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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
- 36
- 37
"Sandy, answer me."
The only response was a sullen silence.
"I know you're still there. I can feel you," Bruce told him.
"I know you can," Came the quiet response.
"And hear you."
"Of course. Sound is a lot easier to manipulate than light."
But not as easy to manipulate as people… Sandy had told him that he wasn’t prepared to let Bruce die; but Bruce wasn’t about to let Sandy give up on anything either. "Can you get out of the shaft?" He asked.
Sandy shook his head. "Not and take you with me."
"No. But you can get yourself out?" Bruce checked.
"I could just BE there." Sandy delicately emphasised the active part.
"Do it. Take my communicator, get out of here, and dump it on the surface by the entrance." Bruce told him. "You know how to set it to send out a distress call?"
"You showed me." The soft voice was hesitant. "But what if they don’t come straight away? I can't go far, or stay away from you long, not…"
"They'll come." What Bruce was more worried about was that someone from the opposition might intercept the signal and arrive first; but he wasn’t about to tell Sandy that; there was no point in giving the blond more to worry about.
"I've set it to wide broadcast." Sandy shifted appearance, his features blurring back into the instantly recognisable form of the Moonshadow. "I'll make sure that they can see where to look for us, and then leap back."
"I'll be waiting." Bruce promised.
The uncanny eyes gleamed. "You'd better be."

Where the fuck IS he? I know he wouldn’t abandon me, so what's keeping him? It’s damn cold down here...
The next few minutes were the longest that Bruce had experienced for some time. His teeth had started to chatter almost as soon as Sandy winked out, and it only got worse the longer he waited for the other man to return.
What is he doing up there? Bruce had asked himself that same question several times, before he finally got an answer.
"We had company." Sandy told him, kneeling beside him and quickly checking him over.
Bruce clenched his teeth together so hard that he could hear his jaw creak. The hand that drifted along his skin brought little relief from the cold; but he was pleased to see that Sandy was looking more substantial.
"I know it was worrying you." Was all the explanation that he was offered, until Sandy had resumed donating whatever it was that he was relaying to Bruce. Gradually the cold receded.
"The communicator got broken after the signal got sent; but before I could get an answer: that irritating bloke with the lightning turned up and zapped it," Sandy related, "He wanted to take me out with a zap too, so I let him," He smiled wryly, "Got myself a free recharge and took him down in the process."
"So what's on the cards now?" Bruce wasn’t about to give up either; but right now it was hard to see a way out of this one.
This is looking bad, we don’t even have a communicator between us, our friends may not know where to find us; but at least one of the enemy definitely did… And it must be close to freezing down here by now… But Sandy looks better… he looks damn good actually…

Realising that he had been drifting, Bruce tuned back in to Sandy.
"I also got a nice dose of sunlight." Sandy was saying. "And you aren't taking any damn notice at all of me, are you?"
"I was!" Did watching someone's face count as taking notice?
"No, it doesn’t. Not unless you're lip-reading them."
Accepting that Sandy was listening to his thoughts every bit as closely as his words, Bruce gave up resisting. "Lips did come into it." He admitted.
"And they are going to again." Sandy told him. "Do you remember the evening when we helped Wally and Kal?"

Was he ever going to forget it? That seminal moment had engraved itself permanently on his brain, and provided some of the stimulus for the small amount of solo relief Bruce had been able to get with Sandy absent from his bed and his arms. That and the image of two strategically placed red ribbons and a sheepskin rug…
"Oh, that is so cute!" Sandy smiled gently. "You remember."
"Couldn’t forget," Bruce promised him, deciding that he could stand being called cute, providing that it was Sandy saying it, and as long as it was only in this particular context, "One of my better wanking fantasies." He added.
That confession earned him a very tender kiss.
"We'll make a few new ones once you're out of here and healed up," Sandy whispered, "I love it when you talk dirty to me. I ... miss you."

"Sandy," The time had come to be realistic about this. Despite Sandy’s efforts Bruce could feel his grip on this plane of existence steadily slipping, and he had no intention of risking dragging the other man down with him, regardless of whatever distractions or objections Sandy might raise.
"I'm not going to get out of this one. It's my time." He said pragmatically. "You go topside. Stay there. Tell the others where to find me, and save yourself."
"What?"
"I know that you need to renew contact with your body, your other body," Bruce told him simply. "What's the longest you've ever stayed out like this before?"
"Just under eight hours," Sandy said softly.
"And how long has it been now?"
"At least twelve..."
"Twelve hours!" Bruce stared up at him. "What's that going to do to you?"
"I don’t know if it will necessarily do anything," Sandy met his eyes, "The other me is alive, at least for now."
"How can you tell?"
"It feels okay. Besides, I talked to J'Onn about what was happening here and, while we tried to figure out where you are, he showed me how he's got the other me wired up to a life support machine."
So the League did know that he was alive at least, and in trouble… The rest of the sentence suddenly registered.
"He's WHAT!"
"J'Onn's," The other man started to say.
"Sandy, I got that bit!" Bruce interrupted. "What I didn’t get was the 'why' part."
"When I was fading here…" Sandy looked contrite.
"Yes," Bruce prompted, knowing that it was the only way that he was going to get to the answer.
"I must have been fading there too…"

"You were dying?" Bruce had known something was wrong! The idiot! Being willing to sacrifice himself like that!
"And of course, you wouldn’t?" A scathing eyebrow rose. "Obviously I wasn’t dying or I'd already be dead, wouldn’t I? I flicked back there and checked on myself, once I got enough sunlight to know that I could return here afterward. I couldn’t reintegrate then; but it all looked fine."
"Couldn’t?" Bruce demanded. "Or wouldn’t?"
"Bit of both," The other man shrugged.
"You're taking an incredible risk!" He couldn’t believe that Sandy would be so damned … Loyal?
"And now I'm going to take one more risk, and I'm going to ask you to take it with me," Sandy looked down at him anxiously, “But I warn you: it’s a big one...”
"Go ahead."
"J'Onn was worried that it could be quite a long while before they find us. I didn’t know where you were, not in terms that they could use, so they're running a search pattern over the entire district. But I have an idea that could to buy us both some extra time. My control of this element is better than it's ever been. I can integrate with Kal without him even noticing it, if I want to. And before you ask, it was something we did as a controlled experiment for J'Onn."
I wasn’t going to ask, because I really don’t want to think about them doing things like that … not for any reason … especially not together…
"The point?" Bruce prompted.
"Of what I'm asking you now … is this." Sandy hesitated. "You're weakening, and I am too. Yes, I got a boost; but it isn't going to sustain me for long. This electrical signature is the manifestation of my nervous system, and while it looks like a body in its own right, it isn't. It really needs to be housed in a physical shell every so often; but J'Onn's experiment proved that the flesh I take refuge in doesn’t necessarily have to be my own original skin."
"You're asking … no, you can't be…"

"I'm asking you if you trust me," Sandy put it in words, "enough to let me try and save both our lives?"
"You aren't at risk! You can flick up to the station and get back into you own skin."
"I know." Sandy looked at him solemnly. "I could probably save my own flesh; but you're my heart, Bruce, every bit as much as that lump of muscle beating inside my physical chest." He hesitated. "Without you, I think I could very easily lose my humanity; from there it would only be a short step to becoming the monster that you were worried about."
"I don’t know." This was one of those moments when only complete honesty would do. They were both running out of time; but it needed saying. "I'm … scared … of meta's … of what people with powers like you have, can do… to people like me." Bruce admitted.
"Right now those powers could save your life."
"Logically, I know that. I want to believe it, and I almost do; but there's still…"
"You've got doubts?" Sandy gazed down at him. "And you think I don’t?"
"What have you got to be concerned about?"
"That what I’m suggesting might not be possible? You're not like Kal, and I've never tried this with a human, and once we get started it’ll be too late to find out that we’re not compatible. Or since you are human we might be too compatible, and I might not be able to leave later? Even supposing that I can get us apart again without harming either of us, I've no guarantee of being able to get back into my own body: I’ve been gone a lot longer than I've ever tried before. Or my integrating with you might hurt you more than it helps? You see? There's a whole load of things…"
"You wouldn’t hurt me." Bruce would have dearly liked to be able to sit up, take his lover into his arms, and hold him; but right now all that he could do was hold onto the last few slivers of life, and hope that Sandy could actually do what the blond thought he could. He made his mind up. It either worked or it didn’t; but he was going to give Sandy the chance to try. He looked Sandy in the eye, “Do it.”
"Okay." Lips pressed down onto his. His lungs filled with unexpected pressure. One last kiss before dying… Bruce remembered the phrase, even as he forgot how to breathe.

You're not dying! Not now! Don’t you dare give up on me, Bruce, you miserable bastard! Jees-us! That HURTS!
The thoughts were suddenly there in Bruce's head, along with a heavy sensation flowing through his veins. Heat began to suffuse his leaden limbs, feeling vaguely like someone had lit a fire around him; under the circumstances it felt entirely appropriate.
"Welcome to Hell." Bruce welcomed his fellow inmate with a liberal dose of sarcasm. "Fun here, isn't it? Do you come often?"
"I intend to come several times, just as soon as the opportunity presents itself, only I intend to be back in my own body when I do it." Sandy assured him.
Bizarrely, it was exactly like having a normal conversation, only without the need to actually speak.
"More like remembering a conversation," Sandy offered speculatively, "Actually, now that I've thought about it a bit more, it might be just as much fun trying sex from your side of the skin…"
"What are you doing?" Behind the banter, Bruce could feel something strange going on. What was his guest up to?
"Chatting you up? Healing you? Getting comfy?" Sandy answered casually, "Take your pick."
Not a guest, a lodger. Guests are more polite.

"Guests don’t have to rebuild the place while they're living in it," Came the snippy reply, "Nor do lodgers."
"More a squatter then?" Bruce supposed.
"More a bloody miracle..." His lover countered.
"Yes." And Bruce really meant that. "You are, and I should have told you that a lot sooner."
"Do NOT get mushy on me now."
"Why?"
"I might just decide that you're not the real Bruce Wayne, oust you and make myself comfy in here."
"You wouldn’t. You couldn’t do that, right?"
"Don’t know." Sandy replied sweetly. "You want to find out?"
"NO!" Bruce was quite sure about that part, at least.
"Okay."
"You were just winding me up then, weren’t you?" He checked.
"Yep."
"Blond."
"Is that really the best you can do?"
"Right now?" Bruce thought it over. "Yes."

Lying there in the chilly dark, blended together like oil and water, in the same container; but still distinct and separate, they waited for the promised help to arrive.
"You can sleep if you want to? I can keep your body alive." Sandy offered.
"Can you sleep, Sandy? Do you?" It was a question that had often crossed Bruce's mind.
"Not when I'm like this. This is my consciousness. My body's up there, snoozing for all it's worth. The only consolation is that when I do wake up in it, I'll have a woody that you could hang your armour on."
"Sandy!"
"Well, I will…"
"Yeah; but most people wouldn’t say it like it was something to be proud of!"
"Most people can't do the other stuff either."
"True." He had to concede that; the Bat part of his persona found it all vaguely amusing.

They lay there for a while in comfortable silence; or rather Bruce lay there half-drowsing, while Sandy contentedly searched out minute spaces to occupy.
"Is what you do astral projection?" Bruce wondered. It was another of the weird little questions that had been occupying his thoughts a lot over the past few weeks; because he had nothing better to think about, if the truth were known.
"Oh come on!" Sandy would have laughed if he had had lungs. "Does it look like it?"
"Hey, don’t get snippy with me! You… body snatcher…"
"Can you have a blond moment when you're not blond?" Sandy mused. "And that snatching thing sounds fun!"
"Maybe being blond is contagious?" Bruce countered. "Perhaps I'm catching it from you?"
"You'll catch it from me later, lover… Hey," Something external attracted Sandy's attention. "What's that? Heads up, we've got company!"

Bruce felt a thrill run through senses that he only had the loosest possible sharing rights to. Preferring to rely on his regular senses, he opened his eyes and peered up into the returning dark. The elation dimmed as he recognised the descending shape. "Damn… It's Sinistro!"
"It's raining villains today!" Sandy complained, "What are we going to do?"
“What CAN we do?” It was worrying. Bruce didn’t hated being this helpless, even though he currently had absolutely no choice about in the matter. "I can't exactly mount much of a defence against him, not like this!"
"Then we wait and see what he's going to do…" Sandy put in.
"When he finds I’m not dead, he'll try and kill me; that's what he's going to do," Bruce predicted with grim certainty, “It’s what he always does.” Only this time the perverted bastard might just succeed...
"Yeah," Came the sly reply, "But, will he try and do it down here in private, or will he take you up top where the whole world can see?"
"Ah!" Bruce was beginning to get the idea. Sinistro just loved to grandstand…

"As soon as we saw Sinistro get you clear of the well shaft, we moved in on him." Kal was saying. He glanced around anxiously. "J'Onn's been waiting for you both, there's a bed ready in the medical bay."
"Kal," Bruce tried to speak.
"No!" Kal pressed a hand to his mouth. "Save your strength. We don’t know how badly you're hurt yet!" He looked worried.
‘KAL.’
"Moon?" Kal glanced around. "Moon, we’ve been looking everywhere for you! Where are you?"
‘In here too, and we'd both appreciate it if you would get your hand off Bruce's mouth.’
"Oh my goodness!" Kal's expression changed from worried to frantic.
‘Bruce and I have been helping each other, and I've healed him as much as I could; but now I need my own body.’
"I'll make sure you're in adjoining beds." The Kryptonian promised
‘Make sure we're in the same bed! I don’t know how hard, or how slow, the reintegration process is going to be.’ Moon insisted.
"J'Onn," Kal started to say.
"Has been listening, and it will be attended to." The Martian was suddenly there, beside them.
‘Thanks.’
"How do you feel?" The sombre tones were as uninflected as usual.
‘Dunno. We'll have to sleep on it.’
"Batman? Are you agreeable to this?" J'Onn checked.
"Do it." Bruce could just about force the words out. His lungs felt as if they were filled with concrete, and there was a jackhammer going off in the back of his skull.

Through sheer stubbornness, Bruce stayed awake for long enough to supervise the removal of the armour and to appreciate the yielding comfort of the padded mattress under his bruised and battered body; not, as Wally was whispering, because he was a paranoid git and didn’t trust the medical team to undress him without copping a feel.
Although there was one moment there when…
"There." Kal was saying. The blanket was pulled aside for a moment. A wonderful heat pressed up against Bruce's back, and the mattress dipped slightly from the weight of the extra body now sharing it with him.
"I've tucked Sandy in with you," The Kryptonian said smoothly. "Now both of you, get some rest!"
"Yes, Super Mom." Bruce muttered, although he was definitely going to blame that comment on Sandy, since it had been the blond's thought even if it had been Bruce's body that the words came out of.
"Shut up." Kal told him sweetly, and turned out the light.

* * * * *

Mmmm. This is nice. That was the thought Bruce woke up with. Feels really good. As he sorted out what his various senses were telling him, he came to the gradual understanding that he was lying face-down with his head pillowed on Sandy's bare chest, with the blond's arms wrapped around his ribs and with his own outstretched arm slipped under…
Shit! I'm touching his neck!
"S'Okay." A sleepy voice purred. Gentle hands stroked along his back. "Don’t mind, s'nice snuggling you..."
Opening his eyes, Bruce blinked and focussed along the hairless contours to the underneath of Sandy's chin.
"Face is up here." The blond teased him. "Suddenly I can see why women don’t like guys doing that."
"My neck doesn’t bend that way." Bruce muttered. "Not if I want to swallow without choking."
"I'll have to remember that for next time." His lover promised saucily.
Bruce gave up, and turning his head to the side, rested his cheek against Sandy's chest, listening idly to the sounds of life. When a noise like a freight train running across points went off just under his ear, he sighed deeply.
No rest for the wicked ... or the righteous either apparently...
"Your stomach’s deafening me," He complained.
"Tough." Sandy laughed. "I'm hungry."
"Then get up and get something to eat."
"Oh, you're so masterful."
"Being sarcastic will get you nowhere."
"Rich, coming from the man who's being cuddled like a teddy bear..."
"I'm letting you cuddle me." Bruce corrected, lazily shifting his arms until he had Sandy in a more advantageous position. "Just so that I can," He surged into sudden action and clamped his lips down over a vulnerable nipple.
Sandy squealed and bucked.
"Lull you into a false sense of security." Bruce finished smugly, deliberately leaving a wet smear across Sandy's chest.
"Ya think?" Something landed a firm swat on his exposed rear.
"Hey, no using powers to cheat…" He protested to the smirking blond.
"If you two have quite finished turning the medical bay into a Funhouse?"

"There's something really weird about hearing you say 'Funhouse' J'Onn," Sandy decided.
"Indeed?"
"Yes, it'd be like having Alfred talking about condoms." The blond added.
"Eww!" Wally had arrived just in time to hear that.
"If you think that's bad," Bruce hauled himself reluctantly out of the bed, stealing the sheet from Sandy in the process. "I'm more modest than you, so I need it more." He explained to his spluttering bedmate. "Anyway, as I was saying, if you think that's strange, you should have been there when Alfred gave me the 'birds and bees' talk."
"No!" Wally was gobsmacked. "He didn’t? Alfred?"
"Who else?" Bruce made sure that Sandy was not going to be able to sneak the sheet back from him, by wrapping it around his waist and sitting on the loose end. Pouting, Sandy abandoned the bed completely.
"It took me about a week before I realised that, when Alfred said I shouldn’t get personal with girls, he wasn’t talking about being rude to them…" Bruce added.
There was a general round of amusement.
"What about safe sex?" Sandy wondered, rummaging in a nearby cupboard. "Did Alfred tell you about that too?"
"Safe sex?" Bruce let out a short laugh, "In Alfred’s day sex wasn’t something people really talked about. The idea was that you didn’t have sex at all unless you were married to the person, and even then it wasn’t something that people were ever supposed to admit to actually enjoying."
"Poor Alfred," The blond sounded surprisingly sympathetic.
"Yeah, it must have been tough looking after Bruce." Wally laughed. "Can you imagine him as a kid?"

"Wally, don’t be mean." Kal had come in, and heard most of the end of the conversation, "I think Alfred is pretty progressive." He suggested. "After all, he and Leslie …"
"What?" Sandy looked at the rest of them.
Bruce shrugged at his mystified lover. Alfred and Leslie! When did that happen? How had he missed it?
"You didn’t know, Sandy?" Wally was openly astonished.
"How would Sandy know?" Kal provided the voice of reason. "It's not exactly something that you talk about to people when they're ill, is it?"
"Guess not." Wally agreed. "Hey, are you going to stand around all day like that?"
"Like what?" Bruce realised that the comment was being addressed to him.
"Just a sheet?" Wally blushed, "I mean, not that it's not a good look for you; but…"
"But the day shift’s starting to wander around out there, and we all know how you are about keeping your identities separate," Kal finished diplomatically.
"So you don’t have any problem with Sandy wandering around flashing to all and sundry; but you don’t think it's right that I…" Bruce threw his hands in the air. "J'Onn, there is NO Justice…"
The Martian only shrugged.
"Here." Sandy handed him the cowl. "Get your work face on."

"No appreciation," Bruce grumped. "Hey, where'd you get those jeans anyway?"
"My body was dressed when J'Onn bought me in here." Sandy shrugged.
"Don’t you get confused, talking about yourself as if there were two of you?" Wally wondered.
"Nope," The blond thought it over, "There's only one of me; but I can be in two places at once."
"That's weird," Wally never seemed to mind sharing his opinion with the rest of them.
"Coming from a guy who runs around in snug red spandex; that really means something," Sandy countered wittily.
"Hey! It isn't spandex!" Wally was equally quick, which wasn’t surprising, considering.
"No?" A blond eyebrow lifted.
"No… It's special."
"You're special."
"You're…" Wally ran out of words.
"Hungry?" Sandy suggested. "Aren't you?"
"Yeah!" The speedster was perfectly happy to go along with that. "Let's grab a snack and then head down to Gotham. Alfred's cooking Sunday dinner! Roast beef and roast potatoes, with Yorkshire Pudding and Brussels sprouts!"
"Brussels sprouts?" Sandy thought that over.
"Yeah!" Wally was in heaven. "Love them, especially with Alfred's thick gravy!"
"You’d better not have more than five pizza's then," Sandy grinned. "Don’t want to spoil your appetite."
Laughing, the pair hurried out of the door.

"We'd better follow them," Bruce sighed, "Otherwise they'll probably find a way to start World War 4 in the main refectory."
"Six." Kal said absently.
"Six?" Pulling on the cowl, Bruce was Batman. "What happened to Five?"
"That was last month," Kal told him. "While you were having your domestic crisis..."
"Ah." Batman nodded. "Yes, I was a little… preoccupied." He strode along the corridor beside the larger man. "Bad was it? Five, I mean?"
"Lantern and Diana…" Kal winced. "Did you know that 'Amazon princesses don’t scrub mashed potato out of light fittings'?" His impression of Diana was uncannily accurate given the gender differences. For a second, Bruce could almost see Kal in the high heels. No, he so did not want to go there! Not ever!
"I could have guessed." The Bat growled. "So what did you do about it?"
"Well, I couldn’t let her get away with it." Kal sighed regretfully. "It would have been bad for station discipline."
“True.” More like disastrous, really… But that's Diana all over. "So she did do it in the end?" Batman queried.
The Kryptonian blushed a very fetching shade of crimson, "Only after I insisted."
"What did you do?" So maybe I can quote it back to her next time she gets stroppy? Or bully Kal into doing it again...
Kal looked absolutely mortified. "I had to get quite firm," He said in a hushed tone.

"Yes?" Bruce waited, remembering to be patient, and not hit him; not because Superman could crush steel with his bare hands, or shoot heat rays from his eyes, or even because hitting the other male would hurt, but mainly because Kal would feel the need to spend at least an hour finding new ways to apologise for being invulnerable...
"And I didn’t want to." Kal continued, oblivious.
"Of course you didn’t."
Marshmallow! And the most unbelievable thing of all was that Kal actually meant this! Still, considering the amount of power packed away inside that body, it was probably a good thing that Kal was a genuinely nice guy…
Not to mention a total wuss…
"So what did you say?" If this hadn't been Superman, Bruce would have said that the other man was fidgeting; or avoiding answering.
Kal took a deep breath, stretching the famous 'S' shape even wider across his broad chest, "That I really, really wasn’t very pleased with her."
Absolutely brutal with her then? Bruce heaved a sigh of relief. Sounds like Life's finally getting back to normal...
- 36
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The Birthday Present