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Bruce knew that something was wrong the moment he stepped outside. He hadn’t yet figured out what it was exactly, but he could feel the slight shift in the air above Gotham.
He allowed himself to take a deep breath before shooting his grappling hook out across the alley, toward the building that he wanted to get to. If he couldn’t immediately fix the issue, he could at least do his best to try to figure out what exactly was going on. Not knowing always made him more anxious.
Bruce ran through possibilities in his head. He had to have come up with some kind of idea as to how to combat whatever was happening. He was sure that no matter what new thing was going on, he would have an effective way to combat it. Instead of worrying about the specifics, he ran through the list he kept in his mind of which rogues were in Arkham, which had broken out, which hadn’t been put in there yet.
If it were Scarecrow, he was sure that he would already be feeling the effects of Fear Toxin. Or at least he would be able to see others who were being affected. Joker was locked up, as far as he could remember, but it was difficult to keep actual tabs on the clown. Ivy was… well, Bruce wasn’t actually sure what Ivy was up to. Maybe he should check on her first. It felt like the most logical step.
Bruce made his way to Robinson Park which Ivy had turned into her makeshift home. He couldn’t fault her for its beauty, even if most everything that happened within the living walls was more likely to kill anyone who entered than not.
“Ivy,” he grumbled out, as he walked up to the archway that might be considered a front door. He knew that Ivy had known he was there before he spoke, but saying something meant that he knew she had plenty of warning. That if she wasn’t doing anything too bad, he would be able to go on his way, and nothing would come of it. They had an understanding in that way. She really was starting to do more good than harm.
“Oh, Bats,” came a sickly sweet voice. He felt a slight sense of comfort at the calm tone. She never had hid her anger well, so if she didn’t sound upset, she likely wasn’t. That also meant that something was likely about to go entirely wrong. She had only ever sounded this casually confident when she was close to perfecting whatever her next idea was.
When she was about to unleash an Eden incarnate onto Gotham.
“Isley,” Bruce grunted, walking slightly closer to the clearing that sat at the heart of the earth-grown home Ivy had made herself.
“Bats, you don’t have to worry about me this time,” she promised, looking up from where she was bent over a strange mix of vines and saps and leaves.
“Last time you said that, Gotham became Jumanji overnight.”
“Oh, you exaggerate,” she waved him off, turning back towards the assortment spread over the table in front of her. “I didn’t release any wild animals.”
“No,” Bruce ground his teeth. His patience was already wearing thin. He didn’t have time for this. There had been warnings of a possible Arkham security issue sent to the GCPD earlier in the day. He had bigger things to worry about.
“Bats,” Pam said, a more serious tone threading through her voice, “I promise, I am just trying to make something to make myself a little braver.”
She trailed off as Bruce moved ever closer, knowing that she could tell where he was at any given moment on the plant-laden ground.
“Its effect shouldn’t leave the confines of this little room. I’ve made sure it’s all sealed up and nothing can get out. I just have to put some final, finishing touches on it.” Bruce made his way to the other side of the table she was working on.
“I can’t let you do this, Ivy. You and I both know that the second anything you do touches one of your plants it is going to have a wider-spread, and decidedly worse effect on the entirety of Gotham than you could have possibly planned for.”
She looked up at him with ever so slightly pleading eyes, fingers gripped loosely around a vial of powder and what had to be spores.
“Ivy,” he grimaced, watching as the vial seemed to slip ever so slightly through her fingers. He wanted to grab for it, make sure nothing happened, that the dust stayed inside, but moving too quickly would be just as likely to make her drop the vial.
“Bats. Leave it be. This is between me, and the one person that I have been needing to talk to for years. All I have to do is mix this-” she shook the vial between her fingers, and Bruce braced for it to fall, “into a stable liquid and then I can drink it, and no one else will get harmed. It’s just going to make it really difficult for me to not admit my feelings. It has nothing to do with you, or your kids, or your pretty little boyfriend. Just me and Ha-”
Bruce saw the moment of dread as Ivy went to spin on her heel and the vial fell from her hand. He wasn’t sure if something had physically caused the reaction, or if it was just a matter of shock that she had started to say the name out loud. He watched with a twisted sense of curiosity, wondering what exactly Ivy had cooked up and whether or not there might be repercussions, or if it needed to be mixed into a liquid to be effective.
He really should have put on a rebreather. Something to filter the air in his lungs, but even as he reached for it, he knew that he wouldn’t get it on in enough time that he would avoid getting some of the particles in his lungs.
“Pamela,” Bruce said, acknowledging her. They didn’t call each other by their first names when Bruce was in the suit, it kept a layer of separation that he needed, but, for the first time in a long time, he felt a quiet wave of panic wash over him.
There wasn’t enough time to calculate the possible outcomes. He watched as spores puffed up into the air, smaller than even his specially designed mask could filter out, only able to see the aggregate of them shimmering and bright under the arcs of moonlight that filtered through sap filled cracks in the vine structure.
“Bruce,” Ivy breathed out. “You have to go. I don’t know what the spores will do if they aren’t diluted. If they are allowed to make their way into your airways.”
“I guess we will find out together,” Bruce said, trying to hold onto as much breath as he could. He could tell that it was no use. Even if he successfully managed to keep from breathing in, there was a non-zero chance that the spore would settle onto him, onto his clothes, onto his being. They would be there until he knocked them loose, until he was able to decontaminate himself, if that was even possible.
There were too many possible outcomes, Bruce couldn’t possibly prepare for them all. Perhaps the best course of action was to simply go home, decontaminate himself and monitor his psychological response to see what symptoms cropped up. He knew, however, that there were still issues with that approach. If the side effects took a drastic turn for the worst, he couldn’t in good conscience leave Ivy out to deal with it on her own. Not when they didn’t have a cure, or even an idea what might come of it.
He took a moment to take a breath. Maybe not the most intelligent to breathe in more spores, but he needed to breathe. A burning sensation had taken root in his chest–he knew that it was from whatever concoction Ivy had released onto them, which meant that it was taking effect quickly.
“You’re coming with me,” Bruce said gruffly. “Don’t fight me, don’t try to say no, we don’t know what effects this is going to have, and I can already feel them, we are running tests and taking care of whatever we can, and then you can go.”
Bruce leveled a glare at his companion, who just held up her hands and chuckled solemnly. “Sounds good, Bats.”
Bruce resigned himself to a night of checking them out as best as he could and said as much into his comms. His kids could handle Gotham for the night, no matter how badly he wished that he didn’t have to leave them out alone.
The burning sensation was no longer just a tingle in his chest. It had made its way up his throat. He felt like he was breathing fire.
If the symptoms were really progressing this quickly, he knew that the tests had to come first. There wasn’t much good in a dead Batman.
~~~
Almost on instinct, Bruce called out for Clark. He wasn’t sure what exactly it was about getting home, getting to the Cave, that made him want the other man’s presence so deeply, but it was a feeling that he just couldn’t shake. He needed his best friend by his side.
Much to his expectation, Clark was there within minutes, happily whistling along to some invisible song that had caught his ear the day prior, all smiles and radiant sunshine. Upon Clark entering his sight lines, the burning in his throat stopped, tamping down to the manageable tingle that he had noticed at first.
A curious feeling. Perhaps the spores had run their course and would be out of his system by morning. He could only really hope, and run tests.
It wasn’t long until Clark noticed Poison Ivy’s presence in the cave, turning to look at her curiously.
“B, what exactly is happening right now? Because from where I am standing, one of your rogues is in the cave, and you are making absolutely no move to stop her from seeing what you have down here.”
“Pamela and I are old school friends,” Bruce grunted, feeling weirdly compelled to tell Clark the whole truth. “She and I have both fallen victim to an unfortunate, and under-studied, experiment.”
“Bruce.” Pam turned to him with a glare so poisonous it could take down an elephant. “We both know that if you hadn’t interrupted, nothing would have gone wrong. The spores were meant to be planted, not ingested.”
That was the first that Bruce was hearing about the final detail that she mentioned. Perhaps the human body would not be a suitable host for the spores, though, with the atmosphere in her vine-constructed greenhouse, he would say that warm and wet was perhaps the best possible scenario for this particular strain of whatever the hell she had cooked up.
“Regardless, it happened. I wasn’t sure what may occur, and so I called for backup.” Bruce felt a burn in his chest as he lied to Clark. Whatever had been soothing him prior was replaced by an even deeper feeling of discomfort.
“Right, well, what do you need me for?” Clark glanced back and forth between the pair of them.
“I don’t know yet.” Bruce admitted, watching the shock take over Clark’s face. It was one of the rare occasions where Bruce not only asked for the help he needed, but admitted to not knowing exactly how the situation was going to go.
“Oh.” Clark’s voice was almost breathless. There was a shimmer in his eye, as he took in the scene in front of him with fresh eyes. Bruce knew what he was seeing, his best friend and someone that had long been considered an enemy, working together to try to fix a situation entirely out of their control.
~~~Clark~~~
Clark heard the sound of his best friend’s voice. Bruce was in the Cave, therefore not likely in danger, though he sensed an unfamiliar presence in there with Bruce. His heart rate was elevated, but his breathing wasn’t any different than usual. Okay, think, Clark, think. What could be causing this? And why were you the first person that Bruce asked for?
Clark could not come up with an answer to the question that he posed to himself. Surely there had to be one, maybe he just needed to go see what was happening for himself.
Going to the cave meant getting into full Superman™ attire, which was only annoying for the fact that he had just gotten into comfier clothes to settle in for the night. Such was the life of a superhero, Clark supposed.
As he flew over the Metropolis sky, then countryside, and finally Gotham, Clark tried to theorize what exactly it could be that was compelling Bruce to call out to him. It wouldn’t make sense for someone to be attacking the Cave, he would have just recalled his kids. Nor did it really make sense for it to be a purely social call, Bruce’s heart rate was elevated. Unless… Clark only let himself go down that line of thought for a moment before shutting it down. There was no point in getting his hopes up for the eventual and inevitable disappointment.
Truly though, who could blame Clark for falling in love with his best friend? They understood each other in a way that Clark and Lois never really had. She just couldn’t fully understand the whole Superman of the situation. That, among many other breakdowns in communication, led to their eventual demise.
Clark didn’t want to think about that too hard, though. Bruce needed him for something. Whatever it was, Clark was going to give Bruce his absolute best. There was no way around it. He had to make sure that Bruce was okay.
“B?” Clark called out, trying to be aware of the fact that there may be someone in the cave who didn’t know Bruce’s secret identity. It was a worrisome thought, but erring on the side of caution made far more sense than fucking it up completely.
Clark walked further into the cave. Perhaps Bruce hadn’t heard him the first time. Immediately more concerning than any other scenario, because Bruce not being acutely aware of his surroundings, especially on his home turf, felt like a cry for help. Though, maybe that should have been obvious from the fact that Bruce had called out for him while in the Cave in the first place.
Clark forced himself to float ever so slightly, so as to move silently in case there was some unbidden threat that would cause problems if they knew that he was coming.
As he rounded the final corner from the passageway that he knew Bruce had specially built for him, he saw Bruce standing across his computer (bat-computer?) desk from Poison Ivy.
Clark didn’t know the overall ins and outs of Bruce’s Rogues, but this didn’t really seem like it should be happening.
“B, what exactly is happening right now? Because from where I am standing, one of your rogues is in the cave, and you are making absolutely no move to stop her from seeing what you have down here.” Clark glanced between the two of them. There didn’t seem to be anything too hostile happening in the moment, so he would have to just let whatever was about to happen play out in front of him.
“Pamela and I are old school friends,” Bruce explained. “She and I have both fallen victim to an unfortunate, and under-studied, experiment.”
Clark’s brain was firing off the walls. There were so many possible explanations for the scenario that would give him more information than that. Bruce knew that Clark couldn’t read in between lines that were drawn that close together.
“Bruce, we both know that if you hadn’t interrupted, nothing would have gone wrong. The spores were meant to be planted, not ingested.” Poison Ivy, or well, Pamela, he supposed, explained. That still gave Clark no perspective, though. He was confused, he just wanted someone to tell him what these experimental spores were. What the hell was happening.
Clark zoned out of part of the conversation, replying on autopilot for a moment. He got the gist of what they needed, someone to keep tabs on them in case something went far too wrong.
“Please, if the worst happens, I need you to make sure that everything is taken care of.” Bruce’s words snapped him out of his reverie. No. Clark refused to believe that Bruce was actually asking that of him. He couldn’t. There was absolutely nothing wrong that would require Clark to implement plan 569, which was really overkill in Clark's opinion, but Bruce was adamant that they might need it some day. Nothing that had happened could possibly warrant that.
“I know,” Clark whispered, drawing in a breath and setting his feet down. He walked over to where Bruce stood. “That doesn’t mean I want anything to happen, and I will do my best to ensure that it doesn’t.”
Clark watched his best friend’s face. They had gone through so many scenarios, run so many simulations. Bruce was NOT going to die. Clark was going to make sure of it. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if something happened to Bruce and he didn’t at least try to stop it, to fight it, to SOMETHING.
Even if Bruce could never love him the way that Clark loved Bruce. Clark would still sacrifice everything that he was to keep his best friend, the love of his life (as he now knew and understood it) safe.
Clark walked over to Bruce and threw his arms around his best friend. Bruce seemed to melt into the hug, which was atypical for sure. He wasn’t really sure what to make of the way that Bruce was acting. As though Clark was the remedy to something that was plaguing him.
Clark certainly wasn’t complaining, though. He would take the affection that he could get.
“Come on, B,” Clark whispered. “Let’s get you out of the suit and into a decontamination chamber.” Clark glanced over Bruce’s shoulder, at Pamela, who was watching them with tender eyes. “You two. There are two decontamination showers, I will go grab you both some clean clothes. From what y’all are acting like, we are in for a long night.”
Clark ushered the pair off to the decontamination chambers, even if the whatever-the-heck spores had made their way into Bruce and Pamela’s respiratory systems by then, it wouldn’t hurt to get the excess off of them. Clark made his way upstairs, hoping that he wouldn’t run into Alfred, who wasn’t in the cave already, for some reason.
He navigated his way to Bruce’s bedroom. What he could actually get that would fit Pamela, he wasn’t sure, but certainly something oversized wouldn’t hurt for the night. At least until they could get her actual clothing cleaned.
He pulled out two pairs of sweatpants, checking to make sure that at least one of them had a drawstring, and a shirt and a sweatshirt. He wasn’t sure what the best protocol for discovering his best friend covered in an unknown pollutant with a rogue was. Well, there were protocols, Bruce had ensured that, but this was a new context for Clark. Fortunately, he was trying to find them clothes, nothing seemed to be actively wrong.
He grabbed another sweatshirt.
As he made his way back down to the Cave, Clark caught a glimpse of Alfred. He made an effort to lighten his footsteps to avoid an interrogation from Bruce’s butler. It was decidedly not his job to relay the facts of whatever had happened. He barely knew them himself.
Whether he avoided the butler due to his actual stealth, or Alfred’s knowledge that it wouldn’t be worth the stop was still up for debate as Clark made it back to the Cave.
~~~Bruce~~~
It was vulnerability.
It was vulnerability, and he had admitted it to Clark so freely.
“Well, seeing as we don’t know what the next few hours will bring, would you mind keeping an eye on us? If we end up needing to be restrained, you are going to be the best bet to do so,” Pam smiled softly as she spoke.
Clark nodded and took a seat in one of the more comfortable places in the cave. (He was floating, just in the spot that had the most consistent flow of warm air.)
“Clark,” Bruce said, realizing what he said a half beat behind the words leaving his mouth. It was like he needed to say Clark’s name. The one that he first knew him by. “Please, if the worst happens, I need you to make sure that everything is taken care of.”
He watched as the realization dawned on Clark’s face. They had spoken about this before, what to do if one of them died in battle. Only this time, it felt more probable. A battle against an unknown, unyielding, and unpredictable foe meant there was a higher chance of failure.
“I know,” Clark whispered, drawing in a breath and setting his feet down. He walked over to where Bruce stood. “That doesn’t mean I want anything to happen, and I will do my best to ensure that it doesn’t.”
Bruce caught a look out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t know what it meant, only that Pam was staring at the two of them like there was something both to be lost and found in the inches that separated their bodies. Clark pulled him into a tight hug before Bruce knew what to make of the look.
The burning sensation subsided completely.
Maybe he needed to look into the healing properties of tactile Kryptonian exposure. Surely there had to be something to it. Bruce always felt better when Clark was holding his hand as he healed. There was no chance that this was a coincidence. Maybe he could speak with Tim and Damian to see if they experienced similar healing properties from their Kryptonian best friends.
They probably wouldn’t have the proper data set for this particular question, though. They had not been infected by the same spores. Bruce was sure that that was what was behind this.
~~~
Bruce grunted under his breath as he got into the decontamination shower. He was glad that he had more than one of them for moments like this, however, he would have preferred to be able to keep an eye on Pam. He hated not knowing what was affecting his body.
He figured that since she was more directly affected by the spores themselves, the effects may be accelerated for Pam, or perhaps more intense. He wasn’t sure. They needed to have a long talk after they got cleaned up.
The longer he stood under the lukewarm spray, the more the aching in his chest and throat grew. Something had to be getting worse. He couldn’t figure out the pattern to it getting worse and better, it was as if there was some piece of himself he was missing.
Bruce wracked his brain to remember what Pam had said the spores were for, or at least would eventually be for, once they grew properly. To make herself a little braver. That explained nothing. Braver about what? How could these little spores make her braver?
He was stuck. Were the spores themselves going to grow into something that could fix what was happening? Anti-venom does tend to come from the venom of the snake after. The whole vial had spilled, though, so Bruce didn’t know what he could do.
The only thing that could truly lead him to answers was lodged inside his lungs, burning away at his throat in a desperate attempt to get out.
Bruce took a deep breath, trying to settle his nerves. He hated this feeling. Everything was ever so slightly off its normal axis. The ache in his chest turned into a burn.
He stepped out from underneath the shower head and towelled off before realizing he didn’t have anything to change into. Looking around, even his robe was missing, which meant that he would have to wait until someone showed up again.
When Clark walked in a few moments later, Bruce tried to spare a thought to be embarrassed. He had been caught with his metaphorical pants around his ankles (or rather, his literal towel around his head). He just couldn’t actually find it in himself to be worried, especially not when Clark more than made up for it for the both of them.
“Oh,” Clark sounded like someone had knocked the air out of his lungs. “I’m- I’m so sorry Bruce, Pamela, she, you don’t, she had a robe on when I knocked, I figured that it would be the same over here.” So that was where his robe had gotten to. Bruce sighed and pulled the towel over his face and down his body, to give himself some semblance of decency.
“It’s okay Clark, it’s not like we haven’t seen each other like this before,” Bruce said, thinking back on all the times he had been in a state of undress in front of his best friend. He took the clothes from Clark’s outstretched hand and began getting dressed before realizing that his throat was starting to itch again, as though it had gone away momentarily.
“Clark,” he called out. “Could you come back in here?”
“Are you decent?” Clark shouted back, even though it was clear from his voice he had barely made it across the threshold of the door.
“No,” Bruce replied simply, there was no need to beat around the bush. He had a theory that he needed to test. Clark seeing him in the nude seemed to fix his problems, at least for a little bit, at least until he left. Maybe that was a temporary solution?
“I am not coming in,” Clark stated. Bruce knew that tone, it was that of a very stubborn Kal-El. Not the mild mannered reporter that was his best friend, nor the paragon of goodness that was his partner. This was the man who was the last of his kind. He was in a sort of self-preservation mode. From what, Bruce wasn’t sure, but there had to be something.
“Clark, I need you,” Bruce said. His voice was almost a whisper. If Clark wanted to put up a shield, then Bruce would fall back. Sometimes the only answer was to accept the defensive and surrender. Asking for help would do that. “Please. I think that I may have come up with a short term solution.”
Bruce heard the door open behind him, felt a short breeze where the door displaced the air. A second breeze that was blocked by another body in the room.
“How is this helping?” Clark asked, his voice bouncing off of a wall before making its way to Bruce’s ears. The itch had soothed. Clark wasn’t even looking at him, but the feeling had calmed. He wondered if Clark’s presence would do the same for Ivy, or if she needed her own best friend to be nearby in order for the feeling to be quelled.
“I don’t really understand,” Bruce shrugged. “I just know that you being here is making a difference. Making it better.”
“Oh,” Clark breathed out, the sound almost inaudible. The exclamation carried an awestruck quality to it, as though Clark didn’t yet realize that he was a balm to all of Bruce’s hurt.
“Just, stay in here while I get dressed?” Bruce asked, trying to mimic the quiet of Clark’s voice. There was a strange tension in the room, but it was comforting, almost. Bruce wanted to sit in it, enjoy it. All he knew in that moment was that his body seemed to have a visceral reaction to Clark leaving, and beyond that, Bruce’s heart didn’t want him to go.
Bruce finished putting on the clothes that Clark had brought for him, turning back around to find Clark’s back still turned. He sat there for a moment, just studying the form of his best friend, still in the Superman suit, still powerful beyond belief, and yet showing Bruce his vulnerabilities.
“I-” Bruce started. He wasn’t really sure what he was trying to say–what he needed to say. “You can turn around now.”
Clark’s eyes met Bruce’s own and the spell that had fallen over them was broken. The itching in his chest didn’t return, but the calm faded away, leaving the need to fix whatever seemed to be broken in its place.
“Let’s go find Pam, see what she has figured out. Maybe what this whole thing was for in the first place.” Bruce suggested, putting his own shield back up. He needed to save up the strength behind it to ask Clark to stay the night. The idea of him leaving Gotham completely felt as though Clark would be taking Bruce’s heart and soul with him. And he hadn’t even left yet.
The pair made their way back into the cave, spotting Ivy sitting at the desk in front of the Batcomputer.
“So,” Ivy began, “have you and your constantly prepared brain figured out a way to fix this yet?”
“Not quite,” Bruce grunted, feeling as though he were admitting defeat. “I have a few questions for you before I can start on an anti-toxin.”
Ivy looked up at him with large eyes, a cough wracked her body. Bruce felt his blood run cold, if he had been experiencing the itching, the burning sensation, surely this was a part of it. A new symptom in a concerningly unknown disease.
“What were you initially trying to achieve?” Bruce asked, slowing his heart rate back to its usual resting pace by force. Clark, in no uncertain terms, knew by now that Bruce was afraid, but there was no need to let that fear seep into his voice where the only other person on the planet who knew what was going on would be able to hear it.
“Well, I have been trying,” Ivy coughed again, “to work up the courage to ask Harley on a date. I was trying to grow her this special crossbreed of roses that wouldn’t have thorns. They’re her favorite, you know? Roses, says that the beauty is what makes them worth the pain.” Another cough.
Bruce felt a tingle in his chest as she coughed, as though the action had triggered something within his own body. He looked over at Clark, who he had somehow made his way closer to over the course of approximately thirty seconds.
Clark had always reminded him of the good and bright in the world; it was fitting that he had his own form of gravity.
Clark cleared his throat as the infected pair looked at each other in what Bruce believed to be confusion.
“So, what am I needed for here?” Clark asked sheepishly, looking for all the world as though he wanted to disappear into the floor.
Pamela looked as though she wanted to say something, but Bruce opened his mouth to speak first.
“I am not really sure, Clark. All I know is that you were the first person that I wanted to have help me when I was in trouble.” Bruce tried to layer his voice with the affection that flowed through him for his best friend, trying to show that this was a sign of trust, and companionship.
“Ah, well, if that is the case, I can stay for as long as you would like.” Bruce could hear the tension behind the statement, as though there was something that Clark wanted to tell him that he couldn’t, or more likely, wouldn’t.
Bruce wracked his brain, thinking back through the conversations that he and Clark had had in the past week or so. What was Clark working on for his job?
That’s when it hit him, he was absolutely interrupting a huge deadline that Clark was up against for the Planet.
“It’s okay Clark,” Bruce started, and watched as the protest built behind Clark’s eyes and in his posture. “I promise, I will be just fine until you hit your deadline. Besides, I probably won't be all that fun to be around while I try to do testing and research.”
Clark’s protest deflated within him.
“Bruce. If you need me, for anything, please make sure that you call for me again.” Clark looked at him with pleading eyes as Bruce just nodded in return.
“Thank you Clark.” Bruce smiled. “I will, but for now, your work is all set here.”
~~~Bruce~~~
Bruce woke up the next morning with a flutter in his chest. The burning sensation was back. It had made it impossible to fall asleep, even harder to stay asleep. He thought it would be fine, he was used to it, but as he stretched out his limbs he was hit with a wave of exhaustion. It crashed into him, forcing out a yawn and made his eyes droop.
He had to get down to the cave and check the reports from the night before, make sure nothing had gone too entirely astray without him out the night before.
Bruce coughed, choking on something in his throat. As he tried to get it out, he wondered again what exactly the spores had done to him. He should have known better than to give in to the demands that he get some sleep before his tests were done running, but he had really been trying to listen to Clark more often. His best friend rarely had anything but best intentions.
The thing finally dislodged from where it was stuck and fell from his mouth into his hand. Delicate blue petals speckled with rapidly oxidizing blood.
The lethargy swept over him again, this time mixed with nausea. He closed his hand around the clump of petals and got himself out of bed. It wouldn’t matter what all these petals supposedly made him feel if he couldn't get them down to the lab and test them.
He had to know.
Bruce quickly threw on his robe, peeking around his bedroom for any other evidence of what he may have coughed up during the night, but the only place he found those petals were in his closed fist.
He brought them into the bathroom, rinsing them off, all the blood and mucous would call up would be his own DNA, which would not be useful in the slightest.
Once had them rinsed, he made his way down to the cave as quietly as possible. He didn’t need anyone knowing what he was doing. And even if they did he wouldn’t know what to tell them.
He didn’t know what to tell himself even. He needed something. Anything.
Bruce took a deep breath. He needed to calm himself down if he was going to make any significant headway. The list of questions he needed answered was already piling up high in his head.
He split the small clump of flowers into individual petals. He needed to keep at least one, to see if it would fade over time, or if some kind of magic was involved, outside of what he was used to with Ivy. There had to be some explanation.
Bruce set a couple of petals into a couple of different machines that he had set up from previous encounters where one of them had inhaled or been coated in or somehow swallowed something that they shouldn’t have. Each machine was turned on in sequence and then he went to the computer.
Even if this was something entirely new on Earth, there was a possibility that someone had encountered a similar situation on another planet.
Coughing up flowers. It felt like an insane search, but it was the most direct version of what he was experiencing.
His search algorithms ran, pulling information from all sources that were known to him that were considered reliable information. If this couldn’t turn up with anything, there was always going to popular media outlets. The things that had slowly filtered out over time as they proved exceedingly obsolete for mission related information.
The extensive searching, his incredibly honed and precise algorithms turned up nothing. There were no known recorded cases of anyone coughing up flower petals or flowers or anything so much as related to plant life anywhere. He had gone through a thousand combinations, between the symptoms that he felt and the things that he was currently running tests on, there was no information known about the weird disease that he had found himself the victim of.
He tried every possible combination until the first of his machines beeped at him, indicating that its tests had finished running. He noted to himself that he had been right the night before, he really wasn’t very fun in this moment, but then, he never was when he was solely dedicated to figuring out some new magical thing.
The first of the machines told him that the DNA sequencing that it had been able to run most closely matched his own, though with several mutations that were most likely that of the spores. He silently cursed at himself for not getting a sample of the spores the night prior.
He hoped that Pamela still had some in that jar of hers so that he could run tests on the flowers against whatever it was that she had crafted.
There was a pulse of hope inside of him when he thought about that. The spores could likely be a good base for an anti-toxin, or anti-fungal, or anti-whatever-the-hell-this-was. Knowing that they had combined so quickly and easily with his own DNA meant that he would likely also need his own DNA and one or more of the petals, as well as some from Pamela. Each antidote would have to be personal.
Bruce felt the itching at the back of his throat return, this time with more force. He felt the coughing start again, and this time he grabbed a sterile bag. Maybe by collecting it as purely as he could he would be able to run better tests, or at least start to formulate something that could cure him.
Bruce worked for the rest of the day, and through the night. He tried to collect every sample that came out of his body, in the hopes that it would somehow lead to different results.
It felt like nothing that he did was going right. Everything that he tried led to a new result of absolutely nothing. The flowers were just part of him, there wasn’t any foreign DNA in them. It was like the spores were magic that had taken root in his soul.
As it came to the close of the day, according to the digital clockface in the bottom corner of the screen of the Batcomputer, Bruce took a breath. He felt as though he had been working on a case for four or five days, the way that his exhaustion seeped deep into his bones. He coughed up another bundle of flower petals, a mix of bright yellow and baby blue.
He didn’t try to catch them this time, just let the mix of primary colors fall to the floor in front of him as he wheezed for breath, hoping against all odds that he would be able to figure out a cure quickly.
~~~
It was a couple days before Bruce stopped attending to his duties on the Watchtower. He tried to sit through mission briefings, and stay tuned into the conversations around him, but most of his focus was constantly on keeping the flowers inside of his throat. Creating a cause for concern would only hinder everyone else in what they were needed for.
It was also a slight concern to him, that whenever Clark was around, his mind could not drift to any other place. It was like he was laser-focused on the man. Whenever he was around, there was nothing else that Bruce could think about.
He had experienced it before, though to a lesser degree, being distracted by Clark. He knew that somewhere deep down inside of him, he wanted the man that he called his best friend around constantly, he looked to him for support during rough moments. Bruce just felt as though Clark was many of the good things in the world, and getting to know him better had only ever solidified that feeling.
He had always written it off as a feeling of admiration for the man who owed nothing to this world, or its inhabitants, and yet chose to help it anyway. Recently, however, he was starting to realize that it was perhaps more than just an idle desire to understand the man that he called his best friend better. Bruce had chosen not to look further into it.
This feeling, however, the seeming infatuation as of recent, was growing concerning. If Bruce somehow failed to keep his growing feelings in check, he would definitely have a problem on his hands.
Bruce decided that the best way to keep himself from exposing whatever this weird secret that he seemed to be keeping was to isolate himself from anyone who didn’t already know. His children knew that something was going on, but not what. Bruce knew that they would tell someone, who would then come checking on him, so he kept himself cooped up, running more tests, trying his best to create a cure, under the guise of a case that he was working on.
It worked for a while. He kept coughing up petals and feeling more and more drained at the end of every day. Within two days of keeping himself away from the Watchtower, the petals were becoming flowerheads.
Bluebells began to follow him around with his shadow, and sunflower petals littered his workspace.
He still had no answers.
~~~
It was maybe a day or two after he had resigned himself to complete isolation that Bruce finally gave in and tried to contact Pam. He knew that there had to be something that she had been able to find out that had simply escaped him. She was, after all, this disease’s creator.
Although it may not have been the most productive use of his time, Bruce knew that if he didn’t exhaust all avenues available to him, he would be upset when he was laying on his death bed later.
She was exactly where he thought that she would be, in the center of her dome of plants in the center of Robinson Park. He wasn’t sure if she would have figured out what exactly was wrong with them, or how to fix it, and that thought scared him. It had been a week, or at least that was how long he believed it had been. It was the only thing that made sense. And he was trying to stay positive.
Not knowing was terrifying.
“Pamela,” he grunted from behind his cowl, before feeling a choking sensation, and coughing out more flowers. There was something in not having to hide this disease, and knowing that she understood what he was going through. He was sure that they both needed the comfort of being seen in that moment.
He watched her turn to look at him. Her face was pale. Her usual vibrant green reduced to something sickly and wane.
He was convinced that he hadn’t been looking that frail when he left the Manor, but what if he had? What if he had been deluding himself into thinking that he was doing better than he really was?
“Bruce,” Pam smiled weakly. “I see you are looking right as rain.”
“I know, neither of us is doing particularly well.” Bruce’s voice was modulated, and while he wished that whatever this conversation was could be more personal, he knew that he couldn’t take the cowl off while in the suit.
“Well, you are looking decidedly better than I am.”
Bruce looked at the floor and took a breath, trying to steady himself, before looking back up at his old friend. “Any idea as to why that may be?”
“Well, from what I can tell, my connection to the Green, which is somehow involved in whatever went wrong in my attempts to grow some flowers, is strengthening my connection to this disease. I seem to be more susceptible than the average person would be. Although, in a positive twist, it does seem as though whatever this is does not spread from person to person.”
Bruce nodded. He had noticed that neither Alfred nor Clark had shown any symptoms in the days since they had had exposure to him. It did bring him comfort to know that she had come to the same conclusion.
“Have you been able to figure out any form of cure?” Bruce asked her.
She shook her head, and gestured to the numerous bottles and mixtures behind her, indicating her multiple attempts and failures.
“Have you been able to find anything that has at least stemmed the symptoms?” Bruce asked.
This time, Pam lit up a bit. “Well, actually, the day after we were both exposed, Harley came around, and I felt lighter. A bit more like myself. Maybe a little bit less like there were flower petals in my lungs.” Bruce nodded. He had felt that way when Clark had been around. Was this disease really so cliche as to be defeated by the power of friendship?
“Interesting findings. I do remember feeling some slight relief in the itching sensation that first night when Superman was around. Do you think that that may have something to do with finding a cure?” Pam just made a face, as though she were thinking deeply about the proposition. Maybe there was something to that.
“I am not sure, but maybe I will have to do some testing with Harley to see if there is some way that we would be able to figure it out. You should perhaps talk to Supes and see if he is amenable to helping you test things.”
Bruce grunted. He was sure that he could figure this out without someone hovering over his shoulder. Besides, if Pam was going to test out the friendship route, then he could do things that were more scientific in nature in the meantime. They had promised to tell each other if they found anything out, anyway, so why should they both be running the same tests.
“Perhaps, but I may want to run some more tests on the petals themselves to see if there is anything else that can be done before I go running to people who are not fully aware of the circumstances for help. They probably won’t know what to do either and the last thing that I want to do is worry them.”
Pam looked at him knowingly, as though there was something that he should be picking up that he wasn’t getting. He shrugged it off. Even if there was something that he was missing, he could figure that out once he had found a way to fix this thing that was wrong with him.
“Yeah,” Pam replied, giving him another glance. “I think that we can both go down our own routes, and something will work out. Just keep what I said in mind. Even if it doesn’t do anything other than make working more comfortable. Just keep your friends close, Bruce.”
Bruce closed his eyes before raising his face to the ceiling. He opened his eyes again, trying to find patterns in the way the branches crossed over each other to create a roof. Make some kind of order out of the chaos. It was all that he had to do at that point. Make order out of the chaos that was plaguing his body. Make it into something that he could control and defeat.
He had done it so many times before, between the various toxins and pollens that the rogues of Gotham had released over the years, there hadn’t been one that he couldn’t break apart and reorder so that he could overcome it. There wasn’t a single one that he hadn’t been able to fix by using the tools available to him, and he was certain that this would be no different, he just had to try hard enough and work fast enough to make it happen.
“Well, if you would be amenable,” Bruce started, before coughing up more petals, “we could work together for a little while. Try to find a cure until Harley shows up?”
Pam smiled and nodded and the pair got to work at her workbench side by side.
~~~
By the time Harley arrived, Bruce and Pam had devolved into a world of their own, trying to hand off different pieces of a mixture to try to figure out something that may work.
“Pammyyyyyy,” Harley sing songed as she bounced into the room. “Oh, hiya Bats.”
“Harley, hello,” Bruce looked up from the mixture on the table and glanced around the room. He was surprised that he hadn’t noticed her come in, but at the same time, he knew that he wasn’t exactly in his normal headspace. Concerning, nonetheless.
As Bruce panned his vision, he saw the visible pick up in Pam’s face. As though someone had taken the ailment that they shared and lifted its burden off of her shoulders. Maybe there was something to that power of friendship nonsense afterall. Though, it wasn’t like being around their people had done much other than cause temporary relief, so it couldn’t be considered a final cure until Pam had done whatever testing she needed to do with Harley.
“Didn’t realize you’d be here, Bats. Trying to steal my girl?” Harley laughed jovially, not recognizing the tense atmosphere.
Bruce looked at Pam more intentionally now. It was clear that whatever had happened during the last time that Harley had been with Pam, she had not been aware of the disease that wracked Pam’s internal environment.
Their eyes locked in understanding. This was not a conversation for Pam and Harley to have while Bruce was around. That didn’t mean it would be any easier later on, when Pam did eventually have to tell Harley what was happening, but there was something in the way that Pam’s eyes begged, as though she wanted a sense of normalcy for even just a few minutes, that Bruce understood on a deep and personal level.
What he wouldn’t give to feel like he didn’t need to hide this from his best friend.
So, instead of talking more about what it was that they were doing, or just leaving the pair to their own devices, Bruce stayed. He joined into conversations where it was appropriate, lied about what it was that he and Pam had been doing, and tried his best to keep his coughing to a minimum and his flower petals suppressed. There was no need to concern anyone with the reality of their situation. Not until there was a chance that everything would go poorly.
~~~
About a week after Bruce stopped attending meetings at the Watchtower, Clark showed up at the Manor, unannounced.
Bruce tried to get Alfred to send him away, but Clark was persistent. Eventually, Bruce relented and kept himself busy with his testing and meticulous work while Clark flitted around the Cave, looking for signs of what was going on to keep Bruce away from the League for such an extended period.
It wasn’t as though Bruce had a good reason either, all of his cases were things that he could work on during the time that he wasn’t needed by the League. None of them were incredibly pressing, nor were they things that he couldn’t delegate to his kids. In fact, he had already delegated most of the actual work to them so that he could continue trying to figure out exactly what was wrong with him.
Clark being there would be fine. He would just keep his back turned the whole time and try to keep the flowers inside. Tamped down. Where they couldn’t hurt him. Couldn’t scare Clark.
“Bruce,” Clark said, as he finally entered the cave. There was a hint of annoyance in his voice that Bruce was not particularly fond of. Perhaps it was more akin to disappointment than annoyance. Regardless, Bruce didn’t love that he was on the receiving end of it.
“Hello Clark,” Bruce replied, tamping down the wince that he felt when his voice came out more gravelly than it had been in a while. The flowers were trying to make themselves known.
“Where have you been? It’s unlike you to so completely just shirk your Watchtower duties. Do not even think of trying to give me the same excuse that you have been giving to everyone else. I know that you aren’t working on a different case, anything that would have taken you this long, and you would have typically called me for back up. Even if it were just boring research and detective work, as you so often try to pass it off.” Bruce felt himself blush. Clark really did know him better than he ever gave him credit for. Perhaps that meant that Bruce should be more careful. Alternatively, maybe it meant that he should ask for Clark’s help on the mysterious case of flowers literally growing inside of him.
Neither option sounded particularly great to Bruce, however. He really just wanted to figure out what was happening, and once again the flowers had quieted, and his focus was trying to pull him toward Clark, yet again.
A small itch tickled the in between his shoulder blades, typically something that he would have attributed to an uncomfortable seam in his clothing, or some insect landing on his back, but this time it felt internal. Like the flowers were trying to grow towards Clark. The sensation lit a new fire within him to get Clark out of the Cave as quickly as he could.
“No,” Bruce grunted. He needed to keep his side of the conversation short and to the point, lest the careful balance he had with the flowers broke at any moment, and he ended up with a bouquet growing out of his mouth. There was far too much riding on his need to be alone.
His mind wandered to him and Clark snuggled up on his couch in the sitting room, a fire lowly crackling in the fireplace, tea in hand, as they filled out a crossword together. It must have been a Sunday morning, as Alfred wasn’t calling him away to breakfast, even though the sun was clearly in place for his typical mid-morning meal.
He shook himself out of the day dream, and back into the present. If Clark being around slipped him off to dream land, then he truly needed to go.
“Just busy with a little bit of a few different things.” He tried to keep himself vague, the creaking of his voice not going anywhere, despite his best attempts to cover it with the whirring of the machinery near him. He debated adding in the fact that he has been feeling a bit under the weather, but concluded that that would likely just cause Clark to fret about him, with silly claims of being the best person to take care of him because he couldn’t contract a human disease the way that his direct family could. “I already sent notice to the League that I would be unable to attend anything for a few weeks while I sorted out some of the smaller, yet pressing issues here in Gotham. No cause for Alarm.”
Bruce did actually have to fight against the wince that threatened to wrack his body at how rough and angry his voice left his body. The flowers itched in his throat, as though they too were upset that he was being gruff with Clark.
“Okay.” Clark muttered, the tone of his voice laced with a hint of defeat. “I can see when I am not wanted. I will be out of your hair in no time.”
Bruce heard the footsteps tracing along the stairwell leading out of the Cave. He knew that he should be celebrating his best friend’s hasty retreat, but instead he felt horrible. He had hurt Clark, and for what? To keep a secret? He hadn’t done that intentionally since he had revealed his identity. Bruce groaned, holding in the couch that he knew was coming until the sound of the grandfather clock that hid the entrance to the Cave sounded.
As soon as it did, Bruce felt bile rising from his stomach, in concert with the feeling of flower petals rising through his lungs. He clawed at his neck, the feelings inside of him growing overwhelming. As he opened his mouth to retch out whatever was trapped in there, he tasted iron, and felt an entire, intact, sunflower head wrench from his body.
As it landed on the table in front of him, Bruce stared in bewilderment. That was far too large to have fit in his lungs, or his throat.
He picked up the flower and got back to testing.
~~~Clark~~~
Clark felt incredibly defeated as he left the Manor. He knew that Bruce had been secretive for a while, ever since that night that Clark had been called over to Wayne Manor, and Bruce was with Poison Ivy. It was a different thing, to now be faced with the fact that Bruce seemingly didn’t trust him enough to help with whatever fallout there had been from that night. Or, if there hadn’t actually been any, then didn’t trust him with whatever was going on now that the issue had been resolved.
It wasn’t that Clark expected Bruce to tell him everything–everyone deserved their secrets and privacy afterall–but Clark did feel hurt to be left out of something that he could very clearly help with.
Bruce had been down in the Cave, running tests on his machines, in a way that he wouldn’t use them for civilian life. He was hiding something, and it had to do with Batman.
Clark tried his best to not let his imagination overtake him, but something about the curtness Bruce had used with him, just didn’t sit right. Maybe Bruce was investigating him, that could explain some of the dismissiveness, the unwillingness to work at the Watchtower, the refusal to invite Clark to help with whatever it was that he was working on.
What it was that Bruce was investigating him for was a new mystery that Clark could only begin to speculate on. He wasn’t sure what exactly he could have done that warranted investigation. Nor, more specifically, an investigation that was taking this long.
Clark dug through the recesses of his mind as he flew over Gotham, and then Metropolis. He was sure that if he tried hard enough, he would be able to think of something. By the time he was settled onto his couch to watch the night’s episode of Jeopardy, he was still drawing blanks, now just more frustrated than before.
He settled into bed that night, with that same question just circling around in his mind, What was it that Bruce could possibly be looking into?
The week pressed on, and Clark was still without answers. He didn’t dare go back to the Cave and try to pry them out of Bruce, lest he upset the man even more. That was decidedly the last thing that he was trying to do, and more than that, he had no intention of going where he was not wanted, which Bruce had made pretty clear was anywhere within shouting distance.
Work continued, and Clark let his thoughts spiral, there was more and more on his mind. Bruce hadn’t made any headlines in any newspaper for nearly two weeks. He hadn’t shown up at the Watchtower in about half that time. Anytime he asked someone what was going on, they all repeated the same refrain, of believing that he was the one who would know, or that B would show up when he was needed.
~~~
Clark hated not knowing. He hated it with a passion. The more days that passed without a word from Bruce, or even any of the other Bats, the more agitated he grew. Something was wrong, it had to be wrong. Radio silence from Gotham wasn’t too common these days, unless the entire group of Gotham vigilantes was trying to stop something huge. But even then, there were usually news stories covering whatever was going on. Or even a call out to the League if it got particularly overwhelming.
This time there was truly nothing. And nothing had ever bothered Clark more. He started small, sending little messages to Bruce, via their personal phones, to check in on him. It was something that they didn’t do often, just to coordinate for meetups that they needed to schedule out of uniform. Bruce responded positively to those, so every now and then, he would call, leaving a voicemail for the man on the other side of the line. Small things, just enough to show that he cared, and that he was worried for his best friend. Trying to toe the line of concern and affection in a way that wouldn’t give away all his feelings.
Unless that is what Bruce had discovered about him? Had Bruce uncovered the true nature of Clark’s feelings for him, and that was why he had been avoiding him in person? The responses to Clark’s texts were always cordial, though never over-friendly, nor anything that invited too much more conversation. He never returned the phone calls, and Clark had no way of knowing if Bruce had listened to the messages that he left, considering Bruce never acknowledged them in his texts.
Maybe he really was trying to distance himself from the feelings that Clark had been unable to hide. The ones that he had tried so desperately to conceal for the fear of losing one of the people most important to him.
Clark’s worst nightmare was coming true.
He had to shift into damage control mode. He couldn’t let this be the thing that lost him the best friend that he had ever had. He could repress his feelings, figure out a way to get rid of them if that would make Bruce more comfortable.
Trying desperately to find a solution, he pulled up his text conversation with Bruce. The stilted conversation from the day prior read simply.
Clark: Hey Bruce, just wanted to check in and see if you were okay. Working on a story at the Planet that made me think of you.
Bruce: Fine. Hope the story goes well.
Clark: I will let you know when it goes to print so that you can read it!
read
Clark wanted to scream. He really had been throwing himself at Bruce hadn’t he? Who writes a news article and thinks of someone else? Really? That was the best excuse that he could come up with to try to get Bruce to chat about his day? Or was he hoping for some sort of validation that Bruce would read it, because he enjoyed the articles that Clark wrote? Why was he such a disaster?
Clark: Hope you are doing well. Going to be busy for a few days.
Clark watched as the tiny text underneath the text changed from delivered to read and three little bubbles appeared, then disappeared, then reappeared, before disappearing for good.
He wanted to crawl into his apartment and under a blanket and then hide forever. Bruce was happy to be rid of the daily reminders of his existence. He didn’t even know why he had lied about being busy. All he had going on for the next few days, pending something major happening that required Superman, was his time at the Daily Planet and watching Jeopardy. One of the contestants was on a really good run, and he was enthralled with watching the smart young woman beat out all of her competitors in runaway games night after night.
Clark took a deep breath and put his phone away. He had a day to get ready for. He needed to continue writing the article on corruption in Metropolis and how better education programs would be able to help root out politicians who were there for selfish reasons. Now was not the time to be having a personal crisis. No matter how badly he wanted to.
Clark went back to researching some of the things happening at LexCorp, and how they were enabled, directly or indirectly, by politicians who made sure that votes were swayed in one direction or another, so that it was always favorable to Lex getting his way.
It seemed like the best course of action for the moment, just letting it go. He could check in in a couple of days, when the dust had maybe settled around whatever Bruce thought was going on. He could clear things up. Promise Bruce that nothing would have to change, he could keep his feelings to himself. Everything would be alright, because it had to be.
He couldn’t lose his best friend and partner.
So back to corruption and politics it was. Things that seemed like a match made in heaven. The way he had thought he and Bruce were. He always imagined that they were anyway.
Clark shook his head. Wishing that his mind was an etch-a-sketch that he could erase that simply. Of course, it was never going to work. He couldn’t focus on his job, too many thoughts zipped around his brain, making him wonder if he had somehow done something wrong. How he had slipped up. What cards he had shown.
~~~Bruce~~~
Bruce stared down at his phone.
Clark: Hope you are doing well. Going to be busy for a few days.
Bruce started typing a message. I am alright, trying to fix whatever seemingly incurable disease I have. How are you? He erased it.
Bruce waited a few seconds, and then tried again. He knew that he couldn’t explain over text, and he was even less likely to be able to explain in person. Especially, not without somehow explaining that he was still unable to find a cure. A fix. An anything.
He tried typing again, this time, he didn’t even look down at the screen before erasing the text and shutting off his phone.
Had he really pushed Clark away that far? How long had it been since he had been in proper contact with any of the members of the League? The days had blurred together. His sleep schedule was incredibly out of sorts, especially the times where he was only able to stay awake for a few hours at a time before needing to rest.
He turned his phone back on and listened to the voicemails that Clark left for him. There were five in total, all varying in length and content. His favorite was around ten minutes. And ended with Clark saying “oh, I didn’t realize that I had been talking for that long. Sorry, B. I’m sure that you won’t get all the way here anyway, who even listens to their voicemails these days? Any way, just figured I would give you an update.”
He starts that one.
“Hi Bruce, thought I would try to give you a call. Lois told me that I am moping too much and need to find other friends so that when you are busy I’m not a sad lump. When I asked if she wanted to hang out, she laughed, and said that she was not the kind of friend she was talking about. Not really sure what she meant by that, but I know that you would have been able to tell, if I could just get the inflection right. Oh, right, I didn’t call you to tell you that I have been missing you, although I have.
“I thought I would catch you up on some League Business, as well as tell you a little bit about Jon. He was able to send me a message from the mission that he and Damian are away on right now, and I didn’t know if Damian had thought to do the same. Our Boys are safe, just a couple galaxies away. Which, I know should concern me more than it currently does, but I just can’t find it in myself to worry too much knowing that they’ve got each other’s backs. Kind of like you and I do when we are out on missions together…”
Bruce let the message trail off as he fell asleep in the harsh overhead lighting of the Cave. He wasn’t quite sure what day it was, and he knew that he didn’t really care, because he had Clark’s voice helping him drift off to dreamland. The way that he really wished that it could be forever.
~~~
The flowers had progressed even more in the time since he had last seen Clark. Instead of single flowers, the bluebells were coming out in strings, and the sunflowers were growing longer and longer stems. Nothing to indicate that anything he had been doing was anywhere even close to working.
Bruce thought about calling up Pam again, in an effort to see if she had discovered some good news, but they had promised to let each other know if they found anything that could amount to a break-through.
Last he knew, Pamela had been trying to get Harley to help her test out some possible remedies, so he was sure that he would hear from at least one of them, were they to find a suitable cure.
Bruce just kept testing the flowers, trying to get them to react to anything in a way that would kill them without killing himself, but each time, he found that if the antidote was successful, it unravelled the flowers all the way down to their DNA, which meant that is he tried to use the injection or inhalant, he would likely suffer permanent damage. Not to say that he wasn’t already suffering damage to a massive degree by their being inside of his body.
By the time Bruce had woken up for the 21st time after his initial exposure to the spores, he decided that it was possible that the only way to achieve the removal of the flowers was physical.
He called up Dr. Thompkins, in a desperate attempt to see if there was anything that she may be able to do to help him.
“Bruce,” Leslie answered the phone chipperly. “To what do I owe the pleasure? I haven’t seen anything gruesome online about Batman as of late.”
“Leslie,” he coughed out, “I was infected by something of Poison Ivy’s. I have been running tests for as long as I can, but I am starting to think that I may need this removed.”
“Oh,” she started, and Bruce could hear the worry in her voice. He knew how bad he sounded, it was why he had never picked up any of Clark’s calls, no matter how badly he had wanted to. “Well my boy, I can certainly come and check on you, though it sounds like this infection may not be something that can be physically removed.”
“Just, please, come to the Manor. I can explain more here.” Bruce could feel his voice grow more hoarse as he used it, as he made a note to get a message to Alfred to bring her down to the Cave the moment that she arrived.
Bruce heard her make a noise of assent before a door closed, and the line disconnected. He hoped that that meant she was on her way. When he checked the time, his phone read 1:43 a.m. which only proved to him that he had been nothing more than a burden to those around him since contracting whatever this disease was.
When Leslie arrived in the cave, Bruce was sitting in the chair at the Batcomputer. He was hoping that by pulling up all of his files, everything that he had learned, and consequently, everything that he had failed at, he could convey to Leslie a basic idea of what they were up against.
His whole plan went out the window when he started choking on a sunflower the moment that he reached the bottom of the staircase. It was just like the flowers to want to make themselves known, no matter the cost to Bruce’s health, or dignity.
Bruce heard the footsteps approach him quickly rather than seeing her get nearer. There was a brief moment where Bruce was convinced that this was the flower that he would die on, before Dr. Thompkins lifted up his face by his chin, and gently extracted the sunflower, whose stem was wrapped in a string of bluebells.
“Sorry,” he whispered, the remorse that he felt for his gruesome display evident in his tone.
If this experience was teaching him anything, it was that he was undeniably human, and thus he was definitively mortal. Bruce took a shuddering breath, checking the time once again. A mere twenty minutes had passed since they had hung up the call, but Bruce felt as though hours had come and gone. He hated how exhausting it was to exist.
Bruce took a breath before explaining what he could between wheezing breaths, and more choked out flowers.
By the end, Leslie had moved him away from his position at his desk, and was looking through the files that were open on his computer. She made small sounds of intrigue on occasion, flipping through the documents and information at a fast pace.
Bruce noted the places that she stopped to look at things more closely. There were bits and pieces of information that he had mostly skipped over, in an effort to conserve his mental energy that she seemed to be lingering on. They continued this way for the better part of an hour before Bruce was finally drifting off in his chair.
~~~
Bruce was awoken with a start, he wasn’t sure what exactly woke him, until the flowers once again started itching at the back of his throat. He choked and coughed until the entwined bluebells and sunflower left his body.
He glanced up to see Leslie looking at him again.
“Well, my boy, it seems as though removing these physically isn’t going to do you any good. I have looked over everything that you have here, all of the scans, and tests, and double checking, and from what I can tell, whatever this is, is suffused throughout your body.”
Bruce felt the wheezing breath that he drew more than he heard it, and watched as Leslie winced in sympathetic pain.
“It may slow the progress of whatever this disease is down, but I don’t think that I am going to be able to do anything to completely halt its progress. Have you been in contact with Ivy to see if she has found a cure? If she was exposed like your notes say, then she is probably in a similar condition to you.”
Bruce grunted and coughed a few times before opening his mouth to speak. “A few sleeps ago. She had,” wheeze, “a theory to test. No word,” cough, “so far.”
Bruce hated how fragile he sounded in these moments. Like he was shattered glass that was moments away from falling out of its frame and creating a mess on the floor.
“Maybe it would be worth reaching out to her again to see if she has come up with anything that may be useful. You never know.”
“Thanks,” another wheeze, “doc.” Bruce coughed again, this time only spewing out a few flower petals, though he knew something bigger was on its way, from the way his throat still felt far too tight.
He was sure that he could figure this out. He checked the time again. 6:27 a.m.
Had he really left Leslie awake all night to sift through his research, of presumably the last few weeks while he slept away his woes in a black void of dreamless unconsciousness?
Bruce cursed himself as Leslie walked back toward the stairs that led up and out of the Cave. He wanted his theory to work. He needed it to, or else how was he supposed to go back to life? To see his youngest son graduate from high school? To potentially tell Clark that he loved him?
The flower that was blooming inside of him closed slightly at the last thought that flitted across his mind. Was that a good or a bad sign? He wanted to scream. To yell at his flowers, make them tell him what exactly it was that they needed for him to be fixed.
This wasn’t a problem that he could solve by punching his way out of it. There was no blade in the world sharp enough to remove him from himself. To cut out what must be a fundamental piece of his being, down to the point that it was growing within every cell of his body.
Bruce took a sample from the bottom of his foot and started analyzing it against the latest flower petals that he had removed from his lungs.
~~~
Over the next few days, Clark showed up at the Manor several times, each time Bruce directed Alfred to turn him away.
Bruce hated that he was assuredly hurting Clark’s feelings, and potentially their friendship at the same time, but wouldn’t it be easier for Clark if they were already distant when Bruce inevitably could not find the cure that he needed?
Wouldn’t it be easier to keep Clark at arm’s length? Hurt him more now so that he wouldn’t be quite so hurt in the long run.
There was only so much that he could do to run more tests. At most, Bruce would have hours in him at a time between rest periods, less if he needed to remain standing, even less if he was trying to do something strenuous.
He watched as his body betrayed him. As the muscles that he had worked so hard to maintain slowly softened and atrophied as he wasn’t able to use them. He wished that he could do so much as a single set of his normal routine. But even that was more than he seemed to be able to ask of himself. In that discovery, Bruce learned that the already fragile relationship he had with his own self-worth was shattered when he could no longer be useful to those who needed him.
If he wasn’t useful, he wasn’t worth loving.
It was something that he knew he had felt about himself for a long time, but it was something that he had always been able to push down, and push away for the fear that thinking too much about it might show others just how little use he had.
He could do his main job for the League from a distance. Funding them was probably the most he had ever contributed anyway.
The next time he woke up, he made sure to set up a charitable trust that would hopefully be able to keep the League running for long after his passing. Provided that they didn’t some how completely destroy the Watchtower.
He set up access codes to the Cave for all of his children. Most of them had been spared the knowledge of his failing health, the only one who knew during the entire decline had been Damien, and he had only seen the beginning, before there was some undercover operation that he had needed to go on with his team.
He lamented the fact that he wouldn’t get to say goodbye to his children, so he wrote them notes, telling them how much he loved them, how sorry he was. How much he wished he could have done better, been the man that they all deserved as a father.
Next, he wrote a letter to Clark. He spilled his guts. He wrote down every word that he wished he could say, and then some. The letter took him an entire waking period. It was extensive, stained with his tears, and kissed as he sealed the envelope.
The next time he woke up, he burned it.
The acrid smell of his burning passion seemed to fit everything else that was coming of his current state. He didn’t deserve to get to tell Clark all of the things he felt.
If he wasn’t good enough for the man he loved in life, he wasn’t going to guilt him into feeling love for him in death.
Bruce tried to reorganize the Batcomputer during one of his awake periods. He shuffled things around until they were organized by date and alphabetically, instead of the sorting system he had come up with when he had first started out. The one that only made sense to himself, and Tim, who had figured out the computer within a week of being at the Manor full time. Tim might be annoyed with the reorganization, but Bruce had to face the facts that someone had to be able to find old information, and Tim wasn’t always going to be around the Cave to sort through it. He had his own life and his own team to attend to.
Bruce stared at his own hands for his next period of wakefulness. He didn’t know how long he had been down in the cave, just that sometimes when he woke up, there were small meals, or cups of soup waiting for him. (It had become more and more soup as time had passed and he couldn’t swallow anything that was more than mush.)
Bruce stared and stared, trying to imagine all of the things that his hands had touched, all of the places that he had been, if those moments had led to a positive or negative change for the lives around them.
He wasn’t sure what the answer to that question was. There was no telling what ripple effects he had caused, nor what he may or may not have been able to do had he beaten this.
Over the course of the last few days, he had stopped trying to clean up the flowers around him. They laid scattered across the floor in a mockery of a grave, as though his body was trying to bury him six feet under his own hopelessness.
Most men get their first flowers at their funerals.
At least he had gotten some before then.
~~~Clark~~~
Clark had had enough. Bruce had been locking himself inside of rooms and avoiding the entire League for too long by that point. It wasn’t entirely out of character for him to hide away. Hell, it had been his entire personality at one point. It had gone on too long though, someone had to do something.
Clark flitted about the Watchtower asking everyone if they had time to go check on Bruce. He was met with the same answer every time.
“He has only talked to you for weeks, Supes.”
The answer was concerning, because it had been well over a week since Bruce had allowed Clark to so much as within the same room. He had been hoping that Bruce was at least talking to one other person. Anyone, really.
Just enough that Clark at least knew he was still alive, even if he was unwell.
The more he thought about it, the more upset Clark was. Bruce had been making so much progress with asking for help when he needed it. What in the world could possibly have him so closed off?
Clark tried to think back to the last time he had seen Bruce, what he looked like, if he had seemed like he was hiding something. Even so, Clark knew he would be coming up empty, if Bruce wanted to hide something, it would be hidden.
Which meant, whatever it was that was keeping Bruce behind closed doors had built up, and was no longer something he could hide.
Clark wondered, then, when the lead up had started, what signs had Clark missed, and he could only find himself thinking of one incident, that night a little over a month ago, with Poison Ivy, and Bruce clinging to him like he had the answer to all the world’s problems. Or, at least, the type of clingy that that looked like from Bruce.
He hated not knowing what was ailing his best friend. The man that he loved. Even if there was no easy way to say that without making Bruce want to somehow even further cut contact with him.
~~~Bruce~~~
Bruce decided that he had to completely cut contact with the League. He had been trying to answer requests from Diana whenever she would send them over, coming up with excuses for why he couldn’t do field work, why he needed a break from active participation in League activities.
He put himself on a sabbatical of sorts, using the last ounce of strength that he had for the day in order to change his active status in all of the team communication channels to away. It was something that had not been done very often outside of a member of the League being away on a mission, but he hoped that they would understand. Maybe one day, when he could explain everything to them while sitting around the conference table, with words that he did not currently have at his disposal.
He knew, in that moment, that there would be so many things that he would miss out on if he were to die. He had had the thought somewhere around a month ago to his best recollection. That he would miss Damien graduating, all of his kids getting married, hell he would even miss several of them bringing home the partner that he had always thought they would end up with. He would never meet his grandchildren, nor any in-laws. He resigned himself to the not knowing. It was what got him here in the first place after all.
If you can’t beat them, join them.
~~~
It hurt. Every ragged breath in, and shuddering breath out. His entire body felt like it was on fire as he coughed up more petals. They had started coming with such frequency that he knew anyone who saw him would see the petals too.
He wished that he could have come up with a cure, an antidote, even just something that would have slowed the progression of the spores so that he would have more time to come up with an answer to what the sunflowers and bluebells meant, why they were reaching out of him, if not for the sun itself.
He wished that he could save himself, save Pam, save Clark from the grief that he was about to put him through. He hated to know that he was about to hurt his best friend in such a profound way, even more so than if Bruce had simply died of old age. Something in him knew that Clark would blame himself, even if there was nothing he could’ve done.
Bruce wondered if Pam had found an answer yet, even though he knew that there would have been a call, a message, something, if she had. He was tempted to try to talk to her anyway. It wasn’t like things could get much worse if he reached out.
The aching in his heart grew worse at the thought of speaking to someone, and Bruce wished that he could figure out what the remedy to that particular problem was. The only time it had ever really felt any better was when Clark was around.
Maybe he should try to get Clark to stop by again.
Bruce shook his head to clear the thought out. The whole reason he had ceased communication with the League was because he wouldn’t be able to hide his condition. As if to prove a point, Bruce coughed. This time it was an intact stem of bluebells, the perfect baby blue splattered with blood and mucous.
He threw the flowers to the ground, wishing that he could pull the flowers out by the roots. But every time they got to his mouth they were detached. A cruel joke to play off of their usual beauty.
Bruce was more than frustrated, he needed answers. He supposed it was time.
He moved as quickly as he could, though it didn’t seem to be very fast these days, as he got winded incredibly easily, down to the Cave, before he called up Pam. Even if she knew who he was, and had for quite some time, a small piece of him still said that he needed to be ever so slightly secretive, lest something go wrong.
“Pam,” Bruce’s voice was gravelly, he could feel the flowers fighting toward freedom yet again. “Help, please.”
“Bruce,” came a surprised voice on the other end of the line, albeit in much better shape than his own.
“Why-” he started before he choked on a bigger piece of a flower than he had ever coughed up. His throat felt like it was coming apart, and he knew that he had to just let it come out. He sat and gagged and coughed until a mostly intact sunflower head emerged from his mouth. He sat in wonder, trying to figure out how that had grown inside of him and not torn him apart completely. “Why do you sound better?”
“Oh, Bruce, I thought you had figured it out by now. I thought we said we would call if things got worse.”
Bruce grunted and stared at the phone screen. He really thought that they were supposed to call if they figured anything out, and he was still lost for ideas.
“B, it’s simple, you just have to tell him how you feel,” Pam continued, a hint of genuine concern lacing through her voice.
“Him?” Bruce asked around the fiery feeling in his throat.
“Oh? Is it not Clark? I really thought that it was by the way you acted around him. Although, I suppose if you are straight Diana or Selina would make sense too.”
“Is what Clark?” Bruce felt himself start to tear up. Pam made it sound so simple. Her voice was clear and focused and free of any of the gut-wrenching pain that he felt.
“Clark? That you’re in love with?”
The world around Bruce stopped spinning, or maybe it sped up. It didn’t really matter, because all he could think about was that Pam thought he was in love with Clark. That didn’t make sense. Did it? He couldn’t be in love with him. Not after everything that they had been through, everything they had experienced. He would have known his own feelings well enough to recognize and quash them. Wouldn’t he?
“No, Pam, I-” another bout of coughing cut him off mid-sentence. “I would know. That can’t be it.”
“It is, Bruce. Remember when I told you that I was making the spores to help me be brave? I meant with Harley. I have been in love with her for so long, and I couldn’t ever quite work up the courage to tell her so. But, well, the idea of dying of some mystery disease of my own creation without ever telling her gave me a lot of courage.” Bruce could hear the love and admiration in her voice. “Within moments of her telling me that she loved me too, I was able to breathe again.
“It was like my feelings for her were taking my breath away, and the only way I could fix it was to tell her.”
The tears were falling freely. How could he have missed something so obvious? And what if he really wasn’t in love with anyone? How could he fix this without someone to love him back? He knew that his kids loved him, that Alfred loved him, that his friends loved him, but that wasn’t the same. It wouldn’t be the magical cure that Pam was talking about.
“What if I don’t love anyone like that?” Bruce asked. He didn’t want to die, not like this. “What if I can’t?”
“Oh Bruce, we both know that you can love with your whole heart. You just have to let yourself believe that you can be loved back. Or at least give them the chance to show you that they do.”
“Pam,” he whispered, “if I mess this up, I am going to lose my best friend.”
“No you won’t, but if you don’t do anything, your best friend is going to lose you.”
He just stared at her. Was that night that they had worked together for hours, with Harley unknowing beside them the night that she had figured it out? Was she trying to hint at him that he had needed to confess his feelings all along?
If she had been trying to be subtle to spare his feelings, he really wished that she hadn’t. There were only so many cues that he could pick up, and none of them had ever really related back to his love life all that well.
Maybe he still had enough time. Enough that he would be able to call for Clark and fix all of this. He didn’t know what would happen if Clark rejected him, but it almost seemed worse to never find out at all.
If he had to die, at the very least he wouldn’t be going out with a complete lack of knowledge. And so what if he couldn’t beat the lack of knowledge, nor could he truly join it. He would at least be able to leave this world knowing that he tried.
It was something that he hadn’t ever really let himself believe. That trying was enough. He had to succeed or else the endeavor felt slightly wasteful.
He forced himself to think of times that trying had had to be enough. All of the times that he had failed at parenting, just to go to Clark and have the other man tell him that his boys knew he was trying. That they would forgive him, so long as he continued. It hadn’t ever really felt like enough, but that was okay, Clark had assured him. No one knows what they are doing. This is our first time being a person afterall.
You don’t have to have it all figured out, so long as you keep trying to find the answers.
Bruce had laughed it off as silly at the time, but maybe Clark had been offering advice for something that he hadn’t known was coming. After all, how could he have known that the time that his advice would be so relevant would be the day that Bruce so desperately needed answers to the question of whether or not Clark loved him too?
Bruce knew that the question would likely come as a shock to Clark’s system. He hadn’t been aware of the true nature of his intentions towards Clark for the longest time either it seemed.
“Pam, are you sure that this is going to work?” Bruce asked after what he felt was a far too long pause.
“I can only tell you that it worked for me. And that if there is anything that I have been able to witness during my time fighting you and Big Blue, it’s that that man would do anything for you. Anything that is within his power. He would never stop fighting if he were offered the chance.” She smiled at him lovingly. “And I know that that’s how Harley feels for me too. So maybe, Bruce, you have a shot at a happily ever after too.”
Bruce grimaced as he coughed up another flower, or two, as it turned out. Twin sunflowers, growing out of the same stem, so close that they might be inseparable, twined through with bluebells and leaves.
Maybe she was right. Even though the thought sounded more preposterous than the way he had originally taken her words. The power of love was a magical fix in fairy tales, not real life. Just like the power of friendship couldn’t make someone a better person.
Although, that wasn’t necessarily true either. He thought back to the days when he and Pam had fought each other mercilessly. THe days when what she needed was for someone to try to understand her and all the new found powers she had acquired.
Instead, he had tried to fight her, and it only made her more upset. It only made her connection to the Green less stable, more ready to lash out at any moment, whether under her control or not.
Maybe the reason that fairy tales had always felt so comforting and right as a child was that there was some basis in reality, no matter how far-fetched the ideas usually were. Extending an olive branch, being willing to ask for help, working with a team, all of those things had made his life easier over the years. Even if they didn’t work every single time, the times that they had worked, he was happier, and so was everyone around him.
Maybe, just maybe it could work one more time.
Bruce opened his mouth to call out for Clark, when he started choking on another flower.
Clark came down the stairs and took him from where he was sitting, while he didn’t see where Pam left to, he felt her presence leave the area, taking the forest-like feeling of the Green with her.
~~~Clark~~~
Clark had had about enough of the waiting, the hiding, the worry. He was determined to make this situation right, even if it was the last thing he did. He hated the idea of ambushing Bruce in his own home, but he felt like he had no choice left.
He waited until midday, when Bruce was most likely waking up from his post-patrol nap, and thus would likely be the most receptive to hearing him out.
Knocking on the manor door, he prepared his argument. He would get through Alfred’s easy dismissal this time. He wasn’t taking no for an answer.
“Oh? Mister Kent, I do always appreciate how prompt you are,” Alfred sounded shocked but not displeased to see him, which felt like a win.
“Were you- were you expecting me?” Clark asked, slightly confused by the complete 180 in Alfred’s demeanor from the past few weeks.
“Well, yes, Master Bruce told me to expect your visit. I do presume that he called you and that is why you have arrived?”
“Oh, well, no. Not exactly anyway. I came because this is unlike Bruce, or well, at least the Bruce who has done work to actually integrate with the League a bit. I know this probably is more the Bruce that you are used to, closed-off and standoffish, but, well, we were- I am concerned about him…” Clark realized that he was rambling and let himself trail off, much to his own mortification.
“Ah, well, it appears great minds think alike then, as Master Bruce had been planning on calling on you. He said that he was concerned for the worry that he may be putting you all through and wished to ease your troubled minds.” Alfred stepped aside as he spoke, welcoming Clark into the Manor and out of the brisk, windy day.
“Thank you,” Clark replied, feeling in a daze from the whiplash between what he was prepared to do to be allowed in and the reality that he was met with instead.
“Master Bruce is downstairs if you are looking for him, though I must warn you to not let his appearance shock you. He has been quite ill for some time now, and I fear that it is making him look rather wan. I believe he may be a little self-conscious of the whole matter.”
“Bruce is sick?” Clark whispered. Fear and adrenaline hit him in the stomach, what if Bruce died before Clark had a chance to tell him he loved him? Worse still, what if Bruce went to his grave hating Clark for loving him? It seemed unfair, to have so little time to properly fix what he felt was so broken.
Clark took a breath and steeled himself. He would have to work to find a cure for whatever was keeping Bruce from his job as Batman. If he had given up on even going to the league to find support, then it was grave.
If even Bruce thought that he was a lost case, then what chance did Clark have at helping? Maybe just being there would have to be enough. He wasn’t the same kind of genius as Bruce. He couldn’t create an antidote out of thin air.
He didn’t even know what mystery disease had Bruce on the rocks, he just knew that he had to do something about whatever it was. That, and probably not react to whatever waited for him behind the foyer’s grandfather clock.
Clark made his way down the stairs slowly, deliberately stepping on the stair that he knew creaked a little bit too loud so that Bruce would hear him coming. For all he knew, even that wouldn’t be enough, but it was worth it to try. He knew that there was someone else in the room, but he didn’t have eyes for anyone or anything that wasn’t Bruce.
“Clark,” came a gravelly voice that he barely recognized. It was paired with a heart beat that sounded thready and far faster than he was used to.
“Bruce.” The name fell off his lips in a whisper, something akin to shock taking over his voice. What had happened? He couldn’t even see Bruce yet, and still the signs that something was wrong were all right in front of Clark’s face.
How could he have missed this the past few times he had been turned away at the front door?
“I didn’t even call you. Wasn’t sure you would show,” Bruce said, self-deprecation obvious in his tone.
“Of course I would. Anything you need, you know that.”
Clark heard a wheezing laugh followed by an echoing cough, and decided that approaching slowly was no longer the best approach. He moved as quickly as he could without making too much noise to Bruce.
When Alfred had said mere moments ago that Bruce had been ill and that he looked the part, Clark hadn’t been quite sure what to expect. It certainly, however, hadn’t been what he was faced with.
“Bruce,” he whispered again, caressing a blood stained chin in his hand. Petals were scattered around the floor and in Bruce’s lap, intact strings of Bluebells and mostly complete sunflower heads littered the desk in front of them. “What-”
Bruce looked up at him mournfully. “Pam,” he wheezed and took a breath followed by another coughing fit. Baby blue and sunshine yellow petals dotted with specks of red fluttered to the ground around them. “She called it Hanahaki. Said that she started re-” he was cut off, gagging until he could pull another full stem of bluebells from his throat.
“She was researching it when she started coughing up flowers.” Clark tried to scan his memory for any disease, human or alien that they had come across by the same name.
“Fictional disease, for the most part. Don’t worry, it’s not contagious.”
Of course, Clark thought, Bruce’s first thought would be to ease Clark’s mind. Not that it did much, he was watching Bruce’s condition get worse as they were sitting there.
“Apparently, to cure it, you have to-” another coughing fit, half of a sunflower this time. “Tell the object of your affections how you feel, and hope that they return the sentiment.”
Clark could see the pride on Bruce’s face at getting out the rest of the sentence before succumbing to the flowery death rattle once more. Clark watched the other half of the sunflower appear, slightly broken still so that the two pieces when put together made a crude attempt at a heart.
It was a vicious mockery of his life that he couldn’t help Bruce. If only Clark was the one that Bruce wanted. The one that he loved. He could save him. He could fix this. There was no doubt in his mind that the love that Clark felt in his mind and chest and every other piece of his being was enough. If only it were his love that was desired in return.
He knew that his pain was nowhere near comparable to the agony that Bruce must have been feeling in that moment. It still felt like a cosmic cruelty meant to hurt him more than he had expected.
“Did-” Clark felt himself choke on some tears. “Did they say no?”
He couldn’t even be sure of who Bruce might have fallen for, or how that person could have possibly said no. Maybe their love wasn’t real the way Clark’s was. Superficial, only loving of one of Bruce’s many facets.
“I haven’t told him yet,” Bruce replied, bringing a hand up to his throat and holding onto it like he was trying to stop something from reaching further out.
“Why not?”
Bruce opened his mouth to speak, and Clark could see the plants starting to push their way out of his mouth again. Bruce dry heaved a flower onto the floor, not even bothering to catch it, or pull it out this time as he had the last. Another followed quickly after.
“Too-” a deep breath, “afraid.” More coughing, this time just petals. “to lose.” Another sunflower head was pulled from his throat. Clark couldn’t believe that they weren’t tearing up his entire being. “You.”
Bruce looked up at him hopefully, choking on petals and blood.
Clark’s world stopped. Him? Bruce had been afraid to lose him? That wasn’t even something that would have ever crossed Clark’s mind. There wasn’t a world in which Bruce could lose Clark due to something as wonderful as loving him.
Clark looked over at Bruce, trying to contain his excitement long enough that he could formulate a response. Something that was worth the most incredible man in the world.
Bruce wasn’t breathing.
Clark’s excitement turned to ice. He couldn’t be too late. He refused to believe it. Even with the bouquet that was hanging silently from Bruce’s lips.
Clark tried to pull them out of the way, a gut-wrenching scream followed, as though Clark were trying to remove Bruce’s lungs through his throat.
“No,” Clark yelled. “Bruce, no, darling. I love you. More than there are planets in the universe, I love you. I have been trying to hold it in for so long because losing you was the most terrifying thing that I could have thought of. And if the universe is going to punish me for loving you now, then I will find my way back to you in a million other lives. Please. Please, Bruce, don’t leave me.”
Clark stared at the lifeless body in front of him, wondering if somehow the words that he said would be enough to save the man he loved.
There wasn’t a piece of him that would believe he had run out of time.
The flowers started to wilt.
Clark watched Bruce’s eyes go glassy. He hated the fact that he felt like he was out of time, but it didn’t seem like there was much he could do anymore. He had tried to give the wretched flowers what they wanted, but it must have been too late.
He tried to pull at the wilted bouquet.
This time, the flowers nearly fell out of Bruce’s throat. The roots that had once held them in place no longer taking hold in his lungs. He wondered if they were really so quick to die once their host did, even if he couldn’t fathom why.
Clark had to hold himself back, the idea of performing CPR while he was so emotional scared him, but what if it really was the only way? What if this delay in getting help was the difference between Bruce living and dying?
Why had he listened when Bruce claimed he was okay? Clark cursed himself for being the reason the love of his life was gone. There wasn’t another answer that would satisfy him. He was the reason Bruce died. He hadn’t done any checks, forced his way in, anything. He had simply trusted that if something really was wrong, Bruce would have told him.
Clark stared out into the darkness of the cave, cradling Bruce’s limp body in his arms and slowly running his hands along Bruce’s chest. He wasn’t quite sure how long he sat there before he heard a shallow rattling breath, or how he missed any of the signs of life that had more than likely come prior to what proved to be the most important and happy moment of his life.
“Bruce?” He asked carefully, not daring to look down in case his ears really had deceived him. “Please.” He breathed out.
Bruce’s hand came to lay gently over Clark’s own. “Please, my love,” Bruce responded in a whisper, “look at me.”
Clark held back his tears as he looked down at Bruce’s face. He felt like he might’ve been going insane. Was he hallucinting the things he wanted to see or was Bruce actually talking to him?
“Don’t be a dream, because I won’t ever wake up from it,” Clark whispered, letting the hand that wasn’t being gently held by Bruce’s caress his cheek. “You have to be real.”
“I promise,” Bruce smiled weakly, looking up into Clark’s eyes with an intense stare. “It’s real.”
Clark didn’t care anymore if the two of them had truly died there together. A world without Bruce, after having been able to hold him for mere moments, was nowhere even close to the one he was living in now.
“Are you sure? I lived in a world without you for all of two minutes and everything around me was lost.”
Bruce cast his gaze down to the wilted bouquet of flowers that laid on the ground below where he was in Clark’s lap before smiling back up at him softly and carefully bringing his other hand up to rest on Clark’s neck. “I’m sure.”
Clark couldn’t hold the tears back any longer. He was a water fountain in a town square as he crushed Bruce to his body, tighter than he had ever allowed himself to hold Bruce before. Even with his strength, it didn’t feel like he could possibly be close enough to the man in his arms.
“How come you didn’t tell me sooner? I could’ve made it so that none of this happened.”
“I didn’t know,” Bruce replied softly, as though he were embarrassed of the truth. “I just thought that everything that we had was just how we are. That I loved you the way that I was supposed to as my best friend. I’ve never had one before, how was I supposed to know any different?”
“Oh,” was all Clark could answer.
“I suppose that I have loved you far longer than I could have ever imagined. And the cruelest part is that I almost never got to know it.”
Clark loosened his grip on Bruce just enough for the other man to look him in the eyes once again. “I never once imagined that I would fall for someone long enough to get to know that I loved them. Even so, I never could have predicted you, Clark. You came into my life like a hurricane and tipped everything on its end. There is no one I can see myself spending forever with other than my best friend, my confidant, my person.”
Clark felt his eyes start to leak once again. He had never seen Bruce be romantic, the closest he had ever gotten was picking someone up at a gala, or a charity event, and that typically wasn’t even Bruce putting in any effort.
It was a wonder to behold, something that he was massively impressed by. There was nothing in the world that could possibly be more important in that moment than the man in front of him, and yet when he needed them most, his words failed.
“I-” he started, before cutting himself off to avoid sounding like a fool. “Bruce, you are the most incredible person I have ever met, please don’t leave me again.”
“You know I can’t make any promises,” Bruce replied, chuckling softly before coughing lightly. Clark felt the panic rise in his stomach like bile as a few stray flower petals fell from Bruce’s lips. “It’s okay, I think that’s the last of them. It doesn’t ache the way it used to.”
Clark just nodded and pulled Bruce close once again. If his words wouldn’t help him, he would use his actions to make up the difference. He pressed a light kiss to Bruce’s forehead, a promise of the words left unsaid. He hoped that he could get his point across.
They may not be able to make promises, but he could try.
~~~Bruce~~~
Bruce gazed in awe at the man before him. He had never seen Clark quite so speechless before. There was something inspiring in the way that he was quiet in the moments that mattered most, that he chose to listen. That he let Bruce say what was on his mind without any interruption. He wondered if this was something that he had been missing for his whole life.
Someone who would just hold him when he was vulnerable, who would care for him when he was weak, who would love him even though he wasn’t his best.
He looked at Clark and saw the man who knew him. The him that he was behind closed doors, that one that was only for himself. He didn’t know when Clark had wiggled his way through the door and into that little spot beside him when he looked in the mirror. He knew now though, that when he was staring at himself over a toothbrush and mouthwash, there was no one else he would rather see looking back at him.
“Would you like some tea?” Bruce asked, subtly raising an eyebrow.
It was an old code phrase, one that Bruce wasn’t sure Clark would remember, from back when they first started working together. They had decided it to mean ‘would you stay a while, we have something to work on’?
“Only if I can share a cup with you,” Clark replied. ‘So long as we are working together.
It was imperfect, and a little silly, but it was theirs. He hoped that Clark would understand it as it was intended. An ‘I love you’ just not in as many words. He was still a little frightened that he would wake up in the morning to the burning in his lungs and fire in his throat. For now, however, he had to trust that it would be alright.
Epilogue
Bruce woke up every day feeling like he was still living in a dream. There was no part of him that could really believe that Clark was actually waking up there next to him. He had to be the luckiest man alive if that were true. And yet, there Clark was, wrapped around him as he had been every morning for the two months that they had officially been living together.
He would still count himself to be the luckiest man alive, even if it were something as simple as getting to fall asleep and wake up next to the same person he did every other night of his life.
Bruce wasn’t typically one for outward affections, but Clark seemed to bring it out of him. Hands clasped together when they were at a charity auction, a small kiss on the temple before he walked away when someone wanted to talk business, even just the loving glance that he followed Clark around rooms with while rooted to his spot.
He had wanted Clark to move in immediately when they had admitted their feelings for one another, but Clark had refused. He said that even if they had known each other for well over 10 years, there was a part of him that wanted to take it slow, to do this right. He didn’t want to mess things up. While Bruce hated to admit it, Clark had been right.
He loathed every second that Clark had stayed in that dingy apartment in Metropolis without him, and yet it made the time that they did spend together just that much sweeter, and he wouldn’t have traded that first year for the world.
They had gotten to learn how to exist with this new dynamic, and, even if they ended up spending the night at one another’s homes practically every night for the last two months that they were still living apart, it allowed them to gradually get used to a new person in their space without leaving. Bruce hadn’t known how badly he needed that transition until he was in the middle of it.
However, Bruce had finally decided that he had had enough of the waiting and pondering and wondering what the right time was. At a little over a year since they had started dating, Bruce was ready to live the rest of his life making plans for the future together, not wondering what the next step into the loose sand of a relationship may bring.
Theirs was a love written in the stars, and he wanted to ensure that it would stay that way.
Bruce had the entire day planned out, though he left space in between activities in order to give themselves time to enjoy themselves without worry. He reasoned that there was no need to rush the first step of the rest of their lives.
As he rose from the bed that he had forced himself into the night prior, ignoring the insatiable itch to go out and protect his beloved city, he glanced over at the man that he was determined to make his husband, and smiled. It was a small, soft thing that he wouldn’t ever show to anyone outside of those who were in the room with him already (so just Clark), but he knew that it would be cherished all the same.
“Clark, my love,” Bruce said in a voice just above a whisper. “Time to get up, I have a lovely vacation planned for us.”
Clark’s head peaked up at the sound of Bruce’s voice.
“Vacation?” Clark asked, sleep groggy and gravel-voiced.
“Vacation,” Bruce laughed, knowing that the idea, coming from him, probably sounded like he was going ever so slightly mad. He wasn’t actually sure of the last time he had taken a vacation that wasn’t ‘mandatory’ according to the rest of the League.
“Did Diana tell you that you needed to relax again?” Clark asked, the jovial tone in Bruce’s mood, seeping over into his.
“No, I planned this one, just for me and you to enjoy. Why do you think I was so insistent that we go to bed at a reasonable hour last night?”
“I thought you just did it because you loved me and wanted me to be happy,” Clark quipped back, fully awake and smiling.
“Well, I did do it because I love you, and that is also the reason that I have a beautiful day planned for us, and hopefully a lovely tomorrow as well.”