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dceu_kinkmeme2016-04-14 12:37 am
dceu_kinkmod) wrote in dceu_kinkmeme2016-04-14 12:37 am
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DCEU Prompt Post #1
Welcome to Round One of the DCEU Kink Meme!
Please have a look at the extended rules here.
The important rules in short:
- Post anonymously.
- Negative comments on other people's prompts (kink-shaming, pairing-bashing etc.) and personal attacks of any kind will not be tolerated.
- One prompt per comment. Warnings for common triggers and squicks are encouraged, but not required.
- Prompts should follow the format: Character/character, prompt.
- Keep prompts to a reasonable length; prompts should not be detailed story outlines.
- No prompt spamming.
Please direct any questions to the Ask a mod post. For inspiration: list of kinks .
Prompt, write, draw, comment, and most importantly have fun! Please link to your fills on the fill post.
Here's the discussion post for all your non-prompt/fill needs.
We now have a non-DCEU prompt post for any prompts in other 'verses (comics, animated series, other movies or TV shows etc.).
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[Fill, 3/6] Bruce/Clark, competence kink
(Anonymous) 2016-06-02 10:40 pm (UTC)(link)3. Children.
Most of the time Bruce Wayne and Batman were two entirely separate entities, antithetical in every possible way. Bruce Wayne smiled a lot and talked even more, Batman scowled and was frustratingly taciturn. Bruce Wayne was a charming fop with no useful skills to speak of, Batman was devastatingly competent in more areas than Clark could count. Bruce Wayne was easily excitable, Batman was a stoic. Bruce Wayne was a people's person, Batman was an abrasive loner and, most of the time, not particularly pleasant to be around.
There was only one area, and a very unlikely one at that, in which they resembled each other – when it came to children. Even if Clark didn't know it for the longest time.
Maybe it was that even Bruce didn't have it in him to be Bruce Wayne at wide-eyed, lonely children when he visited an orphanage he'd funded. Maybe it was that nobody would have trouble believing that even a vapid, arrogant billionaire had a soft spot for children who shared the same fate he had suffered as a little boy. After all it was public record that Bruce had even adopted two orphans when he'd been younger. Clark didn't believe that even Bruce was cynical enough to use those unfortunate children for nothing but good PR and conversation pieces, and in this one instance Bruce's interest seemed actually genuine.
And for a long time Clark thought that Bruce Wayne's uncharacteristic gentleness with children in no way compromised his secret identity. Everyone knew that Batman was curt, gruff, brutal. The least gentle person one could imagine.
That's what Clark had thought.
Most times when he saw Bruce suited up, they were battling some kind of extraterrestrial or metahuman threat, or fighting perfectly common but still powerful criminals. Clark didn't even see Batman interact with a child until – until that night when they finally found a black market lab Clark had been investigating for weeks. They didn't know who was behind the whole operation yet, only that whoever ran the place been producing – and testing – some kinds of drugs and chemicals in an abandoned factory on the outskirts of Metropolis.
Children had been disappearing for weeks, which was how Clark had first got wind of the operation, and their main priority while taking down the lab had been to get those kids to safety. Things being what they were, between Clark and Diana and whatever the hell those security robots they were facing had been, the factory had still ended up pretty much in shambles.
Afterwards both Clark and Bruce were combing through the half-ruined building, to see if they'd missed anyone. Clark picked up a fluttering, too fast heartbeat – a child, and a scared one at that. And right beside it the steady thump of Bruce's heart. Clark sped up, figuring that no frightened, traumatised child should have to deal with a man who put fear into the hearts of Gotham's most hardened criminals. He turned a corner to find a little boy cowering behind a fallen arch. No more than six years old, curly black hair, dark eyes. He was crying and his face looked more hollowed out than on the picture Clark remembered, but this had to be Terry Young, one of the most recent disappearances. Batman was sitting on the floor next to him and shot Clark an venomous glare.
“Stay back,” he growled quietly. “You're scaring him.”
Clark only noticed then that the little boy was looking up at him with wide, terrified eyes. Part of him wanted to protest – Superman wasn't scary, Superman helped people – but then he realised that the last time that boy had probably seen him, lasers had been shooting out of Clark's eyes. Judging by the look of the room, Clark's heat vision might well have been what had destroyed this part of the building. So Clark fell back to the unhinged door of the room to give the boy space, but he didn't leave. He was curious, and the rest of the factory was quiet – they'd got everyone out in time and Clark wasn't needed elsewhere for now.
“He's not going to hurt you,” Bruce said to the boy. His voice modulator was still on, that same guttural growl Clark was used to, but even so his tone sounded much softer than usual. And then Bruce added, “He's a friend. You're safe now.”
Clark didn't think – no, Clark was absolutely sure that Bruce had never, ever referred to them as friends. He barely even allowed himself to think of Bruce that way, since he could just about imagine how much Bruce would bristle at the suggestion.
“He looks scary,” the boy said, his voice small and hoarse from crying.
“Someone needs to scare off the bad guys,” Bruce said with the smallest quirk of his lips, as if that wasn't his job. “That looks like it hurts.”
He'd raised his gloved hand to point at the cut over the boy's eyebrow. As far as Clark could tell, it wasn't serious, but like most head injuries it was bleeding profusely. Bruce's movement was deliberately slow, carefully designed, Clark realised belatedly, not to startle or threaten the boy.
“Is it okay if I have a look?”
The boy hesitated, but then he nodded, sat still while Bruce produced a cotton pad and disinfectant from one of the countless pockets on his belt so he could carefully dab the blood away. The same precision in his movements Clark had grown used to from him, but so much slower, gentler. Reassuring. A stark contrast with that frowning black cowl, and yet the boy seemed not one bit intimidated by him. Clark could hear his frightened heartbeat slow down a bit.
“You'll be all right,” Bruce commented after a moment. “But you're going to need stitches.”
“I hate stitches,” the boy replied, his tone already closer to that of a regular unwilling child than of someone who'd just been held captive in a drug lab for two weeks. Clark half expected Bruce to make some callous remark about how the boy should stop whining and man up, but instead he shrugged briefly.
“Everyone does.” Bruce turned himself to the side so the boy could glance at his arm, the tear through the black body armour, crusted with blood. “I'm going to need stitches, too.”
The boy looked a little sceptical about that, but he seemed solely focused on Batman now rather than on the destruction around them, or on whatever memories he'd accumulated in the two weeks he'd spent in this place.
“We're going to get you down to a doctor in a moment, but do you think you can answer a few questions for me first?”
For a moment Clark wanted to get annoyed that Bruce prioritised their investigation over getting this child out of here, but then Bruce could probably see as well as he did that the boy didn't need immediate medical attention. And Clark could hear the brouhaha down by the street, the sirens, the emergency services, the press and the cameras and the curious bystanders, and he figured that a few minutes longer up here might actually be less stressful for the boy.
Terry seemed to think about it for a moment before he bit his lip, stubborn determination despite the tears, and nodded again. Bruce's tone was calm and unassuming when he started asking, free of any demand, of any threat. Simple questions that wouldn't overwhelm him, if he'd seen any faces, if he could describe any of the men who'd brought him here, if he'd ever heard them use any names, but he never asked them like he thought the boy was stupid.
Clark remembered reading an article once, written by a retired police detective, about how hard it was to get accurate witness statements from children, especially children who'd lived through traumatic events. How easy it was to overwhelm them or accidentally lead them into saying what the questioning police officer wanted to hear.
Bruce probably could have taught classes on how to get detailed, accurate witness statements from children under ten. And he was so careful about it. Gentle even. When tears welled up in the boy's eyes, Bruce relented, shushed him softly. He didn't hug him, just offered an arm and – to Clark's surprise Terry all but threw himself at Batman. Wrapped his short arms around his neck while Bruce held him close, carefully angling his body and his arms so as to keep the sharp edges of his body armour away from the boy's skin. He stroked his hair, a light, soothing touch despite the fact that he was still wearing heavy gloves.
“It's okay,” he mumbled. “You did great. What you just told me will help us find these people, make sure they don't hurt anyone else.”
Clark watched in disbelief and fascination. Bruce Wayne was kind to children when he met them, especially orphans, but still in a somewhat distant, too smooth way. This felt far more genuine, almost raw. Like a glimpse at what lay underneath the masks of both Bruce Wayne and Batman. Bruce met Clark's eyes over the boy's shoulder, and the look on his face was one of barely restrained fury, even as his hand on the boy's hair was unfailingly gentle. It lasted only for a moment before he turned his attention back to the boy, who was straightening up a little, wiping at his eyes.
“Sorry,” he said, clearly trying to be brave. “My dad says boys don't cry.”
“I think when your dad sees you again today, he's going to cry, too.”
Clark felt his chest tighten, thinking back of his own father, and then – then it struck him that Bruce had lost a son, that Bruce never got to cry tears of joy at having him back, but only tears of sorrow at his funeral. It was hard to imagine Bruce crying at all, even though he must have, but seeing what he saw now, seeing the way Bruce ruffled Terry's hair one last time before he rose, the way Bruce didn't even flinch when the little boy took his hand firmly in his, Clark realised for the first time the enormous loss that Bruce had lived through. Not just the guilt and shame of failing the boy who'd fought by his side, symbolised by the bloodied suit he insisted on keeping in the Cave, but the incurable sorrow of a father who'd buried his son.
“Superman here is going to fly you down to an ambulance.” The mention of his name tore Clark out of his thoughts. He hadn't even noticed that Bruce and the boy had walked over to him. “It'll be safer than if I carry you over the rubble.”
The boy looked up at Clark, fear mixing with scepticism in his still wet eyes, then glanced back up at Bruce. “Are you sure about that?”
“I'm sure,” Bruce said, but he didn't push him, waited patiently until Terry let go of his hand and made another step towards Superman. Clark gave him the best reassuring smile he could muster before he picked him up, exchanged a brief look with Bruce and took off. He delivered the boy to the emergency services, made sure he was being taken care of before he returned to the factory. Bruce had already moved to a mostly intact office two floors up and was rifling through files now, eyes quickly scanning the documents. He didn't even acknowledge Clark's return.
A few months ago, Clark would have left it at that and found some other way to make himself useful. But since then he'd spent more time with Bruce, and, well, if Bruce referred to him as his friend, even if just to reassure a child, Clark had every intention of taking that as an invitation to talk to him more.
“I didn't know you were good with children,” he said. It wasn't really what he meant – or rather, it was a part of it, but the fact that Batman was good with children should have been as unsurprising as that he excelled at frightening criminals into telling him what he wanted to know or that Bruce Wayne could charm people and cajole them into just about anything. Sometimes it seemed as if Bruce had perfected every skill he could possibly need some day. And yet, despite Bruce's careful questioning, Clark didn't feel like he had merely witnessed another one of Batman's skills. This hadn't been Batman coldly manipulating another person to get what he wanted.
But there was no way of saying that this was the most human Clark had seen him since their first fight, since Bruce had promised him to save his mother in a voice that had erased every doubt in Clark's mind. He'd promised to save her, and Clark had believed him not because of Batman's skill, but because he had so obviously cared. It wasn't something Clark had let himself dwell on too much since his return, and maybe he should have.
But what he said was “I didn't know you were good with children”, and Bruce didn't even glance up from the file cabinet, only replied with a a low huff.
“The paramedics are patching Terry up, and the other kids, too. Their parents are being called.” Another non-committal grunt, but then Clark wasn't telling Bruce anything that wasn't painfully obvious. Clark was quiet for a moment, then asked, “Do you think he's going to be okay? Him and the others?”
At that Bruce finally stilled and looked up. He seemed to consider the question for a minute before he met Clark's eyes, the look in them quiet and thoughtful.
“I don't know,” he said eventually. For a moment he looked like he wanted to say more, but thought better of it. Instead he set his jaw and turned back to the file cabinet. “It's not up to us. All we can do is find out who's behind this, if there are more labs like this one.”
What you just told me will help us find these people, make sure they don't hurt anyone else.
Clark felt that tightness in his chest again. He'd spent years thinking Batman merely hunted criminals to see them punished, to make sure they got what they deserved for their crimes. Somehow it had never occurred to him to look at the other side of this – that Bruce did what he did because he cared about the victims of those criminals. That he wasn't merely driven by an abstract ideal of justice, but by wanting innocent people not to get hurt. By wanting to spare other people the horror of burying their murdered parents, their murdered son. It should have been so obvious that it was probably a credit to both masks Bruce liked to wear that Clark hadn't seen it earlier.
Of course he wasn't going to comment on any of it, not when he was aware of how much Bruce would hate it that Clark felt like he knew him better now. With a smile tugging at his lips, Clark stepped closer to Bruce and let his hand hover near his elbow.
“What is it with you and that left arm?” The annoyance on Bruce's face only made his smile widen. But it was Bruce's normal level of grumpiness, not that sudden complete withdrawal Clark remembered too well from the last time. “You do need stitches, you know? You're going to bleed all over those files.”
Bruce seemed to consider this and then asked, a lot more cooperative than Clark had hoped for, “If I let you stitch me up, are you going to shut up and let me work?” He also certainly hadn't expected this particular suggestion. He opened his mouth to argue that there were other people better suited to patching Bruce up, but then Bruce was hardly going to risk some paramedics getting a sample of his blood, nor was he going to waste time flying back to Gotham to have Alfred tend to his wounds. It was either Clark helping him out or Bruce continuing to bleed unnecessarily, and that was no choice at all.
“Okay.” He grinned, feeling a little reckless. “I can't promise I'm as good with bats as you are with children, though.”
The look Bruce gave him was thunderous to the point where Clark half expected Bruce to change his mind and simply go back to work, but instead he sat down on the only not overturned chair, his hands going once more for the first-aid items in his belt.
“You really, really aren't.”
And maybe Clark wasn't, but he still thought he might be wearing Bruce down.
Re: [Fill, 3/6] Bruce/Clark, competence kink
(Anonymous) 2016-06-02 11:14 pm (UTC)(link)Re: [Fill, 3/6] Bruce/Clark, competence kink
(Anonymous) 2016-07-17 10:22 pm (UTC)(link)Re: [Fill, 3/6] Bruce/Clark, competence kink
(Anonymous) 2016-06-02 11:31 pm (UTC)(link)JUST
CAN'T
Re: [Fill, 3/6] Bruce/Clark, competence kink
(Anonymous) 2016-07-17 10:23 pm (UTC)(link)Re: [Fill, 3/6] Bruce/Clark, competence kink
(Anonymous) 2016-06-03 04:35 pm (UTC)(link)Nooooo, why would you do that? I was just going along enjoying Bruce being awesome and then got whacked with terrible feelings over Jason. Which is to say, this was excellent. Batman's gentleness with crime victims and with kids in particular is one of my favorite things. He cares so much and I love that Clark got to see that.
Re: [Fill, 3/6] Bruce/Clark, competence kink
(Anonymous) 2016-07-17 10:24 pm (UTC)(link)Re: [Fill, 3/6] Bruce/Clark, competence kink
(Anonymous) 2016-07-20 08:22 pm (UTC)(link)