Chapter Text
Clark waited exactly ten minutes and thirty seconds, until the clock above the bullpen read 9:15 in bright, flickering red, before tapping Lois on the shoulder.
“Hey,” Clark said, trying to keep his voice low. Casual, like he was just asking to borrow a pen or something else completely unremarkable. “Coffee?”
Lois’ head jerked up from the notes she was reviewing, eyes already narrowed. She was wearing spiky, black makeup around her eyes today, which only doubled the intensity of her suspicion.
“Coffee,” Lois repeated. There was a steaming mug of coffee by her left hand, full to the brim with the rocket fuel they made in the staff room. A good third of the mug’s liquid consisted of the sixteen hazelnut creamers Lois added to it on bad days. And four splenda packets.
Clark twitched his eyebrows, trying to convey his plea with as few words as possible. “Better coffee.”
“Better?” Lois asked, glancing down at her monstrosity of a mug. It was an oversized plain-white mug, the inside lip ringed in old coffee and lipstick stains that would never fully come out.
In the space of less than a second, Clark super-sped the mug and its contents into the staff kitchen sink, upending it for good measure over the drain. Not hard enough to break it, of course -- he wasn’t suicidal -- but enough to remove the creamer masquerading as coffee.
“Oops,” Clark said, giving Lois a conciliatory smile over the space her mug had previously resided. “Let’s go. My treat.”
Lois reached for the coat on the back of her chair, swearing under her breath.
“You don’t usually like to play hooky this early,” Lois said, which -- from her -- was a merciful starting question. Open-ended. Curious, but not pushy.
Clark didn’t even bother looking at the river this time. The location was for her benefit, far enough away from the office that it was unlikely they’d run into coworkers. His focus was on Lois, on the micro expressions she made without realizing, an answer in every inadvertent blink or frown.
“I needed to talk to you. About…stuff,” Clark said, handing over her latte. It was lavender and sickeningly sweet in his nose. Hardly an improvement. “Tall, dark and handsome.”
“Oh, it’s that kind of trouble,” Lois said, taking the paper cup with a nod. “I thought you were in trouble on a story. You were all twitchy when you came in, like when you’re getting ready to lie to Perry but you don’t know how.”
“I know how,” Clark defended. “But yeah, it’s not a story. It’s -- look, can I start from the beginning?”
“Smallville,” Lois used her cup to gesture at him and the river beyond them. Her eyes were sharp. “I thought you’d never ask.”
“But yeah -- it won’t happen again. That much is really clear,” Clark said, hating the way his voice went bitter at the end. That wasn’t him -- he wasn’t bitter. “It’s not like we don’t know how to be friends. I think we’re just -- forgetting? He was gone for too long, way more than he normally is. But I…” he trailed off, shrugging. “I overreacted. It’s my fault it happened, honestly. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of him during the meeting. And then I -- well, you know how it ended, obviously.”
Lois was staring at him, her latte now lukewarm and untouched in one hand. The edges of her eyebrows were drawn tightly together, defying the rigid hold of her 12-week Botox routine.
“Yeah,” Clark said awkwardly, waiting for her to say something. To respond to the word vomit he’d just projectile-vomited at her feet. “Sorry, I could have explained that a little better.”
Lois’ eyebrows slowly -- painfully -- withdrew to their original positions on her face. Her lips flattened, then pressed out into a more neutral shape. “Don’t -- don’t apologize. Okay? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“But that’s the whole point,” Clark protested. “I did. If I hadn’t--”
“Smallville.”
“--looked at him like that, nothing--”
“Smallville!”
Clark cut off, surprised at the volume of her yell. A few feet away, a pair of geese in the river took off abruptly, spooked. Lois, to her credit, looked a little ashamed to have disturbed the local wildlife.
“Do you ever,” Lois paused, taking a breath. “Do you ever think, maybe -- maybe -- there’s a reason why this is happening?”
“A reason why what is happening?” Clark asked, a little terrified of what she seemed to be holding back.
“This. This thing you have with him,” Lois waved her cup at him. “The arrangement, the elevator mishap. There’s not a common thread that’s sticking out here for you?”
“Other than me not being able to handle this?” Clark asked, hating the way his voice cracked a little on the last syllable. “I -- because I’m not handling this, Lo. I haven’t even seen him since the other day. I legitimately don’t know what will happen the next time we run into each other. I don’t know what I’ll do.”
“You want my professional opinion?” Lois asked, skipping over that confession like she’d barely heard it. Clark nodded. “My real, honest opinion about what’s going on here?”
“Lo,” Clark said, growing desperate.
Lois finally seemed to remember her latte. She extended Clark’s misery, taking a drawn-out sip from the plastic cup. She exhaled lavender into the chilly air around them, as close as she’d ever get to an outright sigh in public.
“If it keeps happening,” she said, with the weight of an Oracle’s decree on Delphi, “It’s a sign.”
“A sign?” Clark repeated. “A sign of what?”
Lois’ eyes settled on him. There was a strange expression on her face -- Clark couldn’t parse it, even with all of their years together. If he had to guess, it was almost…disappointed?
“You’re a reporter, Clark,” Lois said, “Figure it out.”
The universe took pity on him, probably because Lois hadn’t. The next Founders meeting had been rescheduled, and his next monitor shift wasn’t for another week. There was no reason for him to be up on the Watchtower anytime soon. Which meant he wasn’t avoiding Bruce -- as if he could -- they were just scheduled apart for the foreseeable future. Again.
It was a blessing in disguise, even if it stung in the moment. A part of Clark didn’t trust himself around Bruce. He wasn’t -- Superman wasn’t -- the kind of person who ruined an elevator, broke a promise, and walked away without anything even resembling an apology. Clark didn’t recognize that person, but he hadn’t recognized much of himself in the events of the last few weeks, either.
The corresponding version of Bruce was different, too. His heart beat strangely when they were near each other. His eyes lingered on Clark, full of banked heat. More evidence of his self-professed chemistry.
Base functions calling out to base functions. That’s all it was with Hal, and that’s all this needs to be.
And Clark -- he’d locked them into this cycle. He’d butted his way into Bruce’s bed by picking fights with Hal and causing tension with the League. Of course Bruce had offered this as a solution. Of course Bruce had been willing to work off chemistry for one night. But he hadn’t agreed to more than that, to this tension between them that didn’t seem to ebb, regardless of time or distance.
In the elevator, Clark had been the one to give in first. He’d crossed the line, not Bruce. Jesus -- maybe Bruce’s breath had caught, maybe his pupils had dilated, but he wasn’t the one who’d gotten hard just seeing someone else up close after three weeks apart.
That wasn’t him. He wasn’t the one who broke rules, especially not Bruce’s rules. But -- maybe he was. Maybe he was.
“Kal-El!”
The feeling of Kryptonite slicing into his side hit him a moment after the shrapnel actually tore into his suit. Then the skin underneath, then the muscle, and all the way to the bone --
Clark didn’t remember hitting his knees, but suddenly his hands were on the ground in front of him. They were bleeding, fingernails bent back from the high speed impact. Green fragments -- more Kryptonite -- glittered in the dirt between his hands. Glittered wasn’t the right word -- they pulsed, like every single speck of dust had its own internal power source.
Clark was used to pain, even if it wasn’t a common experience for him. But Kryptonite -- on top of being extraordinarily painful -- was cold. Sickeningly cold, like he’d plunged his own heart into ice water and held it there, squeezing it until no blood could flow. No blood, no oxygen, no breath.
Kryptonite made him feel a sense of dread like nothing else ever had, a kind of hopelessness that took over his body and mind. It immobilized him simply because every single cell in his body was leached of warmth, of blood and energy. He couldn’t have called back out to Diana even if he’d wanted to -- there was no breath in his lungs. And god, he couldn’t even breathe--
Unconsciousness came like a sickening green flash behind his eyelids. Clark went limp, his body pitching forward into the dirt.
Bruce Wayne was overseas for a business trip. That part seemed important -- it had been on the news, even. Something Clark Kent, Daily Planet Reporter would know, and not just Superman, who was sometimes Clark and vice versa.
Too far away to come for an emergency beacon. But that was okay, because Diana was there, her arm like an iron beam around his chest, stronger than the pull of gravity dragging him down. And Bruce --
There wasn’t time to miss him. But if he could have -- could have figured out how to do that while unconscious and dying -- Clark was sure that he did.
Miss him, that was.
Clark didn’t come back fully for a while, after that. He had flashes of sensation -- Kryptonite, icy cold under his skin, the feeling of his head on Diana’s breastplate, something slicing into his side, ten times as sharp as the Kryptonite had been and so cold -- but nothing that amounted to a full-fledged thought.
When he finally surfaced from unconsciousness, it was to the relief of heat. All-encompassing heat, from all directions, in every single wavelength his body craved. He was lying on something soft, something so beautifully warm that it wasn’t too far-fetched to think he was crashed out on the surface of the sun itself.
Clark opened his eyes, wincing when they immediately tried to shift to X-ray vision. It took a moment for him to focus on the wall across from him, the Watchtower’s insides flickering in and out of sight in a dizzying swirl.
He was in one of the private recovery rooms, just off the main medical wing. The warmth he’d been luxuriating in like a sun-warmed lizard came from a row of high-capacity UV lamps on the ceiling above, pointed down at Clark’s bed and angled directly at his body.
Clark closed his eyes, settling back into the pillows he could feel under his head. The bed -- the sheets, the pillows, the feather topper he could feel under the top sheet -- was the softest thing he’d ever touched. Maybe that was the sunlight talking.
It took a few more tries to force his eyes back open, and what felt like superhuman effort to sit up under the lamps’ intense warmth. Clark looked down at the thin sheet covering his legs, then back up to his unmarked side. There was no evidence of the Kryptonite that had ripped into the skin and muscle there. When he pressed down with his hand, it all felt…normal. The same as it always did.
A soft noise redirected his syrupy attention to the far wall. By the window, curled back in one of the visitor chairs just out of reach of the sun lamps, was --
“Bruce,” Clark said. His voice echoed strangely in his head, like there were three of him talking at once.
It seemed to have worked, because Bruce sat up immediately. He was in a pair of dark sweats and a thin t-shirt, one of the standard issue JL sets they kept up here for folks who didn’t bring their own. His hair was slightly damp, pushed to one side and drying in a lopsided wave. There was stubble flecking his jaw and throat, like he hadn’t had time to shave.
He was the most beautiful thing Clark had ever seen.
“You’re awake.” Bruce’s gaze dropped before they could make full eye contact. He was on his feet, by the side of Clark’s bed, faster than should have been possible. “How are you feeling?”
I missed you, Clark thought to himself, suddenly, viciously. It was more true than anything else had ever been. I missed you.
“Warm.” Clark couldn’t help the smile that broke out across his face. Having Bruce this close -- just a few inches away -- was even better than the sunlamps.
“Hn.”
Clark wasn’t so far gone not to recognize Bruce’s handiwork. “Are these new?”
Bruce followed his gaze up to the sunlamps, squinting. Even that, he somehow made look elegant. A creature of the night, delicately disapproving of blinding light.
“We’ve had this suite ever since the last Kryptonite injury. Three years ago, so new is a bit of a stretch. But yes, new to you. We haven’t had to use it in the intervening period, thankfully. Diana uses it for her plants, when they need a bit of a boost.”
Clark blinked, taking all of that in. Now that Bruce mentioned it, he could see several plants in the room around them: a fig tree in the corner by the porthole, where Bruce had been sleeping. A few tropical plants he couldn’t name, over by the door. And a particularly hardy cactus directly under the sun lamps on the table next to Clark’s bed.
Kryptonite injury took a little longer to compute in his brain. “I…I got hit. Didn’t I? I mean -- I didn’t dream that. I went down.”
Bruce’s lips pressed together. “Diana got you up here as quickly as she could. You spent ten hours in surgery, which is why you might be a little groggy still. We gave you diluted K intravenously, to keep you vulnerable enough.”
Clark didn’t feel groggy. Groggy wasn’t the right word for it. If he’d had a better one -- or a way to compare it -- he would’ve called this high.
“Vulnerable?”
“To surgically remove the Kryptonite fragments from your body,” Bruce replied, monotone. His eyes shifted down to Clark’s side. “Your skin kept closing around them. It was quite the challenge for our medical staff.”
There was an odd tension to his jaw, to the way Bruce looked away when he said the word challenge. Clark knew him well enough to know what that meant. It meant Bruce hadn’t been sure the surgery would succeed, in the moment. And if the surgery hadn’t succeeded, and his body had swallowed a million fragments of Kryptonite --
“But I’m okay?” Clark asked, dismissing that train of thought. “You got it all out?”
Bruce nodded. “You have a clean bill of health. We kept you under the lamps as a precaution. Mostly to ensure your body flushed out the rest of the liquid K.”
Clark glanced down at his hands, his arms, and the bare skin of his chest. He couldn’t feel or see any trace of lingering Kryptonite. “I think I’m good.”
“Good,” Bruce said, lips pressing together. It was almost a grimace, and something about it didn’t sit well with Clark. “I’ll send the doctor in when I leave. They’ll have their own accounts, of course. I wasn’t here for the start of the surgery, but I…”
It was an odd place for him to trail off. Bruce didn’t lose his place in sentences often.
“Forgive me,” Bruce said, shaking his head. “It’s been a long week. Let me disconnect your monitors, and I’ll leave you to the mercy of the Watchtower medical staff.”
It was meant as a joke, but it fell flat. Clark watched as Bruce reached out, disconnecting a sensor that fed somewhere under the mattress. Fall detection, probably. In case he’d seized in bed and rolled onto the floor, post-surgery.
Several things happened all at once, in seeming slow motion. Bruce leaned forward, reaching for another line near Clark’s chest. His hair fell across his face, and he pushed it back with his other hand. Clark’s eyes followed his hand, tracking it back to Bruce’s side. Back to the thin cotton of his t-shirt, the JL standard issue sweatpants, the damp hair, putting a series of knowns together in a heated blink.
He came up here as quickly as he could. He waited for you to wake up.
He wants to leave.
When Bruce reached for the next line, Clark’s hand closed around his wrist. Bruce’s eyes snapped up to Clark’s face, widening slightly. Just enough to indicate he’d been surprised.
With his fingers pressed into Bruce’s wrist, Clark had the ability to feel Bruce’s pulse stutter under his thumb. He could feel the way Bruce’s body warmed slightly, a fraction of a fraction of a degree, from his touch. The wrist in his grasp twitched, muscles contracting and tendons tensing.
Bruce’s expression was wrecked when he looked back up. His pupils were blown impossibly wide. He was breathing quickly, lips parted.
Emboldened by the sun lamps, Clark smiled at him. It was so easy like this. So easy to forget all the reasons why this couldn’t happen, why one touch couldn’t lead to another and back again, and yet -- and yet, it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
Clark pulled him down, pressing his lips to the corner of Bruce’s mouth. Bruce closed his eyes, making an agonized sound somewhere in the back of his throat.
This…
This won’t happen again.
Clark kissed him again, directly on the lips this time. Even that chaste, sun-warmed kiss was insanely charged, a deepening promise of more that made something ache in Clark’s gut.
He knew Bruce better than he’d known any other romantic partner. And so it wasn’t entirely unexpected, welcome, even, when Bruce returned the kiss with a half-swallowed gasp, splitting Clark’s lips open and reaching up to wind his free hand in his hair.
Clark dropped Bruce’s wrist, pulling Bruce up onto his lap. He deepened the kiss, tilting his head back and framing Bruce’s jaw in his hands, holding on for dear life.
The last of Bruce’s hesitation seemed to disappear once he was on the bed. Every single kiss stole the breath from Clark’s lungs, pressing him deeper and deeper into the pillows. Bruce kissed like he was desperate for it, like he was searching for something in Clark’s body, fingers scrabbling at his bare chest searching for purchase.
Dizzy, Clark pulled back before he lost himself entirely in it. He tugged at the hem of Bruce’s shirt, until Bruce got the message and tore it off, stretching the seams down the left side in his haste.
His mouth returned to Clark’s lips, then his jaw, then down to his throat. Clark shivered as teeth scraped the skin between his neck and shoulders, hips twitching. He’d been hard since he’d set eyes on Bruce in the chair, under the thin sheets designed to give him a fraction of modesty. It had barely registered in the surge of heat that was the rest of his body. But now --
Clark whined as Bruce’s mouth closed around his cock, twitching helplessly. They hadn’t done this yet -- he’d gone down on Bruce several times, averting the possibility. Because maybe a part of him had realized, even then, that the image of Bruce between his legs would have broken him. Forever.
Bruce sucked him like he did all things, which was to say efficiently, with his own graceful, effortless flair. His throat worked around Clark’s cock, lips providing the perfect suction, catching the underside of the head with a dirty swirl of his flattened tongue. He knew, without having ever done this before, exactly what Clark’s body needed.
Clark came only a few seconds after they’d started, too dialed up and sensitive from the lamps to stop. He thrust up into the heat of Bruce’s mouth, coming desperately as his body seized, his world flashed, and the feeling of BruceBruceBruce flooded his senses.
Bruce pulled off of him, wiping the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. Clark stared at him for an embarrassingly long moment, chest heaving, the sun lamps beating down on both of them.
The same instinct that had urged him to grab Bruce’s wrist compelled him to move again. Clark reached for Bruce, who was already looking at the door like it held the answers to this unexpected development. Like he was thinking about leaving.
Clark pulled Bruce’s back against his chest, locking his arms around the other man’s midsection. Once he had him in his lap, Clark dropped his mouth to Bruce’s throat, sucking a kiss into the same spot he’d scraped his teeth on Clark. Because he knew Bruce, even if Bruce wouldn’t admit it -- he knew that sex was a reflection more often than it wasn’t.
It was telling, how Bruce twitched and squirmed as Clark’s lips worked up and down his throat. He was hard in his JL sweatpants, tenting the thin material. Every single kiss tasted like adrenaline, sweetened by the undeniable flavor of attraction. In Bruce, it tasted achingly sweet, growing more intense with every beat of his heart.
Clark slid one hand down to Bruce’s left nipple, circling it with two fingers. Bruce jerked in his hold, shuddering from head to toe. His eyes were clenched shut, lips pressed together so tightly they were a bloodless white.
He’s trying not to come again, Clark realized, thinking back to the hotel room. Bruce had made the same expression, sinking down on his cock -- like giving in and coming too quickly was a mark against him, instead of insanely flattering.
Clark rested his other hand on the firm skin just above Bruce’s waistband. After a drawn-out, teasing moment, he slid his fingers down, pushing the elastic pants out of the way. Bruce was so wet, it took him a second to get his hand around his cock.
He jerked Bruce slowly, mouth latched to his throat. He bit down and sucked with every slide of his hand, feeling Bruce’s body react in tandem. It was the hottest thing he’d ever been a part of, feeling the way he was breaking Bruce’s iron will down in real-time, pushing him toward the edge of orgasm.
It was so much more intimate than the elevator had been. Here, there were no barriers between them. The heat of his skin leached into Bruce, deliciously oversensitive. Here, he could bury his nose in Bruce’s hair and breathe him in, could delight in the very second he tipped over into orgasm, how it sweetened his scent briefly.
Clark’s teasing came to a head in sure, inevitable waves. He could feel Bruce’s body bracing, could hear the way his breathing had turned ragged. His hands gripped Clark’s forearm, digging in as his hips twitched upward desperately.
“You’re,” Clark lifted his mouth from Bruce’s skin, whispering into the hot hollow of his throat, “beautiful, like this. So beautiful.”
Bruce made another half-choked noise. His head leaned back against Clark’s shoulder, eyelids fluttering.
“Please,” Bruce said, breathless. Please, a plea for release, but also for Clark to take those words back. To have never said them in the first place.
He came a moment later, all over Clark’s hand and up his chest. It was a great, heaving thing, tearing a soft, continuous noise from Bruce’s throat as his hips worked, his cock pulsed in Clark’s hand, and he shuddered and shuddered against him, held endlessly on the edge.
Hopelessly in sync, Clark thrust up into the small of Bruce’s back, chasing his own, weaker orgasm. He bit down on Bruce’s shoulder as he came, feeling Bruce shudder all over again in his grasp, barraged by sensation.
For a moment, they sat there, back to chest, breathing in sync. Clark’s arms wound back around Bruce’s midsection, holding them together as he buried his face in Bruce’s neck.
What was unexpected, what was out of sync, was the way Bruce simply -- allowed it. Moments turned to seconds, and seconds turned to minutes. Bruce’s heart beat slowed, his breathing evened out, but he didn’t move.
I missed you, Clark thought, in the safety of his own mind. It was an ache, even in the post-orgasm haze. I missed you, and --
“Clark.”
It took a moment for him to untangle himself from Bruce. The heat from the lamps above them made everything slow, and his lizard brain didn’t want to move. It wanted to tuck Bruce into the bed next to him, curl up around his body, and sleep.
He zoned out for a few seconds, just long enough for Bruce to wrench his pants back into place and turn around. Neither of them could look the other in the eye; Bruce looked at him, and Clark looked away. Clark looked at Bruce, and both of them flinched.
Maybe this was why it felt so bad, after. The fact that they went from being so insanely in sync, to so jarringly out of it.
“I,” Bruce said, eyes dropping to Clark’s throat. “I need to…”
Clark cleared his throat. “Right.”
The warmth of the lamps seemed to fall away as Bruce slid off the bed. Clark sat there, frozen, as Bruce re-dressed, straightening his ruined shirt and wiping a hand down the front of his sweatpants.
He didn’t watch Bruce leave, but it was impossible not to listen. And so he heard it when Bruce’s heart began to pick up again, out in the hallway. He heard Bruce’s fist crash into the paneling over the waste chute, splintering the plastic and denting the wall beneath.
He heard the yell Bruce let out, at the tail end of it all. It rang up and down the hallway, loud enough for half the Watchtower to hear.
“Hey man,” Hal said, only a little awkward. “Heard about your little dust-up last week. You, uh…doing okay?”
Clark looked up from the elevator panel, humming. Bruce had replaced the emergency stop button. It was the same, shiny black as the previous button -- but new enough, he could still pick out the differences. Micro scratches in the plastic surface that didn’t match the others. A different thickness for the protective coating.
“Cool,” Hal said, nodding. “You really gave us all a scare. I don’t think I’ve seen Bats that pale…well, ever. You’re lucky he rushed up here so quickly.”
Lucky. Something about that word piqued Clark’s depleted interest.
“Lucky?”
Hal frowned. It wrinkled the mask on his face strangely. “Yeah? I mean, he was the one who pointed out that you weren’t healing right. That’s all I meant -- he really saved you on that one. You know?”
Clark stared at him. There was an ache in his throat again, a pang in his chest, and it all felt like Bruce in his mind. It had nothing to do with the man standing in front of him anymore.
“Yeah,” he said, giving Hal an equally-awkward smile in return. “Hey, I never apologized for a few weeks back. I should have said something.”
“Apologized?” Hal asked.
“I was dealing with some stuff,” Clark waved a hand, trying to encompass the last few weeks. “But it wasn’t anything to do with you. And I was a little short with you, during our monitor shift. And during a few meetings.”
“Trust me, we’ve all been there, man.” Hal was giving him an odd look. “You sure you’re okay? You’re acting kinda weird.”
“I’m fine,” Clark said, and this time he really sold it. His eyes were normal, his stance was relaxed. His smile was as genuine as he could make it.
“Right,” Hal said, almost convinced. “Whatever you say, man.”
From Ma’s porch, he had a near-perfect vantage point of the Watchtower as it orbited Earth 20,000 miles above them. It was too small for humans to see without a telescope. And with Bruce’s cloaking tech, there were only a few people on Earth who even knew that it was there, much less where to pick it out in the night sky.
That had always made him feel special, in an odd way. Like the Watchtower was some inside joke between him and Bruce. Clark had no doubt that the other man could point it out in the sky without even looking, day or night.
“Oh, honey. You should have woken me up.”
Ma stepped out onto the porch, hastily tying off her winter robe like she was in a great rush.
Clark stood up from the porch step. He bent down to hug her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and squeezing gently.
“It’s the middle of the night. I thought you were asleep.”
“I was, but you know how us Mothers are,” Ma released him, giving him a quick head-to-toe scan. “You look tired, honey. Are you sleeping enough?”
“More than enough,” Clark lied, giving her a weak smile. “I’m fine, Ma. Don’t worry.”
“I’m going to worry whether you tell me to or not. It’s my god given right.” She let it go, though, gesturing back at the porch step with her chin. “Doing some stargazing?”
Clark looked back out at the Kansan sky. “Something like that.”
Ma left him to it, disappearing back into the house. She reemerged a few minutes later with two mugs of cocoa, setting them down on the front step.
Clark sat down, leaning against the railing. Ma joined him, even though the hard step likely irritated her back. She drank her cocoa. Clark let his cool, untouched.
“You gonna tell me what’s wrong?”
“I don’t suppose there’s any use in pretending everything’s fine?” Clark asked, slightly strained. At Ma’s look, he relented. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”
“Is it Lois?” Ma asked, worried. “Did you two have a fight again?”
“No, it’s not Lois,” Clark said, shaking his head. “We’re -- good. It’s not her. It’s…someone else. Someone I’m close with.”
“Batman,” Ma said instantly.
“How did you know?”
“Clark, honey,” Ma said, giving him a fond smile. “Those are the only two people you ever talk about. Even an old woman like me can catch on, eventually.”
“I talk about the -- others,” Clark defended. “You know about them!”
“I do,” Ma allowed, ever-patient. She gripped her mug between two hands, leaning forward. “Tell me what’s going on. What did Lois say?”
“She told me I was a reporter,” Clark said, “and to figure it out. And she’s not wrong. I did figure it out. I’m just -- not sure what to do about the conclusion I’ve reached.”
“Tell me,” Ma said, and he knew she didn’t just mean the conclusion.
Clark talked for what felt like ages, until the sky had lightened slightly in the east and his cocoa had gone ice cold on the step next to him. Ma listened, nodding at points, wincing at others, and held her counsel until the very end.
Off-loading this onto her didn’t help, anymore than it had with Lois. They had the same look in their eyes, by the time he was done speaking, like they knew something monumental he didn’t.
“You keep calling this -- behavior -- of yours the same thing,” Ma said, finally, when the silence had stretched too long between them. “Jealousy.”
“Isn’t that what you’d call it?” Clark asked, defeated. His eyes stung with the beginning of tears.
“Honey.” Ma’s hand landed on his shoulder, redirecting his attention. She gave him a kind smile, and now -- yeah, he was definitely crying a little, now. “That’s not jealousy. That’s love.”
Clark stared at her, stunned. Tears ran down his cheeks, hot and stinging. He didn’t have the wherewithal to blink, much less wipe them away. It felt like he’d been punched in the gut by shrapnel all over again.
“Oh,” he said.
Ma squeezed his shoulder.
“Excellent timing, sir.”
Clark snorted, shaking his head. There was no way to have excellent timing when he was, entirely, uninvited. At five in the morning. “Do you say that to everyone who shows up here, Alfred?”
Alfred gave him a layered look, conveying an impressive amount of meaning in a there-and-gone twitch of his lips. “Please, come in.”
Clark awkwardly waved off the butler’s attempt to invite him inside. “I was actually just wondering if you’d -- um. Well, this is awkward. I came over early because I knew Bruce wouldn’t be here, and I could leave this… with you?”
Alfred politely glanced at the envelope Clark held out, then dismissed it with another look. “I must insist, sir.”
Clark couldn’t weasel out of Alfred insisting. It felt too much like he was disappointing the butler, simply by saying no. After a moment of hesitation, he tucked the envelope back in his pocket, nodding.
He stepped inside the foyer, waiting a beat for Alfred to lead the way. The butler glanced at him over one shoulder, amused, and directed them both to the kitchen. The prep kitchen, and not the fancy, polished one for guests to see.
“Master Wayne won’t be back for an hour,” Alfred said when Clark was seated at the small table by the window. “Perhaps you’ll indulge me in a morning ritual?”
Clark glanced at the clock above the stove, doing mental math. If it was five in the morning, Bruce was likely still out on patrol. He rarely went home before dawn, these days. That meant an hour and ten minutes, if he was lucky.
“I--Sure.”
“Excellent,” Alfred said. “Black or green?”
Watching Alfred carefully assemble tea service for two was a relaxing ritual in itself. Clark was thankful that he didn’t seem prone to extensive conversation this early in the morning. His heart couldn’t handle another well-meaning, perceptive person digging into his exact wording and conclusions.
The letter in his pocket had it all -- every thought, written out plainly for Bruce to read. He didn’t need to say it again, because it didn’t need to be said. It merely needed to be read.
Clark accepted his cup of English Breakfast gratefully, making a mental note to apologize to Ma later for not finishing her cocoa before he’d left. He didn’t get the same reactions from caffeine and sugar as humans did, but it was still well-intentioned. It was meant to steady him, to offer reassurance, and Clark had no doubt that this tea was intended to do the exact same thing.
“Lovely,” Alfred said, taking his seat across from Clark. He had his own cup, a green tea Clark didn’t recognize. It was very floral. “Is that a resignation letter?”
The sudden jump from 0 to 100 nearly had Clark spitting out his mouthful of tea. He swallowed it down at the last second, grateful he didn’t have the physiology to actually choke on liquids.
If he thought Lois and Ma were scarily perceptive, Alfred was in another league entirely. Clark didn’t even need to respond -- his reaction had likely given it all away.
“If it is,” Alfred started, giving him a once-over Clark could feel in his teeth. “Then the timing is…remarkable.”
“Why’s that?” Clark asked, defeated.
“Because, I believe there’s a similar letter drafted on Master Wayne’s desk upstairs,” Alfred said -- casually, like the slip of information wasn’t a gut punch of its own. “A few phrases stuck out to me -- unable to continue impartial service, most of all. It’s a funny thing, trying to imagine what he might be suddenly impartial about after so many years. Don’t you agree?”
Clark felt his stomach sink. He took a sip of his tea, but the liquid barely touched the ache in his throat. “I’m here to make sure he doesn’t need to do that.”
“Oh?” Alfred asked, one eyebrow twitching upward.
“Resign from the League,” Clark elaborated. He reached into his pocket, pulling out the letter and setting it on the table. “This is -- this is all my fault. He’s not the one being impartial. I am. And he shouldn’t have to take the fall for that.”
Alfred was too polite to open the letter in front of him, but Clark had a feeling he wanted to. “How so?”
Clark flushed, trying to think of a way to put this that wouldn’t scandalize the other man. “Maybe he should explain that part. All you need to know is -- we had an agreement, and I broke my end of it. I failed him, and this,” he indicated the envelope, “is just me righting things. For the League. For him.”
Alfred studied him for a long time, eyes narrowed. Clark endured his scrutiny, hands wringing together in his lap.
“Master Wayne has been very impartial as of late,” Alfred said, reaching for his own tea cup. “He’s been distant with the children. Not on purpose, of course. He’s been irritable, at unpredictable moments. Distracted while on patrol. Something has been occupying his thoughts, even when he is with others.”
Clark inclined his head, throat burning. “I know. That -- that was my fault. He’s -- he’s a good man, Alfred. He’s. He’s so much more than I deserve, and you can’t imagine the guilt I’m feeling, realizing all of this. I’m trying to make it right, though. I promise you, I’m trying.”
There were the tears again, pricking at his eyes. Clark blinked them away, sniffling a little. If Alfred saw him cry, that was the end of it. He would never recover.
“You two,” Alfred’s voice was kind, giving him a moment of relief, “have known each other for so long. What agreement could cause this much pain between you? Why would you throw that history away over one disagreement?”
Clark smiled at him, watery and far too off-kilter to say anything but the truth at this point. “Because.”
“Because…?” Alfred prompted. His eyes flicked past Clark’s shoulder, then back to his face.
“Because,” Clark repeated, feeling his voice tremble. His chest was tight. His throat ached. “I love him. And that wasn’t part of the agreement.”
Alfred went very, very still. His eyes lifted past Clark’s shoulder again, back to the same spot as before. A pit opened in Clark’s stomach as he recognized the way the butler’s eyes had refocused on something -- someone -- behind him.
Clark pushed to his feet in a hasty, uncoordinated motion. He splintered the handle of the kitchen chair as he tried to push it back into place. He didn’t look at Bruce -- couldn’t look at Bruce, couldn’t bear the heated, awful weight of his eyes anymore. Not when he’d just overheard -- what he’d overheard.
Sometimes, when he was wound up enough, his body simply forgot how to fly. He moved like a human would, with Clark Kent’s stumbling steps and half of Superman’s coordination. And so, instead of disappearing from Alfred Pennyworth’s kitchen, he pushed through the parlor door, into the dining room, back around to the main living room and, through that, to the foyer.
A hand caught his shoulder just as he reached the front door. Clark recognized the warmth and shook it off as gently as he could, feeling Bruce’s fingers slide off his arm.
He made it out onto the front steps, then the driveway, before Bruce adjusted his plan of attack. The other man was in bare feet, and Jesus -- there was snow on the ground, but it didn’t seem to matter. He forced his way into Clark’s path, holding up his hands.
“Stop. Just -- stop, Clark. For Christ’s sake, stop.”
Clark stopped. Walking back to Metropolis wasn’t a viable option, anyway. When he could fly again -- then, he could leave. Leave this all behind him, like he’d intended.
Bruce was seething. His eyes were wide and bright. He was flushed and sweaty from patrol, wearing nothing more than a pair of black exercise shorts and a compression shirt. He should have looked ridiculous, with his bare feet in the snow and his hair sticking up on one side of his face, but he looked so alive. So detached from his normal composure.
“I know you--” Clark cleared his throat, figuring it was now or never. He needed to choke these words out. “I know you don’t feel the same. I know I broke the rules of our arrangement. I wrote it all out in that letter I left -- you should probably read that before Alfred does, actually. I didn’t really skimp on the details.”
Bruce’s hands dropped to his sides, curling into fists. “I don’t give a fuck about your letter, Clark.”
“Great,” Clark said, a little hurt. “Well. I guess that leaves me with -- an apology. You should hear it from me, that was stupid of me to try and get around it. And you -- shouldn’t quit the League, okay? That’s yours, Bruce. I’m not taking it from you because I -- I -- couldn’t handle our arrangement. I was the one who crossed the wires. I ruined the way you handle these things, and I broke the rules. The rule, really. Because I --”
Clark trailed off, throat burning. There were tears streaming down his face suddenly. Bruce didn’t look like he was breathing. His heart was hammering in Clark’s ears, the only evidence he had that the other man wasn’t suddenly a statue.
“I wanted to talk about it,” Clark choked out, “After we were done. I didn’t realize that was what it was, until now. I missed you. I missed seeing you. But every time we spoke after that night, I had this weird feeling in my chest. And I kept wanting to break your rule. Every single second of every damn day, Bruce.”
Clark wiped his face, not caring how undignified it made him look. Not caring if Bruce cared, because even if he did -- it didn’t matter.
“So yeah,” Clark said, looking away. Back to the Manor, where Alfred was. “This is what’s best for the League. Me walking away. I thought I could be like Hal, and I really couldn’t. We tried something, and it backfired. But that’s not on you, B -- that’s on me.”
Bruce’s expression was impossible to read. His lips came together, shaping a soundless word. After a moment, he shook his head.
“Clark.”
“I’m really sorry. Did I mention that part?” Clark realized he was babbling, in a far-off, panicky way. “I need you to know that part. Because I’m -- so sorry, Bruce. For all of it.”
He opened his mouth to say more, to keep explaining until the hole in his chest opened up and swallowed him whole. But nothing else came.
“Are you going to let me talk now?” Bruce asked, in that soft, dangerous voice of his. It was almost Batman’s growl. Almost.
Clark nodded.
“You left the other night,” Bruce said. “At the hotel. I woke up and it was like the last few hours had been a dream. The bed was still warm, but you weren’t there. And I…thought you would have been. That was selfish of me. To think that. To hope for that.”
Clark stared at him, not following.
“Because I lied to you,” Bruce said, through what sounded like gritted teeth. “I said that our wires got crossed after Hal. Mine were… out of order a long time ago, Clark. But you were -- the League was --”
Bruce’s hand landed on his chest, pressing down. Clark’s body remembered the last time Bruce’s hand had been on his chest like this, even if his mind didn’t want to.
“It was like you said,” Clark said, feeling Bruce’s nails dig into his chest. “It was just chemistry. You shouldn’t blame yourself.”
“That’s not what I’m trying to say, you idiot,” Bruce said. His eyes shifted up to Clark’s face, burning with sudden intensity. “I’m saying -- whatever you’re feeling, whatever you’re feeling right now. It’s the same for me. It always was. Before Hal, after Hal. We felt the same, but you were the one who had to bear the consequences of that. Not me. And -- for that, I apologize.”
Whatever you’re feeling, it’s the same for me. It always was.
“Are you,” Clark hesitated, not daring to hope. “Are you apologizing for…falling in love with me?”
Bruce’s lips pressed together, and it was almost a smile. “Isn’t that what you’re doing?”
“Bruce.” Clark couldn’t bear teasing right now.
“Yes,” Bruce said, looking back down at his hand. He spread it wider on Clark’s chest, almost possessive. “That’s what I’m trying to do. Yes.”
It took less than a second for Clark to gather Bruce up in his arms, launching them both up into the sky. He flew them just past the cloud cover, up into the tepid Gotham sunshine, clutching Bruce to his chest with a ringing laugh.
They touched back down in the rose garden behind the Manor, Bruce’s legs wrapped around Clark’s waist and Clark’s hands in Bruce’s hair. For a moment, they didn’t kiss. For a moment, they just -- held each other. Forehead pressed to forehead, leaning in just enough to look, to bask in the reality that they could now.
Clark’s feet sank into the thin layer of snow on the ground. He closed his eyes and leaned in, pressing his lips against the curve of Bruce’s mouth. Then, like a blooming rose, it opened into something deeper.
And, because he could, now, Clark held Bruce’s face between his hands, waiting until he had his full attention to speak.
“I missed you,” he said.
Bruce seemed to understand, because he always did. Because when they were in sync, they never missed a single thing between them. He smiled, lips red and cheeks flushed.
“I missed you too.”