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Chapter Text

The hardest part had been gathering all of them in one place without everything blowing up one way or another. But this was the perfect window: Superman and Batman were off on Justice League business, and Nightwing had already arranged for Batgirl and Spoiler to cover Gotham in the absence of the other Robins, both current and former.

Stephanie had begged to be let in on the scheme, but Damian had grudgingly pointed at the makeshift ‘No Girls Allowed’ sign taped to the warehouse door, written in thick, grape-scented marker. At four feet tall, he stood under it like a pint-sized bouncer, daring anyone to challenge him.

Now Tim, Damian, Conner, and Jon sat at a round table, in full gear, staring at Dick expectantly while Jason lurked in the corner. Arms crossed, helmet tilted just so, as if saying what am I even doing here. Curiously, he’d been the first one to show up. Whether it was to watch their mission fail miserably or succeed, that was to be determined.

“Might I remind everyone,” Dick began, pacing with his hands clasped behind his back like a military general about to unveil battle plans, “that the secrecy of this operation is of utmost importance?” He stopped in front of a rolling board draped with a tattered sheet.

“Get on with it, dickface. I don’t have all night.” Jason’s voice rasped through the modulator in his helmet— low, metallic, and stripped of warmth, like gravel fed through a busted speaker. A couple of the others muttered their agreement.

“Fine, fine.” Dick tugged off the covering with a gloved hand and a flourish. Bold letters shouted back at them: OPERATION: SUPERBAT, with a crudely drawn House of El crest jammed into a bat symbol beneath.

Tim leaned forward, face wrinkling under his domino mask. “Are you kidding me? That’s the best name you could come up with?”

“Hey, it was this or ‘Operation: ManMan’!”

“Why would it be between this and ‘Operation: ManMan’?”

“That’s just how ship names work!”

“What are you—”

“The name doesn’t matter,” Conner cut in, waving his hands in desperation to mitigate the mindless bickering between Dick and Tim. “Dick, just run them through our plan.”

“You came up with this?” Damian sneered. “What makes you think father would want to be with your alien sperm donor of a— ow!”

Jon’s right side had jerked suspiciously hard in the direction of a now aching Damian, who was rubbing his knee under the table and was glaring directly at the other twelve year old.

“I’m the one who brought up the idea. Ever since the divorce, dad has been…” Jon trailed off, his impossibly blue eyes crystaling with the beginning of tears. The rest silently looked at him as he continued. “Look, I’m not completely sure of what happened between mom and dad— but you know with superhearing and all it’s impossible to completely tune them out and I heard— I mean… I think that the divorce had something to do with Bruce. I’m not sure exactly how but…”

“Look,” Dick finally said, cutting through the silence before Jon dissolved completely. He turned back to the board, tapping the crudely drawn crest inside the bat symbol like it was sacred scripture. “It doesn’t matter how the divorce happened. What matters is that now Bruce has a chance. A chance I’ve been waiting sixteen years of my life for.”

Jason barked out a sharp laugh from the corner. “Oh my god. You’ve actually been shipping them since you were twelve.”

“Don’t call it that,” Dick shot back, jaw tightening. “This is about happiness. About destiny.”

“About you being a fanboy with too much time on your hands,” Tim muttered, scribbling in his notebook anyway.

“I’m serious,” Dick insisted. He stabbed the marker at the board for emphasis. “Bruce needs someone who won’t back down when he walls himself off, and Clark is the only person alive stubborn enough to keep pushing until Bruce lets him in. But neither of them will ever admit it on their own. Which is why—” he yanked down another sheet to reveal a crudely drawn red planet circled three times in black marker, “—we create circumstances where they have no choice but to rely on each other.”

Conner squinted at the sketch. “That’s Mars.”

“Somewhere with a red sun,” Dick corrected, drawing vague craters with a flourish. “Remote. Isolated. No League backup. No kids. No excuses. Just the two of them. Survive together, bond together. It’s foolproof.”

“Foolproof?” Tim echoed flatly.

“Alright, maybe not foolproof,” Dick conceded, “but fool-resistant. The point is, we strand them in a controlled environment for just long enough that they finally… see it.”

Jason tilted his helmet, amused. “So the master plan is… space kidnapping?”

“Technically marooning,” Dick corrected.

Damian scoffed. “Father would sooner strangle himself with his cape than fall prey to such childish manipulation.”

Jason smirked under the helmet. “You say that now, but wait until he and Big Blue are holding hands over the campfire.”

“Gross,” Damian hissed, cheeks heating.

“Guys,” Jon cut in, eyes wide with cautious hope, “if this works… maybe things could be normal again. Or—better than normal.”

The table went quiet. All eyes shifted from Damian’s scowl,to Conner’s amused smile, to Tim’s skeptical frown, to Jason’s helmet tilt, and finally to Dick’s expectant grin.

“Fine,” Tim muttered, closing his notebook with a snap. “But if we get caught— and we will get caught because this is possibly the stupidest plan ever— I’m telling Bruce this was your idea.”

Dick’s grin spread ear to ear. “Perfect. Then Operation: Superbat—” he underlined the title on the board with a squeak of marker, “—is officially underway.”

Jason groaned. “We’re all gonna die.”

It was a quiet evening at the Watchtower. Batman and Superman sat side by side as they usually did during monitor duty, with Superman excitedly talking to the other hero about the progress he was making in training Krypto. All Batman responded with were the occasional grunts of affirmation, letting the Kryptonian know that he was listening and committing the conversation to memory, despite his half covered face remaining as stoic as ever and facing the numerous monitors that surveilled Earth. Clark understood that despite his best friend’s flat-line expression, Bruce enjoyed listening to him talk when they were together. Clark went on and on and on about whatever was on his mind that day, and Bruce rarely blew him off. Clark had learned to decipher each ‘hm’, each uptake in heartbeat, and each slight twitch of the lips better than anyone around Bruce. So much so that sometimes other League members turned to him after debriefs, egging Clark to translate the Bat-mood of the day for everyone else.

“I’ve had to physically stop him from chewing through Pa’s tractor before so honestly—” Clark suddenly stopped when a ping rang through the monitors in front of them. A direct video call snapped to the center of the screens, demanding their immediate attention. Bruce clicked accept on the call without hesitation.

A cloaked figure steps back into frame after setting up a shaky camera feed. He makes his way behind a lump of blue and red—Jonathan and Damian— who are hanging upside down from the ceiling tied with thick, yellow climbing rope and an absurd amount of duct tape. There were no key identifying features of the room this cloaked kidnapper currently held their children in. It was all darkness, save for the sliver of light that pointed at the supersons wiggling desperately like worms on a string.

A high pitched, modular voice cuts through the staticky video feed. “Attention, Superman. Attention, Batman. I, Lord Bloodfang the Merciless, have taken your precious children. If you want to see them alive again,” the figure takes a pause to read the scribbles on the palm of his hand, then continues, “come to the coordinates I have provided.”

“P-please, help us, Dad!” Jon’s face was flushed, and his eyes were teary as he pleaded towards the camera.

“This is pathetic,” Damian grumbled under his breath. The cloaked figure stepped forward to pinch his arm hard enough to bruise. “Ow!  What was— okay, okay. Oh no. Please father, save me.” Damian’s monotone voice echoed through to the watchtower, where Superman and Batman watched with perplexed expressions. Clark’s eyebrow twitched in both confusion and anger while Bruce’s grimace deepened.

“Silence, hostages! Your fate is sealed unless your mighty sires submit to my demands! Come alone.” He gestures too dramatically with spread arms, knocking over the tripod in the process. The feed cuts out mid-scream from Jon, and a message with coordinates pops up immediately.

Superman readies himself to stand, but Batman sets a strong hand on his shoulder, anchoring him in place. “Hold on,” is all he says, voice low and commanding. Bruce scrubbed back through the video, scanning frame by frame. He froze on one blurred second right after the camera was knocked over—just enough to catch the glint of red metal beneath the cloak. His jaw tightened.

“…Jason.”

Clark blinked. “Jason? As in—our Jason?”

Bruce gave a curt nod. “Helmet. Voice modulator. Overacting. He’s not even trying.”

Clark let out a sharp breath through his nose, somewhere between exasperation and reluctant relief. “So this is a prank.”

Bruce didn’t respond right away, his eyes narrowing at the coordinates still pulsing at the bottom of the screen.

“What are they playing at?” Clark worries, lip between his teeth. He concentrates for a second, face blank of all emotion, before continuing, “Jon’s not home. In fact, he’s nowhere on Earth. Could they really be at those coordinates?”

Batman’s gloved fingers work as quickly as they can, typing away as they pull up the video’s metadata. He seems just as concerned as Clark, cowl scrunching at the forehead. “The video is both accurate in time and location. They really are in…” He took a second to locate the coordinates. “Zurrath.”

“That’s orbiting Rao— the red sun.” Clark’s face was drained of color. The monitors’ pale glow reflected off his sharp features as he stared at the coordinates flashing at the bottom of the screen. “If Jon’s really there, he—”

“Jon won’t have his powers there.” Bruce’s fingers flew across the console, pulling up shuttle schematics. His cowl creased at the brow. “And Damian’s with him. Jason may think he has this little prank under control, but if something goes wrong, neither of them can fight their way out.”

Clark swallowed hard, then straightened, voice low and urgent. “Then we go. Now.”

Bruce’s only response was a single sharp nod.

The Watchtower’s launch bay hummed with activity, though only one craft was set to depart. Sleek and angular, the League’s transport shuttle sat waiting, powered not just by engines but by the faint shimmer of an integrated boom tube generator at its core.

Bruce and Clark boarded in silence after alerting the other League members of their departure. The shuttle’s systems came alive at Batman’s touch, the coordinates already locked in. A faint pulse rippled across space as the boom tube ripped open ahead, swallowing them whole in a flash of light. 

When they emerged, Zurrath sprawled below—its skies tinged crimson under Rao’s red sun, its sprawling cities pulsing with neon like veins in the dark.

The boom tube collapsed behind them with a crack of thunder, leaving the transport shuttle coasting down toward Zurrath. Its atmosphere burned faint red against the hull as they descended, until the shuttle settled with a low hiss of hydraulics onto an isolated landing pad at the city’s edge.

The silence pressed in. No kidnappers. No hostages. Just the hum of alien machinery beneath their boots.

The ramp lowered slowly, spilling a wash of sterile light over the dark red soil.

Bruce descended first, cloak drawn around him, every step measured. His boots crunched on the dust—gritty, fine, clinging instantly to the edges of his greaves. He scanned the horizon: jagged towers of crystalline stone in the distance, beyond them a sprawling city skyline that pulsed with neon colors, shifting alien glyphs flashing in sequence like enormous billboards.

Clark followed a step behind, but the instant the red sunlight hit his skin he faltered. His shoulders slumped; the surety of his step wavered. He steadied himself against the side of the ramp, drawing in a sharp breath through his nose.

Bruce glanced back but said nothing, only cataloging the drop in Clark’s posture, the faint sheen of sweat at his temple.

The two of them stood side by side on the barren pad, the city pulsing with life just far enough to feel unreal, like a mirage. The wind carried the thrum of distant music, a low beat that vibrated faintly in their bones.

Then—

The shuttle engines roared to life without warning, dust whipping hard around them.

Bruce spun, cape snapping, eyes narrowing as the ramp began to pull shut. Inside, through the widening gap, a row of familiar faces scrambled into view: Dick gripping the controls like a man possessed, Tim with his fingers flying across the console, Jason leaning casually against the wall, arms crossed, while Damian and Jon waved frantically from the back.

“Of course,” Bruce hissed.

Clark launched forward, cape flaring, but the moment he cleared the ramp the red sun slammed him down like a hammer. His flight sputtered, and he dropped back to the dirt hard enough to leave a crater in the dust. He coughed, face twisted in fury.

Bruce didn’t hesitate. He fired his grapnel straight for the edge of the hatch—only to feel the line jerk, spark, and snap mid-air, the mechanism spitting smoke as it failed. He glanced at the gun, teeth gritted. “Tampered.”

Above, Dick’s voice echoed faintly through the shuttle’s comm speakers. “Sorry, B! Had to make sure you didn’t follow too fast!”

Jason leaned into frame, helmet tilted just enough to ooze smugness. “You gotta admit, it’s funny.”

“Funny?” Bruce barked, already pulling a replacement grapnel from his belt, but the hatch sealed with a hiss before he could fire.

The shuttle lifted, engines howling. Clark dragged himself upright, fists clenched, trying once again to push off the ground. He managed a few feet before gravity and Rao’s light crushed him back down. “Damn it—”

“Compliments of the management!” Conner’s obnoxiously cheerful voice rang out over the external comms.

The hatch cracked open just long enough for two duffel bags to tumble out, thudding onto the landing pad beside them.

“ETA two weeks.” Tim’s voice followed, dry and precise. “Try not to kill each other.”

Jon’s voice piped in, high and panicked. “We… uh… hope you enjoy your vacation?”

Jason snorted. “Nailed it, kid.”

The hatch slammed completely shut, and the shuttle blinked away in a flash of boom tube light.

Dust settled. Silence pressed in.

Bruce stood perfectly still, fists clenched so tight the leather creaked. “…They are grounded.”

Clark groaned from where he was kneeling, running a hand down his face.

Bruce crouched, unzipping one of the duffels. Inside were neatly stacked bills of alien currency, forged IDs, and a glossy guidebook with neon letters screaming WELCOME TO ZURRATH: THE COSMIC CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS! complete with a cartoon alien in sunglasses beaming up at him.

The other bag held toiletries, civilian clothes, and a bottle of lube so offensively big it seemed like mockery.

Clark gave a helpless laugh despite the dirt on his cape. “They planned this like a vacation package.”

Bruce’s glare could have cut steel. Beyond them, the city lights pulsed, alien music already thumping through the air like a heartbeat.

Clark tilted his head toward the skyline, lips twitching despite himself. “Well… we are stranded.”

Bruce zipped the duffel shut with finality. “…I am not playing along with this.”

But the bassline of Zurrath’s endless party city was already rolling toward them, impossible to ignore.

Chapter Text

The Watchtower comms sparked to life, static flaring across the screen before the image settled into two blurry silhouettes. Green Lantern leaned casually against the console, green ring faintly glowing, eyes sharp but amused. The Flash slouched beside him, grin lazy and unconcerned, like this was just another afternoon’s entertainment. They’d taken over Superman and Batman’s monitor duty after they had to run off to rescue Damian and Jon.

“Spooky. Supes. Status report?” Hal asked, tone carrying enough suspicion to make Dick hesitate for a heartbeat, but not nearly enough to undo all the careful preparation.

Dick stepped into the frame first, donning a spare Bat-suit pulled from one of the glass casings within the cave. Unlike his usual lightweight armor, this one was bulkier, designed for maximum protection. The cowl fit snugly but unfamiliar, and the cape fell heavy over his shoulders. He folded his arms over his chest, voice dropping into a low, gravelly approximation of Bruce’s measured growl. “…Mission complete. The kids… are good,” he said, stiff and awkward, trying to match the iconic authority of the Dark Knight.

Conner stood beside him, having slipped into a League-issued Superman suit several sizes too large. The shoulders drooped past his own, sleeves swallowed his wrists, and the cape bunched in ridiculous folds around his feet. Although half cloned from Clark himself, the similarities merely ended at the facial features. He forced a smile so wide it looked like it might crack his face. “Truth! Justice! Hope!” he added, boots slipping slightly as he tried to stand heroically. 

Dick’s gaze cut to him, lips twitching in an attempt to not burst out in laughter as Conner’s boots caught on the cape, sending him stumbling into Dick’s side. The cape slid sideways, half covering his face, flapping as he scrambled upright.

Tim sat at the side, fingers flying across the console, deliberately keeping the feed blurry, static-filled, and poorly framed. He muted the audio any time something unecessary was said, preventing them from being caught red-handed. “Perfect,” he hissed under his breath. “Fuzzy enough that Hal and Barry won’t notice how terrible you two are at this.”

Jason’s metallic laughter drifted faintly from just outside the shuttle hub, sharp and amused. “I can’t believe they’re actually buying it,” he said, voice modulated back to its usual.

Conner inhaled sharply, trying to square his shoulders under the cavernous suit. “…All under control,” he said to the two on the screen, voice too loud and strained, forcing himself to behave like a poor caricature of Superman. Hal and Barry squinted their eyes in suspicion.

Dick cleared his throat, muttering under his breath. “…Yes. Everything’s secure,” his attempt at calm authority wobbling with tension. He waved a hand, motioning someone to come over.

Movement came from the side of the frame. Jon and Damian stepped forward, carefully positioned so Hal and Barry could see them. The Supersons appeared in front of Dick and Conner, their faces half-blurred by static but unmistakably safe.

Dick’s hand shot out instinctively, resting on Damian’s shoulder in a pseudo-Bruce gesture of reassurance. Damian stiffened immediately, grimacing and tilting his head away. “Do not touch me,” he muttered, clipped, though not loud enough to break the feed.

Dick froze, muttering something about Damian being a little asshole, then let his hand drop. Conner gave a stiff thumbs-up, cape flopping, grin proud but awkward.

Hal’s eyes softened. “They’re fine. Both of them,” he said, voice casual but sincere. Barry leaned back, shrugging, clearly unconcerned. “Yep. Looks like everyone’s accounted for. Good work… or, uh, whatever that was.”

The comms clicked off, leaving the shuttle quiet except for the hum of life support and Jason’s muffled laughter echoing down the corridor. Dick and Conner exchanged a glance, relief and exhaustion mingling. Outside the window, stars twinkled silently. Inside, the small crew exhaled in unison, having successfully convinced the two easiest-to-fool League members that the supersons were perfectly safe and that Batman and Superman were definitely not stranded and desperately trying to reach them.

Bruce stood rigid, cape snapping lightly in the faint wind, jaw tight, every muscle coiled. He scanned the skyline, weighing every option. No League transport visible, no shuttle bay in sight, and to make things worse—a flightless Superman. The comms were dead—every attempt to contact the Watchtower or even nearby satellites returned static, bursts of indecipherable noise. He twisted his wrist, tapping the sleek computer embedded there, only to be met with the flickering faces of miniature laughing Robins. 

“Tim,” Bruce muttered under his breath, teeth clenched. The tiny avatars giggled on the screen, looping, impossibly cheerful and bouncing across the screen like old DVD logos. Every attempt to contact for help was met with a cruel joke. Bruce’s shoulders began vibrating with barely contained anger, the air around him sharp as ozone. He knew exactly what this was—an intrusion, a deliberate tampering. His children had cut him off, boxed him in, all so they could run their little scheme.

And it wasn’t just the violation that grated. It was the intent. He knew where this was leading.

Clark stepped closer, unfazed by the storm brewing beside him. He rested a broad hand between Bruce’s shoulder blades, thumb drawing idle, grounding circles through Kevlar. “It’s okay, B,” he said, calm and certain, even under Rao’s oppressive red glare. “The kids, the League… they can handle things for a couple of weeks. Really. We don’t need to worry.”

Bruce’s head snapped toward him, glare sharp beneath the cowl. “Two weeks? On a red sun planet? You’re powerless, Clark. We have no ship, no communications, nothing but alien terrain and—” He gestured curtly at the closest glowing billboard, where a purple, three-eyed alien posed in something meant to be seductive. “…that.”

Clark’s mouth twitched into an easy smile, his head tipping as if to defuse Bruce’s anger with sheer gentleness. He was doing a good job at pretending the added weight of gravity didn’t phase him, despite his forehead shining with sweat. “Vacation,” he said simply. “Two weeks. We explore, have some fun, and get some rest. God knows the last time you slept a full night. Could be worse.”

Vacation. The word hit Bruce like a bad joke. His jaw set, harder than steel. It wasn’t the time for rest, not when his children had deliberately sabotaged him. They weren’t subtle. He knew exactly what they were doing—sending him and Clark off, forcing proximity, betting that endless hours pressed together in this neon nightmare would lead to something inevitable.

But nothing about this was inevitable. Nothing was simple. Not when Clark was still raw from the divorce, not when Bruce had never been able to untangle his own feelings long enough to imagine a future. They had always been complicated, impossibly so. And now the children had ripped away his ability to hide behind distance or duty. Bruce felt the trap tightening.

Clark’s hand lingered, warm and heavy, too familiar. They’d come far enough in their relationship throughout the years that this comforting touch was normal to them, but now it was too much. Bruce shook it off, almost brusque, needing the contact gone before it unraveled him further. “They couldn’t book me a cruise to the Bahamas?” he muttered. “They had to strand me on a different planet with you?”

The faint crack of hurt across Clark’s features made something twist in Bruce’s chest. He covered quickly, low and bitter: “I just don’t think their goal is that simple, is what I meant.”

It wasn’t. They thought they were being clever, that pushing the two of them into proximity would force the pieces to fall into place and that Clark would magically reciprocate whatever Bruce felt. Bruce’s own feelings were a maze he had never trusted himself to navigate. There was no neat resolution waiting at the end of this trap—only tension. Only risk. And now he was locked in a cosmic city that never slept, forced to spend every waking second beside the one man who made it hardest to keep his walls up.

Clark didn’t press. Instead, he crouched by one of the duffel bags and rifled through the contents until he produced a glossy brochure. Alien glyphs danced across the page in bold neon colors, incomprehensible, but the map printed inside had one building circled in red. A note scrawled in Dick’s handwriting marked it: Go here and show your fake IDs xoxo

Clark held it up, lips quirking despite the absurdity of the situation. “Come on, B. Let’s at least find somewhere else to figure this out.”

Bruce said nothing, only letting his eyes linger on the circled mark, on the careless handwriting of a son who thought this would make him confront the truth he refused to face.

In no time, they made it to the center of the city. The streets were crowded with beings of every size and shape. A cluster of tall, willowy figures with translucent skin moved in a pack, their bones glowing faintly beneath the surface as they spoke in a chorus of clicks. Near them, a squat, four-armed vendor stirred a vat of something neon pink, ladling it into floating bowls for a line of customers. A group of children, scaled and finned like amphibians, darted between the legs of the crowd, their laughter bubbling like water poured into glass.

When Bruce and Clark passed, eyes followed—not the black cowl or the familiar “S” stretched across fabric, but their pale skin, hair, no horns or bioluminescence. Ordinary in a place where ordinary didn’t exist.

Clark, stripped of his Kryptonian strength beneath the red sun, kept his posture easy, offering a smile to those who stared. Bruce did not bother; his scowl was carved in stone, every line of his body radiating tension. Together they looked less like tourists and more like fugitives adrift in someone else’s home.

The building circled on the map rose above the city like a jewel. A resort—massive, gleaming, draped in signs that shimmered with projected advertisements no translation device could touch. At the entrance, attendants in flowing, iridescent uniforms bowed them inside with rehearsed grace.

The lobby was cavernous, all polished marble and cascading water features that glowed from within as alien guests milled about. At the reception desk, Bruce and Clark approached together, drawing the staff’s undivided attention. The attendant’s features were smooth and shifting, their voice melodic but incomprehensible. Clark attempted to respond, polite as ever, but the language barrier turned his words into blank silence. Bruce’s jaw tightened as he silently slid their fake IDs across the desk, along with a sticky note Dick had left stuck to the cards. He thought, too late, that he should have probably read the fake names that had been given to them before handing them off to a stranger.

The attendant’s bug eyes flickered from the note to them, widening slightly before her lips turned into what could only be a smile. They spoke quickly to another staff member, who nodded and hurried off. A series of gestures followed—welcoming, warm, almost conspiratorial. Keys were pressed into Bruce’s hand, the staff bowing low before ushering them down a wide hall and up an elevator. Once in front of their destination, the staff gestured toward a gilded door and strode off.

Clark raised a brow at Bruce. “That seemed… easy.”

Bruce grunted. “Too easy.”

The doors slid open to reveal their room—and for the first time that night, Bruce’s composure cracked.

The suite was enormous, walls draped in gauzy fabric that glowed with soft pink light. A scattering of rose-colored petals was strewn across the singular bed where a myriad of candles lit a path towards it. In the center of the room, like a shrine, sat a sunken hot tub carved in the shape of a heart, already steaming invitingly. A bottle of something sparkling chilled on the bedside table, two glasses set neatly beside it.

Clark stopped dead in his tracks, his lips parting in shock then curling into suppressed laughter. Bruce’s expression hardened into absolute, silent horror, his left eye twitching under the cowl.

They’d been put in a goddamn honeymoon suite.

The door hissed shut behind them, sealing with a sound that was just a little too final for Bruce’s liking. Without a word, his cowl lenses narrowed, shifting into scan mode. He swept the walls, ceiling, fixtures—every movement sharp, precise, economical.

“Checking for surveillance,” he muttered to no one in particular. He crouched by the baseboards, gloved fingers brushing along seams, his ear tuned for even the faintest hum of hidden tech. Nothing. No cameras, no mics, no trackers.

He straightened, mouth a thin line. “I’m surprised. Thought they’d want to watch after everything they’ve done to get us here.”

“Gross,” Clark said immediately, nose wrinkling. Realizing too late what that implied, his voice pitched higher, tripping over itself. “Uh—not that we’d be doing anything that’d be gross for them to watch, of course—”

Bruce rolled his eyes and tugged the cowl back, letting it drape against his neck. He stepped closer, gaze sharpening. “How are you feeling?”

Clark rolled his shoulders, as if trying to summon strength by instinct. Nothing came. He pressed both palms against the dresser and pushed. The wood didn’t budge. His jaw tightened. The absence of power felt alien, a hollowness where there should have been unshakable certainty.

“…Nothing,” he admitted, breath shallow. “No strength. No hearing beyond human range. Flight’s gone. Everything’s gone.”

Bruce cataloged it all: the faint slump of his shoulders, the sharper edge to his breathing, the sheen of sweat gathering along his brow. He didn’t need confirmation. He already knew. “You’re vulnerable.”

Clark gave a small shrug, though his smile didn’t quite hold. “Guess that means I’ll have to trust you to keep me alive.”

“I’m sorry about this whole thing.” Bruce unclasped one gauntlet, setting it aside with a muted click. His voice was low, edged with something like guilt. “It seems like my demon spawn are a bad influence on Conner and Jon.”

“A bad influence on Conner?” Clark barked out a laugh, bright, disbelieving. He shook his head. “As for Jonathan… well, he’s needed friends that take his mind off things now more than ever. After the divorce…”

The words trailed into silence, his expression tightening, something old and raw flickering across his face. Bruce had heard almost nothing about what happened between Lois and Clark. Anytime Clark tried to bring it up, his voice would catch, his eyes rimmed red, and the subject would dissolve into silence. The only things Bruce knew for certain: Lois still spoke to him, still worked with him, still co-parented amicably. Beyond that—nothing.

Bruce never asked. The less I know, the better, he thought. Dealing with a lovesick Clark was already difficult without having to hear how much he still loved his black haired, blue-eyed soulmate. Nineteen years had been long enough for Bruce’s own heartache to calcify into something strong enough to withstand it, make it dull enough that he could function around it. But reminders—fresh, pulsing, living reminders—only threatened to crack through the armor.

Bruce remembered the day Clark had told him. They’d been standing on a rooftop in that rare sliver of calm between patrols, the city humming quietly below. Clark’s voice had carried a nervous brightness when he said, “Lois said yes.”

Bruce had given the expected response: “Congratulations” with all the smoothness of a man who’d rehearsed it a thousand times in his head. He’d even managed something that passed for a smile. Inside, though, the words had carved him hollow. Yet he had made peace with it, in his way. Because if anyone deserved forever, it was Clark Kent. And if anyone could hold him steady through decades of battles, near-deaths, and impossible burdens, it was Lois Lane. Their love seemed unshakable, the one constant Bruce could never hope to compete with.

He’d built his resolve around that certainty, told himself he didn’t need to want more, didn’t need to imagine what it might have been like if Clark had chosen differently. Lois was Clark’s forever. Bruce had accepted it. He had to.

Which made the divorce all the more destabilizing. If even that bond could fracture, what did that say about anything Bruce thought he understood about them—or about Clark?

He glanced over at the Kryptonian now, watching him attempt to laugh off his powerlessness, pretending the red sun didn’t dig under his skin like a weight pressing him earthward. Bruce could see it, though—the faint lines of strain at his eyes, the smile that didn’t quite reach them.

And maybe that was the truth of it. Maybe Clark needed this more than he did. Time away from the League. From Lois. From the relentless expectations of Superman. A forced pause, even if it came in the ugliest, most contrived way possible.

Bruce still hated it—hated the manipulation, the vulnerability, the inevitability of being trapped together for days on end. But he could live with discomfort. He always had. What he couldn’t live with was Clark shouldering everything alone.

So Bruce told himself he’d make it tolerable. A decent distraction, if nothing else. He didn’t have to agree with this so-called “vacation,” didn’t have to relax, didn’t have to want what the kids clearly wanted for them. He only had to make sure Clark walked away from it lighter than he’d arrived.

If Bruce was good at anything, it was burying his own wants and putting on a mask. This time, a different one—of a billionaire playboy, careless and glib, a man who had nothing better to do than indulge in whatever absurdities this planet called leisure. If it kept Clark from brooding, from spiraling back into the shadows of a home he no longer shared with Lois, then Bruce could play the role. He had played far more difficult parts before.

Chapter Text

The first thing Bruce’s senses picked up was pain. Not sharp or clean, but a grinding ache that sank into every joint, behind his eyes, and throughout his back. His skull felt two sizes too small. When he tried to shift, his body protested, muscles stiff, skin sore in ways that carried implications he didn’t want to acknowledge but felt way too familiar.

The second was heat. Warmth pressed solid against his chest. When he slowly and unwillingly opened his eyes, he found a spill of red across himself and the body beside him, Sperman’s cape draped haphazardly over them like a makeshift blanket.

Bruce shifted slightly and froze. They were both naked.

Clark stirred, a soft groan spilling from him as he burrowed closer, cheek pressed to Bruce’s shoulder and arm draped over his ribs. His breath was slow and hot against Bruce’s skin and his hand drew aimless caresses across the chest it rested upon, too intimate for Bruce’s already-fraying composure.

The room came into focus by degrees, painted in pulsing red light coming through the curtains slightly ajar. At first it was just disorientation, shapes blurring together, but then the details clicked into place. And every detail was wrong.

Alien liquor bottles lay scattered like shrapnel across the carpet, some shattered, some still oozing strange-colored fluids that smelled sharply sweet. A four-eyed goat—or something like it—splashed cheerfully in the heart-shaped hot tub, its bleats echoing off the vaulted ceiling. Glittering confetti clung to the walls and ceiling in impossible places, catching light with every lazy movement of the ceiling fan.

From that fan hung Bruce’s Batsuit, grotesquely stuffed with towels until it bulged like a carnival dummy, turning slow circles in the air. His cowl dangled over the bedside lamp like discarded lingerie. Several chairs were overturned, and the dresser bore a long crack down its middle as if someone had tried, and failed, to move it.

Bruce’s breath caught. He stayed still for three beats, four, then spoke in the flat voice he used when something was too dangerous to name. 

“Clark.”

Clark groaned low in his throat, his face screwing up as if the world itself were pounding against his skull. He blinked blearily, then immediately shut his eyes again. “Ow. Oh God. This is—this is what dying feels like.”

“You’re not dying.” Bruce’s voice was hoarser than usual. “It’s a hangover.”

Clark peeked out at him, eyes bloodshot, curly hair sticking up at impossible angles. “This is a hangover? People survive this?” He slumped back down with a whimper, dragging the red cape back over his face to block the merciless light spilling through the floor-length window. “Not me. I’m done for. Tell Jon I went out bravely.”

Bruce sat upright with a groan, trying to get a good look at his immediate surroundings. Upon closer inspection, the least of their worries was the goat in the tub.  The sheets were a mess, damp with sweat and unmistakable sticky fluids. An almost-empty bottle of lube lay discarded near the foot of the bed, its cap long lost. Bruce’s ribs and hips bore dark bruises in the shape of hands, and his thighs ached sharply when he shifted. Across from him, Clark rolled onto his side, the cape slipping just enough to reveal long, raw claw marks slashed down his back.

Clark finally flopped onto his back, cocooning himself in the cape. He caught the look on Bruce’s face and frowned. “What?” His voice cracked as his gaze darted over the room. His hand shot down to his thigh, where fresh ink marked his skin in the clean shape of a bat. His eyes went wide. “Is that—? Oh no. Please no. Bruce, tell me that’s not real.” He poked at the mark and winced at the tenderness.

Clark’s panic only grew. Things were beginning to click for him. He gestured wildly at the bed, the cape, his thigh. “We’re naked. There’s a goat in the tub. I have a tattoo on my leg. You’ve got—” he motioned vaguely at Bruce’s chest, “—bruises, and my back feels like I wrestled Doomsday. Bruce… we— we slept together.”

Bruce’s face betrayed nothing, even as his heart slammed against his ribs. He leaned over to pick up the near-empty bottle, holding it like evidence in a crime scene. “Unconfirmed”

Clark’s voice jumped an octave. “Uncomfirmed?!”

At that moment, Bruce made the mistake of standing up, abandoning the silk sheet that had barely clung to his hips. It slid to the floor in defeat. He felt it then: the slow trickle of something wet and sticky sliding down the inside of his thigh. His jaw tightened. “…Never mind. Confirmed.”

Clark went pale, then flushed bright red, torn between horror and the very obvious fact that he couldn’t stop staring. He tried to look away, failed, tried again.

The goat bleated, splashing pink foam over the tiles.

Bruce turned toward the nightstand, where his watch sat discarded beside a pair of broken sunglasses and a string of cheap beaded necklaces. He picked it up, thumb brushing across the display. The numbers seared into him. “It’s…been three days.”

The words lodged in his throat, tasting of iron. Three days lost. Three days where his memory was a void and the evidence around them painted a picture too raw, too damning. He could catalog every bruise, every scrape, every sore ache of his own body—he could almost reconstruct the mechanics of what they’d done—but not the moment it had started. Not whether Clark had leaned in first, not whether he’d asked for it, not whether Bruce had taken advantage of a very inebriated Kryptonian.

The thought dug under his ribs like a blade. Clark had never been drunk before. He hadn’t known what it would do to him. But Bruce had known and he’d still let the night spiral out of control. He’d crossed a line that couldn’t be uncrossed. Guilt slowly ate at him from within.

A shadow flickered over him, and Bruce realized Clark was watching, his expression muddled through the hangover haze but steady where it mattered. His hand pressed over his own thigh, just short of the tattoo, his chest still heaving with shallow breaths. “Hey,” Clark rasped, voice cracked but warm. His eyes averted, as if just now realizing that Bruce was still naked in front of him and covered in his own handiwork. “Whatever happened… whatever we did… we’ll figure it out. We’ll face it together.”

Bruce’s eyes dropped back to the watch, as if the glowing numbers might shift if he only stared long enough. He couldn’t bring himself to meet Clark’s gaze, not when the weight of those words pressed against the guilt already drowning him. Together. Clark said it like it was the simplest truth in the world

“Get dressed,” he muttered, already making his way to the bathroom. “We need to figure out what else happened in those three days.”

By the time they made it downstairs, Bruce had shoved two aspirin and a bottled water into Clark’s hand like he was defusing a bomb. “Take them.”

Clark blinked at the pills. “You carry aspirin into space?”

Bruce slid his sunglasses higher over his nose. “I carry aspirin everywhere.”

Clark muttered something, then downed the pills with a grimace. His civilian clothes—sweatpants and a gray shirt Bruce had dug out of one of the duffels—made him look pathetically human. His hair was an unruly haystack, the remnants of his attempt to wrestle it into something presentable. Bruce, by contrast, looked almost normal wearing dark jeans, black shirt, and a jacket. His sunglasses hid the bloodshot edges of his eyes, his posture tight but composed, projecting the calm control of a rich playboy who was slumming it in space.

The lobby was cavernous, a humming prism of dozens of alien languages. Glassy pillars reached a vaulted ceiling, refracting sunlight into shifting colors. Most beings hardly noticed the humans. That is, until a roar tore through the air.

A hulking red-skinned alien, six arms flailing, stomped toward them, demanding attention. Clark froze, pink-cheeked and wide-eyed, glancing at Bruce with a mixture of embarrassment and alarm.

Bruce’s stomach sank, and the first faint pulse of a memory clicked into place—his body tensed, reflexively readying for chaos.

Bruce remembered stepping out of the restroom and finding Clark staggering across the resort bar. The first taste of alien liquor had gone straight to his head, making his cheeks flush pink and his bright blue eyes widen. Bruce could barely keep his gaze off him. Every sway, every clumsy step, every accidental brush of Clark’s hand against a chair or the bar itself made Bruce’s chest tighten. He looked absurd and dazzling all at once—too tall, too broad, impossibly strong, yet so endearingly uncoordinated in his human body, now powerless.

Clark’s eyes finally found him, and the effect was instantaneous. He wobbled toward Bruce, arms swinging like he was trying to look casual, though the attempt failed spectacularly. “Excuse me,” he said, voice slightly higher and formal, like a stranger introducing himself to a celebrity. “…Are you… Bruce Wayne?”

Bruce froze mid-sip, his own words momentarily trapped in his throat. He’d just seen Clark a few seconds ago—no, minutes—and now he was pretending not to know him? But the alcohol haze made it hard to think straight, and the sight of Clark standing there, earnest, flushed, and ridiculously gorgeous, made his usual defenses crumble. “I—yes?” he said cautiously.

Clark’s grin widened, and before Bruce could even register it, he leaned forward, tilting his head, eyes sparkling and disoriented in that innocent, small-town way that always made Bruce want to lean in and pull him closer. “I’m… Clark Kent. I hear you’re… really impressive.” He wobbled again and reached out to shake Bruce’s hand—but his aim was off, and instead his fingers hooked Bruce’s forearm.

The touch—warm, steady despite Clark’s drunken wobble—sent a jolt through Bruce’s ribs. He caught a faint scent of fresh soap and something earthy, a smell that was all Clark and entirely too distracting. He could feel the strength in Clark’s grip, and his pulse skipped.

Clark’s voice was soft but eager, the lilt of uncertainty making it impossible for Bruce to resist: “I—uh—wanted to… see for myself. All the… stories.” He leaned closer, his chest brushing Bruce’s in a way that was accidental but entirely intentional in effect, and Bruce realized he could see every line of Clark’s jaw, the curve of his pink lips, the dark sweep of his lashes. He was breathtaking.

Bruce’s mouth went dry. His usual fluster-resistant playboy mask wavered, then fell back into place in the only way that felt natural under the circumstances. He leaned in a fraction, adopting that teasing, dangerous smile he knew drove people mad. “All the stories, huh? And what kind of stories would those be?” He tilted his head, letting his gaze roam Clark’s face, memorizing every detail like he couldn’t already map it out to perfection.

Clark blinked, caught off guard by Bruce’s attention. “U-uh… that you’re… scary?” His voice pitched higher on the last word, and he leaned even closer, nose almost brushing Bruce’s, eyes darting nervously yet shining with mischief. “Like… a very tall, broody, sexy… really scary.”

The words, so unpolished and honest, made Bruce’s chest tighten. He wanted to lean closer, wanted to trace the line of Clark’s jaw with a fingertip, wanted to laugh and groan all at once. He managed instead a low, flustered chuckle and let the playboy mask settle over him deeper, using it as a shield even as his voice was softer than usual. “Is that so? Well… I try to live up to my reputation.” He let the sentence hang deliberately.

Clark wobbled slightly, swaying into him, eyes wide and sparkling. Bruce caught the faint scent of him again and felt his own heartbeat pick up. He had to stop himself from leaning in further, from letting this perfect, drunk farm boy in plaid fall entirely into his arms.

And then, as if fate had a sense of humor, Clark stumbled backward, momentarily distracted by the intensity in Bruce’s gaze, and collided with a massive red alien. The impact sent a glittering pink drink flying, spraying across the floor and bar counter. The alien bristled, all six arms flexing in what Bruce could only read as a challenge. And then it spoke—or at least growled something that sounded like a threat. Bruce didn’t understand the words, but he didn’t need to. Every war-blooded species he’d studied had the same rules: insult equals fight.

Clark muttered a flustered, “Uh—I’m…sorry?” but the alien’s eyes narrowed. Pride carved in every ridge of its face, it didn’t want to hear excuses. The tension pulsed in the air like a living thing.

Bruce’s jaw tightened. He straightened, lips curving into that teasing, dangerous smile he always used to disarm. “Well,” he said smoothly, voice calm, “looks like we’ve got a little misunderstanding.”

The alien didn’t wait for clarification. It lunged, towering over Bruce, who had deliberately taken Clark’s challenge. Its limbs moving with terrifying speed. Bruce pivoted, sliding his feet over the floor with practiced ease, sidestepping one swipe and catching another arm in a twist that would have broken bones in a human. The fight was fluid, precise with every movement measured, every counterstrike exploiting the alien’s momentum. 

Clark stood frozen, awe-struck. He could have taken this creature in an instant if he had his powers, but seeing Bruce operate in his element—skill, wit, and sheer audacity intertwined—was as breathtaking as it usually was. When Bruce moved, he couldn’t look away.

Finally, with one last sharp maneuver, Bruce had the alien pinned, arms twisted behind its back, chest pressed close enough to feel the heat radiating off the taller creature. The alien’s roar echoed, but its body language had shifted from aggression to grudging submission. Bruce straightened, brushing a stray lock of hair from his face, chest heaving lightly. His lips quirked in that smug, infuriating way of his.

The memory faded, clicking into place as though it had always been there, waiting just beyond reach. Bruce knew at once it wasn’t a fabrication. It was solid, undeniable. And yet some part of him still felt disbelief at how him and Clark had been acting. He stole a glance at Clark, and undeniably, the look on his face told Bruce he’d recalled the memory just as clearly.

The alien who had seemed so menacing moments before looked meek now, six arms lowering as he reached out and clapped Bruce hard on the back. The sound cracked through the lobby like a gunshot, but the gesture carried no malice. It was a warrior’s respect, offered grudgingly to someone that had beat him fair and square. The towering red figure turned and stalked away, pride bruised but honor intact.

Bruce exhaled, slow and steady, though the pulse at his temple throbbed with new force. The memory left an aftertaste of both adrenaline and unease. Another missing fragment restored, and with it, another question he couldn’t ignore.

“I’m unsure what type of alcohol—or drug—it was,” Bruce said at last, his voice low, controlled, even as his mind ran the numbers. “But it wasn’t human. Nothing I know of can wipe out three days.” He adjusted the sunglasses on the bridge of his nose, more to buy a moment of composure than for the light. “We consumed something we weren’t supposed to.” 

Clark shifted beside him, from one foot to the other, still pink-cheeked and ruffled. He held the water bottle in his hand like a lifeline. “Maybe if we keep retracing our steps, everything will come back to us?”

Bruce’s jaw tightened. “Maybe.” The word was flat, empty. He wasn’t sure if remembering everything would make it better or if it would only sharpen the edge of what he already feared—that some lines once crossed couldn’t be uncrossed. “Guess we’ll find out.”