Friendship and Other Hazards of Heroism

A/N: Genfic for Valentine's Day! This site's fandom organization doesn't work well for DC at all; I had to mark it a crossover just so I could tag Bruce and Clark at the same time. I guess it's not wrong...

Batman practiced breathing. His eyes were closed, because as long as he didn't open them he didn't have to risk their sending him false information. The Batmobile was a rolling fortress, currently stationary; he could afford to have his eyes closed. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this physically weak without a major injury to blame it on—wait, yes he could. Malaria, when he was seventeen. He was lucky the doctor who'd treated him hadn't spoken English, because he could vaguely recall crying out for his mother, father, and Alfred.

Mostly Alfred.

Breathing was not actually difficult, unlike during the malaria, but it was helpful to focus on it. Meditative breathing would get him through, until he could walk without the planet rising up and trying to shake him off, or distracting starbursts of light blinding him. As hallucinations went, they were minor, but they were still a problem.

He heard the chime of his dash comm and hit the activation button reflexively, before he realized what a truly poor choice that was at present. "This is Bat Wayne," he said. "I mean, Bruce Man. No. Shit." If the treacherous device hadn't been part of the car he would probably have gotten up and thrown it in the bay. Despite the fact that that would do the opposite of help.

"Uhm," said the voice of his caller, and Bruce could have cried with relief to recognize Clark's voice, which meant the consequences of this would be nothing worse than a little teasing. (And the possibility of crying was not entirely a figure of speech. Damn it.) "Exactly how bad is this concussion? You aren't driving, are you?"

Bruce huffed out a sigh and rested his forehead against the steering column again. "No concussion. Got injected with eight ampules of—stuff. It glowed. And no, I'm not." He wasn't an idiot. He was parked on a bluff a few hundred feet from the cave full of unconscious smugglers. Hopefully they would still be there when he was done waiting the stuff out.

"I'm on my way," said the speaker in the dash, and Bruce huffed again, this time in irritation. Superman huffed right back. "If you can tell me Alfred's already sorting everything out, maybe I'll reconsider."

Bruce said nothing.

"You haven't even called him, have you?"

"It's his night off," Bruce grumbled. Alfred was entitled to one every week, technically, but he hardly ever actually took them. Interrupting the man with a crisis tonight was the last thing he wanted. He could manage alone. "They had ties to Crane. Last time I had a serious fear-gas reaction I dislocated his jaw." He winced when he realized he'd said that part out loud.

"I know how that feels," Clark said, after a few seconds.

Bruce had to allow that he probably did. Worse, even. Clark had a lot more strength to be wary of. "Why were you calling in the first place?"

"I wanted to ask if you knew which federal agency would be most interested in a boat full of human traffickers. I just tied them all up and left it by the nearest Coast Guard post. They'll figure it out." A shrug in his voice, and Batman snorted.

"In the actual water. How considerate of you."

"Hey, I've gotten better!" He had. It had been years since the days when the flying hero had on a regular basis carelessly stuck a variety of vehicles in places where they were not wanted and difficult to remove, posing more challenge to public servants than criminals. "I'm in Gotham. Where are you?"

Bruce gritted his teeth. If he answered that, he was agreeing to be helped. He was practically asking for help. If Superman was so determined to inflict his company on Batman, he could do the legwork himself.

It wasn't like it would be hard for a man with hundreds of miles' range on his X-ray vision.

"…you're by the water," said the voice from the dashboard thoughtfully. Listening to the background noise over the comm. Bruce should shut it off.

"Go away," he said.

"Call someone else for backup and I will."

Bruce gritted his teeth again.

Superman let dead air hang for a few seconds—he had to have located Batman by now; he wasn't exactly hidden even to normal vision, and the Batmobile was distinctive. "Where's Robin?"

"With the Titans."

He was usually with the Titans, these days. Bruce was getting fed up with swinging between the stinging fury of yet another pointless fight and the itching loneliness of encroaching empty-nest syndrome. Part of him thought he should call Dick tonight, while he had an excuse for saying I miss you.

He was fairly sure drunk-dialing your ward, even under the influence of involuntarily injected glowing drugs, was not part of responsible parenting. Of course, neither was teaching him to pick locks or choke a man unconscious or lie with a smile on his face, or nearly getting him killed a hundred times before he turned eighteen.

Ugh. He was fairly sure he hadn't been a maudlin drunk last time he'd let his faculties be compromised. Must be something in the green stuff.

A tap on the windshield, and he didn't even tense up, let alone bother to lift his head. "You are an interfering busybody and I hate you," he told the steering column.

"It's always nice to be appreciated. Now come on out and let me get you home."

Bruce neither complied nor replied. He was, if he was honest, reduced to sulking.

The tapping moved to the driver's-side window. "Bruce. Bruce. Bruce-man, come in. Do you read."

"Shut up."

"I could just pick up the whole car with you still inside, you realize."

Of course he was aware of that, but the threat still took him by surprise and his head lifted sharply, giving him a look at Superman hanging outside his window, smiling. Amused at his expense—and clearly X-ray-vision-ing through the polarized glass—but not nearly as intrusive as he'd been trying to sound. For once.

Bruce let his breath out, sharing some of the amusement, and let his posture sag a little. "Please don't pick up my car."

Clark grinned. "I promise not to break it or put it down in the water."

"Don't pick up my car." He should have known. Saying please was a sign of weakness.

"Sorry." Clark really did sound sorry. "Look, budge over then and I'll drive. I can drive!" he added, apparently reading disparagement of his vehicular skill into Bruce's silence. "Look, you can't stay here all night."

"Wasn't planning on it. There are drug smugglers in the cave to take into custody."

Superman peered in that direction for a second. "I see," he said, having presumably glanced through the stone. Oh, good, they were still there. He'd been slightly afraid he'd hallucinated tying them up. "Look, if I promise to drop them off at the GCPD—without being seen—will you let me drive you home? You don't know how long this will take to wear off or what the side effects might be. A bed and medical equipment on hand is just common sense."

If he let Superman drive him home and fuss over him, Alfred was going to find out he'd been compromised and refused to call for help.

Clark was approximately as subtle as a battering ram; the only reason his coworkers hadn't all figured out his identity was the sheer improbability of either Superman or Clark being a compulsive liar.

However, he'd been up on this bluff for an hour and only recovered slightly from the crash that had hit when the drug reached peak metabolization. Since he was improving, he felt he could confidently state that the crisis point was past; he had not been given a life-threatening overdose and would be fine, but still. He wasn't going to sweat this out and be fine before morning. Alfred was going to find out.

He'd be less upset about it if Bruce let Clark help him. Maybe he'd actually take another night off some time this decade.

It was humiliating, though. He couldn't go one night without needing help?

"Everybody needs help, sometimes."

For a second he thought Clark had added mind-reading to his already ridiculous power set, but then he realized he'd been complaining out loud. Ugh.

"I'd say it's part of being human, but that would sound pretty damn condescending coming from me. Come on. We both know you've gotten through plenty of nights without needing help, but it was always there if you did, anyway. And it should be. You think I don't count on having Lois to sniff out evil plots I overlook, or you to swoop in with a clever plan when I run out of solutions, or Diana to smack me down if I get mind-controlled again?"

Hey. "Can smack you down," he grumbled. His hand hovered toward the sealed lead-lined pouch on his belt, but this really wasn't the time for a demonstration. He pulled the door-seal lever instead, and breathed in the salt smell of sea air and stone and, faintly, Kryptonian (which was not as different as it should be from human) without looking up.

"I know you can," Clark said, his voice no longer flattened by machinery or metal. "But for now, let's get you home."

Bruce allowed himself to be maneuvered sideways into Robin's old seat, but brushed Clark's hands away when he made to fasten the safety harness. He was neither an infant nor completely incapacitated, he could do that himself. Clark snapped his own safety restraints across his chest—Bruce was unsure whether that was a habit of pretending he needed it, a habit of setting a good example, or concern for what it would do to the car if a crash sent him through the windshield—took a few seconds to identify the important controls, and got the vehicle into motion.

Superman drove with a delicate touch on the accelerator, and eased onto the brakes well ahead of every stop he saw coming. Batman wondered whether this was out of concern for his unwell passenger, or if this was how he always treated automobiles—large, fragile, and barely under his control. The latter seemed likely.

He blinked hard, refusing to fall asleep and no doubt be carried out of the car like a small child. Clark slowed down approaching a yellow light and sat there for nearly two seconds before it turned red, and Bruce slanted a judgmental look at him.

Clark, of course, was entirely unrepentant. "Ma's going to be so jealous when I tell her I got to drive the Batmobile."

Superman was, of course, the only person who'd ever driven it without any sign of temptation to gun the engine. "Your mother has strange ambitions," was all he said. It came out sort of fuzzy.

"My mother lives a life of adventure vicariously through the entire Justice League. Let her have her fun."

"Wouldn't dream of stopping her." Bruce had the very strong suspicion that if he ever let Alfred and Martha Kent meet, an unholy alliance would emerge and probably take over the League from within via pastries, or something. He blinked at the road. "Turn here," he said, and Clark swerved belatedly to the left.

"You could have called me," Superman said quietly, as the Batmobile trundled comfortably up the back road.

"I know."

Clark, he knew, would never understand what it meant, to be only a man, standing equal among titans. To have to maintain a reputation for being unstoppable and inescapable without any power to back it but wealth and ingenuity. He did not understand how little Bruce could allow himself to bend, to depend, because it had been years since it had so much as occurred to the Man of Steel that they might not be equals.

Batman could not risk that ever changing.

But…just tonight…to let Alfred have his free night, and maybe keep him from regretting the indulgence afterward…. "I'm glad you called," he said. Which was all the thanks Clark was getting, and he probably knew it. But he smiled, like that was just as good as saying it directly.

"Another left up here," Bruce added, briskly, making sure to mind his enunciation and not slur anything. "Yes, through the cliff face. No, I am not hallucinating."

Clark continued to look dubious, and took the Batmobile through the concealed entrance at a fraction of the usual speed. "Look at that, you're not." A minute of silence, and then as they emerged from the tunnel into the Cave, "So I just park here?"

"Hmm," Bruce agreed.

By the time he unfastened his seatbelt again, Superman had dashed off and found a set of pajamas—hopefully ones Alfred had stashed in the medical bay; he didn't need Kryptonians digging through his dresser drawers. "If you can change into these, I can heat up some soup? I'm sure there's some upstairs, or I have a carton at home that Ma made."

Bruce found he had accepted the pajamas, and dropped them across his knees with an exasperated sigh. "Stop hovering." Clark's boots met the floor with chagrin, and Bruce sighed again. "Not that kind. I am not actually ill. I do not require…soup. I need to start testing this sample to find out what I've been injected with."

"Are you sure? Shouldn't you rest? Or at least get more comfortable?"

"Pajamas would not make me more comfortable." Seeing Clark make a strange expression, like he was comprehending that taking off his armor wasn't something he wanted to do while compromised—which, not untrue, but—he added, "It's cold down here." Setting the pajamas aside, he very carefully stood up and demonstrated his ability to walk all the way to the forensic chemistry station without falling.

"Okay. I'll go get something hot to eat anyway," Superman said, and Bruce shrugged his assent as he extracted from his belt the sample, one half-full ampule he'd acquired after fighting his way free. He was even less hungry than usual, but calories and hydration would probably help his body process the injection.

"Oh, and Bruce?" Clark waited until he glanced over. "Thanks for letting me help you."

Unable to come up with an even faintly gracious reply that wasn't more thanks, and somewhat baffled at being thanked for that, Bruce stared. Clark shrugged a little. "It's nice, sometimes. To be able to help in ways that don't depend on being Superman."

Ah. "You're welcome," Bruce decided upon, and bent over his spectrometer.

Clark laughed.

A/N: Because I love Superman and Batman having EPIC DOOFY FRIENDSHIP, and the bulk of comics canon since 1989 can go whistle. And because I really wanted to see that joke happen with a more serious version of the character.

Clark putting heavy things down in places nobody wanted them was a constant occurrence in the Silver Age. ^^ Review?