Some part of him had known that he could not avoid Bruce’s family forever. He owed them more than that. Even if his condolences were worthless, saying nothing was worse. Still, knowing that and working up the will to do it had not aligned yet by the time the knock sounded on the door and he heard Lois speaking with a familiar face. His heart sank and he’d have sworn he could feel it in his stomach instead.
Everything just then seemed to be upside down. Not only was Bruce dead, which was surely the worst of it, but people had been killed on Liberty Bridge. Even the deaths of the NOVA agents were a burden that weighed on him. It wasn’t as if he’d wanted that end for them; Clark didn’t kill. Plenty of those people had been there doing menial work, and even if they hadn’t been, even if it was the people making the very decisions that made the agency such a threat, he wouldn’t have wanted them dead for it. Yet they were. They were, right alongside his best friend and Dick’s father. Lucy was gone, too. He suspected that he’d never see her again.
He got to his feet, leaving the desk that he’d been sitting at doing absolutely nothing. It seemed somehow preferable to the couch or, worse still, simply being in bed. The last thing he wanted to do was feel sorry for himself when everything that had happened felt so much like his own fault.
“Dick…” he swallowed. He had no idea where to begin. Dick was his friend on top of everything else. Their relationship was as important to him as anything. He couldn’t help but think that what happened would take that, too, and he couldn’t even blame him if that was the case. “I know an apology doesn’t mean anything,” he made himself start, “but I am more sorry than you could ever believe.”
The bond Dick felt with Clark went deep. When he was a kid, before Haly’s Circus and Robin and his life was derailed by fighting crime, Superman had been his hero. Not Batman. The stories about the Kryptonian in Metropolis would reach him, camped out in whatever city they were performing in that week, and Dick would be fascinated. His first time on the flying trapeze, even under the bright lights and gasps of the crowd, he pretended he was Superman. That was where he’d drawn his strength and his courage, even before he had the honor of calling him a friend. Mentor. Father-figure. Because Clark had been all those things - and more.
It was devastating to see him like this, broken and guilt-ridden over something that hadn’t been his fault. Even if he had pressed the button that ended Bruce’s life, Dick knew the circumstances, he would never hold him responsible for what he’d done under the effect of Joker’s twisted toxin.
“I know.” It was the only thing he said before embracing him. His throat felt tight and he had to swallow past the prickly, painful feeling. “But it wasn’t your fault.” No one ever considered, for a second, that Clark was to blame for what happened at the NOVA facility. “It was Joker’s.” Even as he said it, Dick knew it wouldn’t take away that aching guilt Clark was experiencing. It was a trait they had in common: they carried burdens that weren’t ever theirs.
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