Varkhaz VS Superman

The lunar dust hung in the low gravity like grey snow, and Varkhaz hated every floating speck of it.

He planted his boots on the cracked basalt ridge and rolled his shoulders, feeling the old iron pauldron settle against his collarbone. The horned detailing caught the harsh starlight. His double-headed axe rested easy in his right hand—he'd carried it through worse places than this airless rock, and he'd carry it through worse yet.

Across the crater, the man in blue stood with his cape drifting in a wind that wasn't there.

"You again," Varkhaz rumbled. His tusks flashed as he grinned, blunt and unbothered. "Last time you put me through a rock spire. My back still remembers it. Figured I owed you a rematch."

Superman didn't smile. He looked at the barbarian the way a man looks at a storm on the horizon—respectful, but ready. "You don't owe me anything. Walk away, and I'll call this even."

"Ha. No." Varkhaz rolled his neck until it cracked. "I don't walk from fights. Bad habit. My people would never let me hear the end of it."

He came in fast.

Three strides, four—the low gravity let him cover ground in long, loping bounds, dust plumes trailing behind his heels. He swung high, a feint, then reversed the head of the axe to come low at the knees. Superman stepped back, lifted one boot, and let the blade skid off the sole with a shriek of metal on metal. The impact sent a tremor up Varkhaz's forearms, but he didn't stop. He pivoted and brought the axe around in a rising arc meant to catch the jaw.

Superman caught the haft.

Just—caught it. Two hands, no strain, like stopping a swinging door.

Varkhaz grunted. "That's just unfair."

"You're strong," Superman said, and there was no mockery in it. "But strong isn't enough."

He pushed. Varkhaz dug in, boots grinding channels into the regolith, but he was sliding backward all the same, feet dragging furrows toward the crater rim. He let go of the axe rather than lose his footing, rolled sideways, and came up empty-handed. Superman now held the weapon—a massive thing in his grip, absurdly small.

"Give it back," Varkhaz said, "and I'll make it quick."

Superman set the axe down gently on the rock, blade-first, perfectly balanced. "No. Listen to me. There's nothing to win here."

Varkhaz charged bare-handed.

He was a living weapon and he fought like one. Fists like hammerheads, elbows like spikes, knees like battering rams. He landed a solid blow to the chest—felt it connect, felt the shock run up to his shoulder—and Superman moved maybe half a step. Half a step. The blue suit didn't even wrinkle.

Another exchange. Varkhaz feinted left, hooked a fist toward the throat, and Superman's palm came up and caught it, then the second fist, then he simply held both of the barbarian's wrists apart like a man holding open a book.

Varkhaz spat dust and laughed. "You fight like you're afraid of breaking me."

"I am," Superman said quietly. "That's the problem."

For one heartbeat, the barbarian's grin faltered. The words landed somewhere unexpected—not in his pride, but somewhere older and quieter, the place where he kept the names of the people he'd protected. He knew that kind of fear. He lived with it. It was the fear of the strong who had something to lose.

He broke free, stumbled back a pace, and looked at the man in blue with new eyes.

"You've got people," Varkhaz said. "Don't you."

"Everyone."

Varkhaz spat again, mostly for the theatre of it, and considered. His hands were bleeding. His ribs ached. Superman hadn't hit him once—not truly—and that was the whole story of the fight. The man could have ended this at any moment, and he hadn't. Not last time, not now. That wasn't weakness. That was a kind of discipline Varkhaz recognized, because he carried the same thing himself: the rule that says you don't spend a life you don't have to.

The lunar dust drifted. A meaningful pause, cold and long.

"Then I can't beat you," Varkhaz said, and it came out plain, no shame in it. "Not today. Maybe not ever. I'm a brawler, not a liar."

"No."

"But." He pointed a thick finger at the man's chest, at the S. "You can't beat what I'm for, either. You protect your people. So do I. We've been knocking heads over the same damn job."

Superman's expression shifted—just slightly, a thaw. "That's what I've been trying to say."

"Then say it faster next time." Varkhaz walked past him to the axe, picked it up with both hands, and slung it across his back. He turned, and his tusked grin was back, but softer around the edges. "You're worthy, blue man. Took me getting thrown through a spire and a crater to see it. Fighting's easy. Knowing when to stop—that's the hard part."

He extended a scarred, bleeding hand.

Superman looked at it for a moment. Then he took it, and his grip was careful, and Varkhaz felt the absurd mismatch of it—the hand that could crush moons, holding his like it was glad to.

"Friends, then," Superman said.

"Friends." Varkhaz clapped him on the shoulder, which did nothing at all to the man but made Varkhaz feel better. "Now—you know anywhere around here with actual food? I've been fighting on an empty stomach and I'm about to start eating this rock."

Superman laughed, genuinely, the sound strange and warm in the vacuum. "I know a place."

"Good." Varkhaz started walking, dust blooming around his boots in the low gravity. "Because I've got questions. Lots of them. Starting with how that cape works."

They crossed the crater together, two warriors who'd come to break each other and chosen something better instead, and the grey lunar snow settled slowly behind them.