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Jason leaned against the bar, a glass of wine in his hand, watching the crowd move through the banquet hall like schools of brightly colored fish. Crystal chandeliers hung from ceilings that had been imported from somewhere European....he wasn't sure where, didn't really care...and the music was the kind of soft classical that made him want to find a corner and wait for it to end.
Then Kara walked in, and for a moment, the entire room seemed to dim.
"You look stunning." Jason set his glass down, turning to face her properly. "For a second there I'd have thought this was your wedding."
Kara smoothed the front of her pink dress, a faint flush coloring her cheeks. The dress was simple in design but devastating in execution—cut to her frame, the fabric catching the light with every movement, amplifying the beauty she already carried like she was born to it. Which, he supposed, she was. Kryptonian genetics were unfair like that.
"Thanks, I guess." She grabbed a glass of wine from a passing tray and took a long sip. Her eyes roamed the room, finding nothing she wanted to engage with. "You look good yourself."
Jason glanced down at his black suit. Tailored. Expensive. The kind of thing Diana had picked out for him years ago, back when he was still pretending he didn't need clothes that fit the spaces he now occupied. He shrugged.
Kara took another drink, her gaze landing on a cluster of older heroes gathered near the far windows, their laughter polite and measured. "Oh, how I wish I could go back to my ship and activate the red sun mode. I really wanna get wasted." She gestured vaguely at the room. "Everyone here is SUPER fucking boring. Kal's work buddies are genuinely boomers."
Jason laughed, the sound low enough that only she heard. "Well, maybe we should after the party."
He turned his attention to the receiving line, where Clark stood greeting guests with Lois beside him. The bride was radiant in white, her smile genuine, her hand never leaving her husband's arm. Clark himself looked like he might burst from happiness—a man who had saved the world a hundred times finally able to save something for himself.
"But for now," Jason continued, "why don't you try and be more supportive of your cousin? It is his wedding, after all."
Kara made a face but didn't argue.
Jason watched Clark for a moment longer, something unsettled working its way through his chest. "You know, it's a bit weird that I'm invited to his wedding. Considering who I am. And who he is."
Kara looked at him as if he had just asked why the sky was blue, her expression caught somewhere between confusion and mild disbelief. "Clark is grateful to you for saving his life, and for everything you've done to help people. He might not have shown it at first, but after everything that's happened recently…" She gave a small shrug. "People talk. Everyone knows."
Jason let out a quiet laugh, shaking his head as he lowered his gaze for a moment. "No, that's not what I meant." He lifted his glass slightly, gesturing with it as he spoke. "I mean, I'm Jason Anderson. Leader of Pantheon." He tilted the glass toward the groom across the room. "And he's Clark Kent. A journalist."
Kara held his gaze for a second, then the realization clicked and a smile spread across her face. "Well, Bruce Wayne is right over there," she said lightly, nodding in that direction before adding with a hint of amusement, "Besides, everyone here already knows Clark is Superman. It's a private gathering. Only the close ones."
"I guess that makes me one of the close ones now," Jason murmured, taking a slow sip of his wine. The humor lingered for only a moment before fading, his eyes drifting back to Bruce.
The party continued.
Jason made his rounds, shaking hands, exchanging pleasantries, playing the role of the benevolent leader who had no interest in world domination despite currently ruling Hell. He talked to the Flash about nothing in particular, to Aquaman about oceanic threats that had been quiet lately, to a dozen heroes who looked at him with expressions that ranged from gratitude to suspicion to something approaching awe.
By the time he reached Bruce, the hall had thinned slightly. The older man stood apart from the crowd, a glass of wine in his hand that he hadn't touched, his eyes fixed on Clark and Lois as they danced their first dance as husband and wife.
Jason came to stand beside him.
"It's good to see that you've recovered," Jason said quietly.
Bruce's jaw tightened, almost imperceptibly. Then he nodded. "Thank you."
The silence stretched between them, filled with the music and the low murmur of conversation and the weight of everything that had passed between them over the years. Jason studied Bruce's profile—the lines that hadn't been there before, the stillness of a man who had been broken and had spent months learning how to be whole again.
Jason sighed. "Are you not going to consider... well, you know?" He gestured vaguely. "Unretiring?"
Bruce's eyes narrowed. His voice, when it came, was dry as old bone. "Wouldn't you be the ultimate benefactor of me retiring? There's no one to call your actions wrong anymore."
Jason chuckled, the sound surprising both of them. He took a sip of his wine, letting the warmth settle in his chest before he spoke.
"You still think I'm some sort of evil entity deep down, eh?" He shook his head. "Well, it matters not. It's right, though. I'm not a fool, Bruce. I know the path I'm taking is dark and filled with thorns. And I'm content with it, because I know I can navigate it."
He paused, watching the dancers turn in slow circles.
"But I'm not too arrogant to admit that sometimes I need a nudge back in the right path." He turned to face Bruce fully. "I think you could be that for me. Because of you, I've changed my way of thinking many times. Who I can kill. Who I can't." He let the words settle. "So I don't think having you nag me, fight me, be against me is such a bad thing. I think it's necessary."
Bruce was silent for a long moment. His expression hadn't changed, but something behind his eyes had shifted—a softening, perhaps, or a recognition. He took a sip of his wine, finally, and when he spoke his voice was quieter than Jason had ever heard it.
"That's a very mature way of looking at things."
He turned to face Jason, and for a moment—just a moment—something that might have been a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"And since you already feel like that..." He set his glass down on a passing tray. "Then you don't need me. You're already your own guidance. Better than I can be by being an opposition."
He turned and walked away, disappearing into the crowd without a backward glance.
Jason watched him go.
The music played on. Clark and Lois turned in their slow circle, oblivious to the world outside their orbit. Somewhere, a woman laughed. Somewhere else, a glass broke. The party continued.
Jason stood alone by the window, his wine forgotten in his hand, turning Bruce's words over in his mind.
You're already your own guidance.
He didn't know if that was an admission that his path was right, or an acknowledgment that Bruce had finally stopped trying to steer it. Maybe it was both. Maybe it was neither.
Maybe it was just a tired old man telling him that he had grown beyond the need for nursemaids and watchdogs.
Jason looked down at his glass, at the dark wine swirling inside it, and thought about everything Bruce had said and everything he hadn't.
He wasn't sure if he had been given permission or dismissed.
He wasn't sure it mattered.
He finished his wine in one long swallow and went back to the party.
....
Clark took to the stands, mic in hand, and for a moment he simply stood there, looking out at the sea of faces. Family. Friends. People who had saved the world alongside him and people who had no idea he could fly. His mother sat in the front row, tears already forming in her eyes. His father's memory hung in the air like a prayer. And Lois...Lois stood at the center of it all, white dress, dark hair, smile that could stop wars.
He smiled. He looked at her. The rest of the room faded.
"Hello everyone." His voice carried through the hall, warm and steady, the voice of a man who had faced gods and monsters and found the hardest thing he'd ever done was standing here, now, with everyone looking at him. "Uh… I'm not sure what to say here. I've given speeches before. Press conferences, award ceremonies, that one time I had to convince the UN that Superman wasn't a threat to global sovereignty." A ripple of laughter moved through the crowd. Clark's smile widened. "But this is different. This is… I don't have words for this. And that's rare for me. Lois will tell you...I never shut up about the things that matter."
He looked down at the mic, then back up at her.
"I grew up in Kansas. My parents taught me that the measure of a man isn't what he can do. It's what he chooses to do. They taught me that strength means nothing if you don't use it to protect people. That power means nothing if you don't have something....someone....to come home to."
His voice caught, just slightly. He cleared his throat.
"For a long time, I thought that someone was the world. All of it. Every person, every city, every crisis. I thought that if I just flew fast enough, fought hard enough, saved enough people… that would be enough. That I would be enough."
He took a breath.
"Then I met Lois."
Lois smiled up at him, her hand pressed to her chest, her eyes bright.
"She didn't care that I could fly. She didn't care about the cape, or the symbol, or any of it. She cared about who I was when I wasn't saving anyone. She saw me—not Superman, not the symbol, not the hope of a better tomorrow—just Clark. A farm boy from Kansas who still gets nervous when people look at him too long." He laughed softly. "She saw that, and she stayed anyway."
He turned to face her fully.
"Lois, you are the reason I live. Not survive. Not fight. Live. You are my anchor when the world gets too big, too loud, too heavy. You are the voice in my ear telling me that it's okay to be tired. That it's okay to need someone. That it's okay to come home."
He raised his glass, the wine catching the light.
"So I'd like to raise a toast. To my future wife. For being the reason I live. My anchor. Lois, I—"
The axe struck.
It came from nowhere. No warning. No sound. No movement that any eye in the room could track. One moment Clark stood at the center of the hall, glass raised, smile on his face. The next, a massive blade....black metal, jagged edges, something that should not exist in any world that allowed happiness....slammed into his side.
It did not bounce off.
It did not stop.
It pierced. It carved. It tore through flesh and bone and the invulnerable skin of a Kryptonian like paper. The blade entered at the chest and ripped downward, splitting him open from rib to stomach, blood exploding outward in a torrent that painted the stage red.
Clark's glass shattered on the floor. His mouth opened. No sound came out.
The man who held the axe—a hulking figure of dark armor and pale skin, eyes that held no light, face that held no mercy—yanked the blade free. Clark's body lurched forward, blood gushing from the wound, and Lois caught him before he could fall. Her white dress was already soaked red. Her scream filled the hall.
"CLARK!"
Kara moved first. Faster than sound, faster than thought, she launched herself from the crowd toward the figure on the stage. Jason moved the same instant...no hesitation, no calculation, just the pure animal instinct to destroy whatever had just hurt someone standing next to him.
His fist connected with the creature's face.
Teeth flew. Bone cracked. The thing's head snapped back at an angle that should have broken a neck, should have killed anything that wore a body like this. But the creature—Rogol Zaar—only smiled. Blood ran from his split lip, mixed with the teeth Jason had knocked loose, and he smiled.
Behind him, the air split open. A gate of pure blackness, edges jagged as torn paper, swallowed the light. Rogol Zaar stepped backward into it, his eyes never leaving Jason's face.
"I am Rogol Zaar," he said, his voice grinding like stone on stone. "Avatar of Darkness. And I shall hunt them all."
The gate closed.
The hall erupted.
Jason stood frozen for half a heartbeat, his fist still extended, the creature's blood dripping from his knuckles. Then he turned. Turned to the stage, to the blood that was already pooling on the polished floor, to Lois holding Clark's body against her chest, to Kara dropping to her knees beside them with a sound that was not quite human.
Clark's eyes were open. His mouth moved. Blood bubbled at his lips.
"Lois…" His voice was a whisper, barely there, already fading. "Lois, I…"
"Don't." Her voice broke over the word. "Don't you dare. You don't get to do this. Not today. Not now. You don't get to..."
Kara's hands pressed against the wound, trying to close it, trying to stop the blood that poured through her fingers like water. Her face was white. Her hands were red.
"Someone help him!" she screamed. "SOMEONE HELP HIM!"
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If you Like this story! Check out my other story ! Shadow Monarch in Danmachi!
AND
If you wish to read more or simply support me just because ? than check out my patréon at
"https://www.patréon.com/Riadooo"
You can Get Access to 3 More Chapters OR 7 More Chapters if you want !