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The Birthday Present	By : Kip Category: DC Verse Comics > Batman Views: 8479 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Batman series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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"Kal!" Wally was frantic. "Kal!" He turned to the others. "At that level, once it touches him it's going to kill him!"
"We have to get to him." John Stewart decided, powering up his energy ring. "I'll try and throw a shield around Kal and pull him out."
The raging energy cloud around Kal was getting thicker and more concentrated as it crept ever-closer to his skin. "No!" The Kryptonian waved frantically. "He doesn’t mean to do this. Give him a little more time!"
"It'll be too late, Sandy won't get control of it before it fries you!" There wasn’t the slightest trace of doubt in Bruce’s mind about that. Moving as fast as he dared, he kept to the shadows. It was a long shot, and he knew it; but he could hear Kal beginning to whimper. The sound drifted across the quiet room, grating on Bruce’s rapidly shredding nerves. Kal was in pain and that was only going to get worse.
Nearly there! Now if only no one draws any attention to what I'm doing…
Relaxed, Sandy lay on the couch, to all intents and purposes totally asleep, except that the rapidly fluctuating dials said differently.
No choice but to shut him down. Gritting his teeth, Bruce sank the needle into Sandy's arm and depressed the plunger. "I'm sorry, baby … I'm so sorry …" He whispered, gathering the relaxing body into his arms.

"What did you do that for?!" Kal staggered over, the livid patches on his skin already starting to fade as his incredible metabolism healed away the damage. Stretching out an unsteady arm, the angry Kryptonian snatched the hypodermic from Bruce's hand, crushing the tough plastic to dust and compacting the hollow needle to the size of a pinhead.
"How's he going to learn to control this, Bruce, if you won't give him time?" Kal sounded utterly furious.
"He nearly killed you!" Bruce protested, setting a blanket over Sandy. "Think, Kal; another few seconds and he could have obliterated you!"
"Another few seconds and he might have mastered it!" Kal yelled angrily. "If Sandy doesn’t get the chance to learn how to control this now, what chance does he have when it fully matures?"
"What?" Bruce stared.
"Sandy's abilities are growing all the time!" Kal had control of himself now, although his eyes were still a little wild. "Haven't you noticed?"
"I've seen changes…" It was a difficult admission for Bruce; but he made it.

"But you didn’t want to see how far he's progressed!" The Kryptonian drew himself up to his full height. "You don’t want him to be a meta, Bruce, so you don’t look at what he's really doing. He's growing: maturing. Sandy so desperately wants to make you proud of him, and you can't let yourself be, can you?" He added scornfully, "Because you mistrust everything that this power represents."
"Power?"
"J'Onn and I have a theory that Sandy draws his energy from the Sun, Bruce, the same as I do, which is probably why what he does can hurt me. But Sandy knows that, and he's so careful with me, so damn careful!"
"Careful? Is that why you were left practically screaming in agony last time? Is that why you just got lumps of skin burned right off you? Because Sandy's being careful? He has to stop doing this stuff, and you have to stop encouraging him," Bruce would have physically slapped Kal if he could have; instead he had to let his words do it for him. "Wake up Kal! Before you let him kill you!"
And if that does happen, then who’s going to pull Sandy back together afterwards? Not you – you’ll be safely out of it won’t you, you big dumb idiot? No, it’ll be me that gets stuck with the job, won’t it? And what do we do when the world needs Superman again? Whistle? Bruce was livid: Kal simply didn’t think these things through far enough ... Apparently Bruce wasn’t the only one with issues though.

"No!" Kal was not about to let things end there. "I'm not used to this, Bruce; Sandy isn't either. He didn’t mean for any damage to happen, and once he's gotten practised at using his abilities, it won't. I know you don’t like it; but this whole moonshadow thing is a part of him, just like my power is a part of me. If you don’t let us do this, then you are going to lose him!"
"Lose him? What do you mean Kal?" In Bruce's mind that statement could mean only one possible thing. "Why are you so keen to let him keep doing this to you?" Suddenly Bruce's over-stressed mind led him to only one possible conclusion. Until this second he had never even wondered; but suddenly everything pointed to it. "What exactly is going on between you two?"
"You're impossible! I really, really, can't talk to you right now…" Kal clenched his teeth and zipped up into the air.

"Nice going … Bat brain," Wally was there. "You don’t understand, do you? About anything..." He frowned darkly, "But you will."
Suddenly Bruce was moving fast; really, really fast. It was easy to see a skinny guy and underestimate Wally, to think that all the Flash could do was move; but there was muscle there under the red suit, powered by a limitless determination for Justice.
And right now, somehow I've gotten on the wrong side of it! Bruce swallowed hard as the world flickered by.
"I am going to sit you down and make you understand." Wally was saying. "Nearly there."
If Bruce had thought that Kal was angry, then it was a candle to the sun compared with what Wally was carrying inside him at that moment.
Oh, great … any second now I'm going to heave… Gravity pulled at them, twisting Bruce's guts.
Stop! Just stop! As if in answer to his unspoken prayer, the world slowed back to normal and Bruce was dropped on the top of a large flat mesa.
Where the HELL are we?

"Of course, you could jump." The Flash told him. "But it's a long way down. I know … I run up this rock every week. Mind you, I don’t have to worry about gravity on the way down like you would," He smiled. "In case you were thinking about using one of the tools from your belt, don't bother." He pointed to another nearby rock spire, way out of reach; but close enough for Bruce to see a thin black circle on the very top.
"I took it off you and hung it up there." The younger hero gave him a wry smile. "I may not be as smart as you, or Kal; but at the speed I can move I have plenty of time to make corrections."
"Flash ... Wally, I don’t know why you're so angry with me. I was trying to save Kal." Bruce reminded him, hoping to defuse the situation; whatever it turned out to be.
"No you weren’t, you were trying to keep control of Sandy." The speedster dusted off a small flat rock and sat on it. "And I believe you when you say that you don’t know why I'm angry with you, Bats. I really don’t think you do, and that pisses me off big-time, which is why I'm going to tell you, because for a smart guy you can be pretty fucking dumb at times."
"I'm listening." Bruce waved a hand at him.
"Did you ever wonder why Kal lets Sandy touch him? Why I let him touch Kal? Even though it hurts Kal?"
"Of course I've wondered." Who wouldn’t wonder why someone would just stand by and let that happen repeatedly to someone they claimed to love?
"It's because he can," The red head said simply.

Bruce considered the statement, "Because Sandy can touch Kal?" He didn’t see the connection.
"No," Wally said slowly. "It's because Kal can feel it."
“He can feel it?” Bruce repeated.
“Yes.” Wally nodded. “Actually feel it.”
"Wally? Are you saying,"
"I'm saying that until he met Sandy, until Sandy started doing this sleep-walking, moonshadow thing, that Kal hadn't felt another adult touch him!"
Bruce thought that over. "But you and Kal touch each other, you have sex with him…" He said tentatively. "Or am I wrong about that too?"
"Sex?" Wally stared at him. "Oh yeah, we can bring each other off. We can move at the same rate, the barrier that protects me when I speed can move against the barrier that makes Kal invulnerable; but touch? No, Bruce, we don’t touch … Our skins don’t meet. We talk and we look at each other. It's the ultimate in safe sex, really: full body condoms." He gave a dry laugh, "Inside and out." Wally’s eyes narrowed and he looked more serious than Bruce had ever seen him. "If I limit myself to purely human speeds my barrier gradually reduces, until after a real long time it shrinks right back inside my skin. Once that happens I can feel the breeze, spill cold soda on my hand, cut myself shaving," He frowned. "Kal can't, it's not possible for him to feel the outside world, not ever!"
"Good god," Bruce could scarcely believe it. Surely it wasn’t possible? You couldn’t live like that, could you? Deprived of any tactile contact with the outside world? Not without going insane?
But then Kal isn’t human…

"I can see that you're beginning to see the picture." Wally nodded sagely. "Before this started, Kal didn’t know what touching another person felt like! Can you imagine that, Bruce? You were pretty desperate after only a few months!"
"Not even that long…" Bruce admitted shakily.
"So do you have any idea of what it must feel like to spend your whole life like that? And then suddenly have it given to you? Do you?" Wally was shaking with anger now, "Because I don’t really think anyone can."
"I see what you’re saying, Wally," He did, he really did. Oh god, how had he been friends with Kal so long and never noticed?
"And you wondered why I didn’t mind what Kal did for you that day? I really didn’t care, Bruce, not because of any noble sentiments about friendship and all that stuff; but, because Kal and I both knew that whatever YOU thought was happening Kal never truly touched you. He didn’t feel anything of what went on! Not that he would ever have admitted that to you though,” Wally continued relentlessly. “Because he hates being different… And then Sandy came along, and Kal felt, really felt, another warm adult body, for the first time ever..."
And it just about blew his mind, didn’t it? He wasn’t hurt when the moonshadow first touched him, he was amazed! No wonder he wouldn’t let anyone look at his hand – there was never anything to see! Which also meant that the moonshadow had been telling the truth about not understanding how Kal could have been hurt by it…
Because it didn’t do him any harm at all…

"I didn’t realise…" Bruce promised.
"So now, now that you do know, what are you going to do?" The speedster demanded. "Are you going to help Sandy develop what he has, or are you going to continue to do your damndest to get him to stop?"
"And if Sandy does progress, until it's safe between them, how will you feel about that then?" Bruce countered. "Knowing that Sandy can touch Kal, when you can't?"
What you've never had you don’t miss; but with Kal getting a taste of what the rest of us take for granted, he's finally aware of what he's been missing. No surprise that he'd want more. Sandy's free-spirited enough to give it to him too. But what about what that will do to the rest of us? What about Wally? Or me? And what if Sandy doesn’t ever gain full control? Will Kal be prepared to take the risk anyway? Will he push for this, whatever the cost? Bruce's mind fairly buzzed with rank after rank of questions…
"I don’t know yet." Wally admitted. "But I love Kal enough not to begrudge him a chance at what the rest of us, even me, take for granted."
"You have a good heart, Wally." Even if maybe you haven't thought this all the way through…
"Maybe I just have a small brain?" Wally grinned at him sheepishly. "Wanna go home again?"
"I'd like my," The belt was in his hand and he hadn't even seen Wally get up. "That was fast."
"Oh, I can do fast." Wally smiled. "I'm not so good at doing smart."
"I think you are a lot smarter than anyone, including me, has given you credit for." Bruce said, and meant it. Maybe Wally did know what he was giving Kal after all? The proverbial pearl beyond price… Could I ever be THAT unselfish?

"So … Home?" The speedster asked, breaking into Bruce's train of thought.
"Wally, and I ask this purely in the spirit of scientific enquiry, how did you get me up here? I'm not exactly small, and the armour is pretty heavy all by itself."
"And you think that because I don’t have big muscles like you, that I can't be as strong as you?" Wally guessed. "As in, I might drop you, sort of thing?"
"Something like that," Bruce nodded. The world moved around him so fast that it scarcely had time to register before he was standing in the middle of his own living room.
"Nah, I wouldn’t drop you," The sound of Wally’s voice finally caught up with Bruce’s ears. "I might drop-kick your arse all over the county but I wouldn’t accidentally drop you…" Lounging on the sofa, already re-dressed in his usual civilian gear of loose jeans and a skinny-rib t-shirt, Wally yawned. "Jees, Bruce, what does a person have to do to get fed around here?"
"You want feeding?"
"Please."
Something in the way that Wally was sitting, or maybe in the way that his stomach was rumbling, made Bruce rethink the sarcastic comment that was automatically forming on his lips. "Okay, follow me to the kitchen, and we'll see if Alfred can be persuaded to throw something together for you."

"Yaay!" The redhead was already at the door, "You are coming?"
"We," Bruce reminded him, "Are going together; at human speed."
"Aww, do we have to?"
"If you want me to be able to ask Alfred for you, then you'll have to wait for me."
Wally shrugged, "'Kay."
"Or," Bruce had another thought. If Wally was really hungry, maybe it wasn’t fair to make him wait that long? "You could nip on down there and ask him yourself?" He suggested.
"Oh, I couldn’t do that." Wally was adamant. "Alfred is scary."
"Scarier than me?"
"Way scarier." The earnest eyes peered into his. "Don’t you think so?"
"Possibly," Bruce wasn’t going to commit to answering that one, either way.

Outside the kitchen door, Wally waved a hand for them both to stop. "What's going on in there?" He wondered.
"I have no idea." Bruce was equally intrigued. "It smells good though."
"Yeah," It was a testament to Wally's curiosity that despite the rumbling in his belly, he stood there, ear close to the door, listening, instead of barrelling straight into the kitchen.
"Excellent!" Alfred actually sounded pleased. "Would you like to try another?"
"If you want?" Kal's distinctive tones voice drifted out through the door.
"Gently. Lift it, and turn…" There was a soft sizzling sound. "Well done! I can see that you have a natural talent for this, my boy! I must confess I had never considered using that particular cooking technique; but it does work rather well. Very clean and controllable…"
"Alfred?"
"Master Kal?"
"Why doesn’t Bruce like meta's?"
"Wherever did you get that idea?"
"He gets angry. He shouts. That doesn’t sound as if he likes us."
"Master Bruce is uncomfortable with metahumans, many people are." Alfred answered calmly.
"You seem alright." The Kryptonian pointed out.
"I'm very old, Kal. At my age the reactions are slow, and that isn't always a bad thing."
"Oh." Kal was obviously thinking that through, then the kitchen door was open and he was standing there.

Looming. Bruce thought instantly. It wasn’t exactly Kal's fault though: the doorway was large; but Kal was considerably larger.
"Heard enough?" The Kryptonian asked flatly.
"I'm sorry." Bruce didn’t want another argument and this was the only way he could think of to salvage the friendship that had come to mean such a lot to him. "I didn’t understand."
"And you do now?" Kal was glaring past him at the slim redhead. "Wal? Do I even want to know what Bruce, er, the Batman, thinks he understands?"
"I told him a few home truths." Wally admitted. "Maybe I shouldn’t have; but I did. I'm not proud of it, especially since I know how you feel about certain things being mentioned; but I thought that someone needed to say it."
"You were probably right." Kal said suddenly, giving his lover a wary smile. "Are we good?"
"We're always good." Wally smiled at him, "Especially if those are pancakes?"
"With apple filling," Kal held the kitchen door open, "Or with honey?" He indicated a second stack.
"Acacia honey?"
"No; but I could go and fetch you some?" The Kryptonian offered tentatively, "If you'd like?"

"I could go and get my own," Wally reminded him. "I'll take whatever is here." He gave Kal a warm look. "I'd rather have you."
"Not in Alfred's Kitchen." Kal was scandalised.
"It's Bruce's kitchen too," Wally stated. "Sorry, Alfred, I wasn’t going to do anything wrong, honest."
"I have several piles of pancakes waiting to be eaten." Alfred merely allowed the corner of his mouth to twitch up, in what might have been a small smile. "Do you suppose you might both oblige?"
"I think we could manage that." Kal sat down at the table. "Between us?"
"Should I take it that you have your appetite back now, Master Kal?" Alfred busied himself at the hob.
"Oh, I should be able to manage a few." Kal assured him.
"Dozen." Wally quipped. "Bruce, you not joining us?"
"Not yet." Bruce had other plans. "You two start without me. I'm going to get out of the armour and then I want to check on Sandy."
"He's asleep still." Kal cast a rapid glance up at the ceiling. "Aw, that's cute… he's snoring."
"Cute?" Wally gave him a look.
"He snores just like you do, Wal," Kal smiled fondly. "After,"
A hand clapped over his mouth.
"I really don’t think Alfred wants to know about that." Wally said hastily. "I'm sure that the Batman doesn’t either."

The window was open just a crack, and a light breeze teased at the drapes. Sandy lay on the bed, one arm stretched out, the other hand resting on his flat stomach.
He's so beautiful, like an angel… It wasn’t the first time that Bruce had thought that, and maybe if he could only manage not to screw up what they had between them, it need not be the last. By now, Bruce was utterly bound and determined that that should not happen.
"Sandy?" Crossing to the bed, Bruce waited for any hint that the blond had heard him. "Sandy?"
"Bruce." The answering voice was hollow, echoing more than it should.
Spinning around, Bruce found himself facing the other self.
Sandy's moonshadow. Shivering, Bruce was immediately reminded of the terrible things that his own alter ego was capable of…
And the Bat only has a human body to work with… What could Sandy's dark side accomplish if it chose? Or more accurately, what COULDN’T it do? Bruce had run the results of the tests himself, twice, and he was still having trouble believing what they had found.

"You're afraid of me, aren't you?" The dark feet stepped lithely over the carpet. "I can see why… I can see so much more now than that first time when I woke up…"
"I'm a bit nervous." Bruce admitted. "Why do you think I might be afraid?" Keep it talking, eventually Kal is going to wonder where I am and then he'll come… Yeah, and do what?
"You are so intriguing, even out of the suit." This other version said admiringly. "From the moment I saw you I thought you were handsome. Of course that thought naturally led on to other things...." It made a series of short puffing sounds.
It's trying to laugh! Bruce felt his gut clench. He didn’t know if it was terror or anticipation; but he felt himself react.
"You still don’t respond to this me the same way that you react to the waking me,” The other form noted.
"You understand what you are? Just a walking dream? A shadow of him at best?" Bruce asked incredulously.
"It's you who doesn’t understand." The manifestation told him. "This form matures further each time I use it, my control improves each time." It reached out a hand.
What does it want with me?

Bruce ducked back; but there was nowhere to go, only a blind corner. He waited, dreading what might come next. If the moonshadow was right and it was still growing, there was no way to even guess at what it could do, if it chose to.
It could kill me with a thought… The lethal fingers reached for him, hovering just above his elbow.
Or because it WASN’T thinking…
"May I touch you?" The moonshadow asked.
Bruce drew back as far as he could. "I'd rather you didn’t."
"You like it when I touch you," It said, the level tones revealing nothing of the moonshadow's reaction to his refusal. Was the thing angry? Disappointed? Did it truly feel emotion anyway? It didn’t have hormones, after all, or glands...
"I like it when Sandy touches me," Bruce reminded it.
"But I am Sandy."
"No: Sandy's asleep there, on the bed." Bruce automatically glanced over at the four-poster, and could have kicked himself.
I should never have drawn its attention to Sandy! What was I thinking of? What if it gets angry and retaliates?
What could Bruce, or anyone else, do if it did?
But it wouldn’t hurt Sandy… would it?
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The Birthday Present