Warnings for: grieving; wordiness; Greek metaphors; trying to capture a several millennia-old warrior’s interiority; seriously, do you like the Illiad and the Aeneid? I crib from them like it’s going out of style; porn with plot and feels; unrequited Bruce/Clark feels sprinkled in per nonny's request.
Because this is my weird AU of events, I'm going to pretend that identity porn could still happen: neither Bruce nor Diana knows Superman's identity, and Clark didn't know Batman's. (For all the good it will do him. Godspeed, little doodle.)
-------------
The hero's aim was true. The kryptonite spear sunk into the abomination's chest.
It roared and reared back, scrabbing weakly to break the kryptonian's death-hold. The plan, however, held: the gas from Batman's launcher weakened it, Diana's lasso restrained it, the spear pierced it. Red energy spewed from the creature's maw.
The ground around them groaned, and the kryptonian redoubled his intense grip. Chance and skill had given them this opportunity to kill the unkillable creature. The distance sounds of the city fell into a mute hush, as if it waited to see whom would gore the other. Diana thought of Aeneas and Turnus, shields locked in bloody strife by the banks of the Tiber, when Zeus himself had held the scales of battle to see whom effort doomed and with whose weight death sank down.
Something prickled at the back of her neck.
(It's killing him too, she thought faintly.)
But the thought slid from her mind before she could attach any meaning to it. Their current plan was a patchwork of anticipation and split-second timing on the battlefield. For her to call out to the kryptonian to drop the spear would be madness; they had no clear command, no accord between them but the need to destroy the creature. Locked into a tableau of struggle that would have made the muralists on Paradise Island faintly giddy at the play of light and form, the kryptonian held on to the spear.
Pride swelled in Diana's heart. She had killed threats from other worlds before; she and her sisters had slain beasts from Almerac; she had subdued Osira, who had thought to control the minds of this planet; this... plaything of man would be no different--it had been so long since she had fought by heroes that rivaled the gods--
And then the unthinkable. The unbreakable lasso--the lasso that Hephaestus forged strong enough to contain the power of Ares himself--wrenched from her hands.
She fell to her knees as she grabbed for the end. Another vicious yank, and it moved entirely beyond her reach. Her body faltered, and she collapsed into the detritus of the destroyed city block.
The monster shook free.
(She didn't see the arm-spikes scythe into weakened flesh. She didn't see, she didn't see...)
Green energy battered the air. She could feel the raw, twisting wrong as the kryptonite combined with the creature's natural power. Green lightning crackled across her skin.
In a flash of sulphurous rage, alien knowledge from a dead world sunk into her skin. Diana gritted her teeth, and hunkered under the shelter of her bracelets. She knew even the slightest give now, and she could be lost to an invading presence--
Scenes played out in her mind in disjointed skips. A creature gestated at the height of an empire's expansion, its mission attuned across time and space: protect life. The right kind of life. Destroy the impurity that taints civilization. A mission that she could accept. Man's World was so endlessly corrupt. Hadn't she seen that in the century of war that she had beheld? Hadn't that been why she stepped away from Man's World, became nothing more than a kyrios to an empty household? Wouldn't a mission, a purpose fill another century with something other than loneliness? The cleansing would be undeniably hers, hers, hers...
The temptation to yield to the invading desire pierced her like another lightning clap, as the emptiness of the years wandering Man's World cascaded on her like a choking deluge.
(The lasso, she thought dimly...)
She sought blindly for the lasso, scrabbling through the dirt, a prayer to her mother, Hestia, any god who would listen. Her fingers met the silky texture of the rope in the sliver of space between her and a sickening drop, and she wrapped her hand around it tightly, the touch of its truth a surety that spread deep into her bones, and shone through her body. The green energy screamed as it was drowned in incandescent light.
The alien desire receded from her mind like the foam on a breaking wave.
She was Diana of Themiscyra, the Truth-Bringer. She who stands, until it breaks her.
She caught the lasso in her hand and stood as the last energy wave dissipated in the dark sky. Clouds kicked up from the smoldering ruin, and she saw movement on the edge of her vision. Her allies emerging from their own shelters. The Dark Knight, and...
It was done. The monster was dead.
But so was Kal-El of Krypton.
* (W) *
The Dark Knight of Gotham eased the body into her arms. Ash settled on his hair like a halo. She laid him down on the uneven ground as gently as she could--but even her body had limits, and the kryptonian’s superdense body strained her endurance. If he landed heavily, no one reproached her for it.
Bruce leaned over, and… his fingers curled away from Kal-El’s hair, as though he’d meant to comb his fingers through it, but couldn’t.
Lois bent over the body, weeping. Diana turned away from that raw expression of grief.
It would never be long enough to forget the sharp echo that rose in Diana’s chest.
* (W) *
Diana had words for the dead, but they were not hers to say. Kal-El was not her brother-in-arms; he was not even of this world. She had not known if he had any other people than Lois, and could not mourn him as she surely did now, miles away from this public spectacle.
She lingered at the edge of the military procession through Metropolis, not particularly impressed by the hero’s funeral that they now bestowed on the Superman, as they polished up his hagiography, when fresh-turned soil had not yet been laid on his casket.
As the procession passed her, she whispered a prayer to the gods of the underworld (that those who remained, and who had replaced the old gods who had faded) to carry his soul lightly, and to embrace him as he had not been embraced in this life.
The honor guard congested the road for ten minutes; men and women of all branches of military and civil authority marching together.
A stifled sob at her elbow caught Diana’s attention, and she politely turned away from the woman beside her (she had been taught that acknowledging another’s pain in this century had cultural nuance that she did not fully understand). The feeling of grief pressed on her. And then--Diana caught a face in the press of people across the promenade. Unlike the expressions on other mourners’ faces, it was carefully neutral, mouth drawn tense. The lines of his face were hard as stone; statues on Themyscira had more animation than his blank indifference. Someone jostled her side, and gave her a quick “hey--sorry--need to tweet this--” and the face disappeared, camouflaged in the crowd.
That was the last she saw of Bruce Wayne for half a year.
FILL: Votive Garments (1/???) -- Bruce/Diana - bondage and pegging
Because this is my weird AU of events, I'm going to pretend that identity porn could still happen: neither Bruce nor Diana knows Superman's identity, and Clark didn't know Batman's. (For all the good it will do him. Godspeed, little doodle.)
-------------
The hero's aim was true. The kryptonite spear sunk into the abomination's chest.
It roared and reared back, scrabbing weakly to break the kryptonian's death-hold. The plan, however, held: the gas from Batman's launcher weakened it, Diana's lasso restrained it, the spear pierced it. Red energy spewed from the creature's maw.
The ground around them groaned, and the kryptonian redoubled his intense grip. Chance and skill had given them this opportunity to kill the unkillable creature. The distance sounds of the city fell into a mute hush, as if it waited to see whom would gore the other. Diana thought of Aeneas and Turnus, shields locked in bloody strife by the banks of the Tiber, when Zeus himself had held the scales of battle to see whom effort doomed and with whose weight death sank down.
Something prickled at the back of her neck.
(It's killing him too, she thought faintly.)
But the thought slid from her mind before she could attach any meaning to it. Their current plan was a patchwork of anticipation and split-second timing on the battlefield. For her to call out to the kryptonian to drop the spear would be madness; they had no clear command, no accord between them but the need to destroy the creature. Locked into a tableau of struggle that would have made the muralists on Paradise Island faintly giddy at the play of light and form, the kryptonian held on to the spear.
Pride swelled in Diana's heart. She had killed threats from other worlds before; she and her sisters had slain beasts from Almerac; she had subdued Osira, who had thought to control the minds of this planet; this... plaything of man would be no different--it had been so long since she had fought by heroes that rivaled the gods--
And then the unthinkable. The unbreakable lasso--the lasso that Hephaestus forged strong enough to contain the power of Ares himself--wrenched from her hands.
She fell to her knees as she grabbed for the end. Another vicious yank, and it moved entirely beyond her reach. Her body faltered, and she collapsed into the detritus of the destroyed city block.
The monster shook free.
(She didn't see the arm-spikes scythe into weakened flesh. She didn't see, she didn't see...)
Green energy battered the air. She could feel the raw, twisting wrong as the kryptonite combined with the creature's natural power. Green lightning crackled across her skin.
In a flash of sulphurous rage, alien knowledge from a dead world sunk into her skin. Diana gritted her teeth, and hunkered under the shelter of her bracelets. She knew even the slightest give now, and she could be lost to an invading presence--
Scenes played out in her mind in disjointed skips. A creature gestated at the height of an empire's expansion, its mission attuned across time and space: protect life. The right kind of life. Destroy the impurity that taints civilization. A mission that she could accept. Man's World was so endlessly corrupt. Hadn't she seen that in the century of war that she had beheld? Hadn't that been why she stepped away from Man's World, became nothing more than a kyrios to an empty household? Wouldn't a mission, a purpose fill another century with something other than loneliness? The cleansing would be undeniably hers, hers, hers...
The temptation to yield to the invading desire pierced her like another lightning clap, as the emptiness of the years wandering Man's World cascaded on her like a choking deluge.
(The lasso, she thought dimly...)
She sought blindly for the lasso, scrabbling through the dirt, a prayer to her mother, Hestia, any god who would listen. Her fingers met the silky texture of the rope in the sliver of space between her and a sickening drop, and she wrapped her hand around it tightly, the touch of its truth a surety that spread deep into her bones, and shone through her body. The green energy screamed as it was drowned in incandescent light.
The alien desire receded from her mind like the foam on a breaking wave.
She was Diana of Themiscyra, the Truth-Bringer. She who stands, until it breaks her.
She caught the lasso in her hand and stood as the last energy wave dissipated in the dark sky. Clouds kicked up from the smoldering ruin, and she saw movement on the edge of her vision. Her allies emerging from their own shelters. The Dark Knight, and...
It was done. The monster was dead.
But so was Kal-El of Krypton.
* (W) *
The Dark Knight of Gotham eased the body into her arms. Ash settled on his hair like a halo. She laid him down on the uneven ground as gently as she could--but even her body had limits, and the kryptonian’s superdense body strained her endurance. If he landed heavily, no one reproached her for it.
Bruce leaned over, and… his fingers curled away from Kal-El’s hair, as though he’d meant to comb his fingers through it, but couldn’t.
Lois bent over the body, weeping. Diana turned away from that raw expression of grief.
It would never be long enough to forget the sharp echo that rose in Diana’s chest.
* (W) *
Diana had words for the dead, but they were not hers to say. Kal-El was not her brother-in-arms; he was not even of this world. She had not known if he had any other people than Lois, and could not mourn him as she surely did now, miles away from this public spectacle.
She lingered at the edge of the military procession through Metropolis, not particularly impressed by the hero’s funeral that they now bestowed on the Superman, as they polished up his hagiography, when fresh-turned soil had not yet been laid on his casket.
As the procession passed her, she whispered a prayer to the gods of the underworld (that those who remained, and who had replaced the old gods who had faded) to carry his soul lightly, and to embrace him as he had not been embraced in this life.
The honor guard congested the road for ten minutes; men and women of all branches of military and civil authority marching together.
A stifled sob at her elbow caught Diana’s attention, and she politely turned away from the woman beside her (she had been taught that acknowledging another’s pain in this century had cultural nuance that she did not fully understand). The feeling of grief pressed on her. And then--Diana caught a face in the press of people across the promenade. Unlike the expressions on other mourners’ faces, it was carefully neutral, mouth drawn tense. The lines of his face were hard as stone; statues on Themyscira had more animation than his blank indifference. Someone jostled her side, and gave her a quick “hey--sorry--need to tweet this--” and the face disappeared, camouflaged in the crowd.
That was the last she saw of Bruce Wayne for half a year.