Batman jockeyed into position and took up the slack. "Test."
"Testing!" A little behind him, Clark gradually put his weight on the rope.
"Don't jerk it."
"The wind's picking up!"
"Climb!"
"Climbing!"
From his perch halfway up the cliffside, Bruce pulled back a little. Hanging on with his right hand, he used his teeth to pull off his left gauntlet. It was too cold, but he needed better purchase, and if Clark was going to go gloveless, he could too. He repeated the process with the other and stuffed the gloves in his belt, then dragged himself onto the small ledge where he'd set up a radio wave generator. Minutes later, just behind him, Clark followed. He was panting a little and Bruce realized he didn't know if he'd ever heard Superman pant. Surely he had—maybe it was just the cold, punctuating each breath with an icy mouthful of fog.
"Looks like it's been—?"
"Something's knocked it around." Bruce knelt and examined the makeshift battery he'd rigged and sheltered with rocks, some of which had been pushed to the side. "Something big." He nodded toward a large paw print in the snow. "You picked up the frequency at what altitude?"
"A little outside the gravitational pull." Superman stomped the snow from his feet and wind whipped powdery dust off the bare gray rock of the outcropping, past his red cape, sifting it over the edge to fall a hundred feet below.
Bruce rewrapped the copper wires around the battery's core.
"Need any help?"
"Quiet." The thing managed a weak hum. That was as good as it was going to get, for now.
"I'm putting the antenna on that outcropping. Pass this to me when I get up there." He handed the hunk of metal to Clark and got a handhold on the ledge overhead, pulling himself up and over. Kneeling, tattered cape whipping behind him, he reached for the metal bar that Clark extended.
"Batman, behind you!"
He couldn't move fast enough. The thing was on him too fast. Hard and heavy, it pounced, landing on his back with enough force to knock the wind out of him, razor-sharp talons slicing into his back, hot stinking breath on his neck. Clark's hands were around his wrists, pulling him forward, trying to yank him out from under the snarling cat, big as a panther. Clark pulled, dragging Batman over the edge. He tumbled forward, landing sprawled in the snow a few feet below Clark.
"Superman!" Bruce staggered to his feet. Scrabbled for a handhold. Watched in horror as the cat, with a vicious, snarling cry, launched itself at Superman. The thing landed—hind legs in the snow and front paws on Superman's broad chest. Rearing back its huge head, it bared prehistoric, deadly fangs in a tiger-like growl that changed into a roar—echoing across the frozen mountain and ending in a terrible, savage bite to Clark's shoulder.
Superman cried out, falling to his knees, even as the huge white cat didn't disengage, instead digging teeth harder into the meat of his shoulder, trying to shake its prey—and then the two of them were a blurred tumble of Clark's red and blue and the animal's white fur, tumbling and fighting in the snow, dangerously close to the edge of the ledge—the point where the rock stopped and only ice formed a barrier between life and death.
"Superman!" Bruce clawed his way closer, but they were rolling closer and closer to the edge, a ball of fists and teeth and fur, leaving trails of blood in the snow. He lunged toward them, but it was too late—the ice beneath their two heavy bodies—one man, one animal—gave way, and they surged downward, out of sight. Bruce dropped to his belly and slid, heart racing, to peer over the edge. Twenty feet below him, in a snow crevasse, they were still locked in combat. The cat was on top, but Clark was fighting it.
Bruce slung his rope over an anchor point and then around himself, between his legs, up over his hip and around his shoulder. Pushing off, he rappelled down the crevasse and landed next to them, just in time to hear a pained cry—an animal's pained cry. Superman wasn't going down easy.
The thing crouched over him, fangs sunk deep in Clark's forearm. With a bellow meant to spook the damn monster, Bruce leapt toward the fighting ball of muscle and fur, fangs and fists. He fell on them both—on the cat's back. Clark gasped at the extra weight and the cat howled an unearthly scream. There was blood everywhere—Superman's blood—on the snow and on the tiger's mouth and paws and fur—on Clark—Batman had to end this and end it now.
He wrapped his arms around the thing, under the cat's front haunches. It twisted and snarled, letting go of Clark's arm to try to get at Bruce. But Batman didn't let go. He had the cat in a half-Nelson and he used his weight to roll the thing off and away from Clark. At the same time, Superman rolled out from under it, leaving pools of red. Too much red. Bruce willed himself not to dwell on that—not yet—the red was bright and dark and there was too much—he caught Clark's eyes though, huge and blue and clear. There was blood—Superman was bleeding—but his eyes were clear and that… that gave him enough for right this minute.
He yanked on the cat, arms still locked in place around its front haunches. The thing bucked, just like he'd known it would, and he used the leverage of its body weight against it to pivot them both, then finally to fight it into a standing position, drawing the monster up on its hind legs—his chest to the thing's back. Arms still behind the animals front legs, he locked his hands together behind its neck, and pulled.
The big cat twisted furiously, trying to throw him.
Bruce counterbalanced, maintaining his stance.
The animal pawed the air, forepaws flailing, and whined, a long snarling growl. Tried to muscle him off. Bruce steadied his hands and went for the kill
A few feet away, Clark cradled his right arm. His eyes, locked on Bruce's, widened when the loud snap of the tiger's neck sounded, sharp, clear and final.
The huge animal went still—limp in Batman's arms. He dropped it in the snow.
Even as he moved toward Clark, Bruce had a knife out, yanking at his cape. He worked the tip into a hole already torn and pulled, ripping a strip of black off in his hand.
"Superman." He fell to his knees next to him in the snow.
"Batman," Clark said, but his voice was soft. Unsteady. There was blood everywhere. Too much blood. His shoulder and the side of his neck were ugly and ragged, but he was bleeding from more wounds than just that one.
The suit—damn impenetrable suit, protecting a now all too human man—hadn't even been pierced. But the man beneath it was bleeding out, turning red and blue fabric dark with gore.
"Where is it, Superman? Where?"
Superman blinked at him. His pupils were dilated, his breathing shallow and irregular. He was shivering uncontrollably.
Batman grabbed his shoulders. "Damn it, Superman!" Bruce ran hands over the man's arms—his hands came away red. He stared at them. Registered that they were trembling and willed them steady again. Legs, and—yes. Arterial. Blood was pulsing from Clark's left leg rhythmically. His life's blood, spilling out into the snow.
Pulling at his cape to slice another strip, he pushed him prone, and Bruce slid the piece of cape under Clark's leg—through blood-drenched slush, and pulled the ends together as hard as he could, balancing a knee up, forcing pressure on the wound. One-handed, he pulled a pack of field dressing from his kit and clapped it on the wound, hard, then used his teeth and other hand to pull the tourniquet tight around Clark's thigh.
"Stay with me, Superman," he growled around the strip of cape in his mouth. As soon as it was bound, he ripped another strip from his cape, grabbed more field dressing and applied it to the wound on Clark's shoulder. This time the strip of cape went around his neck and torso, tied under one arm. He felt along Clark's body for more injuries—more places where there was too much blood still flowing
Field dressing. He pulled out the last of his field dressing and he had time to compute—somehow some part of his mind noted that this was the first time he'd ever… He tore a new strip, got to work. That this was the first time he'd ever—that Superman had ever needed anything like this from him. The man—the god—was mortal. More mortal than he wanted to acknowledge. And bleeding to death in this godforsaken arctic hellhole of a prison.
"Stay with me, Superman!"
Clark startled, eyes opening, then closing again.
"Superman!" Batman kept the pressure on his shoulder, patted his face. The skin of his cheek was clammy, lips blue and shivering. He patted again, gentle—then rough.
No response. He had a man down—ithis/i man down, bleeding out in the snow, going into shock, in subzero temperatures.
Bruce hauled his hand back and slapped him across the face. "Clark!"
Superman blinked for that, opened his eyes. Batman grabbed the collar of his cape, dragged Clark's face close to his own. "Superman!"
Superman blinked again, dazed but—obviously... He was trying to focus.
"Soldier, you've lost a lot of blood, but we're going to get you patched up."
Clark worked his mouth like he wanted to say something but no words came out. Then his eyes rolled back. He was shaking violently.
Batman got to the last major injury he could pinpoint right now—this was triage—the cat's fangs had punctured Clark's forearm. He wrapped another strip of his cape around the bloody fabric and fought the surreal vertigo of having this man—this man—like ithis/i.
Bruce reached for more bandages but his kit was empty. Yanked out his gauntlets and struggled to put them on Clark's shaking hands. Pulled Superman up close to him, trying to keep him warm. Kept his shoulder up and crooked Clark's knee, to elevate his leg. Pulled him against him. Tried to stop the way spasms wracked his body, trembling with shivers.
Around them both, the wind howled; the snow blew and drifted. Shadows were falling. He'd misgauged sunset. The sun was going down. The temperature was dropping, they were covered with blood, stinking with the primal, coppery scent of Superman's blood in this frozen, predator-filled nightmare—and darkness was on its way.