The leader turned his gun on Bruce.
"Nighty night, Batjerk!"
Bruce flung himself to one side, half a heartbeat before the gunman finished pulling the trigger. At the same time, he tossed a batarang at the thief. A minor jolt of electricity paralyzed the man and Bruce disarmed him without further incident. But the bullet that had been fired had found a mark. Switchblade was dead, the bullet tearing off the right side of his head. Bruce made short work of securing the gunman, leaving all five of the thieves tied up in a bundle in the center of the room. Then he was kneeling down at Clark's side.
"Nightwing?" He shook Clark's unmoving form. "Hey, you still with me?"
Clark made no response. Bruce checked for signs of life, and found Clark's pulse to be weak and thready.
"Is he dead?" the gunman taunted. "I hope I killed him, like I promised him I would."
"He's alive," Bruce snapped, keeping his concern out of his voice, while the pool of Clark's blood grew larger with every feeble beat of his heart. Bruce smirked, putting on a show for the gunman. "You're a terrible shot."
The gunman glowered but said nothing.
"Let's get you out of here," Bruce told Clark, knowing his voice would go unheard.
With infinite care, he dragged Clark's body out into the hallway, knowing that time was short before any of the remaining guards came running. The shots that had been fired would have echoed through the vast rooms of the museum. But, more importantly, Clark's life hung in the balance. He needed to get him out of there, and get the bullet out of his chest.
But before he could get them both out of the museum, he needed to do one last thing. With Clark safely around the corner from the room of gems, Bruce purposefully strode back inside. Before he did anything else, Bruce cracked open a vial of sedative. The gas filled the air beneath each criminal's nostrils, rending them unconscious. Once they were all completely out, Bruce took a glance at the case that had been blasted open, figuring that something inside had to have been what had caused Clark to lose his invulnerability. Everything in the case looked normal. There were everyday gems of every kind - emeralds, rubies, sapphires, diamonds of various shades, a couple of opals, and some amethysts. Nothing out of the ordinary, except...
The green stone in the middle, simply marked as a newly discovered, unknown crystal.
Bruce reached in and extracted the mystery rock. Then, carefully, he used a small electronic saw to slice off a sample from the very bottom of the stone. It was just a thin slice, and wouldn't be noticeable at all. Then he placed the stone back in the case, exactly as it had been. Satisfied that no one would see where it had been cut, Bruce stepped away. He tucked the sample away, deep into one of the compartments on his belt, hoping that whatever it was that had affected Clark would be blocked by the material and padding.
He left the room again, going back to Clark, who was just starting to come to. Clark moaned in pain, still not fully conscious, but coming closer to it with every passing second.
"Wha..." he managed, as the fuzzy but recognizable figure of Batman stepped into his returning field of view.
"Don't talk. You've been shot," Bruce instructed.
"How? I can't..."
Bruce shook his head. "Doesn't matter. We need to get you out of here and patched up. Hold still."
Before Clark could even make an attempt to respond, Bruce was pressing something against where the bullet had torn open his flesh. Clark unashamedly screamed in agony. For what seemed like several lifetimes, pain was all Clark knew. In reality, only a second or two elapsed before Clark blacked out from the pain.
When he came to, he was in the Batmobile, laying down in the very back, where Bruce sometimes held the very worst criminals while he drove them to the closest police station. He took a moment to make sure he was still in one piece. For the first time, he was thankful for the nearly blinding pain that raced through his body from the bullet that was still entombed in his chest. It was the one thing that convinced him that he was still alive. If he could feel pain, it stood to reason that he hadn't yet died.
Though he couldn't see anything outside - the back where he was laying had no windows, nor did he have the strength to sit up even if he wanted to - he could still tell that Bruce was driving fast. That worried him. Of course, he knew he was hurt - and hurt badly - but perhaps he was worse off than he thought.
"Bruce?" he asked, via the earpiece and microphone they both wore.
"Clark. Thank God." Relief was evident in Bruce's voice.
"What happened?"
"You tell me. One moment you were fine, and the next, you'd been shot...despite the fact that you're usually a bit more invulnerable."
"Yeah," Clark admitted, closing his eyes against the pain for just a moment, "it was weird. The gunman hit the glass case and suddenly, I felt strangely. I got weak and sick feeling. I've never felt like that before in my life. I don't know what caused it."
"I have a theory," Bruce offered. "But we can talk more about it once we've gotten you patched up."
"A theory?" Clark asked, then winced as a spasm of pain lanced his chest.
"Yeah."
Bruce was being deliberately cryptic, Clark knew. He also knew better than to press the billionaire when he wanted to keep something to himself. Perhaps he wasn't quite convinced of whatever his theory consisted of. Clark let the subject drop, at least for the moment.
"You taking me to the hospital?" he asked instead, half fearing the answer.
"No. We're heading back home. We can't risk going to the hospital."
Clark nodded to himself, feeling relieved. Even with his powers gone, Clark knew his biology was different from human beings. He was, after all, an alien. A Kryptonian, as he now knew, thanks to the messages Jor-El had left for him in his globe. It was a fact he'd had years to turn over in his mind and grow comfortable with, even if the fact that his biological parents had needed to die in order to save his life still haunted him when he thought about it.
"You sure you can get this thing out of me?" he teased.
He heard Bruce snort a laugh, feigning indigence. "Alfred's pulled a couple out of me before."
"You'll have to tell me those stories sometime," Clark goaded him through a haze of pain. He couldn't keep the hurt out of his voice though.
"Dream on," Bruce shot back, and Clark could just envision the smirk on his face. "Now lay still and quiet. You sound like you're in bad shape."
"Thanks, Bruce. That's very comforting," Clark volleyed back through gritted teeth. "I hope Alfred has a lot better bedside manner than you do."
"Well, you'll find out in a couple of minutes," Bruce said. "We're just about there."
Clark felt the car slow as Bruce approached the secret entrance that led below ground. Clark knew, from experience, that the underground tunnel went on for several miles before it ended in the Batcave, buried deep below Wayne Manor. After a couple of seconds, the car once again picked up speed, eating up the distance as swiftly as Bruce dared.
Before long, Clark felt the car slow again and come to a stop. A few heartbeats later, the back opened and Bruce appeared. Clark tried to push himself up, but failed as agony shot from his wound down through his arms, turning the muscles into jelly.
"I can't get up," Clark said, before Bruce could say a word. "I don't have the strength."
He blinked as the enormity of that statement hit him. For the first time in his life, Clark had no strength. He was used to being able to lift cars with one hand if he felt so inclined. Not having the strength to even sit up on his own was terrifying.
"That's fine. I'd rather you be still," Bruce replied, either not seeing the fear that Clark knew has spread over his features or choosing to ignore it.
He climbed into the back and went to where Clark's head was. He grabbed the edges of a blanket that Clark hadn't realized he'd been laying on. At Clark's feet, Alfred stood ready, his aged hands already gripping the blanket in readiness to move Clark.
"Ready?" Bruce asked.
"Ready, sir," Alfred responded with a stiff nod.
"On three. One...two...three."
Clark cried out as his body was jostled, bringing fresh waves of pain and some nausea to him. He fought hard to stay conscious and succeeded.
Between Bruce and Alfred, they - grunting all the way - managed to get Clark out of the Batmobile, across the room, and onto a metal table. Clark realized that Bruce must have called Alfred while Clark had been passed out in the car. Another, smaller, metal table stood by, covered with medical instruments that the butler might need as he worked. Clark was thankful for that. He could scarcely wait for the bit of metal in his chest to be removed so he could begin to heal.
"I'm sorry, Master Clark," Alfred apologized as he got to work undressing the wound from the quick patch job Bruce had done in the field. "I wish I knew how much anesthetic to give you, to numb the area while I work."
"It's okay, Alfred," Clark assured him. "I'm not even human. Chances are that nothing will work on me anyway."
"I can still try," Alfred offered.
Clark nodded. "Please. I'm more than willing to be your guinea pig. Anything's got to be better than this pain."
On the edges of his vision, he watched as Alfred drew up a syringe full of a clear liquid. He closed his eyes as the man injected the anesthetic into his body. Then the butler went back to checking Clark's body, after cutting away the torn, ragged top of Nightwing's signature costume.
"No evidence of an exit wound," Alfred mumbled, more to himself than to either his patient or his boss. "Looks like the bullet is still in there."
Clark shut his eyes and tried to ready himself for what he knew was to come. But nothing could have prepared him for the shock when Alfred began to extract the bullet, though he'd given the medicine more than enough time to render Clark's body numb. A cry escaped him at the first feeling of contact. Alfred immediately stopped and took his hands away again.
"That should have been enough time," Alfred said to himself, worriedly.
"It's okay. I doubted it would be effective," Clark said. "I just...I wasn't quite expecting it to hurt like that."
"Here," Bruce said, stepping away for a moment and returning with a piece of thick wood. "Open your mouth and bite on this."
"Okay," Clark agreed. He'd heard of the technique being used in ancient times, as a way to distract the mind from the pain of the wound. He thought some less medically advanced areas of the world might still use it as well.
Bruce carefully situated the wood between Clark's teeth. Clark gently bit down to keep the wood in place and once more tried to prepare himself.
"Okay," he said again, around the wood, the word sounding muffled. "Ready."
It hurt just as much the second time around as it did the first. Clark bit down even harder, and could feel the wood splintering under the immense pressure of his bite, the lack of his super strength be damned. He almost felt like he might bite right through the wood completely. But, as if in defiance to his thoughts, the wood held firm and did not break.
Alfred worked swiftly, with deft hands that knew their task all too well. In mere moments, he held the bullet up for inspection, the metal held tightly between the long, skinny prongs of a pair of medical pliers. Clark felt an instant sense of relief in his mind as he looked at the metal fragment. The bullet was out of his body. And, despite how intense the pain was at the moment, he knew he would heal. He was barely even aware if it when Alfred gave the wound another check, to ensure that nothing had been left behind. His body was already aflame; it seemed incapable of registering any further hurt.
"I'll need to place some stitches," the butler said to Bruce. "We don't know what his healing process might be like. For all we know, he may take as long as a regular man before his wound is fully closed. Or he may be healed come the morning. But I need to stop it from bleeding."
"Do it," Bruce said with approval. "If need be, we can take the stitches back out."
"You were very lucky, Master Clark," Alfred went on, setting aside the tools he'd been using and readying a needle and thread. "The bullet missed hitting anything vital. And, thanks to Master Bruce, the way your wound was bandaged out there prevented too much blood loss. Still, I dare say you'll be hurting for a few days, at the least."
"I can deal with the pain," Clark said, taking the wood from his mouth as Alfred began to suture his wound. Compared to the pain involved in taking the bullet out of his chest, the stitches felt like butterfly tickles. "It's my missing powers that has me the most worried."
"They're all gone?" Bruce asked worriedly.
If he'd have been able to, Clark would have shrugged. "As far as I can tell, yeah. I've tried my hearing, the various abilities my eyes have...I can't even float. I'm...I'm completely...normal."
"No, you aren't," Bruce said, with a shake of his head. "Normal for you is super. Being powerless...that's abnormal."
"Maybe, but there's not much I can do about it," Clark said, trying to keep calm, when, inwardly, he was terrified of being without his powers. "I don't understand what happened out there. You said you might have a theory though?"
Bruce nodded absently. "I think so, yeah. I won't know more until I run some tests but..." He shrugged. "I think one of the gems on display did this to you."
"What?"
"After I dragged you out of that room, I looked at the gems in the case that got broken just before you were shot. There was nothing out of the ordinary, except for one green rock. A green rock that glowed, even without the display case lights to illuminate it. A rock that the description said was found in Kansas. Smallville, Kansas. Isn't that where you're originally from?"
"Yeah..." Clark said, as a chill ran down his spine. "But no stone has ever done this me before. Not even when I was living in Smallville."
"Maybe you were just never exposed to it before. Whatever this rock is, exactly."
"Okay..." Clark said, dragging the word out as he thought it over. "Let's say that's what actually happened. The stones are all at the museum. We'll never know for certain if that green rock is to blame or not."
"Actually, we can and we will," Bruce said with a smirk, as he pulled off his cowl. In his concern for Clark, he'd ignored the fact that he was still fully costumed, and, instead, focused on the procedure at hand. "I took a tiny sample before I left."
"You have it here, with you?" Clark asked in disbelief.
"It wouldn't do us much good behind glass," Bruce replied with a shrug. "And I couldn't be sure the museum would let a curious benefactor just borrow the stone for the hell of it." He gave Clark a wry grin, letting him know he was only half joking.
"Can I see it?"
"That might not be wise," Bruce said hesitantly. "If I'm right, who knows what this thing might be able to do to you."
"I was fine while it was under glass," Clark offered. "Can't you just...put it in something?"
Bruce thought it over. "A Petri dish," he decided. "Hang on a second. Let me get one."
He moved to a work station a few feet away and rummaged around under some loose pages of notes. In the meantime, Alfred finished his work. He tied off the last suture and placed a clean, fresh bandage over the wound. Clark thought he was being overly cautious, but he appreciated Alfred's help nonetheless.
"How do you feel, Master Clark?" the man asked as he extended a hand to help Clark sit up.
"Okay, I think," Clark replied. "Weak and in pain, but otherwise okay."
In the next heartbeat, he was far from okay again. Bruce had removed the small shard of green stone from his belt to transfer it into the Petri dish. Clark cried out in pain as his head began to throb. He felt what little strength he had left drain out of his body.
"Gah!" he cried, clutching his head as he doubled over in pain. Only Alfred's gentle hands prevented Clark from tumbling right off the table.
Bruce snapped the lid of the Petri dish on, sealing away the piece of rock. Instantly, Clark felt relief. He gasped for breath, as the invisible vice that had tightened around his chest dissipated.
"Okay," he coughed after a moment. "It's definitely the rock."
"Are you okay?" Bruce asked again, eying him for outward signs of injury.
"Now that the rock isn't out in the open anymore, yeah, I think so." Clark gestured. "Let me see it?"
Bruce hesitated for half a second, then dutifully brought it over to Clark. Clark took the circular glass dish and peered inside. As he gazed at the rock, it dawned on him.
"I've seen this before," he said aloud, though he was really talking to himself.
"You have?" Bruce asked in surprise, one eyebrow arching.
"Yeah. In the messages Jor-El left for me in the globe." He spoke casually of his birth father, since he'd long ago told Bruce of the messages that had appeared to him over the course of five nights. "Remember how I told you about seeing Krypton explode as my ship left the planet's atmosphere?"
"Yeah..."
"I saw pieces of the planet fly off in every direction," Clark clarified. "I never really thought too much about it. I mean, Krypton had exploded. Of course debris would go hurtling through space. But now...now that I think about it, some of the rocks had a green tint to them. It was hard to see in the message, but yeah. Some of them definitely seemed to gleam green."
"So it's not a gem at all, but a piece of Krypton," Bruce said, mulling the information over.
"Some of it must have been pulled along in my ship's wake," Clark went on, his mind racing. "It crashed on Earth when I did. It's a meteorite, not a gem." He handed Bruce back the Petri dish. "I guess...I guess we could call it Kryptonite, since it's a meteorite of Kryptonian rock."
"And it's highly radioactive," Bruce said as he waved a radiation dosimeter near the dish.
"It didn't affect you at all, did it?" Clark asked, worried now.
"No. It appeared to just affect you. My guess is that it only reacts with your particular body chemistry."
Clark breathed a sigh of relief. "Good. I'd hate for the rest of the world to be at risk."
"Clark? You know this is poison to you. I can't guarantee that prolonged exposure to it might not kill you."
Clark nodded gravely. "I know. I knew it was killing me the moment I first felt its affects." His voice went softer. "All my life, I've never been able to be hurt. Part of me wondered if I might be...immortal. How could I not, with all these powers and my invulnerability and everything? The thought of living forever was terrifying - to see loved ones grow old and die while I lingered on was too depressing a thought. But now? It's terrifying that Kryptonite exists but...I finally have my answer. I'm not immortal. And that is a relief."
***
It took two full days before Clark's abilities returned in full. During those days, he spent as much time as he could relaxing in patches of the weak winter sunlight. He felt helpless - not because of his missing powers, but for the way the pain of his gunshot wound restricted his movement, and by the lingering tiredness and weakness that the trauma of being shot had caused. And yet, despite how tired he felt, he was restless. He hated being sidelined when there were people out there who needed his help and criminals who needed to be put behind bars.
But, he had to admit, the sunlight did him a world of wonders. By the end of the first day, his pain was less than half of what it had been. By noon of the second day, some of his super abilities had returned, though he still wasn't able to fly. And by dinner, his wound had completely healed, the torn flesh knitted back together without any evidence of what had happened - not a scab or a scar to be seen. Alfred worked quickly to remove the sutures before Clark once more became invulnerable. It was late that night when Clark found that his powers were fully restored, when he accidentally crushed the handle of the refrigerator door when he was looking for a snack. At first, there was a moment of shock, which swiftly changed into gleeful laughter.
Before long, Clark's break was over and he was forced to return overseas for his job. He checked back every night with Bruce in Gotham though, either by phone or by flying in. Bruce had scrutinized the sample of Kryptonite in every conceivable way, but they were no closer to figuring out why Clark reacted so extremely in its presence. That scared Clark.
That, and the fact that he had no idea how much Kryptonite might be out there in the world.
To Be Continued...
