Chapter Text
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It's dark, stale and filthy with the ill-vented hot desert air. Batman tries another time to shift his weight so that he can slightly rest his left arm and shoulder for the sake of the wound in the junction of his arm and shoulder which is still burning even after nearly 48 hours.
He fails.
Again.
Half painfully and half dejectedly, Batman lets out an unperceivable sigh. Two days, for the darning two whole days, he's been shackled backwards at his wrists and hanged up and his feet can barely touch the ground. The whole of him has been mercilessly stretched out and right now he can hear the silent screaming of his every muscle and every bone, from the fingertip to the tiptoe. He's pretty sure that this is some kind of intended torturing procedure so that they can break him down even before he is formally tortured and interrogated, even before He comes. No food, no water, no light, deep down at the bottom of some sun-torched already deserted city. He is beyond help, beyond rescue and beyond salvation in any form or from anyone, even God. The other two rioters (that what they call them) have lost their consciousness way back. For amoment, Batman is even envious of them, for once their consciousness is gone, all the pain and the fear are gone for good. And this torture will mean nothing to them and cost them nothing.
But he cannot give up for now. His consciousness is the only thing he's got and his only odd against everything threatening to take away what's left to him.
Then he hears a thunderbolt cracking through the sky and a heavy thud on the surface of the earth miles above his head. Suddenly, he's been seized by a wave of overwhelming fear and a tremble runs through his spine like a cold and sticky finger.
He is back.
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He is back.
Superman is back, not figuratively but literally.
Tied up and worn out and bare-fisted, Batman figures that it doesn't sound very promising that he can emerge unscathed and escape and not mention to beat down Superman.
He hears heavy footsteps approaching the gate of the prison, one by one, slowly and patiently acting like a sharp contrast to his own racing heartbeat.
He is doing this on purpose, Batman thinks to himself, he wants to crack me down even before he sets his feet in this prison. I cannot let him succeed. But his body has given him away.
He is sweating. His pupils are dilated. His heartbeat is racing like a locomotive gone crazy. Had he been hanged up and locked up, he would be trembling right now.
If Superman wants fear, he got it.
The footsteps stop right in front of the gate and then with a creaky noise a beam of light sets in and dazzles Batman's eyes.
With his eyes brimming with physiological tears, Batman sees Superman, against the light and showered in sparkling gold powder. He walks in a way that Jesus himself did thousands of years ago and the darkness besides him fades away just as the Red Sea parted. He carries himself like a divine walking among the mortals. And for a split second, Batman has the delusion that the Superman, the one who has devoted all his life and power to save and love humanity and the one who is the perfect untainted embodiment of divinity, is back.
But he is wrong.
He has mistaken the fantasy for the reality.
If Superman were still divine, he would be an unmerciful god.
He torches the other two with his heat vision. Batman smells the disgusting odor of burning flesh. The exact smell of metamorphic protein gives him a twitch at the stomach. A sense of utter helplessness and powerlessness has taken hold of him and his muscle stiffens and he cannot move or breathe.
God stops in front of him, blocking out the light.
“You are afraid,” God says slowly.
Unmistakably, he is afraid. Despite being an atheist, he is still mortal and still has to kneel before the all-powerful and all-mighty whether he is willing or not. Still, he forces himself to look up and look right into God’s eyes, the eyes that have just burn two men's inside out.
"Why are you doing this? Why do you betray me, B?"
Hearing the name, Batman's heartbeat actually stops for a second. He cannot believe that he still uses this nickname to call him which reminds him of something tender beautiful and broken.
"Why, B?" God demands an answer.
"Because you've broken the rule. You've lost your principle. You've killed people. And we don't kill." Batman says.
"We?" he laughs, a cold hard-boiled grin creeps upon the corner of his lips, "How dare you say 'we'? There is no 'we' not any more, since the day you took Lois away from me. There is only you. And You've been expelled.”
He lifts his hand and reaches out for Batman's chest. And—
TBC