solarcore: (#14572979)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-21 09:02 am (UTC)(link)
Clark is thinking that if he can get his leg over like that and then pull his weight like this then maybe he could actually lock Bruce down. But Bruce makes his suggestion instead, and that curious look being tipped up at him is mirrored back. You don't have to stop calls out to him, to test the premise.

The stress of the pin lets up, Clark shifting his weight to properly straddle and grip Bruce's hands under his own.

In a reversal of earlier, there's that gentle pressure that finally builds into itself, a little faster now that he's had some time to get a feel for this human thing. Force and then weight as he bears down on Bruce's hands. They've done this before, Clark over him, effortlessly bending Bruce's arms down against the ground, or the bed, or wherever it is they landed.

Which means they haven't done this before, force and object trembling between the pressure of either, muscles straining.
solarcore: (pic#14762557)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-22 09:49 am (UTC)(link)
He is sure Bruce is cheating. Clark hasn't worked out how, just yet.

There is a minute shift in his positioning like he intends to counter that knee, but it doesn't get anywhere, all his focus directed into this one thing. Bad habits, leaving himself open. Tempting to bear down on one side, but also seems like he'd deserve to get thrown if he sacrificed his own balance that badly, and instead Clark stays put, so there's that.

He'd been watching Bruce's face already but in a less directed way, eye contact then snapping into place accordingly. How are you talking, first of all.

Lot of key words in that sentence, second of all.

"I missed it," he says, instead, not easily. Rare, that they—that he—will point directly to their fight, mostly because they don't always have to, but also because it's still weighted in his mind, dangerous, edged.
solarcore: (pic#14762521)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-23 07:14 am (UTC)(link)
"Oh my god."

Just, in general.

Will diplomacy work? Can he talk Bruce into a collapse? Is he actually going to give up? Wait—

That prospect seems to enter his brain as sharp and sudden as an exclamation point. Sure, he imagined being overpowered, imagined losing, has in fact lost before, but that's different to making the concerted decision that you just can't do the thing you're trying to do. That he literally isn't strong enough. (A gasp of laughter, here.)

Which makes sense, obviously. Both of them are physically ridiculous, but Bruce has an edge, is used to his own limitations, is a gigantic person. He had said, you don't have to stop, but not that he won't need to.

Slowly, Bruce feels that pressure start to lessen, Clark careful not to take his foot off the gas too fast.
solarcore: (pic#14762446)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-23 09:41 am (UTC)(link)
Clark has not exhausted himself to the point of being totally incapable of reacting, although the temptation to flop on the mat is extremely great. No, he gets his knees under him before he's hauled again in close, eyes flashing wide as his hand clasps down on Bruce's arm—

—which is at first a feather light touch until he remembers, and so goes ahead and digs fingers into bicep.

And then gusts out another disbelieving laugh as Bruce goes and checks his vitals. Honestly. There is sweat on Clark's forehead and his eyes are bright in a way that would ordinarily take a lot more physical exertion to encourage. He already feels like he's doing something stupid, and it is tempting to drag Bruce down with him. Further down.

No, alright. Let's not immediately fuck with the data. He loosens his grip on Bruce's arm too.

"You should too," he says. Don't explode on exit, Wayne.

Clark leans in to plant a kiss on Bruce's forehead, clumsily friendly, and moves to roll away.
Edited 2021-03-23 09:42 (UTC)
solarcore: (pic#14762555)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-24 05:44 am (UTC)(link)
It's three days of something else, for Clark, whether it's overseeing the safe landing of a charter plane during an unexpected blizzard or buying a new cuttlefish bone for Woodstock or, you know, doing his dayjob. And he still finds time to visit the lakehouse, and chats to Alfred, and fails to chat to Bruce, and gets like only a little bit jealous about a science project even though it is for himself, just normal Superman things.

It's donuts, this time. They are round with holes in them, so it's of the same family. Clark is opening the box to obviously take one for himself as he glances, contextualise, and says, "What, giving you a night off? I definitely didn't."

He has tried. He is wearing, currently, some of the clothes he keeps stashed here, deciding to stick around rather than have only suited up just for donut delivery. Not that he is above that, or anything.
solarcore: (pic#14762576)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-24 06:47 am (UTC)(link)
Clark steps nearer to set the box down in range for the sharing. He is holding his prize, chocolate and sprinkles, but he got two of everything. They'll taste fine, in a vegan kind of way. The box apparently withstood the flight pretty well.

And there'd been a smile about the smiley. Neither confirming nor denying.

"You're making me a lamp?"

The slightly nervous, he can sense, and he only spends half a second living in the reality that Bruce is helping him furnish his apartment with his bare hands before Clark says, "Wait, really?"
Edited (whoops cmere face square) 2021-03-24 06:48 (UTC)
solarcore: (#11916695)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-24 08:19 am (UTC)(link)
Clark pulls a chair over, and is careful with his donut, a hand hovered to catch any sprinkles when he takes a bite while also absorbing the information in front of him. There's a double-blink at the pronouncement of the device's name and function, but he doesn't look to Bruce first.

Instead, he reaches over and past Bruce to commandeer the mouse, and look for himself, clicking through components.

"I thought the closed environment was necessary," he says, not argumentative, just prompting, curious and focused. You leave someone alone with your group project for half a week—
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[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-24 08:55 am (UTC)(link)
Bruce's explanations marry with the information that Clark is reading, absorbed with supereyes and into superbrain. He arrives at that conclusion almost as Bruce says it, nodding along like he understands. He does.

Serious-reading-face softens, a breath of a laugh. Over the months of development, he's remembered what Bruce had said, about not needing to think about setting down a cup of coffee. He's reframed that goal into the idea of the sealed chamber, a place he could be, and train, and sure, reclaim that specific kind of intimacy with Bruce if they so chose.

He hadn't arrived at the conclusion that that place could be relatively anywhere.

Clark looks to him past his shoulder like he's about to say something clever or ask another question, but he says instead, "It's perfect." It's an idea still, sure, but a perfect one.
solarcore: (#14572983)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-24 09:52 am (UTC)(link)
Clark watches Bruce do the thing—the withdraw, the pessimism, and even, at this point, the self-correction. Unbothered by it all and warmed by the last. Plus, his donuts efforts will no longer be in vain.

"A berry," he answers, looking back at the schematics and listing back in his chair, loosely folding his arms over his T-shirt. He tends to wear big loose ones like he's still (was never) in college, so the casually impressive flexing has to hold up on its own. Plus, still finishing his donut. "There should be a plain one in there. I mean, a cinnamon one."

Which is plain, basically. And only one, so it's definitely for Bruce.

"How long until a prototype? I mean—" Quick amendment, minding manners. "Approximately, roughly. I know you've been working a lot already on this."
solarcore: (pic#14762536)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-25 11:22 am (UTC)(link)
It is expected and anticipated that Bruce will have more than one donut, if not all tonight. Clark just doesn't mind helping himself first to his food gifts, the last of his donut disappearing behind his fangs, followed by the sprinkles that had fallen into his hand, shotgunned like pills.

'Uh huh' says a nod as he finishes his bite, listening, and swallowing before speaking, "Can I help?"

His tone makes it a real question as opposed to seeking permission to hang out or something: can he help, or is it too fiddly and he'd just be breathing down Bruce's neck.
solarcore: (pic#14762421)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-03-26 05:47 am (UTC)(link)
'Boring', he says, and Clark's smile skews crooked. There'd been a glance at fingerdrum, which might as well have been an airhorn of a signal, signifying something. "I can do that," he says, easy warmth. For the concession, maybe, but also the thing itself, contributing in some small way to something complex, interesting, and for him. There is a lot that Bruce does along those lines. Has before.

Clark has donuts, so. One of them he is about to steal, reaching for the box when he pauses, hand hovered in place, that transformation in expression and demeanor like a dog hearing something beyond the capabilities of human hearing.

Duty calls.

The wind in the room displaces anything paper-light, although it's not quite the violent storm of kinetic movement when Barry does this. Still, Clark was here and now he's not, chair rotating silently in place, and hardly ten seconds later, a sonic boom will mark his exit from the area properly, somewhere in the sky.

And despite that rudeness and urgency, Bruce is pretty sure there is still the lingering ghost of a touch having subtly rearranged his hair more definitively than just the wind of take off.