aftermath

ten

XI. escape

Kal-El can't breathe. Something has shattered before his eyes, a shard of translucent glass fragmenting into thousands of dull pieces.

As the video continues mercilessly, he shuts off the controls, and it's only the Fortress's reinforced materials that prevent him from ripping clean through the expensive technology. Otherwise, he would've crumpled the screen like paper between his fingers.

Why didn't you-

-tell me?" His arms dangle at his sides, head hung low in a sign of submission. Something in him feels filthy, dirty. Something, someone just like him- defiled Bruce. Hurt him. Took something irreplaceable from him.

"Because I knew you would blame yourself for something that wasn't even your fault." Batman doesn't turn away from his computers. The harsh light of the monitors glare down at him, in the empty silence of the Cave. "Clark, I told you not to watch it."

"He- It wasn't- I should've been there. There should be emergency controls in the quarters, or something, I should've-"

"Should've what?" The voice is gruff and curt. "You were saving people halfway across the world, most likely. The other members were occupied. This was an infiltration. Someone is targeting us."

"Are you angry?" He's quiet.

"That you watched it? Quite." Bruce taps something on the screen, and his gauntleted hands curl into fists. "You need to understand, Clark. The way that thing... violated me, it- disgusted me. It's shameful. I was weak enough to let it, and I'm still weak so as to be unnerved around you."

"You're not  weak."

My biggest fear is being feared by the people I love. He meant it as a brotherly love, a love for his partner in crime. Nothing more.

Batman takes off his cowl and turns around in his chair. Superman, previously staring at the floor, is now looking up, a fierce light in his eyes. It grows brighter at the sight of Bruce's mottled face. "What can I do?" Kal-El says, spreading his hands wide. "I'll do anything to help... I'll stay away, if that's what you want. I'll..."

"Don't do anything. It's my own problem." Bruce sits there, armored up, gray-blue eyes piercing. The familiar blaze is in those eyes, but there's a certain vulnerability to them. Clark wants nothing more than to touch him, comfort him, love him...

And he thinks of the incident. No. Bruce, love him? After he- he-

"The only way you can help me, is if you catch the thing that did this, and find out its plan. As of right now, the League is in danger." Bruce pulls the cowl back down, turning around. "Get some rest."

"You too," Clark wants to say, but he can only nod numbly and leave.

It all makes sense now, to Clark. Why Bruce has jumped from his touch. Why he wouldn't allow him to x-ray his body. Why the sight of his power, and the destruction he causes, makes him grimace. Why he's wary and on-edge.

He holds fear for him.

Signs of a concussion. Two broken ribs. Lacerations across the collarbone. Fractured femur. A recently dislocated shoulder.

And bruises. Lots of bruises. Splattered across the inner thighs, the back, his arms, one particularly prominent one on his face. Just above the edge of the cowl. Cuts. Gashes. Bones on the verge of breaking.

Superman puts his face in his hands. And when Bruce shouted, so deadly, so calmly, "Not you"- did that mean... could it mean-

No. Denial. Never.

Kal-El rises, disgusted with himself. He rises into the sky. Passerby underneath him stop and stare. "It's Superman! Hey, look, it's Superman!"

The insigma on his chest feels like a broken scar. His cape, a hideous flaw. He flies up, up into the air, where the clouds circle him like swans in flight and the air gets thinner.

"...Wasn't your fault," Bruce had said. He knows it isn't. It can't be. That monster wasn't Clark, he was a creature with the same powers, the same face, the same costume...

He feels like it's his fault. He feels like he personally locked the Watchtower, trapped Batman, and raped him.

"Rape," he whispers to himself, a heavy word on his tongue. It sounds surreal.

He wasn't the one who attacked Bruce.

He wasn't-

He shoots up with a sudden burst of speed, with a sonic boom, heading towards the great abyss of outer space. Anything to get away.