"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."
"Well, you're better at it." Cooking. Bruce is decidedly not great, a terrible clash of his willingness to suffer through anything no matter how revolting as long as it's nutritionally sufficient, and being raised with sickening privilege. But he gets by. These days, he makes enough eggs and toast in the morning ('morning') to even keep Alfred's nitpicking at bay.
And so, little things: he moves around Clark, fishing out appropriate utensils, finding the ancient egg timer, still in use simply out of habit. The numbers are faded, but it's pristine, despite long turns sitting near the stove. A taupe and faded yellow square, an uninteresting Wayne Manor relic.
"And you hadn't worked on it?" A look. For shame, Mr Kent.
"I'd worked on it," Clark says, peeling the lids off cans. "I just hadn't written it yet."
Speaking of people being better at things: Lois, and churning out flawless last minute copy, give or take a few typos that become someone else's problem come business open. There's a smile at the corner of his mouth, self-aware, as he drains brine down the sink and empties weird, fleshy jackfruit pieces into a bowl.
"I called in sick," he adds, the real punchline. Perry White, who knows exactly what he's doing when he's forced to entitle Superman to sick leave. It's a little funny, within the margins of how much Clark is actually willing to fuck around with a job he loves, but—
He glances at the eggtimer. Cute, for its humbleness in all the minimalist aesthetic. Sets it to watch the rice for them as he says, "Better than calling in space abducted. It's been strange."
A cute eggtimer, and one not reminiscent of the white oval kind favored by psychopaths who kidnap peoples' moms. It ticks away, barely audible to human ears, the rings of its timer shifting bit by bit for the tough-skinned rice.
Bruce snorts. Yes, he can imagine Perry's face, barely not manifesting lasers out of his eyeballs powered by sheer incredulity. Aware of why Clark Kent calling in sick is absurd, and at the same time aware of being unable to refuse to request. Everyone is allowed sick days, and as a CEO who once spent months in proverbial wrestling matches with his own board over giving his entry level employees any at all, he is intimately familiar with all the ins and outs.
"In the aftermath, it hasn't been all that different from a dissociative episode."
Cannot be understated how stubborn brown rice is, so nothing Clark is doing is very urgent. He shakes some cherry tomatoes onto a cutting board, lazily goes about halving them with all the idle focus of presiding over a longform chess game. It can be quiet, like this. That had been the nice thing about space, and also the terrible thing.
He looks over at the normal thing Bruce says, but doesn't seem confused by it. (Someone should tell Perry that even Supermen deserve mental health days, right after they convince him that mental health days can apply in an office full of hypercompetitive A-type journalists. Good luck.)
"Is it still going?" he asks, turning his focus back down on tomatoes, trying not to squish them before they slice. An exercise in dexterity even if you don't have superstrength to regulate.
Cherry tomatoes are often somewhat wilted, in this house. Never chucked the moment they lose their tension, saved for frying up with other things. Dangerous in strong fingers, be they a fighter's, a tinkerer's, or an alien's.
"I know where I am."
Not an episode, even if it's very reminiscent. That after-shocky feeling of too real, making everything suspicious and ill-fitting. Bruce has ever felt like the times in between his bad turns are worse than the turns themselves; he trusts reality less, and ends up paranoid when he should be relaxing and recovering. Sometimes this folds well into his investigations, fueled by mania, unable to rest, trained from years and years to need very little of it.
"Not so bad. A lot less tiring. And I usually don't get to pet dinosaurs."
Warm, too, affection for a nice memory manifest in an errant dimple. What a strange thing to have happened, so strange that meditating on its strangeness feels as meaningless as commenting that dense woodland sure has a lot of trees, and so the strangeness has to come from the fact that they found peace, sometimes, fragile but simple. Dino dates. No souvenirs, this time.
Tomato halves are carefully scooped up, emptied into a bowl. Cutting board and knife washed, hands too.
"Wouldn't mind a trip up there on purpose sometime," he says, over the sound of running water. "Maybe not soon."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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."
no subject
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.
no subject
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?"
no subject
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.
no subject
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."
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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?"
no subject
"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."
no subject
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."
no subject
And so, little things: he moves around Clark, fishing out appropriate utensils, finding the ancient egg timer, still in use simply out of habit. The numbers are faded, but it's pristine, despite long turns sitting near the stove. A taupe and faded yellow square, an uninteresting Wayne Manor relic.
"And you hadn't worked on it?" A look. For shame, Mr Kent.
no subject
Speaking of people being better at things: Lois, and churning out flawless last minute copy, give or take a few typos that become someone else's problem come business open. There's a smile at the corner of his mouth, self-aware, as he drains brine down the sink and empties weird, fleshy jackfruit pieces into a bowl.
"I called in sick," he adds, the real punchline. Perry White, who knows exactly what he's doing when he's forced to entitle Superman to sick leave. It's a little funny, within the margins of how much Clark is actually willing to fuck around with a job he loves, but—
He glances at the eggtimer. Cute, for its humbleness in all the minimalist aesthetic. Sets it to watch the rice for them as he says, "Better than calling in space abducted. It's been strange."
no subject
Bruce snorts. Yes, he can imagine Perry's face, barely not manifesting lasers out of his eyeballs powered by sheer incredulity. Aware of why Clark Kent calling in sick is absurd, and at the same time aware of being unable to refuse to request. Everyone is allowed sick days, and as a CEO who once spent months in proverbial wrestling matches with his own board over giving his entry level employees any at all, he is intimately familiar with all the ins and outs.
"In the aftermath, it hasn't been all that different from a dissociative episode."
Normal things to say.
no subject
He looks over at the normal thing Bruce says, but doesn't seem confused by it. (Someone should tell Perry that even Supermen deserve mental health days, right after they convince him that mental health days can apply in an office full of hypercompetitive A-type journalists. Good luck.)
"Is it still going?" he asks, turning his focus back down on tomatoes, trying not to squish them before they slice. An exercise in dexterity even if you don't have superstrength to regulate.
no subject
"I know where I am."
Not an episode, even if it's very reminiscent. That after-shocky feeling of too real, making everything suspicious and ill-fitting. Bruce has ever felt like the times in between his bad turns are worse than the turns themselves; he trusts reality less, and ends up paranoid when he should be relaxing and recovering. Sometimes this folds well into his investigations, fueled by mania, unable to rest, trained from years and years to need very little of it.
"Not so bad. A lot less tiring. And I usually don't get to pet dinosaurs."
Space was alright.
no subject
Warm, too, affection for a nice memory manifest in an errant dimple. What a strange thing to have happened, so strange that meditating on its strangeness feels as meaningless as commenting that dense woodland sure has a lot of trees, and so the strangeness has to come from the fact that they found peace, sometimes, fragile but simple. Dino dates. No souvenirs, this time.
Tomato halves are carefully scooped up, emptied into a bowl. Cutting board and knife washed, hands too.
"Wouldn't mind a trip up there on purpose sometime," he says, over the sound of running water. "Maybe not soon."