World's finest (1990) #2
The character work! The little details! The way Bruce grips the wrapping paper as his only sign of the pain he's in, the way Clark gets awkward because he can tell something didn't land right but doesn't have the context to understand what he just did. The way Bruce reacts not by lashing out, but by reaching out for connection and it's CLARK who keeps him at arms length. I do love them as good friends, but the way they weren't close in post-crisis and were both kind of trying and failing? Oh my god. People forget that Clark has a history of being almost as bad with his feelings as Bruce.
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for da4 lace!! my love!! [ fix ] sender gently fixes receiver’s hair
hap fri ro!! that lil "what is happening to me" in the da4 trailer absolutely broke me so here have this ;-; for @dadrunkwriting
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Lace stared at her hands. They felt separate, like they weren't even part of her. The shook slightly and she clasped them together to stop it, twisting her fingers into a knot to keep them still.
"Hey. It's okay."
A slender hand encircled her smaller ones, stroking soothing comfort across her knuckles. Drew's callouses were in odd places, from the staff he'd always wielded, and new ones from the maneuvers he had to do now that his left arm was lost to him. But they were comforting.
"What's happening to me?" she whispered, unable to keep the quaver from her voice or the tears from her eyes as she looked up at him. The rest of the Veilguard were off doing--whatever they did when the Lighthouse settled down. She couldn't have them seeing her like this. But Drew--he understood.
Things changed. Sometimes things changed irrevocably. But how did you accept that, how did you keep going? She thought she'd known. But it was different when it was her hands, her blood, her....spirit? Soul? It was different when it was her, and not the sky that was exploding.
Drew's hand tightened around hers and she looked up.
"We're going to figure it out," he promised. Dropping her hands, he brought his to her face and tenderly tucked the escaping tendrils of her updo into the braided headband that stretched across her crown. "Whatever it is. We will figure it out. And if it's hurting you--"
He broke off, his jaw flexing with something like anger. Drew didn't get angry, she knew, but he got frustrated when he couldn't see the easy answer, or when there was no easy answer. She took a deep breath, searching for that certainty that had kept her so steady through all of the Inquisition.
She found it in his hand on her cheek, his thumb pressed into her chin.
"Your magic," she asked haltingly. "What was it like, when you first...got it?"
Drew hummed, sliding his hand up and back to the messy knot at the nape of her neck. He fumbled for a moment, but he'd had years to get fair dexterity with one hand alone. Her hair fell loose down her back and he combed through it, then gathered it into his fist.
He cocked his head at her. "Tell me what you feel."
The air crackled. Her tongue tasted like metal and her fingers felt heavy, like they were layered with stone. And deep in her gut, an urging: give give give. And the knowledge that if she gave, it would be beyond her control.
"Too much," she ground out. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes; how foolish. But she was a dwarf! This wasn't even something whispered in shadowed corners, because it wasn't possible.
She gritted her teeth. When Rook returned, she would be having words with Solas. For now, she dipped her head as Drew worked the magic he'd conjured and his hand to fix her hair into a fresh knot, a smoothed out braid.
"That's what I felt, too," he said softly. The iron in the air and the crackling over her skin dissipated as he stopped casting. "Too much. But it's just different. You'll adjust, Lace. You're too smart--once we figure this out, you'll be the best dwarven mage this world has ever seen."
She snorted, despite herself. "Dagna would have a field day."
"Should I have--"
"No," Lace grinned, shaking her head. "We have enough problems, all on our own."
"We'll solve them," Drew said softly, laying his arm across Lace's shoulders and drawing her into a hug. He rested his chin atop her head. "We always do."
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