parents died.

It’s like static in his throat that he can’t turn off. Heavy grief evaporating his words. Everywhere he goes, cameras and pitying eyes follow.

Words have power, and he lost his.

ii.

I am Bruce.

He frowns at his hands, and up at Alfred. Communication feels so much easier with sign language than writing. There doesn’t have to be that awkward silence when he’s scribbling responses down on paper, and people stop looking confused or frustrated or - worse - amused when he’s trying to mime his thoughts.

But it feels like he’s signing a contract, signing his voice away. Like he’s accepting he can’t talk.

Alfred sits down next to him on one of the many chairs along the long dinner table, which, for some reason are still there as if waiting to be seated by guests.

Or by ghosts.

Look at me, Alfred signs. He gently tilts Bruce’s head up with two fingers under his chin and it's time for another Wise Alfred Chat. “We all go through changes in life. However, as far as we move away from who we once were, we will always remember that those times existed once.”

Wrinkled long fingers settle over Bruce’s small, tense ones, lifting them to rest on Alfred’s cupped palms.

“What is lost always leaves remnants behind, and they will hurt. But avoiding is not adapting, only accepting is. It doesn't have to be now, or tomorrow, but how about for now, we just be patient together?" 

Bruce stares at the ASL tutorial glowing on the laptop screen. He pulls his hands from Alfred’s and closes it.

Okay, he signs.

Alfred smiles.

iii.

The heartbeat of the man flutters desperately under Batman’s glove.

“P - pur - lease,” he splutters. “Don’ do this, sir.”

It hadn’t taken long for him to take down the others, despite it being one of his first times out as a vigilante. Gold coins and green notes scatter around the concrete floor, painted with blood leaking from two men lying unconscious. One has a bloody nose that had crunched under Bruce’s knuckles. The other he had thrown against the hard counter and a tooth had been knocked out as another punch had knocked him out cold.

“M - my daughter. I swear I didn’t want -”

Bruce slams him against the wall. The man gives a choking sound like his windpipe is crushed. He can see every terrified tremble that runs through the man as he closes in.

He growls, and the man whimpers. “You shoot blindly. You could kill someone. Do you understand?” His fists tighten around the man’s collar. A bead of sweat drops onto the jagged knuckles of his gloves. “You could murder innocent people!”

The man’s breathing quickens until it fills the room. High-pitched hyperventilating echoes off metal walls.

“St’p! Batman, pl - pl’s -” The man’s voice is a gurgle. Foam leaks over his lips.

Blue and red lights flash behind them, illuminating the hazy terror in the man’s eyes. He looks young, no older than eighteen.

Bruce releases his hands as if electrified.

The man collapses to the floor, coughing foam and wheezing.

When…had his fingers tightened over the man’s neck, cutting off air flow?

This is not what he became Batman for.

He stares at the man’s crumpled figure below him, and his own hands, shaking but deadly in front of him.

Sirens scream outside the broken door. His own shadow casts tall and towering over the man he almost killed and his throat closes up as if strangled by cold chains.

He feels eight years old again. He feels like the monster in the dark.

He flees.

iv.

Batman works alone.

Batman joins a team.

Yeah. Life works weird.

He doesn’t talk a lot when he’s a vigilante. Not even when he’s slamming criminals into walls and beating up the Joker. Speaking isn’t as difficult as he gets older, but silence and fear are still woven into his heart, and at times it still overwhelms him to the point he can't talk again.

Alfred finally managed to convince him to go to a therapist in his teenage years. He hated being at school where he couldn’t speak a word to any of the kids and teachers there, and a lot of them saw him as an easy target.

He’s not out to make friends, and allies never crossed his mind. Except for Commissioner Gordan.

Somehow, it takes an alien invasion, a stray Green Lantern in Gotham and a few other superpowered loners to take down a giant space demon with a horrible name. Who names their kid Darkseid? That’s like giving someone the destiny to be space-Hitler.

If that wasn’t unpredictable enough, the seven of them stick together. Though, thankfully not under Captain Marvel’s coined name ‘The Super Seven’ .

Clark, Diana, Barry, Hal, Billy, Victor. All of them have different abilities, different experiences. None of them, however, come close to his level of caution. Or, as Alfred will say, paranoia.

He doesn’t know what to do with the solid fact that - deep in his gut - he trusts them.

The six glance at him, waiting for his reply to the newly suggested name.

He huffs. “Fine.”

Captain Marvel whoops and throws a hand down, palm up, football team style. “The Justice League it is!”

The other heroes stack their hands together. Six pairs of eyes glance at him expectantly. “Batman?” Diana calls.

Bruce sighs. He ignores Captain Marvel's spreading grin as he taps his hand above theirs.

Chapter Text

i.

The Justice League are idiots. Although, he did think more of them would at least agree with him.

Power does not mean heroism.

He learned that in the alley, when the gun was power and he had lost his parents because of two bullets. He learned that when he first became Batman and knocked out two men robbing a bank, and his PTSD-fueled rage had almost driven him to kill the third.

Out of all the members, minus Superman, he was not expecting Hal to be the one to accept his contingencies, especially after being forcibly traumatized to manipulate his ability to wield his ring. While Clark is too forgiving for his own good, knowing Lantern’s disapproval towards him - based on the very-one-sided rivalry he’d adopted when they’d first met - Bruce had expected cold feelings of betrayal and distrust, just like from the rest of the League.

He wasn’t expecting every other member - Flash, Wonder Woman, J'onn, Cyborg and even Billy - to turn their backs on him. Still, there was no point in staying when the tension in the air clearly said, “You betrayed our trust. We don’t want you here anymore.”

The heavy thump of soil over his body and the empty boney stares of his parents lying next to him haunt him as he hangs up his Batman suit for the night.

He’s not patrolling tonight. Alfred banned him until he sleeps and recovers, and he hadn’t argued.

ii.

“Batman? Come in! We need you!”

Despite leaving the team, he still carries his communicator around just as always. He digs it out of its pocket from his utility belt, while throwing a batarang at another one of Joker’s goons with his other hand. “I’m here.”

The clang of Diana’s sword against something metal echoes through the communicator. Clark’s relieved sigh is cracked by static. “We’ve got an emergency. All hands on deck!”

Batman kicks a clown wielding a butcher’s knife off the roof and throws his grappling hook down to catch his fall before he hits the ground. “I’m on my way.”

An arrow cuts through his path in midair as he swings into Metropolis. He slices it in half with a batarang right as Green Arrow whirls around from another building.

Batman’s grappling hook recoils back into the gun with a metallic ziiip as he jumps and rolls onto a building, bullets raining mere inches past his cape.

Twin red lasers slice through a heavily-armoured alien with slimy fangs like an anglerfish lunging from his right. “Nice of you to show up,” Superman grins.

Bruce takes in a three-sixty observation. Black Canary, Wonder Woman and Cyborg are subduing a few criminals on the streets. Green Lantern and Captain Marvel are flying above, taking down a winged beast.

Outside their range are police cars, cops already shoving handcuffed and wing-cuffed offenders into the backs of vans.

“You don’t actually need me here.” His tone is stoic as usual, but light. “Do you?”

Clark smirks.

Bruce huffs, his mouth tugging into a faint smile. He’s here anyway. Might as well stay a little longer.

iii.

He kneels down in front of the kid, not too far and not too close, cautious movements to not startle her. At this point, everyone in the League knows Batman is the best with kids. Talking to kids is easier, somehow, because he meets a lot of scared kids, and he was one too.

He’s far too aware of the broken hearing aids on the carpet, and of Green Lantern watching silently from the empty hallway, knowing he's a little out of his depth right now. They'd been the first to rush to the scene, but it was already too late.

Bruce turns slightly and gives him a small nod. Go.

Hal returns it in a stoic stiffness and walks away instead of flying. If there's one thing he never lost the League's trust with, it's with children.

It’s alright, Bruce signs. It’s safe now.

The little girl is tucked under a desk, her small hands still white-knuckled around the thin sturdy legs of a chair shielding her. Her parents are dead. The two young adults - both shot dead in the doorway - are being carried out by the police cleanup crew, but their bloodstains will never leave the house.

It’s always guns.

The hollow click of the bullet slotting in, ready to be fired.

The sound that he can never ignore when he’s not expecting it.

Bruce’s heartbeat fills his insides, rising up his throat to the back of his mouth. It drums and echoes in his head and ears.

Loud enough for Superman to hear, even through the walls of a house.

He throws that thought to a corner of his mind. Not now.

Mom, the girl signs. Her hands are covered with blood and shaking so bad he almost can’t read her signs. Dad…

Batman slowly rubs a circle over his heart. I’m sorry.

Her lip trembles and more tears follow down the glimmering tracks on her pale cheeks. A child’s sobs are never nice to hear, and hers stab deep into him, past the layers of Batman and into Bruce’s heart.

It’s over, but phantom gunshots continue to ring in his head, the bodies of the girl’s parents bleeding on the ground burned into both his brain and the kid’s.

He sits down against a wall, his back against pastel flowery wallpaper. The girl cries, and he sits with her.

iv.

It’s a thread connecting his mind to his mouth, like a string telephone. The monsters haunting him with their biting teeth and razor claws sliced it apart, and he can’t weld it back together until it does so by itself.

He swallows. He’s walking, one foot in front of the other, away from the little girl’s house, but it’s just his body moving. His mind is trapped in the midst of a perpetual tornado. His mouth is dry and his knees - his hands are all shaking.

“Batman?”

Superman frowns at him, his head tilted slightly sideways as if in confusion. It hits Bruce like an icicle impaling him. He’s - oh, God - he’s listening -

“Your heart,” Clark says. It’s pounding against the armour over his chest. Clark probably doesn’t even need his superhearing. “Are you -?”

I’m fine. He glares, but his lips are sealed on their own. He turns around, the end of his cape swishing the dust around his boots.

He can’t stay. The League can’t find out.

“Batman. Wait.”

He stops.

Superman sighs, and there’s a pause like he’s hesitating. “Just talk to us. None of us hold what happened with the contingencies against you." Anymore, goes unsaid. "Please, Bruce. You’re still our friend, you know.”

Just talk to us. He almost sounds just like the bullies from high school. Except this is his ally. His friend.

He’s never had to hide his mutism from a friend before. He's never told the truth before.

He walks away.

Chapter Text

i.

“Hey, uh…” Dick hovers hesitantly behind him. In the reflection of the computers, he can see his ward anxiously watching him from his shadow. “Bruce? Look, I know you do this ‘ leave-me-alone-I’m-brooding ’ thing, but you’ve been down in the Cave for, um…” He stretches on his tiptoes like his namesake - a robin - to look at the screen over Bruce’s shoulder. “A solid eight hours and fourteen minutes since Metropolis.”

The Batglare is just as second nature to Bruce at home than in the field, and he doesn’t turn around and instead glares straight at the computers where Dick can see it by its reflection. It’s his silent signature, his go-to communication. Only he never uses it on his family like this, but Dick’s thirteen and Bruce is not supposed to still be bothered by this anymore.

The orphaned girl in Metropolis - Michelle Gunderson, ten-years-old - has been put in a foster home immediately, with no other living family. Metropolis may not have the same bad reputation for shady homes as Gotham, but Bruce can't take any chances.

He immediately got to seeing what he can do once he got back home. The family she's with for tonight - a woman who works as a fashion designer and already has two other girls - has a clean record. There's nothing to indicate potential neglect or abuse, but foster placements don't always last just because the carers are decent people.

This isn't like what happened in the alley. He knows it's not. He can help now to ensure Michelle isn't alone. God, she's ten.

Yet, the locking of his voice behind his teeth is like superglue between his lips. He can feel the words stirring in his mind, he can’t make them come out. He can’t -

Can’tcan’tcan’t -

“Can’t we just - I dunno, talk about something else, then?” Dick says. He sighs, exasperated. His fists are balled. "I'm worried, alright? You just shut everyone out like - like it's freaking Frozen or something."

The silence between them stretches.

Bruce never freezes, because he can’t afford to. But no one can know his silent stances are more than just an intimidation technique, and hardly anyone knows Bruce can’t speak sometimes. Just Alfred, Leslie and a few students and staff from old schools he never liked very much.

But not Dick, not even for the five years Bruce has had him for.

Whether these moments are happening again or not, he still doesn’t know how to tell Dick.

Dick closes his eyes and sighs. His shoulders slump. “Fine. Fine, then. Later.”

His footsteps echo as he leaves. A hollow, lonely sound of disappointment and pain.

It’s familiar.

ii.

“I thought I made it clear to stay out of my city, Lantern,” he growls.

Hal Jordan smirks, hovering just high enough to force Batman to crane his neck upwards to look at him. “Sharing is caring, Spooky. And so is stalking your pals, as you know pretty well.”

“Hm.” A flicker of light catches his eye. The Bat-signal. He doesn't even look at Hal before jumping off the building.

Michelle Gunderson has already been fostered by a number of homes so far. Bruce is currently quietly arranging for her to be adopted by a peaceful family, searching through the available ones in Metropolis’s files with Clark’s help.

It’s been two weeks since and he can speak again, but he hasn’t contacted the League at all. And he did not ask for Hal to show up tonight.

Commissioner Gordon raises his eyebrow when the trademark shadow drops into view, illuminated by Lantern’s subsequent arrival. “I wasn't aware you were, um, inviting any friends with you,” Gordon remarks, looking between Batman and Green Lantern, questioning but unsurprised. He’s seen more questionable things as one of Gotham’s more legal protectors.

Batman grinds his teeth. “He wasn't.”

Gordon huffs a sigh. “I should’ve bought more coffee. Anyways, there’s reports that Scarecrow’s trying to smuggle out more chemicals from their factories. Based on some security footage we planted around, they’re using abandoned buildings as a base. I had some of my guys go undercover and they believe he’s trying a new brand of that fear gas.”

“Boggart Gas,” Hal comments unhelpfully. “I mean, with a name like Scarecrow he sounds like a wind could knock him over.”

Bruce ignores him. “Has he been successful yet?”

Gordon shakes his head. “My undercovers say he’s still experimenting with the chemicals. He keeps moving bases, but we believe we may have found where they’re going to be moving loot across.”

He tells them the address, and that’s Batman’s cue to leave, leaving both the Commissioner and Lantern blinking at where he had stood the second before.

iii.

“Oh, so we are friends.”

Bruce glares at Hal sideways and dodges a hefty right hook. He knew he wasn't going to be left alone for long when Lantern also had Scarecrow’s location. The peace and quiet - minus fighting all around - was just too good to last. He punches the man in the face, sending him down. “I never said that.”

Hal materializes a man-sized flyswat and slaps a trio of goons away like bowling balls, crashing into more bag-headed minions. “Yes, you did. You said I wasn't invited but you didn't deny we're friends.” Lantern's aggravating grin fades. “Although everyone is having doubts as of recently.”

Batman ducks as a shower of bullets come from the bushes near the warehouse base. He tosses half a dozen batarangs at the direction they came from. Screams erupt from where they hit the hidden shooters.

Hal swipes his arm to the side and more bullets shatter against a glowing green shield. “You're ghosting everyone, more than usual. You just leave them hanging when they're in the same room as you.” He slaps the guns off the men Bruce hasn't taken down and wraps them up in construct chains.

Just a few left.

“But I know you don’t think of us that way. You listen even though you don’t act like you want to.”

Bruce's knuckles crack across the last man's nose. He crashes to the ground with too much force.

He can feel Lantern's eyes stabbing into his back. Batman hadn't been holding back on that one, and he always holds back.

The shipments are here. Tons of large, heavy containers packed side-by-side-by-side, metal or thick plastic cylinders stacked on top of each other, all ready to be secured into the three large vans.

That’s going to make a lot of Fear Gas.

It needs to be taken down -

Lantern’s voice is uncharacteristically quiet, like they’re back in that collapsed mine and Bruce had ripped the illusion of the androids away.

‘Because will is the source of your strength -’

‘And fear is the enemy of will...’

Hal slowly settles onto the ground instead of hovering. All of Scarecrow’s helpers are either tied up or unconscious. Not even the ones closest to them can hear him talk quietly. “This is more than just the ‘dark and broody’ thing, isn't it? You literally can't talk at times.”

I literally want to punch you right now.

Bruce can’t say them out loud. His throat is locked tight by the horrified fact that now somebody knows . Hal knows, and with all his contingency plans for if one of the League becomes a threat, he doesn’t have a contingency for this.

“Hey, seriously. You alright?”

Bruce’s comm crackles and Superman’s voice filters through. Ice leaks into his chest. Oh, God. Not Clark too.

“Batman? We’ve got a situation and we could use some help.” The comm flickers with static again as rough punching sounds come from the other end. “You there?”

His cape weighs him down like a collapsing building. He’s high up on the ledge of one and, God, he’s never been stuck like this but he’s completely frozen now. Any second now Superman will grow suspicious over his silence and use his superhearing on his heartbeat and realize it’s too fast.

He needs to turn it off.

“Batman? Come i -”

iv.

Oh.

Shoot.

Maybe it was a bad idea to confront Bats directly.

It just clicked all of a sudden for him. Right there and then, after the takedown of Scarecrow’s guys. The way Batman kept ditching them wasn't any different from how he usually is, but as a pilot and Green Lantern, Hal can’t afford to miss details. Bats is like a mosquito. His appear-disappear trick just grinds on Hal's nerves sometimes, but lately it doesn't seem to be just a ninja trick.

It's like he's actively trying to avoid everyone.

Then it clicked, and he blurted it out in realization.

Whatever Batman's reaction was going to be, he was cut off by someone in his comm and he stiffened like he was suddenly drenched in ice water. Batman has always kind of resembled a solid statue, but he looks absolutely petrified now. His hand is frozen on the comm in his ear and it looks like he's five seconds away from crushing it.

Guilt curdles in Hal's gut as he steps up beside him and silently gestures for the comm. He knows he can be an asshole at times, but not this time, and not just because he feels like a grade-A prick for dropping that bomb on Batman. Batman glares and shakes his head once, a single stiff movement. Hal just huffs and mimes zipping his lips, a hand still outstretched.

The comm crackles again and, seeing there’s no other way out, Batman hands the comm over and Hal attaches it to his own ear.

“Where's Batman?” Superman’s confused voice calls.

“GL here." Don't sound suspicious. "Spooky's right here. He has laryngitis, I think. I mean, Batman goes out to fight crime even when he’s sick? It’s obvious yet still dumb.”

“Lantern? In that case, can you come assist us in Metropolis? Make sure Batman doesn’t put himself in more risk.”

“On my w -” Aaand, of course. He sighs. “Shoot, I think he just disappeared on me.”

Batman is not keeping it together. Hal doesn't need J’onn’s telepathy to know he was not in the best mental state. Probably hasn't been for a while, assuming this isn't the first time he's gone mute with the League around.

Hell, he didn't even want Hal to know. Too late now. But he obviously doesn't want anyone else to know either, and he's off his game.

“I'll be there,” he tells Superman.

Chapter Text

i.

“Use the contingencies -” Clark’s voice crackles as Bruce vanishes, no doubt heading for Metropolis. He sounds tense. Urgent. “- ky? You have t - use - encies!”

“Why?” Hal yells over the howling wind. “What’s going on?”

“- eed to - n’t let me - losing signal -”

“Supes?” Fuck. “Superman!”

Hal yelps as a shaft of lightning strikes a lamppost to his side, narrowly missing him. He's flying low in hopes he would be more shielded from the storm by the buildings. Still, all the lightning must be affecting the connection to Batman’s comm.

He messed up.

He's got complete faith in Bats to be able to hold his own, and if Superman is going to be a danger he'll probably have a whole kryptonite shield stashed under his cape. But Hal's not so much of an idiot to brush Bruce off as totally okay right now. He probably will be even less okay if he doesn't know what Supes is asking.

Everyone knows what happened with the contingencies last time. If Big Blue is making an order to activate them…

This can't be good.

Hal breathes tightly through his teeth, flying as fast as he can through the storm. Batman always said his only weakness was not being able to shut up. He doubts either of them were expecting it to backfire like this, though.

Mental health wasn't exactly a big thing back in their generation, but that doesn't mean they're a bunch of tinmen. Oh, damn. The realization hits him like a shiv to the gut, heavier than the storm clouds above.

Hal swallows, guilt thick and heavy as molasses in his gut. He's never really thought about what it's like to be Bruce Wayne. He's not sure anyone has. Not really. Can't be easy being a billionaire with the tragic story of a lifetime starting from eight-years-old. He'd looked him up, and there's a lot on his rich boy achievements but none on who the hell he really is as a down-to-earth guy. Nothing on walking out on meetings and being a little too quiet to be normal.

He always thought Batman was just quiet. Quiet and antisocial.

Granted, that was what everyone in the League thought, and also the media. Does Bruce even have anyone in his life? Apart from Gotham's illegal creepies who like causing trouble?

Great, now he's feeling even more guilty.

“C’mon, GL,” he hisses. The aura of green pulsing as he charges on, pushing away the cold that seeps into his bones and threatens to make him lose focus as he shivers. “We gotta find Batman.”

ii.

Everyone used to tell him, “Don’t worry, Bruce. You’ll grow out of it when you get older.”

But he rarely talked even as he turned from eight to twelve, twelve to eighteen, eighteen to now. He can talk, but there are still strings around his throat that tighten when the deep nervousness that's always inside him threatens to submerge him.

The storm crashed in his path like a clumsy buzzard sometime during his mad scramble out of Gotham and to Metropolis. He swipes away the cold rain lashing against his face. The sky is blotched with black clouds. His muscles burn as he runs over rooftops, but he keeps going.

Batman is carved out of loneliness. He’s not supposed to retaliate against petty beliefs of civilians.

“You’re such a dickhead, Bruce.”

“Stuck-up rich boy. Some of us actually had to work for what we have now, you know?”

“I hope that Robin boy doesn’t turn out as ill-mannered as you.”

Except they aren’t just petty. Not if even his… friends may believe so as well.

Panic is an icy bullet buried deep in his chest. Horrified dread is a darkness sizzling inside his ribcage like black fire. Even an entire Zeta tube away from Gotham it’s like Lantern’s eyes are still digging the secrets out of his flesh, cold fishhooks under his skin.

Bruce grits his teeth. Liquid chill seeps through the fabric areas of his suit and into his flesh.

The League had turned away from him after the contingencies. They were dying alone because he created these plans. J'onn, Clark, Diana, Barry, Hal...

He's a walking hazard for anyone who gets close to him.

Someone who really knows him finding out about his truth - Batman’s truth - is something he has never prepared for. With all the contingencies he has, there isn’t one when it comes to protecting this secret.

And this, a sinister crevice in his brain sneers, is not going to be good.

There’s a mission. Superman needs him. He has to get there.

Is this why you don’t make friends, Bruce? Batman? Because you can't make anything good last? Because you almost kill everyone who gives a damn about you?

His mind is a maze of shadows, thoughts running wild and disjointed and no one’s supposed to know -

He's gasping. His nerves are numb, static buzzing through his head. While gravity keeps him balanced over rooftops, the rest of the world is a tornado, and he’s trapped, floating within.

It’s hurting to breathe. A dull weighted throb tightens around his chest and throat and limbs, like iron chains searing into his flesh, weighing him down as liquid metal fills his lungs and tears burn in his eyes -

Get it together, Batman.

His teeth grind. Cold air hisses through with too-fast breaths. The falling distance from the Metropolis buildings leers at him, the shadows loom and laugh. His grip on control is slipping, falling. I can’t - I -

Just - get. It. Together.

He runs, he panics, he breathes.

iii.

He runs, he breathes, he can’t breathe.

The storm continues across the polar-opposite cities. In fact, it’s even worse in Metropolis, with thunder roaring across the sky, pure lightning cracking through the thick cover of clouds, stretching across the sky.

A flash of green glints in the corner of his vision. It’s gaining speed. His teeth grit and he swings a little harder; a little faster to get away. Not fast enough, apparently, as solid green moves over his head in the form of an arch and the rain stops pelting him. Instead, pattering madly on the transparent curve above.

Damnit - Goddamn it.

“Heya, Bats.” Hal flies up next to him, a raised eyebrow creasing his mask with a depth of seriousness Bruce doesn’t need to see. “Need an umbrella?”

Hell no.

He glares at Hal. The folds of his heavy cape flap over his shoulders and back like a crushing darkness, heavier with the rain soaking through. He feels exposed - no longer the solid wall of darkness. He's always thinking - running, because everywhere is somewhere someone can die in, and he doesn't know why he still can't talk and -

And somehow Hal figured it out.

God. If Lantern out of all people can put the pieces together there’s a high chance that more people in the League know as well, and he hasn’t even realized.

He jumps onto the building to his side, away from Lantern. Rain and wind shatter against him as the construct umbrella disappears behind him. That doesn't stop Lantern from zooming up right next to him again. Too close.

“Hang on - Seriously, I just need to talk to you -”

His first blurs through the shattering rain and Hal yelps as armoured knuckles connect with his face.

He quickly swerves to the side, out of range of more lashing claws. “Oookay. My bad. Sorry.”

He punched Hal. He… attacked him. I…hit him.

Bruce shoves down the invisible panic rising in his chest and dives off the building.

“Wait!”

Anxiety is thick fog around him. Like Fear Gas. Shame. Humiliation. Choking - suffocating him. He fires the grappler again as he free-falls, but it’s raining too hard and his hands are trembling and every breath is trapped in his throat like dusty cobwebs clogging up his lungs. He can't handle this - this confrontation right now.

The hook misses - clanking off a metal pipe as the wind churns around, freezing and unruly and bitingly cold, knocking the grappler off course.

Batman never falls.

Nono - nonono -

He falls.

Oh, damn.

iv.

Lantern's hand stretches, encapsulated by the green aura, reaching down to catch him. Because of course he always does. His mouth is open in a shout that's drowned out by the rolling thunder and rushing of air past Bruce.

Ink spills over the atmosphere, heavy darkness soaking the puffy clouds with deep shades of black and blue.

Adrenaline swallows his churning insides as... something else zooms from above and crashes into him, hard enough to bruise his ribs.

It's Clark.

Immediately, details transcribe in Bruce's brain, and his stomach drops worse than the wildness of the storm and being slammed out of his fall are already causing.

Clark's eyes flash green, like a cat's, except a very distinctive shade of bright green sheen.

Crap.

The city sparkles miles below, a mosaic of rich lights glittering with the rain. It lashes Bruce's face with icy wind.

Clark is careful when flying with others. His arms don't press bruises under Bruce's armour. Silence is not his greeting, and he smiles instead of staring forwards stoically.

This isn't Clark.

Fire seethes under Bruce's skin, hot and cold all at once. He hates being flown by his teammates and this is worse. He can't use kryptonite on Clark right now - he's miles up in the sky and if he does, he'll fall. The storm rattles through him, the sky blazing a gloomy purple with lightning bright enough to splinter through his vision.

But if he lets Superman take him to wherever they're going - which he knows because he hasn't killed him for some reason, yet - it can't be good.

He doesn't need a coin flip for this.

He wrestles, and Clark's hand clamps down over his arm as he almost drops him, dangling above the shimmering Metropolis as Superman holds him up by one arm. For a second, the green in his eyes flickers blue.

The snap sends a lightning shaft of pain down his limb to his shoulder.

His vision whites out. His throat burns with a deadlocked scream.

With his other arm, his hand tears the small lead-lined box from his belt and his thumb flicks the lid open in Superman's face. Clark yells as bright green blinds him and his hand releases Bruce's arm.

He falls with the raindrops, like a torpedo, his cape whipping around wildly behind in his descent. Darkness looms behind him as the city lights glow brighter and closer all at once.

The seconds dash past. Too fast.