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arysteiaFic title: That Which We Call A Rose
Author name: arysteia
Verse: DCU, but feel free to mix and match your favourites
Pairing(s): Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne, Bruce Wayne/Superman, Superman/Batman, Batman/Clark Kent *g*
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 12,028
Warnings/Spoilers: Apparently Big Bang fics can involve long, complicated plots? This fic... Is not that fic. Explicit sex, no spoilers.
Summary: The course of true love never did run smooth. When Clark Kent met Bruce Wayne. And Bruce Wayne met Superman. And Superman met Batman. And Batman met Clark Kent. And Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne finally got their acts together...
Bruce Wayne and Superman, Metropolis, 1998
Superman’s been operating openly in Metropolis for a little over six months when Gotham businessman Bruce Wayne makes the mistake of coming to town personally to make a play for a small bio-technology company that Lex Luthor also has his eye on. There’s no evidence to implicate Luthor of course, but Superman has never really been an evidence sort of guy. One day Lois Lane and her colleagues at the Daily Planet will blow the pool of corruption that is Metropolis business circles – Luthorcorp, Edge Industries, Intergang – wide open, but until that day Superman settles for keeping the worst from happening when and where he can.
He’s well aware he’s little more than an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff – Perry White himself wrote so, in those exact words, in a scathing editorial – but he manages to catch a few people before they hit bottom and need that ambulance, and he has to call that a win. “You can’t save everybody” is heartbreaking, and a truism, and the best advice his folks ever gave him, all at the same time.
Bruce Wayne is stunningly handsome in person, even more so than he was as a young man. He’s begun to fill out, shoulders broadening, just enough muscle added to make him look fit without being heavy, patrician profile as flawless as ever, charcoal lashes fanning long and thick on his high cheekbones. The thin stream of blood pouring out of his nose and down his chin, scratches on his forehead, and scorch marks on his starched collar do nothing to detract from the overall picture. Superman’s just beginning to feel guilty for ogling him while he’s unconscious when he jolts awake, flinching violently in Superman’s arms.
“Ssh, ssh,” Superman soothes, using the calming voice that’s rapidly becoming second nature as he gets better at dealing with the horrified victims of his more spectacular rescues. The first time he caught a child who’d fallen out of an eighteenth storey window, he’d had to catch her twice. She shook so hard when she came to, she slid right out of his arms.
“You’re all right,” he croons, “I’ve got you.”
“You’ve got me?” Wayne murmurs groggily, “Who...?” He struggles against Superman’s chest, craning his neck to see over his shoulder. “Whoa!” he chokes, getting a face and mouthful of ice cold air. “Are we-?”
“Flying, yes,” Superman confirms. “Stay calm, I’ll have you back at your hotel in a moment.”
“Okay,” Wayne mumbles, burying his face in Superman’s chest and holding on tightly.
They land on the roof of the Metropolis Meridien moments later, and Wayne insists on being lowered to his feet, rather than being ‘carried across the threshold like a damn bride’. He’s still shaky on his feet though, and Superman insists in turn on accompanying him down the short flight of stairs to the penthouse suite. It’s exactly what you would expect from a man like Bruce Wayne, opulent, richly decorated, and completely sterile.
“Don’t just stand there, come on in,” Wayne says, as he staggers in, dragging one hand carefully along the wall for support.
Superman looks around nervously, as though checking the corridor for witnesses to an assignation, then shakes himself at the absurdity of the thought and follows him in, shutting the door behind him.
Wayne has walked straight through the lounge and into the bedroom, collapsing bonelessly onto the bed. “Pour me a drink, will you,” he asks, “and tell me what the hell just happened.”
Superman pours him a large scotch from the crystal decanter on the sideboard, and watches the bob of his throat as he throws it back in one long swallow.
“Another,” he demands, waving the glass imperiously.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Superman says in his best parental tone. It’s never easy with someone who’s older, very likely more confident, and in his own way more powerful, than him, but he’s getting there, and the moral authority of the suit helps. “You could be in shock, or-”
“I’m not in shock,” Wayne snaps, sitting up, “and you’ve no doubt already scanned me and ascertained I don’t have a concussion or any internal injuries.”
“Uh... yes.” He’d learned that one the hard way too, his first multi-car pile-up.
“Then one more won’t hurt.”
Superman sighs and pours him another. At least Wayne seems satisfied to sip at this one slowly, while he peers into a gilt edged mirror and dabs at the clotting cuts on his face.
“So?” he demands.
“So? Oh, um...” Superman looks around nervously, then pulls himself together; he refuses to stand in front of this maddening man like this, like a kid called in to the principal’s office. He pulls an overstuffed armchair up to the foot of the bed, and squeezes into it as gracefully as possible. He’s under no illusion he still looks ridiculous, cape pouring over the scarlet brocade and no doubt clashing horribly, but so be it.
“There was an attempt on your life,” he says authoritatively. “A car bomb. From what I could tell it was supposed to go off when you got in, maybe turned the ignition, but something made it go off early, when you pressed the button to open the locks. The blast wave threw you clear of the explosion and I was able to-”
“Was anyone else hurt?” Wayne demands.
“No, the garage was empty. I’m curious,” Superman asks, “Do you always drive yourself around? I expected you to be more the limo and chauffeur type.”
“I’m not any kind of type,” Wayne snaps. “But no, I do usually have a driver when I’m in town on business. The Murcielago was a present from Lex...”
“A present?” Superman boggles at the reminder of how different Bruce Wayne’s world truly is, then reminds himself to focus on what’s really important here. “Lex? Lex Luthor?”
“We were at school together,” Wayne sighs. “Well, for a while, anyway, before he was expelled. Happy birthday to me, huh? God, I knew he was mad about Viologic, but this...”
“I’m sorry,” Superman says, and he is. He knows first hand how charming Luthor can be, and how much it can hurt to find out it’s all an act, even if you half suspected all along.
Wayne shrugs, “Nature of the business, I suppose,” but the bleak look in his eyes belies the flippant tone.
“I should be going,” Superman starts. “But I can go with you to the police station if you’d like?”
“What’s the point?” Wayne sighs. “It’ll never stick, and I’d rather not have to deal with the attention.”
“It’s already on the news,” Superman says sternly, knowing even as he does how pompous he sounds. “It’s your duty as a responsible citizen to report a crime this serious.”
“Fuck!” Wayne blurts, ignoring him. “It’s already on the news? Hang on a second, I need to make a call. God. I should have done it before.”
He breaks off and fishes the remains of a tiny, and no doubt very expensive, phone from his jacket pocket. “Huh.” He drops the debris, and reaches for the phone on the bedside table. “Alfred? Yeah, it’s me. No, I know. I’m sorry.”
Superman mightily refrains from trying to figure out who the mysterious Alfred on the other end of the line is, and why he’s still around after all this time.
“No, I’m fine. I’m fine really. Superman saved me.” Bruce Wayne laughs, and it sounds genuine for a moment, and almost sweet. His eyes crinkle at the edges, and he looks younger, more hopeful, less jaded. “Yes, he’s every bit as nice in person as the papers say.” He winks at Superman. “Yes, his manners are delightful. Uhuh, yes, yes, I will. Goodnight, Alfred.”
He hangs up and turns back to Superman. His eyes have gone cold again, and the smile on his face looks downright predatory now.
“Well. I’m glad you’re all right, Mr Wayne,” Superman says, standing up. “Please call the police as soon as you’ve had some rest.”
“Is there another emergency?” Wayne asks.
“Huh?”
“An emergency somewhere else. Somewhere you have to be. Some other hapless billionaire being blown half to pieces.”
Superman cocks an ear. He doesn’t really have to, but he’s gotten into the habit; it makes it more obvious to bystanders he’s actually reacting to something, and not just abandoning them in the middle of a conversation. Now that he thinks about it there’s nothing; no screams, no cries for help, just the normal everyday sounds of Metropolis going about its business.
“No,” he says carefully, half suspiciously.
“Good,” Wayne answers, kneeing up off the bed, and crossing the short distance to the chair. He pushes Superman back down into it with surprising strength, and clambers up to straddle his lap.
“What?” Superman stares at him in shocked amazement. “What are you doing?”
Wayne grins sharkishly. “Thanking you for saving my life.”
“No thanks are necessary, Mr Wayne,” Superman says stiffly, fighting an insidiously creeping paralysis and trying to push the wriggling Wayne off his lap.
“Oh, I disagree,” Wayne insists, squirming delightfully closer. “I was raised always to thank people properly.”
“Really, Mr Wayne, I...”
“Really, Superman.” Wayne smirks. “Call me Bruce. And I should think you’d be used to it by now, the adulation of the adoring masses.”
That gives Superman the strength to shove him off onto the floor, and stand up. Wayne stares up at him from his sprawl in stunned surprise.
“I have never taken advantage of anyone’s gratitude,” Superman says angrily, and this time there’s no need to fall back on an imagined persona, the indignation is entirely real. “Never. And I never will. Goodbye, Mr Wayne.”
“Wait!” Wayne leaps to his feet and grabs Superman’s arm. He could dislodge him easily, but there are already bruises forming at a molecular level on his chest, in the exact shape of Superman’s hand, and he doesn’t want to add to them.
“I’m sorry,” Wayne says quietly. “I didn’t mean to insult or offend you. Of course you don’t take advantage of people. That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?” Superman asks, arms folded defensively across his chest.
“I don’t know,” Wayne says miserably. “Sometimes I just say things to hear myself talk. I can go days without talking to anyone, you know?”
“I find that hard to believe,” Superman says sternly, but something in Wayne’s wounded demeanour makes him relax the severity just a little bit.
“You’d be surprised,” Wayne insists, and for such a young man, with so much to offer and so much he’s been given, he sounds unspeakably bitter and jaded. “Everyone who’s anyone wants to be seen with Brucie Wayne, but no one actually wants to talk to him. And they certainly don’t want to listen to anything he has to say. Fucking, on the other hand-”
“You’re better than that,” Superman interrupts. “Much better.”
“I’m really not,” Wayne insists. “I sleep half the day, and party all night. I’ve never worked a day in my life, but I sign a few cheques for charity so that makes it all right. My parents would be ashamed of me.”
Superman doesn’t know what to say to that. His own birth parents are dead, but he’d never known them, after all, and it’s fair to say he assumes he’s more than lived up to the weight of any expectations they might have had for him. His adoptive parents only ever wanted him to be happy, and they too are proud of him, and quick to show it.
“Then do something with your life, Bruce,” he says at last. “Something meaningful. Something that would make your parents proud, but more than that, something that’ll make you proud.”
“Could I make you proud?” Bruce asks, his voice barely a whisper.
“It’s not about me,” Superman insists. “But yes, I’m sure you could.”
There’s something so lost, so broken in Bruce’s face, that when he leans in towards him again Superman doesn’t pull away. Bruce’s lips are soft, his kiss gentle, and Superman finds himself opening to him, kissing back. They sink down onto the bed, and for a long while are content to just lie there in each others arms, kissing languidly, and stroking each other’s backs and arms and sides. For the longest time Superman has an ear out for trouble, for any sign that someone, somewhere, is in danger, but the call never comes, and for once Metropolis and the world beyond is quiet. Just this once, he allows himself to relax, and as Bruce fumbles with the hidden catches to the suit he finds himself helping.
They make love quietly and gently, and while it’s immediately obvious Bruce is the more experienced, he allows Superman to take the lead, content to lie still and let him map every inch of him, first with his fingers and then with his tongue. He’s blinking back tears when Superman finally slides oh so slowly inside him, but it’s not from pain. Not any physical pain anyway. He arches his back and leans into the strokes, and his hands clench tightly on Superman’s shoulders, his fingers digging sharply into invulnerable muscle with a force that almost bruises all the same.
They lie there in the afterglow, Superman’s arm pillowing Bruce’s head, the other wrapped tightly around his waist, holding him close. Bruce whispers against his shoulder until he’s hoarse, confiding for what’s clearly the first time what it was like to sit in a cold, damp alley, waiting for a policeman, or an ambulance, or anyone who could help; to count his mother’s last breaths, and to hear his father tell him not to be afraid. There’s nothing to say to that, so Superman says nothing, just pulls the blankets tighter around him, and holds him more closely.
Superman finally has to deal with a six car pile-up at four in the morning, and leaves with a regretful kiss goodbye. Bruce Wayne doesn’t call the police, doesn’t return to Gotham for his twenty-fifth birthday party, and is in fact not seen again, anywhere, for almost four years. Alfred Pennyworth, who is, it turns out, his faithful servant and erstwhile guardian, reports him missing but declines any and all of Superman’s offers to help find him. When the vanished scion finally returns to Gotham, staring out icily beautiful from the covers of a thousand newspapers and magazines, cheerfully unconcerned with the trouble he’s caused and offering neither apology nor explanation, he looks more arrogant, and behaves more outrageously and shamefully in public, than he ever has. His eyes are clear and alive though, and there’s definitely something about him that’s changed.
Part III
Author name: arysteia
Verse: DCU, but feel free to mix and match your favourites
Pairing(s): Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne, Bruce Wayne/Superman, Superman/Batman, Batman/Clark Kent *g*
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 12,028
Warnings/Spoilers: Apparently Big Bang fics can involve long, complicated plots? This fic... Is not that fic. Explicit sex, no spoilers.
Summary: The course of true love never did run smooth. When Clark Kent met Bruce Wayne. And Bruce Wayne met Superman. And Superman met Batman. And Batman met Clark Kent. And Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne finally got their acts together...
Bruce Wayne and Superman, Metropolis, 1998
Superman’s been operating openly in Metropolis for a little over six months when Gotham businessman Bruce Wayne makes the mistake of coming to town personally to make a play for a small bio-technology company that Lex Luthor also has his eye on. There’s no evidence to implicate Luthor of course, but Superman has never really been an evidence sort of guy. One day Lois Lane and her colleagues at the Daily Planet will blow the pool of corruption that is Metropolis business circles – Luthorcorp, Edge Industries, Intergang – wide open, but until that day Superman settles for keeping the worst from happening when and where he can.
He’s well aware he’s little more than an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff – Perry White himself wrote so, in those exact words, in a scathing editorial – but he manages to catch a few people before they hit bottom and need that ambulance, and he has to call that a win. “You can’t save everybody” is heartbreaking, and a truism, and the best advice his folks ever gave him, all at the same time.
Bruce Wayne is stunningly handsome in person, even more so than he was as a young man. He’s begun to fill out, shoulders broadening, just enough muscle added to make him look fit without being heavy, patrician profile as flawless as ever, charcoal lashes fanning long and thick on his high cheekbones. The thin stream of blood pouring out of his nose and down his chin, scratches on his forehead, and scorch marks on his starched collar do nothing to detract from the overall picture. Superman’s just beginning to feel guilty for ogling him while he’s unconscious when he jolts awake, flinching violently in Superman’s arms.
“Ssh, ssh,” Superman soothes, using the calming voice that’s rapidly becoming second nature as he gets better at dealing with the horrified victims of his more spectacular rescues. The first time he caught a child who’d fallen out of an eighteenth storey window, he’d had to catch her twice. She shook so hard when she came to, she slid right out of his arms.
“You’re all right,” he croons, “I’ve got you.”
“You’ve got me?” Wayne murmurs groggily, “Who...?” He struggles against Superman’s chest, craning his neck to see over his shoulder. “Whoa!” he chokes, getting a face and mouthful of ice cold air. “Are we-?”
“Flying, yes,” Superman confirms. “Stay calm, I’ll have you back at your hotel in a moment.”
“Okay,” Wayne mumbles, burying his face in Superman’s chest and holding on tightly.
They land on the roof of the Metropolis Meridien moments later, and Wayne insists on being lowered to his feet, rather than being ‘carried across the threshold like a damn bride’. He’s still shaky on his feet though, and Superman insists in turn on accompanying him down the short flight of stairs to the penthouse suite. It’s exactly what you would expect from a man like Bruce Wayne, opulent, richly decorated, and completely sterile.
“Don’t just stand there, come on in,” Wayne says, as he staggers in, dragging one hand carefully along the wall for support.
Superman looks around nervously, as though checking the corridor for witnesses to an assignation, then shakes himself at the absurdity of the thought and follows him in, shutting the door behind him.
Wayne has walked straight through the lounge and into the bedroom, collapsing bonelessly onto the bed. “Pour me a drink, will you,” he asks, “and tell me what the hell just happened.”
Superman pours him a large scotch from the crystal decanter on the sideboard, and watches the bob of his throat as he throws it back in one long swallow.
“Another,” he demands, waving the glass imperiously.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Superman says in his best parental tone. It’s never easy with someone who’s older, very likely more confident, and in his own way more powerful, than him, but he’s getting there, and the moral authority of the suit helps. “You could be in shock, or-”
“I’m not in shock,” Wayne snaps, sitting up, “and you’ve no doubt already scanned me and ascertained I don’t have a concussion or any internal injuries.”
“Uh... yes.” He’d learned that one the hard way too, his first multi-car pile-up.
“Then one more won’t hurt.”
Superman sighs and pours him another. At least Wayne seems satisfied to sip at this one slowly, while he peers into a gilt edged mirror and dabs at the clotting cuts on his face.
“So?” he demands.
“So? Oh, um...” Superman looks around nervously, then pulls himself together; he refuses to stand in front of this maddening man like this, like a kid called in to the principal’s office. He pulls an overstuffed armchair up to the foot of the bed, and squeezes into it as gracefully as possible. He’s under no illusion he still looks ridiculous, cape pouring over the scarlet brocade and no doubt clashing horribly, but so be it.
“There was an attempt on your life,” he says authoritatively. “A car bomb. From what I could tell it was supposed to go off when you got in, maybe turned the ignition, but something made it go off early, when you pressed the button to open the locks. The blast wave threw you clear of the explosion and I was able to-”
“Was anyone else hurt?” Wayne demands.
“No, the garage was empty. I’m curious,” Superman asks, “Do you always drive yourself around? I expected you to be more the limo and chauffeur type.”
“I’m not any kind of type,” Wayne snaps. “But no, I do usually have a driver when I’m in town on business. The Murcielago was a present from Lex...”
“A present?” Superman boggles at the reminder of how different Bruce Wayne’s world truly is, then reminds himself to focus on what’s really important here. “Lex? Lex Luthor?”
“We were at school together,” Wayne sighs. “Well, for a while, anyway, before he was expelled. Happy birthday to me, huh? God, I knew he was mad about Viologic, but this...”
“I’m sorry,” Superman says, and he is. He knows first hand how charming Luthor can be, and how much it can hurt to find out it’s all an act, even if you half suspected all along.
Wayne shrugs, “Nature of the business, I suppose,” but the bleak look in his eyes belies the flippant tone.
“I should be going,” Superman starts. “But I can go with you to the police station if you’d like?”
“What’s the point?” Wayne sighs. “It’ll never stick, and I’d rather not have to deal with the attention.”
“It’s already on the news,” Superman says sternly, knowing even as he does how pompous he sounds. “It’s your duty as a responsible citizen to report a crime this serious.”
“Fuck!” Wayne blurts, ignoring him. “It’s already on the news? Hang on a second, I need to make a call. God. I should have done it before.”
He breaks off and fishes the remains of a tiny, and no doubt very expensive, phone from his jacket pocket. “Huh.” He drops the debris, and reaches for the phone on the bedside table. “Alfred? Yeah, it’s me. No, I know. I’m sorry.”
Superman mightily refrains from trying to figure out who the mysterious Alfred on the other end of the line is, and why he’s still around after all this time.
“No, I’m fine. I’m fine really. Superman saved me.” Bruce Wayne laughs, and it sounds genuine for a moment, and almost sweet. His eyes crinkle at the edges, and he looks younger, more hopeful, less jaded. “Yes, he’s every bit as nice in person as the papers say.” He winks at Superman. “Yes, his manners are delightful. Uhuh, yes, yes, I will. Goodnight, Alfred.”
He hangs up and turns back to Superman. His eyes have gone cold again, and the smile on his face looks downright predatory now.
“Well. I’m glad you’re all right, Mr Wayne,” Superman says, standing up. “Please call the police as soon as you’ve had some rest.”
“Is there another emergency?” Wayne asks.
“Huh?”
“An emergency somewhere else. Somewhere you have to be. Some other hapless billionaire being blown half to pieces.”
Superman cocks an ear. He doesn’t really have to, but he’s gotten into the habit; it makes it more obvious to bystanders he’s actually reacting to something, and not just abandoning them in the middle of a conversation. Now that he thinks about it there’s nothing; no screams, no cries for help, just the normal everyday sounds of Metropolis going about its business.
“No,” he says carefully, half suspiciously.
“Good,” Wayne answers, kneeing up off the bed, and crossing the short distance to the chair. He pushes Superman back down into it with surprising strength, and clambers up to straddle his lap.
“What?” Superman stares at him in shocked amazement. “What are you doing?”
Wayne grins sharkishly. “Thanking you for saving my life.”
“No thanks are necessary, Mr Wayne,” Superman says stiffly, fighting an insidiously creeping paralysis and trying to push the wriggling Wayne off his lap.
“Oh, I disagree,” Wayne insists, squirming delightfully closer. “I was raised always to thank people properly.”
“Really, Mr Wayne, I...”
“Really, Superman.” Wayne smirks. “Call me Bruce. And I should think you’d be used to it by now, the adulation of the adoring masses.”
That gives Superman the strength to shove him off onto the floor, and stand up. Wayne stares up at him from his sprawl in stunned surprise.
“I have never taken advantage of anyone’s gratitude,” Superman says angrily, and this time there’s no need to fall back on an imagined persona, the indignation is entirely real. “Never. And I never will. Goodbye, Mr Wayne.”
“Wait!” Wayne leaps to his feet and grabs Superman’s arm. He could dislodge him easily, but there are already bruises forming at a molecular level on his chest, in the exact shape of Superman’s hand, and he doesn’t want to add to them.
“I’m sorry,” Wayne says quietly. “I didn’t mean to insult or offend you. Of course you don’t take advantage of people. That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?” Superman asks, arms folded defensively across his chest.
“I don’t know,” Wayne says miserably. “Sometimes I just say things to hear myself talk. I can go days without talking to anyone, you know?”
“I find that hard to believe,” Superman says sternly, but something in Wayne’s wounded demeanour makes him relax the severity just a little bit.
“You’d be surprised,” Wayne insists, and for such a young man, with so much to offer and so much he’s been given, he sounds unspeakably bitter and jaded. “Everyone who’s anyone wants to be seen with Brucie Wayne, but no one actually wants to talk to him. And they certainly don’t want to listen to anything he has to say. Fucking, on the other hand-”
“You’re better than that,” Superman interrupts. “Much better.”
“I’m really not,” Wayne insists. “I sleep half the day, and party all night. I’ve never worked a day in my life, but I sign a few cheques for charity so that makes it all right. My parents would be ashamed of me.”
Superman doesn’t know what to say to that. His own birth parents are dead, but he’d never known them, after all, and it’s fair to say he assumes he’s more than lived up to the weight of any expectations they might have had for him. His adoptive parents only ever wanted him to be happy, and they too are proud of him, and quick to show it.
“Then do something with your life, Bruce,” he says at last. “Something meaningful. Something that would make your parents proud, but more than that, something that’ll make you proud.”
“Could I make you proud?” Bruce asks, his voice barely a whisper.
“It’s not about me,” Superman insists. “But yes, I’m sure you could.”
There’s something so lost, so broken in Bruce’s face, that when he leans in towards him again Superman doesn’t pull away. Bruce’s lips are soft, his kiss gentle, and Superman finds himself opening to him, kissing back. They sink down onto the bed, and for a long while are content to just lie there in each others arms, kissing languidly, and stroking each other’s backs and arms and sides. For the longest time Superman has an ear out for trouble, for any sign that someone, somewhere, is in danger, but the call never comes, and for once Metropolis and the world beyond is quiet. Just this once, he allows himself to relax, and as Bruce fumbles with the hidden catches to the suit he finds himself helping.
They make love quietly and gently, and while it’s immediately obvious Bruce is the more experienced, he allows Superman to take the lead, content to lie still and let him map every inch of him, first with his fingers and then with his tongue. He’s blinking back tears when Superman finally slides oh so slowly inside him, but it’s not from pain. Not any physical pain anyway. He arches his back and leans into the strokes, and his hands clench tightly on Superman’s shoulders, his fingers digging sharply into invulnerable muscle with a force that almost bruises all the same.
They lie there in the afterglow, Superman’s arm pillowing Bruce’s head, the other wrapped tightly around his waist, holding him close. Bruce whispers against his shoulder until he’s hoarse, confiding for what’s clearly the first time what it was like to sit in a cold, damp alley, waiting for a policeman, or an ambulance, or anyone who could help; to count his mother’s last breaths, and to hear his father tell him not to be afraid. There’s nothing to say to that, so Superman says nothing, just pulls the blankets tighter around him, and holds him more closely.
Superman finally has to deal with a six car pile-up at four in the morning, and leaves with a regretful kiss goodbye. Bruce Wayne doesn’t call the police, doesn’t return to Gotham for his twenty-fifth birthday party, and is in fact not seen again, anywhere, for almost four years. Alfred Pennyworth, who is, it turns out, his faithful servant and erstwhile guardian, reports him missing but declines any and all of Superman’s offers to help find him. When the vanished scion finally returns to Gotham, staring out icily beautiful from the covers of a thousand newspapers and magazines, cheerfully unconcerned with the trouble he’s caused and offering neither apology nor explanation, he looks more arrogant, and behaves more outrageously and shamefully in public, than he ever has. His eyes are clear and alive though, and there’s definitely something about him that’s changed.
Part III
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-05-23 10:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 01:07 am (UTC)I'm glad Clark's hesitancy worked for you too -- I find it impossible to believe he stepped out of the Fortress fully formed and ready to dispense fatherly advice!
I'm really glad you enjoyed it, thank you.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-06 06:30 pm (UTC)Basically I love your Clark a lot and think he's the sweetest guy ever, and I want to hug your Bruce until he feels better and then give him to Clark who can really make him feel better.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-03 02:34 am (UTC)I'm so glad you enjoyed this story, and I apologise for replying so late to your thoughtful comments.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-05 03:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-06 04:47 am (UTC)Identity porn is definitely one of my favourite things. Once this idea came to me, the fic basically just wrote itself.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-20 07:29 pm (UTC)