The House of the Earth Part 3: (7/8): In the Heart of Cheyenne Mountain
Title: Chapter Seven: In The Heart of Cheyenne Mountain
Pairing/Characters: Kal/Bruce
Notes: " The House of the Earth" is an AU in which a few thousand Kryptonians escaped the destruction of Krypton to flee to Earth and conquer its people.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2600
Summary: Kal and Bruce make their way to the final destination in their trip.
They drove west, the rising sun at their backs. The landscape flattened out, the gently rolling hills giving way to prairie that stretched out in all directions, impossibly vast. Long lines of clouds marched across the land, blown before the winds that swept the plains, and then scoured them down to scrub and wasteland as they went further west. There were no plantations here, nothing but ghost towns scrubbed clean by wind and time, and Bruce pushed the truck until its crystal-fuelled engine hummed.
The long, straight road sloped upward, almost too gradually to sense, but Kal could feel the air growing cooler and thinner. They sped through barren country, gray and endless, and Kal was heartily sick of the unending vista when on the horizon, far in front of them, he saw the first wrinkled ridge of mountains appear.
"There's our destination," Bruce said.
"That's where we're going? Over the mountains?"
Bruce grinned briefly. "Not exactly."
The mountains grew larger, but with infinite slowness; the distance between them was deceiving. But eventually the monotonous landscape started to give way to foothills as the mountains loomed ever closer. This was an aspect of Earth Kal had never encountered--majestic mountains rising slowly from evergreen-covered slopes to massive white-capped towers of stone. It made him feel small and awed and strangely grateful.
There was a dusting of snow on the ground and the air was thin when Bruce pulled the truck over into a dense copse of trees. "We walk from here on," he said.
As they hiked, Kal was silent in the face of the giants reaching into the sky, beautiful and aloof. Bruce seemed to be finding signs and markers in the landscape that Kal couldn't spot; he led them further into the mountains, across scree-covered slopes and rocky outcroppings. It was growing dark when they came to a door set into the mountainside: it was a thick steel door, wrenched from its hinges and bent by some inhuman strength.
Bruce picked up a broken branch from a pine tree and handed it to Kal, then slipped through the door into gloom beyond. As Kal followed, a soft glow came from Bruce's hands; one of his silver spheres emitting an eerie blue-green light. "Use the branch to get rid of our footsteps," Bruce said, and Kal looked down to realize there was a thick layer of ash and dust under their feet. As they moved along, Kal obliterated their trail with the branch and with some judicious puffs of breath.
It was a tunnel they were in, wide enough for a vehicle, but filled with debris and rubble now. Bruce picked his way along the tunnel, winding downward, downward, as the dust became thicker on every surface. It was cold; their breath hung in the still air, clouds of mist in the silence.
After a long descent into the heart of the mountain, the tunnel passed through another set of massive, broken steel doors and into a vast room. The light in Bruce's hand flickered off massive screens lining the walls--dead and broken, nothing on them but darkness. As Kal's gaze fell to the desks and tables filling the room, he realized with a shock that the place was full of bodies. Mummified skin clung to skeletons slumped within military outfits; bodies left to lie, sprawled in defeat, skulls and backbones shattered.
His horrified intake of breath made Bruce turn to look at him; Bruce's reassuring smile was made ghastly by the dim aqua light and the grisly surroundings. "Shouldn't we...shouldn't we do something for them?" Kal's question hung in the frigid silence. "They shouldn't just be left here."
Bruce shook his head, picking his way through the debris. "We have to leave them. They died to make our defeat convincing, we've never been free to give them the burial they deserve." He paused, looking around the room. "This is all the memorial they can receive. That and our respects. For now."
They both stood a moment in silence, gazing at the remains of a vast slaughter. Then Bruce moved silently on.
More rooms, more tunnels, more debris, more corpses. Eventually Bruce turned down a small passageway, then stopped to pry open a metal trapdoor in the floor. "Lead," he noted.
The trapdoor lifted to reveal a ladder, going down, disappearing into darkness. Bruce grasped the rungs and they descended deeper, deeper into the heart of Cheyenne Mountain.
The ladder went on for what seemed like an eternity, until it felt like they were descending into the underworld itself. It had to be tiring for Bruce; Kal listened anxiously for the sound of his grip giving way, wondering if he could catch him...but Bruce's hands stayed sure and steady. Down. And further down.
After a long time Kal started to hear faint noises, muffled, and the tunnel started to grow almost imperceptably lighter. And then the ladder came to a sudden stop and Kal found himself back on solid rock, his hands cramped from holding on the rungs. Bruce was breathing on his own hands, rubbing them. He walked forward and tapped an inobtrusive panel on the wall; a blue beam shot out and played over his eye. Down the corridor a door creaked open and light leaked out.
"Welcome to the heart of the resistance, Kal," Bruce said.
They were met at the door by a man wearing a leather jacket with large block letters on the arms spelling out "Fair Play." Behind him, in a vast room, hundreds of humans moved about, working on paper, arguing in groups. "Bruce," the man at the door said said, and clapped him on the back. "I see you've brought my t-spheres back to me safe and sound." He lifted the glowing orb from Bruce's hand. "Did they work?"
"Like a charm," said Bruce. He gestured to Kal. "Michael, this is Kal-El."
The man held out a hand for Kal to shake, seeming unfazed by the Kryptonian name. "I've heard about you," he said simply. "It's nice to meet you."
"The pleasure is mine," Kal said.
"Kal, this is Michael Holt, one of our finest scientists."
Michael smiled broadly as he released Kal's hand. "I see he's learned how to flatter while he's been away." He eyed Bruce's face narowly--the injured lip and jaw turning greenish-purple with bruises. "You look like hell, Bruce."
"I see you haven't learned how to flatter at all," Bruce shot back, and Michael laughed.
"I call them like I see them. You should let Pieter take a look at that when you have time."
"Sure, when I have the time," Bruce said easily, and Michael grimaced.
"I know you. You never have the time."
"Guilty as charged," Bruce said, walking past him into the room. When people saw him they nodded politely, a few sketching a quick gesture that looked like a salute. Some cast Kal cautious looks, others ignored him entirely.
An older man with fierce eyes walked up to Bruce. "Good timing, Wayne. We've got a meeting this evening. You'll be pleased to hear about the progress we've made."
Bruce nodded. "Carter Hall, this is Kal-El."
Hall nodded curtly, then pivoted and walked over to another group.
"Do they all know who--what--I am?" Kal asked a little uncomfortably as they made their way through the crowd.
"Most. The ones who don't will by this evening." Bruce gave him a keen look. "Don't let it bother you."
Kal felt the pressure of dozens of pairs of eyes on him, felt his back stiffening as Bruce led him toward another corridor. He glanced over at Bruce's bruised face. So far the most "heroic" thing he'd done for the Earth was to strike down his friend.
He was going to have to do better than that.
"Bruce!" A diminutive blonde woman was running across the room; she threw herself into Bruce's arms and he lifted her and spun her around.
"I met that new man of yours on the road," said Bruce. "He said to tell you he'd be on his way back here in a month or so."
She beamed. "I'm sure you got along great with him."
Bruce rolled his eyes. "Oh yes, we're kindred souls." The woman--she must be the "Dinah" whose papers Oliver had--shot him a wry glance. "Who's your handsome friend?" she asked.
"This is Kal-El," said Bruce, and Dinah froze.
"It's a pleasure," said Kal, holding out a hand. Dinah looked at it. After a long moment, she took it, her eyes cold.
"If you vouch for him, Bruce," she said. "But I don't have to like it." She nodded politely, then left.
"I'm sorry," said Bruce as they continued down a wide corridor. "She's lost a lot."
"No need to apologize," said Kal. "I can't expect everyone to like me."
"No, I suppose you can't," said Bruce. "But I know it still bothers you." He moved down the corridor and Kal followed, biting his lip.
Bruce finally opened a door and ushered him into a tiny, cell-like room, bare of anything but a cot. "This will be your room while you're here. I'll be across the way. We'll probably only be here one night."
"Bruce," said Kal. "Why have you brought me here? Why didn't you just tell me about it? Why the long trip?"
Bruce paused in the doorway. "I wanted you to see it."
"Here?"
"Here, this facility, yes. But Smallville too. And all the places in between. I wanted to see how you acted when you were away from Kryptonians, when you could interact with humans as people."
"This was a test. You might not have brought me here."
Bruce grimaced. "If you had seemed...squeamish around humans, if I had felt you were holding back part of yourself, feeling secretly superior to us..." He paused, looking down. "I didn't think you would, but I needed to see it for myself. How much I could trust you." He looked back at Kal. "I'm sorry."
Kal put his backpack down on the cot. "I'm glad to be here."
Bruce looked at him for a long moment. "I'm glad you're here."
: : :
Kal took his place in the assembly, sitting between two strangers. Bruce was on the stage in front of the crowd, talking about the meeting in Metropolis with Luthor. "Signs indicate that he's achieved a critical mass of Kryptonite and is prepared to deploy it through the atmosphere."
"Any reason we should stop him?" called a voice in the crowd; a few people shot nervous glances at Kal as a murmur of reaction swept through the room.
Bruce was unruffled; he paced a couple of steps on the stage. "The effects on Earth's ecosystem could be disastrous. We have no way to clean the material from the atmosphere, and it could well trigger what pre-Arrival scientists called a 'nuclear winter,' a new Ice Age across the globe. In addition, we have no idea what long-term effects on the biosphere would be of that much radioactive material falling back to earth." He stopped and looked out at the crowd in the direction the voice had come. "In short, we believe the risks to be too high." He looked to the side. "Mr. Holt?"
Michael stood up and joined him on the stage. "Besides which," he said, "Our alternate plan is ready to go. It still has risks, but we judge it to be safer." He sketched a quick drawing on a chalkboard, something that looked slightly like one of his t-spheres. "The nanobot light filters are finally ready. When spread through the atmosphere, they'll filter the yellow sunlight of Earth into a frequency in the red spectrum. This plan has the advantage of being temporary--we can program the nanobots to shut off after just a few hours, saving Earth's biosphere from long-term effects. There's just one remaining problem. Fortunately, it's the same one Luthor is facing." He nodded to Carter Hall, who stood.
"Both Luthor's plan and ours lack a deployment system," said Hall. "We both need a way of getting our respective materials into the atmosphere, and spread evenly enough to affect roughly the whole Earth at once. This has been a serious challenge. However, it has recently come to our attention that the Kryptonians are holding in Metropolis the schematics and notes for the 'weather wand' used by Mark Mardon, also known as the Weather Wizard." He looked out over the crowd. "With those notes, we could put together machines that could control wind currents and air pressure and make it possible to deploy the nanobots in a relatively short time frame."
Bruce stood up again. "Our source most likely sold this information to Luthor as well, and he will be planning a way to get to those notes. If he does, you can bet that he will waste no time in poisoning the Earth's atmosphere." His lips thinned, looking over the crowd. "We must find a way to get to those plans before he does."
A brown-haired man leapt to his feet. "I can get into the vault, my ring can scan the papers--"
Bruce shook his head. "I'm sorry, Hal. We cannot risk the Green Lanterns getting actively involved yet. If the Corps intercedes and takes you out of the game, we'll lose some of our most valuable firepower." Hal looked like he was about to argue, but Bruce shook his head again. "We can't risk losing you, John and Guy all at once," he said.
A buzz of conversation broke out in the room as people debated how to get in, how to get the schematics. If we had a camera small enough... But if they even suspect what we're doing...
Kal found himself on his feet. "Send me," he said. His voice didn't seem to cut through the babble, but Bruce turned sharply to look at him, frowning. "Send me," he repeated, more loudly, and people started to fall silent around him. "I have x-ray vision, so I can see the papers without disturbing them or leaving any sign I was there. I have eidetic memory, so the recordings will be safe and undetectable in my mind. And as a free Kryptonian, I can bluff my way out if I'm caught."
Carter Hall looked at Bruce. "What do you think?"
Bruce was chewing his lower lip. "It's risky," he said.
"I'm willing," said Kal. "I want to do something to help."
After a while, Bruce nodded.
: : :
"You could have just assigned me to the job to begin with," Kal said, sitting down on the little cot in his tiny room. "I'm the obvious choice."
Bruce was leaning in the doorway. "This isn't an army. I don't assign people dangerous jobs."
"I won't let you down, Bruce."
"I'm going with you," said Bruce, and Kal felt a sudden flare of anger.
"Don't trust me to do the job right?"
For a long time Bruce simply looked at him. "It's not that at all," he said after a while.
"What is it?"
Bruce suddenly made a sharp, almost helpless gesture with his hands, clenching in front of him. "I couldn't bear it," he said. As Kal stared at him, he shrugged. "It's going to be dangerous."
"It couldn't be as dangerous as that stew you fed me on the road," Kal said, trying to lighten the mood, almost alarmed at the intensity of the emotion that had flickered across Bruce's face for a moment.
To his relief, a small smile broke the solemnity of Bruce's expression. "That's why you need me along. You have no sense of taste whatsoever."
"Obviously, if I'm continuing to hang out with you," Kal retorted, feeling rather pleased with himself.
Bruce clapped him briefly on the back. "You're improving," he said.
Pairing/Characters: Kal/Bruce
Notes: " The House of the Earth" is an AU in which a few thousand Kryptonians escaped the destruction of Krypton to flee to Earth and conquer its people.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2600
Summary: Kal and Bruce make their way to the final destination in their trip.
They drove west, the rising sun at their backs. The landscape flattened out, the gently rolling hills giving way to prairie that stretched out in all directions, impossibly vast. Long lines of clouds marched across the land, blown before the winds that swept the plains, and then scoured them down to scrub and wasteland as they went further west. There were no plantations here, nothing but ghost towns scrubbed clean by wind and time, and Bruce pushed the truck until its crystal-fuelled engine hummed.
The long, straight road sloped upward, almost too gradually to sense, but Kal could feel the air growing cooler and thinner. They sped through barren country, gray and endless, and Kal was heartily sick of the unending vista when on the horizon, far in front of them, he saw the first wrinkled ridge of mountains appear.
"There's our destination," Bruce said.
"That's where we're going? Over the mountains?"
Bruce grinned briefly. "Not exactly."
The mountains grew larger, but with infinite slowness; the distance between them was deceiving. But eventually the monotonous landscape started to give way to foothills as the mountains loomed ever closer. This was an aspect of Earth Kal had never encountered--majestic mountains rising slowly from evergreen-covered slopes to massive white-capped towers of stone. It made him feel small and awed and strangely grateful.
There was a dusting of snow on the ground and the air was thin when Bruce pulled the truck over into a dense copse of trees. "We walk from here on," he said.
As they hiked, Kal was silent in the face of the giants reaching into the sky, beautiful and aloof. Bruce seemed to be finding signs and markers in the landscape that Kal couldn't spot; he led them further into the mountains, across scree-covered slopes and rocky outcroppings. It was growing dark when they came to a door set into the mountainside: it was a thick steel door, wrenched from its hinges and bent by some inhuman strength.
Bruce picked up a broken branch from a pine tree and handed it to Kal, then slipped through the door into gloom beyond. As Kal followed, a soft glow came from Bruce's hands; one of his silver spheres emitting an eerie blue-green light. "Use the branch to get rid of our footsteps," Bruce said, and Kal looked down to realize there was a thick layer of ash and dust under their feet. As they moved along, Kal obliterated their trail with the branch and with some judicious puffs of breath.
It was a tunnel they were in, wide enough for a vehicle, but filled with debris and rubble now. Bruce picked his way along the tunnel, winding downward, downward, as the dust became thicker on every surface. It was cold; their breath hung in the still air, clouds of mist in the silence.
After a long descent into the heart of the mountain, the tunnel passed through another set of massive, broken steel doors and into a vast room. The light in Bruce's hand flickered off massive screens lining the walls--dead and broken, nothing on them but darkness. As Kal's gaze fell to the desks and tables filling the room, he realized with a shock that the place was full of bodies. Mummified skin clung to skeletons slumped within military outfits; bodies left to lie, sprawled in defeat, skulls and backbones shattered.
His horrified intake of breath made Bruce turn to look at him; Bruce's reassuring smile was made ghastly by the dim aqua light and the grisly surroundings. "Shouldn't we...shouldn't we do something for them?" Kal's question hung in the frigid silence. "They shouldn't just be left here."
Bruce shook his head, picking his way through the debris. "We have to leave them. They died to make our defeat convincing, we've never been free to give them the burial they deserve." He paused, looking around the room. "This is all the memorial they can receive. That and our respects. For now."
They both stood a moment in silence, gazing at the remains of a vast slaughter. Then Bruce moved silently on.
More rooms, more tunnels, more debris, more corpses. Eventually Bruce turned down a small passageway, then stopped to pry open a metal trapdoor in the floor. "Lead," he noted.
The trapdoor lifted to reveal a ladder, going down, disappearing into darkness. Bruce grasped the rungs and they descended deeper, deeper into the heart of Cheyenne Mountain.
The ladder went on for what seemed like an eternity, until it felt like they were descending into the underworld itself. It had to be tiring for Bruce; Kal listened anxiously for the sound of his grip giving way, wondering if he could catch him...but Bruce's hands stayed sure and steady. Down. And further down.
After a long time Kal started to hear faint noises, muffled, and the tunnel started to grow almost imperceptably lighter. And then the ladder came to a sudden stop and Kal found himself back on solid rock, his hands cramped from holding on the rungs. Bruce was breathing on his own hands, rubbing them. He walked forward and tapped an inobtrusive panel on the wall; a blue beam shot out and played over his eye. Down the corridor a door creaked open and light leaked out.
"Welcome to the heart of the resistance, Kal," Bruce said.
They were met at the door by a man wearing a leather jacket with large block letters on the arms spelling out "Fair Play." Behind him, in a vast room, hundreds of humans moved about, working on paper, arguing in groups. "Bruce," the man at the door said said, and clapped him on the back. "I see you've brought my t-spheres back to me safe and sound." He lifted the glowing orb from Bruce's hand. "Did they work?"
"Like a charm," said Bruce. He gestured to Kal. "Michael, this is Kal-El."
The man held out a hand for Kal to shake, seeming unfazed by the Kryptonian name. "I've heard about you," he said simply. "It's nice to meet you."
"The pleasure is mine," Kal said.
"Kal, this is Michael Holt, one of our finest scientists."
Michael smiled broadly as he released Kal's hand. "I see he's learned how to flatter while he's been away." He eyed Bruce's face narowly--the injured lip and jaw turning greenish-purple with bruises. "You look like hell, Bruce."
"I see you haven't learned how to flatter at all," Bruce shot back, and Michael laughed.
"I call them like I see them. You should let Pieter take a look at that when you have time."
"Sure, when I have the time," Bruce said easily, and Michael grimaced.
"I know you. You never have the time."
"Guilty as charged," Bruce said, walking past him into the room. When people saw him they nodded politely, a few sketching a quick gesture that looked like a salute. Some cast Kal cautious looks, others ignored him entirely.
An older man with fierce eyes walked up to Bruce. "Good timing, Wayne. We've got a meeting this evening. You'll be pleased to hear about the progress we've made."
Bruce nodded. "Carter Hall, this is Kal-El."
Hall nodded curtly, then pivoted and walked over to another group.
"Do they all know who--what--I am?" Kal asked a little uncomfortably as they made their way through the crowd.
"Most. The ones who don't will by this evening." Bruce gave him a keen look. "Don't let it bother you."
Kal felt the pressure of dozens of pairs of eyes on him, felt his back stiffening as Bruce led him toward another corridor. He glanced over at Bruce's bruised face. So far the most "heroic" thing he'd done for the Earth was to strike down his friend.
He was going to have to do better than that.
"Bruce!" A diminutive blonde woman was running across the room; she threw herself into Bruce's arms and he lifted her and spun her around.
"I met that new man of yours on the road," said Bruce. "He said to tell you he'd be on his way back here in a month or so."
She beamed. "I'm sure you got along great with him."
Bruce rolled his eyes. "Oh yes, we're kindred souls." The woman--she must be the "Dinah" whose papers Oliver had--shot him a wry glance. "Who's your handsome friend?" she asked.
"This is Kal-El," said Bruce, and Dinah froze.
"It's a pleasure," said Kal, holding out a hand. Dinah looked at it. After a long moment, she took it, her eyes cold.
"If you vouch for him, Bruce," she said. "But I don't have to like it." She nodded politely, then left.
"I'm sorry," said Bruce as they continued down a wide corridor. "She's lost a lot."
"No need to apologize," said Kal. "I can't expect everyone to like me."
"No, I suppose you can't," said Bruce. "But I know it still bothers you." He moved down the corridor and Kal followed, biting his lip.
Bruce finally opened a door and ushered him into a tiny, cell-like room, bare of anything but a cot. "This will be your room while you're here. I'll be across the way. We'll probably only be here one night."
"Bruce," said Kal. "Why have you brought me here? Why didn't you just tell me about it? Why the long trip?"
Bruce paused in the doorway. "I wanted you to see it."
"Here?"
"Here, this facility, yes. But Smallville too. And all the places in between. I wanted to see how you acted when you were away from Kryptonians, when you could interact with humans as people."
"This was a test. You might not have brought me here."
Bruce grimaced. "If you had seemed...squeamish around humans, if I had felt you were holding back part of yourself, feeling secretly superior to us..." He paused, looking down. "I didn't think you would, but I needed to see it for myself. How much I could trust you." He looked back at Kal. "I'm sorry."
Kal put his backpack down on the cot. "I'm glad to be here."
Bruce looked at him for a long moment. "I'm glad you're here."
: : :
Kal took his place in the assembly, sitting between two strangers. Bruce was on the stage in front of the crowd, talking about the meeting in Metropolis with Luthor. "Signs indicate that he's achieved a critical mass of Kryptonite and is prepared to deploy it through the atmosphere."
"Any reason we should stop him?" called a voice in the crowd; a few people shot nervous glances at Kal as a murmur of reaction swept through the room.
Bruce was unruffled; he paced a couple of steps on the stage. "The effects on Earth's ecosystem could be disastrous. We have no way to clean the material from the atmosphere, and it could well trigger what pre-Arrival scientists called a 'nuclear winter,' a new Ice Age across the globe. In addition, we have no idea what long-term effects on the biosphere would be of that much radioactive material falling back to earth." He stopped and looked out at the crowd in the direction the voice had come. "In short, we believe the risks to be too high." He looked to the side. "Mr. Holt?"
Michael stood up and joined him on the stage. "Besides which," he said, "Our alternate plan is ready to go. It still has risks, but we judge it to be safer." He sketched a quick drawing on a chalkboard, something that looked slightly like one of his t-spheres. "The nanobot light filters are finally ready. When spread through the atmosphere, they'll filter the yellow sunlight of Earth into a frequency in the red spectrum. This plan has the advantage of being temporary--we can program the nanobots to shut off after just a few hours, saving Earth's biosphere from long-term effects. There's just one remaining problem. Fortunately, it's the same one Luthor is facing." He nodded to Carter Hall, who stood.
"Both Luthor's plan and ours lack a deployment system," said Hall. "We both need a way of getting our respective materials into the atmosphere, and spread evenly enough to affect roughly the whole Earth at once. This has been a serious challenge. However, it has recently come to our attention that the Kryptonians are holding in Metropolis the schematics and notes for the 'weather wand' used by Mark Mardon, also known as the Weather Wizard." He looked out over the crowd. "With those notes, we could put together machines that could control wind currents and air pressure and make it possible to deploy the nanobots in a relatively short time frame."
Bruce stood up again. "Our source most likely sold this information to Luthor as well, and he will be planning a way to get to those notes. If he does, you can bet that he will waste no time in poisoning the Earth's atmosphere." His lips thinned, looking over the crowd. "We must find a way to get to those plans before he does."
A brown-haired man leapt to his feet. "I can get into the vault, my ring can scan the papers--"
Bruce shook his head. "I'm sorry, Hal. We cannot risk the Green Lanterns getting actively involved yet. If the Corps intercedes and takes you out of the game, we'll lose some of our most valuable firepower." Hal looked like he was about to argue, but Bruce shook his head again. "We can't risk losing you, John and Guy all at once," he said.
A buzz of conversation broke out in the room as people debated how to get in, how to get the schematics. If we had a camera small enough... But if they even suspect what we're doing...
Kal found himself on his feet. "Send me," he said. His voice didn't seem to cut through the babble, but Bruce turned sharply to look at him, frowning. "Send me," he repeated, more loudly, and people started to fall silent around him. "I have x-ray vision, so I can see the papers without disturbing them or leaving any sign I was there. I have eidetic memory, so the recordings will be safe and undetectable in my mind. And as a free Kryptonian, I can bluff my way out if I'm caught."
Carter Hall looked at Bruce. "What do you think?"
Bruce was chewing his lower lip. "It's risky," he said.
"I'm willing," said Kal. "I want to do something to help."
After a while, Bruce nodded.
: : :
"You could have just assigned me to the job to begin with," Kal said, sitting down on the little cot in his tiny room. "I'm the obvious choice."
Bruce was leaning in the doorway. "This isn't an army. I don't assign people dangerous jobs."
"I won't let you down, Bruce."
"I'm going with you," said Bruce, and Kal felt a sudden flare of anger.
"Don't trust me to do the job right?"
For a long time Bruce simply looked at him. "It's not that at all," he said after a while.
"What is it?"
Bruce suddenly made a sharp, almost helpless gesture with his hands, clenching in front of him. "I couldn't bear it," he said. As Kal stared at him, he shrugged. "It's going to be dangerous."
"It couldn't be as dangerous as that stew you fed me on the road," Kal said, trying to lighten the mood, almost alarmed at the intensity of the emotion that had flickered across Bruce's face for a moment.
To his relief, a small smile broke the solemnity of Bruce's expression. "That's why you need me along. You have no sense of taste whatsoever."
"Obviously, if I'm continuing to hang out with you," Kal retorted, feeling rather pleased with himself.
Bruce clapped him briefly on the back. "You're improving," he said.