Chapter Text
Clark would like to begin by stating that he had no problem with Captain Marvel. As a matter of fact, he was actually quite fond of the guy. Sure, that… might not have been saying much, considering Clark made it his personal mission to get along with everyone he worked with, but it was the truth! Even after he’d pretty safely concluded that Marvel was not another Kryptonian (which, yeah, had been a bit disappointing, but it was okay), the man was still a great colleague, and an even better friend. After all, he was literally the only person Clark had ever met with whom he could have a proper, all out sparring match with, and it was just generally great to have someone around whose powers were so similar to his. Add that to Captain Marvel’s sunny, exuberant disposition, and of course Clark liked him!
That wasn’t to say he didn’t understand why some (okay, most) of his colleagues were bothered, though. As a general rule, everyone on the League was at least cordial with each other (kind of a necessity, considering what they did), but it was obvious to anyone looking that Captain Marvel didn’t exactly… fit in. His boisterousness and relentless positivity outshone even Clark’s by a significant degree, and he was just generally a bit… well, calling him ‘childish’ felt rude, but it was really the best descriptor. The good Captain was loud, expressive, bore all his emotions as clear as day, had a tendency to tell long, rambling, borderline nonsensical stories, and possessed an attention span short enough to rival that of the Flash- which was no easy feat.
And yet, in spite of the fact that Marvel was by far the most open of all of them (Clark had once politely smiled and nodded through a literal step by step recounting of every. single. bird the Captain had seen on his way to the Watchtower), he was, paradoxically, the one they had the least information about. Secret identities were an established and respected policy within the League, because of course they were, but most of them at least had some idea of who the others were, or at the very least a name- everyone except Captain Marvel.
Personally, Clark wasn’t all that bothered by this. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t interested, because of course he was- he was a reporter! Curiosity was in his blood!- but he generally tried to be very respectful of peoples’ privacy and personal boundaries. One thing his Ma and Pa had absolutely drilled into him from the time he could talk was the importance of being polite and minding your own business. Different people moved at difference paces, Ma had said. If you go pushin’ somebody too hard, they’re gonna jerk right back away from ya and they ain’t gonna wanna be your friend anymore.
[“Is that why we don’t like Miss Clara?” A six year old Clark had asked innocently. “‘Cause she asks too many questions?”
For some reason, Pa had seemed to find that funny, snorting loudly then hiding his face behind the newspaper when Ma glared at him. She’d turned back to Clark with a sigh, looking almost embarrassed before admitting that yes, that was why they didn’t like Miss Clara- because the woman was always up in everybody else’s business and had a mean habit of gossip. Also, she was a racist, but that was a conversation for later.]
Clark had asked, obviously. Even beyond curiosity, he’d figured it was just friendly to try and get to know your coworkers a bit better. Captain Marvel had been all too happy to talk about his favourite parts of Fawcett City (the park and the library), or what kinds of pizza he liked (pepperoni was a favourite, but so long as it had not touched vegetables, he loved it. He’d still eat the vegetable pizza, he just didn’t like it as much), or his favourite animal (they’re all great, but tigers are the best!), or any number of relatively mundane topics, but anything beyond that was apparently a no go. Once, Clark had tried asking about where he lived and Marvel- who wouldn’t know subtlety if it bit him on the bright red butt- had started fidgeting uncomfortably, abruptly changing the subject. Clark took the hint. If Marvel didn’t want to talk about his personal life, then that was fine. He would open up when he was ready.
The majority of his coworkers, however, didn’t exactly seem to share Clark’s sentiment on just letting it be. Dinah and Diana (yes, that did get confusing) were polite, but wary, while John and Shayera were just plain wary. Hal and Wally were known to grumble comments under their breath, sarcasm barely masking their genuine frustration, while Oliver had been known to just outright make pointed, snarky statements that frequently had Captain Marvel either laughing nervously or awkwardly excusing himself. And that was saying nothing of Bruce.
If Marvel’s secrecy annoyed the others, it infuriated Bruce. He hid it far better than his colleagues, but Clark knew Bruce well enough to tell that it was killing him. Honestly, it was kind of funny. He’d found himself having to resist the urge to laugh or smirk whenever his superhuman ears would pick up the sound of Bruce grinding his teeth in irritation, positively fuming over the giant, man-shaped blind spot in his otherwise impeccable data collection. It was a matter of pride for Bruce, Clark knew, but more than that, it was a matter of safety.
Bruce would never in this or any other cycle of the universe admit it, but Clark got the distinct sense that the man was… unhappy, with his status as one of the only “normal” human members of the League. Nearly every other member had some form of superhuman ability on their side, but Bruce had only his technology and his mind. Clark had never thought less of him for it- if anything, it only made him respect the man even more- but he knew it made Bruce more than a little paranoid.
This paranoia meant an intense focus on the strengths- and more importantly, weaknesses- of everyone around him. Clark would be lying if he said he hadn’t felt more than a little hurt when he’d discovered his supposed best friend had multiple elaborate plans on how to kill him, but over time, he’d come to accept that it really wasn’t personal. Bruce had plans on how to kill everyone. It was a safety precaution. The ability to anticipate and plan for any possible situation was what the Batman such a formidable force, after all, but it was also just how Bruce was. He never liked to talk much about his past, but they were close, and Clark knew that Bruce’s life had been full of tragedy, and it seemed the man had attempted to combat/cope with that by becoming perhaps a bit of a control freak. Nothing got under Bruce’s skin the way uncertainty did, so it was no surprise that the complete enigma that was Captain Marvel drove the Bat so insane.
Anyways, this was all just a very long, very rambling way of saying that- in contrast to many of his teammates- Clark had no problem with Captain Marvel.
In spite of this, he still found himself extremely surprised when, on a seemingly random late Thursday afternoon, his communicator began buzzing, its small screen lighting up to show he had a message from Captain Marvel.
At the time, Clark had been sitting at a small table in the back of his favourite coffee shop, hunched over his laptop, glaring in frustration at a blinking cursor on a blank white document and desperately trying to think of something- anything- to say about Lex Luthor’s new space program that wasn’t extremely rude, so the familiar buzz of his communicator had come as a welcome distraction. The sight of Marvel’s name had made him double take, his brain convinced he had to be reading it wrong, but no- that really was Captain Marvel messaging him.
That alone had been the first red flag: Marvel never used the communicators. At least, not anymore. When he’d first joined the League, he wouldn’t stop using the communicators, spamming the public line with poorly taken pictures of pigeons, bugs, plants, the sky, etc. It had rendered the line pretty much useless, burying actual important information beneath what must’ve been hundreds of photos, and this had gone on for about a day before Bruce had very sternly informed Marvel that the communicator was not for personal use, and that any further misuse would result in his communicator being confiscated, and extra hours on monitor duty.
Clark still remembered feeling terrible for Marvel after that. How a man with the power of the gods could look so much like a kicked puppy was a mystery, but Marvel had absolutely wilted under Bruce’s ire, hunching in on himself like he somehow thought he could make his massive, musclebound frame shrink away into the floor. He’d apologised profusely, his head down, voice quiet and slightly choked in a way that’d made Clark shoot a pleading look at Bruce to please just drop it. Thankfully, Bruce had indeed left it at that, and had made no attempts to stop the man when he’d quickly excused himself.
[With his superhuman hearing, Clark knew he’d heard crying coming from the direction Captain Marvel had bolted off to- the unmistakable hitched, gasping sound of someone desperately trying to muffle sobs- and it’d made his stomach drop. That had been his first big hint that there really was something… up, with Marvel. Sure, Bruce was scary as an alley full of shifting shadows when he wanted to be- even Clark dreaded having the infamous ‘Bat Glare’ turned on him- but crying was an… abnormal response, to say the least.
“Bruce, take it easy on him,” Clark had muttered softly, drifting close to stand by his friend’s side. “He didn’t mean any harm, and he’s new. Don’t go frightening him off on his second day.”
“If he can’t handle me, then he can’t handle the Justice League,” had been Bruce’s predictable reply, and Clark had just sighed, knowing there was no point pressing the issue further.
If he’d gone out of his way to be extra welcoming and friendly to Marvel once the man came back, then so be it. At least one of them had to be making this a place people actually wanted to work.]
It seemed Bruce’s reprimand had been a bit too effective, though, as ever since then, Captain Marvel hadn’t said so much as a single word over the communicator. He definitely still had it- Clark had seen him reading through messages before- but he never used it.
Until now.
Unease churning in his gut, Clark gingerly picked up the communicator, scanning his biometrics to unlock it and get a look at what Marvel had decided to break a roughly year long radio silence for.
“ o teplu bo poeers nref hrlp semd jelp pleade”
Clark blinked, brows furrowing as he read over the message again and again, baffled. Was that even English? He knew the Captain spoke a variety of other languages, so had he attempted to message Clark in one of them?
After a couple more read throughs, though, Clark realised with a sinking feeling that no, this wasn’t another language. It was English- specifically, English generated by someone who was either typing way too quickly, or wasn’t looking at what they were typing.
He took a careful look at his own keyboard, observing which keys were next to each other to try and work out the most likely ‘translation’ of the garbled message. He didn’t like what he came up with.
“No reply, no powers, need help, send help, please.”
Sure, maybe he was wrong. Maybe Captain Marvel had just accidentally butt dialled him, or had dropped the communicator, or had a cat which had walked across the screen, but Clark couldn’t bring himself to believe it. This disbelief was only solidified by the way his communicator vibrated again, this time revealing that a location had been shared with him.
Captain Marvel was in trouble.
As quickly as he could without causing too much of a scene, Clark packed his things up, nodding and smiling in acknowledgement to the barista (Katie, her nametag said- he always made a point to learn peoples’ names) before rushing out of the cafe, searching for somewhere he could change.
He planned on heading to Fawcett City immediately, but he wasn’t an idiot. He knew Captain Marvel was incredibly powerful, so anything that had him apparently on the ropes like this was bad news. He also knew that Marvel’s powers were derived from magic, and that, if he’d translated the message correctly, said powers had been disrupted, which meant that, more than likely, there was magic involved here- a fact which had Clark grimacing as he hurried his way through the streets of Metropolis. He hated when magic was involved. It was one of his very, very few major weaknesses, and there was virtually nothing he could do to counter it.
(Well, it wasn’t so much a weakness as it was just something he didn’t have any resistance to, but when you had resistance to almost everything, a sudden lack of said resistance sure as hell felt like a weakness)
It was with that precaution in mind that he shot off a quick message of his own.
“Marvel needs help. Headed there now but need backup. Magic likely.”
Normally, when the mystical arts were in the picture, he’d try to get in touch with Zatanna or- if he was really desperate- Doctor Fate, but he knew neither of them were an option right now. Fate was… unavailable, off doing whatever it was they did when not actively in a fight, and Zatanna was currently in Madhya Pradesh looking into supposedly magical artefacts that’d popped up in the black market. So, with the magic users out of the picture, that just left-
“Suiting up,” came Bruce’s almost immediate reply, and, in spite of the tension, Clark felt himself smile. It felt good, to have someone so quick to come to his aid, no questions asked. Of course, he knew there would be questions the second both of them were ready, but that was hardly the point.
He made full use of his super speed to change, then kept using that same speed to go drop his stuff at his apartment before taking flight, breaking the sound barrier as he rushed toward Fawcett, passing over Gotham as he went. He knew Bruce had access to the zeta tubes from his lair (because it was totally a lair, no matter what Bruce said), so he didn’t bother stopping. Besides, it wasn’t as if he could’ve carried Bruce with him at the speed he was flying- not safely, at least.
Fawcett City was as bright and pleasant as always, its skyline much shorter than the towering, modern constructions of both Gotham and Metropolis. The place always seemed… frozen, somehow, as if the entire city had just woken up one day in the fifties or sixties and decided that yes; this was it- this was the look they’d be going with. Clark found it charming. Bruce found it ‘unnerving’.
He’d long since memorised the main zeta tube locations in each of the major cities, so Clark swooped down toward the abandoned phone booth (a phone booth! They still had phone booths here!) in the alley on 14th street where he knew Bruce would emerge. He perched atop the roof of one of the buildings overlooking the site, hovering in place, his restless energy not letting his feet settle on the ground for longer than a few seconds at a time. He checked his communicator again, nerves only increasing as he noticed that Captain Marvel’s location hadn’t changed in the slightest since he’d last looked.
The quiet hum of zeta energy had Clark snapping his head back up, watching keenly as Bruce stepped out from the disguised tube entrance in full Batman attire, the gloomy getup of Gotham’s greatest hero looking decidedly out of place in Fawcett.
“What’s the situation?” Bruce asked, not looking surprised in the slightest as Clark floated down to him.
“Not sure,” Clark answered truthfully, tapping his communicator to share the location data Marvel had sent him with Bruce, as well. “Got a really rushed SOS message from the Captain, followed by him sharing his coordinates. Nothing since then, and from the look of it, he hasn’t moved.”
They made their way quickly to the place Marvel’s message had indicated- Clark flying and Bruce racing across the rooftops with the grace of a creature born to do so. It would’ve been faster if Clark had just carried Bruce, but he knew there was absolutely no way that was happening, so he didn’t bring it up, instead just reading out his interpretation of what Marvel’s message had been.
“‘No reply’,” Bruce mused, his face beneath the cowl shifting to what Clark had dubbed ‘detective mode’. “There was someone with him, then- someone he didn’t want to tip off about his communications.”
“Most likely,” Clark agreed, scanning the streets below like a hawk as they went, looking for any signs of trouble. “If I had to guess, I’d say he was typing behind his back or without looking somehow- probably why it was barely legible.”
Bruce grunted in the affirmative, gliding smoothly down to street level as they both stopped, apparently right atop the spot where Captain Marvel’s communicator said he would be. Clark spotted it only a half second later, lying on the asphalt, its screen cracked and smashed to the point of powder in some places. Someone had to have broken it on purpose, then- those communicators were designed to withstand being dropped from fifteen or so feet onto solid concrete. There were faint scorch marks on the ground and walls of the alley.
Captain Marvel was nowhere to be seen.
“Split up,” Bruce commanded, his eyes having found the broken communicator practically the same instant Clark’s had. “Keep in contact. Look for any signs of struggle. Marvel isn’t known for being subtle, and neither are his villains.”
Clark nodded, having already had much the same thought, and broke off from Bruce, paying keen attention to his surroundings.
He hadn’t made it more than about a block away when a noise caught his attention. It was something no human would’ve been able to hear, but there, in a building a few doors down from him, Clark could swear he heard soft, muffled sobbing.
That by itself wasn’t necessarily unusual- especially since the crying voice sounded like that of a child. Kids cried all the time. What was unusual was the low, raspy male voice he could hear from the same location.
“I tried to play nice,” the adult’s voice said darkly, the tone bitter and taunting and unmistakably dangerous. “But you refused to make it easy for me. Now look what I have to do.”
The child’s sobs morphed into a muffled scream- like the sort you might hear from someone whose mouth was covered- before melting back into redoubled tears.
Clark was already moving. His blood felt an odd combination frozen cold and boiling hot, his thumb slamming into his communicator to send the “trouble” signal to Bruce with enough force to fracture the screen. He didn’t care. The rational part of his brain (the part that sounded an awful lot like Bruce) was hissing that Captain Marvel was still missing, and that there was magic afoot, so he needed to be careful, but the choked, desperate sound of a child crying drowned it all out.
Marvel would understand. Hell, from what Clark knew of the man, he was pretty sure the good Captain would zap him into the sun if he ignored a situation like this for his sake, and Clark wouldn’t have it any other way.
The building Clark went rushing toward looked to be a recreation centre of some sort- one that was closed for maintenance, if the sign Clark barged through was any indication. Stealth had never been his strong suit, but the Bruce Voice’s growling was loud enough to convince him to not run in guns blazing- at least, not yet. He didn’t know the situation yet, and the last thing he wanted to do was get someone hurt by acting recklessly.
He strained his eyes, shifting his vision to x-ray. He didn’t use this ability of his too often- too many privacy concerns and off colour jokes from his teammates about said privacy concerns- but he could think of no better situation to justify it. Through the wall in front of him, he saw the figure of an adult man perched atop the bound, squirming figure of a (very) small child. There was something long and thin in the adult’s hand, digging into the flesh of the child beneath him.
“If you don’t quit squirming, it’s only going to be-” the man was saying, but it would be left a mystery how that sentence was meant to be concluded, because Clark had decided that was far more than enough of that. The locked metal doors that stood between the entryway and the gym proper may as well have been wet tissue paper for all they impeded Clark’s progress, and he was upon the two figures in a fraction of a second. He gripped the adult firmly (but not too firmly- he didn’t condone murder) by the back of the neck, ripping him up and away from the child he was terrorising. The smell of blood was nauseatingly powerful, and yes, maybe he was grabbing this man hard enough to cause some damage.
“What- Underoos?!” The adult man exclaimed, and it was with no small amount of surprise that Clark realised he recognised this man. Dr Sivana, if he remembered correctly- one of Captain Marvel’s most persistent enemies. He’d only ever seen the bald, scarred man in passing before, and knew little about him beyond what Captain Marvel had complained about. In his mind, Clark had categorised Sivana as being just “less sane Lex Luthor”, but it seemed he might have to reevaluate that description, because even Luthor wouldn’t-
A sharp, stinging pain lit up in Clark’s side and he hissed, instinctively dropping Dr Sivana, who’d apparently just jabbed an odd, sparking device into his ribs. The jolt felt like magic- thankfully too weak to fully incapacitate him the way magic unfortunately could, but enough to hurt. Actual pain was always something of a shock to a man who’d so rarely experienced it, and though he’d thankfully long since overcome the panic response it’d used to trigger, the device digging into his side still made something in his chest tighten. He knew it’d heal shortly- as he’d noted, the magic felt weaker, dulled somehow- but it was immensely unpleasant, and did not improve his feelings toward the old doctor.
“I thought I smashed that stupid doohickey,” Dr Sivana grumbled, seemingly speaking more to himself than to Clark. At their feet, a soft, pained whine had Clark’s attention snapping to the kid lying on the ground. His stomach churned.
The child was a boy, if he had to guess, with messy black hair and skin that was growing paler by the second. There was some kind of thick, black tape over his mouth, and the same substance was wrapped tight around his wrists, binding them together. His clothes were thin and filthy, blackened in places, the red fabric of his hoodie pushed up to reveal a bone thin torso that was covered in too many bruises and scratches to count, as well as a nasty burn and… gashes, carved deep and ugly into his too flat stomach. There was too much blood to see anything clearly, gushing like some horrible crimson fountain out from a body that seemed far too small to possibly contain that much.
The boy’s eyes were deep blue and fluttering, glassy in the way that indicated he was fighting tooth and nail to remain conscious. His unfocused gaze met Clark’s, the expression behind them frightened and despairing, and Clark knew that look. He’d seen it before in the eyes of civilians crushed by rubble, who’d lost feeling they knew they should’ve had. In people hit by bullets or run through by debris, watching the blood leave their bodies in amounts they knew were too great to be safe. In far, far too many people for whom even he hadn’t been fast enough.
It was the look of someone who knew they were about to die.
The sound of glass shattering and a loud bark of pain from Sivana told Clark that Bruce had finally arrived, but he didn’t look up. He’d dropped to his knees at the boy’s side, one hand trying to staunch the bleeding on his gut while the other gently tore away the tape binding him. A dark shape filled the corner of his eye, black gloved hands joining his in gently trying to cover the wound.
“Too much blood,” Bruce grunted. “Doesn’t look arterial, but the cuts are deep. I need you to lift him.”
Clark didn’t ask any questions, moving quickly to the boy’s other side and gently- very gently- scooping his arms under the (now unconscious- apparently the battle had been lost) child’s torso and legs, lifting him carefully into the air. He could feel bone clear as day, nothing but skin protecting it, and he knew right away that even without super strength, the boy would’ve weighed nothing. Once he was in the air, the child’s head flopped weightlessly down, his neck too weak to hold it up. It was like holding a doll. Or a corpse.
Bruce was already in motion, pulling a thick roll of gauze out from one of the many pouches on his belt and wrapping it tightly around the kid’s stomach in swift, practised movements. Over his shoulder, Clark could see the unmoving form of Dr Sivana, wrapped tightly in steel cord. His face was bloodied, his jaw hanging open at an unnatural angle, and normally, Clark would’ve disapproved of the violence Bruce had used to take the old doctor down, but right now, cradling the body of a grievously injured little kid, he found he didn’t much mind.
“Contacted the police,” Bruce said shortly, now on his third layer of gauze. The red just kept seeping through. “They’ll be here for Sivana soon.” At his hip, his communicator buzzed, and his jaw twitched, clearly unhappy about having to divide his attention. He still checked, though, and looked relieved to see the actual message. “That’s Leslie. She’s on her way to the cave. We need to move him.”
Bruce was always a rather terse, gruff individual, but not quite to this extent. His posture was so tense Clark could swear he heard the muscle fibres straining, and indeed, he could hear the man’s heart hammering at a frantic rate.
It took him embarrassingly long, but once he figured it out, Clark felt awful.
An isolated room. A villain. A young boy with black hair and blue eyes dying on the cold, hard ground, alone and afraid and about to meet a brutal end.
“Bruce-” Clark began, but his friend just shook his head sharply.
“Not now,” Bruce snapped, then sighed heavily, his next words coming out much softer. “Please, just… not now.”
Clark didn’t need to be told twice. He just nodded solemnly, more than willing to give Bruce however much space he needed right now.
[Clark hadn’t been there when Jason died- hadn’t been there when Bruce found his son’s brutalised corpse splayed out like a gift, a taunt- but he had been there after. He’d been there at the funeral, been there at the manor, been there to see the usually chipper Nightwing turned grim and solemn, been there to see Bruce…
The first few days after the funeral, it was like Bruce had never left, like his soul had curled up in the casket beside his son and the thing wandering around the manor was just the shell left behind. He didn’t shower, didn’t shave, barely dressed himself. Poor Alfred, more dishevelled than Clark had ever seen him, practically had to force feed him. His eyes were glazed over, and he didn’t say a word.
He’d done an abrupt one-eighty after that, going from completely despondent to downright obsessive. He still refused to take care of himself, barely ate, barely spoke, but rather than just staring blankly at the walls, he was hunched over his computer, or furiously fidgeting with his gadgets, or tearing through the streets of Gotham like a bloodthirsty machine.
For a while there, Clark had honestly worried-]
“We need to move him,” Bruce repeated brusquely, snapping Clark from his dark reverie. “Leslie’s back in Gotham. The tube is only about two blocks from here. Can you get him there without jostling him too badly?”
“...Marvel is still missing,” Clark reminded him quietly. “One of us should stay to look for him. I doubt it’s a coincidence that Sivana’s here- he must’ve had something to do with this.”
The way Bruce’s heart skipped, his jaw clenched, his fists tightened, all told Clark that he did not want to let the kid out of his sight. Honestly, neither did Clark, but…
“I can stay,” he offered, giving Bruce a soft, sad look. “I’m the one who can fly, after all. That’ll make it easier to scout. Do you think you can take him?”
“Yes,” Bruce answered quickly, holding his arms out. Clark very slowly, carefully passed the boy over, setting him gently into his friend’s arms. Bruce was quick to tuck the child in close to his chest. Externally, he was as stoic as ever, but Clark could hear his breaths coming in tight, slightly shaky. Bruce didn’t even protest when Clark very carefully picked up the both of them and flew them the short distance to the zeta tube.
“Thank you,” Bruce said softly, nodding stiffly.
“Of course,” Clark replied. “I’ll tell the authorities what I know and keep an eye out for Captain Marvel. Just… keep me posted.”
Bruce nodded again, already making his way into the zeta tube. Clark watched, waiting until both forms were swallowed by the light before sighing, taking flight and heading out to make good on his word.