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."
solarcore: <user name="oslo" site="insanejournal.com"> (224)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-16 08:07 am (UTC)(link)
Clark's chin drops to look across at Bruce as if to say: great anxiety deterrent, Wayne.

But the almost smiling is mirrored, and he moves across the room and towards the mat. Practice will make perfect, maybe, with the not overthinking thing, but for now there's quite a bit of thought that goes into going from standing to lying down. Not so bad. He spent most of his adult life unaware of his ability to control his own gravitational force. Something about the knowing, though.

Anyway, he's down, stretching out onto his back. A little anxiety never harmed anybody, right, and maybe that's what he ought to be feeling, but what he is feeling is curious. If he didn't completely trust Bruce, he's not sure they'd have gotten to this point.

Their loved ones would think they are so stupid, if they knew the half of it.

"What about if I feel weird about it."

So flat as to be indistinguishable as a joke, if Bruce didn't already know better.
solarcore: (#14572977)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-16 09:11 am (UTC)(link)
"Easier said than done."

There are worse times to flirt. Clark thinks so.

Fingers lace with Bruce's like they've done countless times before. That had always been something to think about. It's embarrassing the amount of times he's flipped a sink tap around to run the water hot only to snap the whole thing off, even if most of that was left behind in clumsy adolescence. Only left behind because he became cognizant to the potential, though.

Now, Clark tests it, squeezing their hands rather than doing what Bruce says, immediately. It's very tentative, that much Bruce can tell, as if still doubting that strength has left him even if he has the distinct impression of being invisibly pressed to the surface of the earth as inexorably as a butterfly pinned to a board.

That grasp relaxes, and he applies pressure to Bruce's hands. Like that squeeze, it's almost comically gentle, and then more force is slowly applied, until Bruce can feel proper effort applied through muscle and joint, Clark's expression the picture of focus.
Edited 2021-03-16 09:12 (UTC)
solarcore: (#14572984)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-16 09:50 am (UTC)(link)
Even while super, Clark has pushed himself beyond even his considerable limits, normal stuff like dragging stranded ships across ice or separating sentient cosmic computers from one another before they could destroy the world. In these scenarios, he has applied a little effort. And doing so felt different to this. It just—worked differently, in a way difficult to describe. Accessing new stores of himself.

This is bone and tendon and muscle and blood. It doesn't make sense that he should feel Bruce's weight and strength pressing down on his hands in, say, his lower back, but he does. Heels dig into mat. That he is reminded to breathe is timely, because he had forgotten for a hot second.

"Uh huh," he says, a smile cutting sharp across his face, a laugh at the edge of newly returned breathing.

And because he had tested his newfound superpowers that one time by almost flinging himself off the whole earth, Clark tests newfound weakness by suddenly doubling his effort, a meaningful attempt to shove Bruce up, powering against that odd burn lashed through muscle.
solarcore: (#11893086)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-16 10:26 am (UTC)(link)
"Oh yeah," Clark says, mock-certain, teeth together. "Totally."

This after a completely genuine hrrgh when Bruce bore back down. The odd wobble of his hands beneath it could almost spark the anxiety that Bruce warned him about if not for the fact he—does not feel it, feeling too many other things, like an odd splash of giddiness, of adrenaline.

After he says 'oh yeah, totally', literally nothing happens but what feels like to Bruce the same amount of pressure bearing back up at him. Clark's head falls back down against the mat with another breathless laugh—yes, an attempt had been made—before he collects himself again.

He just needs an angle. (Story of his life.)

And so there's a twist, strength thrown into his right side in an attempt to off-balance Bruce and fling him in the other direction. There is none of the training they've attempted, there doesn't feel like there's room for that at all, just brute strength or an attempt at it.

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