Memories of Bruce being so tender are just that. He is somewhere very different, today, emotionally. Screen before him busy with work, line of his shoulders straight and cold. Fingers pause on keys and Bruce realizes just how angry he is. He is several miles pas angry, actually, which is surprising. He'd thought he'd lost the capacity to feel so intensely this side of the spectrum, about Clark, and experiencing it is at once freeing as it is sickening.

There's nothing he can say that will impress his fear and worry on Clark-- the way he'd acted says it with more sincerity and grace than Bruce will ever have the vocabulary to describe. He hadn't been able to let him out of the circle of his arms, much less out of his sight. Clinging to him, whispering endearments, like he never does, fucking never, because it leaves him too vulnerable. But that's it. That's his heart being removed from his chest and handed to Clark, warm and wet and still beating.

"Your judgement is seriously impaired," he says, and there's nothing warm about him now. Bruce turns around in his chair, his gaze stony. "I don't mean the neurotoxin. I mean the fact that you bulldozed into a situation you knew nothing about - a situation that I had under control - and escalated it. Those hostages weren't in play before you arrived. The toxin being released wasn't in play before you arrived. You made a decision based on my heartbeat that nearly got people killed - got one person shot - and exposed you to an element that significantly impacted your physiology.

It's not acceptable."