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In Darkness Do Not Follow Me
By Fortuita
"...and in breaking news, the annual Metropolis communications expo has been bombed, leaving hundreds injured and four dead. Evidence links the bomber to the software company Copti. It has been suggested by a police source that the devastating act was the work of disgruntled former employee Dr Martin Sturgiss, whose whereabouts are currently unknown. The collapse of the Copti display took the lives of Dr Caroline Perth, Frederick Burns, Lois Lane and...
The rest of the broadcast was lost as Bruce Wayne sprang instantly into action. Quickly reaching the Bat Cave and changing into the suit, he was flying before he hit the comm system.
"Alfred."
"Master Bruce?"
"I have to go out of town. Metropolis, Kansas...I'm not sure. I'll try to let you know. Notify Robin."
He snapped off the link, and pushed the light plane just a little faster.
As he flew, he scanned automatically through all the news services, trying to find any mention of Superman. Finally he heard something which made some of the tension run from his shoulders.
"Good," he muttered, as the report continued.
Superman located Mr Sturgiss earlier in the evening, and dropped him off at the Metropolis Central Police Dept. before disappearing without comment. Superman was a close friend of Sturgiss' most well known victim, Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane...
Bruce allowed the radio scanner to keep cycling through, but there was no more recent mention of Superman making an appearance.
The radio was a low background hum; his computer automatically weeded out all reports that didn't mention Superman. He turned it off when he landed in a field in Kansas.
Jonathan and Martha Kent were standing a few centimetres away from each other, looking stricken. When Bruce approached, she dropped the tentative hand that had rested on her husband's shoulder and turned to face him.
She had squared up, and Bruce realised belatedly that she didn't know who he was. When he was a metre away, he stopped, and she looked up at him, trying to appear unafraid. For this meeting, he didn't need his intimidating persona, and didn't want it.
After a moment's hesitation, he pulled his cowl over his head and looked the Kents in the eye.
Martha spoke up. "Who are you and what do you want?"
It was a strangely impolite greeting for the woman, but Bruce's expression softened. She was obviously in pain. He made a quick decision.
"My name is Bruce Wayne, and I need to see Clark. I know he's been here," he waved a hand at the two of them on the porch, smiling grimly, "and it's very important."
"Bruce...Wayne?" she repeated, carefully. "From Waynetech?" There was a pause, and he nodded.
"And...?" she questioned, thinking maybe she knew the answer.
He paused for a moment, finally giving confirmation with an almost silent "Batman."
"Clark's still here, Bruce, but I don't know if you should see him." Jonathan waited expectantly, certain that the confident man before him would respond strongly.
Bruce smiled bleakly. He'd hoped he wouldn't have to convince them to let him in. With a slow voice, he said to Superman's parents, "Can you imagine a world without a Superman?"
They looked at him for a long minute, before Jonathan started to protest. "Clark will be okay..." but Bruce cut him off.
"No, Mr Kent. Clark won't be okay. Clark will never be okay again. Can you imagine Clark without Lois? Can you remember Clark without Lois?"
"Oh," it was an involuntary gasp. "He was so lost, so..." Martha trailed off.
Jonathan finished for her. "He was so frustrated."
"He can do what he must now," Bruce assured, before inexorably pushing his point, "But do you think he will?"
Mutely, Martha stepped aside, pulling Jonathan with her, and gestured for him to enter. He did, silently, leaving behind two lost parents.
"Clark?"
The form sitting lotus-style in one dark corner didn't move. Bruce recognised the meditative trance and sat opposite, a skewed mirror image.
Removing gloves and upper body armour, Bruce settled his hands on Clark's knees. Vigilant, as ever.
At one point, he sensed the Kents' presence. They were silent in the doorway. Doubtless wondering about the dark-haired man who guarded and regarded their son. Someone strange, their whole knowledge coming only from whispers and fractured urban myth. And maybe the slightest fragment let slip by their rarely silent smiling boy.
Gone.
That boy was gone. Clark finally opened his eyes, but it was the pain-filled and guilt-ridden look of Superman. Part of him clenched, another part, more ruthless, was relieved.
Superman was still here. He would stand sentinel, his city and world in the tenderest care. There would be no blame and vengeance, no shining white knight turning to the darkness.
Batman could rest easy. Bruce couldn't turn around and face the Kents. Bruce couldn't leave Clark like this.
"Why are you here?" The impersonally curious question. Superman saw only and obstacle, one more step leading back to his responsibility. "Something you need me to do?" It was deadpan, emotionless, waiting calmly for the answer so action could be taken.
"No. You know why."
A hint of grief bordered his determination.
"What can you say, Bruce? Did anyone ever say anything to you? Anything that helped?"
Bruce couldn't answer that.
"Don't. You can't save everyone." Bruce observed.
Superman still held his gaze, though compassion and uncertainty battered at his emotions. Bruce abandoned caution. He had to reach Clark.
"The world can live without that kind of Superman. I wouldn't want to live in a world that destroyed Clark Kent."
The harsh facade finally crumbled. Though a wistful smile graced his lips, there was bleakness in Clark's eyes. It was a Bruce had seen too many times in his own.
In a strange echo of Bruce's earlier words, Clark said, "Can you imagine Clark Kent without Lois Lane? I can't...any more."
Bruce wanted to shut his eyes, close out the pain. Keep the pain inside. But it was too late.
"You have other partners, friends. People waiting for you. The world will be darker, I know, but it's still a world worth loving."
Clark's hands clamped down over Bruce's. "I can't see...I need," his eyes were wild, his body shaking.
Bruce inched closer, meeting his eyes directly.
"Anything," he promised.
Contact. Clark reeled him in with all the desperation of the recently bereaved.
Bruce responded with equal violence, their bodies crashing together as he locked his thighs around Clark's waist.
Clark, instincts deeply embedded, lightened his touch and let Bruce take the lead. Even in his distress, he was unable to accidentally injure.
Clark gripped Bruce's shoulders as he felt hands roaming roughly over his back. His head fell back and Bruce mouthed his neck, teeth grazing over banded tendons.
His dazed eye took in the living room, and a final coherent thought was the impetus for him to fly them both swiftly to his bedroom.
With a pained glance for the bed he'd shared with Lois, he deposited a quiescent Bruce on the rug.
Bruce swiftly resumed his assault. With practised movements he simultaneously stripped and inflamed them both.
Clark let himself be distracted, gave up control. His body sang its appreciation of connection under his partner's skilled fingers.
He felt Bruce part his thighs, his body sliding down over Bruce's legs. Then he was flipped over, submitting to the swift preparation and entry. This...this was what he needed. Part of it.
He felt a mingling of relief and regret for the pain a human would have felt at that penetration, but gave his senses over to the sensations that he could feel.
Bruce moved very little, their joining difficult. He concentrated on Clark's body. He knew that racked by sorrow and exhaustion as Clark was, dragging things out could only be a punishment.
He ran sure fingers over turgid sensitised flesh, bending to lick across the collarbone. Clark, completely unresisting, succumbed to the restrained movements of Bruce's cock and the harder, urgent movements of his hands. He arched on the unforgiving hardness of the floor, his orgasm ripped from him and ringing in every cell. As his mind gave over to fatigue and emptiness, he felt the rasping thrusts of his partner's completion.
Bruce cleaned both Clark and himself carefully. He wrapped Clark in the duvet from his bed, and folded his clothes. He sat beside the sleeping figure for several minutes.
Finally, he reclothed himself in forbidding black. Standing in the shadows by the door, he glanced a final time at Superman. At Clark Kent. The amber rays of sunset lent colour to a ravaged face, and he slept easily in a place that felt almost like home.
Batman trod just a little more heavily than usual on the way back to his plane.
The End