The ship does have more of those uniforms, or can make them, and can even be talked into spitting out one in two pieces, one that doesn't have the crest of the House of El plastered across the chest. Somehow Clark is pretty sure that going out there as Superman is not going to make this easier.
Once he's dressed, he tries to decide on the least invasive way to find Bruce and then realizes with a guilty start that that low regular sound he's already listening to is Bruce's heart. He'd just thought about where Bruce was, and his hearing had—
(—in the middle of it all, there had been nothing but Bruce, everywhere: filling Clark's ears, his gasps, his low sharp cries, the rush of blood through him like distant waves; too much to look at even though Bruce was the only thing, every scar and furrow, each tiny helpless contraction of the muscles in his hands, his arms—the individual perfect curves of his eyelashes; the feel of him, shameless and alive in Clark's arms, hot and wanting and winding his fingers through Clark's hair, saying harder, come on, I can—Clark, ah—)
Clark blinks and shakes himself. He has to find Bruce, and—and Bruce knows what he's capable of.
But it feels like cheating anyway.
Clark bites his lip for a second; and then he carefully stops listening, and stands in the corridor trying to decide which way he might think Bruce had gone if he couldn't hear anything at all.
Bruce is a deck up, Clark discovers in the end, in one of the rooms with a ceiling so perfectly transparent it might as well be open to the sky, when in reality even the vacuum of space wouldn't crack it. He's looking up at it, but not through it: the ship is explaining something to him, some kind of ridiculously advanced Kryptonian physics, with hovering metallic diagrams that shift and rearrange and reform every time Bruce asks a question.
And he looks—absorbed. It had started to become one of Clark's favorite things about the League, getting to see Bruce just this way. In the Cave, working on some new schematic, frowning and intent; as though everything else has ceased to exist—nothing to hide or paper over, no one to outwit or outplan or paste on a smile for. Just Bruce.
But Clark can't keep standing here watching like a creep. And Bruce wouldn't look like that if he knew Clark could see him.
So Clark takes another step forward. The doorway chimes lightly around him as he passes through it, and Bruce turns around and—smiles.
Clark shuts his eyes.
After the first time they'd fought—and not Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne arguing about city politics, or Batman being terse and stubborn and not doing a single damn thing Superman ever asked him to, but just Clark and Bruce. Just Clark and Bruce, yelling at each other in the lake house over—over the database, actually, Clark is pretty sure; over Bruce keeping secrets and never asking first.
Anyway. After that time, Bruce had mostly stopped doing this to Clark. He'd still hammed it up in public, playing a part, and Clark had understood why—he'd even done it at Clark specifically sometimes, during press conferences or at fundraisers, but that had been—that had been because Clark knew what Bruce was doing. That had been because Clark was in on the joke.
But this isn't a joke, and Clark doesn't have a backstage pass this time.
"Clark," Bruce says, in an easy friendly tone that Clark doesn't let himself flinch away from.
He's lucky Bruce is talking to him at all. Jesus. How is Clark ever going to fix this?
"Feeling all right?" Bruce is saying.
"Sure," Clark says automatically, "fine," and he makes himself open his eyes again. "And you aren't—I didn't, uh—"
"All in one piece," Bruce says, with another perfect awful smile he can't possibly mean.
"You're sure," Clark says in a rush, because—because if he at least didn't hurt Bruce physically, didn't break or—or tear anything—
"Never better, Clark, I promise," and on the one hand he's still got that smile on his face, but on the other hand Bruce has never used those words lightly. "I should be getting back to the office, though," as if this is a meeting that ran long, Clark thinks wildly. "Anything you'd like me to pass along to the League?"
Clark stares at him, helpless. How does Bruce do this? "I'll—be another day or two, I think," he manages.
"All right," Bruce says. He thanks the ship, crosses the room toward—toward the door, that's all, the door Clark's standing in front of. His hand moves like he's going to reach out; like he's about to make himself touch Clark, like he hasn't martyred himself hard enough yet—
Clark steps away. He's not good at this like Bruce, he can't make it look natural, but he hopes it means something to Bruce anyway, that Clark would let him off the hook.
Bruce doesn't look like it means anything to him. There's not a single scuff on the whole gleaming surface of him, as far as Clark can see. But he does pause for a moment, hand still halfway outstretched, to say, "I'm glad it worked."
"Yeah," Clark says inanely, and looks away, and waits until he can't hear Bruce's footsteps anymore—not even when he tries.
(Who is he kidding? He can't fix this.
He should have realized the second he'd stepped into Bruce's office, the second he'd known something was seriously wrong. He should have made sure Bruce would never find him. At the end of the day, it wouldn't have mattered how responsible Bruce felt or how stupid he'd planned to be. Because Clark could have prevented all of this if he'd just sealed the ship up properly, but—
But a part of him had wanted Bruce to come in. A part of him had allowed that door to open and let Bruce inside.
And there's nothing Bruce won't do if he thinks it's necessary, necessary and his responsibility. He'd known, at some point: I'm glad it worked. He'd thought he had to. And the only reason any of it had even happened in the first place was because of Clark. Because Clark exists and is who he is, is—
not regulation
—what he is.
It shouldn't have happened at all, but it has; and even Superman can't fix that.)
Bruce said he was all right. But Clark isn't feeling particularly sure of anything right now, and that's something he can find a single solid answer to.
"Ship," he says, "do you—are there sensor records of the time since Bruce came on board?"
"Yes," the ship says, and something comes up out of the floor, forms together out of—
It's him. Him and Bruce, cast in gray-bronze, soundless moving statues, at the precise moment when Clark had first slid inside—
"Stop," Clark says hurriedly, "stop," and they vanish.
Because of course the ship not only had records, but could play them back as life-sized three-dimensional—jesus.
"Just check them, please," he manages, with a hand over his eyes. "If there was ever anything wrong with Bruce's vital signs, or any—blood. Anything like that."
"Yes, Commander," the ship says.
The only instances the ship flags for him, in the end, are things like Clark biting Bruce's lip a little too hard, or the ferocious bruise it seems he'd sucked into life just to one side of the hollow of Bruce's throat, rippling down over Bruce's collarbone. Nothing Bruce would have flinched from, or would be struggling with—not Bruce, who liked to swan around at fancy parties pretending he didn't have broken ribs. At people who had x-ray vision. Because he was an idiot.
And of course Bruce had come here, Clark thinks, staring down at his hands. Because Bruce is an idiot. An idiot who thinks Clark is his problem—his responsibility—who has no idea that this happened to him because Clark wanted it to. It would almost have been easier if Clark had hurt Bruce physically; then at least they'd have had a starting point they could agree on for—
For what? Clark lies back against the deck, feeling cold and tired and nauseated, and scrubs his hands through his hair. For an apology? As if that'll be enough to make up for it. As if that were even a fraction of what it would take—as if there were any way to make up for this.
FILL: wildest dreams (burn it down); Bruce/Clark, heat (3b/4)
The ship does have more of those uniforms, or can make them, and can even be talked into spitting out one in two pieces, one that doesn't have the crest of the House of El plastered across the chest. Somehow Clark is pretty sure that going out there as Superman is not going to make this easier.
Once he's dressed, he tries to decide on the least invasive way to find Bruce and then realizes with a guilty start that that low regular sound he's already listening to is Bruce's heart. He'd just thought about where Bruce was, and his hearing had—
(—in the middle of it all, there had been nothing but Bruce, everywhere: filling Clark's ears, his gasps, his low sharp cries, the rush of blood through him like distant waves; too much to look at even though Bruce was the only thing, every scar and furrow, each tiny helpless contraction of the muscles in his hands, his arms—the individual perfect curves of his eyelashes; the feel of him, shameless and alive in Clark's arms, hot and wanting and winding his fingers through Clark's hair, saying harder, come on, I can—Clark, ah—)
Clark blinks and shakes himself. He has to find Bruce, and—and Bruce knows what he's capable of.
But it feels like cheating anyway.
Clark bites his lip for a second; and then he carefully stops listening, and stands in the corridor trying to decide which way he might think Bruce had gone if he couldn't hear anything at all.
Bruce is a deck up, Clark discovers in the end, in one of the rooms with a ceiling so perfectly transparent it might as well be open to the sky, when in reality even the vacuum of space wouldn't crack it. He's looking up at it, but not through it: the ship is explaining something to him, some kind of ridiculously advanced Kryptonian physics, with hovering metallic diagrams that shift and rearrange and reform every time Bruce asks a question.
And he looks—absorbed. It had started to become one of Clark's favorite things about the League, getting to see Bruce just this way. In the Cave, working on some new schematic, frowning and intent; as though everything else has ceased to exist—nothing to hide or paper over, no one to outwit or outplan or paste on a smile for. Just Bruce.
But Clark can't keep standing here watching like a creep. And Bruce wouldn't look like that if he knew Clark could see him.
So Clark takes another step forward. The doorway chimes lightly around him as he passes through it, and Bruce turns around and—smiles.
Clark shuts his eyes.
After the first time they'd fought—and not Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne arguing about city politics, or Batman being terse and stubborn and not doing a single damn thing Superman ever asked him to, but just Clark and Bruce. Just Clark and Bruce, yelling at each other in the lake house over—over the database, actually, Clark is pretty sure; over Bruce keeping secrets and never asking first.
Anyway. After that time, Bruce had mostly stopped doing this to Clark. He'd still hammed it up in public, playing a part, and Clark had understood why—he'd even done it at Clark specifically sometimes, during press conferences or at fundraisers, but that had been—that had been because Clark knew what Bruce was doing. That had been because Clark was in on the joke.
But this isn't a joke, and Clark doesn't have a backstage pass this time.
"Clark," Bruce says, in an easy friendly tone that Clark doesn't let himself flinch away from.
He's lucky Bruce is talking to him at all. Jesus. How is Clark ever going to fix this?
"Feeling all right?" Bruce is saying.
"Sure," Clark says automatically, "fine," and he makes himself open his eyes again. "And you aren't—I didn't, uh—"
"All in one piece," Bruce says, with another perfect awful smile he can't possibly mean.
"You're sure," Clark says in a rush, because—because if he at least didn't hurt Bruce physically, didn't break or—or tear anything—
"Never better, Clark, I promise," and on the one hand he's still got that smile on his face, but on the other hand Bruce has never used those words lightly. "I should be getting back to the office, though," as if this is a meeting that ran long, Clark thinks wildly. "Anything you'd like me to pass along to the League?"
Clark stares at him, helpless. How does Bruce do this? "I'll—be another day or two, I think," he manages.
"All right," Bruce says. He thanks the ship, crosses the room toward—toward the door, that's all, the door Clark's standing in front of. His hand moves like he's going to reach out; like he's about to make himself touch Clark, like he hasn't martyred himself hard enough yet—
Clark steps away. He's not good at this like Bruce, he can't make it look natural, but he hopes it means something to Bruce anyway, that Clark would let him off the hook.
Bruce doesn't look like it means anything to him. There's not a single scuff on the whole gleaming surface of him, as far as Clark can see. But he does pause for a moment, hand still halfway outstretched, to say, "I'm glad it worked."
"Yeah," Clark says inanely, and looks away, and waits until he can't hear Bruce's footsteps anymore—not even when he tries.
(Who is he kidding? He can't fix this.
He should have realized the second he'd stepped into Bruce's office, the second he'd known something was seriously wrong. He should have made sure Bruce would never find him. At the end of the day, it wouldn't have mattered how responsible Bruce felt or how stupid he'd planned to be. Because Clark could have prevented all of this if he'd just sealed the ship up properly, but—
But a part of him had wanted Bruce to come in. A part of him had allowed that door to open and let Bruce inside.
And there's nothing Bruce won't do if he thinks it's necessary, necessary and his responsibility. He'd known, at some point: I'm glad it worked. He'd thought he had to. And the only reason any of it had even happened in the first place was because of Clark. Because Clark exists and is who he is, is—
not regulation
—what he is.
It shouldn't have happened at all, but it has; and even Superman can't fix that.)
Bruce said he was all right. But Clark isn't feeling particularly sure of anything right now, and that's something he can find a single solid answer to.
"Ship," he says, "do you—are there sensor records of the time since Bruce came on board?"
"Yes," the ship says, and something comes up out of the floor, forms together out of—
It's him. Him and Bruce, cast in gray-bronze, soundless moving statues, at the precise moment when Clark had first slid inside—
"Stop," Clark says hurriedly, "stop," and they vanish.
Because of course the ship not only had records, but could play them back as life-sized three-dimensional—jesus.
"Just check them, please," he manages, with a hand over his eyes. "If there was ever anything wrong with Bruce's vital signs, or any—blood. Anything like that."
"Yes, Commander," the ship says.
The only instances the ship flags for him, in the end, are things like Clark biting Bruce's lip a little too hard, or the ferocious bruise it seems he'd sucked into life just to one side of the hollow of Bruce's throat, rippling down over Bruce's collarbone. Nothing Bruce would have flinched from, or would be struggling with—not Bruce, who liked to swan around at fancy parties pretending he didn't have broken ribs. At people who had x-ray vision. Because he was an idiot.
And of course Bruce had come here, Clark thinks, staring down at his hands. Because Bruce is an idiot. An idiot who thinks Clark is his problem—his responsibility—who has no idea that this happened to him because Clark wanted it to. It would almost have been easier if Clark had hurt Bruce physically; then at least they'd have had a starting point they could agree on for—
For what? Clark lies back against the deck, feeling cold and tired and nauseated, and scrubs his hands through his hair. For an apology? As if that'll be enough to make up for it. As if that were even a fraction of what it would take—as if there were any way to make up for this.
But he has to do something. He has to.