Alien feet meet terra firma and Bruce does not turn around, his shoulders do not tense; that he can see well enough in the dark to have noticed Superman lurking along the parapets of his crumbling childhood home should not be surprising. He's in too contemplative a mood to have been flustered by the appearance - pulse ticking up only now, and only a little. His fingers are curling in the ends of high yellow stalks of weeds.
"First day of construction's tomorrow," he says at length, low voice eerie in the cold stillness.
He and Diana and Alfred had spent a long time, planning and designing and sifting through contractors. He had spent even more, mapping everything out. Some imaginary architect's name is on the blueprints. Bruce Wayne can't be good at much of anything, on the record.
"It'll never look like this again."
No longer a skeleton, no longer a mausoleum for a past he won't speak of that must be composed of more than just his absent parents. Something else has been keeping Wayne Manor dead. It should be a good thing, to breathe life into it. But he seems sad.
He doesn't have a natural instinct towards platitude. It's probably frustrated more than one journalist or superfan on the rare occasions that Superman has touched down long enough to be spoken to, but there it is. Now, none come to mind either, looking past Bruce in an effort to see this place through his eyes.
Black trees, white fog, grey buildings. Different to the palettes of yellow and blue that define his own childhood memories.
Bruce looks back at him, and Clark returns attention on a slight delay, and then gives a slightly surprised smile, as if not expecting the callback. He wanders a step or two closer. "No," he agrees. "I don't have what it takes to be an Amazon, apparently. She, uh." Mm. Some kinda memory plays out behind his eyes and crinkled brow. "Well, we sparred."
It's fine. Bruce has few terminal allergies, fit as he is, but platitudes are on the list. He doesn't often expect a response when he says things like that.
"Mm." One eyebrow up. Mm sounds an awful lot like That isn't strictly what you were supposed to be doing, but maybe also like, It must have been fine since I didn't catch any news stories about the Louvre being accidentally kicked in.
"She's sweet."
Is she.
Amendment, as Bruce turns back to look at the derelict mansion again: "Or she was, once."
He wonders if it disturbs Diana to be so easily understood by a mortal man, and one so spiritually acidic at that. He doesn't wonder if she regrets having felt safe enough with him to share the tale of her lost love - he knows that. He should have told her about Selina, probably, or even Talia. But he didn't. He told her he understood her and then saved that knowledge in reserve as something to hurt her with later.
Clark should leave. Get out of this quicksand before he's too deep.
"But now it's bugging you that you might not be throwing a real punch, huh."
Though they've yet to pick a pace, Clark has idled into a position that can be considered sidelong. This, after a tip of his head in return to silent communication about what they were meant to have been doing: you're telling me.
Donning the cape is sort of instant gravitas, his suit a strange armour that nevertheless demands a certain physical decorum. Here, however, he is more Clark Kent than the statue-like alien from the stars, an absent fidget where he works his knuckles a little with his other hand, as if remembering-- something. They are, after all, talking about punching, and not other things.
As for Diana being sweet, his smile twists. Rue. "She told me to come back," he allows, but wait for it, "after you quit being stubborn about my training."
Her words, not mine, is communicated with eyebrows.
A line appears between his brows. Just so. (There is a whole language in the movement of a person's eyebrows, especially his, and strangely, Clark's too. Of course it has to be an alien who he ends up overlapping with.)
He'll get you for that, Diana, and your little dog too.
"That's interesting," is dignified.
No objections to being called stubborn. He'd probably turn to a pillar of salt, struck down by a god who doesn't exist, the lie would be so outlandish. Even from someone as good at lying as Bruce Wayne. Another little while of staring out at the manor.
"Do you want to schedule a date, or are you free right now?" is deadpan.
At least Clark did not leave France having learned nothing. Raw strength is not news to him, and neither is cosmic ability. That Diana had trained herself into her own relative powers since girlhood had become all too painfully evident, a display of the value of practice combined with metahuman ability. At least he has something to bond with Barry about, besides the occasional race for a coastline.
Clark finds himself looking at what Bruce is looking at, curiousity strong enough, abrupt enough, that he nearly just says: now's fine.
Instead, "I didn't mean to interrupt," which is true, even if he made the active decision to once he'd gotten halfway there. The matter isn't tabled, but he wants to know, "Did you come here a lot, before?"
It's an ambiguous timeframe to ask about. Before tonight. After he left it behind for good. What he knows about Bruce is only a matter of public record, except for the things deliberately kept off record.
Sometimes it's easy to forget that Gotham City is in New Jersey, with how infrequently the dialect impresses itself on Bruce's speech. And then sometimes there's that, easy-sounding words with kicky pops of consonants on the end. Anyway. No. Before is many-layered, and 'a lot' fits none of them.
(Lurking in the darkness is an opinion about pizza. Fear it.)
Bruce turns around, away from the dead thing in the distance.
"Well I'm not instructing you on anything while you're wearing that," sounds a little more human. One step, two, heading back towards where the lake house is, frost-crisp plant matter crunching under booted feet. "You want to zip back to your secret crystal palace and change or borrow something of mine?"
It's only on a slight delay before Clark steps alongside, matching pace, accepting momentum. His next breath is semi-laughter, judging from the way it strikes as steam in the cold air. He's considered getting annoyed about smart assery with regard to his status as messianic alien in tights, if not for the fact he has the luxury, now, of working farmland in Kansas secured beneath his mother's name.
The counter words, ivory tower spring to mind, but the dark grey silhouette of the manor looming behind them has Clark laying down that specific kind of sass with an inwards sigh.
"Crystal palace's exclusively for capes," he says, instead, retreating into easy self-deprecation. "I can borrow something, if you don't mind. Unless it's got ears."
Maybe, if Superman had a nice animal mascot headband as part of his outfit, Bruce would not have wanted to murder him so badly. Did you ever think of that, Clark. Did you.
The hike back to the lake house is right at the midway point of 'long' and 'not too long'; Clark caught him before he could make it all the way to the crumbling mansion or wander past it. Bruce doesn't ask anything further about his jaunt with Diana, nor does he explain why he's bothering to do this Right Now. (He's not getting any younger. No time like the present. Batman doesn't believe in rest. Pick.)
Alfred is in the kitchen when they arrive, wearing pajamas and a house robe and looking appropriately shocked. His alarmed expression eases when whatever he reads on his ward's face tells him there's nothing to be concerned about, but shifts to something else-- something that makes Bruce roll his eyes when he believes Clark isn't looking at him.
"Might I get you something to drink, Mr Kent?" while Bruce slinks off like a shadow to his bedroom.
That Clark has superanticipated another warm moving body ahead of him spares him momentary awkwardness. Well. Mostly. He still manages a second of it when he stops short upon realising that following Bruce directly into his bedroom would classify as weird, and an extra half-second recovering from the alien decorum of a man his senior being the deferential one in the social transaction.
Even if he suspects Alfred more playing at butler than being one. Manners kick in.
"No sir," he says, nonetheless. "But thanks, anyway. Sorry about the hour."
But, you know. Bats are nocturnal, says his crooked, pressed smile.
Alfred's eyebrows go up in an initial bit of confusion about the hour, but catches on a moment later and nods, conspiratorial. Yes, yes, the hour, the hour during which sane people are asleep. (Does it look like anyone sane lives here, Mr Kent.)
Anyway, he's getting a cup of tea handed to him, despite the 'no'.
(Meanwhile: Bruce is shrugging out of his expensive coat, changing his clothes, and digging out something for Clark to wear. In the moonlit chamber of his unnervingly exposed bedroom, he downs a dose of lorazepam with the remaining, tepid white wine still on his nightstand. It's just to take the edge off, make sure he can think; he'd have to have much more alcohol or trazodone to end up loopy.)
Upon his return, Bruce looks almost shockingly normal. Long sleeved shirt with a soft collar, gym pants, bare feet. (All black.) He's carrying what must be for Clark.
"Have you considered just playing cards or watching a sporting event?" Alfred asks, immediate and waspish, frown only deepening at Bruce's monosyllabic, unconcerned response. Even more peeved, "Ordering in Chinese and discussing your feelings?"
"Goodnight, Al."
The older man makes a disgusted noise but leaves them be, muttering. Bruce is walking to the back of the kitchen to a door that leads to an antechamber, one of the only enclosed rooms in the house. One's a door to a hallway that leads to the rest of the house proper - other bedrooms, and so on. And one door is an elevator.
Clark's brows knit together midway through the exchange, his 10% depleted teacup set aside as he slides a look between men. By the time Alfred is finished, bewilderment has converted into bewildered amusement, the corner of his mouth crooking up.
"Mr Pennyworth," is goodbye, good natured.
(For the record, he Did Not let supersight glimmer through the walls for long, curiousity only overtaking him when he thinks it's been long enough for a man to have gotten dressed. Concern has dogged his heels since they turned away from the manor and headed back for the house by the lake, and concern dogs his heels now as he follows Bruce down the corridor.
Nothing for it, really.)
"Considering the state of things from the last Wildcats v Meteors game," Clark says, presently, "my vote's for cards, next go."
Obviously, they're not going to talk about their feelings.
"He just thinks I'll hit you too hard," is mild, and Not Actually Funny. Whether it's a joke about Bruce having tried to hard to murder him is unclear - but unlikely, given the depth of his regret. Which means it's probably a self-depreciating joke, implying Alfred thinks Bruce might intentionally hurt himself.
It would be easy.
Anyway, into the elevator. The panel has no numbers, though some buttons are more worn than others; surely there can't be that many subterranean floors. Bruce pokes one and they're lowered to something in between the cave (The Cave) and the surface level. There's a modestly sized gym space, clean and stocked but still in a way that says it hasn't been used in a while. Bruce must get his own practice in elsewhere.
"Locker room's that way," Bruce says, tossing him the space clothes. It's more like a mini luxury hotel spa back there, but whatever.
While Clark is gone, Bruce turns off the CCTV for this room. When he returns, he's sliding a paper and bamboo screen over the mirrored wall, apparently not in the mood for the reflections.
Battlesuit folded and left behind, Clark Kent emerges, dressed like a normal human and bare foot and-- well, nervous might be a leap. Anticipation and uncertainty, mingled together. The deductive leap on what Alfred might think is not a difficult one to make, and the simple question -- why are you doing this -- glimmers beneath the surface.
Maybe they'll figure it out on their own.
"That I'm not so used to defending against counter attack," he says, pacing at a circle, a little, acclimatising. "That she thinks several steps ahead of any given move she takes. You and her have that in common."
Blurry footage of a red-and-blue clad figure slamming bad guys into buildings does not look like someone who has plans.
"That she'd probably appreciate it if we got another lady on the team." A few comments, here and there, about how men fight, as if it were an anomaly. He doesn't know Diana any better than he knows Bruce, really, but he likes her.
Bruce watches him, considering. Probably playing back all the times he's observed Clark fight. Deciding where to start and what to start with.
"She might be equally disappointed by any women who've learned to fight in the outside world," he says wryly. "I've known a lot of women who could lay my ass out flat, but none like her."
Clark pauses only long enough to think about it, and to consider the man in front of him: Bruce, out of the batsuit, let alone the heavy armouring of the version he wore to battle with him, all scratched up silver like he'd welded himself into it. Not long enough, though, for Bruce to have to prompt him again, Clark approaching like he's stepping up onto a stage, cameras all on him. He has, after all, never done this before. Even Diana had been different (with a hair toss, an arched eyebrow, let's go, and they went).
But, settling into the form he's been shown, he centres his balance, and swings a punch.
He doesn't condescend to slow down by a lot, trusting in Bruce's ability to counter. Being the kind of man whose heart is worn on his sleeve (or in a big S, on his chest), a lack of murderous intent and malice takes the viciousness out of it, anyway.
(Or desperation, as with Zod, in the end, and as with Doomsday, desperate to end something and unable to make it happen as fast as he would like.)
Sidestepped. Bruce observes, and while his standards are high enough that he doesn't show any appreciation for the fact that Clark takes a swing as he'd been shown how to do that night in Milwaukee, he at least doesn't look disappointed. One hand snags Clark's wrist, fingers looping around. His other, in a fist, tags Clark's ribs light enough to barely be a tap. Marking. If they were matched for strength, farmboy would be in a world of hurt.
He stops.
"Once more."
This time, Bruce stops him with a hand on his wrist, and guides Clark to shove his elbow towards Bruce, aiming at his solar plexus. There's an art to it, but it isn't an elegant one. Holds and hold-breaking, using brute force only where the weak points are, to destabilize and cripple.
Another thing he took away from Diana: alongside his failure to defend against attack, there is also his habit to choose not to, and that choice having become at least one feature of the fighting style he's built for himself. Absorbing impact and absorbing energy along with it, wasting ammunition as guns turn to him, acting as shield and decoy in ways living beings are generally not expected to.
Which is no excuse, really, and certainly won't impress Bruce. Or Diana. Not that he's interested in impressing Bruce. Or Diana!
He swings, gets caught, and a little faster, folds his arm as shown, stopping just shy of delivering more than a bump of elbow to torso. "Owch," he suggests, wry.
"Mm." Yes, ouch. Back to one, Kansas, say the eyebrows and flat look. Bruce puts him through his paces, corrects his form, makes verbal notes.
It's been a lot of years since Bruce has had to meditate. He gave it up, along with a number of other things. That's the old man in between, the perfect ninja, the monolith. He resisted things. He purged murderous rage and vice. He used his baser emotions like a finely sharped blade, and only permitted blood to wet it when he could control it.
Not so much, these days.
His pulse jumps when Clark gets too close. He grits his teeth when Clark rolls his shoulders and manages to pull taught the borrowed undershirt, which while strictly too loose on him, does not actually do anything to hide his physique or occasional glimpses of chest hair. (The Superman suit does that too. Bruce hates it. Can't you laser vision that off or something, you asshole, it's 2017 and that's not supposed to be attractive. How do you know Bruce's weakness is performative erotic gender standards. Fuck ooooofff.)
They run through a series of moves, and Clark is picking it up, and this time when he stops short to spare Bruce's chalk-fragile human skeleton, he hooks his foot behind the younger man's heel and pulls, while pushing in the opposite direction on his arm. Bonk.
Clark isn't the worst student. His questions are often silent, asked in movement, glance, eyebrows, sometimes verbalised. He takes instruction, and there's no ego for Bruce to have to get his nails beneath and peel back. At least, not right now. But he also isn't the best student.
He's never been the best student, too easily distracted, sometimes too literal. He stops short of chalk-fragile human skeletons as well as improvisation, doing only exactly as he is told. Maybe some of this will shake out on the battle field, but after only an evening, it's probable that after the first failed attempt, it'll be back to putting bad guys through concrete until they stop.
In short, he isn't paying attention when suddenly his own foot isn't where he expected it to be.
It's not just that, either. Bruce's manner can seem strangely aloof, negligent, while his heartbeat and the barely detectable even to Kryptonian ears sound of molars squeezing together gives off a different story, and he is superaware of both, when he should definitely be ignoring the latter. So they have each others attention, and Clark isn't certain if either of them know what they're doing with it. (But he thinks he likes--)
Bonk.
Surprise, and there's a slight flutter in the air as if he was just about to cheat through levitation. He permits the fall instead with a slightly inelegant smack of hand to mat, and an affronted look on his face. Mouth pinching, he brings his leg around in an effort to knock Bruce down in retaliation. Improvising!!
Truthfully, Bruce was not expecting any kind of retaliation - though, also truthfully, he did not expect Clark to just topple over like that. But despite it, there are some things too well-ingrained, too long made a part of him past habit and into default regulatory function.
He hops over it.
A glimmer of hope, though, in that improvisation. Instinct makes Bruce step out of Clark's immediate strike range (if he were human), liquid-quick and easy, always so graceful despite the tank-like size of him. There's no reason to have any reaction there, no matter the affronted look on Clark's face or the satisfying sound he made hitting the floor.
It's quick. Barely-there, a flicker of an expression that's not quite anything all the way. Nearly taken over by an unexpected emotion: Bruce trying not to smile.
"Starting to get it," he muses, using a shift around to get back to one as an opportunity to school his expression while facing away.
Maybe if Clark weren't looking for it -- or something, if not that -- he'd miss it.
But he is, so he doesn't. Rolling to sit, first, watching Bruce turn aside, before climbing to his feet when he recognises a return to position. By the time Bruce turns back, there's a smile ready for him, crooked, a glint of canine. "I think General Zod took it personal," he says, pacing into position, "that a Kryptonian without any kind of genetically encrypted destiny he could recognise, without a lick of training, might go toe to toe with him. It's what he was made for, being a warrior."
Which is what Kal-El was intended for too, but not in the same way, not through the same methods. "How long did it take you? To make you what you are."
Twenty years in Gotham City, but he had to start somewhere.
It's a testament to how far Bruce has come that he doesn't have something to say about that first bit. (Someday. That he was there, that he ran into the dust and debris while others ran out, that the building Zod and Superman heat-visioned into oblivion was his, filled with employees and their children, people he'd moved out of Gotham to be safe. That a shadow he'd spent so long running from caught him.)
Maybe there's something in his gaze before it's blinked away.
Yeah, well. Zod was a dick.
"What, this?" Eyebrows up. Dry. "This is a shitshow, Kent, I'm falling apart."
But that's not what he's asking, and Bruce knows it. Once more - he directs him. Again, from the top. Pushes him a little, forces him to make a call about how Bruce is coming at him.
"Ten years or so," is what he says eventually, "between when I started to wander and when I came back to Gotham. Another five to think I had it figured out."
Since Clark is interested in sweeps, he shows him one.
The flat look that Clark deals to Bruce at the words shitshow is not quite on par with the one he gets more often than not, and mitigated when steered back into training. It takes a certain amount of double-think, honing skills without exercising them to their fullest, but then, he's had a lot of practice with restraint.
He'd learned how to cauterise wounds with lasers that can cut buildings in half; he can go through these motions with Bruce without liquefying his insides.
A real answer gets rewarded with German Shepherd headtip in the midst of it, natural inclination to latch to facts of interest. When the sweep comes, he avoids it as Bruce did before, and then snorts. "Careful, Wayne," he says, because we're doing last names, now, "might start feeling sorry for you."
And he pushes back. It's inevitable that his version of human speed and strength will be that much clumsier and predictable, especially given he is going through motions he's shown, but if surprise is what earns praise
not that he is doing this for praise, it's just nice to know you're not wasting someone's time
Something to alight on the field of landmines that is his entire person; implying Bruce, who nearly succeeded in killing Superman, needs this corn-fed moron to feel sorry for him, lists towards insulting. (Even though he was the one to bring it up, even though any implication there might be that Clark is lacking, because he nearly fell to this broken old man, or that he finds him worthy of inquiry. Even though Bruce is pitifully, embarrassingly enamored with him. Yes.)
To counter the inherent clumsiness in control, Bruce slows him down further. Focusing purely on how it feels. The movement, not Bruce's hands on his skin; he wonders distantly if his senses make small things more intense, or if he needs to get hit by a bus to feel anything. There's a method to tai chi's madness and this isn't quite it, but the principle is the same. Pay attention.
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"First day of construction's tomorrow," he says at length, low voice eerie in the cold stillness.
He and Diana and Alfred had spent a long time, planning and designing and sifting through contractors. He had spent even more, mapping everything out. Some imaginary architect's name is on the blueprints. Bruce Wayne can't be good at much of anything, on the record.
"It'll never look like this again."
No longer a skeleton, no longer a mausoleum for a past he won't speak of that must be composed of more than just his absent parents. Something else has been keeping Wayne Manor dead. It should be a good thing, to breathe life into it. But he seems sad.
Bruce turns his head.
"No sword or miniskirt, I see."
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Black trees, white fog, grey buildings. Different to the palettes of yellow and blue that define his own childhood memories.
Bruce looks back at him, and Clark returns attention on a slight delay, and then gives a slightly surprised smile, as if not expecting the callback. He wanders a step or two closer. "No," he agrees. "I don't have what it takes to be an Amazon, apparently. She, uh." Mm. Some kinda memory plays out behind his eyes and crinkled brow. "Well, we sparred."
That's probably not the whole story.
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"Mm." One eyebrow up. Mm sounds an awful lot like That isn't strictly what you were supposed to be doing, but maybe also like, It must have been fine since I didn't catch any news stories about the Louvre being accidentally kicked in.
"She's sweet."
Is she.
Amendment, as Bruce turns back to look at the derelict mansion again: "Or she was, once."
He wonders if it disturbs Diana to be so easily understood by a mortal man, and one so spiritually acidic at that. He doesn't wonder if she regrets having felt safe enough with him to share the tale of her lost love - he knows that. He should have told her about Selina, probably, or even Talia. But he didn't. He told her he understood her and then saved that knowledge in reserve as something to hurt her with later.
Clark should leave. Get out of this quicksand before he's too deep.
"But now it's bugging you that you might not be throwing a real punch, huh."
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It is.
Though they've yet to pick a pace, Clark has idled into a position that can be considered sidelong. This, after a tip of his head in return to silent communication about what they were meant to have been doing: you're telling me.
Donning the cape is sort of instant gravitas, his suit a strange armour that nevertheless demands a certain physical decorum. Here, however, he is more Clark Kent than the statue-like alien from the stars, an absent fidget where he works his knuckles a little with his other hand, as if remembering-- something. They are, after all, talking about punching, and not other things.
As for Diana being sweet, his smile twists. Rue. "She told me to come back," he allows, but wait for it, "after you quit being stubborn about my training."
Her words, not mine, is communicated with eyebrows.
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He'll get you for that, Diana, and your little dog too.
"That's interesting," is dignified.
No objections to being called stubborn. He'd probably turn to a pillar of salt, struck down by a god who doesn't exist, the lie would be so outlandish. Even from someone as good at lying as Bruce Wayne. Another little while of staring out at the manor.
"Do you want to schedule a date, or are you free right now?" is deadpan.
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Clark finds himself looking at what Bruce is looking at, curiousity strong enough, abrupt enough, that he nearly just says: now's fine.
Instead, "I didn't mean to interrupt," which is true, even if he made the active decision to once he'd gotten halfway there. The matter isn't tabled, but he wants to know, "Did you come here a lot, before?"
It's an ambiguous timeframe to ask about. Before tonight. After he left it behind for good. What he knows about Bruce is only a matter of public record, except for the things deliberately kept off record.
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Sometimes it's easy to forget that Gotham City is in New Jersey, with how infrequently the dialect impresses itself on Bruce's speech. And then sometimes there's that, easy-sounding words with kicky pops of consonants on the end. Anyway. No. Before is many-layered, and 'a lot' fits none of them.
(Lurking in the darkness is an opinion about pizza. Fear it.)
Bruce turns around, away from the dead thing in the distance.
"Well I'm not instructing you on anything while you're wearing that," sounds a little more human. One step, two, heading back towards where the lake house is, frost-crisp plant matter crunching under booted feet. "You want to zip back to your secret crystal palace and change or borrow something of mine?"
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It's only on a slight delay before Clark steps alongside, matching pace, accepting momentum. His next breath is semi-laughter, judging from the way it strikes as steam in the cold air. He's considered getting annoyed about smart assery with regard to his status as messianic alien in tights, if not for the fact he has the luxury, now, of working farmland in Kansas secured beneath his mother's name.
The counter words, ivory tower spring to mind, but the dark grey silhouette of the manor looming behind them has Clark laying down that specific kind of sass with an inwards sigh.
"Crystal palace's exclusively for capes," he says, instead, retreating into easy self-deprecation. "I can borrow something, if you don't mind. Unless it's got ears."
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Maybe, if Superman had a nice animal mascot headband as part of his outfit, Bruce would not have wanted to murder him so badly. Did you ever think of that, Clark. Did you.
The hike back to the lake house is right at the midway point of 'long' and 'not too long'; Clark caught him before he could make it all the way to the crumbling mansion or wander past it. Bruce doesn't ask anything further about his jaunt with Diana, nor does he explain why he's bothering to do this Right Now. (He's not getting any younger. No time like the present. Batman doesn't believe in rest. Pick.)
Alfred is in the kitchen when they arrive, wearing pajamas and a house robe and looking appropriately shocked. His alarmed expression eases when whatever he reads on his ward's face tells him there's nothing to be concerned about, but shifts to something else-- something that makes Bruce roll his eyes when he believes Clark isn't looking at him.
"Might I get you something to drink, Mr Kent?" while Bruce slinks off like a shadow to his bedroom.
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Even if he suspects Alfred more playing at butler than being one. Manners kick in.
"No sir," he says, nonetheless. "But thanks, anyway. Sorry about the hour."
But, you know. Bats are nocturnal, says his crooked, pressed smile.
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Anyway, he's getting a cup of tea handed to him, despite the 'no'.
(Meanwhile: Bruce is shrugging out of his expensive coat, changing his clothes, and digging out something for Clark to wear. In the moonlit chamber of his unnervingly exposed bedroom, he downs a dose of lorazepam with the remaining, tepid white wine still on his nightstand. It's just to take the edge off, make sure he can think; he'd have to have much more alcohol or trazodone to end up loopy.)
Upon his return, Bruce looks almost shockingly normal. Long sleeved shirt with a soft collar, gym pants, bare feet. (All black.) He's carrying what must be for Clark.
"Have you considered just playing cards or watching a sporting event?" Alfred asks, immediate and waspish, frown only deepening at Bruce's monosyllabic, unconcerned response. Even more peeved, "Ordering in Chinese and discussing your feelings?"
"Goodnight, Al."
The older man makes a disgusted noise but leaves them be, muttering. Bruce is walking to the back of the kitchen to a door that leads to an antechamber, one of the only enclosed rooms in the house. One's a door to a hallway that leads to the rest of the house proper - other bedrooms, and so on. And one door is an elevator.
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"Mr Pennyworth," is goodbye, good natured.
(For the record, he Did Not let supersight glimmer through the walls for long, curiousity only overtaking him when he thinks it's been long enough for a man to have gotten dressed. Concern has dogged his heels since they turned away from the manor and headed back for the house by the lake, and concern dogs his heels now as he follows Bruce down the corridor.
Nothing for it, really.)
"Considering the state of things from the last Wildcats v Meteors game," Clark says, presently, "my vote's for cards, next go."
Obviously, they're not going to talk about their feelings.
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It would be easy.
Anyway, into the elevator. The panel has no numbers, though some buttons are more worn than others; surely there can't be that many subterranean floors. Bruce pokes one and they're lowered to something in between the cave (The Cave) and the surface level. There's a modestly sized gym space, clean and stocked but still in a way that says it hasn't been used in a while. Bruce must get his own practice in elsewhere.
"Locker room's that way," Bruce says, tossing him the space clothes. It's more like a mini luxury hotel spa back there, but whatever.
While Clark is gone, Bruce turns off the CCTV for this room. When he returns, he's sliding a paper and bamboo screen over the mirrored wall, apparently not in the mood for the reflections.
"Pick up anything worthwhile from Diana?"
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Maybe they'll figure it out on their own.
"That I'm not so used to defending against counter attack," he says, pacing at a circle, a little, acclimatising. "That she thinks several steps ahead of any given move she takes. You and her have that in common."
Blurry footage of a red-and-blue clad figure slamming bad guys into buildings does not look like someone who has plans.
"That she'd probably appreciate it if we got another lady on the team." A few comments, here and there, about how men fight, as if it were an anomaly. He doesn't know Diana any better than he knows Bruce, really, but he likes her.
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Bruce watches him, considering. Probably playing back all the times he's observed Clark fight. Deciding where to start and what to start with.
"She might be equally disappointed by any women who've learned to fight in the outside world," he says wryly. "I've known a lot of women who could lay my ass out flat, but none like her."
In many ways.
"Alright. Try and hit me."
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But, settling into the form he's been shown, he centres his balance, and swings a punch.
He doesn't condescend to slow down by a lot, trusting in Bruce's ability to counter. Being the kind of man whose heart is worn on his sleeve (or in a big S, on his chest), a lack of murderous intent and malice takes the viciousness out of it, anyway.
(Or desperation, as with Zod, in the end, and as with Doomsday, desperate to end something and unable to make it happen as fast as he would like.)
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He stops.
"Once more."
This time, Bruce stops him with a hand on his wrist, and guides Clark to shove his elbow towards Bruce, aiming at his solar plexus. There's an art to it, but it isn't an elegant one. Holds and hold-breaking, using brute force only where the weak points are, to destabilize and cripple.
"You follow?"
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Another thing he took away from Diana: alongside his failure to defend against attack, there is also his habit to choose not to, and that choice having become at least one feature of the fighting style he's built for himself. Absorbing impact and absorbing energy along with it, wasting ammunition as guns turn to him, acting as shield and decoy in ways living beings are generally not expected to.
Which is no excuse, really, and certainly won't impress Bruce. Or Diana. Not that he's interested in impressing Bruce. Or Diana!
He swings, gets caught, and a little faster, folds his arm as shown, stopping just shy of delivering more than a bump of elbow to torso. "Owch," he suggests, wry.
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It's been a lot of years since Bruce has had to meditate. He gave it up, along with a number of other things. That's the old man in between, the perfect ninja, the monolith. He resisted things. He purged murderous rage and vice. He used his baser emotions like a finely sharped blade, and only permitted blood to wet it when he could control it.
Not so much, these days.
His pulse jumps when Clark gets too close. He grits his teeth when Clark rolls his shoulders and manages to pull taught the borrowed undershirt, which while strictly too loose on him, does not actually do anything to hide his physique or occasional glimpses of chest hair. (The Superman suit does that too. Bruce hates it. Can't you laser vision that off or something, you asshole, it's 2017 and that's not supposed to be attractive. How do you know Bruce's weakness is performative erotic gender standards. Fuck ooooofff.)
They run through a series of moves, and Clark is picking it up, and this time when he stops short to spare Bruce's chalk-fragile human skeleton, he hooks his foot behind the younger man's heel and pulls, while pushing in the opposite direction on his arm. Bonk.
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He's never been the best student, too easily distracted, sometimes too literal. He stops short of chalk-fragile human skeletons as well as improvisation, doing only exactly as he is told. Maybe some of this will shake out on the battle field, but after only an evening, it's probable that after the first failed attempt, it'll be back to putting bad guys through concrete until they stop.
In short, he isn't paying attention when suddenly his own foot isn't where he expected it to be.
It's not just that, either. Bruce's manner can seem strangely aloof, negligent, while his heartbeat and the barely detectable even to Kryptonian ears sound of molars squeezing together gives off a different story, and he is superaware of both, when he should definitely be ignoring the latter. So they have each others attention, and Clark isn't certain if either of them know what they're doing with it. (But he thinks he likes--)
Bonk.
Surprise, and there's a slight flutter in the air as if he was just about to cheat through levitation. He permits the fall instead with a slightly inelegant smack of hand to mat, and an affronted look on his face. Mouth pinching, he brings his leg around in an effort to knock Bruce down in retaliation. Improvising!!
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He hops over it.
A glimmer of hope, though, in that improvisation. Instinct makes Bruce step out of Clark's immediate strike range (if he were human), liquid-quick and easy, always so graceful despite the tank-like size of him. There's no reason to have any reaction there, no matter the affronted look on Clark's face or the satisfying sound he made hitting the floor.
It's quick. Barely-there, a flicker of an expression that's not quite anything all the way. Nearly taken over by an unexpected emotion: Bruce trying not to smile.
"Starting to get it," he muses, using a shift around to get back to one as an opportunity to school his expression while facing away.
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But he is, so he doesn't. Rolling to sit, first, watching Bruce turn aside, before climbing to his feet when he recognises a return to position. By the time Bruce turns back, there's a smile ready for him, crooked, a glint of canine. "I think General Zod took it personal," he says, pacing into position, "that a Kryptonian without any kind of genetically encrypted destiny he could recognise, without a lick of training, might go toe to toe with him. It's what he was made for, being a warrior."
Which is what Kal-El was intended for too, but not in the same way, not through the same methods. "How long did it take you? To make you what you are."
Twenty years in Gotham City, but he had to start somewhere.
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Maybe there's something in his gaze before it's blinked away.
Yeah, well. Zod was a dick.
"What, this?" Eyebrows up. Dry. "This is a shitshow, Kent, I'm falling apart."
But that's not what he's asking, and Bruce knows it. Once more - he directs him. Again, from the top. Pushes him a little, forces him to make a call about how Bruce is coming at him.
"Ten years or so," is what he says eventually, "between when I started to wander and when I came back to Gotham. Another five to think I had it figured out."
Since Clark is interested in sweeps, he shows him one.
"All downhill from there."
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He'd learned how to cauterise wounds with lasers that can cut buildings in half; he can go through these motions with Bruce without liquefying his insides.
A real answer gets rewarded with German Shepherd headtip in the midst of it, natural inclination to latch to facts of interest. When the sweep comes, he avoids it as Bruce did before, and then snorts. "Careful, Wayne," he says, because we're doing last names, now, "might start feeling sorry for you."
And he pushes back. It's inevitable that his version of human speed and strength will be that much clumsier and predictable, especially given he is going through motions he's shown, but if surprise is what earns praise
not that he is doing this for praise, it's just nice to know you're not wasting someone's time
then an attempt is made.
"You want to know what I think?"
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Something to alight on the field of landmines that is his entire person; implying Bruce, who nearly succeeded in killing Superman, needs this corn-fed moron to feel sorry for him, lists towards insulting. (Even though he was the one to bring it up, even though any implication there might be that Clark is lacking, because he nearly fell to this broken old man, or that he finds him worthy of inquiry. Even though Bruce is pitifully, embarrassingly enamored with him. Yes.)
To counter the inherent clumsiness in control, Bruce slows him down further. Focusing purely on how it feels. The movement, not Bruce's hands on his skin; he wonders distantly if his senses make small things more intense, or if he needs to get hit by a bus to feel anything. There's a method to tai chi's madness and this isn't quite it, but the principle is the same. Pay attention.
"Not particularly," is deadpan.
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