Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The leeches were the size of schoolbuses doubled-over, ther bodies lurching and unco-ordinated as they dragged their behemoth frames down Metropolis’ streets, leaving a wake of shattered glass and masonry covered in sticky, filmy, mucusy slime.

Along the length of their dark, glistening bodies were lines of glowing, purple runes, in no language Diana or Arthur could recognize. Times like this, Bruce was perfectly aware of his own limited utility -- he’d left fighting the monster-bugs to the League’s heavy hitters. The leeches were perfectly vulnerable to Superman’s laser vision and Diana’s lasso and Aquaman’s fists - Bruce had thrown himself into the Batwing, following the slime trails back to their origin, a problem amplified by the fact that the trails seemed highly volatile. Still, it was a matter of triangulation, factoring in the rate at which the slime vaporized, and he’d already managed to key in an algorithm into the ‘wing’s computer that would be able to solve backwards for the location of the-

“-evil wizard mastermind!” Flash crowed happily over comms. “We’re literally fighting off an evil wizard mastermind! Have I mentioned I love this job?”

Bruce was finding it rather more difficult to reciprocate the Flash’s enthusiasm -- the closest thing to a magic-user Bruce had on his rolodex was John, and he didn’t much feel like calling the man up after what had happened the last time he’d dropped by Gotham.

“He made giant bloodsuckers destroy half a city block,” Superman pointed out levelly. “Maybe not so much with the mastermind for this one.” 

Batman bit back a snort. “Wonder Woman,” he said, when the ‘wing computer beeped with a target lock, “corner of 47th and Wilmington, do you know it?”

“I do,” Superman calls out, sharp, instantaneous, and ‘Wait, don’t--’ Bruce is about to call, because Superman may be invulnerable to the laws of physics, but magic operates, as far as Bruce knows, on another plane entirely, and it is entirely likely that--

Even through the shielding of the Batwing, Bruce hears the faint, muted sound of a sonic boom, and then a second one, closer, and therefore louder, near where Bruce had narrowed down the sorcerer’s position to. Grimly, he throws the ‘wing into gear, accelerating towards what seems like a boarded up pawn shop -- except for the front door, hanging open on a single hinge, the faint impression of a hand warping the sheetmetal. Bruce enters the shop, follows a faint buzzing murmur to the store room, through a trapdoor set into the floor, that leads to a deep, winding staircase, the murmur growing louder, resolving into a low, guttural chant, repeated over and over, and then a young-- boy’s voice, Jesus God, screaming, “Please Superman, please, you have to-- you gotta-- I can’t do this anymore, please, please--”

There was a piteous, whinging tremor in the boy’s voice, and that voice was saying, chillingly, “You have to love me, you must to, I need you to—” morphing seamlessly into that alien chant, each syllable full of dangerous, percussive intent. 

Bruce took the stairs faster, and was confronted by a hideous sight — Superman, trapped in a cage of light, purple, crackling beams encircling him, rolling slowly about eight feet off the ground, controlled clearly by the boy kneeling on the floor. The child-sorcerer had his hands extended, palms glowing so hot and bright Bruce couldn’t even look straight at them. Clark threw himself against his restraints, and Bruce watched, horrified, as the beams ripped great, bloody welts into his invulnerable skin - lacerations that healed at once, only for Clark to try again, and again, heat vision and frost breath and pure, aggrieved brute force. 

So the only thing to do— the only thing to do i get him out. The sorcerer hasn’t seen Bruce. He reached for the belt, for a smoke grenade laced with a powerful, short-radius aerosolized tranq. Enough to knock the kid out cold. Pulled the pin. Lobbed it across the room in a gentle, underhand throw. Watched it go off mid-air, the smoke descended around the boy. To his credit, he didn’t pause the chant, didn’t stutter even as his head craned around and his eyes managed to isolate the Batman’s silhouette caught in the shadows. 

But then he must have inhaled the smoke — he choked and coughed. His eyes watered. Clark bashed his shoulder into the magical cage — it shattered with a sound like tinkling glass, and Superman slammed into the kid on his way down. The sorcerer didn’t seem to feel it, his mouth still working the spell, feverish, monotonous, a great bluish glow starting to build around his body, layers and coruscating layers of magic. 

So Bruce strode out of the shadows, grabbed the kid up by his t-shirt collar, and decked him in the face. 

He went limp — and blessedly quiet. The blue light faded away like someone had flipped a switch. 

“Superman,” Bruce said - through the modulator, his voice turned into a rasping, monstrous growl, but even if he hadn’t been in the suit, Bruce wasn’t sure he would’ve sounded any different. His heart was pounding. His throat hurt. Clark’s wounds had disappeared - in the places where the magic had ripped through his suit, his skin was pale and smooth and unmarked. Clark looked the same as ever, warm and whole and— and— He looked fine. “Status report.”

“Ow,” Superman muttered, but he mostly just sounded irritated. He was getting up to his feet too, running a hand through his disordered curls. It didn’t help. Clark looked like someone had dragged him into a dark corner. Ridden hard and put away wet. Bruce tore his gaze away from Clark with a thrill of fear. Superman caught hear his breathing, his heart rate. Superman could see the blood flowing in his veins. Superman could see— 

“He out?” Clark asked Bruce, aggressively dusting off his cape. 

“Like a light.”

“Thanks. Well, at least that’s that sorted then,” Clark said, because he had no concept of Not Tempting the Fucking Universe — and naturally, that was when a high-pitched whine rapidly filled the air, and everything went blue. 

Chapter Text

Clark dragged himself out of the rubble — the blast hadn’t been particularly hard or disorienting for him, but Bruce— Bruce— He scanned the area, the air too thick with dust to see anything, and no- yes, there. Bones intact, Clark couldn’t smell blood; the suit would’ve shielded Bruce from the worst of the impact trauma, he was fine, he would be— Clark fought against the clawing fear in his chest. Bruce was going to be fine. 

“Superman! Batman!” came the doubled voice, over comms and in person. Wonder Woman coming down the stairs, metal boots crashing loudly against the stone. 

“We’re here!” Clark called, just as Diana came into view, “we’re okay!” 

“Superman,” she breathed, striding towards him, her eyes wide with uncharacteristic shock - there was something so foundationally unshakable about her. A benevolent, unyielding grace. But she looked- scared now, worried, her warm, small hand sliding over Clark’s chest, cupping his cheek. 

“You’re okay,” she said, softly, like it wasn’t even for Clark’s ears, just something she was telling herself, and then she- she- she leaned forward and kissed him.

‘What the hell?!’ Clark wanted to say, except Diana was kissing him pretty enthusiastically and Clark was terrified that if he opened his mouth— 

But Clark had great luck in all things romance, because there was a sudden thud, and a low, furious subvocal snarl, and then Diana was being wrenched away from him and- and bodily flung across the whole length of the cavernous basement, and the person doing the flinging was—

“Aquaman?!”

But Arthur had apparently gone well past hearing — he was launching himself at Diana’s prime body with murder in his eyes. “He’s MINE!” Arthur roared at her, primal, territorial — possessive. 

The commlink crackled. “Guys?” Barry asked, sounding worried. “What’s going on?”

“Flash,” Bruce said sharply. “Stay where you are. I’m going to ask you a question. You are going to answer.”

“......ooooookay. What’s up, Bats?”

“How do you feel about Superman.”

Barry made a faintly choked sound. “How do I— Hey, woah, big guy, I’m not— I mean, I like. I like girls, you know? If you felt like I was… I’m… sorry? I didn’t mean to, um, step on your toes?”

“Step on my—” Bruce repeated blankly, before understanding clicked into–horrifying place. “Flash, do you think that Superman and I—” He broke off abruptly, and fought against the sudden, dizzying urge to look at Clark. What would he look like, now? Amused, that anyone could even conceive of the idea of him and Bruce? Confused? ...or just disgusted?

“Wait,” Barry was saying, “so you two are…. not christening every flat surface in the Hall when you go off for your little private chats?”

Bruce let that perfectly idiotic sentence rest for a while. Diana had Arthur pinned to a wall now. Another bit of plaster shook itself loose from the ceiling above them and showered them with white dust. 

“No,” he growled finally. “Approach the target lock position, slowly.”

“Coming in at one,” Barry replied. Hundred miles per hour, is what he meant. Slow was a flexible term with Barry. “So what do you guys do when you go off for your little talks?”

“Talk,” Bruce snapped. 

“Huh. Thought that was code for fucking.”

Across the room, Clark had gone a fascinating shade of red. “Okay, but it’s really not,” he said, choked. 

“Superman!” Barry said happily. “Hey, it’s really good to hear your voice, dude!”

A rush of air, and Barry was in the room, grinning widely. At Clark. 

….staring at Clark. 

“Flash…” Bruce said carefully. He made his way to the speedster. Touched the smooth, glassy curve of his pauldron. “How do you feel about Superman now?”

Barry sighed, low and sweet. “Man, I… I really love him, you know?” a quiet, sincere ache in his voice. 

“Yeah,” Bruce replied. “I know.” And then he looked up, at Clark, who was standing there, looking stunned, like he’d been whacked over the head with a two-by-four, and said, in a perfectly conversational tone that wouldn’t alert Diana, Barry or Arthur to any impending threat — “The spell is proximity-based. Go to the lake house. Go now.”

Afterwards, they congregate in the Hall. Diana and Arthur share frank, slightly amused glances with each other, and that’s apparently enough to resolve the issue of having spent the last quarter hour trying to bash each other to death. 

Well, Bruce thinks, with an acerbic rush of cynicism, it probably helps the relationship quite a lot if the bashing-each-other-to-death bit is at least spontaneous, and externally motivated, and not the product of several months of meticulously-plotted murder.

“What happened?” he asks roughly, once they’ve settled in the briefing room. Barry compared it to a Strangelove setpiece once, and it’s not so much that Bruce disagrees as it is…. an exercise in simple vanity. Batman’s uniform doesn’t really work once the wattage on the light fixtures goes beyond a limit. But none of the kids need to know that. 

“I fell in love with him,” Diana says, easy and without embellishment. 

“You…”

“It felt real, while it was happening. He was the thing I’d been waiting for, for years. Decades. I was in love with him. It felt real.”

Bruce believes her. 

“Yeah,” Barry croaks. “What she said.”

Victor whistles softly. “Wow. Glad I missed that party. You too, man?”

Arthur shrugs. “It made me forget Mera. Didn’t think there was anything that could do that. Also, if y’all could see your way clear to not…. telling my girlfriend about this little episode?”

Bruce changed out of the uniform before driving back home. The cave was quiet. “Clark?” he called out, not bothering to raise his voice. 

Clark replied over comms. “I couldn’t check the cave. Is Alfred still home? I didn’t— I don’t want to accidentally— um. You know.”

Boy, did he know. “Alfred’s not in town,” Bruce replied, shoving back the cowl with a sigh. “Come on down.”

The bay doors to the cave swung open, and Clark padded in quietly. Bruce sniffed the decanter at the minimally stocked bar - Alfred had left him the better part of a very nice Lagavulin, and poured out a couple fingers each, handing one glass over to Clark. 

“Oh, wow,” Clark murmured, at his first sip. 

Bruce hummed in agreement, settling into only other chair in front of the monitoring station, staring blankly at the screens. Intellectually, he knew the question was coming. That didn’t much help the sick, apprehensive tightness in his chest — would Clark buy it? Would he swallow the lie? Would he press for answers? Would he find out? Was this how it ended? Was this how it fell apart? — but hell. That’s what the whiskey was for. 

“So how do you feel about me?” Clark asked, pointedly.

“I think what you meant to ask,” Bruce murmured, and it had never been this hard, to sound wry and bored and a little amused, “is am I desperately, achingly, hopelessly in love with you.”

Now would have been a good time to meet Clark’s eyes, to arch a disbelieving eyebrow, to crook a quiet smile. But Bruce has never been less sure of his ability to lie and successfully obfuscate - it’s already so much work to make sure his heartbeat doesn’t ratchet up and give the game away, and he can’t, he just can’t. 

“Yes,” Clark said finally. “I guess that is what I’m asking.”

And then Bruce did smile, struck by the sheer oddness of the situation — if he’d figured out early enough what the spell did, he could’ve just— he could’ve acted just like the others. It wouldn’t even have been acting. 

But then Clark would’ve been - alone. Left alone to figure this out for himself, and Bruce may be selfish, may want desperately the— the release of just telling Clark the truth and then fuck it all, let the chips fall where they may. But he wouldn’t have been able to live with himself if he’d abandoned Clark now, at this moment, when Bruce could help, could do something other than- than ruin every goddamn thing he touches. 

“Look at me, Clark,” Bruce said, and let the exhaustion of the day pour into his voice, into the slope of his shoulders and the spread of his thighs, the loose, languorous curl of his fingers around his glass of whiskey. “Do I look any different to you?”

Clark looked at him, which was bad enough, to stay still under that blue-on-blue, attenuated gaze. “No,” he said eventually. “I guess not. So you’re— immune?”

“Or maybe I just have better self-control,” Bruce posited with an idle, careless shrug. Smoke and mirrors, that’s all it was. If Clark was thinking along these lines, maybe he wouldn’t stumble upon the truth - that no spell could’ve made Bruce fall more in love with Clark than he already - desperately, achingly, hopelessly - was.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t important. 

It didn’t matter. 

Clark had thought— he’d really thought, after— everything, after Bruce brought him back, after Steppenwolf, that they’d— that their relationship had changed, somehow. Evolved. He thought he had no illusions about it; he didn’t, for instance, expect Bruce to feel about him the same way Clark felt about him. He thought he’d been reasonable, eminently pragmatic. Logical enough to even impress the Bat. 

Clark had, however pathetically, thought they were— friends. 

No more than that, but— friends, surely. 

But Clark was friends with Arthur and Barry and Diana — and they had all been affected by the spell. Bruce had not been affected by the spell, not even a little. Clearly, whatever little nugget of warmth the spell took and warped and weaponized and turned into that shambling hideous facsimile of love, that little ember of friendship didn’t exist in Bruce. 

Q.E.D.

For a brief moment, Clark tried to imagine the depth of hatred you would need to feel in order to counteract the effects of a spell that had overwhelmed a mind as ancient and disciplined as Diana’s -- and then shut down that line of reasoning at once, his gut lurching hideously with something akin to nausea.

Instead, he kept his eyes down and on his half-finished whiskey. “Until yesterday, I didn’t even know magic was real.”

Bruce huffed a quiet laugh. “If it helps, you’re taking it much better than I did.”

“So this isn’t the first time you’re dealing with….”

“Narcissistic, egomaniacal, jumped-up Harry Potter wannabes?” Bruce asked sardonically. His tone was dry, his mouth curled faintly at the corner, his eyes warm and perfectly normal. It really was dizzying, that reminder, of what an excellent actor Bruce really was. “No,” Bruce continued, “I’m afraid not.”

“You know that hurts my feelings, don’t you?” said a new, distinctly British voice -- Clark stiffened as a man in a raggedy trenchcoat and a face like a knife rounded the corner into the enormous, open-plan living room, his hands cradling a steaming mug of mint tea. “You’re out of oolong, by the way.”

Bruce’s face had shut down like a vault. “Nobody drinks that--”

“Hello, I do, you prat,” Trenchcoat sneered, “what am I, chopped liver?”

“--and I thought we discussed the knocking,” voice dropping to a basso growl. But he hadn’t actually gotten off the sofa and decked Trenchcoat in the face, so Clark had to assume that Bruce possibly, very likely, actually, was… friends with this guy. The knowledge settled like acid in his throat.

“But then you’d miss out on all my fun entrances,” Trenchcoat replied blithely, before those flinty eyes turned onto Clark. For a long moment, Clark had a brief, vertiginous sensation of not being looked at, so much as looked though. He shivered. “So,” he said musingly, “this is our problem case, is it?”

“I can actually hear you, you know,” Clark snapped, suddenly driven to irritation.

“Ah, it speaks!”

“John…” Bruce said warningly, at which point ‘John’ threw his hands up in mock surrender. 

“I’ll be good! I’ll be good.” He turned, and grinned at Clark, a craggy, half-sincere smile - it didn’t much soften his face, but it did render him suddenly, incredibly likable. “Hello,” he said, I’m John Constantine. I do magic.”

“Um,” Clark said, looking at John’s outstretched hand like the man was palming a chunk of kryptonite, “I don’t— Should we be—?” Clark’s gaze flickered uncertainly towards him. “Bruce said the spell is…. proximity-based?”

"Did he," John murmured, eyes on Bruce. "Well, Brucie here always was sort of freakishly astute." His smile turned fractionally warmer. “Not to worry, sweetheart,” he said, turning to Clark, his broad Cockney accent melting all the syllables together in a warm rush, and Bruce watched a faint flush crawl up Clark’s neck, which— Jesus Christ. The long, crooked fingers of John’s other hand curled around the edge of his perennial dirty white shirt, tugging down the collar to reveal a small hoard of amulet pendants. “I wore protection for tonight.”

“Oh.” And then he did slide his palm into John’s waiting hand. John grasped Clark’s wrist instead, flipping his hand palm-up, and murmuring a quick chant while his fingers traced Clark’s palmlines, all in one seamless motion. 

A bright purple glow erupted around Clark’s hand. 

“What the hell?” Clark breathed, and even John whistled softly. 

“Well, would you look at that,” he murmured. “Nasty bit of work, that is. Where’d you say you’re holding the bloke that did this?“

“We didn’t say,” Bruce retorted.

John grinned, quicksilver. “No, you did not, but I’m betting it’s in that new renovation down the road, innit?”

Whatever expression crossed Bruce’s face only made John grin wider. “Knew it,” he crowed, before he turned back to Clark, and his voice turned low and intimate. “I hate to disappoint, love, but this is a tricky bit of spellwork, here. There’s a couple of bog-standard, traditional remedies to love spells but… But those remedies typically involve a little help from your one true love.” His voice was gentle. 

“What sort of help?” Bruce asked, brusque and matter of fact, and Clark fought desperately against the flush threatening to crawl into his face. 

“A kiss usually does the trick,” John said, musing. His blue eyes were only for Clark, watching, evaluating. Helplessly drawn , or maybe it was simply that Bruce was in so deep he couldn’t imagine anyone looking at Clark and not… wanting. “Acts like a shield against certain kinds of enchantments. Disney got that much right, at least.”

“Does it have to be,” Bruce hesitated, but only briefly, “someone Clark is in love with or—”

“No,” John answered, anticipating the question, “someone in love with Big Blue over here would work just fine in a pinch. Magic doesn’t need love to be requited. Why? You got a name you wanna volunteer?”

Bruce arched an eyebrow as quellingly as he could manage it. Better that. than saying ‘no’ and banking on his biorhythms on not giving the whole goddamn game away. 

Meanwhile, Clark flushed, and looked away. John’s hand was cupping Clark’s, but Bruce could still see the way Clark flinched, the way his fingers tried reflexively to curl into a fist. It made his own heartbeat catch for the briefest second. He had thought Clark had recovered from the break-up with Lois. Apparently not. How bizarre, that even though he knew he had no chance with…. How bizarre, that that knowledge could still sting so sharply.

“Right then,” John continued, “safest option left to us would be, I get my hands on the sorcerer’s grimoire, and pull the enchantment apart thread by thread. Make sure I don’t do a botch job and, oh, I don’t know, make your heart explode, or take away your ability to see in living color, or something.”

Clark tensed - Bruce could see the unhappy line of his shoulders. It made Bruce uneasy, it made him want to— do things. It was completely humiliating. 

“Do you have any idea how… long that’ll take?” Clark asked slowly. “It’s not that I’m not grateful, believe me, it’s just… I’m sure Bruce would like his privacy back, and— and I’d rather not impose.”

God. If Clark had not been around to see it, Bruce would have allowed himself a quiet, bitter smile. That was just about the politest way he’d ever heard someone say they couldn’t tolerate a single fucking second more of Bruce’s presence. 

And John, who— who, it was possible, knew exactly why Bruce was immune to the spell, was looking at Clark consideringly. “No,” he said softly, “you wouldn’t, would you?”

“Um. No.”

“Never fear,” John said easily, the weight of his words evaporating, his quicksilver smile flashing once more. “We'll have you sorted by dawn. I’ll start right away.”