Chapter Text
Simon is dying.
He knew it when they sent him back down.
Knew it when the radio went quiet.
Hell. He knew it the moment they promised he’d be free after this.
Free.
A laugh tries to claw its way out of his throat, but it drowns before it can exist.
There is too much blood.
It presses in on him, thick and hot, turning the inside of the iron lung into something alive, something suffocating. Every movement sends it sloshing, coating his skin, forcing its way into his mouth when he gasps.
Simon chokes, jerks upward on instinct–no, not up, there is no up, just more–lungs screaming as he drags in a breath that tastes like rust and rot and copper.
Move.
He has to move.
The black box. The vest. His hands–his HAND won’t–
His grip slips.
“Fuck!-”
The word breaks apart as his fingers slide uselessly over soaked fabric. He can’t feel them properly. Nothing feels right. His arm—
Don’t think about it.
Don’t.
The wound burns. Not sharp, not clean–wrong. Deep, crawling, like something is still inside it, chewing, itching, tearing. It spreads through him, heat under his skin, into his chest, his throat–
He coughs again. More blood. Always more.
Focus.
The vest. Wrap it. Tie it. Something.
His hand fumbles blindly, dragging the material around the box, pulling, tightening—no, not tight enough, it’s slipping, everything is slipping—
He can’t see.
Or maybe he can. It’s just red.
It’s all red.
A thought surfaces, slow and heavy and useless
Maybe this will be enough.
Maybe they’ll take the box and—what?
Remember him?
Not as the butcher.
Not as–
His vision lurches.
People died.
Too many.
For him. Because of him. Doesn’t matter which. They didn’t even want him, just this–this fucking box clutched to his chest like it means anything.
His hand spasms. The knot loosens.
No.
No no no–
He tries to fix it, but his arm won’t listen, his body won’t–
he’s so tired, so fucking tired
Breathing is harder now.
The blood is higher.
He has to kick to reach air, actual air, thin pockets at the top–and even that is fading, shrinking, disappearing as the sub fills.
He can’t keep doing this.
He can’t–
The vest slips from his grasp.
Simon watches it drift.
For a second, he thinks about grabbing it again.
For a second.
Then his body gives up before he can decide.
Fine.
Fine.
Let it go.
Let it do the rest.
That thing outside, he felt it, heard it, something massive scraping against the hull, something that shouldn’t exist–
Maybe it’ll tear the sub open.
Maybe it’ll rip everything apart.
Maybe the box will float.
Maybe that’s enough.
Simon sinks.
The last breath he drags in is wet and burning and not nearly enough.
Darkness presses in, heavier than the ocean ever was.
His thoughts stutter, fragment–
Not dying a hero. Not that he ever thought he would die one.
He'll never be forgiven
He just hoped that–
Then everything went black.
Today had been, by all standards, a normal day for Clark Kent.
Up before sunrise, old habits from the farm die hard, coffee brewing while the sky was still more black than blue. A quick scan of the city, out of instinct more than anything else. Nothing unusual. That alone felt like a victory.
The Daily Planet was already buzzing by the time he got in. Phones ringing, keyboards clicking, the low hum of deadlines creeping closer.
Clark slipped into it easily, glasses on, shoulders a little hunched, doing his best to look like he belonged exactly where he was. Because he did.
He’d been halfway through editing an article, third draft, but still not quite right, when the familiar pull in the back of his mind sharpened.
A cry for help. Distant, but urgent.
He did not hesitate.
One second he was at his desk, the next he was gone, a blur no one had ever seemed to question.
It didn’t take long, it usually never really did, but by the time he was back, the coffee had gone cold and his notes were exactly where he’d left them.
Clark just sighed softly, a small smile tugging at his mouth as he picked up his pen again.
Some things never changed.
He wrapped up no earlier than usual, with no last-minute disasters, no sudden emergencies pulling him halfway across the world.
By five, he was heading home, the sun still hanging low and warm over the fields.
The quiet out here was different from the city. Softer. Familiar.
Before settling in, he made his usual rounds through the daily planet, saying his goodbyes to who was still there.
Which also included–
“Lois?” he called.
His wife peeked up at the mention of her name, smiling as she saw the man standing besides her.
“Already leaving?”
Clark smiled, one of his usual dork-ish smiles.
“Yeah, you know when you'll come after?”
“Seven,” she said. “If I get done with this in time, which I hope. “
Her husband's stupid smile made her return one at him.
“Alright,I'll tell the boys that, I'll make sure dinner's done by then.”
He leaned down just enough to press a quick kiss to her temple, lingering for half a second longer than necessary.
Both of which made Lois smile more than it should've after roughly 20 years of marriage.
The two say their goodbyes and Clark leaves her to her work, leaving the daily planet, saying bye to any co-worker he crosses parts with.
“Boys! I'm home!”
Clark calls, too loud for a house with superhumans in, but it had been a habit all three of them had, so no one complained. (And what if Tim was over again?)
Connor looked up from where he’d been sprawled on the couch, and it seemed that Tim wasn't here then, but the boys hoodie was wrapped around Connors waist, he looked up at his father figure.
“You’re early,” Kon said, like it was suspicious.
“Just ten minutes,” Clark replied, an easy smile on his face.
“Everything still standing?”
Kon glanced around, shrugged. “Mostly.”
“Good enough,” Clark said, like he meant it.
And then,
“Jon!”
That got a much faster response.
Probably because Jon liked being called individually.
Jon Kent appeared almost instantly, energy bright and impossible to miss. “Hey! Did you see that thing over Metropolis earlier? I saw it in School–”
“I handled it,” Clark said, smiling, steadying him with a hand on his shoulder. “Nothing to worry about.”
Jon studied him for a second, like he was checking for cracks, then nodded.
“Cool.”
Clark lingered there a moment, taking it in, the normalcy of it, the noise, the life.
It was a good day.
A quiet one.
And for Clark, that was always something worth appreciating.
“Well, your mother will come home rather late today, does one of you wanna help with dinner in an hour? “
Before either of the boys could answer, all three of them heard something, it was a hard to describe sound…
Almost shrill but also so unlike anything they'd ever heard before.. Making all of them flinch in surprise and sudden pain.
Just a few seconds after it seems like almost all the dogs near where the sound seemed to come from started to bark.
“You two stay here.”
Clark announces, and in the split of a second there's no longer Clark Kent standing in front of his sons, but Superman standing in front of two kids.
“But Dad! We can help!”
Jon basically whines, already grabbing his superboy suit that had apparently been discarded somewhere on the ground, Connor had already sat up properly looking at Clark.
“Yeah we ca–”
“Stay here, I will be right back. “
Clark interrupts Connor, before disappearing, leaving his older son looking annoyed, and his younger one pouting.
“We should go after him! “
Jon looks at Connor, holding his Superboy outfit in one fist, he looks like an angry toddler.
“.. We could. But I'd rather not have that lecture. “
“But we can help! And I bet Da–“
“ If you're going, I'm stealing your desert for a week.And Clark can't even say anything about it. “
Jon's mouth goes wide open, staring at Connor with disbelief
“You wouldn't!–”
It was cold.
That's the first thing Simon noticed.
Which is weird cuz he was just drowning in warm blood.
The second thing he notices is the unimaginable pain in his left arm, or the lack thereof as he notices once he got to open his eyes.
Fuck.
He's lightheaded and can badly make out where he is, much less what his surroundings look like.
He still sees mostly red, and whatever else he sees is blurry as hell.
He finally looks down at his arm, only now fully realizing that it is, indeed, missing from just above the elbow.
It suddenly starts to dawn on him why exactly he's feeling dizzy, and why he's starting to feel colder.
In a panic, he tries to sit up, only to fall back down once he did, he's too dizzy for that. Fuck.
Simon looks around for anything to stop the bleeding from his arm, his right hand thrashing in the sand to grab something.
Anything.
Before realizing he had been wearing a belt.
Grabbing down to see if he is still weRing it he swiftly rips it off as fast as he can, wrapping it around his arm as best as he can with one hand and a mouth.
He gets it as tight as he can before the pain of it makes him pull away his right hand from the belt, bunching it up into a fist to convince himself to not yell.
It's not tight enough.
The belt is not tight enough.
Simon knows that.
He knows it very well. He's seen enough make-shift Turnaquits to know that he should get a stick, maybe a piece of fabric and tighten it till he's crying from the pain, but laying there he can barely move.
All he can do is shift onto his back looking up at the stary nig–
“Stars.. ”
There are stars.
Incredibly blurry stars that could very well be anything.
But Simon can see nothing but actual starts up there, in the sky.
Theres a sudden short breeze and what seemed to be a blur of motion in the sky.
Tears slip down Simons cheeks as he closes his eyes.
It took Clark all of a minute to get where he knew he’d find the origin of the loud noise.
While getting there he noticed that none of the citizens out seemed to have heard it. Maybe it had just been too high for them to pick up.
But Clark did.
He could hear it clearly now, along with something else.
A heartbeat.
Panicked at first. Rushing. Then slowing down the closer he got, like something was running out of time.
He lands only a few feet away from what seems to be a boy.
Teenager, maybe.
It takes him a second.
Too much blood.
That’s the first thing that properly registers. Not where it is, not how bad it is. Just that there is too much of it for one body.
The smell hits him after that.
Normal. Human. That’s what makes it worse.
Clark moves closer quickly.
The boy is barely conscious, if he even is at all. Eyes half-lidded, body slack, but not fully gone. Still there. Still hanging on.
His left arm is missing.
There’s a belt wrapped just above where it used to be. Tight, messy, wrong. Like someone ran out of time or hands or both.
Clark doesn’t think before he’s already kneeling.
He removes the belt.
Blood comes with iit
Heat vision flickers on before he fully decides to use it.
Quick. Controlled. Precise.
The bleeding stops.
The boy doesn’t react.
Clark exhales once through his nose.
“You’re okay, buddy,” he says quietly. “I’ve got you.”
It sounds like it’s meant for the boy.
It isn’t.
Something on the boy’s cheek catches his attention next.
Hard. Not skin.
Clark touches it briefly, then pulls back.
Wrong.
He doesn’t know why, but it is.
His vision shifts without him really thinking about it.
X-ray.
The boy’s body shows him what he needs to know. Enough to confirm he won’t die in the next few minutes.
And enough to confuse him.
There are things there that don’t belong.
Clark doesn’t stare at them long.
He’s learned not to stare at things that don’t immediately matter.
The boy is too light when he lifts him.
Too light for someone his age.
The logical thing would be a hospital.
Or a doctor.
Or anyone with actual equipment.
But Clark is already moving before the thought finishes forming properly.
Because something about this doesn’t feel finished yet.
And he’s not leaving him here to find out what that means.
When Simon woke up again he was gasping for air–and it actually reached his lungs.
He couldn't exactly open his eyes at the moment, for reasons he wasn't yet able to identify.
But he could breath.
He could not even move his body, which after a while left him gasping for another reason.
Pure panic.
And maybe confusion?
But it didn't take long for Simons awareness to dissapear again, it wasn't as much falling asleep as it was passing out.
The next time Simon woke up his eyes obeyed him, somewhat at least.
They opened if only millimeters, looking around as best as he could he saw that wherever it was, it was incredibly blurry..
Had he died?
He must've..
But if you die you don't wake up in… a cave? Is this a cave?
Simon had never seen an actual cave as it was on earth, but he's seen drawing of them all over Eden. In almost every nature book there was a depiction of a cave, Simon often skipped those as he didn't think of them as interesting. But it seems those brief glances did come in handy now.
He closes his eyes again, noticing only after a few minutes and he can slowly start to hear voices, did he not pick that up earlier? Is his hearing only now coming back?
Simon decides to listen for now, who knows who these people are, or what they want from him.
“–old you. He's not in any system! Nothing.
Nowhere."
Someone said, it was hard to make it out, but it sounded like a teenage boy maybe? His voice was smooth, nothing like the rough voices you heard all over Eden.
“Nothing? That's impossible! “
Another, maybe older voice said, Simon could practically hear the disbelief in the man's voice.
“Where did you say you found him, Clark?”
A different voice said, noticeably older and deeper, rather rough–just the voice you'd expect from the old men in Eden, trying to tell you about earth, while both of you had never seen it.
But this one also sounded so fake.
“On the coast in Metropolis! He did seem to have come out of nowhere Tim”
The youngest voice–Tim?–lets out what sounds like a sigh of a mix of victory and exhaustion as the seemingly older man told him that.
This man has a kind voice, which freaks Simon out to no end.
“There was a loud and shrill noise, startling me and the boys, when I went after it I found him, half dead lying just past the waves.
Before I got there he seemed to be panicking, but he must've lost consciousness shortly before I got there”
The nice voice explains, making a shiver run down Simon's back.
This man had found him?
“Master Bruce, it appears our guest is awake. “
An old voice says, the statement making Simon flinch and rip open his eyes.
Staring up at an old man in formal clothes–way more formal than anything Simon had ever been allowed to even touch.
Hes wearing white gloves, stained almost completely with some blood–was that Simons?
Simon didn't even wanna think about how'd he repay only those gloves.
Simon looked up into the man's face, he had a prominent face with deep blue eyes, the man also seemed to be balding.
But before Simon can stare at the man in front of him for too long he closes his eyes again briefly, he can breathe. He can actually breathe..
Simon sunk into the feeling for a while, he notices his mouth seems to be open widely so he goes to close it–
He can't. Why can't he?
Simon opens his eyes again, he squits down to look at his mouth as best as he can, he sees… something. In it.
Now he's panicking again. He hears the voices say something again he isn't focusing on. Trying to sit up isn't working, so he turns to the side, barely getting his right arm up, his left doesn't seem to be responding.
Finding the invading thing in his mouth he takes grasp of it.
He hears something that vaguely sounds like a warning right before he pulls–!
Whatever was in his mouth wasn't just there, but it went down pretty fucking deep.
Pulling it out leaves Simon in immediate pain. Causing him to cough so hard, he's shifted further onto his side as one of the men talks to him, but Simon doesn't hear it over his own coughing.
It feels like he'd been coughing for minutes when he opens his eyes, everything is still blurry, but now that he stopped coughing something has been put over his mouth, allowing him to breathe more easily.. As long as it isn't inside of him Simon doesn't bother to try to do anything about it.
Now that he can breathe he can taste metal. Had he coughed up blood? It would make sense.
He looks at the sheets, and indeed is able to make out something red that he doesn't think was there before on the impossible white he was laying on.
“–internal bleeding!”
The man with the deep voice practically yells, sounding irritated, maybe even panicked, tho Simon is just happy his ears are starting to work again.
The man who had been touching him let's go of his shoulder, Turing to words where Simon assumes the other is standing
“He did not when I checked Batman.”
Bat.. Bat what? A bat.. What was a bat agai–
The old man was closer than Simons remembered. He must've been the one putting on that mask on Simon.
“.. Ndo… blledin… breth.. Bld… “
Simon figured after the very first word that it was, almost, impossible to form any words. His throat was raw and felt swollen, what the Fuck did he pull out?
The old man in front of him stopped, so did the others in the room
“Pardon?”
The old man asked, but Simon didn't reply, he wasn't sure what that word was supposed to mean.
“Wanna repeat what you said? We couldn't make that out”
Another voice asked, it seems to be the guy who sounded so stunned a few moments ago.
Simon takes a few deep breaths. He probably should've said nothing.
“Bre..ath. Bld.. Bl–..Bloooood”
Simon repeats, trying his best to empathize each syllable, English was never his strong suit, why were they even speaking it?
he's sure he sounds stupid doing it. But it's better than them doing something with him.
“... You breathed in blood? “
The youngest voice (Tim?) asks, to which Simon lets out a weak nod.
Looking to where the voice came from, he couldn't clearly make out those people, but they all had seemingly black hair?
At least two of them did…
One looked like a black blob, the other two bloobs could only be differentiated by color, one being red, the other blue, and the fact that only the red one was sitting in front of something very bright.
The closer man in blue looked over at him again.
“Hey buddy, wanna tell us your name? We're having trouble figuring out who you are. “
The man says with presumingly a smile on his face.
Why is this man talking like Simon is a toddler?
But looking at the man Simon can't help to… almost feel comforted.
Maybe it's just the pain medication that must be in his system (he cannot feel any pain whatsoever, which Simons is happy, but confused about, pain medication is expensive, never used on criminals.)
And who's to say that this man won't do anything if Simon lies? After all, even if Simon did, they would figure out quickly who Simon is if they searched, yes?
The butcher isn't unheard of in many places after all.
“Sm.. “ he tries again “sm… on.. “
He sighs, annoyed.
But before he can even open his mouth again to repeat himself–
“Simon? What a wonderful name! Tell me, what's your last name? “
Simon stares up at the man, seemingly confused.
Only higher ups had last names, it was more of a privilege than anything else.
The man's smile turns a little right at the confusion on Simon's face.
Shit should he have lied?
The man is just about to open his mouth before the black blob steps forward, revealing a man dressed completely in black, even his face mostly so.
“Well, Simon.
Thank you for telling us. We will be.. Helping you back to sleep for now, so that your injuries can properly heal, yes? “
Before Simon can respond to the man with the raspy voice he feels something cold in his arm, looking down he sees something that seems to poke into his arm, connecting to a syringe the old man is holding, pushing something into it.
Huh.
Why does he feel so sleepy all of a sudden?