Before Clark stepped into view, he'd made himself at home. The dramatic glamour of his suit has been exchanged for some of the clothes he keeps here, much more ordinary sweatpants and T-shirt, barefeet on concrete. An easy quick-change en route. He tries not to fly in his plainclothes. He avoids wearing the suit if his intent it to stay a while.
His eyebrows winch together at that question. Like it's been a minute since he's gotten a don't you have somewhere to be, because they both know it: always, and constantly.
"Slow enough," Clark says, anyway. No big fires, no natural disasters, no acts of terrorism.
(He hasn't approached Diana, yet. He wants to. He hasn't decided, and fortunately, they were not so tightknit here as for his more deliberate distance to be noticed.)
He moves on closer, the purposeful pace he'd set coming down here now gentling. "How're you doing?" is more to the point.
A light jab. Isn't there a kitten up a tree. Has to defend against the decisive opener of pajamas without looking like he's defending. Bruce does not sound more stressed out by that, even in the deepest recesses of his ventricles, but he sort of is. To tell him now— you can't stay, actually, I want to be alone— is a bigger disagreement than Bruce wants.
Eyebrows go up, in response to that question, and he glances around. Computers, notes on a corporate case in progress, monitors for a few sketchy downtown blocks.
"Doing the same as ever," he says. "Why, do I sound like I have cancer, or something?"
It occurs to him as he says it, deadpan 'humor' aside, that Clark could probably tell if he did. And isn't that thrilling. He tries not to stare too hard; he's missed him. But that doesn't really matter.
Clark's eyebrows do the chastising he doesn't say out loud. Bruce, please.
Mild, for that, but there. There's a wheeled chair nearby that Clark scoots around and helps himself to, slipping into proximity with the apparent ease they'd found in the depths of space, but feeling—conscious of it, like he's swimming against a current. He would like to scoot closer, nudge their knees together, kiss whatever available corner of Bruce's face—
It's either instinct that stays that presumption or Bruce has been successful in assembling some distance between them, Clark isn't sure which. Still. He wanted to use his words anyway.
"You said you weren't feeling well?" is a prompt, more boyfriend behaviour than journalistic. It was an odd message to receive, not very Bruce-like. He'd tried to imagine what tone of voice it would be delivered in, and came up kind of short.
Bruce looks at him. He did say that. Texted it, rather. A strange thing to have done, and he had issued that statement with the understanding that it would be noticed. A calculated risk, weighed against the potential for another kind of bigger disagreement for saying nothing.
Still. He does not love being asked.
"I didn't want to seem like I was hiding something," he says. Bruce wouldn't have considered not mentioning it to be hiding, but he's aware it would be taken that way; his sense of his own privacy versus his sense of entitlement about other people's business has a stark divide. He thinks that's fine— other people are not Batman, other people do not have billions of dollars at their disposal, other people did not watch their parents get their brains blown out in front of them. His reasons for staying so private, and his reasons for expecting access, are unique.
(...So there.)
Clark is his partner. (One of. Polyagony, it's called.) Bruce wants to be worth that. Here, a small attempt at being open, even as he's isolating himself.
'Didn't want to seem like' is different from 'didn't want to, period', but extracting that kind of admission from Bruce at all has been comparable to blood from a stone, enough that the quizzical edges from Clark's concern soften.
"Okay," he says. "Good. I mean, I'm glad you didn't."
He's missed him too, and by now he feels like it has to be a mutual feeling. It's just a question of how much currency it has against whatever else might be going on. Still, Clark pushes into that pressure, that distance, imaginary or not, enough that he can reach across with the aim of taking Bruce's hand into both of his. Warm skin, smooth, impossibly gentle for all the strength that lives there.
It had been strange, but good: living together, finding it easy. Houseplants, day jobs, frivolous outings. The setting was absurd and sometimes dire, but there was more downtime than crisis days, even on a spaceship in another universe. An interesting and special vacation into life as a couple. But they aren't; they don't live together, and in fact, are able to spend very little time together all said and done.
Bruce huffs a quiet laugh, the kind people who aren't close to him rarely see. He reaches up with his free hand and touches his chin, brief.
"Don't take it so seriously," he says, and then retrieves both of his hands so that he can turn back to his computer and see to a pinging alert. Nothing serious, but it diffuses the earnest emotion without being dismissive (he hopes). "It's just an inevitable note. Coming back from the other universe wasn't seamless. We were changed despite returning to the same 'time.' From what I've been able to narrow down, the reinsertion was more about reality than temporal integrity. Changes that are possible in this world stuck, others didn't. Memory, but no empathy bond. Jumpsuits, but not nanites."
—for how seriously he should or should not be taking it, the text message, or Bruce's wellness???, an inevitability: a sceptical slant to his mouth, an eyebrow twinge. But he listens anyway, a glance to the monitor and back to Bruce, empty hands folding together as Clark sits back in his seat. He feels like he has to decide whether to feel condescended to or reassured, but more importantly
like maybe an empathy bond would be convenient to have, right now, and not just to siphon a true impression out of whatever's going on in Bruce's head and heart, but it's a two-way street. Maybe he could unload his own odd churn of feeling into someone with a more analytical ability to articulate things.
"I guess that makes sense," Clark says, slowly. "Considering what conclusions we could draw from Diana." A beat, and he asks, "Have you talked to her?"
As far as verbal door closes go, that one's not a slam, though there's a note in his tone that says clearly he isn't willing to discuss her. (If it even matters; if that was even her, as they know her. Jason was different. From somewhere else, like Barry may have been from somewhere, sometime else— that a Diana a hundred years removed from them is not their Diana is the easiest explanation in a barrel of odd ones.)
Bad form. Bruce has been close to intimate with her, in a number of ways, even before the three of them - him, Clark, Lois - made things suitably official. He should talk about her; it's verging on awful, that he won't. Not Diana, not the ex that still texts him.
But—
Bruce finishes up the alert, and then looks back at Clark with a softer, if slightly wry, expression. "I was talking about my back, anyway."
It matters, thinks Clark, and its written on his expression in the pause after that gentle denial. Not so urgently that he feels the need to shoulder through to that conversation—still following Lois' advice, a little—but he pauses over the pause, maybe in hopes that Bruce will elaborate, give him something to work with.
He might. Wilder things have happened.
But what he does say is enough of a swerve that Clark goes with it, an immediate twitch of his eyeline that indicates a quick and effortless scan through Bruce, skeleton deep. The outlines of metal pieces, all familiar in a way that hadn't been for a while. Changes that are possible now clicks into place.
The first thing Clark had done when they realised what had happened, that they'd come back, was make sure Bruce wasn't about to bleed out all over again. It hadn't needed much investigation, Bruce on his feet, and the jumpsuit signalling something validating. And yet—
"That's not fair," he says, quiet as normal, sympathy plain.
It makes sense, that if nanites had achieved something beyond what their current worldly reality could accomplish, that those changes might get rejected. Like surgery, like programming. But fair, it is not.
Leave it to Clark to cut straight through to the most human reaction. It's a soft blow in his heart that he hadn't anticipated— though he should have. Bruce smiles, small and tired, but honest. He's right. It's not fair.
But not many things are, and Bruce is accustomed.
"I appreciated it while it lasted." Despite the circumstances and the body-horror experience of prosthetic inserts being purged from his body in real time, injecting himself with painkillers and watching his spine morph and change on a screen in front of him, it had resulted in a temporary reprieve from what has turned out to be, simply, reality. He got to show off a little, see what his post-prime years would have been like without that would-be crippling injury.
A benefit of being so naturally pessimistic is that bitterness becomes more difficult to achieve; of course this didn't stick, that'd have been too easy.
"Working with the nanites has given me ideas about how to achieve something similar here," he says with a shrug. "Might even be do-able before I die of old age, with Victor's insight. But... for now, I'm still re-adjusting. It might have been physically 'imaginary', but it's throwing my brain for a loop. Intermittent pain and weakness I haven't felt since immediately post-op, as if I'm not used to it anymore. So. No work in the suit, for a bit."
"That's not a bad idea," Clark says, with a tip at his brow. Understatement. Maybe relieved, that Bruce has already arrived at that conclusion. Maybe there's time to breathe, maybe the reality of it is too much of a brickwall for even Batman to ignore, but either way.
If there's some part of him that might not love that he's only being told days later, if only because he could have, what, been sympathetic sooner? It's easy to push aside. It's Bruce's business on a very personal, visceral level, and he's telling him now. One of those problems that Superman can't solve.
Well—
"There might be something in the ship archives," Clark says, after a moment spent pensively looking without absorbing the array of screens nearby, back to Bruce. "Or even the ship itself. I can do some digging, get you and Vic to take a look." They spent months on building a lamp that spends a lot of its time posted near the bed in a fancy penthouse, this seems like a worthy use of time too.
"Couldn't hurt." And people say Bruce Wayne has no sense of humor. Get a load of this guy. He smiles at Clark. Haha, he's hilarious. (Because it hurts, right now.)
But,
"It's not a priority. I've lived a lot of years as-is, and did plenty. I'll get back to baseline soon enough, and then continue steadily on the same inevitable decline, the way the universe intended."
Bruce does not like being mortal; it's very annoying. Both because he's increasingly less effective as time goes on, and because his survival instinct is so strong. Imagine, if he'd had the followthrough to actually kill himself. Maybe the Doomsday ordeal would never have happened. (Or, whispers another terrible voice, maybe no one would have been able to stop Doomsday.)
Clark's big breath in and release is a standard kind of response to this sort of dark, dry talk. It's a good thing he's cute.
The question is a change of topic. It's not going to stop Clark from deciding his own priorities, from baiting the hook to get Victor involved, from bringing it to Bruce when he's sure there's something there worth looking at, universe or no universe, but he's willing to shift lanes (ha) in the moment.
"Right where I left her," he says. "Glad we're okay, would probably prefer that next time we visit another dimension, we do it on purpose at least."
A beat, and then a subtle wheel-creak of the chair Clark is on as he almost subconsciously nudges himself closer. "You should come to dinner sometime. You missed her too."
"It's strange, how nearly seamless it was. I wonder if your mom noticed anything weird that night." A wheel squeak, Bruce swivels, but there's teasing in it. I'm fine, Kansas. "Alfred had drafted a few aborted pages about having a weird feeling. Parent-radar, maybe."
Whether Alfred thinks Bruce was hallucinating or not, who knows. He didn't explain much; they encountered a strange phenomenon, and experienced a difference in time. Without Clark as an alibi, it's likely his adopted father would worry about worsening mental illness. In silence, of course. The Wayne Household Way.
"I did miss her."
But I'm not her husband.
"I'm not used to that. The kind of time we spent together."
Clark had called his mom, visited. And nothing. Which had been nice, and nothing he felt the need to disturb, certainly did not want to explain. Just one more powerful force in the universe that could wrent people apart from one another.
His head tips, studying Bruce's face. It's a good face, nice to look at, hard to read sometimes, and that's fine. He thinks he got a little more literate, over the time they spent in extra-dimensional space.
"I don't know that we had enough time to get used to it," Clark suggests. A beat, and he adds, "But I didn't take it for granted. Maybe it's strange, missing that too, but."
But maybe not, is pronounced as a smile, small and quick.
Was he used to it? No. Difficult to be used to anything besides his normal— he wasn't even used to their arrangement here, before they'd found themselves in space. Taking that into consideration, he's surprised at himself, for handling it as well as he did. Not a single freakout about needing time alone, didn't do any biting Clark's head off. He always thought that would be unavoidable, if he cohabited with an intimate. Whenever it wasn't heaven with Selina it was hell, after all.
On the other hand, being on his best behavior was a conscious effort. Bruce isn't sure if it was natural and he's relieved at that, or if he hasn't yet relaxed after having held himself in check so carefully. He's done a lot of changing, since learning about Superman. How far will it go?
Quiet, for a while. Contemplation clear on his face.
"I'm not sure," he admits. "The trouble with liking anything is going back to normal."
Maybe normal as in metal bolts driven through your spine. Normal as in the imminent threat of apocalypse on a timeline, not just in dreams. The noise of the whole world, calling his name, and warped shadowed shapes in Gotham's ever-lasting cloud cover. There's a lot of normal to go back to.
But maybe some weird shit should remain. The echoes of domestic cohabitation. Clark offers a smile, hope and warmth and maybe some kind of reassurance, like, here he is, ready to be liked. Nanites gone, but memory remains, sensory instinct. They've changed.
"We could continue this conversation and play hooky at the same time," he says, indicating the monitors. Let 'em take a load off while they make out or watch a movie or visit an underrated Gotham attraction of Bruce's choice.
Bruce's life is all weird shit. It makes all the rest - domestic cohabitation, Clark smiling at him like that - completely insane. Normal is screws in his vertebrae, a shithole city, isolating himself, the paradoxical situation of being a monster that's only free when he puts on a literal mask. He doesn't want to be struggling, he doesn't want to be digging his heels in, but it's not easy, all of this.
He imagines it isn't easy for Clark, either, despite that smile. Bruce has come to the conclusion that he papers over quite a lot; pretty antique farmhouse wallpaper, even. Right over the cracks. Good as new.
Well. Maybe there aren't any right now, and it's just one of those things Bruce can't fucking wrap his head around. Treat it like a case, he thinks.
One eyebrow goes up. "Are you trying to get me to slack off on my very important crime fighting?"
Clark Kent, famous for his disrespect of deadlines, scoots in closer. "I could throw some dinner together," he suggests, by way of confirming that this is what he is doing. "It'll be made out of real food, this time."
If anyone could have told the difference between real food and the replication of such by way of protein paste, it'd be either of them. (Side bar: he'd given up the vegan thing towards the end in that it was all vegan anyway. Like Impossible Burger, he'd explained, over a burger, before also explaining Impossible Burger.)
And there, sneaky, gripping up under Bruce's chair to pull it nearer.
(Impossible Burger, like Qorn. Though Bruce had to admit that the 3D printed protein goop had a lot of miles on Earth's vegan substitutes.)
Chair, and bat, slide closer. He narrows his eyes at the alien sitting so serenely in his cave. Comically suspicious in a way that most people would take as actually suspicious, probably; the layers to Bruce's readability are fine and difficult to distinguish, but there's been time enough for Clark to become comfortably conversational. Bruce doesn't realize just how much trust he puts in that passive assumption, even in little ways.
Seconds of unbearable quiet tick by. Light from the largest monitor flickers over the sides of their faces.
It's true: Bruce makes jokes on purpose. What a relief to find that out, way back, and not too soon. Those seconds of unbearable quiet, too, are simply leaned into, rather than using this moment to overthink anything—on Clark's part, anyway. Bruce could comfortably disengage from this moment if he really wanted to—and hopefully because he really wanted to fight crime, not not be made dinner.
But he 'says' alright, and Clark echoes it, but doesn't get up and scamper to the kitchen. He leans across the space he's already closed up and nudges a kiss against Bruce's mouth. Gentle but insistent, not quick to break immediately.
Jokes on purpose, and very occasionally, one ends up funny. Now is not supposed to be terribly humorous, but behaving in a way that few people see, still feeling comfortable enough to do it, takes steps to thaw out the wall of ice he's slipped behind since returning to the real world. He does love Clark. He does miss him. And Lois, on both counts. But there's an instinct deep in him - one a lot of people who were orphaned young have, all other strangeness aside - to slip away from permanence. No one is immortal, everyone can be brutally taken away, in front of him, blood splattering back onto his face.
Even a Kryptonian, who he has already watched die once. Doesn't he deserve a better life than this?
Probably. But Bruce doesn't feel like kicking him out, especially when he's kissing him. His own response is slow, focused on it, and trying to let it drain his stubborn hesitancy like a cut under a snakebite.
Kinda works. Starts to, anyway. Better than nothing? He lays one hand on Clark's knee, and slightly above it; taps him there, when he gently pulls back. Well.
It is a start. A restart, maybe, a reset, and so Clark is glad for the soft, lingering focus of the kiss from Bruce, his hand resting where it is, while also trying not to yearn for more immediately. For Bruce to hold onto him, or to initiate a second. The absence of that feels distinct, but they've gone down these roads before and Clark can't convince himself that reservation on Bruce's end is Bruce suddenly wanting him less.
It's the change. The shock of normalcy and strangeness. They really were in a vacuum, back there, up there. Coming apart, needing to be put back in order. He hopes that's it, anyway. That it's something he can do.
The tip of his nose brushes Bruce's on exit, leaning back, standing up. Dinner.
There is a small supply of Clark-friendly ingredients and he knows where they live, even without X-ray vision. A can of jackfruit, chickpeas, some leafy things, tomatoes, are assembled. A half empty jar of curry paste in the fridge, with an expiry date of at least another year.
"I don't think mom trusts any meal you can cook in less than ten minutes," Clark is saying, scanning some cupboards. "Except breakfast, barely. 'You're just warming it up'. Do you have rice?"
It's clear out, on the other side of the glass wall that separates the kitchen from the wilds of inland New Jersey. Dense trees, a glimpse of the above-ground garage, and unseen, miles away, the reconstruction at Wayne Manor is getting on just as it was before they were whisked away to a spaceship in another dimension. Alfred has already made the living quarters off of that kitchen habitable, keen to return, even though he assures Bruce he's merely keeping busy.
"Brown rice," is sort of an accusation for Clark having asked. Is this what you want? Well this is what you get, from this cabinet up here, and it's all your fault.
Fancy, organic brown rice, in one of those nice wax-lined paper bags. Bruce hands it over, closing the cupboard after. It vanishes back into well-crafted uniformity with the rest of the wooden panel.
"I learned to cook in college. It was all about under ten minutes."
"Took me longer than that." Not that he did college, but there were a lot of gas station sandwiches in his young adulthood.
Clark receives the organic wax-paper enveloped brown rice with good grace, turning it in his hands to check cooking times. Okay, well, that's fine. He gets that going first so that he won't be staring at it awkwardly for too long. Despite the confused clash of midwestern instinct and being particular about food leading to Clark Kent making dinner for people he loves relatively often, he is not exactly a natural, and makes up for it by being deliberate, careful, precise, with exact cups of water and double-checked heat levels.
So for a minute the kitchen is mostly quiet focus, clinking metal, rush of water from space-age looking taps. Thinks about what to say, ponders the things they haven't addressed yet. Kind of wants to know what college age Bruce Wayne was like, but maybe he'd be better off asking Alfred.
Decides on:
"I had a morning deadline, the day after we got back. I'd known about it for about a week, before everything."
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His eyebrows winch together at that question. Like it's been a minute since he's gotten a don't you have somewhere to be, because they both know it: always, and constantly.
"Slow enough," Clark says, anyway. No big fires, no natural disasters, no acts of terrorism.
(He hasn't approached Diana, yet. He wants to. He hasn't decided, and fortunately, they were not so tightknit here as for his more deliberate distance to be noticed.)
He moves on closer, the purposeful pace he'd set coming down here now gentling. "How're you doing?" is more to the point.
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Eyebrows go up, in response to that question, and he glances around. Computers, notes on a corporate case in progress, monitors for a few sketchy downtown blocks.
"Doing the same as ever," he says. "Why, do I sound like I have cancer, or something?"
It occurs to him as he says it, deadpan 'humor' aside, that Clark could probably tell if he did. And isn't that thrilling. He tries not to stare too hard; he's missed him. But that doesn't really matter.
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Mild, for that, but there. There's a wheeled chair nearby that Clark scoots around and helps himself to, slipping into proximity with the apparent ease they'd found in the depths of space, but feeling—conscious of it, like he's swimming against a current. He would like to scoot closer, nudge their knees together, kiss whatever available corner of Bruce's face—
It's either instinct that stays that presumption or Bruce has been successful in assembling some distance between them, Clark isn't sure which. Still. He wanted to use his words anyway.
"You said you weren't feeling well?" is a prompt, more boyfriend behaviour than journalistic. It was an odd message to receive, not very Bruce-like. He'd tried to imagine what tone of voice it would be delivered in, and came up kind of short.
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Still. He does not love being asked.
"I didn't want to seem like I was hiding something," he says. Bruce wouldn't have considered not mentioning it to be hiding, but he's aware it would be taken that way; his sense of his own privacy versus his sense of entitlement about other people's business has a stark divide. He thinks that's fine— other people are not Batman, other people do not have billions of dollars at their disposal, other people did not watch their parents get their brains blown out in front of them. His reasons for staying so private, and his reasons for expecting access, are unique.
(...So there.)
Clark is his partner. (One of. Polyagony, it's called.) Bruce wants to be worth that. Here, a small attempt at being open, even as he's isolating himself.
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"Okay," he says. "Good. I mean, I'm glad you didn't."
He's missed him too, and by now he feels like it has to be a mutual feeling. It's just a question of how much currency it has against whatever else might be going on. Still, Clark pushes into that pressure, that distance, imaginary or not, enough that he can reach across with the aim of taking Bruce's hand into both of his. Warm skin, smooth, impossibly gentle for all the strength that lives there.
Clark asks, "Tell me about it," at the same time.
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Bruce huffs a quiet laugh, the kind people who aren't close to him rarely see. He reaches up with his free hand and touches his chin, brief.
"Don't take it so seriously," he says, and then retrieves both of his hands so that he can turn back to his computer and see to a pinging alert. Nothing serious, but it diffuses the earnest emotion without being dismissive (he hopes). "It's just an inevitable note. Coming back from the other universe wasn't seamless. We were changed despite returning to the same 'time.' From what I've been able to narrow down, the reinsertion was more about reality than temporal integrity. Changes that are possible in this world stuck, others didn't. Memory, but no empathy bond. Jumpsuits, but not nanites."
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—for how seriously he should or should not be taking it, the text message, or Bruce's wellness???, an inevitability: a sceptical slant to his mouth, an eyebrow twinge. But he listens anyway, a glance to the monitor and back to Bruce, empty hands folding together as Clark sits back in his seat. He feels like he has to decide whether to feel condescended to or reassured, but more importantly
like maybe an empathy bond would be convenient to have, right now, and not just to siphon a true impression out of whatever's going on in Bruce's head and heart, but it's a two-way street. Maybe he could unload his own odd churn of feeling into someone with a more analytical ability to articulate things.
"I guess that makes sense," Clark says, slowly. "Considering what conclusions we could draw from Diana." A beat, and he asks, "Have you talked to her?"
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As far as verbal door closes go, that one's not a slam, though there's a note in his tone that says clearly he isn't willing to discuss her. (If it even matters; if that was even her, as they know her. Jason was different. From somewhere else, like Barry may have been from somewhere, sometime else— that a Diana a hundred years removed from them is not their Diana is the easiest explanation in a barrel of odd ones.)
Bad form. Bruce has been close to intimate with her, in a number of ways, even before the three of them - him, Clark, Lois - made things suitably official. He should talk about her; it's verging on awful, that he won't. Not Diana, not the ex that still texts him.
But—
Bruce finishes up the alert, and then looks back at Clark with a softer, if slightly wry, expression. "I was talking about my back, anyway."
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He might. Wilder things have happened.
But what he does say is enough of a swerve that Clark goes with it, an immediate twitch of his eyeline that indicates a quick and effortless scan through Bruce, skeleton deep. The outlines of metal pieces, all familiar in a way that hadn't been for a while. Changes that are possible now clicks into place.
The first thing Clark had done when they realised what had happened, that they'd come back, was make sure Bruce wasn't about to bleed out all over again. It hadn't needed much investigation, Bruce on his feet, and the jumpsuit signalling something validating. And yet—
"That's not fair," he says, quiet as normal, sympathy plain.
It makes sense, that if nanites had achieved something beyond what their current worldly reality could accomplish, that those changes might get rejected. Like surgery, like programming. But fair, it is not.
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But not many things are, and Bruce is accustomed.
"I appreciated it while it lasted." Despite the circumstances and the body-horror experience of prosthetic inserts being purged from his body in real time, injecting himself with painkillers and watching his spine morph and change on a screen in front of him, it had resulted in a temporary reprieve from what has turned out to be, simply, reality. He got to show off a little, see what his post-prime years would have been like without that would-be crippling injury.
A benefit of being so naturally pessimistic is that bitterness becomes more difficult to achieve; of course this didn't stick, that'd have been too easy.
"Working with the nanites has given me ideas about how to achieve something similar here," he says with a shrug. "Might even be do-able before I die of old age, with Victor's insight. But... for now, I'm still re-adjusting. It might have been physically 'imaginary', but it's throwing my brain for a loop. Intermittent pain and weakness I haven't felt since immediately post-op, as if I'm not used to it anymore. So. No work in the suit, for a bit."
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If there's some part of him that might not love that he's only being told days later, if only because he could have, what, been sympathetic sooner? It's easy to push aside. It's Bruce's business on a very personal, visceral level, and he's telling him now. One of those problems that Superman can't solve.
Well—
"There might be something in the ship archives," Clark says, after a moment spent pensively looking without absorbing the array of screens nearby, back to Bruce. "Or even the ship itself. I can do some digging, get you and Vic to take a look." They spent months on building a lamp that spends a lot of its time posted near the bed in a fancy penthouse, this seems like a worthy use of time too.
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But,
"It's not a priority. I've lived a lot of years as-is, and did plenty. I'll get back to baseline soon enough, and then continue steadily on the same inevitable decline, the way the universe intended."
Bruce does not like being mortal; it's very annoying. Both because he's increasingly less effective as time goes on, and because his survival instinct is so strong. Imagine, if he'd had the followthrough to actually kill himself. Maybe the Doomsday ordeal would never have happened. (Or, whispers another terrible voice, maybe no one would have been able to stop Doomsday.)
"How's Lois?"
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The question is a change of topic. It's not going to stop Clark from deciding his own priorities, from baiting the hook to get Victor involved, from bringing it to Bruce when he's sure there's something there worth looking at, universe or no universe, but he's willing to shift lanes (ha) in the moment.
"Right where I left her," he says. "Glad we're okay, would probably prefer that next time we visit another dimension, we do it on purpose at least."
A beat, and then a subtle wheel-creak of the chair Clark is on as he almost subconsciously nudges himself closer. "You should come to dinner sometime. You missed her too."
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Whether Alfred thinks Bruce was hallucinating or not, who knows. He didn't explain much; they encountered a strange phenomenon, and experienced a difference in time. Without Clark as an alibi, it's likely his adopted father would worry about worsening mental illness. In silence, of course. The Wayne Household Way.
"I did miss her."
But I'm not her husband.
"I'm not used to that. The kind of time we spent together."
You are. She is.
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His head tips, studying Bruce's face. It's a good face, nice to look at, hard to read sometimes, and that's fine. He thinks he got a little more literate, over the time they spent in extra-dimensional space.
"I don't know that we had enough time to get used to it," Clark suggests. A beat, and he adds, "But I didn't take it for granted. Maybe it's strange, missing that too, but."
But maybe not, is pronounced as a smile, small and quick.
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On the other hand, being on his best behavior was a conscious effort. Bruce isn't sure if it was natural and he's relieved at that, or if he hasn't yet relaxed after having held himself in check so carefully. He's done a lot of changing, since learning about Superman. How far will it go?
Quiet, for a while. Contemplation clear on his face.
"I'm not sure," he admits. "The trouble with liking anything is going back to normal."
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Maybe normal as in metal bolts driven through your spine. Normal as in the imminent threat of apocalypse on a timeline, not just in dreams. The noise of the whole world, calling his name, and warped shadowed shapes in Gotham's ever-lasting cloud cover. There's a lot of normal to go back to.
But maybe some weird shit should remain. The echoes of domestic cohabitation. Clark offers a smile, hope and warmth and maybe some kind of reassurance, like, here he is, ready to be liked. Nanites gone, but memory remains, sensory instinct. They've changed.
"We could continue this conversation and play hooky at the same time," he says, indicating the monitors. Let 'em take a load off while they make out or watch a movie or visit an underrated Gotham attraction of Bruce's choice.
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He imagines it isn't easy for Clark, either, despite that smile. Bruce has come to the conclusion that he papers over quite a lot; pretty antique farmhouse wallpaper, even. Right over the cracks. Good as new.
Well. Maybe there aren't any right now, and it's just one of those things Bruce can't fucking wrap his head around. Treat it like a case, he thinks.
One eyebrow goes up. "Are you trying to get me to slack off on my very important crime fighting?"
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If anyone could have told the difference between real food and the replication of such by way of protein paste, it'd be either of them. (Side bar: he'd given up the vegan thing towards the end in that it was all vegan anyway. Like Impossible Burger, he'd explained, over a burger, before also explaining Impossible Burger.)
And there, sneaky, gripping up under Bruce's chair to pull it nearer.
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Chair, and bat, slide closer. He narrows his eyes at the alien sitting so serenely in his cave. Comically suspicious in a way that most people would take as actually suspicious, probably; the layers to Bruce's readability are fine and difficult to distinguish, but there's been time enough for Clark to become comfortably conversational. Bruce doesn't realize just how much trust he puts in that passive assumption, even in little ways.
Seconds of unbearable quiet tick by. Light from the largest monitor flickers over the sides of their faces.
At last:
"Alright."
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But he 'says' alright, and Clark echoes it, but doesn't get up and scamper to the kitchen. He leans across the space he's already closed up and nudges a kiss against Bruce's mouth. Gentle but insistent, not quick to break immediately.
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Even a Kryptonian, who he has already watched die once. Doesn't he deserve a better life than this?
Probably. But Bruce doesn't feel like kicking him out, especially when he's kissing him. His own response is slow, focused on it, and trying to let it drain his stubborn hesitancy like a cut under a snakebite.
Kinda works. Starts to, anyway. Better than nothing? He lays one hand on Clark's knee, and slightly above it; taps him there, when he gently pulls back. Well.
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It is a start. A restart, maybe, a reset, and so Clark is glad for the soft, lingering focus of the kiss from Bruce, his hand resting where it is, while also trying not to yearn for more immediately. For Bruce to hold onto him, or to initiate a second. The absence of that feels distinct, but they've gone down these roads before and Clark can't convince himself that reservation on Bruce's end is Bruce suddenly wanting him less.
It's the change. The shock of normalcy and strangeness. They really were in a vacuum, back there, up there. Coming apart, needing to be put back in order. He hopes that's it, anyway. That it's something he can do.
The tip of his nose brushes Bruce's on exit, leaning back, standing up. Dinner.
There is a small supply of Clark-friendly ingredients and he knows where they live, even without X-ray vision. A can of jackfruit, chickpeas, some leafy things, tomatoes, are assembled. A half empty jar of curry paste in the fridge, with an expiry date of at least another year.
"I don't think mom trusts any meal you can cook in less than ten minutes," Clark is saying, scanning some cupboards. "Except breakfast, barely. 'You're just warming it up'. Do you have rice?"
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"Brown rice," is sort of an accusation for Clark having asked. Is this what you want? Well this is what you get, from this cabinet up here, and it's all your fault.
Fancy, organic brown rice, in one of those nice wax-lined paper bags. Bruce hands it over, closing the cupboard after. It vanishes back into well-crafted uniformity with the rest of the wooden panel.
"I learned to cook in college. It was all about under ten minutes."
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Clark receives the organic wax-paper enveloped brown rice with good grace, turning it in his hands to check cooking times. Okay, well, that's fine. He gets that going first so that he won't be staring at it awkwardly for too long. Despite the confused clash of midwestern instinct and being particular about food leading to Clark Kent making dinner for people he loves relatively often, he is not exactly a natural, and makes up for it by being deliberate, careful, precise, with exact cups of water and double-checked heat levels.
So for a minute the kitchen is mostly quiet focus, clinking metal, rush of water from space-age looking taps. Thinks about what to say, ponders the things they haven't addressed yet. Kind of wants to know what college age Bruce Wayne was like, but maybe he'd be better off asking Alfred.
Decides on:
"I had a morning deadline, the day after we got back. I'd known about it for about a week, before everything."
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