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It starts, as with all things Bruce loves, with death.
The shock hasn’t registered just yet. There, in front of him, the burnt husk of— of—
Clark Kent was well and truly dead.
Bruce fights back the urge to hurl.
“Where will we find you?” He asks, forcing the words past his throat. He can barely acknowledge this— this Superman in Clark Kent’s skin.
“Don’t worry. I’ll find you.”
Superman flies off, and the familiarity of that pose, that confident, near-overbearing tone, almost makes Bruce think this is nothing but a bad dream.
He stares down at the corpse, already crumbling into ash as the fire eats it from the inside out.
A bad dream.
If only.
—
It’s not his Clark.
It’s not just the costume, with the low-cut neckline, or the way he hugs Diana, without any of the awkward tension that used to simmer there.
No, it’s the way his gaze lands on Bruce, his brilliant blue eyes blank and unrecognizing, and how he smiles, that large Superman-patented smile as bright as the sun.
Superman’s smiles are always large and confident, the sign that lights hope in the hearts of the desperate and despairing.
Clark’s smiles—
Clark’s smiles were betrayed by the flush of red on his face, from his cheeks to his ears. His smiles were often bashful, that hunched his body or had him rubbing his neck. Other times, he wore smiles that could be seen from miles away; the way he grinned, playful and teasing, a quick turn of his head, bold and unshy.
But Bruce loved it most when Clark smiled gently, like the soft end of a laugh, or the early-morning sunrise, the lightest tint of pink right at the start of dawn. Like the way he would look when Bruce made a joke during patrol, or when he greeted him in the morning, bleary from sleep. It may not have been as bright, nor as confident as Superman’s, but it was gentle in a language that Bruce had been beginning to learn.
“Welcome back, Superman,” someone says.
Superman grins from ear-to-ear, back straight, tall and proud, as blinding as the sun.
Good bye, Clark.
Bruce only gives himself one moment to grieve.
Then the Batman gets back to work.
—
The ease with which Superman had integrated himself into the team is almost terrifying. He knows most of their maneuvers already, knows what place he should take in their formation.
The differences are few, but there, nonetheless. He’s a lot more defensive than Kal ever was. He has a wider perspective of the battlefield, too; he’s more focused on support and evacuation than he is on dealing damage. It tells of years of experience, battles untold and unknown.
It is a desperate fight. When is it not? The fate of the universe on their shoulders, as always.
In the midst of it all, Superman and Batman.
No longer the World’s Finest.
The trust isn’t there. Not yet.
But Bruce knows, sooner or later, he will have to face this ghost with his partner’s face.
—
Batman walks through the empty halls of the Watchtower. His steps are silent as he crosses into the monitor room, empty save for a forgotten plastic cup by the keyboard. Probably Barry’s, since his shift had ended just a minute ago. Bruce leaves it where it is and sits down.
Even now, he can almost hear his voice, the gentle weight of his touch on his shoulder, the ‘that’s gonna be your last coffee for the day, B,’ with that knowing smirk of his.
Weeks had passed since Clark’s return— arrival— and things had settled down, for the most part. Bruce knew he was slowly, though successfully, re-adjusting to Metropolis life.
Bruce had planned the shift schedule so that he was, for the most part, alone in the Watchtower. The League’s hopeful gaze and congratulatory remarks grated on his skin, acid on an open wound.
He cannot begrudge them this happy moment in the whirlwind of disasters that was their lives, but they all seemed to treat this Clark as their Clark. With every inside joke, every memory referenced and retold, it was as if they had forgotten Clark had existed at all.
He turns his attention back to the monitors. It is quiet, for once, the world settling for a moment of peace after its close call with complete annihilation.
He has only begun to do his routine check when the doors slide open with their customary click.
“Bruce,” Diana says, her voice as gentle and steady as ever.
Bruce turns to face her.
Diana has seen many battles since the day she first came to the world of man, naive to the darkness that hid in its corners. Her face, once bright and open with optimism, has since grown weary; not tired, not today, but wiser; the face of one who understands pain, yet can still offer kind words and a warm shoulder for all those who need it.
He envies her stalwart heart and unwavering belief. They had both lost a loved one, and yet it is he who feels as though he would break apart with the slightest breath.
“Diana.”
He doesn’t have it in him to scold her for the breach of codename etiquette. He knows she will notice this, and that she will understand why he is too tired to engage in pedantic pleasantries.
Her heels click against the metal floor as she moves to stand beside him. “I thought I would have a harder time finding you.”
“You know where to find me. If it was something urgent, I would have answered.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Really. I was under the impression you were avoiding all of us— well, Clark, mostly.”
Bruce takes a steadying breath.
“Di—”
“Isolation is not the solution to your problems, Bruce.” Her words are sharp, cutting straight into the heart of the matter.
“You are both leaders of the Justice League, partners in battle and dear friends. The League will suffer in your estrangement, as will your hard-earned trust on the field. You must mend your relationship with each other. You will only continue to hurt yourself if you follow this path. You know this as I do.”
Bruce grits his teeth. He does know this. That does not make the pain any less.
When is it time to stop grieving? When is it time to move on?
“He isn’t Clark Kent.”
“You still distrust him? After everything?”
“He is not our Clark Kent.”
Frustration rises, hot and angry in his chest. “Clark is dead. No version of him can replace the Clark we knew.”
Diana smiles sadly. “Perhaps he is hurting, too. How would you feel if you had been dropped into a different world, with no one who remembers you, no way to go back home?”
Her eyes soften, and somehow, that is worse. “I grieve too, Bruce. Of course I do. He is different, yes, but that does not mean we cannot forge new bonds. That we cannot learn each other anew.”
She slides an envelope towards him, white and pristine. “Come with me tomorrow night. We can find out who this new Clark is— as a person. And perhaps… learn to trust each other once more.”
Bruce doesn’t know if that will ever be possible. He doesn’t want to trust him again. He doesn’t want to forge new bonds, or earn new trust, or make new memories. They are already so similar to each other, and he doesn’t want a replacement.
He doesn’t want to forget.
But the world needs Superman.
So, just as he always has, Bruce buries his feelings away. Far, far in the deepest corners of his heart, in that place he thought he’d never need again.
(I told you so, Clark.)
He’ll bury his feelings, for the sake of the world.
He’s done it for far less.
Bruce closes his eyes.
“Alright, Diana. I will go.”
—
As far as civilian meetings go, it’s far from the worst one Bruce has had.
In fact, besides the awkwardness of the entire first hour before they aired out their grievances, it was almost — dare Bruce say it — pleasant. After Jon had gone to bed, dinner had quickly turned into drinking, and having two people with superhuman constitution had made for a rather fun drinking game.
But the warmth of the farmhouse in the countryside is still too much, too familiar for him, so he excuses himself to sit outside on the porch.
Bruce settles down and breathes in the cold evening air. He can hear their muffled voices from the other side of the door, and that ache, like an old broken bone that never healed right, pulses in his chest.
Sitting under the warm light of this farmhouse, in this cozy atmosphere of familiarity and love, Bruce has never felt more like an intruder. He had thought that the time — and distance — he put between himself and Clark would have helped, at least somewhat. But the moment he saw Clark again, the moment he—
Bruce clasped his hands together and took a deep breath. He hoped that Clark — this Clark — was extending the basic courtesy of privacy, because there was no believable excuse he could offer for the rising beat of his heart, loud and quick as it never was even in the most harrowing of fights.
He takes another deep breath.
Clark Kent.
Bruce Wayne.
They each know a version of the other that no longer exists today.
It’s like playing the world’s worst game of Go Fish, except they’re calling cards from completely different decks, and it isn’t a game at all but memories of one once trusted, loved, beloved.
Clark Kent.
Kal El.
Clark Kent. Kal El.
Clark and Kal.
Bruce repeats their names silently. He has to think of them differently, give them separate names. He can’t think of them as the same person, or else— or else.
“Thanks for coming, Bruce. Diana.”
Clark Kent and Lois Lane stand at the doorway together, their faces bathed in the warm light of the farmhouse.
“Of course,” Diana smiles, hugging Lois tightly. It seemed that they had, at some point in the night, become quite close. “Don’t be a stranger. We may not know each other anymore, but it is still true that we were once friends.”
“Don’t contact me unless it's an emergency,” Bruce says, turning away.
Perhaps Diana had not seen it, or had long since grown too unfamiliar to recognize it. But Bruce had spent so much time tracing the edges of that smile, following its curve, longing for its warmth, that he would know it in his sleep, blind, or dead—
There is a strain in Clark Kent’s smile, and it is the coldest dagger that pierces through Bruce’s heart.
This Clark is a stranger.
He holds fond feelings for his version of Bruce and Diana, of course; but for him, towards the versions that exist in this world, he is apathetic at worst, genial at best.
This Clark may like Bruce, but his Clark—
His Clark loved him.
This one doesn’t.
And the thought threatens to tear him apart by the seams.
—
Nobody knew.
Maybe that’s why it hurt so much.
It isn’t as if Bruce hadn’t had relationships before. Contrary to what the League might call him behind his back, Bruce isn’t cold, or heartless, or as logical as they think. He wishes he was — how easy would that be? — but he places his heart in the hands of those he loves, and each and every time, it returns to him.
Sometimes, with only a few scars. Those are the lucky ones. Other times, he’s left with nothing but the broken pieces, barely able to put it back together again. But at least—
At least there had been pieces left to pick up.
Kal left without a trace, as if their relationship had all but existed in Bruce’s memories, and perhaps that’s all it is, now. Diana and — the other Lois, though he is loath to call her that — suspected. Perhaps Diana had even confirmed it after their last visit. But nobody had known, in the before-and-during.
(There is no after. There is only the missing, the absence of it.
And the Clark-who-was-not.)
Far before Kal had ever turned his head to see Bruce. Before Lois. Before Diana. To have his feelings returned had been— inconceivable. But after Xa Du— after the one you’ll miss the most, the one who understands you best— Kal tried, again and again, with that same bullheaded stubbornness he approached everything in life.
And as he always did, he made Bruce want to believe in the inconceivable, too.
They went on dates. They kissed. They loved—
But like everyone Bruce loved, he was gone.
Maybe his love was always going to be a tragedy.
He, who had loved someone so easily replaced; he, who had loved someone nobody missed; he, who had loved and was loved by one who was only a facsimile for the real one— the real one, who doesn't know him, or love him, or choose him like Kal did.
Maybe loving Kal was always a tragedy, when he could never truly be his.
In the end, nobody had known, and now, it wouldn’t matter if anyone did. Bruce would never be able to hold his hand without regard for who was watching. To go on dates not covered by excuses to meet up. To kiss him, openly and unreservedly, outside the walls of his home.
He wants to curse Kal for showing him that spark of hope— that better future, full of love and joy and peace. Had he never known what his life could be like with Kal by his side, he would never have known the pain of losing him.
He would never have known it was possible to fill the emptiness in his chest.
It doesn’t matter now.
All that remains is a relationship, unfulfilled; a love with nowhere left to go.
—
“Hey B, how’d it go?”
Bruce grunts, throwing off the suit as he walks to the showers.
Tim grimaces at the loud thunk of his boots. “That bad, huh?”
Terribly, Bruce could say. Excruciating, but nothing I can’t handle, maybe.
“It was fine.”
The visit to the farmhouse only confirmed his fear, which haunts his every waking step.
Happier without you.
Clark came back with a sunnier smile, a brighter air, and a better life. He’s married to the woman of his dreams with a child who takes after him. It’s everything Kal had ever wanted.
And if his happier disposition means anything, then maybe Kal would have been better off without Bruce, too.
“‘Fine’, my ass,” Tim snorts. He stands up to look at Bruce, worry creasing the lines of his face. I’m here, Tim’s eyes say. If you fall, I’m going to pull you back up. As many times as I need to.
Bruce hates that he put that expression on his son’s face. A child should never have to worry about their parent— and yet here he is, failing at even that. Perhaps he had failed long ago, from the very first time Tim had pulled him from his grief.
Bruce averts his gaze and steps away. “Focus on your homework,” he says. “I know you have an assignment due tomorrow.”
“What assignment?” Tim asks, innocently.
“The one worth twenty percent of your grade.”
Tim does not look away guiltily. He’s trained better than that. But he looks Bruce right in the eye, and says, straight-faced, the blank word document blinking on the screen behind him: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Bruce raises an eyebrow.
“Fine,” Tim shrugs. “It needs a few more words, but it's basically done.”
Bruce rolls his eyes. “You’re not going on patrol until it's complete.”
“What? No way. I’m still going out tonight. Bruce? Bruce!”
—
Bruce had expected it to be difficult, of course, but the reality of it is much worse: it’s easy.
It’s too damn easy.
It’s easy to forget, when they’re in the middle of a mission—
It’s easy to forget, when everyone else treats him exactly the same—
It’s easy to forget, when Superman smiles—
It’s difficult, when that smile is no longer enough to jolt him out of the dream. He has to keep reminding himself every single day, every single mission spent together, and it comes across as— distaste, perhaps.
He can tell that Superman— Clark— doesn’t like it. He responds each time to Bruce’s biting remarks with an awkward air of strained politeness, like he’s waiting for something. Trust, maybe. Something Bruce will not, cannot give.
Nevertheless, there are missions that require him to give it, however tentatively; missions that require him to visit the Kent house, Clark’s house, built of the love and trust Bruce himself is loath to give. He stands in front of this beautiful house, and beautiful family, and thinks, how many promises will he have to make to a son whose father may not come home at the end of each day?
He’s already lost one of them.
He doesn’t know if he can lose another.
But Clark Kent— Kal El is gone. Time marches, ever forward, and the world goes on.
So Bruce pushes Clark hard: to go on missions, to risk his life, to save the world— the empty space between them remaining unacknowledged.
It isn’t as if Bruce had never tried.
Once, after a mission, he asks: “Can we talk?”
“Sorry,” Clark smiles back, apologetic. “Maybe later? I’ve got dinner with my family.”
Bruce never asks again.
After all, he knows full well what an excuse sounds like.
—
All that building tension finally explodes the day they fight a monster that seeps into their bones, a sickness of hurt and anger, and forces to the surface everything Bruce had been fighting his damn hardest to conceal.
Superman flies into the Batcave in a murderous rage, his eyes glowing red as he grabs Bruce by the neck. He smashes Bruce against the computer, and Bruce feels something break — the computer, a rib, maybe— but it doesn’t hurt as much as Clark’s next words.
“I’ve done everything you asked!” His voice is a boom in Bruce’s ear, anger and hurt and— fear? “What more do you want me to give? What else do I need to do for you to trust me?”
Nothing, Bruce nearly says. There’s only one Superman I trusted, and you’re not him. You never will be.
“Do it,” he chokes out. “What are you waiting for, Clark?” He feels as Clark’s grasp tightens around his neck, more and more, and he wants— wants Clark to hurt him, to snap his neck, anything for proof of a relationship that existed.
It's almost comfortable how familiar it is; the grip on his throat just like the grip Kal has on his heart; squeezing the air and the hurt and the love from his lungs.
“I want you to.” And the truth that lies beneath those words nearly shatters him alive.
“Do it,” he snarls — he would deserve it, it would be the kindest reprieve — but he knows, even like this, that Clark never will.
Clark lets out a yell and smashes his fist against the side of Bruce’s head. Glass shatters and rains down onto the floor as Clark collapses to the ground.
“Damn you,” he whispers. “Damn you, Bruce.”
Bruce lets himself slump to the floor. There’s a burning in his throat, and he knows even before he opens his mouth that it will hurt to speak.
“Not exactly the World’s Finest, are we?”
They talk, after that.
It doesn’t solve everything, but it does a lot. Bruce is more honest to Clark than he’s ever been. It’s the first time he’s ever mentioned his parents… or Jason, to anyone, in a long while.
Sometimes, Bruce looks at him and thinks, I want you to kill me.
But I won’t, Clark’s easy smile always seems to say.
No, you won’t.
Because even though this Clark isn’t his Clark, he’s the closest reminder of the man he loved. Loves.
All Bruce can do is watch from afar.
And sometimes, sometimes, if he allows himself to look close enough—
Sometimes, it almost seems as if Clark is looking back.
—
Once Bruce had offered that olive branch of possibility, It seemed Clark no longer saw the necessity in restraint. After that… unfortunate lapse in judgment, for the both of them, and the villain had been defeated, he returns and apologizes to Bruce.
Bruce had been more than content with simply sweeping it under the rug and never thinking about it again, but then Clark went on to talk about his feelings.
I thought you’d never trust me, he’d said. All I wanted was your approval, but you never looked my way. Lois even made fun of me— that I’d throw everything away at a snap of your fingers.
Ridiculous, Bruce had responded, incredulous and offended in equal parts. What use would you have of my approval? You’re Superman.
And you’re Batman, Clark had replied. And he’d smiled that sheepish, farm boy smile.
Ridiculous, Bruce had repeated, because Clark was smiling at him, and not that strained, stranger-smile either. He smiled at him almost like— like before, like Kal, like looking at him was something he enjoyed, like smiling at him was something easy.
Bruce had thought that would be the end of it, the apology finally out of the way, but Clark, as always, lives to defy expectation.
He comes and sits by Bruce on slow evenings in the Watchtower, talking about nothing in particular and whatever crosses his mind. And because Bruce is weak, and cannot simply ignore Clark after all he had offered to him (or that face, and that smile), he would reply.
They talk about work, about their civilian lives; the latest villain on the loose, that last attack; some help on one of Bruce’s cases, or some information for one of Clark’s articles. A passing comment, here and there: Lasagna’s in the microwave, at the Watchtower kitchens. Or, did you watch the latest episode of Bake Off? Pie isn’t meant to look like that.
Bruce will be up at the Watchtower, looking at the newsfeeds, and Clark will be there at his side, a cup of coffee in his hand.
That’s what almost gets him— the domesticity of it, how easy it was to return to a routine that shouldn’t exist, not between them; like falling back into a bad habit, an addiction he thought he’d kicked.
Then Bruce will make a snide remark that Clark takes as a joke, and he’ll let out a laugh, brilliant as the sun. It’s similar, yet completely different from Kal. Clark shines so brightly that Bruce must turn away. He has no idea what to do with this Clark, who loves so openly and hopes so fully.
For all his hope and love, Kal had always seemed haunted by a shadow that some would call anger, but Bruce knew to be grief. That unnameable sorrow about him was why Bruce had been so drawn to him, in the beginning. How similar they were, yet at the same time, how different. Because where Bruce found his answer in the bowels of the city, Kal found his in the open skies.
That was one more thing Clark and Kal shared: that unwavering belief in the goodness of others.
Bruce has to remind himself, with each passing day, and each shared smile, and each mission fulfilled:
I miss you. I miss you. I miss you.
—
“Aquaman, evacuate the coast. Wonder Woman, keep them restrained as long as you can,” Batman finishes giving orders through the comms. A robot army this time— nothing too strenuous, all things considered.
Superman is plowing through them with such ease, it should be laughable to call them an army at all. He’s adapted well to the team, overall; he smiles a lot more now, some invisible weight lifted off his shoulders. Bruce isn’t exactly sure what has changed, but he’s glad that Superman seems happier now, more content in his own skin.
Batman barely finishes taking down another wave of robots when the wing of his plane breaks. Damn it, he thinks. Focus. He ejects as soon as he realizes there’s no saving it, but the parachute gets torn through by a passing robot. He neutralizes it with an exploding batarang, but he’s now hurtling towards the ground in complete free fall.
“Batman to all points. Requesting air support.”
He’s almost at ground level when a flash of red and blue appears at the corner of his vision.
“‘Air support’, Batman? Really?” Superman snarks.
The warmth of Clark’s arms around him is startlingly familiar.
Once, Bruce had woken up wrapped in the warmth of Kal’s arms, the soft light of the sun casting the Kyrptonian’s face in a gentle glow. For a moment, Bruce had been struck by such great fear of everything he stood to lose by giving Kal this place in his heart. He told Kal as much.
Kal had looked at him and smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling, and told him that he would never have to fear losing him.
“That lonely place in your heart,” Kal had said, poking a finger at Bruce’s chest, “Will never have to be used again.”
Bruce had believed him.
(He always did.)
The man who calls himself Clark Kent smiles.
(He always will.)
He pushes himself out of Superman’s grip and jumps the few remaining feet to the ground. “Get to position, Superman.”
Superman sighs. “A thank you would be nice.”
And it's so familiar—
“You get your thanks after the battle, Kal.”
Superman blinks in surprise.
Batman forces his expression into something flat before it gives him away. “Go,” he repeats.
Superman grins, achingly beautiful, and speeds away.
Bruce tries not to think about how easily he could have kissed that smile off his lips. How close he had come to it, that moment in his arms.
Remember, Bruce. He is not the man you know.
He is not the man you love.
—
In the end, it’s a world-ending disaster that does it.
Clark’s family has gone missing, and he wants to fly into the problem like he always does. He refuses to listen to Bruce: that they aren’t dead, that he can’t leave, that staying is what will save them—
“Please, Clark.”
They’re both in suits. It’s— it’s inappropriate, unacceptable, but the words escape him, unbidden. “Please,” Bruce says, the closest he has ever come to begging. “Trust me.”
How dare he ask for trust, when he can barely give it in return? Yet no matter how much he grumbles about it, no matter how much he complains, as if it were as easy as breathing— Clark listens.
Clark places his whole world, his family, on Bruce’s shoulders. He plants trust so gently in the arid desert of Bruce’s hands.
It is there, on the battlefield, fighting side-by-side that he recognizes the feeling that has been slowly building a home within his chest. This was not the sharp knife of grief, nor the tight grip of longing. No. This was a soft hurt, the edge of a dawn-tipped smile.
Oh, Bruce thinks. That’s what it was.
Then he pushes Clark and his family out of the way, and the full force of a raging, timeless villain crashes into him.
—
Bruce wakes up slowly.
There’s an ache in the back of his head that he can attribute to a concussion; experienced it enough by now to know how it feels. There’s a piercing noise that makes his head throb each time it beeps, and a strange weightlessness to his body.
Drugs, he realizes, and it kickstarts the rest of his brain into a panic.
“Whoah!” Superman— Kal— Clark— exclaims in surprise. “Relax, Bruce. You took quite a hit.”
It takes a moment for him to reorient himself. He’s in the clinic, the cool metal of the Watchtower walls surrounding him on all sides. That painful beeping noise is coming from the monitors around him.
And Clark is there. By his side.
Revulsion fills his lungs, so strongly it hurts to breathe. Bruce grits his teeth.
“Get out.”
The startled, deer-in-the-headlights look on Clark’s face is something he’s never seen on Kal’s.
“B—”
“Out.”
There’s a flash of hurt that crosses Clark’s face, but Bruce ignores it. It doesn’t matter to him. It shouldn’t.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
Clark pauses at the doorway.
“Like what?” His voice was infuriatingly even.
“Like you’re him,” Bruce chokes out. “It’s— his face. His voice.”
“It’s mine, too,” Clark replies, a coldness seeping into his tone.
“You’re not him,” Bruce repeats, delirious. “You don’t— you don’t care.”
Something softens on Clark’s face, and he walks back to his side. “I may be different,” he says, quietly, “But I still care, Bruce. I’d like to think that we’re friends. Or that we could be.”
Clark Kent, his friend? After everything?
Bruce thinks of Kal’s warm hands, his lips, his smile. Bruce misses him, as he would miss his lungs, the way Kal took his breath away; he misses him, as he would miss his heart, for it was Kal who taught him to place his love in another and believe.
Bruce misses him—
Yet memories of Kal have begun to fade.
Bruce can’t let him go. He can’t.
To let him go is to move on. To move on is to forget. And just as Bruce can not, will not let go of the memory of his parents’ death, so too will he cling to the dying memories of Kal, even as time begins to wrench it from his fingertips.
Bruce nearly laughs. There’s a distant throb of pain in his chest, and his vision is going dark at the edges.
“Never. Never.”
The darkness takes him.
He doesn’t hear Clark’s response.
When he wakes again, it’s Dick who’s sitting at his side. He’s reading one of Bruce’s books, a faded copy of Neverwhere from his personal bookshelf.
Dick puts the book away at the sound of Bruce’s movement. The relief is palpable on his face.
“Bruce.”
“Dick,” Bruce says, his throat hoarse. He hasn’t seen his son in— a while. “How long—”
“It’s been a week.” Dick studies him carefully, his expression somber and tired. “What happened, B? The last time you were like this…” Was when Jason died, he doesn’t say, but they both hear it anyway.
Another scar that never healed.
Bruce breaths in, and his ribs rattle in his chest. “It’s nothing.”
“Bullshit,” Dick snarls. He’s more like Jason than he realizes— or maybe it's the other way around. It almost makes him want to smile.
Dick takes a deep breath, then sighs. “You nearly died, Bruce. Tell me the truth.” I can’t lose you, the space between his words read.
“He’s dead,” Bruce forces out. “But he’s here.” He’s still here, but I didn’t get to say goodbye. He’s gone, and yet I—
Dick leans down closer and holds Bruce’s hands in his own.
“I saw you destroy yourself once already,” Dick says, softly. “I can’t let you do that again.”
Bruce almost manages a wry smile. “I’ve done no such thing.”
“He’s not worth it, Bruce.”
“Like Jason wasn’t?”
The room goes cold. Bruce notes, in that distant, habitual manner of his, the way Dick’s jaw clenches and his eyes go tight, the way he wars with himself between saying something devastating and true, or his — entirely undeserved — affection for Bruce.
It’s the latter that wins, this time, when he responds. “That’s not fair. It’s not the same.”
Bruce shakes his head. “It’s love all the same.”
He‘s already said too much— any more would be too close an admitting of the wound. But Dick’s eyes widen in realization. He’s never needed Bruce’s words to understand.
“Oh,” Dick says, his voice sad and soft. “You love him.”
I did.
(I do.)
Dick leans against his shoulder, and squeezes his hand gently. They sit like that, in silence, until Bruce falls back asleep.
—
Whenever things go from bad to worse, and there is no feasible way to salvage the situation, Bruce enacts his best possible strategy: the tactical retreat.
He retreats from the League, delegating his tasks accordingly, and stops going to the Watchtower entirely. All his functions in Metropolis are taken off his schedule, and he turns his full focus back to the comforting darkness of Gotham. Gotham, who is predictable, and certain, and true; Gotham, whose villains just so happened to escape Arkham.
He welcomes the timely distraction and throws himself into his work, shirking all unnecessary duties. He spends the next few weeks dealing with them, and the aftermath, and everything in between, and he doesn’t think about Superman or Kal or Clark at all.
At all.
Yet in the spaces between each fight, in his singular moments of reprieve, he feels the memory sense of those hands on his, of that smile pressed against his cheek, what it felt like, what it might feel like, on his lips—
He ends up avoiding everyone in his attempts to not need to explain.
How can he? He questions himself if what he’s feeling truly is what he thinks it is. If, maybe, it’s only because of the man he used to know.
Then he remembers Clark’s smile, the crooked difference of it, and feels gutted all over again.
—
“Ruining all your relationships again, old man?”
Bruce doesn’t turn. He’s at one of the few places that grant him peace: on the ledge of one of the oldest buildings in Gotham, by his favorite gargoyle in the city. The small one that covers its face with moss-overgrown hands.
“Jason.”
In the past, Jason never would have approached him, much less seek him out. Bruce’s heart still leaps each time he hears his voice.
Jason takes off his helmet to glare down at him. “This is my spot. Find somewhere else to wallow.”
Bruce fights down a smile. It's hard, when just seeing Jason makes him want to. “Sit,” he says instead, and shifts a few inches to the side.
Jason’s face twists into a look of disgust. He seems to think Bruce isn’t worth the effort of fighting today, though, and takes the seat. Then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a box of cigarettes.
Jason notices his expression, and grins. “What? Not gonna stop me?”
Bruce purses his lips, considers every pro and con of every possible reply he could give, then holds out a hand.
“Give me one.”
Jason’s jaw drops, and Bruce catches the box before it falls. He sticks a cigarette in his mouth, pulls out his multi-tool (which just so happens to have a lighter), and takes a drag.
“What the fuck.”
Jason is looking at him like he just told him to kill someone. Bruce pockets the lighter, and hands the box back. “Don’t litter, son.”
Disbelief and outrage war on Jason’s face, before it settles into something tentatively curious. “I’ve never seen you smoke.”
“I don’t. Usually.”
Jason frowns. He fishes out his own cigarette and lights it. They sit in silence for a moment, listening to the cacophony of police sirens and passing cars like distant background music. Jason takes a long drag, and breathes the smoke out into the cold evening air.
”I’m not gonna ask, ‘cuz it’s none of my business, but you should talk to your bats and birds. They’ve been crashing at my place almost every day now, and if I hear one more complaint about your sorry ass I’m gonna kill someone. Literally.”
Bruce doesn’t stop the smile this time. He couldn’t, even if he tried. “They know I listen to you.”
Jason makes a face. “You and your fucked-up guilt complex.”
Bruce swallows down his refute. He knows this entire conversation is already pushing the line of what his son would normally allow. Any more, and he’d risk being pushed off the ledge. At best.
“I mean seriously,” Jason continues, “What is this shit? He was the better half of your soul, so losing him was losing yourself? You go on a mission and nearly let yourself die because of him?”
Bruce chuckles, ignoring the rattle in his lungs. Ever the way with words, his son.
“It isn’t anything so dramatic. I didn’t need him, he didn’t complete me. But he made me want to be a better person. He inspired me. He made me smile.”
Bruce presses the stub of the cigarette on the ledge, and watches the smoke go out. “Maybe that’s all it was,” he adds, quieter. “But it was enough.“
“You can’t let him go,” Jason says, his voice flat. “Everyone else has. Not you. Even though he’s back.”
It was not a question.
Bruce cannot begrudge them for moving on. In this line of work, that was all you could do. But— “They hadn’t mourned him.”
They exchanged one Superman for the other; this better, shinier version. As if Kal had never existed. As if Kal was less— less deserving of grief.
“Like Gotham did with me.”
Bruce swallows. He does not close his eyes. He does not turn away.
“Yes.”
Those deaths may be inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, easily replaced as they were. Perhaps no one else would mourn them. But even so— even so, the love was there. The love existed.
It did not die. Bruce was still here.
“And just as Tim was never your replacement, Clark— Clark could never be Kal’s.”
Jason gazes into him. Unwavering; steadfast.
“But you love him anyway.”
Even though he’s different. Even though he isn’t the one you loved.
Even so, He’s carved a place for himself in your heart.
Bruce looks at Jason.
His son, who he’d loved. Who he’d lost. Who returned to him, different.
He thinks of his other children. The title passed down between them. Replaced, replacer— except it was never that, was it?
He’s always known that his was a love that bleeds. To carry their names is to be loved by him. It doesn’t matter which universe or timeline they’re from— inevitably, he comes to love them as they are.
Because he can’t fool himself — for all that he is not Kal, Bruce has, once again, fallen in love with Clark Kent. Maybe it was inevitable from the very beginning. Maybe there is no universe where Bruce Wayne does not love Clark Kent.
Bruce looks at Jason, and finally says aloud the words he’d been dreading to say.
“I always will.”
I never truly stopped.
But that doesn’t matter. There is a ring on Clark Kent’s finger, and its matching pair does not belong to Bruce.
—
Taking a night off every once in a while isn’t a crime, old man, Jason had told him, before hopping off the ledge and grappling away.
Bruce hadn’t been lying. As stubborn as he knows he is, when Jason asks — and in such a sentimental way, too, as if they hadn’t been fighting, as though things weren’t strained — he would have listened. But Bruce doesn’t get the chance.
What happens instead is this: the government sends the Suicide Squad against the Justice League, then Maxwell Lord and his team attacks them both, and they’re forced to team up.
Then his friends— his allies— Clark get possessed, and he—
He fights, and he fights, and he fights.
It’s all he can do, these days.
Which is why he’s surprised when a day goes by where nothing happens. Absolutely nothing occurs, and it’s that breath between endless armageddons, a moment to pause and simply be.
Sitting in an armchair by the window, Bruce hears a knock on the door.
He keeps his eyes closed as the hinges of the door squeak open, the light from the hallway casting long shadows across the room.
There’s a clink as Alfred sets a freshly-brewed cup of tea on the table. Bruce cracks open an eye, and gives him a smile. He takes the cup, breathing in the aroma of chamomile and vanilla.
“Master Bruce.”
Bruce looks up. Despite the darkness of the room, the city’s lights illuminate his old friend’s weathered face.
“Is this because of Clark Kent, sir?”
Bruce swallows thickly.
Alfred’s eyes soften. “Then, love?”
Bruce opens his mouth, no, of course not, but the words fail to make it past his throat. For what is love, if not the origin of grief? The silence is all the confirmation Alfred needs.
“Oh my dear boy,” Alfred murmurs. “I am sorry.”
There’s a stone lodged in his throat, but Bruce forces himself to speak past it. “It’s love. It was always going to hurt.”
“It should not have to.”
Bruce looks out once more. Over to the bay, where the rough edges of Gotham’s city skyline meets the bright lights of Metropolis.
“I know.”
Loving him had hurt, too. All the people Kal had chosen before him— all the people he would have chosen after. Bruce knows he is no one’s first choice. He’ll never be anyone’s final choice, either. He never could have imagined that the one time he was beginning to think otherwise, the one time this proved false, was the one time he would lose so completely.
Bruce looks down at his tea. He feels like a child again, eight years old and newly orphaned. Alfred is the same, steady presence he has always been, the warm weight of his father’s hand on his shoulder.
“Just once, I would have liked to know a softer love.”
—
His family seems to be avoiding him. Or maybe they’re giving him space– he isn’t entirely sure. He’s been callous and cold to them for weeks now. He would not blame them if they were to leave. It’s why he acts the way he does. He’s used to it.
(He should be.)
It’s Cass who finds him, out by the docks. The night sky is filled with clouds, dark and heavy with the coming rain.
She takes a seat beside him, watching the clouds drift through the sky. They’re both quiet, listening to the sound of thunder in the distance, the crash of waves hitting the shore.
Finally, Cass says, “You don't have to talk about it.”
Neither of them are particularly good at it. Talking. Yet here she is, trying anyway.
Bruce sighs. “No, I don't.”
“But the others would feel better if they knew how you were doing,” Cass presses on.
“I’m fine,” Bruce grits out. ”I don't know why you're all so concerned. It's just—“
A broken heart, he doesn't say. But “death of an ally” doesn't quite ring true, either.
“Grief,” he finally says.
“Maybe you are grieving,” Cass agrees lightly, “But grief is not all that you are.”
She turns to him then, her eyes fierce. “You are not alone.”
She places her palm against his heart, and says, “Maybe your heart is lonely. But there are people who love you. People who are still here.”
Bruce looks out over the city, at the people crossing the street. People he has met. People he hasn’t. Good people. People he’s offered second chances to.
He thinks of a smile, worn by blue and black, but bright as the sun; a laugh, once light and free, now acrid and burning; a voice, sarcastic and scolding despite its youth. He thinks of drawings pinned on the refrigerator. A finger tracing signs on his palm. Hacked computers, shut down for dinner. Age jokes and finger guns clad in purple and yellow.
He thinks of wrinkled hands stitching his wounds.
It isn’t the same.
It isn’t the same, but—
“You’re right.”
It will always hurt, he thinks. The longing will always remain. There was no falling out of love with Clark Kent. If you loved him, you loved him for the rest of your life. After all, how could anyone who lived in darkness turn away from the sun after experiencing its warmth?
But maybe, just maybe—
One day, it won’t hurt to look up at the sky, and wonder what it might have felt like to fly.
—
Alone atop an old building on the outskirts of the city, his voice is steady. Neither loud nor soft, as if talking to an old friend by his side—
“Clark.”
There’s a flutter of wind, and there he is. By his side.
Clark Kent stands in glaring plaid and plain khakis. His glasses hang on the collar of his shirt and his hair is a tousled mess, that curl of hair resting on his forehead. Even without a clear expression on his face, his eyes are kind, like he’s smiling; like he’s hoping.
Bruce allows himself to look. He takes it all in — that soft beauty, the breathlessness of it — and lets it pass through him. Sand through his fingers. The coarse grains are rough against his skin, but it doesn’t hurt.
“Bruce,” Clark says, when the silence begins to stretch.
“I have not been entirely fair to you.”
Clark blinks. It must not have been what he expected. Despite that, his lips quirk up into a smile. “No, you haven’t.”
Bruce looks out over the horizon, the inky darkness where the harbor meets the sky. “It was never going to be easy. Not for you. Certainly not for me. I watched as you took his place. I swore I would always remember him, but when I looked back, there you were.”
Bruce allows himself to smile, something wry and resigned. “That isn’t your fault. It is mine alone. So forgive me, if I need a little more time.”
I was always going to love you. I just needed a little more time to accept that.
Bruce forces himself to look back at Clark, at Clark’s face, and his heart nearly skips a beat. For all his accepting and acknowledging, the full force of Clark’s — everything — has not become any less difficult to bear.
Clark is looking at him. Deep blue eyes bore into his soul, and Bruce feels flayed, unmoored. A ship without an anchor. Clark’s eyes are bright under the moonlight, the crinkles around his eyes all the more prominent for the soft smile on his face.
“I forgive you,” Clark says, and it feels like absolution. Like forgiveness for more than just this— for Bruce’s failure to save Kal, for Bruce’s love for him— for them.
Bruce would never put Clark on a pedestal, he knows him better than that. But at this moment, framed by the light of the moon, granting his forgiveness, Clark looks like a god.
Then Clark speaks again, and Bruce is left dumbstruck once more for a completely different reason.
”Actually, I, uh— I owe you an apology, too.”
Clark rubs the back of his neck, a flush of embarrassment creeping up his cheeks, and there is nothing godly about that. This is Clark: pure, unadulterated humanity.
“I haven’t been entirely fair to you, either. I thought— well, we were friends, before. That was something reliable. Something I could always fall back on. I treated you like everything was normal, like everything was still the same as it always was. I placed my own expectations on you, and felt hurt when you didn’t meet them.”
”’Expectations,’” Bruce echoes.
”Friendship,” Clark replies, and gives him a small smile.
There’s a dull throb in his chest, but it isn’t a knife, only the press of an old bruise. “Kal and I weren’t friends,” Bruce says, almost too close to the truth. “We were partners.”
”The World’s Finest, in fact,” Clark grins, and Bruce huffs.
“We aren’t there yet,” he says, quietly. “But Clark, I think we could be.”
Clark’s smile widens, incandescent with joy. It is the most beautiful sight Bruce has ever seen. He had already braced himself for it, yet Clark’s trust still blinds him, each and every time.
“I think so, too, Bruce.”
—
Clark.
You will never know this.
The memories you have left me with will remain forever as scars in my heart. You have no grave, but I think of you on the days I visit those who do.
I think of you— of both of you, and I wonder, sometimes, what our lives might have been like. But you left me with some of the best times of my life, and that is something I will never regret.
I know it was not always easy. Even so, thank you.
For loving me.
—
There is a certain ambience to Gotham at night: the brightly-colored lights of the high-rise buildings reflecting on the puddles of mud and rain on the ground; the neon billboards shining down upon empty, dilapidated streets; the yellowed, flickering lights of street lamps along every other road.
For all the brightness of its many lights, the shadows cast are that much deeper. In the darkness of the alleyways, in the nooks and crannies of unlit streets, the smell of sewer water prevails; cigarettes and sticky cans lie about, rats skittering through weeks-old trash.
But the darkness is home to other things, too.
Cloaked in midnight with eyes like stars, the Batman rises from the shadows.
Though he stands by himself, looking over his city, he is not alone.
Birds and bats alike emerge to fly high atop the rooftops, their laughter ringing high above the streets.
Bruce hears his children over the comms, and thinks:
This is enough.
There will be criminals who flee, and there will be criminals who will be taken down. But at the end of a long night, the sun will rise over the horizon, and the darkness will give way to the light pinks and yellows of dawn.
As light begins to touch the sky, Bruce stands there, on the rooftop, and breathes.
I will be fine, Bruce thinks. I will love him, as I always have.
And I will be fine.