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Clark Kent is avoiding him.
Bruce has run through the past few weeks in his mind over and over, trying to pinpoint any specific signs or incidents, and he keeps coming up blank. But that doesn’t change the facts: he hasn’t seen Clark in almost seven days. Their average is closer to three, four if they’re both particularly busy.
He hadn’t answered Batman’s most recent request for assistance, either. In Clark’s defense, Bruce directed the call to all of his associates in Metropolis, something they’d agreed upon for most circumstances to avoid any hints at a close relationship. Hawkgirl’s support hadn’t been unwelcome—she was efficient, and vicious in a way that made her highly effective in Gotham, but Bruce had assumed the call would be easy bait for Superman.
Clark is still answering Bruce’s texts, at least, and nothing has seemed out of the ordinary in his responses—except that he hasn’t asked to come over in nearly a week.
Bruce’s stomach twists as he tries to focus on the files in front of him. He has no right to monopolize Clark’s time or attention, not when they’re… friends. Friends with consistent, world-shattering benefits, but nothing more defined than that. They’ve never labeled what they are, although neither one of them is sleeping with other people—Clark offered that information willingly, without Bruce asking, and it would be a lie to say he hadn’t been relieved to hear it.
But something has to be wrong—possibly something he did—for Clark to be avoiding him like this.
Abandoning any hope of productivity, Bruce pushes his chair away from the desk, leaning down until his forehead meets the cold metal. This has gone beyond a personal grievance, he reasons. He’s losing focus, these thoughts of Clark and ruminations over their interactions taking up valuable time he should be spending on cases. It’s a professional liability, and that is his right to address.
It’s all bullshit, of course. He misses Clark. He misses the weight of him next to Bruce in bed. Misses his horrible, barely-in tune whistling in the shower. Misses eating dinner with him, legs pressed together from hip to knee while Clark regales him with anecdotes from work.
The want that wells up in his throat pushes him to do the thing he’s been dreading the most: he picks up his phone and calls Clark.
“Bruce? Is everything okay?”
The relief that cascades all the way to his fingertips when Clark picks up is… embarrassing.
“I called to ask you the same thing.”
Clark pauses, long enough that Bruce’s thoughts begin to spiral away from him again, conclusions and assumptions shaping and reforming in a hundred permutations. Clark wants to break up with him. Something is horribly wrong with Kara, or Clark’s parents, or Lois, but he doesn’t trust Bruce enough to tell him what it is. Clark is upset because of something Bruce said, and—
“Stop, Bruce. I can hear your brain working from Metropolis.” His voice is teasing, but not unkind, and the warmth of it helps Bruce steady his breathing.
“I haven’t seen you recently. That’s… unusual.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I— Look. I’m glad you called. It’s… It’s so nice to hear your voice, Bruce. I’m dealing with something right now, and I— I’ve been trying to take care of it myself.”
So Clark is avoiding him. Bruce’s heart plummets, but he forces himself to keep his voice flat.
“I shouldn’t have pried. My apologies.”
“Bruce, wait. Please.” Clark sounds… pained, maybe, but not like he’s scrambling for an excuse. And Bruce would like to think he knows him fairly well—he wouldn’t lie, not without a reason. Something is certainly going on, but he allows himself the tenuous possibility that it may not have anything to do with him.
“I’m sorry,” repeats Clark, the words slow and emphatic. “I handled this wrong. I’m still not sure how to handle it, but… Can I come over? I promise I’ll tell you everything I know, but I’d rather do it in person.”
“Of course. You don’t have to ask.” Bruce slumps down in his chair.
“I’m going to remember you said that, you know. Are you free now?”
“Yes.”
Bruce would never admit he’s been spending the entire evening trying not to obsess over this situation with Clark. He’s very, very free at the moment.
“I’ll be there soon.”
Clark steps—no, stumbles—into Bruce’s apartment twenty minutes later, and he looks like hell.
“What’s happening to you? Did someone—”
The closer Bruce gets, the worse Clark looks. Not injured; no cuts or bruises mar his perpetually smooth skin. But he seems ill, his cheeks ruddy, eyes wide with blown pupils. His hair is rumpled, more so than usual, and Bruce notices absently that he’s missed a belt loop.
“No, no one. It’s not like that. It’s… this has happened before.”
“What has happened?” Bruce repeats, catching on to the way Clark won’t meet his eyes.
Clark sighs, the sound edging into something more like a groan. “It’s hormonal. It’s normal for some Kryptonians, apparently. An evolved trait to encourage… reproduction.”
“Reproduction,” echoes Bruce, the word painting Clark’s symptoms in a new light. “Elaborate.”
“I did some research, and found information on… mating cycles. Um… Expressive, and receptive, but some people could have both. Mine seem to be… expressive.”
It strikes Bruce as oddly sweet that Clark is trying to keep his language euphemistic, as if he hasn’t spit into Bruce’s open mouth before—as if Bruce hasn’t asked him to—but he lets him continue uninterrupted.
“For a couple weeks, both times it happened, I got… like this. And, uh…" His head is physically turned to the ceiling now, gaze forced away from Bruce’s. “Very… aroused. Sexually.”
“I see. Do you… treat it? Can you?”
Bruce has a feeling he knows the answer; if there were a clear-cut way to cure it, Clark would have done so by now.
“It’ll go away on its own. Dealing with it myself works fine, but it’s… uncomfortable.”
“How uncomfortable?”
Maybe it’s wrong of him to keep probing, but he gets the sense that Clark wants to tell him, as embarrassed as it’s making him.
“Awful. It feels awful, Bruce. It’s like my senses are… magnified. I hear more. Smell more. My skin feels… weird.” A nearly imperceptible shudder ripples over Clark’s features.
“What helps?”
“Sex.” Clark laughs, dry and humorless. “Touch.”
Bruce steps forward without a second thought and slots his body against Clark’s. To his dismay, Clark pushes himself back, knuckles white against the edge of the desk.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” His voice is soft, reedier than Bruce is used to hearing it. “I— When I get like this, it’s like there’s too much energy inside me, and I’m… off balance. I act the same as I normally do, or at least I try, but everything I do is too… strong.”
Despite his words, Bruce can see the tension in his posture, the way he’s actively restraining himself from turning towards Bruce. It makes something in him… ache, he thinks, to see Clark trying so hard to hold his composure when his own body is betraying him.
Lucky for Clark, Bruce is nothing if not a meticulous planner, even if the solution he has in mind was intended for a different problem entirely.
“I might… actually have a way to avoid that.”
Clark is silent, forcing a deep breath in and out of his nose, but he doesn’t move away when Bruce enters his space this time.
“Please, Clark. Let me help you.”
“I…” Clark nods, forehead falling against Bruce’s. “Okay.”
“I need a few hours to test something, but you can stay here while I do.”
Bruce reaches up to card his fingers through Clark’s hair.
“Hey,” he murmurs, slowly tilting his head, telegraphing his movements so Clark can turn away if he wants to. “It’s going to be alright.”
Clark doesn't move, so Bruce kisses him, drinking in the soft sound that rises from the back of his throat.
“I’m sorry this is happening to you. I’m sorry it’s hurting you.”
“Thank you.” Clark lets himself touch Bruce, finally, wrapping his arms around Bruce’s waist with his careful strength. Bruce relaxes into the embrace, sweeping his arms over Clark’s back before pulling away.
He can do this. He’s going to be the one to help Clark, to offer something no one else can. The thought curls around his heart, tender and protective. He just has to hope it works.
Bruce is glad he pushed, for once, when he enters his room and sees Clark splayed out on his bed. He looks worse than he did just a few hours ago—skin flushed, eyes glassy as he sits up. His hair is damp, smelling of Bruce’s shampoo, and he’s helped himself to a T-shirt and pair of underwear from Bruce’s dresser, but he seems to have accomplished little else beyond showering and crawling into bed.
“I developed a prototype of these a while ago,” Bruce admits, gesturing with the lightbulb he’s holding. “In case Luthor pulled something like that cloning stunt again, or…”
Or in case there was ever a reason to drain Clark of his power, through means more readily attainable than kryptonite. He’s not afraid of telling Clark the truth, mercenary as it sounds, but he can’t think of a way to phrase it that doesn’t just make him sound like the paranoid, calculating asshole he very much is.
In the end, Bruce is too slow, his awkward silence no match for the speed of Clark’s thoughts.
“Red sunlight?”
“Yes.”
“God, you’re the smartest person I know.” Clark sounds… breathless now, undeniably like he does when he’s very turned on, and Bruce has to turn away to hide his blush. Leave it to Clark to respond like this, to know something as consequential as his powers are in Bruce’s fallible human hands, and act like it’s nothing more than a credit to his intelligence.
“I don’t know how well they’ll work in practice, but we can try. You have to tell me if it hurts you, okay?” Bruce has spent the afternoon re-calibrating the bulbs to make them adjustable, theoretically able to reach an output closer to a happy medium between a red and yellow sun.
“I will.”
By the time Bruce switches the lamps on, Clark is sprawled on his back again. He doesn’t move, or seem to react to the light at all, until Bruce leans over him.
“How does it feel?”
His eyes open, and he frowns up at the ceiling.
“Not too bad. Less noise, if I try and listen for it. And—” His gaze loses focus for a moment. “Huh. No X-ray.”
Bruce nods, flexes the hand that’s anchored against Clark’s sternum so his nails are just barely grazing his skin. “That’s about what I expected. Does this hurt?”
“Feels… good,” Clark rasps, back arching so shamelessly that Bruce nearly loses focus on his line of inquiry.
“Do you feel sick?” Even as he says it, he realizes the word is too imprecise, and Clark doesn't have a sufficient frame of reference to draw a helpful comparison. “Does it feel like kryptonite exposure?”
Clark shakes his head. “No. Doesn’t feel like that. Everything’s just a little… less.” True to his words, his breathing seems less labored, his gaze less frantic.
“Good. That’s what I was hoping for.”
“Thank you,” Clark murmurs, reaching up to trace his thumb over Bruce’s lower lip.
Bruce grasps his wrist. “Of course. Anything.” The moment he says it, he realizes how deeply he means it, but he pushes the thought aside for the moment.
He flattens the hand that’s been resting on Clark’s chest, then slowly moves it down and underneath his shirt.
“You’re always scolding me for not taking care of myself, but you waited to tell me what was going on until it was hurting you.”
He traces his fingertips over Clark’s skin, firm muscles blazing hot beneath his touch. Bruce knows he’s toeing a line, that it’s not fair to blame Clark for his reaction in such an unusual situation, but he knows Clark won’t hold it against him, either.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you. And I—” Clark’s throat bobs as he swallows. “This doesn’t happen often. It’s… weird. And embarrassing. I feel so… Out of control. Alien.”
Clark is always careful about using that word. He doesn’t shy away from it during objective discussions about his history or abilities, but he doesn’t seem particularly inclined to embrace it, either.
“You don’t have to worry about that, Clark. Not with me. I…” I don’t care. I think you’re incredible. I love you. “I don’t mind.”
Bruce leans down to lick a stripe up Clark’s throat, finishing with a biting, bruising kiss to the hinge of his jaw that leaves Clark squirming beneath him.
“That feels nice,” Clark murmurs. “I like that I can feel your teeth more.”
The comment sparks a thousand ideas in Bruce’s mind, sending him searching for any and everywhere he can continue eliciting and cataloguing Clark’s reactions. He ducks his head down to Clark’s chest, swiping his tongue over a nipple before closing his teeth around it. He’s gentle, but it’s still a bite, one that should feel sharper to Clark in his current state.
Clark’s hands fly up to Bruce’s shoulder blades, pinning him in place.
“God—damn it, Bruce,” he pants, chest heaving.
“Good?” Bruce offers another lick to ease the sting, drawing a moan from Clark.
“Keep doing that, please.”
“So polite.”
He’s teasing Clark, but it’s one of the many traits he finds endearing—how solicitous Clark is, even in the heat of the moment, and the way it makes Bruce feel like he’s someone worth treating gently.
He continues working his way down Clark’s body, detouring to suck a mark into the thin skin between his hip and thigh before he slides Clark’s underwear off. Clark’s hips jolt, threatening to buck off the bed as he threads his fingers through Bruce’s hair.
“Oh, God, ‘m sorry—”
“It’s okay, Clark,” Bruce says, offering an experimental lick to the head of his cock. “You’re not going to hurt me.”
Something in Clark seems to finally relax with the repeated assurance, and Bruce is pleased to feel the smallest bit of tension drain from his muscles.
“Okay,” Clark whispers, thumb tracing soft arcs over the back of Bruce’s scalp.
His fingers tighten as Bruce takes him into his mouth, deeper this time, the motion eased by the prodigious amount of precum dripping from Clark’s cock, already flushed and rigid. Bruce’s eyes water, overwhelmed by the heat of Clark’s skin against his hands, the salt-sweet taste of him, the sound of his gasps and soft moans beneath him.
“Bruce—”
Bruce offers a final, teasing swirl of his tongue before looking up at Clark.
“What do you need?” It’s what Clark usually asks him, and the reversal makes him feel powerful, protective.
“I— Can I fuck you?”
“Of course.” It’s not even a question—it’s what they’re here for—but the pained relief in Clark’s exhale sends a jolt of arousal straight through Bruce’s body.
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot over the past week.”
“Have you been touching yourself?”
“Yes,” Clark whispers, like it’s a confession. “I had to… Jesus. I had to run home at lunch yesterday, just so I could…”
“So you could what?”
Bruce knows the answer, obviously, but—there are times, when he’s with Clark, when he can let himself talk like this. Coy. Flirtatious. And Clark never makes him feel stupid or embarrassed for it.
“I came twice. And then… again, after work. And then I took a shower, but I— I had to jerk off in the shower, too.”
Bruce hadn’t accounted for the impact this condition might have on Clark’s refractory period. Valuable evidence, that. Clark, meanwhile, is blushing again, well and truly red from the tips of his ears all the way past where Bruce’s thighs are caging his waist.
“Anything you want, Clark. You just have to tell me,” Bruce reminds him, pausing to nip at his lower lip.
“I want…” Clark pauses, gaze searching Bruce’s in that quiet, calculating way of his. “I want to get you ready to take me. I want you to come in my mouth first, and then I want to fuck you.”
“Jesus Christ, Clark.”
Clark smiles up at him sunnily and lands a gentle swat on Bruce’s thigh. “Switch places with me.”
Bruce settles onto his back, wordlessly accepting the pillow Clark hands him to wedge beneath his ass. Clark wastes no time settling between his legs, bending forward to wrap his lips around Bruce with a contented moan.
“God,” he murmurs, pulling off to reach for the bottle of lube Bruce hands him. “You taste so good. You smell good. I mean, you always smell good, but right now—”
Bruce’s hands clench against the sheets as Clark swallows him down, throat relaxing around his length.
“You smell like… me,” Clark finishes, voice low and reverent as he works a finger past Bruce’s entrance before redoubling his efforts with his mouth.
Clark is always… focused, determined to demonstrate his encyclopedic knowledge of Bruce’s body, but whatever is happening to him has heightened his usual intensity. The way he works Bruce with his tongue and fingers leaves Bruce gasping, hands tangled in Clark’s hair. When Bruce comes, Clark nearly growls as he swallows, the sound so raw and satisfied that it leaves Bruce’s face hot.
Bruce does his best to catch his breath as Clark licks him clean, fingers still steady in their slide in and out of Bruce’s hole. He wonders distantly if this is closer to the way Clark feels right now, the clamoring of his nerves scattering and resettling around the only constant he has—Clark, and unrelenting pleasure Bruce knows he’ll give him.
When the overstimulation loses most of its edge, he reaches down to Clark’s shoulder. “Where do you want me?”
“On top.” Clark replies so quickly that his words almost overlap Bruce’s. Bruce imagines it must take slightly more effort than usual for Clark to manhandle him astride his hips, but if it does, he certainly doesn’t act like it.
Clark pumps his fingers a final time while Bruce settles himself into position, his hands finding their way to Bruce’s waist as he sinks down onto Clark’s cock. “Fuck, Bruce, you— You’re so good. So perfect for me. Feel okay?”
Bruce nods, jaw wordlessly hinging open and shut as Clark swipes a thumb over the slick, sensitive head of his cock. He lets each thrust of Clark’s hips punch a soft whimper out of his chest—it’s not in his nature to be loud, but he knows how much Clark loves it, and the tender expression that blooms on Clark’s face is enough to strip Bruce of his inhibitions as they find their rhythm. Remembering Clark’s earlier reactions, he skates his fingernails over his chest, earning him another low moan.
“Bruce, I don’t think— I’m not gonna last long,” Clark pants.
His fingers grip Bruce’s thighs, tight enough that they would surely leave bruises if Clark were at his full strength. Bruce wraps his hands around Clark’s wrists, anchoring the touch in place.
“It’s okay. We’ll do this as many times as we need to. As many times as you want. Anything, Clark. Anything you want.”
Bruce guides Clark’s broad hands to grip his ass. The sound of skin against skin is relentless, loud, punctuating every strangled expletive and wordless noise of pleasure they make. Bruce is flushed, a thin sheen of sweat glossing his skin, but he doesn’t let his pace falter until Clark comes with a final, heaving push of his hips against Bruce’s ass.
Clark is almost winded, something Bruce never thought he’d see. His chest heaves as he reaches up to cup the back of Bruce’s neck, guiding him down until their noses nearly touch. Clark is sweating too, errant waves of dark hair clinging to his forehead, but Bruce doesn’t think he feels quite as feverish as he did before.
“Bruce… thank you,” Clark whispers, voice breaking over the words as a tear slips free and trails down his cheek. Bruce moves to brush it away, but his touch has the opposite effect—Clark sucks in a sharp gasp, unleashing a fresh stream of tears.
Bruce smooths Clark’s hair away from his forehead and leans down to kiss him, softly, trying his best to emulate the way Clark kisses him.
“It’s not—bad. I’m good, I promise. So good.”
“It’s okay,” Bruce murmurs. And he means it. To his surprise, seeing Clark like this doesn’t worry him, not when his relief is so palpable. The rush of hormones and endorphins, the adjustment of his brain and body to the altered light—it makes sense, as much as anything about this has made sense.
“Do you want—” Bruce pauses, reconsiders the question. He has a hypothesis that gentle commands would be better right now, less effort for Clark to process. “I’m going to lay down so you can put your head on my chest.”
It’s hardly scientific, but he’s right. Clark complies wordlessly, body melting against Bruce’s. He knows he should clean them up—he’s already running the stopwatch in his head, ready for the moment the post-orgasm haze fades into discomfort. But Clark is in an altered emotional state, Bruce reasons, and the prolonged contact is clearly alleviating his physical symptoms.
Now that the frenzy of adjusting the bulbs and focusing on Clark’s immediate condition have receded to the background, Bruce finds himself sifting through all the variables he still hasn’t defined.
“How do you feel?”
“So much better, Bruce. You have no idea.”
How long that relief will last is still yet to be seen, but Bruce is pleased with the preliminary results.
“I’m glad.” Bruce carefully pushes his fingers through a tangle in Clark’s waves, absently running his heel along the length of Clark’s calf.
“I—” Clark shifts, tilting his head so he can meet Bruce’s eyes. “I’m really glad you called me. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”
Bruce glances away. “No, I… I understand. I don’t like asking for help. You know that. It would be hypocritical of me to hold it against you.”
“Sure,” Clark says, fingertips skating over Bruce’s forearm. “But you’re getting better about it. And that doesn’t mean I’m incapable of hurting you, even though I never mean to. I know that. I don’t want us to… I don’t know. I trust you, Bruce. If you ever need me, I want you to know you can always, always ask. Just like I can ask you.”
Bruce blinks up at the ceiling, trying to collect his thoughts in the face of Clark’s unflinching candor. He’s quiet for a moment, but Clark doesn’t push, just continues tracing invisible patterns over Bruce’s skin while he thinks.
“I trust you too.” To anyone else, it’d sound like a non-sequitur, but Bruce knows that Clark understands, intimately, what it means for Bruce to admit that. His heart feels like it’s dropped to his stomach, but Clark deserves his honesty, and he always will. Clark deserves the truth, even if giving it to him makes Bruce feel like an open wound, an exposed nerve.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Bruce continues. “But I’m glad I was able to help.”
“You did more than help,” Clark counters, with a soft laugh that washes over Bruce. “My head feels clearer than it has in a week.”
“Do you know how long it will last?”
Clark shakes his head. “I’ve never, uh… This is the first time I’ve had… help, during one of these. Based on what I found, I think I’ll feel less affected as long as we keep… I mean, I’m not expecting anything. From you. Unless you want to. But I know you’re busy, and—”
“Clark.”
“Yeah?”
“Just ask.” Bruce doesn’t try to stifle his quiet, fond laughter as Clark grins up at him.
“You have a beautiful smile, you know,” Clark murmurs, tilting his head forward for a kiss. “What were we saying? Right. Bruce Wayne—”
“Yes?”
“Will you—please—have sex with me again this week? Not sure how many times, but I have at least… four different ideas for things we could try.”
“Yes, I will.” Bruce punctuates his answer with another kiss, deeper this time.
Always, he wants to say. Anything, for you. The words won’t quite come yet, but he resolves to do everything he can over the next week to show Clark how far he’ll go for him. And he’ll start with this—holding Clark as he drifts off to sleep, the weight of his body pressed against Bruce’s, content, satisfied, and undeniably loved.