Bruce looks around, not terribly animated, but still well within his own parameters for implying comedic effect. What about any of the gaudy, old-world crap clogging this place up seemed aesthetically conservative? Sure, it'll have fewer doors in and out, because the manor had approximately thirty, all for different wings and suites and servants. But they can pop a garage door opener on a skylight, Kent, yes. They have the technology.
"That word," he says, keeping his voice light, but then he doesn't continue right away.
'Generous'. Yeah, he tends to hear it meaning financially, and not in a friendly way. How generous, Mr Wayne, the billionaire. Anyway, Bruce shrugs. It's the best he can do. He thought he'd raise kids in this house and leave it to them, and that isn't what's happened. Won't ever happen. One orphaned boy wasn't enough to fill it and he thought. He had hoped. Tried.
Failed.
"I thought so too, but now I think I've made an error not just showing you the penthouse." Humor. It's on the roof of the Wayne Foundation building.
At that word, Clark squeezes Bruce's hand. It doesn't hurt. It feels normal.
"I'm a simple man," Clark admits, which is also funny, because a fancy penthouse is far from simple. "But I don't mean just me. Or just the house."
The house, inasmuch as he still feels like 'house' barely applies to a place this big and grand. He's used to a kitchen with vertical shades and old fashioned backsplash, and narrow stairs with creaky parts, and the way the whole place kind of shivered every time he ran down them with Shelby racing ahead.
Anyway. He means the Justice League, bringing them together, which on that note is probably an adequate amount of collective chaos for a place of this size.
Bruce does not elaborate on that incredulity, but it is there between them in spirit, like a long scroll being unfurled, all the ways in which Clark Kal Joseph "Superman" El Kent is just about the most complicated person currently residing on planet Earth. And not just because he's an alien. Maybe not even mostly because he's an alien. Maybe, because he is such a sensitive person - sensitive as in, so aware, so careful - that he shows so little, and yet makes people feel like they're seeing all there is to him.
But Bruce likes him how he is. Scroll or no scroll. And Bruce is worse about his own complexities, blunter and less refined as they are. He turns so that he's looking at Clark, and uses their joined hands to tug the younger man forward. His other goes up to hold the back of his head, and he presses a kiss to his mouth.
I know what you meant.
"I was thinking," he says when he pulls back, "that I can probably figure out a way for you to practice without having to restructure a mountain somewhere."
Clark raises his eyebrows. Sure he's simple. He buys like three of the same pair of jeans at a time once he works out if they fit and likes very basic beer brands and a whole other long list of stuff that Bruce can accurately guess about him.
But he's not arguing. He's being kissed. He likes the way Bruce kisses him, too. It feels oddly like being gifted something. His hand lands on Bruce's chest, lingers there when they pull back from one another.
"Oh yeah?" he says, at what comes next. "It's not hollowing out the moon, is it?"
Visiting the Mariana Trench. Prospecting abandoned Russian mines. There's options.
Keep up with the times, Kansas, WayneTech is already mining moon cheese and has been for years. (No.) (Or are they.)
Anyway, how's that for some light deflection away from the subject Bruce brought up on his own in the first place. His eyes watch Clark's carefully, like he's sifting for reactions, before he ends up skimming his gaze elsewhere. Casual and thoughtful, not at all like he isn't sure how this'll land.
"I copied the computer out of the scout ship," is what he says, like whatever, "and I don't have much of a workable translation, but the equations are mutually intelligible without it. The atmosphere mix settings explain some things."
Anyway. 'Copied the computer out of the scout ship' feels big, big enough that Clark doesn't seem to react at first. It feels impressive, for starters, and then intriguing for seconds, curiousity sharpening then in his mismatched eyes, which seek out Bruce's. There are, anyway, limits to what he personally can get out of something so advanced.
Which didn't stop him from taking it back and landing it on the top of an Arctic mountain, with polar bears for neighbors.
He occupies the next pause by taking up Bruce's other hand in a tangle with his own. No escape now.
He and Vic had been in there for a while, and Bruce, for a while more. Before and after, his own spiders of connectivity slowly but steadily cloning alien drives. It's the first time he had received a not enough space error exceeding multiple yottabytes. If the young man made up of mostly machine parts thought it was weird that he was hotwiring 5KTB bricks to the back of the mainframe like an awful hacker in a heist movie, he politely didn't mention it. Probably there were weirder things to focus on, like
resurrecting Superman.
It's been some months, since then. Some more, since Clark gently repossessed the ship itself. The task of interfacing it, then trying to understand anything, has been slow-going. And he didn't want to say anything, if he turned out there was nothing there. His further invasion into Clark's privacy (though it's not like it was his ship, and besides, he was dead at the time) should at least yield something.
"Like the exact conditions on Krypton. 'Red sun' does not actually mean anything, scientifically. But those equations describing the oxygen levels, radiation densities..." Bruce shrugs, looking at him again, not pulling his hands away. "I can recreate it."
It's a ready memory. Standing on the bridge of the scout ship, suddenly surrounded by these impossible beings, all staring at him, all analysing, measuring. (Butter couldn't melt in their mouths, he imagines Martha saying.) He remembers projecting as much confidence as he could muster at the time, and remembers the distinct way it sounded like he'd swallowed in own tongue around I take it you're Zod.
On account of how overwhelming it all was, sure, but also how he'd immediately felt it, the weight of it, the air and gravity and something even more pervasive that had made him feel even less welcome than the steely stares of the Kryptonians.
"So instead of restructuring a mountain, you're talking about me."
Just to demonstrate he's on the same page, or getting there, with a glint of humour before matching, better, Bruce's tone. "I've experienced those conditions before. It wasn't pretty, to begin with."
He does not say, I thought you'd like that, and explain how it lessens Clark's burden of responsibility for setting a coffee cup down an accidentally exploding his entire apartment building. Obviously, Clark will be aware of that. Bruce knows this is more fragile ground, kicking up memories that are painful, both because of the emotional turmoil and the literal, physical pain.
Those readings do not suggest an easy re-entry in either direction, and besides, he's seen footage from 'downtown' Smallville. After minimal investigation, it was not difficult to discern what it was that kept tripping up the Kryptonian soldiers.
Was it better or worse than kryptonite?
Mm. Nope, bad question.
"I could probably make adjustments, but it wouldn't be fun, the first couple shots. For either of us, I imagine."
Correction: they're talking about both of them. Apparently.
And it's enough to draw Clark out of fun reminiscing, more direct focus leveled at Bruce across the several inches keeping them apart. Wheels turning as he grounds himself slightly by splaying his fingers and feeling the delicate bones of Bruce's caught in between.
"Might not be so bad on a second pass," he says. "I adapted. Zod adapted."
Nothing's worse than kryptonite.
His fingers close again, gentle.
"What would it be like? For both of us. Even playing field?" And there is a crooked rise to the corner of his mouth. Clark on a human level could probably get taken out handily by Alfred.
The world of fandom might be suspicious of Superman for having executed Zod, but that was never Bruce's complaint. He reviewed the reports of that with a cold eye, and came to the conclusion that it was justified. Everything in between, though, and Zod himself, was what fuelled his paranoia, and beyond.
He does not want Clark to be harmed. Not even by this.
"I don't know," he admits with a small shrug. (He could be taken out handily by Alfred only because Alfred was a secret agent. Clark is stacked. It would still probably hurt to punch him, without powers.) "Odds are more than even I'd just puke my guts out the whole time, but that's not too different from my average Monday morning. You'd do alright."
Drunk jokes, eyy.
"It... would be important to me, whether it works or not, whether it goes beyond this conversation or dies here, that awareness of it doesn't leave you and I."
The drunk joke gets a :/ and not just because of the alcoholism. The feeling is mutual, in not wishing either of them harmed, but Clark probably has to at admit: Bruce is innately more calculated in his risks. He takes ridiculous ones, but differently so than his own. Clark would probably fly through the centre of the sun without much encouragement.
(Also it's a little because of the alcoholism.)
"Okay," he says, after a second. 'It would be important to me'. "Secret's safe."
A beat, and then a half-smile, flash of teeth, "How long've you been thinking about this?"
Bruce gives him a bit of a look - careful, measured, like that Okay was actually supposed to be a Yes and, leaving Bruce stuck because his next line isn't going to volley right. He doesn't immediately respond to the following question. Considering. Clearly more to delve into there, but, letting it be for a second.
"I hadn't put a timer on it," he says, because neither Since I first learned of you, in a bad way, nor When I decided to resurrect you, hoping to connect with you, or Relatively recently because your punches suck sound acceptable in his head.
Clark would be curious to know what computational resources are allotted him on a daily basis inside Bruce Wayne's head. He doesn't assume more than he'd expect, when Batman has better things to do than think about Superman—these days, anyway—but it's a humbling thing, to have a genius level intellect levelled on you, the things you might need, the things you might want.
It's not quite the same as hearing Bruce's heartbeat from a neighbouring continent. It's not quite the same because Clark doesn't all the time know what he's doing with this information. There are times it just feels selfish. What does he do for Bruce, really? What does this data translate to?
Maybe he'll get hit with inspiration one day. For now—
Restlessness drives him to walk, still keeping Bruce's hand. Enough staring into eyeballs, noting on a terrifying microscopic level of detail each little twitch and tonal shift.
"Me too," Clark says. "Ever since I was little kid, wishing I was like the other kids. That's—not the same hang up these days. But sometimes."
Me too, Clark says, and it lands somewhere unexpected. It isn't that Bruce has never conceptualized the concept of Clark not wanting to be other. Loneliness is devastating. And who wants ultimate power? Truly? Who wants the burden of knowing every moment spent sleeping or having a bagel is a moment not spent on diverting a flood somewhere, or pulling someone out of a burning car? Bruce would crumble under that awareness. For whatever reason, he has not specifically imagined Clark articulating his own childhood, before. And it sounds so much like his own thoughts, back then, that he feels humbled, and a little foolish.
He squeezes the Kryptonian hand in his, which feels very human, and very not, and in every way acceptable. Does not echo, Me too, though he could. It'd just be more sad bullshit, and they've done enough of his sad bullshit for one day.
"I had thought," he begins, but doesn't finish. Footsteps over to that long railing, looking around in the broken-down atrium. Tries again: "I had worried, that you might not be comfortable with an attempt at something like that."
Following, then finding a place to lean carefully on railing. The impulse to answer fast—a reassurance, enthusiasm, something—is on the tip of his tongue but Clark resists. It's a valid worry.
Shit can happen. And when it does, it's usually on ridiculously, cosmically huge proportions.
'Worried' is cute, but Clark spares Bruce from drawing his attention to it. "I save a lot of kittens out of trees," he says, instead. Code for: carrying people from flash floods, digging people out of collapsed buildings, shielding people from explosions with his destructible whole self. "And it's not something I need practice to do. But we're always waiting for the next monster. The next horde of something. I want to be better when it happens. I watch you fight, and Diana. I get it.
"And," he adds, with the weight of an important appending detail, "I trust you."
Hush, you, he's vengeance and the night, he's not cute.
All of that is true. The things that Superman does are not the things that Batman does. Batman is a firefighter, and the fire is never-ending, the building is always burning and people are always trapped inside. Superman is an architect, reshaping humanity for a better future by pulling miracles from the sky. Even when they are both simply combatants, Clark is another order of thing altogether.
So he should know how to punch better. And know how to take a hit.
I trust you.
('Should you.')
"You may have to trust me even more," he ventures. "What I meant by keeping it between us only— you're not going to come back one day and there'll be a magic room. We're looking down the barrel of months of working together in close quarters on a project that's half construction, half tedious chemistry."
What Clark could have said: I trust you completely.
But apparently there is 1% of trust in reserve dedicated solely to still expecting Bruce to shy away from these kinds of declarations, to rebuff him or withhold something, so it wouldn't have been completely true anyway. Just 99% true.
"If I say 'that sounds fun', will you think I'm not taking you seriously?" he queries, and then talks over whatever reply that might net. "I trust you the correct amount, Bruce. I can't figure this stuff out on my own." A beat, and he adds, "Did you get everything you need already, from the scout ship? Because you're welcome there too."
Taking it to the North Pole had not not been playing an elaborate game of keep-away, but mostly from the government, from the Lex Luthors of the world, and only a little bit Justice League. Stopping any of them from going where they want is more trouble than it's worth, he figures.
"A bit," he shoots immediately, but the volume is low, just a deep grumble, anticipating Clark's intent to make that rhetorical by talking over him. And lo.
The thing is, Bruce may never not do this. His crime against Clark was not an ordinary thing. What should happen is that they should never see each other again, and Lois should be threatening to leave him over the association. Instead they're doing this, and Lois is maintaining a viciously even-matched mobile board game competition with Bruce in which expensive bottles of scotch are waged. That insanity is held hostage by how much Bruce adores him, how increasingly charmed is by his wife, and the slow acceptance of: we have lived the very worst of each other, and been baptized by it, and coming out the other side of it like this is sometimes too beautiful a thing to contend with.
He drags in a slow breath. His sigh after is very quiet.
"I've been working on learning Kryptonian, out of necessity. If you think there's anything there that could help facilitate it, I could probably find a coat."
"Well, there's no Duolingo owl, but there're plenty of records. Audio and written."
Clark has been getting the hang of it himself in the moments he indulges, with a better brain for that kind of thing than you'd think, and he almost doesn't say out loud, "It'd be nice having someone to practice with," because this shouldn't only be about himself, but he says it anyway. It's worth saying, in opposition to Bruce's sense of necessity.
"And I fixed the thermostat," he adds. "In some spots, anyway. Want to show me where our dorm rooms are gonna be?" And then they can look into coats.
Bruce gives him a look, one of many in his broad language of unspoken moments, and this one is serious - as usual - but compelling. Affectionate, even. He likes the idea of learning the language with Clark, and furthermore, the idea of seeing more of how quick the other man's mind adapts and understands complexities. A thing he's noticed, yes, and a thing that's hard for him to find anything but attractive.
"Yeah. This way. Plenty of room for bunk beds."
And privacy, and so on. On their way back out Bruce hops through a burned window to pass through to the other wing, noting a scarred walled in a small maybe-library with the skeleton of a grandfather clock. Next time, he says, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at it, and if Clark bothers to x-ray peek, he will see some shit, underground.
Presumably they pack lunch at least for the North Pole. Coinflip if Bruce stubbornly brings a batjet or if Clark talks him into a romantic flight shoved into a thermal sleeping bag like the world's worst luggage.
The batjet wins out, partially because Clark wants to go for a ride. He will ride his bike to work and take the ferry to Gotham and call down an Uber and it's not all just to act like Clark Kent, because in a lot of the ways it matters, he is Clark Kent.
That said, there's no sense of grounding or anything very sentimental in selecting this particular mode of transport. Like any regular person, he would just like a go in the cool stealth plane. He even waits until halfway there to get antsy at the pace.
Of course, the North Pole itself is ocean, and Clark was not feeling so petulant or adventurous as to land the thing submerged, beneath the sea ice. The rocky island that is home to the scout ship is snow-crusted and home only to Kryptonians and neighbouring polar bears, and at this time of year, they are in the depths of months-long darkness. Navigational tools do the work but Clark directs Bruce to a hangar entrance, a broad doorway opening slickly and swiftly to permit them entry.
And they can see. Lightsources unknown paint cool illumination over the broad curvatures of the interior. It is still extremely cold, inside, breaths leaving them as thick clouds of fog, but nothing like the outside blizzards.
There's a slight crinkle sound. Clark retrieving a sandwich wrapped in wax paper.
Edited (crucial word change) 2021-01-31 09:55 (UTC)
The jet (dceu wiki cheekily calls it the Batwing) is a fine piece of technology; in its rebuilt state, hauled away from where Doomsday had swatted it down and tinkered with on and off for a year, the co-pilot's seat was finally put back in. Then taken out. Then put in again. A private, silent argument with himself. But it's there for Clark to get bored in, even at supersonic speeds no military craft can match. Maybe the mild-mannered reporter in him will remember a harsh critique of Wayne Enterprises' failed in-and-out defense contract from the staunch money men of the WSJ; What business does Mr Wayne have blowing off such a rare offer?
Bruce is in a very insulated coat, over very insulated other garments. It might not be as cold, inside the scout ship, and he might be used to Gotham's insidious damp chill, but there's a reason Superman parked his reappropriated space ship here. Not much manages to be alive.
"Are you hungry already?"
We haven't even done any work, Kansas.
A louder sound, Bruce pulling a heavy bag from the cockpit, slinging it over his shoulder. Not sure yet, if it's safe to set up a link between the cave's computer and this one - for reasons of alien viruses harming his terran tech, and terran viruses harming alien tech, and much more mundane concerns, like, 'will someone track that funny IP ping'. He walks in, looking up, taking in the sight of the place. Not unfamiliar, strictly but still strange.
Which doesn't prevent Clark from taking a corner bite. Tuna salad. He was being considerate about the close confines of the jet after thinking about them nonstop since take off, give him a break.
And he is not quite as wrapped up, but does where his own fur-lined hooded jacket, open over his winter things. Better for a brisk midwest winter than the Arctic Circle, but a gesture towards his capacity to be effected by anything. That he might prefer to rug up against a snowy night and also meditate in the vacuum of space speaks to something about the worlds he moves through.
Speaking of worlds.
"You'd want the bridge, I guess we'd call it. I guess you know the way." Which doesn't stop Clark from walking up alongside, roaming a fraction ahead. As they walk, the air begins to warm. They cross through a chamber that had once been the final resting place to mummified Kryptonians, long since laid to rest somewhere more appropriate even before Zod had commandeered the ship for his invasion. In that time, the temperature hikes up, comfortably gradual, but soon stifling in big coats.
Aside, "Told you I fixed the thermostat," and pleased with himself about it, like maybe he's talking about the radiator in his Metropolis apartment, and had promised Lo he'd make an attempt.
He will need to be shown the way, somewhat - this is not the entrance he used, when he did what he did, and Kryptonian design is not perfectly intuitive to an Earthling. I guess you know. Because Bruce has been here before, has done long hours of work in here, before.
They cross a chamber until they don't, when Clark is the only one crossing and Bruce has paused. Just looking. At the ship, and him.
After a moment he moves again, and makes a grunted sound of what might be approval. Yeah yeah, you're very handy. He reaches out, hand wrapping around Clark's wrist to direct that sandwich at his own face, which he uses to take a bite of it. Hmph. An inescapable truth, Alfred's tuna salad is divine. And now if they kiss later, they'll both taste like tuna and no one will find it off-putting. Bruce's footfalls on the strange metal deck are audible as they go - not yet adapted to making them silent, on this material of unearthly origin, but by the time they leave Clark will have to go back to listening to his breathing to hear him move around. He had been busy with other things, the last time he was aboard.
"Gonna go out on a limb and guess my pronunciation is shit," he says, when they arrive at the bridge. "I can read alright, at least the primary written language. It helps that I can already read a handful of Earth abugidas. There are some references to what appears to be an older multi-tiered alphabet system, but I haven't seen enough of it to many any sense of it. Can you ask the computer to only recognize Kryptonian?"
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no subject
"That word," he says, keeping his voice light, but then he doesn't continue right away.
'Generous'. Yeah, he tends to hear it meaning financially, and not in a friendly way. How generous, Mr Wayne, the billionaire. Anyway, Bruce shrugs. It's the best he can do. He thought he'd raise kids in this house and leave it to them, and that isn't what's happened. Won't ever happen. One orphaned boy wasn't enough to fill it and he thought. He had hoped. Tried.
Failed.
"I thought so too, but now I think I've made an error not just showing you the penthouse." Humor. It's on the roof of the Wayne Foundation building.
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"I'm a simple man," Clark admits, which is also funny, because a fancy penthouse is far from simple. "But I don't mean just me. Or just the house."
The house, inasmuch as he still feels like 'house' barely applies to a place this big and grand. He's used to a kitchen with vertical shades and old fashioned backsplash, and narrow stairs with creaky parts, and the way the whole place kind of shivered every time he ran down them with Shelby racing ahead.
Anyway. He means the Justice League, bringing them together, which on that note is probably an adequate amount of collective chaos for a place of this size.
no subject
Bruce does not elaborate on that incredulity, but it is there between them in spirit, like a long scroll being unfurled, all the ways in which Clark Kal Joseph "Superman" El Kent is just about the most complicated person currently residing on planet Earth. And not just because he's an alien. Maybe not even mostly because he's an alien. Maybe, because he is such a sensitive person - sensitive as in, so aware, so careful - that he shows so little, and yet makes people feel like they're seeing all there is to him.
But Bruce likes him how he is. Scroll or no scroll. And Bruce is worse about his own complexities, blunter and less refined as they are. He turns so that he's looking at Clark, and uses their joined hands to tug the younger man forward. His other goes up to hold the back of his head, and he presses a kiss to his mouth.
I know what you meant.
"I was thinking," he says when he pulls back, "that I can probably figure out a way for you to practice without having to restructure a mountain somewhere."
no subject
But he's not arguing. He's being kissed. He likes the way Bruce kisses him, too. It feels oddly like being gifted something. His hand lands on Bruce's chest, lingers there when they pull back from one another.
"Oh yeah?" he says, at what comes next. "It's not hollowing out the moon, is it?"
Visiting the Mariana Trench. Prospecting abandoned Russian mines. There's options.
no subject
Keep up with the times, Kansas, WayneTech is already mining moon cheese and has been for years. (No.) (Or are they.)
Anyway, how's that for some light deflection away from the subject Bruce brought up on his own in the first place. His eyes watch Clark's carefully, like he's sifting for reactions, before he ends up skimming his gaze elsewhere. Casual and thoughtful, not at all like he isn't sure how this'll land.
"I copied the computer out of the scout ship," is what he says, like whatever, "and I don't have much of a workable translation, but the equations are mutually intelligible without it. The atmosphere mix settings explain some things."
About you.
no subject
Anyway. 'Copied the computer out of the scout ship' feels big, big enough that Clark doesn't seem to react at first. It feels impressive, for starters, and then intriguing for seconds, curiousity sharpening then in his mismatched eyes, which seek out Bruce's. There are, anyway, limits to what he personally can get out of something so advanced.
Which didn't stop him from taking it back and landing it on the top of an Arctic mountain, with polar bears for neighbors.
He occupies the next pause by taking up Bruce's other hand in a tangle with his own. No escape now.
"Like what?"
no subject
resurrecting Superman.
It's been some months, since then. Some more, since Clark gently repossessed the ship itself. The task of interfacing it, then trying to understand anything, has been slow-going. And he didn't want to say anything, if he turned out there was nothing there. His further invasion into Clark's privacy (though it's not like it was his ship, and besides, he was dead at the time) should at least yield something.
"Like the exact conditions on Krypton. 'Red sun' does not actually mean anything, scientifically. But those equations describing the oxygen levels, radiation densities..." Bruce shrugs, looking at him again, not pulling his hands away. "I can recreate it."
no subject
On account of how overwhelming it all was, sure, but also how he'd immediately felt it, the weight of it, the air and gravity and something even more pervasive that had made him feel even less welcome than the steely stares of the Kryptonians.
"So instead of restructuring a mountain, you're talking about me."
Just to demonstrate he's on the same page, or getting there, with a glint of humour before matching, better, Bruce's tone. "I've experienced those conditions before. It wasn't pretty, to begin with."
no subject
He does not say, I thought you'd like that, and explain how it lessens Clark's burden of responsibility for setting a coffee cup down an accidentally exploding his entire apartment building. Obviously, Clark will be aware of that. Bruce knows this is more fragile ground, kicking up memories that are painful, both because of the emotional turmoil and the literal, physical pain.
Those readings do not suggest an easy re-entry in either direction, and besides, he's seen footage from 'downtown' Smallville. After minimal investigation, it was not difficult to discern what it was that kept tripping up the Kryptonian soldiers.
Was it better or worse than kryptonite?
Mm. Nope, bad question.
"I could probably make adjustments, but it wouldn't be fun, the first couple shots. For either of us, I imagine."
no subject
And it's enough to draw Clark out of fun reminiscing, more direct focus leveled at Bruce across the several inches keeping them apart. Wheels turning as he grounds himself slightly by splaying his fingers and feeling the delicate bones of Bruce's caught in between.
"Might not be so bad on a second pass," he says. "I adapted. Zod adapted."
Nothing's worse than kryptonite.
His fingers close again, gentle.
"What would it be like? For both of us. Even playing field?" And there is a crooked rise to the corner of his mouth. Clark on a human level could probably get taken out handily by Alfred.
no subject
The world
of fandommight be suspicious of Superman for having executed Zod, but that was never Bruce's complaint. He reviewed the reports of that with a cold eye, and came to the conclusion that it was justified. Everything in between, though, and Zod himself, was what fuelled his paranoia, and beyond.He does not want Clark to be harmed. Not even by this.
"I don't know," he admits with a small shrug. (He could be taken out handily by Alfred only because Alfred was a secret agent. Clark is stacked. It would still probably hurt to punch him, without powers.) "Odds are more than even I'd just puke my guts out the whole time, but that's not too different from my average Monday morning. You'd do alright."
Drunk jokes, eyy.
"It... would be important to me, whether it works or not, whether it goes beyond this conversation or dies here, that awareness of it doesn't leave you and I."
no subject
(Also it's a little because of the alcoholism.)
"Okay," he says, after a second. 'It would be important to me'. "Secret's safe."
A beat, and then a half-smile, flash of teeth, "How long've you been thinking about this?"
no subject
"I hadn't put a timer on it," he says, because neither Since I first learned of you, in a bad way, nor When I decided to resurrect you, hoping to connect with you, or Relatively recently because your punches suck sound acceptable in his head.
Well they're all acceptable to him, but.
"Long enough."
no subject
It's not quite the same as hearing Bruce's heartbeat from a neighbouring continent. It's not quite the same because Clark doesn't all the time know what he's doing with this information. There are times it just feels selfish. What does he do for Bruce, really? What does this data translate to?
Maybe he'll get hit with inspiration one day. For now—
Restlessness drives him to walk, still keeping Bruce's hand. Enough staring into eyeballs, noting on a terrifying microscopic level of detail each little twitch and tonal shift.
"Me too," Clark says. "Ever since I was little kid, wishing I was like the other kids. That's—not the same hang up these days. But sometimes."
no subject
He squeezes the Kryptonian hand in his, which feels very human, and very not, and in every way acceptable. Does not echo, Me too, though he could. It'd just be more sad bullshit, and they've done enough of his sad bullshit for one day.
"I had thought," he begins, but doesn't finish. Footsteps over to that long railing, looking around in the broken-down atrium. Tries again: "I had worried, that you might not be comfortable with an attempt at something like that."
You know. Since shit can happen.
no subject
Shit can happen. And when it does, it's usually on ridiculously, cosmically huge proportions.
'Worried' is cute, but Clark spares Bruce from drawing his attention to it. "I save a lot of kittens out of trees," he says, instead. Code for: carrying people from flash floods, digging people out of collapsed buildings, shielding people from explosions with his destructible whole self. "And it's not something I need practice to do. But we're always waiting for the next monster. The next horde of something. I want to be better when it happens. I watch you fight, and Diana. I get it.
"And," he adds, with the weight of an important appending detail, "I trust you."
no subject
All of that is true. The things that Superman does are not the things that Batman does. Batman is a firefighter, and the fire is never-ending, the building is always burning and people are always trapped inside. Superman is an architect, reshaping humanity for a better future by pulling miracles from the sky. Even when they are both simply combatants, Clark is another order of thing altogether.
So he should know how to punch better. And know how to take a hit.
I trust you.
('Should you.')
"You may have to trust me even more," he ventures. "What I meant by keeping it between us only— you're not going to come back one day and there'll be a magic room. We're looking down the barrel of months of working together in close quarters on a project that's half construction, half tedious chemistry."
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But apparently there is 1% of trust in reserve dedicated solely to still expecting Bruce to shy away from these kinds of declarations, to rebuff him or withhold something, so it wouldn't have been completely true anyway. Just 99% true.
"If I say 'that sounds fun', will you think I'm not taking you seriously?" he queries, and then talks over whatever reply that might net. "I trust you the correct amount, Bruce. I can't figure this stuff out on my own." A beat, and he adds, "Did you get everything you need already, from the scout ship? Because you're welcome there too."
Taking it to the North Pole had not not been playing an elaborate game of keep-away, but mostly from the government, from the Lex Luthors of the world, and only a little bit Justice League. Stopping any of them from going where they want is more trouble than it's worth, he figures.
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The thing is, Bruce may never not do this. His crime against Clark was not an ordinary thing. What should happen is that they should never see each other again, and Lois should be threatening to leave him over the association. Instead they're doing this, and Lois is maintaining a viciously even-matched mobile board game competition with Bruce in which expensive bottles of scotch are waged. That insanity is held hostage by how much Bruce adores him, how increasingly charmed is by his wife, and the slow acceptance of: we have lived the very worst of each other, and been baptized by it, and coming out the other side of it like this is sometimes too beautiful a thing to contend with.
He drags in a slow breath. His sigh after is very quiet.
"I've been working on learning Kryptonian, out of necessity. If you think there's anything there that could help facilitate it, I could probably find a coat."
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Clark has been getting the hang of it himself in the moments he indulges, with a better brain for that kind of thing than you'd think, and he almost doesn't say out loud, "It'd be nice having someone to practice with," because this shouldn't only be about himself, but he says it anyway. It's worth saying, in opposition to Bruce's sense of necessity.
"And I fixed the thermostat," he adds. "In some spots, anyway. Want to show me where our dorm rooms are gonna be?" And then they can look into coats.
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"Yeah. This way. Plenty of room for bunk beds."
And privacy, and so on. On their way back out Bruce hops through a burned window to pass through to the other wing, noting a scarred walled in a small maybe-library with the skeleton of a grandfather clock. Next time, he says, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at it, and if Clark bothers to x-ray peek, he will see some shit, underground.
Presumably they pack lunch at least for the North Pole. Coinflip if Bruce stubbornly brings a batjet or if Clark talks him into a romantic flight shoved into a thermal sleeping bag like the world's worst luggage.
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That said, there's no sense of grounding or anything very sentimental in selecting this particular mode of transport. Like any regular person, he would just like a go in the cool stealth plane. He even waits until halfway there to get antsy at the pace.
Of course, the North Pole itself is ocean, and Clark was not feeling so petulant or adventurous as to land the thing submerged, beneath the sea ice. The rocky island that is home to the scout ship is snow-crusted and home only to Kryptonians and neighbouring polar bears, and at this time of year, they are in the depths of months-long darkness. Navigational tools do the work but Clark directs Bruce to a hangar entrance, a broad doorway opening slickly and swiftly to permit them entry.
And they can see. Lightsources unknown paint cool illumination over the broad curvatures of the interior. It is still extremely cold, inside, breaths leaving them as thick clouds of fog, but nothing like the outside blizzards.
There's a slight crinkle sound. Clark retrieving a sandwich wrapped in wax paper.
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Bruce is in a very insulated coat, over very insulated other garments. It might not be as cold, inside the scout ship, and he might be used to Gotham's insidious damp chill, but there's a reason Superman parked his reappropriated space ship here. Not much manages to be alive.
"Are you hungry already?"
We haven't even done any work, Kansas.
A louder sound, Bruce pulling a heavy bag from the cockpit, slinging it over his shoulder. Not sure yet, if it's safe to set up a link between the cave's computer and this one - for reasons of alien viruses harming his terran tech, and terran viruses harming alien tech, and much more mundane concerns, like, 'will someone track that funny IP ping'. He walks in, looking up, taking in the sight of the place. Not unfamiliar, strictly but still strange.
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Which doesn't prevent Clark from taking a corner bite. Tuna salad. He was being considerate about the close confines of the jet after thinking about them nonstop since take off, give him a break.
And he is not quite as wrapped up, but does where his own fur-lined hooded jacket, open over his winter things. Better for a brisk midwest winter than the Arctic Circle, but a gesture towards his capacity to be effected by anything. That he might prefer to rug up against a snowy night and also meditate in the vacuum of space speaks to something about the worlds he moves through.
Speaking of worlds.
"You'd want the bridge, I guess we'd call it. I guess you know the way." Which doesn't stop Clark from walking up alongside, roaming a fraction ahead. As they walk, the air begins to warm. They cross through a chamber that had once been the final resting place to mummified Kryptonians, long since laid to rest somewhere more appropriate even before Zod had commandeered the ship for his invasion. In that time, the temperature hikes up, comfortably gradual, but soon stifling in big coats.
Aside, "Told you I fixed the thermostat," and pleased with himself about it, like maybe he's talking about the radiator in his Metropolis apartment, and had promised Lo he'd make an attempt.
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They cross a chamber until they don't, when Clark is the only one crossing and Bruce has paused. Just looking. At the ship, and him.
After a moment he moves again, and makes a grunted sound of what might be approval. Yeah yeah, you're very handy. He reaches out, hand wrapping around Clark's wrist to direct that sandwich at his own face, which he uses to take a bite of it. Hmph. An inescapable truth, Alfred's tuna salad is divine. And now if they kiss later, they'll both taste like tuna and no one will find it off-putting. Bruce's footfalls on the strange metal deck are audible as they go - not yet adapted to making them silent, on this material of unearthly origin, but by the time they leave Clark will have to go back to listening to his breathing to hear him move around. He had been busy with other things, the last time he was aboard.
"Gonna go out on a limb and guess my pronunciation is shit," he says, when they arrive at the bridge. "I can read alright, at least the primary written language. It helps that I can already read a handful of Earth abugidas. There are some references to what appears to be an older multi-tiered alphabet system, but I haven't seen enough of it to many any sense of it. Can you ask the computer to only recognize Kryptonian?"
A concession to manners. It's Clark's house.
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