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A/N: Many thanks to KSaraSara for beta-ing this!
Just a heads up, this is a little angsty.
***
DisasterHe was floating. The stars shone above him, cold and vaguely unsettling. For a split second, he was sure he couldn't breathe.
A sharp scream from below drew his attention back to Earth. He focused on it, becoming more aware of shouts and sirens and the crackling roar of flames. An entire street of houses glowed orange in the darkness.
He touched down, unnoticed, behind the burnt-out shell of a building. His glasses…he needed to take his glasses off for this. They slipped into his jacket pocket. The shirt needed to go too, he was sure. He unbuttoned and pulled it open, but… No. Something was missing. He should probably leave the shirt on for now, but the jacket and glasses could certainly go, along with the tie.
He raced towards the screaming, towards a building that wasn't already getting attention from one of the multitude of firetrucks. The sound was coming from the upper floor… In seconds, he had the window open.
A little girl his daughter’s age was hiding under a bed, as though it could protect her from the flames outside her door. Mercifully, her position low to the floor was keeping her from the worst of the smoke, but time was still crucial. He turned the bed over and scooped her up, bounding out the window to gently land on the ground.
A blur of red materialized beside him, coalescing into a costumed figure. “You shouldn't be here,” the man scolded. He recognized the voice, but for now, couldn't place it.
“You need me.” He placed the girl who wasn't Jenna into the newcomer's arms, already aware of faint sounds of life still inside the building. He turned back.
***
“I've got it.” The woman placed her hands under the beam he was holding up and gave him an encouraging nod. She was a brunette, like his wife, and something in the back of his mind told him that he would do well to listen to her. Reluctantly, he let go. She grunted a little under the weight, but still held it high enough that he was able to duck under it after the man in red.
The darkness and the smoke conspired to obscure everything. He heard a shifting of rubble and the rapid patter of his friend's heartbeat as the man wandered through the wreckage. A cluster of other heartbeats was barely audible in the far corner.
“Over this way!” He picked his way towards the sounds.
The radio in his ear crackled. “Can you see the target?”
“I can't see a thing,” he replied.
His friend let out a short laugh, now right behind him. “Neither can I.”
“How close do you think you are?” The voice in the earpiece was fainter, but still audible.
He listened, trying to gauge by sound alone. “I think about twenty feet.” One of the heartbeats stopped. He winced.
“They really shouldn't make buildings out of rubble,” the voice at his shoulder quipped. “Makes this kind of thing much harder.”
The radio crackled again, but this time he couldn't make out the question. He paused in his crawling. “What?”
“Just a joke.” His friend was now slightly ahead of him.
“Not you.” He reached up to press the radio more firmly against his ear. “What did you—” His fingers touched the naked opening of his ear. There was no radio.
“We've found them!” came the cry from up ahead. “I hear voices!”
He swallowed, lowering his hand to resume crawling forward.
***
“Can you see the target?”
He ignored the question, focusing on navigating through the smoke-filled passageways of the apartment complex.
The elderly man in his arms clung as tightly to him as he could. “Superman? Is it really you?”
He didn't answer that question, either.
Outside, dawn was finally starting to break as the fire swept onwards.
“How close do you think you are?”
He set the man down by one of the fire trucks and returned to the building. The main stairway had already collapsed, but he didn't need it.
“And your oxygen supply?”
The emptiness spread around him on all sides…so much nothing, as far as even his extraordinary senses could perceive…
He deliberately dropped to the floor, pressing his hands against it. It was warm, but solid. He took a breath, ignoring the smoke that flooded into his lungs alongside the oxygen, and pressed onwards.
There was danger up ahead.
He shook the thought away. A pregnant woman was next. He moved as quickly as he could while still letting his feet occasionally touch the solid floor.
He managed to carry the next three people out just by running, but by the time he got to the last one, the floor gave way. He floated over the gap, trying to ignore the merciless stars beyond his vision and the sense of doom ahead. When he finally set the young man down in front of the rescue workers, even the ground wasn't solid anymore. He groped for something…anything.
“Sir, are you okay?”
He couldn't quite see who was speaking. Maybe it didn't matter. He focused on trying to breathe…
A hand rested on his shoulder. “What is it?”
“I don't know!” He gasped, lost in a sea of stars, aware that his next breath would never come. “But it isn't an asteroid! It isn't an asteroid!”
***
The silence swallowed up his screams.
The silence swallowed up the shattering of his equipment.
The silence…
…slowly ebbed. A crowd of voices clamored nearby, shouting questions, shouting demands to step back. The name “Superman” emerged a few times from the din.
He was lying on rough asphalt, turned onto his side, his head resting on the back of one hand.
“Can you hear me?” the voice from the radio asked.
The side of a police car swam into his vision, but now he squeezed his eyes shut. “You're not real.”
“Yes, I am,” said the voice.
He let his eyes open again. A ring of cops and police vehicles had formed around him. A crowd continued shouting outside of it.
A man in a black costume knelt beside him, the only other occupant of the ring as far as he could tell. “Can you get up?”
When he could, the black-clad figure whisked him into the back of the nearest car. The closed door muffled the noise somewhat.
The confusion outside fanned his lingering sense of dread. “Lois… Is Lois okay?
The man…Bruce?...nodded. “She's fine. *I*, however, will be in serious danger if she makes good on her threat to swim over here and tear me limb from limb.” He shifted in his seat and procured a cellphone from one of the many pouches in his belt. “Call her as soon as you're able to.”
He nodded, taking the phone, and let his head fall back against the headrest. Stars still loomed beyond his vision, while something unseen and terrible waited for him. Somehow, he was simultaneously sitting in this car on Earth and also drifting in space, his air gone, his fingers slowly turning blue while he lost the ability to move them… He took a deep breath, trying to dispel the feeling. His words came out in a strangled whisper “Everything went wrong…”
Bruce’s hand came to rest on his shoulder. “You saved lives. As for the aftermath…we'll deal with it together. You're not alone.”
The stars slowly faded at the sound of his friend's voice.
He closed his eyes.
He breathed.
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