DCEU Prompt Post #1

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Welcome to Round One of the DCEU Kink Meme!

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The important rules in short:

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Prompt, write, draw, comment, and most importantly have fun! Please link to your fills on the fill post.

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FILL: Regroup (10/many) -- Bruce/Clark, rough hatesex

[(Anonymous)]

And it continues! I may have vastly overestimated my ability to be brief about anything. Feeling rather bad about this, I asked beta!nonny for help with brevity; beta!nonny was pretty adamant that this would spell certain doom for us both. So, one: I'm very sorry, meme. But two: not sorry enough to stop. Warnings: here be Alfred!feels, and exposition, and build-up.

---

Chapter Four: Natural Hazards, Part Two

* * *

* (A) *

Alfred found several perfectly valid reasons not follow Bruce down into the cave.

First it was cleaning. He swept the living room of its abandoned dishes, dumped out half a pot of cold tea, tidied the kitchenette. As he set the cups to soak, he noticed one had been chipped, cracks in the shape of fingerprints. Alfred laid the broken teacup on the counter. He could run it through the 3d scanner, commission a new set, if Bruce felt sentimental over the loss.

Second it was scheduling. Appointments from nine in the morning until five in the evening were meticulously entered into Clark’s and Bruce’s itineraries. He commed Clark privately to notify him that he had suit fitting at 6am tomorrow, then cleared his own calendar. Alfred knew a difficult case when he heard one, and he would fly the Batwing to Antarctica to retrieve the wayward superhero and drag him back to Metropolis himself if came to that.

By his third distraction, Alfred had to admit that he was procrastinating.

Bruce would have discovered the camera tampering by now and the missing video archives. He definitely would have seen the news feeds. He gave it even chances whether Bruce had hacked his personal logs.

Well.

Alfred had dealt with his ward throwing himself off of Gotham roofs for twenty years; surely he could face one awkward reunion.

He pulled a coverall out of the utility hatch in the kitchenette, and he resigned himself to whatever he found below.

* (A) *

Alfred slipped into the coverall in the elevator.

The cave was in chaos. The security door was thrown open, and papers had been scattered across the floor. A trail of half-repaired gadgets led down the stairs to the workshop. The bank of monitors played feeds from the local and international news, cranked up loud enough to echo back from the depths of the cave.

Reports of looting in the Diamond District continue to roll in as Governor Sante calls for calm…Curfew continues in Gotham tonight… The National Guard has been activated and will arrive--

The Metahuman Menace continues to plague Gotham--They tolerated the alien in Metropolis--and now look at what--

Sent shockwaves through the nation… The White House faces a 10-point drop in opinion polls after the Joint Chiefs… Should Superman be declared an enemy combatant?... Superman could not be reached for comment--

The cacophony of voices followed him as he collected the stream of bat-devices, and carried down the staircase to the workshop. Alfred’s tread down the stairs was light, but Bruce had always been able to pick it up several rooms away. Alfred shouldn’t have been able to approach him unaware--but--

The wall of diagnostic monitors hummed with the statistics from the latest calibration, their red glow muted in the cave’s light.

“Bruce?” he called out.

--but Bruce, who was standing over the Batmobile, startled.

The Batmobile didn’t even have a coating of dust; Alfred had restored the roof, fabricated new parts for the damaged chassis, swapped out the engine for one that favored speed over distance rather than raw power. Bruce pressed a hand to her as he would sometimes when he thought Alfred wasn’t looking: reverently, like a sinner praying for redemption.

Bruce slid away from the Batmobile, and Alfred snorted when he saw him--all of him--without the dressing gown. The red light splattered across the crest of the House of El like blood.

“Seeing your face over that shield has to be some kind of cosmic joke,” Alfred said, dumping the bat paraphernalia onto an empty workbench.

“Has its benefits,” Bruce returned, as he circled to the opposite side of the room.

“Even a lifetime of picking up after you doesn’t adequately explain your disdain for neatness,” Alfred said testily, as he touched a mangled tracking prototype that he had hoped to test in extreme cold weather conditions. “Nor does your foul mood excuse poor impulse control.”

Bruce ignored him, his face thunderous. He was as mad as Alfred had ever seen him. “You purged the video archive,” he said, low and dangerous.

Just like that, they were both on the balls of their feet, wary, ready for a fight. Any number of their training sessions began the same way, except Alfred usually had a handheld sparring pad between them.

“I did,” Alfred agreed.

They stared at each other across the chassis of the Batmobile.

“A lot’s happened while I’ve been out,” Bruce said conversationally.

“Indeed.” Alfred put a little more space between them. The coverall was bulky, slowed movement in the legs. Bruce would take advantage of that. If he actually meant to attack him.

Alfred expected a barrage of questions, or a round of throws--whichever would allow them to work out their mutual suspicion to their satisfaction. Either would have been keeping in line with the man Alfred had known. But another strange shift in mood hit out of nowhere, and Bruce backed away from Alfred with his hands unconsciously raised in surrender.

“This is ridiculous,” Bruce muttered to himself as he scrubbed his hands through his hair, fighting with the worst part of himself. “This is ridiculous, this is Alfred.” Bruce looked half-crazed in the bloody light. “In the manor--”

“Master Wayne,” Alfred returned cagily, still on the balls of his feet. Nothing was more dangerous than a man in apparent surrender. “You’re about to apologize, and I’m about to disbelieve you. What you mean to say is, ‘I intended to die, and I’m sorry that I didn’t do it in an expedient manner.’”

Bruce laughed, a high bitter sound. Alfred knew that the sarcasm was firmly self-directed. “I don’t deserve you.”

“Reserve judgment until after tomorrow night,” Alfred countered.

“The party?” Incredulous. Intense. Bruce closed the distance between them, and Alfred backed up for a better position. If Bruce was going to to tackle him, he’d rather not fly into the tool locker. “Do you honestly believe that’s our priority? Jesus, Alfred, look at the city. She’s burning.” Bruce’s gaze sharpened, and his eyes searched Alfred’s face. “Did you know? When we were sipping tea and arranging Bruce Wayne’s little reappearance, did you know?”

“Of course I knew, Master Wayne.”

Bruce didn’t seem to notice that Alfred had moved close enough to land a blow without an easy block. He was busy looking thoroughly surprised at himself. “Of course you knew. You’ve lived it. Stupid,” Bruce muttered to himself. A plaintive appeal crossed his face, haloed in a wash of red light, every inch the sinner chasing after moments of grace. “You’ve been patrolling the city with the Batwing. You wouldn’t abandon Gotham.”

“No, sir, I would not.”

“Starting tonight, the people who die in Gotham. That’s on us. We have to have different priorities. We have to stop this,” Bruce’s hand knifed through the air toward the staircase.

Governor Sante has declared Gotham City in a state of emergency, following the showdown last week between Superman and--

Bruce’s eyes widened, and he blanched. “We have to stop him. Forget probabilities, Alfred. Forget the future. This is a certainty. Superman is a danger now. He’s my problem, I have to stop…”

He hated how often he was right about Bruce.

His original plan seemed so meager in the face of Bruce’s grim fury. Introduce Bruce to Clark Kent, leave Bruce in Clark’s general vicinity, let Bruce be pulled into Clark’s orbit, reveal to Bruce that Clark is Superman. A momentary bad reaction from Bruce wouldn’t compromise Clark’s safety: their remaining scraps of kryptonite had been melted down into needle tips and scalpels and flown to the Fortress; the spear was hidden away in a government lab beyond even their reach.

Give Bruce time to plan, however--he would play the bloody god, demanding his due.

As much as Alfred hated to admit it: although Clark Kent could charm paint off of a barn, no one alive could pull Bruce out of a tail-spin. Bruce may have started off merely angry about the video archive or the deactivated cameras, but he was quickly becoming unhinged. Alfred wondered if Bruce had given himself the mental space to grieve what he’d lost in the fight against Doomsday--certainty of Superman’s danger, the moral high ground for trying to kill him--if he’d had a single moment’s peace since he’d woken--if he remembered anything from wherever souls went when they died.

No.

He didn’t suppose Bruce would have.

The cheater’s instinct in Alfred twinged to play his ace in the hole, but a good strategist didn’t throw his entire army into the canyon just because it was impossible to scale the cliffs.

Abruptly, Alfred turned on his heel and climbed the stairs up to the Batcomputer, leaving behind the red glare of the Bat’s justice. He wasn’t going to win a fight on Bruce’s terms.

A good strategist knew a hazard when they saw one, and simply took a different route.

* (A) *

Bruce followed after him--a few paces behind and out of his eyeline like a skittish foal. He led his ward to the monitor tower, lit up with pundits, anchors, and twenty-four hour news tickers.

Civic authorities have cleared the flowers and candles from the--The third gathering this week has turned to rioting--rampant corruption in the GCPD--Gotham and Bludhaven--moving tribute to Superman by the UN Council--urged the United States not to declare--Superman responsible for--

One by one, the voices cut out as Alfred closed the news feeds until there was only the hum of power conduits and, further back in the gloom, the rustle of wings.

“You should know better than to believe his press,” Alfred said, his shoulders hunched over the keyboard. “Gotham would be a smoking crater twice over if he hadn’t protected her. He is not our enemy. He’s a hero. Something that you may have forgotten, but it’s what you were too.”

Bruce set his jaw in that same uncompromising line he had three months ago, when he told Alfred he planned to bring the war to Superman. “He felt responsible,” Bruce said steadily, his gaze never wavering.

The showman in Bruce had always thought going all-in lent his most outrageous lies the air of credibility. To the contrary, Alfred knew Bruce was never so resolute, except when he was posturing. Or lying. Alfred snorted. “I felt responsible. He felt that we could do better. What do you really know about him, hmm? You can’t honestly tell me that you have the same opinion of him as you did three months ago. You saved the world with him, for god’s sake.”

“This isn’t a quid pro quo, Alfred. This is about what happens when he decides the rules don’t apply to him.”

“Rubbish!” Alfred slammed his palm against the desk. “I told him: ‘Do you know the first thing that Bruce will do when he wakes up? He’ll try to kill you, after he tears me a new one for installing unapproved tech.’ And do you know what he said to me--?”

“No one else dies,” Bruce repeated quietly.

“Yes. Over your broken, bleeding body. No one else dies. Miracles have been accomplished with quarter of that conviction, Master Wayne.”

Bruce crossed his arms. Disconcertingly, the crest bunched and flexed with his chest the same way it would when Clark came to the house suited up, delivering terse updates from the Antarctic lab. For a moment, Bruce resembled a sulky Superman in black and silver, disappointed with the latest cell cultures--determined that a new test would have more promising results. Only, Alfred had never seen a expression so quintessentially and self-sabotagingly gloomy on Clark’s face.

“So--what? You want me to welcome him with open arms?”

The memory of Bruce as a sullen teenager took some of the bite out of his disbelieving tone, but Alfred remained tense. For unlike his sullen teenage self, Bruce had the power and the infrastructure to make good on his vendettas.

Of course, Alfred never had trod carefully around his ward, and he mustered his most unctuous tone: “I wouldn’t presume to tell you how to welcome him. But yes, I do think you owe him.” Bruce looked mutinous. “A chance, that’s all. Talk to him before you condemn him, sir.”

There was a terrifying blankness to Bruce’s expression. His eyes unfocused, as he stared at something over Alfred’s shoulder. For a few tense seconds, he didn’t meet Alfred’s gaze, didn’t respond, didn’t breathe. An almost imperceptible shudder traveled through Bruce’s body, snapping him out of his reverie. “Him and me,” Bruce said repressively, “we don’t really have much to say to each other.”

Alfred rounded on Bruce as quick as he could push his unstretched muscles, which was not fast enough to beat a vigilante on the worst of days...but Bruce was either ignoring or unaware of the strange blankness, so maybe...

The jab sailed into Bruce’s personal space without a single block thrown. Alfred stopped the strike an inch away from Bruce’s throat, and stretched his thumb out to Bruce’s neck like a knife. “You bloody well do.” Alfred’s tone softened. “Your reflexes are appalling. When was the last time I got the drop on you? Twenty-four years ago?”

“Seventeen.” The corner of Bruce’s mouth twitched, as close to agreement as he was likely to get. “Khartoum.”

Alfred had gotten this far--he decided to push his luck even further. “An evening in, Master Wayne?” he suggested mildly, as though Bruce had a say in the matter.

Bruce stiffened. “The city, Alfred, we can’t…”

Alfred dug his thumb into the meat of Bruce’s neck to emphasize his point. “If you so much as consider patrolling tonight, the drone will restrain you, and you will regret it.”