Chapter Text
A gentle voice echoed around him, was everywhere and nowhere, was whispering quiet and booming loud…
"Nearer than your breath, lighter than your shadow, your angel stays beside you, keeper of your dreams…"
Bruce was spinning. His world was maybe-dark. Dark but not quite. He could see nothing and everything, and etched into the backs of his eyelids, was a centrifuge of colour, moving so fast each bright light morphed into the next until it was nothing but a blur.
He was almost certain, despite the depths being otherwise unintelligible, that he was looking at the whole of the visible light spectrum and that, somehow, it contained within it everything that had ever existed and everything that ever would.
If he could only just make it out more clearly, he would see… He wasn't quite sure what. Something important, something secret. He could not look away. He wondered if what he was doing counted as looking at all, considering his eyes were still closed…
"Close your eyes… Do not be afraid…"
That voice again! Vaguely familiar, like the weight of his favourite blanket settling over his shoulders. But sadder. Why was it so sad?
"Come on Bruce, wake up…"
Huh. A different voice now, it sounded closer. Deeper, too; a man’s not a woman’s. Had the other one been a woman’s? Yes… yes it was. He knew it, he knew her! He just had to remember, just had to focus…
Distantly, he became aware of sensation—. Pressure. It did not steady him, exactly, but rather, he became gradually more aware of his own body. The nauseating (huh, he hadn't noticed how nauseous he felt, thats probably not good—) visual array seemed to slow down and the throbbing in his head increased.
But he remembered!
He remembered he… he…
"Muhh— uh'thr? Mom?"
A strange, strangled noise. The pressure on his arm squeezed lightly. He blinked open his eyes, but all he could see was bright white light.
"He's waking up!" Someone called out. More voices could be heard, the sudden influx of noise an assault to his senses.
"Ugghhh…" Bruce groaned, squinting into the the room that was, unfortunately, terribly blurry. All he could make out were some vague, moving shapes.
That same voice from earlier, the deeper one, began speaking again, "Bruce! How do you feel? Does anything hurt?"
Yes, as a matter of fact, there was very little that didn't hurt… is what he wanted to say. Instead, he lifted his hand towards his head and groaned again. The world around him blurred and for a moment he expected to sink back into the colours.
He could not tell if he was relieved or disappointed that he didn't.
The room was plunged into blissful darkness. Darker-ness, at least, the light sources that remained lit small or distant and unobtrusive. He sighed with relief, finally able to pry his eyes open the whole way. The sight he was met with was… woah. Wow. Holy shit.
The— the voice. He didn't know how he knew the voice belonged to that face but he was certain beyond a doubt. The voice was smiling. It was the most beautiful smile he had ever seen.
"Thanks, Alfred." The voice said, so kind, so sincere. Bruce hoped his name was Alfred, so that the voice would be talking to him. Wait… no, his name was definitely Bruce. Dang it. Maybe Alfred wouldn't mind swapping.
Another voice— not The Voice, but still somehow vaguely recognisable— replied. That was probably Alfred, he thought, maybe.
Forgetting himself and any manners he had ever known, he simply stared at The Voice (the not-Alfred one), gaping a little.
"Is he okay?" A third voice asked. This one too was familiar, but the emotion it evoked was different to the other two. This was… hm. Not comforting, exactly, but it flooded him with a feeling of relief to hear it.
"I'm not sure… Hey, Bruce…? How's it going bud—?"
He didn't quite process the question, his mind wandering, still stuck on voice #3 and what it was about it he had to know. He was filled with a sudden, intense urgency to find out. "Is… is everyone safe?"
The Voice made an exasperated noise, but he was still smiling so Bruce figured it was okay. "Yes, everyone is okay. You're the only one who got seriously injured!"
Bruce couldn't have said who 'everyone' was, or what danger they may have been in, but it was an intense relief nonetheless to know that they weren't in any now. He hummed, some of the tension bleeding out of his muscles. He watched The Voice thoughtfully for a moment. "Good, good…" He tilted his head a bit, "So then… are you here to take my soul?" He blurted out.
The room went dead silent.
A beat passed.
"What?"
"B, what the hell—"
"Master Bruce!"
"Ohmygod—"
"Language."
"Bruce." The Voice cut through the commotion, the overlapping voices too difficult to decipher yet. "B. What?"
He looked at him incredulously. You see, in Bruce's brain the conclusion he had come to made perfect sense! The Angel's wings were, obviously, soaked in blood. That couldn't have possibly been a good indicator— it was definitely something ominous or the other. He was probably looking at the Angel of death or— or retribution or… something. Granted he couldn't figure out why exactly an angel like that would look so beautiful, but that was besides the point. Plus, he figured that was the idea behind the term "angelic". No matter how simultaneously morbid said angel may be.
"My soul." He clarified, slowly. "Are you here to take it?"
"No! I— Bruce you're not dead! You're— you're fine! Er, well, maybe not fine, but alive, definitely—" The apparently not an angel reached out, probably to place that warm hand on his arm again. Before Bruce could process what the angel was doing, though, he found himself flinching back.
The Angel looked pained, taking a careful step back. "Oh lord. B, I… I'm not going to hurt you. Please don't be—" He cut himself off abruptly. "Awe fuck." No longer seeming to be addressing him, he looked away, muttering something that sounded like an apology and asking more questions to the other voices.
Hm. So his assumption may have been wrong. The maybe-not-an-angel-but-still-very-angelic-seeming-Voice sounded increasingly flustered. Bruce was… confused. And feeling not an incosiderable amount of guilt, for some reason. The not-Angel just sounded so sad. Besides, his hand had felt so nice earlier and Bruce had gone and scared him off. Way to ruin a good thing.
Bruce huffed, the conversation that was happening feeling rather distant and incomprehensible to him just then. He was too absorbed by his thoughts to follow it. Or maybe they had stopped speaking English. He couldn't bring himself to really care, he felt almost… serene. His eyes began to flutter shut. The words echoed through his mind. They sounded… strangely familiar. What the not-Angel had said.
"I'm not going to hurt you. Don't be…"
Hngh. There was something more to that, something that came next. But he couldn't…
Dawning realisation, eyes widen. Oh god. He knew who the voice was. Bruce gasped. He hadn’t thought— after everything— but surely?
"Do not be afraid!" He exclaimed, softly, abruptly.
His angel looked at him, confusion morphing into… a sad smile of sorts. He chuckled, softly, but without much humour. "Don't worry 'bout me B. I'm not… afraid. Not anymore, anyways." The look on his face made something ache in Bruce's chest. He shoved that down to consider later.
"I know." He quickly reassured, realising there had been a slight misunderstanding. "I thought… hm." Bruce tilted his head, analysing his face, "I guess I expected you to have more eyes."
Someone laughed, then quickly muffled it. Bruce couldn't make them out, his vision still somewhat blurred, but the noise made him smile. It was a nice laugh. He wondered what was funny.
"Oh! Uh? I'm… sorry?" The angel replied, sounding, somehow, genuinely remorseful about not having too many eyes. And confused. In all honesty, he seemed to just generally be in a state of confusion. But that was okay, Bruce didn't mind, not at all.
He sighed, a little dreamily. He had such a nice, kind, lovely Guardian Angel— because that was who this was, he had finally realised. He felt a little silly that it took so long, honestly. It was rather obvious in hindsight. But then again, he’d long since stopped believing he deserved a guardian angel and so it only seemed logical that… well, then again, His face alone was enough to tell you he didn’t bring any sort of death or destruction with him. Bruce was starting to make his own head hurt, more than it already was.
"No!! No, don't be sorry, I… I'm glad you don't have more eyes. Your eyes are great. Perfect, really! Two is a ve'ry good nunber. And they're so blue… like— like the ocean. A nice ocean…" Bruce, satisfied that he had adequately reassured his Angel about his very pretty eyes— he really hoped he hadn't offended him— began to feel a touch floaty again…
Clark was stressed. Really, he had been stressed for the past several hours, but if his stress levels were plotted onto a graph, they could be described as "rising exponentially" and "approaching their apex". God, he hoped this was the apex, he wasn't sure he could handle much more.
Alfred cleared his throat, an unwavering presence as always. "Perhaps you lads should go check on that toxicology screen now? And see if you can reverse engineer… something." He looked at Dick and Jason pointedly— likely because Jason looked a little green and Dick was attempting (and failing) not to laugh his ass off. Ah, the duality of brothers.
Clark could empathise slightly— if this weren't so worrying, it would be rather hilarious watching the oh so terrifying Batman act so… high. He reasoned that there were enough pollens and gasses and chemicals whizzing around Gotham for the urgency of this sort of situation to have waned with time.
In Clark's defence, this being an extraterrestrial toxin from a violent race of aliens was making him a tad more nervous than usual. And he may have slightly downplayed the severity of things to the boys, for the sake of their collective sanities. He loved them to pieces but dear god, he could not handle both Dick and Jason panicking and Bruce being injured and compromised! He didn't know if kryptonians could grow grey hairs and, frankly, he didn't want to find out. Sue him.
"Uncle Clark, please." Dick pleaded from the entrance to the medbay where Alfred was trying to kick them out, "You know what happened when he got his wisdom teeth taken out? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! Then he got blood on my favourite shirt! All I'm saying is— this would be perfectly fair compensation."
Clark sighed, trying not to smile, "For the last time, no one will be recording your father's potentially incriminating hallucinations, you menace!" The boy only cackled in reply. Clark didn't have the chance to decide whether that was worrying.
Speaking of hallucinations— something appeared to snap Bruce out of whatever stupor he had been in, because he seemed to have rejoined this plane of existence.
He stared at him intensely, narrowing his eyes a little. Clark couldn't help but feel nervous. Ridiculously, his mind conjured up the image of an ant being watched through a magnifying glass. "You said fuck." Bruce stated, not exactly accusatory, but… close.
"I… did." Clark confirmed, hesitantly. The mental image shifted to the ant being fried to a crisp beneath said magnifying glass.
He hummed thoughtfully, "And that's… allowed? Isn't it…" Bruce seemed to flounder for the correct word, "Illegal?" He settled on, but seemed disatisfied.
What Clark would have given to see inside his best friends head right then. The question sounded so earnest, it was bizarre. He tried his best to keep the amusement out of his voice, "Well… I mean Alfred probably didn't appreciate me saying it, especially in front of the boys, but theres no law against cursing, no."
"Huh." He sounded contemplative. "And is… is Alfred God?"
Something clattered to the floor. Clark whipped around to look at the aforementioned Alfred, who seemed both shocked and entertained. He shook his head at Clark's concerned expression, "I'm fine. Godly, apparently." He muttered the last bit, bending to pick up the kidney dish and its contents that he'd dropped.
This was officially the most insane conversation Clark had ever experienced. Sure, given his line of work, it wasn't the craziest subject matter, it was just the sheer ridiculousness of the fact that it was happening with Bruce, of all people. The man who’d built a tolerance to every known toxin and psychoactive drug on Earth, who didn't even get properly drunk!! Sure, maybe ‘Brucie’ did, but not Bruce.
He looked up at the ceiling for a split second. God/Alfred help him maintain a straight face right now. "No, uh, not quite?"
Bruce looked at him questioningly… and yeah, that was probably fair.
Clark sighed and clarified: "Alfred is not God. Alfred is your butler."
Recognition lit up in Bruce's eyes— "Oh! Alfie!!" He nodded to himself, "Yes that makes sense." (Clark would beg to differ.) "Alright so… thats not true and the eyes weren't true… can you fly?"
Clark was, amusingly enough, reminded of the early days of their partnership, when Bruce had been so fascinated by everything Kryptonian-adjacent about him. It had been slightly unnerving at first— years of nightmares about scientists strapling him to lab tables and battle after battle with Lex would do that to you— but something about Batman…
Clark hadn't been able to read him immediately, they'd had a rocky start frankly, but over time, Bruce managed, somehow, to be so genuine in his interest, excitement almost tangible, and yet, so compassionate and considerate in everything he had done... Clark smiled fondly, "As a matter of fact, I can.”
“Huh… But, if you’re not here for my soul, why are your wings covered in blood?”
Everytime Clark thought he had reached the limits of his confusion. Goddamit. His eyes widened, "B-blood? Wings?” Was B having visual hallucinations?!
"Yes?" Bruce confirmed, like it was obvious. Gently, as though scared of hurting Clark, brushed his fingers over the cape. Concern flashed in his eyes, "You're not hurt, are you? Is that… is that why you're here?" Jumping into action mode, he tried to simultaneously get up and take out his IV.
"No!" Clark protested, jumping up. He carefully but firmly, grabbed his hand so he wouldn't yank out the cannula and pushed him back against the pillows, lingering in case of any other heroics. "You don't have to get up, I'm not hurt, it isn’t blood! Its… a, uh, design choice? It's just red dye, honest." He was a little horrified. Blood! No wonder Bruce had been scared of him!
The man in question blinked up at him, looking a little dazed. Probably from trying to launch himself out of bed following much blood loss and exposure to an unknown toxin. God, why'd his best friend have to be a self sacrificing idiot??
As Clark was pondering this, Bruce sighed contently and, with the hand Clark wasn't holding, reached out to touch his face. "Wow. Your skin is so smooth." He mumbled, petting his cheek and looking at Clark like he had hung the moon and stars.
Superman was, for lack of other words, stunned. His brain blue screened. He was rooted in place, leaning over Bruce, and his world narrowed to the fingers brushing his skin. He couldn't breathe. Did he need to breathe? He'd probably be fine.
"Uh… Thank you?" Clark definitely did NOT squeak.
"You're welcome." Bruce replied serenely, still petting Clark, apparently entirely unfazed.
Get it together, Kent. He chastised himself, gently extracting himself from the situation and sitting back on the chair. Luckily, Bruce didn't seem to be offended by that.
"What does it feel like to fly?" Bruce asked quietly, without missing a beat. For a striking moment, he reminded Clark very much of Dick as a child.
Clark hummed thoughtfully. "Well, I don't think of it very much nowadays, how it feels, it's just… another part of me, you know? Like walking or speaking. But, when I was younger, it started off as just being able to jump real high. I don't think I could ever forget that feeling, of defying gravity for the first time, the sudden weightlessness. It felt like… as though I’d never taken a full breath before and only once I was in the air could I really, properly breathe."
He paused, this was usually where he'd expect Bruce to interject, to come up with a hundred questions, to question if the mechanics of respiration were physiologically impacted, to watch as his eyes lit up in keen interest. He did none of those things. He looked, if anything, a bit far away. Bruce hummed and Clark, for lack of much else to do, swallowed around the ball in his throat and continued to speak. "My favourite, these days, is flying through clouds. It was a bit disappointing, the very first time, to find they were not actually cotton and fluffy, but it's like flying through mist and it's lovely, especially when its warm out…"
He talked and he talked, listening as Bruce’s heart beat slowed and steadied, a small, familiar comfort. Bruce occasionally chimed in with the odd, often nonsensical, comment or question. It was concerning, but he tried to keep the worry out of his demeanour.
Bruce had a death grip on Clark's hand the whole time and the distraction seemed to be a little helpful. It was only when that grip finally slackened, Bruce's eyes slipping shut, that Clark stopped talking.
He sighed, leaning back in his chair and rubbing a hand over his face.
Alfred reentered the room a short while later— maybe it was telling that Clark hadn’t fully registered him leaving. “Has he ever been like this before?" He asked quietly.
The older man shook his head, "Never quite so out of it for so long.” He cleared his throat, “It’s… difficult to be certain, but as far as we can gather from the labs, it seems his system should work it out on its own. I’d hesitate to contact anyone else so long as Master Bruce remains stable. It’s appears to be fairly similar in chemical structure to a family of drugs we have logged in the database— from that information exchange with the Chazomians— so we’re not in entirely uncharted waters, turbulent as they may be.”
Clark bit his lip, nodding along. The news was slightly reassuring, but he didn't love having to wait, hadn't realised till then how much he'd been hoping for some sort of instantaneous antidote. It felt wrong, seeing Bruce so disoriented. He couldn’t wait for him to recover and come up with some obscure blackmail material to swear Clark to secrecy with.
"Any idea on time estimates?"
Alfred tsked, "Nothing definitive. It depends almost entirely on him. At least a few hours, perhaps a few days. I sent the boys upstairs— work and school tomorrow and there's not much they can do anyways. I can handle Master Bruce.” He hesitated for a moment, “Thank you. For… sitting with him." Bringing him home remained unspoken.
He shook his head, “Nothing to thank me for, really, it’s my pleasure. Just wish there was more I could do… I could stay? For the rest of the night, so you can get some sleep." He offered. And then it hit him— Clark groaned. "Ah man, no I can’t. The league. I need to update them and write up the mission reports." Clark winced, because he could have gotten away with doing those from here but… "They should be done with clean up and rescue by now, so we need to debrief, too."
Alfred quirked an eyebrow in amusement at his expression and if Clark were any less tired he would've had the decency to be embarrassed by how plainly his expression reflected his distaste. Ma would be ashamed. As it stood, he did not have it in him to care beyond the apologetic wince smile he shot him.
"I'm sure I’ll be alright.” He quirked a wry smile, “It’s far from the first time and unlikely to be the last that I stand vigil by his bedside.”
Somehow that… did not make Clark feel much better. "I'll be back as soon as we're done!” Clark promised, “Well… unless we find more aliens.” He wanted to cry at the thought alone. “The murderous kind.” Clark amended, because glass houses and all that.
Alfred chuckled, which was akin to a laughing fit on the Alfred-scale and enough for Clark to muster up a grin. He cast one last look at Bruce’s sleep-softened expression, something aching in his chest, and gently freed his hand. For a moment, it felt like everything might really be okay.
Unfortunately, the cards were not in Clark's favour tonight.
"Are y' goin'?" Bruce slurred, very out of it but apparently dragged out of the dredges of sleep by Clark leaving his side.
He winced, guilt pooling in his stomach. "’fraid I have to—"
"NO!" Bruce cut him off, eyes flying open now and looking scared. Clark didn't think he'd ever seen him look scared. He reached out, gripping Clark’s wrist. "No… Don't leave. Please."
"I… B, I really have to debrief with the League, but it shouldn't take too long." If it weren't for the fact that Bruce himself would chew him out for skipping debriefing, it would be a no brainer—Clark would've stayed in a heartbeat, but the man in question was a stickler for records.
He couldn't even be that annoyed about it considering they had just fought a guy who had slowly been building a web of villains, spreading out his plan into so many small pieces that they seemed entirely unrelated. They would've been screwed if not for Bruce's meticulous, paranoia-driven organization (unfortunately, not the first time Clark has had to admit that) and the Bat had been more than a little smug about it.
Clark could concede a point though and concede he did… it was a little amusing watching Bruce bask in the glory of being right; preening more like a Robin than a Bat. All that said, Clark was reluctant to make a choice. Wouldn't this would count as extenuating circumstances? Surely??
The plain distress on Bruce’s face was incredibly difficult to stomach. The way his voice cracked even more so. "Will you come back? Will I ever see you again?"
Clark balked at that, geez how out of it was he?? Of all the questions he'd asked that night, that one may have the most unnerving. "Of course I will!" He, just then, decided he would rather burn the mission reports. It was out of obligation to his best friend that he gave one last half hearted attempt, just so he could say he tried— "And if you need me sooner than that, you just call out okay? I'll hear you, I'll be here— always."
Bruce seemed, for a moment to seriously consider this; a huge relief to Clark. Maybe he could very quickly get through the debriefing after all. The relief did not last long.
"Not always." He muttered, almost to himself, but something dark had fallen over his face.
Clark furrowed his brow, feeling a pressing need to assure him of the contrary when anxiety was so plainly (in Bruce standards) written across his face, "Yes, always." He insisted, "Whenever you need."
Maybe it was a semantics thing? It was probably a semantics thing. Batman could be like that, surely it was just…
It was like something shuttered in Bruce's eyes. His grip on Clark spasmed, almost unconsciously, as though he was torn between holding on and pulling away. He pursed his lips. "Not when I—" He cut himself off, refusing to meet Clark's eyes. "I needed you then. Why didn't you come then?" He posed it as a challenge, his jaw set, his voice was measured and more even than it had been all night. Still, the hurt behind it felt naked— raw.
Clark felt his stomach drop. He had… absolutely no idea what Bruce could be referring to. He ran through a mental itinerary of the missions and years together, trying to think of some failure so consequential it would have hurt him this deeply. He shot a glance at Alfred, who looked pained himself. "I… I'm not sure what you're talking about." He said gently, sitting back down, scooching his chair a little closer, the report and the league forgotten.
"Liar." He forced out. He closed his eyes tightly and when he opened them again, they shone with unshed years. "You were meant to be there. Maybe you couldn't save— not them, but why?" What little composure he had shattered, Bruce sounded shattered— "It hurt so much. For so long. Why didn't you protect me?"
Clark recoiled.
"Bruce…"
"Why?"
He felt like he was going to be sick. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, B." And, in truth, he wasn’t entirely sure what he was apologising for, only aware that he had to fix this. That he would do anything to fix it. "I'm here now, I— never again, I'll never— I'm staying. I'll stay as long as you want."
A choked off sob came from Bruce, a sound Clark had never heard before. He didn't think before he was reaching for him.
Bruce practically collapsed into the touch, clung to Clark like a lifeline. Bruce was not as cold as people assumed Batman was; outside of the cowl he had slowly grown comfortable with the casual affection that came with the territory of two sons and a best friend. This though? Clark would never have imagined holding him beyond the utilitarian flights. Not like this. Somehow, it didn't feel all that strange.
"Promise?" He asked, breath shuddery, and for the first time, the Batman sounded so, so small.
It was easy to forget sometimes, when it came to Bruce, that he was human. He wielded himself like a weapon, he carried himself like a leader, he gave you no reason to view him as different to the gods and aliens and superhumans he stood amongst— whom, often, he led.
Other times, it was impossible to forget. Those instances he would get so hurt even he couldn't power through it, the moments he had them convinced he was on deaths door, the times Clark felt his heart had been ripped out, thrown naked into a battlefield, and told ‘good luck’.
Even so, never, in all their years of working together, had he seen Bruce so vulnerable. Never had his pain reverberated so deeply in Clark's own chest. Rarely had Superman felt so helpless to save him. There was no speed he could fly, no wound he could cauterise, no villain he could punch hard enough that would fix this.
"I promise." He rubbed a hand up and down his back, "Not going anywhere, B, you can trust me."
"Don' even know 'f you're real." Came the soft reply, muffled against Clark, almost resigned to the fact.
Clark exchanged bewildered glances with Alfred and then, without warning, Bruce slumped into unconsciousness against his chest.