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bruce wayne

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▶ 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.

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Cue Clark looking at him with a completely confused and incredulous face.

"I didn't hear anything. How could you-" And yet, now that he knew what to look for, there it was. He was so used to tunning most sounds out he was out of practice when he actually needed the focus. And the pseudo-Zombies were surprisingly stealthy. "I am ready. You're a box full of surprises aren't you?"

Bruce cracked a grin at the look on Superman's face. "I told you: Ninjas trained me."

Someday, Clark was going to believe that. Okay, probably not. Ninjas was an absolutely ridiculous descriptor. Still.

The grin faded and he looked slightly over his shoulder. "Can you get us high enough to get us out of their range?" He didn't want to kill again. Even if what was coming for them was technically already dead. He'd done it once, pushed to the limit. If he didn't have to do it again....

It would be better.

He hated flying and being carried but. Not today.

Clark didn't wait for Bruce to elaborate, he simply grabbed him under his arms and took off at the safest speed possible. Mostly because he didn't want to give the man a chance to reconsider.

"You're trained by ninjas but you don't know how to deal with these creatures?"

Bruce still hated being swept off his feet (literally) and the lack of control of being flown through the air, but. It was better than the alternative and at least the speed was reduced enough that he thought his stomach contents would stay where they belonged.

"I know how to deal with them just fine," he snapped. "But those creatures used to be people, and evasion is more difficult in the open."

Clark took a second to process that, then he nodded to himself. That was the same reason he'd tried to avoid killing them himself, even when people gave him the weirdest looks. The zombie isn't in a rush to go anywhere so Clark just keeps on holding the man, hoping he'll warn him with enough time if he has to puke again.

"They follow loud noises, I think. If we could find something to make a loud noise elsewhere they might leave us alone."

"If you can manage to hold me in a way that doesn't restrict my ability to reach my belt, I can handle it." Under his arms was well and good but it was taking up some of his reach and making it really uncomfortable for him to reach down and get something open. "Try an arm around my waist. Pretend like we're dancing." Only, you know, backward. Dirty dancing? In the air? The hell ever.

Clark snorted, a pretty undignified sound as he tried to muffle down a fit of laughter. He still did as he was told, if only because he wanted to see what was in that belt of his. Soon he was holding him by his waist with both arms, doing his best not to... squish him, he guessed.

"Are you going to throw ninja weapons at them? Because I want to see that."

At least the guy was clearly demonstrating he had a sense of humor and wasn't just a ball of overpowered snark. Bruce appreciated that more than someone who was a ball of over-trained snark should.

He had to wriggle a bit, made Clark adjust his grip a little, and muttered, "You don't dance much, do you," in a grumpy voice. Then got to the belt, pulled out a little round explosive and flung it away from them and toward the ground.

Where it detonated with a loud bang and cloud of smoke.

"The girl I liked said no to going to prom dance, so not really."

The smoke didn't really bother him so he simply squinted to take a look at the creatures. They didn't seem to be breathing but the smoke bothered them anyway. "Nice trick though, very ninja. Do you have something... loud?"

It wasn't the smoke that was the point so much as the bang, which at least distracted them. Or so Bruce had hoped.

"Loud and sustained." He considered the question and then - "Maybe." He wasn't exactly prone to making loud noises and drawing attention to himself, but with a little bit of work he managed to come up with something.

Which amounted to the parts from a security alarm he hadn't done much with but had intended to. Fishing them out and getting them activated wasn't overly hard, but he stopped short of the throw. "You have better range. You toss it."

Clark nodded and simply grabbed the alarm. He looked slightly... disappointed but in his defense he'd been expecting some ninja device. He really didn't believe the ninja thing but he could tell the man would do anything in his possession to prove it.

"Well, there goes nothing." And off went the alarm, while shifting to hold Bruce with just an arm.

Bruce moved to effectively stand on Clark's feet, just because there was no way he was going to tolerate effectively dangling by one arm. It wasn't comfortable, and it wasn't controlled enough for his tastes. So he did something about it.

He watched the alarm fly off into the distance and waited until he saw the shuffling forms move after it, though his eyesight being human meant he didn't exactly have a clear view.

"Flash bang grenades."

Were what he needed to manufacture.

Clark was about to make a quip about stepping on his toes while dancing, but the affirmation made him stop and actually give it a thought.

"We could try that. But I think something that distracts them for longer would work better. Like an alarm clock we could throw the other direction."

"There are applications for that, but those applications are limited. An alarm will need an energy source, unless we can find a lot of mechanical alarm clocks, and then the duration will still be limited to roughly a minute. Also, the longer the noise continues the more zombies are attracted to the location. I'd use it if I wanted to set a trap, but I'm not sure how necessary it is for a distraction to allow escape."

He paused and frowned and kept thinking. "To allow me to escape. Something with greater duration might be useful for others. Still limited, though, I think. Long enough, but not so long that it's a power drain. Maybe something that would move away the entire time it's in use?"

Yeah, Clark was getting stream of consciousness. Sorry.

Clark didn't seem to mind at all. He was actually looking pretty excited at the prospect.

“Yeah! Like attaching an alarm to something, but I'm not sure what you could use to get something moving for long enough to make a difference. And you'd have to make sure it'd keep on moving for as long as the alarm worked or you'd just be setting up the trap somewhere else.

Can I put you down now?”

"Yes. You could have put me down five minutes ago." Which was an exaggeration. "I didn't realize you were waiting on permission." Or an order. Also, that was to cover him being embarrassed. Embarrassment made him snarky. ...Snarkier.

"Drone. Remote controlled toy, something that could be fired, even, would work well enough in creating distance, though it would be best if it could keep moving. Something light with wings, perhaps."

Yep, still going on.

"Well, I don't dance often. Might as well make it count."

He also dropped him from higher above than necessary, letting him fall after making sure he wouldn't hurt himself. Hah.

"Do you still want to go get that or go back to the compound and write this down before you forget?" He said 'you', because it seemed fairer than 'we'.

Bruce stuck the landing in spite of the state of his knees. He'd certainly managed from higher and breaking his ankles from that height wasn't likely, anyway.

"I don't forget things." Ever. Ever, ever ever. "We need to go get that freezer. We can work on the other project once we have our cooling unit."

"Sure."

So Clark was gone, and back again in a matter of seconds. "Found one. No idea if it's broken beyond repair. Want me to guide you there?"

He almost made a sarcastic remark, then remembered the handsprings. Then shrugged, and answered directly. "Yes. I'll take a look at it and decide if we have the means of fixing it. If we can, you can carry it back. If we don't, we can keep looking."

He paused. "Also, stop disappearing like that. It's disconcerting."

Clark rolled his eyes, didn't even bother trying to stop himself. He motioned for Bruce to follow him.

"So it's not just flying that makes you nervous, is it? It's my powers in general."

"I don't care that you can fly, I don't want to be hauled around like a sack of potatoes while you did it. The random disappearances without warning and taking over wholesale is just rude."

Yes. It all made him nervous. It all made him extremely nervous and as a result somewhat hostile - albeit inconsistently.

"Have you ever had to use an ATM machine before? And had someone old or simply bad with machines in front of you?"

"Yes, and somehow I manage not to shove them out of the way and take over and do it for them. Because that would be creepy, patronizing, threatening, and probably considered assault."

He was cranky. He wasn't even sure that was where Clark was going with it. Also: "I'm not bad with machine or incompetent. I'm human."

"I know, I know." He wasn't surprised he had gotten his meaning so fast, he was a smart man.

"I'm just saying that's how it feels for me every second of my life. So I get a little excited when it's something I can actually help with and do for people."

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