Stop and getting married. Continue and get married. Martha is someone who does not have to understand to accept something, to love someone; else Clark's upbringing would have worked out differently. But Clark knows how much she likes Lois, roping her into a part of the family sphere, and maybe Lo's heart by now is as important to her as Clark's.

Maybe reassuring that no one's getting hurt is what matters. And yes, eventually--

Clark doesn't have time to graduate from that thought to the next, of openness, before Bruce says this last thing. Fortunate, because he's not sure what thoughts he has about it, except that so long as the people he loves are happy and love him back, that should be fine, right? Maybe that's too good to be true.

But no time to test that, because Bruce says this last thing, haltingly, into the cold air. His heart does a thing, a lift inside of him, even if 'this' seems so nebulous and undefined still, but maybe they can make it solid together. Give it shape and sense. Clark steps around to be in front, a hand touching the inside of Bruce's arm, pausing them properly.

"I am," he offers. The are you? is on the tip of his tongue, and forgotten.