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Clark had been in the Batcave, and he was still in the Batcave. So far, so good. Except he was now locked in a containment cell with kryptonite stashed in all the corners of the cell – not enough to be fatal, but enough to make him feel weak and nauseous. And the Batcave was subtly different – the décor was different, areas were used for different purposes than he was used to, even some of the walkways connected different parts of the cave. And no personalization, no plants, no stickers on the computers or ballet and gymnastics equipment.
There were two empty cells on either side of him, separated by what looked like glass, but was probably far more reinforced and technologically advanced. He couldn’t hear anything from outside the cell, but he saw Batman and three of his adopted children standing around a screen looking at something – he couldn’t see what. There had only been three of the Bats in the cave when he’d arrived, as well, and he wondered what had happened to the rest of the horde. It had been one of the boys that had knocked him out with a fistful of Kryptonite – he hadn’t seen which one, and he didn’t particularly care. They were all trained to react to threats in the Batcave by Batman, the most paranoid man on Earth (and possibly beyond).
He wasn’t surprised to be in a containment cell. If someone had showed up unexpectedly at the Fortress – even one of his allies – he would probably also react to defend himself. Of course, he didn’t know if they were allies in this universe. This could be a universe where he was evil, or where Batman was, or where they both were and were still enemies, or where they both were and were allies. He didn’t know anything about this universe. All he knew was that that he was in a containment cell, Batman was holding him prisoner, and they had noticed he was awake.
“You have 60 seconds to explain what you’re doing in my cave, or I will demonstrate exactly why I’m also known as the Prince of Pain,” Batman growled.
Ah. This Batman was evil. Out of all the possibilities, that was probably the worst, given his current circumstances. It meant there was very little chance he could persuade Batman they were on the same side. Also – Prince of Pain? That was a lousy moniker.
Clark said nothing. He wasn’t going to posture and potentially give away his secrets. He had no idea what Superman was in this universe – if he even existed at all.
“You’re not making this easy on yourself, Superman,” said Batman.
“Sir?” asked one of the boys nervously – Tim, Clark thought, by the voice. He was younger than he’d ever seen Tim – possibly not even in double digits yet.
Batman spun around, and the boy shrunk in on himself before straightening up.
“I think he might be from an alternate dimension.”
The audio cut out abruptly. Clark could see the boy explain something to the looming Batman, with occasional interjections from his brothers. Finally, the boy gave a nervous yet decisive nod, and pulled himself up, chin raised, shoulders back, arms clasped behind his back – waiting for the verdict.
Batman spun around and snapped his fingers. The three boys followed him up the stairs, turning off the lights, and then it was dark.
Clark could see nothing – the Kryptonite impeded his x-ray vision and there wasn’t a single source of light for his eyes to start getting used to seeing by. It was complete and total darkness in a way he hadn’t experienced before – or hardly ever. The kind of darkness that would drive a person mad. He wondered how long it would take for him, and whether he’d manage to escape or be rescued before that point came.
*
The lights blinked on, stinging his eyes. He blinked rapidly to get used to the sensation, the eyes tearing up. Eventually, he could keep them open long enough to start making out blurry shapes that coalesced into Batman and his three shadows, all wearing domino masks and black costumes.
“Since you seem to be an alternate version of Superman who’s landed right in my lap, I feel like we can come to a mutually beneficial agreement,” Batman said.
He had the villain speech patterns down pat, Clark noted idly. Clichéd phrases and everything.
“What do you want?” he asked, fulfilling his side of the unspoken dance – keeping Batman talking for as long as possible, stalling him, trying to make him let some key piece of information slip.
“Normally, I don’t care about the Justice League. They don’t interfere in my business, and I keep out of theirs. But there’s this one reporter who keeps trying to write exposés about Wayne Industries – I’m sure you know who I’m referring to. I would like you to make him stop – by impersonating him, damaging his reputation, killing him yourself, or however you please.”
“I won’t do that,” Clark said.
“I thought you might say that,” Batman replied. “So, I thought I’d better persuade you.”
A fine mist of Kryptonite spread through the cell, making it hard to breathe. He was suffocating, scrambling to get a breath in, flailing even as he knew it was the wrong thing to do, he needed to conserve air, but he was panicking. He banged against the glass of the cell, which stood up even under his onslaught – if it even was an onslaught and not just a tap, given how weakened he was. Batman opened the cell door, and he almost fell out.
Even with the Kryptonite weakening him, Clark tried to put up a fight as Batman grabbed him and threw him on the ground. He thought he got a few good hits in, too, but there were four of them and one of him, and he was under the influence of Kryptonite, so there was little use of it. They fell on him, kicking, punching – Kryptonite held in their hands. It was brutal, and it was relentless.
The thing was, Clark was not actually that good at pain. Not feeling pain was not the same as being able to handle pain when he did feel it. He’d practiced a little with his Justice League, in controlled settings, when he could stop it whenever it got too much. That was nothing like this.
At last, Batman made a gesture, and all three boys pulled back, leaving Clark panting and gasping on the floor of the cave. He wasn’t sure how willing they were. They were clearly submissive to Batman, following his orders. The Robins that Clark had known had been mouthy, full of their own ideas, clever, and unwilling to take Batman too seriously – all of them. Seeing them so acquiescent was unnerving, and made Clark suspect they weren’t uncoerced accomplices.
“Have you changed your mind?” Batman asked.
“No.”
He wished he could be wittier, but that was about all he could manage.
“Kill him,” Batman said.
“He can still be useful,” the oldest – Dick, whatever his alias was here – protested. “We could still change his mind. We haven’t been trying very long.”
Batman turned on him, looming, and his eyes fell to the floor, he drew in on himself and hunched his shoulders, making himself a smaller target.
“In what way?” Batman asked in an icy voice. “Are you going to seduce him? Do you want to spread your legs for him, whore?”
His hand shot out and knocked into Dick’s chin, making the boy stagger back a step.
“No, sir. Only you, sir, I swear.”
The implications of that statement settled like a lead weight in Clark’s stomach. He dearly hoped it had started when Dick was an adult (if he even was an adult, which was hard to judge in costume) – but he doubted it.
“We could use him to experiment, sir,” Tim offered hesitantly, with an almost apologetic look at Clark. Like he was apologizing for trying to save his life – or at what the cost would be. “Learn about Kryptonian biology.”
“You can learn that from dissection,” Batman dismissed.
“Dissection won’t show any information about long-term effects of Kryptonian exposure, or the physiological responses, though, sir.”
“This matters to you?” Batman asked, sweeping his eyes over the boys. “Keeping him alive?”
Dick swallowed.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
“And you’re willing to pay the price for my mercy? Willing to earn my favor?”
Dick glanced at Clark, and Clark felt a sense of foreboding. He had thought about the cost of keeping him alive to himself – the torture, the darkness, the cold, the Kryptonite – but this made it sound like the boys would face a cost as well, and he was far less willing to let them pay it than to withstand it for his own sake.
The boys fidgeted for just a few seconds, before Dick nodded.
“Yes, sir,” he said, raising his chin and staring straight ahead, not meeting Batman’s eyes, but no longer hunched in on himself staring at the floor.
“And what price are you willing to pay?”
Another round of fidgets and twitches.
“You can have me to do whatever you want. I won’t say no to anything,” Dick said.
Batman leaned in and placed a hand under the bottom of Dick’s chin, tilting the head up even further and exposing the neck.
“Sweetheart, you never do,” he growled, almost gently.
“Both of us,” said the next oldest – Jason – abruptly.
And there went any hope that this version of Batman didn’t sexually abuse his children. Because Jason was clearly a young teenager – and probably barely at that.
Batman leaned back from Dick and raised his eyebrows in the cowl.
“Together, without any tedious fussing about what you will and won’t do to each other?” he clarified.
“Yes.”
“That is tempting, I must admit,” he said.
“No. I don’t agree,” said Clark. “The price isn’t worth it, just kill me.”
“You have no say in these negotiations,” Batman said, aiming a kick at Clark’s ribs. He turned to the boys. “Is that your final offer? One night, both of you, no objections? Do you think that is worth the life of Superman, one of the most powerful figures in the Justice League, protector of humanity, The Metropolis Marvel? Is that a fair trade, in your eyes?”
Yes. No – it was too much to pay. Of course, that wasn’t what Batman was insinuating.
“All three,” said Tim.
The boys twitched a little – it looked like angry twitching on the part of Jason and Dick, and almost defiant on Tim’s part, which Clark could understand – he was a bit angry at the boys, too, even as he admired their bravery and courage.
“It’s a deal,” Batman said, having gotten what he was looking for.
They left the cave, turning off the lights on their way out.
It was a cold, dark night.
*
When he saw them the next morning, Tim walked stiffly, with a tiny hint of a limp, Jason was red around the mouth with a black eye, and Dick hadn’t picked up any new injuries aside from the bruised cheek where Batman had hit him the day before.
“If we let you out of the cell, will you cooperate, or will we need to go through the same nasty business as yesterday?” Batman asked Clark.
“I won’t do anything to my counterpart,” said Clark.
“That’s not what I want.”
It was probably a bad idea, to give Batman what he wanted. Whatever he wanted, it was probably as bad – or worse – than his original idea.
“The boys have convinced me to give you chance. Would you make their sacrifice meaningless?”
No. Clark wouldn’t do that. He promised to behave.
“Be aware that the moment you step out of line, you will have a Kryptonite bullet in your chest,” Batman said coldly.
“I understand,” Clark said.
He ran some mental calculations – could he put Batman out before Batman put him out? Probably not. And where would he go from there? How would the boys react? He would likely end up with a Kryptonite bullet in him whatever he did. He wondered if it was perhaps worth it – if that would be a way of cutting the Gordian knot he had found himself in, so the boys wouldn’t sacrifice themselves to keep him alive. But he was not suicidal, and hopefully the bargain that had been struck would be kept.
He went to stand on the practice mats as directed.
“So, as you heard, my sentimental apprentices have bargained for your life. You need to make it worthwhile. They will get in practice fighting against invulnerable opponent, without Kryptonite. You will not permanently harm them, but apart from that you will not hold back. His objective is to get you outside the mat. Your objective is to get him to stop trying.”
“I’m not going to beat up children.”
“Then this will end very poorly for you. And them. Vulture, you’re up.”
Dick stepped up and circled Clark before finally attacking. Clark made himself an immovable object, and absorbed all attempts to push him off-balance and out of the mats. Dick was an incredibly skilled fighter, using leverage, feints, and force as necessary. Had Clark been human, he would have been out of the fight a long time ago. He ignored Dick’s attempts at banter, jeers, taunts and attempts to rile him into making a mistake.
“He won’t stop trying unless you make him,” Batman said.
“I can do this all day,” Clark responded. “I’m not going to start whaling on a kid just because I’m told to.”
“You will meet your objective, or suffer consequences.”
“I’m OK with that.”
“Are you? Buzzard, give me your arm.”
Jason looked up, then held out his hand to Batman without raising a single objection. He had a cowl (not a domino) that covered his eyes, but his body language was full of sullen resentment. Tim’s hand found Jason’s other one. Jason held it tightly.
Batman grabbed the proffered arm.
“I will snap one finger at a time until you start fighting properly.”
“That’s beyond evil of you,” Clark bit out.
“I have learned that people will often do things to protect others that they won’t do for themselves.”
“So the choice is, I hurt them, or you do. Either way, they get hurt,” Clark said
“Correct. I would suggest you pick the one where you control how badly.”
Sure – but Batman was human, and Clark was Kryptonian. Weakened, but still. He felt that changed the calculus a bit.
“Do it,” Dick said furiously, rushing him. “Just fucking do it, already.”
Clark didn’t fight back.
There was the sound of a crunch and snap, followed by a howl. Jason was cradling his hand to his chest, his little finger at an unnatural angle.
“He has ten fingers,” Batman said. “After that, I move on to larger bones.”
Clark attacked. Dick evaded, and came back. Clark tried to pull his punches.
“Fight properly,” Batman said. “This is lesson in endurance. How can he learn to endure, when you give him nothing to suffer?”
Clark was pretty certain Dick had had plenty of lessons in endurance. This particular one ended with Dick unconscious – as much as Clark tried to avoid it, Dick simply did not give up. Clark wondered how much pain he had endured to teach him that.
“Buzzard, you’re up.”
“With a broken finger?” Clark asked.
“He needs to learn to fight even when injured. Crow, hand me your arm.”
Tim did. Batman raised his eyebrows at Clark, and Clark – attacked.
Afterwards, Batman left the cave with curt instruction to get Clark back into the cell. Afterwards, they all converged on each other, checking for injuries, putting salve and plasters and bandages. Afterwards, the boys kept touching each other – gently, carefully, reassuringly. Clark helped Dick stand and hobble over to a bench where he could lie down. Tim was splinting Jason’s finger.
Dick gestured with his head.
“Sorry about this, but we need to get you back to the cell. He might be looking through the cameras, and he’ll be – angry – if we disobey.”
“Of course,” Clark said, moving in that direction, before stopping and turning to look at the three boys again. “Look – if you need to bargain for my life again – don’t. I don’t want you to sacrifice yourselves for me.”
“You’re Superman! The world needs you,” said Tim with determination.
“Not yours. You already have a Superman.”
“One uncomfortable night is a small price to pay for your survival,” Dick said. “We’ll survive.”
“I wouldn’t be Superman if I allowed you to pay it.”
“This our chance to do something good, for once. To protect, instead of tear down.”
“I think you do plenty of that for each other,” Clark said.
“That doesn’t count.”
“Yes, it does. In your circumstances, it really does.”
Someone scoffed (Jason?), but they didn’t protest, and Clark allowed himself to be locked in again, watching as the boys ran Dick through what looked like a concussion protocol and felt each other’s bruises to make sure none of them were masking internal bleeding with practiced efficiency. Clark’s heart broke for them.
*
The Kryptonite exposure wore on him, and the lack of sun made itself known as well – soon, Batman might not need Kryptonite to hold him. He was taking longer to win the fights, and eventually, he started losing. But he was pretty sure he still managed to crack Tim’s ribs. The rules of the fights started to change. The boys were allowed weapons if they could get them, then they were allowed to take weapons into the fight, and then they were allowed Kryptonite weapons. And Clark started losing almost every fight.
And then, after Batman left, there would be gentle touches, cleaning up, bandaging wounds, discussing whether to use precious medical supplies or save them for later, apologies, before he was (gently) herded back to his cell. He was fairly sure that it was allowed, given the cameras he saw recording everything.
“Does he listen to the audio?” Clark asked. There was no question about who “he” might be.
“Sometimes,” Dick said. “He usually doesn’t think it’s worth it. He knows we patch each other up, and if he has a problem with it, he’ll specify we’re not allowed to – if he means for a punishment to really stick. That’s rare, though.”
“I’m sorry about your leg,” Clark said. He’d managed to sweep Dick’s feet from under him, possibly twisting an ankle in the process.
“Sorry about your stomach,” Dick replied.
Clark was taking more hits than he gave, now. He wasn’t in a good shape.
Dick placed a hand on his shoulder. He brought his own hand up to grip it.
“I should get back to the cell,” he said. They’d kept him out longer than Batman approved of, once. They hadn’t done it again.
Dick supported him as he walked to the cell – or maybe he supported Dick. It was hard to tell. Jason handed him some nutrient bars and a bottle of water. The cell door closed.
*
“He’s grown so weak that it’s useless to fight him,” Batman said, when Clark was lying on the floor of the cave after a particularly woeful effort.
“We can still learn from him. He can still be useful.”
“Are you willing to pay the price?”
No, Clark tried to signal with his eyes.
“Yes.”
*
“Since Superman is as good as a human in this state, you’ll be teaching Crow the tricks of the trade,” Batman declared after they trooped downstairs the next day. There were no new injuries on any of them that Clark could see, and they moved fluidly – nobody limped or hunched over in pain, but they were all off in some nebulous, indescribable way. It took some time to realize that they weren’t meeting each other’s eyes, and that Tim, on several occasions, made aborted attempts to make contact with Jason, who seemed to be ignoring him. Just what had happened upstairs? How had Batman made them pay for Clark’s continued survival?
Dick had a Kryptonite dagger. He taught Tim how to cut for maximum bleed, with minimum permanent damage. As Tim practiced, he stopped him every now and again to correct his hold and offer advice.
There was something very jarring about his gentle patience teaching a child how to torture.
“What did he do to you?” he asked when they were alone.
“It’s fine,” said Tim. “Nothing we can’t handle. We’re fine.”
This was said with emphasis, pointedly towards his older brothers. Clark looked at Jason and Dick for confirmation. Neither of them met his eyes.
“He just made us say stupid stuff,” Tim said at last.
“Like what?”
A shrug.
“Just stuff. Nothing that matters. And he gave us stupid choices where there’s no right answer.”
It was clearly a bigger deal than he made it out to be, but pushing would just bring up bad feelings all round, so he didn’t. But Clark knew people – it was what made him such a good reporter – and it sounded like he’d made them complicit in hurting each other, maybe not physically, but emotionally.
“He’s done worse before,” Dick said heavily after a while. “We got through it then, and we’ll get through it now.”
He caught Jason’s eye, made a small twitch, and the younger boy’s face relaxed a little – enough to let himself finally look at Tim, whose hopeful look was almost painful. Slowly, hesitantly, Jason reached out a hand and ruffled his hair. Clark looked away, feeling like he was intruding on a private moment.
*
The cave was cold. And dark. His suit was all but gone, torn to pieces in the fights and the torture. There had been no new clothes offered, and all he had to cover himself was the thin blanket that was already in the cell. Clark was cold, and hurt, and lonely. It was hard not to give in to despair.
*
Clark came back from another bout of torture to find that someone had put a second blanket in his cell. He wasn’t sure when they’d managed to sneak it in, but he clutched it close and tried not to cry from the complex well of emotions he felt.
*
They kept the sound barrier up most of the time, which meant that Clark couldn’t hear, but he could see them training and he could see them suit up and get into the Batmobile. He could see Tim at the computer, providing the essential support that Oracle provided in Clark’s universe (he wondered where Barbara was here – whether she was alive or not, whether she was uninjured, whether she was an ally of the Bats or opposed them). He could see the moment things went wrong – how Tim froze for half a second and then started frantically pulling up new tabs and looking for new angles on the surveillance cameras. Eventually, his shoulders slumped, and he took off his headset, turned off the monitors, and got up from the chair. He went over to a cupboard next to the one where they kept the nutrient bars and water bottles they were giving to Clark and took down a – was that a whip?
It was a whip. Tim placed the whip on the ground in front of him and kneeled in the open space between where the vehicles were kept and the training mats, on the same level as the containment cells. A few moments later, the car drove in, and Batman stormed out. The tension was palpable, even to Clark who couldn’t hear anything – not that there seemed to be much to hear. They took off their equipment in silence, Jasons’ hands clenching and unclenching, Dick’s shoulders hunched up, Batman making abrupt and angry gestures. The two boys were done before Batman was, and knelt down next to Tim, waiting on their knees for him to be done. Dick subtly reached out to brush his hand against Jason’s.
Dick had placed himself slightly in front of the other two, between them and Batman and put his hands up in a placating manner when Batman finally came over to them. Batman said something, and Dick responded, still holding his hands out. He clasped them together as if he was praying – or begging. Then Dick and Jason slowly, reluctantly stood up and moved to the wall immediately opposite the containment cells, where there were a set of restraints. Clark didn’t think the placement was a coincidence. Jason removed his shirt with shaking hands and Dick strapped Jason in facing the wall, so that his arms and legs formed an X with his back displayed. It was discolored from bruises in various stages of healing, and there were a few thin, white scars that stood out as straight lines along his shoulder blades.
Dick gave Jason’s shoulder a quick squeeze before he returned to kneel down next to Tim, straight-backed, heads up, eyes straight ahead at where Jason was stretched out, hands clasped behind their backs. Jason took a few deep breaths, clenching his hands, then releasing them. Batman took the whip from where Tim had placed it on the floor, walked over to where Jason was with steady, unhurried steps, checked the restraints, raised the whip and brought it down on Jason’s exposed back. An angry red line appeared and started leaking blood.
Clark was glad he couldn’t hear. He couldn’t see Jason’s face, but he could see his back turn red with crisscrossed welts and smeared blood, and he could see how he jerked and pulled at the restraints each time the whip came down, could see his head hanging. After ten vicious lashes, Batman finally dropped the whip and took a step back. Neither Dick nor Tim moved. They hadn’t moved the entire time Jason was being whipped. Batman reached down a hand and adjusted the front of his pants. Clark closed his eyes so he wouldn’t see, and kept them shut for two seconds.
When he opened his eyes, Batman and Dick were walking away. Dick turned to look at the scene behind him at the wall with a look of pure grief and agony on his face. He made a few subtle signs with his hands, which Tim responded to. Batman didn’t turn to look at them, and when Dick lingered too long, he snapped his fingers. Dick hurried to catch up and follow him out of the cave.
Tim was gently easing Jason out of the restraints and supported him as they hobbled over to the containment cell to the left of Clark, where he helped Jason lie down on his stomach on the cot. Jason’s face was red and covered in tears, Tim’s face was pale and wan. Clark sat up and put a hand up to the glass wall that separated their cells in a show of support. Tim put his hand up to match Clark’s after he had helped Jason lie down, then he hurried off to get a med kit, kept in the same cupboard as the whip. Something about that bothered Clark, that they kept the med kits with the torture implements.
Tim soaked up the blood from Jason’s back before wrapping it in gauze. As much as he could, he kept in contact with Jason, holding one hand on his shoulder or head or hand while opening packages one-handed. Two of the welts looked deep enough to need stitches. Tim must have made the same judgement, because he took out a suture kit with shaking hands. Jason reached out a hand to grab Tim’s. They exchanged a few words, and then Tim took a deep breath, obviously steeling himself, and started sewing Jason’s back up. It was clear that this wasn’t the first time he had done it, and he managed to keep his hands from shaking while he actually put in the stitches, although as soon as he was done, he dropped the thread and held on to Jason’s hands for about half a minute – Clark wasn’t sure if it was for his benefit or Jasons’ (or both). Jason squeezed them tightly.
Eventually, Tim squeezed Jason’s hands before letting them go, then went to get him two nutrient bars and a bottle of water. He pulled the blanket in the cell over to cover Jason’s back before kneeling down to give him a surprisingly fierce hug, given all the prior tenderness. Then Jason raised a hand to gently push him away. Tim stood up, gave Jason one last squeeze to the shoulder, before stepping out of the cell. Jason managed a smile, although it looked a bit forced. Tim returned it with a forced smile of his own, said something, then closed the cell door. He headed towards the stairs, but at the top of the stairs, he turned to look back. Jason held up his two bars and water, clearly trying to look at ease despite the pain. Tim hit the light switch, and Clark and Jason were left in darkness.
Clark reached out to knock on the wall dividing them. He didn’t know how well-isolated they were, but it was worth a try to reach out. He knocked four short knocks, a pause, then two more. “Hi,” in Morse. He waited. And waited. And waited.
Eventually he heard a faint knocking back, the same pattern he had made. A returned greeting.
U O-K? he asked.
F-I-N-E.
He was not fine. Clark waited. If that was a brush-off, he would take the hint and not push. At least he’d demonstrated some willingness to talk, some rapport established.
N-O-T T-H-E O-N-E T-O W-O-R-R-Y A-B-O-U-T, Jason continued at last.
W-I-L-L T-H-E-Y B-E O-K? D-I-C-K A-N-D T-I-M? He was fairly sure Jason was referring to his brothers, not Clark. His brothers, who had been taken upstairs by Batman who was both angry and lustful. There was a pause. Clark wasn’t sure what Jason was thinking. Should he not have asked that?
H-E-S J-U-S-T A K-I-D. H-E D-O-E-S-N-T D-E-S-E-R-V-E T-H-I-S.
N-O-N-E O-F Y-O-U D-O. I-S T-H-E-R-E A-N-Y-O-N-E Y-O-U C-A-N C-A-L-L O-N T-O H-E-L-P Y-O-U? he ventured to ask. He wasn’t sure if this was monitored, but at least it was less likely to be than audio recordings from the cave.
N-O.
A brief pause. Clark had figured as much. If there was someone they could turn to, they would have. But he still had to check.
U O-K? came from the wall. A deflection, turning the question back to Clark. A message as good as any that he didn’t want Clark to dig. The urge to respond “fine” as well was strong – but he wasn’t that petty.
B-E-E-N B-E-T-T-E-R.
A pause.
I-M S-O-R-R-Y.
N-O-T Y-O-U-R F-A-U-L-T. B-A-T-M-A-N-S F-A-U-L-T.
And that probably wasn’t what he needed to hear, but it was what Clark needed to say. And then,
I F-O-R-G-I-V-E Y-O-U. F-O-R E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. A-L-L T-H-R-E-E- O-F Y-O-U.
Because that probably was what Jason needed to hear (and what Clark needed Batman to not hear).
He didn’t hear anything back for the rest of the night. Just before his eyes finally drifted closed, he leaned over and tapped:
G-O-O-D N-I-G-H-T J-A-S-O-N.
There was no response to that either.
*
The next morning, Jason walked stiffly out of the cell when Batman opened it. He’d bled through the gauze in some places, and when the coverings were removed, the welts on his back were angry and red. He knelt again; his hands balled into fists in his lap. Whatever he said, it must have satisfied Batman, because he was allowed to stand up again and walk slowly out of the cave. Batman stayed to check over the inventory in the cupboards for a few moments, before following.
Jason was left in Tim’s seat that night, and Tim suited up to go out, and the following night. The night after that, they were back to normal, with Tim manning comms and Jason and Dick following Batman out of the cave.
*
“Under the influence of Kryptonite, Kryptonians are pretty much like regular humans,” Dick said patiently. “Weaker, even. So we have to be careful so we don’t overdo it. A lot of the time, it’s about making it look brutal for the people who find the body, and what looks bad and what feels bad aren’t always the same thing, which you know already. But you need to know how to make things look bad that don’t feel bad, how to make things feel bad that don’t look bad, and how to make things that both look and feel bad. So, on to todays’ lesson.”
Tim nodded, clutching an electric iron.
It sure felt pretty bad when he applied it to Clark’s back.
*
They went out almost every night. They would come into the cave in costume, leaving Tim to sit at the computer and man the comms – he went out again once, when Dick was limping too much for even Batman to ignore. The next day, Dick was back in the costume and Tim was at the computer – injuries were apparently given a very short grace period in this Batman’s regime. They didn’t wear the costumes Clark was accustomed to – of course, there would be no Nightwing in this universe, but even the red, yellow and green of the Robin costume was missing. They wore black. They went by Vulture, Buzzard and Crow: carrion-eaters, predators, omens of dark tidings. Not friendly Robins, bringing light to Batman’s darkness.
He learned to tell if things had gone well or badly – if things had gone well, the three boys stood staring straight ahead, their heads up, hands behind their back and they spoke to Batman – reported – sometimes both they and Batman even smiled. If things had gone badly, they were kneeling, heads down, hands behind their back, listening to his lecture without saying so much as a word, and sometimes he would get physical with an open-handed slap or a punch – but at least he didn’t bring the whip back out again, thankfully. They weren’t made to spend the night in the cells, either, and Clark was torn between gratitude on their behalf, and severe disappointment on his own. He would have appreciated the company – as terrible as that admission made him feel. He hoped their time upstairs was better than a night in a cold, dark cell with nothing but nutrient bars and water – but somehow, he doubted it.
*
“Today,” Dick said, “we’ll be working with electricity.”
*
When Batman wasn’t there, they were relaxed, open with each other. Sometimes they would catch Clark’s eyes in the cell, a recognition, an acknowledgement that they hadn’t forgotten him, that they saw him. That they cared.
Jason sat dipping his finger in warm water, trying to reduce the swelling. His mouth was taped shut with silver tape. The splint was off by now, but the finger still looked rough – the finger Batman had broken to get Clark to fight the boys. How long ago had it been? A few days? A week? More?
Tim tended to Dick’s back – they were bruises rather than whip lashes, but looked like some had cut through skin. He wondered what implement had made those marks – a belt, perhaps, or some other kind of blunt object. Clark hadn’t seen him get beaten. He wished he knew what went on upstairs when he was left in the darkness. He was grateful he didn’t know. He hated that he had a suspicion. He wondered if the reality was worse than what his imagination could conjure up. He wasn’t sure.
Tim’s black eye was healing, turning a yellowish-green. It had been replaced with a bruise on his cheek and lip. But he didn’t usually go on missions, so it didn’t matter, according to everyone.
*
Clark’s League would be coming for him. Maybe Batman and his Robins (not Robins) had overpowered Clark – but they wouldn’t overpower all of his allies. He just had to hold on until then.
*
Tim was at the computer, showing something to Batman. Batman leaned over, placed a hand on his shoulder, comforting, friendly. It was very unlike what Clark had seen of this Batman so far.
Dick noticed and came up to join them. His body language was flirty, with his body angled towards Batman. He looked up at Batman under his lashes. He leaned in with an alluring smile. Batman smirked under his cowl, bringing a hand up to Dick’s chin, kissing the boy deeply, hungrily. Then he pushed Dick away. Dick stumbled, and although it had looked like a gentle push, although Dick was a trained acrobat, he landed on the floor. Batman said something. Dick stood up, nodded once, headed over to the closet and grabbed two nutrient bars and a bottle of water before heading to the containment cell on Clark’s left. He closed the door behind himself. There were no hugs, no acknowledgement from his brothers. Jason kept doing pushups. Tim kept working at the computer. He took a visible breath, then carried on saying something to Batman. Batman’s hand on his shoulder migrated down to his chest, and Clark felt sick.
Batman snapped his fingers, and both Jason and Tim stood up and followed him out of the cave.
Dick was the one to initiate contact by tapping on the wall, this time.
U D-O-I-N-G O-K?
These kids, Clark thought. So full of compassion, in such terrible circumstances. Reaching out to the guy they were forced to torture to check on him.
H-A-N-G-I-N-G I-N T-H-E-R-E, he tapped back. He didn’t say by just how thin of a thread. He suspected Dick knew.
I-S A-N-Y-O-N-E C-O-M-I-N-G F-O-R U?
And how to respond to that? He didn’t know if Dick was asking for hope that he (they) would be rescued, or if he would be bringing word straight back to Batman – he didn’t think so, nothing he’d seen so far indicated that they would, but he also didn’t know how far they’d go to protect each other if they needed. If they could buy some leniency with the information, Clark honestly didn’t think he’d blame them for telling Batman everything.
I D-O-N-T K-N-O-W, he responded, truthfully. I H-O-P-E S-O, B-U-T I D-O-N-T K-N-O-W.
I H-O-P-E S-O T-O-O. I H-A-T-E T-H-I-S.
M-E T-O-O.
And on that note of joint sympathy, they went to sleep. Or at least tried to. He didn’t know how well Dick slept. He didn’t sleep very well at all. The pain, the nausea, the muscle weakness, it was all too much. But he didn’t have much energy to do anything else, either. He just lay on his cot, staring into the blackness of the cave, drifting in and out of consciousness for as long as the night lasted.
*
When he woke up it was light, and there was movement outside his cell. He blinked the blurriness from his eyes, and the blurry black shape became Batman, leaning against a table, hands bracing against it. No, not the table. Someone’s arms, pinning them to the table. There was another person he hadn’t seen, almost blending into the table. What he had taken for a paperweight or a mug was in fact a head of black hair. Batman rolled his hips slowly and it took a moment for Clark to connect what he was seeing. Tim, bent over the table. Batman, pinning him down from behind. Batman, rolling his hips leisurely.
The nausea he felt had nothing to do with the Kryptonite.
Batman looked straight at Clark, catching his eyes, and when he noticed Clark looking, he sped up his movements, the thrusts becoming janky and forceful, keeping his eyes locked on Clark’s in some perverse show of dominance. Clark turned his head away. Sure, Batman was doing this to prove a point to Clark, but he didn’t have to participate in whatever the fuck this was. He closed his eyes, but that didn’t prevent him from hearing the panting, grunts, moans and whimpers – Batman must have enabled the sound for him. God damn him.
He heard the smacking sound of bodies being pushed together, Batman’s grunts of pleasure, Tim’s bitten-off cries of pain: half moans, half sobs. They increased in intensity and frequency, before there was a long keening sound from Tim coupled with a drawn-out groan of pleasure from Batman, before only the sound of panting could be heard, the sound of skin slapping against skin slowing down before stopping completely. Clark hadn’t had enough food to throw up, but his stomach constricted painfully, and he wretched and dry-heaved uselessly repeatedly.
He opened his eyes and took stock of the situation as it had changed. Batman was bent over Tim, leaning his weight over the boy, both breathing heavily for several moments, before Batman pulled out, grabbed a tissue and wiped himself off. Tim remained bent over the table until Batman gave him a slap on the ass.
“Clean this mess up. It’s disgusting. Fucking whore.”
“Yes, sir,” Tim agreed in a shaky voice.
Clark could see the effort it took for him to push himself up and reach for the box of tissues with shaking arms.
The door to his cell opened. He didn’t move. He wasn’t sure he could – and it was a little bit of agency he could still exercise, to make them come and get him, rather than crawling out for his own torture. It wouldn’t get him anything, except sparing a tiny shred of his dignity, but he would take his victories where he could.
“You want to get in on the action, Superman?” Batman asked. “Buzzard, give Superman a blowjob.”
Jason and Dick stopped sparring. Clark stopped breathing.
“Please, sir,” Jason said steadily, dropping to his knees. “Please don’t make me do that. I’ll do anything you ask, I’ll pay any price you want me to, just – not that, please.”
Batman crossed his arms.
“I asked you to suck Superman’s dick. Surely the act of sucking dick isn’t beyond you? Do you need remedial lessons?”
“No, sir.”
Jason took a deep breath and headed towards Clark’s containment cell.
And for the first time since he’d been taken prisoner, Clark begged. He kept up a steady litany of “please” and “stop” and “no” and “don’t” as Jason knelt in front of the cot and gently pushed his legs apart. He looked up at Clark with shining eyes and mouthed “sorry.” Clark screwed his eyes shut and nodded once, and then his cock was in Jason’s mouth.
This was worse than any kind of torture they could inflict on him. Jason was at most fifteen, he thought – probably less. A child. And he would make Clark – if there was ever a moment to go away, to dissociate, this would be it. Unfortunately, Clark was all too present, feeling every sensation, hearing every sound, including his own ragged breathing. His body was inadvertently responding, even as his mind screamed in protest.
He wished it would be over soon – but his body was weakened by the lack of sun, the Kryptonite, the lack of food, the torture, his mind was short-circuiting on how wrong this was, the actual act was both pleasurable and painful and he didn’t understand why, and he just couldn’t. Couldn’t get to the point of orgasm.
When he finally came, Jason swallowed it down with an ease that spoke of training – God, why couldn’t he turn his perceptiveness off for once – before pulling back with a blank face.
*
He thought he would soon run out of use, even as torture victim. He was fairly certain the time was near when the boys would once again have to buy his continued survival. He might take the choice from them. There was Kryptonite in his cell – that was how they were keeping him weak. He could get it, he thought. And then…
It wouldn’t be easy – but it would be possible. But they had already suffered so he could live – did he have right to make their sacrifice be for nothing? And on the other hand, did he have the right to put them in position where they had to keep making the same sacrifice over and over?
*
Jason and Dick were pushed down the stairs, grabbing their two nutrient bars and bottles of water on the way to the cells on either side of Clark. They were visibly furious. Jason banged the glass when the cell door closed on him.
U O-K? Clark tried to ask them both, but neither responded.
Tim joined them later, coming down the stairs stiffly. He was wearing sweatpants and a hoodie, unlike his brothers in crumpled suits. Batman opened the door to Clark’s cell and pushed him in before closing the door. Tim smelled of semen. Even in his weakened state, Clark could tell that much. Clark retched. Nothing came up.
“I’m supposed to spend the night here, I’m sorry,” Tim said, as soon as the cell door shut. He quickly tapped out a rhythm to the other cells, not morse code, but something else. “I’ll stay out of your way and not bother you. Or hurt you. You can have the cot. You need it more than me. Do you want a nutrient bar? I have two.”
“Are you hurt?” Clark asked, a more pertinent question in his mind.
“Don’t worry about it,” said Tim. “Not anything worth mentioning. Not like – well, not like you. I. I’m sorry. Jason said – but I want you to know that we all are. Sorry.”
“I know. And I forgive you, just as I said to Jason.”
“You know our names,” Tim observed. It was a question, even though it wasn’t phrased like that.
“In my world, Batman is a member of the Justice League,” Clark said. “One of the founders, actually. I’m very good friends with him, and all his family.”
Tim was silent.
“I don’t know what to do with that,” he said after a while.
“Yeah. I gathered pretty quickly that it’s different here,” Clark said drily. “What’s the JL up to here? Why haven’t they stepped in?”
“The Justice League doesn’t care about Batman,” Tim said. “Or at least not enough to intervene. He’s got a failsafe where he needs to check in every 48 hours, or he releases the civilian identities of about half of the League – the half he knows about – and they don’t think it’s worth trying to take him out to risk it. They think he’s out of control, that he goes too far, but he only ever goes after criminals, so it’s fine that he kills them. They’d prefer he lay off the torture, but, you know, his victims are criminals. So.”
“And what about the three of you? Dick, Jason, and you?”
“What about us?” Tim asked, sounding honestly confused.
“You’re also his victims.”
“We’re hardly innocent,” Tim said a touch bitterly. “We’re his apprentices. His crimes are ours.”
“You’re children.”
Tim didn’t say anything in response.
Then:
“Do you want a nutrient bar? I have two.”
He’d said that before. Clark took the hint to stop digging.
“Are you hurt?” he asked again.
“Not too bad,” Tim said.
“What does that mean?” Clark asked.
“Bruises only,” Tim said. “He uses the belt upstairs. The whip’s only for punishments in the cave.”
“That’s not much better,” Clark said.
“I can handle it. It’s worse for Dick and Jason. I’m good at galas.”
“Galas?”
“Bruce hates them, hates putting on an incompetent persona, but he has to do it. So he looks for things to get angry about. I don’t give him as many.”
“Is that why he kept you upstairs after they’d been put in the cells?” Clark couldn’t help but ask.
He had noticed that Batman showed a preference for Tim – had singled him out for attention on several occasions.
“No. Maybe. He just likes me better, right now, is all.”
“Why?”
“I think Dick’s getting too old for him, and Jason’s too angry.”
Clark very much didn’t want to think about the implications of the first half of that sentence. He wasn’t sure this Dick was an adult. He might still be underage – he looked like he was closer to his mid than late teens. Jason and Tim definitely were. His journalist instinct to find the truth warred with his self-preservation. Self-preservation won, and he focused on the latter part instead.
“And you’re not?”
“I know how to hide it better.”
That hurt for a myriad of different reasons. Clark was getting these kids help. He didn’t know how, but he was. Somehow.
“Do you want to come here? There’s space on the cot. Nobody needs to sleep on the floor. We can sleep with our heads at either end, feet meeting in the middle, if you prefer.”
“Your feet do not end in the middle of the cot,” Tim said, showing a little of the spark of the Tim from Clark’s dimension.
“They do if I sleep curled up.”
“That’s the last thing you should be doing, in your state.”
“Well, you shouldn’t be sleeping on the floor, either.”
“It’s probably not comforting if I say I’ve had worse.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Thought so,” Tim said. “But it’s still true, so.”
“Well, I’m really cold. And I haven’t had a hug in – I don’t know how long I’ve been here. And I think I could really use some human contact that isn’t meant to cause pain,” Clark said.
“Oh,” Tim said in a small voice and crawled up. He hesitantly put his head in the nook of Clark’s shoulder and reached out a hand across his chest in a tentative cuddle.
“Is this OK? Doesn’t hurt too much?” Tim asked.
He was crowded up against the cold glass wall, and the angle pressed on pretty much all the bruises he had, and aggravated his twisted wrist.
“It’s perfect,” he said.
*
The Justice League came, because of course they did, and the Bats put up a good fight, but eventually, Batman was on the ground, Bruce having taken the final swing that knocked him out. Dick – his Dick, Nightwing, was there; why was Nightwing there? – Nightwing Dick was fighting the Dick from this universe. He could see how their fighting styles mirrored each other, and where they diverged – this universe’s Dick more brutal, relying on his hits being both speedy and hard, Nightwing more stable, more into weaving around and using his opponent’s momentum against him. In this fight, it gave Nightwing the upper edge, although Dick gave him a good run for his money. Both Jason and Tim were trying their best to throw off the Justice League members holding them down – but they were outmatched and outnumbered, and had been taken down quickly, although Tim had managed to hit Dinah in the shoulder with a batarang, and Jason had given Hal a nasty hit in the stomach that sent him doubling over. They weren’t helpless, even regular-human children that they were, and they’d fought with a desperation of knowing that whatever outcome of the fight, it would be bad for them. Better the devil you knew, Clark thought wryly. Or, maybe they knew what punishment Batman would give them for not giving their all, even against superhuman adults.
As soon as Batman was out, the three boys stopped fighting and surrendered. Clark’s heart constricted as they lined up on their knees in a painfully familiar position, heads bent and hands behind their backs, before Bruce said something and they rushed to stretch their hands out in front of them, close together and palms up. Hal produced handcuffs and put them around their wrists. Clark couldn’t tell for certain, but it looked like he tightened Jason’s cuffs a little more than Tim’s and Dick’s. Petty bastard.
Arthur and Diana made their way over to the containment cells to get them open. Clark struggled to get up and meet them, but collapsed back on the cot.
“Oh, my friend, what have they done to you?” Diana said as she took in the state of him. They helped him sit up. Arthur found the Kryptonite in the ceiling, and took it away. It helped, but Clark still felt like shit.
The boys were speaking, he realized as he zoned back into what was happening in the cave.
“I did it, too,” Tim said. “I was part of it.”
“Under my instructions,” Dick interrupted, twitching his fingers in a way Clark assumed meant “shut up.” It would be kind of funny how they were eager to implicate themselves to save each other, if the circumstances weren’t so horrible. And then Jason said:
“I raped him,” and there was silence.
Dick twitched his fingers again in the gesture that definitely meant “shut up.”
“I need to get out there,” Clark told Diana, and Diana, bless her, did not ask if he was sure or waste any time, just picked him up and flew him over there.
“I did,” Jason continued. “He said no but I kept going regardless.”
Tim whined.
“Shut the fuck up, Jason,” Dick hissed.
Clark gestured for Diana to put him down in front of Jason. Jason stopped talking.
“Can I have the keys?”
Nightwing was the one to hand them to him. He took them and gently opened the handcuffs around all of the boys’ wrists, starting with Jason, then Tim, then Dick.
“You can relax your arms,” Clark told them. “We know you won’t hurt us.”
Hal made a noise of protest. Clark glared at him, and he subsided. None of the boys moved. Dick’s eyes darted to Bruce before returning to the ground. If Clark hadn’t been sitting right in front of them, he wouldn’t have seen it.
“Bruce, tell them they can relax,” he said. There was no sound. “Bruce,” he repeated sharply.
“You can relax,” Bruce bit out.
Three pairs of hands were folded neatly in their laps.
“Can you give us some privacy, please?” Clark asked.
His friends moved back. Bruce stayed where he was. Clark decided it wasn’t worth bothering trying to get him to back off. Bruce had always had a shitty understanding of boundaries, and he didn’t want to get into an argument with him in front of the boys.
“You didn’t rape me,” Clark said quietly to Jason, so that only he and his brothers (and Bruce) would hear.
Jason’s face twisted.
“It sure as fuck wasn’t consensual,” he snarled. “And I didn’t take you for someone who thinks blowjobs don’t count as sex.”
“No,” said Clark. “It wasn’t. And they do.” He took a deep breath. “It was rape. But you didn’t rape me. Batman did. And he raped you.”
“All the fucking time,” Jason said bitterly. In the corner, Bruce shifted. That was what he got for not respecting people’s privacy. “But that wasn’t what happened with us.”
Clark took Jason’s hands in his.
“It was. You didn’t want it. You begged him not to, and he made you anyway. Sex under threat of violence or coercion is rape, Jason. You were just as much a victim as I was, and I will never blame you for being forced to hurt me. I told you I forgave you for everything, and I meant it.”
Jason breathed raggedly.
“Also, if we’re confessing sins, I’m pretty certain I gave you a concussion, twisted Dick’s ankle, and cracked Tim’s ribs, so. We’re even,” Clark said in a tone audible to the entire room.
“It was training. And he made you,” Tim muttered.
Clark raised his eyebrows, and Tim colored.
“That’s different.”
“I think we’ve all had enough excitement for today,” Clark said instead of arguing. “We can figure out where to go from here once we’ve slept.”
“It’s barely afternoon,” Barry said.
“Well, I’m shattered,” Clark returned. “I would like to sleep. In a bed. Or – actually, I would like to sleep in a sunchair. In the sun. And I think we’d all be more comfortable if we moved out from the bat-infested cave.”
He started hoisting himself to his feet with more effort than usual before Bruce put a hand on his shoulder and effortlessly pulled him up.
“You weigh too little,” he grunted.
“I haven’t exactly been eating three squares,” Clark said.
He held out a hand for the boys.
“Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
Bruce ended up carrying him up the stairs, Dick, Jason and Tim following like little ducklings, the rest of the Justice League behind them, as they stepped out of the cave and into the sun.