Crazy to think he does it - his stupid vital signs dance - even with people who can't hear it. But there is an extra layer of trust, knowing that Clark can. A special note of intimacy in the awareness of it, and the thought that the Kryptonian can hear it, and know what it's saying.
Bruce makes a soft noise as Clark echoes his earlier swerve, appreciative, indulgent. They are two people who could probably do with something like this every now and again; being made to slow down. And not because someone might pass out from artificial atmospheric pressure, or keel over from broken ribs. Once in a while, Bruce wonders if the way they have a difficult time keeping their hands off each other isn't simply because of all the reasons that make sense on the surface, but also because there are a lot of years behind them with nothing at all.
What if they'd run into each other, on their winding journeys? Clark in Tibet, being peered at by a man training to be a 'monk' that the locals don't speak of; Bruce catching sight of a mysterious stranger on an oil rig. He, at least, has never been the type to let a curiosity go without investigation, even if the other would have wanted to vanish.
A loud squeal heralds a car going too fast up the ramps, and the reminder of the public venue. Bruce doesn't pull back right away, or even a beat after, but he does. And then presses a kiss to the side of Clark's mouth anyway, in no hurry, even as he slouches a bit. The windows are illegally tinted too dark, but still. None of your bees wax, world.
Bruce pulls back, and Clark almost closes back up that distance, listing forward a barely perceptible millimetre, barely perceptible if they weren't already so close. His head tips as a kiss comes back to him, contented, at least to some extent. No one's leaving anyone in the cold today.
He knows it was the appearance of Zod, that day, that forced him from hiding. Sometimes, he wonders if it was Lois, too, who tracked him down, who unearthed secrets that no one even cared to know about until her. In the canon divergent alternate universe where another investigative spirit connected dots, Clark assumes he would have just run away some more, back into all that nothing.
But maybe not. Who can say.
He lists into the seatback once some more inches of distance settle between them, his arm eased back from around Bruce, hand now clinging a hold at shirt collar. He lets them sit there in the comfortable quiet (heartbeats, winding down) before he asks, "Can I drive?" with all the confidence of someone with a terminally visible halo. (He is used to trucks, shitty rentals, and more recently, his bike. It's a nice car, okay.)
Eyebrows. Can you what? Bruce's look is not No, but it's very Bold of you to ask, dry without saying anything. He doesn't answer right away, instead bumping in close once more to run his mouth from the pulse point beneath Clark's jaw to his ear, capturing the lobe for an almost-long moment. There's a spark of something low in his stomach, like an ache; both pleasure at being required to draw it out and have this moment contained as itself, and desire to be nearly anywhere else. It's an enjoyable mix.
He sits back.
"Sure. All you farmboys can drive stick, right?"
Because of course he doesn't have a fucking automatic.
So: to the front seats they go, and he picks up his other post cards and stamps on the way, buckling in and sifting a pen from the glove box.
There are worse cars he could ask to drive. (And he never got around to apologising for wrecking the last one with his whole body.)
But Bruce leans in and does that, Clark holding almost comically still after an initial adjustment to make room. Leather creaking faintly under his hand. It makes him wish, with a sudden rising heat, that they were nearly anywhere else, but preferably somewhere with clean sheets and all the time in the world. It's open in his expression when Bruce leans back.
The toothy smile Clark deploys next definitely indicates that comment landed as a dick joke.
Into the driver's seat, then. He is careful and respectful with property that isn't his but clearly happy to be there and while it has been a minute since he drove stick, actually, you wouldn't know it. More alarming than any lapse in skill is probably the smug energy with which he drives them out of the parking lot,
and then the immediate impatience for late afternoon traffic, draining out of the city like life blood. Metropolis gets pretty bad sometimes too with all the construction, hence his own preference for ecofriendly options, but Clark would characterise gridlock there as kind of a politely crystallised frustration, everyone in it together. On this side of the river, well—
—one instance occurs where he is is slower than a Gothamite would prefer him to be to change a lane and a horn immediately screeches by, muffled profanity. "Sorry," doesn't sound sorry at all. "Jesus."
Yeah, yeah, drive his stick all the way back to the other side of the Palisades in gridlock traffic. Sexy.
It is quickly apparent that 1) Bruce is going to fill out and write notes to people on these post cards while in transit and 2) he has no inherent instinct to be a nervous passenger. On the one hand, it's a little strange for a man with such a deep-rooted control complex, and such an expensive fucking car, but on the other, Bruce drives like such a maniac that it's entirely possible he just feels like they're plodding along in an Amish horse-drawn tractor. Scenic and safe.
"Take your time, kid," Bruce says in his best TV Dad voice, eyes on a post card. Neon seahorses. He flips it over, clicks the pen into action. Addresses it to Mr Barry Allen and Company.
"You're gonna have to get off at Seventh, not the exit for the house."
This is very sweet of Clark, offering to drive. What a nice break.
One who glances skeptically over in the wake of TV Dad voice, mouth pressed in a line, and only a little bit considers whether a more pointed jerk of the steering wheel would mess up Bruce's writing or if Batman is trained to write postcards in any condition, ever adaptable, but it is the kind of mischief that never makes it past the temptation. Besides, Clark did want to drive, and it's only like.
95% because it's a cool car, and 1% because he wanted to see Bruce's expression when he asked it, but 4% it seemed like a nice thing to do, maybe, in the same pointless neighbourhood of carrying his things halfway across the parking lot.
"Scenic route?" he asks, of Seventh. Another bray of a horn. Probably not at him, but Clark glances in the rear view like what, already, just to make sure.
Well, it will be better once they're on the highway. Gotham drives fast, he'll get to have some fun, and probably not get pulled over.
"There's a post office." He writes Hope you're finding time outside the lab, too, and signs it with initials B and C. He knows Barry and Vic are buried far past their eyeballs in science experiments between the Speed Force and Cyborg's capabilities (promised to send him some 'craaaaaazy' data about dimensional travel soon), and that's just very warming, for some reason. They'll get a kick out of the card. He carefully peels a fish stamp from the book, and sticks it onto the corner where the little blank rectangle placeholder is. One down.
"They don't actually come out to the house, unless I arrange for a courier. They used to, when a couple of the other old houses back there were inhabited, but the Elliot place hasn't been anyone's primary residence in years, and apparently Roman Sionis was recently blown up with an errant hand grenade out at the pier,"
just normal Gotham shit
"so I can't imagine he'll be back to do anything about the acreage he owns. No reason to make a postal carrier drive out there, I just go into the penthouse once a week."
Clark's eyebrows do a few things over the course of that story, raising up at the phrase 'errant hand grenade'. He should probably, at some stage, get used to the buckwild nonsense that Bruce will casually refer to about his own neighbourhood, but where would the fun be in that.
The highway will be fun, the lonely tracts of land outside the city will be nice, speaking of them. Playing chaffeur is also fine, and takes his mind off the mood they left behind in the backseat.
"Well, maybe someone nice will move in," says Clark.
"I'm going to buy out all his holdings as soon as they declare him dead, in theory that'll include the land," Bruce says, an uninteresting fact. "I could have ten years ago, but he wouldn't sign over complete control, and." He shrugs. "Mobsters." A sudden shift, then, his tone moving over to someone griping about spots scores: "I can't believe how long it's taking to confirm he died. It's obvious what went on, what are they going to do, sift out an eyeball from the Atlantic."
Grumble. Picking between a postcard with a stylized collage cut-out of Gotham Aquarium!, and some sharks. He ends up choosing the former, since it looks more kitschy and vintage. The sharks he will save for the fridge.
Breath in, half-sigh out; barely audible for a human over the hum of asphalt beneath wheels.
"My kid." He writes Richard Grayson into the addressee line, fills out a label for a condo in Blüdhaven, New Jersey.
It'll end up in the trash, but, you know.
Doesn't voice that. Taps the end of the pen on the slip of cardstock, finally decides on 'Couldn't help remembering. - B' He doesn't need to leave a name, or even the initial; Dick will recognzie his handwriting and understand the reference, but it feels slightly creepy to not add it. Clicks the end of the pen. Done writing.
Bruce grumbling is inherently extremely funny, and every time, Clark does his best not to show this in case it encourages him not to. Here, supressed smile is redirected out the window to his left.
Clark listens to the sound of pen scratches, glancing to catch a look at the message itself, both it and the other card. Not a glance that would net literally any information for a normalman, but fine tuning his vision to peel back layers of paper, read impressions of ink, translate letters skewed at weird angles,
well, look, everyone has a hobby. Or everyone is extremely invasive a lot, only encouraged by their two full time jobs. One of those things.
They park, and Clark snags the sealion postcard he'd lifted on their way over, along with the book of stamps. He writes his message against the deposit box, after a little hemming and hawing:
Bork Bork Bork! Hope you are doing well. Give Shelby a hug from me. Love you & see you soon. - Clark
"Did you want to write something?" he asks, as he hovers over where he could add Bruce in parentheses.
Bestamped, Bruce sticks his two postcards into the box, one off up to the state's northern border with New York, and one off to Ohio.
He looks at what Clark has written for his mother. Borks and all. A flat look. That is very whimsical, Superman.
"Say something nice from me," he offers, and if he's a little surprised by the invite to be included, it doesn't sound like it. (He is, somehow. Even though he signed Clark's initial for Barry and Victor without asking. Invasiveness goes both ways.)
It's twee as hell, he knows, giving a shrug that is not quite as self-deprecating as it could be at flat look. Giving Martha something to either laugh at or shake her head about. It'll go on the fridge, probably, pinned in place with the Meteors magnet that came with his last care package. Not a lot of letters or postcards, but he calls pretty frequently, these days. For some reason.
Returning to his message, Clark adds, PS: Bruce says hello & stay safe (he can have a Shelby hug too). before deftly scribbling out an address permanently locked into muscle memory, attaching a stamp, and slotting the card into the box.
Is it possible to have mixed feelings, about a thing he feels wholly good about at, at the same time? That being that little spot in Kansas and the person who lives there, home and not-home, a place of safety and crippling vulnerability. How much heartache can you cause a person you love that you wonder if you've made up for it, yet, if there's any making up to do, and knowing exactly what they'd say to something like that.
At least the Barry and Vic card is pretty uncomplicated. He presses a smile at Bruce, lower key than bright grins but not lesser for it, and heads back for the car.
Bruce knows that address off memory as well, now. He's glad that it didn't need to change; still at least half a tick mortified at himself that he didn't know sooner, but they all had things going on, at the time. Between his guilt over Clark and his own wounded inability to bond over grief, he avoided her proverbial gaze, and he feels lesser for it in retrospect. That in mind, he's grateful he was able to help at all. (And that there's now one less predatory bank in rural America. Little bonuses.)
Back to the car. Clark still given domain over the steering wheel, having done nothing (so far) to warrant losing access.
"She doing okay?"
Probably she is doing great, in at least one respect, with her son alive again. But, you know. He buckles up. Reaffixes his sunglasses.
Clark's own glasses have been rescued from his breastpocket and are back on his face, pulling out from the post office parking space, out into the city. He has his phone set up to check where he's going, this time, mostly for his own peace of mind than minding Bruce's directions. Even if he'd memorised a bird's eye view of the sprawling city that is Gotham, which he has not, it's a different task behind the wheel.
"She'll probably be pulling out her hair right about now," he says. "Planting's not for a month but it's always a whole—"
His fingers splay off the wheel. Don't ask.
"I said I'd help out, so, I'll be away a couple weeks, being judged by the neighbours about how little I remember about this stuff, these days. But it'll be nice. And she's great," he adds, with a glance. "I think she likes it when the farm gets busy, people around to feed and tell off."
Bit of a smile at that, because it's— quaint is not the world he'd use, but he isn't sure what else. Nostalgic isn't, even though he understands a kind of isolated living and its rituals. Big house, tight-knit unit, neighbors way down the road. It would be insane of him to draw a comparison aloud. But there's still understanding.
And a little envy.
"You should get Barry and Vic out there."
It'd be fun. (And they know the way. They have picked up Clark from Smallville before. No comment.) He forgets to ask if Martha would be weirded out by ether; she raised a Kryptonian, smiled and cheered at Batman, rolled with a resurrection. Faith!
Clark immediately smiles at the thought, mostly because watching Martha Kent interact with her son's new friends has been extremely good, and even better, she's getting used to it.
He's had Diana round by now, too, and the memory of her being on her best behaviour, as though Martha were the intimidating force in the room, had been pretty endearing. And Clark can't say Martha isn't, who'd probably found Diana being as European as she is probably just as alien as the rest, but quicker to adapt than the Amazonian had been. Equalised with the inevitable bonding over photo albums dug out of the staircase cupboard, which had been Clark's cue to go do the dishes.
He almost recounts this before the conversation diverts. Some other time. Instead, he says, "Uh huh?"
Perhaps Bruce has already heard such tales from the very Amazon in question. But he'd keep quiet about it, happy to hear it from Clark's point of view, too.
Some other time, indeed. Committed to relaying this mysterious thought, now that he's voiced its existence. Now is a bad time, but there is never a good time; today has already been very bad and very good, and if it's very bad again, at least it wasn't all bad.
"Would you be opposed to having a tracking implant?"
With the number he's stuck people with, you'd think he'd have more practice asking. But. He doesn't usually ask.
"I could use your communicator," he says, of course meaning the little chips he'd introduced some time ago, linking all of these funny 'teammates' together, stuck to edges of uniforms, allowing them to speak freely with each other while working. Probably that I could sounds an awful lot like I already do, but that can't be a surprise. Bruce has never made a secret of his tendencies. "But we've run through a few, and they're not always on you."
Oops, a laser beam nuked the communication chip sewn into my shoulder. Oops, I had to punch this monster in plainclothes.
If Clark focused his attention, he could identify that right now, Lois Lane's heartrate implies she's probably in the gym across the street from the Planet, the sound of each dual-thump elevated but steady. He could confirm that by tuning in specifically to hear the soft and consistent thump of her trainers hitting the tread, and music funnelled tinnily into her ears.
And when something happens, and doesn't something always happen, Clark doesn't have to focus his attention at all. So Bruce's comment gets a glance, and some silence.
The thoughtful kind, anyway, until he says, "And I guess the red lamp would make that possible," like thoughtful silence has also been used to figure out how that's meant to work, more than whether or not he's comfortable with it.
"Technically," he admits, but there's something in his voice that suggest hedging. He continues: "I've also given consideration to something ingestible, so you could consciously eject it from some internal organ or another, if you decided it was no longer optimal to have. Versus put you in a position where you'd have to try and gouge something out of your arm like you were in a Hostel movie."
What would he even use. Can Superman pierce his own skin? Can God microwave a burrito so hot?
Bruce shrugs. These are normal things to think about, when you care about someone and you're Batman. Clark's ability to monitor him down to the contractions of his pupils in bright light could be frustrating, but mostly, he just finds it perversely comforting. Sensible. Useful. Sometimes—
Sometimes other things, and Clark knows about all of it, he's sure.
"It could be externally deactivated, somehow," Clark says, thoughtfully, though not drumming up an argument either way, just—probably far too used to talking about the oddities of himself with Bruce, the obstacles, the benefits. It's a contrast to having had no one to discuss such things.
No, that's not entirely true. His parents, and Martha in particular, who'd been there through the growing pains, who never looked at him in shock or dismay at each new thing, just worry, sometimes something else. He thinks he learned all of these invasive biometric readings from her own intuitive guidance, long before he learned how to fly.
"Whatever works," he says. "No, I don't mind. I think it's..." Practical? Necessary? "Probably fair," he settles on, more good humour than anything pensive.
Bruce tilts his chin down enough to look at Clark over the edge of his sunglasses via the rear-view mirror. What might be the darkly comedic punchline, here. Something something, it's already fair because we know I can kick your ass. Something something, oh do you really think that would make it equitable. Anyway. A brief moment. Familiar kind of silent not-banter.
"It isn't about that." Fairness. But surely Clark knows. Still, it might be worth it to try and articulate it, so that he can't wiggle around to something creepier and colder later. He watches traffic for a bit, thinks distantly that Clark could be driving faster.
There have been moments when Clark has done something like settled in to sleep next to Lois, in blue shadows through the blinds, and closed his eyes and listened to the clockwork steadiness of a heartbeat across the river. Not because he's worried, but just because.
So Bruce says that, and then quiet that unfurls between them, and Clark smiles a little to himself. Easily seen, still, at a profile angle. I understand it's an invasive ask, he says. I just want to, the follow up.
"Okay," he says, simply. It feels more appropriate, somehow, than a weightier I trust you.
Something can be invasive, and also be desired; Bruce has never been normal, about the things he likes, or takes comfort in. It would be easier if it were just fuzzy handcuffs. But it isn't, and the more time goes on and the more Clark sees and understands of him, the more data he has on why everyone else has fled.
He smiles a little, and says okay, and Bruce's internal organs do something. The mortifying ordeal of being known gets a degree less terrifying week by week.
Okay.
Maybe they'll even take a nap when they get back, out on wooden chairs on the deck, in the weak New Jersey sunlight. Glass to one side and water to the other, and no dreams. Or Clark will get a ticket. The world is a strange place.
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Bruce makes a soft noise as Clark echoes his earlier swerve, appreciative, indulgent. They are two people who could probably do with something like this every now and again; being made to slow down. And not because someone might pass out from artificial atmospheric pressure, or keel over from broken ribs. Once in a while, Bruce wonders if the way they have a difficult time keeping their hands off each other isn't simply because of all the reasons that make sense on the surface, but also because there are a lot of years behind them with nothing at all.
What if they'd run into each other, on their winding journeys? Clark in Tibet, being peered at by a man training to be a 'monk' that the locals don't speak of; Bruce catching sight of a mysterious stranger on an oil rig. He, at least, has never been the type to let a curiosity go without investigation, even if the other would have wanted to vanish.
A loud squeal heralds a car going too fast up the ramps, and the reminder of the public venue. Bruce doesn't pull back right away, or even a beat after, but he does. And then presses a kiss to the side of Clark's mouth anyway, in no hurry, even as he slouches a bit. The windows are illegally tinted too dark, but still. None of your bees wax, world.
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He knows it was the appearance of Zod, that day, that forced him from hiding. Sometimes, he wonders if it was Lois, too, who tracked him down, who unearthed secrets that no one even cared to know about until her. In the canon divergent alternate universe where another investigative spirit connected dots, Clark assumes he would have just run away some more, back into all that nothing.
But maybe not. Who can say.
He lists into the seatback once some more inches of distance settle between them, his arm eased back from around Bruce, hand now clinging a hold at shirt collar. He lets them sit there in the comfortable quiet (heartbeats, winding down) before he asks, "Can I drive?" with all the confidence of someone with a terminally visible halo. (He is used to trucks, shitty rentals, and more recently, his bike. It's a nice car, okay.)
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He sits back.
"Sure. All you farmboys can drive stick, right?"
Because of course he doesn't have a fucking automatic.
So: to the front seats they go, and he picks up his other post cards and stamps on the way, buckling in and sifting a pen from the glove box.
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But Bruce leans in and does that, Clark holding almost comically still after an initial adjustment to make room. Leather creaking faintly under his hand. It makes him wish, with a sudden rising heat, that they were nearly anywhere else, but preferably somewhere with clean sheets and all the time in the world. It's open in his expression when Bruce leans back.
The toothy smile Clark deploys next definitely indicates that comment landed as a dick joke.
Into the driver's seat, then. He is careful and respectful with property that isn't his but clearly happy to be there and while it has been a minute since he drove stick, actually, you wouldn't know it. More alarming than any lapse in skill is probably the smug energy with which he drives them out of the parking lot,
and then the immediate impatience for late afternoon traffic, draining out of the city like life blood. Metropolis gets pretty bad sometimes too with all the construction, hence his own preference for ecofriendly options, but Clark would characterise gridlock there as kind of a politely crystallised frustration, everyone in it together. On this side of the river, well—
—one instance occurs where he is is slower than a Gothamite would prefer him to be to change a lane and a horn immediately screeches by, muffled profanity. "Sorry," doesn't sound sorry at all. "Jesus."
It'll be better on the highway.
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It is quickly apparent that 1) Bruce is going to fill out and write notes to people on these post cards while in transit and 2) he has no inherent instinct to be a nervous passenger. On the one hand, it's a little strange for a man with such a deep-rooted control complex, and such an expensive fucking car, but on the other, Bruce drives like such a maniac that it's entirely possible he just feels like they're plodding along in an Amish horse-drawn tractor. Scenic and safe.
"Take your time, kid," Bruce says in his best TV Dad voice, eyes on a post card. Neon seahorses. He flips it over, clicks the pen into action. Addresses it to Mr Barry Allen and Company.
"You're gonna have to get off at Seventh, not the exit for the house."
This is very sweet of Clark, offering to drive. What a nice break.
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One who glances skeptically over in the wake of TV Dad voice, mouth pressed in a line, and only a little bit considers whether a more pointed jerk of the steering wheel would mess up Bruce's writing or if Batman is trained to write postcards in any condition, ever adaptable, but it is the kind of mischief that never makes it past the temptation. Besides, Clark did want to drive, and it's only like.
95% because it's a cool car, and 1% because he wanted to see Bruce's expression when he asked it, but 4% it seemed like a nice thing to do, maybe, in the same pointless neighbourhood of carrying his things halfway across the parking lot.
"Scenic route?" he asks, of Seventh. Another bray of a horn. Probably not at him, but Clark glances in the rear view like what, already, just to make sure.
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"There's a post office." He writes Hope you're finding time outside the lab, too, and signs it with initials B and C. He knows Barry and Vic are buried far past their eyeballs in science experiments between the Speed Force and Cyborg's capabilities (promised to send him some 'craaaaaazy' data about dimensional travel soon), and that's just very warming, for some reason. They'll get a kick out of the card. He carefully peels a fish stamp from the book, and sticks it onto the corner where the little blank rectangle placeholder is. One down.
"They don't actually come out to the house, unless I arrange for a courier. They used to, when a couple of the other old houses back there were inhabited, but the Elliot place hasn't been anyone's primary residence in years, and apparently Roman Sionis was recently blown up with an errant hand grenade out at the pier,"
just normal Gotham shit
"so I can't imagine he'll be back to do anything about the acreage he owns. No reason to make a postal carrier drive out there, I just go into the penthouse once a week."
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The highway will be fun, the lonely tracts of land outside the city will be nice, speaking of them. Playing chaffeur is also fine, and takes his mind off the mood they left behind in the backseat.
"Well, maybe someone nice will move in," says Clark.
Dare to dream.
"Who else is getting a postcard?"
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Grumble. Picking between a postcard with a stylized collage cut-out of Gotham Aquarium!, and some sharks. He ends up choosing the former, since it looks more kitschy and vintage. The sharks he will save for the fridge.
Breath in, half-sigh out; barely audible for a human over the hum of asphalt beneath wheels.
"My kid." He writes Richard Grayson into the addressee line, fills out a label for a condo in Blüdhaven, New Jersey.
It'll end up in the trash, but, you know.
Doesn't voice that. Taps the end of the pen on the slip of cardstock, finally decides on 'Couldn't help remembering. - B' He doesn't need to leave a name, or even the initial; Dick will recognzie his handwriting and understand the reference, but it feels slightly creepy to not add it. Clicks the end of the pen. Done writing.
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Clark listens to the sound of pen scratches, glancing to catch a look at the message itself, both it and the other card. Not a glance that would net literally any information for a normalman, but fine tuning his vision to peel back layers of paper, read impressions of ink, translate letters skewed at weird angles,
well, look, everyone has a hobby. Or everyone is extremely invasive a lot, only encouraged by their two full time jobs. One of those things.
They park, and Clark snags the sealion postcard he'd lifted on their way over, along with the book of stamps. He writes his message against the deposit box, after a little hemming and hawing:
Bork Bork Bork!
Hope you are doing well. Give Shelby a hug from me. Love you & see you soon.
- Clark
"Did you want to write something?" he asks, as he hovers over where he could add Bruce in parentheses.
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He looks at what Clark has written for his mother. Borks and all. A flat look. That is very whimsical, Superman.
"Say something nice from me," he offers, and if he's a little surprised by the invite to be included, it doesn't sound like it. (He is, somehow. Even though he signed Clark's initial for Barry and Victor without asking. Invasiveness goes both ways.)
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Returning to his message, Clark adds, PS: Bruce says hello & stay safe (he can have a Shelby hug too). before deftly scribbling out an address permanently locked into muscle memory, attaching a stamp, and slotting the card into the box.
Is it possible to have mixed feelings, about a thing he feels wholly good about at, at the same time? That being that little spot in Kansas and the person who lives there, home and not-home, a place of safety and crippling vulnerability. How much heartache can you cause a person you love that you wonder if you've made up for it, yet, if there's any making up to do, and knowing exactly what they'd say to something like that.
At least the Barry and Vic card is pretty uncomplicated. He presses a smile at Bruce, lower key than bright grins but not lesser for it, and heads back for the car.
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Back to the car. Clark still given domain over the steering wheel, having done nothing (so far) to warrant losing access.
"She doing okay?"
Probably she is doing great, in at least one respect, with her son alive again. But, you know. He buckles up. Reaffixes his sunglasses.
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"She'll probably be pulling out her hair right about now," he says. "Planting's not for a month but it's always a whole—"
His fingers splay off the wheel. Don't ask.
"I said I'd help out, so, I'll be away a couple weeks, being judged by the neighbours about how little I remember about this stuff, these days. But it'll be nice. And she's great," he adds, with a glance. "I think she likes it when the farm gets busy, people around to feed and tell off."
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And a little envy.
"You should get Barry and Vic out there."
It'd be fun. (And they know the way. They have picked up Clark from Smallville before. No comment.) He forgets to ask if Martha would be weirded out by ether; she raised a Kryptonian, smiled and cheered at Batman, rolled with a resurrection. Faith!
"I had a thought."
Not about the farm.
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He's had Diana round by now, too, and the memory of her being on her best behaviour, as though Martha were the intimidating force in the room, had been pretty endearing. And Clark can't say Martha isn't, who'd probably found Diana being as European as she is probably just as alien as the rest, but quicker to adapt than the Amazonian had been. Equalised with the inevitable bonding over photo albums dug out of the staircase cupboard, which had been Clark's cue to go do the dishes.
He almost recounts this before the conversation diverts. Some other time. Instead, he says, "Uh huh?"
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Some other time, indeed. Committed to relaying this mysterious thought, now that he's voiced its existence. Now is a bad time, but there is never a good time; today has already been very bad and very good, and if it's very bad again, at least it wasn't all bad.
"Would you be opposed to having a tracking implant?"
With the number he's stuck people with, you'd think he'd have more practice asking. But. He doesn't usually ask.
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Instead of saying 'what' or 'no' or 'absolutely not', Clark repeats, querying, "A tracking implant?"
Beg pardon.
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Oops, a laser beam nuked the communication chip sewn into my shoulder. Oops, I had to punch this monster in plainclothes.
"I understand that it's an invasive ask."
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And when something happens, and doesn't something always happen, Clark doesn't have to focus his attention at all. So Bruce's comment gets a glance, and some silence.
The thoughtful kind, anyway, until he says, "And I guess the red lamp would make that possible," like thoughtful silence has also been used to figure out how that's meant to work, more than whether or not he's comfortable with it.
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What would he even use. Can Superman pierce his own skin? Can God microwave a burrito so hot?
Bruce shrugs. These are normal things to think about, when you care about someone and you're Batman. Clark's ability to monitor him down to the contractions of his pupils in bright light could be frustrating, but mostly, he just finds it perversely comforting. Sensible. Useful. Sometimes—
Sometimes other things, and Clark knows about all of it, he's sure.
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No, that's not entirely true. His parents, and Martha in particular, who'd been there through the growing pains, who never looked at him in shock or dismay at each new thing, just worry, sometimes something else. He thinks he learned all of these invasive biometric readings from her own intuitive guidance, long before he learned how to fly.
"Whatever works," he says. "No, I don't mind. I think it's..." Practical? Necessary? "Probably fair," he settles on, more good humour than anything pensive.
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"It isn't about that." Fairness. But surely Clark knows. Still, it might be worth it to try and articulate it, so that he can't wiggle around to something creepier and colder later. He watches traffic for a bit, thinks distantly that Clark could be driving faster.
"Or safety. Though that, too. I just want to."
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So Bruce says that, and then quiet that unfurls between them, and Clark smiles a little to himself. Easily seen, still, at a profile angle. I understand it's an invasive ask, he says. I just want to, the follow up.
"Okay," he says, simply. It feels more appropriate, somehow, than a weightier I trust you.
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He smiles a little, and says okay, and Bruce's internal organs do something. The mortifying ordeal of being known gets a degree less terrifying week by week.
Okay.
Maybe they'll even take a nap when they get back, out on wooden chairs on the deck, in the weak New Jersey sunlight. Glass to one side and water to the other, and no dreams. Or Clark will get a ticket. The world is a strange place.