Work Text:
It’s the pain when Batman bodily crashes onto a hard unforgiving floor that signifies the end of whatever hellish journey he’d been zapped into. He gasps in relief and then immediately clamps his mouth shut against the nausea that sweeps over him. God, it’d felt like he’d been pulled and thrown around like some rattle toy in some vacuum of space and then left to free fall for days.
Taking a minute to ensure his next breath didn’t include last night’s dinner coming back up all over himself, Bruce finally allows his eyes to take in his surroundings. He noticed the pedestal first. The raised column had a very familiar gun shaped object, still smoking from the muzzle as if it'd been used recently and pointing directly where Batman was sprawled out. He remembered last seeing it in Lex’s hands, aiming it at Flash who sustained a leg wound that would stall him enough to be unable to dodge whatever would come out of it and then he remembered foolishly but successfully getting the kid out of the way. By pushing him so that Batman would take the blast instead.
Well that explained the how but not the where.
He frowns at his surroundings. The crystallized walls and lack of doors or windows, not something designed by any human architecture as far his knowledge could tell him and his stomach rolled unpleasantly at the implications. It didn’t help that he still felt somewhat dizzy from his trip here.
He was going to punch Lex next time he saw him.
Standing up from the undignified heap he’d landed into was a slow process but he managed it with little difficulty, mind already running with plans to contact whoever was in charge of this place and hoping to anything they weren’t hostile-
There was a sound behind him; the heavy fall of boots landing and the swish of a cape that followed. The suddenness of it hinted that whoever it was had been floating above the ground, otherwise Batman would have heard it coming and wouldn’t have been caught off guard in this strange new environment but the irony is that he also knows that particular set of noises-recognized it almost instantly and the relief upon hearing it has his shoulders sag just that little bit.
He turns around and then freezes.
“...Superman?” because yes it is him but it’s also… wrong.
Bruce takes in the contrast of the black suit and white cape. Black and white. The colors were so sharp , so… intimidating (and he would know, Batman operated under the night for a reason, there has never been a question of where his strengths in fear and darkness lie but it was different for Superman, it was...) so unlike him to be wearing something like this. It’s unsettling and there’s a hundred different warning sirens going off in his head at the unimpressed, almost apathetic eyes staring back at him.
He’s gotten so used to seeing them filled with caring and sympathy and so much love for everything-for the planet, for his mom, for the team, for Bruce-that it hurts like a knife straight into his heart.
“Batman. Of course,” Superman says and takes two steps forward. There’s something in the way he says it, a poorly hidden amount of something not quite interested in the man in front of him enough to be disdain-like maybe Bruce isn’t worth the breath he’s wasting for this-but condescending enough to make him flinch. “So who’s under that mask this time?”
As if there was any other Batman but Bruce, as if Kal-El has actually encountered others after him. Two decades he had fought for his city. Years of honing his skills and body for the never ending war against crime. Had he finally…? Had Superman been the one to…? It’s masochistic and entirely unhealthy but he can’t not know how his end comes.
“Clark-” he begins to ask-plead(?)-but the moment the name comes out is when Superman’s face twists into anger and then there’s a blur of movement too quick for him. His heart is hammering in his chest-it’s the nightmare all over again, the warning sirens in his head are blaring loudly, urging him to fight run fight run when the cowl is ripped off-
And then suddenly it’s like everything screeches to a halt. Suddenly there’s a quiet that falls over where they were both frozen, Bruce hardly dares to breathe for all that his body was trying it’s damn best to prepare for the worst and Kal… Kal, who still had the cowl gripped in his right hand, who was-was just… staring. No sudden movement, no physical or metaphorical heart being torn out by superhuman strength, not even a hint of red in those unearthly eyes. Just Kal slowly becoming Clark as the cowl drops from his hold and his face softens into something like wonder and awe.
“Bruce?” There's definitely awe in his voice when Clark whispers his name, like he can’t quite believe who’s standing in front of him.
“Clark,” is all Bruce can manage in return, feeling as though there’s still something foreign lodged in his throat, the warnings in his head haven’t shut up but they’ve quieted enough for him to function properly without panicking anymore.
“It is you.” Bruce just barely manages not to jerk away when Clark moves to cup his cheeks with both hands because he’s so gentle when he does it, gives him that Kansas farm boy grin he knows so well as he brings their faces close enough so Clark can place a feather light kiss to his brow. The contact calms the rage and fear in that oh so familiar way it’s always done.
“Where are we?” he looks around again, at the crystals and high ceilings, the lack of entrance or exits.
“The Fortress,” is all Superman says at first but at the enquiring brow raised in response, he also provides, “I built it myself.”
An answer but also not. The warnings are going off again and Bruce frowns. He’s about to ask another question, about the origins of it, how the other had been able to find the materials to construct it for surely the design had to be some homage to his lost planet and wouldn’t be spared the effort of using anything that wasn’t authentically kryptonian but then Clark stops him with his own question.
“Bruce, how did you get here?” There’s no suspicion, only confusion and Bruce moves to grab Clark’s hands off his face, making sure to keep them in his grip because he’s not ready to lose that touch just yet, and looks behind him to the source of his spontaneous appearance. He knows Clark follows his gaze when the soft “oh” leaves his lips and Bruce frowns, only now wondering why Clark has this device as he works out what the gun had really done. Bruce hadn’t been recognized as Batman but as the instant his cowl was removed, Clark had been shocked. Superman’s new outfit and the fortress that certainly didn’t exist before plus the pulling, falling, felt as though he were being squeezed into the neck of a bottle sensation he'd experienced before he fell here had one very screamingly obvious answer.
That godforsaken scrap of metal had sent him into the future.
He was going to punch Lex in the dick hard.
But for now Bruce turns his attention back to Clark, trying to let the way the other’s thumb had started tenderly brushing against his fingers soothe him, knowing what he wants to ask-knowing it the moment he saw how Superman looked at him when he thought him a stranger at first-knowing the answer would be devastating but one he needs to hear.
“What have you been doing here?”
The thumb stops but Clark doesn’t look at him, his face has gone blank as he stares at their hands.
“Clark…” the knife is back, twisting anxiety and dread in his chest as he tightens his grip on the other’s hands imploringly, demandingly, “Clark, answer me.”
Clark still says nothing and Bruce is afraid he’ll be ignored, not given any explanation as to what has happened here in the future. And maybe it’s for the best-you don’t just mess with time, you shouldn’t -there might be consequences far too great for him to handle once he’s gone back to when he’s supposed to be but Bruce-he can’t just let it-can’t just let this happen . He needs to know why . Why Clark had felt the need to build this place and name it a fortress when they had the Hall for the League and when they’d both just moved into the newly rebuilt Wayne manor after Clark had been the one to convince him to finally move out of the lake house. Why Clark was avoiding his question when his non-answers were all too revealing themselves. Why he swapped the red and blue for black and white -
His thoughts screech to a halt when Clark sighs and then feels their hand shift position so their fingers are intertwined. He feels a tell tale prickle behind his eyes and he takes a shuddering breath to ask one more time.
“Clark, what have you been doing?”
This time, Superman looks right into his eyes. The posture, set jaw and determined gaze are all so familiar but there’s something else there too, something sharp and unyielding and wrong -almost manic.
“Protecting my world.”
Bruce can’t help it, he pulls away. Takes one step back to separate their hands. Clark lets him but looks so hurt, so heartbroken when he does and he feels the guilt for putting that expression on his face but he can’t--he can’t pretend that he’s not horrified by the meaning behind those words. He can’t pretend he doesn’t know what “protecting” the world means.
“I--” he doesn’t know what he’s going to say. That he was sorry? That he doesn’t want Clark to do this? That he’s seen this, if not quite exact same scenario, in his nightmares before they’d gotten together and that his fears were only just starting to disappear since they’ve defeated Steppenwolf? That he wants to convince Clark there must be some other way to feel like he’s saving the planet other than becoming its tyrannical ruler?
“Bruce,” but Clark cuts him off and he still looks hurt, so sad and yet so fond like he knows this is the reaction he expected from Bruce and he wouldn’t have it any other way no matter how much it tore through him as well, “It’s alright.”
It’s not alright. It’s something that Bruce has to try to fix but he doesn’t want to fight Superman to do so. He doesn’t want to ever lose Clark, hear his screams, watch as the weapons he forged himself destroy the man he loves again.
He can’t fail Clark again. He can’t fail. He can’t.
It’s that one thought that echoes in his mind when he feels a sickeningly familiar pull. He looks over at Luthor’s gun again but it’s completely dormant where it sits in its glass case. Theories flit around in his mind but the most likely answer he comes up with is that the universe or perhaps the time stream specifically was trying to right itself by throwing him back where-when(?) he should be.
“I’m being pulled back,” he warns.
Clark doesn’t seem to understand what Bruce is saying at first, as if the idea of Bruce needing to go back to his own time never occurred to him, but his confusion is quickly replaced by a startled realization when Bruce begins to glow .
And then Bruce watches with wide eyes as Clark’s expression twists into something pained and desperate. He can’t move when Clark lunges forward to grab his arm, applying too much force causing an indent to form where he’s holding onto the armor and making Bruce instinctively wince more at the thought of replacing it than any physical discomfort, in his hurry to--what? To keep Bruce from leaving? He thinks Clark is trying to say something, sees his mouth moving but he can’t hear anything. There’s silence and the edges of his vision are going white but he can still see the frantic, forlorn look on Clark’s face as he says one thing again and again.
“Please don’t go.”
Bruce’s heart lurches when he reads those lips before he’s pulled back into that bottleneck of not space.
“Batman!”
He lands in Superman’s arms.
In the long, tortuous moments it takes to stop himself from heaving again Bruce realizes that it’s his Clark staring at him and not the one who’d been calling out to him just seconds (years?) before (after?). There’s an astonishing amount of relief and comfort that overcomes him at the knowledge. At remembering what’d he’d seen and knowing he still had time when he looked into those eyes and saw no hint of madness, only concern and love.
“Batman? Are you hurt?” Clark’s concerned face turns to the destroyed part of his gauntlet where the other Clark had grabbed him.
“Put me down,” Bruce pushes at his chest and then shifts so that his arm is out of view. Clark frowns but there’s no tell-tale sign of his eyes using their x-ray ability so he continues to hide it, “I’m fine.”
Predictably Superman doesn’t believe it but the arrival of the rest of the team deters any come back and Bruce is both glad for their presence and dreading the questions they would undoubtedly have for him. He makes up excuses, stalls their inquiries until they can all gather back at the Hall to recon and hope he’ll have come up with his answers by then.
Bruce lays awake, tracing a steady, relaxing path down from Clark’s shoulder to his wrist then back up again; repeating the motion as he watches his lover sleep.
He didn’t tell the team everything. He couldn’t. He had to believe in Clark, believe in his ability to retain that humanity and sense of justice more than any other. Now, more than ever, since he’s seen that glimpse of the future. He has to give Clark that chance when he’d failed to do so before. When he’d failed Clark so badly before.
It’s that future Clark’s face in his mind, so full of pain when he’d been forced to leave that makes him move to intertwine their fingers in the same smooth motion as the other Clark.
He won’t give up, he decides. Not ever. He owes Clark at least that much. He had made a promise that he won’t fail the man again so he’ll find a way and won’t stop trying no matter what happens to himself.
He vows to stay by Clark’s side as long as he’ll have him. He’ll make sure there won’t ever be a reason for him to turn against humanity.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Kal slowly lowers his arms, staring blankly at the space where Bruce had just been and now wasn’t. He clenches his fists, takes counted, controlled breaths and opens up his hearing further. The beat of a familiar heart is the only thing keeping him from just smashing through the walls as he follows it to the control room, the fortress forming pathways and doors automatically upon sensing his impatience.
Bruce is there, facing away from him to monitor the main computer where several images of various cities all over the globe played in real time, some still fighting fruitlessly but most were now under the peaceful rule of the Lords. Upon Kal's entrace, however, Bruce turns around to greet him while bracing his elbow on the side of the machine to support his movement.
Kal pauses, taking in the much more familiar black eyepatch that was missing from the other Bruce and sees the minute shaking of his bad leg (also absent for all the other injuries that Batman has always gotten for himself in the past) and frowns when he knows this means that Bruce has been standing on it for longer than he is supposed to. With a burst of speed he picks Bruce up, ignoring his grumblings, and kneels to gently set him down on the computer chair that should have been within arms reach but was somehow positioned on the far end of the large computer. He doesn’t rise from the ground.
“Clark,” Bruce says and Kal smiles, he can only ever be Clark when he is with Bruce, “The computer detected an anomaly in one of the newer vaults earlier. A spike of energy that simmered down for a while then increased exponentially before disappearing altogether.”
Clark nods, “I met you in the vault just now. Well, the you from four years ago.”
Bruce stills for only a moment and utters, “Ah.”
“Why didn’t you tell me what really happened that day? What happened today ?” Clark asks, trying not to sound too pathetic because of this secret Bruce has kept from him this long. He knows Bruce must have done it out of some sense that he was protecting Clark somehow. He remembers that incident when Bruce had suddenly returned by some miracle those years ago after he’d been hit by Luthor’s stupid new contraption but he’d returned without his cowl , seemingly unhurt save for the crushed gauntlet that suspiciously looked like a hand had grabbed hold of it and squeezed hard enough to completely render it useless (God, the way he’d fixated on how familiar the shape of that handprint seemed but how Bruce wouldn’t allow him anything more than that one initial glance) and then the way Bruce was carrying himself afterwards that spoke volumes. Like what he’d seen while he was gone traumatized him that badly.
“I’d forgotten,” the man answers and then shrugs as though he really were unbothered by it.
Clark closes his eyes and rests his head on Bruce’s lap, saddened by the lie but now understanding why Bruce didn’t mention his trip to the future, “You were afraid of what I’d become. And your fears were justified. I’m a monster.”
Bruce sighs and slowly begins to card his hand through Clark’s hair, speaking soothingly, “You’re not a monster.”
He knows that’s not true. He is a monster. And it wasn’t because he’d murdered countless people in the last few years. It wasn’t even because he’d burned the men alive on that terrible terrible night, ignoring Bruce’s pleas for him to stop. It was because he’d felt not an ounce of regret or remorse for doing it. Not when Bruce was bleeding in his arms, body broken from torture and voice hoarse from screaming because Superman had been too late.
Something, some fundamental part of him that both Clark Kent and Superman needed to stay human had snapped when he tore those doors open and stepped into that dark, cold room to finally find Bruce who'd been missing for weeks--agonizing over plans and patrols with the rest of the team, going over every nook and cranny of Gotham they could and coming up with empty handed each and every instance; feeling desperate and anxious over what could have been happening to Bruce while the team were floundering on a trail of bread crumbs--and then seeing the man he loved lying on the floor, naked and sobbing, unable to even crawl from how badly his leg had been mutilated. Watching Bruce reach out to him when he’d noticed Superman had (finally finally) come to save him, seeing nothing but relief and hope and pain through the one eye he had left because the other one had been gouged out and left to fester . There was no guilt for killing the men in the warehouse that night. Nor did he feel anything much at all except how right it was when he found and ripped apart the rest of the kidnappers later. He became a monster that night. Monsters do not forgive and forget. Monsters covet what they love greedily and possessively. And only a monster could deal fair punishment that other monsters deserve.
“Clark?”
“Hmm?”
“Are you tired? You should get some rest. The rebellion in Moscow couldn’t have been easy to settle down,” Bruce was wrong about that, frying a few louds mouths to shut up the rest of the herd and send them scrambling away back into their holes to hide was plenty easy these days, “And the Insurgency has been very active this last week. I’ll send word to Arthur and Barry to deal with the trouble in Star City.”
Clark could go do it himself. It would be quicker too. Barry, for all his speed, has been slacking in his duties to the Lords these days. But sending others out for him means that he gets to be with Bruce more. Monsters love to indulge and be selfish.
“The Insurgency has been a pain recently.” He agrees, opening his eyes and looking up.
Bruce gives him a wry smile, “You know Diana. Never one to go down without one hell of a fight.”
Clark nods then takes Bruce’s left hand. The bones in it had been crushed so many times in the past that Bruce has a hard time curling his pinky and ring finger most days without it being painful. He moves to hold it so that their fingers are interlocked and is elated when Bruce immediately does the same for their other hands. He listens to the sound of Bruce’s heart, that wonderful thump thump that told him how alive the man is and sighs in contentment.
“Will you stay with me?”
He means to say he wants Bruce to be with him while he naps, sitting beside Clark and holding his hand until he wakes up. But the way Bruce’s eyes soften and his lips form a wistful smile says there’s much more to it when he answers, “Of course. Always.”