I kind of smooshed a bunch of the krpytonite kink prompts together, and managed to miss the mark on all of them. WELL DONE, ME.
This is probably the most appropriate prompt to post this under, so apologies in advance to OP. Have some chains, gloves, painplay and heavy-handed metaphors.
Clark Kent chose this job for a reason. The reason, this time, is that nobody raises an eyebrow when he pitches an in-depth investigation into kryptonite trafficking.
He's been tracking the movement of it on his own time for months now. Most of it is still coming from southern India--an impromptu industry has sprung up around the shattered remains of the World Engine: pearl divers combing the seabed for a new treasure; ton upon ton of sand panned and scoured for the smallest fragments of the mineral. Maybe it happened spontaneously, considering how much Luthor paid for his motherlode, but his research tells him that there was no such activity for the duration that Superman was dead. Something has precipitated this since his return.
Maybe his return in itself, but there was no mention of kryptonite in the press. It's not general knowledge that it's his Achilles heel; in fact, Clark suspects the only detailed information extant is emphatically stamped classified. Regardless, now there is a demand and he wants to know who, or what, is driving it. There is only so far he can pry on his own, so he leverages the Planet's resources to learn what he can.
Which isn't a whole lot. Eighty-nine percent of the stuff is brought into to the States, six to Russia, the rest split between a number of different countries. A decent quantity does end up in legitimate scientific institutions--laboratories and universities and research facilities, which isn't entirely reassuring but isn't imminently threatening, and is at least above-board. Some goes into private collections belonging to the same kind of people who pay thousands of dollars for meteorite fragments of dubious provenance and blurry satellite photographs of Area 51. They're joyful in their vindication, these days.
The rest, though--the rest vanishes. Once it hits American soil, things seem to get a whole lot harder to track.
He follows one shipment from Boston to Chicago to Star City into a dead end. Another from Tampa to Metropolis, alarmingly, and then nada. Wilmington to Gotham, even more alarmingly, and then it disappears. What potential informants he can dig up have their mouths glued shut.
If it were anything else, he could infiltrate--stevedore, truck driver, there are plenty of hands for the cargo to pass through. And there's the rub. The one time he attempted to verify a shipment, he got his verification alright. Two days sick leave.
The K is elusive. The money trail is nigh-on impenetrable even with the boundaries he can push with the Planet's name behind him.
He's starting to have stress dreams about it. In his sleep, he tries to catch someone who is falling, only to find he's falling himself. He hits the earth and finds himself in the shadow of a beast, indistinct but massive. Its very presence renders him powerless. All he can do is struggle as it snaps him between its sagittate teeth.
After a fortnight of waking up twisted helplessly in his sheets, he thinks, with some reluctance, that it might be time to call in a favor.
*
Clark lands in the cave a little before eleven.
"Clark," Bruce says, immediately minimizing a half-dozen windows. He calmly moves his chair a one-eighth-turn in Clark's direction without taking his hands off the keyboard.
"Evening." Clark can already tell this is a terrible idea by the line of tension in Bruce's shoulders. "I need you help with something," he says anyway, with enough earnestness to disarm most people. It only puts Bruce more deeply on his guard. Clark is still trying to get the measure of him; he keeps making mistakes like this.
Bruce maintains his you-have-interrupted-me posture, but he's bothering to disguise his impatience, which is promising, at least.
"Okay." Clark can be businesslike about this. "So I've been keeping tabs on something lately. Imported goods with a twist. You know the deal. I can track the movements of the, uh, the cargo to a point, but eventually it drops off the map. At least some of it came through Gotham."
Bruce swivels back to his computer screen and picks up typing rapidfire, filling in some impenetrable spreadsheet or other. His jaw tenses. "If you're concerned about the shipping containers on the north pier that were emptied yesterday night, it's under control."
"I know," Clark says. "That's not what I'm investigating."
"Then unless it's boxed up in lead, Clark, I don't understand what you're struggling with." Bruce glances at him sidelong, quietly gauging. "But anything coming into Gotham, I already know about. You don't need to be concerned."
The obvious rears up and strikes him in the face. He's not sure why he's quite so surprised; part of him must have known all along. It is simple mathematics, after all. Kryptonite plus Gotham equals Bruce. His stomach falls through the floor anyway.
He worries that he's starting to develop a substantial blind spot.
"Is that the case?" he says.
Bruce's typing halts abruptly.
Clark blinks and feels the minute differential pressure on his eyeballs as new detail blossoms across his vision. He can see the circuitry in Bruce's computer; the wires that snake from it and through the reinforced concrete, into the server room below. Bruce, his bones, his ribcage like some delicate ornament. The Batmobile beneath them, and beneath that, a bright slab of something impenetrable to x-rays.
Bruce has gotten to his feet. He's watching him, as likely making a mental note on the current properties of Clark's corneas as preparing to explain himself.
"Turns out I'm pretty damn concerned," Clark says. He folds his arms so Bruce can't see his hands shake. He's not sure if it's fear or anger, as Bruce tends to inspire both. "Were you going to tell me about this?"
"I just did," Bruce says. "So, evidently." He mirrors Clark's body language: arms folded, chin up, but with the advantage of an inch or two of height and the cowl's inscrutability. The result is nothing short of infuriating. "It's in your interest."
This temerity combined with Bruce's particular brand of paternalism makes Clark want to grind his teeth. He takes a breath and silently counts to five since he's not sure he could make it to ten. "How much do you have?"
"Most of it."
"God, Bruce--" He feels a little ill. Psychosomatic, he hopes.
"You'd rather it was circulating freely?"
"No, but I'd rather you didn't have it, either."
"Listen, the last thing I need is a two-bit thug with a fistful of kryptonite and delusions of grandeur getting one over on you. Or worse. You've already had more than your fair share of funerals, Clark. Did you think I'd just let it float around on the black market?"
"That's touching," Clark says wryly. He knows that's not the whole of it. This is symptomatic of something that's stayed unaddressed for the most part, butting up against the twin edifices of Bruce's secrecy and paranoia. Nobody knows how to weaponize kryptonite as well as he does. "What are you going to do with it all?"
"Nothing," Bruce says. "Unless I have to."
*
Clark's restless nights don't get any better. He's stalked by a great mechanical beast, monolithic and terrifying in its burnished steel hide. Its eyes are bright and empty, its teeth and claws an acidic green, glowing, cruel. It is fear brought violently to the surface, hunting Clark down only to toy with him. It always ends the same way, with his skin penetrated in an orgiastic frenzy.
It's usually a nightmare, but sometimes--isn't.
*
"Show me it."
He's shaking again--this time it's a toss-up between dread and anticipation. He doesn't bother trying to disguise it.
"What for?" Bruce says. "You know what it does to you."
Clark does. He has difficulty forgetting, in fact. He can almost feel it melting his bones, the pain that crowds him out of his own mind. In his dreams, when he feels his knees want to buckle on him like this, he knows it won't be long before he is caught and savaged. Hot breath on his face, blood bubbling in his throat, his skin pared back. Sometimes he tries to crawl away, but then the creature only mounts him, its claws filleting him from sternum to groin as it does.
Those are the most intense dreams--the ones that wake him at the point of climax, disoriented and paralyzed, unable to do anything but give himself over to it. The vividness of the memory makes him shudder where he stands.
"Clark," Bruce says. "What's wrong?"
He feels nebulously unwell. Bruce's eyes narrow, shadowed in the low light of the cave, but he doesn't look concerned so much as analytical. Clark wants him to--he wants to understand this craving, if not resolve it. Bruce, with all his internality, is always going to be his best shot, but Clark knows there's a significant chance he'll come away from this worse than empty handed, shackled by refused desire.
"You need to do something with it," Clark says.
Not just perch on top of it like a dragon guarding its hoard. But then, a beast like that should be easy to provoke.
"In case," Clark continues, in the face of Bruce's skeptical eyebrow-raise. "In case the worst happens. You need to be prepared."
Clark can acknowledge that he holds the potential for threat. There is a chance that he might need to be counteracted, and not just because Bruce's paranoia has gotten the better of him again. His mere existence has put humankind through a paradigm shift, and the resultant power struggles have not been reassuring. The world does not have a shortage of ambitious, amoral individuals who would seek to leverage him to their own ends.
And Bruce knows this as well as Clark does. He knows that Bruce, despite his claim to the contrary, must have designs for the K. He also knows Bruce hardly needs permission for anything, least of all this, but maybe in giving it he'll be receptive to--he might let Clark help.
He never anticipated using this scenario to bargain with. Not like this. Not for this.
"What do you have in mind?" Bruce asks
*
This is probably not what Bruce had in mind.
"You didn't use enough to weaken me sufficiently," Clark says, holding Bruce against the cave floor with ease, one hand on his wrist, the other caging his throat. Bruce glowers at him but remains otherwise calm, his pulse stable against Clark's palm. He doesn't try to test Clark's grip. His free hand curls into the hem of Clark's cape.
It's petty of Clark to antagonize him when he doesn't need to. And risky, he knows that, but a kryptonite-edged batarang to the neck isn't exactly a polite greeting, even for Bruce. He started it, effectively.
Provoke, and be provoked in turn. He doesn't quite have a headache, but his muscles cramp and his blood feels heavy and thick, languishing in his throat and his gut. The batarang shines menacingly, the color of nightmares, and Clark kicks out to send it skittering away across the cave floor.
"Noted," Bruce says.
*
"A bit cumbersome." Clark feels sweat prickle across his forehead. "But the… quantity is getting there."
Bruce makes a considering noise and wraps a length of chain around his fist. Clark sways on his feet. He's not certain how much of it is down to the K.
"I'd have to let you," Clark says. "I'd have to have the presence of mind. Not practical, Bruce."
"You'd have to let me," Bruce agrees. He drapes the chain across Clark's shoulders. It's heavier than he anticipated, and now he can detect the glow to the thick metal links. Clark wonders if Bruce developed the alloy recently, or if it's a holdover from the last time he considered the intricacies of employing kryptonite as a weapon.
He wonders what, exactly, Bruce would have done with it. Dragged him over broken rubble, definitely. Strung him up like Andromeda chained to the rocks, perhaps.
He suspects it wouldn't have gone quite like this. Bruce wraps the chain around his neck, a furrow of concentration appearing between his eyebrows as he slowly draws it tight, as though he isn't certain what to expect. The links bite into Clark's skin. His breath catches and his vision blurs, and he feels a dull, useless panic as his bones turn gelatinous. He staggers to his knees, the chain pulling taut as he goes down.
FILL: Here Be Dragons -- Bruce/Clark, kryptonite bondage [1/3]
This is probably the most appropriate prompt to post this under, so apologies in advance to OP. Have some chains, gloves, painplay and heavy-handed metaphors.
Clark Kent chose this job for a reason. The reason, this time, is that nobody raises an eyebrow when he pitches an in-depth investigation into kryptonite trafficking.
He's been tracking the movement of it on his own time for months now. Most of it is still coming from southern India--an impromptu industry has sprung up around the shattered remains of the World Engine: pearl divers combing the seabed for a new treasure; ton upon ton of sand panned and scoured for the smallest fragments of the mineral. Maybe it happened spontaneously, considering how much Luthor paid for his motherlode, but his research tells him that there was no such activity for the duration that Superman was dead. Something has precipitated this since his return.
Maybe his return in itself, but there was no mention of kryptonite in the press. It's not general knowledge that it's his Achilles heel; in fact, Clark suspects the only detailed information extant is emphatically stamped classified. Regardless, now there is a demand and he wants to know who, or what, is driving it. There is only so far he can pry on his own, so he leverages the Planet's resources to learn what he can.
Which isn't a whole lot. Eighty-nine percent of the stuff is brought into to the States, six to Russia, the rest split between a number of different countries. A decent quantity does end up in legitimate scientific institutions--laboratories and universities and research facilities, which isn't entirely reassuring but isn't imminently threatening, and is at least above-board. Some goes into private collections belonging to the same kind of people who pay thousands of dollars for meteorite fragments of dubious provenance and blurry satellite photographs of Area 51. They're joyful in their vindication, these days.
The rest, though--the rest vanishes. Once it hits American soil, things seem to get a whole lot harder to track.
He follows one shipment from Boston to Chicago to Star City into a dead end. Another from Tampa to Metropolis, alarmingly, and then nada. Wilmington to Gotham, even more alarmingly, and then it disappears. What potential informants he can dig up have their mouths glued shut.
If it were anything else, he could infiltrate--stevedore, truck driver, there are plenty of hands for the cargo to pass through. And there's the rub. The one time he attempted to verify a shipment, he got his verification alright. Two days sick leave.
The K is elusive. The money trail is nigh-on impenetrable even with the boundaries he can push with the Planet's name behind him.
He's starting to have stress dreams about it. In his sleep, he tries to catch someone who is falling, only to find he's falling himself. He hits the earth and finds himself in the shadow of a beast, indistinct but massive. Its very presence renders him powerless. All he can do is struggle as it snaps him between its sagittate teeth.
After a fortnight of waking up twisted helplessly in his sheets, he thinks, with some reluctance, that it might be time to call in a favor.
*
Clark lands in the cave a little before eleven.
"Clark," Bruce says, immediately minimizing a half-dozen windows. He calmly moves his chair a one-eighth-turn in Clark's direction without taking his hands off the keyboard.
"Evening." Clark can already tell this is a terrible idea by the line of tension in Bruce's shoulders. "I need you help with something," he says anyway, with enough earnestness to disarm most people. It only puts Bruce more deeply on his guard. Clark is still trying to get the measure of him; he keeps making mistakes like this.
Bruce maintains his you-have-interrupted-me posture, but he's bothering to disguise his impatience, which is promising, at least.
"Okay." Clark can be businesslike about this. "So I've been keeping tabs on something lately. Imported goods with a twist. You know the deal. I can track the movements of the, uh, the cargo to a point, but eventually it drops off the map. At least some of it came through Gotham."
Bruce swivels back to his computer screen and picks up typing rapidfire, filling in some impenetrable spreadsheet or other. His jaw tenses. "If you're concerned about the shipping containers on the north pier that were emptied yesterday night, it's under control."
"I know," Clark says. "That's not what I'm investigating."
"Then unless it's boxed up in lead, Clark, I don't understand what you're struggling with." Bruce glances at him sidelong, quietly gauging. "But anything coming into Gotham, I already know about. You don't need to be concerned."
The obvious rears up and strikes him in the face. He's not sure why he's quite so surprised; part of him must have known all along. It is simple mathematics, after all. Kryptonite plus Gotham equals Bruce. His stomach falls through the floor anyway.
He worries that he's starting to develop a substantial blind spot.
"Is that the case?" he says.
Bruce's typing halts abruptly.
Clark blinks and feels the minute differential pressure on his eyeballs as new detail blossoms across his vision. He can see the circuitry in Bruce's computer; the wires that snake from it and through the reinforced concrete, into the server room below. Bruce, his bones, his ribcage like some delicate ornament. The Batmobile beneath them, and beneath that, a bright slab of something impenetrable to x-rays.
Bruce has gotten to his feet. He's watching him, as likely making a mental note on the current properties of Clark's corneas as preparing to explain himself.
"Turns out I'm pretty damn concerned," Clark says. He folds his arms so Bruce can't see his hands shake. He's not sure if it's fear or anger, as Bruce tends to inspire both. "Were you going to tell me about this?"
"I just did," Bruce says. "So, evidently." He mirrors Clark's body language: arms folded, chin up, but with the advantage of an inch or two of height and the cowl's inscrutability. The result is nothing short of infuriating. "It's in your interest."
This temerity combined with Bruce's particular brand of paternalism makes Clark want to grind his teeth. He takes a breath and silently counts to five since he's not sure he could make it to ten. "How much do you have?"
"Most of it."
"God, Bruce--" He feels a little ill. Psychosomatic, he hopes.
"You'd rather it was circulating freely?"
"No, but I'd rather you didn't have it, either."
"Listen, the last thing I need is a two-bit thug with a fistful of kryptonite and delusions of grandeur getting one over on you. Or worse. You've already had more than your fair share of funerals, Clark. Did you think I'd just let it float around on the black market?"
"That's touching," Clark says wryly. He knows that's not the whole of it. This is symptomatic of something that's stayed unaddressed for the most part, butting up against the twin edifices of Bruce's secrecy and paranoia. Nobody knows how to weaponize kryptonite as well as he does. "What are you going to do with it all?"
"Nothing," Bruce says. "Unless I have to."
*
Clark's restless nights don't get any better. He's stalked by a great mechanical beast, monolithic and terrifying in its burnished steel hide. Its eyes are bright and empty, its teeth and claws an acidic green, glowing, cruel. It is fear brought violently to the surface, hunting Clark down only to toy with him. It always ends the same way, with his skin penetrated in an orgiastic frenzy.
It's usually a nightmare, but sometimes--isn't.
*
"Show me it."
He's shaking again--this time it's a toss-up between dread and anticipation. He doesn't bother trying to disguise it.
"What for?" Bruce says. "You know what it does to you."
Clark does. He has difficulty forgetting, in fact. He can almost feel it melting his bones, the pain that crowds him out of his own mind. In his dreams, when he feels his knees want to buckle on him like this, he knows it won't be long before he is caught and savaged. Hot breath on his face, blood bubbling in his throat, his skin pared back. Sometimes he tries to crawl away, but then the creature only mounts him, its claws filleting him from sternum to groin as it does.
Those are the most intense dreams--the ones that wake him at the point of climax, disoriented and paralyzed, unable to do anything but give himself over to it. The vividness of the memory makes him shudder where he stands.
"Clark," Bruce says. "What's wrong?"
He feels nebulously unwell. Bruce's eyes narrow, shadowed in the low light of the cave, but he doesn't look concerned so much as analytical. Clark wants him to--he wants to understand this craving, if not resolve it. Bruce, with all his internality, is always going to be his best shot, but Clark knows there's a significant chance he'll come away from this worse than empty handed, shackled by refused desire.
"You need to do something with it," Clark says.
Not just perch on top of it like a dragon guarding its hoard. But then, a beast like that should be easy to provoke.
"In case," Clark continues, in the face of Bruce's skeptical eyebrow-raise. "In case the worst happens. You need to be prepared."
Clark can acknowledge that he holds the potential for threat. There is a chance that he might need to be counteracted, and not just because Bruce's paranoia has gotten the better of him again. His mere existence has put humankind through a paradigm shift, and the resultant power struggles have not been reassuring. The world does not have a shortage of ambitious, amoral individuals who would seek to leverage him to their own ends.
And Bruce knows this as well as Clark does. He knows that Bruce, despite his claim to the contrary, must have designs for the K. He also knows Bruce hardly needs permission for anything, least of all this, but maybe in giving it he'll be receptive to--he might let Clark help.
He never anticipated using this scenario to bargain with. Not like this. Not for this.
"What do you have in mind?" Bruce asks
*
This is probably not what Bruce had in mind.
"You didn't use enough to weaken me sufficiently," Clark says, holding Bruce against the cave floor with ease, one hand on his wrist, the other caging his throat. Bruce glowers at him but remains otherwise calm, his pulse stable against Clark's palm. He doesn't try to test Clark's grip. His free hand curls into the hem of Clark's cape.
It's petty of Clark to antagonize him when he doesn't need to. And risky, he knows that, but a kryptonite-edged batarang to the neck isn't exactly a polite greeting, even for Bruce. He started it, effectively.
Provoke, and be provoked in turn. He doesn't quite have a headache, but his muscles cramp and his blood feels heavy and thick, languishing in his throat and his gut. The batarang shines menacingly, the color of nightmares, and Clark kicks out to send it skittering away across the cave floor.
"Noted," Bruce says.
*
"A bit cumbersome." Clark feels sweat prickle across his forehead. "But the… quantity is getting there."
Bruce makes a considering noise and wraps a length of chain around his fist. Clark sways on his feet. He's not certain how much of it is down to the K.
"I'd have to let you," Clark says. "I'd have to have the presence of mind. Not practical, Bruce."
"You'd have to let me," Bruce agrees. He drapes the chain across Clark's shoulders. It's heavier than he anticipated, and now he can detect the glow to the thick metal links. Clark wonders if Bruce developed the alloy recently, or if it's a holdover from the last time he considered the intricacies of employing kryptonite as a weapon.
He wonders what, exactly, Bruce would have done with it. Dragged him over broken rubble, definitely. Strung him up like Andromeda chained to the rocks, perhaps.
He suspects it wouldn't have gone quite like this. Bruce wraps the chain around his neck, a furrow of concentration appearing between his eyebrows as he slowly draws it tight, as though he isn't certain what to expect. The links bite into Clark's skin. His breath catches and his vision blurs, and he feels a dull, useless panic as his bones turn gelatinous. He staggers to his knees, the chain pulling taut as he goes down.