solarcore: (#11893084)

[personal profile] solarcore 2017-12-10 07:08 am (UTC)(link)
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.
solarcore: (#11893086)

[personal profile] solarcore 2017-12-10 08:34 am (UTC)(link)
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

then an attempt is made.

"You want to know what I think?"
solarcore: (#11899928)

[personal profile] solarcore 2017-12-10 09:15 am (UTC)(link)
Oh well in that case Clark Kent of the Daily Planet will not share what he's

just kidding.

But after a moment, first adapting to the slow down, an uncertain look flashing across his face before he focuses. Paying attention, possibly to Bruce's expectations, possibly not. For the layman, this probably feels silly, and he is something like that himself, and so feels it, but wanting to take this seriously overrides it.

Speaking of overrides, it's probably clear that whatever he was going to say has been taken over by something else, maybe something stupider, given his entire self.

"That you're impressive," is what comes out of his face around when he slow motion fails to deflect the next slow motion strike he didn't slow motion anticipate, maybe with a self-conscious uptick at the corner of his mouth, but eyes dreadfully earnest, down to the bitty patch of brown marked in all the blue.
solarcore: (#11893084)

[personal profile] solarcore 2017-12-11 11:47 am (UTC)(link)
Surprised, and disbelieving in a way that doesn't seem skeptical, which is important, and he can't help but like being capable of surprising Bruce Wayne in ways he chooses. Clark swallows in the wake of the barely-felt tag to his throat, backing up a step himself. His hand chases the touch without really thinking about, banishing the lingering tickle of it with the flat of his palm.

Smiles, a little, says, "And winning."

It's very possible that he has flustered himself in the wake of open silence, because playing it off isn't supereffective. But okay about it, really, no walls within him to shift into place.
solarcore: (Default)

[personal profile] solarcore 2017-12-11 11:25 pm (UTC)(link)
"Weird?"

Seems like a rich description to ask of Superman to assign anything, especially as directed by Batman -- and at the same time, maybe too vast a category for someone whose first seventeen years of their life was spent in a place called Smallville, Kansas. Mountains qualify as weird.

"I skipped most big city centres," Clark says, of Gotham, hands dropping to fidget again with one another. "Weirdest place was probably as far west as I got before going north. Desert town, if-- marble and pink limestone open mall palace and parking lot can qualify as a town. I had a dish washing job, there. Couldn't tell you where the other employees went every night, and every customer was just passing through. Transitional. Should have been perfect for me."

He didn't last a week, say his eyebrows. Rootless wandering, he can handle, but places that seem to exist like oil on water are unsettling. Five generations of Kents, turning over soil, make an impression.

"But normal's my home state's main export." Next to corn.
solarcore: (#11916687)

[personal profile] solarcore 2017-12-12 01:01 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah, his eyebrows say back. Go figure.

"I did the Appalachian Trail when I..." Clark trails off there, unsure exactly how to put words around that unique compounding of frustration and loneliness and desperate need to figure things out in a way that doesn't sound, you know, melodramatic. He gives up on that quickly enough. "Well, I'd been wanting to do it, made it something to work towards. Took about six months to fund it, and we're talking-- pocket change, by the time I was ready."

Most would have run out, midway through, maybe less. It takes months. He knew then he didn't need things like people needed them. "It's not all solitary. Cabins, camp sites, other hikers, even the noise? Of woodlands like that? But there's the portion around the Tennessee-North Carolina border, where you can see all around, mountains and forests, indifferent and ancient."

He then stops, thinks, says, "It was beautiful, but. Maybe that's not a favourite place. Just a favourite time.

"What about you? Or is Gotham just weirdest and best?"
solarcore: (#11916683)

[personal profile] solarcore 2017-12-12 02:29 am (UTC)(link)
Having talked himself away from the thinking about dead parents, Clark's smile communicates something like how isn't it neat that Bruce likes remote mountainous locations too. They're practically twins.

Maybe more than that. It's not lost on him, the slight oddness and suddenness of the conversation, questions like a stick digging around in the sand, even if he's not entirely sure what Bruce is looking for. Something to understand, maybe, and he's happy to oblige, to fall into the odd rhythm of it just as he is trusting in the over-slow movements of punches and blocks.

"I'd never been overseas until I figured out how to fly," he says, presently. It's a good thing that the ancient Kryptonians touched down in Canada. "When was Tibet?"
solarcore: (#11893084)

[personal profile] solarcore 2017-12-12 06:54 am (UTC)(link)
Clark has done his homework too, although isn't currently doing the math. There's an inquiring look at the numbers -- yeah? -- before concentrating on what he's doing. Fighting very slow phantoms. Starting to get it, though, less just miming and more concentrating on the intricacies of the movements, how he's balanced, what he's doing with the rest of himself when he pulls his right arm back to deploy a strike.

And if chest hair shows up during as neckline tugs with movement, these are the sacrifices we have to make.

Another smile, this time more crooked than the last. "France was fine," sounds genuine, despite the fairly tepid descriptor assigned to a whole nation. "First time I actually touched down there that I can recall, but didn't get up to much sight seeing. Diana was pretty set on not destroying any property while we practiced. Startled some cows instead. They got nice country."

Of course they do.

"You trained in Tibet, or?"
solarcore: (Default)

[personal profile] solarcore 2017-12-13 02:01 am (UTC)(link)
This time--

Well, this time, Bruce's foot catches on an immovable object, Clark instinctively setting heel to floor without thinking about it beyond a muscle memory desire to escape the indignity of last time. Topside, he doesn't cheat as much, other arm coming around in a deflection designed to buckle Bruce's strike, leaning backwards.

Belatedly, that foot lifts to step out of the grapple, this side shy of sheepish.

The problem with the bored brick wall effect is that it does not change the ways Bruce is, personally, in action and history and existence, endlessly fascinating, and still impressive. Clark should find it off-putting, the deflection, the blanking. He mostly finds it frustrates his curiousity without doing anything to quell it.

Without prompt, Clark goes to do as Bruce did: foot to ankle, hand to arm, mostly to see what he does as opposed to ardent desire to put him on his ass.
solarcore: (#11916688)

[personal profile] solarcore 2017-12-13 02:45 am (UTC)(link)
Satisfaction of apparently having Done The Thing effectively enough to catch Bruce out -- because even if he had activated his X-ray vision, it does not give Clark insight into the branching scenarios almost lazily contemplated inside of his opponent's skull -- quickly turns into a flutter of panic about what he's supposed to do next by the time Bruce's hands tighten on shirt and arm. In normal scenarios, remaining perfectly in place is a likely given. Flying backwards another one.

Presence of mind to have kept those tabled, Clark responds to full-bodied tug by startling, pitching forwards.

Bonk.

Any roll-back momentum is too immediately countered by Clark Kent landing heavy on top of him, a half-aborted attempt at breaking grip laying forearm against a shoulder, knee jabbing thigh and the other braced against mat, other hand flung out wildly to absorb some of his own weight onto the floor next to Bruce's shoulder. Face to startled face as Clark jerks his head back by an inch, zero idea of what to do next has him going still in place.
solarcore: (#11893097)

[personal profile] solarcore 2017-12-13 03:29 am (UTC)(link)
Bruce relaxes. Clark does too, a little, making only a subtle adjustment to make the position less physically awkward, if no less-- otherwise awkward. He awaits instruction, complaint, signal to move -- should probably not wait for any of that and just roll off like a normal person -- and thinks that even with the ability to telescope his vision to identify where subtle silver has threaded itself into Batman's five o'clock stubble from two blocks away, it's different up close. Mutual absorption of detail.

Detail coming attached with opinion, like how his age suits him, how brown eyes no longer seem as murky and walled off as they usually do but like wood cut to transparency and brought to a polish, and wondering what else it might take for Bruce not to school his expression so perfectly.

Beside Bruce's shoulder, his fingers curl inwards, as conscious as a wild animal of movement, brow pulling at the centre. Tension returning, kindled differently.

And then a knee to the torso, too densely made for it to drive the breath out of him but his breath still hitches anyway. Clark rolls as heavily as a log and lands with an over loud thump of his shoulders hitting padded ground. The next breath is a semi-laugh, head falling back against the ground. Cool cool cool.
solarcore: <user name="oslo" site="insanejournal.com"> (216)

[personal profile] solarcore 2017-12-13 07:25 am (UTC)(link)
Clark looks at him from where he remains on his back, sort of playing at an exhaustion or defeat he doesn't feel. Feet slack at the ankles, hand idling on his stomach. His smile closes, less toothy, but still there. You ever feel ways about the people who trained you?

Is not an appropriate follow-up, but it scrolls through his brain like a news ticker. Considers the ceiling again, does not make comparisons about how quickly his body sheds sensation, no twinges, no aches, in contrast to where his knee thumped down on Bruce's thigh, because he lacks the proper frame of reference.

Doesn't mean he's going to forget much about it, though.

"Makes sense."

There's no Bat Academy, after all. No one thing that made Bruce what he is. The world wasn't equipped to do it, in the way Themyscira grew her soldiers, or Krypton forged gods. He remembers something, in his Kryptonite memory haze, about how Bruce had to force the world to make sense.
solarcore: (080)

[personal profile] solarcore 2017-12-13 08:45 am (UTC)(link)
Clark gets to his feet as Bruce does, his expression just a touch expectant that the other man will say something less utilitarian. Foolishly. Mention of showers sort of tips his brain in a whole other wrong direction but corrects itself quickly enough, frowning at the shift that's taken place instead.

Not shocking, though.

"Of course," he says, midwestern manners in place, a handwave to assure he can see himself out and everything. There's probably some disaster waiting for him in another timezone, maybe one he missed while wrestling bat. The shadow of responsibility on his time has its ebbs and flows.

Clark steps aside, even if he doesn't all the way want to, and throws out a last hook with, "Bruce," followed by, "thanks for this. Until next time?"

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