I know it isn't anywhere near Christmas but I just had to write this one.
00000.
He stared out into the abyss of space. It had always amazed him how completely small he could feel when he saw it. It made him feel human. The only time he ever truly felt human. He loved it and it would usually calm him and remind him of why he loved to be alive. But tonight, on Christmas Eve, it only fed his melancholy.
This was the first year that he truly felt as if he had nowhere to go for Christmas. It was rather disconcerting. He wondered if this was how the Batman felt all the time. Always disconnected and never happy with anything. Never having a reason to be happy with anything.
"Clark?"
He turned, surprised that anyone was still there. He himself had been on his way out when the vastness of space had caught his attention. He was even in civilian clothes, unlike his colleague.
"Batman," he greeted politely and then turned back to the view. He just didn't much feel like dealing with the particular frustrating insanity that was the Batman. Not now, not tonight.
"Weren't you going home?" the Gothamite asked. "It's Christmas Eve."
"I know," the alien replied a little more harshly than he'd meant.
"Nowhere to go?"
If it had been anyone else, Clark would have thought that the question was downright rude or mocking. But this was Batman and he knew the vigilante too well to even pretend that he meant it as anything other than an inquiry. Gathering facts. Always gathering facts.
"Not this year," the alien replied, this time his tone was just weary. "Yourself? What are you doing tonight?"
He was truly curious. What did the Batman do on Christmas Eve? Clark didn't know; he didn't even know the man's identity. Did he have siblings? Parents? A grandparent, maybe? Was there anyone he could go home to? The alien suddenly felt guilty. The Dark Knight was the way he was for a reason. Clark seriously doubted his childhood had been a bright and shiny place filled with wonder and joy.
"I'm going home," the Detective replied. "Would you like to come?"
Clark's head swiveled towards the other man so quickly he honestly couldn't tell if the movement had been at super speed or not. Had he seriously heard what he'd thought he'd heard?
"What?" he managed to gasp out through his complete shock. If the Batman was prone to such actions, he would have rolled his eyes.
"You heard me," the man replied. "Would you like to come to my home? For Christmas?"
"A real Christmas?" the alien asked, trying to remove the thoughts of bats and the Grinch's cave rolling through his imagination.
"As opposed to a fake Christmas?" the Batman asked sarcastically. "Yes, a real Christmas. Trees, roasts, kids. All of it."
"You have kids?" he asked, once more shocked out of politeness. The Detective nodded.
"Just the one," he replied. "He's a fan of yours, you know."
At this Clark couldn't help but grin. A big grin; the kind that usually made his companion horribly annoyed.
"Seriously?" he asked incredulously.
"Yes," the man said. "He has the pajamas and everything." He couldn't help it; he laughed.
00000
The Batman's base of operations was as extensive as it was impressive. For it to have been put together one machinery piece at a time, one floor at a time, was incredible. He wondered how one man could possibly achieve all of this.
"Is this where you live?" he asked, looking up at the giant dinosaur and wondering if this was a result of the Batman's inner child. He then wondered if it was a bad thing that he was creeped out by the thought of Batman's inner child.
"This is where I work," he said and disappeared into a closed off section that Clark was certain was a changing room. He was in there for an impressive amount of time and the alien even heard water running. Batman was most likely taking a shower. "I live upstairs."
He felt his jaw drop. The armor was gone, the face was exposed, and he was actually astonished to recognize that face.
"Bruce Wayne?"
"Hello," the man grinned, clearly amused to see that he had stumped the almighty Superman yet again. He walked past the alien and started up a long flight of stairs that disappeared into the darkness somewhere. The human was halfway up the stairs before he called out to the still immobile alien. "Are you planning on sleeping down here?"
00000
The room that Wayne had given him was opulent. It was far more than he was used to. A king sized poster bed, Egyptian cotton sheets, and borrowed silk pajamas. Clark didn't feel comfortable in the room. But it had been a long day and he was passed out on the bed in only a few moments.
The morning came quickly and he was awoken by the sound of small feet pounding their way up and down the hallway outside his room. He turned his head to look at the alarm clock and saw that it was only five in the morning. He smiled, knowing that the runner must have been the Batman's son. Clearly, the boy was excited.
His sharp hearing picked up on a conversation being held a few doors down and he was far too interested to tune it out.
"But it's Christmas!"
"It'll still be Christmas in a few hours, chum. I had a late night."
"Who's the guy in the guestroom?"
It didn't surprise him to know the kid knew he was there. It just seemed on par with everything he knew about the Batman and everything he'd assumed about the Batman.
"A colleague from work."
"Do I know who he is?"
"Yes, you're wearing his pajamas."
"You brought me Superman!"
Clark stifled laughter. The boy's voice had risen an octave in his excitement and he could just imagine the Batman feeling horribly uncomfortable. The League had run into children on cases before and the Detective had always fled from the area the second they looked at him. The Kryptonian had to fight the urge to look through the wall.
"Yes."
"Is this because you missed my birthday?"
And now he wanted to punch the other man. Seriously? Was this entire thing just to bribe the boy? He should have known better than to assume that the grumpy man would have done something nice. But he had confused the man's sense of right and wrong with the man's sense of compassion. Had he known Clark's Christmas plans were depressingly non-existent? Or had he gotten lucky?
"Maybe. Now go back to sleep."
"Would he go nuts if I poked him with a stick?"
"Probably."
The two fell silent after that and he considered going back to sleep himself but he couldn't muster the will to. He was far too caught up with the conversation he'd just heard. The Batman, a father. Or at least pretending to be a father. He was pretty sure he'd read somewhere that the man didn't actually have kids. A foster child, perhaps?
Regardless, the boy clearly knew who he was living with and he sounded perfectly alright. The alien would have worried about any child being under the Batman's guardianship but the kid sounded perfectly at ease. At least at ease enough to wake the Detective up at an insanely early hour on Christmas morning.
Clark smiled.
Yes, it was a true Christmas.
00000
The boy's name was Dick Grayson. Clark had figured that out soon enough when the kid had practically barreled into him in the hallway.
"I was just coming to wake you!" the boy shouted gleefully. "You'll miss all the cinnamon rolls! I'm Dick Grayson!"
"I'm-"
"Yeah, I know!" Clark couldn't help but smile at the boy's obvious excitement. He couldn't have been more than nine and he was bouncing on his toes in pure joy. Just at the Batman had said, he was wearing the patented Superman pajamas. The kid grabbed his hand and pulled him through the Manor and into a large living room filled with a huge Christmas tree and the aroma of cinnamon rolls. It was clearly a room just for the family. They probably had another room they brought guests to somewhere else.
There was an elderly gentleman pouring coffee into one of the three cups on the coffee table in front of him. The vigilante himself was in one of the arm chairs clearly trying not to fall asleep again if the rapid blinking was any indication. Clark wondered how many days he'd gone without sleep this time. He'd personally seen the man go for fifty-two hours without any sort of sleep and the alien wondered how he didn't kill himself doing such a thing.
Once again, Clark was surprised to see the Batman as nothing more than Bruce Wayne. While Batman was meticulous and stone faced, Bruce Wayne was carefree and expressive. Bruce Wayne was in old red sweatpants that were soft due to the amount of washes they'd been through. He'd thrown a zip-up hoodie on over his bare chest more to hide the scars and bruises than because he was worried about the cold. His bare feet were propped up on the coffee table in front of him. Clearly, Batman didn't celebrate Christmas.
The boy dropped his hand and dashed over to the Christmas tree to look at the presents. Surprisingly, there weren't that many. Most would obviously be for the boy but all in all there was only twenty of them at most. Clark was surprised knowing what he did about the Wayne fortune. But when he thought again, he wasn't too surprised knowing what he did about Batman and his Spartan philosophy. When there was nobody to put a show on for, he was content with simplicity. Clark found himself admiring that.
He sat down on the couch nearest to the other man and gave him a nod. He didn't dare say good morning. Even he knew that wouldn't end well.
"Master Dick," the butler chided. "We'll get to those in a moment." The little boy ran back over to the couch, vaulted over the back, flipped, landed gently on the coffee table, and then jumped onto his guardian. The only person gaping with their mouth open was Clark.
"Not on the furniture," Bruce admonished quietly and not very enthusiastically.
"Are you ever going to wake up?" the boy asked. Bruce gave him an annoyed look that almost matched the boy's perfectly. Clark couldn't help but share an amused smirk with the butler as the older man handed him a huge, homemade cinnamon roll. Clark felt himself start to drool.
"Thanks," Clark said.
"My pleasure, young sir," the butler replied.
The morning went by fairly smoothly in Clark's opinion. The kid opened a majority of the presents. He even helped Bruce open some of his when the child decided the man was just going too slow. But the biggest surprise was when Dick dashed back to the tree for one final present and unceremoniously dumped it in Clark's lap. He saw that it was addressed to him and he was wondering how they could have possibly had enough time to go out and buy him something. But he was also staring to suspect that Bruce had planned to have him there all along. For what purpose, Clark wasn't sure he wanted to know.
When he opened the present he saw that it was a hoodie emblemized with Metropolis's flag on the back.
"Oh wow," he said with a genuine smile. He really did like it. "Thanks!" The boy smiled at him. So did the butler who looked like he dearly wanted to clean up all the paper on the floor more than anything else. Bruce was looking at the bottom of his coffee cup clearly hoping that it would refill.
In the end, it was a nice Christmas.
00000
Clark found Bruce on one of the many balconies after dinner that night. His alien skin was impervious to the intense cold but the human had on a heavy coat and had pulled up the hood to hide from the wind. He seemed to be staring up at the stars. It was late. The kid-having finally run out of energy-was asleep.
"Hey," Clark said as he leaned against the stone banister next to the other man.
"Thank you," Bruce replied and Clark crinkled his eyebrows in confusion.
"For what?"
"For putting up with Dick," the other man said and glanced at him. "He can be a little...rambunctious." Clark snorted in amusement.
"That's an understatement," he replied thinking of all the flips, running, shouts, and other random acrobatics he'd seen that day. He wondered if all little kids had that much energy or just this one. Clark had also learned that it was a bad idea to give this particular kid more than one helping of sugar.
"I mean it," Bruce insisted. "He lost his parents just a few months ago. It was important for him to have something a little normal."
"How did he lose them?" Clark asked quietly suddenly realizing the real reason Bruce had brought him to the Manor. It hadn't been for him; it had been for the kid. Having your favorite superhero around was enough of a distraction to keep him from slipping into a depression. Clark was sure the kid was still feeling the loss but clearly Bruce had gone the extra mile to take away the worst of the sting. Clark admired that.
"They were murdered," Bruce replied. "He witnessed it. He still has nightmares nearly every night."
"Well, hanging out with him was pretty fun," Clark said. "He's a good kid." Bruce grunted. Clark knew that meant the conversation was over. Years later, when he would look back on that Christmas, he would still feel a particular amount of respect for the type of man that Bruce Wayne was. Even in the midst of his personal war against the blackness of his city, he would take the time to give a grieving boy a Christmas worthy of a good memory.
He admired that.