I don't even know anymore, this is writing itself while I grip the keyboard and desperately try to hang on for the ride. *hands* ENJOY?
They decide on Friday. Travel time isn't a factor, Clark figures; he doesn't have to pretend to use a car around Bruce. But Mom doesn't want any morning meetings or anything hanging over Bruce's head, or any deadlines over Clark's, and that means Friday.
"I'm sure he'd clear his schedule for this anyway," Clark says, trying to guess what Bruce's actual boyfriend might say—and then it occurs to him that maybe Bruce won't. Maybe there's a reason he's been planning all their dates, besides Clark being a terrible fake boyfriend. Keeping this thing alive where the press can see them is hardly a good rationale for going to Clark's mom's house in Smallville for dinner. Really, it's the opposite: if Clark does fly them there, nobody can know they've gone or it'll raise questions.
And Clark finds himself almost hoping Bruce does come up with an excuse. Maybe he'll even make Clark regret asking—look disdainful at the prospect of going to some farm in the middle of nowhere, make some kind of rude joke about Mom's cooking.
Maybe he'll be enough of a jerk to make Clark stop thinking about kissing him again.
But when Clark does ask, Bruce doesn't beg off. Bruce isn't a jerk at all, in fact.
Clark goes to his office again—he could have called, but then he wouldn't have given himself a chance to get photographed outside Bruce's building. It's tactics. Batman would be proud.
And when he finally blurts it out, Bruce looks at him silently for a long second and then says, "It should work, if we take the jet."
"What? Bruce, we don't need the jet—"
Bruce raises an eyebrow and does that annoying thing where he leans back, lacing his hands behind his head, and oh, Clark really wishes that didn't draw Clark's eyes to his shoulders, to the gap of his unbuttoned collar, as irresistibly as it does. "You know that," Bruce says, "and I know that, but Clark Kent's mother's address is a matter of public record. Going to see your mother is a perfectly reasonable move at this stage, and the jet is a perfectly reasonable way to do it.
"I certainly could vanish for an evening and lie about it, to cover up having gone to Kansas with Superman, who I'm already lying about not knowing, to tell an entirely separate lie to your mother. But that's a little much even for me."
Which is fair, Clark supposes. "Fine, okay. We'll—we'll take the jet."
"Excellent," Bruce says, and gives him that Wayne smile. "Please tell your mother I'm looking forward to it."
Clark can't imagine any way in which this won't be a disaster—in fact, he spends the week imagining all the ways it will be. Bruce using his terrible ridiculous lines on Clark in front of Mom; Bruce casually resting a proprietary hand on Clark's knee under the dining room table; Bruce making thoughtless comparisons between Mom's cooking and some—some zillion-dollar steak he'd had in Paris last week, or something, looking around the place Clark still thinks of as home with barely-veiled disgust—
Maybe they can break up after this. That happens sometimes, right, when meeting somebody's parents goes badly? People break up over things like that, don't they? Clark thinks so. (In his extremely limited experience, you break up with someone by dying in front of them and staying dead long enough for them to mourn you before you come back from the grave. And that probably only works the once.)
Maybe they can break up after this, and Clark will never have to look at Bruce ever again. That seems like a solid plan.
Bruce's jet only takes about an hour to get to Kansas, because of course Bruce Wayne can outfly any commercial airline. (Superman would still have been faster, though.) Clark can't help being braced for a spectacle, but the car that's waiting for them at the airfield—a private runway? They're not at any airport Clark recognizes—is actually pretty demure, for Bruce.
Bruce drives it himself, too, which is unusual. He doesn't ask Clark for directions, and he doesn't use the GPS, either; but then again he probably looked it up beforehand. (He's Batman—he probably looked it up beforehand, decided on three or four alternate routes he could swap to in case they're tailed, and then drove all of them ten times in some kind of Bat-simulator in the Cave.)
Clark is silent for the whole drive, mentally preparing for the worst, and Bruce seems willing to leave him to it. Neither one of them says a word until Bruce brakes to a stop in the driveway and tells Clark, "Go on. I'll get the wine."
Clark hadn't known they'd brought wine. But he does know an escape route when he sees one. "Sure," he says, and makes a break for it.
Meeting Mom at the door is his last chance to fix this, to quit miring himself deeper in deceit and idiocy and Bruce. But he finds himself going in for a hug instead—a good long one, in case Bruce says something awful and Mom never wants to speak to Clark again—and then Mom's ushering him inside and somehow it's already too late.
"And where's Bruce? Don't tell me he couldn't make it—"
"No, no, he's just—"
"I'm right here, Mrs. Kent," Bruce says, catching the screen door with an elbow before it can swing shut behind Clark. He smiles, and it looks—it looks weird, quick and a little uncertain. (It looks—real, even.) "Clark said you were planning on fish, so I brought a white."
He holds the wine out like an offering; and it's probably ridiculously expensive, ridiculously good, but that's not enough to earn it Mom's attention.
"Bruce!" she says instead, warm. "How lovely to see you, it's been so long—"
Call me Martha is the next thing Clark expects to hear, and he's already wincing, wondering how Bruce is going to manage to parry that one—except Mom doesn't say it.
Instead she steps in close, ignoring the wine, and actually hugs Bruce; and Bruce falters, suddenly awkward, even after Clark carefully removes the bottle from his still-outstretched hand.
"I hope you know you don't need to wait for Clark to die again before you come by," Mom adds, wry, when she lets go.
That's right: Bruce had been at Clark's funeral. Obviously Clark hadn't known it at the time, and Mom had tried to tell him about it once—too soon after he'd come back. She hadn't gotten much further than the list of attendees before starting to cry. And Clark had been too busy comforting her to think it through then, but—how could Bruce even have known where to be? He'd saved Mom from Luthor's guys, and he'd told her who he was, and then she must have invited him.
And come by—Mom didn't mean the graveyard when she said that. Bruce had come by before? Here?
Clark clutches the wine bottle and listens to Bruce chuckling, apologizing to Mom for being too busy, and he tries to imagine it: Mom here in the farmhouse alone, all these empty rooms, nothing but bleak silence where Dad and Clark both used to be. And then a knock at the door, Bruce Wayne standing on the step and asking to come in. And Bruce can be considerate when he wants to be, Clark knows that now—he would have worked even harder at it for Mom than he has for Clark, too, because—
Because Bruce knows what it's like to lose a family.
"—give that here, Clark," Mom's saying, "let's open it now so it can breathe," and Clark automatically hands over the bottle, gaze meeting Bruce's over Mom's shoulder.
Bruce is—Bruce looks like he's a half-second away from offering to leave; from asking to, claiming he's forgotten a meeting and making his apologies. And Clark spent the whole trip here wishing there were a good way to get Bruce to go, but suddenly he can't stand the idea. Suddenly that's the last thing he wants.
"Here," he finds himself saying, "here, let me—give me your jacket," and he steps forward, between Bruce and the door, to find a free hanger in the front closet.
"Come on, come in," Mom adds, taking Bruce by the elbow the moment the suit jacket's off, and now he's definitely not going anywhere.
Clark's surprised by how satisfying that thought is.
FILL: tell all the truth (but tell it slant); Bruce/Clark, fake dating (10/?)
They decide on Friday. Travel time isn't a factor, Clark figures; he doesn't have to pretend to use a car around Bruce. But Mom doesn't want any morning meetings or anything hanging over Bruce's head, or any deadlines over Clark's, and that means Friday.
"I'm sure he'd clear his schedule for this anyway," Clark says, trying to guess what Bruce's actual boyfriend might say—and then it occurs to him that maybe Bruce won't. Maybe there's a reason he's been planning all their dates, besides Clark being a terrible fake boyfriend. Keeping this thing alive where the press can see them is hardly a good rationale for going to Clark's mom's house in Smallville for dinner. Really, it's the opposite: if Clark does fly them there, nobody can know they've gone or it'll raise questions.
And Clark finds himself almost hoping Bruce does come up with an excuse. Maybe he'll even make Clark regret asking—look disdainful at the prospect of going to some farm in the middle of nowhere, make some kind of rude joke about Mom's cooking.
Maybe he'll be enough of a jerk to make Clark stop thinking about kissing him again.
But when Clark does ask, Bruce doesn't beg off. Bruce isn't a jerk at all, in fact.
Clark goes to his office again—he could have called, but then he wouldn't have given himself a chance to get photographed outside Bruce's building. It's tactics. Batman would be proud.
And when he finally blurts it out, Bruce looks at him silently for a long second and then says, "It should work, if we take the jet."
"What? Bruce, we don't need the jet—"
Bruce raises an eyebrow and does that annoying thing where he leans back, lacing his hands behind his head, and oh, Clark really wishes that didn't draw Clark's eyes to his shoulders, to the gap of his unbuttoned collar, as irresistibly as it does. "You know that," Bruce says, "and I know that, but Clark Kent's mother's address is a matter of public record. Going to see your mother is a perfectly reasonable move at this stage, and the jet is a perfectly reasonable way to do it.
"I certainly could vanish for an evening and lie about it, to cover up having gone to Kansas with Superman, who I'm already lying about not knowing, to tell an entirely separate lie to your mother. But that's a little much even for me."
Which is fair, Clark supposes. "Fine, okay. We'll—we'll take the jet."
"Excellent," Bruce says, and gives him that Wayne smile. "Please tell your mother I'm looking forward to it."
Clark can't imagine any way in which this won't be a disaster—in fact, he spends the week imagining all the ways it will be. Bruce using his terrible ridiculous lines on Clark in front of Mom; Bruce casually resting a proprietary hand on Clark's knee under the dining room table; Bruce making thoughtless comparisons between Mom's cooking and some—some zillion-dollar steak he'd had in Paris last week, or something, looking around the place Clark still thinks of as home with barely-veiled disgust—
Maybe they can break up after this. That happens sometimes, right, when meeting somebody's parents goes badly? People break up over things like that, don't they? Clark thinks so. (In his extremely limited experience, you break up with someone by dying in front of them and staying dead long enough for them to mourn you before you come back from the grave. And that probably only works the once.)
Maybe they can break up after this, and Clark will never have to look at Bruce ever again. That seems like a solid plan.
Bruce's jet only takes about an hour to get to Kansas, because of course Bruce Wayne can outfly any commercial airline. (Superman would still have been faster, though.) Clark can't help being braced for a spectacle, but the car that's waiting for them at the airfield—a private runway? They're not at any airport Clark recognizes—is actually pretty demure, for Bruce.
Bruce drives it himself, too, which is unusual. He doesn't ask Clark for directions, and he doesn't use the GPS, either; but then again he probably looked it up beforehand. (He's Batman—he probably looked it up beforehand, decided on three or four alternate routes he could swap to in case they're tailed, and then drove all of them ten times in some kind of Bat-simulator in the Cave.)
Clark is silent for the whole drive, mentally preparing for the worst, and Bruce seems willing to leave him to it. Neither one of them says a word until Bruce brakes to a stop in the driveway and tells Clark, "Go on. I'll get the wine."
Clark hadn't known they'd brought wine. But he does know an escape route when he sees one. "Sure," he says, and makes a break for it.
Meeting Mom at the door is his last chance to fix this, to quit miring himself deeper in deceit and idiocy and Bruce. But he finds himself going in for a hug instead—a good long one, in case Bruce says something awful and Mom never wants to speak to Clark again—and then Mom's ushering him inside and somehow it's already too late.
"And where's Bruce? Don't tell me he couldn't make it—"
"No, no, he's just—"
"I'm right here, Mrs. Kent," Bruce says, catching the screen door with an elbow before it can swing shut behind Clark. He smiles, and it looks—it looks weird, quick and a little uncertain. (It looks—real, even.) "Clark said you were planning on fish, so I brought a white."
He holds the wine out like an offering; and it's probably ridiculously expensive, ridiculously good, but that's not enough to earn it Mom's attention.
"Bruce!" she says instead, warm. "How lovely to see you, it's been so long—"
Call me Martha is the next thing Clark expects to hear, and he's already wincing, wondering how Bruce is going to manage to parry that one—except Mom doesn't say it.
Instead she steps in close, ignoring the wine, and actually hugs Bruce; and Bruce falters, suddenly awkward, even after Clark carefully removes the bottle from his still-outstretched hand.
"I hope you know you don't need to wait for Clark to die again before you come by," Mom adds, wry, when she lets go.
That's right: Bruce had been at Clark's funeral. Obviously Clark hadn't known it at the time, and Mom had tried to tell him about it once—too soon after he'd come back. She hadn't gotten much further than the list of attendees before starting to cry. And Clark had been too busy comforting her to think it through then, but—how could Bruce even have known where to be? He'd saved Mom from Luthor's guys, and he'd told her who he was, and then she must have invited him.
And come by—Mom didn't mean the graveyard when she said that. Bruce had come by before? Here?
Clark clutches the wine bottle and listens to Bruce chuckling, apologizing to Mom for being too busy, and he tries to imagine it: Mom here in the farmhouse alone, all these empty rooms, nothing but bleak silence where Dad and Clark both used to be. And then a knock at the door, Bruce Wayne standing on the step and asking to come in. And Bruce can be considerate when he wants to be, Clark knows that now—he would have worked even harder at it for Mom than he has for Clark, too, because—
Because Bruce knows what it's like to lose a family.
"—give that here, Clark," Mom's saying, "let's open it now so it can breathe," and Clark automatically hands over the bottle, gaze meeting Bruce's over Mom's shoulder.
Bruce is—Bruce looks like he's a half-second away from offering to leave; from asking to, claiming he's forgotten a meeting and making his apologies. And Clark spent the whole trip here wishing there were a good way to get Bruce to go, but suddenly he can't stand the idea. Suddenly that's the last thing he wants.
"Here," he finds himself saying, "here, let me—give me your jacket," and he steps forward, between Bruce and the door, to find a free hanger in the front closet.
"Come on, come in," Mom adds, taking Bruce by the elbow the moment the suit jacket's off, and now he's definitely not going anywhere.
Clark's surprised by how satisfying that thought is.