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Clark took a seat at the farthest edge of the table and felt himself start to wilt. It had been...six days since he’d last slept? He wasn’t certain of the number any more. He’d been chasing catastrophes across the globe for nearly a week, jumping from one nighttime crisis to the next, and getting a bare hour of sunlight when he managed to get away.
He was exhausted. Clark felt weariness seep into his bones as he remained still and watched the rest of the League file into place around him. No injuries, which was good. Hal and Barry both seemed run down, and their typical humour was noticeably subdued. Diana looked as invincible as ever, which was a comfort. J’onn was impossible to read, though Victor’s close proximity spoke to one or both of them being more compromised than they let on. Shayera and Dinah – carrying her heeled boots in one hand – were the last to arrive, bickering in a way that would have felt good natured if the mood of the room wasn’t so heavy.
There was a thin bar of sunlight an inch away from his right foot, and Clark couldn’t summon the energy to shift his chair to reach it. The Watchtower’s windows filtered out the most refreshing high-energy wavelengths, but even the infrared would have been a comfort at this point.
No use. Moving would take more energy than he had.
Dinah sat down in the chair next to him and leaned back with a groan, glancing in Clark’s direction just as he put a hand over his mouth to stifle a yawn.
“I feel you,” Dinah said with a friendly nudge of an elbow. “First thing I’m doing when we break is getting Ollie to give me a foot massage.”
“You could wear actual boots,” Shayera mumbled from the chair on Dinah’s other side.
“I like my boots,” Dinah shot back, “they just don’t like me.”
Clark felt the tension ratchet up between them and braced to deescalate a fight. But, in a moment of ham-fisted goodness, Hal spoke up.
“Nah,” he called across the table, “first thing I’m doing is taking a nap.”
Barry, face buried in his crossed arms, groaned in agreement. “I think I just hit hour thirty-four of being awake,” he mumbled into the desk.
“Rookie numbers,” Hal said. “Talk to me when you get past the first forty-eight.”
“You’ve been awake for over forty-eight hours?” Dinah asked.
Hal scoffed. “Not today, obviously,” he said, “but when I’m scheduled for night flights the same week as an intergalactic congress? I’m lucky to get a few hours of napping every three days. You crash hard at the end of it, but,” he shrugged, “what can you do?”
“I once stayed up for five days re-running a chemical analysis for my Master’s thesis,” Barry said. “I was eighty percent coffee by weight at the end of it. Thank god I don’t have to pull crazy all-nighters anymore, because even with the speed force I don’t think my body could take it.”
“Tell me about it,” Victor said. “I was in on an academic scholarship, and in varsity football. Four hours a night was a luxury.”
“Cry me a river, boys,” Dinah said, smile sharper than normal, “but you’ll never be more sleep-deprived than when touring with a band that’s broke as sin. No motels – you just take turns sleeping in the back seat of someone’s shitty Honda and hoping the next gig pays you enough that you don’t have to eat another gas station sandwich. Christ, I miss it,” she sighed.
Clark smiled at her wistfulness, and before he could stop himself he was saying, “The lease on my first Metropolis apartment ran out fifteen days before I go the keys to my next place, so I shoved all my stuff in an abandoned storage facility and slept on the moon.”
From the looks he was getting, Clark realized that wasn’t really what the rest of the League was talking about.
Shayera leaned forward and gave him an unimpressed glower. “Don’t you have a base in Antarctica?”
“It was the middle of summer,” Clark said, trying desperately not to pout. “The fortress was only getting a few minutes of sunlight every day.”
“Couldn’t go home for a visit?”
Clark cringed, but admitted, “I’d told my parents I could afford two months’ rent at once so they wouldn’t try to send me money. They’d have known something was up if I’d gone home.”
The table seemed to acknowledge the fairness of this, and Clark was relieved when Hal looked to Shayera and asked, “What’s your record?”
She gave him the most unimpressed stare of the day. “My job on Thanagar was teaching spies how to resist torture. That included sleep deprivation. You don’t want to know my record,” she said.
“But like, recreationally...” Hal trailed off, and Shayera sighed, leaning heavily on the arm of her chair.
“About four days, chasing an arms dealer on the outer reaches of Thanagarian space. My ship’s autopilot was defective and if I slept I would have crashed into an asteroid.”
Hal’s breath hissed through his teeth. “Four days at the stick would suck ass,” he said.
“I didn’t even catch her in the end. Some bounty hunter nabbed her before my ship limped into port,” Shayera said, then looked pointedly over at Diana.
“I have rarely had cause to stay up for so many days,” Diana said. Was it Clark’s imagination, or was she laughing very slightly?
“I call bullshit,” Hal said. “You’ve never pulled an all-nighter to get the museum ready? Never pushed through a few days in a row during an invasion?”
“Surprisingly, no,” she said. “Although, I attended a colleague’s bachelorette party in Ibiza, and I found I didn’t need to sleep for three days after trying cocaine. Otherwise, its effects were rather soothing.”
Hal started spluttering.
“The fuck?” Victor choked out, then started laughing.
Dinah sighed dreamily, and said, “if I wasn’t already married I’d get down on one knee.”
“I am honoured,” Diana said with a smile and an overly dignified nod.
Clark could see the glint in her eye as Hal continued to fumble through his response. The hilarity of the situation started to needle at his skin, and he could feel a hysterical giggle building in the centre of his chest.
“And you, J’onn?” Diana’s voice was still humming with amusement as she turned to the other end of the table. “Is there a Martian equivalent for an ‘all-nighter’?”
“Not as such,” J’onn said. “My physiology requires rest cycles, but they may be done in stages, and do not require multiple hours of unconsciousness to complete. Unless food is scarce, I would not need more than four hours of physical rest per Earth month.”
“Ain’t that the dream,” Barry said, head still pressed to the table.
Hal hummed in agreement and patted Barry on the back. “At least this isn’t the norm.”
Barry just grumbled. “Even in a good week, I’m lucky to get more than six hours a night.”
“Can’t relate,” Hal said, “I just go hard until I’ve got time off, then I sleep for a week or two and I’m back to full.”
“Suppose that’s fine if you don’t want a social life,” Dinah muttered, and only bared her teeth in a smile at Hal’s indignant squawk.
“Where’s Bruce?” Shayera’s question cut through the conversation and made Clark glance down and to the right, peering through layers of steel and exo-polymer to find Batman’s quarters. Bruce was still in his room, phone pressed to his ear and smiling as Tim complained about the most recent Wayne Enterprises board meeting.
“He’s checking in with Gotham,” Clark said. “He’ll be up in a minute.”
A tension that Clark hadn’t noticed seemed to dissipate from the room.
“Hey, Clark, can you take a look at my wrist?”
Clark’s head swivelled and he saw Dinah holding one arm out in the sunbeam between their seats. He nodded, but before he could lean in he felt her hook an ankle around the leg of his chair to pull him closer. The sunbeam fell across the back of his neck and he felt a frown melt off of his face.
“Landed hard on it a few days ago,” Dinah said. “Pretty sure it’s not broken, but could you check it over?”
“Yeah,” Clark breathed, already feeling steadiness return to his bones, “of course.”
He took Dinah’s arm gently in his hands, slowly turning it, scanning through her limb every way he knew how. Every second of sunlight put warmth back into his body. His brain started working faster, his senses expanding just a touch further than normal.
Bruce was coming up the elevator. The thought made Clark smile, even as he traced Dinah’s tendons and ligaments with his eyes, searching for any kind of injury. There wasn’t even a bruise.
Of course there wasn’t. In hindsight, Dinah’s heartbeat had obviously ticked up when she’d asked, the same way it did when she lied.
Clark looked up and gave her a grateful smile. “Everything looks good,” he said.
“That’s a relief,” she said, and squeezed his hand before she leaned back, leaving him sitting in a sunbeam and trying not to melt like a cat. He heard Bruce’s heartbeat as the elevator doors opened at the end of the hall.
“At least we’re better than Bruce,” Hal grumbled, and Clark realized he’d lost the thread of the conversation.
“Gotta be,” said Barry.
“Um,” Clark said, watching Bruce walk silently towards the meeting room. J’onn shifted, catching Clark’s eye across the table. A wave of mischievous amusement washed at the edges of Clark’s consciousness.
So be it, Clark thought. There was only so much saving to be done in one day, and he wasn’t about to move from the warm, glorious sunbeam that Dinah had dragged him into.
“Bet he sleeps one hour every six months or something,” Hal grumbled.
“Upside down like a bat?” Barry asked.
“Oh, obviously. Bruce is nothing but on theme,” Hal said, and Clark watched Bruce pause at the door, crouch, and wait for his moment.
“I was under the impression that humans could not sleep when hung by their ankles,” J’onn said. It was startling enough to hear him weigh in on the ribbing that most of the League turned towards him and, crucially, away from the door. Bruce took the opportunity and darted forward, into the only shadow in the room – directly under the table.
It wasn’t Bruce’s stealthiest move, and in the corner of his eye Clark watched as Shayera and Dinah both smothered smiles. The others, particularly Hal and Barry who had been facing away from the door, seemed completely unaware.
“Doesn’t matter what’s normal for humans,” Hal said to J’onn, and a familiar shadow crept upwards to settle into Bruce’s seat at the head of the table. “At this point, you could tell me Bruce was one of those daywalker vampires and I’d believe you.”
“I didn’t know you were that gullible,” Bruce said.
“Jesus H Christ,” Hal swore and flinched so hard that Clark had to brace the table. It was a testament to Barry’s exhaustion that he only jumped a foot out of his chair instead of the normal three. The rest of the League seemed less affected, or else Shayera and Dinah’s peals of laughter drowned out their surprise.
Bruce pushed off his cowl, took out a grey folder from some obscure fold of his cape, and started arranging his notes as the laughter and swearing died down. As he sorted through the various slips of paper he asked, offhandedly, “why is Jordan theorizing about his colleagues sleep habits?”
Diana, oddly enough, came to Hal’s rescue. “Harmless fun. We were comparing the longest we’d each gone without sleep. Would you like to participate?”
Clark watched as Bruce paused in organizing his papers and then looked up and slightly to the left.
“Two months,” Bruce said after a moment, “but only on a technicality.”
“Dude,” Victor said after a silent moment, “what technicality leads to two months of sleep deprivation?”
“I was caught in a time-loop that started with my first coffee of the day and reset every six hours. It took me two-hundred and forty seven loops to escape and I did not sleep during that time.” Bruce swept his gaze across the table, pausing for a half-beat longer on Clark, before turning back to Diana. “Would that count?”
Diana laughed and nodded. Beside her, Hal leaned over and elbowed Barry in the ribs.
“See,” Hal said with a grin, “Bruce wins the award for worst sleep schedule.”
“That seems like a different question,” Bruce said, going back to sorting through his notes, finally spreading them out in front of him in preparation for their debriefing.
“C’mon spooky,” Hal said, “how much do you sleep? An hour a night?”
Bruce paused in his meticulous organization, complete bafflement crossing over his face, as he stared down Hal.
“Nine,” Bruce said. “Barring an acute crisis in Gotham or a League-wide call, I sleep nine hours.”
Clark watched as the League paused, drew in a breath, and then dissented in unison.
“Bullshit,” Hal said above the others.
Bruce held up his hand and waited for the League to fall silent. When they settled, he looked around the table again and, enunciating every word, said, “Batman was meant to stop muggings and investigate crimes in Gotham. Now,” he tapped the table, then pointed to the windows showing the Watchtower’s view of Earth, “I deal with interplanetary threats, fight a super-villain a week, and have to do so while keeping up with meta-humans, magic users, and aliens. In what universe could I do all of that while battling chronic sleep deprivation?”
An embarrassed silence fell across the table and Clark tried not to laugh.
“But,” Barry said into the quiet, “you work nights?”
Bruce raised one eyebrow at the younger man. “Bats are nocturnal,” he said, and then ducked his head to review his notes (and, if Clark wasn’t mistaken, to hide his smile as Dinah broke out laughing again.)
The debriefing was formulaic, which helped Clark stay on track. He was feeling better than he had been before Dinah pulled him into the light, but that comfort meant that he was never more than a thirty-second silence from falling asleep in the sunbeam. Thankfully for his pride, Bruce wrapped the meeting within a half hour.
When everything concluded, Clark rose, stretched, and was about to head to the zeta tubes when Bruce called his name. The others paused in their slow disbanding, giving Clark the pitying looks normally reserved for children called to the principal’s office. Clark turned towards Bruce, who didn’t wait before heading out of the room, waving a hand to indicate Clark should follow.
As Clark dragged his feet towards the door he passed Hal, who patted him on the shoulder. “Sorry, Big Blue,” he whispered, “we tried to pull focus, but you were nodding off near the end.”
Clark grimaced and dipped his head in thanks before following the sound of Bruce’s heartbeat to the elevator. Bruce was leaning against the wall, holding the override to keep the door open. Clark stepped in, and Bruce punched in the access code for the habitation floor.
“Sorry,” Clark said in the silence of the elevator.
“We’ve talked about this,” Bruce replied.
“I know.”
“Do we need to talk about it again?”
Clark sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “No. I remember, it was just... a hard week.”
“We have plans for the hard weeks,” Bruce said, looking at Clark from the corner of his eye as the elevator door opened. He walked down the hallway towards Clark’s room, tapping in another access code when he got to the door.
Bruce didn’t wait for the door to close before heading through the living area and into the bedroom. Clark only lingered long enough to make sure the door locked before following him.
Sunlight streamed in through the window and across the bed. His breath caught as he watched Bruce systematically unhook his cape, his utility belt, and the closures on his body armour. Piece by piece, the trappings of Batman fell away until all that was left was Bruce, stripping off his compression leggings and climbing into Clark’s bed.
“I love you,” Clark said.
Bruce hummed and sprawled against Clark’s sun-warmed sheets. “And I love you, but that won’t save you from a lecture unless you come over here and get some sleep.”
Clark meant to laugh, but he couldn’t find the energy. With as much efficiency (and as little stumbling) as he could manage, he stripped to his boxers and laid himself down next to his husband. A hand burrowed into Clark’s hair, pulling him closer, encouraging Clark to nestle himself into Bruce’s chest
Sunlight warmed his skin from above, and Bruce’s body warmed him from below, and Clark finally, finally fell asleep.