solarcore: (#11893086)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-01 10:29 am (UTC)(link)
He's there, suddenly, although it was probably the collapse that summoned Clark faster than his name. Arms around Bruce to help him up all the way onto his feet. For a second, though, it probably registers as some guy helping him up, even if that some guy is particularly strong—just not a demigod.

"Sorry," he huffs, keeping his hands on Bruce, a not very dignified clenching onto his shirt as if that would stand a chance of directing another fall than anything else. "I tried catching you and—"

Bruce is bleeding from his nose and they are fucking with dangerous forces with themselves as guineapigs, but Clark's helpless smile breaks unstoppably across his face. At least he doesn't laugh.

Yet.

"You're heavy. Are you okay?"
solarcore: (8)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-01 11:17 am (UTC)(link)
Clark relaxes his fingers, which—tingle. For obvious reasons, it's not his habit to apply death grips to any part of his loved ones, including their clothing. This weakness feels deceptive, like he's experiencing the world through a thick cloud.

What he says is, "I feel weird."

He is a writer.

"But no, not really. Except I think—" On the screen, blipping lines and scrolling numbers give Bruce the impression of someone's heart working overtime, like Clark's several miles into a marathon despite just standing in place.
solarcore: <user name="oslo" site="insanejournal.com"> (184)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-01 11:45 am (UTC)(link)
"Sorry," is uttered on the back of a breath out, at this first part, and Clark is about to explain that he thinks his heart is beating very fast right now before Bruce has already turned around with an expression like he is aware.

Maybe this is how Barry feels all the time. It'd explain the slight shrill giddiness he's tamping down as Bruce places his hand on his chest and instructs calm. It is precaution that Clark doesn't touch him back. They've had incidences. Fluctuations.

Clark breathes as Bruce does, watching him watch him back, until something in the intimacy of that has him look away, settle on the off-black damp spot on his shirt where blood spilled.

"How do you feel."
solarcore: (7)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-02 07:41 am (UTC)(link)
Clark looks up to properly deliver concerned eyebrows at 'I can mitigate it', but he doesn't argue. They would literally get none of this done if he had to stop Bruce every time he implied he was several shades more advanced and durable than the average human. Because he is, while also still being human.

He's pretty sure his heart kicked up a notch when he buckled. That it's staying there is the trick.

"Nearly," he agrees. "But also like if we drop the atmo I might shoot into space. Again."

Smashcut flashback to: accidentally propelling himself into the ceiling, bringing down flaking concrete with him. It had been extremely Home Videos.

"You have blood on your face."
Edited 2021-03-02 07:41 (UTC)
solarcore: <user name="oslo" site="insanejournal.com"> (136)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-12 09:41 am (UTC)(link)
"Uh huh."

Shut up. But not really.

Clark reaches out and he thumbs the blood off of Bruce's face, smearing it before it's transferred from beside his mouth and nose to his hand. Maybe that gesture should have a joke to it, but it doesn't, delivered on instinct and tenderness and a little distraction. That hand then falls to Bruce's arm.

"Maybe your blood pressure did something too. I can't—see," is one of those things where you realise it as you say it, and no, he's not talking about the weird surging blindness that they ran into at one stage when all his senses went haywire. He can't see, as in, the X-ray, microscopic clarity that might give them a clue.
solarcore: (#11893086)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-13 09:07 am (UTC)(link)
"Okay."

Clark issues a glance at the computers, minor worry there, but interest as well. He's followed along enough with this process to understand where they're at, and what progress looks like, and also the risks they are playing with.

As Bruce's hand settles in place, his focus zeroes back in on him. It isn't as though his powers are such that it's a struggle not to see through things, see things too closely, not since he was little—but that he can't even if he wanted to is its own kind of strange. Bruce here and close to him and looking at him like that is probably just enough to have his heart rate spike again, but differently

and so Clark leans in the rest of the way to kiss him, like maybe that'll help, or at least, you know. Hide it.
solarcore: (#11916688)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-13 10:23 am (UTC)(link)
Even gentle, the pressure of Bruce's teeth into soft flesh feels different right now. A different sort of sensitivity, just a little more give than there would be otherwise. He kisses Bruce a little harder in response, powerfully instinctual, but they should really stop. They're not ready. It's just Clark has this problem where any excuse to entwine them together is extremely hard to refuse himself, to refuse Bruce.

A wobble.

The kiss breaks immediately. Clark's hands go up to grasp the older man's elbows. "Hey," he says, gently. "You okay?" Ask a stupid question—
solarcore: (c#14572975)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-14 11:33 am (UTC)(link)
Giving Clark a scolding, even muttered and British in nature, is either exceptionally easy or exceptionally difficult. Easy because he's not going to duck responsibility, never has, and any argument he might have is currently on notice. Difficult, because his eyes get big and he looks extremely sorry the whole time. It's really up to the scolder which part's worse. The Kents sure struggled.

And nothing's really changed in adulthood. Guilt and apology hasn't lessened since Alfred departed, and so I'm sorry eyes get swiveled to Bruce.

Lessens, a little. The peas bag is funny.

"Headache gone," he confirms. "Back to normal."

His normal. Clark gets up from his seat, moves in closer. Both of them are big and the sofa is only mortal, but he manages to scooch a seat on the very edge of it next to Bruce's prone body, and superbalance compensates for the rest. "Sorry about the bump. I need to get, uh. Get better, at that." Apparently.
solarcore: (#14572982)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-15 07:33 am (UTC)(link)
Zero self-respect returns, Clark half swiveled towards where Alfred is talking, doing the most with looking contrite enough on possibly also Bruce's behalf. "I'm really sorry, Mr Pennyworth," follows Afred back to the kitchen.

But possibly also not the right sort of contrite. Like he's sorry for the trouble. Somewhere in the same neighbourhood of breaking the kitchen window during a rowdy game of soccer and not weird science experiments that compromises of their safety. Real regret would be angrier, probably, and though in no way, shape, or form does he want Bruce hurt, or to really risk himself in the same way—

They're getting close, is the thing. (And none of this means that this isn't agonising for Clark specifically.)

His hand sneaks over to tangle with Bruce's.

"Evened out pretty quick," he says. "Small acclimation period, maybe half a minute. I think that'll reduce," and there's a clang from the kitchen that has him going guiltily silent and then, quieter, "under the right conditions."
solarcore: (#14572978)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-15 09:24 am (UTC)(link)
The amount of times Clark decides not to be pushed is not never, but not tonight. He goes and his hands are on Bruce to take him along for that short ride.

There are so many places he belongs, now, after what felt like a lifetime of feeling out of place. Some of it by choice, never making his way back to Kansas for long stretches of time, most of it not. But he does, now, standing in his mother's kitchen and drying the dishes, or sitting cross-legged opposite Lois and handling cardboard boxes of vegan chow mein, or finding himself invited to Alfred's simple and classy midweek dinner table, or meeting Diana anywhere from the wild sky to a Parisian bistro.

Or here.

He lifts his head and kisses Bruce as if they were getting right back to where they'd left off a couple hours back, even though it's not quite that. His hands gripping Bruce's waist and half slipped up beneath his shirt, drawing it up in absent minded function when most of his focus is on kissing. None of the above contemplations are coherent thoughts, but manifest anyway as an inarticulate contentment, warm in him and the way he touches Bruce back.
solarcore: (12)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-15 10:50 am (UTC)(link)
Clark's great addition to the work has been: the permanent relocation of one of the gym mats now rolled out near the work station.

And other stuff, not to be humble. It's more than a little strange, to realise your own capacity to do science upon recently hitting 30(-ish, what is age anymore), to follow along with the complex engineering being done, and understand it, and contribute. Clark suspects, maybe, he lacks some of the necessary curiousity to propel him much further in that direction, having ever met someone like Victor for whom it seems a compulsion, for example. Curious about people, less so the secrets of the universe.

But the mat's a good idea, he thinks, if a week and change too late. He is pretty sure Alfred would consider it both sensible and also missing the point, on account how little sense all of this is, if he knew.

Bruce looks over and Clark is looking at his own hands. Then back up at the monitors, then at Bruce.

"How do you feel?"
solarcore: (#14572981)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-15 11:59 am (UTC)(link)
A smile, but distracted as he thinks. Weird is not the word he would use, this time.

Maybe strange.

But he wants to live, so he says, "Stable," as in, his heart isn't doing anything weird this time, there's no dull migraine pulsing away, no fluctuations of his senses. His hands form up into fists. He is not constantly aware of his own powers, like staying grounded to the earth is not a choice he makes every time he takes a step, operating on an ingrained subconscious level he'd had to unlearn to fly, but here, deliberately, he feels around for those senses.

They're not gone, exactly, but weak. Weakening. If he spent enough time in here, he suspects he'd hit baseline. (They'd established early that he won't meet any continued deterioration effects, so long as they don't fuck up. An alarming threshold to avoid, but a comparatively easy one compared to Bruce's delicate blood vessels.)

He stands, focusing on other taken for granted aspects, like the odd shallowness of his own breathing, which—feels weird, but also reminds him of the way that had felt on the Black Zero, after some violent bleeding from his lungs from the suddenness of it.

Nice of them to skip that part.

"Good," he adds. Wordsmith.
solarcore: (8)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-16 07:13 am (UTC)(link)
Like your heart beat; slower than mine. Calm, low tide. He hadn't added that he likes listening to it, but it's there in his tone.

They're working. Clark walks this way across the room and back again, and while there is no discernible difference between him doing so now and him having paced around half an hour ago, it does feel different. He's not sure if that's a physical thing or a brain thing, knowing that if he did try to jump, he'd clear several inches into the air and no more. That if he swung a punch at the concrete wall, he'd break his hand. It makes him feel

clumsy, kind of, and like he's still overthinking his own physical self, just in a different way. When he turns, he brushes a hand against the wall as if to steady himself. Assures he's fine, really. Like riding bike.

The quietness of Bruce's voice catches Clark's attention from where he'd been eyeing the monitors. Not nervous, or anxious, not exactly. Anticipatory. It's still there when he looks over, a hard look that betrays how little he can read the other man, how used to it he is, but there's a crack of a smile as he says, "Yeah."

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