Nothing moved, for once, in the eerily quiet, deathly still, ice-covered alien landscape. The snow had stopped falling and the wind had died down by the time Bruce climbed up and out of the crevasse where he and Superman had been forced to spend the night. He'd kept Clark alive, or more correctly, Clark had willed himself alive, and all night, trapped under the man's warm, heavy weight as he tried to keep an injured combatant insulated, Bruce thought about how to get back to base camp. He'd considered and discarded options several times during the night, through wakefulness and half-sleep and short naps as he mentally worried the problem like a dog with a bone, sorting and examining the possible solutions.
He'd vetoed pulling Clark up by litter for two reasons: pride and practicality. The pride was Clark's—as long as Clark could move of his own accord at all, he was unlikely to agree to lie in basket and allow himself to be pulled up a cliff. More practically, much as he hated to admit it, Bruce honestly didn't know if he'd be able, these lean days, to pull Clark and a piece of equipment up the sheer side of the cliff. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, while he had rope, he had little else out here in the field. Going back to camp was out of the question. He was not leaving Clark alone in his weakened state. So in the end, he did the best he could. It had to be enough.
Ropes wrapped around his waist and an anchor rock, Bruce crouched at the edge of the cliff, watching Clark, twenty feet below. The same ropes wrapped around Bruce, the ones he'd dragged up the mountain, were wrapped around Superman's waist, tied off at the belay with a mule knot, and formed into a makeshift harness with a series of Prusik knots, forming hand and footholds for an injured climber's support.
Stiffly, because the man's body must hurt like hell, Superman stepped into the ropes. One foot went into each Prusik knot, then Clark's hands slipped into chest-high loops on the pull ropes.
"Ready?" Bruce called down.
Clark tugged with the ready sign, and Bruce started hauling.
Hand over hand; feet slowly finding the footholds Bruce had gouged into the ice and rock, Clark made his way up the side of the cliff. It was a slow, awkward go, but he didn't flag once. The man who'd almost had his arm torn off; who'd had his neck and shoulder shredded, who'd almost died from loss of blood, worked like the fighter and hero he was, dragging his injured, broken body up the mountain.
Bruce lay down on his stomach as Clark got within a few feet, and as soon as he was close enough, grabbed, wrapping his hands around Clark's forearms. He huffed and Clark groaned, finding another foothold, pushing his body upwards. Superman's uniform was slick, and both the fabric itself and the thin layer of dampness combined were more slippery than Bruce had counted on. He tried to readjust, clamping his grip down harder on Clark's arm, but his hold still slid. Clark cried out, only once before he bit it back, just one short, sharp yelp, as his torn shoulder was wrenched. Bruce swore, and felt the man's forearm slide in his grasp until he was only holding Clark's wrist.
"Damn it, Clark!" Bruce heaved, breathing hard and fast as he shuffled backwards on his knees, away from the abyss, dragging Clark with him. "I'm sorry," he ground out under his breath, yanking —it was the only way he could get him out and over the edge, and he hated himself for the way it hurt the man he was trying to save.
The rope strung around the anchor rock strained, and Bruce dug more deeply into the snow as he moved back, digging down with his feet and his elbows. Clark fought his way up, finally getting his own elbows up over the ledge, and used that advantage to drag himself up and over, finally flopping onto his back in the snow.
He landed beside Bruce, who rolled over onto his own back, both of them panting heavily. They lay there, silent except for their labored breaths, for a long moment. Snow began to fall, soft and lazy.
"Ready?" Bruce finally said again, and Clark took a single deep breath before nodding his assent, his chin jutting out stubborn and defiant, even though the movement cost him—Bruce could tell from the way his face tensed with the effort. He helped Superman stand.
Down was easier—down the other side of the mountain, and this time Clark went first, again in the Prusik knots, again the two of them roped together. All Bruce got in response to requests for his status were one word affirmatives, but he was glad to get those, as tired and pained as they sounded.
At the base of the mountain, they detoured west. Superman raised a questioning eyebrow, too exhausted to even ask why. It wasn't the way they'd come.
"I've got a plan," Bruce said, and for Clark, that was enough. He nodded, just barely, limping forward, shrugging off Bruce's offer of assistance until he was almost pitching forward with each step. His lips were blue and Bruce figured that at least the movement was warming him some—the clumsy, plodding, painful steps—but he was glad when Clark finally accepted an arm around his back to lean on.
Gladder still when the shuttle craft was in sight—the craft he'd crashed.
Superman whistled, the first sound he'd made voluntarily in a long, quiet trudge. "You're lucky you survived, Bruce."
The thing was as he'd left it when he'd given it up for better shelter, nose caved in the force of the crash, body mostly shredded metal and bared undercarriage, half-filled with blowing snow.
"Sit down?" Bruce said hopefully, dragging a piece of wreckage from the interior—some torn piece of plastic that even he hadn't seen the point of scavenging yet.
"What are you—" Clark's words were garbled with the cold. "Are we resting here?" His eyes were clouded with pain, but also with hope. "Can we rest? Just for a minute, Bruce."
"Yes," Bruce said softly. "Just for a minute."
Superman sagged down heavily, and Bruce went to work. He moved as fast as he could, but it wasn't an easy task. By the time he'd dragged the cargo door off—unbolted it and wrenched it from the ship, Clark was a huddled, half-frozen figure barely even shivering in the snow. Bruce wished he had something—anything—to cover the man, but even his cape was only a handful of tatters now, the scraps he hadn't used to bandage Superman shoved into his utility belt. The temperature was dropping steadily, dropping with the setting of the cruel alien sun.
"Wish I'd left a blanket on board, Clark—a tarp, anything." But Clark didn't hear him, and of course, Bruce hadn't left anything behind. He'd cannibalized everything he could get out of the wreck. Except for the door, and he slid it over the packed snow toward Superman.
Bruce knotted ropes around the door's hinges, through a panel, and then formed looped, knotted handholds, so that he could pull it back to camp. "Clark?"
He didn't respond.
Bruce let the ropes drop. "Superman?" he said, brushing snow from the man's dark hair.
Superman raised his muzzy head, watching him through half-lidded eyes.
"Got to get up, Superman." Bruce helped him to his feet with a hand under each armpit. "Up, Clark," he whispered into Clark's snow-dusted hair.
Clark complied, and Bruce dragged him, groaning with the exertion. He lifted, and Superman ended up slipping from his arms in a heap, landing heavily on the ship's door. Bruce swept the man's legs onto the sheet of metal.
"There, Clark," Bruce said, mostly to himself. "Stay with me, Superman," he said into the man's hair, brushing the damp snow from his dark locks, then his cheek. Clark was pale, but still there, still alive. "You're a fighter, Superman. A fighter and a hero. Stay with me. We're going home."