That hand resumes its little idle movements, littler now that they're speaking.
"Maybe right now," Clark says, voice low in the intimate space they're sharing. "But maybe not forever."
A pause, thinking it over, before speaking again. "Besides the fact I came down in a flying saucer, there wasn't much to me for a while. Then one day, it was like the whole world kind of cracked open. I was sitting in class, and then it all just rushed in. Pencils on paper, heart beats, clothing rustling, a fly on the wall in another room. And I'd look around, and the walls would disappear, and my classmates, the other kids were gone, and the teacher was gone, and they were replaced by monsters made of muscle and bone. Skulls, all with the same grin.
"Mom had to come get me. There wasn't anywhere I could go to get away from it. Walls, doors, closing my eyes." His tone is even and easy as he speaks, one of those things you'd made peace with a long time ago. Still letting a silvery lock of hair slide between thumb and forefinger. "She helped me. And at the time, I thought, of course she knew what to do, how to get me to focus on just one thing, how to breathe, how to make it stop. Looking back, I can't even imagine being her, trying to deal with that."
He'd started looking at the ceiling at some stage, but looks back at Bruce then. "Say it's a superpower. Therefore, it needs practice. And trust. Hard to do when you're asleep, but maybe there are ways you can practice dreaming when it's not happening." Some humour creases in the lines at his eyes and says, "I'm not saying guided meditation's the answer, but—"
He knew, in some dully scientific way, that there had to have been a point when Clark realized what he was capable of, and that the transition could not have been easy. But to hear him explain it in such ordinary terms, small and overwhelming at once, a confused and terrified kid - something Bruce has such distinct empathy for, on top of everything else - humbles him.
"I bet she couldn't imagine being you, dealing with all that."
Martha Kent is an incredible woman. And she raised an incredible son. Bruce hopes he doesn't look as dopey as he feels, emotion uncharacteristically obvious on his face. But he doesn't dare look away. Not everything is about your dumb ass, Wayne.
Lighter, "You just want to be able to teach me something."
Even though Bruce is the only one, between the two of them, who has done enough meditation to control their own heartbeat. He understands what Clark means, though. Working at something in a way that isn't like learning how to punch properly. This is another realm.
Clark does not think Bruce looks dopey, even if he can see the sentiment cross by through his expression. And it warms him. He wouldn't have expected anything else, of course, intellectually and instinctively, but maybe there's still some small part of him that can never be sure until it happens, the ease and acceptance and understanding.
And it's the point of sharing, anyway. He doesn't want Bruce to feel alone in it either.
He laughs, quiet and breathy, and then reaches to go and hook his arms up under Bruce's, and draw him up those few inches until their faces are level. "Yeah," he says. "You caught me."
Bruce shifts up (not that he could stop himself from being moved, but he's happy to go), and gives Clark a soft kiss. Not one meant to encourage them in any particular direction; companionable, grateful, sweet.
"I'm a detective."
Catching people is what he does.
One palm is flat over Clark's chest, maybe not-so-incidentally feeling his heartbeat. Over that spot where the spear Bruce had forged shot through him, leaving a gaping, black hole. It's a worse memory than the slice over his cheek, and a worse fear experiencing death at his hands.
"You know how much medication I'm on," is not quite a question. Bruce has given up hiding pill bottles, and even taken some in front of Clark. Unavoidable, with daily prescriptions lashing down severe depression. Relevant factors to consider, concerning bad dreams. And a fragile subject he has no confidence in.
"It could all be manifestations of mental illness."
And he is already mentally ill. Sometimes these things progress; comorbidity, exacerbation, and so on. He doesn't exactly go easy on himself when it comes to maintenance. The long, excruciating episode that culminated in attempting to murder Superman is definitely something that could be clinically identified as a psychotic break. The fact that he was able to shake himself free of its clutches and perform is a testament to his ability to work under extreme conditions, not a magic cure from future episodes.
"I mean, I... could be having them, but the way I'm perceiving them is wrong. Processed through a broken lens."
Clark's mouth presses into a line of protest, at first, but this gentles at the rest, eyes hooded as he thinks that through, absorbs it. It's not you, he'd said, has said before, when it comes to that spiral that Luthor had sent him down, and even in the context of trauma, of fragility, of treatment and its fallibility, the sentiment stands. If either of them were wholly defined by their worst moments, no matter the cause of those moments, and if those moments wholly defined their futures, they wouldn't be here.
"Maybe," he says. Not doubtfully, really. For prophetic dreams, they sound like they get under Bruce's skin more profoundly than they need to. Clark's hand gently sweeps down Bruce's spine. "I guess the question is, if it distorts the delivery, does it corrupt the message?"
Bruce hopes that he's conveying a practical concern, and not a self-hating fear. If they want to figure it out, they can't ignore core components. And one is, simply, that Bruce has a condition that can warp how he views things. He takes his medication, he is very analytical, and severe episodes are not common. He's used to living with it, just like millions of other people. But millions of other people are probably not having maybe-prophetic dreams.
And pushes a wayward strand of hair back from Bruce's forehead, then lets that hand rest on his shoulder. Expressing that he trusts Bruce will do that just find feels like it'll start to get into unhelpful territory. They're here, now, and Bruce is taking the things he's said seriously. The 'what' can give way to the 'how'.
'Why' is a longer shot, but maybe an inevitable one, eventually. "Is it ever lucid? Even in little moments."
One hand moves from his folded position, drawing knuckles along the side of Clark's face, resting with a light touch at his temple. There is a pressure point there that Bruce enjoys the manipulation of; can a Kryptonian feel it at all?
He seems to be somewhere else for a moment, slipping away from the question posed. But he returns.
"Lately, sometimes. With Joker. His provocations.. get personal, and something about it is so useless and out of place in that awful setting, that it begins to feel fake. And I can see the seams. But I can't do anything but watch."
"Lately," Clark echoes. "Maybe it's changing. Or you are."
First lucidity, then control? Food for thought. As much as he can offer up the pieces of experience he has with superpowers he did not ask for, that had controlled him for so much of his life, something like a dream feels far afield of his own experiences. Mental illness, too, to the extent that Bruce grapples with it, for all that Clark hasn't been the paragon of perfectly balanced brain chemistry all his life either.
His head tips against Bruce's hand. "I don't know that it would help, but Kryptonians had a kind of—lucid shared dreaming technology. I experienced it on Zod's ship. Different from something like VR, more organic, and I didn't have control over it. But Zod did."
Maybe they can do more scout ship dumpster diving.
Unease creeps up his spine, makes something at the back of his neck prickle. The idea of interacting with it, being aware, unable to wake up, turn it off. Of Clark being there, manipulating the setting and being reminiscent of Zod. It's an irrational fear, if he were to look at it on paper, but the gut instinct of it is so profound he can't bring himself to dismiss the feeling.
"I don't know," he hedges. "Something the ship said before the box woke you up. Only Victor heard it clearly. 'The future has taken root in the present.'"
Unease doesn't make any particularly nuanced sounds. Not so profound as to alter a heart beat, or any other number of internal chemical responses that Clark could attach emotional meaning to. But he also doesn't need those things, sense of the hesitancy in his voice, see the shadow of it cross subtle behind his even subtler expression.
Maybe another time, then, if Clark can pitch it in a way that doesn't sound like literal torture. Maybe talk to Vic about it, do his own homework.
But Clark's attention shifts, and there's a flicker—not quite guilt. Not quite the same as Bruce's unease. He asks, "What does that mean?"
What if I can't wake up. What if I become lucid, and that's the final step to entering that world. What if you see it, and it's too horrible, and it makes you hate me.
Not rational fears, unlike the issue of his mental health, but then again: these are not rational times. Strange happenings are ordinary. Clark is not human, and Bruce is having visions. Resurrecting a man using a blip in time travel and alien technology from two different worlds is not actually any less outlandish than another timeline trying to supersede its way into Bruce's reality.
Odd that the ship might say something like that in the moments prior to his resurrection when the holographic ghost of Jor-El made a very convincing thesis about Kal-El transcending into some symbol of hope that could lead the people of earth into a brighter tomorrow. Maybe it's not him, maybe it's the overwhelming power of technology they were grappling with.
Maybe it is him, though. Some kind of cosmic trade off. Protecting the people of earth from deep space invasion while representing their potential destruction.
Clark breathes in through his nose, brings a hand up to touch Bruce's face, and lifts his head up to kiss him, just gently.
The scout ship was having A Time, that day, in fairness.
Bruce returns that soft kiss. Let his eyes close. Says, "All organic things can experience trauma. Including the Kryptonian computer."
Maybe it was just afraid. It had tried to talk them out of it, after all. Perhaps not because of Kal-El, but Darkseid. It's Bruce's stupid brain's fault those things are linked. Isn't it? He rests his forehead against Clark's for a moment, thinking, trying not to think.
The lines of concern that had gathered at Clark's forehead smooth a little. Like if this has turned into Bruce offering him reassurance, then he should accept it. He loops his arms loose around the other man's shoulders, holds there with a hand gripping his wrist to close the circle.
"Okay," he says, a small note of keenness to do so. Any form of forward motion, he wants to encourage. Wants to help. The flickers of doubt he has about what his place is, in the future, easily steamrolled by the conviction that he's meant to be here. That being here, being able to stand with the rest of them, is good.
There's a lot he can do, including this: embracing Bruce in the semi-dark. The first time he said the following, it was simply about how they live with loving each other, and now he means something more ambitious when he says, "We'll figure it out."
Doesn't Clark deserve reassurance, after they've established how fucking weird it is for him to have been brought back to life? And how the crux of Bruce's nightmares is Superman?
He thinks so. If it were just a shit future, he wouldn't be so disturbed. But the dark heart of the unease and horror is what a Kryptonian on Earth, leashed by Darkseid, is capable of. Bruce knows - trusts without question - that Clark would never do any of it willfully. And to think that it might be true, that even the artificial intelligence on the ship from his home planet might be nervous, has got to be as bleak as anything Bruce feels.
So of course he sounds borderline excited to solve the mystery. Sure. Fine.
Hmph.
"More baggage than you bargained for." We'll figure it out.
And honest. How many people has he kept at arm's length, throughout his life? And further than that? For so many reasons.
He can sense the slight capitulation in the conversation, and kisses Bruce again. Lightly, first, and then more involved, hands resting on either side of the other man's face. Gentle, soft, warm, these little intimacies that stand at stark odds to the nightmare vision that wears his shape in dreams, or the remote impression of an all-powerful alien crashing through buildings, showers of glass and concrete, blurred camera footage.
Instead, like this, Clark is almost just some guy with a nice apartment, warm beneath Bruce, the slide of his fingers seeking out little sensitive spots down Bruce's neck. These gestures together all seem to say hey, wanna do something else?
Bruce has no instinct to surrender. It's a problem. Not in a fight, not against anxiety, nothing. Clark's suggestion makes him feel uneasy, but it's a good one; if he has to go at it sideways, at least he's going there. And at least Clark can see.
What a luxury, to be with someone who knows the full worst of you already. There's nothing he needs to hide.
Yeah.
They get up to some crazy shit, but there's this, too. People simply wanting each other, navigating the waters of an unconventional relationship. Navigating each other's forms, hands on skin, mouths together, warm and wet. Bruce can't decide if this is the easiest part of them, or if it's sitting quietly beside each other. Neither are anything he could have predicted, back then. And he thinks he'd die for both.
Scout Ship 0344 is not pleased with the line of inquiry, when it comes. Back in the frozen wastes, Bruce watches the shifting silver assistant (Kelex, it had been decided, after loading in different programs, fishing the remnants of Zod's would-be deletion out of Krypton's version of a desktop recycle bin). It hovers closer to Clark, stubbornly addressed as Kal-El at all times, managing to give off the impression of glaring in Bruce's direction, despite having no discernable features.
"You have no ability to remove data," Bruce points out, flatly. "You hid things from STAR Labs, I understand that."
It's kind of nice. Kal-El. Just in this context, it's kind of nice, and reminds him of the easy affection with which the copy of Jor-El that harboured so much intelligence and feeling and kindness called him 'Kal'. It is a mere sliver of a memory, but something of a precious one, too.
It makes Scout Ship 0344 feel like a kind of home, anyway, inasmuch as a gigantic spaceship made up of cold silver caverns can.
And Kelex is being sassy. Clark stands, arms folded but expression gentle and querying. "The data has yet to be properly analysed," she says in smooth Kryptonian. "It remains speculative. It should not be disseminated widely until charting of implication and outcome has been completed by specialised personnel."
"This isn't widely, Kelex," Clark says, patient. "And there is no personnel left. What are you worried will happen?"
"Incomplete projections may cause fragmentation. The data is corrupt and incomplete."
"We aren't Luthor," he says, and wonders if it's his imagination, or if Kelex does actually ripple, just slightly. Irritation, revulsion? "Specifically: I'm not."
Bruce figures it's not objecting to Clark so much as the human it must only have the strangest of logs about. Merged with records of the first human who was given control of the ship by a less-discerning AI, and he can be sympathetic to the evasive action. This ship has been made to do strange and unbelievable things so far on Earth; only Kelex knows the full extent of how more strange, and how more unbelievable, they can get.
Anyway. All three of them are speaking Kryptonian, so surely that's a point in the inferior human's favor.
Kelex very neutrally says, "Yes," and Clark is pretty sure that the variant they're using is the English equivalent of an impatient of course.
"You gave him a warning," Clark says, his voice gentle and kind, as he'd speak to anything actually alive. As far as he's concerned, Kryptonians mastered sentient artificial intelligence a long time ago, clearly. "Against following a path that was taken anyway. We just want to listen. And—"
A beat, and he doesn't look back at Bruce or anything as he adds, "Maybe there's data we can provide in return."
The AI simply continues to hover, still and faceless, and yet Bruce finds himself anthropomorphizing it as thinking. Regarding them suspiciously. Robots don't have feelings, he reminds himself, even as that seems to be an unwise and cynical hill to die on, between the mysteries of Kryptonian advancement and the young man they're invoking.
Gliding slowly back, as though pushed by a gentle tide, Kelex says, "The great work of Krypton, until the descent that brought her demise, was to erase all variables of the future. Everyone and everything in its place, so that the spear thrust forward was one under total control.
The chamber in this ship is a remnant of old ways. It is forbidden to experiment with such chaos. You have already experienced why."
"Dark magic and superstitions," Bruce murmurs, dry. "Let us de-mystify it."
"Please," Clark echoes, like maybe some manners will help.
But it's not just manners. It's becoming clearer to him that what they're asking flies in the face of what Kelex is programmed to preserve, in the same way that his existence does too. Every time some new revelation of what was core to Krypton comes to light, it becomes easier to understand why he was propelled away from it at great speed. But even Jor-El couldn't help but take care of some remaining connection, to ensure Clark knew where he came from.
Maybe that was a mistake. Another trapping, a blind spot. But Jor-El never claimed to be anything but fallible, unlike his brethren. "There's no one left to claim anything forbidden," he says. "There's no great work to protect, anymore. But there's Earth. And I was sent to protect that. I have to believe that's still true, and I need to know how to keep it true."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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"Maybe right now," Clark says, voice low in the intimate space they're sharing. "But maybe not forever."
A pause, thinking it over, before speaking again. "Besides the fact I came down in a flying saucer, there wasn't much to me for a while. Then one day, it was like the whole world kind of cracked open. I was sitting in class, and then it all just rushed in. Pencils on paper, heart beats, clothing rustling, a fly on the wall in another room. And I'd look around, and the walls would disappear, and my classmates, the other kids were gone, and the teacher was gone, and they were replaced by monsters made of muscle and bone. Skulls, all with the same grin.
"Mom had to come get me. There wasn't anywhere I could go to get away from it. Walls, doors, closing my eyes." His tone is even and easy as he speaks, one of those things you'd made peace with a long time ago. Still letting a silvery lock of hair slide between thumb and forefinger. "She helped me. And at the time, I thought, of course she knew what to do, how to get me to focus on just one thing, how to breathe, how to make it stop. Looking back, I can't even imagine being her, trying to deal with that."
He'd started looking at the ceiling at some stage, but looks back at Bruce then. "Say it's a superpower. Therefore, it needs practice. And trust. Hard to do when you're asleep, but maybe there are ways you can practice dreaming when it's not happening." Some humour creases in the lines at his eyes and says, "I'm not saying guided meditation's the answer, but—"
It's not not the answer.
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"I bet she couldn't imagine being you, dealing with all that."
Martha Kent is an incredible woman. And she raised an incredible son. Bruce hopes he doesn't look as dopey as he feels, emotion uncharacteristically obvious on his face. But he doesn't dare look away. Not everything is about your dumb ass, Wayne.
Lighter, "You just want to be able to teach me something."
Even though Bruce is the only one, between the two of them, who has done enough meditation to control their own heartbeat. He understands what Clark means, though. Working at something in a way that isn't like learning how to punch properly. This is another realm.
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And it's the point of sharing, anyway. He doesn't want Bruce to feel alone in it either.
He laughs, quiet and breathy, and then reaches to go and hook his arms up under Bruce's, and draw him up those few inches until their faces are level. "Yeah," he says. "You caught me."
They are, after all, in Metropolis for once.
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"I'm a detective."
Catching people is what he does.
One palm is flat over Clark's chest, maybe not-so-incidentally feeling his heartbeat. Over that spot where the spear Bruce had forged shot through him, leaving a gaping, black hole. It's a worse memory than the slice over his cheek, and a worse fear experiencing death at his hands.
"You know how much medication I'm on," is not quite a question. Bruce has given up hiding pill bottles, and even taken some in front of Clark. Unavoidable, with daily prescriptions lashing down severe depression. Relevant factors to consider, concerning bad dreams. And a fragile subject he has no confidence in.
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Clark nods. Yes, he knows, and has had at least an idea of that even before Bruce gave up trying to conceal it.
He doesn't say anything immediately, just tips his head as he studies Bruce's face, trying to read what he's going to say next ahead of it.
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And he is already mentally ill. Sometimes these things progress; comorbidity, exacerbation, and so on. He doesn't exactly go easy on himself when it comes to maintenance. The long, excruciating episode that culminated in attempting to murder Superman is definitely something that could be clinically identified as a psychotic break. The fact that he was able to shake himself free of its clutches and perform is a testament to his ability to work under extreme conditions, not a magic cure from future episodes.
"I mean, I... could be having them, but the way I'm perceiving them is wrong. Processed through a broken lens."
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"Maybe," he says. Not doubtfully, really. For prophetic dreams, they sound like they get under Bruce's skin more profoundly than they need to. Clark's hand gently sweeps down Bruce's spine. "I guess the question is, if it distorts the delivery, does it corrupt the message?"
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"That's what I have to decide."
:/
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:\
And pushes a wayward strand of hair back from Bruce's forehead, then lets that hand rest on his shoulder. Expressing that he trusts Bruce will do that just find feels like it'll start to get into unhelpful territory. They're here, now, and Bruce is taking the things he's said seriously. The 'what' can give way to the 'how'.
'Why' is a longer shot, but maybe an inevitable one, eventually. "Is it ever lucid? Even in little moments."
no subject
He seems to be somewhere else for a moment, slipping away from the question posed. But he returns.
"Lately, sometimes. With Joker. His provocations.. get personal, and something about it is so useless and out of place in that awful setting, that it begins to feel fake. And I can see the seams. But I can't do anything but watch."
no subject
First lucidity, then control? Food for thought. As much as he can offer up the pieces of experience he has with superpowers he did not ask for, that had controlled him for so much of his life, something like a dream feels far afield of his own experiences. Mental illness, too, to the extent that Bruce grapples with it, for all that Clark hasn't been the paragon of perfectly balanced brain chemistry all his life either.
His head tips against Bruce's hand. "I don't know that it would help, but Kryptonians had a kind of—lucid shared dreaming technology. I experienced it on Zod's ship. Different from something like VR, more organic, and I didn't have control over it. But Zod did."
Maybe they can do more scout ship dumpster diving.
no subject
Unease creeps up his spine, makes something at the back of his neck prickle. The idea of interacting with it, being aware, unable to wake up, turn it off. Of Clark being there, manipulating the setting and being reminiscent of Zod. It's an irrational fear, if he were to look at it on paper, but the gut instinct of it is so profound he can't bring himself to dismiss the feeling.
"I don't know," he hedges. "Something the ship said before the box woke you up. Only Victor heard it clearly. 'The future has taken root in the present.'"
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Maybe another time, then, if Clark can pitch it in a way that doesn't sound like literal torture. Maybe talk to Vic about it, do his own homework.
But Clark's attention shifts, and there's a flicker—not quite guilt. Not quite the same as Bruce's unease. He asks, "What does that mean?"
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Not rational fears, unlike the issue of his mental health, but then again: these are not rational times. Strange happenings are ordinary. Clark is not human, and Bruce is having visions. Resurrecting a man using a blip in time travel and alien technology from two different worlds is not actually any less outlandish than another timeline trying to supersede its way into Bruce's reality.
Also, softly, "I have no fucking idea."
no subject
Odd that the ship might say something like that in the moments prior to his resurrection when the holographic ghost of Jor-El made a very convincing thesis about Kal-El transcending into some symbol of hope that could lead the people of earth into a brighter tomorrow. Maybe it's not him, maybe it's the overwhelming power of technology they were grappling with.
Maybe it is him, though. Some kind of cosmic trade off. Protecting the people of earth from deep space invasion while representing their potential destruction.
Clark breathes in through his nose, brings a hand up to touch Bruce's face, and lifts his head up to kiss him, just gently.
no subject
Bruce returns that soft kiss. Let his eyes close. Says, "All organic things can experience trauma. Including the Kryptonian computer."
Maybe it was just afraid. It had tried to talk them out of it, after all. Perhaps not because of Kal-El, but Darkseid. It's Bruce's stupid brain's fault those things are linked. Isn't it? He rests his forehead against Clark's for a moment, thinking, trying not to think.
"We could ask."
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"Okay," he says, a small note of keenness to do so. Any form of forward motion, he wants to encourage. Wants to help. The flickers of doubt he has about what his place is, in the future, easily steamrolled by the conviction that he's meant to be here. That being here, being able to stand with the rest of them, is good.
There's a lot he can do, including this: embracing Bruce in the semi-dark. The first time he said the following, it was simply about how they live with loving each other, and now he means something more ambitious when he says, "We'll figure it out."
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He thinks so. If it were just a shit future, he wouldn't be so disturbed. But the dark heart of the unease and horror is what a Kryptonian on Earth, leashed by Darkseid, is capable of. Bruce knows - trusts without question - that Clark would never do any of it willfully. And to think that it might be true, that even the artificial intelligence on the ship from his home planet might be nervous, has got to be as bleak as anything Bruce feels.
So of course he sounds borderline excited to solve the mystery. Sure. Fine.
Hmph.
"More baggage than you bargained for." We'll figure it out.
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And honest. How many people has he kept at arm's length, throughout his life? And further than that? For so many reasons.
He can sense the slight capitulation in the conversation, and kisses Bruce again. Lightly, first, and then more involved, hands resting on either side of the other man's face. Gentle, soft, warm, these little intimacies that stand at stark odds to the nightmare vision that wears his shape in dreams, or the remote impression of an all-powerful alien crashing through buildings, showers of glass and concrete, blurred camera footage.
Instead, like this, Clark is almost just some guy with a nice apartment, warm beneath Bruce, the slide of his fingers seeking out little sensitive spots down Bruce's neck. These gestures together all seem to say hey, wanna do something else?
no subject
What a luxury, to be with someone who knows the full worst of you already. There's nothing he needs to hide.
Yeah.
They get up to some crazy shit, but there's this, too. People simply wanting each other, navigating the waters of an unconventional relationship. Navigating each other's forms, hands on skin, mouths together, warm and wet. Bruce can't decide if this is the easiest part of them, or if it's sitting quietly beside each other. Neither are anything he could have predicted, back then. And he thinks he'd die for both.
Scout Ship 0344 is not pleased with the line of inquiry, when it comes. Back in the frozen wastes, Bruce watches the shifting silver assistant (Kelex, it had been decided, after loading in different programs, fishing the remnants of Zod's would-be deletion out of Krypton's version of a desktop recycle bin). It hovers closer to Clark, stubbornly addressed as Kal-El at all times, managing to give off the impression of glaring in Bruce's direction, despite having no discernable features.
"You have no ability to remove data," Bruce points out, flatly. "You hid things from STAR Labs, I understand that."
no subject
It makes Scout Ship 0344 feel like a kind of home, anyway, inasmuch as a gigantic spaceship made up of cold silver caverns can.
And Kelex is being sassy. Clark stands, arms folded but expression gentle and querying. "The data has yet to be properly analysed," she says in smooth Kryptonian. "It remains speculative. It should not be disseminated widely until charting of implication and outcome has been completed by specialised personnel."
"This isn't widely, Kelex," Clark says, patient. "And there is no personnel left. What are you worried will happen?"
"Incomplete projections may cause fragmentation. The data is corrupt and incomplete."
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Bruce figures it's not objecting to Clark so much as the human it must only have the strangest of logs about. Merged with records of the first human who was given control of the ship by a less-discerning AI, and he can be sympathetic to the evasive action. This ship has been made to do strange and unbelievable things so far on Earth; only Kelex knows the full extent of how more strange, and how more unbelievable, they can get.
Anyway. All three of them are speaking Kryptonian, so surely that's a point in the inferior human's favor.
"Do you remember Victor Stone?"
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"You gave him a warning," Clark says, his voice gentle and kind, as he'd speak to anything actually alive. As far as he's concerned, Kryptonians mastered sentient artificial intelligence a long time ago, clearly. "Against following a path that was taken anyway. We just want to listen. And—"
A beat, and he doesn't look back at Bruce or anything as he adds, "Maybe there's data we can provide in return."
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Gliding slowly back, as though pushed by a gentle tide, Kelex says, "The great work of Krypton, until the descent that brought her demise, was to erase all variables of the future. Everyone and everything in its place, so that the spear thrust forward was one under total control.
The chamber in this ship is a remnant of old ways. It is forbidden to experiment with such chaos. You have already experienced why."
"Dark magic and superstitions," Bruce murmurs, dry. "Let us de-mystify it."
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But it's not just manners. It's becoming clearer to him that what they're asking flies in the face of what Kelex is programmed to preserve, in the same way that his existence does too. Every time some new revelation of what was core to Krypton comes to light, it becomes easier to understand why he was propelled away from it at great speed. But even Jor-El couldn't help but take care of some remaining connection, to ensure Clark knew where he came from.
Maybe that was a mistake. Another trapping, a blind spot. But Jor-El never claimed to be anything but fallible, unlike his brethren. "There's no one left to claim anything forbidden," he says. "There's no great work to protect, anymore. But there's Earth. And I was sent to protect that. I have to believe that's still true, and I need to know how to keep it true."
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