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“Can I tell you something?”
He goes on pulling broken glass out of his leg, not looking at her. “We’re not having this conversation.”
He hears a breath out. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.” Her voice is fainter than usual. Strained. But in spite of everything, she sounds a little amused.
“Whatever you want to say –” Grimacing, he tugs out a larger shard. “It can wait until we aren’t trapped under a building.”
She has the good manners not to say but what if it can’t?
They have a very little bit of light, filtering in through the layers of rubble. They have air. They have no way of alerting the world outside to their location. He’s not confident anyone will be looking for them. Anybody who saw what happened will have assumed he died in the collapsed, and she can free herself. There’ll be other survivors of the quake in need of more urgent help. They aren’t a priority.
They are not going to die there.
“It’s good to have a friend here.”
He yanks on another sliver of glass. “I’m not your friend.”
“Oh, really?” She doesn’t sound hurt – not that he’d meant to hurt her. “What are we then, if not friends?”
He’s assessed his own injuries and concluded that they’re minor. His ankle is probably broken. Otherwise he has scrapes and bruises. The glass in his leg hasn’t cut deep enough to puncture any arteries. The situation at large is more of a threat to his safety. The air smells like smoke and fumes. He doesn’t like to think what he’s breathing in – he doesn’t have his respirator. A building this age may well have asbestos. He doesn’t know if Diana is susceptible to asbestosis. Probably not.
It probably doesn’t matter. She has more pressing concerns. The force of the building’s collapse had been considerable. Her legs are pinned and most likely broken. She’s bleeding steadily from where her abdomen is pierced by a jagged broken length of pipe. An ordinary person would have died. She’s holding grimly on.
On a certain level it’s absurd, to see her brought low by something trivial. On another level – honestly, what else could kill her, other than the earth itself coming apart?
He can only attribute his own survival to sheer dumb luck.
“Colleagues,” he suggests, at which she huffs. “Professional contacts.”
“Comrades in arms?” she offers, and bizarrely, her voice is teasing.
“We don’t have to put a label on it,” he says, dryly. The next piece of broken glass is deep enough to sting and he grunts, grimacing.
“Batman.” Fingers brush his sleeve. She grips his wrist, stilling his hand. “Bruce.”
He shoots her a hard look.
“We can rest for a while,” she say. “Someone will find us. And if they do not, we’ll be together.”
“I have no intention of dying under this building,” he says.
“There’s nothing you can do about it,” she answers, very calmly. “For once in your life, will you just relax?”
He looks at her – he’s been trying not to look at her. Blood is pooling dark and sticky in the dust beneath them. He’d done his best to stop the bleeding, with what supplies he had. It hadn’t been enough.
It wasn’t supposed to go like this. It was supposed to be a relief mission – they’d come in to help retrieve survivors. It was the kind of work that, in a grim sense, he looked forward to. It was uncomplicated. It wasn’t life-threatening.
The second quake had taken everyone by surprise.
“I haven’t relaxed since I was twelve years old and I’m not about to start now,” he tells her.
Her lips twist into a smile. She squeezes his wrist and against his better judgement, he lets her take his hand. “You’re younger than you think you are,” she says. “You know that?”
“What’s your point?”
Her gaze drifts back up to the roof of fallen masonry above them. “I don’t intend to die here either,” she says. “Unless Lord Poseidon has decided it’s my time.”
It takes him a moment, stretching his mind back, to make the connection. “Ah,” he says. “God of earthquakes.”
Her fingers mesh with his. There’s blood on her hand. “Don’t worry,” she says. “I’m here.”
“You’ve lost a lot of blood,” he says. “You may be delirious.”
“Stop dodging,” she says, squeezing his hand. “We did good work today.”
He gives way, just a little. “We did. Didn’t we?”
What light they have is fading. The sky outside darkening, maybe. It’s hard to be sure how long they’ve been trapped. Hours, probably. Days, unlikely. Irrationally it feels like days.
When he feels the wreckage around them shift, for a hideous second he thinks it’s another quake and beside him Diana tenses, face for the first time twisting in pain. Her hand grips his tighter and for the first time he squeezes back, as the shakes around them grow more intense, as dust swirls and metal rattles and brick cracks.
There’s a last grinding rumble, and then light streams down on their faces. He blinks, vision adjusted to the darkness of the wreckage, holding up a hand to shield his eyes, trying to focus. Standing over them, the sun at his back, a car-sized chunk of broken concrete raised above his head as if it weighs nothing at all, is –
“Superman,” Diana breathes.
“Good morning!” He’s outlined by golden sunlight, glowing with it. His cape flaps vibrantly red against the blue of the sky. His smile is the brightest thing Bruce has ever seen. “Been looking for you guys.” He nonchalantly tosses aside the concrete and dusts off his hands. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” says Bruce. “Diana’s hurt.”
Superman’s eyes go to her, assessing the damage. Nodding he calls over his shoulder for help. Then, crunching across the rubble, he steps closer. “Everyone else is just fine,” he says, answering a question they hadn’t asked. “Here.” He offers Bruce his hand.
Slowly, stiff bones protesting the movement, Bruce accepts it; and with a firm, unyielding tug, Superman pulls him up into the sunlight.