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Clark’s rage had already burned out by the time he finished destroying the weapons facility where Darkseid killed his best friend. When he found Bruce’s corpse amid the debris all that remained was a hollow, aching grief.
Bruce, you idiot. Clark lifted him carefully from the rubble and tried not to see how much smaller he seemed now in death, how much lighter he felt. He choked down a sob. You fragile, brave, human idiot.
He floated upward with the body in his arms, hovering over the city, unsure where he even meant to go — until he was painfully reminded which city this was sprawled beneath him.
“Batman!”
The cry was distant, but Clark’s super-hearing zeroed in on its familiar timbre, singled it out from all the other despairing shouts about the sky turning red and the end of the world. He scanned the streets below him until his eyes found Dick Grayson, not Nightwing but Dick, frozen in place where he had been guiding a group of unhoused Bludhaven citizens to safety. The superior sight Clark usually counted as a blessing cursed him now with the ability to see the threat of tears in the young man’s eyes even miles away, the bobbing of his Adam’s apple as he tried not to lose his composure in front of a city that didn’t know the dead man he was looking at was his father.
Clark knew he couldn’t go to him, not as he and Bruce were now. He couldn’t destroy the secrets Bruce had lived his life keeping, the secrets that kept his family safe. There would be time later for grief and for comfort, but only if Clark and the rest of Earth’s metahumans took care of Darkseid and the New Gods now. He knew all of this… but he could hardly bear it. He forced himself to fly in the direction of Gotham City, to bring Bruce Wayne home one last time.
***
It was a little over a month before Clark saw Dick again — at least as Clark and Dick, without cape or mask interfering. Bruce’s intimate funeral had been postponed for a myriad of reasons, not least of which was ensuring his and the Batman’s identities stayed separate, but finally the ceremony took place, with a private reception hosted afterwards at Wayne Manor.
Dick Grayson was a born performer, and still Clark found himself impressed by how put-together he seemed while he watched him accept condolences from various members of Bruce’s inner circle; the dark shadows under his eyes were the only indication of the weight he’d been carrying since the fallout in Bludhaven. He remained in the drawing room long after his brothers had excused themselves and snuck away, occasionally helping Alfred between conversations but otherwise acting the part of this gathering’s refined host, every inch a millionaire’s son.
Luckily, attendance dwindled quickly; this dour gathering wasn’t the sort of affair anyone wanted to stay at for too long. When he and Lois were two of only a handful of guests remaining, Clark detached himself from a conversation between Lois and Vicki Vale to offer Dick an overdue escape.
“Heya, sport,” Clark greeted him, earning a tired but genuine smile.
“Hey, Clark,” Dick replied sheepishly.
“I was thinking of getting a little fresh air — why don’t you join me?” Clark knew if he gave Dick too much of a choice, he would simply refuse.
Dick nodded in a way that said, I know what you’re doing. Still, he agreed. “Sure. Let’s head out to the terrace.”
***
“Was there something you wanted to talk about?” Dick asked.
They were standing side by side, looking over the terrace’s stone balustrade at the manor’s tidily manicured gardens.
“I just wanted to give you a chance to be yourself for a while, instead of who you think everyone needs you to be.” He gave the young man’s shoulder a little nudge. “‘Cause I know you’ll take care of just about anyone before you take care of yourself. Just like your favorite uncle.”
Dick huffed a little laugh.
“Thanks for the compliment. Not every day you get compared to Superman.”
Clark felt affection warm in his chest.
“I don’t see why not. You’ve grown up to be exactly the kind of person Superman has always striven to be.”
A smile flickered across Dick’s face.
“Thanks,” he said again, softly. “Can’t say I feel all that super.”
Clark felt a twinge of guilt, the guilt he always felt when a human died under his care.
“No. I can’t say I do, either.”
Dick leaned forward to rest his elbows on the balustrade.
“Were you… with him?” he asked.
That twinge of guilt sharpened briefly into a pang.
“No,” Clark admitted, dropping his gaze to his feet. “I didn’t know what he was planning. I didn’t know he was… until his heartbeat…” He stopped when a tremor ran through his voice. He cleared his throat before continuing. “But I should have been. I should have been with him. Not just as a… a comrade, but as a friend.” He quickly swiped tears from his eyes, breathing deep to regain his composure. This was about Dick, not him. “I’m sorry I didn’t save him,” he said at last. “I’m sorry you had to see him like that.”
“Hey, you have nothing to apologize for,” Dick said, turning to clasp the older man’s upper arm. “You can’t help what you didn’t know. And I know you would’ve moved heaven and earth to save him if you could’ve.” He grinned, almost like he used to. “Favorite uncle, remember?”
Clark gave a watery chuckle.
“There you go again, helping anyone but yourself,” he said. He gave Dick’s shoulder a light nudge with his fist. “Thanks, kid.”
“Any time.”
Dick leaned on the balustrade again, gazing over the green expanse and its floral patches, beneath which, Clark knew, the Batcave hid. After a brief, companionable silence, he spoke up again.
“I guess I only asked because I wanted to know if he seemed… not happy, but like. Satisfied. Like, if he thought it was a good death. If he regretted anything. If he thought about Alfred or Dami or…” He pressed his lips together, swallowing hard. “Pretty selfish, huh?” he continued after a pause. “Wanting to know if he thought about us at the end. If he cared that he was leaving us. If he thought I was — if he thought I could —”
A sob caught in his throat and he clamped a hand over his mouth to stifle it, trying so hard, even now, to step into his father’s stoicism though it never truly fit him. Clark looked away to keep from falling apart himself.
“I may not be able to speak to his final moments,” he murmured, “and I may not have known him as well as you or Alfred did. But I remember what he was like before you came into the picture. I remember how he changed once you became part of his life.”
And he did remember. He remembered a man motivated by anger, by vengeance — a man who cared more about punishing the guilty than protecting the innocent. A man for whom justice was a mission, a crusade. It wasn’t until Robin came to Batman’s side that Clark and Bruce truly began to see eye to eye, because now Bruce, like Clark, had something to fight for rather than against.
“He loved you so much, Dick.”
“Then why —?” Dick’s voice splintered as the sob he’d been trying to swallow burst from him at last and he began to cry. All at once it was like he was a little boy again, the kid who just lost his parents that Bruce introduced Clark to all those years ago, and Clark couldn’t help but pull him into a hug as he would have done back then. Dick wrapped his arms around him tight and buried his face in his shoulder.
“How could he — leave?”
Clark knew he wasn’t asking how Bruce could let himself die; this was an attempt to articulate something much more complicated than that, a grief that went back much farther than the crisis in Bludhaven. Dick’s relationship with Bruce had been fraught and dysfunctional and they had hurt each other in more ways than one over the years… but they had also always emerged side by side, stronger than before.
Now they couldn't. They never would again. Dick’s arrival had saved Bruce’s life; what would losing yet another parent after everything he had already been through do to Dick?
Clark rejected that thought the moment it formed, holding Dick against him as tightly as he could without crushing him. Dick Grayson was his nephew in all but name; he had watched this kid grow up and had cared for him as if he were one of his own. He was going to be okay. Clark refused to allow anything less.