Chapter Text
It turns out being resurrected is an easy process, from a legal standpoint.
Clark's not sure what he'd been expecting – certainly tons of red tape to wade through, maybe a painful and protracted court hearing, or at least an interrogation as to his supposed whereabouts the past year and why he'd waited so long to come forward. He'd steeled himself for any number of scenarios, including the one where he would have to come clean about being Superman, but, in the end, he simply receives a certified letter at the farm telling him that his death certificate had been expunged. There's even a form to file with his taxes.
Pretty simple and clean, really.
"You act like you're disappointed," Martha tells Clark, when she catches him frowning down at the papers.
"I'm not," he says, but it doesn't sound convincing, even to himself.
"Hmm," she replies, stripping off her gardening gloves as she steps to the sink. The water pipes creak slightly when the taps turn, and in the basement, there's the faint hiss of the boiler turning on. Outside, Clark can hear bird chatter, the leaves of the corn stalks rustling in the breeze – from the smell, rain will be on the way soon – and the tractor from the Neville farm two miles down the road.
The sounds of comfort, of home. Sounds he's missed, even in the void of death.
"I'm not disappointed," he insists, when his mom doesn't say anything else.
She finishes washing, and turns to him, towel in hand. The kitchen is infused with lazy afternoon light, tendrils of sun pushing past sheer curtains to warm the room with their glow. Dust motes dance in the air on an invisible breeze as the floorboards under them settle with a surrescent sigh. But, right now, Clark's not in the mood to appreciate the pastoral picture it paints.
"Let me ask you this, then," she says. "Are you upset because you wanted some big legal battle to get your mind off things, or because it's Bruce who's greasing the wheels?"
"Bruce? Bruce Wayne?" Clark sets down the papers, brows furrowing. He steadfastly ignores the other half of the question. "You think he had something to do with this?"
There hadn't been a note with the letter, or any other indicator that Wayne Enterprises had been involved. Clark hasn't even gotten so much as a text from Bruce in weeks.
"Not unless you've got some fancy lawyer you haven't told me about. Or you have other friends with that sort of political pull."
Clark thinks about it. Lois has probably tried, in her own way, but there's only so much she can do to speed things along, even as renowned as she is. Diana and Arthur might be royalty in their respective realms, but neither of them would be of much help with Clark's situation. Barry's just a working stiff like Clark, and Victor maybe could have hacked the Metropolis courtroom servers to get Clark's death certificate reversed, but Clark's pretty sure voiding someone's death involves more than just changing a few keystrokes on a computer file.
Which means, as Mom said, lawyers. Probably expensive ones. Which means someone with money to spare. Which means Bruce.
"Looks like I owe him another thank you," he muses, still frowning. It's been difficult enough worrying about how to pay Bruce back for saving the farm without another tally added to it. Not to mention the lingering question of why Bruce has gone through so much trouble for Clark and his family in the first place.
"Invite him over for dinner," Martha says, patting his cheek as she moves towards the back door. "It'll be nice to see him again."
"Wait. See him again?" Clark's head shoots up. "Exactly how often was he here while I was...uh, gone?"
She tilts her head, thinking. "Hard to say. He, or sometimes that lovely Alfred of his, made a point of dropping in every few days to see if I needed anything."
"They did?" Clark asks, faintly.
Every few days?? How is it that he's just now hearing about this? What else has Mom been keeping from him? What else has Bruce been keeping from him?
"I kept telling them I was fine, that I didn't need anything, but they insisted. Mostly, they'd just stay for dinner and dessert – well, you know Bruce and his sweet tooth," she says, with a small shrug, like this is information Clark should have already been familiar with. "And after, they'd help me clean up, then take their leave. Of course, every time they dropped by, they'd bring a bottle of wine that I'd bet cost more than the farm."
Clark blinks, certain even his hearing has failed him. "Bruce Wayne...washed dishes?" He can't even wrap his head around it. Or Bruce enjoying sweets of any type. Although his Mom's mixed-berry pie has won quite a few contests.
(Bruce enjoying expensive wine, however, makes perfect sense. Clark may not know Bruce all that well, but he knows enough to know Bruce has exquisite taste in everything.)
"Every time," she answers, with a dimpled grin. "Although fixing the tractor and keeping the combine running was more up his alley. He's a tinkerer, that one, just like your father."
Bruce – Bruce Wayne, billionaire scion and part-time vigilante – doing chores around the farm. Working on the persnickety combine engine or the old-as-dirt tractor. It's a shame Clark's already sitting, because he feels a deep need to sink into a chair right about now.
"That's...that was very nice of him," he says, in a high-pitched voice he barely recognizes as his.
"He missed you." Her smile this time is tremulous around the edges. "We all did, but Bruce took your death real hard. I don't think he's got all that many friends – ones who know who he is, at any rate."
Clark nods, although his brain is racing a mile a second. He and Bruce aren't friends – not even close to it. And certainly not before his death. (If he still has the odd nightmare about a sickly green glowing light and the heel of Bruce's boot choking his windpipe, well, he's sure no one could blame him.)
So, yes, not friends. They're not even what anyone would call work friends, either. And certainly his mom had to have known that – she knows everyone he knows, including all his old co-workers at The Planet. But here she is, acting like he and Bruce are bosom buddies, and like Bruce had any right to mourn Clark or any right to come by and check up on her and help fix things around the place.
What on earth had Bruce told her while he'd been gone that would have made her think they were ever anything other than two people who'd tried to kill each other before saving the world together a few times?
"Anyway," Martha continues, "it'll be nice to see him again. Tell him he's always welcome, whenever he has time."
"I'll, uh, be sure to mention it," Clark says, staring into the distance long after the screen door's banged shut behind her.
***