I don't know how to ending :DD Thank you for sticking with me through this silly thing, you are all wonderful! <3
Dinner is cheerful, cosy. Clark sits back in his chair and lets the familiarity wash over him; the rattle of cooking pots and the rich aroma of roast chicken and gravy thick in the air. Bruce sits opposite him, tie loosened and throat bared, face a little pink either from the heat in the kitchen or the glass of red wine. Maybe both.
For once he doesn't look like he's running through case notes behind the veneer--he's laughing genuinely as mom finishes an anecdote Clark's heard a hundred times: the one where he fell into old Stowey's millpond wearing a cable-knit sweater and trailed home sulking with the sleeves stretched out past his knees. Clark catches his eye and smiles at him, unabashedly fond.
The smile Bruce returns is easy, but Clark sees that he's woken a tension beneath the openness; his fingers move on the stem of his wine glass, then flatten to the table and he keeps wetting his lips as though he's about to say something.
From his pocket, his phone chimes insistently and he leans up off the chair to grab it, and lets out a breath that sounds like a pressure release more than anything else. He excuses himself and goes to take the call on the porch.
"So, how is it going with you two?" his ma asks, taking the opportunity for a little mother-son time between the two of them. She leans over, gathering up the dishes. "Is he teaching you all of his superheroing secrets?"
"Um," Clark says, and he can feel his color rising. "Well, he demonstrated how to infiltrate the criminal underworld while dressed like a Goodwill consignment."
"Ah, all the important life skills," she says, with a smile. She pauses, stack of plates in her hands, and raises an eyebrow at Clark's creeping blush. "And is that all, baby boy?"
Clark grimaces at the tablecloth. It doesn't feel like a big deal--he's turned out more unusual than the average kid, and his parents have never shown him anything but the utmost love--but there is a flutter of uncertainty, still. It does his ma a huge disservice, so he meets her eyes and is honest as his self-consciousness allows. "We have... a thing."
"Oh," she says, one hand on her hip while the sink fills, and Clark knows that tone, in a way. His stomach hits some turbulence. "Well, Clark. I can't say I'm not disappointed."
"Really?" he says, meek in the face of her apparent disapproval, even though he can see she's trying not to smile, is yanking him along so he trips neatly into whatever she's got set up. It doesn't stop his cheeks from burning.
"Such a shame," she continues, sliding the dishes into the soapy water. "Bruce is a very handsome man. I really thought he was starting to come round to me. And there you go, stealing him out from under my nose." She sighs, shakes her head. Then, with her very best amateur dramatics: "My own son."
Even though he knew something was coming, that was a little further out of left field than he was anticipating--not to mention horrifying on any number of levels. "Mom, no," he says, and she throws her head back and laughs at him.
"Come on, Clark. I might be old, but I'm not dead yet," she says. "Your face. What a picture!"
"And rest assured," Bruce says from the doorway, hands in the pockets of his slacks. He turns a devastating smile in his ma's direction, "you almost managed to persuade me. Cake like that doesn't happen every day."
"Oh my god--" Vengeance is apparently served cold, on the best china and with lashings of cream. Clark can't decide if he needs to cover his eyes or his ears; he settles for his mouth. "I'm scarred for life, now. You both realize this," he says, muffled.
Bruce just rests his hand in the small of Clark's back, and if he doesn't kiss him, he at least looks like he wants to.
"Well, I'm very happy for you both," his mom manages, once she's stopped laughing so much she has to wipe at the corners of her eyes. "Even if it means no grandchildren for me, I suppose."
Just a hint too wistful to be a proper joke. "Sorry, ma," Clark begins, just at the same time as Bruce lands his killing blow, says utterly deadpan: "There's always adoption."
He looks on, smug, as Clark almost chokes on his own tongue.
*
It's some time in the early hours, and Clark flies up onto the Kent farmhouse roof. He alights delicately and settles against the warm slate, while Bruce insists on rolling up his shirtsleeves and scaling the porch, before throwing himself into some elaborate parkour to get past the eaves and up onto the roof proper. He manages it almost silently, which is impressive, and without detaching the rickety guttering, which is even more so.
He sits himself next to Clark, pulls the throat of his shirt open a button wider. His eyes are bright in the moonlight, as luminous as the spread of the Milky Way above them.
"I used to come up here a lot as a kid," Clark tells him, shoulder pressed to his. "I'd spend hours just staring at the sky." He looks up there now, can see ribbons of space debris caught in gravitational slipstreams; the dust of a comet's tail; a distant solar storm.
Bruce tips his head back, night breeze stirring his hair. "You can't see them in the city. All the stars. Not like this." Maybe he means to say that they're beautiful, or maybe beauty looks like something else to Bruce.
"Yeah," Clark says. He can't help but feel mournful for that kid, lost in the dead of night, wondering which one of the numberless stars he came from. It was a long time before he discovered that any remaining light from Krypton--from its destruction--would have struck the earth before he did. "I was trying to decide which one was mine. I thought I'd know it, you know. When I saw it."
"And did you find it?" Bruce murmurs. "Which one?"
No, he could say. It's gone. "I'm sitting on it," he says instead.
Bruce nods at that like it's a satisfying answer, leans more heavily against him for a moment. If he's sensed the forlorn turn to Clark's mood, he doesn't mention it, just turns the conversation on a dime instead. "Get your phone out."
"Oh, is it selfie time?"
Bruce has an extensive and nuanced range of annoyed expressions. Clark decides he's going to start cataloguing them.
Grinning, he retrieves his phone from his pocket and obediently holds it out, but Bruce doesn't take it, instead taps it with his own sleek model. It makes a series of satisfied chirps, and when Clark inspects his screen there's a new icon bouncing there, another variation on the WayneTech logo. He swipes it and is presented with a series of names and mugshots. He shoots Bruce a questioning look.
"Our would-be heisters," Bruce says. "We got a bite earlier this evening, the facial recognition's come in."
"Oh? What's this 'we' business?"
Bruce's mouth slants. "Apparently the Bat has been relegated to family counselor, so I thought perhaps Superman would like to start pulling his weight. Plus, it would be prudent to get him back in the public eye as soon as possible. The more time between his return and Clark Kent's, the better." He frowns slightly. "It's a nice straightforward bust, should make a good headline."
All very methodical, if a little distancing in the way Bruce has laid it out. Clark takes a deep breath, nods.
"Just this once," Bruce continues. His voice drops into a tar-black growl. "After that, you keep to your city and stay out of mine. Understand?"
He's not unwelcome, but there are rules. Clark understands.
*
He moves on top of Bruce in the filtered moonlight, slow and quiet because the thought of making the bedsprings squeak stirs a kind of adolescent mortification in him. Bruce's thighs shake under him, every ounce of his restraint channeled into staying still while Clark works him inside, panting into his mouth with each tight slip.
Bruce throws his head back, bares his teeth when he comes. After, he turns his face to Clark's neck and breathes his name, over and over.
*
Bruce says Clark's name over and over--first stern, then angry, then finally something dangerously close to pleading. Clark bends him, holds his body in tension, makes his teeth clench and every muscle stand proud. He is exquisite.
"God," Bruce says, strained. His head is back, and Clark can see the faint seam of a scar under his chin. Sweat trickles down his neck. Clark makes him wait, just until his composure starts to fray. Then he shifts his balance, turns his wrist, just so.
Bruce gasps.
Clark throws him onto the mat.
*
Coming back from the dead is a tedious and complicated exercise in bureaucracy, if Alfred's irritated tongue-clicking and the number of things Bruce has asked him to sign are any indication. It's weeks later when his documents are finally in order.
It's been weeks of the world's eyes being on him again, plastered all over the headlines, crest and cape and deeply uncomfortable religious allusions.
Weeks of Bruce coming at him like a bull at a red rag, like he's trying to bruise him any way he can--sometimes a brutal session on the mats, sometimes just the sharp side of his tongue. Sometimes, in bed, with Bruce bracing a foot against the floor for leverage.
(Bruce is not good at letting people go. People he cares about, they have a habit of leaving or dying. As far Clark can tell, he holds the dubious privilege of doing both.
"Anywhere in the world, Bruce," he says, in a misguided attempt at reassurance. "I'm only ever a moment away."
It only makes him bridle. "I don't need you at my beck and call.")
Over the remains of dinner, Bruce hands him a manila envelope without ceremony. "Everything you need should be there," he says, watching Clark's face. "On the whole, it's more legit than your birth certificate."
"Not that it's a high bar." He smiles, but it's hard not to feel counterfeit sometimes. It must show, because Bruce stops looking at him.
"Open it," Bruce suggests, and turns to his tablet.
Clark knows he's probably only doing a sudoku puzzle. As far as defense mechanisms go, Bruce has more sophisticated ones. So Clark shakes out the envelope, spreads the documents out on the tabletop and looks through his new old life. Old new life. Whichever. Something catches his eye.
"My press pass?"
"Mm." Bruce doesn't look up. "Alfred did his best impression of an officious clerk--trust me when I tell you that's not much of a stretch--and spoke to Perry White. He's glad to hear you're okay."
"He is?" Clark says, wry.
"Well, apparently he said you've used up your vacation time for the next twenty years, but the sentiment was there. Guess you've got your job back, Mr. Clark Kent, Daily Planet."
"That's--that's great." It's finally starting to feel real, everything slotting into place. He knows Alfred and Bruce have worked diligently to engineer all these pieces, to make sure they all fit precisely, and he doesn't know how to begin to show his gratitude.
And all at once he can't stop grinning. It's going to be strange after so long in limbo, but the promise of a familiar routine and a normal life, for a given value of normal--it's a huge comfort. Somewhere to retreat to, now that he's donned the cape again.
"Thank you," he says. It sounds breathtakingly inadequate.
Bruce half-acknowledges it with a twitch of his mouth, flattens his tablet against the table and slides it in front of him. "What are your thoughts on this place?" he says, then gets up to pace about, coffee in hand.
An apartment in one of the more sought-after areas of Metropolis. Spacious penthouse, two beds, roof garden and a river view. Ostentatious to a fault. "Looks spectacular," Clark says, "and vastly beyond my means." He scrolls through the rest of the places Bruce has selected. "Bruce, there's no way I can afford any of these."
"You don't have to. Just say the word."
"My Ikea bookshelves would devalue the entire neighborhood."
"I'll get you new furniture."
"Bruce, no." Clark sighs in frustration. "I can't live in your clover."
"You could. It'd be easy."
"It would be suspect."
"Hm." Bruce pauses. When all else fails, appeal to the paranoid detective. "Alright," he says crisply, and Clark realizes with sinking certainty that wherever he ends up, Bruce will buy the building. For someone with such stringent boundaries, he can have a startlingly hard time with other people's.
Clark rests his elbows on the table and then his face in his hands. He could pretend that he's overwhelmed by Bruce's generosity--and it's not like he isn't, but they both know it's weighed more heavily than that.
"You're a difficult man, Bruce," he says. It only half-sounds like a complaint.
"You have a gift for understatement." Bruce encourages Clark's hands aside to replace them with his own. Clark pushes his fingers into Bruce's hair instead, leans in. He tastes like his coffee, bitter and warm.
*
"Superman. Where the hell are you?" Bruce snarls in his ear. There's a tinny explosion, the rattle of blown masonry falling, Diana's battle cry.
"Sri Lanka," Clark says. "Why?"
A low mutter. "How soon can you get back? Got an--" Screeching, feedback harsh enough to make Clark flinch, and the whicker of a batarang. "--an interdimensional situation, here."
Fill: Whoever Falls First -- Bruce/Clark, sparring (19a/19)
Thank you for sticking with me through this silly thing, you are all wonderful! <3
Dinner is cheerful, cosy. Clark sits back in his chair and lets the familiarity wash over him; the rattle of cooking pots and the rich aroma of roast chicken and gravy thick in the air. Bruce sits opposite him, tie loosened and throat bared, face a little pink either from the heat in the kitchen or the glass of red wine. Maybe both.
For once he doesn't look like he's running through case notes behind the veneer--he's laughing genuinely as mom finishes an anecdote Clark's heard a hundred times: the one where he fell into old Stowey's millpond wearing a cable-knit sweater and trailed home sulking with the sleeves stretched out past his knees. Clark catches his eye and smiles at him, unabashedly fond.
The smile Bruce returns is easy, but Clark sees that he's woken a tension beneath the openness; his fingers move on the stem of his wine glass, then flatten to the table and he keeps wetting his lips as though he's about to say something.
From his pocket, his phone chimes insistently and he leans up off the chair to grab it, and lets out a breath that sounds like a pressure release more than anything else. He excuses himself and goes to take the call on the porch.
"So, how is it going with you two?" his ma asks, taking the opportunity for a little mother-son time between the two of them. She leans over, gathering up the dishes. "Is he teaching you all of his superheroing secrets?"
"Um," Clark says, and he can feel his color rising. "Well, he demonstrated how to infiltrate the criminal underworld while dressed like a Goodwill consignment."
"Ah, all the important life skills," she says, with a smile. She pauses, stack of plates in her hands, and raises an eyebrow at Clark's creeping blush. "And is that all, baby boy?"
Clark grimaces at the tablecloth. It doesn't feel like a big deal--he's turned out more unusual than the average kid, and his parents have never shown him anything but the utmost love--but there is a flutter of uncertainty, still. It does his ma a huge disservice, so he meets her eyes and is honest as his self-consciousness allows. "We have... a thing."
"Oh," she says, one hand on her hip while the sink fills, and Clark knows that tone, in a way. His stomach hits some turbulence. "Well, Clark. I can't say I'm not disappointed."
"Really?" he says, meek in the face of her apparent disapproval, even though he can see she's trying not to smile, is yanking him along so he trips neatly into whatever she's got set up. It doesn't stop his cheeks from burning.
"Such a shame," she continues, sliding the dishes into the soapy water. "Bruce is a very handsome man. I really thought he was starting to come round to me. And there you go, stealing him out from under my nose." She sighs, shakes her head. Then, with her very best amateur dramatics: "My own son."
Even though he knew something was coming, that was a little further out of left field than he was anticipating--not to mention horrifying on any number of levels. "Mom, no," he says, and she throws her head back and laughs at him.
"Come on, Clark. I might be old, but I'm not dead yet," she says. "Your face. What a picture!"
"And rest assured," Bruce says from the doorway, hands in the pockets of his slacks. He turns a devastating smile in his ma's direction, "you almost managed to persuade me. Cake like that doesn't happen every day."
"Oh my god--" Vengeance is apparently served cold, on the best china and with lashings of cream. Clark can't decide if he needs to cover his eyes or his ears; he settles for his mouth. "I'm scarred for life, now. You both realize this," he says, muffled.
Bruce just rests his hand in the small of Clark's back, and if he doesn't kiss him, he at least looks like he wants to.
"Well, I'm very happy for you both," his mom manages, once she's stopped laughing so much she has to wipe at the corners of her eyes. "Even if it means no grandchildren for me, I suppose."
Just a hint too wistful to be a proper joke. "Sorry, ma," Clark begins, just at the same time as Bruce lands his killing blow, says utterly deadpan: "There's always adoption."
He looks on, smug, as Clark almost chokes on his own tongue.
*
It's some time in the early hours, and Clark flies up onto the Kent farmhouse roof. He alights delicately and settles against the warm slate, while Bruce insists on rolling up his shirtsleeves and scaling the porch, before throwing himself into some elaborate parkour to get past the eaves and up onto the roof proper. He manages it almost silently, which is impressive, and without detaching the rickety guttering, which is even more so.
He sits himself next to Clark, pulls the throat of his shirt open a button wider. His eyes are bright in the moonlight, as luminous as the spread of the Milky Way above them.
"I used to come up here a lot as a kid," Clark tells him, shoulder pressed to his. "I'd spend hours just staring at the sky." He looks up there now, can see ribbons of space debris caught in gravitational slipstreams; the dust of a comet's tail; a distant solar storm.
Bruce tips his head back, night breeze stirring his hair. "You can't see them in the city. All the stars. Not like this." Maybe he means to say that they're beautiful, or maybe beauty looks like something else to Bruce.
"Yeah," Clark says. He can't help but feel mournful for that kid, lost in the dead of night, wondering which one of the numberless stars he came from. It was a long time before he discovered that any remaining light from Krypton--from its destruction--would have struck the earth before he did. "I was trying to decide which one was mine. I thought I'd know it, you know. When I saw it."
"And did you find it?" Bruce murmurs. "Which one?"
No, he could say. It's gone. "I'm sitting on it," he says instead.
Bruce nods at that like it's a satisfying answer, leans more heavily against him for a moment. If he's sensed the forlorn turn to Clark's mood, he doesn't mention it, just turns the conversation on a dime instead. "Get your phone out."
"Oh, is it selfie time?"
Bruce has an extensive and nuanced range of annoyed expressions. Clark decides he's going to start cataloguing them.
Grinning, he retrieves his phone from his pocket and obediently holds it out, but Bruce doesn't take it, instead taps it with his own sleek model. It makes a series of satisfied chirps, and when Clark inspects his screen there's a new icon bouncing there, another variation on the WayneTech logo. He swipes it and is presented with a series of names and mugshots. He shoots Bruce a questioning look.
"Our would-be heisters," Bruce says. "We got a bite earlier this evening, the facial recognition's come in."
"Oh? What's this 'we' business?"
Bruce's mouth slants. "Apparently the Bat has been relegated to family counselor, so I thought perhaps Superman would like to start pulling his weight. Plus, it would be prudent to get him back in the public eye as soon as possible. The more time between his return and Clark Kent's, the better." He frowns slightly. "It's a nice straightforward bust, should make a good headline."
All very methodical, if a little distancing in the way Bruce has laid it out. Clark takes a deep breath, nods.
"Just this once," Bruce continues. His voice drops into a tar-black growl. "After that, you keep to your city and stay out of mine. Understand?"
He's not unwelcome, but there are rules. Clark understands.
*
He moves on top of Bruce in the filtered moonlight, slow and quiet because the thought of making the bedsprings squeak stirs a kind of adolescent mortification in him. Bruce's thighs shake under him, every ounce of his restraint channeled into staying still while Clark works him inside, panting into his mouth with each tight slip.
Bruce throws his head back, bares his teeth when he comes. After, he turns his face to Clark's neck and breathes his name, over and over.
*
Bruce says Clark's name over and over--first stern, then angry, then finally something dangerously close to pleading. Clark bends him, holds his body in tension, makes his teeth clench and every muscle stand proud. He is exquisite.
"God," Bruce says, strained. His head is back, and Clark can see the faint seam of a scar under his chin. Sweat trickles down his neck. Clark makes him wait, just until his composure starts to fray. Then he shifts his balance, turns his wrist, just so.
Bruce gasps.
Clark throws him onto the mat.
*
Coming back from the dead is a tedious and complicated exercise in bureaucracy, if Alfred's irritated tongue-clicking and the number of things Bruce has asked him to sign are any indication. It's weeks later when his documents are finally in order.
It's been weeks of the world's eyes being on him again, plastered all over the headlines, crest and cape and deeply uncomfortable religious allusions.
Weeks of Bruce coming at him like a bull at a red rag, like he's trying to bruise him any way he can--sometimes a brutal session on the mats, sometimes just the sharp side of his tongue. Sometimes, in bed, with Bruce bracing a foot against the floor for leverage.
(Bruce is not good at letting people go. People he cares about, they have a habit of leaving or dying. As far Clark can tell, he holds the dubious privilege of doing both.
"Anywhere in the world, Bruce," he says, in a misguided attempt at reassurance. "I'm only ever a moment away."
It only makes him bridle. "I don't need you at my beck and call.")
Over the remains of dinner, Bruce hands him a manila envelope without ceremony. "Everything you need should be there," he says, watching Clark's face. "On the whole, it's more legit than your birth certificate."
"Not that it's a high bar." He smiles, but it's hard not to feel counterfeit sometimes. It must show, because Bruce stops looking at him.
"Open it," Bruce suggests, and turns to his tablet.
Clark knows he's probably only doing a sudoku puzzle. As far as defense mechanisms go, Bruce has more sophisticated ones. So Clark shakes out the envelope, spreads the documents out on the tabletop and looks through his new old life. Old new life. Whichever. Something catches his eye.
"My press pass?"
"Mm." Bruce doesn't look up. "Alfred did his best impression of an officious clerk--trust me when I tell you that's not much of a stretch--and spoke to Perry White. He's glad to hear you're okay."
"He is?" Clark says, wry.
"Well, apparently he said you've used up your vacation time for the next twenty years, but the sentiment was there. Guess you've got your job back, Mr. Clark Kent, Daily Planet."
"That's--that's great." It's finally starting to feel real, everything slotting into place. He knows Alfred and Bruce have worked diligently to engineer all these pieces, to make sure they all fit precisely, and he doesn't know how to begin to show his gratitude.
And all at once he can't stop grinning. It's going to be strange after so long in limbo, but the promise of a familiar routine and a normal life, for a given value of normal--it's a huge comfort. Somewhere to retreat to, now that he's donned the cape again.
"Thank you," he says. It sounds breathtakingly inadequate.
Bruce half-acknowledges it with a twitch of his mouth, flattens his tablet against the table and slides it in front of him. "What are your thoughts on this place?" he says, then gets up to pace about, coffee in hand.
An apartment in one of the more sought-after areas of Metropolis. Spacious penthouse, two beds, roof garden and a river view. Ostentatious to a fault. "Looks spectacular," Clark says, "and vastly beyond my means." He scrolls through the rest of the places Bruce has selected. "Bruce, there's no way I can afford any of these."
"You don't have to. Just say the word."
"My Ikea bookshelves would devalue the entire neighborhood."
"I'll get you new furniture."
"Bruce, no." Clark sighs in frustration. "I can't live in your clover."
"You could. It'd be easy."
"It would be suspect."
"Hm." Bruce pauses. When all else fails, appeal to the paranoid detective. "Alright," he says crisply, and Clark realizes with sinking certainty that wherever he ends up, Bruce will buy the building. For someone with such stringent boundaries, he can have a startlingly hard time with other people's.
Clark rests his elbows on the table and then his face in his hands. He could pretend that he's overwhelmed by Bruce's generosity--and it's not like he isn't, but they both know it's weighed more heavily than that.
"You're a difficult man, Bruce," he says. It only half-sounds like a complaint.
"You have a gift for understatement." Bruce encourages Clark's hands aside to replace them with his own. Clark pushes his fingers into Bruce's hair instead, leans in. He tastes like his coffee, bitter and warm.
*
"Superman. Where the hell are you?" Bruce snarls in his ear. There's a tinny explosion, the rattle of blown masonry falling, Diana's battle cry.
"Sri Lanka," Clark says. "Why?"
A low mutter. "How soon can you get back? Got an--" Screeching, feedback harsh enough to make Clark flinch, and the whicker of a batarang. "--an interdimensional situation, here."
"Tuesdays, huh. Be there in a jiffy, Batman."
*