The irony being that what Clark thinks of resolving an argument just means taking it back. Telling Jonathan he didn't mean it, what he was saying, that he loves him, none of it mattered. It's an old hurt. Martha holding him close, saying, he knew that, honey, he knows, neither of them really understanding the emptiness of that reassurance. What Clark had wanted to make him understand.

That's reductive, Clark would say, to Bruce.

To be honest, practice of pulling his mind out of the past is a reflex, and he's currently smiling a little at the idea of Bruce Wayne, billionaire persona and all, suffering a Christmas morning with a dozen unimpressed midwesterners. What he actually expects to happen is that Bruce's company would be worth the actual strangeness that would happen instead, that there's nothing wrong with that.

Instead of pressing the point, he just listens to heart rates without breaking eye contact, smile dimming. Doesn't mind the hesitation, because it gives him an opportunity to reach out. He slides his hand from Bruce's, only to touch fingertips to jaw, feeling the rough texture of stubble that's been haunting him since the first kiss, and the last. He's going to develop some Pavlovian instincts out of this, he can tell.

Realises he's looking at Bruce's mouth, trains his eyes back upwards, and then leans in to kiss. It feels different, doing that here; slower and sleepier, like they've been doing it forever.