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The Birthday Present	By : Kip Category: DC Verse Comics > Batman Views: 8478 -:- 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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The top of the well shaft was a very long way away, and it was damn cold down at the bottom. The sunlight never really reached all the way down here, and it showed. Bruce lay on the uneven ground, idly toying with his torch beam.
Maybe, if there’s anyone up there, someone’ll see it and investigate? Staring up at the spot of light dancing up the wall of the shaft, he reconsidered the circumstances that had brought him here.
It was entirely my fault. I should have been watching to see that all of the enemy task force were really out of the tunnel before I moved in! A totally amateur mistake! What was I thinking of?
He couldn’t remember now; but, whatever it had been, it obviously wasn’t what he should have been thinking about. What Bruce did remember was noticing the way Shining Knight had reacted as Moon dimmed his inner lights and crept off into the darkness. That and the way the two of them had been whispering while they crouched close together in readiness to spring the trap on the opposition.
I was watching Knight watching Sa… Moon… instead of watching my own back. I would never have made that mistake when Sandy and I were together.

The end of his nose was beginning to prickle with the cold. Ignoring the bubbling in his lungs, Bruce concentrated on his nose.
From practice, he knew that it was easier to blot out pain when you had something else to think about. The way he figured it, his right arm and wrist were broken, along with several ribs. It wasn’t hard to guess that the tightness in his chest was internal bleeding from a punctured lung. That feeling was only too familiar: it had happened to him at least a couple of times before.
Only this time, there's no partner to get me out. No one knows I'm here, and even if they think to start looking, by the time they find me it's going to be too late. Hell, it's probably already too late...
By now Bruce was fairly sure that his right leg was broken, possibly in more than one place, and he had serious doubts about the condition of his back. The damage to his lower spine was proving unexpectedly useful though, since it meant that lying here on the rocks felt nowhere near as bad as landing on them in the first place had. Not that he remembered much about that: slamming his head against the wall on the way down had monopolised too much of his attention at that point.
That can't be daylight? There should be several hours to go before dawn … unless I lost consciousness again for a while? It was a nuisance that his watch had shattered on impact, along with his wrist and forearm.
Almost looks like it’s getting nearer ... Odd that ... As he watched, the approaching light grew slightly stronger. It wasn’t bright as such; but it was considerably more substantial than the tiny spot cast by the torch. Hazily, Bruce thought that it looked like an angel descending toward him. He was concentrating so much on making out the shape inside the light, he scarcely gave any thought to what it might actually mean.

"Br … Batman!"
The concern in the familiar voice caused Bruce to smile. "I was right, you are an angel," He whispered, the effort of staying alive leaving him nothing with which to maintain his usual prickly reserve.
"Don’t try and talk!" Crouching on the dirt, Moon bent over him.
"Have to." Bruce told him with an immense effort. "Or I'll … die here and … you'll never … know … what I need to … tell you."
"You aren't going to die here!" Seen in the near darkness, Moon was even more spectacular than Bruce had realised. The echo's skin glowed with thousands of tiny points of light, all shifting and eddying in unison.
Like a phosphorescent pulse... Bruce was so taken with the sight that he forgot to breathe for several seconds; until his injured lung forcefully reminded him, sending waves of pain through him and leaving him coughing helplessly.
"You're beautiful ... like this." Bruce managed to say, as the spasms released him again. "Never told … you so; but you are."
"You're raving." Moon was running careful hands over the armour. "Two breaks in the leg, one bleeding fairly badly, the other just leaking." His palms passed Bruce's hips. "Bad damage around the mid region of your spinal cord," He continued working methodically upwards. "But the lung's the worst bit at the moment: two bits of broken rib puncturing the right lung. You're haemorrhaging badly, and the blood's puddling in your chest."
"No." Impulsively Bruce caught hold of a hand as it passed in range of his uninjured arm, pleased and surprised at how solid it felt. With stubborn determination he pulled it towards his face. "I … mean it."
"You're worse than I thought." Moon worried. “Hit your head too?”

Here in the near dark, the contours of Sandy's face were clearly visible, far more so than Bruce had ever seen before, the lines so familiar that if only he'd had the artistic skills Bruce could have recreated it from memory. This wasn’t the face of a monster or a stranger: it was the face of his friend, and lover.
I've been such a fool! Grabbing each breath with increasing difficulty, Bruce marvelled at how good Sandy had become at manifesting in this form. Why had he never understood before? This was still Sandy and, despite Bruce's previous fears to the contrary, it had never been otherwise.
"Yes," Soulful eyes locked onto him, "It hurt so much that you didn’t seem to see it; or believe me."
I know, and I'm sorry. The pressure in his lung was growing. The urge to cough increased with every second; Bruce knew now that once he gave in to it, it would be too much for his injured body to take.
"You'll drown in your own blood," Sandy agreed, "Unless you're prepared to trust me to help you?"
Bruce managed to nod.
"I think I can stem the bleeding." Eyes watched him, waiting for a reaction.
Struggling for air, Bruce gripped Sandy's hand. "Try." He snatched another breath.
"Okay. I've never done anything on this scale before but I don’t see any other options." The hand slipped free of Bruce's and descended toward his chest.

Closing his eyes Bruce tried not to think about how something was moving inside his flesh.
"Easy…" Sandy whispered. "That's got the leaking vessels sealed; but I need to reduce some of the pressure in here." He sat back on his heels. There was a splashing sound somewhere off by Bruce's knees.
Perplexed, Bruce cast around for the cause.
"Just a bit of contaminated blood," His glowing companion told him, scooping out another handful and dumping it with the first. "Full of blood clots; all that air in there is making it congeal."
Bruce would have groaned; but he was too busy trying to stay conscious. Now that the other distractions had diminished, the pain in the back of his head seemed to be getting worse by the second.
"I see it." Evidently Sandy could sense his distress, and was making a logical guess at the cause. Bruce preferred to think of it like that. It was better than the idea that Sandy was directly reading his thoughts.
"Sorry," Sandy told him, although quite what the comment was meant to cover remained unclear as the other man busied himself using his strange abilities to cauterise the ends of the bleeding capillaries.
He does it so well… I never expected that… Or that he would be so gentle.

Lying there flat on his back with the knowledge that the ethereal fingers that he could feel running over his scalp were also simultaneously gliding through his brain tissue was a novel experience, although Bruce decided that it was one he could have probably done without.
"No, you couldn’t," Came the soft reply. "Believe me on that."
So much for retaining the illusion that his thoughts at least remained his own…
The hint of a kiss brushed over his mouth.
"Did you just kiss me?" Bruce asked hopefully, able to talk again now that he was finding it quite a lot easier to breathe.
The gleaming shoulders shrugged, "Might have."
"You forgive me?" If it were true it would be a miracle that he surely did not deserve; but was more than willing to try and earn.
"I'm a very forgiving kind of person." Sandy reminded him.
"Yes, you are." Bruce acknowledged. "Why now though?"
"Because we're here now, alive, and neither of us has any guarantees of that continuing to be the case."
"Don’t talk like that." Bruce couldn’t feel it; but he was fairly sure that Sandy was doing something to his leg. The armour was being jiggled slightly. "You aren't going to die here." He told the blond, addressing the comment to the ceiling so that he didn’t have to watch what might be happening elsewhere.
"Who says I was talking about me?" Came the soft reply.
He's worried about me… after all that I've done to him …

"I don’t plan on popping off anytime soon, if that's what you were thinking?" Bruce reassured his friend. He felt his whole body jolt. The sensation wasn’t a pleasant one.
"Had to pull the bone back into alignment," Sandy explained laconically. "But I try not to think about things like that: Death and such?"
"I wish I could."
"You can't live in the shadows your whole life." The blond offered philosophically, turning his attention to the other break. "This one's only cracked in two bits." He reported. "One good pull and it should be okay."
"I don’t know if I want to know that." Bruce was having trouble maintaining his objectivity. It was one thing to understand logically that someone could choose to reach right through your skin and influence your insides; but quite another thing to actually see and feel it happening.
Eew! Like that… That is so… unnatural. But not unwelcome, if he was honest about it.
"You okay?" Sandy was asking, as he attended to Bruce's arm.
"Peachy."
"Piss taker." His unorthodox nurse accused mildly.
"Blond."
"You really okay?"
"Getting there," Bruce told him honestly. At least he had stopped shivering. He was starting to feel very sleepy, more exhausted really, in fact he was having a hard time keeping his eyes open... Maybe if he just had a few seconds nap?

"Don’t go to sleep!" A sharp snap of energy jerked Bruce out of the thickening dream state.
"Huh?" Bruce abruptly returned to the painfully unpleasant waking world, where it was cold and he was laying on rocky lumps.
"You've lost about a pint and a half of blood, not counting the bit that is still in you but not where it should be," Sandy reminded him anxiously. "The low temperature down here was a good thing, because it slowed your metabolic rate and kept you from bleeding to death; but it's too cold for any body to safely remain inactive for long here."
"Hypothermia," Bruce nodded, vaguely recalling the advice that had been drummed into him during his formative years, "Get up and walk around then."
"Not me, you idiot! I'm not cold: you’re the one that's at risk!"
"Then you'll have to share body heat with me," Bruce told his companion.
"I would," Sandy sounded tense, "Except I don’t have any. This form is pure energy. There's no blood, no core temperature, nothing."
"That's why the security system never picked you up," It was satisfying to finally be able to solve that one.
"What?" The darkly beautiful face turned toward him.
"In the Batcave," Bruce murmured, his mind becoming increasingly muddled, "The sensors couldn’t find you … because you weren’t there, even though you were."
"Stay awake!"
Another sharp jolt ran through him, and this time he felt it from the tips of his toes right up to his scalp, "Fixed my back." He said sleepily.
"Yes, I did. Keep talking to me! I can't keep zapping you."
"No? You going to run out of energy?" For some reason that he couldn’t quite fathom at that moment, the idea was vaguely amusing.

"I warn you, if you dare offer me a battery it’ll be your arse that gets jump-started, I’ll make damn sure I have enough energy to manage that," There was a definite smile in the voice, even if Bruce couldn’t see it at that moment, and for some insane reason that made him feel uncommonly happy.
"Why can't I see you?" He asked.
"Because you have your eyes closed?"
"Oh … yeah..." With an effort, he forced his eyes open. "Better … M'cold."
"Yes. You are. I'm worried."
"Thought you were Sandy?" He tried a small witticism to relieve the tension.
"I am."
"Then how come you look more like Moon?"
"You are really far gone, aren't you?"
"Mmmm," Bruce agreed. "Sandy, what did you do?"
"What I always do: made the outside of this shape look the way I wanted it to."
"No, not that," He didn’t care how Sandy looked: that was purely cosmetic.
"To you?" The other man guessed, "To fix things?"
"Mmmm."
"I pinched the bleeding parts together and cauterised them. Reset the bone ends and started them fusing. Reached into your spinal column and eased the nerves and bones back into alignment. I'm not a surgeon and it isn't a complete job by any means; but it'll do. Your body'll sort the rest of it naturally, and at least you won't have to be sliced open again after they do rescue us."
"You're perfect." Bruce sighed.
"You're sure about that?"
"Perfect for me anyway," He admitted softly, yawning, "I can't live without you." This time the darkness won.

As he woke again, Bruce could hear Sandy talking, and see him moving back and forward. There were no sounds as his lover paced restlessly, because the echo wasn’t bothering to stay solid enough to make footprints.
"Why isn't anyone coming?" The other man was worrying quietly to himself.
"They don’t know we're here." It was the logical conclusion; but then Sandy wasn’t always logical: his beautiful golden angel could be quite emotional at times.
"Bruce!" Sandy was at his side, "I've tried to use your communicator; but I don’t think the signal is getting through."
"Take it outside." Bruce whispered. His body felt heavy, leaden, and although there was very little pain, he knew that something was still terribly wrong. But what?
I'm not losing blood any more, so what could it be? Hypothermia again? Even though he was aware that the air just beyond his skin must be close to freezing, he didn’t actually feel cold; which was … odd.
"I daren’t leave you." Sandy admitted.
"You have to." Forcing his hand to lift, Bruce caught hold of the fingers that rested on his arm. "I need you to."
"You need me here." The other man disagreed.
This time Bruce was determined to get his point across. "I'm dying." He said bluntly.
"No." Sandy shook his head. "I'm not letting you."
"You …" There was something very real about that statement wasn’t there?
He means it… literally…

"You were dying, until I started feeding my energy into you. I’m still doing it, one tiny bit at a time. That's what's keeping you alive, Bruce. If I go too far from you, then I can't keep it flowing."
"If you don’t go, you'll run out and I'll die anyway." It must be daylight outside: he could see the outlines of the concrete shaft quite clearly. To his horror, Bruce realised that he could also see right through his partner, all the way to the wall behind him! "Sandy! What have you done to yourself?"
"I told you…"
"You're fading away!" Bruce fretted. Sandy was little more than a ghost, a few wispy lines suggesting his form and location.
"I'm not bothering to colour this self in, if that's what you mean?" Came the quiet reply. "It's a waste of energy, and you need everything I can spare."
"It's not harming this you?"
"No. I don’t need to be visible to be somewhere."
There's something that he isn’t saying. Something very important… Bruce could feel it, even if he couldn’t quite place it at that moment.
What if… Unlike Kal, Sandy was more than capable of lying perfectly believably if the blond thought that the occasion required it.
But why would he think he needs to do that now? What does he think he can't tell me?
A tingle of horror shivered through Bruce as one possible explanation occurred to him: this version might be in no immediate danger but this wasn’t his friend’s only body was it?
"Sandy, what about the OTHER you?"
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The Birthday Present