Note: This fic is a long belated response to a prompt from Music_Mandy1991 (on AO3) for some Batman self-care, with him coming down from a panic. It didn't quite end up fitting the bill, but the prompt is what made this fic come together and inspired the ending. This fic is also strongly inspired by the very grumpy DC Comics limited series, Legends of the World's Finest (though the fic itself isn't really in continuity with anything, except perhaps my other recent Batman/Superman fic, After the Crisis).
It was the same nightmare, night after night. A bright city, towering with skyscrapers the likes of which he had never seen. He ran down the immaculate streets, the light nearly blinding, chasing away even the deepest shadows, but he could not stop. He did not know his destination, but he knew that if he did not make it in time, then all would be lost - nothing would remain. He had to warn them, even as the ground began to crumble beneath his feet. Just as he stumbled over the threshold of the high triangular tower, home at last, the whole world gave way in an explosion of white.
Bruce Wayne bolted upright in bed in a cold sweat.
It was just a dream, just a nightmare - he tried to slow his pounding heart, to force his breathing back to normal. But it wasn't his nightmare.
He tossed aside the sheets and pushed himself out of bed - he wasn't going back to sleep now anyway. He splashed cold water onto his face over the bathroom sink in an attempt to clear his mind, his heart still beating too fast.
Something was wrong, he had felt it for months, for years, maybe. It felt like the whole universe was off kilter - and he had seen too much in this crazy business not to trust his instincts. He knew there were cracks in reality as a matter of scientific fact, and he felt like he was walking on a tightrope along the edge, where one universe had been haphazardly sewn into another. There was nothing he could trust any more.
He pushed away from the sink and crossed back into his bedroom, his legs jittering with pent up restless energy. He picked up a towel and tossed it aside. There was nothing he could do up here as Bruce Wayne, pacing the halls of a stately manor that wasn't really his; that belonged to the ghosts of his past, or otherwise was all a glitzy facade. Down, in the dark of his cave, away from the blinding moonlight, at least there he could think clearly.
With blow after blow, the punching bag swung wildly on its hook, but the tension only mounted.
Something was wrong. His mind wasn't his own. Bruce Wayne didn't dream of the death throes of a dying planet. But he couldn't remember the last time anything had felt right. It was all a haze of desperate frustration.
He pulled back and punched the bag again, sending it swinging, but in the seconds before it swung back toward him, a thunderous bang shook the bedrock and before Bruce had a chance to register what had happened, the bag had been torn from the hook, and now lay in a wreck on the ground, and in its place hovered a panting Superman.
Bruce quickly recovered and slipped on his utility belt, one hand on the lead pouch of kryptonite.
"You're paying for the replacement," Bruce said with a glare that could cow the boldest criminal into silence.
Clark didn't seem to notice it. "How do you stand it?" he demanded.
Bruce kept an eye on the news as any effective crimefighter did, but it was another thing to see it in person; the unstoppable Man of Steel possessed by inhuman rage, the cause of which no one had been able to pinpoint. There was a restless tension that rippled through Clark's taut muscles, which wouldn't have been out of place on Batman, but made Superman look like Gorilla Grod ready for a fight.
Bruce had some faint awareness that Clark was the key, or at least the other side to his own dilemma, but Clark wasn't the only one ready for a fight. Bruce's lips curled into a sneer. "I don't usually have to. You're not needed here."
Clark hovered toward Bruce, just far enough off the ground to tower over him as he crowded into his personal space, daring Bruce to make something of it. "That's exactly what I mean! What's your problem? How do you live like this?"
"My problem?" Bruce taunted. He refused to back down even as Clark loomed closer, throwing out his bulging arms in frustration. He looked ready to crush Bruce at the slightest provocation.
Finally, Clark pulled himself away with a swish of his cape and paced across the cave, moving unnaturally far with each stride - his feet not even touching the ground. "Is this really what it's like for you all the time? I feel like I'm on the edge of tearing the world in half." His hands were shaking at a superhuman speed, so fast Bruce could barely tell they were moving at all.
Bruce was about to make a sardonic remark, when he remembered the blinding flash of light and the world crumbling beneath his feet. Instead, he cut to the point, "It's the nightmares."
"I know that! I couldn't imagine who else they could belong to - that's why I came here at all! And I thought if anyone could help..." he gestured wildly toward Bruce. In only a few restless strides he loomed over Bruce once more.
"If anyone knew about anger, you mean."
"Yes! You must have some way to get rid of it!"
Bruce casually dodged limbs stronger than locomotives, but he didn't give any ground. "You're out of luck."
"What do you mean? There must be some way! No one can live like this!"
"It's been years." And Bruce felt them, but exhaustion only sharpened the edge of frustration.
"Years?" Clark demanded, bearing in on him, closer still.
"Give or take a cosmic reshuffling."
"No, there must be something else behind this!" Their faces were now only inches apart.
It was as though there were a magnetic pull, drawing them together even as their inflated tempers flared, as though the very nature of their reality was warped to bring them to a collision. Bruce half wanted it to come to blows, even though there wasn't a bone in his body that could withstand the Man of Steel.
"Tough. Reality is broken. You're not going to find anything I haven't."
Before Clark could argue - and he looked like he desperately wanted to, his hands clenched into powerful fists - they were interrupted by a quiet cough. Clark turned at impossible speed to face the source of the interruption. Standing at a safe distance was a distinctly unimpressed looking Alfred, still in his bathrobe.
"Master Bruce, Master Clark," he said, acknowledging each of them in turn. "If you do not plan on going out to fight the fabric of reality this evening, might I propose a more restful alternative? I have taken the liberty of preparing a spa day - or rather, night - if you would come right this way, gentlemen. And then if you have no further need for me, I believe I will return to bed."
Bruce sank into the hot water, his utility belt off somewhere within arm's reach, but he couldn't be bothered to pinpoint it. It was remarkable how much the permeating warmth did to take the edge off, unwinding muscles he didn't even know could be relaxed.
"Of course, you have your own private spa," Clark grumbled, lowering himself into the hot tub, cape and costume discarded in the blink of an eye - with perfect, impenetrable skin, he had nothing to hide.
"It's for climatic endurance training," Bruce corrected, but he couldn't bring himself to argue.
"Of course."
They settled into silence. Bruce's eyes fell lightly shut, but he could still feel Clark watching him; he could feel Clark's every movement in the water.
"How did you know?" Clark asked at last. "About the nightmares."
Bruce peered at him through half-lidded eyes - that was all he could do with the bright sun lamp angled directly at Clark, but he still managed an incredulous look.
"I really don't know how you stand it. Everything was the same; the alleyway, the desperate mugger, the pearls, and even with all my powers, there was nothing I could do to save Ma or Pa." The water shook around Clark even though it didn't look like he was moving at all.
Clark stretched his fists open and took a deep breath. The waters calmed.
"I've been seeing the final minutes of Krypton," Bruce said, his voice low.
Clark bowed his head. "Once or twice it was Jor-El and Lara in the alleyway. You really don't know what's causing this?"
Bruce gave him a thin, sardonic smile. "Maybe the universe wants to bring us together."
"Well, it has a funny way of showing it."
"It never gives a push when it can throw a punch."
Clark eyed Bruce. Bruce could feel his gaze wandering over all the scars that wound around Bruce's bare torso.
"But this is nice," Clark said, tearing himself away, to meet Bruce's eyes, "relaxing. We should do it again sometime."
"The punching bags are on you."
Clark gave him a sheepish smile. "You have a deal."
Bruce grunted something that sounded vaguely like approval and leaned back against the back of the tub, letting his eyes fall shut once more. Under the water between them, Bruce's foot found Clark's calf and neither made a move to pull away, so they remained, lounging across from each other, their legs intertwined.