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English
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Published:
2019-08-01
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1/1
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In the Eye of the Beholder

Summary:

Batman is captured by Superman's regime. Kal-El makes him pay for all of his crimes. And his betrayal.

Notes:

Late entry for SuperBat week and checks off a square for my brand new Bad Things Happen Bingo card.

Work Text:

Sometime over the months they’ve been doing this, it became fun.

 

It started as work. Just another necessary part of the tedium required to run a perfect world. Usually the best way to deal with a pest problem is eradication, with extreme prejudice. But when the pests are smarter than the average insect, the solution often calls for something more creative.

 

It’s easy to justify the state of the man swaying unsteadily from the crude chains that keep him off balance, toes barely scraping the floor. The big empty cell, nearly pitch black but for the sliver of chilly winter light from the single long, narrow window set stories above them, echoes every clink of metal and droplet of blood.

 

The red liquid runs in rivulets down the prisoner’s arms and sides and drips off his fingertips from where the too-tight shackles cut into his wrists. More of it dries and cracks along slashes across his ribs and back, rust colored streaks decorating the once perfectly toned legs.

 

Now the man is half starved. It hasn’t been enough to thoroughly destroy that specimen of perfect human physique. But it has taken a toll. He’s gaunt and gray and grim. As he should be.

 

The great Batman, beaten and broken at last.

 

His precious resistance began to crumble almost immediately without his leadership. It died completely when the broadcasts of his punishments began.

 

This strategy has saved countless lives and bodies. So yes, Kal-El feels completely justified in the harshness of his old friend’s sentence.

 

He scans the shivering, broken body before him, eyes catching momentarily on the glint of crimson stone in the collar clamped tightly around Bruce’s throat. Early on, when it had been difficult to harm someone he’d once loved, Kal-El had needed the red Kryptonite, just a little of it, to be able to do his job. Even now, when he looks forward to his time with Bruce, it helps keep him focused on his task, his job, and not get lost in his personal desire.

 

X-ray vision shows him the ribs he’d broken two months ago have healed exceptionally well. Which is not particularly surprising, Batman’s ability to recover from even deadly injuries and keep going may well have been his superpower. It made him a great and dangerous hero. Now it serves as a tool in his punishments. The tibia Kal had broken last week is set and on track, so it’s good that the ribs are finally available again.

 

Silently, Kal-El approaches his prisoner. Between the floating and the darkness, Bruce doesn’t notice him until he speaks.

 

“Good morning, Bruce,” he purrs into the traitor’s ear. Even though it’s already cold in the cell, Kal puts a little ice in his breath, smiling when Bruce jerks with surprise and cries out around his gag when the movement jostles his many injuries.

 

The shivering intensifies a little but other than that there is no noticeable change in Bruce’s state. However, his heart rate rachets up. The blood rushes through his veins faster and his breathing becomes shorter and labored. His body temperature rises and what’s left of his muscles tense under his thin skin.

 

It feels like Bruce is giving him a gift. The dauntless Batman’s fear, his terror, kept like a lover’s secret, just between them.

 

Kal glances around the room, double checking that each of the various cameras is accompanied by a little green light to indicated they’re streaming, and in the control room, Diana flips on the lights. It’s been a year. This is should be the last one of these he has to do.

 

Then he can have Bruce all to himself.

 

“I have something special planned. A surprise,” he rumbles, careful to make it loud enough that the speakers can pick it up.

 

There was a time—not so long ago—when Bruce would swallow his pain. Grit his teeth and refused to look weak, stubbornly refused to let anyone know that he could be reached, that he could be affected. Suffered in quiet dignity and silent, stoic contempt.

 

But now he’s broken. He still has the instinct to hide his feelings, but he can’t stop the way his whole body flinches away at words that promise something new. An unknown addition to the steady torture and…

 

Kal-El drags his fingertips along Bruce’s spine, enjoying the way what’s left of those muscles tense. Such a fragile thing now that he pays attention to the bones under the skin; now that he isn’t blinded by awe of this man who could be snapped in two by an enemy only to recover twice as strong. ‘Rape’ doesn’t really seem the right word. By strict definition, he supposes it’s accurate. Bruce is unwilling and Kal is forcing. But the connotations… there is a certain innocence implied of rape victims, not to mention that they are considered victims, and the word itself speaks to a level of passion and/or rage on the part of the perpetrator.

 

Bruce is neither innocent, nor a victim. He is a prisoner, a traitor, and worse. He stabbed Clark in the back when he needed him most, raised an insurgent army against him. This is punishment. This may not be the only way to rid himself of Batman’s pests, but it is the most efficient. In time, resources, and most importantly lives. As it stands, the resistance has disappeared since the broadcasts began. The only life ruined is Bruce’s. This is his sentence; how he can atone for his crimes.

 

His eye catches on each bruise not obscured by crusted blood, mottled ugly purple and yellowish-green; pauses on every opened slice, every blackened scorch, every rough patch of frostbite, as his gaze slips lower. Bruce gives a short, cut off whimper when Kal grabs an ass cheek in each hand, squeezing nearly hard enough for his fingers to pop through the flimsy human skin—still red and black with raised welts from the caning he’d received in the same session as the broken leg—and exposes the ruined mess of a hole.

 

The acts themselves might be vicious, Kal thinks, as he hooks his thumbs in and the gaping, scarred up ring of muscle pulls open easily. He may take pleasure from them, enjoy having Bruce at his mercy, taking his anger and the pain of that deep, shocking betrayal out on the man. But the decision was made dispassionately. Logically. Free from malice. Clinical. So, rape can’t be the right word because it’s not like that, not really. It is a means to an end. And Bruce deserves it all.

 

To that end, he kneels so that he’s eye level with his target, basking in the minute shifts of tension and the sudden, rapid rise in his subject’s pulse. It is not the first time they’ve done this. Bruce knows what’s coming. Anticipates it. Dreads it.

 

But the billions of people watching across the world as commanded won’t be able to see any of that. It’s just for Kal-El.

 

It’s as easy as a thought. The familiar spark of heat that starts in his mind and travels down his ciliary nerves. It’s second nature to flex the muscle in his eye at just the right moment to disperse most the beam across his cornea. He doesn’t want to bore through the man, after all.

 

No amount of self-control or training can help Bruce withstand this assault. He shrieks, a high, inhuman sound that Kal-El has only ever heard in this room and even then, there’s nothing quite like it when the heat vision connects.

It isn’t nearly as intense as it could be. If he wanted to, Kal could set Bruce on fire from the inside like this. But it burns like liquid fire washing through his passage.

 

The man screams so loud and hard through the ring keeping his jaw propped open that he loses his voice partway through. He tries to thrash and buck away, but the Kryptonian’s firm grip on his ass and hips keep him from moving, forces him to stay and take the punishment.

 

When he finally stops, after a whole minute, he sits back on his heels to admire his work. A small curl of smoke drifts out of the singed opening while sweats pours off Bruce’s body in dirty pink streams. The not so super hero sags forward, boneless and choking on the air he tries to suck back into his emptied lungs. The restraints cut deeper into his wrists as they now bear all Bruce’s weight.

 

Aside from a small flinch and the weakest whine Kal has ever heard, the man doesn’t react when the chill of freezing breath, replacing the scorch of fire with the equally agonizing scorch of ice.

 

Usually he would repeat this process several times, fuck Bruce until he cried, trap a load inside him with a plug (which have grown almost comically large over time), and beat the consciousness out of him with a cane or a whip, something narrow with a sharp sting that can cut through skin even without his superstrength.

 

But today is special. They don’t need all that performance. After this the weekly reminders of the futility of fighting his regime will be unnecessary. He’ll work on Bruce’s reconditioning and trot him out to the public once a year on anniversary of his victory.

 

He keeps his hand on his friend’s skin as he moves to face the man, dragging his fingers across his ribs, not even pausing the motion when he pushes down with what feel like negligible effort and is awarded with the crisp crack of a broken bone. Definitely audible to the recording devices.

 

Bruce gurgles and tries to sob but only manages a dry heave of his shoulders which must just hurt him even more.

 

Under the dried blood and sweat and come that coats the human chest, the dark outline of Kal-El’s crest—finally burned onto the flesh weeks ago after months of patiently waiting for the right moment--is still visible. He traces it, pressing his fingers into the mark. Absolutely a sign of ownership.

 

Cupping Bruce’s face between both hands is the gentlest thing he’s done since the beginning of the other man’s captivity. So Bruce startles at the tender touch, blinking unfocused, bloodshot eyes overflowing with agony.

 

It both breaks Kal’s heart that they’ve come to this and makes the organ swell with how beautiful the man is in complete submission.

 

It’s too bad Bruce had to be broken.

 

He forces the pale, steely blue gaze to meet his own. As well as can be expected anyway. The lids drop heavily and the focus slips in and out. The only thing keeping Bruce’s head from dropping forward are the same alien hands that have spent a year carving him open.

 

“You’ve lost everything now, Bruce,” he hums. It feels intimate even though he knows the world is watching and listening. “You’ve lost Batman, Alfred, the boys. Your home. Your city. Your war. Your friends.

 

“You have lost your upper hand. Your dignity. Your health. You survive by my good graces, to be a warning to any who might stand against what is right. You are ours. Mine. To be whomever and whatever I want and need. You owe me your life. You will be fully dependent upon my mercy.”

 

There’s a brief moment, where the cloudiness in Bruce’s eyes fades. His pupils dilate in a flash of understanding and his wrecked voices rasps around the gag, an muffled “Nah… pleash…” so quietly it’s only superhearing that allows the Kryptonian to catch it.

 

He presses a chaste kiss to Bruce’s lips. Then pulls back two inches and pries Bruce’s eyelids open with his thumbs and forefingers.

 

It’s as easy as a thought.

 

Bruce’s tortured screams are little more than air being forcefully expelled. His vocal cords are ruined. He twitches and convulses, held firm in a loving embrace, as Kal-El gazes into his eyes and burns them from his skull.

 

He is the last thing Batman will ever see.