Bruce has spent a lifetime trying to train himself out of being the way he is; wanting with everything in him. Channelling every feeling instead into violence, his mission, his war. Cutting everything else away. But with every degree more, Clark just accepts it— even encourages it, and sometimes even in the midst of feeling guilty for carrying on at all, he thinks Clark might want him to push further, and further. He feels like he's learning how to be himself, piece by piece. Unsteady at times, for fear of selfishness and corruption, but still there. Honest.

He doesn't feel like teasing him. He's too physically exhausted for it, even though he wants to be right here doing this more than anything. Bruce mouths along his hipbone and to the crease of his thigh, and then wastes no time in taking Clark into his mouth, as much of his cock as he can and just holding him there. Letting him get all the way hard, sucking lightly, eyes falling closed and tipping into the feeling of giving himself over to someone else completely. And, you know, concentrating. Just because Clark would survive without injury if he got him with his teeth by accident doesn't mean he shouldn't try to avoid it; Bruce was in no way practiced, before they began their entanglement, and Clark isn't small. He takes meditative breaths through his nose, thinks about how much warmer his mouth is than the middling water, and how much warmer still Clark is, in all his solar-powered alienness.