Bruce holds his sword three centimeters away from Clark's throat, pressed and sharp and breathless. His armor has cracked off from his face, stone and metal and blood. Rage boils inside him, erupting into screams and curses.

Superman trembles under it, choking out.

There are several ways it goes from here.

Sometimes Clark can't speak. Can't form the words from his lips in time to make Bruce stop.

Martha.

Maybe, maybe, Bruce hears him when he speaks. Hears his- their mother's name from the alien's mouth. Maybe he hesitates. Maybe he stops or maybe he doesn't, or maybe Lois comes rushing in just in time to stop the murder.

Maybe.

Not here.

Bruce stabs the spear right past Clark's throat, roaring in rage, blood gushing and screaming in rivults, patterning the suit and the ground, splatters past the tiles.

Lois runs in.

Stops.

" What have you done?"

Bruce has the blood of many, many people on his hands.

Villains, thugs,

Robin.

Superman is dead beneath his feet. Eyes glazed. Bruce stares at the dead body before him, brain blank.

Martha.

A smattering of pearls against a red canvas, against black and gray. His fingers tremble with the spear in his hands, green and ugly and deformed-

He throws it furiously against the wall, green light clattering against the edge and skitting into the water.

" Clark. Clark- oh, God-"

She turns around. Her hand is gripped by Superman's neck, stained with blood too late to be healed.

" You killed him. He- that was his mother's name."

Mother.

The alien had a-

Martha.

Bruce doesn't respond. Can't. Respond.

" Martha." Lois said echoing his thoughts. Her eyes are still dark with fire. " You killed him. He was asking you to save her."

Bruce forced himself to stand still. His eyes fixed onto the figure.

" Who?" He asked- throat hoarse and gruff and really it didn't change much- " Save her from who?"

Lois looked up warily. Suspective. Waiting for him to attack. Her expression contorted into rage and grief and confusion and despair and so, so many more details that Bruce couldn't find out.

" Lex Luthor." Glanced up. Steeled her gaze. " Bruce Wayne."

Bruce can't speak.

He looks at the dead body again- Superman- no, he had a name, why couldn't Bruce remember?

" I'll find her." He says, and doesn't look back to see Lois' expression or Superman's- except he's dead and-

Martha. Save Martha.

Okay.

" I promise."

Okay.

" I'm-" What can he say? Green light and red and black and blood, and a dead body collapsed onto the floor.. He killed him. Killed.

" A friend." He forces out. " A friend."

" Figured." Martha responds.

Wrong. He's wrong. Lying.

Martha's smiling. As though she isn't looking at the face of her son's killer.

" It's nice that you actually killed him, of course." Lex says amicably.

He's calm, too calm, and Batman want nothing more than to kill him there and then. The brand in his hand is hot and red and burning, glowing red this time, except he's looking directly at Lex's face, and his eyes, which are too, too victorious for his liking.

Bruce doesn't get the chance to respond.

" I was thinking that you wouldn't- I had a back-up plan up and ready after all."

" You planned this." Bruce growled. " You made us fight."

" Ah, ah," Lex chided casually, eyebrows lifting against his hairless scalp. " Perhaps, my good friend, you killed him. With a spear, too, truly a work ethic worthy of the Romans, if I say so myself. You even rescued Martha, which was nice, I suppose, not what I expected, but-"

Bruce throws him against the far wall, hearing the crack as Lex's body hits the brick.

He could kill him.

" I've arranged for you to be transferred to Arkham Asylum in Gotham. I have some friends there. They're expecting you."

The lights flicker, and Bruce slams the brand against the wall by Luthor's ear, hearing the strong hiss and burn and smoking taste of it against his face.

He planned this.

He made him- them- no, he was right, him-

Except it was Bruce who stabbed and killed him in the end.

So.

Lex's laughter rings from his cell.

" Ding-dong, ding-dong, the God is dead, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding…"

Who really killed him?

" Another good man died." Diana says. Her expression stays gentle at the funeral, blank. Bruce shifts, black coat over him. The procession is long and tearful, and Bruce's heart heaves in grief, none of which he deserves. He doesn't even deserve to be here.

" And I killed him."

" That, you did." Diana agrees, and there's hints of accusation in it, disappointment.

" He… told me. To save Martha, before he died. With his dying breath." Bruce's eyes narrowed momentarily. Lex Luthor. The name is enough to send shots of rage through him, and maybe he was right. " Lex kidnapped her. He manipulated us into fighting."

Diana huffed in acknowledgement, wordlessly agreeing. Bruce looked over. " The photograph. It was from World War I."

" It was." Diana says. Her eyes are still fixed onto the gravestone, gray and windy and cloudy, tufts of green-yellow grass already smothering the rock.

Confirmation. Not that he needed it. " Help me find the others. Like you." He said. Prompted.

Diana snorted. " And? Maybe they don't want to be found."

" They will." Bruce argues. " And they'll fight. We have to stand together."

He means to say more, he does. But his words choke and close and don't move past his throat, and he doesn't think that he has a right to speak at all at this point.

Diana breathes in. " What happens when you find them? What are you going to do?" To them? Bruce guesses what goes unspoken. But he could be wrong- he's been wrong before.

Diana continues, but Bruce's eyes stay fixed onto the tombstone, eyes tracing every detail and crevice and letter carved inside. Clark Kent's body is here. That's his name.

Bruce can't let himself call him that, either.

" Men are still good." Bruce says finally, more to convince himself than anything else. His mind flashes unwarranted to Superman's body, dead and limp and cold on the pavement. He shouldn't've died. Bruce should have known better than to kill him.

" The others. Like me. Why did you say they'll have to fight."

A nightmare. Superman, evil, and Bruce realizes he would far prefer that version more than a Superman dead as he were.

" Just." He says, voice closing up again. " Just a feeling."

Bruce knows better than to go anywhere near Metropolis. Or Kansas. Or do anything there. In person, at least.

He does pre-emptively stop the farm from being taken.

It's the least thing he can do.

He wonders. If. Superman was alive, he wonders if he'd be grateful or hate him, and both- both would make sense, thinking about it, and Bruce can't think of which he'd prefer.

Both would hurt.

Lois doesn't reveal his identity, though.

Bruce doesn't. Can't. Always can't.

Ask.

" So did you fight with him before?" Barry asks.

Bruce twitches uncontrollably in his seat. He turns his head, forcing himself to stay calm. " What?"

Barry shrugs obliviously. " Well, you talk about him, so I think you know him a lot. You must've been really good friends too, since-"

He tunes out the rest of Barry's words.

Friend.

As if- you can't be friends with someone you obsessed over to kill for over a year. Someone who you stabbed and murdered. Someone who didn't deserve what he got from the world, and most certainly not from Bruce.

" I can't say." Bruce says.

Barry leans over, head flopped past his rest. " Won't." He corrects. " I mean, I'm joking of course, but you mean won't."

" I mean can't."

" Oh, why not?"

Bruce's fingers tighten around the handle. He swerved a little too sharply.

" He died, remember?"

Barry winces sorrowfully. He shifts in his seat, sighing. " I- yeah. Sorry, that must've been hard for you."

I don't deserve to be upset, Bruce wants to say. But Barry's stopped talking and he doesn't want to ignite another conversation, so Bruce bites his lip, stares hard ahead, and sighs.

Clark's return is angry.

Rightfully so. He screams and rages, and holds his own against the entire League, and Bruce remembers just how unfair it is that he had to die-

Remembers that Clark let him beat him, that he could have fought and killed him at any time and chose not to-

And he paid for it with his life.

Clark rams into him, angry and terrified and vengeful all in one, and Bruce wonders if this is anywhere near what Clark must have felt himself.

" You." Clark growls, and even then, it's too light to be close to what Bruce sounds like. " You killed me."

Bruce feels his punch through his mask, strong and painful and screaming, his bone cracks and skin tears from Clark's fist.

Spots explode in bursts of pain and color in his vision.

" Why did you bring me back?" Clark growls. " To kill me again? As a weapon?"

He lunges at him, eyes red and blazing. Bruce closes his own and waits with bated breath-

" Enough!" Diana yells, throwing her lasso at him. Clark whips around, eyes still glowing, this time snatching the lasso from the air.

" Kal-El." She says.

Clark hisses, and Bruce blinks. He's infinitely more ragged and frenzied than when he died- and God, Bruce never ever wanted to think of Superman's death-

He's angry and frenzied. He's hateful and afraid. And Bruce- that's all Bruce's fault.

His haze is disappearing when he gets up.

" Clark!"

Lois runs past them, here eyes wide and she doesn't even look at Bruce before running to Clark. Clark's eyes widen, stiffening still where he stands.

His mouth widens as though to say something.

" Clark-" Lois says again, and Bruce watches as they meet.

Clark grips onto Lois, and doesn't look back.

Bruce watches as they shoot off. He doesn't let himself breathe. Maybe they won't come back.

That'd be alright.

" So he actually saved her." Clark says, not quite in awe. His face is still stony and ragged, but his skin has more color now, and Clark's eyes look almost as bright as Lois sometimes remembered them.

" He did." Lois says, and she doesn't like thinking of Batman. Bruce.

Clark breathed in sharply. " Okay. That- good. He saved Martha. That's what I wanted him to do."

Lois agreed wordlessly, walking past the corn. The stalks brushed against her hip, and as she got closer, she could see a butterfly dancing across Clark's raised hand.

" You okay? I thought you'd want to spend a minute in the house."

Clark paused, turning around to smile. " I know, it's ju- I just got out of a wooden box." He paused, a look of bewilderment sinking across his face.

Lois stepped past a rock. " What was it like?" she asked. " Coming back?"

Clark wrinkled his nose. " Honestly, weird." He turned back. " So what- how were things? With you?"

Lois swallowed. She stifled her breath slowly. " I." Pause. " I wasn't strong. You would've been really disappointed in me, honestly, I wasn't the same-"

She stopped, searching for some sight to cling onto, a word.

" Hey." Clark said. " It's okay. I'm back now."

Lois snorted, stepping even closer. Clark smelled of mothballs and dust, and Lois couldn't believe that he was undoubtedly, absolutely alive.

" You-" She stopped. " I called Martha. She knows you're alive too." You're both alive.

Clark's eyes widened. " You called mom?"

Lois huffed softly. " Of course. I was, well, I was hoping you would take longer. To recover."

Clark paused. "Why?"

Lois hesitated briefly. " Well. Fate of the world, I think, mostly. He was pretty tense."

Clark blinked. Swallowed. " Oh." His eyes glanced around vaguely with realization. " Bruce?"

Lois nodded. Tried to force out the image of Clark-

No. It- it wasn't his fault, not entirely. Luthor had manipulated them. Lois forced the bile from her throat. She looked at Clark.

" You don't have to go to him, if you don't want to."

Clark shook himself, eyebrows furrowing. " He saved her. I owe him this."

Lois breathed out, shakily.

" Don't die." She said, finally. " And I get the exclusive, first."

Clark laughed, saluting playfully at him.

" Yes, ma'am."

Well I know you didn't bring me back because you like me.

Bruce's eyes widened from the mask. He choked.

" I don't… not…" He swallowed.

" It's good to have you back, Superman."

" I killed you." Bruce says.

Clark looks over at him, smiling. Bruce doesn't know how he can do that.

" Luthor manipulated both of us. It wasn't just you." Clark said.

" Still." Bruce muttered. " If it weren't for me- you didn't have to die. If I didn't kill you."

" Lex probably would have found some way to kill me anyways." Clark says. He grins, locks of curled black hair shadowing his glasses.

" And. Well, you brought me back."

Bruce snorted. " I reversed a mistake. That's all."

He hummed, slowly. " Thank you." Clark said. " For that. For saving Martha, and sending Luthor to jail. All of that."

Bruce opened his mouth to speak. Clark shook his head immediately. " I mean it." he said. " Thank you."

Bruce stared. Swallowed. And sighed.

" I don't deserve to-" he stopped. " It wasn't like that. I wasn't innocent, even if Luthor manipulated me. You never falled for it."

" And like you said- you reversed a mistake." He held out his hand. " Are we- well. Are we okay?"

Pause.

" ...You are a good man, Clark."

" Well, at least you admitted it now."