"Lost cause," he murmurs, a voice of obvious experience. He cards his fingers through Clark's hair and imagines him like he is in the dream, and finds it impossible to overlay. Draped in red again, to match the glow of his eyes. When Bruce had looked into the nuclear reactor and seen Clark in that black suit, his expression serious and almost meditative as he blasted Steppenwolf away in a lance of heat, he'd thought it was beautiful.
Maybe it still will be if he incinerates him. Death in the dream is hard to recall in specifics; just the terror and sadness in those last seconds. Regret that feels both too personal and not personal enough. What am I missing?
His hand pauses its idle touch. What is someone who doesn't know me missing? Mm. Curls fingers in, disturbs Clark's hair further. Affectionate about it, like mussing its slicked-back style during normal hours.
There's a lot of thinking happening up there, probably, and Clark is content to sit patiently while it happens. Bruce's hand in his hair is nice, too.
Bruce is human and humans don't have prophetic dreams. It's a thought he turns over in his own mind, a concept smooth as a river stone and curious all the same. There was a good portion of Clark's childhood where he'd believed himself human-but-different, and maybe even long after, until he stepped foot inside the Kryptonian scout ship and spoke to the holographic memory of Jor-El and learned of his home planet, and maybe even after then, sometimes.
The concept of human-but-different feels easy. The hard line logic of his ancestry doesn't take away from it. He finds that he can believe that Bruce Wayne, human, has visions of the future. That such things can happen. Who's to say they don't?
If they're not sleeping, he thinks about options. Breakfast, obviously. A walk outside while the night is pulled back from the sky. Maybe something's on TV.
He smiles when Bruce asks that question, crinkled amusement at the corners of his eyes, and says, "No, I haven't. They open?"
Faintly amused, "We've been down here for a minute."
Bruce had nearly been surprised, too, when he caught sight of the clock on the edge of the security monitor. But it turns out that all his anguished silences and the surreal absorption of his journal has taken some hours; by the time they sort themselves out and pick up breakfast somewhere mundane, they won't even be first in line.
It'll give him time. Taking some painkillers, selecting a suitably civilian (but not socialite) outfit, getting in the car, finding a diner off the highway. Maybe sitting in the car and eating. Shoving a breakfast burrito at Clark's face. Looking at a shark. Contemplating the future and the-l-word.
"Besides, it'll be funny if you have to ditch me while I'm taking a picture of a seal, or something."
Clark's face does that thing, listening at a distance, focusing on the sound of early morning traffic in Gotham City (which sounds distinct to the late night traffic of Gotham City) and blinking his acknowledgment. Time flies when you're having fun.
"That would be funny," he agrees, standing. "I don't think I knew you guys had an aquarium."
Mild shade. Reflex. Either Metropolese or Kansan, pick one, or both.
Retaliatory banter is (maybe) deflected with a quick smile and moving on past Bruce's shoulder to go sort through the clothes he has here, contemplate for a second a quick fly over back to his place to broaden his selection before settling instead on blue jeans, plaid shirt in deep green, thick-framed glasses with prescription lenses he can ignore at will.
A Clark Kent costume, in case of emergencies. Like this one.
Ordinary attire is sometimes a struggle, as Bruce's socialite costumes are inappropriate for real-life settings, and what he chooses to wear in his free time is an uninspired gaggle of dark-colored nothingness, jeans and slacks and t-shirts with open button-ups thrown over. He settles on a black turtleneck with a coat that still looks expensive, but passes for ordinary in Gotham; everyone's got at least one pricey coat, in the noir-dense city, since they never go out of style.
GCU football cap tossed into the cup holder of the second most annoying Mercedes he owns, and has to fuss with the seat for a while ("Diana was using it") before applying sunglasses so that he doesn't burst into flames. No vintage Aston Martin for trips downtown; there's no point inviting vandalism.
Bruce's driving is abysmal. For anyone not looking to win a rally car race, anyway.
"Are eggs also off the table?" In a parking lot. He puts the hat on, in preparation for getting breakfast. Are eggs dairy. Bruce has no idea.
"Well, I've considered incorporating ethically sourced eggs," says Clark, terminal fan of breakfast, conflict written clear into his expression as he considers the building through the windshield. "They call that 'vegganism'."
A beat, and then—he just gets out of the car.
Tofu is not on the menu for this place, but apparently the question is asked enough that they can throw something together involving potato hash and beans, and force him to admit out loud that he would not like any cheese in his breakfast burrito. A large coffee to go, a decision to eat in the Mercedes with Clark's unprompted promise not to spill anything.
He is already a bite in while they cross the parking lot. Barry does this too. They'd probably corroborate the thing about high metabolisms.
A timely escape. The passenger-side car door shuts at a perfect Vine edit moment over the start of Bruce's abrupt bark laughter.
Inside: he chugs an entire coffee while their orders are being prepared, in an impressive gambit that might do more to suggest he isn't simply human than seeing prophetic visions of doom, and then gets it refilled before they leave, styrofoam over waxy cardboard holding the keys to life. If not for the luxury sunglasses and chipper companion, the exhausted grit of his voice and the tape around one hand would lend themselves to whispers. He stuffs $65 in the tip jar.
That's too bad about the cheese, says a wordless look. With dignity, Bruce is refraining from eating his burrito until they are back in the vehicle, which has seen worse things than breakfast. It'll survive.
"Did you go to drive-in theaters much, in Kansas?"
There's probably a lot of things that Clark is doing with his life and choices that might have had Jon Kent throw his hat on the ground, and not even eating cheese might be one of them (because voting for Clinton over Dole was going to go to Clark's Kryptonian grave).
Still, he has no complaints about his purchase, a couple of big bites in to curb hunger before contentedly taking his time, fussily tearing and rerolling wrapping to manage salsa and other bits.
"Uh huh," Clark says, returning to his coffee. "Sometimes. I could usually talk dad into letting me take the truck out, and they didn't do much to check ID or anything. Classics and horror movies, mostly. Shut down a few years ago, or longer." A quizzical head tip of recollection. "I think there's a Dillons there now."
Not eating cheese, sitting in a Mercedes-Benz with his boyfriend, while married. A plethora of sins. And difficult ones, too. No cheese is a soulful pain, on the east coast. Vermont, man. (Proximity to other demons. In fairness, Thomas Wayne would have also disliked Bernie Sanders, having been good-hearted but staunchly preferring to be charitable over being taxed.)
"Mm." Affirmative. Car on, but not moving. If he's only got one and a half hands, he's not going to eat a burrito and drive 120 miles per hour. He could, but the salsa would be pushing his luck.
"I ended up a fan," because for fifteen years I couldn't go into a regular cinema, "and sitting around in cars always makes me think of them. There's one on the other side of the city, still, but it's under the municipal airport. Which should be a crime, I think."
"Disrespectful," Clark agrees, around his next bite, quick on the back of that comment.
It's an easy memory lane to go down. A highly awkward date with Lana Lang immediately springs to mind, at an age where girls seemed to have five years experience at acting like adults than every boy he knew, including (especially) himself. Other times, alone. Friends and making them hadn't come so easy, even if he was allowed to drive around on the occasional Friday night at age fifteen, which is.
Impressive, on reflection. What a nerd.
"I took a girl out to see Godzilla. The one from 1950-something. I thought it was pretty great," in the tone of someone who still thinks it was pretty great, awful American dub work and all. "I take it your taste runs a little more..." What's the word. "Less lizard monsters." Nailed it.
"'54," Bruce offers, about what year Godzilla came out. Dramatic - or not - pause, during which Clark gets to wonder about his tastes, while he gets through some more burrito and washes it down with coffee. A critical look. Are you saying he wouldn't like a lizard monster, Kent.
"That's one of the best movies ever made. And one of the most visceral, dealing with fears about nuclear holocaust so soon after the war."
And pleased. Bruce Wayne likes movies, and movies he likes. He starts describing with enthusiasm the plot of the second one he ever saw, unable to recall the name, and enough cross-reference between them identifies it as Invasion of Astro-Monster which also tells on him for his taste levels, in spite of a strong opener.
A hard pivot, then, asking, "Did you ever see The Day the Earth Stood Still? I could probably watch Wise movies all day," as he balls up the burrito wrapper, containing all debris within. He is, at least, a neat eater.
Sometimes, when Clark hits a particularly charming stride, it's shocking— not that he can be that way, but that Bruce gets to experience it. Unbelievably lucky, to sink his teeth into and choke on all the bloody mess of intensity that they have, and also, listen to him ramble on about old sci-fi movies. This morning, it isn't a shock he feels, but something gentler; a squeeze around something inside, conjuring an ache that has nothing to do with bruising.
Bruce eats his breakfast, quietness of his smile obscured behind burrito-or-cup held up to his face (showing his hand in his gaze, visible since he'd pushed his sunglasses up to the top of his head).
That future won't come. It isn't Clark. He won't let it be.
Bruce nods, when they swerve from kaiju to tales of human aggression versus aliens demanding peace. (It still isn't Clark.) "On the nose," he teases softly, still left with a corner of breakfast burrito, mostly folded up tortilla and leftover hot sauce. "One of the greats. In both instances, film and director. The first of his I saw was Born to Kill - too young, probably, but it was sort of therapeutic."
Of course it was. Bruce folds the foil and wax paper over itself, not so much buying time as just thinking.
"We should watch Haunting sometime. I always thought it was sort of romantic."
New kink: Bruce validating Clark's film choices with confident certainty.
There'd been a crooked smile for teasing—boy, does he ever know—that then gentles at Bruce's choice of formative film experience. Oddly affirming, this moment in time and they're not even admiring sea otters or stingrays yet. It's early enough to render the city and its outlying territories in church light colours, and getting to spend any time with Bruce out in the wild is unusual in itself.
How worried he'd been, when Bruce had been gripped in the throes of dreams, and to think that the worst influence he thought he'd had on his nightmares was waking him up.
His eyebrows raise at this suggestion, charmed, and says, "Beautiful, definitely. Terrifying. You can convince me on romantic." And then he holds out his hands for trash, to go dispose of it. "Want more coffee before we go? I can get it."
Most times, it seems, Bruce should just be left to suffer. Isolated, in the dark, the damage is minimized; he only hurts himself. Imagine how much less strange this day would have been if Clark hadn't cared so much.
"Mm." About the convincing. Like: I will, so.
Since he's offering, Bruce forks over the wrapper, and then smiles at him in that jagged-edge socialite way he did back at that awful library benefit. It's just as performative, but funnier these days on account of just how bullshit Clark knows it to be—
And how sexual it obviously is.
"You're a saint, Kent."
Yes, more coffee, please. And when that's sorted out, they're off to the aquarium, which is far from bustling on a week day, but not empty. The parking garage is uninspired, littered with cars spanning Gotham's usual wide range, junkers to luxury. Bruce's isn't even the nicest one, which says something about the nature of the city; opportunity and intrigue often does much more than safety. It's a shithole, and yet there are jobs, and engaging politics, and diverse schools. Gotham City is always fucking trying, which is more than many other, better places can say.
In his hat, Bruce looks slightly more unremarkable. Probably only a few chaperoning parents and the odd manager would recognize him anyway, these days. Which is a relief. Bruce does not miss being the height of useless celebrity, no matter how it's worked out alright for a cover.
"Sharks," Clark says, definitively. There's a bias, there.
That practically all of Smallville and everyone at a news organisation knows Superman's identity should gesture to the farce that is Clark Kent navigating the world with his distinct everything, but a few small things can be shockingly effective. The glasses, sure, but a less articulate hairstyle, the tweed jacket he threw over his forest plaid, a conscious way of tapping into certain personality centres that aren't completely fabricated. There is something a little dopier and disarming in the way he talked the cashier through his vegan breakfast, or smiled at the lady selling admission. Superman, in a lot of ways, is a whole other performance.
The disguise of 'sweet dork who kind of looks like Superman, don't you think' is effective when it's, you know, only a little off from the truth. And no one's looking at them now, anyway.
They're looking at sharks.
The tanks are spooky in a way Clark likes, necessarily gigantic, full of shadows and sharding light that wobbles through the surface. The sharks that glide by are wide eyed, toothy, (he'd thought about it, kissing Bruce's smile in the car, hard and chastising, but his hands had been full and he really did want to go to the aquarium,) and Clark never really figured out if his sense of living creatures actually gives him some insight into how they're feeling. It is possible he is just prone to projecting onto them, he knows, but these guys read curious and friendly.
"Do you think they're more like dogs or horses to Atlanteans?" is his completely serious question.
Nobody ever thinks that Bruce Wayne could be Batman, not even just because Batman only might exist. It's just that, also, whenever anyone finds out Bruce Wayne is Batman, they stare off into the distance for a little while having a moment not unlike thinking that Hannibal rhymes with cannibal.
Anyway, everyone who knows Clark knows he's Superman.
"I guess it depends on the size of the shark and the way weight distribution versus momentum works for them," is his completely serious answer. "Spines do most of the work, with horses, and sharks don't even have bones."
Two men who really like Godzilla could easily be so extremely annoying Arthur. It's probably for the best that he's not very Atlanean. Heaven forbid they get a hold of his brother.
A large hammerhead drifts by above them, its funny crescent moon mouth passing over them like a spotlight. Distorts, looking impossibly large in the warped reflection through curved tunnel glass, slips by back to normal size. Bruce is doing a lot of placid sight-seeing, hands mostly in his pockets, sometimes out, tapping against a display placard before he remembers himself. An extreme version of a very old therapy tactic. Redirection. How do I get out of the impending debilitating panic attack in front of Clark. Let's get the fuck out of here entirely. Aquarium. Sure. He's fine. This is actually really nice; good thing Clark didn't kiss him in the car, they probably wouldn't have made it.
Clark wanders a little ahead of Bruce now and then, at one stage following along with a gigantic spotted stingray pressing its oddly smiley white face to the tunnel wall before it skates off above and over his head. Bruce taps a plaque here and there without thinking and the noise of it, to Clark, seems like it could make ripples through the green-blue around them, but of course it doesn't.
Something getting worked through, anyway. At one stage, Clark remembers himself and takes out his phone, giving Bruce a chance to catch up. He angles the device upwards to take ominous look pictures of the hammerhead silhouette, now swum further up towards the surface of the tank, a shadow against bright blue.
Once done, he looks to Bruce and tips the phone. An inevitability, especially under the aquatic gloom and blue, very cinematic. "C'mere." He'll take off his own glasses and everything.
It's easy to watch Clark. Bruce likes watching people in general, and there are few people who can contend with a Kansan-Kryptonian when he's keen on something. He doesn't mind being pulled behind like a kid holding kite string; it's grounding, though he isn't sure why.
(He is, actually. Sure why.)
"Oh, huh." We're doing this, are we tone of monosyllabic voice. Bruce's sunglasses are already clipped into his shirt, 'indoors' like they are, and so he pops his hat off and shakes his hair out a bit, patiently sidling up beside Clark.
"I bet you're actually just taking a picture of that fish," he observes mildly. Bruce is not enthusiastic about photos, but after a lifetime of being in the public eye, his good angles are on the kind of auto-pilot that would please Tyra Banks. For given value of good, anyway, he's a weird old guy taking up way too much space next to Superman.
"He can get in line," Clark says, of the fish, nerd glasses now likewise folded and tucked into his pocket. Only when he lifts the phone and captures them adequately in the rectangle frame and sharpens up his smile does he worry that maybe he should not, given the way this whole day began, which feels like from another world.
Well.
Click.
He takes the picture, their stupid faces taking up a lot of real estate but there's the tank behind them, and streaks of silver from schooling fish. He checks the gallery to see if the job he did was good, other hand drifting to Bruce's back. There are other photos like this, Lois-y ones for the most part, beach days and picnics and brunches, and also one of Diana, all of a similar genre. One without himself in it, of Barry and Arthur across a table somewhere noisy, half-filled pints, not noticing surreptious phototaking. Martha, in her sun hat, holding a trowel and looking embarrassed for the attention, and pleased by it too.
There's no instragram for these, obviously, and he is not actually That Guy about photos, but a collection's begun to form since he came back from the dead. New habits. It's probably unrelated.
Clark shows the picture to Bruce, for his satisfaction.
Clark is pretty cute, turns out. Who knew. The other photos, intimate things despite the ordinary nature of them, are glanced quickly and committed to memory, unobvious about it. Bruce is not the type to take pictures. He was, once. There are photo albums full of his kids, and even ones of himself, before. They're with Alfred. Bruce can't bear to even know where they are, which is probably pathetic. Surely it's been long enough.
(It's probably unrelated.)
He thinks they've probably blown the best attraction too early, with the shark tunnel, but it turns out there are other wonders eager to give it a run for its money. Gharials, slightly nightmarish but fascinating, very active sea otters. Bruce steals Clark's phone for those, and so he (Clark) ends up with a video of himself (Clark) with little aquatic dogs zooming around behind his head (taken by cameraman Bruce).
There's a beluga whale teasing them, at the moment, and it's pretty great.
"You hear about the Russian spy?"
Edited (i'm too tired to make that sentence clearer in a less dumb way) 2021-03-30 10:30 (UTC)
It sounds familiar, a headline Clark probably scanned at some stage or another, read on his phone on a ferry ride, and he could probably bring up the memory if he didn't also want to listen to Bruce talk to him about Russian spy beluga whales. They stand shoulder to shoulder, almost, watching this particular very good cetacean spin in lazy circles, like it's flying in slow motion.
He has to make Arthur be his friend enough to get to go to Atlantis sometime. He doesn't need to breathe like he didn't really need a protein substitute in his vegan burrito like he didn't need to sleep last night beyond just enjoying the fleeting comfort of it. So he can go to Atlantis if he wants, and it'd be polite to wait for invitation. He's already lured Diana to the midwest with promise of apple pie, even if he has less chance of getting to see Themyscira than even the underwater depths of a forgotten kingdom.
As he plots, and listens, Clark's shoulder bumps into Bruce's. Very human feeling, this contact, rather than a Kryptonian shouldercheck. Probably most fully grown adult men don't go on platonic playdates to aquariums very much, but his instinct is discretion anyway, most times.
Their friend twirls around, mouth opening wide to display deep rows of funny little teeth. If Clark and Bruce are being discreet, that's the only note to observe. An elderly couple and a nuclear family playing hooky from school and work are also drifting through the large viewing area, and he can't imagine there's any conclusion to be drawn besides Those men are on a date, if indeed any conclusion would be bothered to be drawn at all.
Which is not nothing. Perhaps it should be. One of them could have thought ahead a little, about the potential for degrees of fallout should someone snap a photo and run it on the least trafficked corner of TMZ.
Fortunately, he's not that famous.
"They're the opposite of cats," is what he ends up saying, after relaying the requisite facts about Agent Hvaldimir, Defected Russian Spy. "They don't use body language with each other, just sounds. Echolocation."
like a submarine mr wayne
"They do all this for people." He leans one way, slightly into Clark, and the whale drifts to mirror. Bruce smiles.
Necessarily, the clear wall of tank glass is pretty good against glare, likewise protecting from greasy fingerprints with a decent about of space enforced by a railing, but maybe there's a faint shadow of reflection that shows a beginning smile from Clark, a raised eyebrow that communicates go on regarding the thesis of beluga whales being the opposite of cats.
He breaks into a bigger grin when he is the last of the three to tip alongside, and the whale tips nearly upside down.
Laughing, low and quiet, he says, "This is a good aquarium."
His hand finds Bruce's, and he pulls him along at a slow wander for a few feet, the creature on the other side of the glass following them apace. "Reminds me of Woodstock," he adds, which is probably not very flattering to Sigrit, the beluga whale, but probably Clark imagines that Woodstock, the sun conure, very smart, and also prone to watching him exactly like this, following his movements. "But it's probably more like the other way around. I've met some whales."
Slow moving humpbacks, older and wiser and lazily curious about the visiting primate and his bright red plumage. Bright red at the time, anyway.
Look, you, cats only meow for people, not each other. Also: not aquatic. This completely scans as 'cats are the opposite of beluga whales'. Anyway. What a sight they are to behold, a trio of weirdos. Bruce, secretly an awful softy, wonders if Sigrit wouldn't be happier in the wild. He wonders that about a lot of things. Animals, children, employees he moves from Gotham to Metropolis.
(Used to move.)
"Mmhm."
Of course it's a good aquarium, it's here.
Bruce's heart does something a little funny, when Clark takes his hand, but he follows along. It's a good something, even if it's also a nervous something. In the past he's stiltedly explained his history of performative heteronormativity - private school and the looming urban legends of inviting abuse, vague implications of dark things in training, and then the real and crippling fear of child services taking his kids away. And it was fine, because he likes women, anyway.
A lot of thinking for one hand. His squeezes Clark's.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Maybe it still will be if he incinerates him. Death in the dream is hard to recall in specifics; just the terror and sadness in those last seconds. Regret that feels both too personal and not personal enough. What am I missing?
His hand pauses its idle touch. What is someone who doesn't know me missing? Mm. Curls fingers in, disturbs Clark's hair further. Affectionate about it, like mussing its slicked-back style during normal hours.
"You ever been to the aquarium here?"
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Bruce is human and humans don't have prophetic dreams. It's a thought he turns over in his own mind, a concept smooth as a river stone and curious all the same. There was a good portion of Clark's childhood where he'd believed himself human-but-different, and maybe even long after, until he stepped foot inside the Kryptonian scout ship and spoke to the holographic memory of Jor-El and learned of his home planet, and maybe even after then, sometimes.
The concept of human-but-different feels easy. The hard line logic of his ancestry doesn't take away from it. He finds that he can believe that Bruce Wayne, human, has visions of the future. That such things can happen. Who's to say they don't?
If they're not sleeping, he thinks about options. Breakfast, obviously. A walk outside while the night is pulled back from the sky. Maybe something's on TV.
He smiles when Bruce asks that question, crinkled amusement at the corners of his eyes, and says, "No, I haven't. They open?"
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Bruce had nearly been surprised, too, when he caught sight of the clock on the edge of the security monitor. But it turns out that all his anguished silences and the surreal absorption of his journal has taken some hours; by the time they sort themselves out and pick up breakfast somewhere mundane, they won't even be first in line.
It'll give him time. Taking some painkillers, selecting a suitably civilian (but not socialite) outfit, getting in the car, finding a diner off the highway. Maybe sitting in the car and eating. Shoving a breakfast burrito at Clark's face. Looking at a shark. Contemplating the future and the-l-word.
"Besides, it'll be funny if you have to ditch me while I'm taking a picture of a seal, or something."
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"That would be funny," he agrees, standing. "I don't think I knew you guys had an aquarium."
Mild shade. Reflex. Either Metropolese or Kansan, pick one, or both.
Retaliatory banter is (maybe) deflected with a quick smile and moving on past Bruce's shoulder to go sort through the clothes he has here, contemplate for a second a quick fly over back to his place to broaden his selection before settling instead on blue jeans, plaid shirt in deep green, thick-framed glasses with prescription lenses he can ignore at will.
A Clark Kent costume, in case of emergencies. Like this one.
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Ordinary attire is sometimes a struggle, as Bruce's socialite costumes are inappropriate for real-life settings, and what he chooses to wear in his free time is an uninspired gaggle of dark-colored nothingness, jeans and slacks and t-shirts with open button-ups thrown over. He settles on a black turtleneck with a coat that still looks expensive, but passes for ordinary in Gotham; everyone's got at least one pricey coat, in the noir-dense city, since they never go out of style.
GCU football cap tossed into the cup holder of the second most annoying Mercedes he owns, and has to fuss with the seat for a while ("Diana was using it") before applying sunglasses so that he doesn't burst into flames. No vintage Aston Martin for trips downtown; there's no point inviting vandalism.
Bruce's driving is abysmal. For anyone not looking to win a rally car race, anyway.
"Are eggs also off the table?" In a parking lot. He puts the hat on, in preparation for getting breakfast. Are eggs dairy. Bruce has no idea.
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A beat, and then—he just gets out of the car.
Tofu is not on the menu for this place, but apparently the question is asked enough that they can throw something together involving potato hash and beans, and force him to admit out loud that he would not like any cheese in his breakfast burrito. A large coffee to go, a decision to eat in the Mercedes with Clark's unprompted promise not to spill anything.
He is already a bite in while they cross the parking lot. Barry does this too. They'd probably corroborate the thing about high metabolisms.
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Inside: he chugs an entire coffee while their orders are being prepared, in an impressive gambit that might do more to suggest he isn't simply human than seeing prophetic visions of doom, and then gets it refilled before they leave, styrofoam over waxy cardboard holding the keys to life. If not for the luxury sunglasses and chipper companion, the exhausted grit of his voice and the tape around one hand would lend themselves to whispers. He stuffs $65 in the tip jar.
That's too bad about the cheese, says a wordless look. With dignity, Bruce is refraining from eating his burrito until they are back in the vehicle, which has seen worse things than breakfast. It'll survive.
"Did you go to drive-in theaters much, in Kansas?"
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Still, he has no complaints about his purchase, a couple of big bites in to curb hunger before contentedly taking his time, fussily tearing and rerolling wrapping to manage salsa and other bits.
"Uh huh," Clark says, returning to his coffee. "Sometimes. I could usually talk dad into letting me take the truck out, and they didn't do much to check ID or anything. Classics and horror movies, mostly. Shut down a few years ago, or longer." A quizzical head tip of recollection. "I think there's a Dillons there now."
Sips coffee. "You?"
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"Mm." Affirmative. Car on, but not moving. If he's only got one and a half hands, he's not going to eat a burrito and drive 120 miles per hour. He could, but the salsa would be pushing his luck.
"I ended up a fan," because for fifteen years I couldn't go into a regular cinema, "and sitting around in cars always makes me think of them. There's one on the other side of the city, still, but it's under the municipal airport. Which should be a crime, I think."
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It's an easy memory lane to go down. A highly awkward date with Lana Lang immediately springs to mind, at an age where girls seemed to have five years experience at acting like adults than every boy he knew, including (especially) himself. Other times, alone. Friends and making them hadn't come so easy, even if he was allowed to drive around on the occasional Friday night at age fifteen, which is.
Impressive, on reflection. What a nerd.
"I took a girl out to see Godzilla. The one from 1950-something. I thought it was pretty great," in the tone of someone who still thinks it was pretty great, awful American dub work and all. "I take it your taste runs a little more..." What's the word. "Less lizard monsters." Nailed it.
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"That's one of the best movies ever made. And one of the most visceral, dealing with fears about nuclear holocaust so soon after the war."
So. You know.
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And pleased. Bruce Wayne likes movies, and movies he likes. He starts describing with enthusiasm the plot of the second one he ever saw, unable to recall the name, and enough cross-reference between them identifies it as Invasion of Astro-Monster which also tells on him for his taste levels, in spite of a strong opener.
A hard pivot, then, asking, "Did you ever see The Day the Earth Stood Still? I could probably watch Wise movies all day," as he balls up the burrito wrapper, containing all debris within. He is, at least, a neat eater.
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Bruce eats his breakfast, quietness of his smile obscured behind burrito-or-cup held up to his face (showing his hand in his gaze, visible since he'd pushed his sunglasses up to the top of his head).
That future won't come. It isn't Clark. He won't let it be.
Bruce nods, when they swerve from kaiju to tales of human aggression versus aliens demanding peace. (It still isn't Clark.) "On the nose," he teases softly, still left with a corner of breakfast burrito, mostly folded up tortilla and leftover hot sauce. "One of the greats. In both instances, film and director. The first of his I saw was Born to Kill - too young, probably, but it was sort of therapeutic."
Of course it was. Bruce folds the foil and wax paper over itself, not so much buying time as just thinking.
"We should watch Haunting sometime. I always thought it was sort of romantic."
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There'd been a crooked smile for teasing—boy, does he ever know—that then gentles at Bruce's choice of formative film experience. Oddly affirming, this moment in time and they're not even admiring sea otters or stingrays yet. It's early enough to render the city and its outlying territories in church light colours, and getting to spend any time with Bruce out in the wild is unusual in itself.
How worried he'd been, when Bruce had been gripped in the throes of dreams, and to think that the worst influence he thought he'd had on his nightmares was waking him up.
His eyebrows raise at this suggestion, charmed, and says, "Beautiful, definitely. Terrifying. You can convince me on romantic." And then he holds out his hands for trash, to go dispose of it. "Want more coffee before we go? I can get it."
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"Mm." About the convincing. Like: I will, so.
Since he's offering, Bruce forks over the wrapper, and then smiles at him in that jagged-edge socialite way he did back at that awful library benefit. It's just as performative, but funnier these days on account of just how bullshit Clark knows it to be—
And how sexual it obviously is.
"You're a saint, Kent."
Yes, more coffee, please. And when that's sorted out, they're off to the aquarium, which is far from bustling on a week day, but not empty. The parking garage is uninspired, littered with cars spanning Gotham's usual wide range, junkers to luxury. Bruce's isn't even the nicest one, which says something about the nature of the city; opportunity and intrigue often does much more than safety. It's a shithole, and yet there are jobs, and engaging politics, and diverse schools. Gotham City is always fucking trying, which is more than many other, better places can say.
In his hat, Bruce looks slightly more unremarkable. Probably only a few chaperoning parents and the odd manager would recognize him anyway, these days. Which is a relief. Bruce does not miss being the height of useless celebrity, no matter how it's worked out alright for a cover.
"Sharks or eels, first?"
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That practically all of Smallville and everyone at a news organisation knows Superman's identity should gesture to the farce that is Clark Kent navigating the world with his distinct everything, but a few small things can be shockingly effective. The glasses, sure, but a less articulate hairstyle, the tweed jacket he threw over his forest plaid, a conscious way of tapping into certain personality centres that aren't completely fabricated. There is something a little dopier and disarming in the way he talked the cashier through his vegan breakfast, or smiled at the lady selling admission. Superman, in a lot of ways, is a whole other performance.
The disguise of 'sweet dork who kind of looks like Superman, don't you think' is effective when it's, you know, only a little off from the truth. And no one's looking at them now, anyway.
They're looking at sharks.
The tanks are spooky in a way Clark likes, necessarily gigantic, full of shadows and sharding light that wobbles through the surface. The sharks that glide by are wide eyed, toothy, (he'd thought about it, kissing Bruce's smile in the car, hard and chastising, but his hands had been full and he really did want to go to the aquarium,) and Clark never really figured out if his sense of living creatures actually gives him some insight into how they're feeling. It is possible he is just prone to projecting onto them, he knows, but these guys read curious and friendly.
"Do you think they're more like dogs or horses to Atlanteans?" is his completely serious question.
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Anyway, everyone who knows Clark knows he's Superman.
"I guess it depends on the size of the shark and the way weight distribution versus momentum works for them," is his completely serious answer. "Spines do most of the work, with horses, and sharks don't even have bones."
Two men who really like Godzilla could easily be so extremely annoying Arthur. It's probably for the best that he's not very Atlanean. Heaven forbid they get a hold of his brother.
A large hammerhead drifts by above them, its funny crescent moon mouth passing over them like a spotlight. Distorts, looking impossibly large in the warped reflection through curved tunnel glass, slips by back to normal size. Bruce is doing a lot of placid sight-seeing, hands mostly in his pockets, sometimes out, tapping against a display placard before he remembers himself. An extreme version of a very old therapy tactic. Redirection. How do I get out of the impending debilitating panic attack in front of Clark. Let's get the fuck out of here entirely. Aquarium. Sure. He's fine. This is actually really nice; good thing Clark didn't kiss him in the car, they probably wouldn't have made it.
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Clark wanders a little ahead of Bruce now and then, at one stage following along with a gigantic spotted stingray pressing its oddly smiley white face to the tunnel wall before it skates off above and over his head. Bruce taps a plaque here and there without thinking and the noise of it, to Clark, seems like it could make ripples through the green-blue around them, but of course it doesn't.
Something getting worked through, anyway. At one stage, Clark remembers himself and takes out his phone, giving Bruce a chance to catch up. He angles the device upwards to take ominous look pictures of the hammerhead silhouette, now swum further up towards the surface of the tank, a shadow against bright blue.
Once done, he looks to Bruce and tips the phone. An inevitability, especially under the aquatic gloom and blue, very cinematic. "C'mere." He'll take off his own glasses and everything.
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(He is, actually. Sure why.)
"Oh, huh." We're doing this, are we tone of monosyllabic voice. Bruce's sunglasses are already clipped into his shirt, 'indoors' like they are, and so he pops his hat off and shakes his hair out a bit, patiently sidling up beside Clark.
"I bet you're actually just taking a picture of that fish," he observes mildly. Bruce is not enthusiastic about photos, but after a lifetime of being in the public eye, his good angles are on the kind of auto-pilot that would please Tyra Banks. For given value of good, anyway, he's a weird old guy taking up way too much space next to Superman.
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Well.
Click.
He takes the picture, their stupid faces taking up a lot of real estate but there's the tank behind them, and streaks of silver from schooling fish. He checks the gallery to see if the job he did was good, other hand drifting to Bruce's back. There are other photos like this, Lois-y ones for the most part, beach days and picnics and brunches, and also one of Diana, all of a similar genre. One without himself in it, of Barry and Arthur across a table somewhere noisy, half-filled pints, not noticing surreptious phototaking. Martha, in her sun hat, holding a trowel and looking embarrassed for the attention, and pleased by it too.
There's no instragram for these, obviously, and he is not actually That Guy about photos, but a collection's begun to form since he came back from the dead. New habits. It's probably unrelated.
Clark shows the picture to Bruce, for his satisfaction.
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Clark is pretty cute, turns out. Who knew. The other photos, intimate things despite the ordinary nature of them, are glanced quickly and committed to memory, unobvious about it. Bruce is not the type to take pictures. He was, once. There are photo albums full of his kids, and even ones of himself, before. They're with Alfred. Bruce can't bear to even know where they are, which is probably pathetic. Surely it's been long enough.
(It's probably unrelated.)
He thinks they've probably blown the best attraction too early, with the shark tunnel, but it turns out there are other wonders eager to give it a run for its money. Gharials, slightly nightmarish but fascinating, very active sea otters. Bruce steals Clark's phone for those, and so he (Clark) ends up with a video of himself (Clark) with little aquatic dogs zooming around behind his head (taken by cameraman Bruce).
There's a beluga whale teasing them, at the moment, and it's pretty great.
"You hear about the Russian spy?"
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It sounds familiar, a headline Clark probably scanned at some stage or another, read on his phone on a ferry ride, and he could probably bring up the memory if he didn't also want to listen to Bruce talk to him about Russian spy beluga whales. They stand shoulder to shoulder, almost, watching this particular very good cetacean spin in lazy circles, like it's flying in slow motion.
He has to make Arthur be his friend enough to get to go to Atlantis sometime. He doesn't need to breathe like he didn't really need a protein substitute in his vegan burrito like he didn't need to sleep last night beyond just enjoying the fleeting comfort of it. So he can go to Atlantis if he wants, and it'd be polite to wait for invitation. He's already lured Diana to the midwest with promise of apple pie, even if he has less chance of getting to see Themyscira than even the underwater depths of a forgotten kingdom.
As he plots, and listens, Clark's shoulder bumps into Bruce's. Very human feeling, this contact, rather than a Kryptonian shouldercheck. Probably most fully grown adult men don't go on platonic playdates to aquariums very much, but his instinct is discretion anyway, most times.
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Their friend twirls around, mouth opening wide to display deep rows of funny little teeth. If Clark and Bruce are being discreet, that's the only note to observe. An elderly couple and a nuclear family playing hooky from school and work are also drifting through the large viewing area, and he can't imagine there's any conclusion to be drawn besides Those men are on a date, if indeed any conclusion would be bothered to be drawn at all.
Which is not nothing. Perhaps it should be. One of them could have thought ahead a little, about the potential for degrees of fallout should someone snap a photo and run it on the least trafficked corner of TMZ.
Fortunately, he's not that famous.
"They're the opposite of cats," is what he ends up saying, after relaying the requisite facts about Agent Hvaldimir, Defected Russian Spy. "They don't use body language with each other, just sounds. Echolocation."
like a submarine mr wayne
"They do all this for people." He leans one way, slightly into Clark, and the whale drifts to mirror. Bruce smiles.
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He breaks into a bigger grin when he is the last of the three to tip alongside, and the whale tips nearly upside down.
Laughing, low and quiet, he says, "This is a good aquarium."
His hand finds Bruce's, and he pulls him along at a slow wander for a few feet, the creature on the other side of the glass following them apace. "Reminds me of Woodstock," he adds, which is probably not very flattering to Sigrit, the beluga whale, but probably Clark imagines that Woodstock, the sun conure, very smart, and also prone to watching him exactly like this, following his movements. "But it's probably more like the other way around. I've met some whales."
Slow moving humpbacks, older and wiser and lazily curious about the visiting primate and his bright red plumage. Bright red at the time, anyway.
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(Used to move.)
"Mmhm."
Of course it's a good aquarium, it's here.
Bruce's heart does something a little funny, when Clark takes his hand, but he follows along. It's a good something, even if it's also a nervous something. In the past he's stiltedly explained his history of performative heteronormativity - private school and the looming urban legends of inviting abuse, vague implications of dark things in training, and then the real and crippling fear of child services taking his kids away. And it was fine, because he likes women, anyway.
A lot of thinking for one hand. His squeezes Clark's.
"You've met some whales"
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and then the thread ended. hereafter are dvd extras.
beep boop
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