solarcore: (#11893086)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-04-26 02:56 am (UTC)(link)
Clark looks like he's ready to listen to whatever Bruce is going to say, and when that doesn't happen, his mouth skews into a rueful line. The sound of Bruce's tiny fidgets against the coffee up all echo loud to someone who is super and keyed into what he's doing.

"He got the postcard," he says, by the by. "I'm not sure that was the inciting motivation, but."

A beat, and he adds, more directly, if a still gently applied pressure, "When was the last time you two were in the same room?"

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

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-04-26 11:03 am (UTC)(link)
"Yeah. He looked good."

There's a moment where Clark thinks about saying something else, thinks about not saying it, and then it comes out of his mouth anyway as he says, fondly, "He looks like you."

Not physically, obviously. But he is speaking as someone who does not literally resemble his parents either, but you might still see Jonathan in the way he touches the top of the doorway leading into the kitchen back home, or Martha in the way he looks at people before embracing them. Likewise, Rick moves like Bruce Wayne too. Studies people like him. Wears his coats like him.

'Years' is a rough answer.
solarcore: (#11893086)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-04-27 07:42 am (UTC)(link)
There is a puzzled line drawn at his brows when Bruce thanks him, and it kind of stays there through the rest. They're closer, now, so Clark wanders a hand out to touch his waist, just a light point of connection through clothing layers, while the coffee machine does its thing.

Gee, but Bruce looks sad. He isn't really a person from whom that can be hugged away, either. Not everyone is.

"I didn't really know what I was doing," Clark says. "But he humoured me a little."

Which was nice of him, Clark thinks. He could definitely have told him to fuck off at any point, and still been polite about it.

"But he definitely didn't come here expecting me."
Edited 2021-04-27 07:43 (UTC)
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[personal profile] solarcore 2021-04-27 10:04 am (UTC)(link)
Clark doesn't move, but he does manage not to stare at Bruce with open—something. Not pity, but it'd be easy to mistake it that way. He stands in place instead and studies some middle distance through Bruce's clavicle as he considers what magical right thing there is to say that makes everything better again, comes to the conclusion it doesn't exist.

So he just says what's on his mind, which is, "Sometimes I think being someone's kid is a responsibility too, when you grow up. You realise you're just two people, and you owe it to one another to act on that. You realise that one day, you have to come home, or not."

His hand wanders from Bruce's waist to his hand.

"He didn't come here to look at a building." He did come here to look at a gravestone, but Clark is ready to believe that if Rick wanted to look at a gravestone, he could have just looked at a gravestone. Or not at all. Personally, he was always in the habit of looking at the sky.
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[personal profile] solarcore 2021-04-30 06:08 am (UTC)(link)
Defensive is certainly not what Clark was aiming for, but he ought to have known—no one keeps themselves quite on the hook like Bruce. Trying to ease him off it is about as easy as orchestrating a touching family reunion, which is to say, potentially dangerous. Painfully aware he can only really talk as someone's kid, and not someone's parent.

But Clark has his hand, so. He keeps it.

And listens, head tilted, while the coffee maker over there finishes filling his cup. Just a minute, coffee maker.

"Of course I don't think that," he says, gently. "And maybe the right thing to do was to let him be, today. Probably it was. I'm just wondering if this isn't him looking for a way back." His thumb brushes over Bruce's knuckles. "And that you shouldn't have to be used to this."
solarcore: <user name="oslo" site="insanejournal.com"> (224)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-05-03 08:23 am (UTC)(link)
A hug might be coming. Who can say. They are proportionately more likely from Clark, as a rule, but plenty a superhug potential has gone squandered.

And Bruce can probably tell that Clark wants to refute that statement, that first one, because of course he does. Self-aware enough to know that he doesn't know enough to lift it up out of platitude, even of an extremely well-meaning kind.

But still. "He said you were a great dad," he offers, anyway. "I can't imagine that hate would enter into it, and stick around. He doesn't seem the type."
solarcore: (#11893086)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-05-03 11:47 am (UTC)(link)
There's a breath in, like Clark is going to say something, and when he says, "Okay," there's the sense it wasn't his first choice.

But it's the one he settles on. He curls a hand around Bruce's arm and closes in the distance between them, a kiss brushing across Bruce's cheek on the way into pulling him into an embrace, pushing past whatever invisible layers of east coast-y social distance exist with a different kind of unstoppable effortlessness that has nothing to do with cellular structures and yellow suns. A squeeze up around Bruce's ribs, regardless of buy in, chin tucked on shoulder.

"But if you want to," he says, then amends, "when you can, and want to, then," he withdraws a little, but still within that space, still holding him, "whenever you want."

He doesn't like seeing Bruce this way, and at the same time, it's better, seeing it, than knowing it lurks somewhere hidden beneath several feet of ice.
Edited 2021-05-03 11:48 (UTC)
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[personal profile] solarcore 2021-05-05 06:20 am (UTC)(link)
Clark settles a hand at the nape of Bruce's neck as he leans in, staying steady and stable, thumb rubbing tiny arcs at his hairline. A wish that he could do more, expressed right there, and then stilling when Bruce speaks, says that.

Mm. His chin pokes Bruce's shoulder, head ducking, holding him tighter, like he too felt some small heartbreak at the sentiment alone.

"It's not too late with him," he says, finally, very certain for someone who has only met the guy for a few minutes. But it feels like a crucial few minutes. It feels like a few minutes that wouldn't have happened if this thing weren't true. That tight grip only lessens once he senses some even unconscious pull-back from Bruce, but otherwise remains, a steel circle of an embrace that Bruce could collapse into, if he wanted.

Clark adds, "Maybe he's just making his own way back."
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[personal profile] solarcore 2021-05-05 10:34 am (UTC)(link)
The not-collapse is felt more like Bruce relaxing than a real shift of weight, although Clark becomes aware of that too. Easily done, he holds Bruce to him, and stays quiet. He can, after all, do that much.

And then smiles against Bruce's shoulder, where he'd tucked his face down against it, at that suggestion.

"We'd love that," he says, cheer low-key but present. It's probably not just a tactic to change topic, maybe, but hopefully Bruce was also prepared for this to eventuate, laser-burned into his calendar, at least as far as Clark is concerned.

Gently, Clark moves his hands to Bruce's shoulders, sets him upright. Doesn't back off, though, still bracketing him in and using that proximity to touch his face, snare in eye contact. A silent kind of you okay? in big eyes and expressive eyebrows.
Edited 2021-05-05 10:35 (UTC)
solarcore: <user name="oslo" site="insanejournal.com"> (216)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-05-06 06:35 am (UTC)(link)
Just sometimes, Clark thinks that this thing they have is selfish, or his part in it is. It's very physical, what he shares with Bruce, and intense, and strange, snared and tangled in hard edged life and death realities, past and present and future. Maybe it's also because it feels easy, like gravity, but also like base impulse, like jumping off something high, like biting down as hard as you can. Just human things.

But all of that feels overwhelmed when there are these moments, here, and Clark leans in and kisses him very sweetly, as the only reply possible to a thanks.

"You wanna get coffee?"
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[personal profile] solarcore 2021-05-06 01:11 pm (UTC)(link)
"I was talking about the coffee maker," Clark assures, smile tipped crooked, his hand dropping down from Bruce's face to rest on his arm. "But I do like Starbucks."

It's one of his three character flaws, along with dubious veganism-related ethics and being too good looking.

He would argue that this isn't just any moment, and maybe he's got a lot of kissing time to make up for, both in general and with Bruce Wayne and Lois Lane in particular, but also: fair. Implicitly, he'd also like to hold hands.
solarcore: <user name="oslo" site="insanejournal.com"> (135)

[personal profile] solarcore 2021-05-07 08:16 am (UTC)(link)
Clark needs both his hands for coffee making, given he does not take his black and intravenously, but stays close anyway, their sides touching within the bracket of Bruce's arm as he goes ahead and drowns his espresso in cream and cooking sugar. There's a deep chuckle before Clark says, "Vic's always gonna have data for you to sift through."

And arguably, there will always be movies to watch, but that's a nil on the prospect of doing more work when lounging in bed with coffee and a show is on the table.

"What's the mood? Citizen Kane or Body Snatchers?"

He's aware there are movies after 1959, it's just they have some catching up to do.
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[personal profile] solarcore 2021-05-08 03:00 am (UTC)(link)
Comfortable black and white and silver, Transatlantic accents, and fresh coffee aren't bad sensations to immerse yourself in. Touch-wise, there's Clark's shoulder resting comfortably against Bruce's, the line of contact from hip to knee.

Clark does not know Rick Grayson's biometrics well enough to track him anywhere on the eastern seaboard, but while they sit quietly, he does expand his field of sensory input to include the Wayne property in general. Work has concluded with the sun sinking down under the horizon, so there's no excess of construction or stranger-noises to sift through. He can hear Alfred in his own relatively modern living space, putting something heavy and iron onto a stovetop, the creak of metal.

Birds in the trees, retiring. When he does not pick out an extra heartbeat, Clark returns to the room by bringing up his coffee to drink from, setting it aside, and then nudges at Bruce. "C'mere."

He is superior to lean against than spare pillows. Baking warmth. Ergonomic. Good spoon potential.