DC Medley

[icarus_chained]

Not sure how to explain this one. Basically, I'm not coherant enough to focus on one long fic or chapter. So what I did instead, needing to write, was take more or less every DC pairing I've written, plus a couple thrown in on a whim, and written a short vignette on each. This resulted in 14 'moments', of varying lengths, which you can find here. In alphabetical order. Because the OCD is strong with me today.

Enjoy.

Title:  Moments
Rating:  None above PG-13
Pairings:  Includes Alfred/J'onn, Arthur/J'onn, Bruce/Clark, Bruce/Clark/J'onn, Bruce/J'onn, Bruce/J'onn/Wally, Bruce/Selina, Bruce/Shayera, Clark/Lois, Clark/Selina, Diana/Barbara, J'onn/Clark, Lois/Barbara and Selina/Lois. Knock yourselves out.
Summary:  Het. Slash. Femslash. Nightmares. Monsters. Soppiness. Romance. Regret. Relief. Comfort. Mischief. Joy. Hate. Need. Passion. And Love. Most of all, Love. Because I'm a soppy idiot, so sue me!
Wordcount:  overall, 3333. The symmetry pleases me.

Moments

 

 

Alfred/J'onn

J'onn moved rapidly through the streets of Kiev, his well-made form catching a few glances, but no-one raised their eyes to meet his. He was beautiful, but moved too confidently not to be dangerous. It saddened him. This time, these people, they all saddened him. None more than the helpless and watchful children he had helped liberate days before. It hurt him, so much, to see fear fill that place where innocence had once rested. The human world was home to such brutalities.

And such wonders. Like the man who had fallen bloodied and weary through his window. The man who looked at him with eyes at once protective and appreciative. The man in whose soul he sensed such ferocity and such absolute gentility. A soul that he let shine so close and so open to his own. It should worry him. He could not afford to let another into his heart. Not so soon. But it didn't. He wondered why.

Then he stepped into the small appartment, and looked up to meet Alfred's eyes where the spy lay on his bed. And he caught the thought, sent unknowingly, full of wistful desire and a tenderness so silent and fierce it stole his breath. How can I make you smile, Katerina?

Like that. His heart answered happily. Just ... like that.

***

 

Arthur/J'onn

Many people knew Arthur could be fierce. Prideful. Even, a chosen few, gentle. But J'onn had to wonder how many knew the stern Sea King could be playful. What else could you call it, though? When the man chased him through the surf, his heart singing with exhileration. When they dived, and Arthur disappeared and reappeared in the drifting clouds of kelp, a flash of gold and warm amusement. When the Sea King bribed an eel to ghost into his path and sway him into Arthur's arms as he laughed. When the liquid kisses trailed along his back shimmered with joyful anticipation. When Arthur gave a startled snort of laughter as he slipped intangibly through his grasp and wrapped the other man in his own embrace. When amusement gave way to challenging, tender passion, and proud eyes sparkled with mischief and love.

Arthur could be playful. But J'onn didn't mind if he was the only one who knew.

***

 

Bruce/Clark

The first time some of their colleagues had seen one of their private training sessions, they hadn't understood. They'd been mildly horrified, in fact. And Clark didn't know how to explain.

In that room, they had seen Bruce let go. They had seen him abandon reason, abandon strategy, abandon control. They had seen him let go of rational thought, and let his mind sink into the terrible cold instinct of a killer. Alone, Bruce fought him. He allowed all the hate and rage and pain in his heart to focus themselves into motion, into killing blow after killing blow. And Clark let him. He stood and let those vicious strikes land, his impervious flesh rejecting what would destroy any human in his place. He dodged and wove if he sensed Bruce wanted a challenge in it, but he never struck back.

They didn't understand why. How could he stand and let Bruce do that to him? How could he allow his lover to strike at him that way? How could he allow his friend to become the monster that was hidden and ruthlessly restrained within him?

Because that way, for a little while, Bruce could be free. Because in those moments, when he stood invulnerable and loving in place of the world that had hurt his lover, and let the monster loose where both Bruce and the world could be safe, he could see other emotions lurking beneath the beast. Raw gratitude. Raw love.

Wasn't that worth a few blows that couldn't even hurt him?

***

 

Bruce/Clark/J'onn

J'onn watched them. His lovers. He did it often, sometimes so they could see him, sometimes not. Perhaps that would worry some people, people who had not lived the kind of lives they had led. They each did it, in their own ways. They each watched the others unseen. From afar, with alien eyes and ears. From the shadows, with training and a simple instinct for subterfuge. Or from within the shield of invisibility. They had lived so long removed, it was second nature.

What he loved, what brought him joy beyond measure, was that each in their way accepted it. And each in their way sensed it. Sensed the gaze of the others, even unseen. He could feel them both, always, near him no matter how far away. He could feel the changes they each underwent when he was near, when they were near each other. Bruce, who wore happiness now like a cloak, blended into the shadows of his demeanor but undoubtedly there. And Clark, whose heart sang with freedom near them, because they accepted even the darkest of what he knew lay within his heart.

And J'onn himself, who found that in their presence the hole he had carried inside him for the longest time was filled again. There were gaps left, where other loves had been removed. There always would be. But his lovers accepted that too, and loved him for the joy and love that filled the remainder to overflowing.

J'onn watched them. He felt their regard for him in turn. And he was more than content.

***

 

Bruce/J'onn

It was the nightmare again. Somewhere within himself, Bruce knew it was only his nightmare. But he couldn't stop it. He never could. Not this one.

Again, he knelt in the pool of light and blood. Again, he felt the chill from their still forms beside him. Again, he watched the pearls skitter and slide through the red-black liquid. He watched the faces reflected in those white orbs change again and again, faces of the lost, the damaged, the abused and the dead. Faces he had failed, over and over again. Again, he reached out with eight-year-old hands to try and gather them, to cradle them, to keep them safe. Again, they slipped away from them, moving deeper and deeper into that black pool, drowning even as he watched. Lost again. Failed again. Alone again.

But then, something changed. From the wall of shadow around his dismal island of light, another presence entered his nightmare. Ancient and heartsick. Brimming with concern, with understanding, with love.

J'onn knelt in front of him. He reached down to gently take hold of one of those stained pearls, and with infinite compassion, he reached out to lay it in Bruce's palm. And suddenly, the hand was no longer the hand of a child. It was the hand of a man, a strong, damaged man, who clenched his fist tight around the gift, and laid it back inside that larger, alien hand.

For the first time in his life, in the depths of nightmare, Bruce found the strength to smile.

***

 

Bruce/J'onn/Wally

It was almost dawn. Wally could feel it, knew it in his blood, in the singing of air in his lungs. It was almost dawn.

Dawn in Gotham was special.

They could feel it too. He sensed that, felt the web of their knowing stretch from the shadows of an exhausted city to the watching face of the moon to the desert over which he raced. He felt their joy, felt it rush along with him, fast as thought, easy as breathing, full as his heart. As he flitted through a world half-asleep, the wind carrying him home, he felt J'onn materialise at Bruce's shoulder, felt the invisible brush of lips just beneath a dark cowl as Gotham's guardian raised tired eyes hopefully to a lightening sky. He felt them reach for him, felt the faint tendrils of their calling settle gently over his heart.

And as he raced to their arms, he couldn't help but laugh for the sheer joy of it.

***

 

Bruce/Selina

She was there ahead of him. He could sense her more than see her, a shadow among shadows, but always to his eyes distinct. Her shadow was warmer, fuller. It was mischievous. It was bitter. It was longing. It flowed over the rooftops, racing ahead of him, and he followed it unceasingly. His skill, his power, his need. He bent it all to her pursuit. To her capture. To the feel of her in his arms, and the passion of her lips against his, and the thunder of her wounded heart against his breast.

It was love, between them. It was also hate. It was also a need so deep it terrified them both, but him so much more than her. Because he was so much more of a danger to her. He stood for an order that would destroy her as surely as the chaos they danced in and around and against. He could not bear to see her hurt. He could not see a way to prevent it.

And he could not stop following her. No matter how much it hurt them both.

Because he loved her.

***

 

Bruce/Shayera

She felt him come in. She felt his gaze weighing on her back. But she was too busy to acknowledge it. She was too busy fighting Diana, too busy trying to beat down the grudge that had finally erupted between them. She knew he knew what this was. She knew he knew it was about him. But she couldn't help that. This was between her and Diana. They were warriors both, women raised to understand that what you wanted, you had to be prepared to fight for. And they were both honourable women, who understood that what stood between them could never taint what lay beyond it.

It ended soon enough. They were both strong, but their energy was not limitless, and they had been a long time fighting this fight. Shayera knew she did not lose. Neither could she say she won. But, turning to Bruce, seeing the acceptance in Diana's eyes, she knew it didn't matter.

He watched them, his eyes cool and heavy on her. She snarled at him, strode up to face him as he stared down at her.

"I'm entitled to fight for my mate," she hissed, low and fierce, and as his eyes flickered to Diana, something shattered again within her. "Bruce, tell me now. Tell this is what you want. Because I will fight to the death for you, but I will not be your cage!" She had had enough of loving for duty, and being loved out of a sense of obligation. That had never been what she wanted.

He met her angry gaze, and his eyes changed. Blue and burning, they were suddenly, impossibly, both soft with love and hard with challenge. He cupped her face in firm hands. "Try to cage me, Shayera," he growled, low and proud. "See where it gets you."

She blinked. Then, grinning fiercely, she seized two handfuls of his cape as it bunched at his shoulders, and pulled his head down into a punishing, exulting kiss.

That was more like it.

***

 

Clark/Lois

He watched her, sitting at her desk, bathed in the late afternoon sunlight. She was bored again, he could see it. It was in the way she tapped a pencil irritably against her lips. It was in the way she tilted her chair back again to recross her legs, a motion he could not help but appreciate. It was in the way her intelligent, questing eyes roamed the room, searching for something to focus that formidable and utterly incredible mind on. Lois Lane was bored to tears, and nearly snarling with frustration.

He adored her for it. But then, he adored her for everything.

He had seen her in so many moods. He had seen her angry, drawing herself up as far as her less-than-Amazonian build would allow to glare into his face, demanding stiffly that he get his Kryptonian ass back to earth so she could kick it. He'd seen her sad, watched tears roll down that gorgeously expressive face. He'd seen her terrified, standing courageously between him and enemies that could and had stricken Superman to his knees. He'd seen her playful, switching his coffee on him, stealing his pillows, tickling him into submission. He'd seen her hungry, her face alive and sharp with hunter's instinct.

But somehow, precious as all those moments were, he thought he might love this one more, the now rather than the then. Because Lois Lane was bored. And it was up to him, who loved and adored her beyond measure, to find a way to rectify that.

Which usually proved to be fun.

***

 

Clark/Selina

She asked him once what he saw in her, what the hell he expected. He was a veritable paragon, after all. The voice of morality in a world gone wrong, the hero's hero, the man half the damn world looked up to and believed in. He was goodness incarnate, pure and untouchable. She was a thief. A streetwise Gotham woman with nothing to offer him beyond whatever time was left of her beauty and a few highly questionable skills. What could he possibly see in her that was worth loving?

Clark had looked at her for a long minute, so long that she nearly snarled a question on his intelligence. But before she could, he had taken her gently into his arms, embraced her with arms that could crush mountains as if she were made of glass. And with open, warm sincerity that she could not question, he told her.

"You make me hope. Because you can love. You can hope. You can fight, and learn to trust, and give your heart to me even when you think I'll break it. Because you're so strong, and so very, very beautiful. And it won't ever fade. Because the beauty in your face isn't about it's shape or clarity. It's about the way your eyes shine when you look at me with love, and the way you light up when you smile. You're beautiful, Selina. How could I not love you?"

She couldn't answer that. So she did the next best thing. She smiled.

And she was sure afterwards that his face lit up as much as hers.

***

 

Diana/Barbara

Barbara often admired her beauty. In that roundabout way the younger woman had, anyway. Diana could see it in the way the redhead paid attention to her when she changed costumes, in the way clever fingers reached up to adjust slightly fogged glasses, in the particular dark and wicked gleam of those eyes in the starlight. She could see how Barbara loved to watch her, how her lover appreciated everything Diana had to offer that way.

But sometimes, beneath that appreciation, she could see a shadow of something else. A glimmer of regret, of an old and badly healed pain. Even, at the worst of times, when Barbara was tired and aching, a flash of self-doubt. Diana knew what this was.

Barbara no longer truly believed in her own beauty. And, by extension, her deserving of something else beautiful.

It was a lie Diana could not bear to let live. So one evening, seeing that shadow again, she decided to do something about it. Something it was only in her power to do. Something she dearly wanted to give this strong and fierce and gorgeous woman, the woman she loved.

Kneeling before the chair, resting one hand firmly on an unfeeling knee, Diana wrapped her Lasso firmly around her own wrist, and met Barbara's gaze fiercely.

"Barbara," she said, gentle and sure. "You are the most beautiful person I have ever know. Know that. Believe that. Because I love you too much to lie."

And watching the diamond tears fall, seeing the way that tired young face glowed beneath the released emotion, Diana knew even without the gold around her wrist that she was right.

Barbara was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.

***

 

J'onn/Clark

Clark watched J'onn as his lover stood on the observation deck, watching the sun rise from behind the earth, watching the light of dawn drift over the barren surface of the moon, and beneath them the welcoming world of earth. He watched the light frame J'onn against that incredible backdrop, and smiled.

Sunrise from the moon was a special thing. It let you see the world embracing the light. But it also distanced you from it. This was a halfway place, a waystation, their watchtower. It was silent and cold outside, removed from the warmth the light brought to earth. It was a place from which to watch joy, not to experience it. And for too long, that was all J'onn had known. The distant content of knowing that those around you were happy, even if you were not always yourself.

But Clark had not been able to refrain from trying to give him more than that. He'd tried to bring him to earth. Tried to show how it felt to stand in bare feet in a field, and feel the chill, silver majesty of the dawn become the warm, golden treasure of the day. He'd tried to give J'onn all the warmth in the world, even knowing it might frighten him.

And if the faint smile of love and remembrance on the narrow Martian face as J'onn watched the light flow was anything to go by, he might just have succeeded.

***

 

Lois/Barbara

It was a teeming coffeehouse, teetering on the shifting edge between business and arty chic, one of Gotham's prime daylight spots. It was full of a constant stream of chatter, the aura of caffeine a tangible buzz in the air. Harsh political rants, shady deals, soppy declarations of romance, philosophical debates, technical discussions, heady gossip. It was a frenetic meeting and parting of disparate and sparking minds.

Both Lois and Barbara loved it. It was where they met when Lois was in town. It was where they could argue parts of the less ordinary aspects of their lives in relative security, under the guise of hypothesis. It was where they could bandy sources and pass tips under the guise of gossip. It was where they could deride certain parties familiar to both under the guise of political rant.

And it was where they could flirt to their hearts content, under no guise at all. It was where Barbara had first given Lois a coy, daring kiss. It was where Lois had first responded with a challenging smirk and fingers twined in loose strands of wispy red hair. It was where Lois had first bent down under the guise of helping Barbara with her chair, and buried her nose in the other woman's shoulder, inhaling the scent of her.

It was where they always met when Lois was in town. But it wasn't where they ended up afterwards.

***

 

Selina/Lois

When they had first understood each other, it had been because Selina had broken into her office. Now, that was understandable, since Selina was a professional thief, and quite good at things like that. But to Lois, it was still nonetheless a challenge. And Lois Lane never backed down from a challenge.

She was sitting in Selina's favourite chair when the Gotham woman unlocked the door and stepped inside. From that position, she had a first rate view as her lover, sensing another presence, shifted immediately from Selina Kyle, socialite, to Catwoman, thief and fighter. She saw the eyes go cool and flat, the body tense to fight, the jungle cat rise in her lover's blood.

It made her want to lick her lips.

When Selina registered who she was, she got a disgusted glare for her troubles. A glare she met with an arch, satisfied smile. Selina snarled at her.

"Didn't think B&E was quite your style, darling," the woman purred venomously. Lois smiled, even as something tightened and warmed in her belly.

"Reporter, dear. Remember?"

Selina didn't answer. Watching Lois hungrily, her anger changing as she sensed the warmth and desire Lois made no effort at all to hide, she prowled forward. Meeting Lois' defiant gaze, her eyes went hot and full and powerful, the predator in every movement.

But her hand as she laid it on Lois' cheek, though trembling with desire and leftover adrenalin, was gentle. "How could I forget?" Selina murmured throatily, her lips brushing Lois' cheek, and the reported smiled fiercely.

Mission accomplished. Challenge accepted.