Continued...
Passion Fruit
2
Bound
He takes off. No one really expects him to stay after that. Diana is gone, Wonder Woman is gone, Superman takes off. That's how it works. Clark had screamed his agony to the stars. To Nirvana. A plea. For release. For retribution. For her. Diana.
Come back.
It hadn't quite sank in at first, no, not at first. Think of it like this. It's like being underwater. The words can't be heard but it's obvious they've been said. It's indisputable. Picture this. One hundred thousand terrifying emotions hitting even the strongest of men at once. Brokenness is just like beauty; it is something mankind wear and carry, and if allowed to define people, it will. But people are not their beauty or their brokenness, because souls are not made of beauty or brokenness. Souls are made of something permanent. Souls are made of truth.
Diana had been truth. Truth of a better world. Truth that there was a God. A hieroglyph of promise.
Of light.
In the small infirmary, a special kind of hush had reigned. It was not a true silence; there were noises in the darkened room: The harsh breathing of four peers. The ping of the monitors, monitors that had deceived them into thinking that Diana was still in there somewhere. Diana had lain quietly. Still. Gone. Bruce the ever emotionless martyr had squeezed his eyes tight shut and jutted his chin out heavenward. Almost as though he were trying to wake himself from a nightmare. But no one had missed the silent tears that had bled quietly from the corners of his famed eagle like glare.
Clark had made no sound at all; yet everyone had seemed to be looking to him.
Waiting.
For a shout. For anger. For anything.
But he had said nothing. Bruce knew then that he was shutting down.
If Clark didn't want to acknowledge something, then he wouldn't. It was as simple as that. Exhaling on a trembling breath he had done the unthinkable. The inconceivable.
With expert fingers that could carry a plane, he was on his feet, at Diana's side and yanking at the various wires connected to Diana with an almost violent hastiness.
The whole room went into uproar at the awful scream from the heart monitor signalling Diana's demise. But Clark had been deaf to it. His actions robotic. Rational thinking locked away in a bubble of contradiction and coming out in the form of hysteria.
Donna had cried out.
J'onn gasped.
Arthur let out an angry yell and Bruce shot up from his place in the lounge chair.
"What the hell have you done!" a whiskey-soaked voice had barked. Incredulous and borderline passive aggressive. Arthur.
No response.
Clark had carried on his ministrations with a terrifying kind of determination. He tugged at the paper thin sheet covering Diana's modesty and even Bruce himself had needed to divert his eyes at the mere uncomfortableness of the situation.
"Clark this is madness. Stop it!" In one ear, out the other.
He pulled at the last cord and in one fluid motion he had picked her up.
"Clark where are you going?" this time it had been J'onn to breach the question.
"To prove you wrong." It had been spoken with a kind of numbing certainty. But not even such confidence had been able to mask the slight catch in his words.
"Clark you can't just take her." He saw something in Bruce's eyes- was it pain? Or agony, perhaps, that Clark could forget his scruples that the woman they loved was still breathing.
Unfortunately not.
Clark was set in his way and that way had been out the door. Out of the Watchtower and stone deaf to the protests of the three left in Diana's chapel of rest.
He had flown her to his Kingdom of ice. The Fortress of Solitude. Crushing her to his breast for dear life.
Almost like he could've sculpted her to be apart of him.
It was more for his own comfort. Diana's touch had been the only thing he had actually ever felt in the presence of all the different entities they walked among in life. As soon as heavy feet had kissed brittle crystalline solid, he rushed her to his built in medical infirmary with a swiftness even The Flash himself would have been envious of and a flurry of urgent words had passed his quivering lips.
"It's okay. It's okay Diana just breath. Breath for me." and with that being said he had laid her upon a limpid board and had watched on as the garish violet rays begun to do what they were designed for. Then he waited.
Waited for her to draw breath.
Waited for the blood to warm her cheeks once more.
Waited and willed for movement.
For irascible flesh wounds to knit themselves back together.
Come back.
He doesn't know how long he sat there. Waiting. But time had started to bleed together as one and the more anticipating he did; the more the ache in his chest receded. An odd kind of coldness evaporating the incandescent aura that used to be who he was. Clark had gripped her cooling, dainty hand fiercely in his. A subtle plea. Because there was absolutely no way that this was true. She was still in there somewhere. She had to be. Fighting.
For him. For them. A real Wonder. His Wonder. Only she wasn't.
To hell with that.
Clark had sighed, thinking of Lois, how she sounded the last time he had called. She hadn't made him come home in the two days that he had been at Diana's side, but he had suspected that she wanted him to come on his own. That he shouldn't of needed to be told to leave Diana.
But he hadn't been able to leave her. Not until she woke up.
Because he had been almost certain that she was going to wake up.
He had needed his marriage to be strong enough to survive that. Lois had to be strong enough to share that small part of him. He thought she was. Or maybe even he had hoped she was. He had just wished he didn't have to hurt Lois, that there was some way to sit with his friend and not put yet another dent in his marriage. So many little ruptures in his relationship with Lois-so many of them with Diana's name on them.
A slight scuffle of controlled racket on ice had him snapping his head around.
A pandemonium only his sensitive hearing could've picked up on. After all Clark only heard what he wanted to hear.
Bruce had stood at the entrance to his icy home, his hair gleaming in the dying light and an uncharacteristic line of grief set to his usually impassive features.
Bruce had known that this was what Clark would do.
That he would try to find a reason against the inevitable. Especially when it involved Diana. Clark's denial had been the only thing stopping him from crumbling. It was something that Bruce hadn't wanted the task of breaking him out of, but it appeared that there had been no choice in the matter.
It had been time Clark learnt the hard truth.
"Clark it's not her anymore." trust Bruce to go in all guns blazing.
"Get out."
Bruce's face went tight. "That's what I told her." He seemed to slump against the frost caked wall.
Tearing his suddenly to suffocating cowl from his flushed face. Bruce had watched as Clark noticeably stiffened. His grip on Diana's hand had tightened so hard he was sure her bones were creaking. But it didn't make a difference Bruce had known she couldn't feel it.
She was just...gone.
"Don't."
Bruce had made a move in Diana's direction. "She can't stay here Clark. You know that I'm right." Clark had let go of Diana's hand then and got up blocking Bruce's view of Diana's semi-nude form. Clark had stared at him as if he were drowning. But there had been something else in his eyes when he had looked at Bruce. Anger. Devastation. Maybe it had been both.
"I said get out!" Fire had erupted to life in blue eyes and if Bruce had been anyone other than himself he would've hightailed out.
The same way he had come in.
But he was The Batman. And his loss should've been greater than Clark's. He had a right to be there.
Because he was suffering to. Clark had Lois. A wife who was waiting for him. There was no way he could've possibly wanted Diana the whole time he was with Lois.
Debatable.
But Diana hadn't wanted him back.
Foolishness.
Bruce's anger had flared at the thought. Just as torrid as Clark's gaze. He felt bitter inside like spoiled fruit, and he knew that holding it in was a mistake. He'd rot if he didn't let this rage out, would fester until the only thing left inside him was poison-like the venom that had marked his deterioration when he had witnessed his parents gunned down before his very eyes.
Venom that he'd embraced. Because between them they had done this to her. Such beauty they had ruined.
Diana was dead. They both lost. End of story.
Bruce had tried to understand. Like really understand. But he was out of plays. They'd had a sort of rectangle thing going on. Bruce wanted Diana. Diana had wanted Clark. Lois wanted Clark and Clark being the indecisive imbecile he was hadn't been able to decide. But there had not been a doubt in Bruce's mind that Clark was in love with Diana. Even if he didn't want to face up to the fact.
Actions speak louder than words.
He had proved that for the last two days. It had been time that Clark had faced that he didn't have a right to be acting like that.
Especially with what he had said to him a few hours prior in the infirmary.
And especially being the married man he was. Clark had Lois and Bruce had Diana. It was that simple. It should've been that simple. Diana was his. Goddammit. His and his alone. And Bruce would shoulder her death for the rest of his life.
"What are you doing?" Bruce's voice was beyond cold.
"Waiting for Diana to wake up." He faced his friend-his former friend.
"Stop this madness Kent. You have a wife. A wife you nearly killed me to protect, or have you forgotten?" the red glare in Clark's eyes had dimmed ever so slightly, until it was nothing more than the forlorn teal he had seen at The Watchtower.
Clark sighed. "I don't know who you are anymore." He saw that Bruce was going to say something and cut him off.
"I thought you loved her." Clark had, had that look in his eyes again. That glassy look. Glazed with tears that wouldn't come.
Bruce had barked out a laugh then, something akin to agonized bitterness.
"Look where that love got her."
An angled jawline had set stubbornly. In that very moment Clark had looked as if he were made of the most finest of china. That if Bruce were simply to flick him in the shoulder he would splinter and crack into pieces.
"I need you to focus Clark. Look at Diana. Tell me what you hear."
"I don't want to."
"It's not a question of what you want to believe Clark. It's what you must accept."
Almost against his will. Like he had been snapped out of some hypnotic spell. That had been the moment it had happened. He had become painfully aware in those excruciating ten seconds. His super senses on overdrive. The pain had come so remarkably that he thought he was going to die.
There was no heartbeat. There was nothing.
And for the first time in his life Clark thought he might be sick.
"She wouldn't of wanted this for you. For either of us." Bruce had told him. Swallowing past the tightness in his throat.
Bruce didn't think he and Clark would ever regain the ease they'd once known, but if Bruce reached out to Clark now, it might be the first step toward detente for the two of them.
"She can't just be gone." But Clark said it as if it was the last thing he had to hold onto. As if he wasn't sure anymore that what Diana had done for them was equal to what Diana was.
Lost child like blue eyes sought out his, worlds of pain shimmering in them. Almost like Clark couldn't quite understand the gravity of what his heart was putting him through.
At what the world was putting them through. Bruce swallowed hard. After all he was just as guilty. He'd made the same mistake. She was who she'd always been. A woman who would make hard choices. A woman who would do hard things.
A woman he loved with all his heart. A woman they both had loved deeply and irrevocably.
Clark seemed to stare at Diana for a long time. As if only just seeing her. His eyes suspiciously bright.
"Take her."
He had reached out then, lain a hand on Clark's arm. "Clark-"
His friend blinded by grief had shaken his hand off and walked away without another word.
And Bruce hadn't seen Clark since. He had been a no show at Diana's funeral. Of course Bruce knew where he was. That the all-american alien was no doubt in his home town of Kansas. But Superman had disappeared. From The League. From mankind. From the general public. But not before he had finally snapped. He remembers going after him, a firearm packed with Kryptonite in his utility belt and Lois Lane at his side. Clark was ready to destroy, ready to finally kill.
Ready to shoot his reputation to hell.
The hurt Lois must've felt at Clark's unhinged decision was no doubt extraordinary. But she had managed to talk him down because it was the right thing to do. Because Lois Lane loved Clark Kent. Perhaps that Kryptonite was suited for another time.
Bruce had turned the spiteful thought away as fast as it had come.
After all they were all hurting. Some more so than others. Even if it was showing in different ways. According to Donna, Hippolyta had screamed for days when news had reached Themyscira of Diana's murder. Bruce himself had found it hard to look at Donna. She reminded him to much of what he had lost. What the world had lost.
Because for heaven sake the world needed Wonder Woman.
During the service Bruce had excused himself and walked with controlled strides to The Watchtower. He had managed to keep face throughout the entire journey back to Gotham city. But once back at his home. Well lets just say that was a different story altogether.
Diana wasn't even cold yet and he had already started to fall apart.
He sits now in the midst of the chaos that is his study. Wracking his psyche for a way past this. This feeling is an old friend of his. One he had hoped that he would never cross paths with again. Perhaps it was inevitable. A clenched hand, knuckle white grips a crystal glass brimmed with Persian brown scotch. So desperately that it's as though it is apart of him.
Bruce is done.
The league is deteriorating. Superman has vanished. And Diana. Diana is gone. He knows that this is not what she would have wanted. That she would've wanted them to keep "fighting the good fight". But to hell with that. He envies his adolescent self for being able to become a better man. But this feeling. It's different to how he felt when his parents were taken from him.
That had been truly traumatizing but this.
It is like his soul has been ripped from his very being. Like he is seizing to exist. Hell it even hurts to breathe. And all for what?. A woman who was also in love with someone else. He should hate her. Be glad that she's gone. But he can't. He loves her. In this moment Diana's lies reflect his, and all he can see are lies. In the middle of all her truths. Clinging and risking to share their worst fear, that their deaths are coming head on and the back of a gun is pressed against the back of their throats.
It hurts.
Thoughts that are truly horrifying taunt him at his every waking moment.
It's one thought and one thought alone. It screams. She left you. His temper blazes to life at his line of theory. He lifts the chalice to his chapped lips and takes a healthy swig. A much needed swig at that.
"I like what you've done with the place." A mirror hangs over the silver crested antique fireplace. If the pattern holds he'll see Selina Kyle at above and beyond. The Catwoman. The parasitic brain dysfunction. That is his worst nightmare and his hero altogether. Short matte black hair, big eyes the way they are in Japanese animation. Skim milk thin and buttermilk sallow in her dress with a wallpaper pattern of dark roses.
"Get out Selina." He tries to whisper, then he doesn't.
Selina seems to materialize from the mirror and in the next moment she is five steps in front of the turmoil that is Bruce Wayne.
"Now is that any way to greet your only confident." Selina is smoking and rolling her eyes at him. And him. He's burried under a sobbing carpet, and all of a sudden even death and dying rank right down there with plastic flowers on video as a non-event.
The glass that is gripped firmly in his hand is suddenly crashing against the opposite wall. An ugly mess of burnt umber seeping down the hand picked wallpaper in it's wake.
"I said out!" He tries to keep his voice down. Then he's yelling. He sounds like Clark. Clark had told him the same thing. He'd told Diana the same thing. His officially come full circle.
A moment of silence passes between the two. But Selina ever the impatient one; breaks it. She has to break it. Has to know that he's still in there somewhere.
"So clearly Clark isn't the only one freaking out here." Selina's dig is not appreciated. But he can't bring himself to react. Not this time. He is too tired to say something clever or lift a finger to shut her up. Too proud to tell her to go to hell.
"I'm lost." in a moment of weakness. Bruce faces up to his worst nightmares. To his demons.
"I know you are. Where's the Bruce I know?"
"He died when Diana did." the words are brash even to his own ears.
"I don't believe you." She purrs.
"I'm not in the mood for games Selina." The bruised, old fruit way his face collapses, she would've thought he were dead.
"You put up a mask. I know. I know because I do the same thing. You're in pain and that's understandable. But you've felt this pain before Bruce and you can beat this. You can't fight it. It's bigger than you. You need to let yourself drown in. But eventually you'll start to swim and every single breath that you fight for is going to make you stronger. You taught me that."
Bruce couldn't stand it, he had to move, had to start pacing. The night Bruce had taken Diana's remains back to the Themyscira, once he had arrived back home he had collapsed in mere exhaustion.
And he had slept. Not even babies sleep that well.
That evening he had died, and the following morning he was born.
Resurrected.
Until tonight, one week of success until tonight. Because he can't cry with this woman watching him. Because he can't hit bottom. He can't be saved. His tongue thinks it has flocked wallpaper. His biting the inside of his mouth so much. He hasn't slept in almost 48 hours. Perhaps Clark hadn't been the only one stuck in his denial.
"What if I'm done fighting?"
"That's your decision. But the world needs you Bruce. The league need you." With that Selina is gone and Bruce is left alone again. Always alone.
Come back.
He looks out over the wheat field, and she knows that he isn't seeing the golden glow of the rods that bloom from the patchy earth. He is seeing the blasted ground. The crumpled tank. That somehow he sees his dead love lying dead on top of that panzer in the distance.
"Clark did you even hear me just now?" She goes to wave at "said" panzer in the distance, but there is nothing but wheat for miles. There is nothing to be sorry for anymore.
Except the mausoleum that lay beyond the wheat field. Beyond Kansas. Beyond Metropolis and right in the sacred island of Themyscira. The Goddess who died during that terrible battle. The wheat cannot cover that up. The earth cannot cover that up. Reconstruction cannot cover that up. Nothing can ever cover that up.
Clark seems to start out of his delusions of grandeur. When he looks at her it's as though his only just seeing her. His look is helpless. She hates that look. "It's beautiful here isn't it?" Lois breaths out a frustrated breath. "I feel like this is what we needed. Some time to get away."
Wrong answer. Dammit. Wrong goddamned answer.
"Where are you?" she whispers. The words torn away by the wind. But Clark hears. He always hears.
"I'm right here Lois."
"No. You're here physically but mentally-" she trails off. Not sure how to breach the touchy subject. Clark doesn't say a word. Not that she expects him to. He doesn't say much these days. Lois tries a different approach.
"It was her funeral today Clark."
No response.
"Clark I need you to help me understand what your going through right now."
No response.
She turned a little so the wind was blowing her hair straight back and in that moment she accepted that she wouldn't get anything from him today. Not if he didn't want her to.
"I love you," she says softly.
"You too." I love you to. That's what he used to say.
With a choked breath Lois walks away. Martha is watching them from the doorway. A tender kind of look in her wrinkled gaze. Lois knows what she's going to say. She'll tell her to give him time. Lois has given him time. Lois is not stupid. She knows Martha knows her son. That she knew Clark in a way that she will never know him. Knows when her son is smitten with someone. Not just infactuated.
In that moment Lois decides she hates Diana. Even in death she is ruining her life. Clark is so detached. So close yet so far away. He closes his eyes when he touches her now. Even when they have sex. He pretends to make love to her, but he isn't really. They're just having sex. Lois knows it, just like she knows he can't lie to her with his eyes open, so he does it with them closed.
It shouldn't hurt this much. She tells herself that.
He'll get over it. Over her-over Diana. Because he loves her. And she loves him. Because he chose her. She tells herself that too. But she wonders if he's seeing Diana now. Lois can't tell what he sees. She just knows he isn't seeing her.
She wants her husband back.
Not this shell of a man.
...
Months pass and Bruce finds that Selina was right. The pain had gotten worse before it had started to get better. But that didn't mean it hurt any less. If anything it had been the innate opposite.
But he had done what he needed to do in order to survive. Because that's who Bruce Wayne was. A survivor. A leader. A protector. And Diana would've wanted him to go on.
To never stop fighting.
So that's what he had done.
Within two weeks of her burial he had found that he could no longer function without something to help him through the day, and in a moment of newfound strength he had promptly flushed the newly purchased pills he had brought down the drain. A moment of weakness. Happens to the best of us. Sleep was still an issue though. It had been for a while.
So he had found a healthier solution. Because he'd had to. He throws his body into impossible situations. Chews and fights his way through each day that she is not by his side. He'll twist his mind around the most challenging of puzzles. But he won't trust his heart enough to reach across the small chasm between his loss of Diana and him and hold on tight.
He wasn't ready for that yet. He wasn't ready to move on.
Donna is an issue for him. She is the spitting image of Diana. It's a cosmic joke. It has to be. Because she's with him but she's not. Donna is not Diana and Diana is not Donna. Their two completely different people even if they do look exactly alike.
It's not just him who feels this way. The league feel it to. He knows it.
Selina had been a great distraction from the pain. She was driven and motivated, which was attractive for a while, but eventually, it became boring and sad.
She lies and manipulates, and she does it to him just like everyone else.
Selina comes by often to make sure he's okay. That is when their not at each others throats. Most days he just lets her get on with stealing and robbing to her hearts content. Some patriarch of Gotham his turned out to be. In fact speak of the devil and doth she appear. In the form of stiletto heels clicking furiously towards his study door. He will shut his eyes and wait for mental impact. A ritual he finds himself doing a lot these days.
And alas he hears the door burst forth.
"Selina to what do I owe the pleasure." he drawls throatily but his eyes remained closed. Closed of from her. Closed of from the world.
"I need your help." sunless eyes snapped open at that. He regards her with a steely edge to his gaze. Trying to read her. Her face gives nothing away. Not that it ever did.
There are no words exchanged between the two. They'd been hanging around each other long enough to know what the other was thinking, by a simple look. Because Selina was thinking what he was thinking. And that had been "sex, sex, sex".
Yes indeed.
Perhaps this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
...
"What are you thinking about?"
Clark looked over at Lois. She had pushed her plate away and was staring at him.
"Nothing."
"I'm nothing?" She was about to get up, so he put his hand over hers. "You were staring at me, Clark. With that tortured look you wear all the time now."
He looked away. He'd been thinking of the visions that had been engraved in his head ever since he'd held Diana's corpse in his arms. Visions of her dying. Over and over and over. Each time different. Each time terrifying.
...The blood.
He'd wanted to kill for her. If he had, even in death would Diana have judged him the way he judged her when she'd saved him?
"Do you even see me anymore, Clark?" Lois asked. "Me, n-not her?"
"Lois I don't understand what you-"
"Diana is dead Clark!"
He is repulsed. Startled into silence and it takes him a moment to realize he is staring at her, his hands clenched so hard they were white. She did not just say that to him.
"Stop it Lois."
"She's gone Clark and that's the problem. You're living in denial. You won't let us talk about this." She pulled away from him, but they both knew it was because he let her. She stared down at where their hands had been joined. "You dwell on her death. No, you obsess over it, Clark. It makes it hard to stay here. I don't think you even know that I'm alive anymore." She walked over to the window, staring out at Metropolis. There back in their apartment in the city now. They both have respective lives to keep up. If Clark Kent vanished in the midst of Superman's disappearance people would no doubt start asking questions.
"Turn around, Lois."
"No. You'll just distract me with your forlorn puppy-dog look. And I won't be able to stay mad because I'll feel so sorry for you. Hell I am sorry for you Clark. But this is serious." she sighs exasperated "I know she meant a lot to you. But I can't even begin to understand what is going on inside your head"
"I'm tired, Lois."
"Then go to bed." She did turn, her expression hurt and angry. "Go to sleep, and I'll pack a bag. I think it'll be best if we spend some time apart."
"Don't be like this." He rubbed his eyes. He wasn't physically tired so much as emotionally drained.
"Clark, I'm hurting, too."
He met her eyes, saw the hopeless look in them. "Lois, come here. Please?" He held his arms out. He practically watches her shut down before his very eyes. An almost bitter smile that is not her at all plastered onto her pretty features. Clark decides right away that he hates that smile.
"It's my fault, it's all my fault." he refrains from asking her what she's talking about, but apart of him already knows. This conversation has been a long time coming. "I was stupid to think that after one thousand years together you wouldn't come back from Valhalla unscathed." He's silent because what can he say. There is nothing that can make this right. Nothing that can transform the truth into a denial.
Maybe this in a round about way is an epiphany in itself.
"Resenting Diana for her feelings for you was easy. It allowed me to ignore everything that was happening around me. Everything that I let slip away. Now I have to deal with that."
"Lois."
"No Clark just admit it. Admit it to me you owe me that much don't you? I need to hear you say it."
"I can't. I can't Lois because it's not true I never stopped loving you."
"I know that. I know you didn't but i'm talking about the fact that you're also in love with Diana." He feels like his just had the wind knocked out of him. Because it's different when it's someone else voicing thought you've only ever heard in your head. He open's his mouth to talk, scrambling for a response.
"No-" Clark realizes how weak it sounds. How fake. He tries again but even the later attempt is a ploy. "Lois. No-it was jus-"
"Clark stop."
She walked to him, her gait steady, but he could tell by the expression on her face what she was going to say.
"Lois, no."
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
"No, I can change."
"I can't do this anymore," she whispered.
If he hadn't been a meta, he wouldn't have heard her. Was that a good sign? That she could barely get it out? Did that mean he could save this? "It'll get better. I promise. I'll be better."
She slowly rolled up her sleeve, showing him a livid bruise on her forearm.
He was to her in an instant, practically yelling. "Who did this to you?"
She smiled, a half-smile, bitter and sad. "You did."
"When?" Had he gripped her too tightly while they'd flown somewhere? Had he done that in the throes of sex?
"Two nights ago. You were dreaming. About her death, I suppose. Awake or asleep, it's all you think about."
He bent down, kissing her arm, trying to make the bruise better the way a child believed his parents could. Lois jerked her arm away.
"Lois, please. I didn't mean to."
"I know. That's what makes this so hard. This isn't you. Your not this person. Your darker. I know you love me, even if it is just in your own way. But it's not a healthy love, anymore, Clark. It's sick." She swallowed hard. "We're sick. And we're never going to get well together. We'll just keep reinfecting each other. It will always just be me, you and the ghost of Diana Prince."
"Lois..."
"I'm leaving in the morning Clark." She was crying, seemed to stumble blindly into his arms. "I love you so much, but I can't do this, anymore. I'm sorry."
"But you'll be in town. We can see each other, can't we?"
She couldn't meet his eyes.
"Lois?"
"I've accepted a job in London. It's for two years. Maybe...once you've figured out what your going through and this war is done...maybe we can see if..." She looked at him, shaking her head.
"Two years? I can fly there. It's only a few minutes and-"
She held up a hand. "You have to leave me alone, Clark. I want your promise that you'll leave me alone."
"Lois..."
"Promise me!" She was yelling and crying all at once, and he could feel her pain as if it was a wave of OMACs beating up against his heart.
He dropped his head. In an attempt to stop his eyes from burning. In an attempt to stop his heart from tearing that little bit more. This was it. The final straw that broke the camels back. "I promise I'll leave you alone."
Lois nodded, not watching as all he flew from their apartment. As she said goodbye to her dreams.
A FEW WEEKS LATER...
The words Lois had uttered to him that night left scars. Scars that if anyone could see them would rival those that had peppered Diana's body. Clark does not want to live like this anymore. He has lost himself. The world has lost Superman. He can't recall the man he used to be. The man his father had wanted him to be. Lois was right. He was darker. Desperate even. He was still married. Had been certain that he was not in love with another woman.
Not in love with two women. Not that it had been a contest. His wife had come first. She always had.
Diana had known that. Had known Lois meant the world to him. She had never pushed, just let him be a friend to her, and had let him figure out what that meant. He had loved her for that.
There was that word again.
Love.
Lois had told him that he was in love with Diana. Funny thing was is that the more time he'd had to reflect on it. The more apparent the truth had become. So much time he had wasted. He had spent more time appreciating her in death than he had in life. More time missing her. More time loving her. Because she had broken his heart. How could she leave him?
The pain had been so bad. So bad he hadn't been able to even form words. So bad that he hadn't been able to eat. To sleep. Because if love conquered all how could the universe be so cruel. How could he have been so self-righteous.
He just hadn't known what he needed until it was gone.
Which had been what had sparked Clark into making a decision based on impulse that he had been in no condition to make. A childish refusal to let Diana go. To let her have her peace. He hadn't been able to take much more of it. The constant feeling of dying. The last few months had been his own tailor made hell. He had needed it to end.
Had wanted no part in it anymore.
He had jumped in feet first without thinking about what the consequences would be later. Because all he had seen was the image of Diana's face smiling back at him. He had wanted her back.
He wasn't sure if it had worked at first. No. Not at first.
But when he had gotten a distressed call from Donna telling him that Diana's body was missing from Themyscira he had known that he had made the right decision. No matter how selfish it had been.
Because he was tired of being selfless.
Because he was tired of the constant agony.
Clark almost jumps. Almost. His hypersensitive ears pick up on movement in the restroom before the sound of a shower turning off meets his ears. The gentle padding of sopping feet is quick to follow. He holds his breath as the bathroom door creaks open, a cloud of steam floating into his living space. A feminine body towels herself off.
Beads of water and perspiration trailing down flawless olive skin. Rich soil flecked eyes meet those of his and her face lights up. God he had missed that smile. Absolute perfection. No doubt a mating call.
He rises from his seat at the small table he had been sitting at. Completely and totally awestruck of her. He'd forgotten how breath taking she was. One step in his direction is all it takes for her to undo him because faster than a speeding bullet he is before her.
Kissing her.
He kisses her so hard it almost hurts. An embrace designed to suck the air from his lungs and breath new life into hers. And this time it isn't CPR. When he pulls away dazed brown eyes meet his. Clark's thumb traces adoringly over her ripe lips. Beautiful.
The look she is giving him is nothing short of pure love. Clark can't imagine what he must look like.
She's wearing that smile again. That damned. Devastating. Knee weakening smile. Beautiful.
"I love you too Kal." Her tone is playful. A tone of someone who doesn't understand. Of someone who has no idea. Can't she tell he's being serious? He feels his eyes burn and she must see because in the next second she is folding herself into him. Holding him as tightly to her as she dares. He grips her back. Fiercely. Holds onto her for dear life.
He'll never let her go again.
"Diana," he breathes. Her name a prayer. His fingers exploring their way through raven tresses.
"Kal." she whispers. He is lost in her. So lost that he doesn't hear her bones start to crack.
"Kal" It is said urgently this time. So urgent that he let's go of her as if she has burnt him. Alarmed. She doubles up gasping. Her dark brows knitted together in silent pain and confusion. He's to her in a second flat. Spluttering his apologies. Fawning over her.
He must've forgotten.
"I keep forgetting." Is his lame excuse as he crushes her to him more gently this time. His chin finding purchase on top of her head.
"So do I. It is not your fault. I'm mortal now Kal. I cannot do what I used to do so freely." she tells him. Some of her broken English coming through in the sentence. But she was so wrong. It was his fault. It was all his fault. He just hadn't seen any other way.
A moment passes as they stay locked in each others embrace. The lovers embrace.
"I'm so sorry." He utters after what seems like forever.
"For what Kal?"
"All sorts of things."
Because it was true. He was sorry. Sorry for not loving her enough. Sorry that he hadn't been able to save her the first time. But he had made a choice and he couldn't bring himself to be sorry for that.
This woman right here would be the death of him.
Yet he wouldn't have it any other way. Rao knows he'd tried that. Tried that for three years in fact. Look where that had gotten them. He knows that even with all his skills, he won't be able to predict the day that Hades will come for him.
But come hell or high water, when that day does come, he'll be ready. And he will have known that he had done his best for Diana. For his Woman of Wonder.