... Yeah, that question mark is staying where it is for now. I'm actually very, very impressed that my original plan for swapping POVs hasn't completely fallen apart, because wow is this ridiculous. (In all seriousness, allow me to applaud you for sticking with me: this part should push us over the 30k mark, and all I can tell you is that I'm 95% sure we are more than halfway through this fill. Which, after dragging you through an epic once already, I am THRILLED you are willing to put up with me doing this to you again. /o\)
And: if you've never heard the Lincoln + pig story, you can find one version here, the result on page 84 (https://books.google.com/books?id=f6LWAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA84#v=onepage&q=a%20pig%20from%20a%20bad%20predicament&f=false). :D
He doesn't stop moving until he's back in the Cave again—until he's sure no one's followed him, no one's looking; until it's safe.
He could have waited, let Clark leave first and stayed behind with Diana. But if he had she'd only have pressed him again, asked him what the hell he thought he was doing, and he doesn't know what he would have said. He doesn't know what answer there could be.
He'd known Clark was thinking about suiting up again. Even if Clark hadn't asked for his opinion outright, he might have guessed. Clark is many things, but he's all those things as—as thoroughly as possible, as wholly and and as earnestly: on him even indecision, uncertainty, are unsubtle. He'd been thinking about it, and Bruce Wayne had told him to be selfish; and for Clark, being a hero is selfishness, because he wants to do it so badly. Abraham Lincoln, in a city of trapped pigs.
But knowing it was coming hadn't prepared Bruce for it. There shouldn't have been anything to prepare for. It isn't as though he isn't perfectly well aware that Clark is alive, and the connection between Clark and Superman had come together for him even before Clark died, even before Martha had ever said aloud that her last name was Kent.
And yet.
It hadn't just been Clark, this time. It had been Superman. Clark had never been the one who posed a danger, and in a certain sense it almost hadn't been Clark who'd died—or at least not in Bruce's eyes, not that day. And it was Superman who'd come back to life in front of him not an hour ago: suit and all, whole and real and right there in front of Bruce, without a mark on him.
Bruce tugs the cowl off, scrubs a gloved hand through his hair, and ruthlessly ignores whatever it is in his chest that's lurching.
(Clark Kent had come back to life. But Bruce—Bruce might still have managed to kill Superman; to kill whatever it was in Clark that made him choose to be Superman—
What a lopsided tradeoff that would have made. Clark's generosity, Clark's faith in humanity, Clark's hope, in all their supernova brilliance—gone dark. As if the single flame they'd relit in Bruce could be any kind of substitute.)
It had been—uncomfortable, the way Clark had looked at him. He could admit that. The flatness, the wariness; and the worst part was that Bruce couldn't tell himself it was undeserved.
But Clark had liked Diana. And when she'd let him see her face at last, he hadn't minded—hadn't held the deception against her. Of course it's different for Bruce, the degree of overlapping falsehoods, the longevity, by a factor that can at this point only be described using a logarithmic scale. Still, Clark's response to Diana can't possibly be categorized as a bad sign.
And he'd agreed to join the League. To make the League, because a League of two wasn't much to work with, and he'd done it even with Batman right there. That had gone so far beyond Bruce's expectations that it might even qualify as promising. After that conversation about suiting up again, Bruce had allowed himself to consider how it might go. The obvious choice had been Batman pledging to quit: to stay clear and then perhaps be permitted to work his way back in on probation, with Superman granted final veto power.
"Sir?"
Bruce looks up. Alfred's tone suggests he's said it more than once, but that can't be right.
"Are you bleeding somewhere, sir?" Alfred says, raising an eyebrow. "Perhaps internally? Impaled. Herniating—"
"I'm fine, Alfred," Bruce says flatly.
"As you say, sir," Alfred agrees, very mild.
Which means, of course, that he's noticed something is off and doesn't plan to stop trying to figure out what it is. "We prevented a robbery at the First Metropolitan," Bruce says, and Alfred's already caught him; there's no reason to fight the urge to pause, to swallow. So Bruce allows himself not to bother. "With Superman's assistance."
Alfred had tilted his head, gazing off contemplatively into the middle distance, like a tutor waiting to hear a student's best-composed excuses—but his eyes snap back to Bruce at this, and he blinks twice, slow, and says, "Ah." He gives Bruce another conspicuous inspection, and adds, "Well. He doesn't appear to be holding a grudge, sir."
Bruce glances down at the cowl in his hand, the blank face crumpled by his grip. "No," Bruce says. "He doesn't."
Alfred's silent for a moment, long enough that the next thing Bruce expects to hear is a footstep as he moves away—but instead he says, low, "It can trip one up, can't it?"
"What?" Bruce says, looking up.
Alfred is looking right back at him, gaze odd and soft. "Forgiveness," he says.
Bruce doesn't reply.
(What is there to say?)
Alfred clears his throat. "And, if I may be so bold as to ask," he says—as if Bruce could stop him—"will Master Kent be made aware of the true complexity of the situation?"
Bruce feels his fingers tighten around the cowl and forces them to stop, tossing it deliberately away to land with a soft whump on one of the worktables. He doesn't need to look down to find the first catch, the one on the shoulder, to release the body armor—but he does it anyway. Alfred will let him get away with that small evasion, when he hears Bruce's answer.
"Get a car ready, please. I'll be spending tonight at the penthouse, Alfred."
"Yes, Master Wayne," Alfred murmurs, and it doesn't matter where Bruce is looking: he can hear Alfred's smile anyway.
Bruce has enough self-control not to pace.
It's the right time. Or—at least it's not the wrong time. This, perhaps, is the tipping point: the meeting between Superman and Batman is an obvious cue to confess, and the further behind Bruce leaves that opportunity, the worse it will look. Even if this isn't the best moment, there will never be a better one; it's all downhill from here.
It has to be tonight, or not at all.
(And of course "not at all" doesn't mean not at all. It only means—not voluntarily. Keeping this secret is dependent on chance and circumstance, on Clark's charity and forbearance and utter lack of suspicion. Neither set of factors is likely to accommodate Bruce forever.
Perhaps it's not revelation itself that will happen tonight or not at all, but rather a positive outcome. Bruce can almost, almost, see the path that leads to Clark's acceptance from here.
And if he turns aside, if he doesn't take it—
There won't be another.)
He starts to think he should have waited longer to come here, after taking the suit off—some days, Batman's demeanor is hard to shake, and the wire-tight tension of waiting isn't helping. When Clark does land on the balcony, it's more Batman than anyone else who goes still and looks up.
But Bruce makes sure it's Bruce Wayne who opens the balcony door.
Clark's smiling at him already; he takes the first step through the door Superman-fast, right into Bruce's arms before Bruce can so much as blink, and tugs him into a kiss, making a warm glad noise in his throat.
"So it went okay, then," Bruce murmurs, when he can.
Clark blinks at him, and then makes a sheepish face. "I guess we ended up on the news, didn't we?"
"The unexpected reappearance of Superman, alive and well?" Bruce says, very dry. "Yes, Clark, you ended up on the news."
Clark grins and ducks his head, pushing his glasses up his nose. "People were—happy to see me, out there," he admits; as if he'd thought anybody wouldn't be—as if his resurrection would be rejected, the wrong kind of miracle. And then he shakes his head and pokes Bruce in the shoulder. "But I've got a bone to pick with you, Mr. Wayne."
"Oh?"
"You knew Diana was going to be at that gala, didn't you? You knew exactly what you were doing, introducing me to her." Clark smacks Bruce in the chest with the back of his hand, shaking his head again, chiding. "Jesus, Bruce!"
Bruce can't stop himself—he has to laugh. (He shouldn't; this is about what he's been keeping from Clark, the consequences of that deception, and no part of that is funny. But in this moment, Clark laughing in his arms, Bruce's mouth still tingling with kissing him—it feels like maybe it can be. It feels like everything might be all right anyway.) "I knew you'd like each other," he says, eyes wide, mock-earnest. "You have similar interests."
"You're awful," Clark tells him, dimpling, and then drags him in again—digs teeth into his lip for just a second before tonguing away the sting, a teasing little chastisement.
They stumble further into the penthouse together. Bruce had waited for Clark through twilight, not bothering with any lights, but the sky's almost black now, and the farther they get from the balcony door, the less Bruce can see—but it doesn't matter. He closes his eyes and kisses Clark back and hangs on. Clark won't steer him wrong—
For a breathless second he doesn't know what's happened: a rush of air and motion like falling, except Bruce is holding still; it's Clark who's vanished—
Bruce winces just a little, blinking into the illumination until his eyes can adjust.
"Sorry," Clark says, and Bruce can see him now, ten feet away, hand on the turn knob of the lamp he's just switched on. He smiles in a quick little flicker, not quite convincing. "Sorry, it was—dark."
Not that Superman couldn't see anyway, surely? Maybe he'd been thinking of Bruce—or maybe he just hadn't wanted to worry about it, to have to concentrate on it, when there were other things they could be doing instead.
Or maybe there's something wrong.
"It was," Bruce agrees easily, and then smirks. "And I do happen to prefer you well-lit."
(Well-lit—ideally, by yellow sunlight. Clark had died in the dark; the cloud of dust and debris thrown up by those missiles, by the destruction, had been covering the sky over Stryker's. Bruce has run simulations attempting to determine whether a sufficient quantity of direct sunshine throughout the fight would have kept him alive.
The results have been inconclusive.)
Clark flushes a little, pink and flattered, and the smile gets steadier, his shoulders easing. "Well, here I am," he says.
"There you are," Bruce says, and, with deliberate slowness, crosses the distance between them a step at a time. "So," step, "it went okay," step.
"Yeah," Clark says, "yes." Step. "They're starting this thing, this—organization for superheroes," step, "I—Diana's probably mentioned it to you—"
Step. "I believe she may have brought it up once," step, "or twice," step. "And you agreed to join up?" Step.
"Yes," Clark says firmly. "It's important. I think they could do a lot of good."
Such a perfectly Clark answer—Bruce reaches out even before he takes the last step, hands settling on Clark's hips, something gone so tight in his chest it feels like he might choke on it. He abruptly can't be sure what his voice might do; so he kisses Clark instead of speaking, sending one palm sliding on a gloriously slow path up over Clark's waist, his chest, the side of his throat.
And maybe there isn't anything wrong after all, because Clark presses in under that hand and makes a low unsteady sound into Bruce's mouth, fingers digging into Bruce's back.
But he—he had a purpose here—he has to—
"God, Bruce," Clark says, breaking away, getting his hands around and under Bruce's ass and just lifting without even a hitch. Of course the motion drags Bruce's dick, which was getting difficult enough to ignore already, torturously up and across Clark's; Bruce can't stop himself from jerking in Clark's arms at the sensation, arching helplessly closer. "God," Clark says again, "you—please tell me we can talk about this later—"
And—Bruce thinks it with a feeling that's difficult to quantify, relief or maybe freedom—they can. He can let this happen, can indulge both of them, can still tell Clark everything in plenty of time. It's all right. "We can talk about it later," he agrees, low, murmuring it against the line of Clark's jaw; and then, with all the systematic focus Batman can bring to bear, starts untucking Clark's shirt.
FILL: as to which may be the true; Bruce/Clark, identity porn (14/?)
And: if you've never heard the Lincoln + pig story, you can find one version here, the result on page 84 (https://books.google.com/books?id=f6LWAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA84#v=onepage&q=a%20pig%20from%20a%20bad%20predicament&f=false). :D
He doesn't stop moving until he's back in the Cave again—until he's sure no one's followed him, no one's looking; until it's safe.
He could have waited, let Clark leave first and stayed behind with Diana. But if he had she'd only have pressed him again, asked him what the hell he thought he was doing, and he doesn't know what he would have said. He doesn't know what answer there could be.
He'd known Clark was thinking about suiting up again. Even if Clark hadn't asked for his opinion outright, he might have guessed. Clark is many things, but he's all those things as—as thoroughly as possible, as wholly and and as earnestly: on him even indecision, uncertainty, are unsubtle. He'd been thinking about it, and Bruce Wayne had told him to be selfish; and for Clark, being a hero is selfishness, because he wants to do it so badly. Abraham Lincoln, in a city of trapped pigs.
But knowing it was coming hadn't prepared Bruce for it. There shouldn't have been anything to prepare for. It isn't as though he isn't perfectly well aware that Clark is alive, and the connection between Clark and Superman had come together for him even before Clark died, even before Martha had ever said aloud that her last name was Kent.
And yet.
It hadn't just been Clark, this time. It had been Superman. Clark had never been the one who posed a danger, and in a certain sense it almost hadn't been Clark who'd died—or at least not in Bruce's eyes, not that day. And it was Superman who'd come back to life in front of him not an hour ago: suit and all, whole and real and right there in front of Bruce, without a mark on him.
Bruce tugs the cowl off, scrubs a gloved hand through his hair, and ruthlessly ignores whatever it is in his chest that's lurching.
(Clark Kent had come back to life. But Bruce—Bruce might still have managed to kill Superman; to kill whatever it was in Clark that made him choose to be Superman—
What a lopsided tradeoff that would have made. Clark's generosity, Clark's faith in humanity, Clark's hope, in all their supernova brilliance—gone dark. As if the single flame they'd relit in Bruce could be any kind of substitute.)
It had been—uncomfortable, the way Clark had looked at him. He could admit that. The flatness, the wariness; and the worst part was that Bruce couldn't tell himself it was undeserved.
But Clark had liked Diana. And when she'd let him see her face at last, he hadn't minded—hadn't held the deception against her. Of course it's different for Bruce, the degree of overlapping falsehoods, the longevity, by a factor that can at this point only be described using a logarithmic scale. Still, Clark's response to Diana can't possibly be categorized as a bad sign.
And he'd agreed to join the League. To make the League, because a League of two wasn't much to work with, and he'd done it even with Batman right there. That had gone so far beyond Bruce's expectations that it might even qualify as promising. After that conversation about suiting up again, Bruce had allowed himself to consider how it might go. The obvious choice had been Batman pledging to quit: to stay clear and then perhaps be permitted to work his way back in on probation, with Superman granted final veto power.
"Sir?"
Bruce looks up. Alfred's tone suggests he's said it more than once, but that can't be right.
"Are you bleeding somewhere, sir?" Alfred says, raising an eyebrow. "Perhaps internally? Impaled. Herniating—"
"I'm fine, Alfred," Bruce says flatly.
"As you say, sir," Alfred agrees, very mild.
Which means, of course, that he's noticed something is off and doesn't plan to stop trying to figure out what it is. "We prevented a robbery at the First Metropolitan," Bruce says, and Alfred's already caught him; there's no reason to fight the urge to pause, to swallow. So Bruce allows himself not to bother. "With Superman's assistance."
Alfred had tilted his head, gazing off contemplatively into the middle distance, like a tutor waiting to hear a student's best-composed excuses—but his eyes snap back to Bruce at this, and he blinks twice, slow, and says, "Ah." He gives Bruce another conspicuous inspection, and adds, "Well. He doesn't appear to be holding a grudge, sir."
Bruce glances down at the cowl in his hand, the blank face crumpled by his grip. "No," Bruce says. "He doesn't."
Alfred's silent for a moment, long enough that the next thing Bruce expects to hear is a footstep as he moves away—but instead he says, low, "It can trip one up, can't it?"
"What?" Bruce says, looking up.
Alfred is looking right back at him, gaze odd and soft. "Forgiveness," he says.
Bruce doesn't reply.
(What is there to say?)
Alfred clears his throat. "And, if I may be so bold as to ask," he says—as if Bruce could stop him—"will Master Kent be made aware of the true complexity of the situation?"
Bruce feels his fingers tighten around the cowl and forces them to stop, tossing it deliberately away to land with a soft whump on one of the worktables. He doesn't need to look down to find the first catch, the one on the shoulder, to release the body armor—but he does it anyway. Alfred will let him get away with that small evasion, when he hears Bruce's answer.
"Get a car ready, please. I'll be spending tonight at the penthouse, Alfred."
"Yes, Master Wayne," Alfred murmurs, and it doesn't matter where Bruce is looking: he can hear Alfred's smile anyway.
Bruce has enough self-control not to pace.
It's the right time. Or—at least it's not the wrong time. This, perhaps, is the tipping point: the meeting between Superman and Batman is an obvious cue to confess, and the further behind Bruce leaves that opportunity, the worse it will look. Even if this isn't the best moment, there will never be a better one; it's all downhill from here.
It has to be tonight, or not at all.
(And of course "not at all" doesn't mean not at all. It only means—not voluntarily. Keeping this secret is dependent on chance and circumstance, on Clark's charity and forbearance and utter lack of suspicion. Neither set of factors is likely to accommodate Bruce forever.
Perhaps it's not revelation itself that will happen tonight or not at all, but rather a positive outcome. Bruce can almost, almost, see the path that leads to Clark's acceptance from here.
And if he turns aside, if he doesn't take it—
There won't be another.)
He starts to think he should have waited longer to come here, after taking the suit off—some days, Batman's demeanor is hard to shake, and the wire-tight tension of waiting isn't helping. When Clark does land on the balcony, it's more Batman than anyone else who goes still and looks up.
But Bruce makes sure it's Bruce Wayne who opens the balcony door.
Clark's smiling at him already; he takes the first step through the door Superman-fast, right into Bruce's arms before Bruce can so much as blink, and tugs him into a kiss, making a warm glad noise in his throat.
"So it went okay, then," Bruce murmurs, when he can.
Clark blinks at him, and then makes a sheepish face. "I guess we ended up on the news, didn't we?"
"The unexpected reappearance of Superman, alive and well?" Bruce says, very dry. "Yes, Clark, you ended up on the news."
Clark grins and ducks his head, pushing his glasses up his nose. "People were—happy to see me, out there," he admits; as if he'd thought anybody wouldn't be—as if his resurrection would be rejected, the wrong kind of miracle. And then he shakes his head and pokes Bruce in the shoulder. "But I've got a bone to pick with you, Mr. Wayne."
"Oh?"
"You knew Diana was going to be at that gala, didn't you? You knew exactly what you were doing, introducing me to her." Clark smacks Bruce in the chest with the back of his hand, shaking his head again, chiding. "Jesus, Bruce!"
Bruce can't stop himself—he has to laugh. (He shouldn't; this is about what he's been keeping from Clark, the consequences of that deception, and no part of that is funny. But in this moment, Clark laughing in his arms, Bruce's mouth still tingling with kissing him—it feels like maybe it can be. It feels like everything might be all right anyway.) "I knew you'd like each other," he says, eyes wide, mock-earnest. "You have similar interests."
"You're awful," Clark tells him, dimpling, and then drags him in again—digs teeth into his lip for just a second before tonguing away the sting, a teasing little chastisement.
They stumble further into the penthouse together. Bruce had waited for Clark through twilight, not bothering with any lights, but the sky's almost black now, and the farther they get from the balcony door, the less Bruce can see—but it doesn't matter. He closes his eyes and kisses Clark back and hangs on. Clark won't steer him wrong—
For a breathless second he doesn't know what's happened: a rush of air and motion like falling, except Bruce is holding still; it's Clark who's vanished—
Bruce winces just a little, blinking into the illumination until his eyes can adjust.
"Sorry," Clark says, and Bruce can see him now, ten feet away, hand on the turn knob of the lamp he's just switched on. He smiles in a quick little flicker, not quite convincing. "Sorry, it was—dark."
Not that Superman couldn't see anyway, surely? Maybe he'd been thinking of Bruce—or maybe he just hadn't wanted to worry about it, to have to concentrate on it, when there were other things they could be doing instead.
Or maybe there's something wrong.
"It was," Bruce agrees easily, and then smirks. "And I do happen to prefer you well-lit."
(Well-lit—ideally, by yellow sunlight. Clark had died in the dark; the cloud of dust and debris thrown up by those missiles, by the destruction, had been covering the sky over Stryker's. Bruce has run simulations attempting to determine whether a sufficient quantity of direct sunshine throughout the fight would have kept him alive.
The results have been inconclusive.)
Clark flushes a little, pink and flattered, and the smile gets steadier, his shoulders easing. "Well, here I am," he says.
"There you are," Bruce says, and, with deliberate slowness, crosses the distance between them a step at a time. "So," step, "it went okay," step.
"Yeah," Clark says, "yes." Step. "They're starting this thing, this—organization for superheroes," step, "I—Diana's probably mentioned it to you—"
Step. "I believe she may have brought it up once," step, "or twice," step. "And you agreed to join up?" Step.
"Yes," Clark says firmly. "It's important. I think they could do a lot of good."
Such a perfectly Clark answer—Bruce reaches out even before he takes the last step, hands settling on Clark's hips, something gone so tight in his chest it feels like he might choke on it. He abruptly can't be sure what his voice might do; so he kisses Clark instead of speaking, sending one palm sliding on a gloriously slow path up over Clark's waist, his chest, the side of his throat.
And maybe there isn't anything wrong after all, because Clark presses in under that hand and makes a low unsteady sound into Bruce's mouth, fingers digging into Bruce's back.
But he—he had a purpose here—he has to—
"God, Bruce," Clark says, breaking away, getting his hands around and under Bruce's ass and just lifting without even a hitch. Of course the motion drags Bruce's dick, which was getting difficult enough to ignore already, torturously up and across Clark's; Bruce can't stop himself from jerking in Clark's arms at the sensation, arching helplessly closer. "God," Clark says again, "you—please tell me we can talk about this later—"
And—Bruce thinks it with a feeling that's difficult to quantify, relief or maybe freedom—they can. He can let this happen, can indulge both of them, can still tell Clark everything in plenty of time. It's all right. "We can talk about it later," he agrees, low, murmuring it against the line of Clark's jaw; and then, with all the systematic focus Batman can bring to bear, starts untucking Clark's shirt.