serendipity. [superbat]

stay.

It should've been run of the mill. As chaotic as it sounded on the phone, the actual scene before Clark is one that he's seen countless times. Drones. There was something about them that people just couldn't stay away from. The number of times he'd had to rip apart a group of androids was ridiculous. This was his second batch of the year. Yet, here he was, along with the rest of the League, staring up at around two hundred machines with glowing red eyes. 

It was a lot of bodies, which was why he was called in, but not much force. Once he got his bearing, he was able to string up three at a time, tearing at cords and popping off heads. He sets his eyes on a few dozen and rips through them his heat vision. He drags them into the sky and drops them on top of their kin. 

He was out of practice, having been out of the field for almost a month and a half, but he fell back into it with ease. The drones drop like flies around them; a sea of steel forming underneath him when the area is finally clear. His eyes are watching the ground, looking for League members, checking off his list to make sure no one was trapped or hurt as the final robots are dropped by Barry and Diana. 

He let his guard down. That was his mistake. 

He's looking down when a singular drone rushes him. It should be easy enough to overpower, rip into, but this one's eyes are glowing green. It's somehow stronger than the others, managing to hit Clark with enough force that it drops him out of the sky. He lands in a pile of parts, only to be pinned down by the thing. He fights, but he feels as if his hands are weak. So, all he can do is watch as the steel arm slowly peels away to reveal a piece of glowing green stone etched into a knife. 

He can only watch as it's stabbed into his chest. 

Clark wakes up dazed. His head is pounding, his ears ringing. Everything is blurry and yet too sharp. The lights hurt his eyes; his lungs feel as if they're on fire. Diana, Barry, and Arthur are hovering over him. He wants to sit up, move away from their stares, but moving hurts.

"Bruce isn't here, buddy." He can hear Barry say way too loudly. 

He doesn't recall saying anything about Bruce. 

Clark lurches forward, eyes squinting, as if that would help. 

"I gotta get home." He hears himself slur, all of the urgency stripped from it due to how inebriated he sounds.

He doesn't know how long he's been away, but he'd assured Bruce that he'd be back quickly, mostly to keep him from worrying. 'Cause he'd been worried. He hadn't said anything, but Clark could see it on his face as he followed Clark to the door. Bruce had stood there staring up at the sky even after Clark could see him straining to see past the clouds.

Clark pushes himself forward on a steel table, trying desperately to get to his feet, only to stumble before collapsing to the floor. They're back at HQ, if the tiles were anything to go by, and there was no telling how long he'd been here. 

"I'll take you home." Diana offers, reaching out to help Barry pull Clark up from the floor. 

She would normally object, reminding the team of protocol, and the measures put in place. The precautions that Bruce had created. But Bruce wasn't here, he wasn't here and he was probably much more worried about whether Clark was alive rather than if they'd run all of the "necessary tests". 

Clark's practically been carried to Diana's car, barely able to keep his legs under him, before they tuck him onto the backseat. She was going to drive them to the Hall's hangar. It takes about five minutes to get from the Hall to Smallville if Clark was flying, but he's not a plane. He didn't even want to think about how long it would take via regular aircraft. The sky is dark and the time on the car's dashboard says it's 7:48 PM in Washington, DC.