White ceilings. White curtains.

The distinctive smell of iodoform in hospitals. The beeping of the heart monitor. The accelerated beating.

Someone's hand firmly gripping his. Someone repeatedly saying his name.

Bruce. Bruce, can you hear me?

"Clark." He managed. His teeth, his gums, his jaw… they all felt unused.

Clark's hands were shaking. Bruce's glance swept past the fresh flowers on the bedside table.

Kal was devastated. He visited you every day, brought flowers to your bedside and spoke to your unconscious form. Diana's words reverberated in his mind.

"Oh, God. God. You've woken. He's woken." Clark's voice was thick with emotion. He was talking to someone, choking back his relief.

Doctors and nurses streamed into the room. Clark was squeezed to the back, lost in Bruce's vision. Bruce's heart rate spiked. He could hear the beeping reaching new heights. Then his hand was clasped tightly by the familiar warmth.

"Shh… I'm here. I've always been here." Clark's soft voice, bringing more comfort than any amount of morphine injected into his body. "Stay with me."

Bruce watched Clark through the sweat that had accumulated along his eyelashes. With all his remaining strength, he nodded. It was a promise. An answer to Clark's request.

I'll stay with you.

Bruce had never asked when Clark had proposed during his stay in the future. At times he wanted to, but he decided it would be nice to be surprised some day. If the man could manage it.

Clark really couldn't, Bruce decided. He watched as the man, dressed all too formally, circled the bed with a bouquet of roses. Clark sat down on the couch and cleared his voice nervously.

"So, there's something on my mind that… I couldn't bear not telling. I understand if this comes across as ridiculous… or impossible." Clark lowered his gaze. He twirled the bouquet in his hands. "I'm also terrified that this would destroy our friendship… I really hope not. These few months, while you were unconscious, I thought a lot about the possibilities between us. And I realized…" He finally mustered enough courage to look into Bruce's eyes. "That I love you. I can't live without you. I want to spend every day with you… and for us to be something… more."

Bruce listened with a degree of patience that he hardly knew he possessed. There was something endearing about a nervous Clark, coming to his bedside with a rehearsed confession, and stumbling over all his sentences anyway. So he waited, and watched Clark fumble in his pocket to pull out a blue velvety box.

"It's the best I can afford." Clark chuckled sheepishly. He flipped it open. It was a thin silver ring. Even from a distance, Bruce could read his name and Clark's engraved onto the inner surface. It was perfect.

Clark, with all his traditional upbringing, got down on one knee in the hospital room. "So… will you marry me?"

Bruce watched the hopeful expression last for a few seconds. Then the light dimmed slightly into awkwardness and disappointment.

Bruce smiled. He needn't wait, really.

Immediately Clark's face lit up in disbelief. The disappointment clouding his face gave way to an ecstatic grin.

"Yes, Clark." Bruce stated firmly. Warmth was spreading across his body. He just promised a lifetime to the man before him, and he had no regrets. "Yes I will."

Thirty years.

It took thirty years for Bruce to invent a dimension travel machine. The same way it took thirty years for the other Bruce to invent a time travel machine. Different purposes, but equally challenging.

Ironically, Bruce never even got cancer. Storing away all his Kryptonite in lead-lined cases, as per Clark's advice, was enough. Prevention was the best cure. There was a price to pay, so Bruce trained harder and fought smarter. Trained hard enough to restrain Superman without the aid of Kryptonite.

There were times that Superman was mind-controlled, poisoned, or borderline driven to insanity. But all those risks combined was not worth ten years spent bed-ridden, battling a fatal illness.

Nevertheless, Bruce played safe and developed his own medication. In case Tim ever developed the same cancer from restraining Conner with Kryptonite... Touch wood.

And Clark… Clark never questioned Bruce's fascination with travelling across parallel universes. He always just assumed that Bruce was interested in quantum physics, which he was. When Bruce said he wanted to visit an old friend, Clark had let him.

Bruce spared a few moments in front of the mirror before activating the machine. Would Clark recognize him? He was hardly as old or as fragile as the depiction in the Wayne Manor. He still had a healthy percentage of muscle mass. And a wonderful marriage. There was nothing more he could ask for. He wouldn't think his appearance had changed much in the last ten or fifteen years.

In the end, it didn't matter whether Clark recognized him or not. There was little chance that he would be there, standing in the fields, waiting for his return. Bruce had taught him to let go of his past.

With the press of a button, the portal sparked to life. Bruce checked the geographical coordinates within the chosen parallel universe. For the last time, he ticked off all his mental check boxes. Then he stepped through the portal.

Bruce landed, albeit awkwardly, on the same meadows. The afternoon sun draped the fields in a sheen of warm orange. He turned around. The entrance was a frameless white screen in this world. It would likely disintegrate when he hopped through it again. He could only come once, maybe to stay for as long as a day. Travelling across the sixth dimension into a selection of parallel universes was much more unstable than fourth dimensional journeys across time. Giving him twenty four hours was the most his machine could do. He watched the few dots in the sky approach, forming into flapping wings and defined beaks.

The hummingbirds have come. But where is Clark?

He was about to lose hope when he felt the familiar breath on his neck. First the warmth around his waist, then the comforting weight pressed against his back. The man he was waiting for had come soundlessly, hovering above the grass and mud. Like thirty years ago, when he was hovering above the timber planks in his own house. When Bruce first met this Clark.

"Clark."

Clark's arms turned him around, just so their eyes could meet. Clark's eyes were sparkling with delight. His broad grin was almost bright enough to rival the sun behind them. Then Bruce was pulled into a tight embrace. It was warm and strong. It sparked so many memories.

"You kept your promise."

Clark shut his eyes and smiled. A part of him had rejected Bruce's promise, rejecting it to save himself the heartbreak. He didn't want to wait under the orange skies only to realize that Bruce had forgotten about him over the years. But a part of him believed it.

To Clark, it had only been six months. To Bruce, it had been thirty long years.

Bruce pulled away gently. Clark was healthy, smiling, and dazzlingly beautiful. There was purpose in his eyes. Determination. He had learned to cope with Bruce's mortality. He had overcome it, and had gotten stronger. Stronger, but no less passionate.

Come back when the hummingbirds return.

Bruce buried his face into Clark's neck. He was smiling to himself, at the sheer impossibility of it all.

Neither had thought it was possible. Each embraced the possibility that they would be abandoned. Some time between the months and the years, they thought they were bound to separate. But it was possible. And they made it.

You kept your promise.

"And you kept yours."