Two more days until the end of September.
The time travel machine was safely stored in the Kent Farmhouse. Finished and wrapped in waterproof sheeting. Bruce insisted on a date, a time, and a venue. You push it back once, and you'll forever lose the courage. Those were his words.
They spent the remaining days traveling to places the older Bruce used to visit. The nights as Superman and Batman, retired superhero and deceased vigilante. Legends coming to life once again. Dick was having the time of his life, returning to his lifelong career as Nightwing. Damian, despite his age, seemed to relish in the little time he had left to play Robin by Batman's side. He did make a few customizations to Robin's uniform. Bruce was relieved that his son's sense of style had become somewhat more conventional.
On the last evening, Clark found Bruce crouched before his own grave. He was staring at the engravings on the stone.
"I bid everyone in the household goodbye. I've come to him last, but I figured I owe him a lot." Bruce said when Clark approached him.
"He made very daring choices. Courageous choices. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't impressed, or that I'm not still impressed right now. He and you blow me away every single time." Clark sat down on the grass. He looked absently at the tulips that Bruce had put in front of the grave. A few feet to the side of Bruce's grave were his parents', and theirs were also graced with the same flowers.
"Diana called." Clark said casually. Bruce didn't look his way, but he was always listening even when he pretended not to be. "Steve has gotten better. His surgery scheduled for tomorrow may be his last in a long while."
Bruce nodded soundlessly in response.
"And," Clark smiled. "She said you are a savior, after all. You found a broken man and patched him up again."
"I didn't." Bruce grunted. "He found himself. I just gave him a kick in the ass."
"That was…" Clark breathed out a sigh. "More than enough. So thank you."
Bruce brushed the leaves and mud off his lap and stood up. "I'm not good at this."
"At what, chatting with me?"
"This… sentimental shit." Bruce gestured at Clark, as if the words Clark spoke materialized and he was waving away the floating alphabets. "Have you got your uniform?"
"I'm wearing it inside." Clark glimpsed down at his chest to make sure that was right. The blue hem just below his neckline answered his momentary uncertainty.
"Good. We're not staying for dinner tonight."
"Oh, but wouldn't Alfred-?"
"Which is why I arranged the family dinner last Friday. I made that clear to Alfred. We're going to spend tonight whichever way we want."
"Which is?"
"Smallville." Bruce smirked. He curled his arms around Clark's neck. "Fly me there."
The thick paste brewing in the saucepan was looking more promising than last time.
"See? It never said anything about orange food coloring." Clark held up the recipe. "It's supposed to look yellowish."
"I scored a hundred per cent on the Farnsworth-Munsell hundred-hue test." Bruce snapped. "I know what color pumpkin is."
"But this isn't just pumpkin, Bruce." Clark sighed in exasperation. "It's pumpkin soup. It's not supposed to be the exact same color."
"It's all about presentation, Kansas."
Clark rolled his eyes. He tasted the paste and aimed the shaker at the saucepan.
"What are you doing?" Bruce growled. He snatched the shaker out of Clark's hand. "We're not adding salt."
"It tastes bland." Clark dipped his finger into the paste and held it out to Bruce. He hesitated for a moment before licking the sauce off Clark's finger. "See?"
"No." Bruce deliberated whether to bite Clark's finger. Thankfully he decided that his teeth was more precious. "It's fine. The recipe didn't say anything about salt. It's not even on the ingredients list."
"It says season to taste. Add salt until it tastes right."
"Follow the recipe." Bruce snarled. He continued measuring the thin cream. He was waiting for it to set at exactly one hundred and twenty five milliliters.
Clark sprinkled some salt into the paste anyway when Bruce wasn't looking. Superspeed salt sprinkling. One of a thousand ways to save lives in the mundane everyday life of a Kryptonian superhero. Bruce looked up suspiciously.
"What?" Clark crossed his arms and stared back defiantly.
"Nothing. You look smug."
"Maybe I'm just fascinated that someone thinks one milliliter of cream is going to make a difference to a pot of pumpkin soup."
"When the Los Alamos National Laboratory slapped their lithium-six and lithium-seven isotopes together, they didn't expect the Shrimp to blow up into a forty-seven thousand feet high mushroom cloud."
"Bruce. You're brewing pumpkin soup. Not a dry fuel thermonuclear hydrogen bomb."
"Improvisation is dangerous. Last time our soup burned down our throats because you added ginger." Bruce glared at him. "Recklessly. Like the way you fight."
Clark suppressed his urge to argue how that was in no way even remotely comparable. Bruce continued to focus his attention on the one hundred and twenty four point seven five milliliters of thin cream.
What would normally take less than an hour to cook resulted in two hours worth of banter. That, with a side of somewhat good-natured hide and seek of questionable ingredients.
At last, they looked at the yellowish orange substance with awe. Bruce carefully placed a parsley leaf at the center. It didn't sink.
"It's done." He announced. He took a step back to look at the pot in its widescreen glory. It was framed by the million drops of liquid that exploded across the kitchen counter.
Clark nodded. He returned with a camera and snapped a picture.
The soup tasted glorious.
If Bruce demanded his gratitude for the accuracy of ingredients, Clark would give it. He would probably give away his cape for another cooking session with Bruce. He would give away his Fortress for another photograph with Bruce. A photo of Bruce standing two feet away from his soup, looking oddly proud of his accomplishment.
Clark would give away his life for another day with Bruce.
But he learned. He got better. Bruce taught him to get better, and he owed it to Bruce to live his life with meaning. Even the coming years without Bruce by his side.
Bruce was still smiling at him, dipping crusty bread into the creamy golden mixture. How he had started off as Clark's hallucination was beyond him. How Clark was dumb enough to think his brain could project such a beautiful image into his reality was beyond him.
Six months. He had had the luxury of spending six months with Bruce. Now it was coming to an end.
Bruce said something about aching muscles and being hungry, right after dinner. Then they were standing with their hands on each other's hips. If conversations had happened before or after the kiss, Clark had had no recollection of them. He just remembered the ghostly touch of Bruce's skin on his, the taste of Bruce on his lips.
They fell in bed, clutching and caressing and gripping. They made love in tantalizing slowness. Each moment was an amalgam of sensations that Clark vowed to remember forevermore.
He laid down beside Bruce, feeling the subtle movements of his chest as he breathed. He didn't dare sleep, didn't dare lose any second of the night to sweet unconsciousness.
Eventually he did, when he felt Bruce's arms curled around his neck. It was a comforting embrace. As comforting as Bruce could manage with their sleeping postures. Then he was falling into deep, dreamless sleep, as Bruce had taught him.
No screams, no pleas, no blood. Just him and Bruce, in silent, everlasting peace.
"Your research…?"
"Is all in my head." Bruce confirmed.
"And the machine, the calculations? The waterproofing?"
"It's fine, Clark. It works. I tested it this morning, before you planted it in the middle of Kansas."
"It's just a bit of extra walking." A few more minutes to spend with you. Besides, Clark hadn't put the machine that far out. It was within viewing distance of the farmhouse. Just where Bruce had first arrived to this time. And… there it was. A portal standing in the middle of the field, lined by the orange glow of the sun setting behind it.
Bruce pressed a few buttons and the engines roared to life. Sparks of white converged to become an entrance to another time and space. Bruce would cross that portal, and never again reappear in his life.
"Hey, you all right?" Bruce came to stand in front of him. He was still so real. Visible. Touchable.
"I'm… feeling lonely, I guess." Clark chuckled lightly to himself. "I know I've gotten much more than I could ever ask for, but… I'll miss you. A lot."
"And I'll miss you."
The kiss was soft, warm, with a bittersweet quality to it that Clark would never forget.
Bruce pulled away from the kiss, then he leaned in again, resting his cheek on Clark's shoulder. "I cannot consciously, in good will, create a time travel machine to bridge a thirty year gap." He whispered softly. "Once is pushing the bounds. My return would severely disrupt the space-time continuum."
Clark's heart sank. He knew this. He didn't need Bruce's justification to explain why he couldn't come back. He…
"But I can travel cross-dimensionally, when the time comes." Bruce continued, his breathing light on Clark's neck. His grip on Clark's arms was firm. "So if you trust me, to find a cure, to outlive my older self, to create a dimension travel machine, and to visit you again from my parallel universe... Come here next spring, when the hummingbirds return."
Clark blinked slowly, as if the meaning of Bruce's words was too dense for him to process. As if his words were too good to be true, and he didn't want to believe them. But Bruce was looking at him with hope, and that look was all he needed to trust the man.
Then Bruce released his grip, and took one step away. The portal was right behind him. Silver white strands of light wrapped around Bruce's body, until he disappeared into a space that Clark could not follow.
The last hummingbird took off from the fields as the portal stopped whirring. Clark spent minutes staring at its graceful form, watching the flapping wings. It finally disappeared beyond the dense mists.
Clark felt the ghost of a touch on his cheek, just enough warmth to remind him of Bruce's promise.
"I'll wait for you." He said quietly. "When the hummingbirds return, I'll be here."