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It's hard to believe that there is still hope here, underneath the rubble. Without Clark's enhanced hearing, the silence after the explosion would portend tragedy for anyone else: no screams, no cries. Just smoke, concrete, and half-melted steel beams where there a Metropolis skyscraper once stood proudly. Even after subduing Lex Luthor, the wreckage of their battle remains. One stray beam, and hundreds of lives have been transformed by an accidental tragedy that Luthor probably won't even bat an eye for. The League has managed to evacuate most of the civilians, but Clark can still hear one last life, trapped beneath the building's destruction.
Human life, Clark has found, has a stubborn and obstinate way of holding on.
He can hear it, barely there, like the first droplets of rain: a heartbeat. Rapid, soft, unsteady, but present. Clark lets the guilt grow into hope, listening closer. He can hear breathing. Shaky, soft. A child.
Clark taps his communicator, relays the information: "B. Wonder Woman. Sector C-7 of the building. There's a kid."
Before he can launch himself into the rubble and pick away the jagged concrete like toy blocks, a voice speaks up from behind him. "Superman."
Shoot. Clark whips around to spot Batman--Bruce, he reminds himself--standing uncomfortably close to him. He could've sworn that the Caped Crusader was on the other side of the wreckage, completing a sweep. When did he sneak up behind me? And how does he keep doing that? Is his suit lead-lined? The shadows seem to crawl closer when Batman is near, enveloping his cape and enveloping the sliver of skin visible beneath his cowl. Is he even human? Clark is tugged from his musings by the Bat clearing his throat, all gravel and grit modulated by at least six layers of voice distortion.
"Superman," Bruce repeats again, a sliver of exasperation crawling into his voice. "You and Wonder Woman need to triage the evacuated civilians. I'll extract the child."
The League has only just shared their civilian identities with each other (Bruce called it part of his "contingency plans"), and Clark still isn't convinced that billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne is actually Gotham's Dark Knight. At the very least, he's partial to Hal's theory that "Bruce Wayne" is an eldritch construct puppeteered by the Bat, and Batman is actually a manifestation of the city of Gotham's darkest corners and alleyways, righting its slow entropy of evildoers with a billion-dollar bow tied neatly on top.
Either way, Clark is pretty sure that neither Batman nor Bruce Wayne are appropriately-equipped to handle a traumatized child. Batman is probably the last person that a traumatized child would want to see. A touch of Clark's Midwestern manners slips into his voice as he asks, ever-so-politely, "Are you sure, B? I don't know if they'll..."
Batman's lenses don't reveal his gaze, but the man's responding glower transcends any form of eye contact. Clark holds up his hands in deference and turns back toward the crowd, keeping an ear out for the inevitable screams of terror that he's come to associate with Batman's arrival.
Like an old tape machine, the scene spins back to life as soon as Batman vanishes again. Clark's body runs on autopilot at this point. He checks for broken bones, murmurs soft reassurances, points out the deepest gashes. Wonder Woman--Diana--is a force to be reckoned with on her own, carrying the most heavily-injured civilians onto nearby stretchers and stabilizing the most serious wounds. She runs a preliminary interrogation at the same time, effortlessly weaving in questions about the building's purpose and construction as she re-sets a broken arm.
While part of Clark's mind is busy memorizing the info from Diana, his gaze flickers over to the smoldering rubble to X-ray roughly where Bruce is. With begrudging admiration, Clark notices that Bruce has already closed in on the child, who is hiding underneath an office desk. He winces in anticipation, prepared for the child to scream in fear upon being approached by the living embodiment of darkness.
Instead, Clark hears a scream--of joy.
"Batman!" A squeaky voice shouts from underneath the desk. "You're Batman!"
Amidst the destruction, a little girl pokes her head out, grinning and pointing at Bruce. Her face, streaked with soot and tears, lights up as soon as Bruce approaches, picking through slabs of concrete and metal. He smiles at her, and the lips under his cowl curve in a way that Clark has never seen before.
"I'm Batman," he confirms, crouching down to meet her gaze.
The words come out not as the vengeance-filled vow he makes to villains moments before his fist meets their face, nor as the utterance of rage and pure willpower manifest in a single human-shaped body. It's tender, familiar, modest. As if Bruce has used and practiced this timbre countless times already, as if this form of care is second nature to him. The shadows don't fall away--Clark is starting to think the Bat could summon night from the midday sun--but the man is softer now. Approachable.
The little girl reaches out with grabby hands, and Bruce tilts his head forward. She happily grabs onto the spiky ears on top of his cowl, and Clark can't help but think about all the times those ears--sharpened carbon fiber--have torn through armor and flesh. Bruce patiently waits as she tugs on one ear and plays with another, letting her curiosity slowly acclimate her to the six-foot-something of a human weapon.
Meanwhile, Bruce reaches into his utility belt--for bandages? an ID scanner?--and pulls out a...lollipop.
He carefully unwraps the top and presses it into the girl's waiting hands. She squeals with glee, popping the candy into her mouth as her next words come out in a garble of excitement. "You're really real! My cousin lives in Gotham but I live with my mamma here and she says Batman isn't real but my cousin says Batman keeps little kids safe at night--"
She continues chattering, and Bruce nods and "mhms" with close attention, never taking his eyes off of her as he nudges aside the biggest chunks of concrete blocking the desk. Finally, with a clear path, Bruce crouches to her level again. Bruce's gaze briefly scans her for injuries before he offers his hands. "Can I carry you?" he asks, approaching but never touching. She nods, lollipop still in hand. "Sure thing, Mister Batman! I can't wait to tell my friends at school that Batman saved me--"
As Bruce scoops her up with his cape, Clark feels his heart melt into a little puddle of adoration. While Clark wraps another bandage around a bleeding civilian, his X-ray vision follows Bruce through the cleared path as he returns from the wrecked skyscraper, child safely in tow.
Even though Clark is sure that Bruce's ears are probably attuned to every little footstep and breath around him, he can't help but notice how the Bat's gaze is turned solely toward the little girl. Bruce is murmuring to her now, so soft that only Clark can pick up what he's saying. "Your mother is outside," Bruce tells her. "You were smart to hide." The little girl sniffles, her cheerful demeanor shaken as she takes in the destruction surrounding her. "I was... I'm still scared," she admits.
Bruce brushes his gloved hand over her hair, cradling her a little tighter. "It's okay to be scared," he finally says. The softness of his voice still carries through his harsh voice modulator. "Fear is your body working to stay alive." (Okay. Clark would've handled that one differently, for the record.)
The little girl asks, wide-eyed, "Do you ever get scared, Mister Batman?"
Bruce chuckles. The sound is foreign to Clark's ears, like glass grating against steel. But the girl brightens up nonetheless at his answer. "Always. I just learned to live through it."
As the two approach, Bruce's mask of cold neutrality slips over him once more. He scans the mostly-dispersed crowd of civilians, grunting in what Clark hopes is some form of approval at his triage work, before turning back to the little girl. "Can you point to your mother for me?" he asks, quietly. She points at a woman hovering by the edge, her hands wrapped around her scarf with anxiety.
Bruce walks over to her swiftly, placing the little girl down and watching as she runs into her mother's arms. Her mother looks up at Bruce, and her face moves through disbelief and gratitude before she silently raises a hand in acknowledgement. Bruce nods back, before turning to face Clark.
Clark is presently resisting the urge to swoon over Mister Tall, Dark, Handsome, and good with kids. As his mouth gapes to form words that don't quite make it past his throat, he's beginning to understand why Bruce Wayne has won Gotham's Most Eligible Bachelor for so many consecutive years now, albeit for different reasons. He's also thankful that Bruce can't hear heartbeats--wait, can he?--because his romantic sap of a heart is about to burst with a symphony of feelings for his coworker (and hopefully friend), none of which are workplace-appropriate. "But--how--but you're Batman," Clark points out. "And you have... Bat-Lollipops."
Bruce doesn't entertain Clark's intelligent observation with a response. He just watches him struggling to put the pieces together.
Pulitzer-nominated reporter Clark Kent finally gets out, "Hal said you're the living embodiment of Gotham's shadows."
Somehow, Clark feels Bruce's eyebrow raise in a withering insult to his journalistic acumen.
"It's a good thing I have a corporeal form, then." Bruce responds dryly.
And if Bruce followed his answer with a flirtatious wink that slipped into Brucie's territory, that was strictly between Bruce and Clark's X-ray vision.