Chapter Text
The night air above Metropolis tasted like copper.
Bruce could smell it even through the filters in the cowl — the aftermath of burning metal, ruptured concrete, and panic. The Batwing cut a black line through the moonlight as he descended toward the skyline’s jagged wound.
It wasn’t supposed to be his city. But the moment the Justice League comms lit up with “Superman down”, borders didn’t matter.
The impact site was a crater carved into the intersection of 43rd and Madison. Glass crunched under his boots as he stepped out. The air shimmered faintly green. Kryptonite residue.
And in the center of it — Clark.
Bruce’s mind took a photograph of the scene: cape half-buried in rubble, one hand still shielding a pair of dazed civilians, a sickly green shard protruding from just under the collarbone. The skin around it burned with spiderweb cracks.
“Clark,” Bruce’s voice was lower than normal, almost a growl. His gauntlets were on the shard in seconds, but the Geiger counter on his HUD screamed in warning.
Clark’s eyes fluttered open. “You shouldn’t— be here,” he rasped, voice shredded raw.
Bruce ignored him, one hand pressing to the wound while the other tapped a rapid series of commands into his wrist console. “J’onn, I need a teleport lock. Now.”
“Signal unstable,” came the Martian’s calm reply. “The shard is emitting a dampening field—”
“Override it.” The words were sharp enough to cut.
Clark coughed, blood — red, thank god — staining the corner of his mouth. “People— still trapped—”
“They can wait.” Bruce didn’t raise his voice often, but when he did, it could stop a riot. “You can’t.”
A muffled thunk reverberated through the street — another strike from the alien artillery, somewhere farther west. Bruce barely registered it. His vision tunneled to the steady-but-shallow rise and fall of Clark’s chest.
The kryptonite glow seemed to pulse in time with Clark’s heartbeat, each flicker stealing more color from his face. Bruce reached for a lead-lined case from his belt, knowing it wouldn’t be enough to stop the poisoning, but needing to slow it.
“Stay with me,” he said — not the bark of an order, but low, urgent, almost pleading.
Clark’s lips curved faintly, like he recognized the rarity of that tone. “Bossy… even now.”
Then the teleport beam finally engaged, swallowing them both in white light.
The world dissolved. Bruce didn’t let go.