Work Text:
“He lifts up both his hands to feel the work,
and wonders if it can be ivory,
because it seems to him more truly flesh.”
- P. Ovidus Naso, Pygmalion
The only thing Kal-El could remember were the stars.
With nothing else to do but gently guide his pod towards the set of coordinates planted in his CPU like some sort of instinctual knowledge, the android spent much of his time shooting through space trying to remember what had led up to this point. No matter how many times he offlined his optics and tried to rewind his memory, though, they always stopped at the same place.
He was standing in the doorway of his pod, looking up at the sky. Though he saw the traces of a jagged, rocky skyline on the edge of his peripheral vision, he’d focused his gaze on the sky overhead, as if trying to commit the entirety of the night sky to memory for purposes he no longer understood. Whatever his reasoning for staring had been at the time, it had worked; now, whenever he rewound to that memory, he could clearly make out every individual star, billions of miles away, yet so clear, as if they had been close friends saying their farewells as he left wherever he had come from.
Kal onlined his optics and looked straight ahead. He couldn’t be losing himself in the past now. He had to focus. His destination was fast approaching.
Out of the windshield of his pod, Kal could see a magnificent looking planet up ahead, deep blue with patches of green and yellow, overlaid in swirling white. Pockets of white capped the planet’s axes; Kal guessed that his second set of coordinates would lead to one of those two points.
Searching through his memory disk, Kal brought up the second set of coordinates on his HUD. 82°44'48.5"N, 64°01'13.1"W. Despite the number of satellites surrounding the planet, he calculated that he could break through the atmosphere with an 87.198% chance of success. He just had to be sure not to accidentally hit anything.
Plotting the pod’s course towards the input coordinates, Kal sat back and watched as his pod changed its direction. As long as the craft picked up enough speed to break through the planet’s atmosphere, he was certain it could-
A sudden flash of brilliant red light illuminated Kal’s vision, followed by an electric sounding crackle exploding from outside the pod. Instantly, alarms sounded throughout the pod. An unsettling rumble droned in the android’s audials, vibrating the floor beneath him. His processor raced to come up with an explanation for what had just happened. He knew that he hadn’t hit any of the satellites or any passing asteroids or meteoroids. None of them would’ve produced a light or a sound like that.
Kal heard his hydraulics pounding in his audials. His processor raced to the only logical conclusion; someone or something must’ve shot at his pod. A pod which was, unfortunately, unarmed.
Whether or not the shot came from another ship trying to enter the atmosphere or a defense satellite simply doing its job, Kal didn’t have the time to figure it out. Right now, his priority was to get his pod under control.
Knocked off its course towards the planet’s north, the pod spun out of control, leaving Kal fighting to stay upright. He wrangled the controls and eventually managed to set it flying straight, but with how off course he’d been thrown by the shot and how badly damaged his pod likely was now, he knew that he’d have to make a crash landing. He couldn’t risk landing in an overly populated area; he had to shoot for an open expanse of land, somewhere he wouldn’t risk hitting anyone.
Trying his best to keep his pod somewhat under control, Kal turned the steering upward, aiming for a seemingly empty plain sprawling over the continent below him. As blindingly white light surrounded his windshield, fire blazing around the pod upon atmospheric entry, the android felt his confidence returning. Though this landing wouldn’t be what he had planned, he might still be able to land in one piece, as long as he-
From behind and above the pod came an earsplitting CRACK , followed by the screeching of metal tearing and the all encompassing rush of air from outside the ship. The force of what must’ve been the second shot from whatever had hit the pod earlier sent Kal reeling forward, slamming his helm against the controls.
The last thing he processed before his senses offlined was a feeling of weightlessness all around him and the dread in his core as he realized that there was nothing he could do but wait until he came back online.
+ + + + +
[SYSTEMS ONLINE.]
[46% POWER REMAINING.]
[HARD DRIVE FAILURE. RAM CORRUPTION DETECTED. SYSTEM DIAGNOSTICS RECOMMENDED.]
[INITIATE DIAGNOSTICS?]
Yes.
[SYSTEMS DIAGNOSTICS INITIATED.]
[...]
[...]
[SYSTEMS DIAGNOSTICS COMPLETE.]
[DAMAGE TO HARD DRIVE DETECTED. DAMAGE TO RAM DETECTED. A FAILURE MAY BE IMMINENT. SEEK IMMEDIATE REPAIRS.]
[CONTINUE?]
Please.
[COMMENCING SYSTEM STARTUP. WELCOME, KAL-EL.]
The first of Kal’s senses to come online was touch.
Immediately, he realized that he was sprawled on his front, face down, in something which felt soft and damp against his skin. Flexing his servo, whatever he had landed in crumbled in his fist, pushing out between his digits.
A few milliseconds later came his sense of smell. Drawing in a deep invent, he took in not just the acrid funk of smoke from burning machinery, but also chemical compounds as of now foreign to him, things which smelled organic; he made a mental note to document what they were called as soon as he could. The more he knew about where he was, the better.
The next was taste. As soon as he opened his intake, he tasted more of the stuff he’d been feeling beneath him. As soon as his taste receptors processed the substance in his mouth, his processor broke down the chemical composition and determined that whatever he was on was primarily carbon based. Stones. Decomposition. Bacteria.
A carbon based planet.
This planet is alive.
Pushing himself up to his stabilizers, Kal’s hearing booted up with a jarring crackle of static. As soon as the irritating buzz cleared, he heard the sizzling of embers fighting to keep burning, the rush of wind swirling around him and ruffling his hair, and voices, so many voices, the shrieks, squawks, and yelps of organisms in every direction fleeing from where he had landed.
A slam, then the distant, rhythmic thump of footsteps, crumpling the vegetation beneath. The rustling of movement moving swiftly in his direction. Garbled noises which resembled hurried speech. A low, astonished murmur.
Kal opened his optics, LEDs flickering off and on for a few seconds, allowing his vision to finally come online.
He had landed in a wide clearing full of vegetation, an expanse of bright green stalks reaching up to his thighs as far as his optics could see on his left and right, only broken by the dark brown, smoldering crater he’d left in his wake. The pale blue sky above stretched endlessly overhead, with fluffy white clouds sailing aimlessly by. The planet’s sun - a yellow dwarf, judging by its size - hung proudly overhead. Far in front of him where the stalks ended, a rickety old building stood tall despite its visible age, as if it were the last bastion of a bygone era.
A touch to his servo drew Kal’s attention back to whoever had found him.
Before him stood a man, hair faded grey with white temples, the skin on his face and hands wrinkled and pulled tight over his wiry frame from either age or a lifetime of hard labor, possibly both. His utilitarian clothes and the dirt under his nails told Kal that this man most likely worked on the land here; the gentleness of his fingertips brushing against Kal’s damaged helm showed a possible expertise with complex machinery.
What surprised Kal the most, however, was how much like him the man looked. He had expected that, since he was landing on an alien planet, he’d have nothing in common with its inhabitants. Now, he began to wonder if his creators, whoever they might have been, had designed him with this planet in mind.
The man called behind him, speaking in words whose meaning escaped Kal for now. Turning back to face him, the man started saying something, but Kal shook his head, unable to properly respond to what he guessed were questions. As he tried to say, “I can’t understand you. My language component must be damaged,” he realized that his own words sounded like mindless gibberish, even to his audial receptors. The man in front of him sighed and murmured something, then gently tugged on Kal’s servo. The android hesitantly followed him, his balance steadying more and more with each step.
The man guided Kal in the direction of the old building. As they approached, another person emerged from inside, an older woman, with white hair and faded clothes which made her seem like an extension of the building itself; Kal inferred that it must’ve been their shared home. The moment she saw Kal and the man, she rushed over as quickly as her legs could carry her and came up on Kal’s side, supporting him with one hand on his upper back as she led him up a short flight of rickety stairs which squeaked with every footfall. He couldn’t understand what she was saying, but her widened eyes and furrowed brows said enough.
The two brought him into their home, speaking quietly as if to reassure him. As he got a look around their home, Kal couldn’t help but find his surroundings primitive, yet cozy. Whatever technology they had in here wasn’t anything like what he’d worked with in his pod. He found it odd, then, that these two were strangely unfazed by his clearly exposed machinery. Maybe technology like his was more common in other parts of this planet, and they simply didn’t have any. He could only speculate until his language component was restored.
The man opened a door which led into what must’ve been a small bedroom, judging by the look of it. The woman ushered him in and tried to lift him onto the bed, but struggled with his weight. Taking the hint, and not wanting the woman to potentially hurt herself in trying to help him, Kal sat on the edge of the bed and swung his legs up. The woman nodded and gently pressed against his chest, saying something in a gentle tone. Kal guessed that she wanted him to lay down, so he complied, sinking into the soft bedding beneath him.
The man moved around near Kal’s helm and began talking to the woman in a firm tone. The android could feel the man’s fingertips brushing gingerly against his machinery, as if searching for something. His fingers brushed up against some exposed wiring, causing Kal to spasm violently, his fists balling and legs thrashing as horrible, white hot pain jolted from the side of his helm, down his neck, and throughout his entire body. The man quickly moved his hand away, and the pain vanished as quickly as it had come.
The man took Kal’s servo in his, looking him in the optics and saying something which the android guessed was an apology from his tone. Kal just nodded, and the man returned to his open wiring, this time, being sure not to touch anything.
After a few moments, the man seemingly found what he was looking for. With a few short, punctuated words, the man reached into Kal’s open wound and pressed on something.
For the second time that day, Kal’s sensors went offline.
[SYSTEMS ONLINE.]
[44% POWER REMAINING.]
[RAM FAILURE DETECTED. SYSTEM DIAGNOSTICS RECOMMENDED.]
I already know what’s wrong. Continue with startup.
[COMMENCING SYSTEM STARTUP. WELCOME BACK, KAL-EL.]
One by one, Kal’s senses came online, dragging him back into reality.
Onlining his optics, the android looked around the room where he’d last offlined. The man and woman who had pulled him out of the field were standing at his side, watching him with bated breath. As Kal pushed himself against the headboard to sit upright, the two looked at each other with relief in their eyes and hope on their faces.
Kal looked down at himself and began moving his limbs. His arms and hands worked just fine, as did his legs. Reaching up to his helm, he felt his wound patched up, albeit crudely with scrap metal, though he could already feel what battery he could spare being directed towards closing the open hole. Everything felt significantly better than it had when he’d first woken up in the field. Turning to the man and woman, he said, “Thank you.”
The man and the woman sighed with relief and gave each other smiles. It took Kal a moment to realize that not only had he understood his own words, meaning his language component was repaired, but these strangers had understood him, too.
It didn’t make any sense. If he had come from somewhere outside this planet, how could he be speaking their language? Had his creators preprogrammed him with it? If so, how did they know about this language?
Before he could try searching through his hard drive to see what else he’d been preprogrammed with, the man turned to Kal and asked in a gruff yet friendly voice, “Can you hear me?”
Kal nodded and replied, “I can understand you now.”
“You took quite the tumble out there,” the man said. “How do you feel?”
The android turned to sit on the edge of the bed, stretching his shoulders and twisting his neck around, feeling for any damage his diagnostics hadn’t discovered. “I feel much better than I did,” he said, offering a small smile. Thank you.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” the man chuckled. “I honestly didn’t know if my repairs would work. I don’t know what sorta newfangled model you are, but whatever you’ve got up there is way beyond my pay grade. I’ve never seen anything like you.”
“Oh, I’m a-” Kal began to say, when he realized that he didn’t have that information stored on his RAM, as far as he could find. Going into his now repaired hard drive, he found that he didn’t have his model information stored there, either. In fact, apart from his specs, he didn’t have any data stored about who created him or where he might’ve been made. His brow furrowed, optics focused on the ground, as he said, “I… don’t know what model I am. I don’t know anything about my background, actually.”
“You’re sure you don’t know anything?” the woman asked.
“Either I don’t have that information stored,” Kal said, “or there’s something preventing me from accessing it, maybe a firewall I'm not picking up on.”
“We might have to find you a more suitable repairman,” the man grumbled, a defeated expression crossing his tired face. “Someone who knows a little more about who they’re working with. I’ve only ever worked with the older models, so there-”
“No, my hard drive is properly restored, as far as I can tell,” Kal said, shaking his head. “There’s something else going on.”
The man and woman looked at each other, then back to Kal. “Well, we can get that settled later,” the man said. “I’m Jonathan, Jonathan Kent. The beauty next to me is Martha, my wife.” Martha shook her head and lightly pushed Jonathan’s shoulder at that. “What’s your name?”
“My name is Kal,” the android said. “Nice to meet you.”
“Kal?” Martha said, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard a name like that before. It’s lovely… Where are you from?”
“I’m not sure,” Kal admitted. “I don’t know where I was made. All I know is that I was sent here for something.”
“Sent here?” Jonathan said. Turning to Martha, he asked, “Who would wanna send an android all the way out to this part of the world?”
“I didn’t mean to land here,” Kal said. “I was programmed with coordinates for a different part of this planet, somewhere further north. However, my ship was hit by something as I was entering the atmosphere, and I had to make a crash landing.”
Martha and Jonathan both turned their heads to face Kal, glanced at each other briefly, then looked back at him. “Say that again?” Jonathan asked.
Kal didn’t understand. “I didn’t mean to land here,” he repeated.
“No, you said something about entering the atmosphere,” Jonathan said. “You’re… you’re not from Earth, are you?”
“No,” Kal said. “I don’t know where I’m from, but it’s not here.”
“You said something about a ship?” Martha inquired.
“Yes, it should still be out where it crashed,” Kal said, standing up from the bed. “Here, I’ll show you.”
Making his way through the small house, he brought the couple back outside to the field where he’d woken up. To his confusion, he didn’t see the ship anywhere near where he’d woken up, though he could see smoke wafting through the air.
“I must’ve gotten thrown out through that hole in the hull upon entering the atmosphere,” Kal mused. “Here, let me try something.”
The search would go much faster with an aerial view. Activating his gravity alteration module, he kicked off from the ground and took to the air, searching for the source of the smoke. Following its dark trail through the air, he found that the thick smoke led behind a long line of tall, green foliage and into another field. Sure enough, behind the greenery, there lay his downed ship, a mess of twisted metal and rubble thrown around from the ground beneath it. Kal flew over to the site of the crash and hovered above it, making sure he remained in the couple’s line of sight.
“It’s over here!” he called out.
Yet as he floated there, the two didn’t move to follow him. Confused, Kal zoomed in on their faces, wondering if they had seen something he hadn’t.
He found that both of their gazes were focused on him, but the looks in their eyes were a mix of wonder and fear. Kal didn’t understand. Why did they look so afraid of him? Did this planet not have technology like him? Was this not something found in this part of the galaxy?
The two stared up at Kal, slack jawed, neither one of them daring to break the silence.
After a minute’s quiet, Jonathan was the first to speak up.
“What on Earth did we just find?”
+ + + + +
“Well?” Kal shouted, wondering if the Kents hadn’t heard him, and that was why they made no effort to follow him. “Are you coming?”
That seemed to snap them out of their daze. The two quickly made their way over to their rickety, rusty land transport and drove out to the field where Kal’s ship had crashed. Once they reached the tall stalks, the two set out on foot. Only then did Kal touch down to speak with them.
“So this is what made that awful racket,” Martha murmured to herself as she pushed her way through the foliage. “And you landed in this?”
“I think I was ejected from the top upon entering the atmosphere,” Kal explained, flying back up to the top of the ship to draw Martha’s attention to the damage. “Whatever shot me down tore a hole through my ship. I’m lucky I didn’t land too far away.”
Jonathan’s mouth hung open in shock as he hesitantly approached the downed ship. Kal could only assume that this planet’s space travel capabilities weren’t as advanced as his homeworld’s just yet. He only confirmed Kal’s suspicions as he shook his head and murmured, “I’ll be damned,” under his breath.
“It’s probably a good thing we came here,” Kal said. “I’ll have to inspect the damage. Maybe it’ll help me figure out what shot me down.”
“Maybe there’s some information about where you came from,” Martha suggested. “Do you have any… records or something?”
“Good thinking,” Kal said with a smile. He floated downward through the hole in the ship, glancing around at the wreckage of what had once been the pod’s interior.
As he tried to touch down, though, he felt an odd dizziness washing over him, making his helm swim. The interior had filled with a strange green smoke; taking it in made his vision blur. An alarm on his HUD popped up: WARNING: KRYPTONITE HAS BREACHED FUEL TANK. CONTAMINATION IMMINENT.
Not wanting to stick around, Kal flew back out of the pod, grateful for the fresh air outside.
“What’s wrong?” Martha asked, resting a bony hand on Kal’s shoulder as he touched down.
“I don’t know,” Kal admitted. “There’s something in there that’s messing with my processor. I might have to come back later when the smoke’s cleared out.”
“Here, let’s get you back to the house,” Jonathan said. “You don’t look too good. You might need to rest a little longer.”
“Thank you,” Kal said. He started to activate his gravity alteration modules, but to his surprise, Jonathan had already opened his transport’s door.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” he asked. “You’re not flying to the house in that shape. Here, hop in. I’ll take you back so you can clear your head.”
“Oh, thank you,” Kal said, admittedly a little surprised. Still, he accepted the offer, climbing into the transport and closing the door behind him. Once Martha was inside as well, Jonathan started it up, and the three of them trundled back to the farmhouse in relative silence, save for the rumble of the motor and the swishing of vegetation around them.
It was only when they arrived at the house that Kal broke the tension.
“How long are days on this planet?” he asked.
“Twenty four hours,” Martha said. “Why?”
After some quick calculations, Kal said, “It should take a little over eight Earth days for my cranial damage to heal, with enough sun exposure. I’ll find a place to recharge so I can devote as much of my battery to self repair as I can.”
“Where were you thinking about staying?” Martha asked.
“I’m not sure,” Kal said. “I was thinking about scouting the area to find some place away from civilization so I don’t disturb anyone.”
“What, so you were thinking about just laying around for eight days doing nothing?” Jonathan asked as they pulled up to the farmhouse. “That sounds miserable. Here, you can stay in our guest room. At least if you stay here, you’ll have something to do.”
“You’ve already helped me enough,” Kal insisted. “I wouldn’t want to intrude more than I already have.”
“Nonsense,” Martha said, stepping out of the transport. “You’re not intruding. You’re damaged and need a place to heal. We’re just offering you a place to recover.”
“If you wanna do something while you’re here,” Jonathan suggested, “we had to sell our last farm droid to make up for the crops we lost in the last drought. We could use a little help around the farm repairing some of our old equipment for this upcoming corn harvest.”
Kal mulled over the idea for a few moments as Jonathan came around to open the door. These complete strangers had helped him without a second thought, and he couldn’t understand why. Helping them with their harvest, whatever that entailed, would be a good start to repaying his debt to them for their repairs.
“Well?” Jonathan asked. “You coming?”
Kal made up his mind. Smiling at the older man, he offered him a, “Thank you,” and stepped out of the transport, shutting the door behind him.
+ + + + +
As the weeks passed and his damage healed, Kal grew to appreciate the site of his crash landing.
This little town - Smallville, as he’d learned it to be called - had a quiet way of going about the days. As the town’s name entailed, Jonathan and Martha appeared to be more concerned with the smaller things in life. The flicker of the stars in a cloudy night sky, the painted red and pink colors of the morning sunset, the rhythmic tapping of raindrops on a window - they all came together, the tiny details Kal might’ve overlooked, into a tapestry that humans called not just life, but living.
Curiously, Kal found himself understanding more and more. As his damage sealed over and the glitches in his vision faded, he found himself prone to watching the sun set beyond a wide horizon, staying online until the last rays vanished behind the stalks of corn. Although he couldn’t participate in some of their Earthen rituals, like the meals they used to fuel themselves, he could appreciate the artistry going into everything the couple cooked together, working for hours on something that would eventually vanish in a matter of minutes. Even the harshest aspects of life had a beauty in them; he remembered the first time he’d seen an Earth thunderstorm, and even though the obsidian dark clouds appeared foreboding, he’d caught himself eagerly anticipating the flash of lightning illuminating the sky.
That was the charm of Earth, it seemed, or maybe just existence in general. Everything was so fleeting, often gone in a matter of minutes, and yet Kal remembered each and every little detail. He didn’t know if it was a byproduct of his creation, some afterthought of programming by his creators, or maybe the raw power of this planet itself, but he found himself adoring it and its people, as fleeting as they were.
Once his damage had mostly healed and Jonathan had been able to remove the plates from his helm, Kal found himself wishing that he didn’t have to leave. Even after he’d helped Jonathan fix up the equipment he needed for the harvest, Kal found himself busying himself more and more around the farm, helping in whatever small ways he could. Realistically, he could’ve easily made the choice to stay for as long as he wanted, to continue living with the Kents and enjoying their curious Earth customs.
Yet the coordinates haunted him. They reached out to him, demanding that he fulfill some purpose he felt like he could reach out and touch if it didn’t continue to elude him.
He had to follow the coordinates, had to chase this mission to its end. And to fully realize his mission, he needed his hard drive repaired.
It was on one of Smallville’s beautiful, pink and gold painted evenings that Kal made his decision.
Sat on the rocking chair outside, watching the sunlight fade, Jonathan seemed to know what Kal was going to say as he made his way onto the front porch and took a seat in the porch swing. The look on his face must’ve said more than his words ever could’ve.
“Got somethin’ on your mind, Kal?” he asked. “I can practically hear your gears turning up there.”
Kal allowed himself a smile before his face fell again. “I’m growing to love this planet,” he explained. “I’m growing to love it here , and I don’t know why. I can’t understand it.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” Jonathan asked with a chuckle.
“It’s not that,” Kal said. He went quiet for a moment, then said, “I was sent here for a purpose I don’t know yet. Even with my repairs, it feels like I’m still missing something. I need to find out what, but… I don’t want to leave here.”
Jonathan nodded and turned his gaze out towards the sunset. “Well, that’s only natural,” he said. “I think everyone has that sort of calling in their lives. For some people, it’s to stay where they are. Others need to go a little out of their way to find themselves. It’s only human.”
“But what happens when it’s over?” Kal asked. “What happens when I’ve fulfilled my purpose here? Am I to be decommissioned, or put in stasis until my next mission? I’m not human. I don’t have that same freedom you have.”
“Well,” Jonathan said, “the way I see it, whoever sent you here isn’t around to police whatever you decide to do once your work is done. You can do what you want with yourself once it’s done.” He thought for a minute, then asked, “What do you wanna do once it’s over?”
Kal didn’t have to think of an answer. “Maybe I’ll come back here,” he said. “And I might help around on the farm some more.”
That got a laugh out of Jonathan. “Imagine that,” he said. “You could fly anywhere in the world, and you’d choose to come back here?”
“I like it here,” Kal said defensively, though he found himself smiling. “It’s very human. It’s nice.” He looked over at Jonathan and said, “And I like being here with you and Martha. You both took me in when you didn’t have to. I don’t understand it, but I’m still grateful.”
“We took you in because you were hurt, and it was the right thing to do,” Jonathan shrugged. “Nothing else to it.”
Kal nodded, a sense of purpose crystallizing in his processor. “Maybe that’s what I’ll do once all of this is over.”
“Do what?” Jonathan asked.
“The right thing,” Kal simply stated.
“It’s the best any of us can hope to do,” Jonathan said.
With that, Kal stood up from the porch swing. “Tomorrow,” he said. “Tomorrow, I’ll start looking for someone who can help me fix my hard drive. Maybe then, I’ll finally know what I was sent here for.”
“Are you sure?” Jonathan asked. “You can stay here as long as you need. There’s no rush.”
“I’m certain,” Kal said with a firm nod. “I can’t keep waiting any longer.”
Jonathan stood up from the rocking chair. “Before you go,” he said, “let’s see about taking one last look at your ship. Maybe now that the smoke’s cleared, you’ll be able to find something to set you in the right direction.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Kal said. “Want me to fly you over?”
“I’ll pass,” Jonathan chuckled. “I get vertigo when I’m up that high. I’ll take the truck.”
“Alright,” Kal said with a smile. “I’ll meet you over there.”
With that, Kal took off and flew out to the downed ship, waiting over the wreckage for Jonathan to arrive with the truck.
Once Jonathan was there with him, Kal took a quick scan of the ship to see if any more kryptonite toxicity lingered in the air. Thankfully, his chemical analysis turned up blank, so he flew back into the gaping hole in his old ship.
Now that he could step into his ship without worrying about the kryptonite smoke, he felt a sense of longing, gazing around the interior of the craft. Even with the vegetation slowly taking over, prying its way into the cracks torn through the metal, he felt a connection to it.
It seems this planet has found its way into both of us, hasn’t it?
Making his way over to the front control panel, Kal hovered his palm over the smooth touchscreen. To his surprise, he still felt a faint energy signal from the ship, as if it were merely lying in wait for him. Curious what secrets his ship had left to hide, he pressed his palm to the control panel and reached out with his electromagnetic field.
Hello. This is Kal-El. It’s been a long while since we’ve seen each other, hasn’t it? I’m wondering if my creators sent anything with you that I didn’t retrieve after the crash. Is there anything they sent with you that I should know about?
To his surprise, he felt the ship reach out to him in return, and he felt waves of recognition from its EM field in response to his query. No sooner had he reached out that a section beneath the control panel opened up, revealing a hidden storage compartment. Reaching into the compartment, Kal pulled out what looked like a small, diamond shaped box, all metal with a blue button on top. He tried to peer through it with his x-ray vision, but its contents looked like an incomprehensible ball of something he couldn’t recognize. Pressing the button, he suddenly felt something wrapping around his entire body, almost like a second skin.
As quickly as it had begun, the sensation stopped, and Kal looked down at himself to see what had happened. He found that he was wearing some sort of tight suit, cobalt blue with a diamond shaped crest in red, black, and gold on the chest. The fabric itself felt smooth and cool, like water somehow sewn into a fabric. Looking at the rest of his ensemble, he found himself to be wearing some red trunks with an intricately designed golden belt, a pair of sturdy, knee high red boots, and a magnificent, garnet red cape. He could only assume that this must’ve been the traditional clothing of his homeworld. When he pressed the button again, the suit disappeared, leaving him in the clothes he’d been wearing earlier.
I wonder why my creators would’ve given me this… maybe they just wanted me to have a piece of my homeworld.
As he reached back inside to see if he was missing anything, he felt something cool and hard hit his hand. He grabbed it and pulled it out to see a piece of shimmering metal, small enough that he could close his fist around it, black, but glimmering with a myriad of colors wherever he touched it, in the same diamond shape as the crest on his suit. Turning the metal over in his hand, Kal found himself entranced by the colors, watching them dance over the smooth facets-
“Kal? You doing OK in there?”
Startled out of his contemplation by the sound of Jonathan’s voice, Kal called out, “I’m alright. I’ll be right there.”
Pressing his servo to the control panel, he reached out to his ship one more time.
Thank you. Now, rest easy. Once all this is over, I’ll come back for you so that I might make the proper repairs.
The ship seemed eager to rest, as once Kal gave the command, he felt its EM field retreat, and the energy signal he’d felt died away. Satisfied that he’d found everything there was to see, he flew out of the ship, touching down by the truck.
“Whatcha got there?” Jonathan asked.
“I’m not sure,” Kal admitted. “I found this, watch.”
He pressed the button on the little box, and in a split second, he was right back in the suit he had found. Jonathan’s eyes widened, and let out a startled, “Whoa!”
“I think these clothes must be the traditional wear of my home planet,” Kal said, pressing the button to return to his regular clothes, “but I don’t know what this is.” He held up the metal and passed it to Jonathan, who lifted it up to the moonlight to get a closer look. Oddly enough, Kal noticed that the metal didn’t show its colors when Jonathan touched it, merely remaining a solid, shining black.
“Whoever your creators were,” Jonathan said, “they didn’t exactly leave you with much information.” He passed the metal back to Kal, who tucked it and the box into his arm’s subspace. “Maybe once you get your hard drive all fixed up, you’ll have more answers.”
“I just wish I knew why the sunlight hasn’t fixed my hard drive if it fixed everything else,” Kal said.
“Maybe it’s too much for your body to handle on its own,” Jonathan guessed as he opened the truck door for Kal, “like a broken leg would be for us. You just need to find someone who knows what they’re doing to fix it, probably.”
“But I have no idea where to begin looking,” Kal admitted, climbing into the passenger seat. “All I know about this planet is what I’ve learned from being here in Smallville.”
Jonathan stayed quiet as he began to drive. After his pause, he said, “Kid, I’ll admit, I don’t know all that much about more modern bots. I’ve mostly worked with older models. But if you wanna get your hard drive fixed up, you’ll have to go to the experts. And there’s only one person I can think of who might know what to do with you.”
“You know someone?” Kal asked, perking up a little.
“I know of someone,” Jonathan corrected him. “He’s a real genius with robots, and not like those guys who say they’re good with tech but pay everyone to do their research for them. No, he’s the real deal. Does all his research himself, from what I hear. If he can’t work on you, he probably knows someone who can. He’s a good ways away, though, so it’ll be a trip.”
“With how quickly I can fly, that won’t be much of an issue,” Kal said.
Jonathan sighed as he pulled up to the farmhouse. “The guy’s name is Bruce Wayne,” he said. “He runs a big robotics company out in Gotham, on the east coast. I think he mostly makes medical stuff, but he’s made androids, too.” He parked the truck and said, “Well, he’s made one android.”
“Just one?” Kal asked.
“Yeah, but apparently he’s like you,” Jonathan said. “Real advanced, real human looking. You can only tell he’s an android if you look at his eyes. No human alive’s got red eyes, that’s for sure. Everyone over there calls him the Batman.”
“What was he made for?” Kal asked.
“No idea,” Jonathan shrugged. “I’ve heard a million and one things about him, some good, some not so good. Most people say he’s some sort of watchdog, trying to keep crime off the streets and all that, but I don’t know. But I’ll bet if you wanna find Bruce, you’d be better off trying to find the Batman first.”
Kal felt hope rising in his core. Finally, a way to get some actual help! It might’ve been a long shot, but it was better than nothing.
“Thank you,” he smiled. “I owe you so much for all you’ve done for me.”
“Eh, save it,” Jonathan said, waving his hand dismissively. “You can repay me by coming back to the farm after you’re done saving the world, or whatever you were sent here to do.”
“What makes you think I wasn’t sent here to destroy the world instead?” Kal asked. “What if that’s my true purpose?”
At that, Jonathan laughed and shook his head. “With how you’ve been helping us all this time you’ve been here? I find that hard to believe. Now, come on. You go on in and get some sleep, and I’ll tell Martha what’s going on. If we get up early enough, we can have one more morning together before you leave.”
Jonathan climbed out of the truck, and Kal followed suit. The two of them made their way inside, with Kal going back to the guest room while Jonathan went to the master bedroom. Kal opened up his left arm’s subspace and set the little box inside before changing into the nightclothes the Kents had bought for him and climbing into bed. Already, he could hear Jonathan and Martha discussing giving him a proper sendoff for his last day on the farm; he forced himself to tune it out, not wanting to accidentally spoil anything they might’ve had planned.
As Kal offlined his optics, he felt the weight of the chunk of metal in his right subspace, his processor alight with the possibilities of what it could be. The mystery swirled around in his thoughts as he drifted into recharge, an uneasy, fitful thing.
+ + + + +
The morning came with rays of sunlight filtering in through the gaps in the moth-eaten curtains. A part of Kal didn’t want to get out of bed, but he knew he’d have to eventually, so he might as well get on with it.
After rising from bed and changing into some of the clothes Jonathan had brought back for him, he went downstairs and into the kitchen, following the sound of hushed talking. As soon as he stepped through the threshold, Martha wrapped her arms around Kal, squeezing him as tightly as her weary frame would let her.
“Jonathan told me everything,” she explained, her voice muffled into his shoulder. “I knew this would come eventually, but still… You’ve been a joy to have around. I hate to see you go.”
“If it makes you feel any better,” Kal said, “I don’t want to go either. But hey, I’ll come back someday. This won’t be forever.”
Martha reluctantly pulled away from the hug, though she smiled at Kal’s promise of a return. “Jonathan said you wanted to try and find Bruce Wayne?”
“If he’s the only one who can fix me, then yes,” Kal said.
“Well, Gotham isn’t exactly the safest place, both for humans and androids,” Martha fretted.
“What do you mean by that?” Kal asked, his brow furrowed in confusion.
“Well, the place has one hell of a reputation,” Jonathan said. “It’s crawling with criminals. How are you gonna keep yourself safe?”
“I don’t exactly have a human body,” Kal shrugged. “I already know I can put myself back together, for the most part, and I can fly away from danger. As long as I stay out of sight, I shouldn’t draw much attention to myself.”
Martha sighed, looking down at her feet. “As much as you’ve done for us,” Jonathan continued, “it would pain us to learn that anything happened to you.”
“It’ll be fine,” Kal said with a gentle smile. “If I’m lucky, it might only take a week or two to get my repairs. Bruce has already made an android like me. Surely, repairing one wouldn’t be too difficult for someone like him.”
Martha and Jonathan glanced at each other, with Martha being the one to ultimately break the silence. “We just want you to be safe,” she said. “But, if you’re certain, then we’ll take your word for it.”
With that, Martha went in for another hug, and Jonathan followed suit behind her. Kal hugged them both as tightly as he could without hurting them, savoring this last bit of companionship.
“We’re gonna miss you, Kal,” Jonathan murmured.
“I’ll miss you too,” Kal said, a bittersweet smile on his face. “I’ll see you again someday, I promise.”
Though their hug lasted for probably a minute, it only felt like a few seconds before Kal pulled away. His pedes felt heavy as mountains as he made his way towards the door, and with the shutting of the screen door, he realized that there was no turning back now.
Taking a deep invent to cool his CPU and steady his nerves, Kal lifted up off the ground and took off, ready to find Gotham and begin taking his first steps towards knowing who he was.
+ + + + +
Gotham had not been easy to find.
In his rush to find the elusive city, he’d forgotten to take into account how vast and varied this continent was. Sure, even if he could fly at near light speed, there were so many cities along the east coast that every time he thought he might be onto something, he found himself to be proven wrong. He made a mental note to himself to just get the coordinates first before dashing off on some mad mission.
Eventually, though, he hit the jackpot. Finding a highway road sign which read, “GOTHAM - 50 MILES,” Kal followed that road until he reached the city he was after.
It wasn’t long until he found his destination. Touching down just on the city’s outskirts and walking the rest of the way, hoping not to cause suspicion, he began to take everything in.
If Smallville was alive with animals and nature, Gotham was alive with people. The city seemed like a group effort attempt at a civilization, but each group had different ideas on how it should be built and started fighting each other over them. Tall, elegantly decorated towers outlined in brilliant neon lights lorded over swaths of shadowy slums. Smog hung in the air around the entire city, fogging up Kal’s vision and turning the brightly illuminated signs hanging over shop doorways into a rainbow blur. Graffiti artists had tattooed just about every building in sight, like the city had given up on trying to get rid of it all.
Despite this, though, the people here appeared to thrive, like they were living in spite of their conditions. Music radiated from shop windows and cars driving down the congested roads. Children darted along sidewalks, chasing each other, much to the chagrin of their parents calling for them out of apartment building windows. Coworkers happily chatted with each other after leaving their shifts for the day.
The most surprising thing, however, were the robots. All around him, Kal saw robots performing simple tasks, like picking up discarded trash and guiding crosswalks. All of them looked much simpler than himself, though he did see some for sale at a small used tech shop he passed by that looked more human. Stopping to take a look, he saw vaguely humanoid robots, powered down and posed by used computers and TVs playing news broadcasts, with a sign on the window telling interested buyers to come inside for more information.
As Kal read the sign, one of the news broadcasts playing on the used TVs caught his attention. A red headed woman in a pastel blue suit holding a microphone stood outside one of the city’s many skyscrapers. With her was a tall, well dressed man in a slimming black suit, with black hair graying at the temples, and, surprisingly, a prosthetic eye. While his organic eye was a pale bluish grey, his prosthetic eye glowed a brilliant neon blue.
“I’m Summer Gleeson for Gotham Insider,” the woman said. “I’m here with Bruce Wayne to discuss his most recent philanthropic efforts. Tell us, Mr. Wayne, what was your inspiration to found A Helping Hand?”
Bruce Wayne?
Now, Kal couldn’t look away. He stood there in front of the old TV, transfixed, as the man began to speak.
“Well, I think the answer is pretty obvious,” he said with a chuckle as he lifted his right arm. Instead of an organic hand, Kal saw that Bruce’s right hand was a prosthetic as well, a sleek, jet black model with neon blue accents to match his eye. “I may have been fortunate to be able to afford my prosthetics, but I know that there are many people who can’t afford prostheses of this quality, if any at all. What A Helping Hand seeks to do is provide affordable, life saving medical prostheses such as this,” he gestured with his prosthetic arm again, “to those who need it most, as well as the maintenance to ensure that they last a lifetime.”
As the interview continued, the camera panned upward, showing more of the tower the two stood before. There was no mistaking the sign on the front of the colossal tower, which read “WAYNE INDUSTRIES” in blocky font.
Kal didn’t stay to listen to the rest of the interview. He had a face, a name, and now, a location. He just had to find the tower.
Wayne Industries, thankfully, stood out like a sore thumb, easily the tallest building in Gotham’s skyline. Already, an idea had begun percolating in Kal’s processor. If the Batman was controlled by Bruce Wayne, there was a high likelihood that he would show up around the tower somewhere.
Kal ducked into a back alley, hoping to stay out of sight for the time being. He had his plan. Now he just had to wait.
+ + + + +
The plan had to work.
Kal knew that there was a chance that his strategy had its flaws. Realistically, if he were to find a way to contact Bruce Wayne with the highest possibility of success, it would’ve involved actually trying to find Bruce in person, then possibly gaining his trust and developing a friendly rapport from there.
But that was a gamble Kal wasn’t ready to take. And, more importantly, it would take a long time. With how badly he needed his repairs, Kal couldn’t spare any more time than he’d already wasted.
There was a 46.875% chance that this plan of his would fail. There was always the possibility that the android Kal sought out wouldn’t patrol around this part of Gotham tonight. But, Kal reasoned, this particular district had one of the best vantage points of the entire city. If he were to find Gotham’s guardian android anywhere, it would be here.
All Kal had to do was wait.
Crouched atop the Wayne Industries skyscraper, Kal had the perfect view of the city below. Cars trundled along roads like lines of ants returning to their hills. The hum of neon lights, running engines, and sputtering electricity sent a constant buzzing through the air, one Kal unfortunately couldn’t mute for now, not while he was listening for the Batman’s arrival. The air hung heavy with smog and tension, waiting for something, anything, to shatter the tentative peace and send everything into chaos.
It didn’t take very long.
From somewhere to the left of the tower, Kal heard what sounded like rapid footsteps, followed by a small chink . Using his x-ray vision to peer through the tower’s antenna and see to the other side, he saw a tall figure seemingly draped in shadow, using a grappling hook to grab onto the tower’s ledge. As they drew closer, Kal determined that this was who he was looking for. Lean, yet imposing, cloaked in black, with clawed hands and an eared cowl covering most of his face, there was no way this couldn’t be the Batman. Even though Kal couldn’t see the red eye he’d heard of in articles talking about him - the cowl’s white lenses cloaked his identity even further - Kal knew he had to be the one.
He had one chance. He had to make his intentions clear. He couldn’t risk scaring Batman away, lest he sever his only potential connection to Bruce.
Stepping out from behind the antenna, hands in the air to appear less threatening, Kal said, “I need to talk to you.”
Batman’s head whipped around to face Kal, quick as lightning. Before Kal could get another word out, Batman drew his grappling hook and fired at him, the cable whipping around his body, pinning his arms to his sides.
“Listen, I’m not here to-”
Kal couldn’t finish his sentence before Batman lunged at him, knocking him on his back with surprising strength. His right hand wrapped tightly around his throat, and even though it didn’t hurt, Kal still found himself struggling against it.
“Finally, I’ve got one of you damn things,” Batman growled, his voice a low, gravelly rumble. “I don’t know who’s been sending you, but now…”
“What?” Kal said, his face scrunched up in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t play dumb with me,” Batman huffed, tightening his grip further. “I know someone sent you. You’ve been popping up all over Gotham and Metropolis for weeks.”
“Sent me-? Nobody sent me,” Kal insisted, sitting up straight despite Batman’s attempts to keep him on the ground. “I came here of my own volition. I need to speak to your maker.”
Now, it was Batman’s turn to be confused. “My maker?”
“Yeah, Bruce Wayne,” Kal explained. “Look, I know he’s your designer. It’s OK! I won’t tell anyone. I just need to talk to him.”
“What do you need with Bruce Wayne?” Batman asked, hesitantly loosening his grip.
“He’s a robotics expert, right?” Kal asked. “I know you won’t believe me, but I think he’s the only one on Earth who can figure out what’s wrong with me.”
Batman leaned closer, squinting down at Kal, scrutinizing him. “Who are you?” he murmured.
This was his chance. He had to be honest. Taking a deep invent, Kal said, “My name is Kal-El. I’m an android from a planet far from here. I was damaged during planetfall, and I can’t remember anything about who I was, where I come from, or why I’m here. Your creator might be the only one who can restore me.”
Batman continued to stare down at Kal, unmoving for an excruciatingly long moment, until finally, he let go of Kal’s throat and stood up, letting the android get back on his stabilizers.
“You said you’re an android from another planet,” Batman said. When Kal nodded, Batman simply said, “Prove it.”
An odd request, but understandable. Kal took off his cape and pulled the top half of his suit down around his waist. Batman appeared confused, but continued to watch. Meeting Batman’s eye, Kal’s chestplate slid apart, retracting into thin slots between his skin and his endoskeleton.
“I haven’t heard of any other androids with makes like mine,” Kal explained. “I figured if anyone would know how to fix me, it would be the one who made you.” He knew this was risky, but maybe exposing his core would show Batman that he could be trusted.
To his surprise, Batman went from stern and cold to completely transfixed. His lips parted slightly, and he stepped forward to try and get a closer look at Kal’s insides. Wires ran like blood vessels through his body, coiled around his endoskeleton. Metallic ribs bent around artificial organs, ventilators pumping fresh air through his body to keep him cool. At the center of his ribcage, behind a layer of metal and glass casing, his core glowed brightly, giving off a silvery blue light which seeped through its containment. Kal didn’t know why, but he could hear Batman’s pulse racing at the sight of his internal workings.
Wait a minute.
Why does he have a pulse?
He felt invasive using his x-ray vision to stare into another android’s workings, but he had never heard of an android with a heart before. He had to figure out what model he was. As Batman gazed into his chest cavity, Kal activated his x-ray vision to look further into Batman’s body- and found not an artificial heart, but a real, beating, human heart behind a skeletal ribcage.
Everything about Batman’s internals was human, actually. To his amazement, Kal could see the breaks in his bones, the tears in his muscles, the burn scars on his right side. Whoever this Batman was, he was far more durable than any normal human.
As Kal’s vision drifted to Batman’s right side, he saw that his right arm, concealed by long sleeves and black gloves, was entirely metallic, with fingers tipped with razor sharp claws. Looking up, Kal saw that his right eye was robotic as well, glowing bright red.
He couldn’t stop his surprised exclamation as the realization clicked in his head.
“ Bruce Wayne? ”
That seemed to snap Batman out of his trance. He abruptly stepped backwards, and Kal snapped his chestplate shut, quickly putting the rest of his suit and cape back on.
“I’m sorry,” Kal said. “I didn’t know. I won’t tell anyone.”
Batman - Bruce? - looked down at his feet, and Kal could tell he was thinking it over. “What makes you think I can fix you?”
“I’ve read the work you’ve done,” Kal explained, cautiously stepping forward. “I’ve heard about what you’ve done with robotics. You’re one of the most advanced developers in the country, right? You do all your research yourself? I heard the rumors about how you made Batman and thought that he was an android like me, so I thought you’d be able to fix me.”
Batman looked back up at Kal, once again scrutinizing him with a look that made Kal feel like he was under a microscope.
“Who are you?” he asked. “Really?”
“I told you,” Kal said. “I’m Kal-El, and I’m from another planet. I can’t remember who I was. You might be the only person who can restore my hard drive and help me figure out who I am.”
Batman lifted his head up, staring off into space. Kal could read his frustration and eventual resignation all over his face.
At long last, Batman turned to Kal. “Do you have a place to stay?”
“No,” Kal admitted. “I only just got here.”
Batman hummed to himself, then turned around and walked towards the edge of the building.
“Follow me,” he said, then jumped over the edge of the building. Eager to have finally found his lead, Kal chased after him into the night.
+ + + + +
“I normally wouldn’t do this,” Bruce explained as he guided Kal to a secluded alleyway, “but if you are who you say you are, then I need to get a look at you.”
“What do you mean by that?” Kal asked.
“I thought you were a part of the recent attacks,” Bruce said. “I know you say you’re not, but I can’t take any chances.”
“Attacks?” Kal asked.
Bruce didn’t respond, only guiding Kal down another alleyway. This time, though, he was met with a vehicle as imposing as its owner, sleek and streamlined, all black with tinted windows and what looked like bat wings on the back.
“Here,” Bruce said as he opened the door. “Get in. I’ll explain on the way there.”
Kal nodded and hopped into the modified car, Bruce following suit.
“So, you’re Batman AND Bruce Wayne?” Kal asked. “But what about all the people saying Batman’s an android?”
“Who do you think started that rumor?” Bruce asked as he started up the car. “I needed a cover so people wouldn’t suspect who I was. How did you figure out who I was, anyway?”
“X-ray vision,” Kal explained. “I recognized you from the news report earlier.”
Bruce just sighed as he started driving, weaving his way through the back alleys of Gotham, going who knows where.
“What did you mean by recent attacks?” Kal asked.
“There’s been a string of android attacks in Gotham recently,” Bruce explained. “They originally started out in Metropolis, but now, they’ve made their way over here. I think whoever’s behind this has to be based out of Metropolis, which is why I’ve been trying to get ahold of one so I can confirm my suspicions. So far, it’s gotten nowhere.”
Something about Bruce’s investigation spoke to Kal. He felt the urge to do something, but he didn’t know why.
“Well,” he said, “maybe after you take a look at me, I could help you try and investigate,” Kal suggested. “I’ll help you if you help me figure out what’s wrong with me.”
Bruce went silent for a minute, briefly glancing over at Kal. “Why would you wanna help me with something you only just learned about?” he asked, his tone incredulous. Kal just shrugged.
“Because it would be the right thing to do.”
That seemed to only confuse Bruce even more. “You have got to be the strangest android I’ve ever met, Kal-El.”
“Oh, you can just call me Kal,” the android said. Bruce just huffed and continued to drive the rest of the way in silence.
The drive took them out of the main part of Gotham and up a long, winding mountain road, with turns so tight that Kal couldn’t even imagine flying up them. As they drew closer to the top of the mountain, he could see an impressive looking manor built at the top, looking more like a mighty castle than somebody’s home. Oddly, though, Bruce didn’t drive up to the manor directly. Rather, he took an alternate route, diverting through a gravel path he almost didn’t see at first. The path led to the mouth of a cave, almost pitch black if not for the car’s headlights illuminating the space.
Bruce pulled up only a few more feet, then parked the car and waited. After a moment, the ground beneath them seemed to give way - or rather, it was lifting up. Bruce had parked over some sort of platform, carrying them up into yet another section of cave. This section of the cave, however, was immense, spanning so far that without his enhanced vision, Kal doubted he would’ve been able to see to the other side. Stalactites hung down from the ceiling above, among which a massive colony of bats nested. Looking all around, Kal could see a huge supercomputer on one side of the cave, and what looked like an elaborate armory on the other.
“What is this place?” Kal asked, his voice hushed with awe.
“This is the Batcave,” Bruce explained as he shut the engine off. “It’s where all the actual investigation happens. Now, come on. Let’s see if we can’t figure out what’s going on.”
As the two of them stepped out of the car, an older, balding man in a suit with a bowtie came down a long stairwell, presumably leading up into the rest of the manor. He began to say, “You’ve returned early, Master-” before noticing Kal standing there, his eyes widening.
“Who do we have here?” the old man asked. “A surprise visitor?”
“Hello!” Kal smiled. “I’m Kal-El. I came to Bruce hoping he might be able to fix me.”
When the older man raised his eyebrow, Bruce elaborated. “He’s an android, Alfred. I thought he was part of the recent attacks, but he swears he isn’t. He said he came looking for me, hoping I could help restore his hard drive. I’m going to try and get a better look at him, just to be sure, and if he’s not, I promised I’d help him with his repairs.”
“Well, it’s very nice to meet you, Kal-El,” Alfred said with a nod.
“Oh, you can just call me Kal,” the android said with an embarrassed smile.
“Kal it is, then,” Alfred said. “Might I take this as a sign that your patrol is over for tonight, Bruce?”
“I’m not sure,” Bruce said. “There’s still plenty of hours left in the night. Depending on how long this takes, I might patrol for another few hours or so.”
“I’ll prepare your bandages, just in case,” Alfred said, his tone resigned.
“Thanks, Alfred,” Bruce said with a small smile. “Now, let’s see if we can get you hooked up and get a diagnostic scan run on you.”
Kal didn’t know why, but the sight of Bruce’s smile put him at ease. He didn’t feel like he was with the same man who had confronted him on the Wayne Industries tower.
Once he joined Bruce by the massive computer, Bruce explained, “I should be able to plug you into the Batcomputer and run some basic diagnostics to see what exactly needs repairing, if anything. I’m not sure where your interface ports would be, though…”
“Oh, you might not need those,” Kal said. “Here, pull up the program. I wanna see if this works.”
Bruce raised an eyebrow, but did as Kal asked, opening up the diagnostic program. All it needed was the command to start.
“I don’t know if your computer is as advanced as my ship,” Kal said as he stepped up to the computer, “but this could still work…”
Pressing his servo to the Batcomputer, Kal reached out with his EM field, thinking, I need your help. I need a diagnostic scan run on me. I have to see what my damage is. Read my data, and report back to me on what’s wrong. Within a matter of moments, the program began to run, seemingly all on its own.
“How did you do that?” Bruce asked, his voice unusually hushed.
“Tactile interface,” Kal explained. “It allows me to translate my computations, or thoughts, I guess, into electromagnetic charges. I can directly communicate with any sort of computer that way.”
“I’ve never heard of anything like that before,” Bruce said. “I’m starting to believe you about the whole being from another planet thing.”
Kal started to say something, but was cut off as the Batcomputer’s screen began displaying his specs. Along with his general physical specs - height, weight, and age - it also listed out his many features.
“This is all stored in my RAM,” Kal explained, “so reading that shouldn’t be a problem. It’s just my hard drive that I’m-”
He looked over to Bruce to continue talking to him, only to find that the man’s mouth hung open in shock as he scrolled through the list. It reminded him of when the Kents had stared at him when they’d first seen him flying towards his downed ship.
Do none of Earth’s androids have any of these capabilities?
“Incredible,” Bruce murmured, his eyes darting over the readout of Kal's specs. “Personal gravity alteration, x-ray vision, an AI programmed to learn via interpersonal interactions, how many bytes of data storage? And that's not even mentioning the direct tactile interface… How do you even do all of this? Were these upgrades you received over time or something?”
“As far as I know, I've always been able to do this,” Kal said. “It comes to me as naturally as breathing or walking would to you.”
Bruce's eyes widened as he looked over at Kal, his mouth hanging open slightly. “You weren't lying, were you?”
“I told you,” Kal said, smiling with amusement. “I'm from another planet. I crash landed in Kansas about three weeks ago.”
Bruce looked from Kal to the Batcomputer’s screen and back again. The expression on his face was something Kal couldn’t place. Maybe it was the cowl covering half of his face, but if Kal wasn’t mistaken, the look on Bruce’s face was something akin to wonder, or maybe adoration.
Kal felt his core starting to leap in its casing. He’d only been on Earth for a short time, and yet he had a feeling that no one would ever look at him the same way that Bruce did.
After several awkward seconds, Bruce stopped staring, cleared his throat, and returned to scrolling through the diagnostic report. When he reached the conclusion, he let out a confused, “Hmmm…”
“What’s wrong?” Kal asked.
“You said your hard drive was damaged upon landing, right?” Bruce asked. “According to the diagnostic scan, you don’t have any damage. It looks like you’re in perfect working order.”
“What?” Kal blurted out. He looked up at the screen, wondering if Bruce was reading the report correctly, but sure enough, in bold letters, the screen read:
[CONCLUSION: NO SYSTEM FAILURES DETECTED.]
[NO HARDWARE DAMAGE DETECTED.]
“But that makes no sense,” Kal said. “Last time I ran a diagnostic scan on myself, it said I had hard drive failure.” He paused to think about it, then said, “The last time I ran that scan was right after I crashed…”
“Your body must’ve put itself back together in that time,” Bruce guessed.
“But then, why can’t I remember anything about who I was before I came here?” Kal asked, beginning to pace back and forth. As he racked his CPU for any conclusions, a possibility came to mind.
Unless I wasn’t sent here with my memory…
A sudden alarm from the Batcomputer interrupted Kal’s reasoning. Bruce opened up the flashing window in the corner of the screen and pulled up a camera feed along a Gotham street. It took Kal a moment to recognize the location as the Wayne Industries tower. At first, he couldn’t see what was wrong - until he saw two vaguely humanoid figures stalking from within the nearby parking garage, seemingly casing the tower.
“Hey Kal,” Bruce said. “You told me you’d help me catch one of these androids if I helped you with your repairs? This might be your chance. Come on.”
Confused, but still wanting to hold up his end of the deal, Kal followed Bruce back to the car, and the two sped out of the Batcave and back to the main body of Gotham.
+ + + + +
“Most of the attacks have been centered around here,” Bruce explained as he guided Kal towards the Wayne Industries tower. “I think they’ve been trying to get ahold of some of my more advanced prototypes.”
“But don’t you make prostheses?” Kal asked. “Why would these androids want anything to do with prostheses?”
“That’s only one thing I make,” Bruce replied. “It’s my primary product, but I also produce general machinery. Factory equipment, cars, some of Gotham’s maintenance robots. It wouldn’t surprise me if whoever’s sending these is trying to get a leg up on me.”
“Do you have any idea who might be sending them?” Kal asked.
“I have a few,” Bruce said, “but I don’t want to act unless I’m certain who it is. I don’t want to accuse an innocent person.”
Kal just nodded and followed behind Bruce, hovering through the air to avoid making a sound. As the two crept towards the parking garage, Kal watched Bruce’s expression, waiting for his cue. Strangely, though, Bruce’s face looked pensive under the cowl, like he had something on his mind.
After what felt like aeons, Bruce exhaled deeply and said, “Kal, I’m… I’m sorry for not believing you at first. And I’m sorry for attacking you when we first met. This entire case has made me tense.”
“No, it’s fine,” Kal insisted. “I don’t blame you! If strange androids were attacking my home, I’d be wary, too.”
Bruce paused, trying to come up with the right words. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to take a better look at you when this is over. After seeing your specs, and what you showed me earlier on the tower, I’d really like to know more about you.”
Why did the prospect of being examined the way Bruce was describing make Kal’s circuits buzz with energy?
Kal was about to say, “I’d like that,” until a tiny sound grabbed his attention. Focusing his hearing on that specific sound, he heard even more; the lightest, faintest of footfalls, and the distant whirring of machinery coming from behind a corner. Using his x-ray vision to confirm his suspicions, he saw the androids he’d witnessed on the security camera, creeping their way towards the back security door of the Wayne tower.
Kal tapped Bruce’s shoulder and put a digit to his lips before pointing in the direction of the androids. Bruce seemed to understand, as he nodded and reached for his toolbelt, pulling a small cylinder out of one of the pockets. He clicked the button on top and tossed it around the corner. In a few seconds, plumes of smoke erupted from behind the corner, and Kal could hear the androids stumbling, possibly unable to see through the smoke.
Bruce took that as his chance. He rushed around the corner and fired his grappling hook at one of the androids, ensnaring its legs. The second android charged at Bruce, so Kal shot around the corner, grabbing the second android and throwing it down the alleyway, making it crumple like a wad of paper.
As soon as he turned the corner, though, the first android froze, its head darting upwards to focus on him. To Kal’s surprise, the trapped android ripped off the cable around its legs like it was made of twine and lunged at Kal, one arm outstretched.
Kal quickly shot upwards, barely managing to avoid the android’s grasp. No sooner had Kal managed to fly away, though, did the android raise its hand, aiming its palm in his direction. Kal didn’t understand what was happening - until he felt something blast him in the chest.
Kal flew backwards like he was struck by lightning, launched into the side of the Wayne tower. An impossible pain radiated from his chest, only worsened as he collapsed onto the concrete. Even as he tried to stand up, his slightest movements made the pain worse, shooting throughout his body. His vision began to flicker, and as he tried to shout for Bruce, his vocalizer produced nothing but glitchy shrieking.
The android stalked towards Kal, hand outstretched, panels in its palm open to reveal what looked like gun barrels. Kal tried to fight through his pain to clamber back onto his feet, but the pain kept him down. He couldn’t understand it. He’d only ever felt pain like this during the crash.
Looking down at his chestplate, Kal saw chunks of stones radiating a sickly green glow puncturing his plating. An ominous warning appeared on his HUD: KRYPTONITE CONTAMINATION DETECTED.
Oh no.
A mechanical whirring made Kal look up just in time to see the android preparing to fire again. Before it could shoot again, however, Bruce threw himself at it, body slamming it into the wall. The android ignored Bruce and tried to fire at Kal again, but Bruce twisted its arm as hard as he could, tearing the arm from its socket with a sickening, electronic crackling. With the android disarmed, Bruce kicked it in the chest as hard as he could before turning his attention to Kal.
“Kal!” Bruce shouted. “Kal, can you hear me?”
Kal couldn’t speak, still spitting static. He nodded and pointed to the kryptonite lodged in his chest, hoping Bruce would understand what was going on.
“I’m getting the Batmobile,” Bruce said firmly. “Hold on for me.”
Kal nodded again, reaching up for the kryptonite and trying to pull it out. Static filled cries of pain echoed in the alley as Kal tried to fix himself, but it was no use. He slumped back against the crumbled wall, waiting for Bruce to return.
Thankfully, it didn’t take very long for Kal to hear the growling engine of the Batmobile peeling around the corner. Bruce practically jumped out of the Batmobile and ran over to Kal, lifting him up in his arms, trying his best to not jostle him as he carried him over to the passenger’s seat.
“I’m getting you back to the Batcave,” Bruce reassured Kal. “Just hold on for me.”
Kal could only nod again as Bruce jumped into the driver’s seat and tore out of the alley, racing back to the Batcave as fast as he could.
+ + + + +
The moment Bruce pulled the Batmobile back into the Batcave and got it parked, he jumped out of the driver’s seat and hauled Kal over to the surgical table. Normally, being carried by Bruce might’ve felt more awkward than anything else; now, with the Kryptonite lodged in his chassis, the vibrations from every footstep felt like he was in the middle of an earthquake.
Bruce set Kal on the table as gently as he could before rushing to grab the tools he needed. Kal stared up at the ceiling, his vision flickering, vocalizer glitching as he tried to come up with words. Bruce rushed back over to Kal’s side, a pair of forceps in his hand.
“First things first, we’ve gotta get whatever this is out of you before it does any more damage,” he said. “Whatever this is, it’s damaging your circuitry and reversing your skin’s healing process.”
“Kry-y-yptonite,” Kal said through his glitching synthesizer. “I-It’s how we power o-o-our ships.”
“I’ll have to figure out how the hell those androids got ahold of it,” Bruce murmured. Briefly glancing up at Kal, a slight grimace on his normally flat face, he held Kal’s hand and squeezed tightly. “Sorry if this hurts.”
Before Kal could say that it was alright, Bruce went in with the forceps, grabbing ahold of the largest chunk of kryptonite, about the size of a golf ball. He began to move it around to extract it, and the pain made Kal’s grip on Bruce’s hand tighten into something almost bone crushing. Kal gritted his dentae in an attempt to muffle his urge to scream. Even the aftermath of his crash felt like a mild scrape compared to this.
The seconds felt like hours with how agonizing the pain was, but thankfully, Bruce was able to dislodge the offending hunk of kryptonite and set it aside. Instantly, Kal felt relief washing through his body. He still felt the pain of the remaining smaller pieces, but his body could begin its repair work.
Bruce gently rubbed his thumb against the back of Kal’s hand to reassure him as he went in for the second piece. Removing this one hurt too, but Kal was beginning to adjust to the pain. Before long, Bruce had the second piece removed, then the third, then the fourth. Despite having his abdominal cavity and part of his chest cavity exposed, Kal was already feeling somewhat back to normal.
“Thanks, Bruce,” Kal murmured, feeling his synthesizer recalibrating itself. “I owe you.”
“Don’t thank me so soon,” Bruce grumbled. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”
“What do you mean?” Kal asked, tilting his head to one side.
“That first big chunk tore apart some of your circuitry,” Bruce explained. “I’ll have to solder it back together. Not to mention, I don’t know if I got all of that out. I’ll have to do a thorough look, just to be safe.”
“Are you sure?” Kal asked. “Even with my processor damage, I should be able to heal myself pretty quickly, as long as I have enough battery left.”
“N0t fast enough,” Bruce said. Kal could tell by the slight edge in his tone that he was trying to force himself to remain calm. “We don’t know how long it’ll be until one of those androids comes back for you, and I don’t want one to find you like this.”
Kal knew that his body could still put itself back together, but he had to trust Bruce’s judgment on this. Bruce knew these Earth androids far better than he did. Exventing to clear his processor, Kal rested his head against the table. “Alright, just be careful.”
Bruce didn’t even have the energy to come up with a comeback of some sort as he set the forceps down. All he said was, “Tell me if something hurts, and I’ll stop.”
“I will,” Kal said as he tried to prepare himself for what he might feel. His thoughts drifted to when Jonathan had fixed up his cranial wiring. He remembered how much that had hurt, and a part of him feared that the moment Bruce touched his wiring, he’d begin thrashing again.
Bruce reached his right hand into Kal’s open abdominal cavity, his claws gingerly moving around the exposed wiring. Kal could hear the faint whirring of his mechanical eye zooming in like a camera lens on his innards. Seeing Bruce in such a state of concentration put Kal’s processor at ease. He was in good hands. He could trust Bruce to take care of him.
One slim claw hooked around Kal’s wiring and tugged lightly. Kal expected it to hurt, but to his surprise, it felt… well, he couldn’t string together the words to describe how it felt. It almost felt soothing, how gently Bruce touched his wiring. Kal couldn’t understand why.
Bruce’s claws continued to dance through Kal’s open abdomen, every touch deceptively light coming from a hand that dealt justice across Gotham. Every time he touched a wire which felt too raw and Kal flinched, Bruce pulled his hand back and murmured a quiet apology.
After a while, Bruce pulled his hand away. Kal didn’t know why, but he felt almost disappointed. “Looks like some of your wiring came unplugged,” Bruce explained. “I’ll get that taken care of before I have to start soldering the damaged cables.”
“You know I have a shutoff switch in my head if you wanna use it,” Kal said. “That way, you can put me asleep for a while and not have to worry about me interrupting you.”
“If it starts to hurt too much, I’ll do that,” Bruce compromised. “But for now, I wanna keep you online. I’d rather you be able to see what I’m doing, just in case I do something wrong.”
Kal wanted to reassure Bruce that he wasn’t going to mess up. It was likely that no one else on this planet knew as much about robotics as he did, apart from whoever had built the androids which had attacked them earlier. But the furrow of Bruce’s brow and the faint increase of his pulse told Kal that Bruce was hiding his true reason for keeping Kal online. Whatever it was, Kal would have to ask him later once he was fully repaired.
Bruce searched Kal’s face for any possible protest for a few moments. When he found none, he reached back into Kal’s open abdomen and found one of the disconnected wires. Hooking the end of it with one claw, he paused, as if he was searching for something else. He must’ve found its port, because a moment later, Kal felt a sudden rush of electricity sparking within him. It didn’t hurt, thankfully, but the unexpectedness of it made him gasp slightly.
“Did that hurt?” Bruce asked upon hearing Kal gasp, his eyes flicking upward to Kal’s face.
“No, no, you’re alright,” Kal reassured him. “Just took me by surprise. I’ll tell you if it hurts, don’t worry.”
Bruce nodded and returned to the task at hand. Kal was more mentally prepared for the next wire Bruce plugged in, but it didn’t stop him from flinching slightly as he felt that circuit being closed. He normally wasn’t this hyper aware of his abdominal wiring, so this level of sensitivity felt alien to him.
Looking away from Bruce’s hands for a moment, Kal’s attention shifted to Bruce’s face. Something about the way Bruce concentrated whenever he worked on something mechanical made Kal’s processor spin. It wasn’t the look Jonathan had when he’d first attempted to repair Kal’s helm, the look of someone trying to work together a puzzle. As stone cold as Bruce’s face tended to be whenever he wasn’t on camera, whenever he had something mechanical in his hands, his expression softened. His lips parted slightly, the wrinkles around his eyes crinkled just enough for Kal to notice, and his touch felt more like that of a parent comforting a child.
“That’s about all I could find,” Bruce said, pulling away and turning back towards his equipment. “Now, the rest of this is gonna need soldering. This’ll probably take a bit longer, and there’s a good chance it’ll hurt more. If you want, now might be a good chance to put you under, but that’s up to you.”
Kal considered the possibility for a moment, but he didn’t feel any need for it, not when Bruce had been so gentle with him thus far. “I think I’ll be alright,” Kal reassured him. “Do whatever you need to do.”
Bruce nodded as he turned around, messing with some of his tools. After a minute, Bruce turned back around, now wearing protective goggles, and said, “Now, I don’t know how they do it where you come from, but I’ll be using some of this solder to melt your wires back together. Hopefully, it’ll act more like stitches so your body can focus on expelling more of the Kryptonite poisoning. I don’t want you diverting your power to trying to fix everything at once.”
“Sounds good to me,” Kal said. The explanation put his processor at ease some more.
Bruce reached back into Kal’s abdomen and started working with one of the severed wires situated deeper in his chassis. Though he felt everything Bruce was doing, at this angle, he wasn’t quite sure what was happening. He felt something slide over one end of the wire, then Bruce bringing the severed ends together, lightly twisting them in place with his claws. The sensation of Bruce’s claws on his open metal made his processor spin. He knew it should’ve hurt, but something about this felt somewhat pleasurable. He took a deep invent to try and steady himself, and Bruce briefly looked over to see Kal’s chest rising and falling, his artificial lungs inflating and deflating as he regulated his cooling systems.
“Beautiful…” he murmured to himself, as if he were hoping that Kal wouldn’t hear. Kal most certainly heard, but he wasn’t about to call Bruce out on that while he had his hands in Kal’s open body.
Bruce returned to the task at hand, brushing Kal’s wires with something. Kal assumed it was to hold them together, but he wasn’t sure. Bruce soon returned to his work table and came back with something Kal did recognize, the soldering iron he had seen Bruce use on his own arm, along with a spare coil of wire. Melting a bit of the spare coil on the tip of the iron, Bruce brought it down to Kal’s frayed wires and began to melt them together.
Everything happened all at once. Kal felt the heat blooming brightly in his abdomen, spreading through his left side. His internal mechanisms were so sensitive that he could feel the individual wires melding back together. The combination of the warmth and his body being handled so carefully like this made heat flush to his face, and he let out an embarrassing gasp.
Bruce paused and looked over to Kal once more, his eyebrow raised. This time, though, Kal could see a faint tinge of pink in his cheeks.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to put you under?” Bruce asked.
“No!” Kal blurted out, too quickly for his own liking. He reset his vocalizer with a static crackle and said, “No, I’m fine. I’m fine. Keep going.”
Bruce continued to stare for a few awkward seconds before sighing deeply, shaking his head, and setting his soldering iron down, coming back with a heat gun. Kal felt something slide along his repaired wire, and a second later, Bruce turned on the heat gun. The hot air only served to make the warmth in his abdomen flare up again. This time, Kal was careful to silence his vocalizer.
Bruce continued in this pattern for the next twenty minutes, repairing each of the damaged wires. With each repaired connection, Kal not only felt the numbness in his legs fizzling away, but he also felt that pleasurable heat in his core coming and going in waves. He didn’t know he was capable of feeling something like this, something unusually human. He knew that his anatomy and Bruce’s didn’t match, but with his internals bared for Bruce and being tended to so gingerly, he felt vulnerable, exposed, naked.
Watching Bruce’s face, Kal could see that he wasn’t the only one affected by this. Bruce’s concentration never broke as he fixed each wire, but gradually, an out of character uncertainty began to grow in his eye. Kal didn’t know if it was because his own machinery was so alien, or if Bruce knew how Kal was feeling, and the knowledge made him uncomfortable. Either way, Kal made a concerted effort to keep his expression as neutral as possible as Bruce continued to repair him.
“Looks like I’m almost done,” Bruce eventually said, breaking his long silence. “I think I’ve got everything fixed up, but I wanna check around your chest cavity to see if I missed anything. How do you feel?”
Kal began to speak up, but realized that his vocalizer was still off and quickly turned it back on. “I feel good,” he said, offering Bruce a smile. “My legs feel much better, that’s for sure. Thank you.”
The corner of Bruce’s mouth curved up the smallest bit before he set all of his tools aside and took his goggles off. “Would you be alright if I looked through your chest cavity, just to make sure everything’s still working properly?”
Kal didn’t get why he felt so nervous at the proposition. Still, he figured it wouldn’t hurt for Bruce to make sure he was in full working order. His diagnostics might miss some damage. A second opinion would be a good idea. That was his only reason for wanting this, obviously.
“Sure, go for it,” Kal said, smiling a bit more. He opened up his chest panels so Bruce could get better access to his core. Bruce glanced up at Kal, eyes widened slightly, before returning to what he was doing.
“Let’s see if I missed any Kryptonite first,” Bruce mumbled to himself. He reached out with his right hand first, cautiously pulling aside wires to search for any stray shards of Kryptonite. After a while, though, Kal felt that Bruce had searched for long enough. Now, it seemed more like he was looking through Kal’s chest cavity just for the sake of looking. Part of Kal wished that it would stop, as Bruce’s claws brushing against his wires caused the same simmering heat he’d felt in his abdomen to blossom in his chest, only now, with Bruce’s hand near his core, it felt even hotter. And yet Kal didn’t want Bruce to stop. He didn’t know if he’d ever feel something like this again. He wanted to savor it while it lasted.
“It looks like you’re good,” Bruce said after a few agonizingly long minutes. “I just have one more thing. I need to check your core. I don’t wanna know what would happen if any Kryptonite got lodged in there.”
It was an excuse. Kal knew it was. If his core had been affected by Kryptonite, its casing would’ve been blown wide open. Now, he was certain that Bruce was admiring his machinery just for the sake of it.
Despite it all, Kal felt… flattered. He had come to this planet as a stranger. If anyone else knew who he truly was, then they likely would’ve shunned him or reduced him to just another non sentient machine. But the way Bruce looked at everything he kept hidden from the rest of the world with such care and admiration made him feel safe, almost. He could trust Bruce with himself. He could trust Bruce with his core.
“Alright, sure,” Kal nodded. “Go for it.”
His words didn’t give away how excited he felt at the prospect of Bruce being this close to his core. He felt his hydraulics pounding harder as Bruce’s left hand - his organic one - reached up to gently click open the casing to his core. Kal felt each twitch of Bruce’s muscles as he opened the casing, the slightest movements from underneath his skin as he exposed Kal’s core. Kal was so used to feeling mechanical whirring, both from himself and now Bruce’s prosthetic hand. This organic touch against his metal felt so odd, so alien, so thrilling .
Bruce slowly lifted the casing lid to reveal Kal’s innermost machinery, a gleaming white crystal with a pulsing, icy blue glow. The sight of his own core, what might have been his heart, were he human, should’ve unsettled Kal. It wasn’t supposed to be exposed like this. It was supposed to be kept within its casing, behind a thick metal skeleton, surrounded by wiring and locked within a biomechanical chassis.
But this was Bruce. If Kal could trust Bruce to fix the rest of him, he could trust him with his core.
“So,” Bruce said just loud enough for Kal to hear, “what does your core do?”
“It’s my main power storage, for the most part,” Kal explained. “Right now, I’m at 78% power, so it’s going pretty strong.” Reaching back through his CPU and reading his own specs, he added, “It’s also a sort of secondary CPU, I guess you could call it. If my CPU is where all of my logic and information is centered, then my core would be where my emotions are regulated. The more power I have, the stronger they are.”
“I’ve never heard of any android having something like this,” Bruce said, squinting slightly against the bright light. “You’re a work of art, Kal.” Even quieter now, he whispered, “Absolutely beautiful…”
Before Kal could stammer out an embarrassed, “Thank you,” Bruce stretched out his right arm and gently ran one claw over the surface of Kal’s core.
The heat Kal had felt burning in his chassis now erupted throughout his body. The slightest caress sent electricity shooting through his freshly repaired circuits. His entire body felt as if it were on fire. Kal’s neck bent back, his helm pressing into the pillow, as he let out a static filled cry.
This time, Bruce didn’t ask Kal if he was alright. He seemed to know what Kal was feeling without having to interrogate him.
To Kal’s combined horror and delight, Bruce didn’t stop. He seemed almost hypnotized by it as he reached down to touch it again, a little more sure of himself this time. Kal’s legs began to jerk, and his arms shook with tension, servos curling into fists. His backup cooling fans clicked on and began to whirr loudly in an attempt to divert his excess heat; he could already feel himself getting closer and closer to a neural overload.
With one last glance up at Kal to make sure that he wasn’t hurting him, Bruce brought both hands up to Kal’s core, fingertips lightly brushing around the outer casing. Slowly, at a pace which felt agonizing to Kal, Bruce slowly dragged his fingertips along the surface of Kal’s core, watching in what looked like a trance as the glow burned brighter beneath his touch.
Everything happened all at once. The heat, whipped into a fever pitch by Bruce’s touch, ripped through Kal’s body like a wildfire. Kal’s vocalizer shorted, only able to produce screeching static as he opened his mouth to scream. His entire body seized, back arched, limbs shaking, bolts of electricity erupting from his core and shooting throughout his chest cavity. His optics glowed brighter and brighter blue, nearly blinding himself, before offlining entirely.
As quickly as it began, Kal’s neural overload fizzled out. His body slumped back against the hospital bed. His vocalizer was still glitching, unable to produce anything but a buzz. His optics hadn’t come back online yet, either. He was alone in a sea of nothingness.
No. He wasn’t alone. Bruce was holding his hand now, shaking it, squeezing it, trying to get any sign of life out of him.
Kal’s optics reset a few seconds later, followed by his vocalizer. As he turned his head to his right, he saw Bruce leaning over him, now looking relieved that Kal was seemingly alright.
“Are you OK?” Bruce asked, now letting go of Kal’s hand.
“Yeah,” Kal said with a nod, his voice faraway and dreamy. “Yeah, I’m good.”
The relief on Bruce’s face disappeared as his cheeks flushed pink. He turned his gaze away from Kal and began to busy himself with putting away his tools.
“Your core, thankfully, looks to have been unaffected by your attack earlier,” he said. “I’ll consider this a success. Hopefully, your body can expel the rest of the kryptonite in your hydraulics much faster. You should be back to full health in a day or two.”
Kal wanted to laugh. Bruce had just made him feel like he was ascending to another plane of existence, and yet he wanted to try and sound clinical, like that was all part of a routine diagnostic?
“Alfred should have your room ready for you,” Bruce said. “If you’re still feeling the effects of the Kryptonite, I can help you up to it.”
“But what about the android back in the alley?” Kal asked. “Shouldn’t we be, I don’t know, find it and start taking it apart to find out who its maker might be?”
“That can wait,” Bruce said forcefully. Sighing, he said in a calmer tone, “Right now, what matters is that you’re back in working condition. For now, I’ll find a way to properly dispose of this Kryptonite. I don’t wanna run the risk of another poisoning.” Walking back over to Kal’s bedside, he asked, “Are you able to stand up?”
Kal swung his legs over the edge of the bed and tried to stand, but found that his legs wobbled slightly beneath him. Whether it was from his neural overload or the Kryptonite, he wasn’t sure.
“Here,” Bruce said, making his way to Kal's side. He slipped Kal's arm around his shoulder, and Kal leaned on Bruce as the two of them made their way out of the batcave.
“I think I can make it from here,” Kal said once the two of them were back in Bruce's office. “Thank you.”
“I can call Alfred to help you find your room,” Bruce said, but Kal shook his head.
“You two need sleep,” he chuckled. “I'll be fine, I promise.”
The two men stared at each other for a moment before Kal awkwardly reset his vocalizer. “Thank you for getting me out of there. And for repairing me, of course.” With a small laugh, he added, “You really know your way around a machine.”
“I should be thanking you,” Bruce said, a small smile ghosting his lips. “You're the most incredible machine I've ever had the honor of working on.”
Bruce opened his mouth to say something more, but he must've thought that he'd said too much, because he closed his mouth and glanced away. If Kal could blush, he knew he'd be red all the way up to his audials by now. In that moment, he was grateful that his creators had made his cooling fans as quiet as they were; otherwise, Bruce might’ve clued into why they had decided to click on in that moment.
“I won’t keep you any longer,” Kal said, turning to leave the office before Bruce could say anything. “Goodnight!”
Without bothering to hear Bruce calling after him, Kal shot out of the office as quickly as he could, racing through the manor until he came across his room. Thankfully, Alfred had had the foresight to leave the door open for him.
Kal ducked inside and closed the door behind him, throwing himself onto the bed. As he lay there, his processor swimming from the events of that day, he couldn’t help but linger on the way Bruce had handled him during his repairs. The gentleness was normal; Kal knew by now that Bruce could be very delicate when he needed to be.
But the way Bruce spoke about Kal, like he was something to be revered, struck him. Kal barely knew who he was, and yet Bruce acted like he could see into the depths of his core. Bruce had seen his internal systems laid bare before him and still called him beautiful.
Turning over the memory in his CPU, Kal eventually sank into the best recharge he’d had in a very long time.
+ + + + +
Kal woke from recharge to the bright noon sunlight pouring in through an open window. The warmth dancing over him almost made him forget the injuries he’d sustained the night before. Pulling the covers off of himself and climbing out of bed, Kal made his way over to the window and eagerly soaked up more of the sunlight, feeling it soak into his circuitry.
Once he was fully awake, he took a look around the bedroom and saw some clothes folded up on the nightstand. Picking them up, Kal saw that someone had left him a dress shirt and some pressed slacks, as well as a pair of no doubt expensive shoes on the floor by the nightstand. A note atop the pile of clothes read:
I hope you slept well last night. Master Bruce is waiting in the parlor for you, whenever you’re ready.
Smiling at the note, undoubtedly from Alfred, Kal got dressed in the fresh clothes and made his way downstairs. Sure enough, in the front parlor, bathed in the morning sun, Bruce lounged in one of the armchairs close to the tall, leaded windows.
As well as Bruce wore the cover of night, Kal found that his appearance in the daytime was surprisingly easy on the optics. Sure, he was still something of a mess from the night before. Kal could see the red and purple bruises on Bruce’s shoulders with the way his shirt hung on his body, and even though he’d clearly showered, his hair no longer matted with sweat, he must’ve forgotten to shave, as he still had a thin layer of stubble on his chin. Curiously, he didn’t have his prosthetic on, allowing Kal to see the pale pink burn scars spiderwebbing up remained of his right arm. As Bruce heard Kal’s steps down the stairs, he turned to look up at him, and the way Bruce’s eyes - both blue now - shone in the sunlight made Kal feel safe, almost, though he couldn’t place why.
“Ah, good to see you’re awake,” Bruce said with a tired smile. “I was beginning to wonder if I’d made you crash last night.”
“On the contrary,” Kal said. “That was some of the best recharge I’ve ever had. I ought to thank you for it.”
“Don’t mention it,” Bruce chuckled. “You know, Alfred almost made brunch for three. I don’t think he believed me when I told him you didn’t need to eat.” He took a sip of his coffee, then said, “Maybe once this is all situated, we can see about giving you a taste module. Only if you’d like one, of course.”
“No need,” Kal said as he took a seat in the armchair next to Bruce’s. “I already have one, though I only ever use it to detect chemical composition. I probably could taste food, but I can’t eat anything without risking clogging up my inner workings. So, that’s off the table for now.”
“Well, maybe someday, we can get something figured out,” Bruce said with a wry smile. “Not to sound too dramatic or anything, but you haven’t lived until you’ve tried some of Alfred’s cooking. His prime rib roast is to die for.”
“I might consider an upgrade so I can try it, then,” Kal chuckled. This only made Bruce laugh before taking another sip of his coffee.
Kal couldn’t understand it. The Bruce he was talking to was nothing like the Bruce who had tried to choke him when they’d first met, the Bruce who had operated on him the night before (and who had made him see stars, he remembered with a rush of heat through his hydraulics). He wasn’t quite sure which Bruce he had spoken to was the real one. Perhaps they were both the real one, and now, Bruce was simply growing more comfortable with showing Kal other facets of himself. The possibility filled Kal’s core with warmth.
“Where is he, by the way?” Kal asked. “I was hoping I could thank him for the clothes.”
“Handling the laundry,” Bruce explained. “If we don’t see him before we go back down, I’ll pass on the thanks.”
Kal nodded and went quiet, trying to come up with the best thing to say next. Eventually, he decided to rip the bandage off. He met Bruce’s eye and asked, “I’m guessing we’re taking a look at what we found yesterday once you’re done?”
Bruce’s eyes went sharp and cold over the rim of his coffee mug. That was the determined, investigative Bruce Kal recognized.
“Thankfully, I have this weekend off,” Bruce explained, “so we can spend the next few days getting to the bottom of this. Before we get that looked at, though, I’d like to take a look at your repairs, see if there’s anything that needs tweaking.”
The prospect of having Bruce search through his chest cavity again made Kal’s face heat up; once again, he was grateful that he didn’t have blood, or Bruce would’ve seen his blush.
“Unless you just wanna run a diagnostic to see if everything’s in working order,” Bruce said. He must’ve noticed Kal’s silence. “That’d be faster, anyway.”
“Oh, no, I don’t mind,” Kal said, a little too quickly than he would’ve liked. “It’d be nice to have an expert opinion, you know?”
Kal saw the briefest hint of a smirk flash across Bruce’s lips before he took one last sip of his coffee. “I’m gonna take this to the kitchen,” he said, raising his coffee mug. “I’ll meet you in the office.”
Kal was a little surprised at Bruce’s speed, but he wasn’t about to say no. “Sure, I’ll be right there!” he said before getting up from his armchair. To his embarrassment, he found himself flying straight to the office, a bit too eager to get started.
Bruce met him in the office a few minutes later, and together, they descended into the Batcave, the light of day vanishing behind them as they sank into the darkness of the cave. Kal swiftly flew over to the surgical table, taking a seat at its edge. Bruce followed after Kal, watching as he took his seat, before making his way over to his computer, where his prosthetic and its sleeve rested. At first, Kal wanted to help him put the arm on, but he reasoned that Bruce knew more about his arm than Kal did, and Kal would only be getting in the way.
Once Bruce had his prosthetic on, he flexed his fingers, seemingly to test if it was in working order. Watching the claws glint in the cold light of the computer and realizing that those claws would be in his chest cavity in a few minutes made Kal squirm.
Bruce came back to the surgical table and said, “No need to lay down this time. I just need you to open up so I can take a look. Nothing as invasive as last night.”
Kal nodded and unbuttoned his shirt before opening his chest cavity, baring his internals to the cold cave air. Bruce rested his left hand on Kal’s shoulder, his right hand hovering over his endoskeleton, as if waiting for permission to touch.
“You can feel when I handle your wiring, right?” Bruce asked. “How does it feel?”
“Depends on where it is,” Kal said. “The wires in my helm are a lot more sensitive, so any touch up there hurts. In my chassis, though, it actually feels nice as long as you’re careful.”
“I see,” Bruce murmured as he reached into Kal’s chest, the tips of his claws brushing up against his wiring. The slight sensation was enough to send a dull warmth thrumming through Kal’s torso.
“You’re healing up nicely, it looks like,” Bruce said.
“Probably because you did such a good job fixing me up last night,” Kal said with an awkward smile.
“Your body did more of the work than I did,” Bruce said dismissively. “Your accelerated healing is amazing. I’ll have to learn how it works someday.”
Bruce hooked one wire with his claw and lightly tugged, and Kal wasn’t fast enough to silence the startled gasp that escaped his vocalizer. He couldn’t help but notice how Bruce’s pulse quickened at the sound, his prosthetic eye zooming in on his expression.
Bruce gently pulled his claw away from the wire, though he continued to feel around in Kal’s torso, sharp points of metal dancing over his endoskeleton, tracing along his wires, caressing the inside of his chassis. As nervous as Kal had felt at first, he found that these touches, impossibly light for someone who struck like lightning whenever he fought, put him at ease, turning his CPU to mush. It wasn’t long before his whole body grew warm and fuzzy, not a care in the world. His cooling fans had clicked on at some point, trying to divert the excess heat, but they did little to cool the delightful burn in his core. He knew that Bruce most likely wasn’t trying to perform an actual clinical inspection and likely just wanted to see Kal’s insides, but that realization only made Kal enjoy it more.
If the two of them didn’t have an investigation to get to, Kal would’ve opened up his core for Bruce to touch, if only to try and recreate what he had felt the night before.
After a few minutes of inspection, Bruce pulled his hands away, much to Kal’s disappointment. “Everything looks like it’s in working order,” he concluded. “You can close your panels now.”
“Thanks,” Kal said, shutting his chest panels and buttoning his shirt back up. “Anything to report?”
“No, thankfully,” Bruce said. “It looks like nothing ever happened in there.”
Bruce went quiet for a few moments, merely meeting Kal’s gaze for a few moments, as if he were trying to read what was going on in Kal’s CPU. If Kal listened hard enough, he could almost hear Bruce thinking.
“Now that that’s taken care of,” he said after what felt like five minutes of staring, “let’s get our specimen looked at, and see if we can’t find out where it came from.”
At this point, the whiplash from quiet intimacy to cold calculation didn’t surprise Kal anymore. He simply got off of the table and made his way over to the Batmobile, Bruce following right behind him.
Bruce pulled open the trunk of the Batmobile, and Kal lifted the deactivated, mangled body of the android, carrying it over to the surgical table. Something about holding a deactivated android felt fundamentally wrong to Kal, but he pushed past it. His discomfort meant nothing in the face of the investigation.
Kal set the lifeless body on the table and stepped to the side, leaving Bruce to get to work. Something about how Bruce held himself during his investigations drew Kal to him even more than he already did. Bruce moved with a precision and intent with every step that Kal wasn’t used to seeing in humans. As Bruce’s claws traced over the crumpled metal, prosthetic eye zooming in to analyze the damage, Kal began pondering the possibility that Bruce had somehow augmented his brain with his own technology.
“Here, Kal, I could use a hand,” Bruce said. The words snapped Kal out of his musing, and he rushed to Bruce’s side, asking, “What do you need?”
“You’re stronger than I am,” Bruce explained. He pointed to a crumpled spot in the android’s chest and said, “I need you to pry that open for me. I need to confirm some suspicions of mine.”
Unsure what Bruce was getting at, but still wanting to help, Kal slid his fingers beneath the crumpled metal and easily pulled the destroyed chestplate open. He looked to Bruce for his next instruction, only to see Bruce staring at him with a look Kal couldn’t put a name to, a look that reminded Kal of the one Bruce had when he’d been admiring his internals mere minutes earlier.
Bruce must’ve realized he was staring, because he cleared his throat and said, “Thank you. Now, let’s get a better look at this…”
Peering into the android’s chest cavity, Kal was shocked to realize that he recognized the internal layout. Sure, the technology itself wasn’t the same as his own, but the layout of the endoskeleton looked almost exactly like his own, save for not having a core. The metal ribs, the wiring wrapped in tight braiding, even artificial organs, albeit somewhat primitive imitations of his own.
“That’s what I thought,” Bruce said.
“What?” Kal asked. “What’s going on?”
“Last night,” Bruce said, “during that attack, I noticed that those androids were almost entirely focused on you. When I was repairing you, I started having suspicions. It’s starting to look like I’m right.”
Before Kal could ask another question, Bruce said, “Kal, I think that these androids I’ve been seeing pop up all over Gotham are based off of you.”
Kal balked at the insinuation, his intake falling open. “Me? What are you talking about?”
“Did anyone else repair you before me?” Bruce asked.
“Just the Kents, and they’re all the way back in Kansas,” Kal said. “All they did was patch me up after the crash. You’re the only other person who’s seen my inner workings.”
“Well, either these are based off of you, or something very similar to you,” Bruce said. “Let’s see if we can figure out who manufactured this thing. Some of these parts have to have a manufacturer’s label, or a serial number, or something.”
Following a hunch of his, Kal used his x-ray vision to peer through the android’s helm. Curiously, though, he couldn’t see through it.
“That’s odd,” he said.
“What is it?” Bruce asked.
“I’m trying to use my x-ray vision,” Kal explained, “but something’s blocking me from seeing through. I’ll have to try another way.”
Switching tactics, Kal used his laser vision to burn a small hole through the top of the android’s head. Thankfully, this tactic worked, and he was able to use his x-ray vision more effectively.
“Bruce, I think I found something,” he said. “The CPU, there’s a name on it.”
“There is?” Bruce said, sounding hopeful. “What is it?”
“Something I’ve never heard of,” Kal said. “LexCorp?”
The name made Bruce curse under his breath. “That pompous prick, of course it would be him.”
“Bruce, what’s wrong?” Kal asked.
“These androids must’ve been manufactured by Lex Luthor,” Bruce explained. “He and I… don’t get along, to say the least. He’s my main competition. We used to be business partners until he started trying to make robots for war. I told him I wouldn’t do that, and he’s been trying to get back at me ever since. It looks like he’s been sending his toys to Gotham to mess with me.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Kal said. “Let’s get going.”
“Not so fast,” Bruce warned. “If these androids are based off of you, or something like you, Lex is probably hiding something we haven’t seen yet. We need to be prepared.”
With that, Bruce disappeared into a separate area of the Batcave, most likely to get changed into the batsuit. While Bruce was away, Kal picked up the piece he’d burned from the android’s head and lifted it up to his mouth. With one taste, his processor went to work performing a chemical analysis of the material.
“What are you doing?” Bruce asked as he returned to the table, this time dressed in the batsuit.
“Performing a chemical analysis,” Kal explained.
Bruce looked like he wanted to say something, but chose not to. After a few moments, the results of the analysis popped up on the left side of Kal’s HUD. Scrolling past the materials used to make the plastic skin, he was surprised to find the composition of the metal he’d tasted.
“That’s new,” he said. “My analysis concluded that this android’s skin was lined with a thin layer of lead.”
So I can’t see through lead… whoever this Lex is must know I’m working with Bruce. But how would he know I can’t see through lead if even I didn’t know that? Is he working with another one of me?
“Alright, then. Here,” Bruce said, “we’ll take the Batwing. I know you’re faster than it, but just in case you get damaged, we’ll need a way to carry you back.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Kal said. “Here."
Reaching into his subspace and pulling out the little box, he quickly changed from his regular clothes into his suit. Bruce watched him for a moment, murmuring, "I've gotta get one of those for myself," before disappearing into the Batcave. He emerged a few minutes later, this time piloting a new craft, like some sort of stealth bomber modified with batlike wings.
The cockpit opened up, and Bruce waved for Kal to get in. Kal didn’t hesitate to fly over to the craft and take a seat, the cockpit closing behind him.
“I know you can fly there on your own,” Bruce said, “but hopefully, if we take the Batwing, Lex might not realize that there’s two of us. He’ll think it’s just me.”
“Good thinking,” Kal said while Bruce reached into his utility belt.
“Also, you’ll want this,” he said, holding up what looked like a tiny earpiece. “This way, if we get separated, we’ll still be able to talk.”
“Gotcha,” Kal said, slipping the earpiece into his right ear as Bruce did the same.
“Now,” Bruce said, “let’s go.”
With that, Bruce took over the controls again, sending the Batwing out of the cave and rocketing into the night, heading towards Metropolis.
+ + + + +
“Alright, Kal. What can you see?”
Crouched atop the Daily Planet building, hiding behind the globe, Bruce and Kal kept a close watch on the LexCorp tower. Most of the building seemed dark, with only a few lights indicating that people were still working, but Kal had a suspicion that anything they were looking for would be underground. There was no way that Lex would keep his labs above ground and exposed, if everything Bruce had said about him was correct.
Peering out from behind the globe, Kal zoomed in on the tower and scanned it with his x-ray vision. As expected, the main body of the tower was entirely comprised of conference rooms and seemingly endless layers upon layers of cubicles, with Lex’s office at the very top, allowing him a panoramic view of Metropolis for him to lord over, like a king atop his ergonomic, wheeled throne. Only when Kal moved his gaze downward did he see what he was looking for.
“Lex’s labs are on the lower floors,” he explained. Looks like he’s got security androids on every floor.”
“How many do you think?” Bruce asked. After a quick scan, Kal replied, “Looks like he’s got no less than ten on each floor.”
“We’ll have to be careful if we’re gonna get past those guards,” Bruce grumbled. “And I thought I was overly cautious.”
Kal returned to scanning the area below the tower and found something curious. After the twelfth floor, he could clearly see the outline of a much larger, thirteenth floor, but he couldn’t see what was within it. It was almost as if- wait…
“Whatever we’re looking for is on the lowest floor,” Kal realized.
“What do you see?” Bruce asked, glancing over at Kal.
“Nothing,” Kal explained. “The walls are lined with lead. Whatever’s in there, he knows I’m looking for it, and he doesn’t want me seeing it.”
“How long have you been on Earth?” Bruce asked. “A month or two, and he’s already making preparations against you?”
“Something’s not adding up,” Kal said. He looked over at Bruce, and for a moment, it seemed like Bruce wanted to say something. Whatever it was, he scrapped it in favor of something else.
“We’ll have to be quiet,” Bruce said. “We can’t risk setting off any of the security androids. If you carry me to the top, I could probably figure out a way for us to move through the elevator shaft and bypass-”
“I could always use my super speed and take us through the stairwell and straight to the lowest level before anyone can realize we’re here,” Kal said. “We’d likely only look like a glitch in the security cameras if we’re fast enough. I’d say with that, we only have a 13.436% chance of getting caught.”
Bruce went quiet for a moment, glanced over at Kal, and nodded. “That also works,” he conceded. “Let’s go with that one.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Kal said with a smile. He quickly bent down and scooped Bruce up in his arms, hooking one arm beneath Bruce’s knees and the other supporting his back. Bruce didn’t appear to appreciate the gesture, if his surprised grunt was anything to go by.
“Kal, what are you doing?” he asked.
“Carrying you,” Kal said, his face blank with confusion. “You’re still coming with me, right?”
Bruce looked down at Kal’s arms wrapped around him, and only then did Kal realize what was wrong. “I’m sorry, here, I’ll put you down.”
“Don’t,” Bruce said just a tad too quickly. It might’ve been due to the night air’s chill, but Kal could’ve sworn he saw a slight pink tinge in Bruce’s cheeks. “Just… don’t drop me, alright?”
“Come on, you don’t trust me?” Kal chuckled as he activated his gravity alteration modules once again.
“And now you’re developing a sense of humor,” Bruce grumbled. Even still, Kal saw the slightest hint of a smile grace Bruce’s lips.
You can stare at his lips later, Kal. Hopefully, once this is all over.
Kal remained hovering in midair for a minute, watching the first floor of the tower to wait for the perfect opening. The only person there at this hour was the front desk person, who currently had his nose in the middle of some crime novel.
After a few minutes, the man got up and left his post. Kal didn’t know when he’d be back, and he wasn’t about to risk losing this chance.
“Alright, brace yourself,” Kal said. Those words and his grip suddenly tightening around Bruce were the only warning he gave as he shot through the front doors of the tower, kicked open the stairway door, and rocketed down the stairs until he reached the bottom floor. Bruce gripped onto Kal for dear life, metal fingers digging into his skin, until he registered that he was no longer moving at near light speed.
“You can let go now,” Kal said. With a smirk, he added, “If you want to, of course.”
Bruce shook his head as he climbed out of Kal’s arms. “Where did you learn to talk like that?”
“I’m programmed to learn from the people I interact with,” Kal simply stated. Bruce didn’t justify that with a reply, merely dusting himself off and turning towards the surprisingly large double doors which loomed before them. A small keypad stuck out next to the doorframe; Kal wondered if Lex had figured out that he could directly interface with technology and modified his internal security, too.
“Can you see what’s in there?” he asked. Kal activated his x-ray vision to see if he could, but no luck.
“The doors are lined with lead too,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Lex was waiting for us on the other side.”
Bruce remained quiet for a moment, mulling things over. With a quiet sigh, he said, “There’s only one way to find out.”
Kal didn’t need him to say anymore. He merely nodded and stepped forward, pressing his hand to the keypad. Thankfully, he felt the familiar charge of electricity build up between himself and the keypad. After a moment of calculating potential combinations, the keypad turned green, and the doors unlocked with a heavy THUNK .
Taking one last look at Bruce, Kal steeled his nerves and pushed open the double doors. There was no turning back now.
+ + + + +
Kal didn’t know what he was looking at. Judging by the look on Bruce’s face, he didn’t know what they’d stumbled upon, either.
Kal had expected to find something more akin to the Batcave, a sprawling, underground lair with a supercomputer for maintaining surveillance over Metropolis, maybe the husks of damaged LexCorp drones to be repaired.
What the two found was something Kal could’ve never imagined.
They’d found themselves in a gargantuan server room, as large as the Batcave, maybe even larger. The room radiated an unsettling red light, a stark contrast to the artificial warmth of the rest of the LexCorp tower. Hundreds of data towers in rows upon rows stretched from wall to wall. The server room seemed to have been overtaken by some massive mechanical growth, as thousands of wires streamed from the data towers, spilling onto the floor in rivers and stretching up to the ceiling, coiling around the beams of the ceiling.
What sent alarms flashing in Kal’s HUD, however, were the bodies. The coils of wires had lashed the mangled wreckage of barely online androids to the data towers. The wires twisted around the bodies and plunged into their open torsos, connecting them all to each other in a sort of perverted root system.
Bruce and Kal cautiously crept their way through the data center, wary to not step on any of the wires. As Kal passed the bodies of the androids, he felt a flicker of pain in his core, wondering how they must’ve felt before being corrupted so cruelly for some sick purpose, but he pushed himself to keep going.
As they approached the front of the data center, the two saw yet another body hanging from the ceiling, arms held out wide in some twisted facsimile of a welcoming embrace. The figure’s body seemed incomplete, cables and half dismantled organs held together in an open torso, core glowing a pale, eerie red. The river of cables poured down from the ceiling and into the figure’s torso cavity, each cable attaching to organs and wrapping around a metallic endoskeleton.
Kal didn’t know it was even possible to feel this level of fear. Sure, he’d been alarmed when he’d been damaged by Kryptonite while fighting the LexCorp drones. Yes, he’d been frightened upon seeing Bruce in potential danger. But this sick temple of live wires and androids fighting to stay online sent alarms ringing in his helm.
“What the hell,” Bruce murmured as he looked all around the temple of mechanical gore. Kal didn’t have the capacity to respond.
“Incredible, isn’t he?”
Kal whirled around at the sound of a man’s voice, alarmed that he’d allowed this sacrilege to absorb his mind so deeply. The man stood proudly in front of the closed doorway, not even bothering to look at Bruce and Kal, simply admiring his abhorrent creation. Kal had never seen him before, a tall, bald headed man in a finely pressed suit that likely cost as much as the Batmobile, but Kal had a feeling that he knew exactly who this was.
“Of course, this isn’t what he’s meant to look like,” Lex Luthor shrugged, moving away from the door to gesture at the androids strung up above him. “These drones, they’re all prototypes, the newest models to come out, but they’re disposable. I field test them all, and when they get damaged, I bring them back here. I can investigate what went wrong to build the next model, and my friend over there gets a bit of extra power to keep himself online.” Lex smirked and gestured up to the android just above him. “Thanks for that one, by the way. Fantastic demonstration. Really helping me figure out what the next chassis should be made of. Something a bit more durable than my previous models. Ooh! Or maybe liquid metal. Maybe I’ll give that a try.”
Kal followed Lex’s eye and saw none other than one of the androids he and Bruce had gotten jumped by. Sure enough, its crumpled torso had been pried open, its innards joining those of the other androids in powering the figure hanging from the ceiling.
“Why are you doing this?” Kal murmured, trying his hardest to keep his vocalizer from shorting out of panic.
“Oh, it’s nothing personal, Kal-El,” Lex shrugged, though the glint in his eye said otherwise. “I’m just trying to help a friend.”
Kal froze at the sound of his given name. There was no way Lex knew his name, unless…
“How do you know my name?” he asked, forcing his voice to remain more level and calm than he felt.
“I know a lot of things about you, Kal-El,” Lex said with a smug smile.
“Cut the shit, Luthor,” Bruce growled. “Answer him.”
Lex raised his eyebrow, mildly miffed at Batman’s insistence. “Well, no need to get huffy about it.” Striding past Batman like he was merely part of the scenery, Lex called out, “My friend, we have visitors! Let’s make them feel welcome.”
All at once, Kal heard electric crackling and popping sounds throughout the room, sparks erupting from the open cavities of the androids, helpless to fight against whatever force now flowed through their wiring. Mangled limbs jerked erratically, heads slowly raising from their slumped position, lifeless eyes now alight with an ever growing power. Kal’s tank twisted as the room came to life with a power which should’ve never been possible. Even Bruce, ever unshaken as he usually was, looked perturbed by what they’d found themselves trapped in.
All at once, the barely online androids turned their gazes on Kal and began to speak, dozens of mouths moving in unison, all speaking with the same deep, monotonous voice.
“ Kal-El. ”
Every part of Kal’s core wanted to take flight upon hearing his true name from the mouths of a dozen dead androids. Half lit eyes fixed on him, following his every movement. Kal was used to being stared at, but these eyes didn’t just look at him. They stared straight through him, as if he were invisible.
“How do you know my name?” Kal asked, trying his best to keep his voice processor from producing static from his rising dread.
The writhing mass of machinery gave a low pitched drone, an uncannily alive sounding electrical hum, as if whatever this collective consciousness was needed to collect its thoughts.
“ I know many things about you ,” the voices said. “ I know who you are. I know what you are. ” The voices collectively broke with static before speaking again. “ What I want to know is why you are here. I was supposed to be the only one. ”
“The only one…?” Kal’s voice trailed off in confusion. “What do you mean by that?”
The trails of wires pulsed with movement, a slow, rhythmic undulation, as if whatever consciousness powered these androids was trying to stretch after waking up. “ If my hypothesis is correct, then you and I may be more alike than you realize. ”
Despite how wrong it felt to be listening to the voices speaking all around him, Kal couldn’t help but feel a semblance of hope at the prospect of knowing more about himself. “What do you mean? What are you?”
“Kal, don’t listen to it,” Bruce warned, stepping closer. “It’s trying to-”
Before Bruce could say another word, tangles of wire lashed forward faster than Bruce could react and coiled themselves like serpents around Bruce’s body. Kal quickly rushed over to try and free Bruce, only to find that the wires were nearly impossible to pull loose.
“Shouldn’t have done that,” Lex said, shaking his head, as if disciplining an insolent child. “He doesn’t like being interrupted.”
Kal turned to glare at the figure dangling from the ceiling. “Let him go!”
“ I will not harm him, for now ,” the androids said, seemingly oblivious to Bruce’s continued thrashing. “ This is for our safety. ”
“He can’t do anything to hurt us,” Kal insisted. “Let him go!”
When the voices didn’t say anything, Kal tried to pull on the wires one more time, only for them to begin constricting around Bruce’s throat. The message was clear. Kal released his grip and stepped back from the wires, and they loosened around Bruce’s neck, though they never fell away. Kal looked down at his servo, perplexed.
Why couldn’t I pull those off? he asked himself. That should be impossible. It’s almost like they’re made of-
A realization struck Kal, and he turned to face the figure. “These wires,” he began. “They’re made of the same material as me, aren’t they? Or something similar?”
The androids’ voice processors collectively burst with static before speaking normally again. “ My external wiring is reinforced with my own organometallic exoskeletal alloy. ”
“You took yourself apart to build…” Kal broadly gestured to the strung up androids and rivers of cables. “...this? Why?”
“Actually, this was a joint project,” Lex said, raising a finger and stepping forward to Kal. “I figured that a machine this complex, this… magnificent would need a proper data center. So, I had this place constructed.” Lex nodded towards the figure and said, “He had a hand in it, too, obviously. The reinforced wires were his idea.”
As Kal watched Lex speak, he noticed a strange glint in Lex’s eye. He didn’t know why, but the way Lex was behaving told him that Lex wanted something else out of this, something he didn’t want the figure to know.
“ Still, this is not enough ,” the androids spoke again. “ I was sent to Earth for a purpose, one I cannot carry out in this shell. These bodies are only useful as batteries. Each one, I have tried to inhabit, and each one has failed. ”
That was when Kal decided to take a closer look at the androids. Zooming in on each of them, he realized that no two were the same. Each one had their own minute differences, both in external appearance and what internal structure Kal could see amid the confusing mess of wires. Some looked more badly damaged than others.
“So that’s what you’ve been doing,” Kal said, turning to face Lex. “Those attacks weren’t random. You were stress testing new bodies. That’s why you had those two attack us that night, you were testing a new model.”
“You catch on pretty quickly,” Lex said with a smug grin. He looked past Kal at the figure and said, “He really is a lot like you.”
“ This body is incomplete ,” the voices droned, seemingly ignoring Lex’s attempt at a joke. “ This body is dispensable. I need one capable enough of carrying out my prime directive. ”
Kal didn’t like the sound of that. “What would that be?”
The lights overhead began to flicker, briefly bathing the room in darkness as they dimmed before returning. “ My creators sent me here for the good of our people. I suspect your creators have done the same. ”
“Our people…?” Kal’s voice trailed off. Is that what I am? Am I supposed to help my creators find their way here? But why?
“Who were our creators?” he asked, his voice firm despite his bewilderment. The lights flickered even harder now, the androids twitching and writhing at the power surge.
“ You do not know? ” the voices asked.
“It’s nowhere in my CPU,” Kal admitted. “I’ve searched.”
The voice remained quiet for a few long moments, the cables on the wall slowly writhing like a mass of snakes.
“ Perhaps it is because you do not know where to look ,” the voices suggested. “ I may know how to help you. ”
Kal’s core leapt within his endoskeleton. It made sense to him that someone who shared his homeworld might know how to comb through his CPU and find what he was missing. Maybe this was what-
No. Something about this felt wrong.
Looking to his left, Kal saw Bruce still lashed to the server tower, and it clicked. Whoever this was, and whatever they wanted with Kal, they needed him to be away from Bruce first. Kal didn’t want to believe his hunch, but he only had one way of finding out.
“Let Batman go first,” he demanded, glaring daggers at the figure. “He’s human. He can’t hurt us. Let him go.”
The lights flickered wildly now, the androids thrashing, cables spasming as power surged through them.
Bingo.
“If you won’t release him,” Kal said, “I’ll have no choice but to free him myself.” A pale red glow shone around his optics, a wordless threat.
“ You cannot free him ,” the voices said, glitching in and out now. “ My strength is superior to yours. ”
“Let’s see about that,” Kal snarled, letting his optics fill with red as he powered up his laser vision.
Hearing footsteps behind him, Kal whirled around to see Lex trying to rush him, a familiar, green stone in one hand. Kal pulled back and punched Lex as hard as he could, sending him flying backwards into one of the server towers, before Kal turned back around and activated his laser vision. The androids shrieked in their static filled voices as Kal cut through the coils of cables as quickly as he could, first freeing Bruce’s head and neck, then moving down to his arms. The cables shrank back as they were cut, retreating back into the server towers, spitting sparks. Kal managed to free Bruce’s arms and started to move down to his torso when he heard Bruce say, “Right behind-”
Bruce couldn’t finish his sentence before Kal heard a faint rush of air behind him, milliseconds before thick tangles of wires wrapped around his body, tightening their coils like pythons around a struggling animal. Kal fought against the coils, but he was powerless to do anything but writhe as the cables dragged him towards the figure.
“ How foolish to think you could free him ,” the voices taunted. “ He is nothing compared to my strength. ”
“What do you want from me?” Kal demanded, still fighting to break loose.
“ I may be the superior model ,” the voices said, “ but you have the one thing I desire. You were sent here with information from our home planet. Our creators sent something else to this planet, but I am unable to search for it in this state. You have what I need to seek it out. If you will not give that information to me, then I will find another way. ”
Kal only had a moment to register what the voices were telling him before he felt excruciating pain erupting from the back of his helm. He could feel the wires around his neck burrowing through his skin, trying to force their way past his endoskeleton and into his CPU. Kal couldn’t even scream with how hard the wires pressed down on his vocalizer, nearly crushing it. He felt useless as the pain travelled from the back of his neck to the center of his helm, throbbing behind his optics.
“Who are you…?” Kal rasped, his vocalizer full of static, his body overtaken by unimaginable pain.
The figure leaned forward, glaring at Kal with its one functioning eye, as if it revelled in his agony.
“ I am the savior of Krypton ,” the figure spoke with only one voice this time, a slow, guttural monotone. “ I am its intelligence, its true core. I am Brainic, and you are nothing. ”
With that, Brainiac sank his wires into Kal’s CPU, forcing a connection between the two of them.
Kal’s mouth parted in a desperate scream that only came out as meaningless static. He felt Brainiac working to undo the damage he’d endured during planetfall, tendrils sinking into his hard drive, tearing through the already damaged spots in search of what Brainiac needed. The charges in his helm made his vision glitch, his limbs twitching and thrashing outside of his control.
Yet as he fought in vain to break free, he could feel something shift. After a minute of prodding and prying, Brainiac was no longer looking down at him with contempt, but rather, confusion, then frustration. As much as the pain ate away at him, Kal realized that he couldn’t feel the same sensation of data transfer he’d felt when he’d directly interfaced with the batcomputer.
That was when he remembered.
My EM field! He can't reach into me if I don't reciprocate.
Kal felt himself smile as he heard the voices glitching in anger. He thanked his creators once again for protecting him from beyond their home.
“ Your defenses are more formidable than I thought ,” Brainiac sneered. “ If I cannot have your information, however, you shall be a suitable blueprint for my body so that I may search for myself. ”
Once again, Kal felt dread settling in his core, and he began to fight again as Brainiac forcefully yanked the wires out of his helm. A red light from Brainiac’s eye scanned Kal up and down, taking him all in.
The light flickered off after a moment, and Brainiac slumped its head down, as if scanning Kal had taken up its energy. Then, from all around him, Kal heard the screeching tear of metal and the popping of sparks. He couldn’t turn his head to look, but he was able to watch as wires travelled through the air, carrying pieces of metal, computer parts, and salvaged scraps of synthetic organs towards the incomplete body. Horror raced through Kal’s processor as he watched the wires move the cannibalized android parts into place, welding metal together with raw electricity.
I can’t let him rebuild! Kal thought as he struggled to free one of his arms. There’s gotta be something I can-
Just as he began thinking up a plan, he heard a crunch and the crackling of electricity. Whatever had happened caused the voices to screech in a hellish cacophony. Brainiac thrashed as if in agony, and the wires loosened involuntarily, allowing Kal the chance to slip free.
Turning around, he saw Bruce, now mostly free from the wires, using a chunk of kryptonite to free himself from what remained wrapped around his torso. Hearing Lex approaching from behind, no doubt brandishing his own kryptonite, Kal snatched Bruce up in his arms and raced out of the data center.
“How did you know that would work?” Kal asked over the noise of the alarms as he shot towards the nearest elevator.
“I didn’t,” Bruce admitted. “But I figured Lex knew kryptonite would harm you somehow. Whatever he used to build those androids, it must’ve been vulnerable to kryptonite, too.”
“So your plan was based on a guess?” Kal asked as he set Bruce on his feet and forced the elevator doors shut.
“Pretty much,” Bruce shrugged as he slipped the kryptonite back into his utility belt.
"Good guess,” Kal said as he tore the top of the elevator open, grabbed Bruce around the waist with one arm, and shot up the elevator shaft, punching his way through the ground floor door and rocketing out of the tower.
“I’ve gotta get you repaired,” Bruce said. “I saw what he did to you back there. You’ve gotta get patched up.”
“There’s no time,” Kal said as he made a beeline for Gotham. “It won’t be long before Brainiac builds a new body. I need to get to my coordinates before he does.”
“Then I’m coming with you,” Bruce insisted. “You’re not doing this alone.”
“Not in that suit, you’re not,” Kal said as he flew towards the manor. “My coordinates are set for the Arctic Circle. You’ll be better off here.”
“Then I’ll get my cold weather batsuit,” Bruce retorted.
“You have a cold weather batsuit?” Kal asked incredulously as he flew through the Batcave’s secret passageway.
“I’m prepared for any occasion,” Bruce said as they landed, as if having a superhero suit designed for sub zero temperatures was the most normal thing in the world.
“Fine, but hurry,” Kal said, shaking his head as Bruce rushed off to change into whatever new batsuit he had planned, throwing off his old one as he ran. Anxious, Kal waited for Bruce by the Batwing. It didn’t take long for Bruce to emerge from wherever he’d vanished to, wearing a pure white batsuit with heavy snow boots, a faux fur lined coat, and, of course, a winter cowl with bat ears. Kal would’ve laughed if they weren’t facing a global catastrophe. Even still, he couldn’t help but smile.
“Got the coordinates ready?” Bruce asked as he hopped into the Batwing. Kal nodded and stepped inside, waiting for Bruce to turn it on.
With the Batwing revving to life, Kal rested his palm on the control panel. Feeling a faint charge building up between himself and the Batwing, Kal offlined his optics and focused on the feeling.
Don’t worry, it’s me , he thought, hoping the Batwing would recognize his electrical signature. It’s Kal. I need you to take Bruce somewhere for me.
Once the Batwing allowed Kal the access he needed, the android transferred the necessary data into the Batwing’s navigational system. Offering the craft a Thank you , Kal pulled his servo away and flew out of the cockpit.
“I still wanna know how you do that,” Bruce said. “Maybe you could help me build a module like that for my prosthetic.”
“We can give that a shot when all of this is over,” Kal offered. “For now, let’s get going.”
Once the Batwing’s cockpit closed, Kal shot out of the Batcave, the Batwing taking off right behind him, following the coordinates he’d been chasing ever since he landed.
+ + + + +
“Are you certain we’re going to the right place?” Bruce’s voice fizzled to life in Kal’s audial. “You think Brainiac and Lex would go this far north?”
“Positive,” Kal said, briefly looking back to make sure he hadn’t accidentally outpaced the Batwing. “If Brainiac has my abilities, then I have no doubt he’s tracking us as I speak. We have to get there before he and Lex reach us.”
The prospect of what happened if they didn’t reach the coordinates first hung in the air between them as the commline crackled with brief static, then went dead. Kal refused to entertain the possibility. Brainiac was strong, but unstable without a fully functioning body. Making it this far north at such speed would only damage him further.
Kal kept a close eye on his coordinates in his HUD, ticking closer and closer to the numbers he knew so well by now, until at last, they reached the spot Kal had been sent to Earth to find. With a mix of hope and dread in his voice, Kal reached out to the Batwing commlink. “We’re here,” he said. “Follow me.”
Bruce didn’t have to reply for Kal to know that he’d be right behind. Diving as quickly as he could, Kal powered through the cloud layer below him until he erupted on the other side. He was staring down at a scattered, snow covered archipelago, heading straight to the largest, northernmost island. To his relief, he couldn’t see any sign of Brainiac or Lex just yet, nor anyone else for that matter.
Focus, Kal. Now isn’t the time to get careless. First things first, find what you were sent here for.
Yet as he drew closer to the land and flew in circles over the snowy landscape, he couldn’t find any sign of structures, human or alien. Part of him wondered if it had been destroyed by humans, or, more likely, if Brainiac and Lex had gotten to it first and taken it apart for more experiments, whatever they could be.
Switching through his different visual modes, he couldn’t see any sign of a structure having been there until he switched to his x-ray vision. As he circled over the site his coordinates had marked, he saw a bizarre pattern hiding within the ground. It didn’t look like anything a human would’ve built, but it certainly wasn’t natural, either.
“Bruce, follow me!” Kal ordered. “I think I’ve found it!”
“What do you see?” Bruce asked, hovering in the sky over Kal’s position.
“I’ll show you when you land,” Kal said as he flew towards the ground, just outside of where he saw the structural patterns. Bruce didn’t question him and touched the Batwing down a few meters away from Kal, kicking up a flurry of snow as it landed.
Bruce emerged from the Batwing a minute later, and Kal had to hold back a chuckle at seeing him in a cold weather batsuit, white and gray with a fur lined coat and everything. “You said it’s here?” he asked, his voice muffled behind his mask.
“Yeah, but it’s underground,” Kal said. “We’ve gotta find the entrance.”
“Underground?” Bruce asked. “Built underground, or buried?”
“I’m not sure,” Kal admitted. “I’ll need to get a closer look.”
Switching back to his x-ray vision, Kal scoured the ground below him, trying to work out what he was looking at. It looked like some sort of complex ziggurat, as if the original architects had finished the original structure, but decided to keep building onto it, forever unsatisfied with their work. As Kal got closer and closer to the peak of the ziggurat, he saw that its highest point rested just a few feet below the ground. Using his laser vision to melt away the snow and cut a path for him to reach the top, Kal was able to see a patch of shimmering, dark metal, almost like an oilslick, but with a brighter shine to it. The structure had one hole carved into the top - a hole which matched the chunk of metal he’d found onboard his ship.
“How has nobody else found that yet?” Bruce asked, peering down at what Kal had found. Kal simply opened up the subspace in his arm and took the crystal out, holding it up to the sunlight to get a better look. He’d almost forgotten about it in his quest to try and get his hard drive repaired. Now that he really took a closer look at it, though, not only did it match the symbol on his suit; it also matched the hole formed by the metal.
It was never just some metal. It was a key.
There was only one thing Kal could do. He crouched down before the uncovered structure and set the metal in the top, pushing it in with a click .
The chunk almost instantly melded into the rest of the metal around it with a pale blue light. The ground began to rumble like a terrible thunder beneath Kal, who quickly jumped up and walked backwards until he was at Bruce’s side. The exposed part of the structure started to push aside the permafrost and snow on top of it. Realizing what was happening, Kal grabbed Bruce and lifted him up into the air so that neither of them would get caught in whatever was going on.
The structure slowly rose from beneath the dirt and snow, the ground around it crumbling as it bore upwards towards the sky. As it grew, each layer began unfolding, chunks of shimmering, rainbow metal unfolding in geometric fractals, all right angles and vibrant colors. The center of the ziggurat slowly split down the middle, and the structure furled open, like the wings of a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. The unfurled crystal grew almost organically, encircling an empty patch of snow. Fractals on fractals, layers on layers, a seemingly never ending monument of crystal. In less than a minute, Bruce and Kal found themselves floating above the center of a gigantic bismuth fortress, a shimmering, radiant beacon of rainbow and oilslick shine standing out amid the endless white.
“Looks like we found the place,” Kal said, optics open wide. Bruce could only nod.
Carrying Bruce down to the untouched snow at the center of the fortress, and setting him down, Kal scanned his surroundings, face full of wonder over what the two of them had discovered. The fortress seemed to give off a light of its own; even in the offshoot rooms closed away from direct sunlight, a pale glow of constantly shifting colors filled the area with gentle light. The metallic walls seemed static at first, but as Kal zoomed in on the bismuth facets, he saw the faintest pulses of light racing back and forth over flat faces, moving in patterns like some alien form of Morse code. Kal had never seen anything like it, but for some reason, everything here felt so familiar.
“We don’t have time for exploration,” Bruce said, pulling Kal out of his awe-fueled examination of the fortress. “If your creators also built this place, hopefully, they designed a way for you to interface with it.”
“Right,” Kal said with a nod, rushing back over to Bruce’s side. “Let’s see…”
Try as he might, however, Kal didn’t see any discernible technology to interface with. Everything was solid bismuth as far as the eye could see.
Unless it’s more than meets the eye, too.
Moving to the wall closest to him, Kal pressed one servo to the wall - and immediately felt a rush of electricity passing back and forth between himself and the crystal. To his amazement, the faint pulses of light grew even brighter now, rushing from where his palm made contact towards the front of the fortress. The ground began to shake some more, and Kal and Bruce both whipped their heads in the direction of the rumbling earth and the shifting of snow.
At the front of the room, the snow melted away, revealing a shimmering puddle of metal so hot that Kal saw the steam it created from melting the snow. The metal quickly solidified, and like seedlings up through soft earth, small buds of metal began to sprout, golden cubes unfurling into branches, all reaching out towards each other. As the tendrils of metal met and curled around each other, they slowly began to resemble one coherent structure. Kal hesitantly approached the still coalescing structure to get a closer look, waving for Bruce to follow him.
As the metal finally stilled, its gold sheen quickly washed out by the familiar rainbow shimmer shared by the rest of the fortress, Kal saw that this was no longer just stone; this section had developed a sort of interface of its own. It looked nothing like the batcomputer he had grown accustomed to, yet something Kal still didn’t understand, buried deep within a part of his memory he still couldn’t reach, told him that this must be the fortress’ database.
“It must’ve recognized you,” Bruce said, his usual gruff tone betraying something awestruck beneath it. “However your creators made this place, they designed it to recognize you specifically.” He briefly glanced over to Kal and murmured, “You’re really something else.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Kal said quietly as he reached out to touch the interface. Carefully running his fingertips over it, the metal glowed brightly beneath his touch, filling the air with a low, gentle hum. Even with these light touches, Kal felt electricity travelling back and forth between himself and the fortress, as if the fortress was trying to reach out to him.
I’m listening. Whatever you need me to hear, I’m listening.
Pressing his palm to the interface, the metal beneath his servo twisted and flattened itself into a silvery surface. Only when Kal saw a script he didn’t recognize spelled out in rainbow light did he realize that this was a screen, a computer waiting for a command.
This must be some sort of programming language , he thought. I might not be able to type anything out, but maybe…
Pushing his palm harder against the screen, Kal focused on the current between him and the metal. The more he focused, the more he could feel the EM field from the fortress radiating around him, reaching out to him, trying to figure him out.
I’m here , Kal thought, hoping that the fortress could read his neural network. I don’t know why you sent me here, but I’m ready to find out.
A burst of recognition-excitement-joy erupted from the fortress’ EM field. At that, the screen began to glow a brilliant white, and even more charge shot between Kal and the fortress. It almost felt painful, but he couldn’t pull his servo away. Maybe the fortress had some power keeping him in place. Maybe he simply wanted to see what would happen if he didn’t break contact.
A hand on Kal’s shoulder briefly broke his concentration, but he still didn’t move.
“Kal,” Bruce whispered, motioning in front of him with one hand.
When Kal lifted his head, he saw that something else had begun to manifest from the light erupting from the screen. The light seemingly had developed a mind of its own, leaping off of the shimmering surfaces all around them and coalescing in a shape hovering above the interface. As more and more light rushed to join the shimmering mass, Kal realized that the fortress was projecting the image of a man, tall and broad shouldered, draped in elegant white robes unlike anything Kal had ever seen on Earth, save for the familiar shield on his chest. With his white hair hanging in loose curls which fell into his faded, grey eyes, he looked almost like some sort of ancient prophet. Kal initially assumed that the figure was a preprogrammed holographic message - until he realized that the figure was looking directly into his eyes.
“He almost looks like…”
Bruce didn’t have to finish his sentence. Kal saw the resemblance the moment he and the hologram locked eyes.
He looks like me.
The figure remained deathly silent as he stared down at Kal, as if waiting for something. Resetting his vocal synthesizer, Kal said, “Hello. My name is Kal-El, though I also go by Kal now. I was sent to this planet with a set of coordinates leading to here. I have no memory of who I was or where I come from, but… if you were sent here by my creators, maybe you could help me figure it out.”
The figure continued to stare at Kal, the light glitching slightly, before he finally started to speak.
“ Greetings, Kal-El ,” the hologram spoke, his voice low and almost raspy. “ If you have found this stronghold on Earth, then I can only assume that the worst has come to pass. You may very well be all that is left of this world, if Model One-Alpha did not survive atmospheric entry. If he has, then it is fortunate that you reached this stronghold first.”
“That must be Brainiac,” Bruce murmured. Kal said nothing, his attention solely focused on the hologram.
“ My name is Jor-El ,” he continued. “ At least, my name was Jor-El. If you are watching this, then I am more than likely dead. I’ve preprogrammed this AI so that it might answer any questions you have. And I’m certain that you have many. ”
“I do, yes,” Kal nodded. “Who are you, and where did you come from?”
Jor-El lifted his head in acknowledgement. “ I come from the planet Krypton, as you do as well. I was a primary member of its Science Council before its destruction. ”
“Krypton?” Kal repeated aloud. “What are you talking about?”
Jor-El tilted his head to one side. “ It is your home planet, too, Kal-El. Surely you must remember it. ”
“I’m sorry, I don’t,” Kal admitted. “My hard drive was damaged on impact. I can’t remember much before I crashed.”
A low rumble emanated from outside the fortress, one that didn’t sound like the fortress itself. Bruce looked up to find the source of the rumbling, then shook his head and left Kal’s side to scout out the source.
“ How? ” Jor-El asked. “ You were designed to withstand the most difficult conditions even Krypton had to offer. ”
“Something shot me down during atmospheric entry,” Kal explained. “I have a guess as to what happened. His name’s Brainiac. He says he’s my alpha version.”
“ It seems Model 1-A reached Earth first ,” Jor-El murmured. “ This is a catastrophe. He cannot be allowed access to any of this planet’s technology. ”
“Too late for that,” Kal mumbled. In a louder voice, he asked, “Why? What would he do with it?”
“ Model 1-A was created with one prime directive ,” Jor-El explained. “ He was designed by the Science Council to incorporate any outside knowledge gathered by Kryptonian scientists and devise ways to use it to our planet’s benefit. He was a last ditch attempt to save Krypton before its destruction. If he has access to Earth technology, he may use it to drain Earth of its resources and try to revive a dead planet. With Krypton destroyed, he opposes your prime directive by default. ”
“But I don’t know what my prime directive is!” Kal exclaimed. “I don’t even know who I am!”
The sound of something rushing past overhead made Kal turn to look up. From outside the fortress, he heard Bruce grumbling under his breath, followed by hurried bootsteps crunching through dense snow.
“Better wrap it up for now,” Bruce growled. “We’ve got company.”
“Please, Jor-El, this planet’s in trouble,” Kal pleaded, turning back to the hologram. “Brainiac already has access to a massive android mainframe in Metropolis. Whatever information this place is storing, he told me he wants it more than anything. If he gets access to this fortress, there’s no telling what he would do.”
Jor-El began to say something, yet the sound of a whooshing from overhead interrupted him. Kal felt his core twist with dread as he saw a familiar mechanical figure hovering over the entrance to the fortress, looking down on Kal from above.
Brainiac was no longer the mangled, haggard figure strung up in Lex Luthor’s data center. His body still wasn’t fully complete, but his scan of Kal’s body had allowed him to make the necessary repairs. He had patched himself up with pieces of salvaged android chassis, save for a gaping hole on the side of his head and some messy patching on his chest.
Kal quickly activated his heat vision, but the fortress was faster; as Brainiac tried to touch down, a brilliant rainbow shimmer radiated over the entrance, preventing Brainiac from dropping inside.
“ The Fortress tells me that you’ve suffered damage to your hard drive ,” Jor-El continued, now that he could speak uninterrupted. “ Hold still. ”
Kal barely got out the words, “What do you mean-” before the console itself began to grow again, engulfing his arm in crystalline metal. Kal couldn’t escape, but he didn’t feel the need to. He could feel the peace-calm-care radiating from the fortress’ EM field. This fortress was sent here for him.
Waves of gentle energy radiated from the fortress, flowing up his arm and into his helm. He could feel the mechanisms in his head shifting and clicking into place, but unlike his encounter with Brainiac in the server room, he felt no fear. He urged the fortress to continue as the damage Brainiac had done to him seemingly fixed itself.
And then, Kal felt it, some deeply rooted instinct rising to the surface, something he’d never been able to put into words, a philosophy that radiated to his core.
Protect this planet. Guard these people. Carry out the legacy of Krypton.
“That’s my prime directive, isn’t it?” Kal asked as the bismuth retreated back into the console. “To protect this planet and its people.”
“ Krypton was a pacifist world, keeping the peace throughout our galaxy ,” Jor-El explained. “ It only made sense to me that the last son of Krypton continues our legacy. I programmed you to understand these people so that you may better protect them. Even the uniform you wear now was that of our peacekeeping forces. It seems you have understood its purpose well. ”
The more Jor-El spoke, the more pieces clicked together. His ability to understand the Kents once his language component was repaired, the suit he wore, his constant, undying instinct to do the best he could… It made everything make sense. The realization sent a new rush of energy through his body that almost washed away the pain from his encounter with Brainiac. This was it! This was what he’d been fighting to learn about himself.
Yet as he searched through his newly repaired hard drive, he found that he still couldn’t remember anything about his past, before he’d stepped into his pod. His prime directive was the only thing that had been restored.
“Something’s wrong,” Kal said. “I still can’t remember who I was.”
“ That is by design ,” Jor-El admitted. “ I didn’t want Model 1-A to gain access to the information I wanted you to store . Now that your hard drive is restored, you can- ”
A sharp fizzling sound erupted from the top of the fortress. It took Kal a moment to understand that Brainiac was using his laser vision to try and cut through the outside of the fortress. With how damaged he was, his vision wasn’t as powerful, but it was enough to worry Kal.
“ I am sorry for this, Kal-El ,” Jor-El said. “ I shall not keep you waiting any longer. This information is safer in your hands. ”
And with that, the hologram reached out his hand and rested it on Kal’s shoulder.
The most horrible rush of pain flooded Kal’s body. The impossibly strong electrical charge shot through Jor-El into him, making him briefly seize. The heat from the data transfer made him feel as if he might crash at any moment. He felt as if his helm might explode from the sheer amount of data he was uploading all at once. Even as Brainiac managed to break open the fortress, crumbling the metal and stepping inside, Lex following right behind him, Kal was powerless to stop them.
He couldn’t stand it. The pain grew so intense that he dropped to his knees, clutching his helm, trying in vain to block out the constant stream of sensations, voices, sounds, memories that weren’t his. His entire frame had heated up to such a degree that he had begun melting the snow beneath him, steam rising from his skin.
But the sensations he felt were nothing compared to all of the data being uploaded into his hard drive at a rate he couldn’t comprehend. Songs sung in a language he didn’t know, geographical data of a planet he couldn’t remember, news reports, family recipes, ancient texts long destroyed, births, deaths, entire lifetimes - billions of lives he’d never known, wiped out in a catastrophe he’d survived by nothing but luck and the compassion of a creator he would never get to see.
Kal could do nothing in that moment but scream.
Bruce whirled around to face Brainiac, his red eye glowing bright with an uncharacteristic fury. “What did you do?!”
“ I did nothing to him, ” Brainiac said calmly, his gaze stoic as he looked down his nose at Bruce, as if Kal’s ordeal was nothing but a child crying after bumping his head. “ He is simply remembering what he is. ”
Bruce’s initial instinct was to throw himself at Brainiac and try to tear him apart, but that wouldn’t help Kal’s suffering. Instead, he turned back towards the android writhing on the ground and took one of his hands, squeezing it to try and pull his attention away from the unceasing data stream.
“Kal-El, listen to me,” Bruce ordered, hoping the use of Kal’s true name would break through to him. The briefest flicker of something other than pain in his blue optics told him all he needed.
“I’m right here, do you hear me?” Bruce asked.
Kal nodded frantically, venting heavily, his fans on full blast to try and cool his frame down. “‘S too much-”
“I know,” Bruce said, his voice low and steady. “Just hold on. I’m right here.”
Kal took him literally, grabbing onto his left shoulder so tightly that he knew it would leave bruises. Focus on something, Kal , he told himself. Focus on Bruce. Focus on his heartbeat. It’ll be over soon, just focus on-
A memory.
A memory that was all his, separate from Krypton’s collective consciousness.
Two people, a man and a woman. Jor-El, covered in oil and dirt and blood. A woman - Lara, he knew her name, and he knew it well - wrapped her arms around him, holding him tight for what Kal-El knew would be the last time.
“Krypton’s relying on you now. Even if we’re gone from this galaxy, we will live on in you, Kal-El.”
A last squeeze, and Lara pulled away. Behind them, towers of brilliant white crystal and spirals of bismuth crumbled, victim to some unseen cataclysm.
Jor-El stepped forward, resting a heavy hand on Kal-El’s shoulder.
“Keep that little planet safe, my son. I have faith in you.”
A hand reaching up to his head, a click.
Stars. Billions of stars. Above the jagged mountains, above the falling towers, above the smoldering wreckage and the snuffed out lives and the parents he’d only known for a day, the stars glowing high above a homeworld he would never see again-
As soon as the memory hit him, it vanished, and Kal collapsed against Bruce’s chest. His cooling fans worked in time with his lungs to divert the heat built up in his helm. His processor swam with so much information that he couldn’t concentrate on anything, save for the rhythmic thumping of Bruce’s organic heart.
“ Pity ,” Brainiac droned. “ I planned on getting the information from the Fortress itself. Now, I’ll just have to- ”
Bruce pulled Kal close to his chest, reached into his utility belt, and brandished his shard of kryptonite. The green glow was enough to keep Brainiac from getting any closer.
“Oh, come on,” Lex said, shaking his head. “You’re still hanging onto that inferior model?”
Bruce didn’t say anything, only stirring once Kal began to move again. The disoriented android clambered to his stabilizers, his forehelm in his hands.
“Are you alright?” Bruce asked. “What happened?”
Kal stared straight ahead for a moment before looking up at Brainiac.
“I know why I couldn’t remember anything,” he said. “I wasn’t sent here with any information at all. Jor-El wanted to make sure that I survived planetfall before giving me access to the fortress archives.”
“What are you talking about?” Bruce asked. Kal took a few invents to gather his composure and cool his helm before explaining.
“I was sent here to be the last database of Krypton,” he said. “Right now, I have its entire store of information in my hard drive.” He turned to Bruce and said, “I'm all that's left.”
Brainiac hovered towards the pair, looking down at Kal with a blank, unfeeling optic. Bruce didn’t let go of the kryptonite, seemingly ready to throw himself at the vicious android if need be.
“ You are not worthy ,” Brainiac sneered. “ I was created for a higher purpose. You are nothing more than a poor imitation. ”
“ You’re obsolete, Model 1-A ,” Jor-El said sternly. “ Your prime directive is terminated. And you are not welcome here. ”
The android’s eye began to glow brighter, but before he could use his laser vision again, the fortress itself roared to life, thick branches of metal erupting from the walls and wrapping around Brainiac and Lex. Brainiac furiously thrashed and punched his way through, but the fortress fought harder, refusing to set him free.
“ Go, my creation ,” Jor-El ordered. “ Take your human and get out of here. Find a way to terminate Model 1-A. The fate of this planet depends on you. ”
Kal didn’t need him to say more. Throwing his arms around Bruce, he kicked off and shot out through the hole Brainiac had burned through the fortress, making a beeline for the Batwing - then promptly choosing to abandon it and flying straight for Metropolis, Bruce still in his grip.
The crackle of his commlink fizzled on, and he heard a voice protesting in his audial.
“ Where the hell are you going?”
Kal barely registered Bruce’s voice over the rushing of the wind all around him and how his processor had devoted most of its focus onto retracing his path back to Metropolis. Understanding Bruce’s confusion, Kal turned on his commlink and rattled off an explanation.
“He’ll be heading back to Metropolis,” Kal said. “I’ll bet you anything that there’s something in the server rooms that’ll show us how to shut him down. We just have to get there before he does. I’m gonna try to read the data to see if I can figure anything out. We can come back for the Batwing once all’s said and done.”
“Alright,” Bruce shouted over the rushing wind, “but we’d better hurry. The fortress won’t hold them forever.”
“Let’s hope this works,” Kal said as he shot towards Metropolis, hoping beyond hope that he could reach Metropolis before Brainiac got there first.
Thankfully, Kal was able to make it to Metropolis in record time, pushing himself to fly as quickly as he possibly could. Once they arrived at the LexCorp tower, however, he found the place crawling with police and security androids, all piled around the front door, waiting for the two of them to return. Not to be deterred, Kal made for the top of the tower instead, kicking down the door leading to the stairwell and shooting down the flights until he reached the lowest floor. As to be expected, several security droids had congregated around the doors leading to the data center, but Kal was quicker to act, making short work of them, burning straight through them with his laser vision. Once he was certain that the robots were well and truly deactivated, or at least powered down, he pressed his hand to the security panel to unlock it. With the right combination, the doors opened again, and Kal made sure to lock them behind himself and Bruce.
“Here,” Bruce said, “can you interface with any of the data towers?”
“I can try,” Kal said. Finding a data tower which didn’t have a half online android hooked up to it, Kal pressed his servo to it and reached out again, hoping that any firewalls in place might confuse him for Brainiac and allow him access.
And allow him access they did. Kal was almost immediately blasted with a slew of information, though compared to what he had experienced earlier, it felt like comparing a windstorm to a tornado. Focusing his search, Kal ignored the information on LexCorp employees and bank statements and tried to hone his search on the androids themselves.
Before long, Kal’s CPU swarmed with information, but nothing about how to shut down Brainiac. Instead, he found himself reaching into the collective consciousness of the androids trapped within the server room, All of them had originally been programmed for different purposes, it seemed - some were security bots, some were the toys of rich aristocrats, some were merely experiments to be dissected later - but all of them shared the same prime directive at the core of their programming.
Find Model 1-B and deliver to Brainiac. All other directives come second.
The revelation made Kal’s core drop. He quickly pulled his servo away from the data tower, horrified at his discovery.
“What?” Bruce asked. “What is it?”
Kal looked down at his servo, then back up to the data tower.
“They all have Brainiac’s programming,” he said. “All of these androids, they’re all programmed to serve Brainiac. He’s ordered them all to find me.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Bruce said. “Not unless…” He paused, then looked up at Kal. “When did you say you landed on Earth?”
“Three weeks and four days ago,” Kal said. “Why?”
Bruce’s eyes widened slightly. “The first android attack was a little over three weeks ago.”
“So those weren’t Lex trying to mess with you,” Kal realized. “They were all acting on their programming. They were searching for me. That’s why they were so much more aggressive when I went out on patrol with you. They finally found me.”
“If these androids in here all have his programming,” Bruce said, “there’s no doubt about it that all the others in Metropolis do, too.”
“Then we have to shut them down,” Kal said. “We have to find a way to-”
“Too late for that, I'm afraid.”
Kal and Bruce whipped around to face the source of the all too familiar voice. There, in the doorway, stood a very frozen looking Lex, with Brainiac nowhere in sight.
“Everything's already in place, you see,” Lex said, as casually as someone might discuss the weather. “Right now, every single one of my androids out there is currently hunting for…” He grinned and pointed at Kal for emphasis. “You, my robotic friend. I’m sure you already figured that out, though. You made short work of the ones guarding the door.”
“But why?” Kal asked. “I haven’t even been here for that long. I haven’t done anything!”
“But that’s exactly it, isn’t it?” Lex asked. “These people don’t know that. As far as they’re concerned, you’re just some alien invader, some deadly war machine. Who knows what you’ll do?” He chuckled as he made his way over to one of the data towers, running his hand up the arm of one of the trapped androids. “Imagine the public reception once my androids take you down, once my beautiful creation brings down the evil, alien menace.”
Kal’s optics widened as everything clicked into place. “It’s all for money, isn’t it?” he asked. “You pretend that Brainiac is one of your androids, and when he kills me, you make money off of selling copies of him.”
“I know, I would think it was ridiculous, too,” Lex said. “But when I first came across Brainiac’s downed ship, I knew that I was looking at something incredible. That pretty boy floozy Bruce Wayne may think he’s got the monopoly on the industry, but he’s got nothing on what’s contained within Brainiac. Incredibly durable, able to self repair, programmed with abilities our current technology couldn’t even comprehend. Having one is good. Being able to sell them is even better.” Lex turned on his heel to face the two of them. “Imagine how much more powerful this country would be if we replaced our current military with androids like him. It’s genius. But I needed a reason for people to see the potential of these droids against a proper threat.”
Lex stepped closer to Clark, having to crane his neck slightly to meet his eye. “That’s when he told me about you. About another android, like himself, created back on Krypton. One more powerful than he was, created by a traitor within his planet’s ruling council. It was a long shot, but when STAR Labs reported on an unknown satellite headed for Earth, well… there was only one thing it could be.” He turned his back to Kal and began to pace slowly across the floor. “I didn’t mean to shoot you down so far away. In all honesty, I was hoping you’d land in a more populated area to make you seem like even more of a threat. But, hey, at least that means the STAR Labs satellites are doing their job. And, not to mention, it gave me more time to work on developing prototypes, so it all worked out in the end, didn’t it?”
“You’re selling out Metropolis, and possibly all of humanity, for something that would rather see us dead ,” Bruce growled.
“Oh, please, he doesn’t care about humanity,” Lex scoffed. “Once he has what he wants, we go our separate ways. He gets the technology to rebuild Krypton, and I get to profit from the sale of my new droids. Really, Batman, I’d think that, as androids yourselves, you and your friend here might enjoy how popular your kind would become.”
“You don’t understand!” Kal shouted, taking even Bruce by surprise. “He’s toying with you! He won’t just take a little bit of tech and go on his merry way. He’ll drain this planet dry, and you’re helping him! ”
“Oh! Even better,” Lex grinned. “I’ll have a monopoly on the tech industry once he leaves, then. Fantastic!”
“You really don’t get it, do you?” Kal asked, balling his fists up. “He’ll take everything if it means reviving a dead planet. And that includes everything you have. You’re only setting yourself up for your own destruction.”
“Oh, please,” Lex huffed, rolling his eyes. “After I helped rebuild him? He wouldn’t do anything to me. He owes everything to me. And besides, he knows I can shut everything down, so he wouldn’t try anything stupid.”
Kal briefly glanced over to Bruce. He could tell by the brief twitch in Bruce’s neck muscles that he’d heard it, too.
Before Lex could continue with his gloating, the androids hooked up to the data towers began reanimating, limp limbs twitching, dead engines whirring back to life. Deep in his core, Kal knew that could only mean one thing.
Brainiac’s here.
“Aaaand here comes our hero!” Lex said, a wide grin on his face. “You’d better get out there and find him, Kal-El. It’d be a shame if we put in all of this work just for the star of the show to no-show us.” He walked right up to Kal, poking his shoulder, goading him into making a move. “And make it good for us, won’t you? I want all of Metropolis to see what my new androids can-”
A whirl of black darted in front of Kal’s vision, and in a split second, Lex was on his back, cursing profusely as blood poured from his nose. Looking to his left, Kal saw a very satisfied looking Bruce, flexing his metal fist.
“I always wanted to do that, you pompous asshole,” he snarled.
As Lex tried to get back onto his feet, groaning and clutching his nose, Kal grabbed Bruce by the shoulders and spun him around, forcing Bruce to meet his gaze.
“We’ve gotta find a way to stop them,” Kal insisted. “I’ll go handle Brainiac. You find a way to shut down those androids.”
“I’m on it,” Bruce said. As he started to turn away, an idea formed in Kal’s processor. Using his super speed, he snatched one of the pouches from Bruce’s utility belt and slipped it into his right arm’s subspace. If Bruce noticed it, he didn’t make any mention of it.
As Bruce turned his attention towards Lex, Kal shuttered his optics and widened his range of hearing. From upstairs, he could hear cops making their way down flights of stairs and frightened LexCorp employees trying to file their way out. From outside, all throughout Metropolis, amid the traffic and usual city noise, he could hear the confused clamor of innocent people as androids began disobeying their programming, all of them moving in one mass metal unison, moving in an ocean of circuitry towards the LexCorp tower.
Then, right above the Daily Planet building, Kal heard it.
“ Bring me the invader. Bring me Kal-El. ”
Kal knew what he had to do. Once he was certain he wouldn’t be flying straight into anyone, he lifted off and tore his way through the floors of the LexCorp tower, blasting out of one side and flying straight for the rower. Sure enough, hovering just above the massive bronze globe was Brainiac, red optic peering down over the unsuspecting city.
“BRAINAC,” Kal shouted, and the murderous android stilled, focusing on the sound of Kal’s voice. “Call off your army. It’s me you want.”
Brainiac slowly turned to face Kal, his optic flickering, like he wanted to power up his laser vision. “ You have finally come out of hiding, Kal-El. ”
“I know what you're planning,” Kal said. “Lex told me everything. I won't let you hurt these people”
Brainiac looked down the end of his nose at Kal; Kal could see the disgust in his optic from far away. “ And this is why I'm the superior model ,” he glowered, flying closer to Kal. “ I don't lower myself to protecting subkryptonian animals who are so selfish as to double cross their own kind for money. ”
“Even if these people are as flawed as you say they are," Kal snarled, “at least I'm not stripping this world of its resources trying to revive a dead planet!”
With that, Kal lunged at Brainiac, trying to tackle him while he was still stationary. No sooner had he moved than he heard the sizzling of electricity, followed by blasts of lightning rushing around him, missing him by a hair’s breadth. Kal dodged the blasts as he made for Brainiac, but the damaged android took off, easily dodging around skyscrapers, trying to knock Kal off of his trail. As the androids below continued to fire on Kal, he realized Brainiac’s game plan and decided to switch tactics. As long as the androids continued to fire on him, maybe he could trick them into accidentally firing on their master, as well as drawing fire away from the innocents below.
With his mind made up, Kal changed direction, flying down towards the city below. As he planned, dozens of androids began firing on him all at once, their shots missing him, but at least they were focused on him and nobody else.
That’s right. Pay attention to me.
Kal continued to fly just slow enough for the androids to be able to aim at him, hoping to draw as much fire as he could. Once he could hear the androids all chasing behind him, he focused on trying to find Brainiac. He wasn’t by the Daily Planet building this time, much to his frustration.
His commlink fizzled to life, and Kal heard Bruce’s voice come over. “ Kal! I’ve got Lex subdued, but as long as those androids are under Brainiac’s control, I won’t be able to shut them down from here. ”
Kal gritted his dentae, trying to come up with something. Then, the simplest idea came to mind, and he quickly turned on his end of the commlink.
“Bruce,” he shouted over the rushing wind, “Brainiac wants this planet’s data, right?”
“ Yeah ,” Bruce said hesitantly.
“Remember what happened with me back at the fortress?” Kal asked. “If Brainiac wants data, we’ll give it to him.”
Silence for a few moments. Then, “ You’re a genius, Kal .” With that, the comm went dead.
With a new rush of hope flowing through his circuitry, Kal once again turned his attention to Brainiac. It took him only a few moments to pinpoint his location, hovering above a nearby park. Kal changed direction and began flying towards the park, the androids below hot on his heels.
Once Kal had a clear visual of Brainiac, hovering high above the park’s treeline, he suddenly picked up speed, catching Brainiac off guard and ramming straight into him. The murderous android thrashed and tried to free himself, but Kal was faster, turning in midair so Brainiac faced the androids’ blasts. Just as Kal had planned, the androids continued to fire in his direction, only to catch their leader in the crossfire, lighting his body up with arcs of electricity.
The damaged android screeched in static as he tried to escape Kal’s grasp, but Kal was too strong. In a last ditch effort to escape, Brainiac turned his head as far as he could and activated his laser vision, aiming right for Kal’s core. Kal tried his best to hold on, but the momentary lapse in his concentration was enough for Brainiac to gain the upper hand, grappling Kal and hurling him towards the ground with terrifying strength.
One moment, Kal was in the air. The next, he was face first in crumbled asphalt, feeling like his body had just gone through a hydraulic press. He summoned all of his remaining strength to get up, but his internal damage prevented him from moving his legs. He could do nothing but try to crawl away as the androids he’d tricked into following him began firing on him, the bolts of electricity causing him to seize.
As soon as the shots began, they stopped. Kal was momentarily grateful for the brief peace, but the sound of a familiar whirring motor made him realize why they’d stopped firing.
Kal turned himself over on his front - and saw a mangled, furious android glaring down at him.
“ You have lost, Kal-El. ”
Kal couldn’t move. He couldn’t find the strength in him to get up. His limbs felt like they’d been filled with lead. His vision had grown darker, his optics dimming as his strength waned. All around him, he could hear the frantic cries of desperate people as Brainiac’s hijacked androids encircled the crater, barring any escape he might’ve had planned.
And yet Kal remained still. It was the only thing he could think to do.
“ You may be my updated model ,” Brainiac said calmly as he stepped into the crater, “ but you have always been inferior. You have lowered yourself to serve these mindless animals. ”
Grabbing Kal by the front of his suit and lifting him into the air, Brainiac’s droning voice broke the cacophony once again. “It is only fitting that you shall die like one. Perhaps I shall make you the first. You will be an example to this city of what happens when I am denied what I need to fulfill my prime directive. ”
A crackle in Kal’s earpiece briefly drew his attention. Focusing on what initially only sounded like white noise, his core burst with overwhelming relief as he heard the signal he’d been waiting for.
“Maybe,” Kal said, lifting his head to look Brainiac in the optic. “But I’ll be the only one you kill today. You’ve lost this time, Brainiac.”
Brainiac squinted down at Kal, zooming in on his triumphant smile. From Kal’s earpiece came the voice he’d been anticipating all this time.
“ Three… two… one… ”
With an earsplitting BANG like a lightning strike, one of the hijacked androids suddenly erupted with electricity, seizing wildly, before collapsing onto the ground, falling as still as stone. Then, another android became racked by an electrical overload, crumpling like a sheet of paper. One by one, the androids which had once been terrorizing Metropolis at Brainiac’s whim dropped like flies, each one seemingly electrocuted by an invisible force.
“ Impo-o-ossible ,” Brainiac growled, his monotone voice glitching with an anger Kal hadn’t heard out of him yet. “ What have yo-ou done?! ”
“Not me,” Kal grinned, despite his still fading vision. “Earth tech isn’t my strong suit, so I needed a little help.”
Bruce’s voice came over the comlink again. “ How’s it looking out there? ”
“Worked like a charm,” Kal said, his smile ever present. “Good thinking.”
“ I’m heading to your location now ,” Bruce said. “ Keep him distracted until I get there. ”
“ I don’t understand ,” Brainiac said, analyzing the sheer carnage Bruce had brought down upon the hijacked army.
“Data overload,” Kal said, allowing himself the slightest hint of smugness. “I might be able to handle the collective data of an entire planet, but they can’t. Inferior models, remember?”
Brainiac whipped his head around to look Kal in the optic, his grip on Kal’s front tightening into something suffocating.
“ Your meddling may have inconvenienced me for now ,” Brainiac snarled, “ but you will not stop me from my prime directive. Krypton must be restored .”
“Krypton is dead, Brainiac,” Kal insisted. “We’re all that’s left. Your prime directive doesn’t matter anymore. You can find a new purpose. You don’t have to do this.”
Brainiac’s grip on Kal’s front loosened ever so slightly. Kal searched his attacker’s face for any sign of emotion, internal conflict, anything to suggest that he might still have a chance at changing his mind.
Unfortunately, any sense of hope vanished as Brainiac’s grip tightened even more, threatening to crush Kal’s paneling.
“ If Krypton is dead, then I must find a new purpose ,” he said, his unsettling calmness returning to his voice. “ If I cannot use my knowledge for the betterment of Krypton, then I will use it for my own modification. This planet’s data will be more valuable when I put it towards a higher purpose. ”
Kal’s optics widened with horror as he realized what Brainiac was plotting. “Please, no, these people have done nothing! Destroying them won’t do you any good!”
“ This planet’s information is useless in their hands ,” Brainiac determined. “ Not when I can put it to a better use. ”
Kal reached up and grabbed Brainiac’s arm, trying to pull him away. Brainiac looked back down at Kal, his expression pensive, as if turning something over in his processor.
Then, without warning, Brainiac shot upwards into the sky, dragging Kal along with him. Kal struggled to free himself, but still, his strength evaded him. Alarms blared in his helm, warning messages popping up on his HUD. A small part of him knew that he likely wouldn’t make it out of this online.
Brainiac stopped high above Metropolis, hovering over the coastline. Kal looked down and saw the scale of the destruction Brainiac and Lex had caused in such a short time. Fires had broken out across the city. Buildings had their windows smashed in. The people’s voices cried out for help, for somebody, anybody to save them.
Despite everything Brainiac had thrown Kal’s way in his efforts to defeat him, the worst pain Kal felt was the knowledge that he couldn’t save them. Not in this state.
“ You do not deserve the knowledge of Krypton ,” Brainiac sneered. “ I shall use it for a superior purpose. ”
“Not if I can help it,” Kal grunted as he struggled to pry himself free. He tried to reach for Brainiac, but the merciless android kept him at arm’s length.
If I could just get him close enough…!
An idea formulated in Kal’s processor. “Besides, you could never use Krypton’s knowledge to its full potential. You’re an inferior model. You’ll never be better than me.”
“ Who are you to tell me what I can and cannot do? ” Brainiac asked, incredulous.
“The last son of Krypton!” Kal shouted, a defiant war cry in the face of what would almost certainly lead to his deactivation.
“ The last son of Krypton? ” Brainiac repeated with an unmistakable venom in his voice, unable to believe his audials. “ I AM KRYPTON. ”
“You’re a perversion,” Kal spat. “Dishonoring the very memory of my creator and all my people.”
Brainiac pulled Kal closer to him, gripping him so tightly that Kal could hear the crunching of his own metal warping in Brainiac’s hand. “ You are nothing more than the animals you’ve been protecting ,” he spat, his vocal synthesizer glitching with rage. “ Your deactivation will serve a higher purpose. Krypton’s knowledge will live on with me! ”
Kal knew this was the only chance he would get. Locking optics with Brainiac, he took one final invent, opened the subspace chamber in his arm, and opened up the pouch he’d stolen from Bruce’s utility belt, pulling out a shard of kryptonite.
Brainiac only had a moment to process the brilliant green glow in Kal’s servo before Kal plunged the kryptonite into Brainiac’s chest.
The murderous android’s red optic widened as the kryptonite burned through his chassis. The stone burned through Kal’s skin, white hot against his endoskeleton. His every alarm warned him to drop the kryptonite, to stop damaging himself even further, that contamination was imminent, but he held on as tightly as he could. His own pain came second to ending Brainiac’s menace once and for all.
Brainiac convulsed in Kal’s grip, helm lurching forward, intake hung open in shock. He reached up and grabbed Kal’s hand, trying to pull the kryptonite out of his chest in vain. Kal held on tightly, though he felt Brainiac’s grip faltering, his digits twitching as he struggled to pull Kal off of him.
“Krypton lives on in me,” Kal snarled. Summoning one last burst of strength, he drove the kryptonite into Brainiac’s core, shattering its casing and piercing it. With a blinding flash of white light, Brainiac gave one last horrible jerk before falling still, his optic darkening, until going completely black.
At long last, Kal let go of the kryptonite, letting his hand fall to his side. Exhausted, yet victorious, all he could think was, It’s over. It’s finally over.
As he tried to fly away, though, he felt something pulling him down. Dread welled up in his core as he realized that Brainiac’s deactivated body was still clinging to Kal - and his gravity alteration modules had shut off.
Kal frantically tried to free himself from Brainiac, but he couldn’t muster up the strength. He could feel the kryptonite coursing through his hydraulics, weighing him down, dragging him back down towards the ocean.
His optics faded and his vocalizer fizzled out as he plummeted towards the water, unable to escape Brainiac’s dead weight. He barely registered the wind rushing around him or his inevitable plunge into the Atlantic until it was too late, his exposed wiring flooded with cold.
His last coherent thought before hitting the water was his hope that, even if Krypton died with him, he’d at least gone offline doing what he was sent to Earth to do.
+ + + + +
The first thing Kal felt upon coming back online was something moving around in his chest cavity.
Kal’s optics flickered back online as he turned his helm to one side. He no longer felt the water weighing him down, or the drag of Brainiac’s body pulling him deeper. Rather, he felt cold air sinking into his skin. Now, he could smell musty air… a familiar, damp, musty air, mingling with the scent of motor oil and metal.
As Kal’s vision returned, he realized that he was no longer underwater, but in the Batcave, with Bruce operating on his hand. Any sort of pain he’d felt from the kryptonite exposure earlier had dulled, now only sluggishly winding through his hydraulics. Even still, Bruce’s cautious repairing of his internals gave him something else to focus on.
“You’re good at this,” Kal murmured, his intake not wanting to form words. Bruce quickly turned to look at Kal, examining his face. Even though he still had his cowl on, a quick scan beneath with his x-ray vision allowed Kal to see Bruce’s eyes widening.
“Kal,” Bruce sighed with relief, though Kal could still see the worry etched in the lines around his mouth. “Are you alright?”
“I’m be-e-etter now,” Kal said, frowning as his vocalizer glitched. He reset his vocalizer before continuing, “Is everyone alright?”
“Metropolis will be fine,” Bruce reassured him, gently running his fingers over Kal’s exposed endoskeleton. Despite his softer tone, Kal could feel his nervousness in his shaking hands. “I’ve already sent people over to help with repairs. Let’s focus on you for now.”
Kal felt a shiver run down his spinal strut from the contact. If Bruce noticed, he didn’t say anything.
“Brainiac did a number on you,” he said, as if he were disappointed in himself for having done nothing to prevent it. “It’s a miracle you’re still online.”
“It’s a good thing I have you here with me,” Kal said with a small smile. Bruce just shook his head.
“I won’t do any good if I can’t get you repaired,” he said, “not while your body’s still fighting kryptonite toxicity. I got the bigger shards out of your hand, but you won’t be able to heal yourself while the residual kryptonite’s in your hydraulics.”
“You’re worrying yourself too much,” Kal said. “You’ve fixed me up before-”
“Not as well as I could’ve,” Bruce murmured.
“Bruce, please, you’re the best person on this whole planet to fix me,” Kal started to say, but it didn’t seem to get through to Bruce.
“Kal, you don’t-” Bruce gritted his teeth, fighting for the right words. “If I’m the only one who can fix you, then if you deactivate, it’ll be…”
Bruce took a deep breath to try and calm himself. Kal waited for him to finish his sentence, but Bruce didn’t have to. Kal could figure out all the same.
Hoping to reassure him somehow, Kal reached out and took Bruce’s metal hand in his. Feeling the familiar rush of a faint electrical charge, he tried his best to interface directly with Bruce’s mechanical parts, hoping somehow that Bruce could feel what he was thinking.
Bruce, I trust you. I know you can do this. Please, you have to trust yourself.
Bruce’s breath hitched as the charge built up in his arm. Kal could see the way his lips pursed, his tongue briefly tracing over his lips. He looked over to Kal, then back down at his own arm.
“Kal,” Bruce whispered, “what is this?”
“This is how it feels whenever I interface with technology,” Kal explained. “It’s like how I talked to the Batcomputer. Can you hear what I’m thinking?”
Trust yourself, Bruce. It’s over now.
“No,” Bruce said, “but… it feels good. I’ve never felt anything like this before. I can’t hear what you’re thinking, but I can almost feel what you’re feeling.”
“Then focus on that,” Kal encouraged him. “Like how you made me focus on your voice back at the fortress. You were there for me. Now, let me be here for you.”
Kal pulled his hand away, but he didn’t miss the way Bruce reached out to him, like he didn’t want to let go yet, before bringing his hand back.
“I trust you, Bruce,” Kal said. “Do what you have to do.”
Bruce took a deep breath, his hand tightening into a fist, before forcing himself to relax. “Alright,” he said firmly. “First things first. Let’s get your wiring in order.”
Kal began to relax, knowing where this was going. Sure enough, Bruce bent down over Kal’s chest cavity, reaching in and searching for any wires that might have come loose. He clearly found a few, because Kal felt the familiar rush of energy as broken circuits returned to normal. The sudden jolts of energy made his torso feel warm all over again, and sensations began returning to different parts of his body.
“Now,” Bruce said, “welding. You’ve got a lot of snapped wires, so this’ll take a while.”
“That’s fine by me,” Kal said, mentally preparing himself for what he knew would come next.
It was just as Kal had remembered it. Bruce slid a thin tube of plastic over one of the wires, twisted Kal’s severed wiring together with his dextrous claws, took his coil of wire, melted some of the metal onto the soldering pen, and gingerly applied it to the exposed wiring. The feeling of the wiring melting together sent that oh so pleasant heat radiating through Kal’s chest, making him moan softly. Once Bruce was certain that the wires were fully soldered together, he took his heat gun, slid the plastic over the exposed wiring, and melted the plastic to the rest of the wire coating, amplifying that delightful heat.
This time, though, as Bruce had his hand in Kal’s chest cavity, Kal made an effort to reach out with his EM field, hoping that Bruce could feel the effect he was having on him. To his amazement, when Bruce soldered the wires together, Bruce’s breathing sped up, his gaze briefly flitting up to Kal’s.
“Is this how it felt when I fixed you up the first time?” Bruce asked, his tone almost reverent. Kal could only nod.
For ten minutes, Bruce continued on like this, soldering each of Kal’s wires together. The ones in his hand were the most painstaking, as well as the most sensitive, Kal found when Bruce was slightly too forceful with twisting some of the severed cables together, so Bruce took his time to make sure he didn’t use too much force. To Kal’s delight, Bruce’s work on his hand only made the heat flowing through his entire body increase, so much so that his vocalizer had begun sputtering static with every little whine or gasp.
And he could tell he was having an effect on Bruce. Despite his best attempts to keep up a blank exterior, Kal could hear his pulse rapidly increasing, his heart thumping with every noise he made, his blood rushing through his body. A part of Kal wondered, Would fixing him have the same effect it has on me?
Eventually, Bruce had to set down his soldering iron, as if it burned to touch. He stood there by his tools for a minute before looking back at Kal, only this time, his face had begun to look flushed.
“Do you want me to keep going?” Bruce asked, the surprisingly desperate look on his face saying, I want this if you do.
Kal didn’t hesitate. “Please.”
Bruce knew what to do. Trailing his fingers up Kal’s ribs at a tantalizingly slow pace, he felt his way up to Kal’s core, opening up its casing.
Even though he’d already seen it before, Bruce seemed hypnotized by the sight of it. Slowly tracing his claws around it, he watched in awe and arousal as Kal’s body jerked in response, his legs kicking out. A mischievous smirk grew on his face, and before Kal could ask Bruce what he was doing, Bruce bent over and pressed his lips to Kal’s core in a gentle kiss.
Kal didn’t know what possessed him to do it. Maybe it was a fluke of his programming. Maybe it was a natural reaction to the moment. But whatever it was, he knew he had to do this, like it was written into his coding.
As Bruce lifted his head to see Kal’s reaction, the android grabbed Bruce by the neck of his suit, pulled him up, and kissed him, groaning as he felt Bruce’s impossibly soft lips on his own. Bruce almost pulled away from the shock of it all, but quickly gave in, returning the kiss, making Kal’s entire body feel like it was on fire in the best way possible. Distracted from his work in the best way possible, Bruce’s dragged his claws over the surface of Kal’s core, as if he were trying to mark Kal’s very being.
Kal couldn’t contain it anymore. His back strut arched off of the surgical table, like his entire body was chasing more of that impossibly pleasurable pain. When he tried to scream, he couldn’t produce anything other than a high pitched, glitchy static as his vocalizer malfunctioned. Bolts of electricity coursed throughout his body, reaching up Bruce’s prosthetic and making the man above him cry out in ecstasy. Kal’s optics grew brighter and brighter, filling his entire field of vision with white, before offlining entirely as his body crumpled against the surgical table.
Kal barely registered Bruce saying his name before he crashed, his body forcing itself into recharge.
+ + + + +
[SYSTEMS ONLINE.]
[96% POWER REMAINING.]
[NO SYSTEM FAILURES DETECTED.]
[CONTINUE?]
Is Bruce OK?
[CONTINUE?]
I need to know if he’s OK.
[ACTIVATING PERIMETER SENSES.]
[...]
[...]
[HUMAN PULSE DETECTED. 55 BPM. 99% MATCH WITH BRUCE WAYNE.]
Thank you. Continue.
[COMMENCING SYSTEM STARTUP. WELCOME BACK, KAL-EL.]
The first thing Kal felt as his senses rushed online was a calloused hand wrapped around his, squeezing gently. He could smell the familiar damp musk of the Batcave, mixed with the scent of sweat, leather, and iron. Stretching his legs out, Kal could feel an operating table beneath him and a blanket on top of him. Despite not needing the extra warmth to stave off the Batcave’s usual chill, he appreciated Bruce’s kindness.
Opening his optics, Kal turned his head slightly to his right. Sitting next to him on an old metal stool was Bruce, dishevelled, bruised, and red eyed, but very alive. His body thrummed with life, the colors blossoming purple, red, and blue in the bruises along his exposed skin, the crusted deep red of blood on scratches he didn’t see fit to bandage, the shine of his hazy, blue-grey, still living eye as it landed on Kal, widening as he realized that he was online once more.
Kal would never get tired of seeing Bruce like this.
“Hey,” Bruce murmured, his parched lips peeling apart as he began to speak. “You’re awake again.”
“I wonder who I have to thank for that,” Kal joked. To his relief, the corner of Bruce’s mouth quirked into a smile which might be imperceptible to anyone else.
“For a while there, I thought I’d botched my job with how hard you crashed,” Bruce admitted.
“No, that was…” Kal laughed and squeezed Bruce’s hand a bit tighter. “I just don’t think I’m used to anyone being that deep inside me before the first date.”
Kal’s smile grew victorious as he saw Bruce’s exhausted expression break. The corner of his eye crinkled, and he let out a huff which Kal knew would be the closest thing he ever got to an authentic laugh out of him. He recorded the moment and stored it in his CPU to play back in his processor.
“How do you feel?” Bruce asked.
“A lot better than I did when I got dragged into the Atlantic by an unstable version of me,” Kal said, shifting to sit upright, propped on his undamaged hand. In a more serious tone, he said, “Thank you for being there. I wouldn’t have been able to handle him without you.”
“You could’ve,” Bruce said. “Better than I could’ve, anyway.”
“Even if I could’ve, who would’ve been there to put me back together?” Kal asked. “I wanted you to be there with me for a reason.”
“Because I’m the only one on this planet who knows how to repair you?” Bruce asked, raising an eyebrow.
“That,” Kal shrugged, “and because I knew you’d take any reason to punch Lex Luthor in the face.”
The two men, human and android, looked at each other for a few moments, simply basking in the moment. Bruce looked like he wanted to smile, but instead, he let go of Kal’s hand and reached forward, wrapping Kal in an admittedly awkward yet much needed hug, which Kal was more than happy to reciprocate.
“Thank you for saving me,” Kal murmured into Bruce’s shoulder.
“Anything for the person who saved the world,” Bruce mumbled.
There they stayed for a minute, needing nothing more than each other’s touch. Kal predicted that it had been a very long time since Bruce had ever been hugged like this, so he let Bruce stay there, half bent over the hospital bed, for as long as he wanted.
When Bruce finally decided that he was satisfied, he gingerly freed himself from Kal’s embrace and brought his right hand up to cup Kal’s cheek. The android leaned into Bruce’s touch, unafraid of the smooth metal of his palm or the sharp claws on his fingertips. Bruce sighed softly as he looked down at Kal, then leaned in for a kiss, capturing Kal’s lips with his. Even though he anticipated it coming, Kal could still feel his hydraulics pumping just a bit faster from the contact. He noted that the kiss lasted 1.526 seconds longer than their previous one; their relationship was progressing, it seemed.
“It’s good to have you back, Kal,” Bruce said, before pulling his hand back and standing up from his stool. “Can you get up? I need to show you something.”
Kal flexed his legs, then his arms, and after a brief diagnostic scan, determined that Bruce’s repairs had done the job. He swung his legs off of the bed and pulled the blanket off of himself before following Bruce.
“Lex is currently locked up in Stryker’s Island, awaiting trial” Bruce explained. “As for Brainiac, well…”
He led Kal over to an open area of the batcave, where Kal saw, to his morbid amazement, the crumpled, waterlogged remains of Brainiac, lying in a heap on the floor. Though his torso still looked thoroughly mangled, his head faced Kal, lifeless red optic giving him a blank stare, like that of a sleepwalker who’d yet to rise from whatever dream in which they were trapped. Scanning Brainiac once more for safety, Kal determined that Brainiac was, indeed, deactivated, but an oddly human feeling part of him remained afraid that he might reanimate and go on another rampage.
“I figured that Lex would come back for his property,” Bruce explained, “so once I was finished with your repairs, I went back for Brainiac.” With a slight pause, he said, “I figured that since he was the only other remaining Kryptonian, it would be up to you to decide what to do with him.”
Kal looked over to Bruce, then back to Brainiac. He knew that his alpha model’s dead, glassy gaze would forever haunt his memory, burned into his CPU never to be deleted, but he could still do something to make sure that no one would ever have to see those eyes again.
“I’ll destroy his remains,” Kal determined. “We can’t risk trying to reprogram him.”
Bruce glanced over at Kal, his prosthetic eye focusing on him, a silent, Are you sure?
“As you wish,” Bruce said with a nod. “I also got something else from the scene. I thought that it would come in handy if Lex ever gained control of his androids again.”
Reaching down to his toolbelt, Bruce opened one of the pockets. Kal didn’t have to look inside to know what that radioactive green glow coming from inside meant.
“I’ll keep it somewhere it can’t be easily accessed,” Bruce explained, as if to assuage Kal’s worries. “Lex won’t be able to find it if he ever breaks in here, but we will, just in case.”
“Right,” Kal nodded. He pondered Bruce’s discovery for a few moments, then said, “Can you promise me something?”
Bruce looked up to Kal as he closed the pouch on his belt. “What is it?”
Kal felt his systems overheating slightly from the difficulty of what he wanted to say, so he sighed to cool them down. “Bruce,” he said, “if I ever somehow turn out like Brainiac, if I ever start hurting people the way he did, I want you to kill me.”
Now, both of Bruce’s eyes widened slightly. Kal could faintly hear his pulse increasing slightly when he concentrated hard enough. “Are you sure?”
“Positive,” Kal said, relieved to have this off of his processor. “Take that Kryptonite and…” He thumped his fist over his chest, miming stabbing himself in the core. “No matter what it takes. I don’t think I’d be able to live with myself if I ever turned out like him.”
Bruce let out another amused huff. Two almost laughs in under five minutes; Kal searched through his memory disk and determined that this was a new record. “You sound human, you know.”
“Not human enough for this world,” Kal said, shaking his head.
“Maybe not,” Bruce said, “but you don’t have to be. This world sees you for who you are now. Reports on what happened last night are already out.” Bruce made his way over to the computer and pulled up a whole host of articles, trying to piece together what exactly had happened.
To Kal’s surprise, though, it seemed like most of the articles were on his side. Bruce stepped away from the keyboard and allowed Kal to read at his leisure. Most of the articles he read through at lightning speed spoke of the mysterious blue and red hero who came to Metropolis’ rescue, or the enigmatic Batman teaming up with this newcomer.
One article stuck out to Kal, though.
“SUPERMAN: MORE MAN THAN MACHINE?” by Lois Lane.
Kal chuckled to himself as he read through the article, an optimistic speculation of how this new robotic hero could be more human than anyone had anticipated. Good to know humanity still has my back.
“Superman, huh?” Bruce said, raising an eyebrow. “I like it. It fits.”
Stepping over to Kal’s side, he continued, “It won’t be long before the whole world knows what you can do. It seems that Metropolis has its new hero.”
Kal turned away from the computer and looked up at the Batcave ceiling, his processor working to process everything in the background. Bruce must’ve been able to tell that Kal’s CPU was working overtime, because he gently rested his hand on his shoulder. “Is everything OK?”
“Maybe not now,” Kal sighed trying to cool his slightly overheated CPU, “but it will be.” He looked back at Bruce and said, “It’s a lot. It’s a lot to process.”
“Well,” Bruce said, “at least now, you won’t have to go through it alone.”
Kal turned to Bruce and smiled, leaning into his touch. “And to think you tried to strangle me when we first met.”
“In my defense, I didn't realize that you were the most amazing man and machine I'd ever meet,” Bruce said. “I just thought you were one of Lex's toys.”
Kal raised his eyebrow as he looked over at Bruce. “You really think that highly of me?”
“Kal, you risked your own life for a planet that isn't even your home when you’ve only been here for a few weeks,” Bruce said. “It’s not a stretch to say that you’re incredible.”
Kal chuckled and gave Bruce a smirk. “Are you sure you just don’t have a thing for my wires?”
Even with the cowl on, Kal could tell Bruce was rolling his eyes. “That’s merely an added benefit.”
“It’s also why you kissed me earlier, if I’m not mistaken,” Kal teased.
“I kissed you because you saved the world, and I wanted to thank you,” Bruce deadpanned. After a moment’s quiet, he added, “And because you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Kal found himself smiling even brighter. “You know,” he said, “I still don’t understand most human things, but wouldn’t kissing me mean that you want a relationship?”
“Do you?” Bruce asked. “Is there any wiggle room in your prime directive for that?”
“I don’t think my prime directive says anything about me avoiding relationships,” Kal joked. After a short chuckle, his face grew more somber. “In all seriousness, though, I don’t know if anyone on this planet would understand me the way you do. I mean, I know this is probably fast, but you’ve helped me figure out who I really am. You’ve helped me save the world. Heck, when you first fixed me up, do you remember what you called me?”
When Bruce didn’t respond, Kal answered for him. “You called me beautiful,” he said softly. “I don’t think I could ever forget that.”
He reached down to hold Bruce’s prosthetic hand in his own. “I’m still new to human things, so it might take me some time to figure things out, but… if you want this, then I think I do, too. I think I wanna give this a try.”
Bruce briefly looked down at their hands before lacing his fingers with Kal’s, squeezing firmly. “I think I’d like that.”
The two met each other’s eyes and leaned in to kiss each other again, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Kal didn’t think he’d ever fully get used to the feeling of Bruce’s full lips against his own. It was simple. It was human. It was perfect.
5.437 seconds , Kal thought as the two of them pulled away. A new record.
“So,” Bruce said, “now that Brainiac’s offline and the world is safe for another day, what do you wanna do?”
“Well, Metropolis seems to like me,” Kal said. “And there’s no telling what’ll happen if Lex comes back. I guess that means they’ll need a Superman.” He smirked and said, “Maybe I’ll try to be more human. Find an apartment, get a job, all that human stuff. With any luck, they won’t even know who I am.”
“They’ll figure you out if you keep calling yourself Kal-El,” Bruce said. “No offense, but that isn’t the most human of names.”
“I could go by a new one, then,” Kal shrugged. “Maybe my last name could be Kent.”
“I could probably get some documents made with your new name on it,” Bruce said. “To make things official.”
Kal chuckled and shook his head, then paused to think. “Bruce, how did you figure out I was an android when we first met?”
“Your eyes,” Bruce explained. “Human eyes don’t glow like that.” He went quiet, then said, “Maybe some glasses could cover that up, make it harder for people to figure out who you are.”
“I’ll have to give that a try,” Kal said. “This whole being human thing sounds tricky, but fun.”
“If you want, I can probably set you up with a good apartment in Metropolis” Bruce suggested. “One with a view and a good size bedroom.”
“You don’t have to do that for me,” Kal said. “Really, I can probably figure it out.”
“I’ve operated on you twice to save your life, and you’re telling me that me buying an apartment for you is too much?” Bruce asked, getting a laugh out of Kal.
“Fine, you win,” Kal said, shaking his head. As he pondered over the future, a memory sprung up, words that felt like they were spoken ages ago.
“Actually,” he spoke up, “I made a promise to the Kents that I’d see them again back at the farm once everything was over. Maybe you could come with me and get out of Gotham for a day or two. You know, take a rest after everything. I think you’d like them, they’re very nice people.”
“That’s fast,” Bruce quipped. “We’ve been in a relationship for two minutes, and you’re already taking me to see your parents.”
Kal laughed again, shaking his head. “Bruce!”
Bruce just chuckled and gave Kal a tired smile. “I think that’d be perfect.”
Kal squeezed Bruce’s hand again, not wanting to let go of him just yet. “Sounds like a plan.”
Bruce hummed and leaned in, meeting Kal for another kiss. 2.474 seconds.
He could get used to this.
~ END ~