I accidentally some more porn ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Bruce is due at Wayne Enterprises this morning; apparently it takes considerable time and effort to offset his own deliberate stumbles and arrogant showboating. One more ball in his elaborate juggling routine, steps to keep the company well-oiled and to make sure his staff have some degree of respect for him, despite being a one-man PR catastrophe.
When Clark suggests that he may be his own worst enemy, Bruce's only response is a caustic look.
So Clark sits on the bed with one leg folded under him and watches Bruce pull the persona together--vest, cufflinks, jacket, smirk. It's a subtle but striking transformation, just the slightest shift in his posture, in the superficial openness of his face. All Clark can think about is dismantling it again, piece by piece.
He only realizes how quiet he's been when Bruce asks, "what's eating you?"
"Nothing," Clark says, with a shrug. He watches Bruce fix his hair and then tug his shirtcuffs down over his wrists, and changes his mind about brushing it off. "You're good at hiding."
Bruce tilts his chin at Clark, invitation for him to elaborate.
"When did you, uh--" Clark says. It isn't important; he's just curious--that, and thinking about it stirs a particular thrill that he finds himself hungry for. "How long?"
Bruce steps up to him, leans one hand on the bed, the other on the crook of Clark's knee. From the look of him, Clark expects a boorish Wayne response, but Bruce just ducks in, drops a kiss on the bridge of Clark's nose and says, "I'll see you later."
*
It's a beautiful day, the sun burning off the worst of Gotham's cloudbanks and letting the summer heat gather in the air. Clark relaxes out on the deck in one of the slowly disintegrating loungers and watches the remaining white shreds of cloud get teased out by the breeze.
It's too warm for flannel and jeans, so he's taken it upon himself to be borderline invasive and dug a pair of shorts and an undershirt from Bruce's wardrobe. Both black, with amusing predictability. Clark finds he's mildly disappointed that they only smell of detergent, but when he closes his eyes and lets the last day or so wash over him, he thinks maybe that's a small mercy.
It's kind of overwhelming enough even with the hazy quality the night has taken on, especially where it's shot through with bolts of visceral, tactile memory. Clark has to stop and hold his breath whenever he thinks about it.
(It doesn't escape him that the man who once used everything in his arsenal to drive him to his knees could now do so with a single glance, a soft word.)
He groans quietly and turns onto his front, lets the sun kiss his spine. He must have drifted into sleep--he didn't get that much rest, after all--because he wakes to a shadow cast over him and the clink of ice against a glass.
"May I interest you in some iced tea, Master Clark?"
Clark squints up at Alfred's silhouette. "Mm?"
"It's passion fruit," Alfred says, arch. He sets the glass down next to the lounger.
"Thanks," Clark says. He feels his face heat, a sharp prickle under the warmth he has absorbed from the sun. He can't quite bring himself to make eye contact. He sits himself up, feet on the deck, and scrubs one hand through his hair. "Um--"
Alfred tugs the leg of his pants and sits himself on the adjacent lounger. He leans forward, hands clasped between his knees. "It seems that Master Bruce is quite taken with you," he says. There's no judgment there, just Alfred's usual brand of shrewd understatement. He watches Clark, sharp behind the horn-rimmed glasses.
Clark is conscious that Alfred has been the one looking out for Bruce all these years. It'd be naive to think it's as straightforward as a father-son kind of relationship, even a thorny one, but it suddenly makes him nervous--and a little annoyed at himself, that he wants Alfred's approval in this.
(And he remembers, all of a sudden, that ma has invited him and Bruce back home, and he feels that pressure twofold.)
"Yeah, uh." He rubs at the back of his neck, smiles deprecatingly. "I got that impression."
"And full force, no doubt," Alfred says, infinitely dry. "I trust you are prepared for his inevitable nonsense."
"I've managed so far," Clark says, and yeah, he has, mostly--but he's sure that's not what Alfred is talking about.
Alfred just offers him an opaque smile and stands, touches Clark's arm. "You're a good influence on him, Clark. Eventually, he will try to make you believe otherwise. Don't let him."
"This is all very ominous." Clark won't let himself wonder how many people Alfred might have given this speech to.
"That is his middle name," Alfred says, then adds, with mannered disdain, "among other things."
*
Clark's sunsoaked and drowsy, feels like he could almost get fat from it, the way it sinks into his bones and brims inside him. It feels like all the aches and bruises have lifted from his skin. He's shed the undershirt and left it in a clinging damp pile on the deck, next to the glass full of half-melted ice cubes.
He can track the gradual passage of the sun even with his eyes closed, gauged by the angle and intensity of its rays on his bare back. It's just him, the wide arc of the sky, the gentle lap of the lake beneath the deck--and someone else's breathing. He keeps his eyes closed, keeps his smile where it is.
There's a liquid noise, the ring of the glass, and Clark catches on a second before it happens.
Despite that, he can't help the involuntary jerk when the sliver of ice alights between his shoulderblades, body snapping into rigidity as it slides into the small of his back. Clark gasps and twists onto his side, water trickling off him, already warming.
"You look like you've had a busy day." Bruce crouches next to the lounger, rests his forearm along its edge. His expression is jejune, caddish, and Clark doesn't trust it one bit.
"You're being that guy," he tells Bruce. "Don't be that guy."
Bruce raises his eyebrows, nothing but bland curiosity. "And which guy is that?"
Clark feels a stab of frustration. Bruce's mask is paper-thin; it shouldn't work anywhere near as well as it does, especially not now, but it's somehow hard to get past it. He is extremely good at hiding. "The first time I met you--" Clark says, by way of explanation, trying to lift the edges.
"Mm, yes," Bruce says, deadpan. "Our eyes met across a crowded room."
Clark snorts and allows him a tolerant smile, then decides to play along. He affects the slightly bored tone of someone who's told the same story a hundred times. "It was a bright, warm evening and the stars were aligned just so. I hated you on sight. You couldn't stop checking me out--"
"You hated me? Really? I didn't--I did not get that vibe from you." And there's the quick turn of his mouth, engineered to be completely infuriating. "All those friendly aspersions you were casting my way..."
"You were an asshole." Clark's smile becomes a grin. "And you persisted--"
"Watch your language, Kansas."
"--persisted in being an asshole right up to the line. I've got to say, I admire your dedication to the role."
And just like that, Wayne's swagger evaporates and it's just Bruce knelt next to him, getting dirt on his expensive slacks. He takes a deep breath, not quite a sigh. "I don't have to try very hard," he says, the slick marble of his public voice crushed back into its natural gravel.
Clark catches a finger in the V of his jacket. "I think you have a kind heart."
"I think you feel that way about every person you meet, Clark."
Clark half shrugs. It's not too far from the truth--he believes there's some good in everyone, no matter how deeply buried--but that doesn't mean Bruce is somehow exempt, or that Clark's love is somehow devalued just because it's vast. He's about to try explain that when Bruce slips his thumb into the waistband of his shorts, snaps the elastic against Clark's back.
"Are these mine?" he says, and Clark's throat tightens at the tone of his voice, the delicate break of need in it.
Clark nods, mouth dry.
"Inside," Bruce says, roughly. "Now."
*
Bruce drags him through to the bedroom, his hand on Clark's wrist and Clark almost tripping over his own feet to keep up. Alfred's long-suffering 'good grief' is cut short as Bruce kicks the door closed behind them.
He presses Clark up against one of the huge windows; Clark's skin squeals against it, leaves a sweaty smear on the glass. His skull makes a hollow sound when he tips his head back a bit too hard. Bruce is on his knees, mouthing at Clark through the sleek synthetic fabric of the shorts, one hand working its way up the leg, hitching it up Clark's thigh. He's a little desperate with it, like maybe he's been thinking about it all day. Thinking about Clark.
"Did you," Clark says, "did you--ah," and then whatever coy smalltalk he's trying to initiate is sent skittering out of his head when Bruce yanks down the waistband and draws Clark into his mouth. He jerks helplessly but Bruce holds him fast, a palm pushing against his hip as he sucks tight around him. The other slides further up the inside of his thigh, still under the shorts, and squeezes at the base of Clark's dick.
"Ah, jeez," Clark breathes, pulse thrumming in his ears. He feels like he's glowing, today has been nothing but decadent warmth, and now--and now Bruce is doing something outrageous with his tongue, sending searing rills of heat through his veins. Clark pets his hair, a clumsy warning. "Bruce."
Bruce pulls back, slides Clark out of his mouth in an impressively lewd maneuver, leaves the head of Clark's dick resting on his lower lip. He's not smirking, there's no trace of the playboy here, just Bruce's grave intensity and a confident, unashamed hedonism that is not part of any act. He stares up at Clark, eyes glittering, and waits.
Clark endures that look for a the span of two breaths and five heartbeats and then comes, spills into Bruce's mouth, over his lips. It's so brashly pornographic he can barely stand to watch it happen, especially when it drips onto Bruce's shirt collar.
Bruce just tilts his head back and swallows, darts his tongue into the corner of his mouth and then across his lower lip. He pulls an exaggeratedly disgusted face, and Clark laughs, hauls him up onto his feet--it's easy, like he doesn't weigh anything, like Clark's the strongest man in the world--and kisses him, kisses the taste of himself, kisses the smile that curves against his lips.
"Are you busy?" he says, and hooks two fingers into the knot of Bruce's tie, "because I think I owe you a few favors."
*
The sun is setting, its retreat tearing the sky open into long red gashes, pouring into the lake and turning the water into stirred blood. Bruce's bedroom is doused in it; Bruce himself is cast in shadow where Clark stands between him and the window. He's unfastened Bruce's tie and placed it neatly on the dresser, eased his jacket from his shoulders, and is slowly slipping the buttons of his shirt.
Very slowly.
"I said I wasn't busy right now," Bruce says, and the fact that he sounds impatient instead of seductive is somehow more appealing. "But I don't actually have all week."
Clark just smiles sunnily and returns to his exploration. Every new button opens Bruce's shirt up wider, revealing more scars--each of which needs to be mapped, first with fingers then with lips, and in the case of the gnarled mess on his shoulder, with the graze of Clark's teeth. It's testament to Bruce's resilience that he's still standing upright, considering the noises he made at that.
Bruce's fingers brush Clark's shoulders, down his arms. "Come on," he says as Clark unfastens the last button. "Clark."
"Pushy," Clark says, mouth pressed to the sliver of shiny skin above Bruce's navel. He's not really sure what his plan is here, only that he wants to take all of Bruce's pieces and lay them out in plain view: not just the cotton and silk and gabardine, but the bone and muscle and pale, pale scars; his grit and his grief and his abiding passion, Gotham in his blood like a curse. He wants to know Bruce like he knows himself.
(He wonders if Bruce feels the same about him, whether he's parsing Clark Kent out into a schematic diagram, or into a battle plan--or whether he find everything he needs worn plain on Clark's sleeve.)
"You're killing me here," Bruce says, as Clark slips the shirt from him, turns him around so he can work his way up Bruce's back, mouth at the abrasions and welts and the stormclouds of bruising. Turnabout is fair play, he wants to say, but for all the forgiveness he has, he can't quite joke about that yet.
Clark presses his lips to the scattershot puckers of smooth skin at the base of his neck, and slides his palm across the front of his slacks. Bruce clenches his teeth and rocks his hips forward, and Clark takes his hand away long enough to unfasten his belt, push the fabric away and draw him down onto the bed.
Bruce's head falls back as Clark tugs at his underwear, bares his neck so that Clark can spread his hand across the curve of his throat and feel the vibration of his voice, please please please, the gasp when Clark tightens his hand around him, when he presses the flat of his tongue over Bruce's nipple, when he bites at the juncture of his shoulder. He comes quickly enough that it would be embarrassing if it wasn't so gorgeous--Bruce makes a sudden, startled sound, his body flexing into Clark's hand, lost in the tight shudder of his thighs and abdomen.
He breathes, and Clark breathes with him, and Bruce hooks an arm across his shoulders, pulls him down on top of him.
Fill: Whoever Falls First -- Bruce/Clark, sparring (15/18?)
Bruce is due at Wayne Enterprises this morning; apparently it takes considerable time and effort to offset his own deliberate stumbles and arrogant showboating. One more ball in his elaborate juggling routine, steps to keep the company well-oiled and to make sure his staff have some degree of respect for him, despite being a one-man PR catastrophe.
When Clark suggests that he may be his own worst enemy, Bruce's only response is a caustic look.
So Clark sits on the bed with one leg folded under him and watches Bruce pull the persona together--vest, cufflinks, jacket, smirk. It's a subtle but striking transformation, just the slightest shift in his posture, in the superficial openness of his face. All Clark can think about is dismantling it again, piece by piece.
He only realizes how quiet he's been when Bruce asks, "what's eating you?"
"Nothing," Clark says, with a shrug. He watches Bruce fix his hair and then tug his shirtcuffs down over his wrists, and changes his mind about brushing it off. "You're good at hiding."
Bruce tilts his chin at Clark, invitation for him to elaborate.
"When did you, uh--" Clark says. It isn't important; he's just curious--that, and thinking about it stirs a particular thrill that he finds himself hungry for. "How long?"
Bruce steps up to him, leans one hand on the bed, the other on the crook of Clark's knee. From the look of him, Clark expects a boorish Wayne response, but Bruce just ducks in, drops a kiss on the bridge of Clark's nose and says, "I'll see you later."
*
It's a beautiful day, the sun burning off the worst of Gotham's cloudbanks and letting the summer heat gather in the air. Clark relaxes out on the deck in one of the slowly disintegrating loungers and watches the remaining white shreds of cloud get teased out by the breeze.
It's too warm for flannel and jeans, so he's taken it upon himself to be borderline invasive and dug a pair of shorts and an undershirt from Bruce's wardrobe. Both black, with amusing predictability. Clark finds he's mildly disappointed that they only smell of detergent, but when he closes his eyes and lets the last day or so wash over him, he thinks maybe that's a small mercy.
It's kind of overwhelming enough even with the hazy quality the night has taken on, especially where it's shot through with bolts of visceral, tactile memory. Clark has to stop and hold his breath whenever he thinks about it.
(It doesn't escape him that the man who once used everything in his arsenal to drive him to his knees could now do so with a single glance, a soft word.)
He groans quietly and turns onto his front, lets the sun kiss his spine. He must have drifted into sleep--he didn't get that much rest, after all--because he wakes to a shadow cast over him and the clink of ice against a glass.
"May I interest you in some iced tea, Master Clark?"
Clark squints up at Alfred's silhouette. "Mm?"
"It's passion fruit," Alfred says, arch. He sets the glass down next to the lounger.
"Thanks," Clark says. He feels his face heat, a sharp prickle under the warmth he has absorbed from the sun. He can't quite bring himself to make eye contact. He sits himself up, feet on the deck, and scrubs one hand through his hair. "Um--"
Alfred tugs the leg of his pants and sits himself on the adjacent lounger. He leans forward, hands clasped between his knees. "It seems that Master Bruce is quite taken with you," he says. There's no judgment there, just Alfred's usual brand of shrewd understatement. He watches Clark, sharp behind the horn-rimmed glasses.
Clark is conscious that Alfred has been the one looking out for Bruce all these years. It'd be naive to think it's as straightforward as a father-son kind of relationship, even a thorny one, but it suddenly makes him nervous--and a little annoyed at himself, that he wants Alfred's approval in this.
(And he remembers, all of a sudden, that ma has invited him and Bruce back home, and he feels that pressure twofold.)
"Yeah, uh." He rubs at the back of his neck, smiles deprecatingly. "I got that impression."
"And full force, no doubt," Alfred says, infinitely dry. "I trust you are prepared for his inevitable nonsense."
"I've managed so far," Clark says, and yeah, he has, mostly--but he's sure that's not what Alfred is talking about.
Alfred just offers him an opaque smile and stands, touches Clark's arm. "You're a good influence on him, Clark. Eventually, he will try to make you believe otherwise. Don't let him."
"This is all very ominous." Clark won't let himself wonder how many people Alfred might have given this speech to.
"That is his middle name," Alfred says, then adds, with mannered disdain, "among other things."
*
Clark's sunsoaked and drowsy, feels like he could almost get fat from it, the way it sinks into his bones and brims inside him. It feels like all the aches and bruises have lifted from his skin. He's shed the undershirt and left it in a clinging damp pile on the deck, next to the glass full of half-melted ice cubes.
He can track the gradual passage of the sun even with his eyes closed, gauged by the angle and intensity of its rays on his bare back. It's just him, the wide arc of the sky, the gentle lap of the lake beneath the deck--and someone else's breathing. He keeps his eyes closed, keeps his smile where it is.
There's a liquid noise, the ring of the glass, and Clark catches on a second before it happens.
Despite that, he can't help the involuntary jerk when the sliver of ice alights between his shoulderblades, body snapping into rigidity as it slides into the small of his back. Clark gasps and twists onto his side, water trickling off him, already warming.
"You look like you've had a busy day." Bruce crouches next to the lounger, rests his forearm along its edge. His expression is jejune, caddish, and Clark doesn't trust it one bit.
"You're being that guy," he tells Bruce. "Don't be that guy."
Bruce raises his eyebrows, nothing but bland curiosity. "And which guy is that?"
Clark feels a stab of frustration. Bruce's mask is paper-thin; it shouldn't work anywhere near as well as it does, especially not now, but it's somehow hard to get past it. He is extremely good at hiding. "The first time I met you--" Clark says, by way of explanation, trying to lift the edges.
"Mm, yes," Bruce says, deadpan. "Our eyes met across a crowded room."
Clark snorts and allows him a tolerant smile, then decides to play along. He affects the slightly bored tone of someone who's told the same story a hundred times. "It was a bright, warm evening and the stars were aligned just so. I hated you on sight. You couldn't stop checking me out--"
"You hated me? Really? I didn't--I did not get that vibe from you." And there's the quick turn of his mouth, engineered to be completely infuriating. "All those friendly aspersions you were casting my way..."
"You were an asshole." Clark's smile becomes a grin. "And you persisted--"
"Watch your language, Kansas."
"--persisted in being an asshole right up to the line. I've got to say, I admire your dedication to the role."
And just like that, Wayne's swagger evaporates and it's just Bruce knelt next to him, getting dirt on his expensive slacks. He takes a deep breath, not quite a sigh. "I don't have to try very hard," he says, the slick marble of his public voice crushed back into its natural gravel.
Clark catches a finger in the V of his jacket. "I think you have a kind heart."
"I think you feel that way about every person you meet, Clark."
Clark half shrugs. It's not too far from the truth--he believes there's some good in everyone, no matter how deeply buried--but that doesn't mean Bruce is somehow exempt, or that Clark's love is somehow devalued just because it's vast. He's about to try explain that when Bruce slips his thumb into the waistband of his shorts, snaps the elastic against Clark's back.
"Are these mine?" he says, and Clark's throat tightens at the tone of his voice, the delicate break of need in it.
Clark nods, mouth dry.
"Inside," Bruce says, roughly. "Now."
*
Bruce drags him through to the bedroom, his hand on Clark's wrist and Clark almost tripping over his own feet to keep up. Alfred's long-suffering 'good grief' is cut short as Bruce kicks the door closed behind them.
He presses Clark up against one of the huge windows; Clark's skin squeals against it, leaves a sweaty smear on the glass. His skull makes a hollow sound when he tips his head back a bit too hard. Bruce is on his knees, mouthing at Clark through the sleek synthetic fabric of the shorts, one hand working its way up the leg, hitching it up Clark's thigh. He's a little desperate with it, like maybe he's been thinking about it all day. Thinking about Clark.
"Did you," Clark says, "did you--ah," and then whatever coy smalltalk he's trying to initiate is sent skittering out of his head when Bruce yanks down the waistband and draws Clark into his mouth. He jerks helplessly but Bruce holds him fast, a palm pushing against his hip as he sucks tight around him. The other slides further up the inside of his thigh, still under the shorts, and squeezes at the base of Clark's dick.
"Ah, jeez," Clark breathes, pulse thrumming in his ears. He feels like he's glowing, today has been nothing but decadent warmth, and now--and now Bruce is doing something outrageous with his tongue, sending searing rills of heat through his veins. Clark pets his hair, a clumsy warning. "Bruce."
Bruce pulls back, slides Clark out of his mouth in an impressively lewd maneuver, leaves the head of Clark's dick resting on his lower lip. He's not smirking, there's no trace of the playboy here, just Bruce's grave intensity and a confident, unashamed hedonism that is not part of any act. He stares up at Clark, eyes glittering, and waits.
Clark endures that look for a the span of two breaths and five heartbeats and then comes, spills into Bruce's mouth, over his lips. It's so brashly pornographic he can barely stand to watch it happen, especially when it drips onto Bruce's shirt collar.
Bruce just tilts his head back and swallows, darts his tongue into the corner of his mouth and then across his lower lip. He pulls an exaggeratedly disgusted face, and Clark laughs, hauls him up onto his feet--it's easy, like he doesn't weigh anything, like Clark's the strongest man in the world--and kisses him, kisses the taste of himself, kisses the smile that curves against his lips.
"Are you busy?" he says, and hooks two fingers into the knot of Bruce's tie, "because I think I owe you a few favors."
*
The sun is setting, its retreat tearing the sky open into long red gashes, pouring into the lake and turning the water into stirred blood. Bruce's bedroom is doused in it; Bruce himself is cast in shadow where Clark stands between him and the window. He's unfastened Bruce's tie and placed it neatly on the dresser, eased his jacket from his shoulders, and is slowly slipping the buttons of his shirt.
Very slowly.
"I said I wasn't busy right now," Bruce says, and the fact that he sounds impatient instead of seductive is somehow more appealing. "But I don't actually have all week."
Clark just smiles sunnily and returns to his exploration. Every new button opens Bruce's shirt up wider, revealing more scars--each of which needs to be mapped, first with fingers then with lips, and in the case of the gnarled mess on his shoulder, with the graze of Clark's teeth. It's testament to Bruce's resilience that he's still standing upright, considering the noises he made at that.
Bruce's fingers brush Clark's shoulders, down his arms. "Come on," he says as Clark unfastens the last button. "Clark."
"Pushy," Clark says, mouth pressed to the sliver of shiny skin above Bruce's navel. He's not really sure what his plan is here, only that he wants to take all of Bruce's pieces and lay them out in plain view: not just the cotton and silk and gabardine, but the bone and muscle and pale, pale scars; his grit and his grief and his abiding passion, Gotham in his blood like a curse. He wants to know Bruce like he knows himself.
(He wonders if Bruce feels the same about him, whether he's parsing Clark Kent out into a schematic diagram, or into a battle plan--or whether he find everything he needs worn plain on Clark's sleeve.)
"You're killing me here," Bruce says, as Clark slips the shirt from him, turns him around so he can work his way up Bruce's back, mouth at the abrasions and welts and the stormclouds of bruising. Turnabout is fair play, he wants to say, but for all the forgiveness he has, he can't quite joke about that yet.
Clark presses his lips to the scattershot puckers of smooth skin at the base of his neck, and slides his palm across the front of his slacks. Bruce clenches his teeth and rocks his hips forward, and Clark takes his hand away long enough to unfasten his belt, push the fabric away and draw him down onto the bed.
Bruce's head falls back as Clark tugs at his underwear, bares his neck so that Clark can spread his hand across the curve of his throat and feel the vibration of his voice, please please please, the gasp when Clark tightens his hand around him, when he presses the flat of his tongue over Bruce's nipple, when he bites at the juncture of his shoulder. He comes quickly enough that it would be embarrassing if it wasn't so gorgeous--Bruce makes a sudden, startled sound, his body flexing into Clark's hand, lost in the tight shudder of his thighs and abdomen.
He breathes, and Clark breathes with him, and Bruce hooks an arm across his shoulders, pulls him down on top of him.
*