Warning: Some Language . . .

"What are you doing, Bruce?"

Clark's voice brought him out of his revelry, out of his self-castigation, out of his mind which wasn't a pleasant place to be at the moment. Bruce had difficulty restraining himself from thinking. He deserved the torture of his mind. His boy was gone.

"What are you doing here, Clark?" Not that Bruce cared about the answer. He just wanted to be left alone in his grief.

"It's been three days, Bruce. Alfred is getting a little worried about you." And frankly, so was Clark.

"What did you expect would happen, Clark?" Bruce's voice was hard. "When the League forced my hand; forced me to accept Dick's death, what the hell did you think would happen?"

"Not this," Clark admitted. "We didn't expect you to quit. Nor did anyone expect you to stand out here day and night for three days after you put him in the ground. Bruce, Dick wouldn't want you to give up like this."

Bruce whirled on his 'friend', snarling in the larger man's face. "And yet that is exactly what all of you demanded I do! Give up! And what did it get me? My son in the cold, hard ground! You'll have to forgive me if I'm not ready to let him go just yet and resume life as usual!"

Clark ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "You know what I meant. Dick wouldn't want you to . . ."

"Shut up, Clark," Bruce snapped. "Or in the words of Robin, 'get bent'!"

"You're making yourself ill. You look terrible. When was the last time you slept? Have you even eaten anything recently?"

Clark knew the answers to these questions already from talking to Alfred. Bruce hadn't slept in four days; sitting up with Dick's body the night before the funeral. It had been longer since he had eaten.

"Wouldn't want to do that. Maybe you'll decide I'm taking too long to get better and bury me out here next to my son," Bruce growled as he turned his back on his one-time friend.

"That's not fair, Bruce. We waited with you; every step of the way. There was no healing! I couldn't see any sign of it. Barry couldn't find any sign of it. Even J'onn couldn't connect with Dick's mind. He was gone, for all that his body remained intact."

Intact. Well, if one could call it that. They had covered the region of Dick's face with gauze and wrapped it up lightly. The bullet holes that had riddled his body were left untouched, however, but were only covered up by cloth.

It had been the worst thing Clark had ever done, and the hardest; far more so than facing Darkseid or Brainiac. Day seven, he had accompanied several Leaguers to insist that Bruce accept the inevitable and make arrangements for Dick's body. In the end, two of their members were still laid up in the medical bay with injuries and Clark had been forced to physically carry Batman from the room. He wished that they could have given him more time, but Dinah and J'onn had convinced Clark that the Team would never move ahead without having the opportunity to gain some closure; that Bruce had to let go and give his son the peace he deserved.

Now, three days after interring the boy's body into the ground, Alfred had called him for help. He came only after being assured by the butler that, as Bruce, he didn't normally carry Kryptonite on his person while at the manor. It had been a little hairy there for a while on the Watchtower.

Clark sighed. "You can't stay out here anymore, Bruce. It's time to go inside."

"And you need to leave."

"I'll make you a deal," Clark said. "If you go inside; eat, shower, take a nice long nap, I'll be gone before you wake up."

Bruce remained where he was staring down at the chunks of dirt covering his boy; his . . . his son.

"He asked me to wait on him. He's come back from the dead before, Clark. What if he wakes up down there? What if he wakes up in the dark, all alone, and discovers I didn't wait for him? He's going to think I threw him away!"

Bruce was getting agitated. Clark had never seen the man so utterly distressed like this. Angry, yes, but this . . . This seemed unnatural to the man Clark had come to see as a brother.

Ah, shit, he thought as the realization struck him. This was worse than Alfred had led him to believe. Bruce was actually in danger of digging the boy's body up! This can't be healthy . . .

Unable to see another way, Clark stepped closer to the other man, and taking advantage of his friend's all-consuming grief, flicked him in the back of the head with his finger. Clark caught Bruce as he fell and picked the man up, cradling him against his chest as one might a child. Bruce's head rested against Clark's shoulder.

It was a long walk back to the manor. Clark lifted a few inches above the ground and began floating back toward the house. His gaze caught sight of the darkening sky.

A storm is coming.

He suppressed a shiver of foreboding. He had come just in time. Bruce would have certainly succumbed to sickness had he remained throughout another night's vigil during a storm. He would have to have Alfred call Leslie. Perhaps Bruce's doctor could prescribe him a sedative of some kind. Maybe Alfred already had some on hand, but just no way to bring the younger man back to the house on the off chance that he could convince Bruce to take one.

Either way, Bruce would be getting the rest he needed. His exhaustion and the tap Clark had given him should ensure several hours, at least, although he wasn't exactly sure how restful unconsciousness was. He could only hope that Bruce would wake in a more reasonable frame of mind. Clark knew that he would never again get the drop on the man, even in this identity.

No, the next time Clark came, if there was a next time after this, he was positive that Bruce would be carrying Kryptonite on him no matter his guise.

Clark was saddened by the loss of his pseudo-nephew, but even more so, he would miss his friend. Like Alfred, he was worried about the man. He let his eyes drift to the outline of the city in the distance, and worried a bit for Gotham as well. It was almost as if Bruce had died with the boy, and he wondered if any of them would ever fully recover from the death of this one child.

He was nearly back to the manor when the soft sound of what he thought was a gasp and a sigh drifted to him. It sounded muffled, however, and rather far away. Clark stopped, hovering briefly, listening. No other sound similar came to him. He used his vision to scan the forest surrounding the formal grounds, but there was no one. He turned around and saw Alfred in the distance, wringing his hands and looking older than Clark ever remembered seeing him.

It must have been Alfred he had heard, Clark decided.

He must have startled him, what with carrying his eldest charge back like a drooping damsel. Satisfied, he continued on. He would help Alfred get Bruce comfortable and then assist the elder man to batten down the manor in preparation of the huge storm brewing on the horizon before heading back to Smallsville.

Clark was suddenly missing his parents very much.

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