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[knightbynight]

▶ WHO: Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent
▶ DATE: 7-28 (I think?)
▶ WARNINGS: Only if you need warned for excessive snark.
▶ SUMMARY: Superman meets Batman.



Bruce had done a remarkably thorough job of removing himself from either sense of identity he had, between the lack of money, lack of Gotham and having killed.

It was really the last that he couldn't reconcile. The fact that what he had killed was already dead and in defense of someone who was fully alive was... irrelevant to how he viewed the action. He had become the merciless thing that Ra's had tried to turn him into.

By and large he 'handled' that by not handling it at all. By working harder to be a useful presence here. To find supplies, to work on technology and development of what they needed and by making sure that if he left the compound he left alone.

He was just back from one of those excursions when he saw Superman. He was still wearing his body armor, gauntlets, boots even, but he wasn't bothering with the cowl. The cowl was Batman, and Batman didn't kill. He had, therefore -

Yeah, he was a little mentally fucked.

All his reasoning about identity still applied. Most of the people here who knew Batman didn't know him anyway.

He stopped, tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. "Can you be infected by what is happening here? Do you know?"

He was great at small talk. He also had an idea.

Comments

[borntochoose]

And here Clark had been worried about offending him.

“You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, there's no need for sarcasm.” In his defense, who would take 'ninjas' seriously in that kind of conversation? “But yeah, I think most people weren't really ready for this. Unless there's something like that in their world, which let's be real is really possible.

You want to try go flying again?”

[knightbynight]

"Do you want me to throw up on you?" he asked, voice dripping with sarcasm again. "No, I don't want to fly again. I found what I need in Haven. We can walk there, you can fly back with it, and I'll follow at normal speeds, and on the ground."

It wasn't a huge distance, and he could handle himself that far.

He was also perfectly content to let Clark think he was being a smart ass. Sometimes the best hiding spot for the truth was in open air.

[borntochoose]

Clark wrinkled his nose as an answer. Imagine how nicely puke smells when you have supersenses.

“So what is exactly your idea for a refrigerator? I mean, what are we getting?”

[knightbynight]

Bruce turned on his heel and started walking back toward the wall. He looked over his shoulder toward Clark, as he walked, expression pretty bemused. "A commercial refrigeration unit. Something from a restaurant, or possibly a refrigerated semi."

[borntochoose]

Probably not a situation most people would call amusing, but Clark couldn't help a snort as he hovered behind the man.

"I don't know why I was expecting something more dramatic."

[knightbynight]

"I don't either," he said, tone just a little bit dry. "Maybe because you can't keep your feet on the ground and head out of the clouds." Was that a jab about Clark floating behind him? You bet your pretty red cape, Superman.

[borntochoose]

Clark just floated a little higher and made a point to fly in front of him, turning around so they were still face to face and he was hovering backwards.

"You've got a problem with my hovering? I did offer to fly you. I'm sure you wouldn't... well. Again."

[knightbynight]

"I find it ridiculous. I wouldn't call that a problem." He kept walking, even if he was now walking into Superman's face - or chest. He was just going to assume anyone who could fly in outer space could manage to avoid being smacked into by a human walking at normal speeds. "And I don't know why you'd be sure of that or avoiding the verb."

[borntochoose]

"Because I'm a perpetual optimist. And I was trying to be nice to your dignity." Clark kept flying backwards to avoid a collision, trying to match Bruce's speed.

"I can walk by your side if it bothers you so much." And yet he was still hovering. Yeah, he'd force Bruce to ask if he wanted him down, because... well. Honestly? There wasn't much when it came to distractions in this place. Sue him.

[knightbynight]

"My dignity can withstand any word or group of words you can possibly use to describe throwing up," Bruce said, dryly, because he was fairly certain that it could. He wasn't going to admit to embarrassment over puking, nope, not for anything. "Yours, however, apparently can't handle having your feet on the ground. That's your problem. As long as you're coming with me, I don't care if you handsprings all the way."

[borntochoose]

Clark did lower his feet on the ground, making a point of staying like that a few seconds if only to make sure Bruce could see.

And then, without adding another world, he simply started doing handsprings next to the other man, with a very smug grin on his face.

[knightbynight]

Bruce's steps faltered for a moment from sheer disbelief. Then he had to resist the urge to laugh out loud. He didn't laugh here, dammit. He barely laughed anywhere. Not going to do it now, no matter how ridiculous.

"Right. My mistake. You don't have dignity."

[borntochoose]

He landed in front of him with a very 'ta-da' kind of attitude and a shiteating grin. It was... fun, to let himself just be a jerk for the hell of it. He didn't have many opportunities for that back home. But in here Superman wasn't an identity he had to keep to guide humanity like both his fathers had wanted him to. Superman was just... him, and he could just be himself.

"I'm not the one puking around, am I?"

[knightbynight]

"You aren't the one being taken for rollercoaster rides after dinner, either." He paused and frowned at Superman as a question occurred to him, "Do you even eat?"

He wasn't sure if he was having fun or he wanted to punch this guy's lights out, yet. Time would tell, but for now it was pretty firmly some of both. Wanting to punch him was kind of fun.

Bruce was an odd man.

[borntochoose]

Now that he'd been a jerk Clark was happy to simply walk besides Bruce, hands on his back.

"I do. I don't have to, not often, but I like the normalcy of it. I'm trying not to eat much in here though, just in case we run our of food for people who actually need it."

[knightbynight]

The ease with which Bruce transitioned from snarky remarks to conversational should probably be worrying, but since Superman had made a very similar transition he wasn't too fussed.

"We need to think about planting food. Livestock won't work but we should be able to arrange some sort of sustainable project. Scavenging isn't a long term solution." But crops weren't a short term one. "Something has to fuel you. If it isn't food, what is it?"

[borntochoose]

Clark didn't even notice the transition. He could go from teasing to serious in a second, just like he could get angry enough to trash a man's truck in just a couple seconds. He was an emotional man.

"No offense, but the government is always asking that kind of things from me to find out ways to keep me under their control. So I'd rather not show all my cards right away. Does that make sense?"

[knightbynight]

"Sure," he agreed, with what might seem a surprising amount of ease. For a moment or two. He even paused to get outside the gates, though he did so by going over the wall again, just for the safety of others inside. "You also just told me that wherever you're from, you're known to the government and they have a problem with you and that whatever you use for energy is something that can be taken away from you."

Just in case Clark had missed that. Not that Bruce was making it a threat, he was just making it Clark that Clark wasn't being opaque. Then again, he clearly didn't intend to be or he would have lied.

[borntochoose]

"Nope." He grinned as he followed Bruce outside. He didn't even hover this time, actually following the man's steps.

"I told you they are trying to find out if it can be taken away from me. But you're good at reading between the lines."

[knightbynight]

"That may be what they're figuring out, but you wouldn't worry about it if you didn't believe it was possible." He scanned the landscape and then chose his direction and started moving, more on edge now by a bit bit not really altering his path or lowering his voice to try and skulk. "And thank you, I've made it something of a hobby over the years. I use it to compensate for a lack of sonar."

That? Was a fucking joke. Just a horrible one.

[borntochoose]

"I bet you'd try to hide yourself on principle too if the government kept a permanent eye on you."

And yet he wasn't denying it. Even if he had been completely invulnerable (and honestly, so far he thought he was unless Kryptonian atmosphere was replicated) it made people worry less about him if they thought they would eventually find something, some way to put a collar around him.

"Also that's the first joke I've heard you crack. Congratulations."

[knightbynight]

"I left my mask in my trunk," he said, dryly and much in the same tone he'd cracked the joke and had said he was trained by ninjas. "It limits my field of vision. Problem when there are zombies shuffling about looking for brains."

Brains? Well, that was a bit tropey but look who he was talking to.

"That isn't the first joke I've cracked. That's the first joke you've gotten."

[borntochoose]

"What, you mean I get the special pokerface and snarky edition of you while you joke around with everyone else?"

It was very clear he was teasing, even if he wasn't sure why he was doing it. It was like there were... joking cracks that showed in Bruce and he wanted to see all of them. Bring him out of his shell.

[knightbynight]

"No," Bruce explained, patiently. "It's just that everyone else is smart enough to know when I'm joking." His look, he deliberately exaggerated to convey (he hoped) that he was joking now.

No one got his sense of humor. It was rare that anyone ever realized he was cracking a joke when he was. Clark was ahead of the game on that, even if Bruce was insulting him in the process.

And just in case, he backed off a teeny, tiny bit.

"Everyone might be a stretch." Of how many people could even tell when he was joking. Which was always snarky. and usually pokerfaced.

[borntochoose]

Clark looked terribly amused, so it was easy to tell he had indeed taken it as a joke. He wasn't sure what was going on, he didn't usually just click with people like this so he didn't know how to take it. So far he was just rolling with it.

"Yeah, you must be a riot at parties. When you actually deem them worthy of your time." He had to catch himself before he went hovering again as he followed him.