65Author's note/disclaimer: Brace yourselves for more spoilers. What happens next in the comic book is that they find the little villains and a battle ensues. Thanks to something that Li'l Luthor did, Li'l Doomsday grows into Big Doomsday, and Li'l Superman flies him up into space, where he explodes, killing Li'l Superman. Clark brings the dead Superman back to the Hall of Justice, and after the other Li'l Leaguers realize what has happened, Mxyzptlk appears and takes them all back to their own world and that's the end.
…Deep breath now. I hated the fact that they killed off Li'l Superman. But even more than that, I hated how they swept all his little friends back to their own world as soon as he was dead. Big Bats shared some consoling words with Li'l Bats and then they all just disappeared. There was no satisfaction in that ending whatsoever. The rest of this story is my attempt at correcting that.
Act II: exactly the same
They carried the lifeless little body to the medical lab, wrapped in the big Superman's cape. The larger versions of the League members talked quietly amongst themselves, discussing possible courses of action with grim and worried faces, while their smaller copies huddled together in groups of three and four, crying, comforting each other, and crying some more.
Only the little Batman was isolated and silent, pushing a chair across the floor so that he could stand on it, posting himself as a somber guard at the dead Superman's side. From his expression it seemed he was determined to disapprove of anything that anyone suggested.
Perhaps sensing this, everyone –big and small– stayed well clear of the little Bat. Only the miniaturized Wonder Woman dared to speak to him, and was rudely rebuked for her efforts.
An hour passed, and the little Leaguers began to seem listless and even more distraught. Wally correctly diagnosed that they needed another snack, and patiently herded them all to the cafeteria despite their grief-stricken protests that they weren't hungry. Agreeing that it was time to focus on caring for the survivors, most of the big League members filed out with their little doubles.
Little Batman kept his face and his posture rigid, but his glare was drawn to the last two giants in the room. The big Bat's back was turned to him, one solid wall of impervious gloom, while the big, living Superman had one hand on his hip and the other on his chin, and nodded a bit as his Batman muttered to him.
Finally, the little Bat overheard the big one say, "I'll take care of it," and the big Superman nodded again. Then he looked over at little Batman, looking straight through his ferocious mask, and the little Bat felt for an instant that he would suffocate in the sympathy that the oversized hero projected towards him.
Needing to fight, he bared his teeth. "What are you looking at?" he half-shouted, lashing out.
Clark winced.
"This is your fault!" little Batman accused. "If you're so much bigger and stronger, why couldn't you be faster? Why didn't you save him?"
"I wish I had," Clark replied, his voice low. "I'm sorry."
Little Batman shook his head. "I don't care!" he exclaimed. "This is your world!" He looked down and then back up, seething with conviction, and pointed to the body beside him. "This should be you!"
The tears fell at last, slipping out under his mask, and Clark moved towards him—but Bruce stuck out an arm, holding him back.
Bruce narrowed his eyes, glanced over his shoulder at the little Bat. "You're angry," he stated. "You'll blame yourself next if you haven't already."
"Shut up. You know I'm right. Your Superman might've even survived it!"
"Superman gave his life for his friends," Bruce rumbled, although from his annoyed reaction Clark could tell that he had indeed been thinking the very same thing. "He did what he had to do. Maybe what he was always meant to do. That's who he is."
"But then who am I? What am I 'meant' to do?" the little Batman demanded.
"You're meant to suffer," Bruce told him frankly. Clark gave him a look, which he stubbornly didn't acknowledge. "…and to survive," Bruce continued, "and to get stronger, and to never give up, and to never forget."
The little Batman bowed his head, his chest heaving under the google-eyed bat symbol on his costume. His fat little hands clenched into fists. "It's still your fault," he growled, and then his voice broke, and it wasn't clear who he was talking to anymore. "It's all your fault."
Superman had rarely felt as infinitely powerless as he did in that moment. The little Bat was right, of course. If it had been him instead, if he'd gotten to the monster first…
Clark sighed. "Bruce. I think we should-"
"No," Bruce cut him off, and without looking at Clark, he tilted his chin towards the exit. "You should go."
"I just want to-"
"I said I'd take care of it," Bruce told him, his voice harsh. "Go."
Clark took a breath, exhaled through his nose, and reluctantly turned to leave. At the door he took one more look at little Batman, hunched over the red-shrouded body.
For the hundredth time he scanned the dead Superman using every means he could think of. But the result was the same. There was no sign of life.
Yet, he told himself firmly, setting his jaw.
Yet.
Bruce stood still for a minute after Clark left. Then he approached the body on the table, enduring the distrustful glower of his counterpart. "I'm going to put him in a containment unit," Bruce explained, reaching for the red cape.
"You'll leave him alone!" the little Bat snarled, angrily wiping his tears with the back of his fist.
"We're going to keep a sun lamp on him too," Bruce said.
The little Bat sneered at him. "What do you think he is? A geranium?"
Bruce ignored his sarcasm. "It should make it easier for him if he decides to come back," he said, suddenly catching the little Bat's full attention.
Little Batman was quiet for a minute. "…Come back?" he asked at last, his bottom lip quivering.
"There's no guarantee," Bruce warned darkly. "And for humans, there usually isn't even a possibility. But for him..."
The little Bat looked like he was being torn apart by equal tides of hope and disbelief. "…there is a chance for Superman to come back… back to life?"
As if he couldn't quite bring himself to acknowledge such a thing aloud, the big Bat confirmed it with a terse nod of his head. "That's what my Superman wanted to tell you. He was dead once. Or at least, we all thought he was. But he came back."
Little Batman digested that for a minute, his eyes solemnly locked on the sun-gold 'S' shield on the cape covering his friend. Then he narrowed his eyes, and glared at Bruce, challenging him.
"If that's true, then why aren't you happier?"
Bruce's voice hardened, if that was possible. "Superman isn't the only one in this world that I've had to mourn."
The little Bat scowled, confused, and then suddenly it dawned on him.
"…your parents."
"Didn't come back. But Superman did. And I thought you should hear it from me," Bruce continued, "because you need to be able to accept that it might not happen this time. This might be it. He might be gone forever. And you have to be ready to cope with that."
Fresh tears leaked out from beneath his mask, which he suddenly tore off, revealing his face.
Bruce froze as those huge fiery-blue eyes looked up at him, lashes wetly exaggerated. Unnervingly, the little Bruce looked a lot more like a young Bruce than a miniature grown-up Bruce.
Alfred had told him once that there'd been something frightening about his eyes when he was a child, especially when he was upset, and for the first time Bruce was sure that he understood exactly what Alfred had been talking about.
It was hard to place the exact feeling. It wasn't quite dread… it was almost just an awareness of the possibility that a demon could be lurking in those angelic depths.
"…I'm going to miss him," little Bruce confessed.
Big Batman was glad that he still had his own mask on at that point, to hide the wetness that began to blur his vision. He nodded.
"…I know."
It was late. Clark had just finished tucking in the tiny copy of Supergirl. The bigger Supergirl was staying with her for the night, and all the other little Leaguers were safely bedded down, with their closest friends around them and their larger counterparts to watch over them.
It had been a few hours since Clark had seen either version of Batman, and he was on his way to check on both of them when he happened to see the taller one stalking towards the hangar.
"Hey!" Clark called out, hurrying to catch up. "Batman!"
"What?" Bruce barked, not looking at him.
Clark's eyebrows flinched worriedly. "How are you?" he asked, falling into step beside him. "I mean, it was kind of a rough day. Are you alright?"
"Hrn," Bruce grunted.
"Well, how's little Batman?"
"He's right where you left him. Just give him time. And leave him alone."
Clark gave Bruce a look, and dared to ask. "…what's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong!" Bruce exploded, exactly as Clark sensed that he might. "It's not your fault that his Superman's dead. It's not my fault and it's not his fault and it's not even that Superman's fault. It's not little Luthor's fault or Doomsday's fault or Mxyzptlk's fault. It's just a fact of history. A fact of the universe. You can't change it. He can't change it. Nobody can change it."
"Bruce... what happened?"
"Nothing happened." Bruce insisted, striding forward determinedly. "We took care of the body. I talked to him."
"I hope you went easy on him. It's his first time grieving."
"Doesn't matter," Bruce argued, as if trying to convince himself. "That little punk has been Batman in his world for as long as I have in this one."
"You know it's different."
"Not anymore. Now that he's lost someone it's exactly the same."
Suddenly Clark knew what it was. Batman, big Batman, six-foot-two Batman, his Batman, had been crying. He wasn't sure exactly how he knew. There were probably half a dozen complex scientific explanations for how his super-powered senses led him to that conclusion, but he didn't need to think about them now. He just knew.
And he knew exactly what Bruce was up to: he was going to jump in his plane, and fly down to his cave, and brood in it all alone, occasionally hollering at Tim or Alfred, until the opportunity arose for him to bloody his knuckles against the teeth of some leering psychopath somewhere deep in the cancerous guts of his city.
Clark reached out and caught Bruce's arm. Enraged, Bruce spun to face him, looking directly at him for the first time since the other Superman had died. "What are you—"
Clark hugged him.
There was always that split-second of reaction to overcome, the instinctive onset of the fight-or-flight reflex, in response to an unexpected embrace. This time, Clark was extra-careful not to cheat, not to be super fast or super strong at first, to allow Bruce the chance to escape if he really wanted to.
He didn't.
He stood still as Clark took note of the fact that he wasn't going to fight, and quickly adjusted so that now Bruce couldn't escape even if he changed his mind. He was trapped, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it, so he closed his eyes over Clark's shoulder and accepted it.
"It'll be ok," Clark said, repeating what everyone said after tragedy struck. There was almost nothing else he could say… but that didn't mean Bruce wasn't thankful to hear him saying it.
Clark took a breath, and Bruce felt his ribs press against the Kevlar plate.
The pressure eased. "…Sorry," Clark said right away, releasing him. "But I think you needed that."
"Clark," Bruce said, his tone starting out dangerously reproachful but then immediately softening. "I need you to not die. Ever again."
...to be continued...
A/N: one more chapter to go… and I'm anxious to hear what you think so far. Writing sad stuff is definitely not my thing! :(