Please, says Clark, and Bruce's mind does some strange skip, a scanline error tangled in dark want— which he should be ashamed of, and isn't. He drags his hand up over the other man's spine, steadying, and rakes his fingernails when he pulls it back. Looking up, along the strong, straight line of him, to see the back of his head and the way his arms are bound and torqued up, helping him push up into Bruce's efforts. Please, in more than words.
Bruce had promised him: Every knife edge you want to find, and feel, we'll sink into.
He brings his hand down on Clark's ass again, harder this time. He has enough control and precision to get it exactly on the same spot, amplifying the sensation twofold. He runs the knuckles of his other hand between Clark's legs, brushing up against his balls, not quite anything else, back again to stroke his thumb over his hole and the sticky mess he's made of it. Even his own mouth feels a touch raw with friction. Hard fingers dig into the deepening red mark. His voice is harsh,
The groan Clark gives at that is inarticulate complaint. Kind of a rare one, from him, not much of a whiner in general. The harshness of the slap is like a shock to his senses and then comes that gentler touch between his legs that he can't stop himself from bucking back against. He can feel himself starting to drip against the sheets beneath him, speaking of mess, but the race towards an orgasm feels oddly tertiary.
And. He's being quizzed on a complex topic, that being, what does he want more of the most. One of his hands has wrangled a fistful of sheet, just for something to grip, and he lets out a harsh sounding breath as Bruce's fingers dig against him.
"The hitting," comes out harsh, half-whispered. It feels like a trust fall, even now, even after he already asked for this, after they talked about, after it's already started. It's not a bad thing, when you're caught. He swallows, musters up another morsel of courage and breath in his lungs, asks, "Will you do it 'til I say?"
He's not sure if that's how this works, really, but on Clark's side, he's only ever made this up as he goes.
If it's a trust fall, Bruce catches him. The hand between Clark's legs shifts up, splaying his palm over the inside of his thigh, around the gentle dip where it meets his ass, skimming higher and forward to take hold of his hipbone. He is human, far from Kryptonian, but these are hands and arms that fly, building to building. Holding Clark up, giving him something to pull against or push back into, is easy. His thumb rubs a comforting circle.
"Yes."
Of course, sweetheart. He doesn't say that. Frequently, Bruce does not say that, but almost does; a specific word assigned to Clark in his head. The first time he almost said it, the other man had inhaled a barrel of fatal neurotoxin and stumbled through Gotham like a sixteen-year-old after his first margarita. Something in him clenches, seizes. It's too bad Clark can't hear his heart.
(Un)speaking of,
"Only I can hear you, up here."
It's just them. Their own private world, with expensive sound-proof walls, locks, security cameras, and a Do Not Disturb protocol that would only be broken by an emergency page from Alfred. Dryly joking about his socioeconomic authority, Bruce had said once, No one opens a door I've shut. And that is especially true here. Clark can say, shout, anything. Only Bruce will ever hear it. And it's all safe in his head.
Crack. Without warning, another one. Then again. He gives the same initial spot a hard strike, but then moves, painting his ass and the tops of his thighs with a reddening bloom.
What a relief, that touch to his hip, and the smallness of the thumb rub that accompanies it. It is physically impossible to relax, but there's something like it that happens anyway, and he leans into that touch, feeling the solidity of it. The physical assuredness, and the psychic assuredness. When Bruce reminds him of where they are, Clark nods, ironically quiet in conveying his understanding, and senses himself bracing.
Which is also new, in a way, not just for the pain factor, but the absence of superhuman reflexes. If something's coming at him fast, he can watch it, feel it happen, decide what to do next, like a more sophisticated set of responses than a more human flinch-signal through his nervous system. His processing feels slower when he doesn't have the kind of physiology that can respond to anything faster.
Anyway. There's no flinch until after Bruce's hand lands on him, a human-like delay between impact and response, hips jerking forwards some, more if it wasn't for the other man's grip. And again, this time getting a sound out of Clark, a breathless grunt. The next against a new spot is less painful but has him gasping in. His hands close into fists.
Bruce's hand lands somewhere particularly sensitive, some midway point between thigh and ass, a sharper cry startled out of Clark, but he only pushes his hips back up.
There's almost an art to it: the angle of his hand, the speed of the strike, the amount of force. Picking just where to land it. He can create and even shade over Clark's skin, or raise patterns. He can - and does - nudge Clark's knees wider apart, help him shift his hips up higher, switch hands to continue to hold him at the opposite hip. Bruce slaps him hard, right against the cleft of his ass held open just so, knowing it'll collide with the sense-memory of his mouth, and shoot straight up his spine. He grips hard on an area he's worked the most, forcing Clark to feel the continued burn of it, like a long, continuous moment of impact.
This position is somewhat odd for it all. But it avoids any awkward mimicry of role playing punishment; Clark isn't over his knees. Bruce isn't standing up behind him with a whip. It's an introductory that's as organic and almost-accidental as everything else they've stumbled into, and it's shockingly beautiful. Clark and his back exposed and flexing, flinching, his bound arms cross-crossed in black, his ass tipped up into Bruce's hands.
The physical exertion of hitting him has made his erection flag, blood flow directed elsewhere, but arousal is still practically choking him. It's held there in an iron grip, unable to go higher or seek fulfilment. After Clark pushes back, cries out in a particular way, Bruce leans over him to press a kiss against the center of his spine, both hands firmly on him. Approval, not apology.
Clark shifts when shifted, knees spreading, hips lifting, some potent combination that is the state of his own arousal, skin growing warm to the slaps, and the easy confidence that Bruce delivers them with all working to dissolve away the last of that hesitancy, reserve, misplaced shyness. The hard hit right up the centre of him gets a loud groan of mostly-pain, but not all-pain. Back arching with that hard grip, leaning right into that extended ache while also letting it ground him.
The position is also becoming its own source of discomfort, shoulders and hips and back and sides all beginning to burn in ways he's not strictly familiar with. More and more, Bruce will notice the telltale signs of little adjustments in an attempt to relieve some of that pressure, the weight of Clark in the grip he keeps on him. But no bailing out of it, keeping his hips hitched high, and his erection still holding heavy throughout.
There's no words despite the invitation, but it doesn't sound like something is being held back behind the gasps and the near-whines in the wake of certain slaps, just letting it happen. That last groan is shuddered out of him, that near-sobbed sound of mindless sensation, and the sigh out when Bruce leans in to kiss his back is all relief. The hands resting on burning skin feels somehow soothing and also too much, and Clark lowers himself a little, a hummed noise of appreciation as muscles that had been held tense relax by just a fraction.
He forces his fingers to unclench from those fists, one hand flagging up, flopping back down. "When," breathed out, and audible in his tone is the subtle curve of a smile at the edge of his mouth.
Another kiss, a knot of vertebra, and then he's leaning over to one side, fishing something out of the mess of instruments laid out beside them. One hand always kept on Clark. Turns out it's the emergency shears, which he uses to snip him free of the wraps on his arms. They're still spiralled around him, and there's still the cuffs, but he'll be able to almost fully relax in this position.
Incidentally, leading that far over him means Bruce presses up against his recently-abused bum, which might feel a certain way, his cock half-hard and twitching just so with interest as he leans. Oof, Bruce grunts some low sound as he slides his hands over Clark's ribs.
Clark lifts his head to watch the snipping, feeling the odd tingle where ribbons he'd been pulling at so tightly finally give way, and he can bend and relax them a little more, pulling bound wrists in more flexibly. Pressure releases through his big shoulders, coaxing another sigh out of him, fully relaxing his hips against the bed.
Oof, indeed.
"Really?" isn't disbelieving, just interested. Glad, too. There are probably a lot of endorphins happening. He rubs his hips a little against the bedsheets when Bruce slides his hands up his sides, then forces himself to be still. His breath is mostly caught, now, as he adds, "You did all the doing. Also very well."
He has the sense that that can go all kinds of ways, different levels, different pace, and it's good of Bruce to take him seriously and dial it right up.
Bruce can't keep his hands off him, even now when it's slower, and sweet. Gentle stroking up and down, feeling him relax, settle back onto the bed. He's aware of how hard Clark stayed during the spanking, and it's there in his head like a bright light. Do something about this. In a minute.
"Teamwork," he murmurs.
Intuition and experience and having discussed it helped, too.
One palm skims over his ass, careful over the abraded skin. It's the middle of the night, but if Bruce pulled back one of the curtains and turned the red light off, the ambient radiation would still sink into Clark's cells and heal him. Slower than at high noon, but he could watch him transform all the same.
Faintly amused, then, "Do you want me to brush my teeth?"
Sometimes you are a superhero and sometimes you are really painfully normal.
There was something meditative in simply taking the hits, and there's something meditative in receiving these gentle touches too. Clark draws his elbows in enough to rest his chin on his forearm, feeling all those points of tension work themselves out like something draining away. Arousal is there, affecting, occupying, but it can wait.
He gives a soft, abashed laugh at that comment. Yes, that sure happened, happened intensely enough that he was close to throwing their whole agenda out the window.
It seems kind of precious to be squeamish about the prospect of putting his mouth on Bruce's mouth, at this point. "I don't want you going anywhere," he says. His voice is rougher at the edges, eyes hooding as he feels Bruce's palm skim over sensitive flesh. He'll be grateful tomorrow for his own healing, but for now, is almost as curious about the way all that lingers as he was about acquiring it in the first place.
There are many things more suspicious on the human(oid) body than butts, currently asked-after hands included, but Bruce has that habit of asking about those small things instead of big ones.
(Once in early days, a particularly embarrassing tabloid incident in a hotel - not for him, not really, but for the shame and torment it had brought his date. Alfred's cold rebuke still prickles him now and again, decades later; You may not have any respect for the act but your partners should be treated with dignity. If you were at all a gentleman about it you'd have brought her home, at least.
Should I, do you mind if we, should we—
Manners. For these little personal things. Mind-reading for hitting each other.)
"Mm." Bruce doesn't particularly want to move, either. He leans forward, almost draped over Clark's back except for how he can still hold himself up at such an angle, stroking over his shoulder and closer to show him one hand, palm up. A little reddened, but: "Not as bad as you."
Some of us are used to hitting things without superpowers. Bruce thumbs his chin, playful, before he turns his head and uses his other hand to pick something else up. The tube of aloe. Click, pop. Cold gel, suddenly, on Clark's skin.
Clark makes a noise, agreement. He can imagine. Rosy skin made rosier in the ambient firelight of the lamp. Being tempted after photos of bruises collaring his throat is one thing, running his fingers over lovebites on his chest, his thighs, while they lay together, but this particular indignity he doesn't feel like he needs to see for himself when his skin is still tingling with the aftershock of it.
And reminded again when that chemical cold hits his skin, jarring before it's soothing. He smiles to himself a little. It's a nice and thoughtful step to bother with, when they both know that he could just revert back to normal with the flick of a switch and a curtain.
But Clark is not naïve to the concept of aftercare. He feels fine. Maybe he'd feel less fine if things skewed differently. Impossible to say.
"That feels nice," he says, another sigh. Content to just lay here and be Tended To, that's fine, his ego and sense of decorum can take it. Then, "All of it did. Even when it was painful." And painful it was, pushing towards that brink. He thinks he might have taken more of it, he thinks he could, curiousity for extremes at war with the more simple directive of having a nice time, but not much of a war. Starting hard, early, negated most of that dithering.
Anyway. Thinking out loud. Fishing for insight. Is this normal. Bruce, resident expert on that, please weigh in.
Aftercare can be fun, too. And between them, and the erections still present in the room, it may not be wholly after just yet. But the pacing has shifted, and Bruce likes this a lot, too. Spreading the cool gel over his still-heated skin, gliding his hands up, beginning to peel away winding ribbons of fabric all the way, unlocking cuffs.
"Pleasure and pain are controlled by the same pathways and neurotransmitters in the brain," Bruce tells him, his voice low and content. This could be a boring talk. He doesn't think so. "When the right factors come together, your mind can lose the ability to determine why one's supposed to be bad, even if it still hurts. And all that's left is the intensity."
He gets goes about helping Clark shift up onto his side, and he slips one arm around to his front. Getting more aloe, stroking it over his chest, and all the marks he left there. Over-pinched nipples and then lower, barely grazing over his cock, to the bruises from clothespins on his thighs. Bruce lets him lean back onto him, tucking his other arm under Clark's head.
"Some people can't ever find the right conditions. Others don't know how to accept pleasure on its own. I think you want... too much. The way I want too much."
Clark relaxes into everything that's happening, draws his arms in once they're free, shifts as Bruce encourages him to shift. The touches to sensitised skin is more soothing than stimulating, but also, not not stimulating. A hummed sound as Bruce's hand moves down to graze his cock and slip over his inner thigh, which he's almost forgotten and probably would have remembered in a worse way in a few minutes than this gentle reminder.
It's not boring, the talk. Even if his physical movements are sleepy, cosy, he's alert, listening. At the very last thing he says, he smiles to himself, turns his head to lay a nuzzled kiss against Bruce's arm, quiet appreciation for
well, framing their weirdness as something human and shared, not just alien.
"I think I like whatever you wanna give me," is more flirtation than factual, but also: factual. His hand has wandered back, touching Bruce's hip, tracing his fingertips down his thigh, up again, soft butterfly tickles of contact.
"What if I want to give you nothing but dry handjobs under the sheets for the rest of my life?" Clearly teasing, but affectionate, in response to that flirting. Nothing dry about the hands (lol) that sweep over Clark's skin, no longer really attending to anything in particular and using the aloe as an excuse to touch and pet him.
Bruce drops a kiss on his shoulder. "Either that. Or have you restrained with your arms over your head, on your knees. Let gravity pull you back onto my cock." Lazy filth. Another small kiss, around the pleasing curve of his acromioclavicular joint. "Mm. What about somewhere sunny, quiet. If I just want to touch you slowly, barely going anywhere with it."
Once, Bruce had stayed at a Holiday Inn on the other side of Smallville near its neighboring town, Coldwater, to deal with some Comanche County Bank nonsense. It was the most ridiculous Bruce Wayne had ever looked, sitting in the taupe and floral particle-board room. But it had large windows looking out into the plains, bright light streaming in. A rattling, barely-functional AC. The bed squeaked. The covered porch at the back of the Kent farmhouse would have been more picturesque, but there'd been other parties to be respectful of. He thinks of it now, strangely, while he guides Clark to lean fully back against him, spooned, his cock snug and aloe-slick against his ass. He pets down the younger man's abdominals and lower, before covering his cock with a wide palm. Doing nothing further, then, just holding him - them - there.
Clark thinks maybe he tricks himself into imagining these encounters as once-offs. Again, but for the last time, things like that, and not for any reason but the fact that so much of how they've interacted up until this point has felt spontaneous. The long-unspoken more popular purpose of the red sun lamp, the natural lead in of ~revenge~ for getting Bruce in handcuffs, and even outside of this: aquarium dates, 'I love you's long after they became true, kisses at Christmas.
But it's nice to not imagine that, to think of a next time, to think more deeply about the things he wants Bruce to do to him, the things he wants to do to Bruce. Maybe it won't ever not be a little about respective hang ups, control issues, alienness, wanting too much, whatever other strange chemical components make up their unique alchemy, but maybe it's just about sex too. How indulgent, he thinks, if not in so many words, while spooning in a penthouse they've dedicated to this in particular.
Clark shifts in place where he's held, but not restlessly or uncomfortably, letting out a sigh as Bruce's hand cups him, everything still feeling interested and sensitive down there. The shifting teases a little at the familiar shape of Bruce pressed against him, remembering the way he rutted into him mere minutes ago with a warm, internal shiver.
Turns out, in addition to having all these dovetailing issues that can only be satisfied with each other, they also enjoy fucking. Together. Imagine. What excruciating ordinariness.
Pressing together like this is not going to encourage Bruce's erection to fade. It's alright. He considers tugging the curtain back, staring out into the city, but that would require moving. It would also take off the table the opportunity for Clark to get fucked feeling so bruised as post-high euphoric, if he so wishes. There's plenty of time to decide.
Bruce manages to get his other hand, with the arm tucked under Clark's head, out to flex his fingers and reach for the other man's free one. C'mere. He circles around where his wrist had been in the cuff, stroking it, pressing his thumb over the pulse point. For no reason other than the pleasure of it, as he settles with his cheek against dark hair.
(I love you. You're becoming everything to me. It's either going to save everything or end the world. Should I wish for it to be meaningless.)
"Feeling alright? Besides that one out of three lurking in the wings."
A little dreamy while his body processes whatever rush of brain chemicals he's been working through, but present. Hand turning a little in the gentle grip to his wrist, body settling into being held like this, which isn't a frequent activity for men of their size, feeling Bruce's heartbeat and breath instead of the usual hearing. There is time to decide.
He could easily let arousal slip away or even out into something comfortable, could slip asleep while his body soaks up ambient solar radiation or maybe prolong that last part so he can drowse like a human, just a little while longer.
Or, you know, that stuff but later.
Because after some comfortable silence, he turns just a little bit, not enough to profoundly disrupt the way they're laying, but he can draw that hand up from resting on Bruce's flank to up and back, touching his hair. "I don't wanna be done yet," he says.
It's nice to drift like this. Just sitting on the edge of something dangerous. Bruce feels like they belong together and that's terrifying, in a way. Terrifying, but his pulse remains as it is, even so private and unobserved for the time being. It slides around in the shadows of the back of his head; will that other world in the future change.
He has to set it aside. He thinks his heart might cave in, if he missed any small moment of this.
Bruce presses a kiss to the back of the other man's head, near his ear. "What do you want to do?"
He still has a hold of Clark's wrist, and he strokes over a barely-visible, blue tinged vein. He lets the fingers of his other hand move just so, petting his cock, and nudges one knee forward into the back of his. Tucking in closer, holding him all over.
Feels like an incorrect choice to do anything that moves this mood along. The gentle handling and the intimacy of it don't feel new, really, they have certainly been gentle and intimate in the past, just oddly raw in the present. Clark sighs, body moving only slightly, restless desire and present contentment all at the same time.
But he doesn't want to wait to get bored, or for someone to get a neck cramp, and end it that way. His fingers spread through Bruce's hair, cradling his skull and letting fingernails bite in, and seeking out those little points he knows feels nice.
"I'd like to fuck," he says, and it's very rare he can get away with That Kind Of Language in this context without a smile, and now is no exception. "And you're not allowed to go too easy on me."
Bruce hitches his knee up more. Tucks them even closer together, his cock pressed against Clark's backside, rocking him just so into the touch that cages him. Much longer like this and his other arm will probably start falling asleep, though he likes having a hold on him. The excuse to move, then, is fortunate—
"Gosh, Kansas."
Awfully forward of you. Bruce kisses the side of his neck, squeezes his wrist slow and steady like he's hugging him, not restraining him. Sinks his teeth in where he'd placed that kiss, as slow and steady as that hold on him. Hard, harder, sucking at it, leaving a lurid red mark that nearly draws blood. Nothing easy about it, despite the lazy pace. A sinking back into the deep waters of that mood, inside of being electrocuted.
Maybe. Let's see. Bruce pulls his hands back, careful, dragging the one that had been around his cock up over his belly and ribs. He fetches the aloe again and gets his fingers wet, nudges Clark a little further over onto his front, and reaches between them to push inside of him.
Lazily paced, a slow sinking, but the transition is less like the slow burn of going from peace to needy to desperate and more like Clark had been closer to being completely submerged in this mood the whole time than he knew about. Bruce bites his neck, works that skin there, and Clark shivers warmly. The hand above the grip to his wrist curls back into a fist.
(There'd been a slight laugh at mock-chastising. Maybe he will ask Bruce to make love to him sometime, see how that goes down.)
He moves as nudged, letting his legs fall further apart again as Bruce touches him. There's an ache there, now, from the positioned he'd sustained minutes ago, muscle fatigue in a way that's new and different and not bad, exactly. An odd and comfortable burn to lean into. He wonders what a bath of ice feels like.
Later, maybe Clark can find out. They planned for this one a bit better, and so, Bruce planned, too, even beyond the absurd cost of the bandages he'd thoughtlessly snipped away; indulgent, special-order vegan food stocked in the kitchen, and a freezer full of bags of ice. A slew of other toys and tools recently taken out, dusted off, returned to easily accessible places in discreet storage around the room. Custom coin cells in the lamp fully charged. UV light box tucked beneath the bed. All manner of potentials.
Bruce pushes slick fingers into him, careful since he knows Clark might be sensitive from stubble-burn and sore from being spanked, but steady, without hesitation. The pause comes once he's in up to his knuckles, letting him get used to it for a moment before he begins to work him open. More than that, though, he fucks him deep with his fingers, and makes a point of pressing against his prostate. Usually when they have sex like this, preparation is just that, maybe some extra playing if they're feeling patient enough for it (which is not the norm), and he hasn't taken such dedicated efforts before.
What's easy? Is it about pain, or,
"Don't come." Pushing there against that gland, relentless.
It's likely that any amount of potential would all get distilled down to the reality that there isn't much in this world that Clark likes more than just Bruce's hands on him. Which doesn't mean it's not fun to deviate, to play with being denied exactly that, but part of what makes the red sun lamp as appealing as it is is the intensity of contact, giving and getting.
He groans out loud when Bruce pushes his fingers in without pause, and again when again. He's already slowly winding up the reins on self-control, a grip that once again threatens the longterm integrity of the nice sheets he's on in a fist, when he recognises the patience and deliberation on Bruce's half.
Instruction contrarily encourages the opposite, a warning pulse of arousal.
There is a breathed okay out of Clark, half-muffled against the bedding. The added sensory layer of overworked skin, sore muscle, nerves on fire, all hum together, discomfort and pleasure itching the same scratch. Probably because of careful treatment than in spite of it, but this doesn't prevent Clark from shifting enough to lift his hips a little off the bed, slightly too beyond the point of being self-conscious.
The next deliberate, probing push against that spot get another groan, another 'Bruce', breathed out, a complaint that isn't.
Clark's reactions are intoxicating. A kind of high that's unique to this sort of thing, but that Bruce still very rarely achieves. (He has investigated and discarded reddit threads about fabled domspace. That is not this; that probably does not exist, for reasons of the way brain chemicals work.) A shockingly clear connection of trust that feels raw and, in some was, scathing; he feels transparent, but unafraid of it.
He could hurt him, but he won't. His mind doesn't recognize the possibility of doing so, nor the possibility that Clark might worry about it.
Bruce kisses his shoulder. Thinks, I love you, doesn't manage to say so.
He hitches forward and changes a few angles, stilling his hand's movement to instead hold right there, barely moving just the tips of his fingers. Puts an ache in his wrist, but it's worth it. He knows Clark can come without a hand on his cock, and that this is dangerous territory. And so, after a torturous moment, he suddenly withdraws.
No time given for any acclimation, Bruce gives him an affectionate almost-slap on one asscheek before he's hauling Clark over onto his front again, but this time, pulling him up onto his knees. He manhandles him so that his thighs are spread wide enough to risk unbalancing him, forcing him to either uncomfortably move forward - which Bruce prevents by pressing down on his shoulders - or lean back. He feels himself on edge, too, but he refuses to acknowledge it. Not yet.
Bruce runs his hand over Clark's spine, up and down, and settles in behind him, position clear and obvious. He leans in, tucked up behind him, lets his cock slide in the cleft of his ass.
Here is where he'd ask, Okay? if not for following Clark's instructions.
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no subject
Bruce had promised him: Every knife edge you want to find, and feel, we'll sink into.
He brings his hand down on Clark's ass again, harder this time. He has enough control and precision to get it exactly on the same spot, amplifying the sensation twofold. He runs the knuckles of his other hand between Clark's legs, brushing up against his balls, not quite anything else, back again to stroke his thumb over his hole and the sticky mess he's made of it. Even his own mouth feels a touch raw with friction. Hard fingers dig into the deepening red mark. His voice is harsh,
"Which do you want more of the most?"
no subject
And. He's being quizzed on a complex topic, that being, what does he want more of the most. One of his hands has wrangled a fistful of sheet, just for something to grip, and he lets out a harsh sounding breath as Bruce's fingers dig against him.
"The hitting," comes out harsh, half-whispered. It feels like a trust fall, even now, even after he already asked for this, after they talked about, after it's already started. It's not a bad thing, when you're caught. He swallows, musters up another morsel of courage and breath in his lungs, asks, "Will you do it 'til I say?"
He's not sure if that's how this works, really, but on Clark's side, he's only ever made this up as he goes.
no subject
"Yes."
Of course, sweetheart. He doesn't say that. Frequently, Bruce does not say that, but almost does; a specific word assigned to Clark in his head. The first time he almost said it, the other man had inhaled a barrel of fatal neurotoxin and stumbled through Gotham like a sixteen-year-old after his first margarita. Something in him clenches, seizes. It's too bad Clark can't hear his heart.
(Un)speaking of,
"Only I can hear you, up here."
It's just them. Their own private world, with expensive sound-proof walls, locks, security cameras, and a Do Not Disturb protocol that would only be broken by an emergency page from Alfred. Dryly joking about his socioeconomic authority, Bruce had said once, No one opens a door I've shut. And that is especially true here. Clark can say, shout, anything. Only Bruce will ever hear it. And it's all safe in his head.
Crack. Without warning, another one. Then again. He gives the same initial spot a hard strike, but then moves, painting his ass and the tops of his thighs with a reddening bloom.
no subject
Which is also new, in a way, not just for the pain factor, but the absence of superhuman reflexes. If something's coming at him fast, he can watch it, feel it happen, decide what to do next, like a more sophisticated set of responses than a more human flinch-signal through his nervous system. His processing feels slower when he doesn't have the kind of physiology that can respond to anything faster.
Anyway. There's no flinch until after Bruce's hand lands on him, a human-like delay between impact and response, hips jerking forwards some, more if it wasn't for the other man's grip. And again, this time getting a sound out of Clark, a breathless grunt. The next against a new spot is less painful but has him gasping in. His hands close into fists.
Bruce's hand lands somewhere particularly sensitive, some midway point between thigh and ass, a sharper cry startled out of Clark, but he only pushes his hips back up.
no subject
This position is somewhat odd for it all. But it avoids any awkward mimicry of role playing punishment; Clark isn't over his knees. Bruce isn't standing up behind him with a whip. It's an introductory that's as organic and almost-accidental as everything else they've stumbled into, and it's shockingly beautiful. Clark and his back exposed and flexing, flinching, his bound arms cross-crossed in black, his ass tipped up into Bruce's hands.
The physical exertion of hitting him has made his erection flag, blood flow directed elsewhere, but arousal is still practically choking him. It's held there in an iron grip, unable to go higher or seek fulfilment. After Clark pushes back, cries out in a particular way, Bruce leans over him to press a kiss against the center of his spine, both hands firmly on him. Approval, not apology.
no subject
The position is also becoming its own source of discomfort, shoulders and hips and back and sides all beginning to burn in ways he's not strictly familiar with. More and more, Bruce will notice the telltale signs of little adjustments in an attempt to relieve some of that pressure, the weight of Clark in the grip he keeps on him. But no bailing out of it, keeping his hips hitched high, and his erection still holding heavy throughout.
There's no words despite the invitation, but it doesn't sound like something is being held back behind the gasps and the near-whines in the wake of certain slaps, just letting it happen. That last groan is shuddered out of him, that near-sobbed sound of mindless sensation, and the sigh out when Bruce leans in to kiss his back is all relief. The hands resting on burning skin feels somehow soothing and also too much, and Clark lowers himself a little, a hummed noise of appreciation as muscles that had been held tense relax by just a fraction.
He forces his fingers to unclench from those fists, one hand flagging up, flopping back down. "When," breathed out, and audible in his tone is the subtle curve of a smile at the edge of his mouth.
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Another kiss, a knot of vertebra, and then he's leaning over to one side, fishing something out of the mess of instruments laid out beside them. One hand always kept on Clark. Turns out it's the emergency shears, which he uses to snip him free of the wraps on his arms. They're still spiralled around him, and there's still the cuffs, but he'll be able to almost fully relax in this position.
Incidentally, leading that far over him means Bruce presses up against his recently-abused bum, which might feel a certain way, his cock half-hard and twitching just so with interest as he leans. Oof, Bruce grunts some low sound as he slides his hands over Clark's ribs.
It's a high for him, too.
"You did that very well."
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Oof, indeed.
"Really?" isn't disbelieving, just interested. Glad, too. There are probably a lot of endorphins happening. He rubs his hips a little against the bedsheets when Bruce slides his hands up his sides, then forces himself to be still. His breath is mostly caught, now, as he adds, "You did all the doing. Also very well."
He has the sense that that can go all kinds of ways, different levels, different pace, and it's good of Bruce to take him seriously and dial it right up.
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"Teamwork," he murmurs.
Intuition and experience and having discussed it helped, too.
One palm skims over his ass, careful over the abraded skin. It's the middle of the night, but if Bruce pulled back one of the curtains and turned the red light off, the ambient radiation would still sink into Clark's cells and heal him. Slower than at high noon, but he could watch him transform all the same.
Faintly amused, then, "Do you want me to brush my teeth?"
Sometimes you are a superhero and sometimes you are really painfully normal.
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He gives a soft, abashed laugh at that comment. Yes, that sure happened, happened intensely enough that he was close to throwing their whole agenda out the window.
It seems kind of precious to be squeamish about the prospect of putting his mouth on Bruce's mouth, at this point. "I don't want you going anywhere," he says. His voice is rougher at the edges, eyes hooding as he feels Bruce's palm skim over sensitive flesh. He'll be grateful tomorrow for his own healing, but for now, is almost as curious about the way all that lingers as he was about acquiring it in the first place.
Speaking of, "How're your hands?"
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(Once in early days, a particularly embarrassing tabloid incident in a hotel - not for him, not really, but for the shame and torment it had brought his date. Alfred's cold rebuke still prickles him now and again, decades later; You may not have any respect for the act but your partners should be treated with dignity. If you were at all a gentleman about it you'd have brought her home, at least.
Should I, do you mind if we, should we—
Manners. For these little personal things. Mind-reading for hitting each other.)
"Mm." Bruce doesn't particularly want to move, either. He leans forward, almost draped over Clark's back except for how he can still hold himself up at such an angle, stroking over his shoulder and closer to show him one hand, palm up. A little reddened, but: "Not as bad as you."
Some of us are used to hitting things without superpowers. Bruce thumbs his chin, playful, before he turns his head and uses his other hand to pick something else up. The tube of aloe. Click, pop. Cold gel, suddenly, on Clark's skin.
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And reminded again when that chemical cold hits his skin, jarring before it's soothing. He smiles to himself a little. It's a nice and thoughtful step to bother with, when they both know that he could just revert back to normal with the flick of a switch and a curtain.
But Clark is not naïve to the concept of aftercare. He feels fine. Maybe he'd feel less fine if things skewed differently. Impossible to say.
"That feels nice," he says, another sigh. Content to just lay here and be Tended To, that's fine, his ego and sense of decorum can take it. Then, "All of it did. Even when it was painful." And painful it was, pushing towards that brink. He thinks he might have taken more of it, he thinks he could, curiousity for extremes at war with the more simple directive of having a nice time, but not much of a war. Starting hard, early, negated most of that dithering.
Anyway. Thinking out loud. Fishing for insight. Is this normal. Bruce, resident expert on that, please weigh in.
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"Pleasure and pain are controlled by the same pathways and neurotransmitters in the brain," Bruce tells him, his voice low and content. This could be a boring talk. He doesn't think so. "When the right factors come together, your mind can lose the ability to determine why one's supposed to be bad, even if it still hurts. And all that's left is the intensity."
He gets goes about helping Clark shift up onto his side, and he slips one arm around to his front. Getting more aloe, stroking it over his chest, and all the marks he left there. Over-pinched nipples and then lower, barely grazing over his cock, to the bruises from clothespins on his thighs. Bruce lets him lean back onto him, tucking his other arm under Clark's head.
"Some people can't ever find the right conditions. Others don't know how to accept pleasure on its own. I think you want... too much. The way I want too much."
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It's not boring, the talk. Even if his physical movements are sleepy, cosy, he's alert, listening. At the very last thing he says, he smiles to himself, turns his head to lay a nuzzled kiss against Bruce's arm, quiet appreciation for
well, framing their weirdness as something human and shared, not just alien.
"I think I like whatever you wanna give me," is more flirtation than factual, but also: factual. His hand has wandered back, touching Bruce's hip, tracing his fingertips down his thigh, up again, soft butterfly tickles of contact.
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Bruce drops a kiss on his shoulder. "Either that. Or have you restrained with your arms over your head, on your knees. Let gravity pull you back onto my cock." Lazy filth. Another small kiss, around the pleasing curve of his acromioclavicular joint. "Mm. What about somewhere sunny, quiet. If I just want to touch you slowly, barely going anywhere with it."
Once, Bruce had stayed at a Holiday Inn on the other side of Smallville near its neighboring town, Coldwater, to deal with some Comanche County Bank nonsense. It was the most ridiculous Bruce Wayne had ever looked, sitting in the taupe and floral particle-board room. But it had large windows looking out into the plains, bright light streaming in. A rattling, barely-functional AC. The bed squeaked. The covered porch at the back of the Kent farmhouse would have been more picturesque, but there'd been other parties to be respectful of. He thinks of it now, strangely, while he guides Clark to lean fully back against him, spooned, his cock snug and aloe-slick against his ass. He pets down the younger man's abdominals and lower, before covering his cock with a wide palm. Doing nothing further, then, just holding him - them - there.
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Clark thinks maybe he tricks himself into imagining these encounters as once-offs. Again, but for the last time, things like that, and not for any reason but the fact that so much of how they've interacted up until this point has felt spontaneous. The long-unspoken more popular purpose of the red sun lamp, the natural lead in of ~revenge~ for getting Bruce in handcuffs, and even outside of this: aquarium dates, 'I love you's long after they became true, kisses at Christmas.
But it's nice to not imagine that, to think of a next time, to think more deeply about the things he wants Bruce to do to him, the things he wants to do to Bruce. Maybe it won't ever not be a little about respective hang ups, control issues, alienness, wanting too much, whatever other strange chemical components make up their unique alchemy, but maybe it's just about sex too. How indulgent, he thinks, if not in so many words, while spooning in a penthouse they've dedicated to this in particular.
Clark shifts in place where he's held, but not restlessly or uncomfortably, letting out a sigh as Bruce's hand cups him, everything still feeling interested and sensitive down there. The shifting teases a little at the familiar shape of Bruce pressed against him, remembering the way he rutted into him mere minutes ago with a warm, internal shiver.
"Pretty good, actually," he corrects himself.
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Pressing together like this is not going to encourage Bruce's erection to fade. It's alright. He considers tugging the curtain back, staring out into the city, but that would require moving. It would also take off the table the opportunity for Clark to get fucked feeling so bruised as post-high euphoric, if he so wishes. There's plenty of time to decide.
Bruce manages to get his other hand, with the arm tucked under Clark's head, out to flex his fingers and reach for the other man's free one. C'mere. He circles around where his wrist had been in the cuff, stroking it, pressing his thumb over the pulse point. For no reason other than the pleasure of it, as he settles with his cheek against dark hair.
(I love you. You're becoming everything to me. It's either going to save everything or end the world. Should I wish for it to be meaningless.)
"Feeling alright? Besides that one out of three lurking in the wings."
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A little dreamy while his body processes whatever rush of brain chemicals he's been working through, but present. Hand turning a little in the gentle grip to his wrist, body settling into being held like this, which isn't a frequent activity for men of their size, feeling Bruce's heartbeat and breath instead of the usual hearing. There is time to decide.
He could easily let arousal slip away or even out into something comfortable, could slip asleep while his body soaks up ambient solar radiation or maybe prolong that last part so he can drowse like a human, just a little while longer.
Or, you know, that stuff but later.
Because after some comfortable silence, he turns just a little bit, not enough to profoundly disrupt the way they're laying, but he can draw that hand up from resting on Bruce's flank to up and back, touching his hair. "I don't wanna be done yet," he says.
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He has to set it aside. He thinks his heart might cave in, if he missed any small moment of this.
Bruce presses a kiss to the back of the other man's head, near his ear. "What do you want to do?"
He still has a hold of Clark's wrist, and he strokes over a barely-visible, blue tinged vein. He lets the fingers of his other hand move just so, petting his cock, and nudges one knee forward into the back of his. Tucking in closer, holding him all over.
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But he doesn't want to wait to get bored, or for someone to get a neck cramp, and end it that way. His fingers spread through Bruce's hair, cradling his skull and letting fingernails bite in, and seeking out those little points he knows feels nice.
"I'd like to fuck," he says, and it's very rare he can get away with That Kind Of Language in this context without a smile, and now is no exception. "And you're not allowed to go too easy on me."
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"Gosh, Kansas."
Awfully forward of you. Bruce kisses the side of his neck, squeezes his wrist slow and steady like he's hugging him, not restraining him. Sinks his teeth in where he'd placed that kiss, as slow and steady as that hold on him. Hard, harder, sucking at it, leaving a lurid red mark that nearly draws blood. Nothing easy about it, despite the lazy pace. A sinking back into the deep waters of that mood, inside of being electrocuted.
Maybe. Let's see. Bruce pulls his hands back, careful, dragging the one that had been around his cock up over his belly and ribs. He fetches the aloe again and gets his fingers wet, nudges Clark a little further over onto his front, and reaches between them to push inside of him.
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(There'd been a slight laugh at mock-chastising. Maybe he will ask Bruce to make love to him sometime, see how that goes down.)
He moves as nudged, letting his legs fall further apart again as Bruce touches him. There's an ache there, now, from the positioned he'd sustained minutes ago, muscle fatigue in a way that's new and different and not bad, exactly. An odd and comfortable burn to lean into. He wonders what a bath of ice feels like.
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Bruce pushes slick fingers into him, careful since he knows Clark might be sensitive from stubble-burn and sore from being spanked, but steady, without hesitation. The pause comes once he's in up to his knuckles, letting him get used to it for a moment before he begins to work him open. More than that, though, he fucks him deep with his fingers, and makes a point of pressing against his prostate. Usually when they have sex like this, preparation is just that, maybe some extra playing if they're feeling patient enough for it (which is not the norm), and he hasn't taken such dedicated efforts before.
What's easy? Is it about pain, or,
"Don't come." Pushing there against that gland, relentless.
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He groans out loud when Bruce pushes his fingers in without pause, and again when again. He's already slowly winding up the reins on self-control, a grip that once again threatens the longterm integrity of the nice sheets he's on in a fist, when he recognises the patience and deliberation on Bruce's half.
Instruction contrarily encourages the opposite, a warning pulse of arousal.
There is a breathed okay out of Clark, half-muffled against the bedding. The added sensory layer of overworked skin, sore muscle, nerves on fire, all hum together, discomfort and pleasure itching the same scratch. Probably because of careful treatment than in spite of it, but this doesn't prevent Clark from shifting enough to lift his hips a little off the bed, slightly too beyond the point of being self-conscious.
The next deliberate, probing push against that spot get another groan, another 'Bruce', breathed out, a complaint that isn't.
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He could hurt him, but he won't. His mind doesn't recognize the possibility of doing so, nor the possibility that Clark might worry about it.
Bruce kisses his shoulder. Thinks, I love you, doesn't manage to say so.
He hitches forward and changes a few angles, stilling his hand's movement to instead hold right there, barely moving just the tips of his fingers. Puts an ache in his wrist, but it's worth it. He knows Clark can come without a hand on his cock, and that this is dangerous territory. And so, after a torturous moment, he suddenly withdraws.
No time given for any acclimation, Bruce gives him an affectionate almost-slap on one asscheek before he's hauling Clark over onto his front again, but this time, pulling him up onto his knees. He manhandles him so that his thighs are spread wide enough to risk unbalancing him, forcing him to either uncomfortably move forward - which Bruce prevents by pressing down on his shoulders - or lean back. He feels himself on edge, too, but he refuses to acknowledge it. Not yet.
Bruce runs his hand over Clark's spine, up and down, and settles in behind him, position clear and obvious. He leans in, tucked up behind him, lets his cock slide in the cleft of his ass.
Here is where he'd ask, Okay? if not for following Clark's instructions.
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