Easing back up toward the fluffy side, now that we're in the home stretch! Thanks to everybody who's commented so far for sticking with this, I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. ♥
vulnerability.
The League's patrol goes well—it goes great, to be honest. The heavy hitters they get now that they're organized, together, are worse than the middleweights who used to dog Bruce's heels, or Barry's. But they also pop up a lot less frequently.
Clark had told himself he should save asking for after patrol; and then it's so quiet he ends up chatting with Arthur and forgets about it completely. It's only afterward, halfway back to his apartment, that he remembers.
He stops partway through a crosswalk. Is it worth turning around? Bruce is probably already back in Gotham—
A loud honk makes the decision for him: without thinking, Clark raises an apologetic hand to the driver and backs out of the car's way, and when he gets back onto the curb, it's easy enough to keep going.
He takes off from Metropolis's waterfront, Gotham gleaming dimly in front of him through the dusk. He could be at the lake house in about forty-five seconds if he really pushed himself; but it's a nice day, sunny, the gaps between buildings and the far edge of the city bright with changing leaves. He doesn't hear any aircraft closer than about fifteen minutes out. He can afford to take his time.
When he lands, he deliberately comes down close enough to trigger a proximity alert, but not close enough to set off the full-on alarms. (He learned his lesson about that last time around: no landing on Bruce's roof.) He walks the rest of the way, and Alfred's waiting at the door by the time Clark gets to it.
"Sir," Alfred says, and manages to make the single syllable sound wry and warm at the same time. (He's the only person who can call Clark that without it making Clark feel vaguely uncomfortable.)
"Hi, Alfred. Is—um—"
"Master Wayne is downstairs," Alfred says.
Clark hesitates. He hasn't actually been in the Batcave—he knows it's there, Bruce has been a little easier about dropping hints like that now that the whole League knows who he is. (He'd told Barry, Arthur, Victor, the next time the League had been together; Diana, of course, had already known. Clark's the only one Bruce didn't tell by choice—and Clark tries not to let that sting, but sometimes it doesn't work.)
And they—they haven't really talked. Clark brought Bruce here under Diana's direction, and she'd been the one to call ahead to Alfred; Clark had stuck around to help until the worse of it had passed, until Alfred had told him there was nothing left to do. And then the next time he'd seen Bruce, Bruce had been—what? Clark still can't quite put his finger on it: he hadn't ignored Clark, certainly hadn't been rude or cruel, nothing Clark could confront him over. Just—far away somehow. Remote. Like Clark learning his secret, being able to put the pieces of him together, had put more distance between them instead of less.
But now Alfred's looking at Clark sagely and extending a hand toward the stairs. And it's Alfred, who knows Bruce better than anyone—maybe even better than Bruce does.
"He won't mind, sir," Alfred says quietly.
Clark manages half a laugh. "Oh, he might."
Alfred pauses for a moment, considering, and concedes, "He might." But then he looks at Clark and smiles, just a little. "Go down anyway, sir."
"Cave" seems like the wrong word, at least for the part that's right under the lake house: the walls are concrete, sure, but that's just a backdrop for a whole lot of gleaming metal and glass, and there's light everywhere.
"Bruce?" Clark says, and gets no answer; but then there's a clang, and Clark's hearing zeroes in and finds Bruce's heartbeat.
Clark gets to the bottom of the stairs, catches sight of the display case—looks away as soon as he parses the first unevenly painted "HA", because he knows what that means and that's a line he shouldn't try to cross before Bruce lets him.
(If Bruce ever lets him.)
Another, quieter clang and two small thuds lead Clark further into the Cave and toward a side room. And then he rounds a corner and is met with—Bruce's back.
Bruce's bare back.
It's strange: he's seen Bruce Wayne shirtless a dozen times, a hundred, in hastily-taken photos outside clubs and shaky smartphone videos. But Bruce holds himself so differently when he's—when he's Wayneing, so to speak. When he does that, his every motion is a casual invitation to look, and they're all equally easy for Clark to ignore.
But Batman's body is a piece of machinery, a tool—always covered, because that's how it will function best, and not attended to beyond that except when it fails him. Or at least not when Clark's around, though he supposes Bruce must tend to it in their off-time—
Like he is now. The stance is all Batman, feet and shoulders squared, no softness and no ease; nothing like the way Bruce Wayne leans and slouches, makes you want to slant into his space. And somehow that makes the bare shoulders seem barer, the long (long) line of the back more naked. Bruce Wayne is a performance, planned. The scars get covered, the old wounds hidden away, everything carefully prepared to be seen. But this Bruce isn't like that at all—this Bruce is Bruce, uncovered, and Clark's raised a hand unthinkingly to touch even before he glances down Bruce's side—
"Jesus, Bruce, did that happen today?"
Bruce doesn't startle, exactly. He turns sharply, and the wrench in his far hand is half-raised—he's doing something to the body armor, Clark sees, pieces of it spread out across the table in front of him and one section still on, wrapped partway around his left side.
"Clark," he says, and the wrench is set down.
"Sorry, sorry," Clark says quickly, "I—Alfred told me you were down here."
"Ah," Bruce says, expressionless.
And there's the distance again. Not even anger, dismay, irritation. Just empty space. Clark hasn't had a good reason to cross it when Bruce so obviously doesn't want him to—not until today.
"Let me look at it."
Bruce frowns, just a brief furrow of the brow, and then glances down, as if he'd somehow forgotten about the massive purple-black bruise across his side. "Nothing's broken," he says.
"Let me look at it anyway," Clark says.
Bruce stares at him for a long moment, unmoving; and then all at once he gives in. Which sounds more dramatic than it is, when all he does is lower his eyes, lift his near arm out of the way—except that is dramatic, for Bruce.
It only takes a glance with the x-ray vision to see that Bruce is right: underneath the bruise his ribs are perfectly fine, not even cracked. Clark lets out a breath.
"As I said," Bruce murmurs.
"Nothing's broken," Clark agrees, and then he flips back to normal vision and watches himself set a hand against Bruce's back, right along the near edge of the bruise.
Bruce tenses underneath it. Clark can feel him do it, can hear him inhale sharply. And Clark should pull his hand back and apologize, he knows he should. But—
But this is the closest he's been to Bruce in weeks, and he finds he doesn't want it to end.
"Does it hurt?"
"It's just a bruise—"
"Does it hurt?" Clark says again, more quietly.
Bruce is still for a moment; and then he sighs through his nose and meets Clark's eyes again. "Not much."
Which means yes, Clark thinks. "We haven't talked about it," he blurts, because that's definitely the best way to start this conversation. Good God.
Bruce is kind to him: he doesn't pretend not to know what Clark means by that. But he does look away. "What is there to—"
"I'm sorry," Clark interrupts, because he has to—he can't let Bruce shut this down or redirect, and if he lets Bruce keep talking that's exactly what will happen. "I'm sorry I found out that way, that wasn't—I didn't want it to happen like that. I'm sorry you didn't get to decide whether to tell me. But I'm—" He sucks in a breath and steels himself, because if this really makes Bruce angry, Clark won't have the first clue how to fix it. But he can't not say it; and he can't lie, not about this. "I'm not sorry I was there. I'm not sorry I could help you when you needed it. And I'm—I'm not sorry I know you better now, I'm not sorry I understand you better. I'm glad."
He loses the ability to look Bruce in the face partway through, and by the end he's talking to Bruce's elbow. But then he's done, and it's silent; Bruce doesn't reply, is perfectly still under Clark's hand—which, whoops, he definitely should've taken that off Bruce's back at least thirty seconds ago. He'll just do it now. Subtly.
He clears his throat and risks a glance up. Bruce is staring at him again, eyes narrowed, almost impassive—but only almost. One side of his mouth has softened into something that isn't quite a smile, but is even less anything else. "That won't last," he says; but it comes out sort of rueful, not exactly the dire warning Clark suspects Bruce intended it to be.
"Well, it's true right now," Clark says, and then clears his throat again and takes a small step back. Maybe that will make it feel less like Bruce's shoulders are taking up his entire field of vision. "I just can't believe my mother knew before I did."
He means that as a way to lighten things, to take the conversation somewhere a little easier to navigate; but it makes Bruce grimace instead, a quick unhappy flicker of expression. "I didn't think it would matter," Bruce admits, and then, so low Clark has to bring the hearing up to catch it, "We thought you were gone."
"And then I came busting up out of the ground," Clark finishes for him. "I get it." And speaking of Mom, before he can forget again— "By the way, she, uh. She's—I mean, if you aren't doing anything else, she—" Bruce's eyebrows have started to rise; Clark tells himself to get a grip and just spit it out. "She wants you over for Thanksgiving. And Alfred, of course. Both of you."
And maybe it's because Clark really does understand him better, or maybe it's because the conversation's softened Bruce up enough that Bruce is letting him; but either way, it's like Clark can almost see him thinking. That he should refuse—that it wouldn't be hard to come up with something polite—that he could send something instead, a centerpiece or wine, pie, bread, something appropriate—Alfred will know—
"You don't have to come," Clark says into the pause. "But if you want to, then I hope you will."
And Bruce looks at him and says—says right out loud, where Clark can hear him—"We'd be glad to."
FILL: coming up these steps to you; Bruce/Clark, saying "I love you" without ever saying it (5/6)
vulnerability.
The League's patrol goes well—it goes great, to be honest. The heavy hitters they get now that they're organized, together, are worse than the middleweights who used to dog Bruce's heels, or Barry's. But they also pop up a lot less frequently.
Clark had told himself he should save asking for after patrol; and then it's so quiet he ends up chatting with Arthur and forgets about it completely. It's only afterward, halfway back to his apartment, that he remembers.
He stops partway through a crosswalk. Is it worth turning around? Bruce is probably already back in Gotham—
A loud honk makes the decision for him: without thinking, Clark raises an apologetic hand to the driver and backs out of the car's way, and when he gets back onto the curb, it's easy enough to keep going.
He takes off from Metropolis's waterfront, Gotham gleaming dimly in front of him through the dusk. He could be at the lake house in about forty-five seconds if he really pushed himself; but it's a nice day, sunny, the gaps between buildings and the far edge of the city bright with changing leaves. He doesn't hear any aircraft closer than about fifteen minutes out. He can afford to take his time.
When he lands, he deliberately comes down close enough to trigger a proximity alert, but not close enough to set off the full-on alarms. (He learned his lesson about that last time around: no landing on Bruce's roof.) He walks the rest of the way, and Alfred's waiting at the door by the time Clark gets to it.
"Sir," Alfred says, and manages to make the single syllable sound wry and warm at the same time. (He's the only person who can call Clark that without it making Clark feel vaguely uncomfortable.)
"Hi, Alfred. Is—um—"
"Master Wayne is downstairs," Alfred says.
Clark hesitates. He hasn't actually been in the Batcave—he knows it's there, Bruce has been a little easier about dropping hints like that now that the whole League knows who he is. (He'd told Barry, Arthur, Victor, the next time the League had been together; Diana, of course, had already known. Clark's the only one Bruce didn't tell by choice—and Clark tries not to let that sting, but sometimes it doesn't work.)
And they—they haven't really talked. Clark brought Bruce here under Diana's direction, and she'd been the one to call ahead to Alfred; Clark had stuck around to help until the worse of it had passed, until Alfred had told him there was nothing left to do. And then the next time he'd seen Bruce, Bruce had been—what? Clark still can't quite put his finger on it: he hadn't ignored Clark, certainly hadn't been rude or cruel, nothing Clark could confront him over. Just—far away somehow. Remote. Like Clark learning his secret, being able to put the pieces of him together, had put more distance between them instead of less.
But now Alfred's looking at Clark sagely and extending a hand toward the stairs. And it's Alfred, who knows Bruce better than anyone—maybe even better than Bruce does.
"He won't mind, sir," Alfred says quietly.
Clark manages half a laugh. "Oh, he might."
Alfred pauses for a moment, considering, and concedes, "He might." But then he looks at Clark and smiles, just a little. "Go down anyway, sir."
"Cave" seems like the wrong word, at least for the part that's right under the lake house: the walls are concrete, sure, but that's just a backdrop for a whole lot of gleaming metal and glass, and there's light everywhere.
"Bruce?" Clark says, and gets no answer; but then there's a clang, and Clark's hearing zeroes in and finds Bruce's heartbeat.
Clark gets to the bottom of the stairs, catches sight of the display case—looks away as soon as he parses the first unevenly painted "HA", because he knows what that means and that's a line he shouldn't try to cross before Bruce lets him.
(If Bruce ever lets him.)
Another, quieter clang and two small thuds lead Clark further into the Cave and toward a side room. And then he rounds a corner and is met with—Bruce's back.
Bruce's bare back.
It's strange: he's seen Bruce Wayne shirtless a dozen times, a hundred, in hastily-taken photos outside clubs and shaky smartphone videos. But Bruce holds himself so differently when he's—when he's Wayneing, so to speak. When he does that, his every motion is a casual invitation to look, and they're all equally easy for Clark to ignore.
But Batman's body is a piece of machinery, a tool—always covered, because that's how it will function best, and not attended to beyond that except when it fails him. Or at least not when Clark's around, though he supposes Bruce must tend to it in their off-time—
Like he is now. The stance is all Batman, feet and shoulders squared, no softness and no ease; nothing like the way Bruce Wayne leans and slouches, makes you want to slant into his space. And somehow that makes the bare shoulders seem barer, the long (long) line of the back more naked. Bruce Wayne is a performance, planned. The scars get covered, the old wounds hidden away, everything carefully prepared to be seen. But this Bruce isn't like that at all—this Bruce is Bruce, uncovered, and Clark's raised a hand unthinkingly to touch even before he glances down Bruce's side—
"Jesus, Bruce, did that happen today?"
Bruce doesn't startle, exactly. He turns sharply, and the wrench in his far hand is half-raised—he's doing something to the body armor, Clark sees, pieces of it spread out across the table in front of him and one section still on, wrapped partway around his left side.
"Clark," he says, and the wrench is set down.
"Sorry, sorry," Clark says quickly, "I—Alfred told me you were down here."
"Ah," Bruce says, expressionless.
And there's the distance again. Not even anger, dismay, irritation. Just empty space. Clark hasn't had a good reason to cross it when Bruce so obviously doesn't want him to—not until today.
"Let me look at it."
Bruce frowns, just a brief furrow of the brow, and then glances down, as if he'd somehow forgotten about the massive purple-black bruise across his side. "Nothing's broken," he says.
"Let me look at it anyway," Clark says.
Bruce stares at him for a long moment, unmoving; and then all at once he gives in. Which sounds more dramatic than it is, when all he does is lower his eyes, lift his near arm out of the way—except that is dramatic, for Bruce.
It only takes a glance with the x-ray vision to see that Bruce is right: underneath the bruise his ribs are perfectly fine, not even cracked. Clark lets out a breath.
"As I said," Bruce murmurs.
"Nothing's broken," Clark agrees, and then he flips back to normal vision and watches himself set a hand against Bruce's back, right along the near edge of the bruise.
Bruce tenses underneath it. Clark can feel him do it, can hear him inhale sharply. And Clark should pull his hand back and apologize, he knows he should. But—
But this is the closest he's been to Bruce in weeks, and he finds he doesn't want it to end.
"Does it hurt?"
"It's just a bruise—"
"Does it hurt?" Clark says again, more quietly.
Bruce is still for a moment; and then he sighs through his nose and meets Clark's eyes again. "Not much."
Which means yes, Clark thinks. "We haven't talked about it," he blurts, because that's definitely the best way to start this conversation. Good God.
Bruce is kind to him: he doesn't pretend not to know what Clark means by that. But he does look away. "What is there to—"
"I'm sorry," Clark interrupts, because he has to—he can't let Bruce shut this down or redirect, and if he lets Bruce keep talking that's exactly what will happen. "I'm sorry I found out that way, that wasn't—I didn't want it to happen like that. I'm sorry you didn't get to decide whether to tell me. But I'm—" He sucks in a breath and steels himself, because if this really makes Bruce angry, Clark won't have the first clue how to fix it. But he can't not say it; and he can't lie, not about this. "I'm not sorry I was there. I'm not sorry I could help you when you needed it. And I'm—I'm not sorry I know you better now, I'm not sorry I understand you better. I'm glad."
He loses the ability to look Bruce in the face partway through, and by the end he's talking to Bruce's elbow. But then he's done, and it's silent; Bruce doesn't reply, is perfectly still under Clark's hand—which, whoops, he definitely should've taken that off Bruce's back at least thirty seconds ago. He'll just do it now. Subtly.
He clears his throat and risks a glance up. Bruce is staring at him again, eyes narrowed, almost impassive—but only almost. One side of his mouth has softened into something that isn't quite a smile, but is even less anything else. "That won't last," he says; but it comes out sort of rueful, not exactly the dire warning Clark suspects Bruce intended it to be.
"Well, it's true right now," Clark says, and then clears his throat again and takes a small step back. Maybe that will make it feel less like Bruce's shoulders are taking up his entire field of vision. "I just can't believe my mother knew before I did."
He means that as a way to lighten things, to take the conversation somewhere a little easier to navigate; but it makes Bruce grimace instead, a quick unhappy flicker of expression. "I didn't think it would matter," Bruce admits, and then, so low Clark has to bring the hearing up to catch it, "We thought you were gone."
"And then I came busting up out of the ground," Clark finishes for him. "I get it." And speaking of Mom, before he can forget again— "By the way, she, uh. She's—I mean, if you aren't doing anything else, she—" Bruce's eyebrows have started to rise; Clark tells himself to get a grip and just spit it out. "She wants you over for Thanksgiving. And Alfred, of course. Both of you."
And maybe it's because Clark really does understand him better, or maybe it's because the conversation's softened Bruce up enough that Bruce is letting him; but either way, it's like Clark can almost see him thinking. That he should refuse—that it wouldn't be hard to come up with something polite—that he could send something instead, a centerpiece or wine, pie, bread, something appropriate—Alfred will know—
"You don't have to come," Clark says into the pause. "But if you want to, then I hope you will."
And Bruce looks at him and says—says right out loud, where Clark can hear him—"We'd be glad to."