dceu_kinkmeme | DCEU Prompt Post #1

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DCEU Prompt Post #1

Welcome to Round One of the DCEU Kink Meme!

Please have a look at the extended rules here.

The important rules in short:

Post anonymously.
Negative comments on other people's prompts (kink-shaming, pairing-bashing etc.) and personal attacks of any kind will not be tolerated.
One prompt per comment. Warnings for common triggers and squicks are encouraged, but not required.
Prompts should follow the format: Character/character, prompt.
Keep prompts to a reasonable length; prompts should not be detailed story outlines.
No prompt spamming.

Please direct any questions to the Ask a mod post. For inspiration: list of kinks .

Prompt, write, draw, comment, and most importantly have fun! Please link to your fills on the fill post.

Here's the discussion post for all your non-prompt/fill needs.

We now have a non-DCEU prompt post for any prompts in other 'verses (comics, animated series, other movies or TV shows etc.).

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For inspiration, here's Henry Cavill in black tie: https://mymarsrevolution.tumblr.com/post/153324052108

Couldn't find any pictures of him in white tie, unfortunately.

Yes please!

The day before the fest end still counts as the fest! Yep. Title because when in doubt apparently I reflexively reach for Taylor Swift. \o? Also, I can only hope someday the first filler returns to complete their smoking hot masterpiece, because this fill is somehow already turning out to be more feelings than porn. OOPS.

Appropriately for Thanksgiving weekend + fest time, I want to gush about how much I appreciate all you anons and how grateful I am for all of you and for this meme. ♥ THANK YOU FOR BEING SO GREAT, I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU DO IT BUT ILU

Clark isn't sure why it happens. Maybe it has something to do with dying, coming back—like a system reset, jarring something that had been asleep into wakefulness. Or maybe it has something to do with being around other Kryptonians, with being on a Kryptonian ship and breathing Kryptonian atmosphere. Maybe that's where it started, and he just didn't know it. Periodicity—cycles. A fuse that needed to burn down, eighteen months where he felt the same as always.

(Maybe it had to do with—skin. The rest of them had had suits on, most of the time. But Zod—Clark had—

Clark had touched Zod's face, his chin, when—

Clark had touched him. Maybe that was where it started.

Clark doesn't really want to think about that.)

It's not instantaneous. Even once he's noticed, it takes a few days to build up.

At first it isn't all that strange, and he doesn't think much of it. Warmth, mostly; he's rolling up his sleeves all the time, unbuttoning his collar, getting up from his desk at the Planet to go splash some water on his face in the bathroom. Warmth and a strange jittery energy—but that doesn't feel all that unfamiliar. It's happened to him before a few times, long bright summer days in Kansas with more sunlight shining down on him than his body knew what to do with. He'd felt like this, hot and alive and too much. And back then he'd been able to run it off, speeding through miles of empty fields faster than anybody could see; but he can't do that in Metropolis.

It's fine. He flies at night, longer than usual, even when there's no one to save—goes high enough that frost tries to form on his eyelashes. And when he's cooled off enough that it can form, that means it's time to head back down. He's got it handled.

Except it starts to take longer and longer, late at night turning into the small hours of the morning. And then it gets worse.

He starts to—it's—it's inappropriate, the things he's thinking about people, but he can't stop. At first it's only when he isn't concentrating. He lets his mind wander on the walk to work, and then realizes with a start that he's idly picturing the woman on the other end of the crosswalk with her blouse unbuttoned, one bra strap slipping off her shoulder, her legs—

He clears his throat and drags his eyes away, and very carefully reads every single street sign from there to the Planet building.

But that's just the first time. It keeps getting worse: the cashier when he buys lunch, a man standing on a corner trying to hail a cab with a stack of suitcases next to him (waist height, perfect, Clark could just bend him over it and—), a woman reading the newspaper on a park bench, and Clark could just—just slide a hand up her skirt, easy as anything—

With Lois it's even worse; Clark has actual memories to draw on for that, even though they aren't together anymore. He tries not to look at her and spends a lot of time staring fixedly at his desk and counting, doing multiplication tables: concentrating.

But it gets beyond the point where he can tell himself concentrating is good enough when he gets called into Perry's office. It's Perry, but all Clark can think about while Perry's yelling at him is—it's—the way Perry's moving his hands, his fingers and knuckles, the breadth of his shoulders, that his desk is—jesus, Clark thinks, feeling his face go fiercely hot, and painstakingly recites scraps of half-remembered poetry to himself until Perry finally dismisses him.

"It's like you're not even listening to me, Kent!" Perry yells after him, shaking his head and then closing the office door with a snap. And Clark stands in the hallway, flushed with that relentless warmth, and decides that maybe it's time he took a sick day.

The ship is safely back in Antarctica—along with the database that holds everything Clark doesn't know about being Kryptonian. A few thousand years out of date, maybe, but if there's anything on this planet that can tell Clark what's wrong with him, that's it.

But he doesn't have to go all the way to Antarctica, because Bruce has a copy.

Clark hadn't especially wanted to have anything to do with Bruce Wayne after coming back from the dead. He'd proven he could work with the Gotham Bat when it was necessary—to save Metropolis, millions of lives, the planet. That kind of thing. But that didn't mean he was interested in making friends with Bruce Wayne.

Except it had turned out Bruce Wayne was the kind of person who could smooth over damaged alien ships being abruptly removed from Metropolis. Bruce Wayne was the kind of person who could keep the press about Superman's return mostly positive—and Clark had had a sneaking suspicion that Bruce Wayne was also the kind of person who could get Clark Kent his job back post-mortem, though he'd never managed to get Bruce to admit it.

Clark had also had a sneaking suspicion that Batman wasn't about to let a resource as vast as the scout ship's database just vanish back under the ice. And that one, Bruce had admitted to, once Clark had pressed him enough.

"You might need it," he'd said, not looking Clark in the eye.

"You mean you might need it," Clark had said.

That had gotten Bruce to look at him; and then he'd said coolly, "You understand the capacities and limits of human biology, Clark. If the Justice League is ever going to be an effective team, I need to understand you—"

"And it also might come in handy if you, say, wanted to try to kill me again," Clark had said.

And that had made Bruce's gaze go flinty. But all he'd said was, "Or if Lex Luthor finds any more Kryptonian DNA lying around," and how could Clark possibly have argued with that?

That had been months ago. They're better now—Clark might not have been interested in making friends with Bruce, but he's pretty sure he's managed to anyway. Sort of. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and bank holidays.

There's a weird kind of tension in it: by now, after two or three more global crises, Clark trusts Batman as much as he trusts Diana. But Bruce is a little harder to pin down. Clark would call Bruce a friend on the record, but he's not sure whether Bruce would say the same about him.

This, though, is exactly the kind of situation Bruce probably had in mind when he'd copied the database.

(Well, not—exactly. Presumably Bruce hadn't been speculating to himself that one day Clark might be suddenly unable to stop thinking in technicolor pornography. But that something could go wrong with Clark, something Clark wouldn't understand. That part.)

So Clark doesn't take his sick day and fly off to Antarctica. He goes to see Bruce instead.

If he'd been thinking straight, he wouldn't have done it. Bruce is—Bruce frustrates Clark a lot, annoys Clark and keeps up with Clark and won't tell Clark anything, won't leave Clark alone but won't let Clark close the distance between them either. Clark's wanted to grab him and shake him, shove him into something hard, even when he isn't suffering from weird irrational urges out of nowhere.

(Almost as often as he's watched Bruce slip off into the shadows, and found himself wondering whether he's ever going to be allowed to really—know Bruce, even a tenth as well as he wants to.)

Which means that the kind of stuff Clark's been thinking about random strangers all day, or about Lois even though they're long since over, or about his own damn boss—that kind of stuff gets about a thousand times worse when he's in the same room as Bruce.

He'd been turning over the idea on the way up the stairs that the thoughts had been getting more vivid, harder to push away; but then he steps into Bruce's office and for a second he thinks he is touching Bruce—has crossed the office and slid his hands up Bruce's arms, crowded Bruce backward against the side of the desk and—

Clark blinks and shakes his head and is back at the threshold—no, not back, because he never moved at all. It didn't happen.

"Clark?"

Bruce is looking at Clark from across that gleaming desk with a genial smile but narrowed eyes; and then he—is right now? Has already, entire minutes ago—is or has or will move around it. He reaches out for Clark with both hands, his grip steady, strong, reassuring; Clark might be wavering, dizzy, all this relentless heat like a fever in him, but Bruce is a sure and solid anchor, knows exactly what to do. He wouldn't be unbuckling Clark's belt otherwise—

"Clark, are you all right?"

Clark blinks again.

Bruce hasn't moved.

"Fine," Clark manages, "I'm fine," except that's a lie. A lie he's been believing anyway for the past couple days, but being here with Bruce has shown him how thin a farce that is. There's definitely something wrong with him.

(And isn't that what always happens, with Bruce? Superman is noble, distant, and rises above the petty unkindnesses of humanity—except when he's in a wet dark alley with Bruce. How thin a farce: how very, very easy it is to make Superman angry, to render him as violent or careless or cruel as anyone.

Always, always, stripping Clark's illusions bare—

And now it's back to nakedness again. Jesus, Clark tells himself, get a grip.)

Bruce raises an eyebrow. "Are you sure? You look a little—flushed."

"No, it's—just too much sun," Clark says, because Bruce will understand that that means something different for Superman than it does for anyone else.

And then he doesn't go around the desk himself, doesn't slide his arms around Bruce's back and feel Bruce grip his shoulders for balance; doesn't heave Bruce up and backward into the wall and listen to him gasp—

He doesn't do any of that. He's made a mistake. He can't ask Bruce for the database, he can't stay in this room for one minute longer than he has—he's got to go to Antarctica, where he can get his answers and he can't—he won't—

Where he'll be alone. Where he won't hurt anyone.

So he closes his eyes, shakes his head, and says very carefully and precisely—

(—Bruce, oh, god, touch me, please touch me, I want to fuck you through the floor—)

—"I just wanted to let you know I'm—I'll be out of town. For a few days. I'm sure the League can manage without me and all, but I—I just wanted to let you know."

"Yes," Bruce says slowly, "you said that already," but Clark doesn't—can't—check to see the expression on his face.

"Great, okay," and Clark backs up blindly, hits the corner of a filing cabinet; he probably dents it, but he's—he needs to get out of this room. "So I'm leaving. Now. I'll—I'll see you."

Something in him quails at the idea of trying to make it all the way back down through Bruce's building feeling like this. But one thing is working in his favor: he didn't just come to see Bruce. He came to see Batman. There's a balcony opening off almost all of Bruce Wayne's offices.

"I have to go," Clark says, and he opens his eyes just long enough to blur his way across, yank the doubled door wide, and throw himself into the sky.

(His hearing is still working just fine; he can't get far enough fast enough to not hear Bruce shout his name. But he still has enough self-control to not turn around.)

He has his phone. He gets lucky, and Mom doesn't pick up—she must be out in the garden. He leaves a message with the important points: he's got something to take care of, something important; and because he's said it like that, she'll know it's a Superman thing. He remembers to add that he's told the Planet it's a family trip, so it would help if she didn't pick up the phone for Metropolis area codes for a week or so.

And then he does tell the Planet he's got a family trip. More specifically, he tells Lois. He knows already that she's away from her desk for an interview, so she won't pick up either, which is for the best right now. Better her than Perry, after that dressing-down Clark got this afternoon. She'll make fun of Clark for asking her to clear the absence for him, when he gets back; but she'll also do it.

He's pretty sure he manages to explain without anything obscene slipping out. And then—

Then he flies to Antarctica.

He's almost grateful for whatever this is, right then. Another day, with his head clearer, he'd have the presence of mind to be afraid. He hasn't spent very much time with the ship since Luthor laid hands on it, crawled into its insides and shaped it to his purpose.

(And it hadn't been like that before, Clark is almost sure. When he'd found it and used it, when it had explained to him who he was, it had been—bright, hadn't it? Clean. An ebb and flow of neat interlocking pieces; Father's mind in control. Hadn't it been like that?

He thinks it had. But that memory's been superseded by the way it had looked when he'd found Luthor and that—thing inside it. Dark; strange and close and—sticky, clinging, grasping.

Maybe that was what it was like inside Luthor's head. Maybe that was why.

Luthor is gone now, and so is Father. Clark is in command of the ship; and he's not sure he wants to see what it looks like in there now.)

As it is, all he can think as he flies—besides increasingly pornographic things he's trying really hard not to focus on—is that he should have known. He's speeding through the air at speeds that would probably suffocate a normal person, and it's air that should by all rights freeze him solid. Instead it's a chill he can barely feel over the heat radiating off his skin, as some kind of weird Kryptonian—sex fever does the best it can to boil him from the inside out.

And he should have known. He's spent so long trying to blend in, trying to be like everyone else, and it never ever works. He's gotten close, sometimes; and then he has to cauterize Lois's gut wound with his eyes. Or Zod shows up and tells the whole world there's an alien around. Or an irradiated corpse with delusions of grandeur starts tearing up portside Gotham. This is just one more thing to add to the list: one more way in which Clark will never quite be human, no matter how hard he tries.

By the time he skids in for a landing, thoughts that complicated aren't really on the table anymore. And he does skid—carves a furrow into the ice that's almost two Clarks deep, and leaves a pool of steaming water behind when he manages to get it together enough to climb out.

(It feels good. The water surrounding him, and for a brief instant blissfully cool against him before he can heat it up all the way, soaking in and around and through, touching him everywhere—

Jesus, Clark needs to get to the ship.)

Luckily, he doesn't need to do anything complicated to get the door open. He just puts a hand against the ship's side (resists the urge to slide his palm across the surface, to press his cheek to it—) and says, "Ship—"

"Welcome," it says, and as though it means it, it opens for him.

"Ship, can you—what is this?" Clark says, trying not to lurch sideways into any walls. "What's wrong with me? Am I sick, or—"

"Scans will be completed momentarily," the ship says, almost gently. Everything about it is helping him: doors are opening in front of him before he can even touch them, and the floor is shifting—not away from him but toward him, moving with his feet so that every step he takes is in the right direction.

Something about that should make him happy, but he can't focus long enough to remember what. He lets his knees go out from under him the way he wants to, and sure enough, the ship catches him—did he know that would happen? Does it matter, when as long as he doesn't have to walk anymore, that means he can finally shove a hand into his pants? He almost can't decide where he wants it more, his ass or—

"According to the last data burst that was received from mission headquarters," the ship says, "the number of Kryptonians experiencing regular mating cycles was decreasing sharply, in part due to increased adherence to Codex regulations. However, you are—not regulation."

Not even a normal Kryptonian, Clark thinks dimly, with a deep slow ache that's an utterly different temperature from the one that's been consuming him all day. The contrast brings him back to himself, just for a minute. Just long enough for him to re-hear mating cycles and feel his jaw literally drop. "Oh, god," Clark says, staring sightlessly at the ceiling; and even then, with the bottom crawling out of his stomach, he still can't keep from wrapping a hand around himself and groaning.

sdfhbsdjfsdfs this is great and I will be back to comment properly when I'm not drunk, but I just wanted to tell you that I love this and can't wait to read more. :DDDD

I originally prompted this over in the non-DCEU prompt thread, but I'd also really love to see a DCEU take on this trope. Clark Kent impersonates either Batman or Bruce Wayne. Clark's a good actor, but he's not THAT good. His impersonation goes awry, and shenanigans ensue. Up to the filler to be Clark/Bruce or just focus on their friendship.

+Bonus: If Bruce doesn't sign off on the impersonation and/or doesn't know Clark Kent prior to the impersonation.
+Extra Bonus: If it happens on a cruise ship.

Inspiration: http://i.imgur.com/AraTzxj.jpg (American Alien #3)

Let's pretend that DCEU Clark's powerset jncludes tactile telekinesis. Would love to see him teasing Bruce with it, or maybe using it to fuck Bruce while Bruce is fucking him.

Tonight has taken a turn for the fraught. Clark Kent, glass in hand, tries not to look like a deer caught in the headlights.

It isn't the gallery's stark white walls that's got him feeling exposed, though they don't help. Nor is it the precise lighting, calibrated to flatter the displays and not so much the guests. It's not the side-long glances at his suit, three seasons démodé, and it isn't that he's nursed the same drink for an hour and he's already been told they're free, you know.

It's not even that someone might ask him his opinion on the paintings.

All this is fine, business as usual. In his line of work, Clark often has to deal with things that nudge up to the boundary of what's comfortable for him. Sometimes those things are alien incursions. Sometimes they're art exhibitions.

Though if he's honest, it's not the events themselves, so much as the people. And, in this instance, one particular person.

Clark has met Bruce Wayne before, just the once. It had taken a while to pry the barbs out from under his skin. Even longer to crawl up out of his grave.

Now that little misunderstanding has been resolved, they've managed to strike up a partnership--according to the news media, anyway, who talk about them in the same breathless tones they do the latest celebrity power couple.

It's more tenuous than that, but not entirely untrue, so long as Superman keeps to Metropolis and the Bat is left to his machinations deep in the belly of Gotham. The line is precise: no meddling; only come when you're called; strictly code names. Clark has never heard his real name uttered by the Bat and has taken care not to acknowledge Bruce's identity in return. In this, at least, his impenetrable wall of control issues dovetail neatly with Clark's measured courteousness.

As far as territory is concerned, social events appear to be neutral ground--or perhaps that's just the ones in Metropolis.

Flying the colors, they operate separately and intersect at opportune angles. In plain clothes, the angles feel decidedly more awkward. Clark's dodged for as long as he can, but he slipped up and now finds himself staring hard at the nearest painting so he doesn't accidentally make eye contact again. There's probably a fitting word for this situation in German.

He squints at the canvas, a painstaking rendering of something that looks like a printer test page. It's not certain what message it's trying to impart, but he wouldn't put it on his wall, personally.

He wonders how he's going to frame this article. He might finish this drink after all.

"Mr. Kent, isn't it?"

Clark winces. He knows that pitch and timbre even if it's usually scrambled by a modulator; the soft slur around the edges is a weak disguise, comparatively. He turns with a smile that he hopes doesn't look too strained, and finds that Bruce has progressed through his act to glass four or five. Still not a hair out of place, but the burn of impatience is in him. Clark wonders if he's been chosen as his ignominious out.

He really should have prepared for this inevitably. At least he's been given a lead to follow. He can do plausible deniability well enough.

"That's right," Clark says. He should offer his hand and greet Bruce Wayne in the manner to which he is accustomed, but he's taken by sudden pettiness--he's already tired of Bruce steering everything, supremely confident in his authority whether he's in leather or gabardine, so he feigns polite confusion. "Mr…?"

It's a minor slight compared to a faceful of kryptonite gas, but momentarily satisfying, nonetheless.

"Wayne," Bruce says slowly, eyes narrowing. "Bruce Wayne. Of Wayne Enterprises." The subtle weight he puts on his name makes it feels less like a slight and more like a faux pas. Clark presses his lips together in mild annoyance. Bruce might be the one to extend his hand first, but it's palm down, the businessman's power play.

"Mr. Wayne. Of course. Last year, Luthor's foundation shindig, right?" The handshake is brief, but Clark manages to shift their hands to perpendicularity by the time it's done.

"Right," Bruce says. He hasn't missed Clark's trick, probably realizes he's now exhausted his toolset for the evening and seems entertained by the fact. His eyes flick from Clark's face to his chest and back. "We got off to a rocky start, if I recall."

"I'd forgotten."

Bruce flashes him a sterile smile.

"I've got to say, you're looking remarkably well."

"The reports of my death, etcetera." Clark suspects he's making a particular face, the one people pull when trying chat casually about something horrific. "I was at ground zero when things were going down, gave my jacket to an injured guy. Had my wallet in my pocket. He wasn't in good shape, I got laid out for a while, and I guess--I guess there was some confusion."

Bruce's face echoes his expression as he raises his drink, ostensibly pained at this tragic tale but more likely at the clumsy lie, the delivery that already sounds rote. It serves well enough.

"Couldn't make it up." Bruce's voice is lost in his glass as he polishes off the last drops of his champagne. He watches Clark over the rim.

"Stranger than fiction," Clark says agreeably.

There's a slightly awkward pause; a patron jostles Clark's elbow and he rolls with it out of habit. Bruce reaches out as though he needs steadying.

"Listen," Bruce says, his hand on Clark's arm slightly too tight. He gives Clark another once over, taking his time with an open study, mouth to chest to lower, and just as slowly back.

Clark reminds himself that Bruce has looked at him this way before, and prepares for a sudden evisceration. It doesn't hold off the upswell of heat, which is just as blindsiding as when the Bat offers him a backhanded compliment; barks an order; grunts from a hard blow, giving or taking.

("I'll take take care of the rest," Superman says, as the Bat spits blood onto the sidewalk.

"And you think," the Bat rasps, "I'd let you do that?")

But there's no lunge for his--or Superman's--jugular this time. Bruce drags his lower lip between his teeth as though briefly calculating something, then says, "Can I buy you a drink?"

"Um." There's another question implicit. Clark is still looking at his mouth. "They're free, you know," he says, stupidly.

Bruce laughs breezily and guides him by the arm he still hasn't let go of. "I know a place, best Martinis in Metropolis." He leans in to speak in Clark's ear as they leave, like they're sharing a joke, or a secret. "I like them very dirty."

*

They don't get as far as Bruce's fabled bar. They don't get a whole lot further than around the corner of the art gallery. The cool white light spilling from the windows cuts across Bruce's face as he walks Clark into an alley, up against the wall. It shadows his eyes, makes the line of his mouth grim and reminds Clark of exactly who he's dealing with.

"Bruce." Clark is hard before his shoulders hit the brickwork. He's not as surprised as he should be.

"Clark." Bruce takes a quick tight breath. Clark hears his heart lurch but his hands are sure. One he jams between Clark's legs, thumb flush against his erection, rubbing the fabric of his pants. The other curls at the nape of Clark's neck, bringing him in so they can kiss. Clark's glasses bump out of position, and he pulls back. He should tuck them into a pocket in case things get--in case they get lost, or broken.

"Leave them," Bruce says, and kisses him--a tame brush of his lips, not at all what Clark was expecting after the unapologetic hand on his dick, and there's no accounting for the way it makes Clark bristle. Maybe that's why he plunges into it with the minimal restraint he can allow, bringing his arms up around Bruce's neck, pulling the man against him shoulder to thigh and into a frustrated kiss.

Bruce makes a muffled noise, half a laugh, and Clark realizes he's been goaded into doing exactly what Bruce wants, but Bruce is also encouraging his lips apart with the press of his tongue until their mouths are wide and open. Clark just tilts his head to fit their mouths tighter together, deep as he can get. His jacket clings to the rough brick, dragging as Bruce pushes against him.

He doesn't need to breathe, could do this for hours with his universe apertured down to the heat of their mouths and the pressure of Bruce's knee and Bruce's dick insistent against his hip, but Bruce doesn't have that luxury. He breaks the kiss first with a wet, self-satisfied sound. Then it's just their loud breathing in the semi-dark, Bruce's hand against Clark's chest, fingers slid between the buttons of his shirt.

This, Clark thinks, dazed as though the drink he'd nursed all evening could have gone to his head. This might be what they need.

A vehicle passing in the road adjacent sends it headlights skittering over their impropriety. Bruce's eyes glint dangerously and he goes for Clark's mouth again, and the fly of his slacks at the same time. He isn't a man to do things by halves and apparently that includes whenever he decides to unclench.

"God," Clark says, between rough bites from his mouth. "Do you always--we can't do this here."

"Hm," Bruce says, and there's a long moment where Clark wonders if he should just--there's nobody around and he could get them somewhere more private in a matter of seconds, but something tells him that would unbalance whatever equilibrium has been struck here.

This is reinforced when Bruce doesn't order him up into the sky and instead stops pushing and starts pulling instead, brings them back out onto the sidewalk under the illumination of the streetlamps. Bruce is faintly pink across his cheekbones but somehow looks otherwise unruffled, running a hand through his hair as strides to the curbside, managing to hail a cab immediately.

Clark looks a mess, if his reflection in the cab's window is anything to go by.

The driver asks where to. Clark waits for Bruce to assert himself, as usual. It'll be the Metropolis Grand--or the Lexor, maybe, just mess with him--the Presidential suite either way, all sleek polish and glass and chrome, unpriced wine and attentive room service, but Bruce just waits for him with a questioning lift of his brow.

"Feel like roughing it tonight, huh?"

"Doesn't hurt to know how the other half lives, Mr. Kent." His smile is infuriatingly urbane.

Well, if that's how he wants to play it. Clark tries not to take it personally. He directs the driver to Clinton Street.

The journey is short but borderline unbearable. Bruce drapes his arm over the back of the seats like the world's least subtle cinema date, his thumb brushing the nape of Clark's neck. Clark remains achingly hard for the duration, and from the way the passing streetlights cast their shadows over his rucked-up slacks, so does Bruce, but he chats amicably with the driver about the weather, the game last night, and the slow, even strokes of his thumb don't falter even when the subject turns to the Superman and his miraculous return to life.

It gives Clark some time to collect himself, enough breathing space to let it sink in for a minute--they're going to do this, this is real--and then, of course, to start overthinking things. The Bat handles Superman with a generous measure of suspicion and caution because that is his nature. Bruce Wayne, however, has little reason to be circumspect when it comes to the assiduously ordinary Clark Kent. Could be that simple, but seems unlikely.

The masks have not been set aside here, just new ones laid on top. Another game, another set of rules. Clark understands this, at least: break them and the charade, whatever its purpose, will crumble. They'll part with the same tension they do on any other night. The stakes aren't devastating if he fails. Bruce is, by all appearances, superb at compartmentalizing, and has contrived enough distance that Clark could weather it, given time.

Clark also understands: Bruce wants this enough to construct a scenario around it. Maybe because that he can't risk it being too real--or maybe because he gets off on forcing Clark to hold back, his game like an invisible restraint. Honor bondage. Control.

Or maybe, Clark thinks, maybe he just doesn't know how to do this unless he's being somebody else.

In the morning that might seem pitiable. For the time being, though, it's--

Clark shifts in his seat, glancing over at Bruce's face, at his austere profile. Bruce glances back. Clark lets out an unsteady breath, and thinks--hopes--if Bruce Wayne is a performance, that it's an indulgent one.

Bruce's thumb caresses Clark's neck once more, slight drag of a manicured thumbnail that leaves him shivering, then the cab is drawing up to the curb.

*

Thanks for commenting (I say, belatedly, as I bring an even more belated update). And yes, whenever Bruce can't do something, he finds an easy way to make up for it. ,)

Thank you! And of course it's just the kryptonite, what else? O:-) I can never resist hand-touching, so I am just glad that it apparently made you as happy as me. :D

Only to disappear again, sorryyyy. But I am actually back now! THank you for the awesome comment, anon. <3 I had way too much fun getting Bruce tied up and letting him work his way out of it. ALSO I AM SO HAPPY THIS KINKMEME LOVES HAND-HOLDING AS MUCH AS I LOVE HAND-HOLDING. :DD

5. Gymnastics

Can we all pretend I didn't take forever to write this? I do feel appropriately embarrassed. This part was inspired by these wonderfully gratuitous comic panels: http://s289.photobucket.com/user/darknight2k/media/Agility-Speed/Agility/batmantenses2-blindacrobats.jpg.html

Rationally Clark knew that the caves underneath the lake house were not in fact endless, and yet months after Bruce had first allowed him into this sanctum there still seemed to be parts of it Clark had never seen. He'd been tempted more than once to have a look around, to at least let his x-ray vision sweep through the walls, but he doubted Bruce would have appreciated him snooping.

He knew about the large cave in which Bruce kept a few earlier iterations of his car as well as a few bikes. He knew about the small medical bay where Alfred regularly patched Bruce up, because one time Bruce had insisted on talking to Clark about whatever case he'd been working on then even while he was bleeding all over his butler's hands. He knew that Bruce had a bathroom down in the Cave so he wouldn't have to bring the Bat's sweat and blood up into Bruce Wayne's lake house. He even knew about the workshop where Bruce and Alfred tinkered with anything that was too big for the mezzanine, and which doubled as a gym – filled with weights and chains and workout benches, a faint smell of sweat clinging in the air no matter how thoroughly Alfred cleaned the place. Clark had always trouble gauging just how strong or fast normal people were, but even he could tell that the weights Bruce seemed to train with regularly were impressively heavy for someone with no super strength.

This was where he'd expected Bruce to be when Alfred had let him down into the Cave with a brief explanation that “Master Bruce was working up a bit of a sweat”. Clark had offered to wait upstairs, but Alfred insisted Bruce wouldn't mind. He didn't have much of a good reason to visit Bruce; the only update he had to give him on the smuggler ring that split its activities between Gotham and Metropolis and which they'd been tracking together for a few weeks was that they'd been laying low recently.

But the weights were lying in their place and the air didn't smell like anyone had been working out here recently, so Clark let his senses wander until he found Bruce's heartbeat and his steady, but slightly accelerated breathing. He followed yet another tunnel until he reached a cave that looked like a more conventional gym than Bruce's odd assortment of chains and tyres: the walls were still unhewn, rough stone, but there were gym mats on the floor and several gymnastics apparatus, a pommel horse and parallel bars and two rings hanging high from their metal frame.

It was the pommel horse Bruce was currently on, his hands – or sometimes just one hand – on the grips as he slowly rotated around them, his legs perfectly stretched. He wasn't wearing anything more than black shorts, the rest of his skin bared, and Clark couldn't help but stop short and stare. He didn't know enough about gymnastics to name even half the exercises Bruce was doing, but the perfect control he had over his body was obvious, the measured, deliberate nature of every movement. It took Clark a moment to notice that Bruce had blindfolded himself, relying entirely on his sense of balance, and yet his hands were sure and steady every time they moved on the grips or the body of the pommel horse.

If he noticed Clark at all, he didn't show it. Clark considered saying something or at least clearing his throat, but he didn't want to break Bruce's concentration – at least that's what he tried to tell himself, as if Bruce's concentration wasn't all but unbreakable. He'd never seen him this undressed – at most he'd seen his arms and his shoulders, but now his eyes roamed over the long lines of Bruce's legs, the thick muscles of his thighs and the perfect definition of his calves, his strong pectorals and abs that looked every bit as defined as Clark's own. His back was a chiselled study in anatomy, and his whole skin bore countless scars and bruises. Purple bloomed over his ribs, an almost healed cut was still glaring red along his spine, white scar tissue covered one shoulder. There was a bandage around his elbow and another one on his upper thigh, but the injuries didn't seem to impede him in any way. Clark had trouble imagining the kind of physical control one would need for movements this precise, this controlled – he doubted that he would have been able to do half of it without cheating gravity a little bit.

Bruce sped up his rotations, working through faster motions, and his breathing became a bit laboured at this point. Sweat gleamed on his chest and his back, dripped from his skin with every movement. In the end he pulled himself up into a slow handstand, his arms already straight while he pulled his legs slowly into the air, completing the movement with a low grunt, before he held the position. It had been one thing to know that Bruce needed such perfect control over his body to be as good a fighter as he was; it was another to see that control displayed so openly in front of his eyes, without the suit or the cape encumbering Bruce's movements. There was more to this than mere strength, as much as Bruce's muscles strained from the effort; Clark could see years of training in every movement, and more agility and flexibility than seemed entirely natural for a man past forty.

Clark watched the sweat roll from the base of his spine up to his shoulder blades. Bruce must have been at it for a while, because his skin was glistening, his heartbeat as fast as Clark had only ever heard it get in long fights that pushed Bruce to the limits of his endurance. He stayed in that perfectly straight handstand until his muscles started to shake, and still maintained enough control to lower himself down as slowly as he'd pulled himself up before he jumped to the floor.

He looked in Clark's direction as if he could see through the blindfold, and even before Bruce pulled it off Clark realised that Bruce had been aware of his presence the entire time. His eyes were dark and unreadable, and for all their intensity Clark had to try hard to look into them, not to let his gaze catch on that large burn scar on Bruce's left shoulder, on how hard his nipples were in the cold air of the Cave, on the sweat pooling in the dip of his collarbones.

“I didn't want to interrupt you,” he said when Bruce had walked over to him and still remained quiet. “Alfred said you were down here. If this is a bad time …”

“It's fine.” Bruce didn't sound breathless, and his heartbeat was already slowing down. Clark listened to it like it was a mumbled poem he was desperately trying to catch the words of. His eyes kept wandering to the sharp definition of Bruce's muscles, to the bruises that marred his side – Clark let himself look through them and found Bruce's ribs unbroken, but covered in countless lines from old breaks. He could read Bruce's body like a book of old injuries and healed fractures, scarred flesh and angry bruises mottling pale skin.

“How do you do this?” he found himself saying, his hand halfway to Bruce's side before he stopped himself. He thought of the unbearable pain of the kryptonite spear slicing his cheek open, of the agony of Doomsday's claw burying itself in his chest. Humans healed so very slowly, and with so many old and recent wounds Bruce had to be in constant pain. Bruce didn't stir, stayed right where he was, and didn't flinch when Clark finally brought his fingers to a dark purple bruise on his side, barely brushing the skin. “Aren't you in pain?”

“This is nothing,” Bruce said, and it wasn't bravado this time, not like when his shoulder had been bleeding so badly he'd even agreed to let Clark stitch him up. That wound had healed by now, but the scar was still fresh and red. “You get used to pain the same way you can get used to anything. It's merely a matter of discipline.”

Clark remembered the first time his x-ray vision had started up, how hard it had been to get used to that, to control it, and how easily he could do it now. If he could ignore that much sensory input, maybe Bruce could ignore the pain of bruises and broken bones – it seemed impossible, but so much about Bruce did.

“Right,” he said, fingertips still resting on the bruise. “What about the blindfold?”

“You can't rely on your eyes if you want to make darkness your ally,” Bruce said, an almost sly smile playing around the corner of his mouth. “And it's a good balance exercise.”

Clark shook his head in disbelief. Bruce's skin felt clammy under his fingers, the sweat already cooling on his flesh. Clark couldn't keep himself from looking at him, into him – it was much easier to resist that urge when fabric covered Bruce's body, but seeing him so bared before his eyes stripped away Clark's restraint. He thought of Bruce's bleeding, abraded hands after they'd worked their way through ropes and handcuffs, he thought of how vulnerable and fragile they had seemed to him then. There was nothing vulnerable about Bruce's bare body, about the steel cords of his muscles and the angry glare of his bruises. Every scar seemed to Clark like a testament to Bruce's will power, as if pure rage and determination were enough to knit torn flesh back together.

But even as distracted as he was, he didn't fail to realise that Bruce allowed him to stare, just like he suffered the touch of Clark's fingertips against his side. A minute passed, or maybe two, and he'd focused so completely on the sound of Bruce's heartbeat that Bruce's voice seemed far away at first.

“Clark.”

He looked up as if caught and pulled his hand away immediately, only for Bruce to grab his wrist before Clark had even completed the movement. Even knowing that he could free himself without the slightest difficulty, Bruce's grip felt like a vice on his wrist.

“Are you going to tell me why you're here?” Bruce asked. The same smile was still clinging to his lips, a smile that was more Bruce Wayne than the Bat, smug and confident and asking for either a kiss or a fist. His hair curled at his temples, the grey streaks dark with sweat. Maybe it was better that Bruce maintained such a firm hold on his wrist, or Clark would have been tempted to swipe a bead of sweat from his temple, then run his fingers through Bruce's hair.

“I … I wanted to ask you if there has been any news about our case,” Clark said. He liked calling it their case simply because it invariably made Bruce bristle at the idea that he needed Clark's help to solve it. “I'm concerned about how quiet things have been in Metropolis. I doubt they're just laying low, so they must have focused their activities on Gotham. And I know you hate it when I snoop around 'your city' without invitation.”

Bruce didn't look like he bought Clark's flimsy excuse any more than Clark had expected him to, for all that everything he'd said was technically true.

“You could have called me to ask that,” Bruce said. Clark didn't tell him that he'd thought about that, too, in the middle of the night mostly, lying awake in bed and thinking about Bruce's hands, about the intimacy of hearing his voice without the modulator, that he'd fantasised more than once about calling Bruce under as thin a pretence as this was and let his voice wash over him, and he sure as hell didn't tell him that he'd touched himself thinking about just that, that he'd imagined Bruce growling quiet instructions at him, telling him just what he wanted him to do. God, Bruce probably would be good at that, too, would find just the right words to pick Clark apart at the seams.

“I'm always curious what you're up to,” Clark admitted when he remembered to reply. It was as much a confession as he could muster, and less embarrassing than the alternatives. He was painfully aware of Bruce's thumb pressing against the inside of his wrist, of Bruce feeling his pulse at the same time as Clark could hear his. It would have been nice to imagine them synched, but Clark's was almost twice as fast, and he could only be grateful that Bruce couldn't hear his heart race in his chest.

The moment lasted, stretched out, until Clark thought Bruce would have to do something, anything to break the palpable tension between them, but then he merely let go of Clark as if nothing had happened, turned away from him and picked a towel up from a nearby bench to wipe the sweat off his face.

“I actually do have some news,” he said, his voice all business, the smile gone from his face. “One of my surveillance cameras caught something interesting last night. I'll show you.”

Without waiting for a reply he took off towards the same tunnels Clark had come through earlier, bare feet soundless on the cold stone. He had to be aware of the way his shorts were clinging to his skin with every step, the way his back muscles shifted when he rubbed at his hair with the towel. He had to be aware that Clark hadn't been able to take his eyes off him since he'd arrived, and that meant – that meant that Bruce was doing this on purpose. It seemed like such an obvious realisation when nothing Bruce ever did was not deliberate, but Clark still felt as if he'd finally seen clear through impregnable fog for the first time that night.

He didn't bother to hide his smile when he followed Bruce.

More identity kink! The kinkmeme gods (or rather the kinkmeme anons) are being wonderfully generous again. :D The prompt for this was so hot and I love that someone is filling it, and I really adore this fill so far.

I am so here for Clark feeling uncomfortable and out of place and Bruce Wayne making him feel more uncomfortable.

according to the news media, anyway, who talk about them in the same breathless tones they do the latest celebrity power couple.
I love this line so much. :D And I want to read those articles, tbh. And the whole paragraph that follows that is so damn good, yessss to Bruce keeping the line between his identities so firm and strict.

now finds himself staring hard at the nearest painting so he doesn't accidentally make eye contact again. There's probably a fitting word for this situation in German.
I love this (and now I wish there was a word for that situation in German, but I can't think of one right now). And wow, Clark being petty and pretending not to remember his name is so wonderful, and everything about seeing Bruce through Clark's eyes is wonderful, and I am just in love with all the layers of identity porn in this. Their fake conversation is everything. :D

("I'll take take care of the rest," Superman says, as the Bat spits blood onto the sidewalk.

"And you think," the Bat rasps, "I'd let you do that?")
Unffffffff, this is so hot and you get them so perfectly in those two lines. <3

It shadows his eyes, makes the line of his mouth grim and reminds Clark of exactly who he's dealing with.
I love that this is immediately followed by Clark being hard. And Jesus fucking Christ, them making out in a dark corner is so smoking hot I don't even have words. And Bruce inviting himself to Clark's flat! :D

The masks have not been set aside here, just new ones laid on top. Another game, another set of rules.
Yesssssssss, I am just rolling around in all this identity porn. And then this:
maybe because he gets off on forcing Clark to hold back, his game like an invisible restraint. Honor bondage. Control.

Or maybe, Clark thinks, maybe he just doesn't know how to do this unless he's being somebody else.
The first bit is smoking hot and the other one breaks my heart and you are amazing for managing to do both so casually one right after the other. Fuck, this is amazing and I absolutely cannot wait to see how it continues. Thank you for writing and sharing this, anon. <3

I have the weirdest soft spot for Clark-in-heat fics even though that's usually not a kink I'm into, so I'm super excited to see this fill. Also I LOVE YOU TOO, ANON, YOU AND THIS KINKMEME AND EVERYONE ON IT, BUT RIGHT NOW ESPECIALLY YOU BECAUSE THIS IS GREAT.

I love Clark's sense of confusion and discomfort throughout this whole thing. I love that it starts slowly; a lot of the time in fics it's very sudden, and here it just builds up over time. It's great. And I laughed a lot about the bit with Perry, nobody should have to fantasise about their boss. Poor Clark. :D

And then the whole bit about all the ways in which Bruce helped Clark, and that he has a copy of the database. And this bit made me smile so much: Clark might not have been interested in making friends with Bruce, but he's pretty sure he's managed to anyway. Sort of. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and bank holidays.

And unffff, Clark's fantasies about Bruce are super hot, I approve.

And isn't that what always happens, with Bruce? Superman is noble, distant, and rises above the petty unkindnesses of humanity—except when he's in a wet dark alley with Bruce. How thin a farce: how very, very easy it is to make Superman angry, to render him as violent or careless or cruel as anyone.
And I adore this because I do love Clark's temper in canon. My heart is breaking a bit at Clark having to realise again that he's not normal, no matter how much he tries to fit in. :((( At least the ship is there to help? I feel so sorry for Clark but also very excited about all of this and I'm looking forward to more. This is awesome, anon. :D

:D Haha, thank you! Please rest assured that your drunken enthusiasm is just as gratifying to me as any other comment could possibly hope to be. ♥ I'm glad you liked it!

:D Aw, yay, I'm glad! Tbh I was (and am) kind of nervous about this fill because it's a little bit out of my comfort zone ... despite how tame it'll be as heat fics go. /o\ :D SO I APPRECIATE YOUR WORDS VERY MUCH. ♥ ♥ ♥ THIS MEME HAS BEEN SO GOOD TO ME, WORDS CANNOT EXPRESS. CANNOT.

:D /o\ Haha, and I can never resist an opportunity to make things terrible and awkward for Clark, oops. POOR CLARK INDEED.

And oh, how do you know exactly the right things to say?! The whole time I was writing that retrospective section, I was saying to myself THIS ISN'T PORN, WTF ARE YOU DOING - that you liked it AND THEN the fantasizing was enough to at least sort of make up for it is so great to hear. ~~WHEW~~

My heart is breaking a bit at Clark having to realise again that he's not normal

IT SEEMS SO WRONG TO SAY I'M GLAD. /o\ This is probably going to end up at least 70% My Clark Feelings by weight, and I hope you enjoy the rest of it just as much as this part. ♥ THANK YOU FOREVER YAY \o/

These parts keep getting really long! I KNOW, I KNOW, YOU'RE ALL V V DISAPPOINTED IN ME

There's no doubt in Bruce's mind: Clark had been acting strangely.

He's erred on the side of keeping his personal offices clear of cameras, on the off chance that an emergency demanding a response Bruce Wayne isn't capable of should arise. The Gotham Bat will never be caught on tape if Bruce can help it.

But, fortunately, he doesn't need the reinforcement. Even if he had been uncertain, told himself that perhaps his memory was exaggerating the flush in Clark's face or the tremor in Clark's hands—he has evidence.

He stares down at the dent, and imagines he can almost perceive the shape of Clark's hip in it. He'd been considering his options for a redesign; increased security is, in Bruce's mind, never a bad thing, but a filing cabinet? Not the best disguise for a safe—plenty of people would be smart enough to notice the discrepancy, a filing cabinet sitting quietly in an office whose only other analog features are its walls and floor. And the ones who aren't smart enough would probably try to open it anyway looking for actual files, and might eventually realize what they were dealing with instead.

But Bruce hadn't had any complaints to offer about the materials used to make the thing—a good eight inches of high-strength alloys and some new variation on fireboard R&D was thrilled about.

And Clark, backing into it without paying attention, has buckled one corner sideways almost four inches. Bruce finds himself thinking that stranger than the dent itself is the fact that Clark hadn't paused to apologize for it. He had to have heard Bruce shout after him, but hadn't turned around either. After he'd gone, Bruce had crossed the room and touched the dented metal—he'd half expected to get burned outright for his trouble, but it hadn't been quite that bad. Definitely above room temperature, though, the sudden deformation creating more heat than the metal could vent.

The inescapable conclusion is that there's something wrong with Clark. And even with only a partial list of symptoms—elevated temperature, judging by the red cheeks, the rapid breathing, the glazed eyes; impaired balance and fine motor skills, though Clark had been able to fly as well as ever—Bruce is leaning toward illness.

Except that should be impossible. Shouldn't it? Or is there a viral equivalent of kryptonite: no effect whatsoever on humans, but capable of taking Clark down like a sack of potatoes? A Kryptonian illness, even; Clark could have been exposed on Zod's ship, and an incubation period of nearly two years might not be out of the question for an alien bug. Or—

Or, Bruce thinks slowly, it could have been Luthor. Something in the chamber where he'd merged Zod with himself, all that stray DNA flailing around in a pool designed to create new organisms out of nothing.

He doesn't panic. He clears his schedule for the rest of the day, Bruce Wayne taking an afternoon off just because he feels like it, and he goes back to the lake house.

Alfred greets him with a raised eyebrow and a nod, and Bruce heads down to the Cave and settles in to work.

Bruce's version of the Kryptonian ship's database isn't complete—the ship wasn't fully functional at the time the copy was made, and Bruce hadn't had a chance to go back to try to collect the rest of the data. Not without Clark noticing him doing it, and at the time he'd been trying to avoid that.

(It hadn't worked, of course. Clark had been suspicious of just about everything Bruce did, right after he came back from the dead, and Bruce's insistence on helping him get the ship back and out of Metropolis probably hadn't helped.

And the worst part was that he hadn't been wrong. Early days still, back then, and Bruce hadn't been sure—hadn't been sure it was Clark, couldn't figure out how to tell. If something else had come back in his place, in his body, or if he'd been cloned, or—

Bruce had thought that perhaps with the database, he could come up with a way to know for certain. And if it hadn't been Clark, then yes, maybe the database could have helped Bruce kill whatever it was. It had been important to consider those things, it was—it would have been foolish to just accept Clark's return for what it seemed to be, to not look the gift horse very carefully in the mouth.

Because that was precisely what Bruce had wanted most to do. That was how he could tell it would have been a mistake.)

It's somewhat difficult to filter through what he does have, partial entries that turn into gibberish partway through, closing tags and metadata that have gone missing. He comes up with an algorithm that should help him sort through it, sets up the utility and gets it running, and then—has to wait to see what it comes up with.

He goes on patrol a little earlier than usual.

Once he has the usable portions of the database in some kind of order, of course, he still needs to translate them. His current working dictionary isn't as robust as he'd like, and the sections he's most likely to want to read are also the sections most likely to contain technical terminology he won't be able to understand. But he has to try.

He spends a day ignoring everything in Bruce Wayne's inbox and sorting through the results as best he can. Of course, for all he knows this is Kryptonian chickenpox, and Clark will be just fine in a week.

For all he knows, in fact, Clark is already fine. Bruce turns this over, considers his options, weighs the pros and cons; and then he throws all that out the window and calls Lois Lane.

"Someone from your office contacted me about a possible interview," he tells her, breezy. "A—Crane? Klimt?"

Lois is briefly silent. "I don't believe Klimt is a current employee of the Daily Planet," she says at last, very dryly. "But my colleague Mr. Kent—"

"Yes, that's right," Bruce says amiably into the phone. "Kent! Clive? Clint?"

"Clark," Lois says, flat.

"Clark! Clark, sure, how could I forget? Didn't leave a number, and when I called the main desk they sent me up to you—he playing hooky today?"

"I'm afraid he's away from the office right now, and will be for the rest of the week," Lois says coolly. "I'll let him know you called, and I'm sure he'll get back to you just as soon as he can."

Not back yet, then, Bruce thinks as he bids Lois a smarmy farewell and hangs up. Where else would Clark go? He can't be tracked easily, the way he travels—but Bruce does have an alert in place for outgoing flights from Eisenhower National with a Kent on board, and it hasn't been activated. Odds are that Martha's still in Smallville.

For a long moment after he's dialed, he thinks he must be wrong: he gets two rings, three, four, and then there's the click of the machine picking up—

And then the first cheery words of Martha's recorded voice (Hi there, you've reached the Kents, sorry to have missed you—) are drowned out by the rattle of a landline getting lifted off the hook. "Sorry, sorry," Martha says breathlessly, "Bruce, hello," and then, mouth moved away from the phone, "Oh, shut up, damn you, I've got it," before the beep of a button turns the answering machine off entirely.

"Is this a bad time?" Bruce says, feeling himself smile.

"No, no," Martha says, "not at all. I am sorry, Bruce—you're in one of the Metropolis offices today, aren't you? I wasn't going to answer, just in case, but then I realized it was you."

"Screening your calls?"

"Oh, well, I didn't want to blow Clark's cover and all, you know—"

Bruce sits forward, phone pressed a little tighter to his ear. "Oh?"

"Whatever he's doing, this 'something important'," Martha says. "He's told the Planet he's off on a family trip, and if somebody from his office calls and I pick up—"

"Yes," Bruce says, "I can see how that would cause a problem."

Martha snorts, and then sighs. "He told me not to answer for anybody with a Metropolis number. But I'm sure he didn't mean you. Honestly, I'm going to give him a piece of my mind when he gets back. Just taking off like that—you don't know what it's about, do you?"

"He didn't share the details with me."

Martha sighs again, and Bruce can almost picture her shaking her head, running a hand through her hair. "Well, that's all right. I just—I'm worried about him. He left a message, but he hasn't called again or anything. Has he been in touch with you?"

"Not since he left," Bruce says slowly.

There's a brief stillness, nothing but the static of the line. And then Martha lets out a breath and says, "Oh, Bruce—I'm sorry, but—I don't suppose you could do me a favor. Just check on him? If he told you where he was going—"

"He didn't," Bruce says. "But I think I can guess."

(Within another day, he would probably have gone anyway. A problem with Superman is a problem with the League, and that makes it Bruce's prerogative.

But Martha Kent asking for a favor—)

He tells her not to worry, says goodbye, and then makes one more call—to Alfred. "Our schedule's going to need a little more rearrangement," he says when Alfred picks up. "There's somewhere I need to be."

"And where is that, Master Wayne?" Alfred says, mild and a little distracted, presumably already looking to see how many fires he'll need to put out.

"Antarctica," Bruce says.

"Ah," Alfred says, eloquent.

What results Bruce does have from the database are already loaded and accessible from the Batplane by the time Bruce has reached the lake house—and so are the coordinates of the scout ship's location.

(Or its last known location, at least. Bruce had tried to place a tracker, but nothing had stuck to or penetrated the outer shell successfully, and nothing left inside had proven able to send a signal that was detectable outside. If Clark has moved it, Bruce is going to have to hope that his adjustments to the Batplane's radar really have allowed it to pick up on Kryptonian alloys.)

And he has the flight time to Antarctica in which to force the translated database to spit out something he can use.

He checks again, but keyword searches for things like "illness", "sickness", and "plague" still haven't turned up anything that matches his observations of Clark. Either this really is something Luthor created in that genesis chamber, or he needs to change his approach.

He thinks for a moment, and then clears the parameters and starts over. He's been considering disease the baseline, but that isn't true, is it? The baseline is Clark—the symptoms Bruce observed in person. That's what he needs to search for. He can't afford to miss anything that might help him figure this out, just because Kryptonians use some kind of weird idiom for this particular sickness, or only refer to it with discreet metaphors.

He sets up two separate searches, running contemporaneously, with any result that matches both specially highlighted: one for "fever" and one for "heat". An accurate hunt for mentions of "disorientation" is probably a little much to ask of the translation, but after a moment he adds a third for "dizzy", just in case. But—

(—Clark's face, red in the cheeks and across the forehead; and his mouth, Christ, he'd practically been panting, he'd kept biting his lip and every time it had gotten redder. His eyes, heavy-lidded, and the way he'd stared at Bruce, fixed and helpless, Tantalus starving with sweet ripe fruit just out of reach—)

—it's the temperature Clark must have been running that sticks out in Bruce's memory. Probably the primary symptom.

The Batplane's just leaving the Argentinian coast behind when the triple search finally completes. The Kryptonian database is certainly comprehensive.

Any other day, Bruce would be tempted to sit there and read it all: the results include reports on the weather systems of distant planets, quirks of biology alien even to the Kryptonians, half a galaxy's worth of information. Not even as old as the scout ship itself, which had continued to receive sporadic automated updates from deep space after its crew and mission had long since been forgotten.

But there's something wrong with Clark. And about halfway through the highlighted subset of the most significant results, Bruce finds out what it is.

Not much of a price to pay. It would have been far, far worse to discover that it was nothing Bruce could fix—compared to that possibility, this is nothing. This, Bruce can manage. Clark saved the world, and had to die to do it; getting fucked is perhaps one of the least unpleasant things Bruce would do to save Clark.

It's not clear that that's even necessary, but the database entry isn't clear about a lot of things. The—fever, Bruce decides, fever is a better word than—Christ—heat? Rut? Which would be the better term? Did Kryptonians even distinguish? The language is so vague, the last update coming after this particular embarrassing trait had been almost entirely weeded out of the population, recessive at best. Bruce isn't sure that what he's taken to calling Final-Stage Kryptonian even has a word for "sex" anymore, let alone a way of drawing distinctions between different kinds of sexual activity.

(What is it Clark is desperate for? What is the longing-obj. require satisfy, that the distorted entry claims will persist length-of-time limit-condition fulfilled? Is he lying on that ship panting to fuck—or to get fucked? Does it matter? Or does he just need someone else, something other than his own hand or the floor, the wall, oh, god—)

It might not kill him. But it also might not go away. And now Bruce knows, so he's—prepared. He can be prepared. Clark won't have to explain anything, which is for the best considering he might not even be able to form sentences anymore. And no matter what he does, what he wants to do, Bruce can handle it.

"Requesting access," Bruce tells the ship, for the third time.

"Access—access," the ship says haltingly, yet again. And then, after a long moment, "Granted."

"Finally," Bruce growls.

"Denied," the ship amends. "Granted—"

"Ship—"

"Deni—granted," the ship says, sounding almost as frustrated as Bruce is, and then the shell cracks open and lets Bruce inside.

For a moment all Bruce can think about is how warm it is. Which is probably because even the leeward side of the ship, out of the wind, was still on Antarctica.

But as he moves further into the ship, he starts to get the feeling back in his face, his fingers, and it's—it's warm. Really warm.

There's something about the ship that's different. Bruce looks around: the surfaces are still that strange Kryptonian metal, gleaming and subtly brass-tinged, but something about the texture has changed since the last time Bruce saw the ship's interior. When he'd first set foot in the ship after everything, Luthor in prison and Clark dead, the patterning to the walls and floor had been a little—rounded, he thinks, like chain mail. Perfect and repeating, infinite.

System default, maybe; because it's not like that anymore. It has lines, now, subtle and a little curved, bending here and there to join or part or swirl into each other. Like wood grain, it occurs to Bruce. The wood grain that Clark and his x-ray vision can almost certainly see through the worn blue paint that covers the Kent farmhouse's front steps.

Because this is Clark's ship now.

And the moment Bruce thinks that is also the moment he realizes he's five minutes away from going in a circle.

"Ship," Bruce says, looking backward at the corridor behind him and then ahead, to the lone door. "Is there by any chance another door nearby?"

The door—doesn't quite flash, but ripples a little, reflecting light in a wave that catches the eye, as the ship chimes affirmatively.

"One I haven't already seen the other side of," Bruce clarifies.

A silence; and then the ship chimes again, more slowly.

"And where might that door be?"

Another stillness. This time it lasts so long that Bruce shifts his weight once, twice, and opens his mouth to ask again—this is important, he needs to find Clark as soon as he can, because he has no idea what the effects of an extended state of hyperarousal might be on a Kryptonian—

And then, gradually, a hatch begins to form out of part of the wall. It's not smooth the way Bruce associates with the motions of the ship; it comes in fits and starts, the edges of it wavering in and out of focus for a moment.

This is Clark's ship now, Bruce thinks again, and then he looks at the ceiling and says, "Ship, what is the status of my access request?"

"Granted," the ship says, and it says it strangely, half on a sigh, before suddenly snapping, "denied. Denied—granted."

Clark's the commander. And Clark must have some inkling of what's going on, must be able to feel himself wanting—things; and he knows Bruce is here.

"The commander wants you inside the ship," the ship is saying, "and—doesn't." It sounds frustrated, confused by Clark's helpless mixed messages.

"Ship," Bruce says carefully, "the commander's health is important to you, isn't it?"

"Yes," the ship agrees instantly.

"It's essential that I get to him. Do you understand? He doesn't know how important it is, but—"

"The commander's orders must be followed," the ship says, sounding doubtful.

"He's in distress, isn't he? Physically."

"Yes," the ship admits.

"I can fix that," Bruce tells it. "But I need to know where he is. I need you to take me to him."

The ship is silent for ten seconds—fifteen—thirty—

"Yes," the ship says, and the new door in the wall shifts, in an instant, from closed to open.

Clark's at the center of the ship, as best Bruce is able to estimate. The last wall forms a door before Bruce can even ask it to, and Bruce has a half-second to remind himself of the essentials as it goes translucent, transparent: Clark might not have control of himself, his strength. It might hurt—it might hurt very, very badly, in point of fact. For all Bruce knows, Clark will break every bone in Bruce's body just touching him the way Kryptonians might handle each other. But whatever happens, it isn't Clark doing it, not really. It isn't Clark, it isn't Clark—

Except it is.

The wall goes clear and then is gone. Clark is right there, and—extremely naked, which at this point would be a stupid thing to be embarrassed by. Bruce doesn't look away.

Clark is on his knees, Bruce sees, supported partly by the wall, which has curved out like a hand to hold him—space enough to let him throw back his head and cry out, solid and steady under his shoulders, graceful as sculpture in the small of his back. And he's—

(Observe. Be objective. State the facts.)

—he's clearly orgasmed already, multiple times. Just did, Bruce thinks distantly, judging by the way he's panting, the glistening drips across his stomach, the (surely temporary) lack of tension in the hand whose fingers are still fanned out over the length of his cock.

Which is—despite all evidence of recent satisfaction—very, very hard.

"Bruce?" Clark says, squinting.

Bruce, swallowing, is momentarily unsure how to answer.

"Bruce, you—" Clark shakes his head, lifts his free hand away from the ship's deck and drags it to his face; and Bruce can see the tremor in it. The flush in Clark's cheeks is worse, if anything, and those panting breaths are rasping a little in his throat. Despite the ship's help supporting his weight, his thighs are trembling. "No, no—no, you aren't, you're not—"

"Clark," Bruce says, and is prepared for any number of things. For whatever part of Clark is driving right now to decide he's an intruder, to smash him into paste against the wall. For Clark to grab him faster than he can even see, to drag him to the floor and take him apart without even thinking.

But he's not prepared for Clark to stumble up off the deck the way he does—for his eyes to go strange and soft and dark, for him to say Bruce's name again and sound almost hushed.

"You shouldn't be here," Clark adds unsteadily, but even as he says it he's reaching out, and when his hands find Bruce's wrists he makes a low thick sound in the back of his throat. "Bruce, oh, god—"

"Clark," Bruce says again—tries to say again, but it sticks in his mouth. He'd left coat, jacket, boots, socks, in a trail behind him, as he'd gotten closer to Clark and the air had gotten warmer around him; if he'd been thinking, he would have taken his shirt off, his slacks—

But he hadn't. Clark does it for him, buttons rattling away across the deck, but Bruce barely hears them. Because Clark is also—Clark's pressed his face in close against Bruce's throat, the hinge of his jaw, still murmuring, "Bruce, Bruce," in that soft sweet way. Bruce had spent the last portion of the flight constructing potential scenarios and running through them, considering all the most likely possibilities, bracing himself for every worst thing that had leapt into his mind at once the moment the words spouse-mate imperative cycle had appeared on the screen in front of him.

But he wasn't prepared to be kissed like this—Clark clutching for him so eagerly, licking slow and deep and lush into his mouth. He wasn't prepared to have Clark touch him like this—clumsily tender, all over, running his fingertips with such singleminded focus over every new inch of Bruce as the shirt gets worked off. And he wasn't prepared to have Clark look at him like this: hazy and reverent, with a quiet lingering delight.

"Bruce," Clark sighs, into the side of Bruce's throat, hot and close and surrounding; and Bruce's knees go out from under him, but it doesn't matter.

Clark has him.

No, anon, I'm afraid we cannot pretend that, because doing so might diminish the effect of me telling you how PROFOUNDLY THRILLED I am to have more of this! *_____________*

And I can't even claim to have minded waiting for it, because augh, this was so worth it. There are so many spectacular lines in this - your description of Bruce doing gymnastics is so painstaking and glorious, and I love every single one of Clark's observations! Love him comparing his own physical control to Bruce's, love the conversation about pain and Clark thinking about Bruce's old injuries, LOVE LOVE LOVE that line about how much seems impossible about Bruce, aaaaaaaaaaaa. I LOVE IT ALL. (And I especially love the weight of that last coming from SUPERMAN, of all people. Perfect.)

And as if you hadn't made me happy enough, Clark's adorably weak excuse for being there, and SUDDEN BLISTERING FANTASIES, wow, and Clark managing to figure Bruce out just a little! MY HEART. Thank you so much for this, anon, and tbh I kind of hope you take just as long to write the sixth part because I really don't want the experience of reading this to be over. ♥

You deserve an incredibly eloquent comment, but I find myself mostly wanting to enthusiastically second everything the other anon said above me. Plus or minus a THIS IS SO GOOD YAY WOW I LOVE IT. /o\

The prompt and premise are amazing, but you're doing the heavy lifting of delivering on them SO WELL. The false conversation and all the layers and levels to everything, every word and every action - all Bruce's weird hangups and all the second-guessing and analyzing Clark has to do in response, man, it's everything that's fantastic about identity porn with these two in a single amazing package.

And the other anon said this already, too, but I don't care and am going to tell you again - this:

maybe he just doesn't know how to do this unless he's being somebody else

is SOUL-DESTROYING and I'm SLAIN by it. GAH. THANK YOU FOR THAT DEATHLY PUNCH TO THE FEELINGS. This was excruciatingly hot and excruciatingly painful at the same time, and I just. orz THANK YOU.

*pained, excited noises for this fill*

OH ANON, thank you for giving us this part which promises such delicious things to come. This is an outstanding set-up. The REVERSALS. The IDENTITY INTERPLAY. The FRIGGIN ART GALLERY OPENING where I'm sure Clark is looking at the contemporary art scene's homage to Kandinsky (and then, despite all of the HOT and WOW and DAMN that follows, it makes me want to draw Clark staring at that printers' test strip painting).

I love how game Clark is for Bruce's game, even if he can't quite figure out why Bruce is playing. (I about died at "Honor bondage," and I shant recover.) It doesn't even seem to matter, at this point, which reason Bruce is playing. The fact that he's playing the game at all promises rules that will lead to excellent outcomes. And maybe that's the point of games for Bruce. If something has rules, there's a way for both of them to win.

But let's take a few more moments to luxuriate in their absolutely surreally wonderful interchange at the gallery. I can't get over the fact that the most powerful man in the world is struggling not to make eye contact with his very awkward Bat-partner. Each time I re-read that section, I break out in delighted laughter. You have nailed the identity play, just nailed it. God. THANK YOU FOR POSTING THIS, ANON. I HAVE RUN OUT OF DELIGHTFUL THINGS TO TELL YOU ABOUT THIS FILL, BECAUSE IT IS ALL WONDERFUL, BUT I CAN SAVE THEM UP FOR LATER. <3333333333333

Yesssss, there's more! Of course I am awfully disappointed by the parts getting long, why would I want to read more of this amazing fic? :DDD And we're getting detective!Bruce, too! Yay! I loe that what gets him most is not even that Clark dented the safe, but that he didn't apologise for it. <3 And Bruce has been trying to learn/translate Kryptonian, that makes me so happy.

The obnoxious Bruce Wayne-y conversation with Lois, haha! :D Aww, and I am always here for cute Martha moments, and for Bruce totally using Martha's concern as an excuse to go see Clark.

(—Clark's face, red in the cheeks and across the forehead; and his mouth, Christ, he'd practically been panting, he'd kept biting his lip and every time it had gotten redder. His eyes, heavy-lidded, and the way he'd stared at Bruce, fixed and helpless, Tantalus starving with sweet ripe fruit just out of reach—)
Unffffffffff, such a perfect image right there.

I love how matter of fact Bruce is about this, even as he realises that his information is incomplete and he's not even sure what exactly Clark needs, but he's up for it anyway. Poor confused ship made me laugh.

Clark might not have control of himself, his strength. It might hurt—it might hurt very, very badly, in point of fact. For all Bruce knows, Clark will break every bone in Bruce's body just touching him the way Kryptonians might handle each other.
Oh, oooooh, oh Bruce! And he still keeps going! <3 Love Bruce trying to be objective and keeping a clear head for as long as possible, not that it lasts for long. :D And Clark jumping him and Clark actually being SWEET despite everything and the whole "spouse-mate" thing makes me grin like an idiot (will that come up again?) and the kiss and the tenderness and Clark saying Bruce's name over and over again, yesssssssssssss, I am so here for all of this. This continues to be amazing, anon. <333

I dunno about anyone else, but I know my thoughts whenever I read a fill is: I wish there was less! ;)

This is awesome and you are awesome!

This is an absolute cascade of hot, anon O_O

Clark's desperation is tangible, and I appreciate the touches of humour (that scene with Perry, I fucking laughed) to soften the disorienting horror of having such VIVID AND EXPLICIT HALLUCINATIONS.

Love Bruce's determinedly oblique approach to helping--welp, gonna have to fuck him. Better bury that in reams of tangential analysis. I love the rapport he has with the ship, that is quite lovely XD

And then you WALLOP ME with the unspeakable hotness of Bruce undressing as he approaches Clark, like he's experiencing an equally intense compulsion. AMAZING.

I AM SO HAPPY THIS IS BACK. And I am so happy it's returned with Bruce in super-tight shorts ;D

The descriptions of Bruce's gynmastic prowess are incredibly satisfying, and HOT, YES. THAT HANDSTAND. BRUISE-TOUCHING. HE'S DOING IT ON PURPOSE. I am probably making the same face Clark is. *glee*

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Page 72 of 99

DCEU Prompt Post #1

Re: Bruce/Clark, suit porn, Superman in black/white tie

Re: Bruce/Clark, orgasm denial

FILL: wildest dreams (burn it down); Bruce/Clark, heat (1a/4)

FILL: wildest dreams (burn it down); Bruce/Clark, heat (1b/4)

Re: FILL: wildest dreams (burn it down); Bruce/Clark, heat (1b/4)

Bruce/Clark, Clark impersonates Batman or Bruce Wayne

Bruce/Clark, TTK

Fill: A Few Pages from this Closed Book: Bruce/Clark, Identity kink [1/3]

Re: [Fill, 4/6] Bruce/Clark, competence kink

Re: [Fill, 4/6] Bruce/Clark, competence kink

Re: [Fill, 4/6] Bruce/Clark, competence kink

[Fill, 5/6] Bruce/Clark, competence kink

Re: Fill: A Few Pages from this Closed Book: Bruce/Clark, Identity kink [1/3]

Re: FILL: wildest dreams (burn it down); Bruce/Clark, heat (1b/4)

Re: FILL: wildest dreams (burn it down); Bruce/Clark, heat (1b/4)

Re: FILL: wildest dreams (burn it down); Bruce/Clark, heat (1b/4)

FILL: wildest dreams (burn it down); Bruce/Clark, heat (2a/4)

FILL: wildest dreams (burn it down); Bruce/Clark, heat (2b/4)

Re: [Fill, 5/6] Bruce/Clark, competence kink

Re: Fill: A Few Pages from this Closed Book: Bruce/Clark, Identity kink [1/3]

Re: Fill: A Few Pages from this Closed Book: Bruce/Clark, Identity kink [1/3]

Re: FILL: wildest dreams (burn it down); Bruce/Clark, heat (2b/4)

Re: FILL: wildest dreams (burn it down); Bruce/Clark, heat (2b/4)

Re: FILL: wildest dreams (burn it down); Bruce/Clark, heat (2b/4)

Re: [Fill, 5/6] Bruce/Clark, competence kink