Chapter Text
Bruce Wayne traced a perfect circle on the floor of the Fortress in white chalk. He placed four white candles around it and lit them; the sweet smell of beeswax scented the air immediately. Then he brought down the lights of the Fortress until the circle was a glowing haven of light in the darkness and walked back toward it. Clark Kent stood outside the circle with his arms crossed, frowning. He knew it looked like sulking, which wasn't fair: when Bruce did it, it was glowering.
"We never had to do any of this mystical mumbo-jumbo before."
"That was before you remembered Alfred and gave everyone hope that you might be able to get your memories of being Superman back, Clark. Now that you've been so foolish as to give people hope you have to pay the consequences." A brief flash of near-smile. "And this isn't magic, Clark, it's just a meditation technique Jason Blood taught me, to help focus your thoughts inward."
"Jason Blood? He's the guy who meditates naked up on the Watchtower sometimes, isn't he?" Clark felt his eyebrows raise in alarm. "We're not going--I mean, do we have to--"
Bruce pulled his shirt over his head and flashed Clark a look that could have been called "sardonically sultry" if it were not entirely impossible to imagine Bruce Wayne so without going raveningly insane. "Clothing is generally considered a distraction and an impediment to meditation, Clark. But I suppose we'll leave the pants on," he added magnanimously.
"Thank you," muttered Clark, feeling relieved, and disappointed, and ashamed for feeling disappointed. He unbuttoned his shirt and removed it along with this shoes and socks, dropping them in a crumpled pile next to Bruce's fastidiously folded clothing. Bruce gestured for Clark to step into the circle with him, then dropped gracefully into a cross-legged position on the floor. Clark followed suit.
Bruce rested his hands on his knees. "All right, Clark. This is just an exercise to help you focus and access your memories. First, close your eyes." Bruce closed his eyes and Clark followed his lead again. "I want you to relax and take deep breaths--in through the nose and out through the mouth. Be fully aware of your breaths, feel them moving through your body." There was a long pause as Clark tried to center himself, focusing on his breath. Nothing seemed to be happening. Eventually he slitted his eyes open just a little, peering through the lashes to look at Bruce. The other man was sitting gracefully--you would think a person would need to move to be graceful, but Bruce could do it sitting down--hands resting gently on his knees. His dark hair caught the candlelight, and pale light flickered across his bare chest, throwing the lines of his body into sharp relief, the scars like seams of gold. Clark couldn't resist the opportunity to finally look his fill, his mouth dry and heart pounding. A glimmer of deeper gold dragged his eyes from the perfection of light-edged muscles, and he realized Bruce had left one adornment in place: the ring that he always wore around his neck, usually hidden under his clothes. Clark remembered the inscription: Dilectus meus mihi, et ego illi, "My beloved is mine, and I am his." Clark wondered once again what the story was behind the ring. Bruce had said that he had lost his love; it made sense that was the giver of the secret ring. He had also said that they had parted angrily, that his love had said he wished he had never loved him. Clark stared at the ring, mesmerized, and tried to imagine the being who could ever say that about Bruce, this tangle of darkness and light that he yearned to unravel, all thorns and mystery. Who would say something so cruel to him?
Whoever it was, Clark hated him with all his heart. Hated him for hurting Bruce, hated him because Bruce obviously still loved him. He felt his hands clench into fists of impotent rage. Hating a dead man--was there anything more useless?
"Clark." Bruce's voice. Clark dragged his eyes from the gleaming enigma to realize abruptly that Bruce's eyes were also open, his face expressionless. "You need to close your eyes, Clark," Bruce said softly, levelly.
Clark clamped his eyes closed. "Sorry."
There was a long silence while Clark struggled to control his breathing again, to focus on the circle of his respiration. After a while, Bruce spoke again. "Focus inward, Clark, and think about Diana. Try to imagine her face in your mind." The voice droned on, low and soothing, as Clark let the fierce beauty of the Amazon's face fill his thoughts. He focused on each part of her--her dark hair, the sparkling blue eyes, her unfettered, ringing laugh. The way she charged into battle so whole-heartedly, throwing herself into it as if into some joyous game. He could see her smile, nearly smell the light gardenia-scented perfume he had given her on her first birthday in man's world...
Clark scrambled to his feet, knocking over one of the candles and smearing chalk. He rushed over to the computer and called the Watchtower, his hands shaking. "Diana! I gave you gardenia perfume for your birthday!" he cried as her face filled the screen. "We used to spar together every Tuesday, and we watched Titanic together last month and I cried and you called me a sentimental idiot!"
Without a word, Diana whirled from the monitor and disappeared. Moments later there was a sound of running footsteps, and Diana threw herself into the Fortress and into Clark's arms. "Kal," she said as Clark spun her around.
"I remember you," he said happily, and she laughed, then seemed to notice his half-naked state for the first time.
At her raised eyebrow, Clark explained hastily, "Bruce was using some meditation techniques from Jason Blood to help me remember."
Diana turned to see Bruce standing in the smudged chalk circle, hastily pulling his sweater back on. "Doesn't Jason usually do this naked, Bruce?"
Bruce didn't smile. "The idea seemed to make Clark uncomfortable."
A flicker of something like anger on her perfect face. "Clark, right," she muttered, and Bruce's eyes narrowed, glinting in the dim light. Diana turned back to Clark, a smile lighting her eyes again. "I'm glad, Kal. So glad. Maybe this means you'll remember everything about your life soon. Everything," she said with an odd emphasis.
Behind her, Bruce snorted. "Everything worth remembering, Princess." He pulled on his socks and shoes and snuffed the candles; the Fortress lights came up automatically to compensate. "That went much better than I expected, Clark. Shall we try again tomorrow?" Clark nodded and Bruce left; both Clark and Diana stared after him with very different expressions on their faces.
Once Bruce was gone, Clark found himself grinning at Diana. How could he have possibly forgotten Diana? The long arguments they had over gender issues, the way he had been teaching her American culture by renting different movies...one of his closest friends, and he had forgotten her!
"What are you grinning about?" She socked him gently on the shoulder.
"I'm just glad to have you back," he said, and she smiled.
"I know just what you mean."
Clark walked over to a chair and dropped into it, feeling the smile fade from his face. She sat down next to him, frowning at his change of expression. "What's bothering you, Kal?"
Clark felt a sense of relief go through him. To finally have someone he knew and trusted to talk to--"Diana, is it possible my encounter with Dr. Destiny did more than wipe my memories? Could it have...altered my personality, somehow?"
She leaned forward, all business immediately. "I suppose it's possible, but I have to admit I don't see any real change in your character, Clark."
"It's not--I--" He broke off, unsure how to continue. "Diana, from what everyone says, it's obvious Bruce and I hardly get along at all. Flash will make jokes about how if I had all my memories back I'd be furious about Bruce training me. People tense up when we talk, like they're waiting for us to hit each other. Everyone...expects us to be at each other's throats. I mean, Bruce himself is barely civil to me. We seem to have...hated each other before my accident."
Diana didn't look at him. She was staring down at her hands. "But you don't--"
"I don't hate him!" Clark blurted it out and then couldn't seem to stop. "I don't hate him, I--God--I need him, Diana, I want him. I can't stop thinking about him. I--I think I love him." He took a deep, shaky breath, shocked at hearing his words echoing around the Fortress. "If my reactions to him have changed so much, what else might Dr. Destiny have tampered with? I think you might have to consider me...compromised, Diana."
Diana was still looking down at her hands. "I don't think you've changed that much, Clark. Maybe starting with a blank slate has let you see aspects of Bruce you weren't able to see before. Maybe." She glanced up at Kal, her eyes mostly hidden behind a curtain of black hair. "Have you considered telling him how you feel about him?"
Clark laughed mirthlessly. "You are aware the man has a Kryptonite ring, aren't you? And I'm sure he'd be happy to use it if I ever told him how I felt. Besides, he's still grieving for his dead lover, I can't interfere with that process."
Ice-blue eyes blinked. "Did he say his lover was dead?"
"Dead, lost, something like that. He still wears a ring around his neck, I think it was from him." Diana blinked again, looking a bit stunned. "He told me that they argued, just before his lover died. That his lover said he wished he had never fallen in love with Bruce."
Diana rubbed her forehead slowly with one hand. "Bruce," she said. "Damn it, Bruce." Her voice was filled with pity, pain, and anger.
"Did you know him? The person Bruce loved?" Still loves.
The Amazon exhaled slowly and spoke with her eyes still closed. "Bruce never spoke to me of any relationship he was in. He kept it a secret from the rest of the League. And it's...not my place to make unfounded guesses if he doesn't see fit to tell you himself, Clark." She stood up, meeting his eyes directly now. "I will tell you this, Clark. Bruce is a man of tremendous passion under tight control. If he's still wearing that ring, he's still deeply in love with whoever gave it to him." She looked at him compassionately. "But I think you have to tell him how you feel, difficult as it may be."
After she left, Clark sat for a long time, staring at nothing, seeing steel-blue eyes, candlelight caught in a net of dark hair, play of shadow and light on taut muscle. Light glinting off the ring swaying gently with Bruce's breath.
Diana was right, of course. Right about it all.
: : :
Bruce's voice washed over Clark as he sat cross-legged again, shirt off, in the chalk circle. He had managed to remember Flash and the Martian Manhunter in their last session, Green Lantern so far in this one. Now Bruce was talking about remembering Hawkgirl. Bruce's voice was low and warm, brandy and chocolate. Clark imagined what it would sound like whispering intimacies rather than describing Shayera. It would be even lower than it was now, yes, and huskier, except for the moments when it broke upward in uncontrolled passion, spiralling into the reaches of the Fortress, calling his lover's name...
Clark realized he was shivering, his whole body aching, and he slitted his eyes open to stare at Bruce. Bruce's feet were bare against the gray stone of the floor. Clark looked at the instep of one pale foot, the curves and bends of skin around it, each individual toe. Bruce's feet looked cold. Clark fought a desperate urge to lean forward and warm them in his hands. To put his mouth to them. He couldn't seem to stop shivering, shaking with longing to kiss Bruce's feet. The idea that he might actually be going crazy went through his mind; it couldn't possibly be right to want someone so much, someone you apparently disliked just a few weeks ago. What other weaknesses had Destiny put into his brain that he didn't know about?
Bruce sighed and Clark shut his eyes tightly again. "You're not getting anywhere further today, are you." Clark cautiously opened his eyes to see Bruce looking at him. "What's distracting you, Clark?"
Clark swallowed. "I'm in love," he blurted out before he could think better of it.
Bruce fleetingly touched the ring around his neck, his face sad for just a moment. Then he just looked resigned--probably to the tedium of talking Superman through his first crush. "So who is it, Clark? Diana, I suppose? I'm sure she--or any other lucky lady--will swoon at your declaration of love."
"Actually--" Clark couldn't help but laugh somewhat helplessly at the image of Bruce swooning, "--I really doubt he will."
A flicker in dark-blue eyes. "He?" Then Bruce shrugged. "The gender doesn't matter. I'm sure Wally would be delighted to hear you're interested."
"Wally is nice," Clark agreed. A muscle in Bruce's jaw jumped as if he were biting down hard on something, but he said nothing. "But I don't think I'm so smart as to fall in love with him."
Bruce's lips twitched. "Just...promise me it's not Lex Luthor," he said, and Clark burst into laughter despite himself.
"No, it's not Lex. It's--Bruce." Clark broke off in panic and the name sounded almost more like a question than a statement. As the silence stretched out, the other man raised his eyebrows in polite query.
"Yes?" There was something elusively mournful in his face beneath the sardonic look and Clark found himself pulled to it like he was bound with chains, gold chains the like one around Bruce's neck, glimmering...he leaned forward and put his lips to the junction of Bruce's neck and shoulder, feeling cold metal links and softer skin under his mouth.
"Bruce," he whispered.
He had expected a polite rebuff at best, sarcastic laughter at worst, but he wasn't prepared to have Bruce lurch away from him and scramble to his feet, for a moment all his easy grace gone, his movements frantic and awkward. It was impossible to read the expression on his face as he stood there in the dim candlelight: it wasn't angry, exactly. He was holding on to the ring so tightly his knuckles were white. "You swore you wouldn't--" he choked, then clamped iron control back onto his expression. But Clark had caught just the faintest hint of something--something like hope?--before that, and it goaded him into continuing to speak.
"I don't remember swearing anything to you, Bruce! If I swore I'd never trust you, or that we could never be friends--I was wrong. I was wrong." His voice shook just a little.
"If you remembered me, you wouldn't say that." Bruce face was bleak.
"I don't believe you," Clark said flatly. Bruce started to shake his head and Clark repeated angrily, "I don't believe you!" he took a step toward Bruce; Bruce stepped back. Clark wanted to weep, he was doing everything wrong somehow, but he bulled ahead instead. "I couldn't dislike you the way everyone seems to think I did. I couldn't have felt that way. Maybe I never told you, maybe I kept my silence because of him--" he gestured toward the ring, still clenched in Bruce's fist, "--But the way I feel, it can't be a new thing. It feels so familiar, like I'm used to it, watching you and--and feeling this way, and wanting to be with you. Maybe now I can finally say something, now that he's gone, but it isn't new. I know it's not."
Bruce was still shaking his head, slowly, disbelievingly. "You never learn, do you?" he said harshly.
Clark felt like he had floundered into deep water at the look in Bruce's eyes, depths that he hadn't realized existed. Had he confessed his love for Bruce before the accident and been rebuffed, rejected for the man who gave him the ring? Was he a spurned lover, pressing his unwelcome suit yet again? "Why haven't we been working on getting my memories of you back, Bruce? Are there things you don't want me to remember about you?"
Bruce's face was closed and almost angry now. "We'll try to get your memories of Hawkgirl back again next time," he snapped, and wheeled for the teleporter, scooping up his shirt and shoes as he went.
"I'll remember you someday, Bruce!" Clark yelled after his retreating back. "And then you're going to have to deal with me somehow."
Bruce's voice floated back distinctly. "I have to deal with you enough already, Clark. Let's not make it worse before we have to."
: : :
"--headstrong and foolhardy!" Batman was snarling at him across the conference table, the other members of the JLA looking like they wanted to be anywhere else but there.
"Well, it's better than your crazy plan, which relies entirely on you risking your vigilante neck while the rest of us sit around and twiddle our thumbs." Clark clenched his fists. Since their conversation and his confession, Bruce had been more abrasive than ever. Now, after a near-disastrous flight with yet another assortment of supervillains, it was boiling over into their meeting.
Batman stalked around the table and flicked contemptuously at Superman's now-tattered cape. "Oh, and your plans work out so well. Look at you. Grundy and Star Sapphire had you on the ropes before Green Lantern came to your rescue." Black gloves brushed angrily over a rent in the blue cloth on his shoulder. "Once again you manage to 'lead' us into near-disaster. I hope you're proud." A swirl of black cape and Batman made his way toward the door. "I'll be in the cave."
"Oh, it's easy to criticize when you've got nothing to offer beyond 'I'll do it all myself, morons!'" Superman yelled after him, then caught himself as he realized the rest of the JLA were staring at him.
"Feels like old times," sighed Flash.
Superman sank into his chair. "Did we...do this a lot? Before my accident?"
Flash waved a hand. "Oh sure. We hardly had a single meeting that didn't end with Batman storming off, and then you growling that you needed to be alone and heading to the Fortress. And then you'd both come back about two hours later, and he'd be acting like he had won the argument and you'd be looking smugger than a Catwoman ate the canary, and we'd go right back to the meeting." The speedster sighed. "You two. You're both crazy, you know?"
Clark glanced around the table. From their expressions, most of the team seemed to agree with Wally. Clark sighed and fingered the rip in his costume, still feeling the touch of leather on his skin, cool and clinical. "Well, we can't get much done until he comes back. Um, does anyone know where I can get a new uniform? This one would appear to be toast."
Martian Manhunter stood. "You usually repair them with your heat vision."
Superman looked at a loss. "Great. I'm not sure I'll get that right the first time at all."
"We also have the costume you were wearing during the fight with Dr. Destiny, when you lost your memories," J'onn pointed out. "I should give that back to you anyway. Come with me."
Clark followed the Martian to a storage chamber and was handed a bundle of bright-colored clothing. He stared down at it and sighed. "I probably ought to get back to the Fortress. Batman will be there soon to work on my memories again."
J'onn's eyebrow wrinkled sympathetically. "Good luck with that, Superman," he murmured, deadpan, leaving Clark to wonder if he meant regaining his memories or dealing with Bruce.
: : :
In the Fortress, Clark stripped the tattered uniform off and put it in a drawer; maybe Bruce could explain later how he mended them. If they could get through a conversation without yelling at each other. He pulled on a pair of sweatpants and looked closely at the uniform he had been wearing at the time of the accident, looking for signs of mending. He saw none, but noticed the hidden pocket where he stored his glasses was weighted down; whoever had packed away the uniform had left them there. He opened up the pocket and pulled out the glasses, checking them for breaks.
There was something else still weighing down the pocket.
He tilted the cape and a gold ring fell out into his hand.
A simple gold ring, it fitted his ring finger perfectly.
His left-hand ring finger.
The Latin words engraved on the inside matched those on Bruce's exactly.
He was still staring at it, his thoughts jumbled, nearly nonsensical, when he heard Bruce's footsteps approaching down the hall. He put the ring--the impossible ring--in his pocket and went out to meet him.
By the time he reached the hall, Bruce had already finished tracing the now-familiar circle and lighting the white candles. He slipped out of his black t-shirt, looking at Clark with something like a glare. "Don't think you're going to get out of this just by being an arrogant jerk in meetings, Clark," he said, sitting down in the circle.
Clark felt almost dizzy, his heart was pounding so hard, looking at Bruce, the ring dangling around his neck as always. He took his place in the circle almost automatically, hearing Diana's words in his mind again, If he's still wearing that ring, he's still deeply in love with whoever gave it to him. Clark didn't even bother to close his eyes when Bruce did, staring at the fringed shadow of eyelashes in candlelight, the grimly set lips, the hollow of his throat, the ring...
My beloved is mine, and I am his.
And I am his!
It hit Clark like a hammer-blow, the one thing he could make sense of in all this: Bruce was his. He proclaimed it true every time he wore that ring, a cry he believed no one could hear now. I'm yours, Clark.
Clark had his mouth pressed to Bruce's before he even realized he was going to, parting those grim lips with his tongue, tasting, and it wasn't at all familiar but it was right, so deeply right he knew he should have seen it all along. Bruce made a small sound of protest, but Clark felt the ring trapped between their bare chests, a circle of fidelity cool and solid between them, and he didn't pull away. "Love you, I love you," he whispered into Bruce's mouth, as if he could put the words there himself, make them real. He traced his hands up Bruce's back, along the scars to the nape of the neck, and Bruce's breathing was becoming ragged against his mouth, the moan of protest becoming something else entirely. Hands on Clark's shoulders, pulling him close, closer, not close enough, never close enough.
Clark broke off the kiss to trail his mouth across Bruce's jaw and down his neck, the other man's breathing so harsh and uneven now that it could be mistaken for weeping. Clark dipped lower still to brush his tongue against a dark nipple, and at the touch Bruce threw his head back and choked, "Clark. Clark." His voice was almost a sob, as full of grief as lust, and at the sound of his name Clark had them both on his bed--on their bed, it had to be their bed--and was easing Bruce out of his tight jeans, licking and sucking with abandon, Bruce making inarticulate frenzied noises, all of his passion unleashed and uncoiled at last. He came almost immediately, hips jammed hard against Clark and his voice stuttering wildly, broken consonants of need and want. Clark angled himself to watch his lover's rapt face, ecstasy chasing joy across it through his climax, the ripples of pleasure fading into sated satisfaction.
Before the satisfaction could shade into the inevitable withdrawal, before he had to witness Bruce's face closing to him, Clark slid up to nuzzle Bruce's hair. He slipped the ring from his pocket and put it on Bruce's chest next to its mate, hearing Bruce's startled inhalation. After a moment, Bruce murmured, "I thought maybe...you had destroyed it." He glanced at Clark's horrified expression and continued, "So, you remember?"
Clark shook his head. "But this tells me all I need to know."
Bruce pulled away from him, pulling his clothes back on, and Clark caught up the ring as it fell. "You said you wouldn't choose to love me if you could."
"I don't believe that." Clark reached out to keep Bruce from leaving the bed; Bruce didn't turn back but didn't pull away from his hand either. "If I said something like that, it was a moment's anger, nothing more. You told me once you weren't the easiest person to get along with--I'm not perfect either, Bruce. I said something stupid and asinine and stormed off. I'm sure I would have come back and apologized soon."
Bruce's voice was low. "But you didn't."
Clark sighed. "I want to remember you, Bruce. I want to remember the first time I kissed you. I want to remember what we said to each other when we exchanged these rings. But if you're worried remembering one argument will destroy what we had, I'll forget it all and start over again. Start fresh and avoid our mistakes from the last time."
After a moment, Bruce looked at him again. "Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it, Clark." He stood up and held out a hand to the Kryptonian. "Let's see if we can get your memories back."
: : :
Clark is watching himself from a distance. His face is tense and angry; Bruce is favoring his right arm, his face closed. Another argument.
"You should have called me in, Bruce!"
"I don't call in colleagues for help in Gotham."
"I'm not your damn colleague! Maybe you can eternally force yourself to act it, but I'm not made of stone." From his new vantage point, Clark sees Bruce wince and cover it up by flexing his injured arm. But the Superman in the vision is too angry and distraught to notice. "Diana wanted to know why I was so upset, and I couldn't tell her! I couldn't tell her that the man I love was injured and I couldn't do a damn thing to help because of his code of secrecy. I don't like lying, Bruce, especially not to my friends."
"It would compromise security if--"
"The hell it would! Maybe before the invasion, when our identities were secret, your security fetish made sense. But now that everyone on the team knows we're Bruce and Clark, how could it harm things further to have them know we're together? I know this is how we chose to enter the relationship at first, but--"
Bruce cuts him off abruptly. "Sometimes I don't feel like there was any choice in it at all."
Clark remembers, distantly, the pain and panic that had gone through him at those words, that he had masked with more anger. But now he's more worried about the expression on Bruce's face. "Are you saying I forced this on you, Bruce?" his double snarls.
"That's not what I meant." Bruce's eyes are bleak, but the Clark in the past is unwilling to see that.
"Well, I chose it. I chose it freely, to be with you and love you. But maybe I wouldn't do it again if I could choose once more. Maybe I'd just spare us both the trouble." Superman whirls and is gone, the memory fading out around Clark into darkness, darkness that becomes the back of his eyelids once more.
: : :
Clark opened his eyes to see Bruce sitting near him. At some point, somehow, Clark had moved unconsciously to clasp Bruce's hands in his. Bruce's gaze was wary, eyes like chips of slate.
"I would have come back," Clark said a little hoarsely. "You know I would have. I'd have apologized."
Bruce shook his head, but some of the caution was gone from his eyes. "I couldn't know that."
Clark raised a hand to trace the curve of Bruce's cheekbone gently. "I swear I'll always come back to you," he said, and saw the eyes above his hand blink and darken with emotion at the words he had said the day he gave Bruce that ring. Bruce reached up and drew Clark's hand down to his mouth, pressing his lips to the palm. He cleared his throat.
"I never actually got the chance to respond fully to your arguments, Clark," he said, his voice slightly muffled against Clark's hand. "You left before I could tell you what I had concluded. About telling the rest of the team."
Clark opened his mouth and left it open for a moment, suddenly unable to string together words. Bruce kept Clark's hand across his mouth, hiding it.
But Clark could feel him smile.
: : :
Diana was on monitor duty again when the message came through, voice only: Superman was asking the rest of the team to meet him and Batman at the Fortress of Solitude. Diana relayed the message to the others and hurried to the transporter, her thoughts whirling at the tone of Kal's voice.
When the Martian Manhunter, Flash, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern walked together into the main hall of the Fortress, Bruce and Clark were waiting for them. Not Batman and Superman--Bruce and Clark. Bruce was in jeans and a tight black t-shirt, Clark in baggy sweatpants and a Metropolis sweatshirt. As the rest of the team stood and waited, Bruce reached up and swept his left hand rather nervously through his hair; gold glinted briefly.
Diana looked at Clark in wild surmise, feeling a delighted smile dawning on her face. Clark's hands were clasped behind his back and he bounced slightly on the balls of his feet, an answering smile warming his handsome features. He reached out and put his left hand on Bruce's shoulder, gold catching the light for a moment in turn. At the touch, Bruce almost smiled.
"My friends," said Clark, joy and shyness tangled in his voice, "Bruce and I have something to tell you."