Okay, so I'm going to go ahead and take the hint my subconscious has clearly been trying to give me, and update this every OTHER day, instead of every day. /o\ If nothing else, though, I can assure you that the parts are going to keep being long!

Not sure how much the world-weariness bit of the prompt is coming through here, oops. But I should be able to dwell on it somewhat more lovingly once we swap back to Bruce's POV? Also, I don't actually know much of anything about the legal issues involved, but apparently it can be pretty difficult to get yourself undeclared dead, depending on the jurisdiction—just google the Uttar Pradesh Association of Dead People.




Things get easier. Clark's starting to think Mom felt quiet and tired to him at first just because—just because that's what it had been like for her while Clark was dead. She is the same in all the ways that matter: her smiles stop being so thin and bright, and she keeps on hugging him every morning but slowly eases up, doesn't hang on so long after. A week, and she starts humming sometimes—two more, and she's singing while she gardens again, absent easy Ramones drifting up from the corner by the back porch where she's decided to put in some hostas. She's starting to believe he's not going anywhere.

The neighbors come by, and it's as good a test for his cover story as anything; Clark practices talking about his head injury, a few vague words about what it was like to have amnesia. (It's not that hard: he practically does have it, with those six months he can't remember hanging over him.) He calls Lois almost every day, and it's bad at first, difficult—she doesn't know what to say to him, what to ask him, and every time he opens his mouth he's struggling not to let, "Please come back," be what comes out. She said she wanted to complete the assignment she's on for the Planet, and he's not going to make that harder for her if he can help it.

(He has to keep reminding himself. Six months. Six months. He's still the person who wanted to give her a ring, because that was yesterday for him; but what that means to her is sitting in his dark, silent room in a black dress, Mom handing her a package with a dim sad smile. For her, it's not a good memory—it's something she's been trying to get over. It's something she's been trying to forget.)

Things get easier; but they don't get easy. At first, Mom had been scrupulously careful not to mention Clark's death—and it's good that she's more comfortable now, it really is. It can't be a bad thing that she's stopped acting like bringing it up was some kind of jinx that would put him back in the ground. It's just that the more she starts to talk about things that happened while Clark was dead, the harder it is to ignore it. People she met; conversations she had; recipes she tried, giving herself a reason to enjoy eating dinner alone, with no one to please but herself. Clark's glad when Lois stops sounding like she's about to cry every time she answers the phone, but listening to her talk about South Korea, about how her correspondence pieces for Perry have been coming together, about maritime borders and diplomacy and Chinese trade agreements—

It's everything he missed, all the space the world's traveled without him. And they'd stop in a second if he asked, but they shouldn't have to. They aren't doing anything wrong; but they've traveled on without him, too, and every time he remembers that it's a whole separate punch in the gut.

Which is why it turns out to be kind of great that there's also Bruce.




Clark shouldn't like Bruce. There are actually plenty of times when he doesn't, and not even for the reasons he'd expected—he'd absorbed a basic picture of Bruce Wayne from the papers, the television, bits and pieces he's heard or read somewhere. He'd figured on disliking Bruce for being careless, easy, not unpleasant but ultimately flat underneath.

But Bruce is—Bruce is cynical, bitingly so, in ways that make Clark feel almost defensive. He delivers the lines with a smile, but that doesn't make them any less bitter: "That's the way it works, Clark." "That's how business is done, Clark." "That's all that kept you off a lab table, Clark." He doesn't seem to care how it sounds, how it will make Clark feel. He doesn't seem to care about much of anything.

Except, of course, for how he's spending a whole lot of time and money almost literally saving Clark's life.

Clark can admit that his ability to manipulate the system is impressive, if nothing else. The problem of coming back from the dead turns out to be a thorny one; Clark can't help feeling like just standing in front of a judge and having his pulse taken should be enough, but apparently that's not how it works. So Bruce keeps on dropping by with his briefcase full of ridiculously complicated paperwork, legal filings, endless documentation, getting Clark to sign things or walking him through the adjustments to the cover story as it becomes official reality—

"These are fake," Clark says, staring down at the hospital intake form, at the sign-out sheet agreeing that he'd been released on his own recognizance.

"Extremely," Bruce agrees.

"This can't possibly be legal."

Bruce sighs through his nose. "Will you just sign it?"

Clark doesn't reach for the pen Bruce is holding out. "Bruce—"

"Wayne Enterprises is responsible for any malfeasance here," Bruce says, "not you. You're an employee, or at least you will be again soon. Coercion will be an argument even a public defender could make successfully—"

"Public defenders do important work," Clark says.

"Oh, yes, do tell," Bruce drawls insincerely.

"And they're not any more or less likely to be shortsighted, illogical jerks than billionaires," Clark observes, without heat. "Bruce, you're doing all this for me. If there are going to be consequences, they have to fall on me, too."

He doesn't know why that makes Bruce's gaze get so—so black, what prompts the flash of grim tension across Bruce's face before Bruce looks away. "I'm only doing it for you because you died, Clark, and if you want to blame anyone for that, blame—"

"—Luthor," Clark finishes, "I know." He's thought about it some, about whether he could've done something different or kept Luthor from getting Zod's body. But when he'd brought it up aloud, Mom had shut that line of conversation down pretty quickly: If you don't quit talking like that, you're not getting one single solitary slice of this pie. You did the best you could, and I don't want to hear another word.

Bruce is silent for a beat. "You said it, not me," he murmurs, very evenly, and then sits forward. "I picked this hospital because it's located in the right general area, but also because it's right in the middle of trying to make the conversion to a digital filing system. It was easy to get these forms, and it'll be easy to toss them in as part of the shuffle—anyone who doesn't remember seeing them or filing them will just assume it was an oversight. The risk is minimal." He raises an eyebrow.

Clark takes the pen and looks down at the sheet. "Tell me about the hospital," he says.

"No one's going to ask, Clark—"

"Just in case," Clark says. "Just so I've got it straight. What room did you put me in?"

And Bruce talks a great game about the guys in Legal, how complicated they're making everything, that for once they're earning their overtime; but he doesn't even have to look down at the rest of the papers before he says, "203."

So he is paying attention, at least a little bit. This matters to him.

Clark's just not sure why.




So: it's easier with Bruce because he gives Clark something else to think about. When Clark's busy being frustrated and telling him to stop being so snide, or trying to figure out exactly what the hell his problem is, that means Clark isn't thinking about the dark, or a box, or Mom spending Christmas alone.

And it's easier with Bruce because he's a stranger—there's nothing about him Clark is supposed to know already. Except for that party at Luthor's, but Clark remembers that. Clark remembers that Bruce is flippant, that he donates to charities even when all he can say about their missions is "Books." And that Luthor maybe had a better reason to kidnap him than Mom realizes, given that he was doing something at that party he needed a hidden radio for. Corporate espionage, maybe. Which is obviously not good; but if Clark had to pick, he'd rather Wayne Enterprises came out on top of that particular commercial slapfight.

Probably the best thing about Bruce is that he doesn't know Clark either. He knows about Superman, because he helped Mom, and he must have listened to her talk about Clark at least a little bit afterward, but that's all. There's nothing in particular he expects Clark to do or be, no way Clark always used to act around him that he's spent six months without.

Which means Clark doesn't have to be careful with him. With Mom and Lois, Clark's already put them through so much just by dying that he can't—he can't do anything but smile and say he's fine, can't let himself get away with less than chuckling into the phone and saying goodbye in a hearty, pleasant kind of way. If they think he's too quiet or too sharp, if he says he hasn't slept well, they'll ask. And what can he tell them? What could they do about it?

But Bruce doesn't ask. He does notice the days when Clark is off, Clark's pretty sure. It's just all he does about it is say there's only three more forms to sign. Or lean back in his chair and make rude comments about whatever courthouse secretary got drunk at lunch and then typed this thing up, until Clark can't stand it anymore and has to say something. Clark's probably just deluding himself, but it feels a little bit like Bruce understands: like he's saying, You're right, what's happened to you isn't the kind of thing anyone can fix. Like maybe Clark will keep on being kind of messed up about this for a while, and maybe that's okay.

If he's being generous with himself, then that's why he says it.




If he's not, there are plenty of other reasons. He's selfish. He wants to say it, and he wants somebody else to hear it and understand. And he doesn't care what Bruce thinks of him, to just the right degree—Bruce's opinion of Clark already seems to be just about in the basement, anyway, if he believes even half the stuff he lets come out of his mouth. So there isn't much to lose.

He could have made enough of an effort to keep it from happening, but that's the thing: he's stopped putting in that kind of effort around Bruce. So he's not really listening, and of course Bruce notices, and Clark says, "Sorry—I," and then it just slips out. "I'm tired."

Bruce's eyebrows go up. "I thought that was one of the few things you weren't physically capable of," he says, and with only a little bit of a leer. (Which, given what a perfect opening that was, actually qualifies as considerate when it's coming from Bruce.)

"That might have been the wrong word," Clark concedes. "I—" and then he stalls out, helpless; he thinks his heartrate might have actually picked up a little. He hasn't started being Superman again yet, but sometimes he really wants to—sometimes that seems so much easier. Superman is perfect, unbreakable, inscrutable. Certain.

Sometimes that's simpler than being Clark.

He risks a glance across the table at Bruce; and Bruce is frowning at him a little, but he hasn't told Clark to shut up. And he would, Clark's pretty sure, probably using a lot of innuendo to do it—which is another reason why it's him Clark's talking to about this.

It's just hard to know where to start.

"When I was fighting Zod—the first time, I mean," Clark clarifies, "I was on his ship while it was still in space, and I ended up outside it."

"Of course you did," Bruce murmurs.

But he still hasn't told Clark to stop; so Clark wets his lips and drags in a breath and doesn't. "And I—you have to understand: with my hearing, quiet is always relative. There's still a noise somewhere if I just listen hard enough—a fly in the window or a mouse in the grass, or somebody's heartbeat. But up there it was—"

He shakes his head. It's still so hard to find the right words for it, even after all this time.

"I've never heard that kind of silence. The whole earth was hanging there in front of me, turning, and I was—I was outside it. Just drifting up there alone." Even now the memory's still so vivid that it takes him a second to shake it off. But he pulls himself together and adds, "And when it happened, it was fine. I needed it, in the middle of all that. I just—since I came back, I feel like that all the time. Like the world's out there moving and I'm somewhere else watching it, waiting for it to stop long enough for me to get back on."

He waits for Bruce to tell him how stupid that is; or, worse, that that's just how the world works—Congratulations, Clark, welcome to the human condition. But Bruce doesn't say that. Bruce doesn't say anything.

Clark clears his throat. "It's probably—I mean, I'm sure it's just a matter of time—"

"Maybe."

Clark looks up.

Bruce is staring at him. For a long moment, his face is so utterly altered he might as well be a different person: he looks sad and resigned and sorry, and also a little like he wants to say he understands. Which is—Bruce has never seemed to care much about understanding anyone other than himself.

"Of course, I've never died before," he adds, wry, looking away, "so you should probably take this with a grain of salt. But—" He pauses; and his voice has gone much quieter when he says, "Things like that will change you. Sometimes you can't change back."

Oh, God. Clark could smack himself—he hadn't even thought about it, but the Waynes, of course: Bruce had watched his parents die, and if anything in the world could change a person—

"Then again, sometimes you just need a change of pace."

Clark blinks. "What?"

"You've been treading water, Clark," Bruce says sagely, any hint of that quiet solemnity completely gone. He gets out his gleaming phone, which probably costs about as much as the farmhouse, and then tilts his head and smiles in that odd sharp way he has. "Maybe it's time to swim a little. There's a party tonight—Alfred?" and now he's talking into the phone. "There's a party tonight, right?"

Even without superhearing, Clark would probably have caught the longsuffering sigh that comes through the phone. "Yes, Master Wayne, I believe you do indeed have an engagement scheduled—"

"See? There you go," Bruce says to Clark, and hangs up the call without even saying goodbye first.

"But I—I don't have, um—" The nicest suit I own is the one they buried me in, except he probably shouldn't say that.

"Oh," and there's that smile again, like something Clark could cut himself on. "I'm sure I can get you sorted out in plenty of time."