The Wolf and the Star

by Mithen

Summary:

taro_twist's prompt: "Clark is just out of college, has yet to become Superman, and is traveling the world (sort of like in Birthright, where he's doing freelance reporting, although you can make up another reason for him to be running around as well, like saving people anonymously). While traveling, he runs into a young Bruce Wayne (from the Batman Begins-verse) while Bruce is also traveling the world and trying to understand the criminal underworld by working as a criminal. Misunderstandings ensue, but what they lead to is your choice."

Kandahar, Afghanistan, July 1994

Clark Kent was elbow-deep in bread dough. The first rays of morning sun slanted through the windows and onto the counters that he was stretching and pounding the dough on. The room smelled of yeast and sunlight, and the dough felt good between his fingers—elastic and alive. There was something magical about making bread, he thought as the lump beneath his hands became glossy and smooth. Making something from nothing, making a substance that rises and nourishes, warms and sustains.

The gunfire in the streets that had kept him awake at night, the gathering sense of anxiety and immanent disaster, backed away for a moment to give him space to relax and make something that could give life.

He found himself humming to the rhythm of his hands' motion, then singing to himself. This thing called love, I just can't handle it...this thing called love, I must get round to it...I ain't ready...

{Is that one of those decadent Western songs?} asked a wry voice from the door leading from the shop to the house. Zoya Zahir, her black hair tucked neatly under a scarf, entered the bakery, looking approvingly at the work Clark had done.

{It's Queen. And yes, it's pretty decadent.} Clark started to divide the dough and shape it into ovals. Zoya came over to help.

{Well, be careful. I'm in enough trouble for letting a foreign man rent out my guest apartment without having him sing the songs of the Great Satan.} The Afghan woman looked sidewise at Clark's chagrined face. {But it did have a nice rhythm,} she added with a smile.

Clark ducked his head uncomfortably. {I don't want to cause any trouble,} he said quietly.

For a while they kneaded and shaped dough in silence. Like so many small businesses in Afghanistan, there would be no husband rising to help with the work. Zoya was a widow, her husband killed in stray gunfire a year ago. She had taken in the strange, quiet foreigner to help cover expenses for her and her three children despite disapproving glances from the neighborhood leaders. He had little cash, but he was an extra aid around the store, and he taught the children English in return for learning their language.

{You've been such a help here, Clark,} she finally said softly. {And you've learned Dari so quickly and easily I feel like our bargain is unfair to you. But things...are going to get worse here. You know they are. It will be dangerous for you. For all of us.}

Clark felt a chill go down his spine despite the warm sunlight all around him. The whispered conversations he had overheard on the street had warned him, but this was the first time Zoya had referred to it openly: the inevitable fall of Kandahar to the Taliban. {Then I should go—}

{—It's too late for that now,} she cut him off briskly. {I'm already known as the crazy Western sympathizer. That won't change if you leave. Though you should, for your own sake.}

Clark didn't bother to answer that. {Will it go better for you if it's Balkhi than Jalal?} Clark named the two Taliban warlords who had recently gained control of nearby opposing towns. Both of them wanted Kandahar, one of the larger and wealthier cities of southern Afghanistan.

The woman next to him snorted and slapped the bread onto the counter contemptuously. {Balkhi, Jalal, it's all the same for us. No matter which one, the schools for girls will be shut down, there will be no more radio or television, no singing of "decadent Western songs." And no women allowed to run businesses without their husbands,} she added grimly.

{How will you get by?}

Zoya turned to a tray of dough that had finished rising. She brushed the soft ovals with melted butter and got them ready to put into the tandoor. Only after staring into the oven for some time did she say pensively, {I don't know, Clark. I don't know.}

Clark opened his mouth to reassure her somehow, but just then the door from the house flew open and three small forms tumbled into the bakery, shrieking. "Make stop, Clark! Make stop!" the middle child, Amena, yelled in English. Her older sister Meena continued to hold her favorite patchwork doll above her head. The toddler, Sediqa, followed after her siblings, her eyes wide.

{Meena,} said Clark sternly, {You're making your sister unhappy. And look at little Sediqa, you're frightening her.} He extracted the doll from Meena's chagrined hands and gave it back to Amena, who whacked her sister with it spitefully and stuck out her tongue before fleeing back into the house.

{Meena, watch the bread for me please,} said Zoya, and the girl went obediently to the oven, still blushing at Clark's rebuke. {Oh girls,} Zoya sighed as she and Clark went back to work. {What will become of them, Clark?}

{They seem like nice, bright, energetic kids to me.}

{Exactly.} Zoya's smile was sad. {What life will they have after the Taliban?}

Clark had heard enough about life under Taliban rule to have no good answer for his host. He hoisted a tray of warm nan above his head and took it outside to put on display for passers-by, piling up rolls and loaves into appealingly fragrant pyramids. Meena came outside to take money from the morning pedestrians in return for their breakfast as the street began to bustle. The avenue filled with the sounds of people speaking Dari and Pashto, haggling and talking...and muttering to each other about whether Balkhi or Jalal would take Kandahar first.

It happened so quickly and smoothly that perhaps only Clark's heightened senses could have noticed it in all the morning hubbub. A scruffy-looking man in a tattered coat walked by, and as he did, one of the loaves Clark and Zoya had worked on vanished. Clark gaped at the man's dark head retreating into the crowd, righteous fury filling him. He had stolen Zoya's bread!
He had stolen Clark's bread!

{Thief! Thief!} Clark yelled in Dari, and leapt after the man, who broke into a run, dodging through the market.

The thief was good, very good, but Clark was angry. He caught the man in a headlong, flying tackle, the two of them tumbling to the dusty ground. The bread went flying, and for a second Clark caught a glimpse of hungry desperation on the man's dirty face.

Clark caught his bread before it hit the dirt, still keeping a tight grip on the thief.

He shook the man angrily. {Zoya works hard to make that bread, to feed her children and give them a good life, and you have no right to take it from her! It's hard enough for her without common thieves stealing what she's made! How dare you? You should apologize! You should be ashamed of yourself!}

The man stared at him. "You talk like a girl," he said wryly.

In perfect English with just a hint of a Gotham accent.

Clark gaped. Belatedly he noticed that the eyes in the filthy, unshaven face were blue—a deep sapphire blue. "You're American?" A flash of white teeth on the other man, not quite a smile. "And...what do you mean, I talk like a girl?"

The man extracted his arm from Clark's grip, dusting off his clothes a little—a hopeless task. "You use the feminine forms when you speak. It makes you sound extremely effeminate."

Clark realized he was blushing and felt angry again. Since when did he become the person on the defensive here? "I'm studying with girls. They must not have thought to teach me masculine forms."

The man was eyeing the loaf of bread nestled in Clark's hand. "I was going to pay her back," he said, a touch sullenly. "I would have come back and repaid her, someday."

"Yeah, right. Just how naive do you think I am?" Clark snorted. The man's eyebrows twitched. "But I'll tell you what, I'll pay her for it and you can owe me."

The blue eyes narrowed. "And just what will I owe you?"

"A little conversation? I haven't gotten to talk to someone in English for a while. I'll buy you some coffee, we'll have coffee and bread together."

A long pause while the gaunt, dirty man in front of him considered. Clark realized he was holding his breath and inhaled carefully. He felt ridiculous, but it had been a long time since he'd been able to speak in his native language. And this man, ragged and poor as he seemed to be—his low, controlled voice and something about the way he carried himself indicated education and even intelligence.

Clark wanted to hear him talk some more.

Finally the man nodded slightly, and Clark stuck out his hand, relieved. "My name's Clark Kent."

The stranger shook his hand as they both stood up together. He hesitated. "I...don't want to lie to you."

"But you don't want to tell me your real name either." Clark smiled at the flash of chagrin on the other man's face. "No problem, I don't need to know your real name. I'll just call you Leewe."

The eyebrows shot upwards. "You know some Pashto as well? Impressive." Pashto was the other official language of Afghanistan, more common among people of the Pashtun ethnicity who made up much of the Taliban.

"Oh, just a few words or phrases here and there." Clark shrugged. He had been too busy perfecting his Dari—apparently his sissy Dari, he thought with a wince—to master Pashto as well yet.

"Why call me 'Wolf'?"

Clark looked at the man, the casually predatory way he moved, the feral glint under the calm azure eyes.

"It suits you."

:-:

Clark and the man he was calling Leewe sat and sipped thick, bitter coffee and ate the nan Clark had made. It was very good bread, Clark thought proudly. Not that Leewe seemed to notice; he devoured his half with an absent-minded intensity that spoke of real hunger. Clark looked at his mostly-uneaten half, ripped off most of it, and put it on the table in between them. Leewe ignored the gesture, but at some point in the conversation it disappeared as well.

The conversation mostly seemed to center around Clark; Leewe was obviously reluctant to discuss himself beyond "I've been traveling around. Seeing things. Doing things," which Clark suspected was all he'd get from him. Instead, he listened intently as Clark talked about arriving in Kandahar, meeting the Zahir family, making bread, and eventually his worries about Balkhi and Jalal and the Taliban's inevitable attack on the city.

"...and since Zoya won't be allowed to run the bakery under the Taliban's interpretation of Sharia law, she'll have to hand it over to her brother-in-law and hope he's willing to help. Which he won't be. And the girls will be so disappointed when the schools get closed down. I worry about them so much." Clark realized suddenly he was finishing his third cup of coffee and the sun was high in the sky. He had enjoyed talking in English so much he had lost track of time. He felt himself flushing, realizing how entirely he'd been monopolizing the conversation.

"Sounds like a habit of yours," Leewe said abruptly, causing Clark to panic and wonder if he'd said that last thought out loud.

The man across the table narrowed his eyes at Clark's expression. "Worrying about people," he explained.
"Oh. Oh." Clark slurped the last of his coffee. "I suppose. A lot of people seem to need worrying about." Leewe looked rather like one of those people, Clark thought. Something about his eyes, the wariness in his expression. This was a man who had been badly hurt and wasn't letting anyone in again, ever.

Leewe jerked his chin slightly in Clark's direction. "Anyone ever worry about you?"

Clark almost laughed. "I don't really need worrying about."

The other man cocked his head to the side, considering Clark, his eyes appraising. Clark felt suddenly intensely uncomfortable. He put his coffee cup down. "I've been too long from the bakery, I ought to get back." He stood and fumbled for money to drop on the table. Leewe continued to look at him with a sort of fierce concentration, as if he were puzzling through some mystery hidden under Clark's skin. Clark forced himself to meet those eyes. "If you like, you can come by the bakery sometime," he said. "You know how to find it, after all."

A slight smile on the lean, bearded face. "That I do." Leewe stood up and offered his hand to Clark; his grip was warm and firm. "Thank you for the coffee and conversation. You're—" he paused briefly— "an interesting person."

Then he turned and disappeared into the crowd.

Clark didn't expect to see him the next day, and he certainly wasn't making sure to wear the best shirt he had the day after that. But the intense wanderer—scruffy thief, he corrected himself angrily—didn't come to the Zahir bakery that week, or the week after.

Clark put him out of his mind altogether and concentrated on making bread and teaching children.

:-:

Two months later.

Barred doors clashed shut behind Clark as he was shoved into a filthy, dark holding cell in a some basement—more like a cave, really. {Let me out of here! I didn't do anything wrong!} he yelled, and the crowd of prisoners around him snickered. He thought about adding {I'm an American citizen!}, but it sounded too melodramatic, for starters.

He also wasn't at all sure that would win him any fans, either inside or outside the cell.

Clark rested his forehead on the dirty iron bars. He could bend them with no trouble, of course, but that would mean revealing his powers to the assembled throng of criminals in the cell. Which meant he was, for all intents and purposes, as trapped in here as any of them.

Once again all his strength and speed had been insufficient to overcome the tide of events.

Kandahar had fallen as they said it would, barely a month ago. Zoya's bakery had been closed down, but in the chaos caused by infighting between the Balkhi and Jalal factions, she had insisted on starting up a small, secret school for the neighborhood girls. Clark had helped teach English, Zoya had taught math, and another neighbor had taught reading from the Koran. It was all quite illegal, of course, but Clark had been unable to walk away from Zoya's fierce determination, her refusal to let the Taliban take her daughters' minds.

When Clark had come home from shopping one day to find the bakery door broken down and the house empty save for Taliban soldiers, he hadn't been surprised. But his despair and shock kept him from fleeing until he was actually in handcuffs, and then there seemed to be no way to break away without revealing his secrets. Besides, he had some vague hope that if he stayed in custody he could find Zoya and her daughters. So he had let them strip him, put him in a shapeless prisoner's smock and pants and thrust him into this dank cell.

What he was going to do from here, Clark had no idea, beyond finding out if Zoya and her family were still alive or if he had failed them utterly.

As he slumped with despair against the bars, he heard a shuffling among the other prisoners. {Hey. You.} A guttural voice speaking Pashto. Clark turned to see a large man with a scar running from his cheek to his eyebrow grinning at him, the other prisoners clearly acceding to him. {Pretty boy.} As Clark stared at him, wondering when he suddenly had entered a very bad movie, Scarface took his chin in a filthy hand and twisted his head back and forth. Then he turned to address the crowd of prisoners. {This one's mine, you hear?} The crowd muttered and fell back.

Scarface put a hand in Clark's hair and pulled his head back, leering, and Clark realized suddenly just how helpless he was here. He might be able to beat up every person in the room with super-strength, or rip the roof off the building entirely, but he was shackled by his reluctance to show his powers. This man might not be able to kill Clark, or even hurt him, but he could certainly do a lot of other very unpleasant things to him.

Clark pulled away from his tormentor and addressed the rest of the crowd in Dari, alarmed to hear his voice shaking. {You're not all going to just stand there and let him do this to me, are you?} Eyes glinted in the darkness, teeth flashed. {How can you let this man prey on the weak while you stand by and do nothing? It's not right—how many people have you abandoned to him? Can't you see that's wrong?} He thought he sounded rather stirring, but laughter rustled through the crowd and Scarface recaptured his hair, sniggering.

{Well, isn't she just the prettiest thing?} He laughed, and Clark remembered that level, calm voice from two months ago: You talk like a girl. {Thinks she's so far above us, all shiny and sparkly. Too good for the likes of us.} The hand in Clark's hair tightened viciously and he shook Clark's head. {I think you should remember your place, Esther,}—he used the Persian word for "star" that was also a woman's name—{And I think that place is underneath me.}

A shadow detached from the crowd of prisoners and stalked into the dim light. {He's not yours,} it said in Pashto. {He's mine.}

Eyes like blue smoke in the darkness.

Leewe.

Scarface laughed raucously. {So he finally speaks, eh? And to lay claim to the lovely and nubile Esther.} He spat in the dirt between them. {You want him? Come and take him.}

Leewe stepped forward with a fierce, grim smile on his face. In a few moments Scarface was on the floor, holding his knee and howling, the rest of the prisoners backing away. The thief grabbed Clark's hand and pulled him close; Clark gritted his teeth. Handed around like a piece of meat from criminal to criminal—not exactly what he had in mind when he set out to travel the world.

He tried not to notice that the other man's hand was surprisingly gentle on his.

{Anyone else care to try their luck?} Leewe asked conversationally.

Scarface finished screaming and glared at the two men. Within the crowd massed behind him, Clark caught flashes of metal, broken glass. {Why him? Why protect him now? Something special about him we don't know, eh?}

{I just want to.} Leewe's voice was level.

{You just want to what?} Scarface's voice was taunting, the challenge clear, and Leewe's hand tightened slightly on Clark's, his heartbeat hammering suddenly as if he were terrified, when the confrontation before had hardly raised it.

However, his voice was calm as he said, {Very well,} and pushed Clark over to a wall, shoving him against it and pulling the gray prison slacks down. Clark fought the instinct to hurl the other man across the room. Unless he wanted to throw away his secrets, he was totally at this man's mercy. The thought filled him with alarm, fear...and something else that he had neither the time nor the courage to examine. He heard Leewe spitting into his palms and grimaced to himself, feeling helpless, waiting and refusing to look back over his shoulder. It wasn't going to hurt him, at least, he reminded himself. That didn't make him feel better at all. None of the ways he had imagined his first real sexual encounter had included being raped against a filthy prison wall.

The man behind him paused briefly, pressed against him but not penetrating him. He was breathing shallowly, his heartbeat erratic now. So softly even Clark might not have caught it, Leewe whispered, "Forgive me." Then, as Clark was still processing the almost-silent apology, he moved against and into him, not roughly but steadily, until he was buried full-length inside Clark. It didn't hurt, but the invasive sensation was uncomfortable and unpleasant, and Clark set his jaw against it, feeling tears of helplessness and rage prickle at the backs of his eyes.

Leewe exhaled sharply and muttered to himself, "God." Then he took a deep breath and said in Pashto, {Tell them you're mine.}

"Fuck you," said Clark.

Leewe made a growling sound in the back of his throat. {Tell them you're mine,} he repeated, adding very softly in English, "Or we're both in a great deal of trouble."

{I'm yours,} Clark said through gritted teeth, grudgingly. As he said it, Leewe pulled back a bit, pushed in again—and Clark felt a sudden jolt of pure, agonizing electrical sensation. Panic filled him—this shouldn't hurt! He couldn't be hurt!—and he whimpered softly in surprise. {Yours,} he forced himself to repeat, fear racing through him as the other man took another deep breath and thrust into him once more. The stab of breathtaking response jangled through him again, arching his back, melting his spine, and he realized with a thrill of something close to horror that it wasn't pain at all, not at all.

It was pleasure.

As he was still reeling from the realization, from the crashing knowledge that he had wanted this with all his heart since the moment those predatory blue eyes had first met his, Leewe pushed inward once more, sending ecstasy splintering through Clark again. He cried out this time, in shock and a sort of dawning wonder, his head thrown back, and the other man stopped short, breathing heavily.

"Try to relax," Leewe panted, "It won't hurt so much if you relax—"

"—Yours," Clark groaned, pushing back against him as hard as possible, part of his mind dimly noting he had spoken in English and cursing himself, the rest of him too racked with desire to care at all.

"Clark, don't—I don't think I can—" Leewe's voice was alarmed, but when Clark threw himself back at him again, grinding up against him, he moaned as if losing the last shreds of self-control, put his hands on Clark's hips, and set up a steady, rocking rhythm, accelerating with agonizing, delightful deliberateness.

For his part, Clark had discovered that "yours" was the most beautiful word he knew in any language, and started repeating it deliriously in every one he knew: English, Dari, Pashto, French, Spanish, probably Kryptonian—he didn't care. The pressure inside him was building to something impossibly good, desperately wanted and needed, he could feel it in him like molten magma, he was almost there...and behind him Leewe stiffened and groaned, rapt in climax. Then he slipped away from Clark, who was still dizzy with unslaked lust, panting and wild-eyed, and deeply grateful his loose prison smock hid his throbbing erection from the crowd and from Leewe alike as he pulled up his pants.

Leewe grabbed Clark's wrist again and dragged him over to one of the few cots in the cell. {This is our cot,} he announced to the room, his voice level again.

No one argued with him.

Clark allowed himself to be pulled down onto the cot, twisting his body to try and hide his arousal from his bedmate. Leewe laid down next to him and leaned close to whisper in Clark's ear, "Nice acting job there, smart to let them think you meant it. They'll be less trouble—"

His hand brushed against Clark's cock beneath the cotton pants, erect and straining against the cloth.

Clark tried not to react, but his hips bucked against the other man's hand and a whimper escaped his lips. There was a long pause while Clark panted and shivered and cursed himself. Then Leewe very slowly, almost hesitantly, slipped his hand into the loose pants and wrapped it around Clark's erection.

The thief's hand was surprisingly soft and gentle, stroking up and down his shaft, brushing across the head with almost delicate precision, and all of Clark's lust rose up in him again, uncontrollably. He felt tremors racing up and down his back, and he bit down hard on a moan.

Leewe put his lips again to Clark's ear, his hand still caressing with insistent, exquisite gentleness. "I didn't even know people like you existed," he whispered very softly as Clark struggled to keep from crying out, from begging for more. "He was right, you shine. How you shine." There was something like awe in the low voice. "I know you now. I'll always know you. My star. My beautiful bright one. My star in the darkness."

Clark felt his climax beginning, burning and raging upward in him, undeniable, and he tried not to let the rapture show on his face, tried not to let his expression soften into abandonment in front of this man, this criminal, tried not to be vulnerable.

He was fairly sure he failed.

They lay together, curled up around each other, a small oasis of safety in chaos, and Clark felt well-being wash through him despite himself. Leewe looked at him levelly and brushed his lips across Clark's cheek. "I'll give you a real kiss when we're out of here and safe, if you'll let me," he whispered. Clark nodded; for some reason that seemed to make sense. He drifted into a dozing half-sleep, his wolf's strong arms around him.

:-:

He was awakened by a jangle of keys. A guard was opening the cell and beckoning to Leewe. {You. You're free to go.}

Leewe pulled Clark along. {He comes with me.} The guard considered for a moment, shrugged, and let them both out. They were led down a series of corridors. "Clark," Leewe said abruptly, "I have to tell you—" He broke off as the guard opened a door and let them into a room.

Inside was a bearded Afghan man. At Leewe's approach, he grinned and rose from his chair to embrace him and kiss him on each cheek. {Abdul! What have you found for me?}

Clark recognized the stranger from propaganda leaflets and posters. Jalal. One of the two Taliban leaders fighting over Kandahar.

Leewe cleared his throat. {Khalili is amenable to coming over, sir. He and Ahadi seem to have had a falling-out with Balkhi. Qasimi still seems to have Balkhi's favor, however.}

Jalal made a contemplative noise in his throat, then looked at Clark. {Would your friend mind...?} He gestured toward the door. {A moment to discuss strategy in private?}

Clark backed out of the room politely. The man he had been calling Leewe kept his back to him as he left. Outside the door, Clark leaned against a wall and started shaking with shock and anger. The man had been a plant in the jail, there to collect information on Jalal's enemies. No common thief at all.

A guard handed Clark his civilian clothing; he took it absent-mindedly, the implications of the conversation he had just seen still ringing in his head. Eventually the door opened and Leewe came out. He didn't quite meet Clark's eyes as he said, "You're free to go, I've arranged it. Follow me." He cut Clark off as Clark opened his mouth. "—not here, Clark."

Outside, Clark stalked through the streets until he was back at Zoya's bakery, the other man following behind him. On the floor of the bakery was a tiny heap of red and blue: Amena's favorite rag doll. Clark picked it up and shook it angrily at Leewe. "You bastard, you're working for the Taliban?" he snarled.

"Clark—"

"No! Fuck you! Do you have any idea what they've done to good people like Zoya and her family? And you're selling your services to them?" Clark's voice was shaking. "You monster, you rapist, and to think I—" he broke off suddenly and turned his back on the man.

Leewe spoke into the silence. "Jalal told me Zoya Zahir is going to be executed tonight at sunset. Hanged. For prostitution and corrupting children's morals." Clark heard him swallow. "I thought you'd want to know."

"Get out of here." Clark's voice was flat. He was surprised, actually, at how emotionless it was. "Get out of here or, so help me God, I'll have to try and kill you."

Leewe left. Clark stood in the middle of the bakery for a long time. It still smelled like bread, like sunlight.

:-:

The sunset was fading out of the sky as Clark skulked through the backstage of the soccer stadium. Tried to skulk, anyway—he knew it wasn't exactly his strong suit. He could hear the Taliban leader reciting the list of Zoya's crimes to the muttering crowd. Clark had spotted her on the stage, the rope already around her unbending neck, her eyes fierce.

He wondered where her daughters were.

As the list came to an end, Clark cautiously concentrated his heat vision on the floodlights, which obligingly exploded in a shower of sparks, plunging the stadium into darkness and chaos. In the pandemonium, he made his way as quickly as possible to the stage, snapped the rope, and scooped Zoya up. She gasped in surprise as he made his way through the milling crowd and back behind the bleachers, dodging guards.

In the dimness of the maze of pipes and scaffolding, Clark tried to make his way to the exit, but found himself finally confronted by five armed guards. He put down his shaking friend and considered his options as the guards closed on them, yelling in Pashto. He could grab Zoya and fly away—and stories of a man who could fly would start to circulate here. He could fight them, but he was still unsure enough of his physical control to be certain he could do it non-lethally.

He sure as hell wasn't going to surrender to them, though.

As he debated internally, a shadow dropped from the scaffolding above and passed through the guards like smoke. All five of them dropped silently within seconds. Clark knew the figure, its liquid grace and surety, even before the wolfish eyes met his.

Leewe's hands clenched at his side, his heartbeat racing again at the sight of Clark's face. "Clark," he said. "I might work for them, but I would never, never help them in any way that mattered. I—" He paused and for a moment his eyes were filled with naked pleading. "—I need you to believe me. I'm...more than what I seem to be."

Clark stared at him for a moment, unsure how this astonishingly complicated, brave, secretive...noble man could possibly be more than he seemed to be. "Then why are you—" he gestured helplessly.

"I need to understand how evil people think."

Clark looked at him. "I think it's more important to understand how good people suffer."

Leewe drew close and kissed him then, and Clark didn't even try to pretend to himself that he didn't want it more than anything in the world, the sweet thrust of that tongue into his mouth, the exquisite pressure of those lips against his. For a timeless moment they were locked into the kiss, until behind them Zoya cleared her throat.

{Forgive my rudeness at interrupting your friendly Western greeting rituals, but I have some interest in getting out of here.}

Leewe untangled his hands from Clark's hair. "My star in the darkness," he whispered. Then he turned to Zoya. {Your daughters are waiting in a jeep with a full tank of gas hidden in a grove of trees near the mausoleum of Mirwais Khan Hotak, outside the city.}

{I know the place,} she said, hope lighting her face.

He executed an almost courtly bow. {Forgive me for stealing your bread two months ago. I promised Clark I would repay you for it.}

She smiled. {And so you have.}

Leewe looked at Clark. "Goodbye for now."

"You think we'll meet again?"

A dazzling smile. "I'm absolutely certain of it." Then he melted into the shadows and was gone.

:-:

Clark Kent is driving a jeep full of children toward the Afghan border, heading south. The night is calm and still around him. His lips can still feel the imprint of a kiss, and he brushes a hand across them from time to time, smiling a little.

As they near the guarded border, he will pull to the side of the road and talk for a long time to Zoya and her daughters. Then he will lift the jeep and sail into the sky with it, bypassing the border patrol, the children gasping in wonder. On the other side he will set them down as lightly as a feather and they will continue on to safety and a new life.

Much later, he will be scanning the society pages and see the byline: Gotham's Prodigal Son Returns. In the vapid, bland face of the dissolute playboy he will see the eyes of the wolf that has haunted his dreams, and a slight, hopeful smile will come to his lips.

:-:

Bruce Wayne is hiking north along a rough road, deeper into the mountains. His hands can still feel the texture of dark hair under them, like silken night. He doesn't smile, but something about his eyes and mouth is not as tense or as closed as it once was.

He will slip across the border into Tajikistan, the Himalayas soaring around him, making his way toward something he doesn't fully understand yet, but which somehow seems clearer now.

Much later, on the jet back to Gotham, Alfred will hand him a magazine with the headline: Alien Protector of Metropolis. In the bright face of the hero on the cover he will see the light of the star that has guided his path, and a small, satisfied smile will flash across his face.